Month: March 2022

Categories
Beyond the Arc Sports

History Made: The Memphis Grizzlies Are the 2022 Southwest Division Champions

The Grizzlies just keep celebrating in this historic season. (Photo cred: Joe Murphy/NBAE via Getty Images)

Damn it feels good to be a Grizzlies fan right now. 

After a hard-fought win against the San Antonio Spurs Wednesday night, the Memphis Grizzlies became Southwest Division champions for the first time in franchise history — and the number-two seed heading into the playoffs. The victory also added a sixth game to the team’s current winning streak.  (Wild how that that seems almost like an afterthought, because that is how good this team has been.)

History Has Its Eyes on Them 

This has been a historic season on several levels. Memphis is on track to win a franchise-record number of games. Nearly every night there is a new franchise record being set for something.

Desmond Bane setting a new single-season record for three-pointers made (219) and is on track to set the franchise single-season record in free throw shooting percentage (.900).

Ja Morant is poised to set a new franchise record in scoring average (27.6 points per game).

Tyus Jones leads the league in assists to turnover ratio for the third consecutive season and has taken the helm as starting point guard while Morant has been sidelined due to injury. The Grizzlies are 19-2 in games Jones starts.

Jaren Jackson Jr is about to surpass Pau Gasol for the team record number of blocks in a single season (169), as well as being the current league leader in blocks and blocks per game (2.3). Jackson Jr. is also in the running for the Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year award, as well as the NBA Sportsmanship Award. He should also be in consideration for the Defensive Player of the Year award.  

Steven Adams has surpassed Zach Randoph as the franchise leader in offensive rebounds in a single season (340) and currently leads the league in offensive rebounds.  

Just to name a few. 

Giving the Grizzlies Their Flowers 

For once, people around the league are taking notice of the special things happening right now in Memphis. ESPN spent a day in the city with a focus on the team and have declared the Grizzlies number-one in their future power rankings. (The Future Power Rankings are ESPN’s projection of the on-court success expected for each team over the next three seasons: 2021-22, 2022-23, and 2023-24.) 

Noted sports journalist and all-around smart guy Bomani Jones devoted a segment to the Memphis Grizzlies in a recent episode of his new show, “Game Theory.” Jones hit on the cultural phenomenon that is this team and how deep their connection is to the city of Memphis.  

Former NBA player and Grizzlies foe Kendrick Perkins has been one of the most outspoken in his support and belief in this team. Yes, THAT Kendrick Perkins.  

It feels good to see people recognizing what Grizzlies fans have already known: There is something special happening here in Hoop City and it transcends performance on the court.  

Memphis Loves the Grizzlies and the Grizzlies Love Memphis 

The players on this team are such great ambassadors for Memphis and the game of basketball — just a group of guys who love the game, love playing together, and love putting on for the city.

The Grizzlies organization does a lot of philanthropy around the city and the players have bought into that as well, partnering with local schools in the Read to Achieve program, Stronger Together Memphis, and the rePRESENT Every Day incentive-based program to help reduce truancy. (As a side note, I’d love to see another recorded message for students in the city, a la Tony Allen in 2015) 

Head coach Taylor Jenkins’ Assists for Education program is in its third season. Jenkins once again pledged to donate $10 per assist throughout the season, with a focus on providing supplies and necessities for students in the Greater Memphis area. Team members are also ambassadors for St. Jude Children’s Hospital, another Memphis institution. You can’t throw a rock in this city without touching on something that has been made better by the existence of this team.  

All this to say – the Memphis Grizzlies are poised to make a big splash in the postseason, and I dare say their window for title contention opens now. But they are already champions in the eyes of Memphians for their works on and off the court.  

It’s about time everyone else got the memo.  

Categories
Music Music Blog

The Flow: Live-Streamed Music Events This Week, March 31-April 6

Bailey Bigger (Credit: Bethany Reid Visuals)

The internet ether will once again be electrified with the sounds of Memphis music this week, with a full slate of offerings from the usual suspects. Bailey Bigger, subject of a recent Memphis Flyer feature, will preside over an album release party with full band. Meanwhile, the Memphis Music Hall of Fame, another subject of a recent Flyer story, will celebrate its ten-year anniversary on the Circle Network. Live-streaming is a great way to see and hear what all the fuss is about. Many other artists are on the slate this week, including a rare appearance by the True Sons of Thunder. So turn on, tune in, and drop down in your couch: the music is flowing.

