The week after the opening of the new indie film, Frances Ha, Ken Hanke interviewed the film’s star and co-writer, Greta Gerwig. This is the interview in full.
Tag: Askville
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Healthy knowledge: whooping cough and you
Earlier this week, North Carolina health officials confirmed eight cases of whooping cough and suspect 23 more at an Almanace County elementary school. Though Alamance County is about three hours away from Asheville, the fears about this infectious disease are not isolated to county lines. Disease control supervisor of the Buncombe County Health Department, Sue Ellen Morrision, tells us more.
Peak Experience: Local businessman gets high *Updated with narrated slideshow*
When Manoj Lama traveled to Nepal in April on a buying trip for his downtown Asheville shop, he didn’t expect to wind up atop Gokyo Ri, a 17,575-foot Himalayan peak.
ASKville
These days, Asheville is a national hub for alternative medicine. That makes it hard to imagine what the local health-care landscape was like back in 1985, when Mary Cissy Majebe opened the city's first Chinese medicine and acupuncture clinic. Photo by Jonathan Welch And the ensuing two-and-a-half decades were not without their challenges: In 1990, […]
Askville
Let’s get one thing clear from the start: Cara Oshiver is selling poles. Pole-dancing poles. Portable pole-dancing poles. Cara Oshiver When the 30-year-old walked into the Mountain Xpress offices recently looking for someone to tell her story, though, it was her sincerity more than her sales pitch that grabbed our attention. Oshiver wants nothing less […]
Askville: Going all out
Phil “Kutty” Inthavong returned to Hendersonville in 2007 after completing his third deployment with the U.S. Marine Corps in the Middle East. Between 2004 and 2007, Inthavong was stationed in both Afghanistan and Iraq as a ranking Macs-2 in the 2nd Marine Division. While there, he found solace and escape via b-boying. In a sweltering […]
Askville: The long way around
Flavius Jackson has been with the city transit system for 30 years, making him the Asheville’s longest-running bus driver. He’s retiring this month, but Jackson is already planning a cross-country drive with his wife to keep his hand in. The 62-year-old is a recognizable face on the Haywood Road bus (Route 1), which he’s driven […]
Askville: The amazing adventures of Wild Freeborn
Wild Freeborn found fame by accident, during a quest to sell 12,000 Girl Scout cookies. Along the way, she decided celebrity’s not all it’s cracked up to be. The 8-year-old became an overnight sensation after Newsweek wrote about her cookie-marketing technique, and the fact that the Girl Scouts of America didn’t approve. Bryan Freeborn, Wild’s […]
Askville
Brandee Ponder has a lot in common with many other young women. She likes to go clothes shopping, watch movies (mostly comedies and romances), help with church activities and attend country-music concerts. But in some ways she stands apart: Perhaps most notably, the 26-year-old Weaverville native is the reigning Miss Wheelchair North Carolina. Ponder, who […]
Askville: Miller’s crossing
Like many Asheville residents, Kelly Miller has bounced around a lot, changing both his hometown and his profession with a frequency that calls to mind the adage, “Not all who wander are lost.” Kelly Miller A former nightclub booking agent, record-store owner and (seriously) standup comic, Miller’s been in Asheville for nine years, working at […]
Askville: An apple a day for the revolution
Plant an apple tree and start a permacultural phenomenon. That’s one way to sum up the mantra of local apple guru Bill Whipple. A 21st-century Johnny Appleseed, he plants trees in public spaces while helping spread the permaculture gospel. By day, the 45-year-old Whipple crafts wood into such whimsical pieces as a curving side table […]
Askville: End of an effigy
Business is about to burn out for Rick Fornoff‘s profitable invention, and he says he’s just fine with that. Rick Fornoff Photo by Jonathan Welch The creator of The Burning Bush Fire Starter, Fornoff is one local entrepreneur who’s ready for his product to be off the shelves. He’s closing up shop in tandem with […]
Askville: Songs sung true in the key of Dylan
To hear Preston Cooper singing on the streets of Asheville, as he does most days, is to hear the ghost of the young Bob Dylan. Preston Cooper Drawing on his repertoire of early Dylan tunes—he knows about 75 so far—Cooper seems to channel the influential minstrel’s very voice and manner, circa the early 1960s. Uncanny […]
Askville: Hiking with a purpose
Jennifer Pharr Davis’ epic Appalachian Trail trip this summer involved a lot of spirit—not to mention shoe leather. Jennifer Pharr Davis The 25-year-old Davis through-hiked the trail to honor the spirit of a woman who was killed in the north Georgia woods back in January. In the process, Davis wore out several pairs of trail-running […]
The recipe for funny
Sure, every comedian wants to make people laugh. But it’s a rare one that will go so far as to create a festival devoted to doing just that. Last year, Brown launched Laugh Your Asheville Off, a recurring spasm of standup comedy that will soon grace Asheville stages for the eighth time (see details below). […]
The magnolia watchers
No one seems to know exactly how long the magnolia tree has graced City/County Plaza, a stone’s throw from the Asheville City Building. Based on old photos, most interested parties have guesstimated it to be more than 100 years old. Steve Rasmussen, Dixie Deerman And Clare Hanrahan Predicting the date of the magnolia’s demise entails […]
Gyrate for your rights
Rebecca Willis used to love dancing a Friday night away at the Marshall Depot. Bobbing and weaving, dipping and twirling, an exuberant Willis would wheel around the former train depot, now leased by the town for community gatherings. But for Willis, the music stopped seven years ago when the town of Marshall formally banned her […]
The kilt wanderer
Tom Troop is probably most recognizable by his wardrobe. Even in a town known for offbeat fashion statements, his full-dress kilt and cane make him stand out. Having moved here within the past few years, Troop is testament to the theory that today’s tourists are often tomorrow’s residents. He spends his days volunteering for several […]
Arms and the man
A native of Washington, D.C., Robert Levy now divides his time between homes in Asheville and Florida. But the 66-year-old is far from retired. A self-made multimillionaire who created and later sold CDA Investment Technologies, Levy has spent the second half of his life as a lawyer, author and senior fellow at the libertarian-leaning Cato […]
Re-energizing Asheville
About a year ago, the Asheville City Council set an ambitious long-term goal for reducing the city’s contribution to climate change: an 80 percent cut in city government’s carbon emissions by 2050. That means looking for ways to conserve, retrofitting city facilities with more energy-efficient technologies, and generally shrinking Asheville’s carbon footprint at a rate […]
Askville: Veteran turned protester
The mock raid goes down like this: A couple of guys in gray-green military fatigues burst into the room, yelling. They’ve got their arms extended. Their forefingers and middle fingers form the point of an imaginary gun. They shout down a couple of people dressed in the traditional garb of an Islamic country and force […]