Author: Tami Keaveny

Arts Editor Tami Keaveny has navigated the world of arts and entertainment through a variety of marketing and public relations jobs. She has worked at WBCN, BAM Music magazine, Bonnie Simmons Management, Bill Graham Presents, Tickets.com, ClearChannel Entertainment, WordHampton Public Relations, Starr Hill Presents, and SMG before taking the desk as Arts Editor at C-VILLE Weekly. She calls San Francisco State University her alma mater and Charlottesville, Virginia her home. Hobbies include: amateur food photography, junk food culture (Food Seen), orchid killing, offensive cross-stitch, vintage glassware collecting, and wine with everything.

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Arts Culture

Culture Pick: Meet the artist

Julie Gough is an artist, writer, and curator who lives in Hobart, Tasmania. She will speak about her work on Thursday. Publicity image.

The Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection is checking in with its artists to see how they are faring through the pandemic, what they’re working on, and how their artistic and cultural perspectives shape their experiences in this strange new time. Next in the Meet the Artist series is Julie Gough, a Trawlwoolway artist from Tebrikunna in Northeastern Tasmania. Gough was an artist in residence at the Kluge-Ruhe in 2017, and her current focus is on sound and video installations.

Thursday 6/4. 7pm. kluge-ruhe.org.

 

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Arts Culture

PICK: Kid Pan Alley

Kid Pan Alley will host an online concert on May 4 featuring young singers who have participated in online songwriting classes. Publicity image.

Can’t hold it back anymore: Is there a young Stephen Sondheim or Bruce Springsteen at home who’s aching to flex some creative muscle? Or maybe your child is still singing Frozen’s “Let It Go” on repeat. Kid Pan Alley can nurture that love of music through its online songwriting workshops, which are aimed at spurring artistry and talent in children from grades three to six, with interactive concerts offered for younger students. kidpanalley.org/online. Ongoing.

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Arts Culture

PICK: Shelf Life

Tara Laskowski appears in the online series Shelf Life to discuss her novel One Night Gone on Thursday. Publicity image.

Beach bound: When uber-popular mystery writer Tana French calls your debut novel “a subtle but relentlessly unsettling book,” you know you’ve got what it takes to thrill readers. Tara Laskowski appears in the Virginia Festival of the Book’s streaming series Shelf Life to discuss One Night Gone, a suspense story set in an off-season beach community awash with dark secrets. The series features livestreamed author conversations and book talks on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Thursday 4/30. Noon, vabook.org.

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Uncategorized

PICK: Community Coloring Book

The art of Chicho Lorenzo is just one of the many artists who've contributed to the Community Coloring Book. Courtesy of the Bridge PAI.

Like a rainbow: In the search for silver linings during these homebound days, the Community Coloring Book unites us through a collection of designs by local artists. With contributions from Chicho Lorenzo, Sam Gray, Thomas Dean, Bolanle Adeboye, Federico Cuatlacuatl, Charles Peale, and many others, the collaboration is the most recent addition to a series of inspirational and creative engagements from The Bridge that includes the Quarantine Haiku and Art Apart. Download, share, or send in your own design—let’s color our world together.  thebridgepai.org. Ongoing.

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Arts Culture

Pick: Craft Cville’s Virtual Pop-Up

A Tupac and Biggie magnet set is just one of the fun oddities at the Craft C'ville Virtual Pop-Up. Image courtesy of craft-cville.com.

Making it interesting: Is your shopping addiction really being served by refreshing that grocery order and impulse buying on Amazon? Sure, Etsy can take you down some twisted, cash-grabbing rabbit holes, but the most fulfilling isolation void-filling purchases may be at Craft Cville’s Virtual Pop-Up. How about a set of magnets that features Tupac and Biggie for that hard-to-shop-for friend? Perhaps you’re in the mood for curbside buttercream shots or a cake flight. Or maybe you’re just over it, and the Bad-Ass Bitch Any Scent I F’n Want soy wax candle appeals to your need to burn it all down. More than 30 locally based vendors have convened on the site to offer an array of unique, sometimes strange, handcrafted items.

Through 5/10. craft-cville.com.

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Coronavirus

In it together: Life under quarantine in our Italian sister city

Caterina Martini in 2017, outside her home in Tuscany, where she is currently quarantined. Photo courtesy subject.

Just weeks ago, Caterina Martini was celebrating the first birthday of her daughter, surrounded by friends and family at a large gathering. Hugs and kisses passed freely from person to person.