ALL TIMES CDT

Thursday, March 31
7 p.m.
Amy LaVere & Will Sexton — at Hernando’s Hide-A-Way
Website

7 p.m.
Memphis Music Hall of Fame 10th Anniversary Celebration
Circle Network

9:30 p.m.
Devil Train — at B-Side Memphis
Facebook YouTube Twitch TV

Friday, April 1
7 p.m.
Bailey Bigger and Mark Alan McKinney — at Hernando’s Hide-A-Way
Website

9 p.m.
The Eastwoods, Mike Hewlett & the Racket, and Risky Whispers
— at B-Side Memphis
YouTube Twitch TV

Saturday, April 2
9:30 p.m.
D. Sabu, True Sons of Thunder, and Korpus Kinski
— at B-Side Memphis
YouTube Twitch TV

10 p.m.
The Flamin’ Hellcats — at Hernando’s Hide-A-Way
Website

Sunday, April 3
7 p.m.
Matt Heckler — at Hernando’s Hide-A-Way
Website

Monday, April 4
9 p.m.
Aubrey McCrady & Friends — at B-Side Memphis
YouTube Twitch TV

Tuesday, April 5
No live-streamed events scheduled


Wednesday, April 6
5:30 p.m.
Richard Wilson
Facebook

7 p.m.
Rob Leines & the Comancheros — at Hernando’s Hide-A-Way
Website

Categories
News News Blog

Priscilla Presley to be Honored at Theatre Memphis

Priscilla Presley (Credit: Christopher Ameruoso)

Priscilla Presley will be honored at a black tie celebration, “Priscilla Presley: The Artist, The Woman,”  July 22nd at Theatre Memphis.

“This is a community thank you to Priscilla for all she has done for the Memphis community,” says Dabney Coors, Theatre Memphis board member and a friend of Priscilla, who was married to Elvis Presley.

The evening will include a formal presentation in the theater with music followed by a dinner and music in the lobby.

 “I truly am honored by this,” Priscilla says in a phone interview. “Gosh. I’m a little overwhelmed because I love Memphis. I love the city. I love Tennessee.”

And, she says, “I never expected this. It’s just taken me back a bit.”

Coors, immediate past president of the Theatre Memphis board, came up with the idea for the celebration. “The idea has been in my head for the last eight years,” Coors says. “I said to Priscilla when she opened the Guest House (at Graceland), ‘Priscilla, you give and give and give to Memphis.  And one day we’re going to turn this around and we’re going to give to you.’”

Why this year? “Because this is the 40th anniversary of Priscilla opening Graceland,” Coors says. “She saved Graceland from being sold. When she was 34 years old and she became the executor of the estate, it fell to her to decide what to do with Graceland. And the bankers, the lawyers, and the IRS told her she had one option and that was to sell.

Says Priscilla: “When I was told that, I made a comment: ‘That will never happen.’ And those were fighting words for me. I searched for someone who could help me. I had a lot of people to choose from.”

She looked “from New York to Kansas City to here in Los Angeles. And Jack Soden (president and CEO of Elvis Presley Enterprises), for me, was the best as far as helping me open it up. And here we are today.  And thank God he is still with us and a wonderful partner.”

 “She has brought 22 million international tourists to Memphis,” Coors says. “And impacted our Memphis economy more than six billion dollars over 40 years. Every queen, president, and rock and roll star who comes anywhere close to Memphis wants to go to Graceland. Graceland is considered the second most famous home in America after the White House.”

 Priscilla says, “When we opened Graceland, I never thought it would be the success that it is today. And people of all ages are coming to Graceland.”

One of her missions is to bring younger people to Elvis, she says. “You know our generation loved and cared for Elvis. My concern was that the younger generation learn and know who Elvis Presley was.”

Now, that generation is “passing it down to the next generation. Keeping the Elvis tours at Graceland certainly helped. People can’t believe his accomplishments.”

She and Elvis had “a wonderful relationship,” Priscilla says. “We never had the normal divorce. We still remained friends and cared for each other very much.”

Priscilla now lives in California, but she says, “I do not really consider California a part of me. Both my kids were born here and they live here. That’s the only reason I stick around. If I had my choice, I would be there in a minute. I would. I miss Memphis. I miss my friends. I miss the laughs. I miss the stories.”

 When she comes to Memphis, Priscilla likes to “go over to The Peabody hotel and hang out a little in there. Get a bite to eat and go over to Lansky’s. Check in and see how they’re doing. It’s always nice to keep the friends you had from the beginning.”

