… And we’re back for 2023! Now that you’re over your New Year’s Eve hangover, we’ve got plenty of great stuff on Memphis’ big screens to distract you from the work you must perform now that the holidays are over.
If your post-holiday blues are leading you to a dark place, we recommend M3GAN. Nepo baby Allison Williams stars as a roboticist named Gemma who unexpectedly has to raise her orphaned niece Cady (Violet McGraw). Her big labor saving idea to create a robotic best friend for Cady who will protect her from all harm, both physical and emotional. What could possibly go wrong?
If Terminator Babies doesn’t scratch your itch for total reality escape, now is the time to catch Avatar: The Way of Water in 3D IMAX. James Cameron’s long-gestating sequel is actually pretty good, and you’ve got to see it in a theater to get the full effect.
Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt lead an all star cast in Damien Chazelle’s decadent tribute to Old Hollywood, Babylon. Did you know they did cocaine in the silent era? Because they absolutely did.
British actress Naomi Ackie tackles a hell of a difficult role in the Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance With Somebody. How do you play someone with a very distinctive look and a once-in-a-generation voice?
Black Lodge is spending the new year plumbing its collection for classics. On Sunday, that means David Cronenberg’s 1996 masterpiece Crash. Adopted from the J.G. Ballard novel about people who sexually fetishize automobile accidents, this slow-burn erotic thriller boasts one of Holly Hunter’s greatest (and strangest) performances.
January Tuesdays at Black Lodge are dedicated to Alfred Hitchcock, and the next one features what may be my personal favorite Hitch: 1951’s Strangers on a Train. Robert Walker was fresh out of being hospitalized for mental illness at the Menninger Clinic when he was cast as the film’s villain, and died under mysterious circumstances shortly after the premiere. Watch as the best “murderous, yet charming psychopath” in film history reels in his mark.
Thursday, Crosstown Theater screens a very different kind of classic. Werner Herzog is best known today for doing compelling, personal documentaries and guest shots on The Mandalorian. But before he was famous for his world-weary voice, he directed a string of intense films in the 1970s, many starring his frenemy Klaus Kinski. In Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Kinski stars as a Spanish conquistador who leads his band of soldiers and camp followers on a suicide mission into the Amazon jungle. In this trailer, watch for the scene where Kinski intimidates a horse. I’m betting that was an improv.
Jaren Jackson after his 31 points and 10 rebounds performance against the Orlando Magic on January 5, 2023. (Credit: NBAE via Getty Images)
Jaren Jackson, Jr. was a man on a mission from the start of the game on Thursday night in Orlando, putting on arguably one of the best performances of his career. He finished with a season-high 31 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks to help the Grizzlies improve to 25-13 on the season by beating the Orlando Magic, 123-115. It was the Grizzlies’ fifth win in a row.
Grizzlies color analyst Brevin Knight says no offensive player is safe when the 23-year-old is on the floor.
"As an offensive player, you are not safe when @jarenjacksonjr is on the floor."
Jackson showed his defensive prowess and offensive precision. He shot an astonishing 90.9 percent in the paint area and 85.7 percent overall while going 12-of-14 from the field.
And Jackson had historic night for the franchise. According to Statmuse, Jackson was the first Grizzlies player to put up 30 points and 10 rebounds on 80 percent shooting since two-time NBA champion Pau Gasol.
Grizzlies head coach Taylor Jenkins was impressed with the Michigan State alum’s efforts. “He was a force on both sides,” Jenkins said. Obviously, offensively scoring inside, scoring outside. I thought he set a tone in that first quarter for us blocking a number of shots.
Jenkins continued: “He really got rolling in that first quarter. And then when we needed some crucial buckets, put him in iso situations, post-up situations, he just made great reads, great plays. Overall, they felt his force tonight and his physicality on both sides is definitely one of the most impressive, if not the most so far this season for JJ”
Jackson’s walk-off interview with Bally Sports sideline reporter Rob Fischer.
“We knew they were going to throw a lot at Ja (Morant), which they definitely did throughout the game, especially in that fourth quarter,” Jenkins concluded. “Just having that balance of pick-and-roll motion play, dribble handoffs, post iso, something that we’ll continue to work on just so we’ll have better balance.” Morant was the game-high scorer with 32 points, six assists, and five rebounds.
It marked the first time in their careers that Jackson and Morant both scored 30+ points in the same game in the regular season. Grizzlies fans would love to see more of that on a regular basis from this dynamic duo.
