But the only thing you’re going to hunt there is maybe a second helping of huckleberry compote.
The “Hunt Club” part of the name was a joke, says owner Josh Conley. Etowah actually features dinners four times a year hosted by Conley and Cole Jeanes, chef/owner of Kinfolk Memphis. The seasonal dinners feature top chefs from around the country.
“Etowah” is a Muscogee (Creek) Nation Native-American word that translates to “city” or “place,” Conley says.
Jordan Rainbolt, chef/owner of Native Root in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, will be the featured chef May 27th at The Ravine.
Conley and Jeanes held a couple of Etowah dinners in Arkansas, where Conley and his wife bought a home. But, he says, “The concept makes more sense in Memphis. Memphis is such a great city for food concepts. I’ve always loved Memphis and Memphians because they get really excited about cool stuff. And it’s such a supportive town.”
Conley, who has worked in and out of the food and beverage industry, says, “This is a passion project.”
The idea began several years ago when he and a friend planned to open a bar. “We wanted a place that was really devoted to seasonally-based cocktails.”
Then, he says, “We got really excited about this idea of drinking and eating with the seasons.”
That brick-and-mortar concept never got off the ground, but later, Conley and Jeanes talked “over a glass of wine one night. I started telling him about this thing I wanted to do.”
One of their first dinners was held in a soybean field. Others were held in a parking garage and an artist’s studio.
They ask the featured chef one question: “What does this season — the one we’re doing the dinner in — taste like to you?”
The dinners are “all centered around food memories.” So, for May, he asks, “What does May taste like? What does it smell like? What texture?”
The chef is asked to feature something “special to the particular place and time and season.”
The number of diners “depends on the space” and what the chef’s concept is. The one in May will seat “80 to 100 people,” Conley says. “They usually sell out pretty quickly.”
Jeanes doesn’t cook at the events. “I’m support for the kitchen and food side of this,” he says. “When they come in, I provide them with a kitchen and make sure they get everything taken care of.”
May is the perfect time for Rainbolt to be the featured Etowah chef, she says. It’s “probably my favorite month.”
It’s “the end of spring, not quite summer yet.”
It’s also perfect because of “the produce that’s available,” she says. Spring “sets the tone for the rest of the year. And it’s just this momentum of produce and flowers starting to peak.”
Her restaurant “focuses on regionality and locality but also highlights Indigenous foods that are from this part of the country and world. So, a lot of my menu highlights Appalachian with Indigenous ties or how they overlap.”
Her five-course Etowah menu will include a seared and roasted venison loin with a whiskey-washed tallow pan sauce that will be served with dandelion greens. Dessert will be a huckleberry compote with native blue corn crust.
Response for the Etowah dinners has been great, Jeanes says. “It’s just a great overall experience. It’s tailored to make people feel good. We’re being very hospitable. The food is great.”
This is a one-time-only dinner, Conley says. “It’s experiencing a chef in a different way than you normally would, even if you went to their restaurant.
“These menus are love letters. And this letter happens to be addressed to a season.”
Stax Music Academy (Photo: Memphis Music Initiative | Facebook)
We, as a city, have to create secure pathways for our young people to develop their talents, pursue aspirational careers in the creative economy, and secure Memphis’ rich cultural legacy into the future.
Often, when we think about Memphis’ cultural offerings, we’re stuck in the past and limited by how we define and value the city’s heritage. Memphis is known worldwide for its music, food, and culture, but we don’t always support the diverse array of makers, producers, dreamers, and thinkers pushing culture forward in Memphis and beyond. There is incredible untapped economic potential in the arts and cultural heritage sector. In order to unlock that potential, we must evolve the way we think about Memphis’ creative economy and what it encompasses, push for policies that provide better access to capital and capacity building for artists and creative entrepreneurs, and provide sustained funding for arts nonprofits and creative businesses. We must shift our policies and practices to lower barriers to cross-sector workforce development collaboration so that we can create stronger bridges from education to industry for young people interested in pursuing careers in the wide array of creative fields in Memphis.
In the days following the death of Tyre Nichols, images from his online photography catalog began to circulate online. Clicking through the beautiful photos, it is obvious and tragic to realize that he does not have a chance to develop his talent because his life was so cruelly stolen due to the atrocities committed against him. When we talk about the future of our city (and our city’s arts sector), we’re talking about young visionaries like Tyre. It’s vital that we resource organizations, spaces, and individuals who reflect our city’s arts and culture now — one day, they will be the leaders of the sector.
