Nathan Alderman

@nathanalderman.com

480 Followers 580 Following

Word arranger, story mechanic, question asker, door knocker, Oxford comma enthusiast. Senior News Reporter at @cvilleweekly.bsky.social. Freelance manuscript editor for hire. Opinions are my own. Signal: Nathan.778

Toy cars, color-coded, arranged in rows on a living room floor.
A giant gunmetal gray Ford F-250 seen from behind, with extra large tires, a “Make Diesel Cheap Again” bumper sticker — maybe he’s a fan of irony? — and a trailer hitch and especially an exhaust pipe that are just comically enormous.
The cover of the July 1-July 7 issue of C-VILLE Weekly, featuring an old photograph of Abraham Lincoln, gaunt but beardless. A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY REPEATING In conversation with C-VILLE, Jamelle Bouie on why a new look at Lincoln feels surprisingly relevant in 2026.
DATA CENTER LISTENING TOUR graphic featuring Sens. L. Louise Lucas and R. Creigh Deeds -- same info as I've included in the post accompanying this image.
Law-enforcement officers; restrictions on wearing of facial coverings; exceptions; penalty. Prohibits any law-enforcement officer, defined in the bill, from wearing a facial covering, defined in the bill, while engaged in the performance of his official duties. The bill sets out several exceptions to such prohibition, including protective facial coverings to protect against disease, infection, and exposure to toxic substances and facial coverings worn by any law-enforcement officer assigned to a special weapons and tactics team while engaged in the performance of his official duties with such team. The bill subjects the law-enforcement officer to disciplinary action, including dismissal, demotion, suspension, transfer, or decertification, and creates a Class 1 misdemeanor for any law-enforcement officer who wears a facial covering in violation of the provisions of the bill unless the law-enforcement agency that employs such law-enforcement officer has adopted and established a written policy for and restrictions on the use of facial coverings. The bill also directs the Department of Criminal Justice Services to develop a model policy for and restrictions on the use of facial coverings by law-enforcement officers. This bill is identical to SB 352. Below the text, there's a record that the governor signed the bill into law on 5/20, but it's not effective until 7/1/2026.
Gob Bluth, holding a sign that reads "We demand to be taken seriously," poses with his fellow members of the Alliance of Magicians in a scene from Arrested Development. NARRATOR: They were not taken seriously.
The DOCTOR WHO logo, but it's PROFESSOR SPACETIME. You know, from COMMUNITY?
A license plate reading CHPOTL, with a frame reading “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of Chipotle,” on a Chipotle-pepper-red car.
It was a foolhardy plan which would have needed a golden streak of luck. I had £50 in travel money. The chief German agent had run a bank three times. I bancoed it and lost. I suivied and lost again, and suivied a third time and was cleaned out, a humiliating experience which added to the sinews of war of the German Secret Service and reduced me sharply in my chief’s estimation. It was this true incident which is the kernel of Bond’s great gamble against Le Chiffre.
An abbreviated headline from Variety.com: FILM Javier Bardem on Standing Up for Palestine, Taking Down Toxic Masculinity and Loving Penélope Cruz: ‘She's Amazingly F—ing…
A cardboard box, covered in shrink wrap, that reads “KINK REDUCTION TECHNOLOGY”
A TNG faux opening screen titled “Aaaaand you’re already running to AO3 to rewrite this one, aren’t you, you horny bastards”
A mock title screen for an episode of STAR TREK VOYAGER entitled “The Wedding of Janeway and Chakotay (Rick Berman Can Go Pound Sand”
As drawn by Chris Samnee, Batman wrecks shop on some hooded cultists while, at left, a tied-up blonde in a white robe -- their intended sacrifice -- takes in this spectacle, looking hilariously confused and blasé.
Calvin Ellis, President Superman of Earth-23
The poster to THE SOUND OF MUSIC, with Julie Andrews in a pink dress, carrying a hardback and a guitar case, seeming to levitate above a grassy hill. She's pursued by seven uncomfortably grinning children in bright yellow, while Christopher Plummer looks on in a gold jacket, fists on his hips, with boots and a riding crop.
Side-by-side sketch and finished art of a tall, bowler-hatted man in a half-English, half-Indian suit, and a grinning punkish woman in an Army jacket, combat boots, and black-rimmed glasses. Art by the late, great Jesse Hamm, 2008.
