16 Blocks Magazine - Issue #14 by 16 Blocks Arts & Culture Magazine

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HOPE rogress PEEXPECTATIONS

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LIVE 135 College Ave. Blacksburg, VA

The Best Brick-Oven Pizza in the New River Valley! LUNCH BUFFET

Robbie Schaefer’s Songs for Kids Like Us Sunday, February 22, 3pm

For over a decade Robbie Schaefer has played guitar and sung with the other adults in his band, Eddie From Ohio . But his favorite musicians to play with are about 30 years younger. Robbie is an expert at introducing young children to the fundamentals of music: how to keep singing through a fit of laughter; how to invent nonsense rhymes; how to love this essential part of a full life. He calls it Songs For Kids Like Us .

LUNCH SPECIAL

11:30am-2:30pm

Pepperoni Pizza for

Tickets will go on sale January 26th. $12 Adults / $10 Children

$5.95

featuring Spring Mix Salad Brick-Oven Baked Salmon . Stuffed Shells . Pasta Bocaiolo Spaghetti Meatballs Chicken Wings Chicken Parmesan Pizza

BeauSoleil

Friday, March 6, 8pm

The HUNGRY STUDENT ad, please include Special:

BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet take the rich Cajun traditions of Louisiana and artfully blend elements of zydeco, New Orleans jazz, Tex-Mex, country, blues and more into a satisfying musical recipe. These Grammy winners, the best known and most highly respected Cajun band in the world, make their Yep Roc Records debut with the release of Alligator Purse in January 2009.

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Phone: 443-9135

428 North Main St. Blacksburg, VA 24060

HOURS

Mon-Wed 11-9 Thu-Fri 11-10 Sat 12-10 . Sun 12-4

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Tickets will go on sale February 9th. $28 Gold / $25 Silver

Jonatha Brooke

Tuesday, April 7, 8pm First, as half of the folk-pop duo The Story and later as a solo artist, singer/songwriter Jonatha Brooke has spent nearly two decades incorporating folk, pop and rock into her passionate and heartfelt songs.

Tickets will go on sale February 23rd $26 Gold / $23 Silver

Dido & Aeneas and Venus & Adonis Friday, April 24, 8pm

The American Opera Theatre partners with the Department of Music at Virginia Tech and The Lyric Theatre to present an evening of early opera. Join us for performances of Henry Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas and Venus & Adonis by John Blow.

Tickets will go on sale March 27th. $35 Gold / $30 Silver

Call 540.951.4771 or visit us online at www.thelyric.com

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NO.14 F eb r u a r y

F LY ASH D UMP

Sc r e a m i n g M e m es

18 20

T oxic coal outside the c o v e r u p .

waste in unlined landfills right Burg? A closer look at the (literal)

2009

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Arts and Culture Magazine February 2009 Issue #14 Contact us for subscription rates, general questions, corrections, if you’re interested in submitting short stories for our Logos Section, letters to the Editor, or if you just want to say hey. 16blocksmagazine@gmail.com

D esigners and performers join forces with marketing to cravenly manipulate the masses into going to their shows. Fortunately, they’re using their powers for good. Apologies to Marshall McLuhan.

www.16blocksmagazine.com

SOLDIER’S STORY

P.O. Box 279 Blacksburg, VA 24063

www.myspace.com/16blocksmagazine Check us out on Facebook!

C asey O verturf ’ s M arine C orps recruiter told him that if he signed up, he’d get to travel the world, “see the elephant.” He saw a lot more than that in Kuwait and Fallujah.

No part of this publication may be reproduced without written permission of the publisher.

CIVIL D ISOBED IENCE

Illustration by Christina O’Connor and David Franusich

T he art of going to the big house – or risking it – for nonviolent expression of your political beliefs.

Cov e r

sta f f Hart Fowler

Editor in Chief, Publisher

16blocksmagazine@gmail.com David Franusich

publisher’s note: “16 Blocks presents” - a retrospective

publisher of the magazine, I have also become a show promoter and special events planner. This is all part of my mission to bring more opportunities to Blacksburg’s night life. Ad Executive WiLL Boyar and I put our heads together to create the first event, which was 16 Blocks Presents: Fashion as Art, November 20th at Awful Arthur’s in Kent Square. Every seat was filled. Over a dozen VT student designers and models as well as local merchants presented an eclectic and exotic runway show. “EZ” Eddie McClain of Hope Hop hosted, WUVT’s Len Comaratta provided the soundtrack, and DJ Roar brought the after-show dance party. For the 16 Blocks Xmas Jam, December 20th at The Lantern, Curious Strange reunited and a new Blacksburg act, The Apatite, debuted, with supergroup Hope Hop headlining and our own videos between acts. Proceeds benefited the 16 Blocks

Art House, an art gallery and fine art printing shop which we will open in downtown Blacksburg this spring. January 20th at the Lantern we celebrated new beginnings with the 16 Blocks Inaugural Charity Ball, raising cash for the VT Presidential Scholarship Initiative. 16 Blocks go-to poet/ host “EZ” Eddie McClain (whose birthday is on February 9th – show your love!) and local poet Bakar O. Bey opened the night with spoken renditions of their inspiring words. DJ Sqwash mashed up lines from President Obama’s Inaugural speech and January birthday man Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” with badass custom beats and mixes. Lee Street Riots and The House Floor played. Director of Photography Christina O’Connor’s posters for the event are an elegant and poignant memento for the occasion. Contact us if you didn’t get one at the show. 16 Blocks was a dream made reality by friends. In the process of mak-

ing the magazine, making the events happen and planning the gallery a lot of people in this town and beyond have stepped up to participate. I’m proud to be a part of it. Every issue we write that 16 Blocks is for you. It is. Thank you. Coming up in early 2009: Roller Derby Celebration, Iraqi War Veterans Against the War Benefit, Local Film Festivals, and more!

04 Letter to the Editor 04 Chatterblocks 05 Politics: Yes We Can? 06 Beer & Wine 07 Food: Venison 08 Artist Spotlight: Tom Condon 10 Artist Spotlight: Roger Gupta 12 Photo Essay: Joe the Baker 21 Cigar Review 22 Logos: Miss D Part 2 24 To Do List 26 Idle Minds

Head Print Designer, Art Director

16blocks.graphics@gmail.com Christina O’Connor

Director of Photography, Art Director

16blocks.photo@gmail.com Amy Splitt Editor

asplitt@gmail.com David Williams Webmaster

dtw@vt.edu

C O NT R I BU TO R S Danny Phillips Illustrator Aerin Toler Illustrator Al Fayez Photographer Elizabeth Spencer Photographer Pris Sears Features Writer Garrett Bobb Features Writer John Boyer Wine Columnist Danny Flad Beer Columnist Lydia Fales Guest Writer Trent Crabtree Guest Writer Thomas J. Condon Featured Artist Roger Gupta Featured Artist Ross Adams Cigar Columnist Chuck Ronco Chess Guru Christine Fay Graphic Designer Alyssa Peltier Graphic Designer

MISREPRESENTING

COAL

11/12/2008 Hello, good people at 16 Blocks. I have enjoyed your magazine since its inception and opening release party at the Gobbler, y’all are filling a much needed gap in this town. It is relieving, exciting, and intellectually stimulating to read your gamut of articles about art, culture, politics, and this wonderful town nestled in the mountains of southwest Virginia. I mean where else can you get political rants, learn about wine, and hear about the sweet sounds of Hope Hop. It’s beautiful. As I flipped through issue 11 I was thrilled to see the article about Tech and sweatshops as well as the sidebar about Home Body and thrift store shopping. Social justice issues like living wages and fair trade clothing are exactly the type of material I expect to find in your magazine. I smiled in admiration when I was done. So you can only imagine my horror to turn the page and read about the VT power plant being described in such a warm and cozy light. It’s very important people know where their electricity comes from since it can be so easily overlooked as magic or having no ill effects, but my horror grew when I got to the part stating, “VTPP prefers the Kentucky coal which is a very high-grade, low sulfur bituminous coal which burns more cleanly than other varieties.” That is a true statement, but very misleading. There was no mention whatsoever that they also prefer this coal because it is

PARKING

cheaper, being extracted through surface mining and mountain top removal coal mining, an utterly mind-blowing destructive method of blowing the tops off of mountains, burying headwater streams through valley fills and causing all sorts of social injustices to the communities surrounding these sites, just like the people around Sydney, KY where much of that coal used to and may still come from. This is what the Wise County fight is all about, besides abating global warming keeping mountain top removal from taking off in our Commonwealth, though it already occurs to a smaller degree. Of course nothing on the magnitude that it occurs in Kentucky and West Virginia. There’s over 4,000,000 pounds of explosives used daily in WV from this. Not only has mountain top removal coal mining unemployed thousands of workers through the mechanization of the process but it has degraded and destroyed huge areas of our Appalachian Mountains. The moonscape aftermath of what was once biodiverse forest causes huge flooding problems locally. Forgetting about the ecological abuse, the blasting has also cracked the insides of terra firma, allowing injected coal sludge to ooze into people’s drinking water contaminating it with a slew of toxic metals like lead, arsenic, mercury, etc. Some people call it America’s dirty little secret as we get overwhelmed with ad campaigns about the oxymoron of ‘clean coal’ and how abundant, cheap, and clean it is. I know Mountain Justice at VT has not been able to make this mainstream in town but they put on many events

