Anti-war protesters at UVA stood united when confronted by Virginia State Police on May 4. Photo: Eze Amos
The University of Virginia is withholding degrees from four graduating students who were arrested at the encampment for Gaza on May 4, pending trials by the University Judiciary Committee.
Eleven students face UJC trials in connection with the protest, with proceedings seemingly in limbo while students are away for the summer. While UVA asserts it is normal for degrees to be withheld amid a UJC trial, activists argue the university is violating student protesters’ freedom of speech in an attempt to justify the decision to bring Virginia State Police to the encampment and its refusal to meet activists’ demands.
While the UJC and University Deputy Spokesperson Bethanie Glover declined to comment on the specifics of the cases against the 11 students, Professor Walt Heinecke provided more information on the nature of the charges.
According to Heinecke, the UJC charges against students include “disorderly conduct on university owned or leased property, or at a university sanctioned function,” “any violation of federal, state, or local law,” and “failure to comply with directions of university officials.” The cases also allegedly mention violations of the following policies: exterior posting and chalking (PRM-008); tent use on university property (SEC-013); regulations of weapons, fireworks, explosives, and other prohibited items (SEC-030); and use of amplified sound on outdoor university property (SEC-041).
While some of the policy violations are self-explanatory, Heinecke says he is unaware of what the weapons, fireworks, explosives, and other prohibited items policy violation is referring to, but speculated it could be due to brief usages of a bullhorn at the encampment.
Heinecke is the current president of the UVA chapter of the American Association of United Professors and served as a faculty liaison to the students at the encampment throughout the protest. Since UVA decided to bring in Virginia State Police to forcefully break up the assembly, he has been working to protect student protesters from retaliation by the university for exercising their Constitutionally protected freedom of speech.
“The Student Affairs Office charges against the students are flimsy and overstated at best,” says Heinecke. “They appear to be a desperate attempt to detract from the University’s decision to use the Virginia State Police to violently shut down what was a peaceful protest against genocide in Gaza and the university policies supporting that genocide. The trumped-up charges appear to be no more than weak attempts to justify violating students’ First Amendment rights to speech and assembly.”
“It is standard practice for the university to withhold the degrees of students who have been referred for potential violations of the university’s policies or standards of conduct,” Glover told C-VILLE in a comment via email. “It’s important to clarify that free speech remains a core value of UVA, and any cases awaiting UJC review were referred due to violations of policy and standards of conduct, not because of constitutionally protected speech.”
Glover cited the fact that protesters were allowed to demonstrate for four days prior to the encampment being broken up by police as an example of the institution’s commitment to free speech.
For the graduating students facing UJC charges, the withholding of their degrees has put their personal and professional lives into limbo.
“As a first generation student, I tried my best to present myself as happy on a day [graduation] that is important not just for me, but for my whole family, but it was really hard, after my whole family saw UVA-approved brutality against me on the national news and while my diploma hangs over my head with no guarantee of when I will get it,” said Cady de la Cruz, a fourth-year Lawn resident whose degree has been withheld. “It is an empty punishment because I did everything to fulfill my degree. The only reason UVA has stalled the process is to make an example out of me.”
Both de la Cruz and Heinecke allege that UVA administration deliberately drew out the UJC trial in an attempt to pressure students into one-on-one meetings.
“The university delay[ed] the process on purpose because our cases are being used to teach a lesson to students of what violence and punishment the university will enact in order to repress activism and discourage all who consider protesting in the coming years, especially as the calls for divestment from genocide will only get louder next year,” de la Cruz said.
While UVA has dropped the No Trespass Orders against student protesters arrested on May 4, the university has not indicated any willingness to dismiss the UJC cases.
“Admin is revealing they are willing to upend all UVA norms and precedents to obliterate all calls to divest from genocide,” said de la Cruz.
The Arcadian Wild creates moving, progressive bluegrass and folk in an intersection of genres that eschews tradition.
Photo by Shelby Mick.
By Aaron Irons
The Arcadian Wild finds uplift and grace amid warm harmonies on Welcome, the Music City string band’s latest effort, which blends elegance and heart-swelling dynamics with endearing revelations. Equal parts meditation and jubilation, Welcome offers connection and understanding in an era when such notions are at a premium.
Lincoln Mick formed The Arcadian Wild with Isaac Horn in 2013, segueing from guitar to mandolin to develop a sound that draws emotionally from the realms of folk, bluegrass, and pop.
