Vol. 2, Issue 34 - Sept. 1, 2016 by Knoxville Mercury

DISH: A foodie’s guide to finding great plates

SEPT. 1, 2016 KNOXMERCURY.COM

THIS IS MAKING US HUNGRY V.

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Are Knoxvillians finally ready for chef-driven restaurants? We gather a roundtable of four downtown chefs who are betting on it.

JACK NEELY

Some Reflections on the Mercury’s New Home: the Journal Arcade

MUSIC

Maps Need Reading Reconfigures Its Prog Approach on Epic Debut

GEORGE DODDS

‘Architecture Matters’ Returns With a Look at UT’s Disposable Dorms

INSIDE THE VAULT

Horace and Barley Ogle in Knoxville’s Pre-World War II Music Scene

Historic September Rich in history and interpretive events, it’s a month for remembering. The first-ever James Agee Conference for Literature and Arts will be on Sept. 9-10 at Pellissippi State Community College’s Hardin Valley campus. Featuring dozens of presentations by published authors of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, it’s aptly named for Knoxville-born author James Agee (1909-1955), a versatile talent who in his short life made a mark in all those fields. The conference is free; to register, see pstcc.edu/ageeconference.

supervision of Charles Faulkner, Knoxville’s leading archaeologist, it will be an unusual opportunity to see artifacts from across Knoxville’s 225-year history in context. Faulkner and fellow archaeologist Tim Baumann will give a presentation about the exhibit at the museum on Sept. 20. For more, see mcclungmuseum.utk.edu. Sept. 19 is the 126th birthday of Knoxville’s most influential librarian, Mary Utopia Rothrock. The library’s long-tenured director launched the branch system and helped establish the McClung Collection; she later edited The French Broad - Holston Country, the 1946 book that remains the most comprehensive history of Knox County. She became nationally famous when she established the Tennessee Valley Authority’s innovative system for distributing books to far-flung dam workers.

On Sept. 14, in association with the ongoing exhibit, “Come to Make Records,” at the Museum of East Tennessee History, collector Julian Burke will give a noon lecture on the lively history of Knoxville’s first radio station, WNOX, whose live-radio shows launched the careers of dozens of musicians, and whose studios hosted the Knoxville Sessions recordings of 1929 and 1930. Knoxville was once known as the Marble City because of the marble it produced for the monumental architecture of eastern cities, and drove a large part of the local economy. On Sept. 16, Knox Heritage’s monthly Lost and Found Lunch, at Westwood, 3425 Kingston Pike, will feature scholar Susan Knowles, speaking on the history of the marble industry in Knoxville, from the 1850s onward. The program’s at noon, with lunch served at 11:30 (free to the first 30 who make a reservation! Contact KH at info@knoxheritage.org.)

On Sept. 22, Laurel Theater hosts a tribute to offbeat jazz/blues multi-instrumentalist Howard Armstrong (1909-2003), who made a John R. Neal, left, seen here with a client, embattled teacher living on the streets of Knoxville in the 1920s John Scopes, was a familiar figure on Gay Street for 40 years. and early ‘30s, and was a leader of the pioneerThe famously nonconformist attorney makes a brief appearing string-jazz group that recorded by the name ance in Cormac McCarthy’s novel, Suttree. The author Tennessee Chocolate Drops. The Armstrong describes Neal as “a lifelong friend of doomed defendants, Legacy Trio will perform in the intimate room causes lost....” where Armstrong himself once played. It’s Image courtesy of the Library of Congress sponsored by the organizers of the Louie Bluie www.loc.gov Festival, held in Campbell County, near Armstrong’s childhood home, on Sept. 24. For more, see jubileearts.org and louiebluie.org. Sept. 17 is the 140th birthday of influential, idiosycratic lawyer and professor John R. Neal (1876-1959). Advocate for controversial causes, Neal Sept. 23 is Knox Heritage’s annual Scruffy City Soiree, an evening of was, among other things, one of the defense counsels for Dayton evolution dinner, music, and surprises, including satirical skits that are talked about teacher John Scopes. Back in Knoxville, Neal lived in rooms at the Watauga for months to come, even by those who didn’t attend. The venue is the Hotel on Gay Street, part of which survives as the Regas Building, and Standard on West Jackson, one of the more surprising and successful founded his own law school, which lasted for decades. preservation projects of recent years. It’s a fundraiser, and the $125 tickets Sept. 17-18 is the annual John Sevier Days Living History Weekend at Marble Springs State Historic Site, the reconstructed log compound where Tennessee’s first governor lived in South Knox County. This family event is just in time for Sept. 23, which is Gov. Sevier’s 271st birthday. For more, see marblesprings.net. On Sept. 17, UT’s McClung Museum opens its exhibit “Knoxville Unearthed: Archaeology in the Heart of the Valley.” Curated under the

include dinner, wine or beer, and entertainment. For more, see knoxheritage.org/news-events/events/scruffy-city-soiree/.

Knoxville’s Latino pioneer, George Farragut, was born in Minorca, Spain, on Sept. 29, 1755. He came to America to fight the British. A friend of Governor Blount’s, he moved to Knoxville in the 1790s, but later moved to West Knox County, where he operated a ferry across the river. There his son, future U.S. Admiral David Glasgow Farragut, was born.

Source: Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection

The Knoxville History Project, a new nonprofit organization devoted to the promotion of and education about the history of Knoxville, presents this page each week to raise awareness of the themes, personalities, and stories of our unique city. Learn more on www.facebook.com/knoxvillehistoryproject • email jack@knoxhistoryproject.org 2

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 1, 2016

Sept. 1, 2016 Volume 02 / Issue 34 knoxmercury.com

CONTENTS

“There is no sincerer love than the love of food.” —George Bernard Shaw

10 Big City Eats COVER STORY

Knoxville has a lot of places to eat, but it’s not recognized as a foodie town. Yet. By “foodie,” we mean restaurants that draw people from other cities to visit based on their national reputations, led by chefs who clearly have their own point of view on what makes for great dining. Their menus don’t offer the same items you already had at the last five restaurants you dined at and instead may actually contain unfamiliar dishes, with ingredients that might give you pause. But, all of a sudden, downtown has several such restaurants pushing the culinary envelope: Emilia, Lonesome Dove, the Oliver Royale, and Kaizen. We gathered their chefs for a candid roundtable discussion of the restaurant biz.

Top Knox 2016

THIS IS IT! Your last, last, last final chance to vote in our readers’ survey of awesome local stuff. Be sure to file your ballot by Monday, Sept. 5 at midnight. Vote at topknox.knoxmercury.com.

DEPARTMENTS

OPINION

A&E

4 Howdy

6 Scruffy Citizen

20 Program Notes: The Knoxville

Start Here: By the Numbers, Public Affairs, PLUS: New image series: PechaKucha Knoxville! Each week, we’ll run a slide from an interesting local presentation, along with a description.

38 ’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 visits the new (and historic) office of the Knoxville Mercury.

8 Architecture Matters

George Dodds returns with a scathing view on the University of Tennessee’s brand-new, disposable dorms.

SPECIAL SECTION

12 Dish Check out our new guide to finding great meals in the Knoxville area. Send us your suggestions for dishes you’d like to share with Knoxville at: editor@knoxmercury.com facebook.com/knoxmercury CALENDAR

Horror Film Festival reveals this year’s lineup.

21 Inside the Vault: Eric Dawson

traces the careers of Horace and Barley Ogle in Knoxville’s preWorld War II music scene.

22 Music: Ryan Reed recounts the

creative tribulations of local prog trio Maps Need Reading.

23 Movies: Nathan Smith feels Kaili

24 Spotlights: Clarence Brown

Theatre’s Violet, and Celtic and Appalachian Rhythms at Historic Ramsey House

Where’s Our Staff Box, You Ask? Why, the pesky lil’ devil is over on page 26!

Blues.

September 1, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 3

thinkstock

HOWDY

BY THE NUMBERS

Auditing the Auditors

audits of state agencies were released in August by the Tennessee Division of State Audit.

Photo by Matthew Cummings

PECHA KUCHA NIGHT KNOXVILLE THE MOON IS MY SCHOLAR ROCK | Matthew Cummings | Presented Feb. 11, 2016 For Matthew Cummings, artwork has always been personal journey for escape and meditation in both the making process and viewing. This presentation is a look at the work from his last solo exhibition, ‘The Moon is my Gongshi’. This group of work examined the moon as an object of meditation, the tradition of Chinese Scholar Rocks or Gongshi, and the inspiring career of his grandfather-in-law, Charles Bradshaw, who ran the computations department for NASA during the development of rocket technology. | Watch the 6-minute presentation at pechakucha.org/cities/knoxville

findings or lapses that needed attention were noted, across eight different state agencies (only Nashville State Community College received a clean audit report).

audit findings, or one-third of the total lapses, were deemed confidential during the month of August, citing exemptions in state open records laws.

confidential audit findings appeared on previous annual audit reports, but still have not been addressed. —Clay Duda Source: Division of State Audit reports, August 2016.

PUBLIC AFFAIRS

9/1 STATE OF EMERGENCY THURSDAY

All day, everywhere. Free. We have received word that a massive horde of cult members plan to occupy the city and lay waste to its sports bars and chicken-wing restaurants. All classes at the University of Tennessee have been canceled. The evening session of City Court has been canceled. Do not under any circumstances attempt to drive your car. Stay home and lock your doors. Info: utsports.com.

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 1, 2016

9/2 BUDDING CREATIVITY 2016 FRIDAY

6-9 p.m., The Basement Community Art Studio (105 W Jackson Ave.). Free. AIGA Knoxville is sponsoring this First Friday gallery show to benefit art programs for underprivileged students. Works by students will be available for sale, and pieces by professionals will be offered in a silent auction. Not ready to add to your collection? Then make a donation!

9/3 OFF BEAT SWAP MEET SATURDAY

11 a.m.-5 p.m., Creature Seeker’s Dark Market (3615 Chapman Hwy.). Free. Pop-up flea markets are, well, popping up everywhere in town with a wide range of themes, from the Punk Rock Flea Market to the Queens of Vintage. But Creature Seeker’s Off Beat Swap Meet promises to offer the weirdest stuff you’re likely to find. What home doesn’t need a shrunken head or two? Info: facebook.com/creatureseekerdarkmarket.

9/4 OLD SKOOL BLOCK PARTY SUNDAY

5-8 p.m., Harriet Tubman Park (300 Harriet Tubman St.). Free. Change Center, a community youth center aiming to open in late 2017, is presenting this positive party hosted by Sterling “Sterl The Pearl” Henton. It will feature street hockey with the Knoxville Ice Bears, music, the Urban Chess Club, and other family-friendly activities. Donations will be accepted for the Change Center. Info: changecenterknoxville.com.

September 1, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 5

SCRUFFY CITIZEN

The Arcade Some reflections on the Mercury’s new home BY JACK NEELY

t’s gotten around that the Mercury moved its offices this summer. It’s not just any move. The Mercury has moved into the most historic journalistic building in town. The Journal Arcade was built in 1924 for the old morning paper, the Knoxville Journal. Without rival the prettiest newspaper building ever seen in Knoxville, it’s a sort of moderne take on a neoclassical theme, designed by local architect R.F. Graf (1863-1940), about the same time he did the big Sterchi Building down the street. We’re just dumb lucky it’s still there. It was an arcade, and still is. Walk in, and it smells agreeably like a barber shop. You’re not smelling the barber shop that was there 90 years ago. There’s a barber shop in here now. There’s a jeweler, and an insurance man, and a real-estate agency, the same kind of stuff that was here in the ’20s. Some remember the Journal fondly, whether despite of or because of its right-wing politics. Years after Franklin Roosevelt’s death, the Journal was still denouncing our communist president. Even left-wingers enjoyed the Journal’s right-wing politics. Liberals could never be that colorful. It was daily theater. Professors liked to quote the Journal. The Journal that built this building in 1924 was a different paper. Its owner was Alfred F. Sanford, who was a local industrialist, invested in lots of factories. He was, at the

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 1, 2016

same time he was planning this building, cultivating his Sanford Arboretum, an outdoor museum of native trees designed by the famous Olmsted Brothers. Located at the head of then-new Cherokee Boulevard, it was a wonder, and it’s now a legend. But it did not last much longer than Mr. Sanford did. Sanford was also the kid brother of Edward Terry Sanford, a local guy who then happened to be a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. It was a Republican paper, all right, in the era of Coolidge and Hoover, but it was an even-tempered sort of daily. Its editor was that kind of guy. His name was William Rule and he was the most admired journalist in Knoxville history. When the Journal moved into this building, Rule was 85 years old and not about to retire. He didn’t even like to take vacations. Once, he tried his hand as a bookseller. That lasted a few months. He was mayor a couple of times, but didn’t let it interfere with the more important work of daily journalism. He was, for about 60 years, mentor to Adolph Ochs, his former assistant who became publisher of the New York Times. Ochs regarded Rule his “hero.” The longest Rule ever left newspapers was to fight for the Union cause. The Civil War was maybe the closest Captain Rule ever came to taking a vacation. The lifestyle suited him. By the

time he moved into the Arcade, there were credible allegations that William Rule was the oldest active editor in America. It didn’t seem so old to him. His wife of 70 years, Lucy, back home on Clinch Avenue near 16th, was a couple years older than he was. He claimed he never attended social events except the ones in his house. Still, he kept up. There were new things daily in this marble building. The headquarters of the Knoxville Automobile Club was here, and the Girl Scouts’ “Jingo Shop,” where you could buy cookies yearround. Thompson Photo was in the front, selling home movie cameras, and projected movies in the show window, drawing big sidewalk crowds to gawk at films of Vol football games—in 1927, people on the sidewalk loved to see players running backwards—and Thompson’s hand-tinted color films of the Smoky Mountains, which most Knoxvillians had never seen up close. The Civil War veteran, who wore a string tie and a gray van dyke and an expression of genial curiosity, surely paused to behold these wonders. When he died of a ruptured appendix in July 1928, the 89-year-old editor had just written a positive assessment of the fresh Republican nominee, Mr. Herbert Hoover. If Rule was wrong about that, it was a rarity. Others worked here in years to come. Don Whitehead, later a Pulitzer-winning war reporter, worked here in the 1930s. Alan Mims Thomason, later chief of United Press International, began his career in this building, as the Journal’s young city editor. Malcolm Miller, the English-born thespian who became the

city’s best arts reporter of his era, dropped off his columns here. And there was Miss Boyd. Her name was Sallie Boyd, but she was a strong-willed woman and preferred we call her Pattie. In the 1880s, she wasn’t allowed in the newsroom because of her extra X chromosome. She turned in her early stories via messenger. When she was an older woman, things were different, and this building was her work address. She was in charge of the society section, and a powerful personage. Even back then, newspapers were labors of love. Before the competition of television, generations before the Internet, people relied on paper for most of their information about their community. Still, by 1936, the Journal was in receivership. They had to move into cheaper quarters, leaving behind the Journal Arcade. After about eight years in cheaper quarters, the Journal somehow negotiated a return to the Arcade. When it did, it was a different sort of a paper, more conservative, and more aggressively political than it had been during Rule’s long tenure. In the early ’60s, the paper joined the News-Sentinel in a large, technically efficient building around the corner, in an odd joint-operating agreement, before finally closing up shop in 1992. By then, few remembered William Rule and the early days of the Arcade. I’ve got my own office now, in another building, but I’m in the Arcade a few hours a week, when I’m going over proofs or meeting with the editors. It’s enough to get a bit of a charge from it. And the old Arcade still looks new to me. ◆

When the Journal moved into this building, editor William Rule was 85 years old and not about to retire. He didn’t even like to take vacations.

WHY KNOXVILLE MATTERS

Coming September 29th

Knoxville is celebrating its 225th Anniversary on October 3 and the Mercury will mark the occasion with a special publication. Jack Neely, Knoxville’s most popular historian, will present his picks for the

most significant turning points

in Knoxville’s history. He’ll tell fascinating stories about people and places in Knoxville that say somthing about who we are and how they can help us shape the future together.

