Month: June 2013

Categories
Arts

Tried and true: Dwight Howard Johnson rides an irresistible formula

Dwight Howard Johnson’s (Tom Daly, Greg Sloan, Drew Carroll) long-awaited, inaugural recording is full of punchy pop hooks perfect for your summer playlist. Photo by Tom Daly.

The pun-named Dwight Howard Johnson is neither a hotel chain nor a center for the Lakers, but rather a Charlottesville band. It plays appealing and charming pop rock, drawn from the timeless well of all pop rock bands, while reminding one of the 1990s, when such pop music was actually popular.

The most obvious comparison here is to Weezer—the early, good Weezer albums, thankfully—but there’s also stray bits of the Exploding Hearts, Blur, and perhaps even a dash of Elvis Costello at his most energetic. The guitar parts are distorted but the vocals are squeaky-clean, and while the dynamic between catchy love songs and exuberant punk energy is hardly an original formula, it’s one that’s endured throughout the decades because it’s so often successful.

Strident, earnest proclamations are a sure-fire road to immediate listener irritation for a great many songwriters of this stripe, but Drew Carroll has the taste and talent to avoid their pitfalls, keeping his boyish voice in check with some mild sarcasm and, more importantly, a great ear for catchy pop hooks, all of which are effortlessly carried across by the band’s breezy energy and momentum and balanced by just enough grit to keep things anchored.

The rhythm section, drummer Greg Sloan and bassist Tom Daly, fit just right—not too sharp, not too sloppy—and propulsive enough to give Carroll’s songs momentum. What they lack in subtlety they make up for with enthusiasm, and their angular energy goes a long way towards holding the songs together; the occasional awkward bridge or overreaching moment is quickly forgotten as the songs charge forward, dropping hooks left and right. Most clock in around the three minute mark.

A year and a half after forming, and gradually winning the hearts of local rockers, Carroll, Daly, and Sloan have completed their debut album, Take Anything (issued by local WarHen Records). It’s the best type of home-recorded pop/rock album. Totally professional and clean, but still appealingly homemade, a labor of love rather than an overbearingly polished commercial product, it could easily be the effort of a small professional studio.

Much of the material here isn’t particularly memorable on paper, but the delivery sells it. “Want Me Close” even pulls off a chorus of “bomp-a-bomps” and handclaps, for the many of us who had forgotten how good that sounds when paired with Ramones-style buzzsaw-guitar riffs. “Right to Sleep” isn’t a great song because it calls out the hypocrisies of adult life, it’s great because it’s reminiscent of generations of songs on the same theme, and it will be stuck in your head for weeks.

There are perhaps reasonable reservations to be had, but they become largely irrelevant as the riffs and hooks come too fast to allow any feelings of doubt to settle in. The questionably titled “Baby it’s All Good” is the riskiest reach here, halving the tempo and taking time to wander before building to the blowout chorus that redeems it. “Expected Results” and “Away from Me” are high points, and although they’re the album’s longest tracks, they feel like the shortest. The entire record barely breaks half an hour, and the brisk sugar rush will hold on repeat listens, especially as the hot summer weather approaches.

Dwight Howard Johnson isn’t re-inventing the wheel, or doing anything you haven’t heard before, but it’s a fun, memorably talented, ass-kicking pop-rock band that lives in your home town, and it’s well worth hearing the show and buying the album. You can do both on Friday, June 28 at the Southern. Weird Mob and Challenger open. The music starts at 9pm and the tickets are $8-10 and $20 for a ticket/record combo.

Hand to mouth

Fellow notable rockers Invisible Hand are still at work on their next proper full-length, but spring cleaning in the archives has produced enough material for a teaser cassette-only release on Harrisonburg’s Funny/Not Funny label. The title Squirrel Jail paired with a grainy headshot of one of its tour mates in the Naked Gods (who the Hand have nicknamed Squirrel) gives an appropriate indication of the seriousness of this release, but the Hand has always been a band of diverse tastes, interests, and influences, and this warts-and-all odds-and-sods reveals many facets of its musical character that would remain well-hidden if one were to judge only by its proper material.

Most notable here is the inclusion of “A Song Called Krautrock,” the band’s ever-shifting standard set closer, in which it stretches its legs, allowing a noisy, sprawling jam over several minutes of propulsive grooves, before eventually returning to a killer bridge and chorus.

The strangest cut—though also a highlight—is “Prince Bolan Returns from Battle.” Reportedly inspired by the band’s mutual love of Steely Dan (an influence impossible to trace from their concerts, but unavoidable in their tour van), the squeaky-clean keyboard-funk groover actually sounds closer to interstitial music from a lost Blaxploitation flick. The “joke” eventually pays off, though, as not only is the beat an infectious one, but the eventual bridge, once it appears is actually one of the finer ones Smith has penned.