“About a year after [the band] started is when Isaac joined,” says Mick. “He obviously plays the guitar—and he was a lot better than I was. We figured we didn’t need two people doing the same thing, or at least a second person doing the same job poorly. So I picked up the mandolin out of necessity just to give the band another dimension, and I’ve been stumbling my way through it since 2014. Now it’s my primary instrument.”
In 2015, the band released a self-titled debut followed by a series of singles, an EP, and in 2019, Finch in the Pantry, a streamlined and charged album that capitalized on a leaner, more calculated approach balancing tradition with innovation.
“With Finch in the Pantry, we maybe sort of had a bit of a chip on our shoulder,” Mick says. “Isaac and I didn’t actually grow up really listening to a lot of music that’s similar to the music that we make now. We didn’t listen to a lot of folk and traditional bluegrass or old-time stuff. We were listening to a lot of alt-rock and pop punk, which is really funny.”
Prone to a pop sensibility over improvisation or traditional bluegrass pickin’, The Arcadian Wild decided to “just make convoluted, thoroughly arranged music that can make an impression on people,” says Mick. “We really love that record and we’re really proud of it. We still play all of those songs very joyfully whenever we perform and we’re on the road.”
The mini-epic 2021 EP Principium evolved those arrangements through precision timing and bracing rhythms for an interpretation of the Garden of Eden in four parts with accompanying cinematic videos. Conceived a few years prior, the EP came to life during the pandemic.
“We knew we weren’t going much of anywhere, so we figured we’d dig that back up. I think it was good because we had a higher level of facility and a higher level of clarity about what we wanted things to sound like,” Mick says of the decision to revisit older material. “I think that time on the back burner served that piece really, really well.”
Now comes Welcome, a full-length album recorded in Nashville with producer Logan Matheny (Big Light Studio). It’s The Arcadian Wild having grown more seasoned, tested, and aware than ever before.
“With Welcome I think we’ve dialed back the desire to aim to impress anyone,” says Mick. “With this record, our goal was to just write songs that were as beautiful as we could possibly make them and told the truth as best as we understood it at this moment … and let’s just trust that good things are going to emerge if we’re obedient to the process.”
As The Arcadian Wild carries Welcome to the masses, the core of Mick, Horn, and Bailey Warren (fiddle) will be joined by upright bassist Eli Broxham. “Our bass player Eli, who’s on tour with us this season, he’s amazing, and he’s one of those guys who can play the upright bass like a fiddle, “ Mick says. “It’s really amusing because the bass is the most improvisatory instrument in our ensemble right now.”
“He’s been really great, gently and sweetly encouraging us to trust ourselves and take risks and not be afraid to fall down while we’re onstage and performing,” Mick says. “Whenever you step out to do a little improvising in a show, that moment happens, and then it’s gone. And then there’s so much song left. It’s like, ‘It’s okay. Just continue moving forward, everyone else is. Time has not stopped. You don’t have to wallow in your failure. There’s so much good work left to do and you’re ready to do it and it’s gonna be okay.’”
Anya Taylor-Joy leads the action in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.
Image via Warner Bros.
Australian director George Miller’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga traces the origin story of the hit Mad Max: Fury Road’s heroine, Imperator Furiosa (with Anya Taylor-Joy in the role originated by Charlize Theron). Even though Max only appears for a brief cameo, this is a superior prequel that delivers everything viewers expect from the Mad Max series.
Decades after apocalyptic world wars, young Furiosa (Alyla Browne) lives in the Green Place of Many Mothers, a Shangri-La-like oasis within a vast desert. She gets snatched by scavenging bikers and taken to their barbarian leader, Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) as proof of this “Place of Abundance” where food and water abound. Her mother (Charlee Fraser) bravely tries to rescue Furiosa but is caught, tortured, and slaughtered in front of her daughter.
Dementus raises Furiosa as his surrogate child, hoping to eventually discover her homeland’s location, while he jockeys for power among the other warlords who rule the wasteland’s three fortresses. Furiosa cunningly gets adopted by the powerful Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme), who grooms her for his harem. She escapes, disguises herself as a worker boy, and gradually reemerges to become, with the friendly Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke), an indispensable driver for Immortan Joe. As Dementus tangles with the warlords, Furiosa (Taylor-Joy) patiently awaits an opportunity for revenge.
Furiosa skillfully combines the Mad Max movies’ most successful elements: breakneck chases, breathtaking stunts, bizarre villains, and—most importantly—a mythic quality. Fully enjoying Furiosa’s fundamental implausibility requires significant suspension of disbelief. For starters, with gasoline so rare, why is everybody burning through it so quickly?
