The one-eyed YouTube sensation Marcel the Shell wins on the big screen with a heartfelt story voiced by Jenny Slate (Marcel) and Isabella Rossellini (Connie). Photo: A24.
Judging by its trailer, Dean Fleischer-Camp’s Marcel the Shell with Shoes On might come off as utterly silly—and in parts, it very enjoyably is. But, ironically, its hero, a charmingly ridiculous one-eyed shell with feet, ranks among the single most human movie characters of 2022. This substantial little tale of survival, loyalty, and courage is excellent family fare that won’t insult adults’ intelligence or bore them.
Marcel the Shell (voiced by actress and co-screenwriter Jenny Slate) originated as a solo character in Fleischer-Camp’s online stop-motion shorts, and this part-animated, part-live-action feature explores the roots of Marcel’s seeming uniqueness. Fleischer-Camp plays his own alter ego, filmmaker Dave, who inadvertently discovers Marcel and his grandmother, Connie (the voice of Isabella Rossellini), living covertly in an Airbnb he’s rented. The Shells’ family and others like them vanished when the house’s previous occupants broke up.
Dave films a documentary around Marcel’s day-to-day life, which mainly centers on the Rube Goldberg-like inventions Marcel has built to harness his gigantic, potentially hostile surroundings. As Dave’s videos make Marcel a YouTube sensation, Marcel sets out to find his kin. The improbable story plays like a combination of The Incredible Shrinking Man, David Holzman’s Diary, and Charlotte’s Web.
Marcel the Shell is made doubly appealing by its handmade stop-motion animation, which is a relief from the slick, homogenized CGI cartoons that have overtaken the artform. The film’s crew—particularly animation director Kirsten Lepore, supervising animation director Stephen Chiodo, and their team—deserves praise. The seeming simplicity of Marcel scuttling through his daily routine has a lovable DIY quality that enhances the story’s humanity, thanks to the animators’ meticulous, time-consuming labors.
With their very fine voice acting, Slate and Rossellini are the film’s backbone, truly imbuing their characters with life. That Marcel the Shell sprang from a small creative team is vividly apparent. Slate, Fleischer-Camp, and co-writers Nick Paley and Elisabeth Holm bring far more imagination and personality to this modest project than any of the committee-made cartoon spectacles playing alongside it in theaters. The film’s easygoing pace and lack of explosions and mayhem are also a treat. These virtues serve as reminders of so many things that popular animation has lost.
For parents, Marcel the Shell also opens a rich line of discussion with kids about, among other diverse topics, the best and worst aspects of technology—in particular, social media. As Marcel’s online popularity grows, he disgustedly discovers the difference between “an audience” and “a community.” He is eventually confronted with other, more profound concerns, and the film confronts these life lessons with care, grace, and dignity.
It’s hard to criticize such an inventive movie, but Marcel the Shell could have easily been shorter, and it slips into preciousness, at times. Those quibbles aside, within its fanciful framework, it’s frequently hilarious and, at times, genuinely poignant. It’s virtually devoid of dreary jadedness, and it has a winning protagonist who’s worth rooting for. To accomplish all that with a main character that’s basically a conglomeration of random bits and pieces culled from a craft store’s cutout bin is an exceptional achievement. Marcel the Shellwith Shoes On is a lovely film, and well worth seeing.
Canned wines are a convenient grab-and-go for summer activities. Muse Vineyards in Woodstock offers a gamay, a white blend, a rosé, and a red blend. Supplied photo.
Crisp. Refreshing. Bright. Glou-glou. Quaffable. These are the words you want associated with the wines you drink in the summer. It’s no surprise that full-bodied, high alcohol, heavily tannic wines are put aside when the temperature and humidity are on the rise. Here are five kinds of wine to chill out with this summer:
Sparkling
Bubbles are always a welcome and festive addition to any gathering. Sparkling wines are generally made in a crisp style with high acidity, providing a refreshing beverage that is a versatile pairing with many of the foods associated with summer. Sparkling wine can match a range of flavors, from citrus and seafood to fried chicken and barbecue.
For a bit of a twist, try the 2020 Morris from Patois Cider ($24/750ml). While this is made from apples, the technique is the same as that which is used to produce Champagne. Plus, the flavors of grapefruit, a hint of green melon, and a bit of salinity make this an amazing match with oysters or shellfish.
Crisp (specifically albariño)
There are many varieties that fit this category, but one that is still a bit of a novelty in Virginia is albariño. Hailing originally from Portugal and Spain, this white grape is finding great success locally, and produces a light-bodied, high acid, low alcohol wine with floral, citrus, and some tropical fruit characteristics. It is a perfect wine on its own, but also a perfect pairing for oysters, lobster, citrus salad, sushi, or fish tacos.