After the game Morant shifted his praises to Jackson. “It was definitely one of the most complete games I’ve seen him play,” Morant said. “It helped us big time.”
“It makes the game a lot easier – opens the floor up,” said Dillon Brooks of Jackson’s defensive effort. “It gives us confidence to press up on the defenders and force them to come downhill to him. We are really tough to beat.”
Brooks finished with 11 points, six rebounds and tied his season-high with six assists.
“Today they were just shifting a lot and they were in the paint so I was able to find my teammates,” said Brooks on his improved playmaking. “It has always been a priority for me to pass the ball.”
Brooks believes Jackson is a one-of-a-kind talent. “He’s one of our guys who’s a mismatch nightmare, so we need him to be aggressive every night on both ends.”
In the game, Ziaire Williams was outstanding, coming off the bench for Memphis and scoring a season-high 16 points on 6-of-7 shooting with three 3-pointers and a +13 in only 14 minutes. The 21-year-old versatile wing is an important piece for the Grizzlies championship aspirations.
“Long overdue,” Williams said after the game. “Long overdue, for sure.”
The 21-year-old went on to say, “I told myself to have extreme confidence. You can only do so much work, but if you don’t trust it, it’s worthless.
Up Next
The Grizzlies return home to face the Utah Jazz on Sunday at 5pm CT inside FedExForum. Memphis is seeking retribution against the Jazz after two back to back losses in Utah earlier in the season.
State Capitol (Credit: Tennessee State Government)
Tennessee and Indiana tied for the second most-conservative group of state lawmakers in 2021 during a “new level of political polarization,” according to the Center for Legislative Accountability (CLA), a conservative think tank.
The group released findings of a new study last month that reviewed votes from all 7,400 of the country’s state lawmakers from all 50 states. This covered more than 265,000 votes on about 3,500 bills introduced in state legislatures.
In 2021, Tennessee’s GOP-controlled House and Senate was just barely less conservative than top-ranking Alabama. Tennessee’s lawmakers voted “with the conservative position” (as CLA puts it) 73 percent of the time. Alabama topped the state by one percentage point with 74 percent.
The CLA tracked dozens of bills in the Nashville Capitol that year, everything from bills regulating art therapists and homemade food to teaching Critical Race Theory and carrying guns without a permit.
The CLA’s highest (most conservative) score went to Sen. Paul Bailey (R-Sparta) who voted by CLA’s definition of conservative 87 percent of the time. Former Sen. Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown), awaiting sentencing after a conviction on election fraud charges, scored 85 percent. The lowest-ranking lawmaker (19 percent) in 2021 was Sen. Katrina Robinson (D-Memphis) who lost her seat after wire-fraud convictions in 2021.
Tennessee lawmakers score well on the issues of elections, property rights, education, law, and personal liberty. Their weakest issues are energy and environment and taxes, budget, and spending.
While the state tied for second in 2021, it ranks at the top of the list for all of the years CLA has been collecting this data.
Nationally, the CLA report found the nation’s 3,906 Republican state lawmakers voted conservatively nearly 81 percent of the time, up from 76 percent in 2021. The nation’s 3,223 Democratic state lawmakers voted conservatively about 16 percent in 2021, down from nearly 19 percent in 2020.
“The 64.99 percentage point divide between the two political parties marks the highest level of political polarization since the CLA became the first and only organization to track such data in 2015,” reads the CLA report.
The CLA report said the least conservative state houses can be found in Massachusetts, Hawaii, Rhode Island, California, and Maryland.
The CLA is a project of CPAC Foundation and the American Conservative Union Foundation.
Tennessee remained a top growth state last year, according to U-Haul, but Memphis didn’t help much.
The state ranked sixth in growth, according to the company’s data. But that is down from the top spot Tennessee earned in 2020 and last year’s third-place finish.
This year, people arriving in Tennessee in one-way U-Haul trucks dropped 7 percent from 2021, while departures fell 6 percent, as overall traffic slowed. However, do-it-yourself movers arriving in Tennessee still accounted for 50.3 percent of all one-way U-Haul truck traffic in and out of Tennessee (49.7 percent departures) to keep it a top-10 growth state for the third consecutive year.
“I think Tennessee dropped slightly in the U-Haul Growth Index because of the huge increase in tech jobs that became remote during the pandemic, and some of those people being called back to their California and New York offices in 2022,” Chris Hardin, U-Haul Company of South Nashville president, said in a statement. “But we continue to have a beautiful state that a lot of people want to make their home.”
Tennessee’s top growth city for 2022 was Nashville. Other growing markets included Maryville, Brentwood, Cleveland, Old Hickory, the Tri-Cities (Johnson City, Kingsport, and Bristol), Hendersonville, La Vergne, Sparta, Ooltewah, Manchester, Hermitage, Mt. Juliet, Greeneville, and Cookeville. Jackson and Germantown were the only two West Tennessee cities to make U-Haul’s growing-market list from Tennessee.
Texas was the leading growth state for the fifth time since 2016. Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia rounded out the top five. California ranks 50th and Illinois 49th for the third year in a row, indicating those states saw the largest net losses of one-way U-Haul trucks.
A week after unveiling a report displaying incompetence in the state’s lethal injection program, Gov. Bill Lee appointed an Arizona prison official who oversaw a renewal of executions there to lead Tennessee’s prison system.
Frank Strada, deputy director of the Arizona Department of Corrections, will replace interim Commissioner Lisa Helton this week as the governor marks off one of his steps for fixing the state’s lethal injection protocol.
The governor put a hold on executions in May after finding out the state failed to follow guidelines on the testing of lethal injection drugs, stopping the execution of death row inmate Oscar Smith one hour before he was to be put to death.
Frank Strada, commission, Tennessee Department of Corrections. (Photo: Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry.)
“I commend Lisa’s [Helton] strong leadership as interim commissioner and appreciate her continued service to the department,” Lee said in a statement. “Frank’s extensive corrections management and law enforcement experience make him well-suited to lead the Department of Correction, and I am confident he will serve Tennessee with integrity.”
In Arizona, Strada handled prison operations, inmate programs, public affairs, facilities management, and financial services for four years. He also oversaw three 2022 executions in Arizona by lethal injection, marking the first execution there in eight years, a delay caused by a botched lethal injection, according to reports.
But in all three of the 2022 executions, Arizona Department of Corrections officials “struggled” to properly place needles delivering lethal injection chemicals, according to the The Arizona Republic. In both the June 8th execution of Murray Atwood and the November 16th execution of Murray Hooper, prison staff had trouble inserting an IV in the men’s arms to administer the lethal dose but eventually the doses were made through the femoral artery of the leg.
Strada has 34 years of experience in the corrections field, including nearly three decades with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, where he led 121 institutions and advised the bureau’s director. Helton, who replaced Tony Parker in December 2021, is to continue working as assistant commissioner for community supervision in the department.
Strada is the second corrections official in less than a week to depart Arizona for the top job in another state. Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders tapped Joe Profiri, deputy director of the Arizona Department of Corrections since 2018, to lead Arkansas’s correction agency.
The appointment comes a week after the governor released a third-party review of the state’s lethal injection operations by former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton.
Based on the review, Lee said he planned to shake up the department’s leadership, hire a permanent commissioner this month, require department leaders to revise lethal injection protocol in consultation with his office and the attorney general, and order new leadership to review training for the revised guidelines.
Lee issued temporary reprieves for five executions in May after finding out the department failed to follow lethal injection rules put into place in 2018.
Among the findings, the review determined there was no evidence the state provided a copy of its protocol to the pharmacy hired to test its lethal injection chemicals.
The report also found the state didn’t follow protocol in several executions, failing to properly test drugs before executions took place, mishandling drugs, and preparing to use defective drugs for at least one execution.
The ACLU of Tennessee recently called the report “disturbing” and said it displays “the danger that arises when government operates in secrecy.”
“The state was fully prepared to execute seven people using improperly tested, and at times defective, drugs that create the sensation of drowning or burning alive — in the name of Tennesseans,” ACLU of Tennessee Executive Director Kathy Sinback said in a statement. “Because of state laws that allow secrecy in execution protocols, these horrific errors would not have come to light had the governor not ordered this investigation.”
ACLU Tennessee, which contends the death penalty is unconstitutional and a failed government program, called for a moratorium on executions while the governor continues to review a “broken system.” It also encouraged the governor to find “more effective ways” to protect public safety.
Frank Strada, new commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Corrections, oversaw three executions in 2022 as deputy direction of the Arizona Department of Corrections, all of which were marked by problems delivering lethal chemicals.
Chemicals that were to be used in the April execution of Smith were tested for potency and sterility but not for endotoxins.
Evidence further showed lethal injection chemicals used to execute Billy Ray Irick in August 2018 were not tested for endotoxins, nor was the drug Midazolam tested for potency.
