Take a deep dive into the culture and legacy of African American violinists in director Eduardo Montes-Bradley’s Black Fiddlers. The 60-minute documentary shares the stories and sounds of Black men and women throughout American history, like the late old-time fiddler Joe Thompson (pictured) and 18th-century Richmond virtuoso Sy Gilliat, an enslaved man whose opera melodies and dance tunes filled local taverns and dance halls. The screening is followed by a talkback with Montes-Bradley.
Friday 1/19. Free, 7:30pm. PVCC’s V. Earl Dickinson Building, 501 College Dr. pvcc.edu
Karen Duncan Pape's "De-Circulated" is on display at McGuffey Art Center through January 28. Pictured: "To Kill A Mockingbird." All images courtesy of the artist.
Landscape photographer Karen Duncan Pape turns her lens to the page in “De-Circulated,” an exhibition of reconstructed covers of banned books on display at McGuffey Art Center through January 28.
“Growing up in Southwest Virginia, books were extremely important to me, as they exposed me to other worlds and broadened my perspective,” says Pape. “I was shocked to find that books I had read in AP English many years ago were being banned in America today, and I was upset that young people might lose access to literary tools that might help them develop critical and inquiring minds, or that might support them in their quest for self-understanding.”
Pape began checking out banned books from libraries and taking multiple exposure photographs of the covers, which she blended in post-processing to create new designs. Books like Lola at the Library, banned in Pennsylvania, The Hate U Give, and The Bluest Eye, both banned in multiple states, are refracted and reimagined into colorful new forms. The abstract photographs obliterate or obstruct the text—a reminder from Pape of the power of the written word, and what is lost when it’s eliminated.
“Relativity”“Why We Can’t Wait”
Mystery vibes
Karen Duncan Pape: “‘Relativity’ ( above left) is taken from a book cover about Albert Einstein, all of whose work was burned in 1933 in Nazi Germany, simply because he was Jewish. The book cover itself is simple and sort of boring, gold and black, with a photograph of Einstein. As I was working on the piece, I thought about the mystery of Einstein’s work. He said ‘The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science.’ The resulting blue piece speaks, I hope, of Einstein’s sense of mystery, and of something which we cannot see but can only sense.
“‘Why We Can’t Wait’ by Martin Luther King, Jr. is another piece that brings me joy. This book was banned in South Africa at the height of apartheid. The image, with its elevating verticals and large WE, implies Dr. King’s idea that, now just as when he wrote this book, WE cannot wait, and WE together are responsible for moving humanity forward into a more balanced, peaceful, and loving state.”
Sen. Creigh Deeds, who has represented the Charlottesville area in the state legislature since 1992, says his priorities this session include mental health care, public safety, and school funding. Supplied photo.
Charlottesville’s lawmakers are in Richmond for the start of Virginia’s new legislative session, which is scheduled to run for 60 days, beginning on January 10. The legislators’ priorities run the gamut, from abortion access to restoration of voting rights.
For state Sen. Creigh Deeds, the start of the session comes with a new district number—11—and new leadership roles. After a slate of retirements, he is now the second-most senior Democrat in the Virginia Senate, and will chair the Committee on Commerce and Labor and the Subcommittee on Health and Human Resources.
Deeds says his priorities remain unchanged, despite his new roles. “In a broad sense, my goal and the goal of every legislator should be to make Virginia the best place to live, work, and raise a family,” he says. “To that end, I will work to build out the best mental health care system in the country right here in Virginia, to expand services to all parts of Virginia, and to make sure that we do everything possible to not leave people behind.” Other top issues for Deeds include public safety, economic development, and school funding. “Public education has to be the number one priority.”
To advance his priorities, Deeds says he’s working on a wide range of legislation, but is constrained by a cap on the number of bills he can introduce. “A senator can carry 21 bills, but that does not include bills that come from commissions,” he says. Deeds plans to platform gun regulation, criminal justice reform, and renewable energy, among other legislation. “Much of the work I will do will be through the budget. I will introduce budget amendments on behalf of the localities I represent and to promote the delivery of care, specifically in the health care world.”
The Charlottesville area has two new representatives in the House of Delegates: Katrina Callsen in District 54 and Amy Laufer in District 55. Both delegates are still settling into their roles, but are excited about the work to come.
To prepare for the start of the session, both women are meeting with colleagues, advocates, constituents, and other stakeholders. “I have filled my time before my swearing-in with meetings, … calls, trainings, hiring staff supports, community events, and work on legislation,” says Callsen. “I’m ready.”
Laufer has taken a similar approach, “meeting with as many of my colleagues as possible before the session starts, to find areas of common ground, as well as advocates and agency representatives who will be impacted by legislation.”
