Raiford’s Hollywood Disco is being transformed into a restaurant space.
The inside is being totally gutted. Three levels of ceilings have been removed. Sheetrock walls have been removed to unveil windows that have then been replaced.
The plumbing will be replaced and the patio will be enclosed.
The project is set to be finished by February and the property is being leased by Loeb.
Lil Durk plays the New Daisy this Sunday.
Good afternoon and wlecome to the 88th edition of my Weekend Roundup. Saturday is the real winner this weekend, with plenty of shows worth checking out from many different types of artists.
Sunday also sees Maxwell and Mary J Blige coming to the FedEx Forum, which is no doubt going to be a great show. From garage rock to modern R&B, here is everywhere you need to be this weekend.
Friday, November 18th.
An Evening with George Winston, 8 p.m. at the Germantown Performing Arts Centre, prices vary.
Weekend Roundup 88: George Winston, Broncho, Maxwell
Jack Oblivian and The Sheiks, 10 p.m. at Bar DKDC, $7.
Weekend Roundup 88: George Winston, Broncho, Maxwell (2)
Memphis Funk-N-Horns, 10 p.m. at Lafayette’s Music Room.
Weekend Roundup 88: George Winston, Broncho, Maxwell (3)
Saturday, November 19th.
Least of These, Bradley Hathaway, You the Few, 9 p.m. at the Hi-Tone, $7.
Broncho, China Gate, 9 p.m. at the Hi-Tone, $10.
Weekend Roundup 88: George Winston, Broncho, Maxwell (4)
Ransom, 9 p.m. at Murphy’s, $5.
Sharp Balloons, Devinn’s Birthday Party, 10 p.m. at Bar DKDC, $7.
Weekend Roundup 88: George Winston, Broncho, Maxwell (5)
Graham Winchester, 10 p.m. at Lafayette’s Music Room.
Daisyland featuring Grand Theft, 10:30 p.m. at the New Daisy, $10-$20.
Sunday, November 20th.
Maxwell and Mary J. Blige, 7 p.m. at the FedEx Forum, prices vary.
Weekend Roundup 88: George Winston, Broncho, Maxwell (6)
Lil Durk, 8 p.m. at the New Daisy, $15.
Weekend Roundup 88: George Winston, Broncho, Maxwell (7)
Marcella and her Lovers, 8 p.m. at Lafayette’s Music Room.
Toby Sells
Just City executive director Josh Spickler speaks during a news conference on the steps of the Shelby County Courthouse.
Inmates are being lost in the Shelby County Jail system, those who have gotten bonds aren’t being released, inmates are sleeping on the floors, and the entire system is in “disarray,” according to an organization that sued jail officials Thursday to fix the problems.
Officials have been installing new computer systems for the jail and the court system for the last two weeks. In that time, the jail population has climbed as the confusion caused by the switch-over has led to longer and unjust stays, according to Josh Spickler, executive director of Just City, a criminal justice advocacy reform organization.
Spickler said while a 3-4 day transition would have been expected, two weeks is “unacceptable.”
Just City joined a class action lawsuit against Shelby County Sheriff Bill Oldham Thursday seeking damages of $10 million for those locked up in the jail for “unreasonable periods of time.”
“This not just about money,” Spickler said. “This is about people who are trying to get to to work. It’s about people who had jobs and now they don’t have jobs. It’s about children who had no way to school the next day because the court computer system malfunctioned and their mom didn’t come how for four days.
“Unfortunately, in a lawsuit you have to talk about money but really we want this problem fixed.”
Spickler said he expect the class action suit to grow to include likely hundreds of people. No solid timeline for the suit yet exists, he said.
courtesy of MATA
The Memphis Area Transit Authority will form an advisory committee to provide feedback and improve transit planning, service delivery, and operations.
MATA is looking for eleven candidates to fill out a committee that will meet at least four times a year. Once selected, every member will serve 12 months with the opportunity to reapply for up to five terms. Those interested have until December 2 to submit an application.
“As a volunteer advisory group the committee will be the eyes and ears of the MATA transit system, making recommendations to MATA staff for solutions to problems that are identified and acting as a sounding board for policies and plans,” a statement on MATA’s website read.
