My grandfather used to tell the best stories: how he bought a train ticket to Raleigh with the proceeds from a prize-winning calf; how he milked endless cows to pay his tuition at N.C. State; how he — an overalls-wearing farm boy from Transylvania County — beat the pants off a city-slicker frat-daddy in the […]
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The latest word
“Life is a wonderful thing to talk about, or to read about in history books — but it is terrible when one has to live it.” — Jean Anouilh, French playwright (1910-87) Review Home across the Road, by Nancy Peacock (Bantam, 1999) Nancy Peacock’s dense book untangles the heavy truth of Anouilh’s quote. Home across […]
Down by the river
“The only way you get to the source of s••t is by tearing into it, tearing it apart,” says Richard Buckner. “And if it dies in the process, that’s fine.” Buckner, speaking by phone from a Northampton, Mass., hotel room, is tearing into what drives him to write the inscrutable sagas of lives in flux […]
Guided by gusto
Listening to the radio these days is like dining on candy-coated dirt after a weeklong fast. You’re left sick — and even more empty than before. It’s a sad thing when all you want to do is kick out the jams and get a little surly — and yet, station after station, you’re disappointed. You […]
Night vision
It’s an experience we’ve all had: Waking up exhausted after a night of vivid, forceful dreaming, the colors and events and feelings so strong you know your dreams want something from you. You just don’t know what. Minnie Evans suffered from restless, dream-driven nights well into middle age. Then, two days before Good Friday in […]
Asheville City Council
Raising taxes can be the kiss of death for any politician, especially in an election year. “It’s a soul-searching, gut-wrenching thing to do,” commented Asheville Mayor Leni Sitnick during City Council’s Feb. 27 formal session. But she went on to note that it’s something the city hasn’t done in 10 years. With that in mind, […]
Letters to the editor
Make that “woman talk” Incredible! On page 9 of the Feb. 21 Mountain Xpress, there is a photo of our city’s Mayor and two City Council members conferring. The caption under the photo reads, [in part], “Girl talk.” Incredible! I hope I may be the first of 2,000 such letters you receive. — Barbara DevittAsheville […]
Coming
I’ve never been what you would call a NASCAR fan. Watching cars going around and around for two hours has just never appealed to me. As a cultural thing, the sport is one of the last remaining bastions of good-old-boy Dixie sensibility. I steered away from those stereotypes decades ago, back around the time I […]
Letters to the editor
Bombing of Iraq created family tragedies Even if you accept that dropping a bunch of bombs in Iraq was necessary to prevent them destroying American and British planes patrolling the “no-fly” zone, there were still mothers killed and fathers killed. Whether or not you agree with the action, there are children whose parents will not […]
Eckerd fires tobacco foe
The Eckerd Drug Company recently fired one of its Georgia employees, Elizabeth Estes, for refusing to train store associates to use “suggestive sales techniques” to increase cigarette sales to its customers (see “Cigarette Foe Loses Eckerd Job,” Atlanta Journal Constitution, Dec. 26, 2000). “When a customer asks for a pack of cigarettes, they want the […]
Living dangerously
As long as most people can remember, the Asheville Contemporary Dance Theatre and its parent school, the New Studio of Dance, have been run by Artistic Director Susan Collard and her husband, Giles. In fact, in local dance circles, the term “Susan and Giles” has become a reference to a single unit — much like […]
For art’s sake
The Asheville Area Arts Council seems to be reaching out to a new audience. Shedding any pretense of a stuffed shirt, the AAAC — as part of its annual six-week fund drive — is holding a benefit concert at the Asheville Music Zone, with the help of some of the area’s top musical talent. Reviewing […]
Great taste, less filler
The steady rise in popularity of jam-based music has generated an overabundance of earthy-crunchy, groovy, Dead-esque and Phishy bands, especially on the East Coast. In fact, the genre — defined by long improvisational segues, psychedelic subject matter, up-tempo vibes and grassroots aesthetics — has generated more successful, unsigned bands in a mere decade than any […]
Best face forward
“Double, double, toil and trouble!” Hey, aren’t those Shakespeare’s witches? Whoa — isn’t that murderous Macbeth himself? Is that not handsome young Romeo? And Juliet, too? How can all these characters be played by one actor? And just who is that masked man, anyway? The answers are yes, yes, yes, yes — and Larry Hunt. […]
Ticket to ride
When it comes to bluegrass music, the term “first class” denotes dignity and tradition. This year’s Bluegrass First Class event promises plenty of that, along with more than a few progressive twists and a wealth of inspired pickin’ and jammin’ to boot. The festival’s first day belongs to the Dunton Sisters and longtime favorites Charlie […]
The poet as a man
The Lost Sea is a more apt title for Madison County-based poet Keith Flynn’s most recent book than one might realize. It seems the collection — which took Flynn six years to write — was nearly “lost” three times. When the poet was living in New York City in 1995, a fire destroyed pretty much […]
Happy trail
Henry David Thoreau wrote: “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” If the dream toward which one advances happens to be hiking the entire 2,167-mile-long Appalachian Trail, he may also meet with […]
Gray matter
Spalding Gray flat-out refuses to be interviewed by someone who’s never seen him perform. “You saved me a lot of time,” his fancy-schmancy New York publicist unnecessarily informed me when I tried to set up a phoner. “He won’t talk to you.” Well, never mind the bollocks. Pompous though he may be, Spalding Gray continues […]
Too soon to cut the pie?
Negotiations between Haywood and Buncombe counties over how to divide the assets of the former Air Pollution Control Agency have alarmed board members of the agency’s successor, the WNC Regional Air Quality Agency. Buncombe County Manager Wanda Greene, Haywood County Manager Jack Horton and the two counties’ finance directors met earlier this month and reached […]
Junkyard man
Each day, thousands of people traveling along U.S. Highway 25-70 between Marshall and Hot Springs unknowingly whiz past one of the most unusual cemeteries in the country. Amid heaps of rusting cars, on a grassy knoll lined with a steel-post fence, brake drums and tire irons, lies the grave of the “Old Mountain Wrecker Man.” […]
Hands-on learning
In North Carolina, legislators have mandated that kids who can’t perform basic math, reading and writing skills by the end of the year won’t be promoted to the next grade. But how do you make sure students do learn those skills, when American children spend less time in the classroom than their counterparts in any […]