Recent vintages from Blenheim Vineyards ($23), Afton Mountain Vineyards ($28), and 53rd Winery and Vineyard ($25) are all beautiful, refreshing examples with classic characteristics of albariño. It’s worth trying them all.
Rosé, hey hey
Rosé can be made from many varieties, in various styles and weights, and with different intensities of color. But, for many, the vision of a pale pink glass of wine by the beach or the shore is the epitome of summer. Good examples will not only provide color, but more berry flavors and palate texture than a white. This allows pairing with slightly heartier foods such as pasta, chicken, or a lean pork dish.
Crozet-based King Family Vineyards’ Crosé rosé ($25 a bottle or 3-pack of cans) continues to be probably the best-known and best-selling local pink wine. Credit both the extremely clever name and great taste of this merlot-based wine. Flavors of watermelon and lime predominate with floral and herbal characters in the background. Also highly recommended are the very approachable 2020 LVA Rosé from Keswick Vineyards ($22) and the unique and flavorful 2021 Rosé of Tannat from Stinson Vineyards ($23).
Chilly red
There are certainly still occasions to drink red wine when the weather is warm, but the key is to look for a light-bodied red with a minimal amount of tannic structure. Widely called “glou-glou” (a phrase that the French favor because it mimics the sound of wine being rapidly poured or rapidly consumed), these wines are often designed to be at their best with a slight chill, and they’re meant to go down easy with pork ribs, brisket, and cherry pie.
A great example of a wine that’s made to be chilled is the 2021 Soif from Early Mountain Vineyards ($27). The word “soif,” which is French for “thirst,” implies that this wine was made to go down easy, and also hints at the evocative “glou-glou.” Also recommended, the 2020 Noiret from Quartzwood Farm ($26), a gently sparkling wine deep in color (due to the grape), but light in flavor and weight, available in several local shops.
Canned?
Canned wines are slightly controversial in the world of fine wine. Without going too far down the science rabbit hole, suffice it to say that cans are not completely inert and may interact chemically with wine. However, if both winemaker and consumer understand that canned wines are a different beast, made for quick sale and quick consumption, they can be a great option for a day by the pool, at a campground, or in your cooler while floating down the river. The lack of weight, the lack of glass, the fact that you don’t need a corkscrew, and the ability to get the wine very cold very fast makes canned wine a “can-do!”
As mentioned, King Family Vineyards’ Crosé is available in cans. Muse Vineyards in nearby Woodstock has gone all in with four different canned wine offerings. The Erato white blend ($27/four cans) is the lightest and leanest option, the 2021 rosé ($26/four cans) is a low-alcohol rosé of cabernet franc, the Pichet red blend ($27/four cans) is made in the light, refreshing red wine style that is best served chilled, and the 2021 Gamay ($30/four cans) is a more traditional offering of a lighter-bodied red grape variety.
The Merry Widow will take the Paramount stage for two shows on July 22 and July 24. More info can be found at charlottesvilleopera.org. Photo: Tristan Williams.
In the winter of 2019, Dr. Caroline Worra was in Hong Kong playing the role of wealthy widow Hanna Glawari, opposite Richard Troxell as her ex-lover Count Danilo, in a performance of Franz Lehár’s 1905 operetta The Merry Widow.
Three years and 8,000 miles later, Worra and Troxell are preparing to reprise their roles with the Charlottesville Opera. Accompanied by a cast of 127 people who have traveled from all corners of the United States, the group will perform two shows in Charlottesville, a city Troxell says talks opera “like New Yorkers talk baseball.”
“A lot of times when you’re in New York, at The Met, a lot of people who are going to see that opera are going to impress everybody else,” says Troxell. “In smaller towns, especially, I’ve noticed, in the South, people go because they love the opera.”
The Merry Widow is the story of Hanna, who has suitors vying for her fortune, and Count Danilo, her true love who is too proud to marry her for money. Drama, intrigue, and comical misunderstandings ensue.
“I think on the surface, the operetta can be ridiculous, as if it doesn’t fit in this time period,” says Troxell. “But if you go to the ‘true love’ part of it, we all do really ridiculous and stupid things for true love.”
A few aspects of The Merry Widow make it what director Stephanie Havey describes as “a great first opera.” It is an operetta, which moves along at a pace similar to a modern musical and relies heavily on spoken dialogue. It also features plenty of toe-tapping music, including a catchy crowd-pleaser in “The Merry Widow Waltz.”
The production’s original German lyrics have been translated to English. Combined with English supertitles above the stage, newbies can laugh along with the slapstick humor as bumbling side characters attempt to figure out who will win Hanna’s money.
“Especially for comedy, it’s nice to be in English, because then the audience is hearing the funny things right away instead of reading ahead,” Worra says. “It’s always a little strange when you haven’t said the punchline yet, and they’ve already started laughing.”
