The film that has had the most lasting influence on action cinema is Buster Keaton’s 1926 masterpiece The General. Inspired by an actual Civil War train chase across Tennessee and Georgia, The General contains some of the most incredible stunts ever performed for film — all of them done by Keaton himself.
There’s a straight line between The General and Raiders of the Lost Ark, the 1981 Steven Spielberg/George Lucas collaboration that perfected the kinetic filmmaking style the two friends had been groping towards with Star Wars, Jaws, and 1941. Their not-so-secret weapon was Harrison Ford, who didn’t quite do all of his own stunts like Keaton, but who still did a lot more stuff than Lucasfilm’s insurers were comfortable with.
When Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2012, the rights to Indiana Jones came with it, and soon after the House of Mouse pointed out that Spielberg, Lucas, and Ford had signed a five-film deal in 1979. That meant that even after the classic 80s run of Raiders, Temple of Doom, and The Last Crusade, and 2008’s much-maligned Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, they were owed one more. Thus was born Indiana Jones and the Contractual Obligation, aka Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
Spielberg and Lucas fulfilled their contractual obligations by executive producing this go-round, handing off directorial duties to James Mangold, and a script cobbled together from years of false starts.
But without Ford, there’s no Indy. Any doubts that the 80-year-old Ford could still wear the fedora are quickly dispelled in The Dial of Destiny. When the action opens, Ford gets ILM’s patented de-aging treatment. It’s 1945, and the Third Reich is falling. Indy and his Oxford archeologist colleague Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) try to sneak into a German castle where Nazis are hoarding looted treasures. They’re looking for the Lance of Longious, the Roman spear that pierced Christ’s side, but in the ensuing fracas, Indy half-accidentally comes into possession of the Antikythera, half of a mysterious clockwork artifact from ancient Greece allegedly created by Archimedes.
Mangold’s assignment is to imitate the master, and the opening chase sequence, which pays homage to The General, is prime Spielbergian thrill-ride cinema. Then we flash forward to 1969, where a depressed, aging Indy is just trying to get some peace and quiet in his Brooklyn apartment. The script gets the old man jokes out of the way early, when Indy takes a baseball bat to hush up the hippies downstairs, who were blasting “Magical Mystery Tour” way too loud. The hippies are in a celebratory mood, because it’s the day of the ticker-tape parade for the Apollo 11 astronauts. It’s also retirement day for Indy, who has fallen from Princeton to a tiny liberal arts college. I guess it’s hard to get tenure when you’re a globe-trotting adventurer. His son with Marion, Mutt, has died in Vietnam, and the couple have split, leaving Indy with memories and whiskey.
Ford, who has phoned in performances in his time, comes alive in a scene where Indy tries to teach his class of bored, stoned co-eds about Archimedes. One student who is listening is Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), who reveals herself to Indy as the daughter of Basil, and his goddaughter. Helena is in the family business, but her brand of archeology is closer to Indy’s mercenary Temple of Doom approach than the guy who exclaimed “It belongs in a museum!” She wants to know what happened to the Antikythera all those years ago. Also interested in the subject is Jurgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen), a former Nazi turned NASA rocket scientist, who believes the Antikythera holds the key to time travel. Indy’s retirement is upended by a three-way chase through the streets and subways of New York, as the ticker-tape parade is in progress.
Mangold takes a lot of big swings, and most of them connect. Waller-Bridge proves a much better foil for Ford than Shia LaBeouf was in Crystal Skull. There are some great sentimental cameos, but they’re handled deftly enough that it doesn’t become a nonstop nostalgia party.
Best of all is Ford, who doesn’t treat this as a victory lap. His joints are stiffer, but when he says he’s been shot nine times, you believe him. It’s a great joy to see anti-fascist icon Indiana Jones still out there punching Nazis. We need him now more than ever.
The Memphis-Shelby County Schools board is rebooting its superintendent search, with plans to solicit community input, invite new candidates, and select a leader in early 2024. Laura Testino / Chalkbeat
The Memphis-Shelby County Schools board is rebooting its superintendent search, with plans to solicit fresh community input, invite new candidates, and hire a permanent leader in early 2024.
The move to restart the search could entice qualified candidates who experts say may have been repelled by a process that got derailed by discord among board members.
The new leader would start on or before July 1st, potentially with a transition period concurrent with interim Superintendent Toni Williams, who received a contract extension Tuesday. Based on that timeline, the process to find a permanent successor to Joris Ray — who departed in August 2022 amid an investigation into alleged misconduct — will have taken nearly two years.
It’s the first time that the merged Memphis-Shelby County district has resolved to complete a national search since it was formed a decade ago. Ray and his predecessor, Dorsey Hopson, were both elevated from the interim post. Williams, who was named a finalist in April, withdrew from consideration as a condition of her contract extension.
Board members met on Wednesday with Max McGee, president of search firm Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates, to discuss how to proceed.
McGee commended the board’s “extraordinary” efforts to get the search back on track.
The board expects to relaunch a community engagement effort for the search, too, as a step toward mending strained relationships with community advocates who have grown frustrated with the board’s actions.
