Arkansas Times - October 3, 2013

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ARKTIMES.COM / OCTOBER 3, 2013 / NEWS + POLITICS + ENTERTAINMENT + FOOD

S R O I R R WCOMAE OUT AND PLAY . x i r d n e H t a k c a b s i l l a b t o o f , s r a e y 3 5 y After e s m a R d i v a yD B


Farm to Table Dinner Party Sat ur day, Oct ober 19 th Join us for a family style feast featuring Arkansas products. Start the evening with a tour of Historic Arkansas Museum grounds, Little Rock’s oldest neighborhood with five original homes. Featuring chef Travis McConnell, who was a chef at Capital Bar and Grill and will soon open his own restaurant and butcher shop, Butcher & Public.

$95

Welcome Tour: 6:00-7:00 All Inclusive Dinner: 7:00-9:00 Includes drinks, food, and entertainment. Champagne, Wine & Goose Island Beer All Evening Entertainment by Stephen Koch, host of “Arkansongs,” syndicated on NPR affiliates across the state.

Travis’ Local Arkansas Menu Chef Travis McConnell

q Lamb Tartare and Pickled Deviled Eggs Passed Appetizers q Fire Roasted Lamb with Chilies, Herbs & Olive Oil q Pumpkin and Shiitake Mushroom Stew q Arkansas Dirty Brown Rice

q 16 r e b o Oct i t e d y b s t e e tick i s l i m s a h c r Pu ng t i t a Lyles a se

elly es.com K t c a t Con s@arktim 9 le kellyly 501.492.397 or

q Local Mixed Greens with Carrot, Buttermilk & Black Pepper dressing q Miche Rustic Bread from Arkansas Fresh Bakery q Loblolly Ice Cream

R e d & W h i t e

W i n e off er i ng s

Historic Arkansas Museum is located at 200 East 3rd Street in downtown Little Rock’s River Market District. Free private parking is across from the entrance on 3rd Street.

B r i n g f r ie n d s & meet new ones for a n e v e n i n g u n d e r the

FULL MOON

and

s ta r s .


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VOLUME 40, NUMBER 5 ARKANSAS TIMES (ISSN 0164-6273) is published each week by Arkansas Times Limited Partnership, 201 East Markham Street, Suite 200, Little Rock, Arkansas, 72201, phone (501) 375-2985. Periodical postage paid at Little Rock, Arkansas, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to ARKANSAS TIMES, EAST MARKHAM STREET, SUITE 200, Little Rock, AR, 72201. Subscription prices are $42 for one year, $78 for two years. Subscriptions outside Arkansas are $49 for one year, $88 for two years. Foreign (including Canadian) subscriptions are $168 a year. For subscriber service call (501) 375-2985. Current single-copy price is 75¢, free in Pulaski County. Single issues are available by mail at $2.50 each, postage paid. Payment must accompany all single-copy orders. Reproduction or use in whole or in part of the contents without the written consent of the publishers is prohibited. Manuscripts and artwork will not be returned or acknowledged unless sufficient return postage and a self-addressed stamped envelope are included. All materials are handled with due care; however, the publisher assumes no responsibility for care and safe return of unsolicited materials. All letters sent to ARKANSAS TIMES will be treated as intended for publication and are subject to ARKANSAS TIMES’ unrestricted right to edit or to comment editorially.

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OCTOBER 3, 2013

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COMMENT

Doctor’s story I’m Lonnie Joseph Parker, a physician who spent more than four years in federal prison after being convicted of possession of child pornography under conditions which the average citizen would not believe could possibly happen. An article last week in the Democrat-Gazette covered my recent hearing [requesting an injunction in federal court over a new law that prohibits a registered sex offender from being a Medicaid provider in Arkansas]. One of the issues raised and being considered by the court is the “depraved nature” of the images for which I was prosecuted, images I received through a now-antiquated AOL mass-messaging system. The horrible nature of those images was what motivated me to preserve the evidence and call the authorities in the first place — I was that upset and angry. Virtually anyone on the Internet for any reason, especially during the 1990s in the early days of email, has received unwanted or objectionable material. Most people simply ignore such things and go on about their day. Perhaps my life would have been drastically different if I had done the same. My first concern upon seeing these images was the fear that they had been sent to my daughter. But when I told this to the U.S. Customs agent who later interviewed me, he noted that I tried to blame the existence of the images on my daughter. This is ridiculous. My first and primary concern was for the safety of my children. Later it became clear that the images had not been sent to her specifically, but they bothered me enough that I felt I should contact the authorities to let them know. This was in the very early days of the Internet (late 1996 and early 1997), and since I did not know which federal agency had jurisdiction, I called a friend in federal law enforcement to ask whom I should contact. He suggested I call the FBI. I called the FBI in Rochester, Minn., where I was on civilian deferment from the Air Force to study medicine on a military scholarship. We discussed what I had seen and he said there wasn’t much they could do without more information, but if something actionable came along I should let them know. (Let me stress that I was not instructed to destroy the evidence.) Later I received more spam from someone advertising that he had a child available for sexual purposes; again, I called the FBI in Rochester. They asked that I try to establish a meeting so they 4

OCTOBER 3, 2013

ARKANSAS TIMES

could set up a sting operation to catch him. This was done and he agreed to meet at a hotel near Minneapolis, about 83 miles from Rochester. This information was given to the Rochester FBI and they in turn gave it to the Minneapolis FBI. I spoke to the Minneapolis FBI over the telephone many times. I have the telephone records from that time to prove this. A trap was set but was unsuccessful. The FBI again asked me to let them know if another meeting could be arranged or if anything else developed. Again I was not instructed to destroy any evidence. Since I was about to graduate from the Mayo Clinic Medical School, I called the FBI and asked what I should do with the materials on my computer. I was told to call the FBI in Little Rock, where I moved in July to start my training in emergency medicine. I called the FBI after my arrival and gave them a summary of everything that had happened. They did not offer to come and take possession of the materials but told me to bring it in, “when I got a chance.” ER training is not a 9 to 5 job and I was kept very busy over the next several months. Out of the blue, U.S. Customs agents came to my work-

place to question me. They seized my computer and refused to believe that I had ever contacted the FBI. They were angry that I would even consider calling the FBI and insisted that they had jurisdiction over these matters. I was charged with a crime, and when I was brought to trial, the customs agents told the judge there was no record that I had ever called the FBI. He believed them and refused to subpoena those records. The assistant U.S. Attorney, Lesa Jackson (who, it turned out, was not a licensed attorney at all), told the jury in closing arguments that had U.S. Customs agents found any evidence documenting my contact with the FBI, we would not be in court. I was sentenced to three years in prison. The prosecution asked that my sentence be increased due to the depraved nature of the images, but the judge refused. I lost years of my life for the actions of someone I tried to stop. I could not believe that the FBI would investigate citizens of the United States and keep no records whatsoever. A federal investigator later found that the FBI had asked the local police force in Minneapolis to assist them with the operation. A Minneapolis officer had called me and had properly

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documented his contact with me — and had included in his report a fax from the FBI listing me as the reporting party. My mistake was not realizing at the time that this call had come from a local police department and not the FBI. My attorneys and I presented these records to the judge who sentenced me and asked for a new trial, but he ruled that because I hadn’t found the records before trial, he would not consider them now. He also ruled that because I could not prove that the FBI kept a copy of their own fax, I had not proven that they had withheld records favorable to the defense. I appealed to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals; the appeals court not only affirmed the conviction but added 20 more months to my sentence. A few weeks after I had served every day of my sentence the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that enhancements like mine were unconstitutional and should not have been allowed. Since they couldn’t give me back the years that had been taken from me, my attorneys and I asked the judge to remove my supervised release. He refused. During my imprisonment, someone from the federal government (perhaps the U.S. Attorney’s office?) pressured the Air Force to give me a dishonorable discharge. After a panel of three military officers reviewed the new evidence, I became the only military officer in the history of the United States granted a discharge under honorable conditions while in federal prison. While imprisoned, I studied my medical books and taught high school classes to prisoners. After my release the Arkansas State Medical Board, who had acted quickly to suspend my license when the charges came out, reviewed the new evidence, had me examined by a forensic psychiatrist, and voted unanimously to return my license to practice medicine with no restrictions whatsoever. I have tried to rebuild my life since. I still hope for, but no longer expect, justice, and the time for that is long past. But after 15 years I do hope that someday the attacks will stop and I can just quietly live my life caring for my family and serving the citizens of Arkansas. L. Joseph Parker Hope

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WORD S

Swashday “Mary Torious — businessman and widow of N.O. Torious Trucking Line’s founder — moved 38 spots higher on the list released Monday.” Michael Klossner writes, “It’s OK with me when an actress calls herself an ‘actor’, but when a woman is called a ‘businessman’ I’m annoyed. Because of the ‘man’.” I accept some words ending in “-man” as being suitable for either men or women — chairman, jury foreman, etc. With chairman, we’re more concerned with the fact that the person is the presiding officer than we are with the person’s sex. In any event, the asexual chair seems to be replacing both chairman and chairwoman, just as former waiters and waitresses are becoming servers. But the sexual distinction between businesswoman and businessman seems too stark to be ignored, like the distinction between widow and widower. It just doesn’t sound right — quoting my favorite rule — to call a businessman a businesswoman, or vice versa. (In the example provided by Klossner, I’ll bet it was the newspaper, not Ms. Torious, that chose to use businessman.) “The release date for the fifth movie in the swashbuckling series starring Johnny Depp was removed from Disney’s distribution schedule earlier this month.” ... “Mailer had thrilled to the romances

of Rafael Sabatini, the immortal author of Captain Blood. That swashbuckling influence stayed DOUG with him forever.” SMITH ... dougsmith@arktimes.com Success With Words explains that a swashbuckler “is so named not because he buckles a swash but because he swashes a buckler. The original swashbuckler was an Elizabethan type, a swearing, brawling, harddrinking braggart, armed and looking for mayhem. To swash was to make a clashing noise with a sword, and the buckler was a small round shield or guard used to ward off sword blows. The word swashbuckler thus means ‘one who clashes sword on buckler’; this could refer either to actual fighting or to clashing one’s sword on one’s own buckler to make a noise.” Swashbuckle is unrelated to turnbuckle, a device holding ropes together in the corner of a wrestling ring. In the Golden Age of television wrestling — and maybe still today — a villainous wrestler would slam his good-guy opponent’s head into the turnbuckle. Frequently. But the bad guy would get his comeuppance in the end.

RS

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WEEK THAT WAS

It was a good week for ...

HEALTH CARE IN ARKANSAS. The federal government finally approved the state’s “private option” to use Medicaid funding to purchase private insurance for low-income Arkansans. On Tuesday, the day the federal government shut down thanks to a moronic gambit by an extremist wing of the Republican Party to defund Obamacare (see below), enrollment in the new Obamacare marketplaces began in Arkansas and elsewhere. JOSH HASTINGS. The second trial of the former Little Rock police officer who was charged with manslaughter in the fatal shooting of Bobby Moore III ended just like the first — in a mistrial, after the jury reached a deadlock. According to one juror, the jury ultimately deadlocked 11-1 in favor of a not guilty verdict, after splitting 9-3 originally on the first day of deliberation. In the first trial, the jury reportedly hung 9-3 in favor of conviction. SMART KIDS IN ARKANSAS. They’re getting smarter, according to the state Education Department, which said that the percentage growth in both numbers

and scores on Advanced Placement tests in Arkansas exceeded the national average for the class of 2012. MIKE ROSS. The Democratic gubernatorial candidate secured the endorsement of 56 of the state’s 75 county judges.

It was a bad week for ...

SPREADING THE WORD ABOUT OBAMACARE. A Tea Party insurrection carried an Arkansas Legislative Council vote in opposition to spending $4.5 million to advertise the availability of new insurance options under the Affordable Care Act, whether through the Medicaid expansion or health exchanges. THE COUNTRY. The extortionist tactics of an extremist wing of Republicans in the U.S. House led the government to shut down on Tuesday, when the Times went to press. The extremists, including Reps. Tom Cotton and Tim Griffin, believe Congress should not fund a law of the United States that one branch of Congress doesn’t like. Will the American people buy their spinning of that undemocratic principle? We’re thinking this’ll be a bridge too far. www.arktimes.com

OCTOBER 3, 2013

5


EDITORIAL

EYE ON ARKANSAS

Voucher sins

A

On duty

s we write, the budget mess in Washington has shut down or curtailed many important programs and agencies, but be assured it’s all hands on deck at the Arkansas Times. Arkansas, and the rest of the country, is in a crisis mode; the Times is at its best when the going gets tough. Unlike Arkansas’s four Republican congressmen, who voted to bring on the mess, and are unhelpful no matter the going. Well-intentioned Arkansans such as the Times must do what they can to aid the hungry and homeless, the children and the elderly, all those in need who’ve been abandoned by Congressional Republicans. The estimable Gov. Mike Beebe has remained at his post, doing yeoman work in keeping alive a food program for low-income mothers and their children. Keeping it alive at least for a time, anyway. There’s fear that Rep. Tom (Mad Dog) Cotton will use fire hoses on children who attempt to claim their milk and cereal. Cotton and the rest of his gang believe there’s not enough hunger in America, and too much affordable health care. It’s difficult to negotiate with them unless you can be as cruel as they are. President Obama clearly cannot. 6

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ARKANSAS TIMES

BRIAN CHILSON

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n interim committee of the Arkansas legislature will study the subject of school vouchers before the next regular legislative session convenes in January 2015. We recommend the lawmakers take a look at Georgia, among others. Over the last four years, $170 million of Georgia taxpayers’ money has been used to subsidize private schools, most of them church-related. That means taxpayers have been made to support religious beliefs they don’t share, and may strongly oppose. In the name of “choice,” they are denied choice. And that is not the voucher schools’ only sin. A recent study by the Southern Education Foundation found that 115 Georgia religious schools receiving state money have “draconian anti-gay policies and practices” in place. In these schools, students who are gay (or even perceived to be gay) can be immediately expelled, with no questions asked and no appeals process. The author of the Foundation report says that tax money is being used to subsidize institutions that “punish, denounce and even demonize students in the name of religion solely because they are gay, state that they are homosexual, happen to have same-sex parents or guardians, or express support or tolerance for gay students at school, away from school or at home.” Presented with a bill to legalize vouchers in Arkansas, the legislature voted for the interim study instead. Even a little study, and a little sincerity, will lead to the unavoidable conclusion that church schools should be supported by church members. Baptists and Catholics and Muslims are welcome to evangelize in their own schools all they want, as long as they don’t ask the rest of us to pay for their evangelism. That’s unjust, and un-American.

GRAVEYARD STORIES: Melody Garrett of Parkview High School takes part in the 18th annual “Tales of the Crypt” on Tuesday at Mount Holly Cemetery in Little Rock. She is portraying Anne Warren.

Nullification lives

W

hat timing. I participated in a University of Arkansas Law School panel last week reflecting on Cooper v. Aaron, the important U.S. Supreme Court decision that said a state official (Orval Faubus) couldn’t impose his state’s wishes against a federal court decision (school desegregation). A panel of scholars, politicians and me discussed nullification and secession 55 years later. The consensus: Nullification is a frivolous legal argument nowadays. That didn’t deter Republican Rep. Bob Ballinger of Hindsville from defending his bill this year to nullify federal firearms law. Secession? Theoretically, it could still happen. Practicalities are another matter. My point was this: People never stop trying to find ways to nullify things they don’t like. Particularly a certain sort of Southern conservative embodied by today’s Republican Party. Three days later, the U.S. government shut down full operations because Tea Party Republicans said they wouldn’t approve a budget including money for implementing the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010. The law was passed three years ago. President Obama won re-election last year in a campaign pitched largely on opposition to his signature health care law. But massive resistance has never stopped. Arkansas Republicans think the image of President Obama alone will give them a bigger electoral mandate in 2014. In the meanwhile, there is no fight too petty for them to wage to keep more people from receiving health coverage. Last week, Arkansas Republicans in the legislature delayed a review of a $4.5 million federally paid contract to advertise the expansion of health coverage. Lack of information and misinformation are rampant. For the system to work, it must be understood and well used. This will expand the pool to include healthy people with low health costs. Republicans said last week they wanted to wait for the new rates under the health exchanges before consider-

ing the ad contract. Come Monday of this week, with rates published, Republicans again refused to give a favorable review to the advertising contract because, well, it’s just not the time. Sen. Bryan King said MAX there’s another election in 2014! If BRANTLEY maxbrantley@arktimes.com people like him are elected to take office in 2015, well, who knows? Obamacare might finally be reversed five years after the fact. This may not be textbook nullification, but the effect is the same. Morril Harriman, a veteran former legislator and Gov. Mike Beebe’s chief of staff, commented that he had deep pessimism about the ability to form public policy because polarization had moved from Washington to Little Rock. I mentioned this on Twitter and got instant support for Harriman’s pessimism. Two paid Republican shills reflexively sneered at Harriman’s remarks as nothing but sour grapes that Beebe isn’t all powerful. Baloney. No governor — at least since Faubus — has enjoyed such power. Consensus once was possible on many issues. But the prevailing Republican sentiment is that there is only one way to compromise — their way. Everybody else shut up. Underlying all this is the Republicans’ refusal to accept the legitimacy of President Obama or the law. Led in Arkansas by Tom Cotton and Tim Griffin, Republicans think it a legitimate bargaining tactic to hold government, the livelihood of tens of thousands of people and vital help for millions hostage to defeat something they couldn’t defeat through a legitimate democratic process. Can they get away with it? Maybe. Tell a lie often enough and it sometimes is received as fact. Thus, Griffin and Cotton are blaming the government shutdown on President Obama’s refusal to bow to economic terrorism. Pay their ransom or hostages die. Imagine if the Democratic Senate said it wouldn’t pass a budget until the House required popularly supported background checks at gun shows. You’d need ear plugs. If not a bulletproof vest.


OPINION

Poverty funding not the answer for insurance gap

S

omething has to be done to plug the immediate $58 million hole in funding for teacher health insurance and a long-term solution has to be found. But right now, there is no consensus on what to do. Some solutions have been proposed, one of which involves taking money from school poverty funding, more commonly known as “NSLA funding.” State NSLA funding is named after the federal National School Lunch Act program. It supplements the state’s primary school funding formula, and it’s given to school districts based on their on their percentage of low-income students. School districts receive extra funding for each low-income student (between $517 and $1,549 per student) depending on the percentage of their students that are considered poor. The point is to give schools extra resources to help close the gap that exists between poorer students and their more affluent counterparts. It is a recognition, firmly established in education research, that low-income students often need greater

supports if they are to succeed in school. Using state NSLA dollars to plug the hole in funding for teacher RICH health insurance is HUDDLESTON not a good solution. GUEST COLUMNIST Some have claimed, mistakenly, that NSLA funding was never considered to be a long-term funding source for schools. These funds have been referenced in numerous adequacy reports and court documents since they were created in 2003 as part of the state’s response to the 2002 Lakeview decision declaring the state’s system of schools to be unconstitutional. But there is no clear evidence to suggest that it was meant to be a temporary source of funding for schools. The fact that NSLA funding has seen increases over the years seems to indicate the opposite. Others float the idea of using NSLA funds to plug this gap because those dollars have not always been spent as effectively

Life on the farm

I

n late afternoon, looking over the pasture from my mother’s hillside grave, our farm may be the most beautiful place on earth. The pasture rolls away for a halfmile until it meets the 60-foot limestone bluffs of Bayou Meto Creek. The bluffs are obscured by a line of trees whose tops blend seamlessly into the tall trees along the top of the bluff, giving the illusion of a Sequoyadwarfing tree line. The summer has been wet and the Bermuda grass is thigh high, heavy with seed heads. Our llamas, lying in the shaded field, are all but invisible except for their long necks rising above the grass like Scottish sea monsters in a green fjord. Far in the distance, almost to the tree-lined bluffs, 70 Katahdin and Hampshire sheep graze motionlessly, as if in a photograph. Two black and white turkeys along with about 50 young chickens free-range through the grass at the foot of the hill. This is the place where I have lived for 30 years and the farm that has been in our family for a century. My 93-year-old mother died a year ago, and we buried her on the hillside overlooking the pasture where she played during her summers as a little girl. She would come up on the train from McGehee with her mother to visit her grandparents and cousins here in the Tates Mill community. When the weather was hot they would sleep on cots under the trees around the old log house, where I live now. As a Delta child my mother

would marvel at the absence of mosquitoes though her delight was tempered by the abundance of flies, which ALAN is still true. LEVERITT alanleveritt@arktimes.com We have fenced our pastures into large paddocks through which the sheep rotate on a weekly basis. This breaks the parasite cycle, fertilizes the fields and rests the land. We are building our herd and keep all of our ewe lambs, but we have little use for all but a couple of rams. In the world of livestock, a very, very few males have it made and the rest are mutton. I gave up hunting years ago because it bothered me to kill animals. Now with my wife, Kaytee, naming all 70 of our ewes and rams, it has fallen to me to slaughter the rams we don’t sell. It is a task I approach with some dread. Yet there is a satisfaction to it, the pleasure of learning something new and a sense of self-sufficiency. At a recent dinner party we prepared sauteed red bell peppers in capers and garlic, a Caprese salad with heirloom tomatoes, rosemary potatoes, Kentucky Wonder pole beans and a leg of lamb. The only thing that didn’t come from the farm was the capers. I slaughtered my first young Kathadin ram for the dinner party. His name was

as they could have been to improve educational outcomes for struggling students. It would be easy to find agreement on that point, but it’s still no reason to take those funds from our poor students. Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, along with other organizations, has noted that the potential effectiveness of NSLA funding has at times been undermined. At times, the funding was not adequately targeted and some districts did not spend enough of their NSLA funds on the most promising or proven strategies. That said, a more reasonable response might be to make the program better, either by more careful targeting of how the funds are spent, improved evaluation and reporting, or, in the case of poor-performing schools that are not spending the funding well, greater state oversight on their use. Let’s look at a few reasons not to use NSLA funds to shore up teacher health insurance. First, using the funds for this purpose would be inconsistent with both the intent and letter of the NSLA funding law, which is to give poorer districts the additional resources to implement strategies that improve educational outcomes for low-income students. Taking more of those funds away will not further that cause.

Diverting NSLA funding could potentially undermine the state’s compliance with the Lakeview court decision concerning funding adequacy, especially if NSLA funds were to disappear or if they were significantly reduced. Inevitably, someone would try to make the case that the needs of our low-income students were being undermined and land the state back in court. We must recognize that while lowincome students have made promising educational gains over the years, they still face significant gaps both in the quality of their learning opportunities and in their academic achievement relative to their peers. Taking NSLA money away would only undermine this effort and the gains we have made. Using NSLA funds for teacher health insurance would send the wrong message to students and families in this state. We’d essentially be saying, “We can’t find a more politically acceptable way to come up with the money, so we’re going to take it away from you.” Yes, we must shore up health insurance for our teachers, it’s critical to ensuring a well-trained workforce for our education system and our kids. But surely we can find a better way than this.

