Chances are if you haven’t heard of John Hiatt, you’ve at least heard one of his songs. Hiatt’s music has been covered by blues legends B.B. King and Eric Clapton, folk icon Bob Dylan, rhythm-and blues crooner Aaron Neville and country troubadour Willie Nelson. His most famous contributions were made when he penned the songs […]
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The deal with ulu
Drummer David Hoffman bristles a little at the term “jam band.” He hears it a lot these days because his jazz-groove band, ulu, is hot on the jam-band circuit, promoting its new CD, What’s the Deal (Catapult, 2002). “I think [the term] gives kind of an undeserving credibility to bands that put themselves in that […]
The latest word
Fair Warning by Robert Olen Butler (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2001) Robert Olen Butler has won just about every award a fiction writer can hope for: a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, the Richard and Linda Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Pulitzer Prize for […]
The year in reviews
Notwithstanding the popular notion that 2001 was one of the less exciting years for movies, a review of last year’s offerings suggests very much otherwise. When the Southeastern Film Critics Association first approached me about compiling a “top 10” list, my initial thought was that I’d be hard-pressed to come up with 10 movies that […]
Hooked on a feeling
Buckminster Fuller once observed: “I call intuition ‘cosmic fishing.’ You feel the nibble, and then you hook the fish.” These days, local educators are increasingly turning to experiential learning to help students feel that nibble. John Dewey, a leading 20th-century educational theorist and reformer, pioneered the concept of learning by doing. As early as 1938, […]
Exploring the possibilities
In the beginning, according to Explore! magazine, there was the C-word: curiosity. But it soon became clear that there’s no end to that curiosity. The small, multitalented staff of this locally produced, nationally distributed kids’ magazine has a mission: Leave no stone unturned. Explore! is the brainchild of publisher/founder Nat Belz. The idea was born […]
A much-kneaded change
You can’t throw a rock in Asheville without hitting a massage therapist. OK, maybe that’s a tad exaggerated — but people inside the holistic-health loop can verify that therapeutic massage therapy is one of the country’s fastest-growing professions. The three local massage schools crank out upward of 150 graduates every year — contributing to the […]
All that glitters is not glue
Those twin tremors of terror and excitement, fear and hope, endings and beginnings, could signify only one thing — the first day of school. Who can forget the interminable wait at that familiar corner for the school bus? Or, once at school, the meandering journey through the bureaucracy of classroom rules, subject outlines and future […]
My most memorable teacher
One in a million Being only elementary-school kids, we didn’t understand why our parents snorted when they heard our new principal’s name, or why our homeroom teacher smiled when she announced his arrival. Granted, Mr. Pfluke (the P was silent) did have peculiar ideas — but those took awhile to surface. At the time, his […]
Reinventing the wheel
Each spring, the highways leading into Western North Carolina become busier as outdoors enthusiasts roll into town, their trunks crammed with camping gear and their roofs topped with mountain bikes. More and more, vacationers — and especially cyclists — are recognizing the Asheville area as a Southeastern oasis. (It’s a hard secret to keep when […]
Fish now, work later
It was a Wednesday — deadline day, and I’d been working on a long, complicated news story for the past month. My editor expected 3,500 carefully chosen words arranged in a logical sequence on her desk by noon. Exhausted and burned out, I stared at my computer monitor; the clock in the lower right-hand corner […]
Two-part harmony
Let’s face facts: Western North Carolina lies within a day’s drive of one-third of the U.S. population. Last year, more than 10 million guests visited Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the most heavily used national park in the country. From Memorial Day to Labor Day, the parking areas around the Shining Rock Wilderness spill over […]
Life after Dead
The last time I saw RatDog I was living in Syracuse. I came home that night and found all my belongings sitting in the hallway. My fiance at the time had kicked me out, for reasons I won’t get into here. But ask me about that night and I’ll tell you this: I never thought […]
The latest word
“I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.” — Henry David Thoreau Review Far Appalachia: Following the New River North, by Noah Adams (Delacorte Press, 2001) In Far Appalachia: Following the New River North, Noah Adams provides his readers with a collection of anecdotes about what is perhaps one of […]
Infected with funk
I don’t know whether it’s the water or weird pagan witchery, but this town is riddled with the need to dance. From breakdance battles to free Sunday capoeira classes, Asheville displays a ravenous appetite for the groove (and boasts a complex palate, at that). I’ve seen b-boys and girls take the “hammer” (modern-dance equivalent of […]
Asheville City Council
When Mayor Leni Sitnick banged down the gavel to open Asheville City Council’s March 27 formal session, the crack of wood against wood — which normally resonates throughout the cavernous chamber — seemed muffled in a room filled to capacity with anxious members of the public. Every seat was taken, and a dozen more citizens […]
We need space
You may be wondering how 11 parking spaces on a landscaped gravel lot could stir up so much controversy. But before you start singing the opening line of Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi, you might want to consider the opposing opinions in this debate. Dan and Betsy Reiser own a vacant lot at the corner […]
Letters to the editor
Celebrating Asheville’s astounding diversity Since moving back to Asheville a few weeks ago after an absence of 12 years, I have listened to many old acquaintances expound on how the character of the city has evolved in recent times. Longtime locals and new transplants alike will say how Asheville is the Paris of the South, […]
While Rome burns
I just came back from a week in Myrtle Beach, where I attended the Horry (that’s pronounced “orry”) County Home and Garden Show and spoke at the new convention center, just down the road from Broadway at the Beach. Let me make it clear that it wasn’t Myrtle Beach that troubled me — after all, […]
Letters to the editor
Remove nuclear warheads now President George W. Bush said in a May 23, 2000 campaign speech, “For two nations at peace, keeping so many weapons on high alert may create unacceptable risks of accidents or unauthorized launch.” In fact, we know that in January 1995, the U.S. and Russia came within four minutes of a […]
Are charter schools smarter schools?
In response to widespread concern about educational mediocrity and the performance of the state’s public schools, the N.C. General Assembly passed legislation in 1996 authorizing charter schools — no more than five in any local district and no more than 100 statewide. This year, a bill has been introduced that seeks to remove the cap […]