Month: September 2022

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter From an Editor: The Best Around

You’re the best around. Nothing’s ever gonna keep you down! But Joe Esposito’s words (lyrics) of wisdom don’t simply belong to that plucky karate kid. Memphians have been feeling a little down this month, for many reasons. Some of the haters emerged with hysterics and hot takes, slinging insults at the city and everything it stood for, and the hurt was real. But it’s important to remember that much of the screaming and moaning is done by people who might possibly be too online, constantly regurgitating their opinions on Twitter or who knows where else. For there are two sides to every coin. Following tragedy, there was also an outpouring of reaffirmation. Passionate declarations of love for our city, from many of the locals who work here, live here, and fight every day here to continue improving Memphis. The reaction was, quite simply, the best.

But on a more tangible level, how do you even quantify “the best”? Everyone has their likes, their appeals, their interests, and sometimes it’s the intangibles that make something stand out to an individual. There’s no right answer, but what we can do is aggregate the mood of our city to gauge the flavor of the year, or see who has laid down a marker for long-term excellence in their field.

There’s an intrinsic value to releasing our quite hefty “Best of Memphis” issue every year. Who better to judge our favorite everything in the city than its citizens, and our readers? I remember arriving in Memphis more than a decade ago as a wee college freshman, complete with too-long bangs and some questionable plaid fashion choices, and looking for something to do off-campus. Where can I go to eat? Where can I hang out? The Google results threw out all the familiar names, of course: the Huey’s, the Rendezvous, and then the tourist traps and all the usual big-name establishments that frequently grab headlines and dollars. Tripadvisor and Thrillist lists are a decent starting point for newcomers, I guess, but they have a distinctly impersonal feel to them. And they can’t provide solutions to those hyperlocal problems either.

Other questions arose, too, like “How do I fix this dent that someone put in my car?” or “My friend tried to give himself a mohawk, is there a professional who can fix this?” If there’s a question to be asked, the Best of Memphis list can provide an answer, or at least point you toward someone who can help fix what could be a distinctly Memphis problem. There are some familiar faces to be found in the pages ahead, of course, but keep an eye out for new faces, too. (There’s nothing wrong with listening to the greatest hits, but sometimes you need a change of pace.) The Best of Memphis list is a receptacle of local knowledge and tastes built up over decades of lived experience by you, our readers. And honestly, the number of grand things about Memphis is too great to count. If you missed last week’s cover story, “370 Great Things About Memphis,” go check it out. It’s the perfect prologue to Best of Memphis, a curated list of some of our staff’s favorite things about the city. Nothing wrong with a double dip on positivity, right?

But again, it only scratches the surface of what Memphis has to offer. We could all use some love after this month, so why not show some to the great winners listed on the following pages? I’m sure the artists, the businesses, the restaurants, the creatives, and everyone else who earned a top-3 spot would appreciate it. And in celebratory fashion, the Best of Memphis party is finally returning after a multi-year, Covid-induced hiatus, where many can eat, drink, and be merry. There are still plenty of issues left to fix in our city, and it’s going to take a lot of work. But it’s clear that those invested in it are ready to put in the hard hours and are up for the challenge. So Memphians, don’t believe the loudest voices on the internet when they decry us (and when they do, deliver unto them a proverbial LaRusso crane kick). You’re all the best.

The Memphis Flyer is now seeking candidates for its editor position. Send your resume to hr@contemporary-media.com.

Categories
Theater Theater Feature

Circuit Playhouse’s Pass Over Provokes Emotion

Pass Over (Photo: Bill Simmers)

The regional debut of Antoinette Nwandu’s poignant and powerful play Pass Over comes at a serendipitous time to Circuit Playhouse.

For our community, watching a production that comments heavily on gun violence and race so soon after a shooting spree ripped through the city might seem like too much. I would argue that this is a perfect example of why the arts are so vitally important. Watching, though at times uncomfortable, was also cathartic and important.

Pass Over takes place entirely in one location: a Memphis street corner. Scenic designer Chris Sterling includes details that let audiences know this particular production takes place in our town: one being a small, graffitied message inside a triangle — or, of course, a pyramid — which reads, “Memphis AF.” Any theater-lover will take one glance at the set and be reminded of Waiting for Godot, a similarity which does not end with staging.

Moses and Kitch, two out of only three performers in the show, stand on the corner shooting the shit and dreaming of the promised land until a stranger appears seemingly out of nowhere, disrupting what should be a day like any other.

This is a play I might need to see twice to catch all the nuances. I’m sure I missed some of the Biblical, historical, and literary references, which are heavily scattered throughout. Practically everything in Pass Over seems to be a metaphor, a fact which is humorously called out by the character Kitch, who mistakenly uses the word “megaphore.”

The enormous success of this production would not be possible without the nuanced performances of Cleavon Meabon IV and resident company members Marc Gill and Nathan McHenry. This is a show without a single set change, without traditional scene breaks, without even an intermission. The actors carry it from start to finish, holding the audience rapt with nothing but themselves, which is no small feat.

Gill and Meabon manage to achieve perfect chemistry. Their characters’ camaraderie and perpetual confabulation are so beautifully enacted that it brings to mind partners in a dance. Moses, whose barely checked rage is simmering under the surface, ready to boil over at any moment, is a stark contrast to Kitch, who is softer, somehow, more innocent and sweet-tempered. These two men are desperate to escape the street corner, to pass over (see? metaphors) to a better life, but something always seems to be holding them back. They are stuck, held in place by forces outside of themselves.

Then there’s McHenry, playing two roles, Mister and Ossifer. It is difficult to watch McHenry’s depiction of these two racist white characters, but this difficulty is a testament to the strength of his performance. It shouldn’t be easy to watch. That’s kind of the point. Mister/Ossifer is an amalgamation of the many different shades of racism, ranging from willful ignorance to outright white supremacy.

Another thread running through Pass Over is humor, often reaching a pitch of hilarity just before the tone abruptly shifts. Slapstick, physical comedy and biting, witty dialogue somewhat lessen the thematic punches of the play. Audiences will also enjoy Meabon’s vocal talent, as there is a musical moment nestled in the middle of the show. The soulful, resonant timbre coming from Kitch adds a rich depth to the character, who is otherwise often clowning around, the source of most of the comedic relief.

This play absolutely will evoke emotion from the audience. Pass Over forces you to look straight-on at things that many people — especially white people — instinctively shy away from. Furthermore, it confronts you with the question, “Why are you looking away in the first place?”

Jared Thomas Johnson’s directorial Playhouse debut is something every Memphian should see. In a Playhouse “Meet the Cast” promotional video, Meabon says, “That’s what this show is about. It’s about humanity. It’s about, do you see people? Black people as people?”

Pass Over runs through October 9th at The Circuit Playhouse.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Lawsuits of the Asylum Seekers

A real fix would be an overhual of immigration laws. (Photo: Cole Patrick | Unsplash)

Migration crises — real or imagined — tend to animate voters. So it’s no surprise that a new emergency situation has emerged, manufactured by three Republican governors, two of whom are seeking reelection. The difference this time: The migrants are suing the governors.

First, the migrants in this case are not illegal aliens, or illegal anything. They are asylum seekers, and a class action lawsuit has been engaged by some of these people and their representatives here in the U.S. against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis who planned, paid for, and executed the unceremonious dumping of 48 Venezuelans on a tiny Massachusetts island.

The Venezuelans sent from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard are asylum petitioners: They have a right to be here and our nation offers people fleeing from a “well-founded fear of persecution” in their home country physical and legal protection. These types of laws distinguish the United States from places like … Venezuela and Cuba which offer no such protections.

Venezuela’s fortunes changed in 2013 when Hugo Chávez, the charismatic, leftist, a-little-less-loco-than-Trump leader died of cancer. Then the price of oil (which represents about 90 percent of all exports) collapsed on the world market and direct subsidy payments to the poor ended. Chaos has ensued, the current leader there is a grim-faced, not-bright, undemocratic leader named Nicolás Maduro, and relations between our two nations have calcified.

These intrepid Venezuelans trekked from their home through Colombia, through the Darién (the meanest, most forbidden jungle in the world), through Panama, Costa Rica, and the rest of Central America, they crossed Mexico and onto America — arriving in Texas. Why could they be treated like disposable cargo by a far-away Florida governor? Because, simply and sadly stated, they’re not Swedes. Or Ukrainians. They’re dark-skinned, poor people who are not nicely dressed — not out of “Central Casting.” What would any of us look like if we walked to Texas — from Venezuela?

The three Republican leaders who have been shipping out migrants govern Arizona, Florida, and Texas. Their theory: We here on the border (Florida is surrounded by water, Georgia, and Alabama) shoulder a disproportionate burden regarding arriving migrants from the south. It’s true that Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California are the first points of entry for migrants — documented or not — arriving over land from the global South but these states receive billions of dollars in federal grants to help offset educational and health costs. It’s also true that states with high influxes of immigrants are much more economically (and culturally) robust. California versus West Virginia, Texas versus South Dakota, for example.

The stunt of the three governors seems to have worked in the short term: They’ve forced a refocusing on our immigration system at a moment before a decisive election. But to paint this as “Biden’s” immigration crisis is absurd, ahistorical, and unhelpful. The three amigo governors don’t want to help solve problems; they only want to score political points. But the newly announced lawsuit and the fact that DeSantis’ state is home to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who are a little skeptical of this performance — upset at the unkind treatment in America of brothers and sisters from the pátria — might indicate the stunt has stalled.

The irony behind all of this, of course, is that we desperately need laborers in the United States economy right now. The Biden administration could probably offer some sort of temporary, emergency provision to harmonize the present needs of the U.S. economy with the current migratory patterns affecting our southern border. A real fix — a comprehensive overhaul of our outdated immigration laws and provisions — is what’s really needed, but the Democrats’ majority is too thin in Congress and the Republicans are uninterested in any solutions that would inhibit their ability to weaponize the immigration debate.

Mr. Trump began his 2016 presidential campaign with a giant gamble — a mean-spirited, untrue attack on immigrants from Mexico. It worked. Governor DeSantis of Florida has turned to this Trump playbook, but the Florida governor has the charm, grace, and charisma of a different sort of dictator: Nicolás Maduro, president of Venezuela.

Bryce Ashby is a Memphis-based attorney and past board chair of Latino Memphis. Michael LaRosa teaches history at Rhodes College.

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Pearl

Mia Goth executes a spellbinding performance as Pearl in this prequel.

What makes a person into a monster? Is it a response to a life of trauma and bad breaks, or were they born that way? Or is it a little bit of both?

In the fall of 1918, Adolf Hitler had been on the front lines of World War I for four years. He was sitting in a field hospital, where he was recovering from a mustard gas attack that left him temporarily blinded. When he heard the news that Germany had surrendered, he went blind again. Hitler never got over the emotional trauma of his army’s defeat on the battlefield, and the narrative that the Jews, the Marxists, and the racially impure had “stabbed Germany in the back” formed the core of Nazism.

One factor in Germany’s defeat that perhaps didn’t occur to Hitler was that 900,000 of their soldiers caught the flu. The 1918 flu pandemic started at an Army base in Kansas and was unwittingly shipped to warring Europe by American troop transports, where it spread like wildfire in the cramped, unsanitary trenches. When director Ti West’s new film Pearl opens, the rural Texas community where the title character, played by Mia Goth, lives is struggling to keep going as the second wave of the 1918 flu pandemic sweeps over them.

Pearl lives on a farm that will be familiar to those who have seen X, the slasher homage West and Goth released earlier this year. She lives with her mother (Tandi Wright), a German immigrant who is none too happy about the way the war is going, and father (Matthew Sunderland), who is paralyzed and completely dependent on his family. Though the carefully tended farm looks idyllic from the outside, the dynamic between Pearl and her stern, demanding mother is increasingly toxic. Pearl’s husband Howard (Alistair Sewell) is in Europe fighting with the Allied Expeditionary Force, and she’s chafing under the demands of farm life and caring for her invalid father. Pearl’s only escapes are the fleeting trips to the local movie theater, where she sees Thea Bera, film’s first sex symbol, as Cleopatra. It’s the dancing chorus girls in a “soundie” (short films played between features that were the precursors to modern music videos) called “Palace Follies” that really catch her eye. She plays out her fantasies of dance and fame before a captive audience of cows and sheep in the farm’s little barn, away from the disapproving eyes of her mother.