The report also found that when the state put Edmund Zagorski to death in November 2018 using electrocution, the lethal injection chemicals prepared as an alternative if he changed his mind were not tested properly. Similar errors were made in the executions of David Earl Miller, Stephen West, Lee Hall, and Nicholas Sutton, who all chose electrocution.
The lethal injection chemicals used in the execution of Donnie Edward Johnson weren’t tested for endotoxins, either, according to the review.
The report lays the blame at the feet of leaders in the Department of Correction.
“The evidence shows that TDOC leadership placed an inordinate amount of responsibility on the drug procurer without providing much, if any, professional guidance; resources; or assistance,” the report states. “Instead, TDOC leadership viewed the lethal injection process through a tunnel-vision, result-oriented lens rather than provide TDOC with the necessary guidance and counsel needed to ensure that Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol was thorough, consistent, and followed.”
The report shows the drug procurer hired by the state is responsible for obtaining lethal injection drugs to be used in executions but that neither the position nor the responsibilities are defined in “any iteration” of the protocol.
Under instructions from former Commissioner Parker, the department’s deputy commissioner/general counsel picked the current drug procurer in 2016. The drug procurer, which is not named in the review, described it as an “off the books” role because obtaining the drugs was not its only responsibility with TDOC.
Before the company took that role, the state used a lethal dose of one drug, Pentobarbital, in executions. Parker instructed the drug procurer to find a new source for the drug, but it had trouble locating a supplier because pharmacies and manufacturers didn’t have the quantity of the chemical Tennessee requested or didn’t want to be associated with lethal injection executions.
The state also sought the drug from an international supplier but ultimately decided the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency would not allow Pentobarbital, a schedule II drug, to be imported.
Thus, the department opted for a three-drug lethal injection, even though TDOC officials told the reviewers that the one-drug injection had a lower risk for error.
Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on Facebook and Twitter.
Imagine, if you will, looking up to see famed filmmaker Joel Coen and his wife, actress Frances McDormand, walk into your place of business in Memphis on a random December day. That’s what happened to Corey Mesler, who, along with his wife, Cheryl, and daughter, Chloe runs Burke’s Books in Cooper-Young.
“We were all a little gob-smacked,” says Mesler. “They said they were on their way to California and they were stopping in Memphis for ‘barbecue, antiques, and Burke’s Books.’”
The pair was down-to-earth and friendly, Mesler says. “They couldn’t have been nicer. Once they met all of us and discovered we were a family-run business, Frances said, ‘Isn’t it nice that we’re all doing just we want?’ We loved them. It was almost like we already knew them.”
Ja Morant attempts a shot against Mark Williams. (Credit: NBAE/Getty Images)
The Memphis Grizzlies have embarked on a two-game road trip, starting with the Charlotte Hornets. Their victory against the Hornets pushed their winning streak to four games.
Let’s get into it.
The Grizzlies busted it open with a 40-point first quarter, and the Hornets spent the rest of the game trying, to no avail, to catch up. By the midway mark, the Grizzlies had 76 points, setting a record for the highest scoring half of the season.
Three-point shooting woes continue to plague this Grizzlies team. They ended the night on 9 of 30 shooting from beyond the arc. Desmond Bane’s struggles with shooting since his return from injury have lingered, and unfortunately there isn’t anyone picking up that slack.
The Hornets fared slightly better from the long line in terms of overall makes, but 11 of 38 shooting from three didn’t help them. LaMelo Ball and Terry Rozier were the top two players for Charlotte, combining for 7 of 11 three-point makes and 44 points overall.
Even with their lack of consistency from outside, the Grizzlies were able to put away this one handily, largely due to their collective ability to finish around the rim.
By the Numbers:
Ja Morant had a team-high 23 points and 8 assists.
Desmond Bane put up a double-double, finishing the night with 19 points, 11 rebounds, and 4 assists.
Jaren Jackson, Jr. closed out with 17 points, 8 rebounds, and 3 blocks.
Dillon Brooks finished with 18 points, 2 rebounds, 1 steal, and 1 block.
Xavier Tillman, Sr. led the bench unit with 10 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 steals.
Who Got Next?
The Grizzlies are back at it again tonight, this time in Orlando to face off against the Magic. Tip-off is at 6 p.m. CST.
Becoming executive chef of IBIS restaurant is the peak of Jake Behnke’s career.
It’s sort of like reaching the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro.
