Category Archive

Via BlogAsheville, a photo entitled “Asheville classroom”:

(credit: brilliant local photog Zen Sutherland)

As all knitting knerds know, World Wide Knit in Public Day is held annually in June. WWKIP Day will be celebrated this year literally all over the world, with events in Perth, Lisbon, Paris, Ontario, Buenos Aires… you name it.

Here’s a flier for the 2008 Asheville event: wwkip-asheville. I’m pretty sure that 2008 marks Asheville’s first-ever observation of WWKIP Day. Hope to see all you Asheville yarn-crafters there!

From the flier:

Celebrate

WORLDWIDE

KNIT IN PUBLIC DAY

in ASHEVILLE

Knitters do it once a year.

In the park.

And everybody likes to watch.

Saturday, June 14

11 a.m. -2 p.m.

Charlotte Street Park (corner of Macon

and Charlotte Street in North Asheville)

Bring a chair or blanket
lunch/something to drink/cooler/snacks to share…
yarn to swap or give away…

Show the world that knitting is alive, well and public.
All crafters and yarnworkers welcome — newbies too!

Over a fine dinner of fish tacos at the French Broad Taqueria my friend Katie came up with the ultimate Asheville bumper sticker for our social strata. Are y’all ready?:

I CAUGHT THE CLAP AT AMAZING SAVINGS

(AND I STILL WENT BACK!) *

* You will not fully perceive the hilarity of this statement if you don’t live in Asheville or shop at good ol’ AS, the best discount hippie grocery in the history of the world. Also, the appreciation of this statement is improved by the consumption of a few glasses of sangria and/or the punchiness conferred by the study-drunk, braindead final days of senior exams.

Semester’s almost over y’all. I’ll pick up a big technical assignment on Friday and consider myself launched out of school mode and briefly into my summer mode of work and river trips. Thanks for sticking with this blog during an extended spell of low activity and lots of personal posts.

Attention Asheville May 6 Democratic Primary Voters: some local Dems are posting info to help us all shake out a vote in the upcoming primary. That ballot is gigantic. My own personal tip/trick? I print a sample ballot and fill it out, bringing it with me to the polls as a cheat sheet.

First, local journalist/county commission candidate Cecil Bothwell has gathered a list of candidates endorsed by “generally progressive groups in the county and state.”

Second, local political uberblogger and generally principled and intelligent liberal activist Gordon Smith has posted his own voting choices at his group blog, Scrutiny Hooligans. My own choices match his almost exactly, one exception being David Young (no way — I definitely prefer Cowell). Scroll down the entry to read comments from local people including former city council member Bryan Freeborn.

Here’s my own list so far:

President - Barack Obama
Senate - Jim Neal
Governor - Bev Perdue
Lt. Governor - Dan Besse
Auditor - Beth Wood
Commissioner of Insurance - Wayne Goodwin
Commissioner of Labor - Robin Anderson
Superintendent - June St. Clair Atkinson
Treasurer - Janet Cowell
County Commissioner - Holly Jones, Cecil Bothwell (Keith Thomson, K. Ray Bailey) *
Appeals Court Judge - James A. Wynn
Appeals Court Judge - Kristin Ruth

* I am casting only two of my allotted four county commissioner votes in order to help my challenger candidate of choice, Cecil Bothwell, have a better chance of beating out the competition from the other challengers. The candidates in parentheses are the ones for whom I would also vote if I were not voting strategically and using all four of my allotted county commission votes.

BTW, in no way do I endorse voting for someone because someone “told” you to in a blog. What I do strongly endorse is public political discourse of the kind you see in Gordon’s comments, where smart people who want to do more than just make a mark on a ballot share information to make the most educated choice.

Voting is our single most important right, because without it none of the others are secure. As with so many of our rights, exercising this one isn’t easy. I’ve heard people say, “It doesn’t matter if you don’t know anything about the candidates or the issues. You still need to get out to the polls.” I disagree. If you don’t know why you’re choosing a specific person or position, all you’re doing is showing up and making a random mark. That’s not voting.

- Cheryl Dietrich

Richard Thompson, “1952 Vincent Black Lightning”

Thompson’s in town tonight at the Orange Peel performing his original “1000 Years of Popular Music” show, in which he performs music from a period literally spanning hundreds of years.

From the Peel website:

The show runs about 2 hours and features accompanists Judith Owen (keyboards, vocals) and Debra Dobkin (percussion, vocals). In the show Thompson has been known to include “Summer is Icumen In“, the oldest known song in the English language, and continue through time from madrigals, ballads, sea shanties, British Music Hall, Broadway tunes, garage rock and even Britney Spears. Rolling Stone says “this show proves two things: Richard Thompson can play anything, from thirteenth-century rounds and minersí ballads to Squeeze and Abba; and he can make anything rock.”

I only discovered Thompson a few years ago, while listening to the radio and randomly coming across “Beeswing” for the first time. It floored me completely, sucked me in immediately, and I knew nothing but the song until it was over.

It was the official and overdue start of my love affair with British folk. And like all great musical obsessions with a worthy object, my affair with Thompson’s music just got better the deeper I went into the catalogue.

I’m still a fan, and grateful this concert arrives early enough in the semester to find me with time and money. See you at the Peel!

Noah Kalina has been here before. But he’s worth visiting again.

Music: Everyday by Carly Comando

BONUS: No One Goes Out by Tyler Ramsey, hometown boy made good. (He’ll be on World Cafe on the 18th and is touring this winter with Band of Horses.) Ramsey publicly acknowledges his Asheville roots in a very proud way that warms my heart. He just had his CD release party here just the other day.

If you like Wilco or Neil Young, you will probably dig this.

(I do.)

(This blog entry marks my first time writing or typing 2008!)

This is yesterday at lunchtime. The day was this bright and blue:

Here’s the birdbath yesterday:

And here it is today:

Here’s some pics from my yard.

A broken thermometer? It’s about 11 degrees F out. Colder with the wind chill, and it IS windy and cold, and bites at your fingers. The kind of cold that flies up your pantleg and tells you your socks are not long enough:

Melting snow in the yard. We had a white blanket this morning, but now the sun is out:

Snowy street:

Snowy driveway:

Snowy back yard:

Snow on the pyracantha bush:

Icy neighborhood road:

And here’s a pretty one from my sister in East Tennessee, of the horse pasture by her house:

OK, back to work. Please pass the banana bread.

Last night as I knitted a wristwarmer and watched The Sound of Music on TV, an emergency weather warning suddenly flashed on the bottom of the screen.

A winter storm warning — not a watch, a warning — for Tuesday. Tomorrow.

Here’s the deal from the National Weather Service:

… Winter storm to impact the North Carolina mountains…

… Winter Storm Warning in effect from 12 PM Tuesday to 6 PM EST Wednesday…

… Winter Storm Watch no longer in effect…

The National Weather Service in Greenville-Spartanburg has issued a Winter Storm Warning… which is in effect from 12 PM Tuesday to 6 PM EST Wednesday. The Winter Storm Watch is no longer in effect.