Life changed quickly for Martini and her family on March 10, when the Italian government issued a national quarantine to fight the spread of the coronavirus.

Until further notice, she is sharing her home with her closest family members, just outside of Charlottesville’s Italian sister city Poggio a Caiano.

Martini, who visited Charlottesville in 2016 through an exchange organized by the Sister City Commission, says the quarantine is currently in effect until April 3, and that no one in her circle has become infected.

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced on March 11 that all bars, restaurants, hairdressers, and nonessential company departments had to close, in a move that is sure to further damage the Italian economy.

“The largest part of us don’t see this as an economic crisis, but as the inevitable consequence of a necessary safety measure,” says Martini. “We are all concentrated on the virus and on the prevention of it, so we do what we have to, to survive—literally.”

At the time of her email to us, she reported that citizens in her region of Tuscany (where there are currently about 40 reported cases of coronavirus) have “permission to go to the supermarket and to drugstores, but we have to follow some rules, like use a surgical mask and gloves to protect us, enter just two or three at a time in the stores and stay almost a meter away from other people.”

Martini also says that in order to travel long distances within the country, or to visit a neighbor or family member, Italians need a special certificate to prove that the trip is necessary.

Public offices are open, operating by appointment, and taking the same types of precautions.  As for those who need parts for their Vespa or a new pasta sieve? “We can still have almost everything delivered (Amazon is working a lot), and the trash is still handled regularly,” says Martini.

President Donald Trump’s initial denial of the magnitude of this health crisis (instead focusing on financial mitigation, which had little effect on the stock market) has led to many U.S. citizens feeling vulnerable, as Americans face a lack of resources including test kits (it’s been reported that the state of Virginia has less than 700 available). Italy too was late in recognizing the pace and impact of the outbreak, and quickly became Europe’s coronavirus epicenter.

Christian Althaus, who models infectious diseases at the University of Bern in Switzerland told The Guardian: “You can argue they [Italy] noticed it late, but that could have happened elsewhere too. Once they realised what was happening, I think they took it seriously. The first lockdown was the right choice, and expanding it nationwide probably too. They realise they need to curb the epidemic.”

Martini does not deny the economic peril, but says Italians will weather it together. “The quarantine, for the economy, is disastrous, but as we usually say in Italy, ‘We are all on the same boat,’” she says. “So we hang on, and we use this as an opportunity to stay with our families, at home, doing the things that usual life doesn’t permit us to do.” It’s a sentiment that could certainly ring true on our side of the globe in the weeks to come.

Tami Keaveny is a member of the Charlottesville Sister City Commission.

Categories
Arts

Screw you: Comedian Lewis Black defies authority and rejects stupidity

When I reach politically enraged comedian Lewis Black by phone on an early February morning following the Iowa caucus, I expect he’ll be ready with one of his signature rants, and after a polite exchange of salutations, he does not disappoint. Black immediately unleashes a torrent of frustrations. Clearly he wants me to listen—which is really the only choice, as he does not pause often for breathing or questions. He tosses out fuck and schmuck like confetti, and his quick-witted cultural jabs change lanes like a getaway car.

Black’s bringing his It Gets Better Every Day tour to The Paramount Theater on February 28, and he says that sometimes audience members don’t get his live act. They comment after the show that he didn’t mention “him” enough, or sometimes the show wasn’t political enough. (He refuses to call Trump by name or title.) But Black is a master craftsman in the art of wry exposition. In a career that began with playwriting, then took off through standup and a recurring role on “The Daily Show,” his agility at doling out whip-smart observations in the guise of a cranky narrator has earned Black legions of fans who do get it.

C-VILLE Weekly: Here we are in an election year and you’re a political guy…

Lewis Black: I would consider myself more of a social satirist than a political satirist, because it’s more of what these guys do than who they are. It’s a big differential, it’s literally an endless list of jackasses.

I have an inordinate amount of trouble with both parties. With the Democrats, I’m so astonished, I mean you’re impeaching the president..and that night you have a debate…and you go after each other. It was more important for you to be elected than for you to deal with what was happening historically. Seriously.

They can be just as tone-deaf as the Republicans. There’s no defense of it. None. …Screw you! I’m sick of it.

This must be a good time for your social commentary?

It is to a point. People say he must be good for comedy…about “the leader,” as I call him. I say he’s good for comedy in the way that a stroke is good for a nap.

