Month: September 2016

Categories
Music Music Blog

Good Talk at the Hi-Tone

Good Talk.

Austin, Texas indie rockers Good Talk hit the Hi-Tone tonight for a show with Ugly Girls, Small, and The Margins. Influenced by ’90s legends DInosaur Jr. and Built to Spill, Good Talk self-released their debut album earlier this summer and are now taking their talents on the road.

Joining Good Talk are locals Small, Ugly Girls, and The Margins. Check out music from all the bands playing below, and get to the HI-Tone tonight with $7 in your hand. The show goes down in the small room. 

Good Talk at the Hi-Tone

Good Talk at the Hi-Tone (2)

Good Talk at the Hi-Tone (3)

Good Talk at the Hi-Tone (4)

Categories
News News Blog

Shelby County Commission Wants to Study New Rules for Drilling Wells into Aquifer

TVA is replacing the Allen coal plant (above) with a new gas plant, and they’re looking at drilling wells into the Memphis Sand aquifer to cool that new plant.

The Shelby County Health Department has already issued three permits to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to drill wells into the Memphis Sand aquifer to access cooling water for its new gas-powered Allen Combined Cycle plant.

Two more permits for wells are being considered, but at a Shelby County Commission committee meeting on Wednesday morning, Commissioner Steve Basar asked the Health Department not to issue those permits without coming to the commission first. Basar and Commissioner Heidi Shafer also recommended the formation of a committee that would look at updating the codes for drilling wells into the aquifer — the source of the region’s drinking water.

“What was acceptable 10 to 20 years ago may not be acceptable now. We need to evolve and move on and change the way we’re doing things,” Basar said.

At that meeting, Bob Rogers, manager of the Health Department’s pollution control program, told the commission that current codes say that if a company or resident wants to drill a well and has the proper design and installation plan, the department generally issues a permit. He said there are some restrictions, including a restriction on water use for non-circulating systems, meaning the water is used and discarded.

At issue are the permits TVA has requested to drill into the Memphis Sand aquifer for up to 3.5 million gallons of water per day to cool the new, under-construction gas plant. In 2014, when the TVA approved plans for the Allen Combined Cycle gas plant that will replace the Allen Fossil coal plant in 2018, they said they’d be using wastewater from the nearby Maxson Wastewater Treatment Plant for its cooling water system.

But those plans have turned out to be too expensive, according to a report from TVA, since using wastewater would first require treatment due to pollutants in that water. The TVA looked a few alternatives  — either drilling five wells into the aquifer and pulling water directly from the ground, purchasing potable water from Memphis Light, Gas, & Water (MLGW), or some combination of the two. If potable water is purchased from MLGW, that water would come from both the Memphis Sands and the Fort Pillow aquifers, but the TVA environmental assessment report says MLGW cannot sell the TVA enough water to meet peak demand.

The TVA published a supplemental report on those proposals in April, but the entity did not seek public comment. That’s not required by law, but TVA did seek comments for its original report detailing the options for switching from a coal plant to a gas plant.

Scott Banbury, conservation program coordinator for the Tennessee Sierra Club, spoke at the county commission meeting, and he said those new codes should include public notice for drilling permits. 

At a Sierra Club-hosted panel discussion on the issue in August, MLGW President Jerry Collins told the crowd that if TVA had to take water from the aquifer, he’d prefer the entity buy potable water from MLGW rather than pump directly. Either way, it comes out of the aquifer, but Collins said a purchase from MLGW would allow for more oversight.

“That would keep your rates low, and we could monitor how much they’re using. Also, we take out the iron and add phosphate, which makes it much less corrosive,” Collins said at that panel meeting. 

At the Shelby County Commission committee on Wednesday, Tyler Zerwekh, administrator of environmental health services for the Health Department, revealed that the department has issued 25 well permits in the past 12 months, and that includes wells for residential and industrial use. In total, there are 841 quasi-public wells (meaning at least some of the water is for public use) in 641 locations. That does not include wells for residential use.

