The latest plane failure story — about the emergency slide that fell off a Boeing 767 leaving JFK Airport — gets a “whodathunkit” follow-up, the New York Post reported. On April 28, the slide washed up right in front of the beachside home in Belle Harbor, Queens, of Jake Bissell-Linsk, who happens to be the attorney who filed a federal lawsuit against Boeing after the Alaska Airlines door blowout in January. Belle Harbor is about six miles southeast of JFK. “I didn’t want to touch it, but I got close enough to get a close look at it,” Bissell-Linsk said. He said a Delta Airlines crew arrived a few hours later and threw the slide into the back of a truck. “We haven’t decided if the slide is relevant to our case,” he noted. [NY Post, 4/29/2024]
Animal Antics
The large animals are restless lately. On April 28, four zebras made a break for it from a trailer at a highway exit in Washington State, The New York Times reported. Kristine Keltgen was hauling them to her petting zoo in Anaconda, Montana, when the latch on the trailer became loose and the zebras “bolted out.” Police officers and volunteers headed up the effort to corral them, but David Danton of Mount Vernon, Washington, was a ringer: Danton is a former rodeo clown and bullfighter. He and his wife happened to be driving by and stopped to help. “It was kind of divine intervention,” Danton’s wife said. Danton built a makeshift chute leading to a horse pen on a nearby farm. “It’s just about being quiet, working them gentle, and not getting excited,” he said. As of May 2, one of the zebras was still on the lam, but Keltgen was sure it would be found. [NY Times, 4/29/2024]
The Golden Age of Air Travel
Passengers aboard an American Airlines flight from Washington, D.C., to Phoenix on April 25 were delayed by about 90 minutes after their flight had to make an unplanned stop in Oklahoma City, Simple Flying reported. While AA’s official statement called the problem a “mechanical issue,” social media reports indicated that the toilets became clogged, and the plane had to land for maintenance. One traveler posted: “I was on this flight. Apparently, the lavatory tanks were NOT emptied from the previous LAX to DCA flight the night before.” [Simple Flying, 4/27/2024]
Tourists Behaving Badly
Fujikawaguchiko, Japan, “is a town built on tourism,” said Michie Motomochi, the owner of a cafe in the city. So it says a lot that the town began constructing a large black screen on a stretch of sidewalk that is a favorite spot for viewing and photographing Mount Fuji in the distance. The Associated Press reported that construction began on April 30; the screen will be 8 feet high and 65 feet long. “I welcome many visitors,” Motomochi said, “… but there are many things about their manners that are worrying,” such as littering, crossing the road in traffic, ignoring traffic lights, and trespassing. The town has reportedly tried other tactics — signs in multiple languages and security guards — to no avail. [AP, 4/30/2024]
Questionable Judgment
After Jacob Wright, 24, and Cambree Wright, 19, exchanged wedding vows on Feb. 10, it was time for pictures, Fox News reported. So Jacob grabbed his Apple Vision Pro headset and wore it while the photos were snapped. Jacob said he saw an opportunity to have fun and create a viral moment. “I was like, ‘Oh, it’d be like such a meme. It’d be so funny if we just took some pictures with it on after the wedding.’” Sure enough, when they posted the pics, Cambree said she started getting “crazy” messages: “I woke up to 200-plus messages and just random girls telling me to divorce my husband.” But the bride said the photos “perfectly encompass Jacob and his personality … and what our relationship is like.” [Fox News, 3/13/2024]
Suspicions Confirmed
Ashley Class of Charlotte, North Carolina, was stumped by her toddler’s reports of monsters in the wall of her bedroom, NPR reported. For months, Saylor told her mom she could hear something, but Class chalked it up to the stress of a new baby in the house. She and her husband deployed “monster spray” (water) and pretended to look for the monsters. But finally, Class called a pest control specialist, who went into Saylor’s room with a thermal camera. “It lit up like Christmas,” Class said. “It was floor to ceiling.” Behind Saylor’s wall was a 100-pound honeycomb and about 50,000 bees, which the beekeeper removed. But not before the bees had done tens of thousands of dollars in damage. “It’s been a nightmare,” Class said. [NPR, 4/30/2024]
Send your weird news items with subject line WEIRD NEWS to WeirdNewsTips@amuniversal.com.
This family’s got some summer learning ahead. (Photo: Courtesy
Patricia Lockhart)
It’s officially summer! My kids are completely elated, and to be honest, so am I. But as an educator, I’m always asked, “What are your kids doing during the summer?” Well, the short answer is they are still learning. While their traditional school may be out, summer learning in my household is in full effect. My kids are 10, twin 12-year-olds, and a 15-year-old (OMG, he’ll start driving this summer!).
Here’s what this curriculum looks like:
• Learn how to read the MATA bus schedule and ride the bus across town. I know that Uber is a thing, but I still believe in public transportation. I feel that people should know how to travel in their city in all formats.
• Put together a shelf. Following directions is a learned skill. And following printed instructions is even more difficult. So each of my kids will be required to purchase a shelf (using their allowance) and put it together by themselves.
• Read an autobiography. You don’t have to experience life’s hard lessons in order to learn from them. One can gain a lot of insight about life from reading about someone else’s experience.
• Paint a wall. Okay, I’m sure there’s some educational aspect to painting a wall, but honestly I just want a few accent walls in the house and the kids have nothing but time.
• Learn the lyrics to important Disney songs. So far, they have failed their “A Whole New World” from Aladdin. Up next is “Colors of the Wind” from Pocahontas. My kids have near zero music knowledge, unless it comes from video games. And I refuse to have them embarrassing the family name because they don’t know a single song from The Lion King. So, may the odds be ever in their favor.
