Collateral damage

A violent encounter at Friendship Court on the night of Saturday, August 21, between two white Charlottesville police officers and Kerry Cook, a black wanted man, ended with one of the cops firing a single shot into Cook’s stomach—that much eyewitnesses and the police department agree upon. But what happened during the struggle off Garrett […]

Pillow talk

“All I want to do is fall asleep,”says Matt (not his real name), a new Charlottesville resident. Since moving to town, Matt describes his sleep pattern as “very intermittent. I can’t seem to fall into a deep, sustained sleep.” After a restless night, when morning comes he says he feels tired and “resigned that I have […]

Tough on plaque

A: Hold your horses, Howard. Redesigning history is not part of City Council’s charter, and when one plaque departs another arrives—or so it would appear. Ace took a turn up Court Square way and, after dodging jackhammers and cement rollers, found himself in front of Number Nothing, Court Square. There, a plaque most certainly marks […]

Frequent flyer trials

A: Cry “censorship” if you please, Indie, but it’s the law: No young whippersnappers and their flyers are allowed to put their paw prints all over our city’s sacred utility poles. Maurice Jones, ever civic-minded director of communications for the City, explains the restrictions this way: “A proliferation of flyers throughout the city would take […]

Pleading the fifth

It’s a steamy Friday afternoon in July, and the gates are opening on one of Southside Virginia’s biggest summertime bashes, the Cantaloupe Festival, near South Boston. Cars park on the grass outside of the Halifax County Fairgrounds, just 10 miles from the North Carolina border.  The entrance road to the fairgrounds is decorated like a […]

Distressed signal

In the late 1960s, when Turner Communications was a business of billboards and radio stations and I was spending much of my energy ocean racing, a UHF-TV station came up for sale in Atlanta. It was losing $50,000 a month and its programs were viewed by fewer than 5 percent of the market.  I acquired […]

The little Frenchman who could

A:Well, John, take the first clue regarding the personal history of one Claudius Crozet: As we oh-so-continental locals know, “Crozet” is pronounced “Crow-zay” and not “Crow-zette,” indicating a connection to which country? Oui, mes étudiants adorables, vous avez raison! Monsieur Claudius Crozet était francais!  To find out about ol’ Claude, Ace took a trip to […]

And the winner is…

RESTAURANT Bizou There is something pretty special about a restaurant that can defeat not one, but two upscale French cuisineries (C&O and OXO) in a close race, only to have our unpaid intern stand up and declare, “That’s where I’m going for lunch!” Bizou is the bread-and-butter for restaurateurs Tim Burgess and Vincent Derquenne. The […]

Busker’s delight

A: John, take it straight from the Ace’s mouth: Not all are as holy as thou. When it comes to musicians on the Mall, Ace admits there is “a wide variety,” with everything from aging hippies with a penchant for James Taylor to the seventh grade fiddle prodigies. Each appeals to his own special demographic who, […]

In limb-o

A: Michelle, Ace understands your concern. It’s not unusual for us humans to get attached (sometimes unhealthily) to our verdant friends. Consider Julia Butterfly Hill, who lived in her pet redwood, “Luna,” for two years out in California to protest logging. But while Butterfly Hill may have been crusading on the behalf of a 1,000-year-old […]