Month: May 2010

O.K., so Virginia may not have been founded as an overflow saucer for English debt prisons (unlike certain peach-lovin’ southern neighbors we could name), but we’ve certainly had our share of miscreants and malefactors over the long history of the Commonwealth. And while things aren’t nearly as bad as they could be (this year’s blockbuster beach read, “Crime In Virginia” by the Virginia State Police, reports that violent crimes in 2009 were down almost 10 percent from 2008), just one glance at the daily headlines shows that the bad folks are still out there.

Unfortunately, there’s simply no way to stop every horrible crime before it happens. (Until the State Police finally get their long-awaited Precrime Division up and running, that is.) Which is why every new administration has to wrestle with just what level of law-and-order activity it wants to pursue.

So far, it’s been hard to get a good read on Governor Bob McDonnell’s incarceration-related inclinations. On the one hand, he’s performed some standard-issue Republican tough-on-crime jujitsu: He put the kibosh on Tim Kaine’s plan to transfer UVA double-murderer Jens Soering back to his native Germany, started (and then quickly stopped) insisting that felons pass an essay test to regain suffrage, and refused to grant clemency to convicted killer Darick Walker, who was put to death last Thursday.

On the flip side, McDonnell has also shown a surprising interest in subjects that most Republicans regard as squishy liberal claptrap: rehabilitation and prisoners’ rights. Not only did he announce a prisoner re-entry program to help ex-cons acclimate to the outside world, but he also recently signed a bill mandating that juveniles awaiting trial cannot be housed in adult correctional facilities.

Ironically, the first real test of McDonnell’s indistinct crime-fighting philosophy looks to come from an unlikely location: the office of his own attorney general. Yes, once again Ken Cuccinelli has managed to land smack dab in the middle of everything. (He’s like the Spam of Virginia politics!) Here’s the problem: It seems that the Cooch’s second biggest individual campaign donor last year was one Bobby Thompson, a sketchy Florida fundraiser whose charity—the U.S. Navy Veterans Association—is almost certainly a massive scam. As revealed by the St. Petersburg Times, every single military officer associated with USNVA appears to be fictional, its offices are actually a rented PO box, and the $22.4 million it raised is now nowhere to be found. Thompson, to nobody’s surprise, has completely disappeared.

Now, it wouldn’t be a big deal if Cuccinelli would just return the $55,000 he got from Thompson; McDonnell was quick to donate the $5,000 he received to charity. But as of this writing he’s refused. (“We don’t assume someone is guilty based on circumstances that are out of the ordinary,” he told the Roanoke Times.) And not only is he keeping the cash, but so far he’s shown little interest in pursuing any sort of criminal investigation into USNVA.

O.K., Governor McDonnell, getting tough with convicted murders is an easy call—but what do you do when your own AG is hoarding tainted money and refusing to do the one thing he’s paid to do?

Sometimes this job is harder than it looks, eh guv’ner?

The comment board on my Feedback blog became ground zero in the debate over women in rock music when I asked an age-old question in April. Where are the women in Charlottesville rock?

Just because the question bears asking doesn’t mean it can’t be answered. There are several bands here in town that prominently feature the strong contributions of women. And as one local rock musician told me: though you can’t find women in rock, you might find them in music where women have long been visible, like folk and country—genres that share a border with rock. Here’s where you took the question.

Kati Jackson, guitar, Kiste. Jackson was guitarist for the late, great metal band Kiste, where she could be seen pursing her lips beneath a mop of unruly bangs, mimicking rock star moves and, most of all, clearly enjoying herself.

Morwenna Lasko, violin. Even Charlie Daniels might cry uncle upon hearing Lasko play the fiddle.

Kristin Adolfson, accordion, the Raquellos. Armed with nothing but her accordion, Adolfson brought the Raquello’s adventurous lyricism with her instrument’s worldly air.

Renee Reighart, trumpet and keyboard, the Hilarious Posters. Librarian by day and musician by night, Reighart is likely the dream woman for many local rock dweebs.

Aly Buchanan, trumpet, We Are Star Children. Buchanan has been playing trumpet for We Are Star Children since the band was called Straight Punch to the Crotch. The band’s charismatic singer Gene Osborn says, “She’s a fierce, fierce musician, and she’s great to work with.”

Morgan Moran and Carter Lewis, bass and guitar, the Falsies. When singer Peter Markush asks in one Falsie’s song, “Dondé esta mis pantalones?” Moran and Lewis are quick to respond with an “Aqui!”

On their fifth album, Brooklyn’s the National sound more than ever like a band on the cusp of something bigger. Their elegant rock has made them an indie heavyweight, but their polish and calculated drama suggest that the band would be equally suited to stardom on the level of Coldplay or U2. (Even rawer tracks like 2005’s “Abel” are easy to imagine as 10,000-fan sing-alongs.) They’ve got the image, the chops, and the confidence; all they need to cross over is a hit.

