Month: December 2020

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

A Holiday Cabaret Streams Free from Hattiloo Friday

CREDIT: Facebook/Hattiloo Theatre

Sit down with a cabernet for the cabaret.

Until last week, Hattiloo Theatre’s production of A Holiday Cabaret was only open to patrons and Season 14 and 15 subscribers, presented as a series of six limited-seating shows. The unfortunate consequences of our COVID predicament changed things a bit.

A post from the Hattiloo Theatre Facebook page broke the news: “We planned to perform this musical before a few live patrons over six performances, but because of the increasing number of COVID-19 cases and fatalities, we have canceled all live shows. Still, we are excited to gather virtually and celebrate the season with this perfect blend of holiday music, jokes, and stories.”

Facebook/Hattiloo Theatre

A Holiday Cabaret

The unique Black repertory theater has generously opened this show — for free — to the public. Show some love for the talented performance artists and venue by purchasing a season subscription for when things open back up again. Subscriptions start at only $105.

In the meantime, the show must go on, and in this case it will be a live performance recorded and streamed from the theater’s stage. The production, written by Ekundayo Bandele, founder and CEO of Hattiloo Theatre, is a gathering of four friends for the holidays. The friends will sing traditional carols, tell stories, and share the merriment of the season in a family-friendly atmosphere.

What better way to bring joy to Memphis than celebrating with friends during A Holiday Cabaret.

“A Holiday Cabaret,” online from hattiloo.org, Friday, Dec. 4, 7 p.m., free.

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

901 Comics Hosts P&H Fundraiser Saturday

CREDIT: Facebook/The P&H Cafe

More than babies are born after a few beers at the P&H Cafe. Sometimes two drunk guys mutually consent to the birth of a comic book store.

“I worked at the P&H Cafe for six or seven years,” says Jaime Wright, co-owner of 901 Comics. “Shannon and I conceived 901 Comics on a few bar napkins over more than a few beers.”

Wright’s business partner Shannon Merritt also owns 901 Games with his wife Erin. According to Wright, Merritt opened a lot of doors for him, including a job working with Stan Lee. The P&H Cafe is a very important part of their lives. When they heard the news, they had to help.

Facebook/The P&H Cafe

The secret origins of 901 Comics have their roots in the P&H Cafe.

The P&H GoFundMe page states, “Due to some inconvenient and unforeseen circumstances, the P&H Cafe is unfortunately having to move to a different location.”

The new location is thus far undisclosed; rumor has it that the Crosstown area might be the lucky location to welcome the beloved dive bar. Wherever it moves, it’s going to cost a lot of money. In addition to the GoFundMe, a benefit is planned for this Saturday. Twenty percent of all 901 Comics sales will be donated to the cause. Enter to win a Stan Lee signed comic book, participate in auctions, and enjoy live music at the Cooper-Young Gazebo featuring Switchblade Kid. This is a socially distanced benefit. Cosplay attire is encouraged.

Wear your superhero mask.

A Benefit for the P&H Cafe, 901 Comics, 2162 Young, Saturday, Dec. 5, noon-6 p.m., free.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Party Talk: Partisanship Draws Post-Election Attention

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

The run-up to the statewide election of 2010 may have been, in retrospect, the first time the seismic shift in Tennessee from Democratic to Republican dominance became obvious.

Then-Governor Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, had served for the maximum two terms and was about to vacate the office. The Democratic field that year was full of worthies, as you would expect with an open seat. So was the Republican field.

There had been ample harbingers of the shift to come. In 2007, the venerable John Wilder, a nominal Democrat, had lost his speakership in the state Senate to the GOP’s Ron Ramsey, and a year later, the Republicans had captured a one-vote majority in the House.

Jackson Baker

Zach Wamp

The changeover accelerated during the 2010 governor’s race, as the Democratic candidates, noticing a diminishing lack of enthusiasm for their cause, began dropping out one by one. Memphian Jim Kyle, then-leader of the state Senate Democrats and now a Shelby County Chancellor, commented at the time, “I kept looking for Yellow Dog [committed] Democrats, and kept finding Yellow Dog Republicans.”

The race came down to three Republicans in the end — Ramsey, Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam, and Chattanooga Congressman Zach Wamp.

Haslam, regarded as the more moderate of the three, won, and Wamp, who waged a credible race as an Everyman-styled conservative, finished second. The Chattanoogan’s subsequent political history is, by the standards of Tennessee politics, somewhat unusual. Still regarding himself as a conservative and a Republican, he has been at pains to present himself as a “post-partisan truth-teller.”