If you’re a Knoxville business owner, share your personal story or thank your community for their support with an ad in this keepsake issue. For more information, call 865-313-2048.

September 1, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 7

ARCHITECTURE MATTERS

Build, Raze, Repeat UT’s new mantra for new dorms on its Knoxville campus BY GEORGE DODDS

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 1, 2016

dorms like the Apartment Residence Hall have worn mechanical and electrical systems,” the article reports. “He said the concrete walls, floors and ceilings make the buildings almost impossible to renovate and limit Wi-Fi.” But certainly this must not have been a recent discovery, something learned after the 2011 Master Plan was codified? While these claims may not be the equivalent of euthanizing someone because they need a new hip, it’s much closer than you’d think. Why—at the state’s flagship campus that makes claims to “green” environmental practices—does it seem like a good idea to raze reinforced concrete and masonry dormitories that have lasted several generations and are quite capable of lasting several more (albeit in desperate need of renovation)? Why cart them off to a landfill and replace them with something intentionally inferior? Once you take into account that all old buildings tend to have old HVAC systems, that many concrete and

Photos courtesy of UTK Facilities Services.

n August 2015, the University of Tennessee demolished the Apartment Residence Hall dormitories on its Knoxville campus, not long after the decade-older Shelbourne Towers were leveled. This in itself shouldn’t surprise anyone keeping abreast of the local news. The university’s most recent Master Plan—adopted after a rocky rollout during the 2011-12 academic year—had foreseen the discarding of Shelbourne. It’s true that Shelbourne and the redundantly named Apartment Residence Hall (ARH) were admittedly humorless hulks, designed during what many consider the last century’s architectural nadir, one that regrettably coincided with the zenith of post-war campus construction across the country. (Shelbourne was originally a private senior residence and only recently added to the university’s building stock.) Yet, they were built to last. The slow and daunting demolition of the ARH attests to this. Moreover, when one compares the material quality of what was demolished to the physical and fiscal reality of the replacements, a pall begins to spread across UTK’s colorful multi-phase Master Plan. Indeed, in the 2011 Master Plan, only Shelbourne was slated for demolition; the ARH was budgeted as a “Near Term” $41,000,000 renovation project. So what changed? A brief article in the Aug. 5, 2015 issue of the Knoxville News Sentinel did little to help explain the rationale for what is only the start of planned mass demolition of apparently all post-war high-rise concrete and masonry housing along Andy Holt Avenue. “Dave Irvin, associate vice chancellor for facilities services, said the older

masonry buildings have been renovated quite successfully during the past few decades, and that there are relatively inexpensive little digital devices that help bounce wireless communications even in the most challenging of interiors, one is left to wonder how such a monumental decision could have been based on what seems such a seemingly thin argument. In the case of Shelbourne, this hundred-year-building has already been replaced with low-grade low-rise “courtyard” dorms, the architectural and material equivalent of something found in the terra incognita of Westland Drive. At the risk of stating the obvious, all buildings decay over time, beginning the moment they are finished, particularly if not properly cared for. The new dormitories intended to replace Shelbourne and ARH, however, are not only relatively maintenance-free, they are intentionally disposable—intended to last about 25 years, at which time they will be demolished and replaced by other 25-year buildings. Why? In this second decade of the third millennium, advances in building technologies have advanced as much as certain aspects of medicine and other sciences. In 2015, a design studio of UT’s Governor’s Chair for Energy + Urbanism, Phil Enquist with Brian Lee (of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, Chicago), produced a “3-D printed” building, AMIE, in conjunction with Oak Ridge National Laboratories. But more to the point, during the 2014 fall term, professor James Rose worked with Keith Boswell FAIA of SOM’s San Francisco office and teams of College of Architecture and Design students (led by graduate

architecture students) to reconceptualize and re-sheath one of the hopelessly frumpy TVA “towers” and the seawall-like plinth that adds a frothy chill to the end of Market Square. The Governor Chair’s Studio designs demonstrate how using existing technologies, one can make a fine work of architecture and a highly useful building complex out of something that is neither. Build, maintain, retain: long the mantra for college campus infrastructure and the estates of the well-heeled, is now—in cases such as the existing UTK dorms—supplanted by build, raze, repeat. The reasons of this are several and certainly not solely the fault of those in charge of planning, design, and construction on campus. Our state is disinclined to adequately support the maintenance of existing buildings, regardless of their architectural merit. Moreover, with deliberate and sustained effort, university administrators may occasionally convince families or individuals of great wealth to subsidize the construction of new buildings and facilities; yet there seems little glory in underwriting the care and management of a building with someone else’s name on it. A principle reason for this lack of concern is simple ignorance (even in one’s own belief system) at both the university and among the state’s citizenry at large. Tennessee is, in the main, a politically and culturally Below, UT’s built-to-last Apartment Residence Hall was demolished to make way for new, “disposable” dorms (Aug. 15, 2015). At left, White Hall undergoes construction (Jan. 5, 2016)—note the use of cheaper wood framing.

UT professor James Rose worked with Keith Boswell FAIA of SOM’s San Francisco office and teams of College of Architecture and Design students to reconceptualize the TVA towers. Top left: Team Activate (Ryan Stechmann, Paul Bamson, Christina Lulich). Top right: Team Enliven (Whitney Manahan, Alex Pasley, Nate Ryman). Bottom right: Team Engage (Kate Taylor, Ryan Ballek, Bradley Gould) precisely why the bar was set so low for the quality of construction in the new residence hall while a premium was set on interior amenities. Meanwhile, the building’s exterior seems one part Potemkin Village, one part MGM back lot. The height of the buildings, for example, are entirely a function of building codes; had they been a single floor higher, the cheaper wood framing could not have been used for buildings that are, in effect, scenography. It is not as if the university is making these decisions in the dead of night, nor without oversight, both on campus and in Nashville. In the case of Shelbourne, public hearings were held to first acquire, and then demolish the building. During a meeting of the Tennessee State Building Commission (established in 1955) on Jan. 14, 2016 to adjudicate the second phase of construction to replace the ARH the committee vice-chair, Lieutenant Gov. Ron Ramsey, earnestly inquired about the quality of the roofing material the architects intended for the new dorms. He seemed heartily satisfied that the asphalt shingles were of the 30-year variety owing to the nasty hailstorm Knoxville experienced several years earlier. The difference between 20- or 30-year shingles in a storm of such

Photos © UTK College of Architecture and Design.

conservative state—a worldview in no small part grounded in the preservation of capital and maintaining cultural stability. And while our state is home to a wealth of excellent buildings, urban centers, and constructed landscapes, nonetheless we have not a single university degree-granting program to educate its future design professionals in the conservation and stewardship of these invaluable cultural artifacts. How can we expect administrators with educational backgrounds in finance, animal husbandry, or chemistry to make informed decisions on the embarrassment of riches that is this state’s patrimony—especially when the design and planning professionals to whom they so often look to for guidance are themselves unschooled in such matters? Of course, the problem is more complicated still for UTK’s administrators. Faced with the prospect of a growing building stock (the maintenance of which is constantly underfunded and often arrives too late), there is also the perceived need to create market-driven housing that rivals, or is superior to, places that students are currently choosing off campus, such as The Heights or Quarry Trail. One could argue that the moment universities re-conceptualized its student population as “customers,” the invisible hand of the market became increasingly opaque on college campuses everywhere. All one need do is visit the website of any middling college or university and you will be hard-pressed to distinguish the bulk of the images encountered there from those advertising a vacation getaway. Which is

magnitude is not the issue here, as both would fail. Rather, what is truly lamentable is that it did not register in the least for the Lt. Governor that one of the state’s most important institutions had—at the center of its decade-long building program costing hundreds of millions of dollars—planned buildings with roofs covered in the same “contractor-grade” material as Habitat for Humanity houses. While many of us live in houses with this sort of roof covering, it remains the lowest form of standard roofing material and something typically never used for multi-generational institutional buildings. When the lowest type of finish material is approved unquestioned to sheathe the highest

level of building type, when decisions such as these seem normative to those empowered to oversee the cultural patrimony of not only a single campus, but an entire state, it is cause for concern. While one expects to see this lower order of design and construction along the edges of Northshore Drive or in the hinter regions of Cedar Bluff and scattered along Kingston Pike, it rightfully remains a shock when artifacts of this ilk rise between Cumberland Avenue and Neyland Drive. ◆ George Dodds is the Alvin and Sally Beaman Professor of Architecture at the University of Tennessee. Architecture Matters explores issues concerning the human-made environment in Knoxville and its environs. September 1, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 9

Are Knoxvillians finally ready for chef-driven restaurants? We gather a round table of four downtown chefs who are betting on it.

Photos by Tricia Bateman

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 1, 2016

noxville has a lot of places to eat, but it’s not recognized as a foodie town. Yet. By “foodie,” we mean restaurants that draw people from other cities to visit based on their national reputations, led by chefs who clearly have their own point of view on what makes for gourmet dining. Their menus don’t offer the same items you already had at the last five restaurants you dined at and instead may actually contain unfamiliar dishes, with ingredients that might give you pause. Not just something good to eat—we’re talking bona fide cuisine. Knoxville has had some chef-driven restaurants over the last few decades, though few have lasted. Now, suddenly, downtown features five either recently opened or soon-toopen restaurants (plus one that led the incursion over three years ago) that deliver higher-end cuisine and service and whose chefs are the star attractions: Emilia, the Italian restaurant recently opened by Knox Mason chef Matt Gallaher; Lonesome Dove in the Old City, a meat-eater’s paradise created by Tim Love, the University of Tennessee grad who became a celebrity chef in Texas; the Oliver Hotel’s posh Oliver Royale, led by Le Cordon Bleu graduate Jon Gatlin; the izakaya-style Asian bistro

Kaizen, opened by Jesse Newmister, the young executive chef who left West Knoxville’s Northshore Brasserie; and, finally, the much-anticipated J.C. Holdway from James Beard Award-winner Joseph Lenn, which is about to open in the renovated Daylight Building. (Yes, they’re all white males—that may be partly due to a coincidence of timing, but it also reflects the industry itself: According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics for 2015, over 80 percent of the 415,000 chefs and head cooks in the country are men.) Will a downtown food scene largely unaccustomed to original dishes, scary ingredients, four-star service, and the sometimes attendant high prices support chefs who are trying to push our culinary envelope? We decided to gather these chefs for a gut check. In the upstairs dining room at Lonesome Dove, chef Love recently hosted a roundtable meeting of peers for a candid discussion of the restaurant business, their fears and expectations, and why they think Knoxville is on the cusp of becoming a true foodie town. —Coury Turczyn Note: Chef Lenn couldn’t make the date of our roundtable. The conversation was conducted by Mercury food critic Dennis Perkins.

Our Cast of Chefs MATT GALLAHER RESTAURANTS: Knox Mason (131 S. Gay St.), Emilia (16 Market Square) CUISINES: Contemporary Southern and Italian SAMPLE DISHES: Cornmeal-crusted Mississippi catfish (with creamy Shelton Farm grits, house tasso ham, and Tennessee chow chow remoulade); orecchiette with ragu alla Bolognese (with Mitchell Farm beef, Heritage Farm pork and Strauss veal with San Marzano Tomatoes and Pecorino Romano) RESUME: Blackberry Farm, Tennessee Governor’s Mansion EDUCATION: University of Tennessee (chemical engineering) JON GATLIN RESTAURANT: Oliver Royale (5 Market Square) CUISINE: New American SAMPLE DISHES: Roasted lamb rack (with mixed greens, mossy creek mushrooms, roasted radishes, mountain meadows summer squash, sunflower shoots); grilled halibut (with coconut infused black lentils, rhubarb, fennel, jalapeño, asparagus) RESUME: Chez Liberty, Tellico Village Yacht Club EDUCATION: Le Cordon Bleu

TIM LOVE RESTAURANT: Lonesome Dove Western Bistro (100 N. Central St.) CUISINE: Urban Western SAMPLE DISHES: Elk loin (with Chinese kale, hen of the woods, salsify, candied blackberries); roasted garlic-stuffed beef tenderloin (with Western plaid hash, grilled asparagus, Syrah demi-glace) RESUME: Woodshed Smokehouse (Fort Worth, Texas), Queenie’s Steakhouse (Denton, Texas) EDUCATION: University of Tennessee (finance and marketing) JESSE NEWMISTER RESTAURANT: Kaizen CUISINE: Asian SAMPLE DISHES: Tempura squid (over potato hash and tomato concasse with sambal mayo); oyster sauce-braised pork belly (topped with kimchi, pickled ginger, and fried shallots) RESUME: Northshore Brasserie, Grill 225 (Charleston), Park Place on Maine (Louisville) EDUCATION: Culinary Arts School at Sullivan University, Louisville, Ky. Chefs pictured above from left: Jesse Newmister, Tim Love, Matt Gallaher, Jon Gatlin

September 1, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 11

What made you think now was the time to open your restaurants in downtown Knoxville? JON: People who are in the circle of

chefs in this area have been watching this for years, thinking that it’s ready, it’s time. You [Matt Gallaher] made a move years ago with Knox Mason, and you guys pushed the envelope a little bit here and there. So little by little everybody’s been getting out of their scare factor and trying to branch more toward downtown.

MATT: I think the last five to 10 years

have had tons of energy. Bill Haslam, as the mayor of Knoxville, had a lot to do with that—let’s make it a downtown that people want to work in and live in. So I think it’s been a long time coming to have an environment where we can have chef-owned restaurants and chef-driven restaurants. There’s been a vacuum that took a little bit longer than I would have liked to be filled. I remember being in college and going out to the only real chef-owned restaurant in Knoxville, and it was too expensive for a college kid to go to. I remember thinking at 20 years old that I wished there were more options. A 20-year-old at UT today has a lot of options and can go out for a special event at a chef-owned restaurant for a beer and a snack. It’s a cultural change that’s been a long time coming. There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit, as they say, in Knoxville, so it’s exciting. 12

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 1, 2016

TIM: When we did research to open

here, I ate at every single restaurant within about a three-mile radius that I could walk to. I ate five times at each place, and I would just see the people—where they’re eating, who they’re eating with, what time they’re eating, are they eating with drink or eating with water, all these different things. What we started noticing is the patterns in the way people eat. And what happens is, downtown is such a saturated market—but it’s really saturated with the same food. So, to me, that’s not a saturated market, it’s a dead market. You’ve got all these people and they’re all moving, yet they’re eating the same food in different places. So, as Matt said, that’s an equation for opportunity. Then you have to analyze, okay, can the market support what you want to do? And food, if it’s very good, the market will support it. What’s happening with the people we have at this table is that they are creating better quality. When you create better quality, people show up. The population is getting more and more dense in this city—it’s happening quickly, and they can’t build apartments fast enough, so that tells you that the market is flooded with people who want to do something. And what we do, generally, as Americans, is eat, drink, and celebrate. So we have to provide places to make that happen, and the more quality at a

place that you provide, the more of a market share will want to go there. When I was at school here 22 years ago, there was a restaurant called Merlot’s—it was a chef-driven restaurant. It was very good, I was great friends with the chef. But there was no Food Network, there weren’t any of these things to educate people on food ahead of time to where they’re more adventurous to make the step to try a chef-driven restaurant, as opposed to going to Chili’s. Now people know what a rutabaga is—22 years ago in Knoxville, they probably thought it was some sort of weird fucking car. It’s the truth! Now you have opportunity, right? Education is the biggest opportunity in the world. The more great restaurants that we have, and the more people get educated, that’s where you start making money by doing it the right way. People will embrace it as opposed to being afraid of it.

