For many of us, chasing down the total eclipse of the sun on Monday was a bucket-list thing, and, like all such now-or-never matters, it exacted a cost.
Coming back to Memphis from Hardy, Arkansas, where my son Marcus and I went early on Monday to rendezvous with daughter Julia and friends to see the natural much-ballyhooed natural spectacle firsthand, turned into an eight-hour drive, beginning at 3 p.m. after a delightful Thai lunch at Hardy and ending at close to 11 p.m. at home.
I bring this up because it occurs to me that this is how it always goes with bucket-list things. Putting it simply, you pay a price for them.
For those in government, public progress is a bucket-list matter, it dawned on me, and I suddenly saw a speech I’d heard the previous week in exactly that light.
This was Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris addressing a group of Germantown Democrats about the things he is determined to accomplish in this, his second and final term in office. He was first elected in 2018, and the first term was something of a wrangle. As is so often the case, it takes a while to get the hang of the people and the problems.
Harris told the Democrats: “I’m going to show [that the] county mayor’s office and Shelby County government is a huge organization. And it does a variety of things. You know, it’s a $1.6 billion budget, thousands of employees, so many, many, many programs.”
Announcing he would focus on three areas — public safety, healthcare, and education — the mayor did a little recapping and quickly swung to his main point of the evening.
“One of the things that is important that I’m working on right now is a residential mental health facility. And so it’s the idea that we have a problem in Memphis and Shelby County. And the problem is, there’s not enough access to mental health care.
“One of the key problems right now is [that there are] about 2,000 people in detention right now. And more than half of them have a mental health care need. The DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] might want to move those cases; the judges might want to move those cases forward. But a lot of those cases can’t be moved forward until the individuals have 14 days of stabilization. So they’ve got to get access to healthcare; they’ve got to get their prescriptions. They’ve got to see a healthcare provider. … And so we’re a little bit behind in some ways, right?”
Harris went on to propose a new 60-bed facility for Shelby County. “And we will be able, upon arrest, to move individuals that need those services immediately to the mental health facility, and away from the traditional jail detention facility. One of the benefits of that is that it creates a lot of opportunities for collaboration among our criminal justice stakeholders.
“So the cost of doing all this is probably about $400 a day, right? Right now as a person in our jail or detention facilities it’s about $100 a day. By contrast, the cost for this kind of specialized care is dramatically more. But a portion of those individuals would be better served by getting treatment, and having their cases in advance, you move a few of those 508 cases. Our expectation is that over time, the county will save money.”
The bottom line: “So it costs us at least $20 million. But people have been talking about this for a very long time.“
So far, Mayor Harris has enjoyed a resourceful second term, working for the most part with a same-minded county commission. He has arranged for a long-needed expansion of the Regional One Health facility and the equally overdue creation of two new public schools.
The proposed new mental health facility, which he has since asked the commission to engage with, would raise things to the level of a perfecta.
Just to let you know he’s got that and more on his political bucket list, and he’s working on them.
No rapture.
No chicken-wing stampede.
What was all the hoopla for? (Photo: Bruce VanWyngarden)
You’re reading this, so I guess it’s safe to say you survived Monday’s great solar eclipse. What an extravaganza! I am hard-pressed to remember any news event that generated so much hype, so much blathering punditry, so many hours of television coverage, so much social media content as did the Big E.
There were countless maps (interactive and static) of the eclipse’s path, helpful hints on how to watch it, where to go for the best vistas, where to buy viewing glasses, how to photograph it, where to sleep, where to eat, even how to make a pinhole device from a shoebox. It was the most ballyhooed three-and-a-half minutes since Donald Trump had sex with Stormy Daniels.
The media breathlessly reported about how lodging and food services and gas stations in the path of the darkness all across the country would be overcrowded and overbooked. Scary, scary! Governor Sarah “Colonel” Sanders of Arkansas even declared a three-day state of emergency for her state (three days!), and it had nothing to do with the outfit she was wearing.
And, of course, the eclipse came with a heaping dollop of wasabi-level crazy sauce from the MAGA crowd. Georgia congresswoman and professional troll Marjorie Taylor Greene, who once claimed that Jewish space lasers caused wildfires in California, added a side of supernatural hysteria to her usual wacky brain-salad, posting on X that the earthquake in New Jersey and the then-forthcoming eclipse were messages from God (probably not the Jewish one): “God is sending America strong signs to tell us to repent,” she wrote. “Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come. I pray that our country listens.”
Scientists helpfully pointed out that the eclipse was predicted hundreds of years ago, so it probably wasn’t caused by a fabulous gay wedding in Atlanta. Scientists also noted that “earthquakes occur naturally and happen (on average) more than 30 times a day across the world.”
But wait, there’s more nuttery to be had. What major event in the United States would be complete without the paranoid vocal stylings of InfoWars’ Alex Jones, who announced that Monday’s shadowy spectacle was merely a “dress rehearsal” for martial law in the U.S. How? I don’t know. It’s Alex Jones, people. He doesn’t make sense. He makes noise. And lots of money off of morons.
Speaking of which … Let us not forget about the religious weirdos who saw the eclipse as the coming of the Rapture, wherein all true Christians would be whooshed up to Heaven, leaving us heathens to stumble around in the dark and party with Satan, I guess. Some of this silliness was apparently spawned by the fact that there was going to be totality over the town of Rapture, Indiana. Right. It was also dark over Buffalo but nobody was predicting a chicken-wing stampede.
