Month: June 2006

Categories
Uncategorized

Other news we heard last week

Rock gods Radiohead headlined this year’s Bonnaroo festival in Tennessee. The annual rock festival, backed by DMB manager Coran Capshaw, is the nation’s top-grossing summer music festival, with a reported take of $13.4 million last year.

Tuesday, June 13
Former UVA coach loses his cool with Team USA

Apparently, there’s nothing like an embarrassing loss to get the blood boiling. Bruce Arena, a former UVA soccer coach and current coach of Team USA, had some choice words for his players after their 0-3 World Cup shutout by Czechoslovakia last night. Arena targeted U.S. midfielder DaMarcus Beasley in particular, telling reporters, “We got nothing from Beasley.” Beasley, in response, critiqued Arena’s tactics and choice of player formations.

Wednesday, June 14
Bad news for Boomers

Watch out, grandpa! That’s the sobering message from a new study co-authored by UVA engineering professor Richard Kent. Kent’s research team studied thousands of car accidents, looking at drivers by age. They found that seniors age 65 and up were far more likely to be injured in a crash than younger people, which the report attributed to many seniors’ pre-existing health issues. With Boomers rapidly approaching the age of retirement, the study’s findings show that more seniors will die at a higher rate in the coming years.

Thursday, June 15
Good news for those experiencing chest pain

Today’s Daily Progress reports that UVA and Martha Jefferson hospitals are among 3,100 that have been part of a national campaign to reduce the number of patients who die because of hospital errors. The effort seems to be paying off: Since late 2004, campaign organizers estimate that 122,342 people lived who would otherwise have died, including 1,896 in Virginia. “Rapid response” teams deployed throughout hospitals are part of the new system, as are programs to reduce ventilator-associated pneumonia. Now, if only they’d improve the food…

Friday, June 16
Whole Foods has got crustacean love

Just in time to cancel the lobster bake this weekend, Whole Foods made a stand for cruelty against crustaceans. The natural foods chain will no longer sell live lobsters and crabs, a decision handed down from its corporate office in Austin, Texas, according to MSNBC.com. The animal rights folks are thrilled. Bruce Friedrich, spokesman for PETA, said, “The ways that lobsters are treated would warrant felony cruelty to animals charges if they were dogs or cats.” Good thing house pets don’t go that well with new potatoes and drawn butter. Whole Foods’ 180 stores will still sell frozen raw and cooked lobster products, thus maintaining their commitment to paradoxical stocking policies.

Saturday, June 17
Historical sites multiplying while we sleep

Today’s Daily Progress reports that 31 properties have recently been added to the Virginia Landmarks Register, including four locally. UVA’s “The Aviator” statue, which spreads its wings outside Alderman Library, is one of them; the historic district in Schuyler is another. That means both John-Boy and the winged one will enjoy State tax credits. Other things that are old, like rants about drivers who can’t merge, may be next.

Sunday, June 18
Thousands of hippies go back to work

Thousands of music fans re-entered the real world today as Bonnaroo, the camping and music festival held on 700 acres in Tennessee, wrapped up with performances by Phil Lesh, Bonnie Raitt and Sonic Youth. Bonnaroo, backed by DMB manager Coran Capshaw and currently the country’s most popular annual music festival, drew 80,000 fans for three days of music that included 100 bands on 10 stages. According to those trend-spotters at The Washington Post, Bonnaroo’s reputation has transcended the hippy scene this year by showcasing rock bands like Radiohead, Beck, Tom Petty, Elvis Costello and—for fans who like to be told what to do—indie rockers Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.

Monday, June 19
Look out! Drought!

Drought Watch 2006 begins. For the past several summers, Charlottesville has been lucky, having experienced relatively wet summers since the 2002 drought. But luck is no lady this year. Thomas Frederick, director of the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority (RWSA), reports today to his Executive Board that the risk “has now reached the ‘trigger’ level” for a Drought Watch. He expects the South Fork Rivanna Dam to stop spilling over in July for the first time since 2002 if current conditions continue. The RWSA strongly encourages the public to start conserving now, adding that City and County authorities “may impose mandatory restrictions on retail water use in the coming weeks,” according to the report.

