WestVirginiaVille

I have never counted myself among the cadre of brave or bold writers writers or singer-songwriters when it comes to personal revelation under my own name.

A slideshow from the Charleston Gazette series “The Shape We’re In” tracks how the literal shape of things — of people themselves — has changed in West Virginia.

Poems can be found in the most unexpected places. Such as page 2 of the Calhoun Chronicle’s “This Week in History,” with news of some chestnuts that came to town 100 years ago.

Being inside the historic Keith-Albee Theater in downtown Huntington is sometimes like being on drugs without the drugs. Photos of the interior on the way to seeing the unreleneting ‘Biutiful.’

A heads up if you’re within striking distance of Charleston, W.Va. This month’s free Charleston ArtWalk features a superb exhibit of remarkable historic West Virginia photos previously profiled in two audio slideshows on WestVirginiaVille.

An auditory and video essay on The Greenbrier, with a little visual evidence as to who really makes the fantasy world of the historic resort come to life.

There are far smaller disasters that no one outside of a region knows about – just a handful of people killed. And yet these events are no less seared into a local community’s consciousness.

Take a listen to Catherine Moore’s 10-minute audio documentary on the recent 50-mile march on Blair Mountain by a colorful crew of hundreds of marchers, intent on preserving the historic site.

A video tracks the start of this week’s March to Blair Mountain with an excerpt from a Charleston Gazette story that raises a question of whether coal companies are attempting to affect the march’s forward progress.

If you live outside West Virginia, it’s more than likely you may know next to nothing about one of America’s most horrific industrial disasters. But the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Disaster is no ancient history, says a documentary filmmaker.

Donald Call, a native of the tiny burg of Culloden, W.Va., is an excellent example of “how a life can be lived quietly, yet abundantly robust.”

“As we awoke on the morning of November 5, 1985, none of us could imagine the changes that were being wrought upon our world …”

“November 4, 1985, may just be another day to most of you,” writes Matthew Burns, “but it will forever be imprinted in my psyche as the day that defined my life.”

If a picture says a thousand words, then this musical slideshow of historic photos of mountain living in West Virginia speaks tens of thousands of them.

Click over to the Charleston Gazette’s remembrance in story and video recalling the 1985 Flood, which devastated several towns in West Virginia and washed away 47 lives.

What do “Sweet George Brown,” “Lean on Me” and avante-garde classical music in the round all have to do with West Virginia? Hear and see the answer in a visit with the founder of the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame.

A complex of 53 mysterious rock cairns is found on a rural West Virginia farm in the Appalachian hills. Was it a Native American Indian ritual site?