Scattered snow showers will develop across the North Carolina mountains early Tuesday… increasing in coverage and intensity by Tuesday evening along and near the Tennessee state line. Storm total snowfall amounts of 4 to 7 inches will be possible especially in the higher elevations and on northwest facing slopes. Strong northwest winds of 25 to 30 mph… with gusts of up to 45 mph… could also create considerable blowing of snow in affected locations. The combination of strong winds and cold temperatures will also cause wind chill values to fall to between zero and 10 below early Wednesday across much of the higher terrain.

A Winter Storm Warning means significant amounts of snow and blowing snow are expected or occurring. Strong winds are also possible. This will make travel very hazardous or impossible.

Yikes. Thank goodness I’ve got food, cats, yarn and movies.

This is a good time to revisit this post, which if you scroll down is about what to have in the house when you are snowed in. (It happens even here in the South, where while we don’t always get a lot of snow, sometimes we do — and what snow we get commonly melts into slick ice that makes driving difficult and dangerous. At least once I set out for the grocery store on a snowy day and made it a only a fraction of a mile before ice on the neighborhood roads sent me sliding back home.)

Here’s the weather forecast for Asheville:

What’s your winter like lately? Do you get snow where you are? What do you like to have in the house when you get snowed in? Leave a comment (esp. if you are George or Anne; I want to know what winter December is like in Australia).

Meanwhile, I am off to an awesome New Year’s party. I have been told to come hungry, and so I shall. :0)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

If you live in the Asheville area, are available to move into a new housing situation next month, and are interested in communal living as an exercise in saving money, saving energy and exploring new ways of community that are really just old ways, keep reading…

This weekend I am visiting a family in Barnardsville that is undertaking a 12-month sojourn in Chile starting in January, and who needs someone to rent their 4-bedroom house while they’re gone. I’ve run my commune idea by the family, and they are interested in talking to me about trying a test-run of communal living for one year (this would let me try rural living and communal living without even selling my house!).

If things continue to interest me and work out, I’m hoping to find a minimum of three nonsmoking, drug-free housemates to share the 4-bedroom home for a year.

The house is $1250 a month (without utilities), with a well and some heating help from solar panels. It’s on 160 shared, rural acres with fruit trees and cross-country skiiing trails. Barnardsville is beautiful, and a 25-minute commute to Asheville. There’s even a piano.

The house is fully furnished and the owners prefer to keep it that way, but seem to be willing to work with the renters.

If you’re interested in learning more about this idea, send me an email (click on the “About Jennifer” page). It’s too soon for me to be making anyone an offer, but if I decide to go for it I’ll post more details fast, because I’ll need to make the Beck family an offer by Christmas.

Please feel free to share this blog post. Anyone seriously considering being part of this experiment needs to be nonsmoking and drug free, plus have two references and proof of employment.

I don’t think dogs are allowed — not my rules, but the Becks’. Cats and kids are OK.

Piano players and fellow knitters are encouraged to apply.

(Don, all this would mean for you — if anything even happens, which is not yet certain– is that you’d get the house to yourself. I would seriously consider renting the house to you for a year, furnished and at a reduced rate, because I know you are honest and reliable, plus you have cute kids.)

I invite you to view an amazing Flickr photoset of closeups of autumn leaves from the tremendously talented local photographer Zen Sutherland.

This is clearly a message from another universe. We have only to decipher it:

Just look at this. A whole world in a leaf:

See the 24 images in the set here. They were taken in 2003 and 2004.

Attention conservation notice: Here’s a few guides to help you in making your choice in the upcoming Asheville city council primary, held this Tuesday.

Asheville Citizen-Times: Candidates Answer 10 Questions

ACT: Candidate Profiles

Mountain Xpress: Q&A With Candidates

Local blog Scrutiny Hooligans [bias alert: this is a liberal blog] lists the candidates’ websites & offers opinions

Buncombe County Republican Party: 2007 City Council Candidates (former candidate Selina Sullivan dropped out of the race after being arrested on a charge of writing a worthless check for $1500; more here)

sample primary ballot (link to PDF file): “you may vote for three”

County Board of Elections: casting your vote

CT: Voting Tuesday? Here’s Some Info (favorite tip: if you vote at a school, avoid pickup and dropoff times)

For the first day of a lovely month, October, an autumnal image from the campus of App State (Appalachian State University) in nearby Boone, NC.

Via one of my favorite photoblogs, Blue Ridge Blog.

One more mention of the Big Party That Gordon Built.

All images by the insanely talented and generous Zen Sutherland of Zenography.

Gordon (Scrutiny Hooligans) and Paul (Brainshrub) pore over the results

Gordon Smith

Magical back yard lights

Hesper and me by the firepit

Felicity has the power

More here.

The 2nd annual BlogAsheville awards were last night.

I read in Gordon’s blog that he was AFK for awhile on Friday due to getting an extravablogahaircut. To be honest, part of me found it somewhat shallow to be so concerned about one’s appearance at a public event. So in order to make Gordon feel better about himself I scheduled myself an extravablogahaircut as well as an extravablogafacial and an extravablogapedicure.

I was terribly nervous as I got ready for the party last night. The butterflies in my stomach felt familiar, and I realized that I felt like I was going out on a date. And indeed, I sort of was, stepping out with the BlogAsheville community.

I can be shy and don’t always do well at parties. I don’t always like them, although if I am at a good one, or in the right frame of mind, after an hour or two I seem to find my footing.

Think of me as a gregarious introvert who needs an hour or so to change modes. Luckily for me I had my tattoo advisor Geniune with me, as well as the free-spirited and sexy Hesper and her date Jimmy.

I didn’t win a single award, which in light of the prizes was probably best. I am not the type to have a snappy, Cowardesque comment to make over publicly unwrapping a gift that turns out to be a Blow Job Kit.

Another prize seemed to be a badminton set, which my friend described to me as an “after-blowjob kit.”

There was food, and a lovely home and yard to wander with a garden and a fire pit and trees. While no one else was watching, a white fireball streaked across the sky. Sparks rose from the fire high into the air, like stars themselves only floating.

Everyone was smart and friendly. We were all nerds of one kind or another.

Zen Sutherland wandered taking pictures, and gushed to me twice about how much he loved his wife, Helen. (Helen Sutherland, you are a lucky woman.) I finally got to meet Gordon Smith and Uptown Ruler of Scrutiny Hooligans.

Shad and Bill, where were you?

The only disappointment of the night was Kathryn not winning best rack Blogger I’d Most Like to See Naked. I thought you were a shoo-in, Kathryn.

The big winner of the night was Felicity of the Hangover Journals, who, wearing a black feather boa and wielding the wooden staff given to the winner of Best Overall Blog, seemed to be properly living up to her blog’s name. I hope Zen got some shots of the staff, which seems to be topped with a glass doorknob.