Maybe it’s the little hits of morphine she skims off the top of her daddy’s medicine, but Pearl doesn’t feel like other people, and the pandemic-induced isolation hasn’t done her state of mind any good. The only person who seems to understand her is the theater projectionist (David Corenswet), a self-described “bohemian” type who is pretty easy on the eyes. Pearl struggles with unfamiliar feelings of lust — she’s already married, after all — but when he offers to take her away to Europe, where they can rake in the cash making stag films, she falls for him. When her sister-in-law Mitsy (Emma Jenkins-Purro) tells her of a dance audition at the local church for a touring vaudeville show, it sets her on a collision course with her family obligations that will end well for no one.

If you’ve seen X, you know that Pearl never does escape that farm. She’s too dangerous to walk among the normals, and she knows it. This prequel is all about the creeping revelations of her murderous nature, and the titanic failures of nurture that set her on a path to destruction. Goth and West came up with the idea for Pearl while devising a backstory for the villain in first film, and dove right into Pearl once A24 saw the early cuts of X and immediately green lit the prequel. Her final monologue, in which she confesses everything that’s been going on in her mind to a horrified Mitsy, is an instant classic, but she’s spellbinding in every frame of this film. West shoots Pearl like it’s a Douglas Sirk technicolor melodrama — think Imitation of Life, with more beheadings. There’s another Goth/West film in production, which finishes the story of Maxine, Goth’s porn star character in X. Based on Pearl, all I have to say is, shut up and take my money.

Pearl
Now playing
Multiple locations

Categories
Best of Memphis Special Sections

Best of Memphis 2022

The Memphis Flyer’s annual Best of Memphis readers’ poll celebrates all things Memphis, and *drumroll please* — it’s time to announce the winners! Memphis has spoken. From restaurants to radio, family fun and festivals, and everything in between, you chose your favorites. Winners with “BOM” next to their name dominated their category. Any ties have also been noted.

This issue was written by Samuel X. Cicci, Shara Clark, Michael Donahue, Alex Greene, Chris McCoy, Abigail Morici, Toby Sells, Jon W. Sparks, Izzy Wollfarth, and Bruce VanWyngarden. It was designed by Carrie Beasley with images by Justin Fox Burks.

Thanks to all of our readers — those who submitted nominations and voted, and those who didn’t. Y’all are the true Best of Memphis. And we thank our advertisers, who make it possible to keep the Flyer free, always.

View this year’s BOM winners at this link.

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

Art for Elephants, Zootoberfest, and More at Memphis Zoo this October

Zootoberfest kicks off this weekend. (Photo: Courtesy Memphis Zoo)

Let’s just get in here and talk about the elephant in the room: The Memphis Zoo has a menagerie of events for folks of all ages this October, and like the many too cute animals there, it’s hard to pick a favorite.

On October 1st, the zoo will host its 11th annual Art for Elephants, where Gina, the matriarch of the elephant herd, will flex her creativity and paint a canvas with her trunk. Her masterpieces along with other items will be up for auction throughout the day, with the proceeds going to the charity Elephants for Africa.

“Gina is pretty talented,” says Rebecca Winchester, the zoo’s communications specialist. “She likes to blow a lot of air out of her trunk. Apparently, Gina does more abstract art and the other ones do more straight lines.”

In addition to painting that day, the elephant herd will enjoy “spooky Halloween-themed enrichment.”

And if you can’t get enough of the elephants, the zoo is also hosting its first Conservation & Cocktails on October 8th. At this adult-only, semi-formal event, also in support of Elephants for Africa, guests can enjoy live entertainment, elephant-themed cocktails named after the herd, a silent auction, and more.

Also, in October, the zoo will celebrate Zootoberfest on Saturdays and Sundays. Guests can purchase a $12, 17-ounce commemorative stein while supplies last. “We have tons of different local breweries that set up shop, including Crosstown, High Cotton, Meddlesome, Memphis Made, Wiseacre, Grind City, and Ghost River,” Winchester says. “You can go to each booth and get refills for $6. Then you can walk around the zoo and have beer.”

With so much going on this month, you’ll want to check out memphiszoo.org for more information on these events and others, including Penguin Palooza on October 8th, the Stranger Things-themed Zoo Boo beginning on October 14th, and Pancakes for Primates on October 15th.

Art for Elephants, Memphis Zoo, Saturday, October 1, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., included with admission.

Zootoberfest, Saturdays and Sundays, October 1-31, included with admission.

