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OUR 1819TH ISSUE 01.04.24 In loving memory of Doogie (the dog) Howser (January 16, 2010-December 27, 2023)

CHET HASTINGS Warehouse and Delivery Manager JANICE GRISSOM ELLISON, KAREN MILAM, DON MYNATT, TAMMY NASH, RANDY ROTZ, LEWIS TAYLOR, WILLIAM WIDEMAN Distribution THE MEMPHIS FLYER is published weekly by Contemporary Media, Inc., P.O. Box 1738, Memphis, TN 38101 Phone: (901) 521-9000 Fax: (901) 521-0129 memphisflyer.com CONTEMPORARY MEDIA, INC. ANNA TRAVERSE FOGLE Chief Executive Officer LYNN SPARAGOWSKI Controller/Circulation Manager JEFFREY GOLDBERG Chief Revenue Officer MARGIE NEAL Chief Operating Officer KRISTIN PAWLOWSKI Digital Services Director MARIAH MCCABE Circulation and Accounting Assistant

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Doogie Howser

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CONTENTS

CARRIE BEASLEY Senior Art Director CHRISTOPHER MYERS Advertising Art Director NEIL WILLIAMS Graphic Designer

TRUMP’S WALLS P3 • BAR WARE P26 • THE LION KING (2019) P27

JUSTIN FOX BURKS

SHARA CLARK Editor-in-Chief SAMUEL X. CICCI Managing Editor JACKSON BAKER, BRUCE VANWYNGARDEN Senior Editors TOBY SELLS Associate Editor KAILYNN JOHNSON News Reporter CHRIS MCCOY Film and TV Editor ALEX GREENE Music Editor MICHAEL DONAHUE, JON W. SPARKS Staff Writers ABIGAIL MORICI Arts and Culture Editor GENE GARD, EMILY GUENTHER, COCO JUNE, FRANK MURTAUGH Contributing Columnists SHARON BROWN, AIMEE STIEGEMEYER Grizzlies Reporters KENNETH NEILL Founding Publisher

I wish I could say Happy New Year. But I’m starting 2024 with one less set of muddy paws to clean up after when it’s rained. One less bowl to fill in my morning and evening routine. One less wagging tail following me around the house. One less load of laundry — doggie diapers for my old man who marked his territory on every appliance and door frame or anything new that was placed on the floor.

Just over a week ago, my long-haired dachshund Doogie Howser let out his chirpy bark demanding breakfast. When the bowl was empty, he commenced his daily ritual of licking it clean as its steel bottom clanged across the tiles. He then made the rounds on the grounds of his kingdom — our backyard — hiked his leg on everything in sight and yapped big-bad-dog borks at the neighbors’ pups through the chain-link fence. Just over a week ago, he sat at my feet as I stood at the sink doing dishes, gently licking my bare ankle, as he always did.

30 But a week ago, I laid next to him in bed, rubbing his ears, petting his head, and kissing his face, The Pet Issue telling him I loved him more than anything, he was the best boy in the world, and that everything was okay. I stayed awake awaiting a moment I’d been dreading for more than 13 years. At approximately 12:45 a.m. on Wednesday, December 27th, Doogie took his final breath, his heart beat for the last time, three weeks shy of his 14th birthday.

Without going into more detail than I can comfortably relive, the end came both gradually and suddenly. A yearlong battle with chronic bronchitis and a more recent but brief bout of neurological issues led to what we think was a stroke or massive seizure. I was out of town when the latter happened, and by the time I returned, he was fading fast. I spent those last hours alongside him, keeping him as comfortable as I could, loving on him until his little body shut down.

I never wanted to write (or say) these words. I knew this day would come, of course — and that I wouldn’t able to handle the grief. Having never had human children, Doogie was my first “child.” When looking at a litter of puppies in early 2010, I knew that the ittybitty chocolate nugget with big ol’ eyes and a head he’d have to grow into was mine. A few weeks later, I brought him home. He was so very small, I put him into my coat pocket just because I could. So very fragile, this miniature cuddly creature. I jokingly said, “How am I going to keep this thing alive?” But I did, for as long as I could.

As most dog parents do, I took him on car rides, road trips, and park outings, and to work with me on occasion. He was a star no matter where we were. Everyone who met him spoke of how handsome he was, his impressive mane and feathered tail that waved like a flag as he pranced. “Regal” and “majestic” were common descriptors. He’d sit in anyone’s lap and lick wet spots on their pants; it was his way of showing affection, or more likely, asking, “Could you pet me more now?” After we welcomed two more pups (his offspring) in 2015, there was less of that. Three were harder to manage in public, taking just one wasn’t fair, and his son and daughter were not the docile dogs Doogie had always been. So, I have regrets. Were there enough walks? Enough outings? He loved people, and we didn’t have as much company after the pandemic. We didn’t have an office to go to. But he did get a lot of love and cuddles and my constant presence, especially working from home, which I have to tell myself was just fine for him. And even with all the vet visits, did I do enough to manage his health? Could I have saved him, given him more time?

I think I did my best but cannot dwell on the what-ifs. Even as he aged, until his last day on Earth, he was the happiest boy, excited to wake and eat and run around the yard and climb on me like a mountain goat to get to my face for kisses. He comforted me through my worst days, loved me when I felt unlovable. Just as they say about children, you blink and they’re grown. I wish I could NEWS & OPINION rewind time. I’d do anything to wash those THE FLY-BY - 4 pee diapers now. Just one more ankle lick.

POLITICS - 8 AT LARGE - 9 Losing Doogie, my Grinch-toed COVER STORY 8-pound shadow, my constant companion, “A WHOLE NEW 901” who was under foot or in my lap day in

BY FLYER STAFF - 10 and day out for nearly 14 years, is the bigWE RECOMMEND - 13 gest hurt I may have ever endured. But to MUSIC - 14 have raised him has been my biggest gift.

AFTER DARK - 15 CALENDAR - 16 Doogie Howser had many names — NY TIMES CROSSWORD - 16 Doogers, Dougles, Bo, Sugar Prince, Love ASTROLOGY - 17 Boy, Hims, the list goes on. But above all, METAPHYSICAL CONNECTION - 18 he was my son, my greatest love — my FOOD - 19 heart. And a piece of it now has gone with FILM - 20 him over the rainbow bridge.

CL ASSIFIEDS - 22 Shara Clark LAST WORD - 23 shara@memphisflyer.com

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THE

fly-by

MEMernet

S TAT E WAT C H B y To b y S e l l s

‘Out of Control’

MAYOR YOUNG

State report paints troubling picture of Tiptonville prison.

Paul Young took the city’s top job last week in an uplifting inauguration ceremony.

“The past doesn’t matter,” Young said after he was sworn in. “The future is all we’re thinking about right now.

Partisanship doesn’t matter. The future of our young babies is all we’re thinking about right now.”

BIG (BUT FUN) TYPO

POSTED TO FACEBOOK BY MIGHTY LIGHTS

January 4-10, 2024

Edited by Toby Sells

Memphis on the internet.

POSTED TO FACEBOOK BY CITY OF MEMPHIS

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Questions, Answers + Attitude

Mighty Lights was busy this holiday season with tributes to Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, police officers, and more. Its year-end message was to read “HAPPY NEW YEAR 2024.”

Deadrick DeShoun Moring Sr. posted a video showing it read 2023 instead of 2024. We’re like same same.

TSUNAMI Tsunami owner Ben Smith toasted Kevin Sullivan’s last shift at the CooperYoung restaurant this week. Sullivan POSTED TO FACEBOOK

BY BEN SMITH started as a dishwasher at Tsunami in 2002 and worked his way up to head chef. He’s leaving the restaurant to start his own restaurant, Ki Kitchen, in the Edge District.

“Inmates are out of control, 200 staff shortage, inmates walking around with homemade knives, the gangs are controlling the units, drug overdoses regularly. This is just some of the issues.”

The Tennessee Department of Corrections (TDOC) made headlines recently concerning sexual assaults in prison, staff shortages at prisons that make them dangerous places to work, and more, all while the state’s private prison operator, CoreCivic, seeks a $9.8 million budget boost next year.

The issues came to light in a new audit of the dePHOTO: HÉDI BENYOUNES | UNSPLASH partment by the Tennessee Tiptonville’s Northwest Correctional Complex is 130 miles north of Memphis. state comptroller’s office.

Chronic staffing issues have made the prison a dangerous place to work.

That report found issues across TDOC. But one section of the report focused on Tiptonville’s North2020, when the rate was a still-high 46 percent. In 2023, Northwest Correctional Complex, about 130 miles north of Memphis west had more unfilled positions than any other prison in the in Lake County. That section paints a troubling image of the state. facility, especially with firsthand comments from the officers who Staffing issues have real-world consequences. Officials with work there, like the one above. the comptroller’s office saw that firsthand during a site visit “[We] have no help and really if you get assaulted, you’re in April. During a tour, the correctional officer escorting the going to get assaulted until the inmates get tired of beating group was called away for an overdose. With no other officers you because there are really no [correctional officers] availavailable, the group from the comptroller’s office was left able to come help you out,” another officer was quoted in the alone in the prison yard. report. “It’s crazy.”

For some of this, state officials recommended management “I have been told that if I am in a situation where my life is be- take a hard look at the impacts vacancy rates and high turning threatened, nobody will come to help me,” reads a comment over rates have on existing employees. Prison management from another officer. said they have a hard time, however, hiring more employees Anecdotes from officers and data collected by the comptrolbecause of the prison’s remote location, competition from ler show a fragile hold on security at the facility. For example, other employers, the declining population in Northwest Tenoffenders were free to move at will within their housing units nessee, and the nature of the job. during lockdowns. Physical security failures and dysfunctional equipment at Northwest were so bad, the comptroller legally omitted them from a federal report “because they would expose the facilities’ vulnerabilities.” Incidents of overdoses, contraband, destruction of state property, and assaults go unreported.

The issues at Northwest, officials said, stem from the same place: staffing shortages.

Some of this may be helped, the comptroller said, with the ap“With over 200 correctional officers short, the job is not safe,” pointment of some new high-ranking officials. Last January, Gov. wrote one officer from the prison. “We fight inmates every day.

Bill Lee hired Frank Strada as the new TDOC commissioner. In There is no discipline for their inmates. Security is a joke! Not June, Strada hired a new warden for Northwest, as well as a new enough staff.” associate warden for treatment and a new associate warden for The comptroller’s report says 61 percent of Northwest’s posisecurity for the facility. tions were unfilled in the 2023 fiscal year. By August, two months “It is too soon to determine whether the commissioner’s into the state’s new fiscal year, the figure increased to 63 percent. changes will bring sufficient positive change in the culture at the Northwest’s job vacancy rate has increased every year since Northwest facility,” reads the report.

