Month: April 2007

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Twisting the Formula

CREDIT: Suzanne Tenner

You know how the formula goes: Single, aging woman experiences some kind of traumatic event, and, through her coping with it, she begins meeting men and dating. The first couple of guys are decent enough but have some kind of deal-breaker characteristic that makes them unsuitable for her. However, she eventually connects with the right guy (double points if he was there for her all along), and they end up happily ever after. Cut, print, that’s a wrap.

Year of the Dog, the directorial debut of screenwriter Mike White (Chuck & Buck, The School of Rock), follows this formula for about half the movie. Peggy (Molly Shannon) is the ostensible old maid, but she finds great contentment and love in her best friend, her adorable beagle Pencil. That is, until Pencil dies of a mysterious poisoning. Peggy grieves, but her pet’s death puts her in contact with two potential suitors: her next-door neighbor Al (John C. Reilly) and Newt (Peter Sarsgaard), a pet-adoption-services manager.

Just when Year of the Dog should be introducing Peggy’s soul mate, however, the film undergoes a tonal shift. Instead of finding healing in her fellow man, Peggy realizes she had it right to begin with: Humans only disappoint. Animals never let you down. In a way, Year of the Dog does fit the stereotypical plot trajectory. Just replace the third-act love interest with animal-rights activism.

The biggest surprise in the film is Saturday Night Live alum Shannon. Best known for outrageous sketch-comedy characters (sniffing her armpit-scented fingers as Mary Katherine Gallagher or playing mommy to the canine Mr. Rocky Balboa on the skit “Dog Show”), in Year of the Dog, Shannon is not only given a role of unprecedented breadth to work with but convinces with her subtlety that this is the kind of work she needs to continue to do. She brings a real sweetness and warmth to the part, and, after Pencil dies, Shannon carefully traces Peggy’s path from innocent sadness toward a darker destination. It’s a bit of a courageous role because Peggy is not always sympathetic and because, intended or not, Shannon looks every bit her age: Cinematographer Tim Orr finds every one of her wrinkles.

White’s direction is able, as understated as his story if a little shaky in doses. Year of the Dog feels like a distant cousin of Napoleon Dynamite (White co-wrote last year’s Nacho Libre with Dynamite filmmakers Jared and Jerusha Hess). At final tally, the closest Year of the Dog comes to a curse word is “darn” and “crap” (“bitch” is used once, but in the dog sense); until Dog, Dynamite was probably the last movie to bother with having characters expressing frustration with empty expletives.

Dog is nowhere near as funny as Dynamite, mostly because it’s nowhere near as bizarre. But it is as observant, and some of Dog‘s supporting characters, particularly those supplied by Sarsgaard, Reilly, and Laura Dern, wouldn’t be out of place in Dynamite‘s world. (Right down to the costuming: Sarsgaard wears a T-shirt as incidentally funny in its guilelessness as anything Napoleon wears.)

Year of the Dog is a movie of great and admirable conviction. If it’s not the most ambitious movie in scope or message — proselytizing about animal rights does not seem to be on the agenda — it is laudable for perfectly filling out the little niche it sets aside for itself. The film proves its humanity by treating Pencil’s death as seriously as Peggy does.

Year of the Dog

Opening Friday, April 27th

Studio on the Square

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Career Choices

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

If your family comes from a country on the Balkan Peninsula, chances are you ate your fair share of baklava when growing up. Paula Pulido did.

Pulido, whose love for baklava was fostered by her Macedonian grandfather, will soon be offering up to everybody in Memphis their own fair share of this traditional Middle Eastern treat when she opens Sweet Desserterie in Cooper-Young this summer.

Pulido was working in pharmaceutical and medical sales before she decided to turn her passion into her profession. “This has been a dream of mine for a long time,” Pulido says. “I felt that Memphis was ready for a dessert restaurant and that it was time for me to open my own place.”

Sweet Desserterie will occupy part of the old flea-market space on Cooper next door to Burke’s Book Store.

The restaurant industry is almost as much a part of Pulido’s heritage as baklava. Her grandfather owned several restaurants in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and her father owned restaurants in Lansing and Detroit before working as a rocket scientist for NASA in Huntsville, Alabama. “My dad enjoyed the restaurant business, but he thought it was too much work. So not too long after he graduated from college, he took the job with NASA,” Pulido says.

Pulido’s kitchen skills are mostly self-taught and come from observing and working alongside family members and studying countless books. Two years ago, she tested the waters by starting the European Oven, a catering business. Around the same time, she took classes at the now-defunct Memphis Culinary Academy and had the chance to talk about her plans with Jose Gutierrez, chef and owner of Encore.