While I was chatting by the fire pit and sipping ginger ale, someone tried to break into my car. Now the driver-side door won’t shut. You did not get my MP3 player nor my wallet or stereo, but thanks to you I had to drive home last night at midnight holding the door closed around curves.

It was worth it, though, if only for communing over a tea tree oil-infused toothpick with Uptown Ruler. Uptown, you are great.

Gordon, I thought I was an arranger, but you make even me look bad. You are my hero, and you are amazing.

Congrats to all the winners (enjoy your Barbies, feather boas and badminton) and see you all next year! This blog is now going back to talking about college, Sir David Attenborough, astronomy, economics and alternative energy. :0)

UPDATE: The winners are here.

UPDATE II: LOL

UPDATE III:

Behold the woman, Felicity of the Hangover Journals, well-deserved winner of Best Blog and several other awards:

(Fabulous image by Zen of Zenography, who is not only happily married but incredibly talented. More pics now up at the BlogAsheville wrap-up entry by Uptown Ruler.)

UPDATE IV:

Susan’s fabulous Flickr stream of the event.

Fall is here, it’s just not well distributed yet.

And the photographers are watching.

Via Ashvegas, a beautiful blue butterfly on a butterfly bush. This is what gardens all over WNC look like right now.

And via Blue Ridge Blog, a Western North Carolina view blighted by drought but still lovely.

I don’t have a camera good enough nor skill enough to capture

the morning view from my office window

which is

a weeping cherry tree with bright, slanted fall light coming at it

that turns the leaves to a bright yellow green that almost glows

while the trunk and branches stay secret and dim.

Dark rough branches and leaves alive with light.

When the wind blows the shadows on the wall dance

and leaves tumble down.

It’s a splendid thing

and it’s right there

every morning like the sun.

Attention Ashevilleans — the Survey Monkey voting pages for the 2007 BlogAsheville awards are up, including links to check out all the nominees.

Voting closes at 8 p.m. on September 29th.

Gordon Smith of BlogAsheville says:

There are two pages of voting. If I find that people are voting for one page but not the other, I will glare sternly and remind you that your favorite blogs are also nominated on the other page. I used Survey Monkey, and they only allow ten questions per survey. So work with me here people.

BlogAsheville Awards 1-10
BlogAsheville Awards 1-10
BlogAsheville Awards 11-20

Voting Will Close at 8pm on September 29th. The multiple choice responses are randomized, so they’ll appear in a different order for each voter. You can vote only once, so take your time and enjoy it. The answers at the SurveyMonkey pages aren’t hotlinked.

Go here to check out the nominees and vote.

This blog has been nominated in four categories in the upcoming annual Blog Asheville awards held later this month. Wow!

I was actually a big fan of BlogAsheville before I became a contributor, so I am delighted to be nominated for anything involving that community, much less for four things.

The backstory here is that Asheville, my hometown and still my city, has a large and active blogging community mostly centered around BlogAsheville, a group blog with a lot of contributors. Last year was the very first BlogAsheville awards ceremony, at a party that is and remains officially known as Extravablogiversapaloozathon (see above), probably for its general fabulousness.

Extravablogiversapaloozathon II is later this month. Details are here, in a completely fabulous format via Scrutiny Hooligans and outstanding local blogger Gordon Smith.

Here’s the categories I’m nominated in, and the other nominees:

Best New Blog
She Who Eats
Bothwell’s Blog
Jennifer Saylor

Most Deserving of Wider Recognition
Zenography
Virtual Inanity
The Charm of the Highway Strip
Scrutiny Hooligans
Undercover Blue
Jennifer Saylor
Listless on Lexington

Best Overall
Ashvegas
Hangover Journals
Jennifer Saylor
Scrutiny Hooligans

Blogger I’d Most Like to Have a Beer With
Jason Bugg
Jennifer Saylor
Susan from Easy Bake Coven
Asheville Beer Blog
She Who Eats

(Whoever wants to have a beer with me, just send email. I’ll meet you at the UNCA caf after my poli sci class and we’ll smuggle in some brews in my backpack.)

See a complete list of noms here, and if you live in the Asheville area, make your own nominations here.

Good luck everybody, and see you on the 29th!

PS: If you want to look for me at the party, I have short curly black hair and look like Delta Burke’s shorter, fatter, younger sibling. I do not look anything like you might think someone would look who writes what I do, but there you go.

Attention conservation notice: A roundup of my week and some interesting things going on in my life.

I slept until 10AM this morning. Lately my insomnia’s back, caused by turning my brain all but white-hot with all the things I have to write, study, read, finish and think about beginning as early as 9 a.m. and finally winding down as late as 11:30.

Twelve credit hours and a mentally demanding part-time job can take it right out of a person, and my writing for the Blue Banner in particular is a huge strain. But already things seem to be leveling out.

The Cynn Chadwick profile (which BTW is now over at BlogAsheville with Professor Chadwick’s permission) really was a turning point in my life as a writer.

It was well-written enough, but trite in parts and packed with errors. The work I have historically done as a writer has tended either to pose no grammar or punctuation challenges (ad copy and web copy are bloody straightforward) or to belong to a world where content and story just mattered more (writing for teens, alternative weekly writing, city guide writing).

Now I feel like everything matters. I feel like I am finally starting that Black Belt in grammar/punctuation I always thought I had and didn’t at all. Two weeks — a mere two weeks — of writing for a well-run college paper has shone a harsh light on my writing weaknesses as nothing ever has before.

I tried to take apart my whole Chadwick article in a blog post and explain all my errors, but it ended up being 2,300 words long and very difficult to present, so I shelved the idea. But here’s two highlights, just in case you’re asking yourself what on earth was wrong with that perfectly good article.

Here’s your answer. A lot:

Some sample text cut from the article that I turned in:

That was more than 10 years ago. Now her kids are grown and she spends her days spicing up the lives of her students, who find themselves with a professor who once revealed that after her divorce she threw her wedding ring from off the top of a mountain. She might have a fondness for informality, profanity and dryly delivered outrageousness (”I would have become a homeless, crack-addicted prostitute in Weehawken, New Jersey was it not for getting an education,” she says. “It’s obvious.”). But she’s also a literature professional.

Errors:

Execrable punctuation: How many periods are in that third sentence, anyway?

Italics are not used in print journalism.

Fixed:

That was more than 10 years ago. Now her kids are grown and she spends her days spicing up the lives of her students. “I would have become a homeless, crack-addicted prostitute in Weehawken, New Jersey was it not for getting an education,” she says, “it’s obvious.” Chadwick might have a fondness for informality, profanity and dryly delivered outrageousness, but she’s also a literature professional.

Ahh.

On my first day of class my newswriting class the professor asked us to tell a little about ourselves. I said I was a freelance writer. She said, “Well, I guess you already know a lot of what we’ll be learning.” And I said, “No, I bet I won’t.”

The class laughed, and she looked confused. But newswriting is its own strict world, and its ways are new to me, as I felt certain they would be. I have the art but not the craft.