Like most things written by men over a century ago, The Merry Widow does not always lift its female characters. At one point, a number about how difficult it is to understand women escalates into a celebratory kickline. But these over-the-top moments fade into silliness behind the heartfelt love story, Havey says, allowing the operetta to resonate with a 21st-century audience.
“It’s pointing out the misogyny that would have existed in that time, and it’s making fun of it,” Havey explains. “In the end, Hanna really is the smartest character on stage, and she has complete autonomy. She chooses her future. She chooses the man that she wants to marry for love.”
In order to connect the audience with the operetta’s tongue-in-cheek humor, Havey works with the merry widow herself. Worra serves as both the show’s lead and the artistic director of the opera company, overlapping roles at times distinguished only by whether or not she’s wearing her artistic director name tag.
These intersecting roles offer Havey the rare opportunity to work alongside an artistic director with an insider’s perspective.
“Being a singer, performer, and artistic director, you’re able to see all of it,” Troxell says. “She’s been doing this for a long time, and she knows how it all could work, and should work, and does a better job of it than some people who have only worn one hat the whole time.”
In 2021, Charlottesville Opera broke from operatic tradition when it performed the first-ever theatrical production at the Ting Pavilion. Because of the space their voices needed to fill, the singers were fitted with microphones, an audio aid almost never used in opera.
The boom of La Bohème from enormous speakers on the Downtown Mall gave the most visibility to opera Charlottesville had ever seen.
“We had a lot of first-time operagoers come to the Ting Pavilion, because you could just be walking around right in town and hear it,” Havey says. “We had 100 people standing at the back wall, which was great, we love that.”
The opera capitalized on this visibility, and its return to The Paramount Theater, by beginning its 2022 season with The Sound of Music. The program drew in Charlottesville families and children, many of whom had never experienced opera before. Worra hopes they join Downtown Mall passersby in returning for The Merry Widow.
“To actually see an opera live, there’s something that’s just so special about that,” Worra says. “To hear the powerful voices that are not amplified, carrying over and touching these people in the audience. It touches them right in the heart.”
Kate McGarry and Keith Ganz give an intimate performance at a secret location on July 26. Photo: David Goddard.
Secret session: After 18 years together as musical and life partners, Kate McGarry and Keith Ganz have unlocked the formula to making remarkable jazz. Influenced by Celtic, Brazilian, and Indian music, as well as the New York jazz scene, McGarry’s luminous, seductive voice and Ganz’s expansive arrangements have earned the pair three Grammy nominations. In celebration of their latest album, What to Wear in the Dark, the duo has announced an intimate performance at a secret location on the Downtown Mall.
Tuesday 7/26. $20-25, 7pm. Location announced upon ticket purchase. cvillejazz.org
Four County Players performs As You Like It at the Barboursville ruins. Supplied photo.
Ruin(s) your evening: Song, comedy, and theater make a magical midsummer evening at Shakespeare at the Ruins. Four County Players, central Virginia’s longest continuously operating community theater, returns to the historic Barboursville ruins to open its 50th anniversary season with As You Like It. Katie Rogers, Kate Johnson, Robert Wray, and Robert Eversberg star in this music-filled tale about mistaken identities, love at first sight, and amorous shepherds.
Through 7/31. $23-25, 7pm. Barboursville Ruins, Mansion Rd., Barboursville. fourcp.org
After nearly two decades of incarceration, Jesse Crosson is sharing his experiences and advocating for criminal justice reform on his TikTok account, @second_chancer. Photo: Eze Amos.
By Jesse Crosson
We rolled down a bumpy and winding road, just 45 minutes south of Charlottesville. My heart was racing. My breath was shallow. The last time I had been down this road, I had shackles on my wrists and ankles.
As we rounded a final curve, the tree cover pulled back to reveal a low-slung concrete fortress surrounded by layers of fences and topped with shining razor wire. The guard towers cast looming shadows across the industrial building as a semi-truck lumbered toward the rear gate. We parked near the sally port at the back of the compound, and as I got out of the van, a guard near the fence yelled, “Hey, Crosson, what the fuck are you doing here?”
I was back at Buckingham Correctional Center, where I spent 13 of 19 years in the Virginia Department of Corrections for crimes I committed just after my 18th birthday. It is a place of mixed memories and emotions. I grew and matured there, became my best self. I also witnessed violence and a casual disregard for humanity by both prisoners and staff.
On August 16, 2021, with an hour-and-a-half of notice, I was released from prison after my petition for clemency was granted by then-governor Ralph Northam. Now, less than eleven months after walking out—following nearly two decades of incarceration—I was back to pick up my friend Grahm Masters. He is one of the thousands who became eligible for early release through the expanded Earned Sentence Credit program that went into effect July 1.
