Nashville Scene 10-7-21

CITY LIMITS: MNPS NEEDS MORE HELP BATTLING COVID-19

OCTOBER 7–13, 2021 I VOLUME 40 I NUMBER 36 I NASHVILLESCENE.COM I FREE

PAGE 9

CULTURE: MEET THE MAKERS BEHIND NASHVILLE FASHION WEEK PAGE 38

FOOD & DRINK: LOOKING BACK AT 10 YEARS IN THE CATBIRD SEAT PAGE 32

to COVER

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nashvillescene.com | OCTOBER 7 – OCTOBER 13, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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NASHVILLE SCENE | OCTOBER 7 – OCTOBER 13, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

CONTENTS

OCTOBER 7, 2021

9

25

Sick of It .....................................................9

Le Cercle Rouge, Mae & Juliana Theory, Nashville Ballet Presents Peter Pan, Joe Bonamassa, The Rolling Stones, The Illusionist: Michael John, Angels & Airwaves, A Fluid & Emphatic Now and more

CITY LIMITS

Nearly two months into the school year, MNPS needs more help battling COVID-19

BY KELSEY BEYELER

Preservationists See the Boyd House as an Example of How to Protect Nashville’s History.........................................................9 The house on Fisk property was once owned by a prominent Black family — and it narrowly escaped destruction

BY LENA MAZEL

Pith in the Wind ...................................... 10

This week on the Scene’s news and politics blog

CRITICS’ PICKS

32

FOOD AND DRINK

10 Years in The Catbird Seat

Looking back at the first decade of a restaurant that totally changed Nashville’s fine-dining scene

12

BY CHRIS CHAMBERLAIN

Cover to Cover ......................................... 12

VODKA YONIC

COVER STORY

The 33rd annual Southern Festival of Books is here with a spine-tingling schedule of virtual readings and author talks

BY ERICA CICCARONE

Always Graceful....................................... 13 Margaret Renkl discusses her new essay collection Graceland, at Last

BY JIM PATTERSON AND CHAPTER16.ORG

76 Pounds of Wet Hair and Poor Decisions ......13 Rick Bragg’s canine love story is about the worst dog in the world

BY TINA CHAMBERS AND CHAPTER16.ORG

Interludes of Fulfillment ......................... 14 Nichole Perkins explores themes of identity, liberation and belonging

BY KASHIF ANDREW GRAHAM AND CHAPTER16.ORG

An Unbroken Thread ............................... 14 Poet Jesse Graves discusses his fourth collection, Merciful Days

BY LINDA PARSONS AND CHAPTER16.ORG

The Order of Masculinity ........................ 16 Brian Broome’s memoir rescues a childhood ended too soon

BY KASHIF ANDREW GRAHAM AND CHAPTER16.ORG

A Larger Suitcase .................................... 16 Rickie Lee Jones recalls her family and career in Last Chance Texaco

BY TINA CHAMBERS AND CHAPTER16.ORG

Tennessee Stormwater ........................... 20 Andrew Siegrist rides the winding river of the human spirit in We Imagined It Was Rain

BY LAUREN TURNER AND CHAPTER16.ORG

Fresh Soil in Old Territory ....................... 20

45 46

NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD

The Delta Wave Appears to Be Receding in Tennessee Sean Brock’s Audrey Finally Announces Opening Date

MARKETPLACE

Buckle Your Emotional Seatbelt and Go See Titane

36 ART

Here Comes the Wayne Again

Talking to the great, prolific Wayne White about his Radio Magic Eightball

BY JOE NOLAN

38

CULTURE

Meet the Makers

Get to know four of the local designers participating in this year’s Nashville Fashion Week

BY MEGAN SELING

41

MUSIC

Just for One Day ...................................... 41

Bring That Back....................................... 42 Hip-hop outfit Heru Heru throws it back, with an eye to the future

BY CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

Opening the Jewel Box ........................... 42 Jordan Tice tells tales without words on Yesteryears

BY ABBY LEE HOOD

The Spin ................................................... 43

Ron Rash’s In the Valley displays his masterful command of short fiction

The Scene’s live-review column checks out Soccer Mommy with Squirrel Flower at Cannery Ballroom

BY EMILY CHOATE AND CHAPTER16.ORG

BY SETH GRAVES

Call for take-out!

BY NADINE SMITH

After Mercy Lounge’s Departure, Cannery Row to Continue Hosting Venues

BY ELIZABETH ULRICH

BY BRITTNEY McKENNA

Troubled kids find a balm for pain in the love of a good dog in Luna Howls at the Moon

The quiet profundity of Amalia Ulman’s El Planeta

A reluctant expert on why the person who hurts you most can also be the most difficult to leave

A young dancer grapples with identity in The Archer

Feeling No but Saying Yes ...................... 18

Style Under Substance

Why I Stayed

Natalie Hemby takes the spotlight on Pins and Needles

BY SARA BETH WEST AND CHAPTER16.ORG

THIS WEEK ON THE WEB:

FILM

34

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The Miracle of Movement....................... 18

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FROM BILL FREEMAN WE NEED ACTION TO MITIGATE COVID-19, BUT GOV. LEE STYMIES EVERY ATTEMPT

challenging his COVID-19 policies. As reported by Tennessee Lookout, Dr. Erica Kaye — an oncologist and palliative care physician at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis — says, “Gov. Bill Lee has the power and the responsibility to protect the lives of Tennesseans, especially vulnerable young children who cannot yet be vaccinated.”

At least 14 public school employees, including teachers, have died from COVID-19 since the school year began. This is unacceptable.

We have the tools to fight this virus. But when a school district tries to mandate mask wearing, a political leader comes along and says, “Don’t listen.” In July, Rep. Scott Cepicky (R-Culleoka) spread unsubstantiated claims about the COVID-19 vaccine being dangerous while in a legislative hearing, but later criticized the Biden administration

Roughly 1 in every 475 Americans has died from COVID-19 — more than 700,000 in total — according to a New York Times report using data through Sept. 29.

“The new and alarming surge of deaths this summer means that the coronavirus pandemic has become the deadliest in American history, overtaking the toll from the influenza pandemic of 1918 and 1919, which killed about 675,000 people,” write the Times’ Julie Bosman and Lauren Leatherby.

More than 100,000 Americans have died since June 16, while vaccines have been universally available. Many of those deaths have been concentrated in the South. What’s more, the Times notes, August deaths from COVID-19 were the highest in every age group under 55 since the pandemic began.

Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, recently told news service Science X that many of these deaths were preventable, because we’ve had the right tools to fight the disease all along. Dr. Adalja also said these figures reflect “how necessary it is to have political leadership that takes pandemic preparedness A GROUP OF DOCTORS REPRESENTING seriously while having a ST. JUDE’S CHILDREN’S RESEARCH robust infrastructure to HOSPITAL ATTEMPT TO GET GOV. BILL proactively spring into LEE’S ATTENTION AFTER A RECENT PRESS CONFERENCE action, free from political interference.”

Here in Tennessee, LLE, TN not been free from political interfor limiting distribution of monoclonal antiweNASHVI have THERE’S body treatments for Tennesseans. It makes ference in fighting virus. Gov. Bill Lee NOT NOTthe no sense that one would listen to a doctor’s spends his energy trying to block efforts to BOOZE guidance on antibodies but not listen to the stem the spreadIN ofHERE COVID. thousands of doctors and scientists who’ve As school started back this year, some given us repeated stats on the safety of COschool systems decided to adopt mask VID-19 vaccines. mandates to protect students, teachers and Meharry Medical College president and staff from COVID-19. But on Aug. 16, Lee CEO Dr. James Hildreth tells The Tennessean interfered and issued an executive order that monoclonal antibodies “have become allowing parents to opt their children out of strategically advantageous for politicians” — mask mandates. Now Tennessee leads the they’re a means of advocating for a “defense nation in school closures. As reported by against the virus without telling vaccine-hesithe CDC, more than 400 schools in our state tant supporters they should get vaccinated.” were closed for at least one day between It’s tough to think about the children who Aug. 2 and Sept. 17. More than two dozen are being exposed to the virus because they districts closed schools completely, some are not yet able to be vaccinated. Statistics for more than a week, as COVID-19 cases show that COVID-19 is becoming a pandemic escalated and thousands of students were of the unvaccinated, who are 11 times more quarantined. likely to die of the disease than the vacciNot long after the governor issued his nated. This does not seem to register with our executive order, he and his administration governor, who appears convinced that polifound themselves facing lawsuits from tics are more important than sound policy. concerned parents. The suits contend that What is it going to take for Lee to the order violates the rights of students understand that he is responsible for with disabilities according to the Americans mitigating this disease? How long will he With Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the allow the people of our state to keep dying Rehabilitation Act. In Williamson County, from COVID? The governor is delusional if U.S. District Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr. thinks his strategy is working. blocked the executive order. That decision and the governor’s executive order were to expire Oct. 5. Federal judges in Knox and Bill Freeman Shelby counties also temporarily blocked Bill Freeman is the owner of FW the governor’s order.

Publishing, the publishing company that To ensure mask mandates stay in place or produces the Nashville Scene, Nfocus, the aren’t continually blocked, doctors across Nashville Post and Home Page Media Group the state — including one who serves on in Williamson County.

Gov. Lee’s COVID-19 advisory panel — are

PHOTO: JOHN PARTIPILO VIA TENNESSEE LOOKOUT

PET OF THE WEEK!

Editor-in-Chief D. Patrick Rodgers Senior Editor Dana Kopp Franklin Associate Editor Alejandro Ramirez Arts Editor Laura Hutson Hunter Culture Editor Erica Ciccarone Music and Listings Editor Stephen Trageser Contributing Editor Jack Silverman Staff Writers Kelsey Beyeler, Stephen Elliott, Nancy Floyd, Steven Hale, Kara Hartnett, J.R. Lind, Kathryn Rickmeyer, William Williams Contributing Writers Sadaf Ahsan, Radley Balko, Ashley Brantley, Maria Browning, Steve Cavendish, Chris Chamberlain, Lance Conzett, Marcus K. Dowling, Steve Erickson, Randy Fox, Adam Gold, Seth Graves, Kim Green, Steve Haruch, Geoffrey Himes, Edd Hurt, Jennifer Justus, Christine Kreyling, Katy Lindenmuth, Craig D. Lindsey, Brittney McKenna, Marissa R. Moss, Noel Murray, Joe Nolan, Betsy Phillips, John Pitcher, Margaret Renkl, Daryl Sanders, Megan Seling, Jason Shawhan, Michael Sicinski, Nadine Smith, Ashley Spurgeon, Amy Stumpfl, Kay West, Abby White, Andrea Williams, Ron Wynn, Charlie Zaillian Art Director Elizabeth Jones Photographers Eric England, Matt Masters, Daniel Meigs Graphic Designers Mary Louise Meadors, Tracey Starck Production Coordinator Christie Passarello Events and Marketing Director Olivia Britton Marketing and Promotions Manager Robin Fomusa Publisher Mike Smith Senior Advertising Solutions Managers Maggie Bond, Sue Falls, Michael Jezewski, Carla Mathis, Heather Cantrell Mullins, Jennifer Trsinar, Keith Wright Advertising Solutions Managers William Shutes, Niki Tyree Sales Operations Manager Chelon Hill Hasty Advertising Solutions Associates Caroline Poole, Alissa Wetzel Special Projects Coordinator Susan Torregrossa President Frank Daniels III Chief Financial Officer Todd Patton Corporate Production Director Elizabeth Jones Vice President of Marketing Mike Smith IT Director John Schaeffer Circulation and Distribution Director Gary Minnis For advertising information please contact: Mike Smith, msmith@nashvillescene.com or 615-844-9238 FW PUBLISHING LLC Owner Bill Freeman VOICE MEDIA GROUP National Advertising 1-888-278-9866 vmgadvertising.com

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NASHVILLE SCENE | OCTOBER 7 – OCTOBER 13, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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10/4/21 4:29 PM

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NASHVILLE SCENE | OCTOBER 7 – OCTOBER 13, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

CITY LIMITS

Nearly two months into the school year, MNPS needs more help battling COVID-19

BY KELSEY BEYELER

MNPS COVID-19 CASES AND QUARANTINES 4000

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n Monday, Metro Nashville Public Schools reported that 201 students were confirmed positive for COVID-19 during the week of Sept 27 through Oct. 3, along with 32 staff members. An additional 1,472 staff and students were in quarantine. These numbers are updated every Monday on MNPS’ COVID-19 tracker, and since the beginning of the school year, around 3,475 students and staff have reportedly tested positive, while another 19,229 have needed to isolate. The district is made up of nearly 83,000 students.

All of these cases come amid strict mask mandates, which MNPS has had to fight for. MNPS declared its mask mandate just five days before school started, with mixed reactions from parents. Shortly after, Gov. Bill Lee signed an executive order enabling parents to opt their children out of mask mandates throughout the state, but MNPS ignored Lee’s order, telling Davidson County families that Nashville public schools would continue to require masks. So far, the district has not faced any repercussions for defying the executive order.

Meanwhile, Lee’s executive order has been blocked by three federal judges in Williamson, Knox and Shelby counties and is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery is challenging two out of the three federal rulings, and Lee announced via Twitter on Sept.

30 that he would extend the executive order, which was set to expire on Oct. 5. The governor also announced an Oct. 18 special session that will focus on the Memphis site that the Ford Motor Co. is planning to occupy, but he hinted at a discussion about masks in schools. “The special session on October

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18 will stay focused on next steps for the Memphis Regional Megasite,” he tweeted, “and we’ll stand up for parents in court” — referencing his argument that parents should make decisions about their children wearing masks, rather than health experts and individual school districts.

According to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Tennessee has seen more than 400 school closures since the beginning of August — more than any other state in the country. Yet MNPS, one of the largest districts in the state, hasn’t shut down any schools (though MNPS spokesperson Sean Braisted confirms that some individual classrooms have had to shut down). The continuous in-person instruction is a likely result of Nashville schools’ strictly enforced mask mandate. But even if schools wanted to shut down, they would need permission from Tennessee education commissioner Penny Schwinn, or else they’d have to rely on a limited number of allotted stockpile days, which are typically reserved for teacher development or inclement weather.

Though MNPS has had success in keeping schools open, it hasn’t been an easy task. This is especially true for the nurses spearheading public schools’ COVID-19 response. “It’s basically all COVID, all the time,” Tabitha Austin told the Scene in early September. Austin is a school nurse working at Julia Green Elementary, though like many other nurses, she’s had to cover more than one school. Before the school year started, and before the mask mandate was declared, she told the Scene she didn’t think a mask mandate was necessary when students could maintain more than three feet of distance (which is the schools’

and into this year, there haven’t been nurses in every school. But it’s a project that Lisa Nistler, school health program manager for Metro Health, has been working on for years. She says she’s been able to leverage CARES Act funding to put more nurses in schools.

“Now we are [in] full-on expansion,” Nistler says. “We need to have a nurse in every school ... and then also have an extra nurse in four of the largest high schools … as well as a permanent float team to cover absences.”

Nistler says the district needs an additional 15 nurses to fully staff the schools, plus another 13 for additional support.

While school staff has been working to provide safe learning environments, the remainder of the school year will likely see hundreds if not thousands more students and staff test positive for COVID-19 or quarantine at home. Braisted says two staff members have already died from COVID-19 during this school year. The rate of transmission could decrease now that Pfizer is close to releasing a vaccination for kids ages 5 to 11. Plus, the FDA recently amended its emergency use authorization of Pfizer vaccine boosters to include teachers and other high-risk populations, which Austin was hoping for.

“I just would love to see more vaccinations,” says Austin. “I want to see more teachers with the booster and more kids [who are] old enough to get vaccinated.”

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

SICK OF IT

guidelines for social distancing). “​​I, going in, had really hoped it would be like this summer and masks [would] go away or at least, like I’d said earlier, be put away at their desks,” Austin told the Scene after the school year began. “But this surge, it has really hit the schools hard. … I’ve had several staff members test positive that were vaccinated. … It’s not just my school.

I’ve been talking with other nurses. … We’re all overwhelmed with the amount of cases.”

Every day, on top of other nursing duties, Austin and nurses across the district communicate with parents whose students have tested positive for COVID-19 or are showing symptoms. They also field parents’ questions, advise them whether or not they should send their kids to school, administer rapid tests, contact trace, and guide families through their quarantine periods. On top of the already exhausting work, Austin says she gets “yelled at or cussed out almost every day [by parents]. But that’s not all the parents. … It’s the exception rather than the norm, thankfully.”

While nurses are playing a vital role in the safety of MNPS’ staff and students, they’re in short supply. (It’s worth noting that MNPS is also short-staffed when it comes to bus drivers and other positions.)

Spokesperson Braisted tells the Scene that as of Oct. 1, 30 schools were sharing nurses. Nurses are not MNPS employees, but rather contracted through the Metro Health Department. Prior to the pandemic

PRESERVATIONISTS SEE THE BOYD HOUSE AS AN EXAMPLE OF HOW TO PROTECT NASHVILLE’S HISTORY The house on Fisk property was once owned by a prominent Black family — and it narrowly escaped destruction

BY LENA MAZEL

T

here’s a red brick house on the corner of 16th Avenue North and Meharry Boulevard.

A blue tarp is draped over one of its walls, and it’s shaded by an old tree. You could easily miss the Boyd House, despite the blue-andwhite sign by the front door. Once the home of one of Nashville’s most influential Black families and currently owned by Fisk University, the Boyd House was in danger of disappearing last year. But now it will have a permanent spot on Fisk’s campus, thanks to an ongoing fundraising campaign and the efforts of a group of concerned citizens.

In November, preservation nonprofit Historic Nashville announced the 2020 Nashville Nine, its annual list of historic properties at risk because of “development, neglect or demolition.” The Boyd House, which was in a state of disrepair, was on the list. The house, according to Historic Nashville,

nashvillescene.com | OCTOBER 7 – OCTOBER 13, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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10/4/21 5:44 PM

CITY LIMITS

TIM O'BRIEN AND JAN FABRICUS | AMERICANA-FOLK-BLUEGRASS TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12 AT 11:45 A.M. LIBRARY.NASHVILLE.ORG/COURTYARDCONCERTS

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

THIS WEEK ON OUR NEWS AND POLITICS BLOG:

THE BOYD HOUSE

“stands as a monument to the triumphs, joys and sorrows that define the African American experience in Nashville. It is a sacred part of North Nashville’s built environment and should not be demolished.”

Dr. Learotha Williams is a Tennessee State University history professor and a member of Historic Nashville’s board. Through discussions about the Nashville Nine, he learned that demolition permits had been created for the property, and his timing was fortuitous — Williams discovered on a Saturday night that demolition was scheduled for the following Monday morning.

Williams immediately created an online petition to save the home, which swiftly gained almost 4,000 signatures. The next week, Williams negotiated halting demolition. After that, discussions began about a long-term plan for the house. R.H. Boyd Publishing Corp. stepped in, creating a partnership with Fisk to restore the home and convert it to an educational space. At the end of the restorations, which are currently underway, the house will contain classrooms and a lecture hall for Fisk students.

Fisk and Boyd Publishing are currently in the process of raising $1.1 million to repair and renovate the house. For Dr. LaDonna Boyd — CEO and president of R.H. Boyd Publishing Corp. — the venture represents a continued family legacy. “This initiative represents the importance of preserving cultural markers in the Black community,” says Boyd. “It is important for us to tell our own stories and narrative about entrepreneurship, education and excellence. [Original Boyd House owner] Dr. Henry Allen Boyd was my great-great-uncle, so being able to work with Fisk on this initiative also exemplifies the importance of generational legacy and truly becoming the manifestation of ‘our ancestors’ wildest dreams.’ We are honored to have the opportunity to provide additional educational resources to Fisk students and the surrounding community.”

The Boyd family is an integral part of Nashville history. The R.H. Boyd Publishing Corp. — originally called National Baptist Publishing Board — distributed reading materials to Baptist churches across America. As previously reported by the Scene’s own J.R. Lind, R.H. Boyd had an influential role in Nashville politics, including a boycott of Nashville’s segregated streetcar system. Boyd, alongside James Napier and Preston Taylor, created an independent transportation company to help Black laborers go to work during the 1905 protest, which provided inspiration for later civil rights boycotts.

The house on Meharry Boulevard belonged to R.H Boyd’s son and daughter-in-law Henry Allen and Georgia Bradford Boyd, two Black Nashvillians who profoundly shaped local politics. “They were, in my opinion, two of the most important African Americans in this city during the time that they lived,” Williams says. The Boyds ran several successful businesses, and they fought for countless social and civil rights causes throughout their lifetimes. Henry Allen was head of the National Baptist Publishing Board and

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co-founded the Nashville Globe, a successful Blackowned newspaper. Boyd wrote a series of editorials in 1909 lobbying for a Black college in Nashville that, alongside his petitioning of the Tennessee state legislature, helped lead to the founding of Tennessee State University. He was also a Fisk trustee. Georgia Bradford Boyd was also highly involved in civic causes — she was a suffragist and a member of the Nashville Colored Women’s Club, and was honored by the Metro Council in 2020 for her contributions in the fight for African-American women’s voting rights.

Williams suggests that beyond the individual contributions of the Boyd family, the house represents the efforts of an entire community. “The Boyd House, for me, is a monument to African-Americans living in Nashville during Jim Crow,” he says. “It’s a house that was built

by Black laborers: You have Black carpenters, Black bricklayers, masons — the entire community is building something for one of its most prominent members.” The home was built by McKissack & McKissack, the oldest Black-owned architectural firm in America. In 1938, it was bought by Fisk University.

Williams has met older Nashvillians who remember spending time with the Boyds at the house — some seniors still talk about holidays and special events there. “The parties in that house were legendary,” he says.

So why did the home come so close to demolition? Williams suggests that it’s partially due to a lack of historical knowledge. Properties like the Boyd House are often unmarked and largely unpublicized.

