The biggest surprise, Virginia Holman’s sister told her, is how funny the book is. The book in question is Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad (Simon & Schuster, 2003). In it Holman recounts a childhood spent with a schizophrenic mother. As you’d expect, it’s a harrowing tale — the experience was, as […]
Author: Webmaster
Showing 8254-8274 of 9872 results
Starts
This time of year, I’m ready to garden. Yet even though air temperatures are already peaking into the low 70s, night temperatures are still cold, and soil temperatures remain well below 50 degrees. Planting seeds in such cold garden soils often results in greatly delayed or reduced germination — or even, at times, complete crop […]
Night stripes
Jon Spencer, front man for the way-past-cool Blues Explosion, still says “rock ‘n’ roll” without irony — and with plenty of machismo — because he just believes in it. Even if playing it loses audiences and confounds music critics. “We’ve always been a rock ‘n’ roll band, and we’re still doing it,” Spencer noted in […]
End times
Olympia accosts the viewer. Hers is the strong gaze of a woman unconcerned, and unafraid. That piercing look caused a huge scandal when Edouard Manet’s painting was first unveiled in France in the middle of the 19th century. Olympia, from 1865, shows a lady of the evening, living in comfort and attended by a cheerful, […]
Teachings from trees
Outside the door of our Fairview home stands a magnificent beech tree. Each day we pass beneath it; for as many years as my family has lived here, we’ve watched this venerable Treasured Tree grow up over the house and offer shelter to all creatures — including us. When you live with so grand a […]
The Wild Gardener
One of the most elegant additions to any small garden is a big pot overflowing with blooming lilies. Few perennials take to pot culture with the ease of these magnificent flowers. Once in containers, they can be moved around the terrace or garden with ease, bringing glorious color to hitherto dark corners. Then, when the […]
Asheville City Council
“People who are interested need to get involved now.” — Council member Brian Peterson If a tentative plan by the Grove Park Inn takes shape, Asheville’s skyline could soon be dramatically transformed. The historic inn is considering erecting a pair of high-rise towers (containing a mix of condominiums, stores and offices) smack in the middle […]
The big ride
I wonder how many local drivers have the same nasty little demon inside them that I do — the one that curses you every time you pull up to the pump, shaming you for your fossil-fuel consumption. “Fine,” I tell its scraggly head and accusing little eyes. “I’ll take the bus tomorrow, when I’m not […]
Notepad
Cross-cultural adventure benefits local nonprofit Want to learn more about the Latin people living in our community? How about getting a chance to sample some delicious homemade dishes and enjoy their traditional music and dance? “A Latin Feast for the Senses,” a benefit for International Link (87 Patton Ave. in downtown Asheville) happens Saturday, April […]
The chain gang
As the weather warms, folks all over are digging out their shades and sandals, emerging from months of housebound hibernation. And while adrenaline junkies will soon be careening down near-vertical bike trails or slamming through class IV rapids, the less suicidal among us may opt for a lazy game of backyard hackysack or a round […]
Smart growth tempts terrorists
Gov. Mike Easley, smart-growth advocates and other lovers of big government haven’t gotten the word yet, but their crusade lies prostrate in the shadow of Sept. 11. Al Qaeda’s handiwork that day — and realistic fears of continuing attacks — have exploded environmentalists’ dreams of throttling suburban growth and expanding mass transit. Anyone who pushes […]
Business Notepad
Made in these mountains “Our niche is that all of our things are from Western North Carolina,” explains Melinda Knies, manager of Mountain Made. “Other stores might carry items from North Carolina, Appalachia, the mountains — but that could include parts of Virginia or Tennessee. Ours is just strickly Western North Carolina.” The 946-square-foot gallery/retail […]
Civic Center remains key to city’s prosperity
A recent letter to Mountain Xpress showed a woeful lack of understanding about both the Civic Center and the responsibilities of city government. First, the facts: The Civic Center complex does run a yearly deficit. So what? So do the police and fire departments, Parks & Rec, the schools and all the other areas of […]
Editorial
On March 11, Asheville City Council members Joe Dunn and Carl Mumpower voted to block a proposed relocation and expansion of the Flynn Christian Community Home — despite the facility’s 40-year track record of helping make Asheville a better place by housing and caring for homeless, recovering addicts. Dunn’s and Mumpower’s actions are puzzling in […]
Random acts
Front-row reviews What: Kenny Brown Where: The Orange Peel When: Wednesday, March 12 Blues guitarist Kenny Brown looks like he should be driving the tour bus rather than opening the show. He’s tall and gaunt, and sports a ’70s-era winged ‘do — but the man knows what to do with a slide guitar. Wailing through […]
Ain’t no mountain high enough …
Banff Mountain documentaries are selected to impress even seasoned adventurers. But watching other people soar off mountain peaks at inhuman heights, struggle through thunderous rapids and scale deadly ice and rock doesn’t satisfy local student Joseph Moerschbaecher. “I find myself restless in my seat, wanting to go have my own adventures instead of watching other […]
Putting Shakespeare in his place
Viewing productions of Shakespeare in the past, I’ve often found myself distracted and unmoved, more occupied with decoding archaic metaphors than with lovers’ reunions or ghastly regicides. I’ve left theaters wondering whether my lack of interest in the English-speaking world’s most well-established plays was due to my own terminal shallowness — or perhaps to some […]
Henry Rollins’ words from the front
Henry Rollins once threatened to kick my ass. It was a sticky Florida night in 1992. And I was 16 and dumb enough to go banging on his trailer at 2 in the morning. “Those were the years when you didn’t come knocking,” Rollins recalled when I mentioned this bygone event to him recently by […]
Sherman Alexie throws bombs
What was First Lady Laura Bush thinking back in January, inviting a pack of poets to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. while her husband was plotting a war? Poets — and most other writers with a political bent — are an outspoken bunch. They have stuff to say. That’s why they write — and why they appear […]
The garden party
I brave the boisterous winds of March as cheerfully as the daffodils appear to; I wield my trowel with gratitude and glee. Another spring has cycled round, and with it comes another garden season. When I first began learning how to make vegetable gardens without using pesticides, herbicides or synthetic fertilizers 20 years ago, I […]
With a little help from your friends
Carl Sandburg, 20th-century poet laureate and national statesman, once claimed, “I’m an idealist. I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way.” And I took the same attitude as I began searching out some of the region’s premier options for outdoor-volunteer service. Volunteering takes on a different personality when you step outdoors — […]