At an event billed as “Willy’s Chocolate Experience” on Feb. 24 in Glasgow, Scotland, children and parents were so underwhelmed that police were called, The New York Times reported. The event, which promised Willy Wonka-themed chocolate fountains, performances by Oompa Loompas and “optical marvels,” turned out to offer just a few jelly beans and a nearly empty warehouse. Stuart Sinclair, who paid about $44 per ticket to bring his kids to the show, said it amounted to “maybe 20 chairs, a couple of tables, and a half-inflated bouncy castle.” Jenny Fogarty, who was hired to play an Oompa Loompa, said she was given a 15-page script the night before and that “the wigs were very cheap.” The organizer canceled the event on Saturday afternoon; it was unclear who had called police. The event organizer, House of Illuminati, said ticket purchases would be refunded. [New York Times, 2/27/2024]
Bright Ideas
Details have recently emerged about an incident in Willow Springs, Missouri, in November, the Springfield News-Leader reported. The Howell County Sheriff’s Office had investigated after a man in his 60s, who was a paraplegic, lost his feet while brush-hogging. “It was a poorly executed plan,” said Lt. Torey Thompson. He said it was clear almost immediately that the accident had been staged: The cuts were very clean, the feet were nowhere to be found, and tourniquets had been applied to both legs. Allegedly, the victim had help from a man from Florida, who cut off the feet with a hatchet to help him commit insurance fraud. However, since the unnamed man never filed the claim and he was so severely injured, the sheriff’s office declined to charge him. And the missing feet? “A couple of days later, we got a call that a relative found them in a bucket obscured by tires, so we went and got them,” Thompson said. Mystery solved. [Springfield News-Leader, 2/15/2024]
The Golden Age of Air Travel
• On Feb. 13, as a Delta flight soared from Amsterdam to Detroit, maggots began falling from an overhead compartment onto passengers below, The Guardian reported. Philip Schotte, who was on the flight, said attendants traced the source to a bag stowed above and found a rotten fish wrapped in newspaper. They removed the offending item, and the pilot announced that the plane would be returning to Amsterdam. Apologizing, Delta said the passengers were placed on another flight and the plane was removed from service for cleaning. Passengers were also given 8,000 air miles, hotel room compensation, and a $30 meal ticket. But who’s hungry? [Guardian, 2/15/2024]
• Sri Lankan Airlines was forced to ground one of its Airbus A330 planes for three days after a rat was spotted on the aircraft, United Press International reported on Feb. 27. The rodent was seen during a flight from Lahore, Pakistan, to Colombo, Sri Lanka. Workers sprayed the plane with poison, and technicians checked wiring for damage done by chewing. [UPI, 2/27/2024]
Try the Decaf
Brandie Gotch, 30, of Peoria, Arizona, told police that her children were being bullied by other kids, and she had reported it to the school and law enforcement, but nothing happened. So on Feb. 27, she took matters into her own hands, CBS5-TV reported. With her four children in her Silverado, Gotch drove to a local park, where she allegedly approached a group of kids and started yelling at them. Police said Gotch grabbed a 14-year-old boy by the hair and yanked his head back and forth as she yelled at him, then grabbed a stick from her truck, and chased him, yelling, “I am going to kill you and run you over!” She then jumped back into her truck and drove it toward the group of kids, running over a girl’s ankle in the process, although she told police she didn’t think she hit the girl. “I hope I didn’t,” she said. Her own children told police they were bouncing all over the truck during her jaunt through the park. Gotch was charged with six counts of endangerment, four counts of aggravated assault, two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and one count of attempted first-degree murder. [CBS5, 2/29/2024]
He was small, scrawny, middle-aged, with a receding hairline and ill-fitting teeth. His name was Otto Adolf Eichmann and he was on trial for his life, charged with facilitating the murder of 5,000,000 Jews in extermination camps in the years preceding, and during, World War II.
Israeli Mossad special forces had tracked Eichmann down in Argentina in 1960, where he’d fled after the war, and brought him back to face charges in Jerusalem. Eichmann’s defense became known as “superior orders,” also known as the Nuremberg defense or “just following orders.” It is a court plea that a person should not be considered guilty of committing a crime that was ordered by a superior officer or official.
Eichmann’s defense team argued that under the Nazi legal system the deeds he was accused of were not crimes but “acts of state” that it had been his duty to obey. His conscience was clear because his conscience required him to follow orders.
Eichmann said that he would have had a bad conscience only if he had not done what he had been ordered to do — to ship millions of men, women, and children to their death with meticulous care and efficiency.
“I will jump into my grave laughing,” he said, “because the fact that I have the death of five million enemies of the Reich on my conscience gives me extraordinary satisfaction.”
I have been reading lately the 1963 account of Eichmann’s trial in The New Yorker by Hannah Arendt, subtitled “A Report on the Banality of Evil.” I am struck again and again by the “ordinariness” of Eichmann, an aimless, unambitious young man who stumbled up the ladder in the Nazi hierarchy and found himself assigned to the most horrific task imaginable — ruthlessly exterminating millions of men, women, and children. It’s a textbook lesson in how human beings can rationalize pretty much anything.
In August 2020, 17-year-old Kyle Howard Rittenhouse traveled from his home in northern Illinois to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where there was unrest following the shooting by police there of a man named Jacob Blake. Rittenhouse was armed with an AR-15-style rifle and joined a group of armed citizens in Kenosha who said they were there to protect local businesses.
