Month: September 2001

Categories
News The Fly-By

City Reporter

St. George’s Day School Adds Grades, New Campus

By Mary Cashiola

A brochure for the new St. George’s Day School includes a statement about diversification. As if to echo the Germantown private school’s intentions, it is written in three languages — English, Spanish, and Yoruba, a Nigerian tribal tongue.

Opened in its present-day location on Poplar in 1959, St. George’s has been teaching kindergarten through sixth grade for the last 42 years. But this year starts a wave of expansion that includes both middle and high school grades, as well as a new urban campus on Kimball Road in Memphis.

“It happened over a period of many years,” Rick Ferguson, the head of schools at St. George’s, says of the expansion. “So many students and their parents said, ‘Why can’t you just add seventh or eighth grade?'”

Ferguson, who has been at the school for 17 years, says that the question has been raised every single year as students graduated St. George’s program and went on to other public or private schools.

It wasn’t until 1996 that the school began to seriously contemplate extending the school.

Last month, the private school opened its Memphis location with the first class of 19 pre-kindergarten students. Each year the school will add another grade until the classes extend from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. By that time, the new middle school and high school building, which opens next fall, will be ready to incorporate students from both the Memphis and the Germantown campuses.

“We’ve felt for years that we needed to be a more diverse community, particularly in terms of African Americans,” says Ferguson. “We’ve worked at it for a number of years, but it’s difficult, being out here in Germantown.”

The Germantown day school draws students from all over the city, says Leah Jerkins, director of public relations, but most of the students live east of Midtown. They’re hoping St. George’s, Memphis, will provide for these families.

“We’re serving children in an urban environment,” says Angela Webster, associate head of St. George’s Day School, Memphis, “that are in other situations that would prohibit them from being [at St. George’s, Germantown].”

Tuition to the elementary school runs about $8,000 a year. About 75 to 80 percent of the Memphis students are on scholarship because of a generous gift.

“The middle and high schools came out of planning first,” says Ferguson, “but then we were approached by some anonymous donors who asked us if we would consider a school in Memphis.” As part of a $35 million-plus capital campaign for the expansion, the donors gave the Memphis school $6 million in seed money.

“Their interest was the Memphis school,” says Ferguson.

As with any new project, there have been a couple of snags. Students in the middle grades, taking classes at the Germantown location until the high school opens next year, get out about 45 minutes later than the younger students … but only on Wednesdays.

And while the school’s mascot has been a dragon ever since it opened, school officials knew that the high school’s mascot would have to be something different; Collierville High School, part of the Shelby County school system, has the same mascot.

Now St. George’s students will be Dragons up until fifth grade but will then become Gryphons.

“We plan for them to go to St. George’s High School or another private school after this and to clearly go on to college,” Webster says of the students. “That’s the foundation that’s being laid.”

Next year, the school will add eighth, ninth, and tenth grades; the high school will eventually have a student body of roughly 400.

“Public education is the mainstay,” says Ferguson, “but we want to do everything we can to partner with public education. We want to offer a broader educational experience in the Memphis community.”

Sentenced Durand kidnappers get jail time.

By John Branston

Sixteen months after he was kidnapped at gunpoint and thrown into the trunk of his car, attorney Kemper Durand watched with some regret this week as two juveniles involved in the case were given prison sentences.

Durand was walking to his car around 2 a.m. on May 25, 2000, after attending a party on Beale Street when a lone gunman walked up behind him, took his wallet, and forced him into the trunk. The abductor, Cleotha Abston, drove around and picked up friends then, after about two hours, escorted Durand into a Mapco station to withdraw money from an ATM. A uniformed Memphis Housing Authority officer entered, Durand yelled that he had been kidnapped, and the kidnappers ran away.

On Monday, Abston pled guilty just before he was scheduled to go to trial and was sentenced to 20 years in prison without parole. He had earlier turned down an offer of 15 years on the same charge but, according to Durand, told the court “he did not want to sign his name giving himself the time.” Abston has a long juvenile record of theft and aggravated assault.

It was the sentencing of the second defendant that gave Durand pause. Marquette Cobbins was 17 years old at the time of the incident. He was one of the friends picked up by Abston after he kidnapped Durand. His prior court record consisted of a truancy violation and a disorderly conduct charge.

“He was literally sitting on the porch when Abston came by,” says Durand. “Any kid who could grow up where he did and have only two miniscule run-ins I figure is probably pretty decent material.”

Durand wrote a letter to District Attorney Bill Gibbons urging probation for Cobbins if he would submit to conditions including supervision by a private probation service, high school graduation, repaying Durand $195 for the money in his wallet and towing charges for his car, and undergoing a mentoring program.

The proposal was turned down and Cobbins pled guilty to aiding a kidnapping. He was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years and will be eligible for parole in 18 months.

Durand says he feels bad about that and is also dismayed at the pace of justice.

“Cleotha Abston spent almost 16 months in jail before today,” Durand says. “Perhaps this is one reason why the jail is overcrowded.”

Lost In The System

East High School students still wait for books, schedules.

By Mary Cashiola

Vakeena Robinson, a junior at East High School, wants to study political science at Clark University one day. Right now, though, she’s getting an education with the Memphis City Schools. It’s just not the one she needs.

For the first two weeks of school, she sat in the high school’s auditorium because she did not have a full schedule. Then she was given a schedule, but it wasn’t the right one.

“They just stuck me somewhere,” she told the school board Monday night. “I got the right schedule just last week.”

The first day of school was August 20th; the first six weeks ends October 2nd, which means that the grading period will be over in a week. James Robinson, Vakeena’s father, wonders what the students could possibly be tested on. Vakeena still doesn’t have a locker or any books.

But she’s not the only one.

“A lot of kids are not in the computer,” she says after the meeting. “It doesn’t show that they’re registered at East.”

The problem seemingly stems from WinSchool, the system’s new student information system. Put into effect partly because of state-mandated requirements for data, the system cost the district almost $13 million.

While her schedule was still in limbo, Vakeena says she spent more than three hours a day sitting in the auditorium with other students. She estimates that for a while perhaps 500 students were there during third period.

“There could have been more coming in for fourth period or less. It depended on the day.”

Vakeena took the ACT in 9th grade and got a 21. Now she’s studying to take it again but is having to do it on her own.

“This is affecting us,” she says.

East was one of the 64 Memphis schools on the state’s low-performance list.

Giving Their 10 Percent

Local waiters pitch in to help NYC relief effort.