There are other gems as well: “Pigeons” is one of their most direct and amusing would-be singles, beginning with the classic couplet “I’m not homeless / if I’m on your couch,” and jogging forward into a catchy ’60s-psych pastiche. “Everything’s Fair Game” is totally different from its live form. Instead of nervous raw energy, it’s been slowed to a mid-tempo, shoe-gazing bit of dream-rock. The next track, “Wounded Eels,” overcompensates with 45 seconds of Boredoms-esque punk incoherence.

While the Hand’s previous cassette compilation, Sinister Hand, remains its finest offering to date, Squirrel Jail is comparatively inessential. Practice takes and overdubbed demos of recently released material like “Eating Out,” “Call Me Ishmael,” and “Bleach Bums,” are mixed with rough versions of prospective forthcoming album cuts like “Smile,” “Lies,” and “Flange.” The edits are sloppy, the overdubs are rough, and the diamonds are mixed in with the coals, but the tape nevertheless provides a bigger picture of a fascinating band, and with 20 songs on two sides, it contains enough material to keep its most ardent followers in the loop until the next album drops.

 

Share your thoughts on song outtakes below…

 

Categories
News

The Power Issue: Who’s at the top?

Gabe Silverman in the middle of West Main Street. Photo: Jackson Smith.

A university still dealing with the ripple effects of an attempted leadership shakeup turned PR disaster. A political landscape in flux, awaiting a November election that could bring big shifts. A city poised for growth in a recovering economy. An expanding community of entrepreneurs chasing after big money with big ideas.

Four game fields, if you will. And the people populating the pages that follow are the players you need to watch. These are our lists—and one outside observer’s picks—of the educators, governors, builders, and innovators holding the most cards.

Yes, it’s pretty arbitrary. And it’s only a snapshot. But in a town where politics, business, and higher ed are so tangled up in each other, it’s useful to remember who controls the message, the money, the land, the people, the next big thing—in short, the power.

 

UVA

Terry_Sullivan_Portraits_02_DA
Teresa Sullivan. Photo: Dan Addison/UVA University Communications

It’s been a year since President Teresa Sullivan’s ouster first made headlines all over the country, and the message from UVA’s Board of
Visitors and administrative leadership has for many months now been some iteration of “let’s move on.” The story has kept churning, of course, but the relatively high rate of turnover on the Board means that the central figures of last June’s debacle have slipped more and more into the background. Even if faculty and others in the community keep pressuring for answers and reform, time has meant the University’s governors and some of its administrators are literally moving on. So who’s stepping up—and who’s still here?

Teresa Sullivan
President
When we were compiling this list last year, Sullivan’s future at UVA hung in the balance. The Board of Visitors was prepping for a much-anticipated meeting in which they planned to announce whether they would reinstate the president they had tried to kick to the curb a few weeks earlier. Even in the uncertainty, we put Sullivan on top of the list of UVA power players (albeit with a question mark), and we’re doing it again this year.

Not only did she survive the attempt by the Board of Visitors’ leadership to remove her, Sullivan managed to rally around her an indignant faculty that has continued to champion her. The very fact that she stood her ground made her famous far beyond Charlottesville, and drew new attention to her plans and policies: a more decentralized approach to long-term financial planning; more emphasis on interdisciplinary study; more attention paid to the care and feeding—and influence—of faculty. Since last June, she’s overseen the dismantling and rebuilding of her administration, hiring new chief deputies and restructuring the University’s messaging apparatus. Her newly reorganized communications department will be headed up by the most recent administrative hire, current University of Connecticut spokesman David W. Martel, who will report directly to Sullivan as a member of her cabinet when he arrives in August.

And by hanging onto power, she’s become something of a symbol in the ongoing national debate over how higher education should be run. Score one for the anti-corporate-governance, hand-the-reins-to-the-academics crowd. And despite rumors that she might be lured away to her previous employer, University of Michigan, she indicated in a recent interview that she doesn’t intend to give up her hard-won seat any time soon.

“I came here to do the job, and I still want to do it,” she told a Richmond Times-Dispatch reporter.

William Goodwin 01 DA
William Goodwin. Photo: Dan Addison/UVA University Communications

William Goodwin
Vice-Rector of the Board of Visitors
Richmond billionaire and Darden alum Bill Goodwin wasn’t exactly new to UVA’s Board of Visitors when he was appointed as an advisor to the Board by Governor Bob McDonnell last June. A big-time donor to both McDonnell and UVA, he served from 1996 to 2004 as the appointee of another Republican governor, George Allen.

Goodwin officially became a Visitor again in January, when he was tapped to fill the seat vacated by Randall J. Kirk, and took on the key role of vice chair of the finance committee, helping craft the University’s recently approved budget. Last month, he solidified his importance by accepting his appointment as vice rector, putting him in line for the top spot on the governing board in two years, when George K. Martin’s term as rector is up.

