Month: July 2008

Categories
Theater Theater Feature

Hitler Rocks!

Times certainly do change. When Mel Brooks’ multiple Tony Award-winning musical adaptation of his satirical 1968 film The Producers opened on Broadway in 2001, it was gobbled up whole by critics who praised it as comic manna from show-business heaven. The slobbering reception had to be sweet vindication for Brooks, a master parodist who won a best screenplay Oscar for the original film only after watching it tank at the box office amid angry, nearly universal critical outrage. Even the drug-taking, love-making, rock-and-roll revolutionaries of ’68 rejected Brooks’ total iconoclasm.

And it probably goes without saying that a scant two decades after the end of WWII, mainstream America still wasn’t prepared for the intentionally offensive story of two Jewish swindlers (brilliantly played by Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder) who concoct a plan to bilk a million bucks from investors in a glitzy Broadway show called Springtime for Hitler, a musical celebrating in song and dance the glorious achievements of a handsome young fuhrer and his hip, hypersexualized Nazi Party.

For all of its naughty words and bad intentions, the retooled Producers musical, which opened last week at Playhouse on the Square, will only be shocking to the militant prudes and fans of well-crafted lowbrow comedy who are offended by how often Brooks repeats the same “laugh-at-the-funny-homo” gags. That’s a problem because the show’s title characters, Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom, are beasts of pure avarice and envy, and to make the characters as sympathetic as Playhouse heavy-hitters Dave Landis (Bialystock) and Michael Detroit (Bloom) have done (with the help of Brooks’ updated script) guts a story that works best when it revels in its own absolute amorality.

Landis, a versatile actor and sharp director, should be able to settle fairly easily into Bialystock’s greedy, grossly libidinous shoes. But he plays the role too amiably and close to his vest, allowing Detroit, his equally gifted co-star, to upstage him at every turn in the role of Bloom, a sputtering nebbish.

Detroit’s over-the-top antics don’t mask the actor’s stunted character development, though there’s every reason to believe he’ll find some motivation for his mugging over the course of the show’s run.

Ken Zimmerman engages in some expert scenery-chewing as the flamboyantly homosexual (not to mention completely thickheaded) Broadway director Roger De Bris. Zimmerman obviously (and rightfully) derives a tremendous amount of pleasure knowing just how much the sparkling, silver dress he wears makes him resemble the Chrysler Building. David Foster is delightful as Carmen Ghia, De Bris’ houseboy and partner in fabulousness. It’s a true shame that Foster, a deceptively physical actor and a real joy to watch here, is only given one threadbare joke to stretch over the entire show. Still, he swishes through it with zany aplomb.

Bruce Bergner’s scenic design, a mix of painted drops and practical furniture on wagons, is almost as flat and uninspired as Ben Wheeler’s lights and director Jay Berkow’s bloodless choreography. To that end, The Producers is the perfect opposite of Theatre Memphis’ current production of West Side Story, where extraordinary design and tight dancing make up for an unevenness among actors and vocalists. In this case, bland design and washed-out lighting leave Landis, Detroit, and a talented cast of professionals looking like well-intentioned community-theater performers.

Showgirls wearing giant pretzels, Volks-wagens, wieners, and German shepherds on their heads will always by funny. But once you get past the awesome headgear, Rebecca Powell’s costumes for the “Springtime for Hitler” sequence are just plain boring compared to the vaguely sadomasochistic go-go-booted storm troopers from Brooks’ original.

To do justice to The Producers, a director must press against the boundaries of good taste to find every naughty nook and crude crevice in order to discover where Brooks’ once reviled, now classic material can still make audiences squirm with guilty delight. It’s an exercise in excess irreverence that’s been treated entirely too reverently in its Memphis premiere.

Through July 27th at Playhouse on

the Square

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Sweet Lady

CREDIT: Christopher Parks

Got a serious sweet tooth? Sharon’s Artisan Chocolates and Cheesecakes in Lexington, Tennessee, offers a variety of decadent desserts and other tasty treats that makes that two-hour trek seem awfully tempting, gas prices be damned. Thankfully, Memphians don’t have to make that chocoholic commute to get their hands — and mouths — on them.