During the unrest that night, Rittenhouse said a man chased him into a parking lot and grabbed the barrel of his rifle, whereupon he fatally shot him. Rittenhouse said he fled and was pursued by a crowd, and then fatally shot a second man after he struck him with a skateboard and tried to grab his rifle. Rittenhouse said a third person approached him with a pistol and he shot and wounded that individual.
In his subsequent trial, Rittenhouse was acquitted after tearfully testifying that his actions were in self-defense. After that, things went quite well for the young man. He went to meet former President Donald Trump, who said nice things about him; he was lovingly interviewed by Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, and soon became a cause célèbre for right-wing organizations, with his image being used to sell T-shirts, coffee mugs, and other products. He announced the creation of a video game, Kyle Rittenhouse’s Turkey Shoot, and became a speaker for Turning Point USA, an outfit that advocates for conservative policies and politics on college campuses.
Last week, Rittenhouse brought his “Rittenhouse Recap” speaking tour to the University of Memphis and it did not go well. Initially, there was a movement on social media to reserve tickets and then not show up, leaving Rittenhouse with an empty auditorium. Even after a last-minute reshuffling of the ticketing process, Rittenhouse still found himself speaking to a half-full room, most of whose inhabitants were there to run him out of town. After 27 minutes of tough questions, most of which he dodged, Rittenhouse had had enough and hurried off stage left, dragging his poor “support dog” behind him.
One gets the sense that Rittenhouse has no idea what to do with the remainder of a life that was indelibly defined by his actions on that August night four years ago. Now he’s a prop, famous only because he shot and killed people; a shill being used to raise funds; a washed-up, one-hit wonder at the age of 21; an aimless, unambitious young man who stumbled up the ladder in the right-wing hierarchy. Now he’s just following orders.
Dylan Borczak, Noe Meza, Emerson Hyndman, Akeem Ward, Carson Vom Steeg, Luiz Fernando from Memphis 901 FC soccer (Photos: Michael Donahue)
Irish eyes are still smiling after the Memphis Irish Society/Cooper-Young St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
“There was green beer flowing all over Cooper-Young that day,” says Tamara Cook, executive director of the Cooper-Young Business Association.
Patrick Reilly and DJ NaylorGina SweatTerrance Gaines and Kamilah Muhammad
The annual event drew 2,000 people this year, Cook says. “This is like the eighth one. We have them on St. Patrick’s Day every year. Next year, it will be on a Monday, although I keep asking them to have it on Sunday after the Beale Street parade. But they want to have it on the day.”
Memphis Irish Society and Celtic Crossing presented the event, Cook says. Mayor Paul Young was king of the parade and his wife Jamila Smith-Young was queen. Memphis Fire Department Chief Gina Sweat was the parade marshal.
Zach Brummett, Amy Dempsey, Lindsey Howell, Stegen Burkettback: Morgan Max, Bristol Max, Maisey Johnston, Ramanda Johnston, Keith Johnston, front: Maverick Max, Christopher Johnston, Adilay JohnstonShuntonisha Clark, Makenzie Clark, Kervin Mason, Michael Clark
This year’s parade featured 30 participants, including Memphis 901 FC soccer team, the Memphis Grizzlies, and the Memphis Police Department. There were bagpipers, horses, and dancers, including the Inis Acla School of Irish Dance step dancers. DJ Naylor opened up his Celtic Crossing Irish bar/restaurant for outdoor and indoor partying.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): In the coming days, your hunger will be so inexhaustible that you may feel driven to devour extravagant amounts of food and drink. It’s possible you will gain 10 pounds in a very short time. Who knows? You might even enter an extreme eating contest and devour 46 dozen oysters in 10 minutes! APRIL FOOL! Although what I just said is remotely plausible, I foresee that you will sublimate your exorbitant hunger. You will realize it is spiritual in nature and can’t be gratified by eating food. As you explore your voracious longings, you will hopefully discover a half-hidden psychological need you have been suppressing. And then you will liberate that need and feed it what it craves!
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Taurus novelist Lionel Shriver writes, “There’s a freedom in apathy, a wild, dizzying liberation on which you can almost get drunk.” In accordance with astrological omens, I recommend you experiment with Shriver’s strategy in the coming weeks. APRIL FOOL! I lied. In fact, Lionel Shriver’s comment is one of the dumbest thoughts I have ever heard. Why would anyone want the cheap, damaged liberation that comes from feeling indifferent, numb, and passionless? Please do all you can to disrupt and dissolve any attraction you may have to that state, Taurus. In my opinion, you now have a sacred duty to cultivate extra helpings of enthusiasm, zeal, liveliness, and ambition.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): At enormous cost and after years of study, I have finally figured out the meaning of life, at least as it applies to you Geminis. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to reveal it to you unless you send me $1,000 and a case of Veuve Clicquot champagne. I’ve got to recoup my investment, right?! APRIL FOOL! Most of what I just said was a dirty lie. It’s true that I have worked hard to uncover the meaning of life for you Geminis. But I haven’t found it yet. And even if I did, I would of course provide it to you free. Luckily, you are now in a prime position to make dramatic progress in deciphering the meaning of life for yourself.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): For a limited time only, you have permission from the cosmos to be a wildly charismatic egomaniac who brags incessantly and insists on getting your selfish needs met at all times and in all places. Please feel free to have maximum amounts of narcissistic fun, Cancerian! APRIL FOOL! I was exaggerating a bit, hoping to offer you medicinal encouragement so you will stop being so damn humble and self-effacing all the time. But the truth is, now is indeed an excellent time to assert your authority, expand your clout, and flaunt your potency and sovereignty.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Michael Scott was a character in the TV sitcom The Office. He was the boss of a paper company. Played by Leo actor Steve Carell, he was notoriously self-centered and obnoxious. However, there was one famous scene I will urge you to emulate. He was asked if he would rather be feared or loved. He replied, “Um, easy, both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me.” Be like Michael Scott, Leo! APRIL FOOL! I was half-kidding. It’s true I’m quite excited by the likelihood that you will receive floods of love in the coming weeks. It’s also true that I think you should do everything possible to boost this likelihood. But I would rather that people be amazed and pleased at how much they love you, not afraid.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Now would be an excellent time for you to snag a Sugar Daddy or Sugar Momma or Sugar NonBinary Nurturer. The astrological omens are telling me that life is expanding its willingness and capacity to provide you with help, support, and maybe even extra cash. I dare you to dangle yourself as bait and sell your soul to the highest bidder. APRIL FOOL! I was half-kidding. While I do believe it’s prime time to ask for and receive more help, support, and extra cash, I don’t believe you will have to sell your soul to get any of it. Just be yourself!
