Month: December 2018

Arts

Hear us out: A never-complete list of local releases from 2018

Post author By erinohare
Post date December 26, 2018
No Comments on Hear us out: A never-complete list of local releases from 2018

It’s time for us to take up the sticks and beat this drum again. Here’s our never-complete (but still pretty comprehensive) look at what Charlottesville-area artists released this year. We’ve focused mainly on albums and EPs, but there are dozens of other bands and artists releasing single after single, or playing songs that haven’t been recorded yet. Support your local scene: click the “Charlottesville” tag on Bandcamp, or search it on Soundcloud. Buy the music when you can (it helps the artists make more music). Go to shows. We repeat, go to shows. Let this list serve as a reminder that you never know what you’ll find right in your own backyard.

5pm Worship Team at Christ Episcopal Church, Songs of Comfort (Christian, folk)

7th Grade Girl Fight, Summer Is Over and Jump Back (rock, garage pop)

A University of Whales, Everything is Beautiful (chamber pop)

A.D. Carson, Sleepwalking 2 (hip-hop)

The Attachments, II

If you ask Sam Uriss, frontman of garage, punk, and rock ‘n’ roll trio The Attachments, advertising is “a totally out-of-control and insane part of society.” It takes advantage of us in ways we don’t always notice. “It’s so pervasive that I can’t not write songs about it,” he told C-VILLE of the band’s second tape.

Jordan Perry, Witness Tree

Anyone who’s seen him play knows that Perry accomplishes a lot with a guitar. His experimental solo guitar record, Witness Tree, is rife with atmosphere and emotion, building tension and ushering in relief to create an experience that’s not unlike reading a series of related short stories.

Juliana Daugherty, Light

Daugherty, a poet, flutist, and singer, challenged herself to make a record, and wrote Light, a folk record about the imperatively “well-trod territory” of love, released earlier this year on Western Vinyl to critical acclaim.

Personal Bandana, [sic]

When listening to the debut tape from Travis Thatcher and Dave Gibson’s electronic/synthwave/krautrock/kosmiche project, close your eyes and consider what you see amid the bleeps and bloops, swirls and swoops.

Poe Raskin, Dusty Dungeon Demos (hard rock, Southern rock, blues, funk)

PONY, Faceplant (pop punk)

Quin Bookz, Cruddy’s World (hip-hop)

Reagan Riley, Grown Since (neo-soul, electronic, R&B)

Restroy, Restroy

“I’m always trying to do something a little impossible,” Restroy leader Chris Dammann told C-VILLE about blending jazz, grunge, electronic, classical, and mbira music into compositions for his avant-garde jazz group. “There’s something beautiful about impossible things.”

Rob Cheatham, Villains and Ghosts (alt-country, folk rock)

Sarah White, High Flyer (country, rock, folk)

Waasi, Betterdaze

“It’s like life is just starting,” Waasi told C-VILLE about his debut record full of thoughtful verse, easy flow, hard work, and big dreams. Betterdaze is a peek inside the mind and the heart of a young rapper.

Reissues

Age of Fire, Age of Fire (metal)

The Landlords, Hey! It’s A Teenage House Party! (punk, hardcore punk)

Singles…and a hint at what’s to come in 2019

Alice Clair, “Keep Talking” and “Trail of Gold,” from her upcoming full-length release (folksy rock and soul)

Autumns Ocean, “Winter Season” (acoustic, grunge, alternative)

Cass, “Tesla”; “System”;;“Jiggy”; and others (rap, hip-hop)

Fried Egg, “Apraxia,” from the band’s forthcoming full-length, Square One (punk, hardcore punk)

Harli & The House of Juniper, “Is This Life…” (alternative, jam, rock, soul)

Inning, “White Girls, Black Jackets”; “I Like Your Name”; “Frash Brad” (indie rock)

Naomi Alligator, “Simon”; “Sweetness”; “Accordion People”; “Love Song” (lo-fi, singer-songwriter, pop)

Shagwüf, “Sweet Freak” (gutter glam, swamp rock)

Wild Common, “Downhill Specialist” and “Mama Played the Snare Drum,” off the band’s forthcoming record (Americana, soul, Appalachian, folk, R&B)

Mall rats: Does the Downtown Mall have a rodent problem?

