Booking P-Funk maestro Bernie Worrell one night and ’80s synth-pop darlings the Tom Tom Club for the next qualifies as an inspired decision, however calculated it may have been. The Tom Toms, the Talking Heads’ most relevant spin-off, have shared many a musical stage — as well as several recording booths — with the brains […]
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A light from underground
Peter Mulvey has just surfaced from playing a cave full of 100 geniuses. “It’s a very special gig,” the celebrated singer/songwriter noted by cell phone early last week, then en route to a more conventional show in Baltimore. “It’s sort of hilarious.” Mulvey did his musical mining in West Virginia’s Potomac Highlands; like last year, […]
Weapon of mass instruction
Javier Nicolas spent four years in Chiapas, Mexico, from 1996 to 2000, photographing the indigenous people there. He did so to celebrate their lives and culture — and to inform others about atrocities committed against them, often by their own countrymen. When local photographer Gail Forsyth saw his pictures, she was, she says, “deeply moved.” […]
Word slinger
He didn’t say much. Hell, for about a third of the show, James McMurtry didn’t say anything at all. He just played and tuned, tuned and played. Talk, after all, is cheap. And the throng of roughly 375 didn’t crowd the Orange Peel stage seeking civilities, but to soak in the Texas songsmith’s raucous tales […]
Cartoons
Inside the frame
Around the turn of the last century, Beatrix Potter wrote a classic children’s book titled The Tale of Peter Rabbit. One of my earliest literary memories is of opening that book again and again to the page with the illustration showing Peter crouched behind a cucumber frame as he hides from Mr. McGregor in the […]
The prickly poppy
Known by many names, the Mexican prickle-poppy is also called argemony (with all four syllables stressed), the thorn-apple (not to be confused with the daturas or jimsonweeds), goatweed, cardo santo, cardo amarillo, chicalote and herbe a femme. Seeds were first cataloged back in 1592. Thomas Jefferson wrote about planting seed for this curious plant, noting […]
Interior design
“Hoss [Haley] is doing something important,” announces John Cram, sitting on a bench in the lower level of his downtown gallery, Blue Spiral 1. He is surrounded by painter Julyan Davis’ oils — lovely, luminous landscapes of waterfalls and mountains and sunsets. Work that anyone can “get.” Work that Cram knows will sell. Upstairs, in […]
Cartoons
Before the fall
The long days of early summer carry much promise for gardeners. This is the period of peak production — for weeds and many insect pests, as well as for our crops! It’s also the time to start many fall crops, or at least prepare a space for them. But the summer garden’s sprawl (and the […]
The big ride
Trotting down Coxe Avenue, I make it to the Transit Center and onto the Route 12 bus at the next-to-last minute. Sinking into my seat, I’m grateful that it’s cool and shady inside, in contrast to the heat and slime beyond the glass. My fantasies of moving to Iceland temporarily assuaged, I glance around. A […]
Asheville City Council
“If we’re just here to rubber-stamp [the city manager’s budget], then why do we have elected officials?” — Council member Brian Peterson On land, it’s called a coup. At sea, it’s called a mutiny. In the Asheville City Council chambers, it’s called passing a budget. In most cities, watching a municipal government discuss an operating […]
Notepad
Fresh from the farm This year’s edition of the Appalachian Sustainable Agricultural Project’s Local Food Guide just hit the streets, and according to Local Food Campaign Director Charlie Jackson, “This is one of the most comprehensive guides in the country.” And that, he explains, is due in no small part to the fact that “our […]
Letters to the editor
Take your beating Pummels with the most toxic of pressure-treated lumber to the fella who wrote in recently [“Hurrah for Healthy Food!,” Xpress June 4] to imply how he’s saving the planet with every self-righteous bite from Earth Fare and [also to Xpress Assistant Editor/Music Editor] Frank Rabey for writing that singer/songwriter Michael Farr “embodies […]
Letters to the editor
Pot calling the kettle? In your June 11 opinion piece, “Violating the Public Trust,” you stated, in the thrust of that piece, that the Asheville Citizen-Times was guilty of spreading hearsay as fact, and [of] “rumor mongering.” But in the very same article, … [your] editorial staff … wrote, and I quote, “If Xpress printed […]
Losing weight while gaining substance
Last summer, Cat Noxon went out and got her belly button pierced. It wasn’t anything she’d planned to do. But adorning her abdomen with a light-blue sparkler was the ultimate gift she could give herself, celebrating her body’s new weight and shape. “My biggest battle had been with my stomach,” she says. “All my fat […]
Hot little secret
Reason to Love Asheville No. 273: It’s a drizzly, gray, mid-March day, the damp cold seeming to seep into the skin. And on the patio beneath The Laughing Seed awning, the magic taking place goes largely unnoticed by passersby navigating puddly Wall Street, their wet heads tucked against the weather. Singer/songwriter Wayne Robbins is leading […]
Only half the story
Art has escaped. Oh, sure, there’s still plenty of it to be found in the Asheville Art Museum and in the galleries around town — but it’s everywhere else, too, shading daily life with a narrative of its own. You’ll find art in bookstores, coffee shops, hair salons and restaurants, in libraries and in tattoo […]
Cartoons
The people behind the plants
It’s no news that gardeners love plants, but how many of us ever stop to think about the human characters whose histories are bound up with those of our favorite garden staples? Did you ever imagine that there might be an exciting tale of intrigue and adventure lurking somewhere in the past of some beloved […]
Job’s tears
Coix lacryma-jobi, or Job’s tears (also known as “Christ’s tears”), is a close relative of the corn family that has the distinction of being one of the oldest ornamental grasses in cultivation. It was probably being grown for pleasure by the 14th century, especially around religious institutions. Plant this grass in your back yard and […]