Each Wednesday, Sharon’s owner Sharon Fajans loads her van with coolers of delightfully rich chocolate truffles and creamy sweet cheesecakes and baskets of freshly baked breads and drives them to the farmers market at the Memphis Botanic Garden. Fajans’ top sellers include truffles in a variety of flavors, such as dark and milk chocolate, caramel, chocolate raspberry, mocha latte, and espresso. The truffles are beyond creamy, and the taste lingers a few sweet moments after the last bite.

Fajans also sells cheesecakes in classic, key lime, and chocolate. The key lime is exceptional: a tangy fresh melt-in-your-mouth twist on the classic New York-style variety.

She recently introduced her artisan breads, including rustic Italian, semolina, and focaccia. The baked breads come out of the oven at noon on Wednesdays before she heads to Memphis.

“I have an in-house kitchen in my shop. I do it mostly by myself and all by hand,” Fajans says.

“I perfected the recipes over time through trial and error. My classic cheesecake recipe came from my husband’s side of the family, but I’ve also come up with a 60 percent chocolate cheesecake and the key lime cheesecake for summer. They are all very creamy and light,” Fajans says.

Fajans’ retail shop opened last November in Lexington. Customers can purchase fresh goodies in the store, but a large portion of her business consists of special orders.

“I work with a wedding planner in Lexington and make chocolates for weddings and special occasions, and I do truffles for party favors and gifts,” Fajans says.

Besides the aforementioned delectables, Fajans also makes biscottis, eclairs, dark-chocolate blueberry-walnut bark, apricot-almond bark, strawberry shortcake, and tiramisu, all from scratch. Fajans offers seasonal truffle flavors as well, such as pumpkin, eggnog, and peppermint during the winter holiday season. Simply put, she can whip up just about any treat imaginable.

Fajans has worked as a sous chef at an Italian restaurant in New York and also ran a chocolate shop in Arkansas, but she has been cooking since her youth.

“My mom was a baker, so I’ve been around it my whole life,” Fajans says. “It’s my passion. I love what I do. And I love chocolate, too,” she says.

She will continue to offer her goods at the Farmers Market at the Garden on Wednesdays and hopes to rotate between the downtown and Agricenter farmers markets on Saturdays.

To place an order or to find out more about Sharon’s Artisan Chocolates and Cheesecakes, visit her stand at the Memphis Botanic Garden’s farmers market between 2 and 5 p.m. on Wednesdays or call her shop at 731-968-0400.

Sharon’s Artisan Chocolates and Cheesecakes, 60 Natchez Trace Drive South, Lexington

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Summer School

CREDIT: by Justin Fox Burks

Is there any better season than summer to learn new cooking skills, when both produce and free time are more plentiful?

The folks at the Memphis Botanic Garden certainly agree, which is why a cooking series called “Taste of the Garden” offers affordable Saturday-morning classes on summertime foods.

“The classes are casual and family-friendly, using recipes that are simple and easy to prepare,” says Jana Gilbertson, director of marketing and public relations for the Botanic Garden.

Summer squash is the theme for the next class on July 12th, followed by grains on August 16th, and fall squash on September 13th.

“That’s a lot of squash,” admits Gilbertson, laughing, “but we tie our class themes into foods that are readily available at our weekly farmers market on Wednesdays.”

Local chefs conduct the classes, offering demonstrations, tastings, and recipes. Gardening experts can participate, as well. “If we have a nice example in our garden of the food we are highlighting, we might walk out and take a look or discuss how to grow it,” Gilbertson says.

Class size is limited, so participants should register in advance. Classes cost $4 for members of the Botanic Garden and $6 for nonmembers.

“Taste of the Garden,” Memphis Botanic Garden (636-4128)

Seasonal produce also is influencing Mantia’s restaurant and market in East Memphis, where “The Sicilian Table,” “Summertime Salads,” and “An Antipasto Party” are three of six upcoming classes scheduled for summer.

“I think produce from the farmers markets will be even more popular this summer since the great tomato scare,” says store owner Alyce Mantia. “At least we know where local tomatoes have come from.”

One of Mantia’s classes, called “Too Many Tomatoes,” will teach new uses for summer’s most prolific food, and another class, called “Where’s the Beef?,” will offer unusual burger recipes using seafood, lamb, and turkey.

All classes are a “make-and-taste” demonstration format, meet at 6 p.m. on weekdays, cost $35 per person, and require advance registration. Go to mantias.com for class dates, which were not available at press time.