“Talking to Jose has had a great impact on me,” Pulido says. “He never looked down on me, and he had a lot of great advice. I told him once that my baklava was famous around Memphis and that I wanted him to try it,” she recalls. “He said that he had no use for phyllo [dough] in his kitchen. I made him some anyway, and he loved it.”

Pulido describes Sweet Desserterie as a “dessert-centric” restaurant or a European-style dessert bistro. In addition to baklava, it will offer warm fudge truffle cake, brioche bread pudding, crepes with brandied fruit, and freshly baked popovers, plus there will be an espresso bar and desserts to-go. Pulido is also planning to include a “small bite” menu and a full bar with an extensive wine list and martini menu.

Sweet Desserterie, 938 S. Cooper (726-4300) www.sweetdesserterie.com

Dan Levin, a Boston native, moved to Memphis from Atlanta four years ago. The former software engineer liked Memphis so much he decided to start his second career here once he retired.

“I knew I wanted to have my own business and thought a coffee shop would be a great idea,” Levin explains. Because he didn’t want to compete with the established coffee shops in Midtown, Levin started looking west and settled on the space at 153 S. Main that was once occupied by Viking Culinary Institute. He plans to open Blues City Pastry in May.

While Levin has no experience in the restaurant business, his employees do. “I just put an ad in the paper and got lucky,” he says. Teresa “Terry” Denton-Johns, Blues City’s executive pastry chef, has 15 years of experience, working mostly in Las Vegas, including at the Stratosphere Hotel and Casino and the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino. Also on board is Carol Whitemore, a returning Memphis native who most recently started her own gourmet chocolate business in Walkertown, North Carolina. Whitemore will be responsible for everything chocolate at the pastry shop, from truffles to miniature chocolate pyramids.

Plans for Blues City Pastry include a Memphis-themed menu — “Mississippi Mud Cake” and chocolate Elvises — and guests at the 50-seat coffee shop will be able to watch the pastry chef work behind a glass wall.

The coffee shop will open at 6:30 a.m. during the week, 9 a.m. on Saturdays, and noon on Sundays.

Blues City Pastry, 153 S. Main (576-0010) www.bluescitypastry.com

Together, Jon Sharman and Rodney Bryant have almost 20 years of restaurant experience. After several discussions about their dream restaurant, Sharman and Bryant began to take the idea more seriously last fall. They found a building in Cordova that matched their expectations and went to work. In March, they opened Assaggio, an upscale Italian restaurant at Germantown Parkway and Macon Station. The menu includes saltimbocca, chicken Marsala, Neapolitan pork steak, and a “create your own” pasta option. The wine list offers about 20 choices, and they’ll take requests to stock more wines and liquors.

Assaggio is open for dinner Monday through Friday from 5 to 10 p.m. and Fridays and Saturdays from 5 to 11 p.m.

Assaggio, 8100 Macon Station (752-0056) www.assaggioonline.com

Categories
News The Fly-By

Victims: Wrights?

In a widely publicized display of grief, family members of slain county code-enforcement officer Mickey Wright raged outside a criminal courtroom April 6th at the announcement that Wright’s killer, Dale Mardis, had struck a plea bargain and received a 15-year sentence on a second-degree murder charge.

That may not have been the last fallout from the controversial decision.

Wright’s widow and his sister-in-law claim that they were not informed of their rights, as family of the victim, under state law. They also claim that they should have by law received adequate notice of the plea bargain from the office of Shelby County district attorney general Bill Gibbons, and that they were not consulted as the plea arrangement between Mardis and the district attorney became a solid agreement.

“Gibbons has indicated that he consulted with the family about the plea bargain. Our position is that we were totally shocked to learn that the prosecution was considering any type of plea bargain,” says Gail Miller, Wright’s sister-in-law. “We heard about it approximately two hours before the judge made his ruling.”

Wright’s widow Frances explains that the family has since learned that “a victims’-rights coordinator should have sat down and helped us prepare a victim impact statement providing financial, emotional, and physical effects of the crime on the family. We were never given that opportunity.”

Under Tennessee law, “the sentencing judge shall solicit and consider a victim impact statement prior to sentencing a convicted offender who has caused physical, emotional, or financial harm to a victim.” State law also provides that the family members of violent-crime victims be informed of plea arrangements prior to any entry into an agreement.

