Month: October 2011

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Arts

Life is not a fairy tale

 Life is not a fairy tale
“Scream Awards”
Tuesday 9pm, Spike
Spike’s “Scream Awards” are somewhat misleading. While the ceremony does honor the horror genre (mainstream horror, at least), it also doles out trophies to sci-fi, fantasy, and comic-book movies. Categories include everything from the mundane (Best Supporting Actor, Best TV Show) to the more specialized (Most Memorable Mutilation, Holy Sh!t Scene of the Year). Dominating this year’s awards are the final insallment of the Harry Potter franchise and X-Men: First Class. Nominees were picked (at least in part) by an advisory board that includes Darren Aronofsky, Tim Burton, John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Neil Gaiman, Robert Rodriguez, George Romero and Rob Zombie.
 
“Boss”
Friday 10pm, Starz
Kelsey Grammer gives TV yet another go after three failed series in a row (2005’s “The Sketch Show,” 2007’s “Back to You,” 2009’s dismal “Hank”). Of course, the man has had plenty of success with his 20-year run playing Dr. Frasier Crane on both “Cheers” and the character’s eponymous sitcom. His newest venture goes in a totally different direction—drama—as he plays Tom Kane, mayor of Chicago whose political success depends on being ambitious and smooth, and operating by a very complicated set of ethics. His web of political and personal wheelings and dealings threatens to collapse after he is diagnosed with a degenerative brain disorder, which he keeps a secret from even his most trusted allies. The solid supporting cast includes Connie Nielsen (Gladiator), Kathleen Robertson (“Tin Man”), and Martin Donovan (“Weeds”).
 
“Once Upon a Time”
Sunday 8pm, ABC
Two TV series this fall blend classic fairy-tale characters with modern settings. NBC’s “Grimm” bows on Friday, but this ABC series is getting the most buzz. Jennifer Morrison (“House”) plays Emma Swan (I know, I know), a down-on-her-luck bail bondswoman who is suddenly confronted by the son she gave up for adoption years ago. The storybook-toting kid has a whopper of a tale: Emma is actually the long-lost daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, and the Wicked Stepmother from the stories is real and has put a curse on a slew of fairy-tale characters, bringing them into the real world but wiping their memories of who/what they actually are. The cast also includes Ginnifer Goodwin (“Big Love”), Robert Carlyle (Trainspotting, The Full Monty), and relative unknown Lana Parrilla.
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Arts

First fiddle

American violinist Hilary Hahn has been a mainstay of the celebrity-soloist circuit since 1991, when she made her major orchestral debut at the age of 15. Over the last decade, Hahn has twice been awarded the Grammy for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance with Orchestra, and in 2010, a piece she commissioned from composer Jennifer Hidgon won the Pulitzer Prize. 

 
Violin virtuoso Hilary Hahn brings a mixture of classic and contemporary pieces to the Paramount this Wednesday, with Valentina Lisitsa accompanying on piano. 

Hahn’s curriculum vitae may be hard to square with things like her latest YouTube post, in which she interviews a betta fish via Skype—“What made you want to be a fish?” she asks. “Is it what you want always wanted to do?”—but whether she’s performing Tchaikovsky or satirizing dull reporters, Hahn is lucid, self-possessed and sincerely playful.

While you wouldn’t call her a crossover artist, Hahn has toured with the angelic Tom Brousseau and the scruffy Josh Ritter, and played on two albums by …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. On October 11, Hahn released a more traditional display of her technical virtuosity in the form of Ives: Four Sanatas, which features frequent collaborator Valentina Lisitsa on piano.

The program for Hahn and Lisitsa’s October 19 performance at the Paramount includes Bach’s “Sonata No. 1,” Beethoven’s “Sonata No. 2” and Brahms’ “Sonatensatz in C Minor,” as well as shorts from In 27 Pieces: The Hilary Hahn Encores, a current project that will culminate in the recording of 27 original works Hahn commissioned from contemporary composers. When I spoke with Hahn over the phone—a month after she interviewed the fish, so no (intended) connection there—she advised all in attendance this Wednesday to “come for the experience of simply hearing what happens, because this sort of old-fashioned program doesn’t occur very often.” 

Are all 27 of the commissioned pieces finished for your upcoming encore album?  

I’m currently working on 13 of the pieces to premiere next month, when the tour begins. It’s really exciting to think about presenting these new pieces to audiences so many times. Most of them are completely finished, but on a few I’m still working with the composers on little tweaks, making sure to get things the way they wanted. I’m going to record them at the end of this tour, and I’ll be getting the other 14 ready for next season. So it’s nice to focus on these pieces, which feel like they have unlimited potential for future performance. 