Rorschach, as portrayed by Jackie Earle Haley in WATCHMEN, delivers Alan Moore's indelible line: "I'm not locked in here with you. You're locked in here with me."
The Albemarle County Police mugshot of Jonathan A. Iseman, 41, of Crozet. He is white, balding with a shaved head, looking somberly at the camera with blue-gray eyes. He has a mustache, bear, and little semi-goatee, not to mention an extensive if hard-to-make-out neck tattoo.
"Marxist Caesar Papist Fusion" in the style of the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" logo.
April 7, 2026 To Whom It May Concern: We have always enjoyed reading the Cville paper. However, lately it seems that your articles aren't being transparent. For instance, back in November 2025, there was an article on a local nonprofit that didn't have accurate information (the writer definitely seemed to have her own bias), and last week's paper had an article on the County school board's change to the afterschool club policy --- citing a 5 to 1 vote of the school board without disclosing who the lone vote was for not changing the policy, while other school board members were mentioned by name throughout the article. If you are attempting to offer the news on an unbiased version then it is important to give all factual information, not just hand picking as to what should/shouldn't be printed for the public. In the future, we hope that you keep this in mind--- right now it seems that the Cville is presenting information on a biased nature, instead of being objective.
A gray t-shirt reading VOTE VOTE VOTE in weathered red, white, and blue capital letters.
A child’s painted butterfly on paper, stuck to a refrigerator door. The symmetry of the paint has created an eerie face — part Darth Vader, part gray alien — on the butterfly’s head.
The (partial) cast of FARSCAPE, a Jim Henson Company science fiction show that aired on the Sci-Fi Channel in the late '90s/early 2000s, written by numerous veterans of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, in part as a reaction to that series. If you haven't seen it, and you like TV space opera, boy, do you need to see this series.
Two mailers. One with Gov. Abigail Spanberger endorsing a yes vote on redistricting. The other a deceitful race-baiting vote-no mailer targeting the same black Virginians the GOP is keen to dilute and disenfranchise.
A deeply mediocre torso wearing a Superman t-shirt.
Will Arnett as Gob Bluth from ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, making dramatic stage-magician hand gestures.
The cover to Dan Schkade's LAVENDER JACK VOL. 1, with a costumed rogue in evening dress appearing to stride like a giant above the spires of a city against a sunset sky.
Yet another deceitful “vote no” mailer.
Poll Finds Virginia Men Say Chick-fil-A Is the Perfect Place to Propose Howdy! Please see a light-hearted story below for your readers. With high prices, particularly when it comes to dining, a poll of Virginia men was carried out on how many would consider proposing in a fast food restaurant. More specifically, they were asked in which one they would get down on one knee. The top 3 choices were: #1. Chick-fil-A #2. Dairy Queen #3. McDonald's
Crowds with signs line both sides of US 29 in Charlottesville, Virginia, and cover a pedestrian bridge spanning the eight-lane highway.
Contrary to this shamelessly deceptive mailer, Barack Obama urges you to vote yes on Virginia’s April 21 redistricting referendum.
"Respectful Song Addresses DJ as Mr. DJ"
A statue of best friends Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, each wearing a big orange P around their necks, displayed on Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall.
The text of the First Amendment, carved in stone at Charlottesville’s Free Speech Wall. There may also be some speculation about the President of the United States.
Peter Thiel, looking bizarrely sunken-eyed and skeletal.
Former First Lady of the Philippines Imelda Marcos
Aggressive snowfall begins to stick in a grassy back yard in March.
A screen shot from Terry Gilliam's 1985 film BRAZIL, in which Jim Broadbent, administering a beauty treatment to Katherine Helmond, stretches out the skin on her face to surreal degrees while she smiles pleasantly.
A beautiful sunrise through silhouetted trees.
A grid of nine cover designs for the chapters of a serial novel, AGENTS EXTRAORDINARY. Each uses no more than three colors (with occasional subtle cheating) and a surreal, 1960s-esque collage style of design.
A happy Corgi leans out the driver’s side window of a car, as if he were behind the wheel, on a sunny day.
A cover design for a serial called AGENTS EXTRAORDINARY. This one is blue, black, and white, with collaged-in elements: on the left, a woman's hair in the silhouette of an absent face, a pair of glasses, and a blue USB thumb drive; on the right, a bowler hat with an old-fashioned umbrella pointing down below it, all superimposed on the faint image of a vintage map of London. Episode one: Down the Rabbit Hole.