Post author By Carol Diggs
Post date December 26, 2018
No Comments on Mall rats: Does the Downtown Mall have a rodent problem?

Yes, Virginia, there are rats on the Downtown Mall.

Many Charlottesvillians spent the last few weeks enjoying a festive holiday season on the Downtown Mall. But have we been strolling, shopping, and dining in the company of species Rattus?

No question the mall has rats—the place is packed with restaurants, which means food waste, which means rat heaven. And just so you know, the term for a group of rats is a “mischief.”

Are mall rodents on the rise?

“We receive on average less than one report a year to the city manager’s office regarding rats,” says city spokesperson Brian Wheeler. A very unscientific survey of mall vendors, restaurants, and others garnered responses ranging from “no” to “not really” to “not anymore” to “OMG yes” and “cat-sized.” Commonly mentioned problem areas include restaurant patios, tree grates, and garbage pick-up sites along Water and Market streets.

Kim Malone, a manager at Chaps, was emphatic: “I see rats outside in the morning when I come in. They’re all along the alley behind the store, next to the Paramount. And they’re in the outdoor cafés—it’s worse in the summertime.”

According to Malone, last year the mall merchants complained, and the city’s parks and recreation department, which handles animal control, responded. “They poured something down into the tree grates. The smell was horrible—people wouldn’t eat out there.” She shares an exterminator with Sal’s Caffe Italia next door.

A mall shop manager, who asked not to be identified, saw signs of rats in her store about a year ago. “We sell some food products, and they had chewed into the bags—and into one of our blankets to make a little nest,” she says. “We have a basement, and we’re in between two restaurants. And people just pile trash in the alley behind the stores.” She bought plastic bins to store her food products, and hired an exterminator to plug every possible hole.

Realistically, no city is vermin-free. Wheeler says a third-party contractor manages bait traps at “numerous locations on and around the Downtown Mall.”

But can those bait traps make a difference, given great hiding places, humans who litter and drop food, and garbage buffets? And then there’s the biggest rodent bonanza of all—the Landmark Hotel, aka the Dewberry. Most people view the derelict eyesore as a veritable Rats-Carlton.

David McNair, a journalist and publicist, says late at night a few months ago he was walking along Water Street behind the Landmark, “and I saw rats pouring out of the hotel, swarming the garbage cans there…it looked like the bins were covered with flies.”

Heather, who works at a mall restaurant and didn’t want to give her last name, says she was headed home one night past that same spot. She saw what she first thought, in the dark, was “a herd of rabbits, because they were leaping around. Then one of them brushed against my leg—it was a rat, a large one, with a roll in its mouth. The rats were so busy feasting they were literally bouncing up and down.”

Joan Fenton, chairman of the Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville and owner of Quilts Unlimited, minces no words. “The Landmark Hotel is a problem, and the city should address that. They have a responsibility to finish that deal.” But she says all restaurants face this problem and downtown business owners have been responsible in addressing it.

Brandon Butler has perhaps the worst story. He and his family were on the mall one recent Saturday morning for a Christmas parade. Afterwards, his 8-year-old daughter and her fellow Girl Scouts were hanging around near the Jefferson, when they started giggling and crowding around a large gray plastic garbage bin. Then “my wife screams, and I hear this high-pitched squealing coming out of the bin. I walked over and looked in, and there were two or three huge rats, live ones.”

“The size of cats,” his wife contributes.

Seth Wispelwey, who lives about two blocks from the mall’s Market Street side, has put traps inside his closed outdoor shed and checks them daily. He’s now up to 20 rats. He recalls walking to Live Arts one night last January. “There were two massive rats right there on the sidewalk, rather boldly walking along.” He told his spouse and friends—but he didn’t contact the city. Neither did any of the other rat-sighters we talked to.

Store owners and managers know they can call the city with rat complaints, but mall workers and residents who have seen rats seem clueless. Wheeler says Charlottesville Parks & Rec got fewer mall rat complaints in 2018 than in 2017. And without complaints, there’s no reason to step up efforts to “eraticate.”

“In total, in our MyCville database for 2018, there are six reports related to rats this year,” Wheeler says. MyCville, an online and smartphone application to request services and report issues, was just launched this year. No one interviewed for this story knew about it.

Proposed New Year’s Resolution: Get the city’s rat stats in line with actual rat sightings. In the meantime, when it comes to rats on the mall—or anywhere else—if you see something, say something.

Tags Brandon Butler, David McNair, downtown business association of charlottesville, joan fenton, MyCville, rats, Seth Wispelwey

News

In brief: Perriello saves the day, lots of $$$, and council retreat chaos

Post author By C-VILLE Writers
Post date December 26, 2018
No Comments on In brief: Perriello saves the day, lots of $$$, and council retreat chaos

Perriello’s Sierra Leone rescue

A desperate mother needed to get her 5-year-old daughter out of Sierra Leone in 2003, and asked a stranger at the airport to take her child to her grandmother in the U.S. Fifteen years later, Zee Sesay learned that the man who brought her daughter to safety was former congressman Tom Perriello, according to BuzzFeed. Perriello calls it “one of the crazier experiences” of his life.

Another renaming?

City Councilor Wes Bellamy pounced on the last few moments of the December 17 City Council meeting to suggest renaming Preston Avenue, which gets its moniker from Thomas Preston, a Confederate leader, slaveholder, and former UVA rector. Is Jefferson Street next?

Big bucks

Local philanthropist Dorothy Batten—yes, the daughter of Weather Channel co-founder and UVA grad Frank Batten—will donate $1.35 million to a Piedmont Virginia Community College program called Network2Network, which trains volunteers to match community members with open job listings.

Quote of the week: “I have never been disrespected the way I have been here in Charlottesville.”—Police Chief RaShall Brackney

Bigger bucks

Following the Dave Matthews Band’s recent announcement that it, together with Red Light Management and Matthews himself, will give $5 million to local affordable housing, came the news that another $527,995 in grants will be doled out to 75 local nonprofits through the band’s Bama Works Fund, which awards similar grants twice a year.

Remains IDed

Police arrested and charged Robert Christopher Henderson with second-degree murder December 20 in connection with the death of Angela Lax, who was reported missing in August. County detectives, who found skeletal remains in the woods along the John Warner Parkway’s trails in November, suspect that Henderson killed Lax in June and dumped her body.

Clerk’s Office closing

Hope you don’t have any important deeds to file or a marriage license to pick up during the first week of the new year, because the Charlottesville Circuit Court Clerk’s Office is moving to new temporary digs during a massive courthouse renovation and will be closed December 31 through January 4 for the holiday and for the move.

Maybe a little bit of “vitriol”

What happens when City Council has a daylong retreat, and two people live tweet the gathering? Here are some excerpts from the December 18 event with Mayor Nikuyah Walker, councilors Wes Bellamy, Kathy Galvin, Heather Hill, and Mike Signer, as narrated by Molly Conger, aka @socialistdogmom, and Daily Progress reporter Nolan Stout. Click to view their threads.

while “retreat” is often used to mean an all day work session on something like the budget, it appears this time “city council retreat” means the worst, silliest kind of waste of time — ice breakers and trust building exercises pic.twitter.com/fntn4CqUrn

— molly ???? (@socialistdogmom) December 18, 2018

Back at it again this morning for the City Council retreat. Find the agenda here. https://t.co/tNRFLste0i

— Nolan Stout (@nstoutDP) December 18, 2018

Tags BamaWorks, City Council, Dave Matthews Band, Dorothy Batten, Heather Hill, Kathy Galvin, mike signer, Molly Conger, Nikuyah Walker, Nolan Stout, Preston Avenue, RaShall Brackney, tom perriello, wes bellamy

Arts

ARTS Pick: Year of the Woman

Post author By C-VILLE Writers
Post date December 26, 2018
No Comments on ARTS Pick: Year of the Woman

Erin & the Wildfire and ADAR, above, perform at Year of the Woman at The Southern Café & Music Hall on Monday, December 31 at 8:30pm. Publicity photo.