When they launched the national search in late 2022, board members promised a process that would help restore trust in district leadership. But the board began to fracture after the initial three finalists were named in April, and it paused the search for two months. Only recently did board members agree on a set of qualifications and nail down their policy on minimum requirements for the job.
Those qualifications will be reflected in the new rubric for candidates that McGee refined with board members on Wednesday. Existing candidates in the pool will have to reapply, including the two remaining top contenders. McGee suggested that the job be posted by Aug. 1.
“Today it is about us, united as a board, moving forward with HYA as we continue this journey to get the best leaders for the students of Memphis-Shelby County Schools,” said board Chair Althea Greene.
The new qualifications include:
• Strategic leadership on budget and finance
• Governance and board leadership
• Community advocate and politically savvy
• Courageous decision maker
• Attract, retain, and build capacity of a strong team
• Ability to positively impact culture and climate
• Dynamic, visionary, adaptive leader
• Proven track record of success
• Effective change management
• Strong academic visionary
Candidates will also have to meet the minimum job requirements set by board policy. The board relaxed those requirements this month to allow candidates with 10 years of work experience and an advanced degree in any of several fields, rather than just education.
Some board members raised concerns about the $19,000 price tag and longer timeline associated with restarting the search.
In a letter dated June 23rd, Hazard Young told board members it had developed a new finalist list after evaluating current candidates against the new criteria and would present it Wednesday. Amber Huett-Garcia asked at Wednesday’s meeting if the slate would be shared. But no new finalists were presented.
“We’re not using any names today,” said newly elected Vice Chair Joyce Dorse-Coleman.
Board member Kevin Woods, citing a vote made in mid-June, said, “We stated very publicly that we were going to open the search up for new candidates.”
Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
In a partial victory for transgender Tennesseans, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction Wednesday on portions of the new law prohibiting trans minors from obtaining gender-affirming care, ruling the law likely violates the First and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.
Judge Eli Richardson granted the injunction to the plaintiffs — parents of two transgender youth — agreeing with arguments that Senate Bill 1 may interfere with the right of a minor’s parents to direct the medical care of their children as protected by the 14th Amendment.
But Richardson also ruled the portion of the new law banning surgical treatment stands for the time being on the grounds that neither of the minor plaintiffs argued a prohibition on surgical treatment would affect their treatment for gender dysphoria.
The new law, which is set to take effect on July 1st, prohibits any minor in Tennessee from receiving certain medical procedures if the purpose of receiving those procedures is to enable that minor to live with a gender identity that is inconsistent with that minor’s sex at birth, defining “medical procedure” as including “surgically removing, modifying, altering, or entering into tissues, cavities, or organs of a human being.”
In a memorandum, Richardson wrote that the law likely constitutes sex-based discrimination against transgender persons as it applies a standard to them not applied to others and that Tennessee lawmakers lacked real-world experience to accurately judge whether gender-affirming care is harmful: “It is feasible that one might assume that because these procedures are intended to have the treated minor’s body do something that it otherwise would not do (rather than allow the body to function in a purportedly ‘natural’ manner), the procedure must be ‘bad’ or ‘harmful’ to the minor.”
Such assumptions, Richardson added, do not provide sufficient evidence to uphold the law, although the case will proceed to a full trial for resolution.
Richardson’s ruling follows a June 20th decision in Arkansas, in which a federal judge similarly ruled that state’s law violated both the First and 14th Amendments, and one in Kentucky, also on Thursday.
Senator Jack Johnson (R-Franklin), sponsor of SB1, posted on Twitter, “I have complete faith that the legislation we passed is constitutional. I appreciate Attorney General [Jonathan] Skrmetti’s commitment to vigorously appeal this decision — all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.”
Transgender rights advocates celebrated the ruling.
“Today’s ruling acknowledges the dangerous implications of this law and protects the freedom to access vital, life-saving healthcare for trans youth and their families while our challenge proceeds,” said Lucas Cameron-Vaughn, ACLU of Tennessee staff attorney. “This law is an intrusion upon the rights and lives of Tennessee families and threatens the futures of trans youth across the state. We are determined to continue fighting this unconstitutional law until it is struck down for good.”
“Finally, these families can regroup after a year of crisis,” said Molly Quinn, executive director of OUTMemphis, an LGBTQ advocacy organization. “The trans people I know are tired of being used to mobilize a Christian nationalist agenda, and tired of feeling forced out of Tennessee, at the cost of the basic healthcare they need to live free and happy lives. This fight isn’t over, and our message to trans Tennesseans is: Don’t give up. You have people fighting for you, and we won’t stop until Tennessee is a safe and affirming state for us all.”
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.
Construction of the Memphis Innovation Corridor, the first bus rapid transit (BRT) service in Memphis, is tentatively scheduled to begin in fall 2023, with service beginning in the spring of 2027, according to Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA).
The Memphis Innovation Corridor is about an eight-and-a-half mile route that connects the William Hudson Transit Center, that goes east and west along Union Avenue, a portion of Poplar Avenue, connecting at the University of Memphis. MATA said it is an important step in remaking transit in Memphis.
