Mountain Xpress 04.15.20

OUR 26TH YEAR OF WEEKLY INDEPENDENT NEWS, ARTS & EVENTS FOR WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA VOL. 26 NO. 38 APRIL 15-21, 2020

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NEWS

8 VISITORS PROHIBITED Local Airbnbs face cancellations, loss of revenue

NEWS

FEATURES

11 FISCAL FUTURE COVID-19 recession squeezes Buncombe budget

PAGE 14

GREEN

16 OUTSIDE VIEW COVID-19’s environmental impacts unclear in WNC

PUBLISHER: Jeff Fobes

The health crisis caused by the new coronavirus has ended in-person visits between residents in local care facilities and their families, including the married couple on the cover. To stay connected, they rely on daily online chats and twice-weekly sessions gazing at one another through the windows of Aston Park Health Care Center.

ASSISTANT TO THE PUBLISHER: Susan Hutchinson

COVER PHOTO Cindy Kunst

5 LETTERS 5 CARTOON: MOLTON 6 COMMENTARY 7 CARTOON: BRENT BROWN

GREEN

17 TAKING ACTION FEATURES Heath Moody on A-B Tech’s sustainability program, plus Marissa Percoco talks permaculture

8 NEWS 11 BUNCOMBE BEAT 12 ASHEVILLE ARCHIVES 12 COMMUNITY CALENDAR 14 WELLNESS

22 MEAL PLAN Local Housing Authority turns to local chefs to reopen Southside Community Kitchen

16 GREEN 22 FOOD 25 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT 28 MOVIES 29 COVIDTOWN CRIER

25 THE SHOW MUST (EVENTUALLY) GO ON Local theaters remain cautiously optimistic amid COVID-19 closures

30 FREEWILL ASTROLOGY 30 CLASSIFIEDS 31 NY TIMES CROSSWORD

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STAFF

FROM A DISTANCE

COVER DESIGN Scott Southwick

FOOD

A-B Tech Alternative Weekly Network/ Santa Fe Tobacco Asheville Holistic Realty Biltmore Estate Black Bear BBQ Blue Ridge Community College (BRCC) Bottle Riot / formerly District Wine Bar Buncombe Partnership For Children / Smart Start Calypso / Esther Joseph Chinese Acupuncture and Herbology City of Asheville Sanitation Connect Buncombe Eleanor Health Clinic Franny’s Farmacy Green Built Alliance (WNC Green Building Council)/ Blue Horizons Project) Habitat for Humanity Restore Half Moon Market Highland Brewing Co. Ingles Markets Inc. Lenoir-Rhyne University Margaret & Maxwell, Big Black Cat LLC Mela Indian Restaurant Mellow Mushroom Mostly Automotive Inc. Mountain Area Pregnancy Services (MAPS) Nature’s Vitamins and Herbs New Belgium Brewing Organic Mechanic Pack’s Tavern Pisgah Brewing Co Range Urgent Care Ruth’s Chris Biltmore Village Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse Smoky Park Supper Club Southern Atlantic Hemp Co, Inc. - SAHAE The Matt and Molly Team (Keller Williams) Town and Mountain Realty 2010 Tunnel Vision Wellington Sales LLC Wicked Weed Brewing Working Wheels - Wheels 4 Hope

C O NT E NT S

A&E

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MANAGING EDITOR: Virginia Daffron OPINION EDITOR: Tracy Rose GREEN SCENE EDITOR: Daniel Walton STAFF REPORTERS: Able Allen, Edwin Arnaudin, Thomas Calder, Laura Hackett, Daniel Walton COMMUNITY CALENDAR & CLUBLAND: Lauren Andrews, Laura Hackett, Susan Hutchinson MOVIE SECTION HOSTS: Edwin Arnaudin, Bruce Steele CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Peter Gregutt, Rob Mikulak REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS: Mark Barrett, Leslie Boyd, Cindy Kunst, Gina Smith, Luke Van Hine, Kay West ADVERTISING, ART & DESIGN MANAGER: Susan Hutchinson LEAD DESIGNER: Scott Southwick GRAPHIC DESIGNER: Olivia Urban MEMBERSHIP AND DEVELOPMENT COORDINATOR: Laura Hackett MARKETING ASSOCIATES: Sara Brecht, Brian Palmieri, Tiffany Wagner OPERATIONS MANAGER: Able Allen INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES & WEB: Bowman Kelley BOOKKEEPER: Amie Fowler-Tanner ADMINISTRATION, BILLING, HR: Able Allen, Lauren Andrews DISTRIBUTION: Susan Hutchinson, Cindy Kunst DISTRIBUTION DRIVERS: Gary Alston, Russell Badger, Clyde Hipps, Joan Jordan, Angelo Sant Maria, Desiree Davis, Charlotte Rosen, Carl & Debbie Schweiger, David Weiss

COPYRIGHT 2020

BY MOUNTAIN XPRESS ADVERTISING COPYRIGHT 2020 BY MOUNTAIN XPRESS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

OPINION

Send your letters to the editor to letters@mountainx.com.

CARTO ON BY R A ND Y MOL T O N

Put a mask on the public face of first responders Maybe it’s just the luck of living near Oteen, but I’ve generally been impressed by how many in this community have adopted face coverings and social distancing while grocery shopping. But I’ve noticed a curious exception: uniformed first responders. I’ve yet to see any of them wear a nonmedical mask during their group trips to the store.

These front-line folks in the time of COVID-19 must surely be at higher than average risk of contracting the virus, symptomatically or otherwise, and passing it on by accident. And while it would be wasteful to burn through medical-grade PPE for a run to Ingles, I don’t understand why there is apparently no organizational push to get these guys and gals into nonmedical face coverings for routine trips into public spaces.

I don’t own a sewing machine but do have a neighbor who graciously fixed me up with a few masks. If firefighters and EMS workers aren’t so fortunate, no doubt the residents of Buncombe County would answer a call for assistance. It’s one way for us to support essential workers while helping them to support us.

— Mike Hopping Asheville

Asheville will need to remake itself It was foreseeable: People stood in front of City Council and anyone who

would listen, and shouted from the rooftops: “Stop” and, “This is not sustainable.” We camped out under the magnolia tree, we brought petitions, the economy gave a brief reprieve, but just.

So, along with COVID-19 comes the law of diminishing returns, a dozen highend hotels, a brewery in every empty space, a new restaurant opening or two or three sometimes on the same block. A rubber-stamp City Council, the avarice of the developers and COVID-19 have created a perfect storm. Will Asheville, the city I fell in love with, recover in time to prevent irreparable damage? Past leadership decisions would suggest not.

Those businesses that survive should be stronger, and perhaps local leaders who were entrusted with stewardship of this “Paris of the South” will be replaced with leaders who understand that there must be a balance, a plan for the city and how it grows: No more unfettered growth, growth based on need, not greed.

Asheville will need to remake itself into a place that can survive these storms.

How it does that will be interesting.

— Jesse Junior

Asheville

Help make voting accessible to all The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted what has always been true: Voting must be more accessible. With the general election looming, North Carolina lawmakers must take immediate action to make voting accessible to all North Carolina citizens.

The N.C. Board of Elections recently recommended that the state modify absentee voting policies to comply with social distancing (like requiring only one witness instead of the current requirement of two witnesses or a notary), but Republican lawmakers have dismissed them — doubling down in their insurmountable quest to suppress voting rights, especially among people of color, young people and low-income citizens.

This seems to be a tried and true tactic; Trump recently made headlines for saying aloud what many others think in private: If voting were made easier for all Americans, Republicans wouldn’t win another election.

Meanwhile, the BOE teamed up with the DMV to roll out a new online voter registration tool — but since it is only for current DMV customers, citizens without a North Carolina license or DMVissued ID card are ineligible to take advantage of online voter registration, resulting in further marginalization of our state’s most vulnerable citizens.

As an organizer with NextGen North Carolina, I am committed to ensuring all North Carolina citizens can exercise their right to vote, especially the young and marginalized folks in our communities. This new and flawed system must be amended to allow our citizens equitable access to online voter registration.

NextGen North Carolina is calling on the North Carolina legislature to adopt a universally accessible vote-by-mail policy that ensures all North Carolinians can cast their ballots this November.

Join us in our efforts to make voting accessible to all by calling your state representatives and urging them to support this legislation.

— Lola Benfield

Hendersonville

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Local Matters Sign up for Xpress’ free weekly e-newsletter at mountainx.com/newsletters

Jane Jacobs would be proud In 1934, my Aunt Jane [Jacobs] spent part of her year in Higgins [in Yancey County] with her aunt, Martha Robison, founder of The Markle Robison Industrial School on the Cane River. It was here that she observed a community falling apart because of isolation, resulting in unemployment and violence.

Her observations and experiences influenced every sphere of her work for the rest of her life. “Bypassed Places,” a chapter in Cities and Wealth of Nations, described the Higgins community.

Mel Chin, the great artist, and his wife live and work [in Yancey County’s Egypt Township]. My cousins and I believe Martha and Jane were smiling when Mel received a MacArthur award.

— Annie Butzner

Asheville

Fresh to your inbox every Wednesday morning!

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OPINION

Books to people

“In the last 10 days I’ve read more books than I had in all of 2020 up till then.”

Little Free Libraries nourish the soul

BY JARRETT VAN METER One of the few silver linings in a generally devastating pandemic is the significant expansion of “free” time to accomplish personal goals. In the last 10 days I’ve read more books (two) than I had in all of 2020 up till then (one).

Hardly an impressive total, but enough to illustrate my point: Now is as good a time as ever to get reading.

The glaring and immediate roadblock to pursuing this goal is the fact that both libraries and bookstores are closed due to COVID-19. Orders can be placed online, but aspiring readers can no longer cruise the aisles, perusing books pulled off shelves in search of the perfect fit.

Now, however, after years of patiently waiting their turn through the rain and the snow, local take-one/leave-one libraries are ready to rise to the occasion and seize their moment in the — well, still mostly in the rain.

Little Free Library, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit, has become synonymous with the global book-sharing movement.

According to the interactive map on the nonprofit’s website, there are dozens of Little Free Libraries in Asheville alone, and the group claims 100,000 worldwide.

Built, paid for and maintained by local community members, often in their own front yard, these “libraries” often take the form of a small wooden box on a pedestal, with a glass door allowing access to the donated contents. The nonprofit sells several different models, both preassembled and as kits.

Establishing a Little Library is easy.