It’s time to wrap up the year with a little glamour in honor of local ladies who pushed the boundaries on music. Year of the Woman is a concert featuring two stand-out performers from 2018: Erin Lunsford leads Erin & The Wildfire with bold, rock-soul blends from the album Thirst, and ADAR is led by power-house vocalist Adar Seligman-McComas, who guides her band through original jazz fusions.

Monday 12/31 $20-40, 8:30pm. The Southern Café & Music Hall, 103 S. First St. 977-5590.

Tags Adar, Erin & the Wildfire, Thirst album Erin Lunsford, Year of the Woman concert

Living

Bar keepers: Cocktails we couldn’t get enough of in 2018

Post author By C-VILLE Writers
Post date December 26, 2018
No Comments on Bar keepers: Cocktails we couldn’t get enough of in 2018

Reid Dougherty’s Rabbie Burns, made with charred maple syrup. Staff photo.

By Carrie Meslar

The house cocktail menu is a bar team’s magnum opus. Hours of research, experiments, and tweaks can go into a single drink, only for it to be erased from record with the printing of a new menu. But some drinks refuse to leave: A bartender creates a cocktail that is the perfect fit for his program, and the removal of said beverage would result in a mini-revolt of patrons dead set on getting their hands on “the only thing I drink here.” So, what drinks had the biggest staying power around town in 2018? We checked in with bar managers at some of our favorite watering holes.

Alec Spidalieri: Junction

The house cocktail list at Junction includes both a collection of tried-and-true staples and a section that changes drastically with the seasons. “My staff probably hates it, but I’m a big believer in keeping things fresh and interesting for the guests,” says Spidalieri. He saw an increased interest in rum cocktails this year, including the Rum Communion: a house creation that won the C-VILLE Weekly Cocktail Bracket challenge earlier in 2018, and will stay on his list year-round.

Reid Dougherty: Brasserie Saison

The Kitchen Cocktail at Brasserie is a rotating drink that reinforces the relationship between the kitchen and beverage program. When bartender Jeremy Curtis got his hands on smoked maple syrup, he paired it with Four Roses bourbon for a drink that was so well received it became the building block for a new menu fixture, the Rabbie Burns, named in honor of Scottish poet Robert Burns. Bar manager Dougherty says they upped the char on the syrup and swapped the bourbon for local Virginia Highland Malt, making the final cocktail a craveable sipper of Highland Malt, Luxardo Bitter, smoked maple syrup, lemon, and bitters.

Colin Antonovics: Lost Saint

When Lost Saint launched its Saint 182, All The Fall Things menu, the Waxing Poetic was a massive hit. The cocktail features Rhum Clément that is aged in a bottle lined with beeswax, adding a unique mouthfeel and a softening of the Clément. Antonovics has had to continue to fill the bottles long after the cocktail menu changed over, regardless of the season.

Steve Yang and Rebecca Edwards: Tavola

Yang, who was a regional finalist in the World Class bartending competition this year, put his Alpha and Omega cocktail on the menu shortly after taking over the bar program. Featuring Baker’s bourbon, brown butter-washed PX sherry, Asian pear, lemon, and thyme, it has been a steadfast customer favorite ever since. When tackling the spring cocktail list, Edwards came up with The Witchcraft, a Ransom Old Tom gin cocktail with Liquore Strega, housemade sesame falernum (a sweet syrup), lime, and tonic. The combination of a unusual color and unexpected flavor proved to make The Witchcraft something too popular to ditch.

And cocktails aren’t the only thing with staying power at Tavola. In 2018, the duo behind the cicchetti bar also decided their relationship was going to go the distance, and announced their engagement.

As the cocktail scene in Charlottesville continues to evolve, it’s clear to area bartenders that customers are putting their trust in house creations such as Reid Dougherty’s Rabbie Burns, made with charred maple syrup.

