Sarah Mitchell (foreground) stars as Elle in the Live Arts summer highlight Legally Blonde: The Musical. Photo courtesy of Live Arts.
Paint the town pink with perky sorority girl-turned-law student Elle Woods and her lovable four-legged sidekick Bruiser in Legally Blonde: The Musical. Based on the novel by Anna Brown and the 2001 motion picture, the play showcases everyone’s favorite heroine as she sings her way through boyfriend woes, Harvard Law School, and the murder of the century, proving that being true to yourself never goes out of style. With fun tunes such as “Omigod You Guys” and “Bend and Snap,” you’ll be dancing in your seat.
Through 8/10 $20-25, times vary. Live Arts, 123 E. Water St. 977-4177.
Solo act Kurt Vile takes an enlightened approach to writing his dark, sometimes comical, psychedelica founded in a blues gospel tradition. Publicity photo.
Prepare to have yet another of your rock star illusions dismissed. Kurt Vile is a pretty happy guy.
Vile’s dark, sometimes raunchy lyrics belie the upbeat, irreverent manner that was on full display in his recent phone interview with C-VILLE. At one point in the talk, during which he was headed backstage for a show, Vile said out of nowhere, “Mountain Dew.” No, it wasn’t some psychedelic non sequitur or euphemism. He was just excited about an ice-cold bottle of soda that someone offered him.
But there is one thing that rankles Vile. He’s often defined by the media through his longtime friend Adam Granduciel’s band, The War on Drugs. So while his solo career took off in 2011 when his fourth full-length studio album Smoke Ring for My Halo charted on the Billboard 200, Vile had been making music alone in his living room since long before backing Granduciel.
Touring on his current critically acclaimed LP, Wakin on a Pretty Daze, Vile is bringing his solo act, along with his band, The Violators, to the Jefferson Theater on July 19.
C-VILLE Weekly: React to the following phrase: middle school band.
Kurt Vile: “Classic. Marching band, jazz band, concert band—yes. In fourth grade, there was a demonstration on instruments. They played the trumpet, and it seemed cool cause there were only three valves. I played it all through elementary school, middle school, and up through 11th grade. I quit a couple of times. It wasn’t like I sat home and practiced much. I was a natural, but sometimes it was like, ‘aw fuck, I have to go after school to band practice.’ You’re young and self-conscious, and the trumpet was kind of dorky. Girls would ask me to play, and I would get paranoid that they were staring at me.”
There are a lot of people staring at you now. How would you define what they’re looking at?
“Kurt Vile—a fucking guitarist, solo musician, songwriter. Music is what I do. It’s what I love. I love so much other music around me. I breathe it. I am always listening to it, I’m always thinking about it. I’ve been doing my solo thing for a long time. Forget The Violators and The War on Drugs. Just think of me and Adam jamming in his house, recording, being tight bros, developing styles together, having like-minded philosophies. We were just in the city, talking about how we know what’s going on and everybody else doesn’t—young kids honing in on this unique thing.”
How do you go about writing songs?
“I can’t really explain. I pick up my guitar and play. It’s just me. I’ve played my whole life. Somewhere along the way, I found my own voice. I’ve been doing it so long at this point that it’s just my personality. It’s not a stage act. It is totally zen. It’s like walking down the street. But it’s not like I just pick up my guitar and write lyrics right away necessarily.”
So you typically start with a riff and then write lyrics?
“I pick up my guitar and make shit up as I go. Some people want this like exact thing, but it’s not that way.”
I think of your lyrics as being like a movie trailer. You offer just enough of what you’re thinking about to keep us interested.
“It’s not like I tell a story from beginning to end. It’s more introspective, but I guess relatable, when it is some kind of depressing—or non-depressing—sentiment. Then I move on to more psychedelic imagery.”
The song “Society is My Friend” always interested me. What was the process behind writing it?
“I had a dark riff in one of my signature open tunings, and it just came out: ‘Society is my friend/it makes me lie down in a cool blood bath.’ It sounds dark and poetic but a little funny too, in a dark comedy kind of way. But it’s also a subconscious thing from listening to music. It sounds like, ‘society is a hole/it makes me lie to my friends,’ which is from a Sonic Youth song. They got it from a Black Flag song.”