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Happy Unbirthday, Libra! It’s that time halfway between your last birthday and your next. Here are the presents I plan to give you: a boost in your receptivity to be loved and needed; a constructive relationship with obsession; more power to accomplish the half-right thing when it’s hard to do the totally right thing; the disposal of 85 percent of the psychic trash left over from the time between 2018 and 2023; and a provocative new invitation to transcend an outworn old taboo. APRIL FOOL! The truth is, I can’t possibly supply every one of you with these fine offerings, so please bestow them on yourself. Luckily, the cosmic currents will conspire with you to make these things happen.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Now would be an excellent time to seek liposuction, a facelift, Botox, buttocks augmentation, or hair transplants. Cosmic rhythms will be on your side if you change how you look. APRIL FOOL! Everything I just said was a lie. I’ve got nothing against cosmetic surgery, but now is not the right time to alter your appearance. Here’s the correct oracle: Shed your disguises, stop hiding anything about who you really are, and show how proud you are of your idiosyncrasies.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I command you to love Jesus and Buddha! If you don’t, you will burn in Hell! APRIL FOOL! I was just kidding. I was being sensationalistic to grab your attention. Here’s my real, true oracle for you: Love everybody, including Jesus and Buddha. And I mean love them all twice as strong and wild and tender. The cosmic powers ask it of you! The health of your immortal soul depends on it! Yes, Sagittarius, for your own selfish sake, you need to pour out more adoration and care and compassion than you ever have before. I’m not exaggerating! Be a lavish Fountain of Love!
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): If you gave me permission, I would cast a spell to arouse in you a case of ergophobia, i.e., an aversion to work. I think you need to take a sweet sabbatical from doing business as usual. APRIL FOOL! I was just joking about casting a spell on you. But I do wish you would indulge in a lazy, do-nothing retreat. If you want your ambitions to thrive later, you will be wise to enjoy a brief period of delightful emptiness and relaxing dormancy. As Buddhist teacher Sylvia Boorstein recommends, “Don’t just do something! Sit there!”
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): In accordance with current astrological omens, I suggest you get the book Brain Surgery for Beginners by Steven Parker and David West. You now have the power to learn and even master complex new skills, and this would be a excellent place to start. APRIL FOOL! I was half-kidding. I don’t really think you should take a scalpel to the gray matter of your friends and family members — or yourself, for that matter. But I am quite certain that you currently have an enhanced power to learn and even master new skills. It’s time to raise your educational ambitions to a higher octave. Find out what lessons and training you need most, then make plans to get them.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In the religious beliefs of Louisiana Voodoo, one God presides over the universe but never meddles in the details of life. There are also many spirits who are always intervening and tinkering, intimately involved in the daily rhythm. They might do nice things for people or play tricks on them — and everything in between. In alignment with current astrological omens, I urge you to convert to the Louisiana Voodoo religion and try ingenious strategies to get the spirits to do your bidding. APRIL FOOL! I don’t really think you should convert. However, I believe it would be fun and righteous for you to proceed as if spirits are everywhere — and assume that you have the power to harness them to work on your behalf.
(l-r) Liam O’Dell, DeAnte Payne, Martin Carodine, Charles Pender II, and Kurtis Gray (Photo: Steve Roberts)
Sometimes the best way to champion the music of today is by looking to some milestone from the past. Take the experience of David Less: Having worked in and around Memphis music for half a century, writing dozens of articles and the bookMemphis Mayhem, promoting shows, producing records, he’d known about an especially rare Memphis jazz LP for some time. “Fred Ford had told me about it in 1975 or ’76,” he says, “and told me what a great record it was. I always wanted to hear it, but it was very hard to find.”
So potent was the album’s music that when Less finally got a copy, he was motivated to produce one of his own.
The legendary album in question? Young Men from Memphis: Down Home Reunion, released in 1959 on United Artists Records, for which the groundbreaking producer Tom Wilson assembled a band that reads like a Memphis jazz who’s who: on alto saxophone, Frank Strozier; on tenor, George Coleman; on piano, Phineas Newborn Jr.; on guitar, his brother Calvin; on bass, Jamil Nasser; on drums, Charles Crosby; and on trumpet, Louis Smith and Booker Little.
