I have never worn a kilt. My brother Mark handles the traditional duties of our Scots-American clan with more fervor, wearing the colors well, whereas my familial role revolves around one-liners delivered in a bastardized brogue and my attempts to create musical form from our ever-growing troop of players. Most of my six siblings play […]
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The Practical Gardener
Whenever I look at video coverage of the Middle East, I am reminded of man’s effect on the environment. Today, much of Iran, Iraq and southern Turkey is barren country. But it wasn’t always that way: Ten thousand years ago, the region between and near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers was a fertile land of […]
Changing directions
Mention Asheville Community Theatre around town these days, and you’re likely to get mixed reactions. In late April, ACT’s board of directors asked Peter Carver, the group’s most recent executive director, to resign. Since then some folks in the artistic community — and even some ACT board members and volunteers — have asserted that the […]
Asheville City Council
Hard times make for tough choices. Such was the case on June 27, when the Asheville City Council convened a special meeting to consider the adoption of an interim budget. Typically, the city would have adopted a final budget by mid-summer, but this year’s budget planning was anything but typical: The state withheld $2.7 million […]
Notepad
Street party/rally celebrates the passage of the N.C. Clean Smokestacks Act On June 29, nine days after Gov. Mike Easley signed the Clean Smokestacks Act into law, supporters gathered at Asheville’s City/County Plaza to celebrate the legislation –which requires North Carolina utility companies to significantly lower emissions at coal-fired power plants — and to call […]
Gaining ACCESS
More than 53 million Americans are currently diagnosed with one or more disabilities. The reasons run the gamut from the aftermath of violent crimes to accident-related injuries to degenerative diseases to congenital conditions — and that’s just the beginning. Many people experience multiple and mixed disabilities. Countless disabilities are invisible, as well. Every year, another […]
Asheville City Council
Angry, anxious, adamant, antagonistic — myriad words could describe the hundreds of citizens who descended on City Hall for the public hearing on the proposed Riverbend Marketplace/Wal-Mart Supercenter development at the old Sayles Bleachery site. But one word should be forever stricken from the list of Asheville adjectives: apathetic. The June 25 City Council meeting […]
The ghosts of Erwin High
The statue of its much-attacked Indian mascot looms above Erwin High School’s campus, a symbol of the disquiet that seems perpetually to afflict the school. Psychic scars here are still fresh from the bitter, but never satisfactorily resolved, controversy that culminated in the ousting of Principal Mal Brown. The football team is notorious for its […]
Apparitions in the infrared
Here are extracts from my interview and correspondence with Asheville, NC, paranormal investigator Joshua Warren that were too lengthy to fit in my print article (“The Ghosts of Erwin High,” Mountain Xpress, July 3, 2002). My questions are edited for brevity and clarity, but Warren’s answers are transcribed or copied verbatim. Q: [Many people still […]
Canary gold
Hats off to all the Mountain Xpress readers — along with every citizen in Western North Carolina — who e-mailed, called and harassed their elected officials to support the Clean Smokestacks bill. We won! Now, we can look forward to 70-percent reductions in smokestack pollution over the next 10 years, as coal fired electric plants […]
Tumbling down
Over the last 20 years, millions of people have experienced Pink Floyd’s The Wall and heard only the psychedelic strains of that progressive concept album, helped, of course, by soaring electric-guitar waves, thunderous drums and full-on, powerful rock ‘n’ roll. For Luther Wright, it was obvious the album was hiding yet another identity — rescued […]
A hand in remembering
I first saw Scots fiddler Alasdair Fraser play 14 years ago in a tiny town hall. At one point in the performance, he began playing an ancient Celtic tune from somewhere in Europe (Normandy maybe), and by changing his bowing technique and rhythmic emphasis subtly, he traced the tune’s migration route across the channel to […]
The Practical Gardener
Henry Ford dramatically changed the lives of Americans. He brought tourism and commuting to ordinary folks. He brought the assembly line to manufacturing. And you could argue that he created the need for artificial fertilizers. One of Henry’s crowning achievements was a marketing scheme that was, at once, both inspired brilliance and evil genius. Ford […]
The Wild Gardener
You would be amazed at what will hold a plant. There are vases and jardinieres, urns and pots, troughs and tubs, window boxes for window ledges, pots to hang on walls or from trees, just plain hanging baskets, not to mention discarded sinks, old wheelbarrows, abandoned tires, abandoned super-market carts and even a toilet (or […]
Asheville City Council
Six voices, speaking in unison, can make quite a noise. But when Asheville City Council member Brian Peterson attempted to convince his colleagues to exercise their collective voice on the issue of the DOT’s eight-lane proposal for I-240 through West Asheville, he found not harmony, but discord. Council’s June 18 work session convened less than […]
The long arm of the law
Thomas Frederick AardemaTracy Wendell AldridgeMark Lee AllenWillie Alexander AllenDonald Dexter AllisonMark Arthur AllisonBobby Joe AndersAimee Irene AquinoSharon Diane ArcherJoseph Eugene AustinRobin Douglas AustinDarrell Wayne AyersRobert BacoatePaul Richard BaileyBenson Lee BallardTony Frank BallardGary Lindsey BancroftJanis Colvin BanksBryan Keith BarberJimmy BarberBobby William BarcaferJames Vernon Barker JrPatricia Redman BarnesPaula Spalding BarnesBarry Gene BartonThomas Leroy BattleDavid Alexander BeasleyRandall Stephen […]
Duped
The Asheville City Council has failed a crucial litmus test of leadership and, in so doing, has dealt dishonestly with the voters. Whether or not you approve of the N.C. Department of Transportation’s idea of building an eight-lane highway through the heart of West Asheville, the fact is that six out of seven current members […]
The Rice age
The often stoic stage presence of Tony Rice — disturbingly unemotional and stylishly, if stiffly, presented in three-piece suits (even on 100-degree midsummer festival stages) and slicked-back hair — offers a stark contrast to the fluid runs released from his 1935 Martin D-28. For nearly 30 years, the guitarist has been perhaps the most prominent […]
Taking a stand against standards
North Carolina is famous for barbecue and Piedmont-style blues, not the birth of bebop. But without its contributions, jazz would be a horse of an entirely different color. The supernatural Thelonius Monk was born in Rocky Mount, N.C. John Coltrane — considered by many jazz historians the most influential jazz musician of the 20th century […]
The brotherhood of invention
It seems obvious to say so, but there’s nowhere to buy paint in prison. Or brushes. Or canvas. Or any of the other supplies to which one naturally assumes the average artist has ready access. In prison, artists have to improvise. Arnold Davila, an inmate from Texas who was paroled two years ago, describes the […]
Shakespeare has left the building
It was a New Year’s Eve party in Montford, some 30-odd years ago. Three strawberry daiquiris, two sheets to the wind, and one stroke of luck later, Hazel Robinson’s vision for Shakespeare in Asheville came alive. Hazel’s husband, John, had recently challenged his wife. She’d been complaining that Shakespeare was nowhere to be found in […]