Month: September 2013

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News Uncategorized

Fourth suspect in Rugby Road fake ID ring pleads not guilty

The house at 920 Rugby Road, where federal investigators say three Charlottesville residents were manufacturing fake IDs. Photo: Graelyn Brashear.

A 19-year-old New Jersey man is the latest person charged in connection with a fraud ring whose fake ID manufacturing operation led to a high-profile May raid of a Rugby Road mansion, the seizure of $3 million, and the arrest and subsequent guilty pleas of three young city residents.

Michael A. Delrio of Edison, New Jersey, who used the alias “Copernicus Leonhart,” appeared in federal court in Charlottesville Wednesday, where he pleaded not guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit document fraud, according to court records.

On September 4, Alan McNeil Jones, Kelly Erin McPhee, and Mark Gil Bernardo pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit identification document fraud and aggravated identity theft in the same court. The pleas came four months after federal agents swarmed the house where Jones and McPhee had been living and arrested the trio for manufacturing fake IDs and shipping them to college students across the country under the company name “Novel Designs.” Besides what added up to millions in cash, investigators seized cars, fake documents, cell phones, tasers, and multiple weapons, including assault rifles, from the rented home.

A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Timothy J. Heaphy said Delrio’s was allegedly hired to work with Bernardo to create a website to assist the conspiracy. Court documents show prosecutors have demanded he forfeit $60,000 he was allegedly paid for his work.

Delrio, represented by his court-appointed attorney J. Lloyd Snook  was released on $50,000 bond to his family.

 

Categories
News

Backyard harvest: Transitioning from summer to fall in the veggie garden

Peppers may be looking bedraggled, but often are at their most productive in early fall. Photo: Guinevere Higgins

That fall feeling is here. The morning air is crisp, autumn blooms like yellow crownbeard and native asters dot the roadsides, and our vegetable gardens are in transition. The tomatoes are looking bedraggled—perhaps due to blight, perhaps to infestations of stink bugs—the cucumbers are kaput, and cravings for slow-cooked greens and butternut squash soup begin to take the place of our need for Caprese salad and fresh salsa. But don’t give up on the summer garden just yet!

Your tomatoes, peppers, and basil may look a little rough, but if they’re hanging on and seem to be ripening new fruit (and you don’t need the space for fall plantings), consider letting them be for now—they often perk up as temperatures drop a bit. Leathery basil will benefit from being cut back by a third to encourage the growth of new tender leaves, and I find that fall-harvested sweet peppers tend to be the best of the season. Tomato quality diminishes once the weather gets truly cool, but plan to let the last of your fruits blush on the vine before harvest before placing them in a sunny spot indoors to finish ripening.

If a fall garden isn’t in the cards for you, or if your garden is so large that you still have empty beds after fall planting, consider planting a cover crop. Cover crops protect soil from erosion and nutrient loss over the winter, and can help with weed and disease suppression while maintaining precious relationships between plants and soil microorganisms through the cold months. And when cultivated into the soil or composted in spring, they add heaps of vital organic matter. Popular and easy to grow, cover crops include Austrian winter peas (adds nitrogen), winter rye (helps suppress weed growth), and Daikon radish (helps loosen compacted soils and kill soil-borne pathogens).

If you still have open beds after fall planting and cover cropping, plant garlic. Be sure to order your bulbs now, as supplies from most growers are running low. Check Southern Exposure Seed Exchange’s online catalog to see what varieties they have left. I am partial to hardneck garlic; the large, easy-to-peel cloves are wonderful to cook with, and they have the added bonus of providing a late spring “scape” or flower stalk, which is delicious sautéed or whizzed up into garlic scape pesto. Whatever variety you choose, plan to amend your garlic bed with plenty of compost and plant in late October or early November, and mulch your garlic beds after shoots emerge to protect from cold winter temperatures and wind. Plan on a June or early July harvest.

Categories
Arts

Film review: Ron Howard’s Rush is a high-speed joy ride

Ron Howard recaptures his movie making mojo with the racing rivalry flick, Rush, starring Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl.

It’s that time of year between the end of summer and the beginning of the Oscar races when, traditionally, the genuine crap starts hitting the multiplexes. (You’ll also find crap from January to March, and, depending on your point of view, all year.)

Rush, Ron Howard’s latest, is not crap. It isn’t Oscar-worthy, either, but after Howard’s last few pictures—among them the abysmal The Dilemma and Angels & Demons—just good is a nice change.