• Learn how to bake the perfect cookie. This task shouldn’t be too hard since I’ve given them the recipe to the perfect cookie dough base. Especially since the end product is so delicious, they should be extra motivated to get it right. The secret is in the temperature.
• Learn how to make strawberry jam. In order to do this, they need to first pick some fresh strawberries from Jones Orchard. Then follow a simple recipe and voilà! I can’t wait to see if the kids get the consistency right and are able to explain why. Science!
• Grocery shop and prepare meals. During the school year, I did the grocery shopping. As a family, we each took turns to prepare dinners. My husband, my oldest son, and I each had our own day. The twins and the youngest daughter shared a day. But now, they must learn and strengthen their tech muscles and stretch their cooking skills. Each kid is responsible for going on kroger.com and putting their needed items for breakfast, lunch, and dinner into the shopping cart for review. They must also notify me of the lunch and the dinner they will be preparing the following week.
• Learn how to operate Google Calendar. With four kids, each wants to hang out with their friends and go to different events. It can become overwhelming trying to remember everything for everyone. So if they want to engage in anything outside of the four walls of our house, they must send us a Google Calendar invite.
• Learn how to navigate public spaces. I think this may be the only part of summer learning they are looking forward to. One day a week, they get to decide where they would like to hang out. In navigating public spaces, they need to practice respect of the place and the people, noise level control, and basic street-smarts. They’re already excited about practicing this at the MoSH, Crosstown Concourse, Memphis Chess Club, and the library.
• Learn how to play spades. (This is a prerequisite to gaining their Black Card.)
• Learn about music greats such as Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Ray Charles, Prince, Miles Davis, and Sam Cooke to name a few. They will be given a playlist that they are more than welcomed to listen to as they clean their rooms.
Through this summer learning curriculum, the kids utilize their reading, math, science, and social studies skills. They are learning things that they wouldn’t necessarily get in an ordinary classroom. I have always believed that I am my child’s first teacher, and there’s no way that our school systems can teach our children everything. One thing that I have learned in my years as an educator is that children will learn! They are going to learn something, from someone or from somewhere. It’s up to us as parents to ensure their learning is rounded and balanced.
Patricia Lockhart is a native Memphian who loves to read, write, cook, and eat. Her days are filled with laughter with her four kids and charming husband. By day, she’s a school librarian and writer, but by night … she’s asleep. @realworkwife @memphisismyboyfriend
I prove I’m a human all the time. (Photos: Dreamstime.com)
Thanks to a single post on TikTok, a question rocketed through social media and emerged into real-world conversations. Since the spirit of inquiry is in the Memphis Flyer’s DNA, we set out to explore the “man-bear quandary” and find a definitive answer. Our investigation spawned many other pressing questions. The following conversation took place entirely within the writer’s head.
Let’s say you’re walking alone in the woods. Which would you rather meet: a man or a bear?
I don’t know. Can you give me more details?
No. Man or bear?
I choose bear.
Let’s say you’re walking alone in the woods. Would you rather meet a woman or a bear?
Is the bear male or female?
It doesn’t matter. It’s a bear.
It does matter! Is it a mama bear defending her cubs? Or is it a male bear with a belly full of salmon he just pulled from the rushing stream at the bottom of the hill?
I don’t know! It’s a non-bear-nary bear! Woman or bear, that’s the choice.
Bear.
If your sister or mother or daughter were walking alone in the woods, would you rather she encounter a bear or a man?
I’m gonna go with bear again.
You’re doing this all wrong.
That wasn’t a question. How are my answers wrong?
I’m trying to make a point about misogyny and sexual assault. Men are supposed to choose the man because bears are dangerous. Women are supposed to choose the bear because it’s not as dangerous to them as a man. About 20 percent of women will experience sexual assault in their lifetimes. Don’t you think that’s bad?
Of course sexual assault is bad! Listen, if you really want to make a dent in the Memphis crime rate, get to work fixing the TBI crime lab. I’m just not sure questioning what a man, a bear, or the pope does in the woods is the best way to make your point.
Don’t bring religion into this. It’s a social-media gotcha question. Your response says a lot about you. Can you think of a better way to determine moral worth?
No, I guess not.
Right. So, why do you keep choosing the bear?
If all I know is gender, I’m going to have to assume the worst. People have all kinds of agendas. But bears only have bear agendas. They’re not out to get you. They’re just doing their bear stuff. Stay out of their way and leave them to it. Bears can be dangerous, sure, but at least you know where you stand with a bear. If the choice is Jane the friendly forest ranger or a bear, I’ll choose the forest ranger. If it’s Tweakin’ Joe defending his secret meth lab, I’ll take the bear. Plus, bears don’t have guns.
Aha! You just chose the woman over the bear!
No, I’m choosing the park ranger. Women do meth, too. It’s all in the details. Is this like the Voight-Kampff test from the movie Blade Runner, where they try to determine if you’re a replicant by asking you weird empathy questions?
You’re walking in the desert, and you see a tortoise on its back, baking in the sun. Why aren’t you turning the tortoise over?
Of course I’m going to turn the tortoise over! I’m not a robot.
How do I know you’re not a robot? How do YOU know?
I prove I’m a human on the internet all the time.
Please choose all the images which contain a bear.
Exactly! Like an AI doesn’t know what a bear looks like.
Has the AI ever seen a bear?
AIs don’t “see” anything. It’s just making educated guesses about what comes next. AI is just spicy autocorrect.
Doesn’t “making educated guesses about what comes next” also describe human thought processes?
This is getting ridiculous. You can’t measure my humanity by asking about my reaction to animal encounters. The man-bear quandary is just another “Would You Rather?” question designed to stir up meaningless debate on the internet. Good for procrastinating when you should be writing, but that’s it. Would you rather fight one man-sized chicken or five chicken-sized men?
Obviously, the man-sized chicken.
You obviously don’t play Dungeons & Dragons. A man-sized chicken is called a “dinosaur.” They get two claw-attacks and one bite-attack per round. Smoosh a couple of the tiny men, and the rest will have to pass a morale check or retreat.
Would you rather duel Aaron Burr with pistols at 10 paces, or fight Abraham Lincoln in a pit with a broadsword?
Happy Pride month! June is going to be a rainbow party here in the Mid-South, where the LGBTQ community is making their voices heard. In the large overlap of the metaphysical and LGBTQ communities, there are many conversations about the words and terms used to describe energy. This conversation includes tarot, as tarot is a story of the flow of energy in our lives and the cause and effects of that energy and the choices we make.
The artwork of tarot has been evolving recently, with more decks being inclusive of BIPOC people as well as having more LGBTQ images. In a spiritual community, where love should be the law, having representations of queer and BIPOC people is necessary because they are a large part of the community and they need to know that they are welcome and important here, too.
Tarot is historically white. The mass-produced Rider-Waite-Smith deck was illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith, a Black woman who ran with the likes of Bram Stoker and William Butler Yeats. It was through Yeats that Smith was introduced to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Arthur Edward Waite, who commissioned her to illustrate his tarot deck. Yet none of the people in the deck looked like Colman Smith. Even with the enormous popularity of what she created, Colman Smith suffered, like so many women, from the exclusionary attitudes towards female talent: She received a small, flat sum for her tarot deck and no royalties. Only recently has her name been added to the title of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck.
The current push for more inclusive decks has created a whole new genre of tarot. Although tarot is still historically both white and very straight in its imagery, all the new queer and inclusive decks have added a richness and depth to our tarot choices. As a professional tarot reader, I have many tarot and oracle decks — too many if you ask some. And most of them feature nothing but straight, white people. However, over the last few years I have added some new, amazing decks to my collection that include both people of color and queer people in the artwork. I have made the conscious effort to do so. I like to see people of different ethnicities and cultures in my decks. The world is full of people with different skin tones and cultures, and I want that reflected in my spiritual world, too. As someone who reads professionally for others, I want the people I read for to see themselves included in my tarot cards. We have all had moments where we relate to someone on TV, in a movie, a story, or in art that does not look like us or live the same lifestyle we live. But being able to see a person who has a similar skin tone or haircut or presentation that resembles yours is empowering, welcoming, and affirming.
If you are searching for a tarot deck that includes BIPOC and queer representation, I have a few suggestions to get you started. The Light Seer’s Tarot is my current favorite deck and the one I read for clients with. It includes people of various skin tones in different settings. The Modern Spellcaster’s Tarot includes a variety of skin tones and many LGBTQ people in various relationships. Without being a strictly “queer” deck, it is one of the more inclusive decks I have seen. The Modern Witch and Modern Goddess tarot decks feature women of all representations. The Queer Tarot and Pride Tarot both focus on queer representation with many BIPOC people included. Two of my favorite new decks just published are the Fifth Spirit Tarot Deck and This Might Hurt Tarot; both decks are queer and inclusive, for a world beyond binaries.
If you are new to tarot, or a professional like me, I encourage you to check out some of these decks and add them to your collection. They will add a depth to your readings, and may help your clients hear your message and take it to heart easier.
Emily Guenther is a co-owner of The Broom Closet metaphysical shop. She is a Memphis native, professional tarot reader, ordained Pagan clergy, and dog mom.
Jaslyn Banks and her family got adorably into the rock, paper, scissors challenge on Nextdoor.
MLGW
Posted to Facebook by MLGW
Head over to Memphis Light, Gas & Water’s (MLGW) Facebook page for a ton of news you can use. There you’ll find the newest water quality report, which is aces once again. The Memphis Sands Aquifer, it says, “contains more than 100 trillion gallons of rainwater that some experts believe fell more than 2,000 years ago.” Whoa.
The utility also wants to hire you, buy stuff from you or your business, and let you use a new mobile app to make appointments for in-office visits. Also, a new survey asks how you get (and want to get) information from MLGW.
Southern Roll
Posted to YouTube by SkateLyfe TV
SkateLyfe TV posted a new video last week from May’s Southern Roll Memphis 2024. The 8th annual epic skate party brought some of the best on wheels to the city. SkateLyfe’s video makes the rolling, dancing, grooving, and showing out all look effortless and fluid. It’s worth a watch.
Bluff City Liars (Photo: Courtesy Bluff City Liars)
Improv and music go hand in hand. After all, how do you make music without a little bit of improv? But Zephyr McAninch, director of the improv troupe Bluff City Liars, wanted to add more music into their improv because who doesn’t like a little bit of music with their improv? So they came up with the two-night Liar’s Ball, where the Liars will play improv games inspired by and backed by the tunes of Louise Page on Friday and Rosey on Saturday.
“Our regular shows typically don’t have a musical element,” McAninch says. “Every now and again, we’ve been able to work in a musical game. … But the ball aspect is there’s music very heavily integrated into the show [with the special musical guests].”
