Month: February 2014

Art Brew

Post author By Bianca Phillips
Post date February 27, 2014

Exterior of the Tennessee Brewery building

In 2003, the Flyer ran two articles — one in April and one in December — about an ambitious plan to transform the old Tennessee Brewery into affordable living and working space for artists.

A group of local artists calling themselves ArtBrew had enlisted the help of Minneapolis-based ArtSpace, a nonprofit with a successful track record of helping artists convert historic spaces into apartments and studio space for artists. And the plan had the backing of the Center City Commission (now known as the Downtown Memphis Commission).

ArtBrew artists had a vision of constructing apartments inside the building, and those would be reserved for working artists who were otherwise priced out of the downtown housing market.

“The remainder of the brewery’s rooms would be converted into a number of arts-related spaces: a dance studio, a cinema, various studio spaces, gallery and exhibition space, nonprofit and for-profit commercial and retail office space, a media cooperative, a publishing cooperative, an iron-forging shop, arts classrooms and workshop space, and possibly even a microbrewery to revive the building’s heritage,” read the April 2003 article.

ArtSpace representatives came to Memphis to meet with the project’s backers, and ArtBrew was asked to raise $500,000 to get the project kicked off. But according to the building’s current listing agent James Raspberry, the group simply couldn’t raise the startup funds.

More than 10 years later, the hulking brewery building, once home to the Goldcrest beer operation, remains empty. This building is a time capsule of Memphis architecture.

Interior of the Tennessee Brewery building

“Look up and you see wrought-iron railings of the open, winding staircases that frame each floor. The windows were strategically placed so that natural light floods in, throwing ornate shadows from the decorative latticework of the railings,” reads that April 2003 article. “It was once the site of a bustling beer industry, and hundreds of feet traversed that very floor each day. The worn concrete, scattered with flakes of rust, seems to welcome new feet after years of abandonment.”

But Raspberry said the building’s current ownership group has plans to demolish the 114-year-old structure if someone doesn’t step in to purchase it in the next six months.

“At this juncture, someone needs to purchase the property. The ownership group is ready to hand off the baton,” Raspberry said.

The current owners purchased the building 12 years ago, and they’ve repaired the south wall and installed a new roof, but Raspberry said “kids have gone through and just vandalized the building and ruined two to three sections of the roof.”

As for ArtSpace, they finally found a feasible project in Memphis in 2011. They’re currently working with the city to transform the old United Warehouse space on St. Paul in the South Main Arts District into affordable home and studio space for artists. The project is still in the pre-development phase and is estimated to cost $12.9 million. ArtSpace has made an application to the state for low-income housing tax credits, and they’re currently awaiting a response before moving forward with the next phase. The project is expected to be completed by 2015.

Tags ArtSpace, Tennessee Brewery

We Recommend We Recommend

Fun With Gravity

Post author By Chris Davis
Post date February 27, 2014

CREDIT: Sarah McAlexander

Sarah McAlexander

“The Great American Backyard” physical theater performance

Although she takes the work seriously, aerialist and instructor Val Russell thinks her new title is funny. “I’m an ambassador,” she says, letting the word roll around in her mouth. “I’m an ambassador for GPAC [Germantown Performing Arts Center], and I’m putting together a really playful show that is supposed to help Memphis audiences learn about physical theater.”

“Physical theater” is the term Russell uses to describe a fusion of dance, design, and various gravity-defying disciplines with circus roots. Russell thinks it’s been difficult to attract Memphis audiences to performances by pioneering companies like Streb and Pilobolus in part because Memphis has never had its own physical theater company.

“We are that company,” Russell says. “In marketing meetings, I hear it all the time: We can sell Lyle Lovett because people know what that is. My job is to help educate people about physical theater.”

