I stopped by the newly open South Main Sushi & Grill to pick up lunch. The menu has pretty limited vegetarian options, so I opted for the Express Lunch deal featuring two sushi rolls and the house salad for $10.
Seen above are the avocado and veggie rolls. The ginger dressing for the side salad is terrific.
Rice bowls and lunch boxes (with salad, sashimi, tempura and fried rice) are also included on the menu.
Below are scans of the take-out menu.
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Cameron
The city’s director of engineering will step down before mayor-elect Jim Strickland takes office on January 1.
John Cameron told Memphis Mayor A C Wharton and Strickland Thursday that he would not seek re-appointment to the post. He will serve in the position until December 31.
Cameron’s is the first announced departure from a major Memphis City Hall post since the October 8 election.
In a prepared statement, Cameron gave no solid reason for his move other than to say, “This is an appropriate time for me to step aside to pursue other opportunities and make room for new leadership within the engineering division.”
Cameron has served the city for the last 18 years.
Recently, he’s:
• Spearheaded a plan to fix (or help fix) the city’s sidewalks.
• Worked to install miles and miles of bike lanes
• Helped plan and execute the nitty-gritty details needed to fix the Pyramid for Bass Pro Shops.
• Oversaw the plan to purchase and install modern, electric parking meters Downtown.
• Executed a special permit parking project for residents around Overton Square.
• Implemented a plan to coordinate many of the city’s traffic signals along major thoroughfares.
• Secured funding for paving projects all over Memphis.
Wharton said he was “grateful for his commitment to this city and wish him well in his future endeavors.”
“It has been an honor to serve as director of engineering and my time spent in that position has been the most interesting and gratifying in my professional career,” Cameron said.
Michael Stevenson
Shelby County Sheriff’s deputy Michael Stevenson, who serves as the school resource officer at Kingsbury High School, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with aggravated assault and domestic violence after a situation with his pregnant wife.
Stevenson’s wife, who is 16 weeks pregnant, told detectives that Stevenson became angry and pushed her against a wall, slammed her onto the bed, and choked her after she woke him up to discuss marital issues.
She called police, and Stevenson was arrested without incident. He’s been relieved of duty without pay pending an internal investigation. Stevenson has been with the sheriff’s office since 2009.
Love the poster.
My big takeaway from New Moon’s production of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus is that James Dale Green might have made a top notch Horror host. You know, like Memphis’ famous Sivad, or Professor Ghoul — the ghastly clowns that tell corny jokes and introduce scary-terrible horror movies on TV. That’s his function in this tonally inconsistent show directed by the usually reliable John Maness. But here’s the thing about theatrical conceits— if they require too much explaining, they’re probably a bad idea. And, although it’s done in the spirit of good fun, this is a plodding, weirdly pedantic approach to the Bard’s infamous contribution to the slasher genre, and it’s all about explaining.
New Moon’s take on Titus begins with the announcement of a terrible plane crash from which there are no survivors. Audience members (the passengers) are welcomed to Hell with the first of many monologues Shakespeare didn’t write. All the players onstage are dead, we’re told, and this performance functions as a kind of “welcome to the afterlife” for sinners. Adding creepiness to the concept, those killed on stage will actually die (again!). It’s a broad, hoaky device at odds with sincere, graffiti-covered scenic design, but not necessarily the general tone of a play that’s hell-like and grossly exploitative to begin with. Throats, guts, and sundry major arteries are slashed. Hands are cut off before our very eyes. The problem is one of competition (between texts, new and old) and consistency.