The Corridor will be a bus route that operates like a rail line, with 31 stops along the way, said John Lancaster, MATA’s chief development officer. Lancaster also said that these will include amenities such as ticket vending machines and real time information. All the stations are also slated to be ADA accessible.
“We really want to improve the travel time and reliability for transit customers,” said Lancaster. “With Bus Rapid Transit we have more frequent operations. We’re proposing a 10-minute headway – that’s how often the buses come.”
In 2016, BRT was adopted as the “preferred transit solution,” for the Memphis Innovation Corridor, said MATA. The organization also said that in 2019, the U.S. Department of Transportation awarded a $ 12 million Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Developments (BUILD) grant to the city of Memphis for the design and construction of
BRT offers a “higher level of service,” said Lancaster. He said it’s much more reliable, and there are definitive stops that are spaced efficiently. There are also about 15 other bus routes that will connect to this corridor that will improve connections with the route, which will also improve travel times, Lancaster explained.
The project will also use electric buses, which will make it “more environmentally sustainable.”
“On the infrastructure side, those safety benefits benefit the environment in terms of emissions,” said Kenny Monroe of Kimley-Horn: Planning and Design Engineering Consultants. Monroe also serves as a project manager on the consulting team for MATA.
Monroe also said that hopefully more people will shift from passenger cars to buses as a result of BRT.
MATA’s goal is to provide “high-quality transit service,” and not only does this project increase ridership, but it lowers transportation for the people who live in the corridor. Lancaster also said this aligns with the city of Memphis’ comprehensive plan. The city also developed a Transit Oriented Development plan.
“All of these things help provide better access to jobs, medical services, educational opportunities, and it reduces the dependency on single-occupant vehicles,” Lancaster said.
The project will also include Downtown intersection improvements such as reduced pedestrian crosswalks, improved pedestrian striping and signals, as well as bioswales, which will help with stormwater runoff and drainage, said Monroe.
There will also be traffic signal improvements, said Monroe. There are 52 traffic signals along the corridor, and about 42 of them will be improved as a part of this project.
“There will be transit signal priority,” said Monroe. “Basically if a bus is behind schedule, it notifies the system, and the signals will react to help get that bus back on schedule.”
“It’s a transit project but it’s a complete infrastructure project that includes roadways, sidewalks, traffic signals, lighting [and] street lights,” said Lancaster. “It includes the buses and transit too, but it’s a lot of improvements for the city that people may not realize is happening.
Photo: U.S. Department of Transportation via Facebook
Two Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) grants have been awarded to Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) and Shelby County. This grant program comes from the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Congressman Steve Cohen announced that MATA will be receiving $25 million for its Crosstown Corridor Safety and Multi-Modal Enhancement Program, while Shelby County will be receiving $13.2 million for its Eliminating Barriers on North Watkins (Project ELBOW).
“These major projects, which both include important complete streets elements to ensure safety and accessibility for all road users, will transform our community, creating efficient and safe travel corridors where they’re most needed,” said Cohen in a statement. “This investment will lead to a bright future for Memphis drivers and transit riders. I’m also proud that this funding was made possible by the massive investments from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which I supported.”
MATA’s Crosstown Corridor Safety and Multi-Modal Enhancement Program will provide “complete street improvements and Bus Rapid Transit service along an approximately 26-mile corridor.”
This project will also include improvements to sidewalks, bus stations, intersection improvements, and signalization.
Project ELBOW will use funds to “design and reconstruct the 1960s-era bridge over the Wolf River,” said the U.S. Department of Transportation in a statement.
“[The Wolf River] is rated in poor condition and will be upgraded to seismic standards and more accessible during emergency and evacuation events, and approximately 3.3 miles of complete street improvements.”
The grants are part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, said the U.S. Department of Transportation. The department also stated that 70 percent of the grants go toward projects “in regions defined as an Area of Persistent Poverty or a Historically Disadvantaged Community.”
“This round of RAISE grants is helping create a new generation of good-paying jobs in rural and urban communities alike, with projects whose benefits will include improving safety, fighting climate change, advancing equity, strengthening our supply chain, and more,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Toni Williams, interim head of Memphis-Shelby County Schools. Credit: Memphis Shelby County Schools
Interim superintendent Toni Williams won’t become the permanent leader of Memphis-Shelby County Schools after all.
The school board voted to approve a contract extension for Williams that could keep her in charge of MSCS through the new school year. But Williams — who was one of three finalists named in April — has to give up her quest to be superintendent on a permanent basis.
The condition is spelled out in Williams’ extended contract, which she negotiated with Memphis attorney Herman Morris, he told the board Tuesday. Her name is not expected to appear on an updated list of finalists that the board expects to receive Wednesday.
Williams’ exit from the superintendent candidate pool signals a quieter end to the district’s tortuous national superintendent search, which derailed after Williams became a finalist and the board began to fracture over the prospect of elevating another interim leader to fill the vacancy created by the departure of Joris Ray.
Ray, who was elevated from the interim position in 2019, resigned under a cloud of scandal in August 2022. His predecessor, Dorsey Hopson, had also been elevated from interim chief.
