Month: January 2005

Categories
Music Music Features

sound advice

While running down this week’s events, I perused an advertisement placed by the Young Avenue Deli for a tsunami-relief benefit concert featuring “The Glass, Snowglobe, Lost Sounds, Harlan T. Bobo, and a whole lot more.” A whole lot more? With a lineup this strong I can’t imagine what else even the greediest rockoholic could ask for. First of all, you’ve got Harlan T. Bobo, whose self-released CD, Too Much Love, made every single one of the Flyer music writers’ best of 2004 lists — and for a very good reason. Bobo’s simple narratives and sentimental meditations work the same magic as a Raymond Carver short story. Then there’s the Glass who can shift gears from straight-up rockers to creepy but artfully arranged melancholic moaners. They make hopelessness so damn romantic you almost want to go out and throw your life away so you can feel half as beautifully lost as they sound. This brings us, naturally, to the Lost Sounds, who, according to at least one track on their recent In the Red release, occasionally get a little nervous. Their “Black Wave” sound bridges the gap between new wave and hardcore in a way that is never as gutless as the first or as sonically redundant as the latter. Alicja Trout’s classic girl-group sensibilities make the perfect foil for Jay Lindsey, the screamer formerly known as Mr. Reatard. For one measly cover charge, you can have all this and Snowglobe, Memphis’ finest psychedelic-folk popsters too. Plus a whole lot more. As local shows go, it’s almost too good to be true, and needless to say, the cash is all going to support a grand cause. It all goes down on Saturday, January 22nd.

For all of you cold-hearted folks who aren’t interested in disaster relief or fighting the crowds at what promises to be a packed show at Young Avenue Deli, Halfacre Gunroom, another local band well worth looking into, will be playing Murphy’s on Saturday, January 22nd. They’re a little bit country and a lot rock-and-roll, and they don’t fit easily into any obvious categories. One second they are aping Haggard, then they are vaguely reminiscent of the Replacements or R.E.M., all the while maintaining the kind of smart pop dynamic that made Big Star such a rarity. And for all these comparisons, Halfacre’s sound isn’t obviously derivative in any way. Their songs, which tend to be anthems to broken relationships and faded childhood memories, seem pretty straightforward on the front end, but they are filled with subtle wit and images that stick. Murphy’s tiny front room is the perfect place to get acquainted with these guys.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

postscript

No WMD

To the Editor:

There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The 1,200-member WMD search team is coming home after more than a year of fruitless searching and a billion dollars down the drain. There was not a shred of evidence of WMD. What the heck are we in Iraq for?

President Bush says it makes no difference; he has no regrets, and the war is worth it. But is this war worth it to the nearly 1,400 American families who’ve lost someone in Iraq? I agree the world is better off without Saddam Hussein, but he was only a powerful puppet dictator and not worth the life of a single American.

I saw an evangelical reformer on the news last night, explaining why he voted Republican. He said he made up his mind when he saw a Bush protester holding a sign that read “Bible-Toting Liar.” But the sad fact is, we’ll be inaugurating a Bible-toting liar as president of the United States this week.

Ron Lowe

Nevada City, California

WWGD?

To the Editor:

Kenneth Neill (Viewpoint, January 13th issue) wrote: “Today, as Republicans prepare to celebrate George W. Bush’s reelection with a $40 million inauguration, in the midst of a hellish guerrilla war in Iraq and in the immediate aftermath of a great natural disaster, perhaps they should ask themselves: What would FDR do?”

No! They should ask: What would God do?

Arthur Prince

Memphis

A Rush Fan

To the Editor:

Someone wrote to complain about Rush Limbaugh’s questioning of the accuracy of the death toll from the tsunami (Letters, January 13th issue). But I, for one, am thankful the average American has this thrice-divorced drug addict who was a failure until he discovered he could get rich by distorting facts and lying while posing as a moral beacon. Someone’s got to do it.

Ted Church

Memphis

Down the Rat Hole

To the Editor:

The jingoists, corporate predators, arms merchants, and every variety of benighted fool are selling America down the capitalist/military rat hole. The cheerleaders for this administration are our country’s reputation, its wealth, and our future. We are creating a new generation of adversaries and terrorists who are outraged by our arrogance, greed, and militarism in the Mideast.

When we should be scrambling to build clean, safe, renewable energy technology and put in place a serious conservation program to reduce the amount of cancerous filth and greenhouse gasses we produce, we are doing the opposite. We are mass-producing inefficient, internal-combustion engines and carrying on with an unnecessary war with no end in sight.

President Eisenhower said it best: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

At this time in our history, it is a theft of our security, our breathable air, our future, and our dreams. God help us and guide us from this path of death, decay, and destruction and lead us to the path of life, love, and enlightenment.

Don Johnson

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Cowed

To the Editor:

The reaction by the USDA and the U.S. meat industry to the discovery of a third case of Canadian Mad Cow disease clearly places profits before public health. The USDA announced that the U.S. still intends to lift the suspension on the import of Canadian cattle imposed two years ago. The American Meat Institute, which finds Canadian beef more profitable than the domestic product, declared that the discovery is “no cause for concern.”

