Who?
I’m Joel Jones, a playwright, fiction writer, storyteller, and improv teacher. I live in Charlottesville, Virginia with my lovely wife Jen and my lovely daughter Ellie. I run a theater company called Big Blue Door.
What?
Blame Cannon is a newsletter/blog about Charlottesville and cities of the past, present, and future. I want to break with current habits of arguing over words and meaning, and instead tell stories of my experiences, the experiences of the people around me today, and the people of the past.
For the first few months we’ll be presenting a three-corded story called Welcome to Charlottesville. I’ll have secondary posts whenever life permits.
Reading the series in order:
If you want to read the posts in the original order, alternating between the three story lines, here they are: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, and Part 15.
Reading each of the three story threads in order:
Here are moving-to-Charlottesville posts in order: First Time, Second Time, Third Time, Fourth Time, Fifth Time.
Here are the Police Stories posts in order: Police Stories: The Idea, Police Stories: The Launch, Police Stories 3: The Klan, Police Stories: Unite the Right, Police Stories: The Aftermath.
Here are the Cville history posts in order: Monasukapanough, Cville Begins!, Cville Grows & Separates, Cville Drives, Is It the Future Yet?
I’m also hoping the show will have a few audience games that will be represented by Bonus Posts. This one about how cities are constructed will be a slide show of cities around the world. And this one about the political spectrum and how to talk about the Alt-Right needs to be put into the show somehow.
Also here are several posts that add to the main story:
When?
Chapters come out Tuesdays, altering between stories about the times I’ve moved to Charlottesville, stories about a project I worked on involving interviews with local law enforcement, and stories about the history of the town.
Where?
Charlottesville is a small city in the Piedmont of Virginia, famous for Thomas Jefferson, the University of Virginia, James Monroe, and proximity to the Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline Drive. Also more recently the location of the Unite the Right protests.
Why?
I’m hoping the Welcome to Charlottesville series will become the script for a play called… wait for it... Welcome to Charlottesville.
Beyond that I want to share some of what I find interesting and moving about life in a small city that I think has been a harbinger of the times ahead.
So please subscribe to get full access to the newsletter. Every new post is sent directly to your email inbox. No spam or ads. All the Welcome to Charlottesville chapters are completely free.
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