Did you do a lot of cold calling to get in touch with your composers?

Well, I could’ve had someone call for me but I really didn’t want to do that. I wanted to make contact with the composers so that I knew who they were and could established a rapport. I knew that not everyone I called would be able to do the project because these people have a lot of commissions they’re balancing and whatnot. I was actually forbidden to call a few people, because their publishers said they were too busy, and they didn’t even want to give them the chance to accept. But honestly, I didn’t expect so many of them to be open to the project, which is probably the reason the number of composers is so much larger than I initially anticipated. I knew I wanted to commission the pieces, so I could really feel a personal connection to them from start to finish, and find out what pulls them all together.

At the Paramount you’ll be playing Bach, Beethoven and Brahms alongside contemporary works. What drives a classical musician to play from the canon?

With someone like Tchaikovsky or Bach, a lot of people outside of classical music performance get the impression that it’s the same pieces played over and over again. But the thing is, it’s the same notes, but that’s about the only thing that stays the same. Of course, there are traditions of playing, certain things people tend to do that you can choose to go with or not. But you can interpret the speed of a piece, the loudness, the softness. You can interpret the rhythms. Everything in notation is basically relative, so what you choose to do with those relative proportions is up to you. It’s like giving two painters the same object. Of course, another part of it is simply growing up with a work. You know a song and you want to sing along. It’s a bit selfish, the whole artistic side of interpretation.

What is rigorous practice for, aside from obvious things like technique, fitness and memorization?

For me, preparing as much as possible and getting very comfortable with a piece lets ideas come to me in the moment when I’m playing it. You can’t just think of something and do it if you’re not very familiar with a piece. You need a really solid working knowledge of it in order to know what parameters you’re working with. Whether you really can push this tempo at this point or whether you really should put this emphasis on this note. Making decisions in the moment is what makes it really fun to perform. I just try to be as prepared as possible so the performance can be really spontaneous.

Evil Dead: The Musical, Invisible Hand, Crozet 5k and G. Love

Evil Dead: The Musical opened at Play On! Theater last night, and has its second showing tonight at 8pm. You don’t need to have seen the 1981 Sam Raimi film to enjoy it, but you will need a taste for the over-the-top violence and camp that made the original famous, in so-bad-it’s-awesome kind of way. Song titles include “Look Who’s Evil Now” and “What the F— Was That?” If you’re wearing clothes you don’t want spattered with red corn syrup, you might want to avoid the front five rows.

CBS19’s favorite band needs no introduction around here. We last saw Invisible Hand in September, when they opened for Deerhoof at the Jefferson. Between other projects, these guys have been working on a follow up to their debut album for a while now, and the new songs have sound great. Tonight, Hand plays the Tea Bazaar with talented out-of-towners Naked Gods and The Bronzed Chorus.

Rush the stage!

You could sleep in Saturday morning, or you could take the bull by the horns and conquer an early morning 5k in Crozet. Participants will need to be at Old Trail Village Center before 8am to qualify for late registration. If that sounds like a bit much, Saturday holds a few more relaxed opportunities to enjoy the outdoors, including a day of frontier-life and preservation exhibits in Shenandoah National Park. You can also head to Blue Ridge Parkway Milepost 5.8 at 10am to join Ranger Bob Marcua for a walk up Humpback Rock, and an intra-hike discussion of local flora and fauna, and the threats they face from invasive species.

And speaking of invasive species, G. Love and the Special Sauce is playing the Jefferson on Sunday. While not exactly invasive, these guy have been chill enough to stick around in the culture for going on two decades now. If you’d rather lay off the sauce, Tyler Ramsey of Band of Horses is playing at Mockingbird Music Hall in Staunton on Saturday, and some folk musicians who go by Humble Tripe are playing at the Garage on Sunday. An evening show in the park—what more could a Sunday afternoon want?

"Ships" by Tyler Ramsey

Occupy Charlottesville: Interview with organizer Zac Fabian

Zac Fabian, a recent UVA graduate, created OccupyCville.org on October 2, the same day that many Occupy Wall Street protestors assembled on the Brooklyn Bridge were arrested. The website, which began as an effort to amass news concerning larger organizing efforts, is now a community bulletin board for a Charlottesville-based organizing effort that Fabian says is slowly building shared ideals on city-specific issues.

