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Arts

Showtime, Charlottesville

Let’s get this out of the way: The name Japandroids doesn’t mean anything. Both members of the Vancouver-based rock band happened to come up with two-word names before their first billed show. Neither of them liked the other’s suggestion, so they combined them. The result is a play on words that Brian King and David Prowse expected to change before [...]

Living

Worlds of difference: When it comes to wine, what’s special about old versus new?

By Evan Williams

Normally I try to avoid pigeonholing and categorizing wine too intensely; the thing about winemaking and viticulture is that they’re seemingly built to buck trends, to defy the accepted knowledge, to alter the industry’s trajectory one barrel at a time. And yet, one of the most overused categorizations in the wine world, “old world/new world,” [...]

News

Yolunda Armstrong came here for her career, and found a community

By Shea Gibbs

Yolunda Armstrong’s influences are layered like the floors of a hotel. First floor: her mother, telling her you have to give back to your community even if you’re living in the projects. Second floor: her dad, who’s never too busy to carve out an hour on Wednesday night to spend time with his daughter watching [...]

News

Housing symposium examines federal funding pinch

By C-VILLE Writers

For Charlottesville, the shortage of affordable and public housing is a problem that must be tackled, and it’s an uphill battle. That’s the message delivered at a summit on housing issues at the Boar’s Head Inn on Friday, June 14, where federal, state, and local officials met to discuss the future in the light of [...]

Arts

ARTS Pick: A Night at the Museum

By C-VILLE Writers

After hours Your childhood dream of sneaking past the museum guards and playing among the art can finally come true. Spend the evening at UVA’s Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection with friends, Devils Backbone brews, musical accompaniment by the Judy Chops, Downbeat Project, and The Hill and Wood at A Night at the Museum. Explore the new exhibition, “After theDreamings: 25 [...]

The Editor's Desk

Mailbag: Charlottesville’s housing crisis is self-inflicted

By C-VILLE Readers

Free market housing Recently this paper published an article about the well-documented problem of Charlottesville’s housing unaffordability. It claimed that nearly half the city’s population now pays over 30 percent of income on housing, making it Virginia’s second-costliest city. To a degree this problem exists because many residents here are unemployed or hold low-wage jobs. [...]

Arts

Going dark: The closure of Random Row Books extinguishes a community light

By James Ford

After almost four years of serving the Charlottesville community, Random Row Books will close its doors at the end of the June. The building that houses the store—a former auto repair shop near the corner of West Main Street and Ridge/McIntire Road—will eventually be demolished, along with other buildings on the property to make room [...]

The Editor's Desk

Editor’s Note: Across the digital divide

By Giles Morris

Editors have always lived inundated by information, but now everyone is. It makes me admire the simplicity of the Lakota, who recorded hundreds of years of history on a single buffalo hide, one picture for each year to cue the memory of a person who had learned the stories over the course of a lifetime. [...]

News

Into the bookless future: As the county invests $20 million in new construction, libraries come to a fork in the road

By Preston Long

The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite, perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries.–Jorge Luis Borges, “The Library of Babel” In September, Albemarle County will open a library in a brand new building in Crozet. Between now and then, it will also begin a public planning process for the newly approved [...]

Living

Say my name: When kids get to dub the family pet

By Mike Fietz

This was his first visit after being adopted from the SPCA over the weekend. He was a bit pudgy at 40 pounds—a middle-aged Beagle mix with a lazy demeanor and drooping ears. He was adorable, but with his squat legs and lumbering gait, I could never describe him as dynamic. I glanced at his chart, [...]

News

Top cops respond to demands for details after recent shootings, stand their ground on flow of information

By Laura Ingles

After an Albemarle County Police officer shot and killed 21-year-old Gregory Rosson on June 8—the third officer-involved shooting this year— public demands for information were immediate and fierce. It’s a reaction cops brace themselves for any time an officer fires a gun at a civilian, and even more so if there’s a fatality involved. As [...]

Living

Overheard on the restaurant scene… This week’s restaurant news (June 18)

By C-VILLE Writers

All good things come in pairs…er, pairs of pairs. Celebrate the fourth anniversary of tavola restaurant with Quattro: Four Courses and Four Arias. Tavola’s skilled chefs will prepare a four course pre-fixe dinner accompanied by performances from Ash Lawn Opera’s La Boheme on Saturday, July 13 starting at 6pm. Tickets are $100 per person, or [...]

News

What’s coming up the week of June 17?

By C-VILLE Writers

Each week, the news team takes a look at upcoming meetings and events in Charlottesville and Albemarle we think you should know about. Consider it a look into our datebook, and be sure to share newsworthy happenings in the comments section. The Charlottesville City Council meets at 7pm tonight—Monday—at City Hall. The Council is set [...]

Living

Enemy at the baby gate: When grandparents go bad

By C-VILLE Writers

As a new father with no significant prior experience with small children, I worry I’ve missed something big and obvious about infant care. I’ve taken classes and read a little bit here and there, but there’s no substitute for experience. I have a gnawing suspicion there are things I should know that were not covered [...]

News

Primary tie-breaker: Fenwick beats Bellamy by five votes

By Laura Ingles

Bob Fenwick is officially on the ballot for the November City Council election, having beaten fellow Democrat Wes Bellamy for the spot by five votes after a dramatic second-place tie on Tuesday. “It’s the darndest thing I’ve ever been through, I know that for a fact,” Fenwick said after the final votes were counted on [...]

Arts

Album reviews: Slim Loris, Eluvium and Eisley

By Brian Palmer

Slim Loris Future Echoes and Past Replays/Record Union Swedish indie Americana rock group, Slim Loris, has made one of 2013s most surprising albums thus far. Euphoric, humorous and bittersweet, Future Echoes and Past Replays is a success. The band ensnares you with the lively and whimsical “Fear of Flying,” or the subdued and contemplative “While I Breathe,” [...]

News

What’s Happening at the Jefferson School City Center?

By Jefferson School City Center

Women will be celebrating the many ways they have turned their live challenges into positive change tomorrow (Saturday), June 15 at The Women’s Initiative at the Jefferson School City Center. From 4:30 to 6:30 pm, writers and supporters will honor the women essayists who shared personal stories of transformation for the 2013 issue of Challenge [...]

Arts

LOOK3 Pick: Nick Nichols

By James Ford

Michael “Nick” Nichols’ years of work for National Geographic have taken him around the globe, providing an up-close look at some of the few corners of the world that remain untouched by human civilization. His recent work in the Serengeti uses state-of-the-art advances in photo technology to investigate lions, documenting their world and their behaviors [...]

Arts

Slumber Party Massacre: A Screaming Good Time

By C'Ville Art Blog

For the LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph, Rich Tarbell and Brian Wimer have created a series of charming and nostalgic narrative photographs. The series, “Slumber Party Massacre,” is essentially a remake of the 1982 film of the same name. Tarbell and Wimer have obviously altered the story and how we view it by shooting photographs rather than film. This [...]

Arts

LOOK3 Pick: Martha Rosler

By James Ford

Though Photoshopping and digital retouching have become common practices in both journalistic and creative photography, Martha Rosler’s recent work foregrounds the process, creating deliberately artificial digital collages that create jarring juxtapositions of familiar imagery. Her 1960’s collages combined imagery from the Vietnam War with domestic images from advertising, and her recent work continues that same theme, [...]

News

City approves master park plan with five-mile commuter loop

By Laura Ingles

The City of Charlottesville acquired the last parcel of a 40-acre tract of parkland along Meadow Creek early this year, and with City Council’s go-ahead, trail planner Chris Gensic can’t wait to get his hands on it. Last week, Council unanimously approved the Department of Parks and Recreation’s master plan for the stream valley, which [...]

Arts

C-VILLE Busk Break: Joseph Franklin Hunt of Jimbo the Name

By C-VILLE Writers

Joseph Franklin Hunt, a 26-year-old recording artist originally from Hollywood, California, was hanging around on the Downtown Mall on Wednesday and agreed to play his song “Successful Folks” to preview his show at The Hot Spot in Waynesboro with his acoustic hip-hop act Jimbo the Name. The band will open for Interscope recording artists The [...]