Also, Williams says, historically Black properties are often “marginalized or ignored by the city as a whole.” He offers as an example First Baptist Church, Capitol Hill, which stood on Eighth Avenue North near TSU’s Avon Williams campus. There are photos of John Lewis leading a march from its front doors; James Lawson was arrested by Nashville police at the church over his involvement in civil rights protests; Dr. Martin Luther King preached there. Despite all this, the building no longer exists (though First Baptist’s congregation is still around, in a new building). “That place was a national landmark,” Williams says. “But today, it’s a parking lot. In the name of ‘urban renewal,’ we knocked that down.”

Williams is determined to spread the word about historical sites like the Boyd House by bringing their stories to a wider, nonacademic audience. “It’s incumbent upon us to tell these stories in spaces where, quite frankly, the university doesn’t really prepare us to go,” he says.

The preservation of Boyd House will hopefully provide an example for other historic properties throughout the city. And now, its new life can continue the Boyd family legacy. “I believe that our community has the duty to honor those that came before us that built what we have today,” says LaDonna Boyd. “We also owe it to future generations to curate spaces that show the journey.”

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

The state legislature is coming back to town (again) for another special session. Gov. Bill Lee is bringing lawmakers to Nashville to approve a $500 million incentive package promised to Ford and SK Innovations to lure the companies to the Memphis Regional Megasite. The governor would really, really appreciate it if the General Assembly would stick to the script and not go galavanting down the rabbit hole of banning mask and vaccine mandates while they’re here. Federal judges in all three Grand Divisions have overturned Lee’s ban on school mask mandates, and the governor says the state will continue to fight those rulings in court, calling them “legislating from the bench.” (Note that Lee’s ban was done via executive order, not by legislation.) … Abortion rights advocates in Nashville joined those in other cities around the country by marching Oct. 2. Planned Parenthood and other groups demanded the state legislature not pass any anti-abortion laws in their next regular session and that the state stop spending money to defend lawsuits challenging anti-abortion legislation. The march continued to the AT&T Building to demand that the company stop donating money to anti-abortion campaigns and politicians. … A former Ramsey Solutions employee is suing conservative financial guru Dave Ramsey’s company, saying she was fired after coming out as a lesbian. Julie Anne Stamps asked her supervisor what would happen if she came out, and says she was told she “needed to choose whether she wanted to remain employed” at the company or not. Later, she says she was told that if she wanted to continue working she “would not be able to tell anyone she was a lesbian or post on social media about her sexuality.” Once she told her supervisor she planned to come out, she was told to give her two weeks’ notice. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled in June 2020 that the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation. Two days later, Stamps says she was told she would be terminated.

Ramsey Solutions denies the allegations. … A Tennessee woman, who was a child when she was allegedly raped by her Murfreesboro Sunday school teacher, is suing the Catholic Diocese of Nashville and Saint Rose of Lima Catholic Church alleging that they knowingly failed to stop the abuse. Michael D. Lewis was indicted in June 2020 and faces 10 counts of statutory rape by an authority figure and four counts of sexual battery by an authority figure. Though he was not a priest, Lewis served as the director of religious education at Saint Rose of Lima until 2016, where he oversaw youth Sunday school classes. The woman’s case alleges that the diocese ignored complaints about Lewis’ behavior and concealed previous allegations against him when he was moved to the church. … There is cause for cautious optimism about the state of the COVID-19 pandemic. As of Monday, the Delta wave appears to be receding in Tennessee. New cases and hospitalizations are trending downward, as vaccinations continue slowly.

NASHVILLESCENE.COM/PITHINTHEWIND EMAIL: PITH@NASHVILLESCENE.COM TWEET: @PITHINTHEWIND

NASHVILLE SCENE | OCTOBER 7 – OCTOBER 13, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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10/4/21 5:44 PM

THE 33RD ANNUAL

Southern Festival of Books: A Celebration of the Written Word

October 9 & 10, 2021 (ONLINE!) – Plus online events throughout the Fall

Check out the offerings from the Scene’s Southern Festival of Books Partners

Join us for the FREE livestreaming sessions.

BOOKMARK THOSE DATES!

WWW.SOFESTOFBOOKS.ORG

nashvillescene.com | OCTOBER 7 – OCTOBER 13, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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COVER toCOVER

The 33rd annual Southern Festival of Books is here with a spine-tingling schedule of virtual readings and author talks

BY ERICA CICCARONE

Renkl will discuss her new collection of essays Graceland

s we beat on, boats against the current of this infernal pandemic, arts organizations continue to adapt with gusto to the times. Last month, Humanities Tennessee — our state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities — announced that the Southern Festival Books would be virtual for the second year in a row.

Though we again won’t be able to roam the stalls of booksellers and literary organizations at Legislative Plaza, or congregate in the lobby of the Nashville Public Library downtown, the folks at Humanities Tennessee have planned a spine-tingling schedule of readings and author talks. We’ve highlighted some standouts below, followed by reviews and Q&As that go deeper into the fest. Visit sofestofbooks. org to see the full schedule and access the digital events, which will be available on the festival’s YouTube channel. You can also download the festival’s handy app to plan your weekend. One benefit of a virtual festival is that the events will be archived on YouTube, so you can tune in later if you wish.

We’re always out to give locals their due, and there are plenty of Nashvillians participating in the fest, including Andrew Maraniss, author of Singled Out: The True Story of Glenn Burke (1 p.m. Saturday); Rachel Louise Martin, author of Hot, Hot Chicken: A Nashville Story (1:15 p.m. Sunday); and J.T. Ellison, author of Her Dark Lies (11:30 a.m. Saturday). Alice Randall, author of Black Bottom Saints, will introduce a can’t-miss event in which the Southern Foodways Alliance presents the 2021 John Egerton Prize to Dara Cooper, national organizer with the National Black Food and Justice Alliance (7:30 p.m. Thursday). In place of the festival’s usual Round Table fundraiser, we’ll see Nashville pastry chef and memoirist Lisa Donovan, author of Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger, appear in conversation with Alice Waters and Laurie Woolever (5 p.m. Friday). Tickets for that start at $50 and include signed copies of books. It’s a great way to support Humanities Tennessee and many Southern Festivals of Books to come!

Not to toot our own horn, but we’re incredibly proud to note appearances at the fest by current and former Scene contributors. Onetime Scene books editor and current New York Times columnist Margaret

THE VIRTUAL with Ann Patchett (10 a.m. Saturday; read on for our Q&A SOUTHERN FESTIVAL with Renkl). We Are Family is co-authored by music jourOF BOOKS CONTINUES THROUGH nalist Andrea Williams and a guy you might have heard of SUNDAY, OCT. 10 named LeBron James. In this spirited middle-grades chapter book, a group of kids hustle to save their basketball team. Williams will discuss her book with Tracey Baptiste, author of African Icons: Ten People Who Shaped History (2:30 p.m.

Sunday). Longtime Chapter 16 and Scene contributor Ed Tarkington’s second novel The Fortunate Ones follows a Gatsby-esque Nashville man as he grapples with, as Tark told author Odie Lindsey, “the oftendestructive allure of wealth, and the perils of noblesse oblige.” He’ll appear in conversation with Simon Van Booy, author of Night Came With Many Stars (3:30 p.m. Sunday). Tennessee State University professor and historian Learotha Williams is the co-editor of I’ll Take You There: Exploring Nashville’s Social Justice Sites with Amie Thurber. This unconventional guidebook foregrounds the struggles and achievements of people’s movements toward social justice in our city, and is co-authored by more than 100 writers, including academics, community members and students of Vanderbilt University (2:15 p.m. Saturday). The Porch Writers’ Collective recently released an anthology of writing that Tennesseans produced during the pandemic. The panel about Reckoning: Tennessee Writers on 2020 will include Scene contributor Margaret Littman, as well as Delaney Gray, Nicholas Bush and Porch co-founder Susannah Felts (5 p.m. Saturday). Finally, Scene contributor Destiny O. Birdsong is among our city’s great living poets. Her collection Negotiations pushes us to see each other with greater humanity. She’ll appear in conversation with Janisse Ray, author of Red Lanterns: Wild Spectacle, and Marianne Worthington, author of The Girl Singer: Poems (3:15 p.m. Saturday).

And remember: Friends don’t let friends purchase books from a guy who can afford to take joyrides in space. Support your local bookstores by ordering from Parnassus and The Bookshop, both of which are open for browsing and ordering online, or don a mask and go digging at McKay’s for your next read.

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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12

at Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache From the American South

NASHVILLE SCENE | OCTOBER 7 – OCTOBER 13, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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10/4/21 4:19 PM

ALWAYS GRACEFUL

progressives who live in a red state, don’t you think? I find that often the people I enrage

Margaret Renkl discusses her new essay collection Graceland, at Last

with a column are as apt to be progressive as they are to be conservative. … Some progressives have a pretty narrow range of what they believe is an acceptable position or unacceptable behavior. If there’s anything I write that indicates I understand why somebody takes a different position from the position I take, all hell will break loose sometimes on Twitter.

BY JIM PATTERSON AND CHAPTER16.ORG

M

My favorite essay in the book is “Make America Graze Again,” about modern-day Nashville shepherd Zach Richardson, who hires his sheep out to clear overgrown plants in urban areas. At first I thought it might be an April Fool’s Day trick story. It’s an incredibly

PHOTO: HEIDI ROSS

argaret Renkl, founding editor of Chapter 16 and author of Graceland, at Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache From the American South, is living the fantasy life of many a journalist. She writes a weekly essay for The New York Times, a powerful pulpit from which to share her opinions and observations about the South, where she has made her home all her life except for an “ill-fated” graduate school foray in Philadelphia.

In her 2018 essay “Reading the New South,” included among 60 of her Times columns collected in the book, Renkl describes posing a question at a 1984 Philly forum to James Watt, a former secretary of the interior famous for being hostile to the environment he was supposedly protecting.

When she took her turn at the audience microphone to ask a question, she opened with, “Sir, I’m from Alabama.”

“Instantly, that giant audience of Pennsylvanians broke into laughter,” she recalls in the essay. “Who was this cracker daring to voice an opinion about federal environmental policy?”

One could see Graceland, at Last as her response. But instead of lecturing, Renkl adroitly leads a journey that bypasses presumptions to reveal the real South — the South of blue cities frustrated by the overpowering red states surrounding them, of ecological disasters caused by indifference, and activists who work to combat that indifference.

It’s also the place that gave us the likes of For some readers of The New York Times, what William Edmondson, Dolly Parton and you write about the South or Nashville may the late singer-songwriter John be a significant influence on how they GRACELAND, Prine, who is aptly described in view the area. Is that responsibility AT LAST: NOTES another column from 2018 as a burden? Well, I don’t feel I ON HOPE AND HEARTACHE a “prophet with his finger represent the region or the FROM THE AMERICAN SOUTH on the pulse of the times city. I feel like I’m just a

BY MARGARET RENKL MILKWEED EDITIONS and his eyes turned toward writer giving my take on 284 PAGES, $26 the world beyond.” Prine’s what I see, what I feel, ———— first album (and his last and what I experience. I RENKL WILL APPEAR AT 10 A.M. album, too) would make a think it would be a really SATURDAY, OCT. 9, AT THE VIRTUAL SOUTHERN FESTIVAL OF fine soundtrack while you terrible mistake for any BOOKS read these stately, at times writer to feel that they are the angry, and always graceful representative of pretty much essays. anything. There are just so many Renkl — whose 2019 book Late different ways to experience the same Migrations was praised by Richard Powers thing. So I try not to do that. as “a compact glory” — recently talked with Whether you mean to or not, your pieces us by phone. about politics probably give comfort to a lot of

76 POUNDS OF WET HAIR AND POOR DECISIONS

Rick Bragg’s canine love story is about the worst dog in the world

BY TINA CHAMBERS AND CHAPTER16.ORG

“T

o be truthful,” writes Rick Bragg in The Speckled Beauty: A Dog and His People, Lost and Found, “I always wanted to write about a dog with a story to tell. I think a lot of writers do, the ones who have a soul; the rest are cat people, I suppose.” Be careful what you wish for, he might also add. The dog that chooses Bragg — for that is surely how it happens — ends up being the most stubborn, uncooperative and frustrating canine he’s ever met.

Into the Jacksonville, Ala., mountain home Bragg shares with his elderly mother — already host to dogs, cats, donkeys and an especially disagreeable mule — bursts Speck, a battle-scarred Australian shepherd with one good eye. Speck specializes in herding the livestock around the pasture until they are ready to drop (or until the mule kicks him into the fence), dragging half-rotten animal carcasses out of the woods, picking a fight with every animal that crosses his path (including the other household pets), and peeing on anything that doesn’t move, as well as quite a few things that do.

cool thing that Zach Richardson does, but it’s also a great model for what other communities can do to recognize that these plants are taking over our woodlands and our public places. … I love showing people something that’s happening here that’s wonderful.

What’s your favorite piece of your own in The New York Times so far? I don’t really have favorites. The times when I have the greatest feeling of happiness in working on a column is when I get to meet somebody interesting that I would never run across in my normal, everyday life.

Or I get to shine a spotlight on something that should be much better known than it is. I stand there with somebody incredibly interesting, like the teenagers who organized the Black Lives Matter protest [in Nashville] last summer, [and] I think I can’t believe people are paying me to do this.

To read an extended version of this interview — and more local book coverage — please visit Chapter16.org, an online publication of Humanities Tennessee.

figure who repeatedly cautions him not to get involved with At the time Speck enters his life, Bragg THE such an untrainable stray. In one of the funniest scenes considers himself to be a bit of a stray as SPECKLED in the book, the brothers attempt to groom and bathe well. The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalBEAUTY: A DOG AND HIS Speck, with predictably disastrous results. But Bragg ist returned home in 2015 to recover PEOPLE, LOST AND FOUND is powerless to resist the impossible but lovable from the effects of the chemoBY RICK BRAGG ALFRED A. KNOPF mutt. “I swing open the door,” he writes, “and the therapy that put his non-Hodgkin’s 256 PAGES, $26.00 dog, seventy-six pounds of wet hair and poor decilymphoma into remission. The ———— sions, lunges in, eternally surprised, and overjoyed, consequences of his many health BRAGG WILL APPEAR AT that it is me.” His brother suffers from no such senproblems — including heart and 3:15 P.M. SATURDAY, OCT. 9, AT THE VIRTUAL 2021 SOUTHERN timentality: “Sometimes, when my dog walked too kidney failure, pneumonia, diabetes FESTIVAL OF BOOKS close to him,” Bragg admits, “[Sam] spit on his head.” and depression — left him feeling like The Speckled Beauty is about finding the heart to love a broken man. “The truth is that I had the most wayward and aggravating dog imaginable, who also come to think of my life as a story I had turns out to be smart, tenacious, loyal, fearless, full of life and just already finished,” the 62-year-old admits, “and everything left was just a dull waiting, like cocktail hour at what the doctor ordered for a man who is learning new lessons about losing and letting go. But most importantly, the book is a pure pleasure a Howard Johnson’s.”

As Bragg struggles to adjust to a life that has suddenly taken a sharp to read, even for cat lovers. Bragg’s impeccable prose, comedic timing, self-deprecating honesty, and ear for a good story — made even better turn for the worse, he faces a “river of melancholy” that threatens to enwith a sprinkle of tall-tale exaggeration and some down-home diction gulf him. When Speck shows up, himself broken and near death at one point, he brings into Bragg’s life both a lively chaos and a much-needed thrown in for good measure — add up to an immensely enjoyable reading experience. sense of purpose, or at least a seemingly never-ending distraction. “I Dog lovers everywhere, as well as fans of All Over but the Shoutin’, figured it would probably turn out badly,” he says about rescuing Speck.

Bragg’s 1998 paean to his loving and long-suffering mother — who ap“But I knew, as I staggered down that hill with that awful dog, what the parently never met a dog she didn’t want to feed a homemade biscuit unreliable men in my family have always known: that this ol’ life can be to — will not regret the time they spend with this shaggy stray. a bleak, sorry, boring slog, if you take the time, at every turn, to think it through.”

For more local book coverage, please visit Chapter16.org, Observing this ill-advised adventure with a jaundiced eye is Bragg’s an online publication of Humanities Tennessee. beloved older brother Sam, a rustic Renaissance man and ersatz father

nashvillescene.com | OCTOBER 7 – OCTOBER 13, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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10/4/21 4:20 PM

INTERLUDES OF FULFILLMENT

AN UNBROKEN THREAD

Poet Jesse Graves discusses his fourth collection, Merciful Days

Nichole Perkins explores themes of identity, liberation and belonging

BY LINDA PARSONS AND CHAPTER16.ORG

BY KASHIF ANDREW GRAHAM AND CHAPTER16.ORG

S

PHOTO: SYLVIE ROSOKOFF

ometimes I Trip on How Happy We Could Be by Nichole Perkins is a memoir fleshed out via a collection of essays.

Weaving popular culture, humor and Black-woman truths, Perkins explores themes of sexual identity, liberation, desirability and belonging.

While this is her first book of prose, Perkins is also author of the 2018 poetry collection Lilith, but Dark. A Nashville native currently living in Brooklyn, Perkins is host of This Is Good for You, a podcast that explores things people enjoy. Readers familiar with Nashville’s past will appreciate her recollections of bygone establishments, such as Davis-Kidd Booksellers.

With each essay in Sometimes I Trip on How Happy We Could Be, we recognize that something is being built — or reclaimed. Perkins claims her right to explore (and ultimately the right of others to do the same) in the opening essay “Fast.” She writes, “Fast girls ruin lives” and describes her early years characterized by narrow strictures, especially enforced for Black girls, who always run the risk of being hypersexualized.

Her transgression of these boundaries spurs SOMETIMES her quest for liberation. Under the specter I TRIP ON HOW of teen pregnancy and the infamous “ho” HAPPY WE COULD BE label, Perkins investigates sex with mind

BY NICHOLE PERKINS and body.

GRAND CENTRAL PUBLISHING To be sure, she does not do this in 272 PAGES, $17.99 ———— a vacuum. “The Women,” to whom PERKINS WILL APPEAR AT she dedicates an entire essay, guide 4:15 P.M. SATURDAY, OCT. 9, AT her like Black-woman sages. Their THE VIRTUAL SOUTHERN names appear as such: Muh’Deah (greatFESTIVAL OF BOOKS grandmother), Gran’mama, Aunt C, Mama and her sister Izzie. They offer wisdom in both what they say and what they do. Muh’Deah, although she could not read, fostered Perkins’ early love for words by encouraging her to complete word puzzles. In similar fashion, Aunt C guided Perkins to the shelter of bookstores. While these women may not have anticipated every turn of her journey, they certainly taught her to nourish herself linguistically.

The language throughout the essays is both conversational and intimate, sometimes punctuated by confessionals. With each “I’ve never told anyone this before,” we are brought into Perkins’ Black-girl chamber roots in the message boards of the early 2000s. Perkins of secrets, as she contends for sexual, social and writes, “There was no such thing as ‘going viral’ back intellectual freedom on the page. She reconstructs textthen, but if your post didn’t go ‘View all,’ meaning it had message conversations, which sometimes appear as mini so many replies you’d have to click ‘View all’ to see what screenplays: “ME: Do you like ketchup? / HIM: It’s cool. everyone was talking about, it was a flop.”

Why?” In other instances, they are text bubbles, inviting Perkins demonstrates a remarkable skill in narrating us directly into the world of Perkins’ phone. her own life through the lens of pop culture. For Perkins is also not afraid to break an essay with a list, instance, she contrasts her familial milieu with Janet bulleting points for added emphasis and then unpacking Jackson’s musical career: “As my parents’ relationship each point in the subsequent paragraphs. This is withered, Janet’s career as an independent woman and especially notable in the essay “My Kameelah-Ass List,” artist grew. Her waistline shrank.” In doing this, she named for a reality star from the MTV show The Real also speaks to other Black women and girls who have World. Following in media tradition, Kameelah Phillips had to contend with what their developing bodies would was typecast as a demanding Black woman whose mean in the world. lengthy list of requirements forestalled the dating life This is a memoir for those who desire freedom and she desired. In the essay, Perkins channels Kameelah, happiness beyond the security of the status quo. Nichole sharing a list of desirable traits and attributes for her Perkins’ wit and honesty will draw readers who want ideal spouse. She both critiques and defends her list, to embark on a sexual, social or self-love journey — but sometimes with a confession. She lists, “Middle-toare fearful of the unknown. With its vivid interludes of upper-class” and offers the tidy explanation: “I’m so fulfillment, Sometimes I Trip on How Happy We Could tired of being broke.”

Be compels us to figure out what we want.

In “Keyboard Courage,” Perkins offers screenshots of internet communication prior to the rise of social For more local book coverage, please media. A refresher for some and an education for visit Chapter16.org, an online publication of others, the passages in this chapter highlight the ways Humanities Tennessee. current platforms like Twitter and Reddit find their

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hese days especially, we crave mercy, that plenitude both given and received in times of loss and uncertainty. Such benevolence and kindness infuse East Tennessee poet Jesse Graves’ fourth collection, Merciful Days. The title is an expression his mother used often. Despite his many losses — father, brother, a favorite uncle — Graves is rarely alone in his native valleys and ridges of Sharps Chapel in Union County, ancestral land rich with the spirits and stories of great-greats and beyond, each “a broad old footprint.”

I’ve known Jesse Graves for many years, since he was an undergraduate at the University of Tennessee. I’ve admired his poetry and critical work as it deepened over time and am proud of his work now as poet-in-residence and professor of literature and creative writing at East Tennessee State University. He answered questions via email.

You navigate many losses in Merciful Days while keeping a careful balance between emotion and restraint. Are you conscious of maintaining that balance and avoiding sentimentality in your work, especially in memory poems? Thank you for recognizing the balance that I am continually hoping to maintain. I realize the danger of sentimentality with my subject matter, and even with my way of seeing and processing the world.

