It’s autumn, and that means storytelling season. And there’s no better place in the country for storytelling than right here in the mountains of Western North Carolina, where the ancient tales have been kept alive and nurtured through generations. Today, mountain storytelling is enjoying a revival as impressive as what’s happening with mountain music. Every […]
Author: Webmaster
Showing 8884-8904 of 9872 results
Freaks, come forth
This Halloween weekend marks the city’s 22nd annual Freakers Ball, reports James Barringer of the Asheville Music Zone. But it’s the first time the event will be stretched out over two nights. “They’ve had it at the Hilton; they’ve had it at the Radisson — it’s happened all over the place. Typically, they’d have five […]
Body language
Just about every human emotion has been translated into dance. This ubiquitous art form can tell every story — from the myths of creation, through the journey of life, to death. And it doesn’t necessarily stop there. Although dance’s “body language” is easily understood as entertainment in the context of a performance, it can also […]
Heartbreak queen
Pretty much every man I’ve known in my adult life (and a fair number of women, too) have, at least on some transcendental level, been in love with Emmylou Harris. Even the famously gruff Steve Earle waxed downright soft and mushy when her name came up in an interview I did with him last year. […]
Chip off the old block
Every American schoolchild not born of stubbornly Italian lineage should know that the Vikings beat Christopher Columbus to this continent by more than 500 years. Leif Eriksson heard about this place from his friend Bjarni Herjolfsson, who’d been here in 986. And Leif’s brother-in-law, Thorfin Karlsefni, battled the Indians for three years — long enough […]
Wire fires and friable tiles
What if somebody sneaked onto your property early one morning, built a smoky, smelly bonfire out of leftover scraps of insulated wire, and then disappeared before the authorities showed up — leaving you stuck with a hefty fine for illegal open burning? Are you liable for the air pollution, just because the property and the […]
Asheville City Council
At the dawn of the 20th century, Italian educator and physician Maria Montessori introduced to the world her revolutionary pedagogical approach. The Montessori method, as it is now known, helps young children learn and develop initiative and self-reliance through doing by themselves the things that interest them — within strictly defined limits. Montessori schools have […]
Upcoming political forums
To get a handle on what the candidates are saying — and for an opportunity to ask your own questions on pertinent issues — check out the following political forums, to be held in the Asheville area in the coming weeks: • Oct. 19: Council of Independent Business Owners “Power Lunch”; noon; Stephens-Lee Community Center; […]
CIBO’s plan: Business as usual
A recent commentary titled “CIBO’s plan for improving the air” [R.M. Swicegood, Aug. 9 Xpress] purported to address a topic of widespread local interest. Unfortunately, if there was something in the plan that was really going to help, I couldn’t find it. The CIBO plan for improving the air is not a plan, it’s a […]
Business Notepad
Scents and sensibilities As soon as you walk into Sensibilities, the natural-body-care boutique and day spa located in downtown Asheville, your senses are immediately engaged — but in a way that’s aimed to relax. There’s the store’s gentle palette of warm earth tones, illuminated with subdued lighting; the soft music playing in the background (and […]
No sour notes
The two characters which make up the word “crisis” in the Chinese language translate into English as the words “risk” and “opportunity.” The Asheville Symphony Orchestra faced a crisis last April when its music director and conductor, Robert Hart Baker, fell seriously ill. It quickly became evident that he would not recover in time to […]
Time after time
As cerebral beings, we need, at certain points, to look back over the course of events and make sense of what has been. Certainly, the current era pricks this innate urge in us like no other time. So — what does it mean to have survived the 20th century? art@the end of the.century, now showing […]
Globe trotters
Dancing and dragons In addition to offering its trademark surfeit of stimuli for all six senses, this season’s Lake Eden Arts Festival kicks off on a particularly lucky day — Friday the 13th. That’s right: lucky. “The combination of the full moon and Friday the 13th is a perfect beginning,” believes LEAF producer Jennifer Pickering. […]
Now hear this
It’s autumn, and that means storytelling season. And there’s no better place in the country for storytelling than right here in the mountains of Western North Carolina, where the ancient stories have been kept alive and nurtured through generations. Today, mountain storytelling is enjoying a revival as impressive as what’s happening with mountain music. Every […]
The latest word
“Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one’s soul, and does not startle or amaze it with itself, but with its subject.” –John Keats In Asheville, there seems to be an almost slavish devotion to poetry. Perhaps it’s the mountains, with their mystery of shadow and fog, that inspire this freest […]
Climbing Cold Mountain
I’m not one for meditation or inner exploration, but Cold Mountain can have that effect on a person. The Indian farmers and hunters of yore knew about its pulling power; so do uptight New York City publishing moguls. Many times, I’ve stared in mouth-open amazement at the mountain’s gaunt sides towering over the Bethel and […]
It’s aMAiZE-ing!
Did you know that a bushel of corn contains approximately 72,800 kernels? That the largest corn plant ever reported in the United States grew to be 31 feet tall? That finding your way out of a corn maze is not exactly a walk in the park? Yep, I said “corn maze.” Actually, it’s officially called […]
Asheville City Council
A parking-lot debate, a new grocery store for West Asheville, affordable housing and a condominium development for Clingman Avenue — not the juiciest of fare, but for the sixth-grade students of Carolina Day School, it was the menu du jour at the Asheville City Council’s Sept. 26 formal session. The 49 students attended Tuesday’s session […]
Letters to the editor
Speech that suppresses freedom is not free speech As a past recipient of the Marketta Laurila Free Speech Award, I have been honored to participate in several annual MLFSA award ceremonies. I have always found the members of its awards committee to be of the highest moral and intellectual caliber; indeed, they have always been […]
Waking up from the nuclear nightmare
There are those among us who venture across a dangerous border: the line between our daily world and the realm of political and economic power. There the global economy is formed, societies are structured, law is written. Most of us never touch that world, though it touches us. We are kept separate not just by […]
Letters to the editor
Don’t mess with my reproductive choices! This letter is in response to Josh Johnson’s letter stating his opinion about abortion and freedom in America [Aug. 30]: Attention Josh: The difference in an abortion and the murder of a child already born is that that child was chosen to be born. A woman made a choice […]