Arkansas Times - February 9, 2017 by Arkansas Times

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Round 3! Feb

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Thursday, February 9! All ages welcome! | $5 over 21. $10 under 21!

Feb

Mar

Fri, Mar

ROUND 3

ROUND 4

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF LAUREL RESTING

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF DON’T HOLD FINALS

FINAL ROUND!

Your Round 2 musical get-to-its:

JOHN MCATEER & THE GENTLEMEN FIRESNAKES 8PM

All semi-final nights are held at Stickyz. Yet, the final event (March 2. Or, two weeks and a day later) is at The Rev Room.

INNER PARTY 9PM

Round 4

Feb. 16

AGE OF MAN 10PM

Final

March 10

8PM November Juliet

From Round 1 DeFrance

9PM Cosmocean

From Round 2 Dazz & Brie

10PM The Martyrs

From Round 3 ?

11PM Brae Leni & the Evergreen Groove Machine

From Round 4 ?

Vidoe and updates at

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FEBRUARY 9, 2017

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COMMENT

In defense of the arts The National Endowment for the Arts may soon be comparing notes with the Affordable Care Act, forgotten on the midden of history. They will have a lot to talk about. Both will have died because they were seen as elitist forms of social welfare, and the GOP has been trying to defund them both since their creation. Reagan tried to defund the NEA in 1981, but gave up after hitting congressional resistance, something the current president will not have. In 1994, Newt Gingrich failed to eliminate the NEA entirely, but he succeeded in laying the ground work for budget cuts and restrictions on the endowment’s ability to provide grants to individual artists — all concessions he won from President Clinton during budget negotiations in ’96. For the last 60 years these attempts to defund the NEA have been based on the same foundation of disingenuous and willful misconceptions about the role and power of the arts in American society. With its 2016 budget of $148 million the NEA sounds expensive, but let’s keep in mind that this is less than 1/4 of the money raised by the Drumpf Campaign in 2016, and less than one 26,000th of the $3.9 trillion national budget. People who assign numerical values to things often find the arts frivolous, wasteful government spending, something with no material value. But consider this: Between 1966 and 2015 the NEA disbursed $268 million to various American dance companies. Among the organizations they funded was a little known group, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Company. Today the Ailey Company has performed for over 25 million people, both in the United States and as a cultural ambassador to audiences around the planet. The NEA funded Martha Graham and Paul Taylor, both of which became institutions of American culture. They, along with the scores of other companies funded by the NEA, helped to foster a tradition of American creativity and expression, as well as establishing dance as an irrefutable facet of American identity. When American dance companies perform abroad, people of other nations sit and watch as our freedom unfolds before their eyes. The benefits of the NEA are not limited to foreigners’ opinions of America, or their valuation of freedom. In 2013, I moved from Maryland to Little Rock to work for Ballet Arkansas, a company funded in part by the NEA through the Arkansas Arts Council. Through the Lit4

FEBRUARY 9, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

tle Rock Creative Corridor project, we are participating in the effort to vitalize the local economy through the arts. This is a model that cities like Louisville, Ky., and Ashville, N.C., have proved successful. Indeed, the fact that the arts stimulate the economy is so obvious that it is enshrined in our language: dinner and a show. People who do not see the value in the NEA often make claims such as “the NEA keeps private individuals from donating to the arts” or “if we cut funding to the NEA private individuals will make up the difference through donations” or even “the NEA is welfare for the cultural elitists.” These are tired, if well-rehearsed, arguments that pundits will defend with endless strings of statistics. It is true that defunding the NEA would not kill the arts in America overnight, but this is a shortsighted view.

As a career art professional, let explain how fundraising works to the think-tank elite who have never had to raise a dime. In any city there are a certain number of people who can be convinced to donate up to a certain amount to your organization. This number doesn’t change drastically from year to year, and many people who donate to one organization also donate to others. If you remove government funding for the arts from the picture, local arts organizations are left fighting to make up the difference in their funding from the same pool of donors. Not only does the NEA fund performance organizations, it also offers grants to venues that hire performance organizations. Faced with both direct and indirect losses of funding, and unable to make up the difference competing with each other for donations,

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many smaller arts organizations would, over time, be forced to close their doors, taking the jobs they provide and the economic benefits that they bring with them. Arguments over government funding of the arts go back to the founding of our nation, but never have the consequences been so dire. At its core, what the NEA supports is the most fundamental of American values: freedom. Not just the derivative freedoms of speech and assembly, but freedom of thought. No one can tell artists what to think, and no one can tell you what to think about art. This makes it dangerous to dictators. The defunding of the arts is the first step on the stairway of censorship. A government that controls the voices of its artists is a government that muzzles the conscience of a nation. Call your representatives right now. Justin Rustle Little Rock

Landlord-tenant laws need to be changed Unfortunately for one-third of the homes in the state, Arkansas is the only state to lack an implied warranty of habitability in their landlord-tenant laws. An implied warranty of habitability guarantees the tenant that the housing unit is “habitable” and will remain so. Unless the lease agreement specifies what the landlord is to maintain and repair, landlords are under no legal obligation to keep their property in livable conditions because the law does not require them to do so. The landlord-tenant laws in Arkansas offer no protection to renters. In addition to the lack of the warranty of habitability, Arkansas is the only state to have a “failure to vacate” law. This law creates criminal penalties for tenants who not pay the rent on time, and gives tenants only 10 days to move out. A late payment is a breach in a civil contract; however, Arkansas is the only state to criminalize a civil contract breach. A civil contract breach requires compensation, not jail time. While the law is there to protect landlords from freeloaders and property damage, the law protects the landlords at the cost of the tenants’ living conditions and protection. The Arkansas landlord-tenant laws need to be amended to include an implied warranty of habitability and remove the “failure to vacate” statute. Katherine Evans Bryant [Editor’s note: Several circuit courts around the state have found the failure to vacate criminal statute unconstitutional].

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arktimes.com FEBRUARY 9, 2017

WEEK THAT WAS

Tom Cotton Please take a seat and pretend we’re not here.

Quote of the Week: “We are unable to have anyone in the office because of recent threats that we have had.” — A staffer at U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton’s Little Rock office last week, speaking through a closed door to local Democratic organizer Sarah Scanlon and four other citizens seeking an audience with Cotton’s staff. Meanwhile, in Springdale, Cotton’s team abruptly canceled a meeting with the group Ozark Indivisible without explanation, sparking a protest outside his field office. On Thursday, Cotton reversed course: The senator called Ozark Indivisible organizer Caitlynn Moses to apologize and agreed to host a town hall later this month to hear constituent concerns.

Tort reform returns A proposed amendment to the Arkansas Constitution filed last week in the Senate seeks to limit the amounts that can be awarded to claimants in civil actions, such as medical malpractice lawsuits. If Senate Joint Resolution 8 is approved by the General Assembly — and with a long list of co-sponsors, it seems likely to pass — it would appear before voters on the 2018 ballot. Sen. Missy Irvin (R-Mountain View) is the lead sponsor. Like the so-called “tort reform” measure on the 2016 ballot (which was disqualified by the state Supreme Court not long before the election), SJR 8 would place a cap of $250,000 on noneconomic damages, meaning compensation for hard-to-quantify personal losses such as pain and suffering. The proposed amendment also places a cap on punitive damages, though that ceiling is more flexible. But SJR 8 also would give the legislature control over the rules 6

FEBRUARY 9, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

of pleading, practice and procedure in the judicial branch, thus taking power away from Arkansas courts and giving it to the General Assembly.

Cuts on the horizon? Governor Hutchinson told reporters last week that he’s asked state agencies to prepare for the possibility of budget cuts, including the Department of Human Services, the Department of Education and the Department of Correction. The state’s fiscal stewards are antsy about the fact that net available revenue is below forecast by $57.1 million to date. It’s too soon to panic — there are five months left in the fiscal year and officials say part of the shortfall will likely be recouped next month — but it’s worth asking why Republican leaders keep talking more tax cuts. (Hutchinson just signed a new $50 million cut for low-income Arkansans, though that won’t go into effect for a few years.) The governor said he’ll make a decision in a few months about whether to make budget changes.

Obsession The legislature is considering several proposals to amend the state Constitution, most of them bad: tort reform, voter ID, changes to education oversight. But the most absurd surely belongs to Sen. Jason Rapert (R-Conway), who filed a joint resolution trying to stop gay couples from getting married. Didn’t the U.S. Supreme Court put an end to that fight with its 2015 decision allowing same-sex marriage nationwide? Well, yes — which is why Rapert wants to call a convention of the states to add an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would define marriage as “the union of one man and one woman.” Good luck, senator.

A bad bill killed Rep. Brandt Smith’s bill to “prohibit sanctuary policies at state-supported institutions of higher education” failed by a voice vote Tuesday in the House Education committee. Smith’s effort appears to be dead. Smith’s bill would have served as a

cudgel to enforce federal immigration policy by way of withholding state funding from colleges and universities. The Arkansans who would have been most likely to be affected were undocumented immigrants (most of them Latino) who came to the United States as children and are now attending college in the state. A large number of demonstrators opposing the bill gathered at the committee meeting. Smith’s argument, such as it was, was that pernicious radicals would force campuses to adopt policies that violated federal law. “This is directed at the radical, fringe anarchist types,” he said. He said he wanted to “protect the decent types at campuses.” Smith said that he was worried that Arkansas campuses would turn into the University of California, Berkeley. Smith also said he was worried that rogue professors would hide undocumented immigrants in their offices, feed them and then carry their human waste out and dump it on campus.

OPINION

Seven

he controversy over the Ten Commandments monument on the Capitol lawn just won’t go away. For some reason, I’m having a hard time relating to this issue in general. Perhaps it’s because parts of the Ten Commandments seem so very, well, Old Testament. Take No. 2 for example: “Thou Shall Not Create Graven Images.” It must have been important back in the day, because they put it right up there near the top, but I don’t even know what a graven image is. I’m an artist; I could have created dozens and not known it. If graven means carved or engraved, then the people who inscribe the commandments, and more importantly the

surrounding decor, on the stone blocks for this monument will have something to answer for. Problems from DAVID the get-go. ROSE Perhaps we should erect a monument to the seven deadly sins instead. In the first place, there are only seven of them. Right off the bat it’s money saved. What’s more, the sins are something we can all relate to. Most of us are guilty of two or three, some even more. Let’s do a quick rundown. Pride: Got it. I’m not sure where

Awaiting remorse

illiam Faulkner, who wrote a no longer have the fine novel or two about com- pretty but stolid ing to terms with an inglorious face I saw on the past and the healing power of remorse, front page of the would have liked January — a few days paper as she waited of it, anyway. to testify in defense ERNEST Who knows what he would have made of her husband in DUMAS of the rising nationalism and institutional- 1955. Now 82, and ized bigotry manifested in the election and unwilling to let people to know where the months afterward, but he would have she lives, she said her testimony was a found redemption in a few Faulknerian lie and she was sorry the boy suffered so moments. “The past is never dead,” he grievously for it. The trial of her husband wrote. “It’s not even past.” and the other grinning killer was a farce, There was the white liberal lawyer and the jury quickly acquitted them to trying vainly in a South Carolina court- the jubilation of the courtroom. The two room to save the life of a privileged white men were paid $3,000 and described to lad who had confessed to — no, boasted another author a few years later how they of — the murder of nine black worship- had killed the boy when he would not ers at a South Carolina church to show recant having had sex with white women. white nationalists whose online postings Carolyn Bryant now says the boy never he had followed that they needed to mas- made the claim. sacre blacks and not just talk, and then Till’s mother opened the casket at Chithe grieving kin of the dead who gave the cago so the whole world could see the boy absolution. mutilated face and torso of her son, and Last week, a book by the historian Tim- a few newspapers, mainly the black press, othy Tyson revealed that Carolyn Bryant ran the picture. The murder and the trial had owned up to lying in a Mississippi focused the attention of the American courtroom in 1955 when she said Emmett press on the South’s racial problem for Till, a 14-year-old black boy from Chicago the first time. Major newspapers began to with a lisp, whistled at her, grabbed her in send reporters south to cover such events her husband’s store and told her that he — there were plenty — and the burgeoning had had sex with white women in Chicago. civil rights movement. More remarkable was a gathering last Her husband and his half-brother wrested the boy from his grandfather’s house, tor- week at a Methodist church in LaGrange, tured and shot him in the face, mutilated Ga. The white police chief and the mayor his body, tied a cotton-gin fan around his told the packed church they were proneck with barbed wire and sank his body foundly sorry for the lynching of a 16-yearto the bottom of the Tallahatchie River. old black boy named Austin Callaway, Bryant, who remarried twice, must taken to the jail in 1940 for allegedly hitting

those Greek monks were going with this one. Pride implies that you have done something to be proud of. Are they suggesting we should be doing things we’re not proud of? No problem, I can go either way. Sloth: Got it. Sloth is when you’ve done nothing to be proud of — nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing at all for that matter. In a way, sloth is its own reward. Gluttony: Got it. It will put you in the coffin, but you get to eat a lot of Ben & Jerry’s on the way. Eat too many chilidogs and you risk death from coronary artery disease. Then again, there are people who have eaten bean sprouts and died from E. coli. In the end it’s only a matter of what you want on your tombstone. I’ll have pepperoni on mine. Lust: Got it. Lust makes the world go round. Gluttony, sloth and lust — sounds

like a pretty good weekend to me. Greed: Got it. I’m not exactly sure how this one kills you but, when it does, you end up with a pile of stuff. Wrath: Got it. I lived, for a while, in a small town that didn’t accept computers at their modest landfill. They would, however, take anything that was in a black, plastic bag. I took a sledgehammer and beat my old IBM to flinders so it could be bagged and dumped. I am here to tell you that beating a PC with a 7-pounder is rapture. The euphoric feeling is still with me. A little wrath can go a long way. Envy: Unlike the other six, envy has no upside. It doesn’t feel good or taste good, takes effort and doesn’t bring you anything in return. For this reason I have never had envy ... but I wish I did.

a white woman and then hauled away by six white men, beaten and shot seven times. LaGrange’s police chief, Louis Dekmar, denounced the city’s police for doing nothing. “For that,” he said, “I’m profoundly sorry.” He said the town had committed a “litany of injustices” against black people over the years that had poisoned relations. Every citizen, he said, had a right to expect their police and city leaders would be “honest, decent, unbiased and ethical.” Here and there, over the years, there have been apologies for a few of the more than 4,000 blacks who were murdered by Southern mobs between 1877 and 1950 while the authorities stood by or participated. In Arkansas, according to one scholar who tracked them, at least 231 blacks were murdered without trials for some alleged offense against a white person. In my town in Union County, no one apologized for the authorities allowing the lynching of young Edward Brock on Aug. 10, 1923, for allegedly insulting a white woman. The closest we came might have been four years later, in 1927, when the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce issued a statement condemning the anarchy that took over the city when a mob captured John Carter for allegedly striking a white woman and her daughter after asking where the bridge was and where he could get some whiskey. They hanged him from a telephone pole, riddled his body with bullets, dragged him through the streets of Little Rock, built a bonfire at Ninth and Broadway from the pews of a black church and businesses on Ninth Street, and burned his body. One man ripped off a burning arm to direct traffic on Broadway. Celebrating crowds roamed down-

town. Pictures of Carter’s burning body were sold downtown the next day for 15 cents. Arkansas’s public television this spring will air an amazing documentary on Ninth Street with images of the horror. Floodwaters covered much of East Arkansas and another downtown building had fallen into the raging Arkansas River the day before. Worried that the national publicity might jeopardize flood relief, the chamber condemned the anarchy and the city government for permitting it. The Arkansas Gazette ran a front-page editorial the next day condemning the police, sheriff’s office and the city government for doing nothing. The editorials raged for days. But you might read the newspaper’s own stories with some horror. The Gazette’s headlines referred to Carter as the “negro brute” and convicted him. One will grow sick reading newspaper accounts of Arkansas lynchings, which referred to the black victims as savages, animals, brutes or monsters, and were composed with the same verve that you would describe the Patriots’ Super Bowl rally. There is a glimmer of hope even with the press. This week, The New York Times acknowledged, though without apology, that until 1956 it had never given a black woman the dignity of having her marriage recorded on its proud pages. In 1988, President Reagan signed an act formally apologizing to 100,000 citizens of Japanese descent who were falsely imprisoned during World War II. Wait for the day — soon, surely — that President Trump will apologize to a race for the lynchings and other depredations.

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ARKANSAS TIMES

All about politics

ave Americans really become in a court filing a nation of gullible cowards? as “ill-conceived, Sometimes it looks that way. poorly implemented and illTake President Trump’s executive order banning travel from seven Middle Eastexplained” — and ern and North African countries. If you an obvious impedGENE think it has anything whatsoever to do iment to persuadLYONS with protecting against terrorist attacks, ing Muslims to then you haven’t been paying attention. resist Islamic extremism. Meanwhile, The administration’s policies are ISIS propagandists couldn’t have been designed not to deal with real probhappier. They crowed that exactly as lems in the visible world, but to rile up they’d alleged all along, America had partisan ignoranuses [sic] here in the now declared war on Islam. Even Iran’s supreme leader AyatolU.S.A. Also to stimulate nativism and fear of dark-skinned foreigners, and to lah Khamenei — a resolute foe of Sunni make Democrats appear to be defendArab extremism — found something to ing Muslims instead of the Constitution. like in Trump’s bungling. “We actually Poorly thought out and incompethank this new president! We thank tently drafted, to the extent that Trump’s him, because he made it easier for us order has anyto reveal the real thing to do with face of the United ISIS or al-Qaeda It’s not for nothing that States,” he said. terrorists, it will former Secretaries of “Now, with everyhelp them. The thing he is doing State John Kerry and reasons are quite — handcuffing a simple, and pretty Madeleine Albright child as young as much undeniable. described Trump’s 5 at an airport — New York he is showing the Times reporter order in a court filing reality of AmeriDavid Zucchino can human rights.” as “ill-conceived, poorly spoke with Iraqi Never mind implemented and illthat the handsoldiers barriexplained” — and an caded inside the cuffing thing falls city of Mosul, obvious impediment to under the headwhere they are ing of Fake News. fighting a brutal persuading Muslims to Didn’t happen. house-to-house resist Islamic extremism Even so, Trump battle against handed the IraISIS fighters for nian leader a big control of the country’s second-biggest propaganda gift even as he tried to close city. Its outcome is crucial to breaking the door on Persian refugees from the the terrorist insurrection for good. ayatollah’s oppressive regime. Should it matter that no American citizen has “If America doesn’t want Iraqis because we are all terrorists, then Amerever died in a terrorist attack at Iranian ica should send its sons back to Iraq to hands? Not one. Ever. Of course it should, but to Trump’s fight the terrorists themselves,” Capt. Ahmed Adnan al-Musawe was quoted as henchmen — the president evidently saying. Officers and enlisted men internever read the fool thing — it didn’t. viewed in Mosul unanimously described Here in Arkansas, one of the state’s Trump’s order as a grave insult to their most beloved citizens, former Gov. honor, and that of their fallen comrades. and Sen. David Pryor, is probably alive The Times also quoted Brig. Gen. today due to the emergency intervention of two brilliant Iranian neurosurMizhir Khalid al-Mashhadani: “This decision by Trump blows up our liberageons — immigrant brothers — at a tion efforts of cooperation and coordinaFayetteville hospital. For my money, tion with American forces.” The Engthe U.S. can’t admit enough Persian lish-speaking al-Mashhadani described immigrants, heirs to one of the world’s himself as astounded by the president’s oldest civilizations. And for pretty much the same reaorder. He added that American offisons all eight of my Irish great-grandcers in Iraq helping to train Iraqi forces thought it hasty and badly considered. parents were welcomed to America It’s not for nothing that former Secmore than a century ago: poverty and retaries of State John Kerry and Madoppression. A lot of people were suspieleine Albright described Trump’s order cious of their religion, too.

Resist Gorsuch

arring the bizarre, Judge Neil Gorsuch will become one of the nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court by the time the court reconvenes for its new term in October. Those who oppose Gorsuch’s nomination either because President Barack Obama was inappropriately blocked from filling the seat with a mainstream appointee or because Gorsuch’s own writings suggest that he may well be outside the mainstream of modern constitutional jurisprudence on key issues must be clear-eyed about this reality. However, there are strong arguments for energetically contesting the Gorsuch nomination despite the probable result. Gorsuch’s relative youth, his conservative lineage tracing back to his mother’s controversial role in the Reagan administration, his allegiance to originalist interpretation and his personal fondness for the man he would replace — the late Justice Antonin Scalia — all create enthusiasm among GOP loyalists who held their nose to vote for President Trump because of the salience of the future of the Supreme Court. Perhaps most importantly, while Scalia had a keen knack for pushing away those in the middle of the court whose votes he needed to transform jurisprudence, Gorsuch evidences an affability and, even more importantly, a personal warmth with one of those whom Scalia savagely disparaged — Justice Anthony Kennedy — that gives conservatives a real hope that he will be more effective in more permanently shifting jurisprudence to the right than was the edgy Scalia. For a man on the federal bench for a decade, Gorsuch has also written relatively little on the hottest-button constitutional issues of gun control, abortion or LGBT rights, taking away opponents’ ability to roast the nominee with his own words. Still, Gorsuch’s commitment on conservative constitutional views is unwavering: His opinion in the Hobby Lobby case argued that the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that the company ensure access to certain birth control procedures “substantially burdened” Hobby Lobby’s religious liberty by making it “complicit” in a moral wrong. Combined with Gorsuch’s unwillingness to question the sincerity of the corporate leaders’ beliefs, this ruling sets the stage for a complete undermining of any generally applicable laws that “burden”

a nyone’s relig iou s b el ief s (and, name one that doesn’t). His arg uments against JAY t he lega lizaBARTH tion of euthanasia and assisted suicide grounded in the unbending view that “all human beings are intrinsically valuable and the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong” has clear implications for the future of abortion law on the court. His concurring opinion in Riddle v. Hickenlooper, a campaign finance case from Colorado, voiced a view of campaign contributions as a “basic constitutional freedom” inherently linked to freedom of speech and association that suggests an aversion to even minimal campaign finance reforms. Thus, in many respects, Gorsuch is a perfect conservative nominee for the court and rewards the obstructionism of the closing months of the Obama era on Judge Merrick Garland’s nomination. Liberal activists, who are legitimately concerned about Gorsuch but also realize — as a replacement for Scalia — he does not shift the balance of power, are debating how aggressively to fight the Gorsuch nomination. My answer: a drawn out fight, but not a battle to the death. In the months ahead, progressives should carry out a practice run for a future nomination battle that truly does promise to fundamentally tilt the majority on the court on issue after issue. Progressive advocacy groups should use the coming months to determine the tactics, issues and messages that move activists to engage on nominations and, more importantly, to collect data so that these activists can be immediately activated into opposition in the future. But no matter how much harm Gorsuch could do to progressive ideals during his decades on the court, at the end of the day it is worth avoiding the “nuclear option” that would immediately reduce the number of votes needed to confirm a Supreme Court to a bare majority. No matter how well prepared progressive activists are for a future battle, the continuation of a 60-vote threshold for cloture may save them from a generation-long conservative majority on the court.

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PEARLS ABOUT SWINE

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FEBRUARY 9, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

swear, y’all, I am trying like hell to come up with a new angle on this tragicomic mess called Arkansas basketball. But every week presents the same dichotomy, and the past few days just qualifies as flat-out bewildering. Against Alabama at Bud Walton Arena on a rare Wednesday night showdown, the Hogs were a buzzsaw of beauty. Authoritative dunks. Crisp passing and rotation. Solid onball defense. Best of all, Dusty Hannahs recaptured his mysteriously lost shooting stroke, swishing five secondhalf threes to whip the crowd into a frenzy en route to a 19-point win over an ostensibly decent foe. Fast-forward 72 hours, and this allegedly same team is walking off Norm Stewart Court at Columbia on the wrong end of an 83-78 decision. How bad is it? Missouri entered the game with a 13-game losing streak, an 0-9 SEC mark, and the unarguable distinction of being the worst power conference team in the country. And the Tigers didn’t just win the game, they did it in the exact fashion that any team employs to beat Arkansas, which Mike Anderson and his courtside jesters still can’t resolve. Mizzou came out motivated and the Hogs looked disinterested, criminally so. Moses Kingsley’s preseason SEC Player of the Year honors now resemble a cruel joke. What publication fancied the 6-foot-10 Kingsley such a formidable threat, The Onion? He’s been a nonentity for much of the season, and you would swear from his body language that he’s OK with that. Worse yet, he’s not even terribly effective guarding the rim at this point, as a couple of late Tiger baskets evidenced. The help-side defense that he could have provided came lethargically and late, and that’s why Missouri got to throw off the albatross of futility for a night. Offensively, Arkansas is disjointed and ever victimized by Mike Anderson’s lineup changes, which seem to have no rhyme, reason or rhythm. When the team catches a bit of a groove and is effective in transition, there will inevitably be a change in on-court personnel. Again, Missouri may be terrible, but no team can simply be taken for granted the way Arkansas has done the past couple of Saturdays. The Hogs just jack around for most of the 40 minutes they’re afforded by rule, and it’s clear that nobody in a jersey is in sync with

anybody in a suit. A l a b a m a always has a long and athletic team that frustrates the Hogs. So go figBEAU ure, the midweek WILCOX game looked like a surprise springboard to the postseason. You saw the absolute best of the so-called Fastest 40 that night, thanks in large part to people like Manuale Watkins and Jaylen Barford giving the team energy and zip. The team seemed totally hellbent on making the free world forget the no-show in Stillwater, Okla., and it was appreciably better than any brand of basketball that had been played in the big gym on Leroy Pond Drive all year. So why does it fizzle out so quickly, and so pitifully against universally derided teams like Mizzou? It’s not that hard to diagnose, really. The disconnect between the generals and their charges is palpable. Kingsley actually got some much-deserved bench time after a silly, if borderline, technical foul went against him early. That’s fine, but as the game wore on, it became apparent that he was going to sulk once he got back in the action, too. Here is a senior, playing for professional dollars, and looking like he would rather be killing time at an arcade or something. And let’s not put all the burden on the big guy. The erratic Anton Beard has returned, and Hannahs was awful again from three. He and Daryl Macon get precious little court time together, which is inexcusable given how dangerous both of them can be from the perimeter. Maybe the Razorbacks are not that good, but they can at least fake it with the people they have on the roster. Losing to Missouri means the Hogs have literally lost the will to even pretend to care. That’s bad. It’s NIT-level bad now. And, actually, it may be worse than that, because when a team pisses away games it can ill afford to lose, it probably wants the season to end already. For that reason, Anderson’s hot seat is really cranked up. He doesn’t have the irascible demeanor necessary to yank some effort out of these guys at this point, and it would shock nobody if that 20-win mark that seemed so preordained merely a week ago never gets reached.

THE OBSERVER NOTES ON THE PASSING SCENE

#resist FROM THE DESK OF THE CHIEF RABBLEROUSER: First off, great job out there, everybody, with the marching and the sign-making and just getting out of bed and showing up when you could be binge-watching “Dexter.” Gold star for the chanters in particular. “Can’t Build a Wall!/Hands Too Small!” You guys crack me up! Above all, keep putting one step in front of the other, understanding that this is a game of hours and days that will be a game of years sooner than you’d expect. For example, we’re hearing at Headquarters that last week Sen. Tom Cotton reluctantly emerged from his heavily fortified burrow and saw his own shadow, which means that instead of six more weeks of angry constituents standing outside his locked office door with cameras, he’s planning on holding a town hall meeting somewhere in the state at some point soon! Splendid! Stay tuned to Facebook and/or the crude radios we airdropped to you last week for updates. Also: The chair is against the wall. John has a long mustache. Next up, before the rumors get started, I know you’ve heard a lot about “paid protestors” from certain presidents and assorted lackeys. We’re looking into it, but from what we’re hearing here at HQ, it looks like the 3 million or so $2,500 checks that George Soros, Alec Baldwin and Madonna cut for folks who participated in the Women’s marches the day after the inauguration may, in fact, be lost in the mail. Sorry about that. We’ll keep checking, but don’t make any big purchases for now. Another thing — and we’re just spitballing here, throwing it out there and seeing what sticks — I’ve noticed there seems to be a distinct drought of American flags at the marches we’ve seen. Maybe I’m just missing them. But if I am, even that is a problem. These marches should be a sea of red, white and blue! Because this is, at its heart, a patriotic movement. Now look, I know it feels like conservatives “own” the flag, the National Anthem, “The Star Spangled Banner,” national pride, bald eagles, everybody in a flattop and a military uniform, roaring fighter jets

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streaming red, white and blue smoke, and anything else to do with patriotism. That’s by design. They’ve appropriated the flag, then milked it of meaning until it seems corny. They’ve twisted and warped the ideas behind the flag to suit their own ends until the flag might seem like just another prop in some jingoistic jerk-off. After years of indoctrination and rah-rah propaganda about how progressives hate America, I’m sure there are people on the right who would be so offended that a leftie like you or me would carry an American flag in a march against Der Pumpkinfuhrer that they might even rather see it trampled underfoot or burned. But if you’re like me, the election, if nothing else, has made you realize just how much you love this country and the ideals that made it great. I don’t know about you, but Trump’s daily chipping away at the underpinnings of this nation — the dignity of the office of the presidency, the impartiality of the judiciary, the separation of powers, the U.S. Constitution, our duty to immigrants who still see America as a place of acceptance and opportunity — have made me understand just how much that flag means to people. It’s not redneck lip service to say that thousands have suffered and died to make sure it still stands for something: soldiers, cops, slaves, firemen, politicians and lions for civil rights felled by assassins bullets. Men, women and children, yearning to breathe free. So next time we march, I will have my flag with me. A big sucker, so any Trump supporter who watches the footage on TV later will see me there and have to think, for just a second, that maybe I’m not the America-hating radical they’ve heard so much about on Fox News and from the Twitter feed of the Tweeterin-Chief. I hope you’ll have yours with you, as well. This country is still worth fighting for by patriots of all stripes, and we should proudly claim our place in that long and continuing struggle. Until next time, stay frosty out there, troops. Love, The Chief

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Arkansas Reporter

BRIAN CHILSON

THE

SEN. ALAN CLARK: Wants voters to consider a constitutional amendment that would make the legislature the exclusive evaluator of the public school system.

Proposed constitutional amendments seek to reshape Arkansas education oversight Both appear to take aim at the standards set by the Lake View school funding case. BY IBBY CAPUTO

Arkansas Nonprofit News Network

wo joint resolutions filed in the Arkansas Senate call for constitutional amendments that would fundamentally alter oversight of the public school system and the balance of powers between the branches of state government. If either is approved by the legislature, it would appear on the 2018 ballot for consideration by voters.

FEBRUARY 9, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

In one of the amendments, the “responsibility” of maintaining public schools would be shared between the state and individual school districts. In both measures, judicial review of the public school system would be altered or even eliminated, potentially contravening the standards established by the Lake View school funding case.

“We’re getting the courts out of our education system,” said Sen. Alan Clark (R-Lonsdale), lead sponsor of Senate Joint Resolution 5, which addresses judicial review of public education. It proposes a constitutional amendment that would make the General Assembly the exclusive evaluator of the public school system. Retired judge Annabelle Imber Tuck was the trial court judge who first ruled the state was violating the Arkansas constitution in the Lake View case, leading to an increase in education funding and

SEN. BLAKE JOHNSON (RIGHT): Wants voters to cons responsibility to maintain schools.

other reforms. “It’s basically saying the courts will no longer be involved in judicial review of any statute concerning public education,” she said of Clark’s proposal. “So there will be no check. There will not be equality in the ways public funds are expended to fund our students.” Arkansas’s current funding model for public education was determined after decades of litigation, reaching as far back as the 1980s, when the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled in Jim Dupree v. Alma School District that the state had failed to provide a suitable education for all of its children. In 1992, the issue of school funding was revived when the Lake View School District sued the state, claiming that the school-funding system was unconstitutional. Ten years later, the Supreme Court ruled that the state’s school-funding system was unconstitutional and inadequate. “Adequacy” was the term the court used to define the state’s obligations as set out in the Arkansas Constitution to “maintain a general, suitable and efficient system of free public schools.” The Supreme Court ruling forced the

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ers to consider a constitutional amendment that would make school districts share in the state’s

state to commit to spend a significant amount of new state money to fix its chronically troubled schools. It also led to several other reforms enacted by the General Assembly, including a mandate that prioritizes the state to fund public schools before anything else in government, and a round of legislative hearings conducted every two years to determine the funding increases necessary to ensure the schools are adequate. “What Lake View did with respect to adequacy and equal protection … really revolutionized the public school system here in the state,” said retired Justice Robert L. Brown, who, as a member of the Arkansas Supreme Court, wrote the majority opinions in the Lake View decision. “I would hate to see that undermined in any respect. “We have a system of government, we have three branches, and interpreting the Constitution falls to the judicial branch, not to the legislative branch.” But not everyone agrees the court’s involvement has been good for the state. “Lake View did some good things, but it has made the process not what it ought to be,” Clark said. “I have no doubt that

education in Arkansas would be better off at this point, and for the foreseeable future, with the legislature deciding what adequacy is.” Tuck said, “It goes against everything I was taught in law school in terms of the checks and balances of what we are proud of: our republic and its checks and balances between the executive branch, the legislative branch and the judiciary. Sen. Joyce Elliott (D-Little Rock), vice-chair of the Senate Education Committee, said, “That is very, very bothersome. If the state is the one who’s responsible for making sure that we have a suitable, adequate education, and then the state also evaluates itself, you can see where that might be a problem.” Elliott said that was what was happening during segregation. “The state was deciding that we’ve got these two separate school systems, and we deem them as equal. That didn’t change until the courts got involved.” Clark, asked if there were any drawbacks to his proposed amendment, said it was a question of unintended consequences. “There’s almost always unintended

consequences,” Clark said. “Obviously, that depends on future legislatures.” If the legislation passes, and the proposed amendment is put on the 2018 ballot, “the simple question will be – and you can answer it either way – is, do you want the courts to decide what an adequate education is, or do you want the people’s branch, the people you voted to represent you, to decide what an adequate education is,” Clark said. Clark’s proposed amendment is not the only one that seeks to change oversight of public education. In the constitution’s present form, the state alone holds the responsibility to ensure an adequate public education. Senate Joint Resolution 3, the “Public Education Partnership Amendment of 2018,” proposes to make school districts share in the responsibility of maintaining the school system by amending Article 14, Section 1 of the state constitution, which addresses public education. “This is us working together for public education,” said Sen. Blake Johnson (R-Corning), lead sponsor of the resolution. “This is just a partnership like we did for years and years in education … that’s what we need to get back to, is an amicable relationship, and not have the courts and everything in the middle of it and having takeovers and stuff.” But Brown said, “[It] would take away the state control, which was the cornerstone of the Lake View decision. It might give the school districts … veto power over what the state wants to do since it is a shared responsibility.” Brown added that the amendment would have to be interpreted by courts if it passed. Johnson, when asked if the amendment would prevent school takeovers, said it could be “a good vehicle for that not to happen.” He said right now, the state has the ultimate responsibility when it comes to public schools. “I don’t think that is what any Arkansan believes public education is,” Johnson said. “I think it’s local-driven and local-controlled, and whenever we get in a situation like that, like where we are now, that’s not what’s happening.” The proposed amendment could also be interpreted as having an effect on school funding. “The state of Arkansas would not be the sole one on the hook for the funding of public education,” Tuck said of

the proposed amendment. “The drafters want to make sure the public school districts are liable as well as the state, so the state would not have full responsibility for free public schools.” The resolution also asserts that the General Assembly, in its supervision of public education, cannot be held in violation of Article 2 of the state constitution, which details the rights of citizens including equal protection and due process. Tuck said, “[Under Johnson’s proposal], whatever the General Assembly does as supervision of public schools will not violate the Arkansas Constitution, meaning there can be no judicial review of anything the legislature does as part of its supervision of public schools,” Tuck said. “Basically, it says the judicial system won’t be involved with making sure the legislature complies with the Arkansas Constitution.” Johnson said he did not know if the amendment would eliminate court review of public education. “I’m not going to speculate on that,” he said. Brown said, “I think right now there would have to be more specificities as far as what is being offered in the way of an amendment to the Constitution. If they are saying this is a way of blunting any kind of cause of action for violation of the equal protection clause, I think it would have to be more specific.” Both Johnson and Clark said via email that they do not know when their proposed amendments will be heard in committee. A simple majority vote in both chambers is necessary for an amendment to be referred to the 2018 ballot. The Senate may only recommend one proposed constitutional amendment for the House to consider, according to the Parliamentary Manual of the Senate for the 91st General Assembly. There are competing constitutional amendments in the Senate, including a voter ID proposal, a socalled tort reform measure and an appeal to Congress to propose a constitutional convention to amend the U.S. Constitution to define marriage between one man and one woman. This reporting is courtesy of the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network, an independent, nonpartisan news project dedicated to producing journalism that matters to Arkansans. arktimes.com FEBRUARY 9, 2017

Another kind of love

Polyamory

Ahead of Valentine’s Day, Arkansans who are asexual, polyamorous and into BDSM talk about their lives. BY DAVID KOON

If you want a lover, I’ll do anything you ask me to And if you want another kind of love, I’ll wear a mask for you. — Leonard Cohen, “I’m Your Man”

egardless of what you might hear from the zealots and obsessive compulsives, there is no one right way to do anything. That includes relationships. As the

mainstreaming of LGBT lives, loves and now marriages over the past 25 years has shown us, there are a lot of ways to take a stab from Cupid’s arrow, all of them just as valid, enriching and beautiful as the relationship that would have been called

“normal” when your grandparents were sparking on the porch swing, which is to say: one man and one woman, married young and monogamous for the rest of their lives. For this year’s annual Valentine issue, we thought we’d go a step beyond plain old boy-meets-boy, boy-meets-girl, girlmeets-girl, to get a glimpse into the lives of Arkansans who are loving on the fringes of what is considered “acceptable” by the mainstream. There are a lot of different chocolates in the heart-shaped box. While the following may not be your personal cup of tea, that’s OK. The beautiful thing about love is that it’s different for everybody. That doesn’t make it wrong. That just makes it different.

FEBRUARY 9, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

PEOPLE ALWAYS SAY, “Oh, how can you love more than one person?” Well, I have kids, I love them all and they’re all individual people and I have different relationships with all of them. All of my partners I love, but I have different relationships with each of them. I’m married to one, I’m cohabitating with two, I’m dating a few. The idea that we can only have feelings for one person is just kind of ludicrous to me. In the greater poly community there seems to be a split whether it’s a choice that we make or we’re born this way. I think, for me, personally, I was just kind of wired this way from the get-go. For a long time I didn’t have the words to describe it. I didn’t have the words ethical nonmonogamy or polyamory. That led to some poor dating choices back in the day. When I was dating in my college years, I’d be dating someone and then I’d meet someone else and there would be a connection. It was, “Do I pursue something with this person? Do I cheat on my boyfriend?” That led to a lot of little relationships. I’d meet someone who I really had a connection with, and I would dump the guy I was dating to go out with the person I’d met. I had the words for it probably about seven years ago. We kind of learned about this from mutual friends online and did a lot of reading. That was the first time I really heard the phrase polyamory or ethical nonmonogamy, and I was like

he following interview is with an Arkansas woman living in a committed polyamorous relationship involving two men and two women, all of whom live and raise their children together. In addition, she’s also involved in a “triad” with another married couple, and occasionally takes other partners. She loves them all in a romantic

“Ohhhhhh … OK. That explains a lot.” The more reading I did and the more talking to people in the community I did, the more I realized that this is how I am. We’re taught monogamy, like we’re taught heterosexuality. You know, you grow up, you marry someone of the opposite sex and you’re only with them. You have 2.5 kids and a white picket fence. There’s nothing else. Contrary to popular belief, polyamory is not just one giant orgy all day and night. We’re pretty boring. We go to Girl Scouts and do community stuff and go out with friends and go to jobs. We’re not just screwing all the time. People get a lot of things wrong, like, clearly my legal partner doesn’t do it for me, that I don’t love him, that I’m just a slut, that it’s all sex all the time, that I’m not happy with what I have. It varies, but those are the big ones. Obviously we’re ruining the fabric of society because we’re not one man/one woman. When I meet people and they find out I’m poly and they say, “That’s great for you, but that’s not for me!” I’m like, “Dude, I’m not ASKING you to do it. I’m telling you what works for me.” I like pickled beets. I don’t expect everyone to like pickled beets, but respect my right to eat them. So you have people who are like, “I could NEVER, EVER do that!” I’m like, “Luckily, I’m not asking you to.” That’s usually the reaction.

sense, in the same way a monogamous person might love their significant other. Though the definition of polyamory varies from relationship to relationship and person to person, in a nutshell it is the idea that people can have more than one loving intimate relationship. The woman we spoke to said she believes many monogamous couples could ben-

I think people are threatened by polyamory for the same reason they’re threatened by the LGBT community. It’s something different and it scares a lot of people. There’s also a fascination with poly. Like, “Wow, how can you make that work?” We make it work because we talk about stuff all the time. We talk and we talk and we talk. There’s all the communication, and all the upfront-ness, and all the putting everything out on the table. I think for a lot of people, that’s really scary. I think a lot of monogamous relationships would benefit from the emotional intimacy that a lot of polyamorous couples have. We have to be so open about things. Just as in any relationship, we have rocky patches. Just take the rocky patches and multiply it by three. It’s not that I’m just in a relationship with my husband. I’m also in a relationship with my partner and my partner’s wife. There’s a relationship between all four of us. You toss in my outside relationships and my partners’ relationships, and … yeah, there’s the potential for, and it does happen, that nobody likes anybody for a hot minute. It’s rocky, because you have four very strong-willed people who are trying to make one thing work. We all have different ideas. We all have different paths that we’re coming from. Jealousy does happen, but usually it means

efit from the openness and communication it takes to keep a poly relationship afloat. Though she and her primary partners all live in the same house, she said, the Southern tendency toward politeness has kept neighbors from asking too many questions over the years.

someone’s needs aren’t being met. Once we know that, we can adjust. It is hard to find time and energy for all the people in my life. It can be exhausting. But it’s just the norm now. There’s a learning curve. But it’s also very rewarding. We have created such an intentional family and intentional community that I’d be lost without them. Most people have a couple friends they can turn to for a shoulder to cry on and complain about how shitty things are. For me, I’m lucky that not only do I have my in-house partners, but I also have this loving, amazing couple who will love me and tell me it’s OK even when we’re not sure it’s OK. Having all this emotional support from people who aren’t just friends — you’re having intimacy from them, and they love you and you love them back — it’s amazing. I honestly don’t know sometimes how people can do it with one person. I know they’re looking at me and thinking: “I don’t know how you can do it with more than one person.” Multitasking! We all hold each other up. It helps. My best advice for those new to poly? Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. Talk about it. There’s a lot of really great resources out there. There’s amazing books, there’s blogs, there’s websites, there’s local groups, there’s Facebook groups, groups that meet in different communities. Most com-

munities will have an under-theradar polyamory community. It’s out there, you just have to go find it. There’s no one right way to do poly, but there’s like 6,000 ways to do it wrong. You just have to figure it out. “Oh God, the children! Won’t someone please think of the children!” Our youngest does not remember a time when Second Mom was not in [the child’s] life. They’re mom and dad. We didn’t tell the kids, “Oh, this is New Mom and Dad.” They just are. I remember very clearly a time when my daughter looked at Second Mom and said: “Are you our momma?” And Second Mom said: “What do you think?” Daughter goes, “Well, you love me, and you take care of me, and you’re kind of bossy and tell me to do stuff, so I think you’re our momma.” What will I tell my kids if they ever ask if they should be poly or monogamous? That’s like them asking, “Do you think I should be gay or not?” They’ll figure it out. It’s up to them. I was raised by a single mom who was in a monogamous marriage and I turned out poly. There are a lot of kids raised by poly people who turn out mono. It’s just what they’re wired for. My kids could end up in a commune for all I care. As long as they’re happy.

arktimes.com FEBRUARY 9, 2017

BDSM

“J

ohn” and “Sarah” are an average married couple in their mid-30s. Both educated professionals, they live in the ’burbs of Central Arkansas, raising a family on a quiet, tree-lined street. The difference between them and most people, however, is that behind closed doors, they’re in a long-term BDSM relationship, an acronym that stands for bondage, domination, sadism and masochism. John is the dominant, Sarah the submissive. John makes the decisions about almost every aspect of their lives, and his decisions, with few exceptions, are final. That is, Sarah says, not just the way she wants it, but the way she needs it to be. John’s rules provide her structure, she said, and their BDSM play — heavy impact to her body with a variety of implements — provides both a connection to her partner and a euphoric endorphin high that she describes in terms of floating away from her worries. For him, play provides a safe, loving outlet for the sadism that has been a part of his life and relationships since he was in his teens.

Can you do a relationship like this all the time? JOHN: Absolutely. We do. All day, every day. SARAH: All day every day. He is the boss. That’s the way I need it, and that’s the way he needs it. JOHN: My mistake in previous relationships was finding someone who thought they needed it, but they didn’t. Before this, I was looking for dominant women, and couldn’t figure out why I fought with them all the damn time. I always knew I liked hurting people. But I just thought it was something wrong with me. That’s the sadist side of it. When I started getting sexual, I would find partners who liked that kind of thing. If it was someone who didn’t like that at all, I usually didn’t stay with them very long. I like kinky partners. People who aren’t into BDSM are going to hear “I knew I liked hurting people,” and they’re going to think you’re a serial killer or something. John: Sadism is a part of me, honestly. I don’t have to build up to it. It’s always there. That’s a good way to say it. Sarah: The BDSM play is a productive way for him to express that part of his personality with a consensual partner. So instead of being a jackass and driving people crazy at work and trying to pick a fight with someone all the time just because he needs to feed that part of him,

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ARKANSAS TIMES

this is a healthy outlet for that. It’s something I need. So we feed off of each other. Sarah, you said you knew early on that you were into BDSM? Sarah: As a child, I remember playing with bondage and that kind of thing, just knowing that I liked those things, but not really knowing what it was. How old are we talking here? Sarah: Probably like, 8. Seven or 8? And is it common in BDSM circles that people knew they were different when they were very young? Sarah: I hear that a lot. John: People that I’ve talked to about it, they just always knew. Sarah: One of our play partners was telling us the other day that he would be playing cowboys and Indians with his friends when he was 6 or 7, and he would be upset because they wouldn’t tie him up tight enough. That, to me, sounds a lot like what LGBT people say about their sexuality. Like this is a sexual orientation that you’re born with. Do you believe that this is a sexual orientation? John: Absolutely not. It’s something you’re born to, but I don’t think it’s a sexual orientation. Sexual orientation is bisexual, gay, lesbian, whatever. To me, this is a lifestyle. I think what changed it for me was, before I got into the lifestyle and the community, I didn’t know

there was nothing wrong with being this way. I thought there was something wrong with me. But then, once I realized that there was an outlet for it and a place that it was acceptable and even wanted, then I knew that’s where I fit in. That was my people, my tribe. When we first met, [Sarah] asked me to play and we played. We played and after the first or second time, I told her, ‘You’re a painslut!’ She said, “No, I’m not!” Yes, she is. She just didn’t realize her level of masochism. But I bet if you think back when you were younger, you did enjoy pain. Sarah: I did. I was always eraser burning my arm or putting straight pins in the tips of my fingers, just because I thought it was fun. I don’t know. Sarah, were you worried that something was wrong with you? Sarah: Not then, but as I started getting older, I started learning more about what society expected. Then I started feeling like maybe there was maybe something wrong with me for liking that. I didn’t feel bad when I was doing it. I liked it! John, what is the appeal of being dominant for you? I don’t know that “appeal” is a good word for it. Maybe, why do I do it? I do it because that’s just the way I am. What do I enjoy about it? I enjoy the control. I enjoy the structure. I get structure when I give her structure. In the play between us, when I say I want this and this is the way it’s going to be, we may talk about it, but at the end of the day,

that’s just the way it’s going to be. This is the first relationship I’ve had that from someone that wants that. Everybody else just fought and argued all the time. Having that symbiotic relationship is really nice. It’s a good balance. Sarah, how about you? What do you get out of it? What do you enjoy about it? I really crave rules and structure. I’m so chaotic in my head. I need somebody to be there to try to help keep me on track. He does that for me. If I feel like I’m lost — and I’m about to start crying right now — if I ever need anything, he’s there for me. I’ve never had that before. [At this point in the interview, she did cry, and had to take a minute to compose herself.] In modern relationships, “controlling” is kind of a dirty word. Is it seen as a positive in BDSM relationships? John: I think they’re making controlling and domineering the same as dominance. Domineering is, I’m going to manipulate you, force you, make you do it. Dominance is, I’m going to ask you if you want this. Yes? OK, then here’s what we’re going to do. Domineering is nonconsensual. Domination is a choice. Sarah: To someone who doesn’t know better, that would sound like a disrespectful exchange between us. That it’s going to be his way, and that’s just the way it is. It’s totally respectful. We’ve agreed to these terms. John: Yes, we actually have a

Let’s talk about your play. What does a “scene” look like for you? John: Our scenes are usually impact play. Impact play would be taking something and hitting a person with it. It varies from very light and sensual, all the way up to extreme. You can break the skin. We also do bondage, which could be anything: chains, ropes, mental bondage, as in “Stay in that position. Don’t move.” We very rarely mix sex with it. If it is, it’s usually after. Very rarely during. That’s just the way we do it. We both believe that so it works out. Sarah: It’s two separate things to me. That’s going to surprise a lot of people, that BDSM can be distinct from sex. John: Yeah, people assume it’s all about sex. Sarah: Yes. But as a good friend of ours said, “I could go without sex and continue with the BDSM, but I couldn’t do it the other way around.” That’s really true for me. I need the BDSM more than I need sex. Definitely. And I like sex a lot. So what do you get out of play? John: I get to release the sadism. To fulfill that need, in a consensual, constructive way that isn’t hurting anybody in a bad way. I also get pleasure from the fact that I know she likes it. We do feed off each other when we’re playing. Sarah: I get physical enjoyment

from pain. Actually, to the point of orgasm at times. People who aren’t this way can’t understand. I didn’t understand. There was a time when I didn’t know what this thing was called and had to try to ask somebody to hurt me on purpose. I was so relieved when I found the lifestyle — to realize that I wasn’t crazy. That’s something that I think a lot of people don’t know: that there are people who actually get enjoyment from pain. There’s subspace, too. Tell me about “subspace.” Sarah: I have a pretty stressful life in general. It’s by my choosing, so I’m not complaining. I have a job I enjoy and I’m in school full time. I love what I’m studying and what I’m doing. But I’ve got a lot of deadlines and only a little bit of time to get to them. I get stressed out. A good release from that is going into subspace. During impact play, especially for me, it’s kind of like a feeling of euphoria. Relaxation. Right as you’re drifting off to take a nap, that floaty part? Like that. John: It’s the same sensation that long-distance runners get. The endorphin rush as you’re exercising. It’s hard on your body to run long distances, and they get that same feeling. At least, when I was running, I did. That’s going to confuse a lot of people. That you can be beaten … John: … and it makes you high? Yeah. Sarah: It’s the endorphins from the pain. But there does come a point where those wear off and the floaty time is over. John: I think a good way to relate it to the average vanilla is that it’s like an adrenaline rush. Something happens and you get scared, and there’s that rush, then afterwards you’re exhausted. You used up all your energy in that rush. Can BDSM play be dangerous? John: Absolutely. With some of the things like knifeplay, she could sneeze and we’d be in the hospital

trying to explain a wound. Nerve damage from rope is a danger. Damage from the circulation being cut off too long. Even impact can be dangerous. You can hit someone in the kidney. It doesn’t take much. Sarah: There’s emotional danger, too. You have to know how to deal with that stuff. John: That’s true. There are landmines and triggers. I triggered her two or three times with play. Sarah: It’s usually a surprise to us both when it happens. John: Yes, we had no idea until it happened. It’s scary. I was using my belt on her, but I just hit her wrong or she was not in the right headspace. We stopped immediately and I figured out what was going on. Sarah: I had some periods of abuse as a child, and it came back all of a sudden — all the years of that just rushed back like it happened yesterday. [The belt] landed just right in a certain spot. It’s never happened before or since, and we’ve used the same implement. It was the craziest thing. He was very patient and understanding. He let me cry and get it out. We talked about it and learned from it and moved on. It was actually a good thing for me. I grew from that. What do people get wrong about BDSM relationships? Sarah: They think that it’s abuse. That’s probably the first thing. John: That, and that it’s all about sex. That’s the top two things. They assume it’s an abusive relationship or she’s not saying — That she’s afraid to seek help, or mentally damaged to the point that she can’t see that it’s abuse? John: Yes. “You’re so fucked up that you can’t see that you’re being abused.” But people in abusive relationships don’t have a choice. Sarah: The minute he treats me like I don’t have a choice, I won’t be here anymore. I always have a choice. I have committed myself to him, but if he ever were abusive and wouldn’t listen, I would leave.

How many people are in the community in Arkansas? Sarah: I’d say thousands. We’re all around you. You just don’t know. John: It’s kind of like “Fight Club.” You could be working right now with someone who is active in the lifestyle. It could be the person sitting in the cubicle next to you, or the buddy you go to work with and get coffee with every morning. We’re just normal people. We’re everyday people. I would say thousands would be a good number. Is there still a stigma that keeps people in hiding? John: I think so. But the whole “Fifty Shades of Grey” phenomenon, even though I don’t agree with it, has gotten people more curious about it. That’s good and bad. It has its pros and cons. It brings people into the community with unrealistic expectations. Can you do this the rest of your life? John: Not “can I?” I will do this. Sarah: I must do this. John: We’ve always had the stigma that there’s something wrong with us. But I’m free. I can do what I enjoy. We have a mutually respectful relationship where we both get our needs met. To me, that’s normal. All the people out there who are uptight, that have sex in the dark [in the] missionary [position], who never experiment, or learn, or act on things that are different, and they’re shoving their kinks down and being miserable for the rest of their life? That’s abnormal to me. But I think that’s a good majority of people. This is freedom. Sarah: People are so concerned with whatever everyone else thinks about them. I find that the more I let go and just live the life that’s authentic to me and who I really am, the happier I am, the freer I am, and the more control I have over my own life.

MICK AMATO

contract. We negotiated it. We’ve revised and changed some as we’ve gone along, either because it didn’t work or it wasn’t appropriate or didn’t apply. Actually, it’s about time to revisit that again. It’s been a while. Sarah: Mutual respect is the secret to success in our relationship. I get the safety and security from him, too. That’s something else I need. I need to feel safe. I need to feel like someone has my back. The structure and just the way our household is gives me that.

arktimes.com FEBRUARY 9, 2017

Asexuality

he following is taken from an interview with an Arkansas college student, who — after a series of frustrating relationships — began to identify as asexual in his early 20s. Asexuality, or “ace,” as some involved call themselves, is an increasingly accepted sexual orientation, especially among the millennial generation. Now in his mid-20s and soon to graduate, the young man we spoke to has been in a committed relationship with a non-asexual woman for the past two years. Surprisingly, he said he has sex on occasion and enjoys the closeness of it, but has never known what it is like to have a sexual attraction to another person, or even a libido in the accepted sense of the word.

I feel like I’ve always kind of been this way, but it was something that didn’t make sense until it did make sense. I don’t use this terminology anymore, but at the time, I could never figure out what was wrong with me. I can find people attractive, in the sense that I find them pretty. I like the way they look. But I never really have the compulsion to have sex with someone. I’m assuming you’re heterosexual? The same way you can look at a guy and think: “That’s a good-looking guy!” That’s how I am for everyone. I just kind of felt like I was broken. First and foremost, I was afraid that no one would want to be with someone like me. The teen years aren’t that fun to begin with, so it was troubling for a while. I had trouble doing sexual activities with my partners, and it put significant strain on my relationships. It’s easy for the woman to interpret that as not finding her attractive. But once I had a name to put to it and understood what was happening, it became more of a relief. Like a lot of people, I didn’t actually know asexuality existed; that this was actually a thing you could be. But eventually, it all just kind of clicked into place and it was like, oh, that makes sense. I found out about asexuality because I was explaining all this

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to a close friend, and they were like: “That sounds like you’re asexual. I don’t want to force a label on you, but it really sounds like you’re ace.” I guess the kind of upside to being an asexual is that nobody really notices. My most recent relationship has been two years now. For all the world, I look like I’m straight, but I just don’t want sex. Asexual people do have sex sometimes. The way I explain that to people is, even if you never felt hungry, you’d sometimes eat food. Food tastes good. I can absolutely feel love. I’m a hopeless romantic! It’s not any different from falling in love when you’re gay or straight or what have you. It’s not even minus the physical element. I still love to be touched. But there’s no impulse to actually have sex. This varies across a wide array of asexuality. After I kind of figured out what was going on, I found ways to fulfill my partner’s needs. It’s not something I particularly enjoy. It’s more like a chore. I know asexuals who are actually repulsed by the physical; repulsed by sex. And I know asexuals who have multiple partners. Just because you don’t feel a need for something doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it. I’m not some Catholic monk sitting in a monastery. In my case, it’s not even something I’m

particularly opposed to doing. It’s not something I hate doing, it’s just something I don’t particularly want to do. My girlfriend asking if I want to have sex is like someone asking if I want to play video games. It’s a potentially fun thing to do. I don’t feel the satisfaction of it. I still have dopamine. I still have serotonin. Those still get released into my brain. I’m still a human being. But to me, the main appeal is the closeness. I really hate the argument that asexual people “just haven’t met the right person.” It’s kind of like when someone says they’re bisexual, and someone says, “Oh, you just haven’t met the right person!” My partner isn’t asexual. She’s actually bisexual. I broached [my asexuality] early on in the relationship, that there would be nights that she might want to do something, and it wasn’t going to happen. I would just say no. It kind of leads to a kind of cliche role reversal: “Not tonight, honey,” that kind of thing. I told her about two or three weeks after it became clear that it was going to be a serious relationship, instead of just a fling. My partner has a somewhat strained relationship with sex to begin with. She’s had abusive partners. So to her, it was kind of a plus to have a partner who she never has to worry about forcing themselves on her. She was understanding, and yeah, there’s some nights she goes to bed frustrated, but she loves me. Love is more important than sex. Something a lot of the asexual community is trying to get out to people: You’re not broken. You don’t need to be fixed. You don’t need to be diagnosed. It’s just who you are, and it’s OK. If I had to give advice to a person who believes they might be asexual, I’d tell them not to worry about it. It’s OK. People will still want to be with you. People will still love you for the person that you are. Sex is not as important as society wants us to think it is.

The size of the community is hard to estimate, because asexuals can seamlessly appear heteronormative. But most of the polls I’ve seen say that asexuality is about 3 to 6 percent of the population. I personally know about 12 to 16 people who are asexual or demisexual. Asexuality is kind of a catchall for varying degrees of asexuality. But the best way I can explain varying demisexuality is that it functions the same way as asexuality up until the point a really strong emotional connection is made with someone. And then that person will begin to be sexually attractive to you. I personally am a little bit foggy on what it is as well, but that’s how I had it explained to me. I can’t see this changing about me. If you’ll forgive me the quote: Through God, all things are possible. But I don’t see it changing. I find the idea of wanting to have sex — that need to have sex — to be absolutely ... I can’t imagine what that feels like. It’s one of those things that’s normal from your side of the fence, but from my side of the fence, it’s sounds weird. I’ve had it described to me as a hunger. Like needing to eat? I’m sitting here watching television, watching “Game of Thrones.” It gets to a sex scene and I’m sitting there, tapping my foot. Also, I’d like to note that I hate the stupid plant joke. There’s a joke that you hear every time you tell someone you’re asexual, “Oh, does that mean you reproduce by budding?” It’s funny the first two or three times, but after 20 or 30 times, it starts getting really annoying. It’s always phrased the exact same way, like they’re reading it out of handbook. Personally, I intend to adopt, for moral reasons. I don’t want to create children if there are children that need homes.

EROTICA/ EPHEMERA: Three printmakers have made a home for the low-brow and the sex-positive with Little Rocked Zine, a DIY porn publication on the eve of its third anniversary.

‘Preaching to the perverted’ Peddling smut with the Little Rocked Zine. BY STEPHANIE SMITTLE

uman beings are documentarians by nature, and before we could catalog our sexy exploits on the likes of Reddit and XTube, we rendered our naughtier bits on the walls of caves. We sculpted and painted breasts and genitalia with meticulous care and, eventually, we took pencil to paper. During the Depression Era, those carnal cartoons were called Tijuana Bibles or eight-pagers: wallet-sized obscenities available only on the illegal market and usually rife with copyright infringement, showing popular comic characters like Blondie or Popeye in compromising positions. An up-and-coming Al Capp, for example, was unaware of the burgeoning success of his comic strip “L’il Abner” until he saw a dirty parody of it being sold on the streets. Here in Central Arkansas, that DIY porn tradition is being preserved with Little Rocked Zine, a tiny-press operation run by three printmakers who, to protect their privacy, we’ll call by their Zine aliases: The Queen of Dogs, Stinky Pete and O.G. JP. Together, as they say in their mission statement, they “encourage people to question the constraints that society places on gender roles and the oppression of sexuality that is raging in our culture” and “offer people the opportunity to break free from the cultural bounds that tell us how we are ‘supposed’ to act and present our bodies.” And they do it with filthy, raunchy, homemade smut. Three years ago, a friend of the zine’s publishers — we’ll call him Grizzly Bear — was interested in putting together a zine. (For the unfamiliar, that’s a lowfi, cut-and-paste booklet, a staple of the underground literature scene since the 1930s and a cousin of the aforementioned Tijuana Bible.) The zine, Grizzly Bear mused to a group of friends, would tell a story he’d dreamed up in which an alien from outer space visits Earth, offloading a “vanity virus” easily spread through human contact. The virus would settle into the bodies of its hosts, making them impossibly vain — and impossibly horny. Supposedly, it also turned turquoise, released spores and, eventually, led to the demise of the human race as a result of worldwide coital exhaustion. “I just wanna draw some smut, though,” someone said. “Yeah, me, too,” another printmaker chimed in. And with that, Little Rocked Zine was born, a platform where you, the reader, can “joyfully explore your smutty interests” by “seeking stimulation, exploring sexual preference,

gender identity and expression. ... Come! Be aroused, amused, aghast!” the zine’s welcome message beckons. “This zine is for YOU! A free space to share and celebrate the erotic arts.” Last year’s 36-page issue, “Preaching to the Perverted,” spans the high-art/low-art gamut, featuring a poem about a messy first encounter; a photograph of milky breasts half-hidden by a large white cat; a short story about a wet dream involving a tentacled green extraterrestrial babe (that you, Grizzly Bear?); rudimentary drawings of fellatio in progress; instructional comics advising us to “always be sober the first time, and turn on some lights”; an art-school snapshot of someone in a horse mask peering out from behind a shower curtain at a dapper young man atop a toilet, mid-poo; and a “Choose Your Own Adventure”-style tale called “The Affair.” OG J.P., Stinky Pete and The Queen of Dogs put it together at various copy shops around town for a per-unit cost of around $4.50, and sold them for $6. Although they accept submissions online — provided the submitter can verify that he or she is 18 or older and anyone photographed is also 18 or over — the zine’s publishers are attracted to the tangible, analog nature of homemade print media, or, as O.G. JP put it, “The paper ephemera world … the silly tradition of printing zines at all in the digital age.” “It’s the idea of having something in your hand,” Stinky Pete said. “A token.” This year, the zine’s cover will be screenprinted, in part because there were some screenprinters the publishers wanted to involve with the project, and also because the trio liked the idea of a textured design for the third issue, “Scratch ’n’ Sniff.” “You’ll be able to see the ink raised,” O.G. JP said. Little Rocked Zine’s subject matter can swing mid-page from the divine to the depraved, and has never yet been reined in under an overarching theme. If there’s one characteristic connecting the anthology, it’s expression of consensual sexuality — and a spirit of inclusion without shame. “We wanna stray away from mainstream porn,” Stinky Pete told us. “We also really wanna reinforce consent,” The Queen of Dogs said. “That having sexuality, and perpetuating consent as a part of that, is important. We’re trying to give a voice to all genders and sexualities, not just cis-hetero perspectives.” For more information, visit littlerockedzine.com. To request a copy of the zine, available in late February, email littlerockedzine@gmail.com. arktimes.com FEBRUARY 9, 2017

LET’S TALK ABOUT SEX: Dr. Chelsea Wakefield, of UAMS, helps couples talk about their love lives.

Dr. Love Dr. Chelsea Wakefield at the UAMS Couples Center helps couples bring back that lovin’ feelin’, or never lose it in the first place. BY DAVID KOON

here comes a time in every relationship, no matter how seemingly stable and happy it might look from the outside, when things just hit the wall. Most human beings are jars full or fear, hang-ups, worries,

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sexual quirks and confusions. Seal two of them in the pressure cooker of a busy modern relationship, and you’ve got a recipe for a spectacular explosion. Dr. Chelsea Wakefield is helping couples steer clear of the troubles than

can sink a loving relationship. An assistant professor in the UAMS Psychiatric Research Institute, Wakefield holds a Ph.D. in clinical sexology and is the director of the UAMS Couples Center. Opened in November 2016, the Couples Center seeks to help couples navigate the unique challenges of relationships in the 21st century by providing counseling, group therapy and community education about love, desire, relationships and sex. The center also teaches student counselors about the unique demands of providing therapy and counseling to couples. Wakefield, who is the author of two books, “Negotiating the Inner Peace

Treaty” and “In Search of Aphrodite: Women, Archetypes and Sex Therapy,” has been a psychotherapist for 18 years. She began to study the field of sexology about eight years ago. One thing that’s surprising to most people, she says, is that, until very recently, training and education for couples’ therapists didn’t include much education about sexuality and sexual response. “There was an assumption in couples therapy for many, many years that if a couple was getting along, the sexuality would take care of itself,” Wakefield said. “This is a myth. Many couples who are very companionate and get along very well have either a nonexistent [sex life], kind of a brother/sister relationship, or difficulties with sexuality. We have very poor sex education in this country in terms of how sex actually works, the difference between men’s and women’s bodies, the process of sexuality in terms of desire and arousal, and how people actually reach orgasm — the technicalities of it.” Even in long-established couples, Wakefield said, she often sees a lack of basic knowledge about sexuality. That can often lead to anxiety or feelings of inadequacy. As an example, Wakefield said that multiple studies have shown that only about one-third of women can reach orgasm from intercourse alone. Because of a general lack of sex education and plentiful misinformation, however (some of it rooted in what Wakefield called the “Freudian myth” of a “superior” vaginal orgasm), Wakefield says there are millions of perfectly normal woman who feel inadequate because they can’t reach orgasm solely through intercourse. For men, she said, equally as distressing can be the rarely discussed condition called “ejaculatory incompetence,” which makes it harder for men to reach orgasm and ejaculate as they age. “This is something we talk about a lot, how inadequate and broken people feel when they have this assumption that everybody is having better sex than they are,” Wakefield said. “This is such a charged topic for most people, and it is woven in with so much history of being something you really don’t want to talk about publicly. Certainly there is a lot of shame about it that people feel — not just shame about sexuality, but shame about body image.” In her work at the Couples Center, Wakefield sometimes helps people deal with difficulties caused by compulsive sexual behaviors, sometimes referred

to by what she calls “the somewhat controversial label of sexual addiction.” In other cases, she said, a partner might have “a particular template of sexual arousal” that’s disturbing, distressing or unusual to their partner. “We can talk about the formation of that,” she said. “How they can manage it in the relationship, how they can communicate about it. Every single individual has a very personalized sexual template. Much of that is formed in their early years.” Because a person’s individual sexual template is formed so early, Wakefield said, therapists are now seeing an entire generation of young men experiencing sexual problems because they were educated about sex and women’s sexual responses solely by online pornography. “This is leading to a whole new group of sexual difficulties,” she said, “and the need to re-educate them when they begin to encounter real living females and what real living females are like in person, and what they want and how their bodies actually work. Pornography itself, if we get completely away from the moral issue, provides terrible sex education.” Wakefield said the field of sexology has advanced quite a bit since the days of noted sexologists William Masters and Virginia Johnson, including the “depathologizing” of many sexual fetishes and kinks, the new appreciation for the importance of educating about sex during couples’ therapy and a greater understanding of female sexual response in particular. She says she’s also seen a trend of young couples seeking relationship counseling long before

they run into problems. “In the last few years I’ve had couples come to me, usually young couples, saying, ‘We want to get off to a good start. How do we do that?’ ” she said. “I love to work with couples who say, ‘We want to get off to a good start. We’re in the early phases of our relationship. What can we do to avoid the kind of quagmires that we’ve seen other people flounder in, or our parents? ” Asked if there is a secret to a long, happy and fulfilling relationship, Wakefield says she sees relationships as having three levels: First, the “you meet my basic needs” level, then a “roles and responsibilities” level that relates to things like paying the bills, chores and raising a family. “The highest level of relationship,” she said, “is a relationship that I call ‘individuation and connection.’ That means you have two people who are really continuing to grow and deepen as people and they’re sharing that growth in the container of the committed relationship. ... We have to look at things like: How comfortable are you with actually having a go-to person for celebration and suffering over the course of many, many years? What is the depth of your personhood? How developed are you? How adult are you in being able to meet the challenges of life and not blow out, but also to be self-aware and self-revealing? That’s the piece that really stays vital: really knowing who you are and how you’re growing and changing, and then revealing that to a partner.”

February

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arktimes.com FEBRUARY 9, 2017

Arts Entertainment AND

dia Victoria grew up in Campobello, S.C., a town whose name translates roughly to “beautiful countryside.” Like many picturesque Southern places, though, Campobello — and Victoria’s current hometown of Nashville, Tenn., for that matter — have a darker story to tell, and it’s one you’re not likely to hear at the Bluebird Cafe. Victoria relays a chapter or two of that story from her debut album “Beyond the Bloodhounds” with a talk at the Clinton School of Public Service and a performance at the White Water Tavern on Wednesday, Feb. 15. Here’s our conversation ahead of her return to Arkansas, in which she recited an entire hymn from memory, spoke about the cultural dominance of patrician noses and explained her sense of artistic kinship with Nina Simone. When I was preparing for this interview, I’d just heard a story on the radio about an exhibit at the Getty Museum, and one of the artists who had taken this blood-spattered photo of a Vietnamese man holding his child from Life magazine and superimposed it onto the staircase of this pristine 1960s living room, one that might have appeared in that same issue of Life. And maybe because your music was in my head, I thought, “Well, I’ll be damned, that’s not entirely unlike what Adia Victoria is exploring with the South.” Right. Right. The South, for me, is probably one of my most difficult relationships. Living in Nashville, you kind of see how this culture’s been appropriated by a whole bunch of people who aren’t from the South. It’s just people moving down here and acting silly. There’s no real truth to what they’re saying. It’s like, they’re singing these songs so loud that no one will talk about the things that actually happened, and the ground that they’re actually walking on. So, the past few years while I was writing this album, I started to go back and read all these Southern authors that I admired, like Lillie Smith, Carson McCullers, W.J. Cash, people that really held a mirror up to the South, and explain why the South is the way it is right now. And I see nothing of that in the music that’s coming out of Nashville. So I sort of

Howdoyoudo

A Q&A with Adia Victoria. BY STEPHANIE SMITTLE

STUCK IN THE SOUTH: Adia Victoria brings songs from her debut album, “Beyond the Bloodhounds,” to the White Water Tavern with Joshua Asante, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 9 p.m., $10.

took it upon myself. I can’t ignore a history, or what’s currently happening. I can’t sit on a stage and sing to you about country roads and beers. It’s fake. It’s phony. It’s trite and done. You have a short, journal-style animated film series called “howdoyoudo.” In the first chapter, “Riding Lessons,” you talk about the ways in which we’re socialized to associate beauty with wealth — as demonstrated to you by Seventeen magazine — and about noses and photogenic angles and superficiality as a formative experience. Who are these for? Is there a subject you imagined speaking to? Absolutely. I wrote those pieces of prose in my early 20s, and I was really speaking to my younger self. My high school self. My middle school self. Back in those days, there was no social media, so there were no girls that looked like me anywhere. Even the black beauty role models had very

Eurocentric features. And I, being a poor kid from South Carolina, there’s no way I could keep up with that. So, you just kind of read the underlying message, which is, “Well, the reason you’re not here is that you don’t belong on the cover of a magazine. You’re not worthy of that. You’re not worthy of praise or celebration.” I internalized that. I think a lot of girls do. I don’t want to preach to kids, I want to talk to them like they’re human beings, but I kind of just wanted to walk alongside some of those young black girls right now that are comparing themselves to the Kardashians or the Jenners and just be like, “I’ve been there, I’m with you and you’re not alone.” You were raised in the Seventh Day Adventist tradition. Is there a beloved hymn from the hymnal you grew up singing from, or one that still haunts you? I’d say the one that still haunts me is one called “Jesus Is Coming Soon.”

It’s a song that’s in, like, A minor and we sang it at my grandmother’s house — because at this point my mom had left the traditional church, and we held our own Bible studies every Saturday morning with our family and a few of our close friends in the Adventist community. We were in the mountains, completely isolated. We’d sing this song about the second coming and I remember just feeling absolutely terrified. The words were “Jesus is coming/ morning or night or noon/Many will meet their doom/Trumpets will surely sound/All of the dead will rise, righteous meet in the skies/Going where no one dies, heavenward bound.” It’s supposed to be a very uplifting message, like “Jesus is on his way!” And I remember when we’d sing it, me and my little sister would just look at each other like, “Fuck.” Like, what if one of us got saved and the other one dies? People really seem to love quoting the line “I don’t know about Southern belles, but I can tell you something about Southern hell,” but they almost never finish the sentence: “When your skin give ’em cause to take and take.” You’re out there singing these lines on the road, and every day the news cycle’s reminding us that black bodies are still being targeted and taken from. Has the meaning changed at all — or intensified — as a result of this administration? I mean, it’s as intense as it can get at this point. For me, that line kind of reached its apex with the killing of Tamir Rice. That’s when I realized, like, no one is safe — they’re killing 12-yearold babies, because they’re afraid of him. That one is almost unspeakable in my house, because you look at pictures of him and he looks … he looks like my brothers. He looks like my cousin. He looks like children that we know. Then you look at someone like Sandra Bland. I mean, here’s a college-educated woman, driving, who is beaten and killed for daring to speak up for herself. That’s when I realized that as a black woman, I’m not safe. There’s nothing about me that’s safe, ever. A few years ago, I cut off my hair. I used to have very long hair and I cut it off pretty short. And when I did, I looked CONTINUED ON PAGE 31

FEBRUARY 9, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

ROCK CANDY

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

A&E NEWS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH the ACANSA Arts Festival, the Oxford American Magazine has announced the creation of the Jeff Baskin Writers Fellowship, which will award a $10,000 stipend to an author to complete a debut work of creative nonfiction. The late Baskin was director of the William F. Laman Public Library in North Little Rock and initiator of the Laman Writers Fellowship, whose recipients included Grif Stockley, Mara Leveritt, Kevin Brockmeier, Davis McCombs and Hope Coulter. Oxford American contributors Brian Blanchfield, Bronwen Dickey and Ada Limón will select the winner, to be announced in May. Submissions will be taken until March 30; interested writers of any genre should visit oxfordamerican.org/ fellowship for more information on how to enter. ARKANSAS ARTIST V.L. Cox, who for the past couple of years has been creating three-dimensional works representing discrimination against women, African Americans, immigrants and LGBT people,

is returning her “End Hate” door installation to the Lincoln Memorial on Feb. 11. The doors will be on exhibit from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on the Reflecting Pool steps. Cox built the doors in response to Arkansas’s House Bill 1228, introduced in 2015, that would have allowed discrimination against LGBT people on the basis of religious belief. The doors first went on exhibit in Washington in April 2015; a “Women” door has been added. THE FILM SOCIETY of Little Rock, the group behind the LGBT-centric Kaleidoscope Film festival, announced this week that it would launch the Argenta Drafthouse Film Series in June, to be held at The Joint every second Tuesday of the month. The series will seek to screen films that have played at festivals like Sundance, SXSW and Tribeca, but which might otherwise stand little chance of being screened in Arkansas. A preview of the film series takes place at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 27, at The Joint with a screening of “Two Trains Runnin’,” directed by Sam Pollard.

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arktimes.com FEBRUARY 9, 2017

THE

TO-DO

LIST

BY LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK, AARON SARLO AND STEPHANIE SMITTLE

THURSDAY 2/9

RANDY ROGERS BAND

CHRIS MCCOY

8:30 p.m. Revolution. $22-$25.

For somebody who reportedly grossed $2.5 million from touring in 2007, Randy Rogers seems to have successfully staved off any industry pressures to make him twangier, more chiseled, shinier or hyper-Texan. He and his band play mainstreamradio country music, and it’s delivered with backward baseball caps, fiddle and not a whole lot of gimmick. The group’s latest, “Nothing Shines Like Neon,” features a love letter to the cultural stew that makes up the San Antonio nightlife, and Rogers has matched that artistic nod to South Central Texas with his pocketbook: A few times each year, the band departs from its big-budget stadium routine to play the ramshackle railroad bar where they met and began playing together, San Marcos’ Cheatham Street Warehouse. And, when the honky tonk’s founder and longtime owner Kent Finlay died in 2015, Rogers, a San Marcos native who’d cut his teeth there on open “songwriter nights,” bought the venue himself. SS

NOTHING SHINES LIKE NEON: After 15 years touring with his band, Randy Rogers announced he’d buy the railroad venue where they met and began playing together. They perform at Rev Room 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 9, $22-$25.

THURSDAY 2/9

FRIDAY 2/10-SUNDAY 2/12

ARKANSAS TIMES MUSICIANS SHOWCASE

ARGENTA READING SERIES: GRAHAM GORDY

LANTERNS! WINTER FESTIVAL

8 p.m. Stickyz Rock ’N’ Roll Chicken Shack. $5-$10.

We’re closing in on the finals for the 25th annual Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase, and two bands have already cemented a spot: Tom Petty-inspired Southern rockers DeFrance and self-described “girl gang” Dazz & Brie with their band, The Emotionalz. The third round promises to be just as eclectic as the first two, featuring John Macateer and the Gentlemen Firesnakes, whose “Monterey Canyon” — recorded in 2015 at Fellowship Hall Sound — caught our ears with melodica and surfy organ sounds and songs about something called “chroma rock.” There’s Fayetteville’s The Inner Party, a smart post-punk outfit whose “1984”-inspired name is possibly more terrifying and relevant than when the band began in 2007, and who has experienced an astounding rate of drummer turnover over the last decade. (“Whenever we do find one, they are without fail always heavily involved in at least one other band, and we’re always like the mistress they never leave their wife for,” co-founder Dave Morris told the Fayetteville Flyer.) After that, Age of Man shows us all what it sounds like when crunchy Dirty Streets-style blues rock springs fully formed from El Dorado. Finally, there’s Rah Howard, a harmonica player and hip-hop artist who flexes his videography muscles (and impeccable taste in shoes) to great effect in videos like “Everything,” where he’s deposited himself backward through time, into a hypothetical live performance at the Apollo Theater. SS 24

FEBRUARY 9, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

7 p.m. 421 N. Main St., North Little Rock. Free.

If you’re a fan of Sundance’s “Rectify” or Cinemax’s “Quarry,” or if you’re just wondering what the hell all those cameras were doing over in Argenta last October, check this guy out. He’s the writer behind those acclaimed shows and the director of “Antiquities,” Mortuus Pater Pictures’ featurelength adaptation of Daniel Campbell’s short film of the same name. The film, a comedy set in an antique mall (played by Galaxy Furniture), was inspired by Campbell’s and Gordy’s shared experience of having lost their own fathers — and of finding that pain poignantly expressed in a Loudon Wainwright song called “Sometimes I Forget.” Gordy’s talk for this new series is preceded by a nonfiction piece from author Ben McVay. Come early and catch a set from singer/guitarist Phillip Rex Huddleston, the composer behind the 2016 “White Nights” soundtrack, 6:30 p.m. SS

6 p.m. Wildwood Park for the Arts. $5-$12.

I suspect that a great deal of “Lanterns!” patrons have elected to attend based solely on having seen a photo of the festival. That’s what got me there, anyway. The calendar-ready images of Swan Lake jeweled with luminaries of all sizes creates a magical scene, particularly after the sun goes down, and the lantern-lined paths beg to be explored. Now in its ninth year, the festival takes place under the first full moon of the lunar new year. It’s sort of a downsized Little Rock version of Epcot’s World Showcase, in which each vista features theater, song, craft or dance inspired by a particular culture. “Once you come in, you’re gonna walk in and be met by — who knew? The Canadian Embassy,” Artistic Director Bevan Keat-

ing (a Canadian transplant himself) said in an interview on 94.9 TOM-FM. Two Mounties, Keating reported, will greet guests in what he called “ ‘Dudley Do Right’ outfits,” moving guests into an area featuring something called “Canadian Karaoke,” and then out to wander the indoor and outdoor vistas, each of which features cultural touchstones from a different region: the Caribbean, China, France and the United Kingdom. Corresponding food and beverages characteristic of each of those places are available, which must be purchased with the festival’s “Wildbucks” currency — available in exchange for actual bucks at four locations inside the park. Admission for children under 5 is free; shuttles run from Cafe Brunelle on the southwest side of the Promenade at Chenal. There is an ATM available inside the park, but it’s a good idea to bring some cash along. SS

IN BRIEF

THURSDAY 2/9 Emory professor Alan Abramowitz gives a talk at the Clinton School of Public Service’s Sturgis Hall, “All Politics is National: The Rise of Negative Partisanship and Nationalization of U.S. House and Senate Elections in the 21st Century,” 6 p.m. Local Colour Gallery hosts a Valentine show featuring work in all media and serving red wine and chocolates, 5:30 p.m. Arkansas Public Media hosts Arkansas-centric trivia at Stone’s Throw Brewing, 6:30 p.m. Baritone Paul Rowe and pianist Martha Fischer perform works by Robert Schumann, Maurice Ravel and Scott Gendel at Hendrix College’s Reves Recital Hall, 7:30 p.m. Atlanta quartet Brother Hawk performs at the White Water Tavern, 9:30 p.m. Brian Nahlen and Nick Devlin play the happy hour at Cajun’s, 5:30 p.m. Epiphany Morrow moderates a discussion on gender for Central Arkansas Library System’s third annual “Battle of the Sexes,” Main Library, 6 p.m. Esse Purse Museum hosts a reception for its exhibition “Reflections: Images and Objects from African American Women, 1891-1987,” 6-8 p.m. Pizza d’Action celebrates its status as one of the nation’s top 100 sellers of Pabst Blue Ribbon with beer specials and music from The Martyrs, 8:30 p.m. 1Life, a community organization focused on body positivity, hosts “Ain’t No Body Like the One I’ve Got,” an all-genders-welcome dance lesson and workshop on self-love, 6:30 p.m., Quapaw Quarter United Methodist Church.

FRIDAY 2/10

‘LOVELY, DARK AND DEEP’: Grace Ramsey’s painting title also describes her work, now exhibited at the Historic Arkansas Museum, which will be open 5-8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 10, for 2nd Friday Art Night.

SATURDAY 2/11

FRIDAY 2/10

2ND FRIDAY ART NIGHT

5-8 p.m., downtown galleries.

In synch with Art Night, symbolist works — paintings by Grace Mikell Ramsey and mixed media sculpture by Luke Amram Knox — go on exhibit at the Historic Arkansas Museum in a show called “Modern Mythology”; Vino’s Brewpub is supplying the beer. Ramsey was featured in a 2015 cover story in the Arkansas Times about emerging

SeanFresh celebrates his birthday with a concert featuring Big Piph, Osyrus Bolly, Genine Perez, Dazz & Brie, Dee Dee Jones, Duke Stigall, DJ Nick Hud and more, 10 p.m., $15. Trent Campbell of Tnertle, a Denver-based 9-piece electrofunk band, plays a solo show at Four Quarter Bar with an opening set from Ryan Visor, 10 p.m. Doug Duffey and his 11-piece band Louisiana Soul Revival return to Little Rock for a show at White Water, 9 p.m., $10. Gallery 221 will hold a reception for its show “World View,” by Hannah Hinojosa, 5-8 p.m. Matt McLeod Fine Art hosts a finale reception for its “First Anniversary Show,” 5-8 p.m. Acoustic guitarist Chris DeClerk plays a free show at the Tavern Sports Bar & Grill, 7:30 p.m. Arkansas Musicians Showcase Round 1 winner DeFrance plays a free show at Markham Street Grill & Pub, 8:30 p.m. Listen Sister, Collin vs. Adam and Kassie Moe share a bill at the Town Pump, 9:30 p.m., $5. The John Calvin Brewer Band plays a blues set at Maxine’s, Hot Springs, 8 p.m., $5. CosmOcean brings their dance tunes to Cajun’s Wharf, 9 p.m., $5. Hot Springs’ Porterhouse Restaurant hosts “The Real Housewives of Hot Springs: A True (Trashy) Love Story,” 7 p.m. Fri. and Sat., $40. Self-described “Ameri-kinda” rockers the Vandoliers play at King’s Live Music in Conway, with an opening set from Kassie Moe, 8:30 p.m., $5. Samantha Fish brings her blues-based guitar sound to George’s Majestic Lounge in Fayetteville, 9:30 p.m., 12-$15.

artists; Knox is an installation artist inspired by Jungian psychology. “Bruce Jackson: Cummins Prison Farm,” photographs that are part of Jackson’s work documenting prisons in Arkansas and Texas, opens at the Butler Center Galleries. Jackson, the Samuel P. Capen Professor of American Culture at the State University of New York at Buffalo, has been called the “dean of prison folklore” by the Wall Street Journal. “Subtle and Bold,” fabric art by Sofia

Gonzalez and paintings by Susan Chambers, both of Little Rock, continues at Arkansas Capital Corp.; Gonzalez will give a talk and demonstration about how she makes her dyes. The Old State House Museum is showing a movie for Art Night: “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,” released in 1954. The movie begins at 5:30; soft drinks, beer, pizza and popcorn will be available. For other Friday night openings, see the In Brief column. LNP

The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra plays “Rock On!” featuring the music of Queen, Whitney Houston and Bruce Springsteen, 7:30 p.m. Sat., 3 p.m. Sun., $14-$67. Trans model and entertainer Amanda Lepore brings hits like “My Hair Looks Fierce” to Club Sway, 8 p.m., $20-$45. Missouri quartet The Toos joins Jamie Lou & The Hullabaloo and Haenyeo at Maxine’s, 8 p.m., $5. The Faulkner County Urban Farm Project hosts its annual Seed Swap, 11 a.m., Faulkner County Library, and later that day, Dan and Jeff Clanton perform live in the library’s main room, 2 p.m., free. Randall Shreve and the Devilles bring their Vaudeville rock to Stickyz Rock ’N’ Roll Chicken Shack, with Vintage Pistol, 9 p.m., $7. The Ron Robinson Theater screens the Bogart-Bergman classic “Casablanca,” 1 p.m., $5. Charlotte Taylor plays an “Anti-Valentine’s Party” set at Prospect Bar & Grill, 9 p.m. The Conway Symphony Orchestra presents “Danny Elfman’s Music from the Films of Tim

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arktimes.com FEBRUARY 9, 2017

THE

TO-DO

LIST

BY STEPHANIE SMITTLE

FRIDAY 2/10

SPA CITY SWEETHEARTS

8 p.m. Low Key Arts. $15.

For seven years running, the women behind the Foul Play Cabaret burlesque troupe have been putting on a striptease variety show incorporating magic, comedy, bare skin and lots of tassels for the benefit of Low Key Arts — namely, to benefit the arts organization’s Valley of the Vapors Music

Festival, now in its 13th year. Although you’d never know it by the stale, sluggish vibe that too often surrounds Oaklawn’s slot machines, the Hot Springs gambling scene was downright wild back in the day, a rowdy mix of high rollers, hush money and booze laced with whatever-trips-your-trigger. Much of that scene’s been traded in for big boxes and the corporately sanctioned sin over at

I WAS AFRAID, HEADCOLD, ATTAGIRL, COLOUR DESIGN

the track, making touches of rowdy old Hot Springs like this worth relishing. When the Arkansas Times went to press, a Saturday night performance had sold out, but there were a few tickets left for the Friday night performance from the Spa City Sweethearts, billed as the “largest burlesque revue in Arkansas.” (If there are any challengers to that title, we’d love to know.) So, act fast. SS

9 p.m. Vino’s. $7.

THE MAN I WAS: Ahead of some time in Texas and California, Lucero returns to Little Rock on tour with Esme Patterson for a show at the Rev Room, 8:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 10, $20-$25.

LUCERO

8:30 p.m. Revolution. $20-$25.

Little Rock fans of Ben Nichols’ rustic brand of roots rock will be giddier than Batman with a throat lozenge to know Lucero is in town this Friday night. The Nichols brothers (Ben, rock star, and Jeff, exalted director of “Mud” and “Loving”) have forged a great, glowing path in American pop culture, with raw talent, hard work and determination. Lucero’s many successes notwithstanding (the band is adored among the multitudes, including one Rachel Maddow — Rolling Stone

reported that Lucero was her favorite artist), the band still occasionally plays smaller, more intimate venues. Along for the ride at Revolution is Esmé Patterson, whose new record, “We Were Wild,” has been making the rounds among critics and fans since its release last summer. (Ahhhh … last summer. Remember the innocence?) Patterson is a veteran of the music biz, having spent a decade toiling in it with her criminally underrated folk outfit, Paper Bird. Four records deep into that band, and after years of exhaustive touring, Patterson decided to forge ahead as a solo artist. She had a brief partnership

with millennial catnip Shakey Graves. The press kit says, “You might remember her collaboration with Shakey Graves, which accrued over 15 million streams and landed TV performances on Letterman, Conan and Leno.” I don’t, but if you say so, press kit. Then, in 2016, Patterson released the “subtly charming” (Rolling Stone again) “We Were Wild,” and it was off to the races, or the cold, lonely highways, as it were. The Rev Room is known for its live sound, so with these two outstanding acts, this should be a hell of a good show. AS

writer scene in general — Kerby’s metaphoric turns of phrase and deceptively standoffish wit keep some of us reaching for “The Secret Lives of All Night Radios” or “Apostle’s Tongues” at predictable intervals. (At least 97 of us, if that Poet Laureate page represents an accurate count.) According to the words of “It’s Not Needing What You Want, It’s Wanting What You Need” from Kerby’s 2012 release, “the way grows more confus-

ing every day, day, day,” and “you’ll get no help from poets or philosophers you read,” but anyone who’s ever found a salve in Kerby’s poems knows that last bit isn’t entirely true. He’s been around long enough to have gone and produced offspring, one of whom, Gus, plays violin like a dream. Gus joins his dad for this show in the basement-turnedbrewery below Christ Episcopal Church, The Undercroft. SS

FRIDAY 2/10

KEVIN & GUS KERBY

8 p.m. The Undercroft, Christ Episcopal Church. $10.

“Science is for those who learn; poetry, for those who know.” That’s the axiom that concludes a call-to-action Facebook page titled “Make Kevin Kerby the Poet Laureate of Pulaski County.” One of the driving forces behind Ho-Hum, Battery and Mulehead — and therefore, behind the Little Rock song26

FEBRUARY 9, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

JOSEPH LANES

FRIDAY 2/10

If delicious Americana rock melancholia steeped in stadium-quality sound isn’t your thing, rather than seeing Lucero and Esmé Patterson at Rev Room, you have one more good option for live music on Friday night. Oh wait. Did I say good? I meant jaw-droppingly good. Little Rock’s beloved I Was Afraid is releasing a 7-inch on San Antonio’s Sunday Drive Records. Numerous times across social media, and for quite a while now, I have seen people randomly post a version of this: “I Was Afraid is my favorite band.” I earnestly report to you that these posts were not made by band members, nor by flunkies. These posts are being made by friends and acquaintances of mine who know from good music. Not naming names. Unfortunately, I have not seen I Was Afraid live. However, I will probably be doing so this Friday night, in part because of my friends’ recommendations, but also because of the freakishly good line up, which also includes Colour Design, Headcold and Attagirl. I played each of those artists when I was the host of Shoog Radio, and I am here to tell you that they are all excellent. If you like hard rock, and I mean cinder block hard rock crashing through your face like the apocalypse, you should make it a point to be at Vino’s. Carve Friday night at Vino’s into the back of your hand with a box cutter, or, if you’re a soft, spongy, product receptacle, put it in your iCal. Just be there. AS

IN BRIEF Burton,” 7:30 p.m., University of Central Arkansas’s Reynolds Performance Hall, $32-$40. Author and Little Rock native Sara Flannery Murphy signs her new novel, “The Possessions,” at Wordsworth Books & Co., 1 p.m. Crankbait, Tempus Terra, Apothecary and Jeremiah James Baker play a benefit show to help pay medical bills for Eyehategod’s Mike Williams, 9 p.m., $6. The Clinton Presidential Center hosts Beatles Movie Day, with free screenings of the Ron Howard documentary “Eight Days a Week” and “A Hard Day’s Night,” 11 a.m. Tragikly White performs at the Rev Room, 9:30 p.m. Chimp Chimp Chimp, Sabine Valley and Vette Lucy share a bill at Vino’s, 8 p.m., $7. Discovery Nightclub hosts a face-off between Dirty Fuss and Katie J. for the Discovery Music Competition semifinals, 9 p.m. Garvan Woodland Gardens is home to a workshop on shiitake mushroom farming, 10 a.m., $30-$45. Clusterpluck jams at King’s Live Music in Conway, with Cosmic Farmer, 8:30 p.m., $5. Trey Johnson and Jason Willmon pair up for a show at Rodney’s Handlebar & Grill, 7:30 p.m. Hooker Red plays a show at the Fox & Hound, 10 p.m. The Witt Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Nature Center explores animal mating habits in a family-friendly program called “Love Is in the Air,” 602 President Clinton Ave., noon. Conway’s Motherfunkship brings its jams to Four Quarter Bar, 10:30 p.m.

SUNDAY 2/12

A COURSE IN HUMAN RELATIONS: Morris Chestnut (left) stars as Ernest Green, the oldest of the Little Rock Nine, in “The Ernest Green Story,” to be screened at Ron Robinson Theater, 6 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 15, free.

6 p.m. Ron Robinson Theater. Free.

The violence and vitriol evident in the photos taken outside Central High School during the desegregation crisis give us an idea of what happened Sept. 25, 1957, but the Little Rock Nine had to contend with what isn’t as photographically evident — a school year looming ahead of them, to be spent with fellow students and teachers who resented their presence. Ernest Green was the only senior in the group, the de facto leader, and was subjected to a daily ritual of harassment, about which he was reticent when he was interviewed by Life Magazine in 1958: “It’s been an interesting year. I’ve had a course in human relations first hand.” Despite the difficulty of that “course in human relations,”

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WEDNESDAY 2/15

‘THE ERNEST GREEN STORY’

Pianist Louis Heard III and poet Chris James headline a tribute concert, “Stevie Wonder: In the Key of Love,” Rev Room, 8:30 p.m., $10-$90. Circuit Judge and author Wendell Griffen gives a prerelease talk on his book, “The Fierce Urgency of Prophetic Hope,” 3 p.m., Pyramid Art, Books, and Custom Framing, 1001 Wright Ave. The Clinton Presidential Center opens its new “Fusion: Arts + Humanities Arkansas” series with a program focusing on the Quapaw Tribe in Arkansas, with remarks from John Berrey, chairman of the Quapaw Tribe of Oklahoma, and U.S. Appeals Court Judge Morris S. “Buzz” Arnold, as well as a dance demonstration from members of the Quapaw Tribe, 5 p.m., free. Seeker and Cognitive share the stage for an early Sunday show at Vino’s, 7 p.m.

MONDAY 2/13 Green earned his credentials as an Eagle Scout and graduated from Central High, accompanied at the ceremony by his family and by Martin Luther King Jr., who was in Arkansas to speak at a commencement ceremony in Pine Bluff. He’s played in this film — shot mostly on location at Central High — by a young Morris Chestnut, fresh off his breakout role as Ricky in the 1991 film “Boyz n the Hood.” Asked what he thought about the 1993 Disney film, Green said, “I was generally pleased with the movie. It had, as you can imagine, about an hour and a half to tell a set of events that took nine months. But I thought they captured the high points and the low points of my senior year.” Admission to the film is free, but Central Arkansas Library System encourages audience members to register at the screening’s site at eventbrite. com. SS

The cast members of Arkansas Repertory Theater’s “Sister Act” throw aside their habits to sing favorite show tunes cabaret-style at The Lobby Bar, 6:30 p.m., $25. Hendrix College’s orchestra and dance ensemble join forces for an evening of ballroom dance for the annual Waltz Night in Trieschmann Hall, Conway, 7:30 p.m., free. Michael Brown hosts a “Valentine’s Day Special: Rom-Com Edition” comedy-trivia show at The Public Theater, 7 p.m. Alan Watts’ “This Is It” is up for discussion at Tomes + Tea Book Club, 6:30 p.m., Arkansas Yoga Collective.

TUESDAY 2/14 The non-partisan Women’s Advocacy Day event, which focuses on legislation pertinent to women’s economic issues, will be held in Room 207 at the state Capitol, 10 a.m., $15 (lunch included). Gabriel Rutledge presents a “date night” evening of stand-up at the Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m., $8-$14. Joshua Stewart plays a Valentine’s Day set at Dizzy’s Gypsy Bistro, 6 p.m. The Fort Smith Regional Art Museum presents a jazz reception for the opening of “Heartbreak in Peanuts,” an exhibit organized by the Charles M. Schultz Museum, 5 p.m., $20-$25. The MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History screens “Baghdad ER,” a war documentary shot in a military hospital, 6:30 p.m. Elvis impersonator Tony Roi puts on a Valentine’s Day show at Five Star Dinner Theater in Hot Springs, 7 p.m., $28-$44. Stone’s Throw Brewing hosts “Be Your Own Main,” an evening of beer cocktails, Loblolly

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Creamery ice cream and beats courtesy of Rock City Thumps’ Lloyd Dobbler BoomBox Stand Off, 4 p.m. John David Salons performs at Hibernia Irish Tavern, 8 p.m.

WEDNESDAY 2/15 Stone’s Throw Brewing screens “Psycho” for its “better with beer” movie series, 6 p.m., free. Chris DeClerk plays a free acoustic show at Dizzy’s Gypsy Bistro, 6 p.m. Ben Byers plays a free show at the Tavern Sports Grill, 7:30 p.m. The MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History hosts an African-American history program, 11:30 a.m. Deshon Washington plays a free show at King’s Live Music, followed by trivia, 8 p.m.

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arktimes.com FEBRUARY 9, 2017

ALSO IN THE ARTS MAJOR VENUES

Theater

“Sister Act.” Arkansas Repertory Theater’s production of Bill & Cheri Steinkellner’s musical. 7 p.m. Wed.-Thu. and Sun., 8 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sat.-Sun., through March 5. 601 Main St. 501-378-0405. $30-$65. “Bonnie and Clyde.” The Studio Theater’s production of Frank Wildhorn’s musical. 7:30 p.m. Thu.-Sat., 2:30 p.m. Sun., through Feb. 19. 320 W. 7th St. 501-374-2615. $15-$25. “The Laughable Legend of Fancybeard the Bully Pirate.” Keith Smith’s comedic lesson in leadership. 7 p.m. Fri., 2 p.m. Sat.-Sun., through Feb. 19. Arkansas Arts Center Children’s Theatre. 501 E. 9th St. 501-372-4000. $12.50. “Naked People With Their Clothes On.” The Main Thing’s first comedy revue of the year. 8 p.m. Fri.-Sat., through March 25. 301 Main St., NLR. 501-372-0210. $24. “The Nerd.” Murry’s Dinner Playhouse presents the Larry Shue comedy. 7:30 p.m. Tue.-Sat., dinner at 6 p.m., 12:45 p.m. and 6:45 p.m. Sun., dinner at 11 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., through Feb. 18. 6323 Colonel Glenn Road. 501-562-3131. $15-$37. “Detroit.” TheatreSquared’s performance of Lisa D’Amour’s Obie Award-winning social critique. 7:30 p.m. Wed.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sat.-Sun., through Feb. 26. Walton Arts Center’s Studio Theater, 495 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479443-5600. $10-$40. “Love and Broadway.” Red Curtain Theater’s Valentine’s Day musical revue. 7 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sun., through Feb. 12, Hendrix College’s Staples Auditorium, 1600 Washington Ave., Conway. 501-499-9776. $15.

VISUAL ARTS, HISTORY EXHIBITS

ARKANSAS ARTS CENTER, MacArthur Park: “Ansel Adams: Early Works”; “Herman Maril: The Strong Forms of Our Experience” and “Seeing the Essence: William E. Davis,” photographs, all through April 16; UALR photography class talk on Ansel Adams, 5:30 p.m. Feb. 9; talk by UALR photography professor Joli Livaudais, 5:30 p.m. Feb. 16 ($10 nonmembers); 47th annual “Mid-Southern Watercolorists Exhibition,” Feb. 10-April 16. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 10 a.m.5 p.m. Sat., 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun. 372-4000. ARKANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY, Jonesboro: “Delta National Small Prints Exhibition,” 50 prints by 50 artists from across the U.S. and abroad; “NurtureNature,” ceramic sculpture by Bradley Sabin; “Local Color,” work by Matt E. Ball, Mihaela Savu, Beth Snodgrass and Nancy Zimmer,” all through Feb. 26. Noon-5 p.m. Tue.Sat., 2-5 p.m. Sun. 870-972-2567. ARTS AND SCIENCE CENTER FOR SOUTHEAST ARKANSAS, 701 S. Main St., Pine Bluff: “Resilience,” printmaking by Emma Amos, Vivian Browne, Camille Billops, Margaret Burroughs, Elizabeth Catlett, Barbara Jones-Hogu, Samella Lewis, and Rosalind Jeffries, through July 8; “Bayou Bartholomew: In Focus,” juried photography exhibition, through April 22; “Dinosaurs: Fossils Exposed,” through April 22. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 1-4 p.m. Sat. 870-536-3375. BUTLER CENTER GALLERIES, Arkansas Studies Institute, 401 President Clinton Ave.: “Bruce Jackson: Cummins Prison Farm,” photographs, West Gallery, Feb. 10-May 27, 2nd Friday Art Night reception 5-8 p.m.; “The American Dream Deferred: Japanese American Incarceration in WWII Arkansas,” objects from the internment camps, Concordia Gallery, through June 24; “Once Was Lost,” photographs by Richard Leo Johnson, through March 18. 9 a.m.6 p.m. Mon.-Sat. 320-5790. CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL MUSEUM VISITOR

CENTER, Bates and Park: Exhibits on the 1957 desegregation of Central and the civil rights movement. 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. daily. 374-1957. CLINTON PRESIDENTIAL CENTER: “Ladies and Gentlemen … the Beatles!” Records, photographs, tour artifacts, videos, instruments, recording booth for sing-along with Ringo Starr, from the GRAMMY Museum at L.A. LIVE, through April 2. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun., $10 adults, $8 seniors, retired military and college students, $6 youth 6-17, free to active military and children under 6. CRYSTAL BRIDGES MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, One Museum Way, Bentonville: American masterworks spanning four centuries in the permanent collection. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon., Thu.; 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Wed., Fri.; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sat.Sun., closed Tue. 479-418-5700. ESSE PURSE MUSEUM & STORE, 1510 S. Main St.: “Reflections: Images and Objects from African American Women, 1891-1987,” opening reception 6-8 p.m. Feb. 9, show through April; “What’s Inside: A Century of Women and Handbags,” permanent exhibit. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tue.Sat., 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Sun. $10, $8 for students, seniors and military. 916-9022. FORT SMITH REGIONAL ART MUSEUM, 1601 Rogers Ave.: “Heartbreak in Peanuts,” digital photographs of Peanuts comic strips, reception 5-8 p.m. Feb. 14, show through April 16. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 479-7842787. HISTORIC ARKANSAS MUSEUM, 200 E. 3rd St.: “Modern Mythology: Luke Amran Knox and Grace Mikell Ramsey,” mixed media sculpture and paintings, Feb. 10-May 7, 2nd Friday Art Night reception 5-8 p.m. with beer from Vino’s Brewpub; “A Diamond in the Rough: 75 Years of Historic Arkansas Museum”; ticketed tours of renovated and replicated 19th century structures from original city, guided Monday and Tuesday on the hour, self-guided Wednesday through Sunday, $2.50 adults, $1 under 18,

free to 65 and over. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 324-9351. MacARTHUR MUSEUM OF ARKANSAS MILITARY HISTORY, 503 E. 9th St. (MacArthur Park): “Waging Modern Warfare”; “Gen. Wesley Clark”; “Vietnam, America’s Conflict”; “Undaunted Courage, Proven Loyalty: Japanese American Soldiers in World War II. 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-4 p.m. Sun. 376-4602. MOSAIC TEMPLARS CULTURAL CENTER, 9th and Broadway: Permanent exhibits on AfricanAmerican entrepreneurship in Arkansas. 9 a.m.5 p.m. Tue.-Sat. 683-3593. OLD STATE HOUSE MUSEUM, 300 W. Markham St.: Movie Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,” 5:30 p.m. Feb. 10, 2nd Friday Art Night; “True Faith, True Light: The Devotional Art of Ed Stilley,” musical instruments, through 2017; “First Families: Mingling of Politics and Culture” permanent exhibit including first ladies’ gowns. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 324-9685. MUSEUM OF DISCOVERY, 500 President Clinton Ave.: “Magnificent Me,” exhibit on the human body, through April 23. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun., $10 ages 13 and older, $8 ages 1-12, free to members and children under 1. 396-7050. REGIONAL ART MUSEUM, 1601 Rogers Ave., Fort Smith: “Liv Fjellsol: Art Says,” representational works on paper accompanied by poems and other writings, through April 2. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 479-784-2787. SOUTH ARKANSAS ARTS CENTER, 110 E. 5th St., El Dorado: “Brotherhood: Jason Sacran and John P. Lasater IV, through March 29. TOLTEC MOUNDS STATE PARK, U.S. Hwy. 165, England: Major prehistoric Indian site with visitors’ center and museum. 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.Sat., noon-5 p.m. Sun., closed Mon. $4 for adults, $3 for ages 6-12, $14 for family. 961-9442.

Magdalena Sole, Jazz at Messengers, Clarksdale, 2010

FEBRUARY 9, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

7 P.M. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 21

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When you bring single parents out of poverty, they bring their children with them. arktimes.com FEBRUARY 9, 2017

MOVIE REVIEW

Lost, found, looking ‘Lion’ is as fragmented as its hero’s past. BY GUY LANCASTER

hen first we meet young Saroo (Sunny Pawar), he and his older brother Guddu (Abhishek Bharate) are hopping aboard a train car loaded with coal. They fill up their two bags and later exchange them at the marketplace for milk, which they take home to their mother, Kamla (Priyanka Bose). She works as a common laborer, carrying rocks, and the two brothers take on odd jobs to keep them and their sister fed. One evening, though, Guddu leaves his 5-year-old brother sleeping on a train station bench

FEBRUARY 9, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

RETRACE YOUR STEPS: A young Saroo (Sunny Pawar) is separated from his family after wandering onto a departing train in Garth Davis’ Oscar-nominated “Lion.”

while he runs off to inquire about work, and the curious boy, upon waking, wanders into a train that soon pulls away from the station, depositing him several days and more than 1,000 miles away. This separation is the real-life event at the center of the movie “Lion,” nomi-

nated for six Academy Awards. Unable to speak the Bengali language of Calcutta, where the train finally stops, Saroo ends up living on the streets. There, children are often pursued by adults for purposes left unsaid. Eventually ending up in an orphanage, Saroo is adopted by an Australian couple, Sue and John Brierly (Nicole Kidman and David Wenham, respectively), who take the child back to their home in Tasmania. Twenty years later, Saroo (now played by Dev Patel) is studying hospitality management when the sight and taste of a particular Indian dish brings back all those memories and leads him to seek his family back in India. Though Patel headlines the credits, the real star is his younger counterpart, Sunny Pawar, who shifts effortlessly between youthful glee and a despair perfectly manifest in that hundred-yard stare, that desperate casting about for someone kind or something familiar. Director Garth Davis keeps the camera on Pawar’s level for much of his time on screen, so that the crush of adults in a train station, for example, feels all the more disorienting. In the latter half of the movie, Kidman delivers a true standout performance as we come to discover that her benign, do-gooder housewife persona masks an electric current of power and conviction. Unfortunately, the other characters (especially adult Saroo) are not so fully realized, largely because of the painstakingly linear structure of the movie, which makes it lag at the very moment when its protagonist has reached his emotional crisis. Determined to find

his family home on the basis of what landmarks he remembers, Saroo plots a radius of possibilities across the map of India and begins scouring Google Earth for train station after train station. When he’s not staring into the computer, he’s staring into the ocean while sitting on the beach, beer in hand, or he’s staring into the eyes of his on-again, offagain girlfriend Lucy (Rooney Mara), who tries to understand his torment but, due to narrative conventions, must be rebuffed. “Lion” runs through every cinematic shorthand to convey inner turmoil (working those violinists overtime) and then does it again, leaving its characters frozen in narrative amber until a penultimate revelation finally drives the plot forward again. At its worst, “Lion” is a hackneyed tearjerker packaged as high drama. At its best, though, the movie tries to say something about the nature of identity, about how deep certain scars can run. “You didn’t know when you were adopting us, you were adopting our pasts,” an adult Saroo says to his mother, Sue, and though it turns out he underestimated her, it’s true that we often treat children like little Lockean blank slates, as if our formative years are also the most trivial. Too, “Lion” also touches upon the nature of cultural identity in a diaspora, especially for those who did not voluntarily embrace their rootlessness. Unfortunately, while Saroo may ultimately be able to reconcile the components of his personal history, this movie struggles to bring its various parts together into a cohesive and meaningful whole.

HOWDOYOUDO, CONT. more identifiably black. And I remember feeling for a moment, like, anxiety about that, because of what was happening to black people. I remember wondering if I was gonna be presumed guilty for something, or if some police officer was gonna bash my head into the sidewalk for sassing him? I feel a little ashamed when I think about it, but these are hard feelings that I have. I don’t have bodily autonomy in this country. I want to ask about this sort of PR dance you’re being asked to engage in now, and of which this interview

is a part. I think listeners (and maybe especially music journalists) express their admiration in an odd way, which is to immediately compare beloved artists to someone else. Is there someone you’ve been compared to that especially pleased you, or someone in particular you channel when inspiration runs low? I don’t read a lot of things about myself, so I don’t know what people are saying. I have some drunk fans that come up to me after my show, and they have all these ideas about who I sound like. But I would say that someone I

try to channel with my voice as a musician and as a citizen is Nina Simone. She’s someone who I look up to as a role model. She’s from Tryon, N.C., I’m from Campobello [S.C.], so we actually grew up about a 20-minute drive away from each other, and a lot of things that informed her music — a few decades later, I was walking through that same stuff. She’s the one that reminds me that you have a duty to speak up, speak out, especially as a woman of color making music. Sometimes I’ll get shy, and not want to make a noise or a fuss about something, and I immediately think of Nina Simone.

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I know that there were times when she was punished for speaking out, but she never stopped, and for me, there’s no reason why I should, either. In partnership with the Oxford American magazine, Adia Victoria speaks at the Clinton School of Public Service at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 15. Reserve seats at publicprograms@clintonschool. uasys.edu or 683-5239. Victoria follows that talk with a performance at the White Water Tavern, featuring an opening set from Joshua Asante, 9 p.m. $10. For tickets, visit lastchancerecords.us.

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Dining WHAT’S COOKIN’

THREE FOLD NOODLES and Dumpling Co. plans to move from 215 Center St. to 613 Main St. by August, owner Lisa Zhang says. The new location, in the ground floor of the Arkansas Democrat Lofts building, is larger by more than 500 square feet, which will allow Three Fold to seat about 120 customers, up from 80 now. Another new addition: Baozi, a Chinese pastry with sweet and savory filling, will be offered for breakfast. Otherwise, Three Fold’s small menu of authentic Chinese noodles, dumplings and steamed buns served with an option of chicken, pork or tofu will remain the same. Zhang said she was motivated to move by her desire to match her authentic Chinese cuisine with a more authentic Chinese serving style. “When Chinese people eat a dumpling, they eat it very hot. Same thing with noodles,” she said. Her current location only allows for cafeteriastyle serving. “Aside from our food, I realize customers like us because we’re very efficient,” Zhang said. “The business lunch crowd, people going to the theater, coming home during rush hour, family travelers — they enjoy our fast but friendly service.” The new setup “won’t jeopardize speed, but it will have better service,” she said. In the new space Three Fold will have an open kitchen where patrons can watch much of the preparation. Much like Pei Wei, customers will order from the counter and their food will be delivered to their table freshly prepared. Zhang jokes that she’s been likened to the Soup Nazi of TV’s “Seinfeld” fame for her desire that customers eat the most authentic versions of her food. She hopes the open kitchen will help introduce diners to menu items they haven’t tried before. The new layout will allow Three Fold to push an option that’s available but not publicized by the restaurant: adding broth to noodle bowls. When Chinese people eat noodles, 80 percent of the time it’s as noodle soup, Zhang said. But “perfect noodle soup” can’t be done in the current service-line setup, she said. Noodles expand and lose their texture unless they’re served immediately after broth is poured over them. That will happen in the new location. 32

FEBRUARY 9, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

CAFE PREGO: Eating in this 1940s bungalow is like going to a neighborhood party.

Like a party at Prego But a few dishes need tweaks.

ating at Cafe Prego is like going to an enormous dinner party at someone’s 1940s bungalow where they’ve removed all the usual furniture, brought in as many tables and chairs as they can fit in the living room, dining room and bedroom, and then crammed everyone into a tight, communal-feeling place. You know everyone because it’s a neighborhood party. Wine flows, the aroma of piping-hot food wafts throughout the place, and there’s a pleasant din of competing conversations. Except this particular bungalow has walls papered in art museum posters, is teeming with movie star photos, even some George Follow Eat Arkansas on Twitter: @EatArkansas

Fisher cartoons from the old Arkansas Gazette days, and the fireplace mantle is jammed with wine bottles. The atmosphere is “neighborhood haunt,” but it’s just as cozy for those who aren’t from around here. Three friendly servers make sure everyone is well taken care of, and the pace is easy. That was precisely the vibe in a prettywell-packed Cafe Prego at 6:15 p.m. on a chilly Friday night in early February. And by 7 p.m. about 10 people were huddled in the small entryway waiting on a table. We wish we could say we loved our meal as much as we liked the experience of dining at Prego. There were a couple of shining moments early, but then

some mediocre dishes that followed. We started with a bowl of the soup of the day, butternut squash ($5) and really enjoyed it. It had not a hint of sweet; rather, it was savory — a bit salty (but not too) with some kick. We’re not sure we could have identified it as butternut squash if not told, but it was good. We shared a bottle of La Crema chardonnay, a bargain at $37. It paired nicely with the soup and with our appetizer — bruschetta ($8), which turned out to be the star of the meal. Bruschetta can be fairly mundane, boring even. Not these four pieces of lightly toasted baguette mounded with tomato, capers, sauteed onion, garlic, parmesan and a rich, sweet, luscious balsamic reduction. It’s amazing the nearly two inches of ingredients didn’t come tumbling down. We love spaghetti carbonara and had heard good things about Prego’s tortellini-based version ($14.50). We did enjoy the way the mixture of ricotta, mozzarella and Parmesan inside the pasta crescents added to the usual carbonara taste profile, but these tortellini were al dente

BELLY UP

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VEAL PICCATA: The marinara was tasty, but the dish was overall a little bland.

to the max, way too chewy. There didn’t seem to be quite enough sauce and pancetta (the menu says prosciutto, but it seemed like pancetta to us), though our dining companion didn’t necessarily agree. There were plenty of mushrooms, and they added an earthy touch. The veal piccata ($20) featured three small medallions of thin, lightly flourcoated, not-so-tender veal. There was

Cafe Prego

5510 Kavanaugh Blvd. 663-5355

QUICK BITE If you’re an early diner, or at least an early drinker, know that Prego has an appealing happy hour. From 5-6 p.m. every day of the week you can enjoy $4 glasses of house wine, $4 mixed drinks, $3 domestic beer and $2 off all the many specialty martinis. HOURS 5-9:30 p.m. Monday to Thursday, 5-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 5-9 p.m. Sunday. OTHER INFO Credit cards accepted, full bar.

a slight lemon zing to the sauce, but we could have used more. Capers were abundant, but even they didn’t add a lot to this somewhat bland dish. We did appreciate the freshness of the notcooked-to-death marinara that topped the accompanying mound of vermicelli. We heard the couple next to us ask for a basket of rolls — they went through two baskets, actually — but we were offered no bread. Why the chefs of the world have decided raspberry is always a great addition to chocolate we’re not sure. Prego’s chocolate creme brulee ($6) wasn’t touted as having a raspberry syrup drizzle atop the from-the-can whipped cream topping. If we’d known we would have asked for it to be excluded; it got in the way of the chocolatey, creamy brulee that lurked under a crisp layer of hardened sugar. The tart, creamy lemon pie ($6) featured that same whipped cream (but no raspberry syrup, thankfully) and a standard graham cracker crust. It was fine, but certainly not transcendent.

SERVING UP FUN, FOOD AND FABULOUS LIVE ENTERTAINMENT SINCE 1967.

TRAVIS LEDOYT

The World’s Best Young Elvis. JAN 17 – FEB 18

FEB 23 – FEB 25

FEB 28 – MAR 25

murrysdp.com

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GIVING BACK LITTLE ROCK’S MOST NOTEWORTHY OSCAR WATCH PARTY:

RED CARPET 2017

entities, Wolfe Street Center is open to the public 365 days n February 26, the lights of Hollywood will shine on a year and does not charge people to participate. Wolfe Street Foundation, Arkansas’ oldest and largest Wolfe Street hosts 240 recovery meetings a month, offers non-profit resource dedicated to helping people recover prevention and educational workshops, seminars and also from alcoholism and addiction. In the event’s 18th year, offers social events particularly around “Red Carpet 2017” is Little Rock’s most holidays. The 12,000 square foot buildnoteworthy Oscar Watch party; a black SINCE 1982, WOLFE ing on the southside of Louisiana Street tie affair set for Sunday, February 26th STREET CENTER also serves regular meals, fields dozens of at Robinson Center Ballroom. telephone calls for help each day, and even The Oscar gala is the foundation’s HAS QUIETLY BEEN offers a library with internet access for job lifeblood fundraiser; 400 well-heeled SERVING CENTRAL seekers trying to get back on their feet. An guests enjoy a Red Carpet walk, a wonderARKANSAS AS THE in-house chapel hosts memorial services ful meal, fabulous entertainment, local PLACE FOR PEOPLE for loved ones lost. An outdoor garden area celebrity fanfare and the opportunity offers an outdoor space for fellowship on to bid on big ticket live auction items. AND THEIR FAMILIES nice days. Since 1982, Wolfe Street Center Proceeds from Red Carpet fund operaTO MEET, RECOVER has quietly been serving Central Arkansas tional expenses for Wolfe Street Center AND THRIVE. as the place for people and their families for an entire year. to meet, recover and thrive. Open 16 hours a day, Wolfe Street And it is working. In its first-ever landmark report on Center serves 100,000 people during a calendar year and the subject, in November the Surgeon General released is a welcome refuge for people seeking support to maintain “Facing Addiction in America: The Surgeon General’s report their sobriety. Unlike treatment centers or other for-profit

on Alcohol, Drugs and Health.” The report calls for more support from community centers like Wolfe Street, where ‘mutual aid programs’ are proving effective in helping people recover. According to the report, 12-step programs like those offered at Wolfe Street Center ‘link people in recovery and encourage mutual support’ so their lives can be restored. In short, places like Wolfe Street Center are an effective antidote for alcoholism and addiction; a looming public health crisis for which communities must address collectively. Not doing so perpetuates the consequences of addiction overdoses, higher crime rates, motor vehicle crashes, as well as injuries, homicide, and even suicide—the leading cause of death in adolescents and young adults (aged 12 to 25).

If you or someone you know is affected by alcoholism or addiction, visit Wolfe Street Center at 1015 S. Louisiana Street in downtown Little Rock or call the office at 501-372-5662. You can also visit www.wolfestreet.org to learn more about local or national recovery resources.

WITH A COURT APPOINTED SPECIAL ADVOCATE, ARKANSAS’S MOST VULNERABLE CHILDREN WILL HAVE SOMEONE SPEAKING UP FOR THEIR BEST INTERESTS

ight here in our community, there are abused and neglected children who live in the shadows of our lives. She may be the little girl in your son’s kindergarten class, who had to move homes and change schools three or four times in the last year. He may be the lonely child at the park who doesn’t join the game. The foster care and child welfare system is full of compassionate lawyers, judges, social workers and foster families, but according to recent statistics, each year more than 8,000 children are placed in foster care statewide. This intense need can strain the system to the point where they are simply unable to protect the rights of each child. So the little girl who has already suffered in an abusing home, enters the foster care system which places her in three or four different homes in just a few months. Or the siblings who lost their mother to incarceration are split up and living on different sides of the state. A child cannot defend their own rights in these situations, but a CASA volunteer can! CASA is a national nonprofit organization which trains and supports volunteers – people like you and me – to speak and act as advocates for the best interests of abused and neglected children. They are trained to work within the child welfare and family court systems and are appointed by

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FEBRUARY 9, 2017 FEBRUARY 9, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES ARKANSAS TIMES

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judges to individual cases. With the help of a CASA volunteer, a child is half as likely to languish in the foster care system, and much more likely to find a safe and permanent home. I have seen firsthand the transformative impact a CASA volunteer can have on a child. A ten-year-old girl learning to read after receiving extensive tutoring recommended by a CASA volunteer. Two brothers getting to visit one another after months of being separated after a CASA volunteer’s recommendation. Three children returning to their mother’s home after she completed substance abuse residential treatment, recommended by a CASA volunteer. But in Arkansas, only 51% of the children in need have access to a CASA volunteer. More than 2,500 children don’t

have that advocate. We are dedicated to ensuring that every child in the foster care and child welfare system has a qualified CASA volunteer looking out for their best interests. To do this, we will need to more than double the 1,040 current CASA volunteers across the state. Especially needed are volunteers of color, as African American and Latino children are overrepresented in the child welfare and foster court system. Every child has a right to thrive, to be treated with dignity, and to live in a safe, loving home. Every child deserves a fighting chance. Once grown, these former foster kids could be our future doctors, teachers and leaders. Coming through a period of vulnerability and fear, the child can then understand his potential and his rights. She will believe in herself. This is our opportunity and our challenge.

I invite the people of Arkansas to stand up with me and support these children. Go to CASAforChildren. org or call 501-410-1952 and see how you can help. Mary Beth Luibel, Director Arkansas State CASA Association

JOIN WOLFE STREET FOUNDATION for our

18th ANNUAL OSCAR WATCH PARTY ROBINSON HALL BALLROOM

February 26, 2017 Red Carpet Photo Paparazzi: 5:30 pm Silent Auction: 6:00 pm Dinner: 7:00 pm $175 INDIVIDUAL $325 COUPLES PACKAGE

All proceeds benefit Wolfe Street Foundation and are used to operate Wolfe Street Center. Founded in 1982, WSF is Arkansasâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest non-profit resource dedicated to helping people and their families recover from alcoholism and addiction.

Get your tickets today! centralarkansastickets.com

Give him

ARKANSAS

For more information: e-mail casa@arcourts.gov WWW.ARKANSASCASA.NET arktimes.com FEBRUARY 9, 2017

GIVING BACK Build strength, stability and self-reliance through shelter Hardworking people in need of safe and affordable housing partner with Habitat for Humanity of Central Arkansas to build or improve a place they can call home. Habitat homeowners help build their own homes alongside volunteers and pay an affordable mortgage. With our help, Habitat homeowners achieve the strength, stability and independence they need to build a better life for themselves and their families. Your Donations Help Build Homes for Hardworking People in Central Arkansas. Donate and We’ll pick it up! Building materials, working household appliances, furniture, fixtures, home decor, clothing and books.

habitatcentralar.org/ReStore

501.771.9494

HABITAT FOR HUMANITY OF CENTRAL ARKANSAS: HELPING PEOPLE BUILD A PLACE TO CALL HOME .

DRIVERS PLEASE BE AWARE, IT’S ARKANSAS STATE LAW: USE OF BICYCLES OR ANIMALS

Every person riding a bicycle or an animal, or driving any animal drawing a vehicle upon a highway, shall have all the rights and all of the duties applicable to the driver of a vehicle, except those provisions of this act which by their nature can have no applicability.

OVERTAKING A BICYCLE

The driver of a motor vehicle overtaking a bicycle proceeding in the same direction on a roadway shall exercise due care and pass to the left at a safe distance of not less than three feet (3’) and shall not again drive to the right side of the roadway until safely clear of the overtaken bicycle.

AND CYCLISTS, PLEASE REMEMBER...

You’re vehicles on the road, just like cars and motorcycles and must obey all traffic laws— signal, ride on the right side of the road and yield to traffic normally. Make eye contact with motorists. Be visible. Be predictable. Heads up, think ahead. 36 36

FEBRUARY 9, 2017 FEBRUARY 9, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES ARKANSAS TIMES

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riven by the vision of a world where everyone has a safe and affordable place to live, Habitat for Humanity of Central Arkansas partners with people to build or improve a place they can call home. Habitat homeowners help build their own homes alongside volunteers and pay an affordable, zero-percent interest mortgage. Through financial support, volunteering, or adding a voice to support affordable housing, everyone can help families achieve the strength, stability and self-reliance they need to build better lives for themselves. Since 1989, Habitat for Humanity of Central Arkansas has built and rehabbed over 160 homes in Central Arkansas, and built or financed over 30 homes overseas. T h e a f f i l i a t e ’s Ne i g h b o r h o o d Revitalization program is another way they work towards their goal of making sure everyone has a decent place to live. The NR program is a focused neighborhood outreach approach that provides a path for residents, organizations, volunteers, and

Habitat for Humanity to come together to assist our focus neighborhood residents with needed repairs, weatherization, safety, accessibility, landscaping, and beautification of homes and their neighborhood. The Habitat ReStores help fund Habitat’s mission by covering all the operational overhead expenses for the Central Arkansas affiliate. That means every dime donated to Habitat for Humanity of Central Arkansas goes directly to building homes for local families in need. The Habitat ReStores accept donations of used but working appliances, furniture, building materials, clothing, books, home décor and more. Donating to a Habitat ReStore is easy, too. Just call 771-9494 and they’ll pick up your tax-deductible donation items for free!

To donate to or volunteer with Habitat for Humanity of Central Arkansas, please visit www. habitatcentralar.org.

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BE MY VALENTINE

Shop these local retailers to find the right way to say “I love you” to your special someone this year.

Get your

Valentine Hog Ready. Arkansas Flag and Banner has tons of new Razorbacks products in their 800 West 9th Street store, or you can shop online anytime (store pick up available)!

Look your

best for Valentine’s Day, or come get your sweetheart a gift card at 7th Street Salon.

Surprise the

green thumb in your life with passes to the upcoming Arkansas Flower & Garden Show. Tuck your tickets into a bouquet or card, and you’ll have a very happy valentine. argardenshow.org

Your sweetie

doesn’t have to miss out on yummy chocolates this V Day just because she or he is sticking to New Year’s diet goals. Treat them by grabbing a bag of these yummy Choco-Jettes from The Diet Center.

Sweet scents ts

for your sweetheart available at Box Turtle. tle. Bath Bon Bons, comfort fort food for the skin. Lavender Rose Cocoaa Butter Bathwater Salts. ts.

Arkansas Arts Center Museum Shop

The perfect Valentine’s gift from jewelry artist Rae Ann Bayless. This Fiery Red Coral embellished necklace to dress up or down! $225

MADDOX

Fly your flag year round!

CLOTHING & ACCESSORIES

Sizes Small - 3XL. Affordable | Stylish | Great Customer Service. WE’VE MOVED! 11525 Cantrell Rd., Ste. 403. Pleasant Ridge Shopping Center ShopMaddoxOnline.com

Come see what we have in the store or online at

FlagandBanner

.com

800 W. 9th St. • Downtown Little Rock • Hrs. 8-5:30 M-F • 10-4 Sat. ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT www.arktimes.com FEBRUARY 9, 2017 37 arktimes.com FEBRUARY 9, 2017 37

Sweet for your sweetheart! Dine in

with your sweetheart this Valentine’s Day! The meat experts at Edwards Food Giant will help you plan a delicious meal for you and your valentine.

664-6900 5501 Kavanaugh Blvd., Suite K • eggshellskitchencompany.com

From The Community. For The Community. DELIVERY AVAILABLE COMPETITIVE PRICES GOOD NEIGHBOR PHARMACY MOST INSURANCE ACCEPTED GIFTS • GREETING CARDS VITAMINS & HERBAL PRODUCTS VACCINATIONS AVAILABLE

DRUG STORE

(501) 664-4444 6815 Cantrell Rd. Located Next to Stein Mart

TanglewoodDrug.com

Bake some

sweets for your sugar lover with these (and more!) baking tools from Eggshells Kitchen Co.

Bring your

valentine in for the Kemuri Experience. Enjoy a chef’s tasting menu — Chef Haidar’s amazing creations — Kemuri is certain to give you the “Date Night” event you’ll remember all year. Make your reservation today!

Toothpicks Redeﬁned Daneson American milled, northern birch toothpicks are hand steeped in pure ingredients such as straight Kentucky Bourbon, single malt Scotch and essential oils.

M-F 10-6 • SAT 10-5 2616 KAVANAUGH BLVD. LITTLE ROCK 501.661.1167 • WWW.SHOPBOXTURTLE.COM

BEST GIFT SHOP

The best

date night is dinner and a show and you can get that at Murry’s Dinner Theater. Join them for their 50th anniversary season! Murrysdp.com

BUY IT!

3009 West Markham | Little Rock | 501.725.0209 11:00 - 6:00 Tue - Sat | stifftstationgifts.com 38 38

FEBRUARY 9, 2017 FEBRUARY 9, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES ARKANSAS TIMES

ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT

Find the featured items at the following locations:

7TH STREET SALON 814 W.Seventh St. 372.6722 7thstreetsalon.com

ARKANSAS ARTS CENTER MUSEUM SHOP 9th & Commerce 372.4000 arkansasartscenter.org

ARKANSAS FLAG AND BANNER 800 W. Ninth St. 375.7633 flagandbanner.com

BOX TURTLE 2616 Kavanaugh Blvd. 661.1167 Shopboxturtle.com

ARKANSAS FLOWER AND GARDEN SHOW 101 East Markham St. 821.4000 argardenshow.org

THE DIET CENTER 4910 Kavanaugh Blvd. 663.9482 dietcentercentralarkansas.com

ARKANSAS TIMES

MARKETPLACE TO ADVERTISE IN THIS SECTION, CALL LUIS AT 501.375.2985

ATTENTION Shop the clothier for

Stifft Station Gifts

has a valentine gift for every love on your list, including unique cards, jewelry by local designers, and home accessories with a love theme.

women of all shapes and sizes. At Maddox’s always affordable pricing, we can’t wait to grab that special Valentine’s date night dress. Be sure to follow them on Facebook for updates on specials and events.

ARKANSAS ARTISTS, ARTISANS AND CRAFTSPEOPLE NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS TO ATTEND AND SELL YOUR PRODUCTS AT THE FIRST ANNUAL

Tanglewood Drug Store

has just the medicine you are looking for this Valentine’s Day… SWEETS for you and your sweetheart. Juanita’s peanut brittle, Russell Stover Assorted Fine Chocolates and Iddy Biddy Hearts.

EDWARDS FOOD GIANT 7507 Cantrell Rd. 614.3477 other locations statewide edwardsfoodgiant.com EGGSHELLS KITCHEN CO. 5501 Kavanaugh Blvd., Suite K 664.6900 eggshellskitchencompany.com KEMURI 2601 Kavanaugh Blvd. 660.4100 kemurirestaurant.com MADDOX 11525 Cantrell Rd. Ste 403 313.4242 shopmaddoxonline.com

CRAFT SHOW MURRY’S DINNER PLAYHOUSE 6323 Colonel Glenn Rd. 562.3131 murrysdp.com STIFFT STATION GIFTS 3009 W Markham St. 725.0209 stifftstationgifts.com TANGLEWOOD DRUGSTORE 6815 Cantrell Rd. 664.444 tanglewooddrug.com

March 31-April 1 War Memorial Stadium Sponsored by The Arkansas Times and the War Memorial Stadium Foundation

For More Information call Vicki Hart

501-537-5227 Or email arkansasmadearkansasproud@gmail.com Featuring artisanal glass, textiles, metal, weaving, furniture, food, sculpture, soaps, wood, leather and fine art made in Arkansas.

ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT www.arktimes.com FEBRUARY 9, 2017 39 arktimes.com FEBRUARY 9, 2017 39

Building Brighter Futures – Together Pulaski Technical College has joined forces with the University of Arkansas System. And now, we’re stronger than ever. Discover the diamond that is you at University of Arkansas - Pulaski Technical College, and shine brighter than ever.

Brighter Than Ever

pulaskitech.edu 40

FEBRUARY 9, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES