Saoirse Ronan delivers another captivating performance as the star of Lady Bird, an early favorite for awards season, written and directed by Greta Gerwig. Courtesy of A24
Having written and co-directed films in the past, Greta Gerwig makes her debut as sole writer-director with Lady Bird, easily one of the year’s best films. Funny, insightful and deeply personal, yet wholly relatable for anyone who’s ever lived through the difficulty of attempting to define oneself early in life, Lady Bird is the first must-see film of this year’s awards season.
Played by Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird refers to the film’s main character—and while it’s not her legal name, she identifies with it more than her birthname, Christine. The relationship between Lady Bird and her mother, Marion (Laurie Metcalf), is a difficult one; Marion works extremely hard to provide a life for her daughter, which is admirable, yet constantly smothers her child in passive-aggressive criticism and intrusive demands.
Lady Bird R, 93 minutes
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX and Violet Crown Cinema
When we meet Lady Bird, she is a senior in high school, a time in everyone’s life where you are trapped between two worlds. Do you go to college near home or as far away as possible? Do you use the opportunity of leaving home to reject your old identity in favor of a new one? That is Lady Bird’s struggle, only she seems to experience it in fast-motion and slightly earlier than everyone else. She begins the school year by spending all of her free time with her best friend, Julie (Beanie Feldstein), and practicing for the school musical.
Lamenting that she grew up in Sacramento, Lady Bird waits for the day that she can experience the East Coast. To her, the former is boring and stifling, while the latter is dynamic and exciting. After years of anticipating her hard shift to a new life, she’s lost the ability to gain new interests and friends without breaking with the old ones. As she makes inroads with the popular kids, she spends less time with Julie. Her first boyfriend (Lucas Hedges) is a co-star in the play, and it all seems perfect, then she discovers him kissing a boy at the cast party; she is heartbroken for the lost relationship, but their friendship is eventually rekindled.
Her next boyfriend is the exact opposite: a faux-insightful rich kid who smokes while conspicuously reading A People’s History of the United States. He both indulges his privilege and disparages it, as only the privileged can, but he has wild hair and a rebel’s charm that is primed for Lady Bird’s eyes at that moment.
Ronan (Brooklyn, The Grand Budapest Hotel) continues to astound with her seemingly effortless, layered performance, and Metcalf is terrific as Marion. Her dialogue is almost universally hostile, but as we become more familiar with her deeply ingrained feelings on recognition and hard work, we understand how she got here. The supporting cast is perfect, even those portraying caricatures, because let’s face it: When you’re 18 years old, sometimes you have to be a caricature of something you’re not to realize who you really are.
One extra dimension that takes Lady Birdfrom good to great is its understanding of how adults fit into this world. It’s always a risky endeavor for grown-ups to accurately capture authentic teenage behavior and mindsets. Gerwig’s authenticity in doing so comes from treating her characters as three-dimensional—it is also from setting the film in 2002 to 2003, when she was the same age as her characters. The representation of adult depression in Lady Bird is unique for a movie about high schoolers. Lady Bird’s father is the first who is explicitly referred to as depressed, but one by one you can see the signs in other grown-ups. This is no detour or extraneous side plot: Children form relationships and define themselves with one another, but they do so in the world their parents create. If Lady Bird’s father has chronic depression, she may not be aware of it, but she has been affected by it.
Gerwig has always been an exceptional storyteller, either as a performer or co-writer. With Lady Bird, she proves that this instinct extends to all aspects of the filmmaking process.
Playing this week
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema
377 Merchant Walk Sq., 326-5056
Coco, Justice League, Murder on the Orient Express, Thor: Ragnorok, Wonder
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
The Shops at Stonefield, 244-3213
Coco, Justice League, Roman J. Israel, Esq., The Star, Wonder
Violet Crown Cinema
200 W. Main St., Downtown Mall, 529-3000
Coco, Daddy’s Home 2, The Florida Project, Justice League, Loving Vincent, Murder on the Orient Express, National Gallery, The Square, Thor: Ragnorok, Wonder
Ned Oldham (above) and Jordan Perry perform songs from Oldham’s new EP, Dark Mountain, in the opening set for the Angel Olsen show at the Jefferson on November 28. Oldham also plays Sarah White’s Country Christmas show at The Southern on December 21. Photo by Martyn Kyle
In the 20-odd years of Ned Oldham’s musical life, he’s been a pendulum, swinging back and forth between writing his own words and using those of others. “I get tired of the sound of my own lyrical voice,” says Oldham.
And so since releasing the 7-inch record Hello My/The Free Web with The Anomoanon in 1997, Oldham has swung from writing to borrowing and back again. In 1998, he and the band set Mother Goose rhymes to original music (The Anomoanon’s Mother Goose, 1998); in 1999, both Anomoanon releases, Summer Never Ends and the Portland/Now Is The Season 7-inch, were original lyrics; in 2000, he borrowed again for Songs From Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses; wrote his own for 2001’s The Anomoanon; borrowed from 15th-century French poet François Villon for 2002’s Envoi Villon; and so on, ruminating on a country- and Southern rock-influenced folk sound through it all.
In 2014, Oldham released “New Year Carol,” a recording of traditional Welsh lyrics set to an Oldham-composed tune. So for his latest release, Dark Mountain, he traverses the landscape back to his own lyrical voice, carrying with him mementos of recordings past.
Oldham has released the five Dark Mountain songs one by one on his Bandcamp page over the course of this year and he says they are similar to the early Anomoanon originals “Hello” and “The Free Web” in that there seems to be a character, but, in fact, there’s no storyline, “just a sort of emotional tension, a painting of a situation” across all five songs, “an impression,” if you will.
The impression Oldham’s going for with the Dark Mountain songs “might be traceable” back to a story he saw in the New York Times Magazine in April 2014, “It’s the End of the World as We Know It…and He Feels Fine.” The story is about the Dark Mountain Project based in Britain, which defines itself on its website as “a network of writers, artists and thinkers who have stopped believing the stories our civilization tells itself. We see that the world is entering an age of ecological collapse, material contraction and social and political unraveling, and we want our cultural responses to reflect this reality rather than denying it.”
Click to hear “Dark Mountain” on Bandcamp.
Oldham is captivated by the project’s idea of “uncivilization,” of its embrace of pagan/pre-Christian traditions as described in the Times article, such as people donning huge papier-mâché badger heads in warm tents, and dancing and chanting around a bonfire on the heath.
Oldhamdidn’t want to become part of the Dark Mountain Project, but he says he’s fascinated with “the kind of weird attraction people have to pagan cultures, maybe even without a full realization” of it. “I love to read Icelandic literature, Icelandic sagas, but I don’t want to live that way—they’re killing each other, brutally, all the time,” Oldham says. “But that is a part of humanity that needs some kind of expression sometimes, so, maybe, some of the things in these songs are trying to blend some of the beauty and the terror, or horror, of that kind of human legacy.”
Sure enough, there it is, beauty beside horror, life beside death, constancy beside change, all in the first verse of the first of the songs, “Dark Mountain”: “The truth was such a beauty / It could eat you from the inside / Like a rosebud in the bonfire / On the first of May at midnight.”
“The truth is that I love you,” Oldham ends the song, “I love the April flowers / And the storm that gathers over / The dark mountain.”
That confrontation and acceptance of reality, that opening of the eyes to that which was previously unseen in the darkness, appears again and again in the Dark Mountain songs, in lyrics like “Inside her tomb / Within her womb” from “Behind the Sun.” There may be end in the future, but there’s future in the end, and that is both comforting and unsettling for the present.