Categories
Blurb Books

Memphis Reads hosts discussions and screenings, and welcomes author Jesmyn Ward

I’ve written quite a bit about the upcoming Mid-South Book Festival in this space and in the print edition of the Flyer, but I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention the events surrounding Memphis Reads. The program touting itself as “the city’s largest book club” this year chose Salvage the Bones by award-winning author Jesmyn Ward.

Jesmyn Ward

 

Memphis Reads, with its first event of 2016 on Monday, Sept. 12th, comes on the heels of the Book Festival, which has its last event the day before. Now, I don’t understand the politics and inner workings of promoting reading and literacy, but it seems to me that the organizations in charge of these two book-loving affairs should get together — maybe have a little affair of their own — because the Book Festival is timed perfectly to be the opening event to a month-long celebration of books, reading, and literacy. Bringing nationally regarded authors into town to speak with school-age kids and would-be writers only ensures that future generations will make reading and education a priority. The sheer marketing power behind presenting organizations and sponsors such as Literacy Mid-South, Christian Brothers University, the Memphis Public Library system, Rhodes College, MLGW, Hilton, the National Civil Rights Museum, and Shelby County Schools, among many, many others could ramp city-wide reading up to a whole new level.

 

But I digress.

 

Christian Brothers University associate professor, and the planner of Memphis Reads, Karen Golightly, said, “We hope to break down the physical and metaphoric walls that exist between Memphians by giving them a common reading experience. Through the events scheduled in September, attendees can learn about the issues addressed in the book through art exhibits, documentaries, films, panel discussions, and author/expert talks. The point is to find a way in which Memphians can participate in different aspects and viewpoints of the issues at hand, in order to build community one book at a time.”

 

Jesmyn Ward grew up in DeLisle, Mississippi. She received her MFA from the University of Michigan, where she won five Hopwood awards for essays, drama, and fiction. A Stegner Fellow at Stanford, from 2008-2010, she has been named the 2010-11 Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi. Her debut novel, Where the Line Bleeds, was an Essence magazine Book Club selection, a Black Caucus of the ALA Honor Award recipient, and a finalist for both the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award.

 

From Salvage the Bones: “A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch’s father is growing concerned. A hard drinker, largely absent, he doesn’t show concern for much else. Esch and her three brothers are stocking food, but there isn’t much to save. Lately, Esch can’t keep down what food she gets; she’s fourteen and pregnant. Her brother Skeetah is sneaking scraps for his prized pitbull’s new litter, dying one by one in the dirt. Meanwhile, brothers Randall and Junior try to stake their claim in a family long on child’s play and short on parenting.

 

“As the 12 days that make up the novel’s framework yield to their dramatic conclusion, this unforgettable family—motherless children sacrificing for one another as they can, protecting and nurturing where love is scarce—pulls itself up to face another day. A big-hearted novel about familial love and community against all odds, and a wrenching look at the lonesome, brutal, and restrictive realities of rural poverty, Salvage the Bones is muscled with poetry, revelatory, and real.”

Memphis Reads 2016 events:

 

Purchased Lives: New Orleans and the Domestic Slave Trade, 1808 – 1865

National Civil Rights Museum (State of Tennessee Gallery)

September 12 – mid-November 2016 (Free with museum admission; Tennessee residents may enter free of charge on Mondays after 3 p.m.)

 

Screening: Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke (Parts 1 – 2)

University of Memphis (304 University Center, Bluff Room)

Thursday, Sept. 15th

5:30 p.m. reception, 6 p.m. film screening (Free and open to the public)

 

Screening: Beasts of the Southern Wild

Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library (3030 Poplar Avenue, meeting room C)

Monday, Sept. 19th

5:30 p.m. reception, 6 p.m. film screening (Free and open to the public)

 

Panel Discussion: My Whole City Underwater – Race, Trauma, and Surviving Katrina

University of Memphis (342 University Center, Shelby Room)

Thursday, Sept. 22th

5:30 p.m. reception, 6 p.m. discussion (Free and open to the public)

 

Jesmyn Ward discussion and book signing

Christian Brothers University (650 East Parkway South, CBU Theatre)

Wednesday, Sept. 28th, 7 p.m. (Free and open to the public)

 

Q & A with Jesmyn Ward and book signing

Rhodes College (2000 North Parkway, Bryan Campus Life Center)

Thursday, Sept. 29th, 6 p.m. (Free and open to the public)

 

Great Conversations with Rhodes Professor Ernest Gibson

Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library (Memphis Room, 4th floor)

Thursday, Oct. 4th, 5:30 p.m. (Free and open to the public)

 

For more on Memphis Reads, visit memphisreadsbook.org.

