It’s been a while since we’ve updated the site, so it’s probably better to recap local news in one fell swoop. We’ve got lots of things to talk about, from ski season, to economic hardships and death studies. Here she goes…
The ski season starts early this year!
Wintergreen opened their season early with some of the best conditions seen in several years (anyone remember how horrible the last two years were?). Showshoe has 26 slopes open and Massanutten appears to be open, but with minimal slopes.
New York Daily News Features Charlottesville in a Travel Article
While not an epic fail like the author who didn’t appear to have actually spent “36 hours in Charlottesville,” Jill Fergus hops around Charlottesville for wine and history fun. Did you know that you can dine with a Jefferson impersonator at Keswick? I didn’t.
Sign of Our Time Part Annoying (Shoot Me, Please)
The Sage Moon Gallery will soon close its doors due to hard times. Have no fear, the gallery will move elsewhere, but you need to visit before December 15th if you want to see its last breath on the Downtown Mall.
UVA Plans to Research Death Experiences
In what sounds like a crazy sci-fi thing, a UVA scientist named Bruce Greyson plans to participate in the Human Consciousness Project. This study aims to discover how consciousness works during near death experiences. I can’t explain it better than the website, so here is the quote:
In recent years, a number of scientific studies conducted by independent researchers have found that as many as 10-20 percent of individuals who undergo cardiac arrest report lucid, well-structured thought processes, reasoning, memories, and sometimes detailed recall of their cardiac arrest. What makes these experiences remarkable is that while studies of the brain during cardiac arrest have consistently that there is no brain activity during this period, these individuals have reported detailed perceptions that appear to indicate the presence of a high-level of consciousness in the absence of measurable brain activity.
These studies appear to suggest that the human mind and consciousness may in fact function at a time when the clinical criteria of death are fully present and the brain has ceased functioning. If these smaller studies can be replicated and verified through the definitive, large-scale studies of the Human Consciousness Project, they may not only revolutionize the medical care of critically ill patients and the scientific study of the mind and brain, but may also bear profound universal implications for our social understanding of death and the dying process.
I would be happy to know we aren’t just a bunch of chemical reactions.
[pic from terren in virginia]
Tagged as: Downtown Mall, Jefferson, News, sage gallery, skiing
oh and if you can’t ski, you can play with this..
http://www.sober-productions.co.uk/line-rider/
but where are the gingerbread houses going?!
that intolerably mediocre art gallery is going going gone? mission accomplished… we can cancel the rebricking of the mall now
Maybe we can get more Art in Place! Like 900 new ones.
@4: Are Thurston and Thurston622 the same person? Dude, what gives?
First Thomas Kinkaid (painter of light) and now this - the horror!
Where will I buy my gag gifts?
Is Thurston622 somebody from the 202 that is 420?
@ 3 The art of mediocrity is vastly underrated. Having a gallery that sells fuzzy paintings of galloping horses that “match the sofa and set off the carpet”, frees other artists to create such things a cubist muppets in military uniforms sodomizing each other. Its all a grand ferris wheel of misplaced emphasis.
@ 6 I think you meant to say “painter of blight”.
Shen. Yes!
Doppelganging yourself should be punishable by death!
@7 the horses were my favorite thing at the last first friday! relatively favorite.
A crappy art gallery closing in Charlottesville is no surprise, since evidently we’ve been in a recession since December 2007!! There isn’t enough Mayflower money (i.e. old $$) in Charlottesville to keep fuzzy horsie paintings afloat.
And I have to disagree with you byo - by crappy artists doing all the commercial crap art, that prevents GOOD artists from being able to bang out and sell crap to make ends meet while working on their masterpiece on the side.
I think it has nothing but a depressing effect on artists and the art market when artists only capable of crap commercial “art” litter the market with it.
Boy - I’m in a sh!t mood this morning. I wonder why I’ve known that we’ve been in recession for - oh, about a year - and now the geniuses in the government are finally announcing it? Bush probably wanted to push that announcement off until he was nearly out the door…
@11 along with those 61 policies diametrically opposed to obama’s plans…
@ 11 And I have to disagree with you byo - by crappy artists doing all the commercial crap art, that prevents GOOD artists from being able to bang out and sell crap to make ends meet while working on their masterpiece on the side
I would argue that when GOOD artists are “banging out and selling crap” they are by definition, albeit temporarily, crappy artists. Nothing wrong with that, or doing what it takes to make a living. But if you feel like all the watercolor paintings of day lillies and garish pallette knife abstracts prevent anyone from expressing the fire rage and lust in their heart, well then… i dont know. “Real Art” (and I hate that term) comes from the heart, economic conditions be damned. But thats just my opinion.
Speaking of art, Isabelle Abbot is having a show at The Gallery at Fifth and Main this Friday. She promises there will be free alcohol and maybe even a cheese plate.
@14 i hope that gallery is less stingy with its free alcohol than sage moon.
Second Street is the stingiest gallery. No joke.
I can’t speak for how stingy they will be. Too bad I’ll be in warm, sunny Tampa and won’t be able to find out.
um, it’s TAMPA. no jealousy.
We all know how you feel about Florida, but combine VT football game with my brother’s 21st, and I don’t care where you put me, I’ll be so blackout I may not make it back to VA.
just return by tuesday.
/a hot tub would be nice.
@19 not coming back? Can we auction off your stuff to pay Spicy Bear’s legal fees?
maybe a bar tab or two
@21: If I don’t make it back, auction off all of my stuff and use the proceeds to buy a bunch of booze and have a ridiculous party.