I hear a lot of religious references in your songs. What’s the source of that?
“I don’t know how many religious references there are on the new record, but I grew up in a religious family. Plus, there is the blues-gospel tradition. That’s just like the earliest music: people in the fields, singing gospel. It’s a traditional thing. But everybody—Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen —references religion. And it’s a little more than that because I was surrounded by it my whole life.”
You’re clearly a student of music.
“I study just naturally. Everyone in my band is always listening to music and talking about it, but it’s not like we have this roundtable discussion. We all have that sort of idea that this is what we’re supposed to be doing.”
Does it ever feel less natural and more like a job? What are your thoughts about music sales these days?
“You have to play the game and adapt to new times. It’s fine for someone like Neil Young to say giving a song to a commercial cheapens it, because he has sold millions of records. No disrespect to him, but you do what you have to do. I never experienced the ’90s where records were selling like crazy.”
I think a lot of people in Charlottesville’s music scene can relate. Are you familiar with the city?
“We’ve been there twice, and it was awesome. The first show was better; the next time we just kind of set up and played. This time should be generally a well-oiled rock show with peaks and valleys, a couple of climaxes.”
Kurt Vile & The Violators The Jefferson Theater, July 19
The Charlottesville-Albemarle Regional Jail. Photo: Eric Kelley.
African-Americans make up 47 percent of Charlottesville’s youth population, but nearly 70 percent of the young people who appear before city judges are black. Of the 788 kids ages 10 to 17 who appeared before a judge in 2009-2012, 550 were black, and 171 were white. The stark disparity has caused the black community to question whether the system is stacked against its young people, and now city officials are trying to answer the same question.
Roughly 40 people gathered in the Friendship Court Community Center last Tuesday, where city staffer and City of Charlottesville Task Force on Racial Disparities in the Juvenile Justice System leader Mike Murphy and Legal Aid Justice Center (LAJC) attorney Jeree Thomas led a conversation among parents, teachers, and legal experts. At issue were the results of a study that revealed disproportionate racial representation in the city’s juvenile justice system.
In 2009 the task force, which includes city officials and members of the University of Virginia’s educational psychology department, began examining risk factors for kids ages 10 to 17, of all races, in comparison with their entrance into and time spent in juvenile detention and on probation. The group presented its findings to City Council in the spring of 2012, and they were consistent across the board: Even among those with similar home lives, educational backgrounds, and other risk factors, black youth are one and a half times more likely than their white counterparts to enter the juvenile justice system. And once they’re in, they have a greater chance of staying in the system longer.
The task force is currently researching human services models used in other communities, and in collaboration with the LAJC, finishing up a round of interviews with local legal experts. Charlottesville Police Chief Tim Longo is also contributing to the process, implementing a new system to collect data on field stops to determine the race and age of those stopped, and why the police pulled them over. The new setup will make it possible to look at an initial police contact and follow the case all the way through to a final disposition in court, which Virginia police departments are not required to do.
High school teacher and youth advocate Wes Bellamy, who attended last week’s meeting, said much of the solution starts with parents taking accountability for their kids. And when that’s not enough, he added, collaboration is key.
“The community has to pick up the slack,” he said. “Whatever happened to the old African proverb, ‘It takes a village to raise a child?’”
Bellamy said he was encouraged by the open dialogue at the meeting, but was surprised by the lack of uniforms.
“Why weren’t there police officers there?” he said. “I really think it’s important for us to all have representation there, and to build relationships.”
Longo said he and several officers have participated in meetings and interviews with the task force and been closely involved with the process, and missing last week’s meeting was a fluke due to scheduling conflicts.
“There’s no good explanation for our absence,” Longo said, but his department is committed to being part of the solution. His officers all undergo cultural diversity training, and the department has been actively involved with the Boys & Girls Club to connect with young people in the community.
Murphy said he hopes the group will be ready to present new findings, including a year’s worth of new police data, and concrete solutions to City Council again by this fall, and the series of forums is intended to get families and community members involved.
“All the players are at the table, and are willing to make more changes,” Murphy said.