I first met Grahm during the 2008 soccer finals at Buckingham. The best soccer, softball, and basketball players championed the two sides of the prison in a competition for nothing more than bragging rights, but it felt absolutely epic. Grahm noticed one of my bad prison tattoos and asked if I had ever skateboarded. From there, we talked and laughed, despite being on opposing teams. Soon after, we saw each other in passing, or through the fence that separated the two sides. Later, we worked on the same maintenance crew, and I got to know him much better. Eventually, I was moved to the honor pod on his side of the yard. The day I received my diploma from Ohio University was the same day he graduated from an electrical apprenticeship. We attended the ceremony together, with both of our families present for one of the best days I spent behind bars.
Crosson (right) and Grahm Masters (left) reunite for the first time outside of prison. Photo: Courteney Stuart.
Grahm’s devotion to his daughter always struck me. She was born after he was arrested, so their relationship had only ever existed within the context of prison. He would write her letters, draw her pictures, give her homework assignments, and find every way possible to be a presence in her life. They are both talented artists and bonded over sharing their work—until the prison mail policy was changed and he could only get black-and-white copies of the hand-drawn pictures she sent. She stopped sending him her latest pieces shortly after.
Now, I was returning with his family to pick him up. It would be his first time seeing his daughter outside of a prison visitation room.
Grahm had been sentenced to more than 20 years for nonviolent property crimes. In 2020, the General Assembly passed the bipartisan House Bill 5148, which allowed for expanded access to Earned Sentence Credits (often called “good time”) for nonviolent charges. Proponents of the bill, myself included, saw the powerful incentive it represented when it passed during the special session in 2020. At the time, the Virginia Department of Corrections asked for implementation to be delayed by two years to allow time to shore up reentry programs and calculate new release dates. But those release dates had to be recalculated again, with only days of notice, after Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s Budget Amendment 19 stripped eligibility from about 8,000 people. Nearly 1,000 of them had been told they would be released between July and September. The day before Father’s Day, they and their families learned they were no longer eligible.
Grahm was made eligible for early release thanks to his diligence. In addition to completing the electrical apprenticeship, he enrolled in college classes and stayed infraction free, all of which allowed him to earn the highest level of good time.
HB 5148 required prisoners to work, pursue education, and avoid behavioral infractions to earn more good time. It originally applied to all nonviolent charges. Over the last two years, there were many attempts to repeal and limit its scope; every one of them failed in session. But with an amendment, Youngkin used the budget to legislate, and both the House and Senate allowed him to do it.
The law was a promise to people that if they did the work, got an education, stayed out of trouble, and walked the right path, they would be eligible for expanded good time. This wasn’t an abstract thing. It was the difference between weeks, months, or years. It meant attending or missing graduations, weddings, and funerals. For the state, it represented money saved by shortening the period of costly incarceration, and money gained by returning citizens’ employment and spending.
It’s not as if the amendment permanently stopped the release of those who are no longer eligible. They are still getting out, just not when they were told they would be. When they do get out, they’ll likely be even more skeptical and mistrustful of a system that promised them one thing and then quickly reneged.
As I stood in the parking lot with Grahm’s family, he made his way out the gate holding his belongings—16 years of his life in one cardboard box. I had been where he was less than a year before and knew the challenges that laid ahead. He and I both had tremendous support— family, housing, and job opportunities. Even with those benefits, far more than most people have, the shock and emotional adjustment of leaving long-term incarceration has been more difficult than I imagined.
Grahm’s daughter ran to him when the gate opened. His mother gasped. I felt tears on my face. After minutes of hugging, I gave Grahm a Honey Bun as a joke—they’re extremely popular in prison—and said I wanted him to feel at home out here. That levity in the midst of tears helped lighten the mood as we drove away, heading to his first breakfast as a newly free man. When the waitress at the tiny café asked for his order, Grahm froze. I remember feeling paralyzed in the face of choice, too. Looking at menus or trying to pick out a product in the store was overwhelming. He’ll face many such moments, many unexpected shocks and challenges as he reacclimates to the world.
That afternoon we took him to a lake, and he swam for the first time in his daughter’s life. In the water, he and I talked and absorbed the surreal moment.
“Are we really here?” he kept asking. “Is this real?” He looked like a lost child. I remember that feeling, when I was the one struggling to believe I actually made it to the other side of the fence. I am grateful for the opportunity to be here for him. Far too many people will get out of prison to meet family and friends who don’t know what that experience is like. We need to show up for them, too.
Rules of law
In 2020, Gov. Ralph Northam signed HB 5148, which expanded the Earned Sentence Credit program for people in Virginia prisons. Scheduled to go into effect July 1, 2022, the law raised the previous cap of 4.5 days per month to 15 days per month that could be earned and credited toward sentences for nonviolent offenses.