This ball will be the Liar’s second, with last year’s featuring Dandelion Williams and HEELS. “It was just such a success. I think it’s my favorite show we’ve ever done,” McAninch says. “It makes me feel like more of a rock star right there with the band. Everything we’re doing is a little bit silly, but it feels cooler when you’ve got Rosey giving you the backing track for your doo-wop song, or you got Louise Page laying down the piano for Hoedown [a musical improv game you might recognize from Whose Line Is It Anyway?].”
The show will also give audience members a chance to hear Page’s and Rosey’s originals in between games. “I can’t recommend these bands enough,” McAninch says, “so I’m excited for the possibility of getting to introduce somebody to either of them.”
But, of course, being the improv aficionado they are, McAninch is also excited about the possibility of introducing anyone and everyone to improv. “I think everyone should try improv,” they say. “I was the quiet, shy one before I started doing improv [in college], and when I told my parents I joined an improv troupe, they said, ‘You?’ … I just kind of fell in love with it. It’s a wildly fun, massively accessible art form, and it’s weirdly applicable to so many other parts of your life.
“Improv is just not knowing what’s happening. That’s everything that’s ever happening in your life. And on top of that, when kids play, they’re just improvising; they just have fun. We forget how to do it, so I just want to help people remember how to do it.”
So, in addition to shows like the ball this weekend where folks can watch childlike play in action, Bluff City Liars hosts a free improv workshop where attendees can take part in the play themselves at TheatreWorks@The Square on the first and third Monday of each month at 6 p.m. “It is no-commitment,” McAninch says. “You just drop in whenever you feel like it. We adapt what we’re talking about that week to who is there and what skill level is present.”
Keep up with the Liars at bluffcityliars.com, where you can also purchase tickets for the upcoming Liars’ Ball.
Liars’ Ball, TheatreWorks@the Square, 2085 Monroe, Friday, June 7, 8 p.m. | Saturday, June 8, 8 p.m., $12/advance, $15/at the door.
A bass-and-drum beat boomed over a party that pulsed around the twilight-and-neon-painted patio of Rock’n Dough.
Pizza scented the warm air. Plastic cups flowed with golden beer. Corn hole bags rattled, flew, and fell home. Balloon animals squeaked in the hands of delighted children. Duck pins crashed occasionally somewhere inside. Laughter and raucous conversation raised high over the entire scene, building a cathedral dome of fun and positive energy.
A new light switch flipped on in The Edge District that Friday night in early May. The once-vacant building (that formerly housed Trolley Stop Market) came alive again and drew scores to its shores for the promise of something new, exciting. The promise was delivered. The energy was electric, especially for that corner of town. But that sort of vibrancy is becoming more and more commonplace there.
New light switches are being flipped on all over The Edge. No task force was formed for its revitalization. No hashtag was blasted on social media. No special study for it was ordered by the Memphis City Council.
That new energy is largely organic. It’s been fueled with years of care and investment by the Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC) and the Memphis Medical District Collaborative (MMDC).
But an ad hoc group of Edge stakeholders is forging the neighborhood, too. They gather and strategize (as they did recently) over a lunch snack of ribs and catfish bites at Arnold’s BBQ and Grill. Ad hoc, maybe, but their members are mighty. Henry Turley Co. The MMDC. Longtime landowners who own and manage key properties in The Edge. If you’ve ever been to Strangeways Wednesday for free food and drink, you’ve experience a portion of this group’s influence. You’ve also experienced their overall mood for The Edge: fun, communal, welcoming, and connected to the neighborhoods around it.
Let’s Go to The Edge
The Edge is just quirky. Its mother might say, “It has character.” And it certainly does.
No one can agree on its boundaries, for one. Not really. Is it Union and Madison from Manassas to Danny Thomas or onto Fourth? Broaden that to capture Health Sciences Park and Jefferson, right up to Victorian Village? No facts exist on this. Only opinions. The Edge doesn’t even have its own Wikipedia page like so many Memphis neighborhoods. Border disputes aren’t new or controversial, though. Just ask a local to define Midtown.
The streets in The Edge perform mind-bending shifts from the traditional city grid. Arrow-straight Monroe terminates in the heart of The Edge, only to curve slightly north where it transforms into Monroe Extended. What? Marshall crosses Monroe in the center of the neighborhood at an angle that defies the city’s parallel street design. Madison flies up and over (for one of the best views of the city) to meet up with its old self on the west side of Danny Thomas. Why? The DMC website says the “odd, zig-zag streets and alleys” were laid out to accommodate railroads in the 1800s.
Arnold’s BBQ and Grill (Photos: Ziggy Mack)Sharrion Smith showcases Regular Order of Ribs combo at Arnold’s BBQ Shop in the Memphis Edge District for the Memphis Flyer on Saturday, June 1, 2024
Those twists and turns make The Edge full of surprises, too. Siri led me to Arnold’s on a recent visit. I arrived. Nothing around but Mutt Island. But Arnold’s was right on the map. I turned and spied a sign with a pig and an arrow on it. I followed it. Through a brick archway, down some stairs, and across a grass lot, I spied another pig sign. I followed it (and the scent of pork and hickory smoke) to Floyd Alley and found Arnold’s. I felt like I’d joined a secret club.
Years ago, Tommy Pacello, the late (and missed) director of the MMDC, gave me a big surprise on a bike tour of The Edge, which even then brimmed with opportunity in his endless optimism. We stopped at a weedy spot on the Madison bridge. He bid me look over. I found a deep, overgrown, urban canyon. From his experience with the successful Tennessee Brewery Untapped project, he said to imagine what could be done down there with some string lights and a few kegs of beer. That abandoned, forgotten canyon became The Ravine years later.
