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Month: September 2010
They say all politics is local, and the same can be said of war. The film Lebanon, set during the 1982 Lebanon war, adopts this ground-up perspective of combat. In the film, it doesn’t matter how the war started, whose cause is just, or what the strategies are for victory. All that matters is one crew of soldiers in one tank during one day of battle.
Lebanon is structured like a one-set play. All of the action takes place inside an Israeli tank as it ventures into foreign territory. The crew (played by Yoav Donat, Itay Tiran, Oshri Cohen, and Michael Moshonov) carries the film not with action but reactions to stressful external events: a devolution of emotional states and fractured camaraderie.
A gun sight keeps the audience apprised of what’s happening outside (or, in other ways, emphasizes the confusion of battle). As the gunman Shmulik (Donat) peers out, the film becomes something of a travelogue, with vignettes chronicling the hell of war.
Lebanon trades in some of the most time-tested universals of war (and war films): kids suddenly making life-and-death decisions, mistakes with irrevocable consequences, soldiers sharing stories of home, terror, boredom, civilians’ lives destroyed.
But the film is also unique to its setting: the claustrophobia and squalid mess of the tank interior — its urine-puddled floor; fallen soldiers (called “angels”) inside the tank and captured Syrian combatants (“crickets”); the Christian Arab allies (“Philangists”) who have their own objectives — complicating the chain of command and ramping up the anxiety for the tank crew, who just want to get back home in one piece.
The film is written and directed by Samuel Maoz, who himself served in an Israeli tank during the war and used those experiences to make Lebanon.
Lebanon won the Golden Lion (best film) at the 2009 Venice Film Festival.
The animated Waltz With Bashir got lots of attention recently and is about the same conflict from an Israeli perspective. Lebanon deserves similar notice.
Opening Friday, October 1st
Ridgeway Four
I lost my father last week. He was elderly and in poor health, and it was not entirely a surprise, though it was difficult and sad, as death almost always is. He’d left instructions that no extraordinary measures be taken to prolong his life if the end seemed imminent, so a week ago Sunday, we took him off life support when the doctors said it was time. They said he might last a couple of days.
Removing life support means taking away feeding tubes and water. My father lived eight days off life support, the last few under heavy sedation. Suffice it to say, I now think Dr. Kevorkian was onto something. Letting a loved one starve and dehydrate for a week feels inhumane, no matter how sedated they may be.
Early in the week, he appeared to be comfortably sleeping. Nothing in his appearance gave away the fact that he was dying. He looked as though he could awaken and begin a conversation about Mizzou football or the damn Democrats or my mom’s cinnamon rolls. But he couldn’t and hadn’t been able to for months. His mind had moved on. His body lingered behind, shrinking before our eyes.
I heard a joke on the radio as I drove from Memphis to Mexico, Missouri, for my father’s final week: A well-dressed elderly gentleman walks into a bar, sits down, and orders a vodka martini. After a sip, he turns to the woman sitting next to him and says, “So … do I come here often?”
I laughed when I heard it and thought of my father, who would have loved the joke, as he loved all corny jokes. And as he loved his wife of 57 years, who at 90 was the only one who could communicate with him in these last months and who fed him and bathed him and picked him up when he fell — every time, until last week, when her magic finally ran out. The doctors made their pronouncement, and his family watched and waited, marking the last days of a good, kind man who played trumpet in big bands, fought the Japanese across the Pacific, drove a jeep through the ruins of Hiroshima, came back to his hometown, bought a house, fathered four children, joined the Kiwanis, played lots of bogey golf, and loved his wife to the end of his 88 years on this earth.
They’re not making men like that anymore. Get some rest, Dad.
Bruce VanWyngarden
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Arkansas Blues Fest Turns 25.
In our music feature this week, we profile local roots musician Valerie June, who is following up a Memphis show on October 5th with a two-day appearance Thursday and Friday at the Arkansas Blues & Heritage Festival in Helena.
June won’t be the only Memphis performer heading south for the festival, which is celebrating its 25th year by showcasing an amazing selection of blues heavyweights. The festival runs Thursday, October 7th, through Saturday, October 9th, at the Cherry Street Pavilion on the banks of the Mississippi in historic downtown Helena-West Helena.
Long a free festival, the Arkansas Blues & Heritage Festival is now a ticketed event, with a $25 admission supplying entrance to all three days. This year’s lineup looks well worth the price.
Thursday night, the festival is headlined by B.B. King, with an undercard that includes Tupelo songwriter Paul Thorn and Memphis mainstays the Reba Russell Band.
