Soundboard 9/7: The week’s top news in a live radio format

Each week, the C-VILLE news team joins reporters from Charlottesville Tomorrow at WTJU 91.1 FM’s on-Grounds radio station for Soundboard, an hour-long, straight-from-the-source news show that touches on the big stories of the week. This week’s program included an interview with the organizer of an upcoming panel discussion about the future of UVA in the […]

Designer Sandy Muraca sees the big picture at home

For interior designer Sandy Muraca, updating her foyer last winter so that it reflected her love of vintage art and antiques was vital. “While it’s not a space or room that you would sit and have coffee with a friend, it is a space where you come home, a space where you greet family and […]

Dan Deacon taps your inner glee through crowd participation

I can vividly remember hearing Dan Deacon for the first time. His debut full-length album, released in the spring of 2007 (with the unfortunate title of Spiderman of the Rings) begins with a dense burst of buzzing electronic harmonies and sampled Woody Woodpecker sound-effects, and I was instantly a fan. Deacon’s music is exuberant and impossible […]

Rhône’s white wines are as worthy as its reds

Behind every good man is a good woman—and behind every good red wine is a good white one. From the precipitous slopes of Côte-Rôtie to the stone-stacked soils of Châteauneuf-du-Pape (and many of the 150 miles in between), southeastern France’s Rhône Valley produces red wines deserving of adulation. Though standing in their long-cast shadows are […]

Penn State travels to Charlottesville for first road game since scandal

UVA dispatched Richmond last weekend in most ordinary fashion. This Saturday’s contest against Penn State will be anything but ordinary, no matter the outcome. The NCAA imposed unprecedented sanctions on PSU in the wake of Jerry Sandusky’s conviction on 45 counts of child sex abuse and a subsequent report that accused school officials of concealing […]

Live From the DNC: The Grand Finale

I’m going to save more in-depth analysis of the convention as a whole for a later post after I’ve had some sleep. But briefly, my impression of Obama’s speech is that he made a compelling case against the Romney-Ryan worldview. It had more substance than Romney’s soft-focus slice of apple pie, to say the least. […]

Film review: Celeste and Jesse Forever

When you’re young and in love, “forever” is a word you dare to carve in tree trunks or wedding cakes. Getting older, if you’re not careful, that same word could mean a purgatory of codependence. Such is the wry wisdom of Celeste and Jesse Forever, a romantic comedy whose main characters spend the duration figuring […]

Live from the DNC: A chat with VA delegate Chris Dumler

I caught up with local delegate and Albemarle County Supervisor Chris Dumler today in the convention hall. This is the first national political convention for Dumler, a 2009 U.Va Law School grad who just turned 27. Dumler, who hails from Scottsville,  says the Virginia contingent has been treated very well at the convention. “They have […]

Why are we already drinking Octoberfest beers?

Ah, Fall: crunching leaves, jeans and hoodies, the melody of Auld Lang Syne playing after a touchdown, and the warming smell of spices in the season’s savory food and drinks. Contrast that with the sweltering, soggy, drawn-out dog days of summer  and you’ve got two pretty different headspaces. This was the source of my shock […]

Teacher says: Fall brings new starts with plants

The autumn equinox brings a change of season. Regardless of drought, derecho or whether we believe fossil fuels contribute to global warming, at 10:49 am EDT on September 22, Earth faces the sun straight on before tilting toward fall. Like students at the start of the school year, gardeners can begin a brand new schedule […]