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Living The Editor's Desk

We love this town: Get sporty

I grew up in the city and I love the country, a fact borne out by the fact that I have lived as an adult in New York, Boston, and Chicago, and also in Kyle, Rhinelander, and Sylva. It’s a quintessential American desire to marry Mayberry to the Metropolis, hence the suburb, and my experiences at either end of the spectrum have done nothing to discourage my search for a middle passage. If anything, though, my tastes have conformed to the best attributes of either extreme, making compromise more difficult to swallow.

My belly, my hunger for good conversation, and the internal whisper that tells me I need to be exactly where it’s happening fit in the city. But I am happiest when I’m walking in the woods, or floating on the water, or fussing with plants in the yard. When I’m feeling down and out, I close my eyes and go to a little cabin in the mountains where a river runs through it. As for people, I like both types, city and country. You can talk to strangers in a city and come away feeling inspired; the country makes jokers of us all.

When I was a kid, I was a sports nut, and the need for physical exertion still runs deep in me. Trying to get my fix has meant different things in different places. Soccer and tennis are my sporty constants; running and riding bike practical methods of moving; getting out in the woods or on the water, in whatever form, my sanity.

Some highlights from past locales: running on the prairie in South Dakota with the mustangs following along the fence line; cross country skiing on a tracked forest loop in Wisconsin with the snow-covered spruce trees muffling every sound but breath, and on the Blue Ridge Parkway near Soco Gap, with the high peaks of Cherokee country stretching south to the Georgia line; fishing for northerns from a Coleman canoe on the Wisconsin River and running the Tuckasegee during high water in a tandem sit on top kayak.

If revving up the engine in a rural place is more about connecting to what the Lakota call wamakaskan (all the things that move on the earth), city sports are social. I learned a lot about people playing four-on-four soccer at the Sheep’s Meadow in Central Park, where Algerians, Bosnians, Jamaicans, and Malians came from every borough to represent. Public park tennis in Cambridgeport meant partnering with a community college English teacher to beat up on a Trinidadian cricketeer and a chain-smoking Korean-American psychiatrist.

Which brings me back to Charlottesville. Since moving here a tad over a year ago, I have ridden my bike to work nearly every morning, rain or shine. I can run to the river from my house. If I feel like fishing, I can pack up my backcountry kit and hit the Moorman’s or ride over to the Rivanna to fish sunfish and bass with poppers. So there’s that side. But I’ve also found great international pickup soccer at Carr’s Hill, Mad Bowl, and Lambeth, and SOCA men’s teams that have much of the flavor, and skill level, of the big city. I haven’t yet had time to track down a men’s doubles game, but I have, on one occasion, experienced a cutthroat horseshoes battle where the trash talking was of a similar ilk.

Still, with all of those amusements spread out on the red-checked tablecloth of my sporting fancy, my fondest memory thus far has been walking my North Downtown backyard one moonless night this summer, where, beneath the high tree canopy the fireflies emerged by the hundreds and the katydids thrummed their million-voiced song. A little touch of country in the city.

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Arts

ARTS Pick: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Image: Hamner Theater

Saturday & Sunday 8/25 & 8/26

Behold the night

Theater and wine go way back. The first known festivals were held in celebration of Dionysus, and what better way to enjoy Shakespeare than on the grounds of a picturesque vineyard whilst sipping on your preferred varietal? In the intrepid fashion for which it has come to be known, the Hamner Theater is celebrating the inaugural season of its Shakespeare Winery Tour with one of the Bard’s best-loved and most famous comedies, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Tour details are at www.hamnertheater.com. $10, 7pm. Glass House Winery, 1362 Fortunes Cove Ln., Free Union. 263-5392.

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Living

Always warm, always charming, always C&O

Dean Maupin completed his purchase of the C&O on June 4, but don’t worry—no big changes are in store. Photo: Andrea Hubbell

Inside the C&O’s big wooden door, it was cool and dark and reminiscent of lovely evenings spent there—some for occasions, others for a final drink on a night I wasn’t ready to end. Volumes could be filled with patrons’ stories, but it was those of proprietor Dave Simpson (who’s eminently quotable, but especially on the heels of tapping Keswick’s Dean Maupin as his successor) that nearly filled my journal.

