MACRoCk was first put on by the student volunteers at James Madison University’s student radio station, WXJM, in 1997. Today, MACRoCk is an independently owned and organized organization, and is the largest independent music conference on the East Coast. MACRoCk offers a unique opportunity for bands, industry professionals and fans to interact and connect to support the music they love. With all the shows taking place in independently run and operated downtown music venues, MACRoCk was founded on a belief that corporate sponsorship and big business were not part of what makes music great. Through grassroots organization and an all-volunteer staff, MACRoCk strives to promote independent music, thought, art, business, and culture. This is MACRoCk’s 14th year, and it is going to be better than ever before. For more information about the conference, bands and tickets, please visit the MACRoCk website at www.macrock.org

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            Polaroid photography will celebrate just this sort of return to prominence this week with ‘A Show of Instance’ at The Artful Dodger.

            The exhibit, opening from 6-9 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 29, will include Polaroid images by 14 local photographers, whose expertise ranges from professional to first-timer.

            Paul Somers, fresh off his project to resurrect the Super 8 film format as co-founder of Harrisonburg’s first annual (and extremely successful) Super Gr8 Film Festival this fall, is one of the Polaroid show’s organizers.

            “I’ve always loved the Polaroid,” said Somers, comparing its instant reward to the digital format that has replaced it. “The difference is that the [Polaroid] format makes you far more conservative and cautious in your picture taking, which translates to better-planned images.”

            The Impossible Project, a company that bought Polaroid’s last remaining production plant in the Netherlands in 2008 and has since begun releasing new instant film for Polaroid cameras, is one of Somers’ inspirations and a sponsor of the show.

            ‘A Show of Instance’ will run for just one week ­– a nod to the format’s quickness – but Somers plans to bring back future editions every three months.

            And so, Viva la Polaroid – familiar, simple, quick, and still somehow magical, an image that appears from a black nothing between your fingers over a few long seconds.

            “This …film that develops right in front of your eyes was created 60 years ago, and is still incredible,” Somers said.

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David Mayfield is the “other” voice and lead guitarist, as well as a contributing songwriter for folk rock favorites Cadillac Sky, whose last album “Letters In The Deep” was produced by Dan Auerbach (Black Keys) but his role as a member of the Texas by way of Nashville quintet is just one of the many musical paths this Grammy-nominated artist has journeyed.

Growing up in Kent, Ohio, David was surrounded by Bluegrass music. At the age of twelve he was playing bass for the family band, traveling from festival to festival, along with his younger sister, noted songstress, Jessica Lea Mayfield, singing and absorbing the stories and lessons taught by road hard veterans, all the while picking up tips on how to play a lick on guitar or mandolin. By the time he was a teenager, Mayfield had won several national awards for his guitar and mandolin playing and his reputation was being forged in the world of Bluegrass as a player to watch out for.

In 2008 when Jessica Lea Mayfield was ready to make her debut record, Blasphemy So Heartfelt, she asked David to play bass on it. He did. And over the next year he would tour as her bassist, and as a newly minted member of Cadillac Sky all while writing and performing his own songs.

On the road with Jessica Lea Mayfield and the Avett Brothers, Scott and Seth took notice of Mayfield’s musicianship and the three quickly developed a friendship, leading them to invite David to sit in with them dozens of times including their 2010 Bonnaroo & Merlefest sets. After urging him more and more to make a record of his own, when he took to the studio the Avett’s were quick to lend their voices.

David Mayfield Parade is the culmination of that encouragement. The album reflects the numerous influences that come from a lifetime of being immersed in American music and channeling its unique forms with sincerity and celebration from the howl of early rock-n-roll, to the low lonesome twang of folk and country with a voice that is all at once heartbreaking and inherently hopeful.

The show at Clementine will start at 9:30PM.
It is $8 in advance and $10 at the door.
Joshua Vana will be opening the show!
This will be an all ages event.