Last fall, the More for Memphis Arts & Culture Collaborative launched a survey to gather the voices of Memphis creatives — particularly Black creatives whose work fuels our city’s arts ecosystem — to get a better understanding of the challenges facing the sector. One of the key findings was that although the arts are a major economic driver for our city, the sector is critically under-resourced relative to the amount of tax revenue it generates. In 2019, the arts sector generated more than $8 million in revenue, but received just $2.02 in per capita funding — less than half of the national per capita average — for an ROI of 1,000 percent. What’s more, between 2018 and 2022, only 28.81 percent of the public funding for the arts in Shelby County, including pandemic relief funds, went to organizations led by people of color.
That lack of baseline investment makes it incredibly difficult for artists to make a living as creatives in Memphis. Survey respondents said that they struggle to make ends meet, often working multiple jobs and long hours to keep the lights on. It also impacts whether young people are able to see a place for themselves in Memphis’ creative economy. Young people are the lens through which we must vision a better, more equitable future for our sector and our city. This is where art starts in Memphis. In a city that is more than 60 percent Black, this is a racial justice issue. There is a disconnect between how we, as Memphians, view Memphis and how Memphis is sold to the world.
As part of the More for Memphis project, we are working to recenter Blackness at the heart of Memphis’ cultural heritage so that we can better define the contours of the arts and cultural heritage economy here in Memphis beyond music tourism and traditional, often white, mainstays that often derive from Black cultural forms. Memphis’ celebrated arts and cultural heritage economy should highlight important cultural and historical assets like the National Civil Rights Museum, Mason Temple, Hattiloo Theatre, and Collage Dance Collective, in addition to world-renowned assets like Sun Studio or Graceland. That starts on the grassroots level, with more support for organizations that are led by and serve Black and brown people, and more support for individual creators.
In addition to better supporting artists, we must also recognize and value creativity as an important workforce development skill in any field. The creative economy is made up of knowledge workers who possess critical thinking and design skills that transfer across all sectors, with overlaps in forward-looking fields like healthcare innovation, business technology, and advanced manufacturing. To be a competitive economy in the coming decades, we need people who can think outside of the box and who can adapt to new technology and new innovations — all traits of creative thinkers. We must equip our young people to be the foundation of a thriving, more equitable creative economy.
The arts and creative industries must no longer be left out of the economic and community development conversation. By developing economic and business development policy and practice to better support the needs of creatives, especially Black creatives and Black heritage sites, Memphis can begin to realize the full value of the arts as an underutilized economic asset.
Rychetta Watkins is the director of grantmaking and partnerships for Memphis Music Initiative. She is a passionate advocate for increased equity, access, and opportunity in education, the arts, and philanthropy in her hometown.
“This is Bubbles, the Beale Street vendor who was the victim of today’s gun violence,” u/12frets wrote on Reddit last Sunday. “Show him some love.”
Memphis police responded to the shooting on Beale around 3 p.m. Sunday, close to the time of the Beale Street Wine Race. According to the Reddit thread, Bubbles has sold glow sticks, hats, and bubbles to kids on Beale “for years.” The gunshot, apparently, “only” got him in the ear, and many wished him a speedy and full recovery.
Gov’s Anus
Posted to Instagram by @thisisindecline
Art collective INDECLINE took responsibility last weekend for a new billboard in Nashville. It shows a mostly nude Governor Bill Lee lying on his side farting out the words, “Indecency is turning love into hate.”
“Good morning, Nashville,” INDECLINE wrote on Instagram. “Your governor’s anus has something to say.”
Grizz Out
Posted to Reddit by u/plazex
“No Grizzlies basketball for 6 months :(,” u/plazex posted to Reddit after the team’s loss to the Lakers over the weekend. The Memphis Grizzlies subreddit was full of sad and funny memes, postseason analysis, and random facts about actual grizzly bears.
Last year, it struck many as odd that the great Memphis in May tradition of celebrating the best music of our time by the banks of the Mississippi had suddenly been uprooted. Everyone presumably understood the reasoning, with Tom Lee Park still being reconstructed at the time, yet having the festival relocated in its 45th year induced a kind of transplant shock in some. Now, this May 5th through 7th, none of that applies, as the Beale Street Music Festival once again roots down by the river. In fact, having begun in 1977 at the corner of Beale and Third, it’s closer to its roots than ever. Let 2023 be known as the year the festival returned to Beale Street.