And I do find some irony in the fact that evangelicals have warned us about the coming of the Antichrist for hundreds of years, and then when he finally appears, they rush out to buy a $70 Bible from him. Just sayin’. And speaking of that guy … I’m shocked that the former president didn’t notice that the eclipse just waltzed over the Mexican border into Texas in broad daylight without a bit of interference from Snarky Joe, or whatever Trump’s calling him now. What a scandal!
Honestly, none of this should be a surprise. Eclipses, earthquakes, and other natural phenomena have always sparked religious and conspiratorial theories. And there have always been people who seek to turn such events to their advantage for money or power. The difference now is that those humans are aided by our “LOOK OVER HERE!” media — social and otherwise.
Finally, I have to say, as one who took in our 98-percent Memphis eclipse from my back deck: That thing was way-the-hell overrated. It got a little gloomy for five minutes, but birds kept singing, traffic kept driving, nobody got raptured, and nobody went to Hell (that I’m aware of). Maybe, just maybe, we’ll learn something this time. Maybe we’ll stop and take a beat, possibly even pause and think about how this thing was over-hyped by media sources that use emotion, fear, and sensationalism to gain our eyeballs, no matter the cost to their credibility. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll finally begin to see the light.
Sara Koffi began her novel in the summer of 2020. It wasn’t a pandemic project, born out of boredom, but rather seeded from the racial reckoning that stemmed from the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
“It was a concern about if these people and their families will actually achieve justice. A stress that these cases weren’t going to have a resolution that matched the justice needed,” she says. “And I kind of took the seed of that paranoia and put it toward the book essentially — that was like the seed of the beginning of While We Were Burning.”
The novel, Koffi says, is “first and foremost fun — fun is not the right word — but it is a fun, fast-paced, twisty read. And then secondly it’s exploring important themes.”
For her debut novel, Koffi puts two women’s stories into counterpoint: Elizabeth, a woman on a downward spiral as she questions the mysterious circumstances surrounding her friend’s death, and Briana, who is hired as Elizabeth’s personal assistant to help her pick up the pieces.
But Briana has questions of her own. The Memphis police have killed her son, and now she’s on the search for who called the cops on her child on that fateful day that took him away.
Together the women rush towards finding their answers as their relationship blurs the line between employer and friend, predator and prey.
“The thriller genre is very good about exploring justice outside of the usual justice system,” Koffi says. “So I thought for a story like this, it’d be fitting.”
The story begins in Elizabeth’s first-person perspective, which switches with Briana’s third-person narrative throughout the novel. “I often joke that Elizabeth thinks she’s the main character. She’s like, ‘This is my story.’ And then Briana, who arguably is actually the main character, does not center herself the same way.”
Even so, the prologue depicts Elizabeth lamenting her crumbling marriage. “She doesn’t know what book she’s in,” Koffi says. “She cannot conceive of Briana entering into her life. You know, this woman’s very concerned, kind of a borderline obsessed with her husband, like a domestic thriller trope. And then you keep reading. You’re like, ‘Oh, I think that’s a different book. That’s not what’s actually going to happen.’
“That was the first thing I wrote,” Koffi adds of the prologue, “and it has not changed from editing, drafting, to now. That has remained the same, untouched. … Once I got a good grasp of [Elizabeth], it’s like the story started to unfold.”
And, always, Koffi knew, this story was going to unfold in Memphis, the city where she grew up. “I also know about the city’s history, its involvement in the NAACP and Civil Rights Movement as well. And I thought it was interesting because the city also has a history of seeking justice on its own, so that was an interesting parallel to what’s happening in the story.
“For me personally,” Koffi says, “to have a book set in Memphis be the first book I put out, it feels like a major responsibility. But it’s a good one because I’m gonna have a lot of readers who have not been to the city and this book is gonna be their gateway to what the city is like without actually having visited there. I’m hoping — outside of the thriller background — that I capture the city. This is a good city. [Elizabeth and Briana are] having some drama, but the city itself is fine.”
But Koffi doesn’t just want to promote Memphis. She wants to create “a thoughtful moment for the reader as well. For me, I want that moment to kind of be a reflection on, like, are there are other things that I’m doing without thinking about it? That might be affecting other people? Do I have my own blinders on when it comes to certain things in my life, and may that be affecting other things?”
Kevin McDonald grew up in the suburbs outside Toronto, Canada. When he was a teenager, he started making the 45-minute trek into the city to take an improv comedy class at the legendary Second City theater which had produced some of the most significant comedy talent of the last 50 years. “It was a bus, a subway, and a bus to get there,” he says. “I remember for the whole 45 minutes before my first class. I was so nervous, I did a thing that you don’t do in improv: I started writing jokes so I could try to use them when I was at an improv. Of course, it never worked out. It never goes that way.
“I went to Second City workshops, and everybody was over 30. There were only two teenagers in the class. It was me and another teenager named Mike Myers.”
