Chick sleuths

Imagine this: Sherlock Holmes — that’s right, the pipe-smoking, “Watson, you putz” guru of detective fiction, in his ubiquitous overcoat … and what is that? a deer-hunting cap? — lies on his bed, the better to slither into a pair of too-tight jeans, just so he can hit the town, dressed to the Halloween nines […]

Letters to the editor

Why you shouldn’t invest in the stock market The stock market is usually an irresponsible place to invest. Stock investors often have no idea what their money does to people and the Earth. It is an absentee ownership so far removed from accountability that many think only numbers are involved. Because no one feels personally […]

Asheville City Council

When you’re all wet … shake it off and laugh. That’s how Asheville City Council members took the latest developments in their proposed purchase of the French Broad Golf Center, after a six-inch rainfall on Jan. 7 left only the flags on some greens still visible. Council members and city staff know how to take […]

Buncombe County Commission

Many Buncombe County residents love their junkers, and in a Jan. 13 public hearing peppered with laughs, applause and controversy, a whole heap of those folks let the Buncombe County Commissioners know it. In a courtroom three times the size of the chambers where the commissioners usually meet — but still not big enough to […]

The secret language of jazz

It’s a tough gig, you’d think, playing jazz in a small Southern city known for its devotion to folk and bluegrass. But that’s not the way Luci Anne Evans and Tom Coppola see it. “Are you kidding?” Evans says, rolling her eyes. “Musicians in Manhattan wish they could live here. When they sleep at night, […]

Notepad

Award-winning rest areas When you’re cruising down a North Carolina highway, your legs crossed tight and trembling as you pray, “Please, Lord, let me make it to a bathroom soon,” that rest area looming up ahead may seem like heaven. Desperation aside, however, the N.C. Department of Transportation recently singled out four of the 61 […]