Mantia’s, 4856 Poplar (762-8560)

Here’s more good news for summertime leisure: Continuing education at the University of Memphis is back with cooking and tasting classes offered in three-hour evening sessions.

Course selections are an eclectic mix for cooks who aren’t serious foodies, explains Vicki Murrell, director of professional and continuing education. “We’re not interested in fancy cooking,” Murrell says. “We want classes that teach basic skills, like how to chop up food without leaving a fingertip in the sauce.”

Upcoming classes include “Dinner in the Pantry,” taught by Melissa Petersen on July 21st, and “Great Brews,” a two-session tasting conducted by Steve Barzizza on July 15th and 17th. Each class costs $59.

Later in the month on July 29th, Phyllis Cline will conduct a class called “Desperation Dinners,” offering shortcuts and organizational advice for preparing 30-minute meals.

“I start with all the ingredients on the counter and don’t do any chopping or preparation in advance,” says Cline, the owner of Forty Carrots in East Memphis. “I want people to really see how to make a quick and delicious meal.”

Cline also will provide plenty of advice on topics such as how to freeze food efficiently. “It doesn’t do any good to get home and have a three-pound lump of frozen hamburger,” she says. “Instead, make an extra meat loaf, slice it up, and freeze it in individual servings.”

If summer offerings don’t work, fall classes on vegetarian cooking, stretching food dollars, and healthy eating will begin soon after Labor Day. A complete listing will be published in continuing-education catalogs, available in mid-August at libraries, local bookstores, and online (http://umce.memphis.edu).

Professional and Continuing Education, University of Memphis (682-6000)

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Wanted: Dead, Not Alive

It’s always a little agonizing wondering what the worst movie of the year is going to be, but here we are at the halfway point, and the title of the year’s worst has already been claimed: Wanted, the new action-movie comic-book adaptation starring James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, and Morgan Freeman.

Let’s be clear up front: Wanted has a few great action sequences and intermittent visual panache. It’s based on one of the better comic miniseries of the last five years. The film’s ambitious, but it plays out as a negative. It doesn’t walk the tightrope between too much and not enough — it hangs itself with it. Wanted is truly terrible.

Wesley Gibson (McAvoy) is a white-collar loser, an accountant stuck in a cubicle-correct world with no desire to move beyond it. Gibson’s regularly subjected to a bullying boss, and his girlfriend is cheating on him with his best friend. Hell, even his dad left him when he was only 7 days old. As Wesley says in narration, “I’m the most insignificant asshole of the 21st century.”

That’s until Gibson is rescued from a gunman’s bullets by Fox (Jolie) and is informed that his dad was one of the greatest killers of all time — a member of a secret group of assassins called the Fraternity — and that Wesley has inherited all of his pop’s genetic badassness and million-dollar fortune.

Faster than you can say “montage,” the pathetic weakling becomes a force to be reckoned with, and he’s inducted into the Fraternity. He’s charged with assassinating select people, all determined by a loom, which spits out a hit list based on a complex code built into the threads. The code of the Fraternity: Kill one person and maybe save a thousand. They’re the warriors of fate, the weavers of doom. Oh, yes.

Wanted piggybacks on Fight Club, Office Space, The Matrix, Terminator 2, comic-book origin stories, and fantasy coming-of-age formulas. The movie is so preposterous, it even draws into question the worth of its source material. I almost don’t like fiction anymore after watching Wanted.

The film is directed by Timur Bekmambetov, who also made the visually exciting but dramatically discombobulated Night Watch (and its sequel, Day Watch). Bekmambetov is talented but shows no restraint. Wanted is shot and edited like an epileptic seizure. There are a number of gee-whiz moments — usually spooling in slo-mo — but it’s hard to appreciate them amidst all the chaos. Bekmambetov makes 100-image-a-second movies in a 24-frame-a-second medium. It’s too much.

The comic book that Wanted is based on is light years away from the film in terms of plot, back story, and theme. In the book, Wesley becomes an actual villain — a murderer and a rapist who, in the infamous last few pages (Spoiler Alert!), tells the fanboy reader just what’s going on in the world while everybody’s spending their time consuming pop culture.