Tags 2018 Charlottesville cocktails, best cocktails of 2018, Brasserie Saison cocktails, Junction cocktails, Lost Saint cocktails, Tavola cocktails

Arts

ARTS Pick: Sarah Shook & the Disarmers

Post author By C-VILLE Writers
Post date December 26, 2018
No Comments on ARTS Pick: Sarah Shook & the Disarmers

Sarah Shot & the Disarmers play its country-rock vocals at The Southern Café & Music Hall on Friday, December 28 at 8:30pm. Publicity photo.

The brutal country-rock quartet Sarah Shook & the Disarmers plays with a display of defiance that embodies the outlaw era—and such a biting reputation is not undeserved, but it pays off. The group’s spiteful LP, Years, is full of raw undertones inspired by Shook’s personal life. It received high marks from Rolling Stone as “a crisp display of precision” with songs that “boast some of Shook’s most memorable melodies to date.”

Friday 12/28 $15, 8:30pm. The Southern Café & Music Hall, 103 S. First St. 977-5590.

Tags country rock quartet Charlottesville, Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, Southern Cafe and Music Hall

Arts

ARTS Pick: Love Canon

Love Cannon performs at The Jefferson Theater Monday, December 31 at 8pm. Publicity photo.

In the spirit of tipping the cap to 2018, Love Canon kicks off the new year with a retro-bluegrass bang. Since 2010, the band has pumped out ’80s tunes in the style of Americana and traditional roots music. The group aims to begin 2019 with a touch of nostalgia, and create a musical rewind revolution with its fourth album, Cover Story, coming this spring.

Monday 12/31 $35-75, 8pm. The Jefferson Theater, 110 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. 245-4980.

Tags Love Canon, Retro-bluegrass charlottesville, The Jefferson Theater

Arts

Treading water: Aquaman is as silly as it needs to be

Post author By Kristofer Jenson
Post date December 26, 2018
No Comments on Treading water: Aquaman is as silly as it needs to be

Jason Momoa stars as Aquaman in a DC Extended Universe adventure that never quite breaks the surface. Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

After four disasters and one triumph, the DC Extended Universe offers the middling, non-event Aquaman, directed by James Wan (Saw, The Conjuring, Fast 7). This one is intended for folks seeking a visual experience who don’t care much about remembering what actually happens or why. It’s the sort of movie we might hate had it not followed some of the worst big-budget blockbusters in recent memory—it looks better in proportion to how much we hated The Dark World after consistently good output from Marvel. Bloated and silly, usually on purpose, Aquaman is not the savior of this cinematic universe but it is evidence that there is still life and vitality in these characters.

After the defeat of Steppenwolf in Justice League, Arthur (Jason Momoa) returns to his remote fishing village to do what he does best: save sailors and throw back beers with his old man. But, this time, the pirates he fends off are more dangerous than anticipated; enter Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II). Meanwhile, below the water in Atlantis, a secret alliance to conquer the surface has been forged, and the only one who can stop Orm (Patrick Wilson) is his long-lost brother, the surface-dweller Arthur, whose common mother is Atlanna (Nicole Kidman), Queen of Atlantis. Aided by Mera (Amber Heard) and Vulko (Willem Dafoe), Arthur must seek the lost trident of Atlan and realize his full potential in order to save the kingdom, and the world.

The fun of boilerplate sci-fi/fantasy stories about mysterious prophecies and foretold things is the opportunity to go absolutely nuts when it comes to style and flair. You can create ancient underwater kingdoms from scratch, make the hero and villain as powerful as you want, and let your imagination run wild, untethered by reality. Wan does exactly this, and it’s in those moments that Aquaman is its most fun. When we’re following underwater royalty to a forbidden location atop an armored sea beast accompanied by a hair-tingling synthwave soundtrack, it’s a huge delight. When the characters arrive to do what the plot demands, it’s considerably less exhilarating, but the high of the previous sequence is usually enough to persist through the groan-worthy monologues or hammy romance. (Seriously, it’s like all two people need to do to fall in love in this universe is have spectacular hair and accidentally graze hands.)

