Welcome
I consider Charlottesville ground zero for the awakening of the nation.
We may not be able to recognize it now because we’re living in it, but 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now the nation and the world will remember these people and all of us for the changes we’ve brought.
—Charlottesville City Council Member Wes Bellamy 12/16/19*
I think that statement is absolutely true, though not necessarily in the positive way Bellamy probably intended it. I think America’s ‘awakening’ is the awakening of an angry monster catching us after we’ve accidentally stumbled into its treasure-heaped cave.
But understanding that monster now glaring with its drowsy, angry eyes is what Blame Cannon is all about. I’m starting with a story called Welcome to Charlottesville that came to me in my studio on the second floor of McGuffey Art Center. I run a theater company there and I was thinking about shows, three different shows, and suddenly they fit together.
If this were a play...
I’d stage it in the studio. I’d welcome you as you came in. Maybe I’d set the start time so the play would climax right as darkness falls—or is that too hokey?
I’d begin with a monologue about the first time I moved to Charlottesville.
Then I would go to another part of the stage, the lighting would change, and I’d talk about an art project that would fail spectacularly.
Then I would abruptly shift to a third spot and talk about the history of the area.
Maybe that’s when I would open the curtains and show you the town itself. Or maybe I’d start the show with the curtains open and point out the town before I talk about the first time I moved here. (All that can be worked out with a director in rehearsal.)
I’d point out one the park where the General Robert E Lee statue used to ride forever atop his unflagging steed. Maybe a joke: How about my set designer, folks? Best set in Charlottesville theater ever!
Then back to the original spot to describe the second time I moved here, then to the middle spot for the continuation of the art project story, then to the history spot, and so on, around and around, five times, with occasional asides into anthropology, archaeology, and urbanism, shared through games, characters, songs, sketches. Gradually, the three stories would converge, interconnect, and slam together into an amazing climax with a consciousness-shattering, soul-affirming catharsis.
You would all applaud madly, your lives changed forever.
The Plan
So I’m writing the script on Substack with a new part each week. It will probably take 15-16 weeks. Each Tuesday there will be a main post and later in the week or over the weekend I’ll add supplemental posts to delve into details, examples, and tangents.
Hey, what good is my lifetime of chronic underemployment spent obsessively checking under the cushions of the human sofa, if I can’t share the loose change and recovered knickknacks?
Welcome to Charlottesville
Wes Bellamy, quoted above, served on city council during a term that included the Unite the Right rally, the protests leading up to it, and the removal of Lee’s statue. At the last meeting of a council term departing members traditionally give speeches. Mike Signer and Kathy Gavin spoke, and Bellamy spoke last. He talked about growing up in the city’s eyes, making mistakes in public, his gratitude to those who had supported him and his new family, and even those who had criticized him, often in horribly inappropriate ways. Bellamy is controversial figure in Charlottesville largely for the reasons he expressed himself, but I like him. His speech made me think of change, how people, towns, civilizations change.
The nation and the world certainly have remembered Charlottesville’s Unite the Right rally. It wasn’t even 5 years later when Joe Biden declared his candidacy for president based largely on Charlottesville is not who we are. Of course Trump had famously opined that there were Good people on both sides, a phrase which has been repeated often by many of his detractors. To the extent these statements are true, they are pretty meaningless; and to the extent either statement is meaningful, as we'll see over the weeks ahead they certainly aren’t true.
We’re look into the past and future, across a continent, and across the oceans. What I want most is that when you’ve finished this series you will look out on any town—maybe out a window like that window above—and what seems amazing now might seem quite ordinary, but what is ordinary will seem astonishing. And if I build and connect these stories right, you’ll understand the world by seeing Charlottesville, and understand Charlottesville by seeing the world.
Thanks for reading! Please subscribe and come with me in the weeks ahead!
Now I must go and finish cleaning the couch before my family gets home.
*Thanks to the ever deft and diligent Sean Tubbs for tracking down the date and minutes of that meeting! Check out his newsletter Charlottesville Community Engagement! Bellamy is author of Monumental: It Was Never About a Statue if you want a taste of his prose.