However, Virginia’s new two-year state budget, passed this June, included an amendment by Gov. Glenn Youngkin that restricted how many people would be eligible for early release.
The amendment also disqualifies people with “mixed sentences”—those who have both violent and nonviolent charges—from gaining access to the expanded 15-day credit. The law previously allowed them to earn 15 days a month off the lesser sentence, and the standard 4.5 days off the other. Now, someone with a 20-year sentence for drug charges and one year for robbery would not be eligible for the expanded credit on either.
George Swingler opened Rose Hill Market 33 years ago, in 1989. At the end of this month, Swingler will close down his business. Photo: Amy and Jackson Smith.
Closing down
After 33 years in business, George Swingler will be closing down Rose Hill Market.
The former Albemarle County police officer first opened up the store in 1989. The idea came to him while having a casual conversation with a friend about how he would keep himself busy after retiring. A week later, he decided to seriously pursue becoming a store owner.
Today, the community can’t imagine life without the market, which has a perfect 5-star rating on Google. Swingler notes that the store’s location is convenient for many Charlottesville residents: it is only a mile away from both The Corner and The Downtown Mall. But at the end of this month, the beloved Rose Hill Market’s doors will close.
Swingler now plans to focus his energy on his other hobby: gardening.
“I like taking care of my property,” he says. “My neighbor is a senior citizen, so I try to take care of her yard as well.”
He also looks forward to spending more time with his grandchildren.
Reflecting on his many years running the shop, Swingler says he particularly enjoyed decorating the store around Christmastime and having regular customers come in.
“I’ve had a lot of customers come in, and they’d become friends over the years and come in just to say ‘hi’ to me,” he says.
Albemarle County euthanizes long-sequestered pit bull
An eight-year battle over the fate of a pit bull named Niko ended on July 14, when Albemarle County animal control seized the dog from the Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA and euthanized him.
“I don’t know what hearing or information they used to weigh this decision,” says Elliott Harding, the attorney who has represented Niko’s former owner in her efforts to save the dog’s life. Harding says he had identified numerous alternatives to euthanasia, including placement at pit bull sanctuaries both in-state and out-of-state and had asked the county for information to assist that search. “We never heard back.”
Niko. Supplied photo.
Niko had been held at the Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA since 2014, after he killed a neighbor’s cat and the court ruled him a “dangerous dog.” According to a county press release, Niko had previously injured two other dogs, once in 2013 and once in 2014, and had escaped an SPCA handler in 2016 to injure a third dog at the shelter. Harding, however, says he has found no information about the 2013 incident.
County spokesperson Emily Kilroy says county leadership considered other options available under the law but decided on euthanasia after a final court hearing this spring in the interest of “community safety.”
In a statement, the SPCA, a no-kill shelter, said it opposed the county’s decision to euthanize Niko and played no role in the euthanasia.
“Niko will be greatly missed by staff and volunteers at the SPCA,” the statement reads.
In brief
Crowded race
Former Charlottesville School Board member Amy Laufer is running for the Democratic nomination for the newly redrawn 55th District in the Virginia House of Delegates, joining Albemarle County Board of Supervisors Chair Donna Price and local nurse Kellen Squire in the race for the seat, which represents most of Albemarle County and parts of Nelson, Louisa, and Fluvanna counties. Laufer has already raised more than her competitors—since June, she’s received $61,731.52 in donations, compared to Squire’s $41,531 and Price’s $11,798, reports the Daily Progress. The majority of the 55th District is what was once the 58th District, which has been represented by Republican Delegate Rob Bell for two decades.
Amy Laufer. Supplied photo.
No more quarantine
Unvaccinated children enrolled in school, day care, or camp who have been exposed to the coronavirus—but are asymptomatic—are no longer required to quarantine, according to guidance issued by Gov. Glenn Youngkin last week. The guidance also no longer recommends mask wearing in those settings. However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends unvaccinated individuals quarantine for five days after being exposed to the virus, and all people wear masks in areas of high transmission. The City of Charlottesville currently has a high transmission level, while Albemarle County has a medium level.
The search begins
The City of Charlottesville has hired D.C. executive search firm POLIHIRE Strategy Corporation to find its next police chief. POLIHIRE—which Fairfax County hired for its police chief search last year—will assist interim city manager Michael Rogers with recruitment, interviews, and other aspects of the selection process. The firm’s base contract award is $35,000, plus additional services the city can add, reports the Daily Progress.
A now-deleted Instagram video shows an unnamed CPD officer putting Gonzalez in a headlock. File photo.