TICKETS

Mr. Fowler: Today I picked up a copy of the November issue of 16 Blocks, and noticed the article by Griffin Covey regarding contesting parking tickets. It was an interesting article, and I wanted to let you know that, on November 11th, the Blacksburg Town Council adopted an amendment to the Town Code that establishes a process to contest parking tickets. The process does not require paying the fine in advance. The district court judge hears the appeal. Good luck with the magazine; it’s a nice addition to the town. Larry Spencer Blacksburg Town Attorney

What’s going on in the 16 Blocks? We want to hear what you have to say.

and host speakers that tell their stories about how damaging this really is. I hope y’all don’t just take this as whining but as sincere concern since I and many of my friends look at your magazine as something of high standing, something that tells it how it is, and something that is concerned about social and energy justice issues. The fact that Tech supports such a nefarious undergoing is bad enough but if you want to showcase the power plant you’ve got to look at the entire life cycle of what powers it from cradle to grave, not just applaud the quality of coal they use. Everyone in town knows the ‘I heart mountains’ stickers at this point, and we want 16 Blocks to heart mountains as well. I know y’all do, but this article just confused the hell out of me, leaving me with an acrimonious taste in my mouth and much disappointment. A proud and confused 16 Blocks supporter,

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It’s true that in the article we didn’t discuss the fact that Kentucky coal comes from the devastating practice of strip mining. Failing to mention this fact explicitly may have implied to some readers either that we don’t know the facts, or that we do know but they don’t matter to us. Neither of those things happens to be the case. The author of the piece, Robert Humphreys, is a specialist in development and urban planning who cares about this region and has made his home in Blacksburg for many years. He does know the issues. The story he wrote sought to fill in a few of the blanks and bring our readers inside the plant. If the writer’s tone implied a certain aesthetic pleasure with the mechanical workings of industry, in my opinion that still isn’t irreconcilable with the desire to see industry cease exploitative or unethical practices.

Adam Daniel ---------------------------------------------11/18/2008 Dear Mr. Daniel, Right on.

Thanks for your letter.

With regard to our recent feature, “Tower of Power” (16 Blocks Magazine, Issue #11), the piece was meant to offer the reader a localized, flow-chart scope of information. The assumption we made as a team was that our readers are fairly sophisticated about the environmental

16B: What is the construction occurring between Gillie’s and The Lyric? SM: The Lyric is opening a Community Arts Information Office that will house Lyric offices along with up to 4 other arts groups. It will also be a source for information on arts and cultural events throughout the region. 16B: What will the space look like when it opens?

Susan Mattingly Executive Director Lyric Theatre

and political issues, but not as informed about the operation of the plant itself and what is being done to address issues of sustainability and minimizing pollution.

SM: There will be a display area for visual arts and promotional materials and a reception area in the front of the space; a shared office area in the middle and a multipurpose room for meetings, etc., in the back of the space. 16B: Was there any difficulty in construction? It seems like a lot of work

So, let’s take this as an opportunity to continue the dialogue on coal in the New River Valley and beyond. It so happens that a short while before we received your letter, 16 Blocks Magazine assigned a reporter to investigate another coalrelated story for [an upcoming] issue. With your permission, I will pass your name along as an interview resource. Best regards, Amy Splitt Editor

was going on underground. SM: Most of the tricky structural work took place before the Lyric was involved. Our project has been costly but not particularly difficult. We had a lot of cooperation from a lot of folks. 16B: How do you expect this space to encourage the arts in Blacksburg? SM: …To foster and promote arts and culture in the New River Valley by providing visibility for regional arts organizations, arts and cultural events; space to share resources, build networks, and facilitate communication. It’s a work in progress whose time has come. I’m excited to be a part of it!

Obama

Yes We Can find something to complain about by Amy Splitt and Pris Sears illustration by Aerin Toler

arack Obama has only been the President of the United States for a matter of weeks, and already nobody knows what the hell is going on. George Bush didn’t declare martial law or proclaim himself king. The predicted starvation, riots and plagues of locusts at the inauguration in Washington D.C. did not materialize. In fact, of those millions of attendees there were no arrests. There wasn’t a dry eye at the ceremony, and even Germaine Greer managed to shut the hell up about what the first lady was wearing. For about two seconds the country was filled with hope. But when you become president and you’re handed a hundred live, angry weasels to juggle, somebody is sure to point out how you could be doing it better. And we are willing to be that somebody. Anti-Bush progressives are baffled about whether or not the Obama camp is keeping GWB’s pro-abstinence AIDS Czar or not, and wonder how plans for Iraq and Afghanistan will unfold with Bush’s ostensibly hawkish Secretary of Defense still on the payroll. Obama has failed to bring Timothy Leary back from the dead to serve as Drug Czar. And as for the reasoning behind Obama’s appointment of former Harvard president Lawrence Summers to Chair of the National Economic Committee… well, we’re girls. We don’t understand that complicated stuff.

Perhaps in fact the ones who actually have reason to HOPE now are all those conservatives out there who thought that they were going to have to move to … we’re not sure where, maybe Australia.

Party Chairman. Perhaps to ensure his own party will have a fair chance to make sure he doesn’t get elected again. In short, we don’t understand this balancing act. When will the liberal insistence upon cultural relativism end?

After Obama’s election, even Rush Limbaugh had a few kind words for the new president and for the Right’s old bête noire, Hillary Clinton (interspersed with his hopes that Obama totally fails). House Minority Leader John Boehner is saying that the new president’s appointments are even better than he would have expected from McCain. And he’s managed to include fewer women and people of color than the Bush administration.

Meanwhile, President Obama’s youthful constituency is already WTFing all along the southern border of YouTube. Did you hear what Obama has in store for young men once he pulls US forces out of Afghanistan and Iraq this year? We can look forward to a conscripted army of 18-25-year olds bent to the new regime’s Marxist purposes. American males in the flower of their youth will be snatched away from their Playstations and their own sweet mothers’ Humvees to cater to the welfare aristocracy. That’s right, fellow citizens. Americorps is coming back. And you thought community service was only for convicted criminals.

Still, it’s not all a creamy surprise at the center of the bitter-shelled bonbon for conservatives. In overturning the Global Gag Rule in the first week of his presidency, Obama exceeded liberal expectations in showing that he actually does trust women to make their own decisions about, of all things, pregnancy and childbirth. Even women in third-world countries! Next thing you know he’ll be denying a preborn red-blooded American boy the right to emancipate himself and sue his mother for assault when she wantonly downs a glass of wine.

And what about the USA-PATRIOT Act? And the Middle East? Geez, if he wants to undo the past 8 years he has got to hurry up already. We’re not sure why he bothered. The average anti-Obaman is still convinced that he is (A) a Socialist (B) a 32nd degree Freemason (whatever that means – nobody who knows will tell us) (C) not actually American, and (D) Lucifer. And his middle name is still Hussein.

And yet, he has chosen anti-abortion Democrat Tim Kaine as Democratic

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HE holidays have come and gone and the chill of deep winter is creeping into every nook and cranny of the valleys and mountains of southwest Virginia. It’s time to fire up the woodstove and put the memories of cheap, sparkling wine and broken resolutions behind us. I can’t think of a better way to settle in for the winter and contemplate the promises and travails of 2009 than over a pint of winter warmer. “Winter warmer” is a term used to loosely define the dark, malty, and potent ales that brewers across the world serve up this time of year. Ales of this type usually have higher alcohol content and are often flavored with holiday spices in the tradition of the medieval Yuletide

drink called “wassail”. Don’t make the mistake of scratching winter warmers off your list just because the holidays are over. These robust ales can serve as a great nightcap or mid-afternoon restorative all winter long. Samuel Smith’s Winter Welcome Samuel Smith’s Old Brewery Tadcaster, England This classic winter warmer from Britain has a bright copper hue and a filmy, short-lived head. Its pleasant aroma is reminiscent of warm toast with a hint of apple or pear. There’s not much hop flavor to this beer and its slight spiciness is far from overpowering. It has a sweet, malty backbone that’s very fruit forward and a smooth texture that goes down easy. It finishes nicely, revealing just a hint of its above average potency and creating a warm and fuzzy feeling all over. Rating: B

the insides like a liquor or liqueur. What a combo! Wine flavor and complexity with a slight liquor kick!