[pullquote-1]The Transit Advisory Committee will represent Memphians both demographically and geographically, selecting members from various communities. MATA has explicit interest in senior citizens, paratransit and fixed route users, college students and teenagers ages 15-18, people with disabilities, employers, schools and universities, transit advocacy groups, neighborhood and civic associations, those with limited english proficiency and those in immigrant communities.
Interested candidates must review the MTAC by-laws before applying. Applications may be submitted by mail or in person at any of MATA’s three main transit centers. An electronic application can be submitted by email to MTAC@matatransit.com. Questions can be answered at 901-333-3707.
Isn’t it just like Dollar Tree and Save-A-Lot to take the last cookie in the jar without even asking if it’s okay? Judging by this CA headline, these bargain shops are up to their old pie thieving ways again. Only they’re not. Binghamton is a food DESERT, and these stores will improve the area’s lack of access to groceries. 
Your pesky Fly on the Wall lives in a glass house. Typos and misspellings happen more and more in the fast paced world of online journalism. Some of them are just funnier than others.
This week on the show, Kevin and Phil talk about:
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Arrival is unlike any other film you will see this year, and to understand why that is, you need to learn about the man who is one of, if not the, best science fiction writers working today: Ted Chiang.
Chiang’s day job is as a technical writer. He has degrees in both computer science and creative writing. Although he has been active for twenty years now, he has never written a full-length novel, only fifteen short stories and novellas. But out of those fifteen works, all of them save one have been nominated for science fiction’s highest awards, the Nebula and the Hugo, and he has won eight times. (The only story that was not up for a Hugo was 2003’s “Liking What You See: A Documentary”, and that was because he refused the nomination, claiming editorial pressure had compromised the piece.) His 2010 story “The Lifecycle of Software Objects” has been a big inspiration for my own writing.
When I heard director Denis Villeneuve was adapting Chiang’s “Story Of Your Life”, I was of two minds. First, the 56-page novella is a masterpiece, combining a first contact story with an exploration into the natures of consciousness and time. The French-Canadian director’s drug war saga Sicario was one of the films that made 2015 a banner year, and he’s signed up for the Blade Runner reboot, so we’ll get a preview of how he can handle sci fi.
On the other hand, I had deep concerns that “Story of Your Life” would be unfilmable. Hitchcock said mediocre books make the best films, and Chiang is the opposite of mediocre. The story follows Louise Banks (Amy Adams), a gifted linguist who is tasked with trying to talk to the occupants of one of the twelve mysterious, giant spacecraft that appear over seemingly random places across the Earth one fall day in the near future. This is no small task. The pair of aliens, dubbed heptapods because they look like seven-legged squid, have nothing that resembles human writing, and their speech sounds like sperm whales playing with a sub woofer. Unlike, say, Star Trek aliens, these creatures are truly alien. And yet, they came all this way to visit us. Louise’s job is to ask them “What is your purpose on the Earth?”, and then translate their answer. But just to get to the asking part of the program is a seemingly impossible task, since the aliens communicate mostly using bursts of ink they expel from their bodies.
You can see the problems inherent in this adaptation. This is a story that revolves around concepts like the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and concepts of time that emerge from quantum theory, and you zoned out just reading those words. Indeed, bewildered boredom is an entirely understandable reaction to Arrival. But so is awe and wonder. In my opinion, Villeneuve has accomplished what I thought impossible. Arrival stays true to the revelatory spirit of “Story of Your Life” while excising some of the story’s more difficult concepts (Chiang regularly spices up his narrative with diagrams) and adding a dash of Hollywood razzmatazz. The camera work by Bradford Young is not the equal of Roger Deakins’ masterful lensing in Sicario, but the images are frequently gorgeous. The ever versatile Adams gives a restrained performance as a lonely linguist under unimaginable stress who becomes haunted by dreams and visions as she gets closer to the truth of the aliens’ purpose.