Brownie, he was tame, and it was relatively easy to get him penned up near a huge 250-year-old white oak with a strong, low limb from which we would hang and butcher the carcass. I called an Iranianborn friend, David Hadidi, and he and several expat friends showed up on a Saturday morning to teach me how to slaughter a lamb. After the hoist and meat hooks were in place, I had planned to shoot the lamb, but my Iranian friends said it was better to cut Brownie’s throat so that the heart would pump out the blood, improving the quality of the meat. One of the men flipped Brownie on his side, tied his feet together and then proceeded to talk calmly to the animal and stroke it. Finally he covered its eyes, careful not to let it see the knife and stabbed deep into the throat cutting it all the say to the neck bone. Bright red blood was everywhere, pumping out onto the ground, staining the soil a reddish brown. The animal struggled for 20 or 30 seconds, his breath gurgling through the sliced windpipe. Then he died. We hoisted Brownie up by the hind legs, ran the meat hooks between his tendons and hooves and proceeded to skin and gut him. Very little went to waste. David collected the liver, heart, kidneys and testicles, instructing me to start the grill. Even the lungs were saved to cook later for the dogs. Meanwhile, one of the men cut and wrapped the legs and shoulders from the still hanging carcass. At the grill, David sprinkled the organ meat with kosher salt, sliced it and slid it onto

shish kebob spears. Laughter and reminisces of the old country followed, lubricated by pitchers of mimosas and grilled lamb testicles that had the flavor and texture of very, very tender, sweet chicken. I live in two worlds, commuting into the city every morning for satisfying work that centers on selling ideas, both commercial and political. It is a job that is intensely social with a stimulating and occasionally trying variety of people. Afternoons, I return to the farm to more work, only this work is solitary, made up of soil, tomatoes, heat, irrigation, peacocks, sheep, insects, coyotes and heavy physical labor. Mornings before work I deliver heirloom tomatoes, red bell peppers and pounds of fresh basil to the restaurants while Kaytee picks and sorts perhaps 200 pounds of tomatoes. Weekends I’m selling chickens at the Beebe flea market, converting the tomato seconds into quart jars of marinara sauce or canning Kentucky Wonder pole beans for winter. Kaytee is likely out in the pasture hugging on her sheep while disinfecting those with hoof rot. By late August my wife and I are exhausted by the heat. I am living where I will be buried. I work soil that has fed my family and my ancestors and to which I will return. In July my brother and I worked my father’s ashes into the lush asparagus beds and basil plantings. During his short bout with cancer we talked about it, and it was a thought that delighted him. Now I smile when I see the health and life in those plants. www.arktimes.com

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A constitutional coup

C

hances are that when the GOP inevitably capitulates, the vote to end the government shutdown will be surprisingly one-sided. And what with 72 percent of voters in a Quinnipiac University poll saying they disapprove of the shutdown, the retreat almost can’t happen soon enough to save the Republican Party from the charlatanism of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and screwball allies like Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.). Writing in the Washington Examiner, the well-connected conservative columnist Byron York estimates that as many as 175 of the 233 House Republicans are prepared to support a “clean” budget resolution stripped of references to the Affordable Care Act. Embarrassing? Definitely. Beaten by Sen. Harry Reid and President Obama, two weaklings they’d seen as sure to back down. However, there’s safety in numbers. The fewer die-hards holed up in the Tea Party’s self-constructed Alamo, the hollower their accusations of cowardice and treason will sound to sane GOP voters comes the 2014 primary season. For what it’s worth — the story is characteristically unsourced — Politico reports that “Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has privately warned House Republicans that they could lose their majority in 2014 as a result of shutting down the government.” Well, no kidding. Parsing the Speaker’s evolving public statements, York suggests that he may be leaning toward allowing a vote on a clean resolution sooner rather than later — something Boehner could have done weeks ago if the gentleman had a spine. Exactly how the third most powerful figure in the U.S. government found himself backed into this humiliating position is a matter of conjecture. With people throwing around Neville Chamberlain analogies of late — the British Prime Minister who bargained away Czechoslovakia to Hitler for an illusory peace in 1938 — Speaker Boehner definitely qualifies for a dishonorable mention. Because, you see, contrary to the hoary conventions of Washington journalism, this made-for-TV crisis has never really been a sign of “partisan gridlock” or any such thing. Even my own gibe about Republicans losing to Harry Reid and Barack Obama above is somewhat misleading. The real fight hardly involves Democrats, one reason Reid’s had little trouble keeping the Senate majority in line. “As a matter of politics,” James Fallows writes in The Atlantic, “this is different from anything we learned about in classrooms or expected until the past few years. We’re

used to thinking that the most important disagreements are between the major parties, not within one party; and that GENE disagreements over LYONS policies, goals, tactics can be addressed by negotiation or compromise. “This time, the fight that matters is within the Republican Party, and that fight is over whether compromise itself is legitimate.” By attempting to use budgetary extortion to annul a law passed by both houses of Congress, found constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court, and ratified by a Presidential election, an inflamed minority inside the Republican Party is attempting something like a constitutional coup d’état. Indeed, an increasing number of conscientious Republicans have grown alarmed. Former George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson: “We are no longer seeing a revolt against the Republican leadership, or even against the Republican “establishment”; this revolt is against anyone who accepts the constraints of political reality. Conservatives are excommunicated not for holding the wrong convictions but for rational calculations in service of those convictions.” The odds that Speaker Boehner fails to comprehend the radical nature of the Tea Party extortion threat, its non-existent chances of prevailing, and the damage it’s doing to the GOP are vanishingly small. This is very far from his first rodeo. The suntanned golfer is an 11-term congressman who’s been involved in party leadership fights almost since arriving in Washington. Even so, he’s caught in a trap of his own devising. Unwilling to allow any bill to reach the House floor that needs Democratic votes to pass — such as the current budget resolution — he’s found himself checkmated by 30 to 50 Tea Party zealots he needs to get anything done. To cross them would risk losing the speakership. And that would never do. Like many, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius sees Boehner as a total failure: “Unable to control his own caucus, negotiate effectively with the president or pass legislation, he flounders in office — a likable man who is utterly ineffective.” More optimistically, Byron York depicts the Speaker employing a deliberate ropea-dope strategy: “After another defeat or two, and under the pressure of a shutdown, Boehner will finally turn to the 30 and say, ‘We tried it your way, over and over. Now, the majority will pass a resolution.’ ” Peace in our time.


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STREET: At the world premiere of “The Big Shootout” at the Clinton Presidential Center on Sept. 5

In memory of James Street THE OBSERVER THIS WEEK gets an assist from former Times editor Rick Martin, writing Tuesday, Oct. 2: I was 11 years old, and watching on the TV in our house on Cleveland Street, in Little Rock, when James Street achieved immortality. It was Dec. 6, 1969, and Arkansans of a certain age, like me, still feel the pain of the dagger that Street, the elusive Texas quarterback, shoved in our guts that day. James Street was found dead, of an apparent heart attack, in his house in Austin, Texas, this morning. He was 65, according to the calendar, but for fans of both the Razorbacks and the Longhorns, he will always be 21, and he’ll always be dropping back on fourth-and-three, deep in the fourth quarter, to fling a prayer of a pass in the greatest college football game ever played. You can still see it on YouTube — I watched it again when I heard of Street’s passing, and it has lost none of its power to twist your insides. The numbers 1 and 2 teams in the country; President Nixon in the stands; ABC televising nationally; the Hogs playing their hearts out, and thoroughly outplaying the Horns, and going into the last 15 minutes with a two-touchdown lead that, for scarlet-clad fans used to disappointment at the hands of the richer,

and bigger, and stronger, and somehow less admirable foes in burnt-orange, felt more like two points. Arkansas and Texas first played each other in 1894. Texas won, 54-0, beginning a tradition of dominance that seems, even today, to play into many deep stereotypes of both states. It took till 1933 for the Razorbacks to beat the Longhorns, and even in the glory year of 1964, when Arkansas won its lone (and thoroughly mythical) national title, the Hogs barely squeaked by the powerful Horns, winning 14-13 — a result that would be almost exactly reversed 5 years later. Coming exactly 100 years after the first official intercollegiate football season, the 1969 so-called Game of the Century captured the nation’s imagination in a way that’s impossible in today’s multimedia world. The broadcast on ABC got a ridiculous 52.1 share, meaning that half of the TV sets in the country were tuned to the game. Michigan upset Ohio State on Thanksgiving weekend, vaulting the undefeated Longhorns to the top of the polls and the Razorbacks to No. 2. Played “in the heartland of America, in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains,” as the ABC announcer put it, the Game of the Century also helped mark the passing of the era of segregation in college football: Not a single CONTINUED ON PAGE 47

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ARKANSAS TIMES

Some encouragement

I

’m aware that the common American finds it laughable when lowly scribes like myself try to make overblown connections between things like, say, philosophy and sport. So, in an effort to keep things on the level, permit me to cite no less of a thinker than Dalton from “Road House” as a sort of rudimentary polestar for the state of the 2013 Razorbacks as we move toward midseason. You may remember that Dalton casually dropped the line “Opinions vary” in that classic (and in the process elicited quite the sheepish look from Terry Funk!) and that’s about as succinct an assessment as you can give of these Hogs so far. After they dropped a 45-33 decision to Texas A&M Saturday night in Fayetteville, I saw two divergent themes emerging on the social media front: 1. This Razorback team is gutsy and improving, and by golly, get ready for fun times ahead; and 2. Screw moral victories, we are stuck in the same damn rut we’ve always been in. Seeing a litany of the latter stripe of comment is never a shock around these parts, but it’s refreshing that the former line of thought was pretty pervasive. Hog fans rightly have heaped considerable expectations upon Bret Bielema and his well-compensated support staff, but they are also fairly cognizant of what limitations the first-year coach has inherited. The loss to the explosive Aggies is hardly a badge of shame, given how dynamic Kevin Sumlin’s offense is. You can critique the hurry-up style and demean its trendiness, but the fact is, Johnny Manziel has just the level of creativity and moxie to make it efficient. Arkansas gave all it had against the defending Heisman winner, but its shortcomings at the second level of the defense were glaring. Manziel used the soft middle of the field to his advantage in the first half, then when the rains came, the exploitation changed form as the Aggies switched to a downhill approach that realistically no one anticipated. For as much attention as Manziel justifiably draws, if Texas A&M is going to sustain its alarming degree of success in its SEC infancy, those tailbacks will be the determinant. Ben Malena, Tra Carson and Trey Williams are a perfectly steady and dependable bunch, perhaps lacking in reputation because

t h e y ’ re s h a ring carries, but effective anyway. Every time Arkansas threatened to take the lead SatBEAU urday, the Aggies WILCOX started shuffling in those runners and forcing a winded Hog defense to try to decipher the direction and weapon of choice. What needs to be said, primarily, is that the Hogs were probably better prepared for the Aggies’ variety than Alabama was two weeks prior. Recall that the Ags posted 42 points and a whopping 628 total yards in that home loss, all despite losing the time of possession battle by an unfathomable 10-plus minutes. Arkansas didn’t quite stifle the Aggie attack but did hold Manziel’s aggregate yardage down and run and throw with remarkable effectiveness given that Brandon Allen was returning to action after the one-week layoff. As for Allen, he was pretty good given that he landed squarely on his throwing shoulder two weeks prior. It was a source of consternation for some fans that Bielema threw out the usual ambiguous coachspeak to describe Allen’s playing status prior to the Rutgers game, but it was understandable from a strategy standpoint. And Allen clearly wasn’t ailing against A&M, but his one critical error was ultimately one that did tilt momentum permanently for the Ags. When he tried to hit Julian Horton on a short hitch and DeShazor Everett came in on it for A&M, a fourpoint deficit moved to 11 early in the third period, and Arkansas was forced to stay in catch-up mode for the duration. If you watched this game and monitored the way Florida and South Carolina have played thus far — both are already saddled with a loss and with second-string quarterbacks now in command of far less imposing offenses than the one Manziel shepherds — you get a mite bit encouraged, don’t you? The trip to Gainesville has never been well-timed for this program in the very few opportunities it has had at Ben Hill Griffith Stadium, but this may be as good a shot as any as long as Marc Curles’ crew isn’t going to be working the game. And every time the Hogs draw South Carolina at home, they’ve got a sporting shot, so maybe October won’t be quite so bleak as once projected.


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SATURDAY, NOV. 16, 2013

TOUR OF “THE ARTISTS’ EYE: GEORGIA O’KEEFFE AND THE ALFRED STIEGLITZ COLLECTION” These 101 artworks donated to Fisk University by Georgia O’Keeffe in honor of Alfred Stieglitz are on exhibit for the first time at Crystal Bridges, which acquired them in an art-sharing arrangement with the Tennessee university. The exhibit includes O’Keeffe’s acclaimed “Radiator Building — Night, New York,” along with 19 Stieglitz photographs, work by American modernists Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, work by European masters Cezanne, Picasso, Renoir, Signac and Toulouse-Lautrec and other noted artists of the 20th century.

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Arkansas Reporter

THE

IN S IDE R

Questions continue to arise about Lt. Gov. Mark Darr’s bookkeeping, both campaign and official. The latest questions are about whether he’s fully accounted for campaign fundraising during 2011, when he kept raising money and spending it, sometimes on personal expenses, after leaving a six-figure debt from his 2010 election victory. One case in point is a four-man scramble golf tournament held Oct. 7, 2011, at a Rogers golf course. He paid more than $3,500 to event planner Laurie Lee to stage the event and paid more than $1,700 to rent the golf course. Lee says she sold “sponsorships” — at $250 to $350 per hole — to the event and there was a good turnout of participants. Much of the money was collected from players the day of the event by Bruce Campbell, now Darr’s chief of staff, Lee said. She did not handle the accounting of revenue. Problems: No campaign reports for the period by Darr reflect any contributions on the day of the event itself. No contributions in the period before or after track the amounts you’d expect from a four-man team, each of which paid $500 to play, or $125 per player. Campbell didn’t respond to a question about particulars of the event. Reports for the last six months of 2011 raised another question. Darr reported more than $8,000 in unitemized cash contributions. All contributions of $50 or more must be itemized. Most candidates rarely record much in the way of nonitemized cash. Yet Darr reported a minimum of 160 cash contributions to raise that amount of money in amounts not required to be itemized. The state Ethics Commission is reviewing Darr’s records. Legislative Audit is reviewing’s Darr’s office spending, which includes reimbursements for trips when he also made charges to his campaign account.

Hook ’em Hogs: Texans to UA Full enrollment figures aren’t in hand for this year at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, but preliminary figures show a record enrollment of more than 25,000 and a likely continuation of significant trends. According to preliminary numbers, CONTINUED ON PAGE 13 12

OCTOBER 3, 2013

ARKANSAS TIMES

Rep moves opening to April An update on the Creative Corridor. BY LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK

T

he Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau last week rolled out its final plans for the renovation of the WPA-era Robinson Center, a $68.6 million project that will close the state’s largest performance hall for a couple of years starting next July. The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, which rehearses on Robinson’s 40-by-60-foot stage, won’t be able to use its stage. But by then, the ASO should have its new rehearsal space — also 40-by-60 — in new digs in the 500 block of Main Street, owned by the Main Street Lofts LLC. The ASO was to have moved this fall into 12,000 square feet in buildings being refurbished along what is being called the “Creative Corridor,” where The Arkansas Repertory Theater and Ballet Arkansas also plan to occupy space. The partners in the Main Street Lofts (there will be apartments above the arts spaces) are Scott Reed, Wooten Epes and Brian Corbell. The ASO now plans to have the space ready by April, executive director Christina Littlejohn said Monday. The delay, she said, was caused by a decision “making sure the space was acoustically, for lack of a better word, fabulous.” The initial design was not optimal for a rehearsal hall. Littlejohn said the symphony is working with the developers’ architectural firm, Marlon Blackwell of Fayetteville, “to make sure the space is what we want [now] and in the next 20 years.” A portion of the symphony rehearsal space will be visible from Main Street, as will the barre at Ballet Arkansas. The idea is that folks on the sidewalks, seeing dancers en pointe and children playing the violin and so forth will catch people’s attention and tempt them to find out more about the performing arts. The ASO performance space will be located in the annex to the 1897 Arkansas building at Sixth and Main (once home to Pfeifer Bros. Department Store) and

BRIAN CHILSON

Fore! Mark Darr’s at the tee

HUPP

the long-abandoned M.M. Cohn department store. The Rep will be ASO’s neighbor to the south, occupying 6,700 square feet in the annex and the second story of M.M. Cohn, and Ballet Arkansas will be The Rep’s neighbor to the south, in the Arkansas building proper. Glass storefronts will create continuity between the arts venues. The symphony, which now operates out of 6,000 square feet in the Heights, will lease its new Main Street space for about the same amount of money it’s paying now, Littlejohn said. The rehearsal space will be used by the symphony, the symphony’s Youth Ensemble, the Community Orchestra, the Rockefeller String Quartet and for private lessons. Littlejohn envisions an “instrument petting zoo” in the lobby. There will be room for an audience of 100 for chamber orchestra performances, Littlejohn said. The symphony has just begun to seek money to furnish the space. It will try to raise $100,000 in donations and grants. Littlejohn said she expects Reed and partners will provide the rest of the finish-out. The Rep raised $400,000 this summer in what Rep producing director Bob Hupp calls “start-up funds” to create a black box theater and classrooms in its space.

“We have just concluded what we believe are successful negotiations on our lease, so we’re moving into the design phase of the space,” Rep producing director Robert Hupp said Monday. Hupp said the Rep was still trying to “pin down” a time when the space could open, but he thought late winter was a possibility. Hupp said the funds raised from the capital campaign will allow it to install a sound system, lighting and heating. “More importantly,” he said, “the money helps us underwrite our ability to engage teachers” in the gradual phase-in of classes for school-age actors. The developers will install sprung floors for movement classes at their own expense, Hupp said. “They’re very generous,” Hupp said. The Rep was to have chosen its architectural firm this week. Ballet Arkansas has also signed a lease with Main Street Lofts LLC and will occupy 1,815 square feet; it launched a capital campaign in June to raise $200,000 to fit the space and expects to meet its goal by the end of 2013. It will use the money to install the dancer’s sprung floors and marley surface, mirrors, portable barres and a sound system and for other furnishings. Executive director Lauren Strother said the company hopes to move in after the first of the year. Dancers will have a lounge in the basement, next to another company: Kent Walker Artisan Cheese. Since the work is proceeding from the basement up, developer Reed said, Walker’s space should be the first to be ready for occupation. A stair tower from the basement to the first floor is being poured this week. Walker said the basement, with its naturally low temperatures, will suit cheese storage, and he’ll also perform the art of cheese-making there. This summer, he purchased a 700-gallon cheese vat, which he’s put to use at a temporary location in the warehouse district off East Sixth Street. Walker makes gouda, feta, Leicester, a habanero cheddar and a garlic montasio cow’s milk cheese. There will eventually be a tasting room in Walker’s space, but he said he’ll develop that as a separate business once he gets the cheese-making business going. He said Reed and partners are “helping a lot” with the finish out, though he will do some of it himself.


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ASK THE TIMES:

The Obamacare begins edition

O

bamacare is here. Enrollment in the Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace began Oct. 1, with coverage set to start in January. But with the law gearing up, many still have questions about what the new coverage options mean for them. And we have answers! Here are a few queries we’ve received lately. Have a question about Obamacare and how it impacts you? Send to davidramsey@arktimes.com.

Q:

I’m trying to parse the Affordable Care Act for some young neighbors of mine. They are 30-35 years old. Two kids are both covered by ARKids. The husband is covered at his work — I don’t know details of his policy. They recently enrolled in the SNAP program. Income is in the $20,000 to $25,000 range. I think she should be eligible for Medicaid as well as the kids, but I am not sure. How does ACA help them and at what cost? These are nice, hard-working young people. They have been fed a lot of misinformation by someone.

A:

For a family of four, if household income is less than $32,499 (138 percent of the federal poverty level), she qualifies for Medicaid via the “private option.” She can pick a private plan on the Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace and will pay ZERO for a premium. Coverage will start Jan. 1. Probably the simplest way to sign up would be to show up at her county DHS office, the same place she likely went to for ARKids or SNAP.

Q: A:

My work offers health insurance, but can I look for a plan on the Obamacare exchange instead?

If your employer offers you health insurance, you can choose to decline that and shop on the Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace instead. However, if your employer offers coverage that is considered affordable and sufficient under the law, you are not eligible for Marketplace subsidies. Your employer will give you a letter that tells you whether the coverage offered meets minimum standards (your employee contribution cannot exceed 9.5 percent of your household income, and the plan must cover 60 percent of the total cost of medical services for a standard population). An exception to the above: if your household income is less than 138 percent or less of the federal poverty level ($15,856 for an individual, $32,499 for a family of four), then you qualify for a zero-premium plan via the “private option” (see previous question) even if your employer offers you coverage.

Q: A:

My spouse gets insurance through her job but I don’t. Am I eligible for subsidies?

If your spouse gets employer-sponsored insurance AND it meets the standards described above AND the employer offers spousal coverage, then you will not qualify for marketplace plan subsidies. The way this works in practice is a little funky: the rule that the employee contribution can’t exceed 9.5 percent of household income applies to coverage for the individual employee alone. If that’s below 9.5, the family will not qualify for subsidies, even if the employee contribution for spousal or family coverage is above 9.5 percent. The same exception about the “private option” applies. If household income is less than 138 percent of the federal poverty level, you and you both qualify for a zero-premium plan via the “private option” even if your spouse’s employer offers your spouse coverage.

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INSIDER, CONT. only about 60 percent are Arkansas residents — 15,307 of 25,341. And the entering freshmen are barely native Arkansan — the class has 2,843 Arkansas residents, 2,532 residents of other U.S. states and 120 foreign states, for an Arkansas edge of fewer than 200 students. A 10-year review shows how dramatically things have changed. In 2002, with total enrollment of 15,995, 78 percent, or 12,537 were from Arkansas. Even more shocking is the growth in students from border states, plus Kansas. They numbered 1,877 in 2002 but 6,368 in 2012, a 340 percent increase and a fourth of total enrollment. Texas alone accounted for growth from 572 in 2002 to 3,723 students in 2012, better than six-fold growth. What’s up? Cheap is what’s up. Border-state students with acceptable records — a 24 ACT and a 3.25 GPA — qualify for in-state tuition at the University of Arkansas. Even though this year the students must pay an additional $2,200 on top of in-state tuition and fees, they save big: The average full-time border-state student pays $8,554 a year versus $19,074 for an out-of-state student. The rate is still heavily subsidized by other students and the state. The school calls this the “New Arkansan” scholarship in a public relations pamphlet on the tuition break. The school’s pitch is that no qualified Arkansas student is turned away (except maybe by rising academic requirements); that university students spend money and many choose Arkansas as a new home. Still, when half the freshman class is from out of state and the whole student body is moving in the same direction, you have to wonder a bit about that “state” university label.

Farewell to Orval It’s with great sadness that we report that Tommy Durham, the artist behind our “Orval” comic, has decided to end the strip. Durham, of Prairie Grove, started drawing “Orval” for the Times in 1998. He said he was ready for a break, but didn’t rule out reviving the strip for us down the road. We’ll be praying to Luxora the Divine Possum Head that a revival comes sooner rather later. In the meantime, look out for a tribute to some of our favorite “Orval” strips. www.arktimes.com

OCTOBER 3, 2013

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PIGSKIN REVIVAL Football returns to Hendrix after 53 years. Once opposed, the campus seems to be having a pretty good time.

I

t was 95 degrees and rising in Conway and the crowd was out early. Meat was smoking, speakers were blasting (Toby Keith, Kendrick Lamar). Faulkner County is dry, but Solo cups were filling up, with beer procured from surrounding counties. For the first time in 53 years, it was football season at Hendrix College. The last time Hendrix played a game, the Warriors topped the Ouachita Baptist Tigers 7-6 in November 1960. As described in the Ouachita yearbook: “A large crowd, enjoying shirtsleeve weather, saw the two teams battle evenly through most of the game even though Ouachita passed up several golden opportunities to win the tilt.” Later that year, then Hendrix President Marshall T. Steel ended the football program. Ever since, Hendrix has been a bit of an island in a pigskin-obsessed state, just as it’s been a liberal enclave in deeply conservative Arkansas. The campus takes tongue-incheek pride in its funky identity. T-shirts reading “Hendrix football, Undefeated Since 1960” have long been popular among students and alumni. When the students returned to campus this fall, it took just a few days for the campus bookstore to sell out of those shirts, which were about to become a relic. Football was back, and on Sept. 7, the Warriors took on Westminster College of Missouri in the newly built Young-Wise Memorial Stadium, putting their undefeated “streak” on the line. The Student Senate purchased multiple orange-andblack Hendrix tents for the student tailgating area, in a parking lot across the street from the Wellness and Athletic Center. It was a carnival atmosphere in the hours before the noon kickoff, with hundreds of students hooting and hollering, the smell of overcooked burgers heavy in the 14

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ARKANSAS TIMES

sweltering heat. Someone strummed on a guitar. The Hendrix culinary club offered up sweet treats. Everywhere you looked, students played Baggo (still, with apologies to football, probably the official sport of Hendrix). “This is the first year that I ever made a concerted effort to go out and buy a ton of black and orange stuff,” said Neelam Vyas, president of the Student Senate, and she wasn’t alone — nearly everyone was decked out in school colors. Kind of like ... well, a college football crowd! But with a few Hendrix twists. One student had a black “Mad Max” vest, a purple wig and a giant sword. A Warrior, presumably. Seeing him, another student commented, “I’m so glad we have a sword club.” It wasn’t just students — the alumni were out in full force. One group of alums, unable to get ESPN Gameday on the portable television under their tent, opted instead for a pre-game screening of the film “Roadhouse.” “Swayze, bar fights, I’m in!” one shouted. As the Solo cups emptied, they grew nostalgic. “Things I never thought would happen in my life are happening,” one said. “This is good for us guys,” a buddy said. “I never even went to school here but I kicked it here a few times. This is good.” Said another, “We had athletes in our day at Hendrix; they just smoked themselves retarded.” If you’ve ever tailgated at a Southeastern Conference football game, that morning at Hendrix was a familiar scene but from an alternate universe. There was the loony fun without the mania, the big spirit without the pitched anxiety. SEC tailgating always seems poised to explode into violence; Hendrix tailgating seems poised to explode into giggles.

NELSON CHENAULT

BY DAVID RAMSEY

The new Hendrix football team competes in Division III, which is a long way from Woo Pig Sooie. There are no athletic scholarships, and while the players are recruited athletes, they must meet the academic qualifications to get in to the school. Big-time football is a zero sum game for fans — the day is going to end with joy or misery depending on the breaks of the game. Not so at Hendrix. Some thought the team might have a rough go of it — as a brand new team, 49 out of the 53 players are freshmen. But the most common thing to hear that morning, whether from rowdy undergrads or reminiscent alums or world-weary faculty: “Today’s going to be a good day.” Homecoming queens from decades past were on hand, wearing their old crowns. In a pre-game ceremony, members of the 1960 football team handed off the game ball from the 1960 Ouachita game to the captains of this year’s Hendrix team. The cheerleaders followed suit, with members of the old squads handing off pompoms. “It was hotter than hell, but it was a special moment,” said Judge Billy Roy Wilson, a member of the 1960 team. Another, Vance Strange, said that the new team had “soothed over a lot of bad feelings” about football sud-


FOOTBALL IS BACK: Hendrix lined up against Westminster for its first football game in 53 years. Students were out in full force for pre-game tailgating.

