Arkansas Times | October 2019

BEST WOMEN LAWYERS | HOT SPRINGS DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL | CANNABIS COUTURE

ARKANSASTIMES.COM

OCTOBER 2019

DAY, Y B N O RGE U S T O O NIGHT S: F K Y R B U R B JESSE AUTEU ITTLE M L I F R M HORROBY STEPHANIE S

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2 OCTOBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

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OCTOBER 2019 3

OCTOBER 2019

FEATURES 28 MASTER OF MACABRE

A local foot surgeon has an extracurricular filmmaking career, and it’s got legs.

By Stephanie Smittle

68 CHEERS TO BEERS

The state of craft beer in Arkansas and a taste of the 2019 Arkansas Times Craft Beer Festival.

9 THE FRONT

Q&A: Angie Maxwell The Inconsequential News Quiz: The Rapert vs. transparency edition.

Orval: Eavesdropping on the NRA’s ground troops.

17 THE TO-DO LIST

Ballet Arkansas’s “Sleepy Hollow,” Sarah M. Broom at “South Words,” King Biscuit Blues Festival, the Arkansas State Fair and more.

23 NEWS & POLITICS

On Michael Bolton’s ouster.

By Ernie Dumas

26 NEWS & POLITICS

In the South, GOP strategists are playing the long game.

ARKANSAS TIMES

Gerry Snyder: U of A’s incoming School of Art director is in listening mode.

By Katy Henriksen

62 FOOD & DRINK

Lisa Zhang’s burgeoning mini-empire of authentic Chinese restaurants.

By Lindsey Millar

81 TRAVEL

Holy water: A farm and a monastery brew up a pastoral beer scene in Logan County.

By Stephen Koch

86 CANNABIZ

Cannabis Couture: Designer Korto Momolu is putting the “high” in “high fashion.”

By Rebekah Hall

By Angie Maxwell and Todd Shields

96 CROSSWORD

46 CULTURE

98 THE OBSERVER

By Julie Zimmermann

ON THE COVER: Jesse Burks by Les Galusha and Matthew Martin

Erin Enderlin: The Conway native is sharing stages with her country music heroes.

4 OCTOBER 2019

50 CULTURE

On 9/11 and the “Cinema of Revenge.”

ARKANSASTIMES.COM

OCTOBER 2019 5

PUBLISHER Alan Leveritt EDITOR Lindsey Millar CREATIVE DIRECTOR Mandy Keener SENIOR EDITOR Max Brantley MANAGING EDITOR Leslie Newell Peacock ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR Stephanie Smittle ASSOCIATE EDITOR Rebekah Hall CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Benjamin Hardy, Mara Leveritt PHOTOGRAPHER Brian Chilson

Job Fair Little Rock & Conway - 8 am - 11 am October 8th, 16th and 29th Benefits Offered Upon Hire!

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8 OCTOBER 2019

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THE FRONT

Q&A

Angie Maxwell Has the Answers on Why the GOP Sways the South In her new book, “The Long Southern Strategy,” Angie Maxwell and co-author Todd Shields, both scholars at the University of Arkansas, mine opinion polls and decades of political and social history to reveal that exploiting racial anxiety was only one of the ways the GOP wooed Southern white voters. Republicans also rode a wave of anti-feminism and a strengthening alliance with the Christian Right to gain a solid grip on former Confederate states.

Much of what you study and write about surely infuses your own life as a woman living in the South, and raising a daughter here, to boot. Does that make it difficult to maintain academic perspective?

Yeah, I think it is hard when it affects you personally. I also think that’s when you get the best work. For so long we missed the role antifeminism played in flipping the South from blue to red. There’s lots of research on race and religion, but we saw them as separate pieces. We didn’t see the giant bridge in the middle about anti-feminism. The only way I saw that was by living it, by seeing how well intentioned, good-hearted, wonderful people began to believe that feminism would destroy their lives. When you start digging into the numbers you see Southern white women supported the Equal Rights Amendment in the beginning. They feel so threatened by it — the anti-ERA forces who are pitching feminism as, they’re going to make you put your kids in government daycare, they’re going to make you work. There was no institutional support for that then, no village. So it felt impossible. Even for women who wanted to pursue a career, they thought, “There’s no way I could do that. Who would help me?” So a lot of those women pushed back really hard.

What particular experiences in your life led you to study anti-feminism in the South?

I remember I was doing an interview on my first book, which was about the Southern white inferiority complex, how Southerners respond to criticism and how it creates a defensive culture. Marjorie Spruill, who wrote “Divided We Stand,” had me Skype into her class, and she asked me, “Where are the women in your book?” I had used archival material and there just weren’t any women in there. So I started thinking, did I drown out women’s voices? Did I look hard enough for them? Do the records just not reflect them?

Name: Angie Maxwell Birthplace: Winnfield, La.; graduated from high school in Baton Rouge.

Age: 41 Residence: Fayetteville for more than a decade.

Books that inspired “The Long Southern Strategy”: Lillian Smith’s “Killers of the Dream,” Carol Anderson’s “White Rage,” Kevin Kruse’s “One Nation Under God,” Glenn Feldman’s “Painting Dixie Red” and Marjorie Spruill’s “Divided We Stand.”

I looked for Southern white women’s political attitudes, their political roles, and I found nothing.

It’s a huge hole.

I grew up in an environment where I was always told I was too political. I didn’t see women having those conversations about public policy. The message was that you keep it to yourself because you don’t want to offend anybody. We have been conditioned to see politics and policy as not a polite concern.

That really struck me.

When my daughter was 5 she was in kindergarten, and it was in the middle of the lead-up to the 2016 campaign. She came home and asked me, “Mom, how many girl presidents have there been?” And I said, “Well, there haven’t been any.” She looked at me shocked, like why? Before I could answer her she said, “Mom, girls run kindergarten.” I was laughing because they really do. The girls get the boys in line, tell them they need to get their backpacks together because the bell is about to ring.

Seeing it through her eyes I realized how crazy it seems to her. She sees women in roles of authority through her whole childhood. At what point do we accept a shift, at what point does it become normal for men to be in charge? It took a child asking for me to think about it. I don’t know when that becomes normal.

So with all those experiences growing up, becoming a professor and then being a mom, you want to seek answers.

Who should read “The Long Southern Strategy”?

There’s a part of me that wrote it, in a sense, for myself. Growing up in a pretty conservative environment, being a female in the South, I wanted to find out how we got here. I want people to understand why people vote against their economic self-interest and not just dismiss them as stupid. I want people to see how political parties can frame the world we’re living in in a way that appeals to fear and anxiety and how that’s powerful, psychologically, to people who are not stupid. Any political party can do that. We’re not talking about policy that will help a region that has serious problems but not really an apparatus to solve those problems. That is what government is supposed to be, an institution that addresses real problems. But you can’t do that when it becomes entertainment. I want people to see how that happened.

— Austin Bailey ARKANSASTIMES.COM

OCTOBER 2019 9

THE FRONT

INCONSEQUENTIAL NEWS QUIZ

Give Me Tacos, or Give Me Death Edition Play at home, while skillfully re-editing Jason Rapert’s video deposition to make it seem like he rips a wet fart every time he pauses.

Capitol grounds. What was Rapert seeking with the motion?

A) To suppress as evidence the “Employee of the Decade” certificate he got from Satan for doing more to drive rational, empathetic people away from the Baptist Church than any other living Arkansan.

B) He proposed to settle the case by way of a “Devil Went Down To Georgia”-style fiddle-off between himself and Satanic Temple co-founder Lucien Greaves.

C) He’s challenging an X-ray image that proves the Ten Commandments monument is actually made of dark chocolate with a delicious nougat center.

D) He wants to keep the video of his deposition in the case secret from everyone except the attorneys involved in the lawsuit.

2) A parent-led band booster club at an Arkansas school drew criticism recently for a plan to auction off an AR-15 rifle similar to the rifles used in several recent mass shootings.

Other than being a spectacularly dumb idea, what made the plan extra bad?

A) Whoever wins the rifle also gets three chances to shoot an apple off the band director’s head.

B) It’s the rifle the school’s costumed mascot fires wildly into the air every time the football team makes a touchdown.

C) Due to a manufacturing error, the rifle only fires thoughts and prayers.

D) The band in question attends Westside High School in Jonesboro, the same city where two students at the similarly named Westside Middle School opened fire on their classmates in 1998, killing four students and a teacher.

3) Arkansas-based fashion whiz Korto 10 OCTOBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

Momolu made a splash with a new collection that debuted last month during New York Fashion Week. What’s extra special about the collection?

A) Governor Hutchinson later modeled the collection for a four-page spread in Painfully White State Executive Magazine.

B) The collection consisted of a single T-shirt printed with the correct phonetic pronunciation of Momolu’s name.

C) Designed exclusively for Donald Trump, the clothes are all invisible, with U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) praising them at length for their beautiful craftsmanship and stitching.

D) The collection, developed in collaboration with the group Women Grow, is cannabisthemed.

4) In response to recent events, Bentonvillebased retail giant Walmart asked its customers to stop doing something in its stores, a move that was soon echoed by other retailers. What got the boot from Wally World?

A) Dignity.

B) Tube top purchases by anyone over 35 years old.

C) The wailing, guilt-haunted spirit of Sam Walton, doomed to drag the empty cash registers of failed Mom-and-Pop stores through Walmart Supercenters for all eternity.

D) The open carry of firearms.

5) Attorneys for state Sen. Jason Rapert (R-Conway) filed a motion in federal court in September related to a lawsuit challenging the Ten Commandments monument on the state

6) Building on your answer in the question above, why does Rapert want to keep the video of his deposition in the case from being seen by the general public?

A) Previous videos of Rapert have caused anyone who watches them to die exactly one week later, as seen in the 2002 horror film “The Ring.”

B) He wants to sell it to gullible morons for $9.99 a pop.

C) He doesn’t want anyone to see Miss Hop Hop, the stuffed bunny he hugs for comfort in stressful situations.

D) Rapert fears that members of The Satanic Temple, which is currently seeking to place an 8-foot-tall bronze statue of the pagan deity Baphomet on Capitol grounds, will somehow use the video to embarrass him.

7) In a follow-up to the follow-up: According to lawyers representing those seeking to remove the Ten Commandments monument, why should the video of Rapert’s deposition be released?

A) The fact that Rapert keeps getting that haircut shows he is clearly incapable of experiencing embarrassment.

B) It’s a shoo-in winner on America’s Dumbest Home Videos.

C) It might be relevant in Rapert’s upcoming death penalty trial over a 2015 incident in which Rapert allegedly picked up sticks on the Sabbath, as forbidden in Numbers 15:32-36.

D) They argued that, as a public figure, Rapert has no legal standing to restrict public access to the video of his deposition.

ANSWERS: D, D, D, D, D, D’D

1) An unknown man in a white sedan allegedly attempted to run over an employee of a Taco Bell restaurant in Bryant last month before speeding away. Why, according to witnesses, did the man become angry enough to use his Pontiac as a weapon?

A) At the time, he was in the grip of a threeminute, pintos-’n’-cheese-related bowel cramp.

B) He thought his Doritos Locos taco was un poco loco at best.

C) The Nachos Bellgrande just aren’t the same since PETA made them take out the minced squirrel.

D) An employee told him the restaurant was out of taco meat.

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ARKANSAS TIMES

THE FRONT

THE FRONT

THE MONTH (OR SO) THAT WAS

LRSD Fate Debated, Chancellor Out

UALR CHANCELLOR OUT; ENROLLMENT DOWN UA Little Rock Chancellor Andrew Rogerson was forced to step down Sept. 1, and was replaced in the interim by Christina Drale, who was interim executive vice chancellor and provost.

UALR has suffered a decline in enrollment; the most recent drop was 8.2 percent, pushing the university’s budget deficit to $10.6 million.

Rogerson was unable to turn around the decline in enrollment and had to cut staff; he believed the eStem charter high school’s presence on the campus, including in the student cafeteria, was contributing to the decline.

14 OCTOBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

RESOLUTION WOULD OUST TAX CHEAT The state House will convene Oct. 11 to vote on whether to expel Rep. Mickey Gates, the Hot Springs Republican who pleaded no contest to a felony count of failing to file state income taxes. A resolution filed by House Speaker Matthew Shepherd (R-El Dorado) calls for Gates’ expulsion; Gates has refused to resign.

Expulsion requires take a two-thirds vote of the 100-member House.

VAPING RESTRICTIONS Sen. Jim Hendren (R-Gravette) has drafted a bill to be considered in the 2020 General Assembly that would snuff out vaping — smoking e-cigarettes that use vapor — in all places where smoking is prohibited. The bill would also tax e-cigarettes and provide the proceeds to schools for safety and mental health counseling. It would also restrict advertising of the product near schools and make other regulations.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating vaping illnesses in the wake of seven deaths attributed to the use of e-cigarettes. The state Department of Health is also warning Arkansans about the risk of lung illnesses due to vaping.

Hendren failed in the last General Assembly to tax vaping. The legislature instead stripped the Tobacco Control Board of regulatory powers over e-cigarettes and prohibited cities and counties from regulating vaping. The concessions to the vaping industry came in a bill to impose taxes on cigarette sellers, rolling papers and the sale of medical marijuana by cultivators and dispensaries, money that would go to cancer research at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

Hendren said in a news release that he is “encouraged by the favorable response” to the bill by his colleagues in the legislature.

California has begun a $20 million campaign warning of the dangers of vaping.

OFFICER’S FIRING UPHELD The Civil Service Commission upheld the termination of Little Rock Police Officer Charles Starks, who was fired after the February fatal shooting of Bradley Blackshire, who Starks stopped on suspicion of driving a stolen vehicle.

The Sept. 4 ruling was met with shouts of “Yes!” by family and friends of Blackshire, 31, whose killing prompted several protests outside City Hall. The commission hearing on Starks’ appeal — which started in July but recessed after Starks’ lawyer, Robert Newcomb, injured himself in a fall down the stairs at City Hall — began with testimony from assistant police chiefs Hayward Finks and Alice Fulk that Mayor Frank Scott put pressure on the LRPD to speed its investigation into the case. When the hearing reconvened in September, Assistant Chief Wayne Bewley, who was acting police chief at the time of the shooting, said the mayor was “adamant” about releasing a video of the incident quickly, but “didn’t have a real understanding of what we do and how this process works” during an investigation into police misconduct. He said he did not think Scott sought to expedite the investigation to deny Starks due process, but to get the video released quickly.

PARKING LOT PUSHBACK Billionaire Warren Stephens, whose indifference to historic preservation was illustrated in 2009 when he leveled buildings on the west side of the 400 block of Main Street for parking, got the city’s OK this summer to demolish four buildings on the west side of Louisiana Street between Second and Third streets, also to make way for more parking for employees at Stephens Inc. Now, in a rare expression of pushback against Stephens, the Little Rock Planning Commission has come out against the parking lot plan; its commissioner Craig Berry was quoted in an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette article that it would create dead space. Planning staff had recommended the parking lot as “appropriate use” because of the other surface level parking lots in the area, a logic that suggests the whole of downtown could be paved over because parking lots exist downtown.

The commission was to decide at its October meeting whether to OK the demolition of the historic Gay Building at Third and Broadway for a car wash.

BRIAN CHILSON

THE FUTURE OF THE LRSD DEBATED After almost five years of controlling the Little Rock School District, the state will soon have to come up with a new plan. The law requires that the state develop exit criteria for districts under its control. It took the state more than four years to do so for the LRSD. In February, it announced the criteria, which significantly includes test score improvement; many believe that the state intentionally designed the criteria so that the LRSD would fail to meet it. If a district doesn’t meet exit criteria after five years, the law requires the state either annex, consolidate or reconstitute the district. The former two options aren’t considered viable for the LRSD. The state Department of Education believes that reconstitution isn’t defined in state law.

Throughout late August and early September, members of the State Board of Education hosted five public meetings throughout Little Rock, ostensibly to get input on how the board might determine a meaning for reconstitution. But because board members and education department officials did not clearly explain the legal situation and tried to force the public to adhere to narrow comment prompts or “breakout” discussions, most of the meetings turned into raucous protests. The public outcry — varied in particular grievances, but unified in demanding the return of a democratically elected school board — seemed to make an impact. At a working session Sept. 11, Education Commissioner Johnny Key appeared to be steering the state board toward returning the full district to local control in 2020. A final decision had not been made by press time.

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the TO-DO list

BALLET ARKANSAS: ‘SLEEPY HOLLOW’

FRIDAY 10/18-SUNDAY 10/20. 7:30 P.M. FRI.-SAT., 2:30 P.M. SAT.-SUN. UA PULASKI TECH CENTER FOR HUMANITIES AND ARTS. $30-$35.

By STEPHANIE SMITTLE, REBEKAH HALL AND LINDSEY MILLAR

MELISSA DOOLEY PHOTOGRAPHY

Anyone who witnessed the lunging, lurching power of Ballet Arkansas’s “Dracula” this time last year knows our city’s professional ballet company is gifted far, far beyond the bounds of “The Nutcracker.” Like “Dracula,” the troupe’s 2019 production is built on original choreography from Ballet Arkansas Executive and Artistic Director Michael Fothergill, this time geared to interpret Washington Irving’s 1920 gothic novel. It’s “an ambiguous literary work,” the ballet’s Associate Artistic Director Catherine Garratt Fothergill told us, both “a love story and an eerie tale.” Ballet Arkansas just celebrated its 40th anniversary, and the Fothergills’ tenure thus far has been marked by inventive collaborations — like this one, in which local media firm Cranford Co. provides video projections (filmed at the Historic Arkansas Museum) and 360-degree surround sound as backdrop for the dancers. And, Catherine Fothergill said, a majority of the costumes for “Sleepy Hollow” will be built here in town at the direction of Ballet Arkansas costume director Verda Davenport-Booher, “to include a unique blend of period and modern attire, thanks to a growing partnership with the costume shop at our neighbors,” the Arkansas Repertory Theatre. “We’ve accomplished many things over these 40 years,” Fothergill told us, “but as we look forward to our future, we have shifted our focus to presenting unique portrayals, cross-pollinations and interactive experiential programming.” Get tickets at balletarkansas.org/sleepy-hollow. SS

ARKANSAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA: AN EVENING WITH HEATHER HEADLEY

COURTESY OF ARKANSAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

SATURDAY 10/5. 7:30 P.M. RON ROBINSON PERFORMANCE HALL. $19-$79.

Artist Heather Headley will bring her multifaceted musical prowess to Little Rock in a one-night-only performance with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. Rarely do ASO concertgoers get an opportunity to spend an evening with an early aughts R&B star, a Tony Award-winning actress and a recurring presence on NBC’s “Chicago Med,” but Headley is all of these things. Originally from Trinidad, Headley won the Tony Award for lead actress in a musical for her performance in “Aida” in 2000, and later won the Grammy Award for best contemporary R&B gospel album in 2010 for her album “Audience of One.” Her 2002 R&B album “This Is Who I Am” also scratches a satisfying nostalgic itch with such playable slow jams as “I Wish I Wasn’t” and the good man anthem, “He Is.” Headley originated the role of Nala in “The Lion King” musical on Broadway, and on Saturday, Oct. 5, she’ll be performing selections from her Broadway roles as well as other musical theater favorites. Special guest Chris Mann, a finalist from NBC’s “The Voice,” will also appear with Headley, as will Little Rock’s own Parkview Arts and Science Magnet High School Lab Singers and Madrigals. Tickets range from $19 to $79 and can be purchased online at arkansassymphony.org. RH

ARKANSASTIMES.COM

OCTOBER 2019 17

the TO-DO list

RUTHIE FOSTER BY RICCARDO PICCIRILLO

THE LIBRAS: BEATLES V. STONES

KING BISCUIT BLUES FESTIVAL

WEDNESDAY 10/9-SATURDAY 10/12. DOWNTOWN HELENAWEST HELENA. $10-$85.

The King Biscuit Blues Festival has been around since 1986, so it predates an era when the word “festival” translated loosely to “that in which a $386 ticket grants you access to $12 beers, long lines, tent camping, a spot as the 27,365th person at the Aphex Twin set and some enviable Instagram dispatches.” Basically, a sleepy town in the Delta comes roaring to life for a few days this time of year, descended upon by county fair vendors, German tourists, daydrinkers and every subgenre of blues music you can imagine. Named after a radio program that’s been airing since 1941, King Biscuit both preserves Helena’s blues heritage and nods to its future with sets this year from Ruthie Foster (pictured above), Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Delbert McClinton, Cedric Burnside, The G-Hope Choir, the Kaiser Singers, Charles Woods, The Cate Brothers, Akeem Kemp and about 70 other acts that will fill every street corner, dive bar, pop-up stage and storefront in downtown Helena. Check out the full lineup at kingbiscuitfestival.com, bring sunscreen and binge out on jumbo corn dogs and deltified blues for four days this fall. SS

SATURDAY 10/5 8:30 P.M. WHITE WATER TAVERN.

Central Arkansas’s finest (and least active) cover band, The Libras, returns to White Water Tavern for what’s becoming an annual tradition: a night devoted to the songs of widely beloved figures in pop music. Last year, the band, comprised of hotshot local musicians Isaac Alexander, Jason Weinheimer, Chris Michaels, Charles Wyrick and Rafael Gayol and assorted special guests, came together to play Traveling Wilburys songs in one set and songs from the members of the Wilburys in the second set.

Members of the audience spun a “Wheel of Fortune”-style wheel with each Wilbury’s name on it between each song and then shouted out requests.

It was just about the most fun I had at a live show all last year. Like last year’s event, this is a fundraiser for the Pulaski Heights Elementary PTA (full disclosure, I’m on the PTA board) and the band will probably asks for tips toward the fundraiser for a turn at the wheel. So bring your folding money. LM

ARKANSAS TIMES RIBS & BUTTS COOK- OFF

BRIAN CHILSON

SATURDAY 10/5, 1-5 P.M. FLYWAY BREWING. $20.

18 OCTOBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

Time does wonderful things to pork, and it’s done wonderful things for Arkansas Times’ annual hog roast, too — now matured into a block party that celebrates the best parts of the pig. R&B (“Ribs & Butts” and “Rhythm & Blues”) sets up shop at Flyway Brewing in the Argenta Arts District, with brews and street corn from Flyway, a performance from neo-soul chanteuse Genine LaTrice Perez and her nimble ensemble Lagniappe, and funkified tunes from the best Afrobeat/funk musicians in town, Funkanites. Pork ribs, Boston butts and a host of side items come from 10-plus teams in the cook-off.

Proceeds benefit the Argenta Arts District. Sponsors are Orion Federal Credit Union, Edwards Food Giant and Collins, Collins & Ray, P.A. Get tickets at centralarkansastickets.com. SS

JUSTICECON: ANGELA DAVIS AND IBRAM X. KENDI

It’s said that the term “intersectional feminism” originated in the late ’80s, but Angela Davis’ approach to activism in her early adulthood tells us plainly that the term was given life and breadth before it was given a name. Perhaps one of the most fundamental scholars in shaping the way we understand systemic racism today — and the way it informs issues of money, class, criminal justice and gender bias — Davis grew up in a mid-century Birmingham, Ala., a firsthand witness to segregation, violence and the power of protest. She’s an accomplished author and speaker and professor emerita at the History of Consciousness Department University of California, Santa Cruz, and she’s the guest of honor at Philander Smith College’s JusticeCon, a program from the school’s Social Justice Institute. Joining Davis at the conference are Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, founding director of The Antiracist Research & Policy Center at American University and author of the National Book Award-winning “Stamped from the Beginning” and the acclaimed “How To Be an Antiracist”; journalist and advocate for maternal and infant health Kimberly Seals Allers; researcher Joel Edward Goza; child and adolescent mental health scholar Dr. Michael A. Lindsey; “Justice Doula” Mickey ScottBey Jones; entrepreneur and TedX speaker Denise W. Barreto; and Philander Smith alum/instructor Carissa Rodgers. Get details and register to attend at rethinksocialjustice.org. SS

ALISON KRAUSS

WEDNESDAY 10/9. ROBINSON PERFORMANCE HALL. $70-$95.