Balancing the head and the heart in a sci fi movie is the ultimate challenge for a director. How do you capture the mind-expanding possibilities of the “literature of ideas” while injecting the all-important emotional ups and downs into the mix? Botching the mix is what kept Interstellar from truly taking off, but Villeneuve succeeds where Christopher Nolan failed, thanks to Chiang’s heart-rending subplot, which I won’t reveal too much of here except to say it’s the key to Arrival’s ultimate revelation. Keep in mind going in that this is not an M. Night Shyamalan puzzle movie, or a whodunit. It’s purpose is to use aliens to get you to think deeply about how language and time shapes the human experience.
Arrival
If the foodie faithful were to track the history of the culinary scene in Memphis, they could almost date the chronology BE and AE, or “Before Erling” and “After Erling.”
Born in Denmark 59 years ago, Erling Jensen made his Memphis debut in 1989 after answering a New York Times ad for a job at a French-traditional restaurant named La Tourelle. Legend has it Memphis restaurateur Glenn Hays, who could also serve as a criterion for Memphis gastronomes, hired him over the phone.
Jensen, who graduated from Tech College Aalborg in Denmark with a culinary degree, took the venerable eatery to new heights, garnering awards and recognition over his seven-year tenure at the turreted house on Monroe.
In 1996, he ventured out on his own to open his eponymous eatery on Yates, with the vision of keeping it real, quite literally.
“My vision has always been to stay within my European background — no cutting corners,” Jensen says.
That means making all his sauces from scratch as well as his veal and fish stocks.
That does not mean staying within any status quo.
“My influences come from everywhere,” he says. “I’m all over the map. I do some Asian things, new American. There’s a lot of good stuff coming up now.”
It all seems to have worked for the venerated chef. Erling Jensen: The Restaurant has made frequent appearances as “Best Restaurant” on various Memphis polls year in and year out.
Some dishes have come and gone, and some have become a Jensen tradition.
His rack of lamb has been synonymous with the Jensen name since his days in Midtown. The pasta with shrimp and scallops, his crab cakes, and his Dover sole are institutions.
Most recently his bison burgers have made their way on to the list of reliables.
The foodie faithful might just be wondering what’s next for the Memphis darling?
A celebratory 20-year anniversary dinner, anyone?
Starting Thursday, November 17th through Saturday, the 19th, Jensen will offer a special five-course dinner.
The three days are sold out, but Jensen is considering adding a Sunday dinner if enough interest warrants the move.
On the menu for those nights:
Scallops with saffron vanilla sauce, Scottish pheasant breast with lingonberries, roasted lamb loin en croute with lobster glacé, and bison ribeye with foie gras and a demi glacé.
The fact that it ends with his chocolate soufflé deserves its own paragraph.
Each course is paired with wine.
In the meantime, his energy is contagious.
In addition to running a longstanding landing-place, where he can be found every other day and where he designs weekly menus, he’s at nearly every restaurant event in Memphis, and he has a 3-year-old little boy, Blake, to look after as well as a new wife.
“I would say everything’s been going pretty good,” Jensen says. “It’s had its ups and downs, like everything, like life.
“I try not to rest on any laurels. All the restaurants we have now. It’s crazy. It’s good. You have to be on your toes. You have to be on your toes every day.”
Hell yes. You can tell by the majestic bird’s sly smile and smoldering bedroom eyes.
Sophomoric? Sure. But sometimes things just hit you funny.
If you only see one one-man Hamlet this season, make it One Ham Manlet. It’s a joy for Shakespeare lovers, but also a fantastic entry point for skeptics, who think they should know a little something about the celebrated tragedy, but can’t bring themselves to commit to the full four-hour show.
At 90-minutes Ryan Kathman’s Manlet isn’t an enormous time investment, and will leave many theater lovers wanting more. That’s pretty much the definition of success.
Kathman, who developed, and stars in this solo tour de force had me from the show’s opening when he… Dammit!
To say what he did would give it away and spoil the fun. This makes it difficult to talk about without letting a lot of cats out of their respective bags. So instead of getting too deep into it, I’m going to link back to this preview. It tells you just about everything you need to know about a funny, thoughtful, loving and somewhat irreverent take on the original man in black.
Good theatre of any kind results from good problem solving. Few things present more problems than doing Hamlet on a relative shoestring with a cast of one. One Ham Manlet‘s a solid primer in how to make theater theatrical, and take advantage of commercial theater’s most underrated tools — audience imagination.
I’d see this one again, if I could.