ELISH PALMER

denly being dropped when they were players. The old players still get together once a month for an Old Warriors Luncheon at the Town Pump in Little Rock, and the new Warriors have been an uplifting topic of conversation. “We’ve become very attached to them,” Strange said. “It does us old guys good.” With all the pomp and circumstance honoring the historic day, it was easy to forget that there was an actual game to be played. At noon, with the temperature now nearing 100 degrees, the announcer bellowed, “After a 53-year timeout, it’s time to start the clock on Hendrix football!” The Warriors got off to shaky start, as quarterback Seth Peters of Greenbrier was sacked on the first play, then threw an interception on the next possession; the Hendrix defense then promptly gave up a touchdown. But the Warriors eventually settled in, with Peters, who threw for 318 yards and four touchdowns, leading a highpowered offense in a rollicking back-and-forth game that went down to the wire. There were around 3,000 on hand. Alumni, faculty, and other members of the community packed the bleachers. The makeshift student section was on the track just CONTINUED ON PAGE 16 www.arktimes.com

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NELSON CHENAULT

behind one of the end zones. The proximity to the field, and the zany spirit of the students, gave it the feel of a college basketball crowd. The students, most of them standing all game, peppered the game with creative chants (when the Warriors made a big play: “They’re all freshmen! They’re all freshmen!”). With one second left on the clock, Steve Crenshaw lined up for a 25-yard field goal with Hendrix down by one. Students linked arms or made spirit fingers. “Everyone was so nervous,” student Senate president Vyas said. “It seemed like something out of a movie. We felt like, if we lose, we put in a great game, but if we won, that would just be an incredible story.” Crenshaw, from Texarkana, booted the ball through the uprights. Hendrix 44, Westminster 42. Still undefeated since 1960. The students had been told not to rush the field, so the players rushed the student section instead. It seemed fitting: a little off-kilter, a tradition all their own.

WARRIOR PRIDE: The student fans were rowdy and Coach Buck had his team fired up.

16

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NELSON CHENAULT

I

n 2007, then-Hendrix president Tim Cloyd began to explore the possibility of adding football. The Hendrix Board of Trustees’ response was mixed — some were enthusiastic about the idea, but some were initially skeptical of the financial costs and how it would be received on campus. “During the course of those deliberations, it was really an educational process because most people on the board, when you think of football, you think of the Razorbacks and Division I football,” said David Knight, now chair of the board, and chair of the board finance committee at the time they were beginning to look into football. “We weren’t that familiar with Division III football and what that would involve.” For Cloyd and the board, in addition to wanting to add an activity to campus, the key driver was numbers. Like many small liberal arts schools, Hendrix had been striving to increase enrollment, which drives increased revenue. There were lots of academically talented high school football players out there that would make good Hendrix students, the thinking went. But if those boys wanted to keep playing football, they would end up at another similar college that had a team, such as Sewanee or Rhodes. In that way, Hendrix was missing out on a subset of potential students, and adding a football team would immediately add 50 students, up to more than 100 as the team grew. Division III athletes get grants and aid based on academics and need, just like any other student, but because they don’t get athletic scholarships, the play-

ers themselves represent a revenue source for schools. (Tickets to Hendrix football games are free.) “It’s working,” Knight said. “We have the largest freshman class enrolled in the history of the college, 455 new students, which has increased our total enrollment to 1,432, just short of our largest enrollment ever. But what we’re anticipating as we continue to grow the program and get up to that 100-120 figure, we’ll keep adding students.” Just as important as increasing the total enrollment was addressing the gender balance, a challenge that small liberal arts colleges across the country have faced. According to Cloyd, colleges that lean too

heavily female end up hitting a tipping point that makes it harder to attract both male and female students, both of whom tend to prefer a relative balance. “The year before last, our enrollment was around 60 percent female,” Knight said. “This is getting it closer to more like 55/45. We thought generally having better gender balance was a positive.” The upfront cost of building new facilities (many of which are used by other teams and the general student population in addition to football players) was around $6 million, funded by municipal bond money. “All of that has not been a financial burden on the school and hasn’t adversely impacted other programs,” Knight said.

The Hendrix athletic department declined to disclose the coaches’ salaries or the annual budget for the football team. Division III coaches’ salaries cannot exceed the salary of the highest paid faculty member. Knight said that the program is projected to be self-funding in three to five years, but said it could happen more quickly than that because of early success in raising money for the program from donors. “Those projections were very conservative because they did not include outside money,” he said. “Already we’ve raised roughly a third of the cost of the program. Initially it appears that everything is working the way it’s supposed to be working and we’re looking for the program to be financially positive for the college and to generate revenue that we can apply to other programs.” The board became convinced that the football team would be a financial winner and a positive for the college experience, but many students, faculty, and alums were doubtful. Cloyd described the debate over football as a “four-year all-out war” in a recent column in the Arkansas DemocratGazette. Some were skeptical that the financial case was as airtight as football proponents claimed, and many thought there were other more efficient means to attract more students or tackle the gender imbalance. But the biggest concern was more abstract: What kind of impact would adding a football team have on the Hendrix culture?


“Hendrix has such a distinct cultural identity on its own that we all take a lot of pride in, and football kind of has its own culture,” Vyas said. “I think initially some students were skeptical about how the two would merge.” “Hendrix has a reputation that we actually work at,” said Leslie Templeton, a professor of psychology at the college who served on a task force to study the football question and get feedback from the Hendrix community during the 20072008 academic year. “We support lots of unconventional kinds of student interests. The majority of our students participate in sports in some way, shape or form, but it’s not the defining element of the campus and of the student’s college experience. Hendrix is a unique place and the fact that we did not have such a wildly popular Southern sport like football was almost symbolic of the different emphasis we placed on the academic experience.” Templeton pointed to the Hendrix ultimate Frisbee team, the Flying Squirrels, as emblematic of Hendrix culture. “It’s a grassroots-level athletic activity,” she said. “It’s kind of anti-mainstream, and students like the idea of being at a place that’s a little less mainstream, and that we’re doing something other than a cookie-cutter col-

lege experience.” Some students said that they had chosen Hendrix in part because it didn’t have football. Many alums were attached to the Hendrix that they knew (“Hendrix football, Undefeated Since 1960”). Meanwhile, some faculty members who had done their graduate work at big-time football schools had bad memories. “Many faculty had been at places where the football experience overwhelmed the academic experience and overwhelmed the extracurricular experience,” Templeton said. “And many of us had pretty negative experiences with football players.” The faculty voted against adding a team and the response was negative in student surveys. At one forum for students, the then-president of the Student Senate read a prepared statement from the Senate in strong opposition. “It came from alums, it came from faculty, it came from students,” Cloyd said. “The resistance was vocal, visceral, and fierce. [They] said that it would ruin the Hendrix ethos. That it was going to bring an element to the campus that was antithetical to who and what Hendrix stood for.” These were fair opinions to be explored, he said. “I did not want to ruin the Hendrix magic,” Cloyd said. “Because Hendrix

because we had no idea what that would look like on Hendrix campus and within Hendrix culture. But every year we have more and more students coming in prepared and knowing that football is coming and excited about it. By this point, almost the entire campus is extremely excited about football.” Vyas said that Hendrix culture was going strong, but that the football team had added an element of school spirit. A pep rally a week before the opening game, the first in memory at Hendrix, drew around 900 students. “Hendrix is an environment where your quirks are embraced, and we are free to challenge ideas and pursue new interests,” Vyas said. “It’s a really great environment to find yourself. When I think of all those things, those things still have remained the same.” “I really think [the football team] has enriched our culture and added a fun new element,” she said. “It gives us another social outlet, an opportunity to see each other and come together as a community. Those are times and events that we really treasure. It’s refreshing to see this display of school pride, that wasn’t as obvious before. Hendrix students and alumni and parents,

has something special, something eclectic, something funky about it.” Cloyd pointed out that other small liberal arts schools with strong academic reputations and progressive student bodies have Division III football teams — places like Oberlin College in Ohio, Grinnell College in Iowa (which has a kazoo marching band) and the University of Chicago (where Greek tragedies are performed at halftime). Meanwhile, a survey of prospective students seemed to suggest that football wasn’t particularly on their radar one way or the other — it was the lack of a Greek system that was a big draw. In the spring of 2008, the board made a nearly unanimous decision to go ahead with football. Many on campus felt that their wishes had been ignored and feelings ran hot. Now that football is here, there are still some not thrilled with the idea, but for the most part, the campus has gotten used to the idea and the enmity has dissipated. It didn’t hurt that Cloyd, a divisive figure on campus, stepped down from his role as president in last spring. “Freshman year, when I first started hearing that football would be coming to Hendrix, me and a lot of my friends were hesitant about the idea,” Vyas said. “Just

CONTINUED ON PAGE 18

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we really love our school. We have so much pride for it. Football is an outlet for that.” Vyas told the story of an ice-breaking event at freshman orientation. One of the football players raised his fist and shouted “Go Warriors!” All of the students ran into a circle around him, shouting it with him. “I always just said I was a student at Hendrix,” Vyas said. “That was the first moment that I had actually called myself a Warrior. That was really cool.” ◆◆◆

“T

he big time is where you’re at,” Hendrix coach Justin “Buck” Buchanan likes to say. Coach Buck, as everyone calls him, has spent his entire adult life in Division III football, first as a student athlete at Austin College and then as a coach at Louisiana College, most recently as associate head coach and defensive coordinator. Buchanan is a passionate ambassador of the Division III experience. It’s a chance for young men who love the game to continue to compete on the college level, he said, even if they weren’t quite big enough or fast enough to make Division I. And the focus for the student athletes ultimately remains on academics. “At the end of the day, I never have to go to a kid and say well you only had two catches, therefore we have to take your scholarship away,” he said. “We’ll never take a guy’s ability to get a diploma away from him. They’re in control of that.” At a recent practice, he looked out at his players taking reps. “They’re sharp guys,” he said. “You’ve got future lawyers, future doctors out there.” Buchanan was selected after a national search in 2012. “We knew how important it was that we found someone that embraced Division III and would be a great fit for Hendrix,” Hendrix Athletic Director Amy Weaver said. “When we got him on campus, he’s got this infectious personality, he gets people excited.” Buchanan also had experience building a program from scratch, having been on the staff at Louisiana College in 1999 when it revived its dormant football program. In the team’s recruiting process, Buchanan said he focused on finding students who would be a good fit for Hendrix and were comfortable with the challenge of starting something new. Cloyd recounted that when he would ask Buchanan about recruits, the coach would tell him about ACT scores and career plans. “He’d say, ‘that’s all you need to know,’ ” Cloyd said. “He wouldn’t tell me how fast he ran a 40 or how much he bench pressed.” Buchanan worked with the admissions department to ensure the players

he recruited could get in to Hendrix on academic merit. The average ACT for the freshmen on the football team is 27.5, compared to 29.0 for the freshman class as a whole; the average high school GPA is 3.69, compared to 3.94. “You see the admissions counselors on Saturday, they’re rooting for their kids that they worked with,” Buchanan said. “So it’s really a relationship-driven process which fits into the athletic part of it because we’re really a relationship-driven athletic program. Division III has to be, because we don’t have these guys on scholarship. They’ve got to really want to do this.” All of that said, Buchanan was quick to note that his team was made up of recruited athletes, most of whom had multiple offers to play college ball. They might be brainy, but they took their performance on the field seriously, and they were there to compete. “We practice just like anybody else in the country, whether you’re Division I or whatever,” Buchanan said. “That’s the biggest misunderstanding of Division III, people a lot of times have this idea that it’s intramurals in pads and it’s really not. These are real football players. We still practice just like anybody else, just our guys are on Stafford loans.” The Xs and Os are no different, Buchanan said. “It’s just how big the Xs and Os are,” he said. “The concepts are all the same. That same stuff we do, you can see Baylor do, or Oklahoma State do. What you do see at our level is a lot kids playing really, really hard. They’re here because they love playing.” If not for the football team, Buchanan said, more of less all of his players would have ended up playing ball somewhere else. “Not having football before, we missed out on a lot of the guys like this over time,” he said. Buchanan is well aware that the decision to bring football to campus brought controversy and some concerns about how the team would be integrated into the student body. He’s talked to his players about being good ambassadors for the program. “I think our guys have been really well received,” Buchanan said. “They’ve really worked to develop relationships outside this group on campus. We put it on our chest and say, hey, we’re football players, don’t judge us unfairly. We know we’re living up to a higher standard because we know we’re living in a fishbowl.” Ultimately, part of the concern about “culture” comes down to the stereotype of a big-time football player. “Some people think, football — jock,” said Steve Crenshaw, the kicker who kicked the game winner in the opener. “Now they say, ‘we were hesitant, but now we’ve gotten to know y’all and see how


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polite y’all are.’ We’re just like any other student here.” “Nobody’s come up to us saying we don’t want you here,” Crenshaw said. “Everybody’s more like trying to prove that they do want us here. Everybody’s been so supportive, it’s been unreal.” Both of Crenshaw’s parents went to Hendrix. He got offers to play ball at Ouachita Baptist and Arkansas Tech, but decided that Hendrix was “the best fit for me academically and athletically.” He said that he would not have considered the school if not for the football team. “Playing football is something I love,” he said. “It’s completely a dream come true. This was my goal since I started kicking as a freshman in high school. Some of the guys on my high school team didn’t [get to play college ball] and they were really upset about it. When their last game was over they knew they’d never put on football pads and play at that level ever again. It was sad — it humbled me just how lucky I am to be able to do this.” Crenshaw said he was thrilled with his choice to come to Hendrix. “This is the best month of my life,” he said. “I don’t remember Texarkana. I’m going back Saturday and I might not even be able to get to my house. This feels like home.” In addition to the football team, Crenshaw has already bonded with other students in his dorm, he said, mentioning a long-time school tradition called “Shirttails,” a dance competition between dorms. “You’re dancing in a buttoned-down white shirt and your underwear and you learn a five-minute choreographed dance,” he said. “It’s serious — you’re twerking, doing all that mess. It was so fun. That’s Hendrix.” Dean of Students Jim Wiltgen said that when the announcement that football would return to campus came in 2008, “one thing I was always doing is reassur-

ing students that the Hendrix culture will shape football rather than the other way around.” Wiltgen said that the students that were there at the time of the decision were the most resistant. “About a year ago, we started to see it tip toward excitement, a real sea change in the students saying, wow, this is really happening, there are some opportunities that would be really fun for us.” Templeton, the psychology professor who had served on the football taskforce, opposed adding the program at the time, but said there was no lasting bitterness and applauded the hire of Buchanan, a “liberal arts minded guy.” “We’re all in wait-and-see-mode,” she said. “I don’t like how it happened. I don’t like that we felt like faculty and student desires were being ignored. At the same time, I think it’s turned out to not be as big of a deal as we thought it might be. Anything that gets the alumni engaged is positive. As long as these student athletes prioritize academics and do their work and take advantage of the opportunities we have, I think we’re all going to be fine with it.” Meanwhile, on the field, the team has continued its surprising success. A week after their victory over Westminster, they hung tough with last year’s conference champion, Birmingham-Southern, falling 35-32 in a nail biter. Last week, they picked up their second victory, thumping Southwestern 48-29, to start the season 2-1. The early success comes despite the fact that, as a new program, Hendrix has one of the smallest and youngest rosters in Division III. Players and fans are optimistic about the team’s prospects as the roster grows and gains experience. “What people don’t understand is we’re not just 53 scrubs who showed up to play football,” Crenshaw said. “We’re 53 handpicked individuals who came ready to win some ballgames.”

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he revamped, reinvigorated Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival will return in its 22nd year to the historic Arlington Hotel. The festival, Oct. 11-20, will play host to award-winning films and filmmakers from around the world. Ryan White’s Good Ol’ Freda, the story of Beatles’ secretary Freda Kelly, who finally breaks her silence on her close working relationship with the greatest band in history (more in highlights section), will be this year’s Opening Night Film, kicking off a top line-up of films, panels and events. The debut Mckinnis Sports Documentary Series, will include powerful human stories set against fields, courts, rings and tracks of competitive athletes. Highlights from the series include The Big Shootout: The Life and Times of 1969, which revisits the game of the century between the Arkansas Razorbacks and the Texas Longhorns, and ‘1’, set in the dangerous Golden era of Grand Prix Racing, from the producers of Oscar-winning documentaries Undefeated and The Cove, and narrated by Michael Fassbinder. For the first time in its 22-year history, HSDFF will present awards for Best Documentary Feature, Best Documentary Short, Best Sports Documentary and Audience Awards for both sports and broader-themed documentaries. There will also be an HSDFF Hope Award in the area of human rights. Festival director Courtney Pledger says, “Though we’re adding awards, the festival will still retain its filmmaker-friendly feel. Adding awards honors as well as Official Selection laurels to a film’s list of credentials helps give a film more profile and draws attention from distributors.”

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2013 HOT SPRINGS DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL

HIGHLIGHTS

Historic Park Hotel Est. 1929 Historic Registered National Landmark

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GOOD OL’ FREDA OPENING NIGHT OCT 11 Ryan White/U.S. Freda Kelly was just a shy Liverpudlian teenager when she was asked to work for a local band hoping to make it big. Though she had no concept of how far they would go, Freda had faith in The Beatles from the beginning, and The Beatles had faith in her. History notes that The Beatles were together for 10 years, but Freda worked for them for 11. Many people came in and out of the band’s circle as they grew to international stardom, but Freda remained a staple because of her unfaltering loyalty and dedication. As the Beatles’ devoted secretary and friend, Freda was there as history unfolded; she was witness to the evolution — advances and setbacks, breakthroughs and challenges — of the greatest band in history. In Good Ol’ Freda, Freda tells her stories for the first time in 50 years. One of few documentaries with the support of the living Beatles and featuring original Beatles music, the film offers an insider perspective on the beloved band that changed the world of music. SPECIAL GUESTS: FREDA KELLY AND DAUGHTER RACHEL

MERCY MERCY: A PORTRAIT OF TRUE ADOPTION Katrine Riis Kjaer/Denmark

The Original Angel’s M-Sa Lunch-Dinner Sun 4-9pm 600 Central Ave • Hot Springs 501.609.9323

The fate of two families cross paths on the African continent in Ethiopia, at a goat market where child-traders and western adopters gather. A Danish couple, Henriette and Gert, are to adopt 4 year old Masha, and her 2 year old brother, Roba, from their African parents, Sinkenesh and Hussen. Each family has their own motive for choosing adoption — The African parents wish to secure two of their children’s

future with material wealth, as well as economic compensation. This is an international feature documentary film, on the subject of how much human suffering, both in first and third world countries, is produced when adoption has developed into an industry who’s focus is supplying the childless West, rather than fighting poverty and grief. We no longer just extract gold and minerals from Africa — chil-

WHERE UNWINDING 2

HOT SPRINGS DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL

dren have become a commodity on the market of family dreams. The film challenges the West’s well-meaning attempt to help the third world through adoption. It exposes a global child and compassion industry, operating in the shadows. FILMMAKER KATRINE RIIS KJAER ATTENDING

is an art form.


HIGHLIGHTED SHORTS > ARKANSAS SPORTS PACK

THE IDENTITY THEFT OF MITCH MUSTAIN In 2005, Mitch Mustain was the most decorated high school football player in all of America. Named the first ever consensus Gatorade, Parade, and USA Today Player of the Year, Mustain grabbed the spotlight from future NFL players such as Tim Tebow and Matthew Stafford. At the age of seventeen, USA Today ordained Mustain as “Football’s Future”. He was destined to become a game-changing college and pro quarterback. Unfortunately, football was not the only thing Mitch saw in his future, and while the game came easy to Mitch, finding joy in the game eventually became a job. The film, narrated by Nolan Richardson, follows Mitch’s present-day struggle to

Sergio Oksman/Spain After appearing in the film Rosemary’s Baby, by Roman Polanski, Elmer Modlin ran away with his family to a distant land, where they shut themselves inside a dark apartment for thirty years.

find balance between who he once was, and who he now wants to be. FILMMAKER MATTHEW WOLFE AND MITCH MUSTAIN TO ATTEND

STRANGLEHOLD: IN THE SHADOW OF THE BOSTON STRANGLER

AS I AM Alan Spearman/USA Chris Dean grew up in one of Memphis’ toughest neighborhoods. He barely survived heart surgery when he was two and a half and later his father was murdered in a gang shootout. Through grinding poverty and unrelenting desperation, Chris has fought to rise above it. In 2011 he gained national attention when he was chosen to introduce President Barack Obama at his high school graduation. His future is unimaginably brighter than he thought it could be, but he isn’t forgetting his past. Filmmaker Alan Spearman went with the young man to the South Memphis neighborhood that shaped him. The poetic and powerful. EMMY AWARD-WINNING FILMMAKER ALAN SPEARMAN WILL ATTEND

Myles Jewell/USA In the 1960’s, filmmaker Myles Jewell’s grandfather, Phil DiNatale, worked relentlessly as an investigator on the case of the Boston Strangler. But despite Phil’s meticulous investigative efforts, the case got caught in Boston’s political cross hairs and was never officially solved. Now, fifty years later, Myles plunges headfirst into his grandfather’s immense homemade detective archive to reveal never-before-seen details about the strangler investigation. Part

HOT SPRINGS cHOIcES fOR

1

A STORY FOR THE MODLINS

Matthew Wolfe/USA

historical film, part personal documentary, and part whodunit, STRANGLEHOLD: In the Shadow of the Boston Strangler, tells the story of a beat cop turned famed detective, Phil DiNatale, and the long-lasting effect his investigative legacy had on his family for generations.

fRESH, cREATIvE, fUN, HEAlTHy cUISINE

FILMMAKER MYLES DAVID JEWELL, GRANDSON OF DETECTIVE PHIL DINATALE, WILL ATTEND

2

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LOW KEY ARTS SERIES: OUTSIDER AND UNDERGROUND PUNK IN AFRICA Keith Owens/South Africa/Czech Republic/Zimbabwe/Mozambique PUNK IN AFRICA traces this untilnow untold story from its roots in the underground rock music of early 1970s Johannesburg. The first multi-racial punk bands formed in the wake of the Soweto Uprising and the militant anti-apartheid hardcore and post-punk bands of the 1980s to the rise of celebratory Africaninspired ska bands, which sprang up from Cape Town to Maputo in the democratic era of the 1990s. Today, an emerging generation of bands continue to draw on this legacy to confront the political challenges of contemporary Zimbabwe and the uncertain identity issues of the Afrikaans minority in South Africa.

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JOSE CANSECO: THE TRUTH HURTS WORLD PREMIERE CLOSING NIGHT FILM Bill McAdams, Jr./US No figure in recent sports history is as divisive as Jose Canseco. Millions of baseball fans remember him as a powerhouse slugger with the speed and agility to earn one of the sport’s rare statistics: 40/40 — 40 home runs and 40 stolen bases in a single season. But millions more remember him as the whistleblower whose admission to steroid ‘juicing’ exposed a scandal that overshadowed his own remarkable 16-year major league career, and led to congressional hearings that cast a pall over America’s greatest pastime - baseball. Now, Jose Canseco finally speaks out to address some of the most controversial questions surrounding his life and career. What emerges is a nuanced portrait of a man driven by grief and a promise made — that he would be more than just a great baseball player, that he would be the best. It was a promise he fulfilled but it was a promise that cost him a great deal more than he ever anticipated. Only time will tell whether history remembers Jose Canseco as a legend, a whistleblower, or a scapegoat, but this candid documentary will leave you convinced of one inescapable fact: The Truth Hurts. SPECIAL GUESTS: FILMMAKER BILL MCADAMS, JR. AND JOSE CANSECO

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SPA CITY

T

he friendly, historic city of Hot Springs National Park is accustomed to people falling in love with it. As America’s First Resort and one of the South’s most popular family vacation and convention destination spots, Hot Springs carries on important hospitality traditions. Hot Springs is also the hometown of our nation’s 42nd president Bill Clinton, who credits the resort city as being responsible for the early educational experiences that led him to a career in public service, first as Arkansas attorney general, then governor of Arkansas, and ultimately the Presidency of the United States.

HISTORIC DOWNTOWN Enjoy gorgeous hiking trails in the Ouachita Mountains, tour the historic Fordyce Bathhouse and Visitor Center, try a relaxing Hot Springs spa and fill up on the cool mineral water that flows from the springs at various locations throughout the city. Downtown also includes Victorian architecture, world-class art galleries, restaurants, nightclubs and classic hotels, such as The Arlington Hotel and Spa, the host and sponsor of the film festival, a selfcontained resort with all the ambiance and hospitality of a traditional, grand old Southern hotel. Established in 1875, it features full spa service and great restaurants. The Arlington will be offering special room rates of $89 per night during the festival. 239 Central Ave. (501) 623-7771. The Park Hotel, located at 211 Fountain Street, just down the street from the Arlington, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and exemplifies the architectural brilliance of the 1920’s and 30’s. While visiting, try their inhouse Italian restaurant Angel’s In The Park (dinners only) or browse through the lobby Civil War Book Shoppe. Also

try their sister restaurant Angel’s for either lunch or dinner located at 600 Central Ave. (501) 609-3665. Film Festival ticket or badge holders can dine at either location and receive a 15% discount on meals (excluding alcohol). Right across the street from the Arlington is Rolando’s, where you can find Latin Fusion cuisine that is made fresh daily. Their handmade tamales, traditional Cuban black beans and rice with pulled pork, and most popular dish, the tantalizing Pescado de Mesias, are a must. 210 Central Ave. (501) 318-6054. Just above Rolando’s and fitting for the history of Hot Springs comes a new bar by the owners of Rolando’s. Rolando’s Speak Easy, as the name implies, will be a prohibition-era bar with a menu to match. Servers in flapper dresses on weekends will make patrons feel like they have stepped into a 1920’s time capsule. While on the subject of prohibition, The Gangster Museum of America, also located on Central Avenue will take you back to the days when gambling, boot-legging, prostitution, and hot mineral baths brought people from all over the country to the Spa City. The Hatterie, which is located in the museum, has stylish and affordable chapeaus as well as Fedoras, Godfathers, Panamas, Derbies, Top Hats, Ivys and Newsboys for men and women. To learn more about the rich history, consider purchasing the book, From Capone to Costello, written by the director of the museum Robert Raines and slated to release on November 25th at Barnes and Noble, Books-A-Million and Walmart. A book signing tour will kick off at the museum the day after Thanksgiving followed by events in L.A., NYC, New Orleans and Chicago, as well as other Arkansas dates. Just down the street from the museum, Lauray’s: The Diamond Center, which was established in

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We’re pleased to announce the forthcoming release of tGmoA director robert raines’ new book

hot springs from CApone to Costello the book is slated for release november 25th and will be followed by a book signing tour. Find it at Barnes and noble, Books a million, Wal-mart and the gangster museum of america.

just in time for christmas!