Rush is a simple biopic of two men. The first is Formula 1 driver James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth, who actually isn’t as good looking as Hunt was), a hard drinking, heavy smoking, drive-from-the-gut English stud with a privileged background, who would rather race cars than be a doctor. The other man is Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl, who’s better looking than his true-life counterpart; American audiences may know him best from Inglorious Basterds), an Austrian-born driver with impeccable driving and a discipline that makes him hard to beat.

Naturally, they hate each other. But over the course of the film they grow to respect each other as they prove to be the two best drivers of their era, the mid-1970s.

In real life, Hunt and Lauda liked each other much more than they do on the screen, but a screenplay without tension is boring. Maybe Howard and screenwriter Peter Morgan thought the literally death defying driving wasn’t enough on its own. Maybe they saw Days of Thunder and thought, “Man we can do this much, much better, and with real people.”

Whatever the reasoning, Rush is quite a ride. It has nothing new to offer in terms of character development, racing insight, or screenwriting, but it does several things well that make it fun.

First, there’s Anthony Dod Mantle’s cinematography, which captures the grit of racing along with the washed out colors we’ve come to associate with the 1970s, complete with the visible grain. Then there are the period details, from the clothing to the hairstyles, which manage to capture the look of the time without its inherent—in our memories, anyway—corniness.

Lastly, there’s the driving, which is shot in every possible way, from inside the cars, to above the race courses, to on the ground. Mantle’s shots are well-composed and the breakneck pacing is an aid, not a hindrance.

None of that would matter without two compelling leads, and Hemsworth and Brühl acquit themselves well. Brühl, in particular, does excellent work, making Lauda both an irritating asshole and a likable realist. When he suffers a devastating crash, we’re really pulling for him. Hemsworth is good enough; though he doesn’t have much range as an actor, he’s found his niche—good looking tough guys with hearts of gold—and does it with vigor.

There are other characters, but they’re mostly used for comic relief or paper thin character development. Olivia Wilde disappears almost as quickly as she arrives.

But there are sharp moments amid all the gear shifting. One involves Hunt and his interaction with a reporter whom he thinks insulted Lauda. And there’s Lauda’s final voiceover, which puts his relationship with Hunt in touching perspective. Rush is good, and hopefully a resurgence for Howard after years of stumbling.

Playing this week

Austenland
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Battle of the Year
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Blue Jasmine
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Butler
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Despicable Me 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Family
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

In a World
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Insidious Chapter 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Iron Man 3
Carmike Cinema 6

One Direction: This is Us
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Pacific Rim
Carmike Cinema 6

Paranoia
Carmike Cinema 6

Percy Jackson:
Sea of Monsters
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Planes
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Prisoners
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

R.I.P.D.
Carmike Cinema 6

Riddick
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Short Term 12
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Spectacular Now
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Thanks for Sharing
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

This is the End
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Turbo
Carmike Cinema 6

The Way, Way Back
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Wizard of Oz
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

We’re the Millers
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The World’s End
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

World War Z
Carmike Cinema 6

Movie houses

Carmike Cinema 6
973-4294

Regal Downtown Mall
Cinema 6
979-7669

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
244-3213

Categories
News

Green happenings: Charlottesville environmental news and events

File photo.

Each week, C-VILLE’s Green Scene page takes a look at local environmental news. The section’s bulletin board has information on local green events and keeps you up to date on statewide happenings. Got an event or a tip you’d like to see here and in the paper? Write us at news@c-ville.com. 

Trail training: Want to become a volunteer guide at the Ivy Creek Natural Center? Check out the free guide training session on Tuesday, September 24 at 9:30am. Topics covered include wildlife like reptiles, amphibians, and mammals, as well as plants, birds, and the history of River View Farm. For more information, contact Bruce Gatling-Austin at programs@ivycreekfoundation.org.

Perma-eats: Sign up now for the weekend-long Edible Forest Gardening workshop hosted by the Blue Ridge Permaculture Network. The three-day course at Fiddlehead Farm near Charlottesville will include an overview of edible forest gardening, permaculture design, and profiles of perennial polyculture plants. Class size is limited, so contact Terry Lilley at tygerlilley@gmail. com for more sign-up information.

Farming by the numbers: According to the most recent USDA Census of Agriculture, more than 158,000 acres of Albemarle County is farmland—just over a third of the county’s total acreage. There are 895 working farms with an average size of 177 acres. The next Ag Census is released in February 2014.

