Dog eat dog

Five pit bulls were euthanized during the last week of January at the Charlottesville SPCA. The dogs would only respond to their owner, who had just been arrested for murder in connection with a Federal drug charge. “Not only were they trying to kill other dogs,” says SPCA spokeswoman Carolyn Foreman, “but they were trying […]

Faded Genes

Seeds…those sleepy little kernels tucked in their winter coats. Not one metabolic quiver until, suddenly and by the millions, they start to move. They travel by ground and by air, from state to state, from December through April. That’s the time of year when discerning growers scour seed catalogues, browsing long lists of plants with […]

Psycho Analysis

In the wake of last summer’s Enron and WorldCom disasters and other corporate malfeasance along the way, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have been busy trying to restore investors’ confidence. Their reach has extended to Charlottesville, where SNL Financial, a publishing company covering various financial services sectors, […]

Artistic Endeavor

Ice, snow and frigid temperatures be damned, 275 well-heeled patrons and artists pile into the stately University of Virginia Art Museum on Rugby Road on Saturday, December 7. Anticipation, tuxes and formal gowns surround the 55 donated pieces to be silently auctioned at “Seeing Double,” the fete sponsored by the Young Friends of the Museum. […]

Brutality Sells

A serial rapist is on the loose in Charlottesville––police suspect the same man is responsible for at least five sexual assaults in the past six years, including a November 11 attack in the Willoughby subdivision. The violent nature of the attacks has attracted local media, but City and UVA rape counselors say rape, in all its […]

Village People

Two years ago, Charlottesville carpenter Louise Finger packed her tool belt and sized up a new project. She put aside her usual routine of building swanky homes for Central Virginia’s well-to-do and embarked on what she says is a more rewarding path: constructing no-frills public structures for communities in need. Ilove that kind of work, […]

City of Anjlz

The first day of shooting ANJLZ begins on a cold mid-November morning, in a large garage located on an estate in Free Union, just west of Charlottesville. A group of people, most still looking sleepy and clutching cups of coffee, are milling about in two small rooms adjacent to the garages main bay. A few […]

On thick ice

Full-body Spandex suits, skates with weapon-like blades, Bonnie Blair and maybe Dan Jansen – this is what "speedskating" means to most of us. To some 15 members of the Blue Ridge Speedskating Club who show up at the Charlottesville Ice Park every Sunday morning, however, it means much more. It was not an easy task […]

Eat to the beats

About 12 years ago, I had a twinkling of an inkling of what "Beatnik glory" might mean, of what it might mean to be singingly silly. I belonged to a jazz-and-poetry group started by Gregory Foster – formerly a cowboy, carnival worker, journalist, roadie for a famous jazzman, Miles Davis’ cab driver, Thelonius Monk’s chess […]

Testing the Waters

Wherever waters gather, be it bay or brook, monitors will soon don their hip boots to mark the 30th anniversary of the Clean Water Act. Charlottesville resident John Murphy hasn’t yet picked his site, but knows he’ll be somewhere in a "riffle" – the bubbly part of a stream – counting bugs. Between October 18 […]