Author: Ben Popper

Even though the new Paul Barret Jr. Library is built in the same Gothic style as other buildings at Rhodes College, university officials hope the library will become the focal point for modernizing the campus.

“This library will no longer have just a reference desk. That will now be combined with our information technology department,” says Bill Short, the library’s coordinator of public services. “Behind all the Gothic columns there are extra-wide cable trays with hi-fi capabilities. This building is hiding a lot of modern technology.”

Rhodes celebrated the grand opening of the Paul Barret Jr. Library last week. The project, which at a total cost of $42 million was the largest construction project in the college’s history, began in 2001 after Rhodes announced a $35 million gift from the Paul Barret Jr. Testamentary Trust.

At completion, the library is a massive building, replete with arches, towers, and stained glass. University president William Troutt called it “a splendid example of collegiate Gothic architecture.” Kakky Tanner, an alumni representative from the class of 1957 and one of the ribbon cutters at the dedication said that the library was “overwhelming, but magnificent.”

The building also boasts a ceiling in the recessed, vaulted style often found in churches. The ceiling is painted to represent the arrangement of stars on the first day of Rhodes’ first year, when the Lynx constellation was prominent.

“This really is a remarkable space,” says Troutt. “This building will re-center the campus, becoming its intellectual and emotional heart.”

The Gothic touches may be nice, but the library also boasts a 24-hour café which might prove even more inspiring for students struggling to finish a paper on time.

“I’m planning on spending a lot of time here,” says Justin Hugon, class of ’09. “I’m lucky to be a freshman, so I get to break this place in.”

As gas prices continue to soar, the squeeze is on both consumers and merchants. Abdel Darras is owner and part-time operator of the BP station at Union and Myrtle. On a recent afternoon, he is busy as customers stream in and out to pay for gas, buy hot food, and purchase cigarettes and lottery tickets. But Darras is concerned that his customers don’t understand the situation that gas prices create for businesspeople like him. — By Ben Popper

Flyer: Have you noticed a drop in the number of customers purchasing gas?

Darras: Oh yes, definitely. It has been a gradual decline, but once the prices started climbing over $2.40, I started to see a change. I would say that now I’m doing about 20 percent less business than before. Of course, a lot less people are buying premium gas and everyone is spending less money inside the store.

Do people blame you for the cost of gas?

A lot of people come inside and complain because they think it’s my fault. I don’t set my own prices. I used to see a profit of maybe 5 or 6 cents a gallon. Now I’m lucky to get 1, maybe 1 and a half cents. People think we’re gouging them, but it’s just the opposite. How do you set your price?

The refinery sets our price; they call us every day.

What do you think is causing the price increase?

Well, I think a part of the problem is not enough supply, but I think the main problem is the market. We have to go by the price of petrol, and overanxious investors are causing a lot of the price inflation.

Are you worried?

I’ve been in the gas business for 15 years. I am worried because I don’t think the prices will ever go back to their original levels. I was selling gas in 2000 at 77 cents a gallon. That will never happen again.

The going rate for a piece by Memphis artist George Hunt just dropped dramatically – to 37 cents.

Hunt’s 1997 painting America Cares will be included in a new stamp series that debuts this week entitled “To Form a More Perfect Union,” which recognizes those who struggled for equality during the civil rights movement. Hunt’s America Cares depicts the Little Rock Nine, the first African-American students to attend Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Hunt, who grew up in Hot Springs, Arkansas, says he initially didn’t think school integration was a big deal. “I remember the governor calling in the National Guard, and I read about it in the Arkansas Gazette, which was the black newspaper. As a young person at the time, I really felt I was already going to the best school, so I didn’t care for integration one way or the other.”

The Little Rock High School Museum commissioned the painting in 1997 as part of the 40th anniversary celebration of the historic event. Former President Bill Clinton attended the event and asked that the painting be hung in the White House where it remained during his presidency.

The painting, done in Hunt’s signature bright colors, depicts the nine students flanked by a National Guardsman on one side and Daisy Bates, the head of the Little Rock NAACP, on the other.

After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Hunt became very involved in the Poor People’s campaign but says he doesn’t try to confront issues of civil rights directly in his work.

“As an artist I feel that I try to consider human issues.”

His education in New York put Hunt in contact with a number of important African-American artists such as Jacob Lawrence and Hale Woodruff. Woodruff, in particular, helped Hunt in his transition to the New York art world. Hunt, however, considers Picasso to be his major hero.

“I feel as though I’ve learned as much from folk artists as I have from school,” Hunt says, “but once you’ve had a little schooling, you can’t exactly call yourself a folk artist anymore.”