By Mary Cashiola

The PHRASE “United We Stand” has taken on additional significance lately, comforting a country that has to make sense of the nonsensical. But to find out what the phrase really means, you don’t have to look much farther than a local group.

Calling itself SOS-29 (Servers On Saturday, September 29th), a group of servers at downtown restaurants is asking that Memphis restaurants’ waitstaff and bartenders donate 10 percent of their tips earned on that date. The money will then be donated to the New York Firefighters 9-11 relief fund.

“It was sort of an impromptu inspiration,” says Justin Palmer, one of the founders of the program. Palmer and a few others were just sitting around talking. “We said, ‘What can we do as servers? Is 10 percent of tips too much to ask?'”

The program, which is not affiliated with any one restaurant, has already enlisted servers at Huey’s, Automatic Slim’s, McEwen’s, and the Lounge to participate.

Although members of the group have been canvassing the city, Palmer knows that they haven’t been to every restaurant in the area and hopes that won’t stop other employees from participating.

“Restaurants are usually so competitive with each other … but if we all stick in $5 we can make a difference,” says Palmer. “The bottom line was: Let’s get the servers together and all unite.”

Cynthia Shambaugh, a server at McEwen’s, is also one of the founders of the grassroots project.

“We’re novices at this, so we’re learning as we go along,” she says. “It’s a very casual project. We just wanted to help.”

Anyone interested in helping or participating can call Shambaugh at 726-4282. Restaurant management and owners are also invited to donate.

city beat

No Kids In Class

Most Memphis school board members don’t eat their own cooking.

by John Branston

Despite their disagreement last week over who is responsible for 64 low-performing city schools, Memphians Avron Fogelman and Sara Lewis have more in common than meets the eye.

Fogelman, a member of the State Board of Education, and Lewis, a member of the Memphis City Schools Board of Education, are both strong-minded senior citizens of considerable accomplishment who enjoy the public stage and are used to getting their way.

Fogelman, a graduate of Central High School, is a successful real estate magnate, a philanthropist, a former owner of the Memphis Chicks and Kansas City Royals baseball teams, and a current or former member of several public boards. Lewis, a graduate of Manassas High School, was director of the Free the Children anti-poverty program and the Shelby County branch of Head Start for several years.

They have this in common, too: Neither one has children in the public schools.

They’re hardly alone. At the state and local school board level, a majority of members don’t eat their own cooking.

On the Memphis school board, four members (Wanda Halbert, Patrice Robinson, Lora Jobe, and Barbara Prescott) have children in Memphis City Schools. Five members (Lewis, Carl Johnson, Michael Hooks, Lee Brown, and Hubon Sandridge) do not, although some have in the past and Hooks is a fairly recent graduate.

On the nine-member State Board of Education, Cherrie Holden of Germantown has a child in public school but she is apparently the only member who does. Phyllis Childress, spokesman for board chairman Hubert McCullough of Murfreesboro, says having children in school is “not a consideration” for membership. Not all members could be contacted by press time, but Childress and Holden say they believe Holden is the only member with a child in public school.

Only the seven-member Shelby County Board of Education, which had no schools on the low-performing list, has a majority of members (four) with kids in public school.

This is not a mere mathematical oddity. School board members without a parental connection to public education sometimes reveal a surprising ignorance of what actually goes on in classrooms 180 days a year.

Last week Fogelman fired a broadside at the Memphis City Schools and the board that was off-base on several counts. According to Commercial Appeal Nashville reporter Rick Locker, Fogelman said the following at a board meeting after release of the list:

“Basically, the problem as I understand it is the district is so big and the schools are so big and the school board is made up of politicians who are there for their own political gain. The superintendent is caught in the middle and can be fired in a minute. The school board members’ interests are more directed toward their own benefit or gain or agenda than to the district.”

Excluding interim appointees, Memphis has had three superintendents in the last 23 years, hardly a sign of a system where the superintendent “can be fired in a minute.” During that time, there have been four Tennessee governors and seven head football coaches at the University of Memphis. The longest serving superintendent, Willie Herenton, has enjoyed some success in public life since leaving the job.

With 117,000 students, MCS is most assuredly “big” but bigness is not necessarily a problem or a plus. The failing-schools list includes high schools with close to 2,000 students and elementary and middle schools with fewer than 500 students and lots of empty classrooms. White Station High School, which annually leads the state in the number of National Merit Scholars, is one of the biggest, with nearly 2,000 students.

As for board members serving “for their own political gain,” Lora Jobe and Wanda Halbert, to name only two, were active in parent organizations for years before being elected. The only recent board member who moved on to another elected office is Memphis City Council member Tajuan Stout Mitchell; some other capable colleagues, notably Archie Willis III, dropped out of public life after finishing their terms. And it is at least arguable that Memphis school board members, who are elected, are more accountable to ordinary citizens than state board members, who are appointed by Governor Don Sundquist.

A better question for Fogelman and other board members to ponder is this: Why are they more qualified than hundreds of thousands of parents of current public school students? The empathy of board members with children in school is not necessarily greater than that of their colleagues, but parents are both the first to know and the first to suffer when there is a problem school. When East High School parents and students complained to the school board Monday night about chaotic conditions, Patrice Robinson nodded sadly. She has a child at East.

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

CAUGHT IN FLUX

Actor John Cameron Mitchell and songwriter Stephen Trask initially conceived the off-Broadway musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch as a rock opera, to be performed in nightclubs. Mitchell adopted the persona of a transgendered German pop singer named Hedwig, and both Trask’s songs and Mitchell’s between-song patter related the saga of Hedwig’s journey from East Berlin to Junction City, Kansas. In their tale, the wide-eyed Teutonic glam-rock fan immigrates at the pleasure of a lusty American G.I. who pays for Hedwig’s sex-change operation — a botched procedure, as it turns out, that leaves her with a stubborn hunk of flesh between her legs.

The concert version of Hedwig quickly moved into theaters, and though the staging grew more elaborate, the play remained anchored by songs and monologues. So what may be most amazing about Mitchell’s achievement in transmuting his stage work into a motion picture is how visually attuned the filmmaking is. Mitchell has directed the film with an emphasis on montage, stringing together meaningful images while reducing the torrent of words through which he previously told the story. Those of us whose only access to the New York theater is what we read about in the Sunday Times will likely be unable to imagine the piece as anything but a film. But then, fans of the play probably believe that it’ll never be better anywhere other than onstage. And it’s a testament to Trask that the soundtrack to Hedwig — both the original cast recording and the weirdly out-of-order but better recorded and performed film accessory — captures the tale’s spirit in playful lyrics and vigorously catchy rock music. Perhaps Mitchell and Trask have created an idea, not a narrative, and the idea can’t be contained by any one format.