510 Central Avenue · (501) 318-1717 Historic Downtown Hot springs tGmoA.Com

SPA CITY, CONT. 1886, knows about the importance of quality and selection in addition to the four “C’s” – Carat, Color, Clarity and Cut. The quality of diamonds at Lauray’s is extraordinary because of their relationships with cutters around the world. Lauray’s also has one of the widest selections of diamonds in all shapes and sizes and the Lauradiant diamonds are cut to Lauray’s exacting standards to enhance their brilliance. 402 Central Ave. (501) 321-2441 www. laurays.com One of the newest additions to Central Avenue and Arkansas’ newest German Restaurant and Biergarten, Steinhaus Keller is located in the grotto of Spence’s Corner only minutes away from the festival. It has a unique cave like atmosphere with a wide selection of your favorite German beers along with a full service restaurant and live entertainment. 801 Central Ave, Ste. 15. (501) 624-7886.

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Private tatami tables & Party room Full Cocktail lounge Daily lunch specials 3954 Central avenue (behind StarbuCkS) hot SpringS · 501.525.9888 oSakahotSpringS.Com lunCh mon-Sun 11am–3pm dinner Sun-tueS 4:30–10pm Fri-Sat 4:30–10:30pm

If feeling lucky, stop by Oaklawn Racing & Gaming for it’s thoroughbred horse racing and electronic gaming facility. Or consider a cruise on the Belle of Hot Springs riverboat and take in the scenic views of Lake Hamilton. Enjoy the captain’s narration as he unfolds secrets of America’s “Spa City.” Stop by for sightseeing, lunch or the popular sunset dinner/dance cruise. 5200 Central Ave. Hwy. 7 South. (501) 5254438. Osaka, Hot Springs’ largest Japanese restaurant offers up a broad range of selections, with a menu that features delicious hibachi, tempura, teriyaki, noodles and sushi rolls of which, the Butterfly Kiss Roll and the Sun Roll are favorites. The exotic atmosphere offers a variety of seating options, including private tatami, dining tables, a party room, sushi bar and the always exciting hibachi tables. 3954 Central Ave. (501) 525-9888. Award winning Cafe 1217 prides

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HOT SPRINGS DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL

itself on the fact that anything that come out of its kitchen is created using only the freshest, finest ingredients, and relying on food’s natural beauty to speak for itself. Popular items include the Southwest Cobb Salad, Shrimp and Crawfish cakes and a wide variety of homey desserts. 1217 Malvern Ave. #B. (501) 3181094. By the owners of Café 1217, and voted Best Mexican in the state, Taco Mama’s careful attention to detail and wide selection of vegetarian options sets it apart. They also have happy hour drink specials daily with some of the coldest Margaritas & draft beer in town. 1209 Malvern Avenue. (501) 624-6262. Don’t forget to stop by Arkansas Furniture and take in its large showroom offering an array of options to decorate your home using beautiful, unique furniture and accents. As soon as you enter the store you’ll know you’re in for an extraordinary home furnishings shopping experience. Great looks, plenty of color, and a copius selection. 1901 Albert Pike Rd. (Hwy. 270 West). (501) 623-3849.

IF YOU LOVE THE GREAT OUTDOORS ... One of Hot Springs’ best features is believed to be its location in the Diamond Lakes Region of the scenic Ouachita Mountains. State and national parks in the area offer camping, hiking, biking, horseback riding and birding along scenic mountain trails. World-class Arkansas golf courses in the Hot Springs area provide challenging play and when you go hunting for quartz crystals, you can keep all the natural treasures you find. Nearby Garvan Woodland Gardens, proclaimed one of the Top 5 arboretums in the nation, offers a four-and-a-half-mile lakeside wonderland showcase of natural trees, plants, shrubbery and foliage. Find the perfect combination of relaxing activities and kick-out-all-thestops attractions in the Spa City that make Hot Springs a popular group travel destination.

day spa.


FORUMS

SCHEDULE THIS IS ONLY A PRELIMINARY SCHEDULE AND THERE MAY BE ADJUSTMENTS. PLEASE VISIT WWW.HSDFI.ORG THE WEEK OF THE FESTIVAL FOR THE FINAL SCHEDULE. All films at the Arlington Resort Hotel & Spa, unless otherwise noted. H = Films include panels; LKA = Films shown at Low Key Arts FRIDAY OCTOBER 11

1:30 p.m.

SPORTS SHORTS: SIDECARS, MITTS,

ROPES, CLUBS & BASKETBALLS

1:45 p.m.

MERCY MERCY:

SATURDAY OCTOBER 12

A STORY OF TRUE ADOPTION

9:10 a.m.

THE GENIUS OF MARIAN

3:15 p.m.

THE NEW PUBLIC

9:15 a.m.

A RIVER CHANGES COURSE

4 p.m.

FINDING HILLYWOOD

7 p.m.

Brent Renaud filming in Chicago.

GOOD OL’ FREDA

10:50 a.m. AMERICAN MASTERS:

5:30 p.m. THE NEW BLACK

FIGHT FOR CHICAGO: A CHILLING VIEW FROM THE FRONT LINES

5:45 p.m. BENDING STEEL

BILLIE JEAN KING

11:00 a.m. TEENAGE

7:45 p.m. AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY:

12:30 p.m. SHORTS: CIRCUMSTANCE

THE EVOLUTION OF GRACE LEE BOGGS

Award winning filmmakers and Arkansas natives Craig and Brent Renaud give blow by blow insight into the behind the scenes of their most recent project “Fight for Chicago” for Al Jazeera America. “Fight for Chicago” takes you to the dangerous streets of Chicago’s West and South sides to explore how the city became the most violent in the country and what’s being done to stop its gang-related violence. Joining the Renaud Brothers in the discussion will be subjects of the series, Derek “Shotgun” Brown, a former leader of the feared Chicago street gang the Vice Lords, and Reverend Robin Hood, a well-known anti-violence activist in Chicago. The Renaud Brothers, along with correspondent Christof Putzel, spent months filming in neighborhoods in Chicago that have become inner city war zones, reporting on each side’s perspective: the police, the advocates, the churches, the schools, the families, and the gang mem-

1:00 p.m.

8 p.m.

THIS AIN’T NO MOUSE MUSIC

BENDING STICKS

9:50 a.m.

bers themselves. From inside access to violent gangs like the Vice Lords and Gangster

10 a.m.

Disciples, to heart wrenching moments with a mother whose son was gunned down by police, Fight for Chicago takes viewers on the front lines of a war that has claimed more American lives than the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. SATURDAY, 10/19, 4:40 PM

PETER COYOTE: A LIFE WITH NARRATION Recipient of Hot Springs Career Achievement Award in Documentary for his significant contribution to documentary. TBA

VIDEO ON DEMAND: The Truth About Making Money in VOD KinoNation Founder Roger Jackson. SATURDAY, 10/12, 4:45 PM

TAKE ME TO THE BALL: A TRIBUTE TO LES BLANK (J’AI ETE AU BAL) Filmmakers Maureen Gosling And Chris Simon, And Arhoolie Records Founder Chris Strachwitz For Discussion Following. TUESDAY, 10/15, 7:30 PM

AFTER HOURS: SECRET SCREENING AND PERFORMANCE Following smash screenings in Berlin, Nuremberg, Copenhagen, Tel Aviv, Helsinki, Budapest, Moscow, South Korea, Taiwan, Cannes, Transylvania, attend the first screening in North American of the new documentary that has set Europe on fire. Special guests Beth B and featured performer. Strictly no one under 18

PAST THEIR PRIME/ PENGUIN ISLAND

2:30 p.m. LAST WOMAN STANDING MONDAY OCTOBER 14

2:45 p.m.

GETTING BACK TO ABNORMAL

5 p.m.

MAMA CALLED

10 a.m.

6:30 p.m.

THE TRIALS OF MUHAMMAD ALI

10:10 a.m. WHEN I WALK

6:15 p.m.

THE SHORT GAME

11:15 a.m. GIRL RISING

8:30 p.m.

‘1’

12 p.m.

KISS THE WATER

8:45 p.m.

THE ACT OF KILLING

1:15 p.m.

GORE VIDAL:

THE UNITED STATES OF AMNESIA

1:40 p.m.

THE NEW BLACK

GANGSTER OF LOVE

3 p.m.

A RIVER CHANGES COURSE

GMO OMG

4 p.m.

TINY: A STORY OF LIVING SMALL

11:40 a.m. GORE VIDAL:

4:45 p.m.

IF YOU BUILD IT

6 p.m.

THE PROJECT

SUNDAY OCTOBER 13

THE UNITED STATES OF AMNESIA

11:50 a.m. HER AIM IS TRUE

6:30 p.m. GANGSTER OF LOVE CONTINUED ➡

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7


SCHEDULE, CONT.

EVENT SCHEDULE

7:15 p.m.

FRIDAY, OCT. 11 Donor Party & VIP Social 4 p.m. — Donor Party and VIP Social at “Pagoda Hill” located in Historic downtown Hot Springs. Open to festival Sponsors/Donors by invitation only. Please call (501) 538-2290 for info.

ANTENNA

LKA

4:15 p.m. SHORTS: PERSONAL JOURNEYS

7:45 p.m. THE LIFE AND CRIMES OF DORIS PAYNE

5 p.m.

AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY: THE

8:15 p.m.

NO FIRE ZONE:THE KILLING FIELDS OF

EVOLUTION OF GRACE LEE BOGGS

SRI LANKA

6:15 p.m.

THIS AIN’T NO MOUSE MUSIC

9:30 p.m.

IF WE SHOUT LOUD ENOUGH

LKA

7:15 p.m. GANGSTER OF LOVE 8:15 p.m.

GORE VIDAL: THE UNITED STATES

OF AMNESIA

8:45 p.m.

GMO OMG

11:40 a.m. LINSANITY

9:30 a.m.

HSDFF Emerging Filmmakers presented

1:30 p.m.

HER AIM IS TRUE

by AETN’s Student Selects

1:50 p.m.

ISLAND NURSE

10:15 a.m. A WHOLE LOTT MORE

2:45 p.m.

GETTING BACK TO ABNORMAL

10:40 a.m. LINSANITY

3:20 p.m.

IF YOU BUILD IT

12:25 p.m. WIN OR LOSE

4:30 p.m.

AMERICAN PROMISE

12:30 p.m. THE STORYKEEPER/HONOR AND SACRIFICE/

5:15 p.m.

PRIDE AND JOY

THE GERMAN WHO CAME TO TEA

7 p.m.

LITTLE HOPE WAS ARSON

1:30 p.m.

THE MEDICINE GAME

7:30 p.m.

TAKE ME TO THE BALL, A LES BLANK

2:15 p.m. THE JIM LINDSEY STORY

TRIBUTE: J’ai Ete Au Bal

3:15 p.m.

WHEN I WALK

8:30 p.m.

FUREVER

3:30 p.m.

STRANGLEHOLD: IN THE SHADOW OF

THE BOSTON STRANGLER

TUESDAY OCTOBER 15 9:45 a.m.

THE MOO MAN

10 a.m.

SCHOOL-FRIENDLY SCREENING: FRIDAY OCTOBER 18

MEDORA

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 16 9:45 a.m.

FINDING HILLYWOOD

5:30 p.m. BREAKING THROUGH

10:15 a.m. SHORTS: FARAWAY LIVES

5:40 p.m. THE BIG SHOOTOUT

8 p.m.

THE IDENTITY THEFT OF

11 a.m.

THE EDITOR AND THE DRAGON:

MITCH MUSTAIN

HORACE CARTER FIGHTS THE CLAN

8:10 p.m. BRIDEGROOM

12:15 p.m. TINY: A STORY ABOUT LIVING SMALL

8:30 p.m. PUNK IN AFRICA

12:15 p.m. AFTER THE TSUNAMI

10:30 p.m. SECRET SCREENING

LKA

1:10 p.m.

THE NIGHT THE BLACKBIRDS FELL

2 p.m.

OUT OF THE FIRE

2 p.m.

SHORTS: AETN ARKANSAS

9:30 a.m. SHORTS: PERSONAL JOURNEYS

ARTS PROJECT

10 a.m.

WIN OR LOSE

4 p.m.

SHORTS: LIFE AS IT IS

11 a.m.

KISS THE WATER

4:05 p.m.

ANTENNA

11:45 a.m. STABLE LIFE

5:10 p.m. MEDORA

SATURDAY OCTOBER 19

6 p.m.

TALES OF THE ORGAN TRADE

6 p.m.

MAGICAL UNIVERSE

LKA

1 p.m.

THE STORY KEEPER

3 p.m.

TALES FRM THE ORGAN TRADE

3:30 p.m. WE ALWAYS LIE TO STRANGERS

7:30 p.m. UNDEFEATED

4:40 p.m. FIGHT FOR CHICAGO

8:15 p.m. I AM DIVINE

6:30 p.m. CLOSING NIGHT AWARDS AND FILM —

8:15 p.m. BEFORE THE SPRINGS

AFTER THE FALL

JOSE CANSECO: THE TRUTH HURTS

9:20 a.m.

LITTLE HOPE WAS ARSON

9:30 a.m. MAGICAL UNIVERSE

9:30 a.m.

SPORTS SHORTS: SIDECARS, MITTS,

11 a.m.

ROPES, CLUBS AND BASKETBALLS

11:O5 a.m. STRANGLEHOLD: IN THE SHADOW OF

BENDING STICKES THE BOSTON STRANGLER

11:30 a.m. AMERICAN PROMISE

12:30 p.m. THE BIG SHOOTOUT

12:45 p.m. PETRELLA: SHINE ON ME

12:45 p.m. WOMEN’S BASKETBALL:

2:15 p.m.

THE PROJECT

THE ROAD TO RESPECT

2:30 p.m. ISLAND NURSE

2:30 p.m.

THE IDENTITY THEFT OF MITCH MUSTAIN

4 p.m.

2:45 p.m.

PENGUIN ISLAND

HEAVEN’S RAGE

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 16 Opening Night Pre-Reception, Screening, & PostBrewery After Party Reception 9 p.m. onwards — Party at the new Superior ($25 per person. Admission included for VIP Pass Bathhouse Brewery and Distillery located on Central holders, Film Buff Pass Holders. Priority seating for Ave. across from the Arlington Hotel. Appetizers screening given to VIP Pass holders) available. Open to VIP Pass holders, filmmakers, 6 p.m. — Traditional Champagne & Popcorn kick-off on sponsors, and by invitation. $25 per person. (Also Mezzanine Level of The Arlington Hotel. Oct. 18) 6:30 p.m. — Doors open. Nashville-based, Arkansasborn, singer/songwriter Charity Vance, will perform. FRIDAY, OCT. 18 7 p.m. — Screening of “Good Ol’ Freda” followed by Secret Film Screening & Special Performance Q&A with Beatles longtime secretary and friend and 10:30 p.m. — After Hours Secret Screening and the HSDFF special guest of the evening, Freda Kelly. Performance. VIP Pass holders, filmmakers, and 9 p.m.-10:30 p.m. — Post-reception on mezzanine level. sponsors admitted free. Tickets for purchase at $25. Appetizers provided. Cash bar. Absolutely no one under 18 admitted! Read more at www.hsdfi.org. Opening Night After Party 9:30 p.m. onwards — After Party at private home SATURDAY, OCT. 19 Pogada Hill for VIP Pass holders and by special inviClosing Night Awards Ceremony, Film tation. & Post-Reception 6:30 p.m. — Closing Night Awards and World Premiere of “Jose Canseco: The Truth Hurts” with special SATURDAY, OCT. 12 guests, Jose Canseco, and filmmaker Bill McAdams, Past Their Prime/ Penguin Island 2:30-3 p.m. — A family screening of the movies will Jr. Seating priority to VIP Pass holders. Tickets at be held at the The Arlington followed by a special $25 per person. A limited number of advance sale apprearence by a hand reared penguin from the Little tickets will be available at www.hsdfi.org. Tickets Rock Zoo at The Arlington Lobby. also available while they last at the ticket box office located on the Mezzanine Level of the Arlington. Gangster Museum of America Party 8:30 p.m. — Catered reception on the Arlington 9 p.m. — Party located at one of Hot Springs’s most Mezzanine. Free admission to VIP Pass holders, Film fascinating museums located on Central Ave. in Historic Buff Pass holders, and sponsors. Hot Springs. Mix and mingle with filmmakers, special guests, and festival patrons. ($25 per person. Admission Closing Night Dance Party included for VIP Pass holders and Sponsors) with the Legendary Pacers 8:30 p.m.-midnight — Original Sun Records artist SUNDAY, OCT. 13 and member of the European Rock n’ Roll Hall of Arlington Brunch Fame Sonny Burgess and the Legendary Pacers live Join us for Arlington Brunch served in the Arlington Lobby Bar. Open to festivalgoers 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Venetian Room and the general public. (Also Oct. 20) Closing Night After Party After Party at Steinhaus Keller 9:30 p.m. onwards — After Party at private home 9 p.m. — After party at German Restaurant and Biergarten Holiday House. Open to all festival attendees.

SUNDAY OCTOBER 20

LKA

THURSDAY OCTOBER 17

11:25 a.m. MAMA CALLED

TICKETS & PASSES VIP Pass ($175) – Admission to all films, panels, workshops and parties with priority admission, including opening and closing night films, awards ceremony and receptions. It also includes VIP Filmmaker party that is invitation only on Thursday, Oct. 17. Film Buff Pass ($85) – Admission to all films during the festival, including opening and closing night films and receptions. Day Pass ($20) – Admission to all films for one day of the festival. General Admission ($5) – Admission to one film, panel or workshop during the festival. Special Screenings ($25) – Admission to secret screenings of special event films with special guest performances.

F R O M G O O U T TO 8

HOT SPRINGS DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL

Steinhaus Keller located in a magical, cave-like atmosphere just steps from the Arlington. Entertainment provided by tuba and accordion duo the Itinerant Locals. Located on Central Ave. in Historic Hot Springs. Admission is free. Open to all festival patrons.

go all out.


50 Breweries & Over 250 Beers The Arkansas Times along with the Argenta Arts District is excited to announce their second annual craft beer festival. We want to share the celebration of the fine art of craft brewing in America by showcasing over 250 beers.

One big night of fun, food, entertainment & tasting fine beer!

Local Live Music by

Bonnie Montgomery The Good Time Ramblers

9 Restaurants

Crush Wine Bar, Argenta Market, Reno’s Argenta Café, Cregeen’s Irish Pub, Cornerstone Pub, Café Bossa Nova, Whole Hog North Little Rock, The Fold Botanas & Bar, Edwards Food Giant

November 1st - 6 to 9 pm Argenta Farmer’s Market Grounds 6th & Main Street, Downtown North Little Rock (Across from the Argenta Market)

Rain or Shine!

Tickets, brewer details & More at:

Benefiting

arktimes.com/craftbeerfest Buy Tickets Early - Admission is Limited

$35 early purchase - $40 at the door

Presented by

Participants must be 21 years or older. Please bring ID.

Participating Breweries Abita, Anchor, Bayou Teche, Boscos, Boulevard, Breckenridge, Cathedral Square, Charleville, Choc, Core, Coop Ale Works, Crown Valley, Dark Hills, Diamond Bear, Dogtowne Brewing, Evil Twin, Finch’s, Flyway, Fort Collins, Fossil Cove, Goose Island, Green Flash, Hermitage, Laughing Dog, Lazy Magnolia, Marshall, Medocino, Mustang, New Belgium, New Planet, North Coast, O’Fallon, Ommegang, Ozark Beer Company, Piney River, Prairie Artisan Ales, Rebel Kettle, Redhook, Refined Ale, Saddlebock, Samuel Adams, Shiner, Shipyard, Shocktop, Sierra Nevada, Stevens Point, Stillwater Artisanal Ales, Stone’s Throw, Tallgrass, The Saint Louis Brewery, Tommyknocker, Vino’s, Widmer Brothers

Plus!

#arkcraftbeer Like us at

facebook.com/arktimescraftbeerfestival


Arts Entertainment AND

FOOD TRUCKS REDUX

Festival returns to Main Street. BY MICHAEL ROBERTS AND DANIEL WALKER

B

ring empty belly Saturday, Oct. 5, to the third annual Food Truck Festival on Main Street, where you’ll find four city blocks of moveable feasts — from Third to Seventh streets — from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Between bites, there will be things to do for the whole family, including shopping at Etsy Little Rock vendors, listening to music, watching street performers, turning the kids over to Heifer International’s Children’s Plaza and, last but not least, drinking cold brews from three beer gardens. Here’s another plus: No food and drink tickets to get in the middle of you and the chow. The Downtown Partnership is also selling chances to win “A Year of Fun in Downtown Little Rock,” which will include tickets to The Rep, a VIP tour of Heifer, museum memberships, a prime downtown parking space for a year, VIP Riverfest tickets, free ice cream from Loblolly Ice Cream, tickets for two to the Junior League of Little Rock’s Holiday House Ladies Night Out” and two three-day shopping passes. 30

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ARKANSAS TIMES

The grub, of course, is the big draw. There are 25 food trucks and carts participating; here’s a rundown of some of our favorites: Southern Gourmasian. It’s only been operating for about two years, but in that time it’s become something of a Little Rock food truck legend. Gourmasian’s blend of Asian flavors like lemongrass, ginger, and sriracha sauce with Southern classics like dumplings, fried chicken, and pulled pork doesn’t sound like anything that should ever work in the real world — but the recipes coming from the back of the bright yellow truck emblazoned with a red dragon defy all expectations and deliver outstanding food time and time again. Expect the lines to be long at this truck, but rest assured that the food is worth the wait. Banana Leaf. After a summer spent in their native India, the Banana Leaf crew is back and ready for action. Egg lovers will be drawn to their wide vari-

SOUTHERN GOURMASIAN

but don’t miss an opportunity to sample a peach bundt with ginger cream cheese frosting. It’s divine.

ety of dhosas, while those who crave a little spice won’t want to miss the crispy Chicken 65. Banana Leaf also provides several excellent vegetarian dishes, giving non-meat-eaters a place to find something delicious to eat.

Waffle Wagon. It might be the new kid on the food truck block, but the Waffle Wagon is quickly becoming one of the most popular trucks in town. With dishes ranging from buffalo-style chicken and waffles to cornbread waffles with purple hull peas, these waffles are a step above what might be found at the local IHOP. The Waffle Wagon menu rotates, so expect surprises like brown sugar and peach waffles or savory dishes made with fancy stuff like imported prosciutto.

Green Cuisine. It’s the only truck in Little Rock that focuses solely on vegetarian and vegan food, but everybody can find something to love here. Pay special attention to the grilled pimento cheese and veggie quesadillas, as these dishes will prove that meat isn’t necessary to make something delicious. This truck has developed a well-deserved reputation for quality food — high praise indeed here in meat-loving Arkansas.

Taqueria Jalisco. No gathering of food trucks would be quite complete without the granddaddy of all food trucks — the taco truck. Little Rock boasts a fairly sizable fleet of mobile tortillas slingers, but Taqueria Jalisco stacks up with the best of them. Of course, there are the classic street-style tacos — meat, onion, cilantro, and salsa — but you’d be amiss if you never sampled their fine tamales or substantial tortas.

Sugar Shack. Taking sweet to the street — Little Rock’s first dessert truck offers some of the finest confections around town. Sure, you’ll find the ubiquitous cupcake (which they do exceptionally well), and cookies, brownies, and bars, but passing up one of their mini bundt cakes is nothing short of food crime. You’ll find them in an assortment of flavors — apple, hot fudge, lemon —

Eat My Catfish. The appearance of Eat My Catfish at this year’s festival is a return to the Saline County eatery’s roots. Although located in a brick and mortar building now, the Eat My Catfish crew started out in the back of a small red trailer, slinging hot fish filets and spicy mud bugs in a small vacant lot in Benton. Word of mouth about the

SUGAR SHACK

CONTINUED ON PAGE 39


ROCK CANDY Check out the Times’ A&E blog arktimes.com

A&E NEWS

7th & Thayer · Little Rock · (501) 375-8400

Friday, OctOber 4

Lee Bains & The Glory Fires w/ Austin Lucas Saturday, OctOber 5

AS WE REPORTED LAST WEEK, Cher is headed to Verizon Arena on March 28. Tickets, which range from $36.50 to $127, go on sale at noon Friday, Oct. 25, via Ticketmaster. FORMER MAJOR LEAGUE baseball star/steroid user/whistleblower/ punchline Jose Canseco will be in attendance at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival for the world premiere of “Jose Canseco: The Truth Hurts” on Oct. 19, the last day of the festival. Director Bill McAdams Jr. will be there, too.

