Cultural preview
Burros on the block
Published on Mar 7th, 2002
0 comments The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), officially formed in 1946, was chartered as the caretaker of over 200 million acres of public land, primarily in the western states, in 1971. Aside from the more...
Eavesdropping on the past
Published on Mar 7th, 2002
0 comments Few of us can really appreciate the political, economic, and religious agitation that inspired our European ancestors to leave their native countries forever and travel to a completely foreign,...
Under cover
Published on Mar 7th, 2002
0 comments Let’s say it’s 1989. Unless you’re part of a small group of college students, Seattle doesn’t mean squat, and grunge equals dirt. If you’re in the right age group, you dig pretty fiercely the Teenage...
Vertigo and destruction
Published on Feb 28th, 2002
0 comments   Comic books and monster movies have claimed a disproportionately large chunk of H.C. Westermann’s imagination. That much is apparent to anyone who’s viewed the printmaker’s exhibit at the...
Not quite the inside story
Published on Feb 28th, 2002
0 comments   For Charlottesvillians, the words “The Nook” conjure up a constellation of images: Naugahyde bench seats, thick white diner china, burgers under iceberg and pale tomatoes, ketchup in the...
Tortured craft
Published on Feb 28th, 2002
0 comments   There’s no pain like it. You can sit at a desk, typewriter, or computer, waiting, waiting, waiting for words that never come. Someone has said writing is just a matter of sitting in front of a...
Old faces, new places
Published on Feb 28th, 2002
0 comments   They have done it in a furniture store, an art gallery, an abandoned train station, on a city bus, and, as you might expect, in a number of local bars. Offstage Theater, a group of local...
Horsing around in the mountains
Published on Feb 28th, 2002
0 comments   An hour north of Charlottesville lies some of this area’s most beautiful landscape. At the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Rappahannock County has stayed much the same for the 40 years this...
No grinches at these parties
Published on Feb 28th, 2002
0 comments   Hey, Sam-I-Am! Hey, Sam-I-Am!  It’s somebody’s birthday.  Can you guess the man?  It’s Dr. Seuss, born on March two.  And if you’re a fan, here’s what you can do:  ...
Funky boy culinary school
Published on Feb 28th, 2002
0 comments   Funk’s always been about, well, the funk. Do you feel the funk? Get funky! Ha, funk! Funk da house! Make it funky! Funk dat! Funk for yo mama! Funkenstein!  But if funk’s the manna that...
Spurious connection
Published on Feb 21st, 2002
0 comments Ostensibly, 9.11 Reflection presents work that engages in some way with the tragic, recent events from which it takes its name. At least that’s how it was billed. The exhibit, which includes work by...
Soul food
Published on Feb 21st, 2002
0 comments     Judging from the new anthology of African-American folklore, From My People— published by Norton and edited by Richmond scholar and UVA alumna Daryl Cumber Dance— black people in this...
Speak up
Published on Feb 21st, 2002
0 comments     Since the Revolutionary War, Americans have prided themselves on standing up for basic civil rights. Among these rights is the freedom of speech, as guaranteed by the First Amendment to...
Play it back
Published on Feb 21st, 2002
0 comments When Jonathan Fox created Playback Theater, a specific variety of dramatic improvisation, more than 25 years ago, he may not have known the impact his ideas would have. He now oversees a training...
Ecologically sound
Published on Feb 21st, 2002
0 comments   Charlottesville writer Jennifer Ackerman will be the guest speaker of UVA’s Brown College as part of its ongoing series of Readings in Nature and Culture. “Winter Ecology,” Ackerman’s talk at...
Summer's coming
Published on Feb 21st, 2002
0 comments   Trees are bare, the lawn is brown, and snow flurries are blowing by my window this morning. Is it that time of year again… time to start thinking about swimsuits and sun block? Yep, it’s true...
Embarrassment of country riches
Published on Feb 21st, 2002
0 comments   You wouldn’t take them home to ma, not because they’re dirty, scruffy, and rough around the edges (though they are, and then some), but because you’d be worried she’d actually enjoy a roll in...
Subtle yet striking
Published on Feb 14th, 2002
0 comments Visitors to Dorothy Siu-Ling Chan’s Playful Nature Series may not be fully prepared for what they find. Chan practices painting in the Lingnan style, which weds traditional Chinese painting (ink and...
Humorous hubris
Published on Feb 14th, 2002
0 comments Hang on to your seats. Here come the Value America guys again. As if they hadn’t rocked this town enough, they’ve spent the last 18 months telling their side of the story. They didn’t take the time...
Slavery's effects live on
Published on Feb 14th, 2002
0 comments As of the 1860 census, the last before the American Civil War, 2.3 million slaves lived in the Lower Southern states—nearly 50 percent of the entire Lower Southern population at that time. The...
Penetrating questions
Published on Feb 14th, 2002
0 comments   Here are the grim statistics: Somewhere in America a woman is battered, usually by her intimate partner, every 15 seconds; a rape is committed every 21 hours on each college campus in the...
Saving green acres
Published on Feb 14th, 2002
0 comments Ask half a dozen people why they live in Charlottesville, and inevitably some of them will reply, “the quality of life.” That “quality” takes many forms, not least of which are safety, size, and...
Visual splendor
Published on Feb 14th, 2002
0 comments   Although a sign on the door says “Please come in,” visitors approaching the Back Gallery exhibit space at the Virginia Discovery Museum may wonder if they’ve wandered into the wrong place. The...
Cool Curreri conquers all
Published on Feb 14th, 2002
0 comments Paul Curreri gives you the wonderful options of reading his stand-alone worthy words, or listening to unassumingly complex playing, or, if you’ve got the time and desire to drop your jaw for a bit,...