Myers would go on to fame as a cast member of Saturday Night Live, then as the star of the Austin Powers film series. McDonald teamed up with another friend he met at Second City, Dave Foley, to found The Kids in the Hall. The comedy troupe, though born in improv, started concentrating more on writing sketches as they gained a cult following by performing at the Toronto punk rock club The Rivoli in the mid-1980s. SNL producer Lorne Michaels discovered them and developed a sketch comedy show, which debuted on CBC and HBO in 1988. Over five seasons, The Kids in the Hall would go on to become a big influence on all kinds of comedy in the 1990s and beyond. As documented in the 2022 film The Kids in the Hall: Comedy Punks, success definitely went to their heads, and after the harrowing production of their 1996 movie Brain Candy, the Kids wouldn’t work together again for more than a decade. They eventually reunited for an excellent sixth season on Amazon Prime in 2022.
McDonald has appeared in numerous films and TV shows, from Lilo & Stitch to Arrested Development. He’s also forayed into stand-up comedy, which the self-described shy guy says was a difficult transition. “You stop being afraid when you find your own voice,” he says. “I found that my voice was telling stories — I can tell a funny story. In fact, the rock opera was a story I was going to do in stand-up. Then I thought it was too big for stand-up, too operatic.”
When McDonald appears at Memphis’ Black Lodge on Saturday, April 13th, he will be performing Kevin McDonald: Superstar. “I’m doing a rock opera with the gang — I don’t use that word enough, I should use the word ‘gang’ more often — the gang from Bluff City Liars. I wrote it, even though I can’t write songs, and I sing the lead, even though I can’t really sing.”
As you might expect from the title, McDonald says the first song in the cycle is about his Jesus Christ Superstar fandom. “I was a Catholic as a kid, and the only thing I liked at Catholic school was when one of the teachers showed us Jesus Christ Superstar. I was in grade seven and I fell in love with it. I’ve seen it, I’m guessing, between 40 and 50 times.”
As for the rest of the rock opera, McDonald says it is “based on a true story me and Dave Foley from The Kids in the Hall are involved in.”
Backing McDonald will be Memphis folk punkers HEELS. “Brennan [Whalen] and I are both huge Kids in the Hall marks,” says drummer (and comedian in his own right) Josh McLane. “The fact that Brennan is the musical accompaniment and I’m the narrator is a dream come true to say the least!”
“We’ve had a blast working on this show,” says the Liars’ Amber Schalch. “It’s been an excellent way to stretch out our comedy muscles, and we couldn’t be more honored that he’s coming to Memphis to perform and do workshops with us.”
Before the show on Saturday, and then again on Sunday, McDonald will be teaching two comedy workshops with the Bluff City Liars. “Kevin McDonald is such a skilled comedian that he almost makes you think you’re not funny yourself, but then he’s such a good teacher that he alleviates that fear with as much ease as cracking a joke,” says Zephyr McAninch, who was with the Liars when they brought McDonald to Memphis before the pandemic.
Bluff City Liars’ Michael Degnan says the show is not to be missed. “Growing up, The Kids in the Hall were incredibly important and influential on my developing sense of humor. Getting to learn from and perform improv with Kevin when he last came to town was a dream come true. Now getting to help bring his work to life takes that dream to a new level, and I’m ecstatic that we’ll get to do so alongside HEELS and Savannah Bearden who have both been responsible for so much great entertainment in Memphis for the last decade.”
See Kevin McDonald Superstar at Black Lodge on Saturday, April 13, 8 p.m. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased at tinyurl.com/2bhjpy2z.
“It’s been great,” says Brooks chief revenue officer Jeff Rhodin. “In the first week we had more than 2,500 people.” The preview party was mind-blowing. More than 900 people attended the event honoring the American fashion designer on March 21st, the night before the exhibit opened to the public.
Daniela Griffin
Carl Bledsoe Jr.
Paul Thomas and Grace West
Thirty-six Siriano creations, including over-the-top gowns in over-the-top colors and shapes on mannequins of different sizes, are featured in the exhibit. As the news release from Brooks states, “Since launching his fashion house in New York in 2008, Siriano has become beloved for statement-making looks. … From glamorous gowns to gender-defying showstoppers, Siriano’s creations have been … worn by the world’s biggest stars, top models, pop icons, legendary divas, LGBTQIA2+ heroes, first ladies, and more.”