For more than two years, Charlottesville’s Police Civilian Oversight Board has been embroiled in internal disputes over its ordinance and procedures, preventing its appointed members from doing their main job—reviewing the Charlottesville Police Department’s internal investigations. Last Thursday, the board was scheduled to hold its long-awaited first hearing concerning the violent arrest of a man experiencing homelessness in 2020. However, the morning of the hearing, complainant Jeff Fogel, a local attorney, and the CPD agreed to an alternative dispute resolution, putting the hearing on hold until further notice.
During a pre-hearing conference held last Monday, Fogel stated he would be open to speaking with the department directly about the controversial case, which acting CPD chief Tito Durrette later agreed to, explained board executive director Hansel Aguilar during the now-postponed hearing. Hearing examiner Cecil Creasey, a private attorney and administrative hearing officer for the Virginia Supreme Court, will facilitate the informal resolution on or around July 28. If the parties do not reach an agreement, the case will return to the board for a hearing.
“I don’t frankly have a lot of confidence in the people holding power on the [COB],” says Fogel. “I think it would be better to solve it directly with the police department. … If it took two years to hold the [COB] hearing, God knows how long it’s going to take to make a decision.”
Fogel believes the case at hand is an example of the unjust criminalization of people experiencing homelessness, particularly on the Downtown Mall. On July 8, 2020, someone called 911 after seeing 36-year-old Christopher Gonzalez lying down on the ground near CVS. A Charlottesville police officer soon arrived, followed by a rescue squad. Gonzalez admitted to drinking “a little bit” of alcohol, and said that he was homeless. Since Gonzalez declined a medical evaluation, the officer—whose name the department has refused to disclose to the public—dismissed the paramedics, but threatened to arrest Gonzalez unless he left the mall. Gonzalez replied that he wanted to “stay living” there, and refused to leave, according to the officer’s body camera footage.
“Then I’m going to take you to jail for drunk in public,” the officer responded.
“Well let’s go then,” Gonzalez replied. “I don’t see why I have to go.”
The officer tried to handcuff Gonzalez, but he pulled away and cursed at the officer. In response, the officer pinned Gonzalez to the ground, causing his body camera to fall off. A now-deleted Instagram video showed the officer putting Gonzalez in a headlock for nearly a minute, C-VILLE reported in 2020.
Gonzalez was charged with assault of a police officer—a felony—as well as misdemeanor public intoxication and obstruction of justice. He was held without bail for almost three weeks at the local jail, says Fogel. Those charges were later dismissed.
Due to the pandemic, “[the jail] wouldn’t let anybody out if they didn’t have housing, so a number of us got involved in getting him a place to stay,” says Fogel. “But there was no reason for him to spend that time in jail.”
After seeing the Instagram video, Fogel sent it to CPD’s internal affairs department, who then launched an investigation. In September 2020, the department exonerated the allegations of excessive force, and concluded that the allegations of bias-based policing were unfounded.
However, Fogel believes Gonzalez should have never been arrested or charged with a crime in the first place. He emphasizes that drunk people at downtown bars are not arrested for being intoxicated in public—but people experiencing homelessness are treated differently.
“According to the police department and the law, you can’t arrest somebody for [being] drunk in public, unless they are a danger to themselves and others,” says Fogel. “Let’s say he was a danger. … If you just do this off the Downtown Mall or anywhere else, it’s okay. We can’t have two laws—one on the Downtown Mall and one everywhere else. If he was a danger to himself or others, he shouldn’t have been allowed to go anywhere in the city.”
During the alternative dispute resolution, Fogel wants the department to address these legal issues—in addition to the allegations of excessive force and biased policing—and provide clarity “on this question of why we treat people differently depending on whether they’re on the mall, or somewhere else in the city,” he says.
He also wants the department to publicly release a video of Gonzalez’s arrest that was taken by a woman standing at a nearby cafe. He says he was told by Lt. Michael Gore that the internal affairs department used this video to make its determination.
If the case returns to the board for a hearing, Fogel believes members Bellamy Brown and Jeffrey Fracher would be biased against him. He claims Brown “berated” him over the phone once after Fogel criticized him during a COB meeting, and tried to convince one of his clients to fire him.
“The last thing that Bellamy said was, ‘This ain’t the end of this,’” adds Fogel. “It’s obvious that he’s got a bunch of hostility towards me.”
In text message exchanges revealed through a Freedom of Information Act request by activist Ang Conn earlier this year, Brown and Fracher also expressed their disdain for local activists, as well as then-mayor Nikuyah Walker, former CPD chief RaShall Brackney, and COB members Bill Mendez and Nancy Carpenter.
In a letter to Aguilar and at the board’s pre-hearing conference, Fogel asked Brown and Fracher to recuse themselves from the hearing, accusing them of being hostile towards him. (Member Nancy Carpenter recused herself due to conversations she’s had with Fogel about the criminalization of homelessness, while new member Dashad Cooper recused himself due to his unfamiliarity with the board’s procedures.)