Hunt taught art and coached athletics for 30 years in Memphis City Schools and is now retired. He is pleased to have his artwork made into a stamp but even “at 37 cents a pop, I don’t think I’m going to be sending too many letters,” he says.

The recently approved $286 billion National Transportation Bill allocated $8 million in funding for the University of Tennessee’s National Transportation Research Center (NTRC) and another $20 million for a new Joint Research Materials Institute. The institute will be a partnership between UT and Oak Ridge National Laboratories. According to Loren Crabtree, the big picture in transportation research involves thinking small:

Q: What will be the major areas of research for this new joint research facility?

A: This building will deal largely in nano-science, that is to say, on the molecular and atomic scale. It will be looking at ways to improve and develop fuel-cell technology and hybrid engines and will work towards the hydrogen economy. Of course, hydrogen is still 20 years off. We will also be looking into creating new materials for vehicles, engines, and roads.

Q: How does this differ from the work done at the NTRC?

A: The NTRC does a lot more work in the here-and-now. It studies current problems and things like the logistics of transportation.

Q: Does any of this have anything to do specifically with Tennessee?

A: Yes, absolutely. We do a lot of research, for example, on the large freight trucks that operate on Tennessee highways. We investigate how safe their brakes are. We look into ways to reduce the pollution they cause. Also, there is the research on pavement, how to make it better and prevent it from being torn up.

Q: What are some of the major changes you foresee in transportation?

A: Hybrid engines are the immediate future. We are going to start seeing them come into heavier vehicles like pickup trucks. I don’t think it’s a matter of convincing the public, because Toyota has a six-month backlog of orders. I think it’s a matter of producing them and getting them into the hands of the people.

Q: How can America improve its transportation systems?

A: We really need to invest in mass transportation. It would be a delight to have some form of east-west mass transit here in Knoxville, but what I think the country really needs is both light and heavy rail. This would greatly benefit both concentrated areas of population in the east and sparsely populated ones in the west.

Many great performances hold the audience in suspenSE. What’s less common is an event that suspends the performers.

Last week, members of the Atone Pain Tribe were in the Dungeon club on Marshall Avenue. A man hung from a wooden crossbeam, his body dangling a foot above the ground, attached only by his nipples. Two women had connected a chain between their backs with piercings and were engaged in a topless tug of war.

To perform a suspension, a person pierces the skin with a hook. He or she then attaches the hook to chains and hangs from them. A newcomer to suspension may use as many as 12 hooks to better distribute his or her weight. But experts, such as Atone Pain Tribe’s Colby (who doesn’t want his last name used), may use only one hook.

Colby says that suspension draws inspiration from earlier traditions. “You can view us as modern interpreters of primitive rites of passage, I suppose,” he says. “What it is really about for me is the extreme clarity and purity the experience creates.”

Wils Davis and Robert Carter used to be co-owners of Murphy’s, a bar and music venue located on the corner of Madison and Avalon. But now the former partners are involved in a legal wrangle that’s being fought in courts and on a local Web site, Goner.com.

Last month, Carter filed a lawsuit against Davis, accusing him of fraud. According to Michelle Adams, a former Murphy’s employee who now works at the Buccaneer, it’s a “case of sour grapes.”

In spring 2004, Carter bought Davis’ share of Murphy’s for $75,000. Davis then bought the Buccaneer, a long-standing bar on Monroe, with former Murphy’s employee Charles Langford in May 2004. Davis and Langford renovated the Bucc and began regularly booking live music.

Carter filed suit against Davis, Langford, and Adams last month. The lawsuit accuses Adams of defamation, Langford of tortuous interference, and the entire trio of conspiracy. At the heart of the suit is Carter’s claim that Davis and Langford maliciously formed a competing partnership and began using contacts established while working at Murphy’s to lure customers to the Buccaneer.

“That is a ridiculous claim,” says Adams. “This isn’t the kind of business where you cold-call people. This is a cold-beer business. My customers follow me because I’m a good bartender.”

Carter’s lawsuit is actually not the beginning of litigation between the two groups. In a June 2004 lawsuit, Adams accused Carter of assault and battery. After she lost her general sessions case, she appealed to Circuit Court. Shortly thereafter, Carter filed a countersuit and included Davis and Langford as additional counter-defendants.

Carter’s lawsuit contends that Davis misrepresented himself when he sought to dissolve their partnership in 2004. His suit claims that Davis said he was going into real estate and that the pair drafted a partnership dissolution agreement based upon that information.

“[Carter] would certainly not have dissolved the partnership on the terms agreed to in the partnership dissolution agreement had he known that [Davis] intended to open a competing business in the same area of the city,” reads the lawsuit.

