CULTIVATING DIALOGUE SINCE EARLIER THIS YEAR
JULY 30, 2015 KNOXMERCURY.COM
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V.
Knoxville’s Urban Agriculture Initiative
aims to bring farming to the center city
BY ELEANOR SCOTT
NEWS
Can the City Save the Old South High School Building?
JACK NEELY
The Night the FBI Collared a Nazi Spy at the YMCA
MUSIC
Kelsey’s Woods’ Breakthrough Sophomore Album
GEORGE DODDS
Hating Modern Architecture— and Loving It
Historic August School’s still out, but summer’s last month is full of historical events. All Month: The museum at the East Tennessee History Center on Gay Street at Clinch Avenue features its temporary exhibit, “Memories of the Blue & Gray: Memories of the Civil War in East Tennessee at 150.” Organized for the Civil War sesquicentennial, it emphasizes postwar reconciliation. Through October 18. See easttnhistory.org.
Tennessee Historical Society’s annual one-day festival will feature, as usual, booksignings, walking tours, and the perennial favorite “History Hound” dog-costume contest. Special events this year include a downtown double-header of 1864 rules (no gloves!) base ball, starring the local favorite the Knoxville Holstons, and three other Tennessee teams. That evening, the Tennessee Theatre will host a rare screening of the 1927 classic, Stark Love, a silent drama shot in the Smokies with two Knoxvillians in leading roles. Considered director Karl Brown’s “Lost Masterpiece” for 40 years, it has been restored by the Museum of Modern Art. Sat. 10 AM-5 PM, East Tennessee History Center and Krutch Park.
For more about the war locally, see the ongoing exhibit at UT’s McClung Museum (1327 Circle Park Drive), “The Civil War in Knoxville: The Battle of Fort Sanders.” See mcclungmuseum@utk.edu. Aug. 1 East Tennessee Historical Society’s Ancestry in Detail: Genealogy Workshop Sat., 1- 3 PM, at the History Center, Gay Street at Clinch.
From a bird’s-eye view of Knoxville, 1886. Courtesy of commons.wikipedia.org
Aug. 7 Knox Heritage First Friday reception at Salvage Shop Fri., 5-8 PM, at Knox Heritage Salvage Shop, 619 N. Broadway. Aug. 8 The Eighth of August Jubilee For decades, East Tennessee blacks celebrated August 8 as Emancipation Day, a personal holiday. According to legend, Andrew Johnson freed his slaves on that date in 1863. Chilhowee Park was a whites-only attraction on ordinary days during the Jim Crow era, but August 8 was the date blacks were welcome at the park. Sponsored by the Beck Cultural Exchange Center, celebrating its 40th anniversary, this modern Jubilee will invite the community to enjoy a day of music, food, and festivity, with dozens of events in a “full day of festivities for the entire family.” It starts a solemn commemoration of the Johnson slave graves on College Street at 9 AM. After that, everything moves to Chilhowee Park, and what’s promised to be Knoxville’s Longest Soul Train Line. Sat., 10 AM, at Chilhowee Park, 3301 E. Magnolia Ave. For more, see beckcenter.net. The same day, Knox Heritage hosts its continuing Preservation Network, this time a talk by Scott Bishop on “Maintaining and Identifying Historic Interior Woodwork.” Sat., 10 AM, at Historic Westwood, 3425 Kingston Pike. Aug. 15 East Tennessee History Fair One of the biggest history-related events of Knoxville’s year, the East
Aug. 22 Military Genealogy Research Workshop Sat., 1-3 PM, East Tennessee History Center.
Aug. 26 Knox Heritage Preservation Libations A social hour for preservationists in a historic place. 5:30-7:30 PM, at the Crown & Goose “Underground,” 123 S. Central. Aug. 29 Knoxville Jazz Festival will highlight a visit from long-esteemed saxophonist Benny Golson, but will also feature, some glimpses of Knoxville jazz history, including a walking tour of jazz-age downtown at 11 AM, and at Scruffy City Hall at 8 PM, a screening of rare local jazz-related films from the Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound. Check knoxjazzfest.org. Knoxville Holstons Base Ball: Historic Ramsey House will host the 1864-rules base ball’s final games of the regular season, a double-header starting at noon. Free (bring a lawn chair or blanket). One of downtown’s most influential restaurants, Tomato Head, is celebrating its 25th anniversary on Market Square, Knoxville’s oldest performance space, with a quarter-century’s worth of local bands, headlined by Scott Miller, a singer-songwriter with a historical perspective. Proceeds from wristband sales go to the Knoxville History Project. Sat., 4-10 PM.
Knox Heritage Summer Supper At this writing there are still some tickets available to Knox Heritage’s final (and largest) Summer Supper, at Chilhowee Park. Make reservations at knoxheritage.org.
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 30, 2015
July 30, 2015 Volume 01 / Issue 21 knoxmercury.com
CONTENTS
“Teaching kids how to feed themselves and how to live in a community responsibly is the center of an education.” —Alice Waters
14 Farmville COVER STORY
In July, City Council approved a new zoning ordinance that will make allowances for urban agriculture to take root. The ordinance is the first phase of an Urban Agriculture Initiative intended to encourage gardens of all kinds: personal household gardens, community gardens, and large for-profit market gardens, basically small farms. Now that the ordinance has passed, the Office of Sustainability is moving on to the next phases of the initiative, including food distribution, livestock, and policies to convert city-owned vacant lots into market gardens. Eleanor Scott takes a look at Knoxville’s farming future.
NEWS
12 The New South A new plan from the city of Knoxville aims to repurpose and resuscitate the Old South High School building, breathing new life into the badly dilapidated South Knoxville property that’s been vacant for decades. Clay Duda takes a look.
Join Our League of Supporters! 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.
DEPARTMENTS
OPINION
A&E
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8
20
36
Letters Howdy Start Here: Photo by Bart Ross, Believe It or Knox!, Public Affairs, Quote Factory. PLUS: Words With … Talbin MacGillivray ’Bye Finish There: Sacred & Profane by Donna Johnson, Crooked Street Crossword by Ian Blackburn and Jack Neely, Spirit of the Staircase by Matthew Foltz-Gray
9 10
The Scruffy Citizen Jack Neely uncovers a Nazi spy at the downtown Y. Guest Ed. Hillari Dowdle recalls the life of local (and national) reporter Duncan Mansfield. Architecture Matters George Dodds begins a three-part series on the unbeloved style of Modern architecture.
21 22 23
CALENDAR Program Notes: The Taoist Cowboys’ original recordings are saved from cassette limbo.
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Shelf Life: Chris Barrett shares some vacation audiobook ideas. Music: Kelsey’s Woods takes a new direction on its second release. Movies: April Snellings gets her heart warmed (unexpectedly) by Infinitely Polar Bear.
Spotlights: Puppets in the Park, Matthew E. White, Captain Green Q&A: Jason Sizemore of Apex Magazine
FOOD & DRINK
34
Sips & Shots Rose Kennedy learns how to make a fierce (and “slow”) Bloody Mary.
July 30, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 3
LETTERS Delivering Fine Journalism Since 2015 be pretty basic questions about UT’s vacant buildings on campus. Given the rate at which the administrative staff has ballooned relative to the change in student enrollment in the last 40 years, it’s a little surprising that there seems to be nobody in a position of power terribly interested in UT’s history. And all too often I heard the opinion that everything—from the now-gone Aconda Court and Temple Court buildings, to Hoskins Library, to Melrose Hall—just ought to be torn down for the sin of being old. Megan Rose Stromer via Facebook
CHEER UP?
Mr. Neely, be of good cheer! Your most significant house has moved. And even better, your “Three Houses” article [The Scruffy Citizen, July 16, 2015] has preserved the original address site and significance. The other two houses will also be preserved in our clipping files and e-files, thanks to you, whatever their outcome. Preservation takes many forms. And I just want to make a point, for the sake of other historic but doomed houses. For those community-minded people who can’t contribute to save an entire house, sometimes history is saved in bits and pieces. Salvage is an upsetting word, but it may give adoption to a mantle that had a famous elbow lean on it. My piece of history is one that most people don’t remember, but when I tell that I salvaged the ticket drawer from the Park Theatre/Studio One demolition, people recall memories that demolition can’t touch. One form of preservation is what you have in front of you. Knoxville citizens are on board with UT plans for global vision and vista domination. But Knoxville has many communities. Not every house in Knoxville is condemned by UT. Can this still be a building worthy of a history and a fix-up? Can a public business operate there, to let everyone see the result of preservation? Could a small business survive there? Heritage can take one’s mind off UT administrators. I get that some folks always look 4
KNOXVILLE MERCURY July 30, 2015
forward. I get that it’s fun to be UT alums or administration, at the forefront of new traditions, new designs, the first to tour a new building—or to be a student who survived the sawdust in the midst of a Brave New World. I get that. You may even look good in orange. Larry Pennington Knoxville
NAIL, HEAD, HIT
You’ve hit the nail on the head, Mr. Neely. As a recent UT grad, I can all but assure you that UT’s attitude towards alums or anyone of note is “We’ll brag on you so long as you can do something for us.” As these houses have been private residences, UT deemed them as not being able to do something for the university, and thus of no importance. In UT’s official publications, from its website to the film they showed at the College of Arts & Sciences graduation, to the alumni letter I just received in the mail, they seem to have chosen a route that emphasizes UT’s future potential and not its past heritage. Insofar as I was ever able to discern (and I tried, numerous times, in numerous offices), there is certainly nobody at UT who acts as an official historian, and I never came across anyone who appointed themselves such in an unofficial capacity. The librarians are incredibly lovely people, but repeated inquiries never gave me the answers to what I considered to
SO MUCH FOR THAT
I am English and live in Yorkshire, but have family and friends in Knoxville. On visits to my daughter, who studied at UT, I wandered the streets of Fort Sanders. The beauty of the old wooden houses took my breath away. They speak of a pioneering past, of the courage and strength of the people who made Knoxville what it is today. I was so impressed that the town had managed to preserve so much of its history and can’t believe that a university could so lack enlightenment that it could even consider such an action. It is heartbreaking. Sue Beanland via Facebook
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
EDITORIAL EDITOR
Coury Turczyn coury@knoxmercury.com SENIOR EDITOR
Matthew Everett matthew@knoxmercury.com CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
Jack Neely jack@knoxhistoryproject.org STAFF WRITERS
S. Heather Duncan heather@knoxmercury.com Clay Duda clay@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
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David Smith david.smith@knoxmercury.com
BUSINESS BUSINESS MANAGER
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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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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
r u o favori y s ’ t a te wh
taproom Cheap cheap Meal meal music fest dog park karaoke bar urban hike Let your opinions be heard starting August 13th!
July 30, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 5
Illustration by Ben Adams
HOWDY
Believe It or Knox! BY Z. HERACLITUS KNOX Ray Mears (1926-2007) was the first coach to bring UT’s basketball program to national attention. His grave at Highland Memorial on Sutherland carries an outline of the state of Tennessee and the claim that “COACH MEARS COINED THE PHRASE ‘BIG ORANGE COUNTRY’”!
“I Was There In ’82 Also Or Sunsphere Knoxville, TN I” by Bart Ross (bartross.com)
QUOTE FACTORY “ I was ‘un-friended’ yesterday by someone over a comment about Muslims. I DON’T CARE!”
Church Street Methodist Church is on the corner of Henley Street and Cumberland Avenue. IT HAS NOT BEEN ON CHURCH STREET SINCE 1928! The congregation liked the name—AND THE FACT THAT CHURCH STREET HAD BEEN NAMED FOR THEIR CHURCH! The first landing of an airplane in East Tennessee was in 1910 at Johnson’s Racetrack in East Knoxville, the oval later developed as a residential neighborhood and is now known as Speedway Circle! Pilot Phil Parmalee, who flew a Wright model, was killed in a crash a year later.
—A Facebook post by Knox County Clerk Foster Arnett, one of several right-wing rants exposed by left-wing blog KnoxViews via screengrabs. (While one of the images he posted refers to Muslims as “goat-humpers,” his original comment has not yet been uncovered.) A mini-media storm ensued that included a mysteriously pulled story from the News Sentinel website, public condemnation by county commissioner Sam McKenzie, and a sort-of apology by Arnett: “If those comments offended anyone, I’m sorry.” He has since closed his Facebook account.
PUBLIC AFFAIRS
7/30 MPC WORKSHOP ON CELL PHONE 7/30 29TH ANNUAL LONSDALE TOWERS HOMECOMING THURSDAY
6 p.m., City County Building, small assembly room. Cell phone towers are proliferating right along with smart phones—but how do they get regulated? And why do they show up where they suddenly show up? Well, this training session for county commissioners should tell you everything you’ve ever wanted to know about tower siting. MPC technical consultant Larry Perry reveals all. More info: knoxmpc.org.
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY July 30, 2015
FRIDAY
6-9 p.m., Sam E. Hill School (1725 Delaware Ave.). Free. According to one Jack Neely, “Lonsdale may be our least-known historic neighborhood.” Here’s your chance to get to know it! This weekend-long celebration of everything Lonsdale begins Friday with free entertainment and an open mic. On Saturday, the homecoming parade begins at 10 a.m. near the corner of Texas and Western—Mayor Madeline Rogero will serve as Grand Marshal.
8/5 KPD ASSESSMENT MEETING WEDNESDAY
3 p.m., Overcoming Believers Church (211 Harriet Tubman St.) The Knoxville Police Department is receiving an on-site assessment by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc. To become accredited, it must meet standards for policy and procedures, administration, operations, and support services. Part of its assessment is a public meeting for citizens and employees to provide comments.
8/6 PECHAKUCHA KNOXVILLE VOL. 16 THURSDAY
6:30 p.m., The Square Room (4 Market Square). Free. Brace yourself for a slide-show onslaught as Knoxville’s creative community gathers to share ideas and projects. Featuring short presentations by Whitney Manahan, Jonathan Young, Lucia Cuato, Darren Hughes, Michelle Bakewell, Ryann Aoukar, Jennifer Akerman, Ginger McKay, and Jeremy Wann.
HOWDY FREE
WORDS WITH ...
KidCare Photo ID TM
Talbin MacGillivray
With the KidCare Photo ID, you will have an official standardized Photo ID of your child complete with fingerprinting for FREE! The police department does not recommend children under 2 years old to be fingerprinted.
BY ROSE KENNEDY Talbin MacGillivray serves as president of Pagan Pride of East Tennessee, which is seeking vendors for its open-to-the-public Broom Closet Trade and Sell on Saturday, Aug. 15, beginning at 11 a.m. The group holds regular meetups, including one on Aug. 14, and is currently applying for membership as a chapter of the national
KIDCARETM PHOTO ID LOCATIONS Sunday, Aug. 9 • 12–6pm Foothills Mall, Center Stage
Come see Shoney Bear!
Monday, Aug. 10 • 3–6pm Expo Center, Back to School Bash
Pagan Pride Project, which would convey 501(c)(3) non-profit status to the group.
Will the Broom Closet Trade and Sell be different than other yard sales?
It will be pretty much like any other group yard sale. We offer it because people sometimes need a place for a yard sale and it ends up also being a small fundraiser for us. One difference customers might notice is hand-made items for sale. We have some very talented and crafty—pardon the pun—people in the pagan community.
What beliefs draw your group together?
I can’t speak for all pagan groups. There are so many paths, each with their own views and practices. Our group generally follows the notion that a pagan or neo-pagan has a spiritual path that involves one or more of these: honoring, revering, or worshiping a deity or deities found in pre-Christian, classical, aboriginal, or tribal mythology; practicing religion or spirituality based upon shamanism or magickal practices; creating new religion based on past pagan religions or futuristic views of society; religious or spiritual attention focused on the Divine Feminine or Earth-based spirituality.
Is the Broom Closet title an inside joke?
Very much so. Our community, and most like it across the country, borrows the term from the gay community, and it is apt given the circumstances. Someone who is “out of the broom closet” is said to be generally open about their spirituality.
What will money raised go towards?
Anything we raise after expenses goes to funding other community events, with most of it going towards our main annual event with national speakers: Pagan Pride Day, this year on Sept. 19. It’s a full day event that benefits Second Harvest in Sevierville, and we raise funds to pay for the venue and other overhead.
What’s a big challenge facing PPET?
Beyond actually getting well-organized, our biggest challenge was finding a home for our Pagan Pride Day event and funding it. We’ve had community centers and other venues refuse to even talk to us or return our phone calls because of the name. Those willing to host were often out of our price range or too small. Eventually we found the Sevierville Civic Center, which is affordable and a good size, and the staff has been absolutely amazing. I don’t think we could ask to be treated any better.
shoneysknox l www.shoneysknox.com
What one blatant misconception about the group?
The biggest misconception is probably that pagans are all a “bunch of devil worshipers.” There simply isn’t any truth to that. People have a tendency to fear things that are different, causing them to label those things as harshly as they can to justify their fear. The “devil” is a Christian concept that really has no place in our belief system. It’s all very sad, and very frustrating.
What type of people will be at this or other Pagan Pride events?
I would imagine mostly people like you and me: people who work hard for a living, have families, wear T-shirts and jeans, or maybe even the occasional belly dancer skirt. Pagans look like everyone else, because they’re people like everyone else—people who happen to believe just a little bit differently and perhaps are a bit more open minded than some others. The event, free of charge for shoppers, is Aug. 15 in the sanctuary and on the lawn of Westside Unitarian Universalist Church (616 Fretz Rd.) Info: paganprideofeasttn.org
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July 30, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 7
SCRUFFY CITIZEN
The Thin Man The night the FBI collared a Nazi spy at the YMCA BY JACK NEELY
O
n some of those July days, it rained just enough to steam everything up and make the soot smear. Knoxville was too distracted during wartime to make the joint look nice. Business came before beauty. Pro baseball was crippled by war, but that afternoon at Caswell Park was a game between Alcoa and the oddly named Frolics Inn, a cobbled-together team starring some former Smokies who were too old for the Army, like Knoxville-born Carl Doyle, who’d done some pitching in the the big leagues before the war. The second-run Roxy Theatre, on Union Avenue at Walnut, was playing the year-old movie Young & Willing, starring Susan Hayward and William Holden, who’d been in town three weeks earlier in his lieutenant’s uniform, along with Al Jolson and Benny Goodman, for a war-bonds rally at the university. At the Tennessee was Andy Hardy’s Blonde Trouble, the latest Mickey Rooney comedy. At the Riviera, The Bridge of San Luis Rey. In all, you could see a dozen movies downtown that Wednesday night. The Bijou was showing a movie of wartime intrigue: The Imposter. The man everyone knew as Walter Othmer, 35, worked quietly as an electrician for Briscoe Electric, at 722 Market St., near the Pryor Brown Garage. He lived at the YMCA, at Clinch and Locust. The Y offered simple, dormitory-like accommodations for guys who were new to town.
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY July 30, 2015
A thin man with wire-rimmed glasses and a very small mustache, Othmer impressed everyone as a humble, friendly fellow who missed his wife and kid back in Germany. That Wednesday night, the local office of the FBI, on the fourth floor of the Holston Building, got word from the Washington office to close in. Special agent J.R. Ruggles and his men went to the YMCA and knocked on Othmer’s door. He gave up without a fight, and went with the agents to their offices three blocks away. There, with little resistance, he confessed that he had been a spy for Nazi Germany. The true story of Walter Othmer surprised his neighbors at the Y, even the few who had heard him say nice things about Adolf Hitler. His full name was Maximilian Gerhard Waldemar Othmer. Born in Germany, he moved to America in
1929. He soon became an American citizen. However, living in Trenton, N.J., in the mid-’30s, Othmer became a leader in the pro-Nazi group Friends of New Germany, later the German-American Bund. He’d returned to Germany on at least a couple of occasions, once in the winter of 1936-37. In November, 1938, he returned to enroll in an espionage training course. He became an expert in writing with invisible ink. In early 1940, during the LendLease program, the United States, not fully at war, offered major assistance to the British, mostly by naval convoy. Despite his pro-Nazi background, Othmer found work as an electrician at Camp Pendleton, near Norfolk, where he was able to watch the ships leaving the harbor, bound for Great Britain. By messages in invisible ink, somehow conveyed to a drop box in Milan, Othmer alerted the Germans, who did their best to torpedo them. In November 1941, he got on a watch list as a possible “Gestapo agent of the Nazi Secret Service.” Othmer claimed he quit spying after Germany declared war on the United States in December 1941. After that, his espionage would have been treason. But in February 1942, he received a payment, via Shanghai, of $500 for services rendered. In early 1943, U.S. authorities issued an “individual exclusion order” to ban Othmer from Norfolk. About the same time, there was filed a petition to cancel his U.S. citizenship. One bit of evidence against him was his persistent interest in acquiring a painkiller called Pyramidon, an ingredient in an effective invisible ink. He moved to Knoxville, a city of some interest to Nazi spies. It was home of Fulton Sylphon, which assembled a key component for the
The true story of Walter Othmer surprised his neighbors at the Y, even the few who had heard him say nice things about Adolf Hitler.
Norden bomb site, a known target of Nazi espionage. Knoxville was near Alcoa, a major supplier of material for war planes. It was home to the Tennessee Valley Authority, America’s biggest government-controlled energy source, which was involved in the war effort on several fronts. And there was Oak Ridge. Othmer applied for work at the Clinton Engineer Works, then only dimly understood to be part of a major weapons effort that would become more famous as the Manhattan Project. He was declined because of his German background. The FBI was tracking him. By some accounts, it sounds as if Briscoe Electric had been instructed to hire Othmer. In the summer of 1944, in the weeks just after D-Day, the FBI was trying to root out agents of the Abwehr, Nazi Germany’s intelligence organization. Mark Felt was studying Othmer’s file in particular. “Though Othmer claimed to be a minor agent,” Felt later wrote, “his dossier suggested he was one of the most valuable Abwehr spies in the United States.” He sent word to the Knoxville office to arrest and interrogate Othmer. Othmer refused to name other spies. But on his way to the federal pen in Atlanta, Othmer told agent David Scruggs, “You have been kind to me. Now I want to do something for you.” He told him to check through a steamer trunk in storage at the Y, in particular for a German book called Weyers Taschenbuch der Kriegsflotten, an illustrated guide to warships. Tucked in it was a negative photo of a typewritten page. It was a key to a Nazi code Othmer had used. The find, Felt said, was “an important link to other Nazi espionage cases.” Othmer was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. He was apparently free and living with his wife in suburban Richmond, 15 years later, when he died of cancer at age 50. Three decades after the war, Agent Felt, who had become the FBI’s associate director, was more concerned about the clandestine machinations of his own government. At age 91, the agent who set in motion the arrest of Waldemar Othmer in Knoxville would be revealed as the previously secret Watergate source known as “Deep Throat.” ◆
GUEST ED.
R.I.P. Duncan Mansfield Knoxville loses a local media legend BY HILLARI DOWDLE
I
t was 1994, or thereabouts, and I was a young pup working for Lamar Alexander with the unlikely title of Editor in Chief (air quote air quote—I can’t bring myself to put them in any kind of proper place) of his 1996 presidential campaign. Long story. But I’d shown up bright and shiny (and in my 20s) to meet with Knoxville’s Associated Press reporter, Duncan Mansfield. Duncan wasn’t working on a story, per se, but knew of me from my days at Whittle Communications, knew that I’d been hand picked for my job by mover and shaker Tom Ingram, and simply wanted to know exactly what I was doing. I wasn’t about to tell him anything, of course, but had been wanting to meet him since fi rst I saw him. He seemed so warm and fuzzy—a function mostly of his predilection for rumpled khakis, broad-cloth shirts, and near-undone ties. And his hair—oh, that hair!—a furry mop-top that belied the powerful intellect, laser-like focus, and wickedly dry wit of the mind that lay immediately below it. I liked him the first moment I saw him. He had this disarming affect on many—which he used to great effect, I suppose, in his 24-year career as an AP journalist, covering Boston and Columbia, S.C., before ending up here in K-town. We lunged and parried a bit during our lunch, then settled into amiable shoptalk, as Duncan was wont to do. Duncan had covered Michael Dukakis’ campaign in ’88, and was a font of wisdom about how the press treated candidates. He continued to pry, oh-so-subtly; I continued to deflect with much less
fi nesse. But I enjoyed my time with Duncan—his journalist-fi rst approach was obvious, and I admired it even as I pretended to ignore it. He was top-notch. Years later—21, to be exact—I bumped into him again, this time at the Tennessee Valley Authority, where he had a role as a public relations consultant and editor (and I had a role as Web content consultant and editor). Here he was sometimes frustrated by the bureaucracy—and frustrating for his peers as the voice of transparency, whether it was needed or not. But more frequently, he shined as the one person who could truly grasp the magnitude of TVA and understand its inner political workings. His political education, erudition, and command of the effable stood him well in this post. (As did many other e-words, I’m sure—energy, engagement, exactitude, etc.) So his colleagues were shocked and saddened when Duncan received a cancer diagnosis last fall. He didn’t share the details—all we knew was that it was serious. With a capital-S. It turned out to be stage-4 pancreatic cancer, one of the most deadly of the lot, and sure enough it claimed Duncan last Thursday, July 16. His boss, Gail Rymer, described him as “dedicated and strong,” and that he was. The News Sentinel described him as a “dedicated, fair journalist.” He was that, too. As a journalist who insisted on factual accuracy above everything, fairness, and transparency, he was the last of a dying breed. And sure enough, his death is a loss for local media—and for our community. ◆ July 30, 2015
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for inclusion is obscure, the resulting lists say much about the antipathy for Modern architecture, one that is widely shared, particularly among those who travel to consume the romance of ostensibly unsullied distant cultures. Two of the entries on that first list are monuments, which, in all fairness, it’s difficult to imagine appealing to any sighted traveler: The LuckyShoe Monument, in Tuuri, Finland (2000) and the Peter the Great Statue, in Moscow, Russia (1997). Of the remaining eight, six are Brutalist works (akin to our own Lawson McGhee Public Library and the University of Tennessee Art & Architecture Building), completed between 1950 and 1978. The top offender is the iconic Boston City Hall (1968), by Kallmann, McKinnell & Knowles. The remaining buildings are from this century and, generally speaking, Modern. In January 2012, the Royal Institute of British Architects Gold Medalist David Chipperfield presented a TEDx talk with the provocative title: “Why Does Everyone Hate Modern Architecture?” While Chipperfield, an award-winning practitioner of international renown, spends much time lamenting the poor design quality of most of what has been built during the past two generations, he offers little illumination on the actual question. For Chipperfield, the problem is not with Modern architecture, but with Modern architecture poorly designed. Of course, why would one endorse lousy design of any stripe? Yet, his talk is worth listening to if for no other reason than as a lesson in just how far a posh British accent will go to make a lecture with
ARCHITECTURE MATTERS
Hating Modern Architecture and Loving It (Part 1) An examination of our least liked architectural style BY GEORGE DODDS
T
periods of last 2,500 years. Why virtually all Western architects are taught to design in this manner and relatively few, at least in this country, are able to practice as they are taught. Throughout it all, I will discuss how this resonates here in Knoxville.
FAILING FORWARD
Since 2008, the travel website virtualtourist.com has published an annual list of the “Top Ten Ugliest Buildings and Monuments” in the world. A quick visit to the site helps explain why the philosopher David Lovekin calls tourism, “Degenerate Travel.” That said, while the criteria
Photos by Liv McConnell
here’s no getting around it; Very few people like Modern architecture—a sentiment hardly limited to East Tennessee. It has never had a big following, which ought not to be news for anyone, yet this seems to mystify many of its leading practitioners. Indeed, it is fair to say that while its acolytes have always been meager in number, relatively speaking, the reasons for disaffection among the many are several. In this multi-part series I will explore some of those reasons, both reasonable and not, as to why Modern architecture is by far the least popular of all the canonical architectural
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no clear argument sound convincing. In July 2014, England’s The Guardian published “Architecture’s Epic Fails: Buildings We Love to Hate.” It listed seven vastly unpopular buildings, five of which were Modern works completed before 1975, the top four in the United States: The J. Edgar Hoover Building, Washington, D.C. (Charles F. Murphy and Associates); the Boston Government Service Center, Boston, Ma. (Paul Rudolph); 2 Columbus Circle, New York, (Edward Durrell Stone; EMP Museum, Seattle, Wa. (Frank Ghery and Associates). Nasty things are said of all. Of the seven, the FBI building is soon to be vacated by its original owners and probably demolished; the Columbus Circle building was completely redesigned a decade ago yet the old building remains just as hated albeit non-existent. The Tour Montparnasse in Paris (1973) was given the backhanded compliment of being so ugly that it had the unintended benefit of putting a stop to all high-rise construction in Paris’ center for four decades. One would think that bad architecture was exclusive to the last 100 years. Of course, we know this is not the case. Every epoch has buildings that are great and those that only a mother could love. Anyone who has read John Ruskin, particularly his three volumes on Venice, knows very well that before the 20th century there were unpopular buildings among locals and traveling folk alike. During the 19th century, Ruskin was one of several leading critics attacking most things post-Gothic. Indeed, one of the main reasons he rationalizes his love of J.W.M. Turner’s paint-
ings was that Turner worked in a pre-Renaissance method and the effect was that of a Titian or Tintoretto. That said, the enmity that Modern architecture provokes across a broad cross section of Americans is something that simply has no precedent in either culture or civilization. For Modern architecture is supposed to be our architecture; its form, character, and je ne sais quoi is meant to represent who we are, our here and our now. How then can something that is ostensibly representative of us, that is an extension of our collective selves, at the same time be so loathsome to ourselves? Curiously, in one important way Modern architecture is quintessentially American; It began emigrating from Europe to this nation of immigrants in the 1920s and 30s. Moreover, Modern architecture—particularly a subset called The International Style—established a hegemonic position throughout the globe after the war during what Time magazine’s founder Henry Luce famously dubbed “The American Century.” American corporations successfully used its powerful ahistorical iconography around the world to advertise a new post-war
One would think that bad architecture was exclusive to the last 100 years. Of course, we know this is not the case.
superpower, not only of militarism, but of commercialism as well. Two decades earlier, around the time Mr. Luce crystalized for many the nature of the last century, Modern architecture was making a worldclass mark across the Tennessee Valley, particularly in East Tennessee, which has a long and substantial tradition of fine Modern architecture, largely owing to the invention of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Most of its dams, control stations, and visitor’s centers from this period and throughout the 1940s are exceptional works of architecture and, of course, engineering. While much is made (and rightfully) of the great sculptural
qualities of these enormous concrete works and the constructed landscapes they created, the dam’s interiors offer their own moments of the sublime and the beautiful. The cavernous turbine halls of places like Norris and Pickwick Dams seem like monumental stage sets by early 20th-century film visionaries such as Fritz Lang and Vincent Korda. Yet, for most East Tennesseans, the valorization of Modern architecture begins and ends with the TVA. The reasons for this estrangement are many and more complex than many popular critics recognize. The roots of the problem begin, not in the architecture, but with this more amorphous
thing called Modern. On any given autumn game day on the UT campus one often finds football fans wandering through the ground floor the Art & Architecture Building’s atrium in search of the well-concealed restrooms. Along their way, invariably one can hear them exclaim how impressed they are at the space—its vastness, the light, the several strange concrete objects that float weightlessly several stories above their heads (faculty offices). I have overheard many of these rest-stop conversations and never once was “modern” used in adjectival disgust—in fact, just the opposite. What these revelers-in-need thought of the building’s exterior is unknown (most on campus seem to hate it), but the interior, which is by far one of the most provocative in the state, was unequivocally positive. And yet, now in its fourth decade, the building still looks, for want of a better word, strikingly Modern. How then can something so bad be so good? How does one reconcile these seemingly irreconcilable facts about this thing called Modern? ◆ Next: Part 2, “This Thing Called Modern”
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July 30, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 11
The New South The city opens RFP to find a developer to resuscitate Old South High School BY CLAY DUDA
A
new plan from the city of Knoxville aims to repurpose and resuscitate the Old South High School building, breathing new life into the badly dilapidated South Knoxville property that’s been vacant for decades. City officials are hoping to attract a buyer with a vision and the will to transform the 42,000-square-foot structure at 953 E. Moody Ave., but exactly what becomes of the property remains to be seen. It’s up to a private developer to pitch a proposal that can earn support from city planners, City Council members, and the community. More than two dozen people—
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mostly folks from the neighborhood and a handful of developers—came out to Dogwood Elementary School last week to hear about the city’s plans and offer ideas for the future of the property. Most locals just want to see it put to use again after nearly 25 years sitting dormant, but opinions vary on what might be best for the community. Ideas ranged from artist studios and dorm rooms to senior apartments and reopening the building again as a high school. Over the years the roof on the old schoolhouse has deteriorated, letting in water and damaging its interior. The city spent about $30,000 some
years ago to brace up a rear wall in danger of collapse. The u-shape building, now mostly boarded up, is lined with busted windows and shattered glass. But there is still hope. Other old schools around Knoxville have found a second wind with a variety of different uses, mostly residential. Back in the 1980s Old Park Junior High, located on the east side of Knoxville, was revamped into upscale condos and has been occupied ever since. The former Oakwood Elementary School in Old North Knoxville is now set to open as a 63-apartment assisted-living facility with an Alzheimer’s wing.
“I’d love to see (the building) used for something to benefit the community instead of just going to waste,” says Kelley DeLuca, a nearby resident and president of the Lindbergh Forest Neighborhood Association. That could include mixed-use housing or possibly other family-oriented development, she says. The city has no plans to develop the property itself, nor does it have a budget for it, says Knoxville Community Development Director Becky Wade. Instead, it’s looking to sell the property to someone through a request for proposals process and let him or her deal with it. At least one developer already has an eye on the space. Knoxville-based Dover Development Corporation, owned by Roger Dover, is considering the property for the potential future home of a senior residential complex, spokesperson Mike Cohen says. The company already has two similar projects underway, preparing to open Oakwood Senior Living in the Oakwood Elementary building and working to convert the Historic Knoxville High School building on East Fifth Avenue into 75 senior
apartments. The city hasn’t received any formal bids for the Old South High property yet, and it will likely be several more months before it starts soliciting RFPs, Wade says. Before then it’s looking to clear some bureaucratic hurdles and make the property more marketable. Officials are hoping to replot some adjacent parcels to make more room for parking and also acquire a needed variance since the building shares a corner with the Sarah Simpson Professional Development Technology Center. “Our goal is to get this property in the hands of a responsible owner,” Wade says, noting the sale would include clawback measures to help ensure a buyer actually does as promised with the property. “What we don’t want to do is get started down a road where people aren’t able to do what they say they’re going to do—that’s what got us here and it’s unacceptable. That’s why you do an RFP process instead of an auction, because you never know who is going to drive by.” It was a drive-by encounter that landed the property in the hands of former owner Bahman Kasraei. He
Other old schools around Knoxville have found a second wind with a variety of different uses, mostly residential.
happened to be motoring past in 2008 when Knox County was auctioning the lot and decided to jump in on the action. He bought the property with a winning bid of $117,700. He had vague plans of turning it into condominiums, he told the News Sentinel at the time, but those ambitions never came together. In 2011, Kasraei was on the cusp of taking a wrecking ball to the old building when City Council voted to place a historic easement over the property to save it. Then, in 2014, the city determined the property blighted and started steps toward gaining ownership. It paid Kasraei $189,000
for the building this April. Designed by local architect Charles Barber, the neoclassical building first opened in 1937 as a junior high school, then served as a senior high school for almost 40 years. The last high school class graduated in 1976, and it was used by Knox County Schools for storage until being surplused to the county in 2004, according to a report by the Knoxville Historic Zoning Commission. Knox County found an interested buyer in Leigh Burch, who about a decade ago proposed paying $100 for the building and retrofitting it for 26 residential condominiums, a $3
FACING PAGE, LEFT: A swingset still hangs in front of the Old South High School in South Knoxville, but the building itself is boarded up and lined with broken windows. TOP: Knoxville Community Development Director Becky Wade answers questions from the crowd during a public meeting on ideas for redeveloping the empty building on E. Moody Avenue. million project. Former county commissioner Paul Pinkston, who represented the district at the time, led staunch opposition to that bid, thinking the county could get more money for the old schoolhouse. It has sat vacant ever since. The city now hopes to preserve many of the building’s historic hallmarks, but it’s not looking to recoup the tax dollars that went toward its purchase, Wade says. More important is finding a use for it. How long that might take largely depends on the proposals submitted by the people with money to redevelop it. If all goes well, RFPs will be accepted in the fall and the sale could be finalized before year’s end. If a proposal is accepted by city officials it will go before the City Council for final consideration. ◆ July 30, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 13
Knoxville’s Urban Agriculture Initiative
aims to bring farming to the center city
BY ELEANOR SCOTT
B
renna Wright rinses off a mess of greens in a plastic tub behind wooden tables loaded with tomatoes and herbs. It’s a hot day, and Wright works under the shade canopy of her makeshift produce stand outside the gate of Abbey Fields, the new urban farm on the edge of the Parkridge neighborhood in East Knoxville. The tomatoes on the stand were grown just a few feet away on
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the other side of a new wire fence protecting rows of crops; the herbs were propagated in the small greenhouse just inside the gate. Farm volunteers walk down the rows harvesting vegetables into reusable shopping bags. Wright chats with customers and curious passersby, patiently answering questions about her unusual new business. In only two years, Wright has converted the
three-acre overgrown, debris-littered vacant lot into verdant farmland. Standing as it does at the western entrance to Parkridge, the change has been highly visible to residents of the neighborhood, and according to comments on local message boards, quite welcome. Abbey Fields is just the kind of project the city of Knoxville’s Urban Agriculture Initiative is designed to
encourage. In fact, Wright had a hand in formulating the fi rst phase of the initiative, a new zoning ordinance providing legal standing for more urban agriculture practices. “Brenna Wright with Abbey Fields provided fantastic insights as we researched and crafted the ordinance, and her transformation of an otherwise abandoned industrial lot into a productive farm we believe shows the
possibilities of what can be done with a little imagination,” Office of Sustainability Project Manager Brian Blackmon writes in an email. “She has been one of our test cases through this process as we sought to reduce barriers for others seeking to make this type of investment in Knoxville,” The Office of Sustainability worked to develop the Urban Agriculture Initiative with the Metropolitan Planning Commission, Beardsley Community Farm, Knoxville Botanical Garden and Arboretum, the Food Policy Council and other advocates of food security as well as entrepreneurs like Wright. The entrepreneurs were key; The initiative looks beyond community hobby gardens to the creation of a broader farming-based economy inside the city. Earlier this month, City Council passed the new zoning ordinance (8-1), which seeks to support urban agriculture by allowing community gardens in all city districts, allowing personal and for-profit market gardens in a wider variety of districts, and establishing guidelines for practices like beekeeping and composting on private property. Office of Sustainability Director Erin Gill says the Urban Agriculture Initiative “responds to a renewed passion in the community” to reconnect people with the origin of their food, honor the agricultural roots of this region, and find solutions to health problems due to poor nutrition. Gill says ideas gleaned from the regional brainstorming project Plan East Tennessee (PlanET) also informed the development of the initiative. PlanET asked residents of East Tennessee to envision their ideal future for the region and submit ideas to their website for a plan to reach shared goals. “Urban food was a top priority, ” Gill says. In 2013, Mayor Madeline Rogero submitted a proposal for an “urban food corridor” to the Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors’ Challenge grant competition. At stake was a $5 million grant prize and four $1 million runners-up prizes to the best ideas for city improvement. Rogero’s proposal for Knoxville aimed to transform blighted lots into productive urban farms, creating jobs and increasing access to healthy locally-grown food. It was an ambitious, unprecedented plan drawn from ideas pitched by communi-
ty members in a series of public meetings, especially in East Knoxville. Although Knoxville didn’t win the Bloomberg money, what emerged from the process was a comprehensive blueprint city officials and local food advocates could rally behind, establishing a vision for future development. Long before City Council voted on the zoning amendments, the Office of Sustainability released a readable explanation of the logic behind the proposed changes, illustrated with appealing photos of Knoxvillians in gardens. This proposal states “a staggering 11.26 percent of Knoxville’s households are located in food deserts.” Gill says East Knoxville is a particular area of concern as a part of town where healthy food is a serious issue and limited access has led to chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. People living in food deserts may not be starving, but the only edible substances within walking distance are chips, snack cakes, and other junk food from gas stations and fast food restaurants. The very young, the very elderly, and poor people without cars have difficulty getting to a grocery store with a real produce section. City officials think market gardens could improve the lives of these urban poor. Market gardens, as businesses, have been allowed in commercial and industrial zones for some time. The new ordinance permits them in residential areas too, subject to use on review. Now, with a temporary permit, people will be allowed to grow and sell food on a variety of scales. One market gardener may put out a little table and sell baskets of homegrown tomatoes from her backyard. Another may establish a mini-farm with greenhouses, sheds, and a sophisticated produce stand. Even if most people living in food deserts don’t grow a garden, the few fresh vegetable stands of their neighbors may provide much needed oases. The Urban Agriculture Initiative is not designed to only serve the urban poor. One has only to look at the marquees of trendy restaurants downtown to see that foodie culture is a real thing in Knoxville, and some customers really care about organic, locally-grown food with regional ties. The popular Market Square Farmers’ Market permits vendors to sell only food grown or made by the vendor and gives preference to local growers. Most farmers are regional,
Last year, Brenna Wright (top) opened Abbey Fields, a 2.5 acre for-profit urban farm in a vacant lot at the abandoned Standard Knitting Mill, near the Parkridge neighborhood. Assisted by volunteer John Collins (tippy top), she sells produce and herbs on-site as well as CSA subscriptions. Photos by Eleanor Scott and Tricia Bateman
July 30 2015
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but with the new zoning ordinance market-goers may see an increase in hyper-local food grown less than a mile from downtown. Wealthier locavores may appreciate and patronize more farm-to-table restaurants like the Plaid Apron in Sequoyah Hills, one of Abbey Fields’ customers. The city is hoping these wealthy drivers of the food movement will grow a local food economy.
BARRIERS AND SUPPORTERS
The new ordinance designates the community garden as a non-profit managed by a group, for group use as either a stand-alone garden or an accessory garden attached to a structure such as a church. As not-for-profit entities, community gardens are not allowed to have produce stands. Beardsley Farm, the oldest and most established of Knoxville’s urban farms, is technically a community garden. Although Beardsley sells honey from their beehives as a fundraiser, all other produce grown on the six-acre property is donated. The city started Beardsley in 1996 as an urban demonstration garden; now the farm falls under the umbrella of the Community Action Coalition with Khann Chov as farm manager. Located in Mechanicsville behind the Boys’ and Girls’ Club, Beardsley has a hen house, a berry patch, and a native fruit orchard as well as beds of vegetables, and plots to rent. This spring Beardsley broke ground on a 1,200-square-foot education center. Previously, the only real structures were the barn and a plastic high tunnel, neither one with toilets or running water. Blackmon says a major barrier to urban farming was the requirement that a lot have a house or main building in order to also have an auxiliary structure like a greenhouse. Beardsley is inside the boundaries of Malcolm Martin Park, and as parkland, escaped this requirement. Now greenhouses, storage sheds, beehives, and composting bins are allowed in gardens in all zones, with or without a main building, but do require building permits and are subject to codes and overlays. Fifth District City Council member Mark Campen, who sits on the Food Policy Council, says he supports the initiative “big time,” and thinks the ordinance is proof Knoxville is “headed in a good direction by 16
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Beardsley Farm, the oldest and most established of Knoxville’s urban farms, was started by the city in 1996 as an urban demonstration garden. Located in Mechanicsville behind the Boys’ and Girls’ Club, Beardsley has a hen house, a berry patch, and a native fruit orchard as well as beds of vegetables, and plots to rent. This spring Beardsley broke ground on a 1,200-square-foot education center.
making growing your own food accessible and acceptable.” Although most City Council members reported generally favorable comments from constituents, not everyone is on board. Third District Council member Brenda Palmer is a dissenting voice. She says many of her individual constituents as well as the Bearden Council opposed the new ordinance. “It’s one thing to have a backyard garden, but another thing when your neighbor starts planting rows of corn in their front yard,” says Palmer, who adds her constituents tell her they moved to the city because they liked city life, and aren’t sure farms are a part of that. City code considers personal gardens a landscaping feature, and are allowed on any open space of a residential property, including the front yard, but landscaping may be
subject to neighborhood “covenants” or rules of homeowners’ associations. Palmer is also concerned that urban agriculture will create more work for the city. She worries neighborhood codes enforcement will be overwhelmed by an increase in codes violations due to unmaintained agricultural equipment and structures such as plastic high tunnel hoop houses. As of now, there are no planned staff increases for codes enforcement, the department responsible for policing the new urban gardens. Palmer’s was the only vote against the ordinance. Now that the ordinance has passed, the Office of Sustainability is moving on to the next phases of the initiative: livestock, food distribution, and policies to convert city-owned vacant lots into market gardens. To be clear, the new ordinance does not allow dairies, pig farms, stables, or cow pastures; these and
other elements of major agriculture are not on the agenda. The definition of urban agriculture in the ordinance does include apiaries (beehives), aquaponics (growing fish and plants in a symbiotic system), and domesticated chickens. Members of the Knoxville Permaculture Guild and the Knoxville-Knox County Food Policy Council have already questioned the city about allowing ducks and goats, and making amendments to the backyard hen ordinance to loosen requirements. One issue was the fact that currently a household can keep up to six hens, but some 4-H projects require at least 15. Some members of the Urban Hen Coalition say that the hen ordinance is an unnecessarily costly and lengthy paperwork process that would benefit from streamlining. Gill says future policy on this issue will be developed through public meetings and community engagement. Briefly mentioned in the Urban Food Corridor plan and the Office of Sustainability zoning proposal is the possibility of renting or selling city-owned vacant lots to market gardeners for use in growing food. According to the proposal, vacant lots cost the city $117,000 yearly to maintain, and more unseen dollars are lost in community costs. Gill says no additional policy is in place yet for that. So far, everything is in the research phase.
FEASIBLE FOOD
Speaking of research, last year the U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded the Metropolitan Planning Commission a $25,000 grant to conduct a food hub feasibility study. The study aims to find out if enough supply or interest exists for a locally-grown food processing and distribution center to work in the 11-county region surrounding Knoxville. Food hubs are a fairly new thing; most in the U.S. are five years old or younger. Chattanooga got their food hub, Harvested Here, in 2013 and use it as a branding tool, with labels marking foods as local. Louisville, Ky. will soon have the largest food hub in the nation, including a facility that converts food waste to energy. “That one’s really cool,” says Liz Albertson, the senior MPC planner coordinating the study. Albertson and her team have
been looking at food hubs around the country to see what’s been tried and what works. MPC contracted economists at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture to conduct research and formed a steering committee of vegetable farmers, livestock producers like the Cattleman’s Association, and local food advocates. Albertson says funding agencies United Way and the Aslan Foundation have expressed interest in a local food hub. Every region’s food hub is unique to accommodate quirks of the area and each is organized in a different way. The one in Louisville is a partnership between city government and Seed Capital, a nonprofit investor, but others involve private companies who share in the profits. Albertson points out that a food hub doesn’t even have to be a physical location. One in Indiana is essentially a networking website connecting farmers with buyers. Even if the Knoxville region cannot support a large facility, that kind of networking site might be appropriate to help farmers working cooperatively (such as one group in Roane County) to coordinate with each other. But the food hub is another project still in the research phase. To look at an urban agriculture project already off the ground with an energetic leader already growing and doing, we turn to Abbey Fields.
of the open vacant space. In 2013 she approached the owners of Henry and Wallace, the company that owns the mill, with the idea to turn the space into an organic farm. She brought them a business proposal and examples of successful urban farms in other cities, and pitched the idea of development supported agriculture as an amenity to the community that would reflect favorably on the owners. Wright says DSA is a recent trend in new developments; instead of tennis courts and golf courses, some developers are putting in small farms. The SKM owners agreed to allow her to farm the space in return for a share of the profits, with Henry and Wallace owning 80 percent of Abbey Fields and Wright owning 20 percent. “We don’t have a profit right now, but we will,” says Wright. Wright grew up in Kansas, surrounded by industrial monoculture farming. Working as a health volunteer on a Peace Corps mission in Ghana, she first witnessed a community living off small-scale diverse
The definition of urban agriculture in the ordinance does include apiaries (beehives), aquaponics (growing fish and plants in a symbiotic system), and domesticated chickens.
FLAGSHIP FARM
Abbey Fields is Wright’s 2.5 acre for-profit farm that broke ground (in more ways than one) in 2014 at 1400 Washington Ave., adjacent to the vacant hulk of the Standard Knitting Mill. For over 100 years the Standard Knitting Mill provided jobs to the communities of North and East Knoxville, producing textile garments like T-shirts and underwear, with employment and productivity peaking in the 1960s and slowing to a trickle in the following decades. The last tenants, Delta Apparel, left in 2003. In the 1990s part of the mill was demolished, leaving a three-acre piece of rutted clay. Eventually weeds took over, small scrubby trees grew up, and the place took on the weird beauty of a neglected area in Tennessee, full of illegally dumped trash, wildflowers, and songbirds. Wright used to walk by the property dreaming about the potential
farming. Wright studied soil science and conservation at UT’s Organic Crops Unit farm, and found poetry in the dirt. “This idea of soil remediation was so fascinating to me. If you just don’t do things to destroy it, it can heal itself and be good again,” Wright says. “That always amazed me. With a little bit of care, who knows what could happen. It was a cool symbol of community. If we just care a little, things can be better.” That care includes amending the soil with “crap tons” of leaf mulch donated by the city, several dumptruck loads of composted manure from the zoo, and dozens of smaller loads of finished compost. All the vegetation cleared off the property was also composted. “It was important that what was there prior came full circle somehow, all of that compost has now been turned back into existing soil,” Wright says. Wright gained hands-on experience in the business side of farming and learned to practice good land
Beardsley Farm sells honey from its beehives as a fundraiser, while all other produce grown on the six-acre property is donated. Beardsley is technically a community garden, which is a not-for-profit entity.
stewardship at Care of the Earth CSA, a community supported agriculture in Corryton, Tenn. Abbey Fields is also a for-profit CSA. Wright sells produce to the farm-to-table restaurant the Plaid Apron, food co-op Three Rivers Market, and locally-owned coffee shop K-Brew. Mostly, she grows for her CSA members. The way a CSA works is this: Customers pay for shares up front and receive an allotment of in-season produce. This year Abbey Fields sold 42 paying shares. A full share is $725 and a half-share is $450, split into three payments. Wright also has a work-share program in which eight members work three hours a week (or 12 hours a month) for a full share of food. Every Wednesday evening and Saturday morning from May through October, Wright has her pop-up shade canopy and industrial spool tables set up outside the gate of Abbey Fields, passing out weekly baskets of vegetables to CSA members. NonCSA members can also walk up and buy any extras she has on hand, depending on what’s in season. Wright has applied for a Natural Resources Conservation Service USDA grant to fund a high tunnel greenhouse and irrigation, but currently the only money stream is from vegetable sales. In 2014, city rules around starting an urban farm like Abbey Fields were murky or non-existent. Wright says the Office of Sustainability worked with her to help get the farm off the ground. She says the attitude of then-Office of Sustainability Project Manager Jake Tisinger was, “You tell us what you need, and we’ll try to make it easier.” According to Blackmon, “Abbey Fields offered a good example of why we needed to add more clarity to our zoning ordinance around urban agriculture. The farm is located on a lot zoned for industry, but it wasn’t immediately clear whether farming and community supported agriculture was an allowable use. We eventually confirmed that yes, a CSA farm on the Standard Knitting Mill site was fine, but that evaluation underscored to our team just how confusing the rules were about gardening and agriculture in the city.” Wright spoke in favor of the ordinance upon the first reading at a City Council meeting. July 30 2015
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“If I could find a way to do this and beautify spaces in the city, that gives people access to good food— it’s not going to fix every social problem, but [for] people that do find the same peace being out here, it’s available.” — BRENNA WRIGHT
“Coming from a for-profit frame of mind, you want this kind of agriculture to catch,” Wright says. “Just as industrial agriculture has guidelines and regulations, if this is to move past the novelty of a farm in the city then it needs to have accountability and regulation. Some people see it as making it more restrictive, I see it as making it more legit.” She says the ordinance opens up the possibility of growth for her business and affects her plans going forward. “[With the ordinance] we know we need to do this when we start another farm. There is a guidebook for people who want to actually do it, they are not just guessing,” Wright says. “If you want to make this a viable business venture for small-time farmers there does need to be some sort of accountability to give it wings.” Blackmon refers to Abbey Fields as the Urban Agriculture Initiative’s “flagship farm,” not just the first, but also a model for potential farmers. The old mill looms above the farm, vacant now, but full of potential. A patch of sunflowers grows near the crumbling brick wall. Honey bees swarm around the hives. Already, elements of the initiative’s vision can be seen here, but the farm is clearly a work in progress. In the fall, UT landscapers will design a front entrance to Abbey Fields with beds of native flowers. The city plans to extend the First Creek Greenway along the edge of the farm, connecting Caswell Park to Sixth Avenue. Bicyclers on the greenway will pedal past meadows of sunflowers and rows of tomatoes. Recently at a CSA pick-up, a customer gently admonished Wright, who is in the last stage of pregnancy, 18
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for working too hard. “Well, I have lots of help,” Wright replied. Starting a farm from scratch is hard, and Wright says she is thankful for her work-share members and volunteers. One passionate volunteer named Johnny Collins, a paying full-share member who works in the garden 15 hours a week, has been with Wright from Abbey Fields’ beginning. “Gardening is the way we are gonna save the world,” he says before donning his straw hat and heading out into the garden. Wright’s previous job in social work led her to pondering different approaches to healing, especially with kids. In addition to the baby on the way, Wright and her husband, Aaron, have a 3-year-old daughter. The books of food guru Michael Pollen and that agricultural saint Wendell Berry, who both speak to the value of good food and hard work, inspired her to find her own niche in that world. “I have always loved being outside, and found peace and meaning in working with my hands. I want to help people, I want to provide good places for people to be,” she says. “I was drawn to the aspects of growing my own food. When I saw that it could work at Care of the Earth, I thought, if I could find a way to do this and beautify spaces in the city, that gives people access to good food—it’s not going to fix every social problem, but people that do find the same peace being out here, it’s available.” Wright says if it is to work, it all comes back to the soil. “I get to watch a piece of property transform. It is so hard, but it is so worth it. I don’t know something better I could be doing with my hands.” ◆
Burundian immigrants Leoncia Nshimirimana (foreground) and Jack Ndayise
NEW HARVEST
Cultivating the land at the Knoxville Botanical Garden and Arboretum’s Center for Urban Agriculture BY ELEANOR SCOTT Young Jack Ndayise and his parents, Leoncia Nshimirimana and Clement Ndayisaba, work in the hot mid-morning sun, harvesting vegetables in the garden they share with multiple families. Last spring they planted corn, squash, and beans; traditional companion crops sometimes called “three sisters.” Now the stalks of corn are 8 feet high. The plants are not in orderly rows, but packed together, a configuration in which each crop benefits. Their lush plot is on a steep horseshoe-shaped slope, once thought by staff to be an unusable space, at the Knoxville Botanical Garden and Arboretum’s Center for Urban Agriculture. Jack Ndayise translates for his parents as Clement Ndayisaba husks an ear of corn to show off the creamy pale yellow kernels flecked with violet. “It’s part of our culture to have different last names,” Ndayise explains, gamely spelling them out for a visitor. Ndayise and his family relocated to Knoxville through a U.S. resettlement program after leaving the Republic of Burundi, a tiny country in East Africa on the shore of long, narrow Lake Tanganyika.
Here’s a visual Westerns may understand: If the African continent resembles a face in profile, and Lake Victoria is the eye, then Burundi is the tiny sparkle in the corner of that eye. A decades-long civil war destroyed the country’s civil life and economy, and recent spikes in violence have led to massive displacement as civilians flee to neighboring Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. According to the 2014 Global Hunger Index, Burundi has the highest percentage of hunger in the world. In 2013 the Knoxville Burundians’ ESL teacher approached Robert Hodge on their behalf for help finding a space they could farm. Most of the Burundian families that resettled in Knoxville live in the Walter P. Taylor Homes or Montgomery Village housing projects, and they lacked a good garden space. Hodge, a member of the Knoxville-Knox County Food Policy Council, was well-known to local immigrants for his work helping establish community gardens through El Puente, the now-defunct Latino Immigrant Services Center. “What they [immigrants] want to do are traditional foods, and we want to encourage
that. Immigrants become more unhealthy the longer they are in the United States,” Hodge says. “High blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes all increase with the number of years the immigrant is here.” A large body of research shows this declining health is partially due to the adoption of an “American diet” high in sugar, saturated fat, and salt. For example, a 2011 study of food acculturation in Mexican immigrants published in the Journal of Nutrition found that “within one generation in the U.S., the influence of the Mexican diet is almost lost.” The researchers, based at the University of North Carolina and the National Institute of Public Health in Mexico, recommend discouraging “critical unhealthful components of the American diet among Mexican Americans.” “By offering gardening opportunities, people will grow the foods they grew back home, and those foods are vegetables; traditional, tasty, and healthy,” says Hodge, adding that gardening is a good activity to do with children and a way to get exercise. Then-KBGA Executive Director Keyes Williamson had wanted to host some kind of agriculture project, and agreed to allow the Burundian immigrants a piece of land. They immediately got busy impressing and inspiring garden staff with their tireless work and successful high-production garden. “My heart was in the marginalized areas of the community, and in those communities food was an enormous issue,” Hodge says. “As a city, food will be an increasingly important issue. So there was a sense of urgency for creating a place of learning and exploring, and
“My heart was in the marginalized areas of the community, and in those communities food was an enormous issue.” —ROBERT HODGE
that would include failing and lots of blisters and sunburns just trying to make it work.” Hodge and Williamson combined visions that summer to start the Center for Urban Agriculture on a corner of the KBGA grounds. According to Hodge, now the director of the CUA, the work of the Burundian immigrants inspired the vision and provided the foundation around which the CUA is based. This summer, the 18-acre CUA is an abundant patchwork of plots of mid-summer vegetables and native and cultivated flowers. Hodges says the CUA supports about 145 gardeners, all East Knoxvillians, who grow vegetables for their personal use and for sale. A high tunnel greenhouse is reserved for market gardeners. One of the CUA market gardeners takes produce to the Market Square Farmers’ Market, another sells vegetables at an East Knoxville flea market, the rest sell to friends and neighbors through informal networks. Hodge is encouraged by the city administration’s urban agriculture initiative. He says the new zoning ordinance is “fantastic” and recently spoke in favor of it at a City Council meeting. Hodge says the ordinance serves to lower unnecessary restrictions, allowing neighbors to combine land and resources to
garden cooperatively. In January, City Council approved a $250,000 city community agency grant to renovate three derelict buildings left over from the former Howell Nursery, the family business that occupied this property for over 200 years, closing in 2003. The most costly project will be converting the large wooden barn-like main office to the CUA’s administrative office and community kitchen. A large old shed will become an indoor farmers’ market and food storage facility, so gardeners will be able to preserve and sell their produce on-site. Right now staff and volunteers are clearing out debris and salvageable materials. The transformation of a small cinder-block outbuilding into the “education cottage” is nearly complete. The large many-paned windows, broken last year, are re-glazed, and the roof is new. Picnic tables with children’s’ art supplies sit ready for young visitors to the farm. The CUA partners with many local organizations, namely churches and schools, to provide agricultural learning opportunities. Pellissippi State Community College offers an Urban Agriculture Certificate, and students fulfill their service requirements at the CUA. CUA is currently starting a pilot urban agriculture
program off Selma Avenue in partnership with the Knoxville Community Development Corporation. The center has helped establish parishioners’ gardens at churches such as the Community Evangelistic Church on Boyd’s Bridge Pike, visible from the CUA campus. The Every Child Outdoors Garden, a University of Tennessee program hosted by KBGA and funded by the Tennessee Department of Health, is located on the CUA’s campus. Both entities are kept afloat by a patchwork of donations and grants that Hodge is constantly applying for and stressing about, as is common in the world of non-profits. Hodges’ salary is paid by a Tennessee Department of Health grant to alleviate diabetes. His small staff includes a garden manager, Daniel Aisenbrey, and an Americorps volunteer, Charlotte Rodin, who wrangle volunteers, teach visitors about the farm, and run day-to-day operations. Now they are preparing for an Aug. 29 event offering seminars on home gardening techniques. It will be a free family event with food trucks, roasted corn, and a watermelon-eating contest. On a recent visit, the CUA is a cheerful place. From the sunny hill overlooking the farm, one can spot Jack Ndayise and his family moving through the stalks of corn. A group of young volunteers are working with rakes and hoes. An older retiree checks on his tomatoes. Bright flowers attract butterflies in the ECO garden. At the same time, societal problems of obesity, chronic health problems, and poverty loom over the tedious logistics old-building renovation, farm maintenance, and carving out a new non-profit. “It’s not without many challenges,” Hodge says. “We’ll figure it out together.”
Robert Hodge, director of the Center for Urban Agriculture, has been overseeing the renovation of several old buildings left over from the former Howell Nursery, including a new educational cottage (right). July 30 2015
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P rogram Notes
hile cassette-only releases may now hold a certain retro charm of exclusivity, for local bands of a couple generations ago it was the most economical option available for getting their songs out to the public. In those pre-Internet/MP3/laptop days, recording and releasing music could be an arduous, expensive process, so cassettes offered the cheaper route of home duplication, even if they weren’t exactly high-fidelity. Consequently, there is a small swath of Knoxville music history that’s fading from memory as those cassettes either molder or get tossed, and as fewer and fewer people have the ability to actually play them back. However, one crown jewel of the cassette era is being saved with its first proper release: Cholo, by the Taoist Cowboys. The late-’80s band was part of the first flowering of the modern Knoxville music scene, which went from having a few sporadic successes (say, the Amazing Rhythm Aces) to being a place that could support multiple local bands with a collective of friendly nightclubs and listeners with open ears. Fort Sanders was the epicenter
of that scene, and the Cowboys exemplified the “Knoxville sound” of the time: twangy garage rock highlighted by clever songwriting that was nevertheless emotionally revealing. The band’s primary singer/songwriter, Bob McCluskey, was both boyish and knowing, capturing youthful idealism and frustration, often in the same song. Cholo was a collection of the band’s earliest songs with a mix of basement tapes, studio sessions, and live recordings from the Old City nightclub Planet Earth. Voted one of the greatest Knoxville records of all time by a panel of local musicians assembled by Metro Pulse, Cholo is a remarkable document of a Knoxville band that doesn’t get nearly enough credit for its originality and musicianship—and it will now sound better than it ever did on its original 1990 release. Taoist Cowboys drummer Jeff Bills (who later went on to drum for the V-Roys and nearly 100 other bands) has become sort of a keeper of Knoxville music history, both aural and visual, at his website lynnpoint.com, but it only occurred to him in the past few years to resurrect the original tapes of
his early band. “I really like the arrangements to the songs and all the different parts seem to me to work together,” he notes in an email. “I think the songs have held up pretty well over the years, but ultimately that will be for others to decide. I’m way too close to them.” You can listen for yourself as he posts the songs on Bandcamp “one a week as I get time” (taoistcowboys. bandcamp.com). Even over the prevailing playback systems of today— computer speakers or earbuds—the songs sound superb. Most of them were originally recorded by Kevin Crothers, first in the band’s basement at 2306 Laurel Ave. using his Cutec four-track cassette recorder, and then at a downtown Maryville church with his brand-new Tascam eight-track reel-to-reel. Crothers had kept the tapes in storage until Bills requested them a few years ago and put them in the hands of Bryan Lay, who remixed them all and mastered the Planet Studios material. The refreshed songs reveal a group of guys in their early 20s who nevertheless play with melodic skill beyond their years. Bills and bassist Brad Deaton anchor the chiming, intertwined guitars of McCluskey and Scott Carpenter to form a cohesive sound that’s still intriguing some 25 years later. “For all the tomfoolery, goofball names, and funny lines, the music is pretty serious,” says Carpenter, now an attorney in the public defender’s office. “At least it seems serious to the guys who are playing it. Bob made guitar lines that are totally unexpected and still put my ears on alert. His songs mean more to me now than they did when Bob was as much little brother as bandmate.” While the Bandcamp files are free to download, Bills says he’s also considering a CD release so the songs can be heard in all their uncompressed glory. Best of all, the original tapes also hold unreleased songs that may finally be released. —Coury Turczyn
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Cowboy Songs The Taoist Cowboys’ original recordings get a makeover and a new release
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Shelf Life: Audiobooks
KNOXVILLE MERCURY July 30, 2015
Music: Kelsey’s Woods
Movie: Infinitely Polar Bear
The List SOME OF THIS WEEK’S MOST NOTEWORTHY LOCAL SHOWS Friday, July 31
JAZZSPIRATIONS WITH BRIAN CLAY Clay, host of the smooth inspirational jazz program Jazzspirations (get it?) on WJBE, is also a keyboardist and composer. He headlines Alive After Five. Knoxville Museum of Art • 6 p.m. • $10 PROJECT CONCOURSE REVAMP KICKOFF PARTY Bring your own playlist and art supplies to help redecorate the Concourse, the International’s adjacent sister space. “The goal is to create a constantly changing & evolving space we all take ownership in by continuously contributing to its transformation,” the organizers say on Facebook. “We want the space to appeal to all tastes, styles and preferences rather than just cater to a select few. This means mixing it up is ok!” The Concourse • 9 p.m. • Free • 18 and up Saturday, Aug. 1
KNOXVILLE GIRLS ROCK CAMP SHOWCASE Participants in the 2015 Knox Girls Rock Camp— a kickass local program that teaches kickass local girls the basics of the music business, from rocking out to marketing and merchandising— show off what they’ve learned at this post-camp showcase. Proceeds benefit the next Girls Rock Camp in 2016. Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 4 p.m. • $10
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Listen Up A summer vacation list of audiobooks available at the Knox County Public Library BY CHRIS BARRETT
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our public library owns more than 22,000 audiobooks. Most of them are compact-disc packages; a few thousand endure on cassette tape. And an ever-increasing portion of them exist as licensed electronic downloads that our patrons engage using smartphones or MP3 players. During these wind-up weeks of summer vacation season, rest assured that a great many of your shared audiobooks are out there earning their keep—potboiler mysteries keeping drivers alert as they traverse the plains states, or self-help tomes reminding folks to practice patience and mindfulness in the face of beach gridlock or backseat food fights. In the event you fi nd suggestions useful, here are a few.
RICHARD FORD LET ME BE FRANK WITH YOU
These four novellas make up Ford’s fourth work of fiction featuring the flawed yet thoughtful protagonist Frank Bascombe. (The second Bascombe book, Independence Day, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1996.) Bascombe has retired from his lucrative New Jersey real-estate business and is passively assessing holdings, relationships, and the histories that have cultivated them. The setting of New Jersey in the wake of Hurricane Sandy allows for continuity of metaphor between landscape and a narrator coping with his aging self and peers. What has not been ruined entirely is at least cause for discomfort or sympathy. Ford has refined an economy of gesture and vocabulary that is a delight to have at the front of your mind. He reveals glimpses of his process when he bestows it upon his narrator, who observes that the words “no problem” do not mean the same thing as “you’re welcome.”
HUBERT DREYFUS ALL THINGS SHINING: READING THE WESTERN CLASSICS TO FIND MEANING IN A SECULAR AGE
What could be better than a recommended book that recommends books? Hubert Dreyfus is the premier pop existentialist of the moment, and here (with co-author and protégé Sean Dorrance Kelly) he does a decent job of demonstrating just how complicated life became when religious routine and dictate ceased to solve all problems. He plumbs a terrific reading list in which he hopes to fi nd—and sometimes does—examples of exemplary behavior and decision-making. The authors make a much better pitch for the moods and manners of Aeschylus and Homer than they do for the moodiness and mannerisms of David Foster Wallace and Elizabeth Gilbert.
GREAT AMERICAN MUSIC: BROADWAY MUSICALS
This set of lectures by Johns Hopkins University professor Bill Messenger may be the ideal introduction to the Great Courses series. Messenger is a scholar, teacher, performer, and session player. He shares insights gleaned from historical research, personal experience and professional connections. And sure, by illuminating the music of Broadway, a musical mainstay that sends songs into every genre and subgenre, he expands your awareness and appreciation of all kinds of music. There are some surprises. Irving Berlin could neither read nor write music and composed primarily by dictating—humming or whistling—to paid arrangers. And who knew that West Side Story was fi rst conceived as East Side Story, and pitted Catholics against Jews instead of Sharks versus Jets? July 30, 2015
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Music
Out of the Woods Kelsey’s Woods comes around with a breakthrough sophomore album BY MATTHEW EVERETT
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f you missed Kelsey’s Woods the last time they played, don’t worry too much—you’ll have another chance to see them soon. The local country-rock band, led by singer/songwriter/ guitarist Dave Kennedy, makes a habit of playing live as often as they can. “Kelsey’s Woods in its current form has never rehearsed as a full band,” Kennedy says in an email interview. “The fact that we play out a lot is how we are able to build chemistry together. We all have families and lives outside of the band, so we count on one another to listen and pay attention when we’re playing out so that we can survive as a band. Plus, the more you play the more money we can bring into our households, and diapers are expensive.” Conventional wisdom, of course, holds that performers with even halfway serious professional aspirations should space out local gigs.
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY July 30, 2015
Overexposure, the theory goes, is as bad as no exposure, and fans are less likely to make it out for one show if they know there’s another one the next weekend. For Kennedy and his group, though, playing too many local shows beats the alternative. “I always tell folks that I play as much as I can, solo and/or with the band, because I’ve hated every other job I’ve ever had, and I stand by that statement,” Kennedy says. “I don’t really want to have a real job, so I work as hard as I can to play as much as I can. It’s the best job I’ve ever had and I don’t want another one.” The heavy schedule has paid off for Kelsey’s Woods this year. In 2012, an earlier incarnation of the band— Kennedy, bassist Russ Torbett, and fiddler Shawna Cyphers—released a pleasant album of low-key honky-tonk-influenced country-folk, One More Heart to Break. Cyphers
left the band shortly after, and Kennedy and Torbett started pursuing a bigger, more expansive sound inspired by Lucero, the Drive-By Truckers, and Uncle Tupelo. With the addition of guitarist Austin Stepp, keyboard player Stevie Jones, and drummer Andrew Bryant—and dozens of gigs behind them—Kelsey’s Woods found new energy and a new voice, one that comes through clear on the band’s second album, When the Morning Comes Around, released earlier this year. “Since adding drums, electric guitars, piano, organ, etc., the kind of songs I started writing just had a different feel,” Kennedy says. “I still write plenty of folk/sad songs, but this was the first time that I had the opportunity to hear how songs like the ones on When the Morning Comes Around would sound with this kind of instrumentation, so we wanted to explore that more on this album. My heart still belongs somewhere in the ‘sad-bastard song’ realm, but it’s awfully cool to hear some rockers here, too.” When the Morning Comes Around has the full complement of roots-rock signifiers, from pedal-steel guitar, Hammond organ, and mandolin to songs about the open highway and references to Merle Haggard. And, of course, there’s more than one drinking song. Its country roots are evident, but there’s plenty of heartland rock—think Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, and John Mellencamp—in the mix, too, as well as echoes of everything from Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones to the Black Crowes. “My interest in country music comes from the fact that it’s always been, at its best, the best songwriting around,” Kennedy says. “I grew up listening to my dad and uncle play bluegrass and gospel music—dad plays banjo on ‘When the Morning Comes Around’—and my mom always listened to country radio. I went through a fairly normal music progression, going through what my parents enjoyed to the ’90s rock radio of my youth (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, etc.) to a pretentious sort of college scene where I thought the only music worth
listening to was “independent” music. … And then I found Texas music (Steve Earle, Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, Robert Earl Keen, etc.) and my life changed.” Kennedy is as prolific a writer as he is a performer, so he’s got plenty of material for the follow-up to When the Morning Comes Around. He still has to introduce some of those songs to the band, but he says he’d like to get to work on a new record by January. In the meantime, don’t take the band’s loaded calendar as an excuse to skip their next show. As Kennedy says, the lack of practice means you never know what you’ll hear. “Our whole existence is based to some degree in improv and trust in one another to be able to say, ‘F*** it. Let’s give this one a shot. It’s in D,’” he says. “It usually turns out great, and in fact it often creates a really cool opportunity to hear original songs in a very new way for me. It also bonded us, musically, very quickly and makes every show more fun and a little less monotonous.” ◆
WHO
Roger Alan Wade with Kelsey’s Woods and Sparkle Motion
WHERE
The Lawn Chair Concert Series at Campbell Station Park (406 N. Campbell Station Rd.)
WHEN
Thursday, July 30, at 6 p.m.
HOW MUCH Free
INFO
facebook.com/ lawnchairconcertseries
Movie
Bear Hugs A whimsical, heartwarming family comedy— about mental illness, addiction, and poverty BY APRIL SNELLINGS
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t’s easy to have some misgivings going into Infinitely Polar Bear, a film that’s being marketed as a wacky, heartwarming comedy about a family struggling with the father’s bipolar disorder. It’s much harder to maintain those misgivings once the film’s gentle charms take hold. Chief among those charms is the cast, led by the ever-reliable Mark Ruffalo as Cam Stuart, a Boston blueblood who, we’re told, was diagnosed in 1967 with what was then known as manic depression. A zippy prologue, composed of home-movie footage and narrated by Cam’s oldest daughter, Amelia (Imogene Wolodarsky, the director’s daughter), tells us that Amelia’s mom knew all about Cam’s nervous breakdowns and married him anyway because, well, it was the ’60s and everyone was “bananas.” The story begins in earnest a decade later, with a pair of scenes that juxtapose Cam’s highs and lows. One minute he’s all exuberance and whimsy, leading the girls on a
mushroom-hunting expedition in the woods to celebrate his latest job loss. The next, he’s half-naked and raving, disabling the engine of the family car while his wife and daughters lock themselves inside, clearly afraid for him, if not necessarily of him. That’s about as overtly dark as the movie gets, though there are plenty of challenges ahead for Cam and his family. While he’s institutionalized, his wife, Maggie (Zoe Saldana), is forced to move Amelia and her sister, Faith (Ashley Aufderheide), from their bucolic country home to a rent-controlled inner-city apartment. Dissatisfied with the local public school and unable to find a decent-paying job in Boston, Maggie applies to and is accepted by Columbia’s MBA program. Since she can’t afford to take the girls to New York with her, she leaves them in the care of the recovering (but not quite there yet) Cam. Everyone—including Cam, who’s also an alcoholic—seems to think this is a bad plan, but he soon
cottons to the idea and enters full-on Mr. Mom territory. That his illness will eventually rear its head is never in question; we only wonder when it will happen, and how bad it will be. Infinitely Polar Bear is a largely autobiographical film, and an auspicious debut for writer/director Maya Forbes. Forbes made the film partly because Wes Anderson urged her to do so, and that’s telling in and of itself; there are moments when the movie feels a little too calculated in its indie-quirk affectations, a little too pointedly whimsical. Forbes is quick to make the necessary course corrections, though, and Infinitely Polar Bear never drifts too far off track, even though its tone is as mercurial as Cam’s moods. Forbes’ tremendous affection for the characters—slightly fictionalized versions of herself, her younger sister, and her parents—is always apparent, and lends the film layers of warmth and humor that are very hard to resist. Ruffalo’s showy performance as the unpredictable, bigger-than-life Cam is the blurb-bait here, and rightfully so. But Saldana’s character is really the emotional center of the story, and easily the most complex. Maggie often hovers at the edges of the plot, leaving us to wonder why she makes the choices she makes, and what she really intends to do once she’s completed the Columbia
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program. Whether her decision to leave the kids in Cam’s care was one of faith, naiveté, or sheer desperation is never clear. I would like to have gotten to know her better. Infinitely Polar Bear is equally light on insight when it comes to Cam’s condition, but it’s clear that Forbes didn’t set out to make any sort of hard-hitting examination of mental illness and its fallout. Rather, it’s a story about forgiveness and love, and a very fond remembrance of Forbes’ rocky childhood and her now-deceased father. The movie does have a tendency to gloss over the darker aspects of bipolar disorder and the devastation it can cause sufferers and their families. But that’s not so much a fault as simply the kind of story Forbes wanted to tell—something to remind us that people in general, and children in particular, are remarkably strong and resilient, and that sometimes things work out pretty well in spite of fate’s best efforts to screw it up. As unlikely as it seems, Infinitely Polar Bear really is an entertaining, feel-good movie about kids growing up in the shadow of mental illness, alcoholism, and poverty. Perhaps hindsight is a little more myopic than the saying tells us, and maybe that’s a good thing. ◆ Infinitely Polar Bear is playing at Regal Downtown West Cinema 8. July 30, 2015
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CALENDAR MUSIC
Thursday, July 30 BEARFIGHT • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM BLACKFOOT GYPSIES • Preservation Pub • 10PM ERIN COBURN • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE MISERY AND GIN • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 8PM POLLY PANIC WITH ERIN COBURN • Scruffy City Hall • 8PM RECKLESS SERENADE WITH O YOUTH AND SAM KILLED THE BEAR • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • Hailing from the Upstate NY town of Mahopac, the pop/punk indie band Reckless Serenade are all friends from high school, each with unique tastes in music, bringing their different styles to the writing process resulting in upbeat and angst-ridden songs spanning many genres. Pulling their name from the Arctic Monkey’s song of the same name, the 5 piece formed in 2012. The players, Cory Brent- Vocals, Mark Neidhardt- Guitar, Steve Zeiss- Bass, Will Prinzi- Guitar, Matt Ruggiero- Drums all met at school, and found their musical identities matched their ambitions, and they instantly connected. Since then, they’ve made enormous strides in becoming more than just a local band. All ages. • $10-$12 THE THIRST QUENCHERS • Mind Yer Ps and Qs Craft Beer and Wine Lounge • 8PM PHIL VASSAR • Clayton Center for the Arts (Maryville) • 7:30PM • Phil Vassar has experienced a career that has seen the release of eight albums, two ASCAP Songwriter of the Year trophies, Billboard Country Songwriter of the Year, countless hits as a singer and songwriter and a mantle full of awards. As a singer/songwriter, Phil has hit the Top 5 seven times with songs like “Carlene,” “Last Day of My Life” and “American Child.” His performances cultivate the easygoing, fun-loving manner he displays onstage and the infectious energy that infuses every single show he does. • $18.50-$35 ROGER ALAN WADE WITH KELSEY’S WOODS • Campbell Station Park • 6PM • Kicking off the Lawn Chair Concert Series. • Free • See Music Story on page 22. MATTHEW E. WHITE • Pilot Light • 9PM • 18 and up. • $12 • See Spotlight on page 27. Friday, July 31 AVENUE C • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM MATT BEDNARSKY • Preservation Pub • 8PM THE CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT BAND • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM THE CARMONAS • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE THE CARMONAS • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • • Free MIKE CAUDILL • The Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • Live jazz. • Free FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • Crown and Goose • 8PM THE GREAT BARRIER REEFS • Scruffy City Hall • 10PM JAZZSPIRATIONS WITH BRIAN CLAY • Knoxville Museum of Art • 6PM • In addition to being a veteran radio broadcaster with over 18 years of experience in Atlanta and
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Spotlight: Matthew White
KNOXVILLE MERCURY July 30, 2015
Thursday, July 30 - Sunday, August 9
Knoxville, Brian Clay is an accomplished keyboardist, gifted vocalist, and sought after composer and studio musician. Jazzspirations with Brian Clay is the name of his syndicated radio program as well as his band, which has gained a loyal following for their dynamic performances of classic R&B, smooth jazz, and silky soul. Part of KMA’s Alive After Five series. • $10 KINCAID • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 10PM AMY LYNN • Remedy Coffee • 7:30PM • Local country singer/songwriter Amy Lynn is currently recording a new EP, set for release in October. MARBLE CITY SHOOTERS • Casual Pint (Bearden) • 8PM THE POP ROX • Mind Yer Ps and Qs Craft Beer and Wine Lounge • 8PM SUSAN PRINCE • Susan’s Happy Hour • 8PM • • Free SHIMMY AND THE BURNS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 10PM DAVE SLACK TRIO • Pero’s on the Hill • 7PM • Instrumental and vocal jazz standards. MIKE SNODGRASS • Bearden Field House • 9PM • • Free VALISE • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • All ages. • $10-$12 Saturday, Aug. 1 BLACKBERRY SMOKE WITH THE SOUTHERN DRAWL BAND • The Shed at Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson (Maryville) • 6PM • “I think that this record does a really good job of conveying what we do and what we’re about,” Blackberry Smoke singer-guitarist-songwriter Charlie Starr says of Holding All the Roses, the band’s fourth studio album and its first Rounder release. Indeed, Holding All the Roses compellingly captures the energy, attitude and honesty that have already helped to make Blackberry Smoke one of America’s hottest live rock ‘n’ roll outfits, as well as a grass-roots phenomenon with a large and fiercely loyal fan base that reflects the band’s tireless touring regimen and staunch blue-collar work ethic. • $35 THE DIRTY DOUGS • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM BARRY FAUST WITH BUCK HOFFMAN AND JIM MYERS • So.Knox Food Co-Op • 12PM FREE JERRY GARCIA BIRTHDAY BASH FOR CHARITY • Scruffy City Hall • 8PM • Featuring Grandpa’s Stash, Jescoe, Faststacks and the Fun Guy, Seven Ten, and Billy Sunday’s Shotgun Ragtime Band. GENEVA • Two Doors Down • 10PM DREW GIBSON WITH ANOTHER ROADSIDE ATTRACTION • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • Free INDIE LAGONE • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • All ages. KITTY WAMPUS • Bearden Field House • 9PM KNOXVILLE GIRLS’ ROCK CAMP SHOWCASE • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 4PM • This showcase will feature a performance by the bands created during Knoxville Girls Rock Camp. Knoxville Girls Rock Camp is a week-long, intensive day camp for young women aged 8-17 that provides instrument instruction, workshops, and supports young women in forming a band to collaboratively write a song and perform it at this event. In addition to hearing some amazing young women rock, this showcase serves as a fundraiser for Knoxville Girls Rock Camp and will include a silent auction. • $10 MARBLE CITY SHOOTERS • Clancy’s Tavern and Whiskey
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Q&A: Jason Sizemore
PUPPETS IN THE PARK Ijams Nature Center (2915 Island Home Ave.) • Friday, July 31 • 3 p.m. • $6 • ijams.org
The puppeteers at the Cattywampus Puppet Council pulled some strings to get Dolly Parton out to this weekend’s show. Or rather, the duo behind the often whimsical and sometimes adult-flavored puppet troupe has plastered papier-mâché to chicken wire to capture the country singer’s larger-than-life persona and put on a show. A 12-foot Dolly-zilla puppet will headline one of three performances hosted by the growing circus of puppet handlers this Friday, July 31, at Ijams Nature Center. “Dolly herself is kind of a puppet, because she wears big wigs, she has totally done herself up into her idea of beauty, and she has to put on this costume every day in order to become her own characters,” says Cattywampus co-founder Shelagh Leutwiler. Since slathering together a first set of characters with follow Knoxvillian Rachel Milford last summer, the impromptu company has continued to grow its repertoire of characters and cast members. Often constructed from mostly found or salvaged objects, the puppets offer a vehicle into the group’s surreal tales enveloping Native American folklore and autobiographical truths from Parton’s own book, My Life and Other Unfinished Business. This Friday’s afternoon of unusual encounters kicks off early with a two-hour program for kids: a 3 p.m. puppet-making workshop followed by a G-rated performance of Fireside Tales at 4 p.m. Then, as night falls, it’s Mom and Dad’s turn to play. Food trucks roll out and beer bubbles up for the evening PG-13-rated doubleheader of Fireside Tales and Night of a Few Dollys starting at 8 p.m. Feeling crafty? Show up around 7 p.m. for a chance to concoct your own mask or hand puppet before the show. All materials are included with the price of admission. (Clay Duda)
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Spotlight: Captain Green
Thursday, July 30 - Sunday, August 9
House • 8PM THE RERUNS • Pero’s on the Hill • 7PM • Knoxville’s premier TV band plays your favorite television themes. SIMMER DOWN LIVE 4 REGGAE ON THE ROOF • Sunspot • 8PM • 90.3 The Rock’s reggae and world music show Simmer Down presents the fourth installment of its popular live concert series, “Simmer Down Live 4 - Reggae on the Roof”. All door proceeds from this benefit concert will go directly to the non-profit WUTK Gift fund to help keep 90.3 The Rock, UT’s student radio station and lab open. Performers include up-and- coming Nashville reggae rockers, Floralorix, as well as hometown reggae greats, Bliss on Tap, and Bender. More info is at www. wutkradio.com. SAVANNAH SMITH AND SOUTHERN SOUL • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE Supersonic Sound of the ’70s • The Rocks Tavern • 9PM • Classic dance-rock and disco from the decade you can’t remember. SWAMPBIRD • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM THE WILL YAGER TRIO • Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM Sunday, Aug. 2 BETH BOMBARA • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM THE ENIGMATIC FOE WITH KAMBER AND STRYPLEPOP • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. OAK RIDGE COMMUNITY BAND • Alvin K. Bissell Park • 7PM • This is a free event but donations are welcome to offset band expenses. Bring lawn chairs or blankets for outdoor seating and enjoy refreshments from Razzleberry’s Ice Cream Lab. The music program featuring show tunes, Broadway selections, marches, and swing will include guest vocalists the Community Band Choir, the Community Band Men’s Chorus, and soloists Lettie Andrade de la Torre, Mike Cates, and Deidre Ford. For more information visit www.orcb.org or call 865-4823568. • Free SHIFFLETT AND HANNAH • Bistro at the Bijou • 12PM • FREE Monday, Aug. 3 BROTHER DEGE LEGG WITH THE ALL TOGETHERS • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-aweek lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. BROTHER MOSES • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. DEAD SOLDIERS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM MIGHTY MUSICAL MONDAY • Tennessee Theatre • 12PM • Wurlitzer meister Bill Snyder is joined by a special guest on the first Monday of each month for a music showcase inside Knoxville’s historic Tennessee Theatre. Tuesday, Aug. 4 CAPTAIN GREEN • Preservation Pub • 10PM • Dubbing themselves “Louisiana’s Premier Intergalactic Space Jazz Band,” Baton Rogue sextet Captain Green specialize in exploratory instrumental jams somewhere between fusion-era Frank Zappa and the deep-fried psych-funk dominating today’s jam circuit. See Spotlight on page 33. JAZZ ON THE SQUARE • Market Square • 8PM • Featuring the Marble City 5. Every Tuesday from May 12-Aug. 25. • FREE EMILY KOPP • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM TIA MCGRAFF • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. Wednesday, Aug. 5 JASON AJEMIAN • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. CINDY ALEXANDER • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage •
CALENDAR
7:30PM • Cindy Alexander is an L.A. based Singer/ Songwriter, winner of a multitude of awards including David Foster’s/NBC Star Tomorrow, L.A. Music Awards Songwriter of the Year/ Independent Pop Album of the Year, All Access Magazine’s Best Female Pop Vocalist, and Just Plain Folks Song of the Year and Female Artist of the Year. All ages. • $8 BLUE MOON RISING • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7PM • Part of WDVX’s weekly Tennessee Shines series. • $10 FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • Crown and Goose • 6PM PSYCHOSTICK • The Concourse • 8PM • 18 and up. • $7-$10 LUKE DANIEL PRESTON AND MEGAN DAVIES WITH REVEREND RED • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. SCHOOL OF ROCK DFW SUMMER TOUR • Mulligan’s Restaurant • 7PM • The DFW Summer Tour is a group of 23 all star students from some of the Texas and Arkansas School of Rock locations, on a 12 city tour from Dallas to Chicago and back. All ages. Thursday, Aug. 6 PAIGE ALLBRITTON WITH CHOCTAW WILDFIRE • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-aweek lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. HOT SUMMER NIGHTS CONCERT SERIES • Blount County Public Library • 7PM • A weekly series of summer concerts, featuring gospel and popular songs by Ebony and Ivory (Aug. 13); high-energy Americana by Pistol Creek Catch of the Day (Aug. 20); a program of Native American music (Aug. 27); and a preview of Knoxville Opera’s 2015-16 season (Sept. 3). The Aug. 6 performer is TBD. THE THIRST QUENCHERS • Mind Yer Ps and Qs Craft Beer and Wine Lounge • 8PM UNDER THE WILOW • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM Friday, Aug. 7 10 YEARS WITH NONPOINT, THE FAMILY RUIN, AND AWAKEN THE EMPIRE • The International • 7PM • 10 Years’ When the Sky Cracks Open Tour lands them back in their hometown. All ages. • $20-$50 FREEQUENCY • Mulligan’s • 7PM FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • Crown and Goose • 8PM THE DARYL HANCE POWER TRIO WITH BANJO MOUTH • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • On his second album Land Of Trembling Earth, Jacksonville, Florida singer/ guitarist Daryl Hance has upgraded his delivery to new and improved stout and shout, let it all hang out sing-alongs laid out to a backdrop of his ever hard-hitting funky bluesy rock and roll music.All ages. • $8 THE JAYSTORM PROJECT • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM KUKULY AND THE GYPSY FUEGO • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM MARGO AND THE PRICE TAGS • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. MCGILL AND THE REFILLS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM MIDNIGHT VOYAGE LIVE: KEATON AND KERNS BIRTHDAY FREESTYLE • The Concourse • 9PM • With Fast Nasty, Spooky Jones, Swim Wear, Psychonaut, J Mo, Mark B, and Alex Falk. 18 and up. Presented by Midnight Voyage and
WUTK. NUTHIN’ FANCY • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 10PM ON BROADWAY AT ST. JAMES • St. James Episcopal Church • 7PM • A musical performance directed by Ashley Burell, St. James Choirmaster. Selections from a variety of musicals will be featured, including “The Music Man” and “Phantom of the Opera.” Performances by the On Broadway Choir, the Broadway Bronze. DAVE SLACK TRIO • Pero’s on the Hill • 7PM • Instrumental and vocal jazz standards. SOUL CONNECTION • Knoxville Museum of Art • 6PM • Originally formed in 1966 under the name Soul Sanction, this fabulous 9-member band became one of the legendary bands of East Tennessee, and they are one of the all-time favorites at AA5. With their combination of keyboards, horns, and guitar, blended with a variety of male and female vocals, Soul Connection covers a wide musical spectrum of Rhythm & Blues and Soul, all done with infectious energy and unmistakable style. Part of KMA’s Alive After Five series. • $15 THE STEELDRIVERS • Bijou Theatre • 8PM • Nashville, Tennessee is a nexus – a point where tradition and innovation intersect, where commerce collides with art.It may be the only town around where salaried songwriters and full-time session musicians are as common as accountants and schoolteachers. Music is the product, and the factories line the street, from the swank Music Row mini-high-rises to the low-slung Sylvan Park bungalows. And only Nashville could give birth to a band like the SteelDrivers: a group of seasoned veterans – each distinguished in his or her own right, each valued in the town’s commercial community – who are seizing an opportunity to follow their hearts to their souls’ reward. In doing so, they are braiding their bluegrass roots with new threads of their own design, bringing together country, soul, and other contemporary influences to create an unapologetic hybrid that is old as the hills but fresh as the morning dew. This is new music with the old feeling. SteelDrivers fan Vince Gill describes the band’s fusion as simply “an incredible combination.”Since the release of The SteelDrivers (2008) and Reckless (2010), The SteelDrivers have been nominated for three Grammys, four IBMA awards and the Americana Music Association’s New Artist of the Year. They were presented the International Bluegrass Music Association’s award for Emerging Artist of the Year in 2009. That same year the band spent a week in Georgia as part of the cast in the movie “Get Low”. The movie, that starred Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek and Bill Murray, featured a soundtrack that included four tunes by The ‘Drivers. In 2011 the English pop star Adele began performing the SteelDriver song “If It Hadn’t Been For Love” in her live performances. Her opinion of The SteelDrivers is: “They’re a blues, country, bluegrass, swagger band and they are brilliant.” They have been invited to perform on numerous radio and TV shows ranging from The Grand Ole Opry to NPR’s Mountain Stage to the Conan O’Brien show. • $25 GREG TARDY • The Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • He’s maybe not as familiar by sight as some of the others onstage, but judging by the crowds he draws around the world, and the prominent discs that have featured his saxophone, Greg Tardy is one of the most accomplished musicians in Knoxville.He’s workmanlike onstage, like a mechanic who knows what he’s doing, connecting directly with the notes, but what he produces are long, transcendent runs, cascades of fluid sound. He blows his horn with his eyes closed tight, as if right now, sight might be a distraction. While playing, he exists mainly in the world of sound. While he’s playing, so do we.On a
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY 25
CALENDAR recent album cover, he’s leaning out the window of a Manhattan skyscraper in a forest of skyscrapers, the Empire State Building in the background. A New Orleans native who first played clarinet, until the music of John Coltrane drew him to the sax, Tardy has lived and performed in St. Louis, Milwaukee, and New York. He’s appeared on several dozen records, several of them his own but also some by major stars like Dave Douglas. A while back, The New York Times called him “one of the bright hopes” of jazz, as All ABout Jazz claimed he was “on track to help write the next chapter in jazz history.” “WEIRD AL” YANKOVIC • Tennessee Theatre • 8PM • Few would have guessed that “Weird Al” Yankovic, who as a shy, accordion-playing teenager got his start sending in homemade tapes to the Dr. Demento Radio Show, would go on to become the biggest-selling comedy recording artist in history with over 12 million album sales. Now in his fourth career decade, he has won 3 Grammys (with 14 nominations) and countless awards and accolades for Weird Al classics like “Eat It,” “Like a Surgeon,” “Fat,” “Smells Like Nirvana,” “Amish Paradise” and “The Saga Begins.” His 2011 album Alpocalypse (featuring the Lady Gaga parody “Perform This Way”) debuted in the Billboard Top 10, and was nominated for two Grammy Awards (Best Comedy Album and Best Short Form Video). • $39.50-$59.50 Saturday, Aug. 8 1964: THE TRIBUTE • Tennessee Theatre • 8PM • Twenty years of research and performing have made “1964” masters of their craft. They have been featured on
Thursday, July 30 - Sunday, August 9
Entertainment Tonight, PM Magazine, CNN, the USA Network, and the Nashville Network. On January 10th, 2003, “1964” performed to a sold out crowd at Carnegie Hall.... a dream come true for both themselves and their fans who came to New York from all over the country for the show. They have since performed at Carnegie Hall every year since then. 1964 has performed at many other such illustrious places such as the famous Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Denver where they outdrew The Beatles by 2000 fans 40 years later. • $27 HANNAH ALDRIDGE WITH CRAB APPLE LANE • The Square Room • 8PM • Hannah Aldridge is the daughter of Alabama Music Hall of Famer Walt Aldridge, who is one of the most prolific songwriters of the modern musical era. Twice named by Billboard magazine as one of the Top Country Songwriters of the year, ASCAP Songwriter of the Year, and countless Number One and Top Ten hits recorded by the likes of Lou Reed, Reba McEntire, Travis Tritt, Earl Thomas Conley, Ricky Van Shelton, Ronnie Milsap, and Conway Twitty.With sounds ranging from blues in the Mississippi Delta to the dusty, dixieland jazz sounds from New Orleans, the musical stylings of Muscle Shoals on up to the primitive roots of American Country music, Hannah Aldridge leaves no inspiration or influence untapped. CHUCK BURNS AND TY RONE • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. FAREWELL TO KINGS WITH OMEGA DOWN, BENT TO BREAK, AND SEVERANCE • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage •
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CALL 865-215-5170.
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY July 30, 2015
7PM • Presented by Night Owl Music. All ages. • $8 FOUR LEAF PEAT • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM KITTY WAMPUS • Spicy’s • 9PM MARBLE CITY SHOOTERS • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM HAROLD NAGGE AND ALAN WYATT • Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM THE RERUNS • Pero’s on the Hill • 7PM • Knoxville’s premier TV band plays your favorite television themes. SHANE • Concord Park • 6PM • Knox County’s summer concert series, Second Saturday Concerts at The Cove, continues this year with live entertainment for the whole family. The free concerts, held June through September on the second Saturday of each month, take place from 6 to 8 p.m. at The Cove at Concord Park, 11808 S. Northshore Drive. Attendees are encouraged to bring their own blankets or lawn chairs. TIME SAWYER • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM THE JASON STINNETT BAND • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 10PM WHISKEY MYERS WITH STOLEN RHODES • The Shed at Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson • 6PM • Whiskey Myers makes honest music. Loud and proud, they sing about what they know with a refreshing directness and clarity. Some call it rebel music, but it’s more like everyday soul. Their songs are stories, with relatable characters and situations. Stories of celebration, of mourning, of trials and triumph. Through the quality of these songs, and the band’s undeniable power in concert and on record, Whiskey Myers has attracted a devoted army of outspoken fans who pack venues, sing the band’s praises
online, and continue to make them a growing word-of-mouth sensation. • $20 Sunday, Aug. 9 APPLEBUTTER EXPRESS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM SPONGECAKE AND THE FLUFF RAMBLERS • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. SHIFFLETT AND HANNAH • Bistro at the Bijou • 12PM • FREE
OPEN MIC AND SONGWRITER NIGHTS
Sunday, Aug. 2 COMMUNITY DRUM CIRCLE • Tyson Park • 3PM • All ages. No experience necessary. The drumming will take place under the large picnic shelter near the tennis courts and playground. AUGUST 2 • Native American Flute Circle • Ijams Nature Center • 4PM • Meets the first Sunday of the month. All levels welcome. Call Ijams to register 865-577-4717 ext.110. ROCKY TOPS OPEN MIC • Rocky Tops Piano Bar • 8PM • For musicians, poets, and comedians. Tuesday, Aug. 4 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
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Thursday, July 30 - Sunday, August 9
OPEN CHORD SINGER/SONGWRITER NIGHT • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • FREE Wednesday, Aug. 5 TIME WARP TEA ROOM OLD-TIME JAM • Time Warp Tea Room • 7PM • Regular speed old-time/fiddle jam every Wednesday from 7-9 p.m. at the Time Warp Tea Room. All instruments and skill levels welcome. BRACKINS BLUES JAM • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM • A weekly open session hosted by Tommie John. • FREE Saturday, Aug. 9 EPWORTH OLD HARP SINGING • Laurel Theater • 6:30PM • A monthly gathering for shape-note singing. Visit oldharp. org.
DJ AND DANCE NIGHTS
CALENDAR
8PM • A weekly comedy open mic. Monday, Aug. 3 QED COMEDY LAB • Pilot Light • 8PM • QED ComedyLaboratory is a weekly show with different theme every week that combines stand-up, improv, sketch, music and other types of performance and features some of the funniest people in Knoxville and parts unknown. It’s weird and experimental. There is no comedy experience in town that is anything like this and it’s also a ton of fun. Pay what you want. Cost: Free – But Donations Gladly Accepted. Tuesday, Aug. 4 OPEN MIC STANDUP COMEDY • Longbranch Saloon • 8PM • Come laugh until you cry at the Longbranch every Tuesday night. Doors open at 8, first comic at 8:30. No cover charge, all are welcome. Aspiring or experienced
comics interested in joining in the fun email us at longbranch.info@gmail.com to learn more, or simply come to the show a few minutes early. EINSTEIN SIMPLIFIED • Scruffy City Hall • 8PM • Knoxville’s long-running improv comedy troupe. • Free FRIDAY, AUG. 7 SAW WORKS FIRST FRIDAY COMEDY SHOW • Saw Works Brewing Company • 7PM • Jasper Redd, a Knoxville native with appearances on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Def Comedy Jam, and Comedy Central, is this month’s headliner at First Friday Comedy at Saw Works Brewing. His first comedy special Jazz Talk debuted last year on Netflix. Additional performers will include a pair of touring Ohio comedians, Dustin Meadows and Keith Bergman, along with Knoxville’s own Victor Agreda, Jr. This month’s host is Sean Simoneau. Saturday, Aug. 8
Friday, July 31 TOTAL REQUEST DJ DANCE PARTY • Southbound Bar and Grill • 8PM PROJECT CONCOURSE REVAMP • The Concourse • 9PM • Bring your own playlist and let’s decorate the front room of The Concourse. Presented by Midnight Voyage and WUTK. 18 and up.
Saturday, Aug. 1 TOTAL REQUEST DJ DANCE PARTY • Southbound Bar and Grill • 8PM TEMPLE DANCE NIGHT • The Concourse • 9PM • Knoxville’s longest running, and only, gothic/alternative dance night. Featuring Fallen, Dead Jester, and Demongirl. Visit templeknox.com. 18 and up. Sunday, Aug. 2 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. LAYOVER BRUNCH • The Concourse • 12PM • Featuring music by Slow Nasty, Psychonaut, and Saint Thomas Ledoux. Presented by Midnight Voyage Productions.
MATTHEW E. WHITE
Friday, Aug. 7 TOTAL REQUEST DJ DANCE PARTY • Southbound Bar and Grill • 8PM
Pilot Light (106 E. Jackson Ave.) • Thursday, July 30 • 9 p.m. • $12 • 18
Saturday, Aug. 8 CARNIVALESQUE III SIDESHOW SPECTACULAR • The Concourse • 9PM • Presented by Temple Dance Night and Vali Moon. 18 and up. • $10 TOTAL REQUEST DJ DANCE PARTY • Southbound Bar and Grill • 8PM
According to the Richmond, Va., label’s website, Spacebomb “is a process, a sound, and a spirit.” Label founder Matthew E. White, whose 2012 solo debut, Big Inner, was Spacebomb’s first release, embodies this mission statement. White started the one-stop-shop house band/studio/ label in his attic, inspired by the big signature sounds of Stax and Motown and driven by the desire to take care of all arrangements and production in-house. Hailed as one of the top releases of the year, the gospel-tinged Big Inner featured a funky combination of listless Southern rock and booming soul. But while the album was the first solo release from White, it wasn’t his first time at the top of critic’s best-of lists. In 2010, the sophomore release from the Richmond-based singer, songwriter, and band leader’s avant-garde jazz outfit, Fight the Big Bull, landed on NPR’s list of the top 10 jazz albums of the year.
Sunday, Aug. 9 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.
and up • thepilotlight.com
COMEDY AND SPOKEN WORD
White’s knack for gospel arrangements stems from his upbringing (his parents are Christian missionaries), while his jazz chops are rooted in his degree from Virginia Commonwealth University’s prestigious jazz program. His latest album, 2015’s Fresh Blood, features the same robust instrumentation showcased on Big Inner—horns, keys, strings—but dives deeper lyrically, touching on darker spiritual themes and even celebrity (“Tranquility” is a tribute to Philip Seymour Hoffman). Live, White shows off his songwriting skills, switching between the piano and guitar and relying less on Spacebomb’s big, luxurious sound and more on his sultry croons.
Sunday, Aug. 2 UPSTAIRS UNDERGROUND COMEDY • Preservation Pub •
Also performing: Sleepwalkers and Ryan Schaefer. (Carey Hodges)
Saturday, Aug. 1 IMPROV COMEDY CLASS • The Birdhouse • 10AM • A weekly improv comedy class. • FREE
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CALENDAR IMPROV COMEDY CLASS • The Birdhouse • 10AM • A weekly improv comedy class. • FREE Sunday, Aug. 9 UPSTAIRS UNDERGROUND COMEDY • Preservation Pub • 8PM • A weekly comedy open mic.
THEATER AND DANCE
Thursday, July 30 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 31 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 THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: SEALED FOR FRESHNESS • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • Sealed for Freshness is set in 1968 during the heyday of Tupperware parties. Hostess Bonnie invites a group of neighbors over for a party. The mix of personalities and the number of martinis consumed lead to a great deal of absurd high jinks plus revelations of an equal number of secrets and insecurities. July 31-Aug. 16. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15
Thursday, July 30 - Sunday, August 9
Saturday, Aug. 1 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 THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: SEALED FOR FRESHNESS • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • July 31-Aug. 16. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 Sunday, Aug. 2 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 THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: SEALED FOR FRESHNESS • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 3PM • July 31-Aug. 16. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 Thursday, Aug. 6 THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: SEALED FOR FRESHNESS • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • July 31-Aug. 16. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 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, Aug. 7 THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: SEALED FOR FRESHNESS
Join the race to save Tennessee water! Sat., Aug. 29, 2015 Starting at 8 a.m. Volunteer Landing Form a team for downtown Knoxville’s only dragon boat race, and raise money to support the Tennessee Clean Water Network, to keep our water swimmable, fishable, and drinkable.
For more information and to register: visit http://tcwn.org/dragon Early registration discounts deadline - July 30
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY July 30, 2015
• Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • July 31-Aug. 16. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 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 Saturday, Aug. 8 THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: SEALED FOR FRESHNESS • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • July 31-Aug. 16. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 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 Sunday, Aug. 9 THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: SEALED FOR FRESHNESS • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 3PM • July 31-Aug. 16. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 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
FESTIVALS
Saturday, Aug. 1
LITTLE RIVER FESTIVAL • River John’s Island • 12PM • Little River Festival 2015 is a day of FUN and celebration of aquatic diversity and clean water at River John’s Island on the Little River, Maryville, TN (just ~20min from Knoxville). Come celebrate with us! We swim in the Little River, hang out in the sun, eat, drink and listen to some fine music. Fun for the whole family! Suggested donation of $10 per person will go a long way in supporting CFI this year! 7PM: Music by Jay Clark and the Tennessee Tree Beavers Things to bring: Money! This is a fundraiser!! We will have tshirts, hats, stickers, and koozies for sale. Beverages will be donation based. You might also want to bring water, chairs, coolers, tents, shade canopy tents, and food. You also might want to bring some toys like masks and snorkels to go in the water. If you want to get in the water make sure you have a bathing suit or water friendly clothes and water shoes. We do not advise going in the water barefoot, it’s a good way to hurt some toes. What NOT to bring: I’m sorry, River John doesn’t want outside dogs on his island. • $10 Saturday, Aug. 8 BECK CULTURAL EXCHANGE CENTER 40TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION • Chilhowee Park • 12AM • The Beck Cultural Exchange Center will celebrate its 40-Year Anniversary with its inaugural “Eighth of August Jubilee” celebration at Chilhowee Park.The day will kick off with a Libation Ceremony at the First United Presbyterian Church Historic Cemetery at Knoxville College, the burial site of former slaves owned by Tennessee Military Governor, Andrew Johnson, freed on August 8, 1863, the date that became
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known as Emancipation Day throughout the region.The celebration will then continue at Chilhowee Park with family-friendly activities throughout the day.In Knoxville, oral accounts from local area residents note the Eighth of August as “The one day of the year when black people could go to Chilhowee Park and enjoy a great day of celebration.” Until the late 1940s, it was the only day of the year that the park was open to African-Americans.
FEMINIST FILM SERIES: WHAT HAPPENED, MISS SIMONE? • Pilot Light • 7:30PM • The Scruffy City Community Action Team is excited to bring you the August installment of our Feminist Film Series. We will be screening the 2015 biographical documentary, What Happened, Miss Simone?. The movie will begin at 7:30 with a Q&A and discussion to follow. Snacks will be provided, as well as a cash bar. A $5 suggested donation is requested.
SPORTS AND RECREATION
ART
Saturday, Aug. 1 2015 NPC KNOX CLASSIC • Knoxville Civic Coliseum • 9AM • Knoxville’s biggest bodybuilding competition. • $13.50-$35 Wednesday, Aug. 5 SMOKY MOUNTAIN HIKING CLUB: FORK RIDGE AND DEEP CREEK TRAILS • Smoky Mountain Hiking Club • 7:30AM • Fork Ridge trail to Deep Creek trail at Camp site 53 then to Newfound Gap Road. 9.0 miles, 1800 ft. climb. Car Shuttle. Meet at Alcoa Food City at 7:30 AM. Leader: Ron Brandenburg, ronb86@comcast.net. Saturday, Aug. 8 SOUTHERN ROCK RACING SERIES • Windrock Park • 12AM • The southern rock racing series is an off-road hill climb and rock crawling event. This will be round #3 in the racing series. This event is open to everyone. Spectators can watch the competitions and enjoy the fun. The event takes place at Windrock Park which consists of over 72,000 acres of off-road adventure for the entire family with many picturesque views of East Tennessee’s mountains and valleys. Explore over 300 miles of trails for riding ATV’s, Motorcycles, Mountain Bikes, in addition to four wheeling in Jeeps and Rail buggies and Hiking. Camping facilities are available at Windrock Park and campground. For more information about the event or the area, call 865-435-3492 or visit www.windrockpark.com. HARD KNOX ROLLER GIRLS VS. GREENSBORO ROLLER DERBY • Knoxville Civic Coliseum • 5PM
FILM SCREENINGS
Friday, July 31 SUMMER MOVIE MAGIC SERIES: ‘GONE WITH THE WIND’ • Tennessee Theatre • 7PM • Released in 1939, this Epic Civil War drama focuses on the life of petulant southern belle Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh), starting with her idyllic life on a sprawling plantation. The film traces her survival through the tragic history of the south during the Civil War and her tangled love affairs with Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard) and Rhett Butler (Clark Gable). • $9 Saturday, Aug. 1 SUMMER MOVIE MAGIC SERIES: ‘GONE WITH THE WIND’ • Tennessee Theatre • 7PM • $9 Sunday, Aug. 2 SUMMER MOVIE MAGIC SERIES: ‘GONE WITH THE WIND’ • Tennessee Theatre • 2PM • $9 Monday, Aug. 3 THE BIRDHOUSE WALK-IN THEATER • The Birdhouse • 8PM • A weekly free movie screening. Wednesday, Aug. 5
American Museum of Science and Energy 300 S. Tulane Ave. (Oak Ridge) 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 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. Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church 2931 Kingston Pike JULY 17-AUG. 30: Exhibits by Lisa Kurtz and Art Group 21. Westminster Presbyterian Church 6500 Northshore Drive JULY 5-AUG. 30: Work by the Tennessee Artists Association.
LECTURES, READINGS, AND BOOK SIGNINGS
Saturday, Aug. 1 TONY REEVY: PASSAGES • Union Ave Books • 2PM • Book signing with Tony Reevy reading from his new collection of poems, Passage. • Free Sunday, Aug. 2 MICHAEL BAZZETT: YOU MUST REMEMBER THIS • Union Ave Books • 3PM • Book signing with Michael Bazzett reading from his new collection of poems, You Must Remember This. • Free GAR ALPEROVITZ: TELLING THE STORY OF THE BOMB • East Tennessee History Center • 7PM • The decision to create a Manhattan Project National Park raises a question: How do we tell the story of the atomic bomb? Gar Alperovitz is one of the foremost scholars of the history of the atomic bomb. This event will include a presentation and a moderated discussion to set discussion about this new park in its historical context. • FREE Friday, Aug. 7 MICHAEL HOLTZ: IT’S NOT HARDER THAN CANCER • St. John’s Lutheran Church • 5:30PM • Michael Holtz will discuss, read from and sign copies of “It’s Not Harder Than Cancer,” his raw and practical book about his experience as a survivor of stage-3b rectal cancer and as a thriver in the life after his illness. The event is free and open to the public. Food and refreshments will be served. Copies of “It’s Not Harder Than Cancer” will be available to purchase for $15. A percentage of all sales will support community outreach programs at Thompson Cancer Survival Center, where Holtz was treated. Sunday, Aug. 9 JUDY LOCKHART DIGREGORIO: TIDBITS • Union Ave Books • 2PM • Book signing with Judy Lockhart DiGregorio reading from her new collection of essays, Tidbits: light verse & observations.
FAMILY AND KIDS’ EVENTS
Thursday, July 30 BABY BOOKWORMS • Lawson McGee Public Library • 11AM • For infants to age 2, must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. • Free CHESS AT THE LIBRARY • Blount County Public Library • 1PM • Middle and high school students (or any age) are July 30, 2015
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Thursday, July 30 - Sunday, August 9
Apex Predator Kentucky publisher and editor Jason Sizemore on genre fiction, small-press publishing, and social media BY APRIL SNELLINGS
I
t’s been a little more than a decade since Jason Sizemore went from being a consistently frustrated “software flunky” to being an only-occasionally frustrated publisher, editor, and writer. He’s used those years well. Since launching Apex Publications in 2004, Sizemore has turned the Lexington-based company into one of the most respected small presses in the world of genre publishing—no mean feat for the Big Creek, Ky. native, who’s the featured speaker at this month’s Knoxville Writers’ Guild program. Sizemore isn’t particularly interested in run-of-the-mill genre fare. You’ll find the requisite zombie anthologies in the Apex catalog, but you’ll also find Chesya Burke’s African and African-American-themed short-story collection Let’s Play White, which earned accolades from the likes of Nikki Giovanni, and the Stoker Award-nominated Dark Faith, a compilation of stories and poems that examine issues of religion and belief through the often bloody prism of horror and dark fantasy. The jewel in the company’s crown, though, is the Hugo Award-nominated
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Expand out a couple more hours’ drive and I can include Chicago, Memphis, and St. Louis. Of late, there has been interest by the literary icons of Lexington to expand local reader interests to genre works. I’m sure this is fueled by Hollywood, the superhero explosion, and Lexington native Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead series, but I’ll take an assist where I can get it.
Apex Magazine, a monthly digital zine that regularly feeds the pipelines of annual best-of-genre compilations. Though its first (print) incarnation, Apex Digest, fizzled after only a dozen issues, the reinvented publication has thrived as an online outlet; with stories and poems culled from nearly 1,000 submissions per month, a byline in Apex has become one of the most sought-after credits in the realm of genre fiction. Sizemore, who’s also the author of the 2014 short story collection Irredeemable (Seventh Star Press) and the recently released memoir For Exposure: The Life and Times of a Small Press Publisher (Apex), will take the podium at the Laurel Theater on Thursday, July 30, at 7 p.m. On Saturday, he’ll lead a workshop called “Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy: Liftoff!” at Central United Methodist Church. Visit knoxvillewritersguild. org or learn more at jason-sizemore. com, apexbookcompany.com, and apex-magazine.com.
You’ve got a knack for discovering and fostering new talent. What makes a writer stand out?
What are some challenges that are unique to running a publishing endeavor based in Kentucky as opposed to, say, New York?
What are you tired of seeing in the slush pile, and what would you like to see more of?
I’m based out of Lexington. Despite being centrally located to a lot of major cities, I still feel like we’re somewhat isolated. I’ve struggled to harness much local support for Apex simply because there isn’t a big genre literary scene in the city, despite the University of Kentucky being here. Because genre is considered “weird” here, obtaining media exposure is also a challenge.
What are the advantages?
The central location to Louisville, Cincinnati, Columbus, Indianapolis, Knoxville, Nashville, and Charleston.
I feel like there are two key attributes that make a writer stand out. The first of these is point of view. Cherie Priest, an incredibly popular author from Nashville, was a writer I pursued before she broke big into the scene. I was drawn to her mix of Southern gothic, strong heroines, and her use of genre. It’s not something you see often, nor do you see it being used well. The second attribute is voice. There are only so many variations on form, plot, and characterization an author can mix. But each other has something that makes his/her work unique and that is voice. Lavie Tidhar, one of my earliest authors, often writes from a world-weary, pulp-adventure viewpoint that I adore. You find an author who can master point of view, voice, and placing sentences together, then you’ll find an author who has the ability to succeed.
My slush pile is overflowing with well-meaning but poorly written “social justice”-type fiction. I love work that displays an awareness of diversity, work that wants to make a statement, but like anything we publish, it has to be entertaining and it has to be well written.
Your short-story collection, Irredeemable, was published by Seventh Star Press rather than your own Apex Publications. Why was that?
Over the course of seven to eight years, I had around 30 stories published in various pro and semi-pro venues. Even so, I never thought of
myself as a writer. Seventh Star Press queried me about publishing a collection of my fiction through them. My initial inclination was to say no. I said no. They asked me to think about it for a couple of weeks before deciding for certain. During that time, I did reconsider. I’m glad I did. As to why SSP rather than Apex? Because SSP wanted me. I didn’t have enough confidence in my writing to put a book of my fiction next to the likes of Tom Piccirilli, Jennifer Pelland, and Tim Waggoner via Apex.
For Exposure highlights the value of making connections at conventions. Got any networking tips for writers and editors who are cripplingly shy and awkward? It’s, um, for a friend.
While I’ve made plenty of positive connections face-to-face at professional conferences and conventions, you can accomplish a lot via social media and email. The best way, in my opinion, is to become an active presence on Twitter. Follow your favorite writers, editors, and publishers. Some of them might even follow you back. Engage with them an appropriate amount. A writer/ publisher always loves to hear when you’ve enjoyed their work. Don’t rush relationships. Writing is a long game. So is nurturing online friendships. If you’re socially awkward, try attending a tiny fandom convention. I’ve found them to be safe, friendly places. And if you get overwhelmed, head back to your hotel room for a mental break.
Your book is impressively honest about the setbacks you experienced on the way to making Apex a success. Most people would have given up. Why didn’t you?
Because I enjoy the business too much. I’ve never given up, but I have transformed the company on two different occasions to better match up with my personal strengths and the direction of the publishing world. This is a business, and businesses fail for a multitude of reasons. You’re going to be knocked off your feet once in a while. You dust yourself off, reassess, and push forward. Also, because I’m stubborn. ◆
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invited to play chess. Tom Jobe coaches most Saturdays in the Teen Central area of the library. On one Saturday of every month, there will be a rated tournament at the Blount County Public Library. • Free WHOLE FOODS GAME NIGHT • Whole Foods • 6PM • Grab you peeps and join us for Game Night in The Rocky! We have everything from Candy Land to Chess! A pint, a pizza, and a board: who could ask for more?
WHOLE FOODS GAME NIGHT • Whole Foods • 6PM • Grab you peeps and join us for Game Night in The Rocky! We have everything from Candy Land to Chess! A pint, a pizza, and a board: who could ask for more? EVENING STORYTIME • Lawson McGee Public Library • 6:30PM • An evening storytime at Lawson McGhee Children’s Room to include stories, music, and crafts. For toddlers and up.
Friday, July 31 PUPPETS IN THE PARK • Ijams Nature Center • 3PM • The Cattywampus Puppet Council presents an afternoon of puppetmaking and puppet shows for children and adults at Ijams Nature Center. Guaranteed to fill hearts of all ages with magic and whimsy! Puppetmaking from 3-4pm and show from 4-5pm. • See Spotlight on page 24. 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
Wednesday, Aug. 5 BABY BOOKWORMS • Lawson McGee Public Library • 0.4305555556 • For infants to age 2, must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. PRESCHOOL STORYTIME • Lawson McGee Public Library • 11AM • For ages 3 to 5, must be accompanied by an adult.
Saturday, Aug. 1 ROBOTICS REVOLUTION • Chilhowee Park • 10AM • The Muse Knoxville wants people of all ages to join them at the Jacob Building in Chilhowee Park on August 1, 2015 from 10am to 3pm to experience the fun of S.T.E.M. (Science Technology Engineering and Math) at Robotics Revolution. The event will feature Lego building competitions, robotics and technology demonstrations, hands on activities with The Muse, and more. Admission is $6 per person, with family passes available for $24. Children ages five and under are free and tickets can be purchased at the event. For more information, visit themuseknoxville.org. Advanced tickets are available on the website, or in person at The Muse Knoxville. • $6 CHESS AT THE LIBRARY • Blount County Public Library • 10AM • Middle and high school students (or any age) are invited to play chess. Tom Jobe coaches most Saturdays in the Teen Central area of the library. On one Saturday of every month, there will be a rated tournament at the Blount County Public Library. • Free SATURDAY STORIES AND SONGS • Lawson McGee Public Library • 11AM • A weekly music and storytelling session for kids. • Free MCCLUNG MUSEUM FREE FAMILY FUN DAY • McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture • 1PM • Join us for free a free Family Fun Day featuring activities, crafts, tours, and more. We’ll explore botanical photography in our new temporary exhibit, Through the Lens: Botanical Photography of Alan S. Heilman. All materials will be provided. The program is free and open to the public. Reservations are not necessary. • FREE Tuesday, Aug. 4 PRE-K READ AND PLAY • Lawson McGee Public Library • 11AM • Pre-K Read and Play is a pilot program specifically designed to prepare children to enter kindergarten. Library programs for preschoolers are typically designed to develop early literacy, or pre-reading, skills, and Pre-K Read and Play will still focus heavily on these skills, but will also feature other topics in the wide range of skills that children need to be developing before they enter school, including math, science, and motor development. LEGO CLUB • Blount County Public Library • 4PM • Kids will complete different themed and timed Lego Challenges, as well as have some time for free building. The library will provide the Legos, so all you have to bring is your imagination! Lego Club will be in the Children’s Library. • FREE
Thursday, Aug. 6 BABY BOOKWORMS • Lawson McGee Public Library • 11AM • For infants to age 2, must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. CHESS AT THE LIBRARY • Blount County Public Library • 1PM • Middle and high school students (or any age) are invited to play chess. Tom Jobe coaches most Saturdays in the Teen Central area of the library. On one Saturday of every month, there will be a rated tournament at the Blount County Public Library. Friday, Aug. 7 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. Saturday, Aug. 8 CHESS AT THE LIBRARY • Blount County Public Library • 10AM • Middle and high school students (or any age) are invited to play chess. Tom Jobe coaches most Saturdays in the Teen Central area of the library. On one Saturday of every month, there will be a rated tournament at the Blount County Public Library. SATURDAY STORIES AND SONGS • Lawson McGee Public Library • 11AM • A weekly music and storytelling session for kids.
CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS
Thursday, July 30 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: KALE IN DECEMBER AND CARROTS IN JANUARY • Humana Guidance Center • 3:15PM • Multiply the harvest from your vegetable garden by starting a Fall garden now..no kidding! Extension Master Gardener Marsha Lehman will show you how to plan your garden for harvests well beyond Thanksgiving. 865-329-8892. • Free Saturday, Aug. 1 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. Monday, Aug. 3
GOPRO BASICS • REI • 7PM • Looking to get a GoPro, or you have one and would like some insight into best practices for capturing your life’s most exciting moments? Join our GoPro experts for this class and Get to Know Your GoPro. We will focus on the camera’s user interface, video capture, image settings, and accessories. • FREE GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 5:30PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted. Tuesday, Aug. 4 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted.
2543 SUTHERLAND AVE. 865-523-9177 • dive@skiscuba.com
Cro! one thing off your bucket list! Try Scuba: Aug. 4th, 15th, or 26th Get Open Water Certified: Aug. 8th & 9th Reserve your place today!
Wednesday, Aug. 5 AARP DRIVER SAFETY CLASS • Oak Ridge Senior Center • 9:30AM-1PM Thursday, Aug. 6 BUSINESS PROCESSES WORKSHOP • Blount County Public Library • 11:30AM • Presented by Tennessee Small Business Development Center. This session is part of a GrowthWheel series of workshops offered through a 3-way partnership with the Small Business Development Center, the Blount County Chamber and the Blount County Public Library hosted at the library. Registration required at www.tsbdc.org/training/ Bring your own laptop. Participants are welcome to bring lunch or purchase lunch at the library’s Bookmark Café. This workshop will be in the Dorothy Herron Room A of the library. WHOLE FOODS GAME NIGHT • Whole Foods • 6PM • Grab you peeps and join us for Game Night in The Rocky! We have everything from Candy Land to Chess! A pint, a pizza, and a board: who could ask for more? 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. AARP DRIVER SAFETY CLASS • Oak Ridge Senior Center • 9:30AM-1PM Saturday, Aug. 8 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. KNOX HERITAGE PRESERVATION NETWORK • Knox Heritage • 10AM • Preservation Network is a series of free workshops held once every month on the second Saturday. In a relaxed round-table setting, the workshops presents guest speakers who are specialists in windows, flooring, roofing, stained glass, tile, plumbing, electrical, and more. For more information, visit www.knoxheritage.org. MARBLE SPRINGS WHEAT WEAVING WORKSHOP • Marble Springs State Historic Site • 10AM • Marble Springs State Historic Site will host a hands-on wheat weaving workshop with Fran Brown on Saturday, August 8, 2015 at 10:00am. This workshop will teach the history of wheat weaving, how to clean the wheat, basic weaving (plaiting) principles, and instructions for completing a simple design. The cost is $20 per person, with proceeds going toward educational programming at Marble Springs. Participation will be limited to 10 individuals. Participants should bring a pair of scissors and a brown bag lunch. To register, call 865-573-5508 or email info@ marblesprings.net. The cut-off for registration will be Wednesday, August 5, 2015. • $20
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Thursday, July 30 OVEREATERS ANONYMOUS • Recovery at Cokesbury • 5:30PM • What you WON’T find at OA meetings are weigh-ins, packaged meals, dues, fees, “shoulds,” “musts” or judgment. What you WILL find at meetings is: Acceptance of you as you are now, as you were, as you will be. Understanding of the problems you now face — problems almost certainly shared by others in the group. Communication that comes as the natural result of our mutual understanding and acceptance. Recovery from your illness. Power to enter a new way of life through the acceptance and understanding of yourself, the practice of the Twelve-Step recovery program, the belief in a power greater than yourself, and the support and companionship of the group. • FREE Saturday, Aug. 1 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, Aug. 2 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
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Thursday, July 30 - Sunday, August 9
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, Aug. 3 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, Aug. 4 COMITE POPULAR DE KNOXVILLE • The Birdhouse • 7PM • A weekly meeting of the local immigrant advocacy organization. Thursday, Aug. 6 OVEREATERS ANONYMOUS • Recovery at Cokesbury • 5:30PM • What you WON’T find at OA meetings are weigh-ins, packaged meals, dues, fees, “shoulds,” “musts” or judgment. What you WILL find at meetings is: Acceptance of you as you are now, as you were, as you will be. Understanding of the problems you now face — problems almost certainly shared by others in the group. Communication that comes as the natural result of our mutual understanding and acceptance. Recovery from your illness. Power to enter a new way of life through the acceptance and understanding of yourself, the practice of the Twelve-Step recovery program, the belief in a power greater than yourself, and the support and companionship of the group. • FREE
KNOXVILLE WRITERS GUILD • Laurel Theater • 7PM • See Q&A on page TK
ETC.
Thursday, July 30 NEW HARVEST PARK FARMERS MARKET • New Harvest Park • 3PM • The New Harvest Park Farmers Market will be open every Thursday through November from 3 to 6 p.m. The market features locally-grown produce, meats, artisan food products, plants, herbs, flowers, crafts and much more. • Free Friday, July 31 LAKESHORE PARK FARMERS’ MARKET • Lakeshore Park • 3PM • East Tennessee Farmers Association for Retail Marketing (FARM), a nonprofit organization, is pleased to announce the opening of its 39th season of farmers’ markets in East Tennessee, in three convenient locations in Knoxville and Oak Ridge. Established in 1976, FARM is Tennessee’s longest continuously operating farmers’ market organization. “We are proud to offer this service to the Knoxville-Oak Ridge community,” said Steve Colvin, president of East TN FARM. “Our membership typically includes about 70 producer-vendors, offering more than one hundred different Tennessee grown products from April through November.” FARM vendors will offer a wide variety of spring bedding plants, fresh produce, grass-fed and pasture-raised meats, artisan bread and cheese, local honey and fresh eggs. As the season goes on, they offer the freshest produce possible, including just-picked
strawberries, peaches, sweet corn and heirloom tomatoes. • Free GIRL TALK, INC. FASHION SHOW GALA FUNDRAISER • Cokesbury Center • 6:30PM • Girl Talk exists to help girls, ages 9-18, build confidence and self-esteem, develop and achieve their goals, and become strong women who transform their communities. The vision is for girls to overcome any obstacle that may stand in their way and gain a sense of belonging, sisterhood and accountability. Funds raised will provide girls with the Girl Talk experience of mentoring, college tours, monthly activities, and an annual retreat. The Girl Talk Fashion Show Gala is a night filled with fashion, fine dining, live music, dancing, and a silent auction. This fun Friday night will include the latest fashions from some of Knoxville’s finest boutiques, and feature great items at a reduced price through the silent auction. Tickets for the Fashion Show Gala are available for $35.00 each. Contact Girl Talk, Inc. at 865.851.7064 or purchase online at http://www.girltalkinc.com (e-mail: info@girltalkinc.com). • $35 ART GONE WILD • Gourmet’s Market • 6PM • Gourmet’s Market will host an Art Gone Wild reception from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, July 31, to benefit enrichment programs at the Knoxville Zoo. Patrons can enjoy wine, beer and heavy hors d’oeuvres as they peruse and purchase works by some of the zoo’s artists in residence. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased at Gourmet’s Market or Knoxville Zoo during regular business hours or by phone at 865-637-5331, Ext. 1441. • $15 Saturday, Aug. 1
Thursday, July 30 - Sunday, August 9
SEYMOUR FARMERS MARKET • Seymour First Baptist Church • 8AM • Home grown and home made produce, honey, baked goods, crafts and more. OAK RIDGE FARMERS’ MARKET • Historic Jackson Square • 8AM • East Tennessee Farmers Association for Retail Marketing (FARM), a nonprofit organization, is pleased to announce the opening of its 39th season of farmers’ markets in East Tennessee, in three convenient locations in Knoxville and Oak Ridge. Established in 1976, FARM is Tennessee’s longest continuously operating farmers’ market organization. “We are proud to offer this service to the Knoxville-Oak Ridge community,” said Steve Colvin, president of East TN FARM. “Our membership typically includes about 70 producer-vendors, offering more than one hundred different Tennessee grown products from
CALENDAR
April through November.” FARM vendors will offer a wide variety of spring bedding plants, fresh produce, grass-fed and pasture-raised meats, artisan bread and cheese, local honey and fresh eggs. As the season goes on, they offer the freshest produce possible, including just-picked strawberries, peaches, sweet corn and heirloom tomatoes MARKET SQUARE FARMERS’ MARKET • Market Square • 9AM • The Market Square Farmers’ Market is an open-air farmers’ market located on Market Square in the heart of downtown Knoxville and is celebrating its 12th season this year. Hours are: Wednesday from 11a.m. to 2p.m. & Saturday from 9a.m. to 2p.m., May 2- November 21, 2015. The MSFM is a producer only market; everything is either made or grown by the vendor in our East Tennessee
T
TROWBRIDGE
region. Products vary by the season and include ornamental plants, produce, dairy, eggs, honey, herbs, meat, baked goods, jams/jellies, coffee, & artisan crafts. With interactive fountains, delicious local food and entertainment, as well as tasty lunch options from some of Knoxville’s best food trucks, the MSFM is a perfect family destination. • Free HAPPY PAWS KITTEN RESCUE SILENT AUCTION AND GALA • Rocky Tops Piano Bar • 6PM • Featuring performances by comedians Trae Crowder, Alex Stokes, and Jay Kendrick and Salome Cabaret’s Siren Santina, a silent auction, and sing-alongs. Call (865) 765-3400. • $10-$15 CENTRO HISPANO LATINO AWARDS 2015 • Knoxville Convention Center • 5:30PM • At The LATINO Awards, Centro Hispano will recognize three community leaders who have provided exceptional support for our Hispanic community, voted on by the East Tennessee community. The nominations are Spirit of Transformation, Spirit of Inspiration and Espiritu Latino.
FINE FURNITURE & CABINETS
Tuesday, Aug. 4 CREATING THE DREAM OF PEACE: THE PROMISE OF A THOUSAND CRANES • Market Square • 10AM • The origami crane has become the symbol of dreams of peace around the world - drawn from the story of Sadako Sasaki, survivor of the Hiroshima bombing, who developed leukemia when she was twelve years old. According to custom, folding 1,000 cranes granted one’s wish. Sadako died before completing her mission, but millions of people since have folded cranes to add their wishes for a world free of nuclear weapons to hers. On August 4, ORPEA members invite you to join us to fold 1,000 cranes. We’ll have paper and directions and offer hands-on help. All you need to bring is your fingers. We will start at 10:00 a.m. and fold for as long as it takes. • FREE EBENEZER ROAD FARMERS’ MARKET • Ebenezer United Methodist Church • 3PM •
30+ Years of Experience
All Custom Made & Designed Eco-Friendly Regional Sourcing
trowbridgefurniture.com 865-579-3679
Wednesday, Aug. 5 MARKET SQUARE FARMERS’ MARKET • Market Square • 11AM
CAPTAIN GREEN
Send your events to calendar@knoxmercury.com
Preservation Pub (28 Market Square) • Tuesday, Aug. 4 • 10 p.m. • 21 and up • scruffycity.com
Dubbing themselves “Louisiana’s Premier Intergalactic Space Jazz Band,” Baton Rogue sextet Captain Green specialize in exploratory instrumental jams somewhere between fusion-era Frank Zappa and the deep-fried psych-funk dominating today’s jam circuit. Keyboardist-bandleader Ross Hoppe formed Captain Green in 2011, linking up with fellow musicians lurking around Louisiana State University’s jazz department. Persevering through numerous lineup shifts, Hoppe and company have built a loyal following through regional festivals, performing their own expansive tunes (like the excellently titled 13-minute “Death to the Fascist Insect Which Bleeds the Life From the People”) and occasional covers (their Zappa tribute set from last year). Hoppe tends to dominate the material with his blistering Hammond organ and spiraling synthesizers, but his bandmates—especially saxophonist Darin Jones and trumpeter David Melancon—keep the grooves grounded on planet Earth. The band have recorded two studio albums, 2012’s Everywhere Is Where It’s At and 2014’s Protect Each Other Together, but the true test for any jam band is how the tunes hold up on stage. Expect the full cosmic launch at Pres Pub. (Ryan Reed)
July 30, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 33
FOOD
Sips and Shot s
Slinging the Slow Mary Getting schooled on the Bloody Mary, courtesy Slow Food Tennessee Valley BY ROSE KENNEDY
L
earning is fun! That was our first lesson at the recent local, seasonal ingredient Bloody Mary workshop for Slow Food Tennessee Valley, the outfit dedicated to “good, clean, and fair food for all.” About 20 of us were tucked into tables abutting the bar at Sapphire downtown, gazing at string lights twinkling across the bar and sampling bruschetta and locally-sourced sausage balls from the Slow Food volunteers. At 20 minutes into the presentation, we were sipping savory, light, garden-burst cups of cilantro Maestro Dobel Tequila Bloody Marys, rimmed with Old Bay seasoning on one side, celery salt on the other. That alone would have been worth the ticket price, really, but then Jessica King assumed control. She has 14 or so years in the business and is former food and beverage director and bar manager for downtown’s posh The Oliver Hotel and Peter Kern Library. She is glamorous—pompadour, dramatically outlined eyes,
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY July 30, 2015
kimono over lacy tank top. But that’s merely the complement to her bursts of sheer glee, whether she’s describing the fun of smacking around celery leaves before turning them into salt, or joking about how the history of Bloody Marys is indecisive because “people who drank for a living did not keep good records.” And she clearly intended us to learn something about making Bloody Marys, and so I took notes on a brown paper lunch bag while gripping an ancho chile- and sweet-pepper-infused Tito’s Vodka Bloody Mary in my other hand, followed by a basil-infused gin version. The alcohol is almost always highly distilled and high proof, she says, but your choices are not limited. Perfectly wonderful Bloody Marys are made with tequila, gin, rum, even bourbon. “The tomato base, a spirit— that makes a Bloody Mary. Everything else is open to interpretation,” she says. The spice mix is also a fluid concept—people use fish sauce, cream (think bisque), and sesame oil, with
success. “Just keep it savory.” As for garnishes—have fun! Just make sure they are savory, she says, like the blue-cheese stuffed olives or home-pickled dilly beans the class got to sample. Bacon, sure. Celery? “Ah, in a pinch,” she says, with an expression that clearly reads, “don’t you have something else you’ve been dying to try?” The bulk of the lesson, though, involved learning the step-by-step for local tomato juice that’s been the basis for all these swell sips we’d been having. I christened them Slow Marys, and even though I may never go through every single step in making them, it’s nice to know this process: Pick—tomatoes, probably not beefsteak, ideally Roma to arrive at the essential sweet-with-citrus-and-a-lot-ofheat end product she prefers. She uses 80 percent small, very red Rutgers tomatoes and 20 percent big sweet Abrahams from her mother Kathleen’s Frog Holler garden in Norris, Tenn. Clean—remove anything you don’t want in the juice, like stems, tip
and tail of the tomato, and bruises. Bugs, too. And peel? “No!” she thunders, “I don’t understand why people peel! The peel has so much flavor and vitamins.” Stew—Adding just a bit of water, maybe four cups for a 2-gallon pot, stew the tomatoes over medium-high heat until they are broken down and mostly mush. Maybe an hour and a half. Strain—use a mesh strainer over a metal colander over the top of a pot to strain out the seeds, as well as the skin and remaining big chunks. Save both! The liquid stays where it is, and the strained matter goes into the blender, preferably a nice juicer, to create a smooth puree. Let everything cool down, then reunite the tomato broth and the pureed mix, adding salt and lemon juice to taste. Preserve—the fresh tomato juice can be canned in a boiling water bath per manufacturer’s instructions, or frozen, or just stored in the fridge until you need it. At the end of the class, King noted that the Bloody Mary is a drink you could give a little too much advice on. Sure, she doesn’t like over-salting, and she wrinkles her nose at the thought that some people add molasses to their mix. But she’s tinkered a lot with this recipe and encouraged the same from us class members. “It has a lot to do with interpretation,” she says. “What tastes good to me. That’s what makes me happy.” ◆
SLOW MARY SPICE MIX For a batch of Bloody Marys, King recommends your tomato juice choice mixed 2-to-1 with this spice mixture, with spirits added to taste. She prefers a 3-to-1 or 4-to-1 ratio of mix to spirits, but it’s up to you. 10 oz 8 oz. 3 oz. 3 oz. 2 oz. 1 oz.
fresh lemon juice Worcestershire sauce Sriracha olive brine aromatic bitter prepared horseradish, the variety without added cream 2 oz. aromatic bitters, preferably Angostura but definitely a savory variety 2 oz. black or white pepper, or a combination of the two 2 oz. sea salt
July 30, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 35
’BYE
Sacred & P rofane
Street Views A long, hot walk in search of a story BY DONNA JOHNSON
I
am looking for a story, with not much luck. It is Sunday afternoon and I have a deadline for this newspaper on Monday morning. Though I am aware that stories cannot be sought—rather, they seek the writer out—I am desperate and continue my search, walking with my husband, Karl, down Emory Place. I stop to show him a regal shop called Bangs and Blush owned by my friends Jamie and Christian. (It’s a hair and makeup agency that specializes in on-location services.) The store itself has high ceilings and beautiful French furniture—and were it not for the fact that I know the owners, a place I would be too intimidated by its elegance to walk into. Two nights ago I had stopped by around 10 p.m. to pick something up and I asked Jamie, the wife of the duo, if she was not afraid to come here alone at night. For despite the chic grandeur and simplicity of the block, its impeccable neatness and beauty, it is daunting in its isolation during the evenings. “I don’t even think about it,” she said, brave, hard-working girl that she is. The next day we read in the paper that a brutal beating took place shortly after we left. Appearances can be deceiving. Now, at 1 in the afternoon, the heat is already scorching my skin and my clothes are getting wet with perspiration, but I soldier on. An attractive couple in a blue Chevrolet sedan slow down and the woman calls out, “Are you hungry or thirsty?” “Well, in fact, I am both,” I reply, though it hadn’t occurred to me before. She hands me two bottles of cold water and two boxes of sesame crackers on which a note has been placed: “Jesus Loves You! Ask Jesus to come into your heart!” I am deeply touched by this, remembering my
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY July 30, 2015
high-school days when I would go out on missions for Jesus, such as approaching strangers and asking them if they were saved. After which I would give them a pamphlet by Billy Graham telling them how to become saved. I was deeply embarrassed by doing this but did it anyway because if I didn’t I might go straight to hell and burn in flames forever. Still, I am touched to the core by this couple’s kindness and their non-intrusive way of spreading the love of Jesus. We walk on, sipping the water gratefully, toward the library. The difference between the temperature in the shade and under direct sun is amazing, and spying a shady place underneath an elm tree I flop down. “Let’s rest,” I tell Karl, and he sits beside me and lights two cigarettes. Rows and rows of lavender have been planted alongside the sidewalk. I bury my face in it and close my eyes and am transported into another land: a place of blue coolness where there is no summer and no heat. I jump up after a few seconds and begin walking rapidly, as if I have an urgent appointment to get to. “Hurry up,” I tell my husband, and he laughs, knowing I am unable to be still anywhere for very long. When we get to the library, two girls of about 10 are hanging off the railing, as carefree as only a 10-year-old can be. One of them asks me what I do. “I’m a world-famous writer,” I tell them, jokingly. “Really?” they ask in unison, eyes large. “No, not really,” I say, a bit ashamed of myself. Undaunted, they ask for my autograph, which I write in their school notebooks. “To my good friends Stephanie and Nicole,” I write, and they skip gleefully down the sidewalk hand in hand. I remember being 10, when
your best friend was the most important thing in your life. After checking out movies in the library, we stop by Preservation Pub for a beer. A pretty girl with braids I have chatted with a few times before about absolutely nothing—something like this story—tells me she has a job working with elephants. “I’ve always felt connected to you but I was afraid to talk to you because you might want to write about me,” she says. “Really?” I ask, becoming less interested in the woman by the minute. Just for the hell of it I ask, “Can I have your autograph?” “Of course!” she replies, and signs her name in my notebook as if this is the most natural thing in the world to her. Then she asks if we might exchange telephone numbers. “Let’s have lunch sometime!”
BY IAN BLACKBURN AND JACK NEELY
“Sure,” I say indifferently. I actually do call her, deciding that someone who works with elephants can’t be all bad. Not surprisingly, she doesn’t call me back, and I wait until I see her next in Market Square and we hug and faun over each other as if we actually like one another. After going in and out of a few stores, which is torturous for me, we wander toward Fourth and Gill and home. Dusk is falling over the tall sunflowers and makeshift garden planted by the patients of Helen Ross McNabb, across from Friendship House, and the cicadas are beginning their nightly raucous melody. There is a vague crispness in the air and a feeling of something coming to a close and something else beginning. I take my husband’s hand and we look up at the new moon, just happy to be together and alive. ◆
o G t e a v ' F e u l W l -Time Re por t er ! , y e H
Thanks to our League of Supporters, our new staff writer Clay Duda is officially on the job. Clay joins us from The Record Searchlight in Redding, Calif.; before that, he was with Creative Loafing in Atlanta, as well as the Center for Sustainable Journalism. At the Knoxville Mercury, he will focus on hard news and social issues. Join us in welcoming him to Knoxville!
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July 30, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 37
’BYE
Spir it of the Staircase
BY MATTHEW FOLTZ-GRAY
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY July 30, 2015
Now’s your chance to tell us what you really think–in person!
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MISCELLANEOUS APPAREL WOMEN’S CLOTHING. 15% off 1 item with ad, new management, new merchandise, Fox Trott Fashions at 4560 Chapman Hwy, 865-806-3352 APPLIANCES
KNOXVILLE’S LARGEST USED APPLIANCE DEALER! We have Washers, Dryers, Refrigerators, Stoves, Dishwashers +More! Top Quality, Name Brands! HUNLEY TURNER 865-689-6508 www. HunleyTurner.com EMPLOYMENT NOW HIRING experienced line cooks, competitive pay and advancement opportunities, Apply in person Mon-Fri 2-4, Sullivan’s Downtown Maryville, 121 W Broadway, Maryville TN, 37804
MEETUPS
Join us at our Monthly Mercury Meetup.
Wed., August 20, 5 p.m. - 8 p.m. at
Little River Trading Company 2408 E. Lamar Alexander Pkwy Maryville, TN 37804
MISCELLANEOUS HEALTH INSURANCE Short-Term, 1 month to 12 months, Missed Open Enrollment? Newly Hired? Retired from Military? Next Day Coverage! Network Discounts! Dr. Co-Pays. 865-394-0916, CMD1939@gmail. com PETS RARE AND Unique Curly SELKIRK REX, Grand champion sired kittens and some retired show adults, neutered/spayed. $200-$600, 865-556-2904 www.highlandkatz.biz
SERVICE AIR & ELECTRIC KOONTZ ELECTRIC, AND HVAC-R *Sales *Service *Repairs. Licensed, Bonded, Insured. All major credit cards accepted. Financing Available. 865-661-7168 ATTORNEY
This is a great opportunity for the business owners and residents of Knoxville to stop by and tell us what’s on your mind! We hope to see you there.
CONSTRUCTION AFFORDABLE DEMOLITION & CONSTRUCTION. *Bobcat Work *Hardwood Flooring *Tile *Laminate *Carpet *Decks *Siding *Windows *Doors *Drywall *Painting *Remodeling *Roofing *Demolition *Concrete Removal *ALL TYPES REPAIRS!! Over 40 Years Experience!! Free Estimates, Licensed/Insured, Commercial/Residential, 865-973-6757 FENCING BROWN’S CUSTOM Fencing & Construction. All Types fencing, wood, vinyl, wire, Licensed & Insured, 800-249-6274
MOTORCADE BOATS 2000 TRITON, 21', fully equipped, depth-finder, fish-finder, GPS, tandem trailer, 225 Mercury, 1 owner, exc cond, garage kept, $17,000, 865-966-2527 CARS
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2003 FORD Mustang GT, V8 5spd, all pwr, CD, cold AC, well maintained, $5,000. 865-776-0925
REAL ESTATE FOR SALE 2015 SUBARU OUTBACK 2.5I, Lease for $259 per month. for more details call 888-627-3441.W.A.C.*
HISTORIC PARK Place Condo, 1 BR/1BA, open plan, light, fireplace, built-ins, appliances including W/D, pool/ tennis/ basketball, 1.5mi to Downtown, $86,900. 865-806-0007, Jean Campbell
1999 OLDS Cutlass, power windows, sunroof, new tires, good condition, call for additional details, $3,500. 865-640-4996
2015 SUBARU LEGACY 2.5I, Lease for $209 per month. call 888-627-3441. W.A.C.* SUVS GREAT WEST LOCATION, 6506 Westminster Road, $749,000. Private 1.17 acre lot, 4BR, bonus/ rec room, 4.5BA, MASTER MAIN LEVEL, 865-694-8100. www. leanna farrington.com /916423
AGREED DIVORCE. From $250 Plus Court Cost, Payment Plan Available, $100 1st Payment, Papers Prepared Same Day! Melodye Jester, Attorney, Now at 865-951-0887 (mention this ad for this low price)
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COUNTRY GETAWAY, Privately Owned 70 acres, NE Tennessee Mountains, Great Weekend/ Week-long stay, $200/week, Weekends(Fri-Sun) $80! Call for reservations, 423-733-9252
2015 SUBARU FORESTER 2.5I, Lease for $229 per month. call 888-627-3441. W.A.C.*
2015 SUBARU XV CROSSTREK 2.0I, Lease for $239 per month. Offer expires August 3rd 2015. for more details call 888-627-3441 W.A.C.* RVS 1996 PACE Arrow Vision Motorhome. 35ft Class A, 42,000 miles, $15,000. 423-346-5230
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY March 19, 2015
July 30, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 39
ON SALE FRIDAY, 7/31 AT 10AM! ND THIS WEEKE !
GONE WITH THE WIND
JULY 31 • 7PM, AUGUST 1 • 7PM AND AUGUST 2 • 2PM
1964
“THE TRIBUTE” SATURDAY, AUGUST 8 • 8PM
GARRISON KEILLOR’S A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION W/SARAH JAROSZ, FRED NEWMAN, AND RICHARD DWORSKY THURSDAY, AUGUST 13 • 8PM
STARK LOVE WITH LOST MASTERPIECE DOCUMENTARY SATURDAY, AUGUST 15 • 7PM
RY COODER, SHARON WHITE & RICKY SKAGGS SATURDAY, AUGUST 22 • 8PM
www.TennesseeTheatre.com
Tickets available at the Tennessee Theatre box office, Ticketmaster.com and by phone at 800-745-3000.