On this day (June 22) in 1558, the French took possession of the French town (or province), Thioville, from occupying English forces. This was a pretty important battle — for both the French and the English — because it marked, not the beginning, but the penultimate, of the end of English occupation in Calais, its last outpost in France. Curiously enough, if you Google Thioville, which I of course have done, Google responds “Did you mean Thionville?” Well, no. If you keep insisting, which I, of course, did, Google will eventually throw out a long series … Continue reading On This Day→
Sky Pond is one of the more popular destinations in Rocky Mountain National Park. Perhaps you’ve been there. The trail ascends through heavily traveled Glacier Gorge, past the Loch, then curves through a large, steep bowl of alpine meadows. Once you emerge from the trees into the meadow, you can see a plateau with a moderate cliff face with Timberline Falls plummeting through the middle. Steep peaks surround the falls and it’s easy to see that Sky Pond will be in the middle of these peaks, but you can’t see it yet. From this point, … Continue reading Coming Down from Sky Pond by Glenn Freeman→
When I was in college there was this bar that had bouncers who took turns playing St. Peter. They stood outside the door going: You. You. You. Not you. The whole idea was so ghastly to me (for a variety of reasons, not least of which was that I knew I’d be the one person in whatever group I was with who’d be left on the wrong side of the velvet rope) that I swore I’d never, ever subject myself to anything like that. And yet… I became a writer. For those who aren’t afflicted … Continue reading The Decider→
The day Septima left, she said, “I believe I am a promise you are tired of keeping.” Minutes before, Turk had pitched a bottle of beer at her. He had missed, but only barely. Green glass and yellow ale splattered against the kitchen wall. For once, she did not bother cleaning the mess. Septima packed her red valise: toothbrush, comb, talcum powder, three faded cotton housedresses and seventy-two dollars. As she left their home and ventured into the driving rain, she muttered, “The lies we tell ourselves.” She’d met Turk, a sailor, at a bar … Continue reading The Arithmetic of Love by Deborah Prum→
LOOK3… June 10-13th all eyes will be on LOOK3, Charlottesville’s stellar photography festival now in its seventh year. The town will host numerous famous photographers as well as revealing talks, exhibits and shows in a variety of venues. This year’s Festival is curated by Kathy Ryan, Director of Photography at The New York Times Magazine and Scott Thode, the current Visuals Editor for E.O. Wilson’s Life On Earth. The LOOK3 Festival of the … Continue reading Through the Looking Glass….→
There is a saying that if you don’t know what you’re doing, ask your neighbors. Once upon a time when I first moved to Nelson County, Virginia, and knew no one, I experienced an untethered queasy feeling of not being entirely in my world. This unconnected-ness with my new surroundings produced an awful feeling of dis-location with self and was something I had not expected from my move to Virginia. This unease persisted for weeks, months. The first hint of relief occurred when I had to call on one of the farmer families in … Continue reading Gossip→
At the old house, Leslie had walked to school. Here, the school was closer, but she had to take the bus. The old house had been on the outskirts of a smaller town, not a former murder capital of the world. Leslie’s mother had grown up just a few miles away from the new place and worried about drug crime crossfire and dirty old men. “It isn’t safe,” was her excuse for everything. “Trust me. I know what I’m talking about.” The two of them had moved right before the end of eighth-grade, in time … Continue reading No Good by Jody Hobbs Hesler→
I move around a lot — not kinetically, but like a hermit crab from home to home. And as a consequence, my Facebook account has become cluttered with groups of friends from all the various cities where I have lived. So recently, in a bitter night of un-Friending, I purged gangs of them from my Friends list. It’s not that I had reason to suddenly dislike them — most were wonderful people — it’s that I became acutely frustrated with Facebook and how it has affected me. Since I was born before the advent of … Continue reading A Spy Among My Peers→
The following is reblogged from Charlotteville’s C’ville Niche (check it out!). Jean Sampson is a past contributor to Streetlight, both in poetry and art — and we appreciate her! Hope you enjoy hearing more. Susan S C’ville Niche – Find out the Buzz of Cville {live.love.local} Local Artist Check-in: Jean Sampson Posted on May 13, 2015 by Raennah Lorne Painter and poet Jean Sampson has a long history with the building that houses the McGuffey Art Center as she graduated there in 1960 from what was formerly McGuffey Elementary School. She now paints in her … Continue reading Checking in on Jean Sampson→
Birds in residence are the stuff of metaphors and dreams for New York City artist Dina Brodsky. Mysterious feathered fowl — from crows to blue jays — land in unexpected interiors, their residencies somehow natural as well as disturbing. “The current series — One More Shelter — shows abandoned places, buildings given over to decay and entropy, yet still containing the memories of its former inhabitants,” says Brodsky. “Albuquerque is a painting based on an incredibly formal, beautiful, and unusable dining room I saw in a New Mexico house. I imagined what the room and the objects would look … Continue reading Fine Feathers: Miniatures by Dina Brodsky→
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