Williams accepted the interim role in August with assurances that she wouldn’t seek the job on a permanent basis, but she changed her mind. Since then, the board has largely sidestepped discussions about that decision, never rejecting her application.
A coalition of community advocates — including some of the five people who were banned from district property after challenging the board’s stewardship of the search — had been pushing the board in recent weeks to clarify whether Williams would remain a candidate, and continued to do so in a series of coordinated public comments Tuesday evening.
Board members Tuesday made clear their support of Williams’ interim leadership, and she received a standing ovation after board Chair Althea Greene described her accomplishments. The board’s long delay in setting the parameters of its search could keep Williams in the interim role for as much as another year.
“I have inherited more challenges than you could ever imagine. A district in distress …. But I have not quit,” Williams said.
Greene, who has led the search for the past year, will now be assisted by newly elected vice chair Joyce Dorse-Coleman. Dorse-Coleman is replacing former board member Sheleah Harris, who resigned her board seat two weeks ago. The Shelby County Commission will select Harris’ replacement in mid-July. The board will reelect leadership in the fall.
Meanwhile, outside search firm Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates is poised to present the board an updated list of superintendent finalists Wednesday after reevaluating interested applicants against a revised set of qualifications approved by the board in mid-June.
The new list includes five to seven top candidates, compared with just three on the initial slate released in April, according to communication from the firm obtained by Chalkbeat. The board could choose to interview those candidates or reopen the pool to new applicants — “in essence beginning a new search,” two top Hazard Young officials wrote. That option could cost the district an additional $19,000. (The initial contract with the firm allowed for total costs between $38,000 and $70,000.)
Reopening the search would significantly extend the hiring timeline as well. The “optimal” window to accept new applications is in the fall, the firm wrote, suggesting a timeline that culminates with the board selecting a new superintendent by the end of January. The proposed start date for the new superintendent, in that case, would be July 1, 2024.
The firm did not propose a new timeline should the board interview and select a new superintendent from its current candidate pool.
Hazard Young updated a proposed job description for the role, this time including minimum qualifications required by board policy that the firm did not use for evaluating candidates in the spring, as Chalkbeat reported.
When she became a finalist in April, Williams did not meet the board requirements, which focused on experience as an educator, but the board later relaxed the policy.
Williams said that under her extended contract, she has the option to return to a district role after her interim tenure. Because the contract is still being finalized, Morris said, there was no copy to review Tuesday evening.
Morris, who also worked for the board to negotiate the terms of Ray’s departure, thanked Williams “for her openness and willingness to agree” during the negotiations.
Williams will continue earning a $310,000 annualized salary and will have more vacation days under the extended contract.
Williams told reporters she had no regrets about applying for the permanent position.
“Regrets on serving 110,000 students?” Williams said. “Absolutely not.”
The MSCS board will meet with the search firm at 5 p.m. on Wednesday in the basement auditorium of the Barnes Building, 160 S. Hollywood St.
Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
Even in the rarefied world of gold and platinum hip-hop records, anonymity has its rewards. For producer/engineer Ari Morris, the joys of being unknown can materialize randomly, at the turn of any corner. “I used to love pulling my car up to a stop sign or a gas station and watch people bangin’ records I did,” he says today. “Nobody would have any idea that I had anything to do with it. Like, nobody knows me!” Yet this doesn’t bother Morris in the least. He’s satisfied if his mixes work their magic, as they typically do via releases by Moneybagg Yo, GloRilla, Royce da 5’9”, Rod Wave, Hitkidd, and many others.
Beyond not recognizing him personally, most passersby wouldn’t even know they were near a studio if they chanced by his workplace. He’s long preferred to work under the radar. Sitting today in his current bunker-like space, Edge Recording, he recalls his last unobtrusive location fondly. “My old studio was in Midtown across from Central BBQ, and the cooks and waitstaff there would park on my block. If I stepped out the back door, I’d see kids on their break bumpin’ records that we had just finished inside that building! But nobody knew what was going on in there.”
Such moments capture what he’s chasing when perfecting a record’s mix. “Watching their real reaction is amazing because it’s like, ‘Oh, wow, this really connected. It worked; they are feeling this.’” That last phrase is key. Morris has come as far as he has by prioritizing a mix’s feel above all else.
In pursuit of that feel, and despite his taste for nondescript studio exteriors, Morris and construction partner Karl Schwab have just built what is arguably the most advanced recording and mixing studio in the city. Walking past a dumpster and through a corrugated steel garage door, a whole world of high-end speakers, racks of gear, sound baffles, blinking lights, and mixing desks opens up as if you’ve stepped through a portal. And one room in particular makes this studio unique among all others in Memphis: the Dolby Atmos room, where 12 precisely positioned speakers create the kind of surround sound that most of us only experience in cinemas. While most studios here lean into their vintage gear and classic sounds, Morris has gone the opposite route, embracing the future of listening like no other studio owner in the city. Yet he sees it mainly as a matter of keeping up with audio’s future — and the future is now.
