More than 100 days after Helene, state releases its longawaited list of
SCHOOL OF RHYME
PUBLISHER & EDITOR: Jeff Fobes
New
A new Xpress feature capturing highlights from recent happenings
Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians assume greater leadership
Terry
Kicking off a 52-week
try our easy online calendar at MOUNTAINX.COM/EVENTS
With his new youth rhyme-writing program, Imaginarium: Flip the Script!, Asheville-based, Grammy Award-winning children’s hip-hop artist Secret Agent 23 Skidoo will use classic rite-of-passage elements as a framework for both learning and healing. Playfulness, silliness and, of course, music, are all part of the process.
of Secret Agent 23 Skidoo
ASSISTANT PUBLISHER: Susan Hutchinson
MANAGING EDITOR: Thomas Calder
EDITORS: Lisa Allen, Gina Smith
OPINION EDITOR: Tracy Rose
STAFF REPORTERS: Lisa Allen, Thomas Calder, Brionna Dallara, Justin McGuire, Greg Parlier, Brooke Randle, Gina Smith
COMMUNITY CALENDAR & CLUBLAND: Braulio Pescador-Martinez
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Jon Elliston, Mindi Friedwald, Peter Gregutt, Rob Mikulak
REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS: Edwin Arnaudin, Oby Arnold, Mark Barrett, Eric Brown, Carmela Caruso, Cayla Clark, Tessa Fontaine, Carol Kaufman, Bill Kopp, Kay West
PHOTOGRAPHERS: Cindy Kunst
ADVERTISING,
& DESIGN MANAGER: Susan Hutchinson
LEAD DESIGNER: Scott Southwick
GRAPHIC DESIGNERS: Tina Gaafary, Caleb Johnson, Olivia Urban
MARKETING ASSOCIATE: Sara Brecht
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES: Hinton Edgerton, Jeff Fobes, Mark Murphy, Scott Southwick
WEB: Brandon Tilley
BOOKKEEPER: Amie Fowler
OFFICE MANAGER: Mark Murphy
ADMINISTRATION & BILLING: Hinton Edgerton, Lisa Watters
DISTRIBUTION: Susan Hutchinson, Cindy Kunst
DISTRIBUTION DRIVERS: Ashley Alms, Cass Kunst, Henry Mitchell, Courtney Israel Nash, Joey Nash, Carl & Debbie Schweiger, Gary Selnick, Noah Tanner, Mark Woodyard
Parks and athletic facilities belong in floodplains
left parents and community members with more questions than answers.
[Regarding “Parks and Wreck: Destroyed Athletic Facilities Leave Local Sports Leagues Searching for New Homes,” Dec. 4, Xpress:]
These amenities are exactly what should be in the floodplains. These assets are not as vulnerable as residential, commercial or industrial uses. These are exclusively used in dry weather. These are largely pervious surfaces allowing floodplains to be floodplains.
Of course they will require maintenance and occasionally need to be rebuilt, but retrieving and rebuilding a softball backstop is a far cry easier than cleaning up the SilverLine Plastics disaster or rebuilding Biltmore Village.
Provide more greenways and parks within the floodplain. Aside from natural areas, it’s the only responsible thing to do.
— Amy Longcrier Water resources engineer Weaverville
School consolidation study lacks accountability
The ongoing school consolidation study in Buncombe County highlights troubling gaps in accountability and transparency. Mandated by the N.C. General Assembly, this study should provide clear, evidence-based recommendations on whether merging Asheville City and Buncombe County schools is in the best interest of students and taxpayers. Instead, it has
At recent public forums, consultants offered little concrete data, choosing instead to host what felt like public relations exercises. Basic questions — such as the financial implications or potential academic benefits of consolidation — remain unanswered. Without accountability, how can we trust that this study will lead to decisions that serve our children’s best interests?
Consolidating schools could have far-reaching consequences for families, educators and students. Community members deserve detailed findings, transparent discussions and opportunities for meaningful input. Anything less is a disservice to those this study is supposed to benefit.
It’s time for local leaders to demand more from this process. We must hold consultants accountable for delivering comprehensive, data-driven recommendations. Our community deserves better than a study without accountability.
— Jim Fulton Arden X
Word of the week
nonpareil (n) an individual of unequaled excellence (adj.) having no equal
In this week’s issue we remember and celebrate the life of Asheville native Jerry Sternberg, an inimitable Xpress contributor and nonpareil within our community. X
CARTOON BY RANDY MOLTON
In his own words
Sternberg’s ‘Gospel’ told a colorful history of Asheville
In the waning days of 2024, we received word that Asheville native and veteran Mountain Xpress columnist Jerry Sternberg had died the night of Dec. 25.
A one-of-a-kind local figure, it seems fitting that the 94-year-old would take his leave on an unusual occasion — when the first night of Hanukkah coincided with Christmas, an event that’s happened only a handful of times since 1900.
It also seems fitting to remember — in his own words — the man who started writing “The Gospel According to Jerry” for this newspaper three decades ago. Whether he was giving local officials an earful or spinning yarns about his life and Asheville back in the day, you could count on Sternberg to deliver his message with signature flair and a healthy dose of humor.
IN THE BEGINNING
In the very first issue of Xpress, on Aug. 10, 1994, Sternberg introduced himself to readers: “My Walter Mitty dream — to write a column expressing my absolute, indisputable opinions about matters pertaining to both local and national politics and life in general — may have come true. ...
“In matters of social issues and personal freedoms, I am a flaming liberal, but in matters of property rights, business rights and minimization of taxes and government spending, I would make Ebeneezer Scrooge look like a philanthropist.”
By his second column, published a week later, Sternberg declared his
allegiance to a group that appeared to be highly skeptical of rethinking the industrial use of the French Broad River (as well as the nonprofit RiverLink, headed by Karen Cragnolin, destined to become a good friend). “Several years ago, I became involved with a loose-knit group of businessmen whose businesses were located on the French Broad River,” wrote Sternberg. “We soon became known as ‘The River Rats.’ Believe me, ‘we don’t get no respect.’ …
“Those who oppose us ‘River Rats’ are known as ‘Riverlinks.’ Doesn’t that sound like some kind of yuppie sausage made from catfish?”
STAKING HIS POSITION
By 2014, much had changed along the river, but the two friends kept sparring. Cragnolin penned a piece about the success of the French Broad River’s revitalization — and wrote that Sternberg had once told her the “urban riverfront was just like Humpty Dumpty and couldn’t be fixed!”
Sternberg responded via the “Gospel,” calling Cragnolin “the brilliant visionary and advocate who can proudly take credit for the unbelievable renaissance in the River District,” denying he used the Humpty Dumpty metaphor and explaining his position and that of other riverfront property owners.
“The problem was that the RiverLink movement, primarily spearheaded by elitist outsiders with no financial skin in the game, decided they were going to dictate to those of
us who owned property and worked hard to feed our families just what we could do with our property,” he wrote.
TALES TO TELL
You might say Sternberg came by his views about the river honestly.
“My dad used to take me to work with him when I was no more than 5 years old,” Sternberg wrote in a 2005 “Gospel.” “He had a small business in an old, dirty, rickety building at the corner of Depot and Lyman streets at the railroad crossing.
“He dealt primarily in cowhides and furs and scrap metal. When he bought fur pelts such as muskrats, minks and foxes from the trappers, they were turned inside out and stretched onto wooden boards to allow them to dry out from the skinning process. My first job was to help with removing the furs from the boards, tying them in bundles so that they could be shipped to the fur manufacturers.
“I am not sure whether the purpose of my employment was to take advantage of the economic rewards of child labor or to keep me out of my house so that I would not torment and harass my 3-year-old sister.”
Other notable stories included a 2020 remembrance of the attack on Pearl Harbor (which happened on his 11th birthday) and his own journey “from bigotry to advocacy” as he put it in a 2021 column in recognizing the disparity between the experiences of the white and Black communities in Asheville.
‘LIFE IN SEELY’S CASTLE’
Some of Sternberg’s best-read commentaries (of the 121 posted and tagged on Xpress’ website since 2000) centered around his purchase and restoration of a castle built by
Fred Seely, son-in-law of E.W. Grove (who built the Grove Park Inn), along with rollicking tales of Buncombe County’s nightclubs.
“Everybody dreams of being king for a day, but I became a king for several years,” wrote Sternberg in the first installment of that series in May 2012. “Not really, though I did get to live in a real castle, which was certainly a very special life experience.”
Other highlights in his “Life in Seely’s Castle” series included the tale of how he came to purchase it, the challenges of heating it and one of its most famous visitors, Israel’s Gen. Yitzhak Rabin, who was accompanied by Mossad (the Israeli secret service) agents.
One of Sternberg’s most popular columns, from 2016, looked at “Vanished Asheville Nightclubs,” including Margaret’s Steakhouse.
“If you were a regular, you could also get a cocktail from the back room. The most exciting beverage sold there was Flem’s Cherry Bounce, made from pure corn whiskey and some combination of cherries. Oh, it went down so smooth, but the bounce came when you tried to walk down the steps on the way out.”
‘A JEW IN ASHEVILLE’
Sternberg launched his last series for Xpress, “A Jew in Asheville” in April 2023, recounting his own experiences of growing up Jewish in the city — including the prejudice he faced — along with the antisemitism the Jewish community endured.
The most-viewed of the dozen pieces in the series was “No Admittance” published in October 2023, which explored the discriminatory practices of local country clubs.
In “Passing the Torch” last June, he concluded the series on a cautiously hopeful note: “As I have pointed out, Asheville’s Jews have made great strides in gaining acceptance in both the social and political arenas. ... However, we must also actively participate in local and state politics and be prepared to stand up and defend our rights as good and productive members of this great community.”
We last heard from Sternberg in early October, when he expressed sadness over Tropical Storm Helene’s destruction and mentioned plans for a future column. Though that was not to be, we believe his hometown will remember him with as much fondness as he felt for Asheville.
A longer version of this piece will appear at mountainx.com.
— Tracy Rose, Xpress Opinion editor X
JERRY STERNBERG
REFLECTIONS
A conversation lasting 30 years
BY MARLENE STERNBERG
Jerry Sternberg and I met 30 years ago when I was working at the old house on Charlotte Street that was the the Jewish Community Center and Jerry was spearheading community fundraising for a new building. Even though I was totally intimidated by this powerhouse of a man, we started a conversation … and it lasted for the next 30 years.
We would have been married six years in March. Jerry had never even suggested marriage, but at the tender age of 88, he said that maybe it was time, and I was only to happy to enthusiastically agree. It’s funny, but I think all of us become more traditional with age.
Jerry also began writing “The Gospel According to Jerry” the year we met. At the time, Xpress was regarded as a left-learning paper, and Jerry wanted to represent the business community and also write columns to provoke dialogue, or on occasion, just to provoke.
Over the many years of the “Gospel,” Xpress evolved, as did Jerry’s writing, and let’s face it, he got older. Being a bona fide native Ashevillean with a historical perspective on this town second to none, he began to tell all of us newbies about Asheville before Asheville was cool, and his readership loved it. These last several years he has written series’ on his years raising his family in Seely’s castle, the river’s colorful history and, most recently, a very personal account of growing up Jewish in Asheville. He told me that his last work was his best. That being said, my favorite “Gospel” of all time was a piece called “Handme-down Memories,” written in 2010. He wrote about Asheville’s annual Christmas parade before the Asheville public schools were desegregated. His unsparing take on the casual cruelty of racism during these years gets to me every time.
GOOD TIMES: Jerry Sternberg, right, and his wife, Marlene, share a moment while celebrating Marlene’s 70th birthday last March. Photo courtesy of Marlene Sternberg
Jerry is a leader among philanthropists in our community. He sees this as his greatest accomplishment and his most valuable contribution to the hometown he loved. He worked, quite literally, until a few days before his death, and his clear directive was to continue to support the causes to which he was committed. For Jerry, his financial success was not about what he had, but what he could do to give back. That, and that alone, is his legacy.
Marlene Sternberg was Jerry Sternberg’s longtime girlfriend, eventual wife and always, always his biggest fan.
Thanks, Jerry, for all you contributed
BY JEFF FOBES
When we prepared to launch Mountain Xpress in 1994, we needed
to distance the new product from its progressive advocacy progenitor, Green Line. I remember reaching out to conservative entrepreneurs and activists. Jerry Sternberg was one of those who listened and offered to contribute his opinions from time to time. A couple other contributors who stand out were Mike Summey and Lewis Green. But it was Jerry who contributed consistently, with his first “Gospel” appearing in the first issue of Xpress. And Jerry was the only staunchly conservative businessman I encountered in those days who recognized that the few quirky businesses setting up shop in downtown had a chance against Tunnel Road with its enormous mall, where many of the old-guard downtown businesses had fled, leaving downtown a commercial ghost town. I argued and Jerry agreed that there might be a future for the downtown dreamers like Earth Guild, Malaprop’s, Laughing Seed, The Chocolate Fetish, Downtown Books & News and The Market Place Restaurant. Jerry, we’ll miss your spunk, the gleam in your trickster eyes, your big heart and your businessman’s acumen. Thanks for all you gave to Asheville.
Jeff Fobes is Mountain Xpress’ publisher.
A tip of the cowboy hat
BY PETER GREGUTT
During more than four decades in the editorial trenches, I’ve worked with literally hundreds of writers. But precious few have afforded me as satisfying and enduring a partnership as the one I shared with Jerry Sternberg. It started sometime in the early ’90s. And in tackling the challenge of writing for publication, Jerry had several distinct advantages: A natural-born storyteller, his talents honed by significant public-speaking experience, he’d already led a full and extraordinarily diverse life. His depth of local knowledge and unwavering commitment to
public service further nurtured a memorable run.
Like all relationships, writer/editor collaborations are built on trust. I suppose Jerry and I must have initially had a period of feeling each other out, though after so many years of almost seamless teamwork, I have little memory of it. One regret I still harbor is my long-ago failure to catch his mistakenly placing Pearl Harbor in 1940 instead of 1941. Jerry subsequently both acknowledged his error and called out his editor for not correcting it. I still chuckle ruefully remembering what turned out to be, for me at least, a valuable learning experience.
What I treasure, however, are the countless memories of columns we worked on in which Jerry unflinchingly examined both the culture’s shortcomings and his own blind spots. That willingness to dig deep produced a body of work that illuminates his native city’s triumphs and failures.
When I learned of Jerry’s death, I felt a mix of sadness and deep admiration for a life well and truly lived. I’ll miss working with him, as well as our occasional meetups. This city has lost one of its own, and I encourage every resident, and all who take an interest in Asheville from afar, to explore Jerry’s literary legacy, which will enhance your understanding of a remarkable human being and the place he called home.
Peter Gregutt has served as editor of Green Line and managing editor of Xpress. When he’s not busy traveling, hiking or checking out the latest breweries, he works as a freelance writer and editor.