Who is the funniest person in politics?

I don’t think any of them are funny. I think there’s not an adult among them. …The basic behaviors, the basic lack of a sense of history, and the lack of you know, basic knowledge.

Do you think the last election was rigged?

No. No! Seriously? No. You know why? They’re not that competent. None of them. No, it wasn’t rigged. You know what was unbelievable. Nominating two candidates that no one liked…You’ve got to show up in states you’re supposed to show up in to win! The arrogance on both sides is beyond belief.

Have you always been angry?

About the state of government? Somewhat. I was born and raised around Washington, D.C., so yeah. Stupidity has always gotten to me. From the time I was a kid and they said “In case of nuclear attack get under your desk.” I said, “Really?” …That was literally when my train went off the rails. I’ve never been big on authority. You have to take authority with a grain of salt…most authority tries to be about its power and you know, “Fuck you!”

You’ve logged 23 years on “The Daily Show.” Who’s your favorite host?

There’s something I like about all of them. I have more freedom now. But the most freedom I had was in the beginning. They needed material and I had material…I would go on and improv.

Who opened the door for your brand of humor?

All sorts. Carlin, Pryor, Bruce. I think I pale in comparison.

I met George a couple of times, and he was really instrumental in my career because he started to tell people to come and see me…and that was just huge to me. At that point it didn’t matter how I did…if he liked what I was doing, then fuck ’em.

These days you are well-known, but who do you get mistaken for?

Franken.

So do you ever just pretend you’re Al Franken?

No. I get livid. I know Al and I say, “Really?” First off, I’m better looking than Al, so get over it.

Any regrets about the Opie and Anthony Naked Teen Voyeur Bus stunt? Would you do it again today? (Black and 14 others were arrested in 2000 for a radio show bus ride that featured nude or semi-nude models in the windows.)

I wouldn’t do it now, because essentially, I don’t need to. It was advertising. But I’m not embarrassed by it on any level.

To be honest, if I was sitting on the bus ogling them that would be one thing. Here’s the choice: Sit in a studio with two schmucks, or get in a bus that’s going around New York City with five topless girls.

Those are the choices?

Those are the choices. What are you gonna do? You tell me? I’m not selling anything, I’m making nothing off of it. …Also, there was nothing against the law!

Those women chose to be topless…I’m watching the reaction of the people on the street to see if that bothers them…and nothing. There’s old ladies waving, happy. It was just before Christmas for god’s sake. It was spectacular.

Which is worse, that I did that, or that Giuliani had us stopped because Bill Clinton, of all people, was going to be coming on the road we’re on a half an hour later. We were three minutes from the studio when we got busted. We were taken in and held for a day and a half.

What were you charged with?

Disrupting the public, and public nuisance, and some other thing. I got off that bus and had a show that weekend. You couldn’t get a ticket to my show. For me, it flipped everything around.

Tell me about The Rant is Due, which takes place at the end of your shows.

That I am very proud of. …For the people in Charlottesville, anybody in the state of Virginia, or folks around the country…the audience is asked when they come in, is there anything you want to yell about or include about your town? I pick the ones I think will work…and it’s livestreamed throughout the world for free. It becomes a show written by people in the town.

Lewis Black / The Paramount Theater/ February 28

Categories
Arts

ARTS Pick: The Piano Lesson

The Piano Lesson follows the legacy of a piano and its various owners, causing an African American family to struggle with how to best put their past to use. Cara Walton Photography.

Key players: When relaunching the Charlottesville Players Guild at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, Executive Director Andrea Douglas told C-VILLE: “If you’re going to announce yourself as an institution that addresses the 20th-century African American experience in the most interdisciplinary way, there is no other artist that does it as completely and thoroughly as August Wilson does.” Set in the 1930s, The Piano Lesson is part of Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle, and his second play to win a Pulitzer Prize. Directed by David Vaughn Straughn and produced by Edwina Herring, it centers around a piano that’s entangled in a family’s history of slavery.  As relatives quarrel over whether to keep the piano, they reflect on their own cultural heritage, and are challenged to embrace where they’ve come from in order to truly move forward.

Through 12/15. $10-15, times vary. Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, 233 Fourth St., NW. 260-8720.

