Love It or Listserv It

If you’re reading this newsletter, you’re probably old enough to remember the early days of email. It was a very exciting development! This newfangled way of sending messages was opening up communication with anyone in the world, a magical bridge connecting people across vast distances. Its promise and

Secondhand City

Lately driving around town we’ve found ourselves noticing places that could be something else. And we don’t mean that thing we all do—fantasize about cool things that could go into a vacant retail space in our neighborhood, like a combination KFC/Taco Bell/Pizza Hut—but rather

Flock Around and Find Out

Ever since the invention of the modern camera, our culture has produced an abundance of stories, songs, and art about the fear of being watched. This concern has deep historical roots—people have dreaded the all-seeing eye at least since Bentham invented the panopticon—but the twentieth century supercharged

Three Years and a Newsletter

Congratulations—you’re reading the third anniversary issue of ALXtra!  If this opening line seems familiar (and why wouldn’t it, aren’t you all constantly reading our back catalogue so you can stay up to speed on our call-back jokes and deep cut references?) that’s because it’

Can’t Slop, Won’t Slop

Well, hello again, Alexandria! After four whole weeks away from the newsletter factory, we’re back—and we have to admit, the break was pretty nice. We slept in. We read books that had absolutely nothing to do with City Council. We briefly forgot what day the next Council meeting

Pausa de Correspondencia

As we previewed in our last issue, we’re taking a midsummer break from our typical format this week to run our first ever mailbag edition of ALXtra. We’re eager to see how this goes! On one hand we’re really excited to see what’s on your mind

My City ‘Tis of Thee

The height of summer with an historic heatwave bearing down on us might seem an odd moment to be grappling with existential questions about pride in civic identity and what it means to belong to a place (given that these sorts of bleak ruminations would more typically be described as

Storm Warning

When the power goes out in movies, it’s often directorial shorthand for something really bad happening. A demon is making its presence known. A serial killer is cutting electricity to the house. Dinosaurs are escaping their enclosures because for some reason it didn’t occur to anyone in charge

Pain in the Tech

In the early to mid-aughts there was an indie rock band out of Edinburgh called We Were Promised Jetpacks. They were pretty solid (kind of a “we have Frightened Rabbit at home” sort of thing, if we were going to take this essay in a music criticism direction) but

No Further Comment

Many people know the feeling of surviving a long and grueling ordeal with mixed emotions: proud you made it through, but concerned about what it did to you psychologically. Like finishing a marathon after crying, vomiting, and bargaining away your immortal soul to any higher power capable of making the

Matters of Fact

What do we owe one another? This question has been one of the most frequently revisited themes of this newsletter over our 77-and-counting issues [Editor’s note: listen, we know, we can’t really believe it either—closing in on that century mark babyyyyyy] right up there with

The Power of Negative Thinking

Negative campaign ads have a long and storied history in this country. Most people know about the really famous textbook examples from presidential races past, like Reagan’s “bear in the woods” attack ad on Walter Mondale in 1984, George H.W. Bush’s “Willie Horton” attack ad on Michael

A Toll New World

Writing this newsletter isn’t always easy. Well, sure, it’s easy in that it’s not breaking rocks out of a coalface or anything, but in truth a lot of effort gets put into the words we produce for your enjoyment and enlightenment. Do you think those horny Ben

Win, Lose or Draw

You know how some people are always using sports as a metaphor for life? That’s not usually our thing; it’s too hard to map “double overtime” onto a four-hour City Council meeting. When does regulation end? If the vote on the final agenda item is tied, does

Homeward Bound

A curious thing happened earlier this week: the City of Alexandria testified against pro-housing legislation in Richmond. The bills in question (HB 816 and SB 454, the latter of which is no longer advancing) would permit by-right development of multi-family housing in commercial zones. The city’s

Much Ado About Parking

Surprise!! We know we said we weren’t publishing our next issue until March 6, but the best laid plans of mice and newsletter authors often go awry. By this we mean that sometimes we have something to say that just can’t wait three weeks, which might as well

Snow Way

After the better part of three weeks, it feels like we reached the moment when we can finally put the most dramatic winter storm of the past several decades behind us. What does that moment feel like, specifically, you ask? Well it feels like your foot unexpectedly punching through what

Two Households, Both ARLike in Dignity

Happy Friday, Alexan– [slips and falls on a sheet of solid ice] Whew, what a week! We say that a lot, but– [falls again as feet slide on ice uncontrollably while trying to get up] This was even more of a week than usual. It’s not too often that

Trial by Firehouse

Gooooooood morning Alexandria! How we all doing? Everyone feeling good? Everyone feeling rested and relaxed, having eased into the new year with a few weeks of low-drama ramp up? Yeah? No? Why’s everyone looking at us like that? Is there—is there something in our teeth? [Looks around

Year in Rear View

Well folks, we made it through this year. Dare we say… not one of our best? We’re not going to rehash all the ways 2025 force-fed us endless misery like we were foie gras geese trapped in Dante’s third circle of hell—you were there, you remember

Our Money Doesn’t Fold, It Jingle Jingles

It’s the start of the festive season in Alexandria, a signature period of the year for the city that manages to highlight all of the things that make us charming (parades! tree lightings! holiday markets!) as well as all of the things that make us extremely extra (all of

Friendly Fire

If you’ve watched Alexandria politics this year—not just paid vague attention to the news, but actually binged hours of Council hearing livestreams like they’re the new season of Stranger Things—you may have noticed something unusual happening. Our local electeds have been getting a lot of heat,

Alexand-eerie-a

Gruesome greetings, you goblins and ghouls, and welcome to a very spooky special Halloween edition of your favorite Port City publication! After consuming a bad batch of caramel apples here in the ALXtra newsroom, your trusty editorial staff decided to send our typical format out to investigate those noises coming

The Art of Compromise

Compromises have gotten a bad rap throughout history. And deservedly so! The Three-Fifths Compromise, The Missouri Compromise, The Compromise of 1850… just reading these phrases is enough to make you wince, either because you’re having post-traumatic flashbacks to the 2 you scored on your AP U.S.

Postcards from the Edge (of the Potomac)

Hey Alexandria! Who’s got 318,204 thumbs and is the second best city on the east coast according to Travel+Leisure Magazine! That’s right, this guys city! We’re so excited to celebrate the Port City charting on yet another travel destination list that we’re almost willing