But this isn’t cinema vérité: It’s a pulp allegory. Within Furiosa’s outlandish structure lies a highly engaging story of revenge and survival with a deeply sympathetic heroine. Throughout the film, Furiosa is street smart, resourceful, and relentless in countless winning ways. This indomitable female Buster Keaton stoically overcomes whatever catastrophe is thrown at her and emerges victorious.
Taylor-Joy is good, as is Burke as the genial Jack. As Dementus, Hemsworth is a worthy successor to Miller’s previous eccentric heavies: vile and deadly, but comically pompous and pretentious. It’s clear that Hemsworth, as well as other key actors, relish their roles. When portraying characters with names like Rictus Erectus, what actors wouldn’t?
Furiosa’s pacing and characterization far excel that of Fury Road. In Miller’s initial Mad Max films, occasional laconic passages between the hyper-kinetic chases allowed the audience to get acquainted with the characters. But Fury Road’s visual overkill was like an already fast-paced movie stuck in fast-forward. Fury Road felt like being dragged behind a vehicle going way too fast, while Furiosa is like riding shotgun in an ace driver’s souped-up dragster.
The tatterdemalion costumes and production design are excellent, especially considering the film’s vast scope and huge cast. The characters’ off-the-wall wardrobe crafted from a patchwork of scavenged knickknacks provides constant visual stimulation.
Furiosa’s many visual effects also blend well with the actual practical footage, but the film’s brightest stars are its stunt performers, whose no-holds-barred energy and expertise with everything from parachutes to flamethrowers is dazzling.
At 79, Miller has created an action powerhouse that would give younger directors a coronary. He masterfully orchestrates barbarian hordes—hell-bent on stealing more gasoline or sacks of potatoes—and reminds us that no living filmmaker does life after Doomsday as deftly as Miller.
Kevin Andrews will present at 10:30am in Newcomb Hall’s South Meeting Room on June 17. Supplied photo.
In late 2023, the Biden administration released new guidance that requires federal agencies to improve digital accessibility, including enforcing a set of accessibility guidelines before publishing to a website and overseeing digital accessibility processes. On June 17, UVA will host a free workshop on digital accessibility, with presenter Kevin Andrews, a Web Accessibility Specialist at Georgetown University who is presenting as part of his role as owner of Unlocked Freedom Access, a digital accessibility consultancy. As a blind person, Andrews has a personal connection to this work. Ahead of his talk, we asked Andrews a few key questions. This interview has been edited for length.—Claudia Gohn
What is web and digital accessibility? When we talk about accessibility, we’re thinking about ways of making sure that—in terms of the digital or electronic accessibility, that context—we’re really trying to make sure that websites, systems, applications, documents, all of these resources are usable to the greatest number of people.
What do you do as a web accessibility specialist? A lot of it is working with different stakeholders to help them make—or at least give guidance or recommendations to make—their materials or content more accessible. And it really depends. So one day I might be working with some content editors and I can walk them through how to make a page more accessible in terms of, you know, “Don’t just make the text bold. It has to be an actual heading,” which is communicated through the semantics with the screen reader. Or another day I might be working with some developers and I can give more technical guidance. “Well, you want to use this type of code or this sort of role to make sure that the semantics are getting communicated appropriately.”
What motivates you to give speeches and host workshops about digital accessibility, such as the one coming up at UVA? They kind of see what the barriers look like—what a barrier could look like when something is not accessible. And then, “Here is what you can do. Here are maybe three quick fixes you can do today.” Obviously it’s not everything, but to really get on the path to make something more accessible. It makes them feel accomplished, it makes them feel good about the process, so they will continue to do it because accessibility is not one-and-done. You have to keep at it. And then especially with very dynamic websites where people are constantly adding content, removing content, there’s always gonna be—it’s very rare that there’s something fully 100 percent conforming and accessible. It’s very rare. So I would say I really enjoy that light bulb moment. I like being able to do the demonstrations for people and say, “Okay, well now you try it.”
Why is digital accessibility important? I have a deep personal connection to the work because I have a disability myself. So it’s not something I can just turn off at the end of the day. … It is the right thing to do. I’m not a lawyer, so I won’t make legal claims, but it is the law here in the U.S. that your website—especially a public-facing website, whatever the industry—is accessible.