 

Categories
Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Filmmaker Augusta Palmer Talks The Blues Society at Crosstown Arts

Augusta Palmer

Filmmaker Augusta Palmer will discuss her new documentary The Blues Society at Crosstown Arts on Wednesday, September 7. 

The Rhodes College graduate and current Assistant Professor of Communication Arts at St. Francis College in Brooklyn, New York will screen her 2015 short film “A is for Aye Aye: An Abcderiean Adventure”, and talk about her varied career, which has included both narrative fiction and documentary films, as well as works for children. The Blues Society is a documentary chronicling the history and impact of the Memphis Country Blues Festival, which ran from 1966 to 1969 and was responsible for bringing blues music to a wider audience.  

Palmer’s appearance is the second event in a new speaker series presented by the group formerly known as Film Fatales Memphis. The organization is severing ties with the New York-based Film Fatales, changing their name to Memphis Women in Film, and widening their mission to promote a greater role for women in all aspects of the filmmaking art and business  The series is co-sponsored by Indie Memphis and Crosstown Arts. The evening will begin with a meet and greet at 6:30, followed by the presentation at 7 PM. 

Categories
Blurb Books

Author Jacqueline Woodson is coming to story booth

Listen up, readers, there is a lot going on this weekend with the Mid-South Book Festival. It kicks off Wednesday with the Literacy Summit, but Thursday night is the first literary event with a reading and signing by acclaimed author Jacqueline Woodson at story booth.

 

Woodson, known and celebrated as a young adult writer, has just released her first work for an adult audience, Another Brooklyn (Amistad).

 

Another Brooklyn is a short but complex story that arises from simmering grief. It lulls across the pages like a mournful whisper. “For a long time, my mother wasn’t dead yet,” the narrator begins, which perfectly conveys the novel’s suspended sorrow. Now an anthropologist who studies the way different cultures honor their dead, August is an adult looking back at her adolescence in the 1970s. She came to Brooklyn with her younger brother two decades earlier when their father hoped they could all start a new life away from the tragedies that shattered their family back in Tennessee.

But August and her brother aren’t so much renewed as arrested in this alien, dangerous place. Unable to acknowledge her mother’s death, young August pines for her return while staring out the window, month after month. “If someone had asked, Are you lonely? I would have said, No,” August says. “I would have pointed to my brother and said, He’s here. I would have lied even as the empty street on rainy afternoons threatened to swallow me whole.”

 

The signing is presented by The Booksellers at Laurelwood and Nicole Yasinsky, marketing manager for Booksellers, was recently quoted about the novel for a story in Bookselling This Week from the American Booksellers Association, which chose it as last August’s “Next List” pick.

 

“Effortlessly weaving poetic prose, Woodson tells the story of the relationships young women form, their yearning to belong, and the bonds that are created — and broken,” said Yasinsky. “Brooklyn itself is a vivid character in this tale — a place at first harsh, but one that becomes home and plays a role in each character’s future.”

 

Author Ann Patchet has said, “Another Brooklyn is a sort of fever dream, containing both the hard truths of life and the gentle beauty of memory. The story of a young girl trying to find herself in the midst of so many conflicting and desires swallowed me whole. Jacqueline Woodson has such an original vision, such a singular voice. I loved this book.”

 

Woodson is the bestselling author of more than two dozen award-winning books for young adults, middle graders, and children, including the New York Times bestselling memoir Brown Girl Dreaming, which won the 2014 National Book Award, the Coretta Scott King Award, a Newbery Honor Award, an NAACP Image Award, and the Sibert Honor Award. Woodson was recently named the Young People’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation.