The character of Hedwig has clearly been inspired by — and is the embodiment of — the alienation that haunts many of us in this megaplex era, especially homosexuals. Born in a divided city (which she escapes just before the wall comes down), transplanted to a city named after the very concept of a nexus (where she is abandoned when her sugar daddy splits), and stuck in a body that is neither wholly male nor wholly female (which her lover will only approach from behind), Hedwig has an affinity with many worlds but is at home in none. Mitchell’s lead performance encapsulates that tentative balance, as he assumes the defiant posture of an underdog and the stung expression of a victim.

The movie opens with a blast of fury, kick-started by the Guns N’ Roses-ish anthem “Tear Me Down,” performed by Hedwig and her band the Angry Inch at a chain restaurant in Kansas City. The group is on a tour of malls, shadowing the arena tour of a rock star named Tommy Gnosis (played by the Billy Corgan-like Michael Pitt), whose multiplatinum album is made up of songs stolen from Hedwig. The Angry Inch’s appearances in middle-class suburban eateries are confrontational, parading in front of the “straight” world the stylized decadence and kinky sexuality that the mainstream has winkingly appropriated from gay subculture.

Trask and Mitchell reference the glam trinity of Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, and David Bowie in a procession of show tunes that fill in the characters’ backstories while simultaneously expressing more abstract emotions. The movie itself makes a shift toward the abstract, becoming less about what will become of Hedwig and more about the feelings associated with being used, betrayed, and generally unlucky.

That brings Hedwig in line with the recent “new musical” mini-movement in cinema exemplified by Lars Von Trier’s simplistic but wrenching Dancer in the Dark and Baz Luhrmann’s breathlessly romantic Moulin Rouge and also the new trends in sophisticated musical theater best represented by the idea-saturated and melody-rich work of Adam Guetell. Singing has always been the best way to convey an inner state without the nakedness of under-articulate speech. The musicals of today are moving beyond direct expressions of love and despair, in the case of Hedwig roping in social politics, gender confusion, even the philosophy of Plato. Even if it moves too far beyond conventional narrative to be completely explicit, the music video imagery and memorable songs of Hedwig and the Angry Inch evoke an implicit understanding. You see it, you hear it, you feel it. — Noel Murray

Categories
Art Art Feature

Labor Pains

On the way home from the AMUM Artlab after seeing Jan Hankins’ politically charged “Out of the Janitor’s Closet: A Quest for Universality,” I was listening to talk radio. While the national emergency has ended partisan bickering for now in Washington, one can count on right-wing spinners not to curb their dogma one iota. One caller wondered why the NBA has not offered the country an apology, given that so many of the players have adopted Muslim names, and earlier in the day Rush tagged some well-known liberals with Arabic pet names like Mustafa and Ahmed. At this writing, there have been over 40 attacks on Arab Americans and Muslim targets and one suspected death, but God forbid that these pious zealots should surrender to political correctness.

“No liberal softies on the radio,” says Hankins, who is as troubled as I am that much of the media has discarded even the aspiration to objectivity (a la talk radio) and is actively courting war. I was interviewing the artist in hopes of deciphering the symbols of his ambitious installation, which is about the strata of labor and the “widening gulf between the classes.” While the work was installed a couple of weeks before the terrible events of September 11th, Hankins has a heightened sense of unease, worried that his politics may not be welcomed in its aftermath.

We get the sense that the nationalistic fervor has reached such a fevered pitch that the social climate increasingly demands compliance to the prevailing bloodlust or, at the very least, quiet acquiescence. To be so bold as to speak out against war or to question authority is considered tantamount to treason. Hankins recalls wearing a black arm band on Moratorium Day during the Vietnam war, which incited some local jocks to flex in his face and taunt, “Chicken to die, chicken to die?”

An impolite sociopolitical bite has always made Hankins’ paintings offbeat, but this installation, with that trademark conspiratorial bias intact, offers something extra in the autobiographical. The paintings on the wall are not discrete rectangles but fragments of pictures and objects accumulated over the years. Jumbled together on the floors and walls, each is a little masterpiece in its own right, and the amalgam is a kind of twisted mixture of Dali and Rauschenberg. Mops and rollers are bolted to the paintings, and sections of planks cover the floor and wall, spelling out “Labor” and “Money do.” The individually painted planks actually spiral off the wall, unfurling as a red flag. It is a bold statement for labor solidarity and quite provocative in this political climate.

But why the janitor’s closet? “Because I spend a lot of time in janitors’ closets,” says Hankins, whose day job is repairing and refinishing gymnasium floors. This work is derived from the artist “reconciling the different parts of my life. I have to work to survive and I likewise have to do art.” Hankins is all too aware of the worth ascribed to various kinds of labor and finds it humorous that when he is on his hands and knees refinishing a gymnasium floor or painting a mascot he is treated with more dignity than when doing his own art. Despite the pro-labor rhetoric, the artist generally works alone and is unsure if he could function in a union. Thus, yet another quest for universality: “to unify my ideals with practice.”

Perhaps the apprehensiveness that both Hankins and I feel in regard to his pro-labor message derives from its bitter timing, considering the injured economy and an expected 100,000 layoffs in the airline industry alone. The magnitude of suffering wrought by the violence of September 11th demonstrates the fragile interdependence of humanity.

Recently, the threat of war prompted a friend to issue an appeal against the shedding of more innocent blood, but its sentiments are applicable to the scope of human affairs. He said, “We cannot afford the god-like perspective of looking at others as a group of anonymous beings subject to our will, whose individual fates are irrelevant to the larger purpose. From my perspective as an embodied individual consciousness, my continued survival, health, happiness, and freedom are of primary importance. I believe this is true of all the other individual embodied consciousnesses living in this world. It is not too big a leap to suggest that maximizing the potential for everyone to accomplish these goals maximizes my own hopes for achieving them.”

Through October 4th.

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

The Art Of Football

Maybe for those uninterested in the game, football doesn’t seem like a work of art. But in the crashing bodies and arching passes and precise blocking there’s form and symmetry. Every player strives to find his own individual brilliance in the strict confines of the playbook. And, as with art, the plays in football strive to organize the chaos into something meaningful.