The story is this, basically: Roman soldier Titus Andronicus returns home victorious, with Goth royalty as his prisoners. Politics happens, revenge is sought, and truly Gothic horror is inflicted on Titus, who goes a little mad, and gets a little crazy with his own payback. Characters are hacked, defiled, dismembered, baked into pastry, and eaten. This is Drive-In theatre Shakespeare-style, so New Moon’s stylistic choice makes a kind of sense. Maness is also clearly borrowing from a pair of Peters: Brook and Greenaway. The conceit that the characters are portrayed by spirits of the damned calls to mind Brook’s Artaudian Marat/Sade where asylum inmates played heroes and villains of the French Revolution. Having James Dale green hold onto a dusty book, and read all the minor character roles, echoes Prospero’s Books, Greenaway’s take on The Tempest with Sir John Gielgud reading all the roles. (Also, a little of this delightfully silly thing). All of these could be good ideas, if executed with any kind of consistency. But it’s hard to understand why only some characters appear undead, while actors playing larger roles (thankfully) play things completely straight. And from a practical POV, spicing up the stage with some lumbering zombies just makes “enter/exit all” a slower, messier process than it needs to be.
Titus Andronicus, a Foretaste of Hell
Green functions as narrator, commentator, and living Cliff’s Notes, sometimes jumping onto stage to provide insight into Shakespeare’s sources. His interruptions are often literally that, stopping any momentum the actual play might be building dead in its bloody tracks. It’s not the actor’s fault though, he does the best he can with intrusive dialogue that is so ill-considered in some cases, it pulls the whole production over into Ed Wood territory. For example, the first act doesn’t end with a Shakespearean cliffhanger, but with a newly crafted monologue summarizing the half and inviting audiences to enjoy refreshments at intermission.
The real tragedy here is that New Moon attracted a top notch cast, and there’s clearly a decent production of Titus Andronicus trapped inside a bubble of bad decisions trying very hard to escape. Greg Boller, Greg Szatkowski, Steven Brown, Lyric Malkin, Erin Shelton, and Jeramie Simmons all do solid work hinting at this show’s unrecognized potential.
I’m no purist. I’d love to see Titus imagined as a Kung Fu feature, or as a full on rock concert in the spirit 
Greg Boller as Titus Andronicus.
of Alice Cooper or Gwar. I might have even loved to see a tighter, taunter version of what New Moon has done with this underperformed novelty. Still, one should change the name and adjust the authorship of classics sufficiently fucked with. “A Night in Hell with Titus and Tamora” would have altered expectations enough to soften (but not change) my opinion.
Having said all that, if you’re looking for some silly Halloween carnage, but prefer something a bit more cerebral than a haunted house, there are many great parts pulled together in this Frankensteinian take on Titus. The whole is (appropriately, perhaps?) something of an abomination.
LAST WEEK: 6-0
SEASON: 52-13
FRIDAY
East Carolina at UConn
SATURDAY
Tulane at Memphis
USF at Navy
UCF at Cincinnati
Tulsa at SMU
Vanderbilt at Houston
Notre Dame at Temple
Larry Kuzniewski
As you can see, there were a lot of Cleveland jerseys in the paint.
Let’s just get this out of the way: last night was not a fluke loss, not entirely. In the grueling course of an NBA season, there are always going to be nights where it’s just not happening—nights where shots just aren’t falling and nobody seems to be on the same page. Some of that was happening last night, and it certainly didn’t help that it was Cleveland’s second game of the season and the night before they’d lost a close game to the Bulls on a Pau Gasol block of LeBron James.
But “one of those nights” doesn’t cover the whole truth about why the Grizzlies dropped their sold-out home opener 106-76 last night. The Cavaliers exposed some real chinks in the Grizzlies’ armor, and showed some real problems with the way the Grizzlies played basketball on Night 1 of what is supposed to be Yet Another Dark Horse Run At The Title.
For starters: well, the starters. Jeff Green started at the small forward spot, and while the whole team played so badly that there’s no possible way his presence in the starting lineup was responsible for the Grizzlies’ problems last night, it wasn’t helping. The starters came out flat and stayed flat for the whole 7 minutes Green was in the game. When he was finally subbed for Tony Allen after that, things didn’t really get better, but they didn’t get worse, and that was their trajectory before that point.
Let’s not put it all on the feet of the starters, though: the bench was also garbage. (Surprising, I’m sure, that everyone was garbage in a game where the Griz made 4 field goals in the first quarter and lost by 30.) Beno Udrih was dribbling instead of passing, waiting until someone came open for a shot to get the ball out of his hands. (He wasn’t the only one not moving the ball, but as the point guard, those distribution duties fall at his feet.) When Russ Smith finally got into the game at the end, once there was no chance he and Jordan Adams might influence the outcome of the game one way or the other, he wasn’t much better, still holding the ball too much, still not making the right passes, still clogging everything up.
