Singer-songwriter Reed Kendall is an up-and-coming force within the booming Philly music scene. His touring act, Up the Chain, has been deemed a “collective of some of the city’s finest musicians.” With its smooth trumpet work and skillful blues guitar harnessed by a flow of rhythm, the band draws comparisons to Paul Simon’s solo work.
Wednesday 11/13. Free, 5pm. Para Coffee, 19 Elliewood Ave. 293-4412.
We’re always keeping our eyes and ears out for the latest news in Charlottesville’s food and drink scene, so pick up a paper and check c-ville.com/living each week for the latest Small Bites. Have a scoop for Small Bites? E-mail us at bites@c-ville.com.
There’s a new food truck in town, and it’s serving up good ol’ Southern cuisine. Black Jack’s Mobile Soul Food Kitchen can be found at East High Street during weekday lunch hours, and across from Tonsler Park on Cherry Avenue for dinner every evening except Sunday. The menu covers everything from steak and cheese sandwiches and hot dogs to mac and cheese and collard greens, and you can’t beat the price of the lunch platters starting at $6. Owners Lemar and Kieren Brown said starting a food truck just made sense—with a longtime Aberdeen Barn chef and fried chicken king Mike Brown in the family, they’ve been around soul food their whole lives. The most popular item on the menu by far is the lightly battered tilapia, crispy around the edges and served with a side of tartar sauce. And make sure you try the cornbread. It tastes like cake.
Cocktails are coming to tavola! The rustic Italian restaurant in Belmont is opening up a cicchetti bar in January 2014, where guests can enjoy a full list of wine, beer, top-shelf liquor, and favorites from the antipasti menu while waiting for a table. Owners Michael and Tami Keaveny are also expanding the restaurant to include a new private party space in addition to the original nine-table restaurant, which will be available to book for special events as early as this December. To make reservations for a holiday party or private event, call 972-9463 or e-mail info@tavolavino.com.
Charlottesville has a new item to add to its list of superlatives. The Daily Meal recently released its 2013 list of America’s best small towns for food, and Charlottesville beat out 10 other towns like Tarrytown, New York, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, and Boulder, Colorado for the No. 1 spot. The feature named Brookville, Mas, and Tempo as some of the top farm-to-table choices around.
Just in time for the colder months, Starr Hill Brewery is rolling out a new seasonal beer that is sure to warm you up, the Snow Blind Doppelbock Lager. The full-bodied German-style lager is brewed with Pilsner, Munich, and Carafa malts, and at 7.4 percent alcohol by volume, it’s sure to keep you nice and toasty. Starr Hill founder and master brewer Mark Thompson described the new beer as heavy and malty, and said no winter is complete without enjoying “a well-made doppelbock by the fireplace.” Snow Blind hit the shelves earlier this month, and will be available through January.
For 40 years, the Prism Coffeehouse was a highly-regarded venue in Charlottesville, and revered by folk and roots music connoisseurs nationwide. Originally located at the corner of Gordon Avenue and Rugby Road, the space could accommodate over 100 people, but it always felt much smaller. I have vague memories of going to concerts there as a child in the late ’80s and early ’90s, and what I remember clearly is the reverent feeling in the room.
It wasn’t your typical bustling, clattering coffeehouse—it was more like a church for the “religion” of traditional music. The listeners were sometimes packed in like sardines, but the mood was cozy and quiet enough to hear every breath the musicians took, along with the sound of their fretting fingers brushing the strings. The near silence may have been partly due to the fact that many shows were broadcast live on WTJU, but it was also because the audience was eager to give the music its full attention. And the music was worth listening to. Mike Seeger himself once said, “I know of no other place in the United States where you can hear such a great variety of folk and traditional music.”
WTJU’s folk director Peter Jones has been a WTJU volunteer since 1996, and he was involved with the original Prism, hosting monthly broadcasts of his syndicated children’s program “Tell Us a Tale” and would “occasionally be recruited to hit record on the DAT machine.”