Both Callsen and Laufer say their priorities remain unchanged from their respective campaigns, and they hope to advance their work through legislation.
“My top priorities are centered around protecting and uplifting our communities,” says Callsen. “My priorities haven’t shifted, but I can’t tackle them all alone. I am working closely with my new colleagues to make sure we carry bills together that accomplish our goals.” The delegate is currently working on a variety of issues, including foster care, gun safety, and voting rights.
In District 55, Laufer says she is “getting into the minutiae of the issues and making changes in the code in different ways to realize our priorities.” Beyond her campaign promises, Laufer indicated she is working on both bipartisan and nonpartisan items. “I’m spending a lot of my time talking with the localities I represent about how to assist them in improving services they provide to the community, and I’ll be submitting several budget amendments to follow through on that.”
One legislative focus for Laufer is a bill that deals with employment and wages for people with disabilities. “We are excited to work on increasing employment opportunities to enable people with disabilities to earn a living wage, have the dignity of work, as well as gain some independence,” she says.
Democrats control both chambers of the legislature, but all three local representatives know they have to advance legislation that Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin will sign.
“Democrats have to be very careful and smart about the legislation that we put on the governor’s desk,” says Deeds. “We still have to work on a bipartisan basis to actually get things done. We want to challenge the governor and make him take positions on things that he has not addressed before, but we need to be careful about the legislation. It is more important to get things done, than it is to make political points.”
Erika Howsare will discuss The Age of Deer at New Dominion Bookshop on January 12, followed by an audience Q&A. Photo by Stephen Barling.
“The loveliness of deer might go without saying, but still, there it is: The more you look, the more they seduce,” writes Erika Howsare in her debut nonfiction book, The Age of Deer: Trouble and Kinship with our Wild Neighbors. Published earlier this month, the book showcases Howsare’s keen journalistic skills as well as her subtle but sharp sense of humor and thoughtful way with words. Filled with graceful reverence and appreciation for the world of deer—as well as the work of those whose lives are lived in close proximity to it—each chapter cultivates nuance in attempting to understand relationships between humans and cervids. Though The Age of Deer is a departure in genre from her two previously published books of poetry, it hews closely to them in spirit. Moments of aching beauty and stark sorrow abound. The thrum of verse inhabits each sentence.
The book is a detailed examination of an animal world in flux, a record of a multi-generational and multi-species relationship, but it began as a simple question. “I became interested in what we think we’re talking about when we say something is ‘natural,’” Howsare recalls. “When we look at deer, are we seeing wild animals who happen to be here or are we seeing a species that we have deeply affected and that has deeply affected us?”
Growing up in Pennsylvania, Howsare knew about deer hunting. As an adult living in central Virginia, she knew deer enjoyed snacking in her garden. In other words, she thought she knew about deer in the same ways many of us do, as overpopulated pests, tragic roadkill, magical ghost deer, and even internet stars. Howsare decided to test this knowledge, however. Using news alerts about deer to help define the culturally encoded ideas and roles she hoped to explore, she dug in and surrendered to the process.
Talking with experts in a wide variety of fields—from wildlife rehabilitators and historical reenactors, to ecologists and artists—she peels back layers of assumptions to expose ecstatic depths of complexity. “There was just a huge amount of discovery,” recalls Howsare. “Some of it was very serendipitous,” like Meesha Goldberg’s Kinfolk mural, which she stumbled on at the McGuffey Art Center. Combined with focused research, the breadth and depth of Howsare’s explorations are evident throughout, informed by an MFA in literary arts as well as her longtime beat as a C-VILLE contributor. “There’s no way I could have done this without that experience,” she reflects.
Layered atop this reportage, Howsare generously shares more personal transformations that came out of the project, some of which she describes as, “less an intellectual kind and more an emotional kind … discovering a personal connection to things that I wasn’t really expecting.” She adds, “I went into it really cerebrally and I came out of it feeling like a different person in a lot of ways.”
She describes going deer hunting for the first (and then, second) time in her life. Sitting next to her brother in a tree stand, the unsuccessful (in terms of meat) hunt becomes a meditation: “I felt the aching gladness of being alive and among other living things.” The next outing is more fruitful, and she watches a family member gut one of the deer they have killed. “Dark acres of liver, deep ponds of blood,” she writes, the poet’s voice emerging more fully in this section, rhythmic writing and short bursts of language reflecting peak adrenaline.
