Beginning Tuesday, Jan. 19, Pack Memorial Library will reopen to the public with limited hours and services. See below for schedule information for most other Buncombe County Public Libraries.

The Pack library schedule will be:

• Tuesday-Thursday, 1-6 p.m.
• Friday & Saturday, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
• Sunday & Monday, Closed

Free Drive-thru COVID-19 Testing

The Brevard Music Center in association with the Pisgah Health Foundation announces a free drive-thru COVID-19 testing site for everyone – the insured and uninsured, those on Medicare and Medicaid – everyone!

Keystone Laboratory of Asheville will administer the COVID-19 tests and antibody tests, with results typically available within 5 business days depending on volume.

When: Wednesdays and Thursdays from 4:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. Please no early arrivals.

Where: Brevard Music Center Main Parking lot (entrance on Music Camp Road off Probart Street)

Who: Anyone who wants a test.

How:

• Appointments are not necessary. Participants will be served in the order of their arrival.
• Participants can choose to be tested for COVID-19 via nasal swab or have the COVID-19 antibody test via blood sample.
• Participants will receive their test results at the contact information provided at check-in, typically within 5 business days depending on volume.

What:

• A driver’s license is helpful, but not required.
• A doctor’s order is not required.
• If you have private insurance, please bring your insurance card with you.
• If you have Medicare or Medicaid, please bring your card with you.
• If you do not have insurance, you will be asked to sign an affidavit stating so.
• Please wear a mask and stay in your vehicle while on BMC’s campus.
• If you are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, please seek medical attention from your medical provider, urgent care, or the hospital.
• Please leave pets at home.

Questions: Please email [email protected] and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Join the Asheville Fit Tribe Group for a 60 minute of strength training. You will get personalized training with the power of the group to positively motivate you. Get ready to get a full body workout in for all fitness levels. So, no matter where you are at from beginner to collegiate athlete Trainer Preston will make sure you get a phenomenal workout. For Strength day we focus on slow controlled weight lifting. Learning how to become more aware of our bodies. We hope you give us a shot and see what we are all about!! For any question shoot Preston a text/call (984)204-0591.

“Getting to know you…” Meaningfully connect and collaborate with young artists from across the country in this virtual musical theatre class featuring Broadway songs about friendship! In high-energy zoom classes combining singing, acting, and movement, students will hone their theatrical skills while developing a virtual musical revue shared with friends and family at the end of the semester. 

Join the Asheville Fit Tribe Group for a 60 minute of strength training. You will get personalized training with the power of the group to positively motivate you. Get ready to get a full body workout in for all fitness levels. So, no matter where you are at from beginner to collegiate athlete Trainer Preston will make sure you get a phenomenal workout. For Strength day we focus on slow controlled weight lifting. Learning how to become more aware of our bodies. We hope you give us a shot and see what we are all about!! For any question shoot Preston a text/call (984)204-0591.

Push your imagination to the limits as you collaborate with artists from across the country to devise original, virtual theatrical performance art. With inspiring, out-of-the-box artistic challenges, this class encourages artists of all kinds to use their voices and talents in new and unexpected ways. Whether you’re an actor, writer, dancer, comic, storyteller, artist, musician, or editor, this class led by improviser and actor TJ Simba-Medel will encourage you to create art from anywhere! 

January 28 – March 25

Virtual Platform: Zoom
Instructor: TJ Simba-Medel

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Supplies Needed: Internet connection, a device (mobile phone, tablet, or computer) with a working camera for video submissions.

Gregory Crewdson, Untitled, 2001–2002, chromogenic print mounted on aluminum, 47 ⅝ × 59 ½ inches. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, promised gift of the Fisher Landau Center for Art, P.2010.300. © Gregory Crewdson, image courtesy Whitney Museum of American Art.

FEBRUARY 11, 18, 25, MARCH 4, 11 & 18—Thursdays, 6–8pm
Registration deadline: February 4

In this six-part virtual class, dive into the narrative power of photography! Three professional guest photographers join the Museum’s M. Paige Taylor to present their work and to discuss ways to use the medium to express the spirit of a person, place, story, or idea. Class time includes presentations, discussions, group shares, and critiques; individual preparation between classes includes taking photos in response to prompts, short readings, and journaling. Use images from Vantage Points and the Museum’s Collection for inspiration. This class is designed for all levels of photographers.

On Thursday, February 11, attendees will be joined by Mirror/Mentor exhibition curator, Julie Levin Caro, Ph.D., Professor of Art History, Warren Wilson College
The diversity of media, styles, and themes in the art on view reflects Lara’s philosophy of teaching and mentoring. For Lara, the idea of being a mentor who is a mirror does not mean producing students whose work mimics her own. Instead she follows the advice of her mother, who told her to set an example for her four younger siblings–mirror for them how to live fully in this world. As she worked, and sometimes struggled, to integrate the different layers of her own very full life, Lara discovered her students were as curious about this art of living as they were about learning artistic techniques and handling different media.

The terms of Lara’s life changed when she was diagnosed with uterine leiomyosarcoma cancer (uLMS) in 2018. Her works in this exhibition hold up a mirror to teach us her new reality: stage 4 cancer, incurable and terminal. The photo series Un-Broken pictures the scars from her own surgeries and the healed wounds of family and friends embellished in gold as a means of adornment and repair in the vein of the Japanese art of kintsugi. In Brushes with Death, the artist creates new tools from her own hair lost due to chemotherapy. The mixed media sculpture Forbidden Grapefruit is a new iteration of a poem written about her mother’s journey, which became a series of performances and installations.

