Mickey Mahaffey sits facing me across a table in Malaprop’s — sipping the coffee I bought him, discussing a way of life I never knew existed. It’s easy to listen to him — he’s smart and articulate, expressing himself in clear, vivid images. There’s more to it than that, though: Tall and tanned, muscular, face […]
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Letters to the editor
Don’t forget Be Here Now [Editor’s note: Talk about raising a ruckus: No less than five Xpress readers objected to Mary Winchester‘s Oct. 7 letter bemoaning the closing of Black Mountain music establishment Grey Eagle. Readers were particularly riled by Winchester’s statement that “there is nowhere else locally for [musicians like Arlo Guthrie, David LaMotte […]
Notepad
A big job, a busy man Physicians for Social Responsibility is a 20,000 member group working to protect human health from the threat of nuclear proliferation, environmental degradation and gun-related violence. If you think that’s a worthy occupation, you’re invited to meet the man who leads PSR, Dr. Robert K. Musil, when he comes to […]
Fall-ing for art
It’s not the autumn equinox that’s inspired this season’s round of exhibits, local gallery owners maintain. No, these shows are the fruits of an ongoing mission to search out the best in the region’s arts and crafts. But color and change seem to recur as themes throughout the listed exhibits, which may be attributable — […]
Democracy takes time
Admit it: You’ve heard the rumors that Asheville City Council meetings are longer than they used to be. Well, it’s true — and has been for years, since long before Mayor Leni Sitnick took office last December. In the ’70s and ’80s, meetings rarely ran more than two hours. In fact, many were routine affairs […]
Asheville City Council
Buncombe residents might as well have come bearing the banner “Don’t Tread on Me.” Outnumbering the half-dozen city residents who attended Asheville Council members’ Sept. 29 community meeting in Skyland, county residents made their position clear. “I’m bitterly opposed to any annexation without a vote of the people being annexed,” declared Arden resident Gene Cline. […]
Asheville City Council
Asheville City Council members might want to have one hand on the U.S. Constitition and the other on the Bible when they start playing around with the city’s definition of “church.” The definition in the city’s Unified Development Ordinance limits churches to one sanctuary and one additional building — explicitly excluding daycare, educational and recreational […]
Ratsville, North Carolina
Rats: The mere word gives most of us the willies. What is it about this ubiquitous rodent that evokes an almost medieval sense of revulsion? Is it the beast’s wily nature? That long, hairless tail? Rats’ significant role in that most fearsome of plagues, the Black Death? This summer, there seems to have been no […]
Rising from the ashes
Far from casting a pall over the ninth annual Thomas Wolfe Festival, the July 24 fire that severely damaged Wolfe’s boyhood home on Market Street has sparked a surge in attendance, says festival Director Ted Mitchell. “Right now, we’re accommodating an overflow at hotels,” he reports. With the acclaimed novelist’s Old Kentucky Home off limits […]
Letters to the editor
Why is it so hard to measure dust? As a follow-up to my letter of two weeks ago regarding the Western North Carolina Regional Air Pollution Control Agency [Sept. 2], I would like to bring your readers up to date on my dealings with the agency regarding the Lowe’s Patton Avenue construction site. Mountain Xpress […]
Hooked on the classics
Under the fluorescent glare of the rehearsal-room lights, it all starts and ends with chairs: setting them up, making sure they’re all accounted for at the end of the evening, folding them and stowing them safely away. It’s an hour before the first rehearsal for the orchestra’s 1998 Masterworks Series, and principal bassist/music librarian/stage manager […]
Apple music
Music has always been a crucial part of the North Carolina Apple Festival, from the early days (when festival visitors square-danced to local country bands) to today, when a mixed slate of regional and national acts takes the stage. This year’s festival headliners are: • The Buddy “K” Big Band: This 18-piece ensemble, fronted by […]
Getting a taste of Asheville
To many city residents, Bele Chere is one big party. But for downtown business owners, the city’s midsummer bash can be one big hassle: Regular customers can’t find parking — and that’s assuming they even manage to negotiate blocked or crowded streets. Deliveries can’t be made. Festival booths nearly block storefronts. And, with the press […]
William Smith receives Conservancy Volunteer Award
William Smith of Asheville is a kind and humble man with a dear heart who personifies the word faithfulness. That’s the way Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy Director Lynn Cox describes the 88-year-old recipient of the Conservancy’s 1998 Murray Volunteer Service Award, presented this June at the group’s annual meeting in Crossnore, N.C. Smith had never […]
Home on the fringe
The places of our childhood linger in our memories, like wistfully distant, teasing Edens. Charlie Gearhart, songwriting headman for the Goose Creek Symphony, remembers his Kentucky boyhood in his multilayered creations. Guitars Pickin’/Fiddles Playin’ (1991) paints an impressionistic portrait of Goose Creek Hollow, as rich as Dylan Thomas’ poetic memoir of Fern Hill, with rollicking […]
A portrait of the craftsman as an artist
Thick rain falls outside the open door of Stoney Lamar’s studio in the green country dells outside Saluda, N.C. Lamar is buzzing about his lathe, eyeballing lines and making minute adjustments, preparing to make a cut. “It’s like an anthropomorphic dance that gets going between myself and the machines,” says the sculptor from behind the […]
Buncombe County Commission
At long last, county residents may have a place to take their household hazardous wastes, and the N.C. Department of Transportation may get a big financial break — if Buncombe County commissioners accept an offer from the DOT to build the waste repository at the county landfill. In a hurried session at the Courthouse on […]
William Smith receives Conservancy Volunteer Award
William Smith of Asheville is a kind and humble man with a dear heart who personifies the word faithfulness. That’s the way Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy Director Lynn Cox describes the 88-year-old recipient of the Conservancy’s 1998 Murray Volunteer Service Award, presented this June at the group’s annual meeting in Crossnore, N.C. Smith had never […]
Notepad
Child care on-line For anyone with questions about local child-care options, help is now no further away than an Internet-ready computer. Thanks to a Smart Start project funded by the Buncombe County Partnership for Children, the Buncombe County Information Partnership’s Web page is now on-line, making a vast amount of state and local information easily […]
Things that go boom
You’re cleaning out your basement, and you find a small, unmarked bottle with blue crystals ringing the rusty cap, as if something had leaked out. Don’t touch it: That compound could blow up your house. A Haywood County realtor found such a bottle recently, while cleaning out a home she had just sold for an […]
Friends of a feather
“You wanna hear a crazy bird story?” asks Chuck Brodsky. Almost everyone loves a tale about wild things. Indeed, we kind of crave them, even though we may not like to admit it. And while asking why is too big a question to tackle here, the answer to Brodsky’s original query is yes, Chuck, yes. […]