Vegelyzing

New word alert!

I think this SHOULD be a word, at least. It refers to the evangelizing (or proselytizing, take your pick) of the carnivore/omnivore community by the vegetarian/vegan community.

Ran smack into it in Asheville, NC, a mountain community that is sort of like the Seattle of the Appalachians, very left-leaning and culturally post-modern, populated with both aging hippies and young hipsters (along with the usual entourage of opportunists that accompany both.)



I picked up a copy of PeTA's "Vegetarian Starter Kit" in one of those curbside bins full of free papers. You know the kind. They range from "Street People's Weekly" to "Bait & Switch Real Estate Listings" to "Escorts At Your Fingertips".

It's actually a nice little 24-page 8.5 x 11 glossy publication that boasts "FREE Recipes Inside", and carries the slogan "Everything you need to eat right for your health, for animals, and for the Earth."
I love how Earth is capitalized. It's sort of like the way God is capitalized by some people, I guess. Perhaps Capitalization sort of reveals your Worldview. Some people's worldview excludes belief in capital letters altogether. :)

Beyond the food facts and recipes (which are pretty decent), it's full of important celebrity endorsements, ranging from Joaquin Phoenix (wait, isn't he dead? No, that's River. Ah, I can't keep them straight.) to Alec Baldwin (are you kidding me? He's a role model for anything?) to the Dalai Lama (who has a heck of a sense of humor, and is a pretty cool guy.)

But I digress. This is supposed to be another installment in the travelogue series of what I did on my summer vacation. So, back to Asheville. You could tell that it was a hipster kind of place by one look in the local book dealer's window.



Yeah. I get this place. ;)

So, besides being the home of the Biltmore (Vanderbilt's 250-room French mansion),



it was a neat-looking little town. Lots of art-deco-era buildings, street buskers and cool stores.







It's just... too enamored with itself and its über-hipness.

I'd settle for Boone, a little college town about two hours north.

It's just as hip as Asheville, but not nearly as pretentious.