All told, this is probably what Aquaman needed to be, a massive spectacle with a careful balance of sincerity and sarcasm, to propel this historic punchline of a character. The worst thing that can be said about it is that Black Manta is utterly wasted; his role in the film is insultingly small, and his motivation incredibly thin. Momoa is having a great deal of fun, but it’s doubtful he’ll be the same kind of comedic and dramatic revelation that Chris Hemsworth was in later Thor installments. (And whoever was in charge of wigs could have been given a little extra time or money. It’s not a good look when the CG monsters are more realistic than the human actors.)

The rest of the cast is punching way below their weight, but succeed in elevating the story to be worth your time. Looks aside, Aquaman is aggressively average, which just may be enough to willingly spend more money on the DCEU.

Aquaman

PG-13, 142 minutes, Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX, Violet Crown Cinema

See it again

Die Hard

R, 132 minutes. The Paramount Theater, December 28.

Local theater listings

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema 377 Merchant Walk Sq., 326-5056

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX The Shops at Stonefield, 244-3213

Violet Crown Cinema 200 W. Main St., Downtown Mall, 529-3000

Tags Aquaman movie review, DC Extended Universe, Kristofer Jenson movie reviews

News

At the border: Local advocates travel to help asylum seekers

Post author By samanthabaars
Post date December 26, 2018
No Comments on At the border: Local advocates travel to help asylum seekers

Thousands of migrants are camping in Tijuana for a chance to present themselves to U.S. immigration officials at the border. Local advocates visited them to provide humanitarian aid and legal assistance. Courtesy Kristin Clarens

Early this month, a caravan of more than a dozen local lawyers, clergy, and other advocates set out to assist migrants seeking asylum at the Tijuana border, where the mayor has declared a humanitarian crisis, and where thousands of camping refugees wake up every morning hoping they’ll get their turn to present their cases to federal immigration agents.

Kristin Clarens, a local attorney specializing in international law, says some migrants, who are “subjecting themselves to this process out of desperation,” have a very low-level understanding of how unlikely it is that they’ll be granted asylum—and about how they’ll be treated if they’re allowed to cross the border.

“They’re fleeing violence, and that’s all they know,” says Clarens. “And they assume that we’re this beacon of freedom—that we’re open to helping them—and it’s pretty heartbreaking to have to be the bearer of this tiding.”

From morning until night, Clarens observed those camping near the PedWest port of entry waiting for their assigned numbers to be called “like when you go to a deli,” she says, so they can make their asylum case to the immigration officials.

“The people standing in line have literally no idea what’s happening to them on the other side,” says Clarens. The best case scenario is that they’ll pass their credible fear interview and background check, and they’ll be released into America with a year to officially apply for asylum. But often they either don’t pass their interview or aren’t granted one, and some migrants are detained, locked into holding cells, loaded onto buses, and driven overnight to different detention centers across the country, where many will remain for months without understanding the process.

Clarens has also been to one of those detention centers: Tornillo in Texas, “this weird internment camp” in the middle of the desert, housing thousands of immigrants, including a large number of unaccompanied children.

“Every morning, it’s just so heartbreaking,” says Clarens. “A bus shows up and all of these people file out.”

In Tijuana, local folks also offered humanitarian aid or legal advice to droves of unaccompanied children—two of whom they recently learned have been murdered. Mexican authorities have arrested three people suspected of kidnapping, stabbing, and strangling the two Honduran teens to death, as reported by an ABC News affiliate in San Diego.

The Trump administration recently changed part of its policy to make it easier to reunite immigrant children with their parents, but Clarens says many kids—like the ones she met at the YMCA where the recently killed boys were staying, and at Tornillo—won’t be released anytime soon, because ICE is actively detaining their sponsors, or undocumented relatives, who attempt to pick them up.

It’s hard to tell the children that she doesn’t know how long they’ll be detained in what are essentially cages, says Clarens, or that their sponsors might not come.

“These kids flee violence in their home countries with no idea that they’ll be treated so callously in ours,” she adds.

Reverend Brittany Caine-Conley, a lead organizer of Congregate Charlottesville, describes accompanying a group of approximately nine “very courageous boys” who tried to present their asylum cases in Tijuana, but were promptly turned away—an event that made national news.