Frances Wright met with state prosecutor Thomas Henderson April 3rd, and he prepared her for what to anticipate. “Everything was on go,” she says. “They would be picking the jury that Monday and Tuesday [April 2nd and 3rd] … and going to trial next Monday [April 9th]. Thursday [April 5th] I get this call about 11:30 that they’re accepting a plea. I said, ‘We don’t want to do the plea thing.’ They said, ‘It’s really not your choice.’

“We understand that, but we don’t feel that the court considered the victims’ rights,” says Wright.

The Flyer asked Gibbons’ office to comment on the Wright family’s grievances. No one responded by press time. (The DA’s office has since responded to the Wright family’s claims.) In a statement distributed to local media (see Letters), Gibbbons said that his office always talks with a victim’s family in the case of a plea bargain: “I regret that we were unable to convince the Wright family that our decision was the correct one, given all the circumstances, including … the possibility that Mardis would serve less prison time or none at all if we went to trial.”

Categories
News

Methodist Le Bonheur to Launch “Faith and Health” Center

Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare (MLH) in Memphis is creating a “Center of Excellence in Faith and Health.” To be housed at Methodist University Hospital, the center will include a “family-centered healing environment” that features a quiet area, laundry rooms, showers for family members, and space for chaplains and clergy to counsel their members.

The project will also add a resource center, meeting space, and a meditation garden with a labyrinth and prayer area, and will feature a 24/7 on-call chaplain. A founding gift of $1 million will get the project rolling, and construction should begin in January 2008.

“In the past two decades a growing body of evidence has emerged that shows that patients who are active participants in a worshipping community have significantly better health outcomes,” said Gary R. Gunderson, MLH’s senior vice president of health and welfare ministries. “The Center of Excellence in Faith and Health reflects solid medical evidence that the link between faith and health is important to long-term patient outcomes.”

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

Maholm Sweet Maholm

Paul Maholm — the pride of Germantown High School — hurled a three-hit shutout at the Houston Astros Tuesday night, taking another step toward establishing himself as the ace of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ rotation.

Read the full story.

Categories
Book Features Books

Hampton Sides Takes on MLK

CREDIT: Camille Hewitt

David Garrow stopped short of the story in Bearing the Cross (1985). Taylor Branch stopped short of it in At Canaan’s Edge (2006). And just this month, Michael Honey stopped short too in Going Down Jericho Road. The “story” is James Earl Ray and the events leading up to his murder of Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis and the events that led to Ray’s capture two months later.

Native Memphian Hampton Sides (Ghost Soldiers, Blood and Thunder) isn’t about to stop short. In his latest book project, Sides wants to pick up where the historians left off. A “big, multi-tentacled narrative” of “novelistic intrigue” is how Sides describes it. A “storyteller,” not a historian, is how Sides describes himself.

Read the rest in the Flyer’s book column by Leonard Gill.

Categories
Living Spaces Real Estate

In Focus

FDR said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” I suspect he never had to remove a stripped bibb seat.

When my wife and I bought our house, we inherited a leaky shower faucet. Moreover, this wasn’t the steady drips of a faucet fudging on the details. This was the insistent flow of an army on the march accompanied by the high-pitch hellhound whine of a valve not tightly stanched somewhere behind the bathroom tile.

After putting it off for four months, I got right on the task of fixing the problem. At all costs, I wanted to avoid paying a plumber to do the fix. So I brushed up on shower-faucet lingo online and ran to my local hardware store to buy a new stem set.

After much experimentation, false starts, and trips back to the hardware store to buy socket wrenches or O-rings, I decided to replace everything, all the way to the bibb seat at the back of the faucet contraption. Of course, for that I needed a bibb-seat tool. Tapering or non-tapering? I made an uneducated guess.

The cold-water-side bibb seat came out like it was greased with honey, but it came out. The hot-water seat, however, felt like it was greased with the Ural Mountains. It was going nowhere, and worse, I was starting to strip the seat’s brass grip with the steel of the seat tool. Things were getting desperate. Every time I tried, I stripped the bibb seat more. I was starting to get the Fear, and it was looking like I needed professional help — at least a plumber for the short-term.

I tried one last time: I hammered the bibb-seat tool in, pushed with all my might, and turned. And the bibb seat came loose.

Twenty minutes later, everything was reassembled and the water turned back on, and the leak could be counted in the past. A week later, a sink faucet began dripping.

To spiders, being abducted by aliens, and the little girl from The Ring: Please add the newest entry on my list of fears — a leaky faucet.

greg@memphisflyer.com

Categories
News The Fly-By

Leafing for Good

CREDIT: Karen Schaber

Maybe, as local architect Lee Askew put it the other day, Memphians simply can’t see the forest for the trees. Literally.