inter greetings, my plaid friends! I just arrived back in the ‘Burg from the icy interior plains of Russia. My top-secret clearance won’t allow me to divulge too many delectable details of my mission, but let’s just say that Vladimir Putin’s gonna have a hangover until hell freezes over, which in Russia may happen soon. But I digress... Here in the sub-zero windswept streets of southwest Virginia, we struggle to stand firm with staunch spirits, fortified in the face of winter’s icy wrath. But how to instill ourselves with this fortitude? Why, by consuming fortified wines of course! Fortified wines are beefed up to a higher proof. That added alcohol punch warms

You are likely already familiar with the two most popular examples of fortified wines: Port and Sherry. Other fun, fortified fellows include Madeira and Marsala, also Vermouth. But let’s tackle the most famous for now: Port. Ports are often served with (or as!) dessert. Their high sweetness level is offset by the high alcohol, which gives great balance and also allows the flavor of the wine to be exposed. The style of Port is distinct: powerful, sweet red wines with high alcohol (20% and up), and a ton of body and flavor to boot. Brandy gets dumped in well before fermentation is finished, thus stopping the yeast in their tracks and maintaining a lot of residual sugar in the wine. Just the right amount of alcohol to give a slight

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Our Special Ale Anchor Brewing Company San Francisco, California This winter offering from Anchor Brewing is a special ale indeed! It has a very dark, almost black color, with a brown frothy head that leaves lots of nice lacing in the glass. The aroma is rich and toasty with notes of cinnamon and allspice. Rich and creamy going down, this beer has a wonderful mixture of flavors including molasses, dried fruit and toasted nuts. What’s really surprising is how such a full-bodied beer still offers a smooth, agreeable finish. Its rich flavors tantalize the tongue and then fade away, making it hard to resist another sip. Rating B+ Celebration Ale Sierra Nevada Brewing Company Chico, California The folks at Sierra Nevada Brewing Company are known for their

hoppy beers, and Celebration Ale is no exception. Floating over this deep, amber colored beer’s fluffy, meringue-like head is a wonderful bouquet of hoppy goodness with underlying notes of allspice. Its sweet, malty flavor balances out some of the bitterness from the hops, and its bubbly consistency really brings out the spiciness and fruity essence of a good ale. The notable hoppiness and 6.8% alcohol content combine for a strong satisfying finish. Rating: A Warm and fruity, or zesty with hops and spices, winter warmer can take on many different tones, aromas, and flavors. This winter, find the right one for you.

burn, but with a smoothing sweetness to smother the fire. You can find ‘port’ style wines from just about anywhere. However, true Port is only from the major Portuguese coastal town of Oporto.

Which ones to buy? Unlike most other wines, style and quality are all about the producer. Dow’s, Warre’s, Rameriz, Fonseca, Sandeman, Harvey’s of Bristol, or W. & J. Graham are all stellar.

Tawny Ports come from various harvests of grapes, usually from various vineyards. They are blended together and aged in oak casks 7 to 40 years before bottling. After bottling, it’s ready to drink, with delicious ‘woody’ and oxidized flavors infused within: nuts, toffee, coffee, and caramel, with just a hint of grapeiness.

Counting kopeks? Check out any ‘portstyle’ wine. They will do in a pinch, and can be quite inexpensive. I recommend Hardy’s Whiskers Blake from ‘down under’ as a good starter port.

Vintage Ports by contrast are crafted from a single year’s harvest, and bottled just after a few years in barrels. These big red wines pack a jammy cassis and berry blast. They can age in the bottle for decades, and become expensive when you start dabbling with higher quality houses.

For Valentine’s Day, plaid lovebirds can grab a bottle of Trentadue’s ‘Chocolate Amore’ port from California; the name says it all. Which reminds me, you simply must try Port wine with chocolate. Wow. So grab yourself a big-ass snifter, and pour yourself some Port. Fortification for your soul, with extra spirits for your spirit! Ha!

Read more Grain and Grape reviews online at www.16blocksmagazine.com

Venison: by Trent Crabtree photos by Christina O’Connor

Diet isn’t just a 4 letter word meaning

“deprivation.” Your diet is simply the list of foods you make a point of eating. Now, your diet could just involve ordering a pizza every night, but that’s not very healthy. Want a healthy diet? Well that requires you to take control, and that often means cooking at home. You can make interesting dishes that are healthy and also taste great. A dish that offers variety and an unusual flavor to any winter table is grilled venison. I suggest you move out of the kitchen and shake the snow off your grill to cook this dish. Winter grilling is a wonderful cure for boring menus and the winter blues. Venison is a wonderfully delicious meat that comes from wild or farm-raised deer. Historians suggest that venison was consumed by humans long before beef, chicken, or pork. The flavor of venison is directly related to the animal’s diet. It is generally described as a full taste that is likened to a deeply woody, berry-flavored wine. Venison is of course a good source of protein and iron, but, unlike other red meat, it is low in saturated fat and full of vitamins B-12 and B-6, riboflavin, and niacin. The Venison dish we’ll make is Grilled Coffee-Glazed Venison steak with Butternut Squash.

COFFEE-GLAZED VENISON 2- 6oz. Venison steaks 2- Small Butternut squash 2- medium Sweet potatoes 2- tablespoons chopped scallions 1/4- cup olive oil 2- tablespoons butter Coffee Glaze: 2- cups tomato puree 2- tablespoons instant coffee 1/2- cup brown sugar 2- tablespoons molasses 1/4- cup Worcestershire sauce 2- tablespoons chopped garlic 1/2 chopped white onion Mix the glaze ingredients together and bring to a boil. Whisk the glaze before it comes to a boil to prevent any burning. Once it comes to a boil, remove the pan from the heat and cool down. Once cooled, put the mixture in a blender and puree. Grill the venison steaks on high heat on either a gas or charcoal grill. The idea is to sear each side, not cook thoroughly. Cooking the steaks on too much heat for too long will only dry the venison. You just want to lock in the juices. Once seared, remove the steaks and marinate with the coffee glaze for 15 minutes. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees and cook the steaks to your desired temperature. Cut the butternut squash and sweet potatoes into small dices and place in a pan and sauté with the olive oil on high heat until brown. Then turn down to medium heat and add the scallions and butter. Cook until tender. Finally, scoop the squash and sweet potato mixture onto your plate and top with the venison and remaining coffee glaze. Enjoy! You’re now off to a great start cooking for a healthier lifestyle. Remember that eating healthy starts by shopping wisely. Shop for healthy items and leave the junk on the shelves.

Unfortunately, fresh meat markets or grocery stores cannot legally sell wild venison; or at least, not easily. The United States Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA/FSIS) inspection is required for all meat. Under the Federal Meat Inspection Act, 4-legged animals commercially used for meat include cattle, sheep, pigs, goats and horses. No mention is made of deer or any other member of the cervidae family. Deer are consequently nonamenable under the federal law. However, according the the US FDA, venison is food, and therefore it is regulated under the authority of the FDA when in trade. All food must come from an “approved source” in order to be sold in retail stores and restaurants. “Approved source” does not mean the deer meat must be inspected; rather it means that the facility where the animal was slaughtered and processed is inspected. There are venison farms around, but to me, getting deer meat from a venison farm makes as much sense as buying fresh salmon from a salmon farm. I mean…do we intentionally wipe out natural habitats so we can raise our food on a farm? I prefer the deer stay in the woods, not penned up. The whole idea of venison is that it’s a local, plentiful, free-range source of meat that gets its unique flavor and leanness from being able to roam free. What this means is that the best way to enjoy a nice venison steak is either to get a hunting license and learn to shoot and dress a deer yourself or make friends with a hunter who will give you some meat as a gift.

F E B 2 0 0 9 07

These images are a result of exposing heat sensitive photographic paper to mediated light and various heated tools. The thermal-sensitive paper is exposed over a time ranging from one hour to multiple days. During the exposure process I am able to manipulate and direct the composition through burning, agitation, cutting, excessive friction, and neglect. Finally, the paper transitions from a medium ready to depict reality and objectivity to a surface that presents a visual history of energy, imagination, and experimentation. The end product appears as a brightly colored, disorderly celebration of the trauma that the media has endured. Connections between destruction and creation, through re-identification or transformation are proudly displayed for an audience, alien to the objectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unique experience. This body of work represents my parabolic flight between stagnation and transformation. My understanding of a de-realization of representation. The admittance that my eyes might not open to the same view with each new day. Unbridled energy, in constant flux between attempted control and chaos, denies the possibility of permanence and contradicts the idea of certainty.

