For this week’s contest, a place near and dear to many …
The first person to correctly ID the dish and where I’m eating wins his or her choice of a $50 gift certificate for Gould’s or a $60 gift certificate for Pearl’s Oyster House.
To enter, submit your answer to me via email at ellis@memphisflyer.com.
Answer and winner will be revealed in the next contest post.
The answer to last week’s contest is the Spumoni at Pete & Sam’s, and the winner is … Brittney Block!
Stacey Greenberg has some tips on how to handle those “build your own” dining places.
Among the more interesting County Commission contests on the May 6 primary ballot — and currently subject to the ongoing early voting period, begun Wednesday and ending May 1 — is the three-way race for the District 10 seat in the Democratic primary.
The contestants are Reginald Milton, Martavius Jones, and Jake Brown, and, though Milton, a long-established community organizer, would seem to be the favorite, on the volume and quality of his declared endorsements, both the other contenders have their hopes — Jones on the strength of his prior record as an influential School Board member; and sometime consultant Brown as a promising new face.
Brown is a relative newcomer, both to active local politics and to the area represented by District 10, and, while his previous appearances have stamped him as one of the more effective public speakers of the 2014 election, his bona fides has come under consistent challenge — and not just from his opponents.
For some time, questions have been raised about the accuracy of the address claimed by Brown on his filing application with the Election Commission. It was identical to that of Elizabeth Rincon, with whose consulting firm Brown once had a relationship, now formally dissolved. Rincon denies that Brown is a resident of the address.
A new issue arose last weekend when, on the Brown campaign’s Facebook site, a photograph was posted of a ceremony celebrating the replacement of a vandalized Orange Mound historical marker, a restoration for which Brown apparently deserves some credit.
So far, so good. The Facebook photograph, however, which showed a beaming Brown standing alongside 9th District congressman Steve Cohen, was adorned with a caption that concluded with a thank-you to the congressman for his “support.”
Inasmuch as Cohen had long ago formally — and publicly — tendered his support in the District 10 race to Milton, the congressman felt compelled to append a comment to Brown’s posting re-asserting that fact and adding that he was “appalled” at what he thought was a misrepresentation.
Asked about the language of the caption, Brown insisted he had only meant to be thanking Cohen for his support of the restoration event. But he subsequently removed the photograph from its prominent place on his Facebook page and deleted both the caption and Rep. Cohen’s correction from the page.
Other doubts have been raised — in fairness, by supporters of other District 10 candidates —about the accuracy of some other public claims made in Brown’s campaign material. And some as yet unidentified wag has invented a Twitter character called “Not Jake Brown,” with entries like this one:
“Could someone out there tell me when my district 10 opponents’ mail pieces arrive since I don’t live there to get them for myself?”
Another post by the fictitious “Brown” played off on a recent Flyer article which had cited the mounting influence in Democratic Party ranks of former Criminal Court Judge and TV personality Judge Joe Brown. The article, said the post, “got the wrong Brown. I’m the new boss of the local Democratic Party.”
Jake Brown has a legitimate comeback to that one. He does in fact have the endorsement of Judge Joe Brown and ample photographs of the two Browns together on the real Jake Brown’s campaign web site are posted to prove it.
Here is one:
It was rough, but not as rough as it could have been. Lessons from Saturday night’s game at Beyond the Arc.
I haven’t watched a basketball game and then written about it in something close to two weeks, since our daughter was born. I figured last night—the first game of the Grizzlies’ playoff series against the Oklahoma City Thunder—would be a good time to get back in the saddle and use what little slivers of free time I have to write about the Grizzlies again, since the season is winding down and these are the playoff games we spent all season wondering whether we’d be able to watch.
By the third or fourth minute of the game, I was thinking about bailing on it, emailing Bruce (VanWyngarden, Flyer editor) and asking him to cover for me. As the Grizzlies dug themselves deeper and deeper into their first half hole against a Thunder team that was on a mission to prove that the Grizzlies shouldn’t have beaten them last year, I wondered what it was I was watching.
It was bad. The Thunder D choked the Griz offense out, suffocating Zach Randolph inside, getting right in the middle of every Conley/Gasol pick and roll, forcing shooters into contested and/or too-quick jumpers that clanked off the rim and into the hands of waiting Thunder players. They were doing to the Grizzlies what the Grizzlies have made a living doing to the rest of the league for the last four seasons: turning the water off.
Tayshaun Prince started at small forward and lasted 4:27 “guarding” Kevin Durant before he was swapped for Tony Allen. The news after halftime was that Prince had a stomach virus and wouldn’t return, but—just hypothetically—if he was that sick, why play him? To prove to him that he shouldn’t be playing?
The Grizzlies went into the locker room at halftime trailing 56-34, and it felt like they were outclassed in every possible way by the Thunder: they couldn’t score on the Thunder D, they couldn’t stop Durant, Ibaka, Westbrook, or anybody else in a white jersey, they couldn’t do anything. Something had to change at the break.