So if football does have some form, it’s the job of the critic (sportswriter) to find a team’s pattern and decide if it works. The most compelling and also most disturbing aspect of the Tigers’ win last Saturday against the University of South Florida (USF) is that it doesn’t fit any pattern one would expect after three games. No player has played consistently; no unit has routinely shown itself to be reliable. The Tigers are a postmodern unit where the only constant is that they are unpredictably unreliable.

The Tigers built a 10-point lead at Mississippi State University (MSU) before the kicking team dropped a couple balls and the bottom fell out in a painful 30-10 Tigers loss. Despite scoring 43 points on a defenseless University of Tennessee-Chattanooga (UTC), the Tigers amassed over 100 yards in penalties. (Three penalties by the defense led directly to UTC’s only touchdown.) The following game the Tigers offense popped in 17 first quarter points over the USF only to sputter aimlessly over the next three quarters, racking up no points and only 53 yards of offense.

The offense also turned the ball over four times, with one fumble leading to USF’s only touchdown. Their ineptitude forced the defense to struggle mightily, keeping the Bulls out of the endzone with a last-second stand.

In each game, after building an early lead, some facet of the team has had a critical meltdown. It cost a win at MSU and could have cost the UTC and USF games if either of those opponents had been on par with the Bulldogs. Unfortunately for the Tigers, next Saturday’s opponent is Louisville. Though the Cardinals (3-1) dropped a game last weekend to Illinois, 34-10, they have still outscored their opponents by 47 points for the season. If the Tigers (2-1) can choose a weekend to get their act together, their first conference game of 2001 would be a good place to start.

What’s causing the chaos? Why has there been a breakdown every game? There are no easy answers, but head coach Tommy West offers this insight: “It looks, right now, like we lose our fundamentals.” Losing the fundamentals in this case means a lack of team play. “There [has been] a point in every game,” he says, “where we get to doing our own thing.” His message to his players: “Just do your job.”

In other words, the forms present within the Tigers football squad — its offensive philosophies and defensive schemes — come under the influence of another factor: group mentality.

Imagine for a moment if Picasso, Monet, Matisse, and Renoir had to create a painting together. Each would face the challenge of making the painting work while still allowing for his individual style to shine through. The probability of success in such an endeavor is small.

But good teams make this happen, and that’s the Tigers’ goal. The method, according to West, is simple. “It’s really just [been] a case of not doing exactly what we are supposed to do,” he says. He gives as an example quarterback Travis Anglin: “There is no doubt in my mind Travis caused that first fumble [in the USF game]. He just needs to make a quick throw. We hold it and hold it and [a receiver] is just not there. Just do like we do in practice and throw the ball away.”

Keep in mind that Anglin is one of the Tigers’ stars so far this season. Against USF he threw for 94 yards and a touchdown, rushed the ball for 73 yards, and even caught a gimmick-pass reception from receiver Ryan White for 45 yards. West’s point is clear: If one part of the piece isn’t working, the whole thing loses coherence.

Against USF, the whole thing very nearly collapsed minutes later as Anglin lost the ball again, which resulted in the Bulls’ only touchdown and kept them in the game. “All of a sudden, we go into a mode of ‘I have to make this play,'” West says. “Travis knows this. If you’re backed up, take a knee or run a quarterback sneak. It’s a play we run all the time. There are different zones on the field and [the red zone] is not a free-wheeling zone. That’s where you get two hands on the ball, get what you can get, and don’t be a hero. At worst, we’ll punt.”

“We have a lot of work before we go to Louisville,” West says. “We’re going to have to make a lot of corrections to have a chance to win.” The biggest correction, it seems, is for the players on the squad to make a conscious decision to accept their roles and do what West tells them to do. West is not gun-shy about letting his players know when they are part of the problem. Saturday will show just which players are part of the Tigers’ solution.

You can e-mail Chris Przybyszewski at chris@memphisflyer.com.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Bush’s Moment

Until his televised speech to a joint session of Congress, George W. Bush had been occasionally wobbly, somewhat tentative, and — especially in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attack — diminished in stature. He seemed unsure of himself, somehow shrunken in his clothes, and — understandably — scared by the responsibilities that he suddenly faced and for which he was, by background and intellectual habit, almost totally unprepared.

Little by little, though, he gained confidence. He seemed emboldened by the heroism of others — those New York City firefighters, for instance. They did what they had to do because it was their job to do it. So it would be with Bush and so, at least in that speech to the nation, did he rise to the occasion.

The words were perfect, occasionally eloquent, as when he said that the terrorists would follow other extremist groups “to history’s unmarked grave of discarded lies.”

The speech was also utilitarian, outlining what needs to be done and why the United States has to do it. Details were lacking, but one suspects it is not just because they were withheld. It is because the plans are not yet anywhere near complete.

But a speech is more than words. It is theater. Winston Churchill understood that. His words set an unsurpassed standard for eloquence — he was downright Shakespearean during the Blitz and he coined, of course, the phrase “Iron Curtain.” But it was his effect that also mattered — his delivery, his pauses, and his determination to venture out into still-smoking London. He would become the face of Britain.

This — or something like it — was what Bush displayed last Thursday evening. He seemed steadfast. He seemed determined. He seemed confident. He was the master of the moment, as much the leader of that room as a conductor is of his orchestra. He seemed — this is our American word for it — “presidential.”

Walter Lippmann, the great columnist and public intellectual, scathingly dismissed Franklin Roosevelt when he first ran for the White House. Eleanor Roosevelt, who knew the great men of her times, similarly dismissed John F. Kennedy. Others, too, considered JFK a dilettante whose father had bought him a political career.

It is too soon and too silly to liken Bush to Kennedy or Roosevelt and to say that he, like them, has grown to match his responsibilities. Bush has a long way to go and his task is imprecisely defined. It is called a war, but it is both something less and something more.

The world has turned upside down on Bush. He came to Washington to shrink it, to diminish the role of the federal government in almost all areas, if only by depriving it of money. He made missile defense the centerpiece of his foreign and defense policies. He pushed through an ideologically conceived tax package that was unfortunate in its inception and would be just plain catastrophic in its implementation.

Now he has created a whole new Cabinet-level post, the oddly named Office of Homeland Security. Now he is recalling retired federal workers. He is asking Congress for more and more money. He is intervening to save the airline industry, and missile defense, which is not such a crazy notion in its place, will just be part of a larger package.