Simpson appeared wearing his uniform of dark jeans, a black shirt, and a belt fastened with a silver C&O belt buckle. He’s been wearing his hair (more salt than pepper now) longer over the years and it, along with the grin of a cheshire cat, belies his 58 years. But it’s likely the 32 C&O years under that belt buckle that’ve kept him young enough that he’s only now slowing down.

C&O’s potato-crusted Rag Mountain trout with salsa verde, sweet roasted bell peppers, and beurre blanc. Photo: Andrea Hubbell

Growing up on Chesapeake Street, Simpson and his brother used to watch the C&O railroad workers. On his 13th birthday at Shoney’s, Simpson got a busboy job. “That was my first exposure to being around adults other than my parents and I was spellbound by the people that inhabited the industry,” said Simpson. He cooked in the Bay Area, but returned to Charlottesville in 1980, heading straight for the C&O, which Philip Stafford and Sandy McAdams had opened four years prior. After two years as a prep cook, Simpson bought what he described as a white elephant: “Very little hard value, great emotional value.”

Three decades have passed, and while 80-120 covers a night plus a large catering arm have turned a pretty profit, it’s still the ineffable that outvalues the numbers. That C&O magic stayed with Maupin, whose year spent cooking there (1995-1996) stood out to Simpson. “I thought, this is clearly what Dean’s going to do for a living, but I knew his interests were far too grand to stay put for too long at C&O. It was fun to follow him in his successes at the Greenbrier, The Clifton Inn, and Keswick.”

The two reconnected while sitting on the advisory board of PVCC’s new culinary school. Maupin, eager to return to an independent restaurant and Simpson, looking for an heir apparent. Minus 20 years, they could be twins—mirror images of boyish hair, rectangular glasses, earnestness, and graciousness. Moons aligned and by June, Maupin came “home” to the C&O.

“I had a great love affair with the energy and what I learned here. Now, I have a chance to do my own thing all while holding the respect of the place. It will be a really happy marriage,” said Maupin.

Few marriages inspire as much rhapsody as this one, between a restaurant with Midas’ touch and a chef who turns everything he touches into something that, as one devotee put it, you dream about for years. Maupin spent June in the office with paperwork—a job that many chefs lament, but one that he relishes. It was mid-July when his first typed menu (the calligraphy was courtesy of the recently retired Elaine Futhey, see The Working Pour) graced the tables, and changes were slight. “You’d be a fool to mess around with a few dishes, but 70 percent of the menu will be ever-changing.” The artichoke paté, steak chinoise, and Cuban steak are among the relics that Maupin kept, knowing that their removal would mean mutiny. “I want to reach our 50-year anniversary and tout that we’re still doing the same stuff,” he said.

Even the new dishes aren’t entirely new. Admirers will recognize incarnations from his days at Clifton and Keswick. His ingredients are choice without being extravagant, and his style’s refined without being pretentious. Most of all, Maupin makes food you want eat, not analyze. Gnocchi made with humble russet potatoes turn holy when they join glistening chanterelles, a spry scatter of chives, and a tangle of pea tendrils atop fontina fondue. Potato-crusted rag mountain trout tastes earthy over a verdant basil and dill salsa verde with smoky bell pepper coulis.

While the plates’ complexities challenge you to name that ingredient, their rusticity demands that you do nothing more than devour them. It’s a juxtaposition shared by Maupin himself, who’s extraordinarily talented, yet chats with guests in the bistro before excusing himself to “go cook for y’all now.”

As the fish tank gurgles on at the C&O, expect the menu to get “funkier,” breaking out of the course confines with small plates and sides for the table. New ideas bounce between Maupin and Simpson—brunch, pop-ups, a food truck—but they’re quick to remember the formidable fact that in the restaurant business, you’re never done.

Aside from supporting his scion, Simpson’s focus for the next few years will be catering. And after that? “I’m not sure. I wouldn’t be a very good golfer. I like to be useful somehow.”

