Yes, I’ve got it. Call it the movie-going malaise. The cinematic blues. The crummy picture collywobbles. Whatever you call it, it ain’t pretty. No, I’m not burned out on the movies. Far from it. In the past few weeks, I’ve watched: Abel Gance’s J’Accuse (1919) (all nearly three hours of it); Ernst Lubitsch’s Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1938); Victor Saville’s Evergreen (1934); Frank Tuttle’s Waikiki Wedding (1937); F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise (1927); Josef von Sternberg’s Shanghai Express (1932); Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989); and David Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch (1991). And these were movies I didn’t have to watch. To this, you can add in the fact that I’ve picked up David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986) and Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (1985) and Tideland (2005). And there’s a copy of Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) just sitting here waiting for reappraisal.

I’ve seen new movies I’ve liked, including last week’s Iron Man and Flawless. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention The Counterfeiters on any list of recent viewings.

But there’s something missing. That little extra kick isn’t quite there. Discounting the usual run of last year’s releases that just penetrated the hinterlands this year, the only movies from 2008 on that list of titles I fully intend to buy the minute they become available are Be Kind Rewind, The Band’s Visit and In Bruges. Worse, there’s the question of just what there is to look forward to — and this is where it gets really grim.

Most people look at the trailers prior to movies and think, “That looks interesting” or “That might be good” or “That looks awful” or “I’d rather drink my own urine than see that” (usually reserved for the works of Uwe Boll) or “Who’d go see that?” The answer to that last is simple for me — either I will, or Justin Souther will (depending on the level of sadism I can live with). For you, they’re just trailers. For me, they’re more like some often unfortunate crystal ball predicting my future in widescreen color and six channel Dolby sound.

OK, so I hold out some vague hope that this week’s Speed Racer might at least be visually striking, while the very idea of David Mamet making a martial arts picture — Redbelt — starring Chiwetel Ejiofor (perhaps my favorite actor of current film) and Tim Allen (definitely not my favorite actor from any era) intrigues me. The less said about the prospect of What Happens in Vegas... the better, except to note that I won’t be seeing it. (Tee hee hee, he giggled sadistically.) I positively loathed The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) and am not exactly looking forward to its sequel, Prince Caspian.

I’m probably one of four people living (there were five, I understand, but the fifth passed away suddenly), who has close to zero interest in Indiana Jones and the Impossibly Long Title. And do we really need a big screen version of Sex and the City? Could The Strangers look any less interesting or more derivative if they tried? Oh, but there’s Adam Sandler in You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, isn’t there? And Kung-Fu Panda.

More comic book movies are on their way, of course. Next up is yet another version of The Incredible Hulk — this one from Louis Leterrier, who gave us The Transporter and its sequel, and starring Edward Norton. What kind of casting is that? Does it matter? The CGI looks appalling, and anyway, I actually kind of liked Ang Lee’s Hulk (2003). Worse, Norton (who took a hand in “improving” the Frida (2002) screenplay, thereby helping to make that Julie Taymor’s least interesting film) was involved in the writing.

Of course, there’s more enticing comic-bookery afoot with Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy II the following month. And while the first film was a big “so what?” for me, the trailer for this looks better, which is to say that it has a similar look to Pan’s Labyrinth. Does it look enough better to get me past the depressing news that del Toro has signed away four years of his creativity to make two Hobbit movies? Not really, no, especially when that presumably moves such tasty looking projects as his film of H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness to 2012 or beyond. Or will he simply follow Peter Jackson’s example and remake Son of Kong as a follow-up? Don’t get me wrong, I liked Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, even if the only one I felt truly compelled to see more than twice was the first one. But I’m kind of Tolkiened out, and can’t help but think that del Toro’s unique gifts could be better applied elsewhere.

Yes, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight holds promise, and I have no doubt that it will be good. If nothing else, the late Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker looks absolutely fantastic. But in all honesty, I’m otherwise having a hard time getting that worked up about another Batman movie. I’ll be delighted if Nolan and company can change my mind — and they just might.

