Month: February 2017

Categories
Arts

Junot Díaz visits Charlottesville as Kapnick Writer-in-Residence

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Díaz will make local appearances through February 11 as part of a UVA residency. Publicity photo

At a reading on January 25, author Junot Díaz encouraged an open dialogue with the audience of mostly UVA faculty and students through two generous question-and-answer sessions. He advised students to read to become better writers, because “reading becomes your frame of reference that informs your own work.”

Díaz, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2008 for his novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, is visiting Charlottesville as the fourth Kapnick Foundation Distinguished Writer-in-Residence, from January 23 to February 11. In addition to the reading, as part of his residency he will join a public discussion with Njelle Hamilton on February 2 about the Afro-Caribbean diaspora, as well as a public lecture on February 7 on learning to stop “writing white” as a person of color.

Addressing the anxiety of some writers at the reading—that their work won’t be understood as they intended it—he encouraged releasing control as an artist once the work is finished. “The point of literature is that dictators are not welcome,” he said, adding that he delighted in varying interpretations of his own work.

When asked about his thoughts on the debate surrounding trigger warnings—whether they are coddling, or helpful—he warned of what is at stake when we are sucked into emotional warfare. It distracts from solving real-world problems, such as funding for public education. “The best distraction is an emotional one,” he said.

But perhaps the most powerful moment of the evening was when he answered the question of a young woman of color who asked for his advice to marginalized communities. Díaz, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, asked her to consider that she had survived childhood, when she was less equipped to handle the world than she is today. “There’s nothing this society throws at you that you can’t overcome,” Díaz said. “The child who survived is your ethical guide.”

In advance of the reading, Díaz answered some questions for C-VILLE via e-mail. In response to his powerful post-election essay titled “Radical Hope” published in The New Yorker on November 21, we asked what he thought the role of the humanities and writers is after such a political defeat.

“The Hill is reporting that Trump intends to complete the defunding of NEA and the NEH and the question is [why] do regimes like his find arts and humanities so threatening?” Díaz says. “Why are conservatives in general so hostile to arts and humanities education? In part I suspect because both art and the humanities are unmatched in their capacity to expose us to alternative ways of being and feeling and thinking. Arts and humanities encourage critical thinking, nuance and a civic imaginary, and are excellent antidotes to cynicism, impunity, injustice.”

His advice, then, to writers who fear threats to freedom of speech and expression is: “Organize but not only to defend literary culture—organize to defend our civic society,” says Díaz. And for those who imply that the personal can be separated from the political, he writes, “The person and the political are inextricably enmeshed. It’s fine that people say we should ‘get over it.’ And it’s equally all right if we don’t listen to them and continue to fight. I never take advice from people [who] offer me gags.”

So far, not only has his body of work encapsulated the immigrant experience, but a particular character, Yunior de Las Casas, has appeared in, or provided the narrative voice, in all three of his books. Díaz admits Yunior continues to fascinate him. “From everything I can sense inside myself, I have a lot more to say about Yunior. So many silences that he has maintained for so very long, I’d like to explore them before I’m through. But in all honesty I have no idea what the next book is about or who will be in it.”

Díaz’s residency at UVA follows that of James Salter, Caryl Phillips and Lydia Davis. Inspired by William Faulkner’s visit to the university as the Balch Writer-in-Residence from 1956 to 1958, the Kapnick Foundation seeks writers of international acclaim who will contribute to and invigorate the literary culture of the university. An interdepartmental search committee consisting of senior faculty and chaired by Creative Writing Program Director Jane Alison pulled together a “dream sheet,” Jeb Livingood, associate director of the program says. It had both Davis and Diaz on it.

“We’re thrilled to be hosting Junot Díaz for three weeks, during which he’ll be a vibrant member of our arts and social community,” says Alison. And for his part, Díaz said at the reading that the community was “very fortunate” to have the faculty at UVA host such events. Speaking both as a writer and a professor, he said, “We’re here to put you in touch with the human self in a culture preoccupied with surfaces.”