‘Gospel’ memories
Readers, do you have a favorite memory of Jerry Sternberg or one of his columns? What does it tell you about Asheville’s history or of the writer who penned it? Send your thoughts to letters@mountainx.com with the subject line “Gospel Memories.” Guidelines can be found at avl.mx/5ds. X
Storm shelter
Helene will have long-lasting effect on animal-adoption agencies
BY JUSTIN M c GUIRE
jmcguire@mountainx.com
When Tropical Storm Helene hit the area on Sept. 27, floodwaters from the Swannanoa River destroyed Brother Wolf Animal Rescue’s adoption center on Glendale Avenue. The Asheville Humane Society was spared that kind of physical damage, but the nonprofit was unable to accept new animals at its adoption center for nearly two months due to a lack of water.
The two organizations ended up transporting hundreds of dogs and cats, and even a few rabbits, to shelters in other cities and states, including South Carolina, Virginia and Massachusetts. They also relied on local foster families to take in animals they couldn’t house.
Other Western North Carolina animal shelters, including Henderson County’s Blue Ridge Humane Society (BRHS) and Charlie’s Angels Animal Rescue of Fletcher, were back in business within a few weeks of Helene. But those agencies faced an increased need for veterinary care, pet food and supplies and other forms of assistance.
Officials from local animal shelters agree that Helene’s impact will continue to be felt in 2025 and beyond, with the need for medical care and food still high. Atop that, the agencies are seeing
Up in the air
On Dec. 12, Pilots to the Rescue flew about 40 cats and dogs from Western North Carolina to Manassas, Va., with hopes of securing forever homes for the animals before the holidays. The animals were provided by the Asheville Humane Society as well as animal services in Henderson, Madison and Mitchell counties.
Pilots to the Rescue is a nonprofit that transports animals from underresourced shelters and takes them to rescue and adoption centers where they can be cared for, fostered and placed with families. The recent flight of the group’s new Kodiak 100 turboprop plane was one of several made to Asheville after Tropical Storm Helene.
The flights were coordinated through the Bissell Pet Foundation.
far fewer adoptions and an increase in strays, partly because of the number of people who were displaced from their homes or moved out of the area.
“We certainly know that even though running water has returned and things are starting to look a little bit more normal, the need in the community is still there,” says Jen Walter, interim executive director of the Asheville Humane Society (AHS). “Those challenges that people were experiencing in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane are still present. So we want to make sure that we’re still able to support our community members that have pets.”
PLANS TO REBUILD
On Sept. 26, with the Swannanoa River already cresting, the staff at Brother Wolf decided it had to evacuate its animal adoption center before Helene hit.
“We put out a social media plea and a plea to our fosters and volunteers and asked people to emergency foster animals,” says Brooke Fornea, the nonprofit’s director of strategic development. “We had about 130 animals evacuated from the building in two hours before the hurricane hit.”
Fornea and others figured Helene would cause some flooding, bringing
“In the aftermath of a disaster like that, the animals often get overlooked,” says Michael Schneider, who founded Pilots to the Rescue in 2015. “They get left behind. They get lost, strayed. I know Bissell does everything in their power to try to reconnect them with previous owners, but a lot of the pets are just unwanted.”
For the dogs and cats, the trips can be stressful, particularly during the loading phase, Schneider says.
“They’ve never been in a plane before. They’re coming from a presumably bad situation. So we have to coax them from one crate into another because we use our own crates.”
Once the flights are underway, most of the animals go to sleep in the unpressurized aircraft.
“At the origin, there’s stress, but at the destination, there’s a lot of good energy,” Schneider says. “I do get to witness the transformation of these pets, and it’s a beautiful experience.” X
perhaps a few inches of water into the shelter. The reality proved far worse.
When staff members finally were able to get close to the building to survey the damage, only the very top was visible above the water. “That’s when we knew that our adoption center, our retail store that had our offices and our thrift store, which were all in that same little corridor, were all completely closed and that nothing would be salvageable,” Fornea says.
After checking in with every person who was fostering one of its animals — no easy task when power and cell and internet service were down or unreliable throughout the region — Brother Wolf’s staff started contacting partner shelters in areas that weren’t affected by the storm to find space for its dogs, cats and small animals.
A week after the storm, the group started transporting animals to shelters in places as far away as Massachusetts. More than 200 animals, including the 130 that had been evacuated from the shelter, were in foster homes at the time. All were sent to other shelters and have since been adopted, Fornea says.
In the aftermath of the storm, Brother Wolf launched a mobile medical unit that traveled to hard-hit areas and provided veterinary care to more than 1,200 animals. The group also launched a program called Stay Together aimed at providing vet care to animals injured in the storm.
“We’ve done things like provide amputations for animals that have had broken legs, all kinds of things, so that people keep their animals,” Fornea says.
And working with small, municipal and rural shelters in Buncombe and surrounding agencies, the group was able to restart its foster care program.
“We are so passionate about animals, so we really didn’t stop our work,” Fornea says.
Since last month, Brother Wolf has been operating out of ASPCA’s spay and neuter clinic on Heritage Drive with plans to be there for a year. While the space doesn’t have a shelter, it allows the group to provide medical care, run the foster program and raise funds to build a new shelter. It plans to launch a capital campaign soon.
The temporary space isn’t yet open to the public.
“Building a shelter is much more expensive than building just a regular facility,” Fornea explains. “We’ve been told it’s kind of like building a minihospital, because all of the materials have to be impervious, and you have to be able to clean everything and all of that. We are doing our due diligence of getting all of the pieces in place so that we really understand how much money we’ll need to raise — how much it will cost to do a building and then also trying to find land to purchase.”
WAITING FOR WATER
Like the rest of Asheville, the Humane Society’s adoption center on Forever Friend Lane had no water service for weeks after Helene hit.
“Caring for hundreds of animals inside of a shelter without running water is pretty near impossible,” Walter says. “So we had to shift our focus from
DOG DAYS: Volunteer Connie Kopp greets a canine during the Blue Ridge Humane Society’s free vaccine clinic in November. Photo courtesy of BRHS
bringing animals into the shelter to sheltering them in the community.”
AHS asked people who found stray pets to keep them and take care of them while the shelter was unable to take in animals. The organization provided supplies and resources.
And starting Sept. 30, the nonprofit transported about 150 of the 200 animals that were in the adoption center the day the storm hit to other shelters. The remainder couldn’t be moved because of contagious illnesses or other problems.
The transport flights were coordinated through the Bissell Pet Foundation, a Michigan-based group that provides support, including crisis and disaster response, for animal welfare organizations. The dogs, cats and small animals were initially flown to Winston-Salem before being transported to shelters in other states.
The shelter was able to start taking in some new animals once nonpotable water was restored in late October, Water says. But it wasn’t until drinkable water was flowing again on Nov. 18 that it was able to resume regular operations. By late December, the number of dogs in the shelter was virtually the same as it had been a year earlier (116 in 2024 and 115 in 2023), she says. The shelter had fewer cats (30 in 2024 and 98 in 2023) due to more long-distance transport opportunities being available in the aftermath of Helene.
“Since the hurricane, 97 cats have been transported to other shelters,” Walter says. “During the same time period in 2023, 34 cats were transported to other shelters. The transport opportunities available for dogs have allowed us to operate at the same capacity as last year, despite a significant increase in stray hold periods and a decrease in adoptions.”
The transports allowed AHS to shift its focus to providing community support, she says.
The Humane Society distributed more than 100,000 pounds of pet food to those in need, most of it donated by Seattle-based Greater Good Charities. The group also provided free and low-cost veterinary care to more than 1,000 animals at the Buncombe County Animal Shelter, which is in the same complex as the Humane Society.
Henderson County’s BRHS similarly found that the biggest impact of Helene was on its community support services. For instance, the organization fielded 532 calls and texts to the helpline in November, up from the few hundred it gets in a typical month, says Executive Director Angela Prodrick
“We’ve helped thousands of people through pet food assistance, supply assistance, giving away crates,” she explains. “We had a free vaccine clinic [in November] and we’re having another one [in January]. We are just trying to support people who are lacking the means right now that they would have had otherwise or find themselves in a different situation, both job wise or housing wise, where they need extra assistance in order to hold on to their pet.”
AHS’ Walter expects food and medical care needs to remain high in 2025 as the area continues to recover from the storm’s devastation. Additionally, AHS is working on getting its adoption numbers back to normal.
“We know that housing concerns are definitely very real in the community right now,” she says. “And that doesn’t just affect adopters, but it also affects fosters. A lot of people are moving from houses into apartments or staying with family members, and that affects their ability to be able to adopt a new pet or to foster. We’re looking at different ways that we can encourage adoption and fostering and kind of reevaluating the way that we handle those.” X
Inconsistencies
More than 100 days after Helene, the state releases its long-awaited list of storm deaths
BY SALLY KESTIN AN ASHEVILLE WATCHDOG REPORT
The state health agency finally released a list of storm-related fatalities this week, more than three months after Tropical Storm Helene, but it includes a woman who died of breast cancer and other inconsistencies that conflict with the agency’s own records.
For months, the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) denied public records requests from Asheville Watchdog and other media outlets for information about the deceased. Death certificates, autopsy reports and related documents are public records in North Carolina, but agency spokesmen said officials were waiting until the death investigations were complete.
On Jan. 6, DHHS sent a list to the media, but it contained names only — no ages, circumstances or causes of death, or even a county where each person lived or died.
And the numbers did not initially match up with the agency’s own webpage for storm-related fatalities, a source DHHS has consistently cited as the official record-keeper of Helene victims.
The department did not respond by deadline to questions about the list or the apparent discrepancies.
The list released Jan. 6 contains 104 names, but the agency’s storm fatality webpage has said for weeks that 103 people died statewide. After The Watchdog asked about the difference, the state changed the webpage to 104 total deaths.
The webpage also says 43 people died in Buncombe, but as The
ACCESS DENIED: Debris is strewn down an incline in Swannanoa, one of the hardest-hit areas from Tropical Storm Helene. For months, the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services denied public records requests from Asheville Watchdog and other media outlets for information about Helene’s fatalities. Watchdog photo by Starr Sariego
Watchdog documented in its series “The Lives We Lost,” just 41 death certificates citing Helene as a cause have been filed in the county.
Those 41 people are on the state’s list, along with one other woman from Buncombe.
That woman died at a nursing home on Sept. 27, the day of the storm, but the cause of death was metastatic breast cancer with no mention of Helene, according to her death certificate. It describes the manner of death as “natural.” The Watchdog is not identifying the woman because her family could not be reached.
DHHS did not respond to a question about why her name was on the list.
The Watchdog has provided the only full accounting of the deaths in Buncombe, which suffered the most fatalities of any county. Reporters
identified the deceased by combing through more than 850 death certificates, opening each PDF one at a time, to find those attributed to the storm and tracking down relatives and friends.
“The Lives We Lost” profiled each of the 41 people for whom death certificates have been filed in Buncombe. You can read the 10-part series here.
Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. Sally Kestin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter. Email skestin@avlwatchdog.org. The Watchdog’s reporting is made possible by donations from the community. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/ support-our-publication/. X
New county commissioner sworn in
At its regular meeting Jan. 7, the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners unanimously appointed Drew Ball to serve as District 3 commissioner. The Buncombe County Democratic Party elected Ball to the seat in December to replace Amanda Edwards, who was elected board chair Nov. 5.
“Obviously, we have a lot of work ahead of us right now,” Ball said after being sworn in. “It’s going to be a tough road to recovery, but as our community has shown, we are ready to get to work and take care of each other, and I am eager and excited to get to work with this community.”
Ball is a volunteer firefighter at Reynolds Volunteer Fire Department, board member of the North Carolina chapter of the Sierra Club and a musician. He was nominated by state Rep. Caleb Rudow, District 116.
Homeowner grant requests pour it
During a briefing before the regular meeting, commissioners heard an update on the Homeowner Grant Program from Phillip Hardin, Buncombe County Health and Human Services economic services director. The grant provides $300 to each eligible applicant to help with mortgage, insurance or tax payments. An additional $200 is available for those residing in the City of Asheville.
To date, 90% of applications have been processed with 64% approved. The application period initially ran from July 15 through Sept. 30 but reopened Nov. 11-15 in response to the impacts of Tropical Storm Helene. Nearly as many applications (575) were submitted during the November extension as were in the previous three months combined (676). To date, Buncombe County has approved $145,500 and the City of Asheville just under $130,000 in grant money.
Tax collections lag 2023
A tax collection report presented to the commission showed that as of Nov. 30, the county was about 2% behind in overall collections and 2.5% behind in real estate taxes compared with the same period in fiscal year 2024. Jennifer Pike, tax collections director, attributes the difference to the impacts of Tropical
PUBLIC MEETINGS
Wednesday, Jan. 15
• 9:30 a.m., Henderson County Board of Commissioners budget workshop, 1 Historic Courthouse Square, Suite 1, Hendersonville. Info: avl.mx/efd
Thursday, Jan. 16
• 9 a.m., Joint meeting of the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners and Asheville City and Buncombe County boards of education to discuss school consolidation report, A-B Tech, 340 Victoria Road, Asheville. Meeting info: avl.mx/efe. The 262-page report: avl.mx/eff
• 1:15-5 p.m., Buncombe County Board of Commissioners budget retreat, first floor conference room of the County Administration Building, 200 College St. Info: avl.mx/efg
Friday, Jan. 17
• 2:30 p.m. Weaverville Town Council special meeting, closed session to discuss personnel issues, Town Hall, 30 S. Main St. No action expected in open session. Info: avl.mx/efi
Storm Helene. She noted that 1% of tax collection equates to over $2.5 million.
Jan. 6 was the last day to pay property taxes without incurring a late fee. Many expressed outrage on social media after the county confirmed that residents who experienced partial or total loss of their homes during Tropical Storm Helene are still responsible for paying property taxes.
“We really encourage members of our community to contact us if they need help with the payment arrangement. We are more than happy to work with them,” Pike said during the meeting.
In other news
Curt Euler, senior attorney for the county, was appointed interim county attorney. Longtime county attorney Michael Frue retired in 2024.
Each commissioner agreed to serve on several boards and committees, including the Affordable Housing Subcommittee, the Economic Development Coalition and the Health and Human Services Board, among others.
Commissioners appointed Diana Blackett to the Mountain Area Workforce and Development Board; Nate Pennington to the Metropolitan
District Board; and Rebecca
Smith, David Denninger, and Daysha Chaney to the Juvenile Crime Prevention Council. Banta Whitner, Jorge Redmond, Elizabeth Kraft, Jeremy Bricker, and Brandon Priester were reappointed to the Juvenile Crime Prevention Council.
Commissioners passed a resolution supporting funding to repair the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Blue Ridge Rising Strategic Plan and creating a coalition that will advocate for the parkway. A specific funding request was not made.
— Carmela Caruso X
Tuesday, Jan. 21
• 5:30 p.m., Brevard City Council, City Hall, 95 W. Main St., Brevard. Info: avl.mx/efh
• 6 p.m., Weaverville Town Council workshop, Town Hall, 30 S. Main St., Weaverville. Info: avl.mx/efj X
Blissful Chiropractic
Experience a 45 minute adjustment that starts with a cranial sacral massage to relax the nerves followed by a gentle hands-on chiropractic adjustment.
Sacral Occipital, Applied Kinesiology, and traditional adjustments also available
Sewerage
NEW ROLE: Drew Ball, left, is sworn into office by attorney Anna Stearns of Black Mountain as family members look on. Photo by Carmela Caruso
Draft report: School districts shouldn’t consolidate
After nearly nine months of evaluation, the draft report of a school district consolidation study of Asheville City Schools (ACS) and Buncombe County Schools (BCS) recommends the systems remain independent of each other.