Of course, somewhere along the way, there’s room for a new M. Night Shyamalan picture, The Happening. Yeah, I know I found some merit in Lady in the Water (2006), even while admitting its flaws, but I haven’t forgiven him for The Village (2004) or suckering me into temporary insanity and causing me to give Signs (2002) that inexplicably positive review that haunts me to this day. And can I be the only person who finds the trailer for this latest funny? The business where somebody comes down with the “mysterious disease” and we hear the sound of a body falling after the trailer cuts away to a title card is very droll.

Get Smart is admittedly well-cast (The Rock to one side), but another TV show going to the big screen? Why? And let’s face it, Adam Sandler’s pet director Peter Segal (The Longest Yard) at the helm is cause for pause — or cause to send you in search of the TV series. Personally, I can’t wait for the new Mike Myers picture, The Love Guru, to come out, but only because that will mean the trailer will go away, and petitions from Hindu organizations asking me to boycott the movie will stop landing in my in-box every two days. (Good Lord, I just got another one — and I’m not kidding.) Except that no one is protesting it, I have similar feelings about the prospect of the Disney-Pixar WALL-E. That trailer, with the world’s longest lead-in to the song “Brazil” (Terry Gilliam envy?), is just too cute for me.

While Timur Bekmambetov has made a cottage industry of the Night Watch series in Russia, the films have failed to make much of a dent (at least theatrically) here, but what are we to make of Wanted? It’s based on a comic book (does no one read, oh, I don’t know, actual books anymore?). It has a not uninteresting cast — James McAvy, Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie, Terrence Stamp — but the trailer looks like non-stop action of the Matrix rip-off variety.

Peter Berg’s Hancock will be a hit because everything Will Smith attaches himself to is, whether or not it deserves it. But am I enthused? No. Brian Robbins — the man who gave us The Shaggy Dog (2006) and Norbit (2007) back to back — returns with another Eddie Murphy comedy, Meet Dave. This one has Murphy playing a space-ship run by tiny aliens. (That’s what it says.) Obviously, it’s for people who can’t get enough of The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002). What about Space Chimps? Doesn’t the title kind of say it all?

Meryl Streep, Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan and Stellan Skarsgard are an imposing collection of talent, but have you seen the trailer for the filmization of Mamma Mia!? Ye gods. In two-and-a-half minutes it answered my question from last week’s Screening Room — why do people hate musicals? Yes, the ABBA songs are catchy (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert proved that 14 years ago), but the musical numbers as depicted in the trailer are almost exactly the sort of thing that could send viewers in search of a torture porn flick as an antidote. I’m hoping the trailer doesn’t do the film justice.

The Will Ferrell machine grinds on with Step Brothers. Didn’t we just get rid of Semi-Pro? And what’s this? The Longshots — another family comedy with Ice Cube. Barbershop (2002) seems like ancient history. It’s the kind of thing that makes The X-Files: I Want to Believe look actually promising, except that nobody really seems to know anything about The X-Files, which may be a good thing. Even after it’s been here and gone, I’m guessing most people still won’t know anything about Henry Poole Is Here — the track record for movies starring Luke Wilson is far from whelming.

August looks a little better, if we charitably overlook the prospect of College (exactly what it sounds like), Babylon A.D. (the return of Vin Diesel!), House Bunny (from the director of Strange Wilderness!), Bangkok Dangerous (Nicolas Cage in a greasy wig as a hitman!), The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (this needed a sequel?) and Wild Child (can Emma Roberts become a star?). Griffin Dunne’s The Accidental Husband might be OK, if things like Made of Honor haven’t caused you to lose all faith in romantic comedies. The Apatow crowd will probably take delight in the stoner comedy Pineapple Express directed by David Gordon Green, but I can’t work up enthusiasm for the pairing of Seth Rogen and James Franco. The prospect of a third Brendan Fraser Mummy picture is only ho-hum-worthy in itself, but it becomes an essay in stark terror when you realize the director, Rob Cohen, gave us Stealth (2005) and xXx (2002).

My personal favorite bet for the end of summer is Ryuhei Kitamura’s The Midnight Meat Train from the Clive Barker story of the same name. I really don’t even care if the movie’s any good. The title alone sells me — and the title and trailer were the highlight of sitting through Good Luck Chuck (2007). The trailer is too much a jumble of images, interspersed with some unintentionally campy dialogue, to tell a lot about the picture, but some of those fleeting glimpses are downright freaky looking (in a good way). Regardless, this may just be the greatest title ever.

