They call it First Night in a spirit of optimism, not irony. It’s the last night of the old calendar year, but the night when new hopes lead to new opportunities. It’s a night when kids can stay up late and parents can choose from a couple of dozen entertainment options on the cheap, like this year’s big screen broadcast of the University of Virginia Cavaliers football team in the Chick-fil-A Bowl. It’s a 30-year Central Virginia tradition, a family-friendly, alcohol-free New Year’s Eve celebration on and around the heart of Charlottesville, the red-bricked Downtown Mall. And it’s a whole lotta fun.
ARTS Pick: Jazz concert seeks justice
John D’earth directs the UVA Jazz Ensemble in a three-way benefit for the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society, the Legal Aid Justice Center and the UVA jazz program. Jazz4Justice is a statewide, college-based series that raises funds and awareness about social justice issues through community
Movie review: The Insult imparts the complexities of conflict
A dialogue of national reconciliation takes the form of a courtroom drama in Ziad Doueiri’s The Insult, one of this year’s nominees for Best Foreign Language Film. It all begins as a minor conflict between a Lebanese Christian mechanic, Tony (Adel Karam), and a Palestinian engineer living in
LIVING Picks: Week of March 14-20
FAMILY James Madison’s birthday celebration Friday, March 16 Commemorate the 267th birthday of fourth president James Madison in an event featuring the U.S. Marine Corps Band, Honor Guard, Color Guard and the annual wreath–laying ceremony at the Madison Family Cemetery. Free, 1:30pm.
Dominion’s win: Bills reduce refunds, thwart SCC regulation
It was a bill that had its own meme. “When Dominion writes the law: We pay twice. They get richer,” said a post that swept the web with the hashtags #HB1558 #KILLTHEBILL and #STOPTHESCAM before the House of Delegates voted to pass the bill 63-35 on February 13. The bill was a response to the
Album reviews: Girlpool, Say Sue Me, Novella and Sloan Peterson
Girlpool Powerplant (Anti-) Philadelphia-by-way-of-California duo Girlpool released Powerplant in May, and it was probably a great summer heartbreak album, all intertwining guitars and fragile voices. Opener “123” comes in like a lamb and revs up to lion level at the chorus—but it’s a sweet,
Album reviews: Jackie Shane, Tough Age, King Khan and Luna
Jackie Shane Any Other Way (Numero Group) Any Other Way is an incredible soundtrack with a riveting story. Jackie Shane was assigned male at birth in 1940 Nashville, identified as female as a teenager, blew minds as a singer/stand-up drummer in various bands, moved to Toronto at the turn of the
Unusual folk: alt-j plays it smart
It might come as a surprise to learn that alt-J members conceive of themselves as a folk band. After all, the U.K. trio’s synths, patterns and rhythms don’t conjure the same aesthetic as an acoustic guitar-wielding troubadour. The experimental art-rock does, however, evoke its own brand of
Album reviews: Downtown Boys, The Blow, Frankie Rose, Swale and Jack Cooper
Downtown Boys Cost of Living (Sub Pop) “A Wall,” the opening track on Cost of Living, winds up like it could be a punk Springsteen cover—then vocalist Victoria Ruiz bursts through with the righteous, insistent bellow of Dog Faced Hermans’ Marion Coutts or holy Poly Styrene. Downtown Boys calls
Sister cities, brotherly love
Little more than 40 years ago, former Charlottesville mayor Nancy O’Brien received an unexpected letter. Sent from Poggio a Caiano, a tiny, two-square-mile municipality in the Italian province of Prato, the epistle recounted the tale of a very special—and very old—friendship. “We were preparing
Power players: the ones making the biggest impact
It’s the time of year C-VILLE editorial staffers dread most: landing on the final names for our Power Issue, followed by the inevitable complaints that the list contains a bunch of white men. Sure, there are powerful women and people of color in Charlottesville. But when it comes down to it,
The Brooks Family YMCA is an exercise in community building
For the better part of 25 years, Kurt Krueger has harbored a vision. “I remember learning to swim as a kid at a YMCA in St. Louis,” says Krueger, a UVA School of Law graduate and downtown attorney, and a long-time supporter of the local Y’s satellite youth sports programs. “I knew that a
Grave concern: Local group preserves historic black cemetery
A single pink rose lies at a diagonal across the quartz headstone that has become two-toned with age in the last 125 years. The rose covers part of the inscription on Carrie Brown’s headstone, which is different from others from that time period. The Buckner family’s clustering of graves, which
Judge considers Bellamy’s attorney fees
One thing Judge Richard Moore and Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy’s attorney agreed upon: “If it was possible under the law and there was one person who should pay on this meritless claim, it would be Jason Kessler,” said Pam Starsia, who represented Bellamy when Kessler petitioned to
Outdoors Issue: Let’s take this outside!
Inside this year’s Outdoors Issue, you’ll learn about eight different jobs that celebrate being outside—and all the tricks of the trade that a few local workers employ. From geometry calculations to determine where to cut a tree limb to avoid hitting a window or power line to how best to move
Cobbling together a living gives many an opportunity to follow their passions
Ethan Lipscomb tore the shirt from his thin frame and tossed it through the artificial fog and colored lights off the stage in the basement of the Jefferson Theater. The crowd erupted and the drummer punctuated the landing of the shirt with the hit of a cymbal. Lipscomb launched into the next
ARTS Pick: Middlemarch in Spring
Thursday 3/23 & Friday 3/24 George Eliot’s novel arrives on stage as Middlemarch in Spring, a chamber opera that premiered in 2015. The musical treatment (part of the Virginia Festival of the Book) offers humor, passion and political upheaval, while serving to commemorate Ash Lawn Opera’s
Small businesses make big impacts
Small businesses make up 99 percent of all businesses nationwide—a percentage that carries over to our local economy. A study completed by the Virginia Employment Commission in the third quarter of 2016 revealed 2,477 Charlottesville businesses had 499 employees or fewer—the standard definition
Taking a stand: Steve Rubin’s fight for civil rights
The first thing Steve Rubin heard was not the wailing sirens of a fire truck, but the shouts of his house guest, actor Bob Costley, alerting Rubin his car was on fire. Rubin had expected this—he routinely checked underneath his car for a bomb before going to his teaching job at Louisiana State
New program guides homeless in starting their own businesses
Becky Blanton became invisible 10 years ago. She shared her story—how she went from working as a newspaper editor to living out of her van and eventually identifying as homeless—with her fellow entrepreneurs in a Community Investment Collaborative program in the fall of 2015. CIC runs a 16-week
C-VILLE’s most-read stories of 2016
In honor of saying good-bye to 2016, here’s a rundown of the 16 most-read stories published on our website in the last year. Sole mates: Anthony Gill will rock Jordans for the big day Heroin overdose: Friends grieve 25-year-old’s death Sunny Ortiz of Widespread Panic on what’s