That’s because, while the main festival stages will be spread across Tom Lee Park as in the past, what was formerly known as the “Blues Tent” will now be the Memphis Tourism “Blues Stage on Beale.” Best of all, this area of the festival is free. As Kevin Kane, president & CEO of Memphis Tourism, noted in a statement, “The blues will be exactly where they were born during Memphis in May, at Handy Park on Beale Street. This extends the entertainment footprint of the Beale Street Music Festival beyond Tom Lee Park, making great use of a public venue and stage, free and open to all.”
For any music lovers who’ve struggled to hear some wistful Delta bottleneck guitar over the pounding kick drum of a headliner on the main stage, this is a positive boon. And not only will the blues get the proper respect of plenteous peace and quiet, the festival’s programmers have invested in the Blues Stage lineup in a big way. Headliners Los Lobos, Keb’ Mo’, and the North Mississippi Allstars will be complemented by the likes of Cedric Burnside, Blind Mississippi Morris, the Ghost Town Blues Band, Mr. Sipp, the Reba Russell Band, and more.
Beyond Beale, this year’s festival is rooting down in another, subtler sense. It’s not in the usual sense of tipping its hat to local artists, though with everyone from hometown hip-hop queen GloRilla to The Bar-Kays, Jason D. Williams, Dirty Streets, Tyke T, Sleep Theory, The Sensational Barnes Brothers, and Mille Manny appearing, that cohort is well-represented. It’s more in the unseen threads of Memphis influence that run through the work of three of the festival’s headliners in particular: Earth, Wind & Fire; The Roots; and Robert Plant & Alison Krauss. Though it’s hard to say how that influence will manifest during their respective sets, the invisible strings tying these artists to Memphis are powerful and profound. As you watch, listen, and dance to the music, be on the lookout for those connections to reveal themselves.
☮
Earth, Wind & Fire
The threads binding Earth, Wind & Fire to Memphis are the most obvious of the bunch, for this is where group founder Maurice White grew up. In his memoir, Time is Tight: My Life, Note by Note, Booker T. Jones takes us back to that time: “I was a sixth-grader practicing in the band room one day when Maurice, an eighth-grader, walked in and said, ‘Hello, I’m Maurice White.’ We discovered we lived not far away from one another and started hanging out at his small LeMoyne Gardens apartment or in the den at my house, usually listening to music.”
Both were destined to become legendary musicians, and they wasted no time in getting started. “Maurice was the first person of my age group I’d met who was really committed to making music and had the skill to become a virtuoso,” Jones writes. “We ended up playing live or practicing together nearly every day for what seemed like years. He was usually on drums, and I was on piano or some other instrument. As a result, we became like soul brothers, neither of us having a natural brother our own age.” The day White left for Chicago was burned into Jones’ memory. “It was 1961, an early introduction to emptiness.”
Of course, Jones’ loss was the world’s gain, as White began to thrive in the Chicago music scene, working for the Ramsey Lewis Trio and playing on sessions for Chess Records. Eventually, he enlisted his half-brother Verdine White on bass for his new 10-piece band. As he later wrote in his autobiography, “Earth, Wind & Fire would have never become Earth, Wind & Fire without Verdine. A huge part of what built EWF was our live shows. Verdine, the ultimate Leo, had the energy to sustain us.”
The band, of course, had enough mega-hits in the ’70s to release The Best of Earth, Wind & Fire, Vol. 1 in 1978, while the compilation’s new single, “September,” became one of their biggest hits ever, propelling the album into quintuple-platinum sales. Moreover, the staying power of the band’s golden-era tracks has been undeniable; in 2018, “September” was added to the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry as a “culturally, historically, or aesthetically important” work.
While White seemingly never identified with Memphis much after leaving (excepting the band’s one release on Stax), those years of hits made their impact right here in the Bluff City. That’s especially clear in the recent work of a self-confessed superfan and Memphis native, historian Trenton Bailey. His book Do You Remember? Celebrating Fifty Years of Earth, Wind & Fire (Univ. Press of Mississippi), just published this year, is a formidable compendium of the band’s every move. Reading it helps shed light on how the band can carry on despite White’s death in 2016.
As it turns out, the group has been touring without him for 30 years, for tragic reasons. Even as early as the late 1980s, White was dealing with the sporadic effects of Parkinson’s disease. By 1993, shortly after a galvanizing performance on The Arsenio Hall Show, he announced that he was retiring from touring. Before long, his longtime partner and co-singer in the band, Philip Bailey, along with brother Verdine, secured the rights to tour under the band name without White. As the disease inexorably took its toll on White’s health, the band carried on White’s legacy. To this day, Verdine still holds down the bass and Bailey still fronts the band, making for live sets that continue to stun.
♥
The Roots
Though it may not be obvious now that The Roots seemingly appear everywhere as the house band for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, their ties to Memphis run deep, mainly thanks to the same man who was Maurice White’s childhood friend: Booker T. Jones. As Roots co-producer, keyboardist, and arranger Ray Angry puts it, “I did some shows with Booker T. and The Roots. He’s awesome!” And clearly it made an impression on the former head of the M.G.’s as well.
As Jones writes in his memoir, “Jimmy Fallon’s a great music supporter and a great guy. I just had to have his drummer is all.” That would be Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, of course, who, like Angry, has distinguished himself independent of The Roots, but continues to thrive on playing with the band. Not only was he a co-producer with Jones on The Road from Memphis, Jones’ Grammy-winning album from 2011, he supplied all the beats while his then-bandmates Owen Biddle and Kirk Douglas laid down the bass and guitar, respectively. “Questlove’s steady drumming is inimitable and unmistakable,” writes Jones, and the proof is in the pudding of that masterpiece of an album.
The Roots’ Black Thought and Questlove (Photo: Courtesy of BSMF)
That steady drumming jumped out from The Roots’ major label debut, Do You Want More?!!!??!, in 1995, and still forms the backbone of the group today, while Tariq Trotter, aka Black Thought, continues to make the rhymes flow. From the start, they brought a jazz sensibility to hip-hop, first and foremost because they were a group of real players, making the music in real time, rather than relying on samples. Even as they embraced sampling more deeply, as in 2004’s The Tipping Point, that commitment to live playing has been a through line in the band’s long history.
Even as long ago as 2008, joining the group was a dream come true for Ray Angry. They were already legends. “One of the first sessions I did, with Joss Stone, was a gig I got through The Roots’ manager,” Angry recalls. “I was a classical pianist playing jazz, with so many different musical styles under my belt, and during this time The Roots were playing with people like Sting and George Clinton. Eventually I started co-producing songs, starting with the album How I Got Over. So on every Roots record from that point on, I was a producer, arranging strings and writing interludes. And one interlude I wrote, ‘A Peace of Light,’ Kendrick Lamar ended up sampling. So working with The Roots is pretty cool!”
Angry, best known for his 2021 single “Toyland” and with a solo piano album coming out in June, embodies the same eclecticism as The Roots generally, and he often augments his group work with individual Roots cameos. “I did just do a trio record with myself, Questlove, and David Murray. I’m really excited about that. I also work on film stuff with Questlove, and one year he and I did the music for the Oscars.” Meanwhile, he’s a secret weapon of sorts for the band’s residency on national network television. “When I first worked with them on The Tonight Show, they would have me write a bunch of cues; they call them sandwiches, because they’re short bits of music for commercial breaks.”
And speaking of sandwiches, Angry treasures his encounter with one Memphis barbecue expert in particular. “I worked on a record with Joss Stone that included Memphis legend Steve Cropper. He was telling me about his barbecue restaurant. People are really serious about their barbecue in Memphis!”
And The Roots are really serious about Memphis. Is it too much to hope for a reprise of their scintillating cover of Booker T. & the M.G.’s “Melting Pot”? Show up Saturday and find out.
🤘
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
While bluegrass star Alison Krauss is typically associated with Nashville, it’s her erstwhile collaborator, Robert Plant, who really embodies the invisible strings of Memphis. Naturally, with his supergroup Led Zeppelin having emerged from the British blues revival of the ’60s, he’s steeped in the music and lore of the Bluff City and Mississippi. That’s apparent in a story told on the band’s official online forum by former Atlantic Records promotional man Phillip Rauls about when Led Zeppelin’s tour came to Memphis in November of 1969.
“The lobby of the Holiday Inn was clearing as a parade of newscasters and camera crews packed up their equipment,” Rauls writes, “after the presentation ceremony awarding Led Zeppelin The Key to The City of Memphis. Standing at the elevator and waiting for a lift was Jimmy Page and Robert Plant when I casually approached the twosome.” And what did the celebrity rockers want most out of a visit to the Bluff City? “A few seconds passed when [Page] turned back to me and timidly asked, ‘Do you know anything about Sun Recording Studio?’”
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss (Photo: David McClister
The group’s ties to the city were even more pronounced a year later, when Page settled on Ardent Studios as the place to complete overdubs and mixes for the album Led Zeppelin III. But Plant’s connection to the city went beyond musical obsessions or work. It was personal, as was revealed last year when Priscilla Presley was inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame. Who should appear to present the award to her but Plant himself, who called her “a lifelong friend.”
He used the opportunity to wax enthusiastic about the music of our region. “I’m British, and we have a fascination with the music of this specific city and its environs and farther down in the Mississippi Delta. … Here in Memphis, excitement and unparalleled expression rose above the constraints and the infamy of the times. Here in Memphis, the sounds of Clarksdale, Jackson, Tunica, and the Delta collided with unholy abandon, with the hillbilly two-step. Here in Memphis, where trailblazing Blacks and whites worked under cover of night at Sam Phillips to forge the beat that created a new world of music.”
As he wrapped up his introduction, Plant emphasized his personal connection to the place. “Like so many people from all walks of life, tonight I feel like a part of one big extended family. We’re bound together by the energy of the beat from long ago that was driven with stunning conviction and abandon by the man that you, Priscilla, knew so well.” And, for just a moment, as he looked out at the Memphis audience warmly that night, you could see those invisible strings plain as day.
Memphis Tourism Blues Stage on Beale Azmyl & the Truly Asia 4:30 Blind Mississippi Morris 6:00 Ana Popovic 7:35 Keb’ Mo’ 9:15 Ghost Town Blues Band 11:00
Saturday, May 6, 2023 Gates at 1 p.m.
Zyn Stage Myron Elkins 2:25 Jason D. Williams 3:55 Gov’t Mule 5:30 Mike. 7:10 Halestorm 8:40 Hardy 10:20
Bud Light Stage Tyke T 2:00 Phony PPL 3:20 Big Boogie 4:50 Cameo 6:00 Finesse2Tymes 7:30 GloRilla 8:45 The Roots 10:00
Volkswagen Stage Sleep Theory 2:45 Mac Saturn 4:15 Living Colour 5:50 White Reaper 7:30 The Struts 9:10 Greta Van Fleet 10:45
Memphis Tourism Blues Stage on Beale Mark Muleman Massey 1:30 Will Tucker Band 3:00 Azmyl & the Truly Asia 4:35 Mr. Sipp 6:15 Cedric Burnside 8:00 Bernard Allison 9:45 North Mississippi Allstars 11:30
Sunday, May 7, 2023 Gates at 1 p.m.
Zyn Stage Beach Weather 2:20 Moon Taxi 3:55 Andy Grammer 5:30 Young the Giant 7:00 AJR 8:40
Bud Light Stage Mille Manny 2:15 Eric Benet 3:45 Yola 5:15 Dru Hill 6:45 Jazmine Sullivan 8:25
Volkswagen Stage Dirty Streets 2:15 Shovels & Rope 3:45 Lucinda Williams 5:20 Gary Clark Jr. 7:00 Robert Plant & Alison Krauss 8:40
Memphis Tourism Blues Stage on Beale Ollie Moore 1:30 Reba Russell Band 3:00 Selwyn Birchwood 4:35 Colin James 6:15 Los Lobos 8:00 Rod Bland Members Only Band 10:00
When planning for retirement, people often focus on how much money they need to save, when they’ll retire, and how to spend their free time. An often-overlooked retirement planning consideration is where to retire — and the decision can have a significant impact on your finances.
Here are some factors to consider when deciding where to retire:
• Income tax implications — Let’s go ahead and start with the elephant in the room. Sadly, even after you finish working, you’ll still owe taxes. Taxes can have a significant impact on your retirement, and different states have different tax rates for retirement income. Some states have more favorable tax policies than others, which can allow retirees to keep more of their retirement income. In addition, some states don’t tax Social Security benefits or other types of retirement income, which can help you further maximize your retirement savings.
• Retirement income Social Security benefits — While most states don’t tax Social Security benefits, there are a few states that impose some form of taxes on them. Regardless of where in the U.S. you live, up to 85 percent of your Social Security income may be subject to federal income tax. Retirement plan distributions — Many people hold most of their retirement savings in tax-deferred accounts, such as IRAs and 401(k)s. While these vehicles provide a great way to save in a tax-deferred manner, retirement distributions from these types of accounts are subject to ordinary income tax at the federal level. However, some states don’t tax retirement plan distributions, which can help you maximize your funds available for retirement.
• Pension income — Some states differentiate between public and private pensions and may tax only public pensions. Other states tax both, while some states tax neither. Again, the amount of state tax you pay on this retirement income source can have a big impact on your lifestyle.
• Estate taxes — In 2023, the federal government allows individuals to pass on up to $12,920,000 without any federal estate tax ($25,840,000 for married couples filing jointly). However, depending on where you live, you may need to pay state estate taxes. It’s important to understand the estate tax requirements of your current state as you’re planning your legacy, especially since some states’ estate tax limits may be lower than you would expect.
• Capital gains — Long-term capital gains are taxed by the federal government at more favorable rates than ordinary income. However, this is often not the case for states that charge state income tax. Many states don’t differentiate between earned income and capital gains, which means depending on the state in which you live, you may have significant tax liabilities on investment income.
• Cost of living — Cost of living can differ widely between various cities and states, making it essential to choose a retirement location you can afford. Some cities have a much lower cost of living than others, which allows you to do more with your retirement savings. By choosing a location with a lower cost of living, you may be able to afford a larger home, travel more often, or pursue hobbies and interests that may be out of reach if you were paying more for daily living expenses.
• Healthcare costs — When choosing where to retire, it’s important to find a location that offers access to high-quality healthcare facilities. Having convenient access to healthcare can help keep your costs down.
• Housing costs — Housing costs can vary widely between different cities and states, which is why it’s important to choose a retirement location that aligns with your housing budget. It’s also important to consider what property taxes you’ll be responsible for paying, as these too can vary widely.
While we’re not advocating for a mass migration to a retiree-friendly state such as Florida, it’s important to understand how where you live can impact your retirement finances. This knowledge allows you to choose a location that fits within your retirement budget and allows you to live the lifestyle you want.
Gene Gard, CFA, CFP, CFT-I, is a Wealth Manager with Creative Planning, formerly Telarray. Creative Planning is one of the nation’s largest Registered Investment Advisory firms providing comprehensive wealth management services to ensure all elements of a client’s financial life are working together, including investments, taxes, estate planning, and risk management. For more information or to request a free, no-obligation consultation, visit CreativePlanning.com.
Well, the book banners are at it again. Since the good ol’ U.S. of A. was founded by a diverse (from a theological perspective, anyway) group who had just witnessed a couple hundred years of bloody religious civil war in England, freedoms of belief and expression were enshrined as fundamental rights in the new country. So those who would impose their religion on others start by whipping up moral panics about “pornography! In the schools!”
Long before the words “Ron DeSantis” first passed fascist lips, they came for Judy Blume. Her 1970 middle-school coming-of-age novel Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. has everything: frank talk about sex, a skeptical view of religion, and worst of all, a female protagonist learning about her period. The horror! Children should know nothing about sex except that God hates you for it.
The bannings in the 1970s made it a widely read Gen X classic. Blume resisted offers from Hollywood until The Simpsons executive producer James L. Brooks and director Kelly Fremon Craig finally convinced her it was time to film the unfilmable.
Rachel McAdams as Barbara Simon and Abby Ryder Fortson as Margaret Simon in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
We first meet Margaret Simon (Abby Ryder Fortson) having the time of her life at summer camp. When she returns home to her mother Barbara (Rachel McAdams) and father Herb (Benny Safdie), she’s quick to notice something is afoot. Grandma Sylvia (Kathy Bates) blurts out the news: Dad got a promotion and the family is moving from Brooklyn to the suburbs of New Jersey.
While the family is still unpacking, neighbor Nancy (Elle Graham) introduces herself. Margaret is attracted to her new friend’s self-confidence, and she gets a boost when Nancy asks her to join her girl gang. But navigating her new school’s social scene becomes Margaret’s minefield.
Meanwhile, a long-simmering situation in Margaret’s family life is coming to a boil. Barbara’s Christian fundamentalist parents disowned her when she married Herb, who is Jewish. Margaret must choose which religious tradition she wants to join, if any. Margaret prays her own way in private, and her missives to God give the film narrative structure. When Margaret finds out why she’s never met her grandparents, it fills her with horror — the more she sees of religion, the less she wants to do with it.