Greely Myatt and Ramona Sonin
Babbie Lovett
So, anybody who wants to get their mind blown has until August 4th to view the exhibit of fashions worn by Taylor Swift, Michelle Obama, Lady Gaga, and others.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Now is a favorable time to make initial inquiries, ask for free samples, and enjoy window shopping. But it’s not an opportune time to seal final decisions or sign binding contracts. Have fun haggling and exploring, even as you avoid making permanent promises. Follow the inklings of your heart more than the speculations of your head, but refrain from pledging your heart until lots of evidence is available. You are in a prime position to attract and consider an array of possibilities, and for best results you should remain noncommittal for the foreseeable future.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Author Betty Bender said, “Anything I’ve ever done that ultimately was worthwhile initially scared me to death.” Painter Georgia O’Keeffe confessed she always harbored chronic anxiety — yet that never stopped her from doing what she loved. Philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Anyone who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.” I hope these testimonials inspire you to bolster your grit, Taurus. In the coming days, you may not have any more or less fear than usual. But you will be able to summon extra courage and willpower as you render the fear at least semi-irrelevant.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Richard the Lionheart (1157–1199) was a medieval king of England. How did he get his nickname? Scholars say it was because of his skill as a military leader. But legend tells an additional story. As a young man, Richard was imprisoned by an enemy who arranged for a hungry lion to be brought into his cell. As the beast opened its maw to maul the future king, Richard thrust his arm down its throat and tore out its heart, killing it. What does this tale have to do with you, Gemini? I predict you will soon encounter a test that’s less extreme than Richard’s but equally solvable by bursts of creative ingenuity. Though there will be no physical danger, you will be wise to call on similar boldness. Drawing on the element of surprise may also serve you well.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Will the adventures heading your way be unusual, amusing, and even unprecedented? I bet they will have at least some of those elements. You could encounter plot twists you’ve never witnessed or imagined. You may be inspired to dream up creative adjustments unlike any you’ve tried. These would be very positive developments. They suggest you’re becoming more comfortable with expressing your authentic self and less susceptible to the influence of people’s expectations. Every one of us is a unique genius in some ways, and you’re getting closer to inhabiting the fullness of yours.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): At least for now, help may not be available from the usual sources. Is the doctor sick? Does mommy need mothering? Is the therapist feeling depressed? My advice is to not worry about the deficiencies, but rather shift your attention to skillful surrogates and substitutes. They may give you what you need — and even more. I’m reminded of The Crystal Cave, a novel about the Arthurian legend. The king, Ambrosius Aurelianus, advises the magician Merlin, “Take power where it is offered.” In other words: not where you think or wish power would be, but from sources that are unexpected or outside your customary parameters.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): The rest of the story is not yet ready to emerge, but it will be soon. Be patient just a while longer. When full disclosure arrives, you will no longer have to guess about hidden agendas and simmering subtexts. Adventures in the underworld will move above ground. Missing links will finally appear, and perplexing ambiguities will be clarified. Here’s how you can expedite these developments: Make sure you are thoroughly receptive to knowing the rest of the story. Assert your strong desire to dissolve ignorance.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In the coming weeks, you can ask for and receive more blessings than usual. So please be aggressive and imaginative about asking! Here are suggestions about what gifts to seek out: 1. vigorous support as you transform two oppositional forces into complementary influences; 2. extra money, time, and spaciousness as you convert a drawback into an asset; 3. kindness and understanding as you ripen an unripe aspect of yourself; 4. inspiration and advice as you make new connections that will serve your future goals.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Read the two help-wanted ads below. Meditate on which appeals to you more, and treat this choice as a metaphor for a personal decision you face. 1. “Pedestrian, predictable organization seeks humdrum people with low-grade ambitions for tasks that perform marginally useful services. Interested in exploring mild passions and learning more about the art of spiritual bypassing?” 2. “Our high-octane conclave values the arts of playing while you work and working while you play. Are you ready and able to provide your creative input? Are you interested in exploring the privilege and responsibility of forever reinventing yourself? We love restless seekers who are never bored.”
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): What is a gourmet bargain? What is a discount marvel? How about an inspiring breakthrough that incurs no debt? Themes like those are weaving their way into your destiny. So be alert for the likelihood that cheap thrills will be superior to the expensive kind. Search for elegance and beauty in earthy locations that aren’t sleek and polished. Be receptive to the possibility that splendor and awe may be available to you at a low cost. Now may be one of those rare times when imperfect things are more sublime than the so-called perfect stuff.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): “There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in,” wrote novelist Graham Greene. For me, it was three days near the end of third grade when I wrote a fairy tale about the unruly adventures of a fictional kid named Polly. Her wildness was infused with kindness. Her rebellions were assertive but friendly. For the first time, as I told Polly’s story, I realized I wanted to be an unconventional writer when I grew up. What about you, Capricorn? When you were young, was there a comparable opening to your future? If so, now is a good phase to revisit it, commune with your memories of it, and invite it to inspire the next stage of its evolution in you.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Even when you are your regular, ordinary self, you have a knack and fondness for irregularity and originality. And these days, your affinity for what’s unprecedented and uncommon is even higher than usual. I am happy about that. I am cheering you on. So please enjoy yourself profoundly as you experiment with nonstandard approaches. Be as idiosyncratic as you dare! Even downright weird! But also try to avoid direct conflicts with the Guardians of How Things Have Always Been Done. Don’t allow Change Haters to interfere with your fun or obstruct the enhancements you want to instigate. Be a slippery innovator. Be an irrepressible instigator.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Below are truths I hope you will ripen and deepen in the coming months. 1. Negative feelings are not necessarily truer and more profound than positive ones. 2. Cynical opinions are not automatically more intelligent or well-founded than optimistic opinions. 3. Criticizing and berating yourself is not a more robust sign of self-awareness than praising and appreciating yourself. 4. Any paranoia you feel may be a stunted emotion resulting from psychic skills you have neglected to develop. 5. Agitation and anxiety can almost always be converted into creative energy.