Mandated by the N.C. General Assembly in 2023, Buncombe County hired Charlotte-based Prismatic Services in March for $300,000 to analyze the feasibility of merging the county’s two public school districts based on finances, student enrollment, policies, procedures, student well-being, personnel, operations and facilities.
“Based on the aforementioned local factors, the current status of each school system and the likely enrollment and demographic trends in the next five-10 years … Prismatic does not recommend consolidation of ACS and BCS,” the report concluded.
In the first public conversation among elected officials after the report’s release, Buncombe County Board of Education members discussed their high-level takeaways at a work session Jan. 9. Several members, including Amy Churchill, Ann Franklin, Greg Cheatham and Judy Lewis, indicated that they agreed with the report and did not think a merger would benefit the districts as a whole.
“This generates more questions than answers,” said Lewis of potential consolidation. “People don’t need more upheaval right now. I’d like to see us go and figure out how to help children and not upset the apple cart.”
“I agree that both systems have merits. I agree that a merger would create more problems than it would solve,” added Franklin.
Prismatic based its conclusions on five local factors relevant to considering the feasibility of consolidation, according to the report: student performance, cost-saving potential, current levels of collaboration, school system culture and support for consolidation in the community.
On student performance, which Prismatic identified as the “primary factor” in assessing potential consolidation, the study found “no evidence that consolidation of ACS and BCS, by itself, would be likely to lead to those types of improved student outcomes.”
Prismatic added that neither system is operating at a much higher level than the other. “Both have disappointing current results with various student subgroups. Although both systems are making efforts to reduce achievement gaps, neither has yet demonstrated that it [is] on a certain path to success.”
Cheatham, who won his seat in November’s election, said he ran on ensuring student achievement was the guiding principle for the district and would guide his opinions on potential consolidation. “That’s the most important thing to me,” he said.
On finances, “Prismatic did not find areas of excess central staffing in either ACS or BCS,” the report noted. The study concluded that a consolidated system could eliminate 25 positions, including one superintendent, resulting in $3.3 million in annual savings. Based on 2022-23 school year budgets, that would be a savings of less than 1%, according to the report.
The report offered critiques of the two systems’ general lack of collaboration.
In other North Carolina counties with multiple districts, school systems were “generally far more collaborative and mutually supportive than they found in Buncombe County.”
Prismatic found that some staff members at BCS indicated they felt BCS was superior to ACS and that if the districts merged, ACS students would be “saved” or “rescued” by being included in the larger district.
The study also found the districts’ lack of collaboration on strategic planning and budgeting uniquely problematic given their geographic proximity, similar demographics and shared primary local funding source.
“There is little interaction between ACS and BCS currently,” Prismatic noted.
BCS board member Charles Martin, who was elected in November, said he was still on the fence as to whether consolidation was the right move. He said he’s heard from many parents who see the value in a merged system.
“We need to think about what the parents are saying or it’s going to eat us at the next election,” Martin said.
Prismatic, meanwhile, concluded that “there is little local appetite for consolidation.” Some who did express support for the merger did so because they felt it would be prudent to “try something new” or because historical leadership turnover problems at ACS and persistent achievement gaps feel insurmountable, according to the report.
In addition to its recommendation that the districts shouldn’t consolidate, the report offered other recommendations to redraw the two districts’ confusing boundaries, increase its shared services and review options to collectively rightsize facility inventories, including closing at least some schools.
Churchill acknowledged that there are ways the two districts should improve their working relationship.
“This would be a missed opportunity [if we didn’t] learn efficiencies from each other. Absolutely true. If there are things we are doing better, we should be sharing that information in a way that helps the entire county,” she said. “We shouldn’t have to merge to do that.”
Ahead of a joint meeting with the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners and Asheville City
Board of Education next week, Buncombe County Board of Education Chair Rob Elliot urged fellow board members to consider the health and well-being of the BCS district when reviewing the report.
“We need to focus on how this affects our students and families.”
Asheville’s school board is not scheduled to meet ahead of the joint meeting, which is scheduled from 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 16.
A final report with optional comments, recommendations or endorsements from the elected bodies is due to the N.C. General Assembly Saturday, Feb. 15.
School improvement plans for nine schools
As required by state law, the Buncombe County Board of Education approved school improvement plans for nine schools in the district considered low-performing.
The nine schools — Clyde A. Erwin Middle, Enka Middle, Joe P. Eblen Intermediate, Johnston Elementary, Leicester Elementary, Oakley Elementary, C.D. Owen Middle, W.D. Williams Elementary and Woodfin Elementary — were on the list because they earned an overall school performance grade of “D” or “F” and a school growth score of “met expected growth” or “not met expected growth” as defined by state law.
The district assembled school improvement teams — which consist of the school principal and other administrators, instructional personnel, teacher assistants and parents — to design the plans for improved school performance. Using this model, BCS had two schools exit low-performing status last year and three the year prior.
Martin was impressed with the plans, which received unanimous support from the board. He particularly praised the schools that focused their plans on closing the achievement gap between white students and their Black, Hispanic and disabled peers, similar to the way Avery’s Creek Elementary had when it was on the list two years earlier.
To improve their scores, Martin said, schools have to focus on closing the achievement gaps and suggested using Avery’s Creek as a “best practices” model to use systemwide.
“I guarantee you, if you do that, we will have all nine off this list,” he said.
— Greg Parlier X
SEEKING IMPROVEMENT: Buncombe County Board of Education member Kim Plemmons, center, said focusing more resources on multilingual learners would help low-performing schools succeed. Also pictured behind a district camera are Vice Chair Amy Churchill, left, and board member Charles Martin, right. Photo by Greg Parlier
First baby of 2025 at Mission
Frances Rosemary Hackney
arrived at 12:28 a.m. Jan. 1, the first baby of 2025 at Mission Hospital. She’s the younger sister of Fern Margaret and daughter of Mary Katherine O’Donnell and Patrick Hackney Welcome to the world, Frances!
Photo courtesy of Mission Hospital
EXTENDS
Haywood County damage appeal deadline
Haywood County and the towns of Clyde and Canton have extended the deadline to file appeals regarding substantial damage caused by Tropical Storm Helene. Those who received a Substantial Damage letter from the county now have 270 days from the date of the original letter to appeal the determination of substantial damage to their structure, a 90-day extension from the initial time frame. Contact the Haywood County Development Services Office, avl.mx/ef8. X
Grey Eagle closes
The Outpost
The Grey Eagle announced Jan. 3 on its Facebook page that it’s closing its sister location, The Outpost, which hosted music events along the French Broad River for two years. More than $500,000 was invested to bring the property up to code for multiple events. Just three months later, Tropical Storm Helene swept away that investment.
In the same post, The Grey Eagle announced plans to open a new downtown venue capable of hosting up to 1,500 people with a natural grass amphitheater. This space, located at The Hatch on South French Broad, “feels like a fitting continuation of our 30+ years of dedication to Asheville’s music community,” the post reads. X
Money in the bank
Mother Grove Goddess Temple launches tree fund
North Carolina received $1.6 billion in funding through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery. The City of Asheville will directly receive $225 million. “These funds will give us the opportunity to repair and enhance infrastructure, address housing and support business recovery,” Mayor Esther Manheimer stated at a Jan. 7 press conference. “I am committed to using these funds strategically and equitably to create a stronger, more sustainable future for Asheville
Mills River Presbyterian Church (MRPC) will host its 14th annual Puzzlefest from noon-8 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 19-Saturday, Jan. 25 in its Fellowship Hall.
People are invited to help put together a 4,000-piece “Noah’s Ark” puzzle. Bring canned food items (including soups, stews, vegetables and fruits) for the new MRPC Pantry that will open in February. There will also be a puzzle swap. The church is at 10 Presbyterian Church Road in Mills River. X
The Mother Grove Goddess Temple in Asheville has started the Oak and Mistletoe Fund to gather resources for planting native oak trees in areas devastated by Tropical Storm Helene. In collaboration with Asheville GreenWorks, its goal is to honor the mature trees lost to wind and rain by replanting native oak seedlings.
Through Saturday, Feb. 1, all donations to Mother Grove will be dedicated to this cause. Contributions can be made via check to P.O. Box 8031, Asheville, N.C., 28814; through PayPal at info@mothergroveavl.org or to @MotherGrove-GoddessTemple via Venmo. Note “The Oak and Mistletoe Fund” with donations. X
Disco is an incredibly sweet, social and playful young bunny available for adoption at the Asheville Humane Society (AHS). Her curiosity and excitement for petting and attention makes her a perfect addition for either an experienced rabbit afficionado or a first-time bunny family, according to AHS. AHS is at 14 Forever Friend Lane. X
Photo courtesy of the Asheville Humane Society
For a full list of community calendar guidelines, please visit mountainx.com/calendar. For questions about free listings, call 828-251-1333, opt. 4. For questions about paid calendar listings, please call 828-251-1333, opt. 1.
Online-only events
More info, page 25
More info, page 26
WELLNESS
Therapeutic Recreation
Adult Morning Movement
Wednesday mornings are all about active games, physical activities, and sports adapted to accommodate all skill levels
WE (1/15, 22), 10am, Tempie Avery Montford Community Center, 34 Pearson Ave
Intro to the Fitness Center
Learn how to use equipment and machines in the fitness center to jump start a regular wellness routine.
TH (1/16), 1pm, Stephens-Lee Recreation Center, 30 George Washington Carver Ave
Qi Gong for Overall Health & Wellness
A gentle practice to synchronize movement with breath. Learn how to relax your mind and body through slow intentional movements.
This class focuses on strengthening, stretching, and aerobics every Friday.
FR (1/17), 10am, Harvest House, 205 Kenilworth Rd
Tai Chi
Improve your movement and flexibility with relaxation techniques
each week.
FR (1/17), 1:30pm, Stephens-Lee Recreation Center, 30 George Washington Carver Ave
The Art Yoga Series
A harmonious blend of artistic inspiration and mindful movement guided by Julie Levin Caro. All levels are welcome.
SA (1/18), 10am, Asheville Art Museum, 2 S Pack Square
Himalayan Sound Bath Meditation
Imagine the soothing tones of Himalayan singing bowls washing over you, calming your mind, and rejuvenating your spirit.
SA (1/18), SU (1/19), 11am,, Somatic Sounds, 157 S Lexington Ave B1
Restorative Yoga & Hot Stones w/Live Violin
Experience the nurturing practice of restorative yoga and hot stones, placed strategically on your body to melt away stress and tension.
SA (1/18), 4pm, W Asheville Yoga, 602 Haywood Rd
Sunday Morning Meditation Group Gathering for a combination of silent sitting and walking meditation, facilitated by Worth Bodie.
SU (1/19), 10am, The Lodge at Quietude, 1130 Montreat Rd, Black Mountain
COMMUNITY CALENDAR
INSPIRED BY MLK: On Sunday, Jan. 19, the Kenilworth Center hosts a two-hour workshop, We Shall Not Be Moved: The Essential Practices of Nonviolent Resistance, starting at 2 p.m. The workshop will explore Kingian nonviolence, a philosophy of nonviolent conflict reconciliation in the tradition of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the organizing strategies of the civil rights movement. Photo courtesy of Adobe Stock
Prenatal & Postpartum
Yoga
A rejuvenating and relaxing yoga session designed specifically for pregnant and postpartum folks.
SU (1/19), noon, W Asheville Yoga, 602 Haywood Rd
Queer Yoga This class is donation-based and centered towards creating an affirming and inclusive space for all queer folks.
SU (1/19), 1:30pm, W Asheville Yoga, 602 Haywood Rd
Strength & Exercise
Workout at your own pace in a fun atmosphere in this weekly class for active adults working on overall fitness and strength.
MO (1/20), 9:30am, Harvest House, 205 Kenilworth Rd
Prenatal Yoga
Paulina, a yoga teacher and certified birth doula, will guide you through gentle poses
and breathing exercises to help you connect with your changing body.
MO (1/20), 5:30pm, W Asheville Yoga, 602 Haywood Rd
Balance, Agility, Strength, Stretch
This weekly class for adults focuses on flexibility, balance, stretching, and strength. Bring your own exercise mat.
TU (1/21), noon, Harvest House, 205 Kenilworth Rd
Qigong
A gentle form of exercise composed of movement, posture, breathing, and meditation used to promote health and spirituality.
TU (1/21), 1:15pm, Harvest House, 205 Kenilworth Rd
Community Yoga & Mindfulness Free monthly event with Inspired Change Yoga that will lead you into a morning of breathwork,
meditation and yoga. Bring your own mat.
WE (1/22), 10:30am, AmeriHealth Caritas, 216 Asheland Ave
Tai Chi Chih
Move towards better health and more happiness with mindful, moving meditation.
WE (1/22), noon, Harvest House, 205 Kenilworth Rd
Tantra Yoga w/ Suzanne
Get a little interior redesign with this class that integrates movement, breath, awareness, light humor and Vedic Wisdom.
WE (1/22), 5pm, Highland Brewing Co., 12 Old Charlotte Hwy, Ste 200
Kitten Yoga
A 60-minute kitten yoga class taught by Elizabeth. Bring your yoga mat and recharge your energy while being assaulted by adorable, adoptable kittens.
WE (1/22), 6pm, House of Black Cat Magic, Co., 841 Haywood Rd
SUPPORT GROUPS
Nicotine Anonymous People share their experience, strength and hope to stop using nicotine. You don’t need to be stopped, just have a desire to attend.
A free community narcan training led by Sunrise Recovery and hosted by AmeriHealth Caritas. Learn how to use Naloxone, an introductory into harm
others.
MO (1/20), 6pm, Stephens-Lee Recreation Center, 30 George Washington Carver Ave
Zumba Gold
A weekly interval-style dance fitness party that combines low- and high-intensity moves. Burn calories as you move to the rhythm.
WE (1/22), noon, Stephens-Lee Recreation Center, 30 George Washington Carver Ave
Open-Level Adult
Dance
Each class will feature a full-body warm-up, specific skill practice, and a dance combination to your favorite music.
WE (1/22), 5:30pm, Black Mountain Center for the Arts, 225 W. State St, Black Mountain Latin Night Wednesday w/DJ Mtn Vibez
A Latin dance social featuring salsa, bachata, merengue, cumbia, and reggaeton with dance lessons for all skill levels.
WE (1/22), 8pm, One World Brewing W, 520 Haywood Rd
reduction, and more.
WE (1/15), 10:30am, AmeriHealth Caritas, 216 Asheland Ave
Magnetic Minds: Depression & Bipolar Support Group
A free weekly peer-led meeting for those living with depression, bipolar, and related mental health challenges. For more information contact (828) 367-7660.
SA (1/18), 2pm, First Congregational UCC of Asheville, 20 Oak St
DANCE
Intro to Line Dance
A true beginners course for those who are new to line dance taught by Liz Atkinson.
WE (1/15), 10am, Harvest House, 205 Kenilworth Rd
Tap Dance: Beginner Tap dance for beginners teaches the basics through a combination of exercise, music, and incredible fun. Students provide their own tap shoes.
Line Dancing Groove in for this fun weekly drop-in class.
TH (1/16, 23), 12pm, Stephens-Lee Recreation Center, 30 George Washington Carver Ave Bachata Dance Lesson & Social Live DJ Bachata nights with some Cha Cha, Cumbia, Merengue and Salsa added to the mix.
Contact Improv Dance Explore mindful, unscripted movement in deep connection with
is drawn from the collection of Andrew and Hathia Hayes, demonstrating the different approaches to ceramics in WNC. Gallery open daily, 11am, closed Tuesday. Exhibition through March, 2025.
Asheville Art Museum, 2 S Pack Square
Anti Form: Robert Morris’s Earth Projects
The suite of lithographic drawings by Robert Morris presents a series of ideas for ten works of art shaped out of earth, atmospheric conditions, and built environments. Gallery open Wednesday through Sunday, 11am. Exhibition through May 2025.
Asheville Art Museum, 2 S Pack Square
Standing Strong
Line Dancing Groove in for this fun weekly drop-in class. TH (1/23), noon, Stephens-Lee Recreation Center, 30 George Washington Carver Ave
ART
Ginny Ruffner: Reforestation of the Imagination
This exhibition explores an imaginative landscape of plant forms that come to life when activated with augmented reality. Gallery open daily, 11am, closed Tuesday. Exhibition through Jan. 20, 2025.
Asheville Art Museum, 2 S Pack Square
Valley Talent Exhibition
An annual exhibition that invites eight local valley schools/programs to have their art teachers select works to be featured in at BMCA. Artists range from kindergarten to high school students. Gallery open Monday through Friday, 10am. Exhibition through Jan. 31. Black Mountain Center for the Arts, 225 W State St, Black Mountain
Amanda N. Simons: Forest Feels
Forest Feels invites its viewers to participate in two distinct realities of an art museum experience: to observe the work as it is in this moment, and also to change the work by contributing to its evolution. Gallery open daily, 11am, closed Tuesday. Exhibition through Jan. 20, 2025.
Asheville Art Museum, 2 S Pack Square
Forces of Nature: Ceramics from the Hayes Collection Forces of Nature
This exhibition features artworks by artists who have been affected by Hurricane Helene. There will be 14 artists participating: Annie Kyla Bennett, Elizabeth Porritt Carrington, Greg Carr, Heather Clements and more. Gallery open Monday through Saturday, 11am and Sunday, noon. Exhibition through Jan. 25. Bender Gallery, 29 Biltmore Ave
Moving Stillness: Mount Rainier
An immersive experience that explores the ideas of death and regeneration in nature. Gallery open daily, 11am, closed Tuesday. Exhibition through Jan. 20, 2025.
Asheville Art Museum, 2 S Pack Square
The Last Chair of the Forest & the Plastic Bottle
Immerse yourself in a poignant virtual reality (VR) short film that delves into environmental consciousness and the delicate balance of nature. Gallery open daily, 11am, closed Tuesday. Exhibition through Jan. 20, 2025. Asheville Art Museum, 2 S Pack Square
The Totem: Celebrating Family, Spirit & Culture
Ten Asheville artists offer unique interpretations of totems, exploring family, spirit, and cultural themes. These modern totems invite viewers to reflect on their connections to family and heritage. Gallery open Monday through Saturday, 10am. Exhibition through Jan. 31.
UpMarket Events & Gallery, 70 North Market St
American Made Paintings & Sculpture from the DeMell Jacobsen Collection The exhibition beautifully illustrates distinctive styles and thought-provoking art explored by American artists over the past two centuries with more
than 100 works of art by renowned American artists. Gallery open daily, 11am, closed Monday and Tuesday. Exhibition through Feb. 10, 2025.
Asheville Art Museum, 2 S Pack Square
COMMUNITY MUSIC
Dreams I'm Never
Gonna See: The Takeover of WDIZ Rock 11/FM
The title piece relates the takeover of central Florida's hottest rock radio station by the Ida Lupino Liberation Organization, of which he was a member.
WE (1/15), 6pm, Malaprop's Bookstore and Cafe, 55 Haywood St
Men in Harmony: Open Singing Jam
Men's a capella ensemble hosts an open jam session to scout for new talented members as well as share an evening of music. For more information contact Jim Gordon at (828) 545-2262.
WE (1/15), 6:45pm, St. Matthias Church, 1 Dundee St
Jazz Standards & Beyond w/Leo Johnson
Trio
Leo Johnson’s music embodies the timeless essence of jazz guitar’s golden era.
FR (1/17), 7:30pm, Tina McGuire Theatre, Wortham Center for the Performing Arts, 18 Biltmore Ave
BMCA Instructor's Concert
You’ll experience a variety of music from several different genres as instructors perform individual and collaborative pieces. A portion of the proceeds from this concert will help support the Swannanoa Community Chorus at BMCA.
SA (1/18), 7pm, Black Mountain Center for the Arts, 225 West State St, Black Mountain
Asheville Jazz Orchestra w/Big Band Night
The AJO’s repertoire ranges from Swing Era dance classics to original charts by band members and other contemporary composers.
SU (1/19), 7:30pm, White Horse Black Mountain, 105C Montreat Rd, Black Mountain
Yarn/Wire Performs Annea Lockwood & Katherine Young
The Yarn/Wire ensemble will perform the second realization of their Fromm Foundation-supported project in collaboration with composer Katherine Young, entitled BIOMES 6.1.
TH (1/23), 7pm, Black Mountain College Museum & Arts Center, 120 College St
COMMUNITY WORKSHOPS
Change Your Palate Cooking Demo
This free lunchtime food demonstration is open to all but tailored towards those with type 2 diabetes or hypertension and/or their caretakers.
WE (1/15), noon, AmeriHealth Caritas, 216 Asheland Ave
Mountain Stitchers Gather with other makers while you work on knitting, crocheting, stitching, or other personal fiber projects.
WE (1/15), 1pm, Harvest House, 205 Kenilworth Rd
LITERARY
Pen to Paper Writing Group
Share stories of your life with others on the first and third Wednesday of each month.
WE (1/15), 10am, Harvest House, 205 Kenilworth Rd
Asheville StorySLAM: Reset
Prepare a five-minute story about a fresh start. Clean slates and wet paint. When the tide came in and the sandcastle returned to sand. See p26
TH (1/16), 7:30pm, The Grey Eagle, 185 Clingman Ave
In the Spirit of the River: Children's Book Talk
Learn about a Cherokee tale of healing with the river. Take a voyage with 2 children on a spiritual quest. Read about early settlers in the area.
SA (1/18), 2pm,Pack Memorial Library, 67 Haywood St
Brian Lee Knopp: The Takeover of WDIZ Rock/FM & Other Essays
The title piece relates the 1981 takeover of central Florida's hottest rock radio station by the Ida Lupino Liberation Organization, of which he was a member.
SA (1/18), 3pm, City Lights Bookstore, 3 E Jackson St, Sylva Flooded Poetry
Each poet will be able to share 2-3 poems, and occasionally we will have local celebrity poets close out our night with a featured reading.
MO (1/20), 6:30pm, Flood Gallery, 802 Fairview Rd Ste 1200
Terry Roberts In Conversation w/Denise Kiernan
Terry Roberts is the author of five celebrated novels: A Short Time to Stay Here, That Bright Land, The Holy Ghost Speakeasy and Revival, My Mistress' Eyes are Raven Black, and The Sky Club
TU (1/21), 7pm, Citizen Vinyl, 14 O Henry Ave
THEATER & FILM
Classic Southern Folktales w/Becky & Pat Stone
Enjoy an evening of music and storytelling
with distinctly Southern Roots from Asheville storyteller, actor, Chautauqua scholar and her husband and long-time collaborator.
TH (1/16), 7pm, Weaverville Community Center, 60 Lakeshore Dr, Weaverville
Rennie Harris Puremovement: Student Series
Introduce your students to the visionary work of one of the most respected hip-hop choreographers in the country.
FR (1/17), 10am, Wortham Center For The Performing Arts, 18 Biltmore Ave
Foreign Film Fridays
Every Friday visitors can enjoy a cozy movie night in the gallery featuring some amazing foreign films curated by film-buff Carlos Steward.
After being denied a promotion at the university where she teaches, Doctor Lily Penleric, a brilliant musicologist, impulsively visits her sister, who runs a struggling rural school in Appalachia.
FR (1/17), 7:30pm, White Horse Black Mountain, 105C Montreat Rd, Black Mountain
Rennie Harris Puremovement
Thissuite of works is designed to challenge popular perceptions of street dance, shaking the art form at its foundations to reveal the complex narratives and artistic ingenuity at its core.
FR (1/17), 8pm, Wortham Center For The Performing Arts, 18 Biltmore Ave
PowerPoint Nights
A unique evening of hilarious presentations as everyone is encouraged to share their funniest, most creative, or most family-friendly
absurd ideas.
WE (1/22), 6:30pm, Dr Wesley Grant Sr. Southside Community Center, 285 Livingston St
MEETINGS & PROGRAMS
Recovery Roundtable:
A Collaborative Initiative for WNC Business Owners Post-Hurricane Helene
This group session will kick off an ongoing initiative aimed at supporting WNC business owners and entrepreneurs impacted by Hurricane Helene.
WE (1/15), 4pm, Hatch Innovation Hub, 45 S French Broad Ave
Beginning Cherokee Language
Learn a new language in the new year with beginner Cherokee lessons on the Qualla Boundary. This offering is free of charge and open to all. Drop-ins are also welcome.
WE (1/15, 22), 5pm, Museum of the Cherokee People, 589 Tsali Blvd., Cherokee
NSA-WNC Meeting
Professional keynote speakers, coaches, trainers, facilitators, and consultants who cover a broad range of topics,
Sensu is a global dance fusion for authentic embodiment and expression. All are welcome. No dance experience needed.
TH (1/16), 11am, Magictown Movement Studio, 115 Blannahassett Island Rd, Marshall
IBN Biz Lunch: Canton
All are invited to attend and promote their business, products, and services, and meet new referral contacts.
TH (1/16), 11:30am, Southern Porch, 449 Main St, Canton
Free Sober Disc Golf
This is a great opportunity to get outside and get some exercise. It's also a fun time to meet others in recovery, build community and create connection. No experience is necessary.
TH (1/16), 3:30pm, Richmond Hill Park, 300 Richmond Hill Dr
An Artful Journey: Siena & The Rise of Painting
Each Artful Journey will begin with coffee, tea, and pastries followed by an inspiring lecture and discussion with art historian and curator Julianna Caro. .
FR (1/17), 10:30am, Black Mountain Center for the Arts, 225 W State St, Black Mountain
A Course in Miracles w/ Patricia Dobberke
Patricia has chosen to facilitate a group because of the need for support in the journey of self in reality. It is a platform for clarification on a personal level uncovering the deeper truer self.
FR (1/17), 1pm, Center for Spiritual Living Asheville, 2 Science Mind Way
Tarot w/Cats
This 1-hour workshop will be held in the cat lounge, and will include a brief history of the tarot, and how to incorporate a one- and three-card pull for daily guidance.
FR (1/17), 5:30pm,House of Black Cat Magic, Co., 841 Haywood Rd
Teen Laser Tag
Spectacular
Enter a dark gym for thrilling laser tag battles with immersive lighting effects, music, and decorations for an unforgettable experience.
FR (1/17), 6:30pm, Dr Wesley Grant Sr. Southside Community Center, 285 Livingston St
Rev. Suzi Presents: The Role of Faith Communities in a Divided America
Rev. Suzi will lead an exploration of how faith communities can bridge divides and foster healing in our nation.
FR (1/17), 7pm, Center for Spiritual Living Asheville, 2 Science Mind Way
Find Your Familiar: Black Cat Adoption Event
A black cat adoption event that will feature black kittens galore of all shapes, sizes, and ages. Find your loyal guardians, energy protectors, healers, and the truest of companions.
SA (1/18), noon, House of Black Cat Magic, Co., 841 Haywood Rd
Adult Community Basketball Shoot some hoops or play a pick up game with friends. No pre-registration required.
SU (1/19), 1pm, Dr Wesley Grant Sr. Southside Community Center, 285 Livingston St
Serenity Sound Bath
A one-hour Serenity Sound Bath and experience a deeply immersive, full-body sound and vibrational experience.
SU (1/19), 1pm, Center for Spiritual Living Asheville, 2 Science Mind Way
World Fiddle Workshop
Students will learn pieces from genres including old-time and bluegrass, Celtic, Romanian, Russian and Ukrainian, Klezmer, and Middle Eastern music.
SU (1/19), 1pm, Asheville Music School, 10 Ridgelawn Rd
Coloring w/Cats: Teens & Adults
Set time for yourself and cuddle with the panthers, meet other cat-lovers, and color a beautiful picture of a cat from our adult coloring books.
SU (1/19), 2pm, House of Black Cat Magic, Co., 841 Haywood Rd
Family Open Gym
Weekly time in the gym reserved for all ages to shoot hoops and play other active games as a family.
SU (1/19), 4pm, Dr Wesley Grant Sr. Southside Community Center, 285 Livingston St
Dharma & Discuss w/ Paul Linn
Experience social sangha for guided meditation, dharma instruction and an introduction to the practice of Tonglen with Paul Linn.
MO (1/20), 6:30pm,
The Lodge at Quietude, 1130 Montreat Rd, Black Mountain
Alive After 55+
A program for active older adults to socialize, play board games and puzzles, create in group art activities, and more. Fitness and cardio room also available.
TU (1/21), 10am, Linwood Crump Shiloh Community Center, 121 Shiloh Rd
Asheville-Buncombe
Senior Games Clinics
Enhance skills and discover new passions through APR's free clinics, available to all interested participants in this year’s Asheville-Buncombe Senior Games.
TU (1/21), 10am, West Asheville Park, 198 Vermont Ave
EveryDay Strong
A program that equips caring adults with training and tools to support the mental health and wellness of children aged 8 to 18.
TU (1/21), 10am, AmeriHealth Caritas, 216 Asheland Ave
Random Acts of Flowers: Floral Arrangements for Those Needing a Smile
Random Acts of Flowers improves the emotional health and well-being of individuals in healthcare facilities by delivering recycled flowers, encouragement, and personal
moments of kindness.
TU (1/21), 10am, AmeriHealth Caritas, 216 Asheland Ave
Therapeutic Recreation
Adult Crafting
A variety of cooking and crafts, available at two different times. Advance registration required. Open to individuals ages 17+ with disabilities.
TU (1/21), 10am and 11am, Murphy-Oakley Community Center, 749 Fairview Rd
IBN Biz Lunch: Arden
All are invited to attend and promote their business, products, and services, and meet new referral contacts.
TU (1/21), 11:30am, Wild Wing Cafe South, 65 Long Shoals Rd, Arden
Lunch & Learn Series w/ Rev. Michele Laub, RScP
This Lunch & Learn series was specifically designed for those of us who want to continue to expand our spirituality and are not comfortable driving in the dark.
TU (1/21), 12pm, Center for Spiritual Living Asheville, 2 Science Mind Way
Veterans Creative Retreat
The mission of the retreat is to provide a safe space for veterans to explore various artistic mediums, socialize with
peers, and find calm and comfort in creating. Free to all Veterans, their spouses, partners and adult children.