If you bought it from the nonprofit, it’s automatically registered; if you opted to use your own design, you can register it on its website. After that, there are no fees or keys or combinations required, as it’s all done on the honor system: You take one, you leave one. And meanwhile, it gives people 24/7 access to books.

The

Sustainability Series

April 1, 8, 15 and 22

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JARRETT VAN METER Because the system relies on hyperlocal community exchange, the selection varies both by day and by location. I recently decided to tour a cluster of West Asheville sites to gauge available offerings amid the commercial dearth. With rubber-gloved hands I picked through such choices as John Green’s Paper Towns and An Abundance of Katherines, a Holy

Bible and Dick Vitale’s eponymous Vitale at the Virginia Avenue box. The Allen Street branch offered Eckhart Tolle’s Practicing the Power of Now, a Herman Melville anthology and a copy of Romeo and Juliet (that’d be William Shakespeare).

A converted newspaper vending machine on Blue Ridge Avenue, which serves as the hub for my neighborhood, is where I picked up my current read, Robert Boynton’s The New New Journalism. Not only did my wallet remain in my pocket, but the one, two, three hours I would have spent waffling amid a labyrinth of competing titles was instead allocated to actually reading one.

NOW MORE THAN EVER Of course, the safety measures that are required at the grocery store and at work also apply here: Wear gloves, use hand sanitizer and wipe down the book you take with disinfectant. LindaMarie Barrett, assistant executive director of the Asheville-based Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, is the steward of a Little Free Library at 51 Pleasant Ridge Drive. In a nod to the necessary precautions amid the COVID19 pandemic, Barrett taped a list of new guidelines to the window of the Pleasant Ridge location, instructing patrons not only to sanitize their hands after using it but also to keep any book they take rather than returning it, and to refrain from donating any new ones (Barrett keeps the box stocked herself with new and popular titles).

“I’ve always dreamed of owning and curating a library,” she wrote in an email.

“Having access to reading material has never been so important. Reading transports, educates and offers escape. Free libraries make reading available to everyone, regardless of ability to pay. I am passionate about making books available to our community of readers, especially during a time that is so stressful.”

Being stuck at home doesn’t have to mean personal regression. So why not press pause on the remote and go pick up a free book? Just remember to wear gloves and bring a wipe.

Jarrett Van Meter is a writer who lives in Asheville. For more information about how to build and set up a Little Library, go to littlefreelibrary.org. To find all the local ones, type “Asheville NC” in the interactive map on the website. X

C AR T O O N B Y B R E N T B R O W N

Esther Francis Joseph

Local Author & Naturopathic Doctor

PUBLISHED BOOKS • The Disciples Way • Not A Secret Just Forgotten • Memories of Hell, Visions of Heaven: A Story of Survival, Transformation and Hope Order on Biblio.com (nonprofit org.) or on Amazon.com

A new, exciting project from Esther coming soon!

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NEWS

VISITORS PROHIBITED Local Airbnbs face cancellations, loss of revenue

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Just last month, Naomi Palmer thought she was being paranoid when she worried about entering her basement, where paying guests regularly stayed.

At the time, the West Asheville resident and Airbnb host had just seen her latest visitor check out. And though Buncombe County had yet to announce its “stay home, stay safe” mandate, cancellations were pouring in from concerned travelers fearful of catching COVID-19.

With no new arrivals scheduled, Palmer figured she could postpone cleaning the rental space. But then she remembered the cut flowers and potted plants, which would rot or die without watering.

Slipping on a pair of gloves, she descended the familiar stairs into a space that suddenly felt strange and threatening, and quickly attended to the plants.

Additional cleaning, she decided, could wait a few more days to give any trace of the coronavirus that might still be lingering there plenty of time to dissipate.

But as experts continue to offer new information about how the virus spreads, Palmer now has a different take on her experience. “You feel like you’re being obsessive-compulsive, but actually it’s what they’re saying you need to do,” she observes. “It’s hard to adjust to it, but I think everyone is going through that.”

Health and safety considerations aside, though, Palmer and other local hosts are also facing a complete loss of revenue due to the county’s ban on short-term rentals for leisure travel.

Prior to the pandemic, Palmer’s rental, which accounted for most of her income, was bringing in anywhere from $875 to $2,300 per month. She also worked part time for a local food company, but that job, too, is now gone.

Despite the challenges, however, Palmer says she considers herself lucky: Her husband is still employed, and they and their two teenage sons are all healthy. Nonetheless, she does worry. “I wonder how much we’ll have to eat into our savings,” Palmer explains. “We’re getting older, and that was supposed to be for the future.”

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Many of her fellow entrepreneurs now find themselves in similar straits. In a

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UNCERTAIN TIMES: For the last three years, Naomi Palmer’s main source of income has been the short-term rental unit inside her West Asheville home. With the COVID-19 pandemic in full swing, all reservations through May have been canceled. Photo by Thomas Calder 2018 survey conducted by the Asheville Homestay Network, 72% of respondents said they relied on their short-term rental to help pay their mortgage. Meanwhile, 41% said they’d probably have to move if they lost that rental income.

“We knew that there was going to be a slowdown in the economy at some point,” says Jackson Tierney, co-founder of the network. “So we were concentrating on improving and getting ready for the rainy day. But unfortunately, things came quicker and more severely than anyone had anticipated.”

On March 8, several weeks before the county’s March 26 mandate, Tierney sent the network’s 1,000 online subscribers a bulletin describing best practices for cleaning Airbnbs during COVID-19. A record 65% of recipients actually opened the email, he says.

“We were very careful not to hold ourselves as experts,” stresses Tierney. “We tried to be very clear, saying, ‘Hey, here is some information, but the science is changing just about every day based on what people learn. Don’t put all your stock in what you’re reading here.’”

Mere weeks later, however, the network’s April 1 newsletter showed an entirely different focus. In the wake of the county mandate, Tierney concentrated on giving members an overview of possible financial relief available from local, state and federal sources.

The newsletter also outlined the major talking points from Airbnb CEO

Brian Chesky’s March 30 videoconference with hosts. The company, he said, would pay hosts 25% of their anticipated earnings from reservations made on or before March 14 for lodging between March 14 and May 31 that has since been canceled. Those payments, however, will be based on whatever cancellation policies each host had in place at the time the reservation was made; those with less stringent policies will receive little or no compensation.

Airbnb has also established a $10 million relief fund for what it calls “superhosts” — those whose performance meets certain benchmarks for excellence. The fund provides grants of up to $5,000 to those who qualify. For more information, visit avl.mx/71q.

RESPONSES VARY Besides providing financial information, the Homestay Network’s April newsletter included stories about how local hosts were dealing with the situation. Some said they were letting family members or friends self-quarantine in the currently unrentable space. Others expressed gratitude for their own good health and well-being. On a more philosophical note, one host contemplated nature’s transformative cycles, suggesting that the earth might be entering yet another death/rebirth stage.

“There are a lot of folks who are very mindful of the community and nature

“Local hosts are facing a complete loss of revenue due to a ban on short-term rentals.” and meditation and other things,” notes Tierney. “So a lot of people … are using this time to just get into a different rhythm.”

But not all local hosts appear to be honoring the current restrictions. On April 7, the Asheville Police Department issued a press release seeking help in locating Shawn Thomas Johnson, who’s accused of repeatedly leasing his short-term West Asheville rental in violation of the ban. Johnson turned himself in later that day.

Following his surrender, Johnson posted on the Asheville Airbnb Hosts Facebook page, suggesting his guests were essential employees, which lodging operators are permitted to house during the mandate. Johnson confirmed these comments in an email exchange with Xpress.

However, Christina Hallingse, spokesperson for the Asheville Police, maintains that Johnson was cited for repeatedly renting to nonessential travelers, a Class 2 misdemeanor under current restrictions. Though Johnson is currently the only Buncombe County resident formally accused, Hallingse says the Asheville City Police is investigating other potential short-term rental violators; an exact number was not available at press time.

“It’s not our intent to criminalize those who do not comply, but rather to educate individuals on the intent of the order with a warning or advisement,” writes Hallingse in an email exchange with Xpress. “However, if the behavior persists APD will consider the use of citations to gain compliance.”

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE Richmond Hill resident Leanna Echeverri says she and her partner are complying with current regulations and

doing what they can to stay positive.

After investing about $5,000 in renovations to create a private entrance and space inside their home, they launched the short-term rental in March 2019.

“Almost immediately, we were booking like crazy,” Echeverri recalls. But a year later, everything has drastically changed. Her seven April reservations, spanning 21 days, have all fallen by the wayside. Those rentals were Echeverri’s main source of income; her partner works at Whole Foods Market.

Making matters worse was the fact that, even before the pandemic kicked in, 2020 had begun with a low occupancy rate.

“We kind of trudged along during those winter months,” Echeverri explains. “We saved money to get us through … and planned to play catch-up when March and April came around. … But that’s been pulled out from under our feet.”

Still, Echeverri recognizes that the current situation also has its benefits.

Because she has asthma, she constantly worried about housing guests in her home. “I’m an at-risk person,” she explains. But with travel now prohibited and no future guests in sight, Echeverri no longer has to choose between her financial and physical well-being: The decision has been made for her.

Meanwhile, she and her fellow hosts are also keeping busy contemplating ways to boost their prospects once the travel restrictions are lifted. While some believe the tourism industry will bounce back with ease, others, including Tierney, predict that most folks “are still going to be extremely cautious about traveling.”

For this reason, he’s looking to fine-tune his marketing strategy to assuage any lingering concerns. One approach Tierney’s considering is

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All have been disrupted by the Buncombe County mandate prohibiting leisure travel. Asheville Homestay Network co-founder Jackson Tierney is working to keep his fellow short-term hosts up to date on financial relief options at the local, state and federal levels. Photo by Thomas Calder offering rentals only on weekends.

Creating a buffer of four to five days between guests sends a “physiological message,” he says, reassuring travelers that their health and safety are the host’s top priorities.

Another strategy is emphasizing how relatively limited Airbnb guests’ exposure is. “Hotels have common spaces, elevators — the types of things that may cause pause,” Tierney points out. And while he expects that travelers will eventually return to their preferred form of lodging, “They may have a near-term preference for the type of space that we offer.”