Carter is seeking $100,000 in lost profits and $1 million in punitive damages.

“Murphy’s is trying to sue us for taking their customers,” says Davis. “The lawsuit is completely bogus.”

When reached by the Flyer, neither Carter nor the attorney for Murphy’s, Anthony Helm, would comment. n

School may still be out of session, but that isn’t stopping some teachers from performing science experiments now.

At the Arkema hydrogen peroxide plant in Millington, teachers and scientists work on science experiments as part of a three-day program to give teachers more hands-on experience for the classroom.

After watching the plant’s safety video, I am allowed to pass through a turnstile. An employee picks me up in her car, and as we drive deeper into the warrens of steel girders and piping, I lose track of which direction we came from. We pull up to a small building with a sign featuring a large eyeball and the letters A.L.E.R.T.

Once we pass inside, most of the industrial tensions slip away. Gathered around a large conference table are a number of teachers. One or two Arkema employees help each pair of “lab partners.”

Arkema’s Science Teacher Program, which began in 1996, is conducted in 14 different communities across the nation where the company has manufacturing operations. Each year, principals at a number of local schools are asked to nominate two teachers from grades three to six. The teachers attend a three-day program where they work with science kits that can then be brought to the students. They also receive a $500 stipend.

“This is a great program because each set of teachers has a mentor to go through the experiments with them,” says Eileen Haklitch, a 10-year veteran of Our Lady of Sorrows in Frayser. She and co-teacher Lisa Petzinger are working on scale models of mountains with Steve Hayden, a process engineer for Arkema.

“We’ve already learned a lot here that we will be taking back into the classroom,” says Haklitch. “We will also be sharing what we learned with the rest of the faculty before school starts.”

Mary Jones and Sandy Jones, no relation to one another, are teachers at Millington Elementary. They are building a telegraph. “It is just wonderful to have the chance to sit down and explore these projects before we take them into the classroom,” says Sandy Jones.

On my way back to the parking lot, I see the plant in a much gentler light. And as we pass the glaring eyeball, I notice that A.L.E.R.T. is really an anagram. It means Advanced Learning Eliminates Risk Today. n

The Pyramid, bikers, and Bibles come together for Motorcycle Church.

“Jesus Christ goes fishing.”

The words leave the speaker in a relaxed tone, rebound off the shadowed face of The Pyramid and echo back, booming with pious vehemence, like the voice of Oz. In the air, hundreds of starlings wheel back and forth and the smell of the river creeps up with the dusk.

In the lot, off Front Street and just across from The Pyramid, a group of motorcycles form a ring. Riders lean against their machines or stand nearby. Some pull Bibles from bike pouches; others raise their hands to testify. They, along with a dozen seated parishioners, are gathered for Motorcycle Church, which meets Thursday nights at 7 p.m. through September.

“This is a church where your bike is your pew, and you can come as you are,” said Mike Griffin, drawing a laugh from the assembled crowd. In 2001, Griffin became one of the founding members of Kings Table Ministry, the organization behind Motorcycle Church. Kings Table has no home church and, like the riders in its congregation, travels around Memphis and the Mid-South.

The bikers who come to Motorcycle Church think it’s the best of two worlds. Jeff “Catfish” Cowgill rides a red and black Kawasaki Vulcan. He leans against the back of his bike and follows along with his Bible.

“I like to be myself and I also like to know I’m riding with people who love God,” he said. Like many of the church members, Cowgill is a member of the Christian Motorcycle Association (CMA). “The two worlds really feed into one another. Since I started riding, my pastor and the assistant pastor from my home church have taken up riding as well.”

The Motorcycle Church draws a good deal of attention. Several cars honk in support, and a group of bicycle riders cruise into the parking lot to watch. Al Walker, who works across the street, comes over in his apron to join in one of the songs.

Sixty-four-year-old Dot Holland has been riding motorcycles since the ’70s and attending Motorcycle Church for a couple of weeks. Dressed all in black with a metal studded belt and a visor, Holland says the informal atmosphere is a key part of why she attends.

“This is a great opportunity to meet strangers and offer them my testimony,” she said. “There are definitely riders who will come to this who wouldn’t come to a regular service.”

As the evening draws to a close, the Motorcycle Church performs its most unusual ceremony. First comes the blessing of the bikes, a prayer offered to safe riding and mechanical longevity. Then there’s the ritual known as “crank for Jesus.” The riders gun their massive engines, letting loose a roar of sound that is equal parts awe-inspiring and apocalyptic.

“Motorcyclists are a unique breed of people,” Griffin said. “They put their lives between their legs every day. If Christians would learn to live a little more radically, imagine what we could accomplish.” n