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I can’t have been the only child who dreamed of commandeering one of those motorized shopping carts that sit tantalizingly unattended at grocery stores entrances. And I’m surely not the only adult who still, somewhere in his heart of childish hearts, would kill for the opportunity to go joy-riding down the frozen foods aisle, spinning donuts on the shiny waxed floor, veering madly around corners Mario Kart-style. Wouldn’t it be fun?
By age 28, though, I’d pretty much accepted that this wasn’t going to happen, that firsthand knowledge of self-propelled shopping carts will only come once I’m sufficiently withered and broken down to actually need one, that I will probably never be able to muster the necessary chutzpah and disregard for basic decency required to pull off such a stunt.
And then, a fortunate thing happened: my mother developed severe and terrible plantar fasciitis, and in September, underwent an invasive and painful foot surgery requiring many weeks of recovery – and entitling her to full operational privileges of any and all motorized shopping carts throughout the land.
As the weeks went by, Mom grew in experience and wisdom. She learned which carts are fast and which are slow, which stores are cramped and fraught with navigational hazard, and which ones are crowded with entire regiments of variously disabled customers, whirring to and fro, jockeying for position, turning the place into bumper cart arcades.
One fall day, with her bandaged foot propped up on the coffee table, Mom began to tell tales of her shopping cart experiences. I disclosed my long fascination with these carts, and together, we hatched a plan. I would become her shopping cart apprentice, she would be my mentor, together, we would share our findings with the world.
At our first stop, Cosco, Mom flings her walker aside, leaps aboard the motorized cart and unplugs the vehicle from its charging station in one smooth, elegant motion. She is an old pro. Several other older ladies smile kindly in her direction, casting long, sympathetic looks at her obviously injured extremity (out in public, she has to wear a Darth Vader-style black cyborg boot). I witnessed this sort of thing over and over during my fieldwork – unusual goodness toward, and genuine concern for, Mom coming from strangers. This is the Friendly City. (My own self-image was significantly lifted by all of this, too, thanks to all the approving nods from strangers; I was the Good Son, the Helpful Son, the Patient Companion to an Infirm Mother.)
The Cosco carts are the fastest ones, says Mom, buzzing down the main boulevard. I keep abreast with a brisk stroll. They are also the most obnoxiously safe, each being equipped with an orange safety flag atop a six-foot pole attached behind the seat, and a forklift-grade beeping alarm when operated in reverse. Back at the front, Mom neglects to re-plug her cart back into the wall. When pressed she admits that she doesn’t usually do so. It’s like flossing: recommended but not worth the hassle.
Target’s carts are the lemons of the Harrisonburg cart world. The Pintos. The Gremlins. The Ladas. They creep along at an agonizingly slow pace. If not accompanying Mom, the only time I would otherwise walk so slowly is if I was being led to the gallows. Nevertheless, it was in Target that Mom had her first cart accident, in the jewelry and watch section, when, while attempting a multi-point turn, she became wedged perpendicular to the aisle, neither able to reverse nor go forward. My Dad had to muscle an entire shelf of watches out of the way to free her. While retelling the story, she manages to nearly become stuck again in similar fashion, leaving nasty scrap marks along an entire row of merchandise. The whole incident is upsetting and nerve-wracking. We leave as quickly as possible, i.e., very slowly. Mom’s backing-up skills appear to put the public welfare in serious jeopardy.
We make a few more stops. Red Front is tiny, cramped and cluttered. We visit at rush hour on a busy shopping day. Very bad call. After coming within an inch of upsetting a stacked display of Diet Pepsi (the fact that Mom was completely oblivious to the closeness of the call was the scariest bit), we proceed down the canned foods aisle. Standard push-powered carts are everywhere. The sounds of cranky children and the bell-ringing Salvation Army panhandler out front elevate stress levels. Husbands and wives are fighting. Rounding the corner, Mom takes a collision vector toward an oncoming cart. She jerks left (her driving style tends toward the herky-jerky), charting another crash course for a second cart. When the second cart, pushed by a dour-looking woman, fails to yield, Mom, in desperation, swings back right, clips a stack of canned peas and sends about a two dozen clattering to the floor.
Flustered, she evacuates the scene as I do a frantic scrambling thing to get cans back on shelves. Mom later blames the incident on the dour-looking lady; I concur, admiring Mom’s pluck.
The Food Lion experience proceeds with out incident, difficulty or excitement – unremarkable, not notably good, not notably bad – comparable, in that regard, to the Food Lion shopping experience itself.
And on to Martin’s, where the Mart-Cart, the Cadillac of electric shopping carts, awaits. This one is a real winner, with Cosco-like speed, a subtle and polite backup alarm, good suspension, good handling, an excellent safety rating, etc. etc. I’m ready to declare it Cart of the Year when Mom points out its small basket capacity. It would be hard to get a week’s worth of groceries in here, she says. There is always a catch.
We find ourselves in the Martin’s produce and deli section, a fun little obstacle-ridden terrain. I convinced Mom to field test the cart’s handling; she obliges (hasn’t she been a sport about this whole thing?) with a figure-eight around some expensive-looking wine displays and the gourmet cheese area.
Earlier, I’d asked Mom if it was just plain fun to drive the carts. She didn’t take the bait, and responded with a dissatisfactory statement about how the carts simply make it possible for her to shop. But there in Martin’s, as she describes an elegant arc counter-clockwise around the cabernet franc, I glimpse for a second an expression on her face that betrays her: pure, sparkling glee at the joy of motorsport inside a grocery store.
Someday, that will be me.

