Editor Bruce VanWyngarden thinks Memphis might be ready for some sincerity.
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Month: October 2009
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halloween
1. Griz Win! Griz Win!:It seems silly to consider the second game in an 82-game schedule a “must win,” but tonight’s game felt that way for the Grizzlies since it was sandwiched between a demoralizing opening-night loss and rough five-game West Coast road trip. And it was a good win — the heightened energy level was palpable from the very beginning and the execution improved over the course of 48 minutes.
The Grizzlies had two big problems tonight — turnovers and defending Chris Bosh — and improved in these areas over the course of the game. The Grizzlies had 5 turnovers in the first 5 minutes, and 12 in the ensuing 43 minutes. The early turnovers were a bad product of good things, though — over-aggression and over-passing as a result of trying perhaps too hard to play team basketball. The Grizzlies gave up 25 points to Bosh in the first half. “Only” 12 in the second.
And most promising was how the team responded to late adversity. Going down 8 — their largest deficit of the game — two minutes into the 4th quarter, the team called a timeout, and then came back to outscore Toronto 35-19 over the final 10 minutes.
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Griz-Raptors Game Post
Okay, I’m live courtside at FedExForum for Grizzlies-Raptors as the Grizzlies tried to redeem their awful opening performance.
Not live-blogging this but am going to experiment with something new by trying to get my Twitter feed to run on this post and comment there occasionally. As always, I’ll monitor any comments or questions on this post, or you can talk amongst yourselves. Let’s do this.
Twitter feed seems to be working, but you have to refresh the page for new “tweets”
Finally breaking into the Top Ten with three sprawling somewhat-personal album picks and an all-hip-hop singles list.
12.
Album: Fishscale — Ghostface Killah (Def Jam, 2006)
A dense, weird record that was my #1 album of 2006 and that I like even more now. My original year-end write-up:
This epic album from the Wu-Tang Clan’s greatest MC artist comes at you in movements. In the first third, Ghostface proves he can spin gripping drug-trade yarns better than any new jack while never once trying to convince you he didn’t long ago rise above that world. The middle third is pure show-off: Luther Ingram-sampling endorsement of child abuse Ghost remembers as good parenting, Willie Hutch-driven battle of the sexes, explosive Pete Rock-produced rave-up. The final third he goes all “Old Jeezy” on us, bringing deep-soul wisdom and moral center to a newly resurgent subgenre (coke-trade rap) desperately in need of it. Throughout, you get a dense collection of grimy crime stories, offbeat boasts and exhortations (“Y’all be nice to the crackheads!”), soaring ’70s soul samples, random bursts of reality (our hero opens one song kicked back at the crib watching Larry King Live), and extravagant production that splits the difference between Bomb Squad and Kanye West. If you’re not a pretty serious hip-hop fan, you might struggle to find a point of entry. If you are a pretty serious hip-hop fan, you can get lost in it. Thirteen years after the debut of the posse classic Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers and 10 years too late, here’s the best Wu-Tang album since the first one.
Sample Song: “The Champ”
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Knowledge Bowl: Preseason Picks
Saturday, Knowledge Bowl kicks off another season. A staple of Memphis Saturday mornings on WREG News Channel 3, Knowledge Bowl pits teams of area high school smartypants against each other, in tournament fashion.
Our resident smartypants, Greg Akers, has made some prognostications for all you fantasy Knowledge Bowl types out there. Time to fill out those brackets!
Tomorrow, Knowledge Bowl kicks off another season of local trivia competition. A staple of Memphis Saturday mornings on WREG News Channel 3 now about to start its 23rd year, Knowledge Bowl pits teams of area high school smartypants against each other, in tournament fashion, stretched out over the school year. Thirty-two high school teams start the season. One stands victorious in May. (This season’s final airs May 29, 2010.)
Across the Mid-South this fall, teams have been built at each participating school. One of the fun things about watching Knowledge Bowl is getting to meet these talented young adults, and, for the winners, seeing them grow and change throughout the season. The best of the best get more confident and comfortable on TV as the tournament progresses.
They don’t play for nuthin. Scholarships and bonds are given to every kid on every team, the amount increasing as the team advances. This year, each member on the winning team will get a $5,000 scholarship.
This year, consider SING ALL KINDS to be your Knowledge Bowl headquarters. We’ll be providing game-by-game analysis; absolutely nobody has requested such in-depth coverage, but if high school football can soak up so much time and devotion in the local media, ain’t it time for the nerds, geeks, cool-kids-who-are-also-smart, and every other brave soul who goes on the air to get their due? It’s way past time.
Okay folks, it’s Halloween weekend so go see something spooky. Jeffrey Hatcher’s adaptation of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde may be a wee bit precious, but it’s laden with suspense and solid acting. And but for a few odds & ends it looks fantastic.
If you prefer tales of the undead the New Moon Theatre Company opens Look Away: A Civil War Zombie Tragedy tonight. Or if you just want something creepy, kookie, and altogether ookie you might want to check out Gorey Stories, a somewhat troubled musical based on the stories and illustrations of Edward Gorey.
Theatergoers looking for something a bit more substantial may want to wander on down to the Hattiloo theater to take in a performance of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf.
Colored Girls—a poem in 20 parts performed by seven nameless black women dressed in every color of the visible spectrum—is one of those plays I always expect to have aged badly. For having been created in 1975, at the apogee of women’s liberation and “black is beautiful”— Ntozake Shange’s stories of trial, triumph, and tribulation is always disconcertingly up to date.
Personally, I’ve always thought the characters’ ultimate flight into religion was something a cop out for an author who needed to tidy up her more interesting ambiguities but on most occasions even that can’t dull the edge of this groundbreaking piece of non-linear dramatic literature.
Also opening at Playhouse on the Square this Halloween weekend,: The Toymaker’s Apprentice. Yes, a Christmas show. And that’s all I have to say about that.
Last night, Food News writer Pam Denney and I went to the soft opening of Stella Marris, Steve Cooper‘s restaurant that had been the subject of protests by Cordovans who were concerned about Cooper’s background in adult entertainment.
To say the place — which is two-story and seats 330 — is ornate doesn’t quite describe it…
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Pumpkin Eater
CMI, the Flyer’s parent company, is holding a Jack-o-Lantern contest.
Check out this entry of a pumpkin eating gourds. I always suspected pumpkins were vicious like that!