As for the economy, he will need to turn his tax package on its head. It is now back-loaded and it benefits the wrong people, mostly the affluent. He needs to front-load it so the money gets into the economy as fast as possible. And he needs to give that money to the people who are most likely to spend it –the middle class.

All that in time. Meanwhile, the man who was a middling student, a boozer and towel-snapper, an incurious and intellectually inert businessman and governor who back-slapped his way into the presidency, emerged Thursday night as something we terribly needed. He was always the president. Now he is the commander in chief.

Richard Cohen is a member of the Washington Post Writers Group. His columns frequently appear in the Flyer.

Categories
Music Record Reviews

Short Cuts

Is This It

The Strokes

(RCA)

A bunch of New York City guys in their early 20s who have been on the cover of basically every British music magazine before their debut album was even released, the Strokes arrive with an almost deafening buzz. But, to flip the script on another great NYC act, Public Enemy, this time you can believe the hype.

The Strokes could be the result of some freak 1977 accident, a mix-up on the subway perhaps, as the city’s two best bands — the arty, mythic Television and the regular-Joe punks the Ramones — head off to different gigs and somehow get their genetic codes crossed. The Strokes are what Television might have sounded like if they were a party band bashing out three-minute pop and garage-rock nuggets.

The 35-minute Is This It bops along at a relentless, agitated pace. The Strokes may evoke every great subcultural New York band of the last 35 years — the Velvet Underground, Television, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, the Jim Carroll Band, and on and on — but what makes the band so thrilling is that they honor this tradition while also being more accessible than any of their forebears. The band takes these arty tropes back to the simplest and earliest rock-and-roll verities with music that’s sweaty, rhythmic, and loaded with frantic joy.

Is This It is driven by the dual guitar attack of Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr. — brittle, sugary, interlocking rhythm parts that occasionally burst into explosive solos. Bassist Nikolai Fraiture makes like a garage-rock James Jamerson, nailing the songs in place with big Motown-syle bass lines. And, as bands such as R.E.M. and Sonic Youth have proven, if you’re gonna be an art band it helps to have a drummer who knows his way around a good, old-fashioned rock-and-roll backbeat, and stick-man Fabrizio Moretti more than fits the bill, giving the music a locomotive undercurrent that even pushes the rare “ballad” to a frenzied pace. On top of all this is singer Julian Casablancas, whose dramatic, confrontational vocals are steeped in the monotone humor of Lou Reed and the hopped-up aggression of Richard Hell. On “The Modern Age” he sounds like he’s singing through an intercom — a wild, distorted whoop and stutter over a tense “Sister Ray” stomp.

Lyrically, this is simple stuff — New York City Boys pursuing New York City Girls. But this band imbues twentysomething date culture and general life confusion with mystery, allure, and desperate romance. “Life seems unreal/Can we go back to your place?,” Casablancas asks in a typically sardonic pick-up line. On “Barely Legal,” the band builds an unbearable tension, Casablancas slicing through it with a conflicted diatribe against one of the record’s many objects of obsession: “I just want to turn you down/I just want to turn you around/You ain’t never had nothin’ that I wanted/But I want it all and I just can’t figure out/Nothing.”

It’s astounding in this day and age that a band could record a debut album for a major label that sounds this raw and free. Unless there’s something I’ve missed, the Strokes are the best new American band since Sleater-Kinney. — Chris Herrington

Grade: A

Trash and Burn

Dead Moon

(eMpTy Records)

On their 13th full-length release, Dead Moon show absolutely no signs of um waning. Composed of the husband-and-wife team Fred and Toody Cole and drummer Andrew Loomis, they are the musical equivalent of TV’s Hart to Hart — a frisky crime-fighting couple with Andrew as the lovably gruff third wheel. Fred, the principal songwriter, has been making music consistently since 1964 in such bands as the Weeds, the Lollipop Shoppe (scoring with the classic 1968 Nugget “You Must Be a Witch”), the Rats, and, since 1987, Dead Moon.

Dead Moon offer a glimmer of hope that the hard-travelin’ boozy rock-and-roll lifestyle and the cozy path of stable domesticity are not mutually exclusive. In the past I have used the term “riot grrranny” to deride the soccer-mom poetry-slam style of Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon. Toody Cole, an honest-to-God grandmother, shows that petty jab to be an admirable prospect.

Dead Moon so purely exemplify rock music that it seems dishonest to use the term on so many other Milquetoast hacks and tin-eared tunesmiths. The band’s style is definitely unrefined and jagged, but ultimately it is refreshingly adjective-free rock-and-roll — no post, emo, nü metal, grunge, or even garage is needed. Fred Cole’s deliciously mournful caterwaul might take a while to grow on the ears of the finicky, but the overall energy and integrity are impossible to deny. The songs on their new release are as strong as any in their back catalog. The obvious emotion between the band members is palpable on such couples-only crunchers as “The Way It Is” and “These Times With You.” The meaty hooks of the anthems “40 Miles of Bad Road” and “Never Again” are so profound and majestic that you’ll swear they are covers of forgotten AOR classics.

Along with Detroit’s White Stripes and Japan’s King Brothers, Dead Moon are among an elite of high-energy live acts playing in the world today. At the beginning of each show, they light a candle set in the mouth of a Jack Daniel’s bottle. They rock as they live, full-bore ahead as long as the light burns. In the words of another elder statesman of rock, to whom Fred’s wailing is often compared, that option is always better than fading away.

— David Dunlap

Grade: A

Dead Moon will be at the Hi-Tone Café on Monday, October 1st, with the Reigning Sound.

Lonnie Johnson: The Unsung Blues Legend

Lonnie Johnson

(Blues Magnet Records)

Singer/guitarist Lonnie Johnson was not your typical bluesman. In the ’20s, he helped to develop a single-string lead style for the guitar that was opposed to the gruffer Delta approach. B.B. King, Charlie Christian, T-Bone Walker, and Django Reinhardt all name-checked him as an influence on their varying guitar styles. Johnson was equally at home with jazz and was unashamed to sing corny standards of the day when it suited him. Neither the archetypal drifting blues guitarist nor a grinning minstrel holdover from the days of vaudeville, New Orleans native Lonnie Johnson was a fluid guitarist and a smooth singer with a deep emotional range who never quite got his due before his death in 1970.

