WORKING UP A SWEAT JUST WRITING ABOUT IT
JULY 9, 2015 KNOXMERCURY.COM
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as a lot Bike Club h in ta n u o M chian ng started. The Appala ’s just getti it d n A . le il Knoxv of plans for
BY S. HE AT HE R
DU N CA N
From left: Matthew Kellogg, Brian Hann, Randy Conner
NEWS
Will New Rules Help Reduce Dangers of Train Fires Like Maryville’s?
JACK NEELY
Knoxville’s Newfound Appreciation of Festivity
THE VAULT
Unearthed Tapes of the First Great Bluegrass Festival
OUTDOORS
A Day of Tailwater Fishing at Douglas Dam
A Knoxville Vacation In the 1790s, Knoxville attracted French noblemen and other travelers seeking the thrills of the wild frontier. But for most of he 1800s, Knoxville was mostly a practical place, and not much of a tourist destination. It had lots of factories and warehouses but no museums and hardly any parks. Although privately owned, Lyons View offered an especially picturesque vista, attractive to painters and poets.
The development of the Smokies coincided with the popularity of two new national paved tourists routes, the Dixie and Lee Highways, which combined in Knox County, from downtown Knoxville to what’s now Farragut. Each summer, southbound tourists from the Upper Midwest and also from the East Coast would drive through Knoxville to get to destinations on the Gulf Coast. Especially along Kingston Pike, many tourist camps and motels sprouted to meet the demand, along with numerous restaurants often both hamburgers and “Southern” cuisine to Northern tourists who expected it. For many tourists, Knoxville was a convenient halfway point between home and a beach vacation.
In the last 19th century, Knoxville began marketing its historic sites to interest visitors. The homes of Parson W.G. Brownlow and charismatic politician Robert Taylor, the graves of Taylor and The Andrew Johnson Hotel’s elevated pool, from a John Sevier, the Indian Mound near UT’s 1960’s postcard. Courtesy of Mark Heinz. The Dixie-Lee Highway, as it was sometimes campus, and the old tavern building at known, got less traffic in the 1960s, when State Street and Cumberland Avenue, Interstates 40 and 75 were completed. Faster interstate travel made heralded as the “First Capitol of Tennessee,” were mentioned as overnight stops less necessary, and new national motel and fasttourist attractions. The earthen ruin of Fort Sanders itself was a food chains on highway exits picked up the business. Meanwhile, popular destination, advertised until the early 1920s, when it new hotels were built nearer the Smokies, especially in Sevier finally disappeared. County, leaving Knoxville with fewer Smokies tourists. Dozens of Most of Knoxville’s advertised historic sites of a century ago Knoxville’s roadside motels closed. Even the Andrew Johnson have since been torn down. closed, after almost 50 years, and became an office building. For recreation, by the 1890s, Chilhowee Park offered swimming, boating, rides, baseball, and sometimes a sport known as water baseball, in which successful batters would swim from base to base. From 1910 to 1913, Chilhowee Park hosted three major expositions, which drew more than a million curiosity seekers from across the country. Knoxville never had major summer-vacation traffic until about 1930. That’s when the new Great Smoky Mountains National Park first became accessible, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors a year. No longer touting the city’s historic sites, the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce began hailing “America’s newest vacation ground.” They added, “Knoxville is the logical starting point for all trips into the park area.” Completed in 1929, the Andrew Johnson Hotel on Gay Street, then the region’s finest hotel, attracted Smokies visitors. Tourist-oriented souvenir shops sprang up around town, especially along then-new Chapman Highway. Knoxville became known as the “Gateway to the Smokies.”
The energy-themed 1982 World’s Fair was the single biggest tourist event in Knoxville history, drawing 11 million visitors over its six-month span, and generated the construction of three new downtown hotels. Today, with multiple festivals and attractions like the Market Square Farmers Market, the Museum of East Tennessee History, the Knoxville Museum of Art, WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, the renovated Tennessee Theatre, and the Old City, all in an appealingly renovated historic downtown--as well other destinations like the Knoxville Zoo and Ijams Nature Center--Knoxville itself has become a tourist destination of its own, more than it ever was before. National sources regularly recommend trips to Knoxville. Last week, New York Times writer Seth Kugel called Knoxville “the perfect place to spend 18 hours.” Visit Knoxville’s president, Kim Bumpas, says Knoxville’s combination of attractions, its history, music, and outdoor recreation, is extraordinarily unusual, and is driving the boom.
Source: Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection. For more, see visitknoxville.com.
The Knoxville History Project, a new nonprofit organization devoted to the promotion of and education about the history of Knoxville, presents this page each week to raise awareness of the themes, personalities, and stories of our unique city. Learn more on www.facebook.com/knoxvillehistoryproject • email jack@knoxhistoryproject.org 2
KNOXVILLE MERCURY July 9, 2015
July 9, 2015 Volume 01 / Issue 18 knoxmercury.com
CONTENTS
“The clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness.” —John Muir
NEWS
10 Toxic Train Crisis The Blount County CSX train fire joins a string of similar accidents that led the U.S. Department of Transportation to issue new rules this spring about shipping hazardous materials by rail. Some argue that once those rules go into effect, they could help prevent or lessen the damage caused by such accidents. But the standards remain highly contested, as S. Heather Duncan reports.
12 Trailblazers
Join Our League of Supporters!
COVER STORY
The Appalachian Mountain Biking Club does a lot more than plan group rides and parties. With its recent successful campaign for a $100,000 grant from Bell Helmets—as well as its relentless trail building all around Knoxville—the AMBC is making a big difference in our quality of life and the city’s national profile. South Knoxville’s Urban Wilderness may be just the start of the club’s vision for an interconnected, bike- and pedestrian-friendly Knoxville. S. Heather Duncan follows their trail.
DEPARTMENTS
OPINION
A&E
4 6
8
19
38
Letters Howdy Start Here: Photo by Bart Ross, Believe It or Knox!, Public Affairs, Quote Factory. PLUS: Words With … Kate B. Trudell ’Bye Finish There: At This Point by Stephanie Piper, Crooked Street Crossword by Ian Blackburn and Jack Neely, Spirit of the Staircase by Matthew Foltz-Gray
9
The Scruffy Citizen Jack Neely is in a festive mood over Knoxville’s newfound sense of festivity. Perspectives Joe Sullivan salutes the University of Tennessee’s Chancellor’s Honors Program.
20 21 22 23
Publishing a weekly paper turns out to be really expensive and difficult to do. Won’t you help us get the job done? Find out how at knoxmercury.com/join.
CALENDAR Program Notes: Matthew Everett reviews some new local releases. Inside the Vault: Eric Dawson listens to newly unearthed tapes of a legendary bluegrass concert.
24
OUTDOORS
32
Music: Jack Evans tracks down the Lions. Movies: April Snellings is charmed by the gentle raunch of The Overnight. Books: Matthew Everett is relieved to finally find a well-produced U.S. edition of Corto Maltese comics.
Spotlights: A.A. Bondy, J.P. Harris and the Tough Choices
Voice in the Wilderness A day of tailwater fishing at Douglas Dam goes awry for Kim Trevathan
FOOD & DRINK
34
Sips & Shots Rose Kennedy takes a drink of Old Scout whiskey—right before Marcus Hall uses it to stain some denim jeans.
July 9, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 3
LETTERS Delivering Fine Journalism Since 2015
BACK AND BETTER
A note of appreciation for bringing back Knoxville’s alternative newspaper, albeit with a new name, better than ever since it is, once more, truly independent. Once again I can wander to a favorite eatery for a late lunch, find your paper nearby, and enjoy a leisurely meal catching up on local news and commentary while I eat. Neither TV nor the Internet has been able to fill the void left by the destruction of Metro Pulse by its corporate overlords. And now I hear you are seeking a full-time investigative reporter. I can remember when there used to be investigative reporting in local newspapers, but that was long ago. Investigative reporting can be dangerous both to your bottom line and to your reporter’s health; I admire your undertaking such an important, and, once, integral part of journalism. Knoxville is lucky to have you; I sense that, like the original Metro Pulse, you are going to be a better weekly than you really would have had to be. John Mayer Knoxville
BEWARE THE HIDDEN COSTS
With reference to the recent article “Recycling the Economy” [Small Planet by Patrice Cole] in the June 25, 2015 issue: While I do concur with Ms. Cole on the benefits of recycling and its ability to stimulate jobs and economic activity, there is a counter concern. Americans have become accustomed to discarding mixed recyclable materials in a ubiquitous container and miraculously the plastics, paper, aluminum, etc. are sorted and reused. This is far from true—materials separation is a high-cost process and mostly automated; it is an expense that must be shouldered. There is a market and market price that changes constantly for recycled materials. There has been a steady decline in paper, copper, and other prices, which has moved many city and county recycling programs from a source of small profit to one of losses that must be subsidized. Some materials are 4
KNOXVILLE MERCURY July 9, 2015
baled and exported for use. Buyers are increasing their standards for increased purity in the materials purchased. As we look at recycling and the related industries, we must be wary of the hidden costs beyond that of the green benefits. Charles Jones Knoxville
PLEASE DON’T SPIT ON THE PREACHER
Now, I like the Knoxville Mercury a whole bunch, really I do. And I do not sit around reading its articles in order to pounce on each and every mistake I see. But, my friends, there is a limit to what a man can take. In the June 4 issue, we are offered this from food writer Rose Kennedy [Sips & Shots]: “But here’s the thing about whiskey, or bourbon as it’s known when distilled here in the South...” Excuse me? There lives a food writer, a Southern food writer, who is unaware of the difference between Tennessee sour mash whiskey and (shudder) bourbon?! Bless her heart, she just has not yet discovered that bourbon, by law, is made in Kentucky and only in Kentucky. Furthermore, Messrs. Jack Daniels and George Dickel have both caused minor earthquakes in Middle Tennessee, turning over in their graves at the notion that there is no difference twixt bourbon and Tennessee whiskey. It is also fair to argue that Kain-Tuck ain’t part of “The South” at all, despite some notable similarities. Ms Kennedy recently made some disparaging remarks about pimento cheese, I might add. I held my tongue then, but this whiskey thing is like spittin’ on the preacher. We just can’t have it. John Tullock via Facebook Knoxville Rose Kennedy responds: First, thanks for reading the Mercury and taking time to write in. I regret the casual air of that sentence, cribbed from some Scots giving a Johnnie Walker tasting on a cruise ship, and want to emphasize that the “bourbon
describes all Southern whiskeys” error was mine alone and had nothing to do with whiskey maven Dan Goss. You do open a rather large can of worms (or should I say corn?) regarding the definition of bourbon, which I will address in a future column. But most importantly, I adore pimiento cheese, particularly the Lunchbox version. (Not to incur further wrath, but perhaps you meant my assertion that deviled eggs surely contain some secretly addictive ingredient that explains their unnatural appeal to so many? I stand by that.)
CORRECTION
In George Dodds’ June 18 Architecture Matters column, he stated that the Evolve apartment complex was the first building completed under the new form-based code for Cumberland Avenue. However, its construction started before those codes were finally approved. Developer Campus Acquisitions did incorporate some parts of the code (particularly the pedestrian-oriented elements), but the building as a whole does not adhere to the FBC that is now in place.
EDITORIAL EDITOR
Coury Turczyn coury@knoxmercury.com SENIOR EDITOR
Matthew Everett matthew@knoxmercury.com CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
Jack Neely jack@knoxhistoryproject.org STAFF WRITER
S. Heather Duncan heather@knoxmercury.com CONTRIBUTORS
Chris Barrett Ian Blackburn Bryan Charles Patrice Cole Eric Dawson George Dodds Lee Gardner Mike Gibson Carey Hodges Nick Huinker Donna Johnson
Rose Kennedy Dennis Perkins Stephanie Piper Ryan Reed Eleanor Scott Alan Sherrod April Snellings Joe Sullivan Kim Trevathan William Warren Chris Wohlwend
EDITORIAL INTERNS
Liv McConnell McCord Pagan Jack Evans
DESIGN ART DIRECTOR
Tricia Bateman tricia@knoxmercury.com GRAPHIC DESIGNERS
Charlie Finch Corey McPherson CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
David Luttrell Shawn Poynter Justin Fee Tyler Oxendine CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATORS
Ben Adams Matthew Foltz-Gray
ADVERTISING PUBLISHER & DIRECTOR OF SALES
Charlie Vogel charlie@knoxmercury.com
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR GUIDELINES
• Letter submissions should include a verifiable name, address, and phone number. We do not print anonymous letters. • We much prefer letters that address issues that pertain specifically to Knoxville or to stories we’ve published. • We don’t publish letters about personal disputes or how you didn’t like your waiter at that restaurant. • Letters are usually published in the order that we receive them. Send your letters to: Our Dear Editor Knoxville Mercury 706 Walnut St., Suite 404 Knoxville, TN 37920 editor@knoxmercury.com Or message us at: facebook.com/knoxmercury
SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES
Scott Hamstead scott@knoxmercury.com Stacey Pastor stacey@knoxmercury.com SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE–DIGITAL CONTENT
David Smith david.smith@knoxmercury.com
BUSINESS DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS
Jerry Collins jerry@knoxmercury.com
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 706 Walnut St., Suite 404, Knoxville, Tenn. 37902 knoxmercury.com • 865-313-2059 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR & PRESS RELEASES
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sales@knoxmercury.com DISTRIBUTION
distribution@knoxmercury.com The Knoxville Mercury is an independent weekly news magazine devoted to informing and connecting Knoxville’s many different communities. It is a taxable, not-for-profit company governed by the Knoxville History Project, a non-profit organization devoted to exploring, disseminating, and celebrating Knoxville’s unique cultural heritage. It publishes 25,000 copies per week, available free of charge, limited to one copy per reader. © 2015 The Knoxville Mercury
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY 5
Illustration by Ben Adams
HOWDY
Believe It or Knox! BY Z. HERACLITUS KNOX William Blount, who lived in Blount Mansion during his later years, was a signer of the U.S. Constitution. The document was completed just a couple of years before Blount settled here as the first and only governor of the Southwestern Territory. Blount named his new capital “Knoxville” to honor his boss, Secretary of War Henry Knox.
“Be Grateful For What You Have Or Knoxville Convention Center I” by Bart Ross (bartross.com)
QUOTE FACTORY “ I would generously estimate the value of your work to be no more than $10,000.” —Rep. Martin Daniel (R-Knoxville) from a letter he sent last week to executives of GS&F, the Nashville advertising firm that created the state of Tennessee’s new logo for $46,000. Daniel says that the state’s contract with GS&F called for five logo concepts, but it only produced the one (rather plain) final version that has caused public outcry. Consequently, he wants a refund.
PUBLIC AFFAIRS
7/9 CAREERS IN RETAIL INITIATIVE THURSDAY
10 a.m.-noon or 6-8 p.m. Goodwill Industries-Knoxville, Inc. (5307 Kingston Pike). Free. While Knoxville’s Goodwill has always offered entry-level jobs, this new, free training program aims to prepare individuals for middle-management positions in retail, food, and beverage. The program will be facilitated by third-party credentialing organizations, such as community colleges and career-training businesses. Find out more at these meetings or at gwiktn.org/cir.
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY July 9, 2015
7/10A MONTH OF MINDFULNESS FRIDAY
11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture (1327 Circle Park Dr.). Free. Once you find a parking spot at UT, you’ll be able to clear your mind of rage in a new series at McClung Museum. Every Friday this month, the Decorative Arts Gallery will be a place for guided meditation, yoga, and lectures. The Mindfulness and Meditation Club at UT, McClung’s Lindsey Jo Wainwright, and yoga instructors Jamie Blessinger and Andrea Cartwright will lead the hour-long sessions.
Blount became one of Tennessee’s first two U.S. senators, but within months of taking his seat, fled the capital, facing CHARGES OF TREASON! Blount was involved in a bizarre international plot to make a secret alliance with the British and make war on the Spanish for the conquest of Louisiana. By one scenario, William Blount of Knoxville, Revolutionary War veteran, was EXPECTED TO BE THE FIRST BRITISH GOVERNOR OF LOUISIANA! Henley Street is named for David Henley, the local federal agent who in 1797 discovered and exposed Blount’s allegedly treasonous conspiracies. Henley’s revelations forced Blount out of the U.S. Senate, and for a time the former governor was a fugitive from justice. However, Blount remained popular here. Blount County is named for William Blount, and its county seat, Maryville, is named for his wife.
7/13 TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD’ READ-A-THON 7/15 TRANSIT ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT FORUM MONDAY ‘
9 a.m.-9 p.m., Barnes & Noble (8029 Kingston Pike). Free. Harper Lee is about to release her second novel, Go Set a Watchman, on July 14. In celebration, Barnes & Noble is gathering local authors to read her previous novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, in its entirety. You can expect to see and hear that Jack Neely fellow around 6 p.m.
WEDNESDAY
6 p.m., East Tennessee History Center (601 South Gay St.). Free. Representatives from Smart Growth America will be leading this workshop on transit oriented community development, which focuses on walkable neighborhoods with a mixture of housing, office, and retail. Sounds good, eh? (They had us at “walkable.”)
HOWDY WORDS WITH ...
Kate B. Trudell BY ROSE KENNEDY Kate B. Trudell is executive director of the Community Coalition Against Human Trafficking, which will host the 2015 Human Trafficking Summit, open to the public, July 15-16 at the Grande Event Center (5441 Clinton Hwy.). It will feature speakers from the FBI, TBI, and the Department of Justice.
Is human trafficking really a concern in Knoxville?
Of course human trafficking is a global problem, but the state of Tennessee has some of the strictest anti-trafficking laws in the country for a reason. According to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s latest records, from 2011, Knox County was one of five counties in Tennessee that reported more than 100 cases of trafficking. With the intersection of I-40, I-75, and I-81, traffickers find Knoxville particularly appealing. The mobility this area provides, the high level of tourism, and lots of truck stops make Knoxville a place where trafficking flourishes.
What is the purpose of the event?
We aim to inform, educate, and strengthen anti-trafficking efforts across Knoxville and East Tennessee.
How did you get involved with this group? Is it your full-time job?
I was hired as CCAHT’s first full-time paid executive director at the end of 2014. My family and I were relocating to Knoxville from Nashville, where I had been working against domestic violence and sexual assault. I knew I wanted to stay in that same field when we moved here and CCAHT was a perfect fit.
Do you have any friends or family who have been personally touched by this issue?
No, I haven’t been personally connected—that I know of—with a victim of trafficking. But within my circle of family and friends, I certainly am connected with those who have experienced domestic violence, sexual assault, and sexual abuse. While each of those crimes are different, they are all in this same collective cycle of oppression, abuse, and violence.
What’s a myth a lot of us believe about human trafficking?
Many people have a vision of “human trafficking” similar to that depicted in movies like Taken. In reality, trafficking victims are not snatched from their homes, bound by chains, and locked in closets; they are forced into this life in much more subtle ways—threats, coercion, and manipulation. And many people assume trafficking victims are typically Eastern European or Asian, when 80 percent of sex trafficking victims are U.S. citizens.
What’s an easy thing ordinary people could do to prevent it?
Report any suspicious activity or behavior to the Tennessee Human Trafficking Resource Hotline, which is open 24/7 and anonymous. That number is 1-855-55-TNHTH (855-558-6484).
What are some of the signs?
Signs of physical abuse; no identification documents; unable to move independently, always accompanied by another person; coached on what to say. You can read a more comprehensive list of indicators on our blog by visiting our website, CCAHT.org.
Does the problem ever overwhelm you?
Of course! The thing that overwhelms me the most is the big picture. How can we end demand for cheap sex, labor, and pornography? We can get victims to safety all day long, but without reducing demand, there will always be new victims to take their place. To end demand would take a huge cultural shift. A culture that supports this idea that women are sex objects or property to be owned, or a society that does not value the lives of other races, sexes, or nationalities as “equal”—they provide the foundation that allows human trafficking crimes to thrive. For free registration and more event details: CCAHT.org/2015Summit July 9, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 7
SCRUFFY CITIZEN
So Long, Festival Season And how long is it that we’ve had one? BY JACK NEELY
“D
amn I’m glad festival season’s over,” said my friend, who’s a professional musician. He said that with a mild curse and a heavy sigh, as if it had been a real ordeal. He’d been obliged to play for several of them. I concurred without thinking about it. But after half a beat, it occurred to me that what he’d just said was pretty remarkable. I’m not sure I’d ever heard the phrase before: Knoxville has a festival season? And, of course, it does. It starts in mid-March, with Big Ears and Rhythm N’ Blooms, and ends in early July, with Festival on the Fourth. During that manic spell there are about 20 festivals, including the International Biscuit Festival, Brewhibition, Brewfest, Pridefest, Bark in the Park, Kuumba, Vestival, Dogwood Arts, the marathon, and the Rossini Festival. This year there was also a sort of Civil War sesquicentennial festival. There’s a festival attracting at least a couple thousand people every single weekend. They’re all pretty good festivals. A couple of them are really great festivals that get deserved national attention. It hasn’t always been like that. There was a long, sad spell in my youth when the city or some nonprofit would announce a festival, and you’d attend, like any dutiful citizen, and there
8
KNOXVILLE MERCURY July 9, 2015
would be some booths, set up like a high-school science fair, perhaps some lonesome people selling jewelry or scarves or pine cones. Sometimes there’d be some music, even good music, but few to behold it. Once I found myself on Gay Street, watching a free show by some pretty famous rock stars from the ’60s, the original Turtles, Flo and Eddie themselves. And they sang all their hits, “Happy Together,” and the rest. I was in a mob of about 23 people, half of whom I think were roadies. I wanted to try to explain Knoxville to Flo & Eddie, that Knoxvillians won’t come out for a show unless it’s inside an approved building. I’ve been to some advertised
“festivals” that didn’t even offer food or drink. I once concluded that some Knoxvillians who hosted festivals may never have been to a festival. They were perhaps unfamiliar with the concept. Festival comes from the same root as Feast. I’m not saying it needs to be a binge, roast pig and wine by the barrel. But to call something a festival, you at least need to offer the option of Coca-Cola and maybe some popcorn. Without that, your “festival” is, at best, a seminar. We all had low standards for festivals. If the organizer and his or her friends and colleagues and children, and maybe a quorum of their board of directors, and a dog or two, showed up and stayed for at least 20 minutes—anything less would have seemed rude—the festival was hailed as a success. There were a few exceptions, including one fairly big one called the 1982 World’s Fair. A festival about energy conservation and alternative fuels is not likely to get out of hand. It seemed to spin off a few festivals in its wake. A big barbecue cook-off seemed one of the most successful annual events on the World’s Fair grounds. The evening event drew thousands, and was a good deal of fun. I’m not sure what happened to it. Same with Saturday Night on the Town, a massive effort in the ’80s, a diverse celebration of music. It was held downtown for a few years, was massively popular in the mid-1980s, then one year there was a knifing in an alley. It then moved to the World’s Fair Park, I guess because it lacks alleys, but there it proceeded to fizzle. A hopeful book festival on the fair site was a bust. By the 1990s, some were con-
I’m glad, and pretty surprised, that I have wound up in a festive town, and even more surprised that it’s Knoxville.
vinced Knoxville just wasn’t a festive place. Some blamed Republicans, or Presbyterians, or the legacy of Prohibition, which lasted longer here than in any non-Mormon city in America. Some blamed the plausible theory that Knoxvillians just didn’t like each other. Somehow, in this still-new century, Knoxville has become a very festive place indeed. And as strange as it may seem, I believe it started with one especially peculiar opera festival in 2002. More than a century after his death in Paris, France, Gioacchino Rossini changed Knoxville, Tenn. The Knoxville Opera’s festival in his honor was so much fun it raised the bar for all festivals. It was a turning point. Festivals are a good barometer of the vigor and diversity of a city and how comfortable its citizens are with themselves. Our range of festivals says good things about Knoxville. Some festivals have a life span. Asheville’s giant summer music festival Bele Chere was once huge. About 20 years ago, Bele Chere was the main thing we heard about Asheville. It was kind of a distinctly urban Bonnaroo, on multiple stages around their downtown. It regularly drew, credibly, more than 30,000. Once or twice, I was among them. But because it was free to the people who attended, it was expensive to the city. And the original reason for it was to attract people to downtown Asheville. They don’t need to do that anymore. In the 1990s, we were saying, “Why can’t we ever do something like Bele Chere?” After 35 years, Asheville began asking why they were doing something like Bele Chere. Two years ago, that city just pulled the plug on it. Maybe 35 years is enough for a festival. Maybe, in some cases, a festival serves its purpose and runs its course. Then again, New Orleans’ Mardi Gras is over 175 years old and has survived wars, hurricanes, and other major disasters. Some European festivals go on for centuries, and that’s part of their appeal. I’ve been loath to miss any of them. I’m glad, and pretty surprised, that I have wound up in a festive town, and even more surprised that it’s Knoxville. But I’m also pretty relieved I have my Saturdays back. I wonder if it’s too late to plant some tomatoes. ◆
PERSPECTIVES
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BY JOE SULLIVAN
T
he University of Tennessee has succeeded in creating a program that has many attributes of an elite small college within a large university. The Chancellor’s Honors Program, as it’s known, is attracting more top students to UT with an enriched curriculum, smaller classes, and higher standards that also serve to enhance the standing of the university as a whole. “We’re giving very excellent students a reason to come here and then making sure they get the education they deserve,” says the program’s director, Associate Provost Timothy Hulsey. Since he took the helm two years ago, the number of incoming freshmen selectively admitted to the program has risen from 487 in 2013 to 620 this coming fall even as admission standards keep going up. This year, for the fi rst time, every entering student will have an ACT score of at least 30 and a high school GPA of least 4.0. That compares to an average ACT score of just under 27 for all of UT’s more than 4,000 incoming freshmen. The 32 average ACT score of the Chancellor’s Honors entrants puts them in the top 3 percent of all ACT test-takers, equal to the threshold for some of the nation’s most selective schools. Worthy candidates who’ve shown an interest in the program are invited to campus with their parents for hosted events. “We show them around the campus and introduce them to faculty in majors they are considering,” Hulsey says. The tour now includes Fred D. Brown Jr. Residence Hall, the fi rst new dormitory on the campus in over 40 years, where two floors are dedicated to rooms for 300
Chancellor’s Honors students. But that’s not enough to satisfy Hulsey. With seven more new residence halls due to be built within the next five years, he’s intent on getting one of them totally dedicated to honors students as was the case at Virginia Commonwealth University where he headed their honors program before coming here. “It’s a recruiting advantage to be able to tell prospective students and their parents that they are going to be in a dorm with all other honors students. Their eyes light up,” he says. Once enrolled, Chancellor’s Honors students are committed to a curriculum that includes at least 28 hours of honors courses out of the 120 hours typically required for graduation. Most take many more, choosing from the more than 200 honors courses the university offers, spanning 55 departments. While there’s diversity among the honors students, about 60 percent are concentrated in STEM disciplines, especially engineering and pre-med sciences. To stay in the program, students must maintain at least a 3.5 GPA, and to graduate they must also write a thesis that is not required of other
students. The graduation rate is close to 90 percent, and Hulsey reckons that the vast majority of them go on to graduate school. “If we turn out undergraduates who go into top graduate programs, it will do a lot for the reputation of the university,” he says. Beyond the academic requirements, Chancellor’s Honors students must also perform a minimum of 25 hours of community service per year. There’s a close working relationship with Knox County School’s acclaimed community schools program. Member agencies of United Way of Greater Knoxville are another beneficiary. The program has a degree of self-sufficiency in that honors students have their own dedicated set of advisors, their own student council, and their own convocations. There are also perks that include priority in registering for courses and library privileges the same as graduate students, which allow them to check out books for longer periods. In Hulsey, they have a leader who is recognized not only as an administrator but also as an academician. A clinical psychologist, he’s currently serving as president of Phi Kappa Phi, which is said to be the nation’s oldest and most selective collegiate honor society for all academic disciplines. One thing that’s lacking is the number of merit scholarships. At the very top, there are 15 Haslam Scholars in each class who get all expenses paid for four years, and Peyton Manning has recently added two more. Beyond that, pure merit awards are limited. For all that’s been done to raise the caliber of the student body as a whole over the past decade, UT is unlikely to become a top-tier university anytime soon. But the Chancellor’s Honors provides a catchment for top students who might otherwise go out of state. ◆
The 32 average ACT score of the Chancellor’s Honors entrants puts them in the top 3 percent of all ACT test-takers.
July 9, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 9
TOXIC TRAIN CRISIS Will new rules do enough to douse the dangers of train fires like Maryville’s? BY S. HEATHER DUNCAN
T
he Blount County CSX train fire joins a string of similar accidents that led the U.S. Department of Transportation to issue new rules this spring about shipping hazardous materials by rail. Some argue that once those rules go into effect, they could help prevent or lessen the damage caused by such accidents. But the standards remain highly contested. Last week’s derailment ignited a tank car carrying 24,000 gallons of acrylonitrile, leading to the evacuation of 5,000 people and treatment of more than 100 for chemical exposure. The fire was sparked by a broken axle puncturing the tank car. New rules issued in May require railroads to replace or retrofit many old tank cars. These lack thicker steel shells to resist punctures and systems to withstand high pressure and heat. Railroads must also re-evaluate their routes for transporting the most dangerous products, taking into account track maintenance schedules, steepness, and curves. Trains with more than 70 tank cars loaded with
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY July 9, 2015
very flammable liquids must have a braking system that prevents train car pileups. And railroads will have to provide local and state emergency planners with a contact who knows about hazardous materials moving through their communities. Twenty-seven of the 57 cars on the train that derailed outside Maryville contained hazardous materials, including nine cars of acrylonitrile and 16 cars of propane. According to CSX, these tankers were “approved by the U.S. Department of Transportation for pressurized products.” In addition, two loads of asphalt shipped at high temperatures were in “general service tank cars.” CSX representatives did not respond to questions about whether any of the tank cars carrying hazardous materials were the specific models that will have to be phased out. The rules developed by the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and the Federal Railroad Administration were issued months after a January 15
Congressional deadline—and they seemingly failed to satisfy anyone. The American Petroleum Institute, an industry trade organization representing coal and gas companies, sued to stop enforcement, calling the tank-car replacement schedule too aggressive and the new brakes unnecessary. Days later, environmental groups including the Sierra Club, Waterkeeper Alliance, and the Center for Biological Diversity, also sued to appeal the standard, arguing the tank-car replacement schedule is too slow, retrofit standards too weak, and information-sharing requirements even weaker than in the past. Some Senate Democrats have filed their own “Crude-by-Rail Safety Act,” with tougher tank car standards and more aggressive requirements for railroads to notify state and local authorities before “high-hazard flammability trains” operate in a state—something that was required for the last year until the new rules eased the requirement. The bill has not yet been heard in committee. Amanda Frank, a policy analyst for the Center for Effective Government, says the new rules don’t go far enough toward notifying emergency responders and the public about what risks they might face from chemicals on trains. The center promotes open government and fights special-interest influence. Frank says the new rule provides a process that is too vague and indirect for communities seeking information about railroad chemical hazards, adding that local emergency planning committees should have direct access to routes and amounts of chemicals carried on trains. She argues that individual residents should be able to find out this information, too. “If you just live near a track or are a community organizer, there’s nothing for you…. If you really don’t know what’s going through the community, you have no way to stand up and fight for change.” Carole Chambers, chairwoman of the Blount County Local Emergency Planning Committee, says she has never asked for chemical shipment information from a railroad, although someone else locally might have. She says she’s sure the LEPC or someone with the county will request that information in the future. CSX spokeswoman Kristin Seay wrote in an email interview that CSX shares “density studies” with commu-
nities, identifying the type and quantity of hazardous materials the railroad carries through the area. She says CSX has provided density studies to Blount County officials, although she didn’t indicate whether that happened before the derailment. Blount County Emergency Management Director Lance Coleman says CSX had its hazmat team involved very quickly after the accident. Local officials have praised CSX for its rapid response and willingness to foot the bill for everything from housing for displaced residents to lost work time for businesses forced to close during the evacuation. “The communication between the railroad and us was very quick, and I have no problem with what happened there at all,” says Chief Doug McClanahan of the Blount County Fire Protection District. He says he believes the 911 center had CSX on the phone by the time first responders were on the scene, and responders were quickly able to speak with railroad officials by cell. “Very quickly I was able to see a list of what was on the train,” McClanahan says. No firefighters were hospitalized as a result of working the accident, he says. “Nobody’s been hurt bad or killed, so something must have gone right,” he says. Emergency response and the evacuation proceeded quickly. That’s not pure chance. Local emergency response officials participate in drills to practice following procedures and working together—fire fighters, law enforcement, the hospital, rescue squads, city and county utilities, and even non-profit relief organizations like churches and the American Red Cross. Coleman says the county has four drills a year, all with a hazardous materials component. The Blount County LEPC organizes at least one drill annually and meets regularly to improve coordination among these responders. “I think we’ve done a great job in our preparation efforts, and it shows with this event,” Chambers says. After the smoke clears, emergency responders will evaluate “lessons learned” from the process, just as they do after drills, McClanahan says. One of the elements that will be discussed is the evacuation process, he says. Some residents within the two-mile evacuation radius of the accident say
they were never told to leave. In many cases, this was because notification first came through phone calls to land telephone lines, which a growing number of people have shed in favor of cell phones. (Law enforcement officers went door to door to evacuate residents, too.) People were initially evacuated to the parking lot of Foothills Mall in the middle of the night, then were moved to Heritage High School when the wind shifted. McClanahan says he chose the mall because initially the evacuation area was only a mile “and the mall was the biggest facility I could think of…. It’s difficult to say where your evacuation points are going to be ahead of time because you never know where (the accident) is going to happen.” Overall, Coleman says, the decision-making process was “pretty seamless” and was aided by some pre-existing emergency plans, like an agreement that Blount County Animal Shelter would house evacuated pets (while a volunteer network would take the shelter’s strays). Coleman was still in the process of familiarizing himself with many of these plans, created by the EMA office under the previous director. Coleman, a former reporter with no prior emergency management experience, has only been on the job for a month. He acknowledges it’s been a trial by fire. The CSX accident could have affected even more people at other nearby locations along the track. According to CSX, the train was headed from Cincinnati to Waycross, Ga. Based on the track configuration, it seems to have just passed through downtown Knoxville. It may have been a close call for McGhee Tyson Airport. If the derailment had happened a half-mile or so further north, it appears the airport would have been within the two-mile evacuation radius. Coleman says if that had been necessary, the decision to close the airport would have been up to the incident commander (initially, McClanahan). While the environmental impacts of the derailment were not insignificant, they too could have been worse. The release of acrylonitrile, a liquid used in the manufacture of plastics and fibers, caused a fish kill in Culton Creek and possible well-water contamination. The same tracks also pass over the Tennessee River.
Another high-profile CSX tanker derailment in April 2014 polluted the James River in Lynchburg, Va., after 17 oil tankers derailed, causing a fire and explosion. Such risks are what has led to more public scrutiny of chemical-laden trains. The Obama administration had faced pressure to issue new rules as the amount of crude oil transported by rail has, metaphorically and sometimes literally, exploded. Monday was the two-year anniversary of an explosion of tank cars carrying crude oil in Quebec that killed 47 people. (Some were vaporized.) According to the Association of American Railroads, crude-oil rail shipments increased over the last decade from less than 10,000 carloads to more than 450,000. The non-profit ForestEthics is holding a “Stop Oil Trains Week of Action” this week, with 80 protests planned across North America. But as the Blount County tankcar fire demonstrates, crude oil isn’t the only flammable chemical risk. In 2014, 28 percent of the railroad safety
violations found by the FRA were related to various hazardous materials. CSX had several chances last year to perfect its response to hazardous releases. In addition to the Lynchburg accident, a February CSX derailment in West Virginia led to an explosion that set a house on fire and evacuated two towns. Both these accidents involved “unit trains” of 70 or more cars containing crude oil from the Bakkan oil shale fields in North Dakota. CSX was fined $10,000 by the state of New York last year for failing to notify local responders about derailments in two different towns. The company agreed to a settlement of about $1 million in 2014 to the FRA for safety and rules violations that year. That was about the same as Norfolk Southern Corp. but less than other big American railroad companies BNSF and Union Pacific Corp. More recent high-profile derailments with fires involved BNSF: One in North Dakota in May, just days after the new rules were announced, which involved 10 burning tank cars
and the evacuation of the town of Heimdal; and one in Illinois in March, when five cars burned for three days. Frank says railroads need to not only speed up tank-car replacements but also install “positive train control” systems, which automatically slow a train at dangerous spots if the engineer doesn’t do so. Experts have said this system would have prevented the deadly Philadelphia Amtrack accident in May, when a train traveled at 100 miles an hour into a curve whose speed limit was half that. Every train carrying passengers or a certain amount of hazardous material was supposed to have such a system by the end of this year, but it’s clear the railroads will not be ready. Congress is considering a bill to extend the deadline to 2020. ◆
This map, provided by the City of Maryville and Blount County, shows an area where residents on Tuesday were being advised not to drink well water until further testing. Acrylonitrile contamination was found in one well near the site of a CSX train derailment and tank car fire that caused the evacuation of 5,000 residents last week.
July 9, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 11
M
ountain bikers have a rich and diverse relationship with gravity. The adrenaline surge of a downhill plunge, even with the risk of a fall (called a “gravity check”), is all the reason they need to do it again. In Knoxville, that’s what the Appalachian Mountain Bike Club does: It hurtles forward to expand Knoxville’s trail system and its horizon. And then it does it again. And again. Most recently, the club won a coveted grant to build a downhill trail so tough even most local bikers would never try it. In some ways, it was a strange goal to motivate a community.
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY July 9, 2015
The Appalachian Mountain Bike Club has a lot of plans for Knoxville. And it’s only just getting started. BY S. HEATHER DUNCAN But for two weeks this spring, the Downtown Downhill campaign was all anybody in Knoxville could talk about. The trail project was competing online with two others, the winner claiming a $100,000 Bell Helmets grant. To put it in mountain biking terms, Knoxville stomped it. The gravity trail
received 26,619 votes from 25 countries, beating out its closest competitor by more than 10,000 votes. Success breeds more success. Just a few weeks after the Bell win, outdoor retailer REI announced it was providing a $20,000 grant (half to the bike club, half to partner Legacy
Parks) toward building a bridge connecting the gravity trail with the rest of Knoxville’s Urban Wilderness. The 200 acres, donated by the Wood family to Legacy Parks in 2013, will also include other trails aimed at every skill level. Nolan Wildfire, REI community outreach coordinator, joked at the check presentation ceremony: “If you have not heard of the Appalachian Mountain Bike Club in the last month, then forgive me, but you live under a rock.” The REI grant leveraged donations covering the entire $100,000 cost of the bridge, says
AMBC member Brian Hann. But this is just the latest step in the club’s transformation of South Knoxville. The club and Legacy Parks were the masterminds behind creating 42 miles of South Loop biking trails and the surrounding Urban Wilderness. Just since 2008, the club of around 250 members has built (and continues to maintain) about 30 miles of trail. Its ability to partner effectively with other user groups, local governments, and the nimble nonprofit Legacy Parks has amplified its trail-building skills into a broader influence on the local culture, economy, and land use. Paul James, executive director of Ijams Nature Center, says the vision, organization, and ambition of the bike club’s leadership has “created a very committed, dynamic, responsive, formidable club that is very passionate about creating community. They want Knoxville to thrive,” he says. “It’s not just something they do on the weekends.” This was never more obvious than during the Bell Helmets contest. The victory marked a turning point: It has made outdoor recreation a part of the city’s identity, even for folks who never pedal a bike. “I definitely think the club has had an impact on broader buy-in to the idea of Knoxville as an outdoors destination,” James says. “For South Knoxville and even for the downtown renaissance, the Appalachian Mountain Bike Club has been a real driver.” A recent University of Tennessee economic study estimated that the Urban Wilderness trails the club has built could pump as much as $51 million into the local economy annually if they gain national traction. That goal is far more attainable now that the Bell Helmets contest brought the Urban Wilderness to a national audience, and the gravity trail will likely attract national-profile bike events, says Carol Evans, Legacy Parks executive director. The bike club mostly builds and maintains the trails for free, although local governments have paid for a few requested trails or provided supplies like gravel. Bike Club president Matthew Kellogg says the club has received up to about $10,000 in the last year from the city and the county, each; the club spends about $50,000 on trails a year, Hann says. “At city and county parks, we very
much support the (Urban Wilderness) effort, but probably 80 percent of what’s happened in the trail system is a result of volunteer work from the Appalachian Mountain Bike Club and Legacy Parks,” says Doug Bataille, Knox County senior director of parks and recreation. “This has been a really inexpensive investment on part of city and county, with a big return on investment in terms of a really popular sport.” Bataille estimates the club puts in more than 1,000 hours of trail labor a year, on top of leveraging grants and donations. “You can imagine what that saves the local governments. Obviously that’s a huge impact.” So how did a small club of bikers grow to become the architects of a new vision for Knoxville?
Top left, center: Bike club members hit the trails around Mead’s Quarry at one of their Tuesday night social rides. Below: Brian Hann, former AMBC president, first recognized the potential for the 42-mile South Loop in Knoxville’s Urban Wilderness when he looked at a map of the area from 10 feet away and saw a green ring.
ALONG FOR THE RIDE
The key drivers of AMBC are its president, Matthew Kellogg, and two previous presidents, Hann and Randy Conner—although the club is truly a group ride. What sets the club apart is the fact that such a large number of people make significant contributions, including hard labor. There have been as many as 144 members at a trail building day, and 40 to 80 are not unusual, Conner says. Still, leadership helps makes that happen. Conner got the club pumping again after it had languished for years, Hann had the vision to connect undeveloped South Knoxville properties, and Kellogg had the energy to mobilize a whole city. The three have more in common than their love of biking. They all work in some capacity for David Dewhirst, whose redevelopment of historic Knoxville buildings helped kick-start downtown’s renaissance. Dewhirst (who doesn’t bike) says he and his bike-club friends have a similar goal: The stewardship of beauty, whether in the form of historic buildings or the natural world. More than a decade ago Dewhirst hired Hann, who recruited Kellogg and Conner and who now runs the construction division. Dewhirst was so sold on Hann’s vision for Knoxville that Dewhirst Properties now has a trail-building division, run by Conner, purely to support the Urban Wilderness. “The greater vision is to be able to move about the community just on trails and greenways—to ride from July 9, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 13
AMBC’s campaign to win the Bell Helmets $100,000 trail-building grant in May mobilized the entire city, on social media online and in the streets. The club and Legacy Parks also scored a $20,000 grant from REI in June (right).
Stomped It Online vote totals for Bell Built, the Bell Helmets $100,000 trail-building grant program:
8,176 15,656 26,619 14
Exchequer Mountain Bike Park, Calif. Spirit Mountain Bike Park, Duluth, Minn. Urban Wilderness Gravity Trail, Knoxville
KNOXVILLE MERCURY July 9, 2015
home to businesses and do your shopping, and come back through the woods,” Hann says. “It’s removing the barrier to outdoor recreation. Getting in your car is a barrier.” Dewhirst says Hann “sees the whole future of Knoxville as highly influenced for the better because of the Urban Wilderness. I think very few people understand the power of what that will be in the future.” Okay, so what will it be? Dewhirst speaks with gravity. “It will be what people think of first. Knoxville will be ‘The Urban Wilderness City,’” he says. Hann is a wiry guy with closeclipped hair and a close-clipped goatee. You get the feeling he’s coiled and ready to spring, but he knows how to direct his energy. He speaks briefly and to the point, then hits the trail. “A bicycle is like the best invention ever made,” Hann says. “You get places under your own power. It’s the most efficient machine known to man, and I like efficiency.” People trying to describe Hann often struggle a bit, then summarize: He just gets things done. Hann has a map of Knoxville in his head, with the undeveloped large parcels illuminated. Plenty of developers and economic boosters have imagined similar maps to identify places where the city can grow through construction. Hann has the opposite intent. His Future Knoxville is a place made up of green places woven through the human construction. Hann is a multi-tasker, so that map is there all the time: While he’s pouring concrete for a grease trap, while he’s grinding uphill in granny gear on his bike, while he’s hobnobbing with Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero and big donors. When the opportunity comes to snap up one of those properties as a city park or a trail easement, Hann is ready. Hann and other bike club members put their own money and sweat behind that map. Hann and Kellogg both moved to South Knoxville near the trails. Hann bought a dilapidated farm to be one of the privately-owned links in the South Loop, building several public trails across it. Along with his friend and neighbor Jason Stephens, Hann formed an LLC to purchase more property to connect parts of the trail, like the Wood property and Marie
Meyers Park. (Hann says they plan to build tree houses on it.) They also buy residential properties by trail heads, then rent them out to trail-friendly tenants, often for little to no profit. “We wanted cool places by the trail heads,” Hann says with a shrug. On his way to the 1896 white farmhouse he restored off Sevierville Pike, he first crosses the Chain Ring trail as it intersects with his driveway, then passes his goats. Behind the house and past the chickens is a sap-stained Airstream trailer, where out-of-town trail builders working for the club stay for free. Behind that is a pump track of sculpted humps and high corners where bikers can practice. Doug Barker is riding the pump track shirtless with a beer bottle in each back pocket. “Isn’t there an age limit on this track?” Hann jokes. “I hope it’s not 51,” says Barker, revealing his age with a grin. Hann points out, “Your daughter got messed up on a pump track.” “I’m just glad they saved her teeth,” says Barker, who lives in Corryton and started riding bikes about 15 years ago. The track and the farm are the location for the club’s big fall fundraiser, basically a festival with food, bands, booze, and bikes that draws 300 or 400 people, according to Conner. But the farm also gets visitors on a daily basis from the trails. The AC/DC trail is especially popular. “It became part of the trail system as we built it,” says Hann. “We built this in the middle of the night in the rain.” Close to dusk, the trail is twisty and shadowed as it criss-crosses a gully using seven wooden bridges, some banked at steep angles demanding high speeds. “I wanted the bridges to feel like water flowing down and to be built like train trestles,” Hann says. Kellogg, like Hann, has proved to be an outdoorsman who can work the inside game equally well. For the Bell Helmets contest, “I had a war room in my house,” Kellogg says. Ten laptops were set up around the dining room table while club members learned about how Google ranks websites from University of Tennessee Professor Julie Ferrara. Competitors ended up copying the bike club’s tactics, website, and videos. (In one video, neglected “squishy bikes” with flat tires pine away while Sarah McLachlan croons
“Angel” in the background.) The contest was plastered across social media (even U.S. Sen. Bob Corker tweeted about it) and covered by every TV news station in Knoxville. Trucks and bars and bike shops were stenciled with “Downtown Downhill” (Mayor Rogero tried her hand at the spray painting), the Tomato Head pizzeria named a sandwich after it, and it was draped (along with a bike) from a construction lift on Gay Street. Dewhirst, who owned the lift, also paid for radio ads on WDVX. PetSmart volunteered to buy anonymous Facebook ads. The city of Knoxville and Oak Ridge National Laboratory emailed all their employees asking them to vote. Partway through the voting, Kellogg and some other club members spray-painted Downtown Downhill slogans all over a limo loaded with bikes before driving to a mid-Atlantic conference of the International Mountain Bicycling Association. There, they gave a presentation on club dynamics and spread the word about the contest to the 20 participating bike clubs. That led to articles about the gravity trail in Northeastern media. In the end, many Knoxville residents voted for the trail not because they care about mountain biking, but because they care about living in a cool city, Evans says. “We’re a competitive city so we like to win. I think there’s just amazing community pride,” she says. “It is that we want to be a cool city. We are proud of who we are.”
THE PATH LESS TRAVELED
Largely because they were inspired by the need for more mountain biking trails, Randy Conner and some friends got the bike club back in gear in 2007. They were having a few beers after a group ride in Oak Ridge and lamenting how far they had to drive first before they could pedal. To be a chapter of the Southern Off-Road Bicycle Association, the club needed at least 15 members. Conner scraped together 17. Within a year, membership grew to around 100. “It kind of shows it was time,” Conner says. More people joined the club as the places to ride multiplied. Plus the bonds created while building trails helped cement the group. “If our volunteers are building a new trail,
they’ll feel like they’re part of something they can look back on with their grandchildren and say, ‘I remember when I built that trail,’” Conner says. Conner and Hann approached Knoxville Parks and Recreation Director Joe Walsh about the club’s building trails at the 75-acre William Hastie Natural Area, a hilly, undeveloped property that had once been slated for a World’s Fair-era housing development. Although the city had owned it for six or seven years, it was used mostly for illegal dumping, ATV driving, and some casual walking by neighbors, Conner says. “I was a little skeptical,” Walsh says. “Sometimes you get what you pay for with volunteers. But these guys are really organized and enthusiastic and do what they say they are going to do.” Before approving the project, Walsh told Conner and Hann they’d have to get the Lake Forest Neighborhood Association on board. The experience taught club leaders that they would have to work with other groups, Conner says. That quickly become a bedrock of their philosophy as they moved on to build trails at Marie Myers Park (a completely unused city property) and the Ross Marble Natural Area at Ijams, which Legacy Parks had acquired from the Imerys mining company. The eight miles of trail the club built there, which now belong to the city, are among Knoxville’s most popular. That success led the county to ask the club to build trails at Concord Park in West Knox County, Conner says. “People in their 20s and 30s who were driving 50 miles to ride suddenly were riding in town,” Walsh says. “They were not only building trails but organizing rides, and their energy and enthusiasm was contagious.” Then Hann took over as president of the club. “Brian I think really took it to the next level,” Evans says. Legacy Parks had launched its Urban Wilderness initiative in 2008 with a fundraising campaign to buy a property on Armstrong Hill and the river bluff. “Shortly after that Brian called me and said, ‘You need to take a look down here. We have trails we are already riding.’” They drove around, following the map in his head. “Brian had the vision and he knew how things should and could connect,” Evans says. “We took care of the acquisition side of it.”
New Trails in the Works The Appalachian Mountain Bike Club isn’t putting all its momentum into a plunge down the gravity trail. It has bigger plans for the park that will host that trail, as well as miles of new trails across Knox County and beyond. First up are improvements to the Wood property, which will host not only the gravity trail but a fun and easy 1.5-mile “superbeginner loop” plus trails up Pappy’s Point, a big knob with great views of the city, says club member Brian Hann. The yet-unnamed park will include a boulder climbing area as well as short pump tracks that let bikers practice skills handling big bumps and curves. The park will be the closest part of the Urban Wilderness to downtown, just 2.5 miles away. The bike club and Legacy Parks received about $210,000 in grants to design and build this part of the trail system, with many of these trails to be open by late fall, Hann says. “With that Wood property project we will have good progression: Everything from toddlers on push bikes to professional mountain bikers who tour around,” says club president Matthew Kellogg. Knox County Parks and Recreation Director Doug Bataille says the county will be able to host big bike events as well as workshops and conferences at the park because of the gravity trail. “We very much look at us as a part of adventure tourism,” Bataille says. “You can almost start linking cities—we’re right between Asheville and Chattanooga and can be part of that tourism draw.” Kellogg notes South Doyle Middle School across the street is interested in hosting what could be Tennessee’s first interscholastic middle school cycling league. Hann says the club hopes one of the Wood property trails will be approved as a course by the national league for high school mountain biking. “We need more beginner trails everywhere,” and not just for kids, says Randy Conner, AMBC’s modern founder. “That’s the gateway. That’s what gets everybody out and gets them hooked.” The club is seeing many adults start biking later in life. He knows firsthand. Conner, who will be 60 this year, started 25 years ago when aging knees caused him to abandon playing basketball. AMBC paid for an expert to build the county’s first true beginner trail last year on land being linked to Concord Park, and another trail is in the works there. And that’s just the beginning of its plans for geographical expansion of the trail system. Later this year, the club expects to start building the Eastbridge Business Park trail which will
eventually connect to House Mountain, as could Sharp’s Ridge, says Legacy Parks director Carol Evans. In the nearer future, trails at Sharp’s Ridge could be connected to downtown through a bike path/greenway combination along an abandoned CSX railroad line that runs north from World’s Fair Park, Conner says. The railroad easement is wide enough for parallel gravel and paved trails, says Joe Walsh, Knoxville parks and recreation director. The city has asked the railroad for the property to be transferred, but it could be a long process, Walsh says. Club leaders say they are most enthused about a totally new project: crossing from I.C. King Park over Brown Mountain ridge, connecting to Anderson Elementary School. A big chunk of that connecting land is the 200 acres where downtown redeveloper David Dewhirst lives. Hann has already built 4 or 5 miles of trail through a former quarry and down the ridge. Part of the trail skirts a pasture of waving grasses on Dewhirst’s farm, just below the second-highest peak in Knox County. In sight of the trail are an Amish barn moved from Indiana and a cantilever barn from Sevierville. “My old-age plan is to be a curmudgeonly old guy sitting in his barn waiting for bikers to show up,” says Dewhirst, who says he might make the barn into a way station offering water—and maybe occasionally something stiffer—to passing bikers. Kellogg says the club is always looking for other connections. “We’d love to find a way to get over to Fort Dickerson, maybe the botanical gardens,” he says. “We are constantly studying maps looking for remnant parcels, or parcels coming up at a tax sale.” Conner says he thinks the club could add another 40 miles of trail in just the next two to three years. One of his goals for the club is connecting Knoxville’s trails with Great Smoky Mountains National Park, as well as building trails in Anderson, Blount, Sevier, and Grainger counties. He says the club’s name was chosen deliberately because founders wanted it to be region-wide, “from Johnson City halfway to Chattanooga.” —S.H.D.
July 9, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 15
Potential Future Scenarios for Urban Wilderness Trail System ANNUAL BICYCLE USER DAYS (total trail visits)
260,070
LOCAL AMENITY
329,183
REGIONAL DESTINATION TI N
450,678
NATIONAL DESTINATION 100,000
200,000
300,000
400,000
500,000
DIRECT ECONOMIC BENEFITS (based on visitor spending) LOCAL AMENITY
$8,329,474 $14,600,442
REGIONAL DESTINATION
$29,010,442
NATIONAL DESTINATION $5M
$10M
$15M
$20M
$25M
$30M
TOTAL ECONOMIC BENEFITS (incuding indirect and multiplier spending on employment, etc.) LOCAL AMENITY
$14,700,689
REGIONAL DESTINATION
$25,768,321 $51,200,529
NATIONAL DESTINATION $10M
$20M
$30M
$40M
$50M
$60M
SOURCE: Charles Sims, Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy, “Economic Potential for Knoxville’s Urban Wilderness”
Evans, sometimes with Hann, also worked with landowners who didn’t want to sell but were willing to allow trails to cross their land. In the past year, the club expanded its focus to creating trail opportunities outside South Knoxville. Kellogg says Walsh approached the club for help developing about three miles of trails at scenic Sharp’s Ridge. Evans continues to work with nearby landowners, including broadcast stations with towers on the ridge, in an attempt to eventually gain access for a trail along the north side. 16
KNOXVILLE MERCURY July 9, 2015
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
It can be a struggle to keep up with the pacemakers when you’re part of a group activity. But this club leaves no one behind. Not the newbies. Not the trail runners. They are all welcome, and there are no stragglers. Molly Green, who started riding after 30, says the club saw an uptick in membership during the Bell Helmets campaign and now has a group of “superbeginners” who meet for short rides a couple of times a week. She remembers a couple of years ago when she started biking,
she showed up to one of the club’s Tuesday night group ride/socials. “I must have looked lost because someone came up to me and greeted me,” she says, and soon she had a group of women to ride with. On a recent Tuesday evening when the thermometer registers 89 degrees, bikers with glove grips and backpack water systems discuss the features of various routes with beginners. When one newbie expresses concern about the distance of a recommended ride, they tell her the details of a “bailout point” to return her faster, and an experienced rider offers to join her. It’s miserably muggy, but there might be 100 club members buzzing over wooded quarry trails among the cicadas or setting out toward more distant points on the South Loop. Knowing the bikers would be there, the Savory & Sweet food truck pulls up. “Augh, I forgot your eggs!” wails Hann, whose chickens make their own contributions. Conner says the modern club is avoiding the old club’s mistakes. “Back in the ‘90s, we put on races and did a lot of work. But we didn’t have as much fun as we should have, and we learned from that. We learned if we’re going to have a work day, it has to be fun.” The club no longer sponsors races, and trail-building work “days” last just three hours and end with a big lunch. The club often runs out of tools before volunteers. “It’s a club that I’ve enjoyed being involved with because they really get the concept of play hard and work hard,” says Bataille, a longtime member in addition to being Knox County’s liaison with the club. Members of the bike club travel for trail-building training across the country. “They just build really, really good trail,” Evans says. “Their willingness to sweat for it gave them a lot of credibility.” From the start, the club never built “mountain biking trails,” Evans says. “They are just as thrilled when there are hikers and runners on a trail as they are mountain bikers. That’s really advanced everything…. They play well with others.” That focus on getting all users onto the trails has earned the club a broader range of donations. The Knoxville Track Club is one of AMBC’s biggest donors, Conner says. AMBC is now working with Knox
County and Legacy Parks to build five miles of trails at Eastbridge Business Park for bikers, hikers and—for the first time—horseback riders. “We just can’t be focused on mountain bikes,” Kellogg says. “The more trail access everybody has, the better off we are…. Let’s make the most of that and build as many bridges as possible, physical and otherwise.” The relationships the club built prepared it to deal with challenges like the state’s decision this winter to start charging mountain bikers a “high-impact user fee” for access to state wildlife management areas—including Forks of the River Wildlife Management Area, a key segment of the South Loop. Evans and bike club representatives met with state officials, who decided to exempt a portion of Forks of the River from the fee, which went into effect July 1. John Gregory, manager of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency region that includes Knox County, says the paved Will Skelton Greenway and the trail extending from it along the eastern border of the WMA will be exempt from the fee. This will allow mountain bikers to keep traversing the South Loop for free. “We felt like we didn’t want to disrupt the connectivity of that whole area for bikers,” Gregory says. Tennessee mountain bikers who ride the interior trails at the WMA, as well as new western perimeter trail planned by AMBC, will have to pay $15.50 for a day of access, or $74 for an annual pass; out-of-state visitors will owe $37.50 for a day or $233 for a year. However, for the first year WMA officials will mostly give verbal or written warnings rather than tickets, Gregory says.
IN THE GREEN
The bike club’s influence has broadened support for both the Urban Wilderness and for biking in Knoxville. For example, for the first time, Rogero designated $100,000 in her new capital budget for the Urban Wilderness. Shortly after her election, Rogero hired Jon Livengood as the city’s first alternative transportation coordinator, demonstrating her early support for biking. But her administration’s investment has climbed sharply since, from $60,000 to $1 million in just three years. Livengood
says this is because the city completed a bicycle facilities plan to guide the spending. It includes bike lanes along Sevier and Cottrell avenues to improve road biking access to the Urban Wilderness. The city is applying for a U.S. Department of Transportation grant to build a pedestrian and bicycle bridge between the Urban Wilderness and Neyland Drive areas. Walsh says the city put $25,000 in its budget for trail maintenance for the fi rst time this year, and he’s putting out a request for proposals. He expects AMBC to provide one. Depending on other proposals, it’s possible that the city could pay the club directly for its maintenance work for the fi rst time. James noted that the club vocally opposed the James White Parkway extension, which would have pushed a freeway five miles through the Urban Wilderness. After decades on the books, that project was basically killed by Rogero in 2013. A white paper published in June by the University of Tennessee’s Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy tried to quantify the economic impact of the Urban Wilderness trail
“It will be what people think of first. Knoxville will be ‘The Urban Wilderness City.’ ” — DAVID DEWHIRST
system on Knox, Anderson, and Grainger counties using research from eight other U.S. trail systems. The study estimated that at a minimum, the Urban Wilderness
injects $8.3 million in related spending into the local economy; if it has already become a regional destination, it is probably generating at least $14.6 million.
Livengood says the bike club and Legacy Parks have demonstrated the fi nancial advantages of bike and trail infrastructure. “I think the administration really saw that, ‘Wow, this can help out South Knox,’” Livengood says. “The momentum the club created is beyond, people want to ride bikes. It’s people want to live here.” For years, Hann kept a spreadsheet tracking home sales near the South Loop. “There were $8 million in sales just among people I knew, people who bought specifically to be on the trail,” he says. “I was like the de facto number-one real estate agent in South Knoxville” because so many people sought his help fi nding houses, Hann recalls. As the trails are linked more directly with downtown, more real estate may benefit, Dewhirst says. “In a few years, you will have all the advantages of downtown urban life and be immersed in 1,000 acres of wilderness in minutes, never having to get out of your car,” Dewhirst says. “I truly expect to take my bike from downtown Knoxville and go to Tremont in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.” ◆
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY 17
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY July 9, 2015
P rogram Notes
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Listening Party Local music reviews
HECTOR QIRKO IMAGINARY BANDS FIELD NOTES
Hector Qirko’s contributions to the local music scene covered more than 30 years—first as guitarist for the seminal Knoxville punk band Balboa, with the late Terry Hill, and later with the country-rock band the Lonesome Coyotes, and then, for 25 years, as leader of the bluesy Hector Qirko Band (which also served as R.B. Morris’ backing band, the Irregulars). So HQ’s departure back in 2010, when he left Knoxville for Charleston, S.C., felt sort of like a defection. But Qirko hasn’t been able to shake this city easily. He’s frequently back in town to play with the reunited Coyotes—his last visit was in May, for the WDVX Bob Dylan Birthday Bash on Market Square. And his new album, his first since leaving town, features a bunch of local musicians and at least one ex-Knoxvillian and was recorded, in part, at studios in Lebanon, Tenn., and Friendsville. Field Notes shows the range that
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Inside the Vault: Bluegrass Festival
makes Qirko such a likeable guitarist, running from a bouncy country blues (“Living in the Country,” the traditional “More Pretty Girls Than One”) to bluegrass (“Lou Ann”), down and dirty Delta blues (“Walking With a Spirit”), electrified country rock (“Cowboy” Jack Clement’s “Guess Things Happen That Way”), and a pair of pretty Latin-tinged instrumentals (“The Old Dance,” “Chicolita Rag”). Throughout it all, Qirko’s an impeccable leader, and he’s so easygoing and pleasant as a guitarist that you have to pay attention to notice just how good he is. (He also gives one of his best vocal performances here.) What really puts Field Notes near the top of the HQ discography is the help he gets from his friends: fellow Charlestonian and Knoxville expat Kevin Crothers on bass; Knoxville acoustic all-star Daniel Kimbro, also on bass; and Steve Horton, another Lonesome Coyote, and Sarah Pirkle providing background vocals. Even fiddler/mandolin player Roger Bellow, a new Qirko collaborator from Charleston, has Knoxville connections; he played on the Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round and Cas Walker’s television show in Knoxville during the late 1950s and early ’60s. (Matthew Everett)
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Music: Lions
HEY OK FANTASTIC MIDNIGHT IN 3-D
The members of the eccentric local band Hey OK Fantastic have had a hard time letting go—almost as much trouble as they’ve had keeping the project going. The band played regularly from 2008 through early 2012, then took a two-year break. When they reunited at the end of 2013, it was only long enough to play a couple of local shows before they called it quits again, this time, apparently, for good. Now, more than a year after their farewell show, Hey OK Fantastic has made a new album—the last, they say—available for free download. It’s hard to say Midnight in 3-D has been worth the wait. Hey OK Fantastic never amassed a big local following, so their absence from the scene might never have registered with most music fans. On top of that, the group has been, even at its best, an acquired taste. Singer and songwriter Alex Minard has a penchant for
22
Movies: The Overnight
odd imagery and unexpected perspectives—check out “Baby in a T-shirt” here—and isn’t afraid to go after some operatic grandeur. The band is clearly ambitious, aiming for a kind of jazzy psychedelic guitar pop somewhere in between the Flaming Lips, early Pink Floyd, Rush, Ween, and Frank Zappa. But Midnight never really pays off. Instead, we’re left with a quirky parting shot that meanders more than it sticks. A handful of tracks—“Who’s to Say,” “The Birthday Party,” and “Beware the Moon”—show the band working through an epic kind of new wave, like the Talking Heads covering Led Zeppelin’s “No Quarter.” But there’s way too much lightweight and forgettable material around those songs to make Midnight worth the effort. (M.E.)
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Books: Corto Maltese July 9, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 19
A&E
Inside the Vault
The Story of Bluegrass Newly unearthed tapes document the first great bluegrass festival
You are Invited to a Toast Harper Lee Party on Tuesday, July 14th at 6 pm. Mary Pom Claiborne, marketing & public relations director of the Lawson-McGhee Public Library, will lead the toast with a reading from Harper Lee’s highly anticipated novel, Go Set a Watchman.
Pre-Purchase your copy before the 14th & receive a $10 gift card!
Union Ave Books 517 Union Ave Knoxville, TN 37902 865.951.2180 www.unionavebooks.com
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY July 9, 2015
BY ERIC DAWSON
B
ack in April, WDVX marketing director Roger Harb and Rise and Shine host Freddy Smith brought an interesting guest to the Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound. Howard Friedman, who would soon be leaving East Tennessee, had a box of reel-to-reel audio tapes he wanted to donate to the archive. Friedman recorded bluegrass festivals back in the 1960s, so we figured what he had must be good. But the contents of this recent round of tapes were more amazing than even Friedman himself imagined. Born and raised in the Bronx, Friedman attended City University of New York. While there, he became interested in folk music. Friedman bought himself an 1899 Fairbanks Senator model banjo and found an instructor. “Then I heard bluegrass, and that was it,” he says. As Friedman became obsessive about bluegrass, his career brought him closer to its region of origin. Friedman earned a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Tennessee in 1966 and spent his career in Oak Ridge. He retired in 2010 and is moving to Scottsdale, Ariz., to live near his son. Some of the boxes Friedman brought in had writing in pencil on the back . Boxes labeled “Stanley Brothers” and “Doc Watson” turned out to be recordings of studio albums or episodes of Paul Campbell’s Music of the Southern Mountains radio show. They’re good shows, but other people have also undoubtedly recorded them. I thought a box labeled “Story of Bluegrass” might be another radio show. I was surprised to find that it was a live performance with an emcee narrating the history of bluegrass. The performers appeared on stage as their part in the story was told: Bill Monroe,
the Stanley Brothers, Benny Martin, Mac Wiseman, and on and on. It’s a remarkable recording. After a little bit of googling, I realized just how remarkable it is: Friedman had recorded Carlton Haney’s 1965 bluegrass festival, at a horse farm in Fincastle, Va., a few miles outside of Roanoke. It was the fi rst multi-day festival devoted solely to bluegrass music. Friedman had made the trip with Morgan and their friend Stan Gourse after seeing an ad in Bluegrass Unlimited. Other boxes labeled “Roanoke” were obviously from the same festival; after looking at the list of performers that weekend and listening to the tapes, it became clear that most of Friedman’s recordings were of the historic festival. Morgan remembers that Pete Seeger’s son was at the festival with a state-of-the-art Nagra recorder, and a Ralph Rinzler tape from the day is in the Smithsonian collection. A few performances have been released on Folkways albums, and a short blackand-white film clip has made its way onto YouTube. Otherwise, there doesn’t seem to be much readily available from the festival, making Friedman’s recordings a rare thing. Most of his tapes sound excellent—only a few seem muffled or distant. Roughly five to six hours, about half of Friedman’s collection, offer a unique document of the finest players in bluegrass a few years before younger musicians would change up the style and newgrass would introduce the music to a wider audience. ◆
Music
The Sound of Change Knoxville’s Lions prepare for a turning point BY JACK EVANS
J
osiah Smith, frontman for the local math-rock outfit Lions, had one simple request for the dozens of fans packed upstairs in the Longbranch Saloon for the band’s last hometown show before a summer tour. “Can we please try not to damage the pedal board tonight?” Smith asked. The singer/guitarist’s array of effects pedals often finds itself in harm’s way at Lions shows. That’s due in part to Smith’s preference for standing on the floor even when there’s a stage available, but mostly it’s because audiences at the band’s local gigs tend to move: Sweaty bodies collide and hair flies, and most of the people in the crowd can sing along to almost all the band’s lyrics. Lions’ music—an emotional, caffeinated mix of twinkly emo, anthemic pop-punk, and technically adept indie rock—promotes constant motion and screamalongs. A sound guy standing guard over the pedal board isn’t an uncommon sight at these shows. Still, an equipment mishap at that June show could have been especially disastrous. The ensuing tour was Lions’ biggest yet; though they’ve toured up and down the East Coast since releasing the MTNZ EP in 2012, this three-week stint took them to the West Coast for the first time. It also happened in the midst of the band’s work on their as-yet-untitled debut album, which Smith estimates is 40 percent done. “We were like, we need to go out there and complete a sector—do basically a full U.S. tour, let people know we’re coming out with new music, play the new songs, and show people some of our back catalog for anybody who doesn’t know who we were, and also close the book on all the places we never thought we’d go,” he says over the phone from some-
where near Albuquerque, N.M. Smith and the rest of the band have kept details about the album a closely guarded secret. Smith says they’ve recorded drums and bass over weekends at studios in Atlanta and Nashville, and they should have the whole thing finished by the end of the summer, but he won’t go into specifics. He says he wants everyone to get details at the same time, largely because the band crowdfunded the album via an Indiegogo campaign. “We didn’t want to ask for money in the first place, but it’s kind of like, this is tug of war,” he says. “We have no illusions of grandeur. We’re a working-class local band. We like to think we bust our ass in a lot of aspects, but we’ve always given away our music for free. So how can you have this reservoir of money to go record and tour if you give it away for free?” Lions’ profit-averse, largely DIY roots—free music online, shows where
the cover or donations go straight into touring bands’ gas tanks—reach back to the early part of the decade, when Smith, then 20, started writing personal, emotionally direct songs. Since then, the band has released MTNZ and two other EPs; last year, they contributed to a four-way split on U.K. label Enjoyment Records. The forthcoming album marks a turning point in the band’s career. It’s the sound of them changing, Smith says, from a band defined by its influences, one that recorded because that’s what bands do to a band with a focus on songwriting, with discernible goals and high-quality production, and with a distinct voice. “That’s what’s been four months of my life,” he says. “Sitting in anxiety, pushing myself, recording, and getting the best of myself out of this. And I know that’s how the other guys feel, and I’m getting to share that and enjoy that with people.” For Lions, now more than ever, sharing includes extending the band’s reach outside of Knoxville. They plan to tour again in August and perhaps more later in the year, and Smith says they hope to put out two split releases with other bands soon. Even so, he says Lions owe a great deal to the frenetic local fan base—even if, he
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says, he can’t figure out why people like them so much. “We love playing shows, even if there were 20 people,” he says. “The fact that there are 80 or 100 people coming and pushing me around and screaming in my face—screaming at all—we love that. It makes us so happy to have a community and a family every time we go out onto a stage.” With 2015 as a transitional period, Smith’s description of the new album’s subject matter seems appropriate. At 25, he’s the band’s oldest member; the other three are 23, and all four are on “a cool, scary cusp” of their lives, he says, a time of post-collegiate pressure and emotional uncertainty. He says he hopes listeners can identify with the lyrical content, and that maybe his words could help someone in some way. “Some of it’s probably darker than we’ve ever done,” he says of the new material. “It’s really just me sitting there and reflecting on how everything’s going to be okay, but you’re at a point where it just doesn’t feel like it’s ever going to be okay. But there’s this definite positive overarch that it’s going to be okay. And it’s okay to feel things, both good and bad. “You should feel free to move on.” ◆
WHO:
Lions and friends
WHERE
Longbranch Saloon (1848 Cumberland Ave.)
WHEN
Saturday, July 11, at 8 p.m.
MORE INFO
facebook.com/ knoxlongbranch
July 9, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 21
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Movie
Bedtime Stories The Overnight’s raunchy setup is redeemed by sympathetic characters BY APRIL SNELLINGS
M
ore than 40 years have passed since director Paul Mazursky took on the sexual revolution in his pivotal 1969 sort-of swinger comedy Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. According to The Overnight, an insubstantial but entertaining take on similar territory, our hang-ups haven’t really changed much in four and a half decades. We can talk about them more openly, though, as demonstrated by The Overnight’s raunchy opening scene. Alex (Adam Scott) and Emily (Taylor Schilling), a young married couple newly transplanted from Seattle to Los Angeles, aren’t exactly setting off fireworks in the bedroom, even before their young son, R.J. (R.J. Hermes), barges in on them. It’s tough to discuss their R-rated problems in a PG-13 paper, but suffice it to say that all isn’t well in the otherwise happy couple’s boudoir. We know it’s a problem long before they do. As far as the pair is concerned, their only issues are ones related to their recent move: unpacking, getting R.J. settled in, making new friends. That last item is of particular concern to Alex, a stay-at-home dad who’s desperate for adult conversation. So when a chance encounter at a toddler birthday party leads them to strike up a friendship with another parent, the outgoing but aggressively hip Kurt (Jason Schwartzman), they’re all too willing to overlook their new pal’s eccentricities. Kurt invites the family to his home for dinner, where they’re greeted by Kurt’s impossibly gorgeous and gracious wife, Charlotte (Judith Godrèche). Once the kids are put to bed, the bong comes out, clothes come off, and the two couples are in for a bizarre night of personal revelations and paradigm shifts. If it sounds highbrow, it really isn’t.
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY July 9, 2015
But neither is it the sort of loud, manically paced hard-R comedy that’s become the norm lately. (Not that there’s anything wrong with those.) In fact, The Overnight, despite its ribald humor and frequent deployment of breast pumps and prosthetic male organs, almost feels quaint at times. That’s partly a product of the stagy setup—as the title indicates, most of it plays out over the course of one evening in Kurt and Charlotte’s home—but mostly it’s because writer-director Patrick Brice treats his characters with an endearing kindness. That’s especially admirable when
it comes to Kurt and Charlotte, who could easily slip into caricature at almost any moment. Kurt might come off as abrasive at first, and in early scenes he’s an easy target for stale jokes about hipsters. The same is true for Charlotte, a French sexpot who seems to have designs on Alex. Or possibly Emily. Or both of them? Figuring out who’s trying to seduce whom, and why, is part of the fun. But as the night goes on, the oddball couple shed pretenses as often as their straight-laced counterparts shed inhibitions. Most viewers will quickly figure out where The Overnight is headed, but it gets there in surprising ways, helped along by a terrific cast. Brice’s direction might stray too far into sitcom territory at times, but his script is smart and impeccably paced; as the night goes on, the quartet repeatedly splits into every possible pairing, giving the movie a chance to explore a range of dynamics and the cast a chance to play off one another in fun,
unexpected ways. Schwartzman gets to chew the most scenery, but Schilling, who proves herself to be a master of double takes and comic reactions, is the film’s real center. Her character is the slowest to cotton to the night’s debauchery, but Schilling never plays her as a prude; rather, she’s the axis around which everything spins, and the counterweight to some of the goofier shenanigans. It’s one of the many balancing acts that make The Overnight so much fun. When the movie finally reaches its obvious conclusion, it does it with unexpected gentleness and even, dare I say it, class. The result is an unpredictable and often sweet comedy that’s long on insight, in spite of its small scale and modest aspirations. At only 79 minutes, the credits are rolling before the setup wears thin. Alex and Emily and Kurt and Charlotte probably won’t be showing up in film theory classes 40 years from now, but they sure are fun dates for an evening. ◆
Books
Man of Destiny Hugo Pratt’s Corto Maltese comics finally get the U.S. editions they deserve BY MATTHEW EVERETT
T
he Italian cartoonist Hugo Pratt introduced his most famous character, the cynical sailor and “gentleman of fortune” Corto Maltese, in 1967. Maltese fit the mood of the times—a classic antihero, a romantic dropout whose jaded sensibility masks a crusading impulse, a roguish loner who always finds himself in the middle of a lost cause. He’s a peer of Sergio Leone’s Man With No Name, Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, and the protagonists of Easy Rider. “Maybe I’m the king of idiots, the last representative of an extinct dynasty that believed in generosity! In heroism!” he sneers sarcastically after standing up to a bully. Through the 1970s and ’80s, Maltese became one of the most popular and acclaimed comics characters in Europe. Like most European comics, though, Pratt’s Corto Maltese adventures have remained inaccessible and virtually unknown in the United States. A few scattered translated editions appeared over the years but quickly went out of print, and import copies have only been available at premium prices. In 2012, the small publisher
Universe released a translated edition of the first Maltese story, The Ballad of the Salt Sea, a long tale of high-seas double-dealing set on the eve of World War I. As welcome as it was, the Universe edition was a critical disaster—the resized and reformatted book broke up the narrative flow of Pratt’s story and art, shrinking the original albums down to the size of American comic books. The most widely circulated review was a blog post titled “How to Destroy a Comics Classic.” But Universe’s misfortune had at least one positive outcome: IDW Publishing, known for its award-winning collections of classic American newspaper strips like Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, and Terry and the Pirates, issued the second batch of Corto Maltese stories, Under the Sign of Capricorn, in January. Another volume, Beyond the Windy Isles, was released earlier this month, with 10 more to follow. It will be the first complete English-language version of the series; based on IDW’s record and the quality of the first two entries—Under the Sign of Capricorn was nominated for a 2015 Eisner Award—it appears
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that Corto Maltese has finally arrived in the U.S. with style. The first two volumes are impressive, if not quite heirloom quality— heavyweight paperbacks with blackand-white reproductions of the original art and a new translation by IDW’s Dan Mullaney, who oversees the company’s Library of American Comics imprint, and Hofstra University professor Simone Castaldi. The art is glorious—Pratt’s sketchy lines and expressionistic backgrounds stand out on the high-quality pages—and the translation appears to be first-rate, with clear exposition and laconic wit. The action in the two IDW collections shifts from the South Pacific to the Atlantic coast of South America. In the first panel of Capricorn, set in 1916, we meet Corto Maltese, relaxing on the veranda of a bar in Paramaribo, the capital of what is now Suriname. “Even in repose, it was obvious he was a man of destiny.” Within a few short pages, Maltese has encountered a disgraced expatriate professor and a British orphan of mysterious origins. They set off for Brazil, searching for clues about the lost city of Mu and fleeing from an international conspiracy; along the way, they get caught in an anti-colonial uprising and see their search for hidden treasure undone by the treachery of Maltese’s frequent nemesis, the pirate Rasputin. Beyond the Windy Isles finds Corto Maltese suffering from amnesia, fighting against crooked revolutionaries and banana imperialists, and taking on slave traders. It’s all classic boy’s adventure stuff, indebted to Robert Louis Stevenson, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tintin, and Jack London (whom Maltese counts as an acquaintance): lost civilizations, espionage, and star-crossed romance set in exotic ports and on uncharted islands. But there’s an added dimension here; the disillusionment of the post-colonial era, when European governments were expelled from Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia, sets a cynical mood over the Corto Maltese stories. It’s grown-up adventure that grapples with the legacy of centuries of imperialism. ◆ July 9, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 23
CALENDAR MUSIC
Thursday, July 9 BLUE MOTHER TUPELO • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 8PM THE HOUSE OF RISING FUNK • Preservation Pub • 10PM JOSIAH AND THE GREATER GOOD WITH CAITLIN MAHONEY • WDVX • 12PM • FREE JUILLIARD JAZZ FOR JOY • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 6:30PM • An extraordinary former student of an after-school free music program for disadvantaged youth does something that shows his outsized character: He’s giving back. Pianist Taber Gable is a graduate of West High School, with an impressive musical trajectory. First he graduated from Knoxville’s Joy of Music School, having benefited for years from its free lessons and instruments, and its all-volunteer teaching faculty. He immediately won a full music scholarship to the University of Hartford, in Connecticut, graduating in 2014. He was then launched to the pinnacle of musical study, the Juilliard School in New York, winning a scholarship to the Juilliard Jazz Studies program led by Wynton Marsalis. • $25-$125 SMOOTH SAILOR • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM WHISKEY N’ WOOD • Clancy’s Tavern and Whiskey House • 6PM Friday, July 10 10 STRING SYMPHONY WITH CORNELIA OVERTON • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE BLACK STONE CHERRY WITH BRAD PUCKETT • Old City Courtyard • 7PM • Part of the Smokey Mountain Rumble Festival. • $15-$40 A.A. BONDY • Pilot Light • 9PM • $12-$15 • See Spotlight. THE BURNIN’ HERMANS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM CLAYMATION • The Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • FREE DECIBELLA WITH MASSEUSE AND THREE STAR REVIVAL • Scruffy City Hall • 10PM DECONBRIO WITH AMONG THE BEASTS, INVIOLATE, AND WEARTH • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 7PM • Local heavy rock. • $8 THE DEER RUN DRIFTERS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 10PM DUST AND DECAY • Longbranch Saloon • 9PM FROG & TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • Crown and Goose • 8PM • Live jazz featuring a mix of original music, early jazz and more. • FREE THE GEE BEES WITH HARRISON ANVIL • Preservation Pub • 10PM GUY SMILEY • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 10PM THE HELLGRAMITES • Big Fatty’s Catering Kitchen • 5:30PM • Local old-time string band. DEVAN JONES AND THE UPTOWN STOMP • Great Smoky Mountains Heritage Center (Townsend) • 7PM • $5 KITTY WAMPUS • Moody’s Neighborhood Bar and Grill • 9PM • Classic rock and R&B. LABRON LAZENBY • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM • FREE MARBLE CITY SHOOTERS • Calhoun’s (Volunteer Landing) • 9PM THE JOHN MYERS BAND • Knoxville Museum of Art • 6PM • $10 SUSAN PRINCE • Susan’s Happy Hour • 8PM • FREE DAVE SLACK TRIO • Pero’s on the Hill • 7PM • Instrumental and vocal jazz standards. SNAILS WITH LUCE WAYNE AND BOLTACTION • The Concourse • 9PM • 18 and up. • $10-$20 WILSON WITH THE BARNYARD STOMPERS • WDVX • 12PM • FREE 24
KNOXVILLE MERCURY July 9, 2015
Thursday, July 9 - Sunday, July 19
Saturday, July 11 6-STRING DRAG • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • After 16 years in hibernation, 6 String Drag is back to remind us a few things about real rock ‘n’ roll. CAPTAIN SUCK AND THE MEDIOCRE BAND • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM • FREE FREEQUENCY • Casual Pint (Northshore) • 7PM THE JAILHOUSE REVIEW • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 10PM KITTY WAMPUS • Concord Park • 6PM KNOX COUNTY JUG STOMPERS • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE LIONS • Longbranch Saloon • 8PM • See Music Story on page 21. MOLLY HATCHET WITH ROCK & ROLL FREAK SHOW • Old City Courtyard • 7PM • Part of the Smoky Mountain Rumble. • $7-$30 THE NATTI LOVE JOYS • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM THE RERUNS • Pero’s on the Hill • 7PM MANDO SAENZ WITH HALEY AND DYLAN RICHARDSON • WDVX • 12PM • FREE BEN SHUSTER • Bearden Field House • 9PM • FREE JACOB THOMAS JR. • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 10PM UNKNOWN HINSON WITH TEXAS TONY AND THE TORNADO RAMBLERS • The Shed at Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson (Maryville) • 6PM • Looking somewhat like Dracula’s nasty little brother who spent some hard years drinking and working as a carnival barker for a second-rate freak show, Unknown Hinson translates that vibe to his style of country and western-tinged psychobilly. • $25 BRIAN WALDSCHLAGER WITH THE NICK KANE TRIO • Preservation Pub • 10PM ADAM WATSON • The Birdhouse • 8PM THE WILL YAGER TRIO • Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • Live jazz. • FREE YEAR OF OCTOBER • Preservation Pub • 8PM Sunday, July 12 THE BARNYARD STOMPERS • Preservation Pub • 10PM STEPHANIE JACKSON • Fountain City Art Center • 6PM • Stephanie Jackson is an eclectic musician who uses her guitar to express heartfelt melodies from a variety of genres. She has arranged the music of the Beatles, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, and Elton John on her classical guitar. Her repertoire also includes arrangements of jazz, show tunes, the “rat pack”, Spanish/Latin, and blues. Visit www.knoxvilleguitar.org. • $20 PALE ROOT • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM SHIFFLETT AND HANNAH • Bistro at the Bijou • Noon • Live jazz. • Free DAVE SLACK TRIO • Pero’s on the Hill • 1PM • Live jazz. Monday, July 13 THE GROOVE ORIENT AND KALEIGH BAKER • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. OPEN CHORD BATTLE OF THE BANDS • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • $5 SMOKE ‘N’ MANGOS WITH TONY RAMEY • WDVX • 12PM • FREE SOGGY PO BOYS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM THEORY OF A DEADMAN • The International • 7PM • In the middle of 2013, the platinum-selling Canadian quartet began working on what would become its fifth full-length album, Savages. However, everything in their lives rapidly and unexpectedly changed. Whether it be a shakeup at their label, waning interest in rock at radio, or the downturn of society at large, a myriad of issues weighed heavy on members Tyler Connolly, David Brenner, Dean Back, and Joey Dandeneau. So, Connolly
A.A. BONDY Pilot Light (106 E. Jackson Ave.) • Friday, July 10 • 9 p.m. • $12/$15 at the door • 18 and up • thepilotlight.com
It’s been four years since Alabama folk vet A.A. Bondy released his last album, 2011’s Believers. With its warm, layered electric guitars and driving percussion, Believers was a dramatic departure from Bondy’s pair of previous releases, each of which relied on hushed finger-picking and moody slide guitar to build an uncluttered base for the artist’s aching vocals. The full-bodied Believers marked a sort of reinvention for Bondy, who noted that the album felt like his most original offering to date. But the shift from straightforward singer/songwriter to experimental folk-rock artist came as a surprise to fans who had latched onto his minimalist aesthetic and penchant for crafting strong singles. While a quick Web search for “Lovers Waltz,” a fan favorite and wedding staple off of Bondy’s 2007 debut, American Hearts, turns up multiple covers ranging from amateur YouTube acts to folk-rock favorites Delta Spirit, Believers’ reverb-laden tracks flew under the radar. For those who have taken a deep dive into Bondy’s catalog, the shift should come as no surprise. Born in Louisiana and raised in Alabama, Bondy started out his career in the early ’90s as the lead singer and guitarist of fuzzed-out rock act Verbena. With three albums, two of which were released by Capitol Records, Verbena was an MTV favorite with big-name fans like Dave Grohl, who produced the band’s 1999 album, Into the Pink. (Do yourself a favor and check out the TRL-ready video for “Way Out West,” starring Kiefer Sutherland and Natasha Lyonne.) But while Verbena broke up in 2003, the band’s grunge sensibilities still slip into Bondy’s shows, sandwiched between bluesy, harmonica-driven ballads and the occasional classic cover. (Carey Hodges)
27
Spotlight: J.P. Harris and the Tough Choices
CALENDAR channeled it all into his songwriting. All ages. • $22-$45 Tuesday, July 14 FOR TODAY WITH GIDEON AND SILENT PLANET • The Concourse • 6:30PM • The story of Sioux City, IA hardcore and metal outfit For Today remains one of triumph. Breaking out of Iowa is hard enough. When you’re playing heavy music with a Christian message, it’s even harder. Still, the quintet consistently persevered, and it’s all documented on their brand new DVD film and five-song EP, the appropriately titled, Prevailer. All ages. • $16-$18 THE HONEY DEWDROPS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM JAZZ ON THE SQUARE • Market Square • 8PM • Featuring the Marble City 5. Every Tuesday from May 12-Aug. 25. • FREE CALEB STINE WITH THE HONEY DEWDROPS • WDVX • 12PM • FREE Wednesday, July 15 FROG & TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • Crown and Goose • 6PM • FREE THE GRAHAMS • OPEN CHORD BREWHOUSE AND STAGE • 8PM • Lifelong couple, both romantic and musical, Alyssa and Doug Graham have been performing together since they were teenagers, but fully committed to embracing their duo-ness with the release of the Graham’s debut in 2013. With their sophomore album, Glory Bound, which was produced by Wes Sharon (John Fullbright, Parker Millsap) and will be released on May 19 2015, The Graham’s are expanding their roots-based sound. All ages. • $10 THE CASEY GREEN TRIO • Bistro at the Bijou • 7PM • Live jazz. • FREE J.P. HARRIS AND THE TOUGH CHOICES WITH DAWN COPPOCK • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7PM • $10 • See Spotlight on page 27. REVEREND HYLTON WITH CITY MOUSE • WDVX • 12PM • FREE SALIVA WITH KELLEN HELLER • The Concourse • 7PM • Probably one of the hardest things for an established rock band to do is to replace their lead singer. And, for the few acts who have successfully accomplished this daunting task (AC/DC, Van Halen, etc.), there are countless others that have failed. Upon hearing Saliva’s eighth studio album, Rise Up, you can now add the band to the ‘those who have succeeded’ category. Together, the new line-up has delivered an album that manages to push the band’s sound into new areas, as well as retain the group’s trademark elements – including Saliva’s signature anthemic choruses and crushing riffs. 18 and up. • $12-$15 Thursday, July 16 BIG AL AND THE HEAVYWEIGHTS • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 8:30PM LINDA HILL • Edgewood Park • 7PM • The Edgewood Park Neighborhood Association invites all our friends and neighbors to attend this month’s Third Thursday Music Event. • FREE THE HOTSHOT FREIGHT TRAIN • Historic Southern Railway Station • 8PM • Part of the Southern Station Live concert series. MY GIRL, MY WHISKEY, AND ME WITH BRIAN WHELAN • WDVX • 12PM • FREE MY GIRL, MY WHISKEY, AND ME • Clancy’s Tavern and Whiskey House • 6PM RUNNER OF THE WOODS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM SOUTHERN BELLES • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. CAROLINE SPENCE • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 8PM Friday, July 17
THE BAND TEMPER • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 10PM BEGGING VICTORIA • Longbranch Saloon • 8PM CRUMBSNATCHERS WITH MADRE AND GAMENIGHT • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM CUMBERLAND STATION WITH LAUREL WRIGHT • Scruffy City Hall • 9PM FRAZIER BAND WITH ANNABELLE’S CURSE • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. FROG & TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • Crown and Goose • 8PM • Live jazz featuring a mix of original music, early jazz and more. • FREE THE DOUG HARRIS BAND • Bearden Field House • 9PM • FREE TOM JOHNSON • Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • Live jazz. • FREE KATE AND COREY • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 10PM KELSEY’S WOODS • Clancy’s Tavern and Whiskey House • 8PM LUST OF DECAY WITH MANGLED ATROCITY, CREATED TO KILL, AND ENGULFED IN BLACKNESS • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 7:30PM • All ages. • $10 CHUCK MEAD AND HIS GRASSY KNOLL BOYS • The Bowery • 8PM • The former frontman for Nashville throwback honky-tonk band BR549. • $10-$12 CHUCK MEAD WITH FRAZIERBAND • WDVX • 12PM • FREE JENNIFER NICELEY • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE SUSAN PRINCE • Susan’s Happy Hour • 8PM • FREE DAVE SLACK TRIO • Pero’s on the Hill • 7PM • Instrumental and vocal jazz standards. THE STATE STREET RHYTHM SECTION • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM • FREE THE STREAMLINERS SWING ORCHESTRA • Knoxville Museum of Art • 6PM • $15 JOSH WINK WITH DIALECTIC SINES, ALEX FALK, AND SAINT THOMAS LEDOUX • The Concourse • 9PM • Presented by Midnight Voyage Live. 18 and up. • $15-$20 Saturday, July 18 SHAUN ABBOTT • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 10PM BRANCHFEST • Longbranch Saloon • 2PM • Featuring the Great Northern Wall, Sleeping Policeman, Canopy Hands, Chainsmoke: the Karate Master, Split Family, Bad Idols, Camillo the Ocean, and more. DIRTY BOURBON RIVER SHOW • Scruffy City Hall • 10PM THE DIRTY DOUGS • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM • FREE DRIVIN’ N CRYIN’ WITH KELSEY’S WOODS • The Shed at Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson (Maryville) • 6PM • $20 FOAM DROP WITH STYLES AND COMPLETE • The International • 9PM • 18 and up. • $10-$20 GUY MARSHALL WITH THE TENNESSEE TURKEYS AND ZACK AND KOTA’S SWEET LIFE • Pilot Light • 8PM • Knoxville Americana band Guy Marshall celebrates the release of its debut album. 18 and up. • $6 JACK’D UP • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 10PM KING SUPER AND THE EXCELLENTS • Preservation Pub • 10PM • THE CHUCK MULLICAN JAZZ BONANZA • Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • Live jazz. • FREE THE RERUNS • Pero’s on the Hill • 7PM BEN SHUSTER • Bearden Field House • 9PM • FREE THE JON STICKLEY TRIO WITH BROOKS AND JOHN • WDVX • 12PM • FREE THE JON STICKLEY TRIO • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE TIPSY OXCART WITH PLANKEYE PEGGY • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • UNCLE FUNKY AND Z. ROWE CASH WITH FREEQUENCY • Willy’s Bar and Grill • 7PM Sunday, July 19
ART • ACTIVISM MUSIC •
©
LOUISVILLE, KY • JULY 17-19, 2015
FRIDAY, JULY 17
SATURDAY, JULY 18
SUNDAY, JULY 19
/ForecastleFest
@Forecastle
/ForecastleFest
July 9, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 25
CALENDAR DAN MONTGOMERY AND ROBERT MACHE • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM • POWERDOVE • Pilot Light • 9PM • $5 THE PUNKNECKS • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. SHIFFLETT AND HANNAH • Bistro at the Bijou • Noon • Live jazz. • Free DAVE SLACK TRIO • Pero’s on the Hill • 1PM • Live jazz. SLOW BLIND HILL • Star of Knoxville Riverboat • 5PM • Part of the Smoky Mountain Blues Society’s annual season of summer blues cruises. • $16-$19 SWING 39 WITH THE OLD CITY BUSKERS • Ijams Nature Center • 5:30PM
OPEN MIC AND SONGWRITER NIGHTS
Thursday, July 9 SCOTTISH MUSIC SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • FREE BREWHOUSE BLUES JAM • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM
Thursday, July 9 - Sunday, July 19
Sunday, July 12 TRADITIONAL IRISH MUSIC SESSION • Clancy’s Tavern and Whiskey House • 2PM Tuesday, July 14 PRESERVATION PUB SINGER/SONGWRITER NIGHT • Preservation Pub • 7PM • A weekly open mic. OLD-TIME JAM SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • Hosted by Sarah Pickle. • FREE Wednesday, July 15 TIME WARP TEA ROOM OLD-TIME JAM • Time Warp Tea Room • 7PM • OPEN BLUES JAM • Susan’s Happy Hour • 8PM • FREE BRACKINS BLUES JAM • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM • FREE LONGBRANCH ACOUSTIC OPEN MIC NIGHT • Longbranch Saloon • 9PM Thursday, July 16 IRISH MUSIC SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • FREE Saturday, July 18 OLD-TIME SLOW JAM • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 4PM • FREE
Friday, July 10 TIME WARP TEA ROOM OPEN SONGWRITER NIGHT • Time Warp Tea Room • 7PM • FREE
Sunday, July 19 FAMILY FRIENDLY DRUM CIRCLE • Ijams Nature Center • 4PM • Call Ijams at 865-577-4717 ex 110 to register. • FREE
Saturday, July 11 OLD-TIME MUSIC SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 4PM • FREE
DJ AND
DANCE NIGHTS
S.I.N. • The Concourse • 9 p.m. • 18 and up.
Friday, July 10 TOTAL REQUEST DJ DANCE PARTY • Southbound Bar and Grill • 8PM Saturday, July 11 TOTAL REQUEST DJ DANCE PARTY • Southbound Bar and Grill • 8PM SUMMER SPECTACULAR SHOW • The Edge • 11PM • Fundraising show for the Golden Legends Challenge. This show will contain comedians, magicians, cabaret and burlesque. Featuring local favorites and out of town Superstars. Sunday, July 12 S.I.N. • The Concourse • 9 p.m. • A weekly dance night for service-industry workers—get in free with your ABC license or other proof of employment. ($5 for everybody else.) • 18 and up. Friday, July 17 TOTAL REQUEST DJ DANCE PARTY • Southbound Bar and Grill • 8PM GLOWRAGE • NV Nightclub • 9PM • 18 and up. Saturday, July 18 TOTAL REQUEST DJ DANCE PARTY • Southbound Bar and Grill • 8PM NV HOOPDANCE COMPETITION • NV Nightclub • 9PM Sunday, July 19
COMEDY AND SPOKEN WORD
Saturday, July 11 IMPROV COMEDY CLASS • The Birdhouse • 10AM • A weekly improv comedy class. • FREE Sunday, July 12 UPSTAIRS UNDERGROUND COMEDY • Preservation Pub • 8PM • A weekly comedy open mic. MARK NORMAND • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • Mark Normand is a biting, smart comedian based in New York City. 18 and up. • $10 Monday, July 13 RYAN SINGER • Pilot Light • 9:30PM • 18 and up. • $6 Tuesday, July 14 OPEN MIC STAND-UP COMEDY • Longbranch Saloon • 8PM • Email longbranch.info@gmail.com to learn more. • FREE EINSTEIN SIMPLIFIED • Scruffy City Hall • 8PM • Knoxville’s long-running improv comedy troupe. • Free JULYKU HAIKU AND OPEN MIC • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • Although it is often thought that modern haiku must be 5-7-5, anything under 17 syllables in a short-long-short format. Bring whatever you have and we’ll love it. We will also have our open mic like usual, but haikus are heavily encouraged.
If you want this, but you’re looking at this, we can help. To finance your home purchase and renovation, call
Jeff Talman
SALES MANAGER, NMLS #459775 Jeff.Talman@prospectmortgage.com myprospectmortgage.com/JTalman 200 Prosperity Drive, Suite #118 Knoxville, TN 37923 • 865-406-6170
Loan inquiries and applications in states where I am not licensed will be referred to a Loan Officer who is licensed in the property state. Equal Housing Lender. Prospect Mortgage is located at 15301 Ventura Blvd., Suite D300, Sherman Oaks, CA 91403, 800-464-2484. Prospect Mortgage, LLC (NMLS Identifier #3296, www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org) is a Delaware limited liability company. This is not an offer for extension of credit or a commitment to lend. LR 2015-427
26
KNOXVILLE MERCURY July 9, 2015
Thursday, July 9 - Sunday, July 19
Friday, July 17 THE FIFTH WOMAN POETRY SLAM • The Birdhouse • 6:30PM • The 5th Woman Poetry slam is place where all poets can come and share their words of love, respect, passion, and expression. Saturday, July 18 IMPROV COMEDY CLASS • The Birdhouse • 10AM • A weekly improv comedy class. • FREE Sunday, July 19 UPSTAIRS UNDERGROUND COMEDY • Preservation Pub • 8PM • A weekly comedy open mic.
CALENDAR
THEATER AND DANCE
Friday, July 10 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: BAMBI, A LIFE IN THE WOODS • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 7PM • Bambi, a young forest deer, suddenly becomes heir to his father, the Great Prince. After Bambi encounters the new feelings of love, fear, loneliness and independence, he comes to understand that all of Earth’s creatures are guided by a greater force than themselves: all are dependent on each. July 10-26. • $12 THE WORDPLAYERS: THE SPITFIRE GRILL • Bijou Theatre •
7:30PM • The Spitfire Grill depicts the journey of a young woman just released from prison, starting a new life in a rural, economically-depressed town and finding work in Hannah’s Spitfire Grill. July 10-12. • $14.50-$21.50 OAK RIDGE PLAYHOUSE: ALL SHOOK UP • Oak Ridge Playhouse • 8PM • A hip-swiveling, lip-curling musical romance that features the music of Elvis Presley and will have you jumpin’ out of your blue suede shoes. July 10-26. Saturday, July 11 FOLLIES GIRLS: GRIN AND BARE IT • The Bowery • 9PM • Delight in our dancing dames, badass babes, sassy sweethearts, fiery females and sin sticks. Visit folliesgirls.com. • $10 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: BAMBI, A LIFE IN THE WOODS • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 1PM and 5PM • July 10-26. • $12 THE WORDPLAYERS: THE SPITFIRE GRILL • Bijou Theatre • 2:30PM and 7:30PM • July 10-12. • $14.50-$21.50 OAK RIDGE PLAYHOUSE: ALL SHOOK UP • Oak Ridge Playhouse • 8PM • July 10-26. Sunday, July 12 THE WORDPLAYERS: THE SPITFIRE GRILL • Bijou Theatre • 3PM • July 10-12. • $14.50-$21.50 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: BAMBI, A LIFE IN THE WOODS • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 3PM • July 10-26. • $12 Thursday, July 16 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: BAMBI, A LIFE IN THE WOODS • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 7PM • July 10-26. • $12 OAK RIDGE PLAYHOUSE: ALL SHOOK UP • Oak Ridge Playhouse • 8PM • July 10-26. TENNESSEE STAGE COMPANY: SHAKESPEARE ON THE SQUARE • Market Square • 7PM • TSC’s annual downtown outdoor showcase of Shakespearean drama features rotating productions of The Taming of the Shrew and Macbeth. July 16-Aug. 16. Visit tennesseestage.com. • FREE Friday, July 17 TENNESSEE STAGE COMPANY: SHAKESPEARE ON THE SQUARE • Market Square • 7PM • July 16-Aug. 16. Visit tennesseestage.com. • FREE KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: BAMBI, A LIFE IN THE WOODS • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 7PM • July 10-26. • $12 OAK RIDGE PLAYHOUSE: ALL SHOOK UP • Oak Ridge Playhouse • 8PM • July 10-26.
J.P. HARRIS AND THE TOUGH CHOICES Tennessee Shines at Boyd’s Jig and Reel (101 S. Central St.) • Wednesday, July 15 • 7 p.m. • $10 • wdvx.com
J.P. Harris followed a roundabout, Steinbeck-worthy path from Alabama to Nashville—he was born down South but his parents moved to California, then Nevada, when he was a child, and he spent his teenage years riding the rails and hitchhiking. Harris’ most recent album, Home Is Where the Hurt Is, released in 2014, shows off Harris’ down-home cosmopolitan style, with hardcore honky-tonk (“Old Love Letters”), morose folk ballads in the vein of Townes Van Zandt (“Truckstop Amphetamine”), and even some old-fashioned rock ’n’ roll (“Young Women and Old Guitars”). Harris and his long-time backing band, the Tough Choices, perform as part of WDVX’s Tennessee Shines series, a weekly concert broadcast live on the air from the Jig and Reel in the Old City; they’ll be joined by local poet Dawn Coppock, who will read from her work during set breaks. (Matthew Everett)
Saturday, July 18 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: BAMBI, A LIFE IN THE WOODS • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 1PM and 5PM • July 10-26. • $12 OAK RIDGE PLAYHOUSE: ALL SHOOK UP • Oak Ridge Playhouse • 8PM • July 10-26. TENNESSEE STAGE COMPANY: SHAKESPEARE ON THE SQUARE • Market Square • 7PM • July 16-Aug. 16. Visit tennesseestage.com. • FREE Sunday, July 19 OAK RIDGE PLAYHOUSE: ALL SHOOK UP • Oak Ridge Playhouse • 2PM • July 10-26. KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: BAMBI, A LIFE IN THE WOODS • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 3PM • July 10-26. • $12 TENNESSEE STAGE COMPANY: SHAKESPEARE ON THE SQUARE • Market Square • 7PM • July 16-Aug. 16. Visit tennesseestage.com. • FREE
FESTIVALS
Friday, July 10 SMOKY MOUNTAIN RUMBLE • The Old City • The Smoky July 9, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 27
CALENDAR Mountain Rumble rolls into Knoxville July 10-12 for a three-day motorcycle rally that guides bikers through epic destinations such as the Devils Triangle, Tail of the Dragon and the Foothills Parkway. The rally “headquarters” will be in Knoxville’s Historic Old City and is open to the public. Whether you are a motorcycle enthusiast or not, the Old City will be a great backdrop for music like Molly Hatchett, Black Stone Cherry and the Brad Puckett Band. Tickets for the festival are on sale now at www. smokymountainrumble.com and tickets for the concerts can be found at www.carleoentertainment.com. Saturday, July 11 SMOKY MOUNTAIN RUMBLE • The Old City • Tickets for the festival are on sale now at www.smokymountainrumble. com and tickets for the concerts can be found at www. carleoentertainment.com. OUT OF THE ORDINARY FAIR • Blount County Public Library • 1PM • Experience out-of-the-ordinary activities at the library: line dancing, yoga at your desk, honey-making exhibit, creativity techniques, basket making, local history, the new digital signage at the library and more! These events and activities will occur throughout the library. • FREE Sunday, July 12 SMOKY MOUNTAIN RUMBLE • The Old City • Tickets for the festival are on sale now at www.smokymountainrumble. com and tickets for the concerts can be found at www. carleoentertainment.com.
SPORTS AND
Thursday, July 9 - Sunday, July 19
RECREATION
Thursday, July 9 ACO CORNHOLE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS X • Knoxville Convention Center • The best corn hole teams from around the world square off for championships in several categories, including men’s and women’s singles and doubles and junior and senior competitions. Friday, July 10 ACO CORNHOLE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS X • Knoxville Convention Center • The best corn hole teams from around the world square off for championships in several categories, including men’s and women’s singles and doubles and junior and senior competitions SMOKY MOUNTAIN CLASSIC SOFTBALL TOURNAMENT • Sandy Springs Park (Maryville) • The Smoky Mountain Classic combines the elements of the finest quality competition with the support of large enthusiastic crowds. It is played in a friendly, hospitable, down-home country fair atmosphere at the doorstep of the beautiful Great Smoky Mountain National Park. The nation’s top teams are showcased at their best as they play for some of the most prestigious awards in the game. Saturday, July 11 ACO CORNHOLE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS X • Knoxville Convention Center • The best corn hole teams from around the world square off for championships in several categories, including men’s and women’s singles and doubles and junior and senior competitions.
SMOKY MOUNTAIN CLASSIC SOFTBALL TOURNAMENT • Sandy Springs Park (Maryville) AN EVENING FOR CHAMPIONS • Tennessee Theatre • 7PM • Two remarkable charities are coming together for one night to honor an incredible individual, University of Tennessee Women’s Basketball Head Coach Emeritus Pat Summitt. This second annual event will celebrate Pat’s career legacy of eight national women’s college basketball championships and as the winningest basketball coach in NCAA history. ABC Television’s Good Morning America Anchor Robin Roberts, a member of The Pat Summitt Foundation’s Advisory Board, will serve as the evening’s Special Guest Emcee. See more at: http:// patsummitt.org/evening_for_champions. HARD KNOX ROLLER GIRLS VS. ROLLER GIRLS OF CENTRAL KENTUCKY • Knoxville Civic Coliseum • 5PM SOUTHEAST REGIONAL BIKE SERIES • Unnamed Venue • 8AM • The Southeast Regional Series presented by BikeReg (SRS) returns to Knoxville, Tenn., July 11-12, as a state-points competition in partnership with the Tennessee Bicycle Racing Association. Male, female and masters (ages 35 and over) cyclists will compete for Best Area Rider (BAR) points during the two-day race weekend.SRS in Knoxville is an Omnium event with all three disciplines - an individual time trial, criterium and road race. Registration information, the complete SRS schedule and event updates are available on at www. srs-racing.com
Sandy Springs Park (Maryville) SMOKY MOUNTAIN HIKING CLUB: CHARLIES BUNION • 8AM • Hike 8 miles, rated moderate. Meet at Comcast on Asheville Highway at 8:00 AM. Leaders: Rebekah Young, rebekahy27@aol.com STALK YOUR QUARRY TRAIL RACE • Ijams Nature Center • 8:30AM • $5
Sunday, July 12 SMOKY MOUNTAIN CLASSIC SOFTBALL TOURNAMENT •
American Museum of Science and Energy 300 S. Tulane Ave. (Oak Ridge)
Wednesday, July 15 SMOKY MOUNTAIN HIKING CLUB: CURRY MOUNTAIN/MEIGS MOUNTAIN/MEIGS CREEK • 8AM • Hike 8.7 Miles rated moderate. Car shuttle required. Meet at Alcoa Food City at 8:00 AM or Metcalf Bottoms at 8:45 AM. Leader: Steve Rice, ricesa@sbcglobal.net Sunday, July 19 SMOKY MOUNTAIN HIKING CLUB: BOB’S BALD • 8AM • Hike: 7 miles, rated moderate. Meet at Maryville Walmart at 8:00 AM. Leader: Brian Schloff, brianschloff@yahoo.com. • FREE
FILM SCREENINGS
Monday, July 13 THE BIRDHOUSE WALK-IN THEATER • The Birdhouse • 8:15PM • A weekly free movie screening. • FREE
ART
WEEKLY SPECIALS! MANGIA MONDAY - HARDY Italian Specials TRIPLE T TUESDAY - GOOD GOLLY Tamales, Killer tacos $2 off Premium Tequila, $6 Margarets $6 SAMMITCH WEDNESDAY THIRSTY THURSDAY – $4 pints until 4. $2 Pints after 4 (except High Gravity). $4 House Wines and $3 Well Drinks All Day! FORCHETTA FRIDAY & SICILIAN SATURDAY - more Italian deliciousity all weekend! SUNDAY BRUNCH - 10-7 includes regular Brunch items plus the Weekend’s Italian Specials. $3 Mimosas
HOLLY’S 135
135 S. Gay St. • 865.329.0000 hollyseventfuldining.com 28
KNOXVILLE MERCURY July 9, 2015
Thursday, July 9 - Sunday, July 19
JUNE 12-SEPT. 13: Nikon Small World Photomicrography Exhibit. Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts 556 Parkway (Gatlinburg) MAY 18-AUG. 22 Arrowmont 2015 Instructor Exhibition; MAY 22-JULY 2: Festoon: A Solo Exhibition by Kim Winkle Art Market Gallery 422 S. Gay St. JULY 3-31: Paintings by Diana Dee Sarkar and ceramics by Eun-Sook Kim. Downtown Gallery 106 S. Gay St. JULY 3-31: The Land Report Collective exhibit. East Tennessee History Center 601 S. Gay St. APRIL 27-OCT. 18: Memories of the Blue and Gray: The Civil War in East Tennessee at 150 Emporium Center for Arts and Culture 100 S. Gay St. JULY 3-31: Hola Hora Latina: Photographs of Cuba; 17th Street Studios: Amalgam Volume 3, a group show featuring art by artists from 17th Street Studios; artwork by Dawn Hawkins; Jacene England: Emotions; and Organic and Mechanic, mixed-media artwork by Susan V. Adams and Barb Johnson. Envision Art Gallery 4050 Sutherland Ave. THROUGH AUG. 15: • Envision Art Gallery Grand Opening Exhibition, featuring artwork by gallery owner Kay List and Larry S. Cole. Ewing Gallery 1715 Volunteer Blvd. JULY 3-31: The Land Report Collective Exhibit Knoxville Museum of Art 1050 World’s Fair Park Drive MAY 8-AUG. 2: Intellectual Property Donor, an exhibit of work by Evan Roth. ONGOING: Higher Ground: A Century of the Visual Arts in Tennessee; Currents: Recent Art From East Tennessee and Beyond; and Facets of Modern and Contemporary Glass. McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture 1327 Circle Park Drive JUNE 5-AUG. 30: Through the Lens: The Botanical Photography of Alan S. Heilman. Ongoing: The Flora and Fauna of Catesby, Mason, and Audubon and Life on the Roman Frontier. Pellissippi State Community College Bagwell Center for Media and Art 10915 Hardin Valley Road JUNE 22-JULY 31: Letters From Vietnam: International Art Exchange Exhibition, featuring the correspondence and artwork of young people with autism Westminster Presbyterian Church 6500 Northshore Drive JULY 5-AUG. 30: Work by the Tennessee Artists Association.
LECTURES, READINGS,
CALENDAR
AND BOOK SIGNINGS Wednesday, July 15 BOOKS SANDWICHED IN • East Tennessee History Center • 12PM • Knox County Public Library’s monthly book program features University of Tennessee professor Michelle Commander on Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Trade by Saidiya Hartman. For more information, contact Emily Ellis at (865) 215-8767 or eellis@knoxlib.org.. • FREE Friday, July 17 A MONTH OF MINDFULNESS: MINDFULNESS IN MUSEUMS • McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture • 11:30AM • Join us for a lecture on mindfulness in museums with Lindsey Waugh, Coordinator of Academic Programming. This event is part of the museum series: A Month of Mindfulness. • FREE PUBTALKS: SOCIAL MEDIA AND CONNECTIONS • Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church • 6:30PM • If you’re in your 20’s or 30’s, come out to enjoy Black Eyed Joe’s BBQ and rich conversation, hosted by the Young Adults Ministry at Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church. The evening’s topic will be presented by social media expert Mark Schaefer. Visit cspubtalks.com. • FREE
FAMILY AND KIDS’ EVENTS
Thursday, July 9 WHOLE FOODS GAME NIGHT • Whole Foods • 6PM • FREE CHESS AT THE LIBRARY • Blount County Public Library • 1PM • FREE BABY BOOKWORMS • Lawson McGee Public Library • 11AM • FREE Friday, July 10 S.T.E.A.M. KIDS • Blount County Public Library • 4PM • FREE Saturday, July 11 CHESS AT THE LIBRARY • Blount County Public Library • 10AM • FREE STORY TIME FOR KIDS • Union Ave Books • 11AM • With artist and children’s book author Lisa Horstman reading from her new book Sabrina: A Great Smoky Mountains Story. • FREE SATURDAY STORIES AND SONGS • Lawson McGee Public Library • 11AM • FREE Monday, July 13 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE SUMMER ACTING CLASSES • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 1PM • Knoxville Children’s Theatre, a non-profit theatre producing theatre for children by children, will hold week-long, intensive acting classes during late June and July. To reserve a seat in any class, or for more information: e-mail Academy Director Dennis Perkins at dennis@childrenstheatreknoxville.com, or call (865) 208-3677. • $240 Tuesday, July 14 LEGO CLUB • Blount County Public Library • 4PM • FREE WHOLE FOODS GAME NIGHT • Whole Foods • 6PM PRE-K READ AND PLAY • Lawson McGee Public Library • 11AM • FREE KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE SUMMER ACTING CLASSES • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 1PM • To reserve
a seat in any class, or for more information: e-mail Academy Director Dennis Perkins at dennis@ childrenstheatreknoxville.com, or call (865) 208-3677. • $240 EVENING STORYTIME • Lawson McGee Public Library • 6:30PM • FREE Wednesday, July 15 BABY BOOKWORMS • Lawson McGee Public Library • 10:20AM • FREE PRESCHOOL STORYTIME • Lawson McGee Public Library • 11AM • FREE KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE SUMMER ACTING CLASSES • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 1PM • To reserve a seat in any class, or for more information: e-mail Academy Director Dennis Perkins at dennis@childrenstheatreknoxville.com, or call (865) 208-3677. • $240 Thursday, July 16 WHOLE FOODS GAME NIGHT • Whole Foods • 6PM • FREE CHESS AT THE LIBRARY • Blount County Public Library • 1PM • FREE BABY BOOKWORMS • Lawson McGee Public Library • 11AM • FREE KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE SUMMER ACTING CLASSES • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 1PM • To reserve a seat in any class, or for more information: e-mail Academy Director Dennis Perkins at dennis@childrenstheatreknoxville.com, or call (865) 208-3677. • $240 Friday, July 17 S.T.E.A.M. KIDS • Blount County Public Library • 4PM • Every week will be a different adventure, from science experiments to art projects and everything in between. Materials will be limited and available on a first come, first served basis. For grades K-5. • FREE Knoxville Children’s Theatre Summer Acting Classes • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 1PM • To reserve a seat in any class, or for more information: e-mail Academy Director Dennis Perkins at dennis@childrenstheatreknoxville.com, or call (865) 208-3677. • $240
CLASSES
Thursday, July 9 BELLY DANCE LEVELS 1 AND 2 • Knox Dance Worx • 8PM • Call (865) 898-2126 or email alexia@alexia-dance.com. • $12 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted. ELEVATED CAMPING: HAMMOCKING BASICS • REI • 7PM • Hammocks are a versatile companion for any outdoor adventure, but sometimes levitation has a learning curve. Join our hammocking experts for some tips and tricks that will have you flying in no time. • FREE Saturday, July 11 YOGA AT NARROW RIDGE • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 9AM • For more information contact Mitzi Wood-Von Mizener at 865-497-3603 or community@ narrowridge.org. MARBLE SPRINGS CHAIR-WEAVING WORKSHOP • Marble Springs State Historic Site • 9AM • Attendees will learn to “weave” reed onto the chair in a herringbone pattern. Registration will close on June 19.For reservations call 865-573-5508 or email: info@marblesprings.net. KNOX HERITAGE PRESERVATION NETWORK • Knox Heritage • 10AM • For more information, visit www.knoxheritage. org. HANDSTITCHED FLAG-MAKING CLASS • Striped Light • 1PM • This course covers several stitches (some functional,
UP NEXT!
ANJELAH JOHNSON PRESENTS BON QUI QUI sunday, july 26 • 8pm AN EVENING WITH THE
CHRIS ROBINSON BROTHERHOOD THE STEELDRIVERS FAIRVIEW UNION tuesday, july 28 • 8pm
friday, august 7 • 8pm
CD RELEASE SHOW
saturday, august 15 • 7:30pm
STEVE EARLE & THE DUKES WITH SPECIAL GUEST THE MASTERSONS
thursday, september 10 • 8pm
THE MILK CARTON KIDS
tuesday, september 15 • 8pm ALSO UPCOMING!
The Lone Bellow w/ Joe Pug • 9/18 The Dirty Guv’nahs The Farwell Tour • 9/19 SOLD OUT!
KNOXBIJOU.COM TICKETS AVAILABLE AT THE TENNESSEE
THEATRE BOX OFFICE, TICKETMASTER.COM, AND BY PHONE AT 800-745-3000
July 9, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 29
CALENDAR some decorative), how to finish fabric edges, and even how to set grommets! You will walk away from the class with a flag and a better understanding for patching, mending, embroidery, and anything else you may hand stitch in the future. All materials necessary are provided. Monday, July 13 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 5:30PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted. GOURMET CAMP COOKING • REI • 7PM • If your camp meals have been following the same old pattern, join us for some insight into putting the gourmet back in your camping experience. • FREE Tuesday, July 14 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted. YOGA WITH SUBAGHJI • The Birdhouse • 5:15PM Wednesday, July 15 AARP DRIVER SAFETY CLASS • Messiah Lutheran Church • 9AM • Call (865) 382-5822. LETTERPRESS BASICS: PERSONAL CALLING CARDS • Striped Light • 6:15PM • This class will teach the primary skills of letterpress printing using vintage handset typography. You will learn how properly compose, lock-up and print a form on our table-top platen presses. A run of 100 cards will be made of each participants work. Thursday, July 16
Thursday, July 9 - Sunday, July 19
BELLY DANCE LEVELS 1 AND 2 • Knox Dance Worx • 8PM • Call (865) 898-2126 or email alexia@alexia-dance.com. • $12 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted. KNOX COUNTY MASTER GARDENERS: ATTRACTING THE GOOD GUYS WITH HERBS • Humana Guidance Center • 3:15PM • Come and learn how to grow herbs in ways that will attract more pollinators and other good bugs into your yard and garden. • FREE MAP AND COMPASS NAVIGATION BASICS CLASS • REI • 6PM • Come learn basic navigation skills using map and compass to find your way. • FREE Friday, July 17 A MONTH OF MINDFULNESS: MEDITATION IN MOTION • McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture • 11:30AM • Join us for a Meditation in Motion yoga class with instructor Andrea Cartwright, MS, CYT. This event is part of the museum series: A Month of Mindfulness. • FREE Saturday, July 18 YOGA AT NARROW RIDGE • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 9AM • For more information contact Mitzi Wood-Von Mizener at 865-497-3603 or community@ narrowridge.org. MARBLE SPRINGS SPINNING WORKSHOP • Marble Springs State Historic Site • 10AM • This workshop will teach how to wash wool, how to card wool, and how to spin wool using a drop spindle.To register, call 865-573-5508 or email info@marblesprings.net. The cut-off for registration will be Friday, July 10. Information found at
www.inifestival.com
Tune to WuTK 90.3 the RocK folloW our social media pages for your chance to qualify to win passes to the Ink-N-Iron Festival in Nashville, August 6-9 2015!
i Re g
Here: r e st
s WUTK Tent on July 16 at the Southern Station Live Concert Series
s Fort Sanders Yacht Club thru July 22nd (721 - 17th Street, one block off Cumberland Ave.)
Winners will be announced live during The Buzz List Friday July 24 3-5pm.
FROM YOUR FESTIVAL HOOKUP IN KNOXVILLE... On the Air and Streaming 24.7.365 WUTKRADIO.COM or listen on your
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY July 9, 2015
smart phone and iPad app.
865-573-5508Email: info@marblesprings.netWebsite: www.marblesprings.net • $25 KNOX COUNTY MASTER GARDENERS: MAKING MORE OF YOUR FAVORITE PLANTS • Cedar Bluff Branch Library • 1PM • Have you ever wanted to make an exact copy of your favorite shrub or to fill your garden with one special plant? Extension Master Gardener Lisa Churnetski will discuss different ways to propagate plants and demonstrate some techniques that will give you great results. • FREE Sunday, July 19 UT GARDENS PLANT AND GARDEN PHOTOGRAPHY DEMO • McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture • 3PM • As part of programming related to our current special exhibition, Through the Lens: Botanical Photography of Alan S. Heilman, join us at McClung Museum to learn the basics of plant and garden photography with UT Gardens Director, Dr. Sue Hamilton. • FREE
MEETINGS
Thursday, July 9 OVEREATERS ANONYMOUS • Recovery at Cokesbury • 5:30PM • FREE Friday, July 10 A MONTH OF MINDFULNESS: MANTRA MEDITATION • McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture • 11:30AM • Mindfulness & Meditation at UT is a secular club sharing different practices to live a mindful lifestyle. Meditations
range from breathing to chanting or qi gong. Participants can learn more about the club here. This event is part of the museum series: A Month of Mindfulness. • FREE Saturday, July 11 AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Al-Anon’s purpose is to help families and friends of alcoholics recover from the effects of living with the problem drinking of a relative or friend. Have you been affected by someone else’s drinking? Visit our local website at farragutalanon.org or email us at FindHope@ Farragutalanon.org. • FREE Sunday, July 12 SILENT MEDITATION SUNDAYS • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 11AM • The gatherings are intended to be inclusive of people of all faiths as well as those who do not align themselves with a particular religious denomination. For more information contact Mitzi Wood-Von Mizener at 865-497-3603 or community@ narrowridge.org. • FREE Monday, July 13 ALL OVER THE PAGE READING GROUP • Lawson McGee Public Library • 6:30PM • Lawson McGee Library’s monthly book club. • FREE GAY MEN’S DISCUSSION GROUP • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 7:30PM • We hold facilitated discussions on topics and issues relevant to local gay men in a safe and open environment. Visit gaygroupknoxville.org. Wednesday, July 15
Thursday, July 9 - Sunday, July 19
COMITE POPULAR DE KNOXVILLE • The Birdhouse • 7PM • A weekly meeting of the local immigrant advocacy organization. ORION ASTRONOMY CLUB • The Grove Theater (Oak Ridge) • 7PM • ORION is an amateur science and astronomy club centered in Oak Ridge, TN that was founded in April 1974 by a group of scientists at the United States Department of Energy facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. • FREE Thursday, July 16 BIG SOUTH FORK CLIMBING MANAGEMENT LISTENING SESSION • The Square Room • 5PM • Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area will holding two listening sessions in Knoxville to hear from the public their thoughts on rock climbing management issues at the Big South Fork. • FREE OVEREATERS ANONYMOUS • Recovery at Cokesbury • 5:30PM • FREE Saturday, July 18 AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Al-Anon’s purpose is to help families and friends of alcoholics recover from the effects of living with the problem drinking of a relative or friend. Have you been affected by someone else’s drinking? Visit our local website at farragutalanon.org or email us at FindHope@ Farragutalanon.org. • FREE Sunday, July 19 SILENT MEDITATION SUNDAYS • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 11AM • The gatherings are intended to be inclusive of people of all faiths as well as those who do
not align themselves with a particular religious denomination. For more information contact Mitzi Wood-Von Mizener at 865-497-3603 or community@ narrowridge.org. • FREE
ETC.
Thursday, July 9 NEW HARVEST PARK FARMERS MARKET • New Harvest Park • 3PM • FREE Friday, July 10 LAKESHORE PARK FARMERS’ MARKET • Lakeshore Park • 3PM • FREE Saturday, July 11 OAK RIDGE FARMERS’ MARKET • Historic Jackson Square • 8AM SEYMOUR FARMERS MARKET • Seymour First Baptist Church • 8AM MARKET SQUARE FARMERS’ MARKET • Market Square • 9AM • FREE Tuesday, July 14 EBENEZER ROAD FARMERS’ MARKET • Ebenezer United Methodist Church • 3PM • FREE Wednesday, July 15 COMMUNITY COALITION AGAINST HUMAN TRAFFICKING HUMAN TRAFFICKING SUMMIT • Community Coalition Against Human Trafficking • 8:15AM • On July 15 and 16th, 2015, The Community Coalition Against Human Trafficking
CALENDAR
(CCAHT), an organization at the forefront of the anti-trafficking movement in East Tennessee since 2010, will host their First Annual Human Trafficking Summit. The Summit features presentations on innovative work from local and national human trafficking experts. For those interested in attending, they can visit CCAHT. org/2015Summit. • FREE MARKET SQUARE FARMERS’ MARKET • Market Square • 11AM • FREE Thursday, July 16 COMMUNITY COALITION AGAINST HUMAN TRAFFICKING HUMAN TRAFFICKING SUMMIT • Community Coalition Against Human Trafficking • 8:15AM • For those interested in attending, they can visit CCAHT.org/2015Summit. • FREE ETPA BUSINESS MATCHING AND TRADESHOW EVENT • Rothchild Conference and Catering Center • 9AM • This is an exceptional opportunity to maximize your firm’s advertising dollars by meeting with procurement representatives from various local, state and federal governmental agencies under one roof at one time. FRIENDS OF THE BLOUNT COUNTY LIBRARY USED BOOK SALE • Blount County Public Library • 12PM • A fundraiser for the library where more than 50,000 books are available—$1 for soft cover and $2.50 for hard cover, plus movies (DVD & VHS), audiobooks and specially priced rare books, collectibles and others. Thursday, July 16, is a members-only sale, an opportunity for FOL members to purchase books before other members of the public are admitted to the sale. FOL memberships are available at the door. • FREE
NEW HARVEST PARK FARMERS MARKET • New Harvest Park • 3PM • FREE Friday, July 17 FRIENDS OF THE BLOUNT COUNTY LIBRARY USED BOOK SALE • Blount County Public Library • 9AM • FREE LAKESHORE PARK FARMERS’ MARKET • Lakeshore Park • 3PM • FREE
Send your events to calendar@knoxmercury.com
Underwater adventures start here!
Try Scuba Diving Sat. July 25 • 10am - 1pm
For anybody interested in diving & making new friends! For more information and to register, call or email us in advance.
Sunday Funday Sun. July 26 • 10am - 5pm
Dive at Loch Low-Minn Quarry For certified divers who want to dive, hang out with other divers, & grill out. Just show up or call if you need directions!
SKI/SCUBA CENTER INC. 2543 SUTHERLAND AVE. 865-523-9177 dive@skiscuba.com
Dawn Coppock, Attorney At Law 865.933.8173 • www.dawncoppock.com
Adoption Law Fellow - American Academy of Adoption Attorneys NACC Juvenile-Child Welfare Specialist P. O. Box 388, Strawberry Plains, TN 37871 July 9, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 31
OUTDOORS
Voice in the Wilder ness
Beware the Generators A day of tailwater fishing at Douglas Dam goes awry BY KIM TREVATHAN
I
dug in hard with my paddle and fought upstream against a wide river that looked as if it were at flood stage. Bubbles and whirlpools sucked and swirled around me, pushing the bow of my kayak from side to side. I thought I was making progress back to the boat ramp, a quarter mile away, but I kept seeing the same fallen tree on the bank 50 yards to my left, and the same camping family—mother, father, three kids—were standing on the bank staring at me. The sun was disappearing below the tree line. How had I gotten myself into such a fix? Tailwater fishing below Douglas Dam, where I’d had enough luck to keep me coming back in search of bigger smallmouth. Nathan Nelson, a native of Knoxville who has been kayak fishing below Douglas Dam for four or five years, told me about the smallmouth action there and said he had caught a lot of walleye there as well. He had recommended a lure, the Little Cleo, a shiny spoon that flutters in the water like a minnow and attracts a variety of fish. I’d caught a couple good-sized
32
KNOXVILLE MERCURY July 9, 2015
bass a couple of miles downstream of the dam against a wall of riprap below a hayfield. Even the small one had dived and jumped and dodged in a way that made it a more of an even contest in the small boat near the surface of the water. I decided to put in just below the dam at the Tennessee Valley Authority boat ramp because Nathan said he’d caught some big ones there, and I had the tailwater virus. I enjoyed casting the spoon, which would fly a long way, and I liked the feel and look of it in the water. The tricky part of putting in close to the dam was that I would have to know when TVA decided to release water from Douglas Lake to turn the turbines that generate electricity. I’d have to know when and how many of the four generators were running to time my return trip to the boat ramp. As I would find out, the level of the water and strength of the current varied considerably, depending on how many generators were running. I was new to tailwater fishing, but there were things about it that fascinated and attracted me besides the
prospect of catching fish. If you arrive early, as I tend to, a chilly fog rises from the cold water and creates an air-conditioned, ghostly atmosphere where everything seems caught in a slow-motion matrix. As if to compensate for what you lose in vision, sounds intensify. Swooping great blue herons can startle you with their squawks. You can hear the details of a conversation between people you can’t see. Sometimes they reveal fishing strategy, or it’s mundane small talk or gossip about strangers. A bloodhound named Rupert roared at me from the opposite bank, 200 yards away. “Rupert, no bark!” the owner kept saying. I got there on the morning of June 25 around 7 and mine was the only car at the ramp. One generator would run between 8 and 9 a.m., according to TVA’s website. This would give me time to fish a mile or so downstream and then turn around when I felt like it and paddle against the slack water. According to the website “2 or more” generators would run from noon to 9 p.m. I wasn’t arousing any aquatic interest along the shore of the campground, but I didn’t mind. The air was cool and I told myself that when the one generator started up, the fish would perk up and begin feeding on what the current stirred. About the time I became lulled into the rhythm of casting and reeling and paddling, something hit Little Cleo and hit her hard. My rod bent double and the drag whined. Whatever it was plunged straight down and charged under the bow of my boat. Then it charged toward
the middle, pulling me 20 yards, I’d estimate, and I just hung on, hoping the thing would wear down. After five minutes or so, it did. I had an idea what it was, and when I saw it surface and drift toward the boat sideways, I had to laugh a little. It was the homely drum, a bottom feeder, the working-class fish that commercial fishermen harvest from rivers like the Mississippi. I gripped his lip to remove the lure and he clamped down on my thumb and shook his head, breaking the line and slowly descending to the depths with my Little Cleo in his thick rubbery lip. Back at the Douglas Dam Canteen, I asked the clerk if anybody was catching fish. He said yes, they were catching crappie, bass, catfish, “everything,” as if my question had been impertinent. He told me to come back in the evening when the generators were running and I would catch fish. I told him I was in a kayak, alone, and afraid that I wouldn’t be able to make it back to the ramp against the current of two or more generators. In a voice of dismissal, he said he’d paddled fishing boats against the current of four generators with no problem. “All you have to do,” he said, “is stay close to the bank.” That afternoon, I attended something called the “Becoming an Outdoors Communicator Workshop” at the Knoxville Convention Center. After a couple of hours, chilled from the air conditioning and a bit weary of PowerPoints and talk about the
My rod bent double and the drag whined. Whatever it was plunged straight down and charged under the bow of my boat.
Voice in the Wilder ness
importance of social media and networking, I escaped the fluorescent lights an hour early and headed back to Douglas Dam, about 30 miles from downtown Knoxville. The canteen prophet’s words had drawn me back with the prospect of catching something big and glamorous to put the nasty, thieving drum out of my mind. It would make a better story to go back to the same place and catch a 4-pound bass. The water had risen 5 feet or so up near the signs that warned you about sudden surges from releases. Two guys in a big, safe-looking motorboat took off downstream ahead of me. As soon as the current carried me away from the ramp, I began to worry about getting back. My boat was rocking along at a brisk jog, maybe 5 or 6 mph, and it was difficult to fish in such rapid water. I had to paddle often to keep from getting turned around or being pushed into rocks or fallen trees. I found an eddy near the campground where the water was relatively calm and caught a bluegill. At the next inlet, the last campsite on the grounds, a boy was casting a bobber and hook baited with a blob of something. “These chicken livers stink!” Those were his first words to me. Then he suggested I paddle up closer because he had heard there was a big fish in the pool beside him. I asked why he wasn’t fishing deeper. His bobber was only about 6 inches from the bait. “Why don’t you come over here and help me fi x it?” he said. I declined and asked him where his
OUTDOORS
father was. He said he wasn’t camping with the family at this site, who were absent at the time. The current was carrying me away from this complex situation when the next thing I knew, he said, “Watch out!” The chicken liver flew just a couple of feet left of my ear and plopped into the water. “You watch out,” I said. “I’m going on downstream. Good luck.” I told myself I’d ride the current to the old ferry cable, where the walleye lurked, according to a local I’d chatted with that morning. It didn’t take long to get there, but I had a lot of trouble staying there. Later, I remembered Nathan saying something about using an anchor. On the return trip, I paddled out in the middle to avoid a turbulent point near the campground and to take a direct line back to the ramp. I did make some progress, but it required constant and rapid paddling. My shirt was soaked with sweat by the time I got parallel to the fallen tree on the bank and began to notice that I was merely holding my own against the current. I was on a kayak treadmill. Chicken-liver boy appeared to jump or fall into the pool where he said the big fish was. This was odd because no one swam in this water, it was so cold. He got out quickly and the camping family stood around him with concern. After 15 minutes or so, Chicken Liver left and the family was staring at me with concern. I was getting worried, too. And tired. I suppose I could have just floated on downstream to the next takeout, but
the only one I knew of would have been 15 miles from my car. I’d forgotten that TVA was scheduled to stop generating at 9, but even so, I didn’t want to be on this water after dark. I remembered the canteen prophet’s advice to stay near the bank and veered left toward the fallen tree. I was almost in a panic because the current was driving me into the tree, and I had to keep correcting my course and paddle like hell to make any forward progress. When I finally made it to the eddy beside the campground, the daddy, shirtless, stood looking at me with the wonder that inexplicit and foolish behavior elicits. Mom, who was wearing a blue orthopedic boot, said, “We thought you were stuck out there.” I said that I did too and huffed and puffed a while before I was able to get out of the boat and pull it up on the bank. The mom told me that chicken-liver boy had indeed fallen in the water, something to do with his fishing gear. I walked the quarter-mile to get my car, very much appreciating the solid land and the relative domesticity and common sense of the lounging campers I walked past. “How many generators are running?” I asked the family when I got back to the boat. “Three,” said the father. “I heard four [sirens] go off,” said the daughter. In spite of repeated scoldings, the toddler with the Mohawk had been running his hand along the hull of my poor battered kayak, and now he was coveting the Subaru, prodding a line of rust that outlined a dent the diameter of a bowling ball. “He likes your boat,” said Mom. I said, “It’s been through a lot.” As had I on a double-duty fishing day. What I had envisioned as a leisurely evening of angling turned into a battle against the elements, these elements intensified by human engineering and my own ignorance. I wondered if the canteen clerk was chuckling to himself, or if the drum, with his new piercing, had somehow enacted this revenge. I can’t say I didn’t deserve it. ◆
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FOOD
Sips & Shot s
Awash In Whiskey Marcus Hall invents a unique use for Old Scout bourbon: staining denim BY ROSE KENNEDY
F
irst, the challenge. About a year and a half ago, Marcus Hall had established the Marc Nelson line of small-batch denims and was doing the trade-show scene. A guy at one show essentially told him, “Yeah, that’s very nice, but what’s different about you?” “That stumped me,” Hall says. Next, the dream. The you’reasleep kind. “I was putting denims in a whiskey barrel, making whiskey-stained jeans. When I woke up, I thought, ‘That’s crazy!’ I went to the Internet and scouted around. I saw nobody was doing that, awesome!” Hall only had one whiskey barrel then. He started experimenting a little, some denim, some whiskey. And two months later, the meetup: “I was sitting at a bar, the Crown & Goose, having one of those ‘Why in the hell did I go into denim?’ days. There was a loud-mouthed short guy next to me, very appealing, making jokes. I finally gave in and started talking to him. We got along great. The question came up, ‘What do you do?’ ‘I make denim.’ ‘No way.’ ‘Yep, black guy making blue
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jeans in the heart of Knoxville.’ ‘What about you?’ ‘I make whiskey.’ ‘No way.’ ‘Yes way.’” The guy, who now has a name, John Foster, loads up whiskey barrels from the Smooth Ambler Spirits distillery in Maxwelton, W.V., and drives them here for Hall to use. It works. Starting this past September, concurrent with the opening of his storefront at 700 E. Depot, what’s different about Marc Nelson Denim is these slim-straight denim jeans soaked in a trade secret mix of Smooth Ambler Old Scout bourbon whiskey, then aged, 60 pairs at a time, in a whiskey barrel. The resulting colors are kind of a soft fawn from the pairs that go in white; sort of a pounded tobacco undertone on the pairs that go in blue. Hall was drinking vodka at the Crown & Goose that day, now he drinks whiskey, but just one: Smooth Ambler, on the rocks. He has agreed to sample one with me, a preview of sorts, since the Smooth Ambler folks are heading to Knoxville for a PR
junket, and Hall is teaming with them for a drinking-age-public-invited mixer July 16, 5-9 p.m. They’ll feature whiskey-mixed cocktails, Smooth Ambler tastings, and door prizes. But first we shoo the elephant out of the room. On June 8, Marc Nelson Denim was served with an unspecified search warrant by the IRS. Hall tells me the same thing he told the fashion industry in a letter: “So far, it’s an investigation. No one has been charged with a crime. At this time, I am working with my lawyers to handle the situation appropriately,” and adds, “We are cooperating with the IRS.” Then we move along to the fun stuff. Hall serves the spirits in the showroom; we sit near the old-school fridge and piano, the only holdovers from the room’s days as part of Broadway Antiques. The bourbon lives up to the name: smooth, no after-burn, a sipper, giving the quietly humorous Hall plenty of time to share some history. He explains that his building is painted black to make it easier to repaint when the inevitable graffiti artists tag it. The location, he says seriously, chose him. He points to a smokestack that marks Green School (now Green Magnet Academy), about a mile away up a hill. When his family moved to Knoxville from Ohio, third-grader Marcus Hall would come sprinting down that hill with a kid named Anthony in hot pursuit. “Moonman, we called him, he’s a
friend now, but then…” says Hall, shaking his head. Hall would run to this same neighborhood, home to his grandparents, L.C. and Tommie Belle Nelson. “She would shout at Moonman, ‘Leave my damn grandson alone!’ “My grandparents saved my life, two, three times a week.” He returned to Knoxville after a couple years designing and acting in Los Angeles to take part in his daughter’s life. “I had to decide against being a deadbeat dad, get a real job,” he says. Space in the former Broadway Antiques store came open, friends offering him 2,500 square feet of warehouse for $500 a month, right in his mammaw’s old neighborhood. “Crazy, right?” A few years later, he bought the whole building and now rents to his former landlords, Riot Printing Co. A photo of his granddad Nelson, whose last name Hall paired with his first to bestow it on his fledgling business, is right behind the counter, first thing you see. He’s got bricks salvaged from a Knoxville warehouse lining the walls, an oversize National cash register he picked up at an antique store, a red-painted door with architectural details created at Ironwood Studios. The whole effect is tasteful, airy, comfortable—a designer’s space, though Hall has no formal design background. They keep some beer in that fridge, including the products of his next-door neighbor, Saw Works Brewing Co. He loves Tito’s Handmade Vodka, “American-made out of Austin,” mixed with soda and a splash of cranberry, “so you know when you’re running out and can correct the situation—and I stick a lemon on the edge.” Hall also likes one gin: Smooth Ambler’s Greenbrier small-batch, which he makes into a gin and tonic with Jack Rudy Small Batch Tonic. “That is one of the best things I ever drank in my life,” he says. There will be some of that on hand at the July 16 event, and don’t be surprised if Hall is the one mixing the cocktails. “If I’m at a gathering,” he says. “I am the bartender.” ◆
Celebrating Good Fortune • THROUGH COMMUNITY • At Fulin’s, it is our honor to witness community take shape over our tables. As friends laugh, catching up on their news and sharing from each other’s plates. As families break away from the fast food routines and explore new traditions. Over our tables business plans are hatched, neighborhood improvements are discussed, romances bloom, friendships are rekindled, and life is savored. And we at Fulin’s are grateful to play our own role in the moment for you. Every dish at Fulin’s is prepared to order from fresh and healthy ingredients, providing a meal at the table as unique and specific to your tastes as the conversation that surrounds it. A good meal should inspire you to step back and take note of all the things that bring joy in your life. And, in that moment, you can enjoy all your good fortunes, however they have appeared to you: as friends, as family, as community. In a world of choices for you, we are grateful to be included in your community. In return, we celebrate you as a member of our own community: those who know the value of hand-crafted meals, of a dining experience designed to please all five senses, of a sense of place and community.
Your life and your community is full of good fortune. Rediscover it with us over a meal and conversation at Fulin’s. Now it’s even easier to get Fulin’s downtown and on campus at UT-- with Doorstep Delivery. Call (865) 919-3663 or visit http://knoxville.doorstepdelivery.com. CEN PILOT
L AV TRA
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OUR COMMITMENT TO THE COMMUNITY Bring in this ad and we’ll donate 15% of the cost of your meal to the Central High School band as part of our Fulin Cares philosophy of spreading good fortune.
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r o t h f is re por ter’s salar y ! y a p p l e H
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’BYE
At This Point
Hello Again Wait and see BY STEPHANIE PIPER
M
y mother is back. She’s been gone for 45 years. She died at the age of 50, leaving me a double strand of pearls and a diamond ring and a lifetime of unfinished business. I am not a clairvoyant or a person who attends séances. I don’t have visions or hear ghostly music. But what I know of death is this: There are those who leave us and remain close, and there are those who go and stay gone. Old letters, photographs, a flash of memory cannot conjure them up, despite our best efforts. My mother was one of these souls, departing with a door slammed abruptly behind her and the key turned firmly in the lock. She died young, suddenly and inevitably, a casualty of alcohol and a surfeit of sadness. I was 23, already a mother
myself, but young enough to feel abandoned. I needed more than the jewelry and the battered Dr. Spock she left on the kitchen shelf. Her work was done, a well-meaning aunt told me at the funeral. Not even close, I thought. She should be here. When my mother was 23, she was a star reporter in wartime Washington, D.C. Sorting through her things, I found her press card, still pristine in a leather case. With it was a photograph, my mother in a tweed suit and an upswept 1940s hairdo, holding a reporter’s notebook and smiling her brilliant smile. My mother, covering the story. It was a career full of promise that ended the way careers for women did in those days, with the birth of her first child. In the years that followed she bore four more children and buried one. She shone in all the
BY MATTHEW FOLTZ-GRAY
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY July 9, 2015
acceptable ways, as a gifted hostess and class mother and volunteer. It wasn’t enough. Bright and beautiful, she could sparkle for an audience. Without one, the light dimmed. The noontime glass of sherry slipped into long afternoons of remembrance and regret. By the time I left home, she was nearly gone. Now, unaccountably, here she is. I see her across a room, raising her eyebrows in jokey complicity or shaking her head ever so slightly. Don’t, she’s telling me. Don’t say that, not now. I have a better idea. She always had a better idea. The most intuitive person I have ever known, she was an unerring judge of character. As a teenager, I hesitated to present boyfriends for her inspection. Her smile never wavered, but her eyes said it all. The only employee my father ever had to fire was the one she had told him emphatically not to hire. I wonder where she has been. It’s
not that I haven’t tried to reach her, asked her to come closer. I have lit candles for her in a hundred churches, remembered her birthday and the day of her passing each year. I have struggled with the past, struggled with my own remembrance and regret. Some months ago, I found another photograph. It’s my mother and me on a distant winter day. There’s snow on the ground and on the pine trees behind us. We’re together on a sled, and we’re both beaming. My hands, in woolen gloves, grip hers, ready for the ride ahead. I framed the photo and put it on my desk. It is here, in this room where I sit for a spell of morning silence and to which I return in gratitude each evening, that my mother has come back to me. I don’t know why it has taken so long. I only know that I’m glad I waited. So, it seems, is she. ◆
Bright and beautiful, she could sparkle for an audience. Without one, the light dimmed.
’BYE BY IAN BLACKBURN AND JACK NEELY
Knoxville
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