Month: February 2014

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

Civil Discourse

Ta-Nehisi Coates

The best columnist in America will be at Rhodes College this Friday. Ta-Nehisi Coates writes for The Atlantic, focusing on culture, politics, and American society, primarily as they relate to race. For better and for worse, ours is a fertile time for such discussions. When America elected its first black president in 2008, it led to a feeling of historical accomplishment of overcoming on one hand, but on the other there’s been a resultant, alarming riptide of crime against blacks by whites.

Recently, about the death of Jordan Davis, Coates said, “We cannot protect our children because racism in America is not merely a belief system but a heritage, and the inability of black parents to protect their children is an ancient tradition.”

In maybe his most thorough and insightful work to date, “Fear of a Black President,” Coates explains the Obama presidency’s careful navigation of racial politics — publicly utilizing “the time-honored tradition of black self-hectoring” — up to the point where Obama commented upon the death of Trayvon Martin. In the essay, Coates excavates the fact of Obama as president down through the strata and sediment of time, race, violence, and oppression, back to the country’s foundations, where whiteness equaled both citizenship and a “monopoly on American possibilities.” Obama, Coates argues, chose to turn the rhetoric of his administration away from race and the more radical traditions of black thought, instead conforming to the “myth of ‘twice as good'” and “half as black,” just to be considered equal. That changed when Obama said, “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” Commence the racially charged political freakout.

Coates will be at Rhodes as part of a two-day conference, “From Civil War to Civil Rights: Race, Region, and the Making of Public Memory,” and he will be speaking about the state of black America and how our society is shaped by race.

Ta-Nehisi Coates speaks as part of the Communities in Conversation series, Rhodes College, Bryan Campus Life Center. Friday, February 28th, 5:30 p.m. Free. For more information, go to rhodes.edu.

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

Fun With Gravity

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

Categories
News The Fly-By

A New Hope

After years of bits and pieces being amputated from the Raleigh Springs Mall, the formerly thriving mall has been declared a “slum and blighted area,” according to a proposed plan to renovate the entire property.

The Raleigh Springs Urban Renewal plan, if approved by the Memphis City Council, would turn the lot into a multi-use property with coexisting public and retail space. The plan features a recreational lake and public skate park, as well as a walking trail. It also calls for the relocation of the Raleigh branch library and the Old Allen Road traffic precinct into the property. Both projects have funds set aside for that purpose.

“I think it will give residents of this area a stronger sense of security and safety knowing that a police precinct is a few blocks away,” Councilman Myron Lowery said.

The mall opened in 1971, but the plan surmises that when the Wolfchase Galleria mall opened in 1997, the Raleigh Springs Mall began to decline. When the mall was renovated for the first time in the early 2000s, businesses along Austin Peay Highway had already begun a perceived downturn.

“Several businesses such as check cashing and pawn shops opened on the street giving the impression of a depressed area,” the plan reads.

According to Councilman Bill Morrison, who represents the Raleigh area, the mall will eventually be torn down, but the demolition will occur in phases. He said if everything goes well, construction might start in late 2014.

The current proposed plan would be “pretty close” to the final product, Morrison said. The private section of the property might change, depending on what retailers decide to build, but the public portion will be within the parameters of the current plan.

“Either I will be the person who had a great idea or [I’ll be] the guy who screwed up the traffic precinct for Raleigh,” Morrison said.

the Raleigh Springs Mall remain open.

At a joint committee meeting on February 18th between the council’s Economic Development and the Housing and Community Development committees, Mayor A C Wharton said funding for the new police precinct was already approved by the city council in 2010. Councilwoman Wanda Halbert sits as the chairman and vice-chairman of the two committees, respectively.

Halbert expressed concerns about the specifics of the plan to Robert Lipscomb, director of the Division of Housing and Community Development. She says the project is needed, but she wants to know the details on all long-term plans for anti-blight projects that have been proposed all over the city.

“I just wish I could see that five-year strategic and operations plan with all of these projects included in it,” she said. “Somehow there’s a cherry-picking process — what project comes first, what project doesn’t come at all — none of that is really making sense when you look at the big picture. Having some type of strategic direction is critical.”

Lowery does not share her concerns.

“[Lipscomb] refers to ‘connecting the dots’ around the city with a wide variety of projects,” Lowery said. “I don’t think any community has been ignored or left to suffer. I think our challenge is to treat every area equally, and I think that we’ve done that.”

The Flyer spoke to some business owners in the Raleigh Springs Mall, but many were unaware of the renewal plan.

Categories
News

Sunset for the Symphony?

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

Categories
News The Fly-By

Art Brew

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.

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Oscar Pro Tips

Pro tip: When picking the Academy Awards winners: Don’t let your emotions come into play. Prediction is an act of science. The only thing better than dispassion is if/when you get your mind to the nirvanic plane where you’re making good, intuitive picks based on a gut feeling, which is emotional sensitivity mixed with scientific observation.