Behnke did that, too.
His culinary climb began when he was 16. “Basically, I was fucking up real bad in high school,” says Behnke, 30. “My dad told me, ‘You’re going to learn to study, or you’re going to go to work.’”
Behnke chose work. He walked to the old The Grove Grill, where he met then-sous chef Ryan Trimm. “I told him I’d work for free and I’d learn the job.”
He dressed for success that day. “I was wearing khakis and a sweater. Loafers.”
Behnke got the job. The next week, he showed up to work wearing “ripped up shorts” and purple Converse high-tops. Trimm asked him, “What happened to the kid I hired?”
He began as a dishwasher, but he loved everything about the kitchen. “It was art and it was math and it was chemistry. It was all my favorite subjects rolled into one career.”
So, Behnke enrolled in the cooking course under Betty Hall at Kingsbury Career & Technology Center. The two-year course was part of the Future Business Leaders of America program. “I graduated at the top of my class.”
As a result of taking the course, Behnke got on the line at The Grove Grill and began his cooking career.
Behnke later worked at other restaurants, including Interim and the old Sweet Grass and Southward Fare & Libations, before leaving Memphis to study at Chef Academy in Terni, Italy. He discovered it “was cheaper to move to Italy and go to school” than to attend a culinary school in Memphis.
The course was in Italian, so Behnke took notes phonetically. He’d then “go home and type it into Google Translate.”
Italy was heaven. “I fell in love 10 times a day. With women, art, food. With the culture. Really and truly, Italy is a chef’s paradise. They source most things from the region they live in.”
Also, he learned, “In order to cook good food, don’t complicate it. You want to taste each ingredient in a dish. It just proved that good food is simple and it’s local.”
Returning to Memphis, Behnke worked at Acre, Restaurant Iris, and was the catering chef for Iris owner Kelly English. Behnke also was one of the chefs at an assisted living center. “We took the menu from frozen and canned to fresh.”
Behnke, who learned about IBIS from the restaurant’s operations manger Patrick Gilbert, describes the restaurant as “eclectic.” Which he likes. “It kind of gives me free rein to do whatever I want in the kitchen. And it definitely suits my personality type. I’m an eclectic person.”
His current menu includes Greek lamb meatballs and spicy chorizo stew. Future items could be “anything from a crawfish tartlet to ugali chicha — an African spinach, basically — and curry.”
Ugali chicha comes from his travels in Africa. “The church I go to does mission trips to Africa every other year.”
He was 22 when he first climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. “When I reached the top of ‘Kily’ I was so emotionally destroyed already from just mustering up all I could to get to the top.”
Behnke continues to march to his own drum as far as kitchen attire. “I wear Dickies 874 pants. I wear New Balance black tube socks. And then I wear SAS Guardians, an orthopedic shoe.” But no chef jacket. “I prefer a black button-down prep shirt.”
And he sports a perfectly-curled handlebar mustache. “All my life I’ve been a baby face. Clean cut. Shaven. I kind of went mountain man. Part of it was when I was going to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa last year. It’s really fucking cold on that mountain. So, I thought, ‘I’ll put a little extra hair on my body.’”
Raumesh Akbari (Photo: Senator Raumesh Akbari | Facebook)
State Senator Raumesh Akbari (D-29), who has had several star turns since her election to the state House in 2013, including prominent speaking roles at two consecutive national Democratic conventions, begins the new year with two fresh accomplishments.
Early in December, Akbari was elected vice president of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators. Later in the month, she was elected minority leader by her fellow Senate Democrats to succeed state Sen. Jeff Yarbro of Nashville.
Other Memphis legislators also advanced in both organizations. State representatives Antonio Parkinson (D-98) and Torrey Harris (D-91) were elected to the National Black Caucus executive committee, and London Lamar of Memphis (D-33), a former state representative, was named the Democrats’ caucus chair in the state Senate.
Akbari’s accession to the Democrats’ top state Senate leadership post complements the re-election of Memphis state Rep. Karen Camper (D-87) as the party’s leader in the House, where another Memphian, state Rep. Larry Miller (D-88), was named leader pro tempore for the Democrats.
• An important deadline is looming for the growing cast of hopefuls who aspire to succeed the term-limited Jim Strickland as mayor of Memphis in this year’s city election. January 15th is the prescribed date for candidates to file their first financial reports, and the results will constitute a true test of who is likely to make the long haul to the October election and who is not.
With this in mind, and with their recognition that the holiday season was making its own financial demands of their possible support bases, several of the candidates made it a point to hold fundraisers in the week or so before Christmas.
On the 11th, Van Turner, the former county commissioner and local NAACP head, was the beneficiary of a $100-a-head fundraiser. On the 15th, one was held for state Rep. Karen Camper, the Democrats’ state House leader. The hosts’ invitation specified that all donations were welcome, but $1,000 was more or less pinpointed as the top dollar.
A more ambitious ask of $1,600, the personal max, was suggested for attendees at an affair for Downtown Memphis Commission CEO/President Paul Young on the 18th, and two days later, on the 20th, Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner was the beneficiary of yet another event, with $1,000 as the recommended donation.
Meanwhile, well-heeled businessman and former County Commissioner J.W. Gibson, who brings a pre-existing bankroll of his own, weighed in with the announcement that he would be a likely candidate.
The aforementioned January date will allow all the foregoing and other possible candidates to make an estimate of where each of them stands in the financial sweepstakes. A lot of money will be raised and spent in the mayoral election, but the supply of funding is ultimately limited, and a strong showing early is a good way to shake more dollars loose later on and to discourage one’s rivals.
For purposes of comparison, on January 15, 2015, then incumbent Mayor AC Wharton reported $201,000, and City Councilman Strickland, who would later triumph in a multi-candidate race, was right on Wharton’s heels with reported receipts of $181,000.
• The so-called “3 Gs” schools — Germantown High School, Germantown Elementary, and Germantown Middle School — saw their status transformed again a decade after they became part of the Memphis Shelby County Schools system. A complicated nine-year timeline, returning the elementary and middle schools to the Germantown system and allowing MSCS the right to sell the high school as part of a plan to build a new high school in Cordova, was approved by the four entities involved — Germantown Schools, MSCS, the city of Germantown, and the Shelby County Commission, with the only real dissension occurring on the latter body, which voted 8-5 to approve the arrangement.
“Shame on us,” declared County Commissioner Britney Thornton, a nay-voter.
The real mover in the deal was the Tennessee General Assembly, whose Republican supermajority, in obvious solidarity with Germantown, had passed a law requiring the re-transfer by year’s end.
When Emily Guenther, also known as Reverend Omma to her Wiccan congregation, opened The Broom Closet over 10 years ago, she thought of it as a fantasy coming true. “I had spent six or seven years working in advertising,” she says. “It felt very inconsequential, like anybody could do it. It wasn’t feeding my soul, but it paid the bills. … I had this fantasy that like one day I might actually get to retire. And once I did, I would then spend my retirement working at a little store selling herbs to people — that was just this weird kind of daydream that kind of helped me get through the day sometimes.”
But after a rough year with her mother’s passing and losing that advertising job, her husband Stephen urged her to bring her metaphysical store to fruition, and now 10 years later, that store is going strong, offering solace to its customers and selling spiritual supplies from sage for cleansing to gemstones for manifesting. “We strive to serve the spiritual needs of the community,” Guenther says. “We try to cater to everyone regardless of their beliefs or practices, and just help people, talk to them, answer questions, help them find the thing that they need if they don’t know what they’re looking for.”
As such, one of the services The Broom Closet offers is tarot reading — fortune-telling that uses a deck of 78 pictorial cards. Anyone can read tarot, Guenther says, as long as they understand the meanings of the cards and can embrace their intuition, but having someone else read your tarot can offer insights that you might not have to come otherwise. “The thing about tarot,” she says, “is that because we’re all different … we filter through our life experiences and the way that we live our lives. And so if I needed a reading and let’s say I came to you and I know what the cards mean, you’re going to say it or explain it or filter it through your experience in a way that I needed to hear it.”
In a way, it’s like therapy, with someone guiding you through confronting and coping with the uncontrollable — like love or money, two things Guenther says she gets asked about the most.
To kick off the new year, the Broom Closet is hosting a special night of tarot reading for those looking to check in on specific situations in their life and find guidance. Participants will be able to choose from 15-minute tarot readings for $20, 30-minute readings for $40, and 60-minute readings for $70. Readings will be done on a first-come-first-served basis, with no appointments necessary.
To keep up with other event offerings, like workshops and sound baths, at The Broom Closet, follow them on Facebook (@The Broom Closet – Memphis) or Instagram (@ the_broom_closet).
Twilight Tarot: A Night of Tarot Reading, The Broom Closet, Friday, January 6, 6-8 p.m., $20-$70.