Brown did not publicly respond to Fogel, but Fracher adamantly denied the allegations during the conference.
“I don’t know the man, I’ve never spoken to him, I’ve never seen him face to face. In my 40 years as a forensic psychologist, I’ve been an expert witness in hundreds of trials, with lawyers I like [and] dislike—there was never a question of bias [or] my integrity,” said Fracher. “You need not worry about what you’ve imagined to be this conspiracy of bias against you—it doesn’t exist.”
"These New
Balances were the favorite of someone who showed me indescribable love and rightfully ended it after the worst lie I've ever told. They connect me to sadness, loss, and needing to move on. But also, I chose these. So I wear them, and live with all those choices," says Micah Kessel. Photo: Tristan Williams
Think about the clothes you have in your closet. Or in your dresser. Or in the pile next to your bed. Think about a piece that has some special meaning to you.
My mind goes to a watch that my partner (who, full disclosure, is the editor of this magazine) gave me on our wedding day, and to a loud floral shirt I would never have chosen on my own that she encouraged me to wear. Wearing the watch makes me feel closer to her; to me, it’s a more powerful symbol of our marriage even than my wedding ring, partly because nobody else knows what it means. Wearing the shirt—even just seeing it hang there in the closet—makes me feel more confident, because it reminds me that someone else has confidence in me.
What are those pieces of clothing for you? What’s meaningful about them?
These are questions that Micah Kessel, executive director of the Playground of Empathy, often poses to groups going through the immersive, empathy-building experiences he and his team have designed. Some people resist, denying that they care that much about what they wear. But the emotions slowly come out. One person has a really comfortable sweater they always pull out at the start of fall. Another has a pair of slippers their grandfather wore.
After everyone has shared, Kessel asks members of the group to reflect on what they’ve appreciated from the stories they’ve heard. Without fail, no one mentions a single piece of clothing. What they remember are the emotions.
“No one talks about the slippers, ever, ever, ever,” Kessel says. “It’s almost like a little magic trick that we get to watch every time.”
The magic is empathy. The conversation about clothes provides a way of grasping the subjective validity of another person’s relationship with the world, and thus brings us closer together.
Empathable Executive Director Micah Kessel. Photo: Tristan Williams
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Kessel started Playground of Empathy with his friend Kelley Van Dilla in 2017. Van Dilla’s main work is in theater and film (they debuted their autobiographical film/play, Let Go of Me, last year at Live Arts); Kessel’s focus has been experience design (having worked on everything from escape rooms to restaurant design to art installations). Their first big project together was to build a giant shoe.
After 13 years in Europe, Kessel moved to Charlottesville “in the midst of a national tragedy,” he remembers—just a month after August 12. The city was “in a deep state of processing.” He had left his work as a behavioral design strategist in Amsterdam in order to think more deeply about the connection between emotions and education. Now that work seemed even more urgent. There are a thousand things to take away from that day, he says, “but for me personally, it was a reminder that the lack of emotional intelligence developed in our education system had become a harbinger for fascism.” He wanted to lay a foundation for the cultivation of real emotional nuance in this country.
Kessel and Van Dilla believed that empathy was a skill that could be taught and practiced. But most of what we usually do to teach empathy is profoundly ineffective. That’s because we tend to leave things at the level of facts and concepts and moralisms, while empathy has to grow from experience.
They began collecting stories of marginalization and exclusion. The stories had to do with race, gender, sexuality, disability, body type—any number of ways people mark others off as alien. Then they scripted and produced first-person enactments of those experiences that pulled the viewer into the action. Then, joining forces with sculptor and designer Annie Temmink, they built the shoe.
A vibrant thing of orange, green, and yellow stripes, tied with bright pink laces, the shoe was big enough to walk through. You entered, by yourself, and watched the videos, maybe even donning a piece of clothing that put you in the mindspace of the subject. Alone, in someone else’s shoe(s), it became possible to imagine inhabiting a different body, a different relationship to other bodies, and to recognize how different that experience must be.
The shoe was a hit. They traveled across the country with it, visiting a host of colleges and companies, talking about empathy and inclusion. In 2020, they won an Innovation Fund Award from the Harvard Culture Lab. The project has now evolved into an ambitious effort to reimagine what diversity training should look like—not a seminar, not a presentation, but an experience of other experiences of the world.
Organizational Management Consultant Jennell Lynch. Photo: Tristan Williams
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Empathy is a tricky concept. Kessel tells me that people often nod to the German term Einfühlung—a word that literally means “feeling into” another—as the source of our definition. We usually talk about it as a matter of being able to feel what someone else is feeling. “But I think we’ve got it wrong,” he says. “I think we’ve really got it wrong.”