Mary Long

“The Great American Backyard” physical theater performance

The “playful little show” Russell’s dancers and aerialists are developing for GPAC is called “The Great American Backyard,” an impressionistic take on family life and outdoor playtime. The performances collected for “American Backyard” are a physical response to a variety of physical structures including one called “Steely,” that looks like a cross between monkey bars and a roller coaster.

“We had hoped to rehearse on Steely in the lobby at GPAC,” Russell says. “But it’s too big. We couldn’t figure out how to get it in the lobby.”

So where does the new company in town find its talent?

“They come to us,” Russell says. “We get gymnasts and dancers, and a lot of ballerinas who want to break out of the bun. Ballerinas are already jumpers. I think they’re looking for some way to get even higher.”

”The Great American Backyard” at Germantown Performing Arts Center Friday, February 28th, at 7 p.m. gpacweb.com

Opinion Viewpoint

Broken Bell Curve

Post author By Ryan Hamlin
Post date February 27, 2014

I could go on and on about the current state of public schools, but that is a waste of time. Having spent a year at Kingsbury High School teaching math, I was amazed at the level of dedication and enthusiasm of the teachers. What was disturbing was the broken process and misaligned goals of the system.

Some teachers are experts at bringing students up to speed. Other teachers are great at turning above-average students into superstars. We need both. When the pressure on teachers is to get the entire class to a certain level, you lose your superstars. The opposite happens if you focus on your superstars: Children get left behind (I couldn’t help myself). The bell curve shouldn’t be a spike right at 70 percent.

Students shouldn’t be judged solely by their averages either. Excelling at one thing is far better than being average at everything. If you are taking remedial math, then maybe you are judged by the average progress. If you are teaching AP math, then you need to be judged differently. The way we rate teachers and students has to align with real-world needs.

We have to take the administration burden off of teachers. At Kingsbury, and I imagine other schools, I had to take roll in three separate places. One was the central system, one was another system parents could access, and the third was the old-fashioned book. I had to do the same with grades. So, having 160 students times three, well, you get the point. Taking roll is just one example. There is a long list of mandated activities. Teachers only get students for brief periods of time – and that time needs to be spent teaching.

Trust the teachers. Everyone preaches innovation, and then they leave no room or time for it. Teachers have very specific curricular tasks that must be done in every class period. What standard was taught today? Did you have objectives and a guiding principle clearly posted? Did you hit on all 13 rubric items during your lecture?

Crafty teachers would have a lesson on standby for any time an observer was present. Structuring your lesson around an observation rubric is counter to innovation. If I wanted to spend Monday exploring triangles and trying to get students engaged about the real world questions that could be answered through applying geometry, I would have ended up sitting across from a math coach or an administrator and being told the error of my ways. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to teach sine, cosine, and tangent. But the students needed to know what they could do with that knowledge. They had to be engaged before they would apply themselves. This isn’t accomplished with a single “guiding question.”

I believe goals are important, but the solutions in education will come from the teachers. Establishing a lofty education goal is vital to our competiveness and success as a country. Education can solve a lot of society’s ills. Teachers can share best practices and then adapt them to best suit their individual classroom. Best practices do not need to be decided on by an administration and then forced down upon the teachers. Only a teacher is in a position to quickly ditch one methodology and try another. At Kingsbury, we were mandated to spend a certain amount of time in a computer lab using a program that MCS bought. The students would answer multiple-choice questions and the program would adjust difficulty, based on performance. Would that time not have been better spent presenting the students with a problem and letting them use the technology to find solutions and present answers? It depends on the needs of those students as individuals. Only teachers are right there on the spot and able to make that judgment.

We have got to protect the teacher/student relationship and find flexible ways of measuring success. I never learned a thing from my principal. The Tennessee legislative body didn’t teach me how to find the slope of a tangent line. The school district’s curriculum body didn’t teach me about the time value of money. It was my teachers. We can’t continue to smother teachers with a giant one-size-fits-all wet blanket of assessment standards.

Ryan Hamlin is a University of Memphis graduate and veteran of the U.S. Army who worked at Medtronic, McKesson Pharmaceutical, before teaching at Kingsbury High School for a year. He is in his first year at Lincoln Memorial University’s DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine.

News

Fishing for Suckers

Post author By Flyer Staff
Post date February 27, 2014

Bruce VanWyngarden recounts an adventure in international commerce involving fly-fishing and tense negotiations with communists.

News

Sunset for the Symphony?

Post author By Flyer Staff
Post date February 27, 2014

Chris Davis reports on the financial problems facing the Memphis Symphony Orchestra and what, if anything, can be done to fix them.

Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

Post author By Tim Sampson
Post date February 27, 2014

CREDIT: Joachim Eckel | Dreamstime.com

Joachim Eckel | Dreamstime.com

Dalai Lama

So this is all really, really random and probably won’t make a bit of sense because I am just having one of those weeks, and nothing going through that frightening place that is my mind seems to be connecting in any way. So. I say, really? China actually threatened the United States that it would retaliate in some way if President Obama met with the Dalai Lama, which he did last Friday. Don’t they have anything better to do? He seems like such a nice, cuddly guy and is always smiling. The government of China is really that pissed off about this? I wonder if my friend and city Councilman Myron Lowery is still hearing from them about the time Dalai visited Memphis to be honored by the National Civil Rights Museum, and he fist-bumped and exclaimed, “Hello, Dalai!” That is still one of my favorite stories and will always gain Lowery my vote. And when Obama met with the Dalai, it made a huge difference to meet with him in the White House Map Room as opposed to the Oval Office. What is up with people?

My favorite part of the “Turn Away the Gays” bill first presented by Republican state Senator Brian Kelsey of Germantown, who took his name off the bill once everyone pointed out how idiotic is was, is that it was geared toward same-sex couples. But no one ever made mention of how the couples would be identified if they, say, for some inexplicable reason, waltzed into a Cracker Barrel for lunch or dinner. Would they be screened like passengers at the airport? Have the irises in their eyes scanned like foreigners coming into the United States? Would the hostess have to ask all people, “Y’all ain’t gay, are you?”

None of this bill ever made any sense at all. And poor guy; I bet he wishes he had never even mentioned it. I’ll actually give the guy credit where credit it due. There is another bill he is sponsoring, and from what I can tell it comes up for a vote (or however they work those things) this week: It’s bill SBO276, and this is how it reads on Kelsey’s website: “Criminal Procedure – As introduced, authorizes court restoring a person’s rights of citizenship following conviction for a crime to also grant a certificate of employment restoration; prohibits a licensing entity from denying license application based solely upon applicant’s past criminal record if person has been issued a certificate of employment restoration; provides certain immunity to employers who hire a person who has been issued a certificate of employment restoration.”

Okay, correct me if I’m wrong (imagine that), but it looks like Kelsey is trying to help out convicted felons once they have paid their debt to society and see that they are not discriminated against in the job market, which is one of the main reasons for inmate recidivism and is just not fair. So I think that’s a good thing. But I can’t figure out why Kelsey’s trying to help out convicted felons while trying to take away the civil rights of people who haven’t committed any crimes, just because they were born homosexual. What is up with people?

All I know is that if Kelly English’s offer still stands to host a fund-raiser for anyone who will run against Kelsey in the next election and that fund-raiser is going to be at English’s Restaurant Iris, I might be the first to throw my name on the ballot. Man, that place has some good eats. And speaking of “the gays” and chain restaurants, one of the best stories to come out, pun intended, in many months was the one about Michael Sam, the University of Missouri college football star, who, well, came out and would be the first openly gay football player in the NFL, if he is drafted. Apparently, he had come out to his teammates some time back but told his father via text message only shortly before going national with it. His father’s reaction: He told the press he was at Denny’s eating dinner and was so upset he had to leave and go to Applebee’s to have some drinks!

