“It’s like the soup kettle — always hot, always happening.” That’s the take of one Black Mountain College alumnus — poet, photographer and publisher Jonathan Williams — on his days at the defiantly experimental liberal-arts college that once thrived in WNC. BMC opened in the 1930s at Black Mountain’s Blue Ridge Assembly; in the ’40s, […]

Early into the North Carolina Stage Company’s production of Proof, a widowed mathematician-genius enjoying a break from crippling dementia tries to assure his daughter that she won’t share his sad fate. Robert (Kermit Brown) proposes that even though Catherine (Anne Thibault) may have inherited his leanings toward numerical brilliance, she’s shielded herself from any hereditary […]

If the staid conservatism of the downtown-gallery scene has lost its appeal, then gobble up some River District-style Homeland Barbeque — one of the liveliest, most-provocative art shows to be served up in Western North Carolina in some time. The exhibit was organized by Lauren Gibbes, a 24-year-old painter blessed with a social conscience — […]

Asheville Film Commission Chair Leni Sitnick was fuzzy on The Asheville Film Festival’s theme at the opening-night press conference on Nov. 6; either it was “Celebrating the Spirit of Human Potential” or “Celebrating the Potential of the Human Spirit” — the former mayor mentioned both. Regardless, it may have been an awkward fit with the […]

Not to put a damper on the sheer titillation that author Bill Branyon provides for Asheville insiders, but … upon finishing his latest novel, one very vexing question persists: What, exactly, are “heroic haunches”? This term — or the equally enigmatic “heroic hips” — is used at least four times to describe the anatomy of […]

Loosed pine needles whirl a windy ballet just outside my fall window. And this fleeting, ultimately tiny event seems, suddenly, like a powerful epiphany. Because in the room with me now is the soft, swirling sound of three women singing, chanting, praising, pleading, laughing, sometimes whooping in uncanny unison. They are the recorded voices of […]

“So we, like, sent [Floyd backing singer Claire Torry] a T-shirt, and she sent us a photo of her wearing the T-shirt. It’s on our Web site.” — Michael “Michael G.” Goldwasser The Easy Star All-Stars’ reggae tribute to Dark Side of the Moon synchs up with The Wizard of Oz — as, allegedly, does […]

Frogs once flooded the space where Space now sits. And even today, a similar air of chaotic abundance fills the downtown-Waynesville gallery. Operated by 20-somethings Stephen and Tanya Savage, Space dwells on Depot Street in historic Frog Level — named for the Richland Creek-dwellers prone to infesting the area following heavy rains. The Savages’ Space […]

Third eye blind: Benjammin’s happy apocalypse After a long month guest-covering the local-music scene, politically minded reviewer and all-around-good-boy Nicholas Holt was ready for his most formidable challenge yet — co-reviewing with me the recently released sophomore album of Asheville’s own shiny-headed, open-mic Pollyanna, the unsparingly optimistic Benjammin’ (formerly one Benjammin’ Bernstein). In fact, reviewing […]