What changed was that Tony Allen started the second half in place of Tayshaun Prince, and then those five guys—Conley, Lee, Allen, Randolph, and Gasol—played the next 20 minutes together and closed the gap. Allen had played in the first half, but the Thunder D left him wide open from long range and, true to form, he couldn’t help himself from trying to shoot. That wasn’t the case in the second half.
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The Grizzlies came out focused and started running their sets with their usual violent deliberation, started figuring out how to defend the Thunder’s multitude of scoring options, and played with a sense of purpose and without the unadulterated panic that had marred the second quarter. They got within four points before everything started to slip away—when Zach Randolph got called for his fifth foul on one of many touch fouls called at both ends, something that interrupted the flow of almost every playoff game I watched yesterday (though the Griz and Thunder didn’t have it as bad as the Warriors and Clippers).
From there, Joerger had to make a substitution instead of riding the five guys that got the Grizzlies back into the game. And the Thunder just started running away with the leading, expanding it from 2 points at the 8:46 mark to 14 by the end of the game, with the Grizzlies running on fumes.
It was rough, but not as rough as it could’ve been. If the Grizzlies’ veterans hadn’t come out in the third quarter and asserted their collective will, this could’ve been a 40-point blowout, easily. The Thunder are playing with something to prove after the Griz knocked them off last year.
• Main lesson: the Thunder are mortal. After they pummeled the Griz in the first half, the Grizzlies came out and held them to 13 points in the third quarter. Similar to the Clippers series last year, if the Grizzlies can come back out on Monday and just… not get run out of the gym, hold their own, learn a little more about their opponent, when the series comes back home to Memphis the Grizzlies should be able to notch a win or two and make it a real contest. They just have to figure out how to score against a Thunder D that is at times every bit as good as their own.
• Tayshaun Prince’s defensive contributions vary from night to night when he’s healthy, but when he’s under the weather, he should never again try to guard Kevin Durant. When Prince didn’t return for the second half and Jorger went with Tony Allen in his place, reuniting the Conley/Lee/Allen/Randolph/Gasol lineup many people (including this writer) think should’ve been the starting lineup since March or so, it proved what was basically already proven: lineups with Tayshaun Prince in them are not this team’s best lineups.
• The Grizzlies’ bench misses Nick Calathes. Beno Udrih is a very good basketball player, but he just doesn’t have the familiarity with the rest of the roster that Calathes has—familiarity that Calathes had to earn by playing piles of minutes, especially when Conley went down to injury. I’m not going to say that Calathes’ absence will be an excuse if the Grizzlies don’t advance past the Thunder, but it’s certainly not good to lose a player that important less than 24 hours before the start of the playoffs.
• Can we all agree that “Zach Randolph iso’d on Nick Collison” is an offensive strategy that has been proven not to work by several regular seasons and now 13 playoff games? And can we all agree that maybe a coach who was on the sidelines for all of those games should recognize this before those of us whose job it is just to watch the team? Randolph simply shouldn’t be the primary offensive option against the Thunder—they’re too good at limiting him. He should be the release valve, the garbage man down low who bails the Grizzlies out when the play breaks down. When he’s the primary option, he’s never given the space or range of motion to do what he needs to do, and so as much as I love #feed50, it shouldn’t be the primary tactic against OKC.
Eileen Townsend on Memphis’ house gallery scene.
Chris McCoy says the Scarlett Johansson movie Under the Skin is remarkable.
The other day, I looked out my window and saw one of Midtown Memphis’ many giant hawks sitting on my fence. When I got up to go to the window for a closer look, I discovered that the hawk was not alone—there was a squirrel on the fence, too. It was staring at the hawk, frozen in abject terror. The hawk, on the other hand, showed no emotion. It was just going about the business of being a predator, calculating how to best to capture and eat the squirrel. It didn’t care how the squirrel felt about it.
In Under the Skin, Scarlett Johansson plays a hawk, and dozens of average men of Glasgow, Scotland play squirrels. Johansson is an unnamed alien going about her job, which is to use her sex appeal to lure men to a secluded place where they are … well, we’re not really sure what happens to them, but it ain’t good. The process that the — not “victims”, “prey” — are subjected to is even more terrifying because of its incomprehensibility.
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Filmmaker Jonathon Glazer, a former music video director whose excellent 2000 feature debut Sexy Beast could not be more different from Under the Skin, reportedly worked on this film, based on a science fiction novel by Michel Faber, for 9 years, and it shows. Glazer and cinematographer Daniel Landin have created a work that is more visually stunning than most films with 10 times Under the Skin’s budget. Their meticulous compositions, which use every square inch of screen space, are a good reason to see it in a theater. The first half is a battle between dark and light, chaos and order, noise and information. The wordless beginning, in which Johansson takes the identity of a murdered woman, empties out the trick bag to put the viewer in her head, including sound design that strips the information content from human speech, leaving just the meaningless babble that the alien hears. Her lair is simple and featureless, and when humans are brought into it, they look gangly and alien. But when the humans are seen in their own environment, they fit in seamlessly, and it is Johansson, and thus the audience, who is alien.