Alison Krauss was a child prodigy of sorts. She could easily have built a career from either of her early talents as a singer or as a fiddler. Instead, she did both, and has won more Grammy Awards to date than anyone else on earth save for Quincy Jones and the late conductor Georg Solti. Credit her unexpected collaborations with the likes of Robert Plant and Phish for introducing Krauss to the bluegrass-averse, and credit T. Bone Burnett for placing in Krauss’ hands an American spiritual called “Down to the River to Pray” — a baptism hymn that plays a big part in elevating the soundtrack of the Coen Brothers’ film “O Brother Where Art Thou” to transcendence. Krauss has been touring and recording with Union Station for nearly three decades, and the band’s 2002 eponymous live double album is probably the plainest evidence you’ll find that this show at Robinson Performance Hall will be one for the books.

(Cue it up for Jerry Douglas’ dobro fury on “Choctaw Hayride,” leave it on for Krauss’ crystalline rendition of “When You Say Nothing at All.”) Get tickets at robinsoncenter.com/event-calendar. SS

DEFRANCE BY BRIAN CHILSON

MONDAY 10/7-TUESDAY 10/8. ROBINSON PERFORMANCE HALL. $50-$125.

ARKANSAS STATE FAIR

FRIDAY 10/11-SUNDAY 10/20 11 A.M. DAILY THROUGH OCT. 20. ARKANSAS STATE FAIRGROUNDS. $5-$10 ADMISSION, $10 PARKING, $30 RIDE ARMBAND. The Arkansas State Fair is the gleaming, whirring, dizzying beacon that eases The Natural State into the fall, whether or not temperatures agree. For 10 days, the fairgrounds south of Roosevelt Road are alive with neon lights, livestock, fried food and music. Shrieks of terror and glee — often indistinguishable from one another — weave together with calliope music to form an auditory backdrop that can be heard from the Hall of Industry. Themed fun houses provide opportunities to get lost and find a new version of yourself, interspersed between rides that sound like Star Trek spinoffs: the Orbitor, Star Dancer, Starship and Zero Gravity. The Space Roller, new to the fair this year, will offer attendees the chance to ride a giant claw that swings back and forth and rotates while slowly bringing riders higher into the air. Funnel cakes, fried bacon, fried spaghetti and meatballs on a stick, roasted corn, monstrous turkey legs, roast beef sundaes, fried potatoes of all varieties and the whimsical Koolickle — a Kool-Aid pickle — will all be ready for the glorious, greasy taking. The kids talent show and junior and senior youth talent competition will offer song and dance from the state’s young and ambitious. The Junior Fair Queen and Miss Fair Queen competition will crown its winners on Saturday, Oct. 19. Tickets also include general admission entrance to the fair’s nightly concerts, with the following lineup: Defrance (pictured above), 6:45 p.m. Friday, Oct. 11; Rick Springfield, 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 11; Bree Ogden Band, 6:45 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 12; Craig Morgan, 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 12; Ralph Tresvant, 7 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 13; Mary Heather and The Sinners, 6:45 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 15; Oak Ridge Boys, 8 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 15; Willowack, 6:45 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 16; Tragikly White, 8 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 16; Zac Dunlap Band, 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 17; Just Sayin’, 6:45 p.m. Friday, Oct. 18; Gin Blossoms, 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 18; Kasey Earl Band, 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 19; Bailey Hefley, 5:45 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 19; Jason Pritchett and The Steel Horses, 6:45 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 19; Sawyer Brown, 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 19; and Dazz Band, 7 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 20. RH ARKANSASTIMES.COM

OCTOBER 2019 19

the TO-DO list

HOT SPRINGS DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL

SARAH M. BROOM BY ADAM SHEMPER

FRIDAY 10/18-SATURDAY 10/26. ARLINGTON HOTEL, DOWNTOWN HOT SPRINGS. $12-$400.

SOUTH WORDS: SARAH M. BROOM

The longest-running all-documentary film festival in North America happens every year about an hour away from Little Rock, a treasure that’s still somehow underappreciated in its home state. With three decades of stellar screenings, directors panels, educational outreach programs, appearances from film stars like Zazie Beetz and Werner Herzog and memorable after-parties in HSDFF’s rearview mirror, it’s developed a reputation as a sure bet, and the 2019 lineup is no exception. Filmmaker Nanfu Wang’s “One Child Nation” delves into China’s longtime one-child policy; Waad Al-Kateab’s “For Sama” is an award-winning journalist and mother’s report from the frontlines of the Syrian war; renowned sound designers Cecelia Hall, Richard L. Anderson and Glenn Kiser lead a panel discussion after a screening of “Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound”; and screenings include a career-spanning biopic on Flannery O’Connor, a portrait of three trans high school athletes challenging discriminatory game rules and tons more. Check out the full schedule and get your passes at hsdfi. org. SS

If you’ve talked to a book lover this fall, it’s entirely possible you’ve already heard the name Sarah M. Broom. Her debut memoir, “The Yellow House,” came out Aug. 13, and in its young life on the shelves of bookstores it’s already begun to cement a position as a quintessential New Orleans memoir, not least because of its willingness to confront inequality within the beloved city, a malady that was systemic to the city long before Hurricane Katrina came along and provided a tidy category in which to place the blame. From within the four bygone walls of Broom’s childhood home — a shotgun shack her mother purchased with insurance money as a 19-year-old widow — Broom’s novel looks unblinkingly at institutionalized racism in New Orleans East and well beyond. She debuts a new series at the Oxford American literary magazine called “South Words,” and the conversation at CALS Ron Robinson will be moderated by KaToya Ellis Fleming, the Oxford American’s 2019-20 Jeff Baskin Fellow. See oxfordamerican.org/events for more about “South Words.” SS

ARKANSAS TIMES COSTUMES AND COCKTAILS HALLOWEEN BASH THURSDAY 10/31. 6 P.M.-9 P.M. RUSTY TRACTOR VINEYARDS. EARLY BIRD TICKETS FOR $25.

Slip on your scariest and/or slinkiest get-up and join the Arkansas Times at its first-ever Halloween party! Sponsored by Orion Federal Credit Union, this spooky romp through the haunted Rusty Tractor vineyards will offer guests Halloween-themed cocktails from Don Julio, Crown Royal, Captain Morgan and Smirnoff, as well as Rusty Tractor’s local wines. The Electric Five will also be playing live music — which hopefully will include a spirited cover of “The Monster Mash” — and food will be available for purchase from local food trucks. Rope your friends into dressing up as the group of brave nerd children from “Stranger Things,” or try to convince your significant other that this is the year you’ll master the Dana Scully and Fox Mulder couples costume. There will be prizes awarded for Best Overall Costume, Sexiest Costume, Best Couples Costume and Scariest Costume, so start planning your trips to Goodwill for costume components now, before all the ’80s polyester suits are gone and your plan to dress up as Joaquin Phoenix in the upcoming Joker movie is ruined. Early bird tickets are $25 and available on centralarkansastickets.com for a limited time. RH 20 OCTOBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

DAZZ & BRIE BY JOSHUA ASANTE

TUESDAY 10/15. 6:30 P.M. CALS RON ROBINSON THEATER. FREE.

LOST FORTY BREWING: FESTIVAL OF DARKNESS

SATURDAY 10/26. 5 P.M. LOST FORTY BREWING. $20.

Although we dare not begrudge anyone their pumpkin spice, their sweaters or their football (or, come to think of it, their leafy memes about all of the above), Lost Forty knows what autumn is really about: the yearly return of dark beers with ABV percentages that approach wine-like levels. One such beer is the reason for the season at Lost Forty’s annual Festival of Darkness — a limited release barrel-aged Imperial Stout called “Nighty Night,” with notes of black cherry, roasted coffee and cacao nibs that has been aged in barrels of rye whiskey, bourbon and red wine and has a staggering 10.5 percent ABV. (Butter up your designated driver in early October or arrange for a lift.) The zombie lumberjack that graces the beer’s packaging is both patron saint of the shindig and a template for what to wear: There’s a Zombie Lumberjack Costume Contest and cash prizes for best-dressed zombies. All of that happens to the soundtrack of sets from a few hometown heroes — rock ’n’ soul queens Dazz & Brie (above) and emcee/ educator/wordsmith Big Piph. Food trucks will be on site, along with 20-plus partnering breweries pouring their best darks. Get tickets at Eventbrite, or follow Lost Forty’s Facebook page to the ticket link. SS

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OCTOBER 2019 21

Salsa Dancing

We Our Students

Tuesdays and Fridays

Starts with a one-hour lesson, no partner or experience required

A MESSAGE FROM OUR ACADEMIC COUNSELOR

ualr.edu/nursing

DEPARTMENT OF NURSING Belinda Nix Academic Counselor UA Little Rock For over 50 years, the UA Little Rock Department of Nursing has inspired and guided individuals toward the dynamic profession of nursing. Our faculty and staff are dedicated to improving the health care of all Arkansans by educating professional, thoughtful and compassionate nurses. We offer an Associate of Applied Science (AAS), BSN, LNP/Paramedic to RN and online BSN completion program. Our advice for students is to take ownership and get as much information as possible about the nursing profession and degree options. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Do this early and often! Visit: www.ualr.edu/nursing or email bknix@ualr.edu for additional information.

We Our Students ualr.edu/nursing

DEPARTMENT OF NURSING

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Jay Meador, Executive Vice President Central Arkansas President

David Shindler, Executive Vice President

Diana Smithson, Senior Vice President

Adam Sharp, Assistant Vice President

Bear Van Ness, Assistant Vice President

Commercial Relationship Manager Commercial Relationship Manager

Private Banking Relationship Manager Commercial Relationship Manager

www.iberiabank.com 22 OCTOBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

NEWS & POLITICS

GAGE SKIDMORE

WAR HAWK DOWN: Former national security adviser Bolton believed in war as a basic instrument of foreign policy, as long as others did the fighting. did the fighting.

It Could Be Worse

JOHN BOLTON’S OUSTER AS NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER MAKES US SAFER.

BY ERNEST DUMAS

P

eople have to look for solace and hope wherever they can find them in these scary Trumpist times, and I view my job to be helping their search for peace of mind.

There was a palpable national sigh of relief on Sept. 10 when President Trump fired his third national security adviser, John Bolton, the fiercest war hawk of modern times. It seemed to mean that the United States suddenly was far less likely to find itself in still another war and especially a civilization-ending nuclear holocaust, a peril that millions of Americans had glimpsed when Trump won the Republican nomination in 2016.

Trump had wondered why the president shouldn’t use his vast arsenal of nuclear weapons and why we shouldn’t help Japan, South Korea and other dependent allies get their own nuclear stockpiles rather than expecting the United States to protect them from the likes of China, Russia, North Korea or hostile neighbors. He threatened the annihilation of defiant third-world countries like North Korea and Iran. Most Americans, though not in Arkansas, were unnerved by his threats and wild promises of total victories against the enemy, or else!, on every front — its Middle East wars, diplomacy, trade, the economy, deficits, corporate taxes, climate freaks and environmentalists.

So sleep ought to come a little easier for everyone now that Bolton is gone, probably back to Fox News, which is where Trump fell in love with him for his diatribes against Barack Obama and his bold talk about taking no prisoners either from the country’s old Cold War foes, enemies in the Middle East’s religious wars or shaky allies in Europe or the Americas.

But the nightmares about nuclear war or just fresh wars in the Middle

East, Southeast Asia or South America, where with Bolton’s encouragement he briefly threatened to use our armed might against the leader of Venezuela, should have been dispelled long ago. We just lacked a good grasp of Trump’s anti-social or narcissistic personality disorder. It was a simple lesson most of us learned on the schoolyard. Bullies are usually cowards and their boasts are only bluffs. They nearly always capitulate before claiming victory.

So it always was with Trump. Everyone knows that despite his efforts to ally himself with the military and battlefield heroism, Trump avoided military duty himself by repeatedly claiming a sore heel. For that matter, so did John Bolton, who also avoided the draft as the war in Vietnam escalated by joining the National Guard, doing some basic training and going to a few weekend drills. Bolton said he was a strong advocate of the war, but he realized that hippies ultimately would prevent America from whipping North Vietnam, so he dodged the draft because he didn’t want to die in a losing cause after getting a degree from Yale.

But Bolton was different from Trump. Bolton really believed in wars as the basic instrument of foreign policy, as long as others did the fighting.

He was a leader of the band of nationalists — Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Kristol and others — who called themselves the Project for the New American Century and infiltrated the second Bush administration to plan the invasion and capture of Iraq to plant the seeds for U.S. domination of the oil-rich Middle East and from there the world.

In the Bush administration and afterward, Bolton promoted wider and more destructive wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria and the threat and use of force to overthrow the hostile regimes of North Korea and Iran.

ARKANSASTIMES.COM

OCTOBER 2019 23

VISIT TODAY. CLOSING OCTOBER 27!

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24 OCTOBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

The latter-day Trump claimed to have opposed war in Iraq from the start, although the record shows he lukewarmly supported it at the time, but it became clear very early that Trump was afraid of war and would go to any lengths to avoid one as long as he could somehow claim victory without it. He discovered that it was easy, at least with his base. He merely needed to declare victory, not achieve it.

North Korea leader Kim Jong-un, along with most of the world, realized that long before Americans did. Trump claimed that the little dictator, who killed family members whom he suspected of wanting his job, had bullied Barack Obama but wouldn’t bully him.

When Kim said he was going to build intercontinental missiles capable of reaching the United States and a modern nuclear warhead that could be delivered to U.S. metropolises, Trump would tweet, “It will never happen.” Kim soon launched two ICBMs that could reach Washington, D.C., and then a modern nuclear device that scientists said could be delivered across the Pacific. Trump called him bad names.

Trump wanted to meet Kim and strike a deal on nuclear weapons and missiles. Kim first went to Beijing, where the Chinese premier obviously told him to treat Trump like a prince and an admired friend, as the Saudi royalty and the Chinese leaders had done with salutary effect in the early months of the presidency. Kim wrote Trump worshipful personal letters. You know the rest. Their negotiations were over after a short morning chat, Trump declared their hostility was over, the U.S. and North Korea were now friends and that he was going to make the poor little country rich and powerful. His approval rating shot up a few points into the 40s. Kim has resumed testing and bomb production. Trump said that was fine.

One reason Trump finally fired Bolton was that the old warmonger with the Taft moustache kept running down his pal Kim, who needed to be hugged, not shunned or bombed.

To Bolton’s dismay, Trump secretly set up and then angrily canceled a big meeting at the presidential retreat at Camp David to announce a deal with the Taliban for the total withdrawal of

U.S. forces from Afghanistan, leaving the people’s government at the mercy of the insurgents, as the Russians had done 30 years ago. Trump left open the possibility that he could just pull out of Afghanistan and let the insurgents have it.

He withdrew the U.S. from the agreement with Iran to stop the development of nuclear weapons and threatened the country with annihilation.

When Iran’s elected leaders said that, because the U.S. had reneged on the bargain they would abandon their part, too, and resume uranium enrichment, Trump hinted that he wanted to meet with them as he had with Kim with the prospect of the same nice result. He said he would make Iran and its leaders rich.

The Iranians are shrewd. They know that they can get a better deal from Trump than they got from Barack Obama and John Kerry any time.

The only price is that they have to let him say he won. Let’s hope the Iranians don’t overplay their hand and that they cut the deal right away before Benjamin Netanyahu and the Saudi royalty force the destabilized president into a military action that he fears.

Everyone in the world except his base and the terrified majority long ago learned the pathology of the president’s narcissism. He needs relentless victories; symbolic or pyrrhic ones are just fine.

Mexico and Canada learned giddily that the brief trade war could produce a beneficial revision of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Trump boasted about the NAFTA “victory” but never submitted the new agreement to the Republican Congress for ratification, assuming no doubt that it would demonstrate how fruitless it was for his country. The U.S. trade deficit hit a record last year.

There is plenty to worry about for the remaining 16 months of the Trump presidency — the increasing poisoning of our air and water, climate catastrophes, more corporate grifting, the undermining of the national security apparatus and democratic institutions like elections, and bureaucratic and White House graft.

But all those nightmares of precipitous war were for nought. John Bolton realized it and is gone. Start sleeping better.

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OCTOBER 2019 25

NEWS & POLITICS

Nationalizing Southern Identity THE GOP’S LONG GAME.

BY ANGIE MAXWELL AND TODD SHIELDS For anyone still trying to make sense of her evangelical Christian aunt’s abiding loyalty to President Trump, “The Long Southern Strategy” (Oxford University Press) is essential reading. The new book from University of Arkansas scholars Angie Maxwell and Todd Shields expands the commonly understood idea of “Southern strategy”: that the GOP, beginning in 1964 under Barry Goldwater and continuing through Richard Nixon, played on Southern racial prejudices to turn the region into a stronghold. Maxwell and Shields convincingly demonstrate that the Republican Party’s Southern approach continued much longer than previously understood and was as much about feminism and religion as it was about race. — Lindsey Millar

B

Poor southern whites have long been conditioned to forfeit a personal battle in the service of winning an imagined war from which they do not benefit.

26 OCTOBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

y definition, white southern identity is rooted in opposition to something or someone else. Whiteness is meaningless without blackness. Confederate is meaningless without Yankee. George Wallace, who pounded his fists on this substructure of the southern white psyche, described a very clear “them” to which his audiences did not want to belong — a technique called “positive polarization.” Hippie agitators, pinhead intellectuals, and liberal socialists all became emblematic of who he was not. Whether they liked Wallace did not matter; he became their “us” in an “us vs. them” dichotomy deeply familiar to white southerners. That rhetorical style and its intensity was not lost on GOP strategists, as it became their pitch in the battles between feminists and anti-feminists, makers and takers, believers and heretics, patriots and traitors. The more that is believed to be at stake, the more unified the “us” and the more demonized the “them,” and the more the threat is repeated, the more it is believed. Advantages for the other side equaled disadvantages for the home team in the zero-sum game that has always been the essence of southern white identity.

As team allegiance — to whiteness, patriarchy, or fundamentalist Christianity — grows stronger through rivalry, so too does the demand for total loyalty. Any changes to the rules, so to speak, whether by court or Congress, were met by many southern whites

with creative noncompliance, or massive resistance, or both until directly enforced. Compromise, after all, was a slippery slope, and absolutism the only anchor. And yet there were moderates, a majority of whom were silent, who did not want to seem resistant to progress or to be judged by others or even by themselves. To remain loyal, those folks often needed deniability, a “Great Alibi,” as Robert Penn Warren called it. Coded rhetoric provided political cues without provoking rebuke or even one’s own conscience. Just as it had done during the southern atrocities of lynchings and slavery, noted anthropologist John Dollard, who studied the South in the 1930s, this moral passivity or non-engagement enabled extremism. There were only a handful of people in any given community who could, Dollard claimed, actually bring themselves to do the lynching. But there were multitudes who were content to watch. If they were not content, they were, at the least, not outraged enough or too fearful of the social consequences to protest. Yet by their silence, sadism became their spokesman, while the rest of the country — and the world, for that matter — observed such strange fruit in disbelief. That kind of extremism, even when only rhetorical, further entrenches absolutism, which then silences moderation, which then amplifies zealotry, a repeating cycle through which southern whites have too often staved off progress in the region. So choosing to chase southern white electors means racing to the polar end and dragging the party there too, until the middle cannot hold. Because of those historic decisions, GOP candidates are “An Echo, Not a Choice,” and voters have to pick sides — “you’re either for it, or you’re against it,” as Wallace said — in the latest battle of what has been an ongoing cultural civil war.

Such absolutism was also reflected in the way that white southerners maintained their power via top-down control without compromise. Those most likely to challenge that hierarchy internally were made to feel like they were connected to those at the top.

They had the same culture, or the same enemy, or the same skin color. They were both gentlemen or rebels or agrarians or they attended the same church.

They might all be natives to the county

or their parents had been. They were all superior to the black man and, of course, they were the king of their castle, no matter how humble it may be. Whatever the common ground, if promoted enough, it created an illusion of common opportunities, even if only aspirational, whereby threats to those opportunities became threats to them all. So powerful was the illusion that it trumped class alliances, even though fidelity often meant voting against one’s economic self-interest, sometimes in ignorance, sometimes by choice, depending on how deeply the voter needed to believe in that common “us.”

So just as folks who did not own slaves or profit financially from slavery took up the collective cause of the Confederacy, so too did many southern whites vote for wealthy, “maker” candidates who wanted to cut the federal programs on which so many rely — from Social Security to welfare to food stamps to healthcare subsidies — rather than self-identifying as a “taker.”

And if that program was portrayed as leveling the playing field between whites and blacks or even men and women, or if it was the signature accomplishment of an African American leader or advocated for by a feminist, then opposing it — as irrational as it may seem — becomes part of a larger campaign to defend the southern white way of life, even as it pragmatically makes daily life that much harder. Poor southern whites have long been conditioned to forfeit a personal battle in the service of winning an imagined war from which they do not benefit.

Thus, the GOP’s success is not solely the result of the policy positions that the party took on civil rights enforcement or the ERA or on the separation of church and state. It was also the way they did it, selling those positions with a southern accent, so to speak. The Long Southern Strategy had to have both substance and a not-so-new style. To that end, Republican candidates didn’t just campaign down South, they blended into the southern landscape so completely as to seem as if they had always been there. So much so that in an August 2017 national poll conducted by the Economist and YouGov, the majority of all Americans surveyed (54 percent) now report believing that Confederate monuments are symbols of “southern pride,” not “symbols of racism” (26 percent). The rest claim they don’t know. The fact that a majority of whites do not know or do not acknowledge the racist history of many of these monuments proves a critical point made by Rebecca Solnit in her article “The American Civil War Didn’t End. And Trump Is a Confederate President.”

Solnit writes: “We never cleaned up after the Civil War, never made it an anathema, as the Germans have since the second world war, to support the losing side.” She’s right; for those very reasons, southern white identity has been both politicized and nationalized. Among Republicans, specifically, the “southern pride” believers swell to 84 percent. They may not all identify as southern, but Republicans in general are sympathetic to the lost cause. The duck hunt turned out to be a massacre. The Long Southern Strategy not only tapped into racial and gender-role and evangelical angst, it perpetuated it, sometimes even constructing it whole cloth.

Over time, that made the party southern, not in terms of place, but in its vision, in its demands, in its rhetoric, and in its spirit. And that has changed American politics.

ARKANSASTIMES.COM

OCTOBER 2019 27

GROSS ANATOMY: Jesse Burks puts his knowledge of the human body to use as a talented foot surgeon — and in his budding career as a filmmaker.

Jesse Burks: foot surgeon by day, horror film auteur by night.

BY STEPHANIE SMITTLE SPECIAL EFFECTS BY LES GALUSHA PHOTOGRAPHY BY MATTHEW MARTIN 28 OCTOBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

J

esse Burks’ 2014 short film “One Please,” is 330 seconds long, and every one of those seconds feels like a trap.

There is no dialogue. In its place, we hear the pulse of a knife’s edge slicing through scallions on a kitchen counter, ticking away like a clock’s second hand. In the recliner, a dapper gentleman in a bowtie and cardigan puffs at his pipe and fiddles with his newspaper, his lovely, apron-clad wife lifting her eyes from the cutting board to gaze at him adoringly.