He’s got the deep pockets and political connections, so what about his views on Board governance? So far, Goodwin’s made it clear he’s cut from the same cloth as the current Board leader. Upon appointment, Goodwin quickly allied himself with Dragas, who was reinstalled at the same time he got the nod from McDonnell. He has criticized efforts to shine light on closed-door Board proceedings, and publicly dismissed the Faculty Senate’s urges for full disclosure of what led to the attempted ouster at a late summer meeting last year, telling then-president of the Senate George Cohen “the more you dig, the more you make the University look bad.”

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Patrick Hogan. Photo: Dan Addison/UVA University Communications

Patrick Hogan
Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer 
After Michael Strine resigned as UVA’s COO in August 2012 amid hints and rumors that he had been more closely allied with the rector and vice rector than the president they tried to force out, the office remained vacant for just over two months. Then came the announcement of the Board’s approval of 60-year-old former Ernst & Young executive Patrick Hogan.

While not an alum, Hogan already had close ties to the University. He was named to the McIntire School Advisory Board in 2000, served on the Board of Trustees for the school’s foundation, and was appointed to the Medical Center Operating Board in 2011. He’s also father and father-in-law to a pair of Wahoos.

The position of COO at a major university is always going to be an important one, but it’s become even more powerful at UVA under Hogan. He came in particularly strong, the careful pick of a president still riding high on the tide of support from the University community. And this spring, he made public a major organizational shift: Rather than hire a new chief financial officer—a key cabinet position that had long been vacant—the duties of that office would be folded into his, making it clear that as the administrative reshuffling in the wake of Sullivan’s reinstatement continues, he’s holding quite a few cards.

Helen Dragas
Rector
She may only be the head of UVA’s governing body for a few more weeks, but Dragas’ term on the Board isn’t up for another three years. The fact that she was reappointed by Governor Bob McDonnell last summer shows she’s still got political clout, and the fact that she rode out the firestorm of criticism over her pivotal role in the ouster shows she’s got the will to keep deflecting detractors and pushing her agenda—which, according to her recent interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch, includes more focus than ever on institutional efficiency. In her words, “we need to ensure we spend every dollar effectively and maximize every other revenue source.”

Tom Skalak
Vice President for Research
Skalak, head of a well-known biomedical engineering lab at UVA, was tapped by former president John T. Casteen III to step into the role of the University’s chief driver of innovation. Since then, he’s overseen the total rebuilding of UVA’s patent-holding organization, hiring a tech-transfer guru to help rewrite the rules for licensing and ventures. That move, as well as the fostering of collaborative initiatives like the multidisciplinary OpenGrounds studio, the UVA Entrepreneurship Cup, and Darden’s new iLab, have placed the University squarely in the center of a Charlottesville startup scene that’s churning with ideas, inventors, and investors. Skalak puts a great deal of emphasis on the need for UVA to reach out and connect with that scene—“we’re a hub in this broader constellation,” he told C-VILLE earlier this year. And as Charlottesville’s tech and biotech industries grow on a steady diet of ideas spun from UVA business classrooms and labs, so does the importance of Skalak’s position.

Still got it? 

UVA’s faculty grabbed the metaphorical—and literal—bullhorn during the turmoil of last spring, and have done their best to keep a firm grip on it and steer the ensuing conversation toward shared governance and other issues they hold particularly dear. But some, like former computer science professor William Wulf—the only faculty member to publicly resign over the Sullivan firing—worry that the wind went out of their sails when Dragas and Sullivan pledged to make amends and move forward. UVA’s Faculty Senate and a brand new local chapter of the American Association of University Professors continue to bring up the need for more faculty involvement in governance issues, and point to the continued fallout from last spring as a reason why: More secrecy and not enough academic voices on the Board means a long and messy recovery when mistakes are made. They did convince the University’s governors to include non-voting faculty members on Board committees, but they still haven’t won a seat on the Board itself, which indicates their bargaining chip—a vote of no-confidence dating to last June—might not be enough to get them the changes they still want to see.

Categories
News

UVA Foundation-owned Boar’s Head under fire for wage issues

Employees at the UVA-affiliated Boar's Head Inn say that even after two investigations found their employer had violated labor laws, wage issues persist at the resort. Staff photo.

Hospitality staff at the Boar’s Head Inn, the Ivy resort owned and operated by UVA’s nonprofit development corporation, are complaining of unpaid wages and retaliation by management, and their outcry has shed light on a history of labor law violations at the University-affiliated hotel and country club.

In an anonymous letter mailed last month to UVA Foundation CEO Tim Rose, whose organization owns the Inn, employees said that despite twice coming under federal scrutiny for labor practices, “working conditions have not improved,” and staff are underpaid, shortchanged on overtime, and subjected to what they called “bullying” from managers.

The Inn has a less-than-spotless record when it comes to fair wage issues. Two separate Department of Labor investigations, the most recent completed last year, have resulted in the company being required to cough up more than $122,000 in back pay and $8,800 in fines for repeat violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The department first looked into wage issues at the Boar’s Head in 2000, when investigators from its Richmond Wages and Hours division began scrutinizing pay practices and the employment of minors. That time around, the department agreed to allow the resort to do its own self-audit, according to a report released under the Freedom of Information Act. The same report, released in the spring of 2001, revealed that the resort was underpaying dozens of staff members.