“It featured the great Memphis jazz players when they were young and just getting to New York,” says Less. “That group of people later became very well-known, but at the time they were not, so the record went into obscurity.”
Other Memphians also knew of the album. “Johnny Phillips, whose father owned [record distributor] Select-O-Hits and later bought my record company, Memphis International Records, had heard it,” recounts Less. “In fact, Johnny kind of grew up listening to it. So when I found a copy, Johnny and I and his son Jeff, who owns the label, started talking about doing an updated version of this.”
This April 2nd, at a Memphis Listening Lab event from 6-8 p.m., the world will first hear the full realization of that thought, Playing in the Yard by the Jazz Ensemble of Memphis (J.E.M.). (It will be officially released on CD and vinyl three days later.)
Just as Wilson had done, Less set out to recruit a band. “First of all, we approached the teachers, where it all comes from,” he says. “We called Sam Shoup, Gary Topper, Steve Lee, Michael Scott … you know, the guys! And we found these five players. Some of them knew each other. Most of them didn’t.”
As the sessions for the album unfolded, the players developed a powerful group chemistry. Tenor saxophonist and flautist Charles Pender II, a University of Memphis alum, was the senior member of the group, 26 at the time. His grandfather, E.L Pender, taught such greats as Maurice White, David Porter, and Booker T. Jones. Keyboardist and vibraphonist DeAnte Payne, 25, a standout member of James Sexton’s band, plays the vibes with a breathtaking, playful dexterity. Bassist Liam O’Dell, 21, is an Arkansas native and University of Memphis graduate who made a splash locally before pursuing a master’s of jazz performance degree at the University of Texas at Austin. Trumpeter Martin Carodine,19, came to the sessions from the University of Miami. And drummer Kurtis Gray, 17, is, in Less’ opinion, “an absolute savant.”
On the title track, there’s a notable cameo from the old guard. “Jim Spake is on the first song, playing soprano,” says Less. “I brought Jim in because I was afraid that they would not know where we set the bar for this record. I wanted them to understand that this is the best saxophone player in town. I wanted to put them with him, playing at that caliber, from the very first song. And so we cut ‘Playing in the Yard,’ which is by Sonny Rollins.”
The bar clearly set, the ad hoc quintet shines through the rest of the album. The Ellington staple “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be,” also featured on Down Home Reunion, is the clearest echo of that 20th-century predecessor, while other tunes, like Willie Mitchell’s “The Crawl” and Dan Penn’s “The Dark End of the Street,” situate the album squarely in Memphis. Payne’s vibraphone casts a spell on “When You Wish Upon a Star,” a tune that’s reprised at the end as a pensive arco solo by O’Dell. The album feels like an instant classic.
While clearly delighted, Less is not surprised by the results. “Memphis is a jazz city,” he says. “Jazz is just as good as it ever was in Memphis.”
Cole Jeanes named his restaurant “Kinfolk” for several reasons.
The restaurant, which opens Wednesday, March 27th, is “based on a country kitchen,” says Jeanes, 34, chef/owner of the restaurant at 113 Harbor Town Square. “So, it’s a bunch of different things. But it means family and your blood. And when I think of food, that’s what I think about.”
Menu items include “Biscuits and Buns,” “Bowls,” and “Sweets.” One of the “Sweets” is “Banana Pudding Tiramisu,” which is made with coffee caramel, banana, and Moon Pie.
“Kinfolk” is a “Southern saying,” says Jeanes, who heard the word a lot when he was growing up. His father was from a small Mississippi town. “Those folks literally sat on their porch and shot squirrels out of the tree. They’re country country.”
In addition to evoking memories of going hunting and eating with his dad, “kinfolk” also evokes memories of his mother’s biscuits. “She made them and they were great. But I also liked the frozen ones she made.”
But more than the actual biscuits was the “great memory” of “sitting around” in the dining room or living room “eating sausage and biscuits.”
Jeanes, who was 12 years old when he lost his dad, says his “core” are the people in his life. “What I enjoyed with them most of the time was eating food. Going to Thanksgiving and being with all my cousins and all my aunts and uncles. Those were some of the best memories.”
As for that food, Jeanes says, “I grew up in the era of the South when Crock-Pots were big.” But, he says, “I love American cheese. I love Velveeta. I love frozen biscuits. I’m not knocking any of that stuff. I’m just trying to really do something that has a positive effect on not just this community, but the Earth in general.”
Biscuits were a big thing for Jeanes when he was in culinary school at the old L’Ecole Culinaire in Memphis. “I made them and put a little bit of herbs de Provence in there. Then I started adjusting it. Every time I made them I’d write it down and see what I didn’t like and what I liked and I went from there.”
Jeanes came up with his square biscuits, which he made with the folding method of building layers of dough with butter in between.
He included his biscuits in his first “Kinfolk” food stall in the old Puck Food Hall at 409 South Main. “I was the first tenant there.”
Two years ago, he began doing Kinfolk pop-ups at Comeback Coffee. “It was great. I sold out almost every weekend. I saw that there was a desire for us.”
That was a chance to “test the waters, get some data, see if it’s plausible to open a full space.”
He met his current business partners at the pop-ups. A buddy then told him about the Harbor Town location, which already had a new kitchen in it.