"We haven’t come to a consensus. But there are a variety of issues," said Fabian. "What’s different about this movement is the idea that there isn’t one thing that we’re all upset about. What motivates us to action is different. And that’s why I think this is so special."

On Wednesday night, Fabian attended a recent OccupyCville assembly that maintained a steady crowd of 60 people, and saw an estimated 100 or so through the course of the evening. (A C-VILLE reader wrote that the crowd "ranged from small kids brought by parents to seniors.") Other organizers include local residents Bailee Hampton and Brandon Collins, both musicians and, the latter, a City Council candidate.

"Our issues range from corporate greed to the poverty rate in Charlottesville," said Fabian, who added that he learned about interest in a local Occupy effort while doing his own reading about the movement.

"I started the website with hopes that, if I took that domain name, I would be able to be a part of that," said Fabian.

The group called an assembly for this evening at 6:30pm at the nTelos Wireless Pavilion after a plan to rally in Lee Park on Saturday encountered an obstacle: the annual Charlottesville Chocolate Festival.

"We don’t want to interfere in any way with the community," said Fabian. "The chocolate fest has happened last five years, and proceeds go to support the homeless. We don’t want to interfere with that." He said more details would be posted to OccupyCville.org following tonight’s assembly.

Occupy Charlottesville: Bank of America boosts security, divestment planned

This week, the Downtown Mall Bank of America branch has looked a little different. A guard from G4S security, a firm with a history of contracted work with Bank of America, has stood regularly near the bank’s entrance during business hours. Today, a guard told C-VILLE that the Downtown branch is not alone; BoA branches near UVA and Barracks Road also have G4S personnel, who have traveled by bus from Richmond to monitor the banks this week due to the proliferation of Occupy movements.

Multiple Occupy movements have focused their attentions on Bank of America after the bank recently announced plans to implement a five dollar monthly fee for debit card use. Locally, Virginia Organizing—which had planned events to encourage divestment from banks including BoA, Wells Fargo and J.P. Morgan Chase—bumped its action up. Today at 1:30pm, several area residents will close checking accounts at Wells Fargo, according to VO’s Julie Blust.

“We have a few people who have checking accounts they’re closing. We have a woman who is going to close her IRA," said Blust. “We have a lot more people with Bank of America especially angry due to the new fees.” Blust said VO encourages people to look to smaller, community-based banks with credit unions—which may be good business news for the UVA Community Credit Union.

Virginia Organizing plans to assemble at Central Place, near the Downtown Wells Fargo branch. The G4S security officer said personnel pwants simply to ensure the safety of those within the vicinity of the bank.

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This Week's Edition: CAAR Real Estate Weekly

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The Front Porch; An American Tradition

What’s more, the front porch is an American tradition, part of our way of life, with a long history and deep cultural meaning—so deep that we are not always conscious of it. If you intend to build a new house or alter an existing one, consider adding a porch.

From a practical point of view, a covered entry provides shelter from rain, snow and scorching sun. Think of unlocking the door in a storm, while carrying a heavy bag. The porch provides a place to take off wet boots, to deliver a newspaper or package, or to wait after knocking. The roof shades the glass area beyond, a consideration in hot, sunny climates. And the protection from weather makes doors and windows last longer, less likely to warp, split and rot.
 
At least as important as these practical advantages, the front porch serves as a transition from inside to outside, an intermediate zone that is both public and private. By old habit, Americans sat on their porches in warm weather, talked to neighbors, and observed the passing scene. It still happens in small towns, including the one I live in, though air conditioning is blamed for a general retreat indoors during summer. Porches are usually elevated a bit from ground level, so a person seated on a porch is at eye level or higher than a person standing in the street—a psychological advantage. Railings reinforce the sense of protection. City governments in the United States sometimes encourage front porch use as a way of making neighborhoods safe and friendly. They sponsor campaigns to “Turn on your porch lights.” 
 
By the same token, a visitor can stand or sit here without trespassing in the home. You can talk to someone here that you do not want to invite inside, and still avoid being rude. The shelter is both real and symbolic, a neat way to handle a social interaction. The symbolism extends to how the porch is furnished. It can look bare and impersonal, or it can be an outdoor living room, with chairs, tables, plants, and sculpture. Porches in the South are sometimes opulent—a display of good taste and the owner’s flair for hospitality.
 