JESSE: When I moved here in 2005

there was no place to go out to eat. I was working at the Brasserie six days a week, and my one day off I was like, “I’m not going to the Brasserie and eat there.” So I’d cook. It kind of grinded my gears for a little while because I don’t want to cook seven days a week—any chef won’t want to cook seven days a week. You want to go out and have somebody else cook for you. So for a couple years, I was like, “Where are we going to eat?” You start noticing trends and whatnot, and one thing I learned when I first moved here to Knoxville was that it’s a big test market for chain restaurants. It’s very entrepreneurial, with the Calhoun’s guys and the Ruby Tuesday’s guys—they built these massive restaurant chains and all that trickled down, and the food just stayed the same, the service stayed the same. When we opened the Brasserie, people didn’t know what the hell snails were doing there—why would you serve snails? We got

“Restaurants have to have a point of view or they’ll never succeed— I don’t care how good the food is. You have to want to go there to get X. ‘I’m going to go to this restaurant because _____.’ And that’s what’s starting to happen in this city, which makes it exciting.” —CHEF TIM LOVE, Lonesome Dove Western Bistro

Photo courtesy of Lonesome Dove

Tim Love

Lonesome Dove Western Bistro bitched at for serving foie gras—everybody thought it was pate, but no, it’s liver. You make pate out of liver. We were explaining things all the time. You have to stick to your guns. The people seeking it out will find it— there’s a large international community here. They’re going to hear about it eventually, and you just have to stick with your original concept. Going into 2015, I was 90 percent sure I was going to leave the Brasserie anyway. I’d been there 10 years, so it was time. I was working on a separate space, but the reason why I started looking at downtown is because some of the regulars at the Brasserie—very well off, affluent people—started putting their money into downtown. Then it starts to click: If their money’s coming back downtown, that’s where we need to be going. And plus, it’s just charming— the buildings have so much character.

How have diners been responding to your more exotic menu items and your pricing?

JON: They’ll burn you if you try to slide

something in that’s overpriced and under-quality. You’ll get crucified every time on that. What some may consider price-gouging, it needs to be honest to what it actually is and be the right product. You can’t just try to slide something in just to get over, because then you get caught and you get a bad name for being sneaky. So

being honest with the food in this area is one of the biggest things for us.

MATT: I don’t think Knoxville is any

different from a cost standpoint. You have people who don’t even look at the price on the menu and just order what they want; if some people are going to scrutinize it and order the cheapest thing on the menu, I think it all has to be quality. I don’t see there being a special sensitivity to price in Knoxville necessarily. But from an ingredient standpoint, I lived away from Knoxville for about five years—I was touring, cooking for bands, and then cooked for the governor for two years—and when I came back to open Knox Mason I was nervous about putting pork belly on the menu. I had been in touch with Knoxville but not living here, and I wasn’t sure if Knoxville was ready for an ingredient that’s a little esoteric. Now it’s not at all esoteric and people really love pork belly. When we put it on our opening menu, and it was well received, it was immediate validation that Knoxville has a foodie culture.

TIM: He’s not worried about price

sensitivity because he’s selling flour and water—let’s be honest!

MATT: Yeah, right! We’re only 10 weeks old, so the jury is out on that. Call me in a couple years. Not everybody who

comes through Jesse’s door might order the octopus, but hopefully nobody is intimidated that it’s on the menu. City House in Nashville is one of my favorite restaurants ever, and when I was living in Nashville I talked to somebody about going there, and they went “Oh, we went there once and they had octopus on the menu.” They didn’t even order it, but it was just so terrifying to them that it kind of ruined their experience. And I haven’t seen that here—I don’t think people are as intimidated by new things.

TIM: We’ve had people walk out.

Walked in, sat down, then walked out.

JON: “I just wanted to cool off. I feel a lot better now.” JESSE: We get people who are terrified

of the whole fish. They would order it, and it says “whole fish”—and they’re like, “I didn’t realize it had a head.” Well, how many headless fish are swimming around? They get terrified and they leave.

MATT: It’s knowing where your food

comes from. It doesn’t start from a package in cling wrap. I’m not a hunter; I would love to fish, but I don’t have the opportunity. But food does come from somewhere and it does have a history. Your animals come with heads.

TIM: All of them! Not just mine. MATT: I don’t think anybody at this

table is interested in shock value or anything like that, but it’s good exposure just to remind people that, yeah, fish have heads. Some people love eating the heads.

TIM: I have a restaurant where we

roast a whole animal every day. The pig is the only one that has the head on it. With the lamb, the head is off; the deer, the head’s off; the goat, the head’s off. But everybody’s fine with the pig having the head on. But by gosh if you roast that goat with its head on, they’re like, “What the heck is going on?!” It’s weird what America accepts and doesn’t accept. And by the way, it isn’t just people in Knoxville or East Tennessee—it’s everywhere. Everybody has the same fears if they don’t go out a lot. Exposure and repetition is the whole reason why people go out to chain restaurants—because they know what it is. That whole familiarity is very safe, and they’re not going to be offended. They know the chicken is going to taste like it’s been injected with a bunch of shit—they know that and are good with it. So consistency and familiarity are why people eat at chain restaurants, it’s why they get popular—because they play on the fears of what people eat. They know that Americans don’t like to see the September 1, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 13

Photo courtesy of Oliver Royale

Jon Gatlin

Oliver Royale feet on their chicken when it comes to the plate. That’s just the way we were brought up.

JON: Beaks are off-putting in general. TIM: When it comes to price sensitivity

and stuff like that, I think there are restaurants where people go and they are not hungry anymore, and then there are restaurants where people go and have experiences. They’re two different dining situations. You get up one day and you want lunch so you grab a sandwich—I mean, it’s a bonus if the sandwich is spectacular, but you’re starving and just want a frickin’ sandwich. And then there are times you wake up and say, “I’m going to call some friends and we’re going to have lunch.” And it’s a completely different dining situation. So is there a price sensitivity to that sandwich that makes me not hungry anymore? One-hundred percent. Is there a price sensitivity for something that gives me a real experience? I think not, because I’m out for the experience—it’s more than just the food, it’s more than just saying, “How much did that fish cost me on the plate?” It’s more about, did I have the proper silverware, did I not have a napkin, was my cocktail always full? Those are all parts of what the food is, right? So something may be $50 for the actual entrée, but a large portion of that is the service and the 14

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 1, 2016

experience around you—the type of music, the way the place looks.

So what does it mean to be a “chefdriven” restaurant?

TIM: Restaurants have to have a point

of view or they’ll never succeed—I don’t care how good the food is. You have to want to go there to get X. “I’m going to go to this restaurant because _____.” If you don’t have that statement from the guests or the general public, the restaurant may do great for a year, but it will never survive if it doesn’t have its own point of view to make it happen. And that’s what’s starting to happen in this city, which makes it exciting. [Matt] has a point of view on Italian food, which is spectacular—there isn’t another real Italian restaurant in the city that I know of that has a point of view. So how great is that? Same with Oliver Royale—it’s got a beautiful atmosphere and they entertain guests with their point of view of how this type of food should be done. Hopefully they’ll like it and come back and pay for it again.

MATT: We’re starting to see a true point of view, but maybe also a focus. I think there’s been some good chefs in town who’ve done good food, but you don’t know from one visit to the next what the food is going to be. Everybody at this table—and Joseph, who’s sitting here [gestures to empty chair]—has a focus. They have a

perspective, they’ve dialed it in, and they’re sticking to it and not trying to be all over the place.

How do you do your menu planning when the market may be an unknown quantity? How do you push the envelope?

MATT: I got to travel for about five years, so just exposure to other cities, other countries, and seeing what other people are eating and how it’s received was an invaluable education. Before we opened Emilia, I kind of let the market tell me what we needed. Honestly, I was considering opening an Asian restaurant before—Asian and Italian were the two things I thought downtown could do better. Then I dove headfirst into the research and studying Italian food at workshops and things like that. If you live in Knoxville and eat out enough, you start to think, “I would like to have this food, but it’s just not available.” So that’s kind of how I made the decision to do an Italian restaurant. In some ways, what we’re doing at Emilia is not personality driven at all—it’s actually backing up and doing simpler food. A Bolognese is now a heavy meat sauce, while ours tends to be a little lighter, a little more traditional. I think this conversation all goes back to quality—doing simple food well executed. JESSE: You present it in a way that the

guests are going to have some sort of

recognition of it to—like, if you’re serving some sweetbreads, just say it’s a veal ravioli. People are going to go, “Wow, why is this veal ravioli so good?” Well, it’s sweetbreads. You’ve already hooked them, they already said they like it, so now they can’t say, “Oooh, that’s sweetbreads.” If you are presenting something that’s different or strange to somebody who isn’t familiar with those ingredients, frame it with something that is familiar to them. Who hasn’t had General Tso’s chicken? So take octopus and cook it in chicken fat—octopus is meaty anyway—and just do a more vinegary, more spicy General Tso’s sauce. If somebody is on the fence about trying octopus, and you frame it in something super-familiar to them, they’re going to be more apt to try it.

JON: It’s about building a relationship and a trust factor in the community— knowing your restaurant, knowing your establishment, knowing who you are and what you want, trusting that you want to do the right thing as far as food goes. We usually use wine dinners or New Year’s to test things, usually in a prix fixe with three choices for each [course], and then you see if anybody’s going to bite on the rabbit loins or the foie gras. Obviously, when you put out a new menu—we do a seasonal rotation of menus—you watch the first two months and if anything is completely off-putting

Photo courtesy of Knox Mason

Matt Gallaher

Knox Mason & Emilia and they can’t sell it to save their life, then you make a quick adjustment and change it up. You don’t want to have product in there that’s not being sold and going to waste. So you play it smart, and you have a couple that you play closer to the envelope. If we found that it was not going to sell and Knoxville was not ready for it, we’d simply do a reprint and take that off the menu and put something else on there that’s actually going to make you money.

Have any exotic dishes become surprise successes? MATT: Pork rinds.

TIM: The stuff on our menu is pretty

unusual for the diners that have been in so far, but they’re all willing to take the leap. We do a pheasant enchilada that’s straight-up comfort food. You can get steak and mashed potatoes if you want to. But in general, everything else you try will probably have something in there you’ve never tried before. When I go out and I spend a little bit of money, I’m celebrating—that’s the experience I want. I want something that sparks my interest, gives me something to talk about, creates a conversation. All of those are part of the dining experience—the food has to taste great, it’s got to be prepared well—but for a fine-dining experience you have to have other things around it. You need to have stories, you need to have tremendous service.

Are you able to find sufficiently trained service workers? Are your kitchens difficult places to work?

you don’t want to buy into the culture, that’s perfectly fine, no offense, it’s just not the right fit for you.

right? In my world, and the way I do it, we breed a culture more than we do just the restaurant or just a style of food. We want people who want to grow and get better. That’s my whole goal—to get people who want that, who want to get better and eventually run their own place. If they don’t have those types of goals, I don’t really want them on the team. I have financed many young cooks who’ve worked for me. I’ve recommended many young cooks to go on and do their things. I think you’ve got to have that culture in order to get a staff that wants to stay with you. I tell people all the time, “You’re either going to work for me for a year, or work for me nine or 10 years. But you’re not going to work for two to three years. That’s just not going to happen.” We develop people over long periods of time and give them opportunities to grow, and we do that in the front and the back of the house. It’s very important that we grow on both sides. Our training for this restaurant was three weeks long. It was like school—four hours in the morning, four hours at night. They didn’t taste any food for three weeks—just right on the edge, when they’re all ready to go to hell with this, I’m out, and then I give them some food. You see who’s kind of buying into the culture or not. If

MATT: People are the most important thing in the restaurant, easily. Thomas Keller could be making the best food anybody’s ever tasted but if he doesn’t have a team around him, he’s not successful.

TIM: Staffing is always a difficulty,

TIM: He makes one plate instead of 200.

MATT: The service is what really

separates Blackberry Farm from the rest of the pack. Their mantra when I was there was, “Yes is the answer. What is the question?” It’s evolved in a very thoughtful way to, “Yes is the attitude. What is the question?” Because sometimes great service is not just saying yes; sometimes great service is listening to what your guests are saying and steering them toward an experience. I think as more chef-driven restaurants spring up in Knoxville, the level of service will rise to match the level of thought that’s going into the food. I think it will become a culture.

JESSE: At the Brasserie, we had some

really stud servers and cooks there. And I’d tell them, you’re ready for something else. They were on the fence—they wanted to move to Charleston or California—and I was like, yeah,

go to a big food city, go to Louisville, go to New Orleans. Even if it’s just for six months, just disappear into that culture. It’s competitive, but also everybody’s got each other’s backs. That’s a huge thing I learned in Charleston: I’m a dime a dozen. I was so lucky I got the job that I got, being 21 when I started. The next youngest cook was almost 30 years old, and the rest of the staff was in their mid-30s to 40s—all the servers were career servers. So I was like, better shape up or ship out because they’re going to eat me alive. Either you learn or you don’t.

Could the idea of career service be a generational thing—are younger people returning to the idea of learning trades now?

MATT: Absolutely. In the same way that

people our age who are farmers. Well, not my age—I’m a little older, 39.

TIM: Now that makes me feel really old. That’s fucked up.

MATT: So, maybe not kids I went to high school with, but maybe 10 years behind me. TIM: It’s the age of the craftsman is what it is. Back in the day, what we called wood shop and mechanics class, now it’s the craftsmen—that’s the new word for it, but it’s the same shit, right? Now people are excited about designing things, like doing September 1, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 15

Photo courtesy of Kaizen

Jesse Newmister

Kaizen cool furniture, and it’s really being embraced by people using local products. We had a local lady make all of our plates here, and our glassware was made by the guy down the street [Pretentious Beer Glass Co.]. The real vocational or service jobs are people like servers and cooks—people who really do serve people, and are accepted for it and get paid for it. And those who are great rise to the top, just like anything else in the world. If you’re good and you work hard, you get paid more money. It’s the epitome of America, really. If you make tables, you need to make the best table there is. And then you tell people about it. If you make clothes, you need to make the coolest clothes there are. You see a lot of this popping up. More and more people are becoming craftsmen or they’re some sort of blogger on Instagram. Like, that’s the only two jobs out there. How many fashion bloggers are on Instagram—654 million?

MATT: I gave up chemical engineering

after 15 months of working in a factory as a student, but that paycheck wasn’t worth it. And it was good money. I was making more money at 20 years old than I was for most of the time I was at Blackberry Farm, but I wasn’t happy. It wasn’t fulfilling. You work on a project for six months, and then the six months are over and it’s, “Oh, yeah, we’re not doing that.” 16

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 1, 2016

There is instant gratification and camaraderie here, a lot of attractive things. At any restaurant, there are a lot of romantic notions that people have—but blink and you’ll miss the glamor. It’s hard work, every day. But if you love it, it’s what you do.

So what do you want to see in Knoxville’s food scene five years from now?

TIM: I want to see people demand more. If everybody at this table does what they’re supposed to do, then people will demand more—and then that creates more opportunities, just like we talked about in the very first question. If there’s great support for these new restaurants, and people are dining and they get excited about it, just like us as cooks, then people will want more. That’s when you know it’s really taking a leap. Then you’ll start seeing the burger restaurant or the barbecue restaurant get even better. The places that people perceive as middle-class restaurants, not high-end, are putting out a badass brisket with killer pickles, as opposed to ones out of a jar. That’s how you start seeing this—when the burger place, the fried-chicken place, the barbecue place are doing approachable foods that are really high quality. That’s when you know you’ve done the right thing. MATT: Absolutely. I think if you go to a city and their taco is amazing, then

you know their cuisine is going to be great. In Knoxville, I’ve seen more growth in the last five years—we opened Knox Mason three-and-a-half years ago, and I can’t tell you how many restaurants have opened since. Having recently lived in Middle Tennessee and seeing Nashville, that scares me a little bit. But I do feel like it’s still sustainable growth. I heard a stat on the radio the other day about a million new people coming to Nashville over the next 10 years, and that type of growth scares me, because I love Knoxville and it’s very special to me. I want us to keep the charm that we have here. So I would like to see continued growth, but sustainable growth—not a big faceless, nameless corporate thing. I know when we were looking for our space for Emilia, I started to get a little worried that the little guy might be squeezed out if we continue to grow so much or too quickly. I just hope that we don’t get to a point where the little guy can’t strike out on his own.