“The Prism was originally started in 1966, by what was called the ‘God Squad,’” Jones said. “A group of ministers around Charlottesville wanted to give students at the University who were opposed to the Vietnam War a place to go, and then music developed out of that—Emmylou Harris performed there back in the early ’70s, and it’s said that Bob Dylan even came down and introduced her the first night.”
The venue stayed in vogue with folk and mountain music fans, and thrived as an outlet for local singer-songwriters until Fred Boyce was hired as artistic director around 1990. “He started booking acts, and it really just went up to an entirely different level at that point,” Jones said. “World-renowned artists of all styles came in, and loved to perform there because they knew that the audience was there to listen.” Locals like Tim Reynolds and Greg Liszt got started at the Prism, and touring acts like Andy Irvine, Robin and Linda Williams, and Gillian Welch and David Rawlings regularly made appearances.
The Prism closed in 2006, after a public feud between Boyce and other members of the organization. Now, over seven years later, Jones is leading a group that hopes to bring the popular coffeehouse back in a new location. “We have two original board members who were on [the Prism’s board] back in the ’90s and we have three new members, including myself,” Jones said.
Jones hopes that he can establish a new home for the Prism and fill a void in the music scene. “There are great venues around town, but a listening room has been missing from Charlottesville and central Virginia,” he said. “You had the Mockingbird [Café, which recently closed] in Staunton, but folks weren’t making that trek. That was trying to pick up where the Prism left off, and they didn’t make it.”
The Prism’s new home will be in The Haven, the former church on First and Market streets that serves as a resource center and day shelter for Charlottesville’s homeless, while also hosting events for the wider community. “The Haven has been looking for an organization like the Prism to put on concerts in the sanctuary space, and it’s a win-win for both sides,” Jones said. “We’re thrilled to have that relationship with them.”
Jones and the new board (Joe Ayers, Laura Seale, Dave Shreve and George Dayton) are currently holding a fundraiser for proper sound equipment for the space. “We’re using IndieGogo, which is like Kickstarter, they just take less money from you,” he said. “We’re trying to raise at least $5,000 from that, and we’re also working with BamaWorks on the final portion.” Jones hopes to reach a goal of $14,000.
The fundraiser will continue through November 26, and they hope to hold the first concerts in early February following the folk marathon on WTJU. “We love the idea of working with WTJU,” he said. “Not only because I’m part of it, but because WTJU is truly what the Prism is about: bringing you diverse music, great quality music.”
As for the acts the new Prism hopes to host? “We’re working with the Charlottesville Jazz Society, and we’ve talked to some of the blues groups here in town, and some classical folks,” said Jones. “So just as the old Prism used to bring in world, classical, jazz, folk, blues, and even rock, we’re going to work with all types of groups to create a real listening room.”
Share your memories from The Prism Coffeehouse in the comments below.
Theater professor and American Shakespeare Center Director of Missions Ralph Alan Cohen is never one to keep audiences in the dark. Instead, he puts them in the spotlight.
Such was his hope 25 years ago when constructing the Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton with a group of former students. Today it is the world’s only recreation of the original Blackfriars Theater, one of the performance places for William Shakespeare and his acting troupe, the King’s Men, in 17th century London.
Cohen will be one of 18 presenters at the Charlottesville TEDx Event, a local version of the global TED educational conference, this Friday, November 15 at the Paramount Theater. The theme of the event will be “The Difference that Makes a Difference,” and in Cohen’s experience, one distinction defines and divides the traditional and modern theater experience—leaving the lights on.
“By putting the audiences in the dark, we’re putting the theater in the dark,” he said. “We’re holding the theater hostage to a movie concept of what theater should be. They’re very different. The movie experience is wholly individual. It’s a different experience knowing the actor is being influenced by the audience.”
Cohen hopes to educate his listeners about what makes Shakespearean theater such a distinctively inviting experience. Particularly, he mentioned the necessity of imagination for both audience and actors to contextualize Shakespeare’s writing.
“As an actor,” he said, “[Shakespeare] knew the importance of leaving space for acting partners and he always assumed [the presence of] an audience who, however silently, was in the scene. In that sense, the language and the moments in Shakespeare need a visible audience for completion.”
In ‘A Midsummer Nights’ Dream,’” he said, “there is a line where Oberon the King of the Fairies says ‘I am invisible.’ Our brains will allow us to believe it. They will make a man invisible. In a movie, you would have to actually become invisible.”
TEDx manager and Charlottesville filmmaker, Chris Farina, said the Staunton group’s approach has earned a wide following.
“It’s a real incredible experience,” he said. “It would make anyone who’s not a Shakespeare lover reconsider. Theater was the art form of Shakespeare’s time. It was for everyone, not just the upper class.”
“We have top quality theater sitting in our backyard,” he explained, “It really draws international attention.”
In addition to his projects with the ASC, through which he has directed 30 productions of plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries, Cohen has also published a book on how to teach Shakespeare and is a Gonder Professor of Shakespeare and Performance at Mary Baldwin College, where he established the Shakespeare and Performance Master’s Degree.
In 2008 he was the winner of the Commonwealth Governor’s arts award, and in 2009 he received the Theo Crosby Fellowship at the London Globe Theater, named in memory of an original architect of the Globe Theater reconstruction.
Cohen hopes to teach his audience about their necessity in preserving the theater experience.
“The magic of the theater is the audience itself,” he emphasized. “Why would people stop doing the one thing that makes it the most magical thing in the world?”—Matthew Fay
The Garage is primarily recognized as a fun offbeat downtown music venue. However, if you squint and peer behind the lead guitarist, or stumble past on your way to your car on First Fridays, you discover the space also curates monthly art shows. While its shows are fairly difficult to access (the space is closed for the majority of each month), I have found the work on display to be consistently fun and intriguing.
The most recent show at the Garage is a new group of paintings/drawings by Clay Witt. These works have a different feel than his recent show at Second Street Gallery. They depict atmospheric white spaces inhabited by bears, mammoths, and tumultuous erupting steam jets. While they still have the artist’s immaculate attention to surface and texture, they seem more quickly and less preciously resolved. In some paintings, the strong mark-making creates an immediate and emotive legibility, reminiscent of inked children’s book illustrations. Ursa I and II as well as Danae I and II display this with an etching-like quality.
In some of the larger paintings the graphite marks feel slower and more timid. To compare two polar bears, the slow thin lines in The Meeting are not quite as captivating or emotive as the thick textured hair-marks in Ursa I.
This being said, Witt’s work is gorgeous, and it is brilliant to see new approaches enter his process.
~ Aaron Miller and Rose Guterbock
Court Squared is a regular column on local legal and justice issues by Charlottesville attorney Ron Cooper.
If you’ve ever sat in on a trial, on top of the multitude of emotions you’re experiencing depending on why you’re there, you’ll instantly recognize that real world litigation looks nothing like an episode of Law & Order. Like in most everything else, real trial proceedings are a lot less sexy than those portrayed on TV—unless we’re talking about the bizarre Cop Rock, because there’s nothing sexy about courtroom musicals.
Likewise, the drama of an actual criminal case may not even be the trial itself. Before most trials, the opposing parties exchange information and evidence in a pretrial procedure known as “discovery.” The discovery process is the essential ingredient in every attorney’s trial preparation recipe. Because it can have such a significant impact on the outcome of the ensuing trial, attorneys are rightfully invested in the discovery process.
But depending on who you ask, Virginia’s discovery rules are either fair and reasonable or biased and inadequate.
“Unlike in Federal Court where there are constitutional protections available, Virginia defense lawyers get essentially nothing during the discovery phase,” said local criminal defense attorney Dean L’hospital. “The accused don’t even have the right to view the police reports associated with their cases.”
Currently, criminal defendants and their attorneys are entitled to statements or confessions made by the defendant and certain forensic reports and medical analyses. Federal law mandates the defense also receive any evidence that tends to show the defendant is not guilty.
Discovery rules vary across the U.S.