The next meeting is at 6pm on Tuesday, July 16, at the Boys & Girls Club, with two more following before the end of the month at the West Haven Community Center and South First Street.
Alright, admit it: Despite how much you think you know about wine, you’ve invariably found yourself in an unfamiliar restaurant with a daunting binder of wines in front of you, and recognized not a single bottle. It’s O.K., we’ve all been there. This is a precarious situation for anyone, but it becomes even more dicey if you let your “wine ego” get in the way of proper selection. Best to leave that ego with coat-check, and get some help along the way.
There’s mixture of art and science that goes into getting the most out of a given wine list, but the very first step is to seek out a restaurant with an interesting, eclectic list. This is not always feasible, and the majority of the time, your plans will determine the wine list rather than the other way around, but at the very least you should develop a mental list of restaurants in your hometown that fits this bill.
Once you’re seated and handed the wine list, though, the dance has begun. The next thing to remember? Don’t be afraid to ask for help. It’s almost certain that the sommelier (or an informed waiter) knows more about his wine list than you do. Maybe you have a vertical of that one Burgundy at home and are an expert on that producer—but in that case, do you really want to pay restaurant markup for something you already have? Also be sure to ask the sommelier specific questions about the wines, like their style and what they pair well with, as well as for personal recommendations.
Depending on your outing, your best bet for a starter (or lunch) wine just might be a “by the glass” offering, but beware: More often than not, these are their primary money-makers and thus are stretched to the brink in terms of cost and time. If you recognize a mediocre wine that you know is otherwise $10 per bottle being sold for $8 per glass, be wary. Beyond that, though, always ask for a taste of the wine beforehand, and do not be afraid to ask them to open a fresh bottle. By-the-glass wines are routinely left open for a day or two; the constant pouring (and resultant sloshing) of the bottle means that they’re often severely oxidized and stale when they hit your glass. There is no shame in acknowledging this and requesting a new bottle!
Now you’re into the meat of the selections. The first rule is simple: Don’t order the second-least expensive bottle on the menu. Typically, restaurateurs know that most people will psychologically gravitate towards the cheaper end of the list, but then take a step away from that extreme low-end to make sure they don’t look like a cheapskate in front of their date/friends/boss/etc. As such, this spot on the list (especially smaller, sparser lists) is often unofficially reserved for wines that they’re either trying to unload, or are marked up beyond normal ranges. While this is not always the case, it’s prudent to be wary of this place on this list.
The same goes for the most expensive end of the list. Too often, wine lists will leap up in price on the last two or three wines, mainly to appease the occasional day-trader show-off. This end of the list isn’t necessarily bad, but more often than not, you’re paying for name recognition rather than actual quality. In terms of value, big names are a no-no.
By this point in the evening, hopefully your sommelier (or knowledgable waiter) has gotten the hint: You’ve taken control of your wine fate tonight. Yet, there’s one thing that you haven’t yet conquered—pairing the perfect wine with your entrée. While this is a great time to rely on your sommelier, the unfortunate reality is that the vast majority of restaurants do not provide such luxuries as an all-knowing wine master. If that’s the case, now would be the time to conjure up some sage pairing advice.
While whole books have been written on the subject of pairing wine with food, the thing that you need to do (right now) is homework. You should have a veritable arsenal of regions and grape varietals that you know you like from personal experience, and that play well with certain foods. Obvious examples are Bordeaux with steak or Muscadet with oysters, but other subtle, more personalized pairings are important to stash away for nights like this.
Lastly, don’t be afraid to branch out beyond your safe zone. Too many people who drink nothing but Chardonnay are astounded when they try Chenin Blanc with herbed trout or old vine Chilean Carmenere with a simple steak. You should approach every dinner out as an opportunity.
Just don’t get taken for a ride in the process.
Evan Williams is a co-founder of The Wine Guild of Charlottesville. Find out more at wineguildcville.com.
Sisters Madeline and Margaret Paczkowski collaborate during CoderDojo, Albemarle's summer computer-programming academy. Photo: Charlottesville Tomorrow
Our regular Education Beat reporting is the result of a partnership with the nonprofit community news platform Charlottesville Tomorrow, which covers growth, development, public education, and local politics.