On Friday, the festival expands from one stage to three, with bravura dual headliners: New Orleans R&B institution Dr. John and chitlin-circuit king Bobby Rush. Artists preceding Dr. John on the Sonny Boy Williamson Main Stage include barrelhouse piano queen Marcia Ball and blues guitar legend Hubert Sumlin. The Memphis connection includes June on the Emerging Artist Stage and Greenville, Mississippi’s Eden Brent, a pianist/vocalist whose terrific new album, Ain’t Got No Troubles, was released by Memphis label Yellow Dog Records.
On Saturday, the main stage welcomes a back-to-back pairing of Memphis native and harmonica master Charlie Musselwhite, whose new album, The Well, is his first collection of entirely self-penned songs, and the versatile Taj Mahal. Other likely Saturday standouts include piano legend Pinetop Perkins with guitar ace Bob Margolin. Memphis representatives include Beale Street vets Preston Shannon and Don McMinn.
See bluesandheritagefest.com for more information.
Back in 2003, bandleader Eldorado Del Rey authored one of the more unexpected passages in recent Memphis music. The frontman for a loose, energetic garage punk-blues band, the Porch Ghouls (which also featured ex-Grifters guitarist Scott Taylor), Del Rey met Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry during the Memphis musician’s day job as a Sun Studio tour guide. Intrigued, Perry listened to the Porch Ghouls demo, became smitten, and signed the band to his then-new Roman Records label. Soon, the Ghouls’ debut, Bluff City Ruckus, was getting major-label distribution, and the band was opening for Aerosmith and KISS on tour.
It was too much too soon: The record didn’t take, and the band didn’t last. But Del Rey regrouped to form a new band, El Dorado & the Ruckus, which released two albums, 2005’s Planet of the Vampires II and 2006’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. By 2007, Del Rey had drifted back to his native Florida.
But Del Rey couldn’t stay away. Since returning to Memphis — and Sun — Del Rey has re-formed the Ruckus, which now includes Matt Ross-Spang and Jason Freeman on guitar and Daniel Farris on drums. Del Rey is simultaneously releasing two new albums, The Hidden Fortress and Duck, You Sucker!, the former recorded before his exit from Memphis, the latter since his return, both at Sun. Both albums also feature a film theme of sorts.
The Hidden Fortress is named after the Akira Kurosawa film that helped inspire Star Wars. The opening song, “Yojimbo” (fun chorus: “Yojimbo! Yojimbo! Yo!”), is also named for a Kurosawa film and features the electronic sounds (in this case, an agreeable blend of hip-hop and Atari 2600) that Del Rey dabbled in immediately after the Porch Ghouls. The more recent Duck, You Sucker! is a westerns-themed album named after a Sergio Leone spaghetti western (better known by the alternate title, A Fistful of Dollars). The album is somewhat of a return to the more rootsy, guitar-driven sound of the Porch Ghouls.
El Dorado & the Ruckus will celebrate the release of both albums at the Hi-Tone Café Friday, October 1st, with opening bands the Dirty Streets and the Gunslingers. Showtime is 10 p.m. Admission is $5.
Categories
Being Nosy
There is Mo’s nose — that nose belongs to Mo, the dog hero of the “Mo Smells” children’s book series by Memphis-born author Margaret Hyde and illustrator Amanda Giacomini. But also active in this series is your nose.
Using the “Press-2-Smell” feature, which produces air puffs of scent, readers smell what Mo smells. In the first book, Mo Smells Red, that meant roses and strawberries. In the eco-friendly adventure Mo Smells Green, it was limes and mint. In the latest book, Mo Smells Christmas, there are gingerbread houses, pine trees, and chocolate Santas to take in.
And there’s now another way to get interactive: the Mo’s Nose app. The app, which can be downloaded for free at iTunes, helps pet lovers find pet-friendly hotels and events, dog parks, and shelters. There’s also “Mo’s Deals” for discounts at pet retailers as well as color-oriented games for the kids. Another feature of the app is “Augmented Reality,” which animates Mo on the user’s phone and changes with location.
Mo’s real-life counterpart and inspiration for the series is Giacomini’s dog, which she found living on the streets of Oakland, California. A portion of the proceeds from book sales goes to Friends of Mo charities dedicated to improving the lives of animals.
“Mo Smells Christmas” booksigning by Margaret Hyde, Davis-Kidd Booksellers, Tuesday, October 5th, 4 p.m.
Categories
Brief Encounters
Sometimes getting older really does mean getting better. Our Own Voice Theatre Troupe, an independent group dedicated to exploring the many possibilities and permutations of performance, is celebrating an unlikely 20 years of inspiration, originality, and relative obscurity. They are commemorating their second decade with Ephemera II: You Can’t Do That Again, a dandy deconstruction of a play that doesn’t exist. As the title implies, the troupe’s bizarre anniversary show focuses on the mysterious “here today, gone tomorrow” nature of live performance. It explores the meanings of “character,” the relationship between “character” and “actor,” and ultimately bridges the divide between performer and spectator. If this sounds terribly academic, well it is. It is also a little rough around the edges but still very funny, even more so if you follow local theater.