According to the Fair Labor Standards Act, employers must pay employees overtime at 1.5 times their regular pay rate for any hours over 40 worked in a single week, and the overtime calculation must count commissions as part of employees’ regular rate. Certain employees aren’t covered by that rule, but in order for employers to count them as exempt, workers have to meet certain criteria: They must make 1.5 times minimum wage and get more than half their salary from commissions.

The 2001 report showed that 65 non-exempt employees were being shortchanged, their employers failing to count commissions as part of their regular pay when calculating overtime. The problem cropped up among desk clerks, whose commissions on certain sales weren’t added in, and among banquet servers, whose overtime calculations hadn’t included their share of the mandatory gratuity collected at events.

In addition, the resort’s self-investigation revealed 14- and 15-year-old employees were kept at work past 7pm during the school year on several occasions, a violation of child labor restrictions.

Eventually, the Boar’s Head paid more than $78,000 in back wages to the 65 employees, but wasn’t fined for the infractions. “This is a first time investigation and there is no evidence of willfulness,” the department’s report reads, and the company was reported to have been “very cooperative.”

But 11 years later, the department was again scrutinizing pay policy at the Inn. In March of 2012, the Richmond office launched an investigation, and while there were no child labor or minimum wage violations, it found some of the previous problems were still going on.

Between 2010 and 2012, some employees were improperly exempted from the overtime-on-commissions rule, according to the report on the investigation released last May and obtained under the FOIA. Others were being paid no overtime, or were only getting overtime when they worked more than 45 hours a week. The department also found that the company was failing to require certain employees to keep a detailed timesheet that calculated regular and overtime hours. And the Inn was still failing to calculate overtime pay rates correctly.

The investigation found the company owed 40 employees back pay amounting to $44,511. And this time, the department assessed $8,800 in what are known as Civil Money Penalties, or CMPs—fines for “willful or repeat disregard” for fair pay laws.

According to the investigation report, labor employees met with Inn management on May 30, 2012, and the company agreed to bring its practices in line with the law.

But at least some Boar’s Head employees say not much has changed. In their letter, written on Inn stationery and copied to C-VILLE, the employees said they’re still being stiffed on overtime, and claimed there are other problems, including retaliation against those who complain about pay issues. The employees say that hospitality staff’s entry-level base pay of $8.20 per hour isn’t a living wage, and that the Inn’s efforts to cut salary and benefit costs have led to middle managers and other employees pulling long weeks to cover unfilled positions, and receiving no overtime pay.

“Managers continuously are being told that they have to work 50-60 hours a week without any compensatory time or time-for-time off,” reads the letter from the employees, who did not identify themselves. “If you question the amount of hours that you are expected to work, the Manager is told, ‘this is the hospitality industry and if you do not like it—you are free to find another job!’”

The employees also claimed they have “nowhere to go for assistance,” because they believe the higher-ups in human resources share their identities with upper-level management. “The retaliation begins soon thereafter until you can’t take it anymore and you are forced to leave,” they wrote.

It’s not the first time Boar’s Head employees have written to those who run the resort to complain about working conditions. Around the time the Department of Labor was wrapping up its second investigation of the Inn, staff complained by letter to General Manager Matt Harris about bad treatment on the job. Harris responded in the June staff newsletter.

“I wish I could say that every team member is happy with every outcome—but I can’t,” Harris said in the newsletter. “However, I will strive to ensure that every team member knows that they will be heard and that they feel they have been treated fairly.”

His letter makes no mention of the labor law violations the company had just been fined for.

Rose, the head of the UVA Foundation, did not respond to requests to for comment on the employees’ complaints and the past censures from the Department of Labor. Neither did the UVA leaders who serve on the Foundation board, which includes University President Teresa Sullivan, COO Patrick Hogan, Vice President Bob Sweeney, and Board of Visitors member Victoria Harker. Instead, UVA spokesman McGregor McCance offered a one-page statement from Harris, in which he emphasized that he runs a for-profit hotel that operates independently from the University.

“The facility operates in a highly competitive market, offers market wages and competitive benefits,” he wrote. “The Boar’s Head will always review the local labor market, comply with employment laws and regulations, and pay a fair and competitive wage to its employees.​”

Harris said that the Inn “took immediate steps to address the findings” of the 2012 investigation, which he characterized as an audit. He also said the Inn regularly reviews policy on overtime exemptions with its attorneys.

But the employees who penned the letter of complaint said the company—and the Foundation that owns it—doesn’t do right by those working behind the scenes.

“So little pay for a four diamond resort serving the wealthiest community members,” reads letter. “It would rather invest in its property, landscaping, lighting, etc. than provide a decent wage for its workers.”