“You’re going to get assaulted until the inmates get tired of beating you.”

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Viva

ELVIS

BIRTHDAY

POPS CONCERT

Featuring

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January 4-10, 2024

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6

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Their music inspired the Broadway musical & hit film Mamma Mia. Enjoy songs like DANCING QUEEN – TAKE A CHANCE ON ME – FERNANDO.

DINOSAUR QUEST Of Dr. T-Rex FEBRUARY 3 2:00P.M.

Take a trip through pre-history!

Learn why “it stinks to be extinct” from wacky Paleontologist Dr. T-Rex. With help from audience & his dinosaur friends Dr. T-Rex creates a funny & informative experience full of surprises. You’ll even meet Rexie the 8’ tall T-Rex. Great family fun!

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C A N N A B E AT B y To b y S e l l s

Bud Threat

Industry advocates worry new state rules could see cannabis flower products pulled from store shelves this year.

C

annabis flower products could disappear from store shelves in Tennessee this year thanks to new state rules, a threat to businesses and consumers, advocates say.

State lawmakers passed new laws this year to regulate the growing cannabis industry in Tennessee. Some of those rules went into effect in July.

For example, cannabis products were moved behind shelves of stores that aren’t 21 and up. A new, 6-percent tax on cannabis products was levied, too.

The new law also made the Tennessee Department of Agriculture (TDA) responsible for regulating the cannabis industry here. Last month, the department issued new rules for cannabis producers and products.

They immediately drew the ire from the Tennessee Growers Coalition (TGC), the advocacy and lobby agency for the state’s cannabis industry. The group is now organizing its members to fight the new rules.

TGC’s executive director Kelley Hess said the new law focused only on the delta-9 cannabinoid and said that’s how hemp is defined on the federal level. But state agriculture officials added new THC standards for THCA and CBD flower. This could pinch producers and retailers as these products are “at least 70 percent of the market right now” and “what people have been building their businesses around.”

The new standards are “completely unrealistic and unattainable.”

The new rules won’t affect edible products, like gummies, she said. Those products are made with cannabis oils that can be measured, fine-tuned all along the production process, and remain stable on the shelf. Cannabinoid profiles in flower products, however, can change.

“The organic, raw flower is what’s really at jeopardy,” Hess said. “[The TDA is] just calculating the cannabinoids differently than what we’ve been

calculating them for the last five years.”

The TDA has overseen the state’s hemp industry since 2015. However, that oversight began as an industrial hemp program, when the crop was most likely intended to make rope, concrete, and those hippy hemp pullovers.

That changed with the federal Farm Bill and the discovery of cannabinoids that could be pulled from hemp. The word “industrial” was all but phased out, and TDA teams now travel the state testing hemp plants to ensure the THC levels in them are below a federally mandated .3 percent.

PHOTO: BUDDING | UNSPLASH

In the past, that’s where the department left it. Whatever happened to that legal hemp and its cannabinoids afterward was up to the farmer and the market. The new law now mandates TDA to manage cannabis and an edible foods program (like gummies) from the plant all the way to the shelf. The new rules issued last month basically outline the structure of that program.

Hess said her group and producers across the state offered ideas for state officials for the program but they did not listen. The new THC standard, she said, is a “misinterpretation of the bill” and warned agriculture officials that “you cannot do that.” But “they still did not take that seriously.”

“It’s another standard that these growers and producers have to meet, which is completely unrealistic and unattainable,” Hess said. “So, they can’t do it. Then, all of these products that are on the shelf now will become illegal and noncompliant. So, law enforcement can come with criminal charges.

A public hearing on the matter is scheduled for February. That hearing comes during the next session of the Tennessee General Assembly.

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NEWS & OPINION

m e m p h i s f l y e r. c o m

POLITICS By Jackson Baker

Letting It Go

January 4-10, 2024

Public officials call for unity as Memphis enters a new year.

8

Unsurprisingly, Paul Young evoked two parallel concepts in his inaugural address as mayor. He spoke of the specter of crime and its continuing threat to the community. And he spoke of that community’s crying need for a restoration of unity. More surprisingly, he rooted that unity in a memory of an almost forgotten Memphis, of a city that once was officially celebrated not only as one of the nation’s safest places but, formally, several times, as the nation’s cleanest city.

“We all feel it, the city feels like it is in a crisis. The chaos has taken a toll on our collective psyche; it threatens to derail all of the progress of what Memphis can be, we are Memphis, and the future depends on what we do right now. … Together, we can make history, we can make America’s largest majority minority city … America’s safest city. We can make that America’s cleanest city, we can make that America’s city with the fastest growing economy … it’s not going to happen tomorrow, but it will happen.”

And this is a man who asked us to remember that he entered the mainstream of life as an engineering student, who converted that aspect of his being into a knack for social and civic engineering, and who has spent many of his professional years in city and county jobs that called for the re-engineering of housing and neighborhoods — and, indeed, of urban attitudes.

Let us hope that he is thereby ideally equipped to help us remake ourselves as a people.

Another member of what we might consider a new breed of public officials is District Attorney General Steve Mulroy. The DA, too, in a year-end piece written for Tom Jones’ Smart City blog, took note of the times: “2023 was a challenging year for us. At year’s beginning, we became global news with the Tyre Nichols tragedy. Though nothing can undo the trauma of that event, we can derive some consolation from the fact that we — all of us — handled the case swiftly, fairly, transparently, and peacefully. Memphis didn’t burn, and neither did any of the other major cities with large protests following the release of the video.

“I’m praying that we learn some lessons about reform from this tragedy.

We’re generally not good at nuance, but we need to understand both that the vast majority of police are persons of good

faith, and also that there are issues of culture and process crying out for systemic reform. The crime issue has eclipsed this issue in the minds of many, but we can’t forget that Tyre Nichols isn’t an isolated incident. The problem isn’t fixed, and there’s work still to do.”

The DA expressed hope “that local leaders stop pointing fingers and start joining hands to make us safer … that our public discourse stops obsessing on sentence lengths and bail amounts (which will not make us safer) and instead focuses on how to increase our crime solve rate and our recidivism rate (which will).”

At his annual holiday gathering last year, an event which attracts people of many different minds, Mulroy at evening’s end presented, instead of his accustomed finishing limerick, a song, one which addressed the community’s prevailing air of controversy and divide. To the tune of “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” his verses ended with the refrain of “Let it go, let it go, let it go.”

PHOTO: SHELBY COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY

Steve Mulroy One of the attendees at that party was Mulroy’s longtime friend Brian Stephens, founder and president of the public strategy group Caissa Public Strategy, well known for espousing the hopes of conservative-minded groups and political candidates.

Asked about the gap between his own political views and those of his liberal host, Stephens texted back: “Lots of people trying to do their best. Different approaches. Different ways. But it’s all the same goal. Steve is a good man. I hope he feels the same for me.”

And that’s yet another way of saying unity, isn’t it?

A T L A R G E B y B r u c e Va n W y n g a r d e n

Memphis Moonshot If we don’t dream it, it can never happen.

John F. Kennedy I know. That seems an impossible dream, like, well, walking on the moon in 1961. Besides, if you ask the average Memphian what the city’s biggest problem is, they’ll say it’s crime, not poverty. Yes, Memphis does have a crime problem.

Too many cars are being stolen, too many homes are being broken into, too many citizens are being shot and killed, too many young people are living without hope or guidance and turning to crime.

But the crime problem has publicists, and they’re pushing a 24/7 narrative that crime is everywhere. Local television news and social media are the crime problem’s biggest boosters — getting clicks, views, and readership by scaring us, day after day.

In response, politicians get elected

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PHOTO: CECIL STOUGHTON, WHITE HOUSE, PUBLIC DOMAIN, VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

by promising to be “tough on crime,” usually meaning they’ll hire more police and demand stiffer sentencing. That’s like pledging to put band-aids on a cancerous tumor. If those policies worked, our crime problem would be fixed by now. Gettough policies don’t stop crime; they just fill up jails and overload the court system — and lead to the kind of police brutality that killed Tyre Nichols.

Poverty gets little TV time, little socialmedia buzz. No politician gets elected by pledging to “get tough” on poverty. But almost all of the city’s problems, including crime, stream from the river of poverty.

The way to reduce crime is to dam the river, not the stream.

Too expensive, you say? Listen, if this poor-ass city can come up with hundreds of millions of dollars to fund football stadiums, basketball arenas, fabulous art museums, and glorious new city parks, surely we can find ways to leverage private and public funds to pay for more and better teachers, to fund a public transit system that can reliably get people from one side of town to jobs on the other, to keep children fed, to get people healthcare, to pay them an equitable wage.

Impossible, you say? Let me return you to 1961, the year Kennedy proposed going to the moon. Do you know what was happening in Memphis that year?

Thirteen “Negro” first-graders were integrating our public schools. They were separated into small groups, no more than four to a school, because, you know, Memphis didn’t want to rush into things. In fact, the city initially planned to integrate its schools one grade at a time over the next 12 years — longer than it would take to put a man on the moon.

The grade-a-year plan held until 1965, when Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. In 1966, all Memphis school grades were integrated, although that could mean 20 Black students at a high school with 1,500 students. And vice versa.

Let me do the math for you: Black people were enslaved in this country from 1619 until 1865. They lived under Jim Crow and segregation in this city for another 100 years, until 1965, meaning Black folks in Memphis have had 58 years to overcome the oppression that kept them from equal opportunity in employment, education, housing, and political leadership for 346 years.

This is the root of our poverty problem, which is the root of our crime problem.

Our city’s leadership is Black. Most of its citizens are Black. It’s time for all of us who live here to dare to dream big. Come on, Memphis. Let’s shoot for the moon.

NEWS & OPINION

O

n May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy addressed Congress and proposed that the United States “commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.” It was an astonishing thing to propose, but Kennedy persevered and managed to achieve NASA funding for the unlikeliest of goals. Kennedy did not live to see the dream he set in motion fulfilled, but his ambition was achieved in July 1969, with the landing and return to Earth of Apollo 11.

My New Year’s wish for Memphis is that its leaders — civic and corporate — have the courage and vision to embark upon a moonshot: to set a goal to become the first American city to successfully address its poverty problem, to change Memphis from one of the country’s poorest cities to one of its most prosperous.

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A WHOLE NEW

901

Break with your routine and take a deeper dive into all corners of the city.

COVER STORY By Flyer staff

January 4-10, 2024

D

10

id you read about that cool thing happening in Memphis? We’re sure you probably did somewhere (maybe here), but did you actually go out and do the thing? No? That’s all right, we get it. Routines are important.

They provide a warm blanket of security and reliability in what’s been a chaotic couple of years.

But there are just so many cool things happening in Memphis, and so many other cool things to see. And you’ll feel much better for having experienced them, we promise. So instead of reinventing yourself for the new year, make an effort to step outside and see some of the new experiences our city has in store. Our reporters did that, looking at new ways to interact with the Mid-South in both personal and professional capacities.

Let the Sun Shine Reporters don’t clap.

Impartiality is the heart of what we do. I’ve never given to a political campaign or posted a candidate’s sign in my yard. I’ve never sought a board seat or even been loud and proud about any nonprofit. If I had to cover them later, my impartiality would be in question and I couldn’t do my job.

But there is one issue reporters can get

behind without question: transparency.

Sharing information with the public (and for the public good) is what we do. Bringing light to facts is why the Tennessee Open Meetings Act is sometimes called The Sunshine Law. It’s also why The Washington Post adopted its first-ever slogan in 2017: “Democracy dies in darkness.”

In this analogy, Memphis is pretty dark now. The process to get public information now is so broken that we might as well not even have a system at all. Getting public records takes months. Getting an interview with city administration officials (especially with the Memphis Police Department) is nigh on impossible. If you have a question about an important issue, you get a bland statement instead and should be happy about it.

I’ve whined about this for ages. That’s not a good look.

Next year, I’ll work to put my complaints into action. There are

PHOTO (ABOVE): JUSTIN FOX BURKS

T.O. Fuller State Park PHOTO (LEFT): KAYLA FRAZIER

Get a makeover from one of Memphis’ beauty professionals.

Step outside and meet your friendly tree neighbors.

PHOTO (RIGHT): CHRIS MCCOY

Become the next pinball wizard at Crosstown’s Flipside. numerous groups I can support as a reporter, the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, for one. I can also continue to file open records requests and get peskier in my media requests of public officials.

Reporters don’t clap. They should push.

And I aim to do just that. — Toby Sells Memphis Road Trips!

I made a recent foray to T.O. Fuller State Park, which has great walking trails and natural areas spread over the hilly terrain of a former golf course and environs. Afterwards, on a whim, I started driving south from the park on Boxtown Road, and when I reached Sewanee Road, I just kept driving south. It was a route I hadn’t driven before and it took me through Boxtown and some interesting, ruralish parts of the city we’d never imagined existed.

It got me thinking about how many parts of the city I’d never seen, and how easy it is to just take a “road trip” without leaving the city. If you live in Midtown, venture out of your comfort zone and take Jackson Avenue north to Egypt Central

and turn right, then turn right on New Brownsville Road, which soon becomes Old Brownsville Road, which takes you through some parts of “suburbia” you probably never knew existed.

Here’s another good one: Quince from East Memphis to Winchester.

Also, Chelsea Avenue, from north of Downtown to the outer I-240 loop is a very interesting drive. And don’t sleep on Warford Street. Take it north off of Jackson until it turns into New Allen Road and from there goes deep into the north Memphis hinterlands.

Explore Memphis! It will open your eyes — and kill a couple of hours.

— Bruce VanWyngarden Glam Up Some of my most formative memories involved all things glitz and glamor. My parents regularly treated me to silk presses at the hair shop, and I earned my first authentic Hannah Montana wig after a Libby Lu makeover at the mall.

I grew up during the peak of the beauty guru phase on YouTube. Before influencers condensed their hours-long beauty routines into bite-sized videos on TikTok, we were treated to in-depth videos helping us to perfect bold cut creases and mermaid wand curls. With this being said, I mastered the art of doing my own makeup, as well as a few other beauty-related things pretty young.

It’s a habit that I’ve practiced since

I was 14, and 10 years later I’ll still opt to try my own eyelash extensions or blowouts. It’s mostly out of convenience, but recently I’ve been enamored by the immense amount of talent in the beauty community in Memphis. While it’s easy to look up a quick DIY video, it’s also nice to be pampered and let the professionals handle it.

For the new year, I’m hoping to have more beauty services done by local artists and professionals.

“We have so many talented and professional people who love what they do in our community,” says Kayla Frazier, a

local makeup artist in Memphis.

Whether it’s a trim from A Natural Affair Beauty Lounge or a makeup look perfected by Frazier, I’m looking to leave my beauty needs in the hands of Memphis’ top professionals.

— Kailynn Johnson Play Some Games The music was perfect as we entered Flipside, Crosstown’s pinball bar. The jukebox was playing “Rebel Yell” by Billy Idol, an anthem from the golden age of continued on page 12

COVER STORY m e m p h i s f l y e r. c o m

PHOTO (ABOVE): ALEX GREENE

11

continued from page 11 coin-op arcades, 1983.

During the pandemic, my wife LJ and I spent many hours playing simulated pinball on our iPad. When Flipside opened, we wanted to get back to the real thing. Flipside is part of a trend of places that are more than just watering holes, offering games to accompany your pizza and beer. With a Black Lodge membership, you can munch on totchoes while you play any console game from the last 30 years or take a whirl on their vintage cabinets. (I recommend CarnEvil, the scary-clown-blasting queen of the light gun games.) Nerd Alert, a classic video game arcade, recently announced they were moving from Cooper-Young to Collierville so they could expand and add more games.

Flipside is all about pinball. On a typical winter evening, families, teenagers, and grown-ups tried their hands at classic machines like The Six Million Dollar Man from 1977, and those of more recent vintage, like the much-in-demand Foo Fighters table. I got distracted by constructing the perfect arcade playlist at the jukebox, including Rush’s “Tom Sawyer,” Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love,” and Madonna’s “Get Into the Groove,” while LJ fed tokens to the whirring, clanging machines. Turns out, playing real pinball, with all of its imperfections and foibles, is different from simulated ball physics on an ideal surface.

But with a Gotta Get Up to Get Down in the drink holster, pinball is still a blast, no matter now bad you are at it.

— Chris McCoy

January 4-10, 2024

Get to Know Your Tree Neighbors One simple, homespun way to put a new spin on the old familiar routines is to look for signs of a parallel universe coexisting with your perceived world. Suggested starting point: the secret lives of trees. Just outside your door there awaits (for most of us) a strange new world, complete with altered time scales, coded messages, and otherworldly beauty. You only need to look up, then recall that a tree’s roots grow as deep as its branches grow high. A root system really is a parallel universe, right under our noses.

Furthermore, according to authors like Suzanne Simard or Peter Wohlleben, all these limbed giants that make life in Memphis what it is, from summer shade to ice hazards, are talking to each other down there. Threads of fungi connect the roots of trees over acres, sending nutrients, hormones, and even alarm signals from tree to tree in sprawling interactive networks. Maybe it’s time we at least learn these talkative neighbors’ names.

Pair that with ecologist Doug Tallamy’s concept of a “homegrown national park,” composed of the sum total of all our yards, trees, and gardens laid out in a 12 patchwork across America. It’s really a call to our imaginations, to envision each yard

PHOTO (TOP RIGHT): ABIGAIL MORICI

No New Year’s resolutions required for this good boy, he claims.

PHOTO (BELOW RIGHT): COURTNEE WALL

Our writer pictured at Zoo Lights just moments before wipeout. as a mere segment in a gigantic ecosystem, humming with communications between its species — a veritable Tree Nation.

No wonder so many of our arborists, neighborhood arboretum enthusiasts, or followers of the Tennessee Urban Forestry Council have that special smile of those who glimpse the invisible threads of life in our midst. — Alex Greene Who Let the Dog Out? My mother is embarrassed of me. Plain and simple. She says she can’t bring me anywhere. Could it be the fact that I jump on nearly everyone I meet? Or that I pee when I’m excited to see people? Or that I pull and pull and pull on my leash? These are just mere quirks, dear mother. That’s what I told her the day I convinced her to (finally) bring me with her to Crosstown Concourse, my puppy eyes finally working. I’m a charmer, what can I say?

We started at Madison Pharmacy, an errand for her. I jumped on the counter, simply to say my hellos (also in hopes that there might be some treats, alas there were none). We then trotted past the ladies getting their nails done and I sat in one of the chairs outside the Gloss Nail Bar, for attention of course. I got some oohs and aahs, and the ladies asked if I wanted to join them. But I wasn’t falling for any tricks. No one will ever touch my nails.

(Hear that?)

And then we walked and walked to the red staircase, and I wanted to go upstairs and my mom said no because she was scared I’d pee on the artwork in Crosstown Arts. She has no faith in me, I tell you. I let some people pet me and I was so good, so pretty. Even some kids pet me, and they made fun of my name.

(And my mom just let them! She even agreed that my name is silly, and I’m over here like, woman, you were the one who named me Blobby. Blobby?!)

And then — oh this is the best part — we got MemPops — well, I got MemPops.

I got a Pupsicle. I ate it in, like, four seconds. Count it: One. Two. Three. Four.

And bam. Gone. Did I chew? No one will know. But I know that I’m going to be begging to go to more dog-friendly places in 2024. It’s going to be the year of Blobby in Memphis. — Blobby Skater Boy My after-work routine has turned into a bit of a predictable cycle once I turn off the computer monitor at my remote “office.” Perhaps the TV might click on to replay the day’s soccer highlights or to host a quick play session of Mario Kart.

Maybe there will be a restaurant visit or a stop at a brewery (probably Wiseacre

HQ or Crosstown) followed by a coerced viewing of Big Brother on Paramount+ (you know who you are). It can all feel a bit rote at times, so I began to think of other things to do that could spark just a little extra bit of joy.

Thoughts quickly turned to some of the activities that 10-year-old me enjoyed doing, and in the spirit of the cold winter season, I slapped on a pair of skates and found myself stumbling about the miniature ice rink at the Memphis Zoo Lights.

As I swished (struggled) across the ice like a Mid-South Michelle Kwan, it

felt almost freeing during the moments I wasn’t sticking my blade into the ground, crashing into the wall, or trying to avoid other relapsed ice skaters. In need of a new hobby to scatter the winter doldrums, I expect to lace up at least a couple more times, my own mortality be damned.

The rink and dazzling lights at AutoZone Park’s Deck the Diamond event made for a pleasant Downtown holiday experience, while I’ve heard the Mid South Ice House is the best year-round option to sharpen my blades of glory. For now, this skater boy is bidding “see you later, boy,” to 2023.

— Samuel X. Cicci

steppin’ out

We Recommend: Culture, News + Reviews

“Commune (verb)”

By Abigail Morici

Kaylyn Webster, Light Show in July, 2023; Oil on canvas.

Just a year after earning her BFA from Washington University in St. Louis, Kaylyn Webster has celebrated her first solo exhibition at a museum. Her show, titled “Commune (verb),” opened in October at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens.

“I remember like it was just yesterday, coming to field trips here,” she says.

“I went to Overton High School and Colonial Middle, and we would come up here all the time and look at other people’s work, and now it’s mine up here.

It’s insane to me.”

The pieces in the show, Webster explains, are portraits of her family members and close friends. “I want to humanize the figures that I painted and hopefully to also humanize people of color in general,” she says. “I want [viewers] to want to know more about these people and their stories.”

For her paintings, Webster shares intimate moments with her loved ones, from the jubilant with her nephews playing horns, clad in Nikes and Jordans, to the more vulnerable with her mother recovering from Covid at the height of the pandemic. The paintings themselves are large in scale, practically larger than the artist herself. “I really want you to feel like you’re a part of these intimate moments,” Webster says.

In composing her works, Webster channels the styles and techniques of the art she learned about in her Western art courses, the very art that historically excluded Black men and women. “I love the style of it, the realism,” she says. “I love the symbolism and the deep narratives and the scale of it. I just wanted to represent people of color using those techniques.”

Yet she adds, “I always want at least one figure looking out at viewers to engage them more in the piece, and to challenge that trend that I saw in art history of Black servants and maids just not being able to look out. It’s almost like a tool to dehumanize them, so I want the stares to re-humanize the figures.”

Only one painting in the show features a person Webster does not know, a woman who upon meeting her in her studio space at Arrow Creative handed Webster a photograph of herself. “She wasn’t going to do anything with the photo, so she allowed me to paint it,” Webster says. “I feel like you can get to know her through her smile, the wrinkles in her face, her hands. I don’t know this woman, but I was able to connect with her. I guess that’s an example of myself participating in the effect that I want to have on other people as they see the show. … I just hope people can feel the emotions for these figures that I feel for them in real life and take that empathy and respect that they have from this exhibition and extend it to people they encounter in everyday life.”

TAP INTO

GOOD TIMES

JAN 12, 2024

OPENS JAN 20

BEST RIBS IN TOWN

“KAYLYN WEBSTER: COMMUNE (VERB),” DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS, 4339 PARK, ON DISPLAY THROUGH JANUARY 7.

VARIOUS DAYS & TIMES January 4th- 11th poems by Margaret Bonds, Florence Price, and Ricky Ian Gordon. Tours with them begin at 10:30 a.m.

Free Mat Pilates Class Novel, 387 Perkins Ext., Saturday, January 6, 2:30 p.m., free Start the new year protecting your spine! Join Club Pilates Midtown for a special edition Pilates mat class. Heather H. will teach you how to protect your spine through movement. You’ll work on core strength and flexibility that creates longevity — so maybe you CAN read all the books! Each participant will receive a coupon for 20% off one item from Novel to use after the class.

Register at novelmemphis.com to reserve your spot. The class will take place in Novel’s event space. Participants should bring their own mat.

m e m p h i s f l y e r. c o m

Super Saturday - Music in Art with Opera Memphis Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, 1934 Poplar Ave., Saturday, January 6, 10 a.m.-noon, free Join Opera Memphis Singers to celebrate the arts and hear the sounds that inspired the art in the special exhibit “Black American Portraits.” Bring the whole crew to go on a tour in the galleries with talented opera singers, make art in the studio, and discover how artists are inspired by music, music is inspired by art, and more.

The singers will be Handorf Company Artists, Kayla Oderah and Marquita Richardson, joined by Opera Memphis favorite, baritone Marcus King. Opera Memphis will present excerpts from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones, plus musical settings of Langston Hughes’

OPENS FEB 9 3050 Central Memphis,TN 38111 901.636.2362 moshmemphis.com

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Company Orpheum Theatre, 203 S. Main St., performances through January 7, $29-$125 Winner of five Tony Awards including Best Revival of a Musical, Company is, at once, boldly sophisticated, deeply insightful, and downright hilarious.

It’s Bobbie’s 35th birthday party, and all her friends keep asking, Why isn’t she married? Why can’t she find the right man and isn’t it time to settle down and start a family? As Bobbie searches for answers, she discovers why being single, being married, and being alive in the 21st century could drive a person crazy.

Tickets for the show can be purchased at orpheum-memphis.com.

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MUSIC By Alex Greene

Louis! Louis! Louis!

Jumaane Smith swings with three guys named Louis.

F

January 4-10, 2024

MAKE YOUR CLOSET HAPPY, MANE.

VISIT US AT

GRINDCITYDESIGNS.COM/ MEMPHISFLYER TO PLACE AN ORDER.

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or all the rhythmic focus of 21st century music, where beats reign supreme, there’s one type of rhythm that remains elusive: swing. It’s nigh impossible to program machines to swing convincingly, and so it has withered in our musical landscape. But it’s not extinct, as pockets of jazz players in every city make clear. Now, one stalwart jazz pilgrim is single-handedly kicking off a revival of swinging rhythms in a very popular way.

Music lovers can hear it for themselves at the Germantown Performing Arts Center (GPAC) on Saturday, January 20th, when the show Louis!

Louis! Louis! takes the stage. But at the end of the night, fans won’t be screaming the name “Louis!” — it will more likely be “Jumaane!” That would be the trumpeter, singer, and composer Jumaane Smith, who has recently been leading audiences through the glories of swinging, stomping music by way of his three greatest influences, all of whom happen to be named Louis. Taking a deep dive into the music of Louis Armstrong, Louis Prima, and Louis Jordan, Smith has found a way to celebrate much of what he loves in older music without surrendering to nostalgia. The way he sees it, those artists are as galvanizing and entertaining today as they were during their heyday. In fact, they’re still inspiring his own compositions, which he blends in with the classics made famous by three guys named Louis.

Armstrong is rightly considered a pillar of all jazz who remained committed to that genre’s pop potential even as it took more esoteric turns after World War II. That’s something he had in common with Prima and Jordan as well, as all of them combined instrumental virtuosity with singing and a flair for showmanship.

“Louis Armstrong and Louis Prima were both singing trumpet players, and Louis Jordan was a singing saxophonist. And I feel as though one informs the other with the melodic choices they make,” says Smith. Beyond that,

they also shared a sense of humor and embodied the notion of the complete entertainer, something Smith would like to see more of in jazz.

He would know, having performed in Michael Bublé’s band for the past 17 years. As he told Variety in 2020, that experience showed him just how popular swinging music could be. “It’s always a weird situation when people say, ‘Oh, nobody likes jazz; nobody shows up to jazz concerts,’” he said at the time. “We’re playing to 20,000 to 50,000 people a night, and half the show or

“People in the audience start tapping their feet and they don’t know why.” more is just straight up big-band jazz.”

At the time, Smith was plugging his then-new album, When You’re Smiling, which features his interpretations of nine standards popularized by the three Louises and one original, “Sweet Baby.” But the album was released in January 2020, after which all tour plans were scuttled. Three years and one pandemic later, Smith has finally brought the show on the road. Now, “we’ve been traveling all over the States for the last year, doing this project,” he says.

Smith is especially proud of the band he’s assembled. “When I’m performing, I always try to make sure that the groove is at a very high level, and

I’ve played with some of these musicians for over 20 years now. It’s really exciting to have that sort of interplay and long-term musical relationship within the band. I’ll be using Will Gorman on piano, and a fellow Juilliard graduate of mine, Luke Sellick, on bass.

Our guitarist, David Rosenthal, is a supremely versatile musician, and on drums is another Juilliard grad, Carmen Intorre Jr. Then we’ll have Josh Brown playing trombone, and a young, extremely talented saxophonist from England named Ruben Fox.”

PHOTO: GINA INTORRE

Jumaane Smith With such a band, Smith says, the swinging comes easy. “That’s where the magic really happens, when these players are all performing true to themselves within the framework of the concert.

When I started this project, I had no intention of doing a nostalgia experience. The concept is, how can I allow myself to come through the parameters of this lens? This lens being the music of Louis Armstrong, Louis Prima, and Louis Jordan. And when the band’s really cooking and in the groove, people in the audience start tapping their feet and they don’t know why. The feeling of the music just makes you excited in that way and makes you want to move.”

Catch Jumaane Smith: Louis! Louis!

Louis! at Germantown Performing Arts Center on Saturday, January 20th, 8 p.m. Purchase tickets ($20-$65) at gpacweb.com.

AFTER DARK: Live Music Schedule January 4 - 10 Mule Man

Vinyl Happy Hour

Friday, Jan. 5, 4-7 p.m.; Sunday, Jan. 7, noon-3 p.m.

RUM BOOGIE CAFE

Blues Players Cub

Thursday, Jan. 4, 7 p.m.

BLUES CITY CAFE

Bluff City Born

Hear new music by Memphis artists. Tuesday, Jan. 9, 7 p.m.

TIN ROOF

Brad Birkedahl Band Wednesday, Jan. 10, 7 p.m.

Red Thomas

Saturday, Jan. 6, 12:303:30 p.m.

RUM BOOGIE CAFE

Computermane

Friday, Jan. 5, 10 p.m.

TIN ROOF

Denver Massey

Thursday, Jan. 4, 6 p.m.

TIN ROOF

DJ Marcjayy

Saturday, Jan. 6, 10 p.m.; Tuesday, Jan. 9, 10 p.m.

Risky Whiskey Boys Band

Soul St. Mojo

Wednesday, Jan. 10, 7 p.m.

RUM BOOGIE CAFE

The Rockin’ 88s

Dueling Pianos with Danny Childers

Thursday, Jan. 4, 7-11 p.m.

SILKY O’SULLIVAN’S

Earl “The Pearl” Banks

Friday, Jan. 5, 4:30 p.m.; Saturday, Jan. 6, 4:30 p.m.; Tuesday, Jan. 9, 7 p.m.

Monday, Jan. 8, 7 p.m.; Tuesday, Jan. 9, 7 p.m.

RUM BOOGIE CAFE

BLUES CITY CAFE

Adeem the Artist presented by Folk All Y’all

Saturday, Jan. 6, 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

Amber McCain Duo Friday, Jan. 5, 7 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Saturday, Jan. 6, 9 p.m.

ROCKY’S EAST MEMPHIS

Elmo & the Shades, Eddie Harrison

Friday, Jan. 5, 7 p.m.; Wednesday, Jan. 10, 7 p.m.

NEIL’S MUSIC ROOM

Eye to Eye Band

Saturday, Jan. 6, 9 p.m.

T.J. MULLIGAN’S

FreeWorld

Jackson Stokes *Acoustic Trio*

Saturday, Jan. 6, 9 p.m.

Thursday, Jan. 4, 8 p.m.

RUM BOOGIE CAFE

BROOKHAVEN PUB & GRILL

FreeWorld

John Williams & the A440 Band

BLUES CITY CAFE

$10. Thursday, Jan. 4, 8 p.m.

Jarred Kingrey

NEIL’S MUSIC ROOM

Friday, Jan. 5, 7 p.m.; Saturday, Jan. 6, 7 p.m.

TIN ROOF

JT McCaffrey

Memphis Funk n Horns, Kenny Presley (Elvis Tribute Act) Friday, Jan. 5, 8 p.m.

Friday, Jan. 5, 10:30 p.m.; Saturday, Jan. 6, 10:30 p.m.

NEIL’S MUSIC ROOM

TIN ROOF

Sunday, Jan. 7, 3-6 p.m.

Kenneth Jackson

Sunday, Jan. 7, 3-6 p.m.

HUEY’S DOWNTOWN

B-SIDE

Brian Conklan

RUM BOOGIE CAFE

Sunday, Jan. 7, 8 p.m.

Adeem Maria (they/them) is a seventh-generation Carolinian, a makeshift poet, singer-songwriter, storyteller, and blue-collar artist. $20. Saturday, Jan. 6, 7:30 p.m.

Amber McCain Band

HADLEY’S PUB

Friday, Jan. 5, 8 p.m.; Saturday, Jan. 6, 8 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

SIDECAR CAFE MEMPHIS

Eric Hughes

Thursday, Jan. 4, 7 p.m.

’80s Nights with DJ Tree and Dudecalledrob Friday, Jan. 5, 10 p.m.

Friday, Jan. 5, 8 p.m.; Saturday, Jan. 6, 8 p.m.

The Chaulkies HUEY’S POPLAR

Devil Train

A band still combining the heavy sound of the ’80s with the classic hard rock attitude of the ’70s. Wednesday, Jan. 10, 6 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Will Tucker Band

Feel the Music …

Boneyard & Midnite Train

BLUES CITY CAFE

HADLEY’S PUB

Vince Johnson

Dock Ballard

SILKY O’SULLIVAN’S

$10. Friday, Jan. 5, 9 p.m.

BLUES CITY CAFE

TIN ROOF

Friday, Jan. 5, 7-11 p.m.; Saturday, Jan. 6, 7-11 p.m.

Thumpdaddy

Monday, Jan. 8, 7 p.m.

MOMMA’S

Dueling Pianos

El Ced & Groove National

TIN ROOF

DJ Stringbean

THE ARCADE RESTAURANT

GUEST HOUSE AT GRACELAND (THEATER)

Sunday, Jan. 7, 7 p.m.; Wednesday, Jan. 10, 8 p.m.

Wyly Bigger

Celebrate Elvis’ Birthday with live music. Sunday, Jan. 7, noon.

Celebrate Elvis’ music born out of American Sound with musician and singer Andy Childs. $40. Sunday, Jan. 7, 7-9:30 p.m.

Friday, Jan. 5, 5 p.m.

TIN ROOF

Thursday, Jan. 4, 10 p.m.; Saturday, Jan. 6, 8 p.m.

A Night at American Sound

CENTRAL BBQ

Rodell McCord

Friday, Jan. 5, 12:30-3:30 p.m.; Saturday, Jan. 6, 4-7 p.m.; Sunday, Jan. 7, 3:30-6:30 p.m.

HUEY’S MIDTOWN

Saturday, Jan. 6, 6 p.m.

Buddy Albert Nemenz

Chris Gales

Sunday, Jan. 7, 3-6 p.m.

Rice Drewry and Friends

JERRY LEE LEWIS’ CAFE & HONKY TONK

SILKY O’SULLIVAN’S

Wyly & the Coyotes

Adeem the Artist

RUM BOOGIE CAFE

BLUES CITY CAFE

Thursday, Jan. 4, 1-5 p.m.; Friday, Jan. 5, 1-5 p.m.; Saturday, Jan. 6, 1-5 p.m.

MEMPHIS LISTENING LAB

PHOTO: MADISON MILES

Saturday, Jan. 6, 5 p.m.

Area 51

Area 51 brings their audience a high-energy show playing classics from bands like Yes, Styx, Rush, Supertramp, Boston, and many more. Friday, Jan. 5, 6 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Breaking/Entering, Rosary, Pressed, Mammoth Caravan

$10. Saturday, Jan. 6, 8 p.m.

HI TONE

Bruce and Lindsey Kee

A little bit of country. A little bit of rock. A little bit of soul. Saturday, Jan. 6, 1 p.m.

DJ Night with Bloody Elle, One-a-Day and Friends Saturday, Jan. 6, 9 p.m.

LAMPLIGHTER LOUNGE

Dough Rollers, The Hard Promises Sunday, Jan. 7, 7:30 p.m.

B-SIDE

Grit & Grind Music Machine

Comprised of a collective of seasoned professional Memphis musicians, G & G always delivers a wonderful variety of the music you know and love. Saturday, Jan. 6, 9 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Iris Collective at the Brooks

An exciting performance in the galleries by Iris Collective’s string quartet. The musicians have curated a truly immersive experience for you to enjoy through the connection of the visual and auditory arts. Wednesday, Jan. 10, 5-7 p.m.

MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART

Jackson Stokes *Acoustic Trio*

Thursday, Jan. 4, 8 p.m.

BLUE MONKEY

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

JD Westmoreland Band

Circle Birds

B-SIDE

Free. Saturday, Jan. 6, 7 p.m.

WISEACRE BREWERY

Data Drums, San Salida Saturday, Jan. 6, 9 p.m.

BAR DKDC

Deep Roots

Deep Roots is a Memphismade band with strong roots in blues, soul, and rock-androll. Thursday, Jan. 4, 7 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Devil Train

Thursday, Jan. 4, 9:30 a.m.

B-SIDE

Monday, Jan. 8, 10:30 a.m.

Joe Restivo 4

With over 25 years of professional experience in music, Joe Restivo’s guitar playing strongly reflects his Memphis roots. Sunday, Jan. 7, 11 a.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Juno Marrs

Juno Avent and Donnie Marrs come together to form … Juno Marrs. Sunday, Jan. 7, 3 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Knucklehead with Gutter, Anemoia, Feral God $10. Friday, Jan. 5, 8 p.m.

GROWLERS

Knucklehead with Gutter, Anemoia, Feral God, A Kiss Before Dying $10. Friday, Jan. 5, 8 p.m.

GROWLERS

Memphis Knights Big Band

For almost 20 years the Memphis Knights Big Band has been providing solid swing music — both vintage and modern — to a wide variety of Memphis audiences.

Monday, Jan. 8, 6 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Mothcat, Symptoms, San Salida, National Anth $10. Thursday, Jan. 4, 8 p.m.

HI TONE

Renaissance Party Hosted by Tami and Friends

DJ Siphne Aaye. $10. Saturday, Jan. 6, 8:30 p.m.

GROWLERS

Royal Blues Band Jam Tuesday, Jan. 9, 6 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Songs from the Road House Concert

Asheville NC’s Songs From the Road Band will be at the Finder home for an intimate concert. $20 at the door. As always, free refreshments. 100 percent to the band. Sunday, Jan. 7, 7 p.m.

17 BELLEAIR DRIVE

Speed of Sound

Featuring an exciting lineup covering a broad range of electronic music genres as well as BlazeBunny’s debut set. Friday, Jan. 5, 9 p.m.

Sunday, Jan. 7, 6-9 p.m.

HUEY’S SOUTHAVEN

Finley Watkins

Fifteen-year-old Finley Watkins will be celebrating Elvis’ birthday with a tribute to him and many more rockabilly legends. $10.

Saturday, Jan. 6, 3 p.m.

HERNANDO’S HIDEAWAY

Louise Page, Dr. Ew Friday, Jan. 5, 9 p.m.

BAR DKDC

The Double D’s

Sunday, Jan. 7, 6-9 p.m.

HUEY’S OLIVE BRANCH

The Pretty Boys

Sunday, Jan. 7, 6-9 p.m.

HUEY’S SOUTHWIND

Tyler Richton & The High Bank Boys and Mark Muleman Massey $10-$15. Saturday, Jan. 6, 7:30 p.m.

HERNANDO’S HIDEAWAY

Viva Elvis Birthday Pops Concert Featuring Terry Mike Jeffrey and the Memphis Symphony Orchestra

The Memphis Symphony Orchestra, along with musician and singer Terry Mike Jeffrey, present their annual Elvis Birthday Pops Concert celebrating Elvis’ record-breaking Las Vegas performances. $40. Saturday, Jan. 6, 7-9:30 p.m.

GRACELAND SOUNDSTAGE

Duane Cleveland Band Sunday, Jan. 7, 6-9 p.m.

HUEY’S COLLIERVILLE

Java

Sunday, Jan. 7, 6-9 p.m.

HUEY’S GERMANTOWN

CANVAS

Medium Walter

The Pinch

HUEY’S CORDOVA

The Pinch is a four-piece pop/rock band comprised of talent based out of Memphis and has been playing the scene since 2001. Sunday, Jan. 7, 7 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Sunday, Jan. 7, 8-10:30 p.m.

Richard Wilson

Smooth and soulful. Friday, Jan. 5, 12:30 p.m.; Sunday, Jan. 7, 12:30 p.m.

JACKIE MAE’S PLACE

m e m p h i s f l y e r. c o m

Sunday, Jan. 7, 7 p.m.

RUM BOOGIE CAFE

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Baunie & Soul

With special guest DJs. Friday, Jan. 5, 3-5 p.m.

15

CALENDAR of EVENTS: January 4 - 10

Enjoy photographs of Collierville captured by local artist Adarryll Jackson Sr. Through March 2.

MORTON MUSEUM OF COLLIERVILLE HISTORY

“Black American Portraits”

This exhibition chronicles the many ways in which Black Americans have used portraiture to envision themselves in their own eyes. Through Jan. 7.

REED/DLG

Veda Reed’s “New Paintings” are on display at David Lusk Gallery through February 3rd.

THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS

MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART

“Days”

Black Artists in America: From Civil Rights to the Bicentennial

“Black Artists in America: From Civil Rights to the Bicentennial” focuses on the pivotal period from the 1950s to the early 1970s, a time of significant social change and artistic transformation. Through Jan. 14.

DUE TO SPACE LIMITATIONS, ONGOING WEEKLY EVENTS WILL APPEAR IN THE FLYER’S ONLINE CALENDAR ONLY. FOR COMPREHENSIVE EVENT LISTINGS, SCAN OUR QR CODE BELOW OR VISIT EVENTS.MEMPHISFLYER.COM/CAL.

PHOTO: COURTESY VEDA

Memphis artist Kaylyn Webster’s paintings feel at once familiar and otherworldly; traditional and completely of the moment. Through Jan. 7.

“Adarryll Jackson, Sr.”

Send the date, time, place, cost, info, phone number, a brief description, and photos — two weeks in advance — to calendar@memphisflyer.com.

THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS

“Days” follows the everyday observations of the structures we interact with. Through Jan. 21.

“The Molasses Man & Other Delta Tales”

CROSSTOWN ARTS AT THE CONCOURSE

“Hued”

METAL MUSEUM

“China Blues: The World of Blue and White Ceramics”

“Southern Railway”

Discover the national history behind the Southern Railway Company, its lasting influence on the local community, and a creative play area featuring hands-on train activities for young visitors. Tuesday, Jan. 9-April 20.

BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART Sales Corporation The New MEMPHIS York Times Syndication The collection includes a range of objects from the Ming and Qing dynasties in a wide array of materials, including beautifully carved jades, paintings, textiles, and ceramics. Through May 31.

620 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018 For Information Call: 1-800-972-3550 For Release Tuesday, March 5, 2019

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ACROSS 1 Barred from competition, briefly 5 Prefix with economics 10 Sportsbook offering 14 Liqueur with a licoricelike flavor 15 Psychologist Alfred 16 Stumble around in a daze 17 Empty talk not backed by action 19 Screenwriter James of “The African Queen” 20 Santa ___, Calif.

21 Slender 22 Play loudly, as music 23 Like all natural numbers: Abbr.

24 Boost after appearing on a certain old Comedy Central show

27 Malia Obama’s sister 29 Use an oar 30 Lion in the heavens 31 In effect 35 Arkin of “Catch-22” 36 Product from RCA or LG 39 Something traced to draw a turkey 40 Get, as from a will 41 “___ the least I can do” 42 Groceries holder

55 Gift for which you might reply “Mahalo” 56 Happening now, as a telecast 57 Sport hinted at by the ends of 17-, 24-, 36- and 47-Across 60 Universal donor type, for short 61 Paragon 62 Christmastime 63 Exchanges “I do’s” 64 Sounds from a pet owner’s lap 65 Column on a flight board, for short

43 Sedan alternative

DOWN 47 Symbol of the completion of the 1 Practice Transcontinental swimming Railroad 2 Trendy food from the Andes 52 Upper extreme, informally 3 Toll method on the New Jersey 53 Stockpile Turnpike 54 Work without ___ 4 Uno + uno 5 Kingpin on “The ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE Wire” A N K L E N I C H E D A S 6 Excedrin competitor T A N Y A U S H E R O C T F R E E C Y C L I N G E T A 7 Do some mountaineering I R E H U L A S O P S U P 8 DVR button R A B E K E N T A N A L S T O P S I D E H U S T L E 9 Molybdenite, for molybdenum T O N I C S E E S T R E L O A D S H A L O M 10 Toothpaste brand E A S E S F I L A S 11 Airport named for a president D R O P T H E M I C F I N E E O N S P I N E E V A N 12 Venison N O T Y E T R E N D E G O 13 Take some time T M I K I C K S T A R T E R to consider A I M E L I A S T E T R A 18 Break free L E E S T A T E A M I S S 22 Texter’s segue

An anthology of stories based off of Ahmad George’s life and experiences with people they’ve encountered here and not. Through Jan. 21.

CROSSTOWN ARTS AT THE CONCOURSE

El Paso-based artist Rachelle Thiewes creates jewelry that empowers its wearer through her careful use of rhythmic repetition, architectural forms, and vibrant auto paint. Through Jan. 28.

“But Then, Suddenly, I Was Looking From the Inside Out”

Through a resistance to the tenants of modernism, Coe Lapossy centers erased histories and marginalized labor. Through Jan. 21.

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A R T A N D S P E C IA L E X H I B ITS

MORTON MUSEUM OF COLLIERVILLE HISTORY

CROSSTOWN ARTS AT THE CONCOURSE

“Woven Arts of Africa”

A comprehensive visual exhibition that defines the major woven artistic styles and traditions derived from numerous cultural/ regional groups from all over the African continent. Through Jan. 20.

ART MUSEUM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS (AMUM)

A R T HA P P E N I N G S

“New Paintings” Opening Celebration

Edited by Will Shortz

No. 0129

Presenting new paintings by Veda Reed to celebrate the artist’s 90th birthday. This captivating exploration of the artist’s career is a combination of studies and large-scale paintings. Friday, Jan. 5, 5-7 p.m.

DAVID LUSK GALLERY

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Novel welcomes Derrick Barnes in conversation with Trey Draper to celebrate his new book Who Got Game?: Basketball: Amazing But True Stories! Monday, Jan. 8, 6 p.m.

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Derrick Barnes in Conversation with Trey Draper: Who Got Game?: Basketball

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Looking for something relaxing to do to clear your mind and improve your overall health?

Come to the Dixon for free meditation sessions every Friday. Friday, Jan. 5, noon-12:45 p.m.

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Wine Wednesday Oil Painting Portrait Series with Glynnis King

Wine down and enjoy an amazing three-part oil painting series and create a stunning portrait! $135. Wednesday, Jan. 10, 6:30-8 p.m.

ARROW CREATIVE

H EA LT H A N D F IT N ES S PUZZLE BY BENJAMIN KRAMER

25 Orange Muppet 26 Whirler on a whirlybird 28 “Please ___” (secretary’s words) 32 Water with the Alps in its logo 33 Men’s gymnastics event 34 Bit of volcanic fallout 35 Apropos of 36 Luke Skywalker’s home planet

37 Forced into bondage 38 Fine point 39 Poker variant in which the worst set of cards splits the pot 42 The first “B” of B&B 44 German mark 45 Spanish rice dish

Free Mat Pilates Class 49 Primitive kind of diet 50 Holiday guest that a couple might fight over 51 Starting points in shipbuilding 57 Get-up-and-go

46 Banishees

58 Payment of tribute?

48 Bottom of the barrel

59 “Ciao!”

Online subscriptions: Today’s puzzle and more than 7,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/crosswords ($39.95 a year).

Read about and comment on each puzzle: nytimes.com/wordplay.

Join Club Pilates Midtown for a special edition Pilates mat class at Novel. Each participant will receive a coupon for 20 percent off one item from Novel to use after the class.

Saturday, Jan. 6, 2:30 p.m.

NOVEL

Wednesday Winter Walks

Join OPC for a casual stroll around the Old Forest! No agenda, just a chance to meet new people and get a walk in. Wednesday, Jan. 10, 4 p.m.

OVERTON PARK

S P EC IA L EVE NTS

Elvis’ Birthday Celebration

Celebrate Elvis Presley’s birthday at Graceland with four days of live music, special tours, panel discussions, and parties. Friday, Jan. 5-Jan. 8.

GRACELAND

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Climate change is impacting rainbows. Rising temperatures and dryer conditions mean that some parts of the world will get fewer rainbows, and other areas will get more. Canada and Siberia will benefit, while the Mediterranean will be less well-endowed with sky-borne arcs of color that come from sunlit rain. But I predict that no matter where you live, the rainbow will be a potent and regular symbol for you Bulls in 2024 — more than ever before. That means you will have increased reasons to entertain hope and more power to find beauty. On occasion, there may even be very good luck at the metaphorical rainbow’s end. If you’re an LGBTQIA2S+ Taurus, be on high alert for breakthroughs in your ability to get the appreciation you deserve.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): As one of your inspirational stories for 2024, I offer this tale from singer-songwriter Tom Waits: “Once upon a time, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. They grew next to each other. Every day, the straight tree would look at the crooked tree and say, ‘You’re crooked. You’ve always been crooked, and you’ll continue to be crooked. But look at me! I’m tall, and I’m straight.’ Then one day, lumberjacks came to the forest and looked around. The manager in charge said, ‘Cut all the straight trees.’ And that crooked tree is still there to this day, growing strong and growing strange.” (PS: Here’s more from Gemini writer Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Be true to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant.”)

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Japanese artist Hokusai (1760-1849) developed a fascination for his country’s iconic Mount Fuji. In his seventies, he produced a series of woodblock prints titled Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji. Later, he added three books of prints collectively called One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji. Some art historians say his obsession stemmed from the legend that the mountain was home to the secret of immortality. The coming year will be a fine time for you Cancerians to celebrate and concentrate on your own

Mount Fuji-like passion. Sometime soon, identify what it is, and start making plans to commune with it intensely.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): If you will ever in your life go viral — that is, create or do something that suddenly becomes widely known and influential — I bet it will be in 2024. Even if you don’t produce TikTok videos seen by 10 million people, you are at least likely to become more visible in your local community or field of endeavor. Of course, I would prefer that your fame and clout spread because of the good deeds you do, not the weird deeds. So I urge you to cultivate high integrity and a wildly generous spirit in the coming months. Be a role model who inspires and uplifts.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): I expect 2024 to be a free-spirited, wide-ranging, big-vision type of year for you, dear Virgo.

I predict you will feel an abundance of urges to travel, roam, and explore. You will be more excited than anxious about the prospect of leaving your comfort zone, and you will have a special fondness for getting your mind expanded by interesting encounters. That doesn’t mean you will avoid all awkwardness and confusion.

Some of that stuff will happen, though it will usually evolve into educational adventures. And the extra good news is that wandering out in nature will provide even more inspiration and healing than usual.

Treasure this quote from conservationist Rachel Carson: “Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure: the migration of the birds, the ebb and flow of the tides, the folded bud ready for the spring.”

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): I am pleased to inform you that a visit to hell will not be on your itinerary in 2024. You may be invited to take a few excursions into the realm that depth psychologists call the underworld, but that’s a good thing.

There you will be able to hunt for treasures that have been hidden and uncover secrets that will illuminate your epic, months-long quest for wholeness. It may sometimes be dark and shadowy down there below, but almost always dark and shadowy in ways that will lead you to healing. (I will reiterate what I implied above: The underworld is NOT hell.)

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): I hope that working hard on togetherness will be a fun project for you in the coming months. To do it well, you must outgrow some habitual ways of doing friendship and intimacy. You will have to be imaginative and ingenious. Are you willing to believe that you do not yet know all there is to know about being a fantastic ally and partner? Are you ready to approach the arts of collaboration and cooperation as if enhancing your skills is the most

important thing you can do? For the sake of your best selfish goals, be a brilliant teammate in 2024.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Each of us is a complex, kaleidoscopic work of art, whether or not we consciously approach our destiny in that spirit. Every day, we use our creative imagination to craft new elements of the masterpiece known as the story of our life. Leos come by this fun project naturally, but you Sagittarians also have great potential to embrace it with glee and panache. I trust you will be especially keen on enjoying this sacred work in 2024. And right now, today and in the coming weeks, will be an excellent time to ramp up the scintillating drama.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Singersongwriter Tori Amos says she’s sure she was burned for being a witch in a previous lifetime. I suspect most of us had past incarnations in which we were punished simply for being our beautiful selves. I bring this up, Aquarius, because I think 2024 will be a favorable time to get some healing from any ancient hurt like that.

You will have a series of experiences that could help you recover from the illusion that being faithful to your truth is somehow wrong. Life will conspire with you to help you reclaim more of the full audacity to be your gorgeous, genuine self.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): I believe 2024 will be one of the best years ever for your education. Your willingness and eagerness to learn will be at a peak.

Your knack for attracting inspirational teachers will be excellent. It’s likely you will be exceptionally curious and open to good influences. My advice is to be alert for lessons not just from obvious sources of wisdom and revelation, but also from unexpected founts. Don’t be too sure you know where revelations and illumination might come from.

m e m p h i s f l y e r. c o m

ARIES (March 21-April 19): The plan I will propose in this horoscope is for temporary use. I’m not recommending you stick to it for all of 2024, but just for the next 15 to 18 days. If you do, I believe it will set you up for beautiful success in the coming months. Here’s my idea: Embark on a free-form extravaganza of playing and having fun. Just for now, set aside your ambition. Don’t worry about improving yourself and producing results. Simply enjoy a phase of suspending inhibitions, creatively messing around, having nothing to prove, and being motivated by the quest for joy.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): “I am against sex education in schools because sex is more fun when it’s dirty and sinful.” So said Capricorn author Florence King. I reject and rebel against that perverse declaration — and encourage you to disavow it, too, in 2024. In my astrological opinion, the coming months will be a favorable time to learn everything about sex and eros that you don’t already know. I hope you will dive deep as you gather a rich array of teachings about how to enjoy the art of making love more than ever before. (Consider consulting tantric manuals like Margo Anand’s The Art of Sexual Magic: Cultivating Sexual Energy to Transform Your Life.)

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

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M E TA P H Y S I C A L C O N N E C T I O N B y E m i l y G u e n t h e r

Year of the Wood Dragon The Chinese zodiac marks 2024 as a year filled with drive and energy.

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appy New Year, everyone!

2024 is officially here, which means there is so much to look forward to, and so much work to do. 2024 is the Year of the Wood Dragon in Chinese astrology. Chinese astrology is a traditional classification system based on the Chinese calendar that assigns an animal and its attributes to each year. The Chinese 12-part cycle corresponds to lunar years, rather than months.

The Chinese zodiac is represented by 12 animals and their elements. Chinese mythology states that the Jade Emperor set up a running race for all animals to take part in. The first 12 to reach the finishing line were rewarded with a position in the lunar calendar.

In Chinese astrology, the 12 zodiac animals are each affiliated with an element — metal, wood, water, fire, earth — as they move around the zodiac cycle. When an animal reappears after 12 years its elemental affiliation will shift. For example, 2012 was the Year of the Water Dragon and 2036 will be the Year of the Fire Dragon.

The dragon is the only mythological animal in this system.

In this zodiac system, wood as an element represents vitality and creativity, as well as steadiness, honesty, generosity, and calmness. The dragon represents success, intelligence, and honor in Chinese culture. The dragon is a symbol of power and wealth. Only Chinese emperors were allowed to wear imperial robes with dragon symbols. Therefore, dragons are seen as natural leaders. They can also be aggressive, ambitious, self-confident, and determined. Dragons have a strong desire to win any competition.

Those born in a wood dragon year are often full of drive and energy. They dream of changing the world and dream up creative ways to do so. If you were born in 1964, then you are a wood dragon. Those born in 2024 will also be wood dragons.

There are a lot of people who were not born in 1964, which means this is not “our” year in Chinese astrology. However, that does not mean you cannot embrace the energy of the wood dragon this year.

In our Western zodiac system, we can relate to all the signs in some way and feel the movements of the planetary bodies in our lives, just as we can all embrace the wood dragon.

In 2024, all Chinese zodiac signs will experience both opportunities and challenges, as the dragon symbolizes change and adaptability in the wood element, bringing growth and renewal. The Year of the Wood Dragon is believed to be able to foster growth, progress, and abundance.

The Year of the Dragon is said to bring favorable conditions for change, growth, and progress, with the dragon’s energy and the grounding influence of the wood element inspiring imagination, leadership, and new ideas. 2024 is going to be a great time for rejuvenated beginnings and setting the foundation for long-term success.

It will also be a dynamic year with opportunities for those open to change, but it may also bring conflict and uncertainty in politics, foreign relations, and the environment, emphasizing the need for forgiveness and peaceful resolutions. Perhaps the energy of the wood dragon will reach those at the highest levels and influence them to look for peaceful conclusions to ongoing events.

PHOTO: S. TSUCHIYA | UNSPLASH

We can all channel the energy of the wood dragon in 2024. Each day is a chance for a new beginning if we embrace it as such. But there is something more powerful about beginning a new year.

It is easier to mark on the calendar and because we’re looking at the whole year, it feels like there are more opportunities to be seized.

This 2024, let us all strive to be more like the wood dragon. Let us focus on ways to make the world a better place. I encourage everyone to reach deep inside and find your inner dragon, your inner leader, and your motivation. We don’t know what is going to happen this year, but we can start it off on the right foot, and hopefully lay the groundwork to get us through whatever challenges the dragon has in store for us. And most importantly, let’s lead with a forgiving heart because we all need a little grace.

Emily Guenther is a co-owner of The Broom Closet metaphysical shop. She is a Memphis native, professional tarot reader, ordained Pagan clergy, and dog mom.

FOOD By Michael Donahue

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onsider the mushroom. up the next day with a ton of followers.”

Daishu McGriff did. She’s McGriff began learning about other owner of Shroomlicious mushrooms. She began buying differMeals, where she sells her ent varieties, including lion’s mane, strictly-made-with-mushrooms cuisine. golden oysters, and maitake, from a Her love of cooking began in her local mushroom farm. hometown of Gordon, Alabama. Her She made videos of her mushroom dad, mom, and grandmother, who dishes. “I kept growing on social mehelped raise her, cooked. dia. Like crazy. And I started getting “I grew up in a neighborhood full of the opportunity to do meals.” kids all the same age as me,” says McGriff, And, she adds, “People on Insta32. “All my family. All my cousins. Probgram started referring to me as ‘The ably 15 of us lived on the same street. My Mushroom Queen.’” summers were amazing growing up. We McGriff began a meal prep service would have a moment where we’d all go after her physical trainer asked her to cook back home and we’d cook. Make it and for her and her clients. bring it under the tree and sit and eat it.”

Cynthia Daniels then asked her to She often made ramen dishes. “We participate in the first Memphis Vegan would put cheese in our ramen with sliced Festival. Daniels also promoted McGriff ham and broccoli and stuff like that.” on her own social media pages.

McGriff majored in business manageMcGriff ’s business began to, well, ment — and also worked in the cafeteria mushroom. She cooked burgers, tacos, — at Auburn University at Montgomery. and Philly cheesesteaks — all made She became the full-time marketing manwith mushrooms — at the festival. Mcager at the university after Griff then moved into she graduated.

OtherFoods Kitchen to After she took a do her meal prep. marketing manager job She began selling her in Florence, Alabama, mushroom fare at variMcGriff learned that her ous festivals in and out father, with whom she was of Memphis, as well as very close, had leukemia. her mushroom drinks, He died in 2018. including lion’s mane That same year, McGdragon fruit lemonade riff moved to Memphis to and chaga peach tea. be marketing director for Last year, she held PHOTO: MICHAEL DONAHUE the University of Memher first dinner, A Night Daishu McGriff phis dining services. in Shroomtopia, in McGriff was makMemphis. “It’s a sevening money with her new career, but she course meal. And every course focuses still “felt a void.” She began going to a on mushrooms.” therapist, who told her she needed to People traveled from Chicago, Los “pour” her emotions into something.

Angeles, and Washington, D. C., to attend “So, I started cooking.” the $175-a-ticket event, she says.

She began documenting her journey McGriff took the event on the road. to become more health conscious in her Last year, in addition to Memphis, they cooking. “I decided to leave meat alone. traveled to Chicago, Brooklyn, and Eat more plants.”

Atlanta. “We did different menus.” And McGriff shared her e-book, Plant she’s already booked cities for her 2024 Forward Living, in which she encourShroomlicious dinners. aged people to “eat more plant-based Steve Cantor, who, along with his food or plants,” online. “I was sharing on wife Karen Lebovitz, owns OtherFoods TikTok when I realized I was really into Kitchen, asked her to be the first to open plant-based food, but I didn’t like tofu or a restaurant at their recently-opened tempeh or seitan. I didn’t like having it as second OtherFoods Kitchen location a meat option.” at 394 North Watkins Street. McGriff She discovered oyster mushrooms is now open Wednesdays through online. “Whenever you’re frying it, it Sundays at the new location. “Long reminds you of meat. I started looking term, the idea is to franchise, but more up how people were cooking with them. so farm to table. We want to be able to Looking up recipes and making up my grow our mushrooms on site.” own. One day I made a collard greens And McGriff wants to one day provide wrap with oyster mushrooms.” mushroom-growing kits, which she’ll call She posted the dish on TikTok. “I woke “Grow Mushrooms With Me.”

s i h p m Me Sceneontest

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Daishu McGriff ’s Shroomlicious Meals reigns supreme.

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FILM By Kailynn Johnson

The Color Purple The new film adaptation foregrounds the inspirational strengths of the Broadway musical.

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January 4-10, 2024

lice Walker’s 1982 novel The Color Purple is a revered novel that has inspired several adaptations.

Written as a series of letters to God by an African-American woman named Celie, Walker’s novel spares no details of trauma and tragedy as Celie reaches for hope and self-empowerment.

The novel was an instant hit, and in 1985, it was adapted into a movie directed by Steven Spielberg with a score

by Quincy Jones. The film not only marks Whoopi Goldberg’s breakthrough role, but stars Oprah Winfrey as Sofia, Danny Glover as Albert “Mister” Johnson, and Margaret Avery as Shug Avery.

The film was a huge success in 1985, but since then, most critiques stemmed from the decision to have a white director at the center of a story with such heavy themes of Blackness, as well as the source material’s overall use of explicit language and sexual details. The effectiveness of Walker’s and Spielberg’s works are not solely measured by their ability to withstand the test of time, but how the story resonates through the years.

In 2005, a Broadway musical version of The Color Purple used both the novel and film as inspiration. The original production garnered 11 Tony Awards, with a revival winning two more in 2016. Given the musical’s popularity, it was primed to be perfect source material for a silver screen adaptation.

Director Blitz Bazawule’s new film tells Celie’s story of tragedy to triumph in a softer, more condensed way. The film opens on the Georgia coast in the year 1909, where we meet the young versions of sisters Celie (Phylicia Pearl Mpasi) and Nettie (Halle Bailey) singing “Huckleberry Pie” while playing a handclapping game. The innocent scene is soon shattered, when we learn that Celie

Nettie’s hand in marriage, which Alfonso refuses, and instead offers him Celie.

Mister is a cruel and abusive man, who repeatedly takes his anger out on Celie, while lamenting over his mistress, Shug Avery (Taraji P. Henson).

Tired of Alfonso’s sexual advances towards her, Nettie runs away and seeks refuge with Celie and Mister. However, this reunion is proved short-lived. When Nettie fights off Mister’s advances, he throws her out, too. The sisters endure another heartbreaking separation. Nettie promises to write every day. Years pass, and Celie (played as an adult by Fantasia Barrino) has yet to hear from Nettie, resulting in her questioning the goodness of God, and whether love exists for her in this world. As she continues to endure the hardships of life, primarily caused

by Mister, she meets Sofia (Danielle Brooks), whose strong-mindedness and assertiveness are a bold contradiction to Celie’s demeanor. She also comes face to face with Shug Avery, who teaches her to

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is pregnant by the man she knows as her father, Alfonso (Deon Cole).

We are then transported into a powerful gospel number, “Mysterious Ways,” sung by First Lady (Tamela Mann), Reverend Samuel Avery (David Alan Grier), and the congregation. Nettie’s infectious love for life shines through in the way she joins the congregation in praise and dance.

Meanwhile, Celie sits quietly and observes.

When Celie gives birth to her son (with a Whoopi Goldberg cameo as the midwife) the miracle of childbirth is cut short. Alfonso takes Celie’s baby away, telling her the child is gone. This isn’t the first time this has happened, as Celie birthed another child, Olivia, who was also taken away. It’s obvious that Celie’s view on life is impacted greatly by this; however, she finds love and comfort in Nettie who brings her lessons and stories from school.

Nettie has caught the eye of an older widower known as Albert “Mister” Johnson (Colman Domingo). Moved by this infatuation, Mister asks Alfonso for

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Based on the novel and Broadway musical, The Color Purple takes the big screen. observe the beauty of life, while learning the difference between suffering induced

by God and man.

Bazawule’s iteration retains the crux of the story at its core. Most of the film’s power comes from the songs, while some significant story elements from previous versions have been omitted or toned down. We still sympathize with Celie for her hardships, but we’re not buried under the same avalanche of tragedies as we have seen in previous adaptations. Bazawule carefully works with the musical score, so as not to make a mockery of the story with song and dance numbers. Relying on the music could have potentially weakened the film, but the strength and commitment of the performers carry the day.

The Color Purple Now playing Multiple locations

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Ferrari Adam Driver stars as Enzo Ferrari, the Italian automotive pioneer who built the legendary sports car brand.

Penélope Cruz co-stars as Laura Ferrari, and Shailene Woodley is Enzo’s mistress Lina in Michael Mann’s critically adored racing picture.

Night Swim In the proud tradition of Death Bed: The Bed That Eats comes this film about a haunted swimming pool. Wyatt Russell and Kerry Condon co-star as a family who move into a new house, only to find that their new plunge pool has an appetite for human flesh. Don’t go near the water!

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m e m p h i s f l y e r. c o m

The Iron Claw Director Sean Durkin tells the story of the Von Erichs, the “cursed” first family of Texas professional wrestling. Zac Efron stars in a breakthrough performance as Kevin, the oldest of ring warrior-turnedpromoter Fritz Von Erich’s (Holt McCallany) five sons, who must keep the family together through triumph and tragedy.

Poor Things Emma Stone shines in this retelling of the Frankenstein myth by Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos. Bella begins the film by killing herself, but rogue surgeon Dr. Godwin “God” Baxter has other ideas. He implants her unborn child’s brain in Bella’s 28-year-old body and steps back to observe the results of his experiment. Mark Ruffalo co-stars as a rakish lawyer who tries to show Bella the ways of the world.

Our critic picks the best films in theaters.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

N O W P L AY I N G B y C h r i s M c C o y

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T H E L A S T W O R D B y Pa t r i c i a L o c k h a r t

Family Fun? Check!

Memphis Public Library, Sift Bakery, and Memphis Chess Club offer fun for the whole family.

It’s time for another intentional tween/teen-friendly Memphis weekend! My kids are 15, 11, 11 (twins), and 10 years old. While most weekends they are content to stay home in their pajamas and play video games, every once in a while, they’ll beg me for a good time. I try my best to find fun, safe, and wallet-friendly places for my kids to enjoy themselves. So here’s to another fun weekend!

Friday — Memphis Public Library The Memphis Public Library is one of the most underused resources in Memphis for tweens/teens (in my opinion). Did you know that most library branches have drones, 3D printers, sewing machines, crafts, gaming systems, and so much more available for our kids? Well, they have all of those things. They also have writing clubs, exercise groups, knitting clubs, robotics teams, movie days, D&D, trivia, gardening, chess club, cooking classes, and more. And the best thing is, everything is free. I’ll say it louder for the people in the back, everything is free! I mean, if you can name it, the Memphis Public Library probably has it.

Whenever I am looking for something for my kids to do, I always check the library first. Simply go to memphislibrary.org. Next, click on ‘Events’ and then on ‘Calendar of Events’. My home library is the Raleigh Branch Library. But the Cordova, Hollywood, East Shelby, and Benjamin L. Hooks Central branches are poppin’, too!

Don’t get me started on the 901 Cloud. My kids love that place! They appreciate the Homework Helpers that help them with their homework. After they have “stood on business” and finished their work, they engage in their favorite hobbies and even play with VR goggles!

As for me, I absolutely love the Raleigh Branch Sewing Club! I have made an apron, pot holder, bag, key chain, and a catch-all bucket. I’m so proud of myself and my newly learned abilities.

A satisfying weekend of sewing, bakeries, and strategizing chess moves.

m e m p h i s f l y e r. c o m

Sunday — Memphis Chess Club My kids enjoy a good game of chess. Scratch that … some of my kids enjoy a good game of chess. No, let’s try again … some of my kids enjoy a good game of chess as long as it’s accompanied by pizza. And there’s only one place in Memphis where they can get both a chess game and pizza. Memphis Chess Club! Upon entering, we place our order: one medium Fabi (cheese) pizza, one medium Greco (pepperoni), a basket of fries, some macand-cheese, a huge cinnamon roll, and a couple of beers for the adults. Next, we head to the game wall. We grab a couple of bags of chess and some random board games. Memphis Chess Club has too many games to name.

Since we are frequent flyers of the Memphis Chess Club, we have the family membership. This allows us to play all board games for free, which usually costs $5 a visit. We also get 10 percent off of everything we order! But most importantly, my kids and I can attend all chess classes for free.

But let’s get real. That’s not my favorite thing about the Memphis Chess Club. (Sidebar: I’m a pretty average player and proud of it!) They have this thing where you can ask them for a random cocktail and receive 10 percent off. A drink that contains alcohol and a discount?! What more could I want? Go to the cashier and say you want a random cocktail. They will swivel their register thingy around to you and you will push a button. That button will then randomly give you a number. That number coincides with the cocktail you will receive. It’s the best surprise ever!

Enjoy Memphis!

Patricia Lockhart is a native Memphian who loves to read, write, cook, and eat. Her days are filled with laughter with her four kids and charming husband. By day, she’s a school librarian and writer, but by night … she’s asleep. @realworkwife @memphisismyboyfriend

PHOTOS: PATRICIA LOCKHART

THE LAST WORD

Saturday — Sift Bakery I have two clear sets of children. One set of kids is very adventurous. They love going outside to play. They are my bikers, skaters, trampoline jumpers, and builders of random things in the front and back yard. They get bored easily, but also have the greatest imaginations. After putting in a full week’s worth of ‘work’ at school, they are ready to let loose on the weekends. The other two kids, however, find value in doing absolutely nothing. If you were to ask them their perfect outing, it would include the exact same things they can do at home. In their words, “I like to do ‘at home’ stuff, but just in different places.” So when my adventurous kids complain that they’re bored, but my relaxed duo are … well, relaxing, I try to think of something to appease the adventurers without disturbing the others’ relaxed peace. And there’s only one place I can think of that will put a smile on all of their faces — Sift Bakery! My kids love nothing more than grabbing their Nintendo Switches and heading to a local bakery. We pick up some of those fancy spiral croissants, a few macaroons, and any other delicious treats Lala has baked up and head to a local park. My adventurous kids get to snack on amazing delicatessens and run around the park, while my relaxed kids enjoy their treats and don’t miss a single beat of their video games. Bada-bing! Everyone is happy!

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MID-SOUTH HEART BALL CELEBRATING THE AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION’S CENTENNIAL

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