Slip beyond surface into a destabilized space where serial form meets deformation. Confront scarification that demands conversation between potential space and illusionistic boundaries. Meditate on transcendence with the aid of undulating tones and hues. Identifiable marks delineate scale and distance between seemingly shifting points. Psychologically imposed landscapes meet microchips and microcosms. In 2001 I fell 18 feet to a concrete landing. When adrenalin stopped protecting me from a new reality I was told that my both of my arms had been permanently damaged, beyond repair. Previously, I had been selected by the National Endowment of the Arts to show a collection of my paintings as their Featured Artist for the MidAtlantic region of America. As I received congratulations for the early success of my work I could not escape the pain clenching my body. Gratefully, I accepted the praise with the knowledge that the future of my paintings had ended with the snapping of my bones. My challenge was transformation, reinvention, even mutation, anything but suffering the admittance of limitation. The cruelty of gravity would not define my potential growth.

All pieces from the collection Training for Zero Gravity

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ADS

Your Fairy Godmother 540.552.0729 Renting formal dresses in the New River Valley www.your-fairygodmother.com

F E B 2 0 0 9 09

Music has been a heavy source of inspiration for me and I’ve always surrounded myself with it. I started music lessons at 7 and have always had a great time learning, performing, jamming and collaborating . Being a musician has given me some insights on how to attempt to capture in a still frame the power of music. I picked up a love of photography from my Dad who always had a bunch of old film cameras around. It was always fun experimenting with them and later seeing how things turned out. Combining music and photography feels very natural to me. I’m pleased to be able to shoot for the great folks at Across the Way Productions who put on FloydFest, Floyd Fandango and several wine fests across the state. FloydFest gets better every year and is not to be missed. The Lantern has been bringing in great music from out of town and exposing equally great local talent. This new venue fills a void log ago left vacant by the old 117 South Main Cafe/Baylee’s and I’m trying to document this next level evolution of the Blacksburg music scene. I’m also very lucky to be able to get shoot for DLP Concerts occasionally. Dylan Locke and Heather Krantz have put SWVA on the music map through their many years of hard work bringing great shows to our area. I would also like to challenge all bands and venues to give back to our communities by organizing food drives for the hungry. There are so many people in our area who need some extra help, and a little bit goes a long way. I hope that everyone will motivate their fan bases to bring a can of food or two to the shows. The collections can then be donated to Saint Mary’s Catholic Church’s Food Pantry in Blacksburg or New River Community Action in Radford.

Clockwise from left: Hopehop @ Champ’s Cafe 2008 Basshound @ the Lantern 2008 Drive By Truckers @ Charlottesville Pavilion 2008 Grace Potter @ All Good Music Festival 2007

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Featuring an eclectic menu of music and munchies to satisfy body & soul

211 Draper Road • Downtown Blacksburg 540.951.1019 • www.thelanternblacksburg.com

Sat. Feb. 14TH @ 9PM • $12 The Grand Hookers’ Ball

Featuring

Boombox w/ Spark Arrester

(Pimps and Ho’s costume party with blingin’ grand prizes)

Sun. Feb. 15TH @ 9PM • $15 Hammerstrike Tour 2009

Featuring

Lotus w/ Orchard Lounge

Advance tickets available at:

www.lotusvibes.com

Fri. Feb. 27TH @ 9PM • $10 Dubconscious

w/ Electric Chameleon (NonViolent CD Release Party)

www.dubconscious.com

Feb 3 Feb 4 Feb 5 Feb 6 Feb 8 Feb 11 Feb 12 Feb 13 Feb 17 Feb 18 Feb 19 Feb 20 Feb 21 Feb 22 Feb 24 Feb 26 Feb 28

PLUGGED IN-TERTAINMENT

Worn in Red/Jumper KO/I am the Speed of Light The New Familiars - $5 (Over 21) $7 (Under 21) The Inﬂuence Boogieburg Bob Marley Birthday w/ SEE-I Curious strange Basshound - $6 Alliens Groove For Love Charity w/ Groova Scape Live Bait w/Blue Stone Groove Brave Citizens - $8 The Mantras w/ Jamie McLean Hackensaw Boys - $10/$12 Boogieburg The Apatite Fustics/tba J. Wail w/ Boogieburg - $5 (Over 21) $7 (Under 21) Papadosio w/ Alliens - $8

AOS

LIGHTING PLUGGED IN-TERTAINMENT

What’s Next? CONCEPTS

V i Z i W O R X C R E AT iV E ST U D i O

ViZiWORX CREATiVE

F E B 2 0 0 9 11

addiction to bread is well known among my friends. If it has flour, yeast, water, and salt I will eat it. I have wondered for a while how easy or hard bread making would be and if it’s something that I could learn to do. Luckily, I got the chance to hang out with Joe Edgar, a Bollo’s bread baker for the last 7 years. Joe was kind enough to walk me through his morning routine and shed some light on what I consider a mystic art. I knew that bakers started their days early, but little did I know… The most challenging aspect of this assignment was waking up “early” enough to catch up with Joe at 3:30 AM !! By the time I arrived, Joe had already made a pot of coffee to share and laid out all the pans.

A Morning with Joe the Baker a photo essay by Al Fayez

Various ingredients were mixed in metal bowls: flour, honey, caraway seeds, yeast, salt, water, molasses, and buttermilk. Each mixture went into the proofer. A proofer is a metal box heated with steam to a temperature of about 90ºF. The low heat of the proofer activates the yeast in the bread sponge. The proofing process takes around an hour and half. At this point with 90 minutes to kill, Joe decided to take a break. It was a cold morning with flurries dancing in the air. At 4:30 AM, Draper Road was practically dead. I’ve seen Blacksburg empty during holidays but never this empty. Throughout our conversation, Joe always made sure to get up and check on the sponge in the proofer. He didn’t look at a clock or watch to remember. He seemed to have an inner timer that made him get up about every 20 minutes, even stopping mid sentence to do so.

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That morning Joe was making four different batches: French Baguette, Honey Wheat, Italian Whole Wheat, and Buttermilk Rye. According to him this was a light bread order.

When the sponge was ready, Joe added other ingredients to each of the 4 varieties as part of the leavening or flavoring process and to give the final dough more strength. Each sponge then went into a mechanical mixer to be kneaded into dough. The dough was cut and weighed using an old fashioned two pan balance scale. Each cut piece was spread, folded, and refolded on itself multiple times to pop any air bubbles, formed into a loaf shape, then placed in a pan and back into the proofer. Once again out of the proofer, the dough was brushed with a sugar and water mixture to add contrast to the baked crust. Joe sprinkled sesame seeds on the Honey Wheat and caraway seeds on the Buttermilk Rye. As part of the presentation, Joe used a knife to make diagonal slits in the dough. The resulting shapes puff open during baking, and enhance the look of the bread.

“Now the bread begins its magical journey of being eaten.” – Joe Edgar

At last Joe put the dough in the oven. The time was 7:38 AM, and I suddenly realized that Bollo’s had customers. Out the window I could see the street springing to life, people strolling and cars cruising by. Twenty minutes later the bread was ready. Joe took it out and started stocking warm, fresh bread in the Bollo’s baked goods display case. It took Joe five hours to finish making the sponge, dough, and loaves, all the while answering my never ending questions. While this might sound corny, I can’t help but conclude that baking is 1 part science, 2 parts art, and 3 parts patience.

T h e C u m b e r l a n d P a r k P r oject, Par t 1 by Garrett Bobb photos by Elizabeth Spencer

n the surface, the Cumberland Park Project sounds like a good idea for Giles County: Create a new commercial building space to attract businesses and create new jobs while simultaneously disposing of waste and generating funds for the school system. If this project sounds too good to be true, it’s because it is. More than a quarter-million cubic yards of coal ash, also known as Coal Combustion By-product (CCB), Coal Combustion Waste (CCW), or fly ash, is being used as fill material for Cumberland Park, raising up a piece of land that lies within the 100-year flood plain of the New River, next to US-460 in Narrows, Virginia. In a memo to the Virginia Coal Combustion Products Regulation Technical Review Committee on August 8th of last year, Virginia Tech Professor of Crop

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and Soil Environmental Science W. Lee Daniels, an expert on CCB disposal, said that it is important to “focus on limiting water migration into and through the ash.” If you want to keep something away from water, the flood plain of a river is not a good place to do it. How dangerous is coal ash? When testifying on June 10th of last year before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources, Lisa Evans, Project Attorney for Earthjustice said, “As coal is burned, its volume is reduced by two thirds to four fifths, concentrating... chlorine, zinc, copper, arsenic, selenium, mercury, and numerous other dangerously toxic contaminants... These wastes are poisonous and can cause cancer or damage to the nervous systems and other organs, especially in children.” When we consider the toxic content of CCB, the lack of regulation in regards