The Ravine (Photo: Ziggy Mack)
In The Edge, paint and body shops sit cheek by jowl with architect firms, tattoo parlors, salons, arts organizations, souvenir shops, brand-new condos, breweries, the headquarters of one of the city’s biggest homegrown banks, and that huge, gold guitar hoisted high outside Sun Studio, maybe one of the most photographed spots in Memphis. All of this sits just outside the steel canopy of Downtown skyscrapers and the glow of summer lights over AutoZone Park.
For all its quirks, defiant nature, and surprises, one thing is a fact about The Edge: Mike Todd, president and CEO of Premiere Contractors, came up with “The Edge” name. When he first got there, he said the place “was a total wasteland.”
“The Last Place on Earth”
Todd likes and dislikes the moniker “the Mayor of The Edge,” even though he admits it’s kind of true. His company bought Premiere Palace in the 1970s. Even though the area was not even close to up-and-coming, he decided Downtown and the Medical District were good bets. So he placed his.
The auto shops were there, giving credence to the area’s first use and nickname, “Auto Row.” The shops serviced the Downtown community, diminished as it was after white flight following Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination years before. Later, officials planned the area for a Biomedical Research Zone (BRZ). Landowners would get rich if they held onto their buildings, Todd says. But they never did because the BRZ never panned out.
But Todd didn’t leave. His company doubled down and bought the Stop 345 building on Madison in 1997. At one time he leased the building to a club called The Last Place on Earth, which hosted Eddie Vedder and Sonic Youth before its eventual close, he says. The trolley project came and took years longer than promised. This closed Madison and killed traffic there forever, Todd says. Tenants moved out but Todd didn’t give up.
“I couldn’t let this place just become this shit place under the bridge,” he says. “So, we ran that place for 20 years as various entities. Los Comales just moved in less than a year ago.”
Scott Bomar was 19 the first time he went to The Edge. His band, Impala, was recording an album at Sam Phillips Recording.
“I thought, man, this is where I want to work,” Bomar says. “Cut to a couple of decades later. Well, that’s where I work now.”
Even back in his teens, Bomar thought The Edge was cool. The automotive factories and auto shops were all there. He loves the new energy, too.
Rootstock Wine Merchants (Photo: Ziggy Mack)Images of Rootstock in the Memphis Edge District for the Memphis Flyer on Saturday, June 1, 2024
“We have a lot of clients who come in from out of town,” he says. “It’s really great to be able to walk across the street to the wine shop [Rootstock Wine Merchants] to pick up something if we need it, or to go down to French Truck and get a coffee, or go to Rock’n Dough and get food. … It’s exciting that there’s so much stuff down there now that’s walkable.”
The Edge was “quiet” when Anthony Lee first got there back in 2004. Well, quiet during the day, anyway.
“It would activate at night because of the club there, which was at one point 616 Club, and then Apocalypse, and then Spectrum,” Lee says. “Then, it was a strip club. So that one little building used to activate it on weekend nights.”
Sun Studio (Photo: Ziggy Mack)
Lee is now the gallery manager at Marshall Arts, an Edge pioneer, founded by Pinkney Herbert. The studio and gallery was converted from an automotive shop, Lee says, just like Sun Studio and many other buildings in The Edge.
“Makers and the craftspeople and the artists kind of converted some of those buildings and [The Edge] took on another quality,” Lee says. “It became sort of like the craft district.
“Pinkney Herbert was probably the first artist that imported that format from New York City. He created Marshall Arts in 1992 with his wife. He saw what they were doing up with there with all those old buildings in SoHo and the Lower East Side and decided to bring a similar idea back to Memphis.”
Lee lists a bevy of artists and craftspeople still working in The Edge with woodworking shops, recording studios, a greeting card studio, and more. With the club gone, he says, the area shares a “two-fold personality” with car maintenance and the arts.
“For years, this was a forgotten neighborhood, but sandwiched by growth in the Medical District and the vibrant Downtown Core, all eyes are now on The Edge as businesses, breweries, and restaurants have all become neighborhood staples,” says the DMC website.
New(ish) Faces
Energy pulsed into The Edge before Orion Federal Credit Union got there. High Cotton opened in 2013, for example, and Edge Alley in 2016. But the Memphis company’s 2019 move from Bartlett to Monroe in the old Wonder Bread factory was a power station large enough to buoy confidence and development in the neighborhood.
“The location in The Edge was chosen when the Orion leadership agreed that the organization could strategically position their corporate headquarters to anchor a historic Memphis neighborhood, end blight, spur commercial and residential growth, and reinforce a critical connection between the Medical District and Downtown Memphis,” says Orion’s board chair Andre Fowlkes.
The Wonder Bread factory sat vacant from 2013 to 2019, making the stretch of Monroe near the building and several surrounding properties “a visible eyesore that could be seen from high-traffic areas including Downtown Memphis and Sun Studios,” the company said in a statement. Instead of tearing down the factory and leveling the block, Orion chose to keep the original shape and bones of the building and added a third story. A new, period-appropriate exterior facade was made of reclaimed bricks from the original building. And, of course, Orion kept that iconic, old-school Wonder Bread sign.
“A better Memphis means a better Orion, and the headquarters move to The Edge was our commitment to the city,” says Orion CEO Daniel Weickenand. “A strong city core can create a ripple effect for development and energy throughout the region. We’re proud to be a part of that.”
That ripple effect is real (just check our sidebar with a list of all the new businesses and real estate developments). The energy is clearly there. Chef Joshua Mutchnick saw it and grabbed on tight. His JEM (Just Enjoy the Moment) restaurant opened in The Edge in April.
