Vol. 2, Issue 7 - Feb. 18, 2016

FEB. 18, 2016 KNOXMERCURY.COM

STARTING SMALL, THINKING BIG V.

2 / N.7

How a little-known program at UT spreads peace and empowers women around the world—through sports

by S. Heather Duncan

JACK NEELY

Not an Ounce Wasted: A Tale of Two Thrifty Gunfighters

THEATER

Clarence Brown’s Kinder, Gentler Version of ‘Titus Andronicus’

INSIDE THE VAULT

The Tragedy That Haunted “Little Robert” Van Winkle’s Career

KNOXTACULAR

Initial Lineup Announcement: Bands! Poets! Hosts!

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BRE NT THO EVE MP NM SON TO B ORE EA N

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ALL PROCEEDS BENEFIT:

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 18, 2016

Live from the Bijou Theatre Saturday, March 5 • 1 p.m. - 8 p.m. $10 suggested donation Broadcast live on WDVX.com/89.9 FM

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CONTENTS

Feb. 18, 2016 Volume 02 / Issue 07 knoxmercury.com

“ Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures.” —John F. Kennedy

12 G ame Changers

COVER STORY

UT’s Center for Sport, Peace and Society has a rather big mission. It was founded four years ago by Sarah Hillyer and Ashleigh Huffman, two down-to-earth former basketball players driven by their passion to use sports to empower women and, well, change the world. They’ve been successful. Each year, the Global Sports Mentoring Program brings 17 women with leadership potential from around the world to the U.S. They work on a concrete plan to tackle one of the challenges faced by women or children in their home country. The women return to their communities so empowered that they create a ripple effect, improving the lives of thousands of women and children around the globe. And it all starts here in Knoxville, as S. Heather Duncan reports.

Join Our League of Supporters! Great cover story this week! Find out how you can help us produce more of them at knoxmercury.com/join.

DEPARTMENTS

OPINION

A&E

4 Letters to the Editor 6 Howdy

8 Scruffy Citizen

18 Program Notes: Hey, everybody,

Start Here: Roadside Sketches

by Andrew Gresham, By the Numbers, Public Affairs, Quote Factory

36 ’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

Jack Neely tells the story of a Knoxville Valentine’s Day shootout, if not a massacre.

10 Small Planet

Patrice Cole heralds the return of sturgeon to the Tennessee River system.

CALENDAR let’s put on a show! Here’s the Knoxtacular lineup so far.

19 Inside the Vault: Eric Dawson

24 Spotlights: Voivod and Vektor, and the Evelyn Miller Young Pianist Series: Josh Wright

delivers part two of his account of “Little Robert” Van Winkle’s career.

20 Theater: Alan Sherrod smells blood at Clarence Brown’s Titus Andronicus.

21 Home Video: Lee Gardner

poo-poos the Hollywood remake of French shocker Martyrs.

22 Movies: April Snellings

rediscovers the joys of vulgarity at Deadpool.

ON THE COVER: A girl juggles a ball at a soccer clinic for Syrian refugees in Jordan, arranged by a local woman trained through a State Department program run by UT’s Center for Sports, Peace and Society.

Cover and contents-page photos by Allison Davis for the U.S. Dept. of State in cooperation with the UT Center for Sport, Peace, & Society.

February 18, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 3

LETTERS Delivering Fine Journalism Since 2015

C’MON JOE, PART 1

An open letter to the University of Tennessee President, Joe DiPietro:

We are writing to you as the Executive Committee of the UTK Chapter of the American Association of University Professors to express our profound dismay at the possibility that staff positions at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, may soon be outsourced.

This proposal appears to be the product of back-room dealings designed to enrich certain individuals and out-ofstate companies at the cost of lost jobs and reduced services on our campus; it most certainly goes against the ideals of transparency and shared governance that faculty at UTK hold dear.

We are specifically requesting that you do not let legislative pressure on other university-related matters— namely the specter of tuition freezes and the threat to defund diversity programming—affect your decision on outsourcing. Legislative interference in what faculty may or may not say concerning diversity is a very serious threat to our university’s mission—not to mention that this and similar legislation may result in our loss of accreditation, thus greatly reducing the value of our students’ degrees. But there is a higher principle at stake here, and we are not going to allow ourselves to be manipulated into thinking that we must sacrifice the staff at UTK to save our institution. We also ask that the administration listen carefully to the LGBTQ+ students on our campus, rather than downplaying their legitimate safety concerns in the name of placating the legislature.

Needless to say, the unceremonious removal of the gender-neutral pronoun post on the Office for Diversity and Inclusion website did not help matters; we have reposted this effort to instruct all of us as to how to be more inclusive on our chapter’s website: web.utk.edu/~aauputk/.

In short, we are asking you—as a faculty member yourself—to choose the right path for all of us. The solution to the stream of ideologically-driven legislation we are currently facing is to continue to stand up for the values embodied by the UTK faculty, students, and staff. As 4

KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 18, 2016

Benjamin Franklin aptly put it: We must hang together, or we shall assuredly hang separately.

Sincerely, The UTK Chapter of the AAUP Mary McAlpin, President Lynn Sacco, Vice President Millie Gimmel, Secretary Richard Strange, Treasurer Laura Howes, Member at Large Ben Lee, Member at Large Nora Berenstain, Member at Large

C’MON JOE, PART 2

Joe Sullivan’s Perspectives column about the Lady Vols [“What’s gone wrong with the Lady Vols?” Jan. 28, 2016] ended by saying “The Lady Vols have lost their luster.”

Joe, I maintain that there has become such an atmosphere of hostility towards women at UT, starting and ending with Dave Hart, that UT couldn’t recruit a case of hives!

As you know, Hart blamed the murder of the logo on Nike, which proclaimed innocence. Then no one was responsible, but “everyone” (Hart, Cheek, DiPietro) became deaf and blind to petitions, letters, phone calls, emails, TV spots, newspaper columns, and pleas from former Lady Vols and the public at large.

Then guess what, Joe, the university—currently paying MALE coaches not to coach—started paying for Hart’s sex discrimination suits.

Looks like Hart will have his way: the death of women’s sports!

Don’t fall into the trap. Hart(less) has found a way to beat Title IX. Ruin a world-wide recognized brand (a term he professed to love), and anger thousands of people and a state House subcommittee.

I don’t know what women would want to play, run, swim, golf, or study here with the administration UT has.

Help us out, Joe—help us fix the identified underlying problem!

Karen Joan Carter Hasenauer Knoxville

AMERICA’S BLOWHARD

As I watched Donald Trump’s victory speech after his win in the New Hampshire primary, I realized just what I was seeing. I saw for the first time the sum total of what we as a nation had become. This man is our face. In his face I saw all the greed, intolerance, racism, hatred, everything that is ugly all at once. I was looking at a mirror and I was disgusted by what I saw. I watched as thousands of people cheered him on, all wanting to be his friend, all wanting to be at his side as he wiped away any of sense of pride, as he boasted on how everyone loved him.

Every sentence beginning and ending with his god-like stature, and they cheered louder.

We knew him, we had welcomed him into our homes, watching by the millions on television shows scripted, written, and produced by him. We watched him verbally abuse and embarrass the people on these shows; we loved hearing him say “You’re fired!”—it made us like him, powerful and almighty.

This man, this monster we created, is now the face of America and we are to blame, all of us.

We stood by while he built his army of the damned and we did nothing.

We stood by while the repressive Republican Tea Party took control of our government; we did nothing.

I do not like what I am seeing, I feel as though I am alone. I feel as though I am screaming voiceless into a crowd. I feel as though no one really cares.

Prove me wrong, oh please prove me wrong, show me I am not alone, show me your faces.

I do not want to be alone.

R. T. Whitfield Oak Ridge

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 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 Chris Wohlwend

INTERNS

Hannah Hunnicutt Kevin Ridder

DESIGN ART DIRECTOR Tricia Bateman tricia@knoxmercury.com GRAPHIC DESIGNERS

Charlie Finch Corey McPherson CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

David Luttrell Shawn Poynter Justin Fee Tyler Oxendine CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATORS

Ben Adams Matthew Foltz-Gray

ADVERTISING PUBLISHER & DIRECTOR OF SALES Charlie Vogel charlie@knoxmercury.com SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Scott Hamstead scott@knoxmercury.com Stacey Pastor stacey@knoxmercury.com

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BOARD OF DIRECTORS Terry Hummel Joe Sullivan Jack Neely Coury Turczyn Charlie Vogel 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. © 2016 The Knoxville Mercury

Beauford Delaney Beauford Delaney (1901-1979) is the best-known artist who ever lived in Knoxville.

This month, he is the subject of a big show in a well-known gallery in Paris.

He was born in a small wooden house on East Vine Street. The Delaney home was near where the Weigel’s on Summit Hill Drive is now. His father was a barber, who cut hair in the family home, and also a Methodist preacher.

America’s greatest black abstract expressionists.

Meanwhile, his younger brother Joseph (1904 -1991) has also become a successful painter. In 1938, a newspaper article had predicted that the Delaney home in East Knoxville would one day be hailed as a historic site, the birthplace and childhood home of two famous artists. Their brother Samuel, who was a barber, lived there for many years. However, it was torn down with all the other houses in the neighborhood in the 1960s, during urban renewal.

Beauford grew up going to black public schools, the Green School and Austin High, the forerunner to Austin-East, which was on Central Street, downtown. He always loved to draw, even in school, and one of his early works was a portrait of Charles Cansler, who was then the principal of Austin High.

Delaney last visited his hometown of Knoxville in the winter 1969-70. Later, his brother Joseph moved back to Knoxville to work as an artist in residence at the University of Tennessee. Very different in style from his older brother, Joseph Delaney was known for his scenes of parades and street life, especially in New York.

As a teenager, he found work as a sign painter. He impressed the elderly Lloyd Branson, Knoxville’s most successful artist of the time. Branson had a studio on Gay Street about where the Tennessee Theatre lobby is today. Branson offered to give him lessons in painting if Beauford would help him mix paints and help out in the studio.

Branson’s long career in art is currently the subject of a show at the Museum of East Tennessee History.

Delaney did very well, and in 1924, when Beauford was a young man, his friends, including Lloyd Branson and another painter named Hugh Tyler (uncle of the writer James Agee) helped pay his way to study art in a school in Boston.

Beauford Delaney died in Paris in 1979. A Paris-based group called Les Amis de Beauford Delaney attend to his gravesite and his legacy.

Artist Beauford Delaney in 1953, the year he moved to Paris. Delaney spent his first 23 years in Knoxville, and began his career as a painter here. Today he has an international reputation as a modern artist.

Photo public domain image courtesy of the Carl Van Vechten estate.

At the end of the period known as the Harlem Renaissance, Delaney became known for his portraits of several major figures, including W.E.B. DuBois, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and W.C. Handy. He became close friends with writers Henry Miller and James Baldwin.

In 1930, when Delaney was still in his 20s, he put on a big show at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

He returned to Knoxville for a visit in 1950. Three years later, he moved to Paris. There he became more interested in abstract expressionism. It was, as his friend James Baldwin wrote, “a metamorphosis into freedom.” Delaney’s exuberant oils with vibrant colors have earned him a reputation as one of

A revival of interest in his work began in the 1990s, when scholar David Leeming published a biography of Delaney called Amazing Grace: A Life of Beauford Delaney (1998).

His work has been shown in private galleries in Paris, and his paintings sometimes sell in the six figures. The new show of 40 Delaney works from his Paris years is at Reid Hall, a gallery on the Boulevard de Montparnasse associated with Columbia University in New York. Earlier this month, 11 Knoxvillians associated with the Knoxville Museum of Art were among the 300 who attended the preview, which is called a vernissage.

The KMA in Knoxville has several Delaney paintings on exhibit in its Higher Ground exhibit, including his 1964 abstract, “Scattered Light.”

Wednesday, Feb. 24 at noon, at the East Tennessee History Center, KMA curator Stephen Wicks, who attended the Paris opening, will give a “Brown Bag” presentation about Delaney’s remarkable career.

Source: The Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection, Knoxville Museum of Art

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 February 18, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 5

Photo by Clay Duda

HOWDY

BY THE NUMBERS

KAT’s Quantities

213,569

Miles traveled by Knoxville Area Transit buses and trolleys in December 2015, an average of 1.1 passengers for each mile traveled and 15 passengers per hour.

233,926

Rides by bus and trolley in December, a ridership down 1.2 percent compared with December 2014.

Roadside Sketches by Andrew Gresham (agreshamphoto.com)

QUOTE FACTORY “ It can be used to disable vehicles without killing the occupants of that vehicle.”

—Sen. Richard Briggs, R-Knoxville, praising the Barrett Model M82/M107 sniper rifle in a Humphrey on the Hill blog post.

Last week, the state Senate unanimously approved a resolution to name it Tennessee’s “official state rifle.” Briggs, an Army veteran who had seen the M82 in action, attested to its multi functionality.

PUBLIC AFFAIRS

2/18 SCREENING: ‘BLACK PANTHERS’ THURSDAY

7:30 p.m., Indigenous Vibes Studios (748 N 4th Ave.).

Free.

East Tennessee PBS and Black Lives Matter Knoxville present an advance screening of this Independent Lens documentary, Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution. It takes a look at the controversial activist group of the 1960s and ’70s from all different perspectives, from the police to supporters.

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 18, 2016

2,864,016 #11

Rides on buses and trolleys in all of 2015.

KAT’s most popular bus route, which runs mostly along Kingston Pike between downtown and Walker Springs Road near West Town Mall. 32,677 trips were recorded in December. 210,509 rides were taken along that route in the last six months of 2015.

$16 million

The cost to operate KAT for the last fiscal year, from July 2014 through June 2015, after factoring in $2.4 million collected in fares and revenue.

—Clay Duda Source: Knoxville Area Transit

2/20 TEDXUTK 2016

SATURDAY

10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., Frank H. McClung Museum (1327 Circle Park Dr., UT). Sold out!

UT’s TEDx has assembled a fascinating array of speakers for two sessions of discussions, with subject areas ranging from architecture and archeology to drug policy reform and soil science. It’s so fascinating, in fact, that both sessions are sold out. But you can still tune in for a live broadcast: tedxutk.com.

2/23 STAND UP FOR PEACE TUESDAY

7-9 p.m., Arnstein Jewish Community Center (6800 Deane Hill Dr.). $4-$7.

Humor is universal. Jewish and Muslim comedians Scott Blakeman and Dean Obeidallah will be presenting an evening of tolerance, peace, and laughs. Proceeds will benefit Family Promise of Knoxville, a nonprofit organization that unites with the interfaith community to provide non-emergency housing to families with children who have lost their homes.

2/24 MEETING: FORT DICKERSON IMPROVEMENTS WEDNESDAY

5:30 p.m., Flenniken Landing (115 Flenniken Ave.). Free.

So after the city completed its $1.4 million project to realign Fort Dickerson Park’s entrance and add a stop light, you may have asked yourself, “Why’d they leave that giant wall of gray concrete so bare?” Not to worry, that new 30-foot retaining wall is getting a decorative veneer, along with other improvements to the entrance.

Find out more at this meeting hosted by Mayor Rogero.

February 18, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 7

SCRUFFY CITIZEN

Not an Ounce Wasted A tale of two thrifty gunfighters

BY JACK NEELY

Y

ou can’t be too careful. In Knoxville of 1908, you needed to defend yourself and your property. That was the thinking of Monroe M. Stallings, who ran a double-front general store on North Central in Oakwood, the relatively new residential area on the north side of town. You could get to Oakwood on the streetcar.

You could even walk there. But it was still outside city limits and didn’t have the amenities of a city, like sewers.

For an unincorporated community, a neighborhood general store was a necessity. Stallings’ place was divided into two: a grocery store and a drug store. It was a quiet place most of the time. But that February Stallings had found evidence that someone had tried to break in.

Knoxville’s saloon ban had gone into effect just three months earlier.

People on both sides of the prohibition issue argued about how effective it was proving to be, but there was no question that things had gotten quieter in downtown Knoxville. Now people were doing most of their drinking at home, in the new suburbs, and a lot of their shooting, too.

Will Hatfield was originally from Campbell County, a former soldier in the Spanish-American War. He was a disappointed veteran of 35 who lived in an alley near the hospital, just north of Old Gray. He hung around with several younger friends who admired him, teenage boys up for a

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profitable adventure. One was Emmett Pitillo, a carpenter’s son who lived on Bernard Street. Another was Hubert “Ross” Brown, who lived with his widowed mother in Oakwood.

To poor kids who grew up hearing tales of Kid Curry, the life of crime was a glamorous draw—even though government did what it could to make it less appealing. John McPherson was in the Knox County jail awaiting his hanging for the murder of a sheriff’s deputy a couple of years previously, after getting in trouble earlier in the evening on the Florida Street red-light district. Sunny-side reformers were congratulating themselves on the fact that modern hangings employed humane measures, like binding arms and legs before the drop, believed to reduce suffering—and that hangings weren’t the gross public spectacles they used to be.

Old-timers remembered the hanging of John Webb 33 years earlier, which drew 12,000 witnesses to the site, on the edge of the city along Asylum Avenue. The carnival spectacle of the hanging was appalling even to some of the people who had gone to see a hanging.

But now it was the 20th century, and Knoxville was much more civilized. McPherson was going to be hanged inside the jail, invitation only.

None of it seemed to have much effect on a bored young man’s passion for crime. That Friday night, Hatfield let his young friends know he’d figured

out how to get into Stallings’ store.

Stallings apparently didn’t have much to distract him that Valentine’s Day evening. He enlisted a couple of armed clerks, including a driver named Walden who had a double-barreled shotgun, to help him lay the trap.

Three armed guys loaded for burglars, they hid in the dark store that Friday night, and waited.

At 9:40 p.m., there came a scratching sound at the back door, then the sound of a latch springing.

Hatfield had used a long piece of wood to do the trick. He and Pitillo and Brown were silhouettes moving through the store toward the cash register in the drugstore room. When they reached it, Hatfield opened the cash drawer. Just as he did, Stallings threw on the lights and began firing.

One thing Hatfield and Stallings had in common was a taste in pistols.

They both favored the .32 caliber models. They were small, easy to carry, easy to conceal.

Although Stallings had the advantage of surprise, Hatfield was quicker on the trigger, and got off one more shot than he did. Stallings fired three times, and hit Hatfield three times. Hatfield fired four times and hit Stallings four times.

“Not an ounce of lead was wasted,” went the Knoxville Journal’s laconic assessment.

That was just a little bit of an exaggeration. The pistols were remarkably economical in their effect, but Stallings’ nervous assistant, the one with the shotgun, did waste some lead.

When the shooting started, both of his barrels emptied at the ceiling. He couldn’t explain it. In the sudden excitement, the thing just went off.

Both the men who were shooting

pistols at each other fell to the floor.

The two unarmed teenage henchmen and the driver with the bad aim were unhurt.

The thwarted burglar was bleeding out of one fewer hole than the shopkeeper was, but of the two, the burglar was the one more badly hurt. Stallings’ best-aimed bullet had entered Hatfield’s chest near the nipple and gone all the way through his body, exiting below the shoulder blade. But it had missed his heart. He lay on the floor, saying nothing except that he was freezing.

Stallings was badly hurt, too. His worst wound was in his abdomen. A bullet had struck his pocket watch and ricocheted into his intestines. But he could talk, and move around a little bit.

Stallings’ armed assistants subdued the teenagers. One of the captive adventurers, Ross Brown, asked whether—considering he was there anyway—he could buy a nickel’s worth of chewing tobacco.

Although badly wounded in the abdomen, Stallings said that he would be fine, and took Brown’s nickel in exchange for a plug.