Craig nails the feel of the wood-paneled 1970s. Her technique is conservative, compared to TheDiary of a Teenage Girl and Eighth Grade. It’s the acting that sends this adaptation into greatness. Fortson’s performance is wise beyond its years, and Graham’s a natural. Craig’s screenplay increases the role of Barbara, and McAdams makes a meal of it.
Margaret’s choices — to be a mean girl or not; to be Jewish, Christian, or none of the above; to be fake and popular or risk being real; being forced to choose between competing branches of her family — are so universal that they transcend the 20th-century setting. What has scared the pearl-clutching book banners for 50 years is that Margaret makes her own choices for her own reasons and lives more or less happily ever after. That kind of freedom is not something the reactionary mind welcomes.
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. Now playing Multiple locations
Shelby County Chancellor JoeDae Jenkins (Photo: Memphis Bar Association | Facebook)
Between the 18th of this month, a Thursday, and the 22nd, a Monday, there will fall one business day and a weekend. Within that brief period, the political history of Memphis for at least four years — and maybe longer — could well be determined.
The 22nd is the first date on which candidate petitions for the October 5th city election will be made available by the Shelby County Election Commission. The 18th, four days prior, shapes up as a day of judgment for candidate eligibility. On that date, the long-festering issue of residency requirements for mayor will be resolved, one way or the other, in the courtroom of Shelby County Chancellor JoeDae Jenkins.
So indicated His Honor on Monday. His fateful announcement, made at the close of a hearing on the residency matter, followed an equally eventful one from Memphis city attorney Jennifer Sink, rendered in Jenkins’ courtroom by Michael Fletcher, a lawyer for the city. In essence, Sink said via Fletcher that an opinion she had requested weeks ago from attorney Robert Meyers reflected city policy, reversing a statement she made last month in which she declined to go that far.
The Meyers opinion had cited language in an 1895 city charter mandating a prior residency in Memphis for a period of five years for candidates for mayor. That opinion, published on the Shelby County Commission website, generated significant turmoil, including litigation from two announced candidates — Sheriff Floyd Bonner and NAACP president Van Turner — challenging such a mandate.
Bonner and Turner, whose suits were later combined, insist that Memphis voters approved a superseding referendum in 1996 that did away with a prior-residency requirement for both mayoral candidates and candidates for the city council, and that several city elections had been held since under the new standard. (Indeed, several current members of the council could not have passed a five-year requirement for prior residency.)
As for Sink’s apparent change of mind, lawyers for the litigants point out that the city doesn’t administer elections; the Election Commission does, which had meanwhile dropped Meyers’ opinion from its website.
In danger of invalidation, Bonner and Turner, who until recently lived just outside the city, are joined by former Mayor Willie Herenton, a sometime resident of Collierville in recent years. Ironically, all three were basically tied for the lead in the only mayoral poll made public so far.
One clear beneficiary of their ouster (though he has steered clear of the controversy) would be Downtown Memphis Commission CEO Paul Young, who by a wide margin would lead the rest of the declared field in fundraising. Two other mayoral hopefuls, businessman J.W. Gibson and School Board member Michelle McKissack, have declared themselves in favor of the Meyers opinion.
In the wake of Monday’s events, Bonner issued a ringing statement which said in part: “The voters of Memphis voted in 1996 to do away with a dated residency requirement from the 1800s, and we are fighting to make sure the people’s voice is heard.” Turner also responded: “It is unfortunate that some group of insiders are trying to decide the election instead of letting the will of the voters play out. … [W]e will continue to prepare for our day in Court on May 18, and we will continue to campaign on the issues and not the distractions.”
In trying to home in on what to write about this week, I was pulled in several directions. More gun violence. An uptick in fentanyl overdoses. (Both topics I’ll explore in this space later.) But what caught my attention while researching was the fact that my attention was actually all over the place. Between the many tabs and my phone’s notifications, my brain was abuzz with information overload.
As I clicked and scrolled, I stumbled upon an NPR story: “30 years ago, one decision altered the course of our connected world.” April 30th was the 30th anniversary of the launch of the World Wide Web into public domain — and alter the course it did.