TU (1/21), 5:30pm, Givens Gerber Park, 40 Gerber Rd
Grant Southside Center
Walking Club
Walk inside in the gym or outside, if the weather is nice, with themed music each week.
WE (1/22), 10:30am, Dr Wesley Grant Sr. Southside Community Center, 285 Livingston St
GAMES & CLUBS
Bid Whist
Make bids, call trumps, and win tricks. Every Saturday for fun competition with the community.
SA (1/18), 1pm, Dr Wesley Grant Sr. Southside Community Center, 285 Livingston St
Community Bingo Prizes awarded to winners of each game. Recurs the third Saturday of each month.
SA (1/18), 1pm, Stephens-Lee Recreation Center, 30 George Washington Carver Ave
Bid Whist Group meets weekly with light refreshments and teams formed based
Wellness
on drop-in attendance.
MO (1/20), 5:30pm, Stephens-Lee Recreation Center, 30 George Washington Carver Ave
Ultimate Bid Whist & Spades
Bring a partner or come solo for a fun evening of competitive bid whist and spades every Tuesday.
TU (1/21), 6pm, Linwood Crump Shiloh Community Center, 121 Shiloh Rd
KID-FRIENDLY PROGRAMS
Coloring w/Cats: Kiddie Edition
An artistic session with coloring books and markers for children ages 13 and under to relax by coloring as they pet cats to reduce stress and anxiety.
SA (1/18), 1pm, House of Black Cat Magic, Co., 841 Haywood Rd
Kids Quiet Play Session
Some benefits, especially useful for children, include mental clarity for distracted youngsters as well as immune boosting, respiratory relief and relief from skin conditions.
SU (1/19), 10am, Asheville Salt Cave, 16 N Liberty St
World of Games
Grab a controller and best your opponent to play games like Fortnite, Warzone, Madden, and 2K. Board and card games available for those not gaming.
TU (1/21), 6pm, Stephens-Lee Recreation Center, 30 George Washington Carver Ave
Tiny Tykes Wednesday Play Dates
Open play for toddlers to explore bikes, balls, inflatables, climbing structures, and more fun.
WE (1/22), 10am, Stephens-Lee Recreation Center, 30 George Washington Carver Ave
Beginner Climbing: Ages 5-7
A three-week instructional climbing class
designed for beginners. Adults belay their own children.
TH (1/23), 12:30pm, Tempie Avery Montford Community Center, 34 Pearson Ave
Black Cat Tales: Story Time w/Cats
A special after-school workshop where families with children age 7 and under can relax and foster a love of reading while also socializing with the cats in the lounge.
TH (1/23), 4pm, House of Black Cat Magic, Co., 841 Haywood Rd
LOCAL MARKETS
RAD Farmers Market
A vibrant mid-week market with dozens of high-quality artisan food businesses. Fresh vegetables, baked goods, pastured meats, raw honey, ferments, hot sauces, and more.
See p25
WE (1/15), 3pm, AB Tech, 24 Fernihurst Dr
FESTIVALS & SPECIAL EVENTS
An Arctic Soirée: A Celebration of New Work
This immersive event features the newest creations of Mark Bettis, Victoria Pinney, and Jeffrey Burroughs, complemented by the captivating sounds of AVL.XLR & Phantom Pantone. See p26 FR (1/17), 5pm, Gallery Mélange, 67 Biltmore Ave, Ste 20
Snow Day Release Party
A special release party of a fan favorite winter ale. The Hop Ice Cream will be on-site selling ice cream. Buy a pint of Snow Day and get a scoop of Vanilla bean to top off your beer. FR (1/17), 5pm, New Belgium Brewing Co., 21 Craven St
Heavy Mountain Music & Beer Fest
Featuring an array of iconic artists and
genre spanning acts, exclusive pours from the area’s finest breweries, and hair-raising visual installations.
SA (1/18), 2pm, The Orange Peel, 101 Biltmore Ave
We Shall Not Be
Moved: The Essential Practices of Nonviolent Resistance
A 2-hour workshop on the Practices of Kingian Nonviolence, a philosophy of nonviolent conflict reconciliation in the tradition of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. and the organizing strategies of the Civil Rights Movement.
SU (1/19), 2pm, Kenilworth Center, 4 Chiles Ave
Yoga & Live Music w/ Tara & Hope
Tara will lovingly hold you as she guides you through a nourishing practice while Hope will transport you to another realm with her musical magic.
SU (1/19), 7pm, W Asheville Yoga, 602 Haywood Rd
MLK Day of Service
Asheville Parks & Recreation, Riverlink, Hood Huggers, Burton Street Community Association, and more will unite to beautify the Burton Street community.
MO (1/20), 11am, Burton Street Community Center, 134 Burton St .
BENEFITS & VOLUNTEERING
Read 2 Succeed New Tutor Training Volunteer reading tutors are needed to build a lasting relationship with a student for the entire school year, meeting with them twice a week either during or after school. Visit avl.mx/bto to apply.
WE (1/15), 6pm, Online
Comedy Night Fundraiser
Come out for a night of laughs and help our fellow community. This is a donation based show.
Pay what you can and
they will be donating all proceeds to local folks affected by Helene. FR (1/17), 7pm, Lookout Brewing Co., 103 S Ridgeway Ave
Honky Tonk Against Hate Benefit for ROAR
A benefit show in support of ROAR. All proceeds will be donated to help support the work they are doing in the community.
SA (1/18), 8pm, Eda's Hide-a-Way, 1098 New Stock Rd, Weaverville Coverfest IV: A Benefit for Asheville Middle School
An evening of incredible live music, community spirit and one-of-a-kind benefit concert. This annual event will feature 10 outstanding local and regional acts.
SU (1/19), 5pm, The Grey Eagle, 185 Clingman Ave
Fringe Winter Party & Fundraiser
A fundraiser for Asheville Fringe Society, featuring Toybox, Strange Daughters Butoh, Anam Cara Theatre, and more.
SU (1/19), 6pm, Fleetwood's, 496 Haywood Rd
Comedy for Community Supporting RiverLink Comedy for Community brings all your favorite local comedians together each week to support the town we love through a variety of local charities and organizations. This week will benefit RiverLink.
SU (1/19), 6:30pm, Catawba Brewing Co. South Slope Asheville, 32 Banks Ave
Blood Drive w/The Blood Connection
All donors will receive the standard $20 e-gift card, but also a bonus $20 e-gift card, just for donating, which can save up to three lives.
TU (1/21), 1pm, Highland Brewing Co., 12 Old Charlotte Hwy, Ste 200
GREEN Forest keepers
Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians assume greater leadership role
BY CHLOE LIEBERMAN
info.wildabundance@gmail.com
Trey Adcock, executive director for the Center for Native Health, believes history was made when around 20 Cherokee people gathered at an undisclosed location deep in Nantahala National Forest in late 2024 to continue fostering the long-developing costewardship between the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Natural Resources Department (EBCI NRD), the Center for Native Health (CNH) and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS).
“As far as we know, this is the largest gathering of Cherokee people in this place together since the removal period, which to me is really meaningful,” says Adcock.
Central to that day’s conversation was the topic of Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge, also referred to as TEK.
“The Forest Service recognizes the importance of Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge,” says Maria Dunlavey, a Nantahala National Forest botanist involved in tribal forestry projects since 2019. “We have guidance to incorporate it into decision-making. We also know that TEK isn’t static; it’s an evolving body of observations, oral and written knowledge, practices and beliefs, and it’s owned by tribes. By investing in the Cherokee relationship with the land, we’re investing in that knowledge.”
And the knowledge runs deep.
“The health of Indigenous peoples is inherently tied to the well-being of the land we call home. For so many people, there’s no connection with culture when there’s no access to land,” says Bonnie Claxton, program officer for CNH Land and Wellness.
HONORING TRADITIONS
Present at the gathering were the Earth Keepers —‚ Elohi Dinigatiyi in the Cherokee language — a group of traditional Cherokee knowledge keepers who “came together to apply Kituwah science, and the language that protects it, to conserve and preserve the mountains, forests, water and air and all they contain,” according to the CNH website. Formed three years ago, the group helps guide the EBCI Natural Resources Department and others on how to best care for Cherokee people, also known as Kituwah people, and lands. The Earth
Keepers have some fluency in the disappearing Cherokee language and are practitioners of basketry, wild food and medicine gathering and preparation, and other traditions that involve deep relationships with the land.
For nearly 20 years, the Forest Service has been engaging more and more with tribes to incorporate TEK in the collaborative management of public lands. “Many of those lands and waters lie within areas where tribes have reserved the right to hunt, fish and pray by ratified treaties and agreements with the United States,” says a 2023 Forest Service Action Plan. “Concurrently, it is important to recognize a dark and complicated shared history, where many Indigenous people were forced to move from and give up their homelands. When we acknowledge that history, we can begin the urgent work to repair relationships with tribes.”
The move toward collaborative stewardship is also a result of mounting Western scientific evidence that TEK can be a powerful tool to protect biodiversity and adapt to climate change. “TEK strengthens community resilience to respond to the multiple stressors of global environmental change,” according to a paper titled “Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Global Environmental Change” published in Ecology and Society.
Tommy Cabe, a forest resources specialist and enrolled member of the EBCI who has worked with the EBCI NRD for over 20 years, says that as the relationship between the USFS and the EBCI NRD grew, he and oth-
ers realized, “It was probably not a good representation of who we are as Kituwah people to operate in a colonial framework.” He and others believe it makes sense for the EBCI NRD to be a point of contact in this government-to-government relationship and for the traditional wisdom of the tribal community to guide the conversation through the Earth Keepers.
ANCESTRAL LANDS
For at least 10,000 years, the Cherokee people have been living in what we now call the Southern Appalachians and beyond, encompassing parts or all of West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians was once part of a much larger Cherokee population, but forced relocation split Cherokee people into the Cherokee Nation and United Kituwah Band, located in Oklahoma, and the Eastern Band, made up of those who remained and rebuilt within North Carolina’s Qualla Boundary (sometimes called the Cherokee Indian Reservation), according to the EBCI website.
“These places are Cherokee ancestral lands; they’re here because of thousands of years of Indigenous stewardship,” says Dunlavey, referring to the biologically rich areas that she studies and helps to protect in the Nantahala.
The costewardship projects being undertaken by the CNH, EBCI NRD and USFS are part of a larger “land back” movement, a decentralized effort that began in the 1960s to return land ownership and access to the hands of Indigenous people. According to the Community-Based Global Learning Collective, land back means “returning control over ancestral territories back to its stewards, allowing them to begin restoring their connection to ancestral lands in meaningful ways. By transferring power and wealth back to Indigenous people, land restitution … supports Indigenous sovereignty.”
Even though these local projects in the Cherokee homeland don’t involve transferring ownership, they do give Indigenous people a seat at the table to influence management decisions. “Land back can look a lot of different ways,” says Claxton. “It has to be specific to the community you’re working with.”
Cabe agrees and says he prefers to think of it as “land forward” and “reindigenizing the colonial framework of management.” He echoes the views of the CNH that land is a part of wellness — and not just for Cherokees but for everyone. “What people call conservation in this modern society, we call relationships,” says Cabe.
Work in 2025 will include more visits to important sites and efforts to involve other Native people, including the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. The EBCI NRD also is working with the USFS to incorporate artisanal resources and food sovereignty into management plans and restore Cherokee language place names to more areas.
Both the CNH and EBCI NRD are engaging youth in restoring traditional practices such as controlled burning as part of their Youth Workforce Development Initiative and creating pathways for young Cherokee people to develop careers in land management and forestry. All are part of collaborative stewardship of these wild mountains.
“What they call the ‘land of many uses’ we see as a ‘place of many relatives,’” Cabe says. “We’re hopefully creating a path toward having our Tribal seal right next to the Forest Service seal.” X
LONG VIEW: A group of Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians returned to these ancestral lands in October as part of an ongoing effort to illustrate to the U.S. Forest Service the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians’ stewardship. Photo by Chloe Lieberman
ARTS & CULTURE
Hip-hop healing
BY GINA SMITH
Rhyming is a passion — as well as bread and butter — for Secret Agent 23 Skidoo, Asheville’s eternally exuberant, purple top hat-wearing children’s hip-hop artist.
This month, the Grammy Awardwinning musician — also known as Cactus — channels his celebrated songwriting skills into a new community educational offering, the Imaginarium: Flip the Script!, a rhyme-writing workshop and performance series for local youths.
The project, generally designed for ages 7-17, launches at 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 19, at AyurPrana Listening Room in West Asheville. The choose-yourown-adventure, eight-week program consists of weekly classes combined with performances culminating in a capstone community hip-hop show with the whole Secret Agent 23 Skidoo crew.
The concept merges rhyme-writing techniques and 23 Skidoo’s unique brand of uplifting playfulness and creativity with elements of a classic rites-of-passage journey. An underlying objective is to offer local kids tools for healing and growth in the wake of Tropical Storm Helene.
ROOTED IN PARADISE
Cactus — who spoke with Xpress in late December shortly before departing on a three-week 23 Skidoo tour of Australia — is well-versed in teaching others to rhyme: He’s offered classes for all ages on the craft for close to 15 years across the United States and around the globe.
But the seed that grew into the unique concept of the Imaginarium was planted in his imagination several years ago in Paradise, the California town that was famously destroyed by wildfires in 2018. After the fires, California State University – Chico enlisted Secret Agent 23 Skidoo in a grant-funded project designed to teach rhyme-writing to children as a response to trauma.
“Up until that point, I’d done a lot of rhyme-writing workshops and very much believed in its ability to change people, its ability to bring things out of people and heal people,” Cactus says.
After the initial workshops, 23 Skidoo was invited back to teach week-long rhyme-writing residencies at every school in the district. Through that experience, Cactus developed techniques for teaching rap through the lens of a rite-of-passage journey.
IMAGINE THAT: Grammy Award-winning Asheville children’s hip-hop artist Cactus — aka Secret Agent 23 Skidoo — kicks off his new Imaginarium: Flip the Script! rhyme-writing program on Jan. 19. Photo courtesy of the artist
“In a classic rite of passage — and, of course, every culture has a different take on this — some of the basic steps are to be separated from the community, to take on a quest on your own, to face your fears,” he says. “You’re usually given a new name, then you come back a changed person and share your new power, your new strength, with the community.”
In the Imaginarium: Flip the Script! workshops, the separation and quest occur when participants are asked to look deeply within themselves to find something of value they want to share, refine the idea, then get on stage and release it to the community.
“That’s overcoming one of the biggest fears in modern society — public speaking,” says Cactus. “I mean, most adults are crippled by that, so being able to overcome it is really huge.”
Kids are also asked to come up with their own new hip-hop name before they perform.
In the Paradise community, Cactus had the opportunity to see the benefits of the process firsthand and through reports from teachers. Some students became more comfortable talking to other people, he says. Some came out of their shell onstage and went on to join theater groups.
And a few did keep writing raps. He recalls one child whose home burned down in the fires and had to live with his family in a car for a time. “Similar to Asheville, when a lot of houses are destroyed in a disaster, it’s really hard to find a new place to move into. He did continue to write rhymes,” Cactus says. “That really helped him channel a lot of the emotion that he was dealing
with from that situation, and also have something to focus on.”