His friend and benefactor Bernie Strassberg made a reel-to-reel tape recording of Johnson performing at his Forest Hills, New York, home in 1965 in front of a small but enthusiastic gathering of family and friends. The recording was done on a primitive Wollensak machine and was never intended for release. What was a living-room vanity session done 35 years ago now sounds very affecting and fits right in with the penchant for casual lo-fi recording made popular in recent times. The performances are very relaxed (you can even hear one of Strassberg’s children talking on the tape) and the sound quality is not crystal-clear. But Johnson’s undiminished talents as a song interpreter and guitarist (although he does overuse a signature guitar run made famous on his 1948 recording of “Tomorrow Night”) are manifest on this recording. He tries everything from “September Song” to “Danny Boy” (a guitar solo!) to “Summertime” to Sinatra’s “This Love of Mine.” Lonnie Johnson aimed to be an entertainer as well as a blues singer and succeeded admirably at both. And he was never ashamed of being the former as well as the latter. — Ross Johnson

Grade: A-

You can e-mail Chris Herrington at herrington@memphisflyer.com.

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

AC Gets Ready

Shelby County Public Defender AC Wharton will meet with supporters this week to discuss an imminent announcement of his candidacy for county mayor as a Democrat.

Wharton confirmed the fact of the meeting but did not disclose his intentions about the date and place of a formal announcement. A source close to the developing Wharton campaign said categorically, however, “He’s ready to go.”

Wharton, who is regarded by most observers as a serious contender, has been mulling over his decision for several weeks. He has been urged to run by a coalition including Reginald French, a sometime aide to Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton; Jackie Welch, a developer with ties to incumbent Shelby County Mayor Jim Rout; and Bobby Lanier, chief administrative aide to Rout.

The presence of Rout allies in Wharton’s support group is a clear indication that the Republican county executive is backing Wharton’s move, allege various other Democrats — notably Bartlett banker Harold Byrd, who has already announced for the Democratic nomination for county mayor and begun campaigning. The mayor himself has so far declined comment on any aspect of the race to succeed him.

Clearly, Wharton, an African American, has good potential among the county’s black voters, and he is well regarded among whites as well.

Byrd, however, has raised a good deal of money and, though white, has built a coalition that includes several influential African Americans — including former county commissioner Vasco Smith and his wife Maxine Smith, former head of the local NAACP chapter and an ex-member of the Memphis school board.

The Smiths — who, ironically, are next-door neighbors of Wharton — are scheduled to host a fund-raiser for Byrd on Friday, October 5th. The co-hosts for that affair include other prominent blacks, like Rev. Bill Adkins and Rev. Billy Samuel Kyles.

Byrd was also endorsed last weekby Charlie and Alma Morris, longtime proprietors ofthe Kennedy Democratic Clubin North Memphis.

Other Democratic candidates are state Senator Jim Kyle, an experienced campaigner, and state Rep. Carol Chumney, who hopes to generate a significant women’s vote on her behalf.

All of the above, however, will be forced to regard Wharton as their most serious competitor.

A number of Republicans are considering running, and the most viable possibilities are regarded as District Attorney General Bill Gibbons, city councilman Jack Sammons, and attorney and former councilman John Bobango. All of these are moderate, middle-of-the-road Republicans, and it is believed that only one of them — more or less by prior arrangement with the others — will end up with his hat in the ring.

The presence of French in Wharton’s support group represents something of a split in the Herenton camp. Former Teamster leader Sidney Chism, the mayor’s chief political arm, was an early Byrd supporter, and he has cautioned that Wharton, if nominated, stands a good chance of losing to one of the moderate Republicans mentioned.

™

  • “Now is not the time for me to leave,” said U.S. Senator Fred Thompson in Nashville Monday morning, ending months of speculation with a terse pro forma announcement that he intended to run again. Simultaneously he broke the hearts — or at least scuttled the expectations — of a host of candidates waiting in the wings to succeed either him or 7th District U.S. Representative Ed Bryant.

    Prospective Democratic candidates for the Thompson seat had included U.S. Reps. Harold Ford Jr. of Memphis, Bart Gordon, Bob Clement, John Tanner, and former National Transportation and Safety Board chief Jim Hall of Chattanooga.

    The congressmen all said Monday they planned to run for re-election rather than pursue a contest against Thompson. Hall declined to comment, saying, in the statesmanlike idiom adopted by almost all politicians since September 11th, that “now is not the time to discuss politics.”

    Among those ready to go for the Bryant seat were, among Republicans, Memphis attorney David Kustoff, who ran the Bush campaign in Tennessee last year; Memphis city councilman Brent Taylor; former Shelby County Republican chairman Phil Langsdon, a facial plastic surgeon; and state Rep. Larry Scroggs.

    Kustoff and Taylor, especially, had been gearing up for a congressional race in recent weeks, relatively certain that Thompson, who had raised very little money for a re-election bid and who had seemed indifferent to the prospect, would be vacating his seat, clearing the way for Bryant — who made no secret of his ambitions, either — to move up.

    What happened to scuttle all that, of course, was the catastrophe inflicted on New York and Washington two weeks ago by the kamikaze-like raids of terrorists in hijacked airliners. Like many other national politicians, Thompson responded with fury to the raids, and his interest in government and its processes, particularly the national-security aspects that had always concerned him, seemed to have been newly aroused. He promptly began a stepped-up round of appearances, both statewide and in Washington.

    Just before the events of September 11th, for that matter, Thompson had confided to David McCullough, the author of a current biography of John Adams, that the book had revived his interest in public service.

    The new sense of crisis seems to have completed the turnabout for Thompson, who would say on the PBS program The News Hour with Jim Lehrer Monday, “I just didn’t feel that even though I thought seriously about going back into the private sector — and I had always planned to do that before very long — that now was clearly not the time to do it. I think that there are an awful lot of Americans out there right now looking for ways to help out, and I had a pretty obvious one right here staring me in the face. So I think this was what I needed to do.”

    The brief statement Thompson read in Nashville Monday included an almost wistful reference to “a private life and another career.” But the senator’s reference to “what is happening in our nation” needed no elaboration, nor did his stated intention to get speculation about his intentions “into the background.”

    Thompson’s home-state colleague, Sen. Bill Frist, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which recruits GOP candidates and raises money, said he was “happy to remain Tennessee’s junior senator,” while state Democratic Party chairman Bill Farmer of Lebanon acknowledged that finding a credible Democratic opponent for Thompson would be difficult and observed wanly, “Sen. Thompson is a well-known figure and, of course, he has his Hollywood image that still sticks with him.”