How does web accessibility and digital accessibility fit within the broader conversation about disability justice? We talk about making sure that everyone does feel like they have a seat at the table—that’s inclusion. Part of that is, can I access what you’re even selling—or you’re talking about—as a disabled person? Can somebody access it? If you can’t, it’s sort of like having a party and the party is there, but you don’t know how to get in. You can hear everyone, but you’re outside and you’re like, “Well, lemme go around the back.” Nope. There’s steps. Can’t get in with the wheelchair. It’s sort of that. And so I compare it to something like that in the physical sense. Digital accessibility, obviously it’s a different context, but it’s similar in that you have a link that’s not descriptive and not labeled properly. So for a screen reader, it just says “link,” or it’s a link using an image and the image isn’t described or something’s not labeled, whatever it is.
Dad’s words stung like a leather belt across my backside. “You know what you are?” he asked. “You’re quick, certain, and wrong!”
It was more than half a century ago, and I was less than 10, but the sting still lingers.
I grew up in the crowded middle of seven children, where it seemed all of us were competing to get a word in edgewise, so how was I the only one who nicked that raw nerve with Dad, the nerve that screamed, “Only a fool would fail to take the time to get it right”?
I tried to do better, but I still struck that nerve with enough regularity that when Dad began (“You know what you are?”), I cringed, because I knew what was coming next. Eventually—I think I was in my late teens—Dad’s harsh critique of my decision-making ability fell into disuse. Maybe I’d grown wiser, or maybe Dad had just grown tired of trying to correct me. Probably a little of both.
It’s been nearly 30 years since Dad died, but I’ve continued to hear “quick, certain, and wrong,” not in his voice, but in my head. Almost every time things haven’t gone as planned, I have, without forgiveness, blamed my own impatience, my own poor judgment, my own damned foolishness.
* * *
My brothers and I were clearing out my parents’ house last summer, a few weeks after our mother died, and I volunteered to clear my parents’ bedroom. Dad’s dresser had sat largely untouched since 1996, so sliding open the top drawer was like cracking open a crypt to reveal a trove of treasures buried with the deceased for his use in the afterlife.
I found the spring-top box where Dad had kept bus fare for his morning commute. I found the Swiss Army knife that was a virtual prosthetic for Dad: One minute he’d be using it to pop open a can of beer as we floated down the Shenandoah in a boat, while the next minute he’d use it to pry a hook from a trout’s mouth. I found tie clasps and cuff links that I’d seen Dad put on before Sunday Mass. I found the medals he’d earned in the service, years before he met my mom and started a family. I recognized—and left—those familiar treasures in the crypt of that top drawer.
Photo by Eze Amos.
The treasure that drew my attention was one that I didn’t recognize, though I immediately knew what it was. I was 8 years old when Dad returned home from Vietnam in 1969, sporting a battery-powered Seiko wristwatch, and here in Dad’s dresser was the wind-up Timex that came before the Seiko. It hadn’t ticked in more than half a century, and despite my winding, it produced not one tock.
The wristband was indented where Dad had buckled it every morning. He’d been a barrel-chested, physically imposing man, so I was surprised to discover that the band fit my thin wrist exactly as it had his.
I took the watch to Tuel Jewelers, where the jeweler’s eyes twinkled at the challenge of bringing the old Timex back to life.
It was during the weeks that the jeweler worked to restore Dad’s wristwatch that I began to wonder if my father’s sensitivity to my quick decisions might have been grounded as much in his own experience as it was in my own actions. I thought of instances when time had been taken from him, about moments in Dad’s life when he’d been rushed to decisions he hadn’t wanted, to conclusions that ranged from unfair to cruel.
I thought first of Dad as a skinny 13-year-old, when his father—larger than life in my dad’s telling—died of a heart attack in 1938. When the Birmingham News reported the death, the story omitted Dad’s name from among the surviving family members. Maybe the reporter was in a hurry, but the slight left a scar that Dad carried for some 50 years until I uncovered the Mobile Advertiser story of the event that included his name. Still, the strongest man in Dad’s life was gone forever, reduced to an unattainable aspiration. I thought of Dad in 1943, a flight cadet in officer training, having enlisted immediately after his 18th birthday in the hopes of catching up with his older brothers, one commanding an air squadron in Burma and the other skippering a Navy ship. But, as Dad explained it to us later, leadership concluded they “hadn’t killed off as many pilots as anticipated,” so he was shipped to Saipan with the humble rank of Private, a laborer in an ammunition ordnance company responsible for loading bombs into B-29’s piloted by young men who’d earned their wings just a bit sooner. Glory, Dad found, went to other, slightly older men of his generation.
Bill Moriarty holds Michael’s infant daughter. Photo documentation by Eze Amos.