Which means that Wamp and his son Weston, who has made efforts to establish a political career of his own, have regarded themselves as free to publicly criticize Donald J. Trump.

Wamp has of late been actively tweeting in favor of acceptance of the presidential election results — an act surely unique enough among Republicans to merit special mention.

A recent Wamp tweet, rebutting the no-surrender Trumpians: “What? Common [c’mon?] guys. Truth matters. Get real. Quit making stuff up and misleading people. Conservatives must stand for truth. #CountryOverParty.”

Another one, directed at current national GOP chair Ronna McDaniel, a vocal defender of the Trump holdout: “I was working my butt off to elect conservatives before you were a grown-up. Today I am ashamed of your service as Chair of the RNC. Time for you and your ilk to go. Truth matters. Your lies hurt our cause.”

And yet another: “The National Council on Election Integrity is spending $2 million on an ad urging a transition. On the board of this org: @GOP like Michael Chertoff, Dan Coats, Bill Frist, @BillHaslam and @zachwamp. Get to Work.”

Meanwhile, as was noted here last week, Tennessee’s outgoing U.S. Senator, Lamar Alexander, is — however circumspectly — advocating for acceptance of the election results and the need for an effective transition. In a recent interview with the Tennessee Journal, Alexander cautioned: “What we have to watch for is that what happened to the one-party Democratic Party doesn’t happen to the one-party Republican Party. … Middle Tennessee was grabbing all the power and leaving East Tennessee and Memphis out. … And now we’ve gone full circle, where we have a one-party system, which again is starting to concentrate power in Middle Tennessee. … We Republicans have to watch out for being self-satisfied, not broad enough in our thinking. We don’t want to develop the flaws the Democratic Party started to develop in the 1960s.”

Meanwhile, the aforesaid Democratic Party will be looking for new leadership as of January, as Mary Mancini, who has headed the state party for the last six years, is stepping down. Potential successors are beginning to emerge, and more of that anon.

Under Mancini’s guidance, Democrats were able to increase the number of competitive races, including several in Shelby County. One of their winners, new District 96 state Representative Torrey Harris, replaced former Rep. John DeBerry, who was disallowed as a Democratic candidate by the state party and forced to run as an independent. DeBerry has been compensated for his pain by receiving a new job — annual pay, $165,000 — as an assistant to GOP Governor Bill Lee. That’s outreach and then some!

Categories
Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Sushi Jimmi Now at Saito 2 in Arlington



Jimmy ‘Sushi Jimmi’ Sinh at Saito 2 Hibachi & Sushi

If you’re wondering where Sushi Jimmi is these days, look in Lakeland. Jimmy “Sushi Jimmi” Sinh now is working at the new Saito 2 Hibachi & Sushi restaurant.

Sinh, who says things didn’t work out at J. T. Fusion, the now defunct restaurant inside La Hacienda in Cordova, happened upon the second location of Saito while driving around Lakeland. “I saw some lights inside. I told myself, ‘Hey, look, I need a job,’” Sinh says. “I just went in there the old school way, which is walk in and ask for a job. And they told me, ‘We are hiring. When can you start?’”

They hired him as a sushi chef. “They were impressed with my work. At first they didn’t know who I was.”

His boss then discovered he was the former owner of the popular Sushi Jimmi’s restaurant, which was on Poplar near the viaduct, Sinh says.

Sinh is impressed with the restaurant.  “It was home to me when I came into work. That kind of vibe reminded me of how we operated at Sushi Jimmi. Treat people well. Whatever needs to be done, we all chip in and we do it together.”

Saito 2, which also has another location, Saito Japanese Hibachi & Sushi at 6600 Stage Road, also features hibachi and sushi, but, Sinh says, “Their rolls are different from mine ‘cause the style is different. They also allow me to make my customers any special they like.”

He describes the decor as “very modern.”

Saito 2 Hibachi & Sushi

Saito 2 Hibachi & Sushi

The new Saito, which currently is holding soft openings, is slated to officially open later in December, Sinh says. “I don’t want to work just anywhere. I want to work where I’m going to be happy. I don’t want to end up leaving in a few months. I wasn’t planning for J. T. Fusion to go down that fast.