Pro tip: Enter as many contests as you can with my ballot if you want to be lavished with prizes and acclaim. I have developed a hard-core spreadsheet with #data on it dating back years and years. I have algorithms and mathematics and statistical F-15s in my arsenal as I shoot down my opponents.

Pro tip: One contest I’m participating in is in conjunction with MemphiSport Live (MSL), the radio show on Sports 56 and 87.7 FM. (I appear on the show the last Saturday of every month to talk movies and TV and whatnot.) For the MSL contest, if you can outguess me and show host Kevin Cerrito, you can win all manner of good stuff. For more info, go to the Flyer‘s entertainment blog, Sing All Kinds, at memphisflyer.com/blogs/SingAllKinds.

Best Picture

Will Win: 12 Years a Slave

This year, there was an unprecedented tie for the Producers Guild Award between Gravity and Slave, but the latter also picked up the Golden Globe and BAFTA.

Should Win: 12 Years a Slave

Got Robbed: Fruitvale Station

Best Director

Will Win: Alfonso Cuarón, Gravity

Cuarón has swept this awards season, though that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a lock. (See: Ang Lee for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)

Should Win: Alfonso Cuarón, Gravity

Got Robbed: Asghar Farhadi, The Past

Best Actor

Will Win: Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club

The trend in this category over the last decade is consensus between the Oscars and the big pre-Oscar awards, the Golden Globes, BAFTA, and SAG. McConaughey won the Globe and SAG. Even though Chiwetel Ejiofor won the BAFTA, that seems more like an outlier than an indicative trend. Plus, beyond his work in Dallas Buyers Club, McConaughey is memorable in The Wolf of Wall Street, he starred in the well-received Mud, and he is dominating Twitter feeds with his HBO show, True Detective.

Should Win: Leonardo DiCaprio, The Wolf of Wall Street

Got Robbed: Michael B. Jordan, Fruitvale Station

Best Actress

Will Win: Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine

Almost always (15 of the last 18 years) the Golden Globe winner takes the Oscar. Blanchett and Amy Adams took Globes home, which is why this is a presumptive two-way race. But Blanchett secured the BAFTA and SAG as well.

Should Win: Amy Adams, American Hustle

Got Robbed: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Enough Said

Best Supporting Actress

Will Win: Lupita Nyong’o, 12 Years a Slave

Nyong’o received the SAG but Jennifer Lawrence won the Globe and BAFTA. I don’t feel great about my pick of Nyong’o, but I’m expecting that voters will spread the love around since Lawrence won an Oscar last year for another David O. Russell film, Silver Linings Playbook. If Lawrence wins the Oscar, this year will rhyme with 2002, when Jennifer Connelly won the Globe, BAFTA, and Oscar but not the SAG.

Should Win: Lupita Nyong’o, 12 Years a Slave

Got Robbed: Melonie Diaz, Fruitvale Station

Best Supporting Actor

Will Win: Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club

Traditionally, this is the category where the Academy likes to break from what the other awards are doing. However, since 2008 (roughly speaking, the Twitter age), this category has gone chalk, with the Globe winner going 6 for 6, and the SAG and BAFTA winners 5 for 6 each. I don’t expect Barkhad Abdi’s BAFTA to hold up.

Should Win: Jonah Hill, The Wolf of Wall Street

Got Robbed: Sam Rockwell, The Way Way Back

Best Original Screenplay

Will Win: Spike Jonze, Her

Presumably, this is tight between Her and American Hustle. However, Her has one strange stat on its side: Since 1996, only five original scripts have won the Golden Globe for screenplay. (The Globes like to combine original and adapted screenplays into one supergroup.) And every one of those original screenplays went on to win the Oscar. Her won the Globe this year, so …

Should Win: Spike Jonze, Her

Got Robbed: Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, The Way Way Back

Best Adapted Screenplay

Will Win: John Ridley, 12 Years a Slave

12 Years a Slave hasn’t won anything this season, with Captain Phillips getting the Writers Guild Award and Philomena with the BAFTA. That said, the Best Picture winner has won the Adapted Screenplay 70 percent of the time when it’s nominated in this category. This is presuming 12 Years a Slave even wins Best Picture. If it doesn’t, well, I’ll have to formulate some kind of metric for what that means.

Should Win: John Ridley, 12 Years a Slave

Got Robbed: Simon Beaufoy and Michael Arndt, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

More Picks:

Best Cinematography

Emmanuel Lubezki, Gravity

Best Editing

Christopher Rouse,

Captain Phillips

Best Foreign Language Film

The Great Beauty

Best Animated Feature

Frozen

Best Documentary Feature

The Act of Killing

Best Original Score

Steve Price, Gravity

Best Original Song

“Ordinary Love,” Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

Best Production Design

The Great Gatsby

Best Costume Design

American Hustle

Best Makeup and

Hairstyling

Dallas Buyers Club

Best Sound Mixing

Gravity

Best Sound Editing

Gravity

Best Visual Effects

Gravity

Best Documentary Short

The Lady in Number 6

Best Animated Short

Get a Horse!