Back at their Richmond Hill home, however, Echeverri and her partner aren’t looking that far ahead. Instead, she says, they’re taking their cue from singer Lukas Nelson (Willie Nelson’s son) and his band Promise of the Real, which recently released an album titled Turn Off the News (Build a Garden). “We’re not watching the news, and we’re building a garden,” she reveals. “I have no control over the situation, so I’m doing my best not to stress about it, because that will lower my immune system. I’m trying to be calm and approach each day one day at a time.” X

A collective voice Like Airbnb hosts, bed-and-breakfast owners are grappling with COVID-19’s impacts on their business model. In response to the uncertainty, Rick Bell, co-owner of Engadine Inn & Cabins and president of the Asheville Bed and Breakfast Association, recently formed the North Carolina Innkeepers Exchange. The statewide organization already has 180 members.

“I’m hoping to use the group to form a collective voice for our business community,” he explains.

Bell also sees the network as an easy way to keep innkeepers informed about available resources. “Everyone’s afraid right now,” he says. “And not only for health reasons, but for what happens after this is over.”

Besides running the exchange, Bell recently met with staff from Buncombe County Health and Human Services, which the innkeeper says may be interested in using his properCOME TOGETHER: Rick Bell recently ty’s six cabins for quarantine purposcreated the North Carolina Innkeepers es. Xpress reached out to the departExchange. “All of a sudden, I’m getment concerning these plans but had ting emails and phone calls from all not received a response at press time. over the state as if I’m some kind of North Carolina innkeepers interexpert, which I’m not,” he says with ested in learning more about the a laugh. “I’m just a guy who’s trying exchange can contact Bell at rick@ to get a group of people organized.” engadineinnandcabins.com. X Photo by Tom Watson

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BUNCOMBE BEAT

COVID-19 recession squeezes Buncombe budget In looking toward its fiscal future, Buncombe County has officially broken out the R-word.

“We are likely already in a recession, and it could be a deep one,” said Brownie Newman, chair of the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners, during an April 7 budget work session. According to first-pass estimates presented by county staff members, all sources of revenue but property taxes and miscellaneous taxes and license fees are expected to come in lower for fiscal year 2021 than for the current fiscal year.

Meanwhile, said Budget Director Jennifer Barnette, sales tax revenues are already projected to take a substantial hit through the remainder of fiscal year 2020. Due to the county’s heavy reliance on tourism — an industry especially vulnerable to travel and business restrictions imposed to reduce the spread of COVID-19 — she estimated that April, May and June would all see sales tax receipts 35% less than in 2019.

That slowdown is expected to put the county’s sales tax revenue about $3.5 million below its budgeted receipts through June, Barnette explained. Additionally, she said the county expects payment on just 99% of property taxes for fiscal 2020, down from 99.75% for fiscal 2019, which will likely cause those revenues to come in roughly $1.6 million below the current budget. Buncombe will be able to cover those immediate shortfalls from its general fund balance, a cash reserve of roughly $48 million.

However, the Board of Commissioners already dipped into that reserve for over $13 million to balance the $336.8 million general fund budget at the start of the fiscal year; the county had only anticipated $323.5 million in general fund revenue. Because board policy is to maintain a fund balance of at least 15% of total expenditures — just under the current level — similar spending for fiscal 2021 is unlikely.

“This is a season of austerity in many ways,” said Commissioner Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, who was attending the work session by phone.

“A lot of things we thought might be possible even a month or so ago obvi-

ously have to be assessed through a different lens.”

Even with the fall of sales tax receipts, Barnette noted, the county anticipates just over $324.8 million in general fund revenue for fiscal year 2021, a growth of about .4% over the fiscal 2020 revenue budget. She said that increase was primarily due to property taxes on close to $450 million in Mission Health assets that would be added to the rolls next year.

But that growth was dwarfed by the spending requests of Buncombe government departments, which totaled nearly $360.9 million — $36 million more than anticipated revenue for next year and a 6.5% increase over this year’s budget. Even after county budget staff pared those requests down to key and recommended increases, the first-pass expense budget for fiscal 2021 exceeded revenue projections by over $13.9 million.

Among the biggest new spending items, Barnette said, were more than $4.1 million in staff and equipment for public safety, over $1.7 million for human services and in excess of $1.12 million for general government. New employee requests included 12 EMT paramedics, three 911 staffers and eight library assistants.

Not included in the budget were nearly $3.5 million in discretionary projects that had previously been prioritized by commissioners, such as $1 million to support fare-free Asheville bus service, $790,000 for conservation easements and $110,000 to support playgrounds at county elementary and intermediate schools. Also omitted was $750,000 to renovate the Karl Straus track at UNC Asheville.

Despite the dire outlook, Newman urged his colleagues to fight for spending priorities they believed in.

He argued that funding solar panels in particular would be worthwhile both for environmental reasons and for reducing the county’s electricity costs going forward.

“Talk to your fellow commissioners.

Talk to the staff,” Newman said. “None of these will be easy, but it’s ultimately our call what to do on these.”

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ASHEVILLE ARCHIVES

by Thomas Calder | tcalder@mountainx.com

COMMUNITY CALENDAR APRIL 15 - 23, 2020

‘Take the cure’

CALENDAR GUIDELINES

Exploiting the 1918 influenza

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FALSE REMEDIES: In response to the 1918 influenza, several companies touted untested cures, including E.W. Grove’s Laxative Bromo Quinine. Other businesses, such as Goode & Barbee drugstore, claimed its high ceilings promoted the circulation of fresh air. This image, circa 1945, features an unidentified Asheville drugstore.

Photo courtesy of the North Carolina Collection, Pack Memorial Library, Asheville On Oct. 8, 1918, the Central Bank & Trust Co. ran an advertisement in The Asheville Citizen warning residents of a common and costly disease spreading across America: “Financial influenza.” According to the bank, the virus’s chief symptom was “a frequent desire to buy something one doesn’t need.”

Those afflicted with the malady regularly experienced “an aching void in the interior of the pocket-book.”

But vulnerable members of the Asheville community need not fret, the advertisement continued. “Before you ‘catch’ the disease, take the cure! Open an account before October 11th, and interest will be paid from October first.”

Like the Central Bank & Trust Co., additional companies used the 1918 influenza as a way to market their services. Whereas the bank employed humor, others claimed their products helped mitigate the chances of catching the actual ailment. The Asheville Bootery, for example, promised that “dry feet with good leather shoes, such as we sell, will positively keep the influenza away. Catching cold by wearing worn out shoes causes much of the sickness we are having here now.”

Meanwhile, the city’s downtown drugstore Goode & Barbee encouraged shoppers to continue patronizing its business, despite the growing number of cases. “Your physician will tell you that most cases of influenza are contracted in poorly ventilated rooms,” the advertisement read. “Our store is the most thoroughly ventilated drug store

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in the south. … A six-foot column of good, pure Asheville air is constantly flowing through.”

Others, like E.W. Grove, founder of the Paris Medicine Co., appear to have exploited the crisis for financial gain.

By 1918, the entrepreneur was better known in Asheville for building the Grove Park Inn, but along with his luxurious hotel, the developer remained involved in the pharmaceutical industry.

In an Oct. 11, 1918, advertisement, his company dismissed the current influenza strain “as an exaggerated form of Grip[.]” To fight it, consumers were encouraged to take Grove’s Laxative Bromo Quinine as a preventative, consuming it “in larger doses than is prescribed for ordinary Grip.”

Throughout October 1918, several other cures were featured in the pages of The Asheville Citizen. In one case, a Roanoke, Va.-based company touted the health benefits of acid iron mineral.

And in a featured Oct. 24 article, the paper ran a testimonial that claimed breathing in fumes of formaldehyde mixed with ethyl alcohol and water healed those suffering from influenza.

These false claims, which spread across the country like the virus itself, soon demanded a national response. On Oct. 27, 1918, a headline on the front of The Sunday Citizen declared: “Public health service issues warning against ‘cures’ for influenza.”

Editor’s note: Peculiarities of spelling and punctuation are preserved from the original documents. X

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HOMESTYLE: Asheville-based singer/songwriter/banjoist Kathryn O’Shea’s debut full-length studio album, January 9th, is deeply rooted in family. Foremost, the April 10 release’s title is a nod to the date in 2014 when her father “died peacefully after a short but fierce bout with cancer.” Six years later, to the day, she laid down 10 original songs in a vocal booth built out of the closet she shared with him in her childhood home, while her brother Michael recorded it all, seated “right around where he used to sit to do homework when this now recording studio was his bedroom.” The collection of warm, intimate tunes “celebrates triumph in the face of trauma, a message we all need in this new era of coronavirus,” and will soon be followed by O’Shea launching a Patreon campaign “in an effort to continue to find rich, accessible, socially distanced connection with her audience.” kathrynosheamusic.com. Photo by Alexandra Malek tia Cargegivers, 10:30AM, Online, alz. org/northcarolina THURSDAY, APRIL 23 • Facebook Live: History Mystery hosted by Vance Birthplace, 2PM, Online, avl.mx/71d, • NCDOR Virtual Webinar: Your Small Business Taxes, Business Tax Essentials, 9AM, Online, avl.mx/727 • Virtual Talk: WCU Bardo Center: WNC From the Air, 12PM, Online, avl.mx/729

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13

WELLNESS

FAMILY SEPARATION

COVID-19 fears come between nursing home residents and their loved ones

BY MARK BARRETT markbarrett@charter.net Riceville resident Lisa McCallister used to visit her 86-year-old mother at an East Asheville nursing home every evening to help her eat her supper.

David Cohen would play Scrabble four times a week with his mother, 95, in an independent living facility for senior citizens a little east of downtown Asheville.

Not anymore. The COVID-19 pandemic has stopped those visits and other contacts between families and thousands of seniors who live in nursing homes, retirement communities, rest homes and other group facilities in Buncombe and nearby counties.

The well-being of those seniors is a major worry for both families and public health officials. The odds of a senior citizen dying if he or she contracts the virus are higher than for the general population, and residents typically live close to one another, meaning an infection could spread rapidly if it breaches the walls of a facility.

Cohen says employees at the Bella Vista Gracious Retirement Living complex where his mother lives “are doing everything they can to limit exposure, but there’s no such thing as 100%.”

“It seems like just about everybody [who lives there] would be somehow immunity compromised. Some people are on walkers; some are on oxygen,” he says.

“In a place like that [COVID-19] would run rampant” if just a few people were infected, Cohen worries.

OUTBREAKS Buncombe County alone has nearly 4,000 beds in nursing homes, adult care homes and similar facilities licensed by the state government. There are probably thousands more seniors in retirement communities, apartment complexes for seniors and similar facilities in the county not regulated by the state.