Ari Morris, Carlos Broady, and Royce da 5’9” (Photo: Courtesy Carlos Broady)
The Rise of Dolby Atmos
“Everything I deliver for major labels that I mix in stereo, I also mix in Atmos,” Morris says. “I also mix entire albums in Atmos that I didn’t do in stereo. Last year alone I mixed two No. 1 albums that are solely in Atmos: Lil Durk’s album 7220 and Rod Wave’s album Beautiful Mind, both of which are two of the highest selling rap albums of 2022. And I mixed them in Atmos right here in Memphis.”
He invites me to sit in the listening chair, an “X” on the floor marking the ideal spot in the room to hear all 12 speakers work their magic. When Morris pulls up his mix for Rod Wave’s “MJ Story” from the artist’s second 2022 release, Jupiter’s Diary: 7 Day Theory, I’m at first shocked by the very low-fidelity sounds of the song’s intro, which turns out to be a sample of “Teenage Dirtbag” by Wheatus. That’s just a sonic sleight of hand, though. When the bass and kick drum hit, it feels like they’re inside you, deep slabs of oomph that rattle you even as they leave space for the airy music floating out in middle space.
Even more so than the experience of Dolby Atmos in a cinema, the music mixed to this format creates a world of space far beyond stereo; in addition to left and right, sounds can be precisely positioned in front of or behind you, above or below you, or from a faraway horizon to deep inside you. As such systems become more widespread, and simulations of Dolby Atmos’ spatial illusion become common in headphones, this immersive listening is becoming the industry standard. Yet it’s still in flux during this transitional time.
“Atmos is still evolving,” Morris says. “And a lot of that evolution right now has been on the tech side and then the engineering side. But it’s not really going to finish until the tech grows on the listeners. Because it’s the listeners who dictate the decisions that we make in the studio. I’m not in here trying to make the perfect record for another engineer. I’m trying to make the perfect record for the fan of that artist. It’s a hell of an experience. The first time I listened to it, the music was something I’d heard a million times before, but the hairs on my arm stood out. I hope more people can have that experience because it’s really crazy when sound isn’t just around you but it comes in and out of you.”
The way Morris sees it, the cutting edge of what consumers will adopt starts with cars and headphones. “If you use Apple headphones, they have their own interpretation of a Dolby Atmos music experience called Spatial Audio. Tidal now has Atmos available. Amazon HD does a binaural rendering of an Atmos mix. And Mercedes now has cars with spatial in their 2023 models. Last year, Tesla became upgradable to Dolby Atmos. I can put more low end into records now because cars and headphones can output more low end.”
Morris (right) in the studio with assistant Logan Schmitz (Photo: Justin Fox Burks)
The Feel
Still, for Morris, even such cutting-edge tech boils down to one thing: the feel — as in “That’s How I Feel” by Young Dolph from his Morris-mixed Bulletproof album, which also included “100 Shots.” A plaque honoring that single as a certified gold record testifies to how many listeners felt it. While Morris could have more than 50 such gold or platinum record plaques on his wall, this one is special, partly because he and the late Dolph connected so early on. “Me and Dolph met in the studio and we just kind of caught a vibe. I mixed a bunch of his early singles, like ‘Not No More’ or ‘Choppa on the Couch’ with Gucci Mane. I think it was 19 total releases that we did together.” Yet it’s his work on Bulletproof that stands out to him, because of its feel. “On ‘100 Shots,’ the bass doesn’t drop till damn near a minute in,” he enthuses. “But when it drops, I mean, it rattles the chandeliers in the venue!”
To his finely tuned ear, it’s more than just making the bass louder — he hears a distinct approach to sound in every artist he works with. “I know which artists like their kick [drum] to run the record versus who likes their bass to run the record.” And Morris isn’t just pumping up the bass as an exercise in technology. He believes it’s more primal than that. “It takes us back to the campfires, man. Before melody there was rhythm, right?”
Yet, he observes, getting to that primal reaction requires his engineering mind to work in overdrive. “It takes a neurosis for the details to do it. It takes like an obsessive neurosis,” he notes. But that laser-like focus also helps him tune in to what makes every artist unique. “When you really listen to rap music, every artist has their own kind of sound and presentation of how things exist. With the established artists, I try to respect where they sit already. And if I’m working with a new artist, which has always been one of my favorite things to do, it’s discovering that unique position. So you know it’s them from the onset, you feel them. Because the more personal it is, the more it’s going to connect with the listener.”
As he told Sound on Sound magazine last year, “For me it’s all about feel and vibe. It’s all heart for me. … I just kind of close my eyes, and go.” He details how this applies to his work with Moneybagg Yo. “When I started working with Bagg again in 2019, I went for this vibe, which sits in the tonality of his vocal and in the placement. … Bagg hates the traditional ear candy like delay throws, reverb swells, reversing things and panning them around, and so on. It’s not how he feels music. It takes you out of the moment. Instead, the feel with him is bone-dry, raw power.”
Beyond mixing, this dedication to feel also translates into how he records. “As a recording engineer and a producer, my job is to keep everybody from thinking in the studio. The minute you start thinking too hard, you’re second-guessing yourself. My approach is, however we’re feeling that day, let’s get the idea out. If we don’t like it tomorrow, let’s try it with tomorrow’s feelings. But let’s not stop and second-guess ourselves halfway through. Let’s just finish it.”
The bottom line, as he sees it, is freedom: “In the studio, we’ve got to be like children. Otherwise, it’s not freedom. It’s forced. And then we might as well go home.”
(Photo: Justin Fox Burks)
“Not about the plaques on the walls”
That attitude has won him a lot of repeat clients. Despite Morris’ technical obsessions, they feel they can stay loose while they’re creating. That in turn creates some long-term friendships. “You’re always trying to let yourself be vulnerable,” Morris says. “You want to be around people that you’re comfortable with. Having artists and producers feeling comfortable with me on that level just makes me feel awesome. It’s not about the plaques on the walls and all that shit.”
That’s exactly why Memphis-born Carlos “Six July” Broady, producer of numerous hits like The Notorious B.I.G.’s “What’s Beef” and Ma$e’s “24 Hours to Live,” keeps coming back to Morris, who he’s known for well over a decade. “He’s one of maybe two or three mixing engineers that I can send my work to and I know I won’t have a complaint,” says Broady. “I’ve been doing this for 30 years, so when it comes to hip-hop and beat-making and producing, I’m real picky, but Ari knows. I send records to him because he already knows what I like. And that’s important, when you bet on a relationship.”
While the plaques don’t matter, Broady and Morris are rightfully proud of an honor they recently acquired: certifying their Grammy nomination for Best Rap Album of 2020. “Even if Ari doesn’t understand an album immediately,” notes Broady, “he’s gonna do the research to figure out what’s the best way to approach this record. That was what was important about The Allegory, and that’s what made him stand out amongst everybody else, and why I pitched him to be the mix engineer for it.”
That album’s Grammy nomination was the first for rapper Royce da 5’9”, who’s been in the music business for more than 20 years. “We ended up in Detroit for 10 days,” recalls Morris, “and it’s the first album that Royce da 5’9” produced entirely himself. It’s a huge concept album, and he’s been one of my favorite rappers from my childhood. Like, I grew up in New Jersey, man. There’s a lot of heavy metal, hard-core, and basement hip-hop. That was the universe that I grew up in as a child. I lived in Jersey during the Jersey hard-core scene, so of course I was into that. And rap music and hard-core metal are so similar in so many ways.”
Coming to the University of Memphis in the late 2000s to study recording engineering only encouraged Morris’ eclecticism, especially when he started interning at local studios. “I was lucky that really good people took me under their wing,” he says. “Like the late Skip McQuinn taught me how music works. And then Nil Jones, the producer and bass player, I assisted him for many years and that’s how I learned how to mix records. He taught me how to get paid. And I also apprenticed for the rock producer, Malcolm Springer.”
Broady sees that jumble of styles from Morris’ New Jersey youth as a key to his success. “Here you have a guy that’s able to mix hip-hop, rock, heavy metal, alternative pop, and R&B! I mean, you don’t have a lot of guys that can jump from genre to genre like that and can do a great job at it. But Ari understands all of those different musical types, you know?”
Morris’ success in Memphis — in multiple styles — has been so great that now, at age 34, New Jersey seems to be shrinking in his rearview mirror. Unlike many in the hip-hop industry who relocate to Atlanta or Los Angeles upon finding success, Morris is firmly committed to making Memphis grow. Beyond his mixing and engineering work, he’s taken to producing local artists, like Talibah Safiya, who are committed to their art as a way of life more than any career success. “You’ve got to be bigger than your music,” he says. “You’ve got to be a movement.”
And the producer/engineer sees more artists of that caliber here than anywhere else. “Memphis’ primary export to the world is culture,” he adds. “Our artists, homegrown artists, have come to dictate the culture. They not only just become popular; they dictate the culture. That’s why I stayed here. Whatever we do, you know, it just ends up being fucking cool.”
Morris himself can’t quite explain why that is. “There’s something in the water down here, man!” he exclaims. “It breeds this innate musical talent. Part of me regrets that I didn’t grow up playing guitar in a church down here. I would be an infinitely better musician today. Because there’s just this thing. And the city is waking up. I think everybody sees that. It’s not the same city it was in 2008, 2009, when I started living here. It’s not the same place at all — in a good way. The music industry is waking up. I can dream really big here and make those dreams happen. And do it on my own terms.”
Mary Poppins is just as magical on the stage as on the screen. (Photo: Carla McDonald)
For around a month when I was 8 years old, I had a routine. Every day when I got home from school, I would turn on the VHS player and watch the same tape: Mary Poppins. I’ve seen it more times than I can count and would hazard a guess that I am more familiar with it than any other movie. Funnily enough, until recently I had never seen Mary Poppins performed on stage. To be honest, I wasn’t even aware that it had been developed into a musical, first on West End and then, two years later, on Broadway. Now that I think about it, I’m surprised it wasn’t turned into a stage play sooner than 2004. Mary Poppins is everything you’d expect from musical theater — it’s a show all ages can enjoy.