Best Live Action Short

The Voorman Problem

The Oscars

Sunday, March 2nd, 7 p.m.

ABC

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter from the Editor: The Chinese Fly Reel

This is a story about international commerce, diplomacy, and fly fishing. It begins simply enough, with my friend John Ryan looking at some fly reels on eBay. He became intrigued by a sleek-looking bit of machinery called the CNC Machine Cut Aluminum Fly Fishing Reel. It was made in China and probably a knock-off of a more expensive reel, but for $39, John decided he’d take a shot.

Since he was at my house and perusing my eBay account, I ordered it for him and he gave me $40 cash. For the record, I advised against the purchase and suggested the reel was probably going to be a piece of crap.

The reel arrived about 10 days later. It looked pretty good, actually — sleek and shiny, and the spool spun easily. Only one problem, a big one: There was no drag system, nothing to slow the reel when a fish strikes, no way to keep it from spinning while casting or stripping line. It was a piece of crap. Useless.

John was philosophical, but I decided I should warn other people who might be tempted to order the “Chinese POS Reel,” as we now called it. So I left a disparaging comment about the product on eBay. Something along the lines of, “Buyer beware: This reel has no drag system. It’s a POS. Stay away.”

Imagine my surprise the next day when I received a message from “Jean” in China: “We feel sorry you not satisfied with the reel and leave us a negative We note in our description ,yes ,the reel without drag system .If you feel it’s not good to use .Could you return this back, Hope you can offer us a chance to communicate with you work with the problem . If you have any requirements ,pls be free to tell us.”

I was sure that when we ordered the reel there was nothing in the description noting that it didn’t have a drag. But I went back and looked, to be sure. Aha! It had been “edited” the previous day, and a line added saying, “This reel without drag disc/clicker , if you want the drag, pls click here.” It had Jean’s fingerprints all over it. Also, suddenly, there were no more of these reels left to sell.

International chicanery of a high order, indeed.

I replied to Jean: “A reel without a drag system is like a lotus flower without petals.”

Pretty good, I thought. Let these commies know they were dealing with someone with diplomatic skills and the soul of a poet, not some stupid American pushover.

The next day, Jean wrote back, again asking if I would remove the negative comment, and adding that if I returned the reel, they would send me a “more expensive reel with drag system.”

I replied, “I will spend no money on your reel until I have another in my hand.”

The next day? Victory. The commies melted like a wet fortune cookie. “We sending you Reel 2901859889 ,worth $50 which, have drag. Please return first reel and we will repay you cost.”

“It’s a deal,” I replied. “Pleasure doing business with you, comrade.”

Like a boss.

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

The Past

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

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

Memphis as Site of 2016 Democratic National Convention?

FedEx_Forum_as_convention_site.jpg

CNN’s Political Ticker website has a story citing the fact that Memphis is one of 33 American cities being asked by the Democratic National Committee to consider applying to be the site of the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

Imagine it, Memphians. Hillary? Joe? Hey, guys, welcome. Grab yourselves a Barbecue and a brew on us!

Among the requirements for the host city are these: a venue seating between 18,500 and 25,000 people (the FedEx Forum can seat almost 20,000) and boasting 100 sky boxes (the Forum has some 80 of those, but, hey, that can surely be fixed, right?).

The host city also must have 17,000 hotel rooms and 1,000 suites. The Memphis area has just under 23,000 hotel rooms available — a tight squeeze, but that can be fixed, too.

Maybe some of our boys in Nashville can arrange a helpful state subsidy to attract another major hotel or two. Mark? Brian? Uh oh, forgot. You guys are Republicans, but still…

And another uh oh: Nashville is also in the list of cities being hustled. Hmmmm.

Anyhow, here’s the link to the CNN story about the Democrats’ hunt for their next convention city:

Categories
Beyond the Arc Sports

News Update: Grizzlies claim Beno Udrih off waivers

In a move that I speculated about in yesterday’s Tuesday 3-Pointer, the Grizzlies have claimed point guard Beno Udrih off waivers after he was bought out by the New York Knicks.

Udrih brings playoff experience (he’s played in 36 playoff games, all for the Spurs at the beginning of his career) to the mix, and in all honesty, I’m not sure who else they would’ve gotten as a 3rd point guard who would’ve been better. Udrih has been in the league since the 04-05 season, and he’s bounced around a fair bit in that time, but he can’t be any worse than Gilbert Arenas or Keyon Dooling, right?

• Memphis Grizzlies claim Beno Udrih off waivers – ESPN, Marc Stein, ESPN.com