Circa 1994, an easy way to win the admiration of one’s peers was to brag about being connected to the Internet. Before the advent of their millionaire years, Internet geeks and nerds would retreat into their homes for days at a time “surfing” the “Web” and “e-mailing” as their 2,400-baud modems strained to pick up […]
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Martin Luther King Prayer Breakfast
Nearly 1000 people assembled in the Grove Park Inn’s Grand Ballroom on Jan. 18 for this year’s edition of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Prayer Breakfast. Organizers judged it the biggest turnout ever for the annual event, now in its 22nd year. The powerful voices of the Martin Luther King Choir, directed by Randy […]
Buncombe County Commission
This year, the HOME Investment Partnerships Program received more applications for low-income housing than ever before, reported Cynthia Barcklow of the Buncombe County Planning Department. At the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners’ Jan. 21 meeting, Barcklow outlined the five programs she and Planning Department head Jon Creighton are recommending that the commissioners submit to the […]
Business Notepad
From PBR to caviar When Rosanne Keily and Ron Ainspan opened the Grove Corner Market in downtown Asheville early last month, they had a vision: “a community grocery store — one that wasn’t an exclusive, upscale grocery; one that didn’t just serve the natural-food population, but really served all the people living here,” Keily explains. […]
The big ride
I’m a bench-calloused, diesel-gritty veteran of public transportation. Been riding buses — trains, when I can get ’em — since I was big enough to reach the fare box. I grew up in car-crazy California, see, and the only way I could find to be a rebel in that paved-over paradise was to refuse to […]
The Zen bus
It is dark in the city, warmed now after a day of icy winds. Laura and I have been to dinner in a wonderfully happy restaurant that serves huge bowls of fragrant noodles and lemon chai. The walls are red, the benches of white pine, the energy high and enfolding. Reluctantly we leave, the thought […]
No fair lady
Singer/songwriter Aimee Mann has no problem with snagging an Oscar nomination. Just don’t try and make her wear a fancy gown to the ceremony. Mann — who first registered on the rock radar in the mid-’80s as the impossibly blonde, perpetually morose lead singer for Boston-based New Wave group ‘Til Tuesday (remember MTV’s obsessive airing […]
Reticence man
You won’t find Tom Thompson sitting around downtown, sipping cappuccino and playing “artist.” You won’t find him in paint-spattered pants frantically networking at other artists’ openings, and you won’t find him at endless meetings of artists’ groups. Instead, Thompson can be found at home, at his computer, mesmerized at the wonders of the Internet. Frequently […]
Fresh wings on old birds
Third time’s the charm? The chorus to “All the Right Reasons,” the third cut on the newly three-piece Jayhawks’ upcoming release, contains what may be the singularly most gorgeous moments of the standard-bearing alt-country band’s lengthy career. “I don’t know what day it is,” sings front man Gary Louris, his mercuric voice fragile as glass. […]
Being your own landlord
In preparation for writing this article, I bundle up in wool socks, fleece pants, a thermal-underwear top, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a wool sweater. I would put on gloves, but then I couldn’t type. The temperature in the house my sister and I rent, a sweet little 1923 bungalow in north Asheville, hovers just above […]
Sweating the small stuff
Few commitments are more binding than the decision to have kids. New parents find themselves making wild promises to each other about their offspring: We’ll read to them, we’ll spend quality time with them, we’ll make sure they grow up in a good place. That final vow is apparently part of the reason so many […]
No single path to fitness
It’s lunchtime on the second Saturday in January, and the downtown YMCA is jammed. Sweaty bodies mill around the cardio equipment and drape in exhaustion (not to mention flagrant disregard for the gym’s “do not rest on equipment between sets” policy) on shiny new red-and-black weight machines. “Is it always so crowded in here?” dismayed […]
Spreading his wings
It’s the same old story: Girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl throws herself on her father’s sword. OK, it’s the same old story if you’re attending a performance of Madame Butterfly, Giacomo Puccini’s famous opera about Cio-Cio San (Miss Butterfly) and her temporary marriage to an American naval officer, B.F. Pinkerton, who’s briefly stationed […]
A Reno state of mind
Reno — the one-named Latina lesbian monologist known for far-reaching, politically oriented cable shows and live performances — was scheduled for a gig less than a month after Sept. 11, 2001, at the New York City alternative-theater space Cafe LaMaMa. “On Sept. 20 the producer called and said we’re late on publicity,” Reno recounted in […]
From handcuffs to helping hands
It was just another too-familiar headline in the daily paper: Honeywell announces that it’s laying off 180 workers from its Madison County plant. That means 180 families begin the new year wondering how they’ll make ends meet. Many of those castoff employees will find other jobs of some sort — but probably not at comparable […]
Asheville City Council
Broadway Street, a four-lane stretch of roadway that runs north from downtown to U.S. 19/23, now has the distinction of being the first swath of land in the city to be designated a Neighborhood Corridor District. After a lengthy public hearing at the Asheville City Council’s Jan. 14 formal meeting, Council members appeared to have […]
Key medical official resigns from Air Quality Agency
It seems there’s no lack of public-health crises these days, and even the most energetic social reformer must decide which battles to fight. So Alan McKenzie will be turning his attention from the local campaign to clean up the air pollution jeopardizing area residents’ health to the national struggle to make medical care more accessible […]
Southern snowboarding
It’s true: I’m a convert. For me, skiing was always more of a pastime than an authentic sport. Maybe I never got the hang of it, but I seemed to spend more time in the chalet nursing my knees and downing whiskey than I did swooshing down the slopes. And when people asked excitedly how […]
Notepad
Voices for peace Jim Brown of the Western North Carolina Peace Coalition believes that standing up for peace is patriotic. “Lots of people from all over the United States want to speak out about the craziness that is happening with our leaders in Washington,” he says. “But the message from conventional media makes them feel […]
Chip off the old block—or just a chip on the shoulder?
Hank III’s bait-and-switch has become a bore Like his dad and his granddad before him, Hank Williams III hates Nashville. Hank Senior was kicked off the Grand Ole Opry because he couldn’t show up to work sober, and only really became accepted after he was dead in the ground. Bocephus struggled with the Nashville scene […]
Take two
2002 will go down as a year of an extraordinary number of good movies. With a longer list, I would have also included among my best: Gangs of New York, Italian for Beginners, Stuart Little 2, Frida, One Hour Photo, The Good Girl, Antwone Fisher, Ice Age, The Bourne Identity, White Oleander, Drumline, A Shot […]