Fourth Albemarle high school in the works
The Albemarle County School Board last week rejected recommendations to focus resources on expanding existing schools to satisfy an expanding student population, leaving the possibility of a fourth high school in the county on the table.
During their discussion of the division’s capital improvement program, school board members unanimously agreed to continue the planning process for a new high school, despite the recommendation from the Long Range Planning Advisory Committee to build additions on Western and Monticello high schools. The committee had said the expansions would be a more cost-effective way to accommodate the growth in enrollment.
Also discussed were planned additions to Agnor-Hurt Elementary School, where construction is slated to begin next year as planned, and Henley Middle School, which could see a new auxiliary gym and modernizations to its media center. Other near-term improvements will include technology upgrades and security at county schools.
County board supports addition of student position
The proposal to add a non-voting student member to the Albemarle County School Board got further support last week, as board members took time at their Thursday meeting to discuss general requirements and duties of the future student representative position.
Also up for discussion was whether one student will take the seat or whether a rotational schedule would be adopted in order to increase student exposure to the school board.
The board members and the three County Student Advisory Council students present said they were excited about the student member cooperation. All preferred the rotational model for student participation in board meetings.
“We are looking for these students to speak up and become a part of the conversation,” said board member Pamela Moynihan.
The board was unanimous in its support of a student member, and directed staff to draft a detailed proposal on student rotation schedules and duties.
Leadership program offers summer opportunities to county kids
The second-annual Leadership Academy, a summer enrichment program for local high schoolers, is currently underway for Albemarle County students.
Students will explore and discuss the topic and skills of leadership such as goal-setting, strategy, and public speaking. They will also be free to follow and develop their own interests.
“Currently there are many fee-based opportunities for students in this area,” said Jennifer Sublette-Williamson, head of the County Student Advisory Council. “This program is free and county-led, allowing more students to participate.”
Sublette-Williamson said students from every county high school are participating in the program this year (attendance tripled from last year), and there are plans to expand in the future. She said she hopes the 30 participating students take what they learn during the summer and apply it during the year, as well as engage in discussion with their fellow academy members and other students.
MEET YOUR EDUCATOR: Michael Thornton, kindergarten teacher at Meriwether Lewis Elementary School
Q: What is your favorite part of classroom teaching?
A: My favorite part of teaching is helping students understand that learning goes beyond school. I love it when a student comes to me and wants to teach the class about something that they studied and/or investigated.
Q: What is your favorite example of a rewarding experience you’ve had in the field of education?
A: Two years ago, I was asked to present at a conference in Nashville, Tennessee. I asked the organizer if my third graders could present instead of me. He loved that idea. My third grade students developed a one-hour presentation on using Twitter, Livebinders, and Skype in the classroom, and presented to over 300 educators via Skype.
Q: If you had to pick one, what do you think is the single most important issue facing the public schools today?
A: As a whole, the educational system is behind. Public schools settle on the status quo too much. The system needs to be more progressive. We have to teach to the 21st century. In fact, we should be thinking 10 years in advance. I ask myself, “What will my students need to be able to do in 10 years? What skills do they need to learn now to prepare them for an ever-changing future?”
Billy Campbell as Abner in the civil war movie Copperhead. Image: Swordspoint Productions
Some people claim that Disney World is the only place where dreams come true. I beg to differ, Cinderella’s castle notwithstanding. My case in point: a broke intern, far from her hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia, forced to babysit on the side to finance her fanatical addiction to Nike running shorts, can, in fact, find herself interviewing a superhero. All it takes is a little Charlottesville magic.
The superhero is actor Billy Campbell of 1991 Disney film The Rocketeer fame. Charlottesville born and raised, Campbell is one of the city’s best examples of small town dreams turned into big time reality. After appearing in 25 films and approximately 40 television shows (including AMC’s “The Killing” and NBC’s “Law and Order: SVU”) and a Golden Globe nomination, Campbell has cemented himself as a fixture on both the silver screen and the flat screen. His latest film, a Civil War flick entitled Copperhead will be shown at The Paramount Theater on July 21.
C-VILLE spoke with Campbell by phone, (and followed-up via e-mail when his connection dropped) to discuss his newest leading role, his favorite Charlottesville memories, and how his Central Virginia roots grew a childhood dream into a successful acting career.