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Living

We love this town: Feels like home to me

Illustration: Thomas James

Prior to graduating from college, my assumption was that entering adulthood meant settling down with a full-time job and a husband, maybe some kids. Turns out, transitioning into a full-fledged adult takes time.

My college years were blessed with wonderful roommates. With the exception of the fluke semester I spent in a dorm with a psychology major who ate crunchy Asian noodles for breakfast while watching “Fresh Prince of Bel Air,” my cohabitation experiences were excellent, and by senior year I was sharing an apartment with two girl friends who shared an understanding: If you finish the milk, you replace it. Our study habits were similar, and our boyfriends got along well enough to entertain themselves while we gorged on pepperoni pizza and “Say Yes to the Dress” marathons. Roommates were synonymous with friends, and the thought that this didn’t necessarily hold true in the adult world never crossed my mind.

In an attempt to save some money and make a friend or two, when I arrived in Charlottesville I moved into a house with two girls whom I found on Craigslist. With its one bathroom, thin walls, and not nearly enough counter space, the house could not have been intended for more than two. Turns out, “two girls” actually meant “two girls, their boyfriends, and occasionally their children.”

After a couple months, I ran out of responses to “He probably ate it because he didn’t know whose it was,” and concluded that my own sanity was far more valuable than saving a few bucks, so I ventured out to hunt for my first apartment.

I now come home to a kitchen still full of the food I bought, can take a shower whenever I feel like it, and am lucky enough to have a friendly, laidback landlord who fixes my garbage disposal promptly and doesn’t mind when my neighbors and I transplant a bush in the yard to begin a vegetable garden.

Immediately upon relocating to an apartment where I wouldn’t have to clean up after four other adults, I made my next adult move: I got a pet.

Adopting my 2-year-old tortoiseshell calico, Sooki (affectionately named after a “Gilmore Girls” character), was a surprisingly smooth process. My editor, who doubles as one of my closest friends in town, shares my secret desire to become a crazy cat lady, and helped me bypass rows of SPCA cages until finding the slightly neurotic multicolored cat with white paws who immediately licked my hand and stole my heart.

Sooki is by far the best roommate I’ve had in Charlottesville. I have to clean up after her, but she doesn’t have opposable thumbs.

Because I have not yet reached crazy cat lady status, establishing a circle of friends was a priority when I moved here. But no one told me how challenging it is to make friends as a young adult. Shockingly, my short-lived house-sharing did not lead to lifelong friendships, so I was left to my own devices and won’t pretend that it wasn’t a struggle at first.

As an introvert who occupationally functions as an extrovert, developing new friendships was daunting. But after a few months of striking up conversations with strangers at Skybar, bonding with fellow reporters inside the Rotunda at 2am, and attending Fridays After Five with radio cohorts, I’m beginning to build a core of companions, which I so sorely missed after graduating.

I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a full-fledged grownup yet. I still find myself eating popcorn and string cheese for dinner on occasion, and I can’t get out of bed without hitting “Snooze” six times. But I couldn’t imagine taking these baby steps toward adulthood anywhere other than Charlottesville, which is beginning to feel like home.

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News

No retrial for George Huguely

George Huguely was a lacrosse player set to graduate from UVA in 2010 when he was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Yeardley Love, a death he contends was accidental. Charlottesville police

Convicted murderer George Huguely sat in Charlottesville Circuit court once again Wednesday while his attorneys argued the need for a retrial, presenting a number of motions to Judge Edward Hogshire. During the three-hour trial on Wednesday, Hogshire heard multiple arguments from the defense, but denied each request and said “I think there was overwhelming evidence to support that verdict,” crushing any hopes of lowering Huguely’s second-degree murder and grand larceny convictions.

Defense attorney Rhonda Quagliana first returned again to the argument that the court should have granted her request to delay the case when she fell ill during the February trial. She said a courtroom is a last vestige of sorts, one of the only places in society where everything—from standing up for the judge to wearing suits instead of cut-offs—is done for symbolic importance. Continuing the case without her not only violated Huguely’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel of his choosing, she said, but it sent a bad message that she shouldn’t have been here.