JON: I think my only hope in the long term is that we continue as a city to grow—the way we’re growing now where we’re building the small communities around Knoxville, like in the Happy Holler area and across the river. It’s small pieces of growth where property values are increasing. I would say, last year, there wouldn’t

have been a need for any kind of restaurant right across the river over there with the new apartment complexes. But now with that coming up and the area growing, that could be something we need. Alliance [Brewing] is a great building piece of that community and that neighborhood, like Central Flats & Taps and the [Schulz Brau Brewing Company] brewhouse in the Happy Holler area. Microbreweries have bought or rented places where they’re achievable, and what they’re doing is putting a little stake in that area and then from there the communities slowly grow.

JESSE: I can’t even fathom what

Knoxville’s going to look like in five years. I’m trying to realize how many more people we’ll have downtown, because it seems like everything’s filling up. People are actually living there—it’s not like five or six years ago, when everything sold to people who were flipping it. Now there are actual thriving neighborhoods. There is an entrepreneurial spirit here. It’s tangible and real. I feel like the longer we keep trending in the right direction—you keep doing what you do, and I keep doing what I do, just keep it going—you don’t need to swing for the fence every time. We need a couple of sacrifice flies here and there—as long as you’re getting home and trying to win, and do it in the right way, then I think we’ll be fine. ◆

HANDMADE ITALIAN

“Quintessential Southern Food, Elevated” – Allan Benton

16 MARKET SQUARE, KNOXVILLE, TN 37902 865.313.2472 • emiliaknox.com

131 S GAY ST, KNOXVILLE, TN 37902 865.544.2004 • knoxmason.com

September 1, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 17

SALVADORAN Photo by Justin Fee

Photo by Tricia Bateman

BREAKFAST

Squash Bowl OliBea owes its place in the hearts of Knoxville’s breakfast aficionados due to its freshness—not only in terms of fabulous ingredients but also to its approach to putting those ingredients on the plate. The restaurant masters the art of contrast and balance. The glorious Squash Bowl exemplifies that, par excellence. Sitting atop a roasted half acorn squash on a bed of sorghum grain with greens and beets, a duck egg rests like a crown for congeniality. The dish greets the day with a panoply of color and flavor and mouthfeel that’s rich and earthy without being tiresome and variously meaty, unctuous and chewy, and always filling.

A Knoxville foodie’s guide to finding great plates

Pupusas At fi rst sight, these plump little pancakes don’t seem like much of a thing—but just wait until you cut into them. The thick but tender corn tortillas hide a stuffi ng of soft white cheese and rich chicharrón and are served with a piquant bite of Salvadoran slaw, curtido. As the warm chew of the masa harina plays against its soft and melty fi lling and the slaw adds its cool crunch, your lunch becomes a study in the delight of simple flavors and textures. The restaurant also features Honduran cuisine.

SABOR CATRACHO LATIN CUISINE

4705 Central Ave. Pike, 865-686-3221 Mon.–Sat.: 10 a.m.–9 p.m., Sun: 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

OLIBEA

119 S. Central St., 865-200-5450, olibea.net Mon.–Fri.: 7 a.m.-1 p.m., Sat.–Sun.: 8 a.m.–2 p.m.

BY DENNIS PERKINS

But there are other dishes that are not so easy to find.

If you’ve ever wanted to discover a one-of-kind dish that could be your new favorite in town, then we have some suggestions. Or, if you just want to try something new, then here you go. Dish is our non-comprehensive, highly curated, very specific recommendations for fine meals. We’ll be adding to it in future editions as we gather more dining intelligence from the field.

Got some favorites you’d like to share? Let us know at: editor@knoxmercury.com Or post them on our Facebook page: facebook.com/knoxmercury

TURKISH Photo by Justin Fee

If you’ve ever asked yourself “Where can I find a good ______ in this town?” then this is the restaurant guide for you.

Doner Kebab This market and deli is a straightforward storefront that features all sorts of goodies, including a gyro doppelgänger called the doner kebab. A tender composite roast of lamb and beef is roasted on a vertical spit and shaved over pita. It’s succulent and savory and is delicious with or without the side of tzatziki.

QUALITY TURKISH MARKET

8078 Kingston Pike, 865-603-9940 Mon.-Sat.: 10 a.m.–8 p.m., Sun.: 12 p.m.–7 p.m.

Photo by Jody Collins

noxville’s got barbecue covered. Plus steaks and hamburgers, pasta and pizza, tacos and fajitas. If you want Asian noodles, there are several fine options. And for a city far from the nearest ocean, we have sushi galore.

SOUTHERN

Hot Chicken Jackie’s dream of owning her own business is the dream come true for Knoxville’s Hot Chicken aficionados and anyone with an honest appetite for heat. But this incarnation of the Nashville favorite isn’t just a fi refight— Jackie’s Dream balances heat with a pleasant dab of sweetness that, when combined with some of the best fried chicken around, make this Hot Chicken an obsession even for those who think they don’t like the heat.

JACKIE’S DREAM

2223 McCalla Ave., 865-219-5789 Tue.–Thu.: 11 a.m.–8 p.m., Fri.-Sat.: 11 a.m.–9 p.m., Sun.: 12 p.m.–6 p.m.

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 1, 2016

Weiner schnitzel is the foreign dish most likely to ensnare a Southerner’s heart. A simple breaded and fried veal cutlet, it recalls the joys of chicken or country fried steak—but with a different kind of wow. Part of it’s a textural thing, the meat is tender, pounded thin and encased in a golden crispy shell. The other allure is that a proper schnitzel has to float in the fat to cook properly. At Linderhof, the dish remains light on its feet, simple, and delicious.

RESTAURANT LINDERHOF

12740 Kingston Pike, #106, 865-675-8700 restaurantlinderhof.com Mon.–Thu.: 4 p.m.–9 p.m., Fri.: 4 p.m.–10 p.m., Sat.: 2 p.m.–10 p.m., Sun: 2 p.m.–9 p.m.

8520 Kingston Pike, 670-2828 woodlandsindianrestaurant.com Mon.-Sun.: 11 a.m.–2:30 p.m., 5 p.m.–10 p.m.

842 N. Central St., 865-851-7854 hollyseventfuldining.com Mon.–Sat.: 11 a.m.–3 p.m.

VIETNAMESE

Bahn Mi Colonial occupation is never a fun topic; but when France brought the baguette and pate to Vietnam, magic ensued. Although a thick slice of pate is the delicious and traditional heart of the bahn mi sandwich, there are as many varieties as there are cuts of meat. At Bida Saigon—provided you are resilient against the luscious lure of rich pate or Vietnamese sausage and ham—there are several other varieties of banh mi, including a scrumptious fried-egg version. All these fillings show splendidly when dressed with cilantro, cucumber, and carrot.

BIDA SAIGON

8078 Kingston Pike, Suites 165 & 167. 865-694-5999 Mon.–Sun.: 10 a.m.–10 p.m.

BAR FOOD Photo by Tricia Bateman

Shawarma is usually a dish of roasted animal protein—and knowing chef Holly Hambright, you might expect her version to feature bacon, too. But no, in this incarnation the dish comes with thickly sliced portobellos that have taken a long soak in garlic, lemon, cilantro, a little sumac, and a sprinkle of homemade ras al hanout (a traditional Moroccan mélange of ginger, cumin, cinnamon, and more) before being roasted. Then the fungi are served over naan bread spread thick with a roasted cauliflower hummus and finished up with tahini vinaigrette. It’s a mouthful of flavor and a bellyful of inventive satisfaction that hardly seems meatless.

PUBLIC HOUSE

212 W. Magnolia Ave., 865-247-4344 knoxpublichouse.com Mon.–Thu.: 4 p.m.–12 a.m., Fri.–Sat.: 2 p.m.–2 a.m., Sun: 2 p.m.–10 p.m.

APPETIZER

County Fair Avocado It’s true. You can fry anything. Even nature’s butter, the avocado. It’s difficult to imagine doing it, but eating it brings many food joys into a single bite: the wicked crunch of the well fried breading, the luxurious softness of the perfectly ripe avocado, and the wanton delight that comes from topping anything with sour cream.

TUPELO HONEY CAFÉ

Harissa + Pineapple Raita Hot Dog Although it’s an awfully good bar with notably cool drink service, the food menu at Public House may be what truly sets it apart in a city that loves its libations. Bar snacks soar into gastronomic heights here, and the hot dogs are a destination food. Consider the Harissa + Pineapple Raita dog, which contrasts the pleasant spice of harissa—a Moroccan pepper relish— with the creamy coolness of an Indian yogurt sauce that gets an injection of extra Freon in the form of pineapple. It’s very tasty, very adult, and very worth it.

HOLLY’S CORNER

Photo courtesy of Tupelo Honey Café

Photo courtesy of Restaurant Linderhof

Weiner Schnitzel

Photo by Tricia Bateman

722 S. Gay St., 865-333-5359, frussies.com Mon.–Fri.: 11 a.m.–3 p.m., Sat: 10 a.m.–3 p.m.

Mushroom Shawarma

If you haven’t had a dosa, get busy and head on to Woodlands now. It’s a visual treat, like a long golden-brown scroll all rolled up on your plate. In reality it’s a crispy, paper-thin, large crêpe made of lentil and rice flour that’s wrapped around aromatic and deeply satisfying fillings. The most common is Masala Dosa—a mildly spicy potato mix that hits all the right notes for flavor plus a wonderful contrast of crunchy crêpe and tender tuber mash. You can have your dosa with other fillings like spinach, paneer, and even Schezwan vegetables. It’s worth noting that the restaurant serves a fair amount of Mumbai chaat (street food) as well.

WOODLANDS INDIAN RESTAURANT

FRUSSIE’S DELI

GERMAN

Dosa

VEGETARIAN

1 Market Square, 865-522-0004, tupelohoneycafe.com Mon.–Thu.: 11 a.m.–10 p.m., Fri.: 10 a.m.–11 p.m., Sat.: 8 a.m.–11 p.m., Sun.: 8 a.m.–9 p.m.

Photo courtesy of Knox Mason

In a culture where truffle, Calabrian peppers, and countless other ringer ingredients create the “wow factor” in food, it’s thrilling to find a really big wow that comes purely from execution. At Frussie’s, a simple Reuben becomes an exemplar of that sandwich not for any secret ingredient or flashy finish, but simply because it’s made up of homemade stuff of exceptional quality: The corned beef is cured in-house and the bread is baked there, too. It’s a sensory delight with elements of salty, sour, crunchy, moist, tender, and a hint of the tangy in every bite. Those who pursue sandwich epiphany have been known to tremble when Frussie’s and Reuben appear in the same sentence.

INDIAN

Photo by Scott Hamstead

Photo by Coury Turczyn

Reuben Sandwich

Photo courtesy of Frussies Deli

AMERICAN

DESSERT

Banana Pudding At Knox Mason you’ll find a particularly flavorful and fun-to-eat version of banana pudding that blurs the lines of tradition, disputation, and innovation. Nilla wafers and homemade vanilla pudding sit in their traditional glory, happily ensconced in a little Mason jar before being topped with the house’s own marshmallow fluff. This happy compromise between the opposing camps of whipped cream or meringue topping gives the pudding distinction without taking it too far away from its roots.

KNOX MASON

131 S. Gay St., 865-544-2004 knoxmason.com Tue.–Thu.: 5 p.m.–9:30 p.m., Fri.: 5 p.m.–12 a.m., Sat: 10 a.m.–2 p.m., 5 p.m.–12 a.m., Sun: 10 a.m.–2 p.m. September 1, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 19

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P rogram Notes

The Horror! The Horror! Knoxville Horror Film Festival announces its full lineup for 2016

hese days, you can go to a museum, a bar, or even a public park almost any week of the year and watch movies beyond the standard multiplex fare—on a big screen and with an audience. There’s world cinema, cult classics, festival-approved indie movies, and classic Hollywood available. It’s all a sign of how far and how quickly Knoxville, only recently a celluloid wasteland, has embraced the idea that movie culture can thrive here. But back in the grim, far-away days of the late ’00s, before the Knoxville Film Festival, the Public Cinema, Movies on Market Square, and a half-dozen other recurring cinephile options, you only had a few choices if you wanted to see movies outside the mainstream: the public library’s DVD collection, a Netflix subscription, or thousands of dollars to spend on the Criterion Collection.

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Inside the Vault: Horace and Barney Ogle

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 1, 2016

Then, in 2009, William Mahaffey and Nick Huinker, frustrated by the lack of opportunities for filmmakers and fans, founded the Knoxville Horror Film Festival. (Huinker is a contributor to the Knoxville Mercury.) Mahaffey was inspired by the reception he got when he screened his own horror short film, “33 Nights Under the Zombi Moon,” at Pilot Light. He and Huinker were also motivated by a trip that year to Austin, Texas, for Fantastic Fest, the biggest horror, sci-fi, and action movie festival in the U.S. “The two of us were driving back from Austin and William decided he was going to put together his own film festival,” Huinker says. “He had less than a month to get it done in time for Halloween, and I told him he was dumb to try. And then it turned out great.” With its eighth edition coming soon, KHFF is Knoxville’s oldest and

most venerable film fest. If you can get past titles like Deathgasm, Death Spa, and Bloody Knuckles, you’ll find that KHFF has been, from the start, a solidly professional enterprise. Its programming rivals much bigger horror festivals, and Mahaffey and Huinker bring a keen sense of the genre’s past, present, and future to the job of selecting films. “I think a lot of people think of horror as just one thing and don’t really understand how many subgenres there are, and how much you can do with it,” Mahaffey says. “I also think it’s important to mix things up, since we’re asking people to watch horror movies for an entire weekend. Overall, though, my main goal is really just to book the best horror on the festival circuit.” This year’s lineup is the biggest yet, with eight full-length features, up from five in 2013 and seven in 2014 and ’15. The big news has already been announced: a new 4K remastered version of Phantasm, Don Coscarelli’s mind-bending 1979 low-budget psychedelic horror fantasy (“If this one doesn’t scare you, you’re already dead!”), screening alongside Phantasm: Ravager, the brand-new fifth and final installment in the series, directed by David Hartman. Also on the schedule: Beyond the Gates, directed by Jackson Stewart, about a haunted 1980s VCR board game; Trash Fire, a psychological thriller directed by Richard Bates Jr., whose Sundance-approved debut, Excision, played at KHFF in 2012 (and whose 2008 short that feature was based on played at the first KHFF); Tim Reis’ gory monster/ mad-scientist movie Bad Blood; and the over-the-top gross-out flick The Greasy Strangler, directed by Jim Hosking. KHFF has just announced two additional features that add to the breadth and depth of the KHFF lineup: Sadako Vs. Kayako, a Japanese all-star crossover that pits the creepy supernatural antagonists from the late ’90s and early ’00s franchises The Ring and

Music: Maps Need Reading

The Grudge against each other; and The Master Cleanse, a body-horror FX-travaganza starring Johnny Galecki (The Big Bang Theory), Anjelica Huston, and Oliver Platt. That’s eight reasons for checking out KHFF next month, along with the usual parade of short films and the Grindhouse Grind-Out fake trailer competition. The best reason, though, according to Huinker, is the chance to see these movies on a big screen with a bunch of fellow enthusiasts. “Indie horror has become a testing ground for video-on-demand release models in the last few years. And that’s cool in a lot of ways, but it cheats both the audience and the filmmakers out of having the film play out how it’s intended to,” he says. “I’m sure The Greasy Strangler would be fun in a boozy dorm room, but watching it in the dark with 200 freaked-out strangers sounds way better to me.” Mahaffey agrees—horror is best as a shared experience. “I would say horror and comedy are the two genres that benefit the most from seeing with an audience,” he says. “I’ve seen horror films by myself at home that totally didn’t work for me, but then when I saw them with a crowd it felt like a totally different experience. I think that’s enhanced even more when you’re seeing it with a crowd of like-minded people who also chose to spend an entire weekend indoors watching horror movies. “A festival screening is, in my opinion, always the best way to see a film. I just saw Don’t Breathe—which is amazing—and there were maybe 10 other people there. I couldn’t help but wish that we had that film at the fest, because I know it would have been so much more fun watching in that setting.” The Knoxville Horror Film Festival will be held Oct. 21-23 at Regal Downtown West Cinema 8 and Scruffy City Hall. Watch knoxvillehorrorfest.com for more information. (Matthew Everett) ◆

Movie: Kaili Blues

Inside the Vault

A Faster Breed of Life Horace and Barney Ogle made the most of Knoxville’s pre-World War II music scene BY ERIC DAWSON

n my last column, I wrote about Reed Massengill’s discovery of a rare 16mm print of Clarence Brown’s 1925 silent film Smouldering Fires. When Massengill brought the print to the Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound, he also brought another piece of local history: photographs from the 1930s of his mother’s first cousin, Horace Ogle, in the Carolina Club Orchestra. Ogle played trombone for the Chapel Hill-based group, which was the first assembled by bandleader Hal Kemp. (Kemp would be further connected to Knoxville when his band visited town in 1939 and met the authors of what would be one Kemp’s biggest hits, “Three Little Fishies.”) Horace Ogle was born in 1908, a few months before his cousin Bernard “Barney” Ogle, who would turn out to be a highly regarded trumpet player. I called Barney’s daughter, Nancy Pooley, who lives in Virginia, to find out more about the musical family.