Categories
Living

Umlaut or not: Fill your glass with a wine from Austria

Whether Zweigelt, Blaufränkisch, or Grüner veltliner, wines from Austria are more than just a jumbled mix of letters and umlauts: They’re dry, well-crafted, and easily pairable whether white or red. File photo.

Austrian wines easily intimidate American oenophiles, who generally lack knowledge about wines from this country save for the 1985 diethylene glycol wine scandal, a.k.a. the “antifreeze scandal.” We tend to think of these wines as hard-to-pronounce grape varietals from unrecognizable regions with long names that are sticky on the tongue. So, that being said, let’s throw out all of those pretenses and taste some dry, well crafted, easily pairable white and red wines from Austria, shall we?

Austria and Germany are neighbors with a similar language, yet their wines differ in many ways. Austrian white wines hold a good deal of minerality and spice while remaining bright, crisp, and dry, where German whites posses an oily, off-dry minerality that stays on their side of the border. Grüner veltliner or “Gru-Ve” is the most recognizable white varietal grown in Austria and is the perfect go-to wine for every occasion.

Austria is divided into four major wine-growing regions—Neiderösterreich, Burgenland, Steier Mark (Styria), and Wien (Vienna)—each of which has specific sub regions. Neiderösterreich has eight specific wine growing sub regions. The region of Kamptal, within Neiderösterreich, is centered on the river Kamp and makes some of the best wines in the country. Wachau is in the west of Neiderösterreich, and is also home to some fine white wines, including the best selection of riesling. Weingut Josef Bauer makes a Pfarrleithen riesling from Wagram that is mind-blowingly good ($22.95 at Tastings). It is goldenrod yellow in color and packed with ripe stone fruit aromas, and has bright acidity without being piercing. The Steininger Kamptal Reserve Grüner Veltliner is one of my personal favorites with notes of green pea, apple, white pepper, and a mineral-driven finish ($25.99 at Wine Warehouse). It is dry, yet fruity, and is an excellent counterpart to any Asian dish, especially Vietnamese cuisine. It also pairs well with seafood, smoked ham, and bitter greens or salad, which are typically challenging to match. Grüner veltliner is usually affordable, with most bottles costing less than $20. On the higher end, the Nikolaihof “Hefeabzug” grüner veltliner from the Kamptal region ($29.99 at Wine Warehouse) is an amazing find. “Hefe” means “aged on lees,” which are the dead yeast cells that drop to the bottom of the barrel. This style adds a nice creaminess to the wine, and has a salty minerality with bigger bones and spice. The winery is Demeter-certified biodynamic and family-owned since 1894. Its goal is “to get as much power and energy into the wine as possible whilst interfering with nature as little as possible.” The family uses stinging nettles, valerian root drops, and valerian tea preparations on the soil, which act like homeopathic medicine for the grapevines to remain healthy. All of its wines go through natural fermentation, meaning no commercial yeast cells are added to get the fermentation process started.

With the weather transitioning to cooler nights and a hint of drying leaves in the air, we should all be drinking Austrian red wines. Starting with blaufränkisch, which is grown mostly in Austria and some in Germany and in the U.S., where it’s called lemberger. The wines are spicy, smoky, herbaceous, and lighter bodied, making them easy to pair with most foods. It’s a fun replacement for Pinot Noir or Gamay (which it closely resembles), hailing from Burgenland, on the eastern edge of Austria abutting Hungary. The Weingut Netzl Carnuntum Cuvee is a blend of blaufränkisch, zweigelt, and merlot ($15.99 at Wine Warehouse). It is deep ruby in color, with spicy fruit, dark berries, and juicy elegance with pleasant tannins. This wine would pair beautifully with roast duck. Wines from Leo Hillinger are prominent in stores around our area and they are a good starting place for trying out Austrian wines. The Leithaberg blaufränkisch ($32.99 at Wine Warehouse) is powerful and dark with notes of licorice, graphite, and blackberries.

For something a tad tamer, try the Hillinger Hillside Red, which is a meaty blend of syrah, merlot, and zweigelt ($24.99 at Tastings). The spice and white pepper notes from the syrah really show through and give this wine a nice kick to an otherwise juicy, yet full-bodied wine. This is a perfect substitute for someone who enjoys cabernet sauvignon and is trying to branch out of her comfort zone.

Of all the wines in Austria, zweigelt (a.k.a. blauer) has stolen my heart. It is the perfect marriage of savory and spicy, with good structure, medium to full body, and strong character. It also goes with everything. I have yet to find a dish that zweigelt hasn’t complemented, from Italian food to sushi. Hard to believe, right? The Steininger zweigelt Novemberlese from Kamptal is a good example of this varietal that is relatively easy to find on shelves. It gets its name because it is harvested in November and it possesses notes of red cherry and smoke, and pairs especially well with cured meats and charcuterie. But, like I said, give it a whirl with anything and you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Tracey Love is the event coordinator at Blenheim Vineyards, the sales and marketing associate for the Best of What’s Around farm, and proprietress of Hill & Holler.

Categories
Arts

ARTS Pick: HILL & down here

A voluntary, pay-what-you-can system encourages everyone to participate in Cora Dance Company’s exploration of movement and “common dances.”

New York-based choreographer Shannon Hummel leads members of the Cora Dance Company in two distinct dance events. In HILL, modern dancers bring their boundary-breaking choreographic style in the form of a three-day, open to the public workshop that culminates in a modern performance that addresses life’s major roadblocks and resultant recalculations. down here is a company piece about power, attachment, and relating to each other. The workshop begins on September 28.

down here: Saturday, 9/28. $10-50 or pay-what-you-can. 7pm and 9pm, Black Box Theater at PVCC, 501 Dickenson Dr. 961-5395.

HILL workshop: 9/27. $50 or pay-what-you-can. 9:30am on the hillside at PVCC. 718-858-2520.

HILL performance: Sunday, 9/29. free. 3pm on the hillside at PVCC. 718-858-2520.

Categories
Arts

STRFKR blurs the divide between dance and pop rock

Conceding to song licensing and playing the name game is all part of the trajectory of success for zany popsters STRFKR (clockwise from top: Josh Hodges, Patrick Morris, Shawn Glassford, Keil Corcoran).

Josh Hodges was a deejay who didn’t like phonies. So when an obnoxious musician started bragging about his sexual conquests out on tour in 2007, Hodges thought of a way to put him in his place.

“I wasn’t even trying to start a band,” he said. “The name Starfucker was intended to make fun of that whole value system.”

Hodges, who had been spinning records under the name Sexton Blake and had two marginally successful mixtapes to his credit, said the “band” was mainly assembled to give him an opportunity to mess around with his drumming. But along with Shawn Glassford and Ryan Bjornstad, Hodges and Starfucker went on tour in 2008 and established themselves as a solid group of multi-
instrumentalists doing electro-pop over the backdrop of an outlandish stage act.

Hodges writes the majority of the band’s songs and plays guitar and keyboard in addition to doing his share of the drumming, but early on he knew the act had a glaring problem—its drummers just weren’t good enough. The band picked up a “real drummer” in the form of Keil Corcoran in 2009 and went on a second tour with a part time fill-in, Ian Luxton. Still, Hodges said the mix wasn’t right.

“Things were not working out with Ryan,” Hodges said. “Since then we’ve added Patrick Morris, and it’s all going well. It’s like you’re dating four people, and you have to break up with people sometimes. It’s definitely the best it’s ever been.”

Increasingly popular success has followed for Hodges, Glassford, Corcoran, and Morris. Starfucker released its first major record label LP in 2011 after signing with Polyvinyl Records, and the band has licensed a number of songs for use in commercials and television shows.

“When I was a kid, [licensing songs] was really uncool,” Hodges said. “Now it’s just the nature of the business. Bands don’t make as much money on a record as they used to. There are definitely things I wouldn’t do, like an ad for the military.”

Hodges said Starfucker has grown largely by word of mouth, as opposed to the viral Internet success of some of its contemporaries. He thinks the band appeals to wide audiences—the edgy electronica stuff brings out the club kids, and the catchy pop sound appeals to all sorts of indie music lovers, even the easy listening set.

Hodges said that while the band was playing at parties just five years ago, the four-piece now finds itself in larger venues every time it makes a repeat visit.

“Going through cities like D.C., there are all these venues that we have heard about, and now we’re playing them,” Hodges said. “The shows kind of go with the audience. We started playing these packed rooms, and in that environment it’s easy to have a shared energy. We try to keep that playing the new venues.”

Starfucker draws on the influence of theatrical acts like the Flaming Lips and Of Montreal to help keep the energy up. The band’s stage manager has been known to stage dive in an astronaut costume, and the guys sometimes dress in drag. They travel with a flashy LED wall to keep it trippy, and they work the room after shows like they’re still at a hipster house party.