The coal industry and its supporters routinely circumvent and manipulate existing regulations

to its disposal boggles the mind. Evans testified, “EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] has regulations governing all aspects of the disposal of household trash in landfills... Yet EPA has no such regulations for the disposal of toxic ash that exceeds hazardous waste levels for toxic metals.” The coal industry and its supporters routinely circumvent and manipulate existing regulations via so-called “Beneficial Use” clauses written into current environmental law. Exploiting this type of clause, the Giles County Partnership for Excellence, the group who initiated the Cumberland Park project, was able to begin using this poisonous material as fill without any public oversight and without so much as a protective liner to prevent the waste from leaching into soil and groundwater. The coal companies insist that CCB is a safe fill material. Joe Ryder, Environ-

mental Compliance Officer with American Electric Power whose plant in Glen Lyn, Virginia is the source of the CCB, says that “[CCBs] which are used meet required testing parameters for leaching characteristics and a separation from groundwater is maintained... Despite extensive rains early in the project, no changes in groundwater have occurred and all runoff has drained as expected.” Even though those in charge of the project assure that there is virtually no danger, legitimate concerns on the safety of putting this material so close to the water supply remain. Darlene Cunningham of the Concerned Citizens of Giles County, a group organized to stop the project, is worried. “Worst case scenario would be a catastrophic flood that would just take the whole thing into the river... similar to Harriman, Tennessee,” said Cunningham, referring to the massive ash sludge spill that occurred there

in December. Everyone would like to avoid such a scenario, but Cunningham says, “The leaching that’s going to happen, nobody has denied that it’s going to happen, it’s just a matter of when and how fast.” What appears initially to be a win-win situation for the citizens of Giles County may prove only to be a win for the power company, and a big loss for anyone and anything unfortunate enough to live downstream. Though dumping has already begun, the Concerned Citizens are far from admitting defeat. Tune in next issue for part 2: what’s being done about it and how you can help. -----------------------------------------------

see on December 22 of 2008. Early that morning hundreds of millions of gallons of coal ash sludge broke through the earthen dam that was holding it back, contaminating tributaries of the Clinch and Tennessee Rivers, covering hundreds of acres with four to six feet of sludge, and damaging houses and power and gas lines. This is the largest environmental disaster of its kind, spilling a volume of toxic material dozens of times the size of the Exxon Valdez spill. Coal is not clean! For additional information: http://www.concernedgilescitizens.org http://citizensforbeneficialchange.org http://ecoenthusiast.blogspot.com http://www.mountainjustice.org.vt.edu http://www.ncnr.org/ http://www.gilescumberlandparkproject.org

Appalachia has a long history of coal waste disasters. The largest and most recent occurred in Harriman, Tennes-

F E B 2 0 0 9 15

Promotio rmanceD omotionP T the Branding of Local Night Life by Amy Splitt

hey advertise nothing so much as downtown decay, sticking like flies to flypaper all over the windows of vacant storefronts. Weird kids come up and hand them to you when you’re trying to drink coffee. And aren’t they an archaic way to promote a show? Isn’t everyone on Facebook now, at least until they have the Fractal Fun Finder ™ microchip embedded in their skulls? Flyers have a bad reputation.

Perhaps, though, flyers just need a PR makeover. These ephemeral pieces of paper have a long tradition as an art form, from the cut and paste days of Dada to the beautiful silkscreened posters that advertised the Dead and their contemporaries, right up to today, where artists enhance hand drawn images by deft applications of software effects.

Brian Zickafoos

Joey Pau

lekas

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onPerfo Designpr PerfoRM Pris Sears

The key was to put together a flyer that could be easily photocopied

and just as easily enhanced or defaced by passersby

The appeal of a poster or flyer comes down to two factors: the design itself and the way it distributes social intel. A well-designed image on a poster or flyer has the power to create and attract the audience for an event. By handing out and posting a piece with a certain look, promoters can try to craft the outcome and atmosphere of the event. On one level, this is obvious. You don’t try to attract reggae fans by posting the band’s names in spiky, gothic lettering in black on a red background. However when promoters and entertainers are also designers, materials can be even more precisely tailored to the desired audience. Some designers really stand out. You know what they’re promoting because of the style of the flyer. For example, the California color palette, old-style big top fonts and fanned-out symmetrical images of a Boogieburg Productions poster are hard to mistake for anything else. With the core branding of his group in place, designer and DJ Joey Paulekas is free to vary images to let party people know what special sound and light show treats might be in store, for example, giving the Pimps of Joyville poster a subtly Brooklynesque layer of dinge.

But even on non-Boogieburg projects, Pauleka’s particular flair can be recognized.

Another graphic style that is becoming more familiar around downtown Blacksburg belongs to Roanoke-based artist, musician and event promoter Brian Zickafoose. Bright colors (and plenty of them, all at once), uncanny human figures in action, and high-impact, bold titles bring to mind a tweaked sort of comic book. By using color and line to emphasize a band’s particular brand of flamboyance and humor, Zickafoose lets audiences in on a performer’s preferred vibe. This all goes towards creating a better spectacle for the performers and the fans. And sometimes the poster becomes entertaining in itself. Describing a poster he designed for a show by Perpetual Groove, he says, “I was watching the classic Killer Klowns From Space when we booked Perpetual Groove at the Lantern. Their hospitality rider called for several humorous items ranging from a trained spider monkey, to a random child’s musical toy, to a tube of KY Jelly and nude photo of Bea Arthur. One particularly funny item they requested was a poster of a popular 80’s musical icon hung in the dressing

room. At that moment I was inspired and thought it would be really cool if I did a Killer Klowns spoof for the Lantern show poster…” Perhaps effectively letting audiences know what they’d be in for. Moving from professionally designed glossy material to the other end of the spectrum, you see the rough aesthetic exemplified by flyers for semi-private house shows. In the post-RAVE Act era, the very act of having a party of this kind in one’s home constitutes thoughtcrime, and often promo materials reflect this attitude. Artist, musician, and writer Pris Sears describes the mission of poster design for the erstwhile show space known as the Plophouse. “Our design style was to steal from everywhere and try to come up with something eye-catching…” The key was to put together a flyer that could be easily photocopied and just as easily enhanced or defaced by passersby or the promoters themselves with crayons or marker. A venue may have more than one reason for designing its posters in a certain way. House parties may brazenly post their address, but typically not if they want the party to continue uninterrupted by the authorities. More

often underground promoters will cite a house nickname, effectively advertising only to those who happen to be in the know or in the direct path of DL word of mouth. Sears adds, “I miss the days when there were sanctioned places to put flyers downtown. It looks like many businesses are amenable to putting stuff in their windows if you ask, but I enjoyed the spaces that you could see 5 or 6 layers of flyers piled up over each other as events passed and new flyers went on top of the old ones. It gave a general aura of, if not actual approval, at least benign indifference.”

This brings us to the bright side of socalled urban defacement. Posters visually announce, “Things are happening around here!” Take a look sometime at the windows and walls in downtown Roanoke and compare the energy to what you notice in Blacksburg. More posters mean more choices and more stuff to do. And a great design can not only help you make a choice about how to spend your time – it can also decorate your room when you go back and heist the poster – naturally, waiting until after the show’s over.

F E B 2 0 0 9 17

Part 1 of 2: Putting Together the Pieces

by Hart Fowler photo by David Franusich

could have passed for trash day on the darkened streets of Fallujah. That is, if it weren’t for the bombed-out, empty buildings, the eerie absence of the town’s half million citizens, and the tank blocking the road a few streets up engaged in small arms fire. Collecting the Garbage Casey Overturf was throwing heavy duty black plastic bags into a Humvee. He was a member of the US Marine Corps 2nd Intelligence Battalion, and the garbage bags they filled and threw into the back of the Humvee contained the spoils of their trade. Passports, letters, laptops, IDs, birth certificates, and cell phones were collected in door to door searches and put into bags to be sorted through later in an effort to gather intelligence about the enemy. They did the same thing at the morgue. Back at the base on the outskirts of the city, one of Saddam’s ruined palaces that Overturf compared to the war room in Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove, US Intelligence gathered whatever information was useful from the bags and compared it with satellite images, and with civilian and military reports. Overturf’s job was putting the pieces together to form the big picture. During this gruesome detail he came across a pocket Koran that was less stained than the others in the pile. When he opened it there were two pieces of paper folded up inside. The foreign curls, blades and dots were written in Arabic, which he could not

read. The sentiment, he believed, was in a language he was learning every day he was in Iraq, the language of how human beings reconcile war. He brought the pages back with him to Giles County when his tour ended. “I had hoped it would be prayers I would find, and that they would be prayers I could relate to,” Overturf said, a selfprofessed non-religious man of 26. “I need that for part of my belief [and] acceptance that fundamentally no man is different from the next. Wishing for a better and meaningful afterlife is something we all thought about at some point. Even if our beliefs differ we can still relate to that desire.” Last week, 16 Blocks photographer Al Fayez translated the Arabic, offering an interpretation. “May God Be Content With Them All.” This is usually said in respect to those who have passed on, wishing them a peaceful afterlife. “Thank God Almighty.” A litany for forgiveness and reconciliation with God, similar to the spirit of the Catholic Rosary. The place the papers marked in the holy book was the story of Moses parting the Red Sea. Out of the garbage Overturf gleaned the most important piece of intel of his career, meaningful to all soldiers who have seen combat: evidence of his enemy’s humanity.

