Good morning, RVA! It's 72 °F, and today's a bit warmer and less magical than previous days this week. Look for highs in the low 90s and clouds as we prepare for a chance of rain tomorrow.
Water cooler
Density, density, density! Debbie Truong at the RTD reports that the developer behind Rocketts Landing is looking for permission from Henrico County to add a 133-unit, mixed-use apartment building to the neighborhood. These units aren't what you'd call affordable, and they aren't in the City proper, but they are located adjacent to high-quality transit which connects this little urban village to the rest of City.
A while back we I talked about the opening of Oakwood Arts + P35 Gallery—here's a refresher from Samantha Willis in Richmond Magazine if you've forgotten. Tonight, they'll host a block party celebrating the success of their first community workshop. They'll have hot dogs, ice cream, music, and, at dusk, they'll turn on the lights of the space to show off the results of their digital photographic collage workshop. Join them on the corner of 35th & P to see what it's all about. Their next workshop (August 19th), on cyanotypes, sounds fascinating.
Speaking of arts, check out this cool thing I found on the Public Arts Commission Agenda this morning: A temporary public art installation called Open Inbox by artist Barry O'Keefe (PDF). These really rad looking wooden boxes that function as a kind of community bulletin board will be installed in three parks around town, and then 100 handmade invitations will be "distributed to neighbors surrounding each installation site, announcing the sculpture and inviting them to use it." Neat! I want one for my neighborhood!
I should have reminded y'all about this month's Breakaway RVA earlier, but I did not. It's tonight, and as of this exact moment, you can still sign up! Riding bikes with a bunch of fellow Richmonders to a destination unknown is pretty much my most favorite way to spend an evening. Hope to see you there.
Editors of Richmond Magazine! I enjoy your Then and Now feature, but you totally cannot call BRT construction on Broad Street the City's "worst public eyesore"! Worse than the billboard obscuring the view of the city skyline on I-95? Worse than the aging, decrepit Coliseum? Worse than the six million surface-level parking lots choking up downtown!? GAH! I feel like they are trolling me specifically!
This master list of breweries, meaderies, wineries, and whatevereries in Style Weekly is the exact type of thing that'd be perfect to put on a wiki.
It can be hard to keep up with the ever-lurching, ever-changing destruction of health insurance in the Senate. This Continuing Coverage feature from FiveThirtyEight is a great way to stay current. Defeated so far: Repeal and delay, repeal and replace. Still alive: skinny repeal and whatever awful thing lives inside of McConnell's darkest places. Stay tuned!
Sports!
- Squirrels had their winning streak broken by a 3-5 loss to Harrisburg. That series ends, but a new series against Erie in the Diamond begins tonight at 6:35 PM. Tickets are available online.
- Kickers battled the Charlotte Independence to a 0-0 draw last night.
- Nats picked up an 8-5 win against the Brewers and will wrap up that series today at 12:05 PM.
This morning's longread
The Catastrophe of Success
Here's a PDF of an article written by Tennessee Williams about the sudden impact of success.
The sort of life that I had had previous to this popular success was one that required endurance, a life of clawing and scratching along a sheer surface and holding on tight with raw fingers to every inch of rock higher than the one caught hold of before, but it was a good life because it was the sort of life for which the human organism is created. I was not aware of how much vital energy had gone into this struggle until the struggle was removed. I was out on a level plateau with my arms still thrashing and my lungs still grabbing at air that no longer resisted. This was security at last. I sat down and looked about me and was suddenly very depressed. I thought to myself, this is just a period of adjustment. Tomorrow morning, I will wake up in this first-class hotel suite above the discreet hum of an East Side boulevard and I will appreciate its elegance and luxuriate in its comforts and know that I have arrived at our American plan of Olympus. Tomorrow morning when I look at the green satin sofa I will fall in love with it. It is only temporarily that the green satin looks like slime on stagnant water.