‘OK TO FAIL’
Cactus had plans to introduce the Imaginarium to Asheville even before Tropical Storm Helene devastated Western North Carolina. “But after the disaster, I really stepped up,” he says. “I was like, OK, now we have to do this, because I know how well doing this exact thing as a response to something like Helene works.”
He points out, though, that the Flip the Script! program doesn’t lean too heavily into its trauma-healing superpower. Anyone can participate and have a great time, whether or not they identify as having experienced trauma.
“The truth is, a lot of times trauma is healed through fun and excitement and laughter and being silly and being creative and playing, and that’s what we’re going to be doing,” Cactus explains. He kicks off each session by asking each participant to write a word they like on a piece of paper and hold it up for everyone to see. He then puts on a beat and freestyles all the words into a song — sometimes 40 or 50 of them, depending on the group size.
The icebreaker demonstrates how easy it can be to put words together, he says. But it also has another purpose. “There are times I will slip, and that’s OK. That’s a big part of what this is — that it’s OK to fail. I think there’s a lot of pressure on kids right now, but being able to fail in a supportive place where we’re all there to create and have fun together means that it’s not so scary.”
From there, Cactus shares some history about the cultural origins of hip-hop, then asks participants to brainstorm a few other words. They then review techniques for creating rhymes for each of them and weave those into phrases.
“Then we talk about how to deliver that with the right emphasis, the right rhythm, the right mic control and stage presence,” he says. “Each of those steps, when you break it down into bite-sized pieces, is really achievable.”
LIFE TOOLS
All components of the series happen at 2:30 p.m. on Sundays, Jan. 19-March 23 — all at AyurPrana Listening Room except the Feb. 9 showcase, which takes place at The Grey Eagle. The four two-and-a-half hour workshops (Jan. 19, Feb. 2, Feb. 16 and March 16) are staggered with two unique shows (Jan. 26 and March 2) featuring performances by participants from the previous classes, Secret Agent 23 Skidoo and featured guest performers.
Two showcases will invite students from all preceding workshops to strut
their stuff onstage for the whole community with Secret Agent 23 Skidoo and other acts. The first showcase is Feb. 9 at The Grey Eagle. The grand finale and “ultimate boogie-woogie getdown showcase” happens at AyurPrana on March 23 — the rapper’s birthday.
Participation in each of the four workshop sessions costs $50 and includes performing in the following week’s show. Nonworkshop participants can attend the shows for $20 per person, ages 3 and younger are free.
Thanks to a sponsorship from Fred Anderson Prestige Subaru and additional funding from local nonprofit My Daddy Taught Me That, Imaginarium: Flip the Script! will have up to 100 scholarships — or Golden Tickets — available. (A link to the Golden Ticket request form is on the ticket webpage.)
Kids can choose to take just one workshop or do the whole series. “The more times you do it, the better you’re going to get,” Cactus says. “All the steps that this rites-of-passage approach teaches are just really great tools to have in life, period. So the more times you do it, the better it’s going to be.”
Cactus says Flip the Script! Is just the beginning of the Imaginarium project. Though he says the specific details must remain a mystery for now, it could evolve to have an adult component and in other ways as well.
“What I hope to do here is to continue to build and for it to snowball into a community of people who are looking forward to all of these events and making something really fun and exciting happen during the darkest time of one of the darkest years that Asheville is going through.”
For more information and tickets, visit avl.mx/efc. X
Mystery flavor
To help initiate Imaginarium: Flip the Script!, The Hop Handcrafted Ice Cream plans to release an Imaginarium-themed ice cream this month as part of its Asheville Revival Series. “We are specifically working with members of the arts scene in the area to create flavors that we hope embody the funkier side — the side we love — of Asheville,” says The Hop co-owner Greg Garrison
What will the flavor be like? At press time, the details were still being decided. But Imaginarium organizer Cactus offers some insight: “It’s going to taste like imagination,” he says.
For more information, visit avl.mx/auf. X
Historical demons
Terry Roberts visits 1924 Asheville in new novel
BY EDWIN ARNAUDIN
earnaudin@mountainx.com
Editor’s note: The Devil Hath a Pleasing Shape was published Oct. 1. Due to the disruptions caused in Western North Carolina by Tropical Storm Helene, the author has rereleased the book.
Stephen Robbins is back — and no one is more surprised than his creator. Asheville-based author Terry Roberts continues his protagonist’s saga in The Devil Hath a Pleasing Shape, which was published on Oct. 1. It’s the third book in what Roberts calls “a sort of accidental series” — one he didn’t consciously set out to create but that nevertheless arose.
“When I finished writing my first novel, A Short Time to Stay Here, I assumed Stephen Robbins’ story was complete, and he could rest in the arms of his beloved in New York,” the author says. “But as it turned out, he had much more to say and do.”
Roberts was soon inspired to write a novel about racial and tribal hatred and set it on Ellis Island in the 1920s. As the narrative took shape, he says, “There was Stephen.” And when that 2021 novel, My Mistress’ Eyes Are Raven Black, turned into a hard-boiled detective story, Stephen’s career as a troubled private investigator was born.
“Sardonic, tough, relentless — turns out that he is a natural fit for the genre,” Roberts says.
From there, it became a relatively easy transition to bring Stephen back for a 1924, Asheville-set investigation into the world of politics and prostitution that’s at the core of The Devil Hath a Pleasing Shape. Given the nature of the world as it’s portrayed in the novel, Roberts feels that “perhaps only Stephen could do what has to be done here, both as a character and a narrator.”
DAYS OF FUTURE PAST
Before Stephen’s arrival at the Grove Park Inn to search for Rosalind Caldwell’s killer, Roberts took a detour from the PI’s story to focus on Jo Salter in The Sky Club, which was published in 2022. Set in Asheville in the late 1920s, the novel spotlights a period when much of the city’s upper crust was, in Roberts’ words, “drunk on possibility” and confident that more riches awaited. Instead, the Central Bank and Trust Co. and additional financial institutions
closed in 1930, sending the Asheville economy into a free fall.
“The Devil Hath a Pleasing Shape is set six years earlier, and it explores the social and economic hierarchy that is Asheville society from the perspective of a private operative who has been brought in to solve a murder,” Roberts says. “The cast of characters is different, but the setting is much the same, which means that the money and power in the city is kept tightly within the grasp of a few wealthy, white families.”
In turn, Roberts sees numerous parallels between the Asheville that Stephen encounters and the world of speakeasies and bootlegging that Jo discovers in The Sky Club. Roberts says the main difference is that Stephen “has to deal with a much darker, more violent aspect of that world,” the rendering of which is informed by the author’s research and writing of The Sky Club
“The important thing for me about Stephen Robbins’ story as it extends into a series is that it gives me as a writer — and you as a reader — the opportunity to explore several characters’ lives through decades,” Roberts says. “These novels aren’t the same basic story retold in different settings; rather, they are an exploration of how the characters evolve across time — both within themselves and in relation to others. In that way, the books can go much further and deeper than a single book ever could.”
Roberts notes that the events in The Devil Hath a Pleasing Shape aren’t based on any historical precedent. And the characters likewise do not reflect well-known individuals from the period, despite fictional Grove Park Inn manager Benjamin Loftis sharing some superficial similarities with Fred L. Seely, the business’ real-life manager in 1924.
“The one significant element that is based on a historical model is the Grove Park Inn itself, but keep in mind that the inn of 100 years ago is quite different from the inn of today,” Roberts says. “The lobby with those wonderful fireplaces, the elevators in the chimneys, the Palm Court, etc., are all similar to what was there in 1924, but actual operations have evolved greatly since then.”
INFORMED INVESTIGATIONS
Roberts conducted significant historical research on Asheville for The Sky Club and The Devil Hath a Pleasing
MENTOR MENTION: Terry Roberts dedicated The Devil Hath a Pleasing Shape to WNC native Robert Morgan. “He is undoubtedly one of our great writers — historian, novelist, biographer and poet extraordinaire,” Roberts says. “I’m proud to call him my friend.” Photo by J. L. Roberts
Shape. And as Stephen’s PI career took flight in My Mistress’ Eyes Are Raven Black, the author immersed himself in classic hard-boiled detective stories. His goal was to achieve a similar fastpaced, gritty quality that characterizes the best of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Dorothy B. Hughes, Ross MacDonald and other giants of the genre.
“I was working on the theory that what you read is like what you eat: a sort of diet for the imagination. You pick up the sense of pace, language [and] attitude of those great writers,” Roberts says. “The same lineup spoke to The Devil Hath a Pleasing Shape. As for contemporary writers, we must all bow to Walter Mosley and James Lee Burke They are both inspired and inspiring.”
Though these literary heroes’ stories occasionally take place in the same era as Roberts’ novels, and the 1924 centennial of his latest work’s setting provides a neat but unintentional tie to modern-day reflection, other factors inspire him to continually write about the 1920s and ’30s.
“The more time I spend there in my imagination, the more convinced I am that those decades hold up a powerful mirror to contemporary American society,” he says. “We struggle with the same existential questions as they did in the years between the World Wars, and we are haunted by the same ghosts.
For me, these novels are not ‘historical’ in the sense that a book set during the Revolutionary War is historical. These books are just as much about October 2024 as they are about October 1924.”
That pull remains strong for Roberts, yet he’ll leap forward four decades for his next novel. The book is tentatively titled In the Fullness of Time and slated for an August 2025 publication, after which the writer plans to return to more familiar surroundings.
“At this stage, I imagine that I’ll go on alternating writing about other settings and characters after every adventure with Stephen,” Roberts says. “And here lately, I’ve begun to imagine where Stephen’s life takes him next. He lives in a dark and mysterious world, as do we ourselves from time to time.” X
WHAT
Terry Roberts in conversation with Denise Kiernan WHERE Citizen Vinyl, 14 O’Henry Ave., avl.mx/efk
WHEN Tuesday, Jan. 21, 7-9 p.m. Doors open at 6 p.m. Free with RSVP
1/16: Reader: Aimee 1-6
1/17:
1/18:
A Year in Beer
BY CHRISTOPHER ARBOR
christopherarbor@gmail.com
My friends and I made a 2025 New Year’s resolution: Support our local economy by selflessly going to Asheville breweries. A different one every Wednesday. All year long. In the order they opened.
There are, after all, 52 weeks in the year and about 52 breweries in the area — all of which would probably appreciate some post-Helene support.
First up: Asheville’s oldest, Highland Brewing.
Perched on a hilltop off Old Charlotte Highway in East Asheville, Highland was established in 1994 in a downtown basement by retired engineer Oscar Wong. The company moved to its current location in 2006 and is now run by Wong’s daughter, Leah Wong Ashburn, who has not only maintained but elevated the company over the past decade, expanding the taproom’s footprint and amenities, refreshing its branding and adding a downtown outpost at S&W Market.
When my friends and I arrived at the brewery on New Year’s Day, we first noticed that there were almost as many dogs as there were people. Had we stumbled upon some sort of theme night? The Asheville Tourists host Doggies at the Diamond games — was this Puppies at the Pub?
Full disclosure: I don’t generally love other people’s dogs. I mean, my dog is spectacular, but I don’t need to be besties with yours. So, I wasn’t sure how this was going to go. Thankfully, all the pups were super well-behaved and friendly.
Kicking off a 52-week brewery crawl
CHEERS TO 2025: Xpress contributor Christopher Arbor, second from left, and his friends are challenging themselves to meet up at a different Asheville brewery each week throughout 2025. Also in the group are, from left, Burke Rogers, Bob Nesmith, Stephen Perhac and Ben Meade. Photo courtesy of Arbor
The space was great, as always. In warmer weather, we would have enjoyed the brewery’s Meadow or Rooftop Bar areas. But for a chilly winter’s day, we stayed inside the main taproom, which is somehow both spacious and cozy — able to accommodate large crowds without feeling crowded.
And the beer? I have to admit that I stopped buying Highland beer at the store years ago because so many intriguing (gimmicky?) new beers stole my attention. But getting a Highland Oatmeal Porter on tap at the production facility is like run-
ning into my best friend from high school and picking up right where we left off.
Overall, what the Highland beers may lack in weirdness, they more than make up for in quality. The porter paired perfectly with the Firebird grilled cheese sandwich from the Melt Your Heart food truck outside the taproom. Yum. My friends mostly grabbed IPAs — all of which are great.
After we settled in at a high-top table, we toasted Jimmy Carter — the first centenarian U.S. president — then launched into a deep discussion of Tropical Storm Helene recovery efforts around Western North Carolina.
These are big topics, and they’re best discussed with good friends and good beer. On my way out, I grabbed a variety pack of Cold Mountain Winter Ale.
Our next stop is Green Man Brewing at Jack of the Wood. Join us if you like.
Christopher Arbor is a beer-loving native North Carolinian, who has lived in the Asheville area since 1998. He describes himself as someone who “wears Carhartts and Chacos, drives a Subaru, loves the outdoors and embraces other such Asheville stereotypes.” He teaches social studies at Omega Middle School. X
What’s new in food
Rosetta’s Kitchen reopens with commitment to inclusivity
On Sept. 19, downtown vegan restaurant Rosetta’s Kitchen posted new hours on its social media platforms: noon-9 p.m. daily. One week later, Tropical Storm Helene plunged Asheville into chaos and crisis.
If anyone had the experience, will and gumption to run toward and not from the disaster, it was Rosetta Starr, the restaurant’s owner and eponymous founder: Three days, after the storm, she was back in the restaurant, cooking her perishable inventory to provide free, hot meals for the community.
Yet, as the old adage says, no good deed goes unpunished, even when confronting catastrophe. When the landmark plant-based business added meat options to its free menu, backlash ensued.
Rosetta’s opened as a vegetarian restaurant in September 2002 on Lexington Avenue when Starr was 24 years old. She soon added vegan and gluten-free items to accommodate more diners, eventually becoming fully plant-based and developing a devoted following of vegan customers. “My thing has always been to be inclusive, not exclusive,” she says.
After Helene, Rosetta’s offerings shifted out of necessity. “There was a lot of chaos in the beginning,” she says. “We had to scale up really big, really fast.” At that point, Rosetta’s was serving one hot meal a day on a pay-what-you-can basis from a kitchen powered mostly by Starr’s four grown kids and their friends volunteering. “My 2-year-old was not as much help as she thinks she was,” Starr says with a laugh.
The nonprofit Grassroots Aid Partnership (GAP) distributed the meals and donated ingredients. Rosetta’s also received donations from purveyors and organizations, including national nonprofit Pulling for Veterans, which delivered 1,500 pounds of meat to Asheville for use by local groups feeding the community.
“We were doing 900 meals a day at that point and using what was donated to us to do it,” says Starr. “We did vegan, we did vegetarian, and we used some of the meat the vets brought; it was all prepared separately.”
When Rosetta’s added bison stew to its daily menu of vegan stuffed cabbage leaves, veggie soup and vegan fried rice, the beef hit the fan. “Some people came in, saw bison stew on the menu and walked out,” Starr says. “What really hurt were the one-star
FOOD FOR ALL: Rosetta’s Kitchen owner Rosetta Starr, second from right, is pictured with volunteers and community members on Oct. 21, three weeks into the restaurant’s post-Helene food-distribution efforts. Photo courtesy of Starr
reviews people started leaving online and online harassment and bullying — a lot from our own community.”