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Going to see the elephant This phrase became popular in the mid1800s when the traveling carnival was one of the only ways people could see the world. After one saw the largest animal on earth, there wasn’t much else that could compare. Back before 9-11, joining the marines meant seeing the world. It also meant, the recruiter said, being a man. A man that can kick any other man’s ass and you can have any woman you want. At the age of 17, Overturf signed up to see the elephant. A year later he was stationed in Okinawa on 9-11. Overturf and his fellow Corps man were watching the news reports of UN inspectors and diplomacy while they were boarding a ship bound for the Middle East. With his serious gaze through glasses, pushing his chin-length crop of fine, blond hair to the side, Casey Overturf looks like the student he is, and it’s hard to picture him as a soldier until he speaks of his past. “Its war, who doesn’t want to do it? That’s why you’re a marine, that’s what they sell you on,” he said with frank precision. “But you never really consider what it is you do. The idea of going to war, doing all the things you’ve seen in movies and video games. There’s a f---g appeal to it if you don’t know what you’re getting into.” Overturf landed in Kuwait in October of 2003. Due to his high test scores, he became a member of the 2nd Intelligence Battalion, INTEL, and his job was inter-

preting various forms of data and disseminating the information through the proper channels. “I was a targeting guy. I had a small area of operations, and was focused on the enemy combatant’s equipment, their effectiveness, their morale. I would feed that information back to my guys,” Overturf said. “A lot of our campaign was actually dropping pamphlets to get them to capitulate, to give up, and a lot of them were ready to. They weren’t paid well, they were hungry, and they knew we took good care of our prisoners of war.” His role would change significantly when the war became an occupation and he was no longer targeting Iraqi forces on the outskirts of Fallujah. This was a less gruesome time for him than what was to come, but Overturf still harbors difficult memories from this part of his tour. Specifically, targeting enemy tanks that he believed contained soldiers waiting to surrender who were using the vehicles as shelter in the cold winter. “That was hard. They were local people trying to feed their family, people that we could really relate to,” he said. Then the war ended, and the occupation began. ----------------------------------------------Part II -- Overturf uses his skills of interpreting information as a student at Virginia Tech while dealing with his anger over the recruiting techniques that signed him up for war.

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F E B 2 0 0 9 19

avid Swanson is a tireless anti-war political activist who fought for many years to have President G.W. Bush impeached. He founded the web site afterdowningstreet.org in 2004 as a forum calling attention to the infamous “Downing Street Memos,” which indicated that the Bush administration doctored evidence on weapons of mass destruction in order to justify invading Iraq. 16B: You were recently arrested at a dramatic event, the “March of the Dead” Demonstration on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. Will you describe what its purpose was? DS: Laurie Arbeiter, an activist from New York, came up with the idea of a line of people all in black with white death masks, wearing placards with the names of the dead in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine. We had 70 people march around Capitol Hill at the moment the 111th Congress was sworn in. We got decent media coverage, not much less or much worse than you get with a half a million people. Bill Moyers’ Journal featured us and added excellent commentary. The getting arrested bit came in the second part of our action that day. We put on the masks and loudly read the names of the dead in the indoor atrium

of the Hart Senate Office Building, while some of our crew dropped enormous banners from balconies reading Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, The Audacity of War Crimes, and We Will Not Be Silent. We continued reading the names despite three warnings from the police and were arrested, resulting in having to sit in a garage for five hours. Very, very easy to do. Very dramatic and effective in reaching those who see it. We were on the local TV news, radio, print, Bill Moyers, and of course the Internet. Imagine if, instead of 17 of us getting arrested, it was 170, or 1,700, or 17,000. Civil disobedience is not the only tactic we have, and others are needed. But it’s one with huge untapped potential. 16B: How many times have you been arrested for your political activism, and what is that like? DS: Well, I’ve risked being arrested a lot more times than I’ve actually been arrested. Often the police do not want the extra work and those in charge do not want the bad media. And almost always it’s also possible to back off after a warning if you don’t want the arrest. I’ve helped to promote a great many events at which others have been arrested and I have shot video, taken

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photos, written reports. That’s usually been my role. I think I’ve actually gone to jail for justice four times, twice at the White House and twice at Capitol Hill, so twice with the Park Service and twice with the Capitol Police. It’s perfectly painless and builds camaraderie. Just bring $50 in cash and a photo ID and not too much else, because they have to take all your stuff and catalogue it and later give it back, and they are S - L - O - W. It can take them between an hour and 10 hours to process you, and the bulk of that time is spent dealing with your possessions. For the most part the police are polite, sometimes even friendly, often secretly on our side. They’re not the enemy. They actually work for a living. Occasionally there will be a hard-core cop who searches everybody as if they had nuclear bombs in their pockets and fire in their eyes, but you have to put up with that sort of nonsense, and the other police will even make fun of their gung-ho colleagues. You can pay a fine, as I have always done, or get a court date and challenge it. Up to you. 16B: Now that the Bush administration is on its way out, what are your plans for the next year?

Paul H. Park

Pris Sears interviews Charlottesville, VA author and activist David Swanson

William Hughes

Concepts. Responsibilities. Analysis.

Get us out of Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza, and many other nations. Put Bush, Cheney, and gang behind bars. Restore Constitutional powers to Congress. Create Single Payer Health Care. Defund the military. Fund green energy and jobs. Exercise more. Eat more spinach. Perfectly doable, though only the last two can I handle alone. I also have a book coming out in September… Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union, by Seven Stories Press. 16B: Has the incoming Obama administration done anything you particularly like? DS: A Secretary of Labor who doesn’t want to destroy labor is nice. 16B: What is your biggest disappointment so far with the Obama administration? DS: It’s a three-way tie: Rahm Emanuel, Hillary Clinton, and Robert Gates. ----------------Note: Pris has volunteered for afterdowningstreet.org since 2005.

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CIGAR OF THE MONTH: Canimao Torpedo by Ross Long

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     The Canimao cigar comes to us from Miami. This medium-bodied but complex cigar offers an enjoyable and satisfying smoke to aficionados and beginners alike. Its construction, both aesthetically and structurally pleasing, is made possible by a sweet smelling Ecuadorian wrapper leaf and Dominican Republic/Nicaraguan filler tobaccos that smell of cedar.

open Tu-Sa 12- 4pm 5 4 0 . 23 1 . 55 47

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       

  

U PCOM I N G

201 draper rd blacksburg

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Towards the middle, the spice mellows out and the woodiness goes away leaving only sweet, toasted nuts and coffee. Throughout the entire cigar, the smoke smells of brewed coffee with hints of cocoa. This is a nice smoke for early morning or after lunch.

G armory gallery

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Right upon lighting, this cigar tastes of sweet wood and quickly transitions into sweet, spicy toasted nut flavors with notes of coffee bean. Continuing through the first half of the cigar, every draw and exhale gives a taste of spicy wood. Flavors of sweet, creamy toasted nuts with notes of coffee beans linger on the palate.

A R MO RY

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FSEPTEMBER e b rua3 ry 1 2 -10 M a rc h 6 - OCTOBER S"LA c o DANSE t t G a rDE t n eLA r VIE" - Pap e r Te s s e l l a t io n s Sculptures and paintings by Jennifer Kaye Martin. Reception for the Artist: September 3, 4 - 6pm.

O p e n i n g We d n e s d a y, F e b r u a r y 1 1 , 4 - 6 p m

OCTOBER 21 - NOVEMBER 21 MARYANN HARMAN New paintings by Maryann Harman. Reception for the Artist: October 21, 4 - 6pm. THANKSGIVING BREAK: NOVEMBER 22 DECEMBER 3 DECEMBER 3 - DECEMBER 19 SENIOR SHOWS Maestroand reception dates to be Participants 2’x2’ Collage announced Scott Gartner

v i s i t u s o n l i n e : w w w. g a l l e r y. v t . e d u

F E B 2 0 0 9 21

Miss D. Part 2

Speech. Word. Reason.

by Lydia Fales illustration by Aerin Toler

I started seeing someone. Well, no. Let me start over. That time I went to the coffee shop in my new shoes, I wasn’t sure what to do next, so I started following this guy with nice elbows. He was wearing chuck taylors. He looked like he might have the right kind of hands. I started thinking about his hand stretching between my breasts, his thumb and pinky resting on my nipples getting hard. The perfect span. It’s a requirement that anyone’s hand be the right size for this. While I was thinking about this, somehow I ended up walking right next to him. He looked at me. He smiled at me, “Hi.” I looked at his hand. He said, “I’m going to work.” He turned into an alley leading to the back of a French restaurant. My face got hot. I went home and masturbated. The next day I went for coffee and we did the same thing. The next day I brought him a bowl of lentils. He smiled and took it and afterwards I realized it was silly that I thought he would be hungry. He works in a restaurant. The next day I didn’t go. The next day I did. And the day after that. When we were almost at the restaurant he pulled the Pyrex container out of his bag. He handed it to me and as I reached out to take it. He pulled it back. “Do you talk?” “Sometimes.”

“The lentils were good.”

I looked up the signals that mean you are a stalker or someone is stalking you:

He gave it to me and walked into the alley. I stood there looking at my container. It was full of crème brûlée. The note stared at me every time I opened the refrigerator. I put it on the coffee table and sat down with it. Most people come through my life without ever actually seeing me. It’s not that I don’t let them see me. Well, sometimes I don’t, but mainly I think most people just don’t care enough. Here is a boy who seems to see me right off.

1. Threatening behavior 2. Telephone harassment 3. Sending unwanted gifts 4. Manipulative behavior 5. Surveillance 6. Individual loiters in neighborhood or work area 7. Individual harbors delusions that the victim is in love with him or her. I lie in bed a lot and think about walking up next to him, the sun slanted just right through the gaps in the buildings making the street look like striped stockings. There is French music playing.

Here are some possibilities: 1. He’s lonely 2. He’s bored 3. He’s after my money (but how would he know if I had any or not? Because of my new shoes?) 4. He’s a sex fiend (which is different from a rapist) 5. He’s a rapist 6. He’s a murderer 7. He’s crazy 8. I’m crazy 9. He was sent by my mother to spy on me. I think about him all the time now. What he looks like in the morning. What kind of socks he wears. If he brushes his teeth as much as I do. I didn’t know if I should eat the crème brûlée or not, so I figured if it’s a decision then I shouldn’t. What if it’s poison? But then I don’t know. I stuck my finger in it and it clung all over. Wet and cold. I licked it. Then I dumped it into the sink. I keep going to the coffee shop and

22 1 6 B L O C K S

leaving in time to walk next to him. Sometimes he’s not there. Sometimes I think he’s avoiding me, but it’s probably just his day off. Or maybe he’s working a different shift. We haven’t talked. Only about the crème brûlée once when he said, “It was vegan, you know.” I nodded.

I’d smile up at him while smoothing out my skirt. He’d take my hand and take my face in his hand and take my lips, and in that kissing moment the moon would come up and everyone on the street would stop to watch us, envious of how much we love each other. Knowing they’d never have love like ours and feeling that sad emptiness like the last egg in a beaten up foam carton. Left in there so long that by the time you remember it you don’t even want to touch it for fear of it cracking in your hand and contaminating you with all the leaking sulfurous slime it’s been keeping inside. That’s normally when I get there. I would hardly call him a victim, but maybe I should start worrying about it. After reading the list, I think maybe it’s a problem now.

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F E B 2 0 0 9 23

ART Get some culture!

To Do List

Tues. 2/11, 7-10 PM, Collab Fest @ the Water Heater, 813 5th St SW Roanoke Interactive art workshop -- not to miss -- this is where serious artists (mainly Roanoke based) show up to have fun and make a glorious mess. Thu. 2/19- Mon. 2/23 is the Roanoke Marginal Arts Festival! Events include hip hop poetry, a conceptual art auction, and power tool drag racing. Check the blog at http://roanokemarginalartsfestival.blogspot.com for info on specific times and locations. Sat. 2/21, 2:30-4 PM @ the Taubman Museum of Art – Packing Tape Sculpture workshop with artist Mark Jenkins. $15 for members; $20 non-members. Ending March 8th @ the Taubman: Special exhibit, “Pens and Needles: Drawings for Tattoo.”

BOOMBOX SATURDAY 2/14 9PM @ The Lantern

211 draper rd, blacksburg Forget romance! This Valentine’s Day Lady Love is lobbying for the lewd and indecent as Plugged In-tertainm ent and the Lantern present the Grand Hookers’ Ball (GHB) featu ring boogie specialists Boombox. The hammer drops at 9PM with Spark Arrester of Boogieburg fame warming up the booth with tasty , live electro-funk. Expect faces to fry for the Grand Pimp and Ho Parad e, a costume contest of blingin’ proportions featuring a grand prize of 2 tickets to Lotus at the Lantern the following night & a $50 gift certificate towards Lantern food, with a $30 gift certificate for the runner up. Winning candidates will be judged on style and performan ce by a pimpin’ panel of hometown heroes led by emcee “EZ” Eddie McClain. Boombox drops the boogie bomb around 11 until last call. The duo are coming off a holiday hiatus where they’ve been cutting and polishing new material for their upcoming full length downriverelectric slated for a May 26, 2009 release on Red Eye Reco rds. Although Boombox live sets are notoriously crowd pleasing, close fans are eager with excitement in hopes of hearing new mate rial. The Lantern staff reports ample, stocked mop heads anticipatin g exuberant booty waxing and face melting during the course of the festivities. So bring your leashes, chains and pimp canes for a night of social stimulation you won’t soon forget. Admission is $10 in advance and $12 day of show. www.thisisboombox.com www.thelanternblacksburg.com www.getplugged-in.com

Check out more stuff to do in Blacksburg online at www.16blocksmagazine.com

24 1 6 B L O C K S

Montgomery Museum and Lewis Miller Art Center -- Special Exhibition “Art and Soul: Kindred Words, Sounds

and Images” - Yonsenia White and T. Byron Kelly. Paintings and poetry. Showing through 2/28. Also showing: an exhibit of local historical artifacts – “Feeding Montgomery County: the History of Food and Food Production.” Ends June 2009. VT Perspective Gallery, Squires Student Center -- “Past Tense” -- Sometimes cryptic, sometimes wry, sometimes shocking and confrontational, conceptual artist, sculptor & painter Christina Marsh explores cultural difference, racism, and the places between two polarities. Ends 2/21. The Gallery at Mish Mish - photography by Lester Myers – Ends 3/6. The Gallery, 1019 E. Main St. Radford “A Light Walk” -- Vibrant, cheerful pastel landscapes by Blacksburg artist Sandy Kennedy. Walk off the Seasonal Affective Disorder with a cup of coffee and some art. Ends 3/21.

VALENTINE’S DAY! Love it up! It’s 2/14, time to vent your spleen. 8 PM @ Champs, “Lovers/Haters” Rock Show -- All Kinds of Gravity Hosts this night of love and hate, be there or be alone and sad! Bitter Hill, Egodeaf, The Reasons Were Legion, A.S.I.S., & more TBA 10 PM @ The Lantern -- Grand Hooker’s Ball led by Boombox. Spark Arrester of Boogieburg opens. Most risqué costume and performance wins 2 tickets to Lotus @ the Lantern the following night plus more goodies. So bring your leashes, whips and chains for a round of

social stimulation you won’t forget. $10 advance, $12 day of show. 10 PM @ Awful Arthur’s Blacksburg – The Grilled Lincolns soothe your busted heart with mellow, earnest groovy pop songs. 7-11 PM @ the Taubman Museum of Art, Downtown Roanoke – Tattoo Fashion Show. Yes, that’s right. 40 tattooed models will display their body art to music by Roanoke’s DJ Dickie. Reserved seats $50, $25 at the door.

PLAN AHEAD Always be prepared! 2/20 ($15) – Regular deadline to enter your short film in the Progeny Festival of -- 2/27 ($20) is the late entry cutoff. See http://www.progeny.org.vt.edu for more info.

Ani DiFranco 3/9 @ the Jefferson Center. $34 -- pricey, but will probably sell out, seeing as her songs have been the soundtrack for the high school and college years of most American women born after 1975.

OTHER EVENTS Do more stuff! VT School of Performing Arts & Cinema hosts “One-night Stands” -- a series of free guest lectures. Fri, 2/27, 7:30 PM Torgerson 2150, VT Campus -- Jan Cohen-Cruz speaks on bringing progressive art to university programs. A practitioner and scholar of Boal’s “Theater of the Oppressed”, Ms. Cohen-Cruz specializes in activist art and radical street performance. She was co-Director of Americorps’ violence reduction program under the Clinton Administration.

Poetry @ Volume II Bookstore, University Mall, Blacksburg Tues. 2/10, 7 PM -- The one and only Dr. Nikki Giovanni reads poetry from her new book, Bicycles: Love Poems. Wisdom, honesty, and her signature sense of humor.