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The Kopecky Family Band will be returning to Clementine for their second performance tomorrow night (12.11.10). This Nashville, TN based group is composed of all classically trained musicians, specializing in an Orchestrated Folk Rock. They have been creating a lot of buzz throughout the nation with each one of their diverse and unpredictable live shows. Recently, they have showcased NYC’s College Music Journal in October as well as playing Nashville’s Next Big Nashville Festival, receiving critical acclaim with each of their performance’s around the nation. This 7-piece band is sure to deliver an amazing high-energy performance that is sure to leave you in awe! David Bayard Richard will be opening the show with his own Orchestrations range from a Southern Garage Pop to a more diverse and intricate Orchestral Folk. This show will start at 9:30PM and there is a $5 ticket price! Hope you will make it out for this special show! More information here!

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Howard Zehr

HARRISONBURG – Eastern Mennonite University professor Howard Zehr spent his Thanksgiving holiday this year receiving the thanks of German and Swiss groups for his work as a pioneer and propagator of restorative justice around the world. He also did “giving” as a speaker and workshop leader on the same topic.

On the day that the United States celebrated Thanksgiving 2010, Zehr received the Michael Stattler Prize from the German Mennonite Peace Committee in Rottenburg am Neckar, a town in southwestern Germany.

Dr. Zehr was chosen, said the peace committee, for “his work for nonviolent conflict transformation; his innovative contribution to the development of the concept of restorative justice as an alternative to conventional justice practice; his patient efforts to bring together victim and offender within the wider social service context; [and] his world-wide role as messenger of restorative justice.”

Zehr’s visit to Germany and Switzerland corresponded with the publication of the German-language edition of his bestselling “Little Book of Restorative Justice” (Good Books, 2002). He is professor of restorative justice in EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding.

While in Europe for a week, Zehr presented his ideas through a public lecture and a class taught on restorative justice in Hamburg, Germany; a seminar led for ComPax, a conflict transformation program under Mennonite auspices in Bienenberg, Switzerland; and a keynote speech given to a Quaker-Mennonite conference in Thomashof in the Baden-Württemberg area of Germany.

In Hannover, Germany, Zehr met with the staff of WAAGE Hannover, a non-profit organization that has operated a victim-offender mediation program for over two decades. Its founder, Thomas Trenczek, established this program after visiting in 1987 the victim-offender reconciliation program in Elkhart, Ind., a program Zehr helped launch in 1979. Trenczek was also instrumental in getting a new law in Germany that authorizes victim-offender mediation nationally.

In Bammental, Germany, Zehr attended a Mennonite-Lutheran reconciliation ceremony. (The German-Swiss Lutheran church of the 1500s was responsible for the execution of Michael Sattler and many other Anabaptists.)

One of the Bienenberg participants wrote in a post-seminar evaluation that he found the ComPax training with Zehr to be “visionary, enduring and hopeful, brilliant and incisive…as if someone had placed a diamond in my rucksack.”

Zehr says that at age 66, he finds he must turn down many more speaking invitations than he can accept, finding travel to be very depleting. “I welcome being replaced by younger people in this field,” he said the day after he returned from his trip. “And, fortunately, such people are around, including some of my former students who are doing wonderful things.”

The Michael Sattler Prize came with a gift of 2,000 Euros (about $2,700 US dollars) to EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. The prize is named for an early Anabaptist whose religious beliefs caused him to be tortured and burned at the stake in 1527 in Rottenburg. Michael’s wife, Margaretha, was executed by drowning. Their deaths are marked by an engraved stone in Rottenburg, dedicated in 1957 by the Sixth Mennonite World Conference.

The Sattler Prize has been awarded three times since 2005 to persons or organizations that have made a significant contribution toward one or more of these causes: non-violent Christian witness, reconciliation among divided parties, inter-religious dialogue, and encouraging communities of committed disciples of Christ.

