Month: August 2009

Green reads for the eighth month

Greetings, greenies. I’m fresh off a very informative session on chicken-keeping at the Backyard Revolution section of the Albemarle County fair. Check out the Revolution at the Heritage Harvest Festival if you missed it this weekend. But first, read these:

A perhaps dispiriting report on bisphenol A on the undersides of home canning lids. Sheesh! I’ve noticed some lids don’t have the guilty white coating, so I’ll be seeking those out for the rest of my canning projects this year.

The city is considering putting limits on the number of yard sales you can have (which I predict will lead to more stuff in landfills) and is also looking for new ways to recycle the Downtown Mall bricks, after grinding them up for trail surfaces turned out not to work. Let them know what you think, city residents.

Here’s a rather astounding one. Wal-Mart is planning to put a sustainability index next to every item it stocks. I am forced to grudgingly admire the company’s ambition in this area, even as the news (like its previous moves toward greenness) makes it more and more bizarre, to my mind, that it would insist on building a store on or next to a Civil War battlefield. Their PR people need to be slapped around a little.

Speaking of PR, it looks like a crazy bicyclist is about to hit our city, one stop on a 5,000-mile ride (dang!) meant to promote another bike ride, the Brita Climate Ride, which happens in September and will raise money for fighting climate change. Don’t know if we’ll easily be able to spot this guy when he rides in, but, um, yay for bikes!

And for the new pavilion that houses the Scottsville farmers’ market!

One more good development: the U.S. Green Building Council, which administers the much-vaunted LEED program for certifying sustainable buildings, will now require all LEED projects to actually track how they perform in terms of energy and water use. I’m a fan of the LEED program for sure and I think this will do a lot to strengthen it and help us learn about better buildings.

Got more links? As always, post them up, please.

In praise of Thomas Dean and local album art

I’ve told friends that I prefer shopping for used music because I can still beat iTunes prices and not sacrifice the physical product—the visuals and liner notes that accompany vinyl or CDs. (In fact, the MoMA has a great exhibit of new wave/no wave/punk album art up now, according to former C-VILLE writer John Ruscher.)

Given the right price, it’s possible to score good visuals with local audio purchases. And, much like the Richard Crozier and Edward Thomas collectors in our midst, I enjoy seeing a local artist’s perspective on or inspiration taken from a local band. For my money, nobody does better work than Thomas Dean.

Many of you have seen Dean on bass with The Invisible Hand, or handling guitar duties with Order. But Dean has also issued a collection of prints during the last few years that has grown more cohesive, and increasingly symbolic of a local and regional emphasis on the best parts of D.I.Y.—use of the stuff at hand, simple items and materials made severe through combinations and layers.

I asked Dean a few weeks ago to send some of his album art my way, and he obliged—the work isn’t strictly his local stuff, but you’ve seen plenty already between his efforts for The Invisible Hand, Borrowed Beams of Light and The Nice Jenkins. (Thanks, Thomas!) More on Dean’s work in next week’s C-VILLE; in the meantime, take a gander and leave comments about your favorite local album art.

The Carlsonics, self-titled (2003)

Nethers, What the Wind Will Never Tell (2007)

The High Strung, Ode to the Inverse of the Dude (2009)

Borrowed Beams of Light, self-titled (2009)

The High Strung, poster

NEW C-VILLE COVER STORY: Snap, crackle, pop!

Temps have been cooler than usual, but one thing that has stayed hot for four summers running is our annual photo contest. The art director heads to the beach and we turn to you, dear readers, to fill in the picture. The judges have voted and these are your winners. See for yourself here, and don’t forget to add your comments!