Mad Cow disease is a degeneration of brain tissue leading to erratic behavior and death. It is transmitted through feeding of infected brain and spinal tissues to other cows. Human consumption of infected beef leads to a deadly dementia that may be confused with Alzheimer’s.

Measures taken by U.S. authorities to protect public health have been grossly inadequate. Only a tiny fraction of cattle slaughtered is tested. The 1997 FDA ban on feeding infected body parts to other cows has lacked adequate enforcement. During slaughter, muscle tissue used in steaks, hamburgers, hot dogs, and beef fillings is exposed to bits of brain and spinal-column tissues.

Folks in the beef industry should seek a more socially redeeming career. For the rest of us, it’s not too late for a New Year’s resolution to replace beef in our diet with vegetables, fruits, and grains.

Manny Compton

Memphis

Categories
News The Fly-By

HOMOPHONEOPHOBIC

On Saturday, January 15th, in its Home and Garden section, The Commercial Appeal ran a story by Christine Arp-Gang about the many ways a clever homemaker can use flowering plants to liven up interiors during the bleak winter months. The headline was unfortunate and a bit misleading: “Gang: Green Your Home Today.” At left is a picture of a flowering cactus. It would look lovely in any home. At right is a picture of a foot with gangrene, a tragic condition that often leads to amputation. It’s not recommended for decorative purposes. — Chris Davis

Plante: How It Looks

Categories
Art Art Feature

Double Vision

In “Rhythm & Roots: A Love Story,” at David Lusk Gallery, identical-twin painters Jerry and Terry Lynn combine surrealism, psycho-social portraiture, highly energized abstract gestures, and their own brand of impressionism. The result is work that celebrates the individual and his ability to imagine no matter how limited his circumstances.

The Lynns, who work together as the

singularized “Twin,” tell just enough of the story to allow

allegorical, thematic, and personal readings. For example, the

60-by-48-inch acrylic painting Lonely is skilled

portraiture and an autobiographical nod to the artists’

childhoods in which a preteen Jerry or Terry turns away from

an adult-male figure dressed in overalls and standing in a cotton field. The

young artist’s posture and gaze are penetrating, yearning. Thin, crisp lines curl about

the painting, suggesting the dreams and goals which are gestating in the

youngster’s mind as well as the pubescent energy dancing around the lower part of

his body. The adult figure could be a fading but important memory when a

young man realizes he wants something different, something more.

A preacher with a crisp white shirt and neatly tailored suit stands

in front of a church in Burn. The ground around him is molten

red and violet, the sky is brimstone white, and burnt-yellow flames

lick the windows and roof of the church. Even as the clapboard

building burns, the preacher looks beyond the loss at the viewer and the work

that remains to be done.

In the mixed-media work The

Beginning, slender white-and-black lines and high-key pinks,

violets, blues, and yellows swirl around the expressionless face and slumped shoulders of a

man dressed in a rough brown garment. This

juxtaposition of the intensely colored, abstractly gestured

background and the enigmatic central figure characterizes many

of Twin’s collaborations. These works are particularly

open to interpretation. Above the man of The

Beginning, stark-white lines join in what looks to be a ribbon banner.

The banner is not filled in but could very well proclaim

the man an “Unsung Hero.” Or is he a more personal

figure? Perhaps “Granddaddy Charles,” a hardworking

Southerner who told tall tales and sang spirituals?

The 36-by-36-inch acrylic Forever can also be read

in several ways. This painting’s semi-abstract subject

could be a vision of a dark-haired fairy dressed in gossamer

surrounded by violet-blues and transparent wings of

fireflies. The painting also suggests the lowered,

shadowed head of a girl lost in a daydream or the elongated face

of an insect breaking out of a silk cocoon.

Early Rising, a seamless integration of

background and foreground and one of Twin’s most

haunting works, depicts a woman picking cotton at dawn.

The muted colors of early morning, the shadowed stand

of trees toward which she walks, and the

exaggerated curvature of sky make magic seem more possible

as Twin transforms the long sack dragging the

ground behind the laborer into a wedding gown and her

slow walk into a processional march.

Included in the exhibit are 200 of Twin’s

smaller paintings (sizes ranging from 5-by-7 inches to

20-by-16 inches), which allow the viewer to witness an

artistic evolution. Quickly executed cartoons and

deliberately crude quasi-folk-art caricatures serve as

studies for the exhibition’s larger, more formal portraiture.

In the lexicon of Twin, Holla and

Gangsta are not pokes but gently comedic notings of the exaggerated

attitudes of stereotyping.

Wanderer and White House are small works of

compressed energy and evocation. The central figure

in the 14-by-11-inch acrylic Wanderer is utterly still,

expectant. She contains decades of patient waiting.

