Second only perhaps to God, nothing has been more eulogized in recent decades than Art. Commercial concerns have killed it, we hear. TV is its poison. Vulgarity and an overriding concern for celebrity have castrated painting, poetry, music, theater and literature. Pop is pap. Funders don’t understand art’s Significance. And so on. Yet an inevitable […]
Attention, Giant shoppers Wal-Mart-fueled benefits dispute comes to local groceries Checkout lines might not be the only lines Giant Food shoppers spot during visits to the two Charlottesville stores this week. Workers from the region’s Giant and Safeway grocery stores will vote on a new contract on March 30, and signs are pointing to a […]
“Pray for me in return,” implores Larry Wyler, prodigal Minnesotan, lapsed author, celebrated advice columnist and aging narrator of Garrison Keillor’s most recent novel, Love Me. He’s preparing to confess his life, remarking on his drab St. Paul neighborhood and sketching passers-by in hypothetical missives to Mr. Blue, his writerly Dear Abby persona. He spots […]
The home front Foster parents open their doors while localities search for cash Evelyn and George Riner want more kids. From the prodigious amount of laundry flapping from sagging clotheslines in their backyard, it would seem their household is already overflowing. In fact, 11 people, nine dogs and eight cats live in the Riners’ house […]
Inside the studio of East Village Radio on the weekend before the New Hampshire primary, the hip hop activists cue up their mental scripts while awkwardly climbing past each other for their turn at the mic. The low-power underground FM station broadcasts from a Manhattan storefront the size of walk-in closet. As is often the […]
Utility infielder When it comes to local baseball, nobody pitches in more than Darrell Gardner Charlottesville enjoyed a taste of spring sunshine on March 6 and 7, and, fittingly, the Lane Babe Ruth baseball league held its preseason tryouts that very weekend on Darrell Gardner Field at Lane Park on McIntire Road. After the tryouts […]
Commons grounded Council tables controversial project, promising change is on the way For now, at least, the stretch of Preston Avenue in front of the Monticello Dairy Building will stay as it is—a triangle-shaped island of grass and empty beer bottles, bordered by the convoluted intersection of Preston, Grady Avenue and 10th Street, along with […]
If you or I were to enter Donald Trump’s apartment—or, as Trump calls it, “the most beautiful apartment in the whole world”—we would at best stifle a burst of helpless laughter. It is testimony to the combined power of television and greed that the contestants on “The Apprentice”—NBC’s new internship reality television show, airing Thursdays […]
The South shall rise Downtown goes modern with newest building projects During contemplative moments, John Gibson looks up from his desk on the fourth floor of the City Center for Contemporary Art on the corner of Water and Second streets, and gazes out the window at the bricks of the Jefferson Theater’s fly loft. During […]
“My way or the highway” State pols try to force unwanted Western Bypass on stubborn City Council The first order of business for Council on Tuesday, February 17, was to appropriate about $550,000 that flowed into the City from Commonwealth and Federal coffers. The money was granted for police equipment, walking trails and financial aid […]