As the last remaining Hooters restaurant in West Virginia prepared for demolition, residents of Kanawha City gathered on Feb. 23 for a candlelight vigil, WCHS-TV reported. The event, which started as a joke, got international attention, and hundreds of people showed up. “It’s a lot of memories going down with that building,” said Noah Collins of Rand, West Virginia. Tearful former Hooters employees reunited for one last time. “I started out coming in to get a job and it became so much more because I met so many lifelong friends and my co-workers,” said Danielle Hughart. “This building right here was a legitimate iconic figure to the Kanawha Valley,” declared co-organizer Leo Browning. The corporate office sent a box of calendars to distribute to those who attended the vigil. [WCHS, 2/24/2024]
Smooth Reaction
Dr. Krisztina Ilko, 33, a junior research fellow and director of studies at the University of Cambridge Queens’ College in England, lives in a medieval tower, the Independent reported. But on Feb. 29, Ilko became trapped in her bathroom for seven hours after the wooden door locked behind her and wouldn’t budge. She couldn’t signal or yell for help because the tower walls are thick, and there are no windows in the bathroom. However, she kept her cool and MacGyvered the door open using an eyeliner (to push down the door’s latch) and a cotton swab (to pull the locking mechanism away from the door frame). “When … the door opened, it was exhilarating because I didn’t think it would work,” Ilko said. Since the incident, she’s had the lock removed. [Independent, 3/4/2024]
Police Report
• In Kennesaw, Georgia, police responded to the Heritage Park Town Homes on Feb. 21 after a Toyota Corolla “rammed through the pool fence … and [she’s] in the middle of the pool,” said the 911 caller. Fox5-TV reported that the driver suffered some sort of medical emergency and was unconscious when officers arrived; they were able to break a car window and get her out of the car. She was taken to a hospital and was expected to make a full recovery, according to Cobb County Police. The pool cover was so strong that the car didn’t sink; a tow truck removed it from the cover later in the day. [Fox5, 3/4/2024]
• The Putnam County (Florida) Sheriff’s Office was flooded with calls on March 2 after two low-flying F-15 jets from the Florida Air National Guard caused sonic booms, News4Jax-TV reported. “It destroyed my friggin’ house!” one caller exclaimed, while others thought a bomb had dropped. “I have major damage, they flew right over my house. The lights were blown off the walls, there’s glass everywhere,” said another. The National Guard issued a statement saying they were aware of damage sustained by the sonic booms and had established a contact number for residents who had damage claims. [News4Jax, 3/6/2024]
Delusions of Grandeur
For Connor James Litka, 21, of Bloomington, Indiana, it was, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” Litka arrived at a Porsche dealership in Louisville, Kentucky, on Feb. 21 and tried to buy a car with a fake $78 million check, WAVE-TV reported. When he was rebuffed, he searched around the back entrance to the showroom, looking for car keys. Salespeople summoned police, who charged him with criminal trespass and disorderly conduct. Turns out Litka tried the same stunt the day before at a Land Rover dealership, where he presented a $12 million check. [WAVE, 2/22/2024]
Oopsy
Anne Hughes, 71, was standing outside the Best One shop in Tonteg, Wales, where she works, when the electric security shutters started raising, catching her coat and leaving her dangling upside down seven feet in the air. The incident from March 4 was caught on CCTV, Sky News reported; she hung in the air until a shopkeeper helped free her as the shutter was lowered. “I’m learning to live with the fame,” Hughes said. “I’ll never hear the end of it.” She was uninjured in the mishap. [Sky News, 3/5/2024]
Aika Renzo wants people to think “Japanese sweets” when they think “Wagashi Japanese Bakery.”
“‘Wagashi,’ in the literal translation, does mean ‘Japanese sweets,’ but it’s more than that,” says Renzo, 29, owner/baker of Wagashi Japanese Bakery.
They’re Japanese desserts that can be made of mochi, which is a glutinous rice flour, or red bean paste. “Traditional confections usually eaten during tea ceremonies or eaten with tea in general.”
Renzo, who operates her business out of her home, grew up eating the type of traditional Japanese sweets she makes. “I am a Memphis native, but I am half Japanese and my dad is from Memphis and he is Black. So, I grew up with two different cultures.”
She would visit Osaka, where her mother is from, eat the food there, and surround herself with the culture.
Renzo always missed the cuisine when she returned to Memphis. “Now that I have kids, that’s something I want them to grow up and love. Something as simple as Japanese homemade sweets I want my kids to grow up with and share with their friends. Something I never had in Memphis.
Castella cake, melonpan, and matcha mochi bar (Photo: Michael Donahue)
“There is no homemade Japanese bakery around, as far as I know. It’s a good type of bakery to have. We have all sorts of shops here — French pastries, croissants, and doughnuts — but we don’t have a traditional Japanese bakery. And that’s a gap I want to fill.
“I’m a self-taught baker, so I kind of taste and experiment with different recipes and mold it into what I grew up with and how I remember that nostalgic taste.”
Renzo’s first baking effort was “the classic” chocolate chip cookie. “The quintessential American cookie.”
She used a mix out of a box, but she didn’t find that satisfying. She wanted to express her creativity. “Baking anything where you’re creating is an art that comes from the heart. I know that’s corny, but it’s something you feel and you put out for everyone to experience.”
The first Japanese dessert she made was melonpan — “a Japanese sweet bread that has a cookie crunchy crust scored to look like the skin of muskmelon.”
It didn’t start out as melonpan. Renzo was making bread from a general recipe when she thought, “What if I turn this into melonpan?”
It’s like a “fluffy bread with cookie crust on top. I just kind of tweaked it with spices I attributed to my childhood taste buds of eating melonpan.”
And, she says, “I do have a special sugar I use that kind of gives it that special flair. It also has a nice coating of sugar. It’s dipped in sugar once it’s scored.”
Melonpan is “essentially more like a biscuit in the English sense.”
She let her mother try it. “She loved it. I even think she might have cried the first time she ate it because it reminded her of her childhood.”