Her arms are gently cradled at the waist of her white

muslin skirt, the folds of which are masterfully

rendered. Her deeply shadowed face and the dark umber

background heighten her isolation. The

10-by-8-inch acrylic painting of a clapboard church,

White House, dissolves in a Turneresque landscape of hazy light

and color as the two brothers pool and reconfigure

memories of the intense rites of passage they experienced

in a rural church just outside Memphis.

With their skilled draftsmanship, genuine

feeling, and melding of artistic styles (more apparent in

this show than ever), there is much to admire in

Twin’s “Rhythm & Roots.”

“Rhythm & Roots: A Love Story” at David Lusk Gallery through January 29th

Categories
Editorial Opinion

EDITORIAL

We don’t know whether Abraham Lincoln was, as a controversial new biography alleges, a homosexual. All we know is that he was — by any kind of definition, literal or metaphorical — a man. Similarly, we don’t know all the contours of Dr. Martin Luther King’s private life, though we are aware that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover made it a point, via wiretaps and other clandestine devices, to maintain a dossier on King. Despite such misguided prying, we know that King too was a supreme example of manhood, in the purest sense of that term.

That public men have private energies, that they entertain passions as well as positions, is a fact of life, and it is helpful to keep that in mind on holidays like the one we have just observed, honoring the birthday of Dr. King. It is all too common on such occasions to hear tributes from the unlikeliest of sources, chiming in with praise for the great martyr by means of quoting this or that noble sentiment from one of his famous addresses. By such means do those who might have opposed Dr. King’s goals during his lifetime manage to appropriate his mantle now.

We too rejoice in the unrivaled rhetoric of such passages, though we think it important to note that King was no political eunuch but a flesh-and-blood orator who could and did breathe fire. In his most famous speech, the “I Have a Dream” address, delivered to a multitude from the pulpit of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, he did not shy away from speaking of “vicious racists” in Alabama or from a chastising reference to “every hill and molehill of Mississippi.” Though he cautioned that civil rights advocates should avoid violence, he also warned, “The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.” As they say, he neither asked nor gave quarter.

And what was true of King’s quest for racial justice was true also of his other great campaigns — on behalf of economic justice for all races and for an end to the then raging Vietnam War. He was fully engaged in both endeavors at the time of his assassination here in Memphis in April 1968.

Only days earlier, on March 31st, he had spoken at the National Cathedral in Washington, in an effort to bring an end to the conflict in Southeast Asia. He did so in words that might be taken note of by the more timid change-seekers among us today, those who heed focus groups and consultants and fear to trouble the mighty:

“I’ve not taken a sort of Gallup Poll of the majority opinion,” said King. “Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus. On some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient? And then expedience comes along and asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? Conscience asks the question, is it right?

“There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right.”

The issue then was Vietnam, but the message still resonates, and the admonition applies to some identifiable particulars of our own time, when perhaps what we need most of all is a leader willing to go to the mountaintop and take his chances there, come what may.

Categories
News

Peace in the Parts Yard

Well, I just said goodbye to the old Merkur in the auto-parts yard. The poor thing made it somewhere past 70,000 miles — tough to tell exactly how many, since the odometer broke at 65,579.

I assume the first things to sell at the parts yard will be the tires, two of which were purchased a month ago for $80 each. They replaced tires that were so bald the steel belt was sticking out. But that incident, like several others in the Merkur’s long, slow, and expensive death, pointed out one of the nice things about the car: It had a fine sense of timing.

On two occasions it had to be jump-started; one time was at a filling station, the other was right in front of my apartment building, when an attractive young woman who also lived in the building showed up to offer assistance. We got the car started, I invited her over to dinner, and I impressed her with my Greek chicken recipe.

One time, the right-rear tire blew up, and when I got out, I found myself staring at a 10-foot sign that read, “National Tire Wholesalers.” Another time, I was driving along and hit the clutch pedal, but the pedal snapped and just hung there like a tree limb cracked by ice and waiting to fall. At that point, the car was heading down a hill toward an empty parking spot, and since it was stuck in neutral, I just let it roll right out of traffic and into safety.

A few years ago, while I was driving across the country with most of my possessions on board, a wheel bearing imploded — right at the last exit for 27 miles on I-25 in eastern Wyoming. The next day, I pulled into Laramie underneath the advance guard of a two-day snowstorm, and when I hit the brakes, very little happened. A couple of first-downs past the stop sign, I looked up to the rapidly disappearing, snow-filled horizon and saw two buildings: a car dealership and a Comfort Inn. A week after that, I was approaching a rest area on a rainy and wind-swept interstate in Oregon, thinking I might stop for a soft drink, when the rear axle went out. I just coasted on in and called a tow-truck.

Like I say, the car had good timing.

As I got everything out of it at the junkyard, I actually found myself feeling sentimental. I have kicked it and cussed it and wished to the heavens I could be away from it, but when it got down to claiming everything I could remove (including the now-sideways gear-shift handle), I felt sad. I gave it a little pat on the back end, thanked it, and wished it a happy and content life in the junkyard. Part of me says it deserves better — the part that is pure sentimental fool — but my rational self had me soaring with glee as I boarded the bus and began my Life Without a Car.