The change provoked a war of words on Rosetta’s Facebook page, including scathing comments accusing Starr of abandoning vegans and animals. Others defended Starr’s integrity and generosity. Starr herself pointed out the extreme challenge of operating a business in the midst of an unprecedented crisis with no financial aid. In late December, The Guardian threw fuel on the flames with an article titled “Vegan No More: A Beloved Asheville Plant-Based Cafe Pivots to Stay Afloat Post-Hurricane.”
Starr notes that any animal protein on the menu at Rosetta’s was donated and offered in the interest of feeding people in dire need, rather than letting it go to waste. She was also trying to keep her business alive through the most severe economic stress it had ever endured. “We had absolutely no cash flow,” she recalls.
In December, Starr says, the business received a bridge loan through Mountain BizWorks that enabled it to rehire staff starting Jan. 1. The staff, menu and hours — currently noon-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday — are still limited as the restaurant scales back up.
The menu is primarily vegan, and Starr is committed to full transparency in labeling and fully separate prep and cooking areas and equipment. For the time being, some vegetarian dishes are also featured, and she will use, for example, Hickory Nut Gap Farm meats on occasion for daily “freegan” specials. “To me, ’freegan’ represents reclaiming and using what’s available, usable, would otherwise go to waste,” she explains.
Starr is no stranger to feeding people in need. During the 2008 recession, Rosetta’s introduced weekly Cauldron Night. “Every Sunday for about a year, we made a huge cauldron of food and huge pan of cornbread and gave it all away,” she recalls. Twelve years ago,
she launched Everybody Eats, a sliding scale rice and beans plate starting at $2.
“We love our vegans and respect their choices, but we ask them to respect others’ choices too,” she says. “There are more vegan options in Asheville now. If you don’t want to come here anymore because we have animal product in the building, that is OK. We can hug and be friends and love each other.”
Rosetta’s is at 68 N. Lexington Ave. For more information and updates, visit avl.mx/ef4.
Crêpe diem
Last April — nearly 20 years after opening his French bistro, Bouchon, on Lexington Avenue — Michel Baudouin announced that the business was for sale. The veteran chef/ restaurateur wanted to slow down and focus on his larger East Asheville restaurant, RendezVous.
But shortly after the calendar flipped to 2025, Baudouin released another update: As of mid-January, the full-service Bouchon will downsize to Crêperie Bouchon, featuring counter service and a simpler menu of crêpes, salads, soups and sandwiches with a full bar.
For longtime Asheville diners, this change may feel like déjà vu. Baudouin operated a Crêperie Bouchon concept in the courtyard next to Bouchon from 2011-2017.
But truly, the most important question is whether Bouchon’s Best of WNC Hall of Fame frites will be served at Crêperie Bouchon. Bien sûr, assures Baudouin. “Wherever we are, there are frites!”
Bouchon’s last night of service was Jan. 5. Crêperie Bouchon will open for lunch and dinner Wednesday-Sunday starting at 11 a.m.
Bouchon is at 62 N. Lexington Ave. For updates, visit avl.mx/ef5.
New space for Rollup Herbal Bar
It was a happy new year for Sam Kearney, who celebrated the reopening of her Rollup Herbal Bar on the first day of 2025 in a brand-new location within a reimagined old space in Waynesville. Kearney launched the mobile mocktail bar and nonalcoholic beverage catering service in a retrofitted 1971 Volkswagen bus in fall 2023. In February 2024, after weeks of 14-hour days on the build-out, she opened Rollup’s first brick-and-mortar in a former storage closet subleased from Frog Level Brewing in Waynesville.
“I kept telling myself, ‘It’s OK, because once it’s built, I don’t have to do this again for a long, long time,’" she recalls with a laugh.
Then flooding from Helene rolled over Frog Level, taking Rollup’s bar, equipment and inventory with it. When Kearney had an opportunity to lease a spot in Church Street Studios — a new community business hub inside a renovated historic school building in Waynesville — she says she was back in her painting clothes, living at Lowe’s. Rollup is in the former principal’s office, which makes going to see the principal fun. The menu features culinary mocktails, locally made Sarilla sparkling tea, nonalcoholic beer and specialty lattes made with coffee or chicory. Adaptogenic herbs can be added to any drink. Snacks are also available. Herbie the Volkswagen bus is still on the road and available for bookings for private events.
Roillup Herbal Bar is at 225 Church St., Waynesville. For more information, visit avl.mx/ef1.
Winter markets
Though winter is not peak produce time, many Western North Carolina farmers keep growing, bakers keep baking and hens keep laying. After a brief break, several year-round weekly tailgate markets are operating again. All are outdoors and take place rain, shine, wind or snow, so dress accordingly.
• North Asheville Tailgate Market is back on the UNC Asheville campus at 275 Edgewood Road and open Saturdays, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. until spring/summer hours start in April. avl.mx/bei
• Asheville City Market sets up downtown on Saturdays, 10 a.m.1 p.m. on North Market Street between Woodfin and Walnut streets. avl.mx/bfk
• The River Arts District Farmers Market has a new home on the A-B Tech campus at 24 Fernihurst Drive, Wednesdays, 3-5:30 p.m. avl.mx/9ki
• The Weaverville Winter Market has vendors both outside and
inside the Weaverville Community Center at 60 Lakeshore Drive Wednesdays, 3-6 p.m. avl.mx/ck8
Hot bar, hot stuff
By popular demand, Chai Pani has extended its Hurricane Hot Bar through Friday, Feb. 28. The restaurant introduced the hot bar when it reopened post-Helene in late October as a short-term, get-back-in-the-swing thing. The hot bar is available for lunch and dinner. Lunch is $16.99, dinner is $21.99. Kids ages 10 and younger are $9.99.
Chai Pani is at 32 Banks Ave. For more information, visit avl.mx/eey.
Tasty twosome at Gordingo’s
Birria ramen has made its seasonal return to the menu at Gordingo’s in Brevard. The small, casual restaurant mashes up Latin flavors with nostalgic dishes from owners Marc Kaufman’s and Josh Chambers’ childhoods — pastor wings, carne asada fries, Mexican pizza, chipotle cheesesteak and, of course, tacos, tacos and more tacos.
A surefire defense against winter’s big chill, birria is a Mexican stew made from marinated beef, lamb or goat meat slow-braised in broth. Gordingo’s birria ramen features brisket birria with ramen noodles, diced onion, cilantro, jack cheese, fresh cilantro and housemade chili crisp in a savory broth. The umami-packed flavor fusion is available every Thursday through the end of February. Because Gordingo’s is inside Ecusta Brewing Co.’s taproom, a cold beer is right at hand.
Gordingo’s is inside Ecusta Brewing Co. at 51 Ecusta Road, Brevard. For more information, visit avl.mx/eez.
— Kay West X
by Kay West
31 days of post-Helene art
An Arctic Soirée
To process life-changing events, writers write their feelings and singers sing their feelings. After Tropical Storm Helene, artist Kira Bursky drew her feelings. Throughout October, the young artist put onto paper one image a day, every day. All 31 of those original pieces will be on display at the West Asheville Public Library for two months starting with an opening reception on Thursday, Jan. 16, 6-8 p.m. A limited number of signed 12-by-12-inch prints of each image — both framed and unframed — will be for sale, as will a hardcover book featuring all 31 prints. Themes of the expressive and frequently unsettling pieces reflect images and feelings that may resonate with many Western North Carolina residents who experienced Helene and its aftermath — titles include The House , The Island , The Drive , Binoculars , Passport , Boots and The Scarecrow . Bursky is also a fashion designer and film/ video maker through her company, All Around Artsy. The artist will donate 20% of profits from sales to BeLoved Asheville and ArtsAVL to support Helene relief efforts. avl.mx/efb X
Embrace the warmth of artistic expression, music, food and drink at Gallery M é lange on Friday, Jan. 17. An Arctic Soir é e : A Celebration of New Work will debut the latest, winter-inspired creations from artists Mark Bettis , Victoria Pinney and Jeffrey Burroughs set against a soundtrack by local DJs Phantom Pantone and avl.xlr . Seasonal drinks, wine and charcuterie will round out the experience. Bettis, a painter known for his adventurous use of color and texture, has created a series of figurative paintings for this event. Pinney works with oil paint and substances such as wax and sand to create abstract pieces. Burroughs, a jew -
eler, will show works informed and inspired by ice. An Arctic Soiree takes place 5-8 p.m. Admission is free. avl.mx/ef9 X
Do you have a personal story about a fresh start, a pivot, a new direction, a daring leap of faith to parts unknown or leaving something behind? Can you condense it down to five engaging, entertaining minutes and tell it live onstage to an audience? Step right up to The Grey Eagle on Thursday, Jan. 16, for the year’s first Moth StorySLAM. The theme is “Reset,” and who in Asheville hasn’t done that this year? Prepare a true, personal, five-minute account of your reset, arrive at the Eagle at least 10 minutes before the show begins at 7:30 p.m. (doors open at 6:30) and sign up. Wait with beating heart and sweaty palms until your name is called, then get on up there and let ’er rip. Or, just have a
beer and a taco and enjoy the show. The Moth Radio Hour, which airs weekly on hundreds of radio stations around the world, compiles the best stories from the theme told in the 28 StorySLAM host cities around the country. Will an Asheville’s “Reset” make the cut? Tickets are $18.45. Advance purchase is recommended. Seating is on a first-come, first-seated basis. avl.mx/ef6 X
“The House” by Kira Bursky, courtesy of the artist
Photo by John A. Zara
“The Forest Floor” by Victoria Pinney, courtesy of the artist
For questions about free listings, call 828-251-1333, opt. 4.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15
ASHEVILLE MUSIC
HALL
Stand-Up Comedy Open Mic, 8pm
EDA'S HIDE-A-WAY
Bless Your Heart Trivia w/Harmon, 7pm
FLEETWOOD'S
PSK Karaoke, 9pm
HI-WIRE BREWING -
BILTMORE VILLAGE
Free Weekly Trivia, 7pm
HIGHLAND BREWING CO. Cynthia McDermott, Rick Cooper, Zach Smith & Matt Smith (multi-genre), 6pm
IMPERIÁL
DJ Otto Maddox (soul, funk), 9pm
JACK OF THE WOOD PUB
Old Time Jam, 5pm
OKLAWAHA
BREWING CO.
Bluegrass Jam w/Derek McCoy & Friends, 6pm
ONE WORLD BREWING WEST
Latin Night Wednesday w/DJ Mtn Vibez, 8pm
SOVEREIGN KAVA
Poetry Open Mic, 8pm
THE GREY EAGLE
Kindred Valley w/Malachi Fletcher (Americana, indie, folk-rock), 8pm
THE ONE STOP AT ASHEVILLE MUSIC HALL
Falcon4 (funk, dance), 10pm
WHITE HORSE BLACK MOUNTAIN
Micheal Reno Harrell (acoustic), 7:30pm
THURSDAY, JANUARY 16
27 CLUB
Mr. Sunnybrook (electronic, synthwave, dance), 8pm
BOTANIST & BARREL
TASTING BAR +
BOTTLE SHOP
Oh! Comedy Show, 6:30pm
FLEETWOOD'S East Ritual Residency (punk, garage, indie), 9pm
FLOOD GALLERY
True Home Open Mic, 6pm
IMPERIÁL
DJ Roselle (hip-hop, indie, electronic), 9pm
LAZOOM ROOM BAR & GORILLA
Eyes Up Here
Comedy Presents: AVLGBTQueer Comedy, 7pm
LEVELLER BREWING
CO.
Open Old Time Jam, 6pm
LOOKOUT BREWING CO.
Music Bingo w/DJ Spence, 6pm
OKLAWAHA BREWING CO.
Kid Billy (Americana, indie, blues), 7pm
ONE WORLD BREWING WEST
• Alma Russ (country, folk), 8pm
• Fee Fi Phaux Fish (Phish tribute), 8pm
PULP
James Tucker w/Bucko (country, Americana), 8pm
SHAKEY'S
• Comedy Showcase w/ Hilliary Begley, 8pm
• Karaoke w/Franco Nino, 9pm
SIERRA NEVADA
BREWING CO.
Sold Out: Talib Kweli (hip-hop), 6pm
STATIC AGE RECORDS
Auto-Tune Karaoke w/ Who Gave This B*tch A Mic, 10pm
THE ODD
L.M.I., Halogi & Old Dead Gods (stoner-metal, punk), 8pm
THE ONE STOP AT ASHEVILLE MUSIC HALL
Paul & Thommy's Going Away Party (multigenre), 9pm
VOODOO BREWING
CO.
Music Bingo Thursdays, 7pm
WHITE HORSE BLACK MOUNTAIN
Rod Abernethy (folk), 7:30pm
FRIDAY, JANUARY 17
27 CLUB
Hysteria: New Beat Dance Party, 8pm
CATAWBA BREWING
CO. SOUTH SLOPE
ASHEVILLE
Roll of the Dice: A Comedy Show of Chance, 8pm
CORK & KEG
Zydeco Ya Ya (Cajun, Zydeco), 8pm
CROW & QUILL
Nick Garrison Jazz, 8:30pm
HIGHLAND BREWING
CO.
Peggy Ratusz & Daddy Longlegs (blues, jazz), 6pm
IMPERIÁL
DJ Lake Solace (R&B, hip-hop), 9pm
JACK OF THE WOOD
PUB
Cactus Kate & the Pricks (country, Americana), 8pm
LOOKOUT BREWING
CO.
Friday Night Music Series, 6pm
CLUBLAND
NASHVILLE-BASED INDIE-POP: On Thursday, Jan. 23, popular artist Soccer Mommy stops in Asheville for a show at The Orange Peel, starting at 8 p.m. Attendees can expect an exciting night of indie-rock and pop sounds. Photo courtesy of Anna Pollack
OKLAWAHA BREWING CO.
The Circuit Breakers (rock), 8pm
ONE WORLD BREWING
5J Barrow (folk), 8pm
ONE WORLD BREWING WEST
Andrew Scotchie's School of Rock Themed Birthday Bash, 8pm
SHAKEY'S
• Treasure Club Takedown w/DJ Lil Meow Meow, 8:30pm
• Auto-Tune Karaoke w/Who Gave This B*tch A Mic, 10pm
THE GREY EAGLE
Golden Folk Sessions, 7pm
THE ORANGE PEEL
Soccer Mommy (indierock), 8pm
VOODOO BREWING CO.