The state Department of Health and Human Services said April 13 that there were 45 ongoing outbreaks of COVID-19 cases in nursing homes, other residential care facilities and prisons or jails. So far, none are in Buncombe County.

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Before starting their duties, each employee is asked about possible COVID-19 symptoms and exposure to others. A staffer takes and records their temperature. One employee who had attended a wedding and others with minor respiratory issues have been turned away, Kaufman says.

“There’s a lot of allergies going around right now as well, but we’re trying to be as careful as we can be.

It’s better to be careful than to get it in your facility,” she says.

Chris Elmer, administrator of Western North Carolina Baptist Home in West Asheville, says state and federal authorities have given facilities like his extensive guidelines to follow “and we’re going to do what we’re told to do.”

Precautions even include treating packages coming into the nursing home and assisted living facility with Lysol spray or bleach, he said.

‘THE GAME MUST GO ON!’

ACCESS DENIED: Security guard James Williamson stands at the visitor checkpoint at Givens Estates retirement community off Sweeten Creek Road in South Asheville. Nonessential visitors, including family members, have been banned to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Photo by Mark Barrett State figures starkly illustrate why facilities for senior citizens are such a worry. Seniors account for 25% of confirmed COVID-19 cases but 80% of deaths related to the virus statewide.

Steven Smith, health director for Henderson County, told county commissioners there March 31 there were five COVID-19 cases in long-term care facilities in the county, “which is certainly of grave concern for us.”

Cases snowballed quickly. Five days later, the county announced that 23 staff and residents at Cherry Springs Village assisted living facility in Hendersonville had COVID-19. County Department of Public Health spokesperson Jodi Grabowski says that as of April 13, two nursing homes and Cherry Springs had announced they had COVID-19 outbreaks, defined as instances of two or more cases in the same facility.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Henderson County had jumped to 99, by far the largest total for any

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Western North Carolina county, and 82 of those cases occurred at the facilities with outbreaks, Grabowski said. Six people with COVID-19 had died in the county, although Grabowski said state researchers may ultimately attribute some of those deaths to other causes.

NO ADMITTANCE Nursing homes and many other facilities for seniors in Buncombe County have dramatically changed their operations in response to the pandemic. Bans on nonessential visitors and a halt to group activities and dining for residents are common. Workers typically bring meals to residents. Nursing homes have cleared out areas where infected residents could be quarantined.

At Aston Park Health Care Center, a nursing home in West Asheville, “The only people that are getting in and out are employees,” Executive Director Marsha Kaufman says.

At Pisgah Valley Retirement Community in Candler, which includes nursing home and assisted living facilities, “Group activities have been discontinued,” but staff are “providing outdoor time for residents in our courtyards, leading hallway bingo games and assisting video chats between residents and their loved ones,” Administrator Michelle Grandy said.

Instead of one bingo game for all Aston Park residents, employees have put on rotating games in each hallway.

Residents come to the doors of their rooms and play from there.

“Precautions must be made, but the game MUST GO ON!” the facility’s Facebook page says.

Activities like exercise classes and daily devotionals at Givens Estates, a large retirement community in South Asheville, are now offered via Givens’ in-house television channel instead of in group gatherings. Some are canceled.

Halting group activities and general visitation “is creating some social isolation for folks,” says Executive Director John Cowan, but the coronavirus has not necessarily generated waves of fear.

“Overall, residents are taking the threat seriously. They see their job … as stay safe, stay home so they don’t become a burden,” he says.

Marjie Tucker, who lives in an apartment at Givens with her husband, Jim, endorses the precautions.

“We’re in a little pocket that is very safe,” she says. But she misses visiting friends who also live at Givens: “We just wave to each other from a distance.”

Elmer, however, sees significant unease among WNC Baptist Home residents.

“They’re being bombarded by news outlets like yours every day,” he told a reporter. “Anybody who’s got any sense is worried.”

REACH OUT AND TOUCH SOMEONE Not being able to see elderly loved ones in person is tough for families, although administrators at local facilities say relatives are generally supportive of the restrictions.

Cohen says his mother, Shirley Cohen, sometimes doesn’t properly hang up her landline telephone and can’t find her mobile phone, meaning her children can’t reach her. “It can be a little scary,” he says.

McCallister says while daily visits to her mother are suspended, “It’s like a piece of your normal routine is missing that you need to do and you want to do, but we can’t.” Her mother, Billie Shope, has Alzheimer’s disease and no longer speaks. Rules against visitation meant the family couldn’t go to Shope’s room to celebrate her birthday recently.

Instead, a few relatives gathered outside and taped balloons and a “Happy Birthday” banner to a window. Nursing home staff brought Shope to the window and, in honor of Shope’s long-time involvement with the Riceville Volunteer Fire Department, a department fire truck and ambulance drove past.

Shope brightened, McCallister recalls.

“It was very special.” X

BINGO IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS: At Aston Park Health Center, staff discontinued the weekly bingo game held for the entire facility and organized smaller ones on hallways so residents could be isolated from one another to prevent the spread of pathogens. Photo courtesy of Aston Park Health Center

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15

GREEN SCENE

Spring 2020

Nonprofit issue

OUTSIDE VIEW

COVID-19’s environmental impacts unclear in WNC

BY DANIEL WALTON dwalton@mountainx.com

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In recent weeks, social media have been full of reports about nature responding to drastic cuts in human activity due to COVID-19. Wild goats are roaming through a Welsh town on lockdown, a jaguar was spotted in a closed Mexican resort — and in downtown Asheville, a black bear prowled the mostly deserted streets outside the Buncombe County administration building.

As the animal world shows striking signs of a new normal, some environmental markers are also shifting in conjunction with efforts to slow the spread of the disease. Cities such as New Delhi and San Francisco have recently seen significantly better air quality due to reduced traffic and business activity, the result of stay-at-home orders, while cuts

MILES AND MILES: The eastern view from Grandfather Mountain on April 10 was stunning, but park staff says visibility hasn’t changed much since COVID-19 restrictions took hold in Western North Carolina. Photo by Andrew Grindstaff, courtesy of the Grandfather Mountain Stewardship Foundation to boat traffic in Venice have made the Italian city’s canals look crystal clear.

Are similar changes taking place in Western North Carolina? Xpress reached out to several organizations responsible for monitoring the region’s air and water to learn how the environmental situation has changed since Buncombe County issued its COVID-19 state of emergency declaration on March 12, which marked the first local guidance for people to reduce nonessential business and travel.

BLUE-SKY SCENARIO? Regarding regional air quality, the answer to the question of coronavirus’s impact is a resounding maybe.

According to James Raiford, a senior air quality specialist with the WNC Regional Air Quality Agency, both ozone and particulate matter averages were indeed lower throughout Buncombe County last month than in any March for the past four years. (The federal Environmental Protection Agency only began considering March part of the ozone season in 2017).

However, Raiford cautions against drawing too strong a conclusion from those numbers. Ozone and PM measurements are highly dependent on weather, with high-pressure systems keeping

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pollution close to the ground and more active conditions leading to cleaner air.

With only four years of data for ozone, he says, it’s difficult to tease apart COVID19’s effects from natural variation.

“Perhaps the bigger thing to consider this year is that Duke is no longer burning coal at the Skyland plant,” Raiford continues; the coal plant was officially retired in January. “Their new natural gas-fired power plant should result in lower emissions of NOx (nitrogen oxides), which is a precursor for ozone formation, and also lower emissions of PM.” That fuel shift is likely the biggest way WNC’s humans have changed the local air quality, Raiford suggests. While reductions in travel and business due to COVID-19 restrictions may have cut some pollution, he says the effect is probably much less than what’s been observed in more urban areas.

Anecdotally, the people who oversee one of WNC’s most famous views haven’t seen big changes since coronavirus orders took effect. John Caveny, natural resource management specialist with the Grandfather Mountain Stewardship Foundation in Linville, says visibility has followed its normal spring variation of more than 80 miles on clear days to less than 50 feet in the fog.

“The one thing that I have noticed is how much louder everything in nature

has been. The songbirds seem to be singing louder, and the turkey gobbles sound like they are in a microphone,” Caveny notes. “I attribute this to two things: there being less road noise and the sounds of people throughout the park, and the lack of disturbance from the vehicles and people making the birds more active throughout the day.”

USUAL FLOW COVID-19 is likely not having a major effect on WNC’s waterways, according to the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality. “[The Division of Water Resources] would not anticipate discernible improvements in water quality from

relatively short-term changes in human behavior, as a significant potential source of water quality impacts is from nonpoint sources (e.g., stormwater, agricultural runoff, land-disturbing activities, etc.), which have largely not been affected during the COVID-19 event,” explains spokesperson Robert Johnson.

Although empirical data is limited — Johnson references only two samples from the French Broad River taken on March 18, after Buncombe County’s emergency declaration but before its “Stay Home, Stay Safe” order took effect — those preliminary results show low turbidity and E. coli levels in line with expectations for the spring. And Hartwell Carson, French Broad Riverkeeper for Asheville-based environmental nonprofit

TAKING ACTION

Heath Moody builds A-B Tech sustainability program

POWER UP: Heath Moody, right, stands with students from A-B Tech’s sustainability program on a class trip to Washington. Photo courtesy of Moody After earning a master’s degree in industrial technology from Appalachian State University, Heath Moody left the academic world to work as a carpenter.

“Sustainability is a passion for me. I was homesteading and building a cabin and decided what I really enjoyed was working with my hands,” he recalls.

Moody wound up back in academia when he took a position at AshevilleBuncombe Technical Community College teaching carpentry, and he found his interest in sustainability was shared by Construction Management & Building Sciences Department chair Ken Czarnomski. With a threeyear grant from the Global Institute for Sustainability Technologies, they created A-B Tech’s Sustainability Technologies program.

Now the department head himself, Moody says the program focuses on green building and renewable energy

but prepares students for a range of careers. “Sustainability is a vast field where you can get into agriculture, transportation, manufacturing and energy,” he says. “These skills are vital for society going forward.”

Hands-on projects, Moody notes, are key to developing those skills. Three student-assembled solar-charging workstations are currently installed on the A-B Tech campus, while construction and sustainability students are partnering to construct 8-by-8-foot “pod” buildings that could be used as offices, studios or mediation rooms.

Students in other departments are chipping in on the pods through computer-aided design, marketing and construction management. “We were looking for something everyone could get their hands on,” he says.

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APRIL 15 - 21, 2020

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GR EEN MountainTrue, also says the virus probably hasn’t done much for water quality.

