Artist Richard Crozier’s works are subjects of change…change of seasons, change of light, change of landscape and skyline. Over the past four decades, he has produced more than 3000 “portraits” of the Charlottesville area in transition. In 2011, Crozier retired as professor of studio art from UVa’s McIntire Department of Art, where since 1974, he’d taught beginning drawing and advanced painting and became known for his encouraging and engaging style. He continues to paint daily, producing up to five scenes a week. “The thing that interests me a lot are landscapes that are in … Continue reading Subject to Change: Paintings by Richard Crozier→
Sometimes a trip starts out innocently. You may not even know you’ve departed. (1963) On summer vacation, a boy and his family travel to the college town on the northern coast. He’s an adolescent, incarcerated for the past year by pimples and prairie, his father having moved them from suburbia to prison – a prison without walls, more accurately with the invisible walls of an ethnic enclave, and him with his driver’s license still several years away. All of this has made the vast flat plain fairly terrifying. The day after they arrive in New … Continue reading Tourist by Jim Krosschell→
No longer just “cumen in” summer is with us, all reds and greens and gold (did I leave out anything?) Oh yeah, and the latest issue of Streetlight. Soon to appear in these very pages. As it were. We’re all tourists in this world and right now, right in this spot, it’s a good place to be. We hope to prolong our visit. Oh yeah, and the pond is back. Apparently they weren’t eradicating it, when the fences went up and the earth movers came in, they were just digging it out. We were pretty … Continue reading Summer Has Come In→
Del was in the kitchen, opening the bottle of wine his second wife Catherine had given him earlier in the day. The cork kept splitting, the sign of a true amateur, he thought, except that he was an amateur in few areas of his life these days, unless you counted the endless pursuit of happiness—or rather, the achievement of that happiness—as one such minefield. But perhaps this time happiness was just around the corner, in the literal and figurative form of Juliana. “What are you doing?” Juliana’s voice drifted in around the corner of the … Continue reading Home Schooling by Sydney Blair→
Back from Wales To headline news of health care, guns, and Syria, the coastal path slipped away, sea breeze ceased, only traffic noise, but I remember— Ahead of me behind me dominion over roads runs the hard brown path that scores cliffs, heather, gorse, and thrift, that joins villages and masters fog. Walkers I pass have small drugged smiles, sheep mill and dine in ordinary splendor. How perfect the Kestrel kiting, brown triangle pinned to sky, backlit feathers steady, spread, balanced with wind, only the head shifts in his search of prey, then unpinned … Continue reading Back from Wales by Marti Snell→
Home Schooling “What are you doing?” Juliana’s voice drifted in around the corner of the living room, coming to rest finally in his willing ear. He had left her on the green chintz couch with the cat, reading Ovid. “Opening some wine.” The cork split a final time and Del pushed it down into the bottle with a jab. He poured two glasses, fishing out bits of cork that floated … Continue reading Coming Soon! Previews of Summer Issue→
First impressions can be unexpected. Driving into Athens and looking at its poorer parts, my wife and I first thought of Mexico. When I went to see the Parthenon, it was soon clear I could never escape a crowd of tourists snapping pictures… I knew its significance, but felt alienated from its actual, physical presence. At a loss, I wandered into the ancient Theatre of Dionysus where the great plays were first performed in a rare moment when entertainment and a profound impulse to understand man and fate coincided. I found the … Continue reading Finding Greece by Lance Lee→
In high school I was an associate editor for our school’s art and lit magazine, Pen & Ink. We’d meet weekly to review submissions under the tutelage of our faculty advisor, whose love and gift for teaching English had him engaging both special-ed ninth grade English students and seniors in AP Humanities. He’d sit back and respectfully listen to our staff’s thoughtful conversations about the submissions, jumping in every now-and-then with a suggestion or to humorously call out overly indulgent poetic language like, “…lurked menacingly on the penumbra.” In our editorial process, votes for submissions fell … Continue reading Rejection→
It was just about a hundred years ago that Martha dropped dead. She was found on the floor of her cage at the Cincinnati Zoo and that was that – the end of the last known passenger pigeon on the planet. One lifeless bird signified the extinction of a species whose population once numbered in the billions, perhaps the most abundant bird in the world. They were large, grayish pigeons, not flashy, not exotic, yet in descriptions, something about them evoked the language of magic or mythology: the golden-green iridescence that lit up their plumage, … Continue reading The Pigeons and the President→
A discussion of place continued. One of the distressing things about place is the way places are always disappearing. It’s an odd thing to think about – or at least, I think it’s odd. That may be because I grew up in a rural area. City dwellers, it seems to me, are more used to change. That restaurant where we liked to eat last year? Gone. The bank at the corner of North and Pearl? A parking lot. Or the other way around (most likely). Rural areas change so slowly, it’s possible to develop an … Continue reading A Little Bit Haunted→
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