“It’s not a street festival with art, but an art festival that happens beyond the streets,” muses Dana Davis, director of operations for the Asheville Area Arts Council. She’s trying to explain the raison d’etre of the Urban Trail Arts Festival, a newly expanded event that aims to honor both Asheville’s history and its love … Read more
The artist formerly known as John Anderson looks a little out of place among the more typical patrons at a downtown-Asheville gallery opening. Cornbread, as he calls himself and signs his work (something to do with an adolescent acquaintance who used to tell people, “I’m gonna tear up your ass like a piece of cornbread”), … Read more
“Beautiful … beautiful love,” Me’Shell Ndegeocello lushly croons over the panoramic, space-age soundscape of “Love Song #2,” from her just-released album Comfort Woman. It’s a far cry from “I just had your boyfriend,” a mock-schoolyard taunt she flings at a cuckold “stuck-up bitch” on “If That’s Your Boyfriend (He Wasn’t Last Night),” from her 1993 … Read more
Performance poet Daphne Gottlieb has assembled an astonishing — and sometimes unsettling — collection of poems that deftly skewers the perception and use of women in American pop culture. Her Final Girl (Soft Skull Press, 2003) refers to the (generally) lone surviving female in the frequently inglorious realm of the so-called “slasher” film. I may … Read more
“What section of the record store do you belong in?” I demanded of Asheville’s Ahleuchatistas an hour before they played a benefit show at Asheville Community Resource Center on Friday, Oct. 10. “Probably, like, the experimental section, I guess,” suggested drummer Sean Dail. “That’s the only thing I can think of.” “Rock ‘n’ roll,” guitarist … Read more
He looks so much like me, my aunt is convinced I’m his reincarnation. Take away the beard, and it’s my face staring out from the antique, sepia-toned photograph. But who are those equally dark-complexioned men standing next to him, all of them wearing those little white caps? Could the old family rumor be true? Was … Read more
Americans have gardened with sorrel for a long, long time. In 1672, a cheerful traveler named John Josselyn, a man possessed of great curiosity and a pleasing literary style, published a book titled New England’s Rarities Discovered, etc.. Another volume, recounting his sea travels, followed two years later. Among Josselyn’s many accomplishments was compiling a … Read more
Rip Van Woodfin is waking up. On the eve of the elections, the hamlet that long seemed to slumber obscurely in Asheville’s shadow is being roused by noisy controversies. A proposal by the board of the Woodfin Sanitary and Water District to log its watershed has prompted a coalition of Woodfin and Reems Creek residents … Read more
“The proposed transfer inappropriately favors one provider and undermines expansion of consumer choice.” — Mental Health Advisory Task Force Chairwoman Linda Poss A Buncombe County task force is up in arms about the recent transfer of more than $1 million in public assets to a private nonprofit agency. The move, maintains the citizen task force, … Read more