 

Categories
News

Bank robberies, home invasions, and new traffic laws: News briefs

Richard Nelson Hawkins III, aka "Squirrel," whom police believe robbed United Bank on the Downtown Mall Monday. Photo courtesy Charlottesville Police

Check c-ville.com daily and pick up a copy of the paper Tuesday to for the latest Charlottesville and Albemarle news briefs and stories. Here’s a quick look at some of what we’ve had an eye on for the past week.

Bank robbery suspect nabbed

The man police say robbed a Downtown bank during last Monday’s violent thunderstorm is now in custody.

Richard Nelson Hawkins III, also known as “Squirrel,” was arrested at an undisclosed location in Staunton on Sunday by members of the Augusta County Sheriffs Office, according to Charlottesville Police spokesman Lieutenant Ronnie Roberts.

Hawkins, 37 and with a last known address on Early Street in Charlottesville, allegedly entered the United Bank at Fifth Street and the Downtown Mall at about 4:45pm, took cash, and fled. Police have not confirmed whether he was armed, but The Daily Progress reported Roberts indicated Hawkins will likely face armed robbery charges. He is being held at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail, Roberts said.

Police: Not clear if home invasions linked

Charlottesville and Albemarle police are investigating a string of home invasions that took place early last week—one of which sent a city resident to the hospital with a gunshot wound—but haven’t said if there’s evidence linking the crimes.

In the early hours of the morning on Tuesday, June 18, police were called to a Shelby Drive residence where a 24-year-old resident said two black men had forced their way in through the front door, shot him, and robbed him. The victim was taken to UVA Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries, said city police spokesman Ronnie Roberts.

The following night, two county homes were robbed by armed men. The first robbery took place at 11:15pm on the 200 block of Colonnade Drive, just a few blocks from the Corner, where the resident said two men with a gun took electronic items and cash, according to county police spokeswoman Carter Johnson. About an hour later, police responded to another armed robbery on the 200 block of Lakeview Drive in the Four Seasons condo community off of Rio Road West. In that invasion, three men with a gun allegedly also took electronics and cash. Neither victim was injured in those robberies, Johnson said.

The two departments said their investigations are ongoing.

Virginia National Bank starts paying dividends

Charlottesville-based Virginia National Bank will begin paying quarterly dividends for the first time in its 15-year history, the bank announced last week.

Bank chairman William D. Dittmar announced that board members had voted unanimously to start paying an initial amount of $.05 per share per quarter at the bank’s annual shareholders meeting on Wednesday, June 19. At the same meeting, shareholders approved a restructuring of the bank that will make it a subsidiary of a new holding company, Virginia National Bankshares Corporation, effective later this year. Dittmar said in a press release that the move “will give us an additional operational, business, and financial flexibility to help us continue to expand our business and bring value to our shareholders.”

New no-texting-and-driving law goes into effect 

The Commonwealth is cracking down on Virginia drivers just in time for the holiday weekend. As of Monday, July 1, traffic safety laws passed by the 2013 Virginia Assembly will become effective, including one that makes texting while driving a primary offense. 

Categories
Arts

ARTS Pick: NYMPH

NYMPH brings its extensive existentialism to the Tea Bazaar. Publicity photo.

Transcendental whimsy

With no less than seven members, spiritual rock group NYMPH blurs traditional musical genres to the point of nonexistence.  Deriving their visionary sound from the realm of free-jazz, the Brooklyn-based group weaves their way through pulsating African beats and jazz thrills to ethereal guitar harmonies, providing a musical trip across cultural, artistic, and conventional borders.  Contributing to the entrancing innovation of the group is their affinity for improvisation with instruments ranging from synthesizers to a horn section to electric guitars.

Tuesday 6/25 $5, 8:30pm. Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar, 414 E Main St., 293-9947.

Categories
Arts

A movie’s source material doesn’t matter

Brad Pitt tries to save his family from being chowed on by zombies in "World War Z," all while having amazing hair. Photo credit: Jaap Buitendijk, (c) 2013 Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

It’s the perfect time of year to discuss a longstanding moviegoers’ gripe: “The book was better.” Or “they changed the ending.” Or World War Z is an in-name adaptation only. (To be fair, that last statement, sort of uttered by World War Z novelist Max Brooks, isn’t a gripe. It’s the book’s fans who are doing the griping.)

So far this summer there’s been a lackluster Superman movie (Man of Steel), but Brad Pitt and Marc Forster’s World War Z is making serious box office inroads. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is five months away (its scheduled opening is November 20), but there’s already been lots of yapping on the Interwebz about whether it will stick closely to the book.

And here’s my wholly informed, professional critic’s opinion about all this stuff: Who gives a shit if a movie is different from its source material?

Sure, that’s dismissive and maybe even a little mean. Some stories affect readers deeply, and those readers in turn expect to have their stories represented faithfully when transferred from source to screen. It rarely happens. And when a really faithful adaptation does happen, it, too, can be wretched (see: Sin City; the problem was not the source material).