2/25-3/1 and 3/3-3/5, 7:30 PM, Squires Studio Theater, VT Campus VT Theater Arts presents Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, by Naomi Wallace. Love, youth and the struggle to survive and grow amid rural poverty in the 1930’s. Directed by VT professor Bob Leonard.

Wed. 3/4, 7-9 PM @ The VT Graduate Life Center Auditorium, Otey St, Bburg. Cargo: Innocence Lost A compelling documentary exposing the hidden crime of sex trafficking in the USA through interviews with top officials, victims’ advocates and victims themselves. Following the screening, a representative from the human rights agency, International Justice Mission (IJM), will speak and discuss how concerned individuals can address this human rights issue.

Saturdays, 2/7-2/28, 3 PM @ The Lyric Theater, 135 College Ave, Blacksburg French & Francophone film festival -- see http://www.thelyric.com/calendar/# for more info -- $ FREE

Mon. 3/2, 7 PM @ Volume II -- Welcome special guest Terrance Hayes, Professor of Creative Writing at Carnegie Mellon University -- his rhythmic precise verses capture precisely the fears and mysteries of desire.

MUSIC

Also coming up @ the Jefferson Center: Tue. 2/17, 7:30 PM -- DLP Productions presents Dark Star Orchestra, uncanny interpreters (some would say channelers) of the sound and stage presence of the Grateful Dead. Tickets $27. Fri. 2/27, 8 PM -- Toni Blackman. From her cultural outreach work in Africa to her on-stage and studio collaborations with The Roots, Erykah Badu, and more, this hip hop artist boasts a resume’ to match her talent. Tickets only $10. Just $5 for students. Fri. 2/13, 10 PM-2 AM @ Cabo Fish Taco, 117 S. Main St., Blacksburg DJ SABO of Nickodemus’ Turntables on the Hudson returns to make the 13th

The London Underground is celebrating 20 years of good times and good people at 112 N. Main St in Blacksburg, and the party’s going on all month long with special events and other offers. •JOHN’S BOURBON CLUB Every Tuesday in February Sample two select bourbons with John Bissey. Drink and talk bourbon, beer, business, hockey or what have you. Space is limited, please sign up early. See John for details.

•CHARITY LUCK O’ THE DRAW Saturdays in February The Pub will match the payout for each tournament and donate the money to charity, including the American Cancer Society and the American Red Cross. The more that play, the more the Pub pays. •SUNDAY LIVE IRISH JAM Starting Sunday, February 8th. Live musicians play traditional Irish music every Sunday. Goes from around 3 pm until they are drunk or tired.

ART CLASSES!

Rock Out! Thurs. 2/12, 2009 @ 7:30 PM Jefferson Center -- 541 Luck Ave SW Roanoke Ladysmith Black Mambazo Tickets On Sale Now - Call 345-2550 Silver $38, Bronze $28, Students 1/2 price - Shortly after his release from prison, Nelson Mandela publicly stated that the members of Ladysmith Black Mambazo were “South Africa’s cultural ambassadors.” That was 15 years ago and this a cappella group is still bringing the vocal rhythms of the Zulu tribe to audiences all around the world. The sounds are soothing, the rhythms warm and natural, and the lyrics tell the tales of love and triumph over pain and hardship. And you can’t experience their signature “tip-toe” dance or feel the subtleties of their whispers by listening to Paul Simon’s Graceland.

IT’S A PUB-A-PALOOZA!

Taught by Jessica L. Jonesercolor paints with spray lucky w/opening DJ set by the Boogieburg Soundsystem. Thu. 2/19, 7 PM @ Gillie’s, 153 College Ave, Bburg Liam Kelly -- Solo experimental guitar by a member of the Jugbusters. Fri. 2/20, 10 PM @ Martin’s, 413 1st St SW Roanoke Blue Ridge Dub Alliance – This brand new group brings together King George with Jake D, Jamiel, Zeph & Janiah (Alliens) & frontman Bobby Thompson for some deep sounds. DJ Rahbee opens.

of wat Learn to use fabric dyes instead ead of brushes. The results inst s nge spo l woo sea bottles and always a pleasant surprise. e efor are difficult to control and ther printmaking papers, we’ll be Using a variety of watercolor and t and how the paper can draexploring how dye differs from pain the paintings are finished, e Onc matically affect the outcome. elements to enhance the final we’ll be bringing in some collage tivity will be encouraged and artwork. Experimentation and crea or bad ideas! there will be no wrong answers ster, people can contact the For more information of to regi 961-1135. The class will meet on Parks and Recreation Center at from 10-12pm. 28, ary Saturdays, January 31-Febru

Fri. 2/20, 8 PM @ The Lantern -- Hackensaw Boys return! Last time the house had to turn people away, so get there on time if you want in on the oldtime party of the season. Tickets $10 in advance and $12 day of the show 2/24 --- OK, it’s Mardi Gras. Downtown Blacksburg and Roanoke are going to be a bacchanal. Either stay home with a good book, or resign yourself to a long night of bright red rum drinks, plastic beads, and the cry of, “WOOOO HOOOOOO”. I hear there may be a party at Boudreaux’s planned. Sat. 2/28, 7 PM @ Gillie’s - Mandara Bellydance -- Middle Eastern-style dance night. Also remember, every Tuesday night is Jazz night at the Cellar. Bands generally play from 9 till about midnight. Shows are free.

F E B 2 0 0 9 25

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Chopping the head off of the Black King requires that he stand in the right spot while the axe falls. He is not currently under the blade, can you move him so the executioner has a clean cut? Hint: Ask yourself where can the King move?

26 1 6 B L O C K S

Chess is a game of accumulating small victories. In this example, the sides are materially even, however White has a tactically superior position. Can you find a way of forcing Black to let go of BIG material?

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F E B 2 0 0 9 27

There Once Was A Man From Nowhere by “EZ ” E d d ie M cC l a i n

Th ere o n c e wa s a m an who came fr om N o thi ng . Wh en he l o o ked b ack from whe nce he ca m e he r ea li z ed he w a s N o w her e. S t i l l , he wondered how he could mak e N o w h e r e S o m e w h e r e a n d m a k e N o w h e r e S o m ethin g to S om e one . N o b ody really knew how much of Som e t h i n g t h e y w e r e m i s s i n g b e c a u s e a l l t h e y s a w was Nothing. W e l l , he thought, Nothing is a joke to m e , y e t N o t h i n g e n d u r e s b e c a u s e N o t h i n g i s to b e ta ken to o se r iously. Th e w is es t is h e t hat k nows he k now s N o thi ng . N o t hing is new under the sun. Nothin g i s h a r d e r . N o t h i n g i s b e y o n d r e j o i c i n g i n No t hin g. I n f a ct, the great e st hazard in life is to r i s k N o thi ng . To a vo id c ritic ism : do N ot hing, say No thi ng , a nd be N o thi ng . Do No th in g a n d d o it v e ry we ll. F eel No th in g, u nt il e v e rywhe re you hea r the s o und o f s w eet N o thi ng s . J u s t then th e m an st ood up t o spe ak a nd s a i d N o thi ng . N o b ody listened -- then Everybody d i s a g r e e d . T h e n Nobody asked about Something h e d i d n ’ t k n o w a b o u t . H e a sked, “How can my Everything be y o u r N o t h i n g . Y e t , t o m e y o u ’ r e n o o n e , t o E veryone you’re Someone’s somet h i n g a n d t o S o m e o n e y o u m a y b e t h e i r E v e r ything?” Wel l th e ma n said, “N ot hing can be m o r e bea uti f ul. Den y No th in g, b ut doubt Ev e ryt hing. H e k n o ws to o much ab out N ot hing. Th o ugh No thin g hap pe ne d b y chance , N o thi ng i s to be f ea r ed. No t hin g is wro ng. No t hin g is o ver unt il we de cid e it is! I ’ v e seen the fut ur e , Ev e ryt hing chang es , N o thi ng per i s hes ! S o yo u see, we have Eve r yt hing t o gai n a nd N o thi ng to lo s e. I ’ v e seen the value of Everything and t h e p r i c e o f N o t h i n g . I f N owh ere is y our d e st inat ion … we lco m e. Th e ha ppy peo ple are t hose who are cr ea ti ng S o m ethi ng a nd ther e’ s N o thi ng li k e it. Th e bo red peo ple ar e t hose who ar e co ns um i ng m uch a nd pr o duci ng no thi ng . ” Wi t h th a t sa id, he t ook Some t hing fr o m N o w her e a nd hung i t s o m ew her e tha t w a s n’t there, and it became a destina t i o n b e c a u s e S o m e t h i n g w a s n o w t h e r e . H e c oncluded, “My point is… Nobody c a n d o E v e r y t h i n g , b u t E v e r y b o d y c a n d o S o m ething while Everything is going o n . ”