“I know people look at me: ‘He’s going this place. He’s going that place.’ To me, if you’re not happy where you work, then you shouldn’t be working there. Of course, that’s a no-brainer question. If you’re not happy where you are, go find  a place that will make you feel happy.

“I took my time. I came in the right place when I came in here.”

Saito 2 Hibachi & Sushi is at 9775 Hwy. 64, Arlington, Tennessee; (901) 590-2561.

Saito 2 Hibachi & Sushi

Categories
We Recommend We Saw You

Alex Paulus Gets Show in French Gallery

‘Just Enjoying Some Alone Time’ by Alex Paulus

Memphis artist Alex Paulus will show his paintings December 9th at Cohle Gallery in Paris.

“I just connected with them through Instagram,” says Paulus, 39. “They asked me to send some images of stuff I had available. I’m represented by three different galleries right now. A lot is promised to those galleries. I sent [Cohle] 10 images and they picked five that they liked.”

‘These Are My Best Friends’ by Alex Paulus

He researched the Paris gallery to make sure it wasn’t a vanity gallery. “I always check ‘cause I get emails from galleries who say they found my stuff on Instagram, and they’ll say I have to pay a yearly fee to have it stuck in a show or something. So, I’m really aware of galleries like that.”

Paulus, who usually contacts artists represented by the gallery to make sure everything is legitimate, says that the work by Cohle Gallery artists is usually “really brightly colored or slightly poppy. I think some of the other artists they represent are street artists. One of them is just called ‘Nasty.’ ‘Monkey Bird’ is another. But then a lot of the others are real names.”

Paulus messaged the gallery and introduced himself. “They said they loved it and would send me an email about a show.”

That was just three weeks ago. He sent them 10 paintings, ranging from one he did in 2015 to one he painted a month ago. “My style has kind of bounced around from the sort of poppy, kind of cartoonish stuff, to a little more surreal,” he says.

The five paintings Cohle Gallery chose “all happened to be similar. Like a color palette or style.”

‘Observing the Useless Collector’ by Alex Paulus

One of his paintings is the whimsical “Just Enjoying Some Alone Time” which — discreetly — shows a man on a toilet. “I just get inspiration from different people. Like my friends or family saying things to me that jump out at me and I’ll put a note on it on my phone. It makes me think of a painting title or some kind of imagery I’ll  be able to put into a painting. Other times I’ll get it from older movies or just weird lines in movies or TV shows that I’m watching.”

Asked where he got the idea for “Just Enjoying Some Alone Time,” Paulus says, “I think it was my brother. He’s got four kids and I think he likes to just go in there and read magazines and look at his phone for a while while to get a little alone time. I think a lot of people do that who have kids.”

 “Fantastic Shot,” which shows the Fantastic Four playing golf, is a new work he sent, Paulus says. “I recently got really obsessed with these Marvel Masterpiece cards, like trading cards, from when I was younger.”

‘Fantastic Shot’ by Alex Paulus

 When the pandemic hit, I thought, “Maybe I could make some goofy Marvel paintings and make my own set of these. I only made five or six. I got burned out pretty quickly.”

A native of Perryville, Missouri, Paulus got his masters in 2009 from Memphis College of Art. He’s recently been working on some new ideas for different series of paintings, but he’s also been doing paintings of houses through realtor Morgan Pippin. “She gives them to her clients as gifts when they close on their house,” he says.

Paulus also teaches classes online at Southwest Tennessee Community College, where he is an assistant professor of fine arts. “I’ve been teaching at home since March. I have three classes that meet Monday, Tuesday, and Friday.  And then I have two fully-online classes, where I email them and they work on stuff at home.”

Asked if he might use the name “Paulus Bunion — which he called himself when he performed as a one-man band 10 years ago — as his Cohle Gallery artist name, Paulus says, “I think I’ll leave that in the music scene.”

Jamie Harmon

Alex Paulus

Categories
Music Music Blog

Julien Baker Resurfaces: Two New Singles Include a Holiday Deep Cut

CREDIT: Alysse Gafkjen

Alysse Gafkjen

Julien Baker

Julien Baker won the hearts of music lovers right out of the gate with the startling intimacy and meticulous craftsmanship of her 2015 debut, Sprained Ankle. Her sophomore album from the following year, Turn Out the Lights, built on that with a somewhat more elaborate sound palette, recorded at Ardent Studios. Since then, her only release has been the 2018 EP by boygenius, a collaborative effort with Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus, and fans have been scanning the skies for any new solo work with great anticipation.