Barney’s parents, Sarah Williams and Pinkney Nelson “P.N.” Ogle, and Horace’s parents, Martha Williams and Simeon Ogle, were a pair of brothers and sisters. Pooley says oft-repeated family lore tells of friends and relatives making music at the log-cabin home of Gatlinburg settlers Martha Huskey Ogle and William Ogle. A photograph of P.N. playing bugle in the Army during the Spanish-American war survives. Barney and Horace both went to Knoxville High School. In the evenings, they played music at nightclubs where, according to Pooley, they “acquired a generous taste for beer and were exposed to a faster breed of life than they normally would have been.” The cousins played with a variety of bands, including one led by pianist Fred Murff and violinist Harry Nides; Nides performed for both the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra and in country and jazz bands. A pithy but colorful description of

Gay Street in a 1925 News Sentinel column finds the Ogles downtown on what seems to have been an active Labor Day: “S.B. Luttrell at his office in the Bankers-Trust bldg even tho it is Labor Day. Barney and Horace Ogle, the horn blowers, going into Kuhlman’s… Craig the orchestra leader, all diked out in white… Rabbi Mark carrying an electric fan. White-robed K.K.K.’s stalking along as if very conscious of their appearance.” (Kuhlman’s was a drugstore, Rabbi Jerome Mark was the first resident rabbi of Temple Beth El, and Craig is likely Francis Craig, a Nashville-based bandleader who frequented Knoxville.) Barney started dental school in Memphis in 1930. But his father, also a dentist, had invested with several other dentists and physicians in the new Medical Arts Building, and when the Depression hit, his money was tied up in the building’s construction. Barney’s income from home dried up. So he took to playing his trumpet in Memphis clubs, impressing fellow students by staying out all night and still passing his exams. Barney returned to Knoxville to practice dentistry, eventually taking over his father’s corner office in the top floor of the Medical Arts Building. On P.N.’s advice, Barney gave up professional music, though he had the occasional brush with the industry, such as when Mother Maybelle Carter and her daughters sought his dental service when they were in town performing. Horace, meanwhile, landed a gig with Maynard Baird, then the most popular bandleader in town. He probably played trombone on “Post-

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age Stomp” and “I Can’t Stop Loving You” during Baird’s 1930 recordings for Brunswick Records’ Knoxville sessions. Later, he played with Tommy Dorsey’s band. In 1933, while on tour with Dorsey, he met his wife. Horace played in the Army band after enlisting, but, according to his son, Simeon Seckbach, he stopped playing music professionally after a medical discharge in 1940. He died in 1955. Even though he had not performed publicly in Knoxville for almost two decades, the headline of his News Sentinel obituary reads, “Horace Ogle, Bandsman, Dies.” The musical traditions of the Ogles live on. In the 1950s, Nancy Pooley was a member of the University of Tennessee Singers and also sang in Chucky Jack, a musical drama about John Sevier that was performed at the newly constructed Hunter Hills Theatre in Gatlinburg. There she met Archie Campbell, who invited her to perform on Country Playhouse, Knoxville’s first country-music television show. She even attended Knoxville High with Don and Phil Everly, though she never sang with them. Nancy’s son Wayne Pooley has been Bruce Hornsby’s audio engineer for many years. Hornsby gave Wayne the piano he played while touring with the Grateful Dead in the late 1980s and early ’90s. It’s now at Nancy’s home. It’s a little worn on the outside, but it’s well-preserved where it counts. “I wish that thing could talk,” she says. ◆ Inside the Vault searches the archives of the Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound for nuggets of lost Knoxville music and film history.

When they were teenagers playing Knoxville nightclubs in the 1920s, the Ogle cousins “acquired a generous taste for beer and were exposed to a faster breed of life than they normally would have been.”

September 1, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 21

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Music

Uncharted Territory Local prog trio Maps Need Reading fights off adversity to release its epic debut album BY RYAN REED

aps Need Reading’s debut album is cursed. What other explanation could there be? In January, halfway through writing a quirky concept album about household appliances brought to life, guitarist/songwriter David Webb quit the band. It was a huge creative blow to the emerging indie/prog band. Seven months later, with an album-release show already booked, the band members scrambled to complete an entirely new record, the epic Mapsynapse. Staring down the deadline, a series of blows ensued. Less than two weeks before the show, with Paul Seguna, of fellow Knox prog band Lines Taking Shape, on hand to master the files, a technical glitch erased a bass guitar arrangement. Then, soon after he moved to Nashville, drummer D.J. Young’s car broke down. Without Internet at home, he lurked around a local Panera to meet production deadlines for the new album. “It’s been a hell of a week,” Young says. But Mapsynapse exists, and it was worth the strain. Across six dynamic tracks, the trio—Young, guitarist/ keyboardist/vocalist Chris Burgess, and bassist/vocalist Nathan Patterson—veers from jazzy math-rock grooves (“Layers”) to ornate folk/prog fingerpicking (“Secrets”) to atmospheric, Pink Floyd-style psychedelia (the three-part suite “Altar Ego”). Last year’s Hopes for Chemistry EP found the band revamping their caffeinated punk prog with a jazz-fusion edge, thanks in part to Webb’s music studies at the University of Tennessee. Mapsynapse is another, more symphonic rebirth, built on walls of

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 1, 2016

keyboards and vocal harmonies. It’s been a seamless sonic shift, and Webb’s departure actually made it easier. On Hopes for Chemistry, the band members occasionally clashed on the direction of the music, with the guitarist steering most of the songwriting. In retrospect, the album title feels prescient. “It just felt like we were butting heads a lot,” Webb says. “We wanted different things out of the band. So I just decided to quit because I felt like the band wasn’t going to survive as it was, and I also felt like our relationships were deteriorating from it.” With Webb’s departure, the tension has dissipated—Young, Burgess, and Webb all moonlight in the local throwback cover band Viet Jam, and Webb even contributed some guitar parts to Mapsynapse. But at the time, the loss of its main songwriter seemed

to threaten the band’s existence. “It was a big as a shock to me and the guys as it was to anyone else,” Young says. “It kind of came out of the blue. We’d just released a single, ‘The Aftermath’ and a cover of [The Beatles’] ‘Let It Be,’ and that was going to be a part of an EP we were doing. We were getting together for rehearsal one day, and he dropped that on us. There were no talks beforehand or anything—it was just like, ‘This is what’s happening.’” Young, Burgess, and Patterson absorbed the blow like professionals. Instead of scrapping everything they’d done over the previous five years, they embraced the creative freedom of this smaller, tighter-knit unit. “After David left the band, we were like, we’re not going to let this tear the band apart or slow us down,” Young says. Young and his bandmates briefly considered recruiting another guitarist—or even a trumpet player, saxophonist, auxiliary percussionist, or female vocalist—to explore a “different timber.” But they decided didn’t have time for experimentation. In March, less than two months after their sudden scale-back, they opened for progressive metal band Consider the Source at the International. Then, in late June, the band started recording new songs at

Burgess’ home studio, dubbed the Electric Peach Pit. Working together on a new level, they wrote the foundation of “Layers,” one of the tracks on Mapsynapse, in their first songwriting and practice session as a trio. The group ended up with three totally new songs, including their most ambitious one to date, the 12-minute “Altar Ego.” (“I always liked the idea of how progressive bands do these suites, like Rush did on Hemispheres,” Young says.) They also completed work on a “reimagined” version of the 2011 track “Secrets,” which features an Allman Brothers-meets-Zappa guitar solo from Webb. Maps Need Reading could have collapsed, as many local bands do after losing a key member. Instead, with Mapsynapse, they’ve regrouped and found new focus. Not even a curse could break their stride. “At this point, I don’t see us bringing on anybody new in the near future,” Young says. “Things haven’t been better for the band, in terms of the material we’re writing, the feedback we’ve gotten on that material, and the overall vibe in the practice room. It’s a lot more positive. We’re all on the same page with a lot of things.”◆

WHO

Maps Need Reading with Spades Cooley and Unaka Prong

WHERE

Pilot Light (106 E. Jackson Ave.)

WHEN

Saturday, Sept. 3, at 9:30 p.m.

HOW MUCH $5

INFO

thepilotlight.com facebook.com/ mapsneedreading

Movies

Dream Journey Chinese director Bi Gan uncovers the magic of digital filmmaking in Kaili Blues BY NATHAN SMITH

ike most young artists, the 26-yearold Chinese filmmaker Bi Gan wears his influences on his sleeve. Kaili Blues, his award-winning debut feature, clearly takes from two of the 21st century’s most eminent filmmakers: China’s Jia Zhangke (The World, Mountains May Depart) and Thailand’s Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Tropical Malady). Like Jia, Bi is preoccupied with the rapidly changing and often ignored world of rural, working-class China, a place where—as Jia showed in his 2013 fi lm, A Touch of Sin— Maseratis can ride side by side with horse-drawn carts. But Bi is also fascinated with another ignored and unseen world, one of mystery, folk legend, and dream logic; this is where he aligns with Weerasethakul. Like Weerasethakul, Bi is a hypnagogic fi lmmaker, depicting images that evoke the state between wakefulness and slumber. Kaili Blues follows Chen Sheng, a doctor and ex-convict from the city of Kaili, who sets out by train, truck, motorbike, and foot to find his nephew, Weiwei, who has been sold to a watchmaker in the city of Zhenyuan. But, as inspirational posters often tell

us, it’s the journey, not the destination, that matters most. Chen’s simple quest soon turns into a dreamy confrontation with his past, present, and future. We see Chen fall asleep, we hear him read poetry (much of it written by Bi Gan himself), we follow him as he journeys not just through space but through his own memory. The centerpiece of his interior journey is a single 41-minute long take that follows Chen from Kaili to Zhenyuan. Along the way, he encounters the spirit of his dead wife and a version of his nephew from the future. Thanks to digital cameras and editing platforms, exceptionally long takes like this one have become more and more common in the past few years—two notable examples appear in Creed and Birdman. These long, usually digitally enhanced takes often feel like a gimmick. But in Kaili Blues it feels necessary. Bi’s long take brings us closer to the world of dreams. It’s something that never would have been possible in the era of physical fi lm, where takes were limited to the length of a fi lm magazine, which is around 10 minutes— the fi lm runs out and has to be changed. Digital technology is often described as cold or inhuman.

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But Kaili Blues shows the promise and potential magic of digital formats. In physical film, time is necessarily segregated into frames—we experience it as a series of photographs. In digital cinema, time is sectioned off, too, but there’s no real physical reason for it, only an algorithm that denotes a “frame” as a fraction of a second. It’s closer to fantasy than it is to what we see with our eyes. It’s alchemical, not scientific. It’s the product of computed dreams, not a chemical process. The frame isn’t distinct the way it is in films, because it doesn’t truly exist. The sequence of images can’t be split into separate moments, so they all run together, just like Chen’s experience with his past, present, and future during the long take in Kaili Blues. Kaili Blues isn’t perfect; Bi’s eye for composition is better than his sense of pacing and editing. The film might be too mysterious for its own good. But while Bi Gan’s visions may remind us of ones we’ve seen before, he sleepwalks to his own rhythm. Kaili Blues is like a dream leaking through the cracks of real life; it moves at a pace steeped in chamomile tea, each composition lingering gently on its subjects. It’s a movie that could only be made with digital tools, but its experiment comes close to defining what cinema is—conjuring fantasy through technology. ◆

WHAT

The Public Cinema: Kaili Blues

WHERE

Pilot Light (106 E. Jackson Ave.)

WHEN

Tuesday, Sept. 6, at 7:30 p.m.

HOW MUCH Free

INFO

publiccinema.org

Knoxville’s BEST live music venue 6 nights a week!

Happy Hour 4pm - 8pm | mon - fri Huge selection of Craft, Import & Local beer Locally roasted coffee

wed aug. 31 • 8pm

secret city cyphers!!! $5 General Admission free for performers all ages ( open mic / hip hop )

thurs sep. 1 • 8pm

Brewhouse Blues Jam w/ Robert Higginbotham & the Smoking Section free • all ages ( blues )

Flaming Lips side project

fri sep. 2 • 8pm

End of summer bash W/ Luminoth, The Billy Widgets, Peak Physique, & Indighost win free open chord tix for a year $5 • All Ages ( indie rock ) suicide prevention sat sep. 3 • 8pm benefit Annandale

w/ The Worn Out Soles, OverSoul, & Jimmy & the Jawbones $5 donation • all ages ( alt-rock )

"Coolest venue in town! Not too big, not too small. Great sound system and audio engineers. Lights show, good food, cold beer and a music store in the back. Oh, and they give lessons, too. Seriously? I still can't believe this place is real." -Austin Hall of Sam Killed The Bear

Knoxville’s Best Musical Instrument Store

8502 KINGSTON PIKE • (865) 281-5874 openchordmusic.com

September 1, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 23

CALENDAR MUSIC

Thursday, Sept. 1 JOHN CARROLL • 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 SHIMMY AND THE BURNS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 6PM • Part of Wayne Bledsoe’s 6 O’Clock Swerve series, broadcast live on WDVX. • FREE THE STEEL WOODS • The Shed at Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson (Maryville) • 6PM • FREE HOT SUMMER NIGHTS CONCERT SERIES • Blount County Public Library • 7PM • Thursdays in August, sponsored by the Blount County Friends of the Library. The performers will be 12-year-old Madisonville country singer Emi Sunshine (Aug. 4); jazz duo Wendel Werner and Alan Eleazer (Aug. 11); Nashville vocal family band Spencer’s Own (Aug. 18); Nashville country duo the Young Fables (Aug. 25); and Knoxville Opera’s preview of the 2016-17 season (Sept. 1). • FREE KUKULY AND THE GYPSY FUEGO • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 7PM • Kukuly Uriarte hails from Peru, by way of Argentina. She sings in multiple languages, plays guitar in many styles, and, since 2011, leads the multifaceted jazz ensemble Kukuly and the Gypsy Fuego. Numerous titles from the Fuego’s long and varied set list are associated with—or performed in the style of—the late Gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt, who, in Paris between the world wars, invented what’s still referred to as hot jazz. • FREE FUNK YOU • Scruffy City Hall • 10PM Friday, Sept. 2 LIZ BRASHER WITH JARED HARD • 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 VALLIE NOLES • Scruffy City Hall • 5PM MIKE MAINS AND THE BRANCHES • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 7PM • FREE JOHN CARROLL • Vienna Coffee House (Maryville) • 7PM • Nashville based John Carroll is a singer/songwriter whose songs ride on top of his powerful vocals and grooving guitar riffs. He was previously the frontman and songwriter for the band Man and the Mountain who won their genre category in the American Songwriter 30th Anniversary songwriting competition. • 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 LUMINOTH WITH THE BILLY WIDGETS, PEAK PHYSIQUE, AND INDIGHOST • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • An end-of-summer local rock jam. All ages. • $5 SHORT TERM MEMORY • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 9PM WRANGLER SPACE • Scruffy City Hall • 9PM BLUE MOTHER TUPELO • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 9PM BOB LOG III WITH THE KEVIN DOWLING FITNESS HOUR AND BIG BAD OVEN • Pilot Light • 9:30PM • The spacesuit-wearing, weirdo rock-guitar playing one-man band returns! 18 and up. • $10 GUY MARSHALL • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • Guy Marshall’s full-length debut, The Depression Blues, isn’t really a debut at all. Most of the album’s 10 tracks are already familiar to fans of the folksy five-piece band, whose main members, husband and wife Adam and Sarrenna McNulty, have been a staple in Knoxville’s 24