Categories
Living

Cardamom dishes up contemporary vegetarian Asian food

Lu-Mei Chang opened Cardamom, an all-vegetarian spot in York Place that serves contemporary Asian cuisine, to show Charlottesville diners that meat-free meals can still be tasty. Photo by Tom McGovern

Lu-Mei Chang can’t stay away from the kitchen, and we’re all better off for it.

Chang, who grew up in Taipei, Taiwan, started cooking when she came to Charlottesville 28 years ago. She worked at Eastern Standard, one of Charlottesville’s first Asian restaurants (located where The Whiskey Jar is now) for years before she opened Monsoon in 1992.

She sold Monsoon (now Monsoon Siam) in 2011 with the intention of taking a few years off from cooking to rest and repair her body. During that time, Chang taught the occasional cooking class at The Happy Cook and at Charlottesville Albemarle Technical Education Center and kept a steady blog, Cooking with Lu-Mei: Asian Cooking Adventures in Charlottesville, full of recipes for healthy Asian dishes, and tips on where to find the best ingredients for those dishes.

While she found teaching to be very rewarding, she missed cooking, and she just opened Cardamom, which dishes up contemporary vegetarian Asian food in the spot most recently occupied by Mican in York Place on the Downtown Mall.

In addition to Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar and The Spot, which both serve vegetarian and vegan cuisine, Cardamom is one of just a few vegetarian-only restaurants in the city.

For now, the menu is small, offering noodle salads and dumplings, and dishes like eggplant tofu with holy basil, deep-fried crispy eggplant and tofu with ginger-garlic sauce and holy basil served with brown rice; tofu balls with coconut-lime sauce, a deep-fried mixture of tofu, potatoes, mushrooms, spinach and holy basil, served with brown rice; and creamy leek soup with yogurt dressed with crispy mochi rice crackers and walnut oil. Dishes cost about $10, though most are less, and diners can order Vietnamese coffee and pots of tea as well.

Chang wants to show Charlottesville diners that with fresh ingredients, well-crafted sauces and the right seasonings, vegetarian food can be both delicious and exciting.

New beginnings

“I’ve always had an appreciation for things that operate on the plane that borders the absurd and the meaningful, like watching one of the original ‘Star Trek’ episodes where it’s totally camp but there’s also substance if you’re looking for it,” says restaurateur Hamooda Shami.

Shami, who owns 11 Months, the space for extended restaurant/bar pop-ups in the former Yearbook Taco location on the Downtown Mall, will walk that fine line between absurdity and meaning with the first 11 Months concept: Sorry It’s Over.

Yes, Charlottesville, for 11 months, we’ll have a restaurant/bar with a breakup theme.

“It’s a sad subject, but we’re going to have some fun with it,” Shami says.

Shami worked with Richmond branding and interior design company Campfire & Co. on the branding and remodeling of the space (and on the restaurant’s Richmond location as well). He says we can expect “tacky neon” and actual breakup letters on the walls, plus some posters of sensitive-sad icons such as Al Green and The Smiths. Chef de cuisine Johnny Jackson and John Meiklejohn of The Whiskey Jar have developed a small, contemporary new American cuisine menu that Shami says will emphasize “quality over quantity.”

Bar manager David Faina will create the cocktail menu, and Shami says they’re in talks with Three Notch’d Brewing Company’s Collab House to craft a special beer that would play off the restaurant’s theme.

11 Months Presents…Sorry It’s Over will open in early February, so keep an eye out for the pale pink sign with a cartoon heart crying three fat tears.

Good eats

Three local craft food producers and the farmers who provide them with ingredients were honored last month at the 2017 annual Good Food Awards, which are organized by California sustainable food nonprofit Seedling Projects and “celebrate the kind of food we all want to eat: tasty, authentic and reasonably produced.” Both JM Stock Provisions and Timbercreek Market took home awards in the charcuterie category, for beef tongue pastrami and duck rillette, respectively. Red Rooster Coffee Roaster, based in Floyd, was honored for its Washed Hambela coffee. The 193 winners in 14 categories were chosen from 2,059 entries submitted by top-notch food producers from all over the U.S.