“We always hang out and talk to people at the merch table,” Hodges said. “We see people that haven’t seen us for years that are like friends now.”

Starfucker’s latest album, Miracle Mile, is an extension of its early success. Half “drunk guitars” and half dance tunes, the record has been criticized for not moving forward, but it’s as catchy as anything the band’s ever produced.

“At first I wanted to make a happy sounding album,” Hodges said. “That’s the drunk stuff. But then there is also the dancey stuff. The whole process was more collaborative than ever before. It used to just be me writing and recording. Now we are writing together and getting everyone in the same room.”

With more live bookings and growing record sales, one problem has continued to come up for Starfucker—the name. Hodges said some people won’t even listen to the band because of the expletive, and they’ve had a lot of posters destroyed over the years. To make the whole thing go down easier and make sure they get on marquees, Hodges decided to switch to STRFKR in 2012.

“People still know,” he said. “That was a way we found to keep the name and still get to be on the radio.”

STRFKR has come a long way from being a send-up of rock stars, and Hodges clearly wrestles with that fact. But in the end, he says it’s a lot more fun whoring himself out by doing something creative than by working behind a counter somewhere.

“Now the fun thing for me is seeing how far we can go with this name,” Hodges said. “Every time we play festivals and headline a stage, it’s like, this is so fucking crazy that we can do this.”

FKNG crazy indeed.

Categories
News

Long-abandoned Blue Ridge Tunnel could partially reopen within six months

Thanks to a $750,000 grant from VDOT, work will soon begin on the first phase of restoration of the Claudius Crozet Blue Ridge Tunnel. Photo: Jack Looney.

After a dozen years of planning, VDOT has awarded Nelson County $750,000 to begin restoring what was once the world’s greatest railroad engineering effort: The Claudius Crozet Blue Ridge Tunnel.

“When it was built, it was the longest tunnel in the nation, and the longest mountain tunnel in the world,” said Allen Hale, a Nelson County Supervisor and chair of the public-private foundation that has advocated for restoration since 2001. The tunnel, named for the Frenchman who designed it, was a marvel of the age, a passage hewn through nearly a mile of rock by hundreds of Irish laborers and slaves working from both sides of Afton Mountain. Nitroglycerin explosives wouldn’t be available for another decade, Hale explained. The work was done with black powder and the brute force of hand drills. “You had to have two guys—one holding a bit and the other a sledgehammer,” he said.

The east and west efforts met on Christmas Day in 1858, their alignment only inches off. “It really was a brilliant engineering feat,” Hale said.

The tunnel was abandoned when a bigger one was completed in 1944. Reopening it as a walking and biking path won’t be nearly so arduous, Hale said. Nelson County already owns the entire right-of-way, which it purchased from CSX for $1 in 2006, and the county is working on securing easements on more land on the Augusta side of the mountain. The first phase of the project, covered by a grant from VDOT’s federal Transportation Alternatives Program and expected to be completed in four to six months, will consist of an access path from the old Afton Depot off Route 250 to the east entrance and 700 feet of tunnel trail.

Bigger tasks, also expected to be funded by VDOT, will come later. One will be restoring the crumbling brickwork that lines a few hundred feet of the west end. Also on the to-do list: knocking out twin concrete bulkheads installed in the 1950s in an attempt, later abandoned, to convert the center section of the tunnel to a natural gas storage site. Each is about 14 feet thick, passable only by narrow drainage culverts. “I’m told by the tunnel experts that it’s not an overwhelming task,” Hale said. The brickwork and blasting together could cost around $490,000.

Eventually, once easements are secured on the Augusta side of the tunnel, bikers and walkers will be able to travel between two trailheads through the full 4,264-foot-long passageway, unlit but for the openings at either end.

Until then, curious explorers will have to be kept out. The tunnel is currently off-limits, Hale said, but trespassers visit frequently, some leaving behind trash and graffiti, and the foundation is considering erecting gates to block off the areas under restoration.

Hale said he understands what draws people to Crozet’s masterwork.

“Anyone who sees this place realizes that it’s a really wonderful thing,” he said.

Categories
Arts

ART Pick: Kathy Kosins

Session singer Kathy Kosins draws praise from critics and peers for her smoky, velvet smooth delivery of obscure jazz tunes.

