Happy Thursday, Buncombe County!

💡 Buncombe Fact: North Carolina's official state fossil is the megalodon shark tooth, designated in 2013 thanks to an eighth-grade science class project. You can hunt for them yourself on the NC coast, or just bring your finds to Fossil Night this Thursday.

In today’s edition:

Let’s get to it.

— Sean Kolina

For three nights this weekend, downtown Asheville hosts one of the country's few dedicated festivals of butoh, the haunting Japanese dance form built on slowness, transformation, and raw physical imagery. The 16th Asheville Butoh Festival welcomes internationally renowned artist Yumiko Yoshioka alongside festival director Julie Becton Gillum, performer Scoop Slone, and sound artist Jorge Sanders for evening performances at the intimate Be Be Theatre.

This year's program carries themes of renewal and post-Helene healing, and the small room makes it unlike anything else on an Asheville stage this month. Evening performances are $25; for those who want to go deeper, Yoshioka leads workshops Friday and Saturday at New Studio of Dance. Seats at Be Be are limited, so don't wait on tickets.

📍 Where: Be Be Theatre, 20 Commerce St., Asheville (workshops at New Studio of Dance)
📅 When: Friday, August 21st – Sunday, August 23rd | Performances 7:30pm
💲 Price: $25 per performance | Workshops $60

Get Tickets

The Asheville Museum of Science reboots its Science Pub series Thursday with Carolina Fossil Night at DSSOLVR on Lexington Avenue. Dr. Ashby Gale of Charleston Fossil Adventures leads an evening of paleontology talks, fossil show-and-tell, and a hands-on fossil ID session. Bring that mystery rock you found in a creek bed; this is exactly the room to find out what it is. Craft beer handles the rest.

📍 Where: DSSOLVR, 63 N. Lexington Ave., Asheville
📅 When: Thursday, August 20th | 6pm – 9pm
💲 Price: Check listing

Event Details

Spend a Saturday hour building a tiny world in glass. Fifth Season Gardening hosts a Terrarium Building Workshop where you'll layer soil, stone, moss, and small plants into a take-home terrarium with staff on hand to talk you through the how and why. It's a good rainy-or-sunny option, and you walk out with something alive on your windowsill.

📍 Where: Fifth Season Gardening, Asheville
📅 When: Saturday, August 22nd | 12pm
💲 Price: Check listing (materials included)

Learn More

Independent film takes over downtown this weekend as the Asheville Film Festival returns Friday through Sunday. The festival is a 501(c)(3) built around filmmakers who haven't yet hit commercial success, with narrative and documentary features and shorts from across the country, plus an awards gala that regulars call the best night of it. Tickets and VIP passes are on sale now, and every dollar of ticket and merch profit goes back into the nonprofit.

📍 Where: Downtown Asheville venues (full screening schedule online)
📅 When: Friday, August 21st – Sunday, August 23rd
💲 Price: Ticketed | Single tickets and VIP passes available

Films & Schedule

Start Saturday on two wheels. The Radical teams up with Greenway eBike Rentals for the Morning Greenway Explorer Ride, a guided e-bike tour that departs the hotel, crosses the French Broad, and follows the paved greenway past New Belgium and down through Carrier Park to the Hominy Creek Greenway. It's flat, shaded, and timed for the early-morning calm before the river district wakes up. No experience needed; the e-bikes do the hard part.

📍 Where: Departs The Radical, 95 Roberts St., Asheville
📅 When: Saturday, August 22nd | 9am – 11am
💲 Price: Check listing

Ride Details

Thursday nights at Jack of the Wood belong to the bluegrass jam, hosted this season by Drew Matulich. The downtown pub has anchored Asheville's traditional music scene for decades, and the jam is the real thing: pickers of all levels circle up, tunes get passed around, and the Green Man ale flows. Come to play or just to listen; either way it's free.

📍 Where: Jack of the Wood, 95 Patton Ave., Asheville
📅 When: Thursday, August 20th | 7pm
💲 Price: Free

Learn More

End the week with a triple word score. The Asheville Scrabble Club meets every Sunday afternoon at the Stephens-Lee Rec Center with friendly players at every level, from casual to tournament-serious. Equipment is provided, drop-ins are welcome, and you can come and go whenever you like. Bring a friend or get matched with a board when you arrive; either way it's one of the most low-pressure standing hangouts in town.

📍 Where: Stephens-Lee Rec Center, 30 George Washington Carver Ave., Asheville
📅 When: Sunday, August 23rd | 12:15pm – 4:30pm
💲 Price: Free

Club Info

😋 Weekly Appalachian inspired recipe: Appalachian Apple Stack Cake — thin molasses layers, dried-apple filling, and a tradition where every family brought a layer to the wedding. Early apples are coming; get ahead of the season.

🎵 Who we are listening to: Sons of the East - Miramare — “Dude, this guy on banjo is making a difference!”

💛 Local Nonprofits. Museum of Costume Jewelry — a 501(c)(3) museum at 60 Haywood St. exhibiting a century of costume jewelry, from Chanel and Schiaparelli to Dior. Open daily except Wednesdays, and worth a slow hour downtown.

🙏 Positive News Around the Globe: A 32,000-year-old woolly rhino emerged from Siberian permafrost with skin, fur, and organs intact. Read Article

✨ Some of the best art this week asks you to slow all the way down.

📣 Last call: nominations for the free website giveaway from Little Lotus Press close this weekend. One quick reply with the name of a Buncombe County business that deserves it, yours or someone else's, and they're in. Winner announced soon.

As always, we read every reply and truly appreciate hearing from you. If there’s something you’d like to see more of locally, let us know. Thanks for being part of the Buncombe County Digest community.

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