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I can’t resist a good music festival. From the Americana overload of North Carolina’s Merlefest to the eclectic jam rock orgy of California’s High Sierra Music Festival, I’ve burnt my vacation days over the years chasing the country’s top sonic galas. For me, a great festival is just as much about the setting as it […]

Hey, we just got back from our annual two week working vacation in Rome. (We’re finishing up a series of watercolors featuring semi-nude members of the Italian parliament.) Anything exciting happen while we were gone? Appetite for self-destruction? RedState.com cofounder Erick Erickson suggested that a recent speech by Tea Party favorite Jamie Radtke (pictured) meant […]

Since the 2009 election that replaced Democrats David Slutzky and four-term supe Sally Thomas with Republicans Rodney Thomas and Duane Snow, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors (BOS) has learned a thing or two about 4-2 votes.  Cynthia Neff, the Democratic challenger for Boyd’s Rivanna seat, says a different Board of Supervisors would have held more discus-sions […]

“Have you been here before? It’s three floors. One-hundred thousand books. It’s very well organized. I can give you directions, or you can look at the map. Have a good time.” So says Sandy McAdams, each time a bewildered new customer walks into Daedalus Bookshop.   Not that he wants to, but Daedalus owner Sandy […]

Residents of Crescent Hall and Fifeville want more police officers patrolling their neighborhood during the day and night, especially in Tonsler Park. For several years, concerns over community policing, in which officers are assigned to specific neighborhoods, have been persistent at both sites. But last Wednesday night, during an open meeting with City Council members at the Crescent Hall public housing project, residents put their calls for improved law enforcement ahead of numerous maintenance issues, from broken elevators to overflowing toilets.

On Saturday, August 27, as Hurricane Irene began to lick the Virginia coast, the employees of Showmasters, Inc., were setting up 470 tables at the Richmond International Raceway. In fact, Showmasters—“the largest continuous running gun show in the state of Virginia,” according to its website—cancelled a show in Fishersville scheduled for the same weekend, so as not to conflict with its Richmond event. Rather than drive further inland toward Staunton, any Charlottesville resident bent on a gun show had to head towards the storm.

Much of the campaign for the Democratic nomination to City Council was spent drawing lines between the candidates who supported the construction of the Meadow Creek Parkway (MCP) and the ones who didn’t; the ones in favor of a new earthen dam at Ragged Mountain and the ones who preferred dredging the South Fork Rivanna […]

Beginning with a 5am meetup, and the first patient on the move roughly two hours later, Martha Jefferson Hospital started the transition to its nearly $300 million new home on Pantops Mountain. Construction of the 176-bed hospital began in June 2008 and concluded roughly three years later. Hazel Jones (pictured), 90, was the last patient […]

When Scottsville resident Barry Long put the finishing touches on two-and-a-half years of work, he was only half-sure it would fit through the door. In his spare time, Long had built two flat-bottomed sailboats in his basement, and now he was prepared to alter the doorframe to get them out. Barry Long documented his boatmaking […]

When I entered elementary school in Tampa, Florida, I flunked my first gifted enrollment test, and had to take it again. Nerves? Socioeconomic status? It wasn’t the most embarrassing moment of my scholastic career; that was likely the day I fell down a hill during cross country practice. But I was invested in my education […]