But Hogshire stuck to his guns, saying he saw no basis for a Sixth Amendment violation.

Quagliana’s defense team partner, Francis McQ. Lawrence, then argued that several members of the selected jury had been prejudiced due to their connections to UVA and past experiences with alcoholism and domestic violence. With exaggerated tone and inflection, Lawrence read aloud several juror comments that he found inappropriate, and argued that several jurors couldn’t prove their ability to serve on the jury without prejudice.

But Hogshire shot him down, too. Had any of the jurors been unsuitable, “I never would’ve allowed any of those people to sit on this jury,” he said. He described the task of carefully choosing jurors, and said that part of his job is to read body language and determine credibility.

Finally, Quagliana and Hogshire discussed the decision to limit expert witness Dr. Ronald H. Uscinski’s testimony. Lengthy e-mail correspondence between Uscinski and Quagliana had surfaced that almost led to the testimony being thrown out altogether, and Hogshire said allowing Uscinski to take the stand at all was generous. He said the way Quagliana coordinated with expert witnesses was inappropriate, but also not a basis for a new trial.

While his attorneys went over the same ground in a last-ditch effort at a retrial, Huguely, unshaven and clad in an oversized striped jumpsuit, looked oddly relaxed. Sixth months to the day after his conviction, he’s clearly mastered drinking water and scratching his nose while handcuffed, and the spaced-out, hollow gaze often seen on his face during the February weeks in court was gone. He was attentive during the arguments, but seemed unsurprised by and almost at peace with Hogshire’s decision. Charlottesville seems ready to put the case that seized so much media attention away for good next week. Maybe Huguely is too.

Categories
Living

We love this town: A friend indeed

Illustration: Thomas James

It was peer pressure, ultimately, that led me to Charlottesville. In May of 2007, I had just graduated from James Madison University, and was entering my 22nd year in Harrisonburg, Virginia (which, by any account, is about four years too many). My two best friends whom I’d known since middle school were packing up and moving over the mountain in August, one to attend grad school at UVA, the other to start her teaching career in Greene County. If I was going too, I had a deadline.

I’ve always thought of Charlottesville fondly. As a teenager, I would take trips to the Downtown Mall with my mom and her best friend. We’d have lunch and shop at Cha Cha’s and, if we hit it on the right day, the now-extinct vintage section of Bittersweet when it was still in the Glass Building. For my first homecoming dance, we came to look for a dress—ultimately deciding on a tea-length black velvet number with hot pink tulle lining from a now-defunct shop on the Corner—and then had lunch at Hamiltons’, which we thought was hilarious because my date’s name was, coincidentally, Brian Hamilton.

About 15 minutes after I sent my resume to C-VILLE that June after graduation, then-editor Cathy Harding gave me a call (“Timing is everything,” she said) and asked me to come in. And come in. And come in. (It was actually a lot of hoops to jump through for a part-time proofreading position, if we’re being totally honest.) I commuted from Harrisonburg to C’ville (and C-VILLE) for about a month after that, making the hour-long trip four days a week. In July, I got another part-time job at Caspari and a one-bedroom on North First Street that I couldn’t reasonably afford. My roots were firmly planted Downtown.

Here are a few things I remember from the next few years: Walking home after overindulging with my girlfriends on wine and bruschette at enoteca, and stopping to get our fortunes read by Ed Rowe, the homeless Tarot card reader who has since passed away; evenings spent on my front porch listening to my neighbor play his guitar, not knowing he had an audience; meeting my friends at Continental Divide for dinner after every paycheck to get margaritas, a Santa Fe enchilada, and a slice (or three) of adobe pie; a late evening spent in Spring Street waiting for my friend to decide to buy a silver dress she likely didn’t need but which looked amazing on her; and taking in Devon Sproule’s New Year’s Eve show at Gravity Lounge, then heading to Blue Light, where my friend cajoled two random men into kissing us at midnight (sorry about that, Guy With Beard). Charlottesville, it seemed, had become as much a part of our friendship those first few years as American Eagle had in seventh grade.

