As I mentioned in an earlier post, I came to Charlotte in search of rebuttals to the previous week’s nonsense in Tampa, as well as a bit of inspiration after four years of patience-testing political reality. This year’s convention lacked some of the drama and mystique of Denver ’08, which was to be expected. But [...]
Each week, the C-VILLE news team joins reporters from Charlottesville Tomorrow at WTJU 91.1 FM’s on-Grounds radio station for Soundboard, an hour-long, straight-from-the-source news show that touches on the big stories of the week. This week’s program included an interview with the organizer of an upcoming panel discussion about the future of UVA in the [...]
For interior designer Sandy Muraca, updating her foyer last winter so that it reflected her love of vintage art and antiques was vital. “While it’s not a space or room that you would sit and have coffee with a friend, it is a space where you come home, a space where you greet family and [...]
05/22/2013 9:00 pm Danny Barrale Fellini’s #9, Charlottesville VA
Behind every good man is a good woman—and behind every good red wine is a good white one. From the precipitous slopes of Côte-Rôtie to the stone-stacked soils of Châteauneuf-du-Pape (and many of the 150 miles in between), southeastern France’s Rhône Valley produces red wines deserving of [...]
UVA dispatched Richmond last weekend in most ordinary fashion. This Saturday’s contest against Penn State will be anything but ordinary, no matter the outcome. The NCAA imposed unprecedented sanctions on PSU in the wake of Jerry Sandusky’s conviction on 45 counts of child sex abuse and a [...]
I’m going to save more in-depth analysis of the convention as a whole for a later post after I’ve had some sleep. But briefly, my impression of Obama’s speech is that he made a compelling case against the Romney-Ryan worldview. It had more substance than Romney’s [...]
I caught up with local delegate and Albemarle County Supervisor Chris Dumler today in the convention hall. This is the first national political convention for Dumler, a 2009 U.Va Law School grad who just turned 27. Dumler, who hails from Scottsville, says the Virginia contingent has been [...]
Ah, Fall: crunching leaves, jeans and hoodies, the melody of Auld Lang Syne playing after a touchdown, and the warming smell of spices in the season’s savory food and drinks. Contrast that with the sweltering, soggy, drawn-out dog days of summer and you’ve got two pretty different [...]
The autumn equinox brings a change of season. Regardless of drought, derecho or whether we believe fossil fuels contribute to global warming, at 10:49 am EDT on September 22, Earth faces the sun straight on before tilting toward fall. Like students at the start of the school year, gardeners can [...]
Now in its 13th season, the Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival has become a local institution: a fortnight’s worth of nationally and internationally renowned composers and performers sharing the most intimate and contemplative form of music stretching back through centuries of western [...]
As you may have heard, Bill Clinton knocked the socks off the crowd in Time Warner Arena on Wednesday night. I thought I’d grown immune to adrenaline rushes from political speeches, but by the end of that one, when Obama materialized and the entire audience rose screaming, I was feeling [...]
Hearkening back to the days of the traveling theater troupe, director and local theatrical polymath Kay Ferguson’s The Madwoman Project brings the play to you. She strips off all the unnecessary baggage for an entirely portable gypsy clown carnival, playing out its first act amid the crowds on [...]
Fresh figs, worshipped by cultures worldwide since 4000BC, are proof that there’s a higher being. Looks deceive, until rough skin the color of a bruise gives way to a shiny geode-like interior. Figs’ texture is anything but structural though—they quiver when you cut them and their delicate [...]
Wintergreen announced today that new owner Justice Companies will be investing $12 million in infrastructure and facilities improvements at the resort over the next 16 months. The first improvements, a five-million-gallon raw water storage tank and pumping station, will come from an initial $6 [...]
It’s been over a year in the making, and City Council finally voted on it: the master plan for the eastern side of McIntire Park. Citizens have shown up for meeting after meeting to express concerns about golf, gardens, soccer fields, and skate parks, and after several presentations and [...]
On April 10, the University of Virginia announced that billionaire alum Paul Tudor Jones and his wife Sonia had donated $12 million for the creation of the Contemplative Sciences Center (CSC). Set to begin this fall, the center will be dedicated to the study of meditation, yoga, and mindfulness [...]
An eventful day here in Charlotte. For me, it started with a Planned Parenthood rally at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Yes, this is probably the first time in history that those two organizations were mentioned in the same sentence. A human pillpack led the proceedings: Rush Limbaugh’s [...]
Wednesday 9/5 Workbook Being innovative is exhausting work. Nick Zammuto could have decided that, after a prolific stint with cellist Paul de Jong as The Books, he’d coast with the street cred he got for experimenting with what he calls “collage-pop music.” Instead he takes up the loop and [...]
Remember what I said yesterday about getting around easily? Forget it. The bus route I’d mastered practically ceased to exist, thunderstorms pounded the city, and the sidewalks were packed. At one point, I slipped in behind a guy pushing a cart full of ponchos just to get through the [...]
A local bluegrass band being asked to play for the President of the United States…what are the odds? That’s what we thought until a dear friend with a connection to the Obama Campaign called to ask if Gallatin Canyon could warm up the crowd of 7,500 that would assemble at the rally [...]
Ongoing discussions about rural county schools have raised one question over and over: Are small schools worth preserving for the sake of community, even if it means spending more money? This summer the Albemarle County School Board voted in favor of funding renovations to keep three small [...]
Well, here we go again. With the Democratic party spending this week in North Carolina celebrating the re-nomination of President Barack Obama, and the Republicans still cleaning up from their hurricane-shortened coronation of Mitt Romney in Florida, we are once again forced to endure two weeks [...]