Categories
News

Mary A. Sullivan is opinionated

As the mother of three (two of them teenagers) and a health educator who enjoys and is enlightened by middle- and high-school students, and who furthermore possesses a pathologically encyclopedic knowledge of sexually-transmitted infections, I consistently counsel teenagers to postpone sexual activity. I teach them about unintended physical consequences of sexual activity, and I encourage them to consider emotional consequences, as well. The comments of the adolescents I talk to are thoughtful and insightful. Their questions tell me how eager they are to discuss love, relationships and sexuality candidly, confidentially and comprehensively.
    I have done this work for many years—often precariously perched on the political see-saw that is sexuality education for adolescents—but I have never been as troubled as I am now by federal and State policy and funding allocation. Last year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families awarded $37 million to agencies providing “abstinence only until marriage” sexuality education programs serving adolescents. The Charlottesville Pregnancy Center benefited from this federal largesse, receiving $645,642 to implement a three-year abstinence-only education program locally. This program, called “Worth Your Wait,” aspires to reach 30,000 middle- and high-school students. If these programs reduced high-risk sexual activity, this financial outlay might be justified, but evaluations have not shown such efficacy. In a study of teens and “chastity pledges” conducted by researchers at Columbia and Yale universities, those who took the public pledge and those who did not had virtually the same rate of sexually-transmitted infections. What’s more, pledgers were less likely to be tested and treated for their infections. Perhaps pledgers were ashamed they had been sexually active; perhaps they did not know how and where to get help. Both the Society of Adolescent Medicine (SAM) and the American Academy of Pediatrics have recently released reports opposing this federal policy. In the SAM position paper, Dr. John Santelli, of Columbia University, and Dr. Mary Ott, from the Indiana University School of Medicine, state that, while abstinence is a healthy choice for adolescents, “Providing ‘abstinence only’ or ‘abstinence until marriage’ messages as a sole option for teenagers is flawed from scientific and medical ethics viewpoints.” Teenagers are as heterogeneous as adults, so a single ideological approach makes no sense. Those who care for, and about, adolescents should support those who postpone being sexually active, and provide education about (and access to) pregnancy and infection prevention to those who are sexually active.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Youth Risk Behavior survey tells us that almost 70 percent of high school students have had intercourse by the time they graduate. Survey results from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics released last fall provided information about teens and oral sex. Of teens ages 15 to 19, over 50 percent reported having had oral sex. Of those who had had intercourse, over 80 percent reported having had oral sex. This research highlights the need for explicit and accurate information about specific sexual activities (vaginal, oral and anal intercourse) and associated health risks.
    Over the past 10 years, the national and state teen pregnancy rates have declined, while rates of sexually transmitted infections increase steadily. The CDC calls STIs a series of epidemics, pointing to high rates of chlamydia, gonorrhea, genital herpes and HPV (a virus that can cause genital warts, and one that is also connected to cervical cancer). Of infections reported to local and state health districts, gonorrhea rates are highest in the 15- to 19-year-old cohort. The CDC estimates that almost 4 million teens are newly infected annually; most, who are not tested or treated, infect others, and may experience future infertility. Most likely this combination of decreasing teen pregnancy rates with increasing teen STD rates has less to do with sexual abstinence, and more to do with extremely effective birth control methods (such as Depo-Provera and birth control patches) that leave little room for user error, but provide no protection against infections. And yet our enlightened community of Charlottesville has actually seen a steady increase in teen pregnancies since 2001, the year in which the feds began pushing abstinence-only sexuality education. Charlottesville’s teen pregnancy rate—which, at last measure, was 70.8 per 1,000 females ages 10 to 19—now exceeds that of Virginia, and Virginia has the 19th-highest pregnancy rate in the United States.
    Is this any way to teach our children?

Mary A. Sullivan, M.Ed., is a Charlottesville/ Albemarle Teen Pregnancy and STD Preven-tion Coordinator.

Categories
Arts

Reviews – stage and games



All My Sons
Live Arts
Through June 17

stage

All My Sons, set in the backyard of an emotionally scarred American family a year after the end of World War II, was the play that launched Arthur Miller’s career. Soon after its colossal—and completely unexpected—success, he felt free to abandon the rigid structure of Greek tragedy and to cease emulating those gurus of strict realism, Chekhov and Ibsen. The result: Death of a Salesman.
    Which doesn’t mean that Live Arts is serving up Miller lite. The production is a welcome breather from the cutting-edge fare community theaters so often present in order to stay hip. Also, All My Sons’ main themes—the abyss between economics and ethics, and between individual families and the human family, during wartime—are unmistakably relevant today.
    Whether sticking to tradition or experimenting, Miller was a master at sprinkling dramatic elements into a day-to-day rhythm, and gradually unearthing his characters’ concerns and motives. For instance, the character of Dr. Jim Bayliss (Bill LeSueur, who by day is C-VILLE’s art director), a friend of the Keller family who has no apparent purpose beyond lending the proceedings some mild comic energy, ends up delivering a poetic speech that crystallizes everything in the play that’s been boiling up underneath the surface.
    Director William Rough is tuned in to Miller’s intentions. The general tenor of every scene, with their shifting angles and multicolored tones—as well as the overall complex pacing—feel right. Of the 10-member cast, Thomas Burke as Joe Keller, Linda Waller as his wife, Kate, and Chris Estey as their son, Chris, do most of the heavy lifting. Burke and Waller do a nice job of communicating Joe and Kate’s almost animalistic need to rationalize their pain and keep their consciences pristine. And Burke is especially good at showing what happens to one’s face and psyche when the dam breaks. While Estey’s performance isn’t as layered, nothing significant gets in the way of Miller’s unflinching vision.—Doug Nordfors

X-Men: The Official Game
Activision
PlayStation 2, Xbox, PC

The Da Vinci Code
2K Games/The Collective
PlayStation 2, Xbox, PC

games

 Entertaining movies rarely translate into entertaining videogames, but that never seems to stop marketers from working the tie-in route.
    Take X-Men: The Official Game, a sort of videogame prequel/tangent to the third installment of Marvel’s mutant movie trilogy. Weirdly, the game focuses on Alan Cumming’s blue-skinned, teleporting Nightcrawler, a character that (rather criminally, if you ask me) doesn’t even appear in the film.
    Nightcrawler’s is one of only three black leather bodysuits you can jump into here—Iceman and Wolverine being the other two. Not coincidentally, these are the three characters whose corresponding actors provided voice work for the game. The basic storyline has you traveling back to Alkali Lake to recover parts of Cerebro (the mind-control machine that was destroyed in X-Men 2). Along the way, you’ll encounter and fight alongside other X-stalwarts like Storm and Colossus, but not very extensively—severely limited character options definitely pegs this as a rush job.
    X-Men: The Official Game looks and plays an awful lot like last year’s Fantastic Four (another based-loosely-on-the-movie tie-in that largely fell flat), despite efforts to shoehorn interesting characters from the Marvel universe into the storyline. The game’s healing mechanic feels especially cheap—I mean, Wolvie’s all about the mutant healing factor, but since when did ‘Crawler and Iceman, two of the X-Men’s least physically durable mutants, gain the power to regenerate health?
    Speaking of regenerate health, how’s this for a concept? A videogame from a movie about a book that questions whether Jesus Christ really pulled off that whole ressurection thing. Man, talk about high concept! Anyway, setting aside the overexposure issues surrounding Dan Brown’s, er, celebrated work of fiction, the videogame version of The Da Vinci Code will probably prove an entertaining adjunct to the legions of Code fanatics, most of whom will relish the chance to directly involve themselves in the deepest mystery since Scooby and the gang broke up that evil counterfeit ring. I just hope that these DaVinciacs’ anagram-solving, item-collection and cryptology skills are appropriately burnished, or they’ll be staring at the ornately designed puzzle screens until Mary Magdalene reappears in all of her glory.
    While Tom Hanks’ embarrassing mullet is blissfully absent here, his voicework is desperately missed. The Hanks stand-in delivers symbologist Robert Langford’s lines with a level of energy that’s barely above that of Sauniere’s elaborately staged corpse. It’s hard not to chortle when Langford overhears a panicked phone message in the Louvre and deadpans, “That woman is in trouble.” Gee, ya think?
    But the real code-breaker here is the game’s struggle system. It’s sorta surreal to see Audrey Tautou’s cryptographer laying the beatdown on security guards with a crowbar and combat moves worthy of Tekken 5, but hey, anything for the sake of variety and increased audience share. (Like Dan Brown needs it.)—Aaron Conklin

Categories
Living

Playing with pictures

Graphic artists (and photo nerds) have always enjoyed browsing the vast image archive at Getty Images. Well, the browsing just got a whole lot trippier. Linked off of Getty’s “Creative” search page (by way of some hypnotizing little neon graphics) is “10 Ways,” an experimental online funhouse that allows visitors to “explore” different dimensions of visual language (using Getty images, of course) through interactive Shockwave videos.
       For all you deep thinkers out there, Getty offers a conceptual idea behind each interactive experience—but really, what’s the fun in that? I say ignore the tiny text and go right to the pretty pictures (you might want to pop some popcorn while you wait for the player to load, though—some of these things are molasses slow). My personal favorite “way” of choice, “Informa-tion,” actually begins rather unpleasantly, with a close-up of a man’s splotchy red face, but it rapidly becomes fascinating. As you click the picture to zoom in, you find that it is made up of hundreds of smaller images, each one linked to-gether in what feels like a never-ending chain of photos.
    Believe me, once you start, it’s hard to stop—it’s a surprisingly addictive time sink, providing hours (or at least minutes) of visual fun. And there’s more where that came from: You can do anything from take a “visual mood test” to travel through surreal space on the 10 Ways site. While some of the videos could use a little more direction, and may leave you wondering why you just spent 15 minutes watch-ing colored dots bounce around in the woods, that’s the fun of it. In fact, the site is so stimulating and visually imaginative, it creates an entirely new category: on-line advertising you can actually enjoy!—Ashley Sisti

Active link – www.interact10ways.com

Categories
Arts

Short film blurbs

The Break-Up (PG-13, 106 minutes) Reviewed in this issue.  Playing at Regal Downtown Mall 6

Cars (G, 116 minutes) Now that Pixar and Disney are playing nice, the never-miss computer animation firm revs up the engine on its latest family outing. We’ve got a cocky stock car (voiced by Owen Wilson) who gets sidetracked on the way to a big race and ends up in tiny Radiator Springs. Busted for speeding, he’s sentenced to community service, and soon learns the meaning of friendship and respect. The premise sounds like Pixar’s weakest, but director John Lasseter (Toy Story) keeps things bouncy, fun and sweetly nostalgic. All-star voice cast includes George Carlin, Bob Costas, Bonnie Hunt, Michael Keaton, Paul Newman and Larry the Cable Guy. (Devin O’Leary) Playing at Regal Seminole Square Cinema 4

The Da Vinci Code (PG-13, 149 minutes) Ron Howard’s movie version of Dan Brown’s religious-mystery novel, in which a Harvard professor (Tom Hanks) and a Parisian cryptographer (Audrey Tautou) try to track down the Holy Grail while being pursued by a crazed albino monk (Paul Bettany), fails to get a decent spook going, à la The Exorcist or The
Omen. Howard has illustrated the book beautifully, but he hasn’t wrestled with it, made it his own. (Kent Williams)  Playing at Regal Seminole Square Cinema 4

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (PG-13) Vin Diesel, having long lost any level of relevance to this fast-moving film franchise, is here replaced by Lucas Black, the kid from Sling Blade. But, really, who cares which humans are involved so long as you’ve got a tricked-out Mitsubishi Lancer EVO IX to ogle? Black plays a troubled teen who heads to Tokyo to live with his military uncle officer. There, he falls into the world of underground street racing. The film is rated PG-13 for “reckless and illegal behavior involving teens.” In other words, it’s gonna be a huge hit with high schoolers. (D.O.) Coming Friday; check local listings

Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties (PG) You have no one to blame but yourself for this, people. Garfield goes to England where a case of mistaken cat-identity has him inheriting a castle. There, he runs afoul of the scheming Lord Dargis (played by a no-doubt embarrassed Billy Connolly) who wants the estate all for himself. I realize you spent $75 million on the first movie, America, but I’m confident you regret that now. Think of this as a bad first date you’re embarrassed you slept with. Just avert your eyes as you pass the theater and pretend you can’t see it. (D.O.) Coming Friday; check local listings

The Lake House (PG) Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock (finally! a Speed reunion!) come together again for this romantic mystery, a remake of a beautiful if confusing Korean film. Bullock plays a lonely doctor who begins exchanging letters with a frustrated architect (Reeves). Turns out that Bullock and Reeves are actually living in the same lakeside vacation home, but exist two years apart and are communicating through a magical mailbox. …I told you it was confusing. (D.O.) Coming Friday; check local listings

Mission: Impossible III (PG-13, 126 minutes) J.J. Abrams (the guy behind “Alias” and “Lost”) takes over as director for this third outing. Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames, Laurence Fishburne, Keri Russell, Billy Crudup and Philip Seymour Hoffman (doing bad guy duty) make up the impressive cast list. Unfortunately, it’s scripted by the guys who wrote The Island. As in previous Impossible outings, the plot is baroque to the point of nonsensical. The explosions look pretty, though. (D.O.) Playing at Carmike Cinema 6

Nacho Libre (PG) From the makers of Napoleon Dynamite comes this equally odd comedy about a cook (Jack Black) at a Mexican orphanage, who moonlights as a masked wrestler to save his adopted home from foreclosure. The story is simple, and the humor is pretty low key, but Black gives it his all, delivering a surprisingly dexterous performance. (D.O.) Coming Friday; check local listings

The Omen (R, 95 minutes) The 1976 shocker The Omen is really just a slasher film dolled up in Biblical raiment. But it’s still a damnably entertaining movie. Naturally, we required no remake; but we’ve got one anyway, once again documenting a clueless Washington family who seems to have given birth to the Antichrist. The cast (including Liev Schreiber, Julia Styles, Mia Farrow and Pete Postlethwaite) takes things seriously, and the direction is notably slick. Still, the script apes the original almost note for note, making this feel like a cover album of your favorite band—good if only for of the familiarity, but not nearly as memorable as the original. (D.O.) Playing at Regal Downtown Mall 6

Over the Hedge (PG, 96 minutes) An all-star voice cast (Bruce Willis, Garry Shandling, Steve Carell, Wanda Sykes, William Shatner, Nick Nolte) lends its talents to this CGI toon adaptation of the popular newspaper comic strip. Willis plays a mischievous raccoon who helps his forest buddies adapt to the encroaching sprawl of suburbia. The animation is fluid and the writing has a bit more spark than most of the recent computer toons we’ve been subjected to (The Wild). From the director of Antz. (D.O.) Playing at Regal Seminole Square Cinema 4

Poseidon (PG-13) Kurt Russell, Josh Lucas and Richard Dreyfuss star in a big-budget remake of 1972 shipwreck movie The Poseidon Adventure, combining our fear of drowning with our fear of tight spaces. Director Wolfgang Petersen’s in too much of a hurry, keeping all the deaths at a distance. (K.W.) Playing at Carmike Cinema 6

A Prairie Home Companion (PG-13, 105 minutes) Reviewed on page 46. Playing at Vinegar Hill Theatre

RV (PG) Steve Martin must have been busy, because it’s fallen to Robin Williams to star in this pathetic, plotless excuse for a “family” comedy. Williams stars as a hapless dad who tries to pass off a business trip to Colorado as a family vacation. Along the way, the annoying clan has lots of wacky misadventures in a rented RV. That’s it, folks. Williams was starting to get annoying on screen, now he’s just sad. Go rent National Lampoon’s Vacation instead. It’s pretty much the same movie, only 20 times funnier. (D.O.) Playing at Regal Downtown Mall 6

See No Evil (R) Porn king Gregory Dark (New Wave Hookers, Let Me Tell Ya ’Bout White Chicks) tries his hand at directing a mainstream horror film. Naturally, he hooks up with professional wrestler Kane (who used to grapple under the name Dr. Isaac Yankem DDS). The story (such as it is) concerns a group of troubled teens (nobody you’ve ever heard of) who are assigned to clean up an old hotel. Wouldn’t you know it: There’s a serial killer living there. It’s produced by World Wrestling Entertainment Films. My work here is done. (D.O.) Playing at Carmike Cinema 6

Thank You for Smoking (R, 92 minutes) Based on Christopher Buckley’s satiric novel about a tobacco-industry lobbyist (Aaron Eckhart) who seems to feel good about what he does for a living, Jason Reitman’s refreshingly un-PC film lets both sides of the smoking/anti-smoking debate have it with both barrels. Encompassing a trip to Hollywood as well as a kidnapping, the movie gives off a caffeinated buzz, capturing the book’s slightly giddy tone. (K.W.) Playing at Regal Downtown Mall 6

X-Men: The Last Stand (PG-13, 104 minutes) The third installment in the Marvel Comics franchise delivers the goods, with moments of sublime pathos and mystic power. With a cure in the offing, society’s untouchables—mutants with superhuman powers—must once again choose between reform or revolution. (K.W.) Playing at Carmike Cinema 6

Categories
Uncategorized

A rotating listing of classes, workshops and ongoing events

TryTHISNOW

Acting for Film 1144 E. Market St., Suite C. 977-1371. Offers acting for film classes with Emmy Award-winning director David Webster every Tuesday and Wednesday, 5-6:30pm. $150 per month.

Albemarle Therapy 1102 Rose Hill Dr. 979-8628. Offers an open gym/indoor playground for children 4 years or younger, with parental supervision, every Monday and Wednesday, 9:30-11am. $3.

Craft Attack at Jefferson-Madison Regional Library 201 E. Market St. 979-7151. For ages 8-11, ease summer boredom with crafts, every Thursday through July 27, 4pm. Registration required.

Creative Dance for Children 206 W. Market St. 823-4454. Every Tuesday at Studio 206: “Par-ents and Waddlers,” ages 8 months to 18 months, 9am; “Parents and Toddlers,” ages 18 months to 4 years, 10 and 11am. $90 for eight weeks.

Creative Learning After School and in the Sum-mer (CLASS) Program 1000 Belmont Ave. 245-2501. Offers daily after-school programs for Charlottesville elementary students, 3-5:30pm. Fees based on income.

DanceFit Movement Center 609 E. Market St., Studio 110. 295-4774. www.njira.com/dancefit. Holds KidsFit classes every Saturday for ages 3-7, 10:30am; KidsDance for ages 8-12, 11:30am. $10 per class.

Drop-In Storytime at Gordon Avenue Library 1500 Gordon Ave. 296-5544. A half hour of stories and songs designed for ages 3 through 5, all ages welcome, every Saturday through June 10, 11am.

Family Connections 1025 Park St. 296-4118. Offers parenting classes and workshops on a range of topics, such as “Surviving the Teen Years,” Thursdays, 6:30-7pm, $15; workshops Saturdays for parents of children up to age 6, 10:30am-noon, free. Registration required.

Family Focus Tours at Michie Tavern 683 Thomas Jefferson Pkwy (Route 53). 977-1234. Tours include treasure hunts, costumes and more (call for daily activities), 11am-3pm. Free for local residents, otherwise $6-8.

Family Storytime at Jefferson-Madison Region-al Library 201 E. Market St. 979-7151. Every Wednesday, 30 minutes of stories, rhymes and songs for kids under 6 with an adult. 11:30am.

FootNotes Music & Dance Studio 2363 Com-monwealth Dr. 242-0605. www.footnotesstudio. com. Offers classes of Kindermusik and dance classes for ages newborn to 8 years. Visit website for schedule and details.

Kindermusik with Miss Dana 245-9888. dana craster@yahoo.com. Licensed Kindermusik educator offers classes for infants, toddlers, young children and combined age groups. Registra-tion required. $48.

Kindermusik with Pam 823-2387. kmusikwith pam@aol.com. Licensed Kindermusik educator offers “Village” classes (newborns to 18 months) every Tuesday, 9:15am, and every Wednesday, 10:30am; “Our Time” classes for 18 months to 3 1/2 years every Wednesday, 9:15am, and every Friday, 10:30am. $65-195.

Light House Studio Classes 121 E. Water St. 293-6992. www.lighthousestudio.org. Offers film and video camps, including directing and video as art. Call for schedule and times.

Magic School Bus After School Science Club at Virginia Discovery Museum 574 E. Main St. 977-1025. www.vadm.org. Kids ages 4 through 7 use science in weekly themed hands-on activities. Every Thursday, 4-4:45pm. Free for members, public $4.

Monticello Tours for Children and their Fam-ilies 931 Thomas Jefferson Pkwy. 984-9822. Monticello.org. Hands-on opportunities and tours for children ages 6-11. Every day (except July 4) until September 4, 10am, 11am, noon, 1pm and 3pm. Call for ticket information.

Mother Goose Time at Jefferson-Madison Regional Library 201 E. Market St. 979-7151. Every Monday through July 24, a program of stories, rhymes and songs with a caregiver for prewalkers, 10am, and children under 2 who are walking, 11am. Free.

Old Michie Theatre and Drama Camp 221 E. Water St. 977-3690. www.oldmichie.com. Offers student performances every Friday and drama instruction and puppetry arts, 11:30am and 2pm. $1.

Preschool Power at Jefferson-Madison Regional Library 201 E. Market St. 979-7151. Through July 27, a program of stories and songs for 3- through 5-year-olds without adults or younger siblings every Thursday, 11:30am.

Preschool Storytime at Barnes & Noble Bar-racks Road Shopping Center. 984-0461. Meets every Wednesday and Thursday, 10:30am.

Preschool Storytime at Crozet Library 5791 Three Notch’d Rd. 823-4050. Every Thursday through May 11, a half hour of stories, songs and more for the preschool set, ages 3 through 5, 10:30am. Registration requested.

Preschool Storytime at Northside Library 300 Albemarle Sq. 973-7893. Through July 26: A half hour of stories, songs and finger plays for 3- through 5-year-olds to enjoy without parents. Every Wednesday, 11am, and every Thursday, 10:15am. Registration required.

Saturday Morning at the Movies at Gordon Ave. Library 1500 Gordon Ave. 296-5544. Every Saturday, a different movie for kids. Preschool-ers should be accompanied. 11am. Free.

Step-Up Stories at Northside Library 300 Albe-marle Sq. 973-7893. Every Monday through July 24, stories for school-aged children, 2:30pm. Free, registration required.

Storybook Dance at Virginia Discovery Mu-seum 574 E. Main St. 977-1025. www.vadm. org. Kids ages 2 through 6 play their favorite storybook characters and develop motor skills. Every Friday, 10:30am & 11:30am. Free for members, public $4.

Tales for Twos at Crozet Library 5791 Three Notch’d Rd. 823-4050. Every Thursday through May 11, a program of rhymes, songs, stories and finger plays for ages 2 through 3 and parents, 9:30am. Registration requested.

Toddler Time at Jefferson-Madison Regional Library 201 E. Market St. 979-7151. Every Thursday, a program specially for 2-year-olds with stories, songs and finger plays, 10am. Registration required.

Watercolor classes for preschoolers with Lee Alter at Wee-Ville 218C W. Water St. 963-0540. www.leealter.com. See website for schedule, $145.

Wonderful Wednesdays at Gordon Ave. Library 1500 Gordon Ave. 296-5544. Every Wednes-day, from June 21-Aug. 2, enjoy a different activity and entertainment, for kids of all ages, 3pm. Registration required.

Woodworking Classes 3244 Old Lynchburg Rd. 929-1220. Offers woodworking classes for kids. Contact Judy for more information on winter offerings.

Young Readers Book Club at Barnes & Noble Barracks Road Shopping Center. 984-0461. For children ages 8 to 12, meets the fourth Friday of the month, 7pm.

Categories
Arts

Featured events

music
Red Stick Ramblers mine the musical history of Louisiana—blues, zydeco, bluegrass and Cajun—and mix it up with traditional ’20s and ’30s jazz as they tour for their fourth album, Right Key, Wrong Keyhole. This young quintet has très strong instrumental and songwriting chops—their tight Western swing will have you saying, “Laissez les bon temps roulez!” Jolie Fille opens. At Gravity Lounge, Tuesday, June 13. $10, 8pm.

etc.
Imagine Jack Kerouac’s On
the Road being created on 8mm film instead of that infamous 120′-long scroll of typing paper. The Summer Film Series at Art Across the Bridge offers such a glimpse. See The Cut-Ups, a radical piece that adapts William S. Burroughs’ unique cut-and-paste writing method to the big screen. Christopher Maclaine’s The End, an experimental flick
showing five different people on the last day of their lives, also shows. Wednesday, June 14. $4, 8pm. 209 Monticello Rd. www.thebridgepai.com.

etc.
It’s fish-fry time with the “save the fishes” folk. River lovers and landlubbers alike can attend the first annual Rivanna River Regatta and Fish Fry. Activities include a canoe and kayak race, leisurely river activities, an outdoor concert and, of course, a fish fry
with all the fixins. Don’t forget to bring the guppies. Sponsored by the Rivanna Conservation Society. At Darden Towe Park, Saturday, June 17. $5-10, 12pm.

etc.
People all over the country (and the world) celebrate Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of American slavery. Held around every June 19, the holiday marks the 1865 date that Union soldiers landed at Galveston, Texas, with news that the Civil War had ended (a full two-and-a-half years after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation). This year, PVCC presents a tribute to black baseball in Virginia, an African Village, hands-on activities for children, re-enactments, food, art, and a special performance by the Kusun Ensemble, from Ghana, West Africa. It’s all happening in the
V. Earl Dickson Building at PVCC. Friday, June 16, 6pm; Saturday, June 17, 11am-4pm. 961-5372.

Music
On Thursday, June 15, The Blue Ridge Irish Music School brings the first of many (we hope) events to the former Prism space at 214 Rugby Rd. Chulrua, Paddy O’Brien, Patrick Ourceau and Pat Egan deliver virtuoso Irish fiddling,
button accordion squeezing and emotive guitar playing. Workshops before the concert include Irish guitar accompaniment, songs
and fiddle—as a bonus, each is offered by a member of the band. Call to register for
workshops. Concert: $12, 8pm. Blue Ridge Irish Music School. 214 Rugby Rd. 263-6288.

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Categories
Arts

Film Reviews

A Prairie Home Companion

PG-13, 105 minutes
Opens Friday at Vinegar Hill Theatre

    Minnesotans don’t like to draw attention to themselves, and the man who’s been pointing that out for over 30 years—drawing oodles of attention to both him and them in the process—plays the emcee in A Prairie Home Companion, Robert Altman’s cockeyed salute to a radio program that seems like it’s been around as long as radio itself. In a role he was born to play (literally), Garrison Keillor lumbers on and off the stage of the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota, launching into one shaggy-dog story after another, whether he’s on the air or not. And it isn’t entirely clear how we’re supposed to take him. As a sage? A windbag? Both? The conceit is that it’s the show’s last night (the theater having been bought by a Texas conglomerate that intends to turn it into a parking lot). Keillor and his guests, played by such luminaries as Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin, are ghosts. They just don’t know it.
    Improvising to beat the band, just as they did at this year’s Oscar telecast before handing Altman a Lifetime Achievement Award, Streep and Tomlin are the Johnson Sisters, Yolanda and Rhonda—all that’s left of what used to be a quartet. They still perform, but something’s clearly missing. Yolanda seems sad and tired, and Rhonda seems bitter. And like everybody else in the movie, they’re stuck in the past, swapping stories they’ve swapped so many times before that even they don’t remember who actually told them first. Alas, the stories don’t add up to much. We assume we’re being led somewhere, but we’re not. Altman’s always worked by indirection, finding his way to a theme and allowing us to find our own way—but he seems to have lost his sense of direction here. Although it’s based (loosely, one assumes) on a script by Keillor, the movie never gels. It feels like a first draft.
    And yet, as with any first draft, there are things worth keeping.  Duded up to look like they’d be perfectly at home on the range, Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly give faces to those longtime “Prairie Home” companions, Dusty and Lefty. And unlike Streep and Tomlin, these two could actually pass as a singing act: Their crusty voices conjure the very essence of popping open a can of beans while sitting around the campfire. But they’re given even less of a storyline than the sisters—although they still manage to break out with a bad-joke routine that turns out to be something of a showstopper. Also nice to have around (although he perhaps belongs in a different movie) is Kevin Kline as Guy Noir, the private eye who’s read too many Mickey Spillane novels. Now in charge of security, Kline’s Guy combines The Thin Man’s Nick Charles and The Pink Panther’s Inspector Clouseau—a bumbling fool with a certain debonair air. He, more than most, actually justifies Keillor having given flesh to what has heretofore been a figment of his imagination.
    Don’t expect any news from Lake Wobegon, though; Keillor is content to play a minor role in his own show (although there’s something in there about him and Yolanda having once kept the firelights burning, if you know what I mean). One wishes that Keillor and Altman had taken all these hints and turned them into something. The movie might well have been a worthy follow-up to Altman’s Nashville, which it resembles in certain ways. But Nashville, set during the American bicentennial, cast its net across the entire country, capturing the sense of doom that followed in the wake of all those political assassinations. A Prairie Home Companion, by comparison, seems stuck— hermetically sealed—in that old Fitzgerald Theater (and in the past).
    It’s about a show that was old-fashioned even when newly fashioned —“on the air since Jesus was in third grade,” as Keillor likes to say. And, for better or for worse, it goes out the same way it came in: not with a bang but with a whimper.

The Break-Up

PG-13, 106 minutes
Now playing at Regal Downtown
Cinema 6

    The Break-Up is billing itself as an “anti-romantic comedy,” so it shouldn’t surprise us when Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston spend the entire movie trying to make each other’s life a living hell.
    Think War of the Roses, only with a couple that just got together five minutes ago. Vaughn’s a guy’s guy, the kind that would like to put a pool table in the living room. Aniston is… Well, she’s basically Rachel again—sweet, spunky, skin the color of a perfectly roasted marshmallow Rachel. But here, to fit the movie’s contrived conceit, she has a preference for ballet over Nine Ball. Because, you know, opposites attract, right? Of course, before we know it, matrimony has given way to acrimony, but (what’re the chances?) neither party is willing to move out of their fabulous Chicago condo. Mayhem predictably ensues—as in War of the Roses, possession is apparently nine-tenths of the brawl.
    Directed by Peyton Reed (Bring It On), The Break-Up is being hammered by critics. But it’s often funny (albeit sometimes uncomfortably so).
    And there’s something so… refreshing about how far it’s willing to go to make us both laugh and cringe. Call it a date movie for those who, unbeknownst to their partner, have been planning a break-up of their own.

Categories
Arts

Enchanting April


April Johnson-Bynes was considering med school, but when she won the school talent show in fourth grade as a singer, she began to think, “Well, maybe I can do this.” She claims to have received her musical ability from her father, though it obviously runs in the whole family—she sang in the church choir with her mother and grandmother. April was part of a girl group, a la Destiny’s Child, in middle school, and graduated from the  performing arts high school in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Impressivley, she sang back-up for both Sheena Easton and Roberta Flack when they came through her hometown. As a student at North Carolina A&T, she began stepping outside of gospel and R&B and exploring classical voice. As director of the choral and theater programs at William Monroe High School, Ms. Johnson-Bynes  performs at Ash Lawn, and last month she gave a rousing performance at The Paramount Theater. She would very much like to sing at some of the larger venues, and ultimately has her sights set on The Kennedy Center.

Spencer Lathrop: The Paramount?
April Johnson-Bynes: The performance was intended to commemorate the Third Street entrance, which was the African-American entrance before the theater was integrated. I tried to cover the timeline of the African- American experience in this country. I sang Mozart, Brahms and Copland, and then went into negro spirituals, to hymns, then into jazz. Johnathan Spivey is my accompanist and my right-hand man.

Vocalists?
For classical vocalists, I would say Leontyne Price, because I love her style. And I like Denyce Graves. For jazz, I like Billie Holiday. I studied her life and music when I was in college. The first time I heard her was her tune “Strange Fruit.” And I like Nina Simone for her versatility. I especially like her protest songs, like “Mississippi Goddam” and “I Hold No Grudge.” My idol is Aretha Franklin. I try to buy all of her records. And I like singers from the neo-soul era, like Anthony Hamilton. I like the Marvin Gaye sound, concientious music.

Composers?
I love Aaron Copland. I performed “Shall We Gather By The River” from his American Songs at the Paramount. I really fell in love with his music while I was in college. His songs are so calming. I love Brahms. His love songs are so beautiful. And I love Beethoven because his style is so fiery. 

By Spencer Lathrop
pluggedin@c-ville.com

Categories
Living

True grits

If over 20 of your favorite local restaurants, bars and food shops joined with wine and beer purveyors to offer samples of their wares under one roof, you’d be hard-pressed to find an excuse not to go, right? And, if 100 percent of the proceeds benefit the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, there should be no stopping you. Well, if you’re reading this on Tuesday, June 13, you should grab your appetite and a few friends and head over to UVA’s Sponsors Hall from 5:30pm to 8:30pm for “Taste This! 2006.” To give you a mouth-watering preview, we asked one of the participants, Innkeeper Alan Pyles of The Lafayette Inn in Stanardsville, to share the recipe for one of the dishes they’ll have on hand. Kindly, Pyles chose the most amateur-chef-friendly entrée, the Inn’s Shrimp and Grits. Grits, of course, are a Southern tradition—and The Lafayette Inn knows tradition, believe me. Built in 1840, the Federalist-style brick building on Main Street in Stanardsville has housed a hotel, restaurant, boarding house, Civil War hospital, telephone exchange and local newspaper.  Now open for overnight guests and hungry diners, the Inn acts as the local coffee house in the mornings, a weekday lunch spot from 11:30am to 2:30pm (with brunch on Sundays), and a romantic dining choice from 5 to 9pm Wednesdays through Sundays. So try this recipe at home, and let Pyles know how you did at Taste This! (Tickets are $40 at the door. Get more info at www.brafb.org.) —Pam Jiranek

Lafayette Shrimp and Grits

8 21/25ct shrimp
1/4 cup purple onion, sliced
1/4 cup yellow and green bell pepper strips
1 oz. Southern Comfort
1/4 cup barbecue sauce
1/2 cup prepared fresh stone ground grits (The Inn’s grit recipe can be found at
TheLafayette.com)
1 tbs. clarified butter

Place pan on high heat, then add clarified butter. Toss in shrimp and sauté. When shrimp begin to turn opaque, add peppers and onion, and toss. As the vegetables begin to melt, remove from heat and add Southern Comfort. Return to heat and flambé. As flambé dies down, add BBQ sauce and simmer for 1 minute.
       To serve, place a scoop of grits in the center of a soup plate; arrange shrimp (tails up) on grits. Place onions and peppers in the center. Drizzle sauce along outside. Serves “one hungry client.”