A mailer opposing Virginia’s redistributing referendum, falsely equating the measure with Jim Crow. Which, considering who opposes it, is pretty rich.
A mocked-up book cover for a serial called AGENTS EXTRAORDINARY. Against a hazard-yellow background with black text, a black-and-white figure of a suited man with a white rabbit's head, stands, looking like it's been photocopied, cut out, and pasted in.
Clasping hands meme, with gastroenterologists and editors united around "I love a good colon."
Clasping hands meme, with "gastroenterologists" and "editors" united over "I love a good colon."
Two panels from FLASH GORDON by Dan Schkade. In the first, a defeated man in armor looks up from the floor: “I have seen a glimpse of a world without you. A world free. I want my son to live in that world.” In the second, Ming, in scarred and craggy profile, looking down. “Your son. I will find your son. I will break him and reforge him as an officer in my Death Patrol.”
A label on a brown paper bag reads "Lent in a Bag" (in Papyrus, natch) above the ashy image of a cross.
Rainier Wolfcastle as Radioactive Man, except he's saying "My comprehension! The Duolingo did nothing!"
The back of an iPad case covered in dragon stickers. An alarming number of the dragons are buff, scaly thirst traps, some with holiday themes.
"Given how strong our results are, I almost feel like we should just go home. But we've been saying since we went public in a DPO that we would build infrastructure to make America and its allies a dominant force in the world. We claimed, to much skepticism, that this would be done in the software product; that defense and commercial industry would be driven by software, hardware, hybrid technologies; that there were very few companies in the world that could actually do that; that these companies are basically only built in America; that the companies that have tried to do this that aren't Palantir are built by ex-Palantirians; that the financials of Palantir would flow from our products and our culture and our way of implementing; that we would bring violence and death to our enemies while making targeting and general issues of safety better for our allies and for Americans; that we would stand by our values in thick and thin, including that the West and America are superior ways of organizing and that this is a great country and historically anomalous in its greatness; and that we would build a company with the best people from all over the world, but primarily from America, to power America and its allies."
"We have taken a long bet over decades around the assumption that if we built the products that -- our partners, most importantly, our partners in the West; most importantly, our partners in the U.S., ought to build -- not what they wanted us to build; not what they mandated we should build, not what investors; venture capitalists, or analysts were saying they would reward us for building that, that company would generate so much value, that we would get a small percentage of that, and we would end up as a massive, significant, and much more importantly, impactful company that could power the West to its obvious innate superiority, expose things that weren't working, rebuild the whole infrastructure of a company. We did that over with many platforms."
"We still believe America is the leader of the free world, that the West is superior, that we have to fight for these values, that we should give American corporations and, most importantly, our government an unfair advantage. We’ve demonstrated in every area and arena of American life and international life that we do deliver an unfair advantage for our allies, our friends and our compatriots. We have done this by creating a company where every single component is value accretive. There are almost no parasitic elements to this company. We have a small sales force. We have very little BS internally. We have a flat hierarchy. We have the most qualified interesting people heterodox on their beliefs. We have an orchestration engine that deploys for deployed engineers everywhere a model that everyone despised and destined until literally a quarter ago and thought would lead to a low multiple. I guess you’re wrong. [ We have a series of products that are on the front line, most notably oncology, but also foundry and Maven. And this is a confluence. This is the perfect time for Palantir. And I would also say at the risk of saying the obvious, this is a perfect time for a revolution in the United States of America. We are very, very bullish on America. We have some really crucial and important clients internationally, large clients, commercial clients in Europe and also government clients outside of America that we’re proud of. But this is an American revolution. It’s being led by ontology and chips and to also, to some extent, large language model providers. We are also anomalously bullish on all aspects of American Life, including and especially people in the blue collar."
"How did a company which stood by the American warfighter, marine, special operators, people in clandestine services who stood up for our right of free speech and completely anti-woke, how did was really the first company to be this company stick up for the American warfighter? Actually give normal Americans venture quality results. So one of the issues we have with the arbiters of truth is it was the American worker that we supported and the American worker that we helped make rich. And the arbiters of truth somehow did not participate in that because they were such experts."
While waterskiing on a grappling-hook line behind a seaplane he's hoping to save in the middle of an aerial race, the masked Captain Tempest spots a rival plane nearby. "The Italians!" reads the caption, followed by an image of the Captain scowling in distaste.
Eight to ten inches of snow in Charlottesville forecast for Saturday.