The other recipients of the Sattler Prize have been Christian Peacemaker Teams (2006), which offers organized, nonviolent alternatives to war and other forms of lethal inter-group conflict, and the Nassar Family Farm/Tent of Nations Project (2007), which models peaceful co-existence with its neighbors through teaching courses and providing workshops and conferences for women and youth in the area of Bethlehem.

This post was submitted by Jim Bishop.

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According to the Virginia High School League‘s posted schedule, the Blue Streaks will play for the  championship on Saturday, December 11, at 4:30pm at Williams Stadium at Liberty University in Lynchburg.

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I decided nearly 40 years ago to abandon the custom of gift giving at Christmas. I used to make a practice of staying away from stores like Walmart from Thanksgiving to well past Christmas. When I became seriously interested in yoga, about 25 years ago, I learned that part of the practice includes observing ethical precepts, and one of those is aparigraha, or non-grasping, non-hoarding, essentially non-greed.

Of course, other spiritual traditions also emphasize the value of simple living, and value spiritual practices and traditions over possessions. In the Christian faith, we can look for example at the Quakers and Mennonites. Believe it or not, the expression “Enough is as good as a feast,” in The Fruits of Solitude by Quaker William Penn (1682), goes back to 14th Century England. I love this expression, because it suggests that we can be satisfied with enough—if we know what that is.

The trouble is, we not only don’t know what enough is, we don’t feel like we ARE enough—that we are good enough, and we do enough, that we give enough. Along with this comes the notion that there is not enough time—but of course each day still has 24 hours and that hasn’t changed.

So don’t we have enough stuff already? I’m betting the many of the readers of Harrsionburg Times are equally dismayed by the emphasis on consumer culture at the winter holiday season.. Here are some ideas of ways to share some of yourself with family and friends without shopping:

1. Put a favorite recipe on a card, and on the back include a favorite grace or meal prayer/chant
2. “Shop in the house”: look for something that has had meaning and value for you but that you are done with, and give it to someone with a note explaining the value to you and why you think it’s the right gift for this person.
3. Record a story from another family member or neighbor/friend. See http://nationaldayoflistening.org/ for resources on how to do this.
4. Give the gift of time: eg. For a child, a weekend of camping with just the two of you, or for an elderly neighbor or relative, a few hours of cleaning up the yard, etc.
5. Create a Thanksgiving Book or Christmas/Hannukah Book: Each family member writes on one page 10 things from the previous year they are grateful for, and on a facing page, 10 things they look forward to in the next year. (This is not about goals or resolutions, please). Each page is then signed and dated. After all have written, the book is put away and not looked at again until the next year!
6. If you “must” spend money, consider a gift certificate for a service like a massage, shiatsu session, haircut, etc.
7. At the end of each day, make it a point to review the activities, events, and sense experiences of the day, making a point to look for the “enoughness” in your life.

For more ideas and resources, visit:

• Power of enough teleclass series (no charge) : http://globalsufficiency.org/poe
• http://www.globalsufficiency.org/
• Currency of Connection: http://www.currencyofconnection.com/
• Listen to this children’s (and adult) song, Enough is a Feast: (Free Download in November):
• http://www.billharley.com/NewsDetail.asp?NewsID=238

This post was submitted by Diana Woodall.

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The fundraiser, called “Execute Art (Not People),” will begin at 9 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 3 at Clementine Cafe in downtown Harrisonburg. A fashion show, featuring clothing from nine local designers and two downtown stores, is the evening’s main attraction.

Some comments from VADP President John Sheldon, a belly dancing performance and a closing set by the Harrisonburg band Preacher are also on the program. Throughout the night, a silent auction of donated art and other items will be running, and several artists and a photographer will be making sketches or portraits for the audience.

“It’s a way to be active in this cause without having to sit through a somber movie or something,” said Linell Patterson, a VADP board member from Harrisonburg who organized the event.

VADP is a nonprofit organization whose goal is to educate the public about alternatives to the death penalty. Patterson said more than 50 people have helped to organize the event, which has a fundraising goal of $15,000 for VADP.

Similar groups across the country have hosted like-minded “Execute Art (Not People)” gatherings within the past year.

Tickets for Friday night’s event cost $5 at the door.  For more information, or to become an event sponsor with a larger donation, visit www.firstgiving.com/execute_art.

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