Renzo, who officially opened her Wagashi Japanese Bakery website last November, offers melonpan in its original flavor as well as matcha flavored, which is “just green tea flavor.”
She also sells “Castella cake,” which, she says, is “essentially like a Japanese-style sponge cake. It has a honey soak on it, which gives it that moisture. But it’s made with bread flour, so it’s springy. A lot of people tell me the texture is very similar to pound cake, but way lighter.
“It’s a pretty common Japanese cake. It’s usually in a rectangular block and lined with parchment on the bottom to keep that honey soak.”
Renzo also bakes “matcha mochi bars.” “These are not traditional, but something I wanted to add to the menu just to give people other options.”
Since they sort of have the texture of a brownie, Renzo refers to them as “a Japanese mochi blondie.”
As for a brick-and-mortar storefront, Renzo says, “I don’t really see it happening in the near future. Maybe within a year or two just depending on what life throws at us.
“I would love to have it be a bakery and also a tea house. The variations would be, we would primarily serve green tea or traditional Japanese tea. Because wagashi in the general sense is eaten during tea ceremonies or special events with tea or green tea.”
Renzo wants to pair the two so people will “get the full experience. We have a lot of bubble tea places and Asian restaurants, but I want to focus more on the traditional pairing that you would see in Japan.”
To order, Renzo says, “You can go online to our website — wagashibakery.com. You can place your order online at least 24 hours in advance, so we can bake those to order. And we deliver free anywhere only in the Shelby County area.”
Plenty of history books magnify the mission of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He was an American champion for the marginalized. While I celebrate his birth each January — and join in remembrance on the anniversary of his April assassination — allow me to shout from the rooftop that the historical impact of his wife, Coretta Scott King, goes largely uncelebrated. As a writer devoted to researching the Civil Rights Movement, I consider America’s lackluster regard for Coretta to be a crying shame.
Coretta’s legacy of social action and promotion of peace deserves to be widely extolled in books and the naming of schools and streets. Without her fortitude, it is likely Dr. King would not have reached his full stature as a civil rights leader. It is also likely that without Coretta’s tireless campaign to establish the King holiday, national and international deference to Martin’s name would be less prominent and shining. If this sounds like an exaggerated assertion, think again.
In 1956 when Dr. King denounced segregation and was a voice for nonviolent protests during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, white segregationists bombed the parsonage where the Kings lived with their firstborn child, Yolanda. While Martin was leading an evening strategy meeting, Coretta and their 10-week-old baby were home when the explosion blasted the front porch to pieces and blew a hole in the living room wall.
No one was injured, but the explosion was a sure reason for Coretta to quit the protest and leave Montgomery for safety. Coretta’s parents, Obadiah and Bernice Scott, lived in Heiberger, Alabama, 80 miles west of Montgomery. Mr. Scott drove to the parsonage expecting to carry his daughter away from danger. Coretta told him, “I am going to stay here with Martin.”
Montgomery was not Coretta’s first encounter with racial terror. When she was a teenager, segregationists set the Scotts’ house on fire. Mr. Scott raised pine timber on the family’s 300 acres. It was the mob’s intention to break his entrepreneurial spirit, but smoldering embers did not make him flinch. He built a new home. Years later, he purchased a lumber mill and segregationists also burned it to ashes.
With faith in a power greater than himself, Coretta’s father stood steadfast in Heiberger to, finally, open a thriving grocery store that served all citizens in Perry County. Just like the song, Obadiah Scott wouldn’t let “nobody” turn him around. He was Coretta’s model of courage. And during the Montgomery bombing, Coretta followed his example. Like her father, she stood unflinching in the face of fire. Coretta then went on to march beside Martin during the Civil Rights Movement from its early days in 1956, until her husband’s assassination on April 4, 1968.
Imagine the outcome if Coretta had abandoned Martin and the movement in Montgomery. If she had fainted in the face of fire, would anyone blame Martin for leaving Montgomery to save his marriage? Absolutely not. But the inward call to pursue freedom in Jim Crow America also weighed heavily in Coretta’s soul. Therefore, Martin never had to choose his family over the movement. And privately, when Martin wanted Coretta to adjourn movement work and be content with motherhood, she reminded him, “I have a call on my life, too.”
During their 13 years marching in the name of civil rights, Martin suffered violence, death threats, and constant trumped-up jail charges. It was Coretta’s disdain for tears, her unwavering words of encouragement, and midnight prayers that helped her husband stay the course. Martin called her “Corrie,” his “brave soldier.”
Few Americans understand the impact of Coretta’s warrior spirit because history books do not adequately explore her life as an activist, leader, and prophetic voice of liberation. Magazines from the ’60s overlooked the bravery in Martin’s warrior woman. Photojournalists rendered her portrait in elegant, unchallenging tones. And from patriarchal pulpits after Dr. King’s murder in Memphis, Black preachers encouraged Coretta to stay pretty and silent, while they jockeyed for positions that once belonged to Martin.
Black male leaders of the movement did not grasp that Coretta was the seed of Obadiah Scott. Burnished by fire, she was incapable of reducing her light. Coretta Scott King followed her own mind. And after Martin’s death, for the next 15 years, she used her voice to promote principles of nonviolence as she rallied the nation to establish a federal holiday to honor Dr. King, a drum major for peace.