So far, despite my previous aversion to that kind of writing, I find that these new rules are a delight to my mind and heart. I doubt I’ll ever enjoy doing interviews or tracking down quotes (both of which are time-consuming and annoying as hell), but I like being asked to provide only well-presented facts and not opinions.

I don’t care to go out and forage for facts, but once they’re all in the basket I like the logic-game of arranging them and seasoning them with quotes. You know, maybe it was really magazine-writing and alt-weekly writing that I was calling “journalism” when I said how much I disliked journalism. Because it really would be cool to be a foreign correspondent, is all I’m saying.

:0)

All my classes are going well. I attend a liberal arts college, and while I’m a huge fan of the liberal arts approach, some classes are still bullshit. Like my Humanities 324 class, which is exposing me to Great Ideas, but is such a scattered, 1/4-inch-deep way of learning that it leaves me feeling unfulfilled.

But my newswriting class is challenging, useful and interesting. My writing for the Blue Banner has initiated me into the real rules of journalism (AND PUNCTUATION) at last, making me a far better and more powerful writer than I was before. And my International Relations class is just an endless intellectual delight. It’s like a wonderful nourishing meal for my mind, three days a week. Delicious!

I’ve made nothing but A’s all semester, and the work delights me and comes easily. Which isn’t to say I don’t have to work for it; I do, and very hard. But unlike when I studied math and science, my studies now reward me with flow, skill and mastery, not failed tests, a C+ and endless nights of despair.

Before I go start my day slaving in the yard I’d like to thank the people who nominated me for two categories in the BlogAsheville awards put on annually by Asheville’s extremely welcoming, talented and active blogging community, which I am very happy to be part of. My nominations are for Best New Blog and Blog Most Deserving of Wider Recognition. My sincere thanks to Gordon, Shad and Uptown Ruler (?) for the noms.

In a happy surprise, I recently learned that I sort of know a local blogger and didn’t even know it — Pixiedyke of What the Hell? is a river companion and shares my dear friends Laura and Katie with me.

What the Hell?, thanks for the State Fair quotes and congrats on your loads of noms for Blogger I’d Most Like to See Naked.

(Photo: Edgy Mama’s Flickr stream, via BlogAsheville)

BTW I’ve seen Pixiedyke in a red bikini lolling drunkenly on a raft, and I support her nomination.

Sad, bad news from Asheville. There was a hit-and-run late last night; a pedestrian was killed and the driver disappeared into the night. Police are looking for a white two-door*  car with damage to the left front fender and windshield.

* The word from a recent C-T article says it’s a “small, white Chrysler,” “possibly a 4-door.” 

Spread the word.

Via Ashvegas:

There was a hit-and-run on Merrimon Avenue early Saturday morning, and the cops need your help in finding the driver of the car. From the press release issued by police, here’s what we know:

-The incident happened about 2:30 a.m. Saturday morning next to the Staples store.

-The cops have surveillance footage from Staples showing the suspect’s vehicle was a white two-door car. They say it will have damage to the left front fender and windshield. The car was headed north on Merrimon when the car struck the pedestrian.

-The victim was a white male in his 20’s or early 30’s with short dark brown hair. He had been in and out of 51 Merrimon a couple of times on this date just before he was hit.

-If you were a witness, the cops want to talk to you. Call them at 252-1110.

On Tuesday I went to the WNC Nature Center with my friends Randee and Heather.

We had fun. The Nature Center is a great place, even for grownups, and admission is a shockingly low $7.

I am conflicted about zoos. It’s somehow such a completely human thing to find something beautiful in the wild, capture it, cage it and show it off to the young under the guise of education. But is that really how we want to introduce kids to wild animals — through creatures completely removed from their habitat, living their lives in cages? Polar bears pace in zoos because in the wild they have a roaming range the size of South Carolina, not the size of a big back yard.

But this is a nature center, not a zoo. The creatures here are mostly reptiles and local animals like wolves and black bears. There’s even a clean and well-kept petting zoo of uncommon livestock, like the Belted Galloway cow and the Sicilian Donkey. (Wish I’d taken pictures of those.)

In the reptile exhibit, which I loved, a Nature Center employee took out an Eastern Corn Snake to show us. I wish I had thought to take a picture, but I was enraptured by the snake. He wouldn’t let us call the snake “it” or “he” — the snake was female. She was rusty red with white rings and flawless scales that gleamed like silica. We got to touch her body, which was dry and muscular, and somehow soft. Her red tongue was long and forked and fluttered in and out of her mouth. Though the children were told not to put their hands near her head, they seemed unable to resist sticking their fingers where they’d feel the touch of her flickering tongue.

She was a beautiful thing.

But mostly we came for the “Beauty of Butterflies” exhibit, a brand-new outdoor summertime exhibit of live native butterflies.

It was shaped like a greenhouse and made of netting. There were butterfly-friendly plants inside, and the air was full of wings. There were lots of kids and plenty of adults, most of us rather enchanted. The gentleman in the back right corner is a Nature Center employee who deserves a raise. He was helpful, enthusiastic and just delighted to tell you about the butterflies in the exhibit. Look how he has got the two people he’s talking to looking at something.

You can’t see it, but in his right hand is a spray bottle full of sugar water. He’d ask to spray your hands with it. This is why:

You’d put your hand near a butterfly (they were everywhere), and it would gladly step on and drink the sugar water from your fingers with its slender black straw of a tongue.

See the liquid on my fingers, and the long pipe of a tongue extending from the butterfly’s head?

This butterfly was very happy on my hand and stayed there for minutes on end, drinking.

Heather was even luckier, and found herself with a little hitchhiker:

Look at all the butterflies on the netting above her.

Here is a magic cabinet full of live butterfly chrysalises, brown and hanging like bats:

At the bottom of the cabinet where you can’t see them are freshly hatched butterflies whose new and wrinkled wings are unfolding and unfurling.

We stepped out of the butterfly exhibit only to find this vision:

A handsome peacock whose imperial neck really was that magnificent shade of iridescent blue.

Then we went to see the boy and girl otter play in the water and groom each other.

I wish they had homes in the wild. But they were beautiful, their enclosure was clean, and they have the company of their kind.

When I was a child my grandmother took me to the circus. There was a tiger who was forced to perform tricks by a man who snapped a whip in its striped face and shot off loud blanks with a gun. The animal was beautiful and seemed angry. It growled. The circus lights were hot and red. I remember the audience being silent, not applauding, like were were not at the circus anymore but watching some weird rite.

After the show my grandmother and I walked back to the car without saying anything. I felt that I had seen an animal that was supposed to be something other than the brutish, angry thing it was, snarling under red lights for children with chins made greasy from popcorn.

But this wasn’t like that. The otters truly seemed carefree, twining around one another and then leaping out of the water like fish to groom one another on a painted concrete shore.

But is this what we want our children to see? Otters behind glass?

Isn’t there a better way?

From the Bountiful Cities newsletter:

Edible Park Workday

Saturday Aug 18th from 9:00 AM-11:00 AM

8:00 AM- Bud grafting demo given by Professor T. Bud Barkslip

(Come early when it’s cool and then go to the FBFC Farmer’s market!)

Please come out to help tidy up the park. The park is in need of love!

Though this summer’s drought conditions have kept a lot of vegetation at bay, kudzu, bermuda grass and knotweed still abound and threaten the fruit trees. Summer revelers have also left their messages in bottles throughout.

Professor Barkslip will be demonstrating bud grafting techniques, as well as talking about propagation strategies in the park. His knowledge will be available to participants on how to expand the diversity of fruits in their own yards, schools, neighborhoods, and towns!

Please bring gloves, water, machetes, weed eaters, pruners, and a friend.

<END>

Join the Bountiful Cities announcement list below to get info about community workdays for all of Asheville’s Bountiful Cities gardens (there are a few, and only Carver seems to have been allowed to go to pot):
http://groups.google.com/group/bountiful-cities-project-forum

For further information about volunteering, send email to info@bountifulcitiesproject.org.

****

My post about the George Washington Carver Edible Park drew some attention from other Asheville bloggers. Big thanks to Screwy, AsheVillein and BlogAsheville for helping spread the word about the park and what’s happened to it.

The other volunteers who helped out in the park that day were horticulturist Allen Bergal and the mighty Mo Franceschi, Bountiful Cities Project intern and tireless volunteer.

There’s still plenty of work yet to be done in the Edible Park.

There’s tons of kudzu (don’t forget it can grow a foot a day), McDonald’s wrappers, cigarette butts and graffiti on the boardwalk and on the benches. There’s three flights of stairs carpeted in broken glass that crunches underfoot with every step you take. Not only does this park need basic maintenance (pruning, weedwhacking, kudzu control), it needs cleanup — graffiti removed and beer bottles picked up.

But what it really needs is its city to remember it again.

Volunteers can clean up, but only the people of Asheville can reclaim the Edible Park.

Volunteer if you can, and if you can’t, come by and visit. That’s what the park is there for. There’s tomatoes, mulberries and probably ripe figs by now, all ripe, local, delicious and organic as anything you’d get at the co-op.

And they’re free.

The George Washington Carver Edible Park is located near the Stephens-Lee Center off of South Charlotte Street on Max St. near downtown Asheville. Call the center at 350-2058 for directions. To get to the park from the Stephens-Lee Center, just park by the dumpster and walk down the path by the basketball court.

I’m really bummed to say that I can’t be at this workday as I’ll be out of town. The glass on those stairs haunts me still.

I really want that park to be a place where kids can play. I plan to be at every last workday I possibly can.

If you want a nonstop flow of enchanting images that authentically and respectfully capture the everyday beauty of the American South and Western North Carolina, just go here as often as you can.

As of today I am a volunteer at the George Washington Carver Edible Park in Asheville’s Stephens-Lee neighborhood.

My friend Rowan and I go there often and have been struck by two things.

One, the park is beautiful and a good place to visit.

Two, it is in absolutely desperate need of attention.

When you go there, you can gather nigella seeds, snack on sweet grape tomatoes and pick a bouquet of mint and sweet peas for your living room. Just watch out for condom wrappers, broken glass, whiskey bottles and holes in the boardwalk big enough to catch an unwary ankle.

Last Tuesday I went to an organizational meeting for new park volunteers. It seems that the guy who usually looks after the park is out of town and the park hasn’t had a lick of help or care since April. Four months of neglect.

Today I learned that there is confusion as to who will provide maintenance for the park: The volunteers of the Bountiful Cities Project or the city of Asheville. As the Powers That Be work this conundrum out, this is what is happening to a park full of valuable and beautiful mature fruit and nut trees:

I cleaned up all the garbage I could get today except for the carpet of broken glass on the stairs, the screw-top bottlecaps I could not pry loose from the earth and the garbage under the boardwalk that was too hard to get to. It took me three hours.

I am not squeamish, but when I was done touching the things I had to touch today, even with work gloves on, I marched right to the Stephens-Lee Center and washed my hands.

There were three of us there today including a professional horticulturist who told me a lot about kudzu, which he had written a thesis on. In just three hours we made a tremendous difference. It was deeply gratifying. Kids could play here now.

I love gardens. I love organic fruit and nuts from local gardens. I love to be outside. And I dearly love to open a can of Ms. Saylor’s Finest Southern Whoop-Ass on a commons in disarray.

Below are images that explain why we worked so hard. Because this place is beautiful, and it should be cared for so that the people of Asheville can enjoy it. It should be a place where children can play without finding used condoms or stepping in shattered glass.

This is where the condom wrapper pictured above and a whole big yard bag’s worth of garbage was.

Was.

Downtown Asheville and a fig tree that would get a pruning.

Another fig. Despite the frost and the drought that killed all the other fruit in the garden, the indefatigable figs have plenty for people and birds alike. They’ll be ripe soon, too.

I don’t know what this tree is, but it’s beautiful.

One of my favorite things in the garden, an uncommon and uncommonly beautiful pure white mallow:

Aside from figs and mallows, the park has the following:

quince

pawpaw

apple

peach

plum

mulberry (they’re ripe; come on over and get some)

hazelnut

There’s also herbs and flowers. Sunflowers, sweet pea, comfrey, lemon balm, mint, wild violet.

If you’d like to volunteer, call 828-257-4000 or send e-mail to info@bountifulcitiesproject.org.

See you at the park! I do love mulberries.

If any of you want free tix to the first annual Laugh Your Asheville Off Comedy Festival at the Diana Wortham Theatre downtown, you might be able to snag one by volunteering to usher the later show this Friday at 9:30. Be at the theatre an hour before the show and hand out programs, and you get free admission to a $28 comedy show.

Call Greg at 828-279-1215 or send email to laughyourashevilleoff (at) gmail (dot) com.

I was a bit tired yesterday, a little worn out. I very nearly decided to skip Knit Night at the ballpark for a quiet evening at home finishing up my John Boorman film festival (The Emerald Forest, Excalibur, Deliverance). Then I heard a guy on the radio say that Thursday looked to be the most perfect summer day Asheville has enjoyed all year. I stepped outside and had to agree. It was almost springlike out, but golden rather than silvery. Very warm but not too hot, with zero chance of rain and a few wispy streaks of pure white cloud. The kind of Bradburian summer day that the whole season is all about. And it was Thirsty Thursday ($1 sodas and PBRs) at the field.

Was I really going to spend the prettiest day of summer inside on the couch knitting a sock? When in just a month or so when school starts back I might well be lucky to have a single weeknight free all month?

I packed up a few projects and met my friends downtown, where we carpooled to the game. One of the knitters works for a major sponsor of the home team, the Asheville Tourists, and so we all got free tix. Nice! We got there early and settled into a great seat in the stands, right behind home plate!

I hadn’t been to a ballgame since high school. And I had an absolute blast.

I sat next to a mouthy, hilarious, good-natured ex-Marine who had a loud running commentary going all night. He watched the wing-eating contest (part of occasional entertainment between innings), declaring that wasn’t any man who got to eat him some free wings a winnuh? He had to get his name in there somehow for next time, because he knew he could eat two dozen in 45 seconds, easy. The crowd was wonderfully diverse, and I sat in front of an entertaining group of giggly, pudding-fleshed, light-skinned black girls who were queens of well-delivered rejoinders:

Q: Where Mitch be? Where Mitch at?

A: He in his skin,

and when he jump out,

you can jump in!

A well-groomed little middle-aged Mexican man of about 5′3″ in jeans, big belt buckle, maroon Western shirt and white cowboy hat seemed to be inexplicably walking back and forth around the stadium for much of the night, occasionally talking on his cell phone and stroking his black moustache.

A skittish little squirrel flitted about the stands, and I thought he was lost and frightened until a friend told me he was mooching around for peanut handouts. There really were peanuts and Crackerjacks, as well as chicken tenders, fries, sodas and hot dogs that I heard were not too expensive ($3.50) as well as completely delicious. A woman in a visor marched around with a metal stick from which dangled 20 or 25 fat pastel bags of cotton candy. She walked back by having sold every last one.

She sold all that nasty cotton candy, y’all, I said. My companions nodded. She had indeed.

I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect game. It swiftly became so involving and fun that I realized I was not going to knit a stitch. I never even so much as opened my knitting bag.

I started yelling for the home team, causing my friends to snicker kindly and murmur to each other, because I am a champion woo-yeller, “woo” being what people mostly like to yell here in America, I think. Even in the South people really don’t go yee-haw, unless they are Yankee actors in movies who are being paid millions of dollars to ineptly impersonate the true children of the Southland. I think most Americans just yell WOOOO and I am no exception. I go “WOOO” real good, y’all.

A young couple sat next to me and I politely informed them that my friends were sitting there and had just gone for some food, but they would be back, and, well, if we all scooted out a bit they would probably fit and not to worry much. They smiled in a bemused way, looking down. I realized that I was being perceived as a colorful local. Oh my lord. In this blog you cannot hear me, so you may not be aware of the rather thick North Carolina accent I possess, nor of my propensity, when speaking (and when excited) to use words like “fixin,” as in “Look at him fixin’ to steal that base! Look at him creep!”

The Tourists were playing the Augusta (GA) GreenJackets, tied for 2nd with them in their division, and who had consistently whupped them in previous encounters. Last night the teams ended up being so well-matched that the game was tied at 5-5 at the ninth inning. We had 2 extra innings as the teams struggled to score.

In the 11th inning the magic happened. The bases were loaded and the Tourists were at bat. And a 23-year-old batter named Michael Paulk hit what I described to a friend last night as a pure-d old-fashioned straight-down-the-middle GRAND SLAM. From a split second after the crack of the bat, it was clear that that one was going high and far, whizzing by the lights and out into the woods. An absolutely perfect all-American homer, ending the game as all the players on base walked in four fine winning runs and the crowd went wild.

Classic.

Well, I have decided that that last post was pretty whiny. I may be becoming a classic case of someone who declares defeat less because of the unyielding might of her foe than because of her unwillingness to dig in and really, truly fight rather than constantly strategize and half-assedly avoid the work of change. Because fighting is truly damn hard. So here’s to digging in and truly fighting, to the learning curve that never ends and never should, and to the cheesy and fabulous sport of American minor-league baseball.

I believe I will try to cultivate a bit more of my own gratitude before again taking them to task who have what I do not.

Damn asymptote.

You know, I really should have called this post “With a Rebel Yell, She Cried More, More, More.”

When I say “WNC,” where and what is WNC? Skip this post if you already know.

While chatting with a friend in the U.K. about the flood that inundated her little farm just the other day, I realized that I didn’t know exactly where she was, where her part of the world fitted in with the rest of the world. Yorkshire? Derbyshire? I know these names only vaguely, and exactly where they are on the map of England, I do not know.

Did my friends in Europe, Australia and Asia feel the same way about my place, Western North Carolina?

For all of you, here is where I am:

North Carolina (abbreviated as “NC”) is one of America’s 50 states. American states divvy up and label territory just like Australian and Indian states or English counties do. North Carolina is located on the eastern coast (the Atlantic side) of the U.S., halfway between Florida and New York City. Either one is a day’s drive away. To put the breadth of America in perspective, driving from coast to coast takes three days, driving all day.

See it? Look for NC.

WNC is the west end of the state, towards TN (Tennessee, another southeastern state — where my mom lives!). Above us are Virginia and New England. Below us is the Deep South.

We have all four seasons here and the scenery is famous, especially in autumn when people come from all over the country to look at the mountains, which turn red and gold with the coming of fall. WNC holds part of the Appalachian mountain range, one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world. Unlike the steep, rocky Alps or the Rocky Mountains of the American West, the Appalachians are rounded and green, more like the Pennines. WNC is not as wet as England or Ireland, but we have a similar green lushness of vegetation (when we are not having a drought), especially in spring.

(Click the thumbnail to see some beautiful NC scenery. It really looks like this here.)

As well as mountains we have rivers, waterfalls, lakes and streams. Native wildlife includes black bears, whitetail deer, rabbits, foxes, squirrels, snakes and even native panthers called mountain lions.

WNC’s true human natives are the Cherokee, a Native American people.

Cherokee people still live here (in fact the headquarters of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee nation is just a few hours away), and plenty of white people here have Cherokee ancestry. The first Europeans here were Spaniards with Hernando de Soto. The Native American population suffered from disease brought by the Spaniards and, most notoriously, from the infamous government-sanctioned forced relocation to Oklahoma called the Trail of Tears. European settlement — mostly, to my understanding, by the Irish, the Scottish and the Germans — began in the 1700s.

WNC is a mountainous, geographically isolated area. Which, unfortunately, always means a vein of isolationism and ignorance. If you’ve ever heard of the “hillbilly” stereotype (or of the hillbilly’s more modern cousin, the redneck), both are commonly applied to some NC natives.

Obviously people aren’t stupid just because they’re from Appalachia, but in years past geographic isolation did indeed confer ignorance. The stereotypes remain today, with geographical isolation as their root cause. Unfortunately a lot of ignorance remains as well.

According to Wikipedia, my town of Asheville is about 78% white (including a growing immigrant Ukrainian community), 18% black and 4% Hispanic, with people from all over thrown in. (Currently Asheville is less than 1% Native American.) About 16% of the population of Asheville lives below the poverty line. The population is about 72,000, and we have a state university and (yes) an airport.

WNC is known nationally as an adventure destination due to its rivers and mountains, which offer skiing, fishing, hiking, whitewater rafting…the works. This is a truly wonderful place to live, which is why I post sometimes against the overdevelopment that threatens it.

If you want to tell your own readers about where you are in the grander geographic scheme, consider yourself tagged — and if you do, please, please leave a comment with a link!

