Nashville Scene 6-18-20

WALK A MILE: WE TAKE A STROLL THROUGH HISTORIC WOODLAND-INWAVERLY PAGE 7

JUNE 18–24, 2020 I VOLUME 39 I NUMBER 20 I NASHVILLESCENE.COM I FREE

FOOD & DRINK: CHEF BRIAN BAXTER TO TAKE OVER THE CATBIRD SEAT PAGE 21

WHOSE STREETS? As protests fill the city, we look at policing in Nashville — and how it could change

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MUSIC RESTORES

Watch & Listen This week, we’re focused on how music can further and capture the process of restoration and renewal. Visit our website’s Watch & Listen page to explore videos that hold the energy of a welcome return, including previously unreleased footage of Keith Urban from this year’s All for the Hall benefit concert in Nashville.

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above:

KEITH URBAN

NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 18 – JUNE 24, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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CONTENTS

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THEATER

CITY LIMITS

Walk a Mile: Woodland-in-Waverly ...........7 In the sixth installment of his column, J.R. Lind visits the architecturally diverse former streetcar suburb

BY J.R. LIND

Pith in the Wind .........................................8

This week on the Scene’s news and politics blog

The Show Must Go On(line)

Local theaters continue to create opportunities for artists and audiences

BY AMY STUMPFL

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BOOKS

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The Resurrection Racket

Whose Streets? ....................................... 10

‘Lodestar’

W.M. Akers returns to his mythical Jazz Age New York City, where time is out of joint

COVER STORY

While the majority of Nashville protests have been peaceful, police are often equipped for a riot

BY ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

Put Down the Hammer ........................... 11 For examples of alternatives to policing and incarceration, look to groups like North Nashville’s Gideon’s Army

BY STEVEN HALE

A Timeline of Police Brutality in Nashville .............................................. 12 See an abbreviated outline of police shootings in Nashville over the past 60 years

BY ABBY LEE HOOD

Protesters to Police: Get Off Your Knee ................................... 13 Local marchers discourage ‘copaganda’ viral moments

BY STEPHEN ELLIOTT

BY SEAN KINCH AND CHAPTER 16

A poem by Destiny O. Birdsong, illustrated by Lauren Cierzan

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MUSIC

Log On, Tune In, Drop Out ....................... 25 Far Out Nashville looks to make a seamless shift online with Far Out Free Fest

JUNE 18, 2020

THIS WEEK ON THE WEB: Brittany Howard, Brandi Carlile, More Nominated for Americana Awards Judge Lynda Jones Defends Police Chief in ‘Power Poll’ Comment East Side Bánh Mì Plans an August Opening After Eight Years, Ground Floor Gallery + Studios Announces Closure

ON THE COVER:

Protest on May 30, 2020 Photo by Matt Masters

BY CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

With the Most .......................................... 25 With his new release Ghost Tape, rapper Virghost aims to keep it real — and profitable

BY ANDREA WILLIAMS

A Closer Look .......................................... 26 Our music scribes catch up on releases from Tim Gent, Slush, Dream Wave and more

BY KELSEY BEYELER, EDD HURT, P.J. KINZER, BRITTNEY McKENNA, MEGAN SELING, STEPHEN TRAGESER, RON WYNN AND CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

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The Spin ................................................... 27

Watch ‘In the Shadows’ and participate in a panel discussion, celebrate Juneteenth, stream films directed by Black women, go to Drag Drive-In, watch the Jefferson Street Jazz and Blues Festival livestream, participate in Peaceful Home Protest Day and more

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The Scene’s live-review column checks out Picture Show: A Tribute Celebrating John Prine

CRITICS’ PICKS

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BY EDD HURT AND BRITTNEY McKENNA

FILM

Primal Stream XIII .................................. 28

A heartfelt horror doc, a very important Alien3 cut and more, now available to stream

BY JASON SHAWHAN

Ain’t That the Tooth................................. 29

FOOD AND DRINK

The Takeout Top 20 ................................ 19 From biscuits to birds to Bun Bo Hue, here are 20 to-go dishes to try in Nashville now

BY ASHLEY BRANTLEY

The Hot Seat ............................................ 21 Chef Brian Baxter to take over The Catbird Seat

BY STEVE CAVENDISH

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Shannon Murphy’s Babyteeth is a powerful feature debut

BY STEVE ERICKSON

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NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD MARKETPLACE

CULTURE

Neighborhood Spirit

Grassroots acts of love keep hope alive during the pandemic

BY SARA LEE BURD

Walk a

With feet on the street, we discover Nashville’s own unique beat – one mile at a time

Mile

with J.R. Lind

nashvillescene.com | JUNE 18 – JUNE 24, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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A women’s column featuring a rotating cast of contributors

Vodka Yonic nashvillescene.com 4

FROM BILL FREEMAN CASADA LAUGHS, DICKERSON DISTANCES, WHILE VIABLE CANDIDATES PREPARE TO MAKE THEIR MOVES Every day in Tennessee and in America, we hope to see good things from our political leaders.

When they take office, our elected leaders take an oath to uphold our constitutions, federal and state. So when they don’t act in the best interests of the people they are sworn to represent, it is disturbing and shameful.

These “lapses in judgment” or misguided mistakes are seemingly becoming the norm. What is truly infuriating is seeing those who’ve been involved in a whole series of mistakes literally laughing it off — as if their wrongdoing had little to no importance at all. One example is the recent laugh from former Speaker of the House Glen Casada.

Casada lost his position as state speaker after he condoned horrific behavior from his former chief of staff, Cade Cothren, as well as fellow Reps. Jeremy Durham and David Byrd, who have each faced discipline for sexual harassment and misconduct.

And now he is laughing in the face of the state board that oversees campaign spending.

The Tennessee Registry of Election Finance felt it necessary to conduct two separate audits, one into Casada’s personal campaign account and the other of his political action committee, specifically from January 2018 through June 2019.

The Tennessean has reported that Casada originally “welcomed the investigation,” saying it would prove him innocent of inappropriate spending — but the audits exposed failures in reporting contributions, itemizing expenses and providing receipts for expenses. Further, The Tennessean reported: “Casada and his political action committee had spent thousands of dollars on food and beverages, a membership to a Nashville restaurant’s private club and travel in recent years.”

NewsChannel 5 reported that the PAC audit revealed nearly 300 charges, totaling roughly $100,000, with no receipts or documentation. Casada initially said he had mixed up his personal campaign account and his PAC account. Then he said he thought if the expense was under $100 he didn’t need a receipt. Many would find that reasonable, but I find it unrealistic.

The man has been an elected member of the state House for nearly 20 years, yet he claims ignorance and that “it’s been a learning experience.” The Registry of Election Finance planned to fine Casada $10,500, but for now that has been delayed.

Though reportedly “cooperative” with auditors, Casada in the end he comes off as insincere. When registry Chairman Tom Lawless asked, “You don’t want to go through this again?” Casada reportedly laughed. Maybe that’s because he feels he has gotten away with yet one more transgression.

Sadly, Casada is not the only representative under suspicion of putting his hand in the proverbial cookie jar.

Republican Sen. Steven Dickerson and a company he co-founded, Comprehensive Pain Specialists, were accused last year of defrauding government-sponsored

insurance programs and named in a federal and state lawsuit with several other doctors. The former CEO of CPS, Dr. John Davis, has been convicted on federal criminal health care fraud charges in a separate case.

It’s worth noting that in September, the Nashville Post and others reported that CPS and its founders said the suit is without merit, and neither CPS nor its owners face any criminal charges. Though Sen. Dickerson has been “distancing himself” from his former colleagues, and his company was dissolved, the Post reported that Dickerson “submitted more than 750 false claims [himself] amounting to nearly $6.5 million for specimen validity, genetic and psychological testing as well as acupuncture.” “Government officials allege Nashville-based CPS’ fraud totaled $25 million,” the report continues.

Like Casada, Dickerson denies and downplays his involvement, claiming he was dependent on the advice of his thencompany’s counsel regarding compliance issues. He noted that he was so busy with his senatorial duties that he spent minimal time at his company and was seldom involved in its day-to-day activities. Even so, it was reported that he did not attempt to stop or change the things he was aware of, and that he was financially benefiting from them.

Like Casada, Dickerson took an oath to serve the people, and voters may find themselves questioning the kind of person he might be. The senator has rightly earned the label of “most vulnerable incumbent.” According to the Nashville Post, Dickerson’s opponent in District 20 will be the winner of the Democratic primary in August, which is between Oak Hill Mayor Heidi Campbell and Kimi Abernathy. Campbell has strong ties to Nashville along with good experience, and her platform includes homogeneity in our education system, Medicaid expansion and being a voice for better fiscal decisions. (Disclosure: Bill Freeman has made a financial contribution to Heidi Campbell’s campaign.) Abernathy, a former schoolteacher, is running on similar platforms. “There is one more reason I am running,” says Abernathy. “The Tennessee Senate is currently governed by a supermajority of Republicans. They do not have to, and indeed have not, allowed a voice to the minority. Consequently, no effort is made to be moderate. We need balance again.”

All those in favor, say aye!

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 Editors Jack Silverman, Abby White Staff Writers Stephen Elliott, Nancy Floyd, Steven Hale, Kara Hartnett, J.R. Lind, William Williams Contributing Writers Sadaf Ahsan, Radley Balko, Ashley Brantley, Maria Browning, Steve Cavendish, Chris Chamberlain, Lance Conzett, 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, Chris Parton, Betsy Phillips, John Pitcher, Margaret Renkl, Megan Seling, Jason Shawhan, Michael Sicinski, Ashley Spurgeon, Amy Stumpfl, Kay West, Cy Winstanley, Ron Wynn, Charlie Zaillian Art Director Elizabeth Jones Photographers Eric England, Daniel Meigs Graphic Designers Mary Louise Meadors, Tracey Starck Production Coordinator Christie Passarello Circulation Manager Casey Sanders Events and Marketing Director Olivia Moye Events Manager Ali Foley Publisher Mike Smith Advertising Director Daniel Williams Senior Account Executives Maggie Bond, Debbie Deboer, Sue Falls, Michael Jezewski, Carla Mathis, Heather Cantrell Mullins, Stevan Steinhart, Jennifer Trsinar, Keith Wright Account Executive William Shutes Sales Operations Manager Chelon Hill Hasty Account Managers Emma Benjamin, Gary Minnis Special Projects Coordinator Susan Torregrossa President Frank Daniels III Chief Financial Officer Todd Patton Creative Director Heather Pierce IT Director John Schaeffer For advertising info please contact: Daniel Williams at 615-744-3397 FW PUBLISHING LLC Owner Bill Freeman VOICE MEDIA GROUP National Advertising 1-888-278-9866 vmgadvertising.com

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In memory of Jim Ridley, editor 2009-2016

Bill Freeman Bill Freeman is the owner of FW Publishing, the publishing company that produces the Nashville Scene, Nfocus, the Nashville Post and Home Page Media Group in Williamson County.

NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 18 – JUNE 24, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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COUNTDOWN TO OPEN BEGINS! The National Museum of African American Music opens in September. With over 1,000 artifacts on display, NMAAM will share a story never before told, celebrating the music we all know and love. Join us in Downtown Nashville, and experience our historic institution in person.

Buy your tickets today at blackmusicmuseum.org

@THENMAAM

nashvillescene.com | JUNE 18 – JUNE 24, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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CITY LIMITS

WOODLAND-IN-WAVERLY

In the sixth installment of his column, J.R. Lind visits the architecturally diverse former streetcar suburb

BY J.R. LIND | PHOTOS BY ERIC ENGLAND

Walk a Wedgewood Ave.

Ridley Blvd.

Mile

Roycroft Pl.

with J.R. Lind Benton Ave.

Ave. S.

.

and Ave Grantl

Eighth

d Ave.

Bradfor

THE ROUTE: From Roycroft and Wedgewood, east to Ridley and then right. Right again on Benton and then left on Grantland. Right on Bradford and then right on Eighth and north to the start.

Once a month, reporter and resident historian J.R. Lind will pick an area in the city to examine while accompanied by a photographer. With his column Walk a Mile, he’ll walk a one-mile stretch of that area, exploring the neighborhood’s history and character, its developments, its current homes and businesses, and what makes it a unique part of Nashville. If you have a suggestion for a future Walk a Mile, email editor@nashvillescene.com.

T

he crest of Roycroft Place is only about 30 feet higher than its intersection with Eighth Avenue, but it makes those 30 feet in less than 300 feet of road.

But it’s a surprisingly temperate June morning. The remnants of Cristobal — the tropical storm that ravaged the Gulf Coast and then pummeled parts of the interior (The Remnants of Cristobal would also be a great name for a magical-realist novel) — are shuffling through Ontario, and a cold front brought a northerly wind and blessedly dry air to Middle Tennessee. A climb of a 10 percent grade isn’t so terrible in such conditions, with an unthreatening and unblemished sky above.

Unencumbered by clouds, though, the sunlight is relentless, particularly as the first part of the journey is nearly due east, straight down the day arc as the calendar nears the solstice.

But serendipitously, nature finds its balance. Roycroft, a sort of gateway to the Woodland-in-Waverly neighborhood, is lined with luxuriant trees, the canopy extending right up to the sidewalk. There is an abundance of walnut trees, their leaves — like the remiges of a bird — fluttering at branches’ ends, the nuts themselves green and pendulant this time of year. It is easy

to get enchanted by the flora, but behind the verdant screen lurk equally enchanting manmade beauties.

Roycroft Place works well as a microcosm of its entire neighborhood. There is a mix of architectural styles popular in the first few decades of the 20th century.

There are the gables and pediments of the wedding-cake-evoking Queen Anne style.

There are the more capital-R Romantic and Italianate details of the more traditional Victorian styles. There are the four-squares more commonly associated with the Belmont-area neighborhoods a few ticks west.

On Roycroft in particular there are several Craftsman-style bungalows; indeed, the street itself is named for the Roycrofters, a community of artisans influential in the Arts and Crafts movement of the late 19th and early 20th century.

And then there are the homes built in what

Nashvillians of the time called Turn of the Century. A bit on the nose, perhaps, but essentially it features the interiors of a Queen Anne style with exteriors influenced by the then-popular Colonial Revival, with their columned Federal fronts and Georgian brick.

In short, Roycroft and its neighborhood harkens to the fashionable styles of the fashionable set in fin de siècle Nashville.

Though it would hardly meet the definition today — seeing as how it’s just two miles from downtown as the crow flies — Woodland-in-Waverly was one of the city’s first suburbs, specifically a streetcar suburb served first by mule-drawn trolleys and later by electrified ones. One such line ran along Eighth Avenue South, and this proximity to easy transit drew the well-heeled out of their townhomes into the tree-lined streets and broad yards of the neighborhood.

The neighborhood’s name — a mouthful

and a bit confusing, given that it’s nowhere near Waverly, the county seat of Humphreys County — has a convoluted history.

The land was the site of the farm of A.W. Putnam, best known these days for the stillessential resource A History of Middle Tennessee. He named his farm Waverly Place in homage to Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley novels. Interestingly, both Putnam and Steven Pavatt, the stagecoach inn operator who named the city in Humphreys County, made the same spelling error.

In the early 1890s, a land syndicate — members of which lent their names to many of the streets — began developing the subdivision. As neighborhoods do, it ebbed and flowed as suburbs became, well, more suburban. The construction of Interstate 65, which barges in to the east, brought the demolition of many historic homes. In an era before preservationism, many others were torn down to be replaced with the ranchstyle houses that were more popular in the 1950s and ’60s. Woodland-in-Waverly got its National Register of Historic Places designation in 1980, in recognition of its status as a largely intact streetcar suburb. Five years later, it was designated a Historic Zoning District by Metro Nashville.

Now there is a sense of deep care to the neighborhood. Front yards abound with a variety of gardens. In one, wildflowers — including, appropriately, Queen Anne’s lace — stretch toward the sun that peeks through the arboreal canopy. In another, a squash plant has sent a shoot under the picket fence and into the sidewalk. Yards are well-maintained and porches neat, but not in a Parade of Homes sort of way. They still look lived-in and worked-in rather than staged.

Roycroft abuts Ridley shortly after the crest of its formidable hill. It’s obvious that Roycroft continued to the east before I-65 existed; its remnants form a sort of communal back driveway for a pair of homes, the curb still extant. Stairs from the sidewalk rise to a flattened lot that clearly once held a house but now hosts a wooden playset. At the corner of Benton and Ridley are two of the grander homes in Woodland-in-Waverly.

On the left, a 6,800-square-foot, 13-room behemoth with a stately porte-cochere and well-manicured lawn dating from 1920. On the right, a three-story 4,100-square-footer built in 1910. Its yard is a little more funky than its neighbor across the way, with its two dog statues (the hyper-realist one on the front stairs is lifelike enough to force a second or third look), one of those ubiquitous catfish sculptures that served as Nashville’s first public art outreach a few decades ago, and a sculpture of a small tree that surely has some significance to the home’s owner.

The asymmetrical porch is classic Queen Anne, as is the broad roof topped with a metallic finial.

Benton Avenue is believed to be named for Thomas Hart Benton (the senator, not the Regionalist painter whose last major work hangs at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum). For 15 years, Benton lived in Middle Tennessee, on a farm near what is now Leiper’s Fork. His family called the place Hillsboro after their North Carolina hometown, still reflected in the name of Hillsboro Road. Among other things, Benton was Andrew Jackson’s aide-de-camp during the War of 1812, but

nashvillescene.com | JUNE 18 – JUNE 24, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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CITY LIMITS

the future president sent him away from the front lines to instead represent him in Washington, D.C. Angry at being denied the chance for battlefield glory, Benton got in a brawl with Old Hickory. The future senator must have been a tough son-of-a-gun, because the fight left Jackson wounded. In any case, Benton realized after the war he’d have a hard time rising to glory in Tennessee in the long shadow of Jackson, so he moved to Missouri. Benton never lived on the

THIS WEEK ON OUR NEWS AND POLITICS BLOG: At least 15 Metro Councilmembers signed on to a resolution calling on Mayor John Cooper to ask for the resignation of embattled Metro Police Chief Steve Anderson. Anderson’s shortcomings, according to the signatories, include a failure to address in a meaningful way Gideon’s Army’s 2017 “Driving While Black” report, which indicated racial bias in traffic stops; Anderson’s lack of cooperation with the Community Oversight Board; and the recent fiasco surrounding warrants, issued and then rescinded, for the arrests of prominent Black activists Jeneisha Harris and Justin Jones. Cooper later issued a statement that essentially said nothing, never even mentioning Anderson’s name. Monday, Cooper announced “a

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street, but Tennessee Gov. Albert Roberts did. Roberts served just one term as the state’s chief executive, due in large part to his support for women’s suffrage. (He called the famous special session that led to the ultimate ratification of the 19th Amendment.)

Timothy Demonbreun never lived on Benton either, but the house that faces the street’s intersection with Grantland bears his name nonetheless. Now a bed-and-breakfast, the 22-room house was built in 1902 by

commission to review community experiences with police use of force and develop recommendations to improve use-of-force policies.”

Cooper and the MNPD also announced that department policy now explicitly bans chokeholds (the technique isn’t part of MNPD training and is largely prohibited by state law, thus it was already implicitly banned) and clarifies officers’ duty to intervene in excessive-force situations. … An MNPD sergeant who once admonished Officer Andrew Delke for not pulling his gun during a 2017 foot chase with an armed Black man is now working at the department’s training academy. Delke is awaiting trial for murder after he shot Daniel Hambrick in the back in 2018. … Over the weekend, a group of activists unilaterally declared Legislative Plaza an “autonomous zone” and just as unilaterally renamed it Ida B. Wells Plaza, after the famed Black journalist who led an anti-lynching campaign in the early 20th century. Wells, coincidentally, left Tennessee after her newspaper office was ravaged following a series of blistering editorials by Edward Ward Carmack, whose statue on Capitol Hill was toppled by protesters May 30. Gov. Bill Lee said autonomous

the Robinson family and named Robincroft.

Richard Demonbreun, a local attorney and one of the innumerable local descendents of the famously fecund French-Canadian pioneer, bought the house in 1995 and named it for his great-great-great-great-grandfather. France’s Le Tricolore and the three gold fleur-de-lis on a blue background that served as New France’s flag (though not at the time of Demonbreun, it should be noted) fly outside the home.

South on Grantland, the architectural variety continues. A Queen Anne’s curvilinear porch all but beckons you to follow the road where trees erupt from the artificial bounds of backyards and property lines and loom and dip on the sidewalk. Such variety abounds that it’s almost as if Grantland is a glorious arboretum free and open to anyone with the desire to walk it.

The houses on Grantland have a little more panache than their statelier neighbors up the road, particularly in their paint jobs with bold primary and secondary colors, toned down so as to not be garish but not far enough to be truly pastel. Delicate accents on pillars and posts come in contrasting color choices. Even the clapboard houses likely built after the neighborhood’s peak ooze a simple elegance dusted by the fairydust of whimsical personalities.

A home just on the other side of Grantland’s intersection with Prentice, for example, is painted purple with light blue-gray accents, and the front stairs are decorated with an all-encompassing mosaic featuring depictions of a sea monster and a sugar skull. Even a passing dachshund — one of the silliest-looking dogs — walks with dignified insouciance.

Alas, this walk through a reimagined past comes to an abrupt end at Bradford with a towering wall of a New Nashville apartment building, nothing but right angles and beige. At Eighth and Bradford is the newest outpost of Hattie B’s, once the home of the much-loved but short-lived fast-casual seafood shack The Hook. Across the street, yet another Publix is under construction.

There are, a bit concerningly, no side-

zones would not be tolerated, citing a law passed by the legislature following the 2011 Occupy protests that prohibits camping and related activities on certain state property. Troopers cited that law after clearing the plaza Saturday afternoon, ostensibly so the plaza could have its scheduled power-wash. …

A group of families gathered Saturday at Bicentennial Mall State Park for the Mamas for Racial Justice March, and a separate group left Legislative Plaza for Lower Broad in the March for Justice.

Some honky-tonk proprietors had complained to the city about the effects of the marches on their business, though it did not appear to be hampered this weekend. … In fact, so unhampered was the booze and bro-country business that three Neon Canyon hotspots were cited by the Metro Health Department for noncompliance with the still-ineffect public health orders related to social distancing and mask use. Honky Tonk Central, Nashville Underground and Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk all have court dates. In what must have been a reallife Mr. Belding “Hey, hey, hey, what is going on here?” moment, health department director Michael Caldwell actually visited Kid Rock’s joint himself

walks to speak of on the east side of Eighth here, though industrious perambulators have worn a distinct if dusty trail under the streetlights, which mimic the iconic lights of Paris’ Metro.

The Smiling Elephant, a homey Thai restaurant, even gets into the architectural mishmash game, with Southeast Asian details on its eaves. And across the street, we can complete our architectural bingo board with the sorta-Tudor stylings at a nowvacant office building.

Behind an imposing wrought-iron fence up the road is the blindingly white Gruhn Guitars building (once, coincidentally, home of the Nashville Scene).

The antique stores for which this stretch of Eighth is at least locally known begin to pop up, from the more traditional Dealer’s Choice Antiques & Auction to the more off-center Classic Modern and Pre to Post Modern, the former fronted by an ersatz cannon made from old wagon wheels and a creosote-covered utility pole. The number of faux-oranges on display at the store is alarming for any fans of The Godfather, but they don’t seem to bother the line of caffeine addicts outside 8th and Roast. Zanies promises upcoming shows, and Douglas Corner says it’s coming back soon (despite last month’s announcement that it would close permanently). Though local businesses are certainly in the majority here, there are plenty of reminders of the nearby interstate exit — gas stations, fast-food restaurants and, this being Nashville, a Dollar General.

But the free spirit of the neighborhood shines anyway: the signpost at a Subway hosts a collection of oddball birdhouses and, for some reason, a plastic frog. A scattering of homes rises up from the street as we close the mile-long circle, the steep stone stairs lifting from the sidewalk hinting that the sharp climb of Raycroft is nigh.

Beyond the reservoir, the unrelenting sunlight glistens off the silver towers of downtown, conveniently close. But not too close — just as Woodland-in-Waverly has liked it for a century.

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

Saturday night. A picture of the jam-packed bar went locally viral over the weekend, and the Scene’s D. Patrick Rodgers was tipped to a text message urging bands playing the venue not to snap photos from the stage. … Lindsey Harris and Stephanie Teatro, joint leaders of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition and the Scene’s Nashvillians of the Year for 2019, are leaving TIRRC. Policy director Lisa Sherman-Nikolaus will take over as executive director. … The Tennessee Supreme Court delayed another scheduled execution, resetting Byron Black’s execution date to April 2021. He was scheduled to die in October. … The Republican-led legislature removed the obligation that the governor issue a proclamation for Nathan Bedford Forrest Day, but refused to ax the holiday celebrating the slave trader, alleged war criminal, early KKK leader and delegate to the 1868 Democratic National Convention. … Metro school board chair Anna Shepherd died June 8.

She was 68.

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NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 18 – JUNE 24, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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nashvillescene.com | JUNE 18 – JUNE 24, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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WHOSE STREETS? JUNE 13, 2020

JUNE 13, 2020

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protesters and members of the Tennessee Highway Patrol at the state Capitol. On June 12, activists set up tents on the steps of the Capitol, and were removed from their campsite the next day. In protest, the activists sat on the nearby grassy hill until 11 p.m., with the number of state troopers watching them increasing over the evening.

There were even more actions in June, from a morning march organized by mothers on June 12 to a Defend Black Lives Block Party at Public Square Park on June 13.

A common chant at these protests: “Whose streets?” The crowd’s response, no matter how many heavily equipped police officers line the road, is always the same: “Our streets.”

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MAY 30, 2020

PHOTO: MATT MASTERS

BY ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

A

businesses were damaged.

But all of the protests since have been peaceful.

Even so, the police presence for those events has included officers in riot gear, usually posted in front of Broadway businesses and the courthouse.

On June 4, a massive march organized by six teenage girls under the banner Teens for Equity drew more than 10,000 people into the streets of Nashville for a peaceful demonstration. At Lower Broadway, they were temporarily stopped by police in riot gear, and the marchers took a knee in response. Similarly, on June 13, thousands of protesters chanted, “We don’t see no riot here, why are you in riot gear?” as the March for Justice made its way down Broadway amid a heavily equipped police presence.

Tensions also mounted during a standoff between

fter footage of a police officer killing George Floyd surfaced in late May, protests swept the country — from major cities to small towns. Here in Nashville, people have flooded the streets to rally against police brutality every week since Floyd’s death. And the Metro Nashville Police Department has also been a visible presence, with officers often clad in riot gear.

The first major protest in Nashville took place on May 30. After a peaceful rally near the state Capitol, some people marched to the MNPD’s Central Precinct, where several police cars were damaged. At the Metro Courthouse, rioters began smashing windows and spray-painting walls, some even setting fire to an office. On Lower Broad, many

PHOTO: MATT MASTERS

While the majority of Nashville protests have been peaceful, police are often equipped for a riot

PHOTO: MATT MASTERS

NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 18 – JUNE 24, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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PUT DOWN THE HAMMER For examples of alternatives to policing and incarceration, look to groups like North Nashville’s Gideon’s Army

BY STEVEN HALE

P

sychologist Abraham Maslow wasn’t talking about the American criminal legal system when he wrote in 1966, “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” More than 50 years later, though, the aphorism serves as a devastatingly clear description of the way policing and mass incarceration have been wielded against an array of societal challenges, with crushing blows aimed disproportionately at Black Americans.

Understood through that frame, the call coming from historic demonstrations in the streets of hundreds of American cities and towns — protests in response to the police killings of more Black men and women — is as simple as it is radical: Put down the hammer.

As crowds around the country chant “defund the police” and citizens demand that lo-

cal government officials pursue alternative strategies for public safety, many observers may wonder what such a future could look like. One potential answer is in the heart of historically Black North Nashville, in the work of Gideon’s Army. Without serious support from the Metro government, the small community outfit has been making use of different tools to confront violence and harm.

Gideon’s Army was started several years ago by Rasheedat Fetuga, a former schoolteacher motivated by the pain of losing students to gun violence. Her community activism flows from an understanding that so much crime and violence is the result of metastasized deprivation and despair, of unmet needs and unresolved trauma. Fetuga and others like her have dedicated their lives to the belief that these things will not yield to a police officer’s baton or the walls of a jail cell.

Through Gideon’s Army, Fetuga spearheaded the movement to bring restorative justice practices into Nashville schools.

She wanted to address the root causes of student disciplinary issues and repair the harm caused by misbehavior within a caring community — as opposed to a system that can often lead to expulsion and incarceration or death.

Last year, Gideon’s Army expanded on that work by deploying Violence Interrupters into the streets of North Nashville (an effort that was the subject of a June 2019 Scene cover story). The unarmed crew — which patrols North Nashville — has

PHOTO: MATT MASTERS PHOTO: ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

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MAY 30, 2020

JUNE 4, 2020

PHOTO: STEPHEN ELLIOTT

PHOTO: STEPHEN ELLIOTT PHOTO: MATT MASTERS

MAY 30, 2020

MAY 30, 2020 established a deep presence in the community, but with the goal of keeping the peace and de-escalating potentially violent situations when they arise. When a shooting does occur, another member of the violence interruption team, Deidre Nicole, responds to the home of the victim’s family within 24 hours. She offers support, whether that’s assistance in filling out victim’s compensation forms or planning and paying for a funeral.

Meanwhile, the rest of the team works to understand what led to the shooting and to intervene and resolve any conflicts. The goal is to treat violence like public health

officials treat an infectious disease — to isolate it and stop it from spreading. A lot of their work is focused on preventing retaliatory violence. The members of Gideon’s Army say they’re particularly equipped to do so because they have credibility in the neighborhood that police officers lack.

“The police work in our community — we live in our community,” Hambino Godbody, one of the Gideon’s Army Violence Interrupters, told a crowd gathered for a block party at Public Square Park last weekend.

At a separate weekend event hosted

by Gideon’s Army, another Violence

nashvillescene.com | JUNE 18 – JUNE 24, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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MEMBERS OF GIDEON’S ARMY, JUNE 2019 responders who can intervene in mental health crises instead of armed police officers; and fire Metro Police Chief Steve Anderson on the way to defunding the police.

Some of those ideas are also being proposed by local elected officials. Like Fetuga, District 29 Metro Councilmember Delishia Porterfield is a former schoolteacher, and she has called for a rethinking of how socalled School Resource Officers are used in

A TIMELINE OF POLICE BRUTALITY IN NASHVILLE See an abbreviated outline of police shootings in Nashville over the past 60 years

BY ABBY LEE HOOD Dec. 2, 1962: John Lewis is carried out of Herschel’s Tic Toc Restaurant, police holding his feet and arms, and loaded into a police van after refusing to leave. Lewis attended the American Baptist Theological Seminary and later became a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

April 1, 1963: Nashville and Davidson County are consolidated to form the Metropolitan Government of Nashville after approving the merger in June 1962.

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Interrupter, Chef Mic True, explained the importance of that credibility, which comes from the group’s roots in the community, as well as their personal histories.

“By empowering those like me,” said True, “who came from the urban community, who’ve been to jail, who sold drugs, who done shot pistols, who’ve been in the game, who done lived that entire life, for us to be empowered now and be in a better position, they already respect us. So that same voice that I used to say, ‘Hey man, shoot him,’ I can say, ‘No man, if you don’t put that pistol down …’ ” True went on to emphasize how he and his comrades interrupt the pathways that can lead to violent crime.

“We feed the community, we engage with the community, we pay community bills,” he said. “We meet you where you at, and we make sure that you have what you need, no matter what it is. It ain’t even about violence. It’s just about, what do you need? Do you need a ham sandwich or a hug? Whatever it is, we’re there for you.”

Fetuga tells the Scene excitedly that Gideon’s Army’s violence prevention and restorative justice work is expanding, thanks to grant money and donations. They’ll soon be putting more Violence Interrupters on the streets of North Nashville and facilitating more restorative justice opportunities for people who want to resolve disputes or respond to harm without the police.

“I’m not waiting for the mayor because, you know, I’m kind of mad at him right now,” Fetuga says. “Everybody has asked for him to defund the police, and then he comes out talking about body cameras.”

She does have some demands for Mayor John Cooper and the rest of Metro’s elected officials, though. Among them: Get police officers and their search dogs out of schools; establish a team of mental health first

Nov. 23, 1973: White police officers shoot and kill Ronald Lee Joyce, an unarmed 19-year-old college student, after an alleged burglary call that turns out to be a dice game. Joyce was shot in the back of the head while fleeing the scene. Hundreds of Nashvillians protest as a result of his death.

March 13, 1990: Metro Officer Bill Sneed shoots and kills Jacques Brooks while sitting inside his patrol car. Sneed had responded to a domestic abuse call, and Brooks stood outside his car holding a kitchen knife. Sneed shot Brooks, who was mentally ill, four times. Metro officials settled a civil suit with Brooks’ family, and Sneed was later promoted to lieutenant.

Metro schools.

“I’ve seen elementary students leaving school in handcuffs,” Porterfield says. “And there’s no reason that should be happening.

I remember years ago there would be situations where a student was putting their head down in class or refusing to do their work and the teacher would threaten to get an SRO. And the SRO was on the campus in the event that a crime was being committed.”

Metro Nashville Public Schools tells the Scene there are generally two officers at each zoned high school, one at each of the city’s magnet schools and one at every middle school.

Porterfield also says she wants the city to rethink what jobs it asks armed officers to carry out — for the good of civilians as well as the police officers themselves, who are sometimes sent into situations they may

A

s protests over George Floyd’s death and police brutality continue in all 50 states — as well as internationally in locations including London, Beirut and provinces in Syria — it’s important to remember that Nashville has a history of police brutality and racism.

Nashville made headlines during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and often not in a positive way. U.S. Rep. John Lewis and former Metro Councilmember Kwame Lillard protested during sit-ins at local restaurants and were arrested and harassed by police and citizens. Since then, police shootings and instances of brutality have continued to pile up, some even sparking international outrage.

Below is an abbreviated timeline that outlines some of these cases.

Dec. 14, 1992: Five white officers attack Black police Officer Reginald Miller after a traffic stop, claiming they mistook him for a “john” in a prostitution ring. Miller was beaten severely while working his first undercover sting. Two of the officers were fired.

Dec. 17, 2000: Police fatally shoot East Nashville resident Timothy Lane during a domestic violence call. Lane’s niece Gicola Lane later became a community activist and went on to help found the Metropolitan Community Oversight Board.

March 12, 2010: Officer Joe Shelton shoots and kills unarmed burglary suspect Reginald Wallace. Wallace was shot while reaching into his pocket.

Shelton said Wallace pulled out a shiny object — it turned out to be an iPod. Shelton was later transferred to the Metro Police Training Academy to teach “conflict resolution, de-escalation techniques, and firearm proficiency.”

Feb. 10, 2017: Officer Joshua Lippert shoots and kills Jocques Scott Clemmons, a 31-year-old Black man and a father, during a chase following an attempted traffic stop.

Davidson County District Attorney Glenn Funk declined to charge Lippert, saying the officer had a legitimate self-defense claim because he fired only after seeing Clemmons drop and retrieve a handgun.

July 26, 2018: Officer Andrew Delke shoots and kills 25-yearold Daniel Hambrick during a foot chase. Officer Delke shot Hambrick in the back as he was fleeing, with MNPD later tweeting a photo of the gun they say Hambrick was carrying. Delke has since been charged with firstdegree murder and is awaiting trial. He is the first MNPD officer ever to be charged with murder for an on-duty shooting.

May 14, 2020: Nashville’s Community Oversight Board releases a media alert that MNPD had shot and injured a domestic violence suspect without proper notification of the incident per COB regulations. Because of this, the COB was not able to respond to the scene.

NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 18 – JUNE 24, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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PHOTO: ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

JUNE 4, 2020

PROTESTERS TO POLICE: GET OFF YOUR KNEE Local marchers discourage ‘copaganda’ viral moments

BY STEPHEN ELLIOTT

I

t’s become a common refrain at police brutality protests across the country: Take. A. Knee.

Police officers who join marchers in kneeling have been the subject of viral photos and videos, but leading activists in Nashville and elsewhere are trying to put a stop to so-called copaganda.

“I think it’s pointless,” says Jeneisha Harris, a local activist whom police sought to arrest earlier this month before conceding it was a mistake. “We are asking people who are brutalizing us to empathize with us, and I think it’s impossible.”

In Nashville, the phenomenon can in part be traced back to 2014, when the nascent Black Lives Matter movement was protesting the decision not to charge Missouri police officer Darren Wilson for the killing of Michael Brown. Metro Police Chief Steve Anderson met the protesters with hot chocolate, and he in turn was met with national praise.

“It was cold, we came back to the precinct, there was hot chocolate and coffee — yadda, yadda, yadda,” says Rondriquez White, a co-founder of the local BLM organization. “But nothing actually changes.

Any time we tried to take Chief Anderson to task or we tried to make demands, it was met with nothing.”

In the years since 2014, Metro police officers have killed multiple black men, most notably Jocques Clemmons and Daniel Hambrick — the latter resulting in a murder charge against officer Andrew Delke.

The ensuing years also included the citizen-led creation of the Community Oversight Board, a police accountability body that citizens have advocated for in various forms for decades. Two mayors and the police department, with the help of the local Fraternal

Order of Police chapter, opposed the board’s creation, though voters established it anyway. Since then, tensions have mounted as the board claims police have continued to maintain barriers to meaningful oversight.

In that context, a small group of protesters during the peaceful Teens for Equality march through Nashville on June 4 asked officers to take a knee with them. At least three ultimately did. Earlier that week, protesters asked National Guard troops protecting the Capitol to take a knee, but they didn’t. They did, however, set down their shields, leading to a viral moment and widespread praise from elected leaders.

The following Saturday, a march made its way through downtown Nashville, passing many of the sites that were marked by violence during a much more chaotic demonstration exactly one week before.

At the MNPD Central Precinct building, marchers were met by a squad of officers in riot gear. The crowd took to their knees, with many chanting for the officers to join them, before White shut them down.

“For people who are newer into activism or getting into the streets, something like that can look all right to you,” White says. “But once you’ve done it, after a while it’s like, ‘OK, same old performance.’ ”

According to White, the proffered — and performative — solidarity comes only when the incident being protested takes place outside of Nashville. It’s simple enough, he says, for local law enforcement to decry the police killing of George Floyd, a case in which video footage leaves little room for debate. It gets messier when the spotlight turns to Nashville.

“It was a lot easier for Metro to make themselves look good when another police department was the one messing up,” says White. “But once the eye turned to Metro, all the sudden, we don’t get those hot chocolates.”

As the protests continue, at least some leaders will continue to discourage courting police solidarity.

And to those who urge protesters to follow the lead of the civil rights heroes who came before, White has a message.

“In this moment, everyone talks about what Dr. King did,” says White. “ ‘He wasn’t out there rioting. He wasn’t out there doing this, that and the other.’ The one thing that he didn’t do was hold hands, kneel and pray with people who were going to terrorize him later that night. It’s just a very performative action. It doesn’t offer any actual action.”

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PHOTO: STEPHEN ELLIOTT

not be equipped to handle well. Such situations range from the sensitive and unpredictable, like mental health crises, to mundane scenarios that can be unnecessarily escalated.

“Why do you need an armed police officer to handle a fender bender?” Porterfield says. “That doesn’t make sense. You can have a traffic enforcement agent who handles fender benders.”

The way forward, she says, has to be determined in conversation with the community.

While “defund the police” is easier to fit on a sign, the Nashville activists pushing that approach are insistent on building something new — not just tearing the old system down. And beyond the work Gideon’s Army has been piloting in North Nashville, around the country there are examples of established alternatives to police and the broader criminal legal system.

In Eugene, Ore., a crisis intervention program called CAHOOTS was established 30 years ago and now responds to a variety of calls — like mental health crises and intoxication reports — that were once handled by the town’s conventional police department. For a fraction of the cost, they respond to around 20 percent of the police department’s calls and go through 10 times more training.

San Francisco just announced that it will be employing a similar approach.

In Brooklyn and the Bronx, a program called Common Justice offers an alternative response to serious and violent felonies, including assault and robbery.

With the consent of the victims, such cases can be diverted to Common Justice, “into a process designed to recognize the harm done, honor the needs and interests of those harmed, and develop appropriate responses to hold the responsible party accountable.” The program includes restorative justice circles — mediated meetings between the person who has been harmed and the person who has harmed them that are like the restorative justice circles facilitated by Gideon’s Army. Resulting agreements can include restitution, extensive community service, and commitments to attend school and work along with violence intervention programs.

Upholding those commitments means a person is spared the prison sentence they would have likely faced otherwise.

Those dreaming of a society without police or jails or prisons are clear about the fact that any such society would also have to be far more dedicated to eradicating poverty and inequality than ours is now. The Nashville People’s Budget Coalition, crucially, emphasizes not just divesting from parts of the current criminal legal system they see as harmful, but also investing in communities that have been slowly starved for decades.

Another oft-used metaphor in discussions of the latest incident of police violence or misconduct is that of the “bad apple.” The question at the heart of the movement that has seized the country’s attention is, again, simple and radical: What if the problem isn’t a few apples, but the whole tree? What if we started uprooting it and sowing the seeds of something new?

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

JUNE 4, 2020

nashvillescene.com | JUNE 18 – JUNE 24, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 18 – JUNE 24, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

CRITICS’ PICKS FILM

S O C I A L

D I S T A N C I N G

E D I T I O N

[BLACK GIRL MAGIC]

WATCH ‘IN THE SHADOWS’ AND PARTICIPATE IN A PANEL DISCUSSION

Last year, the Belcourt hosted a program called Words Caught in My Throat: A Film Seminar for Black 7th and 8th Grade Girls. In it, Metro Nashville Public Schools’ restorative practice specialist Melissa Gordon led 11 girls in viewing and discussing a series of short films about various aspects of Black female identity.

Then, through hands-on activities, the group worked with directors Meleisha Edwards and Brionna Scrivens to create a documentary short of their own, titled “In the Shadows.” In the film, clips of the girls reading poetry about times in their lives when they’ve felt silenced appear alongside gorgeous images and interviews with participants. The project eases the silencing that Black girls endure and shows their tenacity, creativity and power. The Belcourt will host a virtual screening on Twitch of “In the Shadows” followed by a Q&A with Gordon, Edwards and members of the film’s cast and crew. Tune in to the theater’s Twitch channel (twitch.tv/belcourttheatre) on Thursday, June 18, at 7:30 p.m. The Belcourt suggests donating $10 for the event, which will support the Women of Color Collaborative. Donate at belcourt.org.

[THE DAYS ARE NUMBERED]

WATCH 28 DAYS LATER AT FULL MOON CINEMA

That beloved retro-revival house known as the Full Moon Cineplex has been back for a couple of weeks under special guidelines — the venue is operating at 50 percent capacity, audiences are properly spaced apart during screenings, and they’re even keeping a “sanitization station” nearby. It’s oddly appropriate, then, that in the middle of all of that, the film screening this weekend is about a zombie pandemic. Danny Boyle’s grungy, grimy, shot-on-digital horror flick is about a group of post-apocalyptic Brits (including Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris and Brendan Gleeson) who are always on the move, trying not to get infected by rabid-ass, fast-moving carriers of the “Rage Virus.” It was such a monster hit back in 2003 that it reignited the zombie genre and paved the way for the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, not to mention Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, World War Z and The Walking Dead. Plus, it spawned a more politically provocative sequel, 28 Weeks Later, in 2007. 7 p.m. Friday, June 19, at Full Moon Cineplex, 3455 Lebanon Pike CRAIG D. LINDSEY

COMMUNITY

28 DAYS LATER

[CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES]

CELEBRATE JUNETEENTH

The holiday of Juneteenth celebrates the end of slavery in the United States, and with the surge in the Black Lives Matter movement, this year’s Juneteenth is likely to be even more

poignant. The Tennessee State Museum will start things off on Friday at 10 a.m. with a conversation about museums and cultural competency — an especially essential theme in 2020. Brigette Jones, the museum’s curator of social history, will be joined by TSU’s Learotha Williams and the National Museum of African American Music’s Tamar Smithers to discuss why and how museums can assist and magnify the voices of Black Americans. The event is free, but registration is required — visit the museum’s Facebook page or the calendar of events at tnmuseum.org for a link, which will be provided prior to the discussion. Also on Friday is 101.1 The Beat DJ Joe Major’s grill and chill on Percy Priest Lake from noon until 5 p.m. — visit his Instagram for details. On Saturday, Music City Community Court Division VIII will present Freedom-A-Thon, which begins at 10 a.m. and includes virtual expungement and legal clinics where pro bono lawyers from across the state will provide legal advice. More information is available at Judge Rachel L. Bell’s website on gscourt.nashville.gov, or at the Facebook event page. There will also be a block party hosted by the Equity Alliance that will take place at Moguls at 1003 Buchanan St. — visit the Equity Alliance’s Facebook page for more up-to-date information. Look for a rollout of more events happening around town, and join the push to make Juneteenth a federal holiday — it’s been a state holiday in Tennessee since 2007, but efforts to

make it a national holiday have stalled in Congress. LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

a selection from Linklater’s Before trilogy: 1995’s Before Sunrise (available on Netflix), 2004’s Before Sunset ($4 on iTunes, Amazon Prime and YouTube) or 2013’s Before Midnight [IT’D BE A LOT COOLER IF YOU DID] ($3 on Amazon Prime). Truly, watching the BUILD YOUR OWN STREAMING entire series — and basking in the chemistry RICHARD LINKLATER FILM FEST of stars Ethan Hawke and Julie For 14 weeks now, we’ve been Delpy for about five-and-a-half offering up filmmakers around hours — is its very own little whom to build your own film festival. But for the stay-at-home streaming sake of brevity, you might film fests, from Spike EDITOR’S NOTE: want to pick just one (go Lee to Martin Scorsese, AS A RESPONSE TO THE ONGOING COVID-19 PANDEMIC, WE’VE CHANGED with Sunrise), and then Bong Joon-ho to THE FOCUS OF THE CRITICS’ PICKS move along to either Penelope Spheeris.

SECTION TO INCLUDE ACTIVITIES YOU CAN 2003’s delightful and This week, we’re PARTAKE IN WHILE YOU’RE AT HOME wholesome School of Rock going with a man who PRACTICING SOCIAL DISTANCE. (Jack Black at his absolute contains multitudes — a best, and it’s available for man whose painstakingly $3 on Amazon Prime and constructed works of drama YouTube) or 2006’s experimental stand proudly next to his stonerPhilip K. Dick adaptation A Scanner friendly ensemble comedies. Native Darkly (free on Vudu, or $3 on Prime). Then Texan Richard Linklater’s filmography strap in for 2013’s remarkable Boyhood ($3 on is incredibly diverse, from 1988’s It’s Prime and YouTube), which was famously Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading filmed over the course of 12 years and Books (and his more widely available earned Linklater Golden Globes for Best second film, Slacker) right up through last Director and Best Motion Picture — Drama. year’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette. But That one’s a hell of a watch, but if you’ve got for the purposes of our film fest, let’s kick a little more steam in you, bring things home things off with the director’s undeniable with 2016’s Everybody Wants Some!! ($3 on Prime 1993 masterwork Dazed and Confused, which and YouTube), which Linklater himself has is currently available for $4 via YouTube, described as a “spiritual sequel” to Dazed iTunes and Amazon Prime, and features and Confused. Despite featuring baseball, a early-in-their-career performances kickass soundtrack, some delightful party from such future stars as Matthew sequences, a great weed gag or two, and a McConaughey, Milla Jovovich, Parker lovely performance from Kurt and Goldie’s Posey and Ben Affleck. After that, make FILM

FILM

ERICA CICCARONE

nashvillescene.com | JUNE 18 – JUNE 24, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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CRITICS’ PICKS

[CHECK IT OUT]

CHECK OUT BOOKS FROM THE LIBRARY

FILM

Taking care of a toddler during a pandemic has its bright spots. It’s nice to have someone cute to snuggle, and not needing to explain the complexities of epidemiology makes for lighter conversations. But it can also get pretty boring. I miss our old routine, which involved a handful of minor activities that I had begun to take for granted — going to the playground, stopping at our favorite sushi spot, making one of those giant buildyour-own yogurt parfaits, checking out books from our local library. These past few months of running around the backyard and ordering takeout just hasn’t been as satisfying. We really miss those library trips. Luckily, our neighborhood branch opened for curbside pickup on June 8, and we’re already planning which Elephant and Piggie books we’re going to get after this long, hard slog through the same eight books my kid wants to re-read every night.

Check the library’s website to see which branches are opening — they include the main location downtown, plus Madison, Hermitage and Green Hills. And while you’re at it, watch the silly parody video the library made about the new curbside procedures so you’ll know what to expect.

Just don’t blame me when you get “Ice Ice Baby” — ahem, I mean “Curb Side Baby” — stuck in your head. LAURA HUTSON HUNTER [FADE TO BLACK]

STREAM FILMS DIRECTED BY BLACK WOMEN

ERICA CICCARONE [QUELLE DRAG]

GO TO DRAG DRIVE-IN

This pandemic situation is busted. No tea, no shade, but all this time indoors has us all crusty with dusty beards and hair looking like a shake-and-go wig. So

DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST

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[YIP YIP]

WATCH AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER ON NETFLIX

One of the best animated shows of all time is now available on Netflix. Whether you grew up with Avatar: The Last Airbender or you’re riding the air bison for the first time, the animated adventure is perfect for the young and the young at heart. For those who don’t know, the show follows the adventures of Ang, the long-lost Avatar who needs to travel the world and master control of the four elements to restore balance to the world — all while escaping the grasp of the ruthless Fire Nation. Avatar is unwavering in its world inspired by Asian, Polynesian and even a few indigenous cultures and histories — no lily-white European proxies here. It’s comforting but not numbing, sweet and charming but not saccharine, and full of amazing fight sequences (each style of bending is based on a type of Chinese martial arts). The show isn’t short on lessons — some are more typical of kids’ shows, teaching people about teamwork, friendship and respect for others. Some are a bit deeper, and culminate when Ang mulls over a deep final question: Are you doing the right thing for the world or just protecting your own morals? Top it off with a fantastic voice cast, including a soulful performance by the late Mako as the charismatic and wise Iroh, and you’ve got a cross-generational classic. ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ SPORTS

My social media feeds have been busy with book lists about systemic racism that include everyone from W.E.B. Du Bois to Angela Davis to Ibram X. Kendi. There’s no denying the power of these nonfiction reads. But I argue that fiction can be just as powerful as a means of education and empowerment, and fiction includes film.

Black women have long been behind the lens, telling stories that are critical to American culture, yet many of their names are unknown to popular audiences. Kathleen Collins’ 1982 film Losing Ground was among the first feature-length narrative films that was

listen, here’s the kiki: Holler at your judies, beat your face, and open up the garage doors for the first time in 15 weeks. The party will be turned this Friday and Saturday for threeshows, as the parking lot of Studio 615 on Broadmoor Drive is transformed into what will be Nashville’s premiere drag experience: the Drag Drive-In. The 75-minute shows will happen Friday at 9 p.m. and Saturday at 7 and 9 p.m., with two stages, a live DJ, and emcees reading attendees and the numerous performers like a book. Cars are limited to five people, and admission is $99 per car. To ensure compliance with local, state and federal regulations and recommendations and to guarantee nothing fishy is going on, all tickets must be purchased in advance. And get this: You won’t even have to roll down your window, as the audio will be piped in to the FM dial. There will be no food for sale, so if you need to tuck into something, bring your own cakes and chicken cutlets. Tickets are available at dragdrivein.com. June 19-20 at Studio 615, 272 Broadmoor Drive J.R. LIND TV

BOOKS

D. PATRICK RODGERS

written, directed and produced by a Black woman. Now available to stream via The Criterion Channel, Losing Ground reveals the emotional life of a middle-class Black woman and academic. Seret Scott turns in an exceptional performance as Sara, and the film is gorgeously shot and rich with texture as it explores the intersections of race, gender and class. In 1991, Julie Dash released Daughters of the Dust (also now available via The Criterion Channel), a lyrical film set in 1902 about a family that has lived off the coast of Georgia for centuries, since the first of their known ancestors were brought to the island in chains. Members of the family prepare to leave the island for mainland Georgia, where they will then set out to go north.

Daughters of the Dust shows the varying perspectives of the women in the family as they wrestle with the significance of leaving their home, honoring their ancestors, and putting their hopes in the promise of a country that viewers know would continue to deprive Black citizens of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Viewers may recognize the production design and wardrobe from Beyoncé’s stunning film Lemonade; Bey was inspired by Daughters, and the themes of the film ring true in her work. Other excellent films abound: Nashville native Dee Rees’ Pariah (available to rent for $1 on Amazon Prime) and Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman (available on The Criterion Channel and Amazon Prime) explore the lives and perspectives of queer Black women. Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Love & Basketball and Beyond the Lights are essential viewing. Ava DuVernay’s feature Middle of Nowhere is a precursor to her better-known documentary 13th, and stars the wonderful David Oyelowo. Tanya Hamilton’s Night Catches Us shows a pre-Scandal Kerry Washington at a crossroads beside Anthony Mackie. And that’s just a start. If you’re the reading type (I am!), get yourself a copy of Christina N. Baker’s Contemporary Black Women Filmmakers and the Art of Resistance, which contextualizes these films and more.

THEATER

kid Wyatt Russell, that one isn’t quite the cult hit that Dazed was. But it should be!

[KICK IT]

GET INTO ENGLISH FOOTBALL

While mindlessly scrolling through social media recently, I saw this headline: “American Sports Fans Would Even Watch Soccer at This Point.” The story was satire, but the claim that 58 percent of sports-starved Americans felt this way might not be far off the mark.

Personally, bingeing Netflix’s immersive 14-part documentary Sunderland ’Til I Die has gotten me unexpectedly amped for England’s Premier and Championship Leagues to resume play this week. The series follows the team Sunderland A.F.C., which is the pride and joy of its hard-luck North East England home city, which has been in decline since the coal-mining and

NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 18 – JUNE 24, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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CRITICS’ PICKS

COMMUNITY

shipbuilding industries left town. When we meet the players, they are in crisis. They’ve just been relegated from the Premier League to the second-tier Championship League for poor performance, and that’s bruised both their ego and their pocketbook.

And even after they were expected to claw their way back, a second nightmarish season has them facing relegation again.

Failure is a big part of any sport, but until I watched Sunderland, I’d never seen such a comprehensive study of it in a sports doc. It’s a sobering yet fascinating look at why we love our hometown teams — even when our relationship with them verges on Stockholm syndrome. The first Premier League matches get underway June 17, and I’m bandwagoning on Liverpool F.C. — who, like my beloved L.A. Dodgers, haven’t won a national title in 30 years but are the odds-on faves to lift the silverware this year. What remains to be seen is how the absence of the fans, who are arguably the most hardcore in the world, affects the atmosphere in the stadiums, and even the outcome on the pitch. Both seasons of Sunderland ’Til I Die are currently streaming on Netflix. Check NBC Sports’ site for Premier League air dates and times. CHARLIE ZAILLIAN [ANIMALS CROSSING]

GO TO THE ZOO

Since the start of the pandemic, zoos around the world have reported their animals, especially their primates and parrots, have been missing daily human visitors. Here’s some good news for anyone who tears up over the thought of a monkey sitting alone in his tree while quietly singing

“Somewhere Out There” to himself (Hi, it’s me. The world is a lot right now.): The Nashville Zoo is reopening! They opened to members on June 15, and are opening to the general public starting June 18. Like just about everything, the zoo is going to be a little bit different this time around. First, all tickets must be purchased in advance online for timed-entry slots. They’re also limiting the number of tickets they sell per day to avoid overcrowding. Once you’re inside, the pathways will be designated as one-way, and everyone age 4 and older is required to wear a face mask (which is smart when visiting the Baird’s tapirs regardless, because those buddies can stink). Of course, some of the zoo’s features are closed, including Lorikeet Landing and Kangaroo Kickabout, but you can still ride the Soaring Eagle Zip Line (at limited capacity and with frequent sanitation, say the zoo folks) if you’re in need of an adrenaline rush.

Visit nashvillezoo.org for tickets and more information. MEGAN SELING [TAKIN’ IT TO THE STREET]

WATCH THE JEFFERSON STREET JAZZ AND BLUES FESTIVAL LIVESTREAM

The thriving, historically Black business and residential district of North Nashville was torn in two by the construction of I-40 in the late 1960s. Since 2000, the Jefferson Street Jazz and Blues Festival has been shining a bright light on the too-oftenoverlooked legacy of the bustling club scene that existed in the area, with bills packed by performances from local luminaries like Marion James and internationally revered talents like Valerie Simpson. The Jefferson

[GOTTA DANCE!]

EXPLORE GREAT DANCE PERFORMANCES

If your idea of dance is limited to tutus and tap shoes, this is a great time to take another look. And there is plenty of digital programming available to stream right now.

Lincoln Center at Home is a perfect place to start, with archived performances from major companies such as New York City Ballet, Ballet Hispánico and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Ailey All Access is another terrific resource, featuring iconic performances, along with online classes and a weekly behind-the-scenes series called Conversations With… . London’s Sadler’s Wells also is streaming a mix of performances, workshops and dance films through its Digital Stage platform. Looking for more local flavor? The Nashville Ballet is serving up some great options with its Saturday Night With Nashville Ballet series, which continues through June 30. And you can still check out the world premiere of Jana Harper’s This Holding: Traces of Contact, which is available through June 30 via OZ Arts. AMY STUMPFL COMMUNITY

A GIRAFFE AT THE NASHVILLE ZOO

MUSIC

PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS

DANCE

STEPHEN TRAGESER

[IN IT FOR THE LONG HAUL]

PARTICIPATE IN PEACEFUL HOME PROTEST DAY

As protests against police brutality continue and people across the nation call for defunding the police, it’s important to keep in mind that this is not some passing moment — the Montgomery bus boycott lasted for 380 days, after all. We must continue to participate in and create opportunities to advocate for the safety of Black lives and eradicate personal and institutional racism. The local chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice — a national organization that seeks to organize white people in the anti-racism cause — has put out a call for neighborhood protests that will keep conversations going and invite Nashvillians to stand in solidarity while practicing social distancing. On Thursdays in June and July, make a sign, stand proudly in your driveway or on the sidewalk, and

show your neighbors that you are part of the movement. They might very well agree and be moved to join you. It’s a great opportunity to involve kids in practicing their own right to protest, so you can start having — or continue to have — conversations with them about systemic racism. (Also, kids happen to be amazing at making signs.) And since we live in Nashville, show some love to the families of Jocques Clemmons and Daniel Hambrick — two men who were killed by MNPD officers. Their families have yet to see justice done. ERICA CICCARONE ART

Street United Merchants Partnership (aka JUMP) isn’t letting extensive damage to its headquarters from the March 3 tornado nor the social distancing protocols necessary to combat the COVID-19 pandemic stop the 20th annual celebration from happening.

It’ll simply move online, to a livestream that begins June 20 at 8 p.m. on the festival’s Facebook page (facebook.com/ jeffersonstreetjazzandbluesfestival). The bill includes the great Jimmy Church, a legendary singer and bandleader from the Jefferson Street R&B scene, Nashville Jazz Workshop co-founder and phenomenal pianist Lori Mechem and singer Kim Porter.

Metro Councilmember Sharon Hurt will host, and there will be interviews with Eric Holt, co-founder of long-running Black music promotions group Lovenoise, and Butch Spyridon, CEO of the Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp. Donations collected during the stream will support JUMP (whose office was among many North Nashville buildings condemned in the wake of the tornado) as well as other area businesses. 8 p.m. Saturday, June 20

[OUT AND PROUD]

OBSESS OVER THE SMITHSONIAN’S COLLECTION OF GAY EPHEMERA

Perhaps it’s because the early gay movement relied so heavily on coded imagery, but whatever the reason, LGBTQ design is among the most iconic in American history. I’m not just talking about the work of visual artists like Keith Haring, Robert Mapplethorpe and Tom of Finland, although you’d be hard pressed to come up with a more iconic crew. But the graphic design — the T-shirts, buttons and posters — is almost just as captivating. In fact, you could make a pretty good argument that one of the reasons ACT UP was so effective in addressing the HIV/AIDS crisis was because of powerful design — the coalition famously had an entire arm dedicated to

art and marketing. I’ve been spending a lot more time exploring museums online lately, and I was pleasantly surprised to find so much great gay ephemera on the Smithsonian Institution’s website. There has been a spate of programming events around LGBTQ issues in cultural history this month. For example, at 4 p.m. Tuesday, June 23, the museum is hosting a Zoom seminar about the National Portrait Gallery’s landmark 2010 exhibition Hide/Seek with the show’s curators. Think of that exhibit as the fine-art version of The Celluloid Closet — there are clues about sexual difference and gender fluidity throughout art history, if you just know how to find them. Take some time with this collection to get a dose of both highbrow and lowbrow LGBTQ history. 4 p.m. Tuesday, June 23 LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

nashvillescene.com | JUNE 18 – JUNE 24, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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BurgEr  Week J ulY 13-19 preSentEd bY

$

7

speCialT y burGers

it’s bAck! This year’s #SceneBurgerWeek20 will be even bigger, juicier and cheesier than ever!

We are beefing up the price of the burgers to $7 each,

Make no bones about it — your participation supports beloved local businesses and is the reason why these amazing restaurants create master burgers year after year. Dine out or carry out, your orders of tasty $7 burgs now more than ever will help support some of Nashville’s best restaurants and their teams that work their buns off, during Burger Week and beyond!

parTiciPatiNg rEstaUranTs

And Many morE to comE!

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#SceneBurgerWeek20

NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 18 – JUNE 24, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS

FOOD AND DRINK

RIDDIM N SPICE

THE TAKEOUT TOP 20 From biscuits to birds to bun bo hue, here are 20 to-go dishes to try in Nashville now

BY ASHLEY BRANTLEY

I

t’s a bit of a no-duh to say that 2020 changed everything. Best-case scenario: A lot of awful stuff forces us to finally start talking, acting and holding each other accountable.

Worst case? Honestly, let’s not even go there. You’re a human who can read. You know we’re in the eye of a shitstorm so big we don’t know which way is out.

It’s an exhausting time to be a thoughtful person, and a great way to stay sane is to take refuge in small victories. Did your boss finally have to admit you’re more productive remotely than you are when your butt is nailed to your office chair 40 hours a week?

Bask in it. Did you realize you may never again have to embrace a stranger just because they scream, “Sorry, I’m a hugger!” as they thrust themselves upon you? Rejoice.

One small win we can all enjoy: to-go food at its peak. The breadth, sophistication and execution of takeout in Nashville has never been better, and it’s time to cash in.

Here are 20 of the best to-go items in Nashville now. #CarryOutAndCarryOn.

cally a boozy brunch item you can legally eat while driving.

you can easily put down a dozen without blinking.

BREAKFAST

SNACKS

PROPER BAGEL Matzo ball soup, $5 for a cup, $9.50 for a bowl

Al’s black-pepper/Parmesan biscuits are destination-worthy on their own. The Bowser ups the ante with egg, cheese, bacon and sausage. Of this double-meat scenario, Al’s menu simply says: “Yep.”

If there’s a faster route to umami than smoked fish, I don’t know it. But smoking stuff is a pain, so let Cafe Roze do it for you!

While it was once only a special, their luscious smoked trout salad is now a staple at their bodega, and all of our snack times are better for it.

BIG AL’S DELI Bowser biscuit sandwich, $5

BRIGHTSIDE BAKERY Kouign-amann, $4.50

CAFE ROZE Smoked trout salad, $12

Yes, it’s hot outside — but do not be deterred! This soup is a perfect blend of chicken-noodle and matzo-ball, and that’s the comfort food we all need right now.

(Real talk: I’ve sipped the broth cold, and it is good. Food for thought in these postjudgment culinary times.)

TWILIGHT TAVERN Cheese curds, $6.99

Billed simply as a “croissant with sugar,” this pastry is so much more than that. Its name comes from the Breton words for “cake” and “butter,” and at Brightside Bakery, the bottom is so crisp and caramelized you can knock on it. We’d expect nothing less of a type of confection The New York Times once called “the fattiest pastry in all of Europe.”

MITCHELL DELI Salmon, andouille sausage, half-pound for $11 Did you know you can get brined and smoked stuff by the pound at Mitchell Deli?

Last time I stopped in for a grilled chickenportobello sandwich, I scored lox and andouille, both of which are still being turned out by the now-shuttered Rudie’s Seafood & Sausage. Small victories, indeed.

Someone once told me the owner of Twilight Tavern said their food was less “farmto-table” and more “Sysco-to-table.” I don’t know if it’s true, but I adore it and laugh about it constantly. Own your shit! And then pull up a barstool for some gooey, goldenbrown fried cheese served — as God and Wisconsin intended — with a side of ranch.

THE DONUT AND DOG The O.G., $4.50

RED PERCH Lumpia, $8.50 for 12

LYRA Cauliflower, $12

If you’re gonna eat a doughnut, you should be able to taste the dough. The O.G. at The Donut and Dog delivers, with caramel sweetness from a bourbon-vanilla glaze, set off by a sprinkle of cabernet salt.

Yep, that’s salt made with wine, so it’s basi-

Everything is better bite-size, and egg rolls are no exception. Sold ready to fry at home, these 2-inch Filipino stunners from Red Perch are packed with pork, shrimp, Chinese celery, water chestnuts and green onion. The seasoning inside is so addictive

Lyra’s oven-roasted cauliflower is a study in sauce. It’s accented by tart pickled raisins and puffed freekeh (a nutty grain), but the star is the cardamom-carrot sauce. The dressing is sweet, sturdy and blazing orangey-yellow in color. Paired with a bright-

nashvillescene.com | JUNE 18 – JUNE 24, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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FOOD AND DRINK pink Foxy Brown cocktail (gin, hibiscus, ginger), it’s the ultimate eat-with-your-eyes combo.

FOLK Kohlrabi Caesar, $14 If you’ve gotten a CSA this spring, you’ve Googled kohlrabi. If not, the short story is it’s a member of the cabbage family that may give off turnip, radish or parsnip vibes.

At Folk, they use it as the crunchy, juicy backbone of a Caesar salad, topping it with salty cheese, crunchy croutons and trout roe for a poppy, briny finish.

ENTRÉES

RIDDIM N SPICE Half bird, $12 If you’re short on joy, beeline it to Riddim N Spice. The sunny Caribbean spot is known for its succulent chicken, which pairs perfectly with cucumber-mango slaw, Jamaican red rice ’n’ peas and Bajan macaroni pie. The latter is a traditional dish of Barbados, made with ketchup and mustard for extra zing.

FAR EAST NASHVILLE Spicy Noodle (bun bo hue), $13.50 Aromatic is the word that springs to mind with this specialty noodle soup. Far East starts the broth with pork bones and oxtails; simmers it with garlic, shallot, lemongrass and chili paste; and then tops it with beef shank and Vietnamese pork before serving it over vermicelli. If you’re craving pho but want something new, this is it.

OTAKU RAMEN Tantanmen ramen, $13

MOTHER’S RUIN Double cheeseburger, $15 Nashville has too many good cheeseburgers. Given how good they are at Bare Bones Butcher, Redheaded Stranger and Dino’s, I’m almost miffed to find out Mother’s Ruin makes a great one too. It’s not much different on paper — aged cheddar, sesame bun, lettuce, pickles — and to my eye the only thing they do differently is mix the shrettuce with the secret sauce (a move I’m stealing). But somehow it adds up to a standout.

CITY HOUSE Meatballs, $19 The meatballs at City House are an embarrassment of riches. Made with pork shoulder and pizza-dough bread crumbs, they leach a little fat as they bake, adding richness to the piquant tomato ragu. Served on top of grits, these meatballs are stonecold stunners.

NICKY’S COAL FIRED Crawfish mafalde, $22 It’s lucky for us that the owners of Nicky’s Coal Fired never outgrew the chain-restaurant cajun-chicken pasta of our ’90s youth.

During quarantine, they set about making a grown-up version. The result: a decadent

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PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS

Where the Chinese have Dan Dan Noodles, the Japanese have Tantanmen. At Otaku, the ultra-savory veggie-miso broth is accented with riced cauliflower and smoked tofu before it’s finished with sesame, chili oil and a spice bomb. Forego the egg to take it from vegetarian to vegan.

FOLK crawfish variety laced with pork-cheek bacon and spring onions served over mafalde — a long, curly-edged pasta that’s literally made to catch all the spicy cream sauce it can. We are not worthy.

dipping or simply triaging your tongue.

TKO Stir-Fried Noodz, $14

Only quitters put decadent desserts on pause just because it’s summertime, and Arnold’s Country Kitchen owner Kahlil Arnold is no quitter. His spicy chocolate pie feels like a remedy for the heat, with just enough spicy to cut through the fudgey goodness.

Order early; it sells out every week.

In Cantonese and Sichuan cooking, blackbean sauce is a staple. Taste it once and you’ll get why. It’s savory, aromatic, sharp, sweet and spicy. TKO adds it to crunchy Chinese greens, cabbage, carrots and toothsome chili noodles (custom-made by local Mr. Aaron’s Goods) for quintessential Chinese takeout food, expertly amped up yet refined.

ROSEPEPPER CANTINA Chile verde, $11.95 I’m a sucker for anything that reads “muy caliente” on a menu. It’s never that spicy outside of Mexico, right? Wrong. This pork dish is stewed in a seriously spicy green-chile sauce. The one reprieve: It’s served with flour tortillas for wrapping,

SWEETS

ARNOLD’S COUNTRY KITCHEN Spicy chocolate pie, $3

THE CAFÉ AT THISTLE FARMS Strawberry cake, $60 Speaking of sellouts, I’ve been able to score an entire strawberry cake from Thistle Farms exactly once, and it was when I called first thing Tuesday morning for a Friday pickup. With three layers of whipped frosting, robust strawberry flavor and a brilliant-pink color, this cake is a beauty that’s also a beast.

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 18 – JUNE 24, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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FOOD AND DRINK

Support Local.

THE HOT SEAT

Chef Brian Baxter to take over The Catbird Seat

BY STEVE CAVENDISH

BRIAN BAXTER

W

hen The Catbird Seat opened in 2011, it was a first-of-its-kind restaurant for Nashville: ticketed seating, limited space and long tasting menus prepared in front of diners who sat around an open kitchen. The chefs for the first four Catbird iterations were imported from some of the best restaurants in the world, with the Midtown space acting as a showcase for talented sous chefs to run their own place. For the fifth version, however, the restaurant will be led by someone familiar to locals.

Brian Baxter, the former chef de cuisine at Husk and Bastion, debuts this week as chef, taking the helm previously held first by the duo of Erik Anderson and Josh Habiger, followed by Trevor Moran, then Ryan Poli, and finally the pair of Will Aghajanian and Liz Johnson. He arrives at an uncertain time for restaurants, but not without an impressive pedigree — which includes stints under Todd English and Sean Brock, both in Charleston and Nashville. The Culinary Institute of America-trained chef has been running Cold Beer in Atlanta under Top Chef All-Stars finalist Kevin Gillespie for the past year.

The Catbird job came open following the abrupt departure of Aghajanian and Johnson earlier this spring. They left the restaurant in March, shortly before the duo was nominated for a James Beard Award.

Neither could be reached for comment, and representatives from Strategic Hospitality declined to comment.

Baxter is the first chef with a significant background in Southern food to take over Catbird. He sat down with the Scene ahead of a first week of meals to talk influences, watercolors and returning to Nashville.

Do you have a style? I don’t know. Maybe? I feel like everything I do has a classic French background, as far as technique. And then from there, my grandmother cooked dinner for us most nights, because my mom had three kids at that point. Maybe every once in a while something that’s nostalgic, I’ll

VISIT NASHVILLESCENE.COM TO READ OUR FULL INTERVIEW WITH THE CATBIRD SEAT’S BRIAN BAXTER

play with that, and definitely Southern. I’m probably the first person that’s really done or will do Southern food in here. I don’t want to say it’s going to be Southern, but you’ll see some of that. And then I really like just the balance you can get through some of the Asian cuisine — which I feel like everybody uses some Japanese influence now and then, but I also really like toying with some of the more Thai flavors and stuff eventually too, so it just depends. Some of it depends on the season too. It doesn’t always go well with everything. So if I had to say, I don’t know, it’s tough. I think that’s part of what this restaurant’s going to be all about.

So the future’s an interesting question too. I don’t want to say you’ve got a clock on you, but this is not a five-year gig. What does that do for how you approach it? I think for me, coming in knowing how this restaurant works, it’s an opportunity to finally do what I want to do without any restrictions. Max [Goldberg, Strategic Hospitality partner] says, “It’s your restaurant, you can do whatever you want with it.” So if I wanted to cook for eight people a night and charge $500 a person, I could do that. If I want to cook for 50 people a night and do a few courses, it’s literally up to me. But I think the goal is in the next two years, because this restaurant has — I don’t want to say a magnifying glass over it, but a lot of people know about it, no matter what chef comes in. It’s your opportunity to show what you can do, and then hopefully by the time you’re leaving you’ll have some option to go into, you know what I mean?

So I think my goal would be, most importantly, just to have people be able to come in and maybe not have the best meal in your life, but at least eat something that they’ll remember for a long time, and have an experience. Especially with everything going on now, that they can come in here and forget about maybe what’s going on in three hours when they leave.

For the rest of this interview, go to nashvillescene.com EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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CULTURE/THEATER

NEIGHBORHOOD SPIRIT

Grassroots acts of love keep hope alive during the pandemic

BY SARA LEE BURD

T

wo weeks into the stay-athome order issued by Mayor John Cooper, Sylvan Park resident Janet Younts craved social interaction. What began as an invitation to everyone on her street to go outside and wave to one another at 7 p.m. each evening turned into a nightly socially distanced gathering in the alley behind their homes.

The self-described “Alley Cats” check in as a simple way to care for each other. “I felt loved,” says Younts, “and I knew people would care about me.” Neighbors have deepened their interest in each other’s lives.

They have hosted retirement and birthday parties, graduation celebrations and group exercise classes. The meetups have offered reprieve from loneliness and fear during quarantine, but the Alley Cats plan to continue gathering after the city reopens. According to Younts, the bonds created during this time will forever change the spirit of her neighborhood.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused fear, confusion and more than 115,000 deaths in the United States alone. The vastness of the global grief can be overwhelming, but musicians, artists and neighbors have stepped up to offer solace and support to their communities. While separating physically, creative Nashvillians are working to make sure it does not diminish their spirits.

Vanderbilt University professor Nancy King rekindled her artistic side and inspired her neighbors. Wanting to reach out while maintaining distance, she placed a wooden artist model on her mailbox with a sign an-

THE SHOW MUST GO ON(LINE)

Local theaters continue to create opportunities for artists and audiences

BY AMY STUMPFL

T

heaters may be dark right now, but that doesn’t mean artists have stopped creating or sharing their work. And as COVID-19 drags on, local companies are finding new ways to connect with both artists and audiences.

“Over the last several weeks, I think we’ve all been asking the same questions,” says Nettie Kraft, artistic director of Verge Theater Company and co-founder of Nashville’s Barbershop Theater. “I mean, how do we keep theater going if we can’t get together? What VIRTUAL CABARET BY VERGE THEATER COMPANY, we’re trying to do is look for the freedom and pos7:30 P.M. JUNE 20-21 AT FACEBOOK.COM/ sibilities within all these VERGETHEATERCO new limitations, while VIRTUAL ACT LIKE A GRRRL, creating opportunities for artists.”

7:30 P.M. SATURDAY, JUNE 20. LEARN MORE AT With that in mind, ACTORSBRIDGE.ORG. Verge has put together a

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nouncing, “I’ll say hey in a different way everyday.” She has outfitted the figure with materials she finds at home, such as plastic bags, yogurt tops, fabric, toys and bamboo skewers. With her models, she has honored first responders wearing PPE, celebrated Mother’s Day by adding a baby bump and presented spring-themed narratives with rubber duckies. The motivation to initiate unique encounters comes from empathy.

“I know people are suffering, bored and stressed-out,” says King. “If they walk by and smile, it is really worth it.” The positive responses she’s received, the new friends she’s made and the anonymous contributions like handmade jewelry and miniature knitting needles have encouraged her to expand her creativity. The respite from isolation she offers to her neighbors has ignited curiosity, cheerful conversations and daily anticipation.

When the honky-tonks downtown closed, musicians across the city lost the space to perform and make a living. A frequent performer at Tootsie’s and Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk, Ben Avci of Inglewood is using his talents to entertain and connect with people. Missing the fun of playing live music, he began a concert series every Friday night in his driveway. He’s not the only musician living on his block, and players in the neighborhood have come forward to jam.

“This is such a unique place where we have a Grammy Award-winning producer playing with a 14-year-old, up-and-coming harmonica player,” says Avci. “There’s no judgment. It’s for fun. It’s become wonderful for me and all of us. We’ve grown as a community.” Friday evenings filled with kids play-

NANCY KING’S WOODEN ARTIST MODEL ing and adults dancing in their yards have been a real relief during quarantine. Avci supplies hand sanitizer and insists on social distance among the guest performers.

“When quarantine started,” says Avci, “I really didn’t know my value. I was like, ‘Of course musicians can’t work.’ We are not essential, and it really felt like I wasn’t a vital part of society. I questioned whether what I was doing — making music for a living — was really an important task in our society. But what these Friday shows have taught me is that people really do value what I do.”

Even as Nashville has entered phase two of reopening, these individuals have transformed their communities with their grass-

roots acts of love. Emerging from our homes and shifting back to public life provides an opportunity for neighbors to acknowledge what they have learned and valued. Younts, King and Avci all agree that they would like to keep these rituals going. Unity has become a reality. Now the responsibility falls on all the neighbors to maintain the spirit of what has begun.

“It seems to me it’s what neighborhoods used to be,” says Younts. “We’ve kind of rekindled that in our little alley. … Who knows what our new normal may be. I don’t know. Maybe, just maybe, we can do it once a week or once a month so we don’t lose this good connection.”

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

WHAT AM I?

Virtual Cabaret, set to premiere at 7:30 p.m. June 2021 via Facebook. Directed by Kraft along with Verge board members Tessa Bryant and Jaclynn Jutting, the show features work from 14 artists — both local and out-of-state. Kraft describes the Virtual Cabaret as “sort of a Gen X variety show — a mix of The Muppet Show and Liquid Television.”

“There’s a bit of everything — from monologues to music to modern dance,” says Kraft. “Some artists came in with a fairly polished proposal, but maybe needed some ideas on how to light or film themselves. Others wanted a little more direction and feedback. But it’s been exciting to see the response, and to be reminded that people are still out there making art. The way we experience theater may not look exactly the same, but the joy and connection is still there.”

The cabaret’s digital format has been inspiring for longtime actor, director and playwright Amanda Card. Card has created What Am I? — an original work of puppetry for the show that centers on a piece of chopped liver working “to find himself” and finally answer that titular question.

“I really fell in love with puppetry in grad school,” says Card, who’s currently pursuing an MFA in theater arts at Sarah Lawrence College, but was forced to move to remote learning in March. “There’s something about the way we, as humans, sometimes empathize with objects more than other humans. And I’ve found that a digital space works really well for puppetry, because you can control what the audience sees. You

can focus in on certain details that might be lost in a traditional space. I hope audiences will check out the cabaret and see that you can make art anywhere — you don’t have to have elaborate costumes or props, or even a stage.”

Actors Bridge Ensemble has also stepped up to adapt existing programs and develop new content for online use.

“I’ve been blown away by Nashville’s response to all our Zoom offerings,” says artistic director Vali For-

rister. She points to ABE’s online acting classes, Script Reading Book Club and First Time Stories series as examples.

Perhaps most notably, Forrister has taken Act Like a GRRRL — Actors Bridge’s groundbreaking writing and performance program for teenage girls — online for the first time in its 17-year history. Unlike past summers, in which participants have bonded and collaborated in person, this year’s program is taking place through a combination of Zoom meetings and weekly “driveway check-ins,” which enable Forrister to visit with girls while maintaining social distance. The final, prerecorded performance premieres via Zoom on June 20. Learn more about that at actorsbridge.org.

“One of our longstanding mantras at Act Like a GRRRL is, ‘The impossible is our favorite thing,’ ” says Forrister. “This statement grew out of the recognition that creating a world-premiere performance — complete with an original script, dances and songs — in the span of three weeks is something most folks would say is impossible. Yet we accomplish it year after year because there is no force more powerful than a group of teenage girls in pursuit of a common goal.

“Virtual ALAG gives us the chance to remind each other of who we really are during this time of isolation,” she adds, noting that returning participants have taken special care to connect with first-timers.

“They are consciously creating virtual versions of our longstanding rituals and finding gorgeous ways to honor the heart of what ALAG is all about.”

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 18 – JUNE 24, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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BOOKS

THE RESURRECTION RACKET W.M. Akers returns to his mythical Jazz Age New York City, where time is out of joint

BY SEAN KINCH

W

.M. Akers’ Westside Saints is inundated with death, but that doesn’t keep it from being lively. In the opening scenes of the book — a sequel to his 2019 debut novel Westside, also set in an alternative version of Jazz Age New York — dead bodies are piled in snow banks and bob in the Hudson. The winter has turned lethally cold, and the living are concerned only with finding warmth and a friendly glass of bootleg gin. The protagonist, Gilda Carr, a detective who specializes in tiny mysteries, feels haunted by the ghosts of loved ones and the criminals she has killed.

Gilda fights for the living, but the dead accumulate around her.

Readers need not have read Westside to follow this second novel. Indeed, Akers takes pains to distinguish the two, stylistically and thematically.

In Westside, Gilda WESTSIDE SAINTS

BY W.M. AKERS HARPER VOYAGER 304 PAGES, $27.99 uncovers secret passageways to physical realms existing parallel to ordinary reality. Realities multiply in Westside Saints too, though here the realityhopping takes place in time instead of space.

At first Gilda suspects that the time traveling is an illusion, part of an evangelical stage show, but she quickly finds evidence that it is real and that, to solve the case, she will have to jump through time herself. She’s transported to a New York of the late 19th century, the Gilded Age, when the Brooklyn Bridge is new and hope has not yet vanished.

Akers provides a schematic map of Westside streets, dotted with primary settings. But despite familiar street names, his New York bears little resemblance to the real city, much less to other literary depictions of it. We are far removed from the New York of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, another novel set in 1922, where criminals rent gleaming Long Island mansions and throw lavish parties. Akers’ New York is returning to its barbarous origins. “Having finally succeeded in evicting humanity, the Westside took its true form,” Akers writes. “Trees tripled in size. Vines erupted from brownstones. Earth buckled and split, swallowing some buildings and upending others.”

Westside Saints begins, like its predecessor, with a minor mystery. The Byrd family, hellfire preachers who are trying to rejuvenate their Electric Church, have lost their one holy relic, the pickled finger of Róisín of Lismore, an Irish saint, and they engage Gilda to find it. No sooner has Gilda begun

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sleuthing than larger questions emerge. For one, who set fire to the Byrds’ church in 1888, destroying the chapel and killing four children? For another, are the Byrds themselves trustworthy people of God, or standard Westside scam artists?

The plot thickens further when Gilda’s mother Mary, who died in 1903, appears at the Westside townhouse they once shared.

Mary claims to have amnesia, no memory of herself prior to being found wandering the Westside streets. She enlists Gilda in recovering her identity, not knowing that this seemingly older woman is actually her own daughter. Gilda deems it wise to conceal their connection from Mary, for fear of shocking her into catatonia.

Mary returns from the dead in the same week that the Byrds plan a “Grand Ceremony of Electric Resurrection.” The Byrd patriarch Bully, who officially died in the 1888 fire, has materialized in the church and promises to share the secret of raising the dead, for the low price of $2 per person. Gilda’s friend Cherub Stevens, one of several holdovers from Westside, smells a hoax. “Fake one resurrection,” Cherub says, “and sell tickets for fifty more. Hell of a racket.”

The constant presence of death does nothing to slow the frenetic pace of Westside Saints. Akers fills each chapter with action, often violent, and adds layers of mysteries with each step Gilda and Mary take. Hanging over the events in Gilda’s personal life are questions regarding the fate of Westside itself. Already virtually lawless, the area would descend into utter chaos if organized crime pulled out, judging it not worth the investment.

Some details of Akers’ Westside novels lend themselves to allegorical interpretation.

A massive, guarded wall separates the wellheeled Eastside from the unwashed ruffians of the West, ensuring that the poor remain imperiled. The rising force in the crime world, the Roebling Company, monitors its employees’ productivity to the minute and rates them on a competitive scale, evoking 21st-century tech corporations. Roebling has become proficient in the language of marketing, twisting words to rationalize sordid profits. As one executive explains, “What you might call murder, racketeering, bribery, fraud, or theft, we understand to be capitalism in its purest form.”

A slew of characters line up to be the villain, each one despicable but not purely evil.

Akers waits until the novel’s final third to reveal Gilda’s true antagonist, a foe so ruthless that Gilda will need all her personal resources, plus help from friends, to push him back to Hades, leaving Westside to the everyday sinners.

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

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

‘LODESTAR’

A poem by Destiny O. Birdsong, illustrated by Lauren Cierzan

BY DESTINY O. BIRDSONG You never asked for it, but you sure as hell took it: this little space I made for you, like I once did for the pair of iridescent flip-flops my stepsister fished from the synthetics of my teenage closet, and slipped like tongues into her overnight bag.

You’re the prom kiss I may never have: my bubble gum, stiff as taffeta, bulging your cheek; my silk dress cooling your head like ocean water; paste-and-glow stars above us—and your lips—agleam.

We’re already in the future. You’re a ream of code humming beneath my pillow; your avatar’s aura shaming my bedroom’s dark like a luna moth.

The broken crescent my body makes as I text is a halting question you refuse to answer in exchanges about long-distance loves and first drafts.

My critiques are geometries of emojis, each sweating face a tiny planet strung on a craft wire of hope, like the planetarium my mother once made for my science fair.

Or maybe it was my sister’s. I come from women who save their best work for people who won’t remember it.

Your published version is identical to the first.

Your new woman is identical to the last, and I am fifteen again, in my mother’s car.

She’s asking if she should get married again tomorrow, hair already pinned to her scalp, formaldehyde tips floundering in her lap like poison-gummed wings.

After high school, I forgot the number of rings around Saturn or my moon-clogged heart, how it ossified the woman I might have become like a prehistoric insect spinning in amber.

There’s enough petrified in me, waiting for the leer and thaw of your precise language to begin, like opening strains of The Twilight Zone.

And the spiraling contexts of your lines, testing the gullibility of my sight: what am I willing to let you tell me I see?

When did you become galaxies under my fingerprints: my dactyl eye pressed against the screen?

When did I become calculation, theory, Styrofoam, and wet paint where red dunes, potable water should be?

Birdsong’s collection of poetry, Negotiations, will be available from Tin House on Oct. 13.

6/15/20 5:06 PM

In celebration of #PRIDEATHOME and in partnership with Batch Nashville, Nashville LGBT Chamber and Nashville Pride, the Nashville Scene presents our special edition PRIDE BOX. By purchasing one of our three boxes specially created to celebrate PRIDE, you’ll be supporting local makers and LGBT Chamber members with 10% of proceeds going to Nashville Pride!

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NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 18 – JUNE 24, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

MUSIC

LOG ON, TUNE IN, DROP OUT

Far Out Nashville looks to make a seamless shift online with Far Out Free Fest

WITH THE MOST

With his new release Ghost Tape, rapper Virghost aims to keep it real — and profitable

BY ANDREA WILLIAMS

I

f you ask Virghost when he became a rapper, he won’t tell you about the first time he wrote 16 bars, or even the first time he stepped to a mic. Instead, he’ll tell you about the release of Trial N Error, an hourlong GHOST TAPE OUT NOW 17-track stunner that VIA CAPITOL MINDS dropped in September 2012. The album was actually the MC’s second full-length, but he says it was the one that got people to take notice.

“I was hungry and on my grind because I really wanted to be noticed as a rapper, and you can hear it in the album,” Virghost tells the Scene by phone.

PHOTO: JUSTIN McFERRIN

our gears turning.”

Postponing to October was considered, but with the dates already set for June 18-21, the lineup booked, grant and sponsorship money secured (from energy-drink giant Red Bull, event-listing aggregator Do615 and It’s Psychedelic Baby Magazine) and venuerental costs absorbed, DIATOM DELI O’Neill and Ames announced April 20 that the show would go on — online at faroutnashville.com. O’Neill points to March’s Willie Nelson-helmed Luck Reunion virtual concert (with Lucinda Williams, Margo Price and others) as a livestream happening that proved the validity of the format in the early days of the stay-at-home order.

“You could tell it was off-the-cuff, but they just went for it, with thousands of people watching,” O’Neill says. “It gave us confidence that with months to figure it out, we wouldn’t have to be tech wizards in order to make [Far Out] work.”

The bill for the newly rechristened Far Out Free Fest reflects a shift its organizers have noticed in Nashville’s underground in recent years.

“There had been an obvious split between traditional guitar-and-pedalboard psychrock bands and electronic, synth-based ambient [projects],” says O’Neill, “but [we’re] seeing those worlds collide more.”

Holding it down for the riffs-and-pedals department are Kings of the Fucking Sea, who’ll be premiering a new music video, and O’Neill’s group Black Moon Mother, who will do a live score to a film produced by Ames’ visual-projection entity Labrys Light

BLACK MOON MOTHER

Show. Electro-acoustic world-builder Diatom Deli and pedal-steel pro Luke Schneider — showcasing material from his ambient masterwork Altar of Harmony — are solo acts to watch. One live set per day will be broadcast from Meltface, Ascent of Everest guitarist-vocalist Devin Lamp’s East Nashville studio.

At the last Far Out Fest, Djin Aquarian of the ’70s improvised-music collective Yahowa 13 made the long trip from rural Northern California to rock Little Harpeth with a Nashville pickup band. Representing the Golden State this year are 2018 alum Al Lover, who will patch in from L.A. for daily drone sets, and Jason Miller of Oakland percussive-psych heavyweights Lumerians, presenting a multi-cam performance film from his electronic side project Martian Sunset.

Beyond music, Third Man Books has lined up readings from wordsmiths including Boston-based occult poet Janaka Stucky.

Winning submissions for the Far Out Film Fest, originally scheduled to be screened at the Belcourt, will be shown on the site.

Those will be accompanied by interviews with Kraftwerk and Spacemen 3 from the vault of Translove Airwaves, an Anthony

Bourdain-inspired, psych-music-centric travel series made by D.C. filmmaker and friend-of-the-festival Matthew Levin.

A virtual tip jar will be there, of course, along with festival merch, crafts and other wares from participating local vendors available for purchase online. Also on the schedule: yoga, guided meditation, and designated breaks to go outside and unwind with nature.

“It’d be ridiculous to ask to celebrate the solstice by staying inside behind a screen all day,” Ames says. “But you’ll be able to catch every minute of every performance if you want. You can trip your fucking face off and not worry if you’ll make it to the port-a-potty in time.”

Ames and O’Neill agree that past years’ obstacles have uniquely prepared them for the new normal as it pertains to concerts.

Seizing on the creative freedoms a wellplanned livestream offers, the pair expects Far Out Free Fest to look and feel closer to their vision than ever. Says Ames with a laugh, “Our festival has become so powerful it’s dropped its physical body and transferred its consciousness into the internet.”

EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

“People really started taking me seriously as a rapper, and I started taking myself more seriously too.”

To be clear, people were already taking Virghost seriously, even if not as an MC. Before turning to hip-hop, he was a poet who honed his performance skills as a spokenword artist in his native Memphis. (He moved to Middle Tennessee a few years back and currently lives in Murfreesboro.) Back then, his material was more conscious in nature, a rhythmic exploration of politics, religion and other goings-on in the world.

“I didn’t see many rappers doing the kind of music [I wanted to],” he says, “but I did see a lot of poets.”

So he took to Memphis stages, transforming from Durand Somerville the poet into Virghost the spoken-word artist, refining his lyrical skills and perfecting his stage presence all the while.

“When you do spoken-word,” Virghost says, “it’s just you and your voice. You’re

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

F

ar Out isn’t Nashville’s bestknown music fest, but it might be its most resilient.

Co-founders and seasoned festivalgoers Kari Leigh Ames and Brianne O’Neill debuted their summer-solstice celebration of psychedelic music and art at The East Room and The Cobra in 2017, taking home Best New Festival honors in the Scene’s Best of Nashville issue that year. The pair drew inspiration from the careful curation of Knoxville’s weird-music summit Big Ears, and the oversized art installations seen at campout fests like Desert Daze and Bonnaroo.

Far Out ’18 added a film component and brought another formidable cast of psych outfits and solo travelers, this time to Mercy Lounge and The VISIT High Watt. Even if FAROUTNASHVILLE.COM filling the cavernous JUNE 18-21 TO WATCH Cannery Row comPERFORMANCES plex proved chalAND FILMS lenging, the bands delivered, and the lighting and projections were first-rate. Attendance was up last summer at Little Harpeth Brewing, but on the first night, high winds toppled an outdoor tent where a full slate of performers was set to play, forcing Ames and O’Neill to cram 20-plus acts onto three inside stages over two days.

This year, the storms came sooner. The March 3 tornado in Nashville severely damaged The Basement East, one of two venues Far Out had locked in for 2020. (Nearby bar The Crying Wolf was the other.) By the time COVID-19 hit, making the safety of any live music events going forward a big question mark, the organizers were ready to roll with the punches.

“We were already in crisis mode,” O’Neill tells the Scene. “We had a head start getting

PHOTO: BRANDON DE LA CRUZ

BY CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

nashvillescene.com | JUNE 18 – JUNE 24, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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6/15/20 4:03 PM

MUSIC

A CLOSER LOOK

SOUR OPS

Our music scribes catch up on releases from Tim Gent, Slush, Dream Wave and more

BY KELSEY BEYELER, EDD HURT, P.J. KINZER, BRITTNEY McKENNA, MEGAN SELING, STEPHEN TRAGESER, RON WYNN AND CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

A

s the COVID-19 pandemic has continued to make it unsafe to gather for live shows or shop normally at local record stores, our music scribes have periodically revisited local releases from the past year or so that deserve a closer look. Find eight new FIND LINKS TO HEAR AND recommendations BUY THESE RECORDS AT below, and visit our NASHVILLESCENE.COM/ website for links to MUSIC listen and buy them.

SICARD HOLLOW, SECRET OF THE BREEZE (SELF-RELEASED) Sicard Hollow’s debut album Secret of the Breeze is the kind of thing you want to listen to on your way to spend some time in nature.

The five-piece bluegrass group brings everything good about traditional bluegrass while also keeping it fresh with progressive touches. The lyrics range from vulnerable and self-deprecating to funny and encouraging, but the instrumentation is what really shines. The fiddle especially is rich, regardless of whether it’s in the background or up front tearing through one of the many jam breaks on the record. KELSEY BEYELER

TIM GENT, IN EVERY FALL (SELF-RELEASED) Clarksville-born rapper Tim Gent has consistently proven himself to be one of the best MCs in Music City, telling important and illuminating stories about his life and his point of view. His EP In Every Fall continues the trend. The bars and sung hooks are some of his most sophisticated yet, and the melancholy production is rich. In four short tracks, he gracefully navigates both society-wide problems like systemic racism and personal struggles like the temptation to retaliate against those who hurt someone close to him. STEPHEN TRAGESER

either going to get your point across or not. With rap, you still need to have a good performance, but you have the beat to kind of complement you. So if you’re not that great of a performer, but you got a good beat, sometimes you may get a pass by the crowd.”

This is the foundation that underscores Virghost the rapper, the confidence that shines on tracks like “Disrespectful” from 2019’s Summer in September III and “Pharaoh” from his June 5 release, Ghost Tape.

For a rapper who cites Jay-Z and Nas as his favorite MCs and credits their 2001 “Takeover” / “Ether” beef as a defining moment in his own artistic development, this bravado is understandable — expected, even. But for every measure of cockiness Virghost displays on record (from “Pharaoh”: “Ooh, man, you niggas in the way though / Had potential at the start, but you lost it O.J. Mayo”), he serves up an equal measure of vulnerability. Now a decade into his career, Virghost’s musings on the external have been replaced by deep introspection, his pen now a pick he uses to mine the details of his own life.

“I talk about a lot of stuff that most artists, I feel, would not feel comfortable saying,” he explains. “I’ve

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TIM GENT

STEFAN FORBUS AND FREDRICK WEATHERSBY, THE REAL DEAL (SELF-RELEASED) On their new LP The Real Deal, trumpeter Fredrick Weathersby and saxophonist Stefan Forbus, both TSU graduates, prove they’re up to the challenge of 21st-century jazz: offering a path to the future through a careful balance of traditional sounds and current sensibilities. Forbus engineered while Weathersby wrote all seven pieces and produced the record, which focuses on collective engagement of the distinguished ensemble more than solo showcases. In addition to his stirring lead lines, Weathersby is an able rapper on “Alkebulania (Africana Earth),” while more mainstream listeners will gravitate toward “Air Me Out,” “Thoughts Allowed (Aloud)” and the finale “Chops for Days.” RON WYNN

been through a divorce before; I completely talked about that in my music. There was a time when I couldn’t pay my rent; I made a song called ‘Rent Song’ that did really well. There’s stuff that I felt was embarrassing, but to get over that, I just put it out to the public through my music.”

On Ghost Tape, Virghost’s most personal track is “Throwback.” The song, set to a spare, piano-tinged track, is about a man in a struggling romance who’s reminiscing about better days.

“It may sound like a fun song, but it definitely wasn’t fun going through what I was going through at the time,” Virghost says. “It wasn’t super serious, just regular relationship stuff, but I put that in song form because that’s what I was going through at the time.

There’s nothing fabricated.”

Virghost wants this openness and authenticity to rub off on his fans — and he hopes they will in turn feel comfortable being themselves in our curated world of online avatars and Photoshopping. He also hopes it will help him take his music to a wider audience.

Though, like other artists, he’s been hampered by the COVID-19 shutdown, Virghost says his No. 1 goal

SOUR OPS, TINDER FLAME (FERALETTE)

SLUSH, SLUSH (TO-GO RECORDS)

On their 2019 EP Tinder Flame, Sour Ops takes post-British Invasion rock for a tough, mean spin through rock history. Led by guitarist and songwriter Price Harrison, Sour Ops comes across like a group of Memphisfried Nashvillians who love Bowie and Marc Bolan. Sour Ops traffics in cheap, fun pop thrills, with plenty of great riffs. Tinder Flame peaks with “Hung in the Trees,” a superb Chilton-meets-Lou Reed riff tune.

The group has released a couple of singles in 2020, including “The Sexy Sadist.” EDD HURT

Not to be confused with the garage-punk Slush from Milwaukee or the Slush from L.A. in the post-grunge ’90s, this Slush is the songwriting vehicle of singer-guitaristproducer Max Barnett. He deals in stark, melodic shoegaze with a gentle touch: Chorus-drenched clean guitars, synth overtones and ghostly, androgynous vocals set the vibe, sprightly drumming keeps the pace, and songs like standout “My Woman Kinda” showcase a strong pop sensibility.

Sonically understated and compositionally orderly, the five-song set — the second of two self-titled Slush EPs released in 2019 — lays a sturdy foundation for however Barnett chooses to build out the band’s sound.

BILLY STRINGS, HOME (ROUNDER) Billy Strings’ 2017 debut album Turmoil & Tinfoil rightfully earned the young bluegrasser a good deal of acclaim, thanks to his virtuosic musicianship and the LP’s inventive blend of punk-infused string music.

Strings took that invention to a new level on last year’s Home, his first release for Rounder Records. Across 10 tracks, Strings masterfully explores rock, jammy psychedelia and even indie pop over a foundation of traditional bluegrass, all the while offering compelling lyrics and catchy hooks. Mark your calendar for late July, when Strings will embark on a livestream tour of local venues, kicking off on July 16 at Brooklyn Bowl Nashville. BRITTNEY McKENNA

for the foreseeable future is to garner national, if not global, attention with his music. He’s got the team. His crew at Capitol Minds, the label he cofounded, includes two fellow rappers: engineer Joshua Jacob, aka Kxng Klxpsy, and manager Soulman Snipes. And with the release of Ghost Tape, he believes he has the product.

Meanwhile, Virghost goes hard for the local hip-hop scene, hosting a long-running series of showcase concerts called Villematic with an intent to raise the profile of all area hip-hop artists.

He counts rappers like Memphis’ Hippy Soul and Omega Forte as well as Chattanooga-born Isaiah Rashad among the region’s best. And he doesn’t believe that a desire for commercial success sullies his image, or anyone else’s. He wants people to know it’s OK to value art and commerce.

“People try to act like if you want to make money off of rap, you selling out,” Virghost says.

“I don’t like that narrative, like you can only be a dope rapper if you’re broke. No. I can be true to myself and still make money.”

EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

CHARLIE ZAILLIAN DONORS, DONORS (TO-GO RECORDS) Plug in your best headphones for this one: Donors’ second self-titled EP is one of the essential releases of 2020. The foursome plays raucous, ringing postpunk with a sound that falls somewhere between early Rough Trade singles and the wilder side of Brooklyn, circa 2005.

On the release, the band rips through 15 minutes of nearly perfect noise pleasure.

The sparse, scratchy guitars and sharp, staccato shouts ride on the back of a brilliantly clamorous rhythm section, and “Fine Print” caps the seven-song tape with a cold, distorted piece of proto-industrial gold. P.J. KINZER

DREAM WAVE, IN THIS LIFE OR ANOTHER (SELF-RELEASED) In the roughly 12-minute span of his new bedroom-pop EP In This Life or Another, Dream Wave’s Kelton Young unloads some of the thoughts that have been circling in his brain during quarantine.

The playful “Sky Tour” sounds like an old-school video game, with happy cartoon characters bouncing around a world of smiling clouds and grinning stars. In “Paper Skin,” a calming, atmospheric love song dotted with delicate piano, Young softly assures that the sky will eventually clear after the storm. We’ve been shaken to our core by the coronavirus, but the sun still shines, and there’s still love in the world. Thanks for the reminder, Dream Wave. MEGAN SELING EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 18 – JUNE 24, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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MUSIC

THE SPIN

STREAM THEATER

BY EDD HURT AND BRITTNEY McKENNA

J

ohn Prine’s death in April from complications of COVID-19 left a wide swath of music communities reeling. The songwriter’s songwriter, who was 73, was beloved by artists young and old for his preternatural ability to capture lived experience in song.

For this, and for his well-documented kindness and wicked sense of humor, he counted such luminaries as Bonnie Raitt, Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires, Vince Gill, Margo Price and Price’s husband Jeremy Ivey among the many people who were simultaneously Prine’s fans, friends and collaborators.

On Thursday night, Picture Show: A Tribute Celebrating John Prine premiered as a stream on YouTube, Facebook and Twitch. The twohour concert film included performances from the above-mentioned artists as well as Kacey Musgraves, Eric Church, Brandi Carlile, Jim James, Sturgill Simpson and many others — including Prine’s sons Jack and Tommy Prine and his widow Fiona Whelan Prine. Each offered memories, and in the case of the players, heartfelt renditions of their favorite tunes from the remarkable catalog of songs Prine wrote over the past five decades.

PRINE EXAMPLES: BRANDI CARLILE WITH TIM AND PHIL HANSEROTH

MARGO PRICE AND JEREMY IVEY

Picking a highlight among the highlights is damn near impossible. Isbell and Shires performing the quiet anthem to empathy “Hello in There” from the stage of the empty Ryman was exceptionally poignant.

So were the performances featuring Prine’s band — guitarist Jason Wilber, multi-instrumentalist Fats Kaplin, bassist Dave Jacques and drummer Kenneth Blevins — playing with singers like Kelsey Waldon. So was the archival footage of Prine himself, performing “Grandpa Was a Carpenter” with his brothers Dave, Billy and Doug on the steps of the church where their grandparents brought them as children.

“It’s hard to talk about John being gone because his music is so present,” said host John Dickerson. “He takes up residence in

your head. You feel like you know him. Or more to the point, he knows you. So tonight we are celebrating that part of what John Prine left all of us, which is still very much with all of us.”

Donations made during the premiere are set to benefit three nonprofit organizations, which you can still support: Make the Road New York, Alive Hospice and the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Following the stream, Prine’s family released an official video for “I Remember Everything,” the final song Prine recorded before his death.

Prine wrote the tune with longtime collaborator Pat McLaughlin, and producer Dave Cobb recorded it in Prine’s living room. The bittersweet song seems to take stock of Prine’s remarkable life, as he sings: “I’ve been down this road before / Alone as I can be / Careful not to let my past / Go sneaking up on me / Got no future in my happiness / Though regrets are very few / Sometimes a little tenderness / Was the best that I could do.”

At first, singer-songwriter Josephine Foster comes across like a conventional folkie. But her wandering vibrato, which colors virtually every phrase she sings, is at the root of an unconventional approach. While it won’t appeal to everyone, it opens a window to a valuable discussion.

On Friday, Foster streamed a 40-minute performance of her post-folk songs filmed in Nashville, courtesy of Morocco’s American Cultural Association, a nonprofit that offers Englishlanguage lessons to Moroccans and fosters cultural exchange between Morocco and the U.S. Backed by her latest band, Moonbrondoon — Chicago pedal steel player Matthew Schneider alongside John Allingham, co-founder of Nashville’s The Cherry Blossoms, on percussion — she made a case for her fusion of art song and American folk music.

Foster sends the tonal center of her songs into an orbit that can disintegrate. During the stream, she sang a tune from her 2018 Nashville-recorded full-length Faithful Fairy Harmony called “Pining Away,” which is, essentially, a country waltz. Like The Cherry Blossoms, who use folklike material as a disembarking station for the deconstruction of musical form, Foster and Schneider let the song slide into something like entropy. It was disconcerting, but Foster & Co. operate in a linear dimension that allows them to get outside the confines of traditional forms.

When it worked, it was beautiful. Allingham made distracted noises along the perimeters of the beat, while Schneider matched Foster’s somewhat dry guitar work with inventive phrasing. They communicated the idea that music exists in real time, and it was believable when they implied through their performance that chord changes are there to be exploited. As usual with folkies, the tension between innovation and the pull of tradition is ingrained in Foster’s work. The continued effects of that longstanding conflict are worth thinking about.

EMAIL THESPIN@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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FILM

PRIMAL STREAM XIII

A heartfelt horror doc, a very important Alien3 cut and more, now available to stream

BY JASON SHAWHAN

T

o quote the theorist and critic Anthony Oliveira, “Be brave enough to be kind.” As always, read on for some recommended titles now available to stream, and visit past issues of the Scene for more.

THE FITS ON TUBI AND AMAZON PRIME

You’ve never seen anything quite like this film. There are a lot of things that The Fits does and accomplishes, but none of it in a way that we’ve seen before. It’s a tactile and visceral sports drama, a low-key Larry Cohen-style horror/sci-fi city-based character study, a portrait of youth in crisis, a social epic, possibly an elliptically queer narrative, and a cathartic ode to performance (both literally and figuratively). Toni (Royalty Hightower) is a Cincinnati preteen who does boxing training with her brother Maine. But she’s also been drifting into the mass practice for The Lionesses, the dance troupe that rehearses at the same community center. So Toni does both for a bit, finding the physical commonality between the two, claiming physical space as a young Black woman and exploring and expanding her identity. But then a mysterious outbreak of fainting and seizures starts working its way through The Lionesses, and all bets are off. This is such an accomplished and enveloping film — the fact that it’s writer-director Anna Rose Holmer’s debut is inspiring and deeply impressive. In 72 minutes, Holmer, Hightower and the vibrant and physical cast create something indelible and unforgettable.

SCREAM, QUEEN! MY NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET ON SHUDDER Essential for queer viewers as well as horror fans, this heartfelt documentary follows the story of actor Mark Patton, the lifelong legacy (some would say albatross) of A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, and the ways that horror commemorates and interacts with the legacy of its stars. Scream, Queen! is a story of the closet of the 1980s, the wreckage of the plague years that saw an entire generation devastated by HIV/AIDS, and the way that medical technology and tenacious personalities have changed the dynamics of the modern queer community. Cher is involved.

If you just want a behind-the-scenes on Elm Street 2, there’s a good amount of that. But there’s also so much more, from being on the business end of the convention industry to settling hash with the instruments of Hollywood homophobia, and it’s ultimately incredibly satisfying for Patton to finally be having his cultural moment. This is a different and essential kind of documentary.

THE FITS

available in a streaming context, and how that was a great step forward in making some of the apocrypha of my personal fave-rave franchise readily available to the nonphysical-media-buying public — I mentioned the Alien3 Assembly Cut. Now, lo and behold, HBO (and HBO Max) have made the alternate versions of all four films in the traditional Alien Quartet available. For 1979’s Alien and 1997’s Alien: Resurrection, this is good for comparison’s sake and for variety.

Aliens doesn’t require its restored 17 minutes to work as a movie, but it is improved by them. 1992’s Alien3 is the one instance in which the alternate version is essential.

The 115-minute theatrical release is, at best, a quilt. Cobbled together by producerscreenwriters, studio executives scrambling toward a release date and a production hobbled by infighting, uncertainty and the outbreak of the Gulf War, Alien3 nearly broke director David Fincher (Gone Girl, Zodiac, Mindhunter), who washed his hands of the whole thing and refuses to discuss it.

Even in 1992, a VHS preservation of the first assembly of the film — before studio-mandated reshoots and the composition of Elliot Goldenthal’s gorgeous and gruesome score — was in circulation via tape traders and the gray market, complete with whole subplots that never made it into the released film.

And then, in 2003, this Assembly Cut was reconstructed and released, and the fights

I’d been getting into about this film for more than a decade suddenly subsided. (The two ongoing film battles I had with late Scene editor Jim Ridley involved him trying to convince me that Under the Cherry Moon was a good film — which he was right about, ultimately — and me trying to convince him that there was an exceptional film somewhere inside Alien3.) Oh, lots of people still hate on this film regardless of which version they see, but the cultural appraisal has shifted. At its best, which this version often reveals, Alien3 is a splatterpunk Passion of Joan of Arc — a moody collision between Sir Francis Bacon and Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.

This version of the film is not just a redemption, but a resurrection.

GO DOWN, DEATH! ON TUBI

Part of Tubi’s impressive collection of Black films from the 1930s and ’40s, this Spencer Williams melodrama has everything you could want — class conflict, debate over respectability politics, deceit, steadfast love, pernicious plotting, the battle between “Saturday sinners and Sunday saints,” deepfakery, and a giant Satan who eats at least one member of the cast.

Go Down, Death! is a film that, in just under an hour, brings you into an unfamiliar timespace that uses religious melodrama as its spine but flourishes into a whole other kind of organism. You will wish contempo-

rary filmmakers would explore the liberation of a giant, cast-eating Satan as well.

2046 ON AMAZON PRIME

2046 is a work of delicate, fraught romance throughout multiple planes of reality. Writerdirector Wong Kar-wai’s iridescent fractal of a romantic crisis is also a sci-fi masterpiece and a film of most inspirational costume design. A bookend to his 1999 masterpiece In the Mood for Love, 2046 features Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) as a frustrated author still not over his platonic relationship with his former neighbor Su Li-zhen (played by both Gong Li and — for a moment, indelibly — once again by Maggie Cheung Man-yuk) back in 1960s Hong Kong. 2046, the story Chow is writing, and 2046, the film you’re watching, are about the means by which we pursue lost memories. Human or synthetic, the moments that define us are impressionist echoes in the infinite gallery of consciousness, and this film is a sweeping epic of melancholy beauty and textures filtered through and diminished by the passage of time.

ADDENDUM

Bill Gunn’s Masterpiece Ganja and Hess is streaming on Amazon Prime, and its fascinating remake, Spike Lee’s Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, is on Tubi. Have yourself a Roxy Music “Re-Make/Re-Model” double feature.

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

2046

ALIEN3 ASSEMBLY CUT ON HBO

A few weeks back — when writing about the Aliens Director’s Cut finally being

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FILM

AIN’T THAT THE TOOTH

Shannon Murphy’s Babyteeth is a powerful feature debut

BY STEVE ERICKSON

A

teenage girl undergoing cancer treatment literally runs into a young man with face tats and a mullet at a train station. They fall in love despite the disapproval of her parents. Oh, and he’s a drug dealer.

BABYTEETH Babyteeth, set in subNR, 120 MINUTES AVAILABLE FRIDAY, urban Australia, is preJUNE 19, VIA VIDEO sented with on-screen ON DEMAND chapter headings like “A Little Bit High” and “He Didn’t Feel Like a Love Story That Day.” Sounds like an insufferable Sundance quirkfest in the vein of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, doesn’t it? Even so, that’s not how director Shannon Murphy’s feature debut plays out. She gives her story enough time to fully develop her characters into real people, rather than just collections of tics and quirks.

When Milla (Eliza Scanlen) meets Moses (Toby Wallace), she begins spending all her spare time with him, even though she’s 16 and he’s 23. She quickly takes him home to meet her parents, leading to a dinner scene driven by her mother Anna’s (Essie Davis) Xanax-fueled oversharing. Her psychiatrist father Henry (Ben Mendelsohn) is baffled by the situation.

Moses starts spending so much time at their house that he essentially moves in.

Babyteeth initially aims for the kind of suburban hyper-realistic tone one associates with ’80s cinema.

Jane Campion’s 1989 film Sweetie might be its closest Aussie role model. Murphy — who has worked in Australian theater and TV, and has directed episodes of the third season of Killing Eve — keeps the camera, generally handheld and moving, close to her actors, and sometimes uses odd angles for close-ups.

But Babyteeth doesn’t use any of these devices to mock its characters. Anna’s no-filter blather might lead to drama, but it’s also a product of her addiction to tranquilizers. The film provides parallels between Moses and Henry, with the latter actually being far

more adept and dangerous in his use of drugs to control other people. Especially as the #MeToo movement has raised our sensitivity to the exploitation of teenage girls, a love story between a 16-year-old and a 23-year-old is bound to raise eyebrows — Babyteeth shows a physical attraction between the two, but continually delays the relationship’s possible consummation.

Babyteeth resembles TV shows like Euphoria and Shameless in regard to the subjects it tackles, but it’s not trying to be hip or shocking. It dodges the romanticization of girls and women with terminal illness, and Murphy refuses to dwell on her protagonist’s suffering. Even so, the idea that she’s out to collect experience while facing the possibility of an early death hangs over her behavior.

Babyteeth frequently changes tone. While its first act has a bit of cringe comedy — Anna deciding at dinner that it’s OK to talk about being “ripped to shreds” by forceps during Milla’s birth, for instance — the film pares itself down the further it goes, and it earns its two-hour runtime. After a garishly lit party that Milla and Moses attend, the setting is mostly confined to her family’s house. Despite a subplot involving violin lessons, the heart of the story involves only four characters. In its last half-hour, Babyteeth becomes increasingly intense, dropping its sense of humor.

Mercifully, Moses and Milla’s story never plays as “Pervy Dirtbag Junkie Lusts After Cancer Patient.” The screenwriting and acting are specific enough to avoid stereotypes. The same holds true for Mendelsohn’s and Davis’ performances. After years of cashing big checks for playing villains in Hollywood blockbusters, Mendelsohn gets to use his real accent and play a down-to-earth character. The film’s two couples have a lot in common, exemplifying unequal male-female power dynamics that mingle with real affection. Babyteeth suggests a bright future for Murphy, whatever medium she continues in.

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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last call!

CROSSWORD EDITED BY WILL SHORTZ ACROSS 1

Squabble

5

“Um, sure”

9

Old detective magazines, e.g.

14

Astringent target

15

Indian tourist mecca

16

“Word on the street is …”

17

Bingo, in Scrabble

20

One of the friends on “Friends”

21

Upscale San Francisco neighborhood

1

2

3

4

5

14

6

7

8

15

17

18

23

28

32

33

26 30 34

39

40

46

47

53

35

44

48

49

54

55

25

Something with a belt and coat

26

Assembly line?

27

“B-I-N-G-O,” e.g.

66

67

68

32

Cellular plan?

69

70

71

33

Flirt (with)

34

Second Amendment focus Breakfast aisle option for a wheat allergy

42

Solomonic sort

43

Russian yeses

44

Zip

46

Bingo, for one

51

Indian honorific

54

Towering tree

55

___ Castle, Japanese landmark

56

Residents of the Friendly Islands

59

“Such a shame”

61

“Bingo!”

66

Arose

67

Dust Bowl traveler

68

Perforate, in a way

69

Batting avg. and such

70

Barclays Center team

71

Scrap DOWN

58

Yankees great Howard

62

Squeak (out)

49

Frost

Muscular Pontiac

2017 biography subtitled “The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror”

63

11

50

What might help you make your goal?

64

Orders

65

Atlanta-based TV inits.

12

Pulitzer-winning playwright Vogel

13

“r u kidding me?!”

18

Arthurian times, say

19

Boris Johnson, for one

22

Word often shortened to its middle letter

23

Pulmonologist’s study

24

Musical syllables

25

1987 drama set in apartheid-era South Africa

28

Number in a shield symbol: Abbr.

29

Over there

30

Spoil

31

’Fore

36

Smooth-talking

3

“C’mon, throw me a bone already!”

38

Comfy boot

39

Leaves before paying the check?

4

Low-maintenance fish

5

Jibber-jabbers

40

6

Things coaches handle

Half-___ (order for a barista)

41

Key to get out of fullscreen video

45

Pasture

47

One might be dropped in a to-go bag

51

Bucks

52

“I’m not a ___” (captcha phrase)

53

Popular photo app, informally

57

Joint problem

58

Feature of the Swiss Miss logo

59

Dismounted

60

Harmful substances to swallow

H U E C O B

C R U S O E

H U T T O N

M U S T H A V E

E N S N A R E S

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

Jessica R. Simpson Attorney for Plaintiff NSC 5/28/2020, 6/4/2020, 6/11/2020 & 6/18/2020

JUVENILE COURT FOR DAVIDSON COUNTY, TN Docket No. 251074 JOVEL, NATHALY vs.

DAVIS, LARRY

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE A T B A T S

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 CYNARRA M. BLAKE. It is ordered that said Defendant enter Her appearance herein with thirty (30) days after June 18, 2020 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 July 20, 2020. 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 Deputy Clerk By: W. North Date: May 19, 2020

48

Luau bowlful

___ Xtra (soda)

65

Worrisome word at a nuclear plant

2

9

64

10

Sustenance from heaven

Palindromic woman’s name

63

PUZZLE BY MICHAEL SCHLOSSBERG

35

8

60

62

50 is a high one: Abbr.

N.L. West team: Abbr.

59

61

1

7

45

50

Site for a rite

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36

41

22

57

SHELDON F. BLAKE vs.

CYNARRA M. BLAKE

31

43

56

910 Non-Resident Notice Fourth Circuit Docket No. 19D999

29

42

52

13

21

27

51

12

LEGALS

25

38

11

19

24

37

10

16

20 22

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NO. 0514

E T E R N E A R E S E L I

P H E D O E L O R E S W P I N E T S U C E D R R N I N O D E D T T P I A L P A M A J L I N A P E R

R O A S T P I G O N H O L D

A P R U S C P E A R L S

Online subscriptions: Today’s puzzle and more than 9,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/ crosswords ($39.95 a year).

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

Crosswords for young solvers: nytimes.com/ studentcrosswords.

This cause came to be heard on the 4th day of October 2019, before the Honorable Mike O’Nea;, Judge of the Juvenile Court of Davidson County, Tennessee upon a status hearing. Counsel for Mother made an oral motion for Service of Process by Publication filed. In this cause it is appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon Larry Davis, it is ordered that said Defendant be served by publication and enter his appearance herrin within thirty (30) days from the last day of publication of this notice, and defend or default will be taken against him. The hearing to be held at 100 Woodland St., Nashville, TN 37213. It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks. It is further ordered that said four (4) week succession publication will constitute service upon Larry Davis in the above-captioned case.

Vanessa Saenz Attorney for Plaintiff NSC 6/18/20, 6/25/20, 7/2/20, and 7/9/2020

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