ARKANSAS’S WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF POLITICS AND CULTURE ■ FEBRUARY 2, 2011
www.arktimes.com
‘FORENSIC FACADE’ A black man on Death Row — and the tainted case against him. BY MARA LEVERITT PAGE 10
INSIDE CUE goes weekly PAGE 37
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THE INSIDER Raffle or crapshoot?
n The Arkansas Lottery announced Tuesday that the drawing for the Million Dollar Raffle game will happen on April 7 of this year, rain or shine, meaning whether all the tickets are sold or not. Until now, a grey cloud has loomed over what was supposed to be one of the lottery’s most successful games. We reported in mid-December that tickets for the raffle weren’t selling nearly as quickly as expected. At that point, the lottery had only sold a little more than 200,000 of the 500,000 tickets. An initial glitch might have hampered customer confidence in the game. Within a few days of the game’s release, retailers paid out 42 $20 prizes to the wrong players due to an error. The Insider has had numerous reports of another, even bigger hiccup. Sources tell us the tickets came out numbered incorrectly, with the winning tickets following such a distinct pattern that retailers, or anyone else who was in the know, could pocket the winning tickets themselves. Lottery spokesperson Julie Baldridge says that’s not the case. “The raffle tickets are numbered as they are purchased statewide,” she says. “So, for example, you could buy ticket number 257,224 in El Dorado at 5 p.m. today and number 257,225 in West Fork 10 seconds later. Any player who risks $10 on the expectation of buying a particular number may be disappointed. Further, a number of retailers have rules against employees playing during working hours.” Baldridge admits the game has had its share of setbacks. “We at the lottery — myself, our security department, our reception desk — have received a few calls from players unhappy with aspects of the Raffle game. This is common for every game. The truth is that the primary query has been, ‘When is the drawing?’ ” We answered that question and are happy that all prizes will be paid in full, as we pledged when the game began,” Baldridge says. Lottery officials hope that, with an end in sight, sales for the raffle will increase.
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Sweet on Game and Fish
n Sheffield Nelson has not only been raising hell at the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, he’s been raising the caloric intake. Nelson, who is suing the commission over its committee system governance, has been dropping off “8 to 10 dozen” donuts from Krispy Kreme to the commission, maybe once a month, for years. (We just learned about it; maybe G & F employees are just now griping.) Nelson has a donut circuit, in fact; he takes dozens to Fellowship Bible Church as well. He’s keeping Krispy Kreme in business.
Little Rock residents can request a free Can the Grease© starter kit by calling 501-688-1400 For more information contact Brenda Willis at 501-688-1490 or Joseph Schaffner at 501-688-1449 or email us at customerassistance@lrwu.com www.arktimes.com • FEBRUARY 2, 2011 3
Smart talk
Contents
8 UA rejects
The original singing Montana n By now, everybody knows that the song Miss Arkansas, Alyse Eady, sings and yodels through a ventriloquist’s dummy is called “I Want to Be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart,” and they may know that it was made famous by Patsy Montana. How much they know about Patsy Montana, we’re not sure. First of all, she was an Arkansan, too. According to The Comprehensive Country Music Encyclopedia, and other sources, she was born Ruby Blevins in 1912 outside Hot Springs. Later in life, she stuck an “e” on the end of Ruby, and later still, after she’d begun singing professionally, she adopted the stage name of Patsy Montana. She got it from Monte Montana, who’d been a star of silent Western movies and a champion roper, and with whom she’d worked early in her career. She herself appeared in one of Gene Autry’s Westerns. The Country Music Encyclopedia says Patsy Montana was “one of the most popular acts in country music throughout the 1930’s and 40’s — and the first solo female country music star.” With “I Want to be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart,” released in 1935, she became the first woman to have a record that sold a million copies. She died in 1996 at her home in San Jacinto, Calif.
higher ed study UA chancellor says the reform recommended in a new report commissioned by the Department of Higher Education includes is a “very bad idea.” — By Doug Smith
10 Tainted
A petition from a Death Row inmate to the Supreme Court includes evidence that the DNA analysis used to convict was faulty, and the prosecution knew it. — By Mara Leveritt
18 Showcase Rex MONTANA: Country music’s first female star.
Union colonel says shape up
Majored in frugality
n This being the Civil War sesquicentennial, a lot of attention will be paid to that great conflict. At a recent exhibit in Little Rock, we were impressed by a proclamation issued by R.R. Livingston, a colonel in the 1st Nebraska Cavalry and the commander of the District of Northeast Arkansas, at Batesville on Christmas Day, 1863. “I shall expect the full support of all good men in restoring peace to your desolated district. The hearty cooperation of law and order loving citizens in suppressing lawless bands, by information as well as by appealing to the erring, is essential to your own safety, and is demanded.” Peace on earth or else.
n U.S. News and World Report has compiled a list of the “10 most-loved” colleges and universities, measuring love by the percentage of a school’s alumni that contribute money to their alma mater. The obscure (to us) Webb Institute of Glen Cove, N.Y., topped the list, with 71 percent of its grads giving money back to their school. Carleton College of Northfield, Minn., was second, with 61 percent. Princeton was third at 60 percent. But what really caught our eye was the school at the bottom of the list. Of 1,283 schools that participated in the survey, the one with the lowest percentage of alumni giving back was the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith — 0.1 percent.
LIVINGSTON: Talked turkey.
Tyrannosaurus Chicken wins the first Arkansas Times Showcase semifinal; second contest is Thursday. — By John Tarpley
DEPARTMENTS 3 The Insider 4 Smart Talk 5 The Observer 6 Letters 7 Orval 8-15 News 16 Opinion 18 Arts & Entertainment 28 Dining 45 Crossword/ Tom Tomorrow 46 Lancaster
Words VOLUME 37, NUMBER 22
n Time to bring in a relief picture: Mary Catherine McSpadden of Mountain View saw this item in the Jan. 19 Arkansas Times — “CLIFF LEE. The star baseball picture bought a nice old house for fix-up in an established part of Little Rock, passed up New York (and an additional $30 million) for a better quality of family life in Philadelphia and gave $1 million to Arkansas Children’s Hospital.” MaryMac (as teammates call her) writes: “If Cliff Lee is a star baseball picture, that thing in the square accompanying the article must be a pitcher of said picture.” n The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed Endangered Species Act protection for the sheepnose and the spectaclecase, two freshwater-mussels found 4 FEBRUARY 2, 2010 • ARKANSAS TIMES
Doug S mith doug@arktimes.com
in rivers in a small number of states (including Arkansas, in the case of the spectaclecase). I enjoy the exotic names of the creatures on the endangered species lists. They’re even more reason to keep the species around. The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission list of endangered species includes the Arkansas Fatmucket, the Magazine Mountain Shagreen, and the Pallid Sturgeon. I like to think that one day a biologist will step up and shout “Wait! That sturgeon’s not endangered, it’s just pallid.” Then he’ll take it off to a tanning
parlor, being careful that it doesn’t come out looking like John Boehner. n My concern for the pallid sturgeon may have to do with my fondness for Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”: “And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting “On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door … ” Incidentally, the Baltimore Sun has just reported that “the mysterious Poe toaster” failed to show up at Poe’s grave to celebrate the poet’s birthday for the second year in a row. Imposters have flitted by, but a cemetery attendant told the Sun, “I could tell just by looking at them that were not the real Poe toaster.” n I’d rather be a Poe toaster than a Post Toastie.
ARKANSAS TIMES (ISSN 0164-6273) is published each week by Arkansas Times Limited Partnership, 201 East Markham Street, 200 Heritage Center West, P.O. Box 34010, Little Rock, Arkansas, 72203, phone (501) 375-2985. Periodical postage paid at Little Rock, Arkansas, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to ARKANSAS TIMES, P.O. Box 34010, Little Rock, AR, 72203. 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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Even a red-hot Arkansas sports enthusiast like The Observer was unfamiliar with James Rector until T.O. visited the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame last week. Rector, it turns out, won the silver medal in the 100-yard dash at the 1908 Olympics. (The Observer didn’t begin following the Olympics closely until 1912.) He was, the hall says, “the first Arkansas athlete to make a significant national or international impact.” There are lots of people in the Hall that The Observer is familiar with, of course, and lots of memorabilia associated with them — George Kell’s jersey, Scottie Pippen’s shoes, Billy Ray Smith’s helmet. Will one of those cute little gymnasts now at the U of A donate her tights some day? Let us hope. Kids will doubtless be most impressed by two big stuffed bears — a grizzly on four legs and a polar bear on two — that were killed with a bow and arrow by the famed Pine Bluff archer Ben Pearson. Really big bears. On the way out, T.O. passed an odd painting of Joe Ferguson running with the football. Ferguson was a great thrower. He ran about as well and as often as Ryan Mallett. What kept The Observer away from this place so long? Ignorance and apathy, one supposes. Don’t fall prey to them. The sports hall of fame is in Verizon Arena in North Little Rock, and is open from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Kids 6 and younger get in free. For 6 through 17, the price is $3; for 18-61, it’s $6. Those older than 62 pay $4, active military with proper identification, $3.
The Observer was surprised to stumble across a couple defoliating a tree in a city park over the weekend. Truthfully, we thought at first the couple might be foliating the tree. Or calciating the tree, if there is such a word. The word we’re looking for would mean either putting on or removing shoes from a tree. As it turns out, they were slicing down the shoes. They’ve been doing this for some time, since throwing shoes up into the tree’s high limbs seems to be a popular pastime among people who, for some reason, see nothing wrong with throwing away their footwear. The couple said they’d been told the shoes were a sign that drugs could be pur-
chased at the spot. If true, it would mean that almost every block along Markham Street was a place to deal, so many power lines above the street have shoes dangling from them. And now that we think about it, that’s probably right. The defoliators have collected dozens of pairs of shoes from the tree, which they donate to homeless shelters. (They previously left some at the homeless camp nearby, but after the homeless trashed their campsite, they lost their shoe donations.) One pair, they said, looked like it cost a couple hundred dollars. They kept one pair; the male half of the defoliators was wearing them. We are flexible, and hanging an oak with dozens of pairs of shoes might, under certain conditions, be considered art. Like bottle trees. A statement about disaster, perhaps, or a reference to strange fruit. But The Observer doubts the running shoes, slippers, baby shoes and strung-together high heels were part of an aesthetic or political statement. We think kids were just wasting shoes that someone else paid good money for. If the shoe-throwers think they’ll overpower the shoe-removers, they should think again. Here’s how determined this couple is: They don’t even have tree loppers. They borrowed a neighbor’s pool pole, removed the net and taped a knife to one of the naked prongs. An act involving far more creative activity than shoe-flinging.
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It was Spouse’s birthday over the weekend. We’re partial to birthdays, with all the presents and cake, but she seemed a little glum about it. She’d argue the point, of course, but the beautiful girl we loved in our youth has only gotten prettier with time. With the world as her oyster and the offer of eating anywhere in town for her b-day, Spouse thought a bit, then said she wanted some chicken from Popeyes. “Anywhere in the world you wanna eat, and you pick Popeyes?” The Observer asked, to which Spouse answered in the affirmative. Her wish was our command, so chain chicken it was. On reflection, her choice was really not that surprising. She has always been a spicy lass, a lover of the simpler things — not to mention a reliably cheap date. We hope that last doesn’t get us in trouble. www.arktimes.com • FEBRUARY 2, 2011 5
Letters arktimes@arktimes.com
Bike elsewhere A quiet, meditative walk across and around the Big Dam Bridge would be a very pleasant experience, if it wasn’t for those infernal cyclists who seem to think that they have a greater claim to the pathways than pedestrians. They are not only a nuisance, but with their spandex pants, body armor and racing helmets, an acute embarrassment. Just who do they think they are? Pedaling around the banks of the Arkansas River at 15 mph in that ridiculous uniform does not qualify them for the Tour de France. In the name of humanity, find these clowns another site and, please, as far away as possible from those who enjoy the simple pleasure of walking. There they can indulge their foolish fantasies to their heart’s content. William G. Carlyle North Little Rock
Guns There are three topics that have replaced politics and religion as taboo subjects for discussion. They are guns, money, and climate change. Mention any of those at your peril. Recent events, however, call for a need for discussion about guns. For most, there are only two arguments: one, there should be more guns and everyone should have at least one; and two, there should be fewer guns and only those charged with law enforcement should have them. Let’s look at argument one first. In order to argue that everyone should be armed, you must assume that everyone has equal capacity to become a killer. This is, of course, absurd. The great majority of us have never killed another human and, most likely, would not do so. To argue that we would all become killers under specific circumstances would argue against the very proposition that all should have guns. Don’t we want to keep guns out of the hands of killers rather than deliberately arming them and trusting circumstance to keep us alive? Additionally, this argument seeks a lowest denominator for our behavior. Why would a civilized society seek attainment of the lowest or harshest behavioral standard? For one to argue that it is necessary to have a gun in order to be “safe” is equivalent to arguing for the use of “date rape” drugs because that is the only way he or she can have sex. A civilized society doesn’t want guns or dangerous drugs in the hands of those most willing to use them. Trying to make the argument that simply possessing a gun is a deterrent to crime is merely overlooking the obvious. 6 FEBRUARY 2, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES
If that were true, then having a picture of a gun would be sufficient to deter crime. It isn’t the gun that is the deterrent, it is the assumption that it will be used for deadly force that might create a momentary hesitation. Trying to make this argument is reasonable only if you assume that it isn’t people who kill people, it’s guns that kill people. If that is the case, then wouldn’t we be better served by having fewer guns? But, what about the Second Amendment? Indeed. Reading our Constitution (including its initial version, The Articles of Confederation) confirms that the intention was to ensure availability of an orderly army in case of national or local emer-
gency. Court case law has, over many years, addressed the individual “right” to own weapons. Nonetheless, our Constitution is more attuned to what government can and cannot do than it is to specifying individual rights. Any changes in our inadequate and nonsensical gun laws will have to originate in the courts. In order to begin that process, we must realize that we are not a nation of individuals just waiting for circumstances to turn us into killers. And argument two? Anyone else want to take that one on? It is necessary to note here that I am not arguing for more laws relating to guns. I am arguing for reducing the number of
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guns available to citizens and in favor of a civilized society with fewer guns. I’m sure there are some who will think or say they would be willing to kill me for blaspheming their idol. I certainly want to keep guns out of those hands. I hope the rest of a civilized society will want to as well. David Stedman Damascus
The mosque debate The enormous debate over the building of an Islamic Cultural Center near what used to be the Twin Towers of the New York Trade Center troubles me greatly. It seems tied to at least two other issues that are also debated: The personal religion of President Obama and the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. The proposed building of the center has been likened to placing a Japanese pagoda or symbol at the site of the bombing of Pearl Harbor or a Nazi symbol at the Holocaust Memorial. Well, anyone who would use those comparisons needs to go back to school. The bombing of Pearl Harbor was the work of the Japanese Empire, a nation state, and the horror of the holocaust was the work of the Third Reich, a nation state. As horrible as the bombing of the Trade Center was, it was NOT the work of a nation state or a religion. It was the work of a few fanatical individuals who have no allegiance to anything but what they concoct as their brand of whatever. They seem to wish to ally themselves with some form of Islam, but they are not representative of the religion of Islam. Those who make this association need to read and learn about Islam and perhaps get to know a few Muslims. This may shock many readers, but the few Muslim friends I have are some of the most Christ-like people I have ever met. The personal religion of President Obama: He refers to himself as a Christian and that is good enough for me. However, if he is, indeed, a Muslim, so what! The First Amendment gives all of us that right. I quote: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” So, could we now lay these debates to rest and get on with solving the critical issues of the day: Education, the economy, the deficit, immigration, etc. Brenda Ball Tirrell Hot Springs Village n Submit letters to The Editor, Arkansas Times, P.O. Box 34010, Little Rock, AR 72203. We also accept letters via e-mail. The address is maxbrantley@arktimes. com. We also accept faxes at 375-3623. Please include a hometown and telephone number.
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THE WEEK THAT WAS JAN. 26 – FEB. 1 IT WAS A GOOD WEEK FOR …
GOOD HEALTH. A bill aimed at thwarting the federal health-care law in Arkansas died in a state House of Representatives committee, even though all the Republican committee members voted for bad health. HUMAN DEVELOPMENT CENTERS. A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against five of the Arkansas centers, saying that the Justice Department should have tried to resolve problems before rushing into court. COMING CLEAN. Daniel Gatrell, 17, admitted to taking part in the particularly brutal killings of a toddler and her father, and promised to testify against his cousin, Robert Todd Gatrell, 20. Daniel was sentenced to 28 years in prison. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Robert. BOND DEALERS. The University of Arkansas Board of Trustees approved a bond issue of up to $141 million to help pay for construction and renovation on UA’s Fayetteville campus. GARY DUNN. For the second time in nine months, a trial of Dunn for the murder of Nona Dirksmeyer ended in a mistrial when jurors couldn’t agree. Prosecutors said they’d try again. JUDICIAL ROMANCE. Associate Justice Courtney Henry of the Arkansas Supreme Court reported on a financial statement that she received nearly $100,000 worth of gifts from her “boyfriend” John Goodson, a Texarkana lawyer, in 2010. For much of that year, she was married to Mark Henry of Fayetteville. They are now divorced. IT WAS A BAD WEEK FOR …
GOOD HEALTH. And a good week for judicial activism, as a Reagan-appointed federal judge in Florida ruled that the new health-care law is unconstitutional. FRED SMITH. Twenty days after he was sworn in as a member of the state House of Representatives, the Democrat from Crawfordsville resigned after learning he’d been convicted of a felony involving property theft. STATE SEN. BRUCE HOLLAND. The Perry County sheriff’s office announced it was charging Holland with fleeing, careless driving and improper passing after a high-speed pursuit of the senator by a deputy. 8 FEBRUARY 2, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES
The Arkansas Reporter
Phone: 501-375-2985 Fax: 501-375-3623 Arkansas Times Online home page: http://www.arktimes.com E-mail: arktimes@arktimes.com ■
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UAF scorns higher-ed reform Greater central control is ‘very, very bad idea,’ Gearhart says. BY DOUG SMITH
n Paid consultants and the Beebe administration see a need for reform in the state system of higher education. The state colleges and universities will require strong persuasion. Bruises may ensue. The state Department of Higher Education helped pay for a recently completed study on higher education in Arkansas. The consultants said, among other things, that Arkansas needs more “system-level leadership,” leadership that is, “at the level of the Department of Higher Education and other state departments.” That doesn’t sound so bad, and it’s been said before, but more system-level leadership inevitably means less autonomy for the colleges and universities and their boards of trustees. They never like to hear that, none less so than the University of Arkansas, the state’s largest, oldest and most prestigious institution of higher learning, the one with the most to lose. G. David Gearhart, chancellor of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, says the study looks like a put-up job, conclusions favored by DHE arrived at in advance. He also said the consultants used incorrect data, making UAF look worse in comparison with similar research institutions in other states in producing graduates. And he told the Arkansas Times that both the consultants and the director of DHE, Jim Purcell, had made statements in connection with the study that were unconscionably untrue. The consultants, the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems of Boulder, Colo., have not replied to a sharply critical letter from Gearhart. Purcell, who received a copy of the letter, said he was “very happy” with the NCHEMS report and that Gearhart was the only person who’d complained loudly about it, though it concerned all of the state institutions of higher learning. Purcell said he saw no errors that had “real impact” on the study’s conclusions. Both Purcell and Gearhart said they strongly supported Gov. Mike Beebe’s announced goal of producing more college graduates in Arkansas. The state ranks near the bottom in percentage of adults with college degrees. Gearhart pointedly sent Morrill Harriman, Beebe’s chief of staff, a copy of his letter to the consultants. DHE paid $15,000 of the cost of the NCHEMS study of higher education policy in Arkansas. Non-profit groups, including the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, contributed also. Purcell said that NCHEMS
GEARHART
PURCELL
agents spent 12 weeks in Arkansas meeting with officials of the various institutions and with legislators. In his letter to Dennis P. Jones, president of NCHEMS, Gearhart describes a lively meeting at Fayetteville on Oct. 12, 2010. Aims McGuinness, an NCHEMS associate, represented the organization at the meeting. Gearhart writes: “Dr. McGuinness began our conversation by thanking us for having him to the University of Northwest Arkansas. As the land-grant, flagship institution of the state, this was demeaning and in poor taste. He laughed that it might be a bad joke. It was, and it was in keeping with his tone and attitude for the rest of the meeting.” (McGuinness may have picked up his joke on some other Arkansas campus. At the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, the University of Central Arkansas in Conway and probably others, one finds resentment that the Fayetteville school still calls itself the “University of Arkansas” although the state now has other universities. Some critics say the U of A serves Northwest Arkansas primarily. The U of A disagrees.) Gearhart said in his letter that McGuinness had defended erroneous data with “a lack of veracity,” and that McGuinness “was condescending and presented predetermined findings. He did not listen and scoffed that our lack of funding was not a major contributor to our current degree output. He was not interested in a dialogue of any sort. His approach was accusatory on the basis of erroneous data, and as you can imagine, this did not create a collegial atmosphere to talk about the policies and practices related to student success. … I have subsequently spoken to persons outside Arkansas, including chancellors and presidents of other universities, and have come to understand that this may be Dr. McGuinness’ modus operandi. … Dr. McGuinness said he liked this approach because it al-
lowed him to dig a little deeper. I assure you that working in a spirit of cooperation and collaboration would have been much more helpful for both our groups.” Purcell said that DHE had a representative at the Fayetteville meeting, and he wouldn’t agree that McGuinness was disrespectful. Both McGuinness and Jones have appeared before legislative committees in the past, and may do so again, Purcell said. (Purcell and Gearhart met last week. Purcell said the meeting was cordial. “I mostly listened to his concerns.”) The NCHEMS report said that Arkansas needs an entity “that has the capacity, authority and responsibility to provide statewide coordination and policy leadership for the state’s post-secondary education system.” The state Higher Education Coordinating Board is only an advisory body. “By requiring ADHE to gain the consensus of the college and university presidents on critical policy recommendations … [Arkansas has] basically subordinated statewide priorities to institutional interests,” the report said. “Such requirements undermine policymaking in the public interest.” Purcell said that legislation to strengthen the authority of DHE might be introduced in the current session of the legislature. Any talk of reforming higher-education policy in Arkansas runs up against Amendment 33 to the state Constitution, which is intended to protect college and university boards of trustees, and other state boards and commissions, from excessive political Continued on page 15
Correction n An article in the Jan. 26 issue of the Times said that the parents of Jonathan Chavez, the Peruvianborn U of A senior who is being detained by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in Florida, had work visas when they lived in Rogers. That is incorrect. They came to Rogers on tourist visas. Both now have permanent residency, as does Chavez’s younger sister. Because of bad legal advice, they did not apply for residency for Chavez until recently. The process takes several years.
Drink Smarter!
Arkansas Times launches its first iPhone app, Cocktail Compass. Cocktail Compass, available for free on the iTunes store, collects information on every bar, restaurant and venue that serves alcohol in Central Arkansas and steers you to the closest happy hour, and specials available only to Cocktail Compass users.
Argenta Community Theater Unveiled
The Opening ACT Gala Celebration Saturday, February 19, 2011 VIP Reception 6:30 p.m. Dinner & Program 7:30 p.m. Cocktail Attire
Restaurants with changes/corrections or for more information email cocktailcompass@arktimes.com
The newly constructed Argenta Community Theater will celebrate its grand opening Saturday with the Opening ACT hosted by Oscar winning actress and former North Little Rock resident Mary Steenburgen.
Join us at The Peabody Hotel in Little Rock for the only event in Arkansas sanctioned by The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences! Walk the red carpet and celebrate a night of great films and advocacy for a one-of-akind, once-a-year event that helps support a very important place of hope.
Sponsorships for a table for 10 are $10K, $5K, and $3K.• Patron Couple Seating $600 All proceeds benefit the Wolfe Street Foundation, Inc.
Main Street in North Little Rock will be closed and transformed into a dining and performance venue for ACT’s Opening ACT. President Bill Clinton will headline the Gala and other distinguished guests who will attend the gala event include Gov. Mike Beebe, Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, North Little Rock Mayor Patrick Henry Hays and Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola. The Opening Act Gala will include a reception for sponsors followed by a formal seated dinner where guests will dine in an elaborate tented atmosphere located on Main Street. President Clinton will give a keynote address. Guests will also be entertained with dinner performances by Lawrence Hamilton, Arkansas Festival Ballet, Ballet Arkansas and other talented performing artists. Special Guests Mary Steenburgen, President Bill Clinton, and Governor Mike Beebe
The Argenta Community Theater (ACT), located in North Little Rock, Arkansas, is a non-profit organization committed to serving the community and state through education and advancement of the performing arts. ACT founders Vincent Insalaco and Judy Tenenbaum established the organization because they saw a need to increase support for arts organizations throughout Arkansas. Sponsored by:
FOR MORE INFORMATION Please visit us online at www.wolfestreet.org or call us at 501.372.5662 Oscar Statuette ©A.M.P.A.S.®
Gala Tickets: $150 Table of 10: $1,500
Please R.S.V.P. by February 10.
Call: 501-353-1443
The Gala is February 19th.
Reserved seating is available for tables of ten. Table purchase includes 2 tickets to VIP reception at 6:30 pm.
ACT is a non profit 501c3 and your contribution is tax decuctible.
www.arktimes.com • FEBRUARY 2, 2011 9
‘Random, spurious contaminant’ ‘Assuming without conceding’ that officials ‘withheld’ DNA evidence at Tim Howard’s trial, the state attorney general presses for his execution.
By Mara Leveritt
A
BRIAN CHILSON
petition now before the Arkansas Supreme Court presents evidence that the DNA analysis that helped sentence a Little River County man to death was riddled with problems, including contamination. Moreover, the petition claims that state officials knew about the errors before Tim Howard’s trial but withheld the information, in violation of state and federal laws. Included in the petition are copies of handwritten notes made by the laboratory technician who ran the DNA tests and who testified at Howard’s trial. The notes, printed on lab reports spanning three months in 1999, contain phrases such as: “cap had flipped open while spinning,” “source of the problem,” “gel did not run properly,” “inadvertently erased,” and “random, spurious contaminant.”
10 FEBRUARY 2, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES
Yet none of this emerged at Howard’s trial. Instead, the technician who conducted the DNA analysis — and who wrote those notes — testified without hesitation that Howard’s DNA “matched” evidence from the crime. The case against Howard was circumstantial at best. The technician’s testimony was the strongest evidence presented linking Howard to the murders of his two close friends and to the attempted murder of their child. Howard was convicted of the 1998 murders. He has resided on Arkansas’s Death Row ever since. If he is innocent — and as far back as 2002, three members of the Arkansas Supreme Court worried that he may be — Howard would not be the first black man in Arkansas sentenced to die for a crime in which not only the victims, but all the other potential suspects, were white. I first wrote about Howard nine years ago, a few months after the Arkansas Supreme Court split four-tothree over whether there was enough evidence even to convict Howard, let alone sentence him to death. The narrow majority ruled that there was. W.H. “Dub” Arnold, the court’s chief justice at the time, wrote the majority opinion. “The most incriminating evidence against Howard,” he decided, “was his inappropriate and unexplainable behavior.” Arnold retired the following year. The three dissenting justices each wrote separate, strongly worded opinions expressing their concerns. Justice Jim Hannah, who is now the court’s chief justice, complained that the majority’s ruling “stretches and reaches to assert unsupported conclusions.” Associate Justice Robert L. Brown, who also remains on the court, wrote: “The critical question for this court to resolve is whether the evidence was sufficient to convict Howard. ... I do not believe it was.” A third dissenter, Ray Thornton, is no longer on the bench. But he too expressed concern that the evidence on which Howard was sentenced to die was “very thin.” Never before — or since — has the state’s high court divided so sharply on a death penalty appeal. I have followed Howard’s case closely since reporting that split, and in that time, I have gotten to know Howard. I regard him as a decent man and consider him a friend. I expect that he will eventually be cleared of the murders for which he has spent more than a decade on Death Row.
“* Cap had flipped open while spinning, resulting in sample loss.”
“Note: Lane data for 2098-064 from this gel was inadvertently erased from the sequencer hard drive. Therefore, it was not able to be analyzed. Samples were re-run on 4-29-99. CAD 4-29-99.”
“As evidenced by the right ladder, the right side of the gel did not run properly. Therefore, PS IV samples will be re-run. CAD 3-30-99.”
“All negative controls gave a positive result. An experiment will be done to find the source of the problem. CAD 1-19-99.”
