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Travel Weekly
28-05-2025
- Business
- Travel Weekly
The Asheville Tourists
Arnie Weissmann Every two years, I get together with a dozen college friends and we rent a big house somewhere for a week, hang out, cook and explore the area. Last week, we gathered in Asheville, N.C. The decision to go to Asheville was made well before its devastating floods last September. We knew there would be evidence of the deluge but also that it was recovering. How important is tourism to Asheville? Its minor league baseball team is the Asheville Tourists, so named in 1915. At various times, it had other monikers -- the Moonshiners, the Redbirds, the Mountaineers, the Skylanders, the Orioles -- but fans kept referring to them as the Tourists. When its stadium was renovated in 1959, the owners wanted a rebrand and asked fans to pick the name. The vote went overwhelmingly to "Tourists." For a town with a metropolitan population of about 380,000, it punches well above its weight as a destination. Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, recreation has long been an attraction, and I can attest that the hiking is superb. The arts have long played a role in its appeal, in part because nearby Black Mountain College, founded in 1933, was a magnet for faculty and students who would become influential in their fields: John Cage, Josef Albers, Merce Cunningham, Cy Twombly, Willem de Kooning, Walter Gropius and Buckminster Fuller, among others, spent time there. The college closed in 1957, but a passion for art never subsided in Asheville. The River Arts District, several blocks of galleries, isn't far from the banks of the French Broad River, which rose almost 25 feet after Helene dumped 14 inches of water on the city during a three-day period last fall. The lowest portions of the district haven't reopened yet, but the majority is up and running. Open galleries accommodate many artists whose space (and art) was lost. One sells playing cards imprinted with work that was destroyed in the flood. (Proceeds go to contributing artists.) The Asheville Art Museum is extraordinary. Its executive director, Pam Myers, was recruited from New York's Guggenheim and has built a collection that, while including Black Mountain artists and regional pieces from 1865 to the present, also features creatively curated contemporary exhibits and thematic galleries showing works from other areas. In the late 19th century, a Vanderbilt heir constructed the Biltmore Estate, then the largest privately owned home in the U.S., adjacent to Asheville. Frederick Law Olmstead was commissioned to design the grounds. It now houses a museum, two hotels (the Inn on Biltmore Estate and Village Hotel on Biltmore Estate), three restaurants, four gift shops and a winery. In downtown Asheville, there's a building that can be described in two words that may never have been previously linked: "stunning cafeteria." The S&W Cafeteria is an art deco marvel. A few blocks away is the Basilica of St. Lawrence, designed by architect Rafael Guastavino. Known for his innovative use of domes, the structure is constructed entirely of tiles and features the largest elliptical dome in America. Today, Asheville is renown as one of America's craft beer capitals and features 62 breweries. The largest, Hi-Wire Brewing, celebrated the reopening of its main taproom while we were in town. I chatted with co-founder and CEO Adam Charnack as, around us, craftspeople sold wares, a band played and clowns on stilts juggled. It seemed that half of Asheville turned out for the party. Charnack said parts of the property had been under 15 feet of water. "You gotta just move forward, right?" he said. "We believe that the things that bring us together are stronger than the things that tear us apart, and our mission is to make the things that bring people together. Not just for us but for the hundreds of displaced artists and the rest of the community. "The town lives and dies on tourism," he continued. "The infrastructure is here. Hotels are a steal and are laying out the red carpet, providing top-notch service. There are thousands of small, independent, family-run businesses that rely on tourism, and by coming to Asheville now you'll have a great experience that's equal to, if not better than, pre-storm. And support the community." Over the years, by accident or design, I have visited destinations that were in the recovery stage following a natural disaster: New Orleans after Katrina; Phuket, Thailand, after the 2004 tsunami; Puerto Rico after Maria; Acapulco after Manuel. My previous reunion with college friends was in Quebec City after smoke from wildfires had thinned visitation. I've found that what Charnack said is true: Places are often ready before visitors realize they are. The period between recovery and recognition has always provided an exceptional experience, both in terms of crowd reduction and the satisfaction that comes from helping a community get back on its feet. If clients who typically would travel abroad are now reluctant because of the changing geopolitical landscape, suggest a domestic alternative: suggest they be an Asheville tourist.
New Statesman
25-04-2025
- Business
- New Statesman
The UK's water watchdogs are not fit for purpose
Photo by Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images On 5 February 2003, a pipe organ in a 14th-century church in the town of Halberstadt in central Germany began sounding the first notes of a work by the American composer John Cage called Organ2/As Slow As Possible. The piece, as the name suggests, is written to be played very slowly indeed; the current record for a completed performance was broken last month at just over 25 hours. The Halberstadt rendition is played by placing sandbags on the pedals of a specially designed organ, so that notes are sounded continuously for months or years at a time (the piece actually began in 2001, with a rest that lasted until 2003). The first of the piece's nine movements will not be completed until 2072, and if it is played to completion it will last for 639 years, ending in 2640. Another 85 years after that, a full seven centuries in the future, an even more glacial performance will come to an end: according to a report published this morning by the National Audit Office (NAO), we can expect the UK's water network to be fully replaced by the year 2725, if work continues at the current replacement rate of 0.14 per cent per year. Exciting as it is to live in a country in which infrastructure upgrades are used as avant-garde reflections on our own insignificance against the deep centuries, it would also be nice if everyone had enough water. But by 2050, according to the NAO, the UK will be facing a shortfall of nearly 5 billion litres per day (the UK currently uses about 14 billion litres per day). Britain has not built a major reservoir for more than 30 years, the last one having been completed in 1992; nine more are planned, but such projects can remain on paper for decades. The NAO concludes that over the next 25 years, £290bn of investment will be needed to modernise the water supply and sewage systems, and Ofwat projects that £52bn on top of that will be needed to deliver the new reservoirs and other major projects. Anyone familiar with the UK's privatised water sector may be sceptical that such a huge sum will be forthcoming from an industry that has historically done a much better job of extracting dividends from bills than it has of extracting sewage from wastewater. The NAO is clear that the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs and the industry's three regulators (Ofwat, the Environment Agency and the Drinking Water Inspectorate) have 'failed to drive sufficient investment in the water sector' and have 'not managed the rising tide of risk associated with the sector'. The government has its own news lines out this morning to help make it appear as if drastic action is being taken. As of today, thanks to the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025, the regulators have new powers to send water company executives who cover up illegal sewage spills to prison for up to two years. The people who have spent decades hosing our rivers and beaches with chunky brown soup now face the fury of the Environment Secretary, Steve Reed, who says he will leave 'no more hiding places' for water company bosses, who 'must face consequences if they commit crimes'. Again, this is a view of the future that doesn't quite tally with the past, given than obstructing investigations was already a criminal offence, for which a grand total of five people have previously been prosecuted; two successfully appealed and the other three were never actually issued with a fine. When I interviewed the CEO of Ofwat, David Black, in 2023 he told me he didn't like the sound of 'demonising individuals' in this way. And to be fair, when you look at the mess that Thames Water's finances are in, the people who extracted the most in dividends are now long gone. While the new powers reduce the bar for evidence, it's going to be tricky to say when an illegal sewage spill has been covered up because, as the New Statesman reported exclusively last year, there is good evidence that the monitors used on sewage outflows don't work, delivering results that appear impossible when compared to rainfall data. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe The NAO's report today is a picture of a badly coordinated regulatory system riddled with 'gaps in oversight', inconsistencies and the failure to balance contradictions between imperatives such as cost and environmental considerations. The NAO warns that a major failing of the current system is that 'none of the regulators have a duty to ensure there is a coherent national plan for the water sector', and so 'there is no coherent national system where integrated decision making can take place'. Collectively, it warns, 'The regulators do not have a shared understanding of the condition of water and wastewater assets, and the level of funding needed to maintain them.' In an interview with the New Statesman this week, Reed told George Eaton that regulation had been the problem, in that in a system which will probably have to remain privatised given the very high cost of bringing it back into public ownership, it is regulatory failure that has allowed the long-running crisis of underinvestment to develop. It's satisfying to imagine a few suits going to jail, but that is very unlikely to actually happen and it would not help attract the private investment needed. Perhaps the most important warning from the NAO today is that 'the regulatory framework has contributed to worsening investor perception of the [water] sector'; this is a crisis that we hope to fix with other people's money, and they are only going to make that available if they are assured it will be well spent. For that to happen, an overhaul of the water regulators appears to be needed. This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack here [See also: Anarchy in the 'yookay'] Related
Los Angeles Times
19-03-2025
- Automotive
- Los Angeles Times
The funniest, weirdest and most niche bumper stickers seen around L.A.
Here in auto-saturated Los Angeles, the bumper sticker has always been a healthy form of self-expression. But in recent years, they've become far weirder than your average tourist-trap souvenir or presidential endorsement. 'This new wave of stickers,' writes Times contributor Renée Reizman, 'is more concerned with cracking self-deprecating jokes or aligning with a niche fandom. There's a bumper sticker for everybody. You can profess your love for John Cage, neon art or frogs. You can declare your other car is a poem, ask drivers not to stress out your dog or claim to be a silly goose.' Artists, small-business owners and residents are creating highly specific bumper stickers to serve their social circles and earn some laughs. In my neck of the woods, I've clocked 'ON A QUIET NIGHT YOU CAN HEAR MY BUICK RUST!' 'DREAMS HAPPEN,' and my personal favorite, 'I'D RATHER BE SLOWLY CONSUMED BY MOSS.' Alone, these stickers might make you smile, contemplate or drop your jaw. Together, they're a mosaic of Angelenos' collective conscious. To celebrate the colorful little decals that keep Angelenos rubbernecking on the road, we asked locals and visitors to share their favorite bumper stickers. Here's what they submitted. Where did you see it? 'Glendale Boulevard in Atwater Village.'What'd you like about it? 'Made me stop and laugh.' — Robert Grenader, Los Feliz Where did you see it? '101 Northbound near Melrose.'What'd you like about it? '[It was] on a Honda Prelude. The composer Claude Debussy wrote a famous piece called 'Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. So ... Prelude 2PMFaun. Definitely a classical musician driving that one.' — Lee Bridges, Laurel Canyon Where did you see it? 'Foothill Boulevard, between Pennsylvania and Lowell [in] La Crescenta'What'd you like about it? 'Touché, all you obnoxious parents.' — Ben Elder, La Crescenta Where did you see it? 'North Westdale… On Barry, just south of Sardis (near a Whole Foods)'What'd you like about it? '[It was] in plain black, on white, without punctuation. It is poetry! — Dave Kopplin, West L.A. What'd you like about it? 'It says so much in so little text.' — Russ Charvonia, Ventura Where did you see it? 'In Lone Pine. The driver said he was from L.A.' — David Morrow, Bend, Ore. Where did you see it? 'On the 5, just south of Magic Mountain.'What'd you like about it? 'Made me laugh ... and continue to worry. It appeals to the literate.' — Theo Moreno, Cambria Where did you see it? Jefferson and Lincoln [in] Playa VistaWhat'd you like about it? 'A niche spoof on a classic California bumper sticker.' — Katie Purtill, Playa del Rey Where did you see it? 'It was parked in a red zone in front of Maury's Bagels in Silver Lake.'What'd you like about it? 'I think we can all relate to this a little bit. I also wonder what would happen to sales of Ozempic if we embraced this idea more fully.' — Ted Walker, Silver Lake Where did you see it? 'In Topanga.'What'd you like about it? 'First, the bumper sticker was thought of by the Topanga Assn. for a Scenic Community. This organization has been around since 1963. It was established to fight off overdevelopment in the Santa Monica Mountains, specifically in Topanga. We all in Topanga realize Topanga needs to be enjoyed by everyone. People move here because they see something that enriches their soul. We wanted to get the message out and remind all why they came here and [to] not bring with them the very thing they were trying to get away from. We want folks to breath deep and love Topanga for what it offers and not change it to suit a more urban environment.' — Roger Pugliese, Topanga Where did you see it? 'I was in the Valley, about to make a left onto Ventura Boulevard. I go to school at CSUN, so I have the privilege of escaping the Westside regularly.'What'd you like about it? 'The song immediately came to my mind when I read it, and I laughed out loud in my car so loud, like a huge dork, and it was fantastic.' — Alexis Evanoff, West L.A. Where did you see it? 'Palmdale near Antelope Valley Mall'What'd you like about it? '[It was] in a Lisa Frank type of font in soft pastel colors. I laughed out loud when I read it. The sweet tone is so passive-aggressive.' — Polly Drown, Palmdale Where did you see it? 'West L.A. in heavy traffic.'What'd you like about it? 'Cleverness. You see so many stickers saying I Brake For Squirrels, or Garage Sales or whatever. Brachiation is using your arms to swing through the tree branches, like gibbons and spider monkeys.' — Karen Hohenstein, West Hills Where did you see it? 'Seen at Foothill Ranch Library, Orange County.'What'd you like about it? 'Based on real events. College rugby team's plane crashed in snowy Andes in 1972. Survivors had little food ... they did have the dead bodies of family and friends. Of 45 people aboard, just 16 survived subfreezing nights until rescue 72 days later.' — John Grimshaw, Lake Forest