“We feel a real moral obligation to be in solidarity with those who are simply trying to survive,” she says.

The clergy members and young refugees were on Mexican soil at the entrance to the Otay Mesa port of entry, which is a long, heavily militarized corridor on the border that asylum-seekers must traverse before meeting with American immigration officials.

“A few of them stepped across the invisible line into the corridor, but were pushed back by border control, so border control can continue to claim that they can’t ask for asylum because they’re not on American soil,” says Caine-Conley.

The boys were visibly frightened, and “some of them had begun to cry,” says the reverend. And when Mexican police came to remove them, the officers threatened to arrest the accompanying clergy members and force them into America if they continued to protect the minors.

“It was an incredibly disheartening experience,” says Caine-Conley. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in a situation like that where I felt so incredibly helpless.”

Caine-Conley, who also officiated 10 weddings at the border, says the migrants’ stories have been “harrowing.”

“I can’t imagine at the age of 15, traveling thousands of miles across countries because I saw my father, my uncle, and my brother executed in my front yard, and I know that if I’m forced to go back there, I will be executed as well.”

And while some people can’t seem to understand why immigrants flee, the reverend says, “It’s because they’re trying to choose life and there’s zero opportunity for them to live where they were.”

Clarens says there’s no real reason for the way American officials are now treating asylum-seeking migrants, creating a hostile situation at the border, forcing thousands of refugees into detention centers, and subjecting people who have already spent their lives in danger and trauma to more of that.

“This isn’t improving our safety, this isn’t improving our economy,” she says. “It’s a very broken system and the price is being paid by the most vulnerable people in our world right now.”

Tags Brittany Caine-Conley, Congregate Charlottesville, Kristin Clarens, Otay Mesa, Tijuana, Tornillo

Living

Curls for a cause: Brasserie Saison’s general manager is making waves

Post author By Jenny Gardiner
Post date December 26, 2018
No Comments on Curls for a cause: Brasserie Saison’s general manager is making waves

Brasserie Saison GM Will Curley will soon be sporting curly locks. Image: Sanjay Suchak.

Will Curley, general manager of Brasserie Saison and wine director at Ten Course Hospitality, is ready to sacrifice his stylish “do” for a good cause. Call it Curls for Curley.

Friend and winemaker AJ Greely says Curley’s wife Priscilla, who is the general manager at Tavola, “has been teasing him unrelentingly regarding his mullet.” So several friends launched a fundraising campaign to get Will to perm his hair to raise money for the Sexual Assault Resource Agency.

And thus was born a GoFundMe campaign seeking $5,000 by December 31, after which Curley will get curly. Greely says the perm will be done by Claibourne Reppert of The Honeycomb at one of Ten Course’s venues, where patrons will be able to witness the makeover while donating even more to the cause.

Noodlin’ around

Urban Bowl in York Place is now Noo-do-Ne Noodle and Rice Bowl. Dare you to say that fast 10 times. Owner Saydee Aut, who explains the name roughly means “all things noodles” in French, says they rebranded recently to change things up. While the menu remains mostly the same, there are some new items as well.

Mixing it up

Champion Brewing Company’s now licensed to sell wine and cider, according to president and head brewer Hunter Smith, who says the plan is to offer local wine and cider to accommodate customers with gluten sensitivity or who prefer other beverages.

Whiskey-a-gogo

Virginia Distillery Company was recognized on Whisky Advocate’s annual list that highlights the most exciting whiskies from around the world. Batch #3 of its Cider Cask Finished Virginia-Highland Whisky came in at number 13 in the magazine’s Top 20 buying guide. The whiskey made the cut against hundreds of others.

Manning the burners

John Shanesy is the new chef at Commonwealth Restaurant & Skybar, taking over from Harrison Keevil, who was temporarily at the helm in the kitchen. Shanesy, most recently chef de cuisine at Petit Pois, has worked at many local venues, including Parallel 38, Blue Light Grill, Paradox Pastry, Mas Tapas, and the BBQ Exchange, and he launched his kitchen career washing dishes at Continental Divide. In addition, he’s worked in Michelin-starred kitchens in Manhattan.