“All negatives are clean, indicating the previous results were most likely a result of a random, spurious contaminants. CAD 1-20-99.” EVIDENCE: Above are handwritten notes from the lab technician who tested the DNA that was used to link Howard to the murders. Howard’s lawyers claim the notes show that the testing was botched and that prosecutors knew this at the time of the trial but withheld the information. I could be wrong, of course. Courts are unpredictable. And maybe Howard did kill his friends, Brian and Shannon Day, and all but kill their baby. He himself admits that, at the time, his life was “spinning out of control.” “Things were going downhill,” he said in a recent interview. “I didn’t know how to stop. I didn’t even know I could stop.” He admits: “I would eventually have ended up in prison at some point. Either that or dead.” But he says he did not kill his friends. And now, in addition to their earlier concerns, the justices on the state Supreme Court have the since-discovered lab notes to consider. The petition by Howard’s federal public defenders claims: “The prosecution never disclosed, and the jury never heard, that the DNA testing had been so sloppily done and so badly botched that it failed to prove any-
thing at all. On the basis of this forensic facade, a jury convicted Mr. Howard of two counts of capital murder and sentenced him to death.” Lawyers for the Arkansas attorney general’s office oppose a reexamination of Howard’s case. They contend that the DNA information is being submitted to the Supreme Court too late and that, even if jurors had known it at Howard’s trial, there is not a “reasonable probability” that their verdict would have been different.
Versions of the murders
O
n Saturday, Dec. 13, 1997, an anonymous caller notified the sheriff’s office for Little River County that blood was seen dripping out of a U-Haul rental truck parked on property owned by a man who had lived with Howard’s late mother. At
10:20 a.m., police drove to the scene, a farm near the tiny town of Ogden (pop. 126), in the far southwest corner of Arkansas. After breaking the padlock on the truck’s back doors, deputies found the body of Brian Day inside. He’d been beaten severely and shot in the head with a .38-caliber bullet. Howard’s fingerprints were found on the truck. Officers then drove to the Days’ home in nearby Ashdown to inform Shannon Day of her husband’s murder. There they found her dead as well, slumped in a bedroom closet. Trevor Day, the couple’s sevenmonth-old son, was found in a zipped bag in another room. A cord was tied around the baby’s neck, but he was alive. Police noted bruises on Shannon Day’s body that indicated “some sort of struggle.” They also found “fingerprints on a Mountain Dew bottle in the living room that were identified as Howard’s.” Shortly after police released news of the murders, a local man reported that he’d spotted a pair of boots earlier that morning in a clearing alongside a highway, about two miles from where Brian Day’s body was found. The man said he had passed the spot at about 8:20 a.m., at which time the boots were not there. Then, when he’d passed the same spot some 20 minutes later, he’d been startled to see the boots. He said they were standing upright and side-by-side, and that there were human footprints in the frost leading to nearby woods. Four days later, police arrested Timothy Lamont Howard, a 28-year-old employee of a local tire company. Howard had no prior convictions. Police charged him with the Days’ murders and with the attempted murder of Trevor Day. But the investigation was not as neat as reports of Howard’s arrest made it seem. And that was brought out even at Howard’s trial. This is the background that was known back then, as his federal lawyers recently outlined it in their petition to the Supreme Court: “The decedents in this case, Brian and Shannon Day, were Mr. Howard’s best friends. Mr. Howard is black, and both the Days were white. All three were actively using and dealing in illegal drugs, principally methamphetamine, although Brian Day was substantially more involved than the other two. Brian Day slid deeply into debt with his suppliers. “The Days were afraid of these suppliers, and in the week preceding their
www.arktimes.com • FEBRUARY 2, 2011 11
Fight to the death Should we kill on technicalities? By Ma ra L e v e ri t t
I
oppose the death penalty. But I know that even people who support it want to believe that those we execute are actually guilty of the crime for which they’re being killed. Since 1973, 138 prisoners have been released from death rows in 26 states because new evidence—often based on DNA—proved they were innocent. So far, no Arkansas inmate has walked from Death Row to freedom. But a few cases may be moving in that direction. By now, most Arkansans have heard of Damien Echols, the member of the trio known as the West Memphis Three who was sentenced to die for a triple murder in 1993. Last August, 17 years after their trials, the Arkansas Supreme Court ordered an evidentiary hearing to determine whether Echols and the two other men deserve new trials. Their case and the case of Tim Howard bear uncomfortable similarities. In both, lawyers argue that new evidence related to DNA might have changed the jury’s verdict, had it been known at the time. Howard’s lawyers contend that state officials knew about flaws in the testing of DNA that was used to convict Howard but withheld that information. In the West Memphis case, bloody paper towels recovered after an unidentified man cleaned up in a public restroom on the night the victims disappeared and near where their bodies were found were never sent for analysis. Police said they were “lost.”
With regard to Echols, Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel recently said: “Our office knows that there are concerns about this case, but be assured that we take the utmost care in handling the appeals of death sentences handed down by Arkansas jurors.” The question that arises, however, in that case, Howard’s, and others, is: How hard must the attorney general fight to resist a reexamination of cases where flaws are evident? Negotiation is an alternative. Last August, when the Supreme Court’s hearing in Echols’ case was broadcast on the Internet, I received e-mails from around the country asking if I could translate into plain English what the assistant attorney general had said. His arguments against allowing a court review were that technical. In Howard’s case, that same assistant AG argued that Howard had taken too long to present evidence that even he did not dispute had been improperly “withheld.” Timeliness is, indeed, important to courts. But it is also important to men like Howard and Echols, who together have now spent decades in solitary cells on Death Row. If we are going to execute, the reasons ought to be clear enough for citizens to understand. And, where there is reason to suspect that a verdict was not based on honest or complete evidence, decency should compel us to encourage—rather than resist—a second look.
murders, witnesses saw violent and unpleasant individuals visiting and arguing with the Days over money. Additionally, Brian Day was arrested with another dealer, Mike May, by a drug task force just two weeks before the Days were killed. “Rumors circulated that Brian avoided serving jail time on his recent arrest by becoming a ‘snitch’ and providing authorities with information about his suppliers and dealers. In fact, Shannon Day told a friend just days before the murders, that if anything happened to her and Brian, it would be Kenny ‘Chicken’ Fields — one of Brian’s main meth suppliers — who was responsible.” For reasons that were never explained, neither the men seen arguing with the Days over money nor the drug dealer with whom he’d been arrested were treated as serious suspects. Instead, Howard, the Days’ black friend, was quickly named their killer. “Brian and me — we were like brothers. We were as tight as Dick’s hatband,” Howard says. “We never had a cross word to say.” Howard says he was so close to the family that, on the night Shannon Day went into labor, he went to the hospital with her. “Brian was out trying to secure some drugs,” Howard says, “so I was there.”
Theory of the case
T
wo years later, in December 1999, Howard was brought to trial. Tom Cooper, the prosecuting attorney, proposed that Howard had killed the Days and attempted to kill their child while in a meth-induced fury that involved stealing money from Brian and killing Shannon, who, Tim had heard, was pregnant with his baby. Little of it made sense, especially since Howard had been found to be sterile years earlier, when he and his wife, Vickie, were trying to have children. No one testified that Howard was ever told that Shannon Day might be pregnant. Her autopsy report said she was not.
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Mac Carter, Howard’s attorney, tried to keep testimony about the alleged pregnancy out of the trial. However, Circuit Judge Charles A. Yeargan ruled that it could be admitted. Howard was divorced by the time of the trial. When his ex-wife was called to the stand, she told the court that Howard had, in fact, been aware that Brian Day was going to meet with drug dealers on the morning Day was killed. She testified that Howard had called her at around 11 that morning and said that, as he’d driven towards his farm, he’d seen police cars and an ambulance heading in the same direction. She said Howard told her he’d then turned around and driven to Texarkana, since it appeared that something had gone wrong with Brian’s deal. Cooper characterized the turn-around as Howard’s “flight.” Carter countered that, on the day after Brian Day’s death, Howard had voluntarily returned to Ashdown and given statements to the police. Cooper called a witness who testified that Howard was seen with a .38-caliber handgun the day before the murders. And he reminded jurors that Howard’s fingerprints had been found on the truck and on the soft-drink bottle in the Days’ home. Carter, in turn, argued that it was well known that Howard had rented the UHaul with Day and that he’d driven it. And, since Howard was a close friend of the Days, Carter said it was no surprise that his fingerprints would be found on a beverage inside the Days’ house. Ultimately, in a case that lacked a confession, an eyewitness and a murder weapon, the pair of brown work boots spotted alongside the road became the most substantial evidence at Howard’s trial. Vickie Howard testified that she had given a pair like that to her husband. Although the boots were found two and a half miles from where Brian Day’s body was discovered, analysis showed that one of them bore specks of Day’s blood. Hairs found inside the boots were
sent to Bode Technology Group, a laboratory in Virginia, for DNA analysis, along with a sample of Howard’s DNA. As Charity Diefenbach, the technician from Bode who conducted the tests, was completing her testimony, Cooper asked her: “Just for point of clarification: 99.8 percent of the people would be excluded from this sequence that were in these hairs, but the defendant’s blood DNA was included and is
BRIAN CHILSON
BRIAN CHILSON
ASSOCIATE JUSTICE ROBERT L. BROWN wrote: “The critical question for this court to resolve is whether the evidence was sufficient to convict Howard for the murder of Shannon Day. I do not believe it was. Surely, it was not forceful enough to compel a conclusion one way or the other beyond suspicion or conjecture.”
FORMER ASSOCIATE JUSTICE RAY THORNTON wrote: “I also believe that the evidence to support a conviction of Brian Day was very thin.”
CHIEF JUSTICE JIM HANNAH wrote that the supreme court’s ruling affirming Howard’s conviction “stretches and reaches to assert unsupported conclusions.”
Hannah’s dissent
was deeply in debt,” Hannah wrote, “that he and his wife feared for their lives, that he had set up a drug deal that took place about the time of the murders at the place where his body was found, that a substantial sum of money was involved, that he was to receive something that required a truck to haul, and that in the days before his murder he had been in confrontation with unidentified persons who were apparently the persons he met
a match?” Diefenbach replied: “That’s correct.” In Cooper’s closing argument to the jury, he recalled the DNA testimony, stressing for the jurors that, because of it, the “importance of those boots becomes monumental.” The jury found Howard guilty and sentenced him to death for each of the Day’s murders, and to an additional 30 years in prison for the attempted murder of their child.
I
n 2002, when the Arkansas Supreme Court narrowly affirmed Howard’s conviction, the most scathing and, at 22 pages, most lengthy dissent was written by Jim Hannah, then an associate justice. While Hannah acknowledged that it was reasonable to have considered Howard a suspect, he pointed to evidence that “tended to incriminate others.” “Evidence was presented that Brian
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A Difference of Degree
www.arktimes.com • FEBRUARY 2, 2011 13
the night of his murder.” Hannah noted that “there is probably not a more common caliber than .38,” and that, while Cooper had portrayed Howard as having spent large sums of cash after the murders, the actual amount, according to testimony, had been “a few hundred dollars.” Citing the testimony of witnesses who reported that Shannon Day had said “she did not know what Brian was doing with the money but they were going to kill him,” and that Shannon feared for her family because “Brian owed everybody money,” Hannah saw abundant fear — but nothing that pointed to Howard. “What the record does reveal,” he wrote, “is that Brian owed other people money, and that people were mad. He was trying to gather up cash from his users or from anywhere he could get it.” He continued: “There is abundant evidence that all of these people were nervous about something that has never been revealed. The evidence does put someone at the Howard farm with Brian the night he was killed. It does not put Howard there.” And: “The persons with whom Brian met on the night of the murders had a great deal more to gain” than Howard from the murders of Brian and Shannon
14 FEBRUARY 2, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES
Day and the attempted murder of their child by making them “an example of what happens when a person does not meet his obligations.” No part of the trial, however, seemed to disturb Justice Hannah as much as the unfounded intimation that Howard had gotten Shannon Day pregnant. When Howard’s attorney had objected to the introduction of that “evidence,” he had been overruled by Judge Yeargan. Hannah believed Yeargan’s ruling on that point was wrong and that, because the pregnancy claim was allowed: “An African-American was tried for the capital murder of a white woman. Then … the jury is told that he might have gotten her pregnant as well. The obvious potential prejudice is so apparent it needs no discussion ...” Cooper is now a circuit judge. Attempts to reach him for this article failed.
The legal meander
I
n 2003, shortly after the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed Howard’s conviction, his lawyers filed a Rule 37 petition in Little River Circuit Court, claiming inadequacies at his trial. That was an appeal for a new trial. The circuit court denied it. With his case then seemingly headed
towards an appeal in federal court, Howard was appointed a federal public defender, who had his case reinvestigated. That’s when the notes concerning problems with the DNA analysis were discovered. At that point, Howard’s federal attorneys began working to bring those notes before a new jury. In the past three years, Howard’s case has bounced from a habeas petition in federal court (ordered back to state court in 2007), to a request for another Rule 37 hearing in Ashdown (dismissed in 2009), to a request that the Arkansas Supreme Court order a new Rule 37 hearing (denied in 2010, with two justices dissenting), and now to the current petition before the Arkansas Supreme Court, which seeks an evidentiary hearing that could lead to a new and “fair trial” in Little River County. Last October, shortly after the filing of Howard’s most recent petition with the state Supreme Court, David R. Raupp of the Arkansas attorney general’s office, filed the state’s response. It stated that, “Assuming without conceding that [Howard] is correct” on his “withheldevidence claims,” the high court should deny him a new trial because “he has not been diligent in bringing his request and his claims are not meritorious.”
Essentially, the diligence argument is over all the back-and-forth that has occurred as Howard’s lawyers have tried to find a venue that would accept the new DNA information. In 2007, U.S. District Judge Brian Miller ruled that Howard needed first to give state courts a chance to address the issue. The petition now before the Supreme Court marks Howard’s fourth attempt to do that. Raupp argues that, “The [Supreme Court] should not indulge Howard’s piecemeal efforts to return to circuit court to relitigate his guilt and death sentences because such efforts serve only delay.” Raupp also told the court that Howard’s petition was not “meritorious,” because he had failed to “demonstrate that there is a reasonable probability that the judgment of conviction would not have been rendered, or would have been prevented, had the information been disclosed at trial.” According to Raupp’s response, Howard “overlooks a significant circumstantial link of him to the crime.” In outlining that link, Raupp cited: • Brian Day’s blood on boots that Vickie Howard said “were the same type and size she had bought” for Howard”; • Howard’s “fingerprints on the
HIGHER-ED REFORM U-Haul truck containing the victim’s body”; • “testimony that he drove that truck and possessed the same caliber handgun as a murder weapon the day before”; • “his flight after learning the victims had been discovered”; • “his proximity to the crime scenes,” • “his suspicious behavior” • and “spending large amounts of cash.” The Supreme Court may hand down its decision soon. In the meantime, Howard acknowledges that, “prison is probably one of the best things that ever happened” to him. “It gave me a chance to slow my life down and learn about myself and other people. “I’ve learned a lot since I’ve been locked up, and I still have a lot more stuff to learn.” But he adds, “Prison is a terrible place, and being on Death Row is even worse.” He finds the process of knocking on courthouse doors to get him back before a court in Little River County “extremely frustrating and ridiculous.” “Why?” he asks rhetorically of the Supreme Court. “If they made a mistake, you fix it. Don’t send me back to the same court that did this to me in the first place.”
Continued from page 8
influence. It was adopted by the voters in 1942, after Gov. Homer Adkins had removed J. William Fulbright as president of the University of Arkansas because Fulbright’s mother had criticized Adkins in the family newspaper. The colleges and universities are quick to invoke Amendment 33. Gearhart cited it in an interview with the Times. To give more authority to a central board of higher education would be “a very, very bad idea,” he said, and changing the structure of higher education would be “anathema to democracy
and local government.” Purcell said he believed that changes could be made in higher education without repealing Amendment 33 “and I believe that’s the governor’s view.” He said the administration would offer a package of higher-ed bills, including a new funding formula that would be based not only on enrollment and need, but also on performance, and that might include additional funding for producing graduates in the areas of science, technology, engineering and math and in areas associated with “green” technology. That could be controversial with supporters of the liberal arts, and Purcell’s statement that “We hope to do some things differently
in remediation” could set off alarms too, especially at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, where more than 90 percent of the students take remedial classes. A proposal that would remove the constitutional independence of the colleges and universities, as well as that of the Game and Fish Commission and the Highway Commission, has been introduced in the state Senate. So has a bill to establish a higher education “oversight committee” that would make recommendations to the legislature in areas that are now left to the boards of trustees, such as tuition and faculty tenure. Purcell said these measures were not part of the administration’s package.
We’re searching Arkansas to find the one nurse we can say is the most outstanding in our state. Do you know a nurse that you feel is the most compassionate, caring and empathetic caregiver? A nurse who has given comfort or care to you, a family member or friend? We are asking you to send us their name, where they work and a short message expressing why you think they are the most deserving nurse in Arkansas. Deadline February 15, 2011. We hope to have nominees from every county and every medical facility in Arkansas. From approximately 48 finalists, we will choose two “Runners Up” and finally, one nurse will be named Arkansas’ Most Compassionate Nurse at a special ceremony held immediately after and in conjunction with the ThinkNurse Expo on April 30th, 2011 in Little Rock. The nurses will be recognized in the ASBN Update magazine and the Winner will be featured inside and on the cover. Watch for more details coming soon!
Send or email your nomination to: NURSING COMPASSION P.O. Box 17427 Little Rock, Arkansas 72222 sramsel@pcipublishing.com
www.arktimes.com • FEBRUARY 2, 2011 15
EYE ON ARKANSAS
Editorial n Fred Smith barely found his seat in the Arkansas House of Representatives before he was forced to relinquish it. The Crawfordsville Democrat was accepted by the House at the beginning of the legislative session last month, the members rejecting a complaint that he really lived in Mississippi. Within a few days he’d been convicted of felony theft in connection with events that took place before he was elected. He resigned his seat, sparing the House the trouble of expelling him. In most sessions, Smith would stand out as the worst freshman legislator — Rookie of the Year, so to speak. But Sen. Bruce Holland has game too. Spied speeding, Holland fled from a Perry County deputy sheriff who said the Greenwood Republican led him on a chase at speeds in excess of 100 miles an hour, recklessly passing other vehicles in the attempt to escape. It first appeared that Holland would get off with a scolding, but he’s now been charged with fleeing, careless driving, and improper passing. Here is the fruit of term limits. Some of us long for a return to democracy, when the voters of Arkansas were allowed to choose their lawmakers.
Here come the judges n The Far Right, on the other hand, has never bought into the idea of letting the people and their elected representatives handle important matters. Rule by judicial activist is more to the taste of hard-core conservatives. Naturally, they’re pleased that an unelected federal judge in Florida has declared invalid federal health-care legislation that was proposed by a freely elected president, and approved by a freely elected Congress. The belligerent judge in this case is a Ronald Reagan appointee, and typical of the group. Reagan made a point of naming only right-wing Republicans to the federal bench, and they’ve come through for The Gipper many times over, most forcefully when five Supreme Court justices wrenched a presidential election away from the voters and installed a new president themselves. (A president who turned out to be among the worst ever, it’s worth mentioning. Maybe the worst.) More recently, they’ve struck down federal law restricting political contributions by corporations, holding that corporations are people, except with more rights. Party loyalty is the quality that most distinguishes ReaganRepublican judges, and as they’re still in the majority on the Supreme Court, health-care reform is probably doomed. Like the millions of Americans who’ll continue to be denied health care if the new law is crushed. They should have had the foresight to be born corporations.
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16 FEBRUARY 2, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES
CORY ELLIS
Class of 2011
MADE IN USA: Cory Ellis, a University of Arkansas graduate studying abroad as part of a master’s degree program at George Washington University, was able to snap this photo of the “Made in USA” label on a canister of tear gas used against protesters in Cairo last week.
The tale of Edie Windsor n You’ve likely never heard of Edie Windsor. Advocates for changing marriage law in the United States, however, hope that many will come to visualize her when they think about same-sex marriage. More importantly, Edie’s lawsuit, Windsor v. United States, just may be the legal instrument that overturns a central provision of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act. Edie Windsor and her partner, Thea Spyer, lived together as a couple in New York City over 40 years. Four years after they met through mutual friends in 1963, the couple became “engaged.” Their engagement lasted four decades until they were finally able to marry in Toronto in May of 2007. Thea died in February 2009. Although New York has yet to approve same-sex marriages performed in the state, an executive order handed down in 2008 recognizes such marriage legally performed elsewhere. Thus, Edie and Thea were married at the time of Thea’s death, not just in the eyes of Canada, but also in the eyes of the State of New York. But they were not married in the eyes of the U.S. government. Any opposite-sex couple in the same situation (even if they’d been together only a fraction of the time) would be deemed “married” by the U.S. government because a state said they were married. Federal recognition of marriage brings with it benefits in the areas of tax law, Social Security law and immigration law, among others. Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, however, denies those benefits to many married couples by stating that a “marriage” is only one between a woman and man. (In perhaps the most craven act of his political life, President Clinton’s re-election campaign ran ads on rural, Christian radio stations bragging about his 1996 signing of the bill that “protected” marriage.) Across their 44 years as partners, Edie and Thea shared the typical mixture of joys and challenges that all couples face. The most trying aspect of their time together was Thea’s diagnosis of multiple sclerosis in 1977 that eventually led to her paralysis and, finally,
Jay Barth her death. Edie was her caretaker throughout her illness. Thea, naturally, left her belongings — including a home — to Edie. But because Edie and Thea were legal strangers, Edie has to pay over $350,000 in estate taxes. An opposite-sex spouse who had received such an estate would not have paid any estate taxes. Now 81, Edie is living on her retirement savings, a large percentage of which will go to pay this significant tax bill. The ACLU has taken Edie’s case and is challenging the provisions defining marriage federally in a case filed in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York. The venue is important because the federal circuit in which it falls has no case law on the issue. Thus, the Obama administration will have to take a clear stance before March 11 on whether the Equal Protection clause requires only a rational basis test or a strict scrutiny test when evaluating discrimination against gay couples. Many argue that the law might not even survive a rational basis test, but a strict scrutiny test would surely be its death knell. Hearing the grandmotherly Edie talk about the love shared by her and Thea will make even the most cold-hearted rethink their opposition to same-sex marriage. It is why marriage proponents want the story heard by millions. It is the views of one president (“evolving” on the issue of marriage, in his own words), however, that will matter most in determining whether America is on the path to treating all married couples with basic fairness. Jay Barth is the M.E. and Ima Graves Peace Distinguished Professor of Politics at Hendrix College. Max’s column will return next week.
CORY ELLIS
More transparency? n Last week, during his state of the union address, President Obama talked about a “21st century government that’s open and competent.” He called for Congress to follow the White House’s lead and reveal, online, every time its members meet with a lobbyist, and he promised a website that will detail how and where tax dollars are being spent. The week before the president spoke, four Arkansas House committees considered a more basic idea of transparency, whether to allow live video streaming of their committee meeting rooms. The votes didn’t concern purchasing and installing the equipment — that had already been taken care of, to the tune of somewhere north of $375,000. Rather, the committees voted on whether to simply turn the system on. That any sort of debate preceded the votes was galling, if not surprising. That some House members, including Majority Leader Johnnie Roebuck (D-Arkadelphia), argued that streaming meetings in some but not all committee meeting would offer “a very slanted and limited view of what goes on in state government” was yet another sign that retrograde ideas can find purchase in the ledge anywhere.
Lindsey Millar lindseymillar@arktimes.com
Thankfully, the overwhelming majority of state House committee members took a more sensible view. Those who spoke after voting for streaming largely echoed Minority Leader John Burris (RHarrison), who said that anything that leads to more transparency in government is a good thing. That position is one I’d wager most of us, regardless of party affiliation, can agree on. Moreover, I expect most of us consider it a democratic birthright. Maybe because our country’s leaders have been talking about it for a long time. Founding fathers like James Madison argued for “easy prompt circulation of public proceedings” in the 18th century. Lincoln all but codified the idea of an electorate thoroughly integrated into the workings of government with his notion of a government “of, by and for” the people. A half a century later, Justice Louis Brandeis helped build the legal foundation for Freedom of Information laws and gave transparency advocates a guiding aphorism:
Such a pity, but we’ll take it n State legislators seem quite proud of themselves for ethics legislation unveiled this week. That is altogether pitiful. The legislation itself is a pity, proposing only two modest reforms — that legislators must wait a year before becoming lobbyists and that legislators must abide by regular state employee guidelines in getting reimbursed at lowest-rate levels for travel. But the greater pity is that legislators have a legitimate basis for bragging. This bipartisan consensus legislation, if passed, will represent the most substantial ethics reform enacted directly by Arkansas state legislators in modern memory. The last real advancements in our ethics law, requiring disclosure of lobbyists’ entertainment of legislators exceeding $25 and banning gifts to public officials exceeding $100, were rejected by legislators in the 1980s. They were enacted only after then-Gov. Bill Clinton took them to the voters in an initi-
John Brummett jbrummett@arkansasnews.com
ated act. That remains the surest way, indeed probably the only way, to get major reform. There is titillating speculation that Bill Halter, gone from the lieutenant governor’s office, might put his lottery initiative experience to work to lead a campaign for 2012 for an initiated act forbidding the expenditure of even a penny by lobbyists on legislators for wining, dining and entertainment. That is commonly known as the WalMart rule, since the retail giant forbids its buyers from accepting even a cup of coffee from vendors. That is not because the company believes its buyers to be corruptible by so little as a cup of coffee. It is because the corporation values strictly its integrity and reputation
“Sunlight … is the best disinfectant.” Even without the benefit of history, we only have to look to Facebook’s recent monolithic rise (it now constitutes more web traffic than Google) to know that we are a nation (and a world) that values transparency. As for openness in government, the Obama administration has told federal agencies to “adopt a presumption in the favor of disclosure” when confronted with Freedom of Information requests. Now, thanks to the power of network technology and the low cost of storing data, news organizations like ProPublica and the Sunlight Foundation can, more easily than ever before, compile and parse massive databases that track thorny topics like stimulus spending and lobbyist spending. WikiLeaks may not survive its founder’s ego, but the idea of a secure portal for classified leaks seems likely to. Already, Al Jazeera has developed a WikiLeak-style wing, the Transparency Unit, and the New York Times has indicated the development of a similar department. It’s hard not think of today as the golden age of government transparency. That is, until we start thinking of counterexamples. A report released last spring by the independent research group the National Security Archive demonstrated that, despite the Obama administration’s direc-
tive to government agencies to fulfill FOIA requests, few were actually following through. Last year’s Citizen United decision by the Supreme Court allowed millions of undisclosed money into the 2010 midterm elections, easily the least transparent in recent memory. In December, despite what appeared to be unanimous bipartisan support, an unknown U.S. senator placed an anonymous hold on the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, a bill that would have expanded our woefully insufficient federal protection for whistleblowers of the non-intelligence-related variety. Last week, the U.S. Senate eliminated the tradition of secret holds, but the mystery senator is still at large. See onthemedia. org for a promising crowd-sourcing effort to expose the secret senator. In Arkansas, of course, not everyone follows Rep. Burris’ line of thinking. The state Game and Fish Commission tried to adopt its own less stringent FOI law late last year, but backed away after public outcry. Meanwhile, despite outcry in these pages and elsewhere, the Razorback Foundation continues to operate in secrecy, despite clearly receiving public funds, a condition that, by law, should trigger Arkansas’s FOIA. So are we moving towards more transparent government? Maybe. But the shadows still loom large.
and professionalism. If only we valued state government as much and as strictly. To be fair and complete: I agree with my correspondent who says it would be a travesty to enact a Wal-Mart rule only for legislators. Executive branch employees make buying and contractaward decisions for state agencies all the time and ought to be restricted to coffee on their own dime as well. For the time being, we are left to take what we can get, meaning the one-year waiting period for lobbying and the modest expense reform, both of which failed in the legislature two years ago. So this is indeed progress. And it seems to have happened in part in reaction to a flurry of columns in this space shortly after the general election. These columns cited the interest in ethics reform of a few newly elected Republicans and encouraged these insurgents to go for it. House Speaker Robert Moore and Senate president pro tem Paul Bookout got wind of the movement, got ahead of it, and put a bipartisan group of representatives and senators to work. A Wal-Mart rule never had a chance. Full disclosure of any and all lobbyist expenditures on legislators had no
chance either. It is because many legislators get their backs up at this suggestion that they are corrupt for getting a steak dinner or less from a lobbyist. They don’t get paid much as legislators. They are away from jobs and home. They are new to the system considering term limits. They don’t know anybody. Again, though, it is not about them. It is about the integrity of the institution they serve and that they ought to honor. The Republicans decided to take what they could get and claim a rare ethical victory rather than go all-in for a major brouhaha. That is to say that Republicans caved on ethics even as they promised not to cave, but to fight no less than the veteran governor on tax cuts. I would accuse these Republicans of caring more about cutting taxes than about ethical government except that it would be needlessly incendiary and, anyway, Republicans might ask what my point is. John Brummett is a columnist and reporter for Stephens Media’s Arkansas News Bureau. You can read additional Brummett columns in The Times of North Little Rock. www.arktimes.com • FEBRUARY 2, 2011 17
arts entertainment
This week in
Eliot Lipp to Rev Room
Spike Lee to speak at UCA
PAGE 20
PAGE 21
and
TO-DO LIST 20
CALENDAR 22
MOVIES 26
DINING 28
JUDGES
BRIAN CHILSON
ANDY WARR WHO? Frontman for Brother Andy and His Big Damn Mouth, ATMS 2010 winners; Little Rock’s newest icon. ON TYRANNOSAURUS CHICKEN. “Killer band, killer name. They love what they do and it shows. All that’s great about Southern everything. Refreshing as hell.”
