Baking connections

By Julia Stumbaugh In 2018, Charlottesville residents Jessica Niblo and Samuel Kane met for a first date at The Pie Chest. But they were both too nervous to eat the shop’s signature dish. Instead, they sipped coffee. Three years later, in January 2021, Kane proposed to Niblo at the same spot where they’d first met. […]

In brief

Joint resolution Let’s start by putting it bluntly: On Friday, Virginia’s legislature voted to legalize marijuana, becoming the first state in the South to do so.  Some details of the bill still need to be hashed out, however. Retail sales of legal marijuana to Virginians 21 and up won’t begin until 2024, and the new […]

PICK: Astronomy on Tap

Looking up: Do you need some pandemic-free space? Astronomy on Tap Charlottesville takes a break from life on Planet Earth with a star-studded discussion led by UVA astronomy experts Dr. Michael Küffmeier, Abby Waggoner, and Dr. Jeffrey Bennett. The “suds and space” virtual talk reaches for the sky by examining the formation of stars, the […]

PICK: Lap dance lessons

Shake it up: Spice things up for yourself and/or someone special with a few lap dance lessons in preparation for Valentine’s Day—or simply because you’re bored silly at home during a pandemic. Phoenix Dance Studio offers Playful Girl beginner classes to get things going, and for those more experienced with the bump ‘n’ grind, the […]

PICK: Beyond the Screen

Big screen: One of the many gems of our arts community is the Virginia Film Festival’s year-round series Beyond the Screen: A Virtual Conversation Series, which offers more of what we love about VAFF’s programming: special access to film industry bigwigs who discuss their work. Writer-director John Lee Hancock and producer Mark Johnson log in […]

In brief: Affordable apartments denied, vaccine clinic opened, and more

Nothing special Charlottesville’s fraught debates over how to address the city’s affordable housing crisis continue. At Monday night’s meeting, in a 3-2 vote, City Council denied a special use permit that would have allowed a modest number of new affordable units to be constructed in Belmont.  The proposed apartment complex at 1000 Monticello Rd. would […]

Feline fine

By Sam Baars One of the best things about my cat is that he can’t read a newspaper. Nearly half a million people have contracted COVID-19, and the body count of this global health crisis continues to climb. The planet is warming at an alarming rate. And a certain white supremacist ex-president staged a literal […]

Puppy paintings that pop

By Madison McNamee Ten years ago, Lesli DeVito created a unique birthday gift—an original painting of a friend’s dog. Things went from there, and now DeVito paints a dog a day.  These aren’t traditional, stuffy pet portraits. DeVito, who is based in the area, has an eccentric style, blending bright colors to exemplify each pooch’s […]

Pressing on

By Lisa Provence Long before the pandemic further slashed advertising revenue, newspapers were in distress. Ad dollars are being sucked up by huge corporations like Google, which made $4.7 billion in digital advertising on news sites in 2018, almost as much as the $5.1 billion every single U.S. news outlet combined made that year. Add […]

PICK: Food and Justice

Table manners: Agriculture in Virginia has a legacy of harm, particularly to Black and Indigenous farmers, and equitable access to nutritious, affordable, and sustainable food has been overlooked for a long time. UVA partners with Morven Farm for Food and Justice in Virginia, a discussion that addresses safety and equity in our current food systems. […]