Fast Weapons Records Presents: Magic Mouth (Portland, OR) w/ Bonnie Montgomery tueSday, OctOber 8

Duckstronaut w/ Collin Vs. Adam WedneSday, OctOber 9

BILLY JOE SHAVER! w/ Bonnie Montgomery

check out additional shows at

whitewatertavern.com

THE 66TH ANNUAL ORIGINAL OZARK FOLK FESTIVAL, America’s longest-running annual folk festival, will be held Oct. 23-27 in Eureka Springs. The festival will feature two live recordings of the international hit public radio show “WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour.” WoodSongs’ special guests will include Michael Martin Murphey, Leroy Troy and the Tennessee Mafia Jug Band. The festival will also feature the Barefoot Ball, the Queen’s Contest, the HedgeHoppers, arts-and-crafts exhibitions and free music in Basin Spring Park throughout the weekend. Sounds like a foot-stompin’ good time. More information and tickets available at ozarkfolkfestival.com. THE LITTLE ROCK FILM FESTIVAL is taking submissions for its 8th annual festival, set for May 13-18, 2014. Films will be screened at the LRFF’s new home, the theater in the Arcade building on President Clinton Avenue, a 310-seat cinema with state-of-theart sound and projection. More than 25,000 people attended the festival in years past, with workshops, 100plus screenings, a strong “Made in Arkansas” category and parties galore. Awards include the $10,000 Oxford American Award for Best Film. Get your flicks together and submit them at littlerockfilmfestival.org. THE WALTON ARTS CENTER announced that Queens of the Stone Age has canceled its Oct. 8 concert with Savages at the Arkansas Music Pavilion in Fayetteville. The cancelation is “due to unavoidable circumstances,” the Arts Center said. All tickets will be refunded in full. The show may be rescheduled.

www.arktimes.com

OCTOBER 3, 2013

31


THE TO-DO

LIST

BY ROBERT BELL

FRIDAY 10/4

KYLESA, PINKISH BLACK

8 p.m. Downtown Music Hall. $12 adv., $15 day of.

Kylesa has deep roots in the fertile musical ground of Savannah, Ga. The band has been around for more than a decade, and formed out of the ashes of ’90s crust/ hardcore greats Damad (whose “Rise and Fall” is a touchstone of sludgy Southern hardcore). As with many of the group’s peers, Kylesa has taken sounds from out-

lying genres (psychedelia, shoegaze) and worked them into its overall downtuned, heavy sound. The band is on tour with Fort Worth duo Pinkish Black, whose recent sophomore album “Razed to the Ground” is a further refinement of their foreboding sound. The new album is a bit more on the deathrock side of things, though with moments of unnerving synth drone that churns like Tangerine Dream’s psychotic cousin.

FRIDAY 10/4

‘NORA’

7:30 p.m. The Weekend Theater. $12-$16.

KNOWN UNKNOWNS: Unknown Mortal Orchestra plays at Stickyz Thursday.

THURSDAY 10/3

UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA

9 p.m. Stickyz. $10 adv., $12 day of.

This show has been marked on a lot of folks’ calendars for several months now. Portland-based Unknown Mortal Orchestra has only been around for about seven minutes (OK, three years if you wanna be accurate about it) but the band has already gone from elusive Bandcamp mystery to award-winning psych-pop outfit with two critically acclaimed albums under its belt.

The trio put to rest any concerns about a sophomore slump with its follow-up, “II,” also earning a generally warm reception. The first album had an appealingly underwater-sounding lo-fi mix while “II” puts just a tad more shine on the sound, but only a tad. At its core, this is still music that manages to sound like a long-lost ’60s psych nugget, yet also something totally otherworldly. It’s much more than just three dudes going through the motions of perfectly recreating something from a bygone era.

Though Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” was controversial in its day for its unconventional approach to the prevailing social norms of the late 19th century, the work is unquestionably one of the cornerstones of contemporary realist drama. It’s one of the most widely produced works of any playwright of any era. So why would Ingmar Bergman want to remake it? Matt Patton, director of The Weekend Theater’s production of “Nora,” offers some insight in his director’s note: “As to the former, I can only speculate that [Bergman] felt the need to address what he (and many other

directors and critics) perceived as a basic flaw: Nora’s transformation from a naïve child to a mature woman in the matter of only a few days.” Patton figures Bergman cut out about one-third of the lines of dialogue in the original. “So what, then, did Bergman add? Nothing! As best as I can determine, he did not create a single line of dialogue. He did, however, significantly rewrite some stage directions, most notably in the final scene, and thus giving that scene a completely different orientation. Even if you are familiar with the original, I think you will be startled by the conclusion of Nora.” Sounds interesting. The play runs at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through Oct. 19.

FRIDAY 10/4-SUNDAY 10/6

ARKANSAS FESTIVAL BALLET: ‘AT THE BARRE’ Ballet fans, you’re on notice: This weekend, Arkansas Festival Ballet will be presenting “At the Barre,” an intimate performance at the Arkansas Academy of Dance Studio. For the Friday and Saturday evening shows, there will be a pre-recital wine

bar and reception, so you can have a glass of Shiraz or something before watching the dancers as they bring to life excerpts from “Giselle” and “The Firebird,” with original, new choreography from UALR artist-in-residence Rhythm McCarthy. As for music, how about Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3? There will be a no-booze reception before the 2 p.m. Sunday matinee performance. Friday and Saturday start times are 7:30 p.m.

guaranteed you’ll hear something that will tickle your fancy. But that’s not all! There will also be a Retro Rummage Sale (like, real-deal 1983-and-earlier vintage stuff, so butt out, 1984-2013 stuff!). There will be an artists’ market, kids’ activity tent, a teepee village and other artist-created experiences and The Cardboard City contest (with cash

prizes of $400 and $100). And, of course, there will also be refreshments on hand, with beer, Grapette, tacos and sandwiches available for purchase. Bring lawn chairs and good vibes; don’t bring outside food or drinks or bad vibes. The event starts at 4 p.m. Friday and at noon Saturday. Check HotWaterHills.com for full details.

7:30 p.m. Arkansas Academy of Dance. $15-$20.

FRIDAY 10/4-SATURDAY 10/5

HOT WATER HILLS FESTIVAL

Hill Wheatley Plaza. $5, free for ages 11 and younger.

Low Key Arts’ annual Hot Water Hills Music and Arts Festival is going to be a forsure good time for anyone who digs having fun and enjoying music and activities in a 32

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ARKANSAS TIMES

family-friendly atmosphere. There’s gonna be a raft of great live music, including the Memphis Dawls, Adam Faucett and The Tall Grass, Telegraph Canyon, Brian Martin, Kentucky Knife Fight, A.J. Gaither, The Jamaican Queens and the Arkansas School for Math, Sciences and the Arts’ Folk Music Ensemble. With an array that diverse, it’s


IN BRIEF

THURSDAY 10/3

The 2013 Festival of Wines is one of the largest wine festivals in the state, with hundreds of wines from around the world, Dickey-Stephens Park, 6 p.m., $60 adv., $75 day of. Renowned poets C.D. Wright and Forrest Gander will speak at Hendrix College, 7:30 p.m. Classic rock mainstays Three Dog Night perform at Oaklawn, 7 p.m.

SATURDAY 10/5

MAGIC MOUTH

9:30 p.m. White Water Tavern.

This Portland, Ore., crew has been causing palpitations of all sorts for a good minute or two now. A listen to more than 30 seconds or so of the band’s soul-steeped post-punk makes it obvious why the band has earned such breathless accolades. Singer Chanticleer Tru swings effortlessly from a smooth high falsetto to a smoky croon to a heartbroken wail while the band cranks out sweaty, tight funk grooves. The band’s recent EP, “Devil May Care,” was released last month on the Fast Weapons label and shows off the band’s range (check the slowbuild burner “Mother Lode” — so good!). The band is Bonnie Montgomery-approved (they all opened for Gossip on a recent tour), so you know they’re the real thing. Speaking of Montgomery, she’s also on the bill at this shindig. It’s gonna be a good one, you guys.

FRIDAY 10/4

That “little ol’ band from Texas,” ZZ Top, plays the Arkansas Music Pavilion, 7:30 p.m., $37-$47. Over at Stickyz, check out War Chief, 9 p.m., $5. Alabama country rockers Lee Bains III and The Glory Fires are at White Water Tavern, 9:30 p.m., $7. CruzWay brings the salsa to Juanita’s, 10 p.m., $10 (dance lesson starts at 9 p.m.). Brick Fields plays an album release show at The Joint, 8 p.m. Artistry of the Guitar with Peter Janson is at the Balance Wellness and Yoga Center in Hot Springs, 8 p.m., $15. The group also performs at the Little Rock Folk Club Saturday night at 7:30 p.m., $8-$15.

SATURDAY 10/5

ROSE CITY ROLLERS: Magic Mouth performs at White Water Tavern Saturday night.

TUESDAY 10/8

‘TALES OF THE CRYPT’

5:30-8:30 p.m. Mount Holly Cemetery. Free (donations accepted).

It’s that time of year again, when Mount Holly Cemetery comes to life as students from Parkview Magnet School portray some of the notable historical figures whose final resting place has been dubbed “the Westminster Abbey of

Arkansas.” According to a press release, this year’s presentation will feature 20 student actors “recreating the lives of Arkansans who have helped shape Little Rock’s history. The students have researched each character and prepared original scripts for the performance under the direction of Fred Boosey and Tamara Zinck. Award-winning local

costumer Debi Manire will once again provide the wonderful historical characters’ costumes.” This year’s Tales is dedicated to the late Susan Barham, the Parkview teacher who originated the event and who died last year. Although admission is free, you should probably do a solid for the historic cemetery and make a donation.

WEDNESDAY 10/9

WEDNESDAY 10/9

BILLY JOE SHAVER

SHOOTER JENNINGS, REVEREND PAYTON’S BIG DAMN BAND

8 p.m. White Water Tavern. $25 adv., $30 day of.

Not really sure what else I can add to this one, other than to restate what’s already resoundingly clear: Billy Joe Shaver is without question one of the finest and most highly regarded songwriters in all of country music. He’s also one of the genre’s liveliest performers and a storyteller who can make you laugh and cry, sometimes within the space of a single between-song tale. If you only go to one show all year (a practice that I am in no way advocating), make it this one.

8:30 p.m., Revolution. $17 adv., $20 day of.

Here’s one that you might wanna go ahead and take off of work the next day for. You all probably know what’s gonna be in store at a Shooter Jennings/Reverend Payton show. So just make sure to drink plenty of water, get yourself a cab or DD (preferably one who won’t mind if y’all maybe stop off at the Waffle House for steak and eggs and scattered, smothered and covered on the way home), and remember to take three ibuprofen before you finally go to bed. Leopold and His Fiction opens.

Wildwood Park for the Performing Arts hosts the DennyWest Music Festival, with Ukulele Bill, REAL Entertaining, Mister Morphis One Man Band, The Hartley Family Bluegrass Band, Posey Hill, The Mulligan Brothers and BettySoo, 1 p.m., $5-$20. The 2013 Little Rock Pride Parade will take place in downtown Little Rock, 2 p.m. Participants will line up at 1 p.m. at Fifth and Ferry streets near the Post Office. Renowned singer/songwriter Chris Knight is at Revolution, with his nephew Ben Knight, 9 p.m., $12 adv., $15 day of. The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion brings the greezy rock ’n’ roll sleaze to Stickyz, 9 p.m., $15.

MONDAY 10/7

Singer/songwriter Valerie June brings her blues-informed, soulful sounds to Juanita’s, with Matrimony and Steve Hester & Deja VooDoo, 8 p.m. $8 adv., $10 day of.

TUESDAY 10/8

L.A.’s Silversun Pickups will showcase their reverb-soaked guitar pop at Juanita’s, with Electric Guest, 9 p.m., $30 adv., $35 day of.

WEDNESDAY 10/9

The Clinton School of Public Service hosts “Boston Marathon Bombing and Lessons Learned,” with Watertown, Mass., Police Chief Ed Deveau, 6 p.m. Stickyz hosts an evening of outre rock hedonism, with Electric Six, My Jerusalem and Flameing Daeth Fearies, 8:30 p.m., $10 adv., $12 day of. www.arktimes.com

OCTOBER 3, 2013

33


AFTER DARK All events are in the Greater Little Rock area unless otherwise noted. To place an event in the Arkansas Times calendar, please e-mail the listing and all pertinent information, including date, time, location, price and contact information, to calendar@arktimes.com.

THURSDAY, OCT. 3

MUSIC

Adam Faucett. Bear’s Den Pizza, 9 p.m. 235 Farris Road, Conway. 501-328-5556. www.bearsdenpizza.com. Ben Rector. With Tyrone Wells. Revolution, 8:30 p.m., $18 adv., $20 day of. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. revroom.com. Casting Crowns. Vada Sheid Community Development Center, 7:30 p.m. 1600 S. College St., Mountain Home. 1-800-514-3849. thesheid. com. Chris Knight. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9 p.m., $15. 519 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-4424226. Dean Agus (happy hour), Ghost Town Blues Band (headliner). Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 and 9 p.m., $5 after 8:30 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-3755351. www.cajunswharf.com. Downtown Music Battle of the Bands, Day 3. Downtown Music Hall, 7 p.m. 211 W. Capitol. 501-376-1819. downtownmusichall.com. Husky Burnette. Maxine’s, 9 p.m. 700 Central Ave., Hot Springs. www.maxinespub.com. “Inferno.” DJs play pop, electro, house and more, plus drink specials and $1 cover before 11 p.m. Sway, 9 p.m. 412 Louisiana. 501-907-2582. Jim Dickerson. Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave. 501-324-2999. www.sonnywilliamssteakroom.com. Krush Thursdays with DJ Kavaleer. Club Climax, free before 11 p.m. 824 W. Capitol. 501-554-3437. Mateo, Matt Sammons, Dave Lovett. Willy D’s Dueling Piano Bar. 322 President Clinton Ave. 501-244-9550. www.willydspianobar.com. Michael Eubanks. Newk’s Express Cafe, 6:30 p.m. 4317 Warden Road, NLR. 501-753-8826. newks.com. Open jam with The Port Arthur Band. Parrot Beach Cafe, 9 p.m. 9611 MacArthur Drive, NLR. 771-2994. RockUsaurus. Senor Tequila, 7-9 p.m. 10300 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-224-5505. www. senor-tequila.com. Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 7:30 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-374-7474. www.capitalhotel.com/CBG. The Smittle Band. The Joint, 7:30 p.m., $5. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com. Three Dog Night. Oaklawn, 7 p.m. 2705 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 501-623-4411. www.oaklawn.com. Unknown Mortal Orchestra. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9 p.m., $10 adv., $12 day of. 107 Commerce St. 501-372-7707. www.stickyz.com. Yo Gotti. With YG, Ca$hout, Shy Glizzy, Zed Zilla and more. Juanita’s, 9 p.m., $30 adv. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www. juanitas.com.

COMEDY

Dan O’Sullivan. The Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m., $7. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-228-5555. www.loonybincomedy.com.

EVENTS

2013 Festival of Wines. One of the largest wine 34

OCTOBER 3, 2013

ARKANSAS TIMES

MEMPHIS RAPPER: Yo Gotti performs Thursday at Juanita’s, with Ca$hout, Shy Glizzy, Zed Zilla and more, 9 p.m., $30. festival in the state with several hundred wines from around the world. 501-707-6599 for more information and tickets. Dickey-Stephens Park, 6 p.m., $60 adv., $75 day of. 400 W. Broadway St., NLR. 501-664-1555. www.travs.com. Conway ArtsFest. Local arts organizations and departments from Conway’s colleges host events throughout the city. For full schedule, ArtsFestConway.com. Simon Park, through Oct. 5. Front and Main, Conway. Hillcrest Shop & Sip. Shops and restaurants offer discounts, later hours, and live music. Hillcrest, first Thursday of every month, 5 p.m. P.O.Box 251522. 501-666-3600. www.hillcrestmerchants. com.

LECTURES

Critical Disability Studies. With disability scholar Rosemarie Garland Thomson. ASU Jonesboro, 6:30 p.m. 101 N. Caraway Road, Jonesboro.

POETRY

C.D. Wright and Forrest Gander. Hendrix College, 7:30 p.m. 1600 Washington Ave., Conway. www.hendrix.edu.

SPORTS

2013 Arkansas Senior Olympics. Age categories from 50- to 100-years. Events from archery to basketball, shuffleboard to weightlifting. Various venues and times, www.SrSports.org for more information. Downtown Hot Springs,

through Oct. 6.

BENEFITS

“Brassiere Bazaar — Bras For A Cause.” Silent and live auction of bras decorated by local and national celebrities. Benefits the Young Survival Coalition. Cornerstone Pub & Grill, 7-9:30 p.m. 314 Main St., NLR. 501-374-1782. cstonepub. com.

CLASSES

Puppet Theater Workshop. 501-327-7482 to register. Faulkner County Library, 4 p.m. 1900 Tyler St., Conway. 501-327-7482. www.fcl.org.

FRIDAY, OCT. 4

MUSIC

30-Something Party Fridays. Twelve Modern Lounge, first Friday of every month, free before 10 p.m., $5 after 10 p.m. 1900 W. Third St. 501301-1200. AnDa Union. From Inner Mongolia, an acoustic group of 14 musicians performing on traditional Mongolian instruments. Walton Arts Center, 8 p.m., $10. 495 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-443-5600. Artistry of the Guitar with Peter Janson. Balance Wellness and Yoga Center, 8 p.m., $15. 4039 Central Avenue, Hot Springs. 501-538-3036. www.balanceyogaandwellness.com. Brick Fields. Album release party. The Joint, 8-11

p.m. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com. Cassatt String Quartet. With composer Bruce Adolphe. Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, 8 p.m., $10 for non-members. 600 Museum Way, Bentonville. 479-418-5700. crystalbridges. org. Chris Tomlin. With Louie Giglio. Verizon Arena, 7:30 p.m., $25-$43. 1 Alltel Arena Way, NLR. 501975-9001. verizonarena.com. Club Nights at 1620 Savoy. Dance night, with DJs, drink specials and bar menu, until 2 a.m. 1620 Savoy, 10 p.m. 1620 Market St. 501-2211620. www.1620savoy.com. Cosby, Saint Rich, Adam Faucett. Vino’s. 923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. www.vinosbrewpub.com. Cruz Way. Begins with one-hour salsa lesson at 9 pm. Juanita’s, 10 p.m., $10. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www.juanitas.com. Friday night at Sway. Sway, 9 p.m. 412 Louisiana. 501-907-2582. Hot Water Hills Music and Arts Festival. Adam Faucett and The Tall Grass headlines. Two stages of music, artists, kids activities, food, beer and wine. www.hotwaterhills.com for more information. Hill Wheatley Plaza, Oct. 4, 4 p.m.; Oct. 5, noon. Central Avenue downtown, Hot Springs. Jeff Coleman. Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, Oct. 4-5, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave. 501-3242999. www.sonnywilliamssteakroom.com. Josh Abbott Band. With Tyler and the Tribe. Revolution, 9 p.m., $15 adv., $18 day of. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. revroom. com. Kylesa. With Pinkish Black. Downtown Music Hall, 8 p.m., $12 adv., $15 day of. 211 W. Capitol. 501376-1819. downtownmusichall.com. Lee Bains III and The Glory Fires. White Water Tavern, 9:30 p.m., $7. 2500 W. 7th St. 501-3758400. www.whitewatertavern.com. Memphis Dawls. Hot Water Hills Fest afterparty. Maxine’s. 700 Central Ave., Hot Springs. www. maxinespub.com. Nick Flora. With Allison Button and Chest Fever. Mugs Cafe, 7 p.m., $5. 515 Main St., NLR. www. mugscafe.org. Odyssey Band. Reno’s Argenta Cafe, 9:30 p.m., $5. 312 N. Main St., NLR. 501-376-2900. www. renosargentacafe.com. Richie Johnson (happy hour), Crisis (headliner). Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 and 9 p.m., $5 after 8:30 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www. cajunswharf.com. Sheldon Wheaton, Mateo, Matt Sammons, Dave Lovett. Willy D’s Dueling Piano Bar, Oct. 4-5. 322 President Clinton Ave. 501-244-9550. www.willydspianobar.com. Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 9 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-374-7474. www.capitalhotel.com/CBG. War Chief. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9 p.m., $5. 107 Commerce St. 501-372-7707. www.stickyz.com. “YOLO.” Featuring four DJs and beach volleyball, 18-and-older. Flying DD, $5. 4601 S. University. 501-773-9990. flyingdd.com. ZZ Top. Arkansas Music Pavilion, 7:30 p.m., $37$47. 2536 N. McConnell Ave., Fayetteville. 479443-5600. www.arkansasmusicpavilion.com.

COMEDY

Dan O’Sullivan. The Loony Bin, Oct. 4-5, 7:30 and 10 p.m., $10. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-228-5555. www.loonybincomedy.com. The Main Thing presents “Arkansanity.”


If you’re not HERE, we’re having more fun than you are! Original two-act comedy play lampooning life in Arkansas. The Joint, 8 p.m., $20. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com.

DANCE

SPORTS

2013 Arkansas Senior Olympics. See Oct. 3.

BOOKS

“Daughter of the White River” book signing. Denise White Parkinson will read from and sign copies of her new book. DeWitt Courthouse, 2-4 p.m. 101 Court Square, DeWitt.

SATURDAY, OCT. 5

MUSIC

Artistry of the Guitar with Peter Janson. Little Rock Folk Club, 7:30 p.m., $8-$15. 1818 Reservoir Road. Bass and Brown (happy hour), Hazy Nation (headliner). Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 and 9 p.m., $5 after 8:30 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf.com. Big Dam Horns. The Joint, 8:30 p.m., $7. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointin-

COMEDY

Dan O’Sullivan. The Loony Bin, 7:30 and 10 p.m., $10. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-2285555. www.loonybincomedy.com. The Main Thing presents “Arkansanity.” Original two-act comedy play lampooning life in Arkansas. The Joint, 8 p.m., $20. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com. CONTINUED ON PAGE 36

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LECTURES

“Front Row Seat: A Photographic Portrait of the Presidency of George W. Bush.” With former Chief White House photographer Eric Draper. Clinton School of Public Service, noon. 1200 President Clinton Ave. 501-683-5239. www. clintonschool.uasys.edu.

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45th Annual Hot Springs Arts and Crafts Fair. Hundreds of exhibits, displays and booths. Admission and parking are free. Garland County Fairgrounds, Oct. 4-6. Higdon Ferry Road, off the Martin Luther King Jr. Expressway, Hot Springs. Annual Herb Harvest Fall Festival. This year focuses on African native plants that thrive in the Ozarks. Ozark Folk Center State Park, Oct. 4-5. 1032 Park Ave., Mountain View. Conway ArtsFest. See Oct. 3. Haunted Springs Paranormal Fest. Haunted tour of Hot Springs and more. www.hauntedspringsparanormalfest.webs.com for more information. Whittington Park, Oct. 4-6. Whittington Ave., Hot Springs. LGBTQ/SGL Youth and Young Adult Group. Diverse Youth for Social Change is a group for LGBTQ/SGL and straight ally youth and young adults age 14 to 23. For more information, call 244-9690 or search “DYSC” on Facebook. 800 Scott St., 6:30 p.m. 800 Scott St. Main Street Food Truck Fridays. Capitol and Main, 11 a.m.-1 p.m.