She takes part in a primitive skills gathering in North Carolina, carving an awl out of deer bone, and travels to England for the annual Abbots Bromley Horn Dance, featuring millennium-old reindeer antlers. She tags along with officials as they collect car-killed deer as well as deer killed as part of a culling program. She also visits a high-fence ranch in Texas to see farmed deer—“a brazen example of the biology of artifice”—prompting questions about ethical land and wildlife management.
On the left, Teddy Roosevelt, enthusiastic hunter and early conservationist, posed in buckskins in 1885 to cement his connection to legendary frontiersmen like Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett. On the right, the art of the ancient Scythians is obsessed with deer, especially antlers, even though they were cattle herders and did not rely on deer for survival. Images by Wikimedia Commons.
Though her research roams far afield, Howsare dedicates ample attention to her home range, recounting time spent investigating the meaning of deer at the Frontier Culture Museum, Early Mountain Vineyards, and Little Hat Creek Farm, even inviting readers to join her as she is led to a culvert running under I-64 to the west of Charlottesville that serves as a wildlife underpass—an intervention that has successfully decreased the number of deer-related crashes along that stretch of road.
Throughout, Howsare weaves in stories of deer as cultural symbols and the subject of myths, Indigenous practices, folk legends, and creative inspirations, from Paleolithic cave art to Leave the World Behind. Deerskins are also examined as sites of social and economic importance for humans since time immemorial, offering warm clothing as well as the cultural production of nostalgia, which Howsare describes as, “buckskin symbolism … invoked at every turn in American history from the Revolution … to Grateful Dead shows.”
She tells of Awi Usdi, a white deer in Cherokee culture who monitors hunters; the traditional dances of the Yaqui people, accompanied by songs that are “said to have been translated from the language of the deer themselves;” and Eikthyrnir, a Viking stag with oaken antlers who was said to wander Valhalla. “On some deeper level, the process [of writing the book] makes it clear to me that there’s something about deer, for humans, that’s very much connected with mortality,” reflects Howsare. “The way we relate to deer has a lot to do with questions of life and death, and it has for thousands of years. To immerse myself in the topic was to get comfortable with death.”
Tracing the ebb and flow of deer populations, Howsare also examines the pre-colonization abundance of deer in North America (and factors that may have led to that), which in turn led to overhunting and habitat destruction that decimated generations, and eventually to the decision by many states (including Virginia) to import new deer, though this was followed by overdevelopment of their habitats. Yet, the deer abide—for now.
These days we also know deer as carriers of Lyme disease and COVID-19, both of which can infect humans, but increasing attention is being given to the accelerating spread of chronic wasting disease, a fatal and incurable condition that spreads easily among deer. “One thing that sticks with me as a source of real worry is … how deep and wide of a threat [CWD] is to the deer population we have now,” says Howsare. “I think there are many people who deeply care about deer but have not let themselves appreciate the reality that may be coming.”
Perhaps The Age of Deer will open the door to contemplate more fully what that change could mean—or even how to mitigate or prevent it—even as the book celebrates the species we think we know so well from backyard sightings and popular children’s movies. Howsare writes, “I’m grateful that, after so many large animals have disappeared with the advance of human beings, there is still this one—an exquisite and mysterious creature—that I can see, often, in my Anthropocene life; one that, despite our caricatures, remains a survivor, a supreme example of life among the ruins. And that we can pause … and ask these questions about how to proceed… For now, we still have the chance to encounter each other.” In one future, The Age of Deer may become a eulogy; in another, it is a jubilant call to attention.
A wild aside
As a companion to her new book, Howsare worked with the Virginia Audio Collective to make “If You See A Deer,” a four-episode podcast co-hosted by writer and academic Tyler J. Carter.
Featuring interviews and field recordings, the podcast builds on the book by engaging scientists, hunters, artists, taxidermists, and deer enthusiasts in conversations about ecology, nature, literature, art and culture, and history—all through a deer-focused lens. Together, Howsare and Carter invite listeners to join them in questioning assumptions that exist about the roles of deer in our lives and their impact on the world we share. Poems, songs, stories, and mythologies about deer are also woven throughout, extensively documented in each episode’s show notes for those who may wish to undertake their own follow-up explorations or deep dives into a particular aspect of the research that went into the production. From taxidermy to tourism, the result is a wildly listenable and wholly entertaining podcast that nonetheless asks difficult questions and skillfully navigates divisive topics related to hunting, roadkill and scavenging, and forest health.
“I have been telling everybody who will listen that this is an amazing and free community resource that WTJU offers through the Virginia Audio Collective,” says Howsare. “We had excellent support from staff who know everything in the world that you would need to know to make a podcast. The audio format is just so rich and has so many possibilities that I have never encountered on the page.”
Voting season kicks off soon, with early in-person voting for the March 5 Democratic and Republican presidential primaries starting on January 19.
Early voting in the city will be held at the Office of Voter Registration and Elections in Room 142 at City Hall Annex, 120 Seventh St. NE, on weekdays from January 19 to March 1 between 8:30am and 4:30pm.
Albemarle County residents can vote early in-person at the Voter Registration and Elections Office in Room A at 1600 Fifth St. Extended on weekdays from 8:30am to 5pm.
Saturday voting will be available in both the city and county on February 28 and March 2 between 8:30am and 5pm.
Ryan L. Binkley, Chris Christie, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Donald Trump are the candidates on the Republican ballot.
Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee, with a double-digit lead in most polling, despite the myriad of active criminal and civil cases against him. A lawsuit challenging Trump’s inclusion in the Virginia Republican primary was dismissed by a federal judge on December 29, ensuring the former president will be on the ballot.
The Democratic primary pool is smaller, with Minnesota Representative Dean Phillips and author Marianne Williamson challenging incumbent President Joe Biden.
Third-party candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Chase Oliver, Jill Stein, and Cornel West will not appear on the primary ballot.
On January 5, Charlottesville Police received reports of an adult white man walking in the area of Carlton Road with multiple firearms, including an “AR-15-style rifle” at approximately 6:39am. Preliminary investigation determined the individual posed an “immediate threat to the public at large,” resulting in a shelter in place alert from the CPD.
“Expect heavy police presence in [the Carlton Road] area. Avoid travel to this area,” CPD said in a social media post. “For those living in this area, shelter in place and await further information.”
Through the use of drones and other technology, the department’s Emergency Response Unit was able to quickly locate the individual. Officers confiscated the man’s weapons, and provided mental health services at the scene. CPD lifted its shelter in place order by 8:30am.
“We would like to thank our community for helping to maintain public safety by quickly notifying us of this matter,” said CPD’s post-incident news release. “We greatly value your partnership.”
According to the CPD, no charges will be filed in connection with the incident.
In brief
Walk on
Charlottesville’s Bike & Pedestrian Advisory Committee kicks off its monthly guided walks through the city’s neighborhoods on January 14 at noon. This month, the committee has partnered with the University of Virginia and Albemarle County to tour sites important to the history of the Civil Rights movement. The route runs about three miles and begins at the Albemarle County Office on 401 McIntire Rd. Walks occur every second Sunday of the month, and no registration is required. For information on the location of each month’s walk, check the committee’s Facebook page at facebook.com/cvilleBPAC.
Breakthrough
Lung transplants could soon have a better chance at success thanks to a team of researchers at the UVA School of Medicine. The team, led by Swapnil K. Sonkusare of UVA’s Department of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics, identified cellular changes that can cause significant complications with organ transplants, leading to organ rejection and even death. This research, first conducted on lab mice, may help doctors better ensure the success of lung transplants.
Swapnil K. Sonkusare. UVA Health.
By the numbers
The city recently posted its Popular Annual Financial Report for the past fiscal year, which ended June 30, 2023. The report, prepared by the city’s finance department, is a “more easily digestible” version of the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, and includes data points such as the unemployment rate (2.4 percent), estimated median household income ($63,470), and miles of street (160.14). Read the full report at charlottesville.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/245.
If you’re not so keen on the UVA men’s basketball team this season, get your Wa-hoo-wa on at a live screening of the UVA women’s basketball game as the Hoos take on their ACC rivals at the University of North Carolina. Snag a comfy theater seat, stock up on concessions, put on your foam fingers, and cheer on the Cavs as they aim to crush the Tar Heels.
Sunday 1/14. Free (registration recommended), 4pm. The Paramount Theater, 215 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. theparamount.net
Funny guys Roy Wood Jr. and Jordan Klepper “celebrate America before it explodes and sinks into the ocean” in their America, For the Last Time Tour. The live show takes on the format of a town hall that offers comical, half-baked analyses on issues that matter (and don’t) with 100 percent confidence. Wood and Klepper draw on their time covering politics on “The Daily Show,” at MAGA rallies, and the White House Correspondents Dinner to riff on current headlines, debate the good and the bad, and share stories from the audience.
Saturday 1/13. $42.50–52.50, 7pm. The Paramount Theater, 215 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. theparamount.net
Throw on your Stetsons and boot cuts, and follow along as local string band Big Silo walks you through the moves before getting the Boot Scoot Square Dance started with old-time favorites. Caller Hannah Johnson keeps the party going, and the Potter’s kitchen serves up its new menu of gourmet sammies as the cider flows.
The renderings above are for the Albemarle Business Campus, which may end up with more homes than originally approved in October 2020. Image by Shimp Engineering.