I thought about the 1950s, after Dad left the service, married, and tried to make a go of it with his own business. Dad designed and created figurines that he sold at shops and local events, until piracy of his best products (as well as a third child on the way) compelled him to exchange that dream for a steady government paycheck. As responsibilities took precedence over dreams, Dad boxed up the last of his figurines and stashed them under a bed in the nursery, where I discovered them last summer, caked in dust.
I thought about the Friday after Thanksgiving, 1964. My parents were in the dining room that Dad had only recently finished building onto the back of our house. My mom was holding in her arms my three-week-old sister when Dad spied water streaming through the kitchen light fixture. He dashed upstairs and found me, along with my diapered little brother, turning the bathroom into a water park. Dad quickly lifted me and “put” me down on the slippery floor outside the bathroom, where I slammed into the wall—and snapped my femur. I don’t remember that it hurt, only that when Dad tried to stand me up, my leg kept sliding to the side like a puppet’s.
A few days in traction, followed by a few weeks’ recuperation in that new dining room, and I was as good as new. My mom told me later that Dad had felt terrible, but I don’t remember that he ever told me he was sorry for having been, well, quick, certain, and wrong.
I thought about that years later when it occurred to me that in 1938 Dad had not only lost a father he admired, but he’d also lost the chance to slowly learn and accept that fathers sometimes make mistakes with their sons (and vice versa); that sometimes disagreement and fault do not preclude, but instead engender, respect and even admiration.
Like most people, Dad was complex, sometimes even self-contradictory, and that’s what often made pleasing him difficult. He could tell a joke with impeccable timing. He was committed to making to-do lists and getting things done—on time. He had no patience for dithering. When it came to me, my quickness in winning races at our local swim club earned his admiration, but quick answers on more sensitive matters such as race or politics earned his admonition.
As I grew older, I made plenty of mistakes—undoubtedly many of the “quick, certain, and wrong” variety. I’ve thought about one more than all the others. My sister, the one who’d been a mere three weeks old when I suffered my broken leg, had singled me out as her “hero” since we were little. Three weeks into the second semester of her junior year in college, she made a surprise visit home. Something was troubling Molly, so on the day she was to return to school, I spent the afternoon with her. Two weeks later my mother called and said “something terrible has happened to Molly,” and I realized that her hero had been quick (to dismiss the warning signs of her depression), certain (that she would grow out of whatever was bothering her), and unforgivably wrong.
It is said that the older we get, the less we know. And so it was that on that day in February 1985, I aged decades. As horrible as the loss was for my sister’s hero, though, I knew even then that it was worse for her daddy. The loss upended Dad’s world, robbed him of precious time with his only daughter, and left him (if we had this much in common) with all the time in the world to consider the unanswerable questions that a suicide bequeaths its survivors. Life, it seemed, had pushed and shoved Dad again, this time with unspeakable cruelty.
Retirement a few months after Molly’s death brought Dad relief from the “need it an hour ago” routine that characterized his 25-year career at the Pentagon, and he finally had time for the travel with my mom that the two of them had denied themselves during their child-rearing years; both relished the timeless promise brought by four grandchildren.
Author Michael Moriarty wears the watch the once belonged to his father. Photo by Eze Amos.
Life, though, would be quick, certain, and wrong with Dad one last time. A few months after his 70th birthday, Dad contracted a virus that did its damage in a furious hurry: In the space of just days, what seemed a mere cold progressed to a terrific fever and then a seizure, which left Dad in what the doctors coldly characterized as a “permanent vegetative state.” Brain dead.
Hoping for a miracle, I was, a few days later, standing next to Dad’s bed in the ICU, holding his hand, when the nearby radio began to play Rachmaninov’s Symphony No. 2, one of the most beautiful pieces of music you could ever hear—and undoubtedly one that Dad, whose own father had taken him to concerts and instilled in him a deep appreciation of classical music, had enjoyed many times. For the first time since Dad had gone under, his eyes moved (behind closed lids) and his grip on my hand tightened. I think that what was left of his brain that night still appreciated Rachmaninov, though heaven only knows if he was aware of whose hand he gripped as he listened.
About four weeks later, Dad lay in a hospital bed in that dining room that he’d built some 30 years earlier, and again I was standing next to him, stroking his limp, withered arm, when he left this world to the strains of “Solveig’s Song,” one of Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt suites, which I had queued up on his stereo moments earlier. I don’t know if his battered mind and departing spirit detected either the music or the touch of my hand, but I’d like to think he took with him warm memories of both.
A photo of Bill Moriarty on Saipan, wearing the watch that would one day belong to his son. Photo documentation by Eze Amos.