When you’re young, it doesn’t really matter where you are, as long as you have your friends. Now that those particular friends have moved away, and it’s just me and Charlottesville, well, we’re still getting to know each other. But the thing that I’ve learned about this town (and have come to appreciate the most), is that it’s ever-changing. There’s always another concert to see, another dress to buy, another stranger to meet. Or, if you’re lucky, to exchange a midnight kiss with and never see again.

Categories
Arts

Buena Vista Social Club screens at the Library

Documentaries which focus on the process of recording albums or staging concerts are usually only of interest for die-hard fans and completists; it’s not often that one makes musical and political history and gets nominated for an Oscar. But The Buena Vista Social Club is significant for a number of reasons.

When Ry Cooder, the acclaimed guitarist who has seemingly collaborated with nearly everyone, traveled to Cuba in 1999 to track down the aging musicians of the titular club, much of their music had rarely been heard outside of the country due to the US cultural embargo. The album Cooder produced for them, the accompanying documentary by Wim Wenders, and the resulting concerts around the US and Europe all catapulted the musicians (including Juan de Marcos González and Ibrahim Ferrer) to international fame and acclaim, and with good reason: the music is fantastic.

The Jefferson-Madison Regional Library will screen The Buena Vista Social Club on Thursday, August 23rd at 7:00pm. The event is free and open to the public.

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News

Is targeting voter fraud in Albemarle County worth the effort?

Polling place sign
A sign directing voters to an Albemarle polling place. File photo.

As debate over Virginia’s controversial new voter ID law rages on, Republicans on the Albemarle County Electoral Board have quietly orchestrated an investigation into what they say are serious vulnerabilities in local voter registration lists. It’s a crusade that’s raised legal questions over improper reproduction of court documents and divided the three-member Board. But vocal Tea Party activist and Board secretary Dr. Clara Belle Wheeler said it’s a necessary step toward avoiding voter fraud—something many Democrats say is a non-issue—ahead of the November elections.

In June, Wheeler and fellow Republican Electoral Board member Alan Swinger started a study of 450 questionnaires of Albemarle jurors who were excused from duty for reasons that should also bar them from voting, and then cross-checked the names against those in the Virginia Election and Registration Information System—a process used by several other Virginia municipalities to pinpoint people who should be pulled from local voter rolls.

They found six people who claimed they were non-citizens, three who identified themselves as felons, two whose families said they were deceased, and 148 who said they’d moved out of Albemarle County still on the voter rolls.

In an August 16 letter explaining the findings to the State Board of Elections, Wheeler extrapolated, saying those numbers could mean that out of about 70,000 registered voters, 3,710 shouldn’t be registered—an error rate of a little over 5 percent.

“This likelihood compromises the integrity of the voting system by exposing it to voter fraud,” Wheeler wrote. The letter went on to urge the state Board to help Albemarle County purge improperly registered voters from its rolls before November, and to encourage other localities to go through their own jury questionnaires “to assess the potential magnitude of the unauthorized voter registration problem” and clean up lists statewide.

But not everyone thinks that’s a good idea.

Albemarle Commonwealth’s Attorney Denise Lunsford said she was surprised when she learned in early August that Wheeler and Swinger had examined years’ worth of jury questionnaires—and alarmed when she found out they’d been photocopied.

“A jury list is not a public record to be exposed to the general public,” Lunsford said, and questionnaires contain sensitive information, including addresses and Social Security numbers. A judge has to agree there’s good cause to examine them, she said, and even then, two Virginia Supreme Court decisions say making copies is prohibited.

Wheeler did get judicial permission to review the records, but photocopying them could get somebody charged with contempt of court, Lunsford said.

The county Electoral Board is split on the matter, too. James Heilman, a former registrar, elections consultant, and the lone Democrat on the three-member Board, said that while he initially said he was O.K. with the plan to dig into jury questionnaires, he voted against going forward with it once he learned the Board had to clear legal hurdles to access the information. He also said he didn’t support Wheeler’s decision to contact the state once the study was done.