C-VILLE Weekly: Copperhead is the story of the Civil War “come home”- and your character, Abner Beech, experiences a significant amount of emotion regarding his hometown. What about Charlottesville inspires emotion in you or guides you as you take on different roles?
Billy Campbell: “I grew up in C’ville, and anyone running around as a kid in Virginia can’t help but soak up the history. What’s the history of Virginia if not the War Between the States? And my mom took me to a re-enactment for my 17th birthday. I ended up joining the Albemarle Rifles, a re-enacting unit from C’ville, and so my taste for CW history was further whetted. I guess I just relate to the C’ville/southern thing of friends and neighbors, and something older and bigger than our present problems, and I really think that helps me to enjoy every job and every role I take.”
It’s certainly a unique angle for a Civil War movie. What theme or idea from the film resonated most with you during your time on set?
“The movie is about dissent, and the price of squashing it, which is surely of concern in our era, if not always. What happens when when you openly disagree with the loud and angry crowd? I think it was Ben Franklin who said ‘If everyone’s thinking alike, then no one is thinking.'”
The Rocketeer has garnered quite a following over the years. Do you have any stories about particularly passionate fans?
“There was a particularly passionate fellow in England who used to knit me sweaters. I got three, I think, over the years. He’ll never see this, so I will add that they weren’t quite my style. I don’t mind a frumpy piece of outerwear, I have a few favorite ugly jumpers, but these were a bit further in that direction than I could ever comfortably wear. I’ve wondered if he was just a really dedicated satirist, is how ugly they were.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJL9aVp_1jE
What is your earliest memory of your acting career?
“I was collared by my English teacher for cutting up in the hallway outside the room in which she was holding auditions for a play. This was Cathy Sublette at Western Albemarle High School and she let me choose between visiting the principal’s office and auditioning for the play, bless her. I had a sudden and intense interest in acting from that moment, which hasn’t gone away.”
So, say you’re in town in between filming.What are some favorite C’ville spots you’ve got to visit before taking off?
“Well, Sneak Reviews is one of the best video stores on the planet, and I’m partial to caffeine and I gotta say the very best coffee shop is actually in Crozet, and it’s called Trailside Coffee, out in the Old Trail development, just opposite WAHS (and I must confess I’m part owner with my sister Marcia Wilkes). I like The Virginian on The Corner (liked the West Virginian even better when it was downstairs), The White Spot, Miller’s, the Blue Moon Diner, and I loved Sarge’s Pancake House (‘Where students and townspeople meet!’) and so did my dad when he was at UVA, and we both mourn it’s passing. Just to name a few. Oh, and I can’t skip the C&O. Many, many good times there.” -Maggie Underwood
The Lenny Marcus Trio jazzes up some familiar classical tunes at the Wintergreen Summer Music Festival. Publicity photo.
Take a walk on the wild side with refreshing jazz renditions of Beethoven classics performed by The Lenny Marcus Trio as part of the Wintergreen Summer Music Festival. A protégé of the legendary Ray Bryant, Marcus brings a highly creative approach to his music, mixing flute, bluesy vocals, and cool jazz piano for a unique, uplifting sound. Following this year’s festival theme, “In My Mind’s Eye,” which focuses on imagination in the arts, this well-schooled trio brings an alternative, modern twist to the classics.
Wednesday 7/17 $10-25, 7:30pm. The Dunlop Pavilion, 39 Mountain Inn Loop, Rockfish. 325-8292.
Woods put its stake in the ground before rolling out several indie up-and-comers on its label Woodsist. Publicity Photo.
Woods may be from Brooklyn, but its music is utterly lacking in urbanity. The band’s sound comes from that place where the suburbs stop and the farmland begins. Since 2006, the prolific band has tempered its shambling garage fuzz with a homegrown, psychedelic folk flavor, finding surprising common ground between the Velvet Underground and CSNY.
Frontman Jeremy Earl sings in a high, nasal croon, which would almost be a provocation if Neil Young hadn’t already broken down that barrier decades ago. It’s a voice that will seem as comfortable as an old pair of shoes for some listeners, and like a pebble in that shoe for others.