Trout House turns greens house

Nearing the end of an $11 million renovation, the Boar’s Head Resort has transformed its historic Trout House—where patrons once selected the trout they wanted for dinner that night—into a state-of-the-art hydroponic farm, in collaboration with Babylon Micro-Farms.

The resort will also soon reopen its Old Mill Room, rebranded as simply the Mill Room, with a focus on heritage vegetable varieties sourced from Thomas Jefferson’s gardens at Monticello and grown in the Trout House. The plan is for the resort to produce all of its organic leafy greens and herbs on site.

Brown paper packages tied up with string

As the year comes to a close, it seems a good time to give a shout-out to the staffs of a few of the food-related places in town who make it a pleasure to patronize them on a regular basis. Like JM Stock, where I always encounter genuinely friendly folks who are happy to help out and shoot the breeze while doing so. Albemarle Baking Company and MarieBette Café & Bakery, ditto. Same with Feast! and The Spice Diva.

And props to the many small farmers who show up in the most dismal weather every Saturday at the City Market, and during the week at other area farmers’ markets. I for one am grateful to you all for making the food scene in Charlottesville such a wonderful one. I’m sure I’m forgetting some places, but no worries—I’m keeping a list and checking it twice for next time. Happy holidays, y’all!

Tags brassiere saison will curley, Curls for Curley, Will Curley charlottesville

Read more: Well-versed: A.D. Carson finds his place in the bridging of hip-hop and academia

Read more: Musical return: Andrew Neil lets the truth flow on Merry Go Round

The Attachments, II

Read more: The Attachments play sane punk as art reaction

Read More: Album reviews: Robyn, MihTy, Jeremih, Ty Dolla $ign, Breakers, The Struts, and Bad Moves

Read more: The Can-Do Attitude gets it done in unexpected ways

Read more: Clocking in with math rockers Fanciful Animals

Read more: Monticello seniors share inspiration and creativity

Read more: Free Union pushes social positivity on new EP

Jordan Perry, Witness Tree

Juliana Daugherty, Light

Read more: Weight lifted: Juliana Daugherty finds release with Light

Read more: Lord Nelson explores heritage and movement

Read more: Imagination boost: Matthew Burtner-Rita Dove collaboration takes flight

Read more: Time to play: After nearly a decade, Nathaniel Star returns to the stage

Read more: Pale Blue Dot makes the unknown beautiful

Personal Bandana, [sic]

Restroy, Restroy

Read more: Sarah White reaches new heights with High Flyer

Read more: Playing it out: Stray Fossa is a new band with a long history

Read more: Sundream. rocks hard with an emotional core

Read more: Vibe Riot wants to know what’s on your mind

Waasi, Betterdaze

Read more: Rapper Waasi breaks out with Betterdaze

Read more: Poetic edge: Punk quartet Wild Rose is beholden to beauty

Read more: Yessirov lets the songs out on new EP

Reissues

Read more: Punk band The Landlords’ first album gets a slick reissue

Singles…and a hint at what’s to come in 2019

Read more: Band together: Wild Common’s music knows no constraints

Perriello’s Sierra Leone rescue

Another renaming?

Big bucks

Bigger bucks

Remains IDed

Clerk’s Office closing

Maybe a little bit of “vitriol”

Monday 12/31 $20-40, 8:30pm. The Southern Café & Music Hall, 103 S. First St. 977-5590.

Alec Spidalieri: Junction

Reid Dougherty: Brasserie Saison

Colin Antonovics: Lost Saint

Steve Yang and Rebecca Edwards: Tavola

Friday 12/28 $15, 8:30pm. The Southern Café & Music Hall, 103 S. First St. 977-5590.

Monday 12/31 $35-75, 8pm. The Jefferson Theater, 110 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. 245-4980.

See it again

Local theater listings

Noodlin’ around

Mixing it up

Whiskey-a-gogo

Manning the burners

Trout House turns greens house

Brown paper packages tied up with string