Never again will it break down on a rainy highway! Never again will I get a 20-dollar parking ticket because I didn’t have a nickel to put in the meter! Never again will I have to abandon it in an inch of snow because the rear end was fishtailing — a trick it occasionally performed on wet leaves as well.

I’m enthusiastic about life without a car. It is, for me, a matter of principle. The car is one of America’s primary addictions, one that makes us crave oil, create pollution, and plan our cities on the idea that no sprawl is too great. It also has stunted most forms of public transportation, especially the trains, and caused untold portions of a great, green land to be covered with concrete. You only have to see a haze of pollution in a place like Yosemite Valley to understand what the automobile has done to our quality of living.

And in my car’s case, it was an old pal in need of a dignified end. The heater hadn’t worked for a couple of years. The speedometer had gone out with the odometer, meaning I had to figure my speed either by relativism (to avoid tickets, just don’t be the fastest car around) or by RPMs and gear. In case you ever wondered: 3,000 RPMs in fifth gear is 67 mph, a figure reached by counting mile markers and watching the clock while driving across Missouri. The tape deck was decent, except when it ate tapes. The gear-shift knob wouldn’t stay on straight. The outside of the car was pockmarked with countless dents and abrasions from being scraped in a parking lot, dragged against a few curbs, used as a backstop in neighborhood baseball games, climbed on by kids, and swiped across the front by a car that had run a stop sign. The hatchback occasionally wouldn’t lock, which didn’t worry me that much because I had nothing of value in the trunk.

So here’s to the good times. Thanks, Merkur. May you find peace in the parts yard.

Categories
Opinion

Man From the Moon

On his return trip from the moon, Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell experienced what he describes as a state of “transcended consciousness,” which resulted in feelings of “bliss and ecstasy.” As he gazed at the Earth, the planets, and stars, he felt as though all things in the universe were somehow connected. In an attempt to understand why he had such an experience, he founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), a nontraditional research organization that studies the powers of consciousness.

Mitchell, the sixth man on the moon, will be discussing the latest IONS discoveries in a lecture titled “Secrets of the Universe Revealed” at the Germantown Performing Arts Centre on Sunday, January 23rd.

His fellow astronuats on the mission reported similar experiences, but only Mitchell has dedicated his life to trying to find out why — and what that experience meant.

“One of my colleagues described it as looking on the face of God in terms of traditional religion, but I didn’t,” says Mitchell. “I’m a scientist, and I wanted to try and understand this better.”

Looking into states of consciousness led Mitchell to explore related natural phenomena that remain unexplained by mainstream science. Since its inception in 1972, IONS has researched shifts in consciousness and has delved into the study of dreams, intuition, and clairvoyance.

“The study of the nature of consciousness was really a philosophic idea before,” says Mitchell. “As I researched, I found that some aspect of that type of transcended experience was prevalent in every culture in the world in their mystical and ancient lore, but it had not come into the realm of science.”

Using scientific methods, IONS investigates creativity, meditation, psychic phenomena, healing over distances and the survival of consciousness after death.

One popular research project looks at the psychic abilities of ordinary people. On its Web site, ions.org, visitors can play a psychic game where their intuitive abilities are tested. Visitors who register with the site before playing can submit their results to be studied as a part of ongoing research.

A project researching the power of prayer is under way at Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. Researchers pray for some patients but not for others to see if prayer makes a difference in how fast patients recover. According to Memphian Linda Hassler, who sits on the IONS board of directors, the results have been positive for patients who are prayed for.

Most of IONS’ reasearch is conducted at its retreat center located on 200 acres of rolling hills in Petaluma, California. Since the closing of the Rhine Institute, a similar research organization at Duke University, IONS is the only major facility performing this type of research. But Mitchell says that there are many smaller groups still doing similar work, and they’re discovering many of the same things independent of one another.

“One reason these things have not been studied before is because mainstream scientists don’t believe in some of this stuff. You can’t touch it, see it, or smell it,” says Hassler, who’s a member of the Noetic Explorers, the local noetic science group.

IONS president James O’Dea will speak on Saturday, January 22nd, on “Consciousness: A Tool for Transformation,” at First Unity Church in Cordova. Hassler says this talk will serve as a sort of introduction to noetic sciences. He will discuss the human need to create tools — from the prehistoric use of fire to the Internet — and how consciousness can also be used as a tool.

According to Mitchell, the Noetic Explorers organization has groups in 400 cities and 20 countries. The Memphis group has about 160 member and meets monthly to discuss the latest IONS research.