That hit, sadly, is nowhere to be found on High Violet, their first record since 2007’s Boxer. The band continues to drift into expansive, less forceful territory; from the sad shimmer of opener “Terrible Love,” High Violet’s momentum builds and then dissipates track by track, racking up occasional highlights (particularly the uptempo single “Bloodbuzz Ohio”) but failing to really distinguish the songs from each other. The inventive arrangements come across too subtly in the performance and production, and the same-sounding compositions are particularly unkind to vocalist Matt Berninger, whose sad-sack baritone is less affecting when its formula is so easily observed. (Even Bryan Devendorf, whose driving percussion has always kept the National’s mopier leanings in check, eases off considerably.) Most confounding is the band’s tendency to downplay its best hooks (“Sorrow”), or bury them deep in otherwise unexceptional songs (“Afraid of Everyone”). There’s a wider audience out there ready for the National, but the National doesn’t seem quite ready for them.—Nick Huinker

Nineteen-year-old Demonte Burgess has a history with Sixth Street S.E. Last August, he was arrested for trespassing on the 700 block, near the Charlottesville Redevelopment & Housing Authority’s public housing development, after local police asked him not to return to city housing. Now, Burgess is charged with second-degree murder in the death of 32-year-old Miguel Salazar, who was killed in January in the 1600 block of Sixth Street, S.E.—fewer than 10 blocks from Burgess’ previous arrest.

Burgess, who is currently being held without bond in the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail, is also charged with robbery and malicious assault in connection with the wounding of Rafael Ayala. Both Salazar and Ayala were shot in the Mountain View Mobile Home Park near midnight on Friday, January 22, following what Charlottesville Police Chief Tim Longo described at the time as a “confrontation” with two black males. Ayala was wounded in the shoulder and treated at the University of Virginia Medical Center; Salazar died from a gunshot wound to the head.

Richmond resident Antonio Grooms was arrested in February and also charged with second-degree murder and assault in connection with the Mountain View incident. Both are scheduled to appear in Charlottesville General District Court on June 10 at 3pm.

A resident of the Mountain View park who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal from Mountain View’s management told C-VILLE last week, “We don’t know what happened, we just heard the shots.” The resident said that police responded within five to 10 minutes of the gunfire.

The resident also said that Manufactured Housing Enterprises (MHE), which manages Mountain View, installed a series of streetlights along the two roads that enter the park, albeit after the shooting took place. John Henry Jordan, Vice President of Operations for MHE, says the light installation took place during the last month, and was “already in the works” when the January shooting took place.

“We want to do everything we can to provide safe housing for our hardworking residents there,” says Jordan. A second resident, who recently moved into the park, said he had not heard about the January shooting or the subsequent arrests.

Dear Ace: I really envy the parents of the next Picasso. Chances are, all they’ve gotta do is let their kid find some paints, a canvas and a brush and she practically trains herself. Me, I’m raising another Federico Fellini, or at the very least a Bertolucci or a Pasolini. So how do you nurture a budding film prodigy, anyway?—Spinning-Reels-in-Charlottesville
Best start them young, Ace reckons. Wean them on timeless celluloid classics at The Paramount and local indie flicks at Vinegar Hill. Take them to see Virginia Film Festival speakers. What loving parent of directorial talent wouldn’t want his son or daughter to take John Waters as a role model? Maybe Ace is the wrong person to ask.
Once your little ones reach middle school, though, there are a couple more concrete steps you can take, right here in Charlottesville, to prepare them for a directorial career. For one, check out the Tandem Friends School’s film program, which takes students through several years of intensive instruction in various digital media techniques. Middle schoolers begin learning iStop Motion, and in seventh grade start developing claymation films. Eighth graders hone their digital filmmaking chops by producing an entry for the Quaker-oriented International Bridge Film Festival. Students who enroll in Tandem’s Upper School learn more advanced film production techniques, and also produce material for the Bridge Festival.
You’ll also want to look at Charlottesville’s Light House Studio, an independent media educational center located at the City Center for Contemporary Arts, in the same building as Live Arts and Second Street Gallery. A non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, Light House offers introductory summer programs in filmmaking and animation, in addition to more advanced directorial workshops focused on narrative, documentary and other topics. Recently, Light House concluded its First Annual Light House Sweded Challenge, a two-weekend event in which amateur filmmakers competed to remake their favorite films with minimal resources and shoestring budgets.
If college is in your child’s future, the UVA McIntire Department of Art boasts a series of excellent filmmaking courses, including an introductory seminar taught by Guggenheim-winning director Kevin Everson. Also consider VCU’s nationally ranked Photography and Film BFA/MFA programs.
 