The truth is—and we all know this deep down, and we’ve all heard it before—it doesn’t matter whether a movie adaptation of a book (or comic or graphic novel or play) resembles its source material. At all.

Did you enjoy the movie? Great. You didn’t? Too bad, but you can still enjoy the Action Comics No. 1.

Again, these are all things we know. Most of the time, books or comics or whatever are just too long—even the short books—and too dense, too detailed, and too subplot-heavy to be transferred without alterations.

And sometimes there are images in source material better left to a reader’s imagination. What if, in Ang Lee’s adaptation of Life of Pi, he’d included the scene from the novel in which Pi, the protagonist, tries to eat the tiger’s feces? Instant barf-fest (though John Waters would probably be pleased). If Tony Kushner had used Doris Kearns Goodwins entire Team of Rivals for his screenplay Lincoln instead of the slim section he used, it could have been a 13-episode HBO series.

Consider comics. Man of Steel‘s creators have 75 years of source material to draw from. Yikes. At least they tried something new-ish, even if the results are bad-ish.

Plus, let’s be honest. We only care about an adaptation’s integrity when we don’t know (or care about) the source material. Does anyone sniff derisively because There Will Be Blood barely resembles Upton Sincair’s Oil!, or because Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo significantly alters parts of Pierre Boileau and Pierre Ayraud’s D’entre les Morts, or because Apocalypse Now is different from Hearts of Darkness and careens into super-weirdness when they find Kurtz?

But make World War Z a movie about the outbreak of the zombie plague instead of a series of accounts about the war 10 years after its end? THE HORROR. QUEL DOMMAGE.

In the long run, does it matter that a pre-Joker Jack Napier kills Batman’s parents Tim Burton’s Batman? In 1989, it certainly felt like a big deal. Then Christopher Nolan made Batman Begins and everyone sort of forgot about Burton’s alterations of the Batman universe.

That’s a long way of saying don’t fret. The great thing about Hollywood is that it keeps giving fans chances to hate it. If you dislike Man of Steel (which is entirely reasonable), it’s possible that in another decade, Warner Bros. will hit the history eraser button and reboot the franchise. They did it with Batman. They’ve done it with Superman twice.

The bottom line is that we all pay our money, and therefore we all get what we get. And you’re not really going to skip out on World War Z just because it’s different from the book. Are you?

Categories
Living

Overheard on the restaurant scene… This week’s food news (June 24)

File photo.

Zinc announced over the weekend that it will close at the end of June. Open less than seven years, the West Main Street spot will close its doors after service Saturday, June 29. Owner Vu Nguyen posted this to the restaurant’s Facebook page Saturday: “It’s been a tough, fun, frustrating, enlightening, debaucherous, humbling, hazy, and delicious run. Now it’s time to say farewell.” Nguyen will turn his attention entirely to his other West Main Street restaurant, Moto Pho Co.

Independence Day is not only a day to celebrate our freedom, but it’s maybe the best holiday for grilling out. Do just that at the Tailgatin’ Shindig at Stinson Vineyards—live music from the Chickenhead Blues Band and BBQ pork sandwich platters piled high with Blue Ridge Pig coleslaw, baked beans, and potato salad from 6-8pm.

Tailgatin’ Thursday happens every week at the Crozet vineyard. The grills are fired up and folks are invited to cook their own dinner (which is available through Timbercreek Organics) over open flame. Admission is free, and so is the invitation to bring the family, the dog, and everyone you know.

Put the “French” back in your French fries at Tempo restaurant, where Tuesday is the new Saturday and Champagne is the new best friend of burgers. Every Tuesday night, the restaurant offers two free ones with the purchase of a bottle of Champagne.

Blenheim Vineyards may be a frequented spot for owner (and, O.K., singer-songwriter) Dave Matthews, but on July 4, he’ll be at Monticello’s 51st Annual Independence Day Celebration and Naturalization Ceremony as its featured speaker. Following the ceremony, Blenheim will grill grass-fed beef hot dogs and burgers from Matthews’ farm, Best of What’s Around, from noon-5pm. Stop by to grab some lunch and a glass of wine while you’re in the neighborhood.

Also on July 4, Keswick Vineyards will host “Red White & Bluegrass,” with live music from 1-4pm and food from Buttz BBQ, which melds the traditions of Memphis, Texas, and North Carolina BBQ. Admission is free, and picnics are also welcome.

Is there an echo in here? Clifton Inn will ring in the holiday with a classy barbeque-inspired three-course dinner by chef Tucker Yoder. The menu will feature beer-braised chicken and barbeque-glazed halibut. Reservations are accepted from 5-9pm and the price is $50 per person.

Topeka’s Steakhouse is now closed. The 4-year-old Pantops spot, which specialized in fresh cuts that you could both eat at the table and buy in its butcher shop, shut its doors June 17, but will soon be replaced by locally owned Shadwell’s. The new eatery will serve everything from fresh seafood and salads to pasta and, yes, steak. According to its website, the restaurant should be open sometime this summer and will be “the neighborhood place to be.”