    ™

  • Another Tennessean has seen his political plans affected by the tragic recent events and the mood of national crisis that followed them. Vice President Al Gore may have seen an end to the political resurfacing which had been proceeding apace right up until September 11th.

    Since then, Gore had relapsed into the virtual silence which had governed his actions after the turbulent Florida vote recount and his concession to Republican George W. Bush in early December.

    Gore returned to public consciousness in Nashville Saturday, making appearances at several meetings during a weekend of state Democratic Party events. Still bearded, he told his fellow Tennessee Democrats that he backed the president unreservedly and urged that they do the same.

    Bush had put a call in to Gore in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, but, in the swirl of events, the two never made their connection. Gore dismissed that fact as unimportant, treating the president’s call as a political courtesy.

    Gore, who was a month or two into his reemergence as a political figure, had been scheduled to address the Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Des Moines, Iowa, next weekend, and, although some Democrats in that key caucus state called for a postponement of the affair under the circumstances, it will presumably go ahead, with Gore as keynoter.

    But the crisis — and the rise in Bush’s popularity that accompanied it — has transformed the event, as they have transformed the future prospects for Gore and every other Democratic presidential hopeful. No longer will the dinner be billed as a showcase for the “rightfully elected president” (as some advance publicity had heralded it); it will now be restructured as a call for national unity.

    ™

  • Two weeks ago, 26-year-old Drew Pritt, a political science major at the University of Memphis and president of the university’s College Democrats, was standing in a Q-and-A line at a campus “town meeting” on the subject of campaign-finance reform, which just that little bit of time ago was a prime point of contention among political junkies and poli-sci students.

    The panelists at the meeting, all of whom had come to Memphis on behalf of the McCain-Feingold bill, were illustrious members of Congress — Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin himself, Rep. Marty Mehan of Massachusetts, Rep. Chris Shays of Connecticut, Rep. Harold Ford Jr. of hometown Memphis, et al., et al. Pritt had lined up in order to balance and, if possible, refute the highly organized claque of College Republicans who had gotten in the Q-and-A line to ask leading, unfriendly questions of the panelists.

    That was then, this is now. Pritt will shortly be lining up with other Republicans and Democrats and independents — not to ask questions at all but to follow orders. As soon as he heard of the atrocities perpetrated in New York and Washington, D.C., on September 11th, Pritt, a member of the inactive Army reserve, began to petition his local Memphis reserve unit to go on active service. He now has his wish, having been shifted to the active reserves and subsequently called up. He’ll be leaving within two weeks to be attached to a unit destined for parts unknown.

    “I come from a family with a military tradition,” said Pritt, both of whose brothers are also in military units that will likely see duty in whatever kind of military conflict ultimately develops. (Brother David is a master sergeant with the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, already deployed; brother Paul is a captain in the Army reserves and is also seeking activation.) Drew Pritt’s father, an Episcopal clergyman, is also a military veteran. “Plus,” says the bespectacled, buzz-cut Pritt earnestly, “I intend to have a political career, and I can’t see voting for anybody to do military service if I’m not willing to do it myself.”

    Pritt, a specialist holding the pay grade of E-4, counts himself a liberal Democrat and is aware that, by various stereotypes and standards, he’s a statistical freak. By way of accounting for his place in the scheme of things, he likes to quote a mantra which he picked up — believe it or not — from his first drill sergeant but which he thinks derives from Socrates: “Democracy is a hungry beast that must constantly be fed.”

    Interestingly enough, Pritt is just one of the reservists who had been serving on the campaign staff of mayoral candidate Chumney. (The other is Chumney’s press secretary, Bert Kelly, an officer in the Naval reserve who spent a recent weekend on official duty in New York.)

    You can e-mail Jackson Baker at baker@memphisflyer.com.

    • Categories
    Opinion Viewpoint

    Getting On a Plane

    A few hours after I write this, I’m going to get on an airplane. It wasn’t that long ago that such an event meant nothing to me at all. I saw an airplane as a high-speed vehicle which might develop mechanical problems or run into foul weather, causing it to crash. But that just about never happened.

    As of September 11th, of course, we all have a different view of the airplane. It’s now something which could be seized by evil people for evil purposes. Now I see a plane as a wonder of technology, a dangerous vehicle, and a potential bomb. When I see one, or even a picture of one, I also see that silhouetted plane smashing into the World Trade Center. I wonder if I’ll ever get over that.

    I sometimes wonder if we’ll all get over this thing. In some ways, I fear we will. It may sound insane, but there are positives that came out of September 11th. Certainly, there were heroic acts that day and immediately afterward, but we also shared a lot of genuine feelings like togetherness, compassion, patriotism, and even good, healthy anger.

    As we return to our normal lives, as we inevitably will, these feelings will fade, and we’ll be left with the ugly aftermath of death, destruction, debate, economic troubles, and fear. But these things existed before. I don’t buy the line that “the world will never be the same,” because the only thing that changed on September 11th is that America got a dose of what humans the world over have faced for thousands of years. It’s not even the first time we’ve seen it, just the first time in a long while. Hell, America has done things like that.

    In other words, the world didn’t change. It has hosted evil and inhumanity since Day 1. What changed was our attitude about the world and our place in it.

    The potential changes to our traveling ways have been well-documented. We will almost certainly see fewer airlines, higher prices, closed attractions, tighter security, longer waits, and — for a while, anyway — fewer people flying. Our international borders will be a hassle, and I’m afraid “Arab-looking” people will face particular troubles. The hatred and ignorance of the terrorists will breed much the same in us, with our right-wingers and our military-industrial complex eager to take full advantage.

    But what I find myself considering today, as I pack my bags for the airport, is fear. I’m not afraid of getting on a plane. Even in the post-September 11th world, the odds are overwhelming against any given flight being seized or destroyed by terrorism or anything else. For that matter, now may be the safest time to fly in American history.

    What I am afraid of, to quote a real leader, is fear itself.

    I’m afraid that people all over the world will decide the best course of action is to stay at home and worry — or stew. People very close to me have already canceled long-planned trips out of fear and, as one put it, because the fun has gone out of it. I’m not saying these reactions are wrong, but I’m afraid they’ll become the norm. I’m afraid that Americans, in particular, will withdraw from the world out of fear or, worse, hatred.

