Pretending for one second that the Virginia Film Festival isn’t in town, filling an entire weekend with truly great films and opportunities to hear from the directors and stars who brought them into being. There wouldn’t be much going on this weekend, right?
Wrong! The first Friday in November upon us, which means art openings at galleries downtown and throughout the city. Michael Nye‘s showing at CitySpace Gallery, "About Hunger and Resilience," pairs large-print black-and-white photographs of people who’ve gone hungry in America with intimate, gripping five-minute audio stories from the subjects. While it might do the exhibit more justice to block off an hour or two and come alone—there are over 20 stories, and you can only listen to them through headphones—the exhibit will only be up until Monday, November 14. While you’re downtown, Second Street Gallery has an installation of prints by UVA art professor Dean Dass, and The Bridge/PAI has a series of photographs up called "What’s Cooking in the Kurdish Kitchen?" McGuffey, WVTF, Chroma Projects and a number of other spaces are also opening their doors, so pick up the print issue for the full First Fridays listing.
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Pepper Lewis, whose story you can hear at CitySpace.
Tonight, the noise/punk/folk project known as Emporer X comes to the Tea Bazaar, a one-man act by Floridian C. R. Matheny, whose precice, lyrical, heartfelt songwriting should do right by any Mountain Goats fan. Matheny is known to bury his recordings in out-of-the-way locales and post their GPS coordinates online. According to the internet, many of the unmarked purple cassette tapes containing his latest album, Western Teleport, are still scattered across North America. Cool!
C. R. Matheny of Emporer X mightily weilding a port-a-mic.
Music critics drop Sonny Fortune’s name in the same breath that they mention Coltrane, Cannonball and Parker. The legendary jazz saxophonist played a sold out show at UVA’s Brooks Hall in January, and if you were one of the unlucky few who missed it, the winds of Fortune have turned in your favor. Joined by Bob Butta on keys, James King on bass and Nasar Abadey on drums, Sonny returns Sunday for an encore performance. The show starts at 7pm, and doors-only tickets are available at 6. Given how quickly Fortune sold out in January, it would behoove the committed jazz fan to get there early.