Sure, no studio is dropping tens of millions of dollars to make that movie. But, in trying to make the characters fundamentally good guys, the filmmakers have made the whole enterprise morally repugnant. The comic was mean; the movie is mean-spirited. There’s no subversion or satire, just good ole American violent consumerism. Built, as it is, on the absurd loom-and-weavers premise (an addition just for the movie —  thanks, screenwriters!), Wanted is a great cinematic abortion. It’s not as steep a drop-off from source material to film as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but that’s the ass it’s sniffing.

Wanted

Now playing

Multiple locations

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

A middling Chinese, historical drama.

The Children of Huang Shi is a “based on a true story” movie that feels about nine degrees removed from what probably really did happen — and that within those degrees was probably a more interesting story.

The movie kicks off in 1937 China, in the midst of civil war between the Communists and Nationalists and regular war between the Japanese and the combined Chinese.

We’re told in a tag as the movie starts that the Japanese are assaulting the Chinese city Nanjing and that war reporters are eager to get past Japanese forces to get into the city and get the story. One such is the “young, inexperienced English reporter” George Hogg.

Cue actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers (The Tudors, Elvis, Vanity Fair), who’s all stratospheric cheekbones and icy eyes. As Hogg, Rhys Meyers seems neither young nor inexperienced. But he’s a good enough actor. You can get past the filmmakers throwing him under the bus in the editing room.

Hogg masquerades as a Red Cross worker to get into Nanjing, where he encounters rubble-strewn streets stinking of dead bodies and dogs eating them. Hogg sneaks around before witnessing the massacre of dozens of innocents, which he captures with his camera — at such times I wonder if I’m so desensitized to cinematic war atrocities that even the rape of Nanjing can’t get a rise out of me.

Hmmm, better to blame Huang Shi director Roger Spottiswoode (Tomorrow Never Dies, The 6th Day). The action in the film isn’t convincingly shot or edited, be it firing squads or Japanese Zeros on strafing runs. I’m tired of the shaky camera that tries to cover up the fact that there’s not much to see.

The script is undercooked too. Hogg encounters a Communist resistance fighter (Chow Yun-Fat), a beautiful, flawed white-lady nurse of indeterminate nationality (Radha Mitchell), and a noble merchant (Michelle Yeoh) whose honor is intact but compromised by the war. They all add a little spice, but the plot never simmers. Plus, Yun-Fat and Yeoh never appear together on screen. Outrageous!

Hogg ends up at a Chinese orphanage, where he’s conscripted to be the protector of a rabble of boys. He teaches them English and basketball (Yao Ming, you know who to thank), and they help him become a man. This two-thirds of the movie is all a little too predictable, even if it is based on a true story. I bet the real account was something.

The Children of Huang Shi

Opening Friday, July 4th

Ridgeway Four

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

One gets the impression that there are some

people in Washington who believe that Israel or the U.S. can bomb Iran’s nuclear reactors, fly home, and it will be mission complete.

It makes you wonder if perhaps there is a virus going around that is gradually making people stupid. If we or

Israel attack Iran, we will have a new war on our hands. The Iranians are not going to shrug off an attack and say, “You naughty boys, you.”

Consider how much trouble Iraq has given us. Some 4,000 dead and 29,000 wounded, half-a-trillion dollars in cost and still climbing, and five years later, we cannot say that the country is pacified.

Iraq is a small country compared with Iran. Iran has about 70 million people. Its western mountains border the Persian Gulf. In other words, its missiles and guns look down on the U.S. ships below it. And it has lots of missiles, from short-range to intermediate-range (around 2,200 kilometers).

More to the point, it has been equipped by Russia with the fastest anti-ship missile on the planet. The SS-N-22 Sunburn can travel at Mach 3 at high altitude and at Mach 2.2 at low altitude. That is faster than anything in our arsenal.

Iran’s conventional forces include an army of 540,000 men and 300,000 reserves, including 120,000 Iranian Guards especially trained in unconventional warfare. It has more than 1,600 main battle tanks and 21,000 other armored combat vehicles. It has 3,200 artillery pieces, three submarines, 59 surface warships, and 10 amphibious ships.

It’s been receiving help in arming itself from China, North Korea, and Russia. Unlike Iraq, Iran’s forces have not been worn down with bombing, wars, and sanctions. It also has a new anti-aircraft defense system from Russia that I’ve heard is pretty snazzy.

So, if you think we or Israel can attack Iran and not expect retaliation, I’d have to say with regret that you are a moron. If you think we could easily handle Iran in an all-out war, I’d have to promote you to idiot.

Attacking Iran would be folly, but we seem to be living in the Age of Folly. Morons and idiots took us into an unjustified war against Iraq before we had finished the job in Afghanistan. Now we have troops tied down in both countries.

China has a tremendous investment and interest in Iran and would likely see an attack as a threat to its national interests. China could strike a large blow against the U.S. just by dumping the financial paper we have foolishly allowed the Chinese to pile up, thanks to the trade deficit.

For some years now, I’ve worried that we seem to be more and more like Colonial England: arrogant, racist, overestimating our own capacity, and underestimating that of our enemies. As the fate of the British Empire demonstrates, that is a fatal flaw.

The British never dreamed that the “little yellow people” could come ashore by land and take Singapore from the rear or that they would sink the pride of the British fleet, but they did both.

I suppose no one in Washington can imagine the Iranians sinking one of our carriers in the Persian Gulf. How’d you like to be the president who has to tell the American people that we’ve lost a carrier for the first time since World War II?

Exactly how the Iranians will respond to an attack, I don’t know, but they will respond. In keeping with our present policy, our attack on Iran would be illegal, since under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes.

Who would have thought that we would become the rogue nation committing acts of aggression around the globe?

Charley Reese has been a journalist for 50 years.

Categories
Hot Properties Real Estate

A Survivor

The 1870s weren’t a great decade for Memphis. A series of yellow fever epidemics caused the people who survived to flee the city. By 1879, Memphis was bankrupt and lost its city charter, not to be regained until 1891.

The surrounding countryside was where the action was in this decade. The Memphis and Charleston Railroad made the properties along Southern Avenue desirable. There were numerous stations between Buntyn and downtown served by a local train known as the “Accommodation Line.”

The first road through the area now known as Lenox was Cooper Street, running north from the rail line. Just north of the Cooper-Young area, Thomas F. Lenox bought land to farm and built a house for his family in the mid-1870s.

Amazingly, Lenox’s gable-and-wing Italianate cottage is still standing. Its original entry hall is 10 feet wide and runs, much like the entry to the Hunt-Phelan House (1828), from the front to the rear porches. This layout and the 13-foot ceilings would exhaust the summer heat. This hall at some stage was considered a waste, maybe when central heat was added, and was divided up with the current kitchen installed in the rear half.

The original public rooms are along the west side of the house. There is a parlor with a spectacular bay window and a separate dining room connected by a finely detailed Gothic archway. The kitchen would probably be better located behind the dining room. A pantry now holds the laundry, but it is big enough to also hold the main bath. That would allow the existing bath on the back porch to be enlarged as a sunroom or breakfast area.

The east side holds two bedrooms, one with an attached bath. This rear bedroom and bath, which has the other bay window in the house, would make the perfect master suite, having already had a whole wall of closets added. The front bedroom would benefit from a similar addition of closets.

The front facade has much of its original architectural detail intact. The front windows are all tall, narrow, and arch-headed. Above the bay, the gable has multiple brackets supporting the roof cornice and a decoratively sawn attic vent. It appears that part of the front porch was enclosed and the original doors, still in place on the rear, were turned to access what was left of the front porch.

Sadly, that means you and guests are not under cover as you enter and don’t often get the pleasure of the original doors, with original screen doors, tall transom, and fancy, bracketed head moldings. Restoring this enlarged entry back to the front porch and re-centering the double doors on a reopened hall would recreate the original grandeur in and out.

Let’s not pretend there isn’t a lot of work needed here, but the original plan and the surviving details all suggest what a fine home this once was and could be again.

2175 Vinton Avenue

Approximately 2,300 square feet

2 bedrooms, 2 baths, $229,000

Realtor: Bob Neal, 685-7772

Categories
Editorial Opinion

In Search of Real Straight Talk

Republican presidential nominee John McCain has a campaign bus called the “Straight Talk Express.” It is the literal embodiment of McCain’s message: He’s a “maverick” who tells the truth even if it hurts his chances to win an election.

The real truth is that McCain, like almost all politicians, hedges his bets, tailoring his message to fit whatever group he’s trying to appeal to on any given day …

Read the rest of Bruce VanWyngarden’s editor’s column.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

The Memphis Week That Was

What’s The Commercial Appeal worth? Wall Street is giving us some clues even if our local daily is snoozing away the lazy summer days.