Luckily for those in the latter category, Woods has plenty to offer in addition to Earl’s vocal talents—a dreamy haze of reverbating guitar rock, plenty of groovy noodling, and a handful of quieter, darker moments like the occasional lo-fi tape collage or the wandering, Jandek-esque half-songs that transform its records from mere collections of songs into aesthetically cohesive albums. While many of the tracks retain a home cassette-recorded grit, others show a clean, studio polished classic rock sound, and some even progress past that, into heavy psychedelic freak-outs. Woods’ style covers a broad range, but it’s all clearly coming from the same place.
Earl also operates the much beloved Woodsist record label, which made a name for itself issuing releases by cutting-edge indie favorites like Real Estate, Vivian Girls, Wavves, Crystal Stilts, The Fresh & Onlys, and Kurt Vile, just at the moment that those acts were on the verge of spilling over into national prominence. For years Woodsist (and its sister label, Hello Sunshine) have enjoyed a consistent run, occasionally pairing with like-minded contemporaries (MV&EE, Thee Oh Sees), mining for equally excellent acts that have yet to find a large following (Ryan Garbes, Herbcraft) and many that fall somewhere in-between (Moon Duo, White Fence). Anyone looking for exciting, contemporary, independent rock is advised to keep an eye out for the Woodsist label.
Though Woods is well-established and has a devoted following, there’s equal excitement about tour mate and relative newcomer Parquet Courts. Shout-singing wordy, would-be slacker slogans over nervously repetitive punk rhythms, Courts’ tactics owe much to The Fall, but have plenty of the surf sarcasm of the Dead Milkmen, and the groovy punk twang of The Meat Puppets, not to mention the steamroller energy of more recent acts like The Men. The Texans relocated to Brooklyn have been gathering acclaim since last year’s sophomore album, Light Up Gold, was re-issued by the What’s Your Rupture? label earlier this year.
Woods and Parquet Courts play the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar on Tuesday, July 23 with locals Left & Right opening. The show begins at 9pm and the cover charge is $8.
Classy by itself
Vinegar Hill Theatre continues its Cary Grant screenings, part of a summer series of monthly reparatory events co-presented by the Piedmont Council for the Arts. On July 18, Vinegar Hill shows the 1963 film Charade at 7:30pm.
Charade is a beloved classic, combining suspense, humor, and romance. It’s often mistaken for (or mis-remembered as) a Hitchcock film, and though it’s as exciting and well-plotted as some of Hitch’s best, it has an ease and charm frequently lacking from the master of suspense’s clinically constructed thrillers. The director is Stanley Donen, a prolific studio journeyman best known for his musicals, who employs a light touch that serves him well here. (He attempted to repeat the Charade formula again in his next film Arabesque, with significantly diminishing returns).
In Charade, Audrey Hepburn stars as a young widower who discovers in the wake of her late husband’s off-screen death that she didn’t know him as well as she thought. A menacing trio pursues her, demanding she hand over a supposed inheritance in the millions that she knows nothing about. In desperation, she turns to a handsome stranger, played by Grant, who proves so charming that she begins to doubt his motivations, especially as his reasons for helping her keep changing with each new revelation about her husband’s past.
In addition to the class and charm of the two iconic leads, the supporting cast is memorably strong: James Coburn is characteristically excellent as the ringleader of the villains, balancing broad comedy and cruel menace. As his accomplice, George Kennedy sticks to menace in a role that lets him showcase his manic, sweaty intensity. Walter Matthau rounds out the billing as a hilariously droll CIA agent who soon plays a bigger part, a reminder that Matthau’s range was a lot broader than the comedies he’s remembered for today.
Shot on location in Paris, and boasting a lovely score by Henry Mancini, Charade is great for a date night, for newcomers who have never seen it, and for those old enough to remember it from the first time around. The film plays to all ages, and holds up to repeat viewings.
It would only be proper for me to disclose that I manage the Vinegar Hill Theatre, and that this event is part of a program of monthly screenings that I helped to organize. Charade was not my suggestion, but I was delighted when my co-workers in the Staunton office proposed it, and I look forward to sharing it with a crowd of movie-lovers on Thursday. Tickets are the standard price ($10.50 for adults, with discounts for seniors, children, and students), and are available online, or in person at the Vinegar Hill box office.