Larry Kuzniewski
🙁
The Grizzlies have a lot of guys who haven’t played together before. Matt Barnes was still atrocious in the offense. Brandan Wright still isn’t used to where he’s going to get the ball, and the rest of the Griz still aren’t sure where he wants them to pass it to him. Tony Allen made a lot of energy plays and defended LeBron pretty successfully and yet managed to just flat-out lose the ball on two (2) different fast break scoring opportunities—one by falling over and losing it out of bounds, and once by swerving out of his way to run into James and draw a foul and getting called for an (obvious) offensive foul instead.
It was not a good night. And Joerger didn’t seem to have a handle on it either. Chris Herrington, who was sitting next to me, remarked at one point that it looked like the Grizzlies were about to be eliminated from the playoffs and he was just throwing random combinations of guys out on the floor trying to find something that worked. Which is a bad sign on opening night of the season when you’ve theoretically been practicing the same plays and actions for a month getting ready for the first game, right?
Instead, there didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to what was happening, although later he’d defend his no point guard Courtney Lee/Jeff Green/Tony Allen/Zach Randolph/Marc Gasol lineup by saying it “gives us more playmakers” and “allows us to move the ball and get the ball into the post without dribbling” (which mostly just read as an indictment of the poor backup PG play, either that or he’s got a really bad idea about how to move the ball that of which last night somehow failed to disabuse him).
Larry Kuzniewski
Tony Allen played very good defense on LeBron, but that wasn’t enough to matter in the outcome of the game.
The cool thing about last night was that even if the Grizzlies hadn’t been playing like a tribute to the Pau Trade Leftovers Grizzlies of 2008, they still would’ve had problems last night. The Cavaliers are one of the teams that can really expose the Grizzlies’ defensive schemes. Kevin Love pulls whichever man is guarding him (and really only Marc Gasol can guard him, but Z-Bo usually has to try) so far away from the paint to the three point line that it opens up a big gap right in the middle of the floor behind him. Randolph has always been a credible-to-decent defender, nothing more, but he’s always struggled to guard floor-stretching 4’s, and as he gets older, that’s only going to get harder for him. When a team can distort the Grizzlies’ defensive scheme like that (and what is LeBron but the ultimate Defensive Scheme Distortion), they’re usually going to win, or at least make things difficult, and that’s exactly what happened.
I wouldn’t be concerned about last night—I’d just write it off as “bad first night against angry Cleveland team”—except (1) the Grizzlies are headed to Indiana tonight, to play on the second night of a back to back against another team who plays small and could potentially cause problems for the defense, and that’s a trend that’s only going to continue to get worse as the league evolves that direction and (2) they can’t afford to have very many bad nights in the first six weeks of the season. Given the West Coast road trip that’s looming, if the Griz don’t take care of business in the next two games against Indiana and Brooklyn, they’re going to have a hole to dig out of if they can manage to go .500 on this road trip.
They’ve got to figure out these issues quickly, because this season, they don’t have time to play themselves into shape. And if last night really was about structural issues and offensive problems as much as it was about “just a bad night,” they’re going to have some catching up to do. Last night was not a good start to the season. But hey, it can only get better from here, right?
A couple weeks ago, I was sitting at the bar in my neighborhood bistro eating a Lyonnaise salad. They use Benton’s smoked bacon in their salad, and it’s delicious. I raved about it to the bartender, and the restaurant owner, who happened to be sitting nearby, overheard me. He told me I could order it online.
I’d had just enough wine to decide that ordering some bacon sounded like something I needed to do. I Googled Benton smoked bacon, found the website, and began trying to order it on my phone. After a couple false starts, I managed to type in my address, phone number, and credit card number. It took a while, I admit, but it was dark in there. I ordered a couple of pounds, or so I thought. Three days later, 12 pounds of bacon showed up in a savory smelling box on my front porch. Oops.