“States are all over the map on this issue,” said local public defender Jim Hingeley. “As far as I’m aware, Virginia is at the most restrictive end of the [criminal] discovery spectrum along with a few other states,” said local public defender Jim Hingeley
Earlier this year, the Indigent Defense Task Force (IDTF), sent a proposal to the Virginia Supreme Court recommending that the Court broaden discovery in criminal matters to allow defendants access to relevant police reports and recordings and information that negatively affects the credibility of the Commonwealth’s witnesses, among other things.
The Virginia Association of Commonwealth’s Attorneys (VACA) spoke out strongly against the IDTF’s proposed amendments.
“The idea of police reports, recordings, and witness statements being copied and circulated through the community and even uploaded to the Internet is repugnant to Virginia’s prosecutors and anyone else with an interest in the safety and privacy of victims and witnesses,” reads VACA’s letter.
But the Virginia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (VACDL) disagrees.
“[A] person accused of a crime would have a better opportunity to defend himself if he knew the substance of the allegation and the results of the investigation of the allegation by law enforcement,” reads the VACDL’s letter in favor of the amendments. The Commonwealth could opt to withhold information in certain cases with a protective order, VACDL said.
The Virginia Victim Assistance Network said that even with safeguards, the proposed changes could negatively affect victim and witness safety, and discourage their participation in investigations and trials.
“A protective order is absolutely insufficient to guard against dissemination of [police reports, recordings, and witness statements] by a recalcitrant criminal offender who is facing far more consequences for their underlying criminal behavior that the punishment associated with a contempt charge which might flow from violating a protective order,” reads VACA’s letter echoing the Victim Assistance Network’s concerns.
Some Commonwealth’s Attorney’s offices in Virginia—including Charlottesville’s and Albemarle’s—opt to work more collaboratively, adopting what’s known as an “open file policy.”
Charlottesville Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman said choosing to share more information with the defense helps avoid mistrust and antagonism between opposing attorneys. “We have an expansive open file policy because it’s the right thing to do,” he said.
But the philosophy isn’t consistent across Virginia, and Hingeley said that’s a big problem. Codifying a more uniform approach to open file policies would go a long way toward providing adequate discovery in Virginia, he said.
Albemarle Commonwealth’s Attorney Denise Lunsford, who worked as a defense attorney for 18 years, said she’s not opposed to changing discovery rules—as long as they don’t tip the balance too far in favor of defendants. She’s concerned about the fact that the changes would require the prosecutors to turn over a broader spectrum of investigative materials, principally police reports and recordings of witness statements, without placing a corresponding duty on the defense to provide similar information regarding defense witnesses.
“There needs to be more reciprocity in terms of what the defense should provide to the prosecution,” said Lunsford.
Chapman agreed. “The proposed modifications are intended to maximize advantage rather than merely ensure fairness,” he said.
The Virginia Supreme Court recently decided to appoint a committee to perform its own study on criminal discovery. It’s not clear how long the study will take, but a spokesman said the Court was committed to bringing all stakeholders to the table.
L’hospital thinks change is overdue.
“As long as the prosecutor has ultimate control over when and what information to disseminate, defense attorneys will be subjugated and beholden to prosecutors, rather than being equals on a fair playing field,” he said.
After four years and three releases, Adam Brock’s Borrowed Beams of Light project has become as well-known to locals as the various bands (most notably the Invisible Hand) for which he’s lent his not-inconsiderable talents as a drummer. In addition to his hammering accuracy behind the kit, Brock also has a crystal-clear singing voice and an instinctive power-pop sensibility that can often disguise the strangeness and surrealism of his lyrics and song structures.
On the Wings of a Bug is the Beams’ latest, first recorded as demos by Brock and erstwhile bandmate Nate Walsh, before being fleshed out into fuller form over a series of piecemeal recording sessions at various professional, amateur, and home studios by Brock’s usual cast of live collaborators: Corsair’s Marie Landragin and Jordan Brunk, drummer Ray Szwabowski, and Weird Mob’s Dave Gibson (whose label, Hibernator Gigs, also released the record). It’s the bands’ second full-length, a 13-song LP-only release housed in a stellar sleeve designed by Brock’s Hand bandmate Thomas Dean (who’s been doing killer work recently; see also his OMD-esque cover for Raleigh’s WhateverBrains from this past summer).
Bug isn’t the Beams catchiest effort, but it is easily the most cohesive, mostly toning down the fist-pumping shout-along power-pop choruses, and eschewing Brock’s wilder impulses in favor of crisp, streamlined, and easily charming mid-tempo indie-pop groovers. The highs are fewer, but the lows are nonexistent; while the A-side is breezy, sedate, and largely likable (if unmemorable), the B-side is where Brock’s strengths as an arranger really come to the surface, as the songs begin to expand take strange turns and wonderfully unexpected digressions; the whistling back-up in “Drawing Blanks,” the sparse reverb of “Machines,” the weird, burbling keyboards in “Getting There,” and the twangy country guitar and inverted Beatles allusions in “the News” all belie the scope and ambition of Brock’s winningly eccentric vision.
Borrowed Beams of Light will play an LP release show on Saturday, November 9th at the Southern Café and Music Hall. The supporting acts are Dead Professional, the new solo project of the Cinnamon Band’s John Harouff, as well as Black Girls, a dubiously-named band of white boys from Richmond. The venue opens at 8:30 with music starting at 9PM, and tickets are $8 at the door.
Driven by Zappaesque blues guitar riffs and enchanting three-part harmonies, Houndmouth is making its mark in today’s burgeoning folk scene. The young band enjoyed a hectic festival schedule this summer, and a run through the late night talk show circuit to promote its catchy debut album, From The Hills Below the City. There’s also an exciting buzz about up-and-coming opener, The Wheeler Brothers.
Tuesday 11/12. $10-12, 9pm. The Southern Cafe and Music Hall, 103 S. First St. 977-5590.
In 10 months, a massive helium balloon will drift upward from the New Mexico desert to the edge of space, expanding to the size of a football field before it reaches a stopping point 23 miles above Earth. On a platform attached to it will be a tiny sub-orbital satellite, the result of nearly a year’s worth of work by UVA’s Spacecraft Design Team.
The fourth-years on the team are members of a design-build course, now in its third year, taught by Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Chris Goyne. They’re one of just 10 teams nationwide to land a $50,000 grant from NASA—matched by $25,250 from the University—to fund the design and construction of a cosmic radiation monitor they’ve nicknamed JefferSat.
The data gathered by the satellite, a so-called “cubesat” with the approximate dimensions of a small shoebox, is of particular interest to NASA, Goyne explained. Atmospheric radiation poses a danger to astronauts and even airline pilots, but scientists haven’t worked out a good way to anticipate where it concentrates.
“To do that, we need to measure the levels of cosmic rays in the atmosphere and compare those with predictions,” Goyne said.
But for his students, the project is a lot more than that—it’s a chance to work with NASA, the pros they aspire to be one day.
The team’s project manager, Bryan Dale, is an aerospace engineering and physics double major and Air Force ROTC member who hopes to get to space himself. Getting JefferSat aloft is a great experience, he said, and a lesson in how far technology has come.
“One of the goals of our project is to show that we can use off-the-shelf items to build a satellite that can go up this high,” he said. That doesn’t mean you can stroll into a hardware store and buy what you need. Specialized online retailers offer modular aluminum structures suitable for the stratosphere, but they don’t come cheap; a three-unit cubesat will set you back about $6,000, Dale said.
The team’s choice of onboard computer, though, is relatively inexpensive and easy to acquire: a Samsung Galaxy smartphone. “It will be like the brains in our computer—the hub through which all our data flows,” said Dale.
Last year’s engineering class helped pave the way for them, building and flying an earlier cell phone-powered version of Jeffer-Sat pulled aloft by a weather balloon. Students had loaded up the phone with custom-built apps to measure things like altitude and pressure, and tracked their satellite as it rose to 65,000 feet before landing in Farmville.
This year’s team has new challenges. They need to add radiation sensors, they have to ensure their phone doesn’t literally freeze in near space, and they have to stay within rigid mass guidelines. And there’s no asking for an extension from NASA.
