From the Chickasaws and Andrew Jackson to Bass Pro and the Grizzlies, here are some (but not all) of the facts about the Blu City.
245 Facts About Memphis
SHARA CLARK Editor-in-Chief
ABIGAIL MORICI
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
JALAL AWAN, CHRIS DAVIS, GENE GARD, EMILY GUENTHER, COCO JUNE, PATRICIA LOCKHART, FRANK MURTAUGH
Contributing Columnists
SHARON BROWN, AIMEE STIEGEMEYER Grizzlies Reporters
CARRIE BEASLEY Senior Art Director
CHRISTOPHER MYERS
Advertising Art Director
NEIL WILLIAMS Graphic Designer
KELLI DEWITT, CHIP GOOGE, SHAUNE MCGHEE, PATRICK PACHECO Senior Account Executives
CHET HASTINGS
Warehouse and Delivery Manager
JANICE GRISSOM ELLISON, KAREN MILAM, DON MYNATT, TAMMY NASH, RANDY ROTZ, LEWIS TAYLOR, WILLIAM WIDEMAN Distribution
KENNETH NEILL Founding Publisher
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 O cer
LYNN SPARAGOWSKI Controller/Circulation Manager
JEFFREY GOLDBERG Chief Revenue Officer
MARGIE NEAL Chief Operating Officer
KRISTIN PAWLOWSKI Digital Services Director
245 Facts About Memphis
From the Chickasaws and Andrew Jackson to Bass Pro and the Grizzlies, here are some (but not all) of the facts about the Blu City. PHOTO: BENKRUT | DREAMSTIME.COM
Cuisine in the Raw e Pickles move on a er selling Rawgirls Memphis. p25
PHOTO: RAW GIRLS MEMPHIS Colossus e environmental cost of AI in Memphis. p31
PHOTO: ZHENG XIAOQIAO | DREAMSTIME.COM
COVER PHOTOS: CENTRAL BBQ BY SCOTT BIALES | DREAMSTIME.COM; BASS PRO SHOPS BY CHERI ALGUIRE | DREAMSTIME.COM
NEWS & OPINION THE FLY-BY - 4 VIEWPOINT - 8 AT LARGE - 10
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STORY “245 FACTS ABOUT MEMPHIS” BY TOBY SELLS - 12 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT WE RECOMMEND - 15 MUSIC - 16 AFTER DARK - 18 CALENDAR - 20 NY TIMES CROSSWORD - 21 WE SAW YOU - 22 FOOD - 25 NEWS OF THE WEIRD - 26 ASTROLOGY - 27 FILM - 28 CLASSIFIEDS - 30
THE fly-by
MEM ernet
Memphis on the internet.
HOUSTON’S PROBLEM
e MEMernet was dominated late last week with the news that chain restaurant Houston’s closed its longtime Memphis location, citing sta ng and safety challenges.
Reactions online followed a familiar rhythm — shock at the news, sadness over the dishes that will be missed, remembrance of good times had at the chain restaurant, a wave of p t about safety concerns in one of the safest parts of town, a review of all the other restaurants in the area that are thriving, undertones of racism in the motivation to close, context on how the restaurant never engaged with the Memphis community, news that a local wanted to step in to reopen the place, and, nally, a meme showing Houston’s could reopen as a Jack Pirtle’s Chicken.
HAUNTED HEPBURN
Someone bought some Halloween just for Christmas. A recently purchased poster ($50) of Audrey Hepburn was described as “haunted” in a Facebook Marketplace post from Collierville. e poster said whatever spirit was attached to the poster was “escalating” things by touching them and even leaving red marks.
UFO ON SAM COOPER?
{By Flyer staff
Questions, Answers + Attitude
Edited by Toby Sells
Police Report, Lee’s Gift, & SCOTUS
e feds scald MPD, the governor returns travel money, and arguments end on state trans law.
‘EXCESSIVE FORCE’
A blistering report from the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) last week found that the Memphis Police Department used excessive force and discriminatory practices against Black people, and imposed harsh and “aggressive” tactics on children. e probe was launched a er the MPD killing of Tyre Nichols last year.
e DOJ proposed a consent decree to ensure an overhaul of practices at MPD. But city leaders balked at the idea. (Read our analysis on the next page.)
LEE TO PAY BACK PAC
would be “di cult to read” and that some types of incidents are “not acceptable.”
Travel funds given to Tennessee Governor Bill Lee to speak at a conservative Christian conference broke state law, according to an opinion issued last Tuesday by the Tennessee Ethics Commission (TEC).
e opinion was requested by Lee a er he accepted expenses for a trip in July to speak at the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) Summit in July 2024, according to TEC.
e TEC ruled that accepting funds from the group to attend the event was a “prohibited gi .” at’s because the group’s ADF Action subgroup is a registered employer of a lobbyist in Tennessee.
A video posted to X by Myra Moore e Paranormal Chic apparently showed a UFO transported through Memphis last weekend on a atbed trailer, driving down Sam Cooper Boulevard.
Lee originally argued that the event sponsor — the overarching ADF group — and its political group were di erent organizations. erefore, the payments did not break state law, though he noted the two do share resources. However, a er a thorough review of state laws and the Tennessee General Assembly’s intent for enacting them, the commission said the payment — even though paid indirectly from ADF — still broke the rules.
DOWNTOWN CRIME CENTER
A request for additional nancing for the Memphis Police Department’s Downtown Command Center raised concerns from several city council members last week.
e council was asked to move some money around, accept some outside funding, and more for the proposed center.
e command center is planned to be a 2,500-square-
foot build-out at 250 Peabody Place and will have four monitoring stations along with a restroom, conference room, and other amenities. City o cials said there will be 63 cameras for surveillance with 24-hour shi s. It was originally slated to be on board by April 2025.
However, Councilman Chase Carlisle questioned the funding mix. He asked for documentation, speci cally asking how much money was pledged by private donors, including naming rights.
SCOTUS TRANS CASE HEARD
e Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) heard arguments last week about Tennessee’s ban on gendera rming care for youth. It was the rst time SCOTUS has heard a case regarding healthcare for the trans community. e legislation makes gender-a rming hormone therapy and puberty blockers inaccessible to trans people in Tennessee until they reach the age of 18.
Oral arguments were led by Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, who said the case seeks to “protect vulnerable kids from risky and unproven medical practices.” Critics like Tennessee state Senator Heidi Campbell (D-Nashville) called the law “political gamesmanship, funded by our hard-earned tax dollars, [that] is not only cruel but also a violation of fundamental rights.”
Visit the News Blog at memphis yer.com for fuller versions of these stories and more local news.
PHOTO: CITY OF MEMPHIS
Memphis Mayor Paul Young warned those who had not read the DOJ report that it
Analysis: MPD and Trump {
CITY REPORTER
By Toby Sells
e President-elect’s “law and order” stance may mean no federal oversight of the beleaguered Memphis Police Department.
Next steps a er the federal government’s report on excessive force within the Memphis Police Department (MPD) are not known, of course. But at least one big sign points to “not much,” as far as the next White House occupant is concerned.
President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign ran on “law and order” as a central theme. His campaign said, “ ere is no higher priority than quickly restoring law and order and public safety in America.” He even just tweeted those words in all capital letters four years ago.
However, the American Civil Liberties Group (ACLU) has said that “law and order” in a second Trump administration is a “shorthand message promising repression of the Black community.”
“Speci cally, Trump’s law enforcement policies call for further protections for abusive police, including condoning the use of force against protesters, which he once described as a ‘beautiful thing to watch’,” reads an ACLU analysis of Trump policies in July. “ is rhetoric risks encouraging state actors to take a similarly
brutal approach.”
If the ACLU is correct on the premise, this means Trump’s “brutal approach” to law enforcement could, maybe, trickle down to state and local leaders, emboldened by the president to allow tough justice to be doled out across the country without major repercussions to law enforcement o cials — i.e. police o cers.
To get there, Trump promised to “strengthen quali ed immunity and other protections for police o cers.” Quali ed immunity allows government actors (i.e. cops) to perform their jobs without the risk of civil liability. is means, basically, that if a cop breaks some laws while they are making an arrest, they can’t be sued for it in court. So, Trump would give cops extra protection against the citizens they serve even if they hurt those citizens during the course of their work.
Germane to the DOJ’s report on the MPD, Trump promised on his campaign site to:
1. Sign a record investment in hiring, retention, and training for police o cers, and will increase liability protections for them.
PHOTO: DONALD J. TRUMP VIA X Some hear “law and order” as a dog whistle on Black repression.
2. Require local law enforcement agencies receiving DOJ grants to return to policing measures such as stop-and-frisk, strictly enforcing existing gun laws, cracking down on the open use of illegal drugs, and cooperating with ICE to arrest and deport criminal aliens.
Trump claimed that city leaders and President Joe Biden’s DOJ are now tussling on whether or not the two will approve a consent decree for MPD. An agreement like this would bring in federal monitors to watch over the police department on a day-to-day basis to ensure it adheres to new policies for improvement. e city’s attorney has said the city will not approve a consent decree.
First, the city argued, the investigation
didn’t take long enough. ese can last up to three years. e DOJ wrapped up the MPD review in 17 months. Memphis ofcials also said they need a legal avenue to question the DOJ’s investigation methods.
Leaders here, though, won’t likely have to worry with threats of a lawsuit to enact the consent decree. Only one such decree was enacted in Trump’s rst term. So far, 17 have been issued under Biden. Trump also canceled a consent decree enacted during Barack Obama’s administration against the city of Baltimore.
City leaders also argued that such a consent decree would cost too much. Memphis taxpayers would be on the hook to pay for all the federal monitors and programs to adhere to the agreement. Leaders said this could cost millions of dollars. at cost would come, too, as city taxpayers face paying out a $550 million civil penalty to the family of Tyre Nichols. e beating death of Nichols at the hands of MPD o cers drew the eye of the DOJ investigation in the rst place.
As of Monday morning, Trump did not make any statement about the DOJ on his Truth Social platform.
Downtown Leland Mural Project
e Leland Blues Project depicts the musical history of the area through a series of striking murals.
Highway 61 Blues Museum
307 North Broad Street
Leland • 662-347-4223 highway61blues.com is museum chronicles the story of the Delta Blues and the musicians who helped make it famous and features memorabilia from Little Milton, James “Son” omas, and Johnny Winter.
Mississippi Blues Trail Marker list:
1. Charley Patton
e Delta is the crucible where the blues was formed of heartache, joy, worry, hard times, lost love, late nights and boogie rhythms. ere are many types of blues, but they all owe their existence to the soils you tread on here in the Mississippi Delta.
2. Jimmy Reed
3. Johnny Winter
Highway 61 Blues Festival
Sam Chatmon Blues Festival hollandaleblues.com • FB: SamChatmonBlues In Hollandale, home of renowned blues artist, Sam Chatmon, enjoy BBQ, cra s and blues.
Held in October each year, this event looks to be the biggest ever, with a “delta all-star” lineup and a can’t-miss for fans of Delta Blues.
•
4. James “Son” omas
5. Tyrone Davis
7. Ruby’s Night Spot
8. Sam Chatmon
9. Freedom Village
10. Nelson Street
11. Prince McCoy
6. Corner of 10 and 61
Mississippi Delta Blues and Heritage Festival 662-335-3523 • deltabluesms.org
Held the 3rd Saturday in September, the Mississippi Delta Blues Festival is the oldest continuouslyoperating blues festival in the country.
Greenville Blues Walk / Walnut Street Blues Bar
128 South Walnut Street, Greenville
Experience the Greenville Blues Walk with art to honor the Delta Blues.
By Chris Davis
Reason for Concern
Are transgender people next on Trump’s hit list?
“We’re not the best situated to address issues like that. … Doesn’t that make a stronger case for us to leave those determinations to the legislative bodies rather than try to determine them for ourselves?” — Chief Justice John Roberts on Tennessee’s transgender care ban, Dec. 4, 2024
So just how worried should a reasonable person be about Donald Trump’s return to power? We’ve entered that awkward stage in post-election reporting where the op-ed journalists who watched the Donald abuse power the last time he held o ce are writing sensible columns about why everybody should probably calm down since, even with seriously eroded guardrails, nobody could possibly do all the terrible things he says he wants to do, and certainly not as fast as he says he wants to do them.
Christian leaders agreed to support him in exchange for his promise to appoint an unprecedented number of conservative, pro-life judges: “God’s wrecking ball.”
the once and future president whose rst election turned on a promise to enable such a decision through judicial appointments: promise ful lled.
And since modern Christian politics are rooted in the twofold mission of stopping abortion and curtailing LGBTQ rights, it looks like the SCOTUS that Trump made is about to give Evangelicals another reason to celebrate.
As of this writing, the Supreme Court seems poised to let Tennessee’s bad-faith ban on gender-a rming care for transgender youth stand. U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts feigned helplessness while Brett Kavanaugh wondered if personal choices regarding medical services, important to less than 1.6 percent of all Americans, should be determined by the murderous impulses of the mob … er, majority.
If you’ve ever wondered how Trump can receive so much earnest support from conservative Christians while appointing a cabinet full of sex pests and incompetents, it’s because they don’t expect him to build God’s kingdom on Earth, they expect him to smash norms and destroy liberal institutions.
The mood is tense, and the stage is set for chaos.
Trump had been out of o ce for almost two years when the Supreme Court did the unthinkable and overturned Roe v. Wade, gutting half-a-century’s worth of settled abortion law. For all the anxiety the decision may have created for swing district Republicans campaigning in the 2022 midterms, this moment still has to be seen as a major victory for
If oral arguments are any indication of what’s to come, Wednesday, December 4th, was a worrisome day for the trans community, women, and just anybody else who might be counting on the Roberts court to defend settled law. It’s an appropriately chilling prelude to Donald Trump’s return to power since his RNC was chock-full of anti-trans rhetoric, and he spent the closing weeks of his campaign blanketing swing states with ads designed to make undecided voters feel anxious about trans people.
So, questioning whether or not Trump can ful ll the worst of his threats by at is probably beside the point. e mood is tense, and the stage is set for chaos. Even if you aren’t worried about what comes next, it’s probably a good idea to be prepared. Chris Davis is a freelance writer and journalist living in Memphis.
PHOTO: ANDREW BAUM | DREAMSTIME.COM December 4th was a worrisome day.
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AT LARGE By Bruce VanWyngarden
The Easter Bunny
What can AI do for you? e jury is still out.
“What if what we’re seeing today isn’t a glimpse of the future, but the new terms of the present? What if arti cial intelligence isn’t actually capable of doing much more than what we’re seeing today, and what if there’s no clear timeline when it’ll be able to do more? What if this entire hype cycle has been goosed by a compliant media, ready and willing to take career-embellishers at their word?”
e quote is from a tech analyst named Edward Zitron, who’s been making the case that AI is a giant corporate Ponzi gri for several months. And he’s not alone.
e essential question that AI doubters raise is this: What if enabling us to make fanciful pictures, replicate online search engines, and edit writing projects (and emails) is the highest-level payo we’re going to get from AI? Was building out and maintaining all the ecologically destructive hardware of AI really worth it?
e Greater Memphis Chamber announced last week it was answering that question with a resounding “Yes.” Readers will recall that months ago, President-elect Trump’s First Buddy, Elon Musk, settled a deal with the Chamber to locate his xAI, powered by the “world’s largest computer,” in Memphis. en a couple weeks ago, xAI entered a 21-year lease for 522 additional acres of land in southwest Memphis — purpose to be determined.
We still don’t know what’s going to happen with that acreage, but Chamber CEO Ted Townsend announced that three more super-computer rms would be coming to town. “We’re excited to welcome Nvidia, Dell, and Supermicro to the ‘Digital Delta,’” said Townsend. We’re living in the Digital Delta!
Similar scenarios have been happening around the globe, as tech corporations create more facilities to store and retrieve digital content. But there can be problems. In Spain, Barcelona has had to limit water usage for its residents due to the burgeoning data centers it has welcomed. Citizens took to the streets in protest.
the payout for Memphis taxpayers? How much water and electricity will be used? What kind of revenues will be generated? What are the penalties for breaking contract terms or polluting our environment?
It would take a hella big ne to get Musk’s attention. Tesla’s Austin gigafactory has been accused of discharging hazardous wastewater into city sewers, emitting pollutants from a faulty furnace, and using a chemical waste pond where dead wildlife has been found. e company’s Fremont, California, facility has recorded more than 180 air quality violations since 2019.
To that end, three local environmental groups — Memphis Community Against Pollution, Protect Our Aquifer, and Young, Gi ed & Green — are asking Memphians to take part in an xAI Community Impact Survey that “aims to gauge community perspectives on the new xAI supercomputer in Memphis and the recent 522-acre expansion. e questions focus on your perceptions of the facility and ideas for Memphians to actually bene t from the project.” You can nd the survey on the groups’ Facebook sites.
What’s the point?
Journalist Kasia Tarczynska of GoodJobsFirst.org, writes, “Internet companies have embraced Old Economy habits of playing states and localities against each other … causing governments to grossly overspend for trophy deals. Google, Microso , Facebook, Apple, and Amazon Web Services have been awarded more than $2 billion in subsidies. e average cost of their 11 ‘megadeals’ is astronomical: $1.95 million per job created.”
Now, the Memphis deal may be as wonderful as the Chamber claims it is, but transparency on this liaison is essential: How many jobs will be created, and what’s
But eventually, it all comes back to the question raised by Zitron: What is the real end game for AI? Billions of dollars are being spent in a race to see which company’s mega-computer can scrape enough human-created content from the world’s computers to … what? Write a novel as good as e Sun Also Rises? Paint a picture to rival the Mona Lisa? Make an album as good as Songs in the Key of Life?
Or is the crest of AI’s wave my being able to create an image of “the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus eating Easter eggs,” like the one I did for my granddaughter last week? It would be nice (and would shut me up) if AI could somehow come up with a solution for global climate change. at would indeed be a win. At this point, anything is possible. And nothing is also possible.
PHOTO: BRUCE VANWYNGARDEN VIA META AI
Gifting a Roth IRA?
Five things to consider.
When it comes to giving thoughtful gifts, financial security may not be the first thing on your mind. However, giving a Roth IRA can be a meaningful way to start your loved ones on a path toward financial security.
A Roth IRA is a type of individual retirement account that offers tax-exempt growth and tax-exempt withdrawals in retirement, which make it a powerful tool for building long-term wealth. Contributions to Roth IRAs are made with after-tax dollars, and qualified withdrawals of assets are tax-exempt and don’t increase your taxable income. In contrast to traditional IRAs, they aren’t subject to required minimum distributions (RMDs) during the owner’s lifetime, which means assets in the account can continue growing tax-exempt throughout the account holder’s life.
There are several benefits to giving a Roth IRA.
1. Tax-Exempt Growth
One of the primary benefits of Roth IRAs is that they allow contributions to grow on a tax-exempt basis. This means any earnings, such as interest, dividends, and capital gains, aren’t subject to federal income taxes while held within the account. Over time, this can add up to significant savings, especially for younger investors who are able to let their assets grow over many years before withdrawing them in retirement.
2. Retirement Savings
Establishing a Roth IRA for a loved one can be a great way to help them save for retirement. Many young people struggle to find extra money to set aside for retirement planning. Funding a Roth IRA can help remove some of that financial burden and allow your family member to focus on other financial priorities, such as saving for a home, paying down student loan debt, starting a business, etc.
3. Financial Literacy
Giving a Roth IRA can be a great opportunity to educate loved ones on multiple financial topics, such as saving early and often, the power of compound interest, the basics of investing, and the importance of planning for retirement. With a Roth IRA, not only are you helping your loved ones financially, you’re also teaching important financial strategies.
4. Estate Planning
Not only are Roth IRAs not subject
to RMDs during the account holder’s lifetime, but they can also be passed on to heirs tax-free following the account holder’s death. Roth IRAs are a tax-efficient way to transfer wealth to future generations because they allow heirs to receive assets without having to pay income taxes on the distributions (unless the Roth IRA is less than 5 years old).
In addition, Roth IRAs don’t count toward the taxable estate of the account holder, which means they can help reduce the size of an estate for tax purposes. By giving a Roth IRA as part of an estate planning strategy, the account holder has the potential to reduce their heirs’ estate tax liability, which helps preserve more assets for future generations.
5. Compound Interest
By giving a Roth IRA to a younger family member, you offer the opportunity to take advantage of compounding interest over the individual’s lifetime. The impact of this cannot be overstated.
Suppose you contribute $1,000 to a Roth IRA on behalf of your granddaughter every year, beginning at age 20. By the time she reaches 40, you would have invested $20,000 on her behalf ($1,000 x 20 years). Assuming an average annual return of 10 percent, the investment would be worth $63,773.40 after 20 years.
On the other hand, if your granddaughter began contributing $2,000 per year to a Roth IRA from age 30 to 40 ($20,000 total), her investment would only be worth $36,934.83 after 10 years (again assuming an annual average return of 10 percent) because she has less time to take advantage of the power of compounding.
Contributing to Roth IRAs should not exceed the amount actually earned in a year by the account owner — or the maximum contribution limit, if the owner earns more than that amount.
The gift of a Roth IRA to young family members has the potential to significantly improve their long-term financial outlook and be a cornerstone of their nest egg now and in the future. Roth IRAs can truly be the gift that keeps on giving.
Gene Gard, CFA, CFP, CFT-I, is a Partner and Private Wealth Manager with Creative Planning. Creative Planning is one of the nation’s largest Registered Investment Advisory firms providing comprehensive wealth management services to ensure all elements of a client’s financial life are working together, including investments, taxes, estate planning, and risk management. For more information or to request a free, no-obligation consultation, visit CreativePlanning.com.
245 Facts About Memphis
From the Chickasaws and Andrew Jackson to Bass Pro and the Grizzlies, here are some (but not all) of the facts about the Blu City.
COVER STORY
By Toby Sells
Agood fact is hard to nd, especially in these truth- uid times. But it’s nice to know there are a few solid ones you can stand upon. at was my thinking as I pitched this story to our editor, Shara Clark. en I started compiling these facts and realized even some of them can be uid. A classic example: Which was the rst rock-and-roll song, “Rocket 88” or “ at’s All Right”? Either one still makes Memphis the “birthplace of rock-and-roll,” though. Right? Also, some data rhyme and you have to pick them apart. Example: e current graduation rate for MemphisShelby County Schools is 87.3 percent. But the Memphis population with only a high school degree is 31 percent. Both facts are listed as just “Memphis graduates” in a couple of datasets. Keep all this in mind as you peruse our list of facts. We’ve tried hard to hit the middle of the dartboard, but nailing down a fact can be a slippery thing sometimes. So if you have a quibble that you’d like to discuss, or if we’re plain wrong and you’d like a correction or clari cation, please email me at toby@memphis yer.com.
— Toby Sells
HISTORY
• Original inhabitants: Chickasaw Nation
• First European explorer: Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto (1541)
• Ceded from the Chickasaws to the U.S. in the Jackson Purchase (1818)
• City founded in 1819 by John Overton,
James Winchester, and Andrew Jackson
• Named a er the ancient capital of Egypt on the Nile River
• Original name (anglicized as Mennefer) means “enduring and beautiful”
• Modern city incorporated as a city: 1826
• Yellow fever epidemics: late 1870s
• Surrendered its charter: 1879
• New city charter granted: 1893
• Elvis Presley records “ at’s All Right” at Sun Studio in 1954; widely considered to be the rst rock-and-roll record ever recorded
• Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination: April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel
• Motel opened as the National Civil Rights Museum in 1991
GEOGRAPHY AND LAND
• Total area: 302 square miles (land, 295 square miles; water, 7.6 square miles)
• Elevation: 337 feet above sea level
• Sited on the Fourth Chickasaw Blu
• Water source: Memphis Sand Aquifer
• e aquifer spans more than 7,000 square miles under eight states
• Water age: typically over 2,000 years old
• Its pure drinking water has been deemed “the sweetest in the world”
• Aquifer volume: more than 100 trillion gallons, enough to cover all of Shelby County up to the top of Clark Tower
• Number of extreme heat days: 20 (2022)
• Number of extreme precipitation days: 4 (2023)
DEMOGRAPHICS
• Total population (2020 census): 633,425
• Population estimate (2023): 618,639
• Population decrease: -2.6 percent
• Second-most populated city in Tennessee (a er Nashville)
• Black or African American: 64.4 percent
• White: 26.5 percent
• American Indian or Alaskan Native: .3 percent
• Asian: 1.6 percent
• Hispanic or Latino: 8 percent
• Median age: 33.9
• Over 65: 14.6 percent
• Under 18: 31.8 percent
• Ratio: 88 males for every 100 females
• Employment rate: 59.8 percent (2023)
• Total households: 257,188
• Average household size: 2.6 persons per household (2018-2022)
• Children in single-parent households 43.5 percent (2018-2022)
• Only English spoken at home: 88.6 percent of households
• Language other than English spoken at home: 11.4 percent
• Foreign-born population Memphis: 8.3 percent
• Median household income Memphis: $51,399 (2023)
• Median family income Memphis: $61,977
• Poverty Memphis (2023): 22.6 percent
• Largest poverty age group Memphis: under 18 (36.3 percent)
HOUSING AND LIVING
• Total housing units: 286,713
• Occupied housing units: 255,642
• Largest housing occupancy by type: married couple family (45,875)
• Second-largest housing occupancy by type: female householder, no male present (18,726)
• Vacant housing units (2020): 31,071
• Moved from a di erent state to Memphis (2023): 2 percent
• Moved within Shelby County (2023): 10.2 percent
• Median gross rent Memphis: $1,175
• Homeownership rate Memphis: 44.9 percent
• Largest home category by price: $200,000 to $299,000 (23.5 percent)
• Second-largest home category by price: $300,000 to $499,999 (17.55 percent)
• Average commute time in Memphis: 20.9 minutes
• Largest means of transportation: drive alone (77.8 percent)
• Second-largest means of transportation: car pool (9.2 percent)
• Commuters on public transportation: .8 percent
• Households without a vehicle: 8.4 percent (2018-2022)
HEALTH (ALL OF SHELBY COUNTY)
• Quality of life ranking (out of 95 Tennessee counties): 87th (2023)
• Mortality ranking (early death): 69th (2023)
• Physical environment ranking (air, water, housing, commuting alone): 91st
• Social and economic ranking (education, employment, violent crime, children in poverty, more): 83rd
• Life expectancy: 72.5 years (2019-2021)
• All cancer incidence rate: 438.2 cases
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per 100,000 population (2017-2021)
• Death rate due to cancer: 162.1 per 100,000 population (2018-2022)
• Child mortality rate (under 20): 92.4 deaths per 100,000 population (20182021)
• Teens who are sexually active: 32.2 percent (2021)
• Adults who binge drink: 15.7 percent (2022)
• Drug and opioid-involved overdose death rate: 32.4 per 100,000 population (2018-2020)
• Teens who use alcohol: 17.8 percent (2021)
• Teens who use marijuana: 18.9 percent (2021)
• Adults who have had a routine checkup: 79.8 percent (2022)
• Adults with health insurance: 83.7 percent (2023)
• Adults without health insurance: 10.8 percent (2022)
• Children with health insurance: 92.8 percent (2023)
• Children without health insurance: 7.2 percent (2023)
• People with private health insurance only: 50.6 percent (2023)
• Persons with public health insurance only: 26.7 percent (2023)
• Death rate due to heart disease: 209.2 per 100,000 population (2022)
• High blood pressure prevalence: 41.5 percent (2021)
• High cholesterol prevalence: 33.2 percent (2021)
• Adults ever diagnosed with depression: 25.2 percent (2022)
• Adults with any mental illness: 15.8 percent (2018-2020)
• Death rate due to suicide: 11.6 per 100,000 population (2018-2020)
• High school students who attempted suicide: 16.8 percent (2021)
• Adults (20+) who are sedentary: 22.6 percent (2021)
• High school students who engage in regular physical activity: 26.5 percent (2021)
• Death rate due to rearms: 33.6 per 100,000 population (2018-2020)
• HIV prevalence rate: 900.6 cases per 100,000 population (2022)
• Death rate due to HIV: 4.6 per 100,000 population (2018-2020)
• Adults who smoke: 19.3 percent (2022)
• High school students who smoke cigarettes: 3.0 percent (2021)
• Adults (20+) who are obese: 34.1 percent (2021)
• High school students who are overweight or obese: 42.2 percent (2021)
• Death rate due to homicide: 28.7 per 100,000 population (2018-2020)
• Domestic violence incidents per 1,000 population: 17.6 incidents per 1,000 population (2022)
• Alcohol-impaired driving deaths: 18.2 percent of driving deaths (2017-2021)
• Bicyclist deaths: 2 (2023)
• Death rate due to motor vehicle collisions: 19.5 per 100,000 population
(2015-2021)
• Pedestrian deaths: 476 (2023)
• Substantiated child abuse rate: 3.4 cases per 1,000 children (2023)
• Child food insecurity rate: 27.4 percent (2022)
• Total food insecurity rate: 13.4 percent (2022)
• Households receiving SNAP with children: 51.0 percent (2018-2022)
• Households with cash public assistance income: 1.7 percent (2018-2022)
EDUCATION
• Memphis-Shelby County Schools graduation rate: 83.4 percent (2024)
• Memphis population high school graduates (2023 estimate): 31.2 percent
• Memphians with a bachelor’s degree or higher: 27.9 percent
• Enrolled in school (K-12) in Memphis: 72.4 percent
• University of Memphis is the largest post-secondary school (21,000 students)
• Also home to Rhodes College, Lemoyne-Owen College, Christian Brothers University, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, and Southwest Tennessee Community College
BUSINESS
• Largest industry employers: education, healthcare, and social assistance
• Second-largest industry employers: transportation, warehousing, and utilities
• Largest worker class: private company (68.6 percent)
• Second-largest worker class: local, state, or federal government (14.4 percent)
• Employer establishments: 19,659 (2022)
• Size of labor force: 431,038 (2024)
• Home to three Fortune 500 companies: FedEx Corp., AutoZone Inc., and International Paper Inc.
• Home to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital
Economic Development Growth Engine (EDGE) stats since 2011
• Total jobs: 52,877
• Total capital investment:
$11,691,419,735
• Number of PILOTs approved: 125
• Spending with local and minority companies: $804,417,653
• Average wage (PILOTs only): $83,251.28
• Average PILOT term: 11 years
• Local tax revenues generated:
$1,956,924,055
• Total tax not charged to companies:
$936,907,722
• Bene t-to-cost ratio: 2.09
• Incentive amount per job per year: $3,256.59
• Number of TIFS approved: 6
• Number of loans approved: 118
• Total loan amount: $15,924,841
• Number of bonds approved: 12
• Total bond amount: $569,737,850
Industry sectors
Food and Beverage industry
• Employed: 53,288 (2022)
• GDP: $4.9 billion
• Locations: 2,517
Manufacturing
• Employed: 43,918 (2023)
• GDP: $11.7 billion
• Locations: 1,132
Agribusiness and AgTech
• Employed: 9,231 (2023)
• GDP: $2.6 billion
• Companies: 623
Automotive and Parts Suppliers
• Employed: 18,735 (2023)
• GDP: $3.7 billion
• Operations: 1,119
Healthcare and Life Science
• Employed: 88,725 (2022)
• GDP: $10.4 billion
• Operations: 4,114
Headquarters and Finance
• Employed: 49,743 (2022)
• GDP: $12.4 billion
• Companies: 5,111
Information and Technology
• Employed: 7,753 (2022)
• GDP: $2.4 billion
• Companies: 1,318
Music and Entertainment
• Employed: 29,295 (2022)
• GDP: $2 billion
• Companies: 828
Supply Chain and Logistics
• Employed: 119,002 (2022)
• GDP: $18.9 billion
• Companies: 3,602
Small Business and Entrepreneur
• Employed: 229,000 (2024)
• Payroll: $11 billion (2021)
• Businesses: 137,000
Port of Memphis
• Second-largest inland port on the Mississippi River
• Total operations: 127 (2018)
• Employed: 22,465
• Taxes generated: $44.5 billion
• Economic impact: $9.2 billion
• Home to the only petroleum re nery in Tennessee
• Hub for all ve Class I railways that serve Memphis: BN, CN, CSX, Norfolk
Southern, and Union Paci c
Memphis International Airport (MEM)
• Passenger tra c: 4.8 million (2023)
• MEM facilitated 4,981 ights (Nov. 2024)
• 77 percent on time
• 65 airlines
• Top three international destinations: Windsor, Canada; La Romana, Dominican Republic; Kerry, Ireland
• 274 routes
• Busiest routes: Chicago, Houston, Dallas
• Top three airlines: NetJets, Delta Air Lines, Flexjet
• Cargo operations: 8.56 billion pounds (2023)
• Busiest cargo airport in North America (2023)
• Second-busiest cargo airport worldwide (2023)
FedEx Corp.
• Total revenue for scal year 2024: $87.7 billion
• FedEx Express: $74.7 billion (85 percent of total revenue).
• FedEx Freight: $9.4 billion (11 percent of total revenue).
• Other services like FedEx O ce and FedEx Logistics: $3.6 billion (4 percent of total revenue)
• Operates world’s largest cargo airline, covering over 650 airports globally
• Moves an average of over 14.5 million shipments daily
• Serves over 220 countries and territories
• Connects 99 percent of the world’s GDP
• Global employees: ~500,000 (2023)
• Memphis employees: ~35,000 (2024)
• Operating facilities: ~5,000 worldwide (2023)
Tourism and Cultural Assets
• Visitors: 13.5 million (2023)
• Annual economic impact: $4.2 billion
• Employment: 44,000 (Shelby County)
• Companies: more than 2,300
• Hotel rooms: 26,000 rooms (Shelby County), 4,000 (Downtown)
• Beale Street visitors: 4 million annually
• Graceland visitors: more than 500,000 annually; second-most visited private residence in the U.S. a er the White House
• Graceland’s economic impact: about $150 million annually for Memphis
• e city’s name is mentioned in more than 1,000 song lyrics and titles, more
continued on page 14
PHOTO: CHENGUSF | DREAMSTIME.COM
PHOTO: JEFF SCHULTES | DREAMSTIME.COM
than any other city in the world
• Home to more than 100 barbecue restaurants
• Home to more than 160 parks
• Memphis Zoo is home to about 3,500 animals representing more than 500 species
• Bass Pro Shops at the Pyramid is one of the largest retails spaces in the world; its 28-story elevator is the world’s largest freestanding elevator
CRIME AND POLICE
• Homicides: 280 (Dec. 3, 2024)
• Of those: 35 justi able homicide, 230 murders, 15 negligent manslaughter
• Solved homicides: 148 (Dec. 3, 2024)
• Unsolved homicides: 132
• Homicide relationship to victim: unidenti ed (122), stranger (7), acquaintance (7), husband (1), family (1)
• Homicide by motive: unidenti ed (106), argument (9), robbery (8), gang related (5), drug related (2), threat of force (1)
• Homicide weapon type: rearm (124), knife (5), physical (2), drugs (1)
• Homicide gang a liation: victim (24), suspect (0)
• Homicides by top ZIP codes: 38127 (33), 38118 (25), 38114 (24)
• ZIP codes with no homicides: 38002, 38016, 38113, 38120, 38135, 38138,
38152
• Homicides by top locations: on street (104), residences (83), businesses (32), gas stations (27)
• Tra c tickets: 75,405 ( scal 2024)
• Tickets by race: 53,864 (71.4 percent) Black, 11,186 (14.8 percent) white, 8,126 (10.7 percent) Hispanic
• Unique o enders: 175,004
• Unique o enders by sex: male (70,000), female (29,000)
• O enders released: 172,579
• Remained in custody: 2,099
• Top o enders by number of arrests: Brian Holmes (55), Deundra Milligan (45), Michael Jones (40)
• Full-time police o cers per 1,000 residents: 3.16, 2022 (national average for cities with more than 250,000 people is 2.4 per 1,000)
CITY OF MEMPHIS BUDGET
• Total revenue: $891.3 million (2025)
• Top revenue categories: local taxes ($600 million), state taxes ($79.2 million), licenses and permits ($27.8 million)
• Total expenses: $891.3 million
• Top expense categories: personnel ($640.8 million), materials and supplies ($176.6 million), grants and subsidies ($73.9 million)
• Expenses by top divisions: police services ($309.7 million), re services
($246.7 million), grants and subsidies ($65 million)
• Top paid employees (2023): Cerelyn Davis, director of police services ($280,862); Gina Sweat, re chief ($205,665); Donald Crowe, assistant chief of police services ($177,768); Jayne Chandler, administrative judge ($172,016)
SPORTS
NBA team: Memphis Grizzlies
• Originally Vancouver Grizzlies (19952001)
• Relocated to Memphis: 2001
• First three seasons played at the Pyramid
• Home games: FedExForum since 2004
NCAA basketball: University of Memphis Tigers
• Home games: FedExForum
Minor League Baseball: Memphis Redbirds
• Major League Baseball a liate: St. Louis Cardinals
• Home games: AutoZone Park since 2000
NCAA football: University of Memphis Tigers
• Home games: Simmons Bank Liberty Bowl
• Biggest crowd: 65,885, versus University of Tennessee in 1996
Sources: United States Census Bureau, Memphis-Shelby County Schools, Memphis-Shelby County Economic Development Growth Engine, Greater Memphis Chamber, Shelby County Health Department, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Port of Memphis, Memphis International Airport, FedEx Corp., Memphis Tourism, Graceland, Downtown Memphis Commission, Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum, Memphis Zoo, Bass Pro Shops at the Pyramid, Memphis Police Department, City of Memphis, OpenPayroll, Shelby County Sheri ’s O ce, Wikipedia (fact-checked), University of Memphis, Memphis Grizzlies, Memphis Redbirds, Bureau of Labor Statistics, e Commercial Appeal, National Endowment for the Humanities, Encyclopedia Britannica, Sun Studio, National Civil Rights Museum
PHOTO: PIERRE JEAN DURIEU | DREAMSTIME.COM
steppin’ out
We Recommend: Culture, News + Reviews
‘Intertwine’
By Abigail Morici
Something was missing in MadameFraankie’s photography practice. At least, the artist thought so. She’d been able to capture stories of the Black community; she found that she preferred shooting in black-and-white and in lm. “As soon as you are forced to have 36, 24 shots, or now 12 with the new camera I shoot with, you get real intentional,” she says. “I love a good black-and-white image; it stops the distraction.” But, so o en behind the camera, she says, “I didn’t really have a way to bring in my own family or even myself.”
