Asheville addictions

Everyone in Asheville has a favorite reason for staying here, as well as a favorite addiction. Is it biking at Bent Creek? Sunday mornings at Jubilee? Protesting in Pack Square? Sunday brunch at Sunny Point? Dressing up in costume for a City Council meeting? Izzy's coffee? Crashing art-gallery openings? Whatever your chosen delight, I urge you (if you need urging) to do it regularly. Life is short. Restaurants don't last forever, and — even if you don't believe in global warming — neither do mountains. What if the Diana Wortham closed its doors for good? What if the Orange Peel lost its license? What if Parkside became a reality?

Things change. Don't waste your summer fretting about it. Get out there and enjoy it while it's just the way you like it. Keep your favorite store going. Keep your favorite bar in business. Keep Asheville an independent paradise.

For me, a film buff (and budding filmmaker), the one thing I cannot imagine doing without is the Fine Arts Theatre. Although I regrettably do not see every movie shown there, I go there more often than to all the other cineplexes combined. I've never seen a movie there that's not worth watching. Even the movies I don't like are worth watching. And the ones I do like? They're like a Republican sweep to Rush Limbaugh. They're like a wet dream to Cookie LaRue. They're like an LSD trip to Carl Mumpower. They're everything you expect and more. They're entertaining. They're deep. They're juicy.

So I urge you to put the Fine Arts on your radar. Check out the listings and read the reviews. If you love film or just like to see a decent movie from time to time — something other than the explosions that pass for entertainment now showing in every other theater in the county — try something different at the Fine Arts. Maybe you'll become as addicted to the filmmaker's art as I am.

P.S. — I have no financial interest in the Fine Arts other than a selfish interest to keep it going.

—  Mark Bloom
Asheville

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10 thoughts on “Asheville addictions

  1. Ken Hanke

    I have no financial interest in the Fine Arts other than a selfish interest to keep it going

    That’s a selfish interest a lot of us share.

  2. connie bostic

    Not only does the Fine Arts show great films, they do so much for this comunity in many other ways! Asheville and all of WNC would be poorer with out them

  3. hauntedheadnc

    Sage advice. I get out and enjoy the city every chance I get. At night, sometimes I just drive around drinking in the neighborhoods.

    I shop downtown — Malaprop’s, Enter the Earth, and the Chocolate Fetish are can’t-miss stops whenever I get a yen — and I brazenly visit tourist attractions because I’ll be damned before I let the tourists have all the fun. I go to the holy places in this city — Basilica of St. Lawrence, the Cathedral of All Souls, St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, and (believe it or not) the magnolia tree by City Hall, and bask in the magic.

    And my favorite thing to do? Eat out. Nothing’s more fun than a meal better than what you could cook yourself and a good book. So, I make a circuit of my favorite places — Tripp’s, Green Tea, Wanpen, Papa’s and Beer, Fatz, Denny’s, Bistro 1896.

    I love this city, no matter how cruel she can be sometimes.

  4. hauntedheadnc

    Why, exactly, did you feel that was pertinent or necessary advice?

    I don’t drink at all, if you want to know the truth, because there’s a history of alcoholism in my family. All told, I’ve drunk perhaps four glasses of red wine in my entire life and that is the extent of my alcohol consumption. I don’t even know what beer tastes like.

    So, really, why’d you feel the need to say that?

  5. John Smolkin

    Hauntedhead, really, don’t you know humor when you read it? He was KIDDING. Don’t be so serious.

  6. Piffy!

    “At night, sometimes I just drive around drinking in the neighborhoods. “

  7. hauntedheadnc

    “To drink in,” of course means the same as “to take in,” or “to experience,” although on review I can see what you meant. Still wasn’t funny, but I get it.

  8. Billy Joe Holcomb

    Eyeshvull is spechial. No dout bout it. We got are local mountain folk, Florida turists, and yankee goomba moveins. We dont mind y’all movin in. But you aint got the rite to call nobody a “hillbilly”. Like you aint somethun of a odditty hear, not us’ns. So get like us locals will ya?

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