“Since day one, we had our eyes on The Edge District because we saw it as this up-and-coming neighborhood that has some iconic landmarks in it, like Sun Studio, Sam Phillips Recording, the Edge Motor Museum,” Mutchnick says. “It has so much potential and we feel very lucky to be a part of that, and that we got on the boat before it left the harbor.
“There was concern once we saw Orleans Station being built. We were like, ‘Maybe we missed the ship. It’s too expensive or we’re getting boxed out,’ but we nailed it.”
Sheet Cake Gallery (Photos: Ziggy Mack)Interiors of Sheetcake Gallery in the Memphis Edge District for the Memphis Flyer on Saturday, June 1, 2024
Sheet Cake Gallery, a contemporary art gallery, opened on Monroe late last year. Its owner, Lauren Kennedy worked closely with MMDC and DMC on many art projects through her work as executive director of the UrbanArt Commission.
“I was familiar with all of the work and investment they have been making in The Edge, and that felt like something I wanted the gallery to be apart of,” Kennedy says. “The support I have felt from both groups from when I first started looking at spaces through to being open has been incredible for me. Everything has felt just right.”
When asked what drew Memphis Made Brewing Co. to open a new taproom in The Edge, co-founder Drew Barton says the answer was simple: Tommy Pacello.
“When we told Tommy we were looking for a bigger production space, he immediately began telling us about every space in The Edge he could think of,” Barton says. “It didn’t take long after that to find our new spot. We walked into what is now the production space and knew it would be perfect for us.
“At that point we didn’t even know about The Ravine. Once we heard more about the massive outdoor space tucked away in The Edge, we couldn’t wait to open a taproom with The Ravine being our backyard.”
As for when that taproom will open, Barton says, “We did end up having to wait a little while during the pandemic, but we are aiming to have the taproom open in late July.”
Leaders
At least three groups look after The Edge: the DMC, the MMDC, and that group of local stakeholders. (An Edge District Association is listed on the DMC website, but the link to the group takes you to a foreign football gambling site with the URL northcountrycremationservice.com.)
The DMC has for years offered a host of incentives to spur growth in The Edge and throughout Downtown. It offers tax breaks, loans, grants, and other programs to promote the vibrancy of all Downtown.
The MMDC is in its eighth year improving and transforming the Medical District for some of the city’s biggest medical anchors like University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, and Regional One Health. The group’s quiver of incentives helps people improve their properties, recruit new businesses, create new signage, and more. MMDC has invested $2 million in grants alone since its inception.
More than 20,000 people work in the 700-acre Medical District. But less than 2 percent of them live there. MMDC president Rory Thomas says most people would want to live close to where they work, “but if you don’t have the right housing stock and supply, that becomes a challenge.”
Bridging this gap is now a strategic objective for MMDC. Thomas rattles off a long list of new-ish, available apartment buildings — Orleans Station, The Rise Apartments, The Tomorrow Building headed for the Cycle Shop — all of them in The Edge. Fill those with professionals or students from the many medical organizations and The Edge would buzz with new foot traffic that could then drive new business recruitment and overall improvement of the commercial corridors there.
The DMC and the MMDC work closely together on all of this and more, Thomas says. They both work with that less formal group of Edge stakeholders that met at Arnold’s recently. This group (which featured members of the MMDC that day) has eyes on the bigger picture but also focuses on more on-the-ground issues.
How can we make The Edge more walkable and connected? Could Memphis Brand do a “We Are Memphis” billboard for the neighborhood? Should we make flyers with a QR-code link to an events calendar that we hand out to visitors? All of it to promote the neighborhoods, connect them, and bring more folks in.
Alex Turley, CEO of Henry Turley Co., praised the success of other Memphis neighborhoods like Cooper-Young and South Main. But he says The Edge, the Medical District, and Victorian Village have something those neighborhoods don’t: a major employment center.
“One of our goals was to create a seamless connection from those institutional buildings right into a neighborhood,” Turley says. “That informed the scale and the design of what we built at Orleans Station.
“You have Victorian Village and The Edge. There’s this opportunity to help populate this neighborhood. You already have an established brand for a neighborhood. But how do we get those people who work and go to school in those institutional buildings to come across Manassas? That’s what we keep hearing. They say, ‘We never come across [Manassas].’”
“Wasteland” to Next Big Thing
Remember when South End didn’t have a name? It was vacant, derelict, and spooky, according to some. Remember those blighted warehouses? Now think of how busy it can be at Loflin Yard or Carolina Watershed. Now think about all those apartments — completely filled — where those spooky, old warehouses used to be.
It’s a familiar cycle now if you think of South Main back in the 1990s or Broad Avenue a decade ago. The Edge could be next.
Energy continues to build there and energy has a way of attracting more energy. Big pieces are in place. Optimism is high. Leaders are motivated. And it truly is a community effort in The Edge.
“A win for one is a win for all,” says Meredith Taylor, communications and engagement associate with the MMDC. “Talk to the businesses in The Edge and they’ll say one reason they decided to choose it for the roots of their business is that they feel supported by one another, that when they succeed, all the other businesses succeed as well.
“I do think that’s something that’s very special to The Edge District. I think The Edge is a good backdrop to create and build on the sense of place that’s already existing.”
… … … … … … … … … …
New Neighborhood Businesses Opened or Announced:
• JEM
• Rootstock Wine Merchants
• Inkwell
• Ugly Art Co.
• Sheet Cake Gallery
• Contemporary Arts Memphis
• HOTWORX – Edge District
• Rock’n Dough Pizza
• French Truck Coffee
• SANA Yoga
• Lavish Too A Luxe Boutique
• Memphis Made Brewing Co.