A lot of people and places I care about are gone and are not coming back. I always remember someMERCIFUL thing the great Jack Gilbert said in response to a DAYS: POEMS poem of mine in a workshop: “Sentimentality

BY JESSE GRAVES MERCER UNIVERSITY PRESS is the risk most worth taking in poetry.” He 58 PAGES, $16 said that poets should be willing to go where ———— their real feelings take them, because that GRAVES WILL APPEAR AT is where the most important discoveries can 9 A.M., SATURDAY, OCT. 9, AT be made in poetry. I have realized through the THE VIRTUAL SOUTHERN FESTIVAL OF BOOKS years that most of the poems I really love, and truly care about, from passages of The Odyssey to Joy Harjo’s “Remember,” take that risk.

There are ghost stories and haints galore in Merciful Days. How do hauntings work in your writing, especially as grounded in Appalachian traditions? Well, I was raised in a traditional Appalachian “dark holler,” where we could not see or hear our nearest neighbors, and the road that passed was named for an early 19th-century woman believed to have been a witch. I love the folklore of the community, but I also had a spooky enough childhood to not be willing to say for sure that none of it is true. I cannot explain all that I have seen.

Ghost stories, though, are not only about the past for me. I have been fascinated for years by this concept of “hauntology,” which originates with Jacques Derrida’s Specters of Marx, and the idea of “lost futures” as described by Mark Fisher, who talked about a nostalgia for all the possible futures that have been closed off to us by circumstance. I see it all around when I visit Sharps Chapel. I calculated this recently: Nearly half of the boys from my tiny elementary school who were in my grade and one grade above and below me have spent time in prison or have died. It feels eerie to think about a vanished generation and the haunted state of being they have left behind.

In the poem “Wind Work,” you indirectly mention the coming of Norris Dam/Norris Lake, which submerged your family’s land. How has this loss reverberated through your family generationally, and what metaphors does it bring to your writing? The changes brought by the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Norris projects have been a persistent theme in my writing — the title of my second book of poems, Basin Ghosts, comes from a line in a poem about the TVA removals. Those changes are fundamental and ongoing too, with most of the new development in Sharps Chapel happening in gated communities on the banks of Norris Lake. It amounts to a kind of rural gentrification that I haven’t seen written about very much.

I think the effects on my family gave me a sense of the impermanence of living in place. The land itself changes, and our relationship to it can change drastically and suddenly even if we do not want it to happen. It also helped me to think about how Sharps Chapel was contested land and about the Native people who lived here before my ancestors arrived. When I was a child, it was thrilling to dig around in the creek beds and find arrowheads, but it gave me a sense, even then, of how much things could change over time.

To read an extended version of this interview — and more local book coverage — please visit Chapter16.org, an online publication of Humanities Tennessee.

NASHVILLE SCENE | OCTOBER 7 – OCTOBER 13, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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10/4/21 4:20 PM

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THE ORDER OF MASCULINITY

insight into his own life and upbringing, beyond his earliest memories.

Broome proves himself to be a master weaver of the past and present. In a chapter titled “This Gay Life,” he juxtaposes scenes from two gay bars — one in the ’90s at a seedy place called The Holiday and the other at a newer bar, in the present — to demonstrate the incredible power of youth.

At The Holiday, he rejects the advances of an older gay man, making a show of his

Brian Broome’s memoir rescues a childhood ended too soon

BY KASHIF ANDREW GRAHAM AND CHAPTER16.ORG

P

unch Me Up to the Gods by Brian Broome is a Black, gay, coming-of-age memoir.

Broome, a screenwriter and poet, recounts his formative years in Ohio and his subsequent escape. “[I] patted myself on the back for surviving small-town Ohio,” he writes. Against the backdrop of Ronald Reagan’s conservative America, Broome presents scenes of Black boy initiation into the order of masculinity. His own struggles to enter this order are compounded by the darkness of his skin, his lack of athleticism and his sexuality. He is, in the white gaze, the wretched of the earth.

Broome explores the nuances and contradictions of life in the Rust Belt during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and ’90s, when gay health clubs drained swimming pools for fear of AIDS transmission while copious amounts of unprotected sex took place in the same building. The departure of manufacturing jobs from Broome’s hometown renders his father an angry, unemployed shell of a man, but Broome revisits his paternal relationship with enlightened eyes. Oftentimes, he seems to conclude, Black parents’ love for their children is enshrouded in the daily grind for survival.

Punch Me Up to the Gods is constructed around verses from Gwendolyn Brooks’ 1959 poem “We Real Cool.” Reflecting the structure of the poem, the first section is titled “We Real Cool,” followed by “We Left School,” and so on. Each subsequent “We

PUNCH ME UP TO THE GODS: A MEMOIR

BY BRIAN BROOME MARINER BOOKS 272 PAGES, $26 ———— BROOME WILL APPEAR AT 4:15 P.M. SATURDAY, OCT. 9, AT THE VIRTUAL SOUTHERN FESTIVAL OF BOOKS

…” indicates both a new section and developmental shift in Broome’s narrative. Interspersed through the book is a present-day storyline that Broome calls “The Initiation of Tuan.” Here, he is a voyeur, observing the interactions of a Black boy (Tuan) and his father on a public bus. Broome soaks in the father’s aggressive redirection of his son toward Black male orthodoxy; the father uncrosses the boy’s legs and tells him to “shake off” an injury. This encounter gives Broome

A LARGER SUITCASE

Rickie Lee Jones recalls her family and career in Last Chance Texaco

BY JACQUELINE ZEISLOFT AND CHAPTER16.ORG

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emoirs and biopics about famous musicians follow a common arc. It all starts with a quick summation of the artist’s humble beginnings.

Then there’s the nostalgic depiction of their ascent to stardom followed by a perils-of-fame period. Ultimately, we end with heartwarming scenes of redemption and a comeback tour. But Rickie Lee Jones gives us something entirely different with Last Chance Texaco: Chronicles of an American Troubadour.

Jones, who spoke with me ahead of her virtual event with the Southern Festival of Books, always meant for her memoir to be, as she explains, “the story of one American family.” “The stories of our lives had become mythology,” she says. “They had been told so many times amongst us.” Ten years ago, she had the first inkling to commit the Jones family history to the page, starting with her mother Bettye. As she writes in the book, “My mother’s stories are the heart of me, the country from which I come. Escapades of her ghastly childhood in the orphanage were the Grimm’s Fairy Tales of my own.” Readers are treated to these horrific tales of child poverty, an experience that hardened young Bettye in the Depression-era Midwest.

Much of Jones’ musical world is populated with tragic, morally conflicted characters. Her dad — Richard, a World War II vet and artist — could be one of them. Richard grew up in a show-business family. His father, Frank “Peg Leg” Jones, was a famous one-legged performer on

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muscular body. “Someday you won’t look good,” the rejected man tells him.

“You’re not always going to be young. Someday everything you’re so proud of right now will be gone forever, and I wish that I could be there to see it.” A few sentences and many years later, Broome experiences similar rejection by younger gays at a bar that is foreign, where “everywhere you turn is a reflective surface.”

Particularly noteworthy is the testimony sequence of Broome’s mother, “Let the Church Say ‘Amen.’ “ Broome employs the Black church ritual of testifying to human-

ize his mother and to allow her to speak on her own behalf. During this testimony, it is as though time is suspended. His mother attests to “how she got over,” while highlighting her own challenged upbringing.

“Sometimes you find yourself in strange waters dashed up on the rocks, and then you just have to make do,” she says. “Every woman I know done had to navigate since the time we was little girls and Black girls get set out on the most dangerous waters.”

Through this break in the narrative, we are made to understand the complexities of Brian’s relationship to his mother. She has been proud of him all along, but we only learn of it through her confession.

The memoir possesses a filmic quality, especially present in the chapter titled “Stall,” in which Broome writes about his final visit with his father as though they are both actors. He is cast in the role of Grieving Son and his co-star is Dying Father: The camera pans out to show me and my father sitting in the tiny plain room of a nursing home. It’s the father-son perfect shot. It’s the time when I am supposed to lean forward and take his bony hand in mine and tell him how much I love him, which will bring me and the audience to tears. I opt instead to let the clock tick long enough to convince my mother down the hallway that my father and I have had a meaningful goodbye.

Punch Me Up to the Gods is a memoir for lost Black boys everywhere. It is for those who were forced to become men too quickly.

It is a prayer of forgiveness from Black parents to Black children. But this book is also for anyone who seeks to rescue the child in themselves — the child that, as Gwendolyn Brooks might put it, “died soon.”

For more local book coverage, please visit Chapter16.org, an online publication of Humanities Tennessee.

swer the “siren call of the West.” the Chicago vaudeville circuit. As a boy, Richard As a teen, Jones goes full hippie and flees home, hitchhiking along hopped a train to escape the violent Peg Leg, California’s Highway 1 in the summer of 1969. She survives creeps, jail pursuing a “hobo” existence and taking what Jones describes as “the hard road of adventure.” and almost freezing to death. In 1973, the emancipated 18-year-old steps onto the dilapidated boardwalks of Venice Beach for the Richard and Bettye’s paths crossed in first time. Tanned and braless, it’s here that she starts her Chicago, where they started a family LAST transformation from nowhere girl to overnight success. and gave birth to Jones in 1954.

CHANCE TEXACO: CHRONICLES OF AN In 1979, Jones released her debut album and Richard struggled with PTSD AMERICAN TROUBADOUR graced the cover of Rolling Stone. She played Saturand alcoholism. In one scene,

BY RICKIE LEE JONES day Night Live, won the Grammy for Best New Artist, he beats teenage Rickie for GROVE PRESS and the record went platinum. All of this is rememwearing a supposedly immod364 PAGES, $28 ———— bered in Last Chance Texaco. But so is the fact that est outfit around the neighJONES WILL APPEAR AT she never achieved the same commercial or cultural borhood boys. A few years and 2:15 P.M. SATURDAY, OCT. 9, AT significance again. The woman with the red beret, chapters later, he drives across THE VIRTUAL SOUTHERN once deemed the “Duchess of Coolsville,” floated into the country to bail her out of a FESTIVAL OF BOOKS obscurity only two albums into her career.

Detroit jail and takes her in when The memoir follows Jones as she takes the unglamorous Bettye refuses. Her “secretive” and road of recovery and overcomes a heroin addiction in the early “unpredictable” mother is the book’s most fascinating character. She’s ’80s. Inextricably tied to Tom Waits, the brooding lord of Venice Beach, a fierce matriarch, a force of love and rage. Jones writes, “One day Mom Jones schleps around the moniker “Tom Waits’ one-time girlfriend” for would fight for me like a lioness, the next she would slap me for spilling much too long, her career marked by not-so-subtle sexism and associamy milk.” Even after 100 pages of getting to know Richard and Bettye, it’s tions with a man she dated for a year. hard to know what to make of them.

“I think before I wrote [the book] I might have had an ax to grind,” Jones believes she’s “sculpted” the story the best she can to keep Jones tells me. But in writing Last Chance Texaco, that time of her life as readers from harshly judging her parents. At 66, she brings new perspeca famous young woman has begun to “sparkle in a beautiful way,” she tive to her childhood: “Some of us are born to live lives on an exaggersays. The process of writing the memoir “was heartbreaking and difficult, ated scale. Even as children we have a larger suitcase in which to carry but as with all things, now that it’s over, it just seemed like it was great.” all the things that will one day be on our backs.”

The suitcase is an apt metaphor. Her parents gave her the gift — or To read an extended version of this article — and more local curse — of an undying sense of wanderlust. Last Chance Texaco recounts book coverage — please visit Chapter16.org, an online publithe family taking to the road when Jones is 4. “Once they left Chicago cation of Humanities Tennessee. they never stopped moving,” she writes. They head off to Arizona to an-

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THE MIRACLE OF MOVEMENT

THE ARCHER

BY SHRUTI SWAMY ALGONQUIN BOOKS 304 PAGES, $26.95 ———— SWAMY WILL APPEAR AT 3:15 P.M. SATURDAY, OCT. 9, AT THE VIRTUAL SOUTHERN FESTIVAL OF BOOKS

A young dancer grapples with identity in The Archer

BY SARA BETH WEST AND CHAPTER16.ORG

FEELING NO BUT SAYING YES

Troubled kids find a balm for pain in the love of a good dog in Luna Howls at the Moon

BY TINA CHAMBERS AND CHAPTER16.ORG

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ost of my clients don’t mind when I lick their tears away,” says Luna, the protagonist of Kristin O’Donnell Tubb’s latest middle-grade novel. “Others want me to roll over and show them my belly. It’s all about the client. Reading them and responding. … Each of us has a different hole that needs filling. My job as a therapy dog is to find the shape of that hole and fill it.” Luna Howls at the Moon is Tubb’s third book to feature a service dog as narrator, a charming device that works well in this case to illustrate the value of pairing therapy animals with troubled children.

Luna works with her human, Tessa, in Austin, Texas, to provide a calming presence during therapy sessions with Tessa’s young patients: Caleb, a chessobsessed germaphobe whose parents are embroiled in a messy divorce; Amelia, the victim of trauma so

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PHOTO: ABE BINGHAM

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o be in the audience while a master dancer performs is to be swept up in the marriage of movement and music, elevated by the emotional truths conveyed in the dancer’s body, no words necessary. The dancer makes it all seem effortless, even — or perhaps especially — when the music and the body quiet at once and she is briefly motionless in her final position. As the audience releases a collectively held breath and bursts into grateful applause, the spell is broken. The dancer’s chest heaves with the effort; sweat drips from her face. When she releases to acknowledge her audience and exit the stage, she becomes fully visible, revealing the person she is inside that miracle of movement.

That moment, that breath of realization, is at the heart of Shruti Swamy’s first novel The Archer. Set in Bombay in the 1960s and ’70s, The Archer is divided into four sections, and in the opening act, young Vidya’s voice makes an arresting entrance. Immediately, readers are thrown into the small rooms where Vidya makes a life with her father and, later, her mother and brother (absent at the book’s opening for reasons that unfold hazily but with increasing clarity as the narrative progresses).

Restored to the family, her mother takes her to the Kal Sangam Bhavan Classical Music and Dance Complex, where she must watch her younger brother during the mother’s singing lessons. In a moment that could stand as a metaphor for the whole book, Vidya leaves her brother on the steps, drawn to a room where kathak (a form of Indian classical dance) is being taught and finds herself enthralled by the dancers “moving with varying grace and control, but all mov-

ing out of her body, reaching with her mind toward the notebook.” When Vidya emerged tentatively from class, “dance fell from her slowly, like a dress dripping rain.” And then there is the dancing itself, wild and transcendent, full of complexity and contrast: “To do the turns in her style was to declare that stillness was under everything — any whirling motion, any violent emotion, joy, irritation, anger, grief — and so to offer both dancer and watcher a way out of their pain.”

Every page of The Archer holds evidence of Swamy’s talent, each sentence a performance so strong as to appear effortless.

But just as with an elite dancer, only in the recognition of the effort can we truly appreciate the art. Like any rapt audience, readers will delight and despair in the fiercely wrought world of The Archer, fully aware they are witnessing greatness.

ing with purpose, their bodies taut with the effort of correctness, their feet speaking and their eyes driven inward. Vidya, in the doorway, was not seen, was only seeing, her body lifting unconsciously, straightening itself, wanting to stand and move correctly as she watched.”

In that watching, Vidya discovers in herself a hunger that will define and describe the rest of her life. But when her mother disappears, Vidya must raise her younger brother and keep house for her father, and the questions begin: What if a woman does not want this life of domestic service? What will happen to her brother, and to her, if she neglects or rejects this role of wife and mother? Can one become a mother without losing herself entirely?

Through the remaining sections of the book, Vidya explores her identity as an artist and as a woman. She both conforms to and defies the traditional expectations of her gender and class, all while grappling

with the desires of her body and mind and the raw ache of abandonment after the loss of her mother. It is her mother who named her after a dancer she saw in the newspaper.

It is her mother who tells her the story of Eklavya, the talented young archer who sacrifices his skill in submission to his teacher, losing himself in the discipline of his art.

But it is also her mother whose approval and support, love and shelter she continues to seek, even in her absence.

Swamy stunned the literary world with her debut story collection A House Is a Body.

In The Archer, she explores similar themes of gender, identity, pleasure and safety, always making great use of physical descriptions. Vidya’s mother is described as having a “restless body”; her eyes are “keen and dark and hard, like the eyes of a man”; and she wears “strange shoes … that made the neighbors whisper.” As Vidya watches her mother writing in the early dark before the house awakes, the mother is described as “lean-

severe she has completely stopped speaking; Beatrice, who translates her grief into sudden fits of rage and violence; and Hector, whose weary and compliant attitude signals deep depression. When Tessa decides they could all benefit from group therapy, the results are predictably volatile, yet when Hector doesn’t show up for a session, the other three take it personally and set off to look for him and find out why. Torn between her duty to Tessa and her duty to the kids, whom she has come to love and see as her pack, Luna decides to follow them.

As Tessa and the kids’ parents search for them, the children pursue an eventful and sometimes harrowing quest that includes a visit to the Museum of the Weird, a bloody nose, a dangerous water crossing, a twisted ankle, dancing in the rain, thousands of bats, nighttime swimming and run-ins with threatening older boys and even a wild animal — all with commentary that only Luna can hear, delivered by a haughty one-eyed stray cat with delusions of literary grandeur. Throughout this whirlwind of activity, Luna struggles to keep her head above water, sometimes literally, and take care of her kids. Along the way she is pleased to see that Caleb, Amelia and even Bea

lasted too long, blazed too bright, and begin to work together, LUNA HOWLS AT THE you can’t remember what cold feels let their walls down a MOON like. The leaves are crisping around little, and stand up

BY KRISTIN O’DONNELL TUBB their edges, but they haven’t yet for one another.

KATHERINE TEGEN BOOKS whispered goodbye to their trees.

Luna is a 240 PAGES, $16.99 Everything is thirsty.”

———— splendid narraTUBB WILL APPEAR AT 1 P.M. In other words, there are treats tor — naive yet SATURDAY, OCT. 9, AT THE galore for readers of Luna Howls insightful about VIRTUAL SOUTHERN FESTIVAL at the Moon, as well as gentle the often-confusing OF BOOKS messages about survival, friendship, behavior of humans. loyalty and especially courage. It’s not She dubs shoes “foot easy for Luna to sort through all of the messy prisons,” swears “there’s nothhuman emotions swirling around her and figure out ing in the world a little toilet water what her kids need most, but her desire to give them can’t fix” and insists “shouting is all she has is inspiring to the reader and to the charlike getting kicked with words.” She is quite eloquent acters themselves, who depend on her throughout the on the canine system for measuring time: “Humans story for love and support. move through time by slicing it into seconds, minIn the end, Luna wisely declares: “Before today, utes, hours. Dogs move through time in a rainbow of I would’ve said courage is a paved road, solid and colors: days begin with pink, then yellow, then white, steady and sure. Easy to map. But now I know courorange, lilac, blue, purple, black. Humans would see age is simply feeling no but saying yes. And we need a lot more beauty in their world if they saw it through it all the time.” That goes for dogs and humans — and rainbows instead of timepieces.” maybe even cats.

Tubb sneaks in some truly lovely descriptive passages along the way. She writes: “Bats pull the sky For more local book coverage, please toward them. They climb awkwardly, with great vigor visit Chapter16.org, an online publication and much flapping. Birds sail like sleek needles over of Humanities Tennessee. silk, but bats earn every inch of height they gain.”

Later: “It’s the part of summer when summer has

For more local book coverage, please visit Chapter16.org, an online publication of Humanities Tennessee

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TENNESSEE STORMWATER

Siegrist employs a second-person point of view toward the town official who acted as Mary’s executioner, which creates an instructive tone heavy with the weight of inevitable death. “You will unlock the train shed where the crane is stored. When you hang an elephant it is best to tighten three chains around its neck, but you won’t know this yet.” The narrative lingers with the man

BY LAUREN TURNER AND CHAPTER16.ORG after the hanging, around the dinner table with his children, explaining that Mary “is with God now, knee deep in cool water blowhe winner of the 2020 C. ing a trunkful high into the air.”

Michael Curtis Short Story Siegrist’s ability to utilize different points Book Prize, We Imagined It of view on the same historic event in these Was Rain is an immersive stories permeates such a sweeping tragedy debut collection of loosely with a sense of intimacy, creating empathy connected short stories from amid more immediate feelings of despair.

Tennessee native Andrew Siegrist. Each We see how these characters encounter story functions as a tributary feeding into the one another on occasion, never in an oversame winding river, flooded with legends, wrought way, natural as a rumor traveling evocative imagery and carefully crafted through the grapevine of a rural town. In characters. While set in modern times, these several stories, characters are haunted stories are imbued with a timelessness by the local folklore of a young deeply rooted to their setting. They woman with eyelashes so long are Tennessee tales of love, loss, WE IMAGINED IT they are braided. In “Nightfaith and mystery.

WAS RAIN mare Prayers,” her story is Siegrist’s characters are

BY ANDREW SIEGRIST HUB CITY PRESS illuminated: ordinary people with ev196 PAGES, $16.95 He heard that her father eryday concerns, and yet ———— had taught her how to dithere is an invocation of the SIEGRIST WILL APPEAR AT 1:30 P.M. vine sacred ground, how to extraordinary threading SUNDAY, OCT. 10, AT THE VIRTUAL 2021 SOUTHERN FESTIVAL move slow through the lost their lives together, often emOF BOOKS parts of the woods and feel for bodied by the elemental power God’s breath. And once she got of water. In one story, a grieving the hang of it, she father discovers a charged a week’s coffin in the woods pay to show people rumored to be full of where to bury their saltwater. In another, prayers. She’d a brother and sister even dig the hole take their father out for them. And sure on his boat, where enough the following he’s asked them to spring they’d come assist in his suicide. back with prayers A man drinks from answered to the spot a jar of stormwashe’d marked and ter whenever he’s see that something struck by his desire beautiful had grown. for something stronBut one year nothing ger. A father leads bloomed, and people his children to the claimed the prayers woods to witness a they’d buried hadn’t “rainpainter,” collabbeen answered. orating with the rain In a story called to make wild paint“Jaima,” a little girl ings with dyes made notes “some things of berries or crushed cast shadows even creek pebbles. A at night, and some small-town pastor animals don’t make reckons with the noise when they wreckage of his marwalk.” Siegrist’s riage and with his characters observe and listen to their world flooded church, clearing one storm-soaked with an attentiveness tied to survival, and hymnal after another. In this collection, we are rapt alongside them — waiting for water is heralded as a destructive force as the storm to roll in, awestruck by the priswell as a creative one, signaling something matic light in the aftermath, connecting us beyond human understanding. to something poignantly human.

In two different stories, we encounter Following in the lineage of Southern writthe harrowing tale of Mary the circus elers like Flannery O’Connor and William ephant who in 1916 killed her trainer and Faulkner, Siegrist depicts characters both was hanged in Erwin, Tenn. In “Elephants,” graceful and grotesque, often with a capactwo schoolboys look for Mary’s tusks at ity for both when faced with stark hardher gravesite near the railroad tracks after ships. Outsiders on the fringe of society, as dark, where one boy silently wishes “that well as community leaders such as pastors, there was no black and white photo of it all entwine in this gorgeous ecosystem of that made me sick to my stomach. Because contemporary Southern life. a wish like that was silly when there are moms that can’t get out of their own beds For more local book coverage, and uncles that no longer come around and please visit Chapter16.org, an online take their nephews hunting.” publication of Humanities Tennessee.

In “How to Hang a Circus Elephant,”

Andrew Siegrist rides the winding river of the human spirit in We Imagined It Was Rain

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FRESH SOIL IN OLD TERRITORY

Ron Rash’s In the Valley displays his masterful command of short fiction

BY EMILY CHOATE AND CHAPTER16.ORG

R

on Rash’s latest story collection, In the Valley: Stories and a Novella Based on Serena, roams the mountains, coves, farms and small towns of Western North Carolina — the locus of his formidable body of work.

From haunting short-form meditations on loss to a thrilling novella that revives Serena, Rash’s most indelible antihero from his 2008 novel of the same name, In the Valley offers a distillation of his storytelling mastery at its best.

Though these stories contain many of the author’s signature moves, and the subjects and motifs cover perennial Appalachian territory, Rash’s precision of craft and keen insight into character remain sharp and surprising. “Neighbors” features a familiar scene of historical fiction: a young Civil War widow threatened by looting soldiers. But Rash enters the insular logic of the woman’s dilemma, exploring the to his belt buckle, which deflected a Minié ball midconsequences of choosing one’s loyalties in a way battle. This defining event was double-edged: “Pure that feels unnervingly current. “Ransom” is an eerie luck, his comrades called it as they’d marveled at revenge tale about the kidnapping of a pharmathe buckle and its indention. After Chickamauga, ceutical executive’s daughter — pushing a familiar some touched the buckle before battle, but it Appalachian subject (pill addiction’s communal toll) seemed the luck was indeed pure, unable to be diinto a fresh plotline. luted and spread to others, then or afterward.” While Most of the stories feature haunted protagonists caring for his infant great-grandson, however, Jubal who may not take bold actions themselves, but who recognizes glimmers of his old luck, a belief witness or assist those actions through put to the test when floodwaters near his others. The characters are often house start to rise.

IN THE VALLEY: burdened by painful choices and STORIES AND A NOVELLA In the Valley culminates with regrets, sometimes to a paralyzBASED ON SERENA its captivating titular work — a ing degree, but externalized

BY RON RASH novella sprung from Rash’s 2008 drama happens largely offstage DOUBLEDAY novel. The opening scene finds or to other characters. These 240 PAGES, $26.95 ———— Serena, a logging company chief stories respect quiet fortitude, RASH WILL APPEAR AT with a near-mythic reputation for while never minimizing or sen4:15 P.M. SATURDAY, OCT. 9, AT THE ruthlessness, facing a reporter’s timentalizing the price of such VIRTUAL SOUTHERN FESTIVAL question about when her ambitions restraint.

OF BOOKS will be fulfilled. Her answer cuts to the Rash has a gift for implying deep heart of this novella’s dark vision: “When grief or suffering through the smallest the world and my will are one.” of gestures — a widow hesitates to burn a We follow Serena and her one-handed henchman letter; a father hints at knowledge of his son’s violent Galloway as they close out Serena’s last American streak; a husband asks his wife whether their grown logging interest by exploiting the land to the hilt children called that day; a sober convenience store under a deadline that seems impossible. A fog owner refuses to stock even a single beer on his of pervasive danger hovers over this endeavor, as shelves. expressed by a recent hire: “Quince had the uneasy Another Rash specialty is a tone of plaintive feeling that he had come to a place where all mantenderness that imbues his prose with mystery. ner of strange occurrences were possible, and none “L’Homme Blessé” follows an art professor who of them good.” investigates murals on a condemned farmhouse’s As this desperate stretch of logging escalates, walls. Painted by a traumatized WWII veteran, the murals may look “like something copied from a book gruesome deaths and injuries multiply rapidly.

But that horror is only part of this story’s violence, by a talented child,” but as he “stared at them he bearing out Quince’s ominous insight that “the pale was moved that the man felt such a deep need to stumps made the land look poxed, as if infected by express what he’d endured.” Recently widowed, the some dread disease.” Bringing this point home, Rash professor moves through his days clenched with also includes lyrical interstitial passages that list the grief, yet he finds himself driven to learn why the progression of wildlife loss that logging will bring to veteran re-created ancient cave paintings in the this valley — environmental destruction that parallels bedroom he rarely left. the human suffering that Serena and Galloway don’t Several stories provide compelling counterpoint hesitate to inflict. through protagonists who do take bold action With every story, In the Valley showcases Rash’s themselves. “Flight” focuses on a park ranger named skillful attention to nuance and surprise. Through Stacy, a dead ringer for one of the dual protagonists seamless prose and unforgettable images, Rash of Rash’s 2016 novel Above the Waterfall. Stacy’s continues to cultivate ways of nurturing fresh soil in childhood traumas led every authority figure to even his most familiar territory. watch her with hypervigilance. As a result, she now refuses to give them what they want: “He wanted For more local book coverage, please her to react, Stacy knew. They always had—words, visit Chapter16.org, an online publication tears, something.” But beneath the appearance of of Humanities Tennessee. restraint, she is planning her next move.

In “The Belt,” elderly veteran Jubal owes his life EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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ALL EVENTS ARE ONLINE AND FREE. To view events Visit www.sofestofbooks.org Visit our Southern Festival of Books Facebook or YouTube pages or Download the free app for iOS or Android.

Dear Friends: We welcome you to the 33rd annual Southern Festival of Books: A Celebration of the Written Word! We are holding our Festival online, which was a difficult decision for our staff and board. But there are benefits, most importantly the chance to reach and engage many more readers. We hope you will share session information with your friends and family across the country and enjoy these events together. Please visit the Festival website at www. sofestofbooks.org for more information on taking part in sessions, purchasing our great merchandise, and donating to the event. This vital support helps to keep the Festival free to all. Our sessions began online on September 21, so there is already a wealth of wonderful content to enjoy, and we hope you will do so. The sessions listed in this program will be coming to you live over the next few days. They offer opportunities to connect and to engage, and your participation matters. The questions and discussion that arise from these conversations are what make individual session experiences unique. We thank the authors who are joining us from all over the United States and three other countries, and we thank you for making the Festival a celebration of the written word.

Enjoy!

Tim Henderson Executive Director Humanities Tennessee

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Sessions with titles in purple below are part of a special track entitled “A More Perfect Union,” supported in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7

7:00-7:45 pm

PRESENTED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS AND THE TENNESSEE CENTER FOR THE BOOK

Jason Reynolds, Library of Congress National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, discusses his ambassador platform, GRAB THE MIC: Tell Your Story, and his award-winning book Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks, in addition to demonstrating new ways educators can connect to kids. Presented in collaboration with Humanities Tennessee Southern Festival of Books. This session is part of our “A More Perfect Union” track, supported in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities. AMPU

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7 7:30-8:15 pm

Southern Foodways Alliance Presents the John Egerton Prize

The Southern Foodways Alliance presents the 2021 John Egerton Prize to Dara Cooper, national organizer with the National Black Food and Justice Alliance.

Dara will be in conversation with poet Jasmine Mans.

The event will be introduced by author Alice Randall and moderated by Zaire Love, documentary filmmaker with the Southern Foodways Alliance. AMPU

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9 9:00-9:45 am

In Conversation: Jesse Graves, Clay Matthews, and Anna B. Sutton

Exploring the Appalachian world we know, and think we know, poets Jesse Graves (Merciful Days: Poems), Clay Matthews (Four-Way Lug Wrench), and Anna B. Sutton (Savage Beauty) share new works.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9 10:00-10:45 am

In Conversation: Margaret Renkl and Ann Patchett

Margaret Renkl’s new book, Graceland, at Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache from the American South, features pieces from her body of work as a New York Times opinion columnist. In them she explores the culture, social justice, and politics of the South that has always been her home. She will be joined in conversation by acclaimed novelist Ann Patchett. AMPU

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9 11:00-11:45 am

In Conversation: Jack Bedell, KB Ballentine, and George Ella Lyon

In moving and lyrical new collections, KB Ballentine Echo), Jack Bedell (Color All Maps: New (Edge of the Echo Poems), and George Ella Lyon ((Back to the Light: Poems Poems), share with us wisdom of the earth, a return to Poems dreams, and the arc of lives.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9 11:00-11:45 am

In Conversation: Sanjena Sathian and Helene Wecker Helene Wecker ((The Hidden Palace: A Novel of

NASHVILLE SCENE | OCTOBER 7 – OCTOBER 13, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

AMPU

AM Perfe ore ct Unio n

the Golem and the Jinni)) and Sanjena Sathian (Golddiggers: A Novel) bring fantasy and magical realism in these bestselling new novels. Through layers of complex and strange characters, known and unknown lands, and even a little alchemy, transport yourself to different worlds through these novels.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9 11:30 am – 12:15 pm

Sisters in Crime Presents: J.T. Ellison, Debra Goldstein, and Lisa Wysocky

From the Sisters in Crime Nashville chapter comes a lively conversation titled “Character Assassination: When is the Right Time to Say Goodbye?” Mystery lovers and others struggling with the character on the page, join us!

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9 12:00-12:45 pm

In Conversation: Georgann Eubanks and Cynthia Kaufman

Climate change headlines tell of devastating floods and wildfires, but there are important grassroots stories to share as well. Georgann Eubanks (Saving the Wild South) and Cynthia Kaufman (The Sea is Rising and So Are We) share how to preserve disappearing fauna and take a more active role in combating climate change at the local level. This event is part of the “Environments” track, which we proudly present in partnership with the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities at Vanderbilt University.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9 12:00-12:45 pm

In Conversation: Adrian Matejka and Major Jackson

In brilliant new collections, Adrian Matejka (Somebody Else Sold the World) and Major Jackson (The Absurd Man: Poems), look for stability ty and hope amid a complex and challenging world. AMPU

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9 12:45-1:45 pm

Remembering William Gay

Friends and colleagues of the late William Gay will discuss his last posthumous novel, Fugitives of the Heart, and share stories of the storied writer who remains an important voice in the Tennessee literary landscape. The panel includes Rick Bragg, Sonny Brewer, Suzanne Kingsbury, Ron Rash, and Michael White.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9 1:00-1:45 pm

In Conversation: Andrew Maraniss, Jamie Sumner, and Kristin Tubb

Great middle grade writers remember what it’s like to be between childhood and teenage years. These three great writers share funny, inspiring, and moving stories, both true and truthful. Featuring Jamie Sumner (One Kid’s Trash), Andrew Maraniss (Glenn Burke: Singled Out) and Kristin Tubb (Luna Howls at the Moon).

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9 1:15-2:00 pm

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9 4:15-5:00 pm

A 115-year-old man lies on his deathbed as the 2016 election results arrive, and revisits his life in this moving story of love, fatherhood, and the American century from Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler.

Through these powerful memoirs and essay collections, writers Briane Broome (Punch Me Up to the Gods), Anjali Enjeti (South-Bound), and Nichole Perkins (Sometimes I Trip on How Happy We Can Be) tell their stories in funny, moving, and brilliant prose. AMPU

Late City: A Novel Robert Olen Butler

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9 2:15-3:00 pm

I’ll Take You There: Exploring Nashville’s Social Justice Sites Learotha Williams and Amie Thurber Before there were guidebooks, there were just guides-people in the community you could count on to show you around. I’ll Take You There is written by and with the people who most intimately know Nashville, foregrounding the struggles and achievements of people’s movements toward social justice. The colloquial use of “I’ll take you there” has long been a response to the call of a stranger: for recommendations of safe passage through unfamiliar territory, a decent meal and place to lay one’s head, or perhaps a watering hole or juke joint.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9 2:15-3:00 pm

Last Chance Texaco: Chronicles of an American Troubadour Rickie Lee Jones

Last Chance Texaco is the first ever no-holdsbarred account of the life of one of rock’s hardest working women in her own words. With candor and lyricism Rickie Lee Jones takes us on the journey of her exceptional life: from her nomadic childhood as the granddaughter of vaudevillian performers, to her father’s abandonment of the family and her years as a teenage runaway, her beginnings at LA’s Troubadour club, to her tumultuous relationship with Tom Waits, her battle with drugs, and longevity as a woman in rock and roll. Jones will be in conversation with Ann Powers, music critic for National Public Radio.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9 3:15-4:00 pm

In Conversation: Anjali Enjeti and Shruti Swamy

Join novelists Anjali Enjeti (The Parted Earth) and Shruti Swamy (The Archer) for a discussion about works centered Bombay and New Delhi, exploring art, family, and the search for answers.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9 3:15-4:00 pm

The Speckled Beauty: A Dog and His People Rick Bragg

Speck arrived in Rick Bragg’s life at a moment of looming uncertainty. A cancer diagnosis, chemo, kidney failure, and recurring pneumonia had left Rick lethargic and melancholy. Speck helped, and he is helping, still, when he is not peeing on the rose of Sharon. Written with Bragg’s inimitable blend of tenderness and sorrow, humor and grit, The Speckled Beauty captures the extraordinary, sustaining devotion between two damaged creatures who need each other to heal.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9 3:15-4:00 pm

In Conversation: Destiny Birdsong, Janisse Ray, and Marianne Worthington

The fundamental questions might include: What makes a place? What are the luckiest moments? What is the self? Three poets explore these questions and more.

Featuring Destiny Birdsong (Negotiations: Poems), Janisse Ray (Red Lanterns), and Marianne Worthington (The Girl Singer)

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9 7:00-8:00 pm

In Conversation: Brian Broome, Anjali Enjeti, and Nichole Perkins

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9 4:15-5:00 pm

In Conversation: Wiley Cash, Bobbie Ann Mason, and Ron Rash

Join this phenomenal group of poets, hip-hop artists, spoken word champions, and authors for an evening of words and music curated by Taria Person. Person has won multiple 1st place regional Spoken Word and HipHop Slam Champion titles from (2012 -2017), performed at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival (2019), and produced and performed their original works Hangers at the Arkansas Theatre Festival 2020. AMPU

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10 12:00-12:45 pm

On the page and in conversation, writers Wiley Cash (When Ghosts Come Home), Ron Rash (In the Valley), and Bobbie Ann Mason (Dear Ann) blend storytelling traditions with new ideas of the South and beyond.

When the Stars Go Dark: A Novel Paula McLain

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9 5:00-5:45 pm

Reckoning: Tennessee Writers on 2020 Susannah Felts, Delaney Gray, Margaret Littman, Nicholas Bush

Reckoning invites readers to bear witness to 2020 from diverse angles, from a front porch in Knoxville to a virtual classroom in Johnson City; from the tornadoravaged neighborhood of East Nashville to the sidewalks of Memphis. These writers find surprising moments of joy and solace and humor in the midst of crisis, but do not shy from expressing grief and acute longing. Their essays, stories, and poems give us vivid glimpses of an unforgettable year, one in which we were all challenged to reckon with ourselves, our sense of community and safety, our commitment to justice, and our place on this planet. AMPU

From bestselling author Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife, comes her first foray into mystery. Weaving together actual cases of missing persons, trauma theory, and a hint of the metaphysical, this propulsive and deeply affecting novel tells a story of fate, necessary redemption, and what it takes when the worst happens to reclaim our lives, and our faith in one another.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10 12:00-12:45 pm

In Conversation: Orville Vernon Butler, Armand Derfner, and Joshua Rothman

Scholars Joshua Rothman (The Ledger and the Chain), Armand Derfner and Orville Vernon Burton (Justice Deferred) explore the legal and judicial systems that protected and upheld systemic racism for centuries.

AMPU

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10 12:15-1:00 pm

In Conversation: Adrian Miller and John Shelton Reed

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9 5:15 pm-6:00 pm

I Take My Coffee Black: Reflections on Tupac, Musical Theater, Faith, and Being Black in America Tyler Merritt

In I Take My Coffee Black, Tyler tells hilarious stories from his own life as a black man in America. He talks about growing up in a multi-cultural community and realizing that he wasn’t always welcome, how he quit sports for musical theater (that’s where the girls were) to how Jesus barged in uninvited and changed his life forever (it all started with a Triple F.A.T. Goose jacket) to how he ended up at a small Bible college in Santa Cruz because he thought they had a great theater program (they didn’t). Throughout his stories, he also seamlessly weaves in lessons about privilege, the legacy of lynching and sharecropping and why you don’t cross black mamas. He teaches readers about the history of encoded racism that still undergirds our society today. AMPU

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9 5:30-6:15 pm

Small Changes: A Rules-Free Guide to Add More Plant-Based Foods, Peace, and Power to Your Life Alicia Witt

Poetry Hour with Taria Person and Friends: Heather Davis, Jason Frisby, Drew Drake, Rhea Carmon, and Joseph Woods

Few topics engender such strong opinions as barbecue.

Experts John Shelton Reed (On Barbecue) and Adrian Miller (Black Smoke) help us break it down; the history, the technique, and the reason this ancient cooking technique creates such passionate scholarship and discussion today. AMPU

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10 1:15-2:00 pm

Faithful Presence: The Promise and Peril of Faith in the Public Square Governor Bill Haslam

Two-term governor of Tennessee Bill Haslam reveals how faith - too often divisive and contentious — can be a redemptive and unifying presence in the public square. For Christians ready to be salt and light, as well as for those of a different faith or no faith at all, Faithful Presence argues that faith can be a redemptive, healing presence in the public square — as it must be, if our nation is to flourish. AMPU

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10 1:15-2:00 pm

Hot, Hot Chicken: A Nashville Story Rachel Martin

Author and actor Alicia Witt isn’t here to dole out lists of dos and don’ts. But she is here to show how adopting the “small changes philosophy” allows you to find balance, eat healthier, and feel better physically and emotionally. She also invites you into her adventurous life, both on and off the set, in stories infused with candor and humor. This event is part of the “Environments” track, which we proudly present in partnership with the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities at Vanderbilt University.

These days, hot chicken is a “must-try” Southern food.

Hot, Hot Chicken recounts the history of Nashville’s Black communities through the story of its hot chicken scene from the Civil War, when Nashville became a segregated city, through the tornado that ripped through North Nashville in March 2020. AMPU

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10 1:30-2:15 pm

In Conversation: Bradley Sides and Andrew Siegrist

In short story collections, Bradley (ThoseSCENE Fantastic | OCTOBER 7 – OCTOBER 13, 2021Sides | NASHVILLE nashvillescene.com 23

Lives: And Other Strange Stories)) and Andrew Siegrist (We Imagined It Was Rain), ), explore masculinity, home, transformation and loss.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10 2:30-3:15 pm

In Conversation: Tracey Baptiste and Andrea Williams

Tracey Baptiste (African Icons) and Andrea Williams (We Are Family) inspire and educate young readers with stories of African icons and contemporary families who encourage achieving dreams through perseverance.

AMPU

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10 2:30-3:15 pm

Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy David Zucchino

combine Kentucky’s bounty with Michel’s celebrated vision. Diners can enjoy traditional southern staples like buttermilk biscuits, country ham, and PoBoy sandwiches, or opt for unique variations on international favorites and American classics. Now, readers around the country can experience what makes Ouita Michel a culinary and cultural treasure.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10 3:30-4:15 pm

In Conversation: Ed Tarkington and Simon Van Booy

Fate and fortune play a role in these new novels that feature indelible characters and precisely beautiful prose, from Ed Tarkington (The Fortunate Ones) and Simon Van Booy (Night Came with Many Stars).

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10 3:30-4:15 pm

Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness Kristen Radtke

This book, the 2021 recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction, uses contemporary newspaper accounts, diaries, letters and official communications to create a gripping and compelling narrative that weaves together individual stories of hate and fear and brutality. This is a dramatic and definitive account of a remarkable but forgotten chapter of American history. AMPU

This one is for admirers of the art of graphic novels and humans who are living through the COVID era. In Seek You, Kristen Radtke’s wide-ranging exploration of our inner lives and public selves, Radtke digs into the ways in which we attempt to feel closer to one another, and the distance that remains. Through the lenses of gender and violence, technology and art, Radtke ushers us through a history of loneliness and longing, and shares what feels impossible to share. AMPU

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10 2:30-3:15 pm

In Conversation: Denny S. Bryce, Joy Jordan-Lake, Julia Claiborne Johnson, and Alana White

Through historical and contemporary romantic and romantic comedies, these four books bring humor and insight to the world of love. Featuring Denny S. Bryce (Wild Women and the Blues), Julia Claiborne Johnson (Better Luck Next Time), Joy Jordan-Lake (Under a Gilded Moon), and Alana White (Sign of the Weeping Virgin).

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10 3:30-4:15 pm

Just A Few Miles South: Timeless Recipes from Our Favorite Places Sara Gibbs and Ouita Michel For twenty years, diners in the Bluegrass state have been able to satisfy their cravings for Ouita Michel’s sustainable, farm-to-table cuisine at her many acclaimed restaurants. Each restaurant (from Wallace Station to Holly Hill Inn) features dishes that

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8 5:00-6:00 pm

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10 4:30-5:30 pm

Poetry with Taria Person and Friends: Dominique Robinson, Chris Barton, Calvin Ockletree, Ryan Andrews, and Boris Rogers

Join this phenomenal group of poets, hip-hop artists, spoken word champions, and authors for an evening of words and music curated by Taria Person. Person has won multiple 1st place regional Spoken Word and Hip-Hop Slam Champion titles from (2012 -2017), performed at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival (2019), and produced and performed their original works Hangers at the Arkansas Theatre Festival 2020. AMPU

Virtual Fundraiser

In Conversation:

Alice Waters (We Are What We Eat: A Slow Food Manifesto) Laurie Woolever (Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography) Moderated by Lisa Donovan (Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger: A Memoir)

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Everyone who contributes a tax-deductible gift of $50 or more, now through Oct. 7 at 11:59 pm CST, will be able to join us for a special Zoom room session featuring Alice Waters, Laurie Woolever, and Lisa Donovan for a lively conversation about their books, culinary experiences, travel adventures, and so much more!

Those giving at the $50 level will receive a signed copy of Waters’ book. A gift of $100 includes Waters’ and Woolever’s books, and gifts at higher levels will include additional curated gourmet thank you gifts.

For more information or to give, please visit www. sofestofbooks.org and click on Donate.

This event is a one-time only conversation and will not be recorded.

NASHVILLE SCENE | OCTOBER 7 – OCTOBER 13, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

Thank You Humanities Tennessee thanks the 2021 Southern Festival of Books Sponsors

CRITICS’ PICKS R O U N D U P

O F

T H I N G S

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account (@emdashphotos). The SPECTRUM artists aim to create an authentic space for solidarity and realness that upends traditional gender roles and boosts the visibility of the queer community. Liberate yourself from heteronormativity, friends!

Opening reception 6-8 p.m.; exhibition on view through Oct. 15 at the Hiram Van Gordon Gallery, Tennessee State University, Elliott Hall, 3500 John A. Merritt Blvd.

ERICA CICCARONE

FILM

FRIDAY / 10.08

1401 Ninth Ave. N.

[YOU AIN’T THIS GOOD]

CHUCK INDIGO W/RON OBASI & KHRYS HATCH

Last October, Chuck Indigo released No Moor Bad Days, a masterful hip-hop LP that thoroughly explores major social problems through a very personal lens, but also lifts up Black culture. Between samples of speeches from Black thinkers, he raps over trap-, jazz- and soul-kissed beats about the inequalities that have made it excessively difficult for Black communities to meet basic needs, much less thrive. He also takes an in-depth look at the pervasive anxiety, fatigue and anger that result from generations of Black people having to fight twice as hard to get half as much — in terms of justice, respect or wealth — as their fellow Americans who are white. At the same time, Indigo lays out a kaleidoscopic array of fundamental cultural and societal contributions from Black people throughout history: Where there’s long-standing pain, there’s also long-standing strength. As pandemic restrictions have eased, you’ve

had a few opportunities to see him perform in person this year, but don’t sleep on Thursday’s show. Indigo headlines with support from fellow thoughtful MCs Ron Obasi (whose 2020 release Sun Tapes is a must-listen) and Khrys Hatch. See Indigo’s Instagram — @iamchuckindigo — for the link to advance tickets. 7 p.m. at 1401 Ninth Ave. N. STEPHEN TRAGESER ART

MUSIC

THURSDAY / 10.07

[ROY G BIV]

SPECTRUM, A SHOW ABOUT GENDER IDENTITY

From Frida Kahlo to Kehinde Wiley, queer artists have long disrupted gender stereotypes, pushing past the binary into radical worlds. The current exhibition at Tennessee State University looks at expressions of gender through video, photography and paint. SPECTRUM, A show about gender identity features Ciwan Veysel, Heriberto “Eddie” Palacio III, Meg Pie Pollard, Ta’Miracle Carruthers, Sophia Stevenson and Emily April Allen. The Scene recently featured Allen in our Pride Issue for her rad portrait series Queers in Quarantine and The Nashville Bi Diaries, which you can find on her Instagram

HEIST! SERIES: LE CERCLE ROUGE

Jean-Pierre Melville’s filmography — including the hitman classic Le Samouraï — is brimming with unique, stylized takes on genre movies that made him the spiritual godfather of the French New Wave. Melville’s influence can also be felt in works by John Woo, Michael Mann and Quentin Tarantino, and Le Cercle Rouge is a good primer on Melville’s strippeddown, gritty French take on Raymond Chandler-style trench-coats-and-cigarettes noir. In Le Cercle Rouge, a group of acquaintances separately prepare to heist a jewelry store. Melville builds his characters and plot deliberately, line by line, action by action, frame by frame. It’s a slow burn, but it builds to one of the most memorable heist sequences in the genre. That sequence alone makes Le Cercle Rouge a don’t-miss — it’s the last screening in the Belcourt’s Heist! series, and a good one to go out on. Oct. 8-10 at the Belcourt, 2102 Belcourt Ave. JOE NOLAN MUSIC

CHUCK INDIGO THURSDAY, OCT. 7

[STRONG FINISH]

[MIXTAPE MISTAKE]

MAE & JULIANA THEORY

For sad young men of A Certain Age who grew up in that glorious time when burned CDs replaced mixtapes as the budget-friendly way to demonstrate almost certainly unrequited love (and before the chilly impersonality of Spotify playlists took hold), there were some mainstays when crafting 74 minutes of emotional expression.

Being earnest to a fault (a requirement for this undertaking) meant opening with Brand New’s “Mix Tape,” because, after all, “this

is the first song for your mixtape.” After that opener, the sonic equivalent of queen’s pawn to d4, you’d throw in something by The Smiths to demonstrate profundity, something by The Go! Team to show you could still have fun, and something by Bikini Kill to show you had an older sister. And then it’s chockablock with barely-on-theradar emo bands (with some Dashboard about two-thirds of the way in to ensure they’d listen to most of the disc). Mae’s “Soundtrack for Our Movie” and The Juliana Theory’s “If I Told You This Was Killing Me, Would You Stop?” were probably on there. And now, nearly two decades later, the former Tooth & Nail labelmates are on the road together. Both bands, older now, are no longer full of the weltschmerz that defined an era (though TJT’s latest disc is re-recordings of those angsty songs), and both are trying to be more experimental sonically (strings!). Because the genre redefines itself with each new cohort of teens, there’s never going to be much room for reexamination of emo groups of any era — so kudos to them for trying to grow up with their fans, even though the tour is officially recognizing the anniversary of Mae’s The Everglow and TJT’s Emotion Is Dead. The bands press play on the mixtape Friday. 8 p.m. at The Basement East, 917 Woodland Ave. J.R. LIND DANCE

W E E K L Y

[RADICAL FAERIES]

NASHVILLE BALLET PRESENTS PETER PAN

Nashville Ballet opens its 36th season this weekend in high-flying style with Paul Vasterling’s delightful Peter Pan. This beautiful, grand-style production — first presented in 2013, and most recently seen in 2015 — boasts a newly arranged musical score

by Philip Feeney, featuring works by Debussy, Fauré, Ravel and Bizet, plus enchanting storybook designs from Campbell Baird. As always, Vasterling’s original choreography is lovely, and the flight effects are quite memorable. But it’s Vasterling’s thoughtful adaptation that is particularly charming — preserving all of the fun and wonder of J.M. Barrie’s classic tale, while removing some of the original text’s more questionable elements — including “outdated cultural depictions

LE CERCLE ROUGE

nashvillescene.com | OCTOBER 7 – OCTOBER 13, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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10/4/21 3:11 PM

CRITICS’ PICKS

OCTOBER 8 & 9

NOVEMBER 18

DEANA CARTER

DID I SHAVE MY LEGS FOR THIS? 25TH ANNIVERSARY ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10 AM NOVEMBER 29

BILLY IDOL & STEVE STEVENS ON SALE SATURDAY AT 10 AM DECEMBER 28

ROBERT EARL KEEN CHRISTMAS SHOW ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10 AM

JANUARY 19, 20 & 21

DWIGHT YOAKAM ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10 AM MARCH 31

MITSKI

[ZEN COUNTRY]

ALAN JACKSON

The title track of Alan Jackson’s new full-length Where Have You Gone bemoans the disappearance of traditional country music, and it carries an emotional charge. In the video for the song, Jackson stands on the stage of the Ryman with images of such great country stars as Johnny Cash and George Jones floating around him. “Where Have You Gone” illustrates a fundamental split — a cultural and social divide — between exponents of pre-Garth Brooks country and modern artists who seek to put country in line with, well, the modern world. In a supercharged era when Black singers like Adia Victoria, Mickey Guyton and Miko Marks are busy reshaping country music, what Jackson has to say isn’t irrelevant, but it’s not the big picture. However you want to define old-school country, its musical and social values still exist in Americana music.

Still, it’s a good song, and Where Have You Gone demonstrates just how Zen a singer Jackson continues to be — his cover of the country standard “That’s the Way Love Goes” will grab you, and the sentimentality of “Things That Matter” doesn’t detract from his understated vocal presence.

Jackson recently announced that he’s been suffering from a neurological disorder, but he plans to continue recording and touring.

Friday at Bridgestone, expect the hits, and he’s got plenty to choose from. 7:30 p.m. at Bridgestone Arena, 501 Broadway EDD HURT MUSIC

ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10 AM

and racist undertones.” Perfect for ages 4 and older, Peter Pan promises a magical evening of dance, full of fairies, mermaids, pirates and more. To enter, ticket holders 12 years and older will be required to show proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 or a negative COVID-19 PCR or antigen test result within 72 hours of the performance date. To learn more, visit nashvilleballet.com. Oct. 8-10 at TPAC’s Jackson Hall, 505 Deaderick St. AMY STUMPFL

[BLUES WIZARD]

JOE BONAMASSA

Beginning your career as a 12-yearold opening for B.B. King might seem like peaking early, and yet blues and rock wizard Joe Bonamassa has been successful in three-plus decades — as a soloist, bandleader, record label owner and

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occasional podcast host. While Bonamassa is a huge fan and lover of traditional Delta and modern Chicago blues as well as soul, his sound and style reflect a rock-oriented approach that also incorporates blues elements, and was likely honed through heroes and comrades like Jeff Beck, Rory Gallagher and Paul Rodgers, among others.

Still, Bonamassa’s solos, riffs and licks are grounded in blues sensibility enough to have earned respect and approval from hardcore blues veterans — he’s even won a Blues Music Award as a guitarist. Bonamassa has also displayed his versatility as a sideman through contributions to such bands as Black Country Communion and the jazzfusion ensemble Rock Candy Funk Party.

In recent years he’s also done quite a few things in Nashville — the most recent is the June 2021 LP and film Now Serving Royal Tea: Live From the Ryman, which raised $32,000 for his Fueling Musicians program that aids struggling musicians affected by the pandemic. He returns to the Ryman this weekend. 8 p.m. Oct. 8-9 at the Ryman, 116 Fifth Ave. N. RON WYNN

SATURDAY / 10.09 MUSIC

BOZ SCAGGS

NASHVILLE BALLET PRESENTS PETER PAN

MUSIC

OCTOBER 11

PHOTO: KARYN KIPLEY PHOTOGRAPHY

JOE BONAMASSA

[THIS (REALLY) COULD BE THE LAST TIME]

THE ROLLING STONES

It’d be easy to fill this entire blurb with gushing praise for Charlie Watts, the Stone who won’t be taking the stage when The Rolling Stones return to Nissan Stadium this weekend. Watts’ inimitable, understated groove moved more feet in more stadiums the world over than anyone in music history. Before the beloved skinsman’s death at 80 on Aug. 24, the last time a Rolling Stone shuffled off this mortal coil (former guitarist Brian Jones, in 1969) he became a member of the 27 club. That’s an impressive 52-year gap, and a sobering reminder that even the indefatigable, agedefying Teflon Dons of rock ’n’ roll are mere mortals. It’s also a reminder that this may actually be the last time Nashvillians see Mick Jagger shimmy down a catwalk, lips puffed with purpose like a dandy tornado of septuagenarian sex appeal, or his Glimmer Twin Keith Richards strum through his playbook of iconic riffs while looking like a shrugging skeleton held together by wire hangers and vodka screwdrivers. For

NASHVILLE SCENE | OCTOBER 7 – OCTOBER 13, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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10/4/21 3:11 PM

BE WILLING. BE THE SOURCE.

The Precious Jewel EXHIBIT NOW OPEN

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VISIT TODAY

CountryMusicHallofFame.org

nashvillescene.com | OCTOBER 7 – OCTOBER 13, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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10/1/21 12:00 PM

thebasementeast basementeast thebasementeast

917 Woodland Street Nashville, TN 37206 thebasementnashville.com

vegan with gluten-free options

NATALIE HEMBY // OCT 12

OKEY DOKEY // OCT 14

PARKER MILLSAP // OCT 16

NOGA EREZ // OCT 17

W/ ASHLEY RAY

Mask Appreciated

W/ NORDISTA FREEZE & GATLIN

W/ MCKINLEY DIXON

W/ MOLLY PARDEN

East Nashville | Wed-Mon (closed Tues) 615.262.2717 | wildcow.com Follow us on F or Ï to see daily specials!

MADISON CUNNINGHAM // OCT 18

GUS DAPPERTON // OCT 19

W/ S. G. GOODMAN

W/ SPILL TAB

Upcoming shows oct 7 oct 8 oct 11 oct 12 oct 14 oct 16 oct 17 Oct 18 oct 19 oct 20 oct 21 oct 22 oct 24 oct 25 oct 26 Oct 27 Oct 28 Oct 29 Oct 30

emo night tour Mae & The Juliana Theory k camp natalie hemby w/ashley ray okey dokey w/nordista freeze & gatlin parker millsap w/molly parden noga erez w/mckinley dixon Madison Cunningham w/s. g. goodman gus dapperton w/spill tab how long gone the backseat lovers w/branson anderson SOLD OUT! Pecos & the Rooftops w/slade coutler SOLD OUT! southern underground pro wrestling highly suspect SOLD OUT! tennis w/molly burch Jake Wesley Rogers shannon and the clams w/thelma and the sleaze tauk w/ three star revival

Rome & duddy

Oct 31 nov 2 nov 3 nov 4 nov 5 nov 7 nov 8 nov 9 Nov 10 NOV 11 Nov 12 Nov 13 Nov 14 Nov 16 Nov 17

badflower w/teenage wrist & dead poet society stephen day w/carly bannister shane smith & the saints susto w/hotel fiction & Paul Whitacre lucie silvas halfnoise w/ louis prince & elke the lemonheads w/ soft kill & hey rocco ayron jones w/ hounds JP Saxe w/ cat burns SOLD OUT! Bre kennedy Kolby Cooper ft. palmer anthony Kolby Cooper ft. corey kent MisterWives w/ frances forever Chloe Moriondo w/ kid sistr & sydney rose John Mark McMillan w/ the gray havens & antoine bradford

nov 18 nov 20

hayes carll andy frasco & the u.n. w/nick gerlach's cult conference

nov 23 nov 24

post animal & ron gallo Powerslave: an iron maiden tribute w/ blackened: a metallica tribute

DOWNTOWN

Saturday, October 9

Saturday, October 23

SONGWRITER SESSION

LIVE ON STAGE

Sarah Allison Turner NOON – 12:45 pm

FORD THEATER

•

LIVE AT THE HALL

Suiting the Sound The Rodeo Tailors Who Made Country Stars Shine Brighter •

The PTO Comedy Tour 8:00 pm

•

CMA THEATER

Friday and Saturday, November 12 and 13

Tuesday, October 12

7:00 pm

Nurse Blake

LIVE IN CONCERT

Willie Nelson And Family 8:00 pm

•

CMA THEATER

•

SOLD OUT

FORD THEATER

Thursday, December 2 Saturday, October 16

LIVE IN CONCERT

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Carly Pearce 7:30 pm

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Cassadee Pope NOON – 12:45 pm

LIILY // OCT 14

MATT MANN AND THE SHINE RUNNERS// OCT 15

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me Nd adam w/emily deahl (7 pm) the minks, basically nancy, & Justin and the cosmics (9 pm) samia w/ savannah conley SOLD OUT! julie williams & madeline edwards willi carlisle w/ cristina vane the 502s w/ samuel herb AJ smith (7 pm) liily w/ badculture (9 pm) troy cartwright (7 pm) matt mann & the shine runners w/ dusty

oct 16

the ladies of... ft. james hall

bo & hillbilly herald (9 pm)

oct 17 oct 18 oct 21 oct 22 oct 22 oct 23 oct 24 oct 25 Oct 27 Oct 28 nov 3

conor & the wild hunt w/ cole ritter & the night owls, paige parrucci

chris stapleton tribute satsang w/ tim snider and wolfgang sara kays w/ annie dirusso (7 PM) sylmar w/ lonely vacations, mercury (9pm) hans condor w/ kings of the fucking sea, ttotals eva cassel, erin jarvis, olivia barton moon kissed w/ quinn o'donnell The Texas Gentlemen w/ the pink stones meredith rounsley w/ kelly soule eberie,

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Keb’ Mo’ 7:30 pm

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Friday, December 17 Saturday, October 30 SONGWRITER SESSION

Alan Rhody and Rafe Van Hoy NOON – 12:45 pm

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Mike Farris Sings!

The Soul of Christmas 7:30 pm • CMA THEATER

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CRITICS’ PICKS

75 th Anniversary 2021/22 Season Live at the schermerhorn

H.E.R.

MAGIC

ADAM GOLD [MAKING MAGIC]

THE ILLUSIONIST: MICHAEL JOHN

MUSIC

Dream Nashville is bringing a little magic and mischief to Printer’s Alley with The Illusionist: Michael John. The Boston-based magician and model, who competed on Season 10 of America’s Got Talent and will be making an appearance on the next season of Britain’s Got Talent, is headlining an eight-week residency at the hotel’s nightclub and bar, Dirty Little Secret.

Shows will take place on Saturday nights from 7 to 9 p.m. through Nov. 20. Seated tickets are $35 and standing-room tickets are $20. The interactive two-hour show will feature the kind of close-up magic, sleightof-hand trickery and card tricks that have garnered John more than 80 million views on YouTube. Expect to be amazed. Saturdays through Nov. 20 at Dream Nashville’s Dirty Little Secret, 210 Printers Alley NANCY FLOYD [ANNIE IS OK]

ST. VINCENT

St. Vincent is one of several rock artists currently mining the 1970s for inspiration, as heard on her indulgent, delightfully sleazy new album Daddy’s Home. It’s a departure from her earlier work, which tended toward angular art pop and often addressed societal ills like our overreliance on technology. The artist

also known as Annie Clark will surely pull plenty from her beloved back catalog at her Saturday night show at Ascend — but look for this performance to be a looser, dare we say jammier affair than previous outings. To enter, attendees must show proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative test conducted within 72 hours of the show. 7:30 p.m. at Ascend Amphitheater, 301 First Ave. S. BRITTNEY MCKENNA

THIS WEEKEND • OCTOBER 8

MUSIC

SUNDAY / 10.10 [HER?]

H.E.R.

Though she’s just 24 years old, R&B singer and songwriter Gabriella Wilson — best known by her acronymic stage name H.E.R., which stands for “Having Everything Revealed” — has already landed four Grammys and an Oscar. One of those Grammys was for Song of the Year, which went to 2020’s “I Can’t Breathe,” a long and somber meditation on reckoning with American racism. The Oscar, meanwhile, was a Best Original Song win for “Fight for You” from the Judas and the Black Messiah soundtrack. Both are very good songs with powerful and important messages — but they just scratch the surface of what the Vallejo, Calif., native is capable of. This year’s 21-track Back of My Mind floats from dreamy, sultry slow-burners like the title song to anthemic bangers like “Hold On.” H.E.R. shares some musical DNA with R&B greats like D’Angelo and — thanks in no small part to her skills with a Stratocaster — Prince. On Sunday, H.E.R. will appear at FirstBank Amphitheater in Franklin — expect some shredding, some acrobatic vocals and more than a little star power. 7:30 p.m. at FirstBank Amphitheater, 4525 Graystone Quarry Lane, Franklin

Tickets on sale october 8 • December 20

WITH THE NASHVILLE SYMPHONY © The Princess Bride Limited. All Rights Reserved.

OCTOBER 29 & 30 1964 THE TRIBUTE

BEETHOVEN’s first

November 7

October 21 to 23

Presented without orchestra

NEXT GENERATION OF CLASSICAL MUSICIANS

KENNY G with the nashville SYMPHONY

November 4 to 6

CONCERT PARTNERS

November 12 & 13

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MONDAY / 10.11 MUSIC

journeyman drummer Steve Jordan, whom Watts approved as his substitute in his final public statement — and whose decadesspanning résumé already reads like a who’swho of rock and R&B legends — assuming Watts’ throne is the rock ’n’ roll equivalent of pinch hitting for Babe Ruth in the 1932 World Series. But Jordan is the obvious (maybe the only) acceptable understudy for Watts. He’s Richards’ longtime No. 2, his go-to drummer for his ’80s solo albums and work with Chuck Berry. The inscrutable telepathic rhythmic bond between Watts and Richards was the core of the Stones’ world-beating boogie, and it’s tough to see this twilight iteration of the band as not having an asterisk without it. But there is a silver lining: Soldiering on, as the Stones always have, gives the band (not just Jordan) something left to prove. And that’s what you want from the band that built its brand on decades of keeping things exciting.

7:30 p.m. at Nissan Stadium, 1 Titans Way

[COUNTRY U.S.A.]

CRAIG BROWN BAND W/LONG TALL SHORTY & COUNTRY WESTERNS

In a typical career arc for a modern quasi-country artist, Detroit singer, guitarist and songwriter Craig Brown started out as a punk rocker before getting hooked

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SUN

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JACKSON BRUCK & THE DUKES OF HUME

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W/ WALKER BURROUGHS, SHANNON LAUREN 10/14 CALLIHAN AND SPECIAL GUEST CHLOE CHANNELL

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10/13

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6:30

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OLIVER WOOD

COMING SOON 10-20 ETTA BRITT’S 65TH BIRTHDAY BASH 10-21 SONIA LEIGH, CURT CHAMBERS, MATT FERRANTI 10-22 THE EAGLEMANIACS 10-23 JEFFREY STEELE + ANTHONY SMITH 10-24 GIRLS WRITE NASHVILLE FEATURING BRITTANY HOWARD, MARGO PRICE, & MORE 10-26 TENILLE ARTS 10-27 THE CLEVERLYS 10-28 THE PETTY JUNKIES

10-29 10-30 11-3 11-4

VINYL RADIO RUBIKS GROOVE : HALLOWEEN WILLIE WATSON W/ NAT MYERS TUNED INTO 3RD FEAT. CHLOE LILAC & MORE 11-5 A PINK FLOYD EXPERIENCE : ANDERSON COUNCIL PERFORMS “MEDDLE WITH THE DARK SIDE” 11-6 ARLO MCKINLEY 11-7 LERA LYNN W/ ANDREW COMBS

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ALLISON MOORER at PARNASSUS I Dream He Talks to Me 6:30PM

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NASHVILLE SCENE | OCTOBER 7 – OCTOBER 13, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

6:00PM

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3900 Hillsboro Pike Suite 14 Nashville, TN 37215 (615) 953-2243 Shop online at parnassusbooks.net

CRITICS’ PICKS

CRAIG BROWN BAND

EDD HURT

MUSIC

WEDNESDAY / 10.13 [ANGLES AND ARIAS]

ANGELS & AIRWAVES

OK, so 2020 wasn’t exactly a great year for anybody, but there was definitely a moment where Tom DeLonge felt some self-satisfaction. In April, the Pentagon released three previously classified videos of pilots encountering unidentified flying objects, admitting that, yes, military aviators have seen some weird shit they can’t explain. These were the exact videos DeLonge had released three years earlier.

The study of the truth about UFOs, Bigfoot and other fringey pursuits occupies quite a bit of DeLonge’s time, but the man who

earned his bones with Blink-182 spends a fair amount on Angels & Airwaves, an ambitious arena-rock-adjacent band that began as a side project when Blink went on hiatus in 2005. Intentionally grand and overthe-top (think U2 and Pink Floyd, but just, ya know, at Marathon Music Works instead of an enormodome) and true to DeLonge’s interests, Angels & Airwaves definitely dabbles in space rock. Much as Blink-182 was meant to be accessible punk, Angels & Airwaves tries (and often succeeds wonderfully) at making proggy noodling fit for mass consumption. The group plays an all-ages show with Bad Suns and 1990Nowhere. 7:30 p.m. at Marathon Music Works, 1402 Clinton St. J.R. LIND

EVERGREEN:

THINGS YOU CAN DO ANY TIME ART

on albums like The Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo and Dwight Yoakam’s Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc. Brown’s 2017 full-length The Lucky Ones Forget was produced by fellow Detroit resident Warren Defever, who recorded a series of brilliant albums with pop-rock-folk tricksters His Name Is Alive in the 1990s. The Lucky Ones Forget registers as novelty country in the mode of Jonny Fritz — Brown sounds like he just woke up, and the songs are funny and somewhat indecisive. For example, “Planet Song” is about how the earth is indifferent to human concerns, sort of, and he also devotes several verses to talking about vexing problems with his van. Brown’s 2020 track “Text Like a Republican” takes a look at national identity, except it’s also a joke: “Yeah, you were born in the U.S.A. / Where the English language came to die.” I also relish another supremely wobbly 2020 track, “I Can Change,” which Brown cut with Nashville band Thelma and the Sleaze.

Also appearing at Springwater on Monday will be Long Tall Shorty, led by Nashville singer and songwriter Chelsea Lovitt, whose 2018 album You Had Your Cake, So Lie in It combines country and garage rock ’n’ roll. Rounding out the bill is another fine country-rock band, Country Westerns.

9 p.m. at Springwater, 115 27th Ave. N.

[BOBBY FLUID]

VISIT A FLUID & EMPHATIC NOW AT THE BOBBY HOTEL

Tinney Contemporary is among Nashville’s most well-respected art galleries, and it’s uplifting to see it continue to grow even after the truncated exhibition schedules and gallery closures we’ve seen worldwide.

That’s all the more reason to celebrate The Collection at Bobby, a new collaborative art exhibition series that will bring quarterly art shows to the downtown boutique hotel, all curated by artist and Tinney gallery manager Joshua Edward Bennett. The premiere exhibit, A Fluid & Emphatic Now, includes vibrant, graphic, unforgettable pieces from Andy Mister, Esther Ruiz and Francesco Lo Castro, as well as Tinney artists like Jing Qin, Jaq Belcher, and Bennett himself. This is an exciting development in the local art scene, and one that will reward return trips — plus another excuse to drop in at the Bobby for its weekly drag brunch. Through Feb. 28 at the Bobby Hotel, 230 Fourth Ave. N. LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

nashvillescene.com | OCTOBER 7 – OCTOBER 13, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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10/4/21 3:11 PM

FOOD AND DRINK

10 YEARS IN THE CATBIRD SEAT

Looking back at the first decade of a restaurant that totally changed Nashville’s fine-dining scene

I

t’s easy for a restaurant to last 10 years. All you have to do is find a location near a shopping center, come up with a menu of carbo-laden crowd-pleasers and colorful drinks, hang up some ferns and watch the profits roll in for a decade. What’s hard to do is create a truly unique restaurant positioned at a price point heretofore unheard of in Nashville, intentionally limit the number of diners per evening, design a menu of dramatically plated items made with exotic ingredients, change up said menu constantly and reinvent the whole operation every two years with an entirely new cooking team.

But that’s exactly what The Catbird Seat has accomplished since opening in 2011.

When brothers Max and Benjamin Goldberg opened their intimate chef’s table restaurant in a former salon space above their cocktail bar The Patterson House, they weren’t certain it would work.

“Selfishly, Ben and I were trying to create places where we’d like to go,” says Max. “We saw the need for a chef’s tasting from restaurants in other cities. At the time, our only other restaurant served cheeseburgers on Lower Broad, but we figured, ‘Let’s open and see how this thing goes!’ I never thought we’d be here 10 years later.”

The Goldbergs were emboldened by the changing culinary atmosphere in Nashville.

“There was so much cool stuff happening at the time,” says Max. “City House was, and still is, one of my favorite places in the world. A tidal wave was building, and we found the right board to ride it.”

Josh Habiger — one of Catbird’s two opening chefs, along with Erik Anderson — actually came to Nashville as head bartender at The Patterson House and was impressed by the dining scene he found. “City House came before The Catbird Seat, and Margot before that,” Habiger says. “Rolf and Daughters opened after us. To do that in Nashville, it was pretty crazy.”

Habiger didn’t intend to return to the kitchen after stints at several high-pressure restaurants. (“I didn’t even know Josh could cook,” Max recalls. “That’s how humble of a guy he is.”) Habiger appreciated how the clientele at The Patterson House was interested in the craft of mixing up a proper cocktail, and he pitched a new kind of restaurant to the Goldbergs. “I wanted to cook like a bartender bartends,” he says. “The ultimate satisfaction for a cook is making a beautiful plate of food, but once it goes through the kitchen door, you never see the guest. Did they enjoy it? I wanted to experience it with them.”

While to some diners the 36-seat restaurant might have at first felt otherworldly — with its modern design, U-shaped seating around the performance kitchen and pumping soundtrack — Habiger wanted it to feel like home. “These people were coming into our house for a shared experience,” he

32

explains. “We wanted them to feel like we were glad they were there.”

Anderson has family in Nashville and was familiar with the city, but he was a little surprised when his friend Habiger called him about the opportunity to join him at The Catbird Seat. “I didn’t think a restaurant like that would open here,” he says. But when Habiger explained the concept, Anderson was in. “I’ve always been interested in bridging a connection from chefs to diners.

Nobody can describe a dish better than the person who created it.”

By removing the server role between kitchen and diner, The Catbird Seat became a fascinating restaurant that was at the same time chef-driven and guest-driven.

Certainly, the menu reflected the genius and creativity of the chefs, but the staff also kept track of diners’ reactions and confabbed after service to determine guests’ likes and dislikes, sometimes using that information to make changes to a menu item.

An early polarizing dish was a full pigeon leg served with the claw still attached. Anderson created that particular plate, and not everyone agreed with the presentation.

The hay-infused yogurt accompaniment was astounding, but some people couldn’t get past the dramatic plating. “That was one of the first dishes I was really was into,” Anderson recalls. “I liked to leave the foot on to remind you that this was once an animal that you’re eating and as a nod to the old French classics like Robuchon and Ducasse. It was kind of my homage to that kind of dining and a little bit edgy as well.”

Habiger remembers it a little differently.

“Yeah, that was a little aggressive, but I just told people that the claw made a great handle to gnaw on that delicious bird!”

For every high-brow presentation, Habiger and Anderson also offered playful dishes to delight guests. Anderson calls them “silly one-liners,” but early guests couldn’t stop talking about the spicy, crisp chicken skin served with a puree of Wonder Bread, a reference to Nashville’s iconic hot chicken. An amuse-bouche that appeared to be a take on Oreo cookies actually turned out to be remarkably savory porcini wafers stuffed with salty Parmesan cream.

Initial response was overwhelmingly positive, attracting national press and ecstatic praise from locals. “The city couldn’t have been more supportive,” says Max. Habiger credits community support for a big part of their success. “Mayor Karl Dean and [Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp CEO] Butch Spyridon realized that part of a city’s identity is its culinary identity,” says Habiger. “They helped to attract visitors who wouldn’t have come to town otherwise and people who wouldn’t normally spend $200 on a culinary experience.”

Some guests were still learning how to handle a three-hour dining marathon of challenging presentations, including one pa-

PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS

BY CHRIS CHAMBERLAIN

MUSSELS FROM THE CATBIRD SEAT IN 2020

“It’s a pretty intense restaurant in terms of the amount of prep and thoughtfulness that goes into the menu. Two years is the perfect amount of time for a chef to do it.”

—MAX GOLDBERG tron who spent a few hours enjoying strong cocktails downstairs before his reservation.

“When you do something like that, tragedy awaits,” recalls Habiger with a chuckle.

“About two pairings in, the guy got up off his stool and put the chair leg through the drywall. He stood up and said, ‘It’s OK! I’m a foodie!’ ” That phrase later ended up emblazoned on a staff T-shirt.

After two years, Habiger and Anderson exited the kitchen at the peak of their success. “We always intended to be an incubator,” explains Max. “It’s a pretty intense restaurant in terms of the amount of prep

and thoughtfulness that goes into the menu.

Two years is the perfect amount of time for a chef to do it.”

Habiger concurs. “We didn’t set a term at the beginning, but two years would be a good run for a chef. It keeps things fresh and moving.”

Max relishes the chance to shut down for a month every couple of years to reset.

“Each team brings a different style, “ he explains. “They dictate everything, from the plates and glassware to the music, the artwork and the style of service.”

Habiger and Anderson were followed by

NASHVILLE SCENE | OCTOBER 7 – OCTOBER 13, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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10/4/21 3:08 PM

FOOD AND DRINK

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A 2014 DISH AT THE CATBIRD SEAT Trevor Moran, an Irish wunderkind who brought a playfulness and dedication to foraged ingredients honed by his experience working in the world-famous Noma in Copenhagen. Chef Ryan Poli took The Catbird Seat in a more classically European direction. Will Aghajanian and Liz Johnson succeeded Poli at The Catbird, but didn’t succeed as resoundingly in the kitchen, exiting after a little more than a year.

The current top toque at Catbird is worn

by Brian Baxter, one of the opening chefs at Husk Nashville. Baxter also worked alongside Habiger at Bastion, where the duo created thoughtful small plates and larger composed meal options.

“You’ve got two years to make it your own,” says Baxter. “You can’t think about what others have done before you. It’s a balance between what you want to do as a chef and whether the guests can relate to it. Are they coming back? You have to balance what’s familiar with things that need explaining to connect the flavors with the experience.”

That focus on hospitality is a big part of the legacy of The Catbird Seat — as is the roster of talented food and beverage pro-

fessionals who have worked with the head chefs before going on to success at other restaurants locally and nationally. Dedication to the guest experience changed Anderson as a chef. “It really helped me with my demeanor and talking with people,” he says. “It’s easy to hide behind the kitchen door.”

“We’re so hyperfocused on what we do, but we don’t take it for granted that we’re still full, especially in an industry that has been wrecked over the past two years,” says Max. “To see these chefs come through on their culinary journey, we’re humbled by it, and it’s awesome to see the city’s restaurant scene grow.

“Josh and Erik put their signature on the city that still resonates today,” he continues, “and hopefully we can still continue to innovate. Hospitality has always been in my blood, and I always remember the Maya Angelou quote: ‘I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.’ I’ve always enjoyed making people happy. And if you can, you should.”

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10/4/21 3:09 PM

VODKA YONIC

WHY I STAYED

A reluctant expert on why the person who hurts you most can also be the most difficult to leave

Vodka Yonic

BY ELIZABETH ULRICH

Vodka Yonic features a rotating cast of women and nonbinary writers from around the world sharing stories that are alternately humorous, sobering, intellectual, erotic, religious or painfully personal. You never know what you’ll find in this column, but we hope this potent mix of stories encourages conversation.

I

Stay tuned for details about the next installment in the Adult Contemporary series — Futurephilia: Sex and Science Fiction in Contemporary Art — coming in November.

adultcontemporaryart.com @adultcontemporaryart 34

’d love to say my relationship wasn’t always abusive, but there were red flags from the beginning.

You know the story: Girl meets boy in a Nashville bar and falls for his potential. When she’s lost in the hinterlands of the honeymoon phase, he drops his mask. In hindsight, I want to shake her and scream: If it feels wrong, that’s because it is.

Fast-forward more than a decade to the night I left him. For more than six terrifying hours, his behavior grew so erratic that I eventually tried to block my bedroom door with a dresser. The night ended with me, shoeless in the front yard, sweating through my pajamas as a police officer asked if my partner had hit me. Flashing lights illuminated the tears on my cheeks as I tried to find a way to distill nearly 13 years of emotional abuse to an all-male group of officers. “No, but he’s abusive in so many other ways.”

“What do you want us to do about that, ma’am?” the officer asked. The others waited for answers I didn’t have. “Maybe you should leave,” he said. When the officers looked at me, wild-eyed and shaking with adrenaline, and then at my abuser — or at least at the affable, composed image he presented — I wondered if I looked like the problem. That perception was my secondbiggest fear. The first was that he’d snap and kill me.

At one point I thought no one could’ve predicted this outcome. Now I’m not so sure.

A mutual friend recently alleged that my ex abused the woman he dated before me. “We all thought he’d changed when he met you,” the friend said. Then it hit me: If the abuse didn’t start with me, it might not end with me either. But what am I supposed to do about that? Would the next woman believe me if I warned her? It’s hard to imagine why someone wouldn’t run from a man determined to set your world on fire. Most people don’t realize that by the time everyone else smells smoke, you’ve already watched the most important parts of yourself burn.

If you’re wondering why I didn’t sound the alarm, the answer is simple. I stayed because it really was that bad. No matter how privileged my circumstances — I had access to money, support and a trauma therapist — I couldn’t leave without risking everything, including my life. He designed it that way. Less than one year into our relationship — which was emotionally, financially and at times physically abusive — my

life had shrunk to a point where it no longer felt like my own.

By the time my partner and I were married, his love had become a shock collar, and his rules were the electric fence. I learned to make myself small to fit into the tiniest of enclosures — one filled with fear, shame and, as we celebrated double-digit anniversaries, debilitating complex PTSD. While you’re busy building a life with an abuser, he’s working behind the scenes to ensure that you can’t survive without him. Even if I had the energy to devise an escape plan, I couldn’t drive away in my car (which was in his name). I couldn’t access our savings (also in his name). I couldn’t withdraw a cent from our joint checking without him noticing. By the time I was quarantining with my abuser, I was desperate to escape.

But he promised he’d get better. He logged hours in therapy and fed me just enough remorse to get me to stay. It wasn’t enough to sustain me, but it could be if I learned to need less. We agreed that was my fatal flaw: I expected too much from him. Once I realized how far I’d sunk to suit him, it seemed impossible to dig my way out. When the abuse escalated (as it does) — when he exploited my insecurities, humiliated me, choked the dog, picked at my deepest wounds and insisted I forget his transgressions because it wasn’t fair to keep punishing him — he showed me glimpses of the “good guy” I fell for over PBR tallboys.

For a girl who learned early on that love is something that’s earned if you can make yourself easy, a person like that can feel like home. When I questioned that dynamic, safety was hard to find. I put several states between us, but it only takes a Wi-Fi connection to intimidate someone, especially if he’s maintained a spreadsheet of your usernames and passwords.

All of this lives in my blood like an invisible illness. How can we hold abusers accountable? Even if you believe women — even if you believe me — whatever are you going to do about that? Would you unfollow him in real life? Would that be enough to hold him accountable? Laws addressing the coercive control abusers use to entrap partners have been proposed from California to the U.K., but even if I got my day in court, the system wasn’t designed for me. When I lamented the lack of accountability for emotional abusers, my attorney said getting out alive sometimes has to be enough. It isn’t.

Almost a year post-divorce, I still cannot fall asleep with an unlocked bedroom door.

If my ex taught me anything, it’s that even when you leave, your world only feels as safe as your abuser wants it to be.

If you are experiencing domestic violence, you can call Nashville’s Sexual Assault Center (615-259-9055), the 24-Hour Crisis & Support Line (1-866-811-7473) or the National Domestic Violence Hotline (1-800-799-7233).

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NASHVILLE SCENE | OCTOBER 7 – OCTOBER 13, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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TPAC will require patrons ages 6+ to wear a mask and guests 12+ to provide proof of vaccination against COVID-19 or a negative COVID-19 PCR or antigen test result within 2 days of the performance date. For additional Health and Safety Protocols and more details, please visit tpac.org/PatronHealth.

G R E AT F O R AG E S 4 +

October 8–10 at TPAC Join Nashville Ballet on a spectacular, high-flying adventure to Neverland!

C H O R EO G R A P H Y BY

Paul Vasterling LIVE CHAMBER MUSIC

T I C K ETS AVA I L A B L E AT

NashvilleBallet.com. P H YS I CA L LY

D I STA N C E D S EAT I N G AVA I L A B L E . nashvillescene.com | OCTOBER 7 – OCTOBER 13, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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ART

HERE COMES THE WAYNE AGAIN Talking to the great, prolific Wayne White about his Radio Magic Eightball

BY JOE NOLAN

W

ayne White grew up in Chattanooga and helped create a kids’ television show in Nashville before he brought his wackedout vision to the iconic Pee-wee’s WAYNE WHITE: RADIO MAGIC EIGHTBALL Playhouse. These THROUGH NOV. 27 AT days, White is better JULIA MARTIN GALLERY, known for his large 444 HUMPHREYS ST. public art installations of giant puppet heads — the kind that were featured at his Wayne-O-Rama happening in Chattanooga in 2016 and 2017.

White’s word paintings have also evolved into iconic signature works, and Julia Martin Gallery is currently hosting a new show of White’s paintings and sculptures called Radio Magic Eightball. He kicked off the exhibit on Saturday with an opening reception and a performance from his new band Username Password, and the work will be on display until Nov. 27. The Scene recently spoke with White about his new art and his three-string guitar — and also asked him what’s so cubist about the pandemic.

This is your second exhibition at Julia Martin Gallery. How did you two connect? I connected

I just read about that. It was the largest giant George Jones head ever made, evidently? Well that, no, that was way back in 2009 at Rice University in Houston. I did a smaller version for Daniel, plus a whole body. Rice was just a giant head.

For this show at Julia’s you’re returning to your word paintings. Yeah, this is a word-painting show. It’s mostly new word paintings. I’m trying out some new stuff, trying out some wall reliefs — little pop-art 3-D wall-relief cubist versions of the word paintings. I’m doing stuff on paper, then the classic thriftstore reproduction word paintings and a couple of other small sculptural things.

I saw an image of one of the wall reliefs. I can’t remember if it said, like, “Fuck It?” “The Fuck.”

What are those made of? How did you develop those? Yeah, those are from early this year, and I’ve never shown them anywhere. And this will be the premiere of those on the wall.

And those are just an exploration of Cubism. I kind of cut the frames up and re-glued them back together in a fractured kind of way. I had all these letters that I had lasercut from MDF board, which is like Masonite.

36

“THE FUCK,” WAYNE WHITE

with Julia through Daniel [Lonow] at the Country Music Hall of Fame. Daniel works with the gallery there, Hatch Show Print’s Haley Gallery. [Lonow is also the curator at Julia Martin Gallery.] It was 2018 I believe.

I did a country music show with lots of country music portraits and a giant George Jones puppet.

I had all these letters laying around that I wanted to play with somehow. And so it’s really just my nod to Cubism, really fracturing the space and putting it back together.

I kind of wanted to express the fractured year that we’ve all gone through, and the exasperation and the sort of scrambling of all our worlds. Those were like an expression of that, I guess. But really, they’re just also on another level — they’re just my ongoing exploration of trying to find a new way to do the word paintings really. I’m always looking for a new variation.

You’re always finding new ways to combine the elements of “low” popular culture with “higher” fine art ideas. Nowadays, you’re sort of in a postmodern golden age where everybody’s mixing all this stuff up anyway, but you’ve always been doing this. I find it interesting that you’re making sculptures of country music stars in a fine art context, and at the same time combining materials like MDF with these profane phrases, and then using that to explore something like Cubism. How much of this is just an instinct for you? How much is an agenda? I would say it’s all instinctual. I don’t have an over-

“I KIND OF WANTED TO EXPRESS THE FRACTURED YEAR THAT WE’VE ALL GONE THROUGH, AND THE EXASPERATION AND THE SORT OF SCRAMBLING OF ALL OUR WORLDS.” riding agenda. Once I decide on a direction, then I do create a little agenda I guess, just to structure it, right? But I kind of give myself the permission to experiment or try anything I really want to do and not worry about how it fits into the Wayne White brand. Although I’m very conscious of the Wayne White brand — by now I’ve been doing these word paintings for 21 years. And so I know a lot of people immediately identify me with them, so there’s that issue, which is a good thing to have. It’s nice to have a brand that distinguishes you from the pack, right? But it also can kind of type you and put you in a corner if you’re not careful. So I reserve the right to

stretch it and expand on it as much as I can.

But I feel very lucky that the word paintings are a part of our culture now and that they can have many different contexts in many different roles. They can be very pricey fine art at a fine art gallery, right down to a very affordable jigsaw puzzle you can buy online.

You’ve previously exhibited at Cheekwood, at Zeitgeist and at the Country Music Hall of Fame, but what about your bigger connections to Nashville? Well, I love Nashville. I’ve been around Nashville since 1975. When I started school at MTSU in Murfreesboro, Nashville was definitely a big destination for us constantly.

NASHVILLE SCENE | OCTOBER 7 – OCTOBER 13, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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ART

THU 10.7  ZOOFUNKYOU, ADMIRAL

MON 10.11  MANDA

PHUNK, MILES BURGER

NANCY DAINES, JACKSON DREYER

THE HIGH WATT

THE HIGH WATT

TUES 10.12  MONOPHONICS

THU 10.7  HOUSEQUAKE: OCTOBER 2021

PAUL & THE TALL TREES

EDITION

THE HIGH WATT

MERCY LOUNGE

T HU 10.14  JUDAH. MERCY LOUNGE

FRI 10.8  BBNO$ “SHITSHOW AT SEA” WAYNE WHITE

CANNERY BALLROOM

THU 10.14  THE MOUNTAIN GOATS SOPHIA BORO

FRI 10.8  RAYVON OWEN

CANNERY BALLROOM

THE HIGH WATT

THU 10.14  JOSHUA RAY WALKER THE HIGH WATT

SAT 10.9  HELLOGOODBYE

F RI 10.15  MICROWAVE

MERCY LOUNGE

ELDER BROTHER, TAKING MEDS, & WEAKENED PLANS

SAT 10.9  GOLDPARK

MERCY LOUNGE

MAGGIE MILES & WATSON MAACK

FRI 10.15  BROOKE ALEXX

THE HIGH WATT

The big city. So I went through four years of MTSU going to Nashville all the time. I made a lot of friends there. And then when I graduated, I moved to Nashville, lived here for a year in 1984. And yeah, I love country music. I love old country music.

Nashville is my favorite city in a lot of ways. It’s where I first started to become an artist. That’s where I first met other artists that were going to MTSU or were living in Nashville. One of my favorite artists, Bill Killebrew, is still painting there in Nashville. He was the first really good professional artist that I ever met. So I had all these early origins in Nashville as an artist.

That’s where I really started to get in touch with the bigger outside world, and it was my jumping-off point to New York City. It was the first really kind of taste of culture that I had — Chattanooga wasn’t like that at the time. And so I have a real deep connection with Nashville that’s been going on since ’75, and some of my best friends still live there.

Nashville is also where I started my TV career in 1985 when I did the kids’ show for WDCN-Channel 8, Mrs. Cabobble’s Caboose.

That was my first professional job as a set designer and a puppeteer. And I took that portfolio back up to New York City, and Mrs. Cabobble’s Caboose is how I got the Peewee’s Playhouse job. So Nashville has been a great place for me to grow and learn as an artist, and to get my confidence to go out into the bigger world. It really nurtured me.

You say you find that people identify the word paintings as the Wayne White brand. How has that been a change for you, given your early career when you were more known for your work on Peewee’s Playhouse or other television projects? I’ll always be linked to Pee-wee’s Playhouse and various other projects I did on television, and I’m very proud of that. I don’t run away from it. But I was glad that I was given the chance, and I’m happy that I succeeded in finding my own name and my own identity, and not just somebody that made somebody else look good, you know? Pee-wee’s Playhouse was one of the greatest things that ever happened to me as an artist. It’s such a thrill and privilege to work in something that was so big in our culture, that had such a positive magic to it. You know, that’s very rare. Very rare. And I’m glad I caught that merry-go-round.

When you were doing your tour that ended up being filmed for the 2012 documentary Beauty Is Embarrassing, you were also performing some music during your show. A little bit, yeah. I played

a little banjo during my talks, but I didn’t do anything like what I’m going to try at Julia Martin’s this weekend.

Is this the first musical performance you’ve done in Nashville? Yeah, this is my first performance with a little band in Nashville.

And boy am I asking for it. Come on, man!

You’re going to Nashville to show your mediocre music talent? Please!

It sounds like fun to me. I’m gonna be playing a three-string guitar in this project. It’s a band called Username Password, and we got together online during COVID — it was pretty much a quarantine band. I’ve been playing the same electric cigar-box guitar for a while now. Somebody gave it to me as a gift at one of my talks, actually. I put down my banjo to sign some books, and this guy got in line and gave me this guitar.

And so that was back in 2013 or 2014, and I got interested in playing it, and I post little videos from time to time on social media.

I’m playing with my buddies back in Chattanooga — Bob Stagner is a drummer, and Jim Tate, who’s a bass player. I asked them if they would like to put some tracks on some recordings I made, and they did. And so we started this long-distance collaboration last year, and it was a fun thing to do while we were all locked down. And so I’ve just been doing my guitar tracks and sending them, and then they add their parts, and then we show the composite video. And we’ve never really played live together. Never. So this will be our debut.

I would assume with making music again, that your instincts for creativity pay off big time in terms of just getting a hunch about something, and then just following it where it leads?

Yeah. I mean, these musical things I do are just very small sketches. They’re less than a minute long. And there’s no pressure to be professional, or make money or anything like that. It’s just pure play.

This is how I can play without any strings attached. I’m not a musician, but I have a few musical ideas I like to play with, and I like to keep it short. You know, we’re like this short-attention-span social media band, quarantine band. I don’t know quite how to label it, but it’s a real fun thing for me. And as long as I don’t take it too seriously I have a lot of fun with it. And I’m really lucky to have real musicians, real working musicians like Jim and Bob, that take me seriously enough to support me and make me sound even better.

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

DASHA

SUN 10.10  NOTHING,NOWHERE.

THE HIGH WATT

MEET ME @ THE ALTAR, ARMS LENGTH

S AT 10.16  KITCHEN DWELLERS

MERCY LOUNGE

THE HIGH WATT

SUN 10.10  DISNEY POP NIGHT

FEAT. VIOLET LAVELLE, TYRA THOMPSON, & MORE

THE HIGH WATT

FRI. 10/8

SAT. 10/9

bbno$: eat ya veggies tour

Hellogoodbye

Cannery Ballroom

mercy lounge

SUN. 10/10

SAT.10/14 2/23 THU.

nothing,nowhere.

kendrick vs drake The Mountain Goats

Mercy Lounge

presented by jocoBallroom shows · mercy lounge Cannery · Sophia Boro

FRI. 10/15

THU. 10/14

microwave

Joshua Ray Walker

Mercy Lounge

the high watt

10.29  LITTLE IMAGE

2.6  IAN SWEET BNNY

THE HIGH WATT

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10.30  MY SO-CALLED BAND:

3.31  THE SCORE

THE ULTIMATE '90S HALLOWEEN PARTY!

CANNERY BALLROOM

THE HIGH WATT

11.5  DREW ELLIOTT

4.2  MATT MALTESE

1.17  GUS JOHNSON

5.2  ALLIE X

THE HIGH WATT

THE HIGH WATT

CANNERY BALLROOM

CANNERY BALLROOM

SAT 10.16  THE DELTA BOMBERS / HILLBIL- MON 10.18  WRITER'S BLOCK: NASHVILLE LY CASINO / VOLK

THE HIGH WATT

MERCY LOUNGE

TUE 10.19  VACATION MANOR

SUN 10.17  THE LIBBY O SHOW PRESENTS

NIGHT TRAVELER

SIX ONE FIVE COLLECTIVE LAUNCH PARTY

MERCY LOUNGE

THE HIGH WATT

SUN 10.17  THE WORLD IS A BEAUTIFUL

PLACE AND I AM NO LONGER AFRAID TO DIE

TUE 10.19  DRUMMING BIRD LEGIT SMITTY & O SUMMER

THE HIGH WATT

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nashvillescene.com | OCTOBER 7 – OCTOBER 13, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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CULTURE

MEET THE MAKERS

Get to know four of the local designers participating in this year’s Nashville Fashion Week

BY MEGAN SELING

F

or many, fashion all but ceased to exist over the past 19 months. Those people who were lucky enough to not lose their job in the pandemic either worked from home, where they prioritized comfort, or worked in high-stress frontline environments, where they prioritized safety. Still, members of Nashville’s fashion community didn’t relent. Many local makers embraced the opportunity to flex new muscles while continuing to hone their craft, resulting in some very fashionable face masks — Andrew Clancey of Any Old Iron decked out his face coverings with sequins while Erica Knicely made versions decorated with delicate floral embroidery.

But fashion is back, baby! We’re leaving the house again, or at least putting on pants, and Nashville Fashion Week also returns Oct. 11 through 15 with a series of events including panel discussions, a pop-up market, mixers and more. Participants include established names like Project Runway star Amanda Valentine, Maria Silver of Black

by Maria Silver and the aforementioned Clancey and Knicely — but they’re just the tip of the dress form. Fifteen designers will show their work in the Runway360 Digital Fashion Show, a platform designed by the Council of Fashion Designers of America.

(Find that at runway360.cfda.com Oct. 13 through 15). We caught up with a few of them to see how they’ve fared over the past year and what they’re most looking forward to in the future.

TRULY ALVARENGA

Pink Elephant Designs trulyalvarenga.com Has the pandemic changed the way you approach your designs? People worked from home, didn’t go out — the past 19 months or so have been all about comfort. I’ve always felt that fashion and comfort need to go hand in hand. Sometimes it’s not always about the fabric, but more just how a woman feels in a garment and whether or not she feels like it embodies who she is. For me, I spent the last year-and-a-half rebuilding my house and studio because a tornado hit it. I wanted to give others the comfort I worked so hard to reestablish.

What are you most excited about regarding your work? Your previous designs have such a playful element, while also feeling classic. How does your current collection compare? The biggest thing that I’m excited about is that when I finally reopened my doors after a year-and-a-half of not being able to take clients, there were people lined up and waiting to have things made from me. I think my newest collection really encompasses what people want. They want to feel beautiful but comfortable. I think I really accomplished that with the fabrics that I used and how I made the garments.

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PHOTO: CRISTY HUNTER

PHOTO: SAMANTHA HEARN

Who is your favorite designer in Nashville right now? Suzanne Wade of Rank & Sugar. I love

PHOTO: AARON MONROE PHOTO: IMANI GIVERTZ

FROM LEFT: PINK ELEPHANT DESIGNS, EILEEN KELLY DESIGNS, KEN.DRAMA, THE MORGAN FACTORY

her use of taking militaristic wear and making it accessible and new, giving it a “peace and love in wartime” feel.

ing years in person.

KELLY NIESER

Has the pandemic changed the way you approach your designs? Although I haven’t

Eileen Kelly Designs eileenkellydesigns.com You design fun, sparkly pieces for musicians and entertainers. Are you a musician yourself?

Thank you! Although I am not a musician, I have always said if I had to change my career path (and was more musically talented) I would be a pop singer who designs their own stage wear.

I saw that Miranda Lambert is a client. Who else have you designed for? Right now I am honored to be working on a custom outfit for my favorite Nashville drag queen, Vidalia Anne Gentry! A couple of other stylish performers that own some of my garments are Kesha and Macklemore.

Do you listen to music while you work? Absolutely! My biggest inspiration as an artist is the correlation between music and fashion.

The music always comes first for me, and then I bring my interpretation of it into physical form with my designs. The type of music I listen to all depends on the project I am working on!

Who is your favorite designer in Nashville right now? My answer to this question will forever and always be Manuel! Every piece he creates is truly one of a kind. He is a creative genius as well as a patient teacher. I’m so grateful for his friendship and all that he has done for my career.

changed my design approach overall, I have definitely expanded my original picture of what Ken.Drama would be! I love to design dramatic and luxurious pieces and will continue to do so, but my customers’ needs have shifted. I have honored that by adding several pieces to my brand that are a better fit for the moment, which include my graphic tees, activewear and swimwear. My main goal is and always has been to make my customer feel uniquely comfortable and amazing in her own skin. I design pieces that celebrate women, whether they are at home, at work or are able to go out again!

Who is your favorite designer in Nashville right now? Eileen Kelly is killing it! She is a dear friend of mine from design school. It is so interesting to me that although we share a lot of the same inspiration, our collections are so completely unique and different.

She is a quality designer and knows how to shine!

MORGAN McCANN

The Morgan Factory themorganfactory.com Nashville’s local fashion industry has evolved over the years, but one thing that’s still lacking is size-inclusivity. The Morgan Factory offers sizes up to XXL. Why is that important to you? Do you see other designers expanding their sizes to be more inclusive? Over the years I have traveled, do-

KENDRA MARTIN

ing music festivals and art shows and seeing the real women of America. My clothes are meant to make any size feel confident. I do believe other designers are taking this more seriously. Nashville Fashion Week focused on size inclusivity this year, and I was able to choose four curvy models!

made so many meaningful connections in this community already! My experience with Nashville Fashion Week has been unique, considering that my participation in 2020 and 2021 has been in the midst of the pandemic. Many of my connections have been through social media, and I can’t wait to cultivate those relationships in the com-

The fact that The Morgan Factory is focused on sustainability and recycling feels especially important in the era of fast fashion. Where do you get your materials? I first began going thrifting,

Ken.Drama kendrama.com You’re relatively new to the local fashion community, having just launched Ken.Drama in 2018.

Has Nashville’s fashion community been welcoming? Nashville has been wonderful! I’ve

but since business has grown over the years, I now buy [textiles] in 100-pound bales. It’s very important that I use all pieces when cutting up the garments. I am striving to be

a zero-waste fashion designer. There is also a Morgan Factory Buy, Sell, Trade platform where you can resell a piece that you have already loved, so the cycle of fashion can continue, just like the cycle of life.

Who is your favorite designer in Nashville right now? Erica Knicely! She is also new to Nashville Fashion Week. I adore her work. Erica often uses vintage tablecloths and natural dyes from plants! We are probably soul sisters!

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NASHVILLE FASHION WEEK EVENTS How Fashion Is Made Tour + Mixer* 4 p.m.

Monday, Oct. 11, at Prange Apparel, 2545 Lebanon Pike NFW VIP Mixer* 5 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 12, at The Westin Nashville, 807 Clark Place Suiting the Sound: The Rodeo Tailors Who Made Country Stars Shine Brighter Panel Event* 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 12, at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, 222 Rep. John Lewis Way; stream the panel for free on the museum’s YouTube channel, Facebook page and website.

Make + Innovate — A Fashion Manufacturing Open House + Tour 4 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 13, at Prange Apparel, 2545 Lebanon Pike TikTok, Tech and Trends: The Evolving Business of Fashion Learning Lab + Networking 4 p.m.

Thursday, Oct. 14, at the Women’s Business Collective, 613 Ewing Ave. Fashion x Innovation + Design Lab noon Friday, Oct. 15, at The Wond’ry, 2414 Highland Ave. The Intersection of Sound + Style: A Conversation + Museum Tour 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 15, at the National Museum of African American Music, 501 Broadway New Shop Nashville Pop-Up Market from noon until 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 16, at OneC1ty, 8 City Boulevard Nashville Fashion Week will require attendees to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test (taken within 48 hours of the event) upon entry. Learn more and get tickets at nashvillefashionweek.com. *Event is included in NFW’s VIP package.

NASHVILLE SCENE | OCTOBER 7 – OCTOBER 13, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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mmm...

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A women’s column featuring a rotating cast of contributors

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SAVE THE DATE

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13 Follow along as we announce the winners of 20+ categories a day early with live performances, special guests, giveaways and more.

BEST TRIVIA NIGHT

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#BON21 | @NASHVILLESCENE

Best of Nashville Fest is coming up quick! Who’s going to be there? We can’t tell you that just yet...it’s a secret Here’s what we CAN tell you - it’ll feature the winners of our Best of Nashville Readers’ Poll and Writers’ Choice Awards including Best CBD Retailer, Best Cheap Date, Best Hot Chicken, Best Gift Shop, Best Mexican Food and more!

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MUSIC

JUST FOR ONE DAY

Natalie Hemby takes the spotlight on Pins and Needles

BY BRITTNEY McKENNA

PHOTO: ALYSSE GAFKJEN

O

n “Heroes,” the opening track of her new album Pins and Needles, Natalie Hemby sings about the human frailty of iconic individuals, and how that sometimes doesn’t jive with the way we relate PINS AND NEEDLES to them: “If I ever OUT FRIDAY, OCT. 8, VIA met my heroes, they FANTASY RECORDS might let me down.”

However, she knows a bit about heroes from personal experience. Her ubiquity in country music — as a solo artist, as an indemand songwriter, as one-fourth of The Highwomen’s core quartet — regularly puts her in close contact with some of the genre’s living legends.

If you’ve followed Hemby’s career, it would seem she’s turning into the kind of hero you would want to meet. Despite winning two Grammys, writing hits for genre juggernauts like Miranda Lambert and Kacey Musgraves, and performing (with The Highwomen) alongside Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn, Hemby is as down-to-earth as it gets. She seems to care little for the idea of stardom, but cares greatly for building a career that allows her creative freedom. As she puts it a little later on in “Heroes,” “I just want to be a face in the crowd.”

Talking about that track, Hemby is quick to prove her own point, directing credit for the song’s lyrics to co-writers Aaron Raitiere and Jeff Trott. “I came in with the idea of, ‘I don’t want to meet my heroes / I just want to be a face in the crowd,’ ” Hemby explains. “But I didn’t have verses. I’m gonna tell you something — that Aaron Raitiere is a lyric slot machine. He’s one of my favorite people to write with. That, plus Jeff Trott’s brilliance; it was a magic combination, if you will.”

Pins and Needles is Hemby’s second solo album, following 2017’s excellent and understated Puxico, which paid homage to her grandparents’ Missouri home. Notably, Pins and Needles is also her first project as a solo signee to a record label. She joined the Fantasy Records roster in February, and the label accepted an already-finished Pins and Needles as-is — a rare occurrence for any artist, well-known or otherwise. The fact that she signed the deal in her 40s makes the accomplishment all the more special for Hemby. She credits the experience and wisdom she’s gained over the past two decades as a major force shaping the LP. “As an artist, I feel like it’s hard to hang your hat on something when you’re really young,” she says. “Because you change your mind, you know. I personally have loved older artists all of my life. Bonnie Raitt was an older artist when she really started winning Grammys, and Sheryl [Crow] was too. … I’ve been steadily climbing up a mountain, just one little, tiny step at a time. I

enjoy that. I can’t handle everything at once, and I don’t think I ever have been able to.

But you don’t have to.”

Pins and Needles includes newly written songs as well as previously unreleased tunes from Hemby’s sizable publishing catalog. Of that latter batch, co-writers include Miranda Lambert (“Banshee,” “It Takes One to Know One”), Maren Morris (“Heart Condition”) and Brothers Osborne (“Pins and Needles”).

While casual listeners might expect straight-ahead country from Hemby, she spent the formative years of her early songwriting career listening to ’90s singer-songwriters, particularly the aforementioned Sheryl Crow. As Hemby hinted in a late 2019 interview with the Scene, Pins and Needles is her “1997 Lilith Fair album,” marrying the songcraft she’s honed on Music Row to the sounds that made her fall in love with music in the first place.

“This stuff is a little more rock ’n’ roll,” she says. “It’s a little more fun. It’s a little more jangly and messy in all the right places.”

Hemby’s husband, producer Mike Wrucke, was integral to achieving that ’90s rock sound she’d envisioned. The Lambert co-write “Banshee” finds Hemby in brooding, Shirley Manson vocal territory, while “Pinwheel,” which grapples with Hemby’s swift rise to fame, recalls the sun-drenched harmonies and rough edges of Crow’s early records.

“I’ve always said [to Wrucke], ‘If we were ever to split up, you’re still producing my record,’ ” she says, laughing. “He’s a really good cook too. When I look at a pantry, I see cans of beans and rice and I don’t even think about a recipe. But he really does, and that is the way he is in the studio, as well. Like, if I just play him a vocal or something, he’s already hearing production ideas in his head.

And he’s got good taste, you know, and not everybody does. Yeah, I get to sleep with my producer. How typical Nashville is that?”

Hemby’s a hitmaker, to be sure, but she’s also one of a small, elite group of Nashville writers whose songs — regardless of who’s performing them — are always clearly hers.

Miranda Lambert’s “Bluebird,” which Hemby and Lambert co-wrote with Luke Dick, is a good example of this phenomenon. Throughout that Grammy-nominated single, Hembian hallmarks abound, like her tendency toward percussive vocal melodies, her ease with building complex lyrical structures and her mastery of poetic devices like assonance, consonance and alliteration.

With Pins and Needles, we have the chance to hear Hemby channel those gifts into her own stories told with her own sound. The finely wrought Pins and Needles doesn’t feel like one of those little steps Hemby referenced, but something much bigger. Either way, she’s just happy to be making music on her own terms.

“I’ve gone through many jobs. I’ve given up many times and gone back to it. And at the end of the day, I just love music and I just want to do it. I don’t really care what it looks like anymore. But right now, it’s looking really good.”

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MUSIC

BRING THAT BACK

Hip-hop outfit Heru Heru throws it back, with an eye to the future

BY CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

H

eru Heru brings something different to the table from its hip-hop peers around the region and beyond. The group is a meeting of the minds between MCs AhDeli and Foundation THE LEGACY OUT NOW Mecca, plus producer and beatmaker Konscience Beatz — who live in Donelson, Pegram and Columbia, Tenn., respectively.

If you’re seeking trap beats or navel-gazing Soundcloud histrionics, you’ll want to look elsewhere. If the soulful vintage grooves and streetwise yet optimistic vibes of greats like Yasiin Bey, Talib Kweli and the late MF DOOM are in your wheelhouse, you’re sure to pick up what Heru Heru is putting down on their new LP The Legacy — an expression of the social and artistic movement they call “heal hop,” which is also the name of their 2019 album. Just ahead of The Legacy’s release, I caught up with Ah-Deli.

Tell me about your musical upbringing. Grew up in Nashville. Went to MTSU for philosophy. Was going to go to law school, but I’m not the argumentative type. Should’ve studied music. [Laughs] After graduation, I moved to New York City. Lived there for a few years and totally immersed myself in the experience.

Was it a love of hip-hop that guided you there?

Definitely. I grew up on Tupac, Nas, Biggie, Mobb Deep. … And being able to go to New York, work there and walk the same streets while listening to their music got me even

deeper into it. I lived there for two years, but continue to go there all the time, and made close friends.

What was your musical journey up to that point?

Born in ’85. Heard Snoop Dogg’s “Gin and Juice” when I was 8. I’d heard Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer, and didn’t like it. But I loved listening to Snoop, Warren G and DJ Quik and picturing Long Beach, California.

Then, when I was about 12 or 13 I got into Nas’ Illmatic. The West Coast guys were my gateway, but the East Coast rappers were what stuck. Just so lyrically expressive.

Wise beyond their years.

When did you start making music? In 2000, when I found this program at Staples called Acid 2.0. I brought it home, made a beat, rapped on the computer mic, made a song, and thought it wasn’t too bad. Then I brought it to school and my friend was like, “This is trash.” I was like, “Damn!” At the same time, that’s the real world. I was like, “I have to go harder.” I didn’t quit. Twentysomething years later, I’m still doing that … just better at it now. [Laughs]

“Hip-hop is on its deathbed,” Foundation declares on the track “Mind Right” from The Legacy.

Is that addressing the one-dimensionality of some contemporary rap styles? Yes. Our intention is to bring back hip-hop, as it was. We feel like the world needs it. Look at the charts.

It’s all nonsense. Money’s the motivation, rather than uplifting people. I grew up on the wisdom of artists like Nas, so to have experienced that, and now what we have today,

there’s a disconnect. We have to bridge the gap … heal people through hip-hop.

I read in your bio that you had a face-to-face encounter with the late DMX. I happened to know the producer he was working with when he was recording The Exodus, his final album, in Franklin. I was star-struck but I kept my cool, didn’t bother him. But I certainly didn’t expect to rap with him. Then, on a Friday, I’d just laid down after getting home from work … and I got a call at about 11 from my friend saying “X is here, swing by.” I went there and he was drinking shots of moonshine. He offered me one, and I don’t drink, but it was

OPENING THE JEWEL BOX

Jordan Tice tells tales without words on Yesteryears

BY ABBY LEE HOOD

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PHOTO: JACQUELINE JUSTICE

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hen COVID-19 lockdown was at its most intense, it was easy to get overwhelmed by a flood of information. Guitarist and bluegrass singersongwriter Jordan Tice, YESTERYEARS OUT NOW who’s likely best known VIA PADIDDLE RECORDS as a member of the string-band supergroup Hawktail, was not immune. He tells the Scene that he got sick of words — of spending his mental energy constantly trying to solve problems. What came next, naturally, was a short collection of instrumentals, an EP called Yesteryears, released Oct. 1.

Tice had a ton of instrumental themes and motifs lying around that he wanted to develop into a project, and the pandemic provided him the time to do it. He chose five distinctive pieces and laid them down in one day. His Hawktail bandmate, bassist Paul Kowert, produced, while champion producer David R. Ferguson’s longtime studio partner Sean Sullivan engineered. Kowert’s label Padiddle Records handled the release, as it has for Hawktail’s albums.

“I wanted to make something you can get lost in and flow with,” Tice says. “It’s really harmonic and melodically driven.”

It’s safe to say he nailed it. Yesteryears’ prerelease single “River Run” sounds exactly like its title and spotlights Tice’s genre-blending blues, bluegrass and folk fingerpicking style. It’s overlaid with sparse bowed bass accompaniment from Kowert, whose approach Tice describes as “less is more.” When I mention that Kowert’s bass style for the song sounds a bit like internationally renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma’s work in the folk-inspired group Goat Rodeo, Tice points out that Kowert studied under Edgar Meyer — who plays bass in that ensemble with Ma. There’s a video of Tice and Kowert playing the song live at Sullivan’s Tractor Shed studio in Goodlettsville, and it neatly conveys the feel of the entire EP: There are only a few colors in the palette, but they’re warm and rich.

Tice wanted each song to tell its own story and

stand strong on its own. “The Early Days of the Internet” has distinct movements and themes, and there’s a lot of texture to each. But the tunes still meld together in a way that feels like you’re reading a short story or novella. Tice says this intermingling of musical lines is also what inspired the cover art by Nashville artist Rachel Briggs. He described his vision to the much-loved illustrator, who took just one try to come up with the perfect line-art-esque piece in shades of tan.

“The kind of faded color and the lines remind me of an old science fiction paperback,” Tice says. “There was something nostalgic about the dreamy quality of this image set to the music.”

Tice, a Nashvillian since 2015, says that while bluegrass is a major touchstone in his musical

X, so I couldn’t not … and three of those later, he challenged me to rap. Ten of the Ruff Ryders are there, they have their cameras out, it’s 1 in the morning, we’re drunk … and nothing was coming for me.

I dropped the one thing I could think of, and X did not go easy. [Laughs] He gave me four words of wisdom: “Have a full clip.” I’ll never forget that.

What’s your take on Nashville hip-hop? There’s so many talented artists in their own lane, it varies so much. But I think that’s a beautiful thing. It lives in the shadows of all the other music here, but we’re looking to change that.

Now is the time.

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background (he played bluegrass with his family as a child in Maryland), he’s also trained in jazz guitar and classical composition and was even in a rock band.

Last year, he released an album called Motivational Speakeasy, produced by The Milk Carton Kids’ Kenneth Pattengale; Tice sings several of the songs on that record, which features original pieces like the blues-schooled “Bad Little Idea.” Tice plans to play a few shows to promote the new EP, and at those shows you might hear some Hawktail tunes as well as songs from his solo catalog. Kowert will join in on a few shows, while Tice will be on his own for others.

For “Cats and Kitties,” the opening number of the EP, Tice wanted to make an homage to comedian Lord Buckley, whose character acting was popular in the 1940s and ’50s. When Buckley rewrote the Gettysburg Address in a beatnik poetry style, he opened with the line, “Let me hip you cats and kitties just how the scene went down, dig.” The rhythm of Tice’s song makes it easy to imagine him playing it behind Buckley’s monologue. The middle movement, with Kowert’s deep single bass notes punctuating, might even impart a sense of impending danger or sadness that could work well with such a retelling. But the sadness soon breaks — the ending movement is a bit of a trippy roller-coaster ride up and down the fretboard of Tice’s guitar, and it ends on a brighter note.

Each song on the EP feels like a little journey.

Tice’s main focus is getting back onstage and sharing the music with people in person. “​​My philosophy is, make it true to yourself. Do what you can to make sure people hear it. Get out and play it.”

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NASHVILLE SCENE | OCTOBER 7 – OCTOBER 13, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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MUSIC

THE SPIN

DEEP VIBRATIONS

BY SETH GRAVES

F

PHOTO: BRANDON DE LA CRUZ

riday night marked my first visit to Cannery Ballroom in almost two years, since my last stop was a couple months before the midsize club shut its doors in response to COVID-19 in March 2020. Friday’s visit was bittersweet, due in part to the owners of Cannery Ballroom and its sister venues Mercy Lounge and The High Watt announcing that they’ll close up shop when their lease is up in May 2022. Though venue owner Todd Olhauser & Co. hope to reopen the venues elsewhere, and property owner Zach Liff announced he’s planning to continue hosting live music on the site, the days are numbered for the current configuration, which has played a big role in the evolution of local music since 2003. But let’s not bury the lede: The show marked a triumphant homecoming for Soccer Mommy, ending the first leg of the rockers’ COVID-delayed tour for their outstanding 2020 album Color Theory. As I walked in, the

the stage in a black cloak, brandishing a red lightsaber. Her band — including frequent collaborator Julian Powell on guitar and longtime local MVPs Rollum Haas at the drum throne and Rodrigo Avendano on guitars and synths — soon appeared. She traded the costume weapon for a guitar, and they launched their set with the first three songs from Color Theory: driving opener “Bloodstream,” standout single “Circle the Drain” and the slow-burning “Royal Screw Up.” As the night went on, they brought out older fan favorites like “Last Girl” from 2018’s Fat Possum debut Clean, and “Henry” from Allison’s 2016 EP For Young Hearts.

The group’s softly delivered, emotionally charged lyrics about isolation, depression and existential unease seemed to resonate strongly with this nearly sold-out crowd.

We’ve all had to cope with the stresses of pandemic lockdown, which began roughly two weeks after Color Theory was released, and things are still a long way from what you might call “normal.” Dissonant guitar lines tangled and resolved into dreamy harmonies, complementing Allison’s somber and confessional examinations, which feel easily relatable despite their immensely personal nature.

Just past the show’s midpoint, Allison

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CLOAK AND DAGGER: SOCCER MOMMY space was already mostly full of eager young fans ready to hear Soccer Mommy’s muchloved newest record played live on their home turf for the first time.

Within a few minutes, supporting act Squirrel Flower — on the road behind a recent LP called Planet (i) — kicked off their opening set. Ella Williams, the Massachusetts-born singer-songwriter at the core of the band, took the stage solo. A hushed drone of whispery vocals and sparse layers of guitar floated over the anxious chatter rising and falling in the crowd. Soon enough, the rest of Williams’ band came out to amplify the low rumble that she started. Slowcore tempos and melancholy, droning guitar meant the performance set a contemplative mood rather than a hyped-up one. That said, Squirrel Flower’s slightly downtempo cover of Caroline Polachek’s dance-pop gem “So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings” seemed to be exactly what this audience needed to get its ears perked up and put its phones away.

After a short break, local hero Sophie Allison, who started releasing home recordings as Soccer Mommy in 2015, stormed

declared an early start to the Halloween season with “Lucy,” a look at the struggle to make peace with yourself wrapped up in a tale of being seduced by evil. The group’s affection for music that stretches out the sweet-and-sour flavor of power pop is no secret, but Allison’s solo rendition of “Dagger,” from the catalog of shoegaze legends Slowdive, was still a pleasant surprise. The main set closed with “Yellow Is the Color of Her Eyes,” an introspective tune about coping with inevitable loss that Allison quipped was more like two songs given its runtime of more than seven minutes.

Of course, one doesn’t simply roll out when one has a crowd like this one in the palm of one’s hand. Soon, Allison and the band returned to encore with their ominous single “Your Dog” and folk-rocking anthem “Scorpio Rising,” both choice picks from Clean. With the last song’s slow build echoing in our brains, the group left the stage for the last time of the evening — headed for a much-needed break before the tour gets back on the road in a couple of weeks.

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FILM

STYLE UNDER SUBSTANCE The quiet profundity of Amalia Ulman’s El Planeta

BY NADINE SMITH

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ecause of its quite literal connection to the human form, fashion offers a unique means of self-expression, of externalizing the interior self.

While other works of art can exist beyond the artEL PLANETA ist or the audience, NR, 80 MINUTES; IN clothing requires a SPANISH WITH ENGLISH living, moving body SUBTITLES to be fully appreciPLAYING OCT. 8-12 AT THE BELCOURT ated. But personal aesthetics can be something of a double-edged sword, as much of an armor or exoskeleton — protecting your vulnerabilities and projecting a false image of who you are — as it is a way to genuinely present yourself.

El Planeta, the debut feature from Spanish filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist Amalia Ulman, is fascinated with the ways that clothing can tell a deceptive story about the person wearing it. Ulman herself plays Leonor, a young woman with a strongly defined sense of taste with the possibility of a thriving career as a stylist and designer. Though the cultural context is hyper-specific, Leonor faces a crossroads in her life that’s regrettably familiar to many millennials: She’s forced to move back in with her mother, María, played by Amalia’s real-life mother Ale Ulman, after the death of her father. Leonor is from a remote, wayward seaside community called Gijón, set within the isolated and autonomous Asturias region; there are job opportunities in unaffordable cities like London and New York, but even Madrid and Barcelona are a world away from a small cobblestone town full of senior citizens.

At first glance, Leonor quite clearly stands out, draped in a mixture of designer brands and homemade pieces. Her style is like something straight out of my Instagram explore page — loud, maximalist and often boldly mismatched. But because of how Ulman captures her world, Leonor is as invisible as she is visible, her clothing so clearly a way of standing out from the humdrum existence around her, but also a disguise that allows her to pretend she’s more stable and successful than she actually is. Ulman’s camera is often static and slow, the monochromatic color scheme of her lens muting the bright colors we can only assume make up her character’s wardrobe. There’s a sense of droll absurdity reminiscent of filmmakers like Aki Kaurismäki or Jim Jarmusch, but the black-andwhite here almost lends a sense of uneasiness — a world we expect to be filled with color is completely drained of it. Leonor might be stylish, but she is rarely ever stylized. Almost every frame is captured in wide, deep focus, letting the details of Leonor’s outfits and background textures wash over you rather than overwhelm.

Leonor’s fashion sense might also be a means of differentiating herself from her mother — using style as a defense mechanism clearly runs in the family. María is elegant and seemingly unaging, a former dancer with a slim figure, an obsession with cats and a deep belief in the supernatural.

Instead of looking for work, she spends most of her time writing down the names of her enemies on slips of paper that she then puts in her freezer, hoping those who have wronged her will be visited by an icy chill.

Since the passing of María’s husband, her life has become an elaborate, endless con, with one little scam or grift after another, selling the illusion however she can. She has to resort to shoplifting, but still wears a fur coat while doing so; she convinces everyone she meets that her daughter is dating a famous politician so she can credit her expenditures to his seemingly endless tab.

In a scene that’s as breathtakingly acted as it is heartbreaking to watch, María comes completely undone while talking on the phone, sharing the shame and humiliation she feels about her financial circumstances, her lack of lifetime work experience and her inability to qualify for assistance in a Spain struggling with the aftershocks of financial and political crisis. In a split second, her body and demeanor completely transform as she answers an incoming call — it’s a grocery delivery boy, checking to make sure she’ll be home in the next hour. She effortlessly asks if he can throw in a bag of oranges, and per usual, assures him that she’ll pay up at the end of the month.

As much as Leonor wants to break this cycle, it’s one she’s trapped in as well: She has a devoted social media following to maintain, a personal image and sense of style to keep up with, and a career that could either take off or completely fall apart. Leonor gets an opportunity to style a photoshoot for Christina Aguilera, but her team won’t expense her flight; she sells her sewing machine, and awkwardly looks for sex work on Craigslist. She hits it off with a man because they’re both wearing zebra print, but once the well-dressed facade fades away, she learns he’s just another married man looking for a one-night stand.

Though El Planeta’s short runtime, quiet demeanor and detailed costuming might feel relaxed and unassuming, there’s a profound sense of sadness at the film’s core. It’s not just the fact that you know the jig will be up sooner rather than later, but the difficult truths found within — the way in which women are made to be reliant on the support of men, unable to do what they need to take care of themselves once that man is gone, but also the panicked desperation of people who have never had to be desperate before, who still have appearances to keep up while everything else falls apart.

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10/4/21 3:08 PM

Marketplace

Rocky McElhaney Law Firm InjuRy Auto ACCIdEnts WRongFul dEAth dAngERous And dEFECtIvE dRugs

Voted Best Attorney in Nashville Call 615-425-2500 for FREE Consultation

www.rockylawfirm.com LEGALS Non-Resident Notice Third Circuit Docket No. 21D787

Rental Scene

COURTNEY KNIGHT-THOMAS vs.

KEZWIC DECONTE' THOMAS In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a non-resident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon KEZWIC DECONTE' THOMAS. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HIS appearance herein with thirty (30) days after October 21, 2021 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on November 22, 2021. It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a non-resident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon KEZWIC DECONTE' THOMAS. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HIS appearance herein with thirty (30) days after October 21, 2021 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on November 22, 2021. It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

on November 8, 2021.

It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

Richard R. Rooker, Clerk L. Chappell Deputy Clerk Date: September 10, 2021 Matt Maniatis Attorney for Plaintiff NSC 9/16, 9/23, 9/30, 10/7/2021

Non-Resident Notice Third Circuit Docket No. 21D1143

Richard R. Rooker, Clerk L. Chappell, Deputy Clerk Date: September 22, 2021

SIFSAGADANI JULA vs.

ZENEBE DEGEFA

Rebecca Toca Attorney for Plaintiff

In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a non-resident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon ZENEBE DEGEFA. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HIS appearance herein with thirty (30) days after October 14, 2021 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on November 15, 2021. It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

NSC 9/30,10/7,10/14,10/28/2021

Non-Resident Notice Fourth Circuit Docket No. 21D910 MARIA TERESA NUNEZ DUENAS vs.

MANUEL NUNEZ ESPARZA In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a non-resident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon MANUEL NUNEZ ESPARZA. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HIS appearance herein with thirty (30) days after October 7, 2021 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on November 8, 2021.

It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

Richard R. Rooker, Clerk L. Chappell Deputy Clerk Date: September 10, 2021

Richard R. Rooker, Clerk M. De Jesus, Deputy Clerk Date: September 15, 2021 F. Michie Gibson, Jr. Attorney for Plaintiff NSC 9/23, 9/30, 10/7, 10/14/2021 Non-Resident Notice Third Circuit Docket No. 21D985 JAMES STANFILL vs.

TERESA STANFILL In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a non-resident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon TERESA STANFILL It is ordered that said Defendant enter HER appearance herein with thirty (30) days after October 14, 2021 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on November 15, 2021. It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

JAMES STANFILL vs.

TERESA STANFILL In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a non-resident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon TERESA STANFILL It is ordered that said Defendant enter HER appearance herein with thirty (30) days after October 14, 2021 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on November 15, 2021. It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

Richard R. Rooker, Clerk M. De Jesus, Deputy Clerk Date: September 15, 2021 Martin A Kooperman Attorney for Plaintiff NSC 9/23, 9/30, 10/7, 10/14/2021 Non-Resident Notice Third Circuit Docket No. 21D731 TRACY KAY BRANT vs.

ANDREW STEVEN BRANT In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a non-resident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon ANDREW STEVEN BRANT. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HIS appearance herein with thirty (30) days after October 14, 2021 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on November 15, 2021. It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

and defend or default will be taken on November 15, 2021. It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

Richard R. Rooker, Clerk L. Chappell, Deputy Clerk Date: September 16, 2021 Rebecca Toca Attorney for Plaintiff NSC 9/23, 9/30, 10/7, 10/14/2021

NSC 9/16, 9/23, 9/30, 10/7/2021

Richard R. Rooker, Clerk L. Chappell, Deputy Clerk Date: September 22, 2021 Rebecca Toca Attorney for Plaintiff

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Richard R. Rooker, Clerk L. Chappell, Deputy Clerk Date: September 16, 2021

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Rebecca Toca Attorney for Plaintiff

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NSC 9/23, 9/30, 10/7, 10/14/2021

Richard R. Rooker, Clerk M. De Jesus, Deputy Clerk Date: September 15, 2021

NSC 9/30,10/7,10/14,10/28/2021

Martin A Kooperman Attorney for Plaintiff

Your Neighborhood Local attractions: · Nashville West Shopping Center · Hillwood Country Club · Cumberland River

Neighborhood dining and drinks: · Tequila’s Mexican Restaurant · Hillwood Pub · Buffalo Wild Wings Enjoy the outdoors: · Elmington Park · Centennial Park · Belle Meade Historic Site & Winery Best place near by to see a show: · Belcourt Theatre

NSC 9/23, 9/30, 10/7, 10/14/2021

Favorite local neighborhood bar: · Hillwood Pub Best local family outing: · Centennial Park Your new home amenities: · Cumberland River views · Vaulted Ceilings · Washer/Dryer connections · Playground · Sparkling Pool · On-Site Laundry · Renovations coming soon

Call the Rental Scene property you’re interested in and mention this ad to find out about a special promotion for Scene Readers

411 Annex Ave Nashville, TN 37209 | cumberlandretreatapartments.com | 615.356.0257 46

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NASHVILLE SCENE | OCTOBER 7 - OCTOBER 13, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

Cumberland Retreat 411 Annex Ave Nashville, TN 37209

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British Woods 264 British Woods Drive Nashville, TN 37217 1 bed / 1 bath 725 sq ft $1084+ per month

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Rental Scene

2 Bed /1 Bath 1008 sq ft $1329

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www.britishwoodsapartments.com | 615.205.1862

Gazebo Apartments 141 Neese Drive Nashville TN 37211 1 Bed / 1 Bath 756 sq ft $1,119 +

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chasecoveapartments.com | 615.813.6279 Brighton Valley 500 BrooksBoro Terrace, Nashville, TN 37217 1 Bedroom/1 bath 800 sq feet $1360

2 Bedrooms/ 2 baths 1100 sq feet $1490

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brightonvalley.net | 615.366.5552 nashvillescene.com | OCTOBER 7 - OCTOBER 13, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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S U H P I TC

Nashville is a diverse city, and we want a pool of freelance contributors who reflect that diversity. We’re looking for new freelancers, and we particularly want to encourage writers of color & LGBTQ writers to pitch us.

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Nashville Scene’s Marketplace on pages 46 - 47.

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NASHVILLE SCENE | OCTOBER 7 - OCTOBER 13, 2021 | nashvillescene.com