OK, so maybe it’s not that grim, but the prospects still feel like a mix of “yes, it is that grim” and the “maybe it’ll surprise me” range, meaning there’s a basic lack of real excitement here. And that could be offset if the fall/winter season looked good, but right now I’m not seeing anything other than Fernando Meirelles (The Constant Gardener) Blindness that really enthuses me. The problem is that folks like Wes Anderson, David O. Russell, Pedro Almodovar, Alfonso Cuaron, Neil Jordan, Tim Burton, etc. are all slated for movies in 2009. We’ve had our Michel Gondry (Be Kind Rewind) for the year. Julie Taymor doesn’t even seem to have anything in the works. It’s dispiriting.

Maybe there are surprises in store, something completely out of nowhere just lurking in the shadows. I certainly hope so. In the meantime, there’s Midnight Meat Train.

Drexel, N.C.-based author Susan Woodring‘s new book, Springtime on Mars: Stories (Press 53, 2008) is at once quirky, charming, confusing and comfortable. It manages to be all over the map, but also intricately rooted in family, dysfunction and place.

Part of the scattershot feel of the book comes from its format: like the title suggests, it’s a collection of short stories. The longest of these is 20 pages and the rest weigh in at about half that length. Among the stories, the point of views range from a young girl to a middle-aged man. This is jarring at times, moving from one story to the next, but Woodring seems to revel in the disparate nature of her prose. She unravels, in each installment, a nugget of a story. A single, awkward moment arrived at through a maze of mundane events and non-events. Nothing is happening but ordinary life, only Woodring gazes deeply into all that’s ordinary to distill the kernel of weirdness, of awkwardness, of dark secrets, old wounds, dreams unrealized, cracks in the foundation. And then, when that moment is finally revealed, Woodring leaves us there on the brink of understanding. We’re given a glimpse, but nothing more.

This is tantalizing, and even for the nudge of frustration at the paltry reveal, I found myself compelled to read on. Just one more story. After all, they’re short! Only 10 pages! Think of the sense of accomplishment!

Which is kind of how I approach short story collections, anyway. I like the near-instant gratification of polishing off an entire narrative in a setting. And, considering all that’s been said and written about the shrinking attentions spans of post-X generations, it’s surprising that short stories haven’t all but replaced novels.

But they haven’t. In fact, short story collections have been the underdogs of the literary business for some time now (to the extent that some MFA in writing programs replaced their short story concentrations for more popular genres such as creative nonfiction). But one thing that Woodring has on her side is a very enthusiastic publisher in Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Press 53.

The other thing working in Woodring’s favor is her way with words. Short those these stories may be, this author can spin a tale. This is evident from the very first chapter, where sixth-grader Lizzie struggles for a sense of normalcy while her mother loses herself in care-taking bees and speculating on UFO sightings.

“It frightened her to see her husband that way,” the author compellingly writes of another character. “And also somewhat annoying — why had Russell done such a thing anyway?”

It’s rare for a writer to move seamlessly between characters and reference points, to switch up genders, generations and voices like flipping through a cache of personalities culled from the psyche of Sybil herself. And though Woodring doesn’t manage a flawless delivery 100-percent of the time, she does an admirably good job — and pulls off a highly entertaining collection of tales.

Susan Woodring offers the workshop Martians on Main Street: How to Bring the Historic, the Scientific, and the Just Plain Weird onto the Pages of Realistic Fiction on Monday, May 12, at Malaprop’s. For info on the 7 p.m. event, call 254-6734.

—Alli Marshall, A&E reporter

Defense attorneys for former Buncombe County Sheriff Bobby Medford called four of his ex-employees to the stand Thursday morning to testify in his federal corruption trial.

First up was current Sheriff Van Duncan, who once worked as a deputy under Medford and defeated Medford in the 2006 elections. Duncan testified that in October 2006, about a month before the election, he talked with Tracy Keith Bridges, a deputy who ran the internal-affairs division of the Sheriff’s Department. Bridges said in court Wednesday that he would take cash and use it to purchase money orders in an effort to dodge campaign-finance laws.