 

Jacqueline Woodson

story booth at Crosstown Arts

438 N. Cleveland

Thursday, September 8th

6 p.m.

crosstownarts.org

midsouthbookfest.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
News News Blog

Council Eyes Stricter Panhandling Law

Panhandling has become “extremely disturbing and disruptive” to the people and businesses in Memphis, according to a new proposal, so Memphis City Council members want to crack down on “begging.”

Memphis already has panhandling rules in place as well as rules on “aggressive panhandling.” A new proposal by council member Phillip Spinosa would make panhandling illegal during more of the day and in more places, and make its fines higher.

Spinosa formally introduced his ordinance on panhandling to the council Tuesday. He said the proposal was “designed around public safety,” noting that he hoped the ordinance would, among other things, stop panhandlers from walking into traffic at intersections to ask for money.

The ordinance would expand the hours panhandling is illegal “two hours on the front end and two hours on the back end,” as said by Memphis Police Department director Michael Rallings. If Spinosa’s proposals were passed, panhandling would be illegal from 5 p.m. to 10 a.m.

The ordinance adds to an already long list of places where panhandling is a misdemeanor offense. The rule already includes entries to health care facilities, banks, parking lot pay boxes, pay telephones, and more. The proposal would add intersections with traffic signal, overpasses, railroad crossing, crosswalks, and more.

Rawlings said he supports Spinosa’s proposal and was glad the issue is on the table. He said hopes to continue the weeks-long debate that might end in a new panhandling law for the city.

As it stands, Rallings said the $50 ticket pandhandlers get now aren’t seen as a big deal and they let them stack up.

Council member Berlin Boyd, who called panhandling “begging,” said he’d prefer to address poverty, what he said was the underlying cause of panhandling, “so we wouldn’t have to have so many of these micro-type ordinances.”

The statement garnered gentle ribbing from council member Worth Morgan who said if the council could pass a law to get rid of poverty, “let’s pass it.”

The council’s Public Safety & Homeland Security Council sent the ordinance (with a positive recommendation) to the full council. It will get its first full-council vote in two weeks.

Categories
Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Music Video Monday on Tuesday: The Conspiracy Theory

It’s Music Video Tuesday. Trust no one. 

Thanks to the Labor Day holiday, we’re celebrating this week’s Music Video Monday on Tuesday. Jump through the looking glass with The Conspiracy Theory, a trio of Illuminated rockers who are here to tell you the hard, shocking truth that lurks behind the consensual hallucination. With their song “The Serpent Kings”, the Theory point the cardboard guitar firmly at the culprits for all of the world’s ills: The alien reptiles running things. How did these Memphis rockers pull back to the veil of lies? Who knows, but their music video is lots of fun. 

Music Video Monday on Tuesday: The Conspiracy Theory

If you dare to have your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com

Categories
News News Blog

Group Wants Tax Deal to Spur Growth Around University

CREDIT: University Neighborhood Development Corp.

University Neighborhood Development Corp.

An artist’s rendering of new streetscapes around the U of M.

A local group wants to continue the red-hot development scene around the University of Memphis (U of M) with a tax deal that could bring $83 million to the area in the next 20 years.

The University Neighborhood Development Corp. (UNDC) told Memphis City Council members Tuesday that it hopes to create a Tax Increment Finance (TIF) district around the area. The move would allow portions of state taxes collected there to be funneled back to the area, instead of going to the state. TIFs are primarily used in Tennessee to support large projects like Bass Pro Shops at the Pyramid, conference centers, and more.

Officials from the UNDC said Tuesday they hope to use the future funds for infrastructure projects to make the area more attractive to students and developers. U of M president David Rudd told council members Tuesday, “I don’t know there is a more important investment than this one.”

“It is critical for us to improve the livability and walkability and the overall safety in that region to improve the residential environment at the U of M,” Rudd said.

[pullquote-1]The university’s growth rate jumped this year for the first time in seven years, Rudd said, up 3 percent. On top of that, Rudd said this year’s freshman class is 30 percent bigger than last year’s class, making it a “record freshman class.”