When I went back to the restaurant a week or so later, a cook came out and gave me a five-pound bag of bacon. She said it was from Glen, the owner, because he was pretty sure I’d never gotten through to Benton Farms on my phone that night.
Wrongo, mon ami! Thanks to his generous gesture, I’d pretty much cornered the local market on Benton Smoked Bacon.
A couple days later, the Internet was filled with news of a World Health Organization story that eating bacon and other processed meats increases the risk of cancer. So I got that goin’ for me.
But at least I didn’t steal 50,000 empty Pancho’s Cheese Dip containers, like that schmo over in West Memphis. It’s hard to imagine a more stupid thing to steal. What was he going to do with 50,000 empty plastic cups that say “Pancho’s Cheese Dip”? Sell them in the want ads? How does that work?
For Sale: 50,000 empty Pancho’s dip cups, valued at $70,000. Will take $6.00, OBO.
Less than 24 hours after stealing the cups, the thief returned the booty, claiming it was a “mistake.” No kidding.
And at least I didn’t decide that slow-talkin’ brain surgeon Ben Carson would be the best candidate for president, like Iowa GOP voters did. It’s true. Carson moved into the lead, ahead of Donald Trump, in the Iowa polls, proving that Iowa Republicans are not rocket scientists. Not that they have much to choose from.
All this came on the heels of the 11-hour campaign ad that the GOP House Select Committee on Benghazi gave to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton by ineptly “grilling” her on national television. It got so bad that even Fox News switched over to other programming.
It’s been a tough week for bacon lovers, dumb thieves, and the GOP. But there’s another Republican debate coming up in a couple days, and I can’t wait. I just need to find some cheese dip.
The Domino Recording Company artist Alex G plays the Hi-Tone this Friday night, touring on the release of his brand new album, Beach Music. Giannascoli (or G for short) started out as an Internet sensation, releasing multiple records on Bandcamp before getting attention from music media outlets like Noisey, Stereogum, Pitchfork, and more. While Beach Music might be Alex G’s introduction to a potentially much larger audience, the Philadelphia songwriter has been working on his lo-fi “bedroom pop” since 2010, releasing seven albums and building a solid fan base in the process. Alex G has obviously already proved to have a solid work ethic, and with a label like Domino behind him, this could be your opportunity for bragging rights of the “I saw him when … ” variety.
Joining Alex G on tour is Spencer Radcliffe of the bands Best Witches and Blithe Field. Radcliffe also has a new album out this month, making for the first proper release under his own name. Looking In will be released by Run for Cover Records, the Boston label that brought you Elvis Depressedly, Modern Baseball, and, most notably, the vinyl version of Brand New’s genre-defining album Déjà Entendu. The Memphis show will be the first of Radcliffe’s three gigs with Alex G, and much like Julien Baker (last week’s cover story), Radcliffe’s music is soft, subtle, and easy on the listener. Radcliffe and Giannascoli seem to be perfect for touring with one another, all the way down to their knack for coming up with vague, one-word song titles. Oxford’s Bonus are also on the bill, along with locals Loser Vision. The show takes place in the Hi-Tone small room, and kicks off a stacked weekend for the Crosstown venue.
Greg Cravens
About Toby Sells’ post, “Bill Would Remove Hoover’s Name From FBI Building” …
Politicians should be focused on rewriting the future, not rewriting history.
JR Moody
Hey, who let Congressman Trey Gowdy in here?
Packrat
The name of the building should be changed. This man was a pure racist and shouldn’t be honored in this manner. If it’s history, put it in a book, not on display so an ever-changing world sees hate honored. Kudos to Representative Cohen and all who voted to end this madness.
Time Up
It is a mistake to vilify prominent gay Americans from the time before gay rights became acceptable to the mainstream. J. Edgar Hoover may not have been the most moral character in American history, but we can look back on him as a successful and powerful man who was gay and who demonstrated the falsehood of some things generally believed about gay people in that time, and some things that are said and written in this time.
It’s possible that Steve Cohen, being a straight liberal, doesn’t understand the desire of gay Americans to identify prominent (even if closeted) gay Americans in history.
Brunetto Latini
We vilify Hoover, not because he was closeted and needed to be, but because he did everything in his power to ruin the lives of gay people, closeted or not. Not because he was in the pocket of the Mafia, but because he attempted to derail civil rights for all Americans.
Hoover was a fascist lowlife who just happened to be gay.
Mia S. Kite
About Bruce VanWyngarden’s column, “Curb Alert” …
I got kicked off the Nextdoor.com site. What a bunch of uptight assholes. Absolutely no sense of humor. All I said was, “Dude, nobody wants your broken TV.” The guy was trying to sell a 50-inch broken TV for $250. For that they tossed me.
Mudgirl1
Wow, Mudgirl, I’ve never heard of anyone getting kicked off Nextdoor.com. I’m guessing my neighborhood needs to step up its game. We’re pretty snooty though, and for the most part we don’t have “curb alerts.” We do have the usual complement of paranoid “suspicious” persons alerts.
Back to topic: curb alert for the Ole Miss football season — Bwahahaha!
Jenna Sais Quoi
I am tired of Jeb Bush mouthing the falsehood that his brother kept us safe. Donald Trump has been wrong about so many things, but he is right that George W. Bush failed to keep the U. S. safe. Bush and his administration ignored warnings from the CIA and FBI of possible terrorist attacks before 9/11. He had the CIA report “Bin-Laden Determined to Strike in America” and took no actions to protect us. Not one. With the country and most of the world behind him, Bush could have focused on destroying al-Qaeda completely after 9/11.
Instead, he got us into an unnecessary war in Iraq and allowed al-Qaeda to grow stronger during his terms. Bush did not keep us safe, and Jeb Bush would be wise not to mention his brother’s name.
Philip Williams
About Bruce VanWyngarden’s column, “Memphis Makes a Change” …
Hypocrisy is another word for dishonesty, and liberal is another word for dishonest.
Reading The Memphis Flyer is like traveling to an alternate universe where up is down, especially when the editor decries and is “saddened” when former Mayor Herenton took “cheap shots” at A C Wharton, but mere moments before, took the cheapest of cheap shots at former governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee.
I am no fan of Mike Huckabee, but I am also no fan of the dishonest. You chose to use the word “Christian” as if it were a four-letter word, then had the unmitigated audacity to add “sleazeball?” And you call that being “progressive,” inclusive, open-minded, and tolerant?
You and your liberal rag are the real sleazeballs.
Frank M. Boone
Editor’s Note: The term used to describe Huckabee was “Christianist.”
The faint of heart (and Shakespeare purists) should know on the front end they will witness atrocities. Characters in Titus Andronicus are gutted. Their throats are slit, and the blood is caught in buckets. Heads are severed and held up for all to see. Hands are severed from wrists, and grown men are paraded around the theater in their Skivvies. And, of course, there’s the human sacrifice, the cannibalism, and all that newly written text.
New Moon established itself as the independent theater company that loves Halloween by producing a slate of deliriously dark plays like Look Away (a Civil War zombie drama), The Woman in Black, and Tracy Letts’ deeply unsettling Bug. The ambitious players bolstered their reputation for excellence (and for going places other companies won’t) by staging infrequently produced works by William Shakespeare. Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare’s gore-spattered tragedy of war and revenge, is the perfect marriage of these two worlds. Some might even say that the company has upped Titus‘ gruesome levels by doing to Shakespeare’s script what Friday the 13th‘s Jason does to fornicating teenagers at Crystal Lake.
New Moon’s take on Titus is decidedly conceptual. It begins with an imagined plane crash, and the audience is welcomed to Hell with a monologue Shakespeare didn’t write. All of the players onstage are dead, we’re told, and this performance functions as a kind of “welcome to the afterlife” for sinners. For purists, the threat of never-ending torment may be actual, since new, deliberately spooky narration has been inserted between scenes, lest audiences forget the Halloween conceit or lose their way in a story full of twists and turns.