Duncan said Bridges approached him at a Starbucks coffee shop. Duncan said Bridges identified himself as the treasurer of Medford’s re-election campaign. Duncan said he told Bridges that “if he felt he was in trouble, he needed to go speak with the FBI.” Duncan said he told an FBI task-force member — a former colleague from the Sheriff’s Department — about his conversation with Bridges.

Julie Kepple, the staff attorney for the Sheriff’s Department from 2002 through 2006, was the next defense witness. Kepple currently works as an assistant district attorney under Buncombe County District Attorney Ron Moore.

Kepple said that in December 2003, she responded to a local newspaper’s public-records request to see the Sheriff’s Department’s video-poker-machine registration records. Kepple said she talked with former Lt. Johnny Harrison and former reserve Capt. Guy Penland, who oversaw the machine registrations, and discovered that “the records weren’t kept very well.”

Kepple said Penland and Harrison contacted the video-poker-machine operators in the county and asked for updated paperwork on the number of machines they had and where they were located, and that she shared those records with the newspaper. Kepple said she also drafted a letter for Medford to sign that asked video-poker-machine owners to supply annual reports on the number of machines they owned and where they were located.

The next defense witness, Jerry Wayne Miller, told the court that he went to work for Medford in October 2004 after working for 24 years as both a U.S. attorney and assistant U.S. attorney in Asheville’s federal court. Miller said he was assigned the rank of major and reported directly to Medford.

Miller said that in the late fall or early summer of 2005, a “close friend” told him of allegations against Medford. The allegations included the illegal operation of video-poker machines in Buncombe County and that law enforcement was receiving money from illegal game owners and operators. “He said he didn’t want me near when the bomb went off, “ Miller said. “He was basically giving me a heads up.”

Miller said he told Medford about the conversation and that Medford “blew up.” Miller said he researched how Medford could force the removal of the machines from Buncombe County. There wasn’t follow-up action on that research, Miller said.

The last defense witness of the morning was Medford’s former secretary, Rhonda House. She said she never saw anyone hand Medford envelopes of cash and that she never knew of meetings between Medford and video-poker-machine owners and operators that defense witnesses have testified about.

The court recessed for lunch. When it resumes, Medford’s defense team said it expects to call Medford’s former chief deputy, George Stewart, to the stand, as well as Medford’s long-time girlfriend, Judi Bell.

— Jason Sandford, multimedia editor

Government prosecutors finished presenting their federal corruption case against former Buncombe County Sheriff Bobby Medford Thursday morning.

The government’s last witness was Jim Lindsey, another former video-poker-machine operator, who testified that he loaned Medford money for a personal vacation and gave money to Medford’s golf tournaments in both election and non-election years.

After a morning break, the defense will begin presenting its case. Defense attorney Steve Lindsay said his first witness would be Buncombe County Sheriff Van Duncan, a deputy under Medford who beat him in the 2006 elections. Also listening in court this morning was Rutherford County Sheriff Jack Conner. Conner has cooperated with federal agents in their sweeping investigation into illegal gambling across Western North Carolina.

— Jason Sandford, multimedia editor

The Pack Square Conservancy got some good news Wednesday: A long-awaited $7.5 million contract on construction of Pack Square Park in downtown Asheville will likely be signed this week.

Once the deal with Valley Crest Landscape Design Inc. is inked, construction should be in full gear by early to mid June, according to Mark Durbin, the owner’s representative for the Pack Square Conservancy. Durbin said the contract was in the process of being updated and then forwarded to Asheville City Manager Gary Jackson for his signature.

The start of construction will be a milestone in a project that has been marked by setbacks and rising costs, and there’s been controversy over design elements in the park. The Pack Square Conservancy was formed in 2000 by an agreement with it, Asheville City Council and the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners. The conservancy was given the authority for overseeing the planning, design, fundraising and construction of the 6.5-acre park.

The board of local leaders broke ground at the site in 2005. Last year, the conservancy said the project was expected to cost $17.5 million. At the conservancy’s meeting Wednesday, the board said the cost was expected to be $22 million.

At the meeting Wednesday, conservancy board members expressed concern about the construction’s impact on local businesses in the area. The board is planning a meeting later this month to explain details of the construction to business owners.