Categories
Arts

Blind Pilot’s vocalist finds solace and courage on new record

Blind Pilot touches down with its first album in five years at the Jefferson on Monday. The band returned to touring and recording after a series of losses for frontman Israel Nebeker. “The past isn’t finished with us yet,” says Nebeker. Publicity photo

The lion is a central figure in religious tradition and popular mythology that represents strength. Throughout history, lions have adorned royal coats of arms while political figures have taken up variations of the moniker to demonstrate valor. Known as the king of beasts, its likeness is just as common in fine art, literature and popular culture. Think The Lion King (R.I.P. Mufasa) or The Chronicles of Narnia. So it’s not surprising that when Israel Nebeker, the singer and co-founder of the Portland, Oregon, band Blind Pilot, set out to make an album about courage, he found inspiration in a childhood keepsake—a flag adorned with a lion.

“When I was a little kid, my brother and my sister and I, we each received a flag that my dad painted and my mom sewed together,” Nebeker says. “When you did something really great, like maybe you were really generous with one of your siblings or you did something great at school…your flag would go up on the wall in the kitchen.”

A photo of Nebeker’s flag graces the cover of Blind Pilot’s third release, 2016’s And Then Like Lions, which he finished after his father passed away from cancer.

“I ran across the flag when I was writing the rest of the album after my dad’s death and I was like, I’m gonna hang this up in my studio just to kind of feel like he’s still offering encouragement,” he says. “And it took on the symbolism of having courage through hard times. So I decided to put it on the album cover—also as an inside joke. I just thought it would be really funny if my flag, my personal do-good/good job flag, was all over the country on albums.”

Blind Pilot’s origins can be traced to when Nebeker first met drummer Ryan Dobrowski at the University of Oregon. The two were in the same study abroad program in England—and both were struggling financially—when they came up with an idea.

“We ran across some people busking on the street and it was really great and we noticed that it was perceived very differently there,” he says. “Like a cop came up that first night and listened for a while and I thought they would get busted but the cop just slipped a pound into their suitcase and kept walking.”

Nebeker had his guitar, and Dobrowski put together a drum kit with a bucket, some bottles, a sketchpad and cheese grater from their house for their busking sessions.

From there, the duo recorded Blind Pilot’s first album and recruited four other members when they set out to tour, rounding out what is now a six-piece. And Then Like Lions came five years after the band’s sophomore effort. Nebeker says the space was a necessary step in the creative process.

“I started writing for [And Then Like Lions] and then my life just kind of changed in a bunch of different ways and the songs I was working on didn’t make sense anymore,” he says. “I didn’t really want to follow them; I wanted to make other ones that were more current with where my life was so that I could feel them.”

Nebeker wasn’t the only one going through personal changes. Bandmates Luke Ydstie and Kati Claborn also had a baby during that time.

“So I took time off to do personal stuff with my family and to write and everybody else was pretty busy too with things going on in their lives,” he says. “I mean, basically we just all grew up at the same time in different ways, so we needed some time for that.”

Crossing the threshold into adulthood was the perfect musical fuel, and when Blind Pilot reconvened to record, the result was an expansion of the lush folk-pop that had become its calling card. These slow-burners unfold over eloquent layers of strings, horns and piano arrangements. And although they are direct reflections of the group’s personal experiences, the songs are meant to be accessible.

“I wanted to write these songs for myself to try to dig up what I needed and that was my way to do it, and also for my family, to give them encouragement,” Nebeker says. “…what I really hoped was just that it would be a conversation to invite people into about loss in general because everybody goes through it and we don’t like to talk about it very much. It makes it so much better when there is space to talk about it and you don’t have to just think that you’re going through it alone.”

But these ruminations aren’t meant to be downers. Instead, Nebeker wants listeners to walk away with a sense of meaning and hope—just as he did.

“To me…the greatest thing about writing songs is that you can distill a desire or some really important expression into this three- minute thing where then you can look at it like you’re looking at yourself,” he says.

Categories
News

Landes’ surprise: Move to thwart revenue sharing catches locals unaware

So far, Delegate Steve Landes, R-Weyers Cave, has not explained his interest in voluntary settlements such as Albemarle and Charlottesville’s revenue-sharing agreement. File photo Since 1982, Albemarle County has paid the city of Charlottesville $280,092,577 in revenue sharing dollars. Here’s a look at contributions for the most recent fiscal years. Albemarle County

Albemarle hates it and Charlottesville loves it. But neither jurisdiction saw Delegate Steve Landes’ budget amendment coming that could scrub a 1982 agreement in which Albemarle pays millions every year to Charlottesville for the privilege of not being annexed—even though the General Assembly put a moratorium on annexation in 1987.

“The county was only recently made aware of this budget amendment proposed by Delegate Landes and is currently assessing exactly how it might impact the revenue-sharing agreement, including budgetary implications,” says county spokesperson Jody Saunders about the measure first reported by NBC29.

Albemarle has paid Charlottesville more than $280 million in the 35 years the agreement has been in effect, most recently writing a check for nearly $16 million for fiscal year 2016-17. The revenue-sharing agreement was signed after it was approved in a referendum, with the county agreeing to share 10 cents of its real estate tax rate each year with the city.

Weyers Cave resident Landes represents western Albemarle, and while he’s heard from irate constituents about the revenue-sharing agreement, particularly at budget time when the perpetually cash-strapped county debates real estate tax increases, the move came as a “total surprise” to the Board of Supervisors, says chair Diantha McKeel.

“Right now we’re gathering information,” she says. “We don’t know what the ramifications are.”

She suggested C-VILLE contact Landes for more information about the amendment, but so far, the delegate has not returned multiple requests for comment.

“We just sort of spotted it,” says House Minority Leader David Toscano. “[Landes] is on the appropriations committee. It would be easy for him to get it in a budget amendment.”

Toscano has several concerns. The revenue- sharing agreement is a policy issue that typically would be handled with a patron who would introduce a bill, he says. Using a budget amendment is “very unusual,” he says.

“There are terrible unintended consequences,” he says. Around 50 other jurisdictions, including Lexington and Rockbridge County and Lynchburg and Campbell County, have voluntary agreements on annexation issues. “There are tremendous implications for other jurisdictions,” says Toscano.

“And when you use the language of the amendment, it’s very difficult to understand,” he says.

Indeed, C-VILLE had to seek a translation from UVA law professor Rich Schragger.

“Hmmm, this is hard, but I think that it means that agreements between localities that involve a waiver of a right to annex are invalid if the Assembly has placed a moratorium on annexations,” Schragger writes in an e-mail. “In other words, an agreement to forgo exercising a right that is now unavailable to the city (because there is now an annexation moratorium) is invalid.”

What is unclear, says Schragger, is whether the legislature could void an existing contract between Charlottesville and Albemarle that’s supposed to be perpetual.

“It’s a very interesting legal question,” says Toscano. “Typically I don’t believe the legislature can impinge on the right of contracts, but it could be possible. I don’t know.”

Toscano, a former Charlottesville mayor, says he would not support the amendment. The revenue agreement has “benefited both localities,” he says, and suggests the city reserve a portion of the payment for capital improvements that have regional uses. “A classic example would be the courts, which would benefit both jurisdictions.”

Supervisor Rick Randolph made a similar suggestion last year as Albemarle considered moving its courthouses from downtown. “I proposed a reduction of 50 percent of what we’re actually paying,” he says, because of the economic benefit the city gains from having county courts within its limits. “All I was saying was, ‘Let’s talk about it,’” he says.

Not surprisingly, city officials are skeptical about the amendment. “It sounds to me like a political trick,” says City Councilor Bob Fenwick. “It’s a contract. I don’t see how [Landes] can break it. That would wreak havoc on contract law in Virginia.”

Former mayor Dave Norris points out that both jurisdictions agreed to the measure, and says it has served them well. “The city could have collected millions” in tax revenue if it had annexed more of the county’s urban ring, he says, and the revenue sharing has “kept the urban center healthy.”

Toscano suspects the amendment won’t make it into the budget. “I think when Steve realizes he’s opened a can of worms that will affect other jurisdictions, I think he’ll kill it,” he says. “I don’t think he wants to upset the commonwealth’s apple cart.”

Information Courtesy Albemarle County

Categories
News

In brief: Winter of our discontent, gerrymandering intact and more

Protesters at Mayor Mike Signer's "capital of the resistance" rally express displeasure with President Trump's executive orders. Staff photo

Protests erupt

President Trump’s January 27 executive order banning refugees from seven Muslim countries caused chaos in airports and demonstrations all over the country. Hundreds packed The Haven January 28 for the first meeting of Indivisible Charlottesville, which is dedicated to opposing Trump’s agenda, and hundreds more demonstrated at UVA the next day. Mayor Mike Signer declared Charlottesville the “capital of the resistance” January 31.

Not everyone is upset with Trump

Will Tom Garrett’s support of Donald Trump help him in his 5th District race against Jane Dittmar?
Congressman Tom Garrett. File photo

New 5th District Congressman Tom Garrett praised the new prez’s flurry of executive orders, and called Signer’s response “reactionary fear mongering” on WINA January 31. Local gubernatorial candidate and Silverback Distillery owner Denver Riggleman says, as a former counter-terrorism intelligence officer, the 90-day vetting period isn’t a Muslim ban.

Kessler in court

The blogger who is collecting a petition to remove Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy from City Council was scheduled to be in Charlottesville General District Court January 31 facing an assault charge, as was James Justin Taylor, whom Jason Kessler says assaulted him. Kessler’s hearing was continued to March 3, according to court records. “You guys are all over this,” he said on the phone, likening his case to “red meat” for reporters.

Shot in the arm

UVA School of Medicine got a $25 million bump from the National Institutes of Health for biomedical research, bringing its 2016 federal funding to $126 million, according to a release.

Richmond rundown

The General Assembly is fast approaching crossover in this year’s session when each house exchanges bills it’s approved.

Gang of four kills redistricting reform Early January 30 in a House subcommittee, multiple bills to address gerrymandering all died at the hands of delegates Randy Minchew, Mark Cole, Tim Hugo and Jackson Miller.

Getty ImagesBusted for pot, lose your license A bill to nix the automatic six-month driver’s license suspension on marijuana convictions—unless you’re a juvenile—passed a House of Delegates committee January 27.

More medicinal pot Virginia has had medical marijuana on the books for decades, but no one has ever actually been able to get a prescription for it until last year’s legislature opened up THC-A oil for intractable epilepsy. The Senate okayed January 26 the addition of cancer, HIV, MS and other diseases as eligible for the non-high-producing oil.

Butts out A bill that says cigarette and cigar butts are indeed litter advanced in the General Assembly with bipartisan support.

Tim Kaine's official U.S. Senate photoTim Kaine scenario A Republican bill in the House removed the governor’s ability to fill temporarily a U.S. Senate seat until the next election, and instead allows the governor to call a special election—but doesn’t specify a time frame. Odds of Terry McAuliffe signing this into law: zilch.

Religious freedom The bill that allows churches to discriminate against LGBTs passed a House committee again, as it did last year. Odds of McAuliffe signing: zip.

Out with the old and in with the new?

In December, C-VILLE reported on a $4 million Cessna Citation Bravo (i.e. jet) owned by UVA since 2004. This came after a rumor that Thomas Jefferson’s university had purchased a new aircraft, which UVA denied.

uva_plane
The new model is a 2015 Cessna Citation, according to the FAA website. Wikipedia Commons user Markus Eigenheer

But perhaps we were on the right track, amid claims from UVA that there was no new aircraft in the picture. The Federal Aviation Administration’s website documents that tail number N560VA was reserved by the University of Virginia Foundation on December 30—just two days after our report was published. And on January 24, the foundation requested a new number for a 2015 Cessna Citation 560XL.

And what’s this? The university’s original Cessna, marked with tail number N800VA, is listed on Aircraft Shopper Online, a real-time aircraft market, for $1,095,000.

UVA has declined to comment.

Quote of the week

“Our refugee vetting system is the most sophisticated in the world. It is not insecure, it is not unsafe.”—Former U.S. State Department official Robert Kubinec at Sunday’s UVA rally and march, according to the Daily Progress.