Just before I was to pick up Dad’s watch from Tuel, one of my brothers uncovered from my parents’ things a wrinkled old photograph that I’d never seen before: It was my dad, 18 years old and rail-thin, standing hands on hips, squinting into the midday sun on Saipan, 1943. The photo is grainy, but on his left wrist is, unmistakably, the wind-up Timex.
I have a smart watch and a couple battery-powered watches that keep perfect time, but now I like to wear Dad’s old wind-up. It is beautiful, probably almost 90 years old. Sometimes it runs a little slow, other times a little fast. It is, in other words, like both fathers and sons: loved but also flawed, imperfect. Every morning when I take a minute to wind that watch, I remind myself to be a little more patient, a little less certain and, honestly, a little more forgiving. And when I place the watch on my wrist and buckle its cracked wristband, exactly as my dad used to do, I think of Solveig’s lament to Peer Gynt: “And if you wait above, we’ll meet there again, my friend.”
Michael Moriarty lives in Charlottesville and retired in 2023, following a career as a legal editor and project manager. He has been published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, SwimSwam, and Medium.
Shannon Spence will appear at SUCZ in Staunton on
June 15 and at Hello Comics Uptown on June 16. Follow her work @shannonprints or visit shannonprints.com.
Supplied photo.
Shannon Spence awoke to her calling as a cartoon artist while pursuing a fine arts degree focused on printmaking at University of Virginia. In her fourth year, she took a course in sequential art–and she saw her future. “I realized what incredible potential comics were as an art form, and it just clicked for me,” says Spence. “I was checking out as many graphic novels from Clem as I could get my hands on and absorbing [them] like a sponge. I haven’t looked back. I dive deeper into creating independent comics every year.”
Spence took note of the opportunities for social, cultural, and political commentary in the form … and also the responsibility. She calls her process a full-body and spirit endeavor. “You are the writer, editor, storyboard artist, liner, colorist, book assembler, salesman, and marketing specialist,” says the New Jersey-based artist. “It is a constant challenge, but I believe that’s how it becomes so addicting.”
The June 6 release of Spence’s P*NK LAB GRL!, Burn it Down! is the second installment in her latest comic series, two years in the making. She created it while working full time in medicine, using her day job to inform her art. “There’s nothing else like creating a book about something you’re passionate about (in P*NK LAB GRL!, it’s discussing corporate corruption in the healthcare industry) and putting it out in the world, and saying, I’m so proud of this.”
Spence has a list of accomplishments to be proud of. Since entering the field of indie comics in 2019, she has published more than 10 anthologies; she’s also a medical technologist, a musician (guitar), and the founder of Comix Accountability Club, a weekly online meeting in support of working and aspiring cartoonists.
The artist also fulfills a quarterly risograph subscription. Originally intended to mass-produce worksheets and pamphlets, risographs use a type of offset printing that’s similar to what is used for traditional newspaper printing. It’s a low-cost process that has been adopted by the DIY art scene. “It produces vibrant colors, charmingly misaligned and textured prints. … The cutting of pages, assembling and stapling each book, takes the longest. Then, I package each comic with a membership card and little bonuses out to every collector … It is so satisfying to send art directly to people that want to support you. I love every minute of it.”
Tireless and joyful, Spence says she has a “self-assigned need to push myself constantly.” More recently she’s taken the stage for comic reading, comedy, and live music performances. “It’s a ton of fun experimenting on stage and turning comics into a watchable event. The art form feels very fresh and pliable and continues to grow.”
School helped formalize Spence’s career, but art has always been an outlet in her life. “I grew up drawing dragons, and now I do it every day (well, dragon-people); most people who knew me growing up wouldn’t be surprised to find that out.”
The true surprise and delight is in the artwork, just as she intends. “My aim is for you to look at my stuff and think, ‘That’s sick.’ Then we high-five and talk about our favorite Pokémon.”
On her sophomore album, In The End It Always Does, The Japanese House, aka Amber Bain, explores themes of love, loss, and identity. With her dreamy vocals and heartfelt lyrics, Bain captures the cyclical nature of relationships in a range of real experience that is unapologetically human. The album, co-produced by George Daniel of The 1975 and Chloe Kraemer, “is about falling in love and not wanting it to end, but knowing it always does,” says Bain.
Monday 6/17. $30-35, 8pm. Jefferson Theater, 110 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. jeffersontheater.com
So far, Louisa has received one application for a tiny house, a 10'x32' Tiny Timbers house that will be built on the site of the applicant company.
Photo by Tiny Timbers.
A recent change to rules about what can be constructed has cleared an obstacle for those who wish to live in a very small living space. At least in Louisa.
“State building code now identifies tiny homes and has a regulation,” says Toni Williams, a member of the Louisa Board of Supervisors. “It’s just a house. It’s just a small house.”
Louisa and many other localities across Virginia have prohibited tiny houses mostly on the basis that Virginia’s building code did not have any official provision for them. The code is updated every three years, and the new version of the code that went into effect in January now officially defines these as structures less than 400 square feet.
Earlier this month, the Louisa Board of Supervisors removed a definition of “tiny house” from the definitions in land-use regulations. That means they can now be built in any zoning district where single-family houses are allowed.
“Tiny homes must be placed on permanent foundations as part of the building code, so if you have a tiny home and it is on wheels then they would call that maybe like a camper,” Williams says.
Williams said Louisa previously was wary of allowing the structures out of concerns about how many could be parked on a site if they’re on wheels.
The building code has the same minimum construction standards but allows for deviations. A normal house must have a minimum ceiling height of seven feet, but a tiny house can be 6’8″. Bathroom ceilings can be as low as 6’4″. The code now allows for a loft with a minimum of three-foot height to be used as habitable space.
Placement of such structures would still be regulated by minimum lot sizes.
Since the Planning Commission heard the item in May, Louisa has received one application for such a structure, a 10’x32′ Tiny Timbers house that will be built on the site of the applicant company. That will now be handled internally and requires no approval by elected officials.
Petersburg-based Tiny Timbers prices its units between $78,500 and $87,500. Tiny homes on foundations will take longer to build than those on wheels, but those would be regulated as a recreational vehicle.
Charlottesville’s building code official says the city has also already seen construction of tiny homes.
“The most common [ones] that we see here in the city are when they are stick-built on site like a typical house or dwelling,” says Chuck Miller. If they’re manufactured elsewhere, they have to comply with Virginia’s Manufactured Home Safety Regulations.
An official with the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development says it is up to each locality to determine how to proceed.
“Enforcement of building codes is done at the local municipal level and the state primarily serves as a training arm as well as conducting the periodic updates of the building codes based on national codes and standards,” says Thomas King, a code and regulations specialist.
The trial for Jacob Dix, an Ohio man charged with burning an object to intimidate, ended in a hung jury after 12 hours of deliberation.
Supplied photo.
After almost seven years of waiting, 14 months of preparation and legal wrangling, and three days of trial before the Albemarle County Circuit Court for Jacob Joseph Dix, Judge H. Thomas Padrick Jr. declared a mistrial Friday, June 7, after the jury spent 12 hours over two days deliberating, only to find themselves hopelessly deadlocked.
Dix, 29, of Clarksville, Ohio, was charged with burning an object to intimidate, a class 6 felony, for his participation in the infamous torch rally on UVA Grounds in 2017.
The trial was what is known as a case of “first impression,” when a law or legal interpretation is challenged in court for the first time. As Dix’s case was the first time Virginia Code “§ 18.2-423.01. Burning object on property of another or a highway or other public place with intent to intimidate” would be tried in a court of law, in dispute was the definition of “burning an object.” It was a legal quandary predicted by former Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Tracci in a September 2019 opinion piece for C-VILLE Weekly:
“The statute refers to ‘[burning] an object.’ The question could arise—and would in criminal law—as to whether carrying a burning torch falls within the definitional scope of burning an object. That alone could prevent a prosecution. While this memorandum distinguished the May and October torch-lit rallies from the August 11, 2017, events on UVA Grounds, the ‘threshold problem’ conforming a tiki torch to the burning objects statute presents in all three rallies.”
The aforementioned statute was itself codified as a replacement to a Jim Crow-era law banning the burning of crosses, which was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. Codified in 1950, it was intended to help prosecute Ku Klux Klan members for racial violence. In the ruling that struck the law from the books, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor took issue with the part of the Virginia statute that allowed a jury to infer the intent of the accused.
Then-candidate for Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney James Hingeley criticized Tracci’s interpretation of the law and subsequent refusal to charge anyone with the torch rally. On the campaign trail in 2019, CNN quoted him mentioning the untested burning to intimidate statute explicitly:
“There are so many people in our community … who were there on August 11 who were terrorized by torch-wielding terrorists,” he said at the time. “There’s a law, a burning objects law, that says they can be prosecuted, but our prosecutor’s not doing that.”