How big should a front porch be? Many people feel that wider is better, and a porch that spans the whole front of the house is ideal. Others like a wrap-around porch, one that turns a corner. An advantage to this type is varied sun exposure for different times of the day. The corner may get special treatment, rounded or chamfered, or even a turret roof, like a gazebo attached to the house. For a porch that is only an entry, it is good to allow a little room to each side of the door for ease of passage, if not for a place to sit. Six feet (two meters) is good, given that posts occupy some of the area.
 
How deep should you make a porch? Again, the minimum dimension for seating and a passageway is six feet. Front porches that are five and even four feet deep occasionally show up in new houses, but such a shallow porch is for show—a decorative accessory, instead of a useful outdoor space. For eating and other activities, more depth is needed, such as eight feet or more. At this dimension, the porch roof will be pitched low or flat, to fit under the sills of the second floor windows. And at very low pitches, the roof material must be metal or rubber instead of shingle.
 
The style of the porch should match the style of the house. Rustic posts and unpainted railings would be out of step with a Georgian or Federal house, for example, which should have slender columns and delicate wood or wrought-iron railings. Victorian or Queen Anne houses often have elaborate woodwork or “gingerbread” on the porch, including brackets and a valance. For some houses, the porch is itself the style-maker. Think of a classic bungalow, one story with a porch across the front, a deep overhang, and perhaps a low gable above.
 
Porches cost less to build than fully enclosed rooms. So the addition of a porch is a cost-effective way to increase living area, dress up the front of a house, and increase its curb appeal. Realtors say that first impressions count, when buyers go looking at houses for sale. The front must be appealing for them to want to step inside. Even if you don’t want to sell, you can add to the value of your home by adding an attractive, well-designed front porch.

 

Nontoxic and childproof, hand in hand

Now that our daughter is officially a toddler, we’ve entered the world of childproofing. Or rather, we’ve entered the phase when we really should be childproofing, even more than we should have before. Our house is old and funky and three-quarters-renovated, though, so there’s a certain amount of proofing we probably can’t do. We try to substitute vigilance in many cases.

Anyway, there’s one area in which I feel grateful for our green habits. It came to my attention the other day when our daughter opened the under-sink cabinet in our kitchen and pulled out a bottle of spray cleaner. (So cute when they toddle around with something almost as tall as they are!) It’s not that I was dying for her to ingest this stuff, but because it’s a pretty benign brand, I wasn’t in a particular hurry to pry it away from her, either.

It’s good to know that no matter what cupboard she gets into in our house, she won’t find bleach, ammonia or any of your basic poisonous cleaners. We just don’t own them. We clean with vinegar, dish soap, and baking soda. If that means our house isn’t as sparkly as your average room at the Waldorf, so be it. I’d rather not worry that my one-year-old might require medical help because of my fetish for lily-white grout in the shower.

And, of course, the reason we stopped buying those products in the first place, long before we had a kid, was for our own health. So it’s all of a piece.

 

Documentary about local preacher making a national splash

Step aside, parking lot attendants and game-playing teachers. A new local is at the center of a documentary gaining national attention.

Preacher is the story of Bishop William Nowell of New Covenant Church here in town, at the corner of Grady and Preston. The film grew out of a 2007 C-VILLE story by Jayson Whitehead, who then pitched Nowell as a subject to friend and filmmaker named Daniel Kraus. Kraus, a Chicago filmmaker, is in the process of assembling a body of work called "Work," documentaries about people at their jobs.  

The A.V. Club gushed in an A- review, before the film premiered on the Documentary Channel last month. "Throughout," said the review, "Preacher gets how even something as purposeful as prayer has its own jargon and rituals. Like enforcing the law, and making music, and inspiring young intellects, the act of nourishing souls requires preparation, equipment, repetition, and a sense of sustaining righteousness."

If you missed the Documentary Channel premiere, you can see it at the Virginia Film Festival on Sunday, November 6. Details are here.

A scene from Preacher.

Toscano to hold town hall meeting in newly added precinct

PRESS RELEASE: Office of Delegate David J. Toscano–– Delegate David J. Toscano will hold a town hall meeting on Monday, October 17th at 6 p.m. in the Woodbrook Elementary School Cafeteria. The public meeting with be an opportunity to introduce himself to voters in the Woodbrook precinct which was added to the 57th district in the recent redistricting bill, update citizens on the General Assembly session, and address issues of concern.

“I look forward to meeting my new constituents and hearing what matters most to them,” said Toscano.

Delegate Toscano will discuss the recent redistricting and other result of the the 2011 General Assembly session, as well as looking ahead to the pressing problems that continue to face the Commonwealth.
Constituents may direct questions to Delegate Toscano’s office at (434) 220-1660.