As for Martin, Coretta, and the mystery of love, some people believe that marriage is a divine union where two hearts become “one flesh.” If that is true, let me propose a new tradition. Whenever you remember and celebrate the name of Dr. King for his efforts in human rights, be sure to praise and amplify that fated love, who wielded courage to walk as one with him. Her name was Coretta Scott King. She was born April 27, 1927. Martin called her, “Corrie.” She was a woman, wife, and warrior on the battlefield for freedom.
Alice Faye Duncan is a Memphis educator and the author of Coretta’s Journey; Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop; and Yellow Dog Blues, a NYT/NPL Best Illustrated Book selection in 2022. Visit her at alicefayeduncan.com.
*This piece was originally printed in the Dallas Morning News.
“I have a rose on my thumb because I just love love,” he says. “I love the idea of love. I just struggle with it a lot.”
He has a sailboat tattoo on his wrist. That’s a reminder to “remember to just go with the flow. Life will take you this way and that way.”
Since Brooks, 30, began making movies as a child, life has taken him to the Sundance Film Festival as winner of the Sundance Ignite award. He won the $10,000 Memphis Film Prize twice for his movies in 2018 and 2019. And he’s earned several awards for his short films and music videos at the Indie Memphis Film Festival.
His recent movie, “What Were You Meant For?,” which deals with Black male identity, is included in the current Crosstown Arts film exhibition.
Filmmaker Craig Brewer is a Brooks fan. “I remember seeing this short he had made and thinking, ‘I’ve never seen Memphis kids skateboarding look so epic and beautiful,’” Brewer says. “It was cinema. It wasn’t just skateboarding. Ever since then Kevin has been growing as a storyteller, as a director.”
It all began with Power Rangers when Brooks was 5 years old. “I used to have toy Power Rangers as a little kid,” Brooks says. “And I used to mimic their voices and make them do certain things.” He reenacted scenes from the Power Rangers shows. “I guess that was my way of storytelling and making movies.”
When he was 6, Brooks began using a VHS camcorder his dad bought. “I remember him taking it around the house saying, ‘Press this button,’ which was the red button. ‘And you go and record things. Then if you hit the rewind button, you can watch it back.’ I thought that was the most amazing thing ever. He taught me stop-motion animation.”
Brooks began filming his Power Rangers with his dad’s camera. “I’d just pan back and forth, left and right. After I did that first recording, I would go around recording the dog and just anything.”
That same year, his parents took him to see The Matrix. “That movie was more visually appealing than any movie I had ever seen. It just blew me away. For one, I visually remember the infamous Keanu Reeves-dodging-the-bullet scene. And I remember trying to recreate that. Just myself. Just in my room. Trying to bend backwards. Keep falling over and over again.”
After viewing the movie 20 times on a VHS tape, Brooks discovered the movie included a special feature at the end of the credits that showed how the moviemakers created that bullet effect. “I knew movies weren’t real, but seeing what went into it and seeing the directors telling people it would be this and that, I think that is what got me. Just, ‘This is a world I have got to be in.’”
Skating to Sundance
By the time he was 7, Brooks was making short 30-second films. He didn’t think he wanted to make a living as a filmmaker, but, he says, “I knew I wanted to be in the realm of making movies. At the same time, I was playing basketball really heavy.”
Basketball overshadowed moviemaking for a while. But Brooks continued to get blown away by cinema. He loved films by Quentin Tarantino, Terrence Malick, and Steven Spielberg.
Basketball, eventually, took a backseat to filmmaking. “That’s when things started to change. Before that, I was really wanting to go down the path of being a basketball player. Trying hard. My love just wasn’t there for it anymore. Before the games, I dreaded playing. It was a weird feeling.”
Plan B was moviemaking. “It was always around.”
To make a little cash on the side, Brooks made music videos for local artists. Making videos as well as short films in high school helped him as a filmmaker. “It taught me how to record on the fly. How to grab what I need for the edit and think of the edit while I’m recording — that taught me a lot. At the same time, I knew I wanted to tell my own stories and gear more toward narrative and documentary filmmaking.”
Brooks, who majored in film and production at University of Memphis, made a short film, “Keep Pushing,” during his senior year. “That was my first thing I was super proud of.”
His idea was to cast real skateboarders to showcase their expertise. He then met skateboarder Husain Razvi, who told him, “Man, what if you just follow me around?”
“I was like, ‘Follow you around?’ Husain can skate, but he’s not doing tricks. What he’s doing is just kicking the board, going down the ramps, but nothing exciting like I was going to have these guys doing.”
Then, Brooks says, “A light bulb clicked. And I was like, ‘I was trying to tell the story of all these people who are great skaters.’”
Instead, he shot Razvi. “I filmed him every single part of his day.”
The 10-minute film turned into a documentary. “It was great footage. Him interacting with kids. Him talking about life.”
Brooks was looking at his phone one day in geology class when something caught his attention. “I see that Sundance has this program for 18- to 24-year-olds for short films. It has to be 10 minutes long. You have to turn it in within the next two weeks.”
Brooks went to work on his film about Razvi. “For the next two weeks, all I did was edit. I stayed up every night editing it. I put my own music to it.”
Four weeks later, Brooks received an email that read, “You have been selected as one of the top five filmmakers to be part of the Sundance Ignite program. We will fly you out. We will take care of everything.”
Brooks was stunned. “I literally almost started crying.”
