Month: May 2007

From Saturday’s New York Times comes this story about the FedEx Kinko’s merger: “The tale of Kinko’s metamorphosis from a free-wheeling group of copy centers to a buttoned-down subsidiary of FedEx plays like a corporate version of the classic Japanese movie Rashômon”

FedEx bought Kinko’s in 2003 and has since sought to bring more structure to the copying centers, which were started by Paul Orfalea, who was nicknamed “Kinko” in the 1970s due to his curly coif. Orfalea and many Kinko’s workers miss the more easy-going days.

In the mid-1990s, Orfalea sold a large portion of the business to a private equity firm with a eye toward bringing in more corporate accounts. That firm began the process of making the Kinko’s stores more uniformly run and then sold the company to FedEx, which is continuing the process.

Orfalea tells the Times, he won’t go in a Kinko’s now and is quoted as saying, “It gives me a stomachache to see what’s happened to the place.”

According to a story from DenverPost.com, Ballet Memphis choreographer Garrett Ammon has accepted a post as artistic director of Ballet Nouveau in Broomfield, Colorado, near Denver. His wife, Dawn Fay, also with Ballet Memphis, will act as associate artistic director. Ballet Nouveau is the second-largest company in Colorado.

Ammon, who joined Ballet Memphis in 1999, is recipient of Tennessee Arts Commission’s 2007 Individual Artist Fellowship for Choreography. He choreographed Smile and Ellington. He also created “Interiorworks,” the popular workshop performance of dances-in-progress that benefits Ballet Memphis’ Artist’s Resource Fund.

From the story: “Ammon and Fay sent their material to Ballet Nouveau in February, and the company quickly decided to use some of Ammon’s work in its 2007-2008 season. Meetings last week in Broomfield sealed the deal. The couple said they instantly clicked with the staff, whose names and bios they had memorized.”

Ammon and Fay will join the company in mid-August.

On Friday, officials from the Memphis Zoo announced they were conducting a 24-hour watch to determine whether or not the giant panda Ya Ya is pregnant. The watch began on Thursday, and as of Saturday, there is still no word.

According to a release sent out by the zoo, Ya Ya was artificially inseminated in January, 112 days ago. Gestation periods for pandas average 133 days. Because of the cub’s small size — around the size of a “stick of butter” at birth — pregnancies are hard to determine.

Ya Ya has been showing signs that she may be pregnant, according to the release. Those signs include lack of appetite and irritability.

According to a story in Variety, a film is being planned about Memphis wrestler Sputnik Monroe, who passed away late last year.

The biopic, being made by HBO Films, is slated to be written by Julien Nitzberg, who was an associate producer on The Dancing Outlaw, the super-cult documentary about Jesco.

Sputnik, known for his acrobatic wrestling, pushed for integration in the sport in the 1950s.

Update: Workman was granted a stay of execution on Friday, due to concerns over the constitutionality of the state’s method of lethal injection. The stay expires May 14th.

Philip Workman has been on death row more than 20 years for his conviction in the slaying of a police officer in Memphis. In a recent interview with CNN, Workman describes the fear he suffers in anticipation of his sentence being carried out next week.

From the story, written by former Flyer reporter Ashley Fantz, now with CNN: “He will be fitted for the drab scrubs he’ll wear May 9, when the state is set to inject him with a mixture of drugs that will kill him.

“Workman said he doesn’t feel much like a person anymore. He has become a pile of legal briefs, appeals, depositions.

“And he is angry, sorry, scared and depressed.”