Thirty years ago, I was a carefree adolescent. Sometimes I’d play Paperboy on Nintendo until my thumbs blistered or watch hours of rock-and-roll videos on MTV. But most of my free time I’d spend outside — meandering the neighborhood scanning the streets for loose change or catching bees in Coke bottles or some other random activity that would be considered rather boring by a kid today. I got a pager in high school — a useless thing, really. The little electronic box would buzz, a number would appear on the slim rectangular screen, then I’d have to go find a landline to call said number. I didn’t get my first cell phone or home computer until college. Which was great at first. I could look up essay resources or travel maps online. If my car broke down, I could call someone right then to help rather than walk to the nearest pay phone. (And people still met up, in person, and looked at each other and engaged, uninterrupted! That was nice.) But it’s been a slippery slope from there.
In the NPR story, the author recalled how, 30 years ago, Morning Edition listeners heard from host Neal Conan: “Imagine being able to communicate at-will with 10 million people all over the world. Imagine having direct access to catalogs of hundreds of libraries as well as the most up-to-date news, business, and weather reports. Imagine being able to get medical advice or gardening advice immediately from any number of experts. This is not a dream. It’s internet.”
The World Wide Web opened a portal to uncharted territory, unlimited information, and instant communication. With digital technology at our fingertips at every moment, we can do all that was imagined and more. But it’s more like a fever dream today, full of strange reels and live streams and windows into weirder worlds than we could have ever conceived. Now we have “influencers,” TikTok trends, online gaming, the metaverse (and, and, and) to take up the time of bored teens and, well, all of us, worldwide, if we let ’em.
Between work, keeping in touch with folks, and mindless entertainment, I’m looking at one screen or another the majority of my day, constantly bombarded with emails and reminders:
Have you had any water today?
It’s time for your daily meditation.
[XYZ] uploaded a new video on YouTube.
A person you may know is on TikTok.
You have three new WhatsApp messages.
Here’s your affirmation for today!
Pedometer service is running.
Time to get moving!
You have 14 new unread emails.
[So-and-so] is live on Instagram.
Hungry? You’re one click away on UberEats.
Missed alarm: Dog meds.
*Ding* a Slack notification.
*Ring* a spam call.
*Ting* a text.
It’s exhausting. I could delete some apps (and yes, I have an app reminding me to drink water; in the tangled mess of tasks and tings, it’s easy to forget to hydrate) or silence notifications (but then how would I know when I get an angry email from a reader who hated my column about woke beers?!).
I have 17 tabs open in my brain right now. How about you? The internet — this wonderful, horrible thing that altered society — is a blessing and a curse. Perhaps I’ll try a World Wide Web detox. Turn off the damn phone. Take a stroll and scan the streets for a shiny quarter.
A man who is suspected to have fired a single shot into a Memphis TV station is now in police custody, according to the Memphis Police Department.
According to a post made by Fox 13 Memphis on Facebook, police said that the suspect shot into the station and then “barricaded himself inside of Ubee’s,” (located at 521 South Highland Street).
The station said that no one was injured.
This story will be updated as more information becomes available.
Tennessee private schools are now authorized to “regulate a student’s participation in the school’s athletic activities or events based upon a student’s biological sex.”
Governor Bill Lee signed SB1237 into law on Thursday, April 28th. The bill was introduced by Senator Joey Hensley (R-Hohenwald.)
According to the Tennessee General Assembly, a student that is enrolled in a private school in the state of Tennessee is only eligible to participate in sports activity where “membership in the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association is required, in accordance with the student’s immutable biological sex as determined by anatomy and genetics existing at the time of birth”
While this amendment to the bill allows for schools to prohibit a student from joining a team based on their “biological sex,” it does allow for female students to participate in male sporting events if there is not a separate team for that sport.
The governor has signed off on several similar measures in the past. In April of 2022. Chalkbeat Tennessee reporter Marta W. Aldrich reported that HB1895, attached “financial penalties to a 2021 law that prohibited trans athletes from competing on middle and high school teams based on their gender identity.” A similar bill also prohibited males from participating in sports “designated for females,” on the collegiate level.
In 2021, Hensley introduced SB0228, which stated that a student’s eligibility for a specific sport in public middle and high schools, must be determined by “the student’s sex at the time of the student’s birth, as indicated on the student’s original birth certificate.”
This bill is currently at the center of the lawsuit L.E. v. Lee filed by the American Civil Liberties Union {ACLU} of Tennessee, Lamda Legal, and the law firm of Wilmer Hale. According to the ACLU, 15-year-old Luc Esquievel and his family have sued the state of Tennessee, as he was not able to try out for the boys’ golf team at Farragut High School in Knoxville, Tennessee.
According to the Movement Advancement Project, Tennessee is one of 21 states that have bans on transgender youth participation in sports.