In the past, the class has operated in an academic environment that, while rigorous, was a little more forgiving. “If you didn’t quite make your deadline, it’s no big deal,” Dale said. “If we miss deadlines now, they may say we can’t launch.”
But NASA engineers—including scientists from the agency’s Wallops Island facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore—are with them every step of the way, Dale said, and the need for him and his classmates to work together in coordinated teams and hit targets means they’re gaining priceless real-world skills.
“It’s very similar to what the professional environment is like,” he said.
Keep up with the engineering team as the students work on the cubesat by following them on Twitter—@JefferSatUVA.
Halloween Extravaganza Offered Frights and Delights at the YMCA Intergenerational Learning Center
Halloween spirits arrived the YMCA Intergenerational Learning Center, with costumed creatures gathering for family fun at the First Annual Halloween Extravaganza on October 31st. Approximately 60 guests attended the evening event at the Jefferson School City Center, which featured activities for a wide range of ages and interests. Young visitors enjoyed a ghostly maze, haunted cemetery, indoor trick-or-treating, games, and art projects. In the center, brave souls navigated through a haunted house and shrieked through a scary pumpkin patch.
“The Halloween Party is a great chance to bring everyone in the community together,” said Brookes M. Sims, Director of Child Care Services. “We want to make this a fantastic tradition that everyone looks forward to at YILC. I think our staff and volunteers outdid themselves this year to make sure that all our guests had a wonderful time. Our parents enjoy having a safe place for their children to come for safe trick-or-treating. Our staff are starting to come up with ideas for next year.”
Local business sponsors helped make the party a success with monetary, product, and personal support. Sponsors included: Lowe’s, Shenanigans, and our YILC Parents who had their workplace donate boxes. A volunteer from the PVCC Early Childhood Practicum course, Ms. Mariah, and Mr. Rupert, helped make the night a spooky success.
JABA Member Annie Merritt Celebrates 99th Birthday
On Wednesday, the Mary Williams Community Center celebrated JABA members’ November birthdays with singing and cake–a monthly tradition. Among those celebrated was JABA member Annie Merritt, who turns 99 today (Nov. 8). However, Merritt didn’t stick around for the party. “She left early to go serve lunch at her church,” Kelly Carpenter, Mary Williams Community Center Manager said. “But that tells you what kind of an amazing individual she is.”
Merritt was recognized for decades of service with the local chapter of the NAACP’s membership committee in September at the annual Freedom Fund banquet. A retired RN who worked for the Health Department for many years, Merritt still lives independently and visits the community center a couple times a week, participating in Tai Chi and meditation classes. “She works hard on our community service projects, such as making Foster Bags, and enjoys interacting with the children of the YMCA preschool during our Intergenerational activities,” said Carpenter.
Common Ground Healing Arts Offers Digestive Health Workshop
On Saturday, November 16, Common Ground will offer a workshop focusing on the Ayurvedic (traditional Indian medicine) perspective on digestion. From the Ayurvedic standpoint, many digestive issues and even seemingly “unrelated” concerns, such as allergies and chronic pain, can be improved by balancing what is called agni, or digestive fire. Students will learn simple ways to keep the digestive fire stoked and balanced through nutrition, lifestyle suggestions, and herbal remedies.
The workshop will be hosted by Caroline Horan, ANC, AADP, an Ayurvedic Nutrition & Lifestyle Curator. Her practice, Ahara Thrive, focuses on bridging the gap between ancient wisdom and modern lifestyles by providing comprehensive and inspirational healing programs to help guide students towards a life of renewal , transformation, and balance. The cost is $20 and the workshop will be held from 2 to 4 pm. Learn more here. Fees from programs such as this enable Common Ground to offer a sliding scale for some of their services, so that the healing arts are accessible to all.
Jefferson School City Center is a voice of the nine nonprofits located at Charlottesville’s intergenerational community center, the restored Jefferson School. We are a legacy preserved . . . a soul reborn . . . in the heart of Cville!