What is your favorite Audrey Hepburn role? Tell us below…
When first observing the “Black Prints from Cicada Press” at the Kluge Ruhe, the print “let’s be polite about aboriginal art” by Vernon Ah Kee jumps out and sets the stage for the exhibit. The print is a simple black square with an aesthetically arranged column of text. The font is simple, it looks like Arial, and boldly proclaims “let’s be polite about aboriginal art.” The column of text is neatly stacked except for the word aboriginal which awkwardly extends into the surrounding black space. The word art beneath it seems minuscule by comparison. The witty and iconic language of Kee’s print is reminiscent of the impactful, sarcastic humor of street artists like Banksy and John Fekner. The print accomplishes exactly what it intends to, which is to point at the elephant in the room, in this case a kind of colonial bias in our vision of art created by aboriginal or native populations. This print proceeds to establish the artists in this show as clever, intellectual and aesthetic artists, who are grouped by the common but not defining fact that they are Australian aboriginals.
The prints on display are varied and generally quite stunning expressions of each individuals history or experiences. Many continue the use of the quick and iconic humor of street art, like Jason Wing‘s “Captain James Crook” and Reko Rennie‘s “Big Red.” Others are more meditative. One print by David Nolan shows the view from a window during his incarceration; spotted on the horizon are tiny airplanes ascending. The sense of architectural confinement is as great as the dream of flight and freedom. Another print by Laurel Nannup depicts a remembered image of her childhood home on the Pinjara Reserve which is childlike, eerily sparse, and utilitarian. Some are more subtle and abstract. Tess Allas‘s “dogma” is an elegant and simple image of a colored-in sphere. She highlights the metaphor of coloring inside the lines to explore the arbitrary rules and systems which we are made to conform with.
A few of the images are less approachable as they communicate more within a specific cultural context. Graham Blacklock‘s “Gunya 3” uses a pattern to depict the aerial representation of a type of dwelling called a humpy, but the layered rectangles become abstract and decorative. Without much context or experience of humpies the print appears more like a microscopic study or a choatic textural experiment. Another print by Frances Belle Parker is inspired by the aerial view of a specific island about which the artist has a multitude of feelings. The print however has few corresponding emotive or expressive elements beyond the flowing silhouette. Parker’s image mostly feels like one print from a separate series.
“Black Prints from Cicada Press” is a show with a sense of humor. The images are smart and very broad in their approaches to printmaking. Although the show currently has an appropriate home at the Kluge Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection, many of the works would be at home in any art space.
“We are a nation of laws and the jury has spoken,” President Obama said in his statement responding to George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the killing of Trayvon Martin. Indeed. The president’s message to the American public was no doubt delivered to tamp down any larger race-based responses (the hypothetical riots that haven’t yet materialized) to the verdict. It reminded me that being a nation of laws requires a particular kind of trust in lawmakers that our country is losing.
Many commentators, including The New York Times, saw the jury’s decision as proof that stances carried forward by the NRA and other pro-gun lobbies, particularly concealed carry and stand your ground laws, are tantamount to deputizing a white majority to enforce its racial prejudices. Jelani Cobb, who blogged the trial for The New Yorker, said, “The most damning element here is not that George Zimmerman was found not guilty: it’s the bitter knowledge that Trayvon Martin was found guilty.” Trayvon Martin was guilty of being a black teenager with a hoodie, so George Zimmerman wasn’t guilty at all.
Democrats will see the Trayvon Martin case as an example of the end result of Republican madness. Republicans will see it as an example of the way Democrats push their unfounded agendas by manipulating the media. Almost no one will disagree, behind closed doors, that had Martin been white, he’d be alive. So the question posed to us as citizens of a nation of laws is what to do about it. And the answer will likely be—as this week’s feature demonstrates with regard to gun laws—that with race politics, abortion, immigration, health care, and all of the other serious social issues of our day, there is no middle ground remaining from which to start the conversation.
Is it that we have collectively given up our middles for the sake of our wings, or just that class identity is the only common ground left in our culturally confused and increasingly individualistic world?