Though all five Dark Mountain songs are tied, Oldham says he did not “write them all in one birth.” They emerged over the course of about a year and a half, partly from Oldham’s own mind and partly from collaborative sessions with another Charlottesville-based musician: guitarist, songwriter and composer Jordan Perry, who contributed guitar work and vocals as well as string arrangements and synthesizer parts.
They recorded the Dark Mountain songs in Oldham’s Charlottesville home studio and sent the recordings to be mixed and mastered by Oldham’s brother, Paul, a sought-after audio engineer (a third Oldham brother, Will, writes and records under the moniker Bonnie “Prince” Billy).
Part of the challenge was to make that gloomy atmosphere “good to listen to,” says Oldham, so he and Perry built most of the arrangements around two electric guitars, something Oldham had never done before, and it made for a good experiment. “Part of me wants to be in a party band,” Oldham says, “but I can’t help what I write.”
The final two songs on Dark Mountain will be released this week, and Oldham and Perry will make a somewhat rare live appearance to perform them at the Jefferson Theater on Tuesday. “I don’t want to play [live] too much; people might get sick of me,” Oldham says unconvincingly, his grin audible over the phone. Surely not, for as the Oldham pendulum swings back and forth, listeners will follow.
Mi Ossa co-owners Nora Brookfield and Shannon Worrell collaborate with local artisans
on their vegetable-tanned leather clutch purse. Photo: Sanjay Suchak
Ask and you shall receive. That’s the takeaway from our call to makers for the first-ever Made in C-VILLE contest. We wanted goods conceived and manufactured in Charlottesville, and you brought lampshades, cupcakes, coasters, sandals, knives and knick-knacks with undeniable charm. And while our judges were required to narrow it down to nine top choices—a winner, runner-up and honorable mention in the categories of Home & Craft, Style and Food & Drink—the resulting list celebrates the creators, handcrafters, innovators and tastemakers who give Charlottesville so much to be proud of, from wearable art to whiskey. Give ’em a hand.
By Samantha Baars, Jessica Luck, Erin O’Hare and Caite White
HOME & CRAFT
Winner: Rockbridge Guitar Company
Custom guitar | Brazilian rosewood, cedar, mahogany, ebony, koa, abalone; custom inlay of shell, wood, stone and metal
Pickitout
When Brian Calhoun and Brennan Gilmore were teenagers in Rockbridge County, they visited Randall Ray’s place in a nearby holler to play music. The three of them sat on plastic buckets in Ray’s workshop and picked bluegrass tunes on their instruments. “It was a teeny workshop; you could barely turn around in it,” Gilmore remembers. Ray was a bit older than Calhoun and Gilmore, and while Gilmore preferred to focus on the music, Calhoun, who’d built a couple of mandolins and a violin, was more intrigued by the guitars Ray built in that teeny workshop.
Photo: Sanjay Suchak
After high school, Calhoun attended Berklee College of Music in Boston for a bit before returning to Rockbridge County to refocus and figure out what he “really” wanted to do. He began doing custom inlay work for Stelling Banjos and started hanging out in Ray’s workshop again.
Calhoun and Ray decided to build a couple of guitars together, “and they were just great,” Calhoun says. In 2002, they founded Rockbridge Guitar Company, making custom acoustic guitars by hand and bringing them around to shows for musicians to try out. Rockbridge County folk music legend Larry Keel was one of their first customers.
Word started to get around, their customer base expanded and, a few years ago, they moved most of the Rockbridge operation to a house on High Street in downtown Charlottesville (Ray still works out of his holler workshop), and brought two more luthiers—Adam McNeil and Jake Hopping—on board.
Plenty of luthiers (builders of stringed instruments) are known for their copies of sought-after vintage guitars, but that’s not Rockbridge’s modus operandi; Rockbridge instruments are all unique designs. “If our goal was to make an exact copy, then there would always be that real guitar out there, and that’s what they really want. And then, what’s the point?” says Calhoun.
So when a musician wants a Rockbridge guitar, Calhoun will have her play instruments of different sizes, scales and woods, to help deduce what combination of features would make for her ideal guitar.
Sound is a guitar’s paramount feature, and the two main determinants of a guitar’s sound are its body size and shape, and the wood from which it’s made. Four guitars of four different sizes/shapes all made from the same wood will each sound different, just as four guitars of the same sizes/shapes made in four different woods will each sound different. Rockbridge luthiers consider all of this—and much more—when building one of their instruments, which start at about $5,000 base price and take months and many steps to complete.
Rockbridge guitars are built by musicians for musicians to get a one-of-a-kind, locally sourced sound. Photo: Cole McFarlane
There are numerous differences between small shops like Rockbridge, where four guys make between 50 and 60 guitars a year, and big-name brands like C.F. Martin & Co. and Gibson, which factory produce hundreds, even thousands, of guitars almost daily. One of those differences is attention to detail, Calhoun says.
Mass-produced guitars are often made according to a set of predetermined materials and measurements. Five hundred pieces of mahogany might be sanded to the same thickness, but each piece is unique, and those small differences affect the overall sound of a guitar. It’s how two guitars of the same model can feel quite different, despite being made to the same specifications.
The four Rockbridge luthiers treat each piece of wood individually—if one piece of mahogany feels a bit floppy, they can leave it thick; if another piece feels stiff, they can sand it down a little more. It’s the sort of fine-tuning that often contributes positively to an instrument’s sound and feel.
The judge says…
“This guitar represents the best combination of a luthier’s skills and the imaginative inlaid design. Rockbridge guitars are internationally famous for their sound and played by many well-known musicians.” KEN FARMER
“I would never say our guitar is ‘better’ than the next guitar, it’s just different,” says Calhoun. For many musicians, their instrument becomes so much a part of their sound, their persona—think Willie Nelson’s Martin N-20, named Trigger, and Woody Guthrie’s “This machine kills fascists” Gibson L-0—and for some artists, a Rockbridge might be that instrument.
Rockbridge’s customer list will leave you starstruck. They’ve made guitars for international performers Dave Matthews, Keith Urban, Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi and Warren Haynes, among others, and for local celebs like Michael Coleman and Peyton Tochterman. They also build for collectors, studio musicians and producers, and for many other hobby and working musicians who passionately write, perform and record, and teach music lessons regularly.
For Gilmore, Ray and Calhoun’s childhood friend, who owns the 34th guitar Rockbridge ever built, there’s something special about playing a locally made instrument. “I strongly, strongly believe in the power of community in music,” he says, and playing music with your neighbors, on a great-sounding, locally made instrument—and one made by a close friend at that? Well, there’s nothing quite like it.
Longtime craftsman Brian Rayner eyeballed a famous Rietveld design and adapted it to his own taste and specifications. Photo: Sanjay Suchak
Runner-up: Brian Rayner
Rietveld chair | Cherry, walnut, notched joints
Sit on this
Perhaps you’ve heard of the famous Red and Blue Chair, influenced by the style of Piet Mondrian and designed by Gerrit Rietveld in 1917 during the De Stijl art movement? If you haven’t, let us fill you in—it looks a lot like this one, built by self-taught craftsman of 30 years, Brian Rayner, who has made three others just like it.
Because of his longtime interest in Mondrian and “the difficulty, yet simplicity” of Rietveld’s piece, Rayner says he was keen on remaking the throne.
The judge says…
“I love the fact that this classic design is so well made and features walnut and cherry hardwoods from America. This is a timeless object that you’ll never grow tired of looking at.” KEN FARMER
Submitted photo
He calls the original work, with its red backrest, blue seat and black arms and legs with bright yellow tips, both “shocking and unique.” His more modest recreation—just as beautiful but likely more suitable for the average home—features a cherry back and bottom with struts built of walnut—two woods Rayner works with primarily.