“I believe voter registration issues are the purview of the registrar and the state Board, and I think those have shared due diligence in the work to keep our rolls clean,” Heilman said, and local staff and appointed officials’ tiime would be better spent preparing for the upcoming elections.

“I’m just as much as anybody else for having our election rolls clean,” he said. “But there’s a point at which looking for this person or that person on a roll of 70,000 people takes up a lot of time that’s more wisely spent on the electoral process, which is what the Electoral Board is all about.”

It’s not clear whether Wheeler and Swinger’s investigation turned up any actual fraud. County registrar Jake Washburne said that of the six non-citizens found on the rolls, for instance, one was determined to be a city resident, two had become citizens since they filled out the jury questionnaire, and three had no voting history. Of the four who indicated they were felons, he said, three had registered before their convictions and hadn’t voted since, and one had simply ticked the wrong box on the jury questionnaire.

But Wheeler said clean voter rolls are a legal mandate, and there simply aren’t enough checks in the system to make sure people who don’t belong on registered voter lists aren’t there—whether because they’re not citizens, they’ve moved, had their right to vote stripped, or died.

“There are an awful lot of people who die, and it doesn’t get reported,” she said. “Nobody signs a death certificate, they’re buried in the backyard and nobody ever knows they’re dead.”

The lack of oversight means the entire system is vulnerable, she said. “Your vote is one of the most sacred things you’ve got, particularly in our country, and if someone is going to presume to steal your vote by diluting your choice, then you’ve been disenfranchised.”

Wheeler said she and others want states to be able to cross-check their registration databases with federal lists of legal citizens, death records, and felons, but right now, that isn’t possible, and using jury exclusion information is a good alternative—and one that’s used by other Virginia municipalities.

“The system needs to be tightened up so people don’t fall through the holes and the cracks,” she said. “This checking the exclusions on the jury lists was quick and easy, and it was the most straightforward way we had.”

As for the improper photocopying, Wheeler said it was “an honest mistake,” and Lunsford said it’s unlikely anyone will actually be charged with contempt—though the copied records were ordered returned and destroyed.

Ultimately, Wheeler said, the purge was as much about informing voters as it was about cleaning up the rolls. “We want to educate,” she said, and make sure people know that if they move, it’s their responsibility to re-register.  “We don’t want people to be surprised on election day.”

Categories
Living

Best of C-VILLE 2012

Philly has the cheesesteak, Houston has the Astrodome, San Fran has the Bay, and Memphis’ got the blues. New York has Times Square, D.C. has the White House, Seattle has the Space Needle, and San Diego’s got the zoo. …But whatta they got on us? Nothin’. For the 17th year, we asked you to vote on what you love best about Charlottesville—from your favorite place to boogie to the spiciest Bloody Mary to where you go to find vintage duds—and these are the results.

Categories
News

Obama to visit Charlottesville Aug. 29

President Barack Obama. File photo.
President Barack Obama is set to make a campaign stop in Charlottesville August 29.

Obama will make a campaign stop in Charlottesville next week.

The President will visit Wednesday, August 29, according to a regional press spokesman, though event time and location haven’t yet been announced.

The Charlottesville stop will round off a tour of college towns that includes Ames, Iowa and Fort Collins, Colorado.

Obama’s last visit to the city was in October of 2010, when he stumped for Tom Perriello. He also made a campaign stop in 2007, and First Lady Michelle Obama has made appearances here several times—though her last planned visit, scheduled for July 20, was called off in the wake of the Aurora, Colorado shootings.

Virginia is expected to be a key battleground state in the presidential election. National polls currently give Obama a slight edge over Republican rival Mitt Romney in the Commonwealth, but both camps say Virginia’s electoral votes will be crucial to a win—and they’re consequently showering the state with plenty of attention. Romney announced Paul Ryan would be his running mate in Norfolk August 11, and the vice presidential candidate has been back twice since.

We’ll update this story with details on Obama’s visit as they become available.