Categories
News

What’s coming up the week of June 24?

Notes from the news desk

Each week, the news team takes a look at upcoming meetings and events in Charlottesville and Albemarle we think you should know about. Consider it a look into our datebook, and be sure to share newsworthy happenings in the comments section.

  • The Albemarle County Historic Preservation Societymeets at 4:30pm Monday in Conference Room 241 of the County Office Building, 401 McIntire Road. 
  • The Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority Board of Directors meets from 2:15-3pm Tuesday at the RWSA headquarters at 695 Moores Creek Lane. The regular meeting will include a report from the director and details on ongoing projects.
  • The Charlottesville and Albemarle planning commissions will get together for a joint work session from 5-8pm Tuesday at CitySpace. Members of the two boards will put their heads together to discuss the Long Range Transportation Plan and its conformity to their respective Comprehensive Plans. The Charlottesville Planning Commission will stick around for a separate discussion on adjustments to the city’s Planned Unit Development ordinance.
  • The Our Town Charlottesville gatherings continue this week with a town hall meeting of the City Council at the Woolen Mills Chapel, 1819 East Market St., from 6-8pm Thursday. The meeting is open to all, but most of the discussion will focus on issues relevant to the Woolen Mills neighborhood.

 

Categories
Arts

Beauty in destruction: Discovering Petrochemical America at the McGuffey Art Center

From the Earth to the Sky, from Petrochemical America. Image courtesy of the LOOK3 Communications Office.

Everyone has his or her own way of processing information. Some of us think visually; the neurological place where seeing is believing and photographic memories are born. Others have an astounding knack for audio perception, memorizing information primarily with their psychoacoustic faculties. There are those who rely heavily upon numerical data and others who do best when offered a literary source of information.

No matter how we perceive the world, we all have strengths and weaknesses in terms of what holds our interest. All of us enjoy thinking about some things but not others. That’s why some of us chose to practice law, while others study rat brains, or cook French cuisine for a living.

These inevitable truths can leave those of us in the visual arts with a difficult dilemma to overcome. That is to say, even if there is a very important message we wish to convey through our creations, there is no guarantee that viewers will take that information away from those visual representations alone.

Photographer Richard Misrach and landscape architect Kate Orff attempt to overcome this obstacle by combining their respective efforts in a large scale research collaboration that touches both on the power of the photographic image and the weight of infographics. The resulting exhibit is titled “Petrochemical America: Project Room,” and offers a multifaceted approach to discovering the issues surrounding the proliferation of petroleum products in American culture.

Some of the images are primarily visual. Viewers are given the opportunity to bask in the hauntingly surreal and beautiful photographs captured by Richard Misrach. These large-scale images depict the industrialized landscape of the Mississippi River Corridor also known as “Cancer Alley.” One of them shows a field of green, a sky of blue, and in between, a small ranch style home with decorative plants on the front porch. The house is dwarfed by the expansive chemical plant towering behind it. Another photograph shows a misty morning landscape. In it, several over-sized spherical factory tanks are faintly visible through the mist, while the hollow grave-like slabs in the foreground rise up like memories; an indication of where homes once stood and people once lived.

Other images primarily function to showcase information. Viewers are presented with a combination of graphs, topographical maps, posters, leaflets, interesting emails, linear doodles, and scribbled notes. Each of these pieces of information was obtained through extensive research. Taken individually, they seem meaningless, but put on display side-by-side, they form narratives pertaining to complex economic and ecological forces that have shaped this landscape.

Somewhere in between, viewers will find several large infographic artworks: aesthetically pleasing representations of information gathered and then combined through graphic design. Various subjects were chosen with obvious specificity to convey very precise meanings. One such piece mashes together aesthetic elements with at least five distinct infographic systems. Superimposed are an image of bluish-black oil floating on water, an illustrated depiction of evolutionary history and the rise of man, a graph of carbon monoxide levels in our atmosphere through history, a cutaway view of the geological changes through time (from the appearance of fossil fuel to its complete depletion) and a map of the Mississippi River. Another such piece shows cutaway views of a human’s internal organs combined with extensive information regarding the astounding number of cancers that are caused by petroleum products that proliferate in our daily lives.

With such a broad spectrum, some of the infographics have lost their clarity and meaning. Even if the viewer will walk away with an idea, or a general concept, certain types of data are hard to glean from the visual representations alone. One such piece as mentioned above, depicts the evolution of man and the depletion of fossil fuels over time. The piece hypothesizes that when fossil fuel is all used up and carbon monoxide levels in the atmosphere make the earth uninhabitable, the evolutionary chain will end. Concrete data in this graphic is essentially unattainable or unreadable. This leads us to ask whether is it more important to lay out actual facts or to give just a general idea in an exhibit like this.