No blueprints or instructions were used in the making. Rayner eyeballed it, he says, by looking at a photo of the famous chair in a book, comparing the angles and dimensions, and multiplying for scale. And while Rietveld assembled his masterpiece with dowels, Rayner notched his to make a better, stronger joint.
“I won’t make any more of those,” he says, and laughs, noting that each of the four chairs took him about 40 hours to build. The last is still for sale—wink, wink.
Custom knife | Stainless steel, carbon or custom metal
Staying sharp
Zack Worrell, owner of Monolith Knives, holds the handle of a knife body that has been shined to a mirror polish and dips it into a tall white tube of ferric chloride. He keeps the knife, which started as a piece of billet—a bar of steel from which knives are cut—in the solution for about 10 seconds, then immediately runs it under cool water. He lays the knife across both of his hands and holds it out to show the swirly Damascus pattern that now covers the blade after it’s been etched in acid.
Monolith Knives makes both spec and custom culinary and sport-and-field knifes by hand. The highest price for a Monolith chef’s knife is $800. Submitted photo.
“So cool, right?” he says. Way cool. Worrell, an artist-turned-furniture-maker, got into knife-making about four years ago. He grew up in a family of hunters, cattle-raisers and artists, who all helped shape his love of design and craftsmanship.
“Knife-making came to me accidentally,” he says. “It’s something I experimented with and found it was exciting, offered new possibilities of a way to take design, my love of making, and be able to harness them into basically making tools that are functional art.”
The judge says…
“From the artfully designed handles to the painstakingly forged blades, this is an instant family heirloom. The blade reminds me of an ancient samurai sword.” KEN FARMER
Today, the team of three makers at Monolith produces 250 knives—both spec and custom knives in the culinary and sport-and-field markets—a year. One of Worrell’s favorite parts of the job is having a customer come into the studio and work with the team on everything from the blade (stainless steel, carbon or custom metal forged using car parts from a 1967 Mustang, for instance) and handle (wood and fabrics, such as a baby blanket, are both options) to the design: a full tang blade made in a French/German profile but with an Asian-style handle, perhaps? Each knife is handmade in the Monolith studio, from drawing a template onto a bar of steel, hand-cutting the knife using a cutting wheel, grinding the blade, hardening the steel overnight in a kiln, tempering the blade to the correct flexibility level in a toaster and finally attaching the handle.
One Monolith customer has had three different knives made for her but she’s still not 100 percent satisfied so they are continuing to work with her until it’s exactly right.
“These are tools that are a direct extension of the human body,” Worrell says. “For us it’s important that it’s right or it’s not right—it’s black or white that way.”
Farmer, a personal properties appraiser based in Albemarle, has appeared on every season of “Antiques Roadshow” since it started in 1997. The former Sotheby’s associate and founder of two auction houses specializes in folk art, furniture, decorative arts and musical instruments.
STYLE
Winner: Formia Design
Keepsake jewelry | Silver, titanium or gold; child’s original drawing
Making memories
It was only by chance that Mia van Beek started making jewelry. As a kid in Sweden, she figured she’d grow up to work in a bank. But after flipping on the TV one day, she tuned in to a documentary about jewelry making and was captivated by the process. She started looking for gymnasium (secondary school) jewelry making and metalsmithing programs. She applied but landed on the waitlist. Two weeks before school started, van Beek got the call: She was in.
“It turned out to be a really good fit,” she says. By the time she was 16, in 1992, she’d earned her goldsmithing diploma. After a few years’ work and more training, in 1996 van Beek became Sweden’s youngest female goldsmith master.
Mia van Beek. Photo: Sanjay Suchak
She started Formia Design while still living in Sweden and brought the business with her when she moved to Charlottesville (and had to work through a long process of converting all of her metric system measurements to the United States’ system of weights and measures).
The judge says…
“Mia van Beek gives us what many parents want: a way to memorialize their child’s expressions of the world. I love that the artwork was translated in a manner that isn’t cutesy or overtly sweet or sappy.” AMY GARDNER
Van Beek has decades of jewelry-making experience, crafting engagement and wedding rings, custom-made earrings and pendants and more, all in her Woolen Mills studio. She also translates kids’ designs into jewelry.
The idea began when her daughter wanted to give a gift to her preschool teacher. “Draw Ms. Sharon a pair of earrings,” van Beek told her daughter. She did, and van Beek took the drawings and made them into earrings. Both van Beek’s daughter and Ms. Sharon loved them, and a new Formia endeavor was born.
Translating a child’s art into jewelry, says goldsmith Mia van Beek, is a very moving process. “Jewelry is not just art,” she says. “It’s a function.” Photo: Sanjay Suchak
Customers can send in a drawing—stick figures, dragonflies, giraffes, anything—and decide what type of jewelry they want—a lapel pin, a pendant necklace, a charm bracelet, a pair of earrings, etc., ranging from about $130 to $800, with most pieces in the $200 to $300 range—and van Beek will size the drawing according to the type of jewelry requested and translate it in the customer’s metal of choice (silver, titanium, gold). She cuts every piece by hand, using tiny hand saws, because laser cutters too easily strip away a drawing’s personality—it’s important to keep hesitant smiles and googly eyes and big teeth sticking out every which way, because that’s the way the child expressed herself.
“The wonder of the drawings we get in is so amazing,” says van Beek. “A self-portrait of a 4-year-old is a stick figure. But all the stick figures are so different. …It’s about staying true to the drawing while at the same time creating something that looks nice.”
So much has been forgotten and left behind in the mass production of things, says van Beek. Mass production cuts out the artisan-customer community relationship, and a substantial amount of sentimentality, out of the equation. She enjoys making custom jewelry with input from those who will give and wear it.
It’s a very moving thing, she says, that parents often come back year after year to add to their child-designed jewelry collection. More than once, van Beek has received orders from parents whose child has passed, and they ask that she translate their child’s last drawing into something that’ll last for years, something they can literally wear close to their heart.
“Jewelry is not just art. It’s a function,” says van Beek. It means something, and for her, few things are better than the technical process of creating something that lasts so long. “It’s not like I’m creating something in layout on paper and then it’s gone, or a file in the computer and then it disappears,” she says. “I’m creating lifelong memories.”
First, she designs them on paper. Then, with a jeweler’s saw, she carefully cuts the shapes out of a titanium sheet. She hammers texture into the metal and stamps the grooved section using a variety of chasing tools. This is just the beginning of handcrafting a pair of earrings, according to Tavia Brown, founder of Taviametal, who spends between three and four hours on each pair.
The judge says…
“Every single part of these earrings has been carefully crafted by hand and thoughtfully designed. They have movement, fine detailing and a lovely texture. They’re so well made that the back is as beautiful as the front.” AMY GARDNER
Tavia Brown. Photo: Sanjay Suchak
“Seeing them come together in the final stages” is her favorite part of the process, she says. An incomparable feeling: “Being able to see the final piece next to my sketch.”
To create the settings, she melts sterling silver into balls and hammers them flat. She solders the settings to sterling back plates that she then rivets onto the titanium. Next comes the placement of the ear wires, and she uses her torch to blaze a patina of color to the titanium. She bends the wires to shape, tumbles the earrings and sets the stones by slowly hammering the sterling silver bezel walls over the stone’s edge—in this case, a citrine.
Submitted photo.
Earrings like this run in the $295 to $450 price range, depending on stones, materials and intricacy of details, says the business owner of 16 years, who has been in the field for nearly 20. Brown pursued fine art and craft classes throughout her childhood and higher education, eventually landing a job as a bench jeweler after graduating with a bachelor of fine arts degree in metals.