Though residents may not notice just how many trees grow in Memphis, visitors are often
surprised at how green the city is. Maurice Cox, a former mayor of Charlottesville, Virginia, and associate professor of architecture at the University of Virginia, was certainly surprised. “This seems like a city within a park,” he said.

Cox and Askew were two panelists at the University of Memphis’ “Urban Design and Placemaking: A Dialogue for Change” symposium last week. Held in connection with the university’s Turley Fellowship (created last year by developer and Flyer board member Henry Turley), the symposium brought local leaders together with experts from Harvard and the cities of Atlanta, Chattanooga, and Nashville to start a dialogue about placemaking in Memphis.

“Every building has to be understood as a building block of the community,” said J. Stroud Watson, an architect in Chattanooga. “The streets, the sidewalks, parks, and plazas are all public space, but the buildings are what frame it.”

During a day-long discussion, the panelists spoke on a variety of topics, including the importance of building structures that can be used for more than one purpose, both for the sake of the physical environment and the city’s collective psyche.

“Yesterday we were shown a historic building that the developer wasn’t sure could be saved,” said Cox. “I was looking at a building that I know can be saved and is the very embodiment of the downtown fabric.”

According to Ann Coulter, the visiting Turley Fellow and the driving force behind the symposium, the panel did not have a set goal when it began. “We didn’t want to hem in the discussion,” she said. “The focus is not just on what you do, but how you do it.”

Recently, in partnership with neighborhood groups, the University of Memphis launched the University District Initiative to address social, health, urban design, and safety issues in the neighborhoods surrounding the school.

“I crossed the street yesterday to go to the Holiday Inn,” said panelist William McFarland, director of the Atlanta Renewal Community Coordinating Responsibility Authority. “[We’re] on a college campus?! It was frightening.”

Even though only 10 percent of students live on campus, the University of Memphis has tried to create an environment that doesn’t shout “commuter college.” The school doesn’t want students to feel like they could simply drive up to their classes. But that perhaps has created a sea of parking lots surrounding the campus, which, to some of the panel, isolated the school from the rest of the city.

“Universities have a way of weakening and collapsing the neighborhoods around them. No one wants to live near loud parties,” said Askew. “There used to be houses from here to Poplar. Now there’s a parking lot.”

But if there’s a time for change, it’s now. “These were professional observers, and they saw it immediately,” said Coulter. “The panelists from out of town commented over and over how the timing is right. The city is ready. The university is ready. The development community is ready. Everyone’s really excited about the opportunities they see.”

Coulter said the group is first taking time to reflect — and to transcribe all the comments — before they decide their next steps. I hope it somehow includes Cox’s idea of Memphis as a city within a park.

I’ve heard enough people mention the city’s wonderful tree canopy to think that Memphis may be overlooking an untapped opportunity.

Frank Ricks, principal of Looney Ricks Kiss Architects, mentioned that he has heard that one of the main reasons people leave Memphis is a lack of recreational activities. But maybe the city needs to frame the question — or the answer — better.

“Instead of wishing for mountains or an ocean,” added Askew, “we should see what we have.”

What if the city committed to the vision of a city inside a park? What would it be like to live in a uniformly lush, yet urban environment? Would people feel more inclined to visit Memphis? It may be last week’s Earth Day talking, but tree-lined streets seem marketable to me. Especially as the country becomes more urban.

A group of arborists and activists recently approached the City Council about applying for the Tree City, U.S.A. program, a designation that says a city commits to a certain level of tree management.

Memphis is the largest city in Tennessee to not have this designation. The administration didn’t make any promises — cities have to spend a certain amount on tree maintenance each year — but it could be a good first step.

Especially if it would mean turning a concrete jungle into an urban forest.

Categories
Living Spaces Real Estate

Before and After

Just as certain as death and taxes, all the new construction going up in Memphis and Shelby County means old buildings are coming down. As buildings are razed, architectural elements, windows, doors, sinks, bathtubs, and anything else inside gets demolished too. Historical and period features can be lost to time in the blink of an eye.

Which is where Memphis Heritage’s Preservation Posse steps in. The group makes it their mission to get into buildings and salvage what they can before demolition. The group works on tips from homeowners and building owners in advance of a demolition or gets donations as renovations are being made and items are removed.

The “sheriff” of the Preservation Posse is David Early. He has worked with Memphis Heritage for about three years, and he can rattle off war stories about warehouse timbers from Number One Beale, a stuffed wildebeest and giraffe from the Pink Palace Museum, the front half of a taxi cab (painted on the side was “Tijuana Taxi”), and following a dump truck taking away the remains of old Baptist Hospital to a landfill to see what he could salvage.

All of the items scavenged and saved are stored until Memphis Heritage’s next Architecture Auction, a major fund-raiser for the group. Memphis Heritage is a nonprofit educational and charitable organization that spearheads the preservation movement to save historically significant Shelby County buildings, open spaces, and neighborhoods.

Early says they’re always seeking volunteers for the Preservation Posse. Sturdy shoes and work clothes are recommended, and water and coffee and gloves and dust masks are provided. “Everybody likes to romp around,” Early says. “It’s fun to poke around basements or closets. We do pry apart things such as molding around doors.” Curiosity and a willingness to get dirty are prized skills for posse members.

“Down the road, we want to have a retail presence,” Early says. Memphis Heritage as a whole is hoping to build on successes, expanding the scope of the organization. “We want to be a grant-giving organization to help if someone has a project and needs some funding,” Early says. “We want to be a catalyst for reuse of a building. We want to not just be an advocate but to bring some money to the table.”

The site of this year’s Architecture Auction, to be held in October, is the Marine Hospital near the National Ornamental Metal Museum. On Saturday, April 28th, volunteers will be sprucing up the space to make it suitable for the auction.

“There’s this underlying need that people have to have a piece of something,” Early says. “If they know the whole thing can’t be saved, they just want a fragment to hang on to. So I was determined to spread some fragments around.”

For more information on the Preservation Posse, other volunteer opportunities with Memphis Heritage, or to make a donation, call 272-2727 or go to MemphisHeritage.org. ■

The Butler Street Bazaar is torn down in anticipation of new townhomes by developer Berry Jones of Architectural CustomWorks. Demolition began on Wednesday, March 28th and continues today.

LivingSpaces@memphisflyer.com

Categories
News

The Zippin Pippin — Elvis’ Favorite Ride — Is Donated to Save Libertyland

On Monday, Carolina Crossroads, the company that bought Libertyland’s Zippin’ Pippin, the second-oldest wooden roller coaster in the world, for $2,000, donated the coaster to Save Libertyland — which was incorporated as a nonprofit organization last week.

Steven Mulroy, lawyer and County Commissioner, burned the midnight oil last week to get Save Libertyland incorporated as a nonprofit. The city’s deadline for a decision on what was to be done with the classic coaster was Tuesday, April 24th.

Carolina Crossroads had originally planned to take the cars from the coaster and build a replica of it at their retro rock-and-roll themed amusement park, Roanoke Rapids. Though they have maintained one of the coaster’s cars and are still planning to build a replica, they’ve given the rest of the coaster to Save Libertyland.

Today, at the gates of Libertyland, Mulroy said that Save Libertyland plans to donate the 100-year-old coaster back to the city of Memphis, with the condition that the city preserve it.

“Through the generosity of Carolina Crossroads, we hope to open a park around the Zippin Pippin rollercoaster and the historic Grand Carousel, which have both been a part of the city’s history for nearly a century,” Mulroy said.

Save Libertyland would like to turn all 20 acres of the former amusement park into a city park, using Coney Island’s redevelopment plan as a model. The organization would be willing to work with the Salvation Army, which plans to buy all 170 acres of the Mid-South fairgrounds in August in order to build a community center.

Libertyland, like its famous coaster, has had its ups and downs over the years. It was opened on July 4th, 1976, to coincide with the nation’s bicentennial. The Pippin, which was Elvis’ favorite roller coaster, continues to attract people from all over the world as a part of their Elvis experience.

The organization has been in contact with Elvis Presley Enterprises. Save Libertyland would like to work with the EPE to possibly include the Zippin’ Pippin in tours of Elvis’ Memphis, a plan that Save Libertyland’s Denise Parkinson maintained could help the roller coaster pay for itself.

Save Libertyland also plans to get the coaster on the National Historic Registry, which would bar federal funds from being used to move or destroy the coaster. It would be the second ride in Libertyland to be on the registry, along with the Grand Carousel, which has a history of its own.

The Grand Carousel has long had a reputation for being haunted. On August 2nd, 1976, not two months after the park opened, a 17-year-old boy named Mike Crockett was operating the carousel as his first summer job. When a child in the park lost his balloon in the ride’s inner workings, Crockett climbed into its roof to retrieve the prize. While he was inside, the carousel somehow started up and the gears crushed him to death.

“No one even knew his name until today,” Parkinson said. “I want to re-envision this place as the Mike Crockett Memorial Park.”

-Cherie Heiberg