“This talk is for people who are looking for answers but haven’t been able to find them anywhere else,” says Mitchell. “We’re hoping we can point people in the direction to look. Do we have all the answers? Heavens, no. But do we have a way of looking at things that seems to be productive? We think we do.” n

James O’Dea on “Consciousness: A Tool for Transformation” on Saturday, January 22nd, at First Unity Church (9228 Walnut Grove). Edgar Mitchell on “Secrets of the Universe Revealed” on Sunday, January 23rd, at the Germantown Performing Arts Centre (1801 Exeter Rd.). For more information, call Linda Hassler at 277-3203.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

[City Beat] The Urge To Merge

Consolidation proposals in Memphis are like Super Bowls. They come along every year, generate lots of publicity, and get everyone stirred up for a few weeks. Except the outcome of the Super Bowl is unknown.

In his latest pitch, Mayor Willie Herenton praised the consolidation of Louisville and Jefferson County, Kentucky, which occurred in 2003.

On the surface, Memphis and Louisville are alike. Louisville has UPS, an urban university, Rick Pitino, the Cardinals, Ali, and the Ohio River. Memphis has FedEx, an urban university, John Calipari, the Tigers, Elvis, and the Mississippi River. Louisville’s mayor, Jerry Abramson, has served 14 years; Herenton has served 13 years. Louisville is the nation’s 16th largest city; Memphis is the 18th largest. Louisville and Memphis competed for the Grizzlies.

Ed Glasscock, a Louisville attorney closely involved with the consolidation and NBA drives, has only nice things to say about Memphis.

“I was in the middle of the NBA war and you won,” he said. “You’re doing a very good job with that.”

He also praised Memphis for entertaining 25,000 Louisville fans a few weeks ago at the Liberty Bowl. But details of Louisville’s merger supplied by Glasscock and deputy mayor Joan Riehm show how far Herenton has to go and how unlikely he is to get there. The main reason is that Louisville and Memphis actually are not much alike at all.

The biggest difference is race, which trumps everything short of a municipal bankruptcy. Memphis has a population of about 650,000 and is 62 percent black and 34 percent white. Shelby County (including Memphis) is 49 percent black and 47 percent white. Louisville, before consolidation, had a population of about 250,000 and was 63 percent white and 33 percent black. Metro Louisville (excluding 83 suburban towns left intact) now has a population of 693,000 and is 19 percent black and 77 percent white.

The three peer cities within 600 miles of Memphis that have consolidated since 1960 — Louisville, Indianapolis (which consolidated by legislative action, not referendum), and Nashville — have majority-white populations. White suburbanites don’t merge with black urbanites unless the numbers are in their favor.

If that’s not the end of the story, there’s more.

Louisville’s biggest revenue source is a payroll tax; Memphis’ is a property tax.

Louisville’s and Jefferson County’s public school systems (both majority white) merged back in 1975. “That wasn’t an issue here,” said Glasscock.

It is in Memphis. Neither the Memphis Board of Education nor the Shelby County Board of Education has shown any willingness to bump itself off. And Memphis superintendent Carol Johnson and Shelby County superintendent Bobby Webb have not backed Herenton.

Louisville’s consolidation effort started in 1997, following two failed consolidation votes in the 1980s. Backers plotted strategy for three years and spent $1.6 million in a carefully monitored campaign of advertising, door-to-door visits, direct mail, and polling.

“We spoke with one voice,” said Glasscock, whose law firm was the wheelhorse of a united front that included the business community, every living mayor and county executive (all white), and state and federal politicians. Consolidation in Memphis-Shelby County also has one voice: Herenton’s.

“With all due respect, it takes the whole community,” Glasscock said. “It can’t be one person.”

Something called Greater Louisville Inc. seized the moral high ground and successfully portrayed political opponents as “only interested in their own elected positions.” Herenton has tried to do that too but is losing the PR war in forums such as the letters page of The Commercial Appeal and the all-white county school board. And by his own admission, the mayor let his critics get under his skin and dictate his agenda in 2004. That’s another big mistake.

“The antis can say anything,” Glasscock noted. “We had to tell the truth.”

Louisville’s merger team targeted the two-thirds of Jefferson County residents that polls showed were either favorably inclined or undecided. They promised no change in taxes or services. They spent $300,000 on television ads in the two weeks before the referendum.

The referendum passed by only a 54-46 margin, about the same as a Cardinals football score.

You can have some fun and kill time playing with consolidation numbers but don’t make any bets. For that, take Tom Brady and the Patriots in the Super Bowl.

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

War Torn

A Very Long Engagement is set during World War I, and horrors abound. Manech (played by Gaspard Ulliel) is a young soldier so pretty and fresh-faced that he is nicknamed “Cornflower” by his unit. Manech has, like many, seen too much on the battlefield and resorts to deliberately having his hand shot in order to be sent to the hospital and, hopefully, home. But there is a stiff penalty for self-mutilation: death. Manech and four others like him are tossed into “No Man’s Land” between the trenches of the French and the enemy Germans. The assumption is that they will quickly die and their inevitable deaths will caution against the shirking of duty.

Manech has a lover back home named Mathilde (Audrey Tautou). Mathilde is a headstrong beauty who has overcome childhood polio, and while she limps, she is no less determined nor is she any less brave than Manech. When she receives word that he has been killed on the front, she cannot believe it. She would know, wouldn’t she? In her heart?