“What has kept me in the field for so long is that this is my art,” says Brown. “My pieces reflect who I am—my voice, my vision.”
Here’s a clutch with a conscience: While most leather is tanned with chromium—one of the world’s most potent toxins—Mi Ossa co-owner Shannon Worrell says the pieces she designs with business partner Nora Brookfield are vegetable-tanned, an older, much more environmentally friendly method.
The judge says…
“The proportions are perfect and with bridle leather, the bag will only get better with age and wear. The case bronze serpent adds a nice weight, and the bright blue interior keeps the bag from being too serious.” AMY GARDNER
Submitted photo.
Hand-stitched and fabricated by Rebecca Perea-Kane, the artisan behind all of Mi Ossa’s leather work, the clutch features a sinister bronze serpent closure created by local painter Clay Witt. The bag, which is available at the studio’s showroom on 10th Street and at Eloise on West Main, is part of an exclusive line influenced by Witt, says Worrell.
It’s a true collaboration of Charlottesville talent from its design to its making, and for a night out on the town, it’s clutch.
Form and function are the guiding principles for Gardner, who, after graduating from architecture school, opened Scarpa in 1994. She’s been steering the style of local women, feet first, ever since, recently expanding her Barracks Road shoe store to include apparel and accessories.
FOOD & DRINK
Winner: Cocoa & Spice
Dark chocolate salted caramel candy | Liquid caramel, tempered European chocolate, gold cocoa butter
…And everything nice
Jennifer Mowad’s favorite holiday has always been Valentine’s Day. Not for the saccharine declarations of affection written on pink and red cards, but because the Hallmark holiday is a harbinger for the best day of the year: February 15, half-price heart-shaped candy day.
When Mowad was a kid, she and her mother would agree not to buy Valentine’s treats ahead of time, and every February 15, they’d hop in the car and drive around their New Jersey town, buying up all the discounted candy. Mowad says there’s something about the heart-shaped boxes and Reese’s peanut butter candies that tugged at her heartstrings.
At Cocoa & Spice, expect to find chocolatier Jennifer Mowad’s winning creations, dark chocolate salted caramel candies, as well as other imaginative treats. Photo: Sanjay Suchak
Throughout her 20s, any time Mowad was stressed about school or work, she’d buy a book about chocolate, and she worked up a small library by the time she quit her traditional 9-to-5 job with the Semester at Sea program in 2013 to become a chocolatier. She found the courage to do so after overcoming non-Hodgkin lymphoma, she says; if she could survive cancer, she could certainly turn her peanut butter cup- and truffle-making hobby into a business.
So in 2015, after taking an online chocolates course and completing an apprenticeship with East Van Roasters, a Vancouver charity-focused bean-to-bar chocolate shop and coffee roaster, Mowad wheeled a cart full of handmade chocolates from her apartment behind the Lucky Seven convenience store to the Downtown Mall and began Cocoa & Spice.
The judge says…
“My notes from the initial tasting are, beautiful, sensuous, perfect balance, irresistible, elegant and subtle.” MARTHA STAFFORD
In the years since, she’s been a regular vendor at the City Market, Sprint Pavilion’s Fridays After Five and Cville Pride Festival, and is a partner in the Crozet Artisan Depot and was recently juried into C’ville Arts on the Downtown Mall. This past April, Mowad opened a brick-and-mortar storefront and kitchen at 506 Stewart St. The spot is full of tubs of dark, milk and white chocolate discs, containers of spices and seasonings like lavender, pink peppercorns and chipotle chiles, KitchenAid mixers, two ovens, refrigerators and, of course, display cases of treats.
Customers happily gobble up Cocoa & Spice triple chocolate-chunk brownies, rainbow fudge, beer toffee pretzel bark and more, including the dark chocolate salted caramel candies, our first-place winners.
Mowad got the idea for that particular candy after a visit to Piece, Love & Chocolate in Boulder, Colorado, where she tasted a liquid caramel that she wanted to replicate…and combine with chocolate. After all, candy-making isn’t just about skill and knowledge (though it requires a lot of both); it’s about imagination and vision.
The dark chocolate salted caramel candy takes about two days to make. To begin, Mowad makes a salted caramel sauce and tempers high-quality chocolate that she purchases from Europe—tempering, a heating and liquefying process, gives chocolate a glossy, smooth, evenly-colored appearance and a satisfying snap—in order to make a chocolate shell. Using a paintbrush, she swirls a wisp of melted gold-colored cocoa butter into the small, still-empty domes of a polycarbonate plastic mold. Once the cocoa butter dries, Mowad ladles tempered chocolate into the mold, then tips it upside down to drip away excess chocolate—properly tempered chocolate dries quickly and sticks to the side of the mold—and thereby creates a chocolate shell.
Next, Mowad pipes salted caramel into the hollow chocolate shells still in the mold, leaving a small lip at the top, and lets the whole thing sit overnight.
Jennifer Mowad at work. Photo: Sanjay Suchak
Finally, she ladles tempered chocolate over the caramel-filled shells and uses a scraper to remove excess chocolate from the surface of the mold and refrigerates them overnight once more. When chocolate cools, it contracts, and a swift tap of the mold on the table releases the golden swirl-topped treats for packaging (or sampling, depending on one’s level of self-control).
Mowad says the Charlottesville community influences her business in many ways—many of her customers are local, she frequently fundraises for area causes, and she gets lots of volunteer help from friends, the Charlottesville Derby Dames in particular (Mowad is a Dames bench manager). Mowad is deeply moved by that generosity, and says that when someone lends a hand, she’s not likely to put them on dish duty. She’ll let them do the fun stuff, like piping caramel or dipping things—some of which are heart-shaped—in chocolate.
Find the bright red door, now look up. Higher…higher…now you see it—the small black and white sign telling you you’ve found Spirit Lab Distilling. The company, owned by husband and wife Ivar Aass and Sarah Barrett, has done little marketing—and that’s a good thing. The distillery, which began five years ago when the couple moved to Charlottesville from their 275-square-foot New York City apartment in Hell’s Kitchen, just began bottling its first product last year. The initial 94 bottles of their hand-labeled single malt whiskey were released in December 2016, and their second batch, aged slightly longer than the original batch’s 16 months, was just bottled in September.
Each bottle of Spirit Lab Distilling’s single malt whiskey comes with a number, and owner Ivar Aass says he generally knows who has what (C&O Restaurant, for instance, has bottles No. 1 and 15 of the first batch of whikey). Aass submitted bottle No. 42 of his second batch for the Made in C-VILLE contest. Photo: Sanjay Suchak
“You’re getting something special, which is kind of what I like about everything in this town,” Aass says. “It’s just like a little gem, all these innovative little companies doing cool things.”
The company’s core product (Aass has also made amaro—an herbal liqueur made out of pawpaw fruit—and is in the process of making rum, limoncello and passion fruit liqueur) is a single malt whiskey made of 100 percent barley malt, with the DNA of both an American whiskey and Scottish whiskey. Aass previously worked for a wine and spirits importer and developed a taste for Scottish whiskies that had nice length–a term you generally hear in regards to wine. The only problem when he started making his own whiskey? There was no recipe—developing his brand has been a lot of trial and error, and tasting.
The judge says…
“A rich, full-bodied whiskey filled with complex fruity, spicy and nutty flavors and aromas. A carefully crafted luxurious treat to be savored.” MARTHA STAFFORD
His production facility in a warehouse on Sixth Street SE houses his solera system, which uses a three-barrel system to age the whiskey after it’s been fermented and distilled twice in a large copper pot—the star of the show. When a batch is ready to bottle, he removes a third of it (20 gallons) from the big used wine barrel and adds water to get it to the correct alcohol percentage—then he transfers whiskey from the second barrel into the third barrel; whiskey from the first into the second; and newly distilled whiskey goes in the first barrel. This system means each batch has some of the same whiskey in it, ensuring a consistent product but allowing for nuances.
