Still from Kevin Everson’s Erie.

One thing I look forward to during the Virginia Film Festival is the chance to view edgy, experimental pieces that usually only screen in urban centers like Chicago or New York. But this year the arty offerings are few and far between. Two exceptions are Kevin Everson’s new feature, Erie, and a group exhibition by Everson’s art students at the former C-Ville office on the Downtown Mall.

Erie contains elements familiar to Everson fans: a focus on middle-class African-American labor and leisure, an ambient soundtrack, and indications of the filmmaking process, such as scratched ends. Nevertheless, it’s a departure from the UVA art prof’s previous features. Shot in northern Ohio and Buffalo, NY, the 81-minute black and white film is a series of single takes, lasting between 10 and 11 minutes— the amount of time a film spool moves through a camera’s magazine- that are unrelated narratively.

Everson says he’s been thinking about one-take filmmaking for some time, but when he was in Europe last year he began to conceive of a piece that would string together disparate scenes, connected only by their subjects’ focus on a task at hand. Alternating between static shots and ones involving action, interiors, and exteriors, Erie is a meditative visual poem.

Opening on workers putting up a Volkswagen billboard intended to appeal to African Americans, the film cuts briefly to Niagara Falls, and then settles into a prolonged shot of a young girl in a white shirt staring at a flickering white candle. The composition is beautiful, but as the minutes tick by, with next to nothing happening, the small things— the twitch of the girl’s mouth, a drip of wax, the sound of a dog barking— become enormous.

And so it goes for the rest of the film, slow and ponderous. Which is not to say there aren’t breathtaking moments. In one memorable shot, Everson’s camera pulls back from a vocalist and pianist practicing a sentimental song on a tinny upright to follow a dancer krumping to music blasting from a CD player in another part of the warehouse-like room.

Erie screens on Thursday night, but 18 of Everson’s University of Virginia students carry the filmic art torch through the weekend with a series of video installations at 106 E. Main Street. According to fourth-year student Vashti Harrison, the eighteen pieces “are made for people to walk in and of,” and several are site-specific.

Erie, screens at 10pm on Thursday, November 5, at Regal 3 on the Downtown Mall.  For more information, call 1-800-UVA-Fest. Everson’s UVA art students’ video installations are on view Friday and Saturday, 9am-10pm, at 106 E. Main St. (former office of C-Ville). 434-242-4211.

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“I deserve health care.”
SCREEN CAPTURE

One local filmmaker (along with a pack of kids at Riverview Park) might play a key role in the health care debate if a new video keeps advancing in the Obama Health Care Reform Video Challenge. Already, the 30-second spot from Charlottesville has been chosen from over 1,000 submissions to become one of just 20 finalists.

Eric Hurt— who once shot a television show about Spudnuts— wrote, directed, and shot “I Deserve Health Care” with producer Erica Arvold. Voting for the Challenge is now open, and individuals are encouraged to watch the top videos, vote for their favorites, and help select the winning ad that will air on national television.

The whole enterprise, but particularly Hurt’s video and a graffiti video, drew the outrage of FoxNews commentator Sean Hannity, who interviewed a conservative commentator who blasted Hurt for “grooming the next generation of entitlement-seekers.”

–last updated 6:49am Friday
Spelling of Spudnuts corrected 9:20am Friday

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A controlled burn may include back fires.
PHOTO COURTESY VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF FORESTRY

Coming exactly a week before the start of fall’s wildland fire season, when state officials fear fire outbreaks among dried branches and fallen leaves, an October 8 open burn had several local citizens calling Albemarle Fire and Rescue after smoke wafted over Charlottesville.

It turns out, however, it was simply a controlled burn on 60 acres in North Garden, one that was pre-approved by the Virginia Department of Forestry.

“There ought to be some public service announcement,” says Elizabeth Tyler. “This could put an asthmatic in the hospital, or affect older people.”

“We’re not required to notify anyone other than the local fire departments,” says Forestry (more)

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RSWA lawyer Kurt Krueger defined “flow-control” for Board members at their September 22 meeting.
FILE PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

Rivanna Solid Waste Authority director Tom Frederick has long contended that the Authority’s now $20 million RICO lawsuit against Peter Van der Linde has nothing to do with the competing trash facility the private businessperson opened last December, an $11 million Materials Recovery Facility that quickly captured the local market for construction debris and commingled recyclables. But on the eve of Van der Linde’s opening of an expansion that would also take household trash for recycling— a move that could potentially siphon off the Authority’s remaining revenue stream— the Authority is now discussing an option that could put the recycling entrepreneur out of business.