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

Collage Dance Collective Presents the Memphis Dance Festival

Memphis’ own jookin’ star Lil Buck (Photo: Courtesy Lil Buck)

Even if you can’t dance and you can’t jive, you’ll have the time of your life at the 2nd Annual Memphis Dance Festival. Presented by Collage Dance Collective, the free event features all types of dancing, from ballet to jookin’ to tap and everything in between, with performances by Lil Buck, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater from New York City, Chloe Arnold’s Syncopated Ladies from Los Angeles, Alonzo King LINES Ballet from San Francisco, Nashville Ballet, Memphis Grizz Girls, Ballet Memphis, New Ballet Ensemble, Collage Dance Collective, and many more.

“It’s important that Memphis gets to celebrate the talent that’s homegrown but also that we celebrate that we are worthy of national talent also being here,” says Marcellus Harper, Collage’s executive director. “There’s so much great dance here, whether it’s the ballet companies, the amazing jookin’ community, or our national pom squad. We wanted to create a festival that invites more people from the community to experience it.”

The festival, Harper says, will be like a “sample platter” of different types of dance and the different organizations and troupes, with the hope being that a taste of what these groups offer will lead to continued support. Just like with genres of music, Harper says, “There’s something for everybody. Dance is not monolithic, and we want to amplify that with this festival.” Attendees will also have the opportunity for informal meet-and-greets with the dancers.

Collage, for its part, will have both its professionals and its students perform. The professional company will perform two pieces inspired by Memphis, Harper says. One, titled “Wash,” reflects on the Mississippi River and all that it represents; the other, titled “Bluff City Blues,” celebrates the merging of Memphis blues music with ballet.

“When you think about Memphis, you think about music, blues, barbecue,” Harper says. “I want people to start thinking about Memphis as a dance city as well. You can’t have the blues without movement, and nothing pairs better with music than dance.”

2nd Annual Memphis Dance Festival, Collage Dance Center, Saturday, October 1, noon-4 p.m., free.

Categories
Music Music Features

Stax Museum Celebrates 20 Years

Booker T. Jones (Photo: Morgan Cannon)

Pat Mitchell Worley, the new president and CEO of the Soulsville Foundation, sounded a tad nervous on September 14th, standing in Studio A of the Stax Museum of American Soul Music and telling a select audience gathered there, “As you walk through our lobby and gift shop today, take your final look. Because in just a few months, all of that will be torn down.” A few of us gasped, momentarily reliving the trauma of seeing the original Stax building demolished in 1989, but then Worley added: “And we will have a brand-new look.”

While the museum structure, built in 2003 with the original blueprints for the Stax Records building, will be unchanged, the interior will get a major overhaul as new exhibits highlighting heretofore mothballed artifacts are installed. As a teaser, Worley pointed out two such artifacts being unveiled that night, including Rufus Thomas’ outfit from the 1972 Wattstax concert. “You cannot miss that hot pink — hot pink! — that only Rufus Thomas could get away with wearing,” said Worley. “You’ll also see some overalls worn by Otis Redding in the ‘Tramp’ video he did with Carla Thomas.”

Yet overhauling the museum’s exhibits is just a small part of what’s cooking at the Stax Museum. The museum will launch a cornucopia of programs and series to celebrate its 20th anniversary next year. And by next year, they mean all of next year, and some of this year to boot. Indeed, some special events start next week.

On October 6th, the museum will turn the spotlight on a gem in the Stax catalog by the little-known group 24-Carat Black. As museum executive director Jeff Kollath explains, “The album Ghetto: Misfortune’s Wealth is probably the most influential recording that Stax released after Isaac Hayes’ Black Moses (and Big Star’s #1 Record). Of course, it fell through the cracks and never got the credit it deserved until it got sampled to the nines in the ’90s. We are hosting a discussion between original members Princess Hearn and Jerome Derrickson; Niambi Steele, who joined the road show after a random gig in Indianapolis; and Zach Schoenfeld, who wrote the 33 1/3 series book about the album.”

At sunset on the next day, October 7th, another milestone will be celebrated: the recent 50th anniversary of the Wattstax festival. In keeping with the museum’s aim of being what Worley calls “the past, present, and future of Memphis music,” the 1973 film of the concert will be screened where the Black arts movement is blossoming today, the Orange Mound Tower at 2205 Lamar Avenue, representing a fresh collaboration between the museum and Memphis Record Pressing, Indie Memphis, TONE, and community radio station WYXR.