If any of the above words seem familiar to you, then you must be a longtime reader. I used practically the same lead 10 years ago when writing about the original Ephemera, which is extremely similar but not quite the same as the new version. Like the original, it’s an occasionally caustic clown show that moves backward in time, employing song, dance, and theater games to comment on song, dance, and theater. Children play easily recognizable authority figures from the local theater community such as Playhouse on the Square founder Jackie Nichols and retired U of M theater professor Josie Helming. There are even references to a cold-blooded theater critic named Sivad.
Our Own Voice’s work is steeped in mental-health advocacy, but, as Bill Baker, the experimental company’s founding director explained before Saturday night’s performance, the group has expanded its mission to help anyone find their unique voice as an artist in a confusing, hyper-mediated world.
“Ephemera II: You Can’t Do That Again” at TheatreWorks through Friday, October 10th. Tickets are $10 for adults or $8 for students and seniors.
For reservations or more information, call 274-1000.
Several important news items in the past week underscore the dire situation of the poor and the working class in the United States, but they got little attention from the corporate media or the political elite. The number of Americans in poverty has climbed to 44 million, the highest number in 50 years. In 2009 alone, 4 million people fell into poverty, and it would have been higher without the extensions in unemployment and other benefits Republicans opposed.
The number of people without health insurance climbed to 50 million. The health-care crisis continues to worsen, while the right wing calls for repealing the health-care program that will cover 30 million more people. Health insurance companies already are gouging people and dumping children and sick people before the law is fully implemented, while Republicans want to cut all public health-care programs and throw us all at the mercy of insurance companies.
While corporate profits and CEO pay continue to skyrocket, even after the Great Recession they created out of greed, the wages and income of working-class Americans continue to decline. There is a class war, but it is a war of the corporate rich being waged on the working class.
What I don’t understand is why the Tea Party, which claims to represent “we the people,” is taking the side of the corporate rich. They defend private insurance companies which are rationing health care based on the ability to pay while increasing their profits and CEO pay. They are siding with corporations against unions and the right of workers to organize and improve their working conditions.
Instead, the Tea Party is following millionaire corporate lobbyists like Dick Armey and corporate front groups like “Freedom Works” and “Americans for Prosperity,” which are nothing but cover groups for insurance companies and energy companies that oppose “regulations” which would protect the environment and increase access to health care.
Tea Party members want to reduce the deficit and cut government debt, but they also want to continue to cut taxes on the corporate rich, without any cuts to pay for them. It is this combination of careless tax cuts favoring the rich, along with unpaid wars and increases in military spending, that has caused the explosion in the deficit, all the result of the policies of George W. Bush, which they want to continue.
The Tea Party is taking over the Republican Party, pushing a radical agenda to impose corporate and theocratic rule over the United States. They want to cut or eliminate Social Security, the most successful social program in history, which has nothing to do with the deficit. They claim to be opposed to “big government,” but they want to impose their religious beliefs on everyone, and they seem to love big business.
The Boston Tea Party was a revolt against unfair tax cuts for a multinational corporation, the East India Tea Company, which undermined the small businesses in the colonies. The British were imposing taxes on the colonies, while cutting the taxes of the East India Tea Company. We need a real Tea Party revolt against tax cuts and corporate welfare programs that favor the corporate rich and put the interests of Wall Street “banksters” over the interests of the American working class.
We need to pay more attention to the common good and less attention to the whining of rich people who don’t care about the general welfare of “we the people.”
On Saturday, October 2nd, in the “One Nation Together March” in Washington, D.C., thousands of people from labor, environmental, peace, and civil rights groups will stand up for “we the people” and demand the change we were promised and voted for.
Jim Maynard is a member and organizer of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Categories
Letters to the Editor
Thanks?
I loved being awarded “Best Haters” in Fly on the Wall (September 23rd issue). I got a kick out of it, especially after seeing the comments on that article. One small correction, though. I’m on the board of directors of Mid-South Pride, not the Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center. I’m obviously a huge fan of MGLCC and all that they do. I just don’t want anyone to make any mistakes as to who’s associated with which group. Thanks again!
Jason W. Houston
Memphis
Greenline
Regarding John Branston’s test cruise on the oil-drenched Greenline bike path (Viewpoint, September 23rd issue), here’s what I’ve found in several attempts: traffic noises in many places from the parallel interstate; silent and heat-crazed bikers scarily passing; in-line skaters two abreast; joggers on their way to shin splints; moms with kids in strollers taking up the entire path; bugs; and that faint smell of wasted money and asphalt.
Why not an eco-friendly crushed-limestone path? Why not some courtesy? Oh, and by the way: It is not a trail. Trails are dirt and natural.
Bill Butler
Memphis
I loved John Branston’s column.
I live right off of the Greenline, so my family spends a lot of time on it. I can’t wait to see how we grow with it. However, I would like to send a friendly reminder to the cyclists that this greenway is for pedestrians too! Twice in the last week, I had to take my 3-year-old off of it, not because there were bikes but because the cyclists weren’t acknowledging the pedestrians. Maybe you were taking out your frustrations from the years of being ignored as legit commuters in traffic?
I’m glad that folks are getting into the path. Now it’s time for us to show a few manners we wish we’d been shown by Memphis streetgoers.
See you on the trail.
Jessica Sumner
Memphis
More Fear
After reading Patricia Pearce’s Viewpoint titled “Dispelling the Fears” (September 16th issue), I feel I must respond to her last paragraph. She admonishes the reader to “dispel the fears and ignorance that have permeated our recent national conversation,” which is a reference to what has been referred to as America’s “Islamaphobia.”
I would invite readers to learn all they can about the realities of Islam, which is more of a political system than a religion. If you believe that under Sharia law beating your wife, no democracy, no freedom to condemn or even question the doctrine, or no freedom of speech is acceptable, then I would assume the realities don’t scare you, or you are in denial. Also, all other religions have to be subservient to Islam under Sharia law.
If you don’t believe me, I suggest you visit politicalislam.com and order a 48-page booklet titled Sharia Law for Non-Muslims, written by Dr. Bill Warner. It is a summary of the 1,200-page Koran that demonstrates how Sharia law applies to infidels. (By the way, I have no financial or any other interest in the sale of books on this site.)
You can’t take the word of the Council on American and Islamic Relations, because once you learn the truth about this group, you will see that they are taught to deceive the infidel.
I am amazed at the support Islam is getting in this country even though they are beating their wives here as well as around the world, stoning female adulterers to death, and executing homosexuals. Why are so many giving them a free pass? Do you think these are isolated incidents by a fringe group of Islam? No. This is taught in the handbook, and it is mainstream!
What is wrong with NOW and other organizations that are supposed to protect women’s rights? Is everybody too politically correct to speak out and confront this head-on? Is the Memphis Flyer too politically correct and fearful to publish this letter? Please, I admonish you to educate yourself and don’t believe the propaganda.
Finally, Ms. Pearce, it is much easier to ask for tolerance with this “religion” rather than finding out what it teaches and what drives its followers to the atrocities that permeate their society.
David L. Maxey
Memphis
Midterm elections
The congressional midterm election seems to be shaping up nicely as a contest between the Idiots and the Cowards. America, choose your poison!
Jay Sheffield
Germantown
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- Postcard view of Japanese Garden
Okay, it took a while, but I finally turned up an old postcard showing the Japanese Gardens in Overton Park. The card is postmarked 1920 or maybe 1928 (the date is hard to read).
Compare it with group of Robert Ferguson photos that I’ve already posted. (I re-posted one of them below so you really won’t have to go to any trouble whatsoever.) You’ll note that the odd white “mountain” appears to be the same in both views, as does the bridge (reflected in the water in the old photographs). And you can see a stone lantern that looks just like the ones in the photos.
But what you DON’T see are the crazy trees, the dog statue, and the weird rock-covered iron grate that the woman was sitting on (though maybe that’s too small to show up in the postcard).
The Japanese Gardens were in Overton Park for some 40 years. My theory is that this place, like so many others around town, changed over the years. Certain features were added or removed.
But it’s pretty definitely the same “mountain,” if you ask me.
- Photo taken in the 1920s
Categories
Pecan Bark
As part of its commitment to plant one million trees in the park, the Shelby Farms Park Conservancy held its first “One in a Million Tree” contest this month.
Twenty trees from across the county were nominated with the winning entry a 275-year-old pecan tree submitted by Lee Millar.
The pecan towers over Millar’s Collierville home, on the same site as early log cabin.
“After researching the history of the site with two of Collierville’s town historians, and reviewing old land deeds and grants, I discovered that the property was given as a land grant to its earliest recorded owner
following his service in the revolutionary war,” Miller said. “A log cabin was built under the tree, which would have already been large enough to provide shade at that time.”
Entries were judged on size, age, historical significance, and beauty, and I have to say: The Shelby Farms Park Conservancy got some really amazing judges to help them out. Just great, great judging prowess. (Oh, right. Full disclosure, I was one of them.)