“If they hand over Ivy to Waste Management, Allied, or some other big company with a flow-control guarantee,” says Van der Linde, “I’m doomed.”

Unaware of flow-control? Don’t worry, several Board members, including (more)

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Elisha Strom is out of jail.
PHOTO COURTESY ALBEMARLE CHARLOTTESVILLE REGIONAL JAIL

Elisha Strom sat in jail for a month for publishing the address of a Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement officer. Now the American Civil Liberties Union is offering its assistance in the case.

“This is a classic free speech issue,” says Kent Willis, ACLU of Virginia executive director. “Ms. Strom has taken information that’s publicly available and put it on a website. A federal court has already struck down as unconstitutional a nearly identical law in Washington.”

Strom was arrested July 16 for publishing the address and home photos of one of JADE’s officers on her blog, i HeArTE JADE. She’s tracked the activities of the drug task force since October 2008, published photos of them at work and given them nicknames like “Porn Star,” (more)

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With chair Mike Gaffney in the background, RWSA director Tom Frederick, foreground, defends his dam July 28.
PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

The Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority has just chosen a Nebraska-based engineering firm to study dredging the Rivanna Reservoir. However, to one of the people who offered to actually perform a dredging for a fraction of the price the Authority’s experts originally predicted, it’s just more money and time wasted by the Authority board and its director, Tom Frederick, who has staked his reputation on blocking dredging.

“They could have said, ‘Let’s get it dredged,’” says engineer Pat Enright. “Instead, they said, ‘Let’s study it again.’”

A year ago, Enright was heading a consortium of firms that offered to dredge the Reservoir for about a tenth of the last estimate cited by Frederick. Having moved to another company, Enright now says he feels free to speak out over what he considers the folly of study over action.

“I’m just not that impressed with Tom and how he approaches projects of this magnitude because (more)

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Death by raptor? Andy Straka has a new thriller out.
FILE PHOTO BY JEN FARIELLO

Earlysville falconer/Shamus Award-winning writer Andy Straka has a new mystery ready for release September 1, the fourth in his Frank Pavlicek series.

Kitty Thriller takes Virginia-based falconer/P.I. Pavlicek to New York to discover if a cat was taken out by a bird of prey.

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Commonwealth’s Attorney Denise Lunsford and defense attorney André Hakes debate what’s admissible testimony in the 21-year-old murder trial.
PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE

On day two of the trial of Alvin “Butch” Morris for the 1988 murder of Roger Shifflett, the defendant’s ex-wife and son testified about his drinking problem and his desire to end his marriage nine days before Shifflett was killed, while the defense successfully prevented a witness from reciting one of the most explosive pieces of expected testimony, yet the prosecutor found a way to introduce the decades-old evidence anyway.

The day’s key prosecution witness was Diane Houchens, who was married to Morris for 27 years. On June 11, 1988, Morris told Houchens, “I don’t want to be married to you anymore,” Houchens said (more)

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Chiropractor Dolly Garnecki with patient Kayla Lisa, a 19-year-old Radford University student seeking to reverse her scoliosis through uncoventional care.
PHOTO BY COURTENEY STUART

Judy Blume’s 1973 book Deenie plunged a generation of girls into panic over scoliosis, an all-too-common spinal curvature. But some Charlottesville area girls– unlike the book’s 13-year old title character– are opting for a therapy that controversially skips the notoriously bulky back brace and, as Deenie found, the cruel taunts of classmates.

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” says local chiropractor Dolly Garnecki, who denounces braces and surgery as ineffective treatments that put scoliosis sufferers, typically teenage girls, through unnecessary pain.

Kayla Lisa was 11 when her parents learned that she (more)

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Three years after Sprint-Nextel spun it off to focus on wireless, landline carrier Embarq has been purchased by CenturyTel in an $11.6 billion deal. The two carriers will become CenturyLink, headquartered in Monroe, Louisiana, and serve 7.5 million customers in 33 states, according to a release. (And we remember the days when the local carrier was called Centel!)

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Have you seen this man?
PHOTO COURTESY ALBEMARLE POLICE

Police are looking for a man who went on an $8,000 Nikon-camera-buying spree June 12 using stolen credit cards lifted earlier at Farmington Country Club.

The cards were used at Wal-Mart, Sears, Ritz Camera, Finish Line, and at Best Buy, where police retrieved security video. Police describe the person in the two released images as a white male between 5′4″ and 5′6″, about 150 pounds, and between 40 and 50 years old.

“Within a couple of hours of the theft,” says Farmington GM Phil Keister, “$8,000 was charged before the victim even realized the theft.”

After a call to the credit card company, the camera equipment spree was halted.

“The credit card company shut them down,” says Keister of the cards, noting that they were presented at a couple of additional locations.

The country club had hosted a golf tournament that day for members and guests. Is it possible the thief is a member?

“It’s entirely possible,” says Kiester. “The only people we can eliminate are women.”

It appears to Keister, however, to be at least a two-man job because no one who has seen the pictures recalls seeing that individual at Farmington.

“We looked at security photos from Best Buy,” says Kiester. “I would guess the person who stole the cards is not the person in the video.”

Keister says he thinks the thief is someone who would feel comfortable walking around the Farmington locker room and notes theft at the club is “pretty unusual.”

In 2002, Farmington locker rooms made the news when a naked man allegedly strolled into the women’s locker room and pretended it was an accident, the same M.O. that allegedly was used across the street at Boar’s Head Sports Club.

–last updated 11:31am June 29

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I-64 shooter Slade Woodson listens to testimony in court Tuesday.
PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE

Explosive testimony Tuesday afternoon rocked the sentencing hearing of Slade Woodson, the young man whose shooting spree terrorized a Central Virginia highway a year ago and who pleaded guilty in March.

“He told me he did stupid things when he got drunk,” testified Matthew Kurdziolek, a former jail roommate of Woodson, the teen whose shooting spree shut down Interstate 64 and Albemarle County schools a year ago. “He told me he wanted to kill somebody that night.”

The Albemarle Circuit Court was quiet as the convict who shared a room with Woodson at Middle River Regional Jail described what he allegedly learned about the evening of March 26-27, when Woodson, then 19, and Brandon Dawson, 15, fired into five cars on I-64, injuring two people, and into two occupied residences in Albemarle, as well as one in Waynesboro.

The two even had a plan, according to the inmate, that exploited (more)

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The old stone Albemarle County Jail stands behind an 18-foot brick wall that surrounds the structure.
PHOTO BY DAVE MCNAIR

Now that the $20 million renovation of the old Juvenile & Domestic Relations Court is almost finished, another historic building in need of repair stands in sharp contrast to the new construction, boxed in as it is by a brand new parking garage: the old Albemarle County Jail. Although the J&DR court project was a joint venture between the County and the City, the price tag did not include any work on the old jail, and now it’s up to the County to figure out what to do with it.

According to Marc Wagner at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, the deteriorating jail is of far more historical significance than the nearby J&DR court house.

“The courthouse is interesting,” he says, ” but the jail is really unusual.” Indeed, with its huge block stone walls and thin barred windows, it looks like something out of the Middle Ages. But believe it or not, the City was still using it to hold prisoners in the 1970s.

“I used the wall as a backstop for hitting tennis balls when I was taking YMCA lessons at the McIntire Tennis Courts, since reborn as a skateboard park,” says Antoinette Roades, a local preservationist and historian, whose family lived right next to the jail in the 1960s. “If I hit a wild shot over the wall, a prisoner would throw it back.”

The Albemarle County Jail No. 5, as it was originally called, was built by George Wallace Spooner in 1876. Spooner, who also happened to be city manager, also built the Mount Zion Baptist Church on Ridge Street and was tapped to rebuild the Rotunda after it burned in 1895, a job he would eventually lose to architect Stanford White. In 1886, Spooner added the brick jailer’s house that stands today.

Clearly, Spooner wanted his jail to send a message. In addition to three-foot thick stone walls, reinforced steel doors, and an 18-foot brick wall surrounding the prison yard, the jail also featured an iron “cage” on the ground floor (more)

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Author Carol Lemons and Illustrator Holly Smith will be signing copies of their book Matisse and the Boy Who Loved to Draw at the New Dominion Bookshop on Saturday, June 20 from 10am to Noon. There will be art activities for children

Press release: Matisse and the Boy Who Loved to Draw tells the story of artist Henri Matisse in his later years as he created his “cut-outs” or collage paintings and as he designed the small Dominican Chapel of the Rosary in Vence, France. A young boy named John Paul who also wants to become an artist, befriends Matisse and embarks on an adventure.

John Paul wants to draw everything he sees in his l940’s South of France world.  When he discovers that a famous artist, Henri Matisse, lives in the hotel where his mother works, John Paul comes up with creative ideas for befriending the busy artist.  But will he get to see the great artist’s final masterpiece?

Ms. Smith and Ms. Lemons traveled to southern France to research and develop the book. Carol Lemon, a former kindergarten teacher, has written a text that is historically accurate and set in Nice and Vence, France. The two teachers used the book in the lower school classrooms at the Collegiate School to introduce Matisse to young students and present art projects in the Matisse style for them to do.

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