The one sure thing in Pinch Cove was water. Even in dry times the rocks glistened. Springs seeped up in the middle of the rutted road that climbed from the valley, crossing and recrossing the stream until they became one track, littered with pumpkin sized rocks. This was Creed’s driveway. Creed McDowell is what outlanders […]
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Rain gardens
April showers bring May flowers — but only if the soil is friable and well drained and the rain is gentle enough that the soil can soak it up and make it available to growing roots. When the rain comes fast and hard and the soils are compacted or covered with impermeable surfaces, the soils […]
The tale of the tape
“The camera is a deterrent to a lot of unnecessary talking that leads to nothing.” — local-government watchdog Jerry Rice Jerry Rice has an unusual collection of videotapes, which he keeps in safe storage somewhere in Western North Carolina. He won’t say where. The roughly 1,100 tapes, accumulated over the past 15 years, record every […]
Bond: strange bond
“If I had known you were coming I could have at least stocked up on burritos,” Miss Wilma tells her prodigal daughter, Sarah, who’s just mysteriously arrived from Santa Fe, 10-year-old daughter in tow. It’s a rather odd greeting, considering that the older woman has been all but estranged from her own offspring for the […]
Nightmare on Eagle Street
It began with a dream. A revitalized African-American business district that would pay homage to the memory of the one that had somehow managed to thrive there years before in the shadows of segregation. A vibrant, prosperous district that would empower Asheville’s contemporary black community — and, perhaps, help heal the ugly legacy of racism. […]
Buncombe County Commission
Since the late ’90s, affordable-housing advocates have been knocking on the door, asking the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners to establish an affordable-housing trust fund. Last week, the board finally opened that door. At the commissioners’ March 16 meeting, board members voted unanimously to set aside $300,000 in the current budget to establish a revolving […]
Random acts
Front-row reviews What: The Not So Art Show Where: The New French Bar When: Tuesday, March 2 Between drinks, Thomas Browne informs me that this whole thing started because he’s a bad artist. Really bad. To hear Browne tell it, his works are somewhere beyond the mere aesthetically horrible, nudging into the realm of the […]
Hydroponists: Don’t try ‘this’ at home
No, no, no, no, no. If you’ve been following my adventures with hydroponic gardening over the past few months, you know my condo corn crop has been growing like mad since I fenced the cats out of it — but the plants are disappointingly yellow. This is wrong. “Yellow is the color of my true […]
The Triplets of Belleville
Thank goodness for the 2003 releases that are now making their way into town, since those are about the only things keeping the first part of 2004 truly interesting! It took a while for first-time feature-writer/director Sylvain Chomet’s The Triplets of Belleville to penetrate our environs, but it was worth the wait. So is his […]
Random acts
Front-row reviews What: Dig Shovel Dig (opening for Los Straitjackets) Where: The Orange Peel When: Thursday, Feb. 26 Dig Shovel Dig shows are roughly the opposite of, say, Phish concerts. You’ll find no warm instrumental harmonies or hidden tones expressing the joy of simply being alive. Instead, there’s screaming, some startlingly good drumming, and a […]
God will provide
A lot of people here in the South believe Sunday is the Lord’s Day: a time for relaxing, being with family and giving thanks. And on a typical Sunday night in winter, Asheville is frigid and still. Not too many folks in town, and by midnight, it seems as though the world’s asleep. All the […]
Buzzworm news briefs
A shot at the spotlight Sick of obscurity? Tired of unappreciative karaoke-bar audiences? Hard at work on a brilliant clogging routine to “Dancing on the Ceiling”? Or maybe you have particularly talented chickens but no place to show them off? Well, here’s your chance. The Instant Theatre Company is looking for talented folks to audition […]
The revolution will be harmonized
“The first time [I] see the black people and the white people dancing together, and laughing, in my mind, I think: It might be like this in heaven.” — Albert Mazibuko Albert Mazibuko remembers clearly the day back in the ’70s when he sensed, for the first time in his life, that apartheid might not […]
With liberty and justice for some
You may have read about the Asheville Community Resource Center in Mountain Xpress. Or perhaps you simply know it as that place with the big, painted doors where all those weird kids hang out. That seems to be its overriding image at the moment. You see, the ACRC (and the local business owner who held […]
O brother(hood), where art thou?
Don’t go milking Brad Land’s grueling Goat for any epiphanies. Giving readers “a grand observation” is the aim of most tell-all books, acknowledges the 27-year-old, South Carolina-based author. “That’s something I’ve seen a lot in memoir,” he says. But he deems the approach “kind of bulls••t.” Goat (Random House, 2004), his debut, has met with […]
Buzzworm news briefs
Summer: sun, fun — and voting? When I think about late July, my mind usually turns to hiking, picnicking and the like. But this year, I’ll have to add “voting” to my list of hot-weather pursuits. Last week, the State Board of Elections unanimously voted to delay the North Carolina primary from May 4 until […]
Letters to the editor
Loss of Blue Ridge Center’s care a tragedy for us all Jeff Long’s intelligent letter [“Words From the Front Lines of Mental Illness,” Xpress Jan. 28], which outlined the important need to continue services for our the mentally handicapped citizens, touched a special spot in me. After eight long years of helplessly witnessing the decline […]
50 First Dates
It’s just about impossible to dislike any movie that offers Rob Schneider getting the crap beaten out of him with a baseball bat. That plus an engaging penguin, a remarkably clever walrus, a good use of Paul McCartney’s gooey “Another Day” and a surprisingly effective, elegant performance from Drew Barrymore makes 50 First Dates a […]
Walking awake
“Things can go seriously wrong out here in a matter of minutes.” The first mile was rough — and it was all uphill from there. I knew I was working with a pro when Sammy started weighing the pocketknives. It was the night before we were to embark on a three-day winter trek into the […]
New Age Nazi
The Silver Shirts, Pelley vowed, would wage “the ultimate contest for existence between Aryan mankind and Jewry.” The news quickly crossed the Atlantic, hitting the United States like an ill wind. Adolf Hitler had vaulted into power, becoming Germany’s chancellor. Most Americans familiar with Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers’ Party reacted with apprehension, but one […]
The politics of coffee
“I’ve heard some complaints about TransFair, but they are definitely taking steps to protect some of these farmers and their families.” — Mountain City Coffee Roasters’ Randall Sluder On a blustery, gray winter morning in downtown Asheville’s Beanstreets Coffeehouse/Cafe, a chilly patron waiting in line shuffles one step closer to her eagerly awaited daily pick-me-up: […]