See video on NBC 12’s website re: “Mayor Dwight Jones detailed plans for the how the city will try to do better for the next storm.”
But, seriously, didn’t we already have a storm this year that the city didn’t do so well on? I thought this last storm might be their chance to “do better”.
RVAJazzfest 2010
Featuring Ray Anderson & Ombak, Adam Larrabee Trio plays “Money Jungle,” and Trio of Justice
Saturday, February 6, 2010, 9pm sharp
The Camel, 1621 W. Broad St., Richmond, VA 23220. 804-353-4901
$15, $10 in advance. Tickets available online or in person at The Camel or at the RVANews office (1520 W. Main Street, Suite 102. Open from 9am to 5pm).
Trash pickup will be delayed by one day this week. If your trash is normally picked up on Mondays, this week it will be Tuesday. You can figure out the rest.
Patrick Henry School of Science and Arts will be hosting an open house at 8 p.m. on Thursday, February 4th to distribute copies of the student application, discuss the school’s curriculum and answer parents’ questions. This will be the last open house where student applications will be accepted. All student applications must be turned in at the school during open house events or postmarked by February 12, 2010.
Stop by February 4th to pick up an application and hear more about the curriculum at the PHSSA building, 3411 Semmes Avenue at 8 p.m. Paper copies of the student applications are also available at Richmond Public Libraries and Richmond Park and Recreation Centers.
photo by Jim Carpenter
Miss Virginia won the Miss America pageant tonight by answering a question about childhood obesity (children should turn off the tv, put down the video games, and go outside), wearing a “bold” yellow dress in the evening wear competition, and singing some Beyonce.
Miss Virginia is Caressa Cameron, a 22 year old broadcast communications student at VCU. Originally from Fredericksburg, she’s been named to the dean’s list and earned over $35,000 in scholarships from the Miss America organization. Caressa wants to come back to VCU after her year of serving as Miss America, finish up her degree and pursue a masters. She hopes to be a television news anchor someday.
RVANews has gathered the inestimable wisdom of NBC12 anchor Gene Cox in the Ask Gene Cox Oracle.
Feeling self-reflective and taking the oracle for a test drive, I asked and Gene answered:
Q: What do you think of Fan of the Fan?
A: How come you never post anything???
That’s amazing!
The West Grace Street Association is hosting its first annual candlelight home tour on Saturday, February 13, 2010 from 4pm until 8pm. The tour–called Saveur and Voyeur–will feature an architecturally significant collection of homes on Grace Street (specifically 2510, 2506, 2231, 2021, 1652 2A, 1635). Each of the 6 homes will offer a gastronomic pairing of food and beverage from local restaurants as well as historical information pertinent to the homes and the neighborhood.
Tickets for are $15 in advance (available at many local retailers), $20 at the door.
Going on now (Thursday-Sunday) at the Firehouse Theater is their annual festival of new plays. The deal:
Staged readings of “American Pastime” by Mike Folie of Congers, N.Y., will be held onThursday, Jan. 28, and Saturday, Jan. 30, while readings of “The Jag” by Gino DiIorio of New York City will be held on Friday, Jan. 29, and Sunday, Jan. 31. All shows start at 7:30 PM. Winners to be decided by vote of all who attended a show of each play.
A $5 donation is suggested, but free with student ID.
It looks like Cous Cous’ loss is Balliceaux’s gain. First Fight the Big Bull and now Ombak.
From RVAJazz:
Ombak plays at Balliceaux on Wednesday night. UPDATE: It hasn’t been confirmed that this will become a bi-weekly gig, like their residency at Cous Cous was, and like Fight the Big Bull’s is now at Balliceaux. For now, this is a one-off show.
The room sounds great for music, so I’m sure Ombak’s sound is going to fit right in. And there’s no doubt that they fill Balliceaux booker Chris Bopst’s requirements of having “some ass, some bite, some chomps, something that moves me physically.”
After Wednesday, Ombak’s next performance will be at RVAJazzfest with Tim Berne. This may be a good opportunity to check out what the band has been working on.
There’s an interesting, exciting article in the RTD entitled “Richmond looking beyond its slave-trading past”. Interesting because I am not so knowledgeable about Richmond’s full, dirty past and exciting because of what this dialogue portends for the future.
Excerpts:
“We’ve had a lot of dialogues for the sake of dialogue,” said Jonathan Zur, president and CEO of the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities.
The talk must move beyond the head and the heart and to the hands so that people can get to work transforming Richmond, he said.
……
The Rev. Benjamin P. Campbell, pastoral director of Richmond Hill, an ecumenical retreat center in Church Hill, said the ongoing dialogue “may represent our greatest opportunity to get closer to racial justice and reconciliation and heal some of the racial and economic issues that have been allowed to fester.”
“The question,” he said, “is not merely ‘Do we want to uncover our history?’ but ‘Do we want to be a great city?’”
“Let’s look at our education system. Let’s look at our housing. Let’s look at our city-county structure. Let’s think about who benefits from things being the way they are, who’s invested in things being created the way they are and staying there. And so the work then is critically looking at these structures and institutions that have been governing our way of life for so long, and perhaps making changes where changes need to be made.”
“People have very different lived experiences in metro Richmond,” said Zur, who grew up in New Jersey. “And so the conversation is why and how. And the action is, ‘What do we do to change that so there is an equitable lived experience?’”
……
El-Amin, who as a member of Richmond City Council drafted the resolution creating the Slave Trail Commission in 1998, said progress has been made in the discussion of slavery, but open and honest dialogue remains elusive…And honesty, he said, requires Richmond to confront the contradiction embodied by the Lost Cause figures so vividly lionized on Monument Avenue.
“How do you condemn the bad that was done but glorify the bad doers?” he said. “What do you do with those monuments? This is really, really what’s going to be difficult for Richmond.”
……
“That energy is different and it’s coming from a collective body that’s saying, ‘We can’t wait. We’ve got to make this work,’” said Coleman, a Winter Park, Fla., native who arrived in Richmond from Detroit, where she headed The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.
“It is for something bigger,” Coleman said. “It’s about transforming a community. It’s about having people stop saying, ‘Why can’t we be like Charleston?’ Beat Charleston! Be something bigger.”
……
If reconciliation is an objective, Burrs said, the conversations must be about “unvarnished truth, and not polite, convenient truth.”
