Local banjo player Greg Liszt is helping Bruce Springsteen promote his Pete Seeger tribute album.
Tuesday, May 30
Local banjo player aids The Boss’ detour from Thunder Road
Today’s Washington Post asks the eternal question, “If a banjo solo falls in the middle of a Bruce Springsteen concert, will anybody cheer it?” The plucking of Charlottesville native Greg Liszt inspired the query, as Liszt is now touring with The Boss (and 16 other musicians, including a tuba player) in support of Springsteen’s new tribute album, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions. Though not everyone at Nissan Pavilion was enraptured by the old-timey music, reviewer J. Freedom du Lac was all over it: “The well-conceived set was overflowing with kinetic energy, as well as an incredible, almost cathartic spirit that Springsteen largely attributes to the source material itself.”
Wednesday, May 31
Stylists mourn Couric’s historic move
Amidst the bathos surrounding Katie Couric’s final day as host of the “Today” show—the nation’s most-watched TV news program for more than a decade—we were discouraged to discover this, um, meaningful commentary from The New York Sun about the UVA alumna (Class of 1979), who will take over the “CBS Evening News” in September. The Sun speculates that, once she becomes an oh-so-serious news anchor, “her impressive collection of strappy sandals, form-fitting tops, and shiny makeup may be gone for good.” Indeed, “Ms. Couric may trade her bolder outfits and hairstyles for tailored suits, classic pumps, pearl jewelry, stay-in-place hair, and matte makeup, observers say.” Which just leaves us wondering what these same observers had to say about Brian Williams’ tanning-booth addiction when he became anchor of “NBC Nightly News,” or whether Charlie Gibson’s thinning pate will be analyzed when he starts anchoring ABC’s program.
Thursday, June 1
City girls’ soccer team heads to regional championship
The Daily Progress reports this morning on the storybook ending to the Charlottesville High School girls’ soccer team’s dream-like season (18 wins, 0 losses): a 3-2 victory over a very competitive Loudon County team to clinch CHS’s first-ever journey to the Region II Championships. “This game was the culmination of a lot of hard work throughout the season,” CHS coach Steve Saunders told the Progress.
Friday, June 2
Proud Warrior on the fifth tee?
Golfers, are you looking for a solution to your Mulligan problem? Keswick Hall announced the answer today in a news release. The luxury hotel and golf resort now offers “Goga”—that’s right, yoga for golfers! The one-hour class “involves a series of yoga positions that focus on those areas of the body that are critical to a good golf swing.” As for us, we’re waiting for Yotinis—a series of upper body stretches that will facilitate the movement of the hand to the mouth during a rigorous workout at the bar.
Saturday, June 3
Arena helps Team U.S.A. keep it real in Deutschland
What’s all this business about staying in the suburbs or hunkering down in a border town? Bruce Arena, the onetime UVA soccer coach who now coaches the United States’ World Cup team, is not keeping his boys out of the fray as the globe’s elite soccer players prepare for World Cup action next week. Nope, the American team is staying in Hamburg, Germany, proper; in fact, their accommodations are only one mile from what today’s Washington Post calls “the notorious Reeperbahn, a.k.a. ‘Die Suendige Meile’ (The Sinful Mile).” “It fits our lifestyle, our mentality,” Arena told Steven Goff. “I want our players to enjoy the World Cup, and the way Americans enjoy every day is getting out and enjoying the culture… I think it’s invaluable to have them in the right frame of mind.” The American team will play their first game on Monday, June 12, against the Czechs.
Sunday, June 4
Cavs drop in first-round NCAA play at home. Ouch!
Virginia baseball suffered its second loss today in the double-elimination first round of the NCAA Regional, a heartbreaking defeat at home for the Cavs, who had gone 47-15 in the regular season. Speaking to The Daily Progress, head coach Brian O’Connor said the 15-4 rout by Evansville was the hardest loss of his “entire coaching career.” “I really felt like this ball club had something special about them.”
Monday, June 5
Ehrenreich: Don’t get too big for your britches
Famed social issues journalist Barbara Ehrenreich, whose book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America effectively catalyzed “living wage” campaigns nationwide, and who has been living in Charlottesville lately, is moving north. Mother Jones’ online edition visits with her, and conducts a lengthy interview in the midst of the packing and so on. Among other inevitable downers about the new American economic reality, Ehrenreich shares this: “There’s a lot in our society that makes people with college degrees and white-collar jobs think they’re special and superior. But next time you’re seeing that person pushing the broom, remember, you may be one year, maybe even six months away from that yourself. You’re not special, not in the eyes of the owners and the CEOs. So we’ve got to get together; we’ve got to bridge that divide, get over that snobbishness.”