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 1, 2016

Thursday, Sept. 1 - Sunday, Sept. 11

Americana scene for the past five years. Armed with an infectious stage presence and an earnest arsenal of songs that touch on themes of whiskey and wallowing, the pair, backed by a rotating cast of musicians, have played gigs that range from providing a soundtrack to beer-soaked attendees of Knoxville’s Brewer’s Jam to securing a spot on the main stage of this year’s Rhythm N’ Blooms festival. • $5 THE VIBRASLAPS • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. • $5 THE BLAIR EXPERIENCE • Wild Wing Cafe • 10PM • FREE KUKULY AND THE GYPSY FUEGO • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • Kukuly Uriarte hails from Peru, by way of Argentina. She sings in multiple languages, plays guitar in many styles, and, since 2011, leads the multifaceted jazz ensemble Kukuly and the Gypsy Fuego. Numerous titles from the Fuego’s long and varied set list are associated with—or performed in the style of—the late Gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt, who, in Paris between the world wars, invented what’s still referred to as hot jazz. • FREE LARRY VINCENT • The Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • Live jazz. • FREE THE JUKE JOINT DRIFTERS • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM Saturday, Sept. 3 A GATHERING OF ANCIENT SOUNDS: CELTIC AND APPALACHIAN RHYTHMS • Historic Ramsey House • 10AM • Historic Ramsey House will bring to the community eight exceptional musical groups offering related but diverse music that represents the best of Celtic and Appalachian music from their beginnings. Food vendors, re-enactors and period demonstrators will be there to provide additional enjoyment for our guests. The Historic Home will be open for tours for $5 per person. Visit ramseyhouse.org. • $15 • See Spotlight on page 31. CUMBERLAND STATION WITH HANK AND THE CUPCAKES • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. • $5 MOJO: FLOW • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 9PM ANDREW ADKINS WITH MIKE ANDERSON AND THE MOUNTAIN VIEW RAMBLERS • 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 KENTUCKY HEADHUNTERS • The Shed at Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson (Maryville) • 6PM • The hairy hell raisers from Metcalfe County return to Maryville with their patented mix of Southern rock and country. • $20-$50 TIM EASTON • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 7PM • Rock and roll Music, sometimes loud, sometimes quiet. • FREE BLUE MOTHER TUPELO • Jimmy’s Place • 7PM • Blues, R&B, soul, Americana, and more. • FREE ANNANDALE WITH THE WORN OUT SOLES, OVERSOUL, AND JIMMY AND THE JAWBONES • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 7PM • A local hard-rock benefit for suicide prevention—donations will be collected to support the Tennessee Suicide Prevention Network. All ages. • $5 THE DON LINDE BAND • Last Days of Autumn Brewery • 7PM CYPHER: A HIP-HOP SHOW • The Birdhouse • 9PM • Open mic for the first half of the night, then two featured artists to close out the night. 18 and up. STRUNG LIKE A HORSE • The Concourse • 9PM • One of Clay Maselle’s newest songs is titled “Trailer Park Astronaut”—a fitting description for the quirky “gypsy-punk garage-grass” he creates with Chattanooga’s Strung Like a Horse. Backed by fiddle, banjo, upright bass

CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: VIOLET Clarence Brown Theatre (1714 Andy Holt Ave.) • Through Sept. 18 • $26-$42 • clarencebrowntheatre.com

A Greyhound bus journey through the still-segregated South of 1964 lies at the heart of the musical Violet, the Clarence Brown Theatre’s opening production of its 2016-17 season. Violet Karl, a young girl from the small town of Spruce Pine, N.C., facially disfigured years earlier by her father in a farm accident, undertakes the journey to seek healing from a televangelist in Tulsa, Okla. Her actual journey, though, turns into a metaphorical one as she meets fellow travelers along the way who are both attracted to and repulsed by her condition—and as she confronts reality. Yes, this is a musical—and one by the Tony Award-winning composer Jeanine Tesori (Fun Home, Shrek, the Musical, and Thoroughly Modern Millie), with book and lyrics by Brian Crawley. Based on the short story “The Ugliest Pilgrim,” by Doris Betts, Violet premiered Off Broadway in 1997, winning the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award as best musical. Reworked, it had a Broadway run in 2014, with Sutton Foster starring as Violet. Violet is a journey of musical style as well; Violet passes through Tennessee and Arkansas on her way to Tulsa. Tesori’s score integrates Appalachian roots music, gospel, and Memphis rhythm and blues into a compelling and poetic whole. Both new and familiar CBT faces dot this production. Charlotte Munson, seen last season as Nellie Forbush in South Pacific, stars as Violet. Jelani Alladin and Christopher Ramirez, as Flick and Monty, two soldiers on their way Fort Smith, Ark., will be new to CBT audiences. Bill Jenkins (CBT’s Monty Python’s Spamalot), directs; the musical direction is by Terry Silver-Alford. (Alan Sherrod)

Spotlight: A Gathering of Ancient Sounds: Celtic and Appalachian Rhythms

CALENDAR and a percussion stool, dubbed “Bertha,” adorned with rotary phone bells, the frontman sings in a half-yelp/ half-yodel about murder, bird dogs, and broken hearts. It’s a style too warped to jibe with the ongoing pseudo-bluegrass revival of modern rock (see: Mumford & Sons, the Lumineers). But it’s paying off well for the quintet, who’ve become a charmingly weird staple of the Chattanooga scene. 18 and up. Visit internationalknox.com. • $10-$12 SMOOTH SAILOR • Scruffy City Hall • 9PM GRANDPA’S COUGH MEDICINE • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 9PM MAPS NEED READING WITH SPADES COOLEY AND UNAKA PRONG • Pilot Light • 9:30PM • The trio Maps Need Reading has been a staple of Knoxville’s progressive music scene for the past several years, building a faithful following based on the quirkiness and intensity of their live shows. But by revamping their lineup and hitting the studio, Maps sound like an entirely new band these days—harnessing that early potential with electrifying results. They’re celebrating the release of a new CD. • $5 • See Music story on page 22. KBJAM • Vienna Coffee House (Maryville) • 7PM • FREE THE WILL YAGER TRIO • The Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • Live jazz. • FREE RICK RUSHING • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM JUBAL • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE Sunday, Sept. 4 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 OLD CITY COVER JAM • NV Nightclub • 2:30PM • Eight hours of Knoxville bands and solo artists playing your favorite songs. Featuring the Coveralls, the Chillbillies, the Kincaid Band, Soulfinger, Crawlspace, Kyle Campbell, Tall Paul, Jonathan Sexton, Matt Tillery, and Ben Wilson. Proceeds benefit Autism Site Knoxville, a local nonprofit community support center. For tickets or more information, go to oldcitycoverjam.com. 18 and up. • $12.50-$15 THE JASON ELLIS BAND • Jimmy’s Place • 7PM • FREE ROBINELLA • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 7PM THE EVENING NEWS WITH PAT BAKER • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM • Knoxville’s Pat Baker and some other local musicians bring you up to date with what is going on in music • FREE YOUNG VALLEY • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. Monday, Sept. 5 MIGHTY MUSICAL MONDAY • Tennessee Theatre • 12PM • Wurlitzer meister Bill Snyder is joined by a special guest on the first Monday of each month for a music showcase inside Knoxville’s historic Tennessee Theatre. • FREE DAVE GLEASON WITH THE JOHN MYERS BAND • 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 WING DAM WITH PINK MEXICO • Pilot Light • 9:30PM • 18 and up. • $5 ALEX CULBRETH • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM BLACKWATER MOJO AND KRISTINE JACKSON • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. Tuesday, Sept. 6 CLOUDSHIP • 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 MIKE POSNER • The Mill and Mine • 7:30PM • Like fellow undergrad Asher Roth, Posner began making melodic pop-rap songs for the college crowd, filling his music with references to fraternity culture, dorm life, and young adulthood. He also compiled several mixtapes, one of which -- A Matter of Time -- topped the digital charts during the summer of 2009. • $20-$23 75 DOLLAR BILL • Pilot Light • 9:30PM • Che Chen, the guitarist for New York experimental/drone duo 75 Dollar Bill, brings more than a casual interest in “world music” to the band’s new album, Wooden Bag. Chen studied in Mauritania with the griot guitarist Jheich Ould Chighaly before landing in New York and hooking up with drummer Rick Brown, giving 75 Dollar Bill a grounding in traditional West African guitar. 18 and up. • $5 MORGAN O’KANE AND FERD MOYSE • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. Wednesday, Sept. 7 JOHN PRESTON • 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 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 PALEFACE • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 7PM • FREE JEREMY WRIGHT • The Bistro at the Bijou • 7PM • Live jazz. • FREE TENNESSEE SHINES: 10 STRING SYMPHONY • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7PM • Nashville duo 10 String Symphony began as a partnership of mutual admiration a much needed creative release valve for Rachel Baiman and Christian Sedelmyer, two 5-string fiddle players and veteran sidemen of Nashville’s music scene. With the love of the 5-string fiddle and its musical possibilities as its focal point, the band’s mission statement was as clear as it was expansive: Two fiddles. Two Voices. Epic music. • $10 THE REFLECTORS WITH THE LAMPLIGHT BLUES SESSIONS • Scruffy City Hall • 8PM MIKE SNODGRASS • Wild Wing Cafe • 8:30PM • FREE Thursday, Sept. 8 CHRISTIE LENEE WITH GINA SICILIA • 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 DAWN KNOTS • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 6PM THE CASKET KIDS WITH BACK FOR BLOOD AND STONEWASHED SAVIOR • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • All ages. • $5 THE BIG VALLEY MUSTANGS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 8PM CHERUB WITH FRENSHIP AND BOO SEEKA • The International • 9PM • Cherub is an avant-garde, electro-pop duo that is the dance lovechild of 80’s funk, and pop music from the future. 18 and up. Visit internationalknox.com. • $23-$43 LEOPOLD AND HIS FICTION • Preservation Pub • 9PM • 21 and up. PALEFACE • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • Prolific, influential, cult-hero and indie -folk icon Paleface is now a high-energy and charismatic duo featuring his girlfriend Monica “Mo” Samalot, on drum-kit and charming candied vocal harmonies. • FREE CROSS RECORD • Pilot Light • 10PM • 18 and up.

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September 1, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 25

CALENDAR GUY MARSHALL • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 6PM • Guy Marshall’s full-length debut, The Depression Blues, isn’t really a debut at all. Most of the album’s 10 tracks are already familiar to fans of the folksy five-piece band, whose main members, husband and wife Adam and Sarrenna McNulty, have been a staple in Knoxville’s Americana scene for the past five years. Armed with an infectious stage presence and an earnest arsenal of songs that touch on themes of whiskey and wallowing, the pair, backed by a rotating cast of musicians, have played gigs that range from providing a soundtrack to beer-soaked attendees of Knoxville’s Brewer’s Jam to securing a spot on the main stage of this year’s Rhythm N’ Blooms festival. • FREE Friday, Sept. 9 JEFF ORR AND VIC GRAVES WITH RED SHOES AND ROSIN • 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 HEATHEN SONS • The Shed at Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson (Maryville) • 6PM • $0 ANDY SNEED • Vienna Coffee House • 7PM • FREE GARY ALLAN WITH MAE BETH HARRIS • Chilhowee Park • 7:30PM • Gary Allan’s Set You Free is a perfectly named, well-conceived album that embodies his own evolution toward personal, creative freedom. The album, sequenced with a storyline in which a man breaks the restraints of a failed relationship and conquers the loneliness of its aftermath, is the result of Allan’s own journey

Thursday, Sept. 1 - Sunday, Sept. 11

as a man and as an artist. Part of the Tennessee Valley Fair’s concert series; a ticket to the fair is required for admission. Visit tnvalleyfair.org. • $10-$30 SYLVAN ESSO • The Mill and Mine • 8PM • Sylvan Esso’s self-titled debut—a collection of vivid addictions concerning suffering and love, darkness and deliverance—arrives as a necessary pop balm, an album stuffed with songs that don’t suffer the longstanding complications of that term. These 10 tunes were realized and recorded in Sanborn’s Durham bedroom during the last year, an impressive feat considering the layers of activity and effects that populate them—the dizzyingly crisscrossed harmonies of “Play it Right,” the gorgeously incongruous elements of “Wolf,” the surreptitiously minimalist momentum of “HSKT.” • $22-$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 RON POPE • Bijou Theatre • 8PM • Nashville-based independent artist Ron Pope has stood at a crossroads where so many musicians find themselves — at the intersection of record label and independence. In an ever-evolving industry filled with rejection and compromise, he has plotted a new course for his music to reach loyal listeners, taking the industry-road-less-traveled in exchange for the ultimate payback, a league of devoted fans the world over. • $15-$18 ALMOST KINGS WITH SEASONS OF ME AND TRANSPARENT SOUL • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 9PM • All ages. • FREE

KATY FREE • The Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • Live jazz. • FREE CHELSEA STEPP • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 9PM PISTOL CREEK • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM COL. BRUCE HAMPTON • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • A myth, a man, a legend. • $5 DIRTY BOURBON RIVER SHOW • Scruffy City Hall • 10PM • The Dirty Bourbon River Show deftly melds sounds that range from hard-edged blues to Lisztian piano driven ballads to New Orleans brass, all into a blast of creative energy into the collective musical landscape. Dirty Bourbon live is a sight to behold, mesmerizing audiences with their eccentricity and dexterity, coupled with their knack to hearken back to by-gone eras in music. • $5 SEE MONSTERS • Pilot Light • 10PM • 18 and up. • $5 ADRIAN AND MEREDITH • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE MIDNIGHT VOYAGE LIVE: THIS IS ART WITH MAGMABLOOD AND COSMIC COAST • The Concourse • 10PM • Live EDM, presented by Midnight Voyage Productions. 18 and up. • $7 BADLANDS • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. Saturday, Sept. 10 ANNA ROSE • 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 VINYL MANIA • Concord Park • 6PM • Part of Knox County’s Second Saturday Concerts series at the Cover at Concord Park. • FREE

OTIS • The Shed at Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson (Maryville) • 6PM • FREE DRAKEFORD • Vienna Coffee House (Maryville) • 7PM • FREE CHRIS YOUNG WITH DUSTIN LYNCH AND CASSADEE POPE • Thompson-Boling Arena • 7:30PM • When all is said and done, it only takes two words to sum up the career of Chris Young: Definitely country. • $39.50-$199 SWINGBOOTY • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • Gypsy jazz with 16-year-old mandolin prodigy Marc deFontNouvelle. All ages. • FREE HAROLD NAGGE AND ALAN WYATT • The Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • Live jazz. • FREE YANKEE ROSE • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 9PM THE REFLECTORS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM THE JUDY CHOPS • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE Sunday, Sept. 11 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 KANE BROWN • Chilhowee Park • 7:30PM • Visit tnvalleyfair.org. • $15-$20 PALE ROOT • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM • Aaron Freeman’s taste for contemporary songwriters like Ryan Adams and Darrel Scott provides a balance to Jordan Burris’ penchant for bluegrass and traditional folk. As Pale Root, they’ve quietly settled into their own spot in

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 1, 2016

CALENDAR Knoxville’s crowded Americana scene—intimate, confessional music grounded in tradition. At various times, the duo’s music recalls Neil Young, Jackson Browne, the Everly Brothers, and the Avett Brothers. It’s a surprisingly full and mature sound from just two people.