Jeanes still makes his biscuits, but he also serves a wide range of items. “You could only do so much at the coffee shop,” he says, adding, “Now it’s growing to, essentially, a fancier Waffle House.”
“The menu is based off of breakfast sandwiches you can either get on our buttermilk biscuits or on a milk bun with benne seeds.”
The breakfast sandwiches are served on an “egg plate. It has a French omelet on it or, basically, any two eggs you want. With grits or fries. Whatever side you like.”
He also serves rice bowls, including one that “literally has Japanese pickles in it.” It also includes Delta jasmine rice, crispy chicken thigh, chili crisp, jammy egg, and toasted benne seed. “There’s a thread that kind of goes through that menu that has Japanese and Scandinavian influences.”
Jeanes also serves “flattop griddle cakes,” but he uses oat flour instead of white flour “to give a gluten-free option.”
For now, Kinfolk, which is open Wednesdays through Sundays, is open for grab-and-go from 6 to 7 a.m. The full-breakfast menu is from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. The full lunch menu begins at 10:30 a.m.
The Harbor Town restaurant location is great for Jeanes and his kinfolk. “I can ride my bike here from my home,” he says. “My wife can literally walk up here with our kids.”
Throughout the day on Monday, April 8th, the moon’s vast shadow, 100 miles across, will pass over the face of the Earth like some great mother ship, blocking light in a creeping path from the Pacific Ocean’s Cook Islands to a point in the Atlantic Ocean some 200 leagues west of France. Those under the hundred-mile-wide band of the shadow will experience a total eclipse of the sun, wherein the apparent size of the lunar disc will exactly match and obscure the sun’s disc, in one of the great coincidences of orbs and orbits in our cosmos, dimming the day as it swings into place and finally blocking all direct sunlight for a few minutes. Then the moon will move away and the day will enjoy a second dawn.
“It’s like a fast-forward sunset and sunrise,” says Quintron, the New Orleans-based musician and inventor who created Weather Warlock, an analog synthesizer and audio processor triggered by signals from an array of wind, humidity, sound, and light sensors. The eclipse, with its stark contrasts, is a time for his creation to shine. He’s noted the Weather Warlock’s sensitivity to the changing light of dusk or dawn before, but the eclipse, he says, is “approximately 10 times as fast.”
Quintron and the Weather Warlock, with control panel schematic (Photo: Panacea Theriac)
The Ecliptic Festival
Like thousands of others, Quintron will be in Hot Springs, Arkansas, when it all goes down. The classic resort town lies directly in the path of totality, as does much of the Natural State. In Hot Springs, the eclipse’s timing corresponds to a time-honored tradition, the Valley of the Vapors music festival, now in its 20th year. This year’s version will be unique, as it’s being co-produced by Atlas Obscura, a company specializing in unorthodox travel packages. Together, they’re calling this hybrid celebration the Ecliptic Festival, and it’s huge.
From April 5th to April 8th, up to 4,000 attendees will gather at Hot Springs’ Cedar Glades Park for musical performances and events with artists, philosophers, astronomers, and other speakers — along with ringside seats to the spectacle of a full solar eclipse. These astronomical pilgrims will be staying in glamping tents, camping on their own, or booking other accommodations (quickly filling up) in Hot Springs or nearby Little Rock.
The startlingly eclectic lineup includes performers like Allah-Las, Blonde Redhead, Deerhoof, and Shannon and the Clams; mythologist and storyteller John Bucher; theoretical physicist Kelly Reidy; and author and astronomer Rebecca Boyle, who will conduct a guided stargazing session. Of course, the first three days of the bash will be much like any other festival, albeit with more telescopes, as the moon and sun won’t yet be engaged in their cosmic pas de deux. Then on Monday, the music will take a left turn.
When the moon begins its creep across the face of the sun, experimental harpist Mary Lattimore will help usher in the darkness. Though faster than a sunset, the dimming of the day occurs over more than an hour and 20 minutes. Halfway through it, music on the main stage will stop and the headlining “artist” leading up to and through the total occultation of the sun will be a robot, tuned in to the sounds of nature.
The sensor array triggering Weather Warlock (Photo: Panacea Theriac)
All Hail the Weather Warlock
Although Quintron sometimes assembles a band that’s billed as Weather Warlock, at the heart of it is the machine he designed some 10 years ago, a device that “uses sun, wind, rain, and temperature to control a monster analog synth designed by Quintronics,” as his website explains. Multiple sensors convert changes in wind speed, barometric pressure, rainfall, and light into voltage and thence synthesizer tones. When the weather or light is shifting, no band is necessary: The device creates fascinating tonal paintings entirely on its own, worth recording and releasing.
“During Hurricane Ida,” says Quintron, “we knew a weather event was coming and I knew it was going to get really nuts. So I tuned up all the sensors, dialed it in, and then just set it to record as long as the power stayed on. And it stayed on quite a while, pretty deep into extreme hurricane winds and rainfall. And that became the record, PEOPLE = ANTS.”
Well before Ida, of course, Quintron and his device were active during the 2017 total solar eclipse, perched on the roof of Third Man Records in Nashville, the audio of which was later released as the record, Occulting the Sun. But Quintron’s approach has evolved somewhat since then.
“I’m going to have mics set up in the area too,” says Quintron of his Hot Springs setup. “My whole microphone system and the electronic filtration of that source has now come to be called the Wildlife Organ, which is just a series of all-weather microphones at different elevations in the wilderness, capturing the critters. Because how the animals and insects and birds respond to an eclipse is kind of the most mind-blowing thing about it.”
As day turns to night, birds and bees stop their activity and the crickets come out to sing. While the Weather Warlock’s mics and sensors will in fact be running throughout the festival, “like a little weather station that people can visit, going on 24/7 during the entire fest,” he says, the approach to and immersion in totality will make for the most dramatic effects from Quintron’s device. “This is the Super Bowl Sunday for Weather Warlock, so during totality it’s only going to be Weather Warlock playing. I’m not going to mess with it too much. I just want to experience this machine that I built, reacting to the sky.”
Accordingly, he hopes the festival attendees will respect the moment. “I begged [the festival organizers] to please let me be the only sound-generating human during the actual eclipse,” he says, and his wish has come true, assuming festival partiers cooperate and simply listen. “I just want to let the lords of the skies and Mother Earth do their thing. I don’t want to comment or interact or join in because it’s such a rare weather event.”
During totality, from roughly 1:49 to 1:53 p.m. in Hot Springs, the sun’s disc will be blocked, but it won’t be entirely dark. Rather, an eerie twilight will set in, and stars will appear. As in 2017, Venus and Jupiter (and other less visible planets) will appear on either side of the occulted sun. For close to four minutes, observers will be able to remove their protective sun-viewing glasses (the only time it’s safe to do so) and marvel at how small we are. People = ants, indeed.
And then, gradually, Weather Warlock will surrender its command of the festival, giving way to what many, including Quintron, are most keenly anticipating: an appearance by the acolytes of Sun Ra himself.
The Sun Ra Arkestra, led by Marshall Allen (center) (Photo: Courtesy El Ra Records)
The Sun Ra Arkestra
Booking the Sun Ra Arkestra on the day of the eclipse was an inspired choice by Atlas Obscura and Valley of the Vapors, and not just because it’s arguably the longest-running, continuously operated jazz ensemble in the world today. Sun Ra, born Herman Blount in Birmingham, Alabama, transformed himself and his music by putting the transcendent possibilities of cosmic bodies — the moon, Saturn, the stars, the sun — at the heart of his creativity. Changing his name to honor the Egyptian god Ra in the mid-Fifties, he never looked back, assembling an ever-shifting big band that paired increasingly free jazz with more disciplined compositions and even the sounds of exotica, as they chanted, “We travel the spaceways/From planet to planet …”
Though its leader passed away in 1993, the Arkestra — pairing “orchestra” with an allusion to a wandering ark — sailed on, led today by its oldest surviving member, Marshall Allen, who joined the group in the late ’50s. And Allen, now 99, has kept the Arkestra’s guiding aesthetic in place, from the bold, colorful costumes to the eclectic mix of big band swing tunes (Fletcher Henderson is a favorite), chanted songs of space, and free improvisation.
Tyler Mitchell, who first played with Sun Ra in the ’80s before rejoining the Arkestra in 2010, still marvels at the saxophonist’s vigor. “Marshall’s amazing,” he says. “He still moves around and is in good shape, man! I admire him. He’s just such a great example to mankind, to people. Not just to musicians.”
Quintron, for his part, is especially excited that the Arkestra will immediately follow him. “I’ll be taking the baton between the harpist, Mary Lattimore, and Sun Ra. I’ve been given the go-ahead to overlap and kind of join those two artists.” And he couldn’t be more pleased. “Sun Ra,” says Quintron, “is on my personal Mount Rushmore of how to think about music and how to approach music.” Having said that, neither Quintron nor the Arkestra members themselves know exactly what to expect when they take the stage.
Recalling the Arkestra’s performance at Atlas Obscura’s 2017 eclipse event in Oregon, Mitchell explains, “The last time we did it, we just followed Marshall’s cues. Neither Sun Ra or Marshall tell you what they’re going to play. Sometimes Marshall is known to just get up and have us play a space chord, where everybody just blows a note, and he directs you with his hand. And just the different textures of the space chords would be the song.”
But things could be more arranged. “We also have what we call stomps,” says Mitchell, “like the old Fletcher Henderson stuff. Marshall covers all the different styles in jazz when we do a concert. And if a song’s too nice and neat and clean, and all too perfect, he’ll come in and just mess it all up. You don’t want it to be too perfect. He likes to have that chaos.”
And so, as the sunlight gradually reemerges, expect the unexpected, but know that the Sun Ra Arkestra, having such songs in their repertoire as “When Sun Comes Out,” “Solar Differentials,” “Dancing Shadows,” and “Satellites Are Spinning” are well-prepared to capture the moment.
The path of totality across North America, moving from southwest to northeast (Photo: courtesy Atlas Obscura)
Lighting Out for the Graze Zone
For Memphians who want to experience totality, Hot Springs is arguably the most musical destination on April 8th, but there are other options, from low-key gatherings to camping on your own. The zone of complete occultation stretches from the southwest to the northeast of the state, with many planned events and over two dozen state parks in that area. The Crystal Garden in Mt. Ida, Arkansas, for example, will have camping and acoustic music amidst the largest quartz crystal deposit in the world, nestled in the Ouachita National Forest. The University of Arkansas in Little Rock will have a family-friendly event, and Arkansas State University in Jonesboro will participate in the Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project, sponsored by NASA, releasing dozens of weather balloons laden with scientific instruments to record atmospheric changes during the eclipse. Meanwhile, the website ozarktotaleclipse.com lists several smaller-scale celebrations in the Ozark foothills, all in the path of totality.
As the site ar-eclipse.info notes, some prefer to be on the margins of that path, in what’s called “the graze zone.” In some ways, being on the borders of totality’s path can make the eclipse even more striking. As described by NASA, “An observer positioned here will witness a solar crescent which is fragmented into a series of bright beads and short segments. … These beading phenomena are caused by the appearance of photospheric rays which alternately pass through deep lunar valleys and hide behind high mountain peaks as the moon’s irregular limb grazes the edge of the sun’s disk.” Properly viewed with protective glasses, this near-total eclipse ringed with beams and flares of light can be spellbinding, especially for astrophotography buffs.
Closer to home, outside the path of totality, the eclipse will still be impressive. Indeed, the village of Wilson, less than an hour away, will be especially active. Their Crawfish Festival takes place through the day of April 6th, giving way to live music that evening and ultimately an eclipse-viewing gathering two days later, when the sun’s disc will be 99.38 percent blocked at its peak. (Protective glasses must be worn the entire time when observing the sun.)
Just down the road in Dyess, Arkansas State University’s KASU radio station will host the Arkansas Roots Music Festival in front of the Johnny Cash Boyhood Home on the 6th, with El Dorado-native Jason D. Williams headlining, plus a “lunch and learn” with NASA scientist Dr. Les Johnson on the 7th, and the option to park campers near the historic home for the following day’s astronomical event.
And finally, lest one forget the wide-ranging impact the eclipse will have on all of nature, one NASA initiative may persuade you to eschew the music and hoopla and simply listen. Known as the Eclipse Soundscapes Project, it puts the invisible at the center of the celestial experience, encouraging people from all walks of life to document the stark changes in animal behavior when all goes dark. As noted on the NASA website, the eclipse offers “the perfect opportunity for a large-scale citizen science project.” Volunteers will be asked to use a low-cost audio recording device to capture nature’s sounds during the eclipse, or to write down their multisensory observations for submission to the project website.
“I’m so glad that they’re doing that,” says Quintron of NASA’s Eclipse Soundscapes Project. “I’m very happy that I won’t be in a big city, but in a forest. And making recordings out in the field, where there is not a large amount of human influence, is really important. We need recordings of what the critters and the birds and the insects are doing during this event because it’s really remarkable. They’re not reading on the news that the eclipse is coming. They’re purely reacting to it. And in a similar way, I just really want to draw people’s attention to the physical world that they live in, in whatever way I can.”
“Leftist agitators disrupted the Turning Point USA (TPUSA) chapter event hosting Kyle Rittenhouse last night at the University of Memphis,” reads a story from Turning Points USA the day after Rittenhouse was booed from the stage and chased away from campus by protestors.
MEMernet celebrity Allan Creasy asked Memphians on X and Facebook for their most Memphis insult for Rittenhouse. They didn’t disappoint.
“Kyle says mane but spells it main,” wrote Forrest Quay Roberts.
“Kyle Rittenhouse walked into the Rendezvous and ordered the shrimp,” wrote Jonathan Green.
“Kyle thinks Chili’s has the best ribs,” wrote Danny Bader. “He also eats ribs with a fork.”
“I 100 percent know his favorite Grizzly was Chandler Parsons,” wrote Henry A Wallace.
Candy Champ
Posted to X by Jessica Benson
“This kid eating an insane amount of cotton candy has been the best performance we’ve seen in five games in Memphis this weekend,” tweeted Jessica Benson, a Grind City Media host on the March Madness games played at FedExForum last weekend.
Glo and Joe
Posted to Instagram by GloRilla
Memphis rapper GloRilla met President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House last week. In a brief Instagram selfie video with Biden, GloRilla says, “Yeah, Joe!” The president responded, “Not yeah, Joe. Yeah, you!”
Memphis has always been a kinky city full of kinky people. But it can be a challenge for adventurous Memphians to find safe spaces where they can express their sexual curiosities and fetishes without fear of judgment, exploitation, or worse.
This is especially true for members of our city’s marginalized populations: Black, Indigenous, and other people of color who are in search of sexual self-discovery in a state whose legislature recently tried to criminalize performing in drag. The stigma surrounding any sexual activity deemed abnormal or “prurient” leads to shame and exclusion.
But this weekend, Black kink is taking a big step into the Memphis mainstream, and you can be part of the conversation. Professional dominant and local fetish leader King Khan is hosting a panel discussion called BIPOC x BDSM: A KINKY CONVERSATION at the Medicine Factory in Downtown Memphis. He will be joined by guests with expertise in sexual freedom, healing, and therapy.
The stated goals of this panel are to demystify sexual fetishes such as bondage, dominance/discipline, submission/sadism, and masochism (BDSM) and to empower sexual subcultures in our city, especially for those of people of color.
For those who are unfamiliar with the idea of BDSM, think of it as erotic play that involves inequity of power. Some people play the role of doms while others are subs; some are tops while others are bottoms. Along the way, there’s plenty of voyeurism, taboo play, and, yes, whips and chains. But there’s much more than that.
“[At this panel], we can share our collective and individual lived experiences,” says Khan, who chooses to remain masked in public to keep his BDSM life separate from his everyday life. “We can learn from each other’s insights and journeys. We can support and lean on one another. We can occupy the locus of our own pleasure experiences, drive our sexual liberation, and be free to be ourselves. This panel is for us and is open to our community, co-conspirators, and allies.”
The panel on Saturday will be emceed by Phoenix, the Goddess, an educator and speaker specializing in creating a healing and sex-positive space for the curious.
It will also feature discussion from Phillis Lewis, CEO of the nonprofit organization Love Doesn’t Hurt, which aids members of the LGBTQ who are experiencing crisis.
Lewis, also known as Freak Nasty, has been hosting the quarterly Kink Night at Dru’s Place on Madison Avenue. She has been a familiar part of the Memphis kink community for over 20 years.
Black Magick (Photo: Courtesy Black Magick)
Also on the panel is Black Magick, an experienced tantric dominatrix priestess and healer. Black Magick specializes in a variety of safe sexual alternative practices and is also a burlesque dancer.
King Khan, the spokesperson for Saturday’s panel event, is also the owner and founder of MeetAtJewels, Memphis’ only Black-owned dungeon and play space.
MeetAtJewels hosts parties for those with an open mind about exploring their sexual lives in a judgment-free environment. They host all-night parties on a regular basis (you can find out when and where if you’re inclined at meetatjewels.com) where they also sell sex toys, give BDSM demonstrations, and host multi-room games. They recently celebrated their first anniversary with a rose ceremony play party.
BDSM demands informed consent from all partners, and the motto for the BDSM play at MeetAtJewels is “Keep it kinky, keep it classy, and keep it consensual.” Khan’s goal is to ensure a “safe, inclusive, and empowering space for Black, Indigenous, and people of color,” and he personally screens each member who wishes to join. He gets to know applicants and asks about each member’s boundaries before accepting them to the club. No member is required to participate in any activity unless they feel comfortable.
The panel discussion on Saturday is open to the “kinky BIPOC kinfolk” and their allies. Khan hopes it will be the first of a series of such discussions to bring kink to the mainstream and that this uncensored conversation will allow curious members of our majority-Black city to break down barriers around bondage play and other fetishes.
BIPOC x BDSM: A KINKY CONVERSATION will be held at the Medicine Factory on Saturday, March 30th, from 2 to 4 p.m.
It is a matter of record that Republican Governor Bill Lee easily won reelection in 2022, routing his Democratic opponent Jason Martin with 67 percent of the statewide point.
The under-financed, relatively unknown Martin, an emergency physician from Sumner County, was never really competitive, winning only two of Tennessee’s 95 counties — the state’s two remaining Democratic strongholds of Shelby (Memphis) and Davidson (Nashville).
But more to the point of this year’s state elections, Martin also came out ahead two years ago in state House District 97, site of a likely showdown this year between GOP incumbent John Gillespie and his probable Democratic challenger, businessman Jesse Huseth.
Gillespie was first elected in 2020, when he edged out Democrat Gabby Salinas at a time when District 97, which straddled the eastern boundary line of Memphis, was already evenly enough divided to make for a competitive race.
As Martin’s strong showing indicated, redistricting after the 2000 census shifted the district’s center of balance even more definitively into Memphis. But Gillespie was able to win reelection two years ago over unsung Democrat Toniko Harris.
During his first two terms, Gillespie maintained the kind of moderate political profile that was called for in a district that, in the current parlance, is neither red nor blue but purple. But, as was noted here two weeks ago, Gillespie has moved perceptibly to the right on party-line issues, those having to do with law enforcement, especially.
He has sponsored legislation that would nullify the Memphis City Council’s action, in the wake of the beating death of Tyre Nichols by an MPD unit, to prohibit police from making preemptive traffic stops for minor offenses. And Gillespie moved his bill to that effect onto the House floor (and to passage) after, his critics maintain (on the basis of conversation captured in a somewhat ambiguous cell phone video), he had assured Nichols’ parents he would hold it for later.
Democrat Huseth sees no ambiguity in the video, maintaining that Gillespie “lied to the family of Tyre Nichols after promising to postpone the vote one week to allow them to attend. This is life under the Republican Supermajority and it has to end.”
Gillespie can count on generous financing as an incumbent, but Huseth, who has a fundraiser scheduled for next week and more in mind, clearly intends to run tough, with assistance from campaign manager Jeff Ethridge, the able activist who is the newly elected president of the Germantown Democratic Club.
• As suspended Criminal Court Judge Melissa Boyd moves ever closer to being ejected from office altogether, Shelby County voters are looking forward to the prospect of two special judicial elections in the not too distant future.
A legislative panel voted unanimously last week to recommend the removal from office of Boyd, who has been charged with various irregularities, including use of cocaine on the bench.
A successor will also be needed for Circuit Court Judge Mary Wagner, who has been named to the state Supreme Court.
Both circumstances will require a judicial panel to recommend potential successors to Governor Bill Lee, who may, at his discretion, select from the list or ask for additional names.
In both cases, whoever gets the governor’s nod would ordinarily serve until a special election can be arranged on the next August ballot that is scheduled at least 30 days from the date that the vacancies become official.
But the pending vacancies might not be filled at all if a bill advancing in the Assembly this week is passed. The bill by Rep. Andrew Farmer (R-Sevierville) and Sen. Frank Niceley (R-Strawberry Plains) would realize what has been a long-discussed redistributionist goal in some quarters — by the expedient of transferring the two aforementioned judicial seats from Shelby County to districts elsewhere in the state.