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland sat in with UNDC members during the council review of the project Tuesday. He said the success of the university has flowed onto Highland, between Southern and Poplar at least.

“What this does is takes that success, the increase in property taxes…and let’s us expand that success all the way to Park,” Strickland said. “If you go to south across the train tracks to Park, we’re not seeing that same success. It needs a shot of adrenaline, too.”

Council member Berlin Boyd like the proposal, too.

“I think this is awesome,” Boyd said.

The plan must first get approval from the Economic Development Growth Engine’s (EDGE) Industrial Development Board. If approved, it would need votes from the council and the Shelby County Commission before UNDC official could take the plan to Nashville for state approval.

Click the link below to see UNDC’s presentation it gave to the council Tuesday.

[pdf-1]

Categories
News News Blog

DA: Marijuana Simple Possession is Small, Falling Charge

Charges of simple possession of marijuana have been falling in Memphis over the last three years, according to Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich who said those cases are a very small piece of her office’s workload.

The statements came as loosening city marijuana charges got another hearing Tuesday by the Memphis City Council, Memphis Police Department (MPD) director Michael Rallings, and Weirich.

An ordinance before the council now would allow MPD officers to charge those found with a half ounce or less of marijuana with a $50 fine, instead of a state-ordered misdemeanor. The proposal may get its first vote by the full council Tuesday afternoon. 

“The number keeps going down every year and in the most recent number, there won’t even be [a simple possession charge] a day,” Weirich said, noting that no one would even be charged — much less arrested on a possession charge — on some days. “”It’s a very small piece of the docket and the cases we handle on a daily basis.”

Weirich said the figure was 512 in 2013, 472 in 2014, and 333 last year. 

Council member Berlin Boyd brought the ordinance to the council two weeks ago and he made some tweaks to it since then. The latest version of the ordinance was published Tuesday.

Here are some of the biggest takeaways form the proposed rule:

• The council does not support or encourage the use of marijuana or any other controlled substance.

• One-half ounce = 14.175 grams

• It will be illegal for anyone to (with intent for marijuana use) to possess paraphernalia like bags, canisters, pill bottles, rolling papers, bowls, bongs, bubblers, and roach clips.

• MPD officers can issue a $50 ticket.

• City courts can waive the penalty if the person agrees to community service, up to:
– 10 hours, first offense
– 20 hours, second offense
– 30 hours, third offense
– 40 hours, fourth offense

• MPD will give an annual report on the new law, which will include gender and racial breakdowns of those ticketed, breakdowns of revenues generated form the tickets and from misdemeanor offenses.

Here’s what the law won’t do:

• The law cannot be construed to require any city government agency or any Memphis employer to permit the use, consumption, possession, transfer, transportation, sale or growing of marijuana in the workplace.

• The law would not allow driving under the influence of marijuana.

• The law cannot stop any person, business, or organization that owns property from stopping the possessing, consumption, use, display, transfer, distribution, sale, transportation, or growing or marijuana on or in that property.

Click the link below to see the latest version of the proposal for yourself.


[pdf-1]

Categories
From My Seat Sports

Q & A: Fred Jones on the Southern Heritage Classic

The Southern Heritage Classic has grown into a Mid-South institution, far more than a football series between Tennessee State and Jackson State. This Saturday’s tilt will be the centerpiece in the 27th-annual celebration of these historically black colleges, their alumni, and, not incidentally, a pair of extraordinary marching bands. Founder Fred Jones — president of Summitt Management Corporation — has seen them all.

Fred Jones

Can you share the original inspiration for the Southern Heritage Classic, how exactly the event was created?
It started off with a conversation [I had] with Bill Thomas, the athletic director at Tennessee State [in 1989]. The schools had always wanted to play here. But they knew they could not do it. I told him that if I [organized] it, I needed to change everything about it, going from just a football game and a halftime show to a bigger component, somewhat like the Super Bowl.

In 1989, Tennessee State played Murray State here in Memphis and they had less than 6,000 people at the Liberty Bowl. That same night, the Atlanta Hawks played an exhibition game at the Mid-South Coliseum and they had more people. We had to do something different, change everything about it. We had to give the game some consistency, let people know it was coming every year. Both schools wanted it here in Memphis. They just didn’t have the wherewithal to put the systems in place, create a destination. You had to put all these together. It had to become an entertainment event.