Photo: Sanjay Suchak
The second batch is less smoky than the first, and has a higher alcohol percentage (47.5 compared with 46). Aass says every batch will range from 46 (the base for a good whiskey) up to 50—it’s all about taste.
“We’re making a good quality product,” Aass says. “Something small and discreet but that’s kind of who we are. We’re making something good and if you know about us, that’s great.”
Dark chocolate cupcake | Horton Vineyards red wine, chocolate ganache, raspberry buttercream frosting
The art of baking
Sally Berger’s passion for baking was a happy accident. Berger doesn’t cook, and she recruited a friend to make a birthday cake for her then-3-year-old son (he requested Mickey Mouse) and found she loved the artistic part of decorating—it was her first time working with fondant. Now, six years later, she makes her own fondant and has found her sweet spot with cakes, cookies and cupcakes. She loves creating individual masterpieces that allow her creativity to shine, which could include anything from cupcakes topped with sculpted dogwood flowers made out of white chocolate and royal icing to a replica of Monticello and its tulips.
Sally Berger tied in as many local ingredients in her Monticello cupcakes as she could. Horton Vineyards red wine is used in both the dark chocolate cupcake and chocolate ganache, and the raspberry buttercream frosting is a nod to one of the fruits that Thomas Jefferson grew. Photo: Sanjay Suchak
“Giving something to someone and having them smile about it, it’s like a self-satisfaction,” Berger says. “I’m doing something for someone else that makes you feel good, but I’m making art, really.”
Berger, who went to art school, says she enters a zen-like zone when baking. But she does a ton of prep work: Before stepping into the kitchen she researches new methods she wants to try and searches for inspiration for the perfect ingredients and design. Although her business is still small (she gets many orders through colleagues at Baker-Butler Elementary and has a booth at the City Market), she envisions it growing to become a brick-and-mortar shop one day where her husband, Dave, can also follow his passion of owning a breakfast/lunch spot.
A graduate and former instructor at Peter Kump’s New York Cooking School (now the Institute of Culinary Education), Stafford studied with such notable food folk as James Peterson, Katherine Alford and Paul Grimes before founding the Charlottesville Cooking School in 2008.
Kenneth Staples, owner of Staples Barber Shop, passed away November 18 at the age of 85. Photo by Ashley Twiggs
Charlottesville lost an icon November 18 when Kenneth Staples, owner of Staples Barber Shop, died at age 85.
“I would describe Kenny as one of those guys who looked like a duck on water,” says Jim Carpenter, a local photographer and friend of Staples since the early ’70s. “He was so smooth, but underneath, I’m sure he was always paddling to keep himself afloat.”
Staples graduated from Lane High School, worked for the C&O Railroad and served in the U.S. Army in Korea before going to work with his father, Albert A. Staples, at his barbershop in the Barracks Road Shopping Center.
“Kenny actually put us on the map,” says Carpenter, who remembers watching former NFL player, actor and current sports analyst Howie Long tell a late-night television host that he got his fresh haircut at Staples Barber Shop. As did former Virginia governor and Albemarle County resident George Allen, who always made his allegiance to the barber known, and called it a “must go to place for anyone running for office,” according to the Daily Progress.
In 1994, Allen appointed Staples to the Virginia Board for Barbers. He was appointed again in 2002 by former Governor Mark Warner.
Locally, he was also known for his service with the Charlottesville Dogwood Foundation, his dedication to serving veterans and his contribution to the Vietnam Memorial, a project Staples, Jim Shisler and Bill Gentry thought up in 1965, according to Carpenter.
Carpenter, who was also a loyal customer, says Staples would give him a ring when something newsworthy was happening at the shop. “One day, he called me and said, ‘I’ve got a bull in the front of my office.’ Sure enough, they had a bull out there in a pen, for whatever reason.”
But Carpenter says he really got to know Staples when the photographer joined the Charlottesville Dogwood Foundation as an officer in 1975.
“We became more and more acquainted,” he said. “I knew that Ken was a very interesting show person. I honestly believe, in a former life, he was on a stage somewhere.”
And Staples was quick to step up to the plate whenever the Dogwood Festival, or other community organizations such as the Lions Club, needed an emcee for an event.
“The guy’s whole life really showed his love for his community,” Carpenter says about the man he calls a “peacemaker,” who helped as many people as he could and never got upset.
“I wanted to model my life after his, just because of the way he was so civic-minded, and the way he handled different things. …He’s just one of those people you look up to and say, ‘When I grow up, I want to be like Kenny Staples,’” Carpenter says.
Staples’ family will hold a funeral service for him at 3pm November 28 at the First Baptist Church on Park Street. In lieu of flowers, they ask that memorial donations be made to the Dogwood Vietnam Memorial Foundation. Donations may be sent to Jim Carpenter, 2570 Holly Knoll Lane, Charlottesville, VA 22901.
Kenneth Staples was “a character,” says photographer Jim Carpenter, who took this image.
If the leaves have fallen and the mailbox is full of Christmas catalogs, that’s a sure sign. No need to consult the calendar—holiday season is upon us, and with it a 100 ways to celebrate. Here’s a look at a few of the most popular.
Celebrations On the Mall The City of Charlottesville’s 3rd annual Downtown Toy Lift and Holiday Market will be held on Friday, December 1 from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at City Hall Plaza next to the Sprint Pavilion. More than 30 vendors will offer holiday foods and crafts. Toy Lift Charities and its signature bucket truck will be on hand to take donations for area children in need, and the Charlottesville Municipal Band will play from noon to 2:00 p.m.
Charlottesville’s annual Grand Illumination is scheduled for that same evening from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at Central Place on the Downtown Mall. This free, all-ages community event will feature live music, kids’ crafts, photo ops with costumed characters, a visit from Santa, a free movie screening, andthe Grand Illumination of the community holiday tree.
From 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. local businesses and organizations will provide craft activities for the kids at Community Cares And Crafts tables, and Toy Lift Charities will exchange a raffle ticket for every dropped off toy. Free face painting and concessions will be available and photos may be taken with Mrs. Claus and Friends.
The Grand Illumination itself, including a community countdown to the lighting of the tree and spectacular projection animation by Jeff Dobrow, will happen at 8:00 p.m. Santa Claus and a few of his North Pole friends will visit immediately after the lighting. The Virginia Gentlemen, the Virginia Consort Carolers, Live Arts Players, DMR Adventures, and others willperform from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
At 8:30 p.m., the Paramount Theater will offer a free screening of the popular family holiday movie A Christmas Story, with free popcorn.
A Claus for a Cause “Be a Claus for a Cause!” is the official slogan of the Great Charlottesville Santa Fun Run and Walk 2017, happening at 9:30 a.m., December 3, rain or shine. Adults will walk or run in free Santa suits; young people will wear free elf ears. Registration ($20 for adults, $10 for kids 3-12) will be at the Sprint Pavilion on the Downtown Mall between 9:30 and 10:30 a.m. Whole Foods will provide breakfast starting at 9:30 a.m.
Awards will be presented to the top corporate team, family team and individual fundraisers, and for the most festive stroller/sleigh. All proceeds of the event will support the programs of the Arc of the Piedmont, which helps Charlottesville area residents with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Gingerbread At the Omni The Downtown Business Association held the first Virginia Gingerbread Christmas competition “just for fun” back in 1994. Nowadays, thousands of people come to the Omni Hotel on the Downtown Mall for a host of Virginia Gingerbread Christmas activities in what has become a Charlottesville holiday tradition.
This year’s theme is Christmas in the Movies and the most accomplished entries will be on display at the Omni from December 3 through 6. Entry forms and information about categories and judging criteria may be downloaded online. Entry forms are due by November 30, 2017.
Santa will be on hand and possibly first in line at the pancake breakfast sponsored by the Kiwanis Club of Charlottesville on Saturday, December 9 from 7:00 to 11:00 a.m. Tickets are $10, and proceeds will benefit local agencies, including the Ronald McDonald House.
The Omni will also host Mrs. Claus and her friends. on Wednesday, December 13 from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. Kids of all ages will enjoy singing, dancing, storytelling, craft-making and—everyone’s favorite—cupcake decorating. Advanced ticket purchase is required.
All proceeds from Virginia Gingerbread Christmas benefit the Ronald McDonald House of Charlottesville, which provides a home away from home for families of seriously ill or injured children receiving medical treatment on holidays and every day.
The Nutcracker The Moscow Ballet has toured North America dancing stories, like the Great Russian Nutcracker, for 25 years. The 40-member company will be back at the Paramount for their annual performance of the Tchaikovsky/Petipa classic, with the evil Mouse King, and the gracious Sugar Plum Fairy, on Monday, December 11 at 7 p.m. The ballet features Russian folk characters including Father Christmas and the Snow Maiden, who escort Masha to the Land of Peace and Harmony where she and the Nutcracker Prince are honored by emissaries from the world over.
Charlottesville Ballet will present their own version of this favorite holiday tradition at Piedmont Virginia Community College at 1:00 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, December 16; 2:00 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, December 17; 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. on Thursday December 21; and 2:30 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. on Friday, December 22.
Set to Tchaikovsky’s famous score, the Charlottesville Ballet’s Nutcracker follows young Clara as she is given a magical wooden nutcracker and journeys through the Lands of Snowflakes and Sweets.
More at the Paramount Theater The Paramount Theater offers an “electric” family outing, Saturday, November 25 at 11:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. with Lightwire Theater’s A Very Electric Christmas. Performed in complete darkness, the show uses puppetry, theater, dance, music and state-of-the-art “electroluminescence“ technology to tell a story of a young bird named Max and his family, who begin flying south for the winter, get blown off course, and find themselves at the North Pole. That’s where their real adventure begins.
Music Director Michael Slon will conduct the Oratorio Society of Virginia in their annual Christmas at The Paramount concert on Saturday, December 16 at 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. The 90-voice chorus, accompanied bybrass, organ, and percussion, is composed of some of the community’s finest singers.
This year’s concert’s signature piece, J.A.C. Redford’s lush “Welcome All Wonders: A Christmas Celebration,” is by turns exuberant, tranquil, and haunting. In addition, the chorus will perform “Walking in the Air ” from a children’s film, “The Snowman,” plus a selection of traditional English and Spanish carols. In what’s become an Oratorio custom, two guest youth choruses will perform as well. An accompaniment of brass, organ, and percussion rounds out what is sure to be a vibrant and heart-lifting performance.
The Paramount will show the beloved Christmas classic, White Christmas on Sunday, December 17 at 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. Two World War II buddies with a song-and-dance act, Bob (Bing Crosby) and Phil (Danny Kaye), cross paths with two sisters with their own song-and-dance act (Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen). Smitten, Bob and Phil follow the sisters to an inn in Vermont, which turns out to be owned by their former commanding officer (Dean Jagger). There the duos become a foursome, and keep the failing inn in business.
Lynchburg native Phil Vassar and former American Idol contestant Kellie Pickler will bring their Christmas Tour to the Paramount in support of their new original holiday single, “The Naughty List” on Saturday, December 23 at 8:00 p.m. Vassar has released eight albums and ten chart-topping songs, is a two-time ASCAP Songwriter of the Year and a Billboard Country Songwriter of the Year, and received a Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Original Song.
Kellie Pickler grew up loving Tammy Wynette, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, and Dolly Parton in the small town of Albemarle, North Carolina. In 2005, at age 19, she was chosen to be a contestant on American Idol. She released her debut album, Small Town Girl, in 2006. Her third studio album, 100 Proof, released in 2011, was named number one Country Album of The Year by Rolling Stone magazine.
Historic Homes and the Holidays Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello will celebrate the beginning of the season with a free Holiday Open House, Sunday, November 26, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The first floor of the house will be decorated for the holidays, and will be open for visitors to stroll through at their own pace. Holiday gifts and free tastings and treats will be available at the Shop at Monticello.
Monticello’s Holiday Evening Tours, December 8-9, 15-18, 20-23, and 26-30, at 5:00 p.m., 5:30 p.m. and 6:00 p.m., offer the rare opportunity to experience Jefferson’s home after dark, historically decorated and illuminated for the season. The ticketed tours will explore both private and public rooms including the Dome Room, and examine how all people who lived on the Monticello mountaintop, both enslaved and free, celebrated the holidays in Jefferson’s day. Live musical performances will take place in the Parlor. Holiday Evening Tours are not handicapped-accessible and not recommended for children under age six.
The annual Monticello Holiday Classic 5K and Deck the Halls Kids Dash will be held on Saturday, December 2 from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. The family-oriented 5K begins at the East Walk of Monticello and ends at the David M. Rubenstein Visitor Center and Smith Education Center. Youngsters 12 and under are invited to take part in the Deck the Halls Kids Dash, a loop around the West Lawn within the shadows of the main house. Children under 18 must be accompanied by an adult. The Kids Dash will start at 8:10 a.m. and the Holiday Classic will begin at 8:20 a.m. These are ticketed events.
Monticello’s popular Wreath Workshops, led by its gardens staff, are a 31-year tradition.
The ticket fee covers all materials, including straw wreath forms, pins, wire and over 75 natural materials—everything except hand pruners. Space is limited to registered participants only; participants may make one wreath.
This workshop is recommended for ages 14 years and older. Workshop dates and times are as follows: Friday, November 24, 1:00 to 4:00 p.m.; Saturday, November 25, 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and 2:00 to 5:00 p.m.; Sunday, November 26, 2:00 to 5:00 p.m.; Monday, November 27, 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.; Thursday, November 30, 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.; Friday, December 1, 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 pm.;. Saturday, December 2, 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and 2:00 to 5:00 p.m.; Sunday, December 3, 2:00 to 5:00 p.m.
Monticello’s Children’s Woodland Ornament Workshops will take place on December 9 and 16 at 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. The one-hour workshops will let parents and kids, fueled by hot chocolate and cookies, craft ornaments from natural materials gathered from the woods of Monticello. Children must be accompanied by an adult. Advance tickets are required.
James Madison’s Montpelier will hold a Holiday Open House on Saturday, December 2 from 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The Madison home will be decorated according to 19th-century customs, and James and Dolley will be home to greet their guests. Visitors to the David M. Rubenstein Visitor Center will meet Santa, and enjoy hands-on history activities along with delicious food.
As a bonus gift to yourself, your community and your planet, why not make this year truly green? Here are some easy ways.
An Artificial Tree Or a Real One? The first artificial trees were constructed in Germany in the 1800s and employed green-tinted goose feathers. In 1930, a British business called Addis Housewares Company, created trees made from animal-hair bristles—the ones used for their toilet brushes, but dyed green. These “bristle” trees became popular on both sides of the Atlantic and led to other artificial trees from aluminum to plastic.
Artificial trees are convenient, always the right size, and reusable. They don’t drop needles, need water, or trigger allergies. On the other hand, they are generally made from metal and petroleum-based plastics, so they are non-recyclable and non-biodegradable. As many as 85 percent of artificial trees are imported from China, so must travel a very long distance.
