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, […]
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 […]
For Dominick Palamenti, theater is a family affair. He first became involved in theater while living in Italy, working in Shakespeare troupes. When he moved to New York City to study acting, he met Sea Aviar, whom he married. Aviar was originally from Virginia, and when the couple decided three years ago to move back, […]
Before Amanda Schmitt knocks on an apartment door at Hope House in Charlottesville, she rearranges the cloth bags draped around her shoulder to find a free hand. A girl named Alita (whose last name is being withheld to protect her identity) answers the door; the teenager isn’t the daughter of the house, however. She’s the […]
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 […]
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 […]
This isn’t Mayberry. Slipping away are the days when store owners know you by name, you can pay on a tab and deals are made with a handshake. For one Charlottesville Mom-and-Pop shop, holding on to that ideal is more than a nostalgic whim: it’s a matter of principle and necessity.Look while you can. On […]
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 […]
Straying from the usual despairing discussion of water, the subject of Wednesday’s October 2 meeting among the Board of County Supervisors brought to light an entirely different kind of drought–the State budget. Piedmont Virginia Community College prides itself on making higher education accessible to everyone, but while its enrollment keeps rising (June 30 marked the […]
Ah, life in the fast lane. You’ve got two choices–push ahead or get the hell out of the way. Well-known photographer Barnaby Draper knows the fast lane better than most. And recently, he made his choice: He got the hell out of the way. Between 1995 and 2000, Draper poured himself into his career as […]