The Jan. 4 “Green Scene” contained an error concerning the economics of recycling tires. The Buncombe County landfill pays a recycling facility $78 per ton to cover processing and shipping costs. When consumers buy new tires, the state collects a $2-per-tire tax and then distributes a portion of the money to eligible counties on a … Read more
Listen, we know. The food world is rife with clichés that sometimes reek of snobbery. One year’s star protein (pork belly, anyone?) is suddenly passé before you can say “bacon brulée.” We still have a special place in our hearts for pork belly, of course, but you must know how to do it right (if … Read more
We must never forget that the South is composed chiefly of Bible-thumping, Confederate-flag-waving, potato-salad-eating, lazy-tongued, illiterate bigots [”Page 46 of the Jan. 4 Xpress Literally Made Me Cry,” Jan. 18 Xpress]. Clara Jones' letter indicates somehow that ethnic slurs and bigotry are unique to the Bible Belt. If she grew up in a working-class neighborhood, … Read more
Painter Pat Passlof had what’s known as an artistic temperament. Those who knew her called her honest and funny, but her "refreshingly non-PC humor" (according to Alice Sebrell, program director at the Black Mountain College Museum & Arts Center) could be barbed. "She was definitely extraordinary," says local artist Connie Bostic, who (with Sebrell and … Read more
Baltimore-by-way-of-Greenville, N.C. trio Future Islands is darkly romantic and dreamy, both heart-on-sleeve and somehow adrift from emotion on a cool, untroubled sea. But, for all the swelling melodies and echoey percussion, this is electro-pop with feet planted equally in the future and in the past. It's Samuel T. Herring's reverberating baritone — a vocal that … Read more
A Fine Peduncle show is many things: A venture into experimental music, loop pedals and some especially impressive falsetto; a science lesson on insect anatomy; a trust exercise in which the unschooled audience gets close to the stage while the performer sheds his inhibitions — and much of his clothing. The songs alone grab at … Read more
Damien Cavicchi is the new executive chef of all of the Biltmore restaurants — no small task. But Cavicchi, former chef and owner of Sugo, a modern Italian restaurant on Patton Avenue that closed in 2008, is up to it. Cavicchi is working to further lift the culinary scene at Biltmore with more chef-driven events … Read more
I’d like to call your attention to another Big Idea in the works for 2012, The Success Equation: a movement to reduce the incidence and impact of child poverty and create a community where all children thrive [”Big Ideas for 2012,” Jan. 4 and Jan. 11, Xpress]. Scientific research on toxic stress and brain development, … Read more