Take a ride through the speakeasies and music halls of jazz past with singer Kathy Kosins in a concert presented by the Charlottesville Jazz Society and WTJU-FM. Kosins paints a beautiful picture of days gone by while maintaining a youthful and contemporary style in her music. She’ll also celebrate the release of her recent album, The Space Between, from which the audience can expect to hear a few tracks. Backing her on the Steinway is the talented and capable Bob Hallahan.

Friday, 9/27. $5-15, 8pm. Brooks Hall, University Avenue, UVA. 249-6191.

Categories
News

Tomtoberfest pushes town-gown innovation with a light heart

A Tom Tom Founder’s Festival event draws a crowd at Old Metropolitan Hall. Tomtoberfest, a shorter fall version of the innovation-centric city-wide party, takes place this week. Photo: Tom Daly.

The Tom Tom Founder’s Festival is headed back to school.

Paul Beyer is getting ready to launch the second annual Tomtoberfest, the smaller autumn sister of the spring music and innovation showcase he created in 2012 in the image of Austin’s SXSW. This year’s fall fest runs Wednesday through Saturday, and doubles down on a concept Beyer, a developer and former City Council candidate, believes needs more attention: forging a link between the twin idea factories of UVA and the growing startup community in Charlottesville.

The University is lending space for a long weekend of events, from a candidates’ forum at the University’s OpenGrounds studio on how to make Charlottesville a startup hub to a Founder’s Fair idea expo at the Amphitheater on McCormick Road.

Beyer’s stint in Darden’s iLab incubator during an intensive summer session designed to help a select group of local entrepreneurs grow their startups helped the festival evolve into celebration of ideas that aims to bridge the gap between city and University.

“There’s a lot of momentum around town-gown entrepreneurship,” Beyer said. He made it his job this summer to channel that momentum into programs and events that will spark interest among festivalgoers and potential sponsors alike—it is, after all, a business venture.

It also embodies a lot of what the iLab itself was designed to achieve, said Phillippe Sommer, director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership at Darden’s Batten Institute. Created in 2010, the iLab was designed to be a physical home at UVA for studying innovation in business. Beyer was part of an initial class of about two dozen people pulled from the University and the surrounding community.

Sommer thinks the growth of Tom Tom also drives home two important ideas: good concepts should evolve, and mulling big, important ideas about business and technology shouldn’t be dull.

“We talk a lot about how innovation and entrepreneurship is not about being childish, but being in a way childlike,” he said. “How do you learn to ride a bike? You don’t analyze bike riding. You fall a lot of times, and eventually you get it right.”

For Beyer, getting it right means throwing a party with a purpose. He wants Tom Tom festivals to help the city forge a new narrative for itself.

“The compelling story about Charlottesville is it’s a place where revolutionary ideas started, and we have in the ether here world-class ideas that are still percolating,” he said. “So I see no reason not to really let that drive the city.”

Here’s what’s coming up. Check out further details on the event’s website.

Wednesday: The 12 candidates running for seats on the Charlottesville City Council and the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors will join local entrepreneurs and investors in a candidates’ forum titled The Politics of Innovation at 6pm at Old Metropolitan Hall. Have a beer and hear presenters pepper the pols with questions on how startup hubs grow.

Friday: Head to Second Street NW from 5-10pm for another McGuffy Block Party with live bands, a beer garden, and food trucks. At5:30pm, a representative from Mexican public art collective Puebla Ciudad Mural will offer a mural workshop at the McGuffy Art Center.

Saturday: The Jefferson Rounds bring UVA’s founder’s “learn where you live” principal to life with a series of half-hour seminars by Lawnies in the Rotunda from 12:30-5pm.

The Apps That Matter competition launches at 3pm with a kickoff brainstorming event at OpenGrounds. WillowTree Apps will help guide student teams as they create functioning smartphone apps for local nonprofits during a six-month design challenge. The top three teams will present their products at the Tom Tom Founder’s Festival in April 2014.

Student groups, UVA departments, and local businesses united by their focus on innovation come together to show off their smarts at a Founder’s Fair from 4-8pm at the UVA Ampitheater. A capella groups will serenade visitors starting at 4:30.

At the same time next door in Garrett Hall is Pitch, an afternoon of instruction and action centered on selling ideas. An entrepreneur, poet, comedian, and actress will offer tips on how to captivate a crowd; a panel of UVA alums will discuss student entrepreneurship; and students will compete for a $200 prize in a 60-second elevator pitch competition.