Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) took an hour or so Wednesday afternoon, Sept. 8, to visit with small farmers at the French Broad Food Co-op Farmer’s Market, at least partly in an attempt to reassure them that proposed federal legislation to tighten food safety standards will not affect them detrimentally, as some first feared. 
Photo by Jonathan Welch
In this week’s edition of the Local Matters podcast, Xpress staffers Jake Frankel and David Forbes discuss the recent police standoff and the special meeting of Asheville City Council to address pedestrian safety concerns.
The reporters recorded the conversation as they huddled at the site of the standoff on Otis Street, between the federal courthouse and the RBC Bank.
In this week’s Elitist Bastards Go To The Movies, Xpress film critics Ken Hanke and Justin Souther give a half-hearted nod to Going the Distance, heap significant praise on Machete, express ambivalence about The American, applaud Restrepo and appreciate Mao’s Last Dancer on its own schmaltzy terms. They also discuss the classic comedic horror film The Comedy of Terrors (this week’s Thursday Horror Picture Show), and the upcoming Asheville Film Society screening of F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise. And if that wasn’t quite enough, they also reluctantly discuss this week’s opening films Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D and The Virginity Hit.
In the ongoing controversy over the infamous peeling wayfinding signs, one question frequently heard is “why wasn’t the contract given to a local company,” something that only intensified after the Tourism Development Authority yesterday awarded the sign repair contract to Ohio-based Geograph, Inc. It turns out that a state law designed to prevent favoritism collides square in the face with Asheville’s preference for all things local.
While vagabonding and living outdoors, Asheville’s Mickey Mahaffey wrote and wrote — of madness, of abusing and being abused, of leaving home, wandering in wilds, and finally finding home in the whispers of his blood. He’ll read from and sign copies of his new book, Whispers of My Blood at Malaprop’s this Friday, Sept. 10, at 7 p.m.
For his sophomore effort, local punk-turned-country musician Brian McGee dropped the Hollow Speed, traded fiddles and banjos for organs and pedal steel and settled in at Echo Mountain Recording, emerging with 12 songs that exist — musically, lyrically and sonically — in a whole other realm than his self-titled debut.