The parent company of the CA, the E.W. Scripps Company, split itself into two separately traded companies this week. One is broadcast-oriented and is called Scripps Networks Interactive (the trading symbol is SNI). The other is the newspaper and television station division, and the trading symbol is SSP.
If you owned shares of “Scripps” before the split, you got one share of SNI for every share of SSP.

The bottom line: SNI is the prize, and newspapers are chump change in the modern media world. One share of SSP was worth $2.91 Thursday. The total stock market value was $478 million. One share of SNI was worth $42 Thursday, and the stock market value was $5.2 billion.

To prop up the anemic price of the newspaper division, Scripps will hold a special stockholders meeting July 15th in Cincinnati to approve a three-for-one reverse split. In other words, if you have 300 shares of SSP, you will have 100 shares post-split, assuming shareholders approve — which they will, because the E.W. Scripps Trust owns 31 percent of the stock, more than enough to call the shots in a transaction like this.

“The primary purpose of the proposed split is to combine our issued and outstanding shares into a smaller number of shares and enable the shares to trade at a higher price following the spin-off of Scripps Networks Interactive,” the company said.

Institutional shareholders don’t like stocks under $5, which is not to say that SSP won’t fall below that in the future even with a reverse split.

What does this mean to Memphis? In the short term, not much. The CA is one of 18 newspapers in the Scripps chain and its revenues can only be guessed at because Scripps does not provide financials for individual papers. Fifteen or twenty years ago, it was a cash cow for Scripps with a 36-percent profit margin (The Flyer uncovered financials during a lawsuit), but circulation has fallen more than 30 percent since then.

These days, a daily newspaper in Memphis is about as interesting as a Class A affiliate of the New York Yankees. There are no Memphians among the 16 members of management listed in the proxy statement of the parent company, which is based in Cincinnati. There was not so much as a blurb about the spin-off, which occurred on Tuesday, in the CA on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday.

In the long term, it could possibly stir some talk of a sale of all or parts of SSP, although terms of the E.W. Scripps Trust make that difficult. Not that print newspapers are hot properties anywhere.

SNI is the hottie. A team led by SNI president and CEO Kenneth Lowe rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange this week to mark the first day of trading in the new stock. Lowe called it “a tremendously exciting day,” but that didn’t ring anyone’s bell over at 495 Union Avenue, where the focus is on cost-cutting.

The Scripps PR machine described SNI as a company “focused on global lifestyle media and interactive services,” including HGTV, The Food Network, DIY Network, Fine Living, and Great American Country. The “other” company consists of “market-leading local media franchises.”

For an insider’s perspective on the deal, see this week’s story by reporter Allison Bruce in the Scripps-owned Ventura County Star in California.

When I searched for “Scripps Networks Interactive” on the CA‘s website, the most recent story I found was from June 14th. The only newspaper industry news that made the business section this week was a short item on layoffs at The Los Angeles Times.

Categories
News

Celebrate Independence This Weekend

Barack Obama doesn’t have to wear a flag pin on his lapel to show his patriotism. And neither do you. In fact, we hope you’re not even wearing a lapel tomorrow because it’s a freakin’ holiday. So trade that suit for flips-flops and cut-off shorts, and get to one of these local Fourth of July celebrations.

Every year, boozing, obnoxious Memphians and reserved, sober families come together in Tom Lee Park for downtown’s Star Spangled Celebration. It may be the only time the two factions can come together in harmony, so head downtown Friday at 3 p.m. for the phenomenal fireworks show over the Mississippi River. The event will also feature music by C-Note, The Soul Shockers, and Tom, Dick, and & Harry.

Before heading to the festival, join the Sierra Club for their annual Fourth of July Picnic. They’ll be grilling out in Overton Park, but the party is potluck, so bring a pack of hot dogs or wow the crowd your family recipe potato salad. The picnic lasts from 1 to 6 p.m. on Friday.

If downtown is out of your way, save gas and hit up one of the celebrations on the eastern edge the county. The Cordova Fourth of July Parade kicks off at the Cordova Community Center at 9 a.m. tomorrow, and Germantown’s Family Fourth Celebration begins at 5 p.m. at the Germantown Municipal Center,

For more Fourth of July fun, check out the Flyer’s searchable online calendar.