OPEN MIC AND SONGWRITER NIGHTS

Thursday, Sept. 1 IRISH MUSIC SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • Held on the first and third Thursdays of each month. • FREE BREWHOUSE BLUES JAM • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • Join Robert Higginbotham & the Smoking Section at the Open Chord for the Brewhouse Blues Jam. Bring your instrument, sign up, and join the jammers. We supply drums and a full backline of amps. Sign-ups begin at 7 p.m. before the show. Held the first Thursday of every month. Monday, Sept. 5 BARLEY’S OPEN MIC NIGHT • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 8PM Tuesday, Sept. 6 PRESERVATION PUB SINGER/SONGWRITER NIGHT • Preservation Pub • 7PM OLD-TIME JAM SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • Hosted by Sarah Pirkle. • FREE

Wednesday, Sept. 7 TIME WARP TEA ROOM OLD-TIME JAM • Time Warp Tea Room • 7PM • Regular speed old-time/fiddle jam every Wednesday. All instruments and skill levels welcome. OPEN CHORD OPEN MIC NIGHT • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • It’s time once again for open mic night. This time we’re welcoming both solo performers and bands to perform. Come 30 minutes early to sign up for a 15-minute slot. • FREE SCHULZ BRÄU OPEN MIC NIGHT • Schulz Bräu Brewing Company • 8PM • Every Wednesday. • FREE BRACKINS BLUES JAM • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM • A weekly open session hosted by Tommie John. • FREE

DJ AND DANCE NIGHTS

Saturday, Sept. 3 ASCEND • The International • 9PM • Ascend is Knoxville’s interactive dance experience. Take it to the next level with us every Saturday night with the best music of today and your favorite throwbacks. 18 and up. • $5-$10 Saturday, Sept. 10 ASCEND • The International • 9PM • Ascend is Knoxville’s

September 1, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 27

CALENDAR interactive dance experience. Take it to the next level with us every Saturday night with the best music of today and your favorite throwbacks. 18 and up. • $5-$10

CLASSICAL MUSIC

Thursday, Sept. 1 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 Aug. 25. Conductors are Mat Wilkinson and Ace Edewards. Prospective members, especially string players, are encouraged to contact Alicia Meryweather at ScruffyCityOrchestra@gmail.com for more information. • FREE Monday, Sept. 5 OAK RIDGE COMMUNITY BAND LABOR DAY CONCERT • Alvin K. Bissell Park • 7PM • The program will feature vocalist Deidre Ford and a variety of music including jazz, swing, Broadway, marches, and classical. Brochures outlining the Community Band’s 2016-2017 series of indoor concerts will be available, as well as free tickets to the band’s Oct. 9 indoor concert. Visit www.orcb.org or call 865-482-3568. • FREE

THEATER AND DANCE

Thursday, Sept. 1 - Sunday, Sept. 11

Thursday, Sept. 1 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: ‘THE THREE MUSKETEERS’ • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 7PM • To fulfill his dream of becoming a soldier, young d’Artagnan heads for Paris and into romance, intrigue and adventure. On the way, he meets a secret agent, confronts a mysterious swordsman, rescues the beautiful Constance, and ultimately joins The Three Musketeers in their fight against an evil Cardinal. Aug. 19-Sept. 4. Visit knoxvillechildrenstheatre.com. • $12 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘VIOLET’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7:30PM • Music by Jeanine Tesori and book and lyrics by Brian Crawley. Filled with bluegrass, folk, and gospel tunes from one of the most vibrant composers in modern musical theatre. Scarred in a farm accident, Violet takes a bus to Tulsa – via Johnson City, Kingsport, Knoxville, Nashville and Memphis – to be healed by an evangelical preacher. On the way, she learns the real meaning of love, courage, and beauty. Aug. 31-Sept. 18. Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com. • See Spotlight on page 24. Friday, Sept. 2 MOVING THEATRE: ‘THE BOOR’ • Fluorescent Gallery • 6PM • This new local theater company collaborates with local visual artists for First Friday. Moving Theatre presents two 15-minute performances of Anton Chekhov’s The Boor, a “joke in one act,” at 6:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: ‘THE THREE MUSKETEERS’ • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 7PM • Aug. 19-Sept. 4. Visit knoxvillechildrenstheatre.com. • $12 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘VIOLET’ • Clarence Brown

Theatre • 7:30PM • Aug. 31-Sept. 18. Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com. THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘[TITLE OF SHOW]’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • [title of show] is the story of Hunter and Jeff, “two nobodies in New York,” who are writing a musical with the help of their gal-pals Heidi and Susan. Throughout the show we get to know the four with their goofy quirks and inside jokes, as they put together something they all believe in. Biting and witty, clever and inspiring, vulnerable and hilarious—this edgy musical comedy chronicles the serious and hilarious challenges of following one’s dreams. Sept. 2-18. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 Saturday, Sept. 3 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: ‘THE THREE MUSKETEERS’ • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 1PM and 5PM • Aug. 19-Sept. 4. Visit knoxvillechildrenstheatre.com. • $12 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘VIOLET’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7:30PM • Aug. 31-Sept. 18. Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com. THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘[TITLE OF SHOW]’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • Sept. 2-18. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 Sunday, Sept. 4 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: ‘THE THREE MUSKETEERS’ • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 3PM • Aug. 19-Sept. 4. Visit knoxvillechildrenstheatre.com. • $12 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘VIOLET’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 2PM • Aug. 31-Sept. 18. Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘[TITLE OF SHOW]’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 3PM • Sept. 2-18. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 Wednesday, Sept. 7 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘VIOLET’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7:30PM • Aug. 31-Sept. 18. Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com. Thursday, Sept. 8 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: AUDITIONS FOR ‘THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE’ • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 4:30PM • Knoxville Children’s Theatre will hold auditions for the upcoming stage production of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. Auditions are by appointment only. Auditioners should prepare a short one-minute monologue from a play or novel. All actors will be asked to list all conflicts with the rehearsal schedule. The director will make every attempt to work around conflicts, whenever possible.Rehearsals will begin on or around Wednesday, Sept. 21, continuing through Thursday, Oct. 27. Rehearsals are held Sunday through Thursday evenings. Actors should expect to attend most, but not all, rehearsals. Actors must also be available for all 14 regular performances: Oct. 28-Nov. 13, Thursdays through Sundays. To make an audition appointment, e-mail dennis@childrenstheatreknoxville.com. • FREE CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘VIOLET’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7:30PM • Aug. 31-Sept. 18. Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com. THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘[TITLE OF SHOW]’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • Sept. 2-18. Visit

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 1, 2016

CALENDAR theatreknoxville.com. • $15 Friday, Sept. 9 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘VIOLET’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7:30PM • Aug. 31-Sept. 18. Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com. THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘[TITLE OF SHOW]’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • Sept. 2-18. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 Saturday, Sept. 10 THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘THE GUYS’ • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 3PM • Less than two weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, New Yorkers are still in shock. One of them, an editor named Joan, receives an unexpected phone call from Nick, a fire captain who has lost most of his men in the attack. He’s looking for a writer to help him with the eulogies he must present at their memorial services. Nick and Joan spend a long afternoon together, recalling the fallen men through recounting their virtues and their foibles, and fashioning the stories into memorials of words. Presented in partnership with the Knoxville Firefighters’ Association. All proceeds in excess of expenses will benefit the KFA’s Firefighters Relief Fund and TKD’s Second Act campaign. Admission is free, but reservations are strongly recommended as seating is limited. Donations will be gratefully accepted. Sept. 10-11. Visit theatreknoxville. com. • FREE CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘VIOLET’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7:30PM • Aug. 31-Sept. 18. Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘[TITLE OF SHOW]’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • Sept. 2-18. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 Sunday, Sept. 11 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘VIOLET’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 2PM • Aug. 31-Sept. 18. Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com. THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘[TITLE OF SHOW]’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 3PM • Sept. 2-18. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘THE GUYS’ • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 3PM nd 7PM • Sept. 10-11. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • FREE

COMEDY AND SPOKEN WORD

Friday, Sept. 2 FIRST FRIDAY COMEDY • Saw Works Brewing Company • 7PM • A monthly showcase featuring local and touring stand-ups comics. • FREE THE OOH OOH REVUE • Cocoa Moon • 10PM • Knoxville’s exciting monthly fun and sexy variety show. We are classy cabaret, song, dance, comedy and bedazzling burlesque, every First Friday. This show features some of Knoxville’s best and emerging talent: singers, dancers, comedians, spoken word poets, burlesque artists and so much more. It’s a variety show where each cast member

Your Downtown Experience Begins Here Click on the "Downtown Properties" tab at InsideOfKnoxville.com

Naturally, our agents possess an intimate

knowledge of our properties, but they also develop a deep understanding of our clients’ needs. It’s the artful melding of the two that is our great skill.

859 Ebenezer Road, Knoxville, TN 37923 o. 865.357.3232 | c. 865.356.4178 Melinda.Grimac@SothebysRealty.com Each office is independently owned and operated

MELINDA GRIMAC AFFILIATE BROKER

September 1, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 29

CALENDAR brings a different sizzling act each month to entertain, delight, surprise and more. It’s an evening designed to make you say “ooh!” Visit oohoohrevue.com. 18 and up. • $10 Sunday, Sept. 4 UPSTAIRS UNDERGROUND COMEDY • Preservation Pub • 8PM • A weekly comedy open mic. Visit scruffycity.com.

Thursday, Sept. 1 - Sunday, Sept. 11

PIZZA HAS • Pizza Hoss • 8PM • On the second Thursday of the month, Pizza Hoss in Powell hosts a showcase featuring sets from some of the best comedians in East Tennessee along with selected up-and-coming talent. Each month one of the hosts of Rain/Shine Event productions (Shane Rhyne, Matt Chadourne, Tyler Sonnichsen, and Sean Simoneau) serves as your guide to introduce you the best of our region’s comedy scene. • FREE

Monday, Sept. 5 FRIENDLYTOWN • Pilot Light • 7:30PM • A weekly comedy night named after the former red-light district near the Old City. Visit facebook.com/friendlytownknoxville. 18 and up. • FREE

Sunday, Sept. 11 UPSTAIRS UNDERGROUND COMEDY • Preservation Pub • 8PM • A weekly comedy open mic. Visit scruffycity.com.

Tuesday, Sept. 6 CASUAL COMEDY • Casual Pint (Hardin Valley) • 7PM • A monthly comedy showcase at Casual Pint-Hardin Valley featuring a mixture of local and touring comedians. 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 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 can email us at longbranch.info@gmail.com to learn more, or simply come to the show a few minutes early. • FREE

Friday, Sept. 2 MARBLE SPRINGS SEVIER SOIREE • Marble Springs State Historic Site • 6:30PM • Marble Springs will host an evening to celebrate the rich history and scenic beauty of the historic site of John Sevier, first governor of Tennessee with music, a Southern inspired dinner will be prepared by Bradford Catered Events, and a silent auction that can’t be missed, all while guests enjoy our scenic 35 acre property and 5 historic structures. Please mail payment to P.O. Box 20195, Knoxville, TN 37940; or purchase online from the Marble Springs website at www.marblesprings.net. • $50

Thursday, Sept. 8

FESTIVALS

Saturday, Sept. 3 SUNDRESS ACADEMY FOR THE ARTS BARN-RAISING PARTY

• Sundress Academy for the Arts • 2PM • Sundress Academy for the Arts invites you to the raising of its new barn at Firefly Farms, the home of SAFTA. The barn raising serves as a thank you to all of our donors from the last crowd-funding campaign and those who donated time and energy to build this barn. This event will feature barbeque, beer, and hayloft readings from local artists. This event is free for all of those who donated. There is a suggested donation of $20 for all others. Additionally, all food and drink will be provided by SAFTA. • FREE-$20 LAKEWAY LATIN FOOD FESTIVAL • Rose Center ( Morristown) • 11AM • The Hispanic Outreach Leadership Association of the Lakeway Area invites the community to its Second Annual Lakeway Latin Food Festival, which will feature food from various Latin American countries as well as games, music, and other surprises. This year’s festival hopes to build upon last year’s successes and will help cement’s the Lakeway Latin Food Festival’s place as a treasured institution in the region that showcases the important and unique cultural, economic, and social contributions that the Hispanic and Latino families of the Lakeway Area make in our community. A GATHERING OF ANCIENT SOUNDS: CELTIC AND APPALACHIAN RHYTHMS • Historic Ramsey House • 10AM • Historic Ramsey House will bring to the community eight exceptional musical groups offering related but diverse music that represents the best of Celtic and Appalachian music from their beginnings. Visit ramseyhouse.org. • $15 • See Spotlight on page TK. Friday, Sept. 9

TENNESSEE VALLEY FAIR • Chilhowee Park • 3PM • The Tennessee Valley Fair is a non-profit organization dedicated to showcasing East Tennessee heritage, agriculture and the arts. From exciting rides, concerts, livestock shows, delicious fair food and so much more, there’s something for everyone at the Fair. Sept. 9-18. Visit tnvalleyfair.org for more info and a complete schedule. • $10 Saturday, Sept. 10 TENNESSEE VALLEY FAIR • Chilhowee Park • 10AM • Sept. 9-18. Visit tnvalleyfair.org for more info and a complete schedule. • $10 HOGSKIN HISTORY DAY • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 11AM • Hogskin History Day is a celebration of the history, music, and culture of the Hogskin Valley and surrounding Appalachian communities. This year’s celebration features the history of the water and waterways of our region and a chance to win up to $2,000 or more. As always, our event will include local historians and historical displays, local musical entertainment, children’s activities, delicious food including pizza from Narrow Ridge’s famous cob oven, old-time and modern crafts and artisans, tours of “off the grid” environmentally- friendly buildings and homes and the Natural Burial Preserve. Cake walks, hourly door prizes, and more. Free admission and parking. For more information visit www.narrowridge.org or call 865-497-2753. • FREE Sunday, Sept. 11 TENNESSEE VALLEY FAIR • Chilhowee Park • 12PM • Sept.

UT HEALTH CARE CERTIFICATE PROGRAMS

Business

Product awareness

We’re offering seven health care programs this fall: Clinical Medical Assistant, Dental Assisting, Medical Administrative Assistant, Phlebotomy Technician, Medical Billing & Coding, Pharmacy Technician, and EKG Technician. Most programs offer clinical externships.

Company goodwill

There’s never been a better time to “go public.”

You’re invited to attend a free information session at the UT Conference Center in downtown Knoxville. Please call 865-974-0150, e-mail utnoncredit@utk.edu, or go online to make your reservation.

Thursday, September 8 6-7 p.m. Course # 16FAHEALTH-1

www.utnoncredit.com

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 1, 2016

WUOT_Ad_5.5x4.25_WhyWUOT_KnoxMerc.indd 1

LEARN MORE

9/7/15 9:52 AM

Thursday, Sept. 1 - Sunday, Sept. 11

CALENDAR

9-18. Visit tnvalleyfair.org for more info and a complete schedule. • $10

FILM SCREENINGS

Thursday, Sept. 1 SCHULZ BRÄU FILMNACHT • Schulz Bräu Brewing Company • 9PM • A free weekly movie screening—check social media for the week’s entry. 21 and up. • FREE

ARAM

The

from ERA:BetheThere Beginning!