There are several other pieces in the show that present factual information very concretely with less focus on aesthetics. These pieces successfully function as a call to social action through an artistic representation of statistics and scientific evidence.

This show attempts to balance the vivid emotional photographs with the stark graphical overlays. Misrach and Orff have created a body of work which functions very well as a whole, though each individual work is executed with varying degrees of success. Some are bulky or over-worked, some beautiful and terrifying, while others are haunting but obscure. Perhaps this is meant to mimic the noisy proliferation of information we experience and analyze on a daily basis.

These photographs will fill viewers with an undeniable sense of horror and helplessness. It successfully presents us with information ranging from the things we use daily that are made of petroleum, to the types of cancers that are caused by those products. On a larger scale, it reminds us how the production of these products affects our environment and how it will change our future. It even gives us a window into the lives that were destroyed by various illnesses caused by petroleum products and the very plants that produce them all over the world. The show is painful to look at and yet the compelling information and poetic imagery is hard to look away from.

Unlike some other exhibits that display various inconvenient truths, “Petrochemical America” leaves us with a small glimmer of hope. Rather than leaving viewers with nothing more than an empty feeling in the pit of their stomach as a starting point for change, the exhibit offers up a small handbook full of potential solutions. Entitled, “Glossary of Terms and Solutions for a Post Petrochemical Culture,” the leaflet covers a whole range of options available to us as a means for coping with the consequences of our collective actions. Somehow, it is relieving to be reminded that despite the fact that the giant scale of social, political and environmental factors that led us to this point are much bigger than any of us imagine, even smalls actions like carpooling are a step in the right direction.

Ultimately, “Petrochemical America” as one complete entity achieves many things that a standard body of artwork does not. It functions to successfully present research and analysis in the form of an aesthetic visual art display. It is a scary, but also hopeful. And above all, it provides information via more than just one medium, which should allow people from all walks of life to appreciate and understand it.

~Rose Guterbock and Aaron Miller

 “Petrochemical America: Project Room” is on display at the McGuffey Art Center through June 30, 2013.

 

Categories
Living

Five Finds on Friday: Brooks Tanner of BBQ Exchange

On Fridays, we feature five finds selected by local chefs and personalities.  Today’s picks come from Brooks Tanner, who recently rejoined chef Craig Hartman at Barbecue Exchange, after previous stints with him at Fossett’s restaurant and The Statler Hotel.  Tanner’s picks:

1)  Sunday Brunch at Hamiltons’.  “Chef Curtis Shaver and his kitchen ninjas reinstated an old tradition lost to Hamiltons’: Sunday Brunch.  And boy, I am excited he did.  The Grilled Ashley Farms Chicken Breast Sandwich on Housemade Ciabatta with Pimento Cheese, House Pickles, Arugula and Brown Sugar Cured Bacon is super solid.  I also indulge in the Wagyu Corned Beef hash as it is a killer side.  Abby’s scones are a hidden gem that I have not been able to find in any bakery around town.  They are in fact the best I’ve ever had.  Sorry Mom.”

2)  Chicken Liver Pate with Cabernet Sauvignon jelly, house-cured pickles and toast at Pippin Hill Farm & Vineyards.  “Chef Amalia’s pate is better than the view from the patio.  Her old-school ‘ass-kicking’ approach to food inspires me every time we chat.”

3)  Sally’s Sazeracs at the Glass Haus Kitchen.  “These are a treat.  They consist of Sazerac Rye Whiskey, Absente Absinthe, Peychaud’s bitters, simple syrup and orange rind.  They will ease your mind after a long day in the hospitality biz.  I hate to write about the Glass Haus and not mention the food.  It is amazing and the menu reflects only the very best of what’s to offer. It changes frequently and is very foodie!  I never know what will be served that evening but it always exceeds even the highest of expectations.”

4)  Jalapeno Lime Cream Cheese at Bodo’s.  “It is ridiculous.  You can really put in on anything, it’s that good.  For myself, I go with the Everything Wheat Bagel BLT.  Sometimes I go back later and get a Everything Wheat Bagel with Chicken Salad, tomato and sprouts.  There is something magical about that particular cream cheese that keeps me yearning for more.”

5)  Family Meal at Palladio Restaurant.  “This is an invite only, exclusive, VIP secret to people in the know.  Luckily, I am one of those people (and now you are too).  Chef Melissa’s family meal at Palladio is insanely good.  Although it is for staff only at a certain hour daily (that I can not reveal), served in the kitchen – standing room only, I find myself planning my visits to her exactly at this moment.  I can’t help myself, I would eat there everyday if I could.  There are no limits as to what she prepares for her staff but it is a fringe benefit that should not be overlooked.  Oh, and her pecan-sticky buns are spot on.  And the best part, somehow I get the friends and family discount!! Thanks Mel!!”

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The Charlottesville 29 is a publication that asks, if there were just 29 restaurants in Charlottesville, what would be the ideal 29?  Follow along with regular updates on Facebook and Twitter.