He attended the festival in Park City, Utah. People praised the film. “They were saying that it just felt like you were really there in that world. And the camera movement really made you analyze things differently. They were saying they fell in love with Husain as a character because he felt so real.
“They were saying after the film they had this different outlook on what it means to be successful, what it means to go through life, and how it’s not right to always be in competition with one another.
“The film is about Husain. He’s not great at skateboarding, but he loves doing it every single day. No matter what, you’re not going to stop him. I don’t care if you’re the best skateboarder. He’s not going to compare himself to you. That’s just his nature. He’s like, ‘I’m in my own world and I’m going to take my place and I’m going to do what I do and I’m in love with what I’m doing.’ I think that’s remarkable. That story worked out because of Husain being the most honest human being.”
Brooks continued to make movies after Sundance. “Marcus,” which made it in the top 10 for the Memphis Film Prize, is “a short film that examines the retaliatory state of gang violence.”
“Myron,” which stars Lawrence Matthews, is about “a young Black man who embarks on a day full of skateboarding with his friends who are predominantly white.” He returns home “with a different outlook on life, and how he’s truly seen in society.”
“Grace,” which stars Rosalind Ross, is about a prostitute who always dreamed about singing on the big stage. “She gets her chance when she comes across a flier for a karaoke contest,” Brooks says.
His next film, “Bonfire,” is a “meditative piece on the nature of love and heartbreak. I was inspired by a big breakup that took place. I wanted to get my emotions out, and the best way for me to do that was through film.”
“So, I got my friends together and gave them cameras. And we would go out on the weekend and film scenes with different people and ask them, ‘What is love to you?’ It was very cathartic, and the making of it was experimental. It was highly influenced by Terrence Malick films.”
The movie premiered at the Indie Memphis Film Festival, where it won the Hometowner Documentary Short award in 2018.
His narrative film, “Last Day,” is “about a guy’s last day with his family before he’s sent off to prison.” He won his first $10,000 Memphis Film Prize with that film.
Brooks won his second Memphis Film Prize for his movie, “A Night Out.” “After a bad breakup a woman goes out with her friends for a girls’ night out. But the night doesn’t end the way she expects.”
Indie Memphis awarded Brooks and his co-director Abby Meyers $10,000 for their film “A Night Out.” (Photo: Courtesy Kevin Brooks)
He collaborated on “Night Out” with his friend Abby Meyers, who co-directed the film. “That came from hearing so many stories of women being sexually assaulted,” he says.
Brooks continued to make music videos, including one for Talibah Safiya’s “Healing Creek,” which won the Best Hometowner Music Video award in the Video Memphis competition.
In 2020 Brooks was included among the Memphis Flyer’s 20<30 honorees. He then went to work for Kellogg’s, shooting five episodes around the United States for a mini series, Black Girls Run. The series, which was about “promoting health in the Black community,” featured young women training for their first 5K.
Brooks also did a project for McDonald’s, where he traveled to Los Angeles and “highlighted kids in different sectors who were doing amazing things in the Black community,” he says.
One young man was into finance and a young woman was into fashion. But they were all “game changers.”
“I love connecting with people through stories, and opportunities just come about,” Brooks says. “If it’s a story or an opportunity for me to use my voice in that capacity, I’m 100 percent in.”
In 2022, Brooks went to work in his present job as a videographer for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. He interviews and films patients telling their stories.
Brooks won the Hometowner Documentary Short for “Bonfire.” (Photo: Courtesy Kevin Brooks)
Enjoy the Journey
In 2023, Brooks got serious about working on his own feature film. “I wanted to do a feature for so long and put so much pressure on it. When I felt every door was closing, I felt jaded. I just wasn’t sure what my next move would be in terms of independent filmmaking.”
But, he says, “Through that period, I also found that inner kid who was in me again, who just wanted to go out and make movies for fun.”
Brooks returned to moviemaking when he made “Embers of Self,” which played opening night at Indie Memphis Film Festival’s Hometowner Shorts Showcase. “That really got me going, just because it was me being free and making things without a result,” Brooks says. “That’s how art should be. I had gotten away from that.”
Brooks felt he had been “focusing on the end result and not the process.”
That’s when he came up with his Crosstown Arts film. The movie is “just about masculinity and the ways that I have maneuvered in this world because of that label.”
He deals with the idea that Black men “always have to be super masculine,” and that it’s okay to be vulnerable.
Brooks currently is knee-deep into preproduction for a feature film. “I’m really 100 percent going headfirst into it. And I’m doing it my way.
“If it touches one person, that means a lot,” he adds.
Says Brewer: “The thing I’m most impressed with him is, he is hungry for knowledge and always looking for a way to improve himself and keep in the game of filmmaking. Some people burn out. Some people get discouraged. And there’s a lot in this craft that can turn you off to it. But he manages to push through and stay positive and stay creative.”
“He’s a rare one,” says filmmaker Tom Shadyac. “Full of passion, commitment, and talent. He doesn’t just make movies to tell stories. It’s not just a means to an end for him. It’s more holistic for Kevin. He cares about his subjects and subject matter. For him, the means are the end.”
Among the tattoos Brooks sports are ones that read, “Keep Pushing” and “Enjoy the Journey.”
“You’ve got to do those two things,” he says. “You just have to keep pushing. You have to enjoy the journey that you’re on and know that things are not going to happen fast. But if you just follow Husain’s route and just wake up every day and do what you love, then things will work out.”