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EVENTS

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“At the Barre” studio performance. Excerpts from “Giselle” and “The Firebird” and new, original choreography from UALR artist-in-residence Rhythm McCarthy. Arkansas Festival Ballet, Oct. 4-5, 7:30 p.m.; Oct. 5, 2 p.m., $15-$20. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-227-5320. www. arkansasdance.org. Ballroom Dancing. Free lessons begin at 7 p.m. Bess Chisum Stephens Community Center, 8-11 p.m., $7-$13. 12th & Cleveland streets. 501-2217568. www.blsdance.org. Salsa Night. Begins with a one-hour salsa lesson. Juanita’s, 9 p.m., $8. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www.littlerocksalsa.com.

littlerock.com. Chris Knight. With Ben Knight. Revolution, 9 p.m., $12 adv., $15 day of. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. revroom.com. Chris Long. Mugs Cafe, 6:30 p.m., $5. Mugs Cafe, 7 p.m., $5. 515 Main Street, NLR. www. mugscafe.org. Club Nights at 1620 Savoy. See Oct. 4. Daniel Ellsworth and The Great Lakes. Maxine’s, 11 p.m. 700 Central Ave., Hot Springs. www. maxinespub.com. DennyWest Music Festival. With Ukulele Bill, REAL Entertaining, Mister Morphis One Man Band, the Hartley Family Bluegrass Band, Posey Hill, the Mulligan Brothers, and BettySoo .Wildwood Park for the Performing Arts, 1 p.m., $5-$20. 20919 Denny Road. GLOW in the DISCO. DJs Big Brown, Sex with Robots, Sleepy Genius, Brandon Peck and more. Discovery Nightclub, 9 p.m., $10. 1021 Jessie Road. 501-664-4784. www.latenightdisco.com. Hot Water Hills Music and Arts Festival. See Oct. 4. Jabee. Vino’s. 923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. www. vinosbrewpub.com. Jam Rock Saturday. Twelve Modern Lounge, first Saturday of every month, 9 p.m. 1900 W. Third St. 501-301-1200. Jeff Coleman. Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave. 501-324-2999. www.sonnywilliamssteakroom.com. The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9 p.m., $15. 107 Commerce St. 501-372-7707. www.stickyz.com. K.I.S.S. Saturdays. Featuring DJ Silky Slim. Dress code enforced. Sway, 10 p.m. 412 Louisiana. 501-492-9802. Magic Mouth, Bonnie Montgomery. White Water Tavern, 9:30 p.m. 2500 W. 7th St. 501-3758400. www.whitewatertavern.com. New Era Saturdays. 21-and-older. Twelve Modern Lounge, first Saturday of every month, 9 p.m., $5 cover until 11 p.m. 1900 W. Third St. 501-301-1200. Pickin’ Porch. Bring your instrument. All ages welcome. Faulkner County Library, 9:30 a.m. 1900 Tyler St., Conway. 501-327-7482. www.fcl.org. Sheldon Wheaton, Mateo, Matt Sammons, Dave Lovett. Willy D’s Dueling Piano Bar. 322 President Clinton Ave. 501-244-9550. www.willydspianobar.com. Singer/Songwriters Showcase. Parrot Beach Cafe, 2-7 p.m., free. 9611 MacArthur Drive, NLR. 771-2994. Smokin’ Joe Kubek, B’Nois King. Juanita’s, 10 p.m., $12 adv., $15 day of. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www.juanitas.com. Spoken Nerd, Crisco Kids, Bagheera. Downtown Music Hall, 8 p.m. 211 W. Capitol. 501-376-1819. downtownmusichall.com. Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 9 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-374-7474. www.capitalhotel.com/CBG.

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OCTOBER 3, 2013

35


AFTER DARK, CONT.

DANCE

“At the Barre” studio performance. See Oct. 4. Little Rock West Coast Dance Club. Dance lessons. Singles welcome. Ernie Biggs, 7 p.m., $2. 307 Clinton Ave. 501-247-5240. www. arstreetswing.com.

EVENTS

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2013 Little Rock Pride Parade. Downtown Little Rock, 2 p.m. Downtown. 45th Annual Hot Springs Arts and Crafts Fair. See Oct. 4. 7th Annual Mane Event. Live music and silent auction. Benefits Beyond Boundaries, an equine assisted therapy facility in Ward. www.beyondboundariesar.com for more information. River Market Pavilions, 7-11 p.m., $45 single, $75 couple. 400 President Clinton Ave. 375-2552. www.rivermarket.info. Annual Herb Harvest Fall Festival. See Oct. 4. Argenta Farmers Market. Argenta, 7 a.m.-noon. Main Street, NLR. Conway ArtsFest. See Oct. 3. “Everybody’s Able” Celebration. With a parade, booths and activities celebrating equality and inclusiveness. Arkansas State University at Mountain Home, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. 1600 S. College Ave., Mountain Home. Falun Gong meditation. Allsopp Park, 9 a.m., free. Cantrell & Cedar Hill Roads. Farmer’s Market West. Fall market selling local produce from four farms. Hours 1-7 pm. The Promenade at Chenal, 1 p.m. 17711 Chenal Parkway. 501-821-5552. chenalshopping.com. Haunted Springs Paranormal Fest. See Oct. 4. Hillcrest Farmers Market. Pulaski Heights Baptist Church, 7 a.m.-2 p.m. 2200 Kavanaugh Blvd. “Lights! Camera! Arkansas!” Family Day. Family activities based on the museum’s exhibit. Old State House Museum, 9:30 a.m.-1 p.m. 500 Clinton Ave. 501-324-9685. www.oldstatehouse. com. Little Rock Farmers Market. River Market Pavilions, 7 a.m. 400 President Clinton Ave. 3752552. www.rivermarket.info. Main Street Food Truck Festival. With more than 30 food vendors, Etsy Little Rock craft vendors, beer gardens, a Heifer International children’s plaza, local musicians and artists and more. Main Street, Little Rock, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Main St.

SPORTS

2013 Arkansas Senior Olympics. See Oct. 3.

CLASSES

Storytelling through Collage. Children’s workshop. Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, 1-5 p.m. 600 Museum Way, Bentonville. 479-4185700. crystalbridges.org. Traditional Chinese Tea Ceremony class. Presented by UCA’s Confucius Institute. Seating is limited; 501-327-7482 to register. Faulkner County Library, 2 p.m. 1900 Tyler St., Conway. 501-327-7482. www.fcl.org.

SUNDAY, OCT. 6

MUSIC

Afroman. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9 p.m., $15. 519 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-442-4226. Irish Traditional Music Session. Hibernia Irish Tavern, first and third Sunday of every month, 2:30 p.m.; Dec. 29, 2:30 p.m. 9700 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-246-4340. www.hiberniairishtavern.com. Matt Wertz. Juanita’s, 8 p.m., $12 adv., $15 day of. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www.juanitas.com. Michael Eubanks. Lone Star Steakhouse and 36

OCTOBER 3, 2013

ARKANSAS TIMES

Saloon, 7 p.m. 10901 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-227-8898. www.lonestarsteakhouse.com. Natural State Brass Band. Immanuel Baptist Church, 3 p.m. 501 N. Shackelford Rd. Reggae Sundays with First Impressions. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 7:30 p.m., $5. 107 Commerce St. 501-372-7707. www.stickyz.com. Stardust Big Band. Arlington Hotel, 3 p.m. 239 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 501-623-7771.

DANCE

“Movement for Life Dance-a-thon.” Salsa, Zumba, hip hop, line dancing and more. Benefits Race for the Cure. Pyramid Art Books and Custom Framing, 4-7 p.m. 1001 Wright Ave. 501-372-6822. hearnefineart.com.

EVENTS

45th Annual Hot Springs Arts and Crafts Fair. See Oct. 4. Bernice Garden Farmers Market. The Bernice Garden, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. 1401 S. Main St. www. thebernicegarden.org. “The Big Dam Show at the Big Dam Bridge.” River City Dub Club annual car show to benefit the Humane Society of Pulaski County. www. thebigdamdubshow.com for more information. Big Dam Bridge, NLR Side, 8 a.m.-3 p.m. 4000 Cooks Landing Rd., NLR. Haunted Springs Paranormal Fest. See Oct. 4. “Live from the Back Room.” Spoken word event. Vino’s, 7 p.m. 923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. www. vinosbrewpub.com. Oktoberfest. With German buffet, best costume contest and cash drawing. Oaklawn, 5-10 p.m. 2705 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 501-623-4411. www.oaklawn.com.

SPORTS

2013 Arkansas Senior Olympics. See Oct. 3.

MONDAY, OCT. 7

MUSIC

Valerie June. With Matrimony, Steve Hester, Deja Voo Doo. Juanita’s, 8 p.m., $8 adv., $10 day of. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www. juanitas.com.

EVENTS

Political Animals Club: Congressman Tom Cotton. Breakfast will be served. The Little Rock Club, 7-8:15 a.m., $20. 400 W. Capitol, 30th Floor.

FILM

“Capital.” Part of the GATHR film series, the power struggle between a giant European investment bank and the American hedge fund that tries to take it over. Market Street Cinema, 7 p.m., $10. 1521 Merrill Drive. 501-312-8900. www.marketstreetcinema.net.

LECTURES

“Surviving H1N1.” Atkins native Luke Duvall tells his story. Clinton School of Public Service, 6 p.m. 1200 President Clinton Ave. 501-683-5239. www. clintonschool.uasys.edu.

SPORTS

Little Rock Touchdown Club: Clint Conque. Embassy Suites, 11 a.m., $20 members, $30 nonmembers. 11301 Financial Centre. 501-312-9000.

TUESDAY, OCT. 8

MUSIC

Cantus. Christ Episcopal Church, 7:30 p.m., $10$20. Christ Episcopal Church, 7:30 p.m., $10-$20. 509 Scott St. 501-375-2342. Duckstronaut, Collin Vs. Adam. White Water


AFTER DARK, CONT. Tavern, 9:30 p.m. 2500 W. 7th St. 501-375-8400. www.whitewatertavern.com. Irish Traditional Music Sessions. Hibernia Irish Tavern, second and Fourth Tuesday of every month, 7-9 p.m. 9700 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-246-4340. www.hiberniairishtavern.com. Jim Dickerson. Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave. 501-324-2999. www.sonnywilliamssteakroom.com. Lucious Spiller Band. Copeland’s Restaurant of Little Rock, 6-9 p.m. 2602 S. Shackleford Road. 501-312-1616. www.copelandsrestaurantlittlerock. com. Mike Dillon Band. George’s Majestic Lounge. 519 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-442-4226. Open Mic Night. The Joint, 8-11 p.m., free. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com. Ricky David Tripp. Rocket Twenty One, 5:30 p.m. 2601 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-603-9208. www.ferneaurestaurant.com. Ringworm. Downtown Music Hall, 7 p.m., $10. 211 W. Capitol. 501-376-1819. downtownmusichall.com. Sheldon Wheaton, Matt Sammons. Willy D’s Dueling Piano Bar. 322 President Clinton Ave. 501-244-9550. www.willydspianobar.com. Silversun Pickups, Electric Guest. Juanita’s, 9 p.m., $30 adv., $35 day of. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www.juanitas.com. Tuesday Jam Session with Carl Mouton. The Afterthought, 8 p.m., free. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbar.com.

DANCE

“Latin Night.” Revolution, 7:30 p.m., $5 regular, $7 under 21. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-8230090. www.littlerocksalsa.com.

Paul Taylor Dance Company. Reynolds Performance Hall, UCA, 7:30 p.m., $30-$40. 350 S. Donaghey, Conway.

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 9

EVENTS

Acoustic Open Mic. The Afterthought, 8 p.m., free. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www. afterthoughtbar.com. Billy Joe Shaver. With Bonnie Montgomery. White Water Tavern, 8 p.m., $25 adv., $30 day of. 2500 W. 7th St. 501-375-8400. www.whitewatertavern.com. Electric Six. With My Jerusalem and Flaming Death Faeries. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 8:30 p.m., $10 adv., $12 day of. 107 Commerce St. 501-372-7707. www.stickyz.com. Fire and Brimstone. Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf.com. Jim Dickerson. Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave. 501-324-2999. www.sonnywilliamssteakroom.com. Mary Lambert. Hendrix College, 8 p.m. 1600 Washington Ave., Conway. www.hendrix.edu. Ricky David Tripp. Rocket Twenty One, 5:30 p.m. 2601 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-603-9208. www.ferneaurestaurant.com. Shooter Jennings and Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band. With Leopold and His Fiction. Revolution, 8:30 p.m., $17 adv., $20 day of. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. revroom.com. Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 7:30 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-374-7474. www.capitalhotel.com/CBG.

Little Rock Farmers Market. River Market Pavilions, 7 a.m. 400 President Clinton Ave. 3752552. www.rivermarket.info. Little Rock Green Drinks. Informal networking session for people who work in the environmental field. Ciao Baci, 5:30-7 p.m. 605 N. Beechwood St. 501-603-0238. www.greendrinks. org. Tales from the South. Authors tell true stories; schedule available on website. Dinner served 5-6:30 p.m., show at 7 p.m. Call for reservations. Starving Artist Cafe, 5 p.m. 411 N. Main St., NLR. 501-372-7976. www.starvingartistcafe.net. “Tales of the Crypt.” Mount Holly Cemetery, 5:30-8:30 p.m., free, donations accepted. 1200 Broadway. Trivia Bowl. Flying Saucer, 8:30 p.m. 323 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-8032. www.beerknurd.com/ stores/littlerock.

LECTURES

“Social Entrepreneurs: Doing Well by Doing Good. With Matt Flannery, CEO of Kiva, and a panel of Arkansas social enterprise leaders. Clinton School of Public Service, 3-6 p.m. 1200 President Clinton Ave. 501-683-5239. www.clintonschool.uasys.edu.

BENEFITS

“Night to be GREAT.” Justin Moore performs, dinner and silent auction. Benefits the Boys and Girls Club of Saline County. Benton Event Center, 6 p.m., $75. 17324 I-30 North.

MUSIC

COMEDY

The Joint Venture. Improv comedy group. The Joint, 8 p.m., $5. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com. The Sandman. The Loony Bin, Oct. 9-10, 7:30 p.m., $8. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-228-5555.

www.loonybincomedy.com. Standup Open Mic Night. Hosted by local come­ di­ans of the com­edy col­lec­tive Come­di­ans of NWA. UARK Bowl, 9 p.m., free. 644 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-301-2030. uarkbowl.com.

DANCE

Little Rock Bop Club. Beginning dance lessons for ages 10 and older. Singles welcome. Bess Chisum Stephens Community Center, 7 p.m., $4 for members, $7 for guests. 12th & Cleveland streets. 501-350-4712. www.littlerockbopclub.

LECTURES

“Boston Marathon Bombing and Lessons Learned.” With Watertown Chief of Police Ed Deveau. Clinton School of Public Service, 6 p.m. 1200 President Clinton Ave. 501-683-5239. www. clintonschool.uasys.edu.

POETRY

Rocktown Slam. Sign up at the door to perform in the competition. Arkansas Arts Center, 7 p.m.-9 p.m., $5-$10. 501 E. 9th St. 501-372-4000. www. arkarts.com. Wednesday Night Poetry. 21-and-older show. Maxine’s, 7 p.m., free. 700 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 501-321-0909. maxineslive.com/shows. html.

CLASSES

“Evaluating and Conserving Natural Assets” workshop. Learn land planning strategy and natural asset evaluation. Includes lunch. River Market Pavilions, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., $25 for members, $40 for non-members. 400 President Clinton Ave. 375-2552. www.rivermarket.info. CONTINUED ON PAGE 38

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OCTOBER 3, 2013

37


Featuring works of art from ArtGroup Maumelle. 521 President Clinton Ave. River Market District (501) 975-9800

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Free parking at 3rd Proud to be a & Cumberland JOIN US TO new stop at the Free street parking Arkansas Times 2nd CELEBRATE! all over downtown Friday Art Night and behind the 5-8PM Downtown Little Rock River Market 300 River Market Ave, LOWFIDELITY FIDELITYLOGO LOGO [RED] LOWFIDELITY FIDELITY LOGO [BLUE] [RED] LOW LOGO [BLUE] (PaidLOW parking  Fine Art Ste 105 available for  Cocktails & Wine The Low Fidelity logos meant to provide a& more efficient and cost effective variation. Find Us On **** The Low Fidelity logos areare meant toFacebook provide a more efficient and cost effective variation. recommend that these variations used printing and stamp applications. Instagram modest fee.) **** WeWe recommend that these variations bebe used forfor printing and allall stamp applications.  Hor d’oeuvres

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38 OCTOber 3, 2013

ARKANSAS TIMES

Pyramid Place New Featured Artist: 2nd & Center St Jennifer ‘EMILE’ Freeman (501) 801-0211 “HOT SEAT ” BYUs 5-8pm Join

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FOOD TRUCKS, CONT.

MOVIE REVIEW

Le Pops. Summer is slowly fading away, but there’s still nothing quite as refreshing as a frozen treat from Le Pops. No one does ice pops at this level in these parts. Committed to using local fruits and berries whenever possible, the Le Pops people have created a product that’s simple and pure. Look out for the sweet and slightly sour strawberry-balsamic or creamy salted caramel. Truthfully, there’s not a bad pop in the pack. Lobolly. Not content with merely selling and scooping from their South Main Street parlor in the Green Corner Store, the Loblolly team regularly takes their artisanal small-batch ice cream to the streets. You’ll find them selling their unparalleled product by the pint, and they’ll also have a selection of handcrafted sodas, lemonades, and teas, each using only natural cane sugar. What flavors should you expect? Chances are if it’s in season, you’ll find Loblolly incorporating it into their products.

LE POPS

o F t

De d a ss er

t!

a e r

an

G ‘DON JON’: Scarlett Johansson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt star.

Let’s talk about sex ‘Don Jon’ delves into porn addiction. BY SAM EIFLING

F

or a directorial and screenwriting debut, Joseph Gordon-Levitt scarcely could’ve gone more gonzo than “Don Jon” and still opened in 2,400 theaters. Explicitly (and yes, it’s explicit) “Don Jon” is a romantic comedy about porn addiction, in which a young man who has no problem bedding just about any lady he notices at the club still prefers digital dames. Implicitly it’s about fantasy and about control, and what happens when you no longer control your fantasies of control. This is all heavier fare than your typical date movie. It has probably already traumatized thousands of couples, for the better. Early on the titular Lothario (played by Gordon-Levitt like a screen test for a “Sopranos” henchman) lays out a compelling case as to why the fantasy trumps the reality, even when the reality imitates an Axe body spray commercial. Mostly his bedroom complaints come down to the various chores a gentleman is expected to do with his mouth, and the onerous lameness of boinking like missionaries, and the pesky confines of prophylactics, and the rote depositing of his raw genetic material in same. To Jon, the porn fantasy is at once more wild and less messy, and for a guy who keeps his apartment as fastidiously clean as he keeps his browsing history filthy, neither of these are minor points. As typically happens in this subgenre (Box Office Mojo dubs it “womanizer / cad / player”) our hero runs across A Woman Who Changes Everything, here in the earthly form of Scarlett Johansson, an eye-shadow aficionada who enjoys sappy romance films and whom Jon describes as the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. As Jon is a highly visual creature, this leads him to fall in love with

her instantly. When he takes her home to meet the parents (Tony Danza, gratingly, and Glenne Headly, with desperation), she tops the charts: Mom sees her as a family type, and Dad sees her as a slab of meat sporting the measurements of Scarlett Johansson. The girlfriend cajoles Jon to go back to school, to pick out curtains with her. Jon, though, can’t quit the porn habit. She walks in on him, he begins a self-destructive series of cover-up moves, and things get worse before they get better, no matter how many Lord’s Prayers he mutters while doing chin-ups. His recovery is set in motion after meeting a fragile, blunt fellow student (Julianne Moore, 21 years Gordon-Levitt’s elder) in his night class. She asks him questions that eventually form the moral core to “Don Jon,” which despite its threadbare patches — some uneven performances, an overreliance on its lead character, a too-brisk third act — manages to sneak some vitamins into what could’ve been just voyeuristic scolding. When does any vice go from being that thing we use to get through the day to becoming poison? That could be smut or smokes or wine or “Call of Duty 4” or texting or jogging or Facebook or sci-fi novels or plastic surgery or prayer or eBay or yoga or any of the other one zillion things that allow human beings to check out for a while that can metastasize into semi-permanent vacations from reality. For Jon, change means relinquishing control. As it probably does for lots of people. “Don Jon” settles on a happy ending (of course). But unlike many of its rom-com brethren, it arrives by unsettling means, and rather than overhauling its protagonist, it brings him to a place where he can be more himself, brightly. Gordon-Levitt is 32 years old, and this amounts to an impressive piece of work.

FR EE

KBird. Thailand boasts some of the finest roadside eats on the planet. Fortunately for Arkansas, kBird is doing their darnedest to bring an authentic taste of Thailand to our streets. Here you’ll find a respectable version of pad Thai, red or green curry, fried rice, and more. They’re dishes decorated with the incomparable seasonings and spices of Thai cuisine — basil, hot peppers, peanut, coconut milk, and lemongrass. Just be sure to save some stomach space for their popular ginger cookies for dessert.

d o

NE NEW W M O e w n nu er ! s!

excellent food from the truck allowed them to move into more permanent digs, but they’ve kept the truck, and everyone attending this year’s festival will be happy they did.

FREE DESSERT with your entreé purchase in the restaurant Good through 10.31.2013

Enjoy DINNER in either the restaurant or bar Sat & Sun BRUNCH, 10-2 LUNCH Mon-Fri, 11-2

Live Music in the Bar Mon-Sat Nights Thursday, October 3 First Thursday in Hillcrest Freeverse, 8 pm, No cover Friday, October 4 The Nobility with Isaac Alexander 9 pm, No cover Saturday, October 5 Razorback game on the TVs and live music after

2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. Little Rock

501.663.1196 afterthoughtbistroandbar.com www.arktimes.com

OCTOBER 3, 2013

39


AFTER DARK, CONT.

THIS WEEK IN THEATER

“4,000 Miles.” A 21-year-old college dropout named Leo and his 91-year-old communist grandmother find a way to live together in her Greenwich Village apartment. Walton Arts Center’s Nadine Baum Studios, through Oct. 13: Thu.-Sat., 7:30 p.m.; Sun., 2 and 7 p.m., $10-$24. 505 W. Spring St., Fayetteville. 479-443-5600. theatre2.org. “Dial M For Murder.” A whodunit inspired by the Hitchcock thriller starring Grace Kelly. Murry’s Dinner Playhouse, through Oct. 27: Tue.-Sat., 6 p.m.; Wed., 11 a.m.; Sun., 11 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., $15-$35. 6323 Col. Glenn Road. 501-562-3131. murrysdinnerplayhouse.com. “Dracula.” New adaption of the Bram Stoker novel by Steven Dietz. Special midnight

showing on Oct. 5. The Fowler Center, through Oct. 9: Mon.-Wed., 7:30 p.m.; Sat., Oct. 5, 12 a.m., $8 adv., $10 day of. 201 Olympic Drive, Jonesboro. 870-972-3471. www.yourfowlercenter.com. “Nora.” Ingmar Bergman’s interpretation of Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House.” The Weekend Theater, through Oct. 19: Fri., Sat., 7:30 p.m., $12-$16. 1001 W. 7th St. 501-374-3761. www. weekendtheater.org. “Pinkalicious The Musical.” The story of a little girl whose obsession with the color pink goes a little too far. Arkansas Arts Center, through Oct. 6: Fri., 7 p.m.; Sat., Sun., 2 p.m., $12.50. 501 E. 9th St. 501-372-4000. www. arkarts.com. “Tuna Does Vegas.” A conservative radio host and his wife renew their vows in Vegas,

a small Texas town comes along for the ride, hilarity ensues. Murry’s Dinner Playhouse, through Oct. 5: Tue.-Sat., 6 p.m., $15-$35. 6323 Col. Glenn Road. 501-562-3131. murrysdinnerplayhouse.com. “The Ugly Ducking” and “The Tortoise and the Hare.” In conjunction with Conway ArtsFest, Lightwire Theatre presents updated tellings of these two classic tales. Reynolds Performance Hall, UCA, Sat., Oct. 5, 10 a.m., $5-$10. 350 S. Donaghey, Conway. “Wicked.” Return of the popular Broadway musical, telling the story of Oz before Dorothy’s arrival. Robinson Center Music Hall, through Oct. 5: Tue.-Thu., Sun., 7:30 p.m.; Thu., Sat., Sun., 2 p.m.; Fri., Sat., 8 p.m., $43-$144. Markham and Broadway. www.littlerockmeetings.com/conv-centers/robinson.

GALLERIES, MUSEUMS

NEW EXHIBITIONS, EVENTS

New exhibits in bold-faced type. BOSWELL MOUROT FINE ART, 5815 Kavanaugh Blvd.: “Familiar Places, Unknown Destinations,” paintings in acrylics and pastels by Elizabeth Weber and Virmarie DePoyster, opens with reception 6-9 p.m. Oct. 4, show through Nov. 2. 664-0030. HEARNE FINE ART, 1001 Wright Ave.: “Visions of 7 Self-Taught Artists,” works by Melverue Abraham, Clementine Hunter, Sylvester McKissick, W. Earl Robinson Clemente Flores, Alonzo Ford, and Kennith Humphrey, through Nov. 19. McKissack, Abraham, Robinson and Ford will give a talk at 1 p.m. Oct. 5. 372-6822. THEA FOUNDATION, 401 Main St., NLR: “Drawing a Line: 30 Years of Cartoons and Illustrations by John Deering,” opens with reception 7-9 p.m. Oct. 4, show through Oct. 18. 379-9512. BENTONVILLE CRYSTAL BRIDGES MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART: Concert by the Cassatt String Quartet with composer Bruce Adolphe, accompanied by projected images of Mary Cassatt’s work, 6:30-8 p.m. Oct. 4, $10 non-members, free to members. Reserve at shop.crystalbridges.org/events.aspx. FAYETTEVILLE THE DEPOT, 548 W. Dickson St.: “Continuum,” paintings by Kathy P. Thompson, “Reclaimed ... Old to new and Back Again,” encaustic with photographs by Cindy Arsaga, through Nov. 2, reception 6-9 p.m. Oct. 3, First Thursday in Fayetteville. CONWAY CONWAY ARTSFEST, Simon Park: “Capture the Light” photography exhibit by Conway Photography Club, through Oct. 5, Conway City Hall; Conway League of Artists Display, Kordsmeier Storefront, Chestnut and Oak, through Oct. 5; installation of interactive sculptures “Chandelier Harps” and “The Pool” by Jen Lewin, 5 p.m. Oct. 3, Baum Gallery, UCA, lecture by Lewin 1:30 p.m. Oct. 3; Conway Schools Art Exhibit, Oct. 4-5, American Management Corp., 824 Front St.; ArtsFest Marketplace, 11 a.m. Oct. 5. www.artsfestconway.com. HOT SPRINGS ARTISTS’ WORKSHOP GALLERY, 810 Central Ave.: John Keller, oils; Jim Oberst, watercolors, through October, open 5-9 p.m. Oct. 4, Gallery Walk. 501-623-6401. BLUE MOON GALLERY, 718 Central Ave.: “A la France et de retour,” photographs by David Rackley, through October, open 5-9 p.m. Oct. 4, Gallery Walk. 501-318-2787. GARLAND COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS: “45th Annual Hot Springs Arts and Crafts Fair,” more than 250 exhibitors, 9 a.m. 5 p.m. Oct. Oct. 4-5, noon-5 p.m. Oct. 6. 501-623-9592. GARVAN GARDENS, 550 Akridge Road: “Traditional Art Guild Art Exhibit,” through October. $10 adults, $9 seniors, $5 children, $5 dogs on leash. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. daily. 501-262-9300. JUSTUS FINE ART, 827 Central Ave.: Work by Rene Hein, Dolores Justus, Emily Wood and others. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.-Sat. Open 5-9 p.m. Oct. 4, Gallery Walk. 501-321-2335. JONESBORO ARKANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY: “Mothers and Daughters: Family Portraits,” paintings by Gaela Erwin, Fine Arts Center, through Oct. 25, gallery talk 3 p.m. Oct. 24; “2013 Faculty Biennial,” Oct. 10-Nov. 13. 870-972-3050.