— Jason Sandford, multimedia editor

In the federal corruption trial of former Buncombe County Sheriff Bobby Medford, a former captain testified that after hearing concerns from his campaign chair about cash being improperly turned into money orders, Medford responded, “F*ck him. We’ll keep doing what we’re doing.”

Tracy Keith Bridges, who used to run the Sheriff’s Office’s internal-affairs division and has pled guilty to money laundering, said that he’d take cash given to Medford’s 2006 re-election campaign and turn it into money orders so it could skirt campaign-finance laws. Former Lt. Ronnie “Butch” Davis (who’s also taken a plea deal) would then provide Bridges with a list of campaign donors whose names, he testified, would be falsely placed on the money orders.

Bridges testified that during a meeting with Medford, Bridges and Sharon Stewart (Medford’s office manager and former personal secretary), that David Brown, Medford’s campaign chair, had expressed concerns about cash being changed into money orders. Bridges testified that Medford rebuked Bridges during the meeting and told him to stop the practice.

“I got the feeling he was putting on a show,” Bridges told the courtroom. After Brown left the office, Bridges said, Medford bluntly told him matters would continue as before.

Bridges also testified that occasionally Medford would ask for cash out of the amounts — some of it coming from illegal video-poker operators — he was converting into money orders, usually in increments of $1,000, $700 or $500. Medford warned Bridges not to tell Davis, according to Bridges’ testimony.

Bridges added that he knew what he was doing was illegal, but was afraid.

“I was scared for my job,” Bridges told the court. “I wanted to keep being employed there.”

Medford also once had him deposit $500 cash in the account of Medford’s girlfriend, Judi Bell, Bridges said. Prosecutors presented bank records showing the deposit the same day, along with a check for the same amount to Harrah’s Cherokee Casino, as part of their case that Medford used much of the money from bribes to fund his legal-gambling habit (he reportedly had over $50,000 in gambling losses in 2006).

Before Bridges, Jenny Watts, who works at Premier Federal Credit Union, testified that the couple had collective cash deposits of $113,694 above and beyond their salaries from 2002 to 2006. Defense attorney Stephen Lindsay noted that Medford had access to other forms of money, such as loans, a credit card or money from other banks. Watts said that Medford would occasionally take out loans ranging from a few hundred dollars to $4,000.

Earlier that morning, video-poker operator Charles McBennett, who has confessed to operating 30 video-poker machines (all making illegal cash payouts) in the county, said he bribed Medford on two occasions.

Once, just before Medford underwent back surgery, McBennett stated that former Lt. Johnny Harrison (who has taken a plea deal and testified last week) brought McBennett to Medford’s office, where McBennett gave Medford a small cross that said “God watches over you,” along with $5,000 in cash.

The bribe, McBennett said, was to get information about his competitors so that he could get any dissatisfied store owners to switch to his company. In an effort to prevent turf wars, Medford usually didn’t allow such changes.

McBennett said that former reserve Capt. Guy Penland (on trial along with Medford) even gave him the name of one operator particularly disliked by the sheriff and encouraged him to move in on the other man’s territory.

Another time, McBennett testified, he and Harrison made a trip to Medford’s Weaverville apartment shortly after the sheriff’s surgery. That time too, he bought along $5,000, but Harrison ended up with $2,000 of it.

“He [Harrison] said, ‘Don’t give him all that,’” McBennett recalled.

During the afternoon, the prosecution successfully entered a video recording as evidence, over the defense’s objections. In the video, the prosecution claimed, current Rutherford County Sheriff Jack Conner and John Parker meet with Jamie Henderson of Henderson Amusements, the largest single illegal video-poker operator in Buncombe, and Jeff Childers, a salesman for Henderson in the Rutherford area.

Parker, a former Rutherford County deputy, was at that time assisting the FBI in investigating illegal gambling, and the meeting was part of a sting operation (Conners also participated).

The video, which will be shown to jurors tomorrow, depicts Henderson and Childers giving money to Conner and reassuring him that other sheriffs in the region are involved. While Medford had been defeated in his bid for re-election by the time the video was recorded, in December 2006, he is mentioned as one of the recipients of Henderson bribes.