In Her, Johansson constructed a compelling character just using her voice. Under the Skin is the opposite: She and Glazer construct a compelling, and yet completely alien, character with just her body. Her sparse line deliveries are flat and detached. She — assuming the aliens have sexes like humans — is a lure who knows just enough about sexuality to get the job done. Late in the film, when she attempts actual sexual intercourse, she is baffled by its mechanics. Johansson is of course beautiful, and frequently in a state of undress, but her body is not exercised to perfection like it is when she plays Black Widow in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Prowling the streets of Glasgow, she looks like a normal woman; only we are aware of the horror that lurks underneath. That inversion of the mundane and the exotic is at the heart of this remarkable film’s success.
A week after popular artists from around the world perform at the Beale Street Music Festival, Memphians will have a chance to witness local music sensations at the fourth annual Bristerfest.
Everything from rap, rock, reggae, bluegrass, funk, and other genres will fill the eardrums of attendees during the three-day festival. It will take place May 9th through the 11th at Cooper Walker Place (1015 Cooper St.) in the Cooper-Young District.
Jack Simon, founder of Brister Street Productions and the brains behind Bristerfest, said there would be three stages for the event — two inside of Cooper Walker Place and one in the venue’s parking lot.
“We’ll have activities and entertainment on each stage the entire time,” Simon said. “Maybe you don’t like the band on the outside stage. Well, go inside, and there are two other bands performing.”
The massive line-up of artists performing during the three-day festival includes Dead Soldiers, FreeWorld, Ghost Town Blues Band, Spaceface, Tyke T, Chinese Connection Dub Embassy, Preauxx, and Mason Jar Fireflies.
There will also be a film festival presented by Black Lodge Video, live art, food trucks, local craft beer, yoga, poetry, and more activities throughout the weekend.
Proceeds raised from Bristerfest will benefit GrowMemphis, a local non-profit that creates gardens in urban communities and promotes food sustainability. This will be the third year that donations are made to the organization. Thus far, more than $4,000 has been given to GrowMemphis as a result of Bristerfest.
“For each individual, health is important,” Simon said. “We want to keep that health-conscious attitude rolling through Memphis. With things like the food deserts, it’s great to be able to somehow help that with whatever we can do. It might not solve the problem, but if we can change the lives of a few people, that’s a success.”
Since 2011, more than 1,200 people have attended the diverse, family-friendly event, which brings attention to local and regional talent. And Simon anticipates this year being the biggest festival yet.
“The first year was a backyard party at the Levitt Shell with close friends. It was nine bands, one day,” Simon reminisced. “Since then, we’ve promoted far and wide. It’s good to see it grow. This year will be our first year doing three days, three stages, adding the film festival, and 70-plus performing artists. I’m thankful for the support. If people didn’t care about it and support it, there wouldn’t be a festival.”
A one-day pass for the event is $15. A three-day pass is $35. To find out more information about the festival and/or purchase tickets, visit bristerfest.com
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When Paul O’Neal was thinking about opening a barbecue restaurant he was pretty much fixed on having it in a converted gas station. Then he found out how much that would cost (just consider the expense of removing gas tanks!).
Ultimately, he opened his barbecue restaurant, The Station BBQ, in a converted Bonanza. And he’s really quite pleased with the site — in West Memphis, near where I-40 and I-55 split. It’s next to a McDonald’s, too, which is a-okay with O’Neal.
“We’re at the crossroads of America,” O’Neal says, noting the tens of thousands of cars and trucks that go through there each day. As for McDonald’s being a neighbor, he says he benefits from the chain’s overflow.
O’Neal’s partner in the business, which opened in late January, is Anthony “AC” Collins, whose BBQ bloodline traces to Corky’s.
The men spent two years perfecting their approach to low-and-slow bbq and concocting one sexy beast of a sauce — molasses-thick, not too sweet, with a spicy finish.
The Station BBQ offers no sauce on the table. For their wet ribs and sandwiches, they ladle it warm over the pork. The sandwich comes on Texas toast. O’Neal says you’ve got about 8 minutes to eat it before it comes apart.
The menu also features dry ribs, bbq bologna, a wedge salad, tamales and chili, catfish, bbq spaghetti, and a dessert called Ken’s Oreo Balls that involves deep-frying and ice cream.
The 4,000-square-foot restaurant seats about 190, and there’s a party room.
“Let me tell you about West Memphis,” says O’Neal, describing an event that convinced him that opening The Station BBQ was going to be a good idea. It was THE event of year— a super swanky wedding. The governor of Arkansas was there.
“Guess who did the food? Corky’s!” O’Neal says.
“People like their bbq, their beans, their slaws.”