As a non-profit, Theatre Memphis has to raise money for the event, Coors says, and they already have 50 sponsors. “Memphis has stepped up.”

Debbie Litch, Theatre Memphis executive producer, says, “Theatre Memphis is privileged and honored to pay tribute to Memphis’ national and international ambassador Priscilla Presley.”

And, she says,  “As Theatre Memphis celebrates our 100th anniversary on May 20, 2022 as one of the nation’s most recognized and oldest community theaters in the nation, we want to recognize an extraordinary lady who has championed our Memphis community for over a half century.

“We are also excited to establish the Priscilla Presley Theatre Memphis Scholarship that will be awarded annually in honor of this outstanding woman to help an established or aspiring artist to achieve their artistic dream.”

Tickets are $300 apiece. Other seats will be reserved for the “community member status” section.

Among the entertainers taking part in the event will be Gary Beard, John Paul Keith, and Mario Monterosso. A special VIP area will be included.

For tickets and more information, call Theatre Memphis at (901) 682-8323.

Categories
CannaBeat News News Blog

Bill to Possibly Ban Hemp-Derived THC Products Advances in House, Senate

Photo by Elsa Olofsson on Unsplash. Olofsson manages the CBD Oracle blog at cbdoracle.com.

State lawmakers and cannabis industry representatives began working out details of a bill that would regulate products here made with hemp-derived THC.

As it is written now, the bill would would ban the sale or possession of products that contain Delta 8, HHC, THC-O, and any others that have a THC concentration of more than 0.3 percent on a dry weight basis, which is already the federal legal limit for such products. 

The bill is sponsored by state Rep. William Lamberth (R-Portland) and Senator Richard Briggs (R-Knoxville). Both bills moved ahead Wednesday in the legislative process with positive votes from a House Criminal Justice subcommittee and the Senate Finance, Ways, and Means Committee.   

A recent fiscal review of the proposal says retailers would stop selling the products, costing state and local tax coffers $4.8 million in the next fiscal year and $1.9 million in the years following. The Tennessee Department of Corrections projected that felony incarcerations would rise by one each year if the bill was passed, adding $2,900 in state costs per year.

In Wednesday’s hearing, Rep. Lamberth said there are no regulations on these products, including the Delta 8 gummies that are widely available, and there are no packaging requirements on these products. He said 115 people overdosed on these products, specifically Delta 8 products, last year because they contain “extraordinarily” high levels of THC, and 30 percent of those people were under the age of five.   

The state and federal laws already set THC levels at 0.3 percent in these products. But products with higher concentrations are “being sold all over Tennessee. So, we must not have made it clear enough when we passed this before.” For all of this and more, Lamberth said he wants to clear up confusion on the issue for business owners and consumers. 

There needs to be a specific, consistent expectation for customers of this product.

Rep. William Lamberth (R-Portland)

”This needs to be a clear cut line,” Lamberth said. “There needs to be a specific, consistent expectation for customers of this product. I have heard from folks that said, ‘Well, look, I was buying this product from this retailer and it had this effect. Then, I switched to this one over here and it had a drastically different effect.’

“Again, there’s no standards here. This needs to be clear cut as to what is and is not legal and what exactly is on the shelves.”

Tennessee cannabis company owners testified before the committee Wednesday, with many arguing that the issue needs a scalpel while Lamberth’s bill was a blunt instrument. If the bill were to be passed as it is now, it would constitute a ban on these products, and cost many their livelihoods. 

Debate on the issue was calm and level-headed Wednesday. Lamberth said before the vote that while the bill was likely to pass out of Wednesday’s subcommittee, it will be up for debate and for testimony in other committees, and, perhaps, a final debate on the House floor. He invited all of the leaders from the cannabis companies to his office to speak about the bill as it progresses.   

“Quite frankly, there’s not as much daylight between where I am and where you guys are,” Lamberth said, speaking to the company representatives. “It’s just a matter of figuring that out.” 

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

S. Main Pop-Up Eatery CCC Makes Permanent Plans

Rande Johnson and Meredith and Keith Clinton (Photo: Michael Donahue)

CCC on the front window at 409 S. Main stands for “Chicken Champagne Caviar.”

“But it’s going through a lot of evolutions,” says chef Keith Clinton, who operates CCC, a new pop-up restaurant, with his wife and fellow chef, Meredith Clinton.

“We can change it … make different concepts. She’s already thinking about different things to change it to.” Like “cheeseburger” and “corn dogs.” They also do “catering.”

“‘Contribute’ is another C-word,” Meredith says. They wanted to create a space where people “can do their own thing. If you want to sell T-shirts or temporary tattoos, sell it, make some money.” The Clintons also want to “collaborate” with other chefs. “A lot of our friends are helping us cook, make the cocktails, and serve.”

CCC, which is open Friday through Sunday, began with the Casserole Cat Club, which Meredith formed with her friends. That’s why they chose the letter C, Keith says. “Also, our last name starts with C.”

“I have an affinity, a love for casseroles,” Meredith says. “I love casseroles so much I have a casserole tattoo.”

Also in the kitchen is chef Rande Johnson, who worked with them when they were at Erling Jensen: The Restaurant, Keith says.

But CCC is temporary; a new restaurant will take its place. “We’re doing construction on the whole building for the future restaurant,” Keith says. “While we’re waiting on permits to be pulled, we decided to do this CCC pop-up.”

They’re operating the business in the building known as the Puck Building.

“The concept of CCC is because we needed something kind of small and easy that can handle a lot of foot traffic,” Keith says. “We decided to go with fried chicken because Meredith has been working on this fried chicken her whole life. She grew up working in a gas station in Hayti, Missouri.”

Meredith loves that gas-station fried chicken, but for the past three years she’s been trying to make “the best.”

“I feel like I’m always working on it. Always slightly tweaking it” she says. “The marinade is super important. And the things that are in it contribute to the flavor.”

She only uses chicken thighs. “The dark meat. They’ve got more flavor, are more moist. Chicken breasts are good, but they don’t have a lot going on.”

There will be a range of champagnes, including medium- to higher-grade. The caviar will primarily be “a kaluga hybrid,” Keith says. “Kind of medium-sized eggs … amber colored. Not too salty. A little cheesy. Not too oily.” They also will offer some of their high-grade “private stock,” including Oscietra.

You don’t have to order all three Cs. “Everything is a la carte,” Keith says.

The Clintons aren’t ready to reveal the name or much about the upcoming restaurant, but just about everything will change, including the decor and layout. For now, they’ve turned downstairs into a “mini living room” with an eclectic mix of furniture, including lounge chairs and couches. The new restaurant will feature a small lounge area, a bar, an area for formal dining, and a chef’s table.

As for the food, Meredith says, “I’m very conscious of sustainability and local and things in season and foraging.” The menu will “always be changing, and hyper-focused on share-ability.”

She and Keith have their special strengths, Meredith says. “My main strength is writing menus and creating dishes.” Plating is one of Keith’s strengths. “I can create a dish and think of all the flavors that go into it and Keith makes it look absolutely beautiful.”

So, who is the executive chef? “I would say we’re both the executive chef,” Meredith says, adding, “We’re both the boss, but I’m more of the boss, maybe. I’m more of the final say. I’m very particular about things.”

For instance, Keith wants to hang a large chandelier in the kitchen. Meredith wants to hang a disco ball there.

Stay tuned.

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

The Lost City

You’ve seen it before and you’ll happily see it again: An intellectual woman (Sandra Bullock) falls for a big-hearted himbo (Channing Tatum).

Last weekend, I was at the Time Warp Drive-In for the screening of the classic Indiana Jones trilogy. Yes, there was lots of stuff to do around town on Saturday night, and I’ve seen Raiders of the Lost Ark hundreds of times, but I just couldn’t resist the rare opportunity to watch a masterpiece of adventure cinema at the drive-in. As Harrison Ford and Alfred Molina skulked through the booby-trapped Peruvian temple, I glanced over to Malco Summer Drive-In’s screen three, where I saw Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum in an overgrown jungle temple, surrounded by snakes, lorded over by a guy in a fedora who looked a lot like Indy’s arch enemy Belloq. The movie was The Lost City, and its existence in 2022 speaks to the enduring influence of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg’s collaboration in the early 1980s.

The dashing archeologist/adventurer Indiana Jones has deep roots in the pulp literature of the early 20th century, where characters like Doc Savage and Allan Quatermain were both scholars and two-fisted men of action who traveled to exotic locales to find treasure and thwart the plans of other well-educated, but evil, Westerners. Lucas encountered these hyper-competent heroes in films like 1937’s King Solomon’s Mines and the adventure serials which ruled the Saturday matinee. You can still see those kinds of heroes get out of unlikely scrapes, most recently in Uncharted.

Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum search for the Crown of Fire in The Lost City.

Almost as soon as Spielberg set the new template for the colonial adventure tale, people started parodying it.

The earliest light ribbing of Indiana Jones was Romancing the Stone, Robert Zemeckis’ 1984 romantic comedy starring Kathleen Turner as Joan Wilder, a romance novelist thrust into an adventure right out of one of her books, and Michael Douglas as a rakish big-game hunter who comes to her rescue. In The Lost City, Sandra Bullock’s Loretta Sage is the direct descendant of Joan Wilder. She’s the author of a highly profitable series of books about extremely sexy hero Dash and his on-again, off-again archeologist love interest Angela Lovemore. Loretta can’t come up with a good end for her latest romantic escapade, in which the couple searches for the legendary Lost City of D, and her publishing company publicist Beth (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) is increasingly agitated about it. When she finally gives up and tacks on a stupid ending, she finds herself thrust into a book tour opposite Alan (Channing Tatum), the hunky model who lends his image to Dash for her book covers.

As with all good rom-coms, we know they’re destined to get together long before they do. Just as the book tour is falling to pieces, Loretta is kidnapped by Abigail Fairfax (Daniel Radcliffe), the embittered scion of a Murdoch-esque publishing fortune who spends his ample free time and disposable income treasure hunting. The mysterious artifact Loretta used as the MacGuffin for her latest novel, the Crown of Fire, is real, and it turns out that, in researching her book, she came closer to discovering its final resting place than anyone in history. Fairfax whisks her away to the island where the crown is allegedly located to help finish his search. Meanwhile, a frantic Beth convinces Alan to contact his old friend Jack Trainer (Brad Pitt), a former Navy Seal who promises to return with Loretta in 48 hours “or your next rescue is free.”

Directed by brothers Aaron and Adam Nee, The Lost City is not breaking any new ground, but it’s a pretty tight little film which does exactly what it sets out to do. It succeeds based mostly on the chemistry between Bullock and Tatum, never missing an opportunity to wedge them into a cramped sleeping bag or confront Bullock with Tatum’s bare bum. It’s a given that the intellectual Loretta will eventually fall for the big-hearted, thick-headed himbo. The supporting cast is all in on the joke. Pitt once again proves he’s a character actor trapped in a leading man’s body. Radcliffe steals scenes as the civilized villain whose luxury MRAP has a mini-bar. Randolph carries her own comic B-plot almost single-handedly. The self-referential script, like its protagonist, is often too smart for its own good. Ultimately, it’s very refreshing to see a lighthearted romantic adventure where the stakes are human-sized. Sure, it’s derivative, but as Radcliffe’s villain says when he knocks Bullock out with chloroform, “It’s a cliché for a reason.”

The Lost City
Now playing
Multiple locations

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Not Your Father’s Batman

Adam West as Batman from the television series. (Photo: Wikipedia)

If you own a copy of Detective Comics No. 27, published in March 1939, you own a piece of history, and one worth a gold mine. Batman was created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger. The character debuted in the 27th issue of Detective Comics, and he’s been punching and POW!-ing his way through the collective unconscious ever since. Not bad for an octogenarian who wears his underpants on the outside.

Producer Bill Dozier’s Batman television series, starring Adam West in the titular role, aired as reruns when I was younger, and I watched them with my dad. But my Bat-mania kicked into high gear when Batman: The Animated Series was released in 1992.

Decades later, I’m still a fan. Recently, my sister and I ate dinner at a local restaurant before catching a screening of the newest Bat-film. As we waited for our food, I drank a Memphis beer — a risky move considering the film’s nearly three-hour runtime — and asked my sister when she thought her son might be ready to visit Gotham for the first time. He’s about six months younger than I was when I started watching the Adam West reruns, so the timing seems right. Not to mention that my nephew tends to prefer characters who dress in black and act dramatic (He’s a huge fan of the evil queen in Snow White), so a cape-wearing weirdo who hangs out in a stalactite-encrusted cave should be right up his Crime Alley. The conversation got me thinking about different generations.

Batman, a part of the cultural milieu for so long, is a convenient vehicle for observing changing cultural norms and aesthetics. Though superheroes have conquered the box office in the last decade, somehow Batman seems to stand apart. Who knows why? Maybe it’s that Bats works on his own without elaborate stories mapped across the entire DC intellectual property universe. Maybe it’s just that he’s been around for 83 years.

My dad was the one who made sure I saw the 1966 Batman TV show. He also took me to see Mask of the Phantasm in theaters, and he was the one who rented Tim Burton’s Batman and Batman Returns on VHS. He usually has kind things to say about Burton’s Bat-flicks, but if pressed, he always makes fun of Michael Keaton. Adam West, he’d say, is the best Batman, the “real” version. West is best; he didn’t need no stinkin’ rubber armor.

Whereas, if you ask me, Kevin Conroy, who voiced Bats in the animated series, is the best Batman. No contest. And my favorite Joker? Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger can sit down; Mark Hamill takes the crown as the Clown Prince of Crime. Why? His vocal range — he can go from mirthful to menacing on a dime. Or, more probably, because I watched the animated Batman show religiously while I was in the target age group.

So, if my nephew ends up being a Bat-fan, I’m sure someday I’ll be disappointed in the version of the character his generation loves. To be honest, I hope that Batman becomes more and more anachronistic as society changes, as our understanding of crime and its causes and solutions evolves.

In fact, as our film editor pointed out in his review of the newest Bat-flick, Batman is already out of date. According to Forbes, “Overdraft banking fees, specifically, cost consumers $12.4 billion in 2020. Though it’s a decrease from the authors’ findings of overdraft fees totaling $17 billion in 2018, it’s still steep.” When we think of crime, though, we often think of shady-looking individuals in ski masks breaking into homes. But according to the FBI’s website, “Victims of burglary offenses suffered an estimated $3.0 billion in property losses in 2019.” Granted, Forbes is talking about 2018 and 2020, and the FBI statistics reference 2019, but there’s still between a $9 billion and $14 billion difference between losses attributed to overdraft fees versus burglary. It seems Bruce Wayne could do more good for Gotham by buying Gotham Bank and eliminating those fees. And I hope wage theft isn’t an issue at Wayne Enterprises, or Batman needs to haul himself into Arkham for questioning.

Maybe, like King Arthur and Camelot, Batman and Gotham will be enjoyed long after the world portrayed on comic pages and on-screen loses any resemblance to our own. Or maybe we will sacrifice the World’s Greatest Detective on the altar of a changing world. Even a super-fan such as myself can see that’s a worthy trade. So keep Batman in mind when considering a potential solution to one of our many challenges. Whether we’re combating income inequality, climate change, racism, or any other of the world’s worst villains, those of us old enough to legally buy a drink might be uncomfortable with the changes we must make. “That’s not how we did things in my day,” we might be tempted to say. “Not my Batman.”

Well, it’s a new world, old chum, and this ain’t your father’s Batman.

Categories
Music Music Features

Spaces That Sing: Jennifer Higdon at Rhodes College

Award-winning composer Jennifer Higdon will appear at Rhodes College for a concert and lecture. (Photo: Andrew Bogard)

When Pulitzer Prize- and Grammy-winning composer Jennifer Higdon appears at Rhodes College this week, it will be a homecoming of sorts. But it goes far beyond being a simple return to the South from Philadelphia, her base for decades. (Higdon spent her formative years near Seymour, Tennessee, in the eastern end of the state, a world away from Memphis.) Rather, for Higdon, it’s more about seeing people she’s known and worked with for years.

“I have over 200 performances a year, and I have a really busy writing schedule. So I don’t go to most of those performances,” she explains. “But I love working with the Rhodes music department and Bill Scoog there. Not to mention the choir and the Memphis Symphony. So I try to make sure that I have time to get down there when they put something like this on the schedule. There’s something nice about coming back and visiting with people you know and care about. Something about making music that way — it’s special.”

The performance Higdon speaks of will indeed be a charmed moment. On Saturday, April 2nd, at Rhodes’ McNeill Concert Hall, the MasterSingers Chorale and the Memphis Symphony Orchestra will perform “The Music of Jennifer Higdon” with Rhodes professor of music William Skoog conducting. At the heart of the concert will be one of Higdon’s most powerful works, The Singing Rooms. While the title may suggest intimate chamber music, the seven-movement composition is really a dynamic rendering of the overwhelming passions that familiar rooms can evoke.

Describing how the piece came to be, Higdon notes that “I was looking at the poetry of Jeanne Minahan [which is incorporated into the work], and it made me think of walking around a big farm house, where each room has a personality. It dredges up these emotions. There’s a lot of energy in that piece. When I wrote it, it was an interesting challenge to have a solo violin with a huge chorus and an orchestra backing it. That’s a difficult thing to balance.”

That’s especially true in a live setting. Yet Higdon can barely conceal her delight that in-person concerts are once again happening, after so many live-streamed performances at the height of quarantine. “I think the pandemic made us appreciate the live music experience. Especially with something like The Singing Rooms,” she says. “That piece takes the roof off the hall it’s in. The third movement comes at you like a freight train. It is unbelievable when you hear it live because when you have a full orchestra, with the brass section and the choir, it’s hair-raising! And that’s the kind of thing you start to appreciate in a live music scene. There’s something about it that’s magical.”

Such magical, emotional experiences are at the heart of Higdon’s work. “My music doesn’t fall in the category of an academic sound. To me, it’s important that the music speaks to the performers because if the performers believe in it and are moved by it, they play it differently.”

The roots of Higdon’s music-making are decidedly non-academic as well. “I grew up on a farm in East Tennessee, and I was self-taught on the flute. I can remember walking out on the farm, all the sounds. The soundtrack of my childhood was the whip-poor-wills and the crickets and even the mountain lions.” She also stresses the influence of non-auditory experiences. “I grew up in a visual arts family with a lot of experimental painting, and even animation,” she notes. “My dad was an artist who listened to rock-and-roll at home. So my childhood wasn’t populated with classical music.”

Such aesthetic cross-pollination between different mediums will be the topic of Higdon’s talk on March 31st, as a Rhodes College Springfield Music Lecturer. “I’ve always thought in terms of pictures and paintings,” she says. “You’re constantly having to visualize the stuff going around your head. Sometimes writing music means exactly that. So I put a little film together for this presentation, and the very first segment is on Jackson Pollock because I have a chamber piece called American Canvas, based on three American artists and their styles of working. It’s all connected and it’s fascinating. And the pandemic put me in a frame of mind where I’m thinking about it a lot more.”

UPDATE: The performance of “The Music of Jennifer Higdon” on Saturday, April 2nd, at Rhodes’ McNeill Concert Hall has been cancelled “due to unforeseen circumstances.” Jennifer Higdon’s lecture on Thursday, March 31st will go on as planned.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Discord and Unity

Memphis Suffrage Monument unveiled (Photo: Courtesy Downtown Memphis Commission)

With only days remaining before the financial disclosures of county candidates for the first quarter of 2022 will be made public, Shelby County Commissioner Brandon Morrison says she is satisfied with her fundraising efforts to date and is focusing on meet-the-public events.

Jordan Carpenter, her Republican primary opponent and a political unknown before this race, is meanwhile having as many fundraising events as he can manage. Addressing an audience at a Germantown residence on Sunday, he recalled asking “all the big names” to head up his financial efforts as he planned his race, “and they’re like no, no, we’re not gonna.” So he settled on Jason McCuistion, a banking attorney and his friend “since the eighth grade,” to be his treasurer.

L to r: GOP party chair Cary Vaughn, Jordan Carpenter, and County Commissioner Mick Wright (Photo: Jackson Baker)

The newcomer has the support of the current four Republicans on the commission, three of whom — Amber Mills, Mick Wright, and Mark Billingsley, who is term-limited and leaving office — were present on Sunday. David Bradford, the fourth GOP member, was absent. The newly reapportioned District 4, which Carpenter and Morrison are competing in, is a montage of East Memphis and Germantown precincts.

Contending that Morrison has “failed” to represent the district, Carpenter cited two issues he thought important to suburban Republicans. One was the lingering issue of support for MATA, something Morrison has expressed openness toward by reorienting present funding. “You don’t take county taxpayer money and send it to a Memphis city entity when they’re not using the money that they already have correctly,” he said.

And the challenger took issue with Morrison’s serving last year as vice chair of an ad hoc commission committee to examine a joint city-county proposal on future Metro consolidation. That, Carpenter said, was “an issue that people care about a lot … a forced marriage, where half the residents of the county don’t want to be in it.”

He continued: “And there are people that say that issue is dead. And I say, you shouldn’t believe those people while the political action committees are being formed. And the money is being given in the background. And the swords are being sharpened behind closed doors …”

Apprised of Carpenter’s statement, Morrison, back in Memphis late Monday after a trip to Nashville, where she presented the legislature with a commission’s wish list, said her opponent was “being divisive, and I’m not going to play that game. I’m looking forward.”