The problem is that, as we all know intuitively, truly feeling what someone else is feeling is impossible. “The neural network that is making up your state of being right now, that constellation of billions of neurons firing, will never be felt before or again exactly how it’s being felt by you or anyone else on earth—ever.” Every experience is utterly singular.
Kessel is part of the Interdisciplinary Affective Science Lab at Northeastern University, run by the esteemed psychologist of emotion Lisa Feldman Barrett. That experience has given him a scientific understanding of emotion and empathy that deeply informs his way of approaching the issue.
If every experience is singular and it’s impossible to grasp any experience from the outside, what is empathy? It starts with what Kessel calls subjective realism: “a comfort with the realization that our reality is our own, and no one else’s.” I have to accept that my experience is not the measure of yours, nor yours of mine.
But the distance between our realities does not doom us to separation. I can become curious about your experiences. I can share experiences of my own with you. When we do that, we grow closer to one another—even if neither of us has ever felt, or could ever feel, what the other is feeling. In encountering your experience, your reality, I learn to make space for you within mine. That’s the work of empathy.
In a paradoxical way, empathy is less about entering into another’s feelings than it is entering more deeply into your own. When I deepen my understanding of your experience of the world, I come to see my experiences in a new light. We grow closer to one another as we grow to know ourselves better, and we come to know ourselves better as we become closer to one another.
Empathable’s Facilitation Director Noah Rosner. Photo: Tristan Williams
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For the last year, Playground of Empathy has been contributing a regular feature to this magazine—“Charlottesville Street Style.” It spotlights local fashion, and crucially, asks the wearers why their clothing matters to them. The answers are illuminating. Some are protesting expectations. Some are declaring freedom. Some are connecting with their roots, or bringing cultures into fresh conversation with one another. Some are looking for ways to make old things new. “These clothes disclose my testimony,” said La’Tasha Strother in the summer 2021 edition.
In keeping with Playground’s mission, the point of these features is not to set an example; it is not to tell you how to dress. Kessel sometimes says that theirs is the only diversity and inclusion training in the country that does not tell you what to think. The point of what they do, rather, is to give you an opportunity to encounter another person’s experience, to open a window into the way that others relate to their clothing, and so maybe to bring you closer to them. The point is to prompt you to reconsider yourself anew.
We do not often think of empathy as having much to do with the way we get dressed in the morning. But for Kessel, our clothing can be “the great equalizer in a world of inequality: we’re all finding meaning in the items that we connect to our embodied self.” This, perhaps, is the style of empathy.
ori Cherry’s work with New City Arts started long before she was hired as its Welcome Gallery Manager. The 2021-2022 Aunspaugh Fellow at UVA worked at a co-instructor for Summer Studio @ The Fralin, which culminated in a week-long show at New City. In November of 2021, she exhibited her own work, a collection of still life and figurative paintings entitled “In Good Time.”
“‘In Good Time’ refers not to any anticipated moment or ending but instead to an implied attitude of patience,” Cherry said in her artist statement. “Patience is what enables me to see value in unlikely subjects.”
As Welcome Gallery Manager, Cherry will lead programs, exhibitions, and events. We challenged her to a quickfire interview to get to know her better.
First art memory:
I grew up going to my grandparents’ church, which meant getting to church early and staying for almost the entire day. I’d say my earliest memory would be sitting in church pews drawing on the back of the service pamphlets. Being an only child, I had to find ways to keep myself entertained. My mom always encouraged me to carry around a little notebook and pen in the spirit of productivity (which I still do today), so drawing was what I did to keep myself busy. I’m sure she didn’t mean for my productivity to look like constant doodling, but she saw I was invested in it and encouraged me regardless.
Favorite artist:
Really tough question, and I have to pick two because they’re both tied for my top spot: Jennifer Packer and Nicolás Uribe.
What are you watching?
I’m currently rewatching a favorite show of mine called “Sense8.”
What are you currently reading?
Transit by Rachel Cusk.
What’s the top song on your Spotify playlist?
“Talk Down” by Dijon.
If past lives are real, what was yours?
I think in my past life I was an ornithologist.
First career you dreamed of having as a kid:
I had a really long phase where I was totally convinced I’d be an astronaut. I’m still super interested in space and weather, but I’m not nearly as invested as I was as a kid. I think once I heard about how physically taxing it is for your body to be in space, I was a bit turned off.
Favorite thing about Charlottesville’s art scene:
The community support! I’m so amazed by how much talent there is just within Charlottesville, and how supportive local artists and art-lovers are to each other. People go out of their way to attend each others’ art events, buy local art, and are just so encouraging. I always feel really motivated and supported whenever I get a chance to engage with the arts community here.
