words It’s not too much of an exaggeration to say that every Thursday afternoon, the C-VILLE editorial staff holds its collective breath. That’s when Emily Flake sends in her latest "Lulu Eightball" comic, and it becomes clear what perverse subversions—or whatever you want to call them—we’ll be printing in the following week’s paper for all […]
The Charlottesville-based Rutherford Institute, a public interest law firm that assists conservative Christian causes, is the subject of a new book, Suing for America’s Soul. Given the "red and blue" nature of America’s political consciousness, many potential readers will wonder if the book is biased in any way. "For a historian like me I think […]
We admit it: The word "best" right next to the word "scandal" is an admission of sorts that the media often runs on spice over substance. Who can blame those C-VILLE readers who were titillated by our reporting on the Albemarle County parents, George Robinson and Elisa Kelly, who got 27 months in the slammer for serving alcohol to teenagers?
Something there is that doesn't
love a wall—
That's ol' Robert Frost, so let's start again.
No one there is who doesn't love the Mall—
I do believe cavemen (I’m sorry—cavepeople) would have grooved to many of the old houses in Charlottesville. There are windows in most or all the rooms, but they don’t amount to much. Each one contains about as much of a vista as a porthole. To extend the metaphor further, draw the blinds in the middle […]
words Let’s begin at the end. The final piece in the latest Virginia Quarterly Review is John T. Casteen IV’s incisive look at Poetry magazine’s long, strange trip since Indianapolis heiress Ruth Lilly bestowed some $200 million to it in 2002 and the young Christian Wiman took over as editor. Casteen compares the general voice […]
Here’s one general way to describe my life: Go to CVS for decongestants and a birthday card—acquire plastic bag. Go to Best Buy for the DVD and the soundtrack to my latest favorite movie, Terrence Malick’s The New World—acquire plastic bag. Go to Giant for weekly supply of groceries—acquire several plastic bags. Go to Blue […]
You are about to read the first-ever “Back Porch” that’s actually about a back porch. And if that weren’t exciting enough, it’s about my back porch, which is one of the feeblest and saddest structures on the face of the earth. Maybe you know where I’m coming from. When renovating a house, the interior comes […]
words The English poet Philip Larkin once remarked, “Form is nothing. Content is everything.” Sounds straightforward enough—except that Larkin was famous for writing poems that are both formally pleasing as well as chock full of substance. The cheeky bastard was just trying to be clever. Most readers would stand by the notion that good writing […]
“You can play almost anything —somebody’s going to like it.” This kernel of equal parts wit and wisdom comes courtesy of one of Charlottesville’s premier working musicians, guitarist Vernon Fischer. And after almost 30 years here, teaching music and doing a few regular jobs but mainly gigging, gigging, gigging (and gigging) solo and with various […]