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 […]
Thursday, October 24, was opening night for the Virginia Film Festival. Who among those attending the start of the "Wet"-themed, four-day cine-palooza didn’t have at least a few butterflies? Certainly not Mike Kennedy, who took the seat next to me at the Culbreth Theatre. Unlike most of the attendees, Kennedy, a social worker from Salem, […]
Daily we have waitedby the fax machine for a dousing of the region’s bad news, expressed in terms of percents and millions of gallons: 54.2, 7.091; 53.2, 6.905. These are, of course, the terms of the drought (reservoir level and regional usage), which, even after a healing, gentle rain, have not fundamentally changed since August. […]
Plink, plink, plunk: The previous night’s rain convenes in small pools on the dusty wood floor. It’s a Sunday morning at the former Frank Ix Building, an old silk factory turned exhibition space on the corner of Monticello Avenue and Second Street S.E., and three UVA art students – Liz Pisciotta, Margaret Gabriela Vest and […]
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 […]
When he returned home to Charlottesville after earning a bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design, Joshua Galloway wanted to keep up with his drawing, so he enrolled in an advanced drawing course in the evenings at Piedmont Virginia Community College for three years in a row. With the help […]
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 […]
When the words Paganism and Wicca come up, lots of folks picture sacrificial chickens and chanting nymphs frolicking in a forest. And many also give the Devil his due. But Beelzebub was nowhere to be found on Saturday, September 23, at the fourth annual Pagan Pride Day Festival. With nary a dead chicken nor frolicking […]