Art has the power to transform us, to transport us through time and space. Sometimes it takes us to other worlds or allows us to see our world differently. In short, art is powerful, and I haven’t seen enough of it lately. Aside from attending an interesting art exhibition at Visible Records a few years […]
Art has the power to transform us, to transport us through time and space. Sometimes it takes us to other worlds or allows us to see our world differently. In short, art is powerful, and I haven’t seen enough of it lately. Aside from attending an interesting art exhibition at Visible Records a few years […]
Something enchanting happens when we cross the threshold between illusion and what lies behind it. That’s a fancy way of saying that I’m a sucker for a behind-the-scenes experience. I’ve always been a huge theater fan, to the point of becoming the president of my high school’s International Thespian Society chapter. As you can imagine, […]
My Christmas spirit sense starts tingling early and often here in Charlottesville. Way before Carter Mountain Orchard serves its first apple cider donut, I’m half-deranged with holiday anticipation, eager to push past the trick-or-treating munchkins on the Lawn and the dry forkfuls of Thanksgiving dinner, just to get to the good stuff: Call me Buddy […]
Let’s say you hate going to the gym, i.e., dragging your flaccid, corporeal form over to that place where, when you walk in, you’re supposed to stride toward a bunch of metal contraptions and cables and bars, as if you know exactly what you’re doing — all while avoiding eye contact with a Noah’s Ark […]
Something about October makes me melancholy. The waning light, the dropping leaves. Back-to-school schedules, and the looming pressure to make happy holidays happen. All I really want to do is bask in the honeyed light of late afternoon—that golden hour—and do nothing. Look at the sky, watch for hawks, wish upon a pumpkin that my […]
In the late summer (August) of my life’s autumn (61 years old), I heard about a University of Virginia singing group for people who can’t sing. A little bell rang in my heart. “I can’t sing, and I work at the University of Virginia,” I thought, sweating my way across the Lawn, past the crop […]
By Greg Roberts I first noticed the wooden cylindrical pod at the Ix farmers’ market. Weird, I thought. What is that thing? Some new age-y meditation tube? A hipster’s repurposed RV, like the ones I’d seen on Instagram during the pandemic? A few weeks later I saw two seemingly sane people emerge from the pod […]
I didn’t see the ocean until I was in seventh grade, when my friend Sallie (future homecoming queen) invited me (congenital nerd) to Amelia Island with her family over spring break. It was freezing and windy, and I had no idea how to get in or out of the ocean, so I just tripped along […]
Some say the world will end in fire (thanks, Canada), / Some say in ice (running through the wireless veins of Chat GPT). / From what I’ve tasted of CODE PURPLE haze / I’d say we’ll all go down ablaze. / But if we dodge existential dread / And visit the Botanical Garden of the […]
I have this embarrassingly shallow hate-love thing with luxury in Charlottesville. I get nosy and greedy, curious and snarky about what seems richie-rich and off-limits to Joe Schmoes like me. At the same time, I love being immersed, if only for a few hours, in the grandeur, style, and creative exuberance of what’s fancy and […]