OMG, no one could have made that up. I wonder if he was going to have to top all that off with some cream cheese-canned fruit-whipped cream-and-gummy bear pancakes at IHOP. Had to leave dinner at Denny’s to hit the cocktail lounge at Applebee’s because his son told him he was gay. What is up with people?

And finally, the Sochi Olympics. Finally, as in finally they are over. They’ve been over less than 24 hours as I write this and already the mainstream media are scouring Rio de Janeiro trying to drum up ratings for the next round of Olympics that are to be held there in 2016. Ugh. Summer Olympics and a presidential race. I think I’m going to have to reserve my seat at Applebee’s now. Come on, Mr. Sam. I’ll meet you there.

Tags 'Turn Away the Gays' bill, Brian Kelsey, Dalai Lama, Michael Sam, Sochi Olympics

Film Features Film/TV

The Past

Post author By Greg Akers
Post date February 27, 2014

The Past is a terrific, perhaps great film about the way miscommunications and misinformation and misunderstandings create the false assumptions upon which we build the personal narratives we tell to ourselves and to others. Guilt is presumed but not necessarily earned. Truth isn’t only subjective but also completely unreliable. Maybe you didn’t get an email that had crucial information in it. Maybe you heard wrong. Maybe you’re simply on the wrong side of the bed to see what is really happening.

The plot begins straightforward enough: Ahmad (Ali Mosaffa) returns to France from Iran to sign the papers to be legally divorced from his wife, Marie (Bérénice Bejo). They have been separated for years, but Marie needs to move on with her life, especially because she’s in a serious relationship with Samir (Tahar Rahim). (Featuring a man’s reluctance to be divorced, The Past is like a much less funny Her.)

In addition to seeing his wife again, Ahmad is reunited with Marie’s daughters, teenager Lucie (Pauline Burlet) and the much younger Léa (Jeanne Jestin). Though they aren’t technically his children, his relationship is as a father. Marie and Lucie aren’t getting along, and they each ask Ahmad to talk to the other on their behalf, to find out what’s wrong and to make peace. Matters are tense between Ahmad and Samir, who regard each other warily. Further complicating things is Samir’s young son, Fouad (Elyes Aguis), who sees only constant upheaval in his life because of what’s going on in the adults’ world.

Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi (A Separation) writes and directs, and the plot he gives The Past winds through the characters’ lives with greater complication as it travels. What seems simple or formulaic never is. The more you know, the less you feel you know what’s coming next. Farhadi creates thoroughly knotty situations; he starts his film in media res so that we may witness his characters partway through their grieving process of living, coping with damaged families, broken promises, and abandonment.

It’s a kind of death without life, but watching The Past is by no means a depressing experience. By the last act, when revelations are bomb blasts and conversations are the fallout, you care intrinsically about these characters and their fate. The Past calls to mind the films of Michael Haneke, Atom Egoyan, and the Dardenne brothers. When they finally come at last, however long delayed, understanding and emotional release serve as a resurrection. ■

The Past

Opens Friday, February 28th

Ridgeway Cinema Grill

News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall

Post author By Chris Davis
Post date February 27, 2014

Headline News

This week’s coveted best headline award goes to The Commercial Appeal for “Burping, flatulence are facts of life that can be managed.” The CA’s wind-breaking feature described farting as a great equalizer that affects us all regardless of “wealth, age, or gender.” The helpful article noted that gas is sometimes burped and/or belched and often “released through the anus,” aka “flatulence through the rectum.”

The author goes on to explain that cheese, which most people cut between 13 and 21 times a day, can be brought on by carbonated beverages, drinking through straws, talking while eating, chewing gum, sucking on candy, or even “loose-fitting dentures.” We smell Pulitzer!

Neverending Elvis

Your Pesky Fly has run across a lot of weird Elvis stories in his time, but this is a first. According to London’s Daily Mail, Jo Collins of Reading, Berkshire breaks out in a cold sweat and has to “run away and hide” whenever she hears Elvis songs due to what the tabloid variously describes as an “allergy” and a “phobia.” Too bad for Collins, she works in a bar, and Elvis-loving patrons love to play the jukebox.

