For a full schedule of festival activities, see www.theLEAF.com. Friday, Oct. 17 • Lakeside Main Stage – Foundation Stone, 5-6 p.m.– Tom Mitchell & The Blue Rhythm Boys, 6:30-7:30 p.m. – Le Vent Du Nord, 8-9 p.m.– Donna the Buffalo, 9:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m. • Brookside Dance Hall – Contra dancing with Wild Asparagus and George … Read more
The Mahotella Queens know hardship, though their full, sweet voices are like a trio of joyous bells. In the early 1960s, the group Mahlathini and The Mahotella Queens surfaced in urban South Africa, a light in the dark, dark years of apartheid. Backed by the Makgona Tsothle Band (“The Band Who Knows Everything”), the group … Read more
Wander through any of the world’s great art museums and invariably you’ll find yourself in front of a glass case, face to face with what were once the simple objects of a lost people’s ordinary life. Bowls, baskets, hair combs and earrings are often displayed amid the massive paintings and statuary that we tend to … Read more
To hear her plaintive voice on a song like “Red Clay Halo” — “The girls all dance with the boys from the city/ But they don’t care to dance with me/ Well it ain’t my fault that the fields are muddy/ And the red clay stains my feet” — you’d swear Gillian Welch sprang straight … Read more
The stress is beginning to creep up on them. And yet these actors don’t seem particularly scared, just exhausted. They’ve just finished their warm-ups — preparation for the upcoming, physically demanding final fight scene. And the five weeks of intense rehearsal they’ve already put in — not to mention the compounding grind of their day … Read more
Of note • The Junkadelics — those local, self-declared practitioners of “all-original rhythmic rock with jazz, blues and white-boy reggae influences” — have announced they are now Soapbox. They’ll be playing with the Laura Blackley Band for the big annual Halloween bash at the Grey Eagle on Friday, Oct. 31. • The One Degree of … Read more
Biltmore Estate wants to chop down the tulip poplars. Sadly, these magnificent trees are only one-third of the way through their journey along life’s pathway — surviving five years of drought only to be cut down before their prime! That both Washington and Jefferson grew this splendid tree merely adds yet another credit to its … Read more
“We don’t want to be penny-wise and pound-foolish in trying to save a few dollars on something that can be prevented and gives us healthier children and lower health-care costs.” — Brian Peterson, Regional Water Authority of Asheville, Buncombe and Henderson New research has raised serious questions about the safety of public drinking-water supplies nationwide, … Read more
The only way to know whether you have a problem is to test your water for lead, stresses Dr. Richard Maas, co-director of UNCA’s Environmental Quality Institute — “regardless of whether you have children or not, regardless of the age of your building.” Since 1987, notes Maas, the EQI has offered a two-sample testing kit … Read more