Theatre Memphis’ production of Mary Poppins has had “phenomenal sales,” according to director of marketing and communications Randall Hartzog. Audience members are encouraged to recycle their programs as almost every performance is already sold out.
Sitting in the Lohrey Theatre before a Sunday matinee, I notice there are numerous families with small children in attendance. Directly in front of me, a family of three asks if I will take their picture — it’s their little boy’s first time seeing a live show. Behind me are two more children, although one of them moves next to me during the first few minutes, his mother’s lap being a more preferable seat. Listening to his guileless commentary was an unexpected, yet welcomed, added bonus to my theater experience.
To my surprise, and in spite of my childhood obsession with the story, there were many new things to be discovered about Mary Poppins, including scenes that are altogether absent from the 1964 Disney film. I was also glad to take note of themes relevant to our cultural experience in 2023 that went over my head as a child. The mighty character of George Banks, for example, can be seen on the surface as a basic absentee-father-stock-character mired in patriarchal gender roles. However, in taking a closer look, it’s obvious that George Banks is more dynamic than static, and modern audiences might interpret his character as a manifestation of breaking generational trauma.
The musical number “Playing the Game” is another part of the onstage production that departs from the Disney film, during which the toys in Jane and Michael’s nursery come to life in response to being mistreated. It brought to mind that scene in Toy Story when Sid’s toys come out from under his bed, and I would be remiss not to include the reaction I overheard from the boy sitting beside me. As multiple toys crawled out of the wings and even out of the set itself (it was the fireplace that really got me), I heard from my right, “What the …” A few moments later, the same voice whispered, “Mom, I’m scared.” Me too, kid.
On the whole, though, the musical was uplifting, and any time the ensemble came together in choreography, it was a treat to behold. The complicated, fast-paced synchronicity in numbers such as “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” and “Jolly Holiday” was performed without a hitch. The elaborate and frequent costume changes added to the overall visual spectacle achieved by these full-scale musical numbers.
Russell Lehman’s performance as Bert stood out in particular. Bert acts as a sort of narrative guide throughout the show, orchestrating scene changes and introducing scenes as a central cog in the machinery of the production. Lehman’s energy and enthusiasm shone on stage and seemed to buoy the other cast members.
It’s always encouraging to me, as a person who fell in love with the stage at the tender age of 10, to see enthusiastic theater audiences filled with multiple generations. Fortunately, Memphis is a city with many opportunities to introduce kids and first-time theatergoers to the magic of live performance. Theatre Memphis’ Mary Poppins is a perfect example of one such opportunity, and I am grateful to have been a part of it.
Mary Poppins runs through July 2nd at Theatre Memphis.
What happened to government transparency? (Photo: Phartisan | Dreamstime.com)
For two and a half years, the City of Memphis has sent journalist Marc Perrusquia perfunctory communications that it is still reviewing and considering his records request, each time pushing the date for its response down the road. Perrusquia asked for the audits and evaluations of a Memphis police program that provides non-disciplinary intervention when police officers exhibit behavior and performance problems. The city’s policy and procedure manual requires an audit of the program every six months to evaluate the outcomes of supervisory interventions and the quality of reviews. Quarterly reports are also required.
Perrusquia, a journalist in Memphis for more than 30 years, asked for five years of the audits and evaluations on December 6, 2020. If an audit is done every six months in compliance with the city’s policy, that’s 10 audits. However, the city stonewalled his request, contacting him 41 times extending the “time necessary” to complete it. One time, the city told him that the responsive documents were with the city attorney for review. Then the next month, the city said it had not yet determined that records responsive to his request existed. Now Perrusquia has filed a lawsuit against the city over the delays, saying they amount to a constructive denial of his public records request. His attorney is Paul McAdoo with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and represents journalists in Tennessee as part of the Reporters Committee Local Legal Initiative.
The Tennessee Public Records Act (TPRA) outlines how government entities are required to respond to a public records request in T.C.A. § 10-7-503 (a)(2)(B):
“The custodian of a public record or the custodian’s designee shall promptly make available for inspection any public record not specifically exempt from disclosure. In the event it is not practicable for the record to be promptly available for inspection, the custodian shall, within seven (7) business days: (i) Make the public record requested available to the requestor; (ii) Deny the request in writing or by completing a records request response form developed by the office of open records counsel. The response shall include the basis for the denial; or (iii) Furnish the requester in writing, or by completing a records request response form developed by the office of open records counsel, the time reasonably necessary to produce the record or information.”
Perrusquia’s lawsuit says the city’s “chronic delay is a violation of the TPRA’s requirement that non-exempt public records be made ‘promptly’ available to the requester.” He also takes aim with the city’s multiple extensions of “the time reasonably necessary to produce the record or information.” “Mr. Perrusquia’s attempts to obtain these public records without filing a petition with this Court have been unsuccessful. It is therefore necessary to bring this action for access and judicial review,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit aims at a problem that confounds many journalists and others in Tennessee who request public records: A government entity that gives an estimate on when records will be available, then keeps extending the time over and over. Or, as in Perrusquia’s case: A government that never gives a time estimate and just keeps sending a pro forma letter that it is still reviewing the request and it will let you know later.