For some reason, her ring finger is missing its fingertip; her wedding band encircles a well-healed stub. The camera pivots slowly to Pops’ hands. His ring finger is missing its distal joint as well.

Same with the pinky. Outside, a girl in pigtails and Mary Janes skips rope through a suburban neighborhood, pausing to stare at an approaching ice cream truck with a grotesque clown bobblehead atop its roof. And all the while, the knife beats out a steady thud on the cutting board. You don’t know exactly what’s coming, or when. You only know that it will be terrible.

Since its release, “One Please” has been viewed more than 11 million times on YouTube. Because it has no dialogue, it’s especially found a foothold in non-native-English-speaking countries, with a sweet spot in the Philippines. It’s played at Tribeca and at Park City, Utah’s Slamdance Film Festival. It’s become a darling at horror film festivals across the country — thanks, in part, to the fact that the film’s Ice Cream Man is played by Michael Berryman, of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “The Hills Have Eyes” fame.

Before “One Please,” Burks claims, he had no idea how to write a script. What he did know, though, was how an appendage — a finger or a toe, let’s say — might behave under the stress of a knife blade. How long it might take to heal. Where to slice it for a clean amputation, at what angle, and what it sounds like when you do.

That’s because, at his day job, the Benton native cuts people. His full professional title is Dr. Jesse Brian Burks, D.P.M., and he’s a doctor of podiatry and podiatric surgeon at Bowen Hefley Orthopedics, a musculoskeletal care team with branches in Little Rock, North Little Rock, Cabot and Jacksonville.

After graduating from Des Moines University College of Podiatric Medicine and Surgery and completing a residency in reconstructive foot and ankle surgery at Winona Memorial Hospital in Indianapolis, as well as a trauma and reconstructive surgery fellowship at Graz University in Graz, Austria, Burks returned to Central Arkansas in 1999 with his wife, Catherine, and their three sons to practice medicine in Pulaski County. His clinical biography cites special interests in “total ankle arthroplasty” and “reconstruction of the severely deformed foot and ankle” using “Ilizarov techniques,” a treatment that involves attaching a series of stainless steel rings to a limb fracture, stabilizing the bone as the soft tissue surrounding it regenerates and allowing the patient to bear weight a little earlier in the healing process. “He is a wonderful doctor,” a Google review of Burks reads. “He took good care of my husband’s foot problem.” One patient cites Burks’ “great bedside manner,” another describes him as “competent and compassionate,” and a third patient says simply, “Dr. Burks is the reason I am able to walk again.”

ARKANSASTIMES.COM

OCTOBER 2019 29

“I don’t know that I consider my stuff

‘horror,’

even. It’s been called

‘creepy-sweet.’”

30 OCTOBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

“CREEPY-SWEET” Crypt TV, a media company owned by horror mogul Eli Roth that seeks to “create culture changing monster stories that bring the world closer together,” has been airing “One Please” on its YouTube channel since April 2017. The film has spawned a little family of “reaction videos,” in which horror fans film themselves watching the whole nightmare unfold while a split screen window plays the original movie concurrently at the lower left corner of the frame. Together, the videos form a high-strung montage of wide-eyed viewers behind desk microphones. Some fret nervously, others sit utterly frozen. Most emit tiny gasps and spit out monosyllabic objections like “What? NO!” and “Why? Why?” “I remember the first time we played it at one of the festivals,” Burks told us. “One of the first festivals where we were actually there was Tribeca, and you could kind of start to see people’s shoulders start to go up, their heads start to go sideways. That’s a good feeling.”

The writerly among us would be tempted to theorize about the film’s deeper meaning, teasing out all manner of metaphors and profundity: The things parents will do for their children! The sacrifices we make to be an American suburbanite, with a white picket fence, 2.3 children, a two-car garage! Capitalism’s ruthless consumption of the human body! (Ice cream man as Grim Reaper?) If you ask Burks about his genesis for the film inspiration, though, he’ll smile and say earnestly, “I just thought, ‘What if somebody got something cut off, and what if they did it really slow? And in front of someone else. Like a child!’ ” Gore notwithstanding, Burks’ films — all of which have runtimes under a quarter-hour, and all of which have zero dialogue — feel less like splatterfests and more like suspense. He described them in a 2017 AMA (Ask Me Anything) thread on Reddit as “wonderfully odd, and frequently disturbing, little horror films,” which is about as accurate a descriptor as any. “I don’t know that I consider my stuff ‘horror,’ even. It’s been called ‘creepy-sweet.’

Where it’s like, yeah, it’s kind of scary and off-putting, a little bit, but at the same time there’s almost a kindness kinda mixed in there with it. I consider it more along the lines of ‘Twilight Zone’ stuff, and not so much like ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ stuff.”

Burks is, himself, patently un-creepy. He’s boundlessly youthful, and quick to smile. He’s proud of his kids. He wakes up early in the morning, drinks two cups of strong coffee, and runs or lifts weights before he heads to the clinic. He likes pecan pie, good whiskey and classic Nike sneakers. Every now and then he’ll take on a challenging cooking project with his family on the weekends; his son Gunnar studied welding, and fashioned a “big monstrosity of a smoker” the Burks family uses for barbecue. Catherine’s family is from Poland, so Burks has tried his hand at borscht and pierogis. He runs marathons. And, while he makes no secrets about being both a foot surgeon and a maker of scary movies, he’s conscientious about his patients’ trust and comfort. His brand of cinematic gore may be macabre, but it does not venture below the knee.

He talked a little about his conceptual approach at a February 2019 “Arkansas Filmmaker Spotlight” session hosted by the Arkansas Cinema Society. His harrowing 2016 short, “Cured,” and his whimsical 2019 vignette, “Odd Happenings in a Tiny Tent,” flanked “One Please” on the program. “I love mixing emotions,” Burks said on the CALS Ron Robinson Theater stage. “It’s like, think of being wrapped in a super comfy blanket, but then I’ll take that blanket and turn it into the hide of a giant tarantula.

And those eight glassy eyes are staring back at you.”

Burks’ mom, Sherry Plain, was in the crowd that winter day, so when Burks called out from the stage to confirm the details of a particularly striking bit of family history,

he had a reliable assist. Jesse must have been, it was determined, “12 or 13 when it happened” — “it” being the time Jesse’s stepdad, Merle, was applying a Skilsaw to a piece of plywood and hit a knot that caused the blade to ricochet and bounce upward, relieving Merle of the end of his thumb. They looked for the wayward fingertip, to no avail. Eventually, Merle, who worked in an auto body shop, wrapped what was left of his thumb in one of his kerosene-soaked rags and headed to the emergency room, where the wound was sewn up, sans the missing tip. “I hope the dog doesn’t find it,” the family all said.

THE BURKS BOYS Filmmaking for Burks is, he says, “a hobby that got out of hand.” In 2011, his oldest son, Harley, developed an interest in acting. Jesse and Catherine sprung for drama lessons, as parents are wont to do when a young person’s imagination is sparked. They also sprung for a camera, “just kinda like a point-and-shoot jobby,” Burks said, ordered from Amazon. “You know, you’re always looking for stuff to have in common to do with your kids. I didn’t know anything about cameras.”

Undeterred by mutual inexperience, the Burks boys — Jesse and sons Harley, Jaeger and Gunnar — set about the task of making movies together, one of which was a series called “Almost Deadly,” about “an assassin who started being an assassin at the age of 10.” (Burks insists the character is overdue for a resurrection.) “It was so corny,” Harley told us. Making movies, Harley said, was his dad’s way of looking out for him, a sort of tech-y alternative to playing catch. “He definitely did it to help me,” Harley said. “But then I think he just thought it was cool, and kept doing it.”

“Now that I look back on them,” Burks said, “they’re horrible. I wouldn’t want anybody to see them. But that was the thing that — it just snowballed from there. We started doing more and more of them.”

Kathryn Tucker, Arkansas Cinema Society’s executive director and co-founder and a filmmaker herself, produced “One Please.” Burks’ strengths, she said, are manyfold. “What I loved about working with him is that he was ARKANSASTIMES.COM

OCTOBER 2019 31

always willing to ask, ‘What do you guys think?’ To me, that’s the ultimate collaborator. His creative vision was always very strong, but listening to others is one of the keys to making a good film.”

What emerged for Harley were twin interests in theater and criminal psychology. What emerged from Jesse were more films — first, a couple of entries in Little Rock’s chapter of the 48-Hour Film Festival, and later, a 2012 short called “Fowl,” which landed at the now-defunct Little Rock Film Festival. “Do you know Mark Thiedeman?”

Burks asked. “Love Mark to death.” Following the screening of “Fowl,” Burks told us, Little Rock filmmaker Thiedeman approached him, complimenting the film and encouraging Burks to make more of them.

And Burks did, emerging two years later with “One Please” and then again in 2016 with a grisly little noir called “Cured.” The latter is an exercise in chiaroscuro, with whimsical special effects

by Les Galusha and high-contrast lighting courtesy of cinematographer Gabe Mayhan (who is married to Tucker). “Cured” takes place almost entirely in a shadowy operating room, and whatever Burks read during his med school days about trepanation — a sort of precursor to lobotomy that seeks to rid the patient of disease or evil by boring a hole into the skull — leaps off the textbook page and into bloody life. Berryman’s traded his Ice Cream Man uniform for scrubs, now in the role of a duty-bound surgeon tasked with ridding a patient of her internal demons — by way of an antique “egg beater” hand drill.

“Cured” is not for the squeamish, but then, Burks comes by it honestly, having acquainted himself with the grosser corners of “gross anatomy” in his higher education path. “My work study job the first two years I was in medical school was doing the embalming,” he said. “You have an embalmer, because the bodies are donated to you. So what happens is that the bodies have to be embalmed within 24 hours. And you don’t embalm them like you do, like, for funerals and stuff. Basically, you get the body, you bring it in, and then what you do is you make an incision on the neck and you drain the blood out of it. You insert a catheter into the jugular and pump them full of formaldehyde and sew that back up. You put them in a plastic bag, you tie it, and then you pick it up and you stack them on the shelf with everybody else. …

And you’d have to go up there in the middle of the night to do it because it has to be done within so many hours. And that kinda got to me after a while. I wasn’t sleeping good. So I was like, ‘I don’t think I’m gonna do this work study job.’ ” “You could see early on,” Thiedeman said of Burks, “in the way he cut and assembled his work, that he has a kind of gleeful enthusiasm about the medium. … It was clear to me that he was uncommonly excited about the process of moviemaking.” That excitement must have been an infectious sort; for all of the polished production the viewer sees in “One Please,” that domestic goddess with the missing digit is Burks’ wife. Two of his nieces and a gaggle of kids from the Hurricane Lake Estates subdivision in Benton, where Burks lives, fill out the youth quotient of the cast. The set? Burks’ next-door neighbors happened to be moving around the time “One Please” was filmed, but hadn’t yet sold their house, and offered it up to the project.

Harley’s still acting, too. He appears in Josh and Miles Miller’s thriller “All the Birds Have Flown South” and in Thiedeman’s 2014 short drama “Sacred Hearts, Holy Souls.” Harley’s name came up at the Arkansas Shorts block of Arkansas Cinema Society’s annual “Filmland” event in August. Burks’ “Odd Happenings in a Tiny Tent” was on the program, along with Thiedeman’s 35-minute, pathos-laced film set in the ’90s, “Dragonslayer,” which starred Harley Burks as Tim, a ruggedly handsome trucker who arranges a clandestine hookup using the screen name “DesertStorm1971.”

“Dragonslayer,” along with “Odd Happenings” and the other six shorts screened that day, steered ACS’ post-screening panel conversation toward the idea of Arkansas-as-fertile-filmmaking-ground — and toward something that Burks, Thiedeman and panel moderator/acclaimed director Jeff Nichols have understood for a while now: A film need not have been made on one U.S. coast or the other to have earned its right to be taken seriously. That there are clear advantages — monetary, logistical, aesthetic, geological, emotional — to making film in this specific state, especially if you are a director who knows its terrain intimately.

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‘ODD HAPPENINGS’: Burks’ films — “One Please,” “Cured” (above and opposite center) and “Odd Happenings in a Tiny Tent” (opposite page, top and bottom) — marry the whimsical with the grotesque.

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NO FINGERNAILS For someone creating art in such a fiercely competitive industry, Burks is not given to self-promotion. Maybe it’s the extracurricular role moviemaking plays in Burks’ life, or maybe it’s just not in his nature. He’s swift to deflate any attempts at mythologizing his gifts and inspirations, and he rarely speaks of his film work (or the attention it’s gotten on the film festival circuit) without shifting the attention immediately to his cohorts — producers Kathryn Tucker and Josh and Miles Miller, editors Les and Russ Galusha, cinematographer Gabe Mayhan, production designer Mitchell Crisp. And, of course, Michael Berryman.

Berryman is for Burks what actor Michael Shannon has been for Nichols — an ever-present name in the cast, but also a collaborator and talisman worth returning to time and time again.

“When I write something now,” Burks told us, “I always picture Michael in it.”

Berryman, now 71, was born with hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia. His condition means that he does not have sweat glands, hair or fingernails, and he’s deployed his distinctive look on camera for decades as a prolific actor, creating memorable roles in “Weird Science,” “The Hills Have Eyes,” “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and dozens of other films and television shows. He appeared in Little Rock at CALS Ron Robinson Theater for ACS’ Filmmaker Spotlight on Burks’ work, all 6 feet and 2 inches of his body dressed in black. During the Q&A session that followed the screening, Berryman came across as calm and tender, as if a lifetime of being stared at had taught him to counteract others’ uneasiness with visibly manifest kindness. He loves animals, but left his veterinarian/zoology studies at UCLA prematurely because his stunted fingers weren’t suited to that line of work. “I wouldn’t do you right cutting up your cat or your daughter,” he’d quipped that day.

Burks came by Berryman nearly by accident.

In front of the television late one night with his wife, the conversation turned to a prospective star for “One Please.” Burks scrolled past Berryman’s IMDB profile, turned to Catherine and said, “Oh my gosh, what if we could get this guy?” They decided it was worth a shot, Burks tracked down Berryman’s agent’s contact information, fired off an email and — to his surprise — heard back. Berryman loved the script, and within 10 days, Burks said, “Michael was on board and it was a go for ‘One Please.’ … Actors want to work, and they want to create things,” Burks said, “and it doesn’t always have to be a full-length film.

“Even though Michael, of course, looks very different, he’s very comfortable with that. I remember in the first film — you know, he doesn’t have any fingernails, and he has very unusual looking hands. Well, how do you say to somebody, ‘Hey, you have really odd-looking hands.

Let’s make sure we get them in the scene.’ But he’s the one who offers that. He’s like, ‘You know, my hands — you really wanna get my hands in there. And my face — if you get the light like that, it’ll really show all these wrinkles on my face.’ He’s so in tune. He offers that stuff before you even ask him.”

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A TREE, A TENT AND A GUILLOTINE There’s a spooky-looking tree on State Highway 5 near Benton that sits all by itself in the middle of a field. For about three years, Burks said, he’d drive by it and think to himself, “I have to make a story about that tree. It has to be that tree.” What emerged was “Odd Happenings in a Tiny Tent.”

“Odd Happenings” is also, in Burks’ signature style, vivid and visually arresting, despite having been made with a DIY brand of verve. Burks sewed the titular canvas tent himself on a Kenmore sewing machine; Catherine had taken home economics in school and taught him how to use it. “And then I stained it in the bathtub upstairs with rum,” he said. “And old coffee and tea bags.”

The other major prop? A startlingly realistic, completely functional guillotine, fashioned by a guy in California who goes by Dread William.

Burks’ no-dialogue precedent holds. This time around, it’s made explicit by positioning two mimes at the center of the story. (One of them is Harley Burks.) It’s a whimsical little confection, wonderfully compact, and like its predecessors, there’s a clear, singular decision to be made by its protagonists, one that will bear lasting consequences. “I like the idea in my movies that things can be very costly,” Burks told us. “You can have big horror and big grossness, but there’s something even more disturbing to me about smaller grossness.”

“His ideas are so wildly out there,” Tucker said, “but also have mass appeal. And I think that’s a kind of genius.”

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“Jesse’s got a lot of Rod Serling in him,” Berryman said at that February ACS event. “He sees things from a different perspective, and he builds everything he does from humanity, from the human condition.”

“Odd Happenings in a Tiny Tent” made its premiere in May at the Crypticon convention in Seattle, and continues to make new fans of Jesse Burks as it makes the festival rounds, some of whom perhaps saw it for the first time in August at ACS’ Filmland. Burks certainly can’t imagine ever leaving his day job in the clinic, but, he said, “I will honestly say this. If somebody told me, ‘Two times a year you can make a full-length movie, and the rest of the time you can do what you do,’ I would like to do that.”

And two more Burks projects are on the horizon, both in nascent phases. He and his sons are forming a nano-brewery in Saline County — Burks Brothers Brewing. They’ve got plans to secure a steady supply of ingredients by setting up their own hops farm in nearby Avilla, and hope to produce enough to be able to serve as a backup hops supply for other local breweries when the often-volatile hops market shifts unexpectedly. They’ve also got ideas about tying the brew to Burks’ spooky film themes, with none other than Michael Berryman as Burks Brothers Brewery’s celebrity spokesperson.

Also in the making: Burks’ first feature-length film (again, with no dialogue) called “Umbilicus Ozarkus.” Burks describes the basic premise as follows: “What if you had a weird moonshiner who inadvertently distilled life, and created something he couldn’t contain?”

As for the guillotine, it’s still at Burks’ house in Benton, but only temporarily. “They did such a great job building it,” Burks said. “What I really kind of want to do is get Berryman to sign it, and auction it off and give [the proceeds] away to a charity he wants to give it to.”

And that thumb, from the Skilsaw accident?

Burks’ family found it the next day, quelling concerns that ranged from the practical to the imaginative, the most outlandish theory being that the dog might discover it and develop a taste for human flesh. By the time it was recovered, it was too late for it to be sewn back on, so the Burks family put it in a clear glass Flintstones Vitamins jar they had lying around, filled the jar with vodka and put it up on the shelf for a couple of years as a sort of artifact — one that served as a frequent source of grim wonder and amusement for Burks’ friends.

Then, somehow, it drifted away. “My mom and dad, during one of their moves,” Burks recalls, “they had a storage unit with a bunch of stuff. … I know the thumb was in that storage unit.”

The storage unit changed hands, and their possessions got lost in the shuffle. “So what I’m thinking,” Burks said, “is that somewhere out there, somebody has that thumb.”

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EMILY M. RUNYON Munson, Rowlett, Moore & Boone 501-374-6535 400 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 1900 Little Rock LABOR LAW - MANAGEMENT CAROLYN B. WITHERSPOON Cross, Gunter, Witherspoon & Galchus 501-371-9999 500 President Clinton Avenue, Suite 200 Little Rock SUSAN K. KENDALL Kendall Law Firm 479-464-9828 3706 Pinnacle Hills Parkway, Suite 201 Rogers KATHLYN GRAVES Mitchell, Williams, Selig, Gates & Woodyard 501-688-8800 425 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 1800 Little Rock LABOR LAW - UNION SUSAN K. KENDALL Kendall Law Firm 479-464-9828 3706 Pinnacle Hills Parkway, Suite 201 Rogers JANET L. PULLIAM Pulliam & Muskheli 501-436-0010 2209 Cantrell Road Little Rock JANET L. PULLIAM Pulliam & Muskheli 501-436-0010 2209 Cantrell Road Little Rock LITIGATION - BANKING AND FINANCE KIMBERLY WOOD TUCKER Wright Lindsey & Jennings 501-371-0808 200 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 2300 Little Rock LITIGATION - BANKRUPTCY CONSTANCE G. CLARK Davis, Clark, Butt, Carithers & Taylor 479-521-7600 19 East Mountain Street Fayetteville

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LITIGATION - BANKRUPTCY CONSTANCE G. CLARK Davis, Clark, Butt, Carithers & Taylor 479-521-7600 19 East Mountain Street Fayetteville LITIGATION - ENVIRONMENTAL SHERRY P. BARTLEY Mitchell, Williams, Selig, Gates & Woodyard 501-688-8800 425 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 1800 Little Rock JULIE DEWOODY GREATHOUSE PPGMR Law 501-603-9000 101 River Bluff Drive, Suite A Little Rock LITIGATION - INSURANCE BEVERLY A. ROWLETT Munson, Rowlett, Moore & Boone 501-374-6535 400 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 1900 Little Rock LITIGATION - LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT SUZANNE G. CLARK Clark Law Firm 479-856-6380 244 West Dickson Street, Suite 201 Fayetteville MISSY MCJUNKINS DUKE Cross, Gunter, Witherspoon & Galchus 501-371-9999 500 President Clinton Avenue, Suite 200 Little Rock CYNTHIA KOLB Cross, Gunter, Witherspoon & Galchus 501-371-9999 500 President Clinton Avenue, Suite 200 Little Rock CAROLYN B. WITHERSPOON Cross, Gunter, Witherspoon & Galchus 501-371-9999 500 President Clinton Avenue, Suite 200 Little Rock ELIZABETH ROBBEN MURRAY Friday Eldredge & Clark 501 376 2011 400 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 2000 Little Rock SUSAN K. KENDALL Kendall Law Firm 479-464-9828 3706 Pinnacle Hills Parkway, Suite 201 Rogers EVA C. MADISON Littler Mendelson 479-582-6100 The Fulbright Building, Suite 204 Fayetteville KATHLYN GRAVES Mitchell, Williams, Selig, Gates & Woodyard 501-688-8800 425 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 1800 Little Rock JANET L. PULLIAM Pulliam & Muskheli 501-436-0010 2209 Cantrell Road Little Rock

DENISE REID HOGGARD Rainwater, Holt & Sexton 501-868-2500 801 Technology Drive Little Rock MICHELLE M. KAEMMERLING Wright Lindsey & Jennings 501-371-0808 200 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 2300 Little Rock LITIGATION - MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS SUZANNE G. CLARK Clark Law Firm 479-856-6380 244 West Dickson Street, Suite 201 Fayetteville LITIGATION - MUNICIPAL MISSY MCJUNKINS DUKE Cross, Gunter, Witherspoon & Galchus 501-371-9999 500 President Clinton Avenue, Suite 200 Little Rock LITIGATION - REAL ESTATE SUZANNE G. CLARK Clark Law Firm 479-856-6380 244 West Dickson Street, Suite 201 Fayetteville CONSTANCE G. CLARK Davis, Clark, Butt, Carithers & Taylor 479-521-7600 19 East Mountain Street Fayetteville LITIGATION - SECURITIES KERRI E. KOBBEMAN Conner & Winters 479-582-5711 4375 North Vantage Drive, Suite 405 Fayetteville LITIGATION - TRUSTS AND ESTATES SUZANNE G. CLARK Clark Law Firm 479-856-6380 244 West Dickson Street, Suite 201 Fayetteville ALLISON J. CORNWELL Friday Eldredge & Clark 501 376 2011 400 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 2000 Little Rock SARAH COTTON PATTERSON Friday Eldredge & Clark 501 376 2011 400 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 2000 Little Rock RITA REED HARRIS Rita Reed Harris 870-633-9900 208 North Izard Street Forrest City

SUZANNE CLARK

was included in the 2020 Edition of The Best Lawyers in America© for Litigation - Labor and Employment, Litigation Mergers and Acquisitions, Litigation - Real Estate, Commercial Litigation, and Litigation Trusts and Estates.