Then Kollath drew attention to perhaps the most significant milestone of all, this year’s 60th anniversary of the recording and release of “Green Onions.” As Kollath noted, “The song literally changed the face of music. And to help play it, we have three of our incredible Stax Music Academy alumni. Your eyes do not deceive you, they are in fact related: On the drum kit, Mr. Sam Franklin IV; on the bass, Mr. Christopher Franklin; and on the guitar, Mr. Jamaal Franklin.” After they assembled onstage, the composer of “Green Onions” himself, Booker T. Jones, strolled up to the organ, and the quartet proceeded to knock “Hip Hug-Her,” “Green Onions,” “Soul Limbo,” and “Time Is Tight” (complete with its triumphant coda) out of the park.

Having Jones himself perform these classics with a tight combo of young Memphians, all of whom nailed their parts admirably — in the very (rebuilt) room where it was originally done, no less — caused emotions to run high, not the least in Jones himself. Playing in Studio A again, he said, brought back a flood of memories from when “Green Onions” was cut. “When the moment came for me to play the solo,” he recalled, “I remember trying to think of talking through the keys, like a sentence or something coming out of me. And I think it was the culmination of so much of the training I had at Booker T. Washington High School. Every person that I came close to taught me how to do something for free.”

Visit staxmuseum.com for details on the Stax Museum’s upcoming anniversary celebrations.

Categories
Book Features Books

Corey Mesler Exposed!

Corey Mesler (Photo: Sandra McDougall-Mitchell)

Prolific novelist Corey Mesler (he’s written 14 of them) and I sat down toward the back of Burke’s Book Store (he owns it) to discuss his latest publication.

“Let’s talk about your book,” I said. “It’s just filthy.”

“I knew you’d lead with that,” he said, dryly.

How could I not? Mesler gleefully says that he was moved to write the book because of perversity: “I got tired of people saying, well, ‘There’s too much sex in your books.’ So I doubled down on it and decided to write a book that tells a man’s life through his psychosexual experiences. I wanted to make him come alive, mostly through his sexual encounters. And I used my own life to give it structure.”

It’s not a tell-all, however. He qualifies it by saying it’s based on his own experiences, but “many, many things were made up. I wasn’t as much of a stud as the guy in the book.”

So maybe we can blame Neill Rhymer, the guy in the book who gets so much action, for some of the reaction. There’s a site called Chapter 16 (chapter16.org) that is funded by Humanities Tennessee and reports on literary news and events in the state. It also reviews books, including several of Mesler’s earlier works.

But not this one. It does get a mention in an item named Briefly Noted, but all that sex business gave the outfit pause since it gets public funding. Better to be safe than explicit.

Mesler is unbowed.

“I love women. I love sex. I have a standard thing that I’ve said before, and I’ll say it again: I write about sex because sex is good and it’s the life force. When you tap into writing, you’re looking for the life force — the chi as they call it. Sex points toward nothing but good. I think it’s positive. I can’t think of anything bad about it.”

It has taken him some seven years to write and publish Cock-A-Hoop: the Adventures, Mostly, of Neill Rhymer, partly because it was too long for his usual publisher to handle. So Mesler found Whiskey Tit Press and was reassured that they weren’t going to be bothered by the sexy stuff. The publisher’s mission statement begins this way: “Whiskey Tit attempts to restore degradation and degeneracy to the literary arts.”

Mesler is a writing machine, with all the novels, all the poetry, and a film script to his credit. Not bad for someone who says he “backed into” writing novels. Still, he admits to some anxiety. “I still feel like I’m sitting at the kids’ table.”

He says that for decades he wrote poetry and “it was pretty bad. I was looking up to Fredric Koeppel and Bill Page and Gordon Osing and thinking, I’ll never be as good as those guys. Then I read Raymond Carver and decided maybe I can write a short story.”

But Mesler wasn’t sure about writing prose. “The sustaining of the voice and all that was really hard for me,” he said. “I backed into it by creating my first novel totally in dialogue talk. I thought it was just this funny thing that I was having fun doing. It was a gas to write, and I found my strength, which, I think, is dialogue.”

