Mountain Xpress 05.06.20

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MAY 6-12, 2020

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NEWS

NEWS

FEATURES 9 PUT TO THE TEST Genova Diagnostics settles billing fraud claims for up to $43M

10 SHOW ME THE MONEY Occupancy tax to fund grants for tourism businesses

PAGE 16 RACE TO TRACE Local COVID-19 contact tracers are a key element in Gov. Roy Cooper’s three-phase plan to loosen statewide stay-home restrictions.

Xpress checks in on how WNC efforts are gearing up for the challenge.

COVER ILLUSTRATION Getty Images COVER DESIGN Scott Southwick

FEATURE

12 COVID CONVERSATIONS Three local residents share their stories about coping with the pandemic

GREEN

5 LETTERS

18 THE SCENIC ROUTE Buncombe commissioners back Craggy scenic designation; Duke Energy releases new net-zero carbon report; more

5 CARTOON: MOLTON 7 CARTOON: BRENT BROWN 8 COMMENTARY 9 NEWS

FOOD

12 COVID CONVERSATIONS

22 BREAKING THE MOLD Luxury chocolate maker pivots from bonbon molds to face shields to assist front-line responders

14 ASHEVILLE ARCHIVES 15 COMMUNITY CALENDAR 16 WELLNESS 18 GREEN SCENE 20 FOOD 24 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT 26 SMART BETS 27 MOVIES 29 COVIDTOWN CRIER

A&E

A-B Tech Accounting Office Management Asheville Holistic Realty Asheville Pizza and Brewing Company Black Bear BBQ Bottle Riot / formerly District Wine Bar Calypso - Esther F. Joseph City of Asheville Employment City of Asheville Sanitation Community Action Opportunities Father and Son Home Improvement Franny’s Farm Givens Gerber Park Half Moon Market Ingles Markets Inc. Itto Ramen Bar & Tapas Lancaster Law Firm Land of Sky Regional Council (LOSRC) Lenoir-Rhyne University Livewell in WNC / Live Well Mellow Mushroom Metro Wines LLC Mission Health Mostly Automotive Inc. Nature’s Vitamins and Herbs Organic Mechanic Pack’s Tavern Pisgah Brewing Co Range Urgent Care RBG Moving River Arts District Association Ruth’s Chris Biltmore Village Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse Smoky Park Supper Club Southern Atlantic Hemp Co, Inc. - SAHAE The Blackbird Restaurant Town and Mountain Realty Tunnel Vision Western Carolina Medical Society Western Carolina University - Political Science & Public Affairs Wicked Weed Brewing Working Wheels - Wheels 4 Hope

C O NT E NT S

24 INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEOS Local music teachers pivot to digital lessons

30 FREEWILL ASTROLOGY 30 CLASSIFIEDS 31 NY TIMES CROSSWORD

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STAFF PUBLISHER: Jeff Fobes ASSISTANT TO THE PUBLISHER: Susan Hutchinson 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, Bill Kopp, Cindy Kunst, Alli Marshall, Gina Smith, Luke Van Hine, Kay West ADVERTISING, ART & DESIGN MANAGER: Susan Hutchinson LEAD DESIGNER: Scott Southwick 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

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OPINION

Send your letters to the editor to letters@mountainx.com. popular store, Ingles, is not enforcing this practice [See “Retailers, Shoppers Face New Safety Rules,” April 22, Xpress]. In fact, they should be encouraging customers to wear masks as well.

The masks are meant to protect others.

The grocery store is the only place many of us go right now. Without masks, the grocery store is a viral breeding ground.

Be a leader in our community, Mr. Ingle.

Please help to educate and take care of your people.

— Bettina Freese Asheville Editor’s note: Ingles has posted a statement on steps the company is taking to respond to the coronavirus pandemic on its website: avl.mx/73v.

Homeless in hotels

CARTO ON BY R A ND Y MOL T O N

Cut Buncombe’s jail numbers to reduce COVID-19 risks On the Buncombe County Detention Center in pandemic: On April 14, there were 19 confirmed cases of COVID-19 at the Neuse Correctional Institution in Eastern North Carolina.

On April 16, 259 inmates, one-third of the prison’s population, were asymptomatic but tested positive. By April 20, 458 inmates tested positive.

This confirmed the long-standing fear of prisoners, medical professionals, prison abolitionists and prison staff: Prevention of asymptomatic viral transmission within prison is impossible.

BCDC is not a closed system: Arrests are made, inmates released, shifts changed, officers are trickling in and out. The population of BCDC is inextricable from the general population of our community.

Therefore, BCDC will pose serious health risks to our entire community until its population is capped at 130 inmates — 10 inmates or less in each of the 13 housing units (re: executive order on mass gatherings).

How to do it: 1.

Request the Bureau of Prisons to offer pretrial release to all eligible federally detained inmates housed in the BCDC. Refuse to house federal inmates, effective June 1 (87 federally detained inmates housed in BCDC, as of April 18).

2. Require law enforcement officers to issue citations instead of arrests for nonviolent offenses. Suspend officers making unnecessary physical arrests.

3.

Keep releasing pretrial offenders whenever possible, ASAP. Implement countywide moratorium on cash bail.

4. Require prison staff and law enforcement officers to self-quarantine while off duty; offer them free housing in hotels during the North Carolina state of emergency.

5.

Encourage decarcerated inmates to self-quarantine for two weeks following their release; offer them personal protective equipment and three weeks of free housing in hotels — within walking distance of essential services.

Our prison system puts all of Buncombe at risk. Empty the BCDC! With consternation, — David Saulsbury Asheville Editor’s note: An April 21 article in the Citizen Times, “Coronavirus: Buncombe Jail Population Down Almost 200 Since COVID-19 Response Began,” outlines steps currently being taken at Buncombe County’s jail in response to the pandemic.

Also, an article published by Carolina Public Press, “Court Hears Arguments in Lawsuit Seeking Prisoner Releases,” reports on a lawsuit filed in Wake County Superior Court to require the state to release “a significant number of people” currently in the state’s prison system because of COVID-19 concerns.

Grocery workers should wear masks Grocery store employees need to be wearing masks. Our largest and most

I hear that cities like New York and San Francisco are sheltering homeless residents in the otherwise empty hotels.

Asheville and Buncombe should certainly do this as well, and in short-term rentals; but local “progressives” damaged our ability to do this by so severely limiting and regulating their number, that being in addition to limiting future Battery Park tower-type affordable housing in the long term.

Way to go again, fake “progressive” NIMBY speculators!

— Alan Ditmore Leicester

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Lessons about recycling from Earth Fare This is long overdue, but recent local COVID-19 issues delayed me in writing.

Let me begin by saying how saddened I was to learn of the closure of Earth Fare when it was announced in early February.

They dedicated themselves to healthy living, and their corporate motto was “Live Longer with Earth Fare.”

I live a short-distance walk from the old corporate office for that now-bankrupt Earth Fare grocery store chain. For over four years, I’ve walked a route along Continuum Drive in Fletcher to its end, where that office was located. The parking lot was usually full, and the employees were so friendly when I waved, even though we didn’t know each other. So it pained me to talk with them as they cleaned out their offices and put their belongings in their cars.

During my walk one day several years ago, I saw some wire protruding from their dumpster, and I took a peek inside.

What I found were armfuls of computer and electrical wire that were being thrown way. Perhaps they had updated their electronics and didn’t need those cables any longer.

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OPINION

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I retrieved those cables and later recycled them at Biltmore Iron & Metal Co. for about $15. My interest was piqued, and I checked their dumpster more often.

What surprised me was the number of times I saw things discarded that could and, I contend, should have been recycled or maybe repurposed.

Over the years, I found more armfuls of computer and electrical wire, and each time I recycled them. Let me say at this time that I’ve been an avid recycler since I lived in Austria for eight years during my university studies in the 1970s. The Austrians didn’t throw anything away that could be reused or recycled. After that I lived in Michigan, where “deposit” laws pretty much dictated that people didn’t throw away beverage cans and bottles that they had paid a deposit on.

I’m not here to give a laundry list of what I salvaged over time. ...

What bothered me a lot were the number of aluminum beverage cans that were thrown away. Asheville, where I used to live, prides itself on being hip and earth-friendly; conservation-type things and recycling are key to keeping our landfills open for years to come. I frankly expected some corporate attention to

in-house recycling or at a minimum, individual employees who recycled.

I’m not connecting this throwing away of recyclable things as a root cause for Earth Fare going out of business. I bring it to people’s attention because I feel that a company so dedicated to healthy living ought to have had corporate policies of conserving their resources. Maybe they did, and I only saw these things being thrown away. ...

It’s a sad commentary on what happens when we, as individuals or as a nation, become richer. We discard rather than repair, repurpose or recycle. I’ve lived in poorer countries, where one doesn’t see this. They can’t afford to waste.

Before closing, let me tell you about my most-prized “rescue.” It was a very heavy, professional-style, 14-inch diameter, stainless steel pan, with handles on both ends.

It had been cooked in and wasn’t clean but a little scrubbing restored it to its gleaming self. My estimate is that it cost well in excess of $100 and would have fetched a nice price in the thrift store.

Thank you for indulging me in this.

COVID-19 should be a stark reminder that we always live in uncertain times and we should conserve our resources that we may be better prepared to make it through the hard times that will surely come.

— Dennis Kabasan, M.D. Fletcher Editor’s note: A longer version of the letter will appear at mountainx.com.

Thanks for Duke’s rate hike information Thanks to Gail Solomon for her letter to the editor providing information about the proposed Duke Energy hike [“‘No’ to Duke Energy’s Proposed Rate Hike,” April 8, Xpress]. I greatly appreciate the information.

— Tabby Tuttle Brickley Weaverville

Advocate for fair districts reform All who have the ability need to reach out to their local representatives to advocate for fair districts reform. The current epidemic is a major concern right now, but time is running out for the General Assembly to pass legislation. With census efforts already impacted, we cannot afford to lose representation for hard-to-count communities that are often already disenfranchised in our electoral system.

My name is London Newton. I’m a student at UNC Asheville, and I ask that the North Carolina General Assembly 6

MAY 6-12, 2020

MOUNTAINX.COM

pass a fair districts law that ensures we keep communities compact and whole in our districts, that doesn’t allow the use of political data or partisan objectives and provides citizen participation and transparency.

These are basic tenets of democracy that [they] have the responsibility and authority to defend in this especially important election cycle, which has the health and safety of our country riding on it.

— London Newton Student Body President UNC Asheville, 2020-21 Asheville

Call to save the Postal Service Republicans and Democrats alike rely on the post office to send mail or cards to our families at an affordable price. Many of us receive critical services such as medical supplies through the mail.

Did you know the Postal Service is not funded by taxpayer money but relies completely on revenue created by postage and postal services? That they have to provide mail service to all households in rural and urban areas? Would a private institution do that at the reasonable cost everyday working people have come to expect?

Trump has refused to include the Postal Service in its bailout of big corporations unless it sharply raises its prices. As with any public institution the Republicans want to dismantle, they have thrown roadblocks to make sure it cannot survive by mandating the Postal Service to prefund its health benefits at least 50 years into the future. What private institutions could do this and stay solvent?

If you like to use your local post office, please call Rep. Patrick T. McHenry at 202-225-2576, Sen. Richard Burr at 202224-3154 and Sen. Thom Tillis at 202224-6342. Say the next stimulus bill must save the U.S Postal Service from financial collapse and provide funds for every American to safely cast their ballots.

— Valerie Hoh Asheville

Clarification In our April 29 article, “Table for None: Local Restaurants Struggle to Ride Out the Mandated Closure of Dining Rooms,” a reference to the Paycheck Protection Program should have stated that loans require recipients to hire staff at nearly preshutdown levels. Also, full loan forgiveness is only available if 75% of the loan is spent on payroll costs and 25% is spent on other qualifying expenses such as rent and utilities.

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

Coloring for the win “Everything we do is to keep up morale for Asheville while we’re stuck at home,” says Jax Hammond, founder of Asheville Quarantine Group. Since its launch in late March, the Facebook group has continued to grow, now totaling over 5,000 members. Its mission is to create a sense of community while adhering to county and state orders.

Online events include daily happy hours, “Fancy Friday” dress-up days and an ongoing fundraiser to donate pizzas to local nurses, doctors and grocery store workers.

“We’re trying to keep everything in this group as lighthearted as possible,” says Hammond. “Even though it’s very dark times. … This is kind of like a sanctuary, so that you can have a break and take a breather and make some friends and do some good for the community. ” Inspired by Xpress’ recent back cover coloring page provided by Asheville Pizza and Brewing Co., the group organized a coloring contest. Thirty participants, both children and adults, submitted their works. Pictured are the two winners, Oliver, 9, and Latisha Taylor.

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OPINION

Rising to the occasion The Gospel According to Jerry

BY JERRY STERNBERG As I sit in voluntary house arrest due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I can’t believe how dramatically our lives have changed in the last few weeks.

I’m reminded of Dec. 7, 1941, my 11th birthday, when my dad took me and my friends to the Isis Theater in West Asheville to see Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with Spencer Tracy.

As we were riding home in the car, skylarking and laughing, my dad asked us all to be quiet so he could hear the radio announcement about the Japanese attack on our naval fleet in some place called Pearl Harbor.

By the time we’d finished our ice cream and cake and the kids had left, the whole family was sitting in front of our radio, which I always thought resembled a miniature church. My mom and dad were visibly saddened by the terrible news; I had a sinking feeling that something was terribly wrong, but it wasn’t until the next day that I began to understand the gravity of it.

Our fifth grade teacher at Claxton School spent most of the morning showing us maps and explaining the situation. Until then the only image I had of Hawaii was a big island with palm trees, coconuts and colorfully costumed hula dancers.

Around 2 p.m. our principal came on the loudspeaker announcing that President Roosevelt was going to address Congress; soon we were listening to his famous “date which will live in infamy” speech and declaration of war.

The line that subsequently became his rallying cry was, “No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premedi-

tated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.”

THE HOME FRONT When I got home that afternoon, my mother sat my sister and me down and explained that my dad might have to go away for a while to help fight the war. They turned him down because his scrap metal and hide business was considered essential.

Recycled scrap metals were desperately needed to build armaments. And cowhides, which his company collected and processed, were shipped to the tanneries that produced leather not only for shoes and belts but also to make cases for military equipment and, most importantly, for the industrial belting needed to run our steam-driven industrial plants.

Our lives began to be impacted with the introduction of rationing of many commodities, including butter, meat, shoes and gasoline (a particular hardship for many).

We had air raid drills and blackouts, darkening our city so that enemy planes couldn’t bomb it. My dad was an air raid warden in North Asheville, and I was a bicycle messenger tasked with delivering messages between different posts and reporting on houses that had any lights showing.

The country’s mood was grim. Every week, newsreels showed devastating battle scenes and bombed European and Far Eastern cities. But what most affected me was seeing footage of chil-

dren who appeared to be my age fleeing the destruction.

The young men disappeared from the neighborhood, as service flags displaying first blue and then, sadly, gold stars began showing up in people’s windows. Women who’d been homemakers recognized that with the men gone, they would have to fill important jobs, even as these true heroines agonized over the possibility of receiving a dreaded telegram announcing the death of a family member.

Asheville real estate also served the war effort. The federal government took over the Grove Arcade, and the Grove Park Inn, patrolled by armed guards, became first an internment center for Axis diplomats and foreign nationals and, later, a rest and rehabilitation center for naval aviation officers. Over in Swannanoa, the military built Moore General Hospital to treat injured servicemen.

We cheered the convoys of troops and equipment that frequently drove down Merrimon Avenue en route to the ports, wondering how many of those men might never return.

We had scrap metal drives, and my dad volunteered to handle the collection and processing at no charge.

The A&P store at Woolsey Dip (where Luella’s Barbecue is now) made part of its parking area available, and a mountain of donated metal was collected there. I remember one lady brought a brand-new aluminum pot and yelled, “Throw this at those damned Nazis!”

THEN AND NOW There are some pronounced similarities between World War II and the current pandemic: Both sparked great fear for the lives and safety of our loved ones. Both entailed traumatic changes in lifestyle and acceptance of inconvenience and deprivation. In both cases, there was deep concern about how long this horror would last and what our world would look like when it ended.

There are also fundamental differences, however.

During World War II we immediately jumped in and ramped up our defenses.

At the start of the pandemic we were in denial, far more concerned about politics and the economy, which made us late to the dance.

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JERRY STERNBERG In the 1940s the war was “over there,” and we were fighting to keep it from coming “here.” Today our danger is both “over there” and “here,” and our deadly enemy is virtually invisible.

In World War II the entire nation was united under the command of a decisive leader who inspired us to make every effort and sacrifice to help defeat the enemy. Now we are terribly divided by politics, racial and economic inequalities.

During World War II our president’s fireside chats communicated self-assurance during times of despair and made it clear that whatever the outcome, the buck stopped with him. Our current leader delivers self-serving TV press conferences/campaign rallies daily, surrounded by animated mannequins who are tasked with putting the best spin on the situation to avoid drawing the president’s ire. His insulting bouts with the press when they don’t throw him a softball make good theater but don’t inspire confidence.

Nonetheless, we as residents of Asheville and Buncombe County must diligently support our civilian “troops,” who risk their lives working in health services, grocery stores, pharmacies and elsewhere, by observing the safety rules imposed for our own good.

In the words of Roosevelt’s first inaugural address, in 1933, “Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, and on unselfish performance; without them, it cannot live.”

Asheville native Jerry Sternberg, a longtime observer of the local scene, can be reached at gospeljerry@aol.com.

NEWS

PUT TO THE TEST

Genova Diagnostics settles billing fraud claims for up to $43M IgG testing was No. 1 on a list of tests of which consumers should be wary that was compiled by the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, his specialty’s leading professional organization.

BY DANIEL WALTON dwalton@mountainx.com Asheville’s biggest recent controversy around medical testing doesn’t have anything to do with COVID-19. On April 27, the office of Andrew Murray, U.S. attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, announced that Asheville-based Genova Diagnostics had agreed to pay up to $43 million to settle allegations that it had fraudulently billed the federal government for unnecessary lab services.

According to a complaint filed with the federal court in May 2018, Genova allegedly sought and received payment for fecal, blood and urine tests that have not been scientifically proven to diagnose any medical condition. The company also allegedly classified some of those tests under false billing codes to defraud Medicare and Medicaid.

“Labs are expected to bill taxpayer-supported federal health programs for medically necessary services, not pad their bottom lines as alleged by the government in this case,” said Derrick L. Jackson, an investigator with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “We will continue working with our law enforcement partners to safeguard these vital programs.”

Genova leaders referred an Xpress request for comment on the settlement to Mark Semer, a partner with New Yorkbased communications firm Kekst CNC. According to Kekst’s website, the firm specializes in “reputational challenges” and crisis management.

“We conducted our own thorough investigation and are confident in the medical necessity of our tests and that Genova acted completely appropriately,” Semer said on the company’s behalf.

“While we believed that Genova would have prevailed, we are pleased to avoid considerable distraction and expense by resolving this matter without any admission of guilt or wrongdoing.”

RAISING THE FLAG Murray’s office notes that it first learned about Genova’s alleged behavior from Dr. Darryl Landis, who served as the company’s chief medical officer from 2012 through 2017. According to the complaint, Landis had shared concerns about the company’s practices internally as early as July 2015, when Blue Cross Blue Shield said it would exclude Genova’s stool tests from its coverage as medically unnecessary.

THE BOTTOM LINE

ALLEGED IN ASHEVILLE: Genova Diagnostics settled with the federal government to resolve multiple allegations of improper medical billing. Photo by David Floyd In response to his diligence, Landis alleges, Genova’s then-CEO Chris Smith disregarded his concerns as “overly conservative,” cut his department’s budget and repeatedly excluded him from meetings with company leadership. The complaint claims that Genova then falsely accused Landis of “employment related misconduct” and fired him.

Landis did not respond to a request for comment submitted through the website of Mustard Seed Venture Partners, the Greensboro-based medical investment firm for which he currently serves as a managing partner. Due to the doctor’s whistleblower role, Murray’s office notes that he will receive 15% of the settlement money — potentially almost $6.5 million.

“The value of our diagnostic tests has been demonstrated and recognized time and time again by a growing body of medical research and by a global customer base including more than 10,000 annual prescribing primary care and specialty

physicians, as well as some of the most prestigious medical institutions in the world,” Semer said when asked about the clinical utility of Genova’s products.

He did not respond to a request for further clarification about specific research or medical institutions that supported those claims.

Xpress asked Dr. William McCann, who practices with Allergy Partners of Western North Carolina and was not involved in the case, about one Genova blood test cited in the complaint that had been advertised as useful for detecting food intolerances. He said that the specific IgG antibodies measured by the test are also produced by the immune systems of healthy people after eating and aren’t thought to indicate any abnormality.

“As allergists, we don’t put great stock into that type of testing to indicate any form of allergy or ‘leaky gut,’ for which the science has always been a bit controversial,” McCann explained. He added that

As the most immediate consequence of the settlement, Genova will forfeit over $17 million in payments from Medicare and TRICARE, the civilian health benefit system for the U.S. military. The company will then enter a five-year “corporate integrity agreement” involving an outside review organization and additional federal compliance requirements.

Also over the next five years, Genova will pay the government 13% of any net annual revenue above $100 million and 20% of any asset sales over $1 million.

Those payments will be capped at $26 million, creating a total potential liability of $43 million.

Semer did not address questions about what impact the settlement payments would have on Genova’s revenue or its ability to retain Asheville-based staff. As a privately held company, Genova’s finances are not publicly available, but the most current estimate from business analytics firm Owler places its annual revenue around $110 million.

“Government health care programs are designed to provide beneficiaries with care that is medically reasonable and necessary,” said Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Division. “Providers of taxpayer-funded federal health care services will be held accountable when they knowingly cause false claims to be submitted for services that do not meet this standard of care.” X

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NEWS ROUNDUP

Buncombe gains $5M in tourism relief 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

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MAY 6-12, 2020

COVID-19 has hit all parts of Buncombe County’s economy hard, but perhaps none harder than its tourism industry. From March 21 through April 18, according to data presented by the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority on April 29, hotel occupancy averaged just over 16% — down from more than 93% for the same period a year ago.

New rules proposed by Sen. Chuck Edwards, R-Henderson, and signed into law by N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper on May 4 aim to give the tourism industry a boost once coronavirus-related restrictions on travel are lifted. The legislative change allows the BCTDA to use $5 million from its Tourism Product Development Fund — which previously had to be allocated to nonprofit entities or local government and spent on capital projects — for grants of up to $50,000 in support of tourism businesses other than lodging.

Edwards had originally filed a separate bill, SB 705, to allow the new use of funds, but after its progress stalled in a Senate committee, he was able to include the rules in the larger SB 704, the COVID-19 Recovery Act. “After initially being told ‘no’ by key decision-makers in the Senate, Sen. Edwards continued to work with legislators in both chambers and on each side of the aisle to get his bill’s language inserted into the S704 conference report,” the senator’s office wrote in a press release announcing the move.

According to the bill, the money would be managed by “an agency experienced in emergency management funding for grants to assist small businesses” and not the TDA itself. However, the authority would have the final say over whether applicants would “significantly increase patronage of lodging facilities in Buncombe County,” a requirement for receiving funds.

The bill does not mandate that grant awardees offer their employees a living wage, and salary information is not included in the data on retained jobs that the TDA would be required to report to the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners. According to a 2019 study commissioned by the authority, the area’s average salary for a tourism job was $29,485, less

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ON THEIR OWN: Town leaders in Weaverville declared May 1 that they would no longer abide by Buncombe County’s local COVID-19 emergency order. Photo by Cindy Kunst than the $32,240 established as a living wage by Just Economics for workers without employer-provided health insurance.

TDA proposes $15.5M operating budget for FY2020-21 As one part of the BCTDA’s occupancy tax revenues became available for local businesses, a significantly larger portion is slated to bring tourists back to the region. At the authority’s April 29 meeting, board members heard Stephanie Brown, president and CEO of the Explore Asheville Convention and Visitors Bureau, propose a $15.5 million operating budget for the 2020-21 fiscal year.

The spending plan marks a nearly 25% reduction from the roughly $20.6 million budget approved for the current fiscal year. However, expenditures are projected to exceed revenues for the coming year by over $4.3

million; that excess will be paid from the TDA’s reserved fund balance.

Expenses include over $8.3 million for media campaigns (down 34% from last year’s budget), more than $1.9 million for salaries (down 16%) and over $825,000 for group sales (down 19%). One new cost is $70,000 to hire an executive search firm to find Brown’s replacement; last month, she announced her departure from Explore Asheville effective at the end of June. (The BCTDA unanimously named Chris Cavanaugh, founder of the Asheville-based Magellan Strategy Group and former BCTDA board chair, to serve as Explore Asheville’s interim leader.)

In response to public comments suggesting that some of the TDA’s marketing budget be repurposed for direct community support, Sabrina Rockoff, the authority’s attorney, claimed that such a move was prohibited by the state constitution.

Previously collected tax revenues, she explained, are required to be spent on the purposes for which they were originally collected.

Weaverville refuses to obey Buncombe COVID-19 orders The town of Weaverville is tired of waiting. Although Buncombe County remains under a local executive order stricter than the statewide mandate enacted by Gov. Roy Cooper, Weaverville’s leaders announced that as of May 1, they would no longer be adhering to all of the county’s rules.

“Now that the governor has put in place a comprehensive set of restrictions aimed at protecting North Carolina’s citizens, the town has weighed whether the more restrictive provisions of the county’s orders are needed in Weaverville,” read a town press release announcing the change.

“We have concluded that Weaverville does not present unique circumstances that require restrictions above and beyond what Gov. Cooper adopted statewide based on the public health guidance that he is receiving.”

As outlined in a statement released May 2, the change means town authorities will allow any business that can maintain social distancing — not just those explicitly outlined as essential under Buncombe’s executive order — to reopen. Nonessential visitors from outside the state, such as tourists, will also not be required to self-quarantine for 14 days on their arrival to Weaverville.

Pack Library launches senior outreach initiative

Although downtown’s Pack Memorial Library sits less than a tenth of a mile from the Battery Park and Vanderbilt Place senior apartment complexes, the library’s closure due to COVID-19 has made it feel much farther away for many residents. A new program developed by library staff aims to close the gap that restrictions to curb coronavirus have created.

Starting this week, says library program coordinator Erin Parcels, residents of the senior apartments and the Charles George VA Medical Center are receiving resource boxes every Tuesday containing books donated

by Bagatelle Books and the Friends of the Library. She says the library is coordinating with the VA and the Council on Aging of Buncombe County to determine additional dropoff locations for the future.

Puzzles and handouts on the library’s electronic resources are being included in the boxes as well.

Soon, Parcels hopes, they’ll also hold letters and postcards written by community members.

“The main sentiments everyone is feeling are isolation and loneliness. When I proposed we get a letter and postcard campaign going, it was enthusiastically welcome,” Parcels says. “I know letters would mean the world to so many of our patrons who can’t come into the library.”

Letters for the program can be addressed to Letters to New Friends, Pack Memorial Library, 67 Haywood St., Asheville, NC 28801. Submitters can also include a return address if they’d like to become a pen pal.

Mission Health, AdventHealth resume procedures On May 4 and 5, Mission Health and AdventHealth Hendersonville took initial steps in the direction of more normal health care operations, resuming some services that had been delayed during COVID-19-related restrictions.

“These procedures have been classified within tiers of urgency and acuity, allowing us to prioritize services as we take a measured approach to this transition,” said Dr. William R. Hathaway, chief medical officer for Mission Health. “Our patients will see continued — and in some cases enhanced — screening, testing, masking and patient flow procedures, as well as infection prevention protocols in facilities.”

Mission patients with scheduled procedures will receive instructions prior to arrival and will be allowed to have one adult with them in the waiting area.

Escorts may wait outside the facility and receive phone calls with updates.

AdventHealth Hendersonville also announced several measures to guard against infection, including: • Continued mask wearing by staff and patients.

• Continued visitor restrictions.

• Rapid COVID-19 testing for patients and health care workers.

• Temperature screening at entrances to AdventHealth facilities.

• Registration and waiting in patient vehicles for certain appointments.

• Continued social distancing measures in waiting rooms, reception areas and elevators.

— Daniel Walton X

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11

COVID CONVERSATIONS

FEA T U RE S

Sheltering at home, it’s hard to envision what other members of our community are experiencing during this strange time.

Even if we could imagine the struggle of a parent trying to care for children while working from home, or the isolation of a single older person or the anxieties swirling in the mind of a small business owner, hearing directly from our neighbors is always more interesting and powerful than anything we could invent.

And so we bring you COVID Conversations, a series of short features based on interviews with members of our community during the coronavirus pandemic in Western North Carolina. If you or someone you know has a unique story you think should be featured in a future issue of Xpress, please let us know at news@mountainx.com.

Separate but together Quarantine creates hard choices for a single parent

A place to be Shelter ‘a blessing’ during pandemic While much of downtown slumbers, the Harrah’s Cherokee Center Asheville is wide awake and bustling with activity. Volunteers and staff with Homeward Bound distribute donated food and supplies in the lobby of the entertainment venue, while as many as 50 men and women have called the center home since it opened as a shelter on April 8.

Robert Stevenson, who serves as a liaison between local residents experiencing homelessness and Homeward Bound, says the numbers have dropped a little since that peak, with over 30 folks still in residence at the end of April.

One of them is Yulon Ferguson, who entered the makeshift lodging facility when it opened. He says the accommodations give him peace of mind.

“I am a worrier, but I’m trying not to be anxious and not worry,” Ferguson says. “It’s safe here.”

He says he’s utilizing the time in quarantine to focus on creating a better life for himself once the crisis has passed. One of his main priorities includes something on many Americans’ minds: getting back to work. While he hopes eventually to become a firefighter, he plans to first reenter the workforce through temp agencies after the stay-at-home order is lifted.

“I’m starting off slow,” says the 49-year-old. “I’ve got friends [who say], ‘You ought to get a disability check.’ But I’d rather work.”

In the meantime, Ferguson says he’s taken up cleaning duties at the shelter, including sweeping and mopping the temporary living areas and hallways where cots are placed

12

MAY 6-12, 2020

MOMMY AND ME: Meagan Taylor, right, and her 7-year-old daughter, Fred, are missing out on hugs and cuddles right now. Fred is in the care of her grandparents while Taylor works at Mission Hospital and prepares to sit for the nursing licensure exam. Photo courtesy of Taylor

STAYING SAFE: Yulon Ferguson has been sheltering at Harrah’s Cherokee Center - Asheville since it opened on April 8. He is using the time in quarantine to make plans for the future and give back through mentoring his peers and pitching in on cleaning chores. Photo by Brooke Randle 6 feet apart. He also is using the time to focus on sobriety and act as a mentor to other shelter tenants.

“I cried the other day while I was in here, because it always rained when I’m using. It was a blessing that I was clean and sober here,” he reflects. “I wrote Homeward Bound [and] the court [a letter], for allowing me to be here. And the donations… I think it’s truly a blessing.”

MOUNTAINX.COM

— Brooke Randle X

North Carolina’s stay-at-home order has many local families fraying at the edges as they navigate the tricky terrain of nonstop togetherness. But Asheville single mom Meagan Taylor and her 7-year-old daughter, Fred, have found themselves forced to face the challenges of the pandemic while living physically apart.

Working full time as a certified nursing assistant at Mission Hospital while finishing nursing school at A-B Tech, Taylor realized soon after Gov. Roy Cooper closed the state’s schools in mid-March that she was going to have to make some tough choices about Fred’s care and online schooling. She was relieved when her daughter’s father’s parents, Montford residents Celene and Egg Syntax, stepped up to help.

“I wouldn’t be comfortable sending her to day care, and as a single mom, it would be impossible to afford a private babysitter for 40-plus hours a week,” says Taylor. “They’re my only option.”

But Egg suffers from severe asthma, and since Taylor didn’t want to risk inadvertently exposing him to COVID-19 through her job at Mission,

the family took the arrangement to another level.

Since late March, Fred has been staying with her grandparents. They keep her occupied and active with plenty of craft and gardening projects, along with her online schooling, which Celene oversees.

Fred connects with her mom through frequent texting, videos, virtual chats on Google Hangouts and appropriately distanced in-person visits. All that, of course, means no physical contact — no hugs or kisses — which Taylor acknowledges is hard. But she’s clear that she’s incredibly grateful to have family support in balancing the demands of her situation.

“I am completely relying on my family right now,” she says. “I know a lot of people are feeling really, really stressed, but I’m just feeling stressed about passing the NCLEX and becoming a nurse. My family’s made this whole situation just a lot easier on me, and I definitely wouldn’t be able to function without them.”

— Gina Smith X

celebrating 25 Years!

Public service art COVID-19 inspires creative instruction

DEVASTATED: The current pandemic, says local artist Cleaster Cotton, “has been one of the most sobering experiences I’ve had since being in New York when the towers came down on Sept. 11, 2001.” To cope, the artist has created “public service art,” including the visual on the left. The photo of Cotton was taken last year, prior to the pandemic. Photo by Joe Pellegrino Local artist and teacher Cleaster Cotton can’t stop thinking about her home state of New York, which has suffered over 18,900 coronavirus-related deaths. Many of Cotton’s relatives still live in the city and work in the health care industry. And several members of her extended family are recovering from the virus.

Meanwhile, pandemic-related deaths in Buncombe County currently total four. The low number, Cotton says, does not minimize the lives lost here or the virus’s ongoing potential threat. But compared to New York, she notes, “I feel like we have been very fortunate.”

Still, Cotton remains in isolation, spending much of her time creating what she calls “public service art.” Her paintings, collages, haikus and photographs — which she posts on various online platforms — encourage social distancing and other precautions. Some works, she says, include pictures of her relatives “who are going out there and risking their lives on the frontline.”

The vulnerability of her family keeps Cotton on edge and serves as a constant reminder of the disproportionate

number of African Americans infected by the virus. “America’s dirty laundry is hanging out for everyone to see,” she says, noting that racial disparities in economic well-being directly impact the spread of the virus in many African American communities, where low-income families have neither the financial means nor the space to isolate.

But in other ways the current situation has created moments of hope and clarity. Along with her public service art, she is now hosting her weekly Youth Arts Empowerment class remotely. The free program, launched in 2018, empowers students from Asheville’s marginalized communities through self-expression.

Her latest sessions, says Cotton, reinforce the value of the arts and her life’s mission to teach it. “The new normal needs more creative instruction,” she continues. “Self-expression could be the very tool you need not to lose your mind during this.”

To view Cotton’s designs, visit avl.mx/73x.

— Thomas Calder X

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13

ASHEVILLE ARCHIVES

FEA TU RE S

by Thomas Calder | tcalder@mountainx.com

The selfish and selfless City health official reflects on the 1918 influenza Asheville’s first case of the epic 1918 influenza was reported on Sept. 28.

Throughout the fall and winter, the number of infected city residents increased, totaling 4,477 cases and 127 deaths by February 1919. At the time, Asheville’s population was 30,000.

A year later, following a quiet spring and summer, the city prepared for another possible influenza outbreak. On Sept.

6, 1919, The Asheville Citizen reported that Dr. Carl V. Reynolds, the city health officer, was urging residents to take precautions. While there was no remedy for the virus, Reynolds implored all community members to get the pneumonia vaccine (as many of the previous year’s influenza-related deaths were caused by complications from the lung infection).

According to the Sept. 6 article, Reynolds told residents: “I have no desire to frighten Asheville or to create any unnecessary alarm. But I do feel that the public should get a warning of the danger of failing to take steps to prevent a return of influenza here. The man who ‘takes a chance’ now by permitting himself and the other members of his family to disregard the opportunity to secure immunization against pneumonia will be, in my opinion, directly responsible for any deaths that may occur among his family group from influenza’s complications.”

On Sept. 20, 1919, The Asheville Citizen reported that the pneumonia vaccine was available to all city and county resi-

dents for free. Meanwhile, doctors were encouraged to treat every cold as a mild case of influenza.

In the following week’s Sunday Citizen — which marked the one-year anniversary of the city’s first 1918 influenza case — the paper published remarks by Reynolds delivered at a recent meeting of the State Medical Society. In it, the city health officer noted Asheville’s successes and failures during the previous year’s pandemic.

At the onset, Reynolds lamented, too many residents failed to report their symptoms. By Oct. 8, 1918, there were 115 new cases occurring each day, peaking at 212 reported cases on Oct. 19.

Reynolds thanked the Red Cross and complimented the city’s local officials for how they handled the crisis. But he directed his most lavish praise toward Asheville’s “noble women” who volunteered their “invaluable services in nursing the sick,” while jeopardizing their own lives.

By Oct. 27, 1918, their efforts paid off, Reynolds informed the State Medical Society: The total number of cases had dropped to 77. But as safety restrictions loosened, new cases emerged throughout the winter. (See “Asheville Archives: How wishful thinking helped spread the 1918 influenza,” April 21, Xpress) “The history of previous epidemics teaches us that we may expect a reoccurrence of the disease,” Reynolds warned the medical group. “We should have laws making it a misdemeanor, not only for careless expectorating, but coughing and

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‘NOBLE WOMEN’: In his September 1919 address to the State Medical Society, Dr. Carl V. Reynolds praised the selfless acts of Asheville’s volunteer nurses during the previous year’s influenza outbreak. This photo, circa 1918, was taken at a field hospital in Flanders, Belgium, during World War I. The nurse on the right is Asheville resident Madelon Battle Hancock, daughter of local city physician Dr. Samuel Westray Battle, who served on the community’s health board during the influenza pandemic.

Photo courtesy of the North Carolina Collection, Pack Memorial Library, Asheville sneezing without taking proper precautions to protect those near by.”

Being a highly contagious and lethal disease with no known cure, Reynolds also stressed that fighting influenza required every citizen to be selfless. Too often, he proclaimed, “individual forgetfulness of … fellowman” drove people to fulfill their wants “at any cost, even risking self [health] and endangering others [so] that a selfish desire may be obtained.”

In the early days of autumn 1919, Asheville residents appeared to heed Reynolds’ calls. But as the winter arrived, the city’s fortune soon changed.

Editor’s notes: This is an ongoing series that examines the 1918 influenza. Previous articles can be read at the following links: avl.mx/73d, avl.mx/73e, avl.mx/73f and avl.mx/73g. Spelling and punctuation are preserved from the original documents. X

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MUSIC A CAPELLA SINGING (PD.) WANNA SING? ashevillebarbershop. com ONGOING • Nightly Drones w/ Meg Mulhearn & Revolve AVL (Monday-Saturdays) 11:00PM-Midnight, Online, avl.mx/74f WEDNESDAY, MAY 6 • AVL Airport at JetStream Music Festival, 6:00PM, Online, avl.mx/749 • Wicked Weed: Pickin’ In Place, 6:00PM, Online, avl.mx/732 THURSDAY, MAY 7 • Flood Gallery Virtual Open Mic, 6:00PM, Online, avl.mx/72g FRIDAY, MAY 8 • Formal Friday, a fancy online comedy show, 8:00PM, Online, avl.mx/73a SATURDAY, MAY 9 • LaZoom: What’s Up Your Asheville?, 5:00PM, Online, avl.mx/71s • The Black Mountain Experimental Film and Music Festival, 6:00PM, Online, avl. mx/72g

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ONGOING • Dream Cafe w/ Bernard Welt: Weekly Guided DreamSharing Hangout, Wednesdays, 9:00AM, Fridays 11:00AM, Online, avl.mx/74h WEDNESDAY, MAY 6 • AVL Chamber Celebrates Small Business Week: Turning Uncertainty to Opportunity - Part 3, Strategies to Prepare Your Business for What's Ahead, 10:00AM, Online, avl.mx/737 • A-B Tech Celebrates Small Business Week: National Small Business Week Panel Discussion, 1:00PM, Online, avl.mx/741 • NEDA Presents: No Diet Day Food & Body Image Workshop, 1:30PM, Online, avl.mx/74b • Online Virtual Shamanic Journey Circle, 6:30PM, Online, dreamtimejourneys. net THURSDAY, MAY 7 • AVL Chamber Celebrates Small Business Week: SEO Strategies for Small Business, 10:00AM, Online, avl.mx/738 • A-B Tech Celebrates Small Business Week: YouTube Strategies to Grow Your

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FIRST CONTACT: Communicable disease nurse Caroline Michelle is a member of the Buncombe County Health and Human Services Department’s contact tracing team. She calls local residents who have tested positive for COVID-19 infection and leads them through a process to determine whom they may have been in contact with in the days prior to the test result. She and other public health nurses then get in touch with those contacts to provide information about testing options and other recommended precautions. Photo courtesy of Buncombe County

BY MOLLY HORAK mollyhorak115@gmail.com Crystal O’Dell is a modern-day coronavirus detective. As Henderson County’s nursing director and a COVID19 contact tracer, she’s responsible for tracking down everyone who has been in contact with a person who has tested positive for the new coronavirus.

It’s anything but easy. After a patient tests positive for COVID-19, O’Dell and her contact tracing team face the daunting task of interviewing sick and scared patients to learn where they may have unknowingly spread the virus and to whom. “It gets difficult when you identify a positive and realize that they’ve had multiple contacts who are now ill that need to be tested, and who probably have multiple contacts as well,” O’Dell says.

As the United States surpasses 1 million cases of the new coronavirus, contact tracing will be vital to containing the spread of COVID-19. Per Gov. Roy Cooper’s three-phase plan to loosen statewide restrictions, contact tracing across North Carolina will need to double in scope to meet the expected need.

The World Health Organization divides contact tracing into three steps.

First, contacts, which can include friends, family members, health care providers and work colleagues, must be identified.

Next, efforts are made to reach all identified individuals and inform them of their contact status: what it means, where to receive medical support if needed and how to self-isolate for a two-week period. Contact tracers then make regular follow-up calls to monitor for symptoms and signs of infection.

STAFFING UP On April 27, the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services announced the formation of the Carolina Community Tracing Collaborative, a partnership with the N.C. Area Health Education Centers and Community Care of North Carolina to increase the state’s contact tracing workforce.

As the state rolls out additional COVID19 testing, the surge in results will lead to more confirmed cases. That means more contact tracers will be needed to track where the virus has spread, says Paul

Mahoney, spokesperson for Community Care of North Carolina.

The collaborative, which builds on the existing efforts of local health departments, will hire and train up to 250 additional staff to work in areas that need outside assistance. Priority will go to parts of the state with large outbreaks and to areas with smaller health departments in need of additional staffing, Mahoney says.

“At this point, we know we need people but we’re assessing exactly where we need them,” Mahoney explains. “The real key is going to be looking not just where the need is at, but where the need is at that exceeds what the local health department can do.”

More than 1,200 applications were submitted within the first 24 hours that the contact tracing positions were listed online, Mahoney says. Ideally, the program will tap into existing local expertise as much as possible; hiring managers will prioritize applicants who have done this type of work before.

Final decisions about the placement of contact tracing staff will be made in the coming weeks after additional testing begins and collaborative partners can assess areas of immediate need, Mahoney says.

NC AHEC will take the lead on developing training materials for both new hires and existing staff across the state, Mahoney noted. MAHEC, the organization’s Western North Carolina outpost, will not be providing training locally, according to spokesperson Jennifer Maurer.

DIALING FOR DISEASES Asheville resident Peter Landis began feeling “crummy” in mid-March. He went to his family doctor and, after testing negative for the flu, was given a test for COVID-19. A week later, the doctor called back: The results were positive.

Half an hour later, Landis, 71, got a second call, this time from the Buncombe County Health and Human Services Department. A contact tracer was on the line, asking where he had gone in the days prior to the onset of his symptoms, whom he had seen and if he’d had contact with anyone from outside the area.

He told the health department that he had been self-isolating since he started feeling sick. Other than attending a rehearsal with the Asheville Choral Society three days before developing symptoms, Landis could not recall being in close contact with anyone. “I couldn’t think of anyone, so there wasn’t much point in going forward,” he says.

Contact tracers focus on contacts made during the 48 hours before symptom onset, says O’Dell with Henderson

County, and any contact made after symptoms begin.

Buncombe County health officials are conducting contact tracing on every reported positive COVID-19 case in the county, said Buncombe County interim Health Director Dr. Jennifer Mullendore at an April 27 press conference. The county had assigned seven staff members to contact tracing at that point, and additional staff is on hand to train if the need arises.

The current level of staffing has been, and continues to be, adequate for the number of cases in Buncombe County, says Ellis Vaughan, clinical services coordinator with Buncombe County Public Health. The county will have access to the staff hired by the Carolina Community Tracing Collaborative, he says. If the need for more contact tracers surpasses the county’s in-house capacity, officials will request staff from the collaborative to assist.

In Henderson County, 38 members of the county’s nursing staff assist with contact tracing. Because they rotate duties, there are typically around 12 people actively contact tracing at a given time, O’Dell says.

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BEARER OF BAD NEWS Like many health care workers, the outbreak has taken an emotional toll on O’Dell and her team of nurses on the front lines doing testing and contact tracing. She feels the gravity of the situation when she’s making calls, especially when delivering bad news to unsuspecting individuals.

“The initial reaction when someone is told they’ve had contact with a positive is, of course, they’re fearful and they’re concerned and they just want some direction of what’s their next step,” O’Dell said. “I think that’s where hearing from us that they’ve been in contact is really helpful, because they do get a nurse that can immediately talk to them about what they need to do next.”

There are times when O’Dell bridges the gap between a public health official and a counselor. Henderson County’s protocol is to inform contacts that due to their risk of exposure, they must quarantine for 14 days. She and her team also make sure to offer resources if the individual needs help obtaining food or medical care.

So far, everyone O’Dell has talked to has been receptive to the self-isolation guidelines. But despite her team’s relative success, she knows there’s a long way to go before they can stop the spread of the virus. X MOUNTAINX.COM

MAY 6-12, 2020

17

GREEN ROUNDUP

Buncombe commissioners back Craggy scenic designation North Carolina’s first national scenic area is a step closer to becoming a reality. At an April 21 meeting, the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners lent their unanimous support to designating 16,000 acres of the Pisgah National Forest in the county’s northeast as the Craggy Mountain Wilderness and National Scenic Area.

The wilderness designation, which would apply to nearly 8,700 acres near Craggy Gardens and the Big Ivy community, would permit all current recreation, hunting and fishing uses to continue but would prohibit logging and new road construction. Scenic designation for the entire area, although less stringent, would still add an extra layer of protection beyond the existing national forest rules.

Protecting the land in that way would require moves by both the U.S. Forest Service and Congress, but the commissioners hoped their resolution would push federal officials to act.

The Forest Service is currently undertaking the final revisions of a new management plan for the Pisgah and Nantahala national forests; the public comment period for the plan ends Thursday, May 14.

“I am in awe of those mountains because of the creator that made them,” said Commissioner Joe Belcher as he moved to approve the resolution.

“I just want to caution folks, as we look at that beauty: Let us tread lightly. If we preserve it, let us tread lightly as we use it.”

The county joins over 100 conservation groups in advocating for the new scenic area. Will Harlan, the lead organizer for I Heart Pisgah, said the forest was critical habitat for dozens of rare species and defined the sweeping views from the Blue Ridge Parkway and landmark locations such as Big Butt Summit, Snowball Mountain and Lane Pinnacle.

Duke Energy releases new net-zero carbon report Having announced in September that it would work to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, Duke Energy unveiled a new report (avl.mx/73u) 18

MAY 6-12, 2020

THE LONG VIEW: The proposed Craggy Mountain Wilderness and National Scenic Area would protect many sights along the Blue Ridge Parkway, including the panorama seen from Craggy Pinnacle. Photo courtesy of I Heart Pisgah on April 28 that outlines one path to achieving that goal. While the utility stressed that the scenario was only “an enterprise directional illustration” and not a definitive plan, the document provides the most detailed public explanation to date of how company leaders are thinking about the longer-term future.

Under the 2050 scenario, less than half of Duke’s generating capacity would consist of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, while nearly a quarter would employ carbon-emitting natural gas. The company projects that those gas plants, by then used only for “peaking and demand balancing,” would still emit 7.65 million tons of carbon annually, for which the utility would purchase offset credits.

The remaining capacity would include existing nuclear plants and battery storage facilities, as well as “zero-emitting load-following resources” that could be used to smooth gaps in renewable energy generation. Duke cites advanced nuclear plants, molten salt energy storage and gas plants coupled with carbon capture technology as potential

MOUNTAINX.COM

ZELFRs; all of those options are still under research and development.

“A critical part of our net-zero carbon strategy is the need for new technologies that are not yet commercially available or are unproven at utility scale,” the report notes. “If these technologies are not developed or are not available at reasonable prices, or if we invest in early-stage technologies that are then supplanted by technological breakthroughs, Duke Energy’s ability to achieve a net-zero target by 2050 at a cost-effective price could be at risk.”

Good to know • On April 22, Asheville Brewing Co. began the use of eco-friendly six-pack rings for its canned beer. The packaging, made from plant fibers, is fully biodegradable and compostable.

• After testing more than 2,300 deer over the past year, the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission concluded that the state’s herd remains unaffected by chronic wasting disease. Deer

with the fatal neurological condition, transmitted by infectious proteins in a manner similar to that of mad cow disease, have previously been found in Tennessee and Virginia.

• Kids in Parks, an initiative of the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation, launched a series of e-Adventures (avl.mx/73t) to help children and their families enjoy nature in the face of widespread park closures. Guided activities include hide-and-seek, flower identification and forest bathing.

• The Great Smoky Mountains Association made available online (avl.mx/73p) four previously out-ofprint issues of Smokies Life magazine. The GSMA released the vintage content, along with new “Smokies LIVE” blog posts and videos, to engage lovers of the national park as it undergoes a phased reopening starting Saturday, May 9.

Making moves • Lee Warren, who has led the Organic Growers School as its first full-

NO JOB TOO LARGE OR SMALL

FATHER AND SON

Home Improvement Billy & Neal Moxley

RING FREE: Asheville Brewing Co. recently switched from plastic six-pack rings to a biodegradable and compostable plant-based alternative. Photo courtesy of Asheville Brewing Co. time executive director since 2013, announced that she would be leaving the organization as of Friday, June 5.

She declined to comment when asked about the reasons for her departure.

Ellie Wigodsky, who chairs the OGS board, said Warren was “leaving on her own terms” and was ready for a change in career path.

• Clay Wooldridge was named the operations manager of the Cradle of Forestry in Pisgah National Forest.

Because the Pisgah Forest-based interpretive site is closed until further notice to curb the spread of COVID19, he will assume those duties upon its reopening.

• Candler-based wildlife rehabilitation nonprofit Appalachian Wild has tapped Savannah Trantham as its first executive director. Trantham previously split leadership duties with co-founder Kimberly Brewster, who will now focus on the organization’s development and finances.

Calls for action • The Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project seeks donations for the Appalachian Grown Farmer Relief Fund (avl.mx/73q) to support local growers through the COVID-19 pandemic. According to an ASAP report released in April, two-thirds

of area farmers said they could be forced into bankruptcy if business disruptions persist for the next two to six months.

• The Western North Carolina Regional Air Quality Agency is accepting online public comment on its fiscal year 2020-21 budget through Sunday, May 10. Members of the public may view the budget at avl.mx/73r and send comment by email to WNCAir@ buncombecounty.org.

• The Friends of the WNC Nature Center asks for support after seeing a 90% drop in fundraising revenue subsequent to the center’s closing on March 13. Annual memberships purchased during the closure, available at avl.mx/73s, will activate on the same day that the nature park reopens to provide a full 12 months of benefits.

• Residents who have experienced property damage related to beaver activity are encouraged to contact Anthony Dowdle with the Buncombe County Soil and Water Conservation District at 828-2504788 or Anthony.Dowdle@buncombecounty.org. Feedback will be used to determine the county’s participation in a state cost-sharing program for beaver troubles.

— Daniel Walton X

100 Edwin Place, AVL, NC 28801 | Billy: (828) 776-2391 | Neal: (828) 776-1674

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MAY 6-12, 2020

19

FOOD

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Local chefs celebrate Mother’s Day in the kitchen with their kids

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MAY 6-12, 2020

In normal times — aka BC-19 — restaurants across the country would be staffing up for the busiest day of the year, Sunday, May 10. According to the National Restaurant Association, Mother’s Day beats even Valentine’s Day when it comes to seating and feeding as many diners as possible from open to close.

Chef Jamie Wade, owner of Sand Hill Kitchen, remembers one particular Mother’s Day brunch during her time working back of house at the venerable Commander’s Palace in New Orleans.

“At my station, me and one other guy made 350 crab-meat and brie omelets for one service. It was nonstop.”

Hollie West, who opened Sweet Monkey Bakery & Café in Marshall almost six years ago and closed it on March 22 in compliance with the governor’s executive order, says this will be the first Mother’s Day in years she won’t be working. “We’re always slammed with Mother’s Day brunch service,” she says. “Instead, my mom, dad, my 11-year-old, Patrick, and I will cook at home. Our plan is homemade biscuits with strawberries and cream. And mimosas, of course, for the grown-ups.”

Wade, the single mother of a 14-yearold daughter, lives near her parents, but she and daughter Sophie are keeping social distance, so brunching with them isn’t an option. “I’m thinking Sophie and I will bake my mother a banana cake and drop it off at the house,” says Wade.

Like hundreds of chefs and cooks in Asheville and tens of thousands across the country whose restaurants are locked down, Wade and West are doing a lot of cooking at home now.

And, as parents of children whose schools are also locked down, they’re overseeing online distance learning in math, science, history and English, as well as hands-on cooking tutorials in the kitchen.

In doing so, they’re digging deep into a memory well of cooking with their own mothers long before they turned pro.

“No one would know how to cook if it wasn’t for women,” says West adamantly. “The history of the professional kitchen comes from the military brigade where men had to set up kitchens and

MOUNTAINX.COM

FAMILY AFFAIR: Chef Hollie West, center, owner of Sweet Monkey Bakery & Café, celebrates winning the Asheville Wine and Food Festival chef competition in 2015 with her son, Patrick Connor, and mom, Dryna West. Photo by Maria Purzitza cook for the troops. But who taught them to cook? Their mothers and grandmothers and aunties, that’s who!”

Wade and West recall growing up with mothers who had a home-cooked meal on the table every night for dinner — and pitching in, to varying degrees.

“With my mom, it wasn’t hands-on teaching other than the basics, but she gave me room to experiment,” says West. “And it wasn’t a ‘let’s have fun cooking together’ thing either. It was kind of on the chore list, like, ‘You go out in the yard, pick some things and make a salad because you’re part of this household, and we all have to eat.’”

Wade started helping her mother cook as a means to get out of cleaning up, which fell to her sister. But her main interest initially was in baking.

“It started as kind of a stress reliever after school,” she remembers. “I made cookies and cakes that I didn’t necessarily want to eat; the happiness was in making it. And she gave me the freedom to go into the kitchen and do that, which was a gift.”

Both are learning that patience is key to cooking with their own kids, especially when accustomed to working side by side with professionals. “I am kind of a control freak in the kitchen, and watch-

ing Patrick take 20 minutes to cut a carrot drives me up the wall,” West laughs.

“I have a hard time watching him crack an egg! But we make him cook his own breakfast, and his thing right now is over-easy eggs. He likes to help make cookies, but that’s mainly so he can eat the dough.”

Wade says Sophie does a lot of baking on her own, just as she did with her own mother. And she picked up a copy of the original Joy of Cooking because it has a lot of recipes for the quick breads Sophie likes to bake.

The two of them are finding their way to cooking together. “She liked to cook with my mother, but not so much with me because I’m kind of bossy and would grab things out of her hands,” she admits.

“I think it’s hard for people who are used to doing it for a living, where you have to be fast,” Wade says. “I’ve really had to work on my patience, but we have a lot of time on our hands. The other day we made gumbo together, and it took a while for her to dice a bell pepper, but it didn’t matter. Making gumbo is not a quick process, and she stuck with me the whole time, and it turned out fantastic.” X

Hopping in to help The Hop Ice Cream Cafe partners with #AshevilleStrong to create specialty flavors

HOP TO IT: The Hop Ice Cream has partnered with #AshevilleStong and local restaurants to create specialty flavors available for online orders and curbside pickup. Co-owner Greg Garrison is pictured in The Creamery facility with branded pints. Photo courtesy of The Hop. Ashley and Greg Garrison, owners of four-decades-old The Hop Ice Cream since 2008, call themselves “joy makers.” Now, in the midst of the public health crisis that has shut down countless small businesses in Asheville, the couple are resolved to keep churning out happiness.

“When we had to let over 40 employees go, unplug the freezers in our stores and close those doors, it was an indescribable feeling,” remembers Greg Garrison. “Ashley was looking through Facebook and found a site that was sharing links to local businesses to purchase gift certificates.”

That site was #AshevilleStrong, and as it turns out, the Garrisons knew founder Catherine Campbell, owner of Bright Planning Marketing Co. “We went to school together at [UNC Asheville] and stayed in touch since we all became business owners,” says Greg.

“It felt good to team up with someone we knew who was doing something good for our community. Right away we sold some certificates, and though it didn’t generate a ton of money, it was something positive to latch onto in a situation that was pretty devoid of that.

In the most desolate time we have ever

experienced in business, this was a way people could offer support.”

The Hop opened an online order system for curbside pickup at The Creamery manufacturing facility in West Asheville, then Greg reached out to Campbell to see how they could pay it forward. The result was a plan to collaborate with local restaurants to create #AshevilleStrong pints using something already on their menu.

The first flavor rollout on April 28 was 12 Bones Key Lime Pie. “We’ve collaborated with 12 Bones before and knew Key lime pie is on their menu, so we can use the ice cream pickups to remind our customers that 12 Bones is still doing takeout.”

Root Down Banana Pudding is next.

“Dano [Holcomb, Root Down Kitchen owner] is another friend from UNCA who is always there to help in the community. Catherine is going to help us identify other partners to work with.

The more collaborations, the better for everyone,” says Greg.

Order #AshevilleStrong pints and other Hop flavors at avl.mx/prub for curbside pick up at 167 Haywood Road, 2-8 p.m.

Tuesdays and noon-6 p.m. Saturdays.

Take care of yourself and others 828-350-0315 SMOKYPARK.COM

soon u o y e Se awn l e h t on

— Kay West X MOUNTAINX.COM

MAY 6-12, 2020

21

F OOD

by Kay West

kwest@mountainx.com

Breaking the mold

Luxury chocolate maker pivots from bonbon molds to face shields to assist front-line responders

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MAY 6-12, 2020

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Chef Timothy Maguire started the new year sitting on top of the world. A private chef of 25 years in New York and Hollywood, he and his wife, Gai, were looking for a simpler life when they bought farm property in Haywood County.

“We thought we’d be farmers, pick up some hobbies and live happily ever after, but I was driving my wife crazy,” he says. “I always loved making chocolates, so checked out some places here and thought we could do something a little different, geared more to the luxury market.”

The couple launched Timothy Maguire Chocolates from a facility they built on the farm, which is also where 250 blueberry bushes provide the fruit for what became their No. 1 seller, Mountain Blueberry. What he doesn’t harvest from their 100 fig, cherry, plum and other fruiting trees, he sources locally when possible — particularly milk from dairy farmers.

Taking samples of his air-brushed and hand-painted bonbons around Asheville, he landed accounts at the Biltmore Estate, Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort and Kimpton Hotel Arras. In January, Maguire shipped 10,000 chocolates to the 62nd annual Grammy Awards, where they were placed in VIP lounges backstage and in performer swag bags.

Simultaneously, using a technique he’d invented for molding and branding individual bonbons, Maguire began manufacturing and shipping molds all over the world as Refined Designs Chocolate. By the end of March, chocolate-making had come to a halt due to the closure of all of his local accounts.

“We are actually very fortunate, though, because we own our production facility,” he says. “We started thinking about what we could do to help. My mother was a nurse, all the men in my family are volunteer firemen. We knew there was a shortage

SAVING FACE: Chef Timothy Maguire and his wife, Gai, used their equipment that normally manufactures their Refined Designs chocolate molds into making face shields they are donating to health care workers in New York and North Carolina. Photo from TMC of [personal protection equipment] — especially face shields — and my wife, who is the brains of the business, wondered if we could use our mold equipment to make face shields.”

Soon, they were shipping the first batch of face shields to Long Island, N.Y., then delivered more to medical personnel in Morganton and Asheville. Though chocolate sales are on hold, the company has donated thousands of bonbons to local fire halls, police stations, hospitals and post offices.

“The face shields are a necessity for people putting their lives on the line,” says Maguire. “The chocolates are a morale booster, and we’re happy to do what we can.” X

MOUNTAINX.COM

MAY 6-12, 2020

23

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEOS Local music teachers pivot to digital lessons

BY EDWIN ARNAUDIN earnaudin@mountainx.com Prior to mid-March, Kate Bryant spent most of each week traveling to teach music. In addition to providing instruction at Jim Beaver’s School of Music in Hendersonville on Mondays and Tuesdays, the Ashevillebased violinist and pianist drove to students’ houses in West Asheville and Candler on Wednesdays, to Fairview on Thursdays and back to Candler on Sundays, all while finding time to host a few students at her home studio in the interim.

But with COVID-19 restrictions temporarily preventing her from physically being in the same room as her students, Bryant has turned to the videoconferencing platform Zoom to continue most of those lessons — and earn a living. Though she misses being

INNOVATIVE EDUCATORS: Clockwise from right, Kate Bryant, Kimberly Cann and Dan Keller are among the numerous local music teachers who’ve turned to digital lessons out of necessity. Photo of Bryant by Maggie King/Maggie Odessa Photography; photo of Cann courtesy of the artist; photo of Keller by Ken Voltz able to play music with her students, Bryant has enjoyed being pushed to be more creative with her teaching, which she hopes makes her a better educator overall.

“You tend to get into your routine and your way of doing things, and then this gets thrown at you and you’re like, ‘Oh! This is different,’” Bryant says. “I hope my students are still excited and are paying attention through the camera — it’s really something us teachers should be thinking about all the time anyway.”

Among the new challenges Bryant has encountered with Zoom is the inability to hear simultaneous sound from teacher and student, requiring them to take turns. Even then, there’s a slight delay, an issue that’s magnified for students with poor internet connections. She also has to take into account camera angles and occasionally relies on parents of newer violin students to hold their children’s elbows to encourage proper technique — one of many hands-on details she was accustomed to providing herself.

“It’s not the same as being able to play music with someone in person.

And especially for my younger students, it’s really helpful to be able to play their pieces along with someone because they don’t always know how

24

MAY 6-12, 2020

MOUNTAINX.COM

to internalize that steady beat yet,” she says. “Sometimes with younger students, it’s a lot easier to just show them how to do something, like pointing on their piano to where their finger has to go.”

Asheville-based guitarist Dan Keller has managed to retain the bulk of his private students but lost three classes that he was teaching each week. In pivoting to Zoom, he’s been utilizing its “share screen” feature, which allows him to write on the student’s music, indicating important aspects, additions or changes.

“I’ve found this feature to make Zoom preferable to in-person lessons because I can screenshot and send edited music and also send variations on the original, so students have a variety of viewing options without me having to write a book on it,” he says.

While Keller appreciates the “necessary nudge to go digital,” which he feels has made him more organized and environmentally friendly, he misses certain perks of traditional teaching.

For example, he often uses the eraser side of a pencil to point where students’ fingers should go on the guitar.

Standing behind students allows him to see their thumb position. Being in the same room also allows him to pick up on such factors as “if they’re holding

their breath unnecessarily or if they seem confused,” as well as generally getting a better sense of what they enjoy playing.

“All of those things are easier to gauge in person,” he says. “Fortunately, I’ve been teaching long enough that I can predict the gaps in comprehension.

I wouldn’t want to be starting out and/ or building a student body right now.”

Though guitars are fairly inexpensive in the realm of instruments, Kimberly Cann, a concert pianist and the director of Piano Lab Studios, notes that the high cost of owning a piano means that distance learning isn’t a one-size-fitsall solution. Prior to the pandemic, the overall Music Lab network, of which Piano Lab is a part, had around 250 students enrolled across studio locations in Asheville, Mills River and Fairview.

Cann reports that “a hefty percentage” of those fledgling musicians are currently on hiatus from their studies.

“Some students have special needs and require in-person lessons to continue, while other students simply don’t have the financial means to continue without the instruments and equipment [that] our studio directly provides them,” Cann says. “Still others don’t have equitable access to the internet.”

For years, Piano Lab has offered online lessons as an occasional substitute for in-person lessons, primarily on snow days or other rare occasions when a student couldn’t make an appointment. But as a long-term fix, Cann urges students and her fellow teachers to be realistic about digital learning’s prospects.

“I don’t think anyone can pretend that Zoom or any other online platform will effectively replace the in-person experience of creating music together in a studio environment,” she says.

“While it’s undeniably helpful to have these tools, this option simply doesn’t work for everyone.”

Bryant agrees, though once she’s able to be in the same room as her students, she wants to keep Zoom lessons as an option. She sees virtual gatherings as potentially useful in bringing together students spread across Buncombe County and overcoming logistical challenges that keep students from making the designated time in person.

“I think this will make everything a little more flexible for other life hiccups,” she says. X

Moments of clarity Philo Reitzel chronicles his road to sobriety on new album

LYRICAL NUTRITION: With the exception of a few guest verses, local hip-hop artist Philo Reitzel wrote and produced the entirety of his new album, Live the Life.

That level of hands-on involvement and his creative process of tinkering with songs right up to their release allowed standout track “Capture Lightning” to reflect the stresses of the coronavirus era and includes a reference to COVID-19 tests. Photo

by Emma King Local hip-hop artist Philo Reitzel has always written highly personal music, but in tracing what he calls his “downward spiral of substance abuse and hard living, complete with the journey to the other side via recovery” on his new album, Live the Life (released April 17), he took that intimacy to a new level. Getting to that plane of self-realization, however, was an odyssey in itself.

“Honesty is not one of the things that really goes with addiction. You tend to put this veil over everything, and you’re putting on a persona. It appears to be like everything is good and everything is in control, even though everything is crazy as f***,” Reitzel says.

“I would be saying all these things and sometimes I would get deep and emotional a little bit, but there was definitely always a point where that would stop. It wasn’t so much that I wasn’t willing to share, but I wasn’t willing to look within myself to where I was.”

Currently coming up on 2 1/2 years of sobriety, Reitzel vividly recalls accepting that there were issues and traumatic events from his past that he’d never

dealt with. From there, he embarked on a gradual process of addressing these conflicts, which tied in nicely with his newly clean living.

“For me, one of the main things about getting sober is you have to get honest. You have to be honest with yourself about what is really going on in your life, and you start seeing these things in a really weird way,” Reitzel says.

“When I got sober, I realized that I’d not really been processing any emotions in any real way since I was 14 or something. I realized that, as a person, I’m really emotionally stunted. Plus, all that feeds into the whole toxic masculinity, ‘We don’t feel shit — we’re men,’ which is superhuge in rap. Like, ‘I’m hard. None of this shit bothers me at all.’”

Though Reitzel didn’t set out to make an album about what led him to hit bottom and seek help, once he made a few songs with that connective tissue and recognized the pattern, he realized that lyrical exploration was what he needed and embraced it.

Still, roadblocks arose, specifically in regard to his own guilt and feeling as if what he survived is nothing compared to what, for example, some of his friends who lived through the height of the crack epidemic endured.

Helping him overcome that doubt was his girlfriend Emma King, who noted that the discrepancy of experiences doesn’t invalidate what he went through — including a rough stretch living in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco — which is also far more extreme than what most people have encountered.

“The more personal music is, the more I relate to it, and it seems like more people relate in general,” Reitzel says. “So, generally, if there’s something I’m scared to say, I feel like I probably need to say it. As I’ve gotten more comfortable in myself, just over the years, I just push through that.”

Jumping back into the state of mind he was in as an addict also proved challenging and frequently had him questioning whether he was pursuing the project to glorify his past behavior or to be honest. (He says it’s “a little bit of both.”) On the title track, which opens the album, he says listeners can tell he’s “kind of a shithead” as his past self objectifies women and calls them insulting names — and is upfront about the lingering venomous appeal of that point of his life.

“When I’m writing about shit like that, a part of me still just really wants that, really wants to be there, really wants that chaos, really wants to not give a f***,” he says. “That shit, for some reason, is darkly addictive. Part of me likes rapping about that because you can go in and be super aggressive.”

Reitzel says that his ability to temporarily inhabit those mindsets and return to his current healthy ways “comes back to prayer and taking care of myself and doing the things I need to be doing to stay sober,” though he also notes the “danger in art,” pointing to method actors “who get sucked into a role.” Also beneficial is his rural lifestyle in the Reems Creek area, which has barely been impacted by COVID-19.

“I’m good! I live in the woods, and my studio is in my crib, and I have a business online with my business partner, so I’m not changing too much.

All I’m doing is, instead of going to my business partner’s apartment to meet and us do business there, we just meet virtually,” Reitzel says. “And I’ve just been doing a lot more projects out here.

I’ve got my chickens and garden and all that, so it’s been good for me. And all my family, mostly, lives on the same property. It’s dope. I’m pretty lucky.” philoreitzel.bandcamp.com

— Edwin Arnaudin X

Teamwork/Dreamwork For one Asheville-based hip-hop artist, the COVID-19 quarantine has provided an opportunity to realize a long-held goal.

On March 21, Musashi Xero kicked off his Instagram-exclusive original song series Ground Xero with the track “Night School,” produced by Raleigh-based musician Cosmo. Each week since then, he’s released a new rap featuring beats crafted by producers and DJs, primarily from the Southeast, many of whom he’s wanted to collaborate with for a while.

“I don’t always have time to work with all of them, but it’s a big part of my music community and my musical network,” Xero says. “I just figured that this was a good opportunity to pivot, keep with the times, keep current and do something to keep everyone entertained, keep everyone engaged and just get the word out about whatever was on my mind or whatever the beat needed.”

Other team-ups thus far include Asheville-based Gruntwerk (“Cabin Fever”); BPad (“Lunch Lines”), a longtime Philadelphian who currently resides in Spain; Greensboro artist LaC97 (“Mood Lately”); and Boone-based Lavier (“Swim Wear”). The sixth installment loops in production by Mother Hood, aka Cliff B. Worsham of local powerhouse Spaceman Jones and The Motherships, and Xero is also in talks with a Japanese beat maker.

“It’s definitely been a nice exercise to kind of keep your pen sharp and keep writing,” Xero says. “A lot more time is being spent just sitting at home on our phones, and it’s a fun way for me to connect with my friends and fans and meet new people. Honestly, the community response that I’ve felt to my music since this all began has been overwhelmingly positive. I’m really grateful for that.”

Xero has additionally been volunteering with a local community aid organization during the COVID-19 pandemic and plans to continue with Ground Xero even after quarantine restrictions are lifted. Follow his progress on Instagram at @xerosuitgundam. X

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SMART BETS

by Edwin Arnaudin | Send your arts news to ae@mountainx.com

Controlled Chaos Film Festival Since 2009, hundreds of cinephiles have annually attended Western Carolina University’s Controlled Chaos Film Festival, the end-of-year event showcase of motion pictures written, produced, directed and filmed by students in WCU’s Film and Television Production Program. But with the COVID-19 pandemic negating an in-person gathering, festival organizers are taking the event online. On Friday, May 8, the slate of short films, class projects and web series will streamed, beginning with a red-carpet event at 7:30 p.m.

“We promise an entertaining evening of a wide variety of genres, including traditional comedy, drama, coming-of-age, documentary, horror and thriller, as well as stop-motion animation and a five-part web series,” says Joshua Russell, director of the Film and Television Program. “While the festival is not entirely family-friendly, the first section of films will be the equivalent of PG rating standards, and all films will have content warnings. We hope this makes it easier for our wonderful Western North Carolina community to grab some popcorn and join us from their own living rooms.” Free. controlledchaos. wcu.edu. Photo of “Welcome to Earth” courtesy of WCU

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Kim Jones For nearly 20 years, Kim Jones has worked as a graphic designer and illustrator in the educational publishing industry, working on a range of products for the K-12 market.

Over that time, the Gerton-based artist has also been creating her own pieces on the side, which have been shown at Woolworth Walk for six years as well as the Hendersonville gallery A Walk in the Woods. “My intent is to visually capture a bit of myth, story, fairy tale or my own personal narrative and wrap it up with whimsy,” Jones says. “I do that through a digital mix of photo, vector and 3D elements, which are compiled and finished in Photoshop.” On April 20, Jones published her first children’s book, The Silly Letters of Agnes Buttons, about a girl who loves to write letters to her friends, telling them about her adventures and the silly things she sees. “It started off as just an alligator floating away on a balloon and grew from there,” Jones says. The book is available in paperback and as a Kindle e-book. bluegatedesign.com. Author photo courtesy of Jones

MOVIE REVIEWS THIS WEEK’S CONTRIBUTORS

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

BRUCE STEELE bcsteele@gmail.com

Melissa Myers

= MAX RATING mental racism and Ryan’s determination to enjoy a life that was denied to many of his ancestors.

The lack of answers may well keep the film from reaching the wide audience it deserves, and the same goes for its lack of solutions to counteract Sasol’s takeover of Mossville — though the town’s all but inevitable defeat is likely Glustrom’s point. Turning this particular battle may be a fruitless endeavor, but through its powerful message and ability to transport viewers to a world that’s so close, yet feels so distant and foreign, the film could prevent future communities from suffering a similar fate.

REVIEWED BY MELISSA MYERS MELISSA.L.MYERS@GMAIL.COM

Mossville: When Great Trees Fall HHHHS DIRECTOR: Alexander Glustrom PLAYERS: Stacey Ryan DOCUMENTARY NOT RATED Small towns struck by environmental contamination have been the focal point of numerous documentaries, yet in Mossville: When Great Trees Fall, director Alexander Glustrom manages to frame this familiar subject in novel ways.

Within the U.S., fenceline communities — those directly adjacent to facilities that significantly impact residents’ daily health — are disproportionately inhabited by people of color and the working poor. Mossville, La., is one such town with very few citizens remaining, and its rich history — which includes being founded by freed and former slaves in the late 18th century — is about to be wiped from physical memory.

At the center of Glustrom’s documentary is Stacey Ryan, the last remaining resident of downtown Mossville. The film follows Ryan’s stalwart stand as he refuses to sell out his small, paid-off trailer home to Sasol, a South Africa-based chemical company that has already established a foothold in the area with a large industrial plant. As soon as the filmmaker shines a light on Sasol’s apartheid-era legacy in South Africa, the parallels with Mossville are clear.

While the core conflict is sufficiently compelling, Mossville mines deeper emotions by weaving the cinematography and soundtrack together to stress the poetic tragedy of Ryan’s last stand.

The razed landscape surrounding the Sasol compound and adjacent to Ryan’s home presents an eerie, otherworldly scene that’s devastating to behold. Aerial shots that zoom back from Ryan’s home are absolutely gripping, driving the point home that this once-vibrant and proud community is now hell on Earth. The accompanying music oscillates from dark, ethereal droning synths during the blownout landscape scenes, to soulful, simple spirituals while Ryan’s humble ax keeps the beat with each swing as he toils on his small plot of land, drawing parallels to chain gangs from a bygone era.

Despite these strengths, Mossville falls a bit short of fully explaining why it’s so difficult for Ryan to leave his lifelong home. Watching his health decline while he struggles to survive without electricity or running water, the viewer is likely to start wishing Ryan would just sell to Sasol and get the heck out of there — if not for his own well-being, then for the sake of his young son, who lives with Ryan’s ex-partner. Rather than spell out the reasons for Ryan’s stubbornness, Glustrom keeps the motivations somewhat frustratingly vague, dropping hints regarding environ-

Deerskin HHHH DIRECTOR: Quentin Dupieux PLAYERS: Jean Dujardin, Adèle Haenel, Albert Delpy COMEDY/HORROR NOT RATED “The clothes make the man.” So goes the old adage. And who among us hasn’t felt as if we could take on the world in one perfectly planned outfit, even if those hopes were eventually dashed or we grew out of the piece we loved so much?

For Georges (Jean Dujardin, The Artist), the struggling, middle-aged protagonist of the black comedy Deerskin, that statement piece is a deerskin jacket complete with fringe, if a bit short in the sleeves. It’s a quality piece, but the price tag of 8,000 euros is absurd — and its affable seller seems to think so, too, which is probably why he throws in a video camera with the purchase at the last minute. The oddball tone of the transaction sets the stage for the wacky events that follow, but not in the preposterous style of a slapstick comedy. Rather, the latest narrative from writer/director Quentin Dupieux (Rubber; Wrong) features a much darker brand of absurdity more aligned with Edward Albee than Eddie Murphy.

We soon learn that Georges emptied a shared bank account to get the cash, and the other person involved (his ex-wife, decidedly unimpressed with what she perceives as Georges’ one-way trip to nowheresville) ends up blocking his access to the account. Georges barters his way into lodging at a quaint inn with the promise of funds to come and his wedding ring as collateral, then

Ali McGhee

AVAILABLE VIA FINEARTSTHEATRE.COM (FA) GRAILMOVIEHOUSE.COM (GM) PISGAHFILM.ORG (PF) Balloon (NR) HHHHS (GM) Beanpole (R) HHHS(FA) The Bellmen (NR) S (GM) Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint (NR) HHHS (FA, GM) Best of CatVideoFest (NR) HHHS(GM) The Booksellers (NR) HHHS(FA, GM) Capital in the Twenty-First Century (NR) Based on the best-seller by economist Thomas Piketty, this documentary explores society’s growing financial inequalities.

Available starting May 8 (GM) Deerskin (NR) HHHH (GM) Eating Up Easter (NR) HHHS(GM) The Etruscan Smile (R) HHS (GM) Extra Ordinary (R) HHHS(FA) Fantastic Fungi (NR) HHHH (FA, GM, PF) The Hottest August (NR) H (GM) Leonardo: The Works (NR) HHHH (FA) Lucian Freud: A Self Portrait (NR) HHHHS (FA) Mossville: When Great Trees Fall (NR) HHHHS (Pick of the Week) (GM) New York International Children’s Film Festival (NR) Two hour-long programs of family-friendly short films.

Available starting May 8 (GM) Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band (R) HHHH (FA, PF) Pahokee (NR) HHHHS(FA) The Roads Not Taken (R) HHHS (FA) Slay the Dragon (PG-13) HHHH (FA) Someone, Somewhere (NR) HHHH (FA) Sorry We Missed You (NR) HHHHS(FA) Spaceship Earth (NR) HHHS (FA, PF) Straight Up (NR) HHHH (GM) The Times of Bill Cunningham (NR) HHHHS (FA, GM) Vitalina Varela (NR) HHHHS (FA) The Whistlers (NR) HHHH (FA) A White, White Day (NR) A thriller about an Icelandic cop out for revenge. Available starting May 8 (GM) The Woman Who Loves Giraffes (NR) HHHHH (FA)

befriends the canny local bartender, Denise (Adèle Haenel, Portrait of a Lady on Fire), by pretending to be a movie director (remember that camera?). She’s an aspiring editor, angling for a way out of a dead-end job, and starts arranging his footage, which includes long sequences of him talking with his new jacket.

Naturally — because it’s that kind of movie — the jacket commands him to rid the world of all other jackets.

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M OVI E R EVI EWS There’s a creeping dread to Deerskin, set against the stunning background of the French Alps and heightened by a score that seems to be half brass and half exclamation marks, punctuated by a repeated, single piano-note strike. We’re a bit charmed by the awkward Georges as he attempts to fashion himself after someone, well, fashionable, while also being completely unaware of styles or trends. The deerskin jacket links him to the person he desperately wants to be — someone connected to a sense of place and purpose.

But really, Georges has such minimal grasp on his own identity that he allows it to be shaped by everyone and everything around him, including the jacket itself. As he takes the jackets of others, he also purchases more deerskin clothing. Whether it’s an attempt to get back on course or completely give himself over to the jacket, we can’t be sure, and the brutal crimes he commits along the way could be in the service of either goal. All the while, we wait with great anticipation to see whether Georges finally becomes the auteur of his own life, or if the jacket has the final say.

REVIEWED BY ALI MCGHEE ALIMCGHEE@GMAIL.COM

Lucian Freud: A Self Portrait HHHHS DIRECTOR: David Bickerstaff PLAYERS: Lucian Freud, Tim Marlow, Catherine Lampert DOCUMENTARY NOT RATED Unless you just can’t stand painter Lucian Freud’s “sur-real” work (the hyphen matters, we’re told), this new documentary becomes increasingly fascinating as it unfolds. It’s linked to a 2019 exhibition of self-portraits, and the focus on these pieces turns out to be a remarkably illuminating journey into the life and vision of the artist, who died in 2011 at age 88.

Unlike the previous Exhibition on Screen film about Leonardo da Vinci, this one offers the bonus of the artist himself — in those self-portraits, in photographs and in archival interviews, where he’s so brilliantly aware of his role as eccentric and entertainer as well as “artist.”

The doc traces Freud’s almost shocking evolution from Matisse-like primitivist line drawings to his freer, energetic later works that seem to be Rembrandt portraits filtered through the brush techniques of Francis Bacon (a friend and admitted influence). The film explores all these touchstones, with particular attention to Rembrandt, whose works look surprisingly modern in Freud’s context.

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The film sketches Freud’s biography in broad strokes — Sigmund Freud’s grandson, a playboy, etc. — but the focus is his works. It’s a visually rich offering, lingering on many details that the average viewer might miss. Whether you’re casually acquainted (as I was) or a dedicated fan, this Self-Portrait will draw you into the artist’s messy, mesmerizing milieu.

RREVIEWED BY BRUCE STEELE BCSTEELE@GMAIL.COM

Spaceship Earth HHHS

DIRECTOR: Matt Wolf PLAYERS: Jane Goodall, John Allen DOCUMENTARY NOT RATED Like Bruce Dern’s spaceship in the cult film Silent Running — an oft-cited inspiration — the real-life Biosphere 2 was built to be a sealed environment containing samples of the Earth’s flora and fauna, especially the edible species, fully sustaining a small human crew. Unlike that movie, Biosphere 2 was essentially a giant greenhouse in the Arizona desert rather than domed disks in deep space. It’s remembered now mostly as a trendy early 1990s news story and a failure, neither of which begins to capture its long history and complicated execution, as detailed in the documentary Spaceship Earth.

Spanning the past 50 years, the film begins 25 years before Biosphere 2 with the development of a cultlike community led by charismatic ecologist John Allen.

Funded — we eventually learn — by a friendly billionaire, Allen and his youthful team ran a San Francisco theater company, founded a New Mexico ranch and built their own sailing ship before creating Biosphere 2. The gutsy, elaborate experiment captured the public imagination and a glut of media attention in 1991 when eight “biospherians” from different disciplines were locked inside the glass-walled would-be utopia for what was to be two years of biological isolation.

Director Matt Wolf reconstructs this long, complicated history with the help of fresh, frank interviews with most of the participants as well as exhaustive contemporary film footage of the Allen team before and during the Biosphere 2 years. Wolf declines to delve into much scientific detail and treads lightly on the much-reported interpersonal tensions within the Allen team, but he underscores the experiment’s prescient focus on climate change, back when it was called “global warming,” and its introduction to the world of a corporate villain named Steve Bannon.

While you’ll learn more factoids and gossip about Biosphere 2 from Wikipedia than you do from Spaceship Earth, the

documentary offers immediacy and direct access to the players and makes clear the experiment’s importance in focusing attention on the planet’s health at a crucial moment.

REVIEWED BY BRUCE STEELE BCSTEELE@GMAIL.COM

The Hottest August H DIRECTOR: Brett Story PLAYERS: Clare Coulter DOCUMENTARY NOT RATED This clip show from filmmaker Brett Story is more of a shapeless idea than a coherent documentary. The idea was to interview random people on the streets (and waterways) of New York City’s five boroughs during August 2017, with recurring references to climate change and the future. Both topics, it turns out, are just two of the film’s many dead ends.

Story asks now and again about Hurricane Sandy, which devastated oceanside property in the city in 2012, and visits one neighborhood that had been under water. But most of her interviews are just people talking about themselves or what they’re doing — swing dancing in a park in 1920s costumes, sweating on a crowded beach — and most people are barely introduced before they’re abandoned and never seen again.

The Hottest August is like looking through an uncurated pile of snapshots — some of them may be intriguing, but they’re too disconnected to provide a narrative or theme. Variety called the film a “brilliant puzzle-mosaic,” but if it’s a puzzle, most of the pieces are missing, and if a mosaic, its fragments are unglued.

The images, on the other hand, are often beautifully composed, and some may remind you of paintings by Edward Hopper. Story has a brilliant visual sense, but even there she’s inconsistent — cropping in on one image of an escaped umbrella in the wind so tightly that the poor image resolution ruins the shot, or reframing too late when a subject drifts off camera.

I’m not sure who the target audience is for The Hottest August. My best guess for its ideal viewers would be upper-class liberals who enjoy feeling as if their political savvy and artistic tastes are more sophisticated than those of the hoi polloi. Among those who probably won’t enjoy the film are practically everyone in it since the subjects tend to be deeply grounded in the realities of their lives, topics that the film snips and snaps at without any abiding interest. But hey, ain’t it pretty?

REVIEWED BY BRUCE STEELE BCSTEELE@GMAIL.COM

Spring 2020 “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.

Nonprofit issue

CULINARY CREATIVITY With home delivery and curbside pickup already losing their, well, flavor, area restaurants are exploring innovative strategies to, er, cater to their customer base. Here are a few highlights: One popular route is the Tastes Like Chicken (or Tofu) home dining experience, in which patrons rent a VR headset from their preferred establishment, sit at a table and select a Server Experience. Options include “Snarky,” “Hey, it pays the bills” and “You’re a Michelin judge, right?” Wielding the provided cutlery “as usual,” diners unwrap and begin chewing a special “food gum,” whose microscopic technology syncs with the VR software to recreate the flavors and texture of the ordered menu items. The simulation extends to the bathroom (complete with fragrant, locally hand-crafted artisanal urinal cakes), and delinquent diners will get fussed at if they go behind the bar.

Meanwhile, in a van down by the river (the French Broad, that is), James Beard semifinalists Ashleigh Shanti, Katie Button, Meherwan Irani, John Fleer and the Cultura team are joining forces for the Roadkill Cafe pop-up restaurant. “You kill ‘em, we grill ‘em” is the endeavor’s official motto, which narrowly defeated “O possum, my possum.”

Gourmands who miss dinner and a show can sample the offerings of local entertainers who deliver meals and then perform in customers’ front yards.

Choose between Background Noise Jazz Guitar, Singer-songwriter Who Won’t Take Requests and Mariachi Band.

For folks eating on a budget, several order-at-the-counter Mexican restaurants have launched Burrito of the Month clubs, including a few with “Won’t explode while unwrapping — or your money back” guarantees. And to boost food-providers bringing their menus to the neighborhoods, MTV has relaunched its hit show “Pimp My Ride.” The network is sending original host Xzibit to outfit select Asheville food trucks with fish tanks, home theaters and other insanity. “If I don’t lower their resale value to zero, I’m not doing my job, dogg” says the rapper/actor.

Coming

May 20

JAPANESE CHINDŌGU ARTISTS CONTRIBUTE PANDEMIC INVENTIONS With more people getting out into the world more often, local artists and inventors are coming up with ways to keep people safe and improve quality of life under bad circumstances. Inspired by the Japanese art form of Chindōgu, roughly translated to “strange tool,” innovators are coming up with solutions that are perfect, yet puzzling. Here are a few examples:

Contact us today!



A mini-wristwatch-cocktail-shaker worn on the wrist during vigorous hand washing, for a little reward after important hygiene.

A top hat that has a stovepipe which conveniently holds a disinfectant wipe cannister.

advertise@ mountainx.com A face shield and mask that unfurls from a necktie and attaches to a headband, for the businessman on the go.

Readers, if you have come up with inventions for better living under coronavirus conditions, send us pictures of your prototypes in action!

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FREEWILL ASTROLOGY ARIES (March 21-April 19): According to Aries author and mythologist Joseph Campbell, “The quest for fire occurred not because anyone knew what the practical uses for fire would be, but because it was fascinating.” He was referring to our early human ancestors and how they stumbled upon a valuable addition to their culture because they were curious about a powerful phenomenon, not because they knew it would ultimately be so valuable. I invite you to be guided by a similar principle in the coming weeks, Aries. Unforeseen benefits may emerge during your investigation into flows and bursts that captivate your imagination.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): “The future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become obvious,” says businessperson and entrepreneur John Sculley. You Tauruses aren’t renowned for such foresight. It’s more likely to belong to Aries and Sagittarius people. Your tribe is more likely to specialize in doing the good work that turns others’ bright visions into practical realities.

But this Year of the Coronavirus could be an exception to the general rule. In the past three months as well as in the next six months, many of you Bulls have been and will continue to be catching glimpses of interesting possibilities before they become obvious. Give yourself credit for this knack. Be alert for what it reveals.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): For 148 uninterrupted years, American militias and the American army waged a series of wars against the native peoples who lived on the continent before Europeans came.

There were more than 70 conflicts that lasted from 1776 until 1924. If there is any long-term struggle or strife that even mildly resembles that situation in your own personal life, our Global Healing Crisis is a favorable time to call a truce and cultivate peace. Start now! It’s a ripe and propitious time to end hostilities that have gone on too long.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Novelist Marcel Proust was a sensitive, dreamy, emotional, self-protective, creative Cancerian. That may explain why he wasn’t a good soldier. During his service in the French army, he was ranked 73rd in a squad of 74. On the other hand, his majestically intricate seven-volume novel In Search of Lost Time is a masterpiece — one of the 20th century’s most influential literary works. In evaluating his success as a human being, should we emphasize his poor military performance and downplay his literary output? Of course not! Likewise, Cancerian, in the coming weeks I’d like to see you devote vigorous energy to appreciating what you do best and no energy at all to worrying about your inadequacies.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “Fortune resists half-hearted prayers,” wrote the poet Ovid more than 2,000 years ago. I will add that Fortune also resists poorly formulated intentions, feeble vows, and sketchy plans — especially now, during a historical turning point when the world is undergoing massive transformations. Luckily, I don’t see those lapses being problems for you in the coming weeks, Leo. According to my analysis, you’re primed to be clear and precise. Your willpower should be working with lucid grace. You’ll have an enhanced ability to assess your assets and make smart plans for how to use them.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Last year the Baltimore Museum of Art announced it would acquire works exclusively from women artists in 2020. A male art critic complained, “That’s unfair to male artists.” Here’s my reply: Among major permanent art collections in the U.S. and Europe, the work of women makes up 5% of the total. So what the Baltimore Museum did is a righteous attempt to rectify the existing excess.

It’s a just and fair way to address an unhealthy imbalance. In accordance with current omens and necessities, Virgo, I encourage you to perform a comparable correction in your personal sphere.

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LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In the course of my life, I’ve met many sharp thinkers with advanced degrees from fine universities — who are nonetheless stunted in their emotional intelligence. They may quote Shakespeare and discourse on quantum physics and explain the difference between the philosophies of Kant and Hegel and yet have less skill in understanding the inner workings of human beings or in creating vibrant intimate relationships.

Yet most of these folks are not extreme outliers.

I’ve found that virtually all of us are smarter in our heads than we are in our hearts. The good news, Libra, is that our current Global Healing Crisis is an excellent time for you to play catch up. Do what poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti suggests: “Make your mind learn its way around the heart.”

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Aphorist Aaron Haspel writes, “The less you are contradicted, the stupider you become. The more powerful you become, the less you are contradicted.” Let’s discuss how this counsel might be useful to you in the coming weeks. First of all, I suspect you will be countered and challenged more than usual, which will offer you rich opportunities to become smarter.

Secondly, I believe you will become more powerful as long as you don’t try to stop or discourage the influences that contradict you. In other words, you’ll grow your personal authority and influence to the degree that you welcome opinions and perspectives that are not identical to yours.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): “It’s always too early to quit,” wrote author Norman Vincent Peale.

We should put his words into perspective, though.

He preached “the power of positive thinking.” He was relentless in his insistence that we can and should transcend discouragement and disappointment. So we should consider the possibility that he was overly enthusiastic in his implication that we should NEVER give up. What do you think, Sagittarius? I’m guessing this will be an important question for you to consider in the coming weeks. It may be time to re-evaluate your previous thoughts on the matter and come up with a fresh perspective.

For example, maybe it’s right to give up on one project if it enables you to persevere in another.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): The 16-century mystic nun Saint Teresa of Avila was renowned for being overcome with rapture during her spiritual devotions. At times she experienced such profound bliss through her union with God that she levitated off the ground. “Any real ecstasy is a sign you are moving in the right direction,” she wrote. I hope that you will be periodically moving in that direction yourself during the coming weeks, Capricorn. Although it may seem odd advice to receive during our Global Healing Crisis, I really believe you should make appointments with euphoria, delight and enchantment.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Grammy-winning musician and composer Pharrell Williams has expertise in the creative process. “If someone asks me what inspires me,” he testifies, “I always say, ’That which is missing.’” According to my understanding of the astrological omens, you would benefit from making that your motto in the coming weeks. Our Global Healing Crisis is a favorable time to discover what’s absent or empty or blank about your life and then learn all you can from exploring it. I think you’ll be glad to be shown what you didn’t consciously realize was lost, omitted or lacking.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “I am doing my best to not become a museum of myself,” declares poet Natalie Diaz. I think she means that she wants to avoid defining herself entirely by her past. She is exploring tricks that will help her keep from relying so much on her old accomplishments that she neglects to keep growing. Her goal is to be free of her history, not to be weighed down and limited by it. These would be worthy goals for you to work on in the coming weeks, Pisces. What would your first step be?

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debris removal, junk removal, call Pete for all your property needs at 281-546-3594 or AUTO1865@ GMAIL.COM

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ANNOUNCEMENTS NOTICE OF UNCLAIMED PROPERTY The following is a list of unclaimed and confiscated property at the Asheville Police Department: electronic equipment; cameras; clothing; lawn and garden equipment; personal items; tools; weapons (including firearms): jewelry: automotive items; building supplies; bikes and other miscellaneous items. Anyone with a legitimate claim or interest in this property has 30 days from the date of this publication to make a claim. Unclaimed items will be disposed of according to statutory law. For further information, or to file a claim, contact the Asheville Police Department Property and Evidence Section, 828-232-4576.

NOTICE OF DISPOSITION The following is a list of unclaimed and confiscated property at the Asheville Police Department tagged for disposition: audio and video equipment; cameras; clothing; lawn and garden equipment; personal items; tools; weapons (including firearms): jewelry: automotive items; building supplies; bikes and other miscellaneous. All items will be disposed of 30 days from date of posting. Items to be auctioned will be displayed on www.propertyroom.com.

LEGAL NOTICES BOY SCOUT COMPENSATION FUND Anyone that was inappropriately touched by a Scout leader deserves justice and

financial compensation! Victims may be eligible for a significant cash settlement. Time to file is limited. Call Now! 844-896-8216 (AAN CAN)

MIND, BODY, SPIRIT BODYWORK TRANSFORMATIONAL MASSAGE THERAPY Frank Solomon Connelly [FaceBook] So: with all this craziness [by the way, the opposite of fear is Faith/Hope] going on; I wanted to remind everyone that I do House-Calls.

I come to your nice Clean space, with my very Power-Filled, Mother Nature based Immunity System [and I will never violate anyone!

If God/Goddess tells me I am infected; I will Quarantine {but not until then}!] to help you connect to that same God/Goddess filled connection to help you overcome fear/tension and return to KNOWING God/Goddess's Got This! And! I only charge $60 for a 1.5 to 2 hour, deeply transforming, massage :) Give me a call at (828) 707-2983, and I will do what I can to Help You feel more at Peace. :) Thank You! (828) 707-2983 Creator_of_Joy@Hotmail.com, FB: shorturl.at/qxT07

ADULT FEELING WHACKED? Let Kaye's revive you back! Incall/Outcall 280-8182 ADULT SEX EDUCATION CLASS In this informative free class you will learn about safe sexual practices, empowering information about our STI epidemic and possibly make new friends. Come join the fun June 15th and 16th from 6-8 pm at Stephens-Lee Community Center at 30 George Washington Carver Avenue, Asheville 28801 Please RSVP at Efaveryt@gmail.com

SEEKING SUBCONTRACTORS:

Community Action Opportunities is looking for reliable subcontractors (electrical, plumbing, HVAC, insulation, etc.) to perform residential weatherization services in FY 2020-21.

Minority, women, disabled owned businesses are encouraged to apply.

Visit communityactionopportunities.org/contractors/ for details and application instructions.

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ACROSS 1 French Open court material 5 One thing … or a twosome

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20 Short line at the top of a column, in typesetting 16 21 Turn out 22 + or – atom 23 Thigh-baring dress 22 feature 25 Spore-producing 26 plant 33 34 35 27 Soldier clad in gray, for short 39 30 Bisected 33 Start of Caesar’s 42 boast 36 “It’s about time!”

38 A Stooge 49 39 Fits of anger 40 Left tributary of 53 the Vitim River in Irkutsk Oblast, 59 60 61 62 Russia 43 Only ape to orbit the earth (1961) 68 44 ___ sequitur 45 Colombia’s capital 71 46 Went by taxi or train 47 From Florence or 16 Ebbed Pisa 17 Historic town in Veszprém county, 49 Like a 1960s-’70s TV “squad” Hungary, noted 50 One-size-fits-all for its baroque garment architecture 9

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9 Alfred Nobel or Anders Celsius 14 McDonald’s arches, e.g.

15 Model/actress Delevingne

edited by Will Shortz

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No. 0401 52 Opposed to, rurally 54 Piñata smasher 56 Board a moving vehicle 59 Part of a suspension bridge 63 Village between Kruszyna and Jacków in Silesian Voivodeship, Poland (pop. 305) 66 TV newsman Willie 67 Janis’s partner in the comics 68 Knoll 69 Retort to “Are too!”

70 One of the Lennons 71 Numbered composition

DOWN 1 End of a hammer 2 Greiner of “Shark Tank” 3 Like Gruyère or Grandpa 4 Idiots 5 R.N.’s workplace

puzzle by John Ficarra and Patrick Merrell 6 What the Lord sometimes does, in a classical expression 7 Land o’ leprechauns 8 Sober-minded org.

9 Criticism that might be made behind someone’s back 10 Ashen 11 Scotty’s domain on the U.S.S. Enterprise 12 Brief how-to 13 Where fruit-picking originated?

18 Wise-looking 19 Gym clothes holder 24 Aim 26 Enjoying the great outdoors … indoors 27 Less cooked 28 Prefix with -centric 29 Laundry problem for Dracula?

31 Chorus of approval 32 “Hahaha” 34 Unfamiliar with 35 Feels down

37 Where icebergs are found 41 The Rockets, on scoreboards 42 Classic camera brand 48 Cooking oil option 51 Butler of fame 53 Kind of chip 54 Nickname for major-league baseball’s Angel Stadium, with “the”

55 “Uh … excuse me” 57 Some fundraising grps.

58 People eater 60 Sonar signal 61 Doozy 62 Serpentine swimmers 64 Letters on a brandy bottle 65 Bridge limit unit

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS NY TIMES PUZZLE

R A C E P L U M M A R M L A T E S S I C U C O P A M L E I J U N E I N T C A R R A B A T M A N E A R T S

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