    The reason I fear this is that I believe that our purpose here on earth is twofold: love each other and ourselves and pursue the beauty and magic that exist in the world. And for me, the key to both is to explore the world and get to know the people who live in it.

    Think about it: If more Americans had been to more places in the so-called Arab world, more of us would know that the vast majority of people there are just like the vast majority of people here: good, kind, decent, hard-working, and compassionate people who want the best for themselves and the people around them and who are almost completely cut off from the real power and decision-making in their government. And when you know that, it makes it that much tougher to see them as people who should change their religion, rid their country of evil-doers, and overthrow their leaders, lest they become “collateral damage.”

    Travel also, by removing you from your normal surroundings, shows you that your identity is not defined by where you are and what you do. You are not your job, in other words, nor are you your hometown. Get away from those things for a while, and you’ll meet your true self. You’ll also see your home, job, and lifestyle in a broader, and therefore healthier, perspective. You might even begin to understand how the rest of the world sees America — for better or worse. That kind of perspective has never been more important than right now.

    Hatred and ignorance can only be defeated by compassion and knowledge — certainly not by more hatred and ignorance and most certainly not by bullets and bombs.

    The world has evil in it; no doubt about that. It always has. But it’s also a big, beautiful place, made more so by your presence in it. Embrace that beauty. And in a more literal sense, go out and see it. Meet the other people in the world and try to show all of them compassion, tolerance, and love. You just might get the same back, beyond your wildest dreams.

    Please don’t give in to fear, depression, or withdrawal. The world, and all of us in it, need you. As always, I encourage you to explore this fantastic home of ours and get to know its inhabitants, from your own neighborhood to the farthest reaches of the planet. If nothing else, it will make you feel better, because you will discover beauty, magic, and who you and your fellow people really are.

    And if you’re worried about not making it back home, be sure to tell the people you love how you feel about them before you get on the plane.

    Categories
    News The Fly-By

    Soldiers Story

    They don’t wear dog tags. Their families don’t know where they’re going, when they’ll be back, or the circumstances of their death — if and when the worst should occur. Often, the only way they even know when another group has been on a mission is by an eerie and unmistakable sign: a pair of empty combat boots resting outside of the base chapel, signifying the death of a soldier. This is the life of military Special Operations soldiers, or Special Ops, as they’re often called.

    In the mid-’90s, I watched my boyfriend go from grunt Army infantryman to an elite Airborne Ranger. I watched him change from a naive 18-year-old Tennessee boy to a trained killer who would spend the next few years of his life on foreign soil, parachuting into danger, belly-crawling in trenches, and tracking war criminals. To say it changed him would be a gross understatement. It changed him so much that I called off the wedding.

    Our engagement was never real to me anyway. We got engaged the day he learned he was being sent to Bosnia, a country neither of us had ever heard of; we had to look at a map to learn where it was. Chris was going on his first Special Ops mission. His commanding officers told him that there was a good chance that he would never come home, that this first trip could be his last, that there was no turning back — that this was the big show.

    Despite his bravado and his extensive training, Chris was scared — so scared that he proposed. We took a bunch of pictures of each other, said many good-byes, sat around in silence, and cried.

    He wrote me some letters while he was over there, but I didn’t get any of them until he had already made it back home safely. Truthfully, I had already resigned myself to thinking he would die. So when he came back and was so very different from when he left, neither of us knew what to say or do. I was a light-hearted 17-year-old high school student; he wouldn’t answer me when I asked if he had to kill anyone over there.

    That was it. The wedding was off. I walked away from it and back to my world of soccer games and proms and he went back to his life as a government-approved assassin. We had some brushes after that, actually some damn scary ones (you don’t want to jilt someone who knows 35 ways to kill a person without leaving a mark). But mostly that was it. We’re friends again now and he’s moved on to a new career — training military Special Ops in hand-to-hand combat.

    After seeing that change in Chris, you’d think I would have learned my lesson about Special Ops soldiers. Hardly. For the first few years after Chris, I found myself drawn to these elite soldiers — men who live off adrenaline, danger, and the blood of strangers.

    For a short time I dated Brad — another Ranger who was so friendly, jovial, and stable that I sometimes forgot that he was military, and then I’d see that screaming eagle tattooed on his neck.

    I studied hap ki do with a Navy SEAL and he taught me how to stab a man with the man’s own knife, while he’s still holding it. I also learned pressure points and how to throw a man in a way that causes him to break his own neck. Once, on our first date, a Green Beret taught me how to gut a man — over dinner — explicitly demonstrating with his steak knife.

    From a Delta Force member I learned a little jujitsu — Army-style: how to sneak up behind an enemy and choke him to sleep or to death; how to use the strength in my hips and legs and abdomen to kill a person in under a minute; how to break a bone so that it will either puncture the skin or cause internal bleeding.

    I don’t know if any of the boys I’ve known are in Afghanistan now. Probably not — they’ve probably all finished their tours. I do know that their comrades are over there. Special Ops have already been sent to the Middle East to do our first bit of dirty work for us. Some of them may have been there all along. These forces will likely suffer the greatest casualties — almost all they do is ground fighting. They’ll go in first, and we’ll never know about it. They’ll die first, and we’ll never hear about it. And when our infantrymen get captured and taken as POWs, Special Ops will sneak in and try to rescue them to bring our boys home again.

    These men, boys, really, are extremely well-trained and devoted to the job in a way that makes them lousy boyfriends, great drinking buddies, and exceptional soldiers. In the next few months, we’re all going to come to realize that we owe them for our lives and the lives of our other fighting men. Say a little prayer for them today. Some of them may be parachuting into some desolate region right now.

    You can e-mail Rebekah Gleaves at gleaves@memphisflyer.com.

    Categories
    Cover Feature News

    The Best Of Memphis 2001

    The Best Of Memphis 2001

    Results from our readers’ poll, plus the Best Of the Best Of Memphis, staff picks, and a few words from Best Of spokesman LeRoy Best.

    Best of Memphis contributors:

    art direction, Amy Mathews; illustrations, Jeanne Seagle; photos Robin Salant, Larry Kuzniewski, Trey Harrison, and Dan Ball; web design, James Haley; writers Jeremy Spencer, Lesha Hurliman, Bruce VanWyngarden, Chris Herrington, Chris Davis, Chris Przybyszewski, Janel Davis, Mary Cashiola, Rebekah Gleaves, and Susan Ellis.

    Special thanks to LeRoy Best,

    who gave generously of his time and opinions.