Fraankie looked for inspiration in her mother and maternal grandmother, who use their own creative talents for commercial arts and sewing, respectively. Her mom even used to paint in acrylic; the family house still has a painting by her of Fraankie’s older cousin as a “grumpy baby” on a swing. “It’s like they have this thing, this gi ,” Fraankie says of her mom and grandma, “and I have decided to accept the gi s that they have.”
Blink … and you’ll miss it
With this mindset, Fraankie integrated their cra s into her photography, adding embroidery and painting watercolor elements onto her pictures. “It’s just my rst iteration of the mediums sharing space with each other,” she says, “the intertwining of the mediums and the intertwining of the storylines.”
ese are the pieces that make up her exhibition “Intertwine,” on display in the Beverly + Sam Ross Gallery at Christian Brothers University. e images she uses are a mixture of her own candid lm photographs of her family and those from her family collection that she’s manipulated — the little moments, from relatives doing hair to family gatherings in the living room with pillows on the oor.
“It just felt great to bring life back to them,” she says of the archived photos. “ ey’re not on anybody’s wall. ey’re just kind of tucked away. So, to give a new purpose to the image, it was great.” Most of these have been transferred onto paper using a cyanotype process and toned with black tea. “I think having practices like this really lets you sit with the work,” Fraankie says. “It’s slow work.”
Having spent so much time with the pieces herself, the photographer hopes viewers will do the same. “I hope they physically feel themselves slow down. I’m not asking you to do anything except notice these little moments in between. I’m aware how mundane this is, but it’s like, no, like your family is worthy of existing on a wall. You have a story to tell whether you think it’s slow or not.”
As for the photographer’s family, they’re delighted to be included in the gallery show, most of them traveling from out of town to see the exhibit. “ ey’re excited about the journey,” Fraankie says.
MADAMEFRAANKIE: “INTERTWINE,” BEVERLY + SAM ROSS GALLERY, CHRISTIAN BROTHERS UNIVERSITY, 650
ON DISPLAY THROUGH FRIDAY, DECEMBER 13.
VARIOUS DAYS & TIMES December 12th - 18th
¡Christmas Fiesta!
Dixon Gallery & Gardens, 4339 Park Avenue, Saturday, December 14, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.
Cazateatro Bilingual eatre Group, Opera Memphis, and Dixon Gallery & Gardens present their fourth annual Christmas Fiesta.
Visitors will enjoy the Christmas traditions of Latin America and the Caribbean, and learn about parrandas, posadas, piñatas, and more. Enjoy traditional Christmas music in Spanish, Latin food, cra s, and activities.
2024 Memphis Holiday Parade
Beale Street, Saturday, December 14, 2 p.m.
Be a part of the grandest holiday parade in the region. Join in the fun on America’s most iconic street with marching bands, steppers, twirlers, oats, and all sort of sights.
Sheet Cake’s First Birthday Party
Sheet Cake, 405 Monroe, Saturday, December 14, 5-7:30 p.m.
Celebrate Sheet Cake’s rst trip around the sun, with two new exhibitions openings, cake (of course), DJ Bizzle Bluebland, and more. e two new exhibits are “Loose Ends” with work by Brittney Boyd Bullock and “Back for Seconds” with work by Roger Allan Cleaves, Melissa Dunn, Stephanie Howard, and Clare Torina.
Make the Yuletide Gay Tour with Crys Matthews, Flamy Grant, and Spencer LaJoye
e Green Room at Crosstown Arts, 1350 Concourse Avenue, Saturday, December 14, 7:30 p.m., $25
Crys Matthews (she/her), the poster child for intersectionality, and Flamy Grant (she/her), the “Bible Belt Baby,” are teaming up once
again to pick up where the Winter Magic Tour le o , and they’re bringing some friends. is December, the Make the Yuletide Gay tour is hitting the road with Spencer LaJoye (they/them) to spread a little holiday cheer and a whole lot of faith-infused LGBTQ joy.
Lindsey Stirling - e Snow Waltz Tour
Cannon Center For e Performing Arts, 225 North Main, Monday, December 16, 8 p.m., $52-$199 e tour, which gets its name from Stirling’s 2022 chart-topping Snow Waltz album, promises to be theatrical, eclectic, high-energy, and at least a little bit whimsical. Stirling mixes dance and acrobatics into her unique interpretations of holiday staples such as “Sleigh Ride,” “Joy to the World,” and “Deck the Halls,” plus a few originals.
EAST PARKWAY SOUTH,
PHOTO: MADAMEFRAANKIE
MUSIC By Alex Greene
Simple Songs of Freedom
Acoustic Sunday Live brings Tom Rush and others to help Protect Our Aquifer.
n these fraught days of authoritarianism and climate change, when our fate depends more than ever on local community action, music continues to seal the bonds between those ghting the good ght. It’s an age-old function of song, for songs are both rousing and inherently inclusive, spreading equally to all eardrums in the vicinity. America has a tradition of protest and organizing songs going back more than a century, from Joe Hill and the Wobblies, to singing through megaphones at Occupy Wall Street, to today’s pop songs at political rallies or in countless poetry-song slams across the land.
It was no accident, then, that Bruce and Barbara Newman’s mutual love of folk music and the blues led them to create a concert series celebrating both music and community action simultaneously. And, appropriately enough, it started back in the ’90s with the music of Woody Guthrie. “My law practice was starting to represent folk musicians like Tom Paxton and Dave Van Ronk, a whole bunch of them,” says Bruce Newman. “So we started calling on these people to play music concerts, each one for di erent charitable bene ciaries. e rst one we did was a tribute to Woody Guthrie, and we had Odetta, Oscar Brand, Richie Havens, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Tom Paxton, and Josh White Jr. on that rst bill. And the second one had Tom Paxton and Oscar Brand again, plus Melanie, Roger McGuinn, and Tom Rush.”
of trying.
“I consider Tom Rush a friend,” says Newman. “I see him at Folk Alliance [International] every year. And I bugged him for 20 years, ‘Tom, when are you coming back?’ Well, he always had a con ict the rst week in December, right when we always have our concert. But this past summer he said, ‘Bruce, if you move it one week, I’m coming down. It’s a good cause. It’s important.’ And that’s what we did.”
“I’ve never been accused of being pure. I tend to be a generalist,” Rush quips today.
ose early concerts became Acoustic Sunday Live, an annual tradition unlike any other in Memphis, now in its third decade. And that last headliner from the early days — veteran singer-songwriter Tom Rush — is signi cant because he hasn’t been back since then. But it wasn’t for lack
Booking Rush, a diehard pioneer of the folk club scene whose rst album came out in 1965, would be a coup for any folk festival, but this year’s Acoustic Sunday Live will also feature Shakura S’Aida, Steve Forbert, and Tim Easton, not to mention special guests Anne Harris and Marcella Simien. As in other years, one thing is clear: When the Newmans get their Acoustic Sunday on, they don’t play.
While nally getting Rush back was a challenge, it was especially signi cant both because of his ties to the series’ earliest days and because of his role in the ’60s folk revival. Like many folkies of that era, Rush had a great love of Woody Guthrie and classic
Appalachian and Southern folk songs when he launched his career as a young English major at Harvard, lling his rst albums with such material. But he had too much curiosity to be a pure traditionalist, and, as the ’60s wore on, he lled out his repertoire with songs as disparate as Bo Diddley’s “You Can’t Judge a Book by Its Cover” and Joni Mitchell’s “ e Circle Game.” at eclecticism has marked Rush’s career ever since, setting him apart from the “more authentic than thou” folk set. “I’ve never been accused of being pure,” Rush quips today. “Early on, when I started out in Cambridge, Massachusetts, there was this big folk scene going on, with people playing all kinds of di erent traditional music. ey all tended to specialize. ere was one guy who did almost nothing but Woody Guthrie songs, and a band that did nothing but bluegrass, and another guy who did Delta Blues, or IrishScottish ballads, and so forth. And I tended to be the generalist.”
at doesn’t detract from the power of Rush’s music to bring folks together. Indeed, his inclusiveness only ampli es that power, even as he eschews what Bob Dylan once pejoratively dubbed “ nger-pointing songs.” Part of that came down to Rush’s own sense of himself. “ ere’s a certain irony in a bunch of Harvard students sitting around singing about how rough it was in the coal mines,” he chuckles. “I did ramble around from genre to genre. By the time I cut my second album for Elektra, I’d run out of traditional songs that got me excited. So one side of that album was traditional songs, and the other side was me covering rock-and-roll tunes, including one that I wrote, ‘On the Road Again.’”
He also had his antennae out for a new era of songwriters. “ en the following album was e Circle Game, where I introduced [the songs of] Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, and Jackson Browne because nobody really had heard of them before. at was a further switch away from traditional folk. ese three brilliant writers came at me from di erent directions, but they were writing stu that was dazzlingly great, yet not so di erent from folk that I couldn’t relate to it.”
His ear for a good song has served him well, up through his latest release of all originals, Gardens Old, Flowers New ose attending Acoustic Sunday Live should expect that same soothing voice and eclectic ear that’s kept Rush, now on what he likes to call his “63rd annual farewell tour,” in demand for decades, as he swaps songs with other legendary troubadours. “I stay away from getting political on stage,” he says. “I have done shows to support various causes, but I don’t take it on stage. I think my shows should be a little bit of a vacation from problems of the world.”
Acoustic Sunday Live, a fundraiser for Protect Our Aquifer, presents an evening with Tom Rush, Shakura S’Aida, Steve Forbert, and Tim Easton, as well as special guests Anne Harris and Marcella Simien, at First Congregational Church, Sunday, December 15th, 7 p.m. Tickets start at $50.
PHOTO: COURTESY ACOUSTIC SUNDAY LIVE Tom Rush
AFTER DARK: Live Music Schedule December 12 - 18
Ashton Riker & The Memphis Royals
ursday, Dec. 12, 8 p.m.
B.B. KING’S BLUES CLUB
Blind Mississippi Morris
Friday, Dec. 13, 8 p.m. | Saturday, Dec. 14, 8 p.m.
BLUES CITY CAFE
Earl “The Pearl” Banks
Tuesday, Dec. 17, 7 p.m.
BLUES CITY CAFE
Flic’s Pics Band
Led by the legendary Leroy “Flic” Hodges of Hi Rhythm.
Saturday, Dec. 14, 4 p.m. |
Sunday, Dec. 15, 3 p.m.
B.B. KING’S BLUES CLUB
FreeWorld
Friday, Dec. 13, 8 p.m. | Saturday, Dec. 14, 8 p.m.
RUM BOOGIE CAFE
FreeWorld
Sunday, Dec. 15, 6 p.m.
BLUES CITY CAFE
Rockin’ 88’s
Monday, Dec. 16, 7 p.m.
BLUES CITY CAFE
Soul St. Mojo
Wednesday, Dec. 18, 7 p.m.
RUM BOOGIE CAFE
The B.B. King’s Blues Club Allstar Band
Friday, Dec. 13, 8 p.m. | Saturday, Dec. 14, 8 p.m. | Monday, Dec. 16, 7 p.m. | Tuesday, Dec. 17, 7 p.m.
B.B. KING’S BLUES CLUB
Vince Johnson
ursday, Dec. 12, 7 p.m. |
Monday, Dec. 16, 7 p.m. | Tuesday, Dec. 17, 7 p.m.
RUM BOOGIE CAFE
Amber Rae Dunn and Mario Monterosso
Saturday, Dec. 14, 6 p.m.
CENTRAL BBQ DOWNTOWN
An Evening with Gregory Porter
With his rich baritone voice and his mastery of the deepest traditions of soul, jazz and gospel, Gregory Porter is one of America’s most versatile and acclaimed vocalists. Tuesday, Dec. 17, 7:30 p.m.
ORPHEUM THEATRE
Delta Joe Sanders
With Kim Garmon-Hummel, Lindsey Hinkle. Friday, Dec. 13, 7 p.m.
SOUTH MAIN SOUNDS
Drew & Ellie Holcomb’s Neighborly Christmas Together, the Holcombs have achieved over 1 billion streams. Wednesday, Dec. 18, 7:30 p.m.
ORPHEUM THEATRE
Jhene Aiko: The Magic Hour Tour
Saturday, Dec. 14, 7 p.m.
FEDEXFORUM
John Nemeth Duo
Kameron Whalum DJ Set
e celebrated trombonist dons his DJ hat. With DJ
Alpha Whiskey. Friday, Dec. 13, 9 p.m.
EIGHT & SAND
Lindsey Stirling - The Snow Waltz Tour
Monday, Dec. 16, 8 p.m.
CANNON CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS
Live & Local Music
Live and local music on the all-weather patio. Wednesday, Dec. 18, 7-10 p.m.
MOMMA’S
MarceauxMarceaux
Saturday, Dec. 14, 9 p.m.
EIGHT & SAND
Doug Macleod
Sunday, Dec. 15, 3 p.m.
HUEY’S POPLAR
Elmo & the Shades
Wednesday, Dec. 18, 6 p.m.
NEIL’S MUSIC ROOM
John Williams & the A440 Band
ursday, Dec. 12, 8 p.m.
NEIL’S MUSIC ROOM
Sing We Now Of Christmas: Carols for the Season
With Bethann Easterly, ute, and Jim Cornfoot, piano. A program of carols and holiday standards. Free. Sunday, Dec. 15, 3 p.m.
ST. MARY’S EPISCOPAL CATHEDRAL
Spanish Guitar Concert
- Andrea González
Caballero
An unforgettable a ernoon. Sunday, Dec. 15, 3-4:15 p.m.
SCHEIDT FAMILY PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
The Deb Jam Band
Featuring Debbie Jamison. Free. Tuesday, Dec. 17, 6 p.m.
NEIL’S MUSIC ROOM
Van Duren
ursday, Dec. 12, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
MORTIMER’S
Zazerac Soul Jazz Trio Friday, Dec. 13, 9 p.m.
BOG & BARLEY
Acoustic Sunday Live!
An annual tradition, this bene t for Protect Our Aquifer features Shakura S’Aida, Steve Forbert, Tim Easton, and Tom Rush, with special guests Anne Harris and Marcella Simien.
$50. Sunday, Dec. 15, 7 p.m.
FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
Amber McCain Duo Sunday, Dec. 15, 3 p.m.
LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM
American Aquarium
With Justin Bloss. Saturday, Dec. 14, 5 p.m. GROWLERS
Ax and the Hatchetmen
$25. Friday, Dec. 13, 8-10 p.m.
1884 LOUNGE AT MINGLEWOOD HALL
Ben Folds - Paper
Airplane Request Tour
e Emmy-nominated, multiplatinum selling music artist is back. Wednesday, Dec. 18, 8 p.m.
MINGLEWOOD HALL
Candlelight: Holiday Special Featuring The Nutcracker & More Music inspired by the winter and the holiday spirit under the gentle glow of candlelight. $29.63/general admission. Wednesday, Dec. 18, 6:30-10 p.m.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART
Cookies and Caroling at Overton Park
Sing holiday tunes with Opera Memphis and Overton Park Conservancy. Tuesday, Dec. 17, 5-7 p.m.
OVERTON PARK GOLF CLUBHOUSE
Cyrena Wages
With Nubia Yasin. Friday, Dec. 13, 8 p.m.
BAR DKDC
Daft Punk Night
DJs spinning Daft Punk and related music late into the night. Saturday, Dec. 14, 10 p.m.
GROWLERS
Devil Train
Bluegrass, roots, country, Delta, and ski e. ursday, Dec. 12, 10 p.m.
B-SIDE
Freeworld Album
Listening Event
e group presents their new album, More Love. Free. Tuesday, Dec. 17, 6 p.m.
MEMPHIS LISTENING LAB
Holiday Music with Kenneth Jackson e guitarist will perform in the West Atrium. ursday, Dec. 12, 11 a.m.
CROSSTOWN CONCOURSE
Joe Restivo 4
Guitarist Joe Restivo leads one of the city’s nest jazz quartets. Sunday, Dec. 15, 11 a.m.
Jombi
A Memphis psychedelic rock out t that has garnered a strong and dedicated following in the region. eir latest LP, Out to Pasture, sums up the group’s blend of neopsychedelia, alt-folk, and progressive/experimental rock. With the Narrows. Saturday, Dec. 14, 8 p.m.
RAILGARTEN
Turnt
Listen to the legendary Turnt while you unwrap unique nds from jolly local vendors at the Lamplighter Bazaar Holiday Blowout. Sunday, Dec. 15, 2-6 p.m.
LAMPLIGHTER LOUNGE
Last Chance Jug Band
Featuring Memphis’ own folk and blues treasure, performer and scholar David Evans. Sunday, Dec. 15, 3 p.m.
HUEY’S MIDTOWN
Lucero Family Christmas
An annual Memphis tradition! With special guests Slobberbone, Rattlesnake Milk, and Dirty Streets. $40.45/general admission. Saturday, Dec. 14, 8-10 p.m.
MINGLEWOOD HALL
Mahogany Chamber Music Series: Hope Music with a vision of a brighter day. Including works by Margaret Bonds, Jake Haggie, Joseph Joubert, and two world premieres commissioned by Dr. Armand Hall, conductor. ursday, Dec. 12, 2:30-5 p.m.
CROSSTOWN THEATER
Make the Yuletide Gay Tour with Crys Matthews, Flamy Grant, and Spencer LaJoye Crosstown Arts and Folk All Y’all present Chrys Matthews, the poster child for intersectionality, and Flamy Grant , the “Bible Belt Baby,” sharing holiday cheer and faithinfused LGBTQ+ joy! $25/ general admission. Saturday, Dec. 14, 7:30 p.m.
THE GREEN ROOM AT CROSSTOWN ARTS
Stax Music Academy Songwriting Showcase
Featuring students from the SMA Songwriting Cohort. ursday, Dec. 12, 7 p.m.
RAILGARTEN
PHOTO: LUCIA LOMBARDO
Rachel Maxann
Two Piece
Monday, Dec. 16, 8 p.m. HI TONE
Unapologetically
Unplugged
A mystery live music lineup presented by Twenty Two Experiences. 18+. Friday, Dec. 13, 8 p.m. GROWLERS
Vinyl Happy Hour
Friday, Dec. 13, 3-5 p.m. MEMPHIS LISTENING LAB
Mark Edgar Stuart & The BlueShift Ensemble
Christmas Show e popular singer-songwriter with classical augmentation and special guests Savannah Brister, Calvin Barnes, and Alexis Grace. $18. Wednesday, Dec. 18, 7:30 p.m. THE GREEN ROOM AT CROSSTOWN ARTS
Memphis Youth Symphony: Galleries of Sound
Saturday, Dec. 14, noon-2 p.m.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART
Michael Palascak
Sunday, Dec. 15, 7 p.m.
LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM
Morning Dew With Spite House, Week Knees, Jubellahadsuchgrace [Small Room-Downstairs]. ursday, Dec. 12, 8 p.m.
HI TONE
Nots
Celebrating the band’s 10th year. With Sweeping Promises, Macrophonics. Saturday, Dec. 14, 8 p.m.
B-SIDE
Pressed With Heavy Machine Gun, Bvrnbvbybvrn [Small RoomDownstairs]. Saturday, Dec. 14, 8 p.m.
HI TONE
Rachel Maxann’s Holiday Spirits: A Christmas Special with Friends
A soulful Christmas celebration featuring heartfelt performances of holiday classics, original tunes, and special guests from the local music scene. With her signature blend of folk, soul, and blues, Maxann will ll the night with a festive spirit and powerful storytelling. $20, $25/DOS.
Friday, Dec. 13, 7:30 p.m.
THE GREEN ROOM AT CROSSTOWN ARTS
Savoy Motel
Saturday, Dec. 14, 8 p.m.
BAR DKDC
Sounds of Memphis: 910 Band
High Point
Sunday, Dec. 15, 6 p.m.
HUEY’S SOUTHAVEN
Memphis Blues Society: Lifetime Achievement Awards
With Singa B, Melika Miller & Southern Explosion, and nine honorees. Saturday, Dec. 14, 4-7 p.m.
HERNANDO’S HIDE-A-WAY
Solar Powered Love
Friday, Dec. 13, 8 p.m.
HERNANDO’S HIDE-A-WAY
The Pretty Boys
Sunday, Dec. 15, 6 p.m.
HUEY’S SOUTHWIND
Vienna Notarianni
With Screamer, Mystic Light Casino. Saturday, Dec. 14, 8 p.m.
HERNANDO’S HIDE-A-WAY
Germantown Symphony Orchestra Holiday Concert
With Memphian soprano soloist Tanisha Ward and choruses from Houston and Germantown High Schools. Saturday, Dec. 14, 7 p.m.
GERMANTOWN PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
Heartbreak Hill Trio
Sunday, Dec. 15, 6 p.m.
HUEY’S MILLINGTON
Jad Tariq Band
Sunday, Dec. 15, 6 p.m.
HUEY’S OLIVE BRANCH
Memphis Blues Society Weekly Jam
ursday, Dec. 12, 7:30 p.m.
ROCKHOUSE LIVE
Singer Songwriter
Sundays Sunday, Dec. 15, 4-6 p.m.
MEDDLESOME BREWING COMPANY
The Chaulkies
Sunday, Dec. 15, 8 p.m.
HUEY’S CORDOVA
The Java Trio
Sunday, Dec. 15, 6 p.m.
HUEY’S GERMANTOWN
Sunday, Dec. 15, 3 p.m.
HUEY’S DOWNTOWN
LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM
Presented by Stax Music Academy, this talented group of young musicians delivers a powerful blend of soul, funk, and R&B.
ursday, Dec. 12, 6 p.m.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART
Twin Soul Duo
Sunday, Dec. 15, 6 p.m.
HUEY’S COLLIERVILLE
•Health
•Treatment
•Churches
•Schools
•Local
•Non
•Restaurants/Bars/Clubs
•Hotels
CALENDAR of EVENTS: December 12 - 18
ART HAPPENINGS
Artist Reception — Ben Couvillion’s “In Plain Sight”
Bold and saturated compositions that elevate the beauty of everyday life. Free. Friday, Dec. 13, 5:30-7:30 p.m.
GERMANTOWN PERFORMING ARTS
CENTER
Bartlett Art Association’s Happy Holidays Winter Exhibit
An artists’ reception, with the Bartlett Chorus providing live music. Free. Sunday, Dec. 15, 2-4 p.m.
WKNO DIGITAL MEDIA CENTER
Frame Corner’s Holiday Art Pop-up
A local artist pop-up sale for one night, with drinks and charcuterie. ursday, Dec. 12, 4:30-8 p.m.
FRAME CORNER
Open Studio and Sale
Small gouache landscapes from around the world.
Saturday, Dec. 14, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. | Sunday, Dec. 15, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
CAROL BUCHMAN STUDIO
Temple of Souls Art & Vintage Shoppe
An oddball array of art, gi s, and decor. Friday, Dec. 13Dec. 15, noon-6 p.m.
VINTAGIA MEMPHIS
COMEDY
Comedy Night with Ben Pierce ursday, Dec. 12, 8 p.m.
BAR DKDC
Open Mic Comedy Night
Hosted by John Miller [Big Room-Upstairs]. Tuesday, Dec. 17, 8 p.m.
HI TONE
Steve-O: The Super Dummy Tour
Steve-O is taking his humor on tour. Sunday, Dec. 15, 7 p.m.
MINGLEWOOD HALL
COMMUNITY
Full Moon Bonfire
Gather around a re pit at the river access ramp on Bateman Road, south and east of Moscow, TN. Hot dogs and ingredients for s’mores provided. Saturday, Dec. 14, 6-9 p.m.
WOLF RIVER CONSERVANCY
Holiday Tree Planting
Help the Wolf River Conservancy’s urban reforestation e orts in New Chicago Park, providing a riparian bu er in the oodplain. Saturday, Dec. 14, 10 a.m.-noon.
NEW CHICAGO PARK
Porter-Leath Toy Truck at WMC
Help bring holiday joy to local preschool children. Friday, Dec. 13, 8 a.m.-6 p.m. | Saturday, Dec. 14, 8 a.m.-3 p.m.
WMC ACTION NEWS 5
Taylor Swift’s Bookish Birthday Party
Make friendship bracelets and decorate cookies and ornaments in honor of the mega-celebrity. Friday, Dec. 13, 6-8 p.m.
NOVEL
DANCE
The Nutcracker
Experience the magic again with Ballet Memphis’ stunning new production of this holiday favorite. Friday, Dec. 13, 7:30-9:30 p.m. | Saturday, Dec. 14, 2-4 p.m. | Sunday, Dec. 15, 2-4 p.m.
ORPHEUM THEATRE
Send the date, time, place, cost, info, phone number, a brief description, and photos — two weeks in advance — to calendar@memphisflyer.com.
DUE TO SPACE LIMITATIONS, ONGOING WEEKLY EVENTS WILL APPEAR IN THE FLYER’S ONLINE CALENDAR ONLY. FOR COMPREHENSIVE EVENT LISTINGS, SCAN THE QR CODE OR VISIT EVENTS.MEMPHISFLYER.COM/CAL.
COURTESY MINGLEWOOD HALL
Stephen Glover, aka Steve-O, takes his Super Dummy Tour on the road.
EXPO/SALES
Gifts of Green
Tropical and unusual plants, stylish pots, and other botanical novelties to make the perfect gi . rough Dec. 30.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
Memphis Arts Collective Holiday Market
Over 30 Memphis artists with work in pottery, glass, jewelry,
metal, fabric/ ber, mixed media, photography. Silent Auction to bene t Miracle League of Memphis. rough Dec. 24.
GATTAS PLAZA
Second Saturdays at Chickasaw Oaks
Showcasing a diverse group of talented local artists and makers. Free. Saturday, Dec. 14, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
CHICKASAW OAKS
WinterArts 2024
Hand-cra ed works by our region’s nest artists. Mondaysursdays and Saturdays, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Fridays, 10 a.m.-8 p.m.; Sundays, noon -5 p.m. rough Dec. 24.
SHOPS OF SADDLE CREEK
FAMILY
Cordelia’s Christmas Kids Craft
A free Christmas bowling cra event. Saturday, Dec. 14, 10 a.m.-noon.
CORDELIA’S MARKET
December Free Family Day & Holiday Parade
With cra s, games, live music by Soul Cnxn, food trucks, a visit from Mr. and Mrs. Claus, and the rst annual Soulsville Christmas Parade. Free. Saturday, Dec. 14, 1-5 p.m.
STAX MUSEUM OF AMERICAN SOUL MUSIC
FILM
Beale Street Monster
Club - Jolly Old Saint Zilla: Holiday Celebration
Eat delicious treats and take pictures with the King of the
PHOTO:
Monsters. Free. Sunday, Dec. 15, 1-4 p.m.
A. SCHWAB
Time Warp Drive-In: Strange Christmas Vol. 11 - Holly Jolly Holiday
Horror
Screening Christmas Bloody Christmas and Troll Hunter. $25/carload. Saturday, Dec. 14, 7 p.m.
MALCO SUMMER 4 DRIVE-IN
FOOD AND DRINK
Buds & Brews Memphis Grand
Opening
Buds & Brews Memphis hosts its grand opening. Friday, Dec. 13, 4 p.m. | Saturday, Dec. 14, 4 p.m.
BUDS & BREWS MEMPHIS
HOLIDAY EVENTS
A Very Cajun Beer and Carols!
Holiday songs and Cajun food! Friday, Dec. 13, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
EVERGREEN PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
Breakfast with Santa
A breakfast and free photos. $24. Saturday, Dec. 14, 8 a.m., 9 a.m., and 10 a.m.
FIRE MUSEUM OF MEMPHIS
Christmas Fiesta
Enjoy Latin traditions, music, food, and crafts with Cazateatro, Opera Memphis, and Dixon. Free. Saturday, Dec. 14, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
Cookies and Caroling
Opera Memphis will help you get in the spirit of the season with a caroling singalong and delicious treats. Tuesday, Dec. 17, 5-7 p.m.
ABE GOODMAN GOLF CLUBHOUSE
Graceland Christmas Tours
Elvis Presley’s home decorated for the holidays. Thursday, Nov. 21-Dec. 23.
GRACELAND MANSION
Laser Holidays
A planetarium light show with holiday music.
$18. Friday, Dec. 13, 7 p.m.
MEMPHIS MUSEUM OF SCIENCE & HISTORY
Holiday Bazaar
With 100-plus local artists. Friday, Nov. 15, 10 a.m.
ARROW CREATIVE
Holiday Candlelight Service
Readings and Christmas carols by candlelight. Sunday, Dec. 15, 5:30 p.m.
THE CHURCH OF THE RIVER FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH OF MEMPHIS
Holiday Wonders
Illuminated trees and landscapes with signature cocktails, hot chocolate, and apple cider. Closed Dec. 24 & 25. Through Dec. 28.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
Pet Pictures with Santa Benefiting Dogs 2nd Chance. Saturday, Dec. 14, noon-3 p.m.
HOLLYWOOD FEED CORDOVA
Photos with Santa
You’ll receive both a digital AND a printed photo as a memento of your visit. Free. Friday, Dec. 13, 3-7 p.m. | Saturday, Dec. 14, 2-7 p.m.
SADDLE CREEK SOUTH
Pictures with Santa Holiday crafts, popcorn, and of course Santa. Free. Saturday, Dec. 14, 11 a.m.-2 p.m.
BENJAMIN L. HOOKS CENTRAL LIBRARY
Run Rudolph, Run! Holiday Market
With everything from quirky crafts to elegant art pieces. Saturday, Dec. 14, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
MEMPHIS ART SALON AT MINGLEWOOD HALL
Santa in the Park
Complimentary photos, ice skating, toys, food, and treats. Saturday, Dec. 14, 1-5 p.m.
DOUGLASS PARK
Starry Nights
Millions of lights and fun at this drive-through event. $38-$200. Through Dec. 29.
SHELBY FARMS
Story Time with Santa Santa will read and stick around for pictures. Free. Friday, Dec. 13, 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.
MORTON MUSEUM OF COLLIERVILLE HISTORY
The Enchanted Forest Festival of Trees
A benefit for Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, with decorated trees, teddy bears, trains, elves, and penguins. Through Dec. 29.
MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND HISTORY AT THE PINK PALACE
Winter Wonderland
Sock skating, snowball challenges, igloo making, themed art projects, gingerbread story time, and more. Through Jan. 5.
CHILDREN’S MUSEUM OF MEMPHIS
Zoo Lights
The zoo becomes a twinkling wonderland, with Santa at his workshop. $20. 5-9:30 p.m.
MEMPHIS ZOO
PERFORMING ARTS
Ho Ho Ho Burlesque Show and Silent
Auction
Memphis Roller Derby silent auction fundraiser. Saturday, Dec. 14, 8 p.m.
HI TONE
Ice Ice Baby: A Holiday Variety Show
A winter wonderland of singing, dancing, and burlesque. $25. Friday, Dec. 13, 9 p.m.
HI TONE
The Magic of Jen Kramer Mind-boggling magic and audience participation. $39.50. Saturday, Dec. 14, 7:30 p.m.
HALLORAN CENTRE FOR PERFORMING ARTS & EDUCATION
Velvetina’s Christmas Cabaret Velvetina Taylor hosts the hottest show in town at the birthplace of rock-and-roll. $45/general admission. Saturday, Dec. 14, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
SUN STUDIO
SPORTS
Memphis Grizzlies vs. Brooklyn Nets Friday, Dec. 13, 7 p.m.
FEDEXFORUM
THEATER
A Christmas Carol
Based on the novella by Charles Dickens. Thursday, Dec. 12, 7 p.m. | Friday, Dec. 13, 7 p.m. | Saturday, Dec. 14, 3 p.m. | Sunday, Dec. 15, 3 p.m.
LOHREY THEATRE
Annie Jr., the Musical Everyone’s favorite little orphan. $16/students, teachers, and military, $21/seniors 60+, $26/ adults. Friday, Dec. 13, and Saturday, Dec. 14, 7:30-9 p.m. | Sunday, Dec. 15, 2:30-4 p.m.
GERMANTOWN COMMUNITY THEATRE
A Motown Christmas
Nate Jacobs’ exciting, family-fun Christmas musical. 7-10:30 p.m.
HATTILOO THEATRE
Junie B. Jones: Toothless Wonder
Junie is losing her first tooth and didn’t get invited to Jim’s birthday. $25. Saturday, Dec. 14, 2-4 p.m. | Sunday, Dec. 15, 2-4 p.m.
CIRCUIT PLAYHOUSE
Tia Pancha
The classic Christmas story of Scrooge with a Latin twist. $25. Thursday, Dec. 12, 8-10 p.m. | Friday, Dec. 13, 8-10 p.m. | Saturday, Dec. 14, 8-10 p.m.
THE EVERGREEN THEATRE
The Wizard of Oz
Dorothy Gale teams up with three misfits to find the Wizard. Friday, Dec. 13, 7 p.m. | Saturday, Dec. 14, 2 p.m. | Sunday, Dec. 15, 2 p.m.
PLAYHOUSE ON THE SQUARE
Twelfth Night
Shakespeare’s most charming comedy. Directed by Stephanie Shine. Fridays-Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. | Sundays at 3 p.m. Through Dec. 22. TENNESSEE SHAKESPEARE COMPANY
Who’s Holiday!
Cindy Lou Who recounts the Christmas Eve she met the Grinch. 18 +. Through Dec. 22.
CIRCUIT PLAYHOUSE
1 Sub-Saharan predator 6 Important figure in a student’s education 14 Apotheosis
Laser alternative
Oppressive public attention 17 Uncomfortable 18 Man in Mannheim 19 Pop nickname that was the title of a 2001 4x platinum album
20 Comic Brennan
Cafeteria loads 23 Combination in the card game bezique 26 A ton 27 End of a counting-out rhyme
30 Number on a sundial 31 New Orleans entertainment
34 City that was the first capital of French Louisiana
Cheats
36 B.C. neighbor
37 “By all means” 38 In dat place 39 Provider of a good picture 41 Severely burden
Order 48 Selfie stick, e.g.
Journalist Logan
Dramatic musical effects 53 Barre hops?
54 Criticized severely
55 Weighed on
56 It offers a variety of views
57 Preoccupied with arcane details
1 Strength 2 Reformer Felix
3 Funny Anne
4 Only songwriter in history to write four consecutive #1 hits (1978)
5 Schooner filler
6 Goes it alone
7 N.L. East city
8 Speakeasy investigator, informally
9 Fill 10 Third-stringers
11 Things doctors need to take
12 ___ de veau (veal dish)
13 PC file suffix
15 Pickle flavorers
of
Mrs. of film
Ka ___ (southernmost Hawaiian point)
PUZZLE BY MARTIN ASHWOOD-SMITH
We Saw You.
with MICHAEL DONAHUE
Even before all the turkey is gone, WinterArts is back in action, getting people in the arts-centric holiday-buying mood.
Greg Belz, executive director of the ArtWorks Foundation and founder of WinterArts, kicks o the annual event with an opening reception the Friday a er anksgiving. “We do it at 5,” Belz says. “A er everybody looking for plastic bargains from China has gone back home and vacated the streets, we open up.”
is year’s WinterArts is at 7509 Poplar Avenue, in the old Brooks Brothers location in e Shops of Saddle Creek in Germantown, Tennessee.
About 400 attended the reception for WinterArts, which is celebrating its 16th year, Belz says.
It includes “everything one can think of in glass, metal, wood, clay, and ber as well as a few other surprises,” he says. “We focus on 3D work in those disciplines.”
In short, WinterArts brings together “material and imagination” to create incredible gi s that “you won’t see anywhere else.”
WinterArts is open seven days a week through Christmas Eve.
PHOTOS: MICHAEL DONAHUE
above: Steve and Lisa Mergen, Tony omas, and Susie Jabbour circle: Olivia Avery below: (le to right) Sarah, Cecil, London, Brandon, Sophia, and Brandon Little; Greg Belz and Chris Saxon; Don and Rita DeWeese bottom row: (le to right) Alex Russell, Diana, Donna, and Bill Hopper; Alex, Garrison, and Deke Rapp; Hunter Dove and Kim Duran
above: Joe, Bobbie, Matt, Wendy, and Sally VanCleve below: (le to right) Cyndy Grivich and Lisa Sodini; Sean Winfrey and Jamie Bigham; David Johnson; Brandon and Wil Short
right row: (top and below) Kerry and Shannon Wade, Shane Gross, Teresa Wilson, and Tom Wilson; Adam Cole, John Stanford, Debi Stanford, and Hannah Cole bottom le : Amy and Paul Burdette
By Michael Donahue
Cuisine in the Raw
e Pickles move on a er selling Rawgirls Memphis.
Amy and Hannah Pickle spent their last Rawgirls Memphis day, December 1st, in its commercial kitchen.
For 14 years, they’ve operated Rawgirls Memphis, which included food trucks and a brick-and-mortar location Downtown. ey sold the business to Laura Wegner in November, but they stayed on as advisors to help her get settled.
Starting Rawgirls about 14 years ago was “a complete accident,” Amy says.
She and Hannah met at Give Yoga Memphis. Hannah, who owned the yoga studio, was conducting a workshop on how to use super foods. Amy, a professional chef, says, “It was love at rst sight.”
A native Memphian, Amy is a member of the Pickle Iron family, which her grandfather started in the 1950s. A er graduating from e Culinary Institute of America in New York, Amy worked for famed chef, the late Judy Rodgers, at San Francisco’s Zuni Café, where she learned how to cook seasonally with local foods and make everything by hand. Amy went on to work for Jean-Georges Vongerichten at Mercer Kitchen in New York before moving back to Memphis in 2007.
A native of Paducah, Kentucky, Hannah says, “Food and diet were always a hobby and an interest of mine. … I would eat crazy things like algae and seaweed because I loved how I felt, but I didn’t have talent towards making them taste good.”
Amy, whom she married in 2011, “made them taste good. We started working together at home. Playing around with raw foods.”
Amy learned how to dehydrate foods. Using almond our, she made glutenfree bread, which she baked under 118 degrees. “It kept all the nutrition intact, so you’re not cooking out the nutritional bene ts of food.”
One night they made dinner for a couple of friends. e menu included raw cantaloupe soup and a parsnip and sweet pea risotto. One of their guests said, “I feel so good eating this food. … If I paid you, would you guys cook for us?”
“We weren’t looking for a job,” Amy says. “Hannah had her studio and I had an IT business.” ey liked the idea of making things together just for fun.
Still, they made a meal in their kitchen and delivered it to the friend. “Within two weeks we had 10 regular home delivery clients,” Hannah says.
“We both closed our businesses,” Amy says. “We had to. We didn’t want to say ‘no’ to people. ey were feeling so good. … It was becoming bigger than us and what we wanted for our life.”
ey began working out of a duplex in August 2011. “We had Rawgirls on one side and we lived on the other,” Amy says. “ en we decided to become legitimate and we rented the old Another Roadside Attraction kitchen,” Hannah says.
ey opened their rst food truck in the parking lot of Hollywood Feed on Poplar Avenue and Yates Road. “It was an absolute success from day one.”
Popular items eventually included a sorbet made from açaí and their “Green Love Bomb” cold-pressed juice made with cucumbers, fresh ginger, lemon, spinach, celery, and romaine. eir menu was “always growing,” Amy says. “As we were creating the menu, we would create for each other at home and feel the bene ts.”
She and Hannah planned to close the business when their daughter graduated from high school. “It broke our hearts a little bit, but we made a public announcement we were going to close. at day Laura, the new owner, wrote to us and said this was a dream of hers to have a business like this. And we felt she was a viable person to come in and take it over.”
Wegner is now calling the business “Rawgirls USA.”
As for their future plans, Amy says they’re looking at an organic farm in Spain, where they’d like to set up an artist and yoga retreat. Also, Hannah says, “We have a mushroom extract business as well that we will gear up once settled.”
So, where did the name “Rawgirls” come from? Since they were using raw foods and they both were women, they thought “Rawgirls” was “kind of cute,” Amy says.
“I don’t know if it was the best idea,” Hannah says. “We still get people thinking we’re a strip club.”
“I’m in my mid-50s,” Amy adds. “I’m not getting on a pole.”
PHOTO: MICHAEL DONAHUE
Amy and Hannah Pickle
RING IN
NEWS OF THE WEIRD
By the editors at Andrews McMeel Syndication
Awesome!
Florida families and homes,” Patronis said, according to WFTS-TV. Other products like electric scooters, golf carts, or children’s toys also could be affected. “These compromised vehicles and devices are ticking time bombs,” Patronis said. He suggested people move affected vehicles away from their homes. [WFTS, 10/9/2024]
The Neighbors
Reddit user Springchikun was doing some lawn cleanup in September when she noticed that a small hatch leading to a crawl space under her home was unlatched. The New York Post reported that the Oregon woman investigated, finding a makeshift bed and several bags of belongings. She noted that the crawl space was free of cobwebs, suggesting that someone had been there recently. “I’m sure someone is using the space,” she said. But Springchikun didn’t want to call the authorities about the squatter. “We have an option to be kind,” she said. Instead, she wrote the person a note, offering support such as food, a phone, or help with resources. As a result, she met her unexpected guest, whose name is Gaby, and connected her with a friend who could help her with shelter and a mental health evaluation. “I’m not without empathy,” she said. “I just can’t have humans living under my home.”
[NY Post, 9/27/2024]
News You Can Use
• When Hannah Willow arrived at the Scottish Tree Hugging Championships in Glasgow on Oct. 6, she thought the event was a charity affair, The Guardian reported on Oct. 9. “When I was told it was a competition, my inner child took a somersault. … This was a moment of glory for me,” Willow said. Now, she’s on her way to the World Tree Hugging Championship in HaliPuu Forest in Finland in August 2025. She’s already strategizing about how to win: “I need to step up my game for the world championships,” she said. “I will have to bring out my fairy wings and my ukelele and go singing to the trees.” Willow said her children were “hugely embarrassed” to learn she had won the Glasgow contest. [Guardian, 10/9/2024]
• As if folks in Florida didn’t have enough to worry about, State Fire Marshal Jimmy Patronis announced on Oct. 9 that after Hurricane Helene came through in September, at least 48 fires involving lithium-ion batteries had been reported — 11 in electric vehicles. “Floridians living on the coastline who own EVs are at risk of those EVs being inundated with saltwater storm surge, which presents a dangerous fire threat to
Caroline Ashley, 41, of Liverpool, England, went all out on her Halloween decorations this year, installing fake tombstones and human skulls, but the pieces de resistance were the two “body bags” hanging upside down from a tree in front of her home. But, as Metro News reported, the fun didn’t last long: On Sept. 24, a Liverpool City Council worker stopped by to tell Ashley she would have to remove the body bags because a neighbor had complained. “It was the quickest the council has come out for anything,” Ashley said. “I put them up, and then he was round the following day.” But, she conceded, a neighbor may have been “triggered” by the display. “I don’t want to offend anyone. That wasn’t the intention,” she said. Ashley said she’ll keep the body bags in her garage going forward — which might be creepier. [Metro News, 10/10/2024]
Saw That Coming
On Oct. 6, 36-year-old Clejuan Williams of Toledo, Ohio, was teaching his 9-year-old son how to back up the car (first mistake) with another child in the backseat (second mistake). Williams was standing outside the car with the driver’s door open, WTVG reported, and told the boy to hit the brake. When the child pressed the wrong pedal, Williams, who was intoxicated (third mistake), was struck and dragged under the car. He was taken to the hospital and is expected to face charges of wrongful entrustment of a motor vehicle and endangering children. [WTVG, 10/8/2024]
Send your weird news items with subject line WEIRD NEWS to WeirdNewsTips@amuniversal.com.
NEWS OF THE WEIRD
© 2024 Andrews McMeel Syndication. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
FREE
ARIES (March 21-April 19): If you were walking down the street and spied a coin lying on the sidewalk, would you bend down to pick it up? If you’re like most people, you wouldn’t. It’s too much trouble to exert yourself for an object of such little value. But I advise you to adopt a different attitude during the coming weeks. Just for now, that stray coin might be something like an Umayyad gold dinar minted in the year 723 and worth over $7 million. Please also apply this counsel metaphorically, Aries. In other words, be alert for things of unexpected worth that would require you to expand your expectations or stretch your capacities.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The Taurus writer Randall Jarrell compared poets to people who regularly stand in a meadow during a thunderstorm. If they are struck by the lightning of inspiration five or six times in the course of their careers, they are good poets. If they are hit a dozen times, they are great poets. A similar principle applies in many fields of endeavor. To be excellent at what you do, you must regularly go to where the energy is most electric. You’ve also got to keep working diligently on your skills so that when inspiration comes calling, you have a highly developed ability to capture it in a useful form. I’m bringing this up now, Taurus, because I suspect the coming weeks will bring you a slew of lightning bolts.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): My upcoming novels epitomize the literary genre known as magical realism. In many ways, the stories exhibit reverence for the details of our gritty destinies in the material world. But they are also replete with wondrous events like talking animals, helpful spirits, and nightly dreams that provide radical healing. The characters are both practical and dreamy, earthy and wildly imaginative, well-grounded and alert for miracles. In accordance with your astrological potentials, I invite you to be like those characters in the coming months. You are primed to be both robustly pragmatic and primed for fairy-tale-style adventures.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): In December 1903, the Wright brothers flew a motorized vehicle through the sky for the first time in human history. It was a very modest achievement, really. On the first try, Orville Wright was in the air for just 12 seconds and traveled 120 feet. On the fourth attempt that day, Wilbur was aloft for 59 seconds and 852 feet. I believe you’re at a comparable stage in the evolution of your own innovation. Don’t minimize your incipient accomplishment. Keep the faith. It may take a while, but your efforts will ultimately lead to a meaningful advancement. (PS: Nine months later, the Wrights flew their vehicle for over five minutes and traveled 2.75 miles.)
By Rob Brezsny
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): During the rest of 2024, life’s generosity will stream your way more than usual. You will be on the receiving end of extra magnanimity from people, too. Even the spiritual realms might have extra goodies to bestow on you. How should you respond? My suggestion is to share the inflowing wealth with cheerful creativity. Boost your own generosity and magnanimity. Just assume that the more you give, the more you will get and the more you will have. (PS: Do you know that Emily Dickinson poem with the line “Why Floods be served to Us — in Bowls”? I suggest you obtain some big bowls.)
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): The term “cognitive dissonance” refers to the agitation we feel while trying to hold conflicting ideas or values in our minds. For example, let’s say you love the music of a particular singer-songwriter, but they have opinions that offend you or they engage in behavior that repels you. Or maybe you share many positions with a certain political candidate, but they also have a few policies you dislike. Cognitive dissonance doesn’t have to be a bad or debilitating thing. In fact, the ability to harbor conflicting ideas with poise and equanimity is a sign of high intelligence. I suspect this will be one of your superpowers in the coming weeks.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): “Amazing Grace” is a popular hymn recorded by many pop stars, including Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, and Willie Nelson. Created in 1773, it tells the story of a person who concludes that he has lived an awful life and now wants to repent for his sins and be a better human. The composer, John Newton, was a slave trader who had a religious epiphany during a storm that threatened to sink his ship in the Atlantic Ocean. God told him to reform his evil ways, and he did. I presume that none of you reading this horoscope has ever been as horrible a person as Newton. And yet you and I, like most people, are in regular need of conversion experiences that awaken us to higher truths and more expansive perspectives. I predict you will have at least three of those transformative illuminations in the coming months. One is available now, if you want it.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): “Thinking outside the box” is an American idiom. It means escaping habitual parameters and traditional formulas so as to imagine fresh perspectives and novel approaches. While it’s an excellent practice, there is also a good alternative. We can sometimes accomplish marvels by staying inside the box and reshaping it from the inside. Another way to imagine this is to work within the system to transform the system — to accept some of the standard perspectives but play and experiment with
SAGITTARIUS
(Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I don’t recommend burning wood to heat your home. Such fires generate noxious emissions harmful to human health. But hypothetically speaking, if you had no other way to get warm, I prefer burning ash and beech wood rather than, say, pine and cedar. The former two trees yield far more heat than the latter two, so you need less of them. Let’s apply this principle as we meditate on your quest for new metaphorical fuel, Sagittarius. In the coming months, you will be wise to search for resources that provide you with the most efficient and potent energy.
others. For example, in my horoscope column, I partially adhere to the customs of the well-established genre, but also take radical liberties with it. I recommend this approach for you in 2025.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): The world’s longest tunnel is over 35 miles long. It’s the Gotthard Base Tunnel in the Swiss Alps. I’m guessing the metaphorical tunnel you’ve been crawling your way through lately, Capricorn, may feel that extensive. But it’s really not. And here’s even better news: Your plodding travels will be finished sooner than you imagine. I expect that the light at the end of the tunnel will be visible any day now. Now here’s the best news: Your slow journey through the semi-darkness will ultimately yield rich benefits no later than your birthday.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Would you like to avoid wilting and fading away in January, Aquarius? If so, I recommend that during the coming weeks, you give your best and brightest gifts and express your wildest and most beautiful truths. In the new year, you will need some downtime to recharge and revitalize. But it will be a pleasantly relaxing interlude — not a wan, withered detour — if in the immediate future you unleash your unique genius in its full splendor.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): My treasured Piscean advisor, Letisha, believes it’s a shame so many of us try to motivate ourselves through abusive self-criticism. Are you guilty of that sin? I have done it myself on many occasions. Sadly, it rarely works as a motivational ploy. More often, it demoralizes and deflates. The good news, Pisces, is that you now have extra power and savvy to diminish your reliance on this ineffectual tactic. To launch the transformation, I hope you will engage in a focused campaign of inspiring yourself through self-praise and self-love.
FILM By Chris McCoy
Nickel Boys
e Pulitzer Prize-winning novel gets a skillful adaptation by director RaMell Ross.
One of my favorite lm noirs is Dark Passage, a 1947 Warner Brothers lm by director Delmer Daves. Humphrey Bogart stars as an escaped convict trying to clear his name. With the help of Lauren Bacall, he gets facial reconstructive surgery in an attempt to evade police. What’s great about Dark Passage is that the entire rst hour of the lm is shot from a rst-person point of view. We hear Bogart’s voice, but we never see his face — at least not until he gets a new one. POV had been used before, but never so successfully. Only a handful of other lms have attempted such a trick, most recently the 2015 shootem-up Hardcore Henry, which played on modern audiences’ familiarity with rst-person shooter video games. Done well, POV camera helps a viewer identify more deeply with a character because we see what they see, which is why director RaMell Ross chose to shoot Nickel Boys in the rst-person perspective. Based on a
2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead, Nickel Boys tells the story of Elwood (Ethan Cole Sharp as a child, and later Ethan Herisse), a Black teenager in 1962 Tallahassee who is generally quiet, studious, and likes to read stu like Pride and Prejudice e Civil Rights era is in full swing, but life is still tough for Black kids in Jim
As Turner observes late in the film, “There’s Nickels all over this country.”
Crow-era Florida. Luckily, Elwood’s grandmother (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) is very supportive, and he has a great teacher (Jimmie Fails) who sees his potential. When he gets an opportunity to take college classes at the Marvin Griggs Technical School, he jumps at the chance. Lacking transportation, he decides to hitchhike to his rst class.
Memphis Magazine presents the
2024 INNOVATION AWARDS BREAKFAST
Brandon Wilson and Ethan Herisse are Nickel Boys.
But it turns out that the man who picks him up is driving a stolen car, and the police don’t believe Elwood had nothing to do with it. So Elwood nds himself at Nickel Academy, a reform school that is notorious for its cruelty towards its charges. When Elwood arrives in the back of a police car, the two white punks he rides with are dropped o in front of a nice-looking Antebellum building. e Black kids live in dilapidated dorms out back.
e nerdy Elwood doesn’t get along with the other kids at the school, but Turner (Brandon Wilson) stands up for him, and the two become friends. When he gets mixed up in a restroom
altercation with bully Gri (Luke Tennie), Elwood nds out exactly how brutal the Nickel Academy is. Administrator Mr. Spencer (Hamish Linklater) personally whips Elwood so badly that when his grandmother arrives for a visit, they won’t let her see him. Instead, she runs into Turner, who can’t
Join Memphis Magazine as we celebrate the 12th annual Innovation Award winners. Memphis has become an innovation hub, with representatives in a wide variety of industries that strive to discover new breakthroughs and push our community forward. In 2024, we feature five progress-focused individuals and organizations who showcase Memphis’ continued evolution through innovation.
Join us Wednesday, January 15 at 7:30 a.m. as we honor:
Breanna Boyd of FeedWells
Dr. Evan S. Glazer of UTHSC
Eric Mathews of Start Co
Susan Cooper and Megan Williams of Regional One
Tickets are available for purchase for $25 per person and include breakfast. Tables of 10 are available for $200.
Doors open at 7:30 a.m. and the program will begin around 8:15 a.m.
Memphis Botanic Garden, Hardin Hall 750 Cherry Road, Memphis, TN 38117
Visit bit.ly/memphisinnovation to purchase tickets.
FILM By Chris McCoy
assure her that everything is all right.
Elwood and Turner try to survive Nickel Academy, as we switch back and forth between their viewpoints. Later, in flash-forward sequences set 20 and 30 years in the future, the POV changes, so we see the back of Elwood’s head (now played by the dreadlocked Daveed Diggs) as he encounters people from his past he might rather forget.
Herisse, Wilson, and Tennie offer solid performances, and Ellis-Taylor’s turn as a loving grandmother who is losing the fight to bring her kin home brings the tears. But they all get overshadowed by the film’s technical achievements. The POV shooting works, for the most part, but Ross has trouble committing to the bit. His intention is to make us
feel Elwood and Turner’s visceral fear and despair, but when he intercuts the action with archival footage to represent the passage of time, as well as the occasional dream sequence, it undercuts the effect he’s going for.
Whitehead based Nickel Academy on the Dozier School for Boys, a Florida reform school that was shut down in 2011 after 111 years of burying, sometimes literally, “undesirable” young men. But the problem of minority juveniles caught in an uncaring and cruel system hasn’t gone away. As Turner observes late in the film, “There’s Nickels all over this country.”
Nickel Boys opens in theaters Friday, December 13th.
OUTSIDE SALES / BRANCH MANAGER
Brown-Campbell Company is North America’s leading specialty Steel & Fiberglass manufacturer, fabricator, and distributor with 9 facilities strategically located throughout the United States.
Brown-Campbell Company is family owned and has been operating for over 70 years offering superior specialty steel and fiberglass products. We manufacture, fabricate, and distribute a wide range of products. We also offer a full line of engineering and fabrication services.
Brown-Campbell Company is looking for an Outside Sales / Branch Manager to lead and develop our team at our Memphis, TN location. You will be responsible for leading, directing, and overseeing all outside sales and warehouse activities for our growing Memphis service center.
Compensation includes base salary, commission, and bonus program
RESPONSIBILITIES
• Responsible for achieving sales growth by developing relationships with existing and potential customers throughout the Memphis territory. A minimum of three days per week on the road making sales calls on customers is expected and some overnight travel will be required.
• Work with inside sales team, ensuring timely and accurate responses to customer requests.
• Responsible for directing and overseeing warehouse personnel and warehouse operations.
• Ensure and maintain superior customer service standards.
• Ensure all branch operations and procedures are consistent with corporate standards.
• Take the initiative to develop, recommend, and implement improved inside sales and warehouse practices to promote safety, efficiency, faster lead times, lower costs, and increased sales.
• Branch Manager may also be asked to assist with or undertake other responsibilities as needed.
EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE
• College degree in Business preferred.
• Inside and outside sales experience and management experience preferred.
QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENTS
• Strong organizational abilities; know how to manage time, set priorities, and delegate to others.
• Excellent interpersonal, communication, and decision-making skills.
• Proficient in business math, Word, and Excel.
• Available to travel overnight
COMPENSATION:
$51,992.00 - $101,648 PER YEAR
BENEFITS:
• Auto allowance
• 401(k) with matching
• Medical, dental, vision, and life insurance available
• Paid Time Off SCHEDULE:
• Monday to Friday TO APPLY, PLEASE EMAIL YOU RESUME TO KaraTitus@brown-campbell.com
THE LAST WORD
By Jalal Awan, Ph.D.
Colossus
e environmental cost of AI in Memphis.
In the race to build arti cial intelligence, the environmental cost of progress has found a new ground zero: Memphis, Tennessee. ere, in a former manufacturing facility owned by the Swedish multinational Electrolux, Elon Musk’s xAI has quietly constructed what Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang calls “easily the fastest supercomputer on the planet.” Built in just 19 days — a feat Huang claimed would take others a year — Colossus, the supercomputer, comes with a toxic catch.
e environmental impact of operating the Colossus center, used to power xAI’s chatbot Grok, is immense. Touted as possessing a “sense of humor” and slated for a December debut, the latest Grok 3 model will not only consume an astonishing amount of energy during its initial training phase, but will continue to demand 10 times the energy of a standard Google search for each individual query processed. e project was rushed into operation without air permits, powered by at least 18 Taurus 60 methane gas turbines that are pumping pollutants including greenhouse gas emissions and dangerous waste by-products into neighborhoods already struggling with some of America’s worst air quality.
Each of the Taurus 60 gas turbines at the facility generates 5.6 megawatts of power, enough to power 5,000 average U.S. households. And this is just the beginning — having raised $6 billion in venture capital funding earlier this year, xAI has already secured agreements with Memphis Light, Gas & Water and the Tennessee Valley Authority to potentially double its power consumption for the post-training inference phase, with an additional undisclosed capacity approved through seven electric, gas, and water contracts with the local utility, despite community protests. e current 18 gas turbines, powering 100,000 liquid-cooled Nvidia graphical processing units, result in annual emissions of 72.3 tons of nitrogen oxides (NOx), 196.4 tons of carbon monoxide, and an alarming 438,000 tons of CO2 equivalent per turbine. Multiply that by 18 turbines, and you have an environmental disaster in the making. e human cost? In Shelby County, where more than half the population are people of color and the poverty rate is 1.5 times the national average, incidences of childhood asthma are already the highest in the state. e additional pollution from xAI’s facility threatens to worsen these health burdens, costing the community around $400 million annually from carbon pollution alone.
e burden of environmental costs from ill-sited, large-scale AI infrastructure does not end at carbon pollution. In South Memphis’ Boxtown neighborhood less than two miles east of the factory, residents already face a cancer rate four times the national average and a life expectancy 10 years below the city average. e American Lung Association has given the South Memphis area an “F” grade for ozone, and now xAI’s unpermitted turbines could add an estimated 1,301 tons of nitrogen oxides, a precursor to ozone pollution, annually to Memphis’ air. e community hosts a concerning collection of industrial facilities, including a steel mill and an oil re nery. Now, they’re bearing the burden of Musk’s AI ambitions.
e project’s approval process itself raises troubling questions about corporate accountability and local governance. e project was launched in a rapid and secretive manner: e facility’s location was initially kept secret for “global security concerns”; local o cials were bound by nondisclosure agreements; even Memphis City Council members were taken by surprise with the sudden announcement of the facility. While xAI promised the community 300 jobs, they currently list just 32 positions — most of them hourly, contractual roles in administrative support. is isn’t Musk’s rst environmental controversy. SpaceX operated without Clean Water Act permits in Texas, e Boring Company was ned for unauthorized wastewater discharge, and Tesla faced citations for hazardous air pollutant emissions. Now, xAI is following this concerning pattern in a state with obviously worsening air pollution trends.
e irony is rich: Colossus powers Grok, marketed as an “anti-woke” alternative to ChatGPT, while perpetuating environmental racism. While competitors like Microso and Google invest in renewable energy for their AI infrastructure, xAI chose the path of highest environmental impact, and least cost. Morgan Stanley estimates data centers will triple their CO2 emissions by decade’s end due to AI development. But must this progress come at the expense of vulnerable communities? e residents of South Memphis deserve better than subsidizing technological advancement with their health. e solution isn’t to halt AI development but to demand responsible innovation. xAI must obtain proper permits, install modern pollution controls, and engage transparently with the community through the life cycle of its AI plans. is is even more imperative as xAI’s self-styled techno king Musk takes on his new advisory role at the Department of Government E ciency (DOGE). Local o cials must also prioritize environmental concerns over expedited development.
As we marvel at AI’s potential to “understand the universe” — xAI’s stated mission — we cannot ignore its earthly impacts. e true measure of progress should not be merely the speed or scale of innovation, but the inclusivity and sustainability of its bene ts. Until then, Memphis’ children will continue to breathe the toxic cost of progress.
Jalal Awan, Ph.D., is an electrical engineer with a doctorate in public policy analysis. Opinions expressed are his own.
PHOTO: ZHENG XIAOQIAO | DREAMSTIME.COM xAI will add to Tennessee’s worsening air pollution.