“We don’t have a lot of industry, so the temporary shuttering of industry due to the virus isn’t going to really change water quality here,” Carson says. “Most of our pollution is sewer, septic, agricultural and construction related. All of [those] things are still similar pre- and post-corona.”

Ann Marie Traylor, executive director of the Black Mountain-based Environmental Quality Institute, says her organization’s watershed sampling in April and May should provide more

information about what changes, if any, COVID-19 has brought to the region. But she suggests that the biggest effects to come from the virus may not be related to the human slowdown.

“I’m also concerned about the EPA’s relaxation of regulations for industrial pollution during the health crisis,” Traylor says, referencing the agency’s March 26 move to not seek civil penalties for noncompliance with many environmental rules. “I’m not sure if we’ll be seeing any effects from that in the next month or two.” X

TAKING ACTION

Marissa Percoco sees a ‘new hunger’ for permaculture knowledge The Firefly Gathering’s new executive director, Marissa Percoco, traces the roots of her passion for permaculture directly to her grandfather’s garden. An Italian immigrant, he turned his middle-class California home into a sustainable microfarm, lush with vegetables and fruit trees.

“He was a permaculturist before that word existed. He fermented and made his own wine and grew about 60% of their food in his little backyard,” says Percoco. “It was just like paradise for me. It was the safest space in my childhood.”

Percoco and her four children have created their own sustainable paradise on their off-grid, tiny-house homestead in Barnardsville. A longtime friend of Wild Fermentation author Sandor Katz, she started teaching workshops on fermenting and mead-making in 2009 and attended her first Firefly Gathering as an instructor in 2010.

Through her website, wilderlandia. org, she offers other sustainability and ancestral skills experiences as well, such as a forest-based mentorship program for young adolescents.

This spring, COVID-19 stay-at-home orders went into effect just as planning for the 2020 Firefly Gathering was about to go into full swing. Percoco and other organizers had no choice but to cancel the June event, which would have been her first gathering as executive director.

“It’s definitely scary financially, because we’re a crowd-sourced organization that just makes our money from one event,” she says.

But she notes that the pandemic has also piqued public interest in resilience, sustainability and permaculture skills, which Firefly celebrates. “I really

CAN’T QUENCH THE FIRE: While the Firefly Gathering may have been canceled this year due to COVID-19 concerns, its new executive director, Marissa Percoco, says she’s seen more public interest in the kinds of skills her event teaches. Photo courtesy of Percoco feel like there’s a new hunger for these things,” she says. In response, Percoco has partnered with her Barnardsville neighbor, Firefly Gathering and Wild Abundance founder Natalie Bogwalker, to create instructional videos on fermentation for an online self-sufficiency school.

“I feel like right now this COVID virus is forcing people to slow down and, hopefully, look internally and not just at their phones,” Percoco says.

“I do hope that this virus does have a positive effect in our culture in a big way, like paradigm shifting and recognizing that we’re not secure — we’re not food secure, we’re not material secure. It’s interesting how something like this can come in and show us how vulnerable we are.”

— Gina Smith X

Setting the course for clean energy

Worried about Climate Change?

Action is the remedy for despair The Blue Horizons Project has many ways for you to take action in your home, business, and community to support the transition to a clean energy future.

Visit bluehorizonsproject.com to get involved.

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APRIL 15 - 21, 2020

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APRIL 15 - 21, 2020

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FOOD

MEAL PLAN

Asheville Housing Authority turns to local chefs to reopen Southside Community Kitchen

BY KAY WEST kwest@mountainx.com When David Nash, executive director of the Housing Authority of the City of Asheville, recognized the dire need for meals faced by many elderly and homebound residents during the COVID-19 crisis, he knocked on opportunity’s door — Green Opportunities, that is.

For several years, the nonprofit, housed in the Edington Education & Career Center, had operated Kitchen Ready, a training program for people interested in culinary careers. Nash first reached out to chef Hanan Shabazz, who had been a driving force behind Kitchen Ready.

“The Southside Community Kitchen had been pretty much closed for around six months, so I called chef Hanan to see if she thought it would be a good idea to get it up and running,” Nash explains. “We had already been talking about a longterm plan for Kitchen Ready, but the immediate need was to operate a crisis kitchen.”

For help, Shabazz turned to chef friends Mark Rosenstein, who founded The Market Place restaurant 40 years ago; John Fleer, chef and owner of Rhubarb, The Rhu and Benne on Eagle; and Blackbird chef and GO graduate Kikkoman Shaw.

“We all kind of mobilized to get something going very quickly,” says Fleer. “The first few days we simply did soup — it was the easiest thing to make a lot of — and cornbread.”

The program kicked off March 24, exactly one week after North Carolina ordered restaurant dining rooms closed. On the first day, Housing Authority maintenance workers delivered 100 meals to residents. On the second day, they delivered 150, then 250 on the third.

“The people in the kitchen took that weekend to pause, catch up and get ahead, but by Monday, March 30, they were making 300 meals a day, which is where we are now,” says Nash. “We will add more as we hear of more need.”

Fleer says the group has branched out beyond soup to other things that can be made in quantity, such as 22

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MOUNTAINX.COM

KITCHEN CABINET: Chef Hanan Shabazz mobilized a crew of local chefs to make meals in the Southside Community Kitchen for elderly and housebound residents of Asheville Housing Authority developments.

Photo by Cindy Kunst lasagna. The group also intends to add a fresh vegetable and “something dessert-y.”

The partnership between the Housing Authority and GO has received permission from Buncombe County to redirect funds intended to supply the Kitchen Ready program to emergency food preparation instead. Nash hopes to use funding from a city grant to allow the facility to resume offering training, specifically in how to set up and operate crisis kitchens.

“There’s a lot of hard stuff out there right now,” says Fleer. “But there are positive things happening, too, and this is one of them. People coming together to feed people in need, that’s a good thing.” X

Doctors’ orders Ivory Road Café & Kitchen prepares free meals for health care workers

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A LA CART: Ivory Road owner Jill Wasilewski places meals prepared at her restaurant for health care workers onto a cart outside Mission Hospital. Photo by Andrea Alvaro Chefs, cooks, bakers and makers work in and open restaurants, cafes and bakeries to pursue their calling to feed people.

After the North Carolina government ordered restaurants to close their dining rooms on March 17, Ivory Road Café & Kitchen owner and chef Jill Wasilewski found a new way to answer that call.

“My friend Jen Breslin’s sister in Florida has a restaurant and came up with the idea of providing boxed meals for health care workers,” Wasilewski explains. “Jen asked me if I thought Ivory Road could do it. I told her I had all the time in the world, so let’s try.”

Wasilewski made a quick post on Ivory Road’s social media pages describing the idea and the need for donations to support it. “The response was so fast it was almost scary,” she says. “We had to create spreadsheets to track the donations before we could even start making the boxed meals and deliveries.”

She and Breslin initially reached out to the medical community through friends, then received a big assist from Mission Hospital’s manager of volunteer engagement to help with pickup, delivery and

distribution to Mission. Meals are also going to Advent and Pardee hospitals as well. “At first, we were just doing COVID units, but now we’re reaching all departments, including housekeeping. We do lunches and night shift staff. Everyone is in this together,” says Wasilewski.

“Everyone” now includes Foggy Mountain Brewpub owners Samantha and Chris Kronberg, who jumped in to help out Ivory Road. “It got so big so fast, it was too much for me; we were doing 60-90 meals a day,” Wasilewski says. “I reached out to my friends at Foggy Mountain for help, and now we do four days, and they do four days, then we switch.”

Though Ivory Road is doing family meal takeout service a couple of days a week, Wasilewski says the hospital endeavor is her priority now. “Having homemade meals brought to them makes them feel appreciated, and that is so important right now,” she says. “As long as donations keep coming in, we’ll keep making the food.”

For information on how to donate to the initiative, visit avl.mx/71u.

— Kay West X

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HELPING HANDS: Grassroots Aid Partnership, with assistance from Soul and Soil Project, is preparing and distributing free meals from a mobile kitchen parked at Dr. Dave’s Automotive on Haywood Road in West Asheville. Photo by Ernesto Borges The Grassroots Aid Partnership is a national nonprofit created in 2018 that provides meals at the sites of natural disasters. As co-founder, Asheville resident David Anderson has responded to hurricanes, fires and floods around the country. But his response to the COVID-19 pandemic was to set up a mobile kitchen in his own backyard — at the site of one of his businesses, Dr. Dave’s Automotive in West Asheville.

“I got involved with disaster relief in 2017 through the Dr. Bronner’s soap company,” he says. “They set up a kitchen in Florida after Hurricane Irma. By being the guy who can fix generators and run trucks, I found there was a need for people who can handle logistics, and I can do that.”

In addition to Dr. Bronner’s, GAP is also supported by philanthropic partners including Organic Valley food company, which donated the mobile kitchen now parked at Dr. Dave’s.

“The big truck can serve 2,000 meals

a day,” Anderson says. “This one is capable of 200 a day.”

With the intention of helping fill the food gaps for the newly unemployed and families who have lost access to school meals, the GAP kitchen opened its window on April 3 and plans to serve free meals every Friday through Sunday, 4-7 p.m. The kitchen has partnered with the local Soul and Soil Project farm to source fresh, organic produce and coordinate volunteers to prepare, package and serve the meals.

“Once we have systems and capabilities established, we plan to add more days and possibly other locations, such as health care facilities,” says Anderson. “We’d love to see some local restaurants and food trucks get involved. We have a lot of equipment, can set up anywhere and have plenty of opportunities to serve.”

For updates on where and when GAP will be serving, look for Grassroots Aid Partnership - GAP on Facebook. X

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

THE SHOW MUST (EVENTUALLY) GO ON Local theaters remain cautiously optimistic amid COVID-19 closures

BY EDWIN ARNAUDIN earnaudin@mountainx.com As “stay home, stay safe” orders were enacted across North Carolina in mid-March, temporarily closing nonessential businesses to help reduce the spread of COVID-19, two Asheville theater companies just so happened to be staging hyperrelevant plays.

For The Magnetic Theatre’s March 13 opening night performance of Traitor — which concerns a public health crisis — all of the venue’s 82 available seats sold out, keeping just below the recent state mandate limiting gatherings to 100 people. As safety concerns rose, seating was kept to 50 for the following two nights, during which only half of attendees who’d purchased tickets showed up. With news of school closings and other stoppages trickling in over the weekend, artistic director Katie Jones and her board of directors realized they needed to shut down, as well as postpone the world premiere of Small Game (scheduled to open April 17) to 2021. “[Traitor] has been put on the back burner indefinitely, mostly because it’s a cast of 12 and it’s a show where they eat a lot of food and there’s a lot of intimacy,” Jones says. “People aren’t exactly keen to keep going with it.”

Meanwhile, North Carolina Stage Company was set to open Immediate Theatre Project’s production of Well — a comedy about illness — on March 18. But on March 13, citing “the health of our audiences, artists, staff and volunteers,” executive director Steve Hageman and artistic director Charlie Flynn-McIver decided to suspend its run. The remainder of the season, which included The Lifespan of a Fact (slated to open April 29), was also canceled.

“For all intents and purposes, we’re out of business — the business being putting on productions,” Hageman says. “If you want to talk about a bad business model during a pandemic, which is to get older people together in a small room, sitting very close together for an extended period of time, it’s not a good business.”

Though refunds to these canceled and delayed shows can be issued, patrons who’d already purchases seats are encouraged to help out the theaters by holding on to tickets, which will be honored for future performances.

As for other major expenses, though

TIMING WOES: North Carolina Stage Company was all set to open Immediate Theatre Project’s production of Well — a comedy about illness — on March 18.

But with the state-mandated closure of nonessential businesses occurring a few days earlier, the rest of NC Stage’s season was canceled and the company’s future remains unclear. Photo by Taylor Beyre both The Magnetic and NC Stage have understanding, supportive landlords who are offering grace periods on rent, the abrupt end of crucial advertising revenue resulted in numerous staff members from both companies being laid off or having salaries reduced. And looking ahead into uncertain times, fiscally responsible decisions can only be made so far in advance.

NC Stage still plans to hold its annual youth summer camps in July and has former Carolina Chocolate Drops member Dom Flemons scheduled to perform in August, but both offerings are subject to change. Hageman is also “hopefully optimistic about the fall,” when he and Flynn-McIver aim to open a new season in mid to late September.

Hageman is further encouraged that the National Endowment for the Arts received $75 million from the federal government’s COVID-19 relief package, from which he says 40% goes to state arts councils, then 60% to arts organizations for general operating support.

NC Stage has received grants from the NEA before, but even with that potential support, Hageman wonders if COVID-19 will fundamentally change theatergoers’ mindsets.

“You’ve seen the graphs on flattening the curve. Think about arts orga-

nizations as being sort of the reverse curve,” Hageman says. “Unfortunately, it would take us at least a month to get back up into business. Now, we could possibly start selling tickets, but the bigger concern that I have: Are people’s behaviors going to change? Are they going to be reluctant to come back into group settings? Maybe people, when they look at their favorite restaurant and see it’s packed and there’s people milling and standing around the bar, they’re just going to say, ‘Eh, I’m not going to stand in that crowd.’ Those are my bigger concerns.”

Being an equity theater, NC Stage has significant restrictions on what it can do in the interim, though the nonequity Asheville VER A CMagnetic E OVER canand !

N Community Theatre R GEflexCHbeAmore ible with current operations. Though ACT has closed until May 1, postponing the April 3-19 run of Little Women — a story that famously involves a character’s battle with scarlet fever — and delaying other productions and auditions, as well as preparations for its next Mainstage season, its staff has turned to digital programming.

“We are continuing to hold youth classes that were already in session.

These meet weekly through Zoom and are taught by Chanda Calentine and

Amanda Klinikowski, our education staff,” says Jenny Bunn, marketing director for ACT. “We are also continuing to hold Little Women rehearsals through Zoom — and the hope is that once we are able to gather together again, we will be able to put that show up fairly quickly. Our costume designer, Carina Lopez, has continued to build the costumes for that show, and the set was left as is on the stage so that we could pick up where we left off.”

ACT is also running an ongoing Happy Hour on its Facebook page. MondayFriday at 5 p.m., a watch party is hosted of videos that community members have tagged #ACTHappyHour. “This is something that’s open to anyone — whether you’ve been on the ACT stage or not, whether you even see shows at ACT or not — and it’s been so exciting to ‘meet’ new people in our community who have lovely voices and are sharing a little piece of their hearts,” Bunn says.

The Magnetic has similarly offered an online “Distant Socializing Party” series and likewise turned to digital classes, including courses on playwriting, Photoshop and sound design. The theater is also working on recording some sketch comedy videos with twothree performers at safe distances from one another, is exploring turning its one-act play festival in June into filmed programming and taking its “new work open mic” series Magnetic Laboratory online, with tickets sold on a sliding scale to encourage maximum participation.

“At some point, you either have to adapt or die,” Jones says. “We chose adapting.”

Look for Part 2 of this story in next week’s issue. X

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APRIL 15 - 21, 2020

25

A &E

by Thomas Calder

tcalder@mountainx.com

Stay home, read plenty Author Lee Smith discusses publishing during COVID-19

In an alternative universe — one absent of the COVID-19 pandemic — New York Times bestselling author Lee Smith would have been celebrating the April 21 release of her novella Blue Marlin at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Café. Instead, the author is adhering to the state mandate, keeping safe inside her Hillsborough home.

The characters in her latest work, however, are unbound. Based loosely on Smith’s own childhood experiences, Blue Marlin tells the story of 13-year-old Jenny Dale, who, in 1958, tries to simultaneously understand her parents and save their dissolving marriage.

“She develops this kind of magical thinking where she believes if she does so many good deeds, she can influence the course of events and bring her parents back together,” says Smith. “When you’re a child, you so badly want to believe that your actions can have any kind of control over life.”

Though the story begins in Virginia, it ultimately concludes on the beaches of Key West, Fla., where Jenny accompanies her parents on a vacation intended to reignite the couple’s former flame (put out by infidelity and mental health issues).

The fraught road trip is marked by long periods of silence and chain-smoking inside a silvery-gray fishtailed Cadillac. When the family finally arrives to Florida, they discover their motel is overrun by some of Hollywood’s most celebrated actors, in the midst of filming a new movie.

In between these two destinations, Jenny also grapples with the uncertainties of her own transformation into young adulthood. At times, she remains delightfully naïve and childlike, spying on neighbors like Randy Ainsley, the coolest kid from school as he pops pimples in his bathroom mirror.

Other times, she daydreams of her future sexual conquests. “I was simply dying to get my period, grow breasts, turn into a sexpot and do as much damage as Mama,” writes Smith in the novella’s early pages.

Jenny’s experiences combine humor and tragedy, packing a deep emotional resonance within the 26

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FACT AND FICTION: In Blue Marlin, author Lee Smith borrows elements from her childhood, including a road trip from Virginia to Key West, Fla., intended to save her parents’ marriage.

Photo by Mallory Cash; cover design

by Hannah Lee book’s 114 pages. The work also re-creates the late 1950s — with its moral rigidity, bomb shelters and Hollywood stars — without slipping into elements of caricature or cliché.

Smith says she was looking forward to celebrating Blue Marlin’s release at Malaprop’s. But in the wake of COVID-19, she remains hunkered down, revisiting some of her favorite writers and poets, including Flannery O’Connor, William Butler Yates, John Keats, Ron Rash, Fred Chappell and Kathryn Stripling Byer.

“Everybody else I’ve talked to during this pandemic is doing things like cleaning out their closets,” Smith says with a laugh. “I haven’t done one single thing like that. I’m pulling out the poetry. That’s what I’m doing.”

Malaprop’s Bookstore/Café is currently offering free home delivery to Buncombe County residents for orders of two or more books. To learn more, visit avl.mx/720. X

by Alli Marshall

allimarshall@bellsouth.net

Poetry for the people Carl Sandburg Writer-in-Residence Tony Robles creates through COVID-19

Despite nationwide shelter-inplace orders, “Virtual readings on Zoom have been really heartfelt,” says poet Tony Robles. He’s been staying close to his former writing community in San Francisco through that online conference platform, but social distancing necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic did postpone Robles’ local events — specifically a workshop and reading he was scheduled to give as part of his appointment as the 2020 Carl Sandburg Writer-in-Residence.

“When I started writing as a young person, it was due to [Sandburg’s] Chicago Poems,” Robles notes.

Though Robles didn’t live in the Illinois metropolis, Sandburg’s eloquent writing about the city inspired Robles’ own urban verse. (It’s also worth noting that Robles is the nephew of Filipino-American poet, historian and social justice activist Al Robles, so his connection to the art form is familial, too.)

In San Francisco, where he was involved with social justice and housing justice work, Robles adopted the moniker “The People’s Poet” — a concept he developed in part to honor his boyhood hero, Muhammad Ali, aka “The People’s Champ.”

Sandburg was known as the “Poet of the People,” a parallel Robles doesn’t take lightly. Instead of writing in an academic or erudite style, “for me, the onus is to produce work that will resonate” with those in his community, he says.

Robles relocated to Hendersonville less than a year ago. His mother lives nearby, and he’s already found literary circles through the North Carolina Writers’ Network’s “Bleeding Lessons” series (he led one of the workshops), giving readings and starting a small writers’ group. His recent writing reflects the characters he encounters in his adopted hometown. “… He is big, in

WRITE IN PLACE: “I think it was my mother who told me about the writing residency,” says Tony Robles. The poet, activist and 2020 Carl Sandburg Home Writer-in-Residence is making the best of current shelter-in-place orders by sharing work through online platforms. Photo courtesy of Robles the way / that an offensive lineman / is big and i hope he doesn’t / take offense at being the / subject of a poem,” Robles writes of a co-worker at the deli where he’s employed.

Though programming at the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site is currently on hold, Robles continues to share his love poetry.

Future plans may include collaborations with Latinx advocacy nonprofit El Centro and the Black History Collective of Henderson County. He’s also been presenting Sandburg’s writing as well as his own poetry and observations on Facebook via the “Carl Sandburg Home Writer in Residence & Resistance Tony Robles” page.

Learn more at avl.mx/721 and tonyrobles.wordpress.com. X

MOUNTAINX.COM

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MOVIE REVIEWS

Hosted by the Asheville Movie Guys EDWIN ARNAUDIN earnaudin@mountainx.com

BRUCE STEELE bcsteele@gmail.com

But more often than not, the film wisely lets Cunningham be its star, and his reflections on his iconic cheap bicycles, lack of personal fashion sense and dedication to “work well” every day with no interest in personal glory or celebrity make for thoroughly effective entertainment.

REVIEWED BY EDWIN ARNAUDIN EARNAUDIN@MOUNTAINX.COM

The Booksellers HHHS

DIRECTOR: D.W. Young PLAYERS: Parker Posey, Fran Lebowitz, Gay Talese DOCUMENTARY NOT RATED

The Times of Bill Cunningham HHHHS

DIRECTOR: Mark Bozek PLAYERS: Bill Cunningham, Sarah Jessica Parker DOCUMENTARY NOT RATED Bill Cunningham: New York has thus far shown itself to be one of the most enduring documentaries of the 21st century. Why do we need another nonfiction film about the celebrated New York Times photographer a mere 10 years later?

Well, director Mark Bozek’s The Times of Bill Cunningham is more of a full life portrait of the unwitting fashion icon, centered on an extended, illuminating interview that Bozek held with his subject in 1994.

The archival chat and smartly chosen accompanying footage and imagery bring Cunningham’s history into greater focus — as it were — and while, artistically, the film is largely a generic documentary, its engaging, well-made and thoroughly informative portrait of a great man compensates for its creative deficiencies.

Cued to a catchy soundtrack that includes eight tunes by Moby, himself a bit of an unlikely NYC celebrity, The 28

APRIL 15 - 21, 2020

Times of Bill Cunningham energetically chronicles how the photographer took to the streets to see how people were dressing, discovering answers he didn’t witness on the runways.

In the interview, which grew from its intended five minutes into several hours — and were cut to 74 minutes for the film — Bozek digs deep into his subject’s humble motivations and downright monastic lifestyle.

Standout nuggets include Cunningham considering himself a fashion historian rather than a photographer, a mindset that turned him into a copious documenter with loads of unpublished work; his deep fondness for the infinite possibilities provided by his hometown; and, in a rare showcase of vulnerability, the impact of losses of close friends to AIDS. When the interviewee isn’t lovingly recounting his story to Bozek, The Times of Bill Cunningham is tastefully augmented by narration from Cunningham admirer Sarah Jessica Parker, filling in blanks that, considering the resources at hand, couldn’t be addressed in a better way, especially given Cunningham’s death in 2016.

MOUNTAINX.COM

The title tells you what you need to know about this documentary: It’s a love letter to the people who love books — you know, the old-fashioned kind, made out of ink imprinted on paper. For anyone who has spent awesome hours discovering the secrets of the towering stacks within used book shops, The Booksellers will be a comforting window into the world of hardcore book collectors and traders, mostly in New York City.

The famous Strand, one of the few survivors of a golden age of Manhattan bookstores, is one of many explored here, along with visits to book collector expositions and homes with volumes stacked from floor to ceiling. In these days of self-isolation, it’s rather nice to settle back on one’s sofa and take virtual tours of places now closed to us, and to hear stories from the many eccentric and determined people who keep them alive.

It’s not surprising that director/ editor/producer D.W. Young’s resumé is dominated by documentary shorts, because The Booksellers is essentially a bundle of self-contained portraits and vignettes and topical discussions, one after the other. We meet the trio of sisters who happily inherited their father’s shop and learn the secret of their survival. We visit the dealer/ collector/hoarder whose apartment is a hazardous maze of shelves and teetering piles. We meet young women who discuss the gender imbalance of the business.

What we don’t get is any considered discussion of strategies for continuity, such as community marketing, in-store cafes, author appearances, online outreach and so on. It’s as if Young — who has been working on this film for over four years — isn’t really interested in the business side of the book business.

He’s just in love with the booksellers... and with New York wit and curmud-

AVAILABLE VIA FINEARTSTHEATRE.COM (FA) GRAILMOVIEHOUSE.COM (GM) PISGAHFILM.ORG (PF) And Then We Danced (NR) HHHH (GM) Bacurau (NR) HHHH (GM) Beanpole (R) HHHS(FA) Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint (NR) A documentary on the influential abstract artist. Available starting April 17 (FA, GM) Best of CatVideoFest (NR) HHHS(GM) The Booksellers (NR) HHHS(FA, GM) Corpus Christi (NR) HHHH (GM) Extra Ordinary (R) HHHS(FA) Fantastic Fungi (NR) HHHH (FA, GM, PF) Incitement (NR) HHHS(GM) Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band (R) HHHH (FA, GM, PF) The Roads Not Taken (NR) HHHS (FA) Saint Frances (NR) HHHH (GM) Slay the Dragon (PG-13) HHHH (FA, PF) Sorry We Missed You (NR) HHHHS(FA, GM) Straight Up (NR) A rom-com about a young gay man who thinks he may be heterosexual.

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geon Fran Lebowitz, whose periodic interjections are perhaps the best bits of the doc. “You know what they used to call independent bookstores?” she quips. “Bookstores.”

Of course, if you don’t know who the famed author and public speaker is, the film isn’t going to tell you. For a movie about written words, Young has a strange aversion to using them to identify his subjects, except occasionally by first name. But no matter. Whoever they are, these folks are a charming and intriguing lot. When closing time comes, you may not want to leave. But don’t rush out — Lebowitz gets the last word after the credits conclude.

REVIEWED BY BRUCE STEELE BCSTEELE@GMAIL.COM

The Roads Not Taken HHHS

DIRECTOR: Sally Potter PLAYERS: Javier Bardem, Elle Fanning, Salma Hayek DRAMA RATED R With The Party (2018) and now The Roads Not Taken, writer/director Sally Potter (Orlando) is starting to specialize in brief, theatrical films that

attract fairly big-name actors — while ultimately failing to capitalize on the assembled talent.

Her latest experiment stars Javier Bardem as Leo, an immigrant having somewhat of an identity crisis that takes the form of triune 24-hour storylines, representing the main logical paths his life could have taken.

Depicted through often distracting, handheld camerawork, Leo is shown as a stroke-addled man, struggling around New York City with his adult daughter Molly (Elle Fanning) and occasionally babbling about the lost love of his life; as a married man not wanting to go to Day of the Dead services with his longtime wife, Dolores (Salma Hayek); and as a writer at his favorite Greek seaside bar, talking with a beautiful young woman (Milena Tscharntke) who reminds him of the daughter he left some 20 years earlier.

While the Dolores arc is barely developed until close to the end, when it becomes achingly clear why this part has been obscured, the three sections intersect in interesting ways that keep The Roads Not Taken moving sufficiently well. And even if the narrative is a bit confusing at times, the mystery is strong enough to inspire

various theories regarding what’s actually happening, and Potter sustains viewers’ faith that it will all eventually tie together.

Though it’s difficult to see Bardem repetitiously battling his condition in the New York City chapter, the other two strands provide more opportunities for his dramatic gifts to shine.

Hayek, Tscharntke and Fanning — the latter genetically believable as the daughter of Bardem and Laura Linney, who plays Leo’s ex-wife Rita — offer reasonably strong support, though Bardem is typically ample on his own and makes the three Leos feel like distinct people.

The performances are especially crucial considering the script’s dormroom philosophizing, in which Potter suggests that it’s impossible for an artist to have love, parenthood and a career, all balanced and developed to successful degrees. Thanks to these faux profundities, as with her previous (just barely a) feature, The Roads Not Taken plays out more like an interesting film school project from a promising talent than a polished work from an established filmmaker.

REVIEWED BY EDWIN ARNAUDIN EARNAUDIN@MOUNTAINX.COM

Trolls World Tour HHHHH

Lucas McKee

Everyone needs to see Trolls World Tour. You can rent it on Amazon right now and watch it as many times as you can for 48 hours! I believe that this sequel to Trolls is 100% better than the first movie.

It turns out that the trolls we met last time are only one of six regional types of trolls. The original movie’s trolls are actually called Pop Trolls. There are also Techno, Funk, Classical, Country and Hard Rock Trolls! Each region also has a magical musical string that represents the music of its trolls.

Barb (the Queen of Hard Rock) decides that she will go on a world tour to all of the other regions. Her plan is to steal each place’s string, which will allow her to transform all of the other trolls into Hard Rock Zombie Trolls! Queen Poppy of the Pop Trolls, traveling with Branch and Biggie, at first plans to become friends with Barb. However, once Queen Poppy and the others see Barb’s destruction of Symphonyville in the Classical region, they realize they will have to warn the other regions. In the Country Music region, they befriend the helpful Hickory, who travels with them. Along the way, they are pursued by bounty hunters from other musical genres like smooth jazz, K-pop, reggaeton and yodeling. The yodelers, in particular, have a secret to be revealed by the end of the movie.

I really, really like the music in this movie. My favorite song comes right at the beginning when Barb attacks the Techno Trolls during a concert. They are dancing to the song “One More Time” (originally sung by Daft Punk). I also really like the song at the end, “Just Sing (Trolls World Tour),” which blends the musical styles of all the trolls.

REVIEWED BY LUCAS MCKEE

THE REVOLUTION WILL BE PRINTED His presidential campaign ended and with some extra time suddenly on his hands, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has made the logical decision to join the Crier’s editorial board.

“I’m told...I can be very funny...in certain circumstances,” Sanders says. “I’ve been on ‘SNL,’ after all. Surely that counts for something. And who knows? Maybe I’ll get some help...from my cousin Larry [David].”

“IMG_5516” by cornstalker is licensed under CC BY 2.0

In addition to daily demonstrations of his bird-charming skills, the senator promises to cancel student loan debt for the Crier’s staff of liberal-arts-degree and MFA holders, while also making sure their side gigs as musicians and artists will be paid a living wage. He plans to fund these initiatives by a tax on local hoteliers, the TDA and “the people that live in those big houses on top of the mountains where you wonder how the heck the roads up to them got built.”

Sanders notes that he feels sufficiently well-versed “in all things Asheville” after a campaign stop in May 2019. “I’m fond of your Salvage Station...as well as Miss [Ashley] Heath and...her Heathens. Perhaps there’s room for...some collaborations there. We’ll see,” he says. “But first, Andrew Fletcher and I are going to the dueling piano bar. That guy’s not gonna know what hit him.”

KIDS REVIEW DIRECTORS: Walt Dohrn and David P. Smith PLAYERS: The voices of Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake, James Corden ANIMATED/MUSICAL/COMEDY RATED PG

“Why are they publishing this Crier rubbish?” you may be asking. We certainly are. The rest of this edition of Mountain Xpress can’t help but show the tough times WNC is facing. Here’s one little spot in the paper where we offer a bit of levity, to possibly brighten someone’s day, poking a bit of fun at the outrageousness of it all.

DIY DEATH METAL In response to The Orange Peel’s much-celebrated “human hamster ball” solution [see last week’s Crier] to keep live music relevant while venues are closed, The Odditorium has turned to remote participation via innovative multimedia. For a run of upcoming death metal concerts, The Odd will be sending a package of materials to ticket holders before each virtual show. The “box ’o fun” features a set of interactive items from the featured band(s) — a Wiffle ball bat to simulate flailing arms of other audience members, a strobe light that will fit in a household fixture, a tiki drink recipe and a squid tentacle in a jar of formaldehyde, “for ambiance.”

“I am excited about the opportunity to bring the word of my Lord Destructor into the homes of new potential followers,” bellowed Guntar Darkreeve, lead singer of Quarantine Massacre. “But the downside is that I have to count on fans to rip open bags of fake blood at just the right moment, spitting it into their own eyes. It’s not as easy as it sounds.”

Odditorium producers are also looking into technology for a revolutionary Virtual Mosh Pit (VMP). One prototype features a timed remote release for a weighted pulley system — that attendees install at home in a few IKEA-friendly steps — which causes a small mattress to swing down from the ceiling and push revelers into the wall of their choosing. More advanced models involve compactor-style walls and 911 autodials.

MOUNTAINX.COM

APRIL 15 - 21, 2020

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FREEWILL ASTROLOGY ARIES (March 21-April 19): Aries artist Vincent van Gogh got started on his life’s work relatively late. At ages 25 and 26 he made failed attempts to train as a pastor and serve as a missionary. He didn’t launch his art career in earnest until he was 27. During the next 10 years, he created 860 paintings — an average of 1.7 every week — as well as over 1,200 additional works of art. For comparison, the prolific painter Salvador Dali made 1,500 paintings in 61 years. During the coming 12 months, Aries, you could achieve a van Gogh-like level of productiveness in your own chosen field — especially if you lay the foundations now, during our stay-at-home phase.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Most authors do their writing while sitting on chairs in front of desks. But long before there were standing desks, poet Rainer Maria Rilke and children’s author Lewis Carroll wrote their books while standing up. Novelist Henry James had eight desks, but typically paced between them as he dictated his thoughts to a secretary. And then there have been weirdoes like poet Robert Lowell and novelist Truman Capote. They attended to their craft as they lay in their bed. I suggest you draw inspiration from those two in the coming weeks.

It’ll be a favorable time to accomplish masterpieces of work and play while in the prone position.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): While sleeping, most of us have over a thousand dreams every year. Many are hard to remember and not worth remembering.

But a beloved few can be life-changers. They have the potential to trigger epiphanies that transform our destinies for the better. In my astrological opinion, you are now in a phase when such dreams are more likely than usual. That’s why I invite you to keep a pen and notebook by your bed so as to capture them. For inspiration, read this testimony from Jasper Johns, who some call America’s “foremost living artist”: “One night I dreamed that I painted a large American flag, and the next morning I got up and I went out and bought the materials to begin it.” (Painting flags ultimately became one of Johns’ specialties.)

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Ford Madox Ford (1873–1939) was a renowned author who wrote The Good Soldier, a novel that has been called “one of the 100 greatest novels of all time.” Yet another very famous author, Henry James (1843–1916), was so eager to escape hanging out with Ford that he once concealed himself behind a tree so as to not be seen. You have astrological permission to engage in comparable strategies during the coming weeks. It won’t be a time when you should force yourself to endure boring, meaningless and unproductive tasks.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): I hope that during the coronavirus crisis you have been entertaining wild truths and pondering the liberations you will initiate when the emergency has passed. I trust you have been pushing your imagination beyond its borders and wandering into the nooks and crannies of your psyche that you were previously hesitant to explore.

Am I correct in my assumptions, Leo? Have you been wandering outside your comfort zone and discovering clues about how, when things return to normal, you can add spice and flair to your rhythm?

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): I like this quote by the author Jake Remington: “Fate whispers to the warrior, ’You cannot withstand the storm.’ The warrior whispers back, ’I am the storm.’” Although this passage is more melodramatic than necessary for your needs in the coming weeks, I think it might be good medicine that will help you prevail over the turbulence of the coronavirus crisis. Getting yourself into a storm-like mood could provide you with the personal power necessary to be unflappable and authoritative. You should also remember that a storm is not inherently bad. It may be akin to a catharsis or orgasm that relieves the tension and clears the air.

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APRIL 15 - 21, 2020

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Libran rapper and activist Talib Kweli says, “You have to know when to be arrogant. You have to know when to be humble. You have to know when to be hard and you have to know when to be soft.” You Librans tend to be skilled in this artful approach to life: activating and applying the appropriate attitude as is necessary for each new situation. And I’m happy to report that your capacity for having just the right touch at the right time will be a crucial asset in the coming weeks. Trust your intuition to guide you through every subtle shift of emphasis.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Scorpio artist Marie Laurencin (1883–1956) enjoyed a colorful fate.

One of the few female Cubist painters, she was a prominent figure in the Parisian avant-garde. She was also the muse and romantic partner of renowned poet Guillaume Apollinaire. But there came a turning point when she abandoned her relationship with Apollinaire. “I was 25, and he was sleeping with all the women,” she said, “and at 25 you don’t stand for that, even from a poet.” Is there a comparable situation in your life, Scorpio? A role you relish but that also takes a toll? Now is a favorable time to re-evaluate it. I’m not telling you what you should decide, only that you should think hard about it.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Sagittarian sculptor and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1596–1680) was a prodigious, inventive creator.

One scholar wrote, “What Shakespeare is to drama, Bernini may be to sculpture.” He designed and built public squares, fountains and buildings, many in Rome, which embodied his great skills as both sculptor and architect. Unlike many brilliant artists alive today, Bernini was deeply religious.

Every night for 40 years, he walked from his home to pay a devotional visit to the Church of the Gesù. According to my reading of the astrological factors, now would be an excellent time for you to engage in reverential rituals like those — but without leaving your home, of course. Use this social-distancing time to draw reinvigoration from holy places within you or in your memory.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): As I understand the current chapter of your life story, you have been doing the unspectacular but yeoman work of recharging your spiritual batteries. Although you may have outwardly appeared to be quiet and still, you have in fact been generating and storing up concentrated reserves of inner power. Because of the coronavirus crisis, it’s not yet time to tap into those impressive reserves and start channeling them into a series of dynamic practical actions.

But it is time to formulate the practical actions you will take when the emergency has passed.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Aquarian poet Jacques Prévert offered a variation on the famous Christian supplication known as the Lord’s Prayer.

The original version begins, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” But Prévert’s variation says, “Our father who art in heaven: Stay there.” Being an atheist, he had no need for the help and support of a paternal deity. I understand his feeling. I tend to favor the Goddess myself. But for you Aquarians right now, even if you’re allergic to talk of a divine presence, I’ll recommend that you seek out generous and inspiring masculine influences. According to my reading of the astrological omens, you will benefit from influences that resemble good fathering.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): How skillful are you in expressing what you want? Wait. Let me back up and reformulate that. How skillful are you in knowing what you want and expressing the truth about what you want to the people who might ultimately be able to give it to you or help you get it? This is the most important question for you to meditate on in the coming weeks. If you find that you’re fuzzy about what you want or hazy about asking for what you want, correct the problems.

MOUNTAINX.COM

MARKETPLACE

BY ROB BREZSNY

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15 Part of the Dutch Caribbean 16 Voice above tenor 17 Brainstormers’ flurry

18 Relent 19 Lead-in to prompter 20 They’re on their second decade

edited by Will Shortz 21 Singer Ella with the 2018 Grammywinning R&B hit “Boo’d Up” 22 Hot food?

25 Reason for seasonal shots 26 Biblical garden 28 Bad way to be led 29 Fake I.R.S. call, e.g.

30 Takeback of a car, for short 31 “Georgie ___” (nursery rhyme) 32 Sticky roll 33 Costa ___ 35 Word repeatedly sung before “Born is the king of Israel” 36 Torah holders 37 TV gunslinger Wynonna, supposed descendant of Wyatt 39 Plant that yields a potent laxative 40 Hot food?

45 Bo-o-oring 48 Less amiable 49 Jokes 53 It makes a rowboat go 54 “Heavenly” man’s name

think positive VOTE FOR THE

BEST OF WNC

Now through April 30 mountainx.com/bestofwnc

Puzzle by Erik Agard 55 Chinese zodiac animal of 2020 56 Sch. whose newspaper is The Prospector (“Assayer of Student Opinion”) 58 Incredible deals 59 Chipper greeting 60 Contrive 62 A fan of 63 Southern terminus of Amtrak’s Silver Meteor 64 Words from an emcee 65 Just sit there being mad 66 Word before peace or child 67 One who can never go home again 68 Sunbathes 69 Critics’ assignments

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1 Apt surname for a close-up magician?

2 Literary convenience 3 Hot food?

4 ___ Dhabi 5 Back of one’s neck

No. 0311

6 Criticizes venomously 7 High-voltage foe of Spider-Man 8 On the loose 9 Something a sandal shows that a loafer doesn’t 10 Ending of four state capitals [Can you name them all?]

11 Reverent poem 12 Hot food?

13 Practiced at the track 14 Make an ass out of u and me, as they say 23 Dog’s protestation 24 Requirement for pink hair 27 Credit card-only, say 29 Muscly 34 What MoMA knows best?

36 Actor Mahershala 38 Alternatives to Nikes 39 Jackson 5 dos 41 One with an opening to fill?

42 Mix of red and blue 43 Like leftovers, for now

44 Genius Grant recipients, e.g.

51 Portmanteau coinage for a queer-identified e-sports player, say

45 Concerned with wealth, possessions and respectability, in modern lingo

52 Alternative to an elevator

46 Gender-neutral neologism added to MerriamWebster in 2018

57 Knit and ___

47 “That’s true about me, right?”

61 “The Raven” poet

59 Bit of help in an escape room 63 Prefix with judge or trial

50 Singer Grande

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS NY TIMES PUZZLE

V A P O R A G A M E C O N G A M S S E S W A N S H O W O A A L E U T W E D G I H A P A T T A G I L E C L A U D T O R N S W A G

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Donate your car.

Change a life.

A car donation to Working Wheels can help create the security and hope that local essential workers and their families desperately need right now.

Working Wheels follows all recommended CDC safety guidelines, and our touchless car donation process can be completed online and by phone without any physical contact.

workingwheelswnc.org | 828-633-6888 MOUNTAINX.COM

APRIL 15 - 21, 2020

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