[UA] Mundanity

[Jon Capps]

Stuart Anderson wrote:

> I had the gang wander into Ashville, NC to get some vital paperwork. I had
> designated as a "normal" zone. Kind of a psychic sink. None of the charges
> adepts spend there do what they want. No mojo; no nothin.

[snip]

May I ask why you chose Asheville?  That city could potentially be very
important to the OU.  Thomas Wolfe was born there.  His short story, "The
Child by Tiger," is very heavily based on true events in Asheville.
Sometime around the turn of the century, a black man suddenly snapped and
went on a killing spree.  A lynch mob formed up, chased him across the
county, shot him an ungodly amount of times (IIRC there were over 100 bullet
wounds that could have been the cause of death).  I don't remember what all
abuse the mob did to his body, but after *that* was over, his body was
displayed for several days in the morgue's front window.  Wolfe would have
been about the same age as the child-narrator of the story when all this
happened.

Wolfe's stories inspired Jack Kerouac to become a writer.

Wolfe's childhood home in downtown Asheville is now a boarding house.  It is
closed now due to repairs, since it was severely damaged July 24, 98 due to
arson.

Getting off the Wolfe stuff, Asheville is widely recognized as a New Age hot
spot, and has been called the New Age capitol of the US.  If yer into that
stuff and haven't heard about Asheville, it's probably due to the city's PR
campaign, which plays up the "wholesome mountain folk" aspect of the area.
Just to provide a nice counter-point to this, Billy Graham's center and
retreat is just outside Asheville.  Local news articles and politics can get
really heated as pagan/Xian/atheist wars escalate.

I've just scratched the cliched surface of Asheville, but another thing that
gets me about that city is it's atmosphere.  Every time I go there I get the
feeling that it tries *so* hard to look like a big city.  It even fools many
people.  But in reality, it's just a mountain town with delusions of
grandeur.  I just get a vibe that scrapes my spine whenever I'm in it.  The
more I think about it, the more UA just seems *right* in Asheville.

Of course, in yer UnAverse, Asheville, may be the humdrum capitol of the
world.  I just don't see it that way.

Oh, I live about 45 minutes NNE of Asheville, in Burnsville, NC.  Gateway to
Mt. Mitchell, highest point east of the Mississippi River ;)

Jon Capps


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