BONNIE MONTGOMERY WHO? Local songwriter/chanteuse, the mind behind “Billy Blythe.” ON TYRANNOSAURUS CHICKEN. “Beautiful, authentic, original, kick-ass, wonderful, ARKANSAS.”
TYRANNOSAURUS CHICKEN: Rachel Ammons (left) and Smilin’ Bob Lewis advance to the finals.
Tastes like
MUSICIANS SHOWCASE 2011
Tyrannosaurus Chicken MUSICIANS SHOWCASE
TRAVIS HILL WHO? The head of Last Chance Records, creator of the “Live from the White Water Tavern” album series. ON TYRANNOSAURUS CHICKEN. “Cons: not much at all. Badass and raw.”
2011
The art-blues duo take round one; now four more bands line up for round two.
I
BY JOHN TARPLEY
hope it never happens. But if, for whatever reason, Arkansas ever has to shut off its borders and prove that our middle school state history teachers weren’t kidding when they told us we’re the only state that can be totally self-sustaining, we’ll have plenty of food, loads of clean water, wicked bling from Murfreesboro and a huge amount of unbelievable music. Moreover, if the packed house at Stickyz this Thursday is any indicator, we’ll still have the best crowds of music-lovers anywhere in that weird, hypothetical, post-apocalyptic world. Round one of the Arkansas Times Musicians Show18 FEBRUARY 2, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES
case showed the frenzy the state is capable of. After Tyrannosaurus Chicken wrapped up a ferocious, rollicking set of rejiggered Delta blues, everyone from the mob in front of the stage to the barflies in the back stood as one massive, gobsmacked body of dropped jaws and pumping fists. The rambling duo stomped, hollered and slid through ... well, something nearly impossible to cleanly define. Post-primal blues? Delta garage rock? Electric hill trance? Times contributor James Szenher wrapped up their performance as such: Continued on page 19
MIKE BROWN WHO? Owner of Green Grass Bodega in the River Market, founder of RSVP Society, renowned DJ. ON TYRANNOSAURUS CHICKEN. “So original! Love their rap/ bluegrass context. Sexy, sassy and dexterous.”
JASON MAGNUSSON (GUEST JUDGE) WHO? “Doctor Crossfade,” co-producer for Zao and The Juliana Theory. ON TYRANNOSAURUS CHICKEN. “Hell yeah! Fantastic. Was there a McDonald’s in their ass? ’Cause I’m lovin it.”
BRIAN CHILSON
For Sale in Central Arkansas? ZACH WILLIAMS & THE REFORMATION: Opening the night.
SHOWCASE Continued from page 18
“For those fans who didn’t catch this set, it was kind of like having watched this beautiful vibrant dangerous caterpillar, a caterpillar that was content being the greatest caterpillar around, and then having looked away for a second and finding out that while you weren’t looking, this caterpillar snuck away and went into a cocoon and then emerged as this enormous monster moth of flame and dirt that burned and sullied the souls of everyone within a mile radius.” Whatever the hell it was, Tyrannosaurus Chicken left with an invitation to the Showcase finals, not to mention a couple hundred new admirers to add to its already-exploding, well-deserved cult following. Check out video of the night’s big winners on YouTube, courtesy of Times photographer Brian Chilson, at http:// arktimes.com/tyrannosauruschicken1. But the night’s roots music didn’t stop there. The burly, bearded crew of Zach Williams and the Reformation plugged in and opened the Showcase with soulful, Southern choogle and charisma to spare. All guitar riffs, muddy groove and long hair shimmy, the Jonesboro rockers take a big cue from The Black Crowes, which may have hurt them in the judge’s “originality” scores, but hey, if you’re going to riff off of a band, it might as well be a good one. It certainly didn’t stop them from wowing the crowd. Catskill Kids crowded the stage to provide the indie rock alternative to the night’s twang, tearing through a set of fantastically catchy, defiantly bouncy, summertime pop. By the time the five-piece bowed out, lead singer Matthew Cronk was wearing nothing but pants, sweat and a headband: the fashion equivalent of his band’s sound. The night closed out with Cody Ives Band, a Red Dirt bar band from Benton who brought up a crew of Saline County fans for the ride. Even if some were turned off by their beer-soaked, hedonistic take on country-rock, no one could deny that frontman Cody Ives is packing some pipes, even belting out some lagniappe vocal gymnastics during soundcheck.
ROUND TWO, 8:30 P.M. FEB. 3, STICKYZ.
THE SMITTLE BAND. Regulars in jazz bars around the state, The Smittle Band offers gorgeous, fluid lounge sounds with a trickling undercurrent of classy Americana. Fronted by Stephanie Smittle, the band balances her hushed, smoky vocals with sharp guitar work from co-writer Wythe Walker, tasteful, smart keys from Jim McGehee and brushing percussion courtesy of Ray Wittenberg. THINK: “A Prarie Home Companion” with aquavit.
THE YIPPS. Spun off from Frown Pow’r (full disclosure: Hey, I’m in that band!) and the late, great Coach, The Yipps run a hyper-melodic streak through ’60s Britrock guitar rock crunch. This marks a rare live show for the wood-shedding four-piece, all working under the pseudonyms Ronnie, Rocky, Ronin and Chelton Vanderbilt Yipp III. Guitars: jangly. Drums: chaotic. Bass: acrobatic. Songs: dangerously catchy. THINK: The Kinks rocking out at Ardent Studios.
find it at
arkansasautobuyer.com
YEAR OF THE TIGER. Another band fused together from a couple of local acts — this time the monsters of Underclaire and The Moving Front — Year of the Tiger combines rangy guitar and epic vocals from the former (courtesy of Mike Mullins) and the signature synth squawk of the latter (from Jeremy Brasher). Still relatively fresh, expect enormous chops from the crew of local veterans. THINK: Angular rock for that apocalypse we talked about earlier.
ECHO CANYON. Veterans around town, the instrumental outfit of Echo Canyon is either a jam band that’s not afraid to rock or a rock band that’s not scared to jam. It’s a tough balance, but the wailing guitars and shouting saxophones toe the line with deft musicianship and catchy dynamism. Even in a night propelled by amazing guitar work all around, this act may just wear the crown. THINK: The soundtrack for your high-speed chase from the bad vibes police.
10,076 New and Used Cars and Trucks Online This Week! Photos! Descriptions! Prices! Only One Click Away!
www.arktimes.com • FEBRUARY 2, 2011
19
LIPP SERVICE: Brooklyn producer/gear-fetishist Eliot Lipp brings his hip-hop/house bangers to Revolution this Saturday night.
■ to-dolist BY JOHN TARPLEY
FRIDAY 2/4
RICH LITTLE
easy to mock the mocker: Mimicry is a holdover cheese act that inspires the same antipathy that Nixon did, but don’t load up on old tomatoes quite yet. The Emmywinning “Man of a Thousand Voices” is to impersonations as Chuck Berry is to rock ’n’ roll. He’s been outdated since before a lot of us were born, but we’ll take him over Dane Cook any day.
SATURDAY 2/5
ELIOT LIPP
9 p.m., Revolution. $10 adv., $15 d.o.s.
n I’m never going to learn my lesson. Every single time I go to a music store, I’ll absentmindedly pluck at a few guitars or
7:30 p.m., Reynolds Performance Hall, UCA. $30-$40.
n Decades ago, Rich Little found himself at a private fund-raiser in Richard Nixon’s backyard. Little’s stateside success was due in large part to his impersonation of the disgraced, so, as you would expect, the famous mimicker was pretty much obligated to sing for his supper and launch into a poolside impersonation of the host. He offered up his best Nixon mumble, people laughed, and Nixon just shrugged off the comedian with a Tricky Dick fart face. The Canadian “Man of a Thousand Voices” has spent half a century as a comedy icon, lampooning politicians and movie stars. And over those 50 years, he’s accumulated a repertoire of over 200 impersonations, from the My First Imitation standards (JFK and Elvis) to the unreasonably archaic (Van Heflin? Foster Brooks?). Sure, it would be 20 FEBRUARY 2, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES
poke at a keyboard while waiting for the right time to dart off toward the sequencers and drum machines. Inevitably, I end up annoying the employees as just another in a long, annoying line of clumsy, beat-illiterate white dudes who maybe, possibly, one day could churn out something listenable on blink-y, button-y doodads if only we had as much rhythm as dumb-ass ambition. Eliot Lipp, on the other hand, is the guy we all want to be. Since 2004, the young Brooklynite has been squeezing a blend of protohouse and ’90s hip-hop out of two tables full of vintage, analog equipment. Think Ratatat getting blunted with Madlib in a basement loaded with all the buttons and knobs you don’t know how to use. Even better, his songs are obscenely catchy. (Check out “Homework” and “The Area” on YouTube.) He’s joined by Ana Sia, a dreamy DJ from San Francisco whose glitched-out take on dubstep wobble goes harder than most of the boys’.
MONDAY 2/7
DAVID GARRETT GARISH GARRETT: Rock violinist David Garrett turns classic rock into classical schlock at Robinson Center Music Hall.
7:30 p.m., Robinson Center Music Hall. $30-$90.
history of not knowing jack crap. After “Abie’s Irish Rose” opened on Broadway in 1922, the marriage farce was detested by critics. When he could find time between gin and whore benders, king critic Robert Benchley spent years slamming the play in the pages of Life, calling it “as low as good clean fun can get.” But while Benchley was shaking off his years-long hangovers, his most hated play was continuing its monumental success, breaking box office records and running for five and a half years before springing back to life on film, radio and television. Producers always get the last laugh. The story of a young Jewish man and an Irish Catholic girl getting married in spite of their parents’ protests still resonates. And it’s still lurching around 21st century megaplexes. Remember “Our Family Wedding” from last year? Neither do we, but it’s the same thing, with Latinos and African-Americans. Now the enormously successful, long-running play lands in Murry’s Dinner Playhouse, where it stays through March 13.
HAYES CARLL LEE, LECTURING: The firebrand filmmaker/social commenter Spike Lee brings his uncompromising opinions to UCA Monday night. n Let’s be nice. David Garrett is an amazing violinist. A prodigy defined, even. Born in Germany, he took to the instrument at the age of 5, studying at one of the country’s finest conservatories before heading to London’s Royal College of Music and, soon after, graduating from Juilliard, where he studied under Itzhak freaking Perlman. He’s one of the world’s fastest violinists, able to execute 13 notes in a single second. And, just to prove that gifts are never parceled out evenly, he has supermodel good looks, which must have come in handy when he worked as a supermodel. Now, let’s be real. David Garrett is another cheese-ball metal classicist, cock-rocking in fog and strobe lights to shred AC/DC and Michael Jackson on a Stradivarius. His takes on Debussy and Bizet are fine, if not robotic, but the rock repertoire that looks like your junior high Napster library is why he’s here. And that gaudy rock shtick fills every inch in the spectrum between annoying and unlistenable. Slip this one in the “Who Asked for This?” file, right between the third “Big Momma’s House” movie and that “no headphones on pedestrians” bill that bombed last week in the legislature. That said, if you know a youngster who needs a little kick-start to get them into violin, this could be your ticket.
from another fundamentally ignorant Republican. But it’s a sentiment shared, if not articulated, by a wide swath of moviegoers who, to reappropriate JFK, take in movies to “enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” With every movie that cowers away from addressing complex, contemporary questions in favor of some pandering, mealymouthed Sunday school lesson (“Crash,” ugh), the brash tradition of American film erodes just a little more. That’s why Spike Lee’s provocation is vital, now more than ever. At his best (“Malcolm X,” “The 25th Hour”), he refuses to offer up easy answers about race, religion, politics, gender, addiction, family and so forth. Heck, he’s one of a few working directors who respects his audience enough to let them find their own conclusions in his “joints.” And, as anyone who ever saw “Do the Right Thing” will tell you, no two reactions are ever the same. Simply, he’s one of the great, singular voices in American filmmaking. Expect Lee to jaw on everything from his beloved Knicks to the Cairo riots to the effects of urban migration at this lecture at UCA’s Reynolds Hall, the latest in the college’s “Distinguished Lecture” series.
SPIKE LEE
T U E S D AY 2 / 8
7:30 p.m., Reynolds Performance Hall, UCA. $10.
n Rep. Dick Armey famously said “Spike Lee is obviously more stupid than anyone can be by accident.” Of course, that’s another fundamentally ignorant statement
‘ABIE’S IRISH ROSE’
6 p.m., Murry’s Dinner Playhouse. $22-$30
n Critics, myself especially, have a long
10 p.m., White Water Tavern. $20.
n Whoops. The Rock Candy blog may have become a jumping-off point for a Hayes Carll backlash last week when a crew of commenters laid into the Texasborn, Hendrix-educated country crooner, calling him a “warbling charlatan, shit talking Arkansas to a room full of his fellow smug, chortling Texans” during a live taping of Austin City Limits. The commenter, Barvul, later admitted that he “shouldn’t expect a Texan not to act like one.” “I hated it the first time when he went by the name Eddie Rabbit,” said commenter tippytom. Hilarious? Obviously. Widespread? Probably not. For years, Little Rock has provided Carll a second hometown, a title for his best album and a cluster of die-hard fans. But with every week, Hayes, a dude on a front porch down the street, is becoming Hayes Carll, cult songwriter, guest on “The Tonight Show” and Hollywood songwriter. (He provided music for the recent Gwyneth Paltrow flick, “Country Strong.”) But if success has changed the man, it’s hard to tell from his music. His new album, “KMAG YOYO (& other American stories),” named after a military acronym (“Kiss My Ass, Guys, You’re On Your Own”) is a taut, quickwitted romp through the Middle Eastern wars, the recession and boozing. In short, he’s not straying too far from the formula that’s making him almost famous. Expect Carll, accompanied by his full band, to tear through the upcoming album for his return to White Water Tavern. Isaac Alexander, the local songwriter who needs no introduction, opens the night.
■ inbrief THURSDAY 2/3
n The 2011 Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase returns to Stickyz for Round 2, featuring the instrumental explorations of Echo Canyon, grown and sexy lounge grooves from The Smittle Band, ’60s Brit rock from The Yipps and a buzzy new act from members of Underclaire and The Moving Front, The Year of the Tiger, 8:30 p.m., $5. Mediums Art Gallery opens up for a night of neo-soul from Butterfly and Irie Soul, 9 p.m., $10. Two of Arkansas’s greatest songwriters land in White Water Tavern when Joshua (Velvet Kente) and Isaac Alexander (The Easys, Big Silver, the brilliant solo album “See Thru Me”) co-headline, 10 p.m., $5. Cajun’s Wharf keeps the evening musical with Crash Meadows jamming for the happy hour crew, 5:30 p.m., and Jet 420 rocking out for the late night crowd, 9 p.m., $5 after 8:30 p.m. And the Faulkner County Film Society gets ready for Spike Lee’s appearance at UCA on Monday: They screen the bracing civil rights doc “4 Little Girls” at the Faulkner County Library, 7 p.m., free.
FRIDAY 2/4
n Club Hollywood kicks off its Friday Night Concert Series with Lil Jon protege Lil Scrappy, 10 p.m., $10. Fayetteville’s TheatreSquared debuts its newest production, “Sundown Town,” a racially-charged play set in rural 1918 Arkansas that features live bluegrass and gospel from 3 Penny Acre, at Walton Arts Center’s Nadine Baum Studios, 7:30 p.m., $20-$22. Squirrel Nut Zippers frontman Jimbo Mathus returns to White Water with his band, the TriState Coalition, 10 p.m. Prolific pop songstress Elise Davis hosts a singer/ songwriter night at Town Pump, 10 p.m., $5. Bonnie Montgomery’s throwback Americana act Montgomery Trucking slides into The Afterthought, 9 p.m., $7.
SATURDAY 2/5
n Downtown Music Hall hosts a fundraiser for Brandon Clendenin, the young drummer for local metal band Siege the City who is undergoing treatments for cancer; a rolling list of acts, including Dying Breath, It Won’t Die, Knee Deep, Our Friends Fall Silent, Still Reign and Iron-E, help with the cause, 6 p.m., $10. Indie-pop song man Nick Flora releases his new album, “Hello Stranger,” at Juanita’s with some help from local folkie Jarred McCauley and anthemic indie outfit Falcon Scott, 9 p.m. And at Cornerstone Pub, Runaway Planet rallies around the mic to tear into some reliably fantastic bluegrass, 9 p.m. www.arktimes.com • FEBRUARY 2, 2011
21
$6-$9. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-2285555. www.loonybincomedy.com.
www.arktimes.com
afterdark
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.
COMEDY
FLASH, BACK: After an extended break from gigging, locals Flash Larue return to the stage at White Water Tavern at 10 p.m. Saturday, bringing their “Crazy Horse by way of Brian Jonestown Massacre” muscle to the CD release party for their new, self-titled album. Atma. Vino’s, 9 p.m., $7 adv., $10 d.o.s. 923 W. Seventh St. 501-375-8466. www.vinosbrewpub. com. Isaac Alexander, joshua (of Velvet Kente). White Water Tavern, 10 p.m., $5. 2500 W. 7th. 501-375-8400. www.myspace.com/whitewatertavern. Jet 420 (headliner), Crash Meadows (happy hour). Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 and 9 p.m., $5 after 8:30 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. Lollipop Factory, Flameing Daeth Fearies, Two People Playing Music. Maxine’s, 8 p.m., free. 700 Central Ave., Hot Springs. maxinespub.
com. Michael Eubanks. Benihana, The Japanese Steakhouse, Feb. 3-5, 6-10 p.m. 2 Riverfront Place, NLR. 501-374-8081. www.benihana.com. Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 5 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-374-7474. www.capitalhotel. com/CBG. The Tired and True. Downtown Music Hall, 7 p.m. 211 W. Capitol. 501-376-1819. downtownshows. homestead.com. “Waka Winter Classic.” Juanita’s, 8 p.m. 1300 S. Main St. 501-372-1228. www.juanitas.com.
COMEDY
Ron White. Sold out. Walton Arts Center, 7 p.m. 495 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-443-5600. Will Marfori. The Loony Bin, through Feb. 3, 8 p.m.; Feb. 4, 8 and 10:30 p.m.; Feb. 5, 7, 9 and 11 p.m.,
FILM
“Lost Embrace.” Directed by Jonathan Demme. In D.W. Reynolds 13. Hendrix College, 7 p.m. 1600 Washington Ave., Conway. www.hendrix.edu.
SPORTS
UALR Women’s Basketball vs Denver. UALR Jack Stephens Center, 7 p.m. 2801 S. University Ave.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3 MUSIC
Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase Round Two with Echo Canyon, The Smittle Band, The Year of the Tiger, The Yipps. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 8:30 p.m., $5. 107 Commerce St. 501-372-7707. www.stickyfingerz. com. Butterfly and Irie Soul, DJ Hy-C. Mediums Art Lounge, 9 p.m., $10. 521 Center St. 501-374-4495. “V.I.P. Thursdays” with DJ Silky Slim. Sway, 8 p.m., $3. 412 Louisiana. 501-907-2582. Fight the Quiet, Free Micah, The Alexei, 22 FEBRUARY 2, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES
LECTURES
Oscar Morales. Lecture by founder of the Facebook group “One Million Voices Against FARC” about terrorism by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia. For more information or to reserve seats, call 683-5239 or e-mail publicprograms@ clintonschool.uasys.edu. Clinton School of Public Service, 12 p.m., free. 1200 President Clinton Ave. 501-683-5239. www.clintonschool.uasys.edu.
SPORTS
Horse racing. Oaklawn, $2.50-$4.50. 2705 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 501-623-4411. www.oaklawn. com. UALR Men’s Basketball vs Denver. UALR - Jack Stephens Center, 7 p.m. 2801 S. University Ave.
MUSIC
MUSIC
Ron White. Sold out. Walton Arts Center, 7 p.m. 495 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-443-5600. Will Marfori. The Loony Bin, 8 p.m.; Feb. 4, 8 and 10:30 p.m.; Feb. 5, 7, 9 and 11 p.m., $6-$9. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-228-5555. www. loonybincomedy.com.
FILM
“4 Little Girls.” Directed by Spike Lee. 102 min. Faulkner County Library, 7 p.m. 1900 Tyler St., Conway. 501-327-7482. www.fcl.org.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 2 Acoustic Open Mic with Kat Hood. The Afterthought, 8 p.m. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-6631196. www.afterthoughtbar.com. Bolly Open Mic Hype Night with Osyrus Bolly and DJ Messiah. All American Wings, 9 p.m. 215 W. Capitol Ave. 501-376-4000. allamericanwings. com. Brian & Nick. Cajun’s Wharf, 5 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. Karaoke at Khalil’s. Khalil’s Pub, 7 p.m. 110 S. Shackleford Road. 501-224-0224. www.khalilspub. com. Karaoke. Hibernia Irish Pub, 9 p.m. 9700 N Rodney Parham Road. 501-246-4340. www.hiberniairishtavern.com/index.html. Karaoke with Big John Miller. Denton’s Trotline, 8 p.m. 2150 Congo Road, Benton. 501-315-1717. Lucious Spiller Band. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9:30 p.m., $5. 107 Commerce St. 501-372-7707. www.stickyfingerz.com. The Melodians. Revolution, 9 p.m., $10. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. revroom.com. The Sweeps, Mitch Mead. Maxine’s, 8 p.m., free. 700 Central Ave., Hot Springs. maxinespub.com. Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 5 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-374-7474. www.capitalhotel. com/CBG.
EVENTS
Hillcrest Shop & Sip. Shops and restaurants offer discounts, later hours, and live music. Hillcrest, first Thursday of every month, 5-10 p.m. P.O.Box 251522. 501-666-3600. www.hillcrestmerchants.com.
Super Bowl XLV Watch Party!
Pittsburgh steelers vs. green bay packers Sunday, february 6
Live Music Thurs, Fri & Sat Nights!
No Cover! Where friends get together!
Open At 11am
Buckets of All Domestic Beer $8.75 10 Buffalo Wings $7 Cheese Dip $5
11321 W. Markham St. Ste 6 • www.markhamst.com We are smoke friendly, so 21 and up please.
B e n C o u l t e r, T h e D e l t a O u t l a w s , Steepbanks. Vino’s, 9 p.m., $7. 923 W. Seventh St. 501-375-8466. www.vinosbrewpub.com. Blind Boys of Alabama. Walton Arts Center, 8 p.m., $26-$38. 495 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-443-5600. Chris Gulley. Cornerstone Pub & Grill, 9 p.m. 314 Main St., NLR. 501-374-1782. cstonepub.com. DJ Ja’Lee. Sway, 8 p.m., $5. 412 Louisiana. 501-907-2582. Eyes Around, Brent Frazier & Steve Suter Duo. Maxine’s, 8 p.m., $5. 700 Central Ave., Hot Springs. maxinespub.com. Fire & Brimstone. Capi’s, 8:30 p.m. 11525 Cantrell Suite 917. 501-225-9600. www.capisrestaurant.com. The Gettys. Fox And Hound, 10 p.m., $5. 2800 Lakewood Village, NLR. 501-753-8300. www. foxandhound.com/locations/north-little-rock.aspx. GoldyLocks. West End Smokehouse and Tavern, Feb. 4-5, 10 p.m., $5. 215 N. Shackleford. 501-224-7665. www.westendsmokehouse.net. Good Time Ramblers (headliner), RJ (happy hour). Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 and 9 p.m., $5 after 8:30 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf.com. Happenstance. Faulkner County Library, 7 p.m., free. 1900 Tyler St., Conway. 501-327-7482. www. fcl.org. Jimbo Mathus and the Tri-State Coalition. White Water Tavern, 10 p.m. 2500 W. 7th. 501-3758400. www.myspace.com/whitewatertavern. Joey Farr and the Fuggins Wheat Band. Midtown Billiards, Feb. 5, 12:30 a.m., $8 non-members. 1316 Main St. 501-372-9990. midtownar.com. Lil Scrappy. Club Hollywood, 10 p.m., $10. 4726 Asher Ave. Michael Burks. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9 p.m., $10. 107 Commerce St. 501-3727707. www.stickyfingerz.com. Michael Eubanks. Benihana - The Japanese Steakhouse, through Feb. 5, 6-10 p.m. 2 Riverfront Place, NLR. 501-374-8081. www.benihana.com. Mister Lucky. Denton’s Trotline, 9 p.m. 2150 Congo Road, Benton. 501-315-1717. Montgomery Trucking. The Afterthought, 9 p.m., $7. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbar.com. Rwake, Vore, Epoch of Sunlight. Downtown Music Hall, 8 p.m., $7. 211 W. Capitol. 501-3761819. downtownshows.homestead.com. Ryan Nowlin. Markham Street Grill And Pub, 9 p.m. 11321 W. Markham St. 501-224-2010. www. markhamst.com. Shannon McClung. Flying Saucer, 9 p.m., $3. 323 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-7468. www. beerknurd.com/stores/littlerock. Singer-Songwriter Night with Elise Davis. Town Pump, 10 p.m., $5. 1321 Rebsamen Park Road. 501-663-9802.
UPCOMING EVENTS Concert tickets through Ticketmaster by phone at 975-7575 or online at www.ticketmaster.com unless otherwise noted. FEB. 21: Tapes n’ Tapes. 9 p.m., $12 adv., $14 d.o.s. Stickyz, 107 Commerce St. 3727707, stickyfingerz.com FEB. 26: Pinetop Perkins. 9 p.m., $20. Stickyz, 107 Commerce St. 372-7707, stickyfingerz.com. MARCH 12: Baths. 9 p.m., $10. Stickyz, 107 Commerce St. 372-7707, stickyfingerz.com. MARCH 18: 8Ball & MJG. 9 p.m. Revolution, 300 President Clinton AV. 823-0090, revroom. com. MARCH 27: Destroyer. 9 p.m., $10 adv., $12 d.o.s. Stickyz, 107 Commerce St. 372-7707, stickyfingerz.com. MAY 24-26: “Beauty and the Beast.” 7:30 p.m. Robinson Center Music Hall, Markham and Broadway. 244-8800, celebrityattractions.com. MAY 27-29: Riverfest 2011. Downtown Little Rock. riverfestarkansas.com. Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 9 p.m. 111 Markham St. 501-374-7474. www.capitalhotel.com/CBG. Thomas East. Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, Feb. 4-5, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave. 501-3242999. www.sonnywilliamssteakroom.com. Tragikly White. Revolution, 9 p.m. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. revroom.com.
COMEDY
Rich Little. UCA - Reynolds Performance Hall, 7:30 p.m., $23-$40. 350 S. Donaghey, Conway. Will Marfori. The Loony Bin, Feb. 4, 8 and 10:30 p.m.; Feb. 5, 7, 9 and 11 p.m., $6-$9. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-228-5555. www.loonybincomedy.com.
EVENTS
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.
SPORTS
Horse racing. Oaklawn, $2.50-$4.50. 2705 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 501-623-4411. www. oaklawn.com.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5 MUSIC
Afterglow. Flying Saucer, 9 p.m. 323 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-7468. www.beerknurd.com/ stores/littlerock. B l u e s b o y J a g , Vo o d o o S a u c e . The Afterthought, 9 p.m., $7. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbar.com. “Bob Marley Birthday Bash” with Ras Levi, Tricia Reed, Tippa Timo, LaLa, Ms Slim and more. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9 p.m., $10 adv., $12 d.o.s. 107 Commerce St. 501-372-7707. www.stickyfingerz.com. Brandon Clendenin Benefit Show with Dying Breath, It Won’t Die, Knee Deep, our Friends Fall Silent, Still Reign, Iron-E. Downtown Music Hall, 6 p.m., $10. 211 W. Capitol. 501-376-1819. downtownshows.homestead.com. Crash Meadows (happy hour), Gina Chavez (happy hour). Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 and 9 p.m., $5 after 8:30 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf.com. DJs Kramer (lobby); Michael Shane, Justin Sane (disco); g-force (Hip-Hop). Discovery Nightclub, 10 p.m., $12. 1021 Jessie Road. 501-664-4784. www.latenightdisco.com. DJ Ja’Lee. Sway, 8 p.m., $5. 412 Louisiana. 501-907-2582. Eliot Lipp, Ana Sia. Revolution, 9 p.m., $10 adv., $15 d.o.s. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-8230090. revroom.com. GoldyLocks. West End Smokehouse and Tavern, 10 p.m., $5. 215 N. Shackleford. 501-224-7665. www.westendsmokehouse.net. Goose, Ryan Burton, Ty Mayfield. Vino’s, 8:30
p.m., $7. 923 W. Seventh St. 501-375-8466. www. vinosbrewpub.com. Joey Farr and the Fuggins Wheat Band. Midtown Billiards, 12:30 a.m., $8 non-members. 1316 Main St. 501-372-9990. midtownar.com. Karaoke at Khalil’s. Khalil’s Pub, 7 p.m. 110 S. Shackleford Road. 501-224-0224. www.khalilspub.com. Michael Eubanks. Benihana, The Japanese Steakhouse, 6 p.m. 2 Riverfront Place, NLR. 501-374-8081. www.benihana.com. Nick Flora (album release), Jarred McCauley, Falcon Scott. Juanita’s, 9 p.m. 1300 S. Main St. 501-372-1228. www.juanitas.com. Runaway Planet. Cornerstone Pub & Grill, 9 p.m. 314 Main St., NLR. 501-374-1782. cstonepub.com. Ryan Couron. Denton’s Trotline, 9 p.m. 2150 Congo Road, Benton. 501-315-1717. Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 9 p.m. 111 Markham St. 501-374-7474. www.capitalhotel.com/CBG. Third Degree. Fox And Hound, 10 p.m., $5. 2800 Lakewood Village, NLR. 501-753-8300. www.foxandhound.com/locations/north-littlerock.aspx. Thomas East. Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave. 501-324-2999. www.sonnywilliamssteakroom.com.
COMEDY
Will Marfori. The Loony Bin, 7, 9 and 11 p.m., $6-$9. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-2285555. www.loonybincomedy.com.
EVENTS
Arkansas Racers Auction Trade Show and Swap Meet. Arkansas State Fairgrounds, 8 a.m. p.m., $10. 2600 Howard St. 501-372-8341 ext. 8206. www.arkansasstatefair.com. Falun Gong meditation. Allsopp Park, 9 a.m., free. Cantrell & Cedar Hill Roads. Homes for Haiti Demonstration and Family Activity. Students take simple, everyday art supplies and turn them into beautiful objects. All proceeds from the sale of the art goes directly to Haiti relief efforts. For more information, call 370-8000 or visit clintonpresidentialcenter.org. Clinton Presidential Center, 10 a.m. p.m., $7. 1200 President Clinton Avenue. 370-8000. www. clintonpresidentialcenter.org.
FILM
“Do The Right Thing.” Directed by Spike Lee. 120 min. Faulkner County Library, 9 p.m. 1900 Tyler St., Conway. 501-327-7482. www.fcl.org. “She’s Gotta Have It.” Directed by Spike Lee. 82 min. Faulkner County Library, 7 p.m. 1900 Tyler St., Conway. 501-327-7482. www.fcl.org.
SPORTS
Horse racing. Oaklawn, $2.50-$4.50. 2705 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 501-623-4411. www. oaklawn.com.
CLASSES
Saturday Chef’s Series. Chefs from the River Rock Grill will show students how to prepare a gourmet meal in three-hour sessions. $125 for both sessions, $69 for one. Winthrop Rockefeller Institute, 9:30 a.m. and 2 p.m., $. 1 Rockefeller Drive, Morrilton. 727-5435. www.uawri.org.
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 6 MUSIC
Joey Arata. Markham Street Grill And Pub, 9 p.m. 11321 W. Markham St. 501-224-2010. www. markhamst.com. Karaoke. Shorty Small’s, 6-9 p.m. 1475 Hogan Lane, Conway. 501-764-0604. www.shortysmalls. com/. Michael Eubanks. Bravo! Cucina Italiana, Feb. 6, 12 p.m.; Feb. 8, 5 p.m.; Feb. 13, 12 p.m.; Feb. 14, 5 p.m.; Feb. 20, 12 p.m.; Feb. 22, 5 p.m.; Feb. 27, 12 p.m. 17815 Chenal Pkwy. 501-821-2485. www.bravoitalian.com. Sunday Jazz Brunch with Ted Ludwig and Joe Cripps. Vieux Carre, 11 a.m. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.vieuxcarrecafe.com.
FILM
“When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts .” Directed by Spike Lee. 250 min. Faulkner County Library, 5 p.m. 1900 Tyler St.,
Conway. 501-327-7482. www.fcl.org.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 7 MUSIC
David Garrett, violinist. Robinson Center Music Hall, 7:30 p.m., $30-$90. Markham and Broadway. www.littlerockmeetings.com/conv-centers/ robinson. Passafire. Juanita’s, 9 p.m., $8 adv., $10 d.o.s. 1300 S. Main St. 501-372-1228. www.juanitas.com.
LECTURES
Andrew Lubin. Author and journalist, who has been embedded with the U.S. Marines 12 times in places such as Afghanistan, Haiti, Iraq and Beirut, will discuss his view that counterinsurgency operations are the most effective method of providing stability in failed states. For more information or tickets, call 683-5239 or e-mail publicprograms@ clintonschool.uasys.edu. Clinton School of Public Service, 6 p.m., free. 1200 President Clinton Ave. 501-683-5239. www.clintonschool.uasys.edu. Spike Lee. The firebrand director of “Do the Right Thing” and “Malcolm X” speaks as part of the UCA Distinguished Lecture series. For tickets or more information, call 866-810-0012 or visit uca.edu/ tickets. UCA - Reynolds Performance Hall, 7:30 p.m., $10. 350 S. Donaghey, Conway.
CLASSES
Sign Language Classes. Bonny Hill will teach classes on finger spelling, high frequency signs, key phrases, health, time, food, people and more. Faulkner County Library, 6 p.m. 1900 Tyler St., Conway. 501-327-7482. www.fcl.org.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8 MUSIC
Hayes Carli, Isaac Alexander. White Water Tavern, 10 p.m., $20. 2500 W. 7th. 501-375-8400. www.myspace.com/whitewatertavern. Jim Dickerson. Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave. 501-324-2999. www.sonnywilliamssteakroom.com. Karaoke Night. Cornerstone Pub & Grill, 8 p.m. 314 Main St., NLR. 501-374-1782. cstonepub.com. Karaoke Tuesday. Prost, 8 p.m., free. 120 Ottenheimer. 501-244-9550. Karaoke with Big John Miller. Denton’s Trotline, 8 p.m. 2150 Congo Road, Benton. 501-315-1717. Layali El Andalus. Harding University, 7 p.m., $3. 900 E. Center Ave., Searcy. Lucious Spiller Band. Copeland’s, 6-9 p.m. 2602 S. Shackleford Road. 501-312-1616. www.copelandsofneworleans.com. Michael Eubanks. Bravo! Cucina Italiana, Feb. 8, 5 p.m.; Feb. 13, 12 p.m.; Feb. 14, 5 p.m.; Feb. 20, 12 p.m.; Feb. 22, 5 p.m.; Feb. 27, 12 p.m. 17815 Chenal Pkwy. 501-821-2485. www.bravoitalian.com. Truth & Salvage Co., Jonathan Tyler and Northern Lights. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9 p.m., $8. 519 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-4424226. 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 p.m., $5 regular, $7 under 21. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. www.revroom.com.
FILM
“Smiles of a Summer Night.” Directed by Ingmar Begman. In the Murphy Seminar Room. Hendrix College, 7 p.m. 1600 Washington Ave., Conway. www.hendrix.edu.
LECTURES
Brown Bag Lunch Lecture: “Arkansas’s Anarchy Law & People of Color: An Unusual Case from 1934.” A talk about Asian organizers who came into northeastern Arkansas in the summer of 1934 to recruit members for a movement that encouraged African-Americans to look to Japan as the protector of the “colored races.” They specifically targeted places that had been active in the Marcus Garvey movement in the 1920s. By Ken Barnes, UCA’s Department of History chair delivers his lecture “Arkansas’s Anarchy Law and People of Color: An Unusual Case from 1934.” Old State House Museum, 12 p.m., free. 500 Clinton Ave. 501-324-9685. www.oldstatehouse.com.
SPORTS
Harlem Globetrotters. Verizon Arena, 7 p.m., $29.75-$123.75. 1 Alltel Arena Way, NLR. 501-9759001. verizonarena.com.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9 MUSIC
Acoustic Open Mic with Kat Hood. The Afterthought, 8 p.m. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-6631196. www.afterthoughtbar.com. Bolly Open Mic Hype Night with Osyrus Bolly and DJ Messiah. All American Wings, 9 p.m. 215 W. Capitol Ave. 501-376-4000. allamericanwings. com. Brian & Nick. Cajun’s Wharf, 5 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf.com. Freak Owls. Maxine’s, 9 p.m., free. 700 Central Ave., Hot Springs. maxinespub.com. Jim Dickerson. Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave. 501-324-2999. www.sonnywilliamssteakroom.com. Karaoke at Khalil’s. Khalil’s Pub, 7 p.m. 110 S. Shackleford Road. 501-224-0224. www.khalilspub. com. Karaoke. Hibernia Irish Pub, 9 p.m. 9700 N Rodney Parham Road. 501-246-4340. www.hiberniairishtavern.com/index.html. Karaoke with Big John Miller. Denton’s Trotline, 8 p.m. 2150 Congo Road, Benton. 501-315-1717. Kid Rock, Jamey Johnson. Verizon Arena, 7 p.m., $25.00-$89.00. 1 Alltel Arena Way, NLR. 501-975-9001. verizonarena.com‚Äé. Lucious Spiller Band. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9:30 p.m., $5. 107 Commerce St. 501-372-7707. www.stickyfingerz.com. The St. Olaf Choir. For tickets, visit stolaftickets. com, call 800-363-5487 or e-mail tickets@stolaf.edu. Pulaski Heights Methodist Church, 7:30 p.m., $30. 4823 Woodlawn Dr. Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 5 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-374-7474. www.capitalhotel. com/CBG.
COMEDY
Tim Kidd. The Loony Bin, Feb. 9-10, 8 p.m.; Feb. 11, 8 and 10:30 p.m.; Feb. 12, 7, 9 and 11 p.m., $6-$9. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-2285555. www.loonybincomedy.com.
THIS WEEK IN THEATER “Abie’s Irish Rose.” Abe “Abie” Levy brings home his Irish bride, Rosemary Murphy, and introduces her as “Rosie Murphyski.” Papa Levy is fooled until Rosie’s father, Patrick Murphy, arrives. A comic war erupts. Murry’s Dinner Playhouse, through March 13: Tue.-Thu., Sat., 6 p.m.; Wed., 11 a.m.; Sun., 11 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., $22-$30. 6323 Col. Glenn Road. 562-3131, murrysdinnerplayhouse.com. “Mamma Mia!” On the eve of her wedding, a daughter’s quest to discover the identity of her father brings three men from her mother’s past back to the island they last visited 20 years ago. Featuring the music of ABBA. Walton Arts Center, Feb. 8-10, 7 p.m.; Fri., Feb. 11, 7:30 p.m.; Sat., Feb. 12, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sun., Feb. 13, 2 and 7 p.m., $53-$75. 495 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-443-5600. “A Raisin in the Sun.” The classic, award-winning drama, telling the story of an African-American family in Chicago’s South Side neighborhood in 1950. For tickets or more information, call 378-0405 or visit therep.org. Arkansas Repertory Theatre, through Feb. 6: Wed., Thu., 7 p.m.; Fri., Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 and 7 p.m., $25-$40. 601 Main St. 501-378-0405. www.therep.org. “Room Service.” A penniless producer and his colleagues will stop at nothing to get backing for his play in the stage adaptation of the Marx Brothers and Lucille Ball movie. Murry’s Dinner Playhouse, through Feb. 7: Tue.-Sat., 6 p.m.; Sun., 11 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., $28-$32. 6323 Col. Glenn Road. murrysdinnerplayhouse.com. “Sundown Town.” When an African American drifter wanders into a rural North Arkansas town in the summer of 1918, a law prohibiting “strangers” after dark threatens to tear the tight-knit community apart. With live music from 3 Penny Acre. Walton Arts Center, Fri., Feb. 4, 7:30 p.m.; Sat., Feb. 5, 2 and 7 p.m.; Sun., Feb. 6, 2 p.m., $10-$22. 495 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-443-5600.
Continued on page 24 www.arktimes.com • FEBRUARY 2, 2011
23
CALENDAR
Continued from page 23
GALLERIES, MUSEUMS NEW EXHIBITIONS, ART EVENTS
CLINTON PRESIDENTIAL CENTER, 1200 President Clinton Ave.: “Haiti: Building Back Better,” presidential gifts, artifacts and artwork, including steel drum sculpture by Serge Jolimeau and Michee Ramil Remy, through Feb. 6, with free family art activity 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Feb. 5; “Revolution and Rebellion: Wars, Words and Figures,” two original engravings of the Declaration of Independence produced by Benjamin Owen Tyler in 1818 & William J. Stone in 1823, through May 22; “Historical Figures of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars,” figurines by George Stuart, through May; exhibits about policies and White House life during the Clinton administration. 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. MOSAIC TEMPLARS CULTURAL CENTER, Ninth and Broadway: “Southern Journeys: African American Artists of the South,” works by 55 African-American artists, including Romare Bearden, David Driskell, Jacob Lawrence, Elizabeth Catlett, Hughie Lee-Smith, Leroy Allen, Benny Andrews, Radcliffe Bailey, Richmond Barthé, Beverly Buchanan, Clementine Hunter, Faith Ringgold, Charles White and Dean Mitchell, Feb. 3-Aug. 11, opening reception with Rodney Block and the Real Music Lovers 5-7 p.m. Feb. 3; “Creativity Arkansas Art Collection,” exhibits on African-Americans in Arkansas, including one on the Ninth Street business district, entrepreneurs, the Mosaic Templars business and more. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat. 683–3593. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK: Art history lectures by Dr. Floyd Martin on Budapest and Prague and Michael Warrick on Ireland, 12:15 p.m.-1:15 p.m. Feb. 8, Room 161, Fine Arts Building. 683-7245. n Beebe ARKANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY: “The Power of Line,” pen and ink by Mary Shelton, Walter England Center art gallery, through Feb. 18. 501-882-4495. n El Dorado SOUTH ARKANSAS ARTS CENTER, 110 E. Fifth St.: “Shadows on the Road,” photographs of Arkansas places by John Bridges, through February, reception 6-8 p.m. Feb. 12. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri. 870-862-5474. n Fayetteville FAYETTEVILLE UNDERGROUND, 1 E. Center St.: “Wood You Be Mine?” collages by Lisa Jo Outlaw; “Persona 2009-2011,” paintings by Drew Gentle; “Lewd,” collages by Jon Peven; “Ancestral Remnants,” photographs by Henry Turner, opens with reception 5-8 p.m. Feb. 3, Fayetteville’s First Thursday, show through the month. Noon-7 p.m. Wed.-Fri., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat. www.fayettevilleunderground. blogspot.com. WALTON ARTS CENTER, Joy Pratt Markham Gallery: “Watermarks,” mixed media installation by Bethany Springer, through April 13, reception 4:30-7 p.m. Feb. 3, Fayetteville First Thursday. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat. 479-571-2747. n Hot Springs Galleries listed below will be open 5-9 p.m. Feb. 4 for the monthly Gallery Walk. ARTCHURCH STUDIO, 301 Whittington Ave.: “Artists {Heart} Rachel,” silent auction of work by area artists to raise funds for school teacher Rachel Schwartz, begins with Gallery Walk Feb. 4, ends on Feb. 11. 501-318-6779, 501318-6779 for information on fund-raiser. BLUE MOON GALLERY, 718 Central Ave.: Mosaic glass by Cassie Edmonds, including equine-themed work, new sculpture by Wayne Summerhill and Diana Ashley. 501-318-2787. GALLERY 726, 726 Central Ave.: Work by new members Priscilla Cunningham and Pati Trippel. 501-624-7726. GALLERY CENTRAL, 800 Central Ave.: 24 FEBRUARY 2, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES
Paintings by Jan Gartrell and Sandy Hubler. 501-318-4278. n Russellville RIVER VALLEY ARTS CENTER, 1001 E. B St.: 24th annual “CenturyLink Collegiate Art Exhibition,” through February, award presentation at reception 1-3 p.m. Feb. 6. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Thu., 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Fri. 479968-2452. n Springdale ARTS CENTER OF THE OZARKS, 214 S. Main St.: “Boundless Color: Pure Expression,” paintings by Heidi Carlsen-Rogers; “From Where I Stand,” photographs by Christina Neal; both Feb. 4-25, reception 6-8 p.m. Feb. 10. 479-751-5441.
CONTINUING EXHIBITIONS
ARKANSAS ARTS CENTER, MacArthur Park: “Museum School Faculty Exhibition: Past and Present”; 37th annual “Toys Designed by Artists,” through Feb. 20; “Delta Exhibition,” annual juried show, through Feb. 20; “Currents in Contemporary Art,” “Masterworks,” “Paul Signac Watercolors and Drawings,” ongoing. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun. 372-4000. ARKANSAS STUDIES INSTITUTE, 401 President Clinton Ave.: “Making Pictures: Three for a Dime,” photography exhibit based on Maxine Payne’s book, through Feb. 19. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Sat. 320-5791. BOSWELL-MOUROT FINE ART, 5815 Kavanaugh Blvd.: Work in all media by Elizabeth Weber, Hugo Erlacher, Mary Ann Stafford, Lam Tze Sheung, Catherine Rodgers, Jon Etienne Mourot, John McDermott, Kyle Boswell and others. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Sat. 664-0030. CANTRELL GALLERY, 8206 Cantrell Road: “People, Places & Things,” new paintings by Doug Gorrell, through March 5. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.Sat. 224-1335. CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 509 Scott St.: “Love and Light,” work by Melverue Abraham, Kathryn Aldefer, David Bell, Austin Grimes, Larry Hare, Lauryn Rayburn, Mary Shelton, Brandye Sneade, Elizabeth Weber and Betsy Woodyard. 375-2342. CHROMA GALLERY, 5707 Kavanaugh Blvd.: Work by Robert Reep and other Arkansas artists. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Sat. 6640880. GALLERY 26, 2601 Kavanaugh Blvd.: Work by Julie Holt, Susanna Kirk, Fred Nash and Jason Smith, through March 12. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.Sat. 664-8996. GREG THOMPSON FINE ART, 429 Main St., NLR: “15-Year Anniversary Exhibit,” work by Kendall Stallings, Benini, Glenray Tutor, William Dunlap, Barry Thomas, Gary Bolding and others, through March 12. 664-2787. HEARNE FINE ART, 1001 Wright Ave.: “Pioneers of the Paint: Masters of the 19th Century,” paintings by Edward Michael Bannister, Charles Ethan Porter, Robert Scott Duncanson and Henry Ossawa Tanner, through Feb. 20. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Thu., 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Fri., 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sat. 372-6822. LAMAN LIBRARY, 2801 Orange St., NLR: “The Painted Word: Calligraphic Paintings by Charles Pearce,” through March 13. 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Mon.Thu., 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 7581720. KETZ GALLERY, 705 Main St., NLR: “Off the Wall Show and Sale,” paintings by Matthew Castellano, jewelry by Cliff Bernard, hand-painted gourds by Sharon Dawn Clark. 529-6330. LOCAL COLOUR GALLERY, 5811 Kavanaugh Blvd.: Art and jewelry by members of artists’ cooperative. 501-265-0422. M2GALLERY, 11525 Cantrell Road (Pleasant Ridge Town Center): Jason Twiggy Lott, William Goodman, Char Demoro, Cathy Burns and others. 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Mon.-Sat. 225-6257. RED DOOR GALLERY, 3715 JFK, NLR: Buddy Whitlock, featured artist, also work by Lola Abellan, Mary Allison, Georges Artaud, Theresa Cates, Caroline’s Closet, Kelly Edwards, Jane Hankins, James Hayes, Amy Hill-Imler, Morris Howard, Jim Johnson, Annette Kagy, Capt. Robert Lumpp, Joe Martin, Pat Matthews and others.10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat. 753-5227. REFLECTIONS GALLERY AND FINE
FRAMING, 11220 Rodney Parham Road: Work by local and national artists. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.Fri., 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Sat. 227-5659. SHOWROOM, 2313 Cantrell Road: Work by area artists, including Sandy Hubler. 7:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Mon.-Fri. 372-7373. STATE CAPITOL: “Arkansans in the Korean War,” 32 photographs, lower-level foyer. 7 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sat.-Sun. STEPHANO’S FINE ART, 5501 Kavanaugh Blvd.: Fused glass sculpture by Lisabeth Franco, paintings by Joy Schultz, Mike Gaines, MaryAnne Erickson, Stephano and Alexis Silk, jewelry by Joan Courtney and Teresa Smith, sculpture by Scotti Wilborne and Tony Dow. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 563-4218. TOBI FAIRLEY FINE ART, 5507 Ranch Drive, Suite 103: Jane Booth, large abstract oils. 10 a.m.4 p.m. Tue.-Fri. or by appointment. 868-9882. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK: “Women Call for Peace: Global Vistas,” work by Emma Amos, Siona Benjamin, Chakaia Booker, Judy Chicago, Linda Freeman, Irene Hardwicke Olivieri, Leila Kubba, Grace Matthews, Faith Ringgold, Aminah Robinson, Betye Saar, Flo Oy Wong, Helen Zughaib, through March 10, Gallery I; “A Spectacle and Nothing Strange,” photographs by Rebecca Sittler Schrock, through Feb. 13; “Scholarship Exhibition,” work by 21 students on art scholarships, Gallery III, through Feb. 15. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Sat., 2-5 p.m. Sun. 569-8977. n Benton DIANNE ROBERTS ART STUDIO AND GALLERY, 110 N. Market St.: Work by Chad Oppenhuizen, Dan McRaven, Gretchen Hendricks, Rachel Carroccio, Kenny Roberts, Taylor Bellot, Jim Cooper and Sue Moore. 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Wed.Fri., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat. 860-7467. n Calico Rock CALICO ROCK ARTISTS COOPERATIVE, Hwy. 5 at White River Bridge: Paintings, photographs, jewelry, fiber art, wood, ceramics and other crafts. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tue.-Thu., 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Fri.-Sat., noon-4 p.m. Sun. calicorocket.org/artists. n Conway UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL ARKANSAS, Baum Gallery: “Improvising Intaglio: Jiri Anderle Prints from the Baruch Foundation”; “Habitats: Portraiture by Kat Wilson”; “Earth: Fragile Planet”; “Intersecting the Book: When Artists, Writers and Graphic Designers Create 2D Worlds”; “Axis Mundi: Levittown,” UCA faculty exhibit, all through Feb. 24. 501-450-5793. n Fayetteville UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS: “Ozark Modern,” furniture designed by architect Edward Durrell Stone, through Feb. 16, Fine Arts Center Gallery. WALTON ARTS CENTER, Joy Pratt Markham Gallery: “Watermarks,” mixed media installation by Bethany Springer, through April 13, reception 4:30-7 p.m. Feb. 3 (First Thursday). 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat. 479-571-2747. n Perryville SUDS GALLERY, Courthouse: Paintings by Dottie Morrissey, Alma Gipson, Al Garrett Jr., Phyllis Loftin, Alene Otts, Mauretta Frantz, Raylene Finkbeiner, Kathy Williams and Evelyn Garrett. Noon-6 p.m. Wed.-Fri, noon-4 p.m. Sat. 501-766-7584. n Pine Bluff ARTS AND SCIENCE CENTER FOR SOUTHEAST ARKANSAS, 701 Main St.: “Arkansas Women to Watch 2011,” work by Emily Wood, Endia Gomez, Janet Frankovic, Nikki Hemphill, Ruth Pasquine, Thu Nguyen and Deborah Warren, touring show sponsored by National Museum of Women in the Arts, through March 19. 870-536-3375.
of Bill Albright,” Eclectic Collector show, through March 14. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. $2.50 adults, $1.50, $1 children for tours of grounds. 324-9351. MacARTHUR MUSEUM OF ARKANSAS MILITARY HISTORY, MacArthur Park: “In Search of Pancho Villa,” artifacts from soldiers of the period, medals and original sketches of the Mexican Punitive Expedition, the United States retaliatory action in 1916 against the Mexican general who attacked a small border town in New Mexico, through May; “Warrior: Vietnam Portraits by Two Guys from Hall,” photos by Jim Guy Tucker and Bruce Wesson, through April; exhibits on Arkansas’s military history. 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Tue.Fri., 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat., 1-4 p.m. Sun. 376-4602. MUSEUM OF DISCOVERY, 500 President Clinton Ave.: “Illusion Confusion,” optical illusions, through March; interactive science exhibits. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. Admission: $8 adults, $7 children ages 1-12 and seniors 65 and up, children under 1 free, “Pay What You Can” second Sunday of every month. 396-7050. www. museumofdiscovery.org. OLD STATE HOUSE, 300 W. Markham St.: “Arkansas/Arkansaw: A State and Its Reputation,” the evolution of the state’s hillbilly image; “Badges, Bandits & Bars: Arkansas Law & Justice,” state’s history of crime and punishment, through March. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 324-9685. WITT STEPHENS JR. CENTRAL ARKANSAS NATURE CENTER, Riverfront Park: Exhibits on wildlife and the state Game and Fish Commission. n Calico Rock CALICO ROCK MUSEUM, Main Street: Displays on Native American cultures, steamboats, the railroad, and local history. www. calicorockmuseum.com. n England TOLTEC MOUNDS STATE PARK, State Hwy. 165: Major prehistoric Indian site with visitors’ center and museum. 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., noon-5 p.m. Sun., closed Mon. $3 for adults, $2 for ages 6-12. 961-9442. n Jacksonville JACKSONVILLE MUSEUM OF MILITARY HISTORY, 100 Veterans Circle: Exhibits on D-Day; F-105, Vietnam era plane (“The Thud”); the Civil War Battle of Reed’s Bridge, Arkansas Ordnance Plant (AOP) and other military history. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. $3 adults; $2 seniors, military; $1 students. 501-241-1943. n Morrilton MUSEUM OF AUTOMOBILES, Petit Jean Mountain: Permanent exhibit of more than 50 cars from 1904-1967 depicting the evolution of the automobile. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 7 days. 501-727-5427. n Rogers ROGERS HISTORICAL MUSEUM, 322 S. 2nd St.: “Buried Dreams: “Coin Harvey and Monte Ne,” photographs; “Rogers Auto-Biography: An Automotive History of Rogers,” through 2011. 479-621-1154. n Scott PLANTATION AGRICULTURE MUSEUM, U.S. 165 S and Hwy. 161: Artifacts and interactive exhibits on farming in the Arkansas Delta. $3 adults, $2 ages 6-12. Open 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 501-961-1409. SCOTT PLANTATION SETTLEMENT: 1840s log cabin, one-room school house, tenant houses, smokehouse and artifacts on plantation life. 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Thu.-Sat. 351-0300. www. scottconnections.org. n Springdale SHILOH MUSEUM OF OZARK HISTORY, 118 W. Johnson Ave.: 479-750-8165.
MUSEUMS, ONGOING EXHIBITS
The Arkansas Historic Preservation Program invites fifth- and seventh-grade students to participate in the 20th annual “Preserve Our Past” contest. Deadline is April 6. Students can enter artwork or an essay based on an Arkansas property that is at least 50 years old. The work should reflect the importance of preservation. For more information, write Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, 323 Center St., Little Rock 72201, or call 501-324-9786, or e-mail Amandad@ arkansasheritage.org. Trophies will be awarded to first, second and third place winners.
ARKANSAS INLAND MARITIME MUSEUM, NLR: Tours of the USS Razorback submarine. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Wed.-Sat., 1-6 p.m. Sun. 371-8320. 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. HISTORIC ARKANSAS MUSEUM, 200 E. Third St.: “Adrienne Cullins: Black Market Kidney Factory,” paintings, through Feb. 6; “Model Trains
CALLS FOR ENTRY
■ media In the middle of it Local site offers first-hand account of Egyptian protests. BY GERARD MATTHEWS
n Since last Tuesday, when Egyptians began filling the streets to protest 30 years of autocratic rule under the thumb of Hosni Mubarak, one of the best places to go for news and commentary has not not CNN, or other high-profile news networks, but a small website run in the spare time of a University of Central Arkansas graduate named Daniel Green. The website is called Arkansas Abroad, “focusing on Arkansas and its role in the world.” And it just so happens one of the writers for Green’s site was in Cairo when the protests began. Cory Ellis, a University of Arkansas graduate now in a master’s program at George Washington University, found himself in Egypt as part of a semesterlong study abroad program. His bio on Arkansas Abroad reads, “The slow pace of Egyptian life suits Cory well as he whittles most of his days away in tiny street side cafes talking to old men about politics and religion.” That all changed last Tuesday. As protests escalated, Ellis found himself right in the middle of a revolution playing out before the eyes of the world. Although his neighborhood was relatively safe, Ellis was tear-gassed numerous times and jumped by secret police twice. “So far, he’s noticed two things,” Green said. “One, the protesters are happy to see Westerners, because the way they view it is that Westerners are their best hope for getting this stuff out. He said they have told him that time and time again. The other thing is police are indiscriminately attacking anyone who isn’t police. I think at last count he had been tear-gassed eight times. He said every time protesters would drag him out of the street, into a bar or something, wash his face off and then start telling him, ‘You have to tell people what is going on.’ ” Green said the protests gave Ellis and others an opportunity to showcase thoughtful and newsworthy commentary from Arkansans around the globe. Through reports from Ellis, articles from other contributors and podcasts of roundtable discussions, Arkansas Abroad was able to bring perspective to a major issue that was hard to find in other mainstream news outlets. Ellis reported via podcast: “The major protest happened on Jan. 25 and [Mohamed] ElBaradei was supportive of that but didn’t really throw his weight behind it. He’s supported by ‘Western media’ but in reality, Baradei has had nothing to do with what’s happening now. The Muslim Brotherhood
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ELLIS: Safely evacuated after protests escalated. told heir members not to go out and protest on Jan. 25. After the protests became large, the Muslim Brotherhood has thrown their support behind what we can now call a revolt. It’s extremely interesting for me to see that CNN and the New York Times have labeled ElBaradei and the Muslim Brotherhood as catalysts for this revolution, but as I said, they’re really just jumping on the bandwagon. The feeling I have from getting around the streets of Cairo is any support is welcomed... This revolt has gone from Twitter and Facebook to the consciousness of basically every Egyptian.” Ellis kept in contact with Green through email, Skype and social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, that is, until the Egyptian government decided to pull the plug on the Internet and other communications. Green, safe in Northwest Arkansas, relayed the info via Arkansas Abroad. Green was able to re-establish contact with Ellis on Sunday. By that point, the protests had grown in size and scope. Ellis was told by someone in the U.S. Embassy to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. When Green and Ellis last spoke, the time had come for an evacuation. “He was pretty shook up the last time I talked to him,” Green says. “He talked about how the mosques put out a call to create neighborhood militias. Food supplies are running low, the government had cut off water to some neighborhoods and it’s getting ugly on the streets. He no longer felt safe so he was going to leave if he could.” Last we heard, Ellis was on his way to Dubai. Green continues to update the site as news comes in. Listen to Ellis’ podcasts, interviews and updates at www.arkansasabroad.org. National outlets are also taking note. CNN has tried to set up an interview with Ellis. We’ll provide updates on the Arkansas Blog.
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‘SANCTUM 3D’: diver Frank McGuire (Richard Roxburgh) and his team of underwater adventurers have to fight nature when a freak tropical storm forces them into the uncharted recesses of the largest, least accessible underwater cave system on the planet. 3D champion and deep-water junkie James Cameron (“Avatar,” “Titanic”) was executive producer.
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movielistings All theater listings run Friday to Thursday unless otherwise noted.
Check www.arktimes.com for updates. Market Street Cinema showtimes at or after 9 p.m. are for Friday and Saturday only. NEW MOVIES Another Year (PG-13) – A character study of a year in the life of a happily married older couple and their unhappy friends. Directed by Mike Leigh. Market Street: 1:45, 4:15, 6:45, 9:15. The Roommate (PG-13) – A deranged college freshman becomes obsessed with her roommate and, wouldn’t you know it, things get freaky. With Leighton Meester and Minka Kelly. Breckenridge: 1:50, 4:45, 7:40, 10:05. Chenal 9: 11:05, 1:30, 4:00, 7:15, 9:30. Rave: 12:45, 2:00, 3:15, 4:30, 5:45, 7:00, 8:15, 9:30, 10:45. Sanctum 3D (R) – A team of underwater cave divers fight nature when a tropical storm forces them deep into uncharted caverns. Breckenridge: 1:25, 4:20, 7:10, 9:55. Chenal 9: 11:00, 1:30, 4:15, 7:00, 9:45. Rave: 10:45, 12:00, 1:30, 2:45, 4:45, 5:50, 7:30, 8:45, 10:15, 11:30. RETURNING THIS WEEK 127 Hours (R) – Based on the true story of a mountain climber who resorts to desperate measures after being trapped under a boulder. With James Franco. Rave: 12:30, 3:00, 5:40, 8:05, 10:35. Black Swan (R) – Darren Aronofksy’s psychological thriller about a twisted friendship between two master dancers in an elite New York City ballet company. With Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis. Chenal 9: 11:15, 1:50, 4:30, 7:20, 9:50. Market Street: 2:00, 4:20, 7:00, 9:20. Rave: 12:10, 2:55, 5:35, 8:25, 11:10. Blue Valentine (R) – Love at first sight takes a turn for the worse in this portrait of a young, contemporary family falling apart. With Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams. Market Street: 2:00, 4:20, 7:00, 9:15. Rave: 11:05, 1:55, 4:40, 7:35, 10:50. Burlesque (PG-13) — A small-town girl from Iowa lands a job waitressing at a struggling Los Angeles burlesque club, and quickly takes the limelight as the revue’s star attraction. With Cher and Christina Aguilera. Movies 10: 2:40, 8:15. Country Strong (PG-13) – In the world of country music, a rising star and a burn-out cross paths, both musically and romantically. With Gwyneth Paltrow and Tim McGraw. Breckenridge: 1:15, 4:15, 7:15, 10:10. Rave: 4:05, 7:05, 10:05. Riverdale 10: 11:05, 1;35, 4:00, 6:30, 9:15. The Dilemma (PG-13) – The bond between old friends and business partners goes crooked when one catches the other’s wife with a strange man. 26 FEBRUARY 2, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES
Directed by Ron Howard. With Vince Vaughn. Breckenridge: 1:05, 4:25, 7:25, 10:15. Rave: 10:50, 1:40, 4:35, 7:25, 10:20. Due Date (R) — A tightly-wound father-to-be is forced to carpool cross-country with a clueless slacker so he can make it to his child’s birth on time. With Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis. Movies 10: 2:20, 4:40, 7:25, 10:00. Fair Game (PG-13) – Director Dough Liman dives into the Valerie Plame controversy of 2003 in which White House officials outed a CIA agent. Movies 10: 2:10, 5:00, 7:40, 10:10. The Fighter (R) — A look at legendary Irish welterweight Mickey Ward (Mark Walberg), his halfbrother and trainer, Dickey (Christian Bale), and their rise out of crime and drugs. Breckenridge: 1:20, 4:00, 6:50, 9:30. Rave: 11:35, 2:25, 5:20, 8:10, 11:15. Riverdale 10: 11:45, 2:15, 4:45, 7:35, 10:10. Get Low (PG-13) – Felix Bush, a notoriously reclusive Tennessee hermit, surprises the townsfolk when he arranges a “living funeral” for himself. With Robert Duvall and Bill Murray. Movies 10: 2:25, 7:35. The Green Hornet (PG-13) – Playboy Britt Reid (Seth Rogen) starts a new career as a crimefighter with help from his kung-fu expert chauffeur, Kato (Jay Chou). Directed by Michel Gondry. Breckenridge: 1:40, 4:40, 7:35, 10:15. Chenal 9: 11:05, 1:45, 4:25, 7:10, 9:50. Rave: 1:20, 7:15 (2D); 10:50, 1:50, 5:00, 8:20, 11:25 (3D) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I (PG-13) — With Voldemort in control over Hogwarts and the Ministry of Magic, Harry, Ron and Hermione have to race against time to overthrow the evil lord. Riverdale 10: 12:00, 3:20, 6:25, 9:30. How Do You Know? (PG-13) – A former athlete (Reese Witherspoon) finds herself caught in a love triangle between her professional baseball player boyfriend (Owen Wilson) and a corporate suit (Paul Rudd). Movies 10: 4:00, 7:00, 9:45. Inception (PG-13) – Leo DiCaprio hijacks dreams. Movies 10: 9:05. The Kids Are Alright (R) – Two children in a non-traditional family discover their birth father, to the chagrin of their two mothers. Movies 10: 4:55, 10:05. The King’s Speech (R) – After being crowned George VI of an England on the verge of turmoil, “Bertie” (Colin Firth) is faced with the challenge of fixing his debilitating speech impediment with help from eccentric Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush). Breckenridge: 1:20, 4:10, 7:05, 9:45. Chenal 9: 11:00, 1:40, 4:25, 7:05, 9:45. Rave: 10:40, 1:45, 4:50, 7:45, 10:40. Riverdale 10: 11:25, 1:50, 4:15, 6:40, 9:05.
The Mechanic (R) – An elite assassin avenges his assassinated mentor with help from a young, impulsive rookie. With Jason Statham, Donald Sutherland. Breckenridge: 1:30, 4:05, 7:20, 9:50. Chenal 9: 11:20, 1:50, 4:10, 7:35, 9:55. Rave: 11:10, 11:45, 2:15, 5:15, 8:00, 11:00. Riverdale 10: 11:10, 1:30, 3:40, 5:50, 8:00, 10:05. Megamind (PG) — A blue, maniacal supervillain turns into a restless mess when his sworn superhero enemy is accidentally killed. Voiced by Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Brad Pitt. Movies 10: 2:00, 4:20, 6:45 (2D); 2:30, 4:50, 7:15, 9:35 (3D). The Next Three Days (PG-13) — A college professor at his wit’s end decides to break his wife out of prison, years after she was wrongfully accused of a grisly murder. With Russell Crowe and Elizabeth Banks. Movies 10: 5:20. No Strings Attached (R) – Two life-long friends discover that separating casual sex and romance is tougher than they thought. With Natalie Portman and Aston Kutcher. Breckenridge: 4:50, 7:45, 10:20. Chenal 9: 11:15, 2:00, 4:40, 7:30, 10:00. Rave: 10:35, 1:40, 4:25, 7:10, 9:55. Riverdale 10: 11:30, 2:00, 4:30, 7:05, 9:35. Rabbit Hole (PG-13) – Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart star as a couple coming to terms with the loss of a child. Market Street: 2:15, 4:15, 7:15, 9:15. Red (PG-13) — Three of the CIA’s top agents are jolted out of their peaceful retirements when they’re framed by the agency for murder. With Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman and Helen Mirren. Movies 10: 9:50. The Rite (PG-13) – A seminary student studying exorcism under a legendary priest at the Vatican questions his future after being drawn into an extreme case. With Anthony Hopkins. Breckenridge: 1:10, 4:30, 7:00, 9:40. Chenal 9: 11:25, 1:55, 4:35, 7:25, 9:55. Rave: 10:30, 11:15, 2:30, 4:15, 5:30, 8:30, 10:30, 11:20. Riverdale 10: 11:40, 2:10, 4:50, 7:25, 10:15. The Social Network (PG-13) — David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin’s instant-classic dives into the drama behind Facebook’s controversial rise from a Harvard dorm room experiment to a world-wide ubiquity. Movies 10: 2:45, 5:30, 8:20. Tangled (PG) — Daring bandit Flynn Rider, Princess Rapunzel and Rapunzel’s 70 feet of hair find adventure and romance during their journey through the outside world. Voiced by Mandy Moore. Breckenridge: 1:45, 4:45, 7:40, 10:00. Riverdale 10: 11:00, 1:10, 3:25, 5:30, 7:40, 9:50. Tron: Legacy (PG) — The reboot of the 1982 classic has Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) entering the virtual gladiator arena to find his lost father (Jeff Bridges). Rave: 11:00, 2:05, 5:05, 8:05, 11:05. True Grit (PG-13) — Rugged U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) helps a stubborn girl track down her father’s killer. Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. Breckenridge: 1:30, 4:35, 7:30, 10:05. Chenal 9: 11:10, 1:45, 4:20, 7:10, 10:00. Rave: 10:40, 1:35, 4:35, 7:20, 10:10. Riverdale 10: 11:35, 2:05, 4:40, 7:20, 9:55. Unstoppable (PG-13) — Denzel Washington has to stop an unmanned freight train full of explosives and poisonous gas from wiping out a city. Movies 10: 2:35, 5:05, 7:30. Winter’s Bone (R) – A girl from the Ozarks finds herself in shady situations while trying to track down her drug-dealing father. Winner of the Golden Rock for Best Narrative Film at the 2010 Little Rock Film Festival. Market Street: 1:45, 4:00, 6:45, 9:00. Yogi Bear (PG) — A devastating 4-hour epic about the decline of a 19th century Hungarian farm cooperative and the interpersonal complications that arise in its wake. Not really: It’s just Yogi Bear. Rave: 10:55, 1:10. Riverdale 10: 11:20, 1:20, 3:25, 5:35, 7:30, 9:40. Chenal 9 IMAX Theatre: 17825 Chenal Parkway, 821-2616, www.dtmovies.com. Cinemark Movies 10: 4188 E. McCain Blvd., 9457400, www.cinemark.com. Cinematown Riverdale 10: Riverdale Shopping Center, 296-9955, www.riverdale10.com. Market Street Cinema: 1521 Merrill Drive, 3128900, www.marketstreetcinema.net. Rave Colonel Glenn 18: 18 Colonel Glenn Plaza, 687-0499, www.ravemotionpictures.com. Regal Breckenridge Village 12: 1-430 and Rodney Parham, 224-0990, www.fandango.com.
‘BLUE VALENTINE’: Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams star.
■ moviereview Love, actually
‘Blue Valentine’ pokes love, draws blood. n You may be groping for a suitable firstdate movie this weekend. “Blue Valentine” is not even in the running. Rather, it’s an ideal last-date movie, a cinematic cold shower, a 112-minute PSA for safe sex that makes a life of pitiless solitude look like a comparative beach. If the two of you can hold hands leaving this flick, it’s true love indeed. There is a great love story here, actually, as Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) meet cute at a nursing home, hurdle his utter lack of qualifications to be her mate, persevere through an unexpected pregnancy and fall — well, if not in love, at least into marriage. You’ve seen that movie plenty, but “Blue Valentine” frames that movie as flashbacks during a couple of days for that same mom and
■ booknotes n The big release of the month came earlier this week, when Pantheon released “The Illumination” (hardcover, $24.95), the latest novel from Little Rock author Kevin Brockmeier. As he did in his 2006 novel “The Brief History of the Dead,” Brockmeier forms the conceit of his new book around a world-changing development, the origins of which are never explained. In this case, the six men and women that form the interwoven narrative find that one day, in an otherwise normal world, all human pain manifests itself as visible light: a leukemia sufferer radiates pain from all points in his body, a woman with ulcers shoots lasers from her mouth when she bites her lip, a man struggling with the loss of his wife tries to absorb pain in a “dreamlike vesper.”
dad only about five years later, when the cracks in their foundation have begun to frost-shatter. The result is an uncommonly raw drama that earns every gram of its notinconsiderable pessimism. Dean’s a painter (the rollers-on-walls sort) who takes the side of their young daughter, Frankie, in any family conflict. Cindy’s a nurse (her dreams of med school apparently deferred) who doesn’t regard Dean as an equal. The family dog goes missing, and it doesn’t turn out well. The couple, fraught, drops off Frankie with Cindy’s folks. Dean decides the best thing is to reconnect for a night, away from the house, so he drags her to what she derides as “a cheesy sex motel” — aqua-lit sci-fi Future Room, here we come. (Or don’t.) It turns out to be a hard night on both of them.
Impressively for a former Mouseketeer and a one-time “Dawson’s Creek” ingenue, respectively, Gosling and Williams (credited as co-producers) achieve here a masterpiece of poignancy with a rare double: believable chemistry both as a young couple rushing into love and as a lessyoung couple plummeting right back out of it. Director Derek Cianfrance helps by shooting them in the sort of zooms that would make even their dermatologists blush. Every tiny malicious glance, every shard of pain swallowed, registers like a billboard on your lawn. You can’t leave their faces. You’re stuck in the shower with these people, trapped in the car with them. Their petty power struggles — Dean undercutting her authority, Cindy lashing him with the cword (that would be “crazy”) — become the stuff of emotional claustrophobia. Pretty soon you want out too. Autopsying a detonated relationship is as natural as picking at a scab, and part of the fun (to use the term loosely) of “Blue Valentine” is the grist it offers for this. Where do Dean and Cindy go wrong? Whose fault is what? Were they doomed? Are we all? It’s not a message movie — it feels too real for that. But the verdict from one group that discussed the film at some length is that it suggests a durable relationship needs two people who look up to each other. Lovers who stop working on themselves are left then to go to work on one another, and that guarantees no room for a future. — Sam Eifling
February Books Calendar 5 Tanner Critz (“End to Ending”), 2 p.m., WW. 7 Andrew Lubin, journalist and author, gives lecture “Counterinsurgency Operations: A Policy for Failed States,” 6 p.m., CS. 8 “Tales from the South” with Velda Brotherton, Holly Patton, Mare Carmody, 5 p.m., SAC. 9 P. Allen Smith (“Seasonal Recipes from the Garden”), 4 p.m., WW. 12 Lonnie Williams (“Remembrances in Black”), 1 p.m., TBIB. 15 Carla McClafferty (“The Many Faces of George Washington”), LL. 15 Cookie’s Book Club discusses Abraham Verghese’s “Cutting for Stone,” 7 p.m., TBIB. 16 Arvind Singhal (“Inviting Everyone: Healing Healthcare through Positive Deviance”), 12 p.m., CS. 17 Paul Reyes (“Exiles in Eden”), 6 p.m., CS. 22 “Tales from the South,” 5 p.m., SAC.
22 Bob Brown (“Defining Moments”), 6:30 p.m., TBIB. 28 Daryl Copeland (“Guerrilla Diplomacy”), 12 p.m., CS. Area bookstores and libraries: CS: Clinton School of Public Service, Sturgis Hall, 1200 President Clinton Ave., 683-5200. FCL: Faulkner County Library, 1900 Tyler St., Conway, 501-327-7482 LL: Laman Library, 2801 Orange St., North Little Rock, 501-758-1720 ML: Main Library, 100 Rock St., 918-3000 SAC: Starving Artist Cafe, 411 Main St., North Little Rock, 372-7976 TBIB: That Bookstore in Blytheville, 316 W. Main St., Blytheville, 870-763-3333 WW: WordsWorth Books & Co., 5920 R St., 663-9198
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The sixth book of Jean Auel’s Earth’s Children® series, THE LAND OF PAINTED CAVES, continues the story of Ayla and Jondalar. Auel uses appealing characters to re-create the way life was lived more than 25,000 years ago. THE LAND OF PAINTED CAVES is an exquisite achievement by one of the world’s most beloved authors.
That Bookstore In Blytheville 1-800-844-8306 • fax 870-763-1125 tbib@sbcglobal.net We welcome orders by phone, fax or e-mail.
drink local support your community.
www.arktimes.com • FEBRUARY 2, 2011
27
n The Root, the long, long-in-the works local foods cafe, finally has a permanent home — 1500 South Main, the former home of the Sweden Creme dairy bar. Slated to open in late spring, the restaurant will offer the likes of vegetarian banh mi sandwiches, hamburgers, fresh-baked pastries and pies, locally roasted coffee and homemade sodas, as well as a number of seasonal items. Leading up to its opening, The Root is setting up shop weekly at Christ Episcopal Church, from 10 a.m. to noon every Saturday, during pick-up hours for the Arkansas Sustainability Network’s food club. Find out more about The Root at therootcafe.com.
Restaurant capsules Every effort is made to keep this listing of some of the state’s more notable restaurants current, but we urge readers to call ahead to check on changes on days of operation, hours and special offerings. What follows, because of space limitations, is a partial listing of restaurants reviewed by our staff. Information herein 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. Restaurants are listed in alphabetical order by city; Little Rock-area restaurants are divided by food category. Other review symbols are: B Breakfast L Lunch D Dinner $ Inexpensive (under $8/person) $$ Moderate ($8-$20/person) $$$ Expensive (over $20/person) CC Accepts credit cards
LITTLE ROCK/ N. LITTLE ROCK AMERICAN 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. $-$$. 501-374-4265. LD Tue.-Sat. ALL AMERICAN WINGS Wings, catfish and soul food sides. 215 W. Capitol Ave. Beer. $-$$. 501-376-4000. 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. $-$$. 501-221-9400. LD Mon.-Sat. ATHLETIC CLUB What could be mundane fare gets delightful twists and embellishments here. 11301 Financial Centre Parkway. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-312-9000. LD daily. B-SIDE The little breakfast place in the former party room of
Continued on page 29 28 FEBRUARY 2, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES
The Green Cart Deli upgrades the classic hot dog stand in Conway. n By all appearances, The Green Cart Deli, the new hot dog stand in Conway, looks like, well, a hot dog stand. Except next to where its signature multicolored street-vendor umbrella stands, there is also a 4-foot-wide compound solar panel. The slogan of The Green Cart Deli, according to its Facebook page, is “The World’s First Biocompostable Solar-Powered Gourmet Food Cart!” The proprietor and hot-dog preparer, Brad Kossover, used to work in the delightfully ambiguous world of “adventure travel.” Though he attended the University of Arkansas, more recently he’s maintained a residence in Asheville, N.C., when he wasn’t leading jungle hikes and rafting tours in places like Coast Rica, Peru and Ecuador. He booked tours mainly for college students’ service projects, and at one point, built an entirely green cabin in the Costa Rican jungle. He says it gave him the inspiration for an eco-inspired hot dog cart. Kossover seems to have neatly shoehorned the fly-by-night lifestyle of a professional traveler (and adventurer) into his restaurateur campaign. The stand, while adhering to a few regular locations, is seldom ever stationed in the same place. Instead, Kossover maintains a Twitter feed (@EATGCD) and a lively communityinteractive Facebook page (facebook.com/ GreenCartDeli) that highlights Green Cart’s roving location, advertises new eats and welcomes customer feedback. And he’s been getting praise from rabid fans for his dogs on his page — “I bragged about you on my blog!” and “It was worth the wait as always!” and “Thank you for feeding us all today!!” On a recent sunny Friday, we found the hot dog stand in Simon Park in downtown Conway. Fearing that the lines would be too long for a normal lunch break, we tried to time our arrival before the lunch rush, about a quarter to noon. The line then was manageable, but folks were clearly tittering. The Friday special is the “OMG Brownie,” and there was talk among waiting patrons about whether or not there would be any left by their turn to order. Having already sampled, on a previous trip, the “New Yorker” specialty dog — a loaf of steamed sauerkraut and spicy brown mustard resting atop the narrow dog — we decided to experiment with other selections. The cutely titled “Jersey-esqueish” was a treat, a minimally dressed dog (uncharacteristic for most of the specialty options), featuring only spicy brown mustard, pickle, and onion and dusted with a layer of celery salt. The most impressive selection was “The Razorback”— a varia-
KAI CADDY
n Chipotle Mexican Grill, the popular fast casual chain, is finally coming to Little Rock. A corporate spokesman said the restaurant, located in the Pleasant Ridge Shopping Center at 11525 Cantrell Road, is scheduled to open sometime in early spring. Arkansas already has two Chipotle locations, one in Beebe and another in Jonesboro.
■ dining Hot diggity dog
ECO-FRIENDLY: Green Cart Deli owner Brad Kossover sells hot dogs like the Old Chicago (left) from a solarpowered hot dog cart.
KAI CADDY
what’scookin’
tion of the signature dog, “The GCD,” which bears spicy brown mustard, all-beef chili and coleslaw — with an added layer of Wickles sub relish, a type of Alabamamade hot-pepper chow chow. As a hot-dog fan but rare eater of ground beef, we found the texture and quality of the chili meat surprisingly pleasant and non-greasy. The sweet and spicy coleslaw/relish combination gave the dog nice balance, like eating a mixed greens salad along with a steak. Our greatest frustration was with the “Old Chicago” dog, which was overburdened by its toppings (tomatoes, grandmastyle neon-green relish, yellow mustard, onions, pickles, sport peppers, and celery salt). We’re not squeamish about spiciness, but the unwieldy, paper-like texture of the sport peppers’ husks totally complicated the eating process and their heat subsumed any other flavor we might have hoped to taste. The Sabrett-brand links themselves are thin, so if you come expecting the hearty, inch-in-diameter, grease-spraying Nathan’s version of an all-beef hot dog,
you might be disappointed. But for what the dog itself lacks in mere meat substantiality (which, according to Kossover’s healthy-living principles, might be better for us, anyway), it more than makes up for in inspired toppings, unexpected flavors, and melt-in-your-mouth steamed poppyseed buns. And, with most street-vendor food, half of the experience is waiting in line, chattering nervously with your fellow customers, and leaning in too closely while you place an order for your fix.
The Green Cart Deli
Various locations in Conway Twitter: EATGCD Facebook/GreenCartDeli www.greencartdeli.com 501-908-1656 Quick bite
The “OMG Brownie,” the Friday treat, was a generous rectangle with a quarter-inch marshmallow crust drizzled with chocolate frosting. Not wholly remarkable, but rich. Speaking to Kossover’s generosity: While seated behind him on a park bench, our female companion lamented that she did not purchase a brownie for herself, and Kossover turned around and handed her one from his secret cabinet, with a hush-hush gesture.
Hours
Depend on the weather, the mood of the owner and the supply. But typically 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday.
Other info
All major credit cards accepted.
KAI CADDY
Restaurant capsules Continued from page 28
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. $$. 501-554-0914. B Wed.-Fri.; BR Sat.-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. 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, boneless wings, whiskey on tap. Plus, the usual burgers, steaks, soups and salads. 225 E. Markham. 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. $$. 501-812-0019. D daily. BUFFALO GRILL A great crispy-off-the-griddle cheeseburger and hand-cut fries star at this family-friendly stop. 1611 Rebsamen Park Road. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-2969535. LD daily. 400 N. Bowman Road. Full bar, Beer, All CC. $$. 501-224-0012. LD daily. CAFE 201 The hotel restaurant in the Crowne Plaza serves up a nice lunch buffet. 201 S. Shackleford Road. Beer, Wine, All CC. $$. 501-223-3000. BLD daily. 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. $-$$. 501-663-7224. LD Mon.-Sat. CHEERS IN THE HEIGHTS Good burgers and sandwiches, vegetarian offerings and salads at lunch and fish specials, and good steaks in the evening. 2010 N. Van Buren. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-663-5937. LD Mon.-Sat. 1901 Club Manor Drive. Maumelle. Full bar, All CC. 501-851-6200. LD daily, BR Sun. CORNERSTONE PUB & GRILL A sandwich, pizza and beer joint in the heart of North Little Rock’s Argenta district. 314 Main St. NLR. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-374-1782. CRACKER BARREL Chain-style home-cooking with plenty of variety, consistency and portions. Multiple locations statewide. 3101 Springhill Drive. NLR. 945-9373. BLD. 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. All-you-can-eat catfish on weekend nights. 824 W. Capitol Ave. No alcohol. $. 501-372-8816. BL daily. 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. $$. 501-771-6900. FLIGHT DECK A not-your-typical daily lunch special highlights this spot, which also features inventive sandwiches, salads and a popular burger. Central Flying Service at Adams Field. Beer, Wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-375-3245. BL Mon.-Sat. GREEN CUISINE Daily specials and a small, solid menu of vegetarian fare. Try the crunchy quinoa salad. 985 West Sixth St. No alcohol, CC. $-$$. JASON’S DELI A huge selection of sandwiches (wraps, subs, po’ boys and pitas), salads and spuds, as well as red beans and rice and chicken pot pie. Plus a large selection of heart healthy and light dishes. 301 N. Shackleford Road. Beer, Wine. $-$$. 501-954-8700. BLD daily. JIMMY JOHN’S GOURMET SANDWICHES Illinoisbased sandwich chain that doesn’t skimp on what’s between the buns. 4120 E. McCain Blvd. NLR. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-945-9500. LD daily. KITCHEN EXPRESS Delicious “meat and three” restaurant offering big servings of homemade soul food. Maybe Little Rock’s best fried chicken. 4600 Asher Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-666-3500. BLD Mon.-Sat., LD Sun. LETTI’S CAKES Soups, sandwiches and salads available at this cake, pie and cupcake bakery. 3700 JFK Blvd. NLR. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-771-2837. LD (closes at 6 p.m.) Mon.-Fri. L Sat. LYNN’S CHICAGO FOODS Outpost for Chicago specialties like Vienna hot dogs and Italian beef sandwiches. Plus, other familiar fare — burgers and fried catfish, chicken nuggets and wings. 6501 Geyer Springs. No alcohol, All CC. $. 501-568-2646. LD Mon.-Sat. MADDIE’S If you like your catfish breaded Cajun-style, your grits rich with garlic and cream and your oysters fried up in perfect puffs, this Cajun eatery on Rebsamen Park Road is the place for you. 1615 Rebsamen Park Road. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-660-4040. LD Tue.-Sat. MIMI’S CAFE Breakfast is our meal of choice here at this upscale West Coast chain. Portions are plenty to last you through the afternoon, especially if you get a muffin on
■ UPDATE RED DOOR Thanks to an offering on one of those half-price coupon websites that made it too cheap to resist, we got a chance to head back to Mark Abernathy’s Red Door restaurant recently, one of our long-time faves. It has its winter menu on now, with heartier fare than the summer slate. Still plenty of old favorites, though, like the fried green tomatoes ($7.95, and just where do they get ’em green in the middle of winter?). From the big list of entree items, we tried the special of the day, which was generous pork tenderloin served with a very nice cranberry reduction and a choice of sides ($17.95). Our companion, meanwhile, got her usual, which was one of Red Door’s very tasty build your own pizzas ($9.95 small, $15.95 large), which features her favorite crust in town, smothered with fresh ingredients. Both turned out delicious, especially the tenderloin, which was a perfect companion to the can’t-miss-it homemade mac ’n’ cheese. Result: another memorable meal from a place that’s long been on our Saturday night to-do list. 3701 Old Cantrell Road. Full bar. $$-$$$. All CC. 501-666-8482. www.reddoorrestaurant.net. L Mon-Fri., D daily. the side. Middle-America comfort-style entrees make-up other meals, from pot roast to pasta dishes. 11725 Chenal Parkway. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-221-3883. BLD daily. MORNINGSIDE BAGELS Tasty New York-style boiled bagels, made daily. 10848 Maumelle Blvd. NLR. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-753-6960. BL daily. MR. BELL’S SOUL FOOD Rose City soul food spot owned by Leon and Loreta Bell serves typical meat-andtwo options: smothered pork chops, pigs feet, yams, greens. The desserts are delectable; the dinner menu includes an all-you-can eat choice (as long as advance payment is made and no doggy bags are expected). 4506 Lynch Drive. NLR. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-945-9000. LD Sun.-Fri. (closes at 6 p.m. Sun. and 7 p.m. Mon.-Fri.). PHIL’S HAM AND TURKEY PLACE Fine hams, turkeys and other specialty meats served whole, by the pound or in sandwich form. 11121 N. Rodney Parham Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-225-2136. LD Mon.-Fri. L Sat. RED MANGO National yogurt and smoothie chain whose appeal lies in adjectives like “all-natural,” “non-fat,” “glutenfree” and “probiotic.” 5621 Kavanaugh Blvd. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-663-2500. LD daily. RESTAURANT 1620 Steaks, chops, a broad choice of fresh seafood and meal-sized salads are just a few of the choices on a broad menu at this popular and upscale West Little Rock bistro. It’s a romantic, candlelit room, elegant without being fussy or overly formal. 1620 Market St. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-221-1620. L Mon.-Fri., D Mon.-Sat., BR Sun. SADDLE CREEK WOODFIRED GRILL Upscale chain dining in Lakewood, with a menu full of appetizers, burgers, chicken, fish and other fare. It’s the smoke-kissed steaks, however, that make it a winner — even in Little Rock’s beefheavy restaurant market. 2703 Lakewood Village. NLR. Full bar. $$-$$$. 501-812-0883. SAY MCINTOSH RESTAURANT Longtime political activist and restaurateur Robert “Say” McIntosh serves up big plates of soul food, plus burgers, barbecue and his famous sweet potato pie. 2801 W. 7th Street. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-664-6656. LD Mon.-Sat. L Sun. SIMPLY NAJIYYAH’S FISHBOAT AND MORE Good catfish and corn fritters. 2900 S. University Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-562-3474. SLICK’S SANDWICH SHOP & DELI Meat-and-two plate lunches in state office building. 101 E. Capitol Ave. 501-3753420. L Mon.-Fri. SPECTATORS GRILL AND PUB Burgers, soups, salads and other beer food, plus live music on weekends. 1012 W. 34th St. NLR. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-791-0990. SPORTS PAGE Perhaps the largest, juiciest, most flavorful burger in town. Grilled turkey and hot cheese on sourdough gets praise, too. Now with lunch specials. 414 Louisiana St. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-372-9316. L Mon.-Fri. STARVING ARTIST CAFE All kinds of crepes, served as entrees or as dessert, in this cozy multidimensional eatery with art-packed walls and live demonstrations by artists during meals. The Black Forest ham sandwich is a perennial favorite with the lunch crowd. Dinner menu changes daily, good wine list. “Tales from the South” readings at 7 p.m. Tuesdays; live music precedes the show. 411 N. Main St. NLR. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-372-7976. LD Tue.-Sat. SUFFICIENT GROUNDS Great coffee, good bagels and pastries, and a limited lunch menu. 1401 W. Capitol. No alcohol, All CC. $. 501-372-1009. BL Mon.-Fri. T.G.I. FRIDAY’S This national chain was on the verge of stale before a redo not long ago, and the update has done wonders for the food as well as the surroundings. The lunch combos are a great deal, and the steaks aren’t bad. It’s designed for the whole family, and succeeds. Appetizers and desserts are always good. 2820 Lakewood Village Drive,. NLR. $$-$$$. 501-758-2277. TROPICAL SMOOTHIE Besides the 45 different smoothies on the menu, the cafe also serves wraps and sandwiches
(many of them spicy), salads and “tortizzas.” Good food, healthy drinks, long line at lunch but it moves fast. 10221 N. Rodney Parham Road. No alcohol, All CC. $$. 501-2242233. BLD daily. VICTORIAN GARDEN We’ve found the fare quite tasty and somewhat daring and different with its healthy, balanced entrees and crepes. 4801 North Hills Blvd. NLR. $-$$. 501-758-4299. L Tue.-Sat. WHITE WATER TAVERN Excellent, cheap pub food from Little Rock native Nick Castleberry, who’s spent the last 15 years in Seattle earning raves for his affordable, approachable food. With vegetarian options. 2500 W. 7th. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-375-8400. D Tue., Thu., Fri.
ASIAN BENIHANA - THE JAPANESE STEAKHOUSE Enjoy the cooking show, make sure you get a little filet with your meal, and do plenty of dunking in that fabulous ginger sauce. 2 Riverfront Place. NLR. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-3748081. L Sun.-Fri., D daily. CHI’S DIMSUM & BISTRO A huge menu spans the Chinese provinces and offers a few twists on the usual local offerings, plus there’s authentic Hong Kong dim sum available. 6 Shackleford Drive. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-2217737. LD daily. 17200 Chenal Parkway. No alcohol, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-821-8000. EASTERN FLAMES Maki rolls and half rolls, fresh nigiri and sashimi, katsu, lunch boxes and a nice variety of sake grace the menu at this sushi bar. 7710 Cantrell Road. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-227-7222. LD Mon.-Sat. FU LIN Quality in the made-to-order entrees is high, as is the quantity. 200 N. Bowman Road. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-225-8989. LD daily. HUNAN BALCONY The owner of New Fun Ree has combined forces with the Dragon China folks to create a formidable offering with buffet or menu items. 2817 Cantrell Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-666-8889. LD. HUNAN ORIENTAL CUISINE Old favorites such as orange beef or chicken and Hunan green beans are still prepared with care in very nice surroundings out west. 11600 Pleasant Ridge Drive. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-223-9966. LD daily. IGIBON JAPANESE FOOD HOUSE It’s a complex place, where the food is almost always good and the ambiance and service never fail to please. The Bento box with tempura shrimp and California rolls and other delights stand out. 11121 N. Rodney Parham Road. Beer, Wine, All CC. $$. 501-217-8888. LD Mon.-Sat. KOBE JAPANESE STEAKHOUSE & SUSHI Though answering the need for more hibachis in Little Rock, Kobe stands taller in its sushi offerings than at the grill. 11401 Financial Centre Parkway. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-2255999. L Mon.-Sat. D daily. P.F. CHANG’S Nuevo Chinese from the Brinker chain. 317 S. Shackleford. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-225-4424. 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. $-$$. 501-224-8100. LD daily. PEI WEI Sort of a miniature P.F. Chang’s, but a lot of fun and plenty good with all the Chang favorites we like, such as the crisp honey shrimp, dan dan noodles and pad thai. 205 N. University Ave. Beer, Wine, All CC. $$. 501-280-9423. LD daily. SUPER KING BUFFET Large buffet with sushi and a Mongolian grill. 4000 Springhill Plaza Court. NLR. Beer, Wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-945-4802. LD daily. VAN LANG CUISINE Terrific Vietnamese cuisine, particularly the way the pork dishes and the assortment of rolls are presented. Great prices, too. Massive menu, but it’s userfriendly for locals with full English descriptions and numbers for easy ordering. 3600 S. University Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-570-7700. LD daily.
BARBECUE CAPITOL SMOKEHOUSE AND GRILL Beef, pork, sausage 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. 915 W. Capitol Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-372-4227. BL Mon.-Fri. CROSS EYED PIG BBQ COMPANY Traditional barbecue favorites smoked well such as pork ribs, beef brisket and smoked chicken. Miss Mary’s famous potato salad is full of bacon and other goodness. Smoked items such as ham and turkeys available seasonally. 1701 Rebsamen Park Road. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-265-0000. L Mon.-Sat., D Tue.-Fri. 6015 Chenonceau Blvd. Beer, Wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-227-7427. LD daily. FATBOY’S KILLER BAR-B-Q This Landmark neighborhood strip center restaurant in the far southern reaches of Pulaski County features tender ribs and pork by a contest pitmaster. Skip the regular sauce and risk the hot variety, it’s far better. 3405 Atwood Road. No alcohol, All CC. $$. 501-888-4998. LD Tue.-Sat. HB’S BAR B.Q. 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. $-$$. 501-565-1930. L Mon.-Fri. SIMS BAR-B-QUE Great spare ribs, sandwiches, beef, half and whole chicken and an addictive vinegar-mustardbrown sugar sauce unique for this part of the country. 2415 Broadway. Beer, All CC. $-$$. 501-372-6868. LD Mon.-Sat. 1307 John Barrow Road. Beer, All CC. $-$$. 501-224-2057. LD Mon.-Sat. 7601 Geyer Springs Road. Beer, All CC. $$. 501-562-8844. LD Mon.-Sat.
EUROPEAN / ETHNIC KHALIL’S PUB Widely varied menu with European, Mexican and American influences. Go for the Bierocks, rolls filled with onions and 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. TAZIKI’S This sole Arkansas location of the chain offers gyros, grilled meats and veggies, hummus and pimento cheese. 8200 Cantrell Rd. All CC. $$. 501-227-8291. LD daily.
ITALIAN DAMGOODE PIES A somewhat different Italian/pizza place, largely because of a spicy garlic white sauce that’s offered as an alternative to the traditional red sauce. Good bread, too. 2701 Kavanaugh Blvd. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-664-2239. LD daily. 6706 Cantrell Road. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-664-2239. LD daily. 10720 Rodney Parham Road. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-664-2239. LD daily. 37 East Center St. Fayetteville. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 479-4447437. LD daily. GUSANO’S They make the tomatoey Chicago-style deepdish pizza the way it’s done in the Windy City. It takes a little longer to come out of the oven, but it’s worth the wait. 313 President Clinton Ave. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-374-1441. LD daily. 2915 Dave Ward Drive. Conway. Beer, All CC. $$. 501-329-1100. LD daily. LARRY’S PIZZA The buffet is the way to go — fresh, hot pizza, fully loaded with ingredients, brought hot to your table, all for a low price. Many Central Arkansas locations. 10312 Chicot Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-565-6006. LD daily. 12911 Cantrell Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-224-8804. LD daily. LUIGI’S PIZZARIA Excellent thin-crust pizza; whopping, well-spiced calzones; ample hoagies; and pasta with tomatoey, sweet marinara sauce. 8310 Chicot Rd. Beer, Wine, All CC. $$. 501-562-9863. LD Mon.-Sat. 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 Boulevard, Suite 1. Beer, Wine, No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-868-3911. LD daily. VESUVIO Arguably Little Rock’s best Italian restaurant is in one of the most unlikely places – tucked inside the Best Western Governor’s Inn within a non-descript section of west Little Rock. 1501 Merrill Drive. Full bar, All CC. $$$. 501-225-0500. D daily. VILLA ITALIAN RESTAURANT Hearty, inexpensive, classic southern Italian dishes. 12111 W. Markham St. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-219-2244. LD Mon.-Sat.
MEXICAN 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. $-$$. 501-280-9888. BLD daily 18321 Cantrell Road. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-868-8822. BLD daily 400 President Clinton Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-3276637. L Mon.-Sat. CASA MEXICANA Familiar Tex-Mex style items all shine, in ample portions, and the steak-centered dishes are uniformly excellent. 6929 JFK Blvd. NLR. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-8357876. LD daily. COZYMEL’S A trendy Dallas-chain cantina with flaming cheese dip, cilantro pesto, mole, lamb and more. 10 Shackleford Drive. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-954-7100. LD daily. EL CHICO Hearty, standard Mex served in huge portions. 1315 Breckenridge Drive. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-224-2550. LD daily. 201 Skyline Drive. Conway. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-327-6553. LD daily. EL PORTON (LR) Good Mex for the price and a wideranging 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. 5507 Ranch Drive. Full bar, All CC. $$. LD daily. EMMA’S TAQUERIA Try the torta hawaiiana — a pork sandwich with avocado, pineapple and onions — even more enticing. The homemade pickled cucumbers that come on the side of every order are reason enough to visit. 4818 Baseline Road. No alcohol, No CC. $. 501-310-1171. LD daily. LA HACIENDA Creative, fresh-tasting entrees and traditional favorites, all painstakingly prepared in a festive atmosphere. Great taco salad, nachos, and maybe the best fajitas around. 3024 Cantrell Road. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-661-0600. LD daily. 200 Highway 65 N. Conway. All CC. $$. 501-327-6077. LD daily. LA VAQUERA The tacos at this truck are more expensive
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www.arktimes.com • FEBRUARY 2, 2011 29
Restaurant capsules Continued from page 29
Featuring the music of the rock band U2 and a message about God’s call for global reconciliation, justice for the poor and oppressed, and the importance of caring for your neighbor.
FRIDAY,
Feb. 4th - 7 pm
SUNDAY,
Feb. 6th - 9 am
than most, but they’re still cheap eats. One of the few trucks where you can order a combination plate that comes with rice, beans and lettuce. 4731 Baseline Road. No alcohol, No CC. $. 501-565-3108. LD Mon.-Sat. LAS DELICIAS Levy-area mercado with a taqueria and a handful of booths in the back of the store. 3401 Pike Ave. NLR. Beer, All CC. $. 501-812-4876. LONCHERIA MEXICANA ALICIA The best taco truck in West Little Rock. Located in the Walmart parking lot on Bowman. 620 S. Bowman. No alcohol, No CC. $. 501-6121883. L Mon.-Sat. MERCADO SAN JOSE From the outside, it appears to just be another Mexican grocery store. Inside, you’ll find one of Little Rock’s best Mexican bakeries and a restaurant in back serving tortas and tacos for lunch. 7411 Geyer Springs Road. Beer, All CC. $. 501-565-4246. BLD daily. RIVERIA MAYA Typical Mexican fare for the area, though the portions are on the large side. 801 Fair Park. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-663-4800. LD daily. RIVIERA MAYA Typical Mexican fare for the area, though the portions are on the large side. 801 Fair Park Blvd. Full bar, Beer, Wine, All CC. $$. 501-663-4800. LD daily. SAN JOSE GROCERY STORE AND BAKERY This mercado-plus-restaurant smells and tastes like Mexico, and for good reason: the resh flour tortillas, overstuffed burritos, sopes (moist corncakes made with masa harina), chili poblano are the real things. 7411 Geyer Springs Road. Beer. $-$$. 501-565-4246. LD daily. SUPER 7 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. $. 501-2192373. LD and buffet daily. TAQUERIA JALISCO SAN JUAN The taco truck for the not-so-adventurous crowd. They claim to serve “original Mexico City tacos,” but it’s their chicken tamales that make it worth a visit. They also have tortas, quesadillas and fajitas. 11200 Markham St. No alcohol, No CC. $. 501-541-5533. LD daily. TAQUERIA LOURDES This Chevy Step Van serves tacos, tortas, quesadillas and nachos. Colonel Glenn and 36th Street. No alcohol, No CC. $. 501-612-2120. LD Mon.-Sat. TAQUERIA SAMANTHA On Friday and Saturday nights, this mobile taqueria parks outside of Jose’s Club Latino in a parking lot on the corner of Third and Broadway. 300 Broadway Ave. No alcohol, No CC. $. D Fri.-Sat. (sporadic hours beyond that). TAQUERIA Y CARNICERIA GUADALAJARA Cheap, delicious tacos, tamales and more. Always bustling. 3811 Camp Robinson Road. NLR. Beer, All CC. $-$$. 501-7539991. BLD daily.
AROUND ARKANSAS CABOT
First United
Methodist Church 723 Center Street • Little Rock 372-2256 • www.fumclr.org
DINER, THE The waitresses will crack you up at this red and white classic country diner. Made-to-order breakfasts and lunch plates, hot coffee served in logo mugs and gentle chiding from the wait staff make this a must-stop. 3286 S Second St. Cabot. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. (501) 941-0904. BL Daily. SOUTHFORK GRILL This new establishment on Cabot’s south side serves up sandwiches, burgers and plate dinners as well as appetizers and big desserts. 2797 Southfork Dr. Cabot. All CC. $$. (501) 941-7500. LD Mon.-Sat.
CONWAY
EL ACAPULCO Tex-Mex served in hefty portions in a colorful atmosphere. 201 Highway 65 N. Conway. No alcohol, All CC. $$. 501-327-8445. LD Mon.-Sun. EL CHICO Tex-Mex and Ark-Mex favorites, a Central Arkansas tradition. Multiple locations statewide. 201 Skyline Drive. Conway. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-327-6553. LD daily. EL HUASTECO Reasonably priced Mexican fare. 720 S. Salem Road. Conway. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-764IN F OF PED OP DR NG E BEI LITTLE ROCK • DOWNTOWN FOR GOOD IT’S LIK 1665. LD Mon.-Sun. EL PARIAN Traditional Mexican and Tex-Mex favorites are offered by this Arkansas restaurant chain. 2585 Donaghey. Conway. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-513-1313. LD Mon.-Sun. FABY’S RESTAURANT Nuevo Mexican and Continental cuisine meet and shake hands at Faby’s. The hand-patted, housemade tortillas are worth the visit alone. 2915 Dave 723 CENTER STREET • LITTLE ROCK, AR • 501.372.2256 • WWW.FUMCLR.ORG Ward. Conway. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-329-5151. DOWNTOWN FOR GOOD LD Mon.-Sun. THE GREAT AMERICAN GRILL Hotel restaurant. 805 Amity Road. Conway. No alcohol, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-329Gyro Sandwich, FrieS & drink $6.65 oFFer expireS 03/02/11. 1444. BLD Mon.-Sun. LA HUERTA MEXICAN RESTAURANT Standard gyros • hummus • tabbouleh • baba ghannouj Mexican fare with an emphasis on family favorites. 1052 pizza • calzone • mediterranean salad Harrison Street. Conway. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-762LITTLE ROCK’S BEST FOOD VALUE 0202. LD Mon.-Fri. fresh, delicious Mediterranean cuisine 400 N. Bowman Road 501-224-3377 LOS AMIGOS Authentic Mexican food where everything 9501 N. Rodney Parham • 227-7272 is as fresh and tasty as it is filling. At lunch, go for the $4.99 1619 Rebsamen Road 501-663-9734 Bryant: 612 Office Park • 847-5455 all-you-can-eat special. 2850 Prince St. Conway. No alcohol,
First United
Methodist Church
NEW ORLEANS
First United Methodist Church
Special
Bienvenue!
First United Methodist Church joy. Experience. Eat. En
30 FEBRUARY 2, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES
All CC. $-$$. 501-329-7919. LD daily. MARKETPLACE GRILL CONWAY Big servings of steak, seafood, chicken, pasta, pizza and other rich comfort-style foods. 600 Skyline Dr. Conway. No alcohol, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-336-0011. LD Daily. MIKE’S PLACE Delicious New Orleans-inspired steaks and seafood, plus wood-fired pizzas, served in a soaring, beautifully restored building in downtown Conway. 808 Front St. Conway. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-269-6493. LD daily. NEW CHINA OF CONWAY Another buffet in the chain. 2104 Harkrider. Conway. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-7641888. LD Mon.-Sun. PATTICAKES BAKERY 2106 Robinson Ave. Conway. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. (501) 205-1969b. SLIM CHICKEN’S OF CONWAY Chicken in all shapes and sizes with sauces. 550 Salem Road. Conway. All CC. $$-$$$. 501-450-7546. LD Mon.-Sun. SOMETHING BREWING CAFE Coffee, pastries, sandwiches and such dot the menu of this longtime Conway favorite. 1156 Front St. Conway. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-327-5517. BLD Mon.-Sun.
FAYETTEVILLE A TASTE OF THAI Terrific Thai food, from the appetizers to the entrees to the desserts. Only the brave should venture into the “rated 5” hot sauce realm. 31 E. Center St. Fayetteville. All CC. $$-$$$. 479-251-1800. LD Mon.-Sat. ARSAGA’S FAYETTEVILLE COFFEE ROASTERS A locally owned and operated chain of Fayetteville-area coffeeshops featuring hot coffee and chai, sweet pastries, sandwiches and live performances by area musicians. 1852 N. Crossover Road. Fayetteville. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. (479) 527-0690. BLD daily. DAMGOODE PIES A somewhat different Italian/pizza place, largely because of a spicy garlic white sauce that’s offered as an alternative to the traditional red sauce. Good bread, too. 37 East Center St. Fayetteville. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 479-444-7437. LD daily. HERMAN’S RIBHOUSE Filets, not ribs, are the big seller at this classic, friendly, dumpy spot. The barbecue chicken is another winner. 2901 N. College Ave. Fayetteville. 479-4429671. MARKETPLACE GRILL Appetizers set on fire, Italian chips, funky low-fat dressings, prime rib and pasta in big ceramic bowls, the fare is a combination of old standbys and new-age twists. Also at 3000 Pinnacle Hills in Rogers. 4201 N. Shiloh. Fayetteville. No alcohol. 479-750-5200. LD 600 Skyline Dr. Conway. No alcohol, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-3360011. LD Daily. SLIM CHICKEN’S Chicken in all shapes and sizes with sauces. Also locations in Rogers, 3600 W. Walnut Street; and Conway, 550 Salem Road. 2120 N. College Ave. Fayetteville. All CC. $$-$$$. 479- 443-7546. LD 550 Salem Road. Conway. All CC. $$-$$$. 501-450-7546. LD Mon.-Sun.
HOT SPRINGS ARLINGTON HOTEL Massive seafood buffet on Friday nights, breakfast buffet daily, served in the splendor of a grand old hotel. 239 Central Ave. Hot Springs. 501-6237771. BLD. THE BLEU MONKEY GRILL High end, artfully prepared pastas, salads, sandwiches and appetizers are one of the hallmarks of this classy/casual newcomer to the Hot Springs dining scene. Stay for the interesting dessert menu. 4263 Central Ave. Hot Springs. Full bar, All CC. 501-520-4800. LD daily. CAJUN BOILERS Expertly prepared boiled shrimp, crawfish and such, served in a fun atmosphere. 2806 Albert Pike. Hot Springs. Beer, Wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-767-5695. D Tue.-Sat. HOT SPRINGS BRAU HAUS All the usual schnitzels are available, an inviting bar awaits as you enter, and the brickwalled place has a lot of history and coziness. 801 Central Ave. Hot Springs. 501-624-7866. LD. JACK’S PANCAKES-N-STEAKS Read the walls of this recently relocated Hot Springs mainstay and get the gritty stories and memories that make the town come alive. Burgers and steaks are done well; breakfasts tend to be oversized but half-size portions are available. 1105 Albert Pike. Hot Springs. All CC. $$. (501) 624-5558. BLD daily. JASON’S BURGERS AND MORE Locals love it for filets, fried shrimp, ribs, catfish, burgers and the like at good prices. 148 Amity Road. Hot Springs. 501-525-0919. LD. LA HACIENDA Authentic Mexican food; array of entrees. 3836 Central Ave. Hot Springs. 501-525-8203. LD. ON THE BORDER Tasty Tex-Mex at reasonable prices; great margaritas too. 190 Pakis St. Hot Springs. Full bar, All CC. 501-520-5045. LD daily. ROD’S PIZZA CELLAR Terrific handmade pizzas highlighted by the Godfather, a whopper. Lunch specials are a steal, especially the buffet. 3350 Central Ave. Hot Springs. Beer, Wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-321-2313. LD Tue.-Sun.
MAUMELLE BEEF O’BRADY’S FAMILY SPORTS PUB The signature item is the wings, with a variety of sauces, plus burgers, specialty sandwiches, wraps, salads and fish dishes. 115 Audubon Drive. Maumelle. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-8033500. LD daily. SMOKE SHACK BAR-B-Q Another relative of the Shack, a legendary and long-gone Little Rock barbecue place. The beef and pork sandwiches are the best bet. 20608 Highway 365 N. Maumelle. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-803-4935. LD Mon.-Sat.
I’m Not Sharing by Gerhardt
MOSAIC TEMPLARS CULTURAL CENTER Showcases Art by African Americans
T
BY MELISSA WHITFIELD AND HEATHER REGISTER ZBINDEN
HE MOSAIC TEMPLARS CULTURAL CENTER unveiled the newest additions to its Creativity Arkansas Art
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Collection on Dec. 31, 2010, as part of Kwanzaa festivities. Displayed throughout the museum, the collection includes 42 works of art by African American artists with an Arkansas connection and features a variety of media, including stainless steel, limestone, oil, watercolor, acrylic, photography and silverpoint. The brainchild of Heather Register Zbinden, assistant director and chief curator at the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, and Garbo Hearne, African American art scholar and owner of Hearne Fine Art in Little Rock, the collection is funded by a grant from the Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council. “There are so many wonderful artists from Arkansas and I felt that they needed to be showcased at the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center,” says Zbinden. “It was important to acquire pieces and grow the collection while many of the artists are living. That way we can create a living component to the museum where these artists come to give gallery talks, demonstrations and workshops. The focus of the collection is artwork created by African American artisans from Arkansas or who reside in Arkansas and/or African American artisans whose work depicts history of Arkansas business, culture or politics.” ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS TIMES • FEBRUARY 2, 2011 31
the city of New Orleans. This catastrophe, like slavery and lynching come together, is a tragedy that has made us stronger piece by piece. Each piece is carefully constructed in unusual ways that emphasize musical compositions that become sound boards of human experience with color and pattern that move and groove to its own beat. I used a lot of mapping with various shapes of the city of New Orleans. Each piece is carefully put together like a puzzle that becomes a sound board of a person’s life. Every person I talked to about the storm shared these sentiments but always looked forward in faith to a higher power.” “Hurricane Katrina affected the Gulf Coast but it also made an impression on the state of Arkansas. Many evacuees came north to Arkansas and have made this state their home. This piece is important for the museum and the collection not just artistically but historically. Katrina evacuees have contributed to the ever-changing makeup of Arkansas, and we wanted to mark that significant event,” says Zbinden. Kevin Cole’s piece marks an important event in the nation’s history, but Rex Deloney’s series of four works, 9th Street Recollections, marks the personal love story of this parents. Deloney explains his inspiration for the series, “the 9th Street Recollections are an artistic inter-
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE COLLECTION
T
he first two works were acquired for the collection in 2008 in preparation for the museum opening in September of that year. Staff from the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center and the Department of Arkansas Heritage visited Hearne Fine Art to select pieces for a hallway on the first floor. “It was during this visit that I first thought about purposefully collecting art for the museum. We are a history museum for the most part and although I love art and appreciate it, I hadn’t explored the idea fully. We saw dozens of wonderful pieces and I only had enough money for two. I knew we had to figure out a way to do this,” says Zbinden. Two works by Rex Deloney, an art teacher at Little Rock Central High School, were chosen and are now on display on the first floor. In February 2009, Series of 5 Portraits by Michael Worsham, a graduate of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Above: Abstraction 7 by John Howard was purchased for the collection and is Right: X + Isador=Saturn by Ariston Jacks on display in the classroom. Worsham says, “When I paint, I like to copy not a mixed medium sculpture entitled Hope With only what I see, but what I know is supposed to be there. Opportunities I by Kevin Cole; a mural study I consider myself a figurative painter. Loving portraiture, I entitled Study in Mood and Color by Tarrence Corbin; use informal compositions that are more interesting than Playing in Snow, Institute of Learning and 9th Street traditional poses. Some of my work also displays a sense of Recollections by Rex Deloney; Somewhere on the humor, twists to formal posing. I work from photographs, Line and Ninth Street by Sylvester McKissick; Fat taking quick snapshots that are laid back and non-static.” Daddy, Sunflowers, and The Market by Euneda Otis; In August 2009, Zbinden and Hearne began the process Young Strength by Charly Palmer; Dream Fragment of formalizing the idea of the collection. “We needed a Series: Ms. Daisy Bates by Aj Smith; Respect and mission statement and a set of guidelines to make sure Solidarity by Susan Williams; a silver gelatin print that the collection had a purpose and objectives. We knew by Ernest Withers entitled Desegregation at Central we wanted to collect, preserve, and document Arkansas High; Series of 5 Portraits by Michael Worsham; history through visual arts,” says Hearne. “The title, Creativity and silverpoint painting entitled Standing Still Arkansas, was taken from the 6th day of Kwanzaa. Heather by Marjorie Williams-Smith. and I decided that the best time to unveil the works would Kevin Cole explains that his piece Hope With be during Kwanzaa and the 6th day of Kwanzaa (Dec. 31st) Opportunities I, “make[s] use of various shape and is called Kuumba or Creativity.” form of scatter debris from Hurricane Katrina. These On Dec. 31, 2009, the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center pieces take on their own nature in culture just like unveiled 23 works of art by 11 artists. The works include
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Standing Tall by Ed Wade
pretation of the recollections told to me by my mother, Hazel B. Deloney. The year was 1952; a female college student spent the summer in Little Rock with her cousin while working at Mary’s Chicken Shack, on 9th and Chester. Every day, a tall handsome young man from next door, Taylor’s Barber Shop, would come in for a piece of pie and a glass of milk. The young man would only allow the female college student to wait on him. It was apparent that he was quite smitten with her; however, she was a little on the shy side and would often hide in
the kitchen when he came in. Miss Mary would often say to the young lady, ‘You might as well come out here and serve him; you know he won’t let anyone else help him.’ The female college student was Hazel B. Robinson and the young barber was William Henry Deloney II. Those daily visits eventually led to a courtship and marriage in 1954, a family of seven children, and 49 years of a blessed union, until William’s death in 2003.” Susan Williams’ sculpture, Respect and Solidarity, is a powerful piece that marks the inauguration of President Barack Obama. “Respect and solidarity begins at home. Our President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama defined this movement in a powerful and affectionate display. I am encouraged that this gesture of fist bumping represents the positive changes in our national and global attitudes. I am a sculptor who is fascinated with the human form, whether it presents realistically or in abstraction. Sculpting is a way of registering my thoughts which overwhelmingly illuminate my heritage, religion, and the inner beauty of people. I love the feel of clay in my hands, creating beautiful forms and having these experiences sealed with the permanence of bronze.”
ADDING TO THE COLLECTION
I
n May 2010 Hearne and Zbinden begin selecting artists and works for the 2011 additions. This December, the museum unveiled 21 works by 14 artists. The works include X + Isador=Saturn by Little Rock artist Ariston Jacks; Days at the Old School by folk artist Alonzo Ford; The Defiant One by Brian Massey; I’m Not Sharing by Gerhardt; Abstraction 7 by John Howard; Freight Cars by Sylvester McKissick; Dreamer and Standing Tall by Ed Wade; All Night Long by George Hunt; Arkansas Delta #49 and Bayou Meto #2 by Henri Linton; The Artform and Carol Annette Athenun by Larry Wade Hampton; Peace and Humility by LaToya Hobbs; The Lord’s Supper and Lover’s in the Swing by Ollie Humphery; Maxx by Aj Smith; and The Jazzman, Destiny and After the Rain 1 & 2 by Angela Green. “We wanted to grow the collection by selecting a greater depth of artists and a greater depth of subject matter. I wanted to make sure that folk artists and self-taught artists were represented as well as professional and established artists. But most of all, we selected pieces that moved us emotionally or were socially charged,” said Zbinden. The Defiant One by Brian Massey is one such work of art. A sculpture made of limestone and soapstone, the work tells the story of the artist’s experiences with racism and discrimination. Massey explains, “the concept for this is based upon an ‘ugly’ experience that my family and I went through during the early 1990’s 34 FEBRUARY 2, 2011 • ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS TIMES
while at UCA. Because of my belief for ‘standing up’ for what is right, I received death threats via the mail and telephone for myself, my wife and my children. They (whoever it was) stated that they knew where my wife worked and where my children went to school, and if I wanted to keep them alive as well as myself … to leave UCA and Conway. I did however, upon the advice of the FBI, send my wife and children to her mother for two months while I dealt with this situation. Needless to say, I did not leave and after 20 years, I am The Defiant One, because I’m still here!” Zbinden explains, “I felt that this sculpture had to be included in the collection because it represents the continuing struggle in Arkansas against racism, discrimination, hatred, and prejudice.” In Gerhardt’s painting, I’m Not Sharing, he evokes the emotions of childhood and summertime – the joy of innocence. He says of the piece, “I constantly try to paint pictures, people, scenes and situations that tap into a particular emotion with my viewer. In this piece I wanted to bring back the nostalgia of the old ice cream trucks that frequented the black neighborhoods I grew up in. But I also wanted it to be a piece that spoke to women and little girls, so I incorporated little things that would speak purely to women. Like the strains of freshly pressed hair falling from behind her ears and the four little girls with ice cream over her shoulder. My goal with this piece is that it would touch the person who sees it and take them on a trip down memory lane back to when we all yelled, ‘The ice cream man is coming!’ ” In Days at the Old School, Alfonzo Ford helps an older generation remember and reminds a younger generation that times have changed. Ford grew up in Lexa (Phillips County) and attended school in a oneroom schoolhouse built by the Rosenwald Foundation.“The Lexa school housed grades one through eight and like many segregated schools built by the Rosenwald Foundation, this one was torn down in the 1970s,” says Zbinden.“The architecture and landscape of segregated education is just as important as the story of integrated education and many of these schools, along with the churches, were the roots of the community.”
Templars Cultural Center will continue to purchase art by African American Arkansas artists and display it in the museum,” adds Zbinden. The future includes a traveling exhibit and a catalog. Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, a museum of the Department of Arkansas Heritage, is open Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. A handout about the collection is available upon request at the front desk and curator-led tours are available but must be scheduled in advance. Admission to the museum is free. ■
Dreamer by Ed Wade
Future Plans
W
hat’s up for next year? “The possibilities are endless. We have so many talented African American artists in Arkansas. We will continue to grow the collection and add new artists and new media. This collection is so important to the museum and state,” says Hearne. “The immediate future holds the possibility of a traveling exhibit and a catalog commemorating the fifth anniversary of the collection.”“As long as the money is available, the Mosaic ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS TIMES • FEBRUARY 2, 2011 35
Visit the museums of the Department of Arkansas Heritage for various activities throughout Black History Month Mosaic Templars Cultural Center February 3 – Southern Journeys Exhibit Opening Reception featuring Rodney Block and The Real Music Lovers from 5-7 p.m. February 5 – Intro Artist Series featuring M.S.N. 3000, come hear the latest local talent from 7-9 p.m. February 11 – Arkansas Black Hall of Fame Distinguished Laureate Series: Dr. James Hildreth at 10 a.m. February 12 – Tommy Terrific Magic Show – Satchel Paige and Negro League Baseball at 2 p.m. February 15 – Black America Sings: From Slavery to Civil Rights, Dr. IJ Routen and Voices Without Borders at 10 and 11:30 a.m. February 19 – Arkansas Black History Quiz Bowl at 10 a.m. February 25 – African American Pioneers in Razorback Athletics at 11 a.m. February 26 – Living History Reenactment at 1 p.m.
At the Old State House Museum Tuesdays in February means the Brown Bag Lunch Lecture. On February 8 - Arkansas’s Anarchy Law and People of Color: An Unusual Case from 1934 – The case concerns a group of Asian organizers who came to northeastern Arkansas during the summer of 1934, to recruit members for a movement that encouraged African Americans to look to Japan as the protector of the “colored races.” They specifically targeted places that had been active in the Marcus Garvey movement in the 1920s. Ken Barnes is the chair of the Department of History and professor of history at the University of Central Arkansas (UCA). He received his BA from UCA, MA from the University of East Anglia in England, and PhD from Duke University. He has taught at Concordia University - Chicago and the University of Southern Mississippi before returning to UCA as a professor in 1993. He is the author of several books and articles on German history and Arkansas history, including Who Killed John Clayton?: Political Violence and the Emergence of the New South (Duke University Press, 1998) and Journey of Hope: The Back-to-Africa Movement in Arkansas in the
Late 1800s (University of North Carolina Press, 2004). On February 15 ArkansawR’n’B: The State’s Forgotten Rhythm ‘n Blues Legacy - ArkansawR’n’B: The State’s Forgotten Rhythm ‘n Blues Legacy will showcase some of Arkansas’s R&B greats and behind-the-scenes legends. While blues, folk and other musical genres are justifiably celebrated as Arkansas exports, often overlooked are Arkansas’s contributions to R&B music. The lives, music and legacies of Louis Jordan (a key player in the development of Above: Days at the Old School by Alonzo Ford R&B), Johnnie Taylor, On February 22 - William Hines Furbush: African-American Henry Glover, and others will be explored. Stephen Koch is Republican and Democrat in Reconstruction, Redemption a musician, playwright and award-winning reporter/editor and Disfranchisement - William Hines Furbush, born into and broadcast journalist with a focus on Arkansas music slavery in Kentucky, raised in Tennessee and educated in and culture. He has broadcast and written countless feaOhio, came to political prominence in Arkansas in the late tures for radio stations, magazines and newspapers across 19th Century as both a Republican and a Democrat. A phothe U.S. and U.K., and is creator and host of Arkansongs, tographer and lawyer by trade, his unique political career syndicated on National Public Radio affiliates. Considered spanned Reconstruction, Redemption, and Disfranchisement. America’s leading expert on rhythm and blues pioneer This program, given by Blake Wintory, assistant director/ Louis Jordan, Jump!, his musical on the life and music of facilities manager of Lakeport Plantation, will look at the Jordan, premiered in 2008 to sold-out audiences. Koch span of Furbush’s life and what it tells us about race and programmed and hosted an annual Louis Jordan Tribute politics in Arkansas in the late 19th Century. concert/conference for more than a decade, an event All Brown Bag Lunch Lectures are from noon-1 p.m. and recognized by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the U.S. admission is free. Participants are encouraged to bring sack Library of Congress’s Living Legacies program. The publicalunches; beverages will be provided. tion of his biography of Jordan is set for 2011. n
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Director: Garbo Hearne 1001 Wright Ave. Suite C Little Rock, AR 501-372-6822 www.hearnefineart.com
A NEW CUE WEEKLY HOME AND FASHION NEWS
A
llow us to introduce you to the new incarnation of CUE! Since, as we all know, style never sleeps, we’ve decided to dispense with the monthly supplement and take this thing weekly. We’ve snugly insinuated ourselves between Dining and Real Estate and plan to stay. You’ll be able to find us here in each issue. Our goal is to cover fashion/style news as it relates to the local scene. To quote the immortal words of Led Zeppelin, we’ll “bring it on home,” translating national trends into local parlance. From exciting buys for home and wardrobe to hot design ideas, we’ll cover it all in a timely, creative way. And, yes, not to worry, we will continue to bring you our popular By Design and Shop Dog features (the second week of every month and last week of every month, respectively). See you next week! P.S. If there’s something pressing you think should be included in these pages, something that makes your design/ fashion nerve tingle, give us a shout: cue@arktimes.com
FEBRUARY 2, 2011
Katherine H. Wyrick
hearsay
Roots rock I
t’s time to return to your roots. That’s because showing a little outgrowth is still hanging strong as one of the coolest hair trends of 2011.
Charity Foster of Tease Salon bares her roots.
37 FEBRUARY 2, 2011 • ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS TIMES
Continued on page 39
➥ HGTV design star Vern Yip made an appearance at I.O. METRO on January 21 to announce his partnership with the Arkansas-based retailer and offer some design therapy. (We hear that he also made a purchase at Sweet Home/Clement during his stay.) See our interview in the next issue. ➥ In other I.O. METRO news, the privately held retailer, founded in 2005 by Jay Howard and Bill and Helen Benton, announced on January 21 that it has been acquired by Consumer Growth Partners and an investor group that includes Banyan Mezzanine Funds and Diamond State Ventures. ➥ We’re down about the closing of TOY UP. Little Rock’s fabulous toy store unfortunately shut its doors this past weekend. For all your Uglydoll needs (those cool Korean plushes loved by kids and adults alike), visit BOX TURTLE/CHEEKY MARSHMALLOWS or HEIGHTS TOY CENTER. ➥ POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL, a consignment shop in Hillcrest, caught fire on the night of January 14. Firefighters don’t know what caused the fire, which was confined to the attic. Some merchandise was damaged. No word yet on when they’ll reopen. ➥ Long-time retail expert JOE FLYE, 65, died on January 9. His interior design career spanned from his early days with John Simmons and Furniture à la Carte to his most recent position with COBBLESTONE AND VINE. ➥ Katy Perry’s new collection for OPI has proved tough (as nails) to find, but FRINGE BENEFITS promises that they are getting a shipment tout de suite! ➥ In more nail polish news, SEPHORA debuts “Glee” Nail Collection in February. “Glee” fans can soon wear their love for the show on their fingertips when Sephora, via its Sephora by OPI brand, launches a limited edition nail color collection in stores. ➥ MINX owner, the elusive Whitney Mosley, tells us that she’s contemplating a move to Louisiana to be near family, which means closing shop. She’s close-mouthed about when that might happen. ➥ WAL-MART opened a 3,500-sq-ft retail store on the UA Fayetteville campus.
bydesign
Joe’sTopSeven
BY KATHERINE WYRICK PHOTOGRAPHY BRIAN CHILSON
Comfort food
by design (n.) A place we check in with tastemakers about town, from decorators to clothes designers and others in between.
HOW THE WEST WAS WORN A local designer’s runway success
Brando Mark Twain Mountains, skiing Beautiful women Classic jazz L oyalty, commitment, tenacity and longevity
L
ocal belt maker Joe Brogdon is no stranger to success; in the past, his belts could be found in Fred Segal, on Rodeo Drive, and on the slender waists of Hollywood celebs. But even the lowkey Brogdon got excited when some of his wares were recently featured, in a big way, on the catwalk at Ralph Lauren’s Spring 2011 fashion show. A story about the show, including a plum shot of a Joeb belt, appeared in the February issue of WWD Collections (on stands now). Brogdon was at Barnes and Noble when he made the discovery: a gorgeous full-page photo of a model sporting his substantial longhorn belt. “It blew me away! It’s really a great picture,” he enthuses. “WWD picked this shot over all the other 50 or 60 designs. I had no idea they were placing this image in WWD; the RL folks never mentioned it.” The alliance with RL came about last February when Brogdon took part in a trade show in Santa Monica called Inspiration. He recalls that fortuitous encounter, “This guy approached me and said, ‘I like what you’re doing, I want to buy your belts,’ and I said, ‘Okay, who are you?’” He was Doug Bihlmaier, the head of the RRL division of RL and, says Brogdon, “the guy in charge of the vintage doings for RL.” He bought six on the spot and sent four to the couture division. Joeb belts now grace the shelves of RRL stores in L.A., East Hampton and Manhattan. Of his success, Joe deadpans, “My marketing technique is so sophisticated ... I get a bag full of belts, walk in and say ‘You like belts?’” All kidding aside, that’s exactly the way he got a boothold in one of Aspen’s premier boutiques, Distractions, where the celeb set has snapped up his belts for the past eight years. But even Brogdon, not easily star-struck, is pretty excited about the RRL venture. He says, “They take ‘em as fast as I can make ‘em.” The epicenter of fashion, New York, is, of course, a fur piece from the designer’s snug studio in his modest, eclectic Little Rock home. Here, a lamp with a cowboy shade illuminates the small space, which is packed with rows of leather belts and the tools of the trade. On his workbench sits a pair of old chaps with some of the studs removed. Having rodeoed in his youth, Brogdon—wearing a pair of ’50s Levis, white cowboy boots and a snap button shirt— comes by his affinity for cowboy culture honestly. The belt that Brogdon’s currently working on is 50-60 years old; he’s left the pockets intact and is in the process of embellishing it. Brogdon explains that since wider belts have become scare, he now uses chaps and harnesses. “This one’s going to be a knockout,” he says admiringly, turning it over in his hands.
38 FEBRUARY 2, 2011 • ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS TIMES
Joe B. in his home studio.
In the past, you could pick up a Joeb belt locally at Bauman’s, B. Barnett, or the now defunct Tallulah. Now online at joebrogdon. com is your only option—unless you should find yourself in certain tony boutiques on the East or West Coast or in upscale Aspen.
A model at Ralph Lauren’s 2011 spring show sports a Joeb belt.
And then, of course, there are the buckles—oh, the buckles!—an entire drawer full of them, gathered from estate sales, flea markets and elsewhere. He says that the good ones can cost thousands. This reporter’s favorite piece, however, is a vintage bridle with red hearts on it, whose purpose has yet to be determined. “I buy everything,” Joe says by way of explanation. This selfproclaimed pack rat loves poking through old stuff, and
it’s a hobby that’s paid off. “I’ve learned never to throw anything away,” he says. An LPE (Licensed Psychological Examiner) in private practice, Brogdon started making belts as a hobby about ten years ago (though he actually made his first at age 18). At the time he and his son were involved in the vintage Levis trade, which took them to flea markets in Pasadena. There Brogdon saw belts selling for huge sums and thought, “I could make those.” A decade on, he’s created a cottage industry that gives old belts new life. “For lack of a better word, I reconfigure them,” he explains. “I put them together for a new look. That’s a little pretentious, that word, but that’s exactly what it is.” If there’s one thing Brodgon’s not, it’s pretentious—even with this foray into the heady world of high fashion. “I get excited and carried away with what I’m doing, but I don’t take myself too seriously,” he says. “You get in trouble when you start taking yourself too seriously.”
ROOTS
Continued from page 37 Stars like Gwyneth Paltrow and Sarah Jessica Parker are successfully pulling off visible roots, and it’s not because they can’t afford a trip to the salon. But can the not-so-rich and famous go this route? Yes, say local stylists. (Though restrictions apply—read on.) A throwback to the ‘70s and ‘80s, exposed roots give off that natural, earthy, boho vibe. That laissez-hair look. That je ne sais coiffe. And, of course it’s great if you’re on a budget and need to spread out the time between costly colorings. (Such is the hue economy.) Charity Foster, the cutting-edge co-owner of Tease Salon, anticipated this trend way back when. Charity, who’s currently sporting newly painted on roots to great effect, says that it’s been slow to catch on in these parts but that clients are begin-
ning to show an interest. “It’s still so new for this area. We’re not talking platinum blonde with dark roots; it’s subtler than that. It’s a look that has a lot of benefits: it brings out your highlights, is healthier for your hair, looks stylish, and saves you money.” A caveat: This style works best on women in their 20s and 30s (and a handful of cool 40ish types). It also works better on some hair colors and textures than others. Exposed roots tend to look particularly striking on blondes because of the contrast, but on a brunette, they can look, well . . . gray (eek!). Keep in mind length, too; shoulder length or longer hair works best. And finally, if you do decide to let those roots show, take precautionary measures to make sure you end up looking trendy rather than tacky. Like an English garden, the look should be one of cultivated neglect. A competent stylist can help guide the way.
Okey Tokidoki T
okidoki first appeared in this area in Christina McGehee’s superchic (and sorely missed) boutique, Tallulah. McGehee introduced shoppers to this cult favorite via cool graphic tees and dresses. Though now you can’t find the brand’s apparel anywhere around here, you can at least get a taste of tokidoki at Sephora in Park Plaza, which recently began selling their cosmetics and accessories. Think of them as edgy, anime-inspired items for grown-ups. (Because after a certain age you have to give up the Hello Kitty. Sorry, you just do.) Founded in 2003 by designer Simone Legno and his partners Pooneh Mohajer and Ivan Arnold, the brand’s cult cache has fueled high-profile collaborations with Karl Lagerfeld, LeSportsac, Onitsuka Tiger, Marvel, Levi’s and Skullcandy among others.
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Danes, Natalie Portman, Lea Michele and Julianne Moore all wore tones of pink ranging from pale to fiery fuschia on the red carpet. This color translates to both fashion and interiors. This year look for women’s accessories, home furnishings, and clothing in this warm tone. Honeysuckle is guaranteed to produce a healthy glow when worn by both men and women. It’s a striking, eye-catching hue that works well for day and night in women’s apparel and cosmetics, and in men’s ties, shirts and sportswear. Add a lively touch to interior spaces with honeysuckle-patterned pillows, bedspreads, small appliances and tabletop accessories. Looking for an inexpensive way to perk up your home? Paint a wall in honeysuckle for a dynamic burst of energy in the family room, kitchen or hallway. Feeling nostalgic? Watch “Honeysuckle Rose” with Dyan Cannon and Willie Nelson. Now there’s some fashion inspiration for you. (Hello bandana; it’s been way too long.)
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This vintage butterfly dress is a shining example of honeysuckle.
shop local
$5 Off
MaNicure & Pedicure
(Monday-Thursday Only) 10% Off for UAMS Employees (with purchase of $20 and up) *May Not Be Combined With Any Other Offer
Mon-Sat 9am-6:30pm • Sun 12pm-6pm Pleasant Ridge Town Center 11525 Cantrell Rd • 501.716.2960 M-F 10-6 • Sat. 10-5 solematesboutique.blogspot.com
40 FEBRUARY 2, 2011 • ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS TIMES
Nail Paradise 11321 W. Markham, Ste. 5 Little Rock, AR 72211 501.225.2228
support your community Small Town
Food for Thought
a paid advertisement
To place your restaurant in Food For Thought, call the advertising department at 501-375-2985
AMERICAN
SEAFOOD Cajun’s Wharf 2400 Cantrell Road 501-375-5351
Food and fun for everyone when you pair Cajun’s Wharf’s succulent seafood and steak with the ever-evolving live entertainment. Enjoy the fabulous fresh seafood or aged Angus beef while listening to the rolling Arkansas River on the famously fantastic deck! They also boast an award-winning wine list.
Black Angus
Homemade Comfort Food Daily Specials • Monday: Spicy Shrimp Stir-fry. Tuesday: Pot Roast. Wednesday: Meatloaf. Thursday: BBQ Plate or Shepherd’s Pie. Friday & Saturday: Fried Catfish.
Capers Restaurant
Indulge in the culinary creations and intimate environment that define Capers Restaurant. Food and wine enthusiasts agree Capers’ sophisticated approach to dining is key to it’s many accolades including receiving the Wine Spectator Award of Excellence for six years running.
Copper Grill
Whether you’re looking for a casual dinner, a gourmet experience or the perfect business lunch, Copper Grill is the choice urban restaurant for Little Rock’s food enthusiasts. It’s where you can let go and relax in the comfortable dining room, enjoy a glass of wine at the lively bar or share a spread of appetizers outside on the street-side patio. No matter if you’re on the go or off the clock, Copper Grill is your downtown dining destination.
Butcher Shop
Tremendous steaks, excellent service, fair prices and a comfortable atmosphere make The Butcher Shop the prime choice for your evening out. In addition to tender and juicy steaks, The Butcher Shop offers fresh fish, pork chop, 24 hour slow roasted Prime Rib, char grilled marinated chicken and fresh pasta. Ideal for private parties, business meetings, and rehearsal dinners. Rooms accommodate up to 50-60 people.
Flying Saucer
“A great place to hangout, experience great beer and authentic German specialties”. The Flying Saucer definitely offers a unique range of domestic and international draft and bottled beers, carrying over 80 beers on draft and 120+ different bottled beers, many which are seasonal. Accompanying their unique beer line-up is a menu packed with flare. Bratwurst is the house specialty served with German coleslaw, or you can try Brat Con Queso or Beer Brat Nachos. Be sure to leave room for dessert: Young’s Double Chocolate Stout Ice Cream Float offers the best of both worlds.
Buffalo Grill
The crispy off the griddle cheeseburger and hand-cut fries star at this family friendly stop and will keep you coming back. The casual atmosphere will have everyone feeling right at home. The options are endless for whatever dining mood you are in. Grilled Tuna Steak sandwhich to a loaded foot long hotdog to the crispy chicken tender salad. Buffalo Grill does not disappoint. Fast and friendly staff. Very affordable prices!
Morningside Bagels
Morningside Bagels café is a full service bagel bakery. We serve breakfast, lox and deli sandwiches on a bagel. Our fresh cream cheese schmears and Guillermo’s coffee compliments our bagels. We serve espresso drinks hot and iced. Our soups and bagel chips have developed their own following. Come visit with Roxane and David Tackett and enjoy.
10907 N. Rodney Parham Mon-Sat 10:30am-9pm Breakfast 6-10:30am 501-228-7800
BISTRO Lulav
220 West 6th St. 501-374-5100 Breakfast Mon-Fri 6:30 am -10:30 am Lunch Mon-Fri 11am-2pm Dinner Tues-Sat 5-10pm V Lounge til 1am, Thurs-Sat
Dizzy’s Gypsy Bistro
200 S. River Market Ave., Suite 150 (501) 375-3500 Tues-Thurs 11am-9pm Fri & Sat 11am-10pm dizzysgypsybistro.net
Fresh seafood specials every week. Prime aged beef and scrumptious dishes. Wine Spectator Award of Excellence, over 30 wines by the glass and largest vodka selection downtown. Regular and late night happy hour, Wednesday wine flights and Thursday is Ladies Night. Be sure to check out the Bistro Burger during lunch. Jump start your day with bistro breakfast from Lulav featuring scrumptious omlettes, pancakes and more. For the salad lover, Dizzy’s is an absolute paradise. Its list of eleven “Ridiculously Large Entrée Salads” runs the gamut of what you can do with greens and dressing. For example Zilpphia’s Persian Lime Salad, featuring grilled turkey breast, tomato, cucumber, onion, lime and buffalo mozzarella over romaine. For another: Mary Ann’s Dream, with grilled chicken breast, baby spinach, sun-dried tomatoes, cranberries, mandarin oranges, bourbon pecans and bleu cheese. Don’t that sound good?
chinese Fantastic China 1900 N Grant St Heights 501-663-8999
Hunan Oriental Cuisine
Sunday 11:30 am to 9:30 pm Mon-Thur 11 am to 9:30 pm Fri 11 am to 10:30 pm Sat 11:30 am to 10:30 pm 11610 Pleasant Ridge Drive 501-223-9966
Sharing good things with good friends is the motto at Fantastic China. A Central Arkansas favorite offering the Freshest Chinese Food in town. It’s made to order with 100% Vegetable Oil. The presentation is beautiful, the menu distinctive, and the service perfect. Fantastic China is one of the heights most reliable and satisfying restaurants and a local favorite. Full bar. Hunan Oriental Cuisine is a Little Rock institution that has been serving great Chinese food for over 24 years. Come dine in a calm, relaxed atmosphere where the food can be enjoyed as it was meant to be enjoyed; fresh right out of the kitchen. Or, if you prefer to order takeout, be prepared to come pick up your food quickly, since most orders are ready in 10 to 15 minutes. Lunch Specials are available everyday. Try something different. You never know what you might come to like.
mexican Casa Manana Taqueria
400 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-6637 6820 Cantrell Road • 501-280-9888 18321 Cantrell Road • 501-868-8822
Capi’s Nuevo Latino www.capisrestaurant.com
11525 Cantrell Rd, Suite 917 Pleasant Ridge Town Center 501.225.9600
Voted Best Mexican 2007. Featuring authentic fare from the Puebla region of Mexico, the selections seem endless at your choice of 3 locations in the Little Rock area. You will find an array of dishes ranging from the salient Shrimp Veracruzana at La Palapa out west to great Guacamole in the River Market Taqueria. Or try tasty Tostadas that share the name of the original Cantrell location, Casa Manana. New South of the border comfort food menu with Southwestern and authentic Mexican specialties. Quesos, enchiladas, fajitas, quesadillas and tamales steamed in banana leaves. Eclectic brunch menu Saturday and Sunday. Creative cocktails, exceptional wine list. Live music Friday nights at 8:30. Serving Tuesday - Sunday 11:00 to close.
JAPANESE BENIHANA THE 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. Full bar.
2 Riverfront Place North Little Rock 501-374-8081 Lunch Sun.-Fri. Dinner daily
Brazilian Café Bossa Nova 2701 Kavanaugh Blvd 501-614-6682 Tues-Sat 11am-9pm Sunday Brunch 10:30-2pm
Try something different! Café Bossa Nova serves up cozy atmosphere and unique Brazilian dishes guaranteed to satisfy and served with that special Latin flare. Don’t deny yourself one of the delectable desserts prepared fresh daily or for an A+ apertif, drink in the authentic flavor of the country in the Caipirinha~a perfect blend of lime, sugar and Brazilian sugar cane rum. Dine with them tonight!
brew pub Vino’s Pizza•Pub•Brewery 923 West 7th Street 501/375-VINO (8466)
Beer, pizza and more! Drop in to Vino’s, Little Rock’s Original Brewpub! and enjoy great New York-style pizza (whole or by-the-slice) washed down with your choice of award-winning ales or lagers brewed right on site. Or try a huge calzone, our new Muffaletta sandwich or just a salad and a slice with our homemade root beer. The deck’s always open, you don’t have to dress up and the kids are always welcome (or not). Vino’s is open 7 days, lunch and dinner. You can call ahead for carry-out and even take a gal. growler of beer to-go. And guess what?? The bathrooms have just been re-done!
41 february 2, 2011 • ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS TIMES
14502 Cantrell Road 501-868-7600
300 West 3rd Street 501-375-3333
Shackleford & Hermitage Rd. (501) 312-2748
323 President Clinton Ave 501-372-8032
400 N. Bowman Rd 501-224-0012 1611 Rebsamen Park Rd 501-296-9535 11am-9pm 11am-10pm Friday & Saturday
10848 Maumelle Blvd North Little Rock 501-753-6960 Mon-Fri: 6am-2pm Sat & Sun: 7am-2pm www.morningsidebagels.com
steak Sonny Williams
If you have not been to Sonny Williams lately, get there immediately and check out the martini/wine bar. Now you can enjoy 35 wines by the glass, 335 selections of wine, 6 single barrel bourbons and all different kinds of Scotch from the many regions of Scotland. Of course, don’t miss out on the nightly entertainment by Jeff at the piano. Sonny’s is a River Market mainstay and perfect for intimate private parties; free valet parking! As always, Sonny Williams has the best steaks in town along with fresh seafood and game. No Skinny Steaks… Call ahead for reservations (501) 324-2999
Faded Rose
Featuring the Best Steaks in town with a New Orleans flair from a New Orleans native. Also featuring Seafood and Creole Specialties. As Rachel Ray says “This place is one of my best finds ever.” Back by popular demand…Soft Shell Crab and New Orleans Roast Beef Po-Boys.
500 President Clinton Avenue Suite 100 (In the River Market District) 501-324-2999 Dinner Mon - Sat 5:00 - 11:00pm Piano Bar Tues - Thu 7:00 - 11:00pm Fri & Sat 7:00 - Late
400 N. Bowman 501-224-3377 1619 Rebsamen 501-663-9734 Open Sunday
asian panda Garden
2604 S. Shackleford Road, Suite G 501-224-8100.
Fresh, flavorful, all-you-can-eat sushi. With fresh and authentic Chinese dishes, nice decor, great dessert choices and excellent sushi, Panda Garden raises the bar.
Mediterranean Layla’s
9501 N. Rodney Parham 501-227-7272
Enjoy regional specialties such as Lentil soup, a huge serving of yummy Hummus, Baba Ghannnouj or Tabbouleh. And don’t forget about the Gyros, they’re sure to be heroes in your book!
CONGRATULATIONS FIRST-ROUND WINNER
Tyrannosaurus Chicken Round Two - 2/3 The Year of the Tiger The Yipps The Smittle Band Echo Canyon Round Three - 2/10 Brethren This Holy House Michael Leonard Witham The Pink Drapes Round Four - 2/17 10 Horse Johnson Brown Soul Shoes Ezra Lbs. Sea Nanners
Round Five - 2/24 No Hay de Que Mandy McBryde and the Unholy Ghost Thunder Thieves Ginsu Wives
ยกREVOLUTION!
REAL ESTATE b
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F e b r u ary 2 , 2 0 1 1
Heights new construction home is stunning
Classic meets contemporary in this elegant home at 2523 N. Grant in the Heights. It is a stunning, newly constructed beauty with hardwoods throughout the main level, tray ceilings in the great room and an open floor plan. The home has four bedrooms, three bathrooms and two levels. A large front porch adds to the charm of the home’s exterior and can serve as additional space for relaxing or entertaining. A gas fireplace serves as the focal point of the great room. It can be seen from the kitchen creating a contemporary ambiance in the home. The kitchen is open to the great room and has a beautiful island, six-burner commercial-grade gas range and other fantastic top-of-the-line appliances creating a gourmet kitchen perfect for the chef in the family. There are also granite countertops in all wet areas and custom cabinetry to boot. The guest suite and master suite are both downstairs and are separate from each other. The master bedroom has beautiful hardwood floors, his-and-hers closets and
The chef’s kitchen is a dream.
Gleaming hardwoods are on the main level.
a tray ceiling. The master bathroom is every person’s dream with a large soaking tub, walk-in shower, private water closet, linen closet and his-and-hers sinks. The other two bedrooms and a bathroom are upstairs. A large bonus room is also on this level and is a great space for entertaining with a wet bar, mini-refrigerator and icemaker. Located on a corner lot, this home has a fenced backyard, private courtyard and a three-car garage with additional storage. Another bonus of the home is the Pella windows in every room. It’s a truly phenomenal home and it’s within walking distance to all the shops and restaurants of the Heights. Listed at $799,000 this home can be yours today. Contact Eric Wilkerson with the Charlotte John Company for a private tour. You may call or text at 501-804-2633, visit www.LittleRockHouseHunting.com, follow on Facebook at Facebook.com/ LittleRockHouseHunting or on Twitter at Twitter.com/EricWilkerson.
The private courtyard is perfect for entertaining.
The master suite is spacious. www.arktimes.com • February 2, 2011 43
REAL ESTATE by neighborhood TO ADVERTISE, CALL TIFFANY HOLLAND AT 375-2985
SEE THESE GREAT PROPERTIES TODAY! 203 Luek Lane - $55,000 1BR/1BA in Hot Springs 2002 Kavanaugh “D” - $119,500 2BR/1BA in Hillcrest 224 Valmar - $182,500 3BR/1BA in Stifft’s Station 305 E. 15th - $214,900 2BR/2BA Downtown 1521 Cumberland “B” - $269,900 2BR/2.5BA Downtown
Investment Properties
1104 B WEST 29TH STREET 2BR/1BA fixer upper. Owner financing or cash discount. $350 down, $150 a month. 803-403-9555
Land 20 W. MARTIN, GREENBRIER $109,000. 25.21 acres off Brannon Road. Pastureland, borders creek, city water, electric, septic on property. Perfect for horses, cattle and your dream home. MLS# 10269741 Linda Roster White Real Estate, 501-730-1100 or 501-679-1103
2523 N. Grant - $799,000 4BR/3BA in the Heights
littlerockrealtor@gmail.com www.littlerockhousehunting.com
halfoffdepot.com/littlerock 44 February 2, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES
S C R AT C H G R AV E L , DAMASCUS $69,900. Beautiful country view on paved road, level with some hardwood trees and large barn, public water at road. Seven acres total, buy all or part. Linda Roster White Real Estate, 501-730-1100 or 501679-1103
SOMA
Capitol View/ Stiffts Station
305 E. 15th - $214,900. Charming dollhouse with 2BR/2BA. MBR is downstairs with the guest BR and a loft area upstairs. Breakfast bar. Hardwoods down, carpet up. Call Eric Wilkerson of the Charlotte John Company for more info at 501-804-2633.
224 S. VALMAR - $182,500. 3BR/1BA home with remodeled kitchen and bathroom. Granite counters, tumbled marble backsplash and stainless appliances. All new windows! Call Eric Wilkerson of the Charlotte John Company for more info at 501-804-2633.
2523 N. GRANT - $799,000. Stunning newly constructed home with a classic yet contemporary design. Beautiful hardwoods, granite counters, stainless steel top-of-the-line appliances. Call Eric Wilkerson of the Charlotte John Company for more info at 501-804-2633.
5720 N. Country Club - $394,900 3BR/2.5BA in the Heights
501.804.2633
Downtown 300 THIRD CONDO Competitively priced 2BR/2BA condo with French balcony, black-out shades, limestone counters and stainless appliances. Enjoy spectacular views of the sunset. Call Eric Wilkerson of the Charlotte John Company for a private tour at 501-8042633.
Heights
300 Third Tower #1003 - $366,900 2BR/2BA in River Market
CALL ERIC WILKERSON FOR A PERSONAL TOUR!
Land
Publisher’s Notice
All real estate advertising in this newspaper is subject to the Federal Fair Housing Act which makes it illegal to advertise any preference, limitation or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status or national origin, or an intention, to make any such preference, limitation or discrimination. Familial status includes children under the age of 18 living with parents or legal custodians, pregnant women and people securing custody of children under 18. This newspaper will not knowingly accept any advertising for real estate which is in violation of the law. Our readers are hereby informed that all dwellings advertised in this newspaper are available on an equal opportunity basis. To complain of discrimination call HUD toll-free 1-800-669-9077. The toll-free number for the hearing impaired is 1-800-927-9275.
1620SOLD Restaurant Arkansas Laser Dynamics NEW! Arkansas Symphony Orchestra Big Whiskey’s American Bar & Grill Capi’sSOLD Restaurant Catfish City & BBQ Grill Graffiti’s NEW! Hampton Inn Hunka Pie Juanita’s Mexican Cafe and Bar Loca Luna Restaurant SOLD Pizza Cafe Red Door Restaurant Salut' Italian Bistro NEW! SO Restaurant-Bar Starving Artist Café Stickyz StoneLinks Golf Course Trio’sSOLD Restuarant Vesuvio Italian Restaurant NEW!
1220 TRENTON - $123,000. Charming 3BR/2BA with all new carpet, paint, tile, appliances including refrigerator, light fixtures, countertops, door knobs and pulls. Must see! MLS# 10262073 Linda Roster White Real Estate, 501730-1100 or 501-679-1103
Hillcrest
4924 HILLCREST AVE - $459,900. 3BR/3BA plus 3-car garage. 2600 SF. Recently renovated home on large corner lot. Call John Selva at Pulaski Heights Realty at 501993-5442.
712 N. WALNUT - $159,900. 2BR/1BA in the heart of Hillcrest. Just 1/2 block of Kavanaugh. Renovated kitchen w/custom maple cabinets, tile floors, solid surface counters. Enter MLS 10257444 at www.PulaskiHeightsRealty.com
West Little Rock 14615 BROWN BEAR DR $299,900. Great 4BR/2.5BA, approx. 3015 SF home in the new Don Roberts School District. Plenty of space for the entire family. Formal dining room, office, family room & eat-in kitchen all downstairs. All bedrooms have large walk-in closets and master bath & closet are huge. Side-loading garage & fully fenced yard. Call Bob Bushmiaer of Pulaski Heights Realty @ 501-352-0156 for more info or a private showing.
Neighboring Communities 1480 W. LAWSON RD - $189,900. All brick on 3.5 acres in Alexander! 1850 SF, 3BR/2BA, hardwoods in great room and formal DR. Bryant schools. Clyde Butler, CBRPM, 501240-4300. 21854 WILLIAM BRANDON DRIVE - $168,500. Enjoy country living on five level acres only 15 minutes from downtown Little Rock! Likenew home with 4BR/2BA, woodburning fireplace, granite counters, stainless appliances & more! Call Clyde Butler of CBRPM at 501240-4300. GREERS FERRY LAKE Spectacular view! 5 acres. Owner/ agent. 501-825-6200 www. enchantedbluffestates.com
REAL ESTATE by neighborhood
1665 ARDEN - $145,000. Beautiful 3BR/2BA home on corner lot with new hardwood floors, tile in kitchen and wet areas, custom blinds, fenced backyard, walk to school. Immaculate! MLS# 10274951 Linda Roster White Real Estate, 501-730-1100 or 501-679-1103 3005 DALLAS LOOP - $229,000. Exceptional 4BR/2.5BA updated and modern, two living areas, formal dining and breakfast area, study. New appliances, paint, window treatments, carpet lighting and bath fixtures. Large fenced yard - walk to school. Amazing home. MLS# 10267818 Linda Roster White Real Estate, 501730-1100 or 501-679-1103 3535 HOMESTEAD - $103,900. Adorable 3BR/2BA split open plan with breakfast bar, side-by-side refrigerator, 2-inch faux wood blinds, laundry room and large deck with access thru kitchen and master. MLS# 10272778 Linda Roster White Real Estate, 501730-1100 or 501-679-1103 5125 GALLERIA COVE $209,000. Stunning 3BR/2BA with open split plan, an abundance of built-ins and storage. Extraordinary lighting throughout, smooth top cooking surface, breakfast bar, walk-in pantry. FP, screened in porch and fenced yard. MLS# 10268505 Linda Roster White Real Estate, 501730-1100 or 501-679-1103
No. 1229
5720 N. COUNTRY CLUB $394,900. Walk to everything the Heights has to offer from this fantastic 3BR/2.5BA home. This one-level home features beautiful hardwoods, formal LR & DR, large kitchen, great room with built-ins and lots of natural light. Call Eric Wilkerson of the Charlotte John Company for more info at 501804-2633.
Across 1 Jettisoned compartment 4 Update, in a way 10 Noise in a comic book gunfight 14 Expert 15 Key of “The James Bond Theme” 16 Bathe 17 Big ___ 18 Margarita alternatives 20 Spanish for “the meadows” 22 Mexican bloom 23 Like telemarketing headsets 24 Bit of a climb 26 Theyʼre caught in Chicago 27 What a cheeky oneʼs cheek might get 29 Screen role for Skippy the dog 31 Pit-___ 34 Cook Island carving
Edited by Will Shortz
Conway
36 Card game of Spanish origin 40 Salsa verde ingredients 43 Barrio outsider 44 At 30° W 30° N, e.g. 45 Lock part 46 Goals against, e.g. 48 “What ___ be done?” 50 Certain Protestant: Abbr. 53 Golfer Aoki 55 Reason for an evacuation 59 Baja buddies 61 Like traditional Mexican music 63 Procrastinating words south of the border 65 Castor ___ (old comic strip character) 66 Subj. involving cells 67 Be altruistic
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE
■ CROSSWORD
Heights
F R O G S S C A L A
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68 Mustachioed “Simpsons” character 69 Kournikova of tennis 70 They might be knee-jerk reactions 71 Carbohydrate suffix Down 1 “Tortilla Flat” character 2 Jersey Shore county, appropriately 3 None too swift 4 Officially annul 5 Go from home to home? 6 One of a 15thcentury trio 7 “With the jawbone of ___ …” 8 Comfy footwear, briefly 9 Slowly disappears 10 Bor-r-ring 11 Soup kitchen server 12 Use 13 Tijuana tables 19 One turned off for takeoff 21 Virgins of ancient Rome 25 Island capital of 2.6 million 28 It requires one whoʼs blind with a bat 30 Two-handled vase 31 1977 doubleplatinum album by Steely Dan
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Puzzle by Patrick Merrell
32 Sweeping shot 33 Medit. land 35 Flattens, for short 37 Arthur of “The Golden Girls” 38 $200 Monopoly properties: Abbr. 39 Gift in “The Gift” 41 Croneʼs concoction
42 White House ceremony site 47 Syrian presidential family 49 Helping for the very hungry, maybe 50 “La ___” 51 At full speed 52 Evergreen with edible nuts
54 Psi follower 56 Cheap, in adspeak
57 “But of course”
58 Mark used four times in this puzzleʼs solution
60 Pricey event
62 Yucatán years 64 Soak (up)
For answers, call 1-900-285-5656, $1.49 a minute; or, with a credit card, 1-800-814-5554. Annual subscriptions are available for the best of Sunday crosswords from the last 50 years: 1-888-7-ACROSS. AT&T users: Text NYTX to 386 to download puzzles, or visit nytimes.com/mobilexword for more information. Online subscriptions: Todayʼs puzzle and more than 2,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/crosswords ($39.95 a year). Share tips: nytimes.com/wordplay. Crosswords for young solvers: nytimes.com/learning/xwords.
Greenbrier 344 CASTLEBERRY - $173,900. Magnificent 3BR/2BA on 1.16 acre corner lot with privacy fenced yard & storage bldg. Open plan with hardwood floors, solid surface counters, custom maple cabinets, built-in Thermador cappucino machine & wine cooler, large deck and security system. MLS# 10274731 Linda Roster White Real Estate, 501-730-1100 or 501-6791103 39 INDIAN SPRINGS - $166,500. 3BR/2BA new construction with gas fireplace, tile backsplash, smooth top cooking surface, microwave, pantry, jetted tub in master. Large deck with country view. MLS# 10257991 Linda Roster White Real Estate, 501730-1100 or 501-679-1103
Sherwood 400 MAXINE - $119,000. 3BR/2BA, 1452 SF all brick home on corner lot w/a fully fenced yard! Heated and cooled craft room/workshop, new roof in 2010. Clyde Butler, CBRPM, 240-4300
Great rates for Realtors & FSBO! Call Tiffany at
375-2985
for pricing and availability. www.arktimes.com • February 2,2,2011 www.arktimes.com • FEBRUARY 2011 4545
Short subjects n In recognition that our attention span grows ever shorter ... ... They’ll let you stand outside the Super Bowl and not see the game for $200. Shoot, I’ll let you stand out here in my yard and not watch it for half that. And I’ll throw in free parking; save you another $150. ... I don’t think God will give up on the world as long as there are cranes living in it. ... Does it mean anything that Black History Month is also the shortest month? ... How come all the contemporary snowmen are fatties? Why not, just occasionally, one that’s ripped? ... I used to be a Sagittarius but now my astrological sign is some snake-rassler whose name I can’t even pronounce. Who decides matters like this? Is it the new Congress with all these Tea Party crazies? Is Ophiuchus a character out of “The Fountainhead,” or the name of William F. Buckley Jr.’s yacht, or Nancy Reagan’s horoscope caster? I ought to get a vote on this, don’t you think? ... We’re apparently going to be on yellow alert from now on. I guess that amounts to a recommendation against restocking my Homeland Security bunker. Anybody need 1,052 cans of chicken-noodle soup that are only five years past the expiration? ... Worst thing about aging might be the relentless gnarliness of it.
Bob L ancaster ... Remember when your first thought when somebody mentioned a baseball player wasn’t how much money he made? Or second thought how much he charges for an autograph? ... Bats out of hell don’t have nothing on our legislators. ... February honorees, from the sublime to the ridiculous, Abraham Lincoln to the groundhog. ... St. Valentine and St. Hallmark were domestic partners in a committed relationship, or that’s the contemporary narrative, gaining acceptance, and every bit as authentic as the romantic legends told of early Christian Charlie Browns and ancient Roman little red-haired girls. Mountain Home grocery clerk had no call figleafing the tab cover of happy pair and their adopted boy Cupid. Youngster was nekkid, yes, but c’mon. ... There’s legislation to change us from The Natural State back to The Land of Opportunity and the state bird from the mocker to the fulvous whistling tree duck.
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Tough votes like this is why they get those $50,000-a-year expense accounts. ... There was a time when women invariably elevated the political discourse when they were permitted into it; so where did all these bubblehead harpies come from? ... Our historians have sunk from common plagiarism to actually altering the documents. Don’t be fooled. If the John Hancock on your parchment sez “Jon Handcock,” and has Wite-Out under it, it’s probably not legit. ... All these pricks pontificating on how to fix the economy: I guarantee you they don’t know a bit more about it than my cat or your dog. And the smugger the wronger. ... I remember when lignite was going to be the economic salvation of south Arkansas. That was when there was still a debate whether it was low-grade coal or high-grade dirt. Resolved eventually in favor of the latter. ... Gross National Product is not a term referencing Duggars. Not usually. ... The U.S. still owns a number of uninhabited islands off South America that we claimed in 1856 in hopes of mining the vast accumulations there of bird guano. Sacking it up as agricultural fertilizer. Wars were fought over this stuff. A true fact. In recent times, bull guano has become a larger consideration. ... From the usage annals: Back in the old days, I felt grody much of the time, and used that word to describe the condition.
What grody means, as I recall, is how Glen Campbell and Mel Gibson obviously felt when their famous DUI mug shots were taken. Google them and you’ll see. Pain is associated with it, and self-loathing, and a certain reek, and an aspect of homelessness that sleeps in a cardboard box or is headed in that direction. I still feel grody, not as often, but often, but the word no longer has currency, and I’ve encountered no good substitute. Fungal, maybe. Zombic. ... One thing I wouldn’t have guessed: It can happen here. No matter what it is. ... Righteously swole-up conservatives claghorning the cause of Juan Williams remind me of when they did it for an old White House travel office goomer named Billy Dale. Clowns. ... How far down on the Game and Fish Commission’s list of priorities do you think these two items are? – 1. Game. 2. Fish. ... How many baby girls have to die so you’re right to pack won’t be infringed? ... It’s just about always a good idea to avoid the magenta. ... Which do you think is more responsible for the greenhouse gases that are bringing about the climate change, bovine flatulence or talk radio? Oh, yeah, well, never mind. ... There was an Arkansas governor once who had this platform: “I believe in paying your honest debts and saving your seed potatoes.” But he died, like everybody else back then.
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LASSIFIED LASSIFIED
Developing Leaders in the Oil and Gas Industry
Cudd Energy Services provides a variety of quality oil and gas field services and equipment to independent and major oilfield companies in the U.S. and select international markets. We currently have opportunities in the Wireline Division of our Vilonia, AR facility for the following positions: Experienced Cased Hole Engineers and Operators CES strives to provide a positive work environment by ensuring that our employees have: ● Professional development opportunities ● Career advancement options ● Safe environment in which to work ● Competitive wages and benefits ● Excellent safety and service line training
Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, a non-profit advocacy organization, seeks a full-time development director with a minimum of 5 years of experience in raising major gifts for nonprofits. Competitive salary. EOE. Send cover letter, resume, and references to: nleonhardt@aradvocates.org or 1400 West Markham St., Ste. 306, Little Rock, AR 72201.
Here’s a glimpse of our benefit package: ● Group Health, Life and Disability Insurance ● Dental Insurance ● Vision Plan ● 401(k) Plan with Company Matching ● Flexible Spending Accounts ● Paid Vacations, Sick Leave and Holidays ● Credit Union ● Employee Assistance Program
Executive director sought for Little Rock faith-based agency. Degree in human services, case management experience, & fund raising desired. Info at http://www.ihnlr.org/. Send application letter, resume, and reference list to:ihnedsearch@gmail.com Field Workers-10 temporary positions; approx 10 months; Duties: to operate tractors during the preparation and maintenance of the sugar cane crop before, during and after the harvesting season. $9.10 per hour; Job to begin on 3/18/11 through 1/18/12. 3 months experience required in job offered. All work tools provided. Housing and transportation provided to workers who can not reasonably return to their permanent residence at the end of the work day; guaranteed of contract. Employment offered by HMC Farms, L.L.C. located in New Iberia, LA. Qualified applicants may call employer for interview (225) 2070505 or may apply for this position at their nearest State Workforce Agency using job order # 372271. For more info regarding your nearest SWA you may call (501) 682-7719.
Rentals
Communications Senior Specialist
Interested and qualified applicants can either submit a resume or apply in person to: Cudd Energy Services Attn. Hiring Manager #7 Energy Way Vilonia, AR 72173 Phone: 501.796.2870 Fax: 501.796.3041 Or email a resume to jobs@cudd.com (place reference #AR0111 and position applying for in subject line)
Visit our websites at: www.rpc.net www.cuddenergyservices.com Equal Opportunity Employer
FEBRUARY 2, •2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES 46february 2, 2011 ARKANSAS TIMES 46
Development Director
Employment
Heifer Int’l, a global, dynamic, non-profit org w/a compelling mission to alleviate world hunger & poverty is in search of an individual to Develop & manages exec messaging for internal/external audiences; prepare & implement communication strategies & plans for organization-wide initiatives & projects; manage communication tools to ensure cross-platform sharing of key information. Closing date 2/10. For more info about our org, detailed job desc, & online application visit www. heifer.org/careers HEIFER INT’L IS AN EOE/AA.
Heights-area office offering physical address and/or use of conference room for business use. Call for details: 501-664-3219
Personals SWM, goodlooking, fit, 53-years-young man, financially secure, looking for SWF 25-35, small & beautiful. Must be willing to relocate to Hot Springs or Louisana. Call or text: 318-458-0408
Adoption Services *Adopt* Actress, now attorney, with loving family, yearns to be at-home mom with 1st baby to cherish. Expenses paid. Stacey 1-800-562-8287
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➤➤➤ The comprehensive list of everything worth doing this weekend from Times entertainment editor, Lindsey Millar. Whether it’s live music, dance, theater or an exhibit, Lindsey steers you to the best. The To-Do List email newsletter arrives in your in-box every Wednesday afternoon with an eye toward planning for your weekend. The To-Do List is a sure bet for your active life!
➤➤➤ The comprehensive list of everything worth doing this weekend from Times entertainment editor, Lindsey Millar. Whether it’s live music, dance, theater or an exhibit, Lindsey steers you to the best. The To-Do List email newsletter arrives in your in-box every Wednesday afternoon with an& eyeGRILL toward RIVERMARKET BAR planning for your weekend. The To-Do List is a sure bet for your active life! CLUBS, CONCERTS & MORE @ arktimes.com
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A Raisin In the Sun - Meet the Cast & Dinner Thursday, February 3 - 3:30 p.m. Donaghey Student Center Ledbetter Rooms A, B, & C Moderator: Dr. John Miller
A Raisin In the Sun - Production Thursday, February 3 - 7:00 p.m. Arkansas Repertory Theatre
UALR student tickets are limited. Please seee the Office of Campus Life for more ticke ticket ket ke et inf et iinformation, nnfffor orma oor rm mati tion on,, Donaghey Student Center 216.
ROCK the Runway: Fashion ion Show ct Runway Finalist) with Korto Momolu (Project Wednesday, February 9 - 6:00 p.m. Donaghey Student Center Ledbetter Rooms A, B, & C Student participation is welcome. Please visit the Office of Campus Life, DSC 216, for questions estions and sign up. Co-sponsored by the UALR University Program rogram Council.
Film & Discussion: For Colored olored Girls rlls
Tuesday, February 15 - 6:00 00 p.m. Donaghey Student Centerr Ledbett tteer tt er R Room Rooms om ms B & C Moderators: Ben Fry & Dr.r. Tim E Edwards dwardds
Author Book Signing ning ing / Discussion Di Discussio iscuss cussion on with Ntozake Shange nge nge For Colored Girls Who hoo Have Ha e Considered Suicide When tth the hee Rainbow Is Enuf
Thursday, February 17 - 6:00 :000 p.m. Donaghey Student Centerr Ledbetter Rooms A, B, & C For more information, please contactt the UALR Office of Campus Life at 501-569-3308.