My vision wasn’t shared by very many people in Memphis. The person who helped me the most was the late Dave Swearingen, the marketing director at The Commercial Appeal. I scribbled down the idea and he told me that day, “Fred, if you pull this off, you’ll have the biggest event in town.” That was counter to what other people were saying.

What memories stand out from the inaugural game in 1990? [TSU won, 23-14, in front of 39,579.]
Events around the game are a lot bigger now. That first game, it started to rain 15 or 20 minutes before kickoff. But people were not deterred; no one left their seats. Everybody was determined to be a part of whatever this was about.

There were actually two games that didn’t feature Jackson State. Mississippi Valley State beat TSU in 1991 and Grambling beat TSU in 1993. What were the circumstances?
There were some internal issues with Jackson State at the time. It took me a while to get them to really believe this was a mutually beneficial situation. The game was in Tennessee, although in some circles Memphis is north Mississippi. Administrators had different ideas. The “visiting” team gets mentioned first [with the home team alternating each year]. There were some issues with that. Both schools’ colors are blue and white, but the blues are different shades.

We finally got it right, from 1994 on. People were ready to embrace what we were trying to do. They were never going to get the resources playing a home-and-home in Nashville and Jackson. Back then, the home team would get about $100,000 and the visiting team maybe $50,000. We started with just one sponsor: Coca-Cola. Now, both teams get $325,000. Bill Thomas and [Jackson State coach/AD] W.C. Gorden understood it. The schools have earned, collectively, more than $10 million from the Classic.

The 2001 game — scheduled for the Saturday after the attacks of 9/11 — was postponed to Thanksgiving weekend. That had to be among the most emotional weekends in this series.
That was a trying time for the world. I was going to do an interview at WDIA and I got a call and was asked if I heard about a plane going into the building. While I was talking to that person on the phone, the second plane hit a building. I was on the air when the plane hit the Pentagon. We cut the interview short.

Once the NFL decided they weren’t going to play, the SEC decided they wouldn’t play either. Thursday afternoon, we decided to postpone. The one thing I wanted to really do is find a way to play the game, to keep the continuity. On Friday, we had a conference call with the sponsors. Without the sponsors understanding, it would have been really bad. The Classic parade through Orange Mound was actually held [for the first time] that Thursday. I missed that parade.

We bought 50,000 miniature flags that we planned on having at the game. When we cancelled the game, we went out in the community, stood on corners, and handed out those flags. We just had to figure out what to do, what we were dealing with.

Is there a particular game (or player) that stands out in your memory?
I rarely actually watch the game. There’s always something, always a challenge [on game day]. One of the high points was in 1993, when Grambling came. The stars affiliated with these schools have always embraced the classic. Wilma Rudolph [Tennessee State] was in the fashion show. Doug Williams [a Grambling alum and the first black quarterback to win a Super Bowl] was coaching high school the week of the Classic. He was in the hospital with [an injured] player on Friday, but he drove all night to be at the Classic. From that day on, he has said this is the best place for this game, the best event for black colleges. Doug and Too Tall Jones [a TSU alum] have been big advocates. They were stars and they told people this was something to be involved with.

TSU has won the last four games and 11 of the last 13. Has the series become too one-sided?
Look at the years before that. [Jackson State won six of nine from 1994 through 2002.] People on the Tennessee State side were saying they’d never win. Then Jackson State had a lot of coaching changes. I don’t get into who wins or loses. We just try and make sure everyone has what’s needed for a first-class presentation. At the end of the day, both schools benefit, the city benefits, the alumni benefit.

The event has turned into a full weekend, so much more than a football game. What are your favorite non-football components to the annual celebration?
By far, it’s the parade [now on Saturday]. I was a part of the band at Booker T. Washington High School. We’d march at the Cotton Makers’ Jubilee, down Beale Street. And that was a proud moment. We’d have to weave our way through the crowd. The Classic parade brings back fond memories.