Music Bingo Thursdays, 7pm
WHITE HORSE BLACK MOUNTAIN
The Old Marshall Jail Ballad Swap, 7:30pm
FREEWILL ASTROLOGY BY
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Abdulrazak Gurnah is a Tanzanian writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2021. He has also been shortlisted for four other prestigious awards. I find it odd that his acclaimed novels have received mediocre scores on the prominent book-rating website, Goodreads, which has 150 million members. Why is there such a marked difference between expert critics and average readers? I speculate that those in the latter category are less likely to appreciate bold, innovative work. They don’t have the breadth and depth to properly evaluate genius. All this is my way of encouraging you to be extra discerning about whose opinions you listen to in the coming weeks, Aries — especially in regard to your true value. Trust intelligent people who specialize in thoughtful integrity. You are in a phase when your ripening uniqueness needs to be nurtured and protected.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): “Every joke is a tiny revolution,” said author George Orwell. I agree, which is why I hope you will unleash an unruly abundance of humor and playfulness in the coming days. I hope you will also engage in benevolent mischief that jostles the status quo and gently shakes people out of their trances. Why? Because your world and everyone in it need a sweet, raucous revolution. And the best way to accomplish that with minimum chaos and maximum healing is to: 1. do so with kindness and compassion; 2. be amusing and joyful and full of joie de vivre.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Research suggests that if you’re typical, you would have to howl with maximum fury for a month straight just to produce enough energy to toast a piece of bread. But you are not at all typical right now. Your wrath is high quality. It’s more likely than usual to generate constructive changes. And it’s more prone to energize you rather than deplete you. But don’t get overconfident in your ability to harness your rage for good causes. Be respectful of its holy potency, and don’t squander it on trivial matters. Use it only for crucial prods that would significantly change things for the better.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): I invite you to write a message to the person you will be in one year. Inform this Future You that you are taking a vow to achieve three specific goals by Jan. 15, 2026. Name these goals. Say why they are so important to you. Describe what actions you will take to fulfill them. Compose collages or draw pictures that convey your excitement about them. When you’ve done all that, write the words, “I pledge to devote all my powers to accomplish these wonderful feats.” Sign your name. Place your document in an envelope, write “MY VOWS” on the front, and tape the envelope in a prominent place in your home or workplace.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Congratulations on all the subtle and private work you’ve been doing to make yourself a better candidate for optimal togetherness. Admitting to your need for improvement was brave! Learning more about unselfish cooperation was hard work, and so was boosting your listening skills. (I speak from personal experience, having labored diligently to enhance my own relationship skills!) Very soon now, I expect that you will begin harvesting the results of your artful efforts.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Construction on the Great Wall of China began in the 7th century BCE and lasted until 1878. Let’s make this monumental accomplishment your symbol of power for the next 10 months, Virgo! May it inspire you to work tirelessly to forge your own monumental accomplishment. Take pride in the gradual progress you’re making. Be ingeniously persistent in engaging the support of those who share your grand vision. Your steady determination, skill at collaborating, and ability to plan will be your superpowers as you create a labor of love that will have enduring power.
ROB
BREZSNY
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): We are all accustomed to dealing with complications and complexities — so much so that we may be tempted to imagine there’s never a simple solution to any dilemma. Copious nuance and mystifying paradox surround us on all sides, tempting us to think that every important decision must inevitably be taxing and time-consuming. As someone who specializes in trying to see all sides to every story, I am especially susceptible to these perspectives. (I have three planets in Libra.) But now here’s the unexpected news: In the coming weeks, you will enjoy the luxury of quickly settling on definitive, straightforward solutions. You will get a sweet respite from relentless fuzziness and ambiguity.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): When my daughter, Zoe, was 11 years old, she published her first collection of poems. The chapbook’s title was “Secret Freedom.” That’s a good theme for you to meditate on in the coming weeks. You are currently communing with a fertile mystery that could ultimately liberate you from some of your suffering and limitations. However, it’s important to be private and covert about your playful work with this fertile mystery — at least for now. Eventually, when it ripens, there will come a time to fully unleash your beautiful thing and reveal it to the world. But until then, safeguard it with silence and discretion.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): From a distance, Brazil’s Rio Negro looks black. The water of Rio Solimões, also in Brazil, is yellowish-brown. Near the city of Manaus, these two rivers converge, flowing eastward. But they don’t blend at first. For a few miles, they move side-by-side, as if still autonomous. Eventually, they fuse into a single flow and become the mighty Amazon River. I suspect the behavior of Rio Negro and Rio Solimoes could serve as a useful metaphor for you in the coming weeks, Sagittarius. Consider the possibility of allowing, even encouraging, two separate streams to merge. Or would you prefer them to remain discrete for a while longer? Make a conscious decision about this matter.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): During the next three weeks, doing the same old things and thinking the same old thoughts are strongly discouraged. For the sake of your spiritual and physical health, please do not automatically rely on methods and actions that have worked before. I beg you not to imitate your past self or indulge in worn-out traditions. Sorry to be so extreme, but I really must insist that being bored or boring will be forbidden. Stated more poetically: Shed all weak-heart conceptions and weak-soul intentions. Be of strong heart and robust soul.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Wilderness campers have developed humorous terms to gently mock their fears and anxieties. The theory is that this alleviates some of the stress. So a “bear burrito” refers to a hammock. It addresses the worry that one might get an unwanted visit from a bear while sleeping. A “bear fortune cookie” is another name for a tent. “Danger noodle” is an apparent stick that turns out to be a snake. “Mountain money” is also known as toilet paper. I approve of this joking approach to dealing with agitation and unease. (And scientific research confirms it’s effective.) Now is an excellent time to be creative in finding ways to diminish your mostly needless angst.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): If you were producing the movie of your life, what actor or actress would you want to portray you? Who would play your friends and loved ones? How about the role of God or Goddess? Who would you choose to perform the role of the Supreme Being? These will be fun meditations for you in the coming weeks. Why? Because it’s an excellent time to think big about your life story — to visualize the vast, sweeping panorama of your beautiful destiny. I would also love it if during your exploration of your history, you would arrive at interesting new interpretations of the meanings of your epic themes.
RENTALS
APARTMENTS FOR RENT
APARTMENT FOR RENT
First floor of house in quiet, safe, private neighborhood East of Asheville. 1b/1b, one person only. Shared washer/ dryer. $975/month for rent, $75 for utilities + Wi-Fi. Pets considered. (828) 545-0043
EMPLOYMENT
DRIVERS/ DELIVERY
MOUNTAIN XPRESS
DELIVERY Mountain Xpress is seeking energetic, reliable, independent contractors for part-time weekly newspaper delivery. Contractors must have a safe driving record, a reliable vehicle with proper insurance and registration, and be able to lift 50 lbs. without strain. Distribution of papers is on Tuesday mornings and afternoons and typically lasts about 3-5 hours per week. Preference given to applicants who reside in the delivery area. E-mail distro@mountainx.com
ANNOUNCEMENTS
ANNOUNCEMENTS
24/7 LOCKSMITH We are there when you need us for home & car lockouts. We'll get you back up and running quickly! Also, key reproductions, lock installs and
repairs, vehicle fobs. Call us for your home, commercial and auto locksmith needs! 1-833237-1233 (AAN CAN)
AFFORDABLE TV & INTER-
NET If you are overpaying for your service, call now for a free quote and see how much you can save! 1-844-588-6579 (AAN CAN)
AGING ROOF? NEW HOMEOWNER? STORM DAMAGE? You need a local expert provider that proudly stands behind their work. Fast, free estimate. Financing available. Call 1-888-292-8225 (AAN CAN)
BATH & SHOWER UPDATES In as little as ONE DAY! Affordable prices - No payments for 18 months! Lifetime warranty & professional installs. Senior & Military Discounts available. Call: 1-877-510-9918. (AAN CAN)
BEAUTIFUL BATH UPDATES in as little as one day. Superior quality bath and shower systems at affordable prices. Lifetime warranty & professional installs. Call Now! 1-855-402-6997. (AAN CAN)
CASH PAID FOR HIGH-END MEN'S SPORT WATCHES
Rolex, Breitling, Omega, Patek Philippe, Heuer, Daytona, GMT, Submariner and Speedmaster. These brands only! Call for a quote: 1-855-402-7109 (AAN CAN)
GOT AN UNWANTED CAR? Donate it to Patriotic Hearts. Fast free pick up. All 50 States. Patriotic Hearts’ programs help veterans find work or start their own business. Call 24/7: 1-855-402-7631. (AAN CAN)
NEED NEW WINDOWS? Drafty rooms? Chipped or damaged frames? Need outside noise reduction? New, energy efficient windows may be the answer! Call for a consultation & FREE quote today. 1-877-248-9944. (AAN CAN)
PEST CONTROL Protect your home from pests safely and affordably. Roaches, Bed Bugs, Rodent, Termite, Spiders and other pests. Locally owned and affordable. Call for service or an inspection today! 1-833237-1199. (AAN CAN)
STOP OVERPAYING FOR AUTO INSURANCE A recent survey says that most Americans are overpaying for their car insurance. Let us show you how much you can save. Call now for a no obligation quote: 1-866-472-8309. (AAN CAN)
UNCLAIMED / RECEIVED FIREARMS The following is a list of unclaimed firearms currently in the possession of the Asheville Police Department: COM/BRO, DAVIS INDUSTRIES, P-32, .32; BLK, SPRINGFIELD, SA XD, 9MM; BLK/GRY, RUGER REVOLVER, LCR, .38; BLK/ TAN, GLOCK, 42, .380; BLK, TAURUS, PT738, .380; BLK, TAURUS, .357 MAGNUM, .357; BLK, GLOCK, 26, 9MM; BLK, TAURUS, G2C, 9MM; BLK, GLOCK, 36, .45; UNK, LLAMA, PARABELLUM, 9MM; UNK, HERITAGE, ROUGH, .22; BLK, SMITH & WESSON M&P, M&P 15-22, UNK; UNK, GSS-SHOTGUN, STEVENS 94H, SINGLE; UNK, GSP 12 GA SHOTGUN, MAVERICK 88, 12GA; BLUE, STEVENS, STEVENS 320, 12 GA; GLD/ BLK, S&W PISTOL, S&W, .22; BLK, GLOCK, 43, 9MM; BLK, HI POINT RIFLE, HIPOINT, 9MM; BLK, REMINGTON, 870, 12 GA; BLK, GLOCK, 43, 9MM; UNK, S&W PISTOL, M&P 9 SHIELD EZ, 9MM; SIL/ BLK, S&W PISTOL, SD, 9MM; BLK, GLOCK, 22, .40; BLK, KEL TEC, P3AT, .380; BLK/SIL, GEORGIA, VT PA-63, 9MM; BLK, HI-POINT, S&W, .40; BLK, RUGER REVOLVER, LCR, .38; BRO, TAURUS, G2C, 9MM; BLK, SMITH & WESSON, S&W, .380; SIL, RAVEN, MP-25, .25; BLK, HI-POINT, C9, 9MM; SIL/BRO, SENTINEL, MKI, .22; BLK, SMITH & WESSON,
S&W, .40; BLK/SIL, HI-POINT, CF380, .380; SIL/BLK, AMT, BACKUP, 9MM; BLK, SMITH & WESSON, SHIELD, 9MM; SIL/BLK, JENNINGS, J22, .22; BLK/SIL, SMITH & WESSON, 9 SHIELD, 9MM; BLK, EAA REVOLVER, .357 MAG, .357; BLK, EAA REVOLVER, EA/R, 38. Anyone with a legitimate claim or interest in this property must contact the Asheville Police Department within 30 days from the date of this publication. Any items not claimed within 30 days will be disposed of in accordance with all applicable laws. For further information, or to file a claim, contact the Asheville Police Department Property and Evidence Section at 828-232-4576
UNCLAIMED PROPERTY The following is a list of unclaimed property currently being held at the Weaverville Police Department. Electronics, personal items, tools, weapons (including firearms) and other miscellaneous items. Anyone with a legitimate claim in the listed property has 30 days from the date of publication to contact the Weaverville Police Department, M-F 9AM- 3PM, 828-645-5700. Items not claimed within 30 days will be disposed of in accordance with North Carolina General Statute.
WATER DAMAGE CLEANUP & RESTORATION A small amount of water can lead to major damage and mold growth in your home. We do complete repairs to protect your family and your home's value! For a free estimate, call 24/7: 1-888290-2264. (AAN CAN)
WE BUY VINTAGE GUITARS Looking for 1920-1980 Gibson, Martin, Fender, Gretsch, Epiphone, Guild, Mosrite, Rickenbacker, Prairie State, D'Angelico, Stromberg. And Gibson Mandolins / Banjos. These brands only! Call for a quote: 1-855-402-7208 (AAN CAN)
YOU MAY QUALIFY For disability benefits if you have are between 52-63 years old and under a doctor’s care for a health condition that prevents you from working for a year or more. Call now! 1-877-2476750. (AAN CAN)
1 Field for a Fortnite pro
8 “Wheels”
15 Actress who said “I generally avoid temptation unless I can’t resist it”
16 Attendee who’s not on the guest list
17 Took advantage of a situation, so to speak
18 Presented to, as for approval
19 Tolerate
20 Pride : lion :: gaggle : ___
21 Like some nerves and strings
24 Come clean, with “up”
26 Preceding
29 Takes back to the lab, maybe
33 Seemingly forever
34 The N.H.L.’s Kraken, on scoreboards
35 Billionaire philanthropist Broad
36 “Now I get it!”
37 Smiling Face With Sunglasses, e.g.
39 Fresno-to-San Diego dir.
41 1-Across competitor
43 October Revolution leader
44 “___ death do us part”
45 Villainous animal in “The Lion King”
46 One might be good, bad or rotten
47 Japan’s ___ Period (1603-1868)
48 Business card abbr.
49 Insult, informally
51 Keto diet no-no
53 Poetry contest
56 Part of I.P.A.
57 Beaucoup
59 Hosp. ward
60 Subaru Crosstrek or Honda HR-V
62 Wins the heart of
64 Diversion
65 Repositions, as tires
66 Assault with sound
67 Equipment for an angioplasty DOWN
1 Jane Austen heroine
2 Car stolen by Jerry’s mechanic on an episode of “Seinfeld”
3 Spa treatment, informally
4 Had because of
5 Doing a musical read-through
6 Carry-on checkers, for short
7 Place to muck about?
8 Old TV hookup
9 Detergent in a red bottle
10 Waits patiently 11 “Guess so,” folksily
12 Elaine who served in two presidential cabinets
13
Description of this puzzle’s circled letters, and a clue to what they spell
Half of a cassette
Yes votes
Mildly wet
Epic work that begins “Sing, goddess, of the anger of Achilles”
51 Judy who wrote “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret”
___-call list
Back 40 makeup
Tousle, as hair
“Like that’s ever going to happen”
It may be tempted
Call ___ night
Homo sapiens
an extra car that needs a new home?
Your donated car can open the doors to independence, increased income, and higher education for a hardworking member of our community. Vehicles of all types and conditions are welcomed and appreciated!
The donation is tax-deductible. The process is simple. The impact is real.
NOTICE OF INTENT TO APPLY
Community Action Opportunities (CAO) will submit an application for $897,683 to the Office of Economic Opportunity – Community Services Block Grant in order to continue operating a self-sufficiency project in FY 2025 - 2026. CAO provides comprehensive case management services in Buncombe, Madison, McDowell, Henderson, Transylvania and Polk Counties to people who meet the federal income guidelines, want to increase their income and are able to work.
Further details about the program can be found: communityactionopportunities.org/life-works/
CAO’s Board of Directors – Executive Committee will meet to review and approve the application on 01/22/2025 at 2pm.
The public is welcome to attend virtually. Email kate.singog@tcqr.org at least 24 hours prior to these events to receive login information. Call 828-252-2495 or email with questions.