• Flyway Brewing Company (announced)
• Cafe Noir (announced)
• LEO Events
• Hard Times Deli (announced)
Real Estate Developments:
• Orleans Station – 372 residential units, 16,000 square feet commercial space
• University Lofts – 105 residential (micro) units
The world of Vesta is
endlessly complex. (Photo: Courtesy Netflix)
In writing class, they teach about the different kinds of conflicts a story can center around. Person vs. person is the most common, but there’s also person vs. self, person vs. fate, and person vs. society. Person vs. nature (formerly known as “man vs. nature”) is not nearly as common as it was a hundred years ago, back in the days of frontier and jungle adventure magazines. That’s one of the reasons the sci-fi animated series Scavengers Reign is so refreshing. Its take on the classic story of a shipwrecked crew struggling to survive in a hostile wilderness is simple at first, but becomes more fascinating as complexities emerge. In fact, “emerging complexity” is one of the overarching themes of the 12-episode story. Creators Joseph Bennett and Charles Huettner are fascinated with the interplay of life-forms, both cooperation and conflict, which create a functioning ecosystem. The world they have created is unlike anything you’ve seen.
Scavengers Reign begins with its castaways, survivors from the crew of the cargo ship Demeter 227, already stranded on the planet Vesta. Azi (voiced by Wunmi Mosaku), the capable quartermaster, is paired with her robot Levi (Alia Shawkat). Their escape pod landed safely on open ground, and Azi uses an omniwheel motorcycle to scout the surrounding terrain. When Levi starts acting odd, Azi discovers that a fungus-like alien life-form has been growing on the robot’s circuitry — and the robot likes it.
Photo: Courtesy Netflix
Ursula (Sunita Mani), a biologist, was in the escape pod with Sam (Bob Stephenson), the captain of the Demeter. Their landing was a little rougher, but they have managed to salvage enough gear to communicate with the fatally damaged ship still in orbit. In the pilot episode, “The Signal,” the pair travel to retrieve a battery from another crashed escape pod. Once they get there, they see that the crew have all been killed by some unknown environmental hazard, which they then have to face. But that’s business as usual on this planet.
The occupant of the third escape pod has it the worst. It landed in a tree-like plant hundreds of feet tall, and Kamen (Ted Travelstead) has been trapped inside for weeks. He is finally rescued (if you want to call it that) by a creature he names Hollow. Imagine a cross between a platypus and a koala bear with psychic powers which it uses to dominate other life-forms. Instead of making little green tripod-thingies bring them yummy berry-like spheres, Hollow latches onto the human and demands Kamen hunt for him. In Kamen’s mind, it speaks to him in the form of Fiona (also voiced by Alia Shawkat), Demeter’s robotics engineer. Hollow uses Kamen’s guilt over their dysfunctional relationship against him, and his already fragile psyche slowly crumbles.
Sam and Ursula succeed in contacting the ship, and they manage to activate the automatic landing sequence. At first, they’re worried it might land on top of them. Then they discover they didn’t get that lucky. The Demeter lands many kilometers away from all three parties. The first half of the story is taken up with their increasingly frantic and costly attempts to make it to the ship. Once there, they will find that this world has even more surprises in store. As the show progresses, flashbacks start to fill in the details of how they got here, and who they were before they were lost in space and written off by their employers.
Anime’s dominant visual style has become so pervasive that I hear stories from art teachers about begging their young students to try to draw something else. Scavengers Reign owes a debt to Miyazaki’s sense of grandeur and deliberate pacing, and Akira’s pervasive body horror. But Bennett and Huettner’s aesthetic is more like the French illustrator Moebius. The world of Vesta is endlessly complex, with many animals and plants living in such close symbiosis that it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. Our heroes are constantly dodging predators, both animals and plants. But many of their interactions with the native flora and fauna aren’t so cut and dried. When Ursula is trapped inside a living wall of thorns, Sam freaks out. But Ursula insists she was never in danger, and in fact might have even been communicating with the giant plant-like organism. What were they saying? She doesn’t know. But as the story progresses, the survivors slowly learn to stop trying to conquer nature, and start trying to live in harmony with it. That’s what makes this beautiful and thought-provoking show such a treasure.
When Karen Camper, the Democrats’ leader in the state House, ran for Memphis mayor last year, she discovered that, her impressive credentials notwithstanding, she lacked the citywide name recognition of locally based officials.
Consequently, she never developed enough traction to compete effectively for the mayoralty. And her name recognition problem was exacerbated further by the fact that members of the General Assembly are prohibited from active fundraising during the course of a legislative session.
The reality, especially in the case of the minority party statewide, is that state legislators, however much they may shine in the environs of Nashville, simply lack enough day-to-day connection with local voters to become household names on their home front.
A possible exception to that rule may arise in the case of a legislator whose public activities impinge directly on a festering local issue — as in the case of Republican state Senator Brent Taylor, whose nonstop efforts as the sponsor of bills to affect the status of local law enforcement have doubtless earned him a certain local notoriety.
Taylor’s party cohort John Gillespie, equally active on similar issues in the state House of Representatives, is on the fall ballot as a candidate for re-election and has attracted similar attention, for better or for worse.
The aforementioned Rep. Camper, meanwhile, is attempting to familiarize her constituents in House District 87 with the activities of state government by means of an innovation she calls “State to the Streets,” an event she will unveil on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at New Direction Christian Church.
She calls it “a unique opportunity” for residents of District 87 to engage with more than 20 state and local government agencies, ask questions, voice concerns, and receive assistance on a wide range of topics, including healthcare, education, employment, and social services.