In my work as executive director of Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, I’ve often seen denial letters to journalists and citizens with this phrase: “The office is still in the process of retrieving, reviewing, and/or redacting the requested records,” with a note that the requester will hear back in another 30 days. The 30 days come, and the journalist gets the same response. Or they get no response, as if someone forgot to send out the letter again. On the outside, it feels like nothing is being done on your request for records and that maybe no one has even looked at it.
The problem with delays has been acute in Memphis for years. In August 2019, the Memphis Business Journal produced an investigative report about the city’s responses to public records requests. It documented a request it made on December 6, 2017. It was fulfilled a year later, but only after the editor of the newspaper was meeting with a high-level staffer about another matter and mentioned the delayed request. After he did, the staffer promised to look into it, and within three days the city fulfilled the request.
The city responded in the story, saying they initially thought they might have a staffing issue, either needing more people or more training of people. But later they told the newspaper they had a better handle on the situation and had updated its policy from a first-in/first-out to a rolling request system. “Under the new process, rather than letting one request hold up the queue just because it was received first, custodians will try to fill the easy requests quickly and fill large requests in sections.” That was 2019.
No matter the processes employed by government entities, Perrusquia’s lawsuit may be the first in Tennessee that has taken aim at unusual and inexplicable delays. It’s notable that he is asking for records that go to the heart of questions about police oversight in Memphis. His request was made in December 2020. In January 2023, Tyre Nichols was pulled over by police for what they said was reckless driving, then beat to such a pulp that he later died. Much of it was caught on body camera and a street camera. The police officers directly involved have been relieved of duty.
The audits of the city’s police program that seeks to intervene in behavior problems of police should have been released quickly, back in 2021. What do they show? Perhaps this lawsuit will shake them loose and, at the same time, push back on the pattern of delays that undermine transparency in government.
The case has been assigned to Shelby County Chancellor Melanie Taylor Jefferson.
Deborah Fisher is executive director of Tennessee Coalition for Open Government. Previously she spent 25 years in the news industry as a journalist.
Enjoy Arkwings’ free art yard. (Photo: Courtesy
We Are Memphis)
“I didn’t call myself an artist until I was 52 years old,” says Jana Wilson, executive director of Arkwings. She’d always been creative, even sold her assemblage art from time to time, but since that wasn’t her full-time gig, she didn’t feel she fit the title of “artist.” That is, until someone at an art show pointed out that just making art meant she was an artist. “And all of a sudden I was like, ‘Whoa, I could have been doing this my entire life.’ It’s my identity.”
Now that Wilson is executive director of Arkwings, she says, “I don’t want people going through life the way I did, and not identifying as whatever creative type of being they are.” After all, for her and for many like her, creativity through the arts is healing. “Nine times out of 10, when you ask an artist why they make art, it always go back to, ‘It makes me feel good,’ or ‘It makes me feel like a whole person.’ And there’s so many people out here who are craving arts engagement, and that’s really the heart and soul of why the arts became part of [Arkwings’] mission statement, which is ‘mind, body, and spirit wellness through the healing power of arts and nature.’”
For its part, Arkwings offers free access, seven days a week, to its Art Yard where guests of all ages can take part in different outdoor creativity stations, such as painting on a mini mural, building fairy houses, adding to the poetry tree, picking seeds or herbs from the community garden, and making music at the “Rhythms of Nature Circle.” Plus, every Wednesday, from 2-5 p.m., guests can tour all of Arkwings’ galleries during their Open Gallery Day.
Currently, Arkwings boasts the “Boys 2 Men: If You Don’t See Black, You Don’t See Me” exhibition, curated by Lurlynn Franklin. The exhibit features art solely by local Black men, ranging in age and style: Earle Augustus, Toonky Berry, Eric Echols, Clyde Johnson Jr., Montrail Johnson, Devin Kirkland-XXIV(k), Hakim Malik, Lester Merriweather, Carl E. Moore, Frankd Robinson, Najee Strickland, Andrew Travis, Larry Walker, Steven Williams, and Shamek Weddle.
In curating the exhibition, Franklin says she wanted to highlight each artist’s individuality. “My dad was a real kind gentleman, and he was profiled. You know, you can just snuff out a person’s life, and that’s it, because somebody decided to attach a label, a stereotype, to it,” she adds. “So the major requirement I’m having for the African-American men who are going to be in the show is, I want you to demonstrate your style. It doesn’t have to be political. You ain’t gotta speak to what the title implies. I just want people to see your skill level and artistry.”
“Boys 2 Men” will be on display at Arkwings through July 22nd and will travel to University of Memphis’ Fogelman Gallery in September. For more information on Arkwings and all its upcoming events, follow the nonprofit on Facebook.
Open Gallery Day, Arkwings, Wednesday, July 5, 2-5 p.m., Free.
“Boys 2 Men: If You Don’t See Black, You Don’t See Me,” Arkwings, on display through July 22.