My poor friend in West Yorkshire has a very different problem, but what I have begun to think of as a new era of weird weather is plaguing the Southeastern U.S. as well. My dad in Florida says that drought is so bad there that his South Florida city is considering permanent water restrictions. It hasn’t come to that here, but we are in are second straight summer of drought, with my part of the world experiencing severe drought.

The governor of my state has begun urging voluntary conservation.

http://citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200770703012

I am seriously considering xeriscaping my yard.

Check out the US Drought Monitor here, and the Southeast Drought Monitor here.

For my NC blog readers who try to buy local, a North Carolina produce availability chart by month. Good for planning seasonal menus made from the best-tasting produce, which, unsurprisingly, is often what’s locally and organically grown. Local/organic produce is all PC and everything, but it’s easy to forget that it’s also delicious. Buying local and organic can sound and feel like drudgery. Buying fresh and delicious sounds like something worth a special trip for.

Permanent link here.

Another Asheville-specific post…

Via BlogAsheville, it looks like someone was robbed at gunpoint last night by the Wachovia on Haywood Road. As the blogger says: “Don’t be scared, just be aware.”

BlogAsheville post here.

Skip this post if you don’t live in Asheville, where our city is seeing a tremendous grassroots reaction to our city council’s recent decision to make municipal elections partisan. For the first time in 12 years, Ashevilleans will soon vote a city ticket in which candidates must declare a political affiliation.

I was surprised to note the loud and rowdy local response, with people seemingly coming out of the woodwork to oppose the move. At a visit to the local farmer’s market near my house, I was asked to sign a petition against the move to partisan elections. I told the woman with the clipboard that I had to educate myself on the change first before I signed anything.

Well, now I’ve thought about the issue, read about it and asked questions. And frankly, I couldn’t care less about it. I merely find myself disappointed that the issue that galvanizes so many fellow Ashevilleans isn’t something more meaningful. Our city is threatened by overdevelopment, with luxury high-rises slated to appear all over as working-class people are priced out of their own neighborhoods and available affordable housing dwindles. Already no one who works downtown can afford to live there, and gentrification is rampant. New downtown construction is never affordable housing or even hip retail space; it’s high-rise hotels and million-dollar condos.

Atlanta and parts of South Florida are already casualties of overdevelopment and gentrification. Our city faces the same fate, as well as the looming threat of our 400-million-year old mountains being randomly shaved bare of trees and dotted with 10-bedroom trophy mansions. That’ll sure improve the view, and can only enhance the joy and wonder I feel when I look around at the still-wild and beautiful part of the world that has nurtured my spirit for nearly 30 years. Look around you, those who share this amazing city with me. Unethical developers will have their way with us and our mountains if we don’t speak out. Me, when I look to the mountains, I want to see mountains. Who else has the power to stop overdevelopment in Asheville but the people of Asheville?

So far, this seems to me to be a classic instance of speak up or suffer the consequences, which for Asheville will be a substantial loss of scenic beauty, increased pollution, increased traffic, a compromised downtown skyline showing brand-new buildings rather than ancient mountains, higher property taxes and a downtown slowly losing its one-of-a-kind Asheville funkiness to big hotels, pricey restaurants and condos that lie owned but empty, waiting for their wealthy residents to spare a weekend away from their main residence.

I don’t hate wealthy people. I just hate my city being compromised to line the pockets and pander to the interests of those who do not hold its unique charm as dear as I do. And I will hate a downtown that caters far more to the wealthy than to the working-class majority.

My lesson from the partisan-elections issue is that there are better things for me to spend my time on.

Erm, the whole point of this post was supposed to be to point y’all to the excellent local political blog Scrutiny Hooligans, which has a typically fine summation of the partisan-election brouhaha. Read it here: Partisan Election Controversy — Long on Rhetoric, Short on Facts

And join the anti-development group PARC (People Advocating Real Conservancy) here, and get on the email list of (development watchdog group) the Coalition of Asheville Neighborhoods here.

If you’re a stand-up comedy fan, please note that there’s a new comedy festival coming to town next month on the weekend before the dreaded Bele Chere.

If you’re NOT a comedy fan, please keep reading anyway. I’d love your help in spreading the word about this fest, since it was founded by two of my closest friends (Greg and Rowan) who sunk their savings into renting the Wortham and hiring comedian Todd Barry to come to Asheville.

Together these two took all their savings, rented the local theatre for two nights and paid a famous comedian to come to their town. (This is not cheap for anyone to do, much less an unemployed college student and her boyfriend the waiter.)

And the first annual Laugh Your Asheville Off Comedy Festival was born.

(Their friend Jen was relieved to note that their headlining comedian is actually funny.)

Official website

Todd Barry slings deliriously funny observations with a dry, squirrelly delivery tuned as tight as a mandolin…
- The Onion

Comedy albums that demand repeat listens are rare, ones that grow with each listen even rarer. Weird, rewarding, and a funny sort of unsettling.
- David Jeffries, All Music Guide

Download the free Rhapsody player and listen to Todd Barry here.

Also scheduled to appear: Johnny Millwater, Joe Zimmerman, Scott Oseychik, Mike Buczek, Carlos Valencia, Asheville’s own Brian “big B” Fox, Clint Nohr and Jelisa.

The First Annual Laugh Your Asheville Off Comedy Festival
Diana Wortham Theatre at Pack Place
Asheville, NC
July 19: 8PM
July 20: 7PM and 9:30PM
Tickets: $24 - $28
recommended for mature audiences 18+

Every June and November I try to attend the amazing semiannual River District Art Stroll. In spring I usually go with my peeps Rowan and Katie, AKA the Glitter Girl Gang. But Rowan is still recovering from minor surgery; Katie has no excuse that I know of yet, but better be there next year. So I went with my friend Heather, who has bright blue eyes and makes me laugh.

It’s a wonderful spring outing, one of my favorite things to do all year. The River District is one of Asheville’s most interesting places, a shaky, crumbling, blighted old area by the railroad tracks where deserted brick warehouses and weird old mazelike 3-story buildings that I can’t imagine are up to code are being turned in studio space, art galleries and workshops. The artists are an inspiring and interesting group, and make everything from wearable art made from weird vintage clothing (get yer fur-trimmed purple prom gown here) to “singing bowls” made of fired clay, photography, oil paintings and your very own brain-tanned buckskin bikini top, which Heather and I agreed no woman can do without nowadays. Mutant warlords could take over at any time, and we want to have the proper attire.

The buckskin bikini top, which for some reason Heather sniffed at because she is Heather and does things like that, still smelled of woodsmoke and was very, very soft.

The artists put out wine and water, grapes and cookies for people to snack on (last year there was even fresh, ripe organic strawberries at the Cupcake Gallery), and everyone browses and wanders and sometimes even buys.