Three years pass, and Mathilde is tired of waiting. She hires charitable investigator Germain Pire (Ticky Holgado) who unravels mostly dead-ends until gradually a confusing paper trail hints that maybe not all of the soldiers died. Could it be that Manech survived? Mathilde waits at home for news until she can’t wait any longer, finally visiting the sites her investigator has brought to her attention — a graveyard, the battlefield, and even a prostitute who is on a quest of her own: to kill the men responsible for the death of her lover, one of the four with whom Manech was condemned. Every clue brings Mathilde closer to the truth, and while Manech’s fate is never optimistic, there are more and more hints that not all was as it seemed three years ago in the trenches.

Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet has created an impressive juggling act with A Very Long Engagement. Too intimate to be an epic, the film manages to be a beautiful romance, a sometimes-funny mystery, and a harrowing war film all at once, without slighting any one of its varied components. It is accomplished by a fanciful visual scheme that captures the whimsy of young love and the very worst possible images from a grueling war. Perhaps the best way of describing the film is as a series of successful juxtapositions — war against love, the grim acceptance of reality against the fantasy of desire. Moving on after grief versus a life of hope.

Jeunet created a fantastical confection with 2001’s popular Amelie, also with Tautou in the lead. A Very Long Engagement is, by comparison, an adventuresome meal with tastes and smells both exotic and familiar and with one course moving swiftly to the next. At two and one-quarter hours, it never feels long — so brisk is Jeunet’s pacing and so purposeful his action. And while the details of Mathilde’s investigation can move at a dizzying rate (Engagement is subtitled, and I confess that I was not able to read as fast as some of the facts were presented), the story itself is as clear as Mathilde’s determination.

And oh — the sights and sounds of this film: 1920s Paris, at the bus station and in the market. The French countryside. The many kinds of mud that the good fighting men trudge through or fall in. The warfare. The cobblestones. If there were computer-assisted vistas or landscapes or battles, they were inconspicuous enough to lend substantial impact to the more gripping moments, such as when an unexploded bomb wedges into the ceiling of a makeshift hospital in a zeppelin hangar, and a zeppelin is accidentally released from its moorings, slowly rising to the bomb’s trigger while doctors, nurses, and patients scream, trapped.

I cannot recommend this film to everyone. So successful is A Very Long Engagement at depicting the absurdity and terror of war and so completely does the film sweep the viewer up in its hopeful search for Manech that it reminds us that we ourselves are engaged in a terrible war and that many of our own husbands, wives, and lovers are in their own trenches, some of whom will not return. I imagine this would be a difficult film to watch if you are one of those who wait — by the phone for a call, by the door for the mail, or by the TV — for any word whatsoever that your loved one is okay. For the rest of you, I wholeheartedly encourage you to enjoy a beautiful film destined, most likely, for a very limited engagement. ·

Categories
Cover Feature News

Kickoff, At Last

After more than four years of Internet trash talk, speculation, sensationalism, and delays, it’s kickoff time in the Logan Young trial.

The case of the United States of America v. Logan Young Jr. is scheduled to begin Monday, January 24th, in U.S. District Court in Memphis, with U.S. District Judge Daniel Breen presiding.

Forget all the juicy gossip about the NCAA’s motives, “slave trading,” bag men, snitches, and bad blood between the universities of Alabama and Tennessee. We’ll have real answers soon enough. Forget too whether federal prosecutors should ever have gotten involved in a football recruiting case and spent an untold amount of money pursuing an already banished booster.

The issue is moot. The game is on.

The government says Young, a wealthy Memphis businessman and fanatical University of Alabama football fan, paid former Trezevant High School football coach Lynn Lang $150,000 to ensure that Lang’s star player, lineman Albert Means, would enroll at Alabama.

The case is so old that Means, who transferred to the University of Memphis after one year, has completed his college eligibility and will likely be trying out for some professional team this summer.

The saga of Means, Lang, and Young has prompted more than 200 stories in The Commercial Appeal alone and hundreds more regional and national stories. ESPN will take note of the upcoming trial.

A packed house is expected in the courtroom, at least on days when Lang testifies. Young doesn’t have to testify and probably won’t, according to legal experts. Other witnesses could include NCAA investigators, University of Tennessee head football coach Phillip Fulmer, and possibly other head coaches and assistants.

Since he reportedly didn’t get any of the alleged $150,000 bribe himself, Means might not be called as a witness either, although as someone said about the famous 1950s congressional hearings on the quiz show scandals and cheater Charles Van Doren, that would be like putting on a production of Hamlet without Hamlet.

The trial already has story lines worthy of a championship football game.

Prosecutor Fred Godwin is an ex-cop with 20 years experience with the Justice Department, including a well-publicized case involving sports betting in Memphis in the 1980s in which he won a key conviction. Lead defense attorney Jim Neal of Nashville is an ex-federal prosecutor in the twilight of an illustrious career that has included representing Memphians William B. Tanner, Dr. George Nichopoulos (better known as “Dr. Nick,” Elvis Presley’s doctor), and former state senator Ed Gillock.