The store’s defenders called the sheriff’s office. Knoxville had a police force, but it didn’t operate outside of city limits into Oakwood. Deputies G.W. Suffridge, Abe Leek, and Os Gaines were there in no time. After a quick investigation they nabbed a couple more henchmen, teenagers who had been posted outside as lookouts.

Both shooters were painfully wounded, and both believed to be serious cases, at first. But as days went on, their conditions improved. The difference was that Stallings recovered at Knoxville General. Hatfield recovered in the Knox County Jail. ◆

Hatfield opened the cash drawer.

Just as he did, Stallings threw on the lights and began firing.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: Muse

No American president is as easily identifiable as Abraham Lincoln nor carries the cultural impact as the man known as “Honest Abe.” Artists such as Louis Banhajo, Harry Wood and Lloyd Ostendorf made careers using Lincoln as a muse for their art. Wood, in particular, was one of the foremost observers of Abraham Lincoln’s face and physical characteristics, translating those observations into unique art known world-wide.

Born in 1910 in Indianapolis, Indiana, Harry Wood demonstrated at an early age his wide-ranging interests and creativity. In 1932, while majoring in journalism and art in college, he worked as a cartoonist for the Wisconsin Daily Cardinal. Wood redefined the meaning of ‘renaissance man’, becoming proficient in painting, sculpting, writing, lecturing, play-writing and poetry.

In 1970, Wood published his best-known work, “The Faces of Abraham Lincoln”, a collection of Wood’s paintings, sculptures, drawings and photomontages of Lincoln created during the previous 40 years.

When Wood died in 1995, his family contacted the Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum, wishing to donate several of his major paintings and collages. The Museum also collected and preserved his personal files. These files offer a unique perspective into the mind of Wood, illuminating his creative process, wide-ranging intellect and witty sense of humor.

Home to treasures like this Harry Wood painting “Everyman His Own Lincoln,” the Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum is located on the historic campus of Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tennessee. It houses one of the top five Lincoln and Civil War private collections in the world.

Free Admission Fridays and Saturdays in February.

Museum.LMUnet.edu

February 18, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 9

SMALL PLANET

Big Fish Sturgeon makes a decades-long comeback in the Tennessee River system

BY PATRICE COLE

T

hey’re big, they’re ancient, they’re tasty, and they’re coming back after decades of extinction in this part of the world. Lake sturgeon, known in Latin as Acipenser fulvescens, is called a “living fossil” because it has changed little since swimming with the dinosaurs 140 million years ago, making it the most primitive bony fish alive today. The last time one was caught commercially from the Tennessee River was in 1961. Now it’s entirely possible to hook one from the river right here in Knoxville.

Tennessee is nearly the southern edge of the sturgeon’s native range that includes large parts of Canada and the Midwest. These fish get huge compared to other freshwater species, reaching a length of up to 9 feet and weighing as much as 275 pounds.

They can also live longer than any other North American freshwater fish, up to 150 years. But they don’t start reproducing until the age of 15 to 20 years, and that makes them vulnerable as a species. Another vulnerability is that they taste good, and their eggs are prized caviar, so it’s no surprise that over-fishing led to their decline.

Dam construction and water pollution helped finish them off in this region.

Water-quality improvements resulted from the Clean Water Act, and TVA efforts to improve reservoir habitat and re-establish sturgeon in the

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 18, 2016

Tennessee River system began over 15 years ago. If fish could talk, our sturgeon might have Yankee accents, having come from the Great Lakes via the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Eggs and sperm are collected in April from live, spawning fish, and the fertilized eggs are shipped to several hatcheries in the Southeast.

Six months of meticulous care and feeding later, the young fish are at least 6 inches long and ready to face the realities of river life. At that size they are less likely to be eaten by other fish.

The timing of the release in autumn also gives them the advantage of lower energy needs in colder water so they can adapt to this new situation before needing to eat a lot.

The releases occur at two sites on the French Broad River and one on the Holston. TVA’s tailwaters improvement program that began with Douglas Dam improved oxygen levels and water quality in the French Broad. Both tributaries of the Tennessee River have suitable sturgeon habitat in transition zones between deep pools and shallow gravel bars.

It takes a lot of team work to make this happen. The University of Tennessee’s Institute of Agriculture, TVA, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the Tennessee Aquarium, U.S. Geological Survey, Tennessee

Technological University, Conservation Fisheries Inc., the Tennessee Clean Water Network, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and the World Wildlife Fund are among the agencies and institutions that have contributed time, money, and expertise.

Much of the work occurs long after the little fish have swum out of sight. Scientists monitoring the program’s success go fishing every now and then to see where these fish end up and how they are faring, and there’s good news. Survivors of the earliest releases have been captured, and they are spreading upstream and especially downstream, even locking through dams. Sturgeon caught below Nickajack Dam near Chattanooga had to pass through four dams and swim 250 miles from their release site.

Some sturgeon have turned the corner and gone up into the Clinch and Hiwassee Rivers.

Some monitoring is more high-tech than a trot line. A network of 29 sonic receivers tracks the movements of 57 tagged sturgeon between Knoxville and Chattanooga.

Another receiver on a tugboat makes weekly trips to detect tagged fish between those stationary receivers.

The public can play a big role in monitoring the recovery of this endangered species. If you catch one of these fish you must release it, but snap a quick photo of it first and report the place caught and size of fish to any of the participating agencies or to iCaughtOne.org.

Since 2000, more than 150,000 lake sturgeon have been released to the Tennessee River, and the oldest

survivors are nearing reproductive age. The next measure of success will be spawning activity, where males and females congregate in shallow water, and their shark-like tale fins thrash above the surface. A naturally reproducing population of lake sturgeon will be a big step toward getting it off the endangered list and maybe even achieving recreational harvest.

Early in the program some larger, older sturgeon were released with the expectation that their survival rate would be much higher compared to smaller fish. But the three to four years required to grow a 2-foot-long fish proved to be less effective than producing many more small fish in a much shorter time frame. And the little guys are surviving at a very high rate.

Still, it was an unforgettable moment arriving at Seven Islands Wildlife Refuge many years ago to see a TVA acquaintance dipping big fish out of a TWRA tank truck with a huge landing net and carrying them toward the boat launch. After getting to touch and examine a fish unlike any I’d ever seen, with shark-like skin and features (except for the almost imploring expression in its eyes), I was able to lower it into the water. It didn’t thrash or swim off right away.

In fact, these newly-wild sturgeon lingered for a long time in the shallow water at the end of the boat ramp, as if reluctant to leave their caregivers and the safety of the hatchery. ◆ Patrice Cole taught biology, ecology, environmental planning, and sustainability at the University of Tennessee and Pellissippi State Community College.

Small Planet examines local issues pertaining to environmental quality and sustainability.

If fish could talk, our sturgeon might have Yankee accents, having come from the Great Lakes via the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

“We started seeing all kinds of views and hits on our Facebook page and realized it was because we were mentioned in the Knoxville Mercury readers’ poll.”

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February 18, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 11

How a little-known program at UT spreads peace and empowers women around the world—through sports

by S. Heather Duncan

A girl juggles a ball at a soccer clinic for Syrian refugees in Jordan, arranged by a local woman trained through a State Department program run by UT’s Center for Sports, Peace and Society.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF U.S. DEPT. OF STATE IN COOPERATION WITH UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE CENTER FOR SPORT, PEACE, & SOCIETY. PHOTOGRAPHER: ALLISON DAVIS

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t’s a game, and it’s not a game.

Olga Dolinina wanted to start table-hockey programs for children who had been forced to flee constant shelling during Ukraine’s civil war.

Dolinina had been working in Donetsk when Russian-backed separatists reduced entire suburbs of the city to rubble. Those who couldn’t escape, including families with

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 18, 2016

disabled children, were reduced to hiding in the basements of factories and schools, searching for food during lulls in the gunfi re.

Although actual hockey rinks had been destroyed, Dolinina thought table hockey could provide much-needed fun while helping refugee children make new friends and to cope with post-traumatic stress.

It was an inspiring idea, but Dolinina didn’t have a realistic game plan until she came to the United States through the Global Sports Mentoring Program, a U.S. State Department initiative operated by a small office at the University of Tennessee.

UT’s Center for Sport, Peace and Society was founded four years ago by Sarah Hillyer and Ashleigh Huff man,

two down-to-earth former basketball players driven by their passion to use sports to empower women and, well, change the world.

They know it’s more than a game.

“It gives women a voice and allows them to exercise their rights and achieve things with their bodies and minds,” says Huff man.

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Ukrainian children forced to flee their country’s civil war learn to cope with post-traumatic stress through the “Break the Ice” program founded by Olga Dolinina.

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Each year, the Global Sports Mentoring Program brings 17 women with leadership potential from around the world to the U.S. They work on a concrete plan to tackle one of the challenges faced by women or children in their home country. A mentor at a major company helps each woman develop concrete ways to make these “action plans” a reality.

The women return to their communities so empowered that they create a ripple effect, improving the lives of thousands of women and children.

Within a year of finishing the program, Dolinina had founded a nonprofit to teach conflict resolution through hockey. She called her one-woman organization Break the Ice, a name that refers to helping young people communicate better as well as “breaking the ice in our hearts,” Dolinina says.

She had her own ice to melt; shortly before coming to the mentoring program, she lost her job when fighters looted and set fire to the hockey stadium where she worked. But Dolinina focused her energy on helping others recover. Break the Ice gave away hockey equipment and established table hockey programs for East Ukrainian refugee children whose homes, schools, and relatives had been destroyed by battles between the government and pro-Russian separatists.

Dolinina hopes to expand the program to reach children still living in the conflict area who have no access to normal activities. She says she’d also like to focus more on disabled refugee children, who “suffer twice.”

Dolinina says the Global Sports Mentoring Program changed her as a person and redirected her entire career path. “I was marketing for a hockey club, but I was just part of a big machine,” she says. “I learned to be strong as a leader and to take responsibility, not only to be happy, but to share that happiness and make the world better.” Now she works for the international relief organization Save the Children and says she can’t imagine her future without humanitarian work.

Dolinina isn’t alone in her success. Many of the 66 “emerging leaders” that have graduated from the program have had similar impacts. A report by the Center for the State Department shows that of the 50 women who participated in the program between 2012 and 2014, 86

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percent have implemented their action plans.

The success rate is partly because the experience doesn’t end with the five-week program. “Your action plan is a forever thing,” says Huffman. “It’s a new lens on life to understand that you are an agent that can make change.”

Majidah Nantanda helps change the social landscape of Uganda by hopping off a dusty bus in the bush, toting a big bag of balls. In one village after another she uses soccer to teach girls to avoid HIV and AIDS. Cassia Damiani has drafted a federal law that would guarantee Brazilian girls access to sports as the country prepares to host the 2016 Summer Olympics; Huffman says the bill has been through the first steps of Congressional approval, and the Brazilian president has promised to sign it if it passes. Caroline Maher, an Egyptian taekwondo champ who helps run a nonprofit dedicated to the inclusion of disabled people into mainstream society, just became, at age 29, the youngest senator ever appointed to the Egyptian parliament.

And it’s all the result of this little-known program in our own backyard that’s helping reshape the lives of hundreds—potentially thousands—of women around the world.

KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE BALL

The difficulty of women in male-dominated cultures accomplishing such things can be tough for Americans to appreciate. Participants often come to the Global Sports Mentoring Program from cultures where sports, and even organized exercise for women, are considered somewhere on a scale between unseemly and morally wrong.

Very conservative religious cultures may dictate that women’s bodies should be covered and they should not leave certain areas of their homes. Women who don’t follow the rules set by these patriarchal societies can risk being beaten, raped, or killed, in some cases by their own families. Even when families understand the benefit of sports, a girl’s physical activities may have to be so segregated that even her own father can never come cheer at her games. So women providing sports programs for girls may take great risks, or at the very least, fight uphill battles.

The mentoring program builds relationships based on challenges to which all women can relate. Huffman and Hillyer make powerful connections with the participants, who have come from 42 different countries, by sharing their own uphill battles.

Both women grew up in rural Southeastern towns, where each took the court as the only girl in leagues

dominated by boys. (Hillyer, who is from Bald Knob, Ky., remembers having to switch from baseball to softball. She was ejected from her first softball game for playing by a baseball rule, leading her to accidentally break another girl’s nose.) Both made a play for a different future through basketball scholarships.

But they found that instead of offering a bigger world, college sports was just a new kind of small, insular mindset.

“We’re told we develop values through sport,” says Hillyer. “But those aren’t necessarily good values.

What we are learning through sport is important.”

What Hillyer says she quickly learned during her two years at Virginia Tech is that college sport is not a game. And it’s not about a student’s development as a person.

It’s about numbers. Games won, games lost. Goals, assists, rebounds.

Points in the paint. GPA to stay eligible.

And weight.

“One number my coach used to control and manipulate players was game weights,” Hillyer says. She was weighed on game-day mornings, but her target weight changed every time. She was never told what it was in advance.

The perfect weight last game—three days before, maybe—was three pounds too many today. If her weight wasn’t low enough, she didn’t play.

It was a game, but the rules kept changing. (Or there were no rules. Or it was not a game.)

Of course, there was another chance to be weighed later. Hillyer says, “I was determined not to let the coach win, so I would skip classes, wear garbage bags and exercise all day.”

And throw up. (You’ve probably heard of this kind of thing happening in track or in wrestling, where athletes are grouped by weight class—but in basketball?)

Often, she’d make weight and play the game, the one that happens on the court. But no matter how many points she scored, she could never win that other game the coach was playing, the one in her head.

Hillyer developed an eating disorder. She knew the Tech basketball program was ruining her, so after two years she transferred to Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., where she continued to play. “But the demon didn’t leave me,” she says. She graduated with a degree in sports February 18, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 13

administration, bulimia, and no idea what she was going to do for a living, because she swore she was never going to play sports again.

Hillyer had learned the (destructive) power of sport.

On the rebound, she went home and took a year to heal. “I woke up one day and realized this wasn’t something basketball did to me,” says Hillyer. “It was something a person in a position of power did to me.”

Slowly, Hillyer realized she had power, too. She wanted to use it in a way that would build up, rather than tear down, women who love sports. It was 1993, and Hillyer was 21.

Sometimes when you’re rooting wildly for your team during a hotly contested match-up, there comes a moment out of time when you observe a play so pure and impossible that it transcends team or game. When you replay it in your head, it occurs in silent slow motion: nothing but the beauty of muscle and pirouette and swish.

People talk about those moments for years afterward, just as women talk about Hillyer from corporate board rooms to dusty refugee camps.

This is the moment that sets her apart: At the lowest point in her life, she had the courage to dream up a job that didn’t exist, and then live it.

She tells this story to every woman in the Global Sports Mentoring Program. And then, remarkably, many of them do the same thing: make up a job that will improve people’s lives. Then live it.

Hillyer’s “action plan” was creating her own nonprofit called Sport for Peace, which would bring female college athletes to meet and play female athletes in other countries. It would help women abroad while also giving American women a chance to escape their team bubble and the college sports head game.

Except for a brief trip to Mexico, Hillyer had never even left the United States.

“When I was in college, my world was so small,” Hillyer says. “So when I realized that I have power, and I’m not small, and the world is not small—I wanted to go big.”

She worked any job that would enable her to run Sport for Peace, too: substitute teacher, middle-school secretary, warehouse stock girl, referee, coach. A few times a year she took American female athletes to South America, Africa, or Asia.

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 18, 2016

Dima Alardah is using what she learned in the mentoring program to expand her badminton academy and developing sports programs for Syrian refugee women in Jordan.

A basketball player from Senegal taught skills to girls Madyson McDonald and Emma Emory in January, 2013 at Girls Inc. in Oak Ridge.

That’s how she met Huffman.

Huffman was a senior college basketball player at Eastern Kentucky University who went to China in 2005 on one of the Sport for Peace exchanges.

When she left on the trip, Huffman had come to hate basketball. While she was there, she remembered what she loved about it. When she came back, she knew what she wanted to do with her life. She wanted to invent the job of being assistant director of Sport for Peace.

INSTANT REPLAY

The women became a team of two.

Neither earned a salary. They paid their own expenses. All the money they raised, much of it cobbled together one trip at a time from individual donations, went directly to cover the athletes’ trips.

Huffman grew up in Poca, W. Va.,

the first in her family to attend college.

Her childhood in sports paved the way.

She remembers a transformative moment at 8 years old, when she climbed into the family car sobbing because the boys wouldn’t pass her the ball.

“My dad said to me, ‘In this life, you can’t just be as good as the boys.

You have to be better. You have to make your own action.’”

This was hard when she felt so alone. “Where I grew up, I felt like such a weirdo that I wanted an education and I didn’t want to live in a trailer next to my parents and have babies,” she says. “Then I realized the cultural opposition women in other countries have to play sports. It made me question what I can do to make a difference.”

Halfway across the globe, Dima Alardah also grew up feeling like a weirdo. She was a pro badminton player in Jordan, a country that didn’t really know what the sport was; her Olympic dream was dashed because she couldn’t find a sponsor. Her

parents pushed her to pursue a lucrative professional job, like her engineer father and sister. Alardah earned a degree in architecture but abandoned that career to establish the first badminton academy in the Middle East.

Alardah explains what it was like: “You can’t find a woman in your country with the same passion for sports as yours. And then you meet all these women [in the mentoring program] with the same passion, and you find, ‘Oh! I’m not alone in this world!’”

Alardah’s mentor was Sandy Cross, senior director of diversity and inclusion at the Professional Golfers’ Association of America. She helped Alardah develop a progression of classes for the badminton academy to keep players engaged as their skills increase. This can eventually enable her to offer coaching jobs to women she has trained.

Alardah says she also decided to develop a curriculum to teach badminton and life skills to young girls in parts of the country where conservative Muslim culture discourages them from leaving the house.

Although Alardah’s action plan focused on the academy, the mentorship program also led to a promotion that put her in a position to help even more people through her day job as a youth program officer at United Nations refugee camps. She currently works at Zaatari, the second-largest Syrian refugee camp in the world, where 80,000 displaced Syrians have lived in tents or pods in a windy desert for about four years.

“They are totally forgotten. They have nothing to do,” Alardah says.

“Imagine you lost not only your country, your home, maybe your family, but also your future. It’s hard to convince them to even learn a new skill because they have lost hope.”

Part of the power of the mentoring program is that Hillyer and Huffman keep in touch with the emerging leaders on an almost daily basis and travel abroad to track the women’s projects. In December they visited Alardah’s refugee-camp sports programs, and Huffman interviewed a few of the women. “One woman told us the only thing they look forward to is coming to the sports class,” she says. “Women say, ‘We feel strong again. We can sleep at night.’ It spoke volumes about physical activity and socialization. … It was almost their

salvation, whether you’re talking about literal death or the death of hope.”

Alardah says she has to teach the women that being physically active doesn’t make them less feminine.

They play soccer behind a chain-link fence covered in fabric so no men can watch. The women had been asking for a separate entrance to the activity center where their classes are held. But after Hillyer and Huffman conducted a soccer clinic at the camp, the women told Alardah they wanted to make a different change: exercising at the beginning of their vocational classes, even if men were present.

“For me, that was, ‘Wow. That confidence: That’s the power of sports,’” Alardah says.

Alardah, who has participated in other international exchange programs, says, “The difference between the doctors [Hillyer and Huffman] and others is the relationship they are building with us. And they are successful because they work very hard on themselves.” She added that during their recent visit, “It was an epic moment for me when my parents met the doctors, because the doctors are such role models. … When they came here to Jordan, it was a dream come true for me.”

KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE BALL

Working for Sport for Peace was a dream come true for Huffman, but it didn’t pay any bills. After a mentor suggested graduate school (which Huffman had never heard of), she ended up in UT’s sports management doctoral program in 2006. When Hillyer provided a guest lecture, UT officials were so impressed they encouraged Hillyer to pursue her doctorate, too.

In the end, both earned doctorates in sport sociology while continuing to run the nonprofit. They approached UT about funding Sport for Peace as a research center.

It was not a slam dunk. College leaders sounded interested, but nothing happened. So Hillyer accepted a Georgetown University position, funded by the King of Jordan, to create a curriculum for sport and diplomacy.

UT took notice, and when Huffman finished her doctorate in 2012, the university offered the two women jobs and the opportunity to create the Center for Sport, Peace and Society.

Four days after its founding, the Center received a $1.2 million grant from the U.S. State Department.

Score.

Earlier that year, the department had called for proposals to use sports to empower women and girls. Hillyer and Huffman applied and held their breath. “We’re nobodies,” Hillyer recalls thinking. “But this is what we do.” At that point, she had done it for 19 years, for free.

The Center for Sport, Peace and Society was chosen to run the entire State Department program, and it has since focused almost all its attentions on the grant. The State Department reopened the field to new proposals last year but selected the Center again.

The grant pays for two full-time and four part-time employees at the Center, in addition to contributing to the doctors’ salaries and funding all the program activities, Hillyer says.

Ann Cody, a State Department program officer, says the effort was part of a focus by President Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to increase opportunities for women. Cody says sport helps achieve that goal by providing a common ground for building trust, which opens

Girls practice at the Girl Power academy for basketball and life skills in Cairo, founded by a graduate of the Global Sports Mentoring Program.

doors to difficult conversations about broader challenges like child health and access to education.

During its first four years, the State Department program included three major components: professional athletes traveling abroad as envoys to run sports programs; a sports-visitor program bringing athletes from other countries to the United States; and the Global Sports Mentoring Program.

That component turned out to be so powerful that the State Department now wants to focus on it alone and expand it. Starting this year, Hillyer and Huffman will continue to work with female emerging leaders and also run a similar version for emerging leaders with disabilities.

The candidates for the program are nominated by U.S. embassies in 40 to 50 countries; then Hillyer and Huffman narrow the list. The women can have any professional background, but almost all are also athletes, often on their own time and against local custom.

After a 10-day primer course called “Strong Women. Better World” with Hillyer and Huffman, each emerging leader is paired with a high-profile company that provides mentors to help them develop and present their action plans. The companies put an array of experts on the case, from social media to

financial gurus.

COACHING

The emerging leaders say they forge relationships with each other and their mentors that last long after they return home, creating a network they often call a sisterhood. It is 3 a.m. in Brazil, 9 a.m. in Iran, and 1 p.m. in China, but they are still passing the ball—texting and using social media to offer each other support and advice.

Majidah Nantanda says having a mentor who was a strong woman and former pro athlete made her think, “If she can do it, why not me?” She learned from the program how to take advantage of networks and partnerships with other organizations that have similar goals. Nantanda coaches the Ugandan national women’s soccer team, but since participating in the mentorship program, she has also coached more than 800 girls across the backcountry in the rudiments of the game.

“The target is to reach girls who don’t have the opportunity to play— who don’t know they have the right to play,” she says. She is slipping in lessons about HIV as they learn passing and blocking. “Most women and young girls are victims of the disease because they have no power in society,” says Nantanda, who says she still emails her mentor for advice.

The mentors are not paired with emerging leaders based on their sport or job. The collaboration is not meant to work like an internship. Mentors are women at major companies that can put their human resource network at the disposal of the visiting women, and who can teach techniques that will help with any sport.

Dolinina has maintained a close relationship with her mentor, Susan Cohig, senior vice president for business affairs with the National Hockey League. Cohig says the mentoring program is a good fit for the NHL because 30 percent of its players come from outside the U.S., and it has expertise not only in running a league but in marketing the sport. The NHL has participated in the mentoring program for three years, most recently with twin mountain climbers from India who want to use the sport to boost both girls’ confidence and India’s adventure-tourism industry.

“Sometimes the notion of professional sports can seem like February 18, 2016

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 18, 2016

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The PGA has also participated in the mentorship program for three years, says Cross, the PGA official who mentored Alardah. “It’s been an unbelievable experience for me,” Cross says. “When I look back on my career at the PGA this will absolutely be one of the highlights.”

She says the visiting women marvel at the collaboration among men and women at PGA. “Often in these other countries women aren’t at the table. They don’t have a voice.

They aren’t involved in the decision making,” Cross says.

“I came away from these experiences with such a greater understanding of what life is like for other young women around the globe who are career-minded and do have high aspirations, but they face unbelievable challenges on the ground that we don’t face in this country.”

Cross also mentored Hayam Essam, who left her job as a civil engineer to found Girl Power, which uses basketball to empower underpriveledged girls in Cairo. PGA helped Essam develop a curriculum for 9- to 11-year-olds that included emotional and physical development as well as the game.

But perhaps more importantly, PGA officials spent a lot of time brainstorming ways to sell Essam’s program to families in a society where many women are taught that moving their bodies is a shameful enticement to men, as Hillyer put it. Essam’s PGA mentors asked questions like: Who needs to buy into this proposition? Do

Olga Dolinina practices presenting her action plan, her mentor Sarah Cohig at her side.

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quite a luxury, but the business we’re in affords us the opportunity to have a significant impact,” Cohig says.

“We’re a men’s sport, so if we can look for ways to expand that perspective, we absolutely will do it.”

Shortly before Dolinina came to the United States, civil war broke out in her country. Cohig says the NHL wanted to provide extra support and be ready to turn on a dime if conditions in Ukraine worsened. The NHL helped pay for equipment for Dolinina’s hockey programs, and several years later, a group of Dolinina’s youth hockey players came to visit and see a game.

“It was great because it was coming around full circle to have the work that Olga was doing come to life, and have her kids come to the U.S. and meet many of the same people,” Cohig says.

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Ashleigh Huffman (left) and Sarah Hillyer are the founders of the Center for Sport, Peace and Society at UT.

what was happening. By the end of the half-day, 100 people had joined. The ripples spread outward.

THE HOME COURT you need to engage influencers in the community? What are the selling points for moms? For dads?

Huffman says that, in very patriarchal societies, fathers often initially oppose sports programs for girls. But after they get going, sports become a way for girls to connect with their dads in a culture that doesn’t provide many of those opportunities. Dads discover they really enjoy having a relationship with their daughter.

An example is a program called “Daddy & Me” founded by Fatima Saleem, a former journalist in Pakistan.

It sponsors friendly soccer scrimmages between girls and their dads. The first time, Hillyer says, not a single person showed up for the half-day event.

Hearts sinking, Saleem and her team waited around. A few people trickled in an hour late. Others passed by and saw

Hillyer sometimes wonders if she started backward 23 years ago by directing her peace-building effort at the international level. Today, she and Huffman would like to walk it back to the U.S. and the local community.

Although the Center staff is too small to do much more than run the State Department program, Hillyer and Huffman have found ways to bring the world to UT students and local residents. After finishing her doctorate, Hillyer was offered the chance to develop a service learning course as an adjunct professor in the department of kinesiology, recreation and sport studies. She and Huffman co-taught “Service Learning: Sport and Community Development” in which UT students ran an after-school program for Iraqi refugees; kids received tutoring, while their moms learned about fitness and nutrition. As the refugees integrated into

the community, Huffman restructured the course to provide after-school activities for local youth.

Once the Center for Sport, Peace and Society was founded, its sports-visitor program brought female teams from other countries to the Girls Inc. after-school program in Oak Ridge two or three times a year. Alanna Hunsaker, program director for Girls Inc., says visitors from places like Iran and Brazil ran sports clinics where the girls learned new games or experienced new kinds of coaching. Some of the visitors have stayed in touch with the girls through social media.

Hillyer says she would like the Center for Sport, Peace and Society to work more with UT athletes—and coaches—in the future.

This school year the Center joined a new partnership, along with UT Athletics and the college’s Center for Leadership and Service, to create the VOLeaders Academy. Coaches nominated athletes with leadership potential and 13 were chosen, representing nine sports, to learn how to use their platform as athletes to improve the world.

The program includes courses on personal and community leadership development and a capstone service trip to Brazil this summer. Hillyer and Huffman are teaching a “Sport for Social Change” course to the VOLeaders this semester.

As class begins, Hillyer slaps high-fives or shakes hands with each of the students trailing into class. The 44-year-old professor—who looks and dresses like a women’s sports coach on game day—is constantly moving, occasionally miming “swish” shots at the white board. Her sunglasses stay perched in her blond-tipped, spiky hair as if she might head out for a jog at any moment. (In fact, it is 45 degrees and pouring outside.)

Students spend a few minutes reviewing the vocabulary of sports sociology before proving their knowledge in—naturally—a game.

Maybe sports sociology sounds like a fluffy subject. After all, games imply something carefree and fun. But they are also a vehicle for socialization and education. So the academic discipline poses questions like: When is a game not a game? Who is allowed to play (and who’s not), and why? Who are the winners? Who are the losers?

Is being a good sport about losing gracefully? Or playing along with your

oppressor? Who’s making the rules?

“How serious should they take this review?”

Hillyer asks loudly.

Huffman with the assist: “It depends on how badly they want to win.”

“I want to win,” says swimmer Ryan Coetzee, before he even knows what they’re talking about.

Students have varying learning styles, but the professors can always bet that competition will motivate these athletes. The students pick team names (one group chooses “It’s on You”) and pretty soon they’re going head-to-head with quiz questions.

There’s no buzzer. The person who knows the answer tries to be first to grab whatever object lies on the table —a rotating array of sports equipment (half the students can’t identify the rugby ball), costume elements, and toys. The athletes immediately start gaming the rules, looking for loopholes that would allow them to pass off a question to a teammate.

One of the questions relates to how girls are socialized to become women and boys are socialized to become men.

It spawns a short discussion.

“What kind of toys do you get boys?” asks Huffman. The students answer: balls, trucks, building blocks.

“Cool things,” she clarifies.

Huffman’s long, straight blonde hair sweeps past her shoulders; she favors spangly, dangly earrings and often speaks softly, with gently humorous self-deprecation. Yet you will definitely hear her when she wants to make a point, and the 32-year-old has a muscular build that, like Hillyer, emits a vibe of restrained power.

“What kinds of toys do you get girls?” Huffman answers the question herself, with perhaps a trace of bitterness: “Not cool things.”

Later, the athletes school each other on recent class readings. Matthew Zajac, a thrower for the track and field team, was struck by what he learned about the role of sports in regions torn by war, where boys are often recruited into violent brotherhoods. Sports provide an opportunity to build a similar, but healthier, camaraderie.

After class he tweeted, “Sport is a ‘hook’ to starting peaceful relationships. It’s a way for people to see the human in all of us.”

In that game, there are no losers. ◆

PAT SUMMITT’S LASTING INSPIRATION TO GIRLS IN IRAQ

Ms. Pat

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documentary about the impact of former Lady Vols coach Pat Summitt on young Iraqi basketball players could reach a national audience during the NCAA Women’s Final Four this year.

The film tells the story of how Summitt sent basketballs and video messages of encouragement to the first basketball camp held for girls in Iraq.

Later, some the girls attended one of Summitt’s elite basketball camps for free. The experience inspired one of them, Khoshee Mohammad, to pursue her dream of becoming the first female basketball coach in her country. Sarah Hillyer and Ashleigh Huffman, the director and assistant director of the Center for Sport, Peace and Society at the University of Tennessee, have been producing the project on their own time.

The girls’ coach, Rizgar Raoof, is currently living in Knoxville as a grad student at the UT. He started a girl’s league called Sunshine in 2007 for girls ages 12-14 in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq. At the time, there were only about five women’s teams in the country, he says.

Girls were excited to play, but often after practices began, an uncle or brother would stop them. “In the beginning it was like looking for water in the desert,” Raoof says.

With Sunshine, and later another league he founded in 2009, Raoof would visit his player’s homes repeatedly to reassure families. He provided transportation so the girls would not have to encounter men on the way to and from practice, and he required the girls to maintain good grades and help their mothers at home.

Summitt became involved in 2007 after Hillyer, who at the time was running a nonprofit called Sport for Peace, approached her about the basketball camp. It was equipped with four basketballs for 60 girls.

Summitt donated Lady Vols basketballs for all the participants.

She also sent a video in which she spoke directly to the camera: “I know you take some risks in doing

what you do, but don’t ever fear the risk. Go for the opportunity to learn and to become strong young women.

We need strong women.”

As part of her academic research, Hillyer visited the basketball camp in 2008 and asked the girls to write their dreams on note cards.

Almost all said they wanted to visit the United States, see a WNBA game, and thank “Ms. Pat” in person.

“They had no idea Ms. Pat was the most famous women’s coach in the country,” Hillyer says. “They just thought she was this nice woman

“They had no idea Ms. Pat was the most famous women’s coach in the country.

They just thought she was this nice woman who had all these encouraging messages for them.”

—SARAH HILLYER, Director, Center for Sport, Peace and Society

who had all these encouraging messages for them.”

Summitt offered to host a group of the girls at her basketball camp, but they still needed visas and money to cover the trip. Hillyer approached the U.S. State Department, but officials said the region where the girls live, the Kurdish north, was not a diplomatic priority.

A few weeks later, a State Department leader called back and asked, “Did you say Pat Summitt?” The department arranged for the girls, age 13 to 15, to come in 2009.

After Summitt’s coaching boost, Raoof says, his team won second

place in Iraq in 2010. But an evening of talking to Summitt made Raoof’s coaching seem bigger than basketball. Hillyer says Summitt told him how much she respected what he’s doing to create an entire new generation of Pat Summitts in a country with no female leaders.

“It was like to see someone on a horse from far away,” Raoof tries to explain. “From closer, you see a very strong lady, and all of a sudden she puts you on the horse and she takes you away from this place.”

Raoof’s girls do more than play a game. They plant trees, recycle, and help people in need. “She made a model that we trust in ourself and we work hard to make other lives better,” Raoof says. “She put us on her horse.”

After Summitt was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease in 2011, Raoof’s basketball league held a “We Back Pat” tournament in Sulaymaniyah. It’s clear from comments in early versions of the documentary that Iraqis did not understand the disease. (Many sent “get-well” wishes.) Hillyer says it’s not diagnosed in Iraq. “They just put people away who get old and ‘lose their minds,’ not understanding this is a disease and they’re not crazy,” Hillyer says. The tournament was an opportunity to introduce the concept, just as the Pat Summitt Foundation tries to spread Alzheimer’s awareness.

Hillyer and Huffman returned to Iraq every year to collect footage of the girls, saving up their own money for each interview or edit. “It’s been a slow personal project for us to do to honor Pat and tell her thank you,” Hillyer says. “We’ve seen the effect of a simple act of kindness of someone telling (these girls) they are strong women: How they became better students, more respectful, developed a point of connection with their dads.”

Hillyer and Huffman made the 45-minute film, in partnership of Oklahoma-based filmmaker Derek Watson, with the hope that it will be shown on ESPN, possibly during the Women’s Final Four.

—H.D.

February 18, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 17

A&E

P rogram Notes

Let’s Put On a Show!

THIS WEEK’S KSO CONDUCTOR CANDIDATE

TRY-OUT

Here’s the first round of performers for our Knoxtacular fundraiser

K

noxtacular! Our big all-day variety-show fundraising shindig at the Bijou Theatre next month is beginning to take shape, so we can let you in on some of the local bands, solo artists, and other personalities who will be helping us out.

The lineup for the Mercury/ Knoxville History Project/WDVX benefit—so far—includes the Crumbsnatchers, art-pop duo Hudson K, jazz singer Kelle Jolly, bluegrass hipsters Dixieghost, the Knox County Jug Stompers, folkie duo Blond Bones, surf-rock trio the Jank, the Chillbillies, Lewell and Laura Mollen, up-and-coming country singer Aaron Tracy, and singer/ songwriters Brent Thompson, Jonathan Sexton, and Eli Fox. That’s already enough for several hours of top-shelf all-local entertainment, but we’ll be adding more music acts as we go along.

We’ll also have contributions from Kathryn Frady Marvel of Marble City Opera, Brad Reeves of the Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound, local photographer and man about town Bill Foster, and the reliably unpredictable Jack Rentfro. Poets Liam Hysjulien, Black

Atticus, Dawn Coppock, and Marilyn Kallet will read their work from the stage, and since Jack Neely has a stake in this, we’ve roped him into it, too. Former WUOT morning host Chrissy Keuper and Victor Agreda Jr. (comedian and “Knoxville’s one and only tech media star,” according to Coury Turczyn) will serve as emcees.

And there’s much more still to be announced!

Knoxtacular, scheduled for Saturday, March 5, from 1-8 p.m., is a benefit for the Knoxville Mercury, the Knoxville History Project, and WDVX. Remember, we all depend on support from readers and listeners— if you like public radio, history, or independent journalism, or all three, please come out to the show. There’s a $10 minimum suggested donation at the door, but you can, of course, contribute more.

We’ll also be broadcasting live on WDVX for most of that day, so you can make a donation by phone. (You can also make donations at wdvx. com/donate or knoxmercury.com/join any time.) Sponsors include the Bijou Theatre, Yee-Haw Brewing Company, and Knox Heritage.

—Matthew Everett

Knoxville Symphony Orchestra’s search for a new music director to replace Lucas Richman continues this week with guest conductor Eckart Preu, whose performance will serve as an official audition for Richman’s vacated position.

Preu will lead KSO and guest pianist Alon Goldstein in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 as well as selections by Strauss, Prokofiev, and Jennifer Higdon at the Tennessee Theatre on Thursday, Feb. 18, and Friday, Feb. 19, at 7:30 p.m. Visit knoxvillesymphony.com for information and tickets.

NAME: Eckart Preu AGE: 47 CURRENT POSITION: Music director of the Spokane Symphony in Washington and the Stamford Symphony in Connecticut PREVIOUS POSITION: Associate conductor for the Richmond Symphony (2001-2004), resident conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra (1997-2004) and of the American Russian Young Artists Orchestra (1999-2004) EDUCATION: Master’s degree in conducting from Hochschule für Musik in Weimar, Germany BIRTHPLACE: Erfurt, Germany CURRENT RESIDENCE: Spokane, Wash.

HIGHLIGHTS: Performances at Carnegie Hall, the Sorbonne in Paris, a live broadcast with the Jerusalem Symphony, and the first commercial recording of the world premiere of “Letters from Lincoln” by Michael Daugherty “I have dedicated my professional life to humanizing classical music,” Eckart says. “Classical music can be very serious, but also a lot of fun. Combining the two leads to ‘serious fun,’ making excellence accessible to anyone. Humor is an essential counterpart to emotional depth—and I think both benefit from each other. It is important to me to convey the universality of human emotions, and no matter the century of the composition or age of the listener, music connects us all across cultures and generations. Exposing future generations of listeners to future generations of composers and performers can lead to new musical communications. I am as much concerned about the next 300 years of classical music as I am about the past 300 years. In a time when we live at the speed of computers, music takes on a different, special role. In the digital, virtual world music becomes more real, and the way music is presented has to reflect that.

“Introducing future generations to the benefits of listening and playing classical music is instrumental to the mission of any orchestra. I am planning on being involved in designing innovative educational programs that impact a wide range of communities, regardless of ethnic or economic background. Because of my choral background as a long-time member of a boy’s choir I have a strong interest in lyricism, with the intent to treat each instrument as an extension of the human voice. My concept of sound is based on Germanic role models, but I also have a strong award-winning track record of exploring the music of the future. My main goal is for an orchestra to be a catalyst for the entire arts community, to create personal, meaningful experiences that are uplifting, touch the soul, and carry the possibility of changing lives.”

—Alan Sherrod

19 18

Inside the Vault: Robert Van Winkle

KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 18, 2016

20

Theater: Titus Andronicus

21

Video: Martys

22

Movies: How To Be Single

Inside the Vault

Shootout on Scott The gunfight that haunted “Little Robert” Van Winkle’s career

BY ERIC DAWSON Continued from last week’s issue.

I

n the early 1950s, Robert Van Winkle, who performed as Little Robert, was making a good living as a radio entertainer and country musician in Knoxville. A regular performer on Cas Walker’s WROL show, he also played a lot of road gigs, sharing a stage with legends such as Bill Monroe, the Osborne Brothers, and Hank Williams. But he ran into some bad luck, too, culminating in a tragic event that unfolded at his home.

On the evening of Monday, Jan. 31, 1955, Van Winkle visited Eva’s Grill on Rutledge Pike. He was in the company of Eva’s estranged husband, Roy Porter, a tourist-court manager and country-music radio performer, whom Eva was suing for divorce. Van Winkle offered Porter his couch for the night. Around 1:30 a.m., Knoxville police officers Lester “Tarzan” Gwinn

and Robert Stephens stopped by the house on East Scott Avenue to question Porter following a complaint of abuse and harassment from his wife. After a brief verbal exchange, Porter drew a pistol and fired on the officers. They pulled their weapons and gunshots were exchanged over the bed on which Robert’s wife, Margaret, and three of their children were lying. Gwinn and Porter were both shot five times. Porter died on the scene.

Dewey Jackson, a former police chaplain who lived next door, entered the house after the shooting had stopped and knelt beside Gwinn, who told him, “Preacher, I have got it. This is it, I am gone.” Van Winkle told the Knoxville Sentinel that Gwinn then called him over, apparently mistaking him for Stephens, and said, “Tell my wife I love her, and tell the fellows to

look after my family for me.” Gwinn, 40, died on the operating table at Knoxville General Hospital a few hours later.

The Van Winkles’ lives were understandably complicated after the incident. Sensationalistic stories ran in the local papers. Gwinn was much beloved in the community, and all the reporting on Porter made him out to be a rather unsavory character. Van Winkle’s public defense of his friend hurt his reputation. Cas Walker was so upset by the incident that he fired Little Robert from his show. (He would later rehire him.) City directories show the Van Winkles changed residences annually during their time in Knoxville, all within a few miles of East Knoxville. Robert is first listed in the city directory in 1953, living on Hoitt Avenue and working for the TVA & I Fair. Following the shooting, the family moved across the street from the house where the shooting occurred, but by his last year in Knoxville, 1963, Robert had moved his family back into to that very house on East Scott.

Though Little Robert continued to perform, in Knoxville and on the road, changes in entertainment tastes meant gigs were becoming harder to come by. In 1963 Robert returned to Ohio, moving his family around several small towns before finally settling in Bethel, where he had been so mercilessly teased as a boy. He continued to perform in small taverns around the area and even hosted a radio show on WSRW. There he spun classic country tunes, told corny jokes, and hosted live performances, which often featured himself and “Mrs. Little Robert.”

A few of these radio shows are preserved on the seven or so hours of reel-to-reel audio tape that Van Winkle’s granddaughter Robin Bradley donated to the Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound.

More revealing, however, are the home recordings of Robert and his family that make up the bulk of the material. Between conversations on politics (Watergate was freshly on their minds) and religion (Catholic, but open to others’ belief systems) are

A&E

family jam sessions that cover country, folk, and bluegrass tunes.

Robert holds court, but his wife, teenage son, and daughter can be heard as well, the latter delivering a plaintive “House of the Rising Sun.” Plenty of old-time country and obscure numbers appear alongside more popular Woody Guthrie and Carter Family songs. Robert’s favorite singer and songwriter, Hank Williams, is played the most, however, with the whole family joining in on an exuberant “I Saw the Light.” Obviously an attentive, long-time student of Williams, Robert even sounds like Hank at times.

Though photographs and home video show Robert still picking and singing into the 1980s, they also reveal his health declining markedly. He died on Oct. 12, 1988, at the age of 65. His death certificate lists sarcoma of the lungs as the immediate cause, and cirrhosis of the liver, emphysema, and cardiovascular disease as other significant conditions.

Robert Van Winkle was a naturally gifted and talented performer. It’s unfortunate that he never made a studio recording, and the Gwinn and Porter killings seem to loom over his music career, obscuring his gifts.

Cormac McCarthy references the incident in his 1979 novel, Suttree, though he changed Gwinn’s name to Tarzan Quinn and names “the fiddler Little Robert” as his murderer, rather than Porter. The killings so haunted Cas Walker that he brought it up in one of his autumnal rambling monologues on the Farm and Home Show just a few months before he would retire from the air in April 1983.

Walker also took fictional license, though probably unwittingly, claiming the shooting stemmed from “an argument over me,” and also insisting Porter wrote Ernie Ford’s hit “Sixteen Tons.” Walker also said Little Robert told him what really happened the night of the shooting, but he was not going to repeat it.◆ Inside the Vault features discoveries from the Knox County Public Library’s Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound, a collection of film, video, music, and other media from around East Tennessee.

February 18, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 19

A&E

Theater

Blood(less)bath Clarence Brown stages a kinder, gentler version of Shakespeare’s notorious Titus Andronicus

BY ALAN SHERROD

W

ith a tally of 14 deaths by various means, plus bodily mutilation, rape, and cannibalism, one might assume that William Shakespeare’s play Titus Andronicus is little more than a violent bloodbath written at a time when revenge drama was popular on the Elizabethan stage. Indeed, recent productions at London’s Globe Theatre have become known for the numbers of audience members fainting or exiting the theatre in distress at the sight of gore and the depiction of violence. In contrast, the current Clarence Brown Theatre production of Titus Andronicus, which opened last weekend, has apparently taken pity on potentially squeamish audience members and delivered a kinder,

gentler version. On opening night, one was more likely to hear a stifled snigger or two than a gasp of horror.

Although Titus Andronicus followed the histories of Henry VI and Richard III early in Shakespeare’s career, the story is fictional. In it, the Roman general Titus Andronicus and his sons have returned to Rome following their victory over the Goths.

With captives in tow, including the Goth queen, Tamora, Titus and his family fall victim to the universal truth that revenge breeds revenge.

Titus Andronicus is not the Bard’s most accomplished work, from a poetic standpoint. That’s probably one reason many productions go for a contemporary approach or launch headlong into

blood and gore as if it was a Shakespearean version of From Dusk Till Dawn. CBT director John Sipes, however, has followed a different path, deliberately preventing the audience from accepting the play as realism.

The set, consisting of platforms and steps designed by Christopher Pickart, is almost overly spacious and visually minimal, while most of the action has been pushed discreetly upstage, away from the audience. Similarly, with a few gorgeous, shadowy exceptions, Kenton Yeager’s lighting is broad and diluting, leaving little to the imagination and presenting gory details antiseptically. Bill Black’s dark, muted costumes mix modern details with anachronistic period styles. Even props—corpses, severed hands and heads, slices of “meat” pie—appear intentionally theatrical. One nod to modern theatrical practice—and a tremendously effective one—was the use of projections to symbolically illustrate dripping and smearing blood.

At the head of the large cast was the commanding presence of Kurt Rhoads as Titus Andronicus. Rhoads, making his CBT debut, energetically pulled off the impressive character arc that flows from hardened general to deceived father to contrived madman to the inevitable tragic end. Carol

Halstead was enticing as the beautiful but vengeful Tamora, queen of the Goths. Andrew Drake, last seen and admired in CBT’s Of Mice and Men, brought a delicious evil to the role of Aaron the Moor. Charles Pasternak gave his Saturninus, the newly crowned emperor, a slimy shallowness that was simultaneously comic and scary. Lindsay Nance, as Titus’ daughter, Lavinia, made the remarkable transition from beautiful young lover to the mute victim of rape and mutilation. Two actors remarkably left standing at the final curtain were the always solid CBT faculty regulars Terry Weber, as Marcus Andronicus, and David Brian Alley, as Lucius.

Making a subtle contribution, the interwoven music and effects of CBT composer and sound designer Joe Payne were once again impressive. At times understated and suggestive, while at others bold and presentational, Payne’s audio support was an indispensable part of the character of the production.

While Titus Andronicus has probably seen more stage time in the last 25 years than in all the previous years since its premiere in the 1590s, productions are still relatively rare.

For that reason alone, theater lovers will want to catch this one. ◆

WHAT

Clarence Brown Theatre: Titus Andronicus

WHERE

Clarence Brown Theatre (1714 Andy Holt Ave.)

WHEN

Through Feb. 28

HOW MUCH $32

INFO

clarencebrowntheatre.com

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 18, 2016

Video

A&E

Artistic Sacrifice The American remake of French existential shocker Martyrs disappoints, unsurprisingly

BY LEE GARDNER

Y

ou know that thing where fi lm nerds freak out over the fact that some hapless Hollywood studio is doing an American remake of some foreign gem? Almost always completely justified. Not the freaking part, necessarily, but the frustration and disappointment latent in the process of taking a perfectly good piece of cinema and giving it a coat or two of our trademark patina of cheese and simpiness. And it’s even worse when there’s something genuinely button-pushing about the source material. Case in point: the recently remade Martyrs.

As in the 2008 French shocker, the remake opens with the escape of a bloodied little girl from nameless, faceless captors. Lucie ends up at an orphanage, brutalized, haunted by her experience, and reachable only by fellow orphan Anna. Jump ahead 10 years to Anna (Bailey Noble) receiving a phone

call from Lucie (Troian Bellisario), who has just shotgunned to smeary bits the nice, middle-class nuclear family whom she swears were responsible for her scarring captivity. Anna hurries to their remote house to come to her friend’s aid, but is Lucie a vengeful victim, or a psychotic murderer?

Up to this point, directors Kevin and Michael Goetz shadow Pascal Laugier’s original, even recreating many of the same shots. But Mark L. Smith’s screenplay soon diverges in ways that, while they don’t veer from the general thrust of the plot, go a great distance toward subverting its essence, and not in a way that fans of the original will be happy about.

It’s tough to own being a “fan” of Martyrs. But it elevated the leering Grand Guignol spectacle of that particular era of extreme shock cinema (see also: the first The Human Centipede, A Serbian Film) in ways that were both

surprising, and surprisingly existential.

It is the 2001: A Space Odyssey of bloody-tanktop gorno, a work where things take a sharp left at a certain point (no spoilers here) and keep picking up speed from there.

The American remake attempts to do the premise justice—but with a heart. And that is pretty much the last thing it needs. It lavishes screen time on the bond between Lucie and Anna, and then extends that bond through parts of the plot that it never dared, or needed, to tread before. It uses little girls for sympathy in a way that seems to sit at odds with its grim business.

And it infuses the late going with a religious tint that, frankly, seems like an easy out from Laugier’s unblinking take. The original still seems like just that, an original, while the remake is a pale copy. Whatever spark fl ickered in Laugier’s eyes is just a glassy reflection here. ◆ February 18, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 21

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Movies

The Shallow End Deadpool is vulgar, juvenile, and raunchy—and a lot of fun

BY APRIL SNELLINGS

M

y favorite thing about the Marvel Cinematic Universe has become the sprawling tonal geography of it. I know “tonal geography” isn’t actually a thing, but here’s what I mean: I love that a Thor movie can indulge in dopey space-fantasy hijinks while the first season of Jessica Jones is an unrelentingly dark meditation on the aftershocks of sexual assault, and it all ends up feeling weirdly cohesive.

While DC rarely steps out of its default mode of gritty, violent action epics, Marvel is constantly playing with tone, genre, and scope. In the mood for a claustrophobic, socially aware crime story? Netflix’s Daredevil fits the bill. Want a fizzy, funny caper flick? Ant-Man will do you right.

If The Winter Soldier was

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 18, 2016

Marvel’s Three Days of the Condor, then, Deadpool is its Porky’s—it’s vulgar, juvenile, and crass, and it seems specifically engineered to ramp up its appeal to kids by horrifying their parents. In other words, it’s exactly the sort of film the character’s fans were hoping for, and it’s a lot of fun.

For the uninitiated, Deadpool is a cult-favorite character created in the early ’90s by writer Fabian Nicieza and artist/writer/walking, talking ego trip Rob Liefeld. Deadpool, aka Wade Wilson, is violent, motormouthed, and occasionally queer, and he’s never met a fourth wall he couldn’t break. His shtick is that he knows he’s a comic-book character, and he constantly addresses the reader with self-aware commentary about the medium and

his role in it.

All of that translates surprisingly well to the big screen under the guidance of first-time feature director Tim Miller. Ryan Reynolds stars as Wilson, the Special Forces soldier-turned-mercenary destined for red spandex and endless one-liners. Not all of the jokes land, but Deadpool lobs them so constantly that it can afford a few duds, and even the clunkers benefit from Reynolds’ zippy delivery.

Wilson is elbow-deep in carnage when we meet him, but soon enough he interrupts the action to fill us in on his tragic history. Deadpool is a pretty straightforward origin story, but it benefits from a jittery structure full of flashbacks, flash-forwards, pauses, and rewinds.

It’s during one of those flashbacks that Deadpool really hits its stride.

Wilson hooks up with a prostitute named Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), and a gleefully deranged take on movie meet-cutes leads to a raunchy montage of sex and snuggling set to Neil Sedaka’s “Calendar Girl.” The couple’s sexually acrobatic bliss is interrupted when Wilson is diagnosed with terminal cancer and he checks himself into a clinic that promises to cure him by turning him into a superhero.

Things don’t turn out that way, of course, with Wilson becoming more of a guinea pig than a patient. Deadpool’s plot hinges on an extended torture sequence that, though it isn’t gory, is so cruel and uncomfortably relatable that I found it more disturbing than most of the horror films I’ve seen recently.

Wilson finds himself transformed into a hideously disfigured, mentally unstable mutant with superhuman physical prowess and regenerative abilities. Separated from his best girl, he sets out to find the guy who messed him up—and to shoot practically everyone else in the process.

But no one will remember Deadpool for its plot, or its one-note villain. (That note, in case you’re curious, is smarmy sadism, and it gets tiresome after a while.) The main attraction here is the movie’s inventive, offbeat tone. Meta humor and self-parody certainly aren’t new, but Deadpool shores it up with a lot of heart; as vulgar and irreverent as it can be, it’s never mean-spirited about the genre it’s spoofing. It’s lewd and self-deprecating, but it’s ultimately an affectionate send-up of superhero movies. It plays by at least as many rules as it breaks.

Plenty of viewers will be put off by its hard-R content, but there’s much more to Deadpool than its crude frat-boy humor and splattery, insert-projectile-A-in-villain-B violence.

It’s a manic Jenga tower of parody and sincerity, and if it occasionally wobbles a bit, it never falls. It’s proof that there’s still plenty of ground worth breaking in the Marvel Universe, if the studios controlling it are willing to take chances and map out some underexplored territory. ◆

“…speaks across the centuries to the horrors of our own troubled times…”

The Daily Telegraph

For mature audiences.

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When you want to reach the local market, advertise in Knoxville’s best local, independent newspaper.

865-313-2048

sales@knoxmercury.com February 18, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 23

CALENDAR MUSIC

Thursday, Feb. 18 CINDI ALPERT • Bourbon Street Whiskey Bar • 6PM WARREN PINEDA AND JON MASON • Red Piano Lounge • 6PM THE JANK • Scruffy City Hall • 6PM DALLAS BAKER AND FRIENDS • Scruffy City Hall • 8PM • “Roots-grass” from Charleston, S.C. • $3 DAVE COLEMAN AND THE COAL MEN • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 8PM DANIEL MILLER • Preservation Pub • 8PM • 21 and up.

SECRET CITY CYPHERS • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • Come witness some of Knoxville’s finest local talent collaborating and performing together. Who’s ready to get their art out to the world? This is Knoxville’s premier open mic-style event that allows mcs, poets, singers, musicians, dancers, comedians, visual artists, and others to not only have a place to showcase their talent, but a place to network with other artists, and build their fan base. You can choose to perform either with a backing track or with our live band. Signups start at 7:30, and are first come, first serve. All ages. • $5 ZOOGMA AND TURBO SUIT: ZOOT SUIT TOUR • The Concourse • 10PM • Presented by Midnight Voyage Productions. 18 and up. • $10-$15 WOODY PINES • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • If you’re wondering where the music of Nashville troubadour Woody Pines comes from, look to the streets.

It was on the streets as a professional busker that Woody first cut his teeth, drawing liberally from the lost back alley anthems and scratchy old 78s of American roots music, whether country blues, jugband, hokum, or hillbilly.

PIANO • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up.

SHAUN ABBOTT WITH GRASS2MOUTH • 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 Friday, Feb. 19 WENDEL WERNER • Red Piano Lounge • 6PM VANN WITH MICHAEL MCQUAID • The 1400 • 6PM • FREE FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose • 8PM • Live jazz featuring a mix of original music, early jazz and more. • FREE JERICHO WOODS • Preservation Pub • 8PM • 21 and up.

THE JUKE JOINT DRIFTERS WITH THE CODY BLACKBIRD BAND AND FILIBILLY • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • All ages. • $5 KEITH BROWN • Red Piano Lounge • 9PM BARRY ROSEMAN • The Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • Live jazz. • FREE RED WINE HANGOVER WITH SUMILAN • Scruffy City Hall • 9PM THE 44S • Brackins Blues Club ( Maryville) • 9PM 9TH STREET STOMPERS • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE NUTHIN’ FANCY • Two Doors Down • 10PM G. JONES WITH BLEEP BLOOP • The Concourse • 10PM • Presented by Midnight Voyage Productions and Full Circle. 18 and up. • $10-$15 CHARLES “WIGG” WALKER • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • Charles is one of the few remaining original soul singers from back in the day when old school R&B/soul was brand new on the music scene. There has recently been a resurgence of this style of music, and it is finding a younger audience while rekindling memories for the old school crowd. Wigg is still delivering this style of music at a very high level, and his experience and 24

KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 18, 2016

Thursday, Feb. 18 - Sunday, Feb. 28

maturity in the field of soul music gives him a perspective that is unmatched.

RED AS BLOOD WITH POWERKLAW • Pilot Light • 10PM • 18 and up. • $5 THE DEAD RINGERS • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up.

THE CODY BLACKBIRD BAND WITH DALLAS BAKER • 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. • FREE ROSS COOPER AND DANIEL FLUITT • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 5PM • FREE Saturday, Feb. 20 THE CREE RIDER FAMILY BAND • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 4PM • The Cree Rider Family Band is rooted in a country music sound, with elements of folk, Americana and rock n’ roll. One part Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris, one part Neil Young and Crazy Horse, the Family Band stays true to its own instincts to create a modern honky-tonk country sound that is rooted in tradition but firmly planted in the here and now. • FREE KATY FREE • Red Piano Lounge • 6PM BALSAM RANGE • Niswonger Performing Arts Center (Greeneville) • 7:30PM • Balsam Range is a group of five outstanding acoustic musicians and singers from North Carolina. For their band name, they thoughtfully and respectfully adopted the name of a majestic range of mountains that surround part of their home county of Haywood, NC where the Smokies meet the Blue Ridge, the Balsam Range. • $15-$25 BÉLA FLECK AND ABIGAIL WASHBURN • Bijou Theatre • 8PM • Sure, in the abstract, a banjo duo might seem like a musical concept beset by limitations. But when the banjo players cast in those roles are Abigail Washburn and Béla Fleck—she with the earthy sophistication of a postmodern, old-time singer-songwriter, he with the virtuosic, jazz-to-classical ingenuity of an iconic instrumentalist and composer with bluegrass roots—it’s a different matter entirely. • $37 QUARTJAR WITH SOMETHING WICKED AND THE VILLAGE GREEN PEOPLE • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • $8 MARTY AND TRACE • Mind Yer Ps and Qs Craft Beer and Wine Lounge • 8PM JOE NICHOLS • Cotton Eyed Joe • 9PM • 18 and up. • $10 SWINGBOOTY • Red Piano Lounge • 9PM • Local gypsy jazz. 21 and up. • $4 THE CHUCK MULLICAN JAZZ BONANZA • The Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • Live jazz. • FREE CAROLINA CEILI • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE AVENUE C • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 10PM THE HONEYCUTTERS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • Appalachian honky-tonk.

CANEY CREEK COMPANY • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 10PM MEOB WITH MATT HONKONEN AND ZACH AND KOTA’S SWEET LIFE • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up.

COSMIC CHARLIE • Scruffy City Hall • 10PM THE CREE RIDER FAMILY BAND • 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 RICK RUSHING • Brackins Blues Club ( Maryville) • 9PM Sunday, Feb. 21 SHIFFLETT’S JAZZ BENEDICT • The Bistro at the Bijou • 12PM • Live jazz. • FREE SUNDAY JAZZ BRUNCH • Downtown Grill and Brewery • 12:45PM • Knoxville’s coolest jazz artists perform every

VOIVOD

VEKTOR

VOIVOD AND VEKTOR The Concourse (940 Blackstock Ave.) • Monday, Feb. 22 • 8 p.m. • $12 • 18 and up • internationalknox.com

In the late 1980s, over the course of three remarkable and increasingly weird albums—Killing Technology (1987), Dimension Hattross (1988), and Nothingface (1989)—the Canadian prog-thrash iconoclasts in Voivod created a massive dystopian sci-fi universe, a labyrinth of malevolent machinery populated by cyborgs and mutants and ruled by nameless, faceless political overlords. And the band made music to match—complex, cerebral, paranoid songs that twisted the galloping rhythms and brawling riffs of Metallica, Megadeth, and Exodus into something altogether different, deeper, and more unsettling. While their peers were preparing for mainstream crossover success, Voivod was getting ready for the apocalypse.

More albums followed, but lineup changes and the death, in 2005, of founding guitarist Denis “Piggy” D’Amour stalled the band for several years. Recent albums, like 2013’s Target Earth, have been embraced by die-hard fans, and new EP, Post Society, is due out on Feb. 26.

If any band can claim Voivod’s mantle, it’s Vektor, a frighteningly proficient and maybe even visionary quartet based in Philadelphia. They share Voivod’s brainy complexity and sci-fi obsessions—the band’s third album, Terminal Redux, due out in May, tells the story of an abandoned astronaut-turned-intergalactic tyrant—but not their tour mates’ idiosyncrasies.

They’ve built their cosmic empire on a foundation of old-fashioned muscle and velocity. With Eight Bells. (Matthew Everett)

27

Spotlight: Young Pianist Series: Josh Wright

Thursday, Feb. 18 - Sunday, Feb. 28

Sunday. • FREE THE BEACH BOYS • Tennessee Theatre • 8PM • You can capsulize most pop music acts by reciting how many hits they’ve had and how many millions of albums they’ve sold. But these conventional measurements fall short when you’re assessing the impact of The Beach Boys. To be sure, this band has birthed a torrent of hit singles and sold albums by the tens of millions. But its greater significance lies in the fact that it changed the musical landscape so profoundly that every pop act since has been in its debt. • $54.50-$250 WEBB WILDER • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM • Webb Wilder is ageless. He’s been the “Last of the Full Grown Men” since the late ’80s, when he rose out of the depths of Nashville during one of its crappier musical eras. At the time, rockabilly revivalists were mostly from out of state and looked cool—think Stray Cats when they were lean and mean. Wilder debuted a different, nerdier approach that was less about tattoos and ducktails and more about flying saucers and wire-frame glasses.

Wilder is a true believer in the purity of rock ’n’ roll, and we need as many of those as we can find. • $5 TRAVIS TRITT • Bijou Theatre • 8PM • Experience this rare opportunity featuring the multi-platinum artist in an intimate solo-acoustic setting where his powerful voice and his guitar are the subject of the spotlight. • $47-$57 MILO WITH SIGNOR BENEDICK THE MOOR • The 1400 • 8PM • $10 Monday, Feb. 22 TIM FAST WITH WEBB WILDER • 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 VOIVOD WITH VEKTOR AND EIGHT BELLS • The Concourse • 8PM • in 2013, the band finally released the long-awaited new album, Target Earth, the first Voivod album without its guitarist and founder Piggy. Target Earth surpassed all expectations, and drew positive reviews all around the world, and was included in some Best-of-2013 Metal lists.

• $12 • See Spotlight on page 24.

THE SCRUFFY CITY JAZZ BAND • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM MIKE AND THE MOONPIES • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • Mike and the Moonpies are the modern face of the outlaw country music movement. From their home in Austin, Texas, they carry the torch of their predecessors, while maintaining the originality and independence that the genre is infamous for.

SEAN PATRICK AND THE NEWGRASS REVOLUTION • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up.

Tuesday, Feb. 23 GEOFF SMITH WITH PAUL LEE KUPFER • 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 MARBLE CITY 5 • Red Piano Lounge • 8PM PAUL LEE KUPFER • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • Originally from the Mountains of West Virginia, Paul Lee Kupfer has traveled as a solo performer and band leader since 2006 while living in Philadelphia, California, Tennessee, Montana and towns in between. Restless touring and writing has allowed him to share the bill with some of his heroes.

Wednesday, Feb. 24 NICK URB • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week lunchtime concert series

CALENDAR

featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose • 6:30PM • Live jazz featuring a mix of original music, early jazz and more. • FREE TENNESSEE SHINES: THE SEA THE SEA • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7PM • Mira Stanley and Chuck E. Costa make engrossing indie folk music with rich harmonies and inventive instrumentation. Their debut release, Love We Are We Love, is an intimate, intense and delicate journey of lightness and dark. Their new single, “How Will We Know,” teases new songs to come from this phenomenal duo. • $10 THE HUNTER SMITH TRIO • The Bistro at the Bijou • 7PM • Live jazz. • FREE WILL BOYD • Red Piano Lounge • 8PM LAUREN ARP • Bourbon Street Whiskey Bar • 6PM Thursday, Feb. 25 DEE DEE BROGAN • Bourbon Street Whiskey Bar • 6PM JEREMY MOORE WITH KIRK THURMOND AND THE MILLENNIALS • 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 WARREN PINEDA AND JON MASON • Red Piano Lounge • 6PM DIXIEGHOST • Scruffy City Hall • 6PM • Knoxville band Dixieghost is pushing back against what it means to be a folk band. The band’s lead singer, songwriter, and guitarist, Jason Hanna, a Knoxville native, is trying to distance his band from mainstream radio-friendly folk groups like Mumford and Sons while staying true to his and his bandmates’ traditional folk and Appalachian roots.In the seven years since Dixieghost released its first self-titled album, with an almost entirely different lineup, the bluegrass-influenced band has developed a more confident voice and a more refined idea of the kind of musicians they want to be. On their new album, Wine and Spirits, Dixieghost’s progressive style helps them stand out from similar groups without betraying the standards of traditional folk, country, and bluegrass.

TESTAMENT WITH CARCASS • The Concourse • 7:30PM • Testament was one of the first thrash metal bands to emerge from the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1980s. 18 and up. • $22-$25 BERNAROO! BANDS FOR BERNIE 2016 • Scruffy City Hall • 7:30PM • Featuring Will Horton (of the Black Cadillacs) and friends, the Tennessee Stifflegs, Tim Lee, and the spoken word of Black Atticus. Bill Foster will emcee the event, and we will hear from special guest Evelyn Gill, Knox County 1st District Commission candidate.

KUKULY AND THE GYPSY FUEGO • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 8PM KIRK THURMOND AND THE MILLENNIALS WITH MOJO:FLOW, THE VALLEY OPERA, AND THE NEW APOLOGETIC • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • All ages. • $5 BEECH CREEPS • Pilot Light • 9PM • This 3-piece scuzzed-up rock outfit formed in Brooklyn, NY in 2013, as a rock-and-roll outlet for veterans of various past and present New York bands, including Ex Models, Pterodactyl, Doug Gillard band, Knyfe Hyts, the Seconds, and Yeasayer.

BARLEY’S TAPROOM AND PIZZERIA • 10PM • Rorey Carroll’s sound rolls in low and powerful with the feeling of a Tarantino film for the ears. A new kind of “Country Western Folk-n-Roll.”

POSITIVE MENTAL ATTITUDE • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up.

Friday, Feb. 26 FIRESIDE COLLECTIVE • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 5PM • FREE ALIVE AFTER FIVE: CRYSTAL SHAWANDA • Knoxville Museum of Art • 6PM • The winter series of AA5 concludes with a tribute to Ida Cox, born on February 25, 1894, and buried in Knoxville’s New Grey Cemetery, after living the last two decades of her life here. We are delighted to have Crystal Shawanda and her band perform for this occasion. Now based in Nashville, she is a Native American from Ontario. After enjoying considerable success as a country music artist, winning numerous awards and signing with RCA Records, her songwriting and performing began evolving as she followed her heart to blues and soul. • $10 WENDEL WERNER • Red Piano Lounge • 6PM THE JUDY CARMICHAEL TRIO • Clayton Center for the Arts (Maryville) • 7:30PM • Judy Carmichael is one of a handful of musicians who approach jazz from a perspective of its entire history. Choosing to study jazz piano from its early roots on, she explores the music deeply, infusing it with a “fresh, dynamic interpretation of her own” (Washington Post ). • $25 FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose • 8PM • Live jazz featuring a mix of original music, early jazz and more. • FREE THE DEADBEAT SCOUNDRELS WITH HANDSOME AND THE HUMBLES AND MARCUS BUNCH • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • All ages. • $7 LACY GREEN • Preservation Pub • 8PM • 21 and up.

JAMEL MITCHELL • Red Piano Lounge • 9PM • $5 CLAYMATION • The Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • Live jazz. • FREE PISTOL CREEK • Brackins Blues Club • 9PM THE COVERALLS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • Knoxville’s long-running bar/wedding/special event favorites are masters of mood—they know what an audience wants, whether it’s Top 40 hits, Motown, classic rock, or jazz standards, and they deliver, on time, every time. • $5 BLUE MOTHER TUPELO • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 10PM TAIL LIGHT REBELLION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE MOJO:FLOW • Two Doors Down • 10PM THE DOWNRIGHT BAND WITH AMBROSE WAY • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up.

Saturday, Feb. 27 JOHN JORGENSON • 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 ROGER ALAN WADE • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 4PM • Singer/Songwriter for over 35 years, Roger Alan Wade has penned songs for country legends such as Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, George Jones and the number one hit Country State of Mind for Hank Williams Jr. • FREE KATY FREE • Red Piano Lounge • 6PM BROOKE WAGGONER • Central Collective • 8PM • Brooke Waggoner’s sound, explored and refined in her latest album, SWEVEN, draws the notes between her past and present and doesn’t hesitate to mine an unusual source – herself. Brooke found herself revisiting her earliest work, captured in a pre-YouTube phase of life, that she had recorded throughout her childhood. • $10-$12 TRACTORHEAD WITH J.C. AND THE DIRTY SMOKERS AND SHIMMY AND THE BURNS • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • All ages. • $7

CLASSICAL TICKETS start at just $15

FEBRUARY

PREU

Music Director candidate

MOZART PIANO CONCERTO NO. 20 Tonight and Tomorrow 7:30 p.m. • Tennessee Theatre Eckart Preu, conductor Alon Goldstein, piano R. STRAUSS: Don Juan MOZART: Piano Concerto No. 20 HIGDON: Blue Cathedral PROKOFIEV: Selections from “Romeo and Juliet” Sponsored by Thermal Label Warehouse

MARCH

BAIROS

Music Director candidate

PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION

Thursday, March 17 • 7:30 p.m.

Friday, March 18 • 7:30 p.m.

Tennessee Theatre Jacomo Rafael Bairos, conductor Elena Urioste, violin ADAMS: “The Chairman Dances” BARBER: Violin Concerto MUSSORGSKY/RAVEL: Pictures at an Exhibition Sponsored by Bass Berry + Sims & Dalen Products

CALL: (865) 291-3310 CLICK: knoxvillesymphony.com VISIT: Monday-Friday, 9-5 February 18, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 25

CALENDAR

Thursday, Feb. 18 - Sunday, Feb. 28

WIGGINS AND HACK • Preservation Pub • 8PM • 21 and up.

THE WILL YAGER TRIO • Red Piano Lounge • 9PM • $5 MARK BOLING • The Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • Live jazz. • FREE JOEY PRICE • Brackins Blues Club • 9PM THE CARMONAS • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE CHEW • Preservation Pub • 10PM • Experimental rock from Atlanta. 21 and up.

JOHN PAUL KEITH • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • John Paul Keith, the brilliant singer-songwriter and blistering guitarist who exploded out of a self-imposed musical exile in Memphis with 2009’s critically acclaimed Spills and Thrills and 2011’s The Man That Time Forgot, returns with Memphis Circa 3AM—his most accomplished and moving collection of songs yet.

SHAUN ABBOTT • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 10PM MANIC FOCUS WITH ARTIFAKTS, CUDDLEFISH, AND LEGENDARY BIRD • The Concourse • 10PM • 18 and up. • $7 SOUTHBOUND • Two Doors Down • 10PM CHARGE THE ATLANTIC WITH ELUSIVE GROOVE AND WHITE NOISE • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up.

THE BROCKEFELLERS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM KEVIN GATES • The International • 9PM • Since releasing his first mixtape Pick Of Da Litter in 2007, Kevin Gates’ rise to success has been organic. Following his release from prison in 2011, he doubled down and delivered with a hyper focus that yielded 2012’s audience favorite Make ‘em Believe and 2013’s mainstream breakthrough The Luca Brasi Story, building one of the most dedicated and diehard fan bases in music. 18 and up. • $25-$100 THE SAINT JOHNS WITH BRAVE BABY • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up.

WARREN HAYNES AND THE ASHES AND DUST BAND • Bijou Theatre • 8PM • Grammy Award winning artist Warren Haynes has been recognized as a cornerstone of the American music landscape and revered as one of the finest guitar players in the world. Throughout his prolific career as part of three of the greatest live groups in rock history – Allman Brothers Band, Gov’t Mule and the Dead – his virtuosic artistry has led to thousands of unforgettable performances and millions of album and track sales. • $32-$42

Sunday, Feb. 28 SHIFFLETT’S JAZZ BENEDICT • The Bistro at the Bijou • 12PM • Live jazz. • FREE SUNDAY JAZZ BRUNCH • Downtown Grill and Brewery • 12:45PM • Knoxville’s coolest jazz artists perform every Sunday. • FREE SPECTRUM ELECTRIC JAZZ ORCHESTRA • Red Piano Lounge • 7PM

OPEN MIC AND SONGWRITER NIGHTS

Thursday, Feb. 18 IRISH MUSIC SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • Held on the first and third Thursdays of each month. • FREE

Saturday, Feb. 20 OLD-TIME SLOW JAM • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 4PM • A monthly old-time music session, held on the third Saturday of each month. • FREE Sunday, Feb. 21 FAMILY FRIENDLY DRUM CIRCLE • Ijams Nature Center • 3:30PM • Ijams monthly Family Friendly Drum Circle has moved indoors for the winter months. Join us inside at the Miller Building the third Sunday of the month. Bring a drum or share one of ours. All ages from toddlers to great-grandparents welcome. Follow us on Facebook: Drumming@Ijams. • FREE Tuesday, Feb. 23 OLD-TIME JAM SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • Hosted by Sarah Pickle. • FREE PRESERVATION PUB SINGER/SONGWRITER NIGHT • Preservation Pub • 7 p.m. • 21 and up. • FREE Wednesday, Feb. 24 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 OPEN CHORD OPEN-MIC NIGHT • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • Join us on the last Wednesday of each month for Open Mic Night at Open Chord/All Things Music.

Come show off your skills or come practice with your

band. We supply the backline, you supply the talent. Sign up when you arrive and claim your slot—three songs or 10 minutes.

Thursday, Feb. 25 SCOTTISH MUSIC SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • Held on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month.

• FREE

DJ AND DANCE NIGHTS

Saturday, Feb. 20 TEMPLE DANCE NIGHT • The Concourse • 9PM • Knoxville’s long-running alternative dance night. 18 and up. • $5

CLASSICAL MUSIC

Thursday, Feb. 18 KSO MASTERWORKS SERIES: MOZART PIANO CONCERTO NO. 20 • Tennessee Theatre • 7:30PM • In February, the Orchestra will be led by conductor Eckart Preu and joined by pianist Alon Goldstein for Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20. Other pieces include Richard Strauss’ Don Juan, Jennifer Higdon’s Blue Cathedral, and selections from Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo & Juliet. • $15-$89 • See preview on page 18.

Friday, Feb. 19 T HTEH A E RAT RS T S

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FEBRUARY / 27 / 2016

AQUILA THEATRE IN SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE’S THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

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Send your answer to: contests@knoxmercury.com 2 winners chosen at random will be notified on Feb. 22nd.

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26

KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 18, 2016

Thursday, Feb. 18 - Sunday, Feb. 28

KSO MASTERWORKS SERIES: MOZART PIANO CONCERTO NO. 20 • Tennessee Theatre • 7:30PM •. • $15-$89 • See preview on page 18.

Saturday, Feb. 20 OAK RIDGE STRING QUARTET • First Baptist Church Oak Ridge • 7:30PM • The Oak Ridge String Quartet returns to the Oak Ridge Civic Music Association’s Chamber Music Series. The program will feature string quartets by Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Grieg. • $10-$25 Sunday, Feb. 21 THE EVELYN MILLER YOUNG PIANIST SERIES • University of Tennessee Natalie L. Haslam Music Center • 2:30PM • Join us in our 36th season for a series of three recitals by three internationally acclaimed pianists: Josh Wright (Feb. 21), Mayuki Miyashita (March 20) and Jiayan Sun (April 24). Programs include classic and contemporary offerings for all audiences, from Bach and Beethoven to Chopin and Rorem. • $25 • See Spotlight on page 27.

CALENDAR

sets into motion a cycle of violent and bloody revenge in which the general and his foe lose more than either one could ever imagine. For mature audiences. Feb. 10-28.

THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: “THE LAST FIVE YEARS” • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • An emotionally powerful and intimate musical about two New Yorkers in their twenties who fall in and out of love over the course of five years. The show’s unconventional structure consists of Cathy, the woman, telling her story backwards while Jamie, the man, tells his story chronologically; the two characters only meet once, at their wedding in the middle of the show.

Feb. 12-28. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15

Friday, Feb. 19 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘TITUS ANDRONICUS’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7PM • Feb. 10-28. • Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: “THE LAST FIVE YEARS” • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • Feb. 12-28. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 Saturday, Feb. 20 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘TITUS ANDRONICUS’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7PM • Feb. 10-28. • Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

Tuesday, Feb. 23 ALLISON ADAMS AND ANDREA LODGE: NEW MUSIC FOR PIANO AND SAXOPHONE • University of Tennessee Natalie L. Haslam Music Center • 6PM • A collaboration of the nief-norf contemporary music organization. • FREE Thursday, Feb. 25 UT SYMPHONIC BAND, CONCERT BAND, AND WIND ENSEMBLE CONCERT • University of Tennessee Alumni Memorial Building • 8PM • FREE Friday, Feb. 26 UT TENNESSEE CELLO WORKSHOP • University of Tennessee Natalie L. Haslam Music Center • Intensive, joyful exploration of many facets of cello playing through master classes, technique seminars, lectures, ensemble playing, concerts, and competitions. For more information or to register: www.music.utk.edu/tcw • FREE KNOXVILLE OPERA: ‘HANSEL AND GRETEL’ • Tennessee Theatre • 8PM • Knoxville Opera is pleased to announce the return of Humperdinck’s whimsical production, Hansel and Gretel, to the historic Tennessee Theatre. This beloved candy-filled adventure will once again delight audiences with the story of two mischievous children who venture deep into an enchanted forest. For a full synopsis of the production and complete list of cast members, please visit KnoxvilleOpera.com. Tickets, which start at $21 for adults and $13 for students, can be purchased online or by calling (865) 524-0795, ext. 28. • $21-$99 Saturday, Feb. 27 UT TENNESSEE CELLO WORKSHOP • University of Tennessee Natalie L. Haslam Music Center • For more information or to register: www.music.utk.edu/tcw • FREE Sunday, Feb. 28 UT TENNESSEE CELLO WORKSHOP • University of Tennessee Natalie L. Haslam Music Center • For more information or to register: www.music.utk.edu/tcw • FREE KNOXVILLE OPERA: ‘HANSEL AND GRETEL’ • Tennessee Theatre • 2:30PM • $21-$99

THEATER AND DANCE

Thursday, Feb. 18 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘TITUS ANDRONICUS’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7PM • Is revenge justice? A victorious general returns home, having already lost many sons in the war, only to find political chaos and the emperor marrying his enemy. This

EVELYN MILLER YOUNG PIANIST SERIES: JOSH WRIGHT UT Natalie L. Haslam Music Center (1741 Volunteer Blvd.) • Sunday, Feb. 21 • 2:30 p.m. • $25 • youngpianistseries.com

To say a lot has changed in Knoxville’s music scene since 1980 is an understatement. While there were faint glimmers of a Knoxville arts and music identity emerging 35 years ago, downtown performance venues were in flux and performance organizations inched along. It was in that year that Knoxville pianist and teacher Evelyn Miller established the Young Pianist Series, a Knoxville recital series designed to give exposure to pianists under the age of 35 who are on the verge of major international careers. In 2016, YPS is in its 36th year and tenaciously continues with that stated goal—and at the same time rewards Knoxville audiences with a valuable addition to a music scene that has now exploded with diversity.

After a few years of wandering between church spaces and the Clayton Center in Maryville, the series now makes its home in the acoustically marvelous Powell Recital Hall in the University of Tennessee’s Natalie L. Haslam Music Center. The three-recital 2016 series opens on Sunday afternoon with 28-year-old pianist Josh Wright, a native of Salt Lake City. Wright, with degrees from the University of Michigan and the University of Utah, has been a participant and prize-winner in a number of global competitions, including the 2015 International Chopin Competition, the 2014 Washington International Piano Competition, and the 2013 Heida Hermanns International Piano Competition.

Wright’s recital program ranges from the Baroque of Domenico Scarlatti to the early 20th century of Maurice Ravel. In between comes a heavy dose of 19th-century works by Liszt and Chopin, including a number of Chopin Ballades and Études and Liszt’s “La Campanella,” the third of six of the Grandes études de Paganini. Ravel is represented by “Ondine” from his suite Gaspard de la nuit. (Alan Sherrod)

February 18, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 27

CALENDAR THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: “THE LAST FIVE YEARS” • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • Feb. 12-28. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 TANASI 1796 • Clayton Center for the Arts (Maryville) • 7PM • This is a story of Captain Black and Attakullakulla from the time period 1756 with the construction of Fort Loudon during the French and Indian War through the adoption of the Constitution for the prospective entry of Tennessee as the 16th State of the United States. The Story will be augmented by period music from the Cherokee flutist, Randy McGinnis,and by early fiddle and dulcimer renditions by the Scot Irish heritage of Blount County. Living history performance by Robert Rambo as Attakullakulla, Chief of the Cherokee and featuring the exquisite period art of acclaimed artist David Wright. • $10 Sunday, Feb. 21 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘TITUS ANDRONICUS’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 2PM • Feb. 10-28. • Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: “THE LAST FIVE YEARS” • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 3PM • Feb. 12-28. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $13 Wednesday, Feb. 24 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘TITUS ANDRONICUS’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7PM • Feb. 10-28. • Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘A LESSON BEFORE DYING’ • Carousel Theatre • 7:30PM • It’s 1948 in a small plantation community in the heart of Cajun country. A young man, jailed for a murder he did not commit, will soon lose his life and has lost his self-respect. A young teacher, with

Thursday, Feb. 18 - Sunday, Feb. 28

most of his life ahead of him, has lost respect for the situation in which he lives. Both men teach each other the lessons they need to face their very different futures with dignity and strength. Feb. 24-March 16. Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

Thursday, Feb. 25 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘TITUS ANDRONICUS’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7PM • Feb. 10-28. • Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘A LESSON BEFORE DYING’ • Carousel Theatre • 7:30PM • Feb. 24-March 16. Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: “THE LAST FIVE YEARS” • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • Feb. 12-28. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 Friday, Feb. 26 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: ‘TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD’ • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 7PM • The unforgettable Pulitzer Prize-winning novel comes to life on the KCT stage, with its unique mix of warm nostalgia and frank realism. The lives of young “Scout” Finch and her big brother Jim are about to change forever, when their father Atticus, a lawyer, is appointed to defend a black man accused of attacking a white teenage girl. Feb. 26-March 13. Visit knoxvillechildrenstheatre.com. • $12 TENNESSEE CHILDREN’S DANCE ENSEMBLE CONCERT • Knoxville Civic Auditorium • 8:15PM • The Tennessee Children’s Dance Ensemble will open its 35th season with dances by Abby Williams, Courtney Kohlhepp and Karlie Budge, as well as a new work by Amy Wilson. • $10

CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘TITUS ANDRONICUS’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7PM • Feb. 10-28. • Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘A LESSON BEFORE DYING’ • Carousel Theatre • 7:30PM • Feb. 24-March 16. Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: “THE LAST FIVE YEARS” • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • Feb. 12-28. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 MARYVILLE COLLEGE: ‘SHE KILLS MONSTERS’ • Clayton Center for the Arts (Maryville) • 8PM • A comedic romp into the world of fantasy role-playing games, She Kills Monsters tells the story of Agnes Evans as she leaves her childhood home in Ohio following the death of her teenage sister, Tilly. When Agnes finds Tilly’s Dungeons & Dragons notebook, however, she stumbles into a journey of discovery and action-packed adventure in the imaginary world that was Tilly’s refuge. Feb. 26-27. • $10 Saturday, Feb. 27 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: ‘TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD’ • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 1PM and 5PM • Feb. 26-March 13. Visit knoxvillechildrenstheatre.com. • $12 TENNESSEE CHILDREN’S DANCE ENSEMBLE CONCERT • Knoxville Civic Auditorium • 2:30PM and 8:15PM • The Tennessee Children’s Dance Ensemble will open its 35th season with dances by Abby Williams, Courtney Kohlhepp and Karlie Budge, as well as a new work by Amy Wilson. • $10 MARYVILLE COLLEGE: ‘SHE KILLS MONSTERS’ • Clayton Center for the Arts • 2PM and 8PM • A comedic romp into

the world of fantasy role-playing games, She Kills Monsters tells the story of Agnes Evans as she leaves her childhood home in Ohio following the death of her teenage sister, Tilly. When Agnes finds Tilly’s Dungeons & Dragons notebook, however, she stumbles into a journey of discovery and action-packed adventure in the imaginary world that was Tilly’s refuge. Feb. 26-27. • $10 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘TITUS ANDRONICUS’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7PM • Feb. 10-28. • Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘A LESSON BEFORE DYING’ • Carousel Theatre • 7:30PM • Feb. 24-March 16. Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: “THE LAST FIVE YEARS” • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • Feb. 12-28. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 AQUILA THEATRE: SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE’S ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES • Clayton Center for the Arts (Maryville) • 7:30PM • Aquila Theatre brings legendary sleuth, Sherlock Holmes to life in this witty, fast paced production.

COMEDY AND SPOKEN WORD

Thursday, Feb. 18 THIRD THURSDAY COMEDY OPEN MIC • Big Fatty’s Catering Kitchen • 7:30PM • We will showcase local and touring talent in a curated open mic of 6 to 8 comics. The event

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starts at 7:30, and there is no charge for admission. The kitchen will be open as well as their full bar. • FREE Friday, Feb. 19 THE FIFTH WOMAN POETRY SLAM • The Birdhouse • 6:30PM • The 5th Woman Poetry slam is place where all poets can come and share their words of love, respect, passion, and expression. It is not dedicated solely women but is a place where women poets are celebrated and honored. Check out our facebook pages for the challenge of the month and focus for our poetry every month.

Sunday, Feb. 21 UPSTAIRS UNDERGROUND COMEDY • Preservation Pub • 8PM • A weekly comedy open mic.

Monday, Feb. 22 QED COMEDY LABORATORY • Pilot Light • 7:30PM • 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. Free, but donations are accepted. • FREE Tuesday, Feb. 23 OPEN MIC STAND-UP COMEDY • Longbranch Saloon • 8PM • Come laugh until you cry at the Longbranch every Tuesday night. Doors open at 8:30, first comic at 9. 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. • FREE EINSTEIN SIMPLIFIED • Scruffy City Hall • 8PM • Einstein Simplified Comedy performs live comedy improv at Scruffy City Hall. It’s just like Whose Line Is It Anyway, but you get to make the suggestions. Show starts at 8:15, get there early for the best seats. No cover. • FREE GRADY RAY WITH KEVIN SHOCKLEY, DANIEL RYAN WADE, AND AARON CHASTEN • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • #N/A • The story of Grady Ray seems like the stuff of Southern Folklore. His father was a pimp and a hustler and his mother a flower child. Born a biracial child in the shadows of the mountains in East Tennessee, Grady learned how to adapt to a world that was not completely accepting of him. Comedy became a useful tool in coping with everyday life. 18 and up.

FESTIVALS

Friday, Feb. 26 47TH ANNUAL JUBILEE FESTIVAL • Laurel Theater • 7PM • JCA showcases some of the finest practitioners of mountain music across the generations, home grown in our own back yard. Friday and Saturday night we will have old time string bands and song and plenty of jamming in the basement. The festival concludes with Old Harp Singing on Sunday. This year’s performers include the Lost Fiddle String Band, Kelle Jolly, the Tennessee Stifflegs, John Alvis and Friends, the Knox County Jug Stompers, Y’uns, Camp Hollow String Band, Possum Crossing, Roy Harper, Mike & Marcia Bryant, the Bearded, and the Mumbillies. • FREE-$12 Saturday, Feb. 27 TENNESSEE WINTER BEER FEST • The Carriage House (Townsend) • 3PM • Breweries that will be in attendance for the 2016 event are Saw Works Brewing Company, Bluetick Brewery, Fanatic Brewing Company, Depot Street

CALENDAR

Brewing, Yee-Haw Brewing Company, Balter Beerworks, Crafty Bastard Brewery, Blackhorse Brewery, Johnson City Brewing Company, Holston River Brewing Company, Last Days of Autumn Brewing and Calfkiller Brewing Company.

Tickets can be purchased online at www.tennesseewinterbeerfest.com. • $30-$60 47TH ANNUAL JUBILEE FESTIVAL • Laurel Theater • 7PM • FREE-$12 Sunday, Feb. 28 47TH ANNUAL JUBILEE FESTIVAL • Laurel Theater • 2PM • FREE-$12

FILM SCREENINGS

Thursday, Feb. 18 BLACK PANTHERS: VANGUARD OF THE REVOLUTION’ • Indigenous Vibes • 7PM • A free advanced screening of the new documentary about the Black Panther Party, featuring perspectives from police, FBI informants, journalists, and supporters and detractors. • FREE Sunday, Feb. 21 PUBLIC CINEMA: ‘IN THE SHADOW OF WOMEN’ • Knoxville Museum of Art • 2PM • Iconoclast and long-time bête noire of French cinema Philippe Garrel evokes the glories of the Nouvelle Vague in this beautifully modulated film about the ups and downs of bohemian life. Shot in lustrous black-and-white, the film floats us back to the Paris of the 1960s — a city of side streets, bars, and tiny apartments where people live and love, sometimes well and sometimes badly. • FREE SAY IT LOUD: KNOXVILLE DURING THE CIVIL RIGHTS ERA’ • University of Tennessee • 2PM • Featuring rare historic footage of African-American life during Knoxville’s civil rights era, “Say It Loud” offers a glimpse into the early protests and marches in downtown Knoxville and on Cumberland Avenue during the early 1960s. “Say It Loud” was edited by Louisa Trott and Bradley Reeves from films clips held in the Knox County Public Library’s Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound. Trott is project coordinator for the Tennessee Newspaper Digitization Project at UT. She and Reeves are co-founders of TAMIS. At the Lindsay Young Auditorium of John C. Hodges Library (1015 Volunteer Blvd.). • FREE Monday, Feb. 22 THE BIRDHOUSE WALK-IN THEATER • The Birdhouse • 8:15PM • A weekly free movie screening. • FREE Wednesday, Feb. 24 SCRUFFY CITY CINEPUB • Scruffy City Hall • 10PM • A weekly program of movie screenings from the Scruffy City Film and Music Festival, Knoxville Horror Film Festival, and more.

SPORTS AND RECREATION

Thursday, Feb. 18 CYCOLOGY BICYCLES THURSDAY MORNING RIDE • Cycology Bicycles • 10AM • FREE FLEET FEET GROUP RUN/WALK • Fleet Feet Sports Knoxville • 6PM • All levels welcome. • FREE NORTH KNOXVILLE BEER RUNNERS • Central Flats and Taps • 6PM • Meet us at Central Flats and Taps every Thursday night for a fun and easy run leading us right through Saw Works for a midway beer! • FREE

RIVER SPORTS THURSDAY EVENING GREENWAY BIKE RIDE • River Sports Outfitters • 6PM • FREE WHOLE FOODS GAME NIGHT • Whole Foods • 6PM • Join us for everything from Candy Land to chess, and feel free to add a pint and a pizza. • FREE KNOXVILLE BICYCLE COMPANY THURSDAY GRAVEL GRINDER • North Boundary Trails • 6:30PM CEDAR BLUFF CYCLES THURSDAY GREENWAY RIDE • Cedar Bluff Cycles • 6:30PM • FREE Friday, Feb. 19 RIVER SPORTS FRIDAY NIGHT GREENWAY RUN • River Sports Outfitters • 6PM • Greenway run from the store every Friday evening from 6-7:30 pm. Work up a thirst then join us for $2 Pints in the store afterwards. http:// www.riversportsoutfitters.com/events/ • FREE Sunday, Feb. 21 KNOXVILLE HARDCOURT BIKE POLO • Sam Duff Memorial Park • 1PM • Don’t know how to play? Just bring your bike — we have mallets to share and will teach you the game.

• FREE SMOKY MOUNTAIN HIKING CLUB: FORKS OF THE RIVER WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT AREA • Smoky Mountain Hiking Club • 1PM • This will be a 5 mile walk in an urban wilderness in south Knoxville. Meet at the McClure parking lot, 3140 McClure Lane (off Island Home Pike in Knoxville), at 1:00 PM. Leader: Chris Hamilton, hikeintenn@gmail.com. • FREE Monday, Feb. 22 KTC GROUP RUN • Mellow Mushroom • 6PM • Visit ktc.org.

• FREE BEARDEN BEER MARKET FUN RUN • Bearden Beer Market • 6:30PM • Visit beardenbeermarket.com. • FREE Tuesday, Feb. 23 CYTOLOGY BICYCLES TUESDAY MORNING RIDE • Cycology Bicycles • 10:30AM • cycologybicycles.com. • FREE WHOLE FOODS GAME NIGHT • Whole Foods • 6PM • Join us for everything from Candy Land to chess, and feel free to add a pint and a pizza. • FREE HARD KNOX TUESDAY FUN RUN • Hard Knox Pizzeria • 6:30PM • Join Hard Knox Pizzeria every Tuesday evening (rain or shine) for a 2-3 mile fun run. Burn calories. Devour pizza.

Quench thirst. Follow us on Facebook. • FREE CEDAR BLUFF CYCLES TUESDAY GREENWAY RIDE • Cedar Bluff Cycles • 6:30PM • cedarbluffcycles.net. • FREE Wednesday, Feb. 24 KTC GROUP RUN • Runner’s Market • 5:30PM • Visit ktc.org.

• FREE FOUNTAIN CITY PEDALERS SHARPS RIDGE MOUNTAIN BIKE RIDE • Fountain City Pedaler • 6PM • Visit fcpedaler.com. • FREE SMOKY MOUNTAIN HIKING CLUB: BLANKET MOUNTAIN • Smoky Mountain Hiking Club • 8AM • This hike will follow Jakes Creek trail and the manway to Blanket Mountain.

Hike: 9 miles, rated moderate. Meet at Alcoa Food City, 121 North Hall Road, at 8:00 AM. Drive: 60 miles RT. Leader: Ron Brandenburg, ronb86@comcast.net. • FREE Thursday, Feb. 25 CYCOLOGY BICYCLES THURSDAY MORNING RIDE • Cycology Bicycles • 10AM • Join Cycology Bicycles every Thursday morning for a road ride with two group options. A Group does a 2 to 3 hour ride at 20+ pace; B group does an intermediate ride at 15/18 mph average. Weather permitting. cycologybicycles.com. • FREE FLEET FEET GROUP RUN/WALK • Fleet Feet Sports Knoxville • 6PM • Join us every Thursday night at our store for a fun

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CALENDAR group run/walk. We have all levels come out, so no matter what your speed you’ll have someone to keep you company.

Our 30 - 60 minute route varies week by week in the various neighborhoods and greenways around the store, so be sure to show up on time so you can join up with the group. All levels welcome. fleetfeetknoxville.com. • FREE NORTH KNOXVILLE BEER RUNNERS • Central Flats and Taps • 6PM • Meet us at Central Flats and Taps every Thursday night for a fun and easy run leading us right through Saw Works for a midway beer. • FREE RIVER SPORTS THURSDAY EVENING GREENWAY BIKE RIDE • River Sports Outfitters • 6PM • Every Thursday night from 6 to 7:30 join River Sports Outfitters on an easy paced, beginner friendly Greenway Ride. Bring your own bike or rent one for $15. Lights are mandatory on your bikes from September through March. After ride join us at the store for $2 pints. riversportsoutfitters.com/events. • FREE WHOLE FOODS GAME NIGHT • Whole Foods • 6PM • Join us for everything from Candy Land to chess, and feel free to add a pint and a pizza. • FREE KNOXVILLE BICYCLE COMPANY THURSDAY GRAVEL GRINDER • North Boundary Trails • 6:30PM • Join Knoxville Bicycle Company every Thursday evening for their gravel grinder.

Meets at 6:30 pm at North Boundary in Oak Ridge, park at the guard shack. Cross bikes and hardtails are perfect.

Bring lights. Regroups as necessary. Call shop for more details. Weather permitting - call the store if weather is questionable. knoxvillebicycleco.com. • CEDAR BLUFF CYCLES THURSDAY GREENWAY RIDE • Cedar Bluff Cycles • 6:30PM • Join us every Thursday evening for a greenway ride at an intermediate pace of 14-15 mph. Must

Thursday, Feb. 18 - Sunday, Feb. 28

have lights. Weather permitting. cedarbluffcycles.net. • FREE

ART

Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts 556 Parkway (Gatlinburg) JAN. 16-MARCH 11: Touch: Interactive Craft, Arrowmont’s biannual national juried exhibition.

Art Market Gallery 422 S. Gay St. FEB. 2-28: heART 2 heART, a Valentine’s exhibit.

Bliss Home 24 Market Square JAN. 1-FEB. 29: Artwork by Ocean Starr Cline.

Broadway Studios and Gallery 1127 Broadway FEB. 5-MARCH 1: Alley Cat by Marianne Ziegler.

Downtown Gallery 106 S. Gay St. FEB. 5-27: Artwork by Larry Brown.

East Tennessee History Museum 601 S. Gay St. THROUGH MARCH 2: Bud Albers Art Recollections: Works From Life and Travels; THROUGH MARCH 20: Celebrating a Life in Tennessee Art: Lloyd Branson 1853-1925

Emporium Center for Arts and Culture 100 S. Gay St. FEB. 5-26: Knoxville Photography Collective exhibit and National Juried Exhibition 2016.

Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church 2931 Kingston Pike FEB. 12-MARCH 30: Artwork by Heather Hartman and Jessica Payne.

Ewing Gallery 1715 Volunteer Blvd.

JAN. 14-FEB. 18: UT Artist-in-Residence Biennial, featuring work by Molly Zuckerman-Hartung, Aliza Nisenbaum, Caitlin Keogh, and Dominic Terlizzi.

Westminster Presbyterian Church Schiller Gallery 6500 S. Northshore Drive JAN. 12-FEB. 28: Paintings by Jennifer Brickey.

Flow: A Brew Parlor 603 W. Main St. FEB. 5-29: Artwork by Saul Young.

Knoxville Museum of Art 1050 World’s Fair Park Drive JAN. 29-APRIL 17: Knoxville Seven, an exhibit of artwork by an influential group of Knoxville artists from the 1950s and ’60s, including Buck Ewing, Carl Sublett, and more. 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 JAN. 23-MAY 22: Maya: Lords of Time. ONGOING: The Flora and Fauna of Catesby, Mason, and Audubon and Life on the Roman Frontier.

LECTURES, READINGS, AND BOOK SIGNINGS

Thursday, Feb. 18 PAMELA SCHOENEWALDT: ‘UNDER THE SAME BLUE SKY’ • University of Tennessee Medical Center • 5PM • Pamela Schoenewaldt, USAToday bestselling author, discusses her latest novel, Under the Same Blue Sky, and her research on the health and healthcare-related consequences of “the war to end all wars.” A historical novel set on the home front of World War I, Under the Same Blue Sky gives a unique perspective to timeless issues of the Healing Touch, caregiver stress, and shell shock (known to us as PTSD). • FREE TOM AND TONY BANCROFT LECTURE • University of Tennessee Art and Architecture Building • 7PM • Former Disney animators Tom and Tony Bancroft will be presenting a lecture at 7pm in the Art and Architecture

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Thursday, Feb. 18 - Sunday, Feb. 28

Building room 109 on Feb. 18. • FREE Friday, Feb. 19 UT SCIENCE FORUM • Thompson-Boling Arena • 12PM • The Science Forum is a weekly brown-bag lunch series that allows professors and area scientists to discuss their research with the general public in a conversational presentation. Free and open to the public, each Science Forum consists of a 40-minute presentation followed by a Q-and-A session. Attendees are encouraged to bring their own lunch or purchase it at the cafe in Thompson-Boling Arena. The Science Forum, sponsored by the UT Office of Research and Quest magazine, is an initiative to raise awareness of the research, scholarship and creative activity happening on campus. • FREE Saturday, Feb. 20 MATT HINKIN: “REPORTING THE WEATHER” • Blount County Public Library • 2PM • Hinkin, celebrating 25 years at Channel 6 TV, has a strong commitment to forecasting the weather for the greater Knoxville community. He will discuss some of the factors involved in the science of his career and some of the anecdotes – such as when he stayed at the station for five continuous days during the Blizzard of 1993. This program, appropriate for all ages, will be in the Main Gallery of the library. • FREE TEDXUTK • McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture • 10AM • TEDxUTK, a student-run organization, is a program of independently organized TED-format conference events; we hope to serve as a platform for meaningful discovery and discussion of ideas that create a positive impact for our Knoxville community. Our core team has organized a diverse speaker docket for the event. We are excited to announce that our speaker disciplines spread from soil science, architecture, neuroscience, and art to drug policy, education, linguistics, sustainability, history, sports, and more. The docket is divided into morning and afternoon sessions. To learn more about our speakers and attend the event, please visit www.tedxutk.com.

Sunday, Feb. 21 MCCLUNG MUSEUM CIVIL WAR LECTURE SERIES • McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture • 2PM • The McClung Museum’s 6th annual Civil War Lecture series is titled “An All-American City Endures: Knoxvillians at War 1860-1865,” and will examine Knoxville families before, during, and after the upheaval of war. This month’s lecture examines the war through the lens of lawyers and lawmakers, and is titled “Politicians and Lawmakers: Attempting to Maintain Control.” The lectures are free and open to the public. • FREE Monday, Feb. 22 DANIEL O’QUINN: “SHYLOCKS: ANTI-SEMITISM, PUGILISM, AND THE REPERTOIRE OF THEATRICAL VIOLENCE” • University of Tennessee • 3:30PM •Daniel O’Quinn, a professor at the University of Guelph, will give a talk titled “Shylocks: Anti-Semitism, Pugilism and the Repertoire of Theatrical Violence” in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of John C. Hodges Library, 1015 Volunteer Blvd.

In his lecture, O’Quinn will explore the career of the great Mendoza, the “Star of Jerusalem,” and his triumphs over the conspicuously English boxer Richard Humphries both before and after the French Revolution. .The lecture is a part of the Humanities Center Fourth Annual Distinguished Lecture Series. • FREE WRITERS IN THE LIBRARY: WILLIAM WRIGHT • University of Tennessee John C. Hodges Library • 7PM • Poet William Wright will read and discuss his work at the University of Tennessee’s Writers in the Library reading series. Wright

CALENDAR

is the current Writer-in-Residence at UT’s Department of English. • FREE MICHAEL BRENNER: “THE IDEA OF A JEWISH STATE FROM HERZL TO NETANYAHU” • University of Tennessee • 7:30PM • Michael Brenner will present “The Idea of a Jewish State from Herzl to Netanyahu” in the auditorium of UT’s McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture. The lecture is a part of the annual Karen and Pace Robinson Lecture Series on Modern Israel. It is free and open to the public. A reception will follow. • FREE Wednesday, Feb. 24 STEPHEN WICKS: “THE ART OF BEAUFORD DELANEY” • East Tennessee History Center • 12PM • Stephen Wicks, curator at the Knoxville Museum of Art, will explore the legacy of painter Beauford Delaney, one of the country’s most significant African American modernists. Born in Knoxville in 1901, Delaney went from sketching on Sunday school cards to formal lessons with Knoxville’s Lloyd Branson to joining the artistic revolution in Harlem, New York. From 1953 until his 1979 death he lived in Paris, where his artistic focus shifted from depictions of city life to abstract expressionism. For more information on the lecture, exhibitions, or museum hours, call 865-215-8824 or visit the website at www.EastTNHistory. org. • FREE Thursday, Feb. 25 TED FISHER: “THE ONCE AND FUTURE MAYA: CULTURAL REVIVAL AND RESURGENCE IN THE MODERN WORLD” • McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture • 5:15PM • As part of programming related to the current special exhibition, Maya: Lords of Time, the McClung Museum presents Ted Fisher, Professor of Anthropology at Vanderbilt University, giving the talk, “The Once and Future Maya: Cultural Revival and Resurgence in the Modern World.” • FREE

FAMILY AND KIDS’ EVENTS

Thursday, Feb. 18 BABY BOOKWORMS • Lawson McGee Public Library • 11AM • For infants to age 2, must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. • FREE Friday, Feb. 19 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 Saturday, Feb. 20 SATURDAY STORIES AND SONGS • Lawson McGee Public Library • 11AM • A weekly music and storytelling session for kids. • FREE UT Arboretum Father-Daughter Hike • University of Tennessee Arboretum • 9AM • Are you looking for an opportunity to spend some father-daughter quality time outdoors? Come out to the University of Tennessee Arboretum for a fun, short trail hike (1 to 1.5 hours) on Saturday, February 20. For more information on the program, call 483-3571. • FREE SCOTT HAMILTON AND FRIENDS ON ICE • Knoxville Civic Coliseum • 5PM • This one-of-a-kind production featuring Scott Hamilton, Olympic Gold Medalist, a dozen World or Olympic Champion figure skaters and Michael W. Smith, one of the world’s most renowned Christian entertainers and 3-time Grammy Award Winner who has recorded 31

#1 hits, live in concert. To learn more about the Ice Show, Celebration Dinner and how to purchase tickets or become a sponsor, Call (865)321-4589. All net proceeds from this event will go to support education, health, wellness, research, and patient assistance programs managed by the Provision CARES Foundation and the Scott Hamilton CARES Foundation. • $22-$52.50 UT ARBORETUM FATHER-DAUGHTER HIKE • University of Tennessee Arboretum (Oak Ridge) • 9AM • Are you looking for an opportunity to spend some father-daughter quality time outdoors? Come out to the University of Tennessee Arboretum for a fun, short trail hike (1 to 1.5 hours). This is a great winter occasion to get some outdoor exercise with your daughters or granddaughters of any age. To learn more about the Arboretum Society, go to www. utarboretumsociety.org. For more information on the program, call 483-3571. • FREE Tuesday, Feb. 23 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. While the format of the program will still feel like a traditional storytime with books, music, and other educational activities, each weekly session will focus on a different standard from the Tennessee Department of Education’s Early Childhood/Early Learning Developmental Standards.

• FREE BLOUNT COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY LEGO CLUB • Blount County Public Library • 4PM • LEGO Club will take place in the children’s library. 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 • FREE 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. • FREE Wednesday, Feb. 24 BABY BOOKWORMS • Lawson McGee Public Library • 10:20AM • For infants to age 2, must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. • FREE PRESCHOOL STORYTIME • Lawson McGee Public Library • 11AM • For ages 3 to 5, must be accompanied by an adult.

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Thursday, Feb. 25 BABY BOOKWORMS • Lawson McGee Public Library • 11AM • For infants to age 2, must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. • FREE Saturday, Feb. 27 SATURDAY STORIES AND SONGS • Lawson McGee Public Library • 11AM • A weekly music and storytelling session for kids. • FREE FAMILY FUN DAY: AFRICAN-AMERICAN HISTORY • 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 celebrate African American History Month by learning more about African-American history.

All materials will be provided. The program is free and open to the public. Reservations are not necessary. • FREE Sunday, Feb. 28 WINTER ICE SOLSTICE • Niswonger Performing Arts Center (Greeneville) • 2PM • Experience chilling entertainment when Winter Ice Solstice visits the NPAC stage! For the first time ever at NPAC, experience an event that will have you frozen to your seat with excitement while watching professional ice skaters glide across the stage

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CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS

Thursday, Feb. 18 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted.

BELLY DANCE LEVELS 1 AND 2 • Knox Dance Worx • 8PM • Call (865) 898-2126 or email alexia@alexia-dance.com. • $12 UT COLLEGE OF LAW FREE INCOME TAX PREPARATION ASSISTANCE • University of Tennessee • 5PM • As part of the IRS Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program, students will offer free tax preparation help to members of the community. The program runs through Thursday, April 14, on Tuesdays and Thursdays in Suite 157 of the College of Law. For more information about the VITA program at UT Law, contact Morgan at 865-974-2492 or rmorgan2@utk.edu. • FREE COMPUTER CLASS: TWITTER • Blount County Public Library • 2PM • Tweets are some of the fastest means of communication -- with associates, strangers, people in other countries -- so learn to tweet with the best in this class taught by Jennifer Spirko, Registration is required by visiting the library’s Reference Desk or calling the library

Thursday, Feb. 18 - Sunday, Feb. 28

at 865-273-1428 or 865-982-0981, ext. 4. • FREE FREE TRAINING: PROVIDING EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE • Goodwill Industries • 5:30PM • This free workshop will focus on understanding how to provide exemplary customer service, providing methods to “go above and beyond” the call of duty and provide customer service which will increase customer loyalty and brand value to stores. This session will also focus on providing customer service training and encouragement from a management perspective, including applying the principles of customer service from a management level to an associate level. No registration is required. • FREE ADULT COLORING CLASS • Blount County Public Library • 7PM • For this program, sponsored by the Blount County Friends of the Library and coordinated by Jennifer Spirko, participants (16 years and older) can bring their own coloring books and materials, or you can select from a variety of intricate adult coloring pages and utilize coloring supplies provided at the library. • FREE Friday, Feb. 19 GOODWILL INDUSTRIES RESUME WORKSHOP • Goodwill Industries • 1:30PM • Learn how to make a solid and effective resume to highlight your strengths and catch the employer’s eye. Classes will take place in Goodwill’s Computer Lab. We recommend bringing your current resume, or as much information about your employment history as possible. This session is free of charge and open to the public. No registration is required. • FREE IT’S YOUR CAREER: BUSINESS INFORMATION MANAGEMENT • Blount County Public Library • 7:30AM • Networking will

begin at 7:30 a.m. for this soft skills class taught by Adult Education instructors in the Computer Lab at the library.

For class synopsis and registration information, go to www.blountchamber.com/community/soft-skills or call Amy Lawson at 865-983-2241. • FREE Saturday, Feb. 20 IMPROV COMEDY CLASS • The Birdhouse • 10AM • A weekly improv comedy class. • FREE INDIGENOUS VIBES STUDIOS AFRICAN DRUM AND DANCE CLASS • Indigenous Vibes Studios • 1:30PM • Our drum and dance classes are specifically designed toward making the drum and dance experience as easy and fun as possible to those with little to no background in drumming and dancing. • $10 INDIGENOUS VIBES STUDIOS AFRICAN DRUM AND DANCE CLASS • Indigenous Vibes Studios • 2:30PM • Our drum and dance classes are specifically designed toward making the drum and dance experience as easy and fun as possible to those with little to no background in drumming and dancing. • $10 SAFTA OUTSPOKEN WRITING WORKSHOPS • Sundress Academy for the Arts • 1PM • OUTspoken is a third-year program from the Sundress Academy of the Arts (SAFTA) that will take place in June 2016. Our goal is to create a platform for the LGBTQ community of Knoxville, Tennessee, and its surrounding areas to record and perform the experiences of sex- and gender-diverse individuals in the South. OUTspoken begins with a series of writing workshops taking place on January 23rd, February 20th, and March 26th. Registration is open and

available at: http://www.sundresspublications.com/ outspoken. • $25-$60 KNOX COUNTY MASTER GARDENERS: PLANNING DRIP IRRIGATION • Cedar Bluff Branch Library • 1PM • Drip irrigation isn’t just for vegetable raised beds. It can be used for anything grown in containers, as well as your foundation plantings, flower beds, and raised beds. Join Jan Gangwer as she presents the factors to consider when planning for drip irrigation. If you have a scale drawing of the area where you’d like to install drip irrigation, bring your drawings with you. You’ll leave with a better idea of the “parts and pieces” you need, as well as how to layout the drip irrigation system. Call 865-470-7033 or see knoxlib.org. • FREE FIGHT BACK 101: MAKING YOUR VOICE MATTER • Planned Parenthood • 12PM • Want to learn some best practices for meeting with a legislator? This training’s for you! We’ll also talk about the bills we’re watching this session related to reproductive freedom. RSVP is required for this event. • FREE Sunday, Feb. 21 CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY MINDFULNESS BASED STRESS REDUCTION • Cancer Support Community • 4:30PM • This 8-week training program, developed by Dr. Jon Kabat- Zinn from the University of Massachusetts Medical School, is a systematic practice that involves focusing attention, relaxing the body and integrating the mind and body to reduce stress. Evidence shows that this program can be effective for controlling anxiety, depression and stress. Must attend the January 10 orientation in order to

THE UT DEPARTMENT OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES PRESENTS THE DAVID L. DUNGAN MEMORIAL LECTURE SERIES

Jesus Christ, CEO! The Transformation of Jesus from Fisherman to Financial Role Model in the 20th Century

Tuesday, February 23, 5:30 p.m.

JAMES R. COX AUDITORIUM, UT ALUMNI MEMORIAL BUILDING

SPEAKER:

PROFESSOR JONATHAN L. WALTON,

Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in Harvard Memorial Church, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University

religion.utk.edu

32

KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 18, 2016

CALENDAR Monday, Feb. 22 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 5:30PM • Call 865-5772021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted.

DIVORCE RECOVERY WORKSHOP • Cokesbury Center • 6:30PM • Divorce can be a life-shattering experience.

Whether it was sudden or was years in the making, we all need to heal our hearts, rebuild trust and get on with the rest of our lives. You have a choice: you can either go through divorce or you can grow through divorce. The format includes both a large and small group presentations by trained leaders. Attend Divorce Recovery to begin reframing and moving on with your life. Cost for the 14-week course is $75, which includes a book and workbook. • $75 INDIGENOUS VIBES STUDIOS AFRICAN DRUM AND DANCE CLASS • Indigenous Vibes Studios • 5:45PM • Our drum and dance classes are specifically designed toward making the drum and dance experience as easy and fun as possible to those with little to no background in drumming and dancing. • $10 INDIGENOUS VIBES STUDIOS AFRICAN DRUM AND DANCE CLASS • Indigenous Vibes Studios • 6:45PM • Our drum and dance classes are specifically designed toward making the drum and dance experience as easy and fun as possible to those with little to no background in drumming and dancing. • $10 GOODWILL INDUSTRIES INTRODUCTION TO CAREERS IN RETAIL INITIATIVE • The Point’s Impact Center in the West Town Mall • 9:30AM and 5:30PM • The Careers in Retail Initiative provides free training for individuals who want to grow their careers, taking the first steps into management. The program provides the training and support necessary to gain a middle skills/middle management position in retail, food and beverage and/or hospitality and tourism industries. Classes are offered on a flexible schedule at the Point Impact Center in the West Town Mall. Come to any of the following Introduction sessions to learn more about this free and exciting program: February 23 - 9:30am or 5:30pm; February 22 9:30am or 5:30pm • FREE NIA CARDIO-DANCE WORKOUT TECHNIQUE CLASS • Broadway Academy of Performing Arts • 10AM • Email emilybryant24@yahoo.com. Blending dance arts, martial arts, yoga and healing arts in a 55-minute mindful fitness fusion.

KNOX COUNTY MASTER GARDENERS: PLANNING DRIP IRRIGATION • Davis Family YMCA • 1PM • Drip irrigation isn’t just for vegetable raised beds. It can be used for anything grown in containers, as well as your foundation plantings, flower beds, and raised beds. Join Jan Gangwer as she presents the factors to consider when planning for drip irrigation. If you have a scale drawing of the area where you’d like to install drip irrigation, bring your drawings with you. You’ll leave with a better idea of the “parts and pieces” you need, as well as how to layout the drip irrigation system. Call (865) 777-9622. • FREE HIKING THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL: FOOD AND EQUIPMENT • REI • 4PM • Considering a hike on the Appalachian Trail?

Whether you are thru hiking or just taking a short weekend trip, REI Outdoor School can help you prepare for the trail. In this class, we will discuss details of food and equipment selection, including picking the right clothing/layers, and gear details. Visit rei.com/stores/

knoxville. • FREE Tuesday, Feb. 23 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted.

BLOUNT COUNTY LIBRARY BASIC COMPUTER CLASSES • Blount County Public Library • 2PM • Basic computer classes are offered, free, at the library Jan. 6-March 10. • FREE OMNI VISIONS FOSTER CARE TRAINING • Omni Visions Inc. • 6PM • Omni Visions is in need of foster and adoptive families as well as families that will provide respite care.

Omni Visions Treatment Parents receive financial reimbursement for each day a child lives in your home, as well as 24/7 support from our staff. Join us for our free PATH (Parents As Tender Healers) Training and open your heart and home to a child in need. For more information and to RSVP, please contact Rebecca Horton at (865) 524-4393 ext 1204 or rhorton@omnivisions.com. • FREE UT COLLEGE OF LAW FREE INCOME TAX PREPARATION ASSISTANCE • University of Tennessee • 5PM • As part of the IRS Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program, students will offer free tax preparation help to members of the community. The program runs through Thursday, April 14, on Tuesdays and Thursdays in Suite 157 of the College of Law. For more information about the VITA program at UT Law, contact Morgan at 865-974-2492 or rmorgan2@utk.edu. • FREE GOODWILL INDUSTRIES INTRODUCTION TO CAREERS IN RETAIL INITIATIVE • The Point’s Impact Center in the West Town Mall • 9:30AM and 5:30PM • The Careers in Retail Initiative provides free training for individuals who want to grow their careers, taking the first steps into management. The program provides the training and support necessary to gain a middle skills/middle management position in retail, food and beverage and/or hospitality and tourism industries.Classes are offered on a flexible schedule at the Point Impact Center in the West Town Mall. Come to any of the following Introduction sessions to learn more about this free and exciting program: February 23 - 9:30am or 5:30pm; February 22 9:30am or 5:30pm • FREE Wednesday, Feb. 24 INDIGENOUS VIBES STUDIOS AFRICAN DRUM AND DANCE CLASS • Indigenous Vibes Studios • 5:45PM • Our drum and dance classes are specifically designed toward making the drum and dance experience as easy and fun as possible to those with little to no background in drumming and dancing. • $10 INDIGENOUS VIBES STUDIOS AFRICAN DRUM AND DANCE CLASS • Indigenous Vibes Studios • 6:45PM • Our drum and dance classes are specifically designed toward making the drum and dance experience as easy and fun as possible to those with little to no background in drumming and dancing. • $10 UT VOL COURT PITCH COMPETITION • University of Tennessee • 5:15PM • Vol Court is a six-week entrepreneurial speaker series hosted by UT’s Anderson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation that culminates in a pitch competition. Vol Court will meet from 5:15 to 6:15 p.m. every Wednesday beginning Feb. 17 in Room 104 of the Haslam Business Building. Anyone who participates in the March 30 pitch competition must have attended four of the five series meetings.

FOCUS ON SENIORS: FINANCIAL OPTIONS WHEN A MAJOR LIFE EVENT OCCURS • Blount County Public Library • 11AM • This presentation, by Novella Jones, Senior Vice President/Mortgage Loan Manager of CBBC Bank, and

Jude Carl Vincent as Jefferson; by Elizabeth Aaron

participate in the series, which runs from January 17-March 6 from 4:30-6:30pm. RSVP. Call 865-546-4661 for more info. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer.

It’s 1948 in a small plantation community in the heart of Cajun country. A young man, jailed for a murder he did not commit, will soon lose his life and has lost his self-respect. A young teacher, with most of his life ahead of him, has lost respect for the situation in which he lives.

Both men teach each other the lessons they need to face their very different futures with dignity and strength.

Directed by Andrea J. Dymond

February 18, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 33

CALENDAR Marietta Mason, Certified Financial Planner, will discuss the financial options (basic mortgage, line of credit, reverse mortgage) available to seniors when various situations arise such as emergency life events that elicit increased health care needs or other circumstances. • FREE NIA CARDIO-DANCE WORKOUT TECHNIQUE CLASS • Broadway Academy of Performing Arts • 6PM • Email emilybryant24@yahoo.com. Blending dance arts, martial arts, yoga and healing arts in a 55-minute mindful fitness fusion.

COLD WEATHER CYCLING BASICS • REI • 7PM • Looking to extend your cycling season? Join REI experts as we share tips and tricks to keep you riding as the weather turns cold! Visit rei.com/stores/knoxville. • FREE CLIMBING FUNDAMENTALS • River Sports Outfitters • 6PM • Come learn the basics of climbing every second and fourth Wednesday of the month. Space is limited so call 865-673-4687 to reserve your spot now. Class fee $20.

Visit riversportsoutfitters.com/events. • $20 Thursday, Feb. 25 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted.

BLOUNT COUNTY LIBRARY BASIC COMPUTER CLASSES • Blount County Public Library • 2PM • Basic computer classes are offered, free, at the library Jan. 6-March 10. • FREE BELLY DANCE LEVELS 1 AND 2 • Knox Dance Worx • 8PM • Call (865) 898-2126 or email alexia@alexia-dance.com. •

Thursday, Feb. 18 - Sunday, Feb. 28

$12 UT COLLEGE OF LAW FREE INCOME TAX PREPARATION ASSISTANCE • University of Tennessee • 5PM • As part of the IRS Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program, students will offer free tax preparation help to members of the community. The program runs through Thursday, April 14, on Tuesdays and Thursdays in Suite 157 of the College of Law. For more information about the VITA program at UT Law, contact Morgan at 865-974-2492 or rmorgan2@utk.edu. • FREE MORE SPONGE, LESS DUCK: HOW TO MAKE A WATER-HEALTHY LANDSCAPE • University of Tennessee Arboretum • 6PM • The program will be presented by Dr. Andrea Ludwig, Assistant Professor at the Department of Biosystems and Engineering and Soil Science at the UT Institute of Agriculture. An ecological engineer, Dr. Ludwig works in the areas of stream restoration and watershed management. She conducts research into effective practices for decreasing non-point source pollution in the state’s watersheds.This is a free event but the UT Arboretum Society welcomes donations to help support the organization and its programs. To learn more about the Arboretum Society, go to www.utarboretumsociety. org. For more information on the program, call 483-3571. • FREE AARP DRIVER SAFETY SMART DRIVER COURSE • Everett Senior Center • 9AM • Call (865) 382-5822.

AARP DRIVER SAFETY SMART DRIVER COURSE • Halls Senior Center • 12PM • Call (865) 382-5822.

MEETINGS

Thursday, Feb. 18 SCRUFFY CITY ORCHESTRA • First Baptist Church • 7PM • A new venue for musicians from the greater Knoxville metropolitan area, Scruffy City Orchestra, kicks off with regular rehearsals on Thursdays. Conductors are Matt Wilkinson and Ace Edewards. Prospective members, especially string players, are encouraged to contact Alicia Meryweather at ScruffyCityOrchestra@gmail.com for more information. • FREE CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY FAMILY BEREAVEMENT GROUP • Cancer Support Community • 6PM • CSC is committed to providing bereavement services to those who have lost a loved one to cancer. Please contact our clinical staff before attending. Call 865-546-4661 for more info. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer.

THE SOUTHERN LITERATURE BOOK CLUB • Union Ave Books • 6PM • Union Ave Books’ monthly discussion group about Southern books and writers. • FREE Saturday, Feb. 20 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. Visit our local website at farragutalanon.org or email us at FindHope@ Farragutalanon.org. • FREE Sunday, Feb. 21

RATIONALISTS OF EAST TENNESSEE • Pellissippi State Community College • 10:30AM • The Rationalists of East Tennessee focus on the real or natural universe. The group exists so that we can benefit emotionally and intellectually through meeting together to expand our awareness and understanding through shared experience, knowledge, and ideas as well as enrich our lives and the lives of others.

The Rationalists do not endorse or condemn members’ thoughts or actions. Rather it hopefully encourages honest dialogue, analytic discussion, and responsible action based on reason, compassion, and factual accuracy. Visit rationalists.org. • FREE Monday, Feb. 22 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.

APPALACHIAN MOUNTAIN BIKE CLUB • Central Flats and Taps • 7PM • Interested in getting involved with the mountain biking community here in Knoxville? The Appalachian Mountain Bike Club, meet the fourth Monday of each month. • FREE Tuesday, Feb. 23 ATHEISTS SOCIETY OF KNOXVILLE • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 5:30PM • Weekly atheists meetup and happy hour. Come join us for food, drink and great conversation.

Everyone welcome. • FREE Wednesday, Feb. 24

SHOP THE MERCURY

STORE.KNOXMERCURY.COM

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All are available in our new online store.

34

KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 18, 2016

CALENDAR COMITE POPULAR DE KNOXVILLE • The Birdhouse • 7PM • A weekly meeting of the local immigrant advocacy organization.

KNOXVILLE WRITERS’ GROUP • Naples Italian Restaurant • 11AM • Jay Searcy, author of The Last Reunion, will be the guest speaker. Luncheon cost $12. For information and rsvp call Mary McKinnon at 865- 983-3740 by February 22.

THE BOOKAHOLICS BOOK GROUP • Union Ave Books • 12PM • Union Ave Books’ monthly book discussion group. Visit unionavebooks.com. • FREE Thursday, Feb. 25 SCRUFFY CITY ORCHESTRA • First Baptist Church • 7PM • A new venue for musicians from the greater Knoxville metropolitan area, Scruffy City Orchestra, kicks off with regular rehearsals on Thursdays beginning January 28th from 7:00 until 9:00 at First Baptist Church on Main Street. Conductors are Matt Wilkinson and Ace Edewards.

Prospective members, especially string players, are encouraged to contact Alicia Meryweather at ScruffyCityOrchestra@gmail.com for more information. • FREE

ETC.

Saturday, Feb. 20 NOURISH KNOXVILLE WINTER FARMERS’ MARKET • Central United Methodist Church • 10AM-2PM • The Winter Farmers’ Market, held in the Historic 4th and Gill neighborhood, will host farm & food vendors selling pasture-raised meats, eggs, winter produce, honey, baked goods, artisan foods, and more. Outside, food trucks will be serving up lunch from locally sourced ingredients.

Visit nourishknoxville.org. • FREE Thursday, Feb. 25 COMMUNITY PARTNERS PINTS FOR A PURPOSE • Little River Trading Co. (Maryville) • 5PM • The next Community Partners Pints for a Purpose will benefit Parks and Rec Youth Enrichment Fund. Brought to you by Little River Trading Co, Blount Partnership, and Columbia Sportswear.

Thanks to our sponsors 100% of the nights beer sales proceeds goes to the advocate. Featuring Blue Pants Brewery, Savory and Sweet Food Truck, and music by Cats Away.

Friday, Feb. 26 NOURISH KNOXVILLE WINTER WARMER FUNDRAISING DINNER • First Christian Church • 6:30PM •.Knox Mason owner/chef Matt Gallaher will prepare a four-course dinner to benefit Nourish Knoxville, which, among its many outreach and educational efforts, operates the Market Square Farmers’ Market and publishes the yearly East Tennessee Local Food guide. Each course will highlight ingredients from local farms and will be served with a specially paired selection of beers provided by The Casual Pint—Downtown and Hexagon Brewing Co. A vegetarian dinner option is available by request. For more information, visit NourishKnoxville.org. • $75 FRIENDS OF LITERACY BACHELOR AUCTION • Crowne Plaza • 7:30PM • After searching high and low, Friends of Literacy has discovered Knoxville’s most good looking, well-versed, and multi-talented men. Most importantly these men are single! They’ve put their boyish reservations aside for the good of a greater cause: fighting illiteracy in Knox County. Each bachelor is paired with a unique date package which has been donated by area businesses. Food will be served and there will be a cash bar. Tickets are available by calling 865-549-7007

or online at www.friendsofliteracy.org. Funds raised at the event enables Friends of Literacy to provide free reading classes to the one in 12 adults unable to read or write above a sixth grade level in Knoxville. • $40-$70 KNOX HERITAGE HISTORIC WESTWOOD DOCENT INFORMATION PROGRAM • Knox Heritage • 10AM • Interested in helping share the history of Historic Westwood? Are you or someone you know interested in local history? Do you enjoy learning and working with the public? Are you seeking a rewarding volunteer experience? Consider becoming a docent at Historic Westwood. You just need a love for history and historic architecture.For more information and to RSVP to attend this informational session, please email Hollie Cook at hcook@knoxheritage.org. For more information visit www.knoxheritage.org. • FREE Saturday, Feb. 27 BEARDSLEY FARM COMMUNITY WORK DAY AND ANNUAL SEED SWAP • CAC Beardsley Community Farm • 12PM • From 12:00PM to 3:00PM, volunteer with fellow community members as we get ready for the spring! We’ll also have a farm tour at noon for those who are new to Beardsley Farm. Dress ready to work outside with warm clothes, sturdy shoes and a water bottle. From 3:00PM to 5:00PM, after the workday, join us for a Seed Swap. Come on out to share rare heirloom seeds while trading for new seeds while talking up your favorite gardening tricks and learning more from attendees. Call 865.546.8446 or email us at beardsleyfarm@gmail.com. • FREE FOUNTAIN CITY ART CENTER SADIE HAWKINS DAY DINNER AND DANCE • Fountain City Art Center • 6PM • Sadie Hawkins Day comes only once every four years in February when we have one extra day. According to the Sadie Hawkins original idea, it is a time when the ladies are encouraged to ask someone to the dance. However, anyone can attend and just have a great time. Guests are encouraged to put on your most country/hillbilly attire. If you’d like to help, let us know: fcartcenter@knology.net or (865)357-2787. Reservations and prepaid tickets are required for the event. • $35 THE TRAVELING BAZAAR • Elizabeth Claire’s • 9AM • Hand-picked high-quality vendors selling arts, crafts, handmade items, clothing, and antiques. • FREE

TOUCH: INTERACTIVE CRAFT Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts • National Juried Exhibition Sandra J. Blain Gallery

On Exhibit: January 16 - March 11, 2016 Opening Reception: Friday, January 22, 6-8pm Gallery Hours: Monday-Friday: 9am - 5pm, Saturday: 10am - 4pm

For more information visit www.arrowmont.org

556 Parkway

•

Gatlinburg, TN 37738

•

865-436-5860

•

www.arrowmont.org

Send your events to calendar@knoxmercury.com

February 18, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 35

’BYE

Did you get your copy ?

Remarkable In Every Way An open letter to a passing friend

BY DONNA JOHNSON

D You can still pick up a print copy of our Top Knox Readers’ Poll at any Knox County Public Library branch, while supplies last!

And you can always find out who are Knoxville’s favorites at: knoxmercury.com/ topknox2015

36

KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 18, 2016

Sacred & P rofane

ear Hannah, How long has it been? Six, seven years? Time just seems to slip away from you, doesn’t it? Today, as I was riding the bus north, I had an inexplicable, overpowering urge to get off and walk through our old neighborhood. So I went by my old house on Chickamauga, with its large porch and the window I kicked in after the landlord locked my things inside when he was trying to evict me for painting life-size murals of women on the walls.

Large oak trees and enormous maples, green and sultry while we were there, stood now in skeletal form, their branches raised high towards the heavens as if beseeching the gods for mercy against a harsh world. They shimmied a bit in the January wind and it seemed to me that they were shivering with cold—perhaps a bit lonely, too, for the house appears to have been abandoned for some time. A vine trailed through and around the window with an elegiac beauty, as if to deny the property’s starkness.

In that strange apartment I had the cats in one room, and my dog, Abraham, in the other, for he was a wild thing and would have mauled the

cats to death. The apartment was built in such a way that one had to go outside to reach the back room where my cats, Mittens and Reagen, lived.

The room itself was bare save for a mat on the floor, a handmade quilt of reds, yellows, purples, and black fashioned for me by my mother when I was a child.

The room seemed magical to me, for the walls were made of many tiny windows and the summer was so lush with greenery that it was like living in a tree house. I spent many happy hours in that room, reading Waugh, Proust, and Pushkin—books I can barely muster through these days.

The room had a tin roof, so when it rained there was a gentle tap tap tap like the fingers of fairies in and around my senses. If I raised the window just enough to keep the cats from getting out and let the outside world of trees in, I could smell the rich, brown earth with its world of tiny insects living lives of their own outside while we lived ours, safe and dry, inside our magical room.

I then walked rapidly to Hiawassee to see the house where you had lived with David and your little boy, Mark. When first you moved away with your new family, I thought, they’ll

be back soon. But after a time, when season followed season, still there was no Hannah wheeling round the corner in her silver Volkswagen convertible, with her long mane of curly hair, honest eyes, and forthright speech. I began to realize that a remarkable person, an extraordinary friendship, had served its time and was now a memory, ever fading.

Sometimes it seems like you left only yesterday; other times it feels as though it has been years since I knew you. But more and more frequently, it’s like our friendship never occurred at all, but was only a figment of my imagination.

It’s strange how well we conversed and understood one another; I was already in my mid-50s and you were a blossoming 22. But matters of the heart are ageless, and we connected on a deep level beyond time and its limitations. Your breakup with that brilliant, manic poet whom you imagined could fill in all the vacant spaces inside of you—such as the father who abandoned you when you were 3—left you a crumpled ruin for awhile, but you rose up and soared again. You went on a journey to find your lost father, only to learn that some things are better left undiscovered. I remember how you threw your head back and laughed when you told me about it.

“He’s totally clueless,” you said, and never mentioned your father again to me.

I must apologize for not liking your new husband at first. He’s too good to be true, I had thought. But he was every bit as good as he seemed.

The love he has for you is real and true and will last for a lifetime.

I do not know if we shall ever meet again, but know that you were a remarkable event for me in my life.

The light that seemed to follow you wherever you were landed on me. It has never left me, though I am not always able to see it.

I give you thanks, and a wish that you can transcend all the daily miseries and commonplace annoyances with laughter that echoes throughout the planet. I will hear it, dear Hannah. I hear it now. ◆

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY 37

’BYE

Spir it of the Staircase

BY MATTHEW FOLTZ-GRAY

38

KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 18, 2016

www.thespiritofthestaircase.com

’BYE

BY IAN BLACKBURN AND JACK NEELY

CLASSIFIEDS

Support the Knoxville Mercury and sell your stuff by purchasing an ad in our classifieds section.

FOR SALE BLUE VINTAGE NORTHFACE HIKING BACKPACK, aluminum external frame.

Early 1980's or so, about 90 liters. Great condition for its age, but some wear. $100 OBO. 678-313-7077

HOUSING 1BR APARTMENT, $425 PER MONTH. - 5 minutes to UT and on the busline.

New paint and carpeting, nice neighbors in a divided house with several units.

Off street parking available.

In Parkridge, near Winona Street and the ball fields.

Application & credit check required. (865)438-4870

SERVICES $5 NEW YEAR’S SALE, local and handmade, unique and modern, repurposed vintage beads, hand-painted geometric necklaces, and more. etsy.com/shop/triciabee MARYVILLE’S FAIR TRADE SHOP. U nique gifts from around the globe. Hours: Wednesdays 2-8 pm and Sundays 8:30-9:15 am and 11:30 am-12:15 pm. Monte Vista Baptist Church 1735 Old Niles Ferry Road. For more information call 865/982-6070.

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J. DAVID REECE, M aster Electrician. State of Tn. and City of Knoxville licensed. Insurance and references. Over 25 years experience. Commercial and residential service and repair, remodeling, and new construction.

CCTV, home theater, generators. Residential and commercial electrical design, inspections and consulting. 865-228-8966.

PLACE YOUR AD AT STORE.KNOXMERCURY.COM

COMMUNITY

LIAM - is a one year spunky hound/mix who LOVES toys & chasing tennis balls. He would be perfect in a high energy home. He gets along great with other dogs, & loves people. Visit Young -Williams Animal Center or call 865-215-6599 for more information.

CARRIE - is a female domestic medium/ hair mix available for adoption at our Division St. Location.

She loves people & treats.

She also LOVES to be held/ snuggled. Visit Young -Williams Animal Center or call 865-215-6599 for more information.

OSCAR - Oscar is a 12 year-old senior man who was surrendered to us.

After years of being spoiled at a home– the shelter environment. He needs a good home to retire & be loved in. Visit Young -Williams Animal Center or call 865-215-6599 for more information.

CELESTE - is a Female 10 year old lab/retriever mix available for adoption today.

She loves people & would be perfect with kids. She needs a loving home to retire in! Visit Young -Williams Animal Center or call 865-215-6599 for more information.

SELL YOUR STUFF AND HELP SUPPORT THE MERCURY AT THE SAME TIME! Order classified ads online from the comfort of your own home or mobile device.

No need to talk with any humans!

Just $10 for 200-characters or $14 for 400-characters.

Listings will run in print and online for one week.

ORDER NOW:

store.knoxmercury.com!

February 18, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 39