Statistics from the National Christmas Tree Association and the USDA reveal that about 10 million artificial trees were purchased in 2016. Nearly 35 million natural trees were bought, mostly from nurseries or tree lots benefitting various community organizations. About 16 percent of consumers cut their own.
Christmas trees are raised on some 15,000 U.S. farms and take about 7 years to reach “harvesting” size. These farms cover some 350,000 acres where the trees—at every age—consume carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen. Still, they are agricultural products, which means applications of herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers.
At the end of the holidays, some artificial trees are discarded, but most are bundled away until next year. In many neighborhoods, Boy Scouts, or other organizations, collect natural trees to recycle or compost.
In short, both natural and fake trees have an environmental impact, with a slightly higher impact by artificial ones. The more years an artificial tree is used, however, the less its impact.
Another option is a living tree which can be planted in the yard. Weight issues, including the dirt ball, mean these trees must be fairly small. In addition, conifers are dormant in winter and indoor warmth may confuse them into starting to grow, which means they seldom thrive when replanted in the cold outdoors. Ideally, living trees should not be inside more than a week before being planted and thoroughly mulched according to your nursery’s directions.
Green Décor A wreath on the door adds a holiday welcome to any home. You can purchase wreaths many places, including Charlottesville’s Holiday City Market every Saturday from November 25 through December 23.You can make your own by purchasing a framework at a craft store or forming your own base from Styrofoam or coat hangers. Some people enjoy creating their wreaths annually from fresh greens, while others prefer a permanent wreath to use year after year.
Use evergreen sprigs from your yard as well as cuttings of pine, ivy, holly, or magnolia and punctuate with pinecones, seedpods, bittersweet, or berries. Permanent wreaths can be crafted from sea shells gathered on vacation, ribbons, dried vines, small no-longer-used toys, candy, feathers, fruit, or more.
Garlands for stair rails, mantels, or the tree can be made from the same materials as wreaths. Set the youngsters to stringing cranberries or popcorn. (Day-old popcorn is less likely to shatter since it’s a bit stale.)
Awaken your children’s creativity with colored paper, old holiday cards, colored pens, and glue. They always enjoy making paper chains from construction paper or the colored foil wraps florists use on potted plants.
The Internet has roughly a million ideas for holiday crafts for children and adults and many recycle items you already have on hand. For example, the bottoms of plastic bottles often have interesting shapes to convert into ornaments and plastic milk cartons can be cut into leaves or other festive shapes. Get out the tin snips and turn the ends of cans into shiny stars or snowflakes.
Lights! Lights! Lights! LED lights are a remarkable enhancement to green décor. They don’t break, come in vibrant colors, and best of all, use 80 to 90 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs. While their initial cost is higher than incandescents, they lower electric bills and last considerably longer.
People who don’t celebrate Christmas, yet want their homes to be festive and lighted, might opt for an LED candle-style light in each window, so very appropriate with Virginia’s Colonial tradition.
Always be safe Unfortunately, the holidays are prime times for house fires. For example, fireplaces whose chimneys aren’t cleaned regularly can be a hazard.
Fresh live trees are less likely to catch fire, so avoid any tree which is already shedding needles. Natural trees suck up a surprising amount of water, so check the tree base every day to be sure it is full. Keep the tree away from fireplaces, candles, and heat vents.
Be sure all lights have the UL lab-approved label and check the wires every year. Never use indoor lights outdoors, and always turn off inside lights when you leave home or go to bed.
Keep candles on trays or plates to protect furniture. Keep them away from walls, greenery, and things above them like lampshades, draperies or holiday decorations.
By pursuing a “green” strategy this year, your holidays can be both happy and eco-friendly.
Marilyn Pribus and her husband live in Albemarle County. After the holidays, they set their tree outdoors to provide shelter for birdfeeder visitors, then lop off the branches for mulch in the spring. The tree trunk is cut up with the largest piece saved as the Yule Log for next year.
Former University of Virginia film professor Walter Korte, center, leaves court in November with attorneys Bonnie Lepold and Bruce Williamson, after a judge rejected a plea agreement. Photo by Lisa Provence
Without expounding on why, Albemarle Circuit Court Judge Cheryl Higgins rejected a plea agreement from a former UVA professor and the prosecution November 14, and said the matter will be heard by a different judge.
Walter Korte, 74, who had a long and distinguished career at the University of Virginia as a film expert, faced two counts of possession of child pornography. The plea agreement was presented in court in August. At that time, Higgins expressed reservations about the plea, asked for a pre-sentencing report and wanted to see the two images for which Korte was charged.
The case started during the summer of 2016 when Korte disposed of his porn collection in a dumpster outside Bryan Hall, where UVA’s English department is housed. University police staked out the dumpster and observed him tossing plastic bags on a couple of occasions.
Most of the thousands of images were legal, adult porn, but among the adult fare were images of clothed and naked young males—and magazines with Korte’s home address, according to Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Amanda Galloway in court in August.
The prosecution sent questionable images to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which found one known child pornographic image. The state attorney general’s office determined that nearly 700 images were child erotica, which depicts no nudity or sexual activity and is legal. The ages for pubescent males in 16 images could not be determined, according to Galloway.
In the plea, the parties agreed that Korte, who has no criminal record, no hands-on victims and whom a psychological assessment determined was not a threat, would serve a maximum of 12 months in jail and register as a sex offender.
Galloway told the judge that if Korte had been convicted of one count, sentencing guidelines called for probation and no sex offender registry.
“The court is going to reject the plea,” and it will be assigned to another judge, said Higgins three months later.
The agreement was either too lenient—or too harsh, opines legal expert David Heilberg. “Judge Higgins wasn’t of a mind to accept it,” he says.
Heilberg says there are two types of plea agreements. A judge usually accepts a recommendation plea but is not bound to follow it.
“What Higgins rejected was an appropriate plea,” he surmises. That means the commonwealth and the defense agree on the appropriate way for the case to come out, and the court can accept or reject it, but can’t change it, he explains. “Judge Higgins must have felt it restricted her too much.”
Korte will get a new judge at the December 4 docket call.
Lynelle Lawrence, co-owner of Mudhouse Coffee Roasters, says business owners hope the holiday parking promotion will welcome patrons back to the Downtown Mall after a stressful summer. Photo by Amy Jackson
Some business owners say the Downtown Mall hasn’t been quite the same since shield-wielding white supremacists and neo-Nazis invaded it over the summer, followed immediately by the onset of a pilot parking meter program that required drivers to pay to park for what was once a free space.
So what better way to welcome back its patrons than offering free holiday parking?
“The timing [of the parking meter pilot] made it so people who perhaps were feeling a little skittish to come down after the summer just kept that feeling,” says Lynelle Lawrence, co-owner of Mudhouse Coffee Roasters, a Downtown Mall institution of 24 years. “The idea is just to allow the downtown area to welcome people back and have nothing be a deterrent.”
The city announced November 14 that the newly metered spaces surrounding the mall would be available at no cost from Friday, November 17, until Monday, January 1, and parking in the Market Street Parking Garage would be free on the weekends for the holiday season, starting at 5pm each Friday.
Lawrence says her coffee sales have certainly declined since the onset of the parking program, and Joan Fenton, chair of the Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville, says that seems to be a trend for other business owners.
“I know that there are a lot of businesses that are very upset by the meters and think it’s a bad idea,” says Fenton, who also owns Quilts Unlimited & J. Fenton Gifts. “We haven’t seen the figures but, anecdotally, people have told us that they don’t want to park because of the meters.”