He looked up online to see how long a novel was and found out a novel is 40,000 words; anything under that is a novella. “I had 45,000 words, so, okay, it’s a novel.”

But then what? “I thought, well, this is a queer bird. Who’s gonna go with me on this?” As it happened, Joe Taylor at Livingston Press loved Talk: A Novel in Dialogue and published it.

So he’s been at it ever since, with his 2015 book Memphis Movie being the bestselling of his works. And if Cock-A-Hoop is the latest to hit shelves, it’s not his most recent work. “I think I’ve published at least two novels that I wrote after this.”

Meanwhile, he’s still at it with another novel that veers into biography. “It’s coming hard,” he acknowledges. “I’m older and I’m tired. And it’s about some parts of my life that are very difficult. I didn’t think I was scared to write about it, but apparently I am.”

Yet he’ll do it no matter what, even if he has to back into it.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Feast & Graze’s Cristina McCarter Makes Food Look Pretty

Cristina McCarter (Photo: Michael Donahue)

Cristina McCarter loved to dance growing up. She danced around the kitchen.

Around it, figuratively speaking. As in mostly staying away from it. “I never really liked cooking,” says McCarter. “I just like to eat.”

McCarter now is owner of Feast & Graze, which specializes in cheese and charcuterie boards. It’s also one of the participants in Black Restaurant Week, which runs through October 2nd.

She’s co-owner with Lisa Brown of City Tasting Box, a service that features products ranging from barbecue sauce to popcorn from local restaurants and food artisans.

A native of Memphis, McCarter’s first creative outlet was dancing. She danced all through college — “ballet, majorette, pom, hip-hop.” She still dances on her Instagram posts. “It’s like your workout for the day. It helps you release that energy, whether it’s a bad energy or a good one.”

McCarter never really had to cook. “I married a man who knows how to cook,” she says.

Growing up, McCarter made appetizers. “You can’t really mess that up. I made cheese boards all the time. Or I would do shrimp cocktail and make it pretty.”

Her grandmother made her take etiquette classes. “They would teach us how to formally dine out, how to use your knife and fork, and how to put the napkin in your lap.”

As for working with food, she says, “I had no clue I’d be in this industry.”

McCarter majored in computer science at University of Tennessee at Chattanooga before switching to University of Memphis. “I was a big computer geek.” But she changed her major to marketing. A “Black woman in technology” wasn’t the norm. “We just weren’t very welcomed. It was mostly boys.”

McCarter began taking jobs in the food industry. “I fell in love with it.”

She got a job passing out samples at Costco and, later, helped open a Texas Roadhouse. After graduation, she worked as a marketing assistant at Yelp.

In 2016, McCarter became a “food-preneur.” She began her City Tasting Tours, walking tours of South Main restaurants. “We’d meet at the first restaurant and start eating and drinking and walking our way through the city. Of course, I was telling them about the past, present, and future of the city.”

About a dozen people participated in each tour. “We’d get the chef to come out and give the rundown.”

By the beginning of 2020, the tours were “running successfully. I had 15 or so restaurants signed up, and we did tours every day.” But, she says, “That stopped around March. Then we started doing virtual food tours.”

She and a videographer visited the restaurants. It was “basically like a mini TV clip. We would give them the link to the video and I’d deliver the food to them. Instead of walking around, they sat and did the tour in the comfort of their own home, but still got the experience of the food and learning about the city.”

That June, McCarter stopped the tours and began doing City Tasting Box. She had already launched Feast & Graze as a delivery service in 2019, working out of a tiny Midtown kitchen.

Through Downtown Memphis Commission’s Open on Main initiative, McCarter got a storefront on 55 South Main Street, where she opened Feast & Graze as a brick-and-mortar business last March. She comes up with cheese board ideas, and her chef, RaNeisha Myers, makes them. “I can make things in my head. I’m very creative that way,” she says.

“Definitely the future for me is expanding Feast & Graze. Doing some events every so often. We had our first pop-up Sunday brunch this past week. It was really successful.”

For Black Restaurant Week, she is making The Lunch Bundle. “You choose one of our artisan wraps, chips, and drink for $17.”

McCarter is a Black Restaurant Week fan. “We get to showcase different types of cuisine in Memphis. It’s uplifting to see your community out supporting each other.”

But, McCarter adds, “I definitely want people to see the level we are taking the cheese and charcuterie.”