The body as vessel, trauma, a daily artistic practice, making as a means of social justice, and repurposing and repairing with the hopes of reemergence are among the overlapping themes that connect the works of these four artists–teacher and students

Join the Asheville Fit Tribe Group for a 60 minute of strength training. You will get personalized training with the power of the group to positively motivate you. Get ready to get a full body workout in for all fitness levels. So, no matter where you are at from beginner to collegiate athlete Trainer Preston will make sure you get a phenomenal workout. For Strength day we focus on slow controlled weight lifting. Learning how to become more aware of our bodies. We hope you give us a shot and see what we are all about!! For any question shoot Preston a text/call (984)204-0591.

YMI Cultural Center and Buncombe County Public Libraries have partnered on a book club exploring modern Black authors. December’s selection is The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Asheville’s YMI Cultural Center (YMI) and Buncombe County Public Libraries (BCPL) are partnering to create a book club focusing on modern Black authors and readers. Beginning Thursday, Dec. 10, 2020, the Black Experience Book Club will meet twice per month at 6:30 p.m. on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month.

To maximize safety, meetings will be held in a hybrid in-person and online format during the COVID-19 pandemic. Anyone interested may join the meeting via Zoom or meet in person at the YMI Impact Center, 39 S. Market St., Suite A, Asheville, NC 28801. In-person meetings will be capped at 10 participants in order to observe social distancing.

To register to attend in-person, please call YMI staff at 828-257-4540 from 9 a.m.-4 p.m., Monday through Thursday or email [email protected] at any time. To receive the Zoom link or for questions regarding finding copies of book club titles, please contact Alexandra Duncan at [email protected]. You may also find information about upcoming titles and request the Zoom link through the library’s Events Calendar. Visit buncombecounty.org/library and click on Events Calendar at the top of the page.

In December 2020, the Black Experience Book Club will discuss The Water Dancer, by Ta-Nehisi Coates. In January 2021, members will discuss The Coldest Winter Ever, by Sister Souljah, and in February 2021, Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi. Selected titles for future months will be announced in book club meetings, on the library’s Events Calendar, and via YMI and BCPL social media channels. Readers may borrow any of these titles at any BCPL location or at the YMI. Copies will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis, so participants are encouraged to reserve their copies early.

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner and AdventHealth Hendersonville is hosting a Men’s Health webinar to talk about how  men’s health conditions can impact intimacy in relationships. More than half of men age
40 and older admit to experiencing some degree of intimacy issues such as erectile dysfunction.

AdventHealth Medical Group board-certified urologist, Nina Harkhani, MD has found
other health concerns such as hypertension, diabetes, and cardiac risk factors
contribute to health-related intimacy issues. “Many men experience ED at some point in
their lives. While there are many causes, the treatment options are the same and are
very effective. As we are spending more time with our partners while battling the
pandemic, I am seeing more patients who want to prioritize their sexual health and
wellness to improve the quality of life. The treatment for ED is just a doctor’s visit
away.”
AdventHealth invites you and your partner to attend this virtual, anonymous discussion
with Dr. Harkhani on Thursday, February 11 at 6:30 pm. She will share more on the
underlying causes of some of the most common men’s health conditions and how they
can affect intimacy. Dr. Harkhani will also explain treatment options to help get your
spontaneity back. You will also have the opportunity to ask your specific questions
using this anonymous webinar platform.
Space is limited for this free event, so register today at AdventHealthNC.com/events.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about
joining the webinar.

Acting: An Organic Approach

Winner of the 1995 Tony Award for Best Play

Written by Terrence McNally

Directed by Stephanie Hickling Beckman

Winner of the 1995 Tony Award for Best Play, Love! Valour! Compassion! explores the lives, loves, and fears of eight gay men in the 1990s. Over the course of three holiday weekends, the men’s conversations touch on themes of infidelity, flirting, AIDS, skinny-dipping, and questions about life and death. By turns soul-searching and hilarious, the play sings with truth.

Writes McNally, “I think I wanted to write about what it’s like to be a gay man at this particular moment in our history. I think I wanted to tell my friends how much they’ve meant to me. I think I wanted to tell everyone else who we are when they aren’t around.”

“[…]his most ambitiously unambiguous gay play, and it speaks difficult truths with acid grace and all those generous words exclaimed in his title.” —New York Newsday

Love! Valour! Compassion! was the first show ever produced by Different Strokes! We re-visit it now in celebration of our 10-year anniversary!

Mitch Rossell, originally from the hills of East Tennessee, is blazing a trail through the world of country music. His prolific songwriting and unique artistry have won him the unshakable support of fans across the nation and abroad.

Rossell’s work caught the attention of his all-time favorite artist and country music legend, Garth Brooks and in the summer of 2016, he opened for Brooks on his record setting world tour. Along with opening, Rossell has written Brooks’ last 4 singles, one of which is “Ask Me How I Know” (which he wrote by himself) landing his first #1 single. Additionally, he penned Brooks’ single “All Day Long”, his single with Blake Shelton, “Dive Bar,” and his current single, “That’s What Cowboys Do”.

Recently, Rossell has released three singles, “All I Need to See”, “American Dream”, and “Then Again” which have all been received well by both fans and streaming platforms alike. “All I Need to See” has been playlisted on five major editorial Spotify playlists and has over 8.3 million streams. The most recent single, “Then Again” has been playlisted on multiple Spotify editorial playlists and continues to increase its stream count daily.

A New Genevieve’s Experience

We are committed to a safe and comfortable return to live music. These concerts provide a listening room feeling while adhering to COVID-19 CDC recommendations. Please note the following:

• Face masks are required except when seated at your table.
• Only 25 tables of four are available, allowing you to enjoy a socially distanced performance with your close family and friends.
• This concert will not have an intermission.
• All ticketing, ordering, and payment is touchless.