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Life

The tradition behind Midsummers

By Adam Justice Cavalier Daily Life Editor The streets of Charlottesville usually grow quiet during the summer months after students pack their bags to head off to the beach or take on that lucrative internship. But one weekend out of every summer all that changes and the town once again is bustling with students. Midsummers - being celebrated this weekend - marks both a break between the two summer sessions and the midpoint of the summer. It seemingly is a hallowed University tradition and students flock to Charlottesville in droves to celebrate it. Yet few appear to know just how Midsummers got started or even what it is they're celebrating. "I think it had a lot more history, but now it's just an excuse to come back," Inter-Fraternity Council President Phil Trout said.


Life

Playful summer festival

It's not quite round-the-clock theater, but it comes close. July means it's time again for the Summer Theatre Festival at Live Arts, a whirlwind saturation experience that makes it possible to see 13 performances in about a week.


Life

Down and Dirty

With sun-dried dirt smudged all over his T-shirt and khakis, Adam Vandervort painstakingly sifted the newly dug dirt.


Life

Training the next pop sensations

K ids say the darndest things. "How old are you, 40?" one asked me not too long ago. The kid was 8 years old, and she obviously needed a pair of glasses, or some sort of medication, such as valium. I say this because she was jumping up and down, making pigeon-like noises and shoving her classmates all at the same time.


Life

Becoming a true

T he Bible has its Ten Commandments. Einstein had his theory and Jack Handey has his Deep Thoughts - which at times aren't so deep.


Life

STOPPING THE MONSTER

S pray-painted in black letters against a white wooden back ground, the message on the makeshift sign stuck in front of a house on Cameron Lane could not be clearer. "HELP STOP UVA GARAGE ON IVY BEFORE IT GETS YOU!" These types of signs along with emblazoned blue banners appear in the yards of many residents of the Lewis Mountain neighborhood, an area within a stone's throw of the University's proposed parking garage. On March 12 of this year, the University officially unveiled its plan for a piece of land slated for development down Ivy Road: a 1,180-space, five-story parking garage.


Life

"Windtalkers" appeals to John Woo fans

If there's one thing audiences weren't exactly screaming for, it's another war movie. We've seen Black Hawks rise, we've seen Black Hawks fall, we've seen soldiers go behind enemy lines, we've seen enemies at the gates, and we're all quite aware of the fact that war is not too pretty. That's why "Windtalkers" is such a surprise.


Life

Hollywood Hoos

By Derek Richardson Cavalier Daily Associate Editor WHOO TV, a University student-run film production group, is hard at work this summer filming the dramatic miniseries "Stratagem." The miniseries is set at fictional Blackwood University, where five students conduct psychological research during the summer for Prof.


Life

Summer of Love

Do six plays in seven weeks sound hectic to you? Heritage Repertory Theatre, the professional company-in-residence at the University's Drama Department during the summer months, helps keep theater alive in Charlottesville by adopting a repertory mode of production. With irregular, sporadic summer schedules, vacations interrupting things and with friends and family around for shorter chunks of time, many theaters adapt by turning to this model.


Life

Icarus flying away?

By Adam Justice Cavalier Daily Life Editor The Icarus statue - the University landmark that once loomed over daily gossip sessions as students scrambled to Clemons - now has a new location. Beers-Skanska, the contracting company the University hired to construct the new special collections library, moved the statue 20 feet to its current location, in front of the bushes to the left of the steps of Alderman Library, said University project manager Don Riggins. "The statue was sitting in the footprint of where we'd have to expand for the new building," he added. While the statue's current location is only temporary, it will not - unfortunately for rising third and fourth years - be returned to its old site for another two years. "Generally it'll be [placed] where it was before we had the new building built," Riggins said. According to Philip A.


Life

Here's a timeout card for MTV's "Dismissed"

M TV, you are dismissed. It was a tough choice, but I would rather watch reruns of "Touched by an Angel"than suffer through another one of your reality shows. It's entirely possible that a team of three-toed sloths invented the concept for MTV's "Dismissed." The show is set up to be like something you might see on the Discovery Channel - two males gallantly compete for a female by strutting, doing push-ups or exhibiting their private parts. Anything is fair game.


Life

Putting to words the point of the last four years

On May 19th, many of us triumphantly will walk down the center of the Lawn to receive our diplomas after what has seemed like at least 17 years at this University. However, we will not truly have completed all the tests meant to see if we are worthy of graduation from this prestigious college, and by "prestigious" I of course mean "precipitous," and by "precipitous" I clearly don't know what I mean (I didn't learn that much while I've been here). The final test is to see if we are able to sit through two hours of boring speeches at the graduation ceremony.

Puzzles
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Latest Podcast

In this episode, Mona El Khafif, an Associate Professor of Architecture, explains biophilic design, which refers to the integration of nature into urban and architectural spaces. Through her work on the Biophilic Region Exhibition and her emphasis on the role of educational collaboration, she highlights the importance of shaping architecture and learning for an environmentally conscious future, even here in Charlottesville.