Local writer and downtown frequenter Elizabeth Howard is one of those people.
“The sun was shining on the meter, so the prompts were a little hard to read and it took me several tries to make it work,” she says, adding that she had to take a few trips back to her car during the parking process, including when the computer system asked for her license plate number, which she doesn’t have memorized. “It was frustrating, plus I was in a hurry.”
Adds Howard, “I would still come downtown, but I would avoid the meter.”
Fenton’s personal qualm is that the rate is too high. “I’m not sure that we’re in a community that will accept a $1.80-per-hour rate,” she says. “At this point, I don’t think it works.”
But Fenton says when the businesses called for help this season, Charlottesville management acted fast.
“The city has been through a great deal since August 12,” says parking manager Rick Siebert. “There have been a lot of hard feelings expressed by a lot of people about what went on, and perhaps what mistakes were made, so I think this is the city partnering with the businesses on the mall to say ‘come on back.’’’
And while the parking meters are a hot topic, he adds, “I don’t think this is all about the meters. I think this is all about the mall and the need for the city to support the efforts of the business community and to remind everybody what a great place it is.”
Siebert says the meter pilot program will likely run through May (the holiday parking promotion ends at the beginning of the new year), and would then go before City Council for recommendations. Despite all the backlash, he says the program has helped improve turnover and create available spaces.
“There are certainly a number of people who are upset, and not happy about the elimination of the free parking, but there are other business owners, property owners and customers that I’ve talked to personally who have talked about how great it is that they can now actually find a place to park on-street without driving in circles, and I think the $1.80 per hour is worth that convenience.”
And he says he’s heard from several satisfied Market Street garage parkers because their rates have decreased since the pilot was implemented—instead of paying $2.50 an hour, it now costs a dollar less with the first hour free.
Lawrence says she expects to see another dip in Mudhouse sales in January, but that happens at the beginning of each year, so she won’t necessarily be able to attribute it to the reinstated meters. For now, she’s enjoying what she calls “this beautiful moment” of business collaboration, where employees are saying, “Let’s see what we can do to create a holiday spirit downtown. This is a lovely place to be and we’ve got you.”
Adds Lawrence, “It’s never been this tight and strong, and the city is right with us. It’s given us energy and focus.”
After it closed in 2003, Western State was a magnet for ghost hunters and daring teens. Now it's going to be a deluxe inn.
Photo Daniel Stein
Seeking asylum
He’ll tell you it’s not haunted, but owner and developer Robin Miller acknowledges the twisted history of the new Blackburn Inn, his historic boutique hotel set to open in Staunton this spring.
Originally serving as the Western State Lunatic Asylum in the early 1800s, a hospital for the mentally ill—known for its electroshock therapy and lobotomies—the building became a medium-security men’s penitentiary in the late 1900s, until it was abandoned in 2003.
Where former residents wore straitjackets, inn guests will don complimentary bathrobes after a dip in the “luxurious soaking tubs” that will be available in four of the 49 rooms with 27 different floor plans.
“About 14 years ago was the first time I drove into downtown Staunton,” says Miller. “I looked over and saw the campus here and I fell in love with it.”
The Richmond-based developer with a second home in the same town as his new hotel has an assemblage of projects under his belt, including the recent redevelopment of Western State’s bindery, the building directly behind the Blackburn Inn, which he converted into 19 condos.
“It’s a combination of a beautiful, beautiful historic building with absolute top of the line, luxurious amenities and features,” Miller says about the inn, where he made use of the original wide corridors, hallway arches, vaulted ceilings and a wooden spiral stairwell that will allow guests to access the rooftop atrium. As for whether he expects a gaggle of ghost hunters to be his first customers: “That certainly wasn’t part of our marketing plan, but we don’t care why they want to stay here. We just want them to come and see it.”
Either way, we’re calling it a crazy good time.
Staunton’s former Western State Lunatic Asylum will reopen as a boutique hotel this spring. Among its features is the original wooden spiral stairwell (right), which has been refurbished and will allow access to a rooftop atrium. Courtesy blackburn inn, daniel stein
In brief
Kessler clockers continued
Four people charged with assaulting Jason Kessler the day after the deadly August 12 Unite the Right rally—Brandon Collins, Robert Litzenberger, Phoebe Stevens and Jeff Winder—had their cases moved to February 2—Groundhog Day—because the special prosecutor, Goochland Commonwealth’s Attorney Mike Caudill, hadn’t seen video of Kessler being chased through the shrubbery. “These things keep coming up,” said Judge Bob Downer. “It’s like Groundhog Day.”
Another construction fatality
A construction worker died at the Linden Town Lofts site after a traumatic fall November 15, according to Charlottesville police. That was also the location of an early morning July 13 fire that engulfed a townhouse and four Jaunt buses. A worker also died from a fall October 21 at 1073 E. Water St., the C&O Row site owned by Evergreen Homebuilders.
Motion to unwrap
staff photo
Plaintiffs in the suit to prevent the city from removing Confederate statues of generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson now want Charlottesville to remove the black tarps that have covered the statues since shortly after the fatal August 12 rally—and for the city to pay hefty fines if it refuses.
Closing the door
The grocery subscription service that bought out Relay Foods last year announced November 17 that it would cease its operations, effective immediately. Door to Door Organics says refunds will be forthcoming for those who pre-ordered Thanksgiving turkeys.
“The only way you’re going to get sexism out of politics is to get more women into politics.”
—Hillary Clinton in a speech at UVA during the Women’s Global Leadership Forum
Pay up
Florida man James O’Brien, an alleged League of the South member charged with concealed carrying on August 12, pleaded guilty November 20 and was sentenced to a suspended 60 days in jail and fined $500. He was arrested while breaking into his own car during the Unite the Right rally, and has since been fired from his roofing job for taking part in “extremist activities,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Switching hands
After 10 years of grooming, lodging and day care services, the owners of Best of C-VILLE Hall of Famer Pampered Pets have selected Pet Paradise Resort and Day Spa to take over operations, beginning November 16.
Dominion’s victory dance
The U.S. Forest Service approved plans for the the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline November 17, giving Dominion Energy permission to run its 42-inch natural gas pipeline through the George Washington and Monongahela national forests. Though Dominion still requires state water permits, spokesperson Aaron Ruby calls it a “key regulatory approval” in the company’s quest for final approval later this year.
By the numbers
Survey says
It costs a little bit more to gobble till you wobble this year, according to a recent survey conducted by the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation.
On average, it will set you back about $50.56 to feed a family of 10 adults on Thanksgiving. This is up from $44.02 last year, with the average cost of everyone’s favorite holiday meal increasing by a total of $11.44 since the federation began conducting the survey in 2003.
What’s on the menu? Turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, peas, rolls, cranberries, a vegetable tray, milk and a good ol’ slice of pumpkin pie with whipped cream. Eat up.
Chamomile & Whiskey pay tribute to the
band’s roots with the release of Sweet
Afton at the Southern on Wednesday. Photo by Aaron Farrington
Cementing a friendship that began in childhood, Koda Kerl and Marie Borgman formed the eclectic folk act Chamomile & Whiskey over a cup of hot tea with Evan Williams bourbon poured in. But the band’s name also speaks to a love of the traditional Irish tunes and bluegrass folk that gave the group traction shortly after its inception. The band, which has played national festivals and toured extensively, celebrates the release of its second full-length album, Sweet Afton, conjured from two inspirations: the well-known Afton Mountain in Nelson County and a cheap, unfiltered brand of Irish cigarettes favored by banjo player Ryan Lavin.
Wednesday, November 22. $10-12, 6:30pm. The Southern Café and Music Hall, 103 S. First St. 977-5590.