MASS TORT LITIGATION / CLASS ACTIONS - DEFENDANTS SHERRY P. BARTLEY Mitchell, Williams, Selig, Gates & Woodyard 501-688-8800 425 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 1800 Little Rock

479-856-6380 •244 West Dickson St., Ste. 201 • Fayetteville • www.clark-firm.com A SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT OF THE ARKANSAS TIMES

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LYN P. PRUITT Mitchell, Williams, Selig, Gates & Woodyard 501-688-8800 425 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 1800 Little Rock MEDICAL MALPRACTICE LAW - DEFENDANTS MARIAM T. HOPKINS Anderson, Murphy & Hopkins 501-372-1887 400 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 2400 Little Rock KELLY CARITHERS Davis, Clark, Butt, Carithers & Taylor 479-521-7600 19 East Mountain Street Fayetteville MICHELLE ATOR Friday Eldredge & Clark 501 376 2011 400 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 2000 Little Rock LAURA H. SMITH Friday Eldredge & Clark 501 376 2011 400 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 2000 Little Rock REBECCA D. HATTABAUGH Ledbetter Cogbill Arnold & Harrison 479-782-7294 622 Parker Avenue Fort Smith

KELLY CARITHERS Davis, Clark, Butt, Carithers & Taylor 479-521-7600 19 East Mountain Street Fayetteville

MORTGAGE BANKING FORECLOSURE LAW JENNIFER WILSON-HARVEY Wilson & Associates 501-216-9388 400 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 1400 Little Rock

MICHELLE ATOR Friday Eldredge & Clark 501 376 2011 400 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 2000 Little Rock

NONPROFIT / CHARITIES LAW SARAH COTTON PATTERSON Friday Eldredge & Clark 501 376 2011 400 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 2000 Little Rock

LAURA H. SMITH Friday Eldredge & Clark 501 376 2011 400 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 2000 Little Rock

OIL AND GAS LAW CAROLYN J. CLEGG Keith, Clegg & Epley 870-234-3550 McAlester Building, Suite 205 Magnolia

TERESA M. WINELAND Kutak Rock 501-975-3000 124 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 2000 Little Rock

PATENT LAW MEREDITH K. LOWRY Wright Lindsey & Jennings 479-986-0888 3333 Pinnacle Hills Parkway, Suite 510 Rogers

SHERRY P. BARTLEY Mitchell, Williams, Selig, Gates & Woodyard 501-688-8800 425 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 1800 Little Rock

PERSONAL INJURY LITIGATION - DEFENDANTS DEBORAH S. DENTON Anderson, Murphy & Hopkins 501-372-1887 400 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 2400 Little Rock

LYN P. PRUITT Mitchell, Williams, Selig, Gates & Woodyard 501-688-8800 425 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 1800 Little Rock

MARIAM T. HOPKINS Anderson, Murphy & Hopkins 501-372-1887 400 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 2400 Little Rock

SARAH GREENWOOD Munson, Rowlett, Moore & Boone 501-374-6535 400 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 1900 Little Rock

Christy Comstock

WAS INCLUDED IN THE 2020 EDITION OF THE BEST LAWYERS IN AMERICA© FOR TRANSPORTATION LAW.

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BEVERLY A. ROWLETT Munson, Rowlett, Moore & Boone 501-374-6535 400 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 1900 Little Rock

SARAH GREENWOOD Munson, Rowlett, Moore & Boone 501-374-6535 400 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 1900 Little Rock

MICHELLE L. BROWNING Wright Lindsey & Jennings 501-371-0808 200 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 2300 Little Rock

BEVERLY A. ROWLETT Munson, Rowlett, Moore & Boone 501-374-6535 400 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 1900 Little Rock

PERSONAL INJURY LITIGATION - PLAINTIFFS TASHA TAYLOR Taylor & Taylor Law Firm 501-246-8004 12921 Cantrell Road, Suite 205 Little Rock

PUBLIC FINANCE LAW MICHELE ALLGOOD Mitchell, Williams, Selig, Gates & Woodyard 501-688-8800 425 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 1800 Little Rock

PRIVACY AND DATA SECURITY LAW KATHLEEN MCDONALD Wilson & Associates 501-216-9388 400 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 1400 Little Rock

REAL ESTATE LAW MARIAN M. MCMULLAN McMullan & Brown 501-376-9119 815 West Markham Street Little Rock

PRODUCT LIABILITY LITIGATION - DEFENDANTS JULIE M. HANCOCK Anderson, Murphy & Hopkins 501-372-1887 400 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 2400 Little Rock

SECURITIES / CAPITAL MARKETS LAW D. NICOLE LOVELL Mitchell, Williams, Selig, Gates & Woodyard 501-688-8800 425 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 1800 Little Rock

LYN P. PRUITT Mitchell, Williams, Selig, Gates & Woodyard 501-688-8800 425 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 1800 Little Rock

ROBYN P. ALLMENDINGER Rose Law Firm 501-375-9131 120 East Fourth Street Little Rock

TAX LAW REBECCA B. HURST Smith Hurst 479-301-2444 Hunt Tower, Suite 900 Rogers TRADE SECRETS LAW ELIZABETH ROBBEN MURRAY Friday Eldredge & Clark 501 376 2011 400 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 2000 Little Rock TRADEMARK LAW KATHRYN BENNETT PERKINS Rose Law Firm 501-375-9131 120 East Fourth Street Little Rock TRANSPORTATION LAW SUSAN K. KENDALL Kendall Law Firm 479-464-9828 3706 Pinnacle Hills Parkway, Suite 201 Rogers CHRISTINA D. COMSTOCK Wales Comstock 479-439-8088 3608 North Steele Boulevard, Suite 101 Fayetteville TRUSTS AND ESTATES ALLISON J. CORNWELL Friday Eldredge & Clark 501 376 2011 400 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 2000 Little Rock

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SARAH COTTON PATTERSON Friday Eldredge & Clark 501 376 2011 400 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 2000 Little Rock

Congratulates

JENNIFER R. PIERCE Mitchell, Williams, Selig, Gates & Woodyard 501-688-8800 425 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 1800 Little Rock

SUSAN K. KENDALL

Best Lawyers® 2020 for having been selected by her peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America© in the practice areas of:

Construction Law, Employment Law - Individuals, Labor Law - Management, Labor Law Union, Litigation - Labor and Employment, and Transportation Law

General Trial Practice Attorneys | www.kendalllawfirm.com 3706 Pinnacle Hills Parkway Suite 201 Rogers, AR 72758 | (479) 464-9828

CONGRATULATIONS! Three women lawyers from Munson, Rowlett, Moore & Boone, P.A. were recognized in The Best Lawyers in America 2020. ©

BEVERLY A. ROWLETT

Appellate Practice Bet-the-Company Litigation Commercial Litigation Insurance Law Litigation – Insurance Personal Injury Litigation - Defendants Product Liability Litigation - Defendants

SARAH E. GREENWOOD

Personal Injury Litigation - Defendants Product Liability Litigation - Defendants

EMILY M. RUNYON Insurance Law

400 West Capitol Ave., Suite 1900 • Little Rock, Arkansas 72201 • Voice (501) 374-6535 • Fax (501) 374-5906 • www.mrmblaw.com

Congratulations to our Managing Partner Tasha C. Taylor on being recognized in The Best Women Lawyers in Arkansas & The Best Lawyers in America© 2020.

Taylor & Taylor Law Firm P.A. is a family-owned law firm that focuses on providing excellent service to its clients. Tasha Taylor founded the firm with her husband in 2010 and has focused her practice on Plaintiff’s Personal Injury Litigation and Appellate Advocacy. Find us online at TaylorLawFirm.com.

12921 Cantrell Road, Suite 205 | Little Rock, AR 72223 | 501-246-8004 44 OCOTBER 2019

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WORKERS' COMPENSATION LAW - CLAIMANTS LAURA BETH YORK Rainwater, Holt & Sexton 501-868-2500 801 Technology Drive Little Rock WORKERS' COMPENSATION LAW - EMPLOYERS BETTY J. HARDY Coplin & Hardy 501-707-0300 One Union Plaza Little Rock CONSTANCE G. CLARK Davis, Clark, Butt, Carithers & Taylor 479-521-7600 19 East Mountain Street Fayetteville

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WOMEN PARTNERS

Best Lawyers

®

26th Edition of The Best Lawyers in America

©

Recognized as 2020 Best Lawyers: Julie M. Hancock, Mariam T. Hopkins and Deborah S. Denton

Julie M. Hancock, Mariam T. Hopkins and Deborah S. Denton

400 WEST CAPITOL AVENUE, SUITE 2400 | LITTLE ROCK, AR 72201-4851 TELEPHONE: 501-372-1887 | FACSIMILE: 501-372-7706

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The Wilson Law Group Attorney's Title Group • Wilson+Miller • Wilson & Associates

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OCTOBER 2019 45

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CULTURE

JIM BOYER

resh-faced and wearing her signature embroidered cowboy shirt and jeans, Erin Enderlin surveyed the four chairs arranged in the round at the famed Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, Tenn., choosing the chair facing the largest part of the audience. Legend “Whispering Bill” Anderson took a seat to her left and singer-songwriter Matraca Berg to her right; across from her was Nitty Gritty Dirt Band co-founder Jeff Hanna. It was her party, and the mutual admiration was palpable among the four players, spilling out into a full house of devotees.

Enderlin’s had a record year so far in 2019. Her calm, confident demeanor shines through on her June EP, “I Can Be Your Whiskey,” teasing out songs slated to be part of a full-length album. Round-robin they went, as is the classic tradition at the Bluebird, and each time Enderlin passed the torch, even to Anderson, she raised the bar another notch, through the purity and steady strength of her singing. Her clearly crafted characters are embodied in her lyrics, then given life by her voice. The audience was magnetized, in full-on listening mode.

I first met the Conway native at the Arkansas Country Music Awards, where the last two years she’s taken awards for Best Female Vocalist, Song of the Year, Best Songwriter and Best New Album of the Year. In 2018 she was named a member of the CMT Next Women of Country in addition to nabbing a runner-up placement next to Jason Isbell for Best New Songwriter in Nashville Scene’s “Best-Of” issue. As a new songwriter, fresh out of Middle Tennessee State University, she attended a lecture about artist development, met the speaker’s boss and landed her first cut, “Monday Morning Church,” sung by Alan Jackson and co-written by Brent Baxter.

It peaked at No. 5 on Billboard’s Hot Country Singles’ Charts back in 2004.

Since then, she’s written numerous songs for Nashville royalty, the kind that appreciate the clever crafting of a good number: Reba McEntire, Terri Clark, Randy Travis, Lee Ann Womack and Bill Anderson, among others. Along with Bobby Tomberlin, she’s christened the WSM Media Studio stage with its inaugural “In the Round” Songwriters night, logged a No. 1 hit on the Bluegrass Today charts (sung by bluegrass queen Rhonda Vincent), released another EP and completed a tour of England.

‘Girls Do That, Too’ A Q&A WITH ERIN ENDERLIN.

BY JULIE ZIMMERMANN

Let’s start at the beginning. How did you get into music in the first place? Are you self-taught?

I started taking piano when I was 5 and I began guitar lessons when I was 13. My guitar teacher had a huge influence on me. I was only able to take about six months ’cause he ended up getting cancer. We wrote to each other the last two years after that — before he passed away. I brought songs and I was like, “I want to be able to put the music I hear to this.”

And he was like, “You know you can do this — for a job.” And I was like, “Really? People do this for a job?” People were going down the hallway, he’d say, “You have to come in here and listen to this girl’s song.” He was the first person who said you can make a living doing this. His name was Terry Holmes, in Conway.

So you were 16, and then what happened?

I went to boarding school the last two years of high school [at the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences & the Arts] in Hot Springs. When I graduated, I ended up getting a scholarship to Middle Tennessee State in Murfreesboro, on the south side of Nashville.

Were you working toward a degree in music?

I was studying the recording industry. They have a Southern common marketing program there and since they don’t have that major offered in Arkansas, I was able to go to MTSU. I could go for in-state tuition here [Tennessee]. That made my parents happy, and going to school by Nashville made me happy.

Yes. Two birds with one stone. And were you gigging when you were in college?

When I first got here I was like, “Oh, my gosh, I am not playing anywhere for, like, a year.” Once you start seeing the songwriters here, you are like, “I gotta up my game.” So I went to shows and learned and watched and started playing my second year here, and, through an interesting turn of events, ended up meeting my first publisher, Jeff Carlton, my junior year.

How did you meet him?

Funny enough, Reese Faw, who became my neighbor, was speaking at ASCAP [headquarters] about artist development. I asked her if I could get together with her and play her some songs. I did, and they were super dark, special songs. Then she came to talk to one of my classes and asked

46 OCTOBER 2019

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if I would be willing to stand and play another song and pretend I was doing a meeting with her in front of the class. So I played “Monday Morning Church,” and she said, “Well, I want you to meet my boss [Carlton] and he ended up doing five demos, including that one which ended up getting cut by Alan Jackson.

Did you work as a staff writer?

I did — for Jeff and Universal and EMI — but now I write for myself.

When you met Jeff, did he sign you as a writer right away?

I worked with him for about a year without officially signing, but then he had paid money out of his own pocket to do some demos and stuff and was pitching me and setting me up on rights and all that good stuff and then I ended up getting an Alan cut, a Randy Travis cut and signed to RCA writers for an artist development deal. Then he was able to fully start his own company and sign me. Jeff ended up selling half of his publishing to Universal. I went with them and worked with both for them for like, gosh, eight years. Then I was with EMI. Then I went with Eric Church and Little Louder Music.

But it was Jeff that helped to get me a bunch of meetings around town. Then I was with RCA for five years, but they never actually released any music.

So no music with RCA. Sometimes the big companies sign you and then you get put on the shelf. Was that your experience?

Well, sort of. But I learned a lot. I got to go into the studio and cut some songs and then it ended up in 2009 I went on tour with Willie Nelson on the Country Music Throwdown Tour and put out an EP. That tour was amazing. I mean I got to get on a bus and not think about anything and just go play music. Jamey Johnson was on that tour, too, and he pretty much co-produced my last album and this album with [Jim] Moose Brown. There were tons of awesome artists on that tour. I was just starting to figure out social media ... barely.

If I was doing that same tour today, it would be way different. I’ve been through several incarnations of fits and starts as an artist, but I think in the last two or three years I’ve really figured out — well, let’s say I’ve had some “aha!” moments. And I didn’t start touring heavily or start putting out some “regular” music.

You had a lot of success with “Whiskeytown Crier,” your first album. Talk to me about your current artistic endeavors, and how you are going about getting your work out there.

We’ve released two EPs so far in 2019. The first, in April, “Chapter One: Tonight I Don’t Give a Damn,” “Chapter Two: I Can Be Your Whiskey,” which dropped June 28. Music videos explore the characters in the songs. The EPs are through my company, Black Crow Productions, and label partner Blaster Records. Each little three-song project tells the story of a different character, a little collection of stories. On Aug. 23, “Whatever Gets You Through the Night” released. Once all four come out, the full album will be released.

Who are some of your strongest musical influences?

Reba [McEntire] is probably my biggest artist inARKANSASTIMES.COM

OCTOBER 2019 47

EMILY ROBERSON OCTOBER 22 AT 5:30 P.M.

We are excited to host the book launch for Little Rock author Emily Roberson’s novel, Lifestyles of Gods and Monsters.

Greek mythology meets the Kardashians in this fresh, fast-paced young adult novel about celebrity culture, family dynamics, and finding love amidst it all.

PRE-ORDER SIGNED FIRST EDITIONS NOW AND PLAN TO JOIN US! LITTLE ROCK’S INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORE! Open 10 AM - 6 PM Monday - Saturday, 12-5 PM Sunday 5920 R St, Little Rock • 501-663-9198 • www.wordsworthbookstore.com

fluence. I remember watching the “Ralph Emery Show” when I was 4. I saw her perform, and I actually said, “Girls do that, too!” because I was listening to my grandpa’s record collection and it so happened that he mainly had guys that I would listen to. But when I saw her on that show I was like, “That is what I want to be like.”

When I was in kindergarten, I sent her a letter every week. I was a really big fan. I would write, “I know you are busy, so don’t think about answering me, but you are doing really great!”

Did she ever answer you?

Her office sent me a signed live VHS tape.

I bet you loved that.

Oh, yeah. And I mean, I am sure someone was like, “This kid is too much,” but I have been able to actually meet her and I told her, and actually co-published as a writer with her for a couple of years.

Wow. I love her interview on YouTube about your song, “The Bar’s Getting Lower,” that she cut. I’ll bet you are so proud of that! It’s a dream — to have your idol cut your song and then talk about it in such a positive light.

It’s absolutely amazing! She even signed albums for us, thanking us for the song. She’s amazing.

I’ve probably seen her over 100 times. When I was on RCA and she was on tour with another RCA act we could get free tickets to her shows.

October Lineup Old Crow Medicine Show live at The Aud with special guest Charlie Worsham Hillberry Music Festival Eureka Springs Witches Escape Basin Park Free Music Series featuring Achi & Haymakers Voices From The Silent City Don McLean live at The Aud Turpentine Creek “Howl-O-Ween” 8th Annual Zombie Crawl

plus strolls, shows, costume balls and more!

Full October lineup & event details available at EurekaSprings.org

O CTOBER M USIC IN A RGENTA !

Oct 14: Steve Herberman w w w . j a z za t t h e j o i n t . o rg

Oct 17: Walter Strauss w w w . a rg e n ta a c o u s t i c . c o m

Contact: Steve Davison 48 OCTOBER 2019

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s

501.425.1528

s

steve@stevedavison.com

You’ve never opened for her?

I haven’t yet, but I bet it’s in the works. There have been some rumors. We’ll see.

So outside of Reba and Alan, who are some of your idols or mentors?

Dolly Parton, George Jones, Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty. I love a lot of singer-songwriters, too, like Matraca Berg, Gretchen Peters, Terri Clark. There’s just so many. Mary Chapin Carpenter.

“Whiskeytown Crier,” the EP “I Can Be Your Whiskey,” Reba’s cover of “The Bar Is Getting Lower.” What’s with all the alcohol references? Are you from an alcoholic family?

Not really. I mean, I’m a Catholic [laughs], but I’ve gotta say, I’ve tried to branch out from my subject matter, but it just seems to be a really great metaphor for so many things. And I’m around it a lot as I play a lot in bars. I tell people if I drank as much as I sing about drinking …

You’d be on the floor. Erin, are you single or married?

I’m married.

Do you have kids?

Nope. Just two ornery cats.

How was it moving from Conway to here?

Were you guys married in Conway or here?

Here [Nashville]. We started dating when I was 23, so I guess 14 years ago we met.

Is he a musician?

No, he’s a pharmacist, like my dad. He works at the hospital.

And the Arkansas influence. Growing up in Conway, how did that affect your music?

I think it was very influential. I brought a Conway Twitty record to show and tell when I was in kindergarten, and I am sure part of the reason I gravitated toward it because it was Conway. When you are little, you don’t know how to make different associations ... plus there is a really strong music base in Arkansas: Johnny Cash, Glen Campbell. Growing up around all the other Arkansas writers, singer-songwriters, it definitely influenced the music I was making. Dan Clanton, for instance, an Arkansas singer-songwriter, he’s the one that showed me you don’t need the pick. Put the pick away and learn how to do the finger-pickin’ first. That’s been a huge influence on my playing and my sound. I think there is a rich storytelling tradition in general in Arkansas. My grandparents were big into that, so I think that also really influenced me.

So many fabrics.

So much fun!

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How do you think you learned how to craft a lyric, write a tune?

You know, Emmylou Harris has a quote. She says the best way to study music is to put it on and turn it up real loud. I feel like that is a big part of it, just listening to so much music. Another thing, when I was in high school, I found Ralph Murphy’s “Murphy’s Law.” At one point he had a blog, and eventually turned it into a book. I learned a lot from his insights about writing, thoughts and challenges.

One of the things I like about your music is that the female characters in your songs are not afraid to take a man home.

[Laughs.] Well, Tammy Wynette is a big influence on me as well. I loved her vulnerability, she and Dolly both. They have a lot of songs. They have a lot of stories. They are just real. They are not necessarily worried about their neighbors’ thing, or what they think. And I like that. I like their real vulnerability; the “not-cleaned-uppurty” version of life. Like, I love Donna Reed, but that’s not the kind of songs I am drawn to.

I’m sure that Donna Reed had plenty of her own dark side — if they had shown that, that part of her lifestyle. You know what I mean?

I bet she drank.

Yeah, probably. Or maybe something else.

[Laughs.] I’ve written less in the last six months than I have since I’ve been here, but I’ve been getting more cuts. For me right now, I am in a really kind of interesting place because I feel like I get to do what I want to do right now. I can pursue my artist career and I’m really one of the only ones, other than a handful of artist friends of mine, who is writing for what I am doing, my projects, which is cool. I spent a lot of years working for other publishers and it was great and some of them were more encouraging, some were less, as to my artist endeavors. It was a very different thing. As much as they may want you to be different, they want you to write for what is on the radio and that is just not ...

Not your deal?

Yeah. It doesn’t mean that some of my stuff isn’t on the radio or should be and will be again and all of that kind of stuff. But I don’t like trying to chase trends, I don’t feel like I am good at it. I love what I do, and what I am doing now, writing, playing the Opry, all of it. I love it. I love everything about it.

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NOVO STUDIO

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‘When the Arts Are Visible’ A Q&A WITH GERRY SNYDER.

BY KATY HENRIKSEN

ith a record-breaking gift of $120 million from the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation, plus another $40 million from the Windgate Foundation to support the development of an art and design district, the University of Arkansas’s School of Art in Fayetteville has monumental financial support backing its expansion. The person tasked with overseeing that growth is Gerry Snyder, a self-described small-town Idaho boy who came to academia later in life, after working a bunch of nontraditional seasonal jobs so he could carve out more time to paint. Snyder moved to Fayetteville in July after five years as the inaugural dean of the School of Art at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute. He brings with him 30 years of experience working in art higher education. Although when he spoke with the Arkansas Times he’d only been on the ground a few days, he’d already experienced what he deems as “Arkansas hot.”

“I thought I understood heat and hot weather because New York is known for it,” he says. “It actually surprised me, but even that, I love.”

When asked to talk about artists he likes, he quickly acknowledges he doesn’t like to do any sort of top 10, adding, “I’m a very generous viewer. I like almost all kinds of art and see its value.” Then he gushed about young New York City-based performance artist Shaun Leonardo and famed sculptor Louise Bourgeois, who created the giant metal spider that now greets visitors as they walk into the main entry to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Although Snyder is tasked with enormous developments, he wants to spend his first year listening and getting to know the unique needs and opportunities in Northwest Arkansas.

Ahead of his inquisition, we caught up with him to learn more about his vision and background.

You’ve got big tasks ahead of you. What do you want to accomplish in your first year?

I see a lot of potential. The [Walton] gift itself is phenomenal. I think of it as a once-in-a-generation gift in the sense that this would be a large gift in any setting — medicine and museums — but the fact that its been given to education, and specifically to art, is visionary in my mind. Art is a centering place for civilizations, societies, culture. It’s basically when we know we’ve arrived at a certain level — when the arts are at a certain level when the arts are visible.

The gift has very specific goals, so the first year will be spent developing a strategic plan to make sure those goals are achieved. I have a lot of experience in leadership in academics and what that has taught me over the years is: Listen carefully. So I’m going to spend a lot of time this first year getting to know the School of Art, Fulbright College, the university, the local

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ARKANSAS TIMES

community, how that’s connected to a national community in the arts. What’s happening in Northwest Arkansas — it has already become a destination, Crystal Bridges has become a destination museum. And with Momentary [contemporary art space under development in Bentonville], that will only increase, and it has easy access. We’re only two hours and 40 minutes from LaGuardia, so that’s a small investment in time to get someplace. People I know in the art world know about Northwest Arkansas because of the arts.

art openings

Byron Werner: CoLoSSAL oCeLot THE BOOKSTORE AT LIBRARY SQUARE

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I’d love to hear about your own journey and what brought you to the world of higher education arts administration. When did you really engage with art for the first time?

By age 4, I was drawing with focus. It was something that I liked. I started painting when I was 12. Somewhere between 4 and 12, I knew my destination was to be an artist.

I didn’t start college at a traditional age. I was more determined to learn on my own so I spent time working seasonal jobs I could do five or six months at a time at, and then take four or five months off to paint. I was on a helicopter fire crew in the Forest Service in central Idaho. I was on a fishing boat in Alaska. I worked around the oil fields in Wyoming. In each one of these, wherever I worked, invariably I would be tapped for a responsibility — you know, “We’re going to put you in charge” — but my focus was on art.

When I went to graduate school I was hired to help consolidate a very large program from six locations to a central location. It just seems to be a skill set that makes sense to me. At a certain point I tried to run from it, but eventually I just embraced it. You have to know who you are.

FRI | OCT 4 | $5

the roCky horror PiCture ShoW (r) FRI | OCT 4 | 9:30 PM | $5 FRI | OCT 11 | 9:30 PM | $5 FRI | OCT 18 | 9:30 PM | $5 FRI | OCT 25 | 9:30 PM | $5

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CALS RON ROBINSON THEATER

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THU | OCT 10 | 6:30 PM (RECEPTION AT 6 PM)

Hussman is the publisher of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

He’ll discuss the newspaper industry, including the recent decision to transition the Democrat-Gazette to a digital-only format on weekdays.

What do you see as the biggest challenges you’re up against?

I’m not viewing it as challenges, but just pure opportunity. Everything that needs to happen can happen. It’s more of having the right strategic plan to drive the goals that take into account people, location, resourcing and structuring within the university to make sure all the parts align. If you design a kitchen for a tall person and a person who is not tall moves into it, you have a structure that’s probably not going to succeed unless you have some sort of add-on, like a stool or ladder. So when I think about structuring programs and opportunities, it’s to make sure the structure supports the goals, the people and the institution. If you get those things right, it usually goes quite well.

Why is art important for all of us?

That question has filled libraries. I personally think the creative impulse is given to everyone.

Maybe not everyone makes a painting, or drawing, or picks up an instrument, but if you look at life, even in its most challenging circumstances, creativity is important. I think art is central to almost any civilization or culture. A large part of the history of the world we only know through art, craft and material culture. It’s what people look at. It’s how we create meaning. We make things and then we imbue them with meaning and then we make some more things. It’s a wonderful process.

SuSAn n. hermAn THU | OCT 24 | 6 PM

Herman is president of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Her talk is “A Democrat and a Republican Walk into a Bar: Civil Liberties and Non-partisanship.” Co-sponsored by the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service.

CALS.org Library Square | 100 Rock Street

DOORS OPEN 6 PM

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Arkansas Times Craft Beer Festival benefitting Argenta Arts District

SPONSORED BY

WRISTBAND SPONSOR

$25 early bird

$40 at the door

Friday, October 25th • 6:00 till 9:00

NEW LOCATION @ DIAMOND BEAR BREWING 600 N. Broadway Street, North Little Rock, AR

Stop by the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau tent and find out about the Locally Labeled Passport Program — your ticket to learn about and enjoy Little Rock’s 10 craft beer breweries, two wineries and historic distillery

Welcome to North Little Rock, craft brew fans!

We hope you enjoy your time in the Argenta Arts District. Stop by, say hello and sample beers from NLR locals, Diamond Bear and Flyway Brewing.

Visit the Ale Trail tent to experience the Ozarks’ finest craft brews!

The Fayetteville Ale Trail gives visitors and locals alike a glimpse into the unique craft brewery culture of Northwest Arkansas.

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HSDFI.ORG

NANFU WANG is a Chinese-born American filmmaker.

Her debut film, “Hooligan Sparrow,” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2016 and was shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2017.

ONE CHILD NATION Directed by Nanfu Wang, recipient of our HSDFF 2019 Impact Award, Jialing Zhang.

After becoming a mother, director Nanfu Wang explores the ripple effect of China’s devastating onechild policy, uncovering shocking human rights violations as well as her own family’s complicity, and the liability of American adoptive families.

WAAD AL-KATEAB is an award-winning documentary filmmaker. She became a citizen journalist in 2011 after protests broke out across Syria against the Bashar Hafez Assad regime. In January 2016, she began documenting the horrors of Aleppo for Channel 4 News in a series of films titled “Inside Aleppo.” The reports she made on the conflict in Syria became the most watched pieces on the British news program, received almost half a billion views online and won 24 awards, including the 2016 International Emmy for breaking news coverage. She and her family were eventually evacuated from Aleppo in 2016.

“For Sama” is her first feature film.

FOR SAMA Directed by Waad Al-Khateab (winner of Best Documentary at 2019 Cannes Film Festival), Edward Watts A harrowing and unforgettable autobiographical portrait of a woman’s life over five years during the uprising in Aleppo, Syria, as told to her infant daughter, Sama.

Following the screenings will be a fireside chat with filmmakers Nanfu Wang and Waad Al-Kateab.

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MAKING WAVES: THE ART OF CINEMATIC SOUND Directed by Midge Costin Meet the sound designers responsible for creating the cinematic soundtrack to Hollywood’s most iconoclastic films, learn about their creative process and how they collaborate with renowned directors. Followed by a moderated discussion exploring the role of sound design in film.

Cecelia Hall: Known for the sound design for “The Hunt for Red October” (1990), “Top Gun” (1986) and “Beverly Hills Cop” (1984)

Midge Costin: Director of “Making Waves”

Bobette Buster: Writer of “Making Waves”

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Glenn Kiser: Executive in charge of Dolby Post-Production, working with directors such as David Fincher, Spike Jonze, Neil LaBute, Jane Campion, and Barry Levinson.

Richard L. Anderson: Known for the sound design for “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981), “Poltergeist” (1982), “The Lion King” (1994), and “Predator” (1987) ARKANSASTIMES.COM

OCTOBER 2019 55

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FLANNERY (World premiere) Directed by Elizabeth Coffman, Mark Bosco A groundbreaking iconoclast and jewel of the American South, writer Flannery O’Connor is given a loving tribute in this career-spanning biographical portrait.

FLANNERY

CHANGING THE GAME

WELL GROOMED Directed by Rebecca Stern The creative and colorful world of competitive dog grooming is presented in this charming documentary that follows four champion groomers. Following the women for a year, it gives a backstage look at what it takes to create grooming designs that are creative enough to be crowned gold.

WELL GROOMED

17 BLOCKS

ERNIE & JOE

FUNNY YOU NEVER KNEW

THE APOLLO 56 OCTOBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

CHANGING THE GAME Directed by Michael Barnett Three courageous trans high school athletes at the top of their game maneuver minefields set in place by discriminatory rules in order to participate in the sports they love. Caught in the center of a national civil rights debate, these resilient heroes persevere in their quest to compete as their authentic gender, learning how to direct and steer conversations aimed at changing the hearts and minds of adults, despite being teens themselves.

17 BLOCKS Directed by Davy Rothbart In 1999, filmmaker Davy Rothbart befriends Emmanuel Sanford, a 9-year-old boy living 17 blocks from the U.S. Capitol. Together, Davy and Emmanuel chart the lives of the Sanford family as their city is plagued by poverty, drugs and gun violence. When Emmanuel is killed, Rothbart continues to document the Sanfords as they wrestle with trauma, guilt and forgiveness. Powerful and heart-wrenching, this vérité film is an intimate portrait of one family who overcomes the unthinkable to begin anew. Tribeca Film Festival 2019 premiere; MountainFilm 2019 Audience Award & Best Documentary Winner.

ERNIE & JOE Directed by Jenifer McShane On average, U.S. Police Academy candidates spend 60 hours or more learning how to shoot a gun and only 8 on mental health and communication. This vérité portrait follows Ernie Stevens and Joe Smarro, two San Antonio police officers working to change this service discrepancy. They run a mental health unit focused on diverting the mentally ill away from jail and into health treatment by redefining long-held police practices with their innovative and compassionate approach.

FUNNY YOU NEVER KNEW Directed by Andrew Hunt Three of the brightest stars of the 1950s live television era take center stage in this laugh-out-loud documentary tribute. Thanks to recently unearthed vintage kinescopes, the pioneering genius of comedians Imogene Coca, George Gobel and Martha Raye are ready to entertain an entirely new generation. Hosted by comedians Fred Willard and Kevin Pollak and featuring interviews with formidable comic legends including Bob Newhart, Lily Tomlin and Norman Lear, this hilarious film is a pure comic delight.

THE APOLLO Directed by Roger Ross Williams A cultural anchor in New York City since 1934, the Apollo has provided a home for the most legendary African-American artists for over nine decades. Featuring rehearsals for the inaugural staging of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Between the World and Me,” Academy Award-winning filmmaker Roger Ross Williams weaves in modern day performances with the history of this stage. The story is both a celebration of black artists and reminder of the ongoing challenges African Americans face in the U.S. “The Apollo” will make you laugh, encourage you to sing and remind you of the universal power of music. A 2019 Tribeca Film Festival premiere.

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MR. JIMMY

THE OBJECTOR

GAY CHORUS DEEP SOUTH

RUNNER

RAISE HELL: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MOLLY IVINS

THE QUEST OF THE MUSCLE NERD 58 OCTOBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

MR. JIMMY Directed by Peter Michael Dowd Akio Sakurai works by day in his family business of making kimonos, but his all-consuming passion is his nighttime gig of playing — and becoming — Jimmy Page in smoky bars. A chance visit by Page himself rockets Sakurai to California, where he joins a Led Zeppelin tribute band. With glorious concert footage of virtuoso guitar riffs, this classic fish-outof-water story is a touching homage to a legendary band and a paean to the power of transformation.

RUNNER Directed by Bill Gallagher Profiles marathon runner Guor Marial, a South Sudanese U.S. refugee who qualified for the 2012 London Olympics.

When Marial is asked to run under Sudan’s flag because the International Olympics Committee doesn’t recognize the newly formed country of South Sudan, Marial refuses out of respect for his fellow countrymen. An outpouring of support from the international community leads the Olympics Committee to permit Marial to run in the Olympics under the IOC flag.

THE OBJECTOR (World premiere) Directed by Molly Stuart Atalya Ben-Abba, a 19-year-old Israeli, is obligated to enlist in the armed forces. But the more she learns about occupied Palestinian territories the more she is tempted to refuse conscription. In Molly Stuart’s debut feature we are offered a rare window into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the perspective of an indomitable Jewish woman making an uncommon sacrifice. As Atalya searches for alternatives to government service and is frequently imprisoned, her actions affect the outlook of both her family and her community. A World premiere.

RAISE HELL: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MOLLY IVINS Directed by Janice Engel Except for a brief foray to The New York Times, Molly Ivins spent her entire professional life in her home state of Texas.

As entertainingly depicted in this film, the firebrand journalist was a trailblazer in many ways, from her dogged investigation into political machinations to her passionate belief in the power of the people. In her words, “Let me tell you a secret about politicians: They’re scared to death of us.”

GAY CHORUS DEEP SOUTH Directed by David Charles Rodrigues In response to a wave of discriminatory anti-LGBTQ laws and the divisive 2016 election, the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus embarks on a tour of the American South. Conductor Tim Seelig leads 300 singers through five states and 25 performances. Bringing messages of love and friendship, the choir finds acceptance and support throughout its tour, prompting surprising reconciliations and timely reflections.

In an age when the country feels fractured and explosive, “Gay Chorus Deep South” is a timely reminder that, as President Kennedy once said, “What unites us is far greater than what divides us.” Tribeca Film Festival 2019 premiere; Audience Award Winner, Tribeca 2019.

THE QUEST OF THE MUSCLE NERD (World premiere) Directed by Jared Young, Matthew Young Atlanta’s Dragon Con is the largest fandom-based convention in the U.S. Thousands of patrons flock to the convention, entering costume competitions.

Jerry Peacock wants to offer something different. Why not have a competition that rewards both sides of the equation — costume and physique?

Follow Jerry as he prepares for the first-ever Cosplay/ Bodybuilding competition and his quest to find the ultimate Muscle Nerd.

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PANEL DISCUSSIONS

SOUNDSCAPES & STORYTELLING Join us for a masterclass conversation on crafting soundscapes and storytelling with the director and producer of “MAKING WAVES: The Art of Cinematic Sound,” Midge Costin. Also joining us are Bobette Buster, the producer of “MAKING WAVES” and Hollywood storytelling consultant; Cecelia Hall, a subject in the film and an Academy Award-winning sound designer and sound editor; Richard Anderson, renowned sound effects editor and Academy Award winner who also stars in “MAKING WAVES”; and Glenn Kiser, the esteemed director of the Dolby Institute.

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MASTERCLASS IN DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKING Everything you have ever wanted to know about best practices and documentary filmmaking! This conversation features Kartemquin Film’s Director of Communication and Distribution Tim Horsburgh, who will teach you how to plan and execute an impact campaign; Rise Sanders-Weir, an Arkansas native and the director of production at Kartemquin, who will answer questions about budgets, timelines, and right-to-use; and Matthew Rogers, an attorney and legal expert on film contracts and tax credits.

FIRESIDE CHAT WITH NANFU WANG AND WAAD AL-KATEAB: FILMING IN HIGH RISK SITUATIONS, POLITICS AND MORE. Directors Nanfu Wang (“One Child Nation”) and Waad Al-Kateab (“For Sama”) join us for an intimate dialogue on the challenges of filming in volatile situations, working with family as film subjects and navigating complex political situations. Crafting raw, powerful stories featuring their native countries, Wang and Al-Kateab are explosive, maverick filmmakers changing the face of documentary filmmaking. Join us for this rare opportunity to hear about their approach to filming in high risk situations and how they balance the political and the personal onscreen.

“One Child Nation,” Nanfu Wang’s recent film, won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, 2019.

“For Sama,” Waad Al-Kateab’s debut film, won the Best Documentary Prize at Cannes, 2019.

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ALL THROUGH OCTOBER Magic Screams at Magic Springs. BOO! Magic Screams weekends run Sept. 28Nov. 3. Hours are noon-11 p.m. Saturdays, noon-9 p.m. Sundays. Featured are all new haunted attractions, like Illusion Confusion, Exitrance 2.0, CarnEvil #9 and more! Don’t miss out on this fun for all-ages event! For more details visit magicsprings.com/magicscreams.php OCT. 4-5 Ninth Annual Hot Water Hills Music & Arts Festival, Hill Wheatley Plaza.

Mark your calendars! Two days of music and art pops up in the heart of beautiful downtown Hot Springs. Hot Water Hills Music and Arts Weekend has been a favorite of the region for nine years running. For additional information, visit hotwaterhills.com or contact Bobby Missile at missile@lowkeyarts.org

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OCT. 11-12 Second Annual Hot Springs Baseball Weekend, Hot Springs Convention Center.

Baseball legends Ted Simmons and Steve Carlton will be the headline guests when Hot Springs celebrates its Second Annual Baseball Weekend. They will be joined by a fellow pitching legend Al Hrabosky as the city celebrates baseball and Hot Springs’ historic connection to the sport as The Birthplace of Major League Spring Training. Other guests will include past Major League players from Arkansas. For more information, call 501321-2277.

OCT. 21 Women in the Round at Low Key Arts.

Hot Springs native singer-songwriter, producer, recording artist and poet Linda Lowe has chosen Low Key Arts, 118 Arbor St., as the venue to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Women in the Round on the Road and the launch of her latest CD, “Barbwire Heart,” at 7 p.m.

Tickets are $25 and can be purchased at the door. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.

OCT. 26 The 2019 Spa City Rocktober Music Festival at Hot Springs Farmers Market.

Rocktober is back! An art-beat entertainment showcase for all ages happening at the Hot Springs Farmers Market. Admission is $10 (free to kids 12 & under). Live bands all day, food and adult beverages, merchandise booth/vendors, bouncy house and baggo, face paint and funnel cakes! Music lineup: Wes Jeans & Seth Freeman, DeFrance, Lil’, Skinny Band, Recognizer, Soulstus, Crash Meadows, McGuin, Hooker Red, No Fronts and Exit From Dark.

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Oct. 5: Oktoberfest Power Party Oct. 27: Birthday Bash Oct. 28: Luxury Houseboat Rental Drawing Oct. 30: Sissy’s Log Cabin Gift Card Drawing Oct. 31: Visa Gift Card Drawing Oct. 31: Halloween Monster Mash Party

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS MONDAYS: Wheel of Fortune Monday Fun Day, 8 a.m.-10 p.m.

Gridiron Challenge, 5 p.m. (starts Oct. 9) TUESDAYS: Wheel of Fortune Catfish Dinner, 4-9 p.m. in Lagniappe’s

HALLOWEEN MONSTER MASH PARTY OCT. 31

MAYDAY BY MIDNIGHT OCT. 4 & 5

From start to finish, October promises to be a haunting good time, starting with an Oktoberfest Celebration on Oct. 5 and ending with the Halloween Monster Mash Party on Oct. 31. Nearly every day in between guests can participate in a series of Wheel of Fortune tournaments for cash prizes and a chance to qualify for the finals Oct. 26, where five people will win a trip to Hollywood.

The casino opens at 8 a.m. every day. It closes at 4 a.m. Sunday-Thursday and 6 a.m. Friday–Saturday.

Follow Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for up-to-date news and reminders for what’s happening. Also, keep up with your points, offers and tier status by downloading the Oaklawn Rewards App on your mobile device. For more information or a complete list of promotions, visit oaklawn.com or call 501-623-4411.

WEDNESDAYS: Wheel of Fortune Red Hot Slot Tournament, 7-9 p.m.

Girls Night Out, 5-9 p.m.

THURSDAYS: Wheel of Fortune Hot Springs Village Days, 8 a.m.-10 p.m.

Gridiron Challenge, 5 p.m.

Trivia, 7–9 p.m. in Pop’s Lounge Happy Hour, 5-8 p.m.

FRIDAYS: Wheel of Fortune Football Frenzy, 6-10 p.m.

Party Pit, 8 p.m.-midnight Talent Showcase in Pop’s Lounge, 7:30-11:30 p.m.

Live Entertainment in Silks, 10 p.m.–2 a.m.

SATURDAYS: Live Entertainment in Silks, 10 p.m.–2 a.m.

LIVE ENTERTAINMENT SCHEDULE POP’S LOUNGE: Every Thursday: Team Trivia, 7-9 p.m.

Every Friday: Retro Game Night, 6-10 p.m.

Saturday, Oct. 19: Eli Lev, 6-10 p.m.

SILKS BAR & GRILL: Oct. 4-5: Mayday by Midnight, 10 p.m.-2 a.m.

Oct. 11-12: Pink Slip, 10 p.m.-2 a.m.

Oct. 18-19:

Oreo Blue, 10 p.m.-2 a.m.

Oct. 25-26: Big Shane Thornton, 10 p.m.-2 a.m.

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OCTOBER 2019 61

FOOD & DRINK

FROM DUMPLINGS TO SAKE: Three Fold owner Lisa Zhang is expanding her Chinese cuisine hold on Little Rock with Haybird, Eastern Pantry and more.

The Gospel of Good Food LISA ZHANG HAS CENTRAL ARKANSANS OBSESSED WITH CHINESE STREET EATS.

BY LINDSEY MILLAR PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN CHILSON

62 OCTOBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

IRENE ROSENZWEIG BIENNIAL JURIED EXHIBITION OCTOBER 10 — JANUARY 4 Opening Reception: Thursday, October 10, 5-7 p.m., awards at 5:30

Elizabeth Weber, Learning To Say “No,” 2019.

Leaf skeletons, honey locus thorns, wool roving, dandelion seeds.

Showcasing artists from the mid-South and featuring ceramics, drawings, fiber art, mixed media, paintings, photography, prints, and sculpture.

Exhibition sponsored by the Irene Rosenzweig Endowment Fund

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Blues

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T

his is a milestone year for Lisa Zhang.

It’s the fifth anniversary of Three Fold Noodles and Dumpling Co., her wildly popular authentic Chinese restaurant in downtown Little Rock, and her 20th year in the United States. It also marks a year of expansion with the opening in May of her Chinese chicken restaurant Haybird (“Where East Meats West”), and the development of a new 9,000-square-foot project in Riverdale, slated to open next year, which will house three concepts: an expanded and relocated Haybird; Eastern Pantry, a sort of deli with take-home meal options; and a sake brewery.

Zhang, 55, grew up making dumplings as a child in Manchuria and still cooks the way she learned: by feel without recipes. “I throw things in and I taste it,” she said. “The real cook for me cooks without a recipe. You need to cook with your sense. Eighty percent is science; 20 percent is art.”

But that tendency to quantify speaks to another side of her: She spent more than two decades in business management in China and later in Dallas and has an educational background in science. She obsesses over tweaking the systems and processes that she has in place to translate her sensory method of cooking to her teams in her restaurants that serve hundreds of customers a day.

When she decided to relocate Three Fold from 215 Center St. to 611 Main St. in 2017, she framed the move not by talking about Main Street being a more appealing location or the space having a larger dining room, but in terms of getting a new kitchen that would allow her to serve her dumplings to customers seconds after they were cooked. The dumplings, or shui jiao, she introduced on Center Street — thick pastries filled with pork, chicken or veggies and tofu that in assembly get the three folds that give the restaurant its name — had developed a devoted following. But Zhang couldn’t shake the frustration that the Center Street kitchen’s limited space kept her from serving her dumplings and noodles as piping hot as Chinese people dining in their home country would expect.

It‘s the Biscuit, baby.

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OCTOBER 2019 63

THE BIRDWICH: With a steamed bun, at Zhang’s Haybird restaurant.

Zhang describes her business philosophy as simple: to make money to benefit all the people working in her restaurants and benefit the Chinese culinary tradition. “As a Chinese [person], if you ask me, what is the most important or precious thing in your culture? Eating food. Because of the long history and wisdom.” She’s especially interested in Chinese “street food” and “the simplicity in the creation” developed over the course of hundreds of years. “A dumpling, it satisfies your tongue, your taste buds,” she said. “And it makes you wonder, why is this dumpling so good? How is it made, where does it comes from and why is it good?” She has counted and determined that one dumpling includes 24 ingredients and takes 21 steps to finish. “That really represents the delicacy of Chinese cooking,” she said.

Zhang and her chemist husband, Jian Yan, and their then-8-year-old daughter, Rebecca, moved from China to Arkansas in 1999 after Jian got a job at the National Center for Toxicological Research in Redfield. Lisa, who had worked in China monetizing academic research, couldn’t find a job in Central Arkansas, so she moved to Dallas to work for a Chinese company with a manufacturing facility in Texas that provides display furniture to retail chains. She began as a project manager, but rose to a senior vice president position. “Peo64 OCTOBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

Zhang can’t help but introduce menu items that don’t share much common ground with standard American cuisine.

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OCTOBER 2019 65

HAYBIRD, THE POPUP ON CENTER: Now in the old Three Fold space, Haybird, purveyor of fried chicken (below) — both vegetarian and real — and shoestring fries (the “hay,” pictured opposite page) will eventually be located in Riverdale.

66 OCTOBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

ple ask how I learn English. You’ve got to get in a fight,” she said, laughing. “As a VP, any kind of product not going right, people say, ‘That’s not my problem.’ That pushed me to have to speak and helped me learn American culture.”

She said working with the company’s wood and metal shops also gave her experience that’s come in handy as she’s developed restaurants.

After 10 years in Dallas and with Rebecca off to college, Lisa quit her job and enrolled in The Art Institute of Dallas’ culinary school, where she studied American regional cuisine. That background enters into her thinking as she decides what parts of Chinese cuisine to introduce. The pork steamed bun at Three Fold, for instance, isn’t that far from a pork barbecue sandwich. The day I visited with her, she said she had just been talking with Rebecca, who has been in management in Three Fold and now Haybird since Three Fold opened, about how to introduce new authentic food. “I want to give the best. I want to give 100 percent, but maybe people can only take 70 percent,” she said.

The Haybird concept seems safely within the 70 percent threshold. “Little Rock should have more variety since we’re in chicken country,” Zhang said. The menu, like Three Fold, is relatively spare and straightforward. The fried chicken is the star. It gets butterflied, marinated for 24-48 hours, breaded with seasoning and gluten-free rice flour, fried and then seasoned again. You can get it atop a mound of deliciously salty shoestring fries — the “hay” in Haybird — on a bed of Napa cabbage, gelatinous and toothsome wood ear mushrooms and cilantro, or as a sandwich in a thick, pillowy steamed bun that’s been pan-fried. Pickled carrots and daikon feature on all the dishes as does a peppery sauce that resembles the Three Fold dumpling sauce and comes in four spice levels, from nonspicy to poison (if you like a kick, poison is the way to go). All those options are also available with vegetarian “chicken,” made with wheat protein and two types of mushrooms, then fried. Packed with rich umami flavor, it’s the best meat alternative I’ve ever tasted.

But Zhang can’t help but introduce menu items that don’t share much common ground with standard American cuisine. At Three Fold, it’s the beef soup noodle, a piquant, layered and deeply satisfying noodle soup made with beef shank. At Haybird, it’s the dishes that feature the marinated fried eggs — the Eggwich, a steamed bun sandwich filled with two eggs and pickles, and the chicken salad, featuring braised, not fried, chicken and an egg. The eggs are deep-fried, a challenging process that requires a cook to control the temperature of the oil and flip the egg at just the right time (“An egg can be a bomb,” Zhang quipped), and then marinated for several hours. It’s a gooey, slightly chewy revelation.

By happenstance, the old Three Fold location on Center Street became available for lease earlier this year after Hanaroo closed. Zhang seized on the opportunity to roll out part of the Haybird plan and call it a “pop-up.” Typically, popups come and go in different locales. This one will remain open on Center Street until the lease is up at the end of April 2020.

The plan for the Riverdale outpost, which is scheduled to open next spring, is to expand her offerings. The Haybird menu will double in size, Zhang said, with many more braised chicken options and other items, like chicken gizzards, that pair well with alcohol. Sake is the Japanese word for alcohol; in the Western world it’s come to stand for certain kinds of Japanese rice wine.

But there are dozens of other rich traditions of rice wine brewing, including several in China.

She says that perhaps in the early going of Three Fold, she misled people by describing the menu as simple. “In China, traditionally, if you eat dumplings, you go to dumpling shop. And there are hundreds of different types of dumplings.”

The same applies to noodles, she said. The graband-go concept of Eastern Pantry will allow her to offer all sorts of variations on those staples.

The new location will also shift some of the production away from Three Fold. The dumplings will be assembled in Riverdale and then cooked on Main Street. Three Fold was originally conceived as a franchise. Zhang isn’t sure whether she’ll go that route, but she said it has been impossible to consider without a production facility.

In late September, Three Fold was set to undergo a minor kitchen renovation that would speed up the dumpling production and allow Zhang to serve guotie, a more authentic type of pan-fried dumpling.

Zhang was right about the move to Main Street. Business is booming, up 50 percent from what Three Fold did on Center Street with room to grow, Zhang said. And just as important to Zhang: The already great dumplings do indeed taste better.

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OCTOBER 2019 67

FOOD & DRINK

FOUND AT LOST FORTY: The S’morest Queen brewer is the state’s largest.

The State of Arkansas Beer, IT’S GROWING, AND NEW STYLES ARE TAKING HOLD.

BY BRIAN SORENSEN PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN CHILSON

T

en years doesn’t seem that long, but in the craft beer world it might as well be an eternity.

This is particularly true in Arkan-

sas.

Back in 2009, you could count the number of breweries in the state on one hand. Today there are nearly 40.

Ten years ago, the few breweries in Arkansas were located in just two cities: Fayetteville and Little Rock. Today they can be found in such smaller towns as Harrison, Mountain Home, Paris and Amity.

Arkansas breweries are scattered across the rural landscape, tucked into the hills and hollers far off the beaten path.

Have you heard of Big Flat? If so, it’s probably because there’s a brewery in the diminutive town that straddles Baxter and Searcy counties and just barely dots the map.

As the first decade of the new millennium came to a close, beer drinkers in the state were limited to macro lagers — Bud, Miller or Coors — 68 OCTOBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

What was once seen as a novelty has become a significant part of the state’s economy.

when dining out. Now Arkansas-made beer can be found in most restaurants with tap handles.

We are arguably living in the greatest era of beer our state has ever seen. Arkansas brewers are making flavorful beer in many different styles. Options truly abound.

According to the Brewers Association — the craft beer industry’s trade organization — the state’s brewers produced nearly 46,000 barrels of beer in 2018, which was good for the 48th most in the United States.

For comparison’s sake, Pennsylvania was No. 1 with 3.7 million barrels.

With those numbers in mind, there seems to be plenty of room for growth in the Arkansas brewing industry.

This truth is reflected by recent brewery launches across the state. In the last year, four have opened: Country Monks Brewing in Subiaco, Six Mile Brewery in Ozark, Eureka Springs Brewery and Boston Mountain Brewery in Fayetteville. Several more are rumored to be in planning.

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ARKANSAS TIMES

STONE’S THROW BREWING: Master brewer Theron Cash stacks kegs at the longtime outfit on Ninth Street, near MacArthur Park.

And it’s not just new breweries making waves.

A handful of existing breweries are experiencing growth on a significant scale.

Lost Forty Brewing Co. continues to increase production. The state’s largest by volume, the Little Rock brewery produced nearly 15,000 barrels of beer in 2018. Every last drop was sold inside the state’s borders. Its brews are ubiquitous: You can find Lost Forty from one corner of the state to the other, and just about everywhere in between.

The state’s second-biggest brewery — Core Brewing Co. — recently signed a sponsorship deal with the University of Arkansas’s athletic program. Core is now available inside the football stadium in Fayetteville and could conceivably grace tap handles in Bud Walton Arena if alcohol sales are ever allowed at basketball games. The deal will expose scores of Hog fans to Core, increasing the Springdale brewery’s visibility among existing and potential consumers alike.

Bentonville Brewing Co. will move into its new 20,000-square-foot facility in mid-October.

For the past couple of years, the brewery has called Rogers home. The return to Bentonville also involves an upgrade from a seven-barrel system to one capable of producing 20 barrels at a time. The facility is a far cry from the brewery’s humble beginnings in a small warehouse just a few years ago.

Buffalo Brewing Co. — once intertwined with a home brew supply shop — has stepped out on its own with a brand-new production facility on Cantrell Road in Little Rock. It also opened a new taproom in the Heights.

The news hasn’t been good for every Arkansas brewery. Some have faced challenges. A few have even closed their doors.

Blue Canoe Brewing Co. folded under what appeared to be domestic and legal troubles faced by the owners. Refined Ale Brewery’s

owner recently announced his brewery’s closing due to an illness in the family. Damgoode Brews — which made beer on the system originally used by River Rock Brewery and later Bosco’s — also ceased brewing operations.

Some might wonder if shuttered doors might signal the end of the craft beer momentum in Arkansas. With the never-ending nature of brewery openings across the country, it seems strange to see some fail in our state.

Clearly it is no longer enough to install a brewhouse, hang a sign on the building and expect customers to flock on an endless basis. Arkansas beer drinkers have grown more discerning over the past decade. Tastes have changed and quality and consistency are now the key to brewing success.

Simply put, if you aren’t making great beer, it doesn’t matter how good your business plan might be. And if you make great beer, you better have the ability to run a profitable business.

Preferred styles have also changed. Old school pale ales, stouts and wheats have all seen their popularity plummet. They have been replaced by sours, hazy IPAs and barrel-aged ales as the styles people seek in brewery taprooms.

Lost Forty has earned accolades for its Trash Panda series. This hazy IPA — or New England IPA if you prefer the style’s official name — is brewed with a rotating selection of hops. It’s big, cloudy and “juicy” in its composition.

Just 10 years ago, anything other than a crystal clear appearance would indicate a serious flaw in a beer. Now most breweries in Arkansas have a hazy IPA in their repertoire.

Another industry trend is spiked seltzer. It is so popular nationwide that one producer’s lack of inventory has created an uproar among consumers. People can’t seem to get enough of this low-calorie, effervescent cousin of beer. Though Arkansas breweries have yet to fully embrace the style, Core and Ozark Beer Co. have intro-

duced their own versions in cans. It’s safe to assume others will follow in their footsteps soon.

An obvious preference in Arkansas is drinking beer at the source. Taprooms have become hubs of local communities, often replacing coffee shops and town squares as the places people meet to socialize and exchange ideas.

Most of the breweries in Arkansas are, in fact, selling the bulk of their beer directly to consumers over taproom counters. The average output per brewery — based on the Brewers Association’s numbers — was just over 1,000 barrels in 2018. Only a few are packaging beer for sales in the broader retail market.

West Mountain Brewing Co. is a great example of this phenomenon. The small brewpub on Fayetteville’s downtown square attracts a large crowd every day of the week. People from all walks of life congregate to talk politics, religion and philosophy. It’s a wondrous sight to behold University of Arkansas professors discussing Dostoevsky with blue-collar workers over pints of blood orange IPA. Stone’s Throw Brewery is much the same.

The longtime Little Rock brewery has become a MacArthur Park-area institution, drawing legions of fans into its taproom for trivia, bingo and pint after pint of tap list standouts like Shamus Stout and Ich Bin Ein Berliner Weisse. It’s going for the same scene at its second taproom in the Stifft Station neighborhood.

Small breweries play an important role in communities all across the state. Ox Bend Brewing Co. in Ozark, Slate Rock Brewing Co. in Amity and Norfork Brewing Co. — just a few examples — give their towns an identity. They not only provide a communal atmosphere for local residents, but also attract visitors who add tax revenue to local coffers.

Mirroring trends seen across the United States, Arkansas breweries have turned into bona fide travel destinations. Prestonrose Farm & Brewing Co. in Paris has become one of the most heralded breweries in Arkansas without the benefit of distribution (see page 80). The organic farm provides a serene backdrop for those looking for a little R&R with their pints.

The same can be said for Saddlebock Brewery in Springdale, which is located near the point where the White River becomes Beaver Lake. Indeed, nature serves as a suitable backdrop for many Arkansas breweries.

The Arkansas brewing industry is an ever-evolving thing. The changes seen over the last decade have been dramatic. What was once seen as a novelty has become a significant part of the state’s economy.

The Brewers Association estimates the economic impact of the state’s brewing industry to be somewhere near $500 million. It’s no wonder the state legislature recently legalized brewing in dry counties. The benefits of a vibrant brewing community far outweigh any perceived consequences.

It will be interesting to see the changes that occur over the next 10 years. If they are anything like what we’ve seen over the past decade, the developments will be transformational.

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r th Bla the record fo gle “Blue on s n si ld o it h h e rd e th h , te Shep aiser Singers rts and wro a K h e C h s T e : E lu D B LU Billboard RE! RMERS INC Sipp and MO RDAY PERFO r.

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FOOD & DRINK

2019 Arkansas Times Craft Beer preview THE BEER EVENT OF THE YEAR IS NEAR.

C

lear your calendar, beer lovers. The party of the year is just around the corner. The Arkansas Times Craft Beer Festival returns to North Little Rock on Friday, Oct. 25, 6-9 p.m. The festival, which benefits the Argenta Arts District, has sold out in the past, so you’d be wise to pause reading this and go to centralarkansastickets.com and buy your tickets in advance ($25 as opposed to $40 at the door). Because the Argenta Plaza is in the final stages of construction, the festival will be in a new spot this year: It’ll be on the expansive grounds of Diamond Bear Brewing (600 N. Broadway St.).

DJ extraordinaire Mike Poe, who knows how to start a party, will be kickin’ out the jams. Make sure you check out special tents from the Fayetteville Ale Trail, the North Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau, and the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau, which is promoting its Locally Labeled Passport Program.

There will also be eats for purchase from the Riceland Mobile Cafe, Delta Biscuit Co., The Crepe Coup and more.

The event runs rain or shine. Read on for a preview of the participating breweries and what they’ll be pouring.

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OCTOBER 2019 73

ARKANSAS NATIONAL GUARD MUSEUM

LOCATED ON CAMP ROBINSON, NORTH LITTLE ROCK Hours: Monday-Friday 8:00 am – 3:00 pm Take exit 150 off I-40 and follow signs to Camp Robinson 501.212.5215 • arngmuseum.com

TAPS AT REBEL KETTLE: The East Village brewery is creative with its recipes (even it its pulls are on the spooky side). The Cajun-inspired food is delicious, too.

To come on Post you will need a driver’s license, proof of insurance, and vehicle registration.

COME JOIN US!

PULASKI HEIGHTS CHRISTIAN CHURCH

(Disciples of Christ) will celebrate the 92nd church anniversary and 27th anniversary as an open and affirming congregation on Sunday, October 6.

Rev. Dr. Nadine Burton, Executive Regional Minister for the Great River Region (AR, LA, MS) will be the guest minister for the 10:30 a.m. service.

Theme: Where Do We Go From Here?

A luncheon will follow at Noon.

All are welcome.

4724 HILLCREST AVE. (501) 663-8149 74 OCTOBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

ARKANSAS BREWERIES BLACK APPLE CROSSING This Springdale-based cidery, founded in 2014, produces a range of dry, semi-sweet and hoppy varieties of hard cider using locally and regionally grown ingredients. Along with being the only full-time hard cider maker in the state, it’s one of only a handful in the country that produces cider without using sulfites or other preservatives. Newly available on tap in Little Rock, you can also find it in cans in North and Northwest Arkansas.

BIKE RACK BREWING CO. Billing itself as “Bentonville’s first brewery,” this growing operation now has three locations — a small-batch brewery and taproom just off the Razorback Regional Greenway in Bentonville’s Arts District, a large production brewery and taproom in Bentonville’s 8th Street Market and a beer and coffee bar in downtown Springdale. You can find its brews in cans in Central Arkansas.

DIAMOND BEAR BREWING CO. Founded 18 years ago, Arkansas’s first production brewery — and this year’s Craft Beer Fest host — is named for two former nicknames for The Natural State: the “Bear State” and the “Diamond State.” Its brewhouse in North Little Rock is also home to the delicious Ale House restaurant.

FLYWAY BREWING CO. This Argenta-based brewery turns out year-round brews with titles that follow the brewery’s namesake: the Mississippi Flyway, the large migration route that takes birds over Arkansas to and from Canada and the Gulf of Mexico. Look out for year-round-

ers, such as the hugely popular Bluewing Berry Wheat, Early Bird IPA, Honeybird Blonde Ale, Peregrine Pale Ale and Free Range Brown Ale. LOST FORTY BREWING Arkansas’s largest brewery by volume, Lost Forty has become a local household name, with its brews served and advertised in restaurants and retail stores everywhere. It releases a dizzying number of seasonal and specialty brews, some of which it’s bound to have ready for sampling at the fest.

NEW PROVINCE BREWING CO. Derek and Megan McEnroe founded New Province Brewing Co. in 2014, after Benton County voted to go wet in 2012. Their taproom and brewery in Rogers has a regular weekly event schedule that includes Wednesday trivia night, a 3-7 p.m. Thursday night happy hour and free brewery tours on Saturdays.

NORFORK BREWING This nano-brewery in Norfork (Baxter County) opened for business in 2018 and uses local, organic and wild ingredients in its brews. Its small taproom near the White River is open Thursday through Monday.

OZARK BEER CO. Since moving in late 2016 to its space in a historic building on the square in Rogers, Ozark has continued to expand the reach of its distribution, and four of its yearround canned beers can be found all over Northwest and Central Arkansas. Marty Shutter, marketing director, has said its motto — “Hard Work, Honest Beer” — translates in its efforts to keep prices accessible. “We keep our team small, our workload high and our prices low,

The Civilian Conservation Corps in Arkansas An online exhibit from the UA Little Rock Center for Arkansas History and Culture

1937

Cabin 69 at Mount Nebo State Park

2019

The legacy of the CCC can be found at parks across Arkansas.

You just have to know where to look.

CENTER FOR ARKANSAS HISTORY AND CULTURE University of ArkAnsAs At LittLe rock

To learn more visit: ualrexhibits.org/ccc

8am / 11am / 2pm / 4pm ARKANSASTIMES.COM

OCTOBER 2019 75

TRENTON LEE STEWART OCTOBER 1 AT 5:30 P.M.

We are excited to welcome Trenton Lee Stewart, the New York Times bestselling author of the Mysterious Benedict Society books, to WordsWorth Books to help launch the latest adventure in the series, The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Riddle of Ages!

PRE-ORDER SIGNED FIRST EDITIONS NOW AND PLAN TO JOIN US FOR A MYSTERIOUSLY GOOD TIME. LITTLE ROCK’S INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORE! Open 10 AM - 6 PM Monday - Saturday, 12-5 PM Sunday 5920 R St, Little Rock • 501-663-9198 • www.wordsworthbookstore.com

RASHOD OLLISON MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP The Rashod Ollison Memorial Scholarship Fund has been founded to support Arkansas high school minorities who are interested in pursuing a college education at UCA or U of A, Fayetteville with majors in journalism, creative writing and African-American studies.

Rashod Ollison (1977-2018) was an award-winning pop music critic and culture journalist. He was a staff critic and feature writer for the Dallas Morning News, Philadelphia Inquirer, Journal News (Westchester, New York), Baltimore Sun and Virginian Pilot. He also wrote a music column for Jet magazine. In 2016, Ollison published Soul Serenade: Coming of Age Through Vinyl, his critically-acclaimed story of growing up in Central Arkansas, influenced by his family’s love or R&B music, which has already gone into a second printing from Beacon Press. A native of Little Rock, Arkansas, Ollison lived in Virginia Beach and passed away in 2018.

To donate to the Rashod Ollison Memorial Scholarship fund: www.arcf.org/ollison All donations are appreciated. The scholarship to be awarded is $1,000.

Request a scholarship vial email at rashodollisonscholarship@gmail.com

C H R I S T I N E T I M O T H Y

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ARKANSAS TIMES

hoping to dispel the notion that world-class beer can’t come at working-class prices,” he said.

REBEL KETTLE BREWING CO. We love that Rebel Kettle brewers will do things like toss 100 Community Bakery glazed donuts and locally roasted Columbian coffee together to make an Imperial Coffee Donut Stout. That sort of creativity and willingness to experiment makes the East Village brewery stand out. We’re big fans of its taproom and restaurant, too. There you’ll find an enticing menu of Cajun-inspired pubgrub, an outdoor stage and a cornhole setup.

STONE’S THROW BREWING Since Stone’s Throw opened at the vanguard of Arkansas’s craft brewery explosion in 2013, the cozy Little Rock neighborhood brewpub has gradually added more seating indoors and outside, and its space and selection continues to draw guests, both human and pooch alike. Now, it’s off to a great start in creating a similar vibe with a second location in Stifft Station.

SUPERIOR BATHHOUSE BREWERY The first brewery to open in a national park and the only one in the world to use hot spring-fed water to brew, Superior has become a prime attraction in downtown Hot Springs. Situated on Bathhouse Row and with excellent pub grub, it’s an ideal spot for people-watching.

REGIONAL BOULEVARD BREWING CO. This longtime craft beer favorite has been brewing out of Kansas City, Mo., since 1989 and is the 12th largest brewery in the country. In 2014, Belgium’s Duvel Moortgat purchased the brewery. We’re big fans of its Tank 7 Farmhouse Ale, which packs a surprising, peppery punch.

CRANE BREWING CO. This Raytown, Mo., microbrew specializes in saison, Berliner Weiss and lambic styles of beer.

COOP ALE WORKS Hailing from Oklahoma City, COOP Ale Works describes its popular F5 IPA as “a belligerent hop reckoning.” We think its straightforward malt body nicely balances with the citrus, grapefruit and pine notes produced by the unique hop mix.

INDEPENDENCE BREWING CO. Independence has been slinging beers in south Austin, Texas, since 2004, and these smooth, flavorful beers are a testament to the indie spirit of the brewery.

Among its popular offerings: The Liberty Lunch IPA is an intensely drinkable IPA, with notes of honey balancing out “luscious stone fruit and tropical hop flavors,” according to the brewers.

KARBACH BREWING CO. This Houston brewery uses German techniques to create beers and serves guests at its Biergarten and restaurant.

Love Street, a Kolsch-style blonde, features delicate floral hops and a clean, refreshing malt profile. The Hopadillo IPA is a dry-hopped, bitter American IPA, according to the brewers.

LAZY MAGNOLIA BREWING CO. Built in 2005 as the first Mississippi packaging brewery since prohibition, Lazy Magnolia is known for its

Southern Pecan, a lightly hopped brown ale made with whole roasted pecans, used just like grain to create a nutty flavor profile.

MOTHER’S BREWING CO. This Springfield, Mo., brewery is behind household names such as the Lil’ Helper IPA and Towhead Blonde.

We’re also especially fond of Winter Grind, a dry English coffee stout infused with espresso beans.

PINEY RIVER BREWING CO. An 80-acre farm in Bucyrus, Mo., is home to the brewery and taproom “BARn” of Piney River. Started by Joleen and Brian Durham as homebrewers, the Ozark brewery now houses a 15-barrel brewhouse and an eight-head canning line.

PRAIRIE ARTISAN ALES Innovation and creativity are at the heart of Prairie Artisan Ales in Krebs, Okla. Each bottle or can is wrapped in unique, intricate artwork, and the playful labels introduce eccentric brews.

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RAHR & SONS BREWING CO. Brewing out of Fort Worth since 2004, the family behind Rahr & Sons comes from a long line of German brewers. Frederick William “Fritz” Rahr Jr. and his wife, Erin, opened Rahr & Sons 160 years after Fritz’s grandfather founded Eagle Brewery, the first lager brewery in Wisconsin, according to the brewers. Look out for Paleta de Mango, a mango chili beer with lime, and the Adios Pantalones, a Mexican-style cerveza de sesión brewed with lemon and lime.

SHINER BEER An iconic name in Texas beer, Shiner has been brewing out of Shiner, Texas, since 1909. You can’t go wrong with the classic Shiner Bock, an American dark-style lager, or Shiner Ruby Redbird, a grapefruit lager with a kick of ginger.

SWEETWATER BREWERY Atlanta’s SweetWater Brewery started in 1997 as the brainchild of two college friends. After a 100,000-square-foot expansion in 2012, the brewery also broadened its distribution, and now also hosts 420 Fest, a beer and music festival in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park. At the fest, look out for the 420 Strain G13 IPA, an “aromatic super-hybrid sticky” IPA with Columbus and Simcoe hops and a “natural hemp flavor.”

NATIONAL BRECKENRIDGE BREWERY A 12-acre plot of land in Littleton, Co., formerly a carnation farm, is now home to Breckenridge Brewery.

The brewery began operations in 1990 in Breckenridge, the mountain town of its namesake, before later moving to two locations in Denver and then outgrowing them, too. Their “farm-inspired” campus in Littleton features a 100-barrel brewhouse, a barrel-aging room and the Farm House restaurant.

DOGFISH HEAD CRAFT BREWERY With roots in Delaware since 1995, the Dogfish Head empire now includes a brewery, distillery, restaurant and the Dogfish Inn, located in historic downtown Lewes in coastal Delaware. The Dogfish philosophy is all about bringing “off-centered goodness to off-centered people” through

PATIO WEATHER IS HERE!

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1023 West Markham Downtown Little Rock 501-376-1195 www.doeseatplace.net ARKANSASTIMES.COM

OCTOBER 2019 77

CORNING SENIOR HOUSING APARTMENTS

806 W. Elm St. and 813 Vine St. Corning, AR

1 and 2 Bedrooms Available Water, sewer and garbage included. Monthly pest control and lawn care.

Section 8 HUD and Rental Assistance may be available to those who qualify

Contact apartment manager for application 870-857-0011 or 870-323-0021 Office Manager Hannah Roark

CRAFT BEER FESTIVAL 2018: The Arkansas Times’ annual event in Argenta features beer tastings from local, regional and national brewers, like Atlanta’s SweetWater.

THIS INSTITUTION IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY PROVIDER AND EMPLOYER

its brews, food and hospitality.

MIDTOWN MUSIC LINE-UP FOR OCTOBER

Oct 4 Buh Jones Oct 5 Psychedelic Velocity Oct 11 Ed Bowman & The Rock City Players Oct 12 Nola’s Birthday! Luke Williams Band Oct 18 Family Dog Oct 19 Fanstar Oct 25 Black River Pearl Oct 26 Morning View Oct 31 25th Annual Hooty Hoo Halloween Party

BEST LATE-NIGHT SPOT

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78 OCTOBER 2019

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FOUNDERS BREWING CO. This Grand Rapids, Mich., brewery prides itself on making beer for people who enjoy big, bold flavors outside of traditional taste. This philosophy has rung true with beer lovers, bringing success — six World Beer Cup medals, four European Beer Star medals and three Great American Beer Festival medals — and the ability to keep forging ahead with new flavors and series.

GOLDEN ROAD BREWING Meg Gill and Tony Yanow are the beer enthusiasts behind Golden Road Brewing, which opened in Los Angeles in 2011. They’ve since partnered with Anheuser-Busch and expanded from their original pub and brewery in Atwater Village to locations in downtown L.A., Anaheim and Sacramento.

Look out for their Wolf Pup Session IPA, a core beer from their year-round offerings with “a wildly aromatic tropical and citrus character.”

GOOSE ISLAND BEER CO. Chicago staple Goose Island Beer has garnered respect among

craft beer drinkers since its inception in 1988.

In 2011, it was acquired by Anheuser-Busch, and, according to the brewers, this has allowed Goose Island to distribute its craft brews nationally and internationally. Bourbon County Stout, a bourbon-barrel-aged imperial stout with intense aromas of charred oak, chocolate, vanilla, caramel and smoke, is always a festival favorite.

LAGUNITAS BREWING CO. With multiple hubs — in California, Washington and Illinois — Lagunitas is sharing its brews with the “beer-loving disapora” across the country. Its hoppy, high alcohol by volume (ABV) Super Cluster Ale is what we repeatedly turn to on the weekend.

OLD NATION BREWING Based in small town Williamston, Mich., this brewery struggled in its early years after launching in 2015. Then it rolled out a hazy IPA M-43, which became a massive hit in Michigan and beyond. “Citrus and tropical notes of pineapple, mango and grapefruit come through in the huge, yet surprisingly delicate aroma,” the brewers say of that 6.8 percent ABV beer.

ROGUE Based in Newport, Ore., this craft favorite has been overseen by brewmaster John Maier since 1989. It distributes its popular ales in all 50 states and to 54 countries.

SAMUEL ADAMS (BOSTON BEER CO.) Samuel Adams beer began in 1984 with Jim Koch’s first batch of Boston Lager brewed in his home’s kitchen. That recipe dated back to the 1870s, when his great-great-grandfather had a St. Louis brewery. A mere six weeks after Koch first served his Samuel Adams Boston Lager to the public, it won the “Best Beer in America” award at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver.

Since then, Sam Adams has grown exponentially: It’s now the second-largest craft brewery in the U.S. SQUATTERS CRAFT BEERS Founding partners Peter Cole and Jeff Polychronis opened the first brewpub in Salt Lake City in 1989. Wasatch Brewery and Squatters Craft Beers make up the Utah Brewers Cooperative. Look out for the Hop Rising Double IPA, a fruit-forward IPA with notes of mango and citrus from exotic hops.

STILLWATER ARTISANAL Brian Strumke founded Stillwater Artisanal in 2010 after a career as an electronica DJ and producer. His homebrewing experiments in the backyard of his Baltimore home eventually led to a distribution deal with Twelve Percent Imports, but to this day, neither Strumke nor Stillwater has its own facility. Strumke instead uses excess capacity at existing breweries and travels to each of them to produce his batches. The method must work because Stillwater has ranked on ratebeer. com’s Top 100 Brewers In The World list every year since its inception.

TOPPLING GOLIATH BREWERY This Decorah, Iowa-based brewery has become well known among beer aficionados for its IPAs and stouts.

Its Kentucky Brunch Brand Stout was rated the No. 1 beer in the world by RateBeer in 2015 and Beeradvocate has, in the past, ranked it the second-best brewery in the world.

PULASKI COUNTY TAXES! PAY BY 10/15/19 TO AVOID PENALTY Offices will be closed 10/16, 10/17

Offices will reopen on 10/18 or upon completion of 2018 end of year process. A notice will be placed on our website with re-opening time.

Don’t let your Mother-in-law, Boss or Ex see your name in the paper.

AND THEY WILL…

DEBRA BUCKNER

Pulaski County Treasurer • 501.340.6040

LIVE chat available now on website.

www.pulaskicountytreasurer.net SEPT 24 – OCT. 19

WASATCH BREWERY Greg Schirf, founder of Wasatch, opened the first brewpub in Utah in 1989, and now is part of the Utah Brewers Cooperative along with Squatters Craft Beers.

Look out for Wasatch’s Polygamy Nitro Porter, a nitrogenated version of its original Polygamy Porter (more nitrogen gives beer a creamier taste), along with Devastator Double Bock and Ghostrider White IPA. YUENGLING The oldest operating brewery in the country continues to be owned by members of the founding Yuengling family and based in Pottsville, Penn. It began distributing to Arkansas in 2017 and has been an outsized player in the market ever since.

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A HYSTERICAL SUSPENSE COMEDY ABOUT A LOVE TRIANGLE IN A HOWARD JOHNSON’S HOTEL. ARKANSASTIMES.COM

OCTOBER 2019 79

NEW EVENING LINEUP TO BEGIN SEPT. 30 The following schedule changes will take effect beginning Monday, Sept. 30: n “PBS NewsHour” will move from 5:30 to 6 each weeknight. n “PBS NewsHour Weekend” will move to 5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. n “BBC World News” will air at 10 each weeknight. n “Arkansas Week” will return to its 7:30 p.m. Friday timeslot. n Thursdays at 7 p.m. will be dedicated to AETN’s local stories and films.

For a complete schedule, visit aetn.org/schedule.

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Logan Run

TRAVEL

BREWERIES BOTH SACRED AND SECULAR FIND FOOTING IN HILLY ARKANSAS WINE COUNTRY.

BY STEPHEN KOCH PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN CHILSON

IN BREWING COUNTRY: Brother Richard Walz, a brewer at Subiaco Abbey, heads toward the unassuming building that houses Country Monks Brewing.

A

rkansas wine country had managed to thrive even before recent sessions of the Arkansas legislature started liberalizing some of the state’s booze laws in the name of economic development. Now, inside the state’s venerable vino country is an outpost of something that barely existed here late last century: Arkansas beer country. Two breweries, Country Monks and Prestonrose, have opened their doors on the gravel roads of Logan County; both are helping change the flavor of the Arkansas River Valley, a region known for decades for its wine.

With the area’s rolling hills and abundant water, it’s easy to see why one might think Benedictine monks chose to settle in this picturesque portion of Western Arkansas in the late 1800s.

But actually, the land was donated by a railroad company for a monastery in an effort to get more German Catholics to immigrate to the area. Today, Subiaco Abbey stands as a regional beacon of near equal to nearby mounts Nebo and Magazine. For many non-Catholics, the abbey is best known for selling Monk Sauce, a ha-

banero hot sauce made by the local monks. But in a nod to the centuries-long history of monks and brewing, Subiaco’s Country Monks Brewing launched in late 2018. Brother Basil Taylor, a native of Fort Smith, is head brewer. (An obvious pot-stirrer, Bro. Basil is also responsible for a new addition to the Monk Sauce lineup: a smoked pepper hot sauce.)

Taylor enjoyed homebrewing for several years before he joined the monastery in 2012.

“A couple of monks brewed when I joined the monastery for the monks to drink when we have community,” he said. “When they found out that I knew how to brew, it was passed off to me.” True to its rustic moniker, Country Monks Brewing is located in a nondescript metal building in the rolling pastures and farmland adjacent the majestic abbey.

While the venture to sell beer to the public is new, beer has a long history here: “We joke that we have been a monastery for 141 years, and have probably been brewing beer for 140 of those, which is probably pretty close to the truth,” Taylor said. “Our founding monks were

a mixture of German and Swiss who lived close to the German border.” As for the wine heritage of the area, he noted that the monks have historically grown grapes here as well, mostly for Mass wine.

Brewing at the monastery is not Taylor’s main job, which for every monk at Subiaco is praying with the community five times a day: “I have to split my time up quite a bit.” He works his brewing day in around the prayers, along with the several other jobs he is tasked with. “Most times, I will go down and add the barley to the hot water — which is called mashing — in between 5:45 morning prayer and 6:30 a.m. Mass. Then [I] come down after Mass and continue the brewing. Sometimes in the evening, I will come down and can beer after 7:05 p.m. Vespers,” he said.

***

Down another quiet gravel road a few miles east of the abbey, is a more secular, but just as unexpected, hub of activity: Prestonrose Farm and Brewing Co. Liz and Mike Preston started ARKANSASTIMES.COM

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their hilltop farm and brewery in 2016 with the idea that the two ventures should complement each other. Fruit, peppers and, most notably, hops from the farm all end up in the brews; bounty from other crops ends up at the farmers market, or on patrons’ plates at the taproom.

The Prestons bring a lot of brainpower to the operation: Liz has a degree in biology; her background is marine microbial ecology and environmental regulation. She has since trained at the American Brewer’s Guild in Vermont and become certified in Brewer’s Science & Engineering.

Mike’s background is in nuclear chemistry.

With family-style seating, there’s family-style talk in Prestonrose’s miniature beer hall, actually a small Quonset hut-shaped portable building softened by big windows and lots of cedar. Just minutes after opening time, it’s filled up. “Where’s home?” Mike asks new visitors,

over the interstate. This spring, a portion of 22 from Dardanelle to Fort Smith was designated as the “True Grit Trail” in honor of El Dorado native and Little Rock resident Charles Portis’ West Arkansas-centric novel. With Mount Nebo in the distance, Lake Dardanelle wouldn’t have been created yet when “True Grit” heroine Mattie Ross set out from Yell County in 1873 on her journey — but the area is a gorgeously auspicious entree to the trail.

On one visit, we drove a few miles west of the breweries to take in nearby Paris’ charming square, which (at last!) comes complete with the town’s own Eiffel Tower, sized proportionately with its population. Paris’ tower was erected in 2014, according to Paris City Director Tonya Baumgartner. “It got a lot of attention,” she said of the tower, which is 18 feet tall — 25 if you count the fountain on which it’s mounted.

There’s family-style seating in Prestonrose’s miniature beer hall. and there are plenty of those. But regulars also squeeze in, with nearby Pope County/Russellville well represented.

Mike doesn’t mind holding court, telling one group how they sold 1,000 12-ounce beers in six hours at a recent event, and regaling the whole taproom with a story about getting a shirt for his brother’s recent wedding. There’s also a lot of talk about beer. And it’s not all from employees, but they do explain in great detail to patrons about Prestonrose’s London-style porter fermented with Fort Smith coffee beans, its French farmhouse saison brewed with wild sumac berries, and even its (usually) nonalcoholic Laughing Stock Ginger Ale, made from fresh Arkansas-grown ginger root. We were the first patrons to sample Weld County, a Hefeweizen named for the Colorado county where its wheat was grown.

Prestonrose’s beer has generated a lot of interest from those who haven’t made the almost two-hour drive west from Little Rock to the farm. (It’s available on tap in Little Rock only at Dos Rocas Beer and Tacos.) But not enough is said about the kitchen. The menu featured tacos as an entree, with smoked pork, braised pork belly, smoked chicken, roast beef and “fat top” mushrooms as options. Humble smoked chicken emerged as the star for us, as did a mushroom mole acorn squash bisque, made with Arkansas mushrooms, of course. The vegetarian Hatch queso is a thick take on Little Rock cheese dip, made with peppers and tomatoes from the farm and served with local tortilla chips. Sadly, left untried amidst the savory delights were cantaloupe ice cream and watermelon horchata.

“We are pretty much at capacity,” Liz said, adding that Prestonrose is looking at expanding both its taproom space and production area.

Like the monks, the Prestons were called to the area — they chose Logan County for its proximity to Mike’s job at Arkansas Nuclear One. And they chose this property “because it was love at first sight,” Liz said.

***

Be forewarned — both breweries maintain limited hours, but there are other sights to see. State Highway 22 is the main thoroughfare through the area, and it’s highly recommended 82 OCTOBER 2019

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Lovers come to the “love lock” fence by the tower to declare their amour via padlock. They then cinch the lock on the fence, throw away the key in the tower’s two-tier fountain, and assuredly live happily ever after.

On Paris’ Elm Street is the city’s coal miners museum, paying homage to a less celebrated Arkansas product than wine. Coal was the main industry around here for decades, and the location also serves as a memorial to those who gave their lives doing this dirty and dangerous job.

The museum recently acquired a 125-year-old train engine, laboriously relocated from a Paris city park, where it sat rusting behind a fence.

The train engine is being moved to a more visible spot on the museum’s grounds — along the former railroad tracks where this very engine used to run. The town’s 40th annual Frontier Day Oct. 5 will pay homage to the train. It’s the largest event in the city of Paris. There’s live music, a parade, a car show, a pumpkin patch — all the trimmings. It draws about 3,000 people — “in a town of 3,500, that’s big,” Baumgartner said.

The area outside town has a lot of trails and biking, and it all ties in with the new breweries. From Paris, you can take the lovely, winding way over to Cove Lake in the Ozark National Forest. During the season, there’s swimming, hiking, camping and fishing, and you can even buy hamburgers out of the CCC-era stone main building. Just to complete Cove Lake’s idyllic Norman Rockwell scene, a youth group was in the middle of a scavenger hunt when we visited — heads down, scouring the premises with great intensity for a certain 2017 penny.

Just a bit further south of Cove Lake is Mount Magazine, the highest peak in the state. Some 400,000 visitors come to the mountain annually to hike, bike, climb rocks, ride horseback, watch birds and even hang glide. There’s also a state park with cabins and a lodge overlooking the valley and lake below. The park’s Skycrest Restaurant serves breakfast, lunch and dinner and beer — but not local beer. (The Skycrest name pays homage to a historic hotel once found on the mountain.) Butterflies are big on Mount Magazine; the rare Diana fritillary can be found here, along with examples from the majority of the entire state’s butterfly species. In June, there’s an international butterfly festival.

THE BREWERIES OF LOGAN COUNTY: (From top left): Subiaco’s Country Monks Brewery produces Abbey Amber; Brother Richard Walz is growing hops with an eye to using them someday. Nearby is Prestonrose Farm and Brewing Co., which serves brews and meals from its taproom. (From left, at bottom): Mike Preston tends the peppers that go in his cheese dip and fills a growler with artisan beer. Cowie Wine Cellar and Vineyards includes a museum featuring owner Bob Cowie’s bell collection.

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THE CASKS OF COWIE WINE CELLAR: Cowie’s late wife decorated the winery’s barrels.

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Prestonrose Farm & Brewing Co. 201 St. Louis Valley Road, Paris Open 4-8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, noon-4 p.m. Sunday.

Country Monks Brewing 405 N. Subiaco Ave., Subiaco Open 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday.

Cowie Wine Cellars 101 N. Carbon City Road, Paris Open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday.

On another visit, we drove up into northern Logan County toward Prairie View to Cave Creek Recreation Area. This silent and overgrown nature park with an asphalt loop abuts a river-sized creek, as well as something called the McKennon Bottoms Waterfowl Impoundment.

(Hide yo ducks, hide yo geese!) It sports painted-over signage at the entrance and ivy-encased bathrooms that seem to indicate this is a U.S. Corps of Engineers joint gone to seed, or a “Life After People” tableau. It’s as desolate and lonesome as Cove Lake is verdant and inviting, but not without its own creepy and isolated charm.

“People will call from all over the state” to ask about the breweries, Baumgartner said. “[Prestonrose] can’t make enough. The monks are selling out pretty often as well,” she said. “The start of wine country” is in Paris, she said, but she thinks beer and wine can also be a great complement to each other.

Vintner Bob Cowie agrees. Cowie Wine Cellars and Vineyards is a winery just west of Paris that he’s run for a half-century. “I’m almost 80 years old,” he says, “and I’m an interesting old goat.” Like the man, his compound is pretty interesting, too. It contains a museum of Arkansas wine history — although Cowie is his own walking depository of knowledge. He can name off the top of his head the Little Rock streets where wineries were once located.

There’s a Catholic chapel on site, where his wife, Bette Kay, is buried. “She died on our 50th anniversary,” he adds. This little chapel contains an ear-ringing 30 bells, but that’s just a fraction of Cowie’s vast bell collection. He alleges his assemblage of bells is the largest of its sort in the country, and I have no competing information to counter this claim. Cowie also operates a B&B here, which he clarifies stands for bed and bath, not bed and breakfast, since his wife, who used to cook, passed on. It consists of two suites and a guesthouse across the street.

He plans to display at the guesthouse his deep autograph collection, which includes presidents and, he notes, all the men who walked on the moon. Oh, and did you know? There’s also wine. Having the breweries in the area “suits me just fine,” Cowie said. He gets it, he says. “It’s just a beautiful part of Arkansas.”

BEEN TO FRANKLIN?

More Arkansas beer, and especially wine, is on tap in adjacent Franklin County, a county named for noted booze aficionado Ben Franklin. Twenty minutes up state Highway 23 is Ox Bend Brewing Co. in Ozark. The historic Arkansas wine country around Altus (pop. 758) and Wiederkehr Village (pop. 38) includes Mount Bethel Winery, Post Winery, Wiederkehr Wine Cellars and Chateau Aux Arc Winery. The 56th annual Wiederkehr Weinfest in Wiederkehr Village is Oct. 5.

MAGNET SCHOOL FAIR OCTOBER 12 • 10am - 2pm Park Plaza Mall

LRSD offers a variety of educational opportunities to meet your child’s needs. Each Magnet school emphasizes a specialized theme: Arts, Math and Science; International Studies and Foreign Languages; Gifted & Talented; and Traditional Studies.

If you are looking for classrooms that are interesting, innovative and rigorous, be sure to attend our “Magnet School Fair” event for details on what each location has to offer.

Participating Schools: Booker Arts Magnet Elementary School, Carver Math-Science Magnet Elementary School, Horace Mann Arts & Science Magnet Middle School, Parkview Arts/Science Magnet High School, Central International Studies High School, Dunbar Gifted & Talented/International Studies Magnet Middle School, Gibbs Magnet School of International Studies and Foreign Languages, Williams Traditional Studies Magnet School Elementary, and Forest Heights STEM Academy.

ARKANSASTIMES.COM

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CANNABIZ

Cannabis Couture

HOW LITTLE ROCK DESIGNER KORTO MOMOLU BROUGHT A WEED-INSPIRED COLLECTION TO NEW YORK FASHION WEEK.

BY REBEKAH HALL

86 OCTOBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

@PHELANMARC

HIGH FASHION: Momolu’s collection uses materials that are “close to the cannabis plant,” like hemp.

A

s cannabis continues to be medically and recreationally legalized across the country, the variety of pot-related products offered to consumers is growing, too. When Women Grow — an organization that promotes women’s leadership in the cannabis business — asked designer and Little Rock resident Korto Momolu to create a weed-inspired clothing collection for its leadership summit in June, Momolu knew she wanted to work with the company to “change the narrative” about who leads, and benefits from, the cannabis industry.

Momolu, 44, said the capsule collection she designed for the summit sold out quickly, and an investor at the event offered to sponsor Women Grow and Momolu to design a bigger collection for New York Fashion Week. The designer had less than a month to create 28 looks made up of more than 40 individual pieces, a process made more difficult by Momolu’s arthritis in her right arm. “[The pain] was challenging, but it was almost like I needed it to happen, because I started thinking about all the people that are on medicinal cannabis, and this is what they go through,” Momolu said. “I think I needed to go through that to understand, ‘Who am I doing this for? Who’s the face of this?’ Because that’s what the whole point was: to change the narrative of who is benefiting from this. It’s not about sitting around and just leisurely smoking pot, it’s about people who really are going through way worse pain than I was.”

For the Fashion Week collection, Momolu wanted to work with sustainable fabrics, including hemp, which is a Cannabis strain often used in fiber and paper making. Momolu said she had difficulty finding hemp for sale at a reasonable price in the United States, so she used a vendor in Thailand who sold strips of the fabric that the designer then ripped apart and reconstructed to create her own fabrics for the collection. Momolu said she may “revisit” the process of making hemp more affordable and widely available in the U.S., as she said the texture of the “gorgeous” fabric reminded her of African textiles. Momolu also used burlap fabric — also called “jute” — as well as linen and cork to bring an earthy element to the collection. She then combined these with other fabrics, including organza and taffeta, to make the pieces look “rich and elegant.”

“That was definitely on the forefront: getting things that were close to the cannabis plant,” Momolu said. “So getting hemp was important, but adding the other ones [was] as well. Then mixing it with luxurious fabrics to make it high fashion — no pun intended. It was challenging, but it ended up being really fun.”

Momolu is no stranger to working with unique fabrics. When the Liberia native was a contestant on season five of Bravo TV’s “Project Runway,” designers were challenged to create an outfit out of spare car parts. Momolu wove a mod ’60s coat out of seat belts, and the piece remains iconic among the long-running show’s many creations. This creativity and resourcefulness was present in the Women Grow collection Momolu debuted at Fashion Week on Saturday, Sept. 7. Models of different ages and sizes walked the runway puffing on “glamourized” vape pens bedazzled with pearls and rhinestones — “it was CBD [oil], just for the record,”

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OCTOBER 2019 87

@PHELANMARC

@PHELANMARC BRIAN CHILSON

BRIAN CHILSON

‘SKY’S THE LIMIT’: As the medical marijuana industry evolves, Momolu is innovating alongside it. The designer wants to create a CBD-infused glove or sleeve to help creators who suffer from physical ailments like carpal tunnel syndrome.

Momolu adds — while sporting the designer’s custom creations.

The collection combines the sleekness and efficiency of athleisure — a seemingly unshakeable trend in fashion that purports you can, and should, wear clothes meant for exercise round-the-clock and outside of the gym — with the bold silhouettes and attention to detail for which Momulu’s work is known. Elegant jumpsuits, wraps and dresses are embellished with “hardware” — small rectangular brass plates sporting the hashtag “#ForWomenByWomen — that glow with the flash of photographers’ cameras. Simple sports bras and leggings embossed with the gold Women Grow logo — which features the pot leaf’s signature shape in place of the “w” in “grow” — are paired with sequined bomber jackets spliced with strips of burlap and brocade.

Rich, earthy shades of cream, mustard, terra cotta and navy help ground the collection, along with beautiful swaths of indigo-dyed Shibori fabric, some of which Momolu bought from Bella Vita Jewelry in downtown Little Rock. Rose gold brocade, black sequins and silver taffeta make the clothing luxurious and eye-catching. All the pieces feel distinctly wearable — unlike much of the couture sent down the runway at other shows during New York Fashion Week.

Momolu said she wanted the models for her collection — and eventually the women who purchase the pieces — to feel “comfortable, but stylish.”

“I wanted them to feel like they were a part of fashion, because the everyday woman isn’t made 88 OCTOBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

to feel like that,” Momolu said. “If you don’t live in New York or [Los Angeles], and you don’t look a certain way, you can’t be a part of fashion. So this is a way for everyone to be involved with it.

You can wear this stuff, and you feel like, ‘Hey, I’m kinda doing it big today.’ … And it’s empowering.

When you feel amazing in what you wear, you feel empowered. You feel like when you walk into a room, everyone’s looking at you. And it’s a boost in your self-confidence.”

Momolu’s understanding of what women want — how women want their clothes to make them feel — is present throughout the collection, as is the designer’s drive to have her clothing reflect her life. A cropped bomber jacket from the collection features a zipper that extends a few inches past the hemline, and Momolu said details like this are a nod to the reality of imperfection.

“My whole story is that nothing is ever even or ends where it’s supposed to end,” Momolu said. “There’s always something left over, so when I do stuff like that, it’s me saying ‘Nothing [is ever] as it’s supposed to be.’ Sometimes you might have to have a little leftover, or the hems might be a little wavy. But nothing’s ever straight. My life has never been that way, I don’t know whose has. But not mine.”

The athleisure pieces from Momolu’s collection — including leggings, joggers, sports bras, tank tops and hats — became available for purchase on Women Grow’s website on Sept. 12.

The designer said she and Women Grow will next begin working on manufacturing the high

fashion line from the collection, because it’s been “very clear” that “people want the stuff.”

Momolu said she will continue to work on her own projects while collaborating with Women Grow as the organization’s “in-house designer.”

Momolu said she plans on getting a medical marijuana ID card to use at one of the nine dispensaries currently open in Arkansas. She added that while the state’s medical cannabis industry may have been slow to start, she’s hopeful about the trajectory of its growth.

“As I’m concerned, regardless of how harsh the laws are, it’s OK to be cautious,” Momolu said. “We don’t know what we’re getting into.

And we’re a cautious state; we kind of step into things a little bit [at a time]. The fact that it’s here is monumental. We’re in the game, so as the game progresses, we’re going to see. It’s going to boom.”

The designer said she’s interested in creating a sort of glove or sleeve infused with CBD or another cannabis product to help other people in the creative field — artists, designers, hair stylists, makeup artists — who have carpal tunnel syndrome and other ailments as a result of the physical demands of their jobs. Momolu said she looks forward to being involved in the innovations to come out of the industry.

“Sky’s the limit with it,” Momolu said. “It’s definitely an industry that’s going to grow. Literally. I think it’d be crazy of me not to get involved with it and figure out how to have my hand in the pot — no pun intended.”

LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL!

14-25 passenger mini coaches

14 passenger van

Professional Event Planning since 2000.

PHOTO BY WILL STUART

NATIVE PLANT MARKET

Conventions, Corporate and Social occasions.

OCTOBER 11 & 12 VIP Night

Friday, October 11 from 5-7pm For a $25 donation, you can: • Support Audubon Arkansas’s conservation work • Have your early-bird pick of plants • Enjoy complimentary beer, wine, and nonalcoholic beverages and hors d’oeuvres • Space limited! Reserve at ar.audubon.org/2019nativeVIP

Saturday, October 12 from 9am-2pm Admission Free

40 passenger shuttles

55 passenger Motor Coach Service

ardestinations.com • (501) 603-0113

Little Rock Audubon Center 4500 Springer Blvd., Little Rock, AR 72206 ar.audubon.org • (501) 244-2229

Arkansas Times local ticketing: CentralArkansasTickets.com

UPCOMING EVENTS

Oct

South on Main Shamarr Allen

Oct

12

Bus Trip Arkansas Times Blues Bus to the King Biscuit Blues Festival

Oct

Clinton Parking Grounds 2019 World Cheese Dip Championships

Oct

Curran Hall Specters, Spirits, and Stories: A Haunted History Tour

3

5

Oct

5

Flyway Brewing, corner of 4th and Maple in Argenta R&B Cook Off!: Rhythm & Blues, Ribs & Butts BBQ Competition

Oct

The Mixing Room Preservation Conversation: Historic Hardware with Mike Smith

Oct

The Studio Theatre 80s Prom

10 10-12

Oct

11-13, 18-20, & 25-27

The Weekend Theater Side Show

18 Oct

19

Four Quarter Bar Nashville Pussy

Oct

Mood Distributors, Inc. QQA Membership Meeting & Greater Little Rock Preservation Awards Diamond Bear Brewing Co. Arkansas Times Craft Beer Festival

23 Oct

25 Oct

31

Rusty Tractor Vineyards Don Julio Presents the Arkansas Times Costumes & Cocktails Halloween Bash!

Go to CentralArkansasTickets.com to purchase these tickets and more!

Arkansas Times local ticketing site! If you’re a non-profit, freestanding venue or business selling tickets thru eventbrite or another national seller – email us phyllis@arktimes.com or hannah@arktimes.com – we’re local, independent and offer a marketing package!

LOCAL TICKETS, ONE PLACE ARKANSASTIMES.COM

OCTOBER 2019 89

SPONSORED BY METHODIST FAMILY HEALTH

ADVERSE CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES When Sociology Becomes Biology

Good Mental Health Begins in Infancy Alex is a busy 2 1/2 -year-old who has attended child care for about a year. His caregiver, Laura, notices he has begun to cry more when he is dropped off and he is more difficult to soothe. He has also started biting others and having tantrums that seem to last longer than usual. In talking with his mom, Laura learns that Alex’s dad has been deployed overseas and she is feeling anxious and overwhelmed by her additional responsibilities.

“Infant mental health” describes the positive social and emotional development that occurs when infants and toddlers are supported by nurturing relationships. Social development involves learning skills like communicating needs, getting along with others and making friends.

Emotional development involves skills like recognizing feelings and expressing them appropriately, and beginning to understand that others have feelings, too. When children experience healthy social and emotional development, they are able form positive relationships with others, play, communicate, learn and face challenges successfully. These are crucial skills children need to succeed in school and life.

A dependable relationship with a nurturing, re90 OCOTBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

sponsive caregiver is the key ingredient for healthy social and emotional development. Early experiences provided by caregivers lay the foundation for lifelong physical and emotional well-being. Children’s well-being is at risk when they experience Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). Examples include when their caregiver is overwhelmed by mental health or substance abuse needs, they experience other difficult events such as abuse, neglect, chronic poverty, domestic violence or other hardships, or when their relationship with primary caregivers is otherwise disrupted.

Mental health concerns in young children are not rare. In fact, one in every five to 10 infants and toddlers experience significant difficulties with emotions or behavior. Mental health problems can be temporary for some children, but without intervention, about 50 percent of young children with problems will continue to have serious difficulties in later childhood, adolescence and beyond.

The good news is that best practices have been identified to promote healthy outcomes and support children and their families in overcoming early challenges. Research says that early intervenA SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT OF THE ARKANSAS TIMES

Arkansas Association for Infant Mental Health

tions are much more cost-effective and efficient than waiting until later in the child’s life. Most effective interventions focus on enhancing children’s relationships with their caregivers (including parents, foster parents, teachers or other caregivers). Examples include home visitation programs, parenting education and mental health interventions for the parent and child.

Participation in high-quality early care and education (ECE) programs also supports infant mental health. In fact, studies of children enrolled in high-quality ECE settings reveal they are more likely to graduate from high school, become employed and earn more money, and less likely to have become incarcerated or receive welfare services.

Laura and Mom decide to visit with the mental health consultant at the child care center. She helps them think about ways to support Alex with a comforting routine for drop-off time, teaching him words for his big feelings, and using family pictures to help Alex feel connected. They brainstorm ways that Mom can get support from family and friends during this difficult period. In just a few weeks Alex is his busy, happy self again.

For 120 years, Methodist Family Health has counseled children and families...

Today, we also counsel adults.

Call us.

1600 Aldersgate Rd. Suite 100B Little Rock, AR 72205

501-537-3991 DWard@MethodistFamily.org MethodistFamily.org

MethodistFamily.org A SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT OF THE ARKANSAS TIMES

ARKANSASTIMES.COM

OCTOBER 2019 91

2019

Save the Date

AAIMH Summit October 29 10:00 am – 3:00 pm Northwest Arkansas Community College 1 College Dr. Wal-Mart Auditorium Bentonville, AR 72712

For more information visit our webpage @ AAIMH.org Facebook: @AAIMH

Celebrate, Educate and Connect Can’t make this Summit? No worries! Keep up to date by visiting our Website or on Facebook for additional information regarding summits in other regions of Arkansas.

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A SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT OF THE ARKANSAS TIMES

The American Dream Turned Nightmare for Arkansas’s Children Methodist Family Health

The American Dream is to provide our children with every advantage we as parents and caregivers did not have. But today, that dream has become a poisonous hallucination as, even with more opportunities than ever before, our children are hampered by toxic stress.

Toxic stress is one of the key factors in adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs. In Arkansas alone, more than half our children have experienced three or more ACE factors, including: • Poverty.

• Toxic stress.

• Little if any access to preventive health care.

• Poor education, including access, attainment and expectations.

• An unstable home life, which can include: Divorced and/or incarcerated parents; alcohol or substance abuse by someone in the child’s household; parental depression, mental illness, domestic violence or death; attempted or completed suicide by a member of the child’s household; abuse, abandonment and neglect, including inappropriate sexual conduct and contact; humiliating, insulting and swearing at a child as well as pushing, grabbing, slapping a child; making her or him afraid of being hurt; and withholding or not showing love or support.

• Witnessing violence in the community.

• Homelessness.

• Bullying by friends, siblings or other people in the child’s life.

What does this mean for Arkansans? Children who become adults with unhealthy habits, poor health due to genetic changes, and inability to cope at school, work, home and the community.

“We’ve all encountered our share of obstacles while growing up, but toxic stress and other adverse childhood experiences are beyond that,” said Dr. Brian Kubacak, a psychiatrist with Methodist Family Health. “When a child is growing, she or he develops just as much during quiet or down time as when she or he is at school or playing. If a child is preoccupied with how to navigate things at home, she or he can’t focus or learn, much less grow and develop. Add to that the stress hormones the child is dealing with, and toxic stress changes everything about the child – genetics, brain structure, emotions, behavior.”

The ability to identify and recognize a child struggling with adverse childhood experiences is the first step in combating them. You can learn more here about how Arkansas children exhibit ACEs, what is being done to address these factors and heal children and adults, the resources available in your area, and how you can help.

SERVING THOSE WHO BRAVELY SERVE US. Serving our country takes a toll on the service members as well as their families. In fact, mental health issues can affect the thoughts, moods and behavior of even the bravest Americans. While these problems are painful, they are common. More importantly, they may be treated.

For over 35 years, The BridgeWay has reconnected people with their families by helping them overcome emotional and addictive problems.

We provide inpatient and outpatient services for veterans and retirees as well as their dependents.

WE PROVIDE TREATMENT FOR:

Help someone you love reclaim their life.

Contact The BridgeWay for a no-cost assessment today.

Depression

1-800-245-0011

Anxiety and panic disorders

21 Bridgeway Road North Little Rock, AR 72113 TheBridgeWay.com

Suicidal behavior Post-traumatic stress disorder Substance abuse

LISTEN? LIKE. SUPPORT! donate.kuar.org FALL FUND DRIVE Oct. 5-11 Lulu Garcia-Navarro, Host “Weekend Edition“ Photo Credit: Stephen Voss/NPR

PUBLIC RADIO

A SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT OF THE ARKANSAS TIMES

ARKANSASTIMES.COM

OCTOBER 2019 93

WHAT YOU NEED THIS MONTH!

1. HAIRY HAPPINESS Need to perk up a room this fall? Can’t go wrong with a smiling llama painting on canvas. Cynthia East Fabrics, 501-663-0460, cynthiaeastfabrics.com 2. GET OUT THE HERSHEY’S It’s about campfire time, which means it’s time for s’mores! Try out these awesome skewers to cook those perfect marshmallows every time. Rhea Drug, 501-663-4134, rheadrugstore.com 3. READ THEM A STORY Snuggle up with the young ones and read these special signed copies of “Just Ask!,”

by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, “Trains Run!” by George Ella Lyon and Benn Lyon, and “The Magic Misfits”

by Neil Patrick Harris.

WordsWorth Books, 501-663-9198, wordsworthbookstore.com 4. PEACE, LOVE AND FROGS Michael Schwade’s dramatic pieces are inspired by the aesthetics of ancient cultures. He uses an oxyacetylene torch to forge various metals into stylish and affordable jewelry! The Galleries at Library Square, 501-320-5790, cals.org 5. MENSWEAR FLAIR Great new fall clothing, like this plaid shirt, is in stock at Mr. Wicks. Mr. Wicks, 501-664-3062, mrwicks.com 6. SOUTHERN COMFORT Our most complimented shirt ever! This super soft tee is a way to represent local and look fashionable while doing so.

Bella Vita Jewelry, 501-396-9146, bellavitajewelry.net 94 OCTOBER 2019

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A special advertising promotion

Your special event calls for special music.

Dizzy 7 plays music that ranges from Motown to Big Band, Latin to Dixie and more. It features a full rhythm section, a three-man horn section, and Craig Wilson's signature vocals.

We will work with you to ensure we meet your expectations for your wedding, convention, corporate party, rehearsal dinner, or any other special event.

Book your event today! Perry Young 501.909.0336 • Casey Huie 501.951.4494 • dizzy7.com • Photo by Jim Hunnicutt Photography

It' s Coming

Every Thursday in October on The Heather and Po olboy Show 6-10am on Al ice 107.7 ARKANSASTIMES.COM

OCTOBER 2019 95

Edited by Will Shortz

No. 0805

ACROSS 1 Group in a play 5 Plasterwork backing 9 Bracelet securer 14 Arthur with a stadium named after him 15 Feeling fluish, in a way 16 “___ me” (“Go along with it”) 17 ___ the Man (old baseball nickname) 18 Be overrun (with) 19 “E” on a gas gauge 20 Pre-snap powwow 22 Garden munchkin 24 “How was ___ know?”

25 2012 Best Picture winner set in Iran 27 Kind of toy that moves when you turn a key 31 Semiaquatic salamanders 33 Flowers on trellises 35 Bill in a tip jar 36 Slangy “sweetheart” 37 Horace, as a poet 38 Barrister’s headgear 39 Scrub vigorously 41 Manipulate 42 Littlest ones in litters 44 Contagious viral infection 45 Cross ___ with 47 Side-to-side nautical movement 48 Plural “is” 49 First appearance, as of symptoms 50 Toronto N.H.L. team, for short 53 Common ankle injury 55 Biggest bear in “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” 57 “V for Vendetta” actor Stephen 58 Grind, as teeth 60 Withstands 62 Gemstone measure 65 Chopped down 67 3:1 or 4:1, e.g.

68 Superior beef grade 69 They’re mined and refined 70 Large, scholarly book 71 “For ___ waves of grain” (line in “America the Beautiful”) 72 Water swirl 73 Elderly 96 OCTOBER 2019

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73 PUZZLE BY TRACY GRAY

DOWN 1 Redeem, as a savings bond 2 Uncommonly perceptive 3 Air-punching pugilist 4 Manage, as a bar 5 “Ciao” 6 Unreturned tennis serve 7 2006 Matt Damon spy film 8 Song sung on Sunday 9 Place with beakers and Bunsen burners 10 Measure of light’s brightness 11 Electric guitar accessory 12 Drunkard 13 Jimmy (open) 21 Lecturer’s implement with a light at the end 23 Is indebted to 26 Fills, as tile joints 28 Popular yoga pose … or a literal hint to the ends of 3-, 7-, 9- and 21-Down 29 The “U” in I.C.U. 30 Cribbage scorekeepers 32 Letter after sigma

34 Nap south of the border 39 Pampering places 40 Bus. concern 43 Persian Gulf country, for short 46 Actress Kendrick 51 What “woof” or “meow” may mean 52 Talked back to with ’tude 54 Best effort, informally 56 Colorful flower with a “face” 59 Pump or oxford 61 Smidgen 62 Helper during taxing times, for short?

63 Triceps location 64 Poke fun at 66 Marry

MARKETPLACE Pulaski County, Arkansas

Absolute real estate

$9.00 RIVERDALE 10 VIP CINEMA 2600 CANTRELL RD

AUCTION Between Little Rock & Jacksonville At the Junction North Belt Freeway (Hwy 440 & US Hwy 67)

San Damiano Ecumenical Catholic Church

FRI., OCT. 11 • 10 am AUCTION LOCATION: Wyndham Riverfront Little Rock, #2 Riverfront Place, North Little Rock, AR 72114

PHILIP KAUFMAN’S

1,200 acres

±

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS

offered in 6 Tracts

Selling Regardless of Price

Potential for: Agricultural • Commercial • Industrial • Residential • Opportunity Zone • Significant Timber • Billboard Income

7 P.M. TUESDAY OCT. 15

INSPECTION DATES: Tues., Sept. 17 • 10 am-12 Noon | Thurs., Oct. 10 • 1-3 pm

501.296.9955 | RIVERDALE10.COM ELECTRIC RECLINER SEATS WITH TABLES AND RESERVED SEATING SERVING BEER & WINE

Meet a Schrader Rep at Tract 1 (southern access) OWNER: DBLTD, LP Online Bidding Available • 5% Buyer’s Premium CALL FOR BROCHURE OR VISIT WEBSITE

The open, thinking, healing, welcoming faith community you’ve been looking for.

800-451-2709 SchraderAuction.com 950 N Liberty Dr., Columbia City, IN 46725

REAL ESTATE: Rex D. Schrader (RD), PB00074747 • Bradley R. Horrall, SA00074886 • AUCTIONEER: Rex D. (RD) Schrader II, 2458

TO ADVERTISE IN THIS SECTION, CALLARKANSAS LUIS TIMES at 501.492.3974 Thursday: 9/26 1/8 V (1.8125” x 4.875”) OR EMAIL @ $200.00 LUIS@ARKTIMES.COM

Come and see.

Mass Saturdays • 5:00 PM 12415 Cantrell Road Little Rock 501-613-7878 LRCatholic.org

ANSWERS TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE L O R D E C A R B T S A R I N A S

A Z E R A

M A K E R

P R E A M B C E L O T E C H O Y A A L R M C H A H O C A L C M E I P D A E G R N N E T E N

S B E R K L M A Y A T M M O N I A R K S L A S T F L T A I M A R S F O R T H L W E O G S O O L T E D R I S T O E K A R D S P R I M R O D E M I X E D O N I S T T E T S

G O O B E R

S E G O

P R O M

S C H I S T

H I E M O S W O O L N D H E P A X R O M A N A

H O M O

E K E S

E X A M

T E T E

R E N E G A D E S

T O P H A R E R E A N A R U B H E P A O C T S A I D T P A R L E I M X A P I E M A R L B A R S P A T H U S T O P H O R E P I S N G

T H E M A S K T O P C O A T S P A R

H E R E I T I S

E L R O Y

F I O N A

T O L E T

S I N P A R I E W E R R A N P I E P H Y R L E E

S T A R Z

H Y D E

A C C R E T E D

Y E A R Z E R O

THERE IS ALWAYS MORE AT

arktimes.com ARKANSASTIMES.COM

OCTOBER 2019 97

THE OBSERVER

Timeline

I

t’s a day after the 18th anniversary of 9/11 as The Observer writes this, the magic of a monthly publication schedule allowing Yours Truly to speak to all you future dwellers who already know how many mass shootings we’re going to have and all the stupid shit Donald Trump is going to do between now and the first of October, when this issue of the mighty Arkansas Times hits the stands, both physical and digital.

Like a lot of you, the anniversary of 9/11 — which The Observer can’t quite bring himself to refer to by its manufactured, sanitized, Hallmark card-approved handle of “Patriots Day” — always gets us thinking about that morning in September. And so, we will share: On Sept. 11, 2001, Spouse and Her Loving Man had recently moved back to Little Rock from Lafayette, La., where I’d weathered my father’s long illness and eventual death like a sailor clinging to a windswept rock, miles from home. Junior, who will turn 20 in a few short months, was three months shy of 2 years old. I was teaching adjunct at UALR, looking for something full time. The following spring, I saw an ad in the Arkansas Times, looking for a reporter. I started the job that summer, after the last of day classes had wrapped. But that, as they say, is another Observer.

We were living in a little apartment up in Hillcrest, in the horseshoe of red brick buildings right where Cedar Hill Road plunges toward Riverdale. That morning, Spouse had gone off to work while Junior — always a late sleeper — had just gotten out of bed. I was in the kitchen getting breakfast ready for him.

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Junior went into the living room and turned on the TV, and once he saw that his regularly scheduled programming had been interrupted, he started whine-griping in that way that annoyed the shit out of me then but which I’d give just about anything to hear again now. I was fixing him toast, putting butter on it. I walked out of the kitchen to see what the issue was, and just as I stepped into the room and saw the burning building on the TV, the second plane roared out of the edge of the screen and hit the other tower, sending that rolling fireball into the impossibly blue sky over New York that day, the burning jet fuel blossoming like a hateful orange rose.

I can’t remember if it was live or video the station was playing on a loop just to convince themselves it actually happened, as they would all continue to do for the rest of that week. But I do remember that it startled me so bad that I dropped the toast, which proceeded to land on the carpet butter side down. Which is, come to think of it, a pretty damn good metaphor for how things have gone since then. Kinda makes you wonder who this country would be if that toast had never been dropped, don’t it?

And so, the country was wounded, and went to war, and then another. As of this writing, both wars are still going on, if you can believe it, with children born on Sept. 11, 2001, now old enough to legally join the military and fight in the wars that day spawned. For the past 18 years, we have watched the seed planted on that day bloom like flaming jet fuel against a clear sky, The Observer feeling more times than I can

count like a character whose mind won’t stop telling him that he’s in a divergent, misshapen timeline arising from some terrible event that should have been averted, but wasn’t. Lashed hand and foot to this reality like Odysseus to the mast, The Observer marvels at times over all the ways a single hour 18 years ago pushed this country in directions I never could have imagined back then, up to and including the election of a hateful orange bigot who has hastened the decline of this nation’s standing in the world in ways that Osama Bin Laden could have only dreamed.

And now, because The Observer’s mind is like a puzzle box these days, thinking of that name brings on another old memory: In early May 2011, the night President Obama announced that Osama Bin Laden had been killed in Pakistan, I was teaching a night class on film at UALR, the adjunct bucks — meager as they were — still helping support a crippling journalism habit all those years later.

That evening, we happened to be discussing the Cinema of Revenge, which is almost uniformly about how the line between justice and vengeance can be paper thin, and how it is up to us to know the difference. That night, every cable news network was showing the crowds in front of the White House, jubilant Americans waving flags and celebrating like their team had just won the Super Bowl. And me? I had to go into a classroom and explain to a bunch of college kids who were in elementary school on Sept. 11, 2001, the meaning of that old proverb: Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.

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