Now three years into his four-year term, Hingeley would finally obtain the indictments he promised on the campaign trail. However, if he and his office were looking for his day in court, Dix’s defense attorney, Charlottesville’s Peter Frazier, had other plans. After two judges recused themselves last November due to personal involvement in the matter, Frazier put forward a motion for the prosecutor, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney W. Lawton Tufts, to be removed from the case due to his prior work with anti-racist protesters and past comments about “fighting nazis.”
Despite being in front of the bench for much of the early work in the case, Hingeley came in to fight against Tufts’ removal, telling the Daily Progress that fighting against fascists and white nationalism is the pursuit of fair and unbiased law, and that “anti-racism is required,” Hingeley said. “It’s not a disqualifying factor; it’s a qualifying factor.” His arguments would ultimately be unsuccessful, and the court would appoint Henrico County Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Taylor as special prosecutor.
Information about a potential second trial for Dix was not immediately available, as requests for comment from Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office were not returned as of press time. Special prosecutor Taylor’s office declined to comment.
Frazier said that because the case is still pending, there’s not much they’re able to discuss publicly.
“We’re going to reserve comment at this time,” he says. “Obviously, we’d love to talk about our side of this, but we’re going to have to wait until we get some final answers before we can.”
Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene could barely get a word in edgewise during her June 5 appearance at the Albemarle County Office Building.
Photo by Gage Skidmore.
So (not) long!
Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, widely labeled as a Donald Trump fangirl who approaches topics like alleged space lasers and fringe internet theories with bizarre confidence, made an appearance at the Albemarle County Office Building on Wednesday, June 5.
She and a posse of supporters pulled up in a bus with a large portrait of Trump on its side. They had a message for the people of Charlottesville. The only problem? No one could hear it over the hordes of protestors.
“Make Authoritarianism Go Away,” “Try being nice, Margie,” and “Y’all means all” drowned out the congresswoman’s megaphone speech.
Greene is allegedly on the campaign trail for John McGuire, the candidate challenging Congressman Bob Good for the 5th District representative seat in the upcoming GOP primary. She publicly called Good a “backstabbing traitor” for endorsing Ron DeSantis for president rather than Trump.
Three minutes passed from the time Greene entered and exited the rally, marketed as an opportunity to “stand up for MAGA” and vote early. The crowd cheered as Greene and her train of Trump devotees got back on their red, white, and blue bus and exited the “belly of the beast,” as McGuire later dubbed it on Facebook.
“We can’t afford backstabbers when the USA is at stake,” he wrote. “Trump needs loyal fighters by his side. Thank you to MTG and to my bad ass supporters for standing up to that mob.”
‘Hoos on first
Photo by UVA Athletics Communications.
The UVA Cavaliers baseball team is headed back to the Men’s College World Series for the third time in four seasons and their seventh overall appearance in program history. Facing Kansas State in the first ever meeting between the two teams, the No. 12 Hoos beat the Wildcats 7-4 on Friday, June 7, and 10-4 Saturday, June 8, to sweep the best-of-three series in front of two sold-out crowds at Disharoon Park.
Clutch hitting was the story of the series, with 15 of the 17 runs UVA scored in the Super Regional coming with two outs. After leading just 5-4 in the bottom of the eighth inning of Game 2, the Cavalier bats came up big in the top of the ninth, driving in five more runs before shutting the door on K-State with a 1-2-3 out bottom of the ninth. The Wahoos now head to Omaha, Nebraska, where they will try to win their second MCWS, having won it all in 2015. As of press time, the match-ups for the first round series have yet to be determined.
School’s out
Charlottesville City and Albemarle County Public Schools are officially out for the summer. Final exercises began May 31 with Western Albemarle’s ceremony, and finished with Charlottesville High School’s on June 6, putting a cap on graduation season. Rising K-12 students wrapped up classes on Friday, June 7. Congratulations to the class(es) of 2024!
Inside addition
Image by VMDO Architects.
In other education news, construction crews have started work on the interior of the new Charlottesville Middle School building. To commemorate the milestone, on June 7, Buford Middle School students and staff signed a steel beam set to become part of the new gymnasium. The four-story academic building is on track to open before the start of the 2025-2026 school year, though only seventh and eighth grade students will move to the new facility at that time.
Fatal fire investigation
The Albemarle County Fire Marshal’s Office is investigating a fatal residential fire that occurred over the weekend. Albemarle County Fire Rescue responded to a reported residential fire in the 6000 block of Monacan Trail Road at approximately 5:10pm on June 8. One person was home at the time of the fire and died as a result of their injuries. At press time, the identity of the deceased has not been released, and the cause of the fire does not appear suspicious.