• Political acrimony was wholly absent from two other weekend events. One was the opening at Poplar and Highland on Saturday of Sheriff Floyd Bonner’s campaign headquarters. Inasmuch as Bonner is unopposed on the Democratic primary ballot and the Shelby County Republicans are offering no candidate for sheriff, the event was ready-made for a massive turnout, and an enormous number of candidates from both sides of the political aisle, as well as independents, showed up for a share of the dais.

Sheriff Floyd Bonner at HQ opening (Photo: Jackson Baker)

The other big event of the weekend, also crowded, was nonpartisan by design. It was the official unveiling on Sunday of the new Memphis Suffrage Monument on the riverfront in a space behind the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law. The tribute to the women who worked to extend the ballot to womankind was the brainchild of Memphis activist Paula Casey, who labored 20 years to bring it into being. On hand for the unveiling was a virtual who’s who of local officials and civic figures.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Ain’t I a Woman?

Proud to be a girl, a woman, a lady (Photo: courtesy Kristen Smith)

I liked wearing shorts and baggy tees.

Hair dancing unapologetically with the breeze.

Finding me outside with a ball in tow.

I never had a need for any hair bow.

Looking in the mirror asking, “Ain’t I a woman?”

Declaring back proudly, “Shit yeah, I’m a girl.”

While most of the other girls in the competitive junior tennis circuit wore skirts and bows in their hair, I wore shorts and sometimes a backwards baseball cap. In addition to tennis, I played basketball and softball, and field day was my favorite day of the year. I preferred being outside over any indoor activity. My hair was known to be wild and loose. I was what the world would call a “tomboy.” Because of this, by the sixth grade, I was no longer invited to the slumber parties with the other girls. I had lost my seat at the girls’ table.

There were times I would wonder if I had been born a boy would I have fit in better? But deep inside I knew the answer — I was proud to be a girl, even if it looked different from my peers. When my period came at 12, I asked myself, “Ain’t I a woman, now?”

A friend of mine recently told me a story about when she went to her university’s tutoring center for help with a paper she was writing. At the end of the meeting, the instructor asked her, “Are you a ‘she’?” My friend looked back at her and declared, “Shit yeah, I’m a girl.”

My friend keeps her hair shaved low and rocks sneakers with her joggers. She’s currently serving in the military, protecting the country that does not appreciate her womanhood. I’ve stood next to her when someone said, “Excuse me, ‘sir’.” A few weeks later it happened to me, too.

Throughout my life, I’ve been told to either act “like a girl” or “like a lady.” Or as my mom would sometimes say, “Kristen, that’s not very ladylike.” And I would always question her and the world, “How is a lady supposed to act?” Because even as a younger form of myself, I did not believe that my behavior nor my appearance should define my gender.

For over three decades, I have had to defend my gender identity to a world that has a certain perception of what womanhood should look or act like. But there is no universal woman. There isn’t a standard in which we must all follow to pass the womanhood litmus test. Actions and behaviors don’t define gender. They never have. It was culture, society, and religion that attempted to define womanhood in terms of looks and actions. But today’s culture is waking up and digging up the weakly planted roots of sexism (and all the -isms). There is no universal woman, except that she is a woman universally.

In 2022, it’s time to let go of any preconceived notions of gender. We are free to express all gender identities however we choose. Women of all backgrounds are forging ahead and making their marks in Congress, in Hollywood, in the Supreme Court, and in sports. However, are they forging ahead in our backyard and neighborhood? In our community and city? It’s time to amplify and listen to women’s voices. All women.

The next little girl is waiting in the wings and watching to see if she’ll be able to step on stage as her full self. We should not want her to have any doubts on her persona as a woman. Beautiful. Strong. Graceful. Unique. Woman.

Womanhood is as fluid as the wind blowing through bloomed spring trees.

As beautiful as all the sunsets combined on the mighty Mississippi.

As strong as a live oak withstanding many hurricanes.

As diverse as a wild country garden in full bloom.

And bold enough to be the only one in a room.

Femininity not defined by actions.

Virtue not defined by compliance.

No appearance can be a criteria.

For womanhood is limitless.

Bound by no requirements.

Girls with shorts.

Or ladies with fades.

Ain’t I a woman?

Shit yeah, I’m a girl.

Kristen Smith is a Memphis-based writer and storyteller passionate about the transformative power of words for healing and joy.