Rezonings for large, mixed-use complexes include a legally binding document called a “code of development” that lays out what can be built in a given project and how much the public can expect.
In October 2020, the Board of Supervisors approved the Albemarle Business Campus, a mixed-use development on Fifth Street Extended that allowed for a maximum of 128 residential units and 401,000 square feet of non-residential use.
Developer Kyle Redinger now wants to amend ABC’s code of development to allow a maximum of 368 units. The application, crafted by Shimp Engineering, was the last rezoning filed in 2023.
“The Charlottesville area has a chronic housing shortage, and there will continue to be more demand for apartments than we can build in the current development area,” Redinger says. The 128 units at 5 Row Apartments that are under construction at ABC are awaiting certificates of occupancy.
The other tenants at Albemarle Business Campus are a 715-unit storage unit and a firm called PS Fertility, according to the development’s website. Redinger says his company has made efforts to bring in more biotech companies, but nothing has materialized. He says the amendment to the rezoning would provide the flexibility to go in a different direction if need be.
“This is due to local market challenges and macro real estate factors such as post-COVID demand changes, interest rates, affordability challenges, and so on,” Redinger says. “Of course, we welcome office and biotech tenants, but we just want to make sure we have a viable project if our office tenant does not materialize over the next few years.”
Bioscience and medical devices is one of the target industries identified by Albemarle’s economic development office, with companies such as Afton Scientific and MicroAire.
There are nearly 2,000 people in the area who work in the biotech sector, according to the data tracked by the advocacy group CvilleBioHub. A map on its website shows these are clustered in downtown Charlottesville and along Route 29, with none currently in the vicinity of ABC.
There’s also currently nothing shown at UVA’s Fontaine Research Park, which in a few years will be home to the Paul and Diane Manning Institute of Biotechnology.
Redinger had previously sought to build more units at ABC. In October 2019, the Albemarle Planning Commission recommended denial of a version of the plan that had 300 units.
ABC is in what Albemarle planners refer to as Neighborhood 5, which also includes a maximum of 1,450 homes in the two phases of Southwood as well as another 100 homes allowed to be built in a portion of the Biscuit Run development that stayed in private ownership.
The plans for ABC also show land that will be dedicated for the roundabout that will be built at the intersection of Old Lynchburg Road and Fifth Street Extended. That work will be done as part of a design build bundle with three other roundabouts in Albemarle and another intersection improvement at Belvedere.
Natalie Oschrin says she’s “thrilled and grateful to be part of the team.” Photo by Eze Amos.
There was a new face on the dais at City Council’s first meeting of 2024.
Natalie Oschrin, a Charlottesville native, ran for council on a platform focused on improving transportation, planning, access to housing, and the relationship between the city and UVA. As she settles into her new role, Oschrin says she’s excited about what’s to come.
“I am thrilled and grateful to be a part of the team,” she says. “The staff and fellow councilors have been so helpful throughout my orientations, so I felt welcome from the beginning. We have several meetings to make sure we’re getting the budget and Capital Improvement Plan in order, and pages of reading to prep for those meetings. I’ve been watching from the sidelines for a while now, so while I still have a lot to learn, I’m also prepared to do the job.”
January is typically a slow month for City Council, but Oschrin’s first meeting packed in many key priorities, including the election of the new mayor and vice-mayor, budget presentations, board and committee assignments, and funding for Premier Circle, a homeless shelter run out of the former Red Carpet Inn.
Several of the new councilor’s board and committee assignments correlate with her priorities, including positions on the Metropolitan Planning Organization, Regional Transit Partnership, Community Scholarship Program, and more.
Oschrin hopes to facilitate progress by looking at how various priorities and initiatives can be used to advance each other.
“For example, by keeping the mantra of bike/ped/bus going in all matters, I hope to … [build] better infrastructure, and to make my expectations clear that I want others to consider bike/ped/bus potential in what they bring to the table,” she says. “Better bike/ped/ … bus infrastructure improves quality of life in other areas, by making streets safer and quieter, reducing traffic, pollution, and car dependency, and saving folks time and money. These improvements will also allow more people to live in the city, closer to their jobs and activities without increasing car traffic and parking concerns.”
Though Oschrin is confident in her agenda, one hurdle she foresees is scheduling. Charlottesville City Council is a part-time job, and pays accordingly. Oschrin will be balancing her work for the city with her job as a full-time wedding sales manager.
“It is an overall structural problem with the low pay/‘part-time’ nature of City Council, and why there are not more women, young people, and lower-income people as representatives,” says Oschrin. “I would welcome a serious discussion with the state about changing that to allow wider participation.”