The defense contested that the video involves a different criminal conspiracy than the one allegedly involving Medford — and was thus inadmissable. The prosecution shot back that Henderson’s conspiracy reached across the whole region, and that Medford’s piece of it, while the focus of this trial, was not separate from the larger operation.

Judge Tim Ellis found the prosecution’s argument convincing.

“The law clearly shows that a participant in a conspiracy doesn’t have to be aware of the full extent of it ,” Ellis said.

U.S. Attorney Gretchen Shappert (whose district includes the Charlotte area), the supervisor of Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Edwards, the case’s lead prosecutor, briefly stopped by to watch the proceedings. Medford pored over the evidence presented, while occasionally leaning over to whisper to defense attorney Victoria Jayne

The trial resumes tomorrow at 9 a.m.

— David Forbes, staff writer

Asheville city officials on Wednesday announced the hiring of a new planning director. Judy Daniel, who has been working as the planning director for an agency that oversaw land-use planning and parks and recreation services in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties in Maryland, will start her new job June 30, according to a city news release.

The announcement comes nearly a year after Scott Shuford, Asheville’s former planning director, resigned his job. In March 2007, four Asheville City Council members told Xpress that five of the seven Council members had told City Manager Gary Jackson they felt a lack of confidence in Shuford’s management and enforcement decisions, expressing disappointment in his relationships with both members of the community at large and the development community.

Shuford had been planning director for almost eight years. He took the job shortly after the Unified Development Ordinance was approved, and he oversaw numerous refinements and amendments to that massive planning document.

Here’s the city’s press release:

The city of Asheville today announced that Judy Daniel has been selected as the city’s new Planning director. Daniel will assume her new role on June 30.

Daniel comes to Asheville from Bethesda, Md., and brings more than 20 years of experience in planning to her position. Daniel most recently served as the North Bethesda planning director for the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC), an agency responsible for land use planning and parks and recreation services in Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties. The organization serves more than 900,000 residents just north of Washington, D.C.

Prior to her role as North Bethesda Planning Director, Daniel worked as the Northern Montgomery County planning director and a zoning analyst with M-NCPPC. She also worked as the planning director for Williamson County, Tenn., and a planning consultant for the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

As a planning director with M-NCPPC, Daniel has been responsible for supervising updates to three area master plans that incorporate mixed-use, transit-oriented zoning. She recently completed work on hybrid form-based zoning for use in urban areas, and she has been responsible for planning efforts that allow for market flexibility as well as improved standards for design and public spaces while encouraging the growth and retention of local businesses.

“After an extensive national search, I believe we have selected someone who not only has the background and skills to lead our planning efforts but someone who also has the listening, learning and people skills to encourage wide community participation,” said City Manager Gary Jackson. “I appreciate all of the community input I received about what Asheville wants in a new planning director, and I think citizens will embrace Judy’s approach and see her leadership style as one that is open to all segments of the community.”

Daniel holds master’s degrees in City and Regional Planning and Urban History from the University of Memphis. She received a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Mississippi. She has served as President of the American Planning Association’s National Capital Area Chapter as well as the Chair of the American Planning Association’s National Conference in 2004.

“I’m excited about the opportunity to lead the planning efforts in a dynamic community like Asheville,” said Daniel. “I have long appreciated Asheville’s beauty, its residents and its unique character, and I’m looking forward to working with the citizens in the community.”

— Jason Sandford

It’s the day after a big election night. For the first time in decades, a North Carolina presidential primary actually mattered. And some of that energy and excitement trickled down to local races, especially the Republican primary for the 11th Congressional District House seat, as well as the Republican and Democratic primaries for the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners.

And the Xpress was there, in the thick of it. So if you just can’t get enough local politics, check out these short videos and see our photo gallery of election-night action here.

Click below to hear Carl Mumpower, a member of Asheville City Council, talk about his run for the Republican nomination for the mountains’ U.S. House seat. The video was shot about 10 p.m. Tuesday night, and Mumpower had not yet declared victory. He will face U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler in November.

And click below to hear Holly Jones, another Council member, talk about her run for a seat on the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners. Jones was the top vote-getter in the Democratic primary for the board.

— Jason Sandford, multimedia editor

Asheville’s city-hosted Downtown Master Plan series begins Thursday at 6 p.m., but activists are planning to precede its kick-off with a rally protesting a possible hotel across the street.

People Advocating Real Conservancy, previously known for contesting Asheville’s sale of the air above public sidewalks and as a central player in the Save Our Slopes movement, is planing the rally for 5:30 p.m. in front of the Asheville Civic Center.

The proposed hotel comes as part of the city’s request for ideas for uses of city-owned property, but PARC says the site, in front of the Basilica of St. Lawrence, would make a better location for a park (a rendition of what that might look like is pictured).

The master plan meeting will take place in the Civic Center’s Banquet Hall and will be followed by a meeting of the Downtown Master Plan Advisory Committee at noon on Friday at Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church, 47 Eagle St. That meeting is also open to the public.

— Brian Postelle, staff writer

With primary results in, local pundits and political leaders pondered the obvious questions Tuesday night: what happened — and what next?

Toting his laptop in a yellow satchel next to the Asheville Brewing Co. on Coxe Avenue, prominent local blogger Gordon Smith, an ardent Democrat, offered his analysis on the race and the path forward.

“The most surprising part was that [Bill] Stanley pulled out [a narrow win] in the commissoners race — that’s going to create a really difficult condition come the general [election],” Smith told Xpress. “I would be fascinated to see how many unaffiliated voters went for Bill Stanley. My guess is it was unaffiliated voters who’d normally vote Republican who put Stanley back in. But how about Holly Jones [who grabbed the largest margin in the primary] getting 22 percent?”

Jones’ margin would later rise to 25 percent as the final votes were tallied. Smith added that he thought Stanley’s conservative views and anti-zoning stance had bought the unaffiliated voters out, and might make for problems come November. Specifically, Smith predicted that more liberal city voters would be reluctant to cast their votes for Stanley.

He said he felt pro-Barack Obama turnout had been a factor in local races.

“We’re talking about Obama winning by 11 points in a place [Hillary Clinton’s campaign] came six times to in the last two weeks. It had to be a factor. Last time turnout was in the teens, and now so much of it is urban. She was doing a lot of robocalling, figuring she could cut into his margin. It could be that campaigning over here kept her under 20 [point loss in the state].”

Because of the pro-Obama turnout, Buncombe County Board of Commissioners candidate Cecil Bothwell‘s loss surprised Smith, as Bothwell had visibly touted his support for the Obama campaign.

He said another surprise came on the Republican side, with longtime local activist Don Yelton coming in third in the Republican Board of Commissioners primary.

“That’s a big surprise, because he’s viewed as iconoclast, kind of a fringe candidate,” Smith said. “That’s going to be real interesting. It could be a Republican or Democrat board come November.”

After the primary season, everyone would “sleep for about two months,” he predicted, before September, when “things will start to heat up again. I’d urge everyone to keep an eye on where [Republican commissioner candidate] John Carroll gets his money. It’s going to be interesting to see where he gets his money.”

A few blocks away, Buncombe GOP Chair Tim Johnson called in local results to the state party offices as he and fellow Republicans clustered around a laptop on top of a newspaper box outside Magnolia’s Raw Bar and Grill.

“I’m happy — our candidates did well and we’re looking forward to a very spirited and highly visible general election,” Johnson told Xpress. He said he was planning on challenging the Democratic candidates at state and local levels to a “debate week” leading up to early voting, “where we start with our commissioner candidates and debate. I want to debate commissoner candidates as well as the congressional race, where Carl Mumpower will probably be challenging [current Democratic Rep.] Heath Shuler, then expanding to statewide positions. I want people to know the difference between us and them.”

He defined that difference as: “We’re for small business, we’re family-based, we’re progressive, we’re entrepreneurs, we want less government intervention, we don’t want to save the world.”

Meanwhile, Pinky Zalkin, walking into the near-riotous Democratic rally at Asheville Brewing Co. (pictured at right), said she felt it was “a travesty” that Bothwell had fallen short of defeating Stanley.

“The thing is though, is that our man Obama is doing so well,” Zalkin said. “It’s a pleasant surprise too how well he’s doing in Indiana. That was supposed to be a double-digit loss.”

— David Forbes, staff writer

photo by Jonathan Welch