Among the services that will be spoken on by representatives of the affected state agencies are:
• Job search opportunities from the TN Department of Labor and Workforce Development
• SNAP benefits and Families First assistance from the TN Department of Human Services
• Help processing REAL IDs from The TN Department of Safety & Homeland Security
• Mental health, addiction, and substance abuse counseling from the TN Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services and the TN Sports Wagering Council
• Legal advice from the Memphis Bar Association
• Expungement and Drive While You Pay assistance from the General Sessions Court Clerk’s Office
• Help searching unclaimed property listings from the TN Department of the Treasury
• Voter registration and information from the TN Secretary of State’s office and the Shelby County Voter Registrar
“This is a great chance for me to talk with my constituents and hear their thoughts about the recently concluded legislative session and the direction of the state,” says Camper, and she may have something there.
• With the fiscal-year deadline approaching, Monday’s regular meeting of the Shelby County Commission saw action on many matters — including the county’s proposed tax rate and numerous budgetary items — deferred for further discussion at the commission’s June 12th committee sessions, but one long-standing uncertainty was finally dealt with.
This was the question of $2.7 million in funding from opioid-settlement funds that had been embedded in the sheriff’s department budget, pending the commission’s decision on where to route them — whether to a proposed program for remedial medical treatment of inmates deemed incompetent to stand trial, or elsewhere.
Elsewhere was the answer, with $5 million going to CAAP (Cocaine and Alcohol Awareness Program), and another $18 million to juvenile court, where it will pay for a variety of wraparound services for youthful wards of the court.
If you’re even the most casual reader of the Memphis Flyer, you’ve seen Jeanne Seagle’s work. Just turn to the weekly “News of the Weird” column every now and then, and you’ll see one of her quirky illustrations. But this week, if you head to the Medicine Factory, you’ll find the work she’s proudest of — her drawings and her watercolors of Dacus Lake, across the Mississippi River in Arkansas.
Seagle has been fascinated by this area for years now. After all, it’s where she started to get to know her husband Fletcher Golden, who lived at a fishing camp in the area at the time. “We would just wander all over that land while we were dating,” she says. “It was so much fun.”
Often, she returns there — to hike, to paint with watercolors, and to let her surroundings wash over her as she takes photographs to reference later in her drawings. She thrives in nature, she knows.
“I just love going over there. I love these scenes. I love these landscapes. That’s my spot,” Seagle said in an interview with Memphis Magazinelast year.
Jeanne Seagle (Photo: Courtesy Jeanne Seagle)
Today when we speak about the Medicine Factory show, “Of This Moment,” which features new works, she notes how she hasn’t tired of the subject, especially with its ever-changing qualities. “In this show, I have a picture called Fallen Tree, and I have drawn that tree several times in other pictures when it was still standing,” she says. “That’s the thing about drawing landscapes, you can just focus on one spot and nature takes over and changes things constantly. … I find it endlessly fascinating.”
For three or four hours a day, she draws scenes of nature from photographs she’s taken at Dacus Lake, just a drive across the river from her Midtown studio. Sometimes, she’ll play blues CDs to fill the space with the rhythms of the Delta as she stills her focus on rendering the smallest of details — grooves in tree bark and wisps of grass — with careful marks in charcoal and pencil.
These black-and-white drawings take weeks to complete, sometimes up to two months. She’ll fold over the Xerox copies of photos she’s taken in some places, making entirely new compositions, adjusting the wilderness to her aesthetic liking. From these gritty images printed on copy paper, Seagle gleans details that an untrained eye would not recognize. She knows this art, inside and out, just like she knows these woods, harvesting their most innate qualities from her memories.
Unlike her illustrations that favor stylization, Seagle renders these images realistically, leaving no detail spared. The scenes are still, out of time. A sense of wonder remains in her drawings, inviting the viewer to slip into nature’s serenity, only a few miles from the grit and grind of Memphis.
After decades of working as an artist, Seagle has slipped into a serenity of her own, as if all her prior artistic endeavors have led to this moment. She’s experimented with styles and challenged herself many times over, she says, and now she’s found a subject that is uniquely hers — one that she’s emotionally attached to, that she’s excited to render in a style and medium that feels right, not like one she’s trying on.
“I have always liked to draw more than paint, and I just feel so much more comfortable doing that,” she says. “When I was a little girl, I was not exposed to paint media. When I was a little kid, I just colored with crayons, and I kind of just kept on doing that.”
Even as she continues in this phase of her life and art with these landscapes, Seagle can’t help but think of her childhood. “Just thinking how ironic it is that my parents were all about trees, too. My father worked with trees at his job as a forest ranger and my mother loved to take photographs of trees. It’s just kind of natural that I’ve just kind of slipped unintentionally into this little niche here.”
But it’s a niche Seagle plans to stay in, perhaps one that’s been in her genes all along. “I have spent most of my career doing color pictures for illustrations magazine and book illustrations,” she adds. “And now I’m doing what I want to do.”
“Of This Moment” is on display at the Medicine Factory. It features drawings and watercolors by Jeanne Seagle and paintings by Annabelle Meacham, plus works by Matthew Hasty, Jimpsie Ayres, Alisa Free, Claudia Tullos-Leonard, Anton Weiss, and others. Hours are Thursday, June 6th, noon to 6 p.m.; Friday, June 7th, noon to 6 p.m.; Saturday, June 8th, noon to 4 p.m.; and Sunday, June 9th, by appointment only. To schedule an appointment, email art@sylvanfinearts.com. Seagle will give an artist talk on Saturday, June 8th, at 1 p.m.