Monday, Sept. 5 THE BIRDHOUSE WALK-IN THEATER • The Birdhouse • 8:15PM • A weekly free movie screening. • FREE Tuesday, Sept. 6 THE PUBLIC CINEMA: KAILI BLUES • Pilot Light • 7:30PM • In a small clinic in the rain-drenched city of Kaili, two preoccupied doctors live ghost-like lives. One of them, Chen, decides to fulfill his dead mother’s wish and sets off on a train journey to look for his brother’s abandoned child. Visit publiccinema.org • FREE • See review on page 23.

CLASSICAL TICKETS start at just $15!

IN TWO WEEKS!

RUSSIAN PASSION: RACHMANINOFF & TCHAIKOVSKY

Thursday, Sept. 8 KNOXVILLE HORROR FILM FESTIVAL: ‘THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT’ • Scruffy City Hall • 7PM • To celebrate the recent announcement of the sequel to one of the most famous horror films from the last 20 years, we’re going back into the woods for a double feature to see if The Blair Witch is really as scary as we remember. As usual, this event is free, but we will be taking donations for KHFF 8 on Oct. 21-23. Visit knoxvillehorrofest.com. • FREE SCHULZ BRÄU FILMNACHT • Schulz Bräu Brewing Company • 9PM • A free weekly movie screening—check social media for the week’s entry. 21 and up. • FREE Friday, Sept. 9 MOVIES ON MARKET SQUARE • Market Square • 8PM • Knox County Public Library’s Movies on Market Square is gearing up for its 13th season of family-friendly outdoor movies in the heart of downtown Knoxville. On six consecutive Friday nights from September 9-October 14, the public is invited to bring the whole family, including their favorite, well behaved four-pawed, tail-wagging companion, to see a free movie. For more information, please call (865) 215-8767 or visit www.knoxlib.org. • FREE

SPORTS AND RECREATION

Thursday, Sept. 1 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 two- to three-hour ride at 20-plus mph pace; B group does an intermediate ride at 15-18 mph. Weather permitting. Visit cycologybicycles.com. • FREE CLIMBING AT IJAMS CRAG • Ijams Nature Center • 5PM • Come top rope with us at Ijams Crag. Monday and Thursday evenings from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Cost is $10 per person. Gear will be included (we provide helmet, harness, rope). Please wear appropriate shoes, comfortable stretchy climbing apparel and bring water. Pre-registration is advised. You can register online or by calling 865-673-4687. riversportsoutfitters.com/events/. • $10 NORTH KNOXVILLE BEER RUNNERS • Central Flats and Taps

Thursday, Sept. 15 • 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 16 • 7:30 p.m. TENNESSEE THEATRE Aram Demirjian, conductor Orion Weiss, piano RACHMANINOFF: Piano Concerto No. 3 TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No. 5 Sponsored by Twin City Dealerships

NOV. 2016

APPALACHIAN SPRING

A GATHERING OF ANCIENT SOUNDS: CELTIC AND APPALACHIAN RHYTHMS

Nov. 17 & 18 • 7:30 p.m.

TENNESSEE THEATRE Aram Demirjian, conductor Sponsored by Circle of Friends

Historic Ramsey House (2614 Thorngrove Pike) • Saturday, Sept. 3 • 10 a.m.-6 p.m. • $15 • ramseyhouse.org

If “no more do ye wish for to roam,” then settle down at the historic Ramsey House on Saturday for a day of early Appalachian and Old World music in a setting that might just fool you into believing you’ve wandered back in time. A Gathering of Ancient Sounds, a festival of Celtic and Appalachian music, will feature nine bands, reenactors from the French and Indian War period, and craft demonstrations such as basket-weaving and woodworking on the grounds of the house, which can be toured for $5. This is a new event that seems a good match for the circa 1797 historic site, with bands like the Traveling Caudells even performing 18th- and 19th-century tunes in period costume. Bring a lawn chair or blanket, nosh grub from a food truck, and learn (or remind yourself of) some traditional Irish and Scottish percussion instruments: There will be plenty of hammered dulcimers and bodhrans to go around. Irish and Scottish bands on the program include Four Leaf Peat, Signean, Fire in the Kitchen, and the Good Thyme Celidh Band (a staple at Boyd’s Jig and Reel Scottish nights), with some American pepper, like the Knox County Jug Stompers, sprinkled in. Expect everything from lonely mountain tunes to lively reels with fiery fiddles. (S. Heather Duncan)

A CLASSICAL CHRISTMAS Nov. 27 • 2:30 p.m. BIJOU THEATRE Aram Demirjian, conductor Pellissippi State Variations choir Sponsored by Asbury Place Continuing Care Retirement Communities Presented with support from the Aslan Foundation

CALL: (865) 291-3310 CLICK: knoxvillesymphony.com VISIT: Monday-Friday, 9-5 September 1, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 31

CALENDAR • 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 FLEET FEET GROUP RUN/WALK • Fleet Feet Sports Knoxville • 6PM • Join us every Thursday night at our store for a fun 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 FOUNTAIN CITY PEDALER THIRSTY THURSDAY ROAD RIDE • Fountain City Pedaler • 6PM • This no-drop Thursday evening ride utilizes a 25-mile loop on scenic North Knoxville back roads and rolls east towards House Mountain. Ride starts at 6 p.m. from the shop. Road bikes with front and rear lights are recommended. Other bikes such as cyclocross, touring, fast hybrids, or mtb’s with high pressure street tires are also acceptable. This ride is not a race and Luke will ride “sweep” behind the groups to make sure no one gets left behind. Post ride: Bring a camping chair, something to cook on the grill, and beverage(s) of choice. The Grill & Chill is a social gathering at the shop after the ride. Visit facebook.com/ Fountain-City-Pedaler-Bike-Shop. • FREE CEDAR BLUFF CYCLES BEGINNER ROAD RIDE • Sequoyah Park • 6:20PM • Join us every Thursday evening at Sequoyah Park for a beginner’s no-drop ride. Riders can ride at their own pace on Cherokee Boulevard and do as many laps as they choose. Visit cedarbluffcycles.net. •

UT CULINARY PROGRAM Get the skills to start your professional culinary career. This full-time 12-week, 400-hour course prepares you for entry-level positions in restaurants, hotels, catering, and sales. Fall classes start Sept. 12.

Thursday, Sept. 1 - Sunday, Sept. 11

FREE CEDAR BLUFF CYCLES THURSDAY NIGHT RIDE • Cedar Bluff Cycles • 6:20PM • Join Cedar Bluff Cycles for their Thursday evening road ride. The Thursday night ride is made up of a combination of the A and B riders from Tuesday night. This is a great opportunity for less experienced riders to push their limits a bit. A lot of the A riders are getting a last ride in before the weekend race. Their goal is to keep an even paced ride at a good tempo. This helps the less experienced rider to become familiar with road etiquette. The average speed for this ride is 19-22 mph depending on group dynamic. Visit cedarbluffcycles.net. • FREE Friday, Sept. 2 RIVER SPORTS FRIDAY NIGHT GREENWAY RUN • River Sports Outfitters • 6PM • Greenway run from the store every Friday evening. Work up a thirst then join us for $2 pints in the store afterwards. riversportsoutfitters.com. • FREE Saturday, Sept. 3 BIKE ZOO SATURDAY MORNING RIDE • The Bike Zoo • 9AM • Join us every Saturday for a three-hour ride of 50 miles or more, usually at a fast pace of 18-20 mph. Visit bikezoo.com. • FREE RUNNER’S MARKET SATURDAY GROUP RUN • Runner’s Market • 9AM • Every first Saturday of the month at 9:00 am, join us for a relaxed-pace run of 3 to 5.5 miles or beyond along the Third Creek and Sequoyah Hills Greenways. Afterwards, enjoy coffee and refreshments provided by the gang at Runner’s Market. Visit

LEARN MORE You’re invited to attend a free information session at the UT Conference Center in downtown Knoxville. Please call 865-974-3181, e-mail utnoncredit@utk.edu, or go online to make your reservation.

runnersmarket.com. • FREE CATALYST ADAPTIVE CLIMB • River Sports Outfitters • 10AM • Join us the first Saturday of every month as we climb with Catalyst Sports. This event is for anyone with physical disabilities. All ages are welcome to come and climb our rock wall. • $10 SMOKY MOUNTAIN HIKING CLUB: POGUE CREEK CANYON TRAIL • Smoky Mountain Hiking Club • 8AM • For this hike, we will explore a brand new trail (yet to be blazed!) in the Pogue Creek Canyon State Natural Area, near Pickett State Park. Starting with one arm of the Overlook Loop, we will visit the Pogue Canyon Overlook, then hike the new trail down off the plateau, where we will ascend and descend small gorges, hike under fabulous sandstone bluffs with unusual geologic formations including a very unique arch. The arch has a very particular and recognizable shape, which we will let you determine when you see it! Then we will hike on to a beautiful overlook at the terminus of this in and out hike. On our return, we will close the second half of the Overlook Loop. There are ladders and steep steps involved on this trail. Hike approximately 8-9 miles, rated moderate. Meet at Oak Ridge Books-a-Million, 310 South Illinois Avenue, at 8:00 am. Leader: Diane Petrilla, petrillad@gmail.com. • FREE Monday, Sept. 5 CLIMBING AT IJAMS CRAG • Ijams Nature Center • 5PM • Come top rope with us at Ijams Crag. Monday and Thursday evenings from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Cost is $10 per person. Gear will be included (we provide helmet,

HE CAME. HE SAW.

HE REPORTED. And now Clay Duda is taking a hike—literally!

www.utculinary.com

He and his wife Melissa will be leaving Knoxville to set off on a six-month hiking trip through South America. Over a year ago, our readers pitched in to help bring Clay and Melissa to Knoxville—so please join us in wishing them well on their journey. WHAT:

Clay & Melissa Going-Away Party

WHEN:

Thursday, Sept. 8, starting at 5:30 p.m.

WHERE:

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 1, 2016

Tuesday, Sept. 6 CYCOLOGY BICYCLES TUESDAY MORNING RIDE • Cycology Bicycles • 9AM • Join Cycology Bicycles every Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. and 10:30 am for a road ride with two group options. Weather permitting. Visit cycologybicycles.com. • FREE CYCOLOGY BICYCLES TUESDAY MORNING RIDE • Cycology Bicycles • 10:30AM • Join Cycology Bicycles every

Thursday, August 11, 6-7 p.m. Course # 16SUCULIN-2

Financing & flexible payment options available.

harness, rope). Please wear appropriate shoes, comfortable stretchy climbing apparel and bring water. Pre-registration is advised. You can register online or by calling 865-673-4687. riversportsoutfitters.com/events/. • $10 KTC GROUP RUN • Mellow Mushroom • 6PM • Join Knoxville Track Club every Monday evening for a group run starting at the Mellow Mushroom on the Cumberland Avenue strip on the University of Tennessee campus. Visit ktc.org. • FREE TVB MONDAY NIGHT ROAD RIDE • Tennessee Valley Bikes • 6PM • The soon to be famous Monday night road ride happens every Monday. We usually split into two groups according to speed. Both groups are no-drop groups. The faster group averages over 17 mph and the B group averages around 14 mph. • FREE BEARDEN BEER MARKET FUN RUN • Bearden Beer Market • 6:30PM • Come run with us. Every Monday year round we do a group fun run through the neighborhood. Open to all levels of walkers and runners. Everyone who participates earns $1 off their beer. Visit beardenbeermarket.com. • FREE

Cra y Bastard Brewery, 6 Emory Place

Thursday, Sept. 1 - Sunday, Sept. 11

Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. and 10:30 am for a road ride with two group options. Weather permitting. Visit cycologybicycles.com. • FREE AMBC BIG GROUP MOUNTAIN BIKE RIDE • Ijams Nature Center • 6PM • We tour the trails of Knoxville’s Urban Wilderness every Tuesday evening. Riders meet at the Meads Quarry parking lot ready to ride at 6 p.m. The ride usually has 30 or more riders, which always break off into two or three sub-groups, depending on skill level, familiarity with the trails, or desire to ride hard or take it easy. Visit ambc-sorba.org. • 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 • Join us every Tuesday evening for a greenway ride at an intermediate pace of 14-15 mph. Must have lights. Weather permitting. cedarbluffcycles. net. • FREE Wednesday, Sept. 7 FEMINIST TRIVIA: A BEDROOM OF ONE’S OWN • Saw Works Brewing Company • 6PM • Where can you find feminist trivia, local beer, and conversations about choice and equity for women and families in Knoxville? Scruffy City Community Action Team and NARAL Pro-Choice America invite you to an evening filled with all of the above. Join NARAL at 6 p.m. for a beer as we talk about the specific issues facing Knoxville and how you can get involved to make a difference in our community. We’ll kick off trivia at 6:30 p.m. SMOKY MOUNTAIN HIKING CLUB: CHESTNUT TOP TRAIL • 8AM • We will hike the Chestnut Top trail to Schoolhouse Gap trail to the Bote Mountain trail to the West Prong trail. Hike: 10.3 miles, rated moderate. Short car shuttle required. Meet at Alcoa Food City, 121 North Hall Road, at 8:00 AM or at the Townsend Wye at 8:30 am. Leader: Michael Zielinski, kf4yws@comcast.net. • FREE KTC GROUP RUN • Runner’s Market • 5:30PM • If you are visiting Knoxville, new to town, new to the club, or just looking to get more involved, this is the place to start. A festive and relaxed group get-together occurs every Wednesday afternoon at 5:30 pm at Runners Market. Visit ktc.org. • FREE TVB EASY RIDER MOUNTAIN BIKE RIDE • Ijams Nature Center • 6PM • On Wednesday nights we hit the local trails for an easy-paced mountain bike ride. Riders of all skill levels are welcome, and if you would like to demo a mountain bike from our shop this is a great opportunity to do so. Rides are weather permitting. If the trails are too wet, we do not ride. Check out our Facebook page or give us a call at 865-540-9979 for more info. We meet near Mead’s Quarry. • FREE Thursday, Sept. 8 CYCOLOGY BICYCLES THURSDAY MORNING RIDE • Cycology Bicycles • 10AM • Visit cycologybicycles.com. • FREE CLIMBING AT IJAMS CRAG • Ijams Nature Center • 5PM • You can register online or by calling 865-673-4687. riversportsoutfitters.com/events/. • $10 NORTH KNOXVILLE BEER RUNNERS • Central Flats and Taps • 6PM • FREE FLEET FEET GROUP RUN/WALK • Fleet Feet Sports Knoxville • 6PM • Visit fleetfeetknoxville.com. • FREE FOUNTAIN CITY PEDALER THIRSTY THURSDAY ROAD RIDE • Fountain City Pedaler • 6PM • Visit facebook.com/ Fountain-City-Pedaler-Bike-Shop. • FREE CEDAR BLUFF CYCLES BEGINNER ROAD RIDE • Sequoyah

CALENDAR

Park • 6:20PM • Visit cedarbluffcycles.net. • FREE CEDAR BLUFF CYCLES THURSDAY NIGHT RIDE • Cedar Bluff Cycles • 6:20PM • Visit cedarbluffcycles.net. • FREE Friday, Sept. 9 RIVER SPORTS FRIDAY NIGHT GREENWAY RUN • River Sports Outfitters • 6:30PM • riversportsoutfitters.com. • FREE Saturday, Sept. 10 SMOKY MOUNTAIN HIKING CLUB: APPALACHIAN TRAIL MAINTENANCE • 8AM • The AT maintenance work-trip this month will involve parking at the Davenport Gap exit from the AT and hiking toward the Lower Mt. Cammerer trail junction with the AT. Along the way the group will focus on checