Planting
by the Moon Calendar
Mountain Xpress, March 29, 2000 through Oct. 2,
2002
Daffodils Return to the Mountains
Mountain Xpress, March 19, 2003
Those bright little
trumpets that herald the onset of spring will be the focus of
a national show that's returning to the Carolinas for the first
time since 1964. The National Daffodil Show, to be held Thursday,
March 27, 3 - 6 p.m., and Friday, March 28, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.,
at the Holiday Inn-SunSpree Resort, will include competitions
for daffodil growers and photographers, both amateur and professional,
and of all ages. The show, open without charge to the public,
will be held in conjunction with the annual convention of the
American Daffodil Society.
Why has it taken the Show nearly
40 years to come back to a land where the nodding blooms seem
to carpet every garden?
Happy organic holidays
Local grower pioneers organic Christmas trees
Mountain Xpress, Nov. 27, 2002
Curtis Buchanan
was 5 years old when the sea of Christmas trees in his father's
front yard first urged him out on a frosty morning to inhale their
balsam fragrance and feel their soft, blue-green needles brush
against his face. Today, Buchanan walks among his own crop of
organically grown Fraser firs as often as he can to check for
insect pests, so he won't have to spray his fields with poisons.
Applying
art to science
Mountain Xpress, April 20, 2005
One picture is worth
a thousand numbers. TV weatherpersons don't warn you of an approaching
storm by waving a printout of barometric readings at you -- instead,
they point to a screen on which a computer translates a vast array
of meteorological measurements into a live-action graphic of a
weather front moving across a map.
That's one example of "applied
visualization," the art/science of using colors, patterns
and shapes to generate intuitively comprehensible images from
intricately complex data.
Outside the box [series
on revamping Wachovia building in downtown Asheville]
Spray it, don't
say it
Mountain Xpress, April 10, 2002
Up close, the white
quartz chips that pebble the Wachovia Building's expansive surfaces
try their best to suggest an interesting, naturalistic texture.
From any distance, however, it resembles a big, awkward vacancy
amid downtown Asheville's colorful architectural mosaic -- as
if it had just moved here from Charlotte or Raleigh and hadn't
yet learned to dress like the locals.
Maybe its new owners should give
it a makeover. Its monotonous, windowless white walls beg to be
humanized with a touch of color. And since Asheville is becoming
an increasingly world-famous center for folk arts, why not elevate
one of America's most vibrant yet least recognized modern folk-art
genres to the gallery status many art aficionados already believe
it deserves? Why not hire some of Asheville's most talented young
graffiti artists to paint a mural on the Wachovia Building? Perhaps
someone like the local tag artist who styles himself Ishmael could
help save us from this great White Whale.
The
glove is up! Cast cares away!
Mountain Renaissance Adventure Faire opens in Asheville
Mountain Xpress, April 25, 2001
Hearken to the
sounds, attend the smells that mingle with the blossom-scented
breeze! A peddler's cries, a wench's calls, a clash of swords
and shields, the laughter of the fairies in the trees, and succulent
roasts, and strange perfumes -- what magic brings these wonders
to our woods?
For one weekend, May 5-6, modern
time-travelers can transport themselves from soulless strip malls
and cynical video games to the mythic realm of Camelot and Sherwood
Forest, as Asheville's first Mountain Renaissance Adventure Faire
materializes on the misty sward of the Asheville School.
Sidebar: A fair tongue bringeth Faire acclaim
Wouldst thou
speak in a manner befitting the Renaissance Faire? Then hearken
well to these Elizabethan phrases:
What to know before you go
Three essential guides for outdoor explorers [book review]
Mountain Xpress, Oct. 13, 2004
If you're like many
of us who love these mountains, it's not enough for you to admire
their billowing waves of fall color from the detached safety of
a pullout on the Parkway. You want to plunge in and crunch through
those rolling miles of rainbow leaves on your own two feet.
But longtime mountaineers know it
doesn't pay to let exhilaration override preparation. The last
thing you want is to find yourself panicking because it's starting
to snow and you're on the wrong trail and you have no idea how
to get back to your car. Or because your "Hey, lookit this!"
idiot boyfriend has fallen off a waterfall and you don't know
how to stop the bleeding.
Disc golf
Mountain Xpress (Mountain Sports Festival Guide), May
5, 2004
At last, a sport
that isn't driven by testosterone! It's cheap, it's eco-friendly,
and you don't even have to know the rules to enjoy a good round
with friends or family.
But don't let the laid-back attitude
fool you -- there's far more to disc golf than flipping Frisbees
in the park.
Climbing
BoulderMax won't tie you down
Mountain Xpress (Mountain Sports Festival Guide),
June 4, 2003
You probably won't
see anyone cut off their own arm with a pocketknife and rappel
down a cliff with the other one -- as one rock climber in Utah
did in early May after a boulder pinned him for days in a desert
canyon. But that's not to say that the climbing competition at
the Mountain Sports Festival won't draw a slew of intrepid souls.
Steve Longenecker
A modest god of climbing
Mountain Xpress, May 28, 2003
In the mid-1960s,
Steve Longenecker was the first to find a way up the steep sides
of Looking Glass Rock (the "Nose" ascent), Linville
Gorge, and Devil's Courthouse. Xpress asked him if he experienced
anything eerie when he ascended that stark jut of rock known in
Cherokee myth as the Judgement Seat of Judaculla.
"Nothing spooky at all about
climbing Devil's Courthouse, other than it was a very dangerous
place to climb because of tourists throwing things at you while
you climbed. We would make cardboard signs saying 'Climbers Below,'
then hold them in place with rocks. It was quite common to see
the rocks coming down, then the cardboard floating gently in the
breeze!"