Categories
Arts

Blooming with joy: Lewis Miller shares his life in flowers at TEDx Charlottesville

Designer Lewis Miller created a street art movement with his flower flashes in New York City. He will be in Charlottesville to talk about it at TEDx on Friday. Publicity photo

In this busy, challenging world, many of us have to be reminded to stop and smell the roses. To pause, take in the good, and relax in a moment of appreciation. Sure it’s a cliché, but for floral designer Lewis Miller it’s tangible and powerful. It’s a way of life and an art form. One that’s brought him great success in his design house LMD New York, which he founded in 2002.

For Miller, the lure of the blooms business was cultivated by a youth spent on California farms, and the many generations of family members connected to gardening. “I would say starting at the age of 7 or 8, I knew that flowers would be a real and meaningful part of my life,” he says. “But it wasn’t until I went to college for horticulture that things began to click into place and I seriously began to consider the business of flowers and working in the industry.”

Being a sought-after designer brings international acclaim and high-profile clients who are headliners in the world of fashion, design, photography, art, politics, and architecture, but his unofficial work may be making the biggest impact.

Lewis Miller

In 2016, Miller began his “flower flashes,” repurposing truckloads of flowers from his events, hitting the streets in the middle of the night to rearrange them into surprising works of art. “Happening upon a six-foot-tall geyser of sunflowers on a grimy sidewalk in New York City is equivalent to seeing a Bengal tiger or a peacock on a subway,” says Miller. “You are forced to stop and look up and react. Our mission from day one was to gift New Yorkers flowers and to put a smile on their faces.”

It’s an idea with a broad appeal that has gained Miller lots of attention, and he’s started putting together flower flashes in other cities. But the heart of his effort is really quite simple: Share the joy.

“I am in the business of fantasy and flowers, but my services are for a select group of fortunate people,” he says. “If we can change the shape of people’s days for the better by creating something surprising and make people smile the way they do when they witness a random act of kindness, then we have managed to do something really special and magical.”

“Happening upon a six-foot-tall geyser of sunflowers on a grimy sidewalk in New York City is equivalent to seeing a Bengal tiger or a peacock on a subway,” says Miller.

As for what sparks floral joy for Miller? He is not opposed to skipping the flowers altogether and using only foliage and greens, or featuring the less exotic. “I am probably the one florist who also embraces the ‘unloved’ flowers,” says Miller. “I am a huge champion of the carnation. Many people think they are cheap, drugstore flowers but I love them. They smell of cloves, they have a high petal count, they are beautiful companions and play supporting roles to roses and other show-stopping blooms. I also love gladiolus!”

Miller will discuss his work at The Paramount Theater on November 8 at TEDx Charlottesville, and on Saturday, November 9, he will teach a master flower workshop at Montalto.

Categories
Arts

Bigfoot sighting

Big Fur follows world champion taxidermist Ken Walker as he searches for, then makes his own, Bigfoot. A discussion with Ken Walker and director Dan Wayne follows the movie playing Thursday at Virginia Film Festival. Publicity image.

“The Elvis Presley of taxidermy.” That’s what fans call Ken Walker, the star of the documentary Big Fur.

Part conspiracy theory, part environmental commentary, and part obsession, this “love story” follows Walker’s personal and artistic journey as he sets out on a fact-finding mission in order to build, true to form and scale, a replica of Bigfoot.

Part crazy? Maybe. But Walker is a believer—and an expert taxidermist, a three-time world champion in the field, who’s recreated extinct and endangered animals for the Smithsonian and the National Zoo, and been featured in National Geographic magazine.

Director Dan Wayne, followed Walker through the process of building and unveiling Patty, his entry in the 2015 World Taxidermy Championships in Springfield, Missouri, and says he’s not sure if the animal exists, but the film has a larger message. “I love the idea, but to me Bigfoot is more than a relic hominid. Bigfoot represents true wilderness, or maybe even the guardian of the wilderness. If Bigfoot exists, he shares the same habitat as countless other critters.”

As for Walker, while winning Best in Show at the competition would be great, he has a second agenda in the movie—hoping that putting Patty on display will “prompt some hunter to open his freezer and pull out the proof that Bigfoot is real.”

Big Fur is a wry, funny portrait of an eccentric artist-hero that titillates the imagination. As author and naturalist Bob Pyle says in the movie, “if we allow the land to become so tamed that we can no longer even imagine the possibility of wild hairy apes out there, we will have lost something more profound than Bigfoot.”

Big Fur screens on Thursday at Vinegar Hill Theatre at 10:30pm. Discussion to follow with director Dan Wayne and subject Ken Walker, moderated by Chandler Ferrebee.