Now the wait is nearly over, with two new videos heralding the release of her third album, Little Oblivions, due out on February 26 via Matador Records. Watch for more coverage of that in these pages soon, but in the meantime, have a look at the video and soak in the sound of her sweet new single.

“Faith Healer” was released in October, and portends a more ambitious approach to production than Turn Out the Lights. While that album filled in her sound more than her debut, it was still rather minimalist, for the most part. Now Baker brings us the sound of a rock band, albeit one still laced with all the introspection of her previous work. Engineered by Calvin Lauber and mixed by Craig Silvey (The National, Florence & the Machine, Arcade Fire), both of whom worked on Turn Out the Lights, the album was recorded here in Memphis between December 2019 and January 2020. Baker’s guitar and piano playing are enhanced with bass, drums, synthesizers, banjo and mandolin. Nearly all of the instruments were played by Baker herself.

Julien Baker Resurfaces: Two New Singles Include a Holiday Deep Cut

Upon the release of “Faith Healer,” the artist released this statement:

Put most simply, I think that ‘Faith Healer’ is a song about vices, both the obvious and the more insidious ways that they show up in the human experience. I started writing this song 2 years ago and it began as a very literal examination of addiction. For awhile, I only had the first verse, which is just a really candid confrontation of the cognitive dissonance a person who struggles with substance abuse can feel— the overwhelming evidence that this substance is harming you, and the counterintuitive but very real craving for the relief it provides. When I revisited the song I started thinking about the parallels between the escapism of substance abuse and the other various means of escapism that had occupied a similar, if less easily identifiable, space in my psyche.

There are so many channels and behaviors that we use to placate discomfort unhealthily which exist outside the formal definition of addiction. I (and so many other people) are willing to believe whomever — a political pundit, a preacher, a drug dealer, an energy healer — when they promise healing, and how that willingness, however genuine, might actually impede healing.

Meanwhile, another release from Baker surfaced right before Thanksgiving. Instead of more material from the upcoming album, this is an unexpected curve ball from an artist known for very personal originals: a seasonal song originally popularized by Perry Como. “A Dreamer’s Holiday,” released as an exclusive “Spotify Single,” reveals the artist returning to the reliable guitar-and-keyboard minimalism of Turn Out the Lights, and she makes the old chestnut very much her own. Anyone who wants to enjoy the yuletide vibe without the ear fatigue of overplayed shoppers’ fare can relish the old-fashioned sweetness and Tin Pan Alley poetry of this gem.

In an amusing aside, the artist tweeted about the experience of learning this song from another era: “Straight up had to get on Ultimate Guitar dot com for the first time in like a decade to figure out how to play this song,” she wrote, adding “when I was in the fourth grade my piano teacher taught me how to make a major 7th [chord] and since then I’ve been coasting off of that to make people believe I play piano better than I actually can.”

Categories
News News Blog

Shelby County Records 11 COVID-19 Deaths in 24 Hours

COVID-19 Memphis
Infogram

Shelby County Records 11 COVID-19 Deaths in 24 Hours

New virus case numbers rose by 609 over the last 24 hours. The new total puts the total of all positive cases in Shelby County since March at 48,714.

Total current active cases of the virus — the number of people known to have COVID-19 in the county — rose to 3,730. The figure peaked just above 2,000 in October. The figure had been as low as 1,299 in September. The new active case count represents 7.7 percent of all cases of the virus reported here since March.

The Shelby County Health Department reported 5,608 have been given in the last 24 hours. Since March 672,453 tests have been given. This figure includes multiple tests given to some people.

The latest weekly positivity rate fell from the last time the figure was reported, the first time the number has dropped in seven weeks. The average rate of positive tests for the week of November 15th was 10.3 percent, lower than the 11.2 percent rate recorded for the week of November 8th. The new weekly average rate is roughly the same as late July.

Shelby-County-area hospitals red-lined yesterday on the number of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds available. The health department reported that only 29 ICU beds were available as of Tuesday morning; 93 percent of all ICU beds in the area were in use. Are hospitals suspended elective surgeries Monday in a move to make more health care facilities available for COVID-19 patients.  

Eleven new deaths were recorded in the last 24 hours and the number now stands at 672. The average age of those who have died in Shelby County is 73, according to the health department. The age of the youngest COVID-19 death was 13. The oldest to die from the virus is now 101 after a recent death.

There are 8,216 contacts in quarantine.