I love to talk to the artists. Last year I sat and chatted with a woman sculpting a nymph’s head. What kind of clay was that? What kind of armature did she use? What nymph was she making? This year I visited with my knitting friend Michael, a Thursday night knitter at Purl’s, who runs Craven-Hofman. Craven-Hofman makes fine glazed pottery into which vintage lace has been pressed, making strange patterns that sometimes look like lace, and sometimes look like snake scales or feathers.

I liked his work a lot, and Heather decided that she wants one of her wedding presents (she’s getting married next month) to be a mismatched dinner set from Michael’s “bargain bin” of not-quite-right pottery.

A fine idea.

We also visited with spinner and knitter Stacey Budge, also known as the Urban GypZ, the organizer of my city’s weekly Stitch ‘n’ Bitch and a maker of fine yarns through her Etsy shop. Stacey is currently trying out a new sock yarn, bamboo and merino, more muted in color than her bright pure merino yarns but with a lovely drape and “hand” (knitter talk for how yarn feels when knitted up). She says the bamboo-blend yarn is lighter and cooler than merino, so I might nab some to make some socks for my semi-estranged dad, who lives in South Florida.

Pictured above is the fat and pink-pawed Inky, a sock in progress, and my Manx cat Sid’s little tailless butt. The sock is made from Stacey’s Mod Olive Cocktail sock yarn, which is pricey but lovely. I’ll pay more for sock yarn when it’s local and comes in such vivid, lovely colors.

I came home and ate a taco salad made from homemade chili I made last night, deliciously creamy organic sour cream, shredded extra-sharp cheddar and greens that my friend grew in her garden. You know how greens can be — sometimes there’s lots to share with friends. I washed the dirt off them, smiling and thinking that it was good Asheville dirt from my friend’s yard. It feels good to be connected.

These socks I am making are for her.

Saturday, June 9 is International Knit In Public Day, AKA Worldwide Knit In Public Day.

For all you non-knitters, “knitting in public” is when knitters take their craft out of their living rooms and local yarn shops and venture out into the wide world in search of food, alcohol, entertainment and admiration. It’s fun to knit in public (”KIP”); people like to watch other people make things, and even I enjoy the slightly exhibitionistic feeling of Doing Something Cool for an Audience.

Every year on International Knit In Public Day, the world knitting community takes their yarn and sticks outside to share and celebrate the art of knitting, and the fun of KIPing, together.

Because I am an inveterate organizer, I am of course trying to think up something fun for Asheville knitters to do on that day. I’m still looking for an outdoor concert on June 9, which I think would be an ideal environment, letting us enjoy not only knitting together but also something summery outside. Or maybe we could just do an afternoon on a cafe patio downtown?

If you’re a knitter, won’t you please comment with some fun ideas you think people would like to do for IKIP Day? And if you’re a LOCAL knitter, won’t you please consider yourself invited to step out on June 9, and also to help me come up with something fun to do and spread the word about it?

I wasn’t there (I was at home, wishing I was there, sitting on the sofa knitting a sock and watching Singin’ In the Rain), but the report from the Astronomy Club of Asheville is that last night’s event was…

a resounding success!

There were several big scopes and a TeleVue 5 inch APO refractor. Around 600-1000 Ashevilleans showed up to view the stars, and the iridium flare flared above the mountain right on time, no doubt to oohs and ahs.

The hit of the night was a 3 1/2-year-old girl who started shouting “I SAW THE MOON! I SAW THE MOON!” and “everyone caught her enthusiasm a dozen times over!”

It was such a huge success that the group is thinking of sponsoring another citywide astronomy event in summer, and having several planned events throughout the year.

I went to an astronomy camp as a kid, and what I saw there through telescopes stayed with me the rest of my life. I am delighted that there may be a new regular astronomy event downtown (at the un-astronomical hour of 9PM, which even I can handle).

I’ll post as the new astronomy events are planned.

The 1st Annual International Sidewalk Astronomy Night is this Saturday, May 19.

Asheville is definitely observing.

The Astronomy Club of Asheville will be set up in front of Pack Place on the brick promenade at 9PM with two big telescopes, looking at Saturn, the Beehive cluster and the waxing crescent moon. As a big and perfectly-timed bonus, there will be a bright iridium satellite flare at 10:36PM over downtown Asheville, right over Beaucatcher Mountain as viewed from Pack Place!

Come on out and enjoy a rare free, local, public chance to check out the heavens through a 10″ Dobson scope.

The May 19th event is weather permitting with Sunday the 20th as the backup night if Saturday is rainy or overcast.

Other participating cities are listed here (the left sidebar has other areas than the U.S.).

Attention conservation notice: this post is about the local campaign to turn an ugly city-owned piece of downtown property into a community park.

The city of Asheville has no downtown green spaces. Pritchard “Park” is not a green space. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a picnic downtown? To grab lunch from Rosetta’s on a warm spring day and spread out a blanket for a meal on the grass, under the blue sky? Play frisbee downtown? Asheville is full of natural beauty, but our downtown isn’t.

We can change that. We need a green space downtown. This is what we could have:

Above is a Photoshopped depiction of “St. Lawrence Park,” the park proposed for a city-owned area that they city of Asheville is currently accepting proposals for. (Note the crazy shadows pointing different ways by the Gatorade river! Cool!) This park would go across from the Basilica of St. Lawrence, where currently there is a a smallish parking area and a blighted and graffiti-marred parking deck owned by the city. A nothing piece of property.

An ugly, empty parking deck could be part of a green and lovely park. It’s a perfect spot, across from a visually impressive historical landmark and near the heart of downtown (the library, the restaurants…). Imagine getting a book from Pack and walking here to read it in the sun on a park bench. What should a city have across the street from its main library — a piss-stinking parking deck, exclusive condos, or a park? In my mind, I am picnicking here already. I am having something from Salsa. What are you having?

There is a growing grassroots community movement supporting the creation of a park in downtown Asheville. You can help support it by “signing” (via email) a full-page ad that will appear in the Citizen-Times. I’ve already signed the ad. I think that a downtown park is an absolutely wonderful idea, and that the proposed Basilica site is absolutely ideal. I think this is one of the best ideas for the Asheville community that I’ve yet heard about.

That space is ripe for development. I figure it’ll be high-dollar high-rise condos, or a park.

I want a park.

Sign the ad (and learn more) here.

Check out the Mountain Xpress article here.

Last weekend we here in WNC had the most damaging frost in over five decades. An article in the local paper quotes two local people from the apple-growing business as saying it was the worst frost disaster since 1955.

It was a perfect storm with regard to destroying tender spring growth. Unseasonably warm temperatures broke records and put the people of Asheville into summer gear — shorts and sandals in mid-March. The plants sent out new spring growth and beautiful flowers several weeks early.

It was delightful while it lasted.

The world was green and gold, like summer in mid-March. My lovely college campus — full of truly gorgeous well-planned landscaping featuring natural plants — was in full bloom, with trees and shrubs full of sweet-scented flowers in pink and white. (My compliments to the landscape planners of UNCA, where springtime is positively intoxicating. They didn’t just throw money at some pretty landscaping, but created a