Dear Ace: I really envy the parents of the next Picasso. Chances are, all they’ve gotta do is let their kid find some paints, a canvas and a brush and she practically trains herself. Me, I’m raising another Federico Fellini, or at the very least a Bertolucci or a Pasolini. So how do you nurture a budding film prodigy, anyway?—Spinning-Reels-in-Charlottesville

Best start them young, Ace reckons. Wean them on timeless celluloid classics at The Paramount and local indie flicks at Vinegar Hill. Take them to see Virginia Film Festival speakers. What loving parent of directorial talent wouldn’t want his son or daughter to take John Waters as a role model? Maybe Ace is the wrong person to ask.

Once your little ones reach middle school, though, there are a couple more concrete steps you can take, right here in Charlottesville, to prepare them for a directorial career. For one, check out the Tandem Friends School’s film program, which takes students through several years of intensive instruction in various digital media techniques. Middle schoolers begin learning iStop Motion, and in seventh grade start developing claymation films. Eighth graders hone their digital filmmaking chops by producing an entry for the Quaker-oriented International Bridge Film Festival. Students who enroll in Tandem’s Upper School learn more advanced film production techniques, and also produce material for the Bridge Festival.

You’ll also want to look at Charlottesville’s Light House Studio, an independent media educational center located at the City Center for Contemporary Arts, in the same building as Live Arts and Second Street Gallery. A non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, Light House offers introductory summer programs in filmmaking and animation, in addition to more advanced directorial workshops focused on narrative, documentary and other topics. Recently, Light House concluded its First Annual Light House Sweded Challenge, a two-weekend event in which amateur filmmakers competed to remake their favorite films with minimal resources and shoestring budgets.

If college is in your child’s future, the UVA McIntire Department of Art boasts a series of excellent filmmaking courses, including an introductory seminar taught by Guggenheim-winning director Kevin Everson. Also consider VCU’s nationally ranked Photography and Film BFA/MFA programs.

You can ask Ace yourself. Intrepid investigative reporter Ace Atkins has been chasing readers’ leads for 21 years. If you have a question for Ace, e-mail it to ace@c-ville.com.

Save for the 1907 bronze sculpture of Homer at one end of UVA’s original campus and the life-size, marble Thomas Jefferson at the other, the closest thing to a statue at Sunday’s 181st graduation exercises was University President John Casteen, who appeared both timeless and unshakeable before a crowd of thousands of graduates, his wife and incoming UVA president Teresa Sullivan.

“This is, in a sense, a daunting moment for me,” said Casteen, after students and faculty completed their hour-long procession down UVA’s most famous stretch of grass. While Casteen admitted he was more used to observing commencement speeches than giving them, he delivered a speech that both celebrated the occasion for students and respected some of the darkness the community faced in the weeks prior.

In fact, during his last major speech as president before his August 1 resignation, Casteen sounded more the English professor that he once was than the captain of a $3 billion capital campaign. He left the numbers to John Wynne, rector of the UVA Board of Visitors, who introduced Casteen as “a remarkable man, right for the time at Mr. Jefferson’s University” before a crowd of more than 6,000 graduates.

“After today, with the awarding of your degrees, one-half of the living alumni of the university will have earned their degrees during John’s presidency,” said Wynne, who also mentioned that new buildings and additions during Casteen’s time make up more than 40 percent of the UVA grounds. “And so his influence will extend, through you and all he has accomplished, far into the future.”

Skipping his own résumé, as well as personal anecdotes, Casteen used his commencement speech for a short course on Romantic poet John Keats and his idea of “negative capability”—what Casteen defined as “the capacity to live with uncertainty and to accept that not every mystery can be solved, not every incongruity resolved.”

“Just as the University has not been perfect in your time here, the world to which you go is flawed and, in some senses, corrupt,” said Casteen. “…And yet, as goodness has existed here in your time as a student, it exists also in the world to which you go now, but with the condition that good in the world to which you go is yours to create.”

Casteen’s Keats lesson closed with the poet’s comparison of life to a “mansion of many apartments,” both an ongoing illumination and progression through darkness. “Here we must decide for ourselves whether or not to act—whether we will step out courageously to explore those dark passages,” said Casteen.

The themes of his speech—the willingness to act and speak, departure from UVA to “the world to which you go”—veered close to comments he made following the slaying of fourth-year student Yeardley Love, whose name was the final words of Casteen’s speech.

“Cheers at games, no matter what the sport,” said Casteen, as he listed a few lasting sounds from around campus. “And the name of Yeardley Love.”

Roughly an hour after commencement concluded with a presentation of degree candidates, Love was awarded a posthumous degree during a diploma ceremony for UVA’s politics department.

“We’re not mourning Yeardley, but celebrating her achievements as a member of this class,” said Jeffrey Legro, chairman of the department. A UVA alum and cousin of Love accepted her diploma while the crowd, including a few membes of Love’s extended family and women’s lacrosse coach Julie Myers, offered a standing ovation.