Eamon Drumm

In the past decade, CNN, Time, the New York Times, The New Yorker, Vice, and many, many other American news media sources published glossy photo spreads and graphic dispatches from the “front lines” documenting the abandonment of urban Detroit and landscapes of post-Katrina New Orleans.Read more...

U.va.’s advanced cinematography class has shot a mondo film. On November 6th, the group will present their cuts to John Waters—director of "trash" classics Pink Flamingos (1972), Hairspray (1988), Pecker (1998), and A Dirty Shame (2004)—for a critique. Waters is scheduled to appear at U.Va. in conjunction with the Virginia Film Festival, which will take place between November 5th and 7th. Justin Black and I dropped by the mondo set on Sunday to peek at the group in the final stages of filming.Read more...

This is the first issue of the Dec—well, the first this volume—printed with borrowed money. Donated money, actually: our friends the alumni will not get it back except as psychic satisfaction. “Having been poor is no shame,” said one ex-staffer, “but being ashamed of it, is.” Thank you, Benjamin Franklin. Following are the names of the alumni to whom we are very, very grateful: Pamela Faggert, Bill Armistead, Douglass List, Jeanne Stahl, Gregory Rutledge, Michael Fell, O.S.Read more...

The recession has hit home. Last week the Dec received notice from the Student Appropriations Com­mittee of our budget for Spring 2009. The news was bad. Though it might appear to run solely on internal momentum and the propulsive force of a steady supply of hot air, the Declaration is a dependent CIO like many others.Read more...

I met Mel Ziegler last Friday outside Bank of America on the Corner. Over a dark blazer and black overcoat, his face wore the numbed expression of hours spent in committee. With him were Allison Turner and Ashley LeFew, two members of the Student Arts Board, which brought Ziegler to U.Va. and is working to make his proposed public art project for the university a reality. We planned to have dinner downtown to discuss the day’s meeting of the Committee on Public Art, where the three had spent most of the afternoon defending Ziegler’s proposal.Read more...