Bottomed Out

Natasha Stewart, better known by her adult entertainer name Pebbelz da Model, has finally been sentenced for her role in the death of Karima Gordon. Presuming an appropriately sized prison uniform can be obtained, Pebbelz, known on the club circuit for possessing a bottom so large it belongs in the NC-17-rated sequel to Pacific Rim, will serve seven years in prison. Gordon, impressed by Pebbelz’s famous assets and wanting to build on her own back 40, paid da Model $200 to introduce her to the man who lethally injected her trunk with “concrete-like” junk. According to reports, Stewart was “blinded by this substance called silicone” and expressed remorse. “I’m so deeply sorry,” she was quoted as saying. “All I ever wanted to do was help.”

News The Fly-By

Illumination Altercation

Post author By Louis Goggans
Post date February 27, 2014

The battle to have streetlight fees reduced for homeowners isn’t going the way some Memphis City Council members thought it would.

The council wants monthly fees lowered from the current $4.32 per household per month, but it looks like those will remain the same for now. The fees are tacked onto the utility bills of Memphis Light, Gas, and Water customers.

Last week, members of the council’s MLGW committee passed a resolution that would have consolidated residential customers’ streetlight fees with that of apartment dwellers, meaning both would pay $3.17 each month. However, the MLGW board of directors rejected the proposal.

“I felt like I got hit in the stomach when I heard the decision,” said Councilman Lee Harris. “We’ve been working on trying to get a fair system for streetlight fees, so it’ll be as low as possible for as many Memphians. We sent that fee structure over to MLGW, and they rejected it.”

Last Thursday, the MLGW board approved a resolution that maintains the current fees being paid by both single-family homes ($4.32) and apartment dwellers ($1.08) but equalizes a fee for all commercial establishments.

Small commercial customers currently pay $6.48 each month and large commercial customers pay $19.07 per month for each individual billboard they operate. The new fee, if passed by the city council, would require all commercial establishments to pay $8.65 monthly instead.

The number would provide some relief to larger commercial businesses, but smaller businesses, such as the Memphis branch of outdoor advertising company CBS Outdoor, would see its current fees increase. Dave Hogue, real estate manager for CBS Outdoor, said the company currently pays more than $600 monthly in streetlight fees. He said their billboards have their own lights, so they don’t utilize the streetlights.

“If it’s done, it should be done equitably and fairly to all citizens,” Hogue said. “It’s unfortunate that something like that can be passed without looking at the impact is has on individual businesses before it’s done.”

Controversy began to surround streetlight fees after some residents in private developments, areas that pay fees to homeowner associations for amenities and services such as streetlights, complained about making additional payments to MLGW for the city’s streetlight fees. Some residents in private developments don’t even have streetlights in their neighborhoods.

George Kessler resides in the city’s newly annexed South Cordova area. He thinks people living in private developments should be exempt from paying streetlight servicing fees.

“We live in a little, private community where we maintain our own streetlights as far as maintenance and the cost of electricity, so I don’t think it’s fair what Memphis and MLGW have done,” Kessler said. “The fees should be eliminated.”

Initially, streetlight fees were included in property taxes. However, an ordinance was passed that altered the way streetlight billing would work. Fees are now incorporated into utility bills. The fees raise approximately $12.9 million annually. Half of that money is used to pay for electricity usage of the streetlights and the other half is used to maintain them.

MLGW President Jerry Collins Jr. said now that people are aware that some of their money goes to servicing streetlights, some have decided to voice their opposition to the fees.

“When streetlight fees were paid for by the property taxes, it was out of sight, out of mind. No one paid any attention to it,” Collins said. “The difference is, now it’s an item on your utility bill that says ‘streetlight fee,’ which calls attention to the fact that streetlights cost money to maintain.”