Former U.S. attorney for West Tennessee Hickman Ewing Jr., who tried the bookmaking cases with Godwin and prosecuted Gillock, calls Godwin “a pretty hard-nosed guy” and Neal “probably the best criminal defense lawyer in the country when I was a prosecutor.”

Lynn Lang was a defensive lineman at Alcorn State University who became a swaggering and successful high school football coach in Memphis. While coaching at Trezevant High School, his standard of living mysteriously rose in apparent disproportion to his modest pay as a teacher. When the Albert Means story broke in 2000, Lang insisted it was a lie. He pleaded not guilty when he was indicted in 2001 but later changed his plea and began cooperating with the government. He has been in virtual hiding in Michigan for two years while free on bond.

When he enters the witness box as the government’s star witness, Lang may feel like he’s back in the trenches at Alcorn State, with every play coming right at him. He is the only person to directly connect Young to a bribe.

Logan Young comes from a far different world than Lang or Means. He was the privileged child of a wealthy Osceola, Arkansas, businessman, a graduate of private schools, and a country-clubber. He was a friend and devoted admirer of legendary Alabama football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant and was the original owner of the old Memphis Showboats pro football team. He had a box at ‘Bama’s football stadium until the NCAA and the university came down on him for recruiting violations. He has money to burn, though, and has spent quite a lot of it lately on lawyers.

He’ll need them. Team USA has invested four years, a tidy sum of money, and its prestige and credibility on a case that, whatever its outcome, is unlikely to put an end to what one government press release called “the sale of high school athletes for personal gain” in Memphis, much less across the country. Highly recruited athletes like Means who play four years of college football or basketball are actually less common today than they were six years ago when Means was in high school. An increasing number now play only one or two years in college or go straight to the pros.

Team Logan will spare no money to put up a first-class defense. Young faces five years and a $250,000 fine if convicted, and friends say he would not be able to stand it in jail.

His legal team, which includes former Shelby County district attorney John Pierotti and Memphis assistant city attorney Allan Wade, has already been conducting mock trials. Former defendants in federal criminal trials say Young’s defense team is also likely to use professional jury consultants and so-called shadow juries during the trial to take soundings on how certain lines of questioning or witnesses might be received by the real deal.

As in any high-profile federal trial, most of the first few days will be taken up with jury selection. The 11th-hour filings in the case involved the specifics of the jury questionnaires. The jury pool will be pared to 26 potential jurors, then each side can challenge or strike additional candidates it doesn’t like until the final jury and alternates remain.

Because Young is white and Lang and Means are black, there has been water-cooler speculation about whether a predominantly black or white jury would help one side or the other. One theory is that Young’s lawyers will want a black jury because of Young’s friendship with former congressman Harold Ford Sr., who could possibly be called to testify as a character witness. But Ford himself was tried twice by the federal government and wound up being acquitted by a mostly-white jury chosen from the Jackson, Tennessee area.

One category of jurors most likely to be dismissed: anyone with University of Alabama connections. Although there are Crimson Tide fans glad to be rid of Young, others believe he and their once-mighty football program were persecuted by the NCAA at the prompting of Fulmer and others. Foremost among them is Montgomery, Alabama, attorney Tommy Gallion, who has filed a civil lawsuit against NCAA investigators. Gallion’s lawsuit has fed the flames and uncovered a few things that are embarrassing, if not fatal, to Fulmer, Tennessee, and the NCAA. That suit is set for trial in June in Alabama.

Once the jury in Memphis is chosen, Lang will take center stage.

“It is likely that the case will be decided based on the jury’s determination of the credibility of Mr. Lang” and supporting witnesses, Neal wrote in a court brief last year. The brief said it is of “paramount importance” to the defense to discredit Lang and Tom Culpepper, a self-styled football recruiting analyst, Fulmer confidant, and another likely anti-Young witness.

The government says Young paid Lang by making a series of withdrawals from his bank account, each for less than $10,000 to avoid IRS reporting requirements. Culpepper has told investigators that he heard Young boasting about recruiting Means years ago when he and Young were on a trip together.

The government says Young made 61 cash withdrawals for a total of $291,000 during the period named in the indictment, of which $150,000 found its way to Lang between September 1999 and October 2000. Young’s attorneys will try to show that he made the bank withdrawals for another purpose. As in every criminal case, the defense must only show that there is “reasonable doubt” about the government’s claim.

Young might or might not testify. He has a reputation for being loud and boisterous when he’s been drinking at favorite hangouts such as Folk’s Folly, the Grove Grill, or Ronnie Grisanti’s, but stone sober is a different story. He has consistently maintained his innocence for four years and has been reasonably accessible to the media during that time. If the defense decides to let Young testify, the government will be able to cross-examine him.

“Once you put the defendant on the stand, you kind of lose control of the case,” said Ewing. “They’ll want to see how well Lang holds up first.”

The legal sparring continued right up through the middle of this month. On January 11th, a notice of more sealed documents was placed in the fat case file. The defense wanted “any witness statements, grand-jury testimony, or other information in the government’s possession that is inconsistent in any detail with respect to any government witness’s past statements or anticipated testimony.”

That would certainly cover Lang, who was first represented by Shelby County mayor A C Wharton, then in private practice, and Lang’s sidekick and former assistant coach, Milton Kirk. It was Kirk who, as the newspaper never fails to remind its readers, told his story to The Commercial Appeal, claiming that Lang promised him a share of the bribe but never made good. Kirk was indicted along with Lang but pleaded guilty before Lang did.

The government responded that it doesn’t have to produce such material if it is not going to call the person as a witness.

Interested observers of the trial will include scores of big-time football coaches, especially in the Southeastern Conference and Conference USA, which recruit heavily in Memphis or play against Alabama or Tennessee. Lang told prosecutors that he shopped Means to at least seven schools, bragging that the bidding reached $200,000 and, by various accounts, included cash, cars, and houses.

In a way, Memphis will also be on trial. The city’s reputation for sleazy coaches and shady recruiting was the focus of a chapter in Newsweek journalist Richard Ernsberger’s book Bragging Rights published in 2000. Kirk went one better, calling the recruiting of Means “slave trading.”

The NCAA, represented by Memphis attorney Kemper Durand in the case filed by Gallion, will also be watching closely, and some of its investigators are likely to be called as witnesses. Young’s problems began with an NCAA investigation of suspicious recruiting in Memphis.

“Collegiate athletics today maintain a reputation for policing its own ranks unequaled in any similar field,” Durand said in a brief in the Young case. “The continued spontaneity and access to informed sources depends entirely on the maintenance of confidentiality of communication between the coaches, student-athletes, employees of member institutions or other informants and the NCAA. Without this credible promise of secrecy, informed sources will refuse to come forward and college athletics will suffer.”

Starting January 24th, the pious Boy Scout rhetoric, confidentiality, and promises of secrecy are over. The informed sources, players, and coaches will take the field for some full-contact action. Reputations are at stake. And someone’s going to suffer. n

Cover Story by John Branston

SCORECARD

When Team USA has the ball.

Lynn Lang right, Lynn Lang left, Lynn Lang and a cloud of dust up the middle. Government’s only long-ball threat, barring a surprise substitution. Must trample Logan Young. Will have to play both offense and defense.

Milton Kirk. Whiny fireplug who complained that Lang was getting all the carries, then spilled the play book to the media. Now must block for Lang.

Fred Godwin. Quarterback and signal caller. Been calling plays for feds since 1984. Ex-cop. Ex-army. Ex-instructor of criminal justice. Can run the option, go deep, grind it out. Must win by a shutout.

Phillip Fulmer. Veteran lineman could make cameo appearance. Sure to draw a crowd, but could be involved in misdirection plays as decoy. Hates penalties. Thinks other team cheats if they’re in Crimson. Would rather be in Knoxville.

NCAA investigators. Team USA all the way! Will line up alongside Fulmer. Penalties-R-Us. Has already thrown Logan Young for a big loss. Is Godwin using their play book?

Tom Culpepper. Self-styled recruiting analyst, good at stealing other team’s plays, but won’t carry the ball himself. Used in short-yardage situations.

Roy Adams, aka “Tennstud.” Fulmer cheerleader and anti-Young trash-talker. Would love to play but won’t. Will provide commentary and postgame analysis on Internet.

Bottom line: The $150,000 handoff to Lang. Godwin must convince crowd that Lang’s financial fortunes didn’t rise from his success on the football field and that Young is the real source.

When Team Logan has the ball.

Logan Young. Might or might not take the field. Tendency to fumble could be disastrous in close game. Stats and salary are gaudy but could be deceptive. Would rather be in Tuscaloosa.

Jim Neal. Jut-jawed captain of the defense. A mean glare that works. Had wins over Hoffa and Nixon while playing on Team USA early in career. Knows Memphis, likes to call time-outs, badger refs, and work the crowd. Must take out Lynn Lang. ‘Bama fans will declare a state holiday and name buildings after him if he does.

Bear Bryant. Ghostly presence. Could be summoned as crowd motivator if Lang stands up to pounding and Young takes the field.

John Pierotti. Former captain of Team USA Shelby County franchise. Knows the Team USA play book inside out.

Allan Wade. Hard hitter who has played in some big games for Team Memphis and could be local crowd-pleaser. Will give Neal breathers.

Tommy Gallion. Young cheerleader and anti-NCAA trash-talker. Would love to play but won’t. Will provide commentary and postgame analysis in Alabama media.

Bottom line: Turnovers and takeaways. Neal must force Lang to fumble and create crowd confusion. If the fix doesn’t fit, the jury must acquit.