I’ll have to say that I’m very disappointed by the coverage in Mountain Xpress of the “controversy” surrounding WNCW. While everyone is entitled to their own opinions, when those opinions become allegations of wrongdoing — especially when based on inaccurate and misleading information or a misunderstanding or lack of knowledge about certain issues — they […]
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Asheville City Council
A government must protect its citizens. In principle, this tenet seems simple enough. The practical application, on the other hand, is anything but. At the Nov. 28 regular Asheville City Council meeting, theory met reality in the form of a public hearing on whether to order a Merrimon Avenue boarding house vacated and closed. Multiple […]
Letters to the editor
Kudos to Charter Hospital’s Dr. Kim Masters A serious repercussion of Charter Hospital closing is the loss of Dr. Kim Masters, who has been Charter’s leading child psychiatrist for many years. For the last five years, Dr. Masters has served as our child’s psychiatrist during hospitalizations, and on an outpatient basis. He is one of […]
While Rome burns
I must admit I was prepped for high drama when I drove Tunnel Road East last week, turning left into the living maze that the NCDOT created when it decided to straighten out the traffic coming down South Tunnel Road and into the Asheville Mall. As is the case when confronting a nest of rattlers, […]
The latest word
“A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.” –John Milton Review The Cock’s Spur, by Charles F. Price (John F. Blair, Publisher, 2000, 303 pages, $19.95) The Cock’s Spur is a much bigger novel than its 300-plus pages. It’s also perhaps […]
Universe people
The prevalent interpretation of quantum physics suggests that the universe is filled with — perhaps even made of — elemental, creative “stuff.” Processed through the filters of humanity — ego, experience, mind, physiology — this stuff becomes reality. People who channel it consciously are artists. Twenty-five-year-old Jacob Holmes is one of these people. Just ask […]
After the fall
Words in italics are those of Michael Chorney, saxophonist and founding member of viperHouse. I drove 840 miles on Nov. 10 — from Shelby, N.C., to Rochester, N.Y.’s Water Street Music Hall — to get an injection of viperosity, as served up by the crew of the interstellar-discoball-of-funk-and-jazz mothership known as viperHouse. If cosmic grooves […]
A stitch in time
Piece by piece, Asheville on Broadway will bring local attention to a global tragedy. On Dec. 1, the theater group — subtitled Actors, Artists and Activists Against AIDS — presents its second annual World AIDS Day Community Fund Raiser at Diana Wortham Theatre, offering Quilt, a locally-produced musical based on stories behind The Names Project […]
Milne fields
Where the worlds of jazz and hip-hop meet, yielding free-flowing improvisation and hard-hitting rhythmic edges — that’s where you’ll find Andy Milne. The Canadian-born pianist has spent the majority of his 33 years perfecting his craft, to the point of being called a likely heir to pianists like Herbie Hancock and McCoy Tyner. Through his […]
In the details
If you haven’t already started your Christmas shopping, your lack of enthusiasm might have more to do with distaste for mass merchandising than with the actual task. But salvation looms on Asheville’s grandest street. This weekend, ten regional artists will gather in a charming Montford Victorian home to host the Third Annual Women Artisans’ Holiday […]
Settling the settlement question
Polluters, put your checkbooks away: The Air Quality Agency will not take a cash settlement in exchange for dropping a citation. At its Nov. 13 meeting, the agency board unanimously agreed that it will not negotiate pollution violations — although the door will remain open for settlements of penalty amounts. Board attorney Jim Siemens summed […]
From sleaze to prestige
Along with the new millennium has come a whole new breed of health-care providers. Once more or less equated with topless bars and even prostitution, massage and bodywork therapists have finally escaped the label of “adult entertainment” (and the jurisdiction of the vice squad) to find their proper place among their true peers — physicians, […]
Medical freedom still at risk
Warning to alternative-health-care practitioners and their clients: Medical freedom is still at risk! There’s a widespread misconception afoot that we have “stopped” House Bill 1049 (which, in late June, threatened to make felons out of naturopaths, homeopaths, energy workers and herbalists in North Carolna). It’s true that this bill died because it wasn’t voted on […]
Pee here, now
A buddy of mine — a decent, hard-working professional — is now in fear of losing his job because he may or may not have helped smoke marijuana at a recent party, after having had one drink too many. It seems his employer is instituting a new “employee outreach” (translation: “employee control”) program at his […]
Asheville City Council
Flannel gray, forest green, formal garden, Shaker red, wild rose. No, these aren’t the newest colors in the Martha Stewart line of limited-edition oven mitts. Instead, they were the subtle shades and hues listed on architectural drawings of the brick-and-stone facade of the Wal-Mart Supercenter proposed for the former Gerber site in south Asheville. The […]
Letters to the editor
Don’t let cars kill Pack Square I am concerned about the “improvements” planned for Pack Square, in the heart of downtown Asheville. Are we really going to let this area be even more oriented towards vehicular traffic? Did not George Pack bequeath this land to the city “on the condition that it always remain a […]
Institutional prejudice against Witches denies religious freedom
Despite Asheville’s reputation as a haven for diversity, our mountains also harbor an ongoing disgrace — pervasive, institutionalized prejudice against Pagans and Witches that denies us access to public property and community resources that are routinely made available to Christians. Not so long ago, racist administrators of schools, governments and public organizations often used Jim […]
Hear ye
Audio books are the perfect holiday present. They don’t use up much wrapping paper, they ease the long trip to Grandma’s, and you can “read” them while scooping up champagne corks and picking tinsel out of the heating ducts. But whether you’re planning to give audio books as gifts or treating yourself, now’s the time […]
New testaments
“People are creative because we are made in the image of the Creator.” — Betty Maney, basketmaker, Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians For many Cherokee, images of the creation of Mother Earth are as keen as the memories handed down by their great-grandparents, who endured the Trail of Tears just 162 years ago. Minor distinctions […]
Boatrockers do it deeper
No one can dispute Asheville’s remarkable association with influential writers. Even if the the string had ended with F. Scott Fitzgerald or Mr. Wolfe, we’d still enjoy some bragging rights in the world of words. But Asheville’s enigmatic power to attract the literati persists. “I’m an old Baby Beat, I don’t play by the rules,” […]
Second coming
It’s a tribute to the unfathomable nature of the music business that an artist can sell a million-and-a-half copies of an album — a first album, no less — and then be “released” by his or her record company. But that’s what happened to Joan Osborne after her major-label debut, Relish (Mercury, 1995) — and […]