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AFTER DARK, CONT. RUSSELLVILLE ARKANSAS TECH UNIVERSITY: “Dreams and Disasters,” new work by David Bailin, Norman Hall Art Gallery, Oct. 3-30, opening reception 2:303:30 p.m. Oct. 7. 8:30 a.m.-noon and 1-4:30 p.m. Mon.-Fri. 479-964-3237. RIVER VALLEY ARTS CENTER, 1001 E. B St.: Gloria and Bill Garrison, paintings, opens with reception 1-3 p.m. Oct. 6. 479-968-2452.

CALL FOR ENTRIES

The Fort Smith Regional Art Museum is accepting entries for its “Portraits of Hope” exhibition Oct. 24-Nov. 30. All proceeds from sales will benefit the Ozark Affiliate of the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Entries will be accepted through Oct. 13. Call 479-784-2787 for more information. The Palette Art League is accepting entries from artists of all ages to Yellville’s annual Turkey Trot Festival’s art show and competition. Entries will be accepted between noon and 5 p.m. Oct. 10 and will be exhibited until 4:30 p.m. Oct. 12. There will be an entry fee. For more information go to www.paletteartleague.org or call 870-656-2057. The Art League is also inviting quilters, artists and artisans to take part in the 1st Annual Quilt and Artisan Bazaar to be held throughout November at the P.A.L.’s Fine Art Gallery, 300 Hwy. 62 W in Yellville. Applications, available on the website, are due by Oct. 15. The Thea Foundation has opened registration for Thea scholarships for high school students in visual arts, creative writing, film, poetry, performing arts and (a new category) dress design at www.theafoundation.org/scholarships. A total of $80,000 in scholarships will be awarded to 30 students. For more information, call 375-9512.

CONTINUING EXHIBITS

ARKANSAS ARTS CENTER, MacArthur Park: “50 Works / 50 Weeks / 50 Years,” Alice Pratt Brown Atrium, through 2013; “Ryan Sniegocki: Museum School Ceramic Artist in Residence,” pottery; “Interwoven,” works on paper and crafts from the permanent collection, through Nov. 17. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat., 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun. 372-4000. BUTLER CENTER GALLERIES, Arkansas Studies Institute, 401 President Clinton Ave.: “Abstract AR(t),” work by Dustyn Bork, Megan Chapman, Donnie Copeland, Don Lee, Jill Storthz and Steven Wise, through Nov. 23; “Mid-Southern Watercolorists 43rd Annual Juried Exhibition,” through Oct. 27. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Sat. 320-5700. CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 509 Scott St.: Paintings from the Arkansas League of Artists and Local Colour. COX CREATIVE CENTER, 120 River Market Ave.: “Equinox,” works by artists published in UALR’s journal of literature and art. 918-3093. THE EDGE, 301B President Clinton Ave.: Paintings by Avila (Fernando Gomez), Eric Freeman, James Hayes, Jerry Colburn, St. Joseph Thomason and Stephen Drive. 992-1099. GALLERY 221 & ART STUDIOS 221, Pyramid Place: “Rockstars & Razorbacks: A Tribute to Life and Liberty,” work by Tyler Arnold; also work by EMILE, Kathi Crouch and others. 801-0211. GALLERY 26, 2601 Kavanaugh Blvd.: “Mapping the Darkness,” photographs by Ray Chanslor and Rita Henry, photographs and drawings by Betsy Emil, through Oct. 26. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Sat. 664-8996. LAMAN LIBRARY, 2801 Orange St.: “Recovery: The World Trade Center Recovery Operation,” 65 photographs and 56 recovered artifacts from the 911 attack, from the New York State Museum, through Dec. 1. 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Mon.-Thu., 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat. 758-1720. PAINT BOX GALLERY, 705 Main St., NLR: Oneyear anniversary celebration with work by Anne K.

Lyon, Tad Price, Phil Leonard, Maura Miller, Dan Bowe and Ali Stinespring, prints from Rogers Photo Archives. 374-2848. STEPHANO’S I, 5501 Kavanaugh: Paintings and sculpture by new gallery artists by Morgan Coven and Marianne Hennigar. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat. 664-7113. STEPHANO’S II, BA Framer, 1813 N. Grant St.: Kristin Eyfell, paintings, through Oct. 6. 661-0687. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK, 2801 S. University: “Poetic Transformation 8: Contemporary Works in Small Metals,” wearable objects and sculptural objects, Gallery I, through Oct. 2. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri., also, after Labor Day, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Sat., 2-5 p.m. Sun. 569-3182. BENTONVILLE CRYSTAL BRIDGES MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, One Museum Way: “This Land: Picturing a Changing America in the 1930s and 1940s,” 44 paintings, prints and photographs with digital audio tour featuring musical selections by Fayetteville Roots Festival director Bryan Hembree, through Jan. 6; permanent collection of American masterworks spanning four centuries. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon., Thu., Sat.-Sun.; 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Wed.-Fri. 479-418-5700. CONWAY UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL ARKANSAS, Baum Gallery: “Nature/Nurture,” photographs by Jennifer Shaw; “Angle of Repose,” photographs by Maysey Craddock; “Artistic Eye: Works from the Personal Collections of the Art Faculty,” through Oct. 27. McCastlain Hall 143. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.Fri., 10-7 p.m. Thu., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 501-450-5793.

ONGOING MUSEUM EXHIBITS

CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL MUSEUM VISITOR CENTER, Bates and Park: Exhibits on the 1957 desegregation of Central and the civil rights movement. 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. daily. 374-1957. CLINTON PRESIDENTIAL CENTER, 1200 President Clinton Ave.: “And Freedom for All: the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom,” photographs by Stanley Tretick of the 1963 march, through Nov. 17; “Oscar de la Renta: American Icon,” designs worn by Laura Bush, Jessica Chastain, Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton and others, and other couture pieces, through Dec. 1. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. $7 adults; $5 college students, seniors, retired military; $3 ages 6-17. 370-8000. ESSE, 1510 S. Main St.: “What’s Inside: A Century of Women and Handbags (1900-1999),” purses from the collection of Anita Davis, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tue.-Sun., $10-$8. 916-9022. HISTORIC ARKANSAS MUSEUM, 200 E. Third St.: “Reflections from the Monday Studio Artists,” work by Hot Springs Village artists Shirley R. Anderson, Barbara Seibel, Sue Shields and Caryl Joy Young, through Nov. 3; “Heeding the Call: The Firefighter Collection of Johnny Reep,” through Jan. 5; “The Sense of Nature: David Mudrinich, John Van Horn and Judy Wright Walter,” through Oct. 6; “Jason A. Smith: Stills”; “Arkansas Made,” ongoing. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 324-9351. MacARTHUR MUSEUM OF ARKANSAS MILITARY HISTORY, MacArthur Park: “The Colors That Bind: Regimental Flags of the 3rd Iowa Cavalry and the 37th Arkansas Infantry,” through Oct. 19. 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-4 p.m. Sun. 376-4602. MUSEUM OF DISCOVERY, 500 President Clinton Ave.: “Wiggle Worms,” science program for pre-K children 10 a.m.-10:30 a.m. every Tue., 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun., $10 ages 13 and older, $8 ages 1-12, free to members and children under 1. 396-7050.

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Dining WHAT’S COOKIN’ The Arkansas Times has organized another farm-to-table dinner, this one featuring Butcher & Public’s Travis McConnell, former chef at the Capital Bar and Grill. It’s Oct. 19 at the Historic Arkansas Museum, and it starts at 6 p.m. Tickets are $95 for food and drink aplenty, plus Arkansas music. You need to reserve by Oct. 16. Menu: Lamb tartare and pickled deviled eggs; fire roasted lamb with chilies, herbs and olive oil; pumpkin and shiitake mushroom stew, Arkansas dirty brown rice; local mixed greens with carrot and buttermilk and black pepper dressing; miche rustic bread from Arkansas Fresh Bakery, and Loblolly Creamery Ice Cream. Champagne, red and white wine and Goose Island Beer will be served all evening. Call or email Kelly Lyles at 492-3979 or kellylyles@arktimes.com to reserve a seat. ATTENTION THOSE WITH ASBESTOS TONGUES and cast iron stomachs: The Root Cafe will host the second annual Little Rock Hot Pepper Eating Contest from 4 to 6 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 13. A dozen gluttons for punishment will square off to chew and swallow a number of hot peppers grown by Doug Smith (no, not that Doug Smith) at Dunbar Gardens, including such soul-destroyers as the Trinidad Scorpion, the Bhut Jolokia (a.k.a. — the Ghost Pepper), and the world record holder for hotness, the Carolina Reaper. What? No Guatemalan Insanity Pepper? The event is free and open to the public. Would-be contestants can register at the Root Cafe for a $10 registration fee. If you don’t chicken out and show up for the contest, the sawbuck will be returned to you. Cash and other prizes for the winners. Johnny Cash says: Watch out for that fiery ring the next day.

DINING CAPSULES

LITTLE ROCK/ N. LITTLE ROCK

AMERICAN

1620 SAVOY The revamping of this enduring West Little Rock landmark restaurant has breathed considerable new life into 1620 Savoy. It’s a very different look and feel than the original, and the food is still high-quality and painstakingly prepared — a wide-ranging dinner menu that’s sure to please almost everyone. 1620 Market St. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-2211620. D Mon.-Sat., BR Sun. ADAMS CATFISH & CATERING Catering company with carry-out restaurant in Little Rock and carry-out trailers in Russellville and Perryville. 215 N. Cross St. All CC. $-$$. 501-3744265. L Tue.-Sat. 42

OCTOBER 3, 2013

ARKANSAS TIMES

LOTS OF PHO: A bowl of Pho Tai from Mike’s Cafe Vietnamese.

Avoiding the heat Mike’s Vietnamese shows promise, but needs spice.

W

hen a green awning advertising “Mike’s Vietnamese” went up outside a long-vacant restaurant on Asher Avenue last winter, we could barely contain our excitement. Unfortunately, the awning was something of a tease, as we passed by week after week with no sign that the place was ever going to open. Just when we thought the new place was just a dream, Mike’s finally opened its doors, promising authentic Vietnamese cuisine in a part of town that’s becoming known for its Asian food. After dining at Mike’s, we came away feeling like the initial tease and promise of that green awning still hadn’t quite been fulfilled, because even though there was nothing overtly wrong with Mike’s Cafe, there wasn’t much about the menu that stood out, either. The menu at Mike’s is an extensive one with dishes listed by their Vietnamese names, something that can be overwhelming to a first-timer. The restaurant has anticipated this, however, providing thorough descriptions of each dish, as well as a handy number/letter combination ordering system that makes things easier for both the diner and the person taking the order. This system, along with some help from our friendly waitress, allowed us to pick the Vietnamese spring rolls known as Goi

Mike’s Cafe Vietnamese 5501 Asher Ave. 562-1515

QUICK BITE One area where Mike’s stands out is with its extensive menu of Asian-style coffees and teas. The Vietnamese coffee, a dark blend sweetened with condensed milk, is a luxurious pleasure. HOURS 11 a.m. until midnight daily. OTHER INFO All major CC accepted, beer.

Cuon ($2.95) for our appetizer, and in no time at all they were served right up. The large rice-paper wrapped rolls were filled with rice vermicelli, fresh cilantro, green onion and shrimp. The noodles were cooked perfectly, and we were quite impressed with the freshness of the vegetables, but the rolls were shy on the shrimp. The peanut dipping sauce helped, making these rolls a good start to our meal. Not wanting to leave a Vietnamese place without sampling the pho, a popular noodle soup, we ordered a bowl of Pho Tai ($6.95), a rare beef soup served with bean sprouts and Thai basil. This soup was the highlight of the meal, with a rich, slightly sweet broth that made the perfect foundation for the thin sliced

beef, chewy rice noodles, and fresh basil and sprouts. The soup arrived in a massive bowl, and even with two of us eating on it, we still managed to only eat about half of what was served. We decided that this was a perfect cold weather dish, vowing to return when the temperature dropped to warm ourselves over a bowl of this delicious broth and noodles. The pho was definitely memorable, but the same can’t be said for our other entrees. Wanting to sample one of the numerous seafood dishes on the menu, we went with the Tom Xao Sate ($6.95), a mixture of shrimp, onions, and green peppers in a spicy peanut sauce. The shrimp were nice and plump, if a touch overcooked and tough, but the flavor of the perfectly cooked onions made up for this quite well. Where the dish failed was with the sauce, which gave us only a hint of spice. It’s an ongoing trend of muted flavors we’ve found in many of our local Asian restaurants, as if the cooks at these establishments are pulling their punches in order to please bland American palates. Trust us: we can handle the heat, and would have liked to have seen more from this otherwise tasty dish. The same timid flavors struck again with our final dish, the Com Tam Dac Biet ($7.95), a massive plate of rice, pickled vegetables, Chinese sausage, a fried fish cake, and a grilled pork chop. There were definite good things about this plate, especially the tangy vegetables and the spicy hot and sweet sausage. The fish cake was crispy on the outside, but completely bland in the center, adding nothing but a bit of chewiness to the plate. The biggest disappointment was the pork chop, which didn’t taste like much and had an overabundance of gristle to boot. As a spot to grab a cheap lunch, Little Rock could do a lot worse than Mike’s Cafe. The restaurant is clean, the service is good, and the food arrived at our table in record time. People looking for a more intense authentic Vietnamese experience will probably leave the place disappointed, however, as the flavor profile at Mike’s is one replicated across numerous buffets and take-out places all around Central Arkansas. Here’s hoping Mike’s takes the hint and learns to trust that Little Rock can not only handle the spice — we crave it.


Information in our restaurant capsules reflects the opinions of the newspaper staff and its reviewers. The newspaper accepts no advertising or other considerations in exchange for reviews, which are conducted anonymously. We invite the opinions of readers who think we are in error.

ALL ABOARD RESTAURANT & GRILL Burgers, catfish, chicken tenders and such in this trainthemed restaurant, where an elaborately engineered mini-locomotive delivers patrons meals. 6813 Cantrell Road. No alcohol. 501-975-7401. LD daily. ALLEY OOPS The restaurant at Creekwood Plaza (near the Kanis-Bowman intersection) is a neighborhood feedbag for major medical institutions with the likes of plate lunches, burgers and homemade desserts. Remarkable Chess Pie. 11900 Kanis Road. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-221-9400. LD Mon.-Sat. BR Sun. ATHLETIC CLUB What could be mundane fare gets delightful twists and embellishments here. 11301 Financial Centre Parkway. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-312-9000. LD daily. B-SIDE The little breakfast place in the former party room of Lilly’s DimSum Then Some turns tradition on its ear, offering French toast wrapped in bacon on a stick, a must-have dish called “biscuit mountain” and beignets with lemon curd. Top notch cheese grits, too. 11121 Rodney Parham Road. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-716-2700. BL Wed.-Sun. BAR LOUIE This chain’s first Arkansas outlet features a something-for-everybody menu so broad and varied to be almost schizophrenic. 11525 Cantrell Road, Suite 924. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-228-0444. LD daily. 11525 Cantrell Road. 501-228-0444. BIG WHISKEY’S AMERICAN BAR AND GRILL A modern grill pub in the River Market with all the bells and whistles - 30 flat screen TVs, whiskey on tap, plus boneless wings, burgers, steaks, soups and salads. 225 E Markham St. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-324-2449. LD daily. BOBBY’S COUNTRY COOKIN’ One of the better plate lunch spots in the area, with some of the best fried chicken and pot roast around, a changing daily casserole and wonderful homemade pies. 301 N. Shackleford Road, Suite E1. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-224-9500. L Mon.-Fri. BOGIE’S BAR AND GRILL The former Bennigan’s retains a similar theme: a menu filled with burgers, salads and giant desserts, plus a few steak, fish and chicken main courses. There are big screen TVs for sports fans and lots to drink, more reason to return than the food. 120 W. Pershing Blvd. NLR. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-812-0019. D daily. BOOKENDS CAFE A great spot to enjoy lunch with friends or a casual cup of coffee and a favorite book. Serving coffee and pastries early and sandwiches, soups and salads available after 11 a.m. Cox Creative Center. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501- 918-3091. BL Mon.-Sat. THE BOX Cheeseburgers and French fries are greasy and wonderful and not like their fastfood cousins. 1023 W. Seventh St. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-372-8735. L Mon.-Fri. BUFFALO GRILL A great crispy-off-the-griddle cheeseburger and hand-cut fries star at this family-friendly stop. 1611 Rebsamen Park Road. Full bar, CC. $$. 501-296-9535. LD daily. CAFE 201 The hotel restaurant in the Crowne Plaza serves up a nice lunch buffet. 201 S. Shackleford Road. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-2233000. BLD Mon.-Sat., BR Sun.

BELLY UP

B Breakfast L Lunch D Dinner $ Inexpensive (under $8/person) $$ Moderate ($8-$20/person) $$$ Expensive (over $20/person) CC Accepts credit cards

Check out the Times’ food blog, Eat Arkansas arktimes.com

CATFISH CITY AND BBQ GRILL Basic fried fish and sides, including green tomato pickles, and now with tasty ribs and sandwiches in beef, pork and sausage. 1817 S. University Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-663-7224. LD Tue.-Sat. CHEERS Good burgers and sandwiches, vegetarian offerings and salads at lunch and fish specials, and good steaks in the evening. 2010 N. Van Buren. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-6635937. LD Mon.-Sat. 1901 Club Manor Drive. Maumelle. Full bar, All CC. 501-851-6200. LD daily, BR Sun. CHICKEN KING Arguably Central Arkansas’s best wings. 5213 W 65th St. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-562-5573. LD Mon.-Sat. CHICKEN WANG’S CAFE Regular, barbecue,

spicy, lemon, garlic pepper, honey mustard and Buffalo wings. Open late. 8320 Colonel Glenn Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-562-1303. LD Mon.-Sat. CORNERSTONE PUB & GRILL A sandwich, pizza and beer joint in the heart of North Little Rock’s Argenta district. 314 Main St. NLR. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-374-1782. LD Mon.-Sat. DAVE AND RAY’S DOWNTOWN DINER Breakfast buffet daily featuring biscuits and gravy, home fries, sausage and made-to-order omelets. Lunch buffet with four choices of meats and eight veggies. 824 W. Capitol Ave. No alcohol. $. 501-372-8816. BL Mon.-Fri. DAVID’S BUTCHER BOY BURGERS Serious hamburgers, steak salads, homemade custard.

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T

H

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DED R FA OS R E S TA U R A N T E

1619 Rebsamen Rd. 501-663-9734

great steak

LITTLE ROCK’S MOST AWARD WINNING RESTAURANT

101 S. Bowman Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-227-8333. LD Mon.-Sat. 4000 McCain Blvd. NLR. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-353-0387. LD Mon.-Sat. E’S BISTRO Despite the name, think tearoom rather than bistro — there’s no wine, for one thing, and there is tea. But there’s nothing tearoomy about the portions here. Try the heaping grilled salmon BLT on a buttery croissant. 3812 JFK Boulevard. NLR. No alcohol, All CC. $$. 501-771-6900. FLIGHT DECK A not-your-typical daily lunch special highlights this spot, which also features inventive sandwiches, salads and a popular burger. Central Flying Service at Adams Field. Beer, Wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-975-9315. BL Mon.-Sat. HILLCREST ARTISAN MEATS A fancy charcuterie and butcher shop with excellent daily soup and sandwich specials. Limited seating is available. 2807 Kavanaugh Blvd. Suite B. No alcohol, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-671-6328. L Mon.-Sat. THE HOP DINER The downtown incarnation of the old dairy bar, with excellent burgers, onion rings, shakes, daily specials and breakfast. 201 E. Markham. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-2440975. JASON’S DELI A huge selection of sandwiches (wraps, subs, po’ boys and pitas), salads and spuds, as well as red beans and rice and chicken pot pie. Plus a large selection of heart healthy and light dishes. 301 N. Shackleford Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-954-8700. BLD daily. JIMMY JOHN’S GOURMET SANDWICHES Illinois-based sandwich chain that doesn’t skimp on what’s between the buns. 4120 E. McCain Blvd. NLR. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-945-9500. LD daily. 700 South Broadway St. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-372-1600. LD daily. KITCHEN EXPRESS Delicious “meat and three” restaurant offering big servings of homemade soul food. Maybe Little Rock’s best fried chicken. 4600 Asher Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-666-3500. BLD Mon.-Sat., LD Sun. LASSIS INN One of the state’s oldest restaurants still in the same location and one of the best for catfish and buffalo fish. 518 E 27th St. Beer, Wine, All CC. $$. 501-372-8714. LD Tue.-Sat. LETTI’S CAKES Soups, sandwiches and salads available at this cake, pie and cupcake bakery. 3700 JFK Blvd. NLR. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-708-7203. LD (closes at 6 p.m.) Mon.-Fri. L Sat. LONE STAR STEAKHOUSE AND SALOON Dark imitation roadhouse, with cowboy paraphernalia and the soft glow of beer signs. Cowboys will feel at home with the beef, which is good enough, but more like range beef than the rich, marbled stuff of high-dollar steakhouses. Big salads, too. 10901 N. Rodney Parham Road. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-227-8898. LD daily. LYNN’S CHICAGO FOODS Outpost for Chicago specialties like Vienna hot dogs and Italian beef sandwiches. Plus, other familiar fare — burgers and fried catfish, chicken nuggets and wings. 6501 Geyer Springs. No alcohol, All CC. $. 501-568-2646. LD Mon.-Sat. CONTINUED ON PAGE 44 www.arktimes.com

OCTOBER 3, 2013

43


DINING CAPSULES, CONT. ADVERTISEMENT

hearsay ➥ BARBARA GRAVES

INTIMATE FASHIONS is celebrating its 40th anniversary with a sale: 40 percent off select sleep and casual wear, 25 percent off all bras and panties. ➥ TULIPS is also celebrating a birthday – it’s turning 11 with an event from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Oct. 3, which will feature giveaways, special discounts, food and more. ➥ CANTRELL GALLERY will host the exhibit, “Bill Lewis – Retrospective – 1932-2012”: an exhibit featuring watercolors and oil paintings, which will run through the end of the year. The opening night reception is from 6-8 p.m. Oct. 25; admission is free and this event is open to the public. This retrospective is a special opportunity to see and purchase art by an exceptional artist, whose career spanned more than 50 years. ➥ In need of some cute hunting or Halloween items? RHEA DRUG is the place to go, with camouflage cups, baby items, and deer- and duck-themed gifts. For Halloween, there’s “wicked” witch tea towels and other spooky stuff. ➥ L&L BECK GALLERY’S October exhibit is “Portraits,” the giclée giveaway of the month is titled “Vincent”. The exhibit will run through the month of October, and the giclée drawing will at 7 p.m. Oct. 17. ➥ BRASSIERE BAZAAR: BRAS FOR A CAUSE, a fund-raiser to benefit the Young Survival Coalition, is scheduled for 7 p.m. Oct. 3 at Cornerstone Pub & Grill in downtown North Little Rock. Attendees will be able to bid on bras designed by the likes of First Lady Ginger Beebe, actress/chef Debi Mazar, actress Kathy Najimy and film producer/director/writer Judd Apatow, as well as local celebrities like Craig O’Neill. ➥ The 22nd annual BOO AT THE ZOO will host an adults only preview night from 6-9 p.m. Oct. 17. Tickets are $20 and include drink tickets. Attendees must be 21 or over. To buy tickets, visit littlerock.com/boopreview or call 501-661-7208. 44

OCTOBER 3, 2013

ARKANSAS TIMES

MADDIE’S PLACE If you like your catfish breaded Cajun-style, your grits rich with garlic and cream and your oysters fried up in perfect puffs, this Cajun eatery on Rebsamen Park Road is the place for you. 1615 Rebsamen Park Road. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-660-4040. LD Tue.-Sat. MARIE’S MILFORD TRACK II Healthy and tasty are the key words at this deli/grill, featuring hot entrees, soups, sandwiches, salads and killer desserts. 9813 W Markham St. No alcohol, CC. $-$$. 501-225-4500. BL Mon.-Sat. MASON’S DELI AND GRILL Heaven for those who believe everything is better with sauerkraut on top. The Bavarian Reuben, a traditional Reuben made with Boar’s Head corned beef, spicy mustard, sauerkraut, Muenster cheese and marble rye, is among the best we’ve had in town. 400 Clinton Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-376-3354. LD Mon.-Sat. MIMI’S CAFE Breakfast is our meal of choice here at this upscale West Coast chain. Portions are plenty to last you through the afternoon, especially if you get a muffin on the side. Middle-America comfort-style entrees make-up other meals, from pot roast to pasta dishes. 11725 Chenal Parkway. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-221-3883. BLD daily, BR Sun. MORNINGSIDE BAGELS Tasty New York-style boiled bagels, made daily. 10848 Maumelle Blvd. NLR. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-7536960. BL daily. NEWK’S EXPRESS CAFE Gourmet sandwiches, salads and pizzas. 4317 Warden Road. NLR. Beer, All CC. $-$$. 501-753-8826. LD daily. ORANGE LEAF YOGURT Upscale self-serve national yogurt chain. 11525 Cantrell Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-227-4522. LD daily. PACKET HOUSE GRILL Owner/chef Wes Ellis delivers the goods with an up-to-date take on sophisticated Southern cuisine served up in a stunning environment that dresses up the historic house with a modern, comfortable feel. 1406 Cantrell Road. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-372-1578. L Mon.-Fri., D Tues.-Sat. PHIL’S HAM AND TURKEY PLACE Fine hams, turkeys and other specialty meats served whole, by the pound or in sandwich form. 11121 N. Rodney Parham Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-225-2136. LD Mon.-Fri. L Sat. RED MANGO National yogurt and smoothie chain whose appeal lies in adjectives like “allnatural,” “non-fat,” “gluten-free” and “probiotic.” 5621 Kavanaugh Blvd. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-663-2500. LD daily. SIMPLY NAJIYYAH’S FISHBOAT & MORE Good catfish and corn fritters. 1717 Wright Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-562-3474. LD Tue.-Sat. SLICK’S SANDWICH SHOP & DELI Meatand-two plate lunches in state office building. 101 E. Capitol Ave. No alcohol. 501-375-3420. BL Mon.-Fri. SPECTATORS GRILL AND PUB Burgers, soups, salads and other beer food, plus live music on weekends. 1012 W. 34th St. NLR. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-791-0990. LD Mon.-Sat. SPORTS PAGE One of the largest, juiciest, most flavorful burgers in town. Grilled turkey and hot cheese on sourdough gets praise, too. Now with lunch specials. 414 Louisiana St. Beer, Wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-372-9316. LD Mon.-Fri. STARVING ARTIST CAFE All kinds of crepes, served as entrees or as dessert, in this cozy multidimensional eatery with art-packed walls and live demonstrations by artists during meals. The Black Forest ham sandwich is a perennial favorite with the lunch crowd. Dinner menu changes daily, good wine list. “Tales from the South” dinner and readings at on Tuesdays; live

music precedes the show. 411 N. Main St. NLR. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-372-7976. L Tue.-Sat., D Tue., Fri.-Sat. SUFFICIENT GROUNDS Great coffee, good bagels and pastries, and a limited lunch menu. 124 W. Capitol. No alcohol, CC. $. 501-372-1009. BL Mon.-Fri. SUGIE’S Catfish and all the trimmings. 4729 Baseline Road. No alcohol, All CC. $. 501-5700414. LD daily. THE TAVERN SPORTS GRILL Burgers, barbecue and more. 17815 Chenal Parkway. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-830-2100. LD daily. TROPICAL SMOOTHIE CAFE Smoothies, sandwiches and salads. 10221 N. Rodney Parham Road. No alcohol, All CC. $$. 501-2242233. BLD daily; 400 President Clinton Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-786-6555. LD Mon.-Fri., BLD Sat.; 524 Broadway St. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 246-3145. BLD Mon.-Fri. (closes at 6 p.m.) 10221 N. Rodney Parham Road. No alcohol, All CC. $$. 501-224-2233. BLD daily 12911 Cantrell Road. No alcohol, All CC. $$. 501-376-2233. BLD daily 400 President Clinton Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-7866555. LD Mon.-Fri., BLD Sat. VICTORIAN GARDEN We’ve found the fare quite tasty and somewhat daring and different with its healthy, balanced entrees and crepes. 4801 North Hills Blvd. NLR. $-$$. 501-758-4299. L Tue.-Sat. WAYNE’S FISH & BURGERS TO GO Offers generously-portioned soulfood plate lunches and dinners - meat, two sides, corn bread - for $6. 2221 South Cedar St. 501-663-9901. WHITE WATER TAVERN Excellent, locallysourced bar food. 2500 W. 7th St. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-375-8400. D Tue.-Fri., L Fri.

ASIAN

BENIHANA JAPANESE STEAKHOUSE Enjoy the cooking show, make sure you get a little filet with your meal, and do plenty of dunking in that fabulous ginger sauce. 2 Riverfront Place. NLR. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-374-8081. BLD Sun.-Sat. CHI DIMSUM & BISTRO A huge menu spans the Chinese provinces and offers a few twists on the usual local offerings, plus there’s authentic Hong Kong dim sum available. 6 Shackleford Drive. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-221-7737. LD daily. 17200 Chenal Parkway. No alcohol, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-821-8000. LD Mon.-Sat., D Sun. FAR EAST ASIAN CUISINE Old favorites such as orange beef or chicken and Hunan green beans are still prepared with care at what used to be Hunan out west. 11610 Pleasant Ridge Road. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-219-9399. LD daily. FORBIDDEN GARDEN Classic, American-ized Chinese food in a modern setting. Try the Basil Chicken. 14810 Cantrell Road. Beer, Wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-868-8149. LD daily. FU LIN Quality in the made-to-order entrees is high, as is the quantity. 200 N. Bowman Road. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-225-8989. LD daily, BR Sun. IGIBON JAPANESE RESTAURANT It’s a complex place, where the food is almost always good and the ambiance and service never fail to please. The Bento box with tempura shrimp and California rolls and other delights stand out. 11121 N. Rodney Parham Road. Beer, Wine, All CC. $$. 501-217-8888. LD Mon.-Sat. KIYEN’S SEAFOOD STEAK AND SUSHI Sushi, steak and other Japanese fare. 17200 Chenal Pkwy, Suite 100. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-821-7272. LD daily. KOBE JAPANESE STEAKHOUSE & SUSHI Though answering the need for more hibachis in Little Rock, Kobe stands taller in its sushi offer-

ings than at the grill. 11401 Financial Centre Parkway. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-225-5999. L Mon.-Sat. D daily. NEW FUN REE Reliable staples, plenty of hot and spicy options and dependable delivery. 418 W 7th St. No alcohol, All CC. $. 501-664-6657. LD Mon.-Sat. PANDA GARDEN Large buffet including Chinese favorites, a full on-demand sushi bar, a cold seafood bar, pie case, salad bar and dessert bar. 2604 S. Shackleford Road. Beer, Wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-224-8100. LD daily. P.F. CHANG’S CHINA BISTRO Nuevo Chinese from the Brinker chain. 317 S. Shackleford Road. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-225-4424. LD daily. SUPER KING BUFFET Large buffet with sushi and a Mongolian grill. 4000 Springhill Plaza Court. NLR. Beer, Wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-9454802. LD daily. VAN LANG CUISINE Terrific Vietnamese cuisine, particularly the way the pork dishes and the assortment of rolls are presented. Great prices, too. Massive menu, but it’s user-friendly for locals with full English descriptions and numbers for easy ordering. 3600 S. University Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-570-7700. LD daily.

BARBECUE

CAPITOL SMOKEHOUSE AND GRILL Beef, pork and chicken, all smoked to melting tenderness and doused with a choice of sauces. The crusty but tender backribs star. Side dishes are top quality. A plate lunch special is now available. 915 W. Capitol Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-372-4227. L Mon.-Fri. CROSS EYED PIG BBQ COMPANY Traditional barbecue favorites smoked well such as pork ribs, beef brisket and smoked chicken. Miss Mary’s famous potato salad is full of bacon and other goodness. Smoked items such as ham and turkeys available seasonally. 1701 Rebsamen Park Road. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-265-0000. L Mon.-Sat., D Tue.-Fri. 1701 Rebsamen Park Road. Beer, Wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-227-7427. LD daily. FATBOY’S KILLER BAR-B-Q This Landmark neighborhood strip center restaurant in the far southern reaches of Pulaski County features tender ribs and pork by a contest pitmaster. Skip the regular sauce and risk the hot variety, it’s far better. 14611 Arch Street. No alcohol, All CC. $$. 501-888-4998. L Mon.-Wed. and Fri.; L Thu. HB’S BBQ Great slabs of meat with fiery barbecue sauce, but ribs are served on Tuesday only. Other days, try the tasty pork sandwich on an onion roll. 6010 Lancaster. No alcohol, No CC. $-$$. 501-565-1930. LD Mon.-Fri. MICK’S BBQ, CATFISH AND GRILL Good burgers, picnic-worth deviled eggs and heaping barbecue sandwiches topped with sweet sauce. 3609 MacArthur Dr. NLR. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-791-2773. LD Mon.-Sun. SIMS BAR-B-QUE Great spare ribs, sandwiches, beef, half and whole chicken and an addictive vinegar-mustard-brown sugar sauce unique for this part of the country. 2415 Broadway. Beer, CC. $-$$. 501-372-6868. LD Mon.-Sat. 1307 John Barrow Road. Beer, All CC. $-$$. 501-2242057. LD Mon.-Sat. 7601 Geyer Springs Road. Beer, All CC. $$. 501-562-8844. LD Mon.-Sat.

EUROPEAN / ETHNIC

ALI BABA A Middle Eastern restaurant and grocery. 3400 S University Ave. No alcohol, All CC. 501-570-0577. LD Mon.-Sat. KHALIL’S PUB Widely varied menu with European, Mexican and American influences. Go for the Bierocks, rolls filled with onions and


DINING CAPSULES, CONT. beef. 110 S. Shackleford Road. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-224-0224. LD daily. BR Sun. THE PANTRY Owner and self-proclaimed “food evangelist” Tomas Bohm does things the right way — buying local, making almost everything from scratch and focusing on simple preparations of classic dishes. The menu stays relatively true to his Czechoslovakian roots, but there’s plenty of choices to suit all tastes. There’s also a nice happy-hour vibe. 11401 Rodney Parham Road. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-353-1875. LD Mon.-Fri., D Sat. STAR OF INDIA The best Indian restaurant in the region, with a unique buffet at lunch and some fabulous dishes at night (spicy curried dishes, tandoori chicken, lamb and veal, vegetarian). 301 N. Shackleford. Beer, Wine, All CC. $$. 501-227-9900. LD daily. TASTE OF ASIA Delicious Indian food in a pleasant atmosphere. Perhaps the best samosas in town. Buffet at lunch. 2629 Lakewood Village Dr. NLR. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-812-4665. LD daily.

ITALIAN

DAMGOODE PIES A somewhat different Italian/pizza place, largely because of a spicy garlic white sauce that’s offered as an alternative to the traditional red sauce. Good bread, too. 2701 Kavanaugh Blvd. Beer, Wine, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-664-2239. LD daily. 6706 Cantrell Road. Beer, Wine, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-664-2239. LD daily. 10720 Rodney Parham Road. Beer, Wine, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-664-2239. LD daily. 37 East Center St. Fayetteville. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 479-444-7437. LD daily. GUSANO’S They make the tomatoey Chicagostyle deep-dish pizza the way it’s done in the Windy City. It takes a little longer to come out of the oven, but it’s worth the wait. 313 President Clinton Ave. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-374-1441. LD daily. 2915 Dave Ward Drive. Conway. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-329-1100. LD daily. LARRY’S PIZZA The buffet is the way to go — fresh, hot pizza, fully loaded with ingredients, brought hot to your table, all for a low price. Many Central Arkansas locations. 1122 S. Center. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-224-8804. LD daily. 12911 Cantrell Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-224-8804. LD daily. NYPD PIZZA Plenty of tasty choices in the obvious New York police-like setting, but it’s fun. Only the pizza is cheesy. Even the personal pizzas come in impressive combinations, and baked ziti, salads are more also are available. Cheap slice specials at lunch. 6015 Chenonceau Blvd., Suite 1. Beer, Wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-8683911. LD Mon.-Sat., D Sun. VESUVIO Arguably Little Rock’s best Italian restaurant. 1315 Breckenridge Drive. Full bar, All CC. $$$. 501-246-5422. D daily.

LATINO

CASA MANANA Great guacamole and garlic beans, superlative chips and salsa (red and green) and a broad selection of fresh seafood, plus a deck out back. 6820 Cantrell Road. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-280-9888. LD daily 18321 Cantrell Road. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-8688822. LD daily 400 President Clinton Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. BL Mon.-Sat. CASA MEXICANA Familiar Tex-Mex style items all shine, in ample portions, and the steak-centered dishes are uniformly excellent. 6929 JFK Blvd. NLR. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-835-7876. LD daily. EL PORTON (LR) Good Mex for the price and a wide-ranging menu of dinner plates, some tasty cheese dip, and great service as well. 12111 W. Markham St. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-223-8588. LD daily. 5201 Warden Road. NLR. Full bar, All

CC. $$. 501-753-4630. LD daily. ELIELLA You’ll find perhaps the widest variety of street style tacos in Central Arkansas here — everything from cabeza (steamed beef head) to lengua (beef tongue) to suadero (thin-sliced beef brisket). The Torta Cubano is a belly-buster. It’s a sandwich made with chorizo, pastor, grilled hot dogs and a fried egg. The menu is in Spanish, but the waitstaff is accomodating to gringos. 7700 Baseline Road. Beer, All CC. $. 501-539-5355. L Mon.-Sat. THE FOLD BOTANAS BAR Gourmet tacos and botanas, or small plates. Try the cholula pescada taco. 3501 Old Cantrell Road. Full bar, CC. $$-$$$. 501-916-9706. LD daily. LA HACIENDA Creative, fresh-tasting entrees and traditional favorites, all painstakingly prepared in a festive atmosphere. Great taco salad, nachos, and maybe the best fajitas around. 3024 Cantrell Road. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-661-0600. LD daily. 200 Highway 65 N. Conway. All CC. $$. 501-327-6077. LD daily. LA VAQUERA The tacos at this truck are more expensive than most, but they’re still cheap eats. One of the few trucks where you can order a combination plate that comes with rice, beans and lettuce. 4731 Baseline Road. No alcohol, No CC. $. 501-565-3108. LD Mon.-Sat. LAS PALMAS Mexican chain with a massive menu of choices. 10402 Stagecoach Road. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-455-8500. LD daily 4154 E. McCain Blvd. NLR. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. LD daily. LONCHERIA MEXICANA ALICIA The best taco truck in West Little Rock. Located in the Walmart parking lot on Bowman. 620 S. Bowman. No alcohol, No CC. $. 501-612-1883. L Mon.-Sat. MERCADO SAN JOSE From the outside, it appears to just be another Mexican grocery store. Inside, you’ll find one of Little Rock’s best Mexican bakeries and a restaurant in back serving tortas and tacos for lunch. 7411 Geyer Springs Road. Beer, CC. $. 501-565-4246. BLD daily. MEXICO CHIQUITO Some suggest cheese dip was born at this Central Arkansas staple, where you’ll find hearty platters of boldly spiced, inexpensive food that compete well with those at the “authentic” joints. 102 S. Rodney Parham Road. No alcohol, All CC. $$. 501-224-8600; 13924 Cantrell Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-217-0700. LD daily.; 4511 Camp Robinson Road. NLR. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-771-1604. LD daily. RIVIERA MAYA Typical Mexican fare for the area, though the portions are on the large side. 801 Fair Park Blvd. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-663-4800. LD daily. ROCK ’N TACOS California-style cuisine that’s noticeably better than others in its class. Fish tacos are treated with the respect they deserve, served fresh and hot. 11121 North Rodney Parham Road. No alcohol, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-812-3461. LD Mon.-Sat. SUPER 7 GROCERY STORE This Mexican grocery/video store/taqueria has great a daily buffet featuring a changing assortment of real Mexican cooking. Fresh tortillas pressed by hand and grilled, homemade salsas, beans as good as beans get. Plus soup every day. 1415 Barrow Road. Beer, No CC. $. 501-219-2373. BLD daily. SUPERMERCADO SIN FRONTERAS Shiny, large Mexican grocery with a bakery and restaurant attached. 4918 Baseline Road. Beer, All CC. $$. 501-562-4206. BLD daily. TAQUERIA Y CARNICERIA GUADALAJARA Cheap, delicious tacos, tamales and more. Always bustling. 3811 Camp Robinson Road. NLR. Beer, All CC. $-$$. 501-753-9991. BLD daily.

2013 priSm AWArdS

The Arkansas Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America congratulates winners of the 2013 Prism Awards showcasing excellence in public relations strategy and tactics. Best of Show Mangan Holcomb Partners 2012 Arkansas Pharmacists Association’s Immunization Program Top Winners Eric Rob & Isaac (17 Prisms) Mangan Holcomb Partners (14 Prisms) Additional Winners Arkansas Children’s Hospital Arkansas Community Foundation Heifer International Social Innovation The Communications Group University of Arkansas at Little Rock Congratulations also go to Markham Howe, APR, recipient of the 2013 Tom Steves Sr. Compass Award honoring lifetime commitments of mentorship in the PR profession. www.arkprsa.org www.arktimes.com

OCTOBER 3, 2013

45


Baum Gallery of

The

Fine Art At UCA Fall Exhibits Feature: Maysey Craddock Jen Lewin Jennifer Shaw

FREE FASCINATING FOR THE PUBLIC

uca.edu/art/baum

ARKANSAS TIMES CLASSIFIEDS Adoption

Employment ApplicAtions systems AnAlyst/progrAmmersenior, informAtion technology reseArch systems DepArtment, UAms, little rock, Ar:

Analyze, design, develop, test & implement software to solve complex healthcare business, patient care, healthcare regulatory, & med research problems using state of the art software development tools & methods, considering computer equipment capacity & limitations, operating time, computer-user interfaces & form of desired results. Expected to perform project tasks such as software development, software implementation, application maintenance, application troubleshooting, software upgrades, software testing, & custom report writing, in individual & team member roles. The ideal candidate should have ability to analyze, design, develop, test & implement custom software applications to solve complex healthcare business, patient care, healthcare regulatory, and med research problems; define user requirements w/process-mapping methodology & design, implement & enhance clinical research application systems utilizing cutting edge Java programming & J2EE software development technologies (e.g. Spring, JPA & Hibernate) on various application servers (e.g. Tomcat, JBoss and Jetty); implement interfaces for integration w/other healthcare software systems via Web Services (e.g. SOAP and/or RESTful). Req: MS in CS or a closely related field. Candidate must know Web development (e.g. JSP, Servlets, AJAX, HTML, JavaScript, & CSS); XML programming (e.g. XPath and XQuery); & be proficient in Relational Database (e.g. MSSQL and MYSQL); SQL query development & Test Driven Development (e.g. JUnit, EasyMock). Applications accepted online at www.uams.edu. Reference number 50043938. UAMS is an inclusive Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer and is committed to excellence through diversity. 3, 2013 3,ARKANSAS TIMES 4646OctOber OCTOBER 2013 ARKANSAS TIMES

Office Manager

arkansas advocates for children and families, a non-profit advocacy organization, seeks an Office Manager. Hours are 30 to 40 hours a week depending on applicant’s needs. Bachelor’s degree with experience in daily operations of a nonprofit including book-keeping, database management, and meeting planning. Send cover letter, resume, and references to nleonhardt@aradvocates.org or 1400 West Markham St., Ste. 306, Little Rock, AR 72201 aacf is an equal opportunity employer.

UAMS InforMAtIon technology

The Information Technology Department Academic Computing Division of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences is seeking Applications Systems Analyst/Programmer Senior candidates for implementation of new Student Information Systems. Position description and requirements are listed on the UAMS website link: https://jobs.uams.edu/ under the Info Technology job group; position numbers 50054957, 50054958 and 50054959. Interested candidates apply at the UAMS home page www.uams.edu jobs. UAMS is an Equal opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer and is committed to excellence through diversity.

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For Cyclists Share the road Tips for SAFE cycling on the road.

• Bicycles are vehicles on the road, just like cars and motorcycles. Cyclists must obey all traffic laws. Arkansas Uniform Vehicle Code #27-49-111 • Cyclists must signal, ride on the right side of the road and yield to traffic normally. Bicycles are vehicles on the road, Code #27-51-301/403 just like must cars have andamotorcycles. • Bicycles white headlight and a red tail light visible fromall 500traffic feet andlaws. have a Cyclist should obey bell or warning device for pedestrians. Arkansas Uniform Vehicle Code #27Code #27-36-220 49-111 • Make eye contact with motorists. Be visible. Be predictable. Head up, think ahead. Cyclists should signal, ride on the • On the Big Dam Bridge... go slow. right side of the road, and yield to Represent! traffic • As younormally pass, say “Onlike yourany left...other thankroad you.” • On the River vehicle. CodeTrail... #27-51-301/403 use a safe speed, don’t the Road intimidateShare or scare others. Watch for dogs Give 3 feet ofCyclists clear space when and For leashes.

Tips for PREVENTING injury or death.

For to moreacycling information... Tips for(up SAFE the road. passing $1000onfine!) Bicycle Advocacyonofthe Arkansas • Bicycles are vehicles road, just like Code #27-51-311 www.bacar.org

cars andLeague motorcycles. Cyclists must obey of American Bicyclists

allwww.bikeleague.org/programs/education trafficbylaws. Uniform Code Cyclist lawArkansas can not rideVehicle on the #27-49-111 sidewalk in some areas, some bikes • Cyclists must signal, ride on the right side can roads of theonly roadhandle and yieldsmooth to traffic normally. Code cracks, #27-51-301/403 (no potholes, trolley tracks). • Bicycles must have a white headlight and a LR Ord.#32-494

red tail light visible from 500 feet and have a

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Please ghost bikes. • On the prevent Big Dam Bridge... go slow. www.ghostbikes.org Represent!

• As you pass, say “On your left... thank you.” For more information: • On the River Trail... use a safe speed, don’t BicycleorAdvocacy Arkansas intimidate scare others.ofWatch for dogs and leashes.www.bacar.org For more information...

League American Bicyclists BicycleofAdvocacy of Arkansas www.bacar.org www.bikeleague.org/programs/ League of American Bicyclists www.bikeleague.org/programs/education education


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OBSERVER, CONT. From page 9 player on either side was African American. Arkansas tailback Bill Burnett scored the only TD of the first half, and Bill Montgomery, the slender, scrappy UA quarterback, threw a third-quarter TD pass to Chuck Dicus. 14-0, the end of the third quarter. Arkansas’s defense had held the vaunted Texas offense, which averaged more than 44 points a game coming in, scoreless for three quarters. But it was clear, even to me watching on TV, that the Hogs were playing beyond themselves, that they had to come back to earth, and that a comeback was inevitable. This was Texas, after all. And they had James Street. Street was not the best quarterback in the country — that was Archie Manning, of Ole Miss – but he was slippery and gutsy and handsome in a Texan kind of way, and he ran the Wishbone with pol-

ish and guile. On the first play of the fourth quarter he skated through the Arkansas defense for a 42-yard touchdown run that was marred by an obvious, but unflagged, clip in the secondary (although it’s doubtful that the UA defender blocked in the back would have caught Street anyway). To long-suffering Arkansas fans this was a blatant injustice, perpetrated by the refs at the insistence of the TV suits, or maybe even by the beady-eyed president watching from the stands. Texas coach Darrell Royal, in an act of coaching courage unthinkable today, went for two after that first score, and Street dove into the end zone. 14-8. Still, the Hogs held on as I and the rest of the state willed the scoreboard clock to count down faster. Montgomery threw a third-down interception in the Texas end zone on the ensuing drive; a field goal would have iced it. At midfield, under five minutes to go, the

Hogs’ defense stiffened again, and Texas faced fourth-and-three from its own 43. Street faked the triple option, dropped back a few steps, and threw up a desperation pass that dropped over the head of receiver Randy Peschel, streaking behind two Arkansas defensive backs, and nestled into his arms. Texas scored a few plays later, and kicked the extra point to go up 15-14. Montgomery threw an interception on the next drive. Jimmy Street, as the announcer called him, had broken our hearts. James Street started 20 games for Texas, and won them all. He was also a star pitcher, leading the Longhorns to two Southwest Conference baseball titles. He never had a shot at the NFL; he went on to a successful career in finance in Austin, and he had five sons, one of whom is a pitcher for the San Diego Padres. In another strange turning of fate, he was in Little Rock a few weeks before his sudden death, attending a show-

ing of “The Big Shootout,” a documentary about the 1969 game, at the Clinton Library. My father met him there and, like just about everyone else who met him, was impressed by his modesty and his amiability. Even for Razorback fans, he was a hard guy to hate. Death doesn’t come any crueler. But for those of us who were young, and played football, and wanted desperately to see Arkansas overcome its most hated rival in the biggest game ever, James Street’s life was condensed into a few seconds in the fourth quarter on a chilly day in Fayetteville, a single play that we will always be able to play back mentally in full, excruciating detail. Street takes the snap. He shoves the ball into the fullback’s stomach, and pulls it out. He scrambles backward, the ball held loosely in his right hand. He rears and throws it as far as he can. The ball hangs in the gray sky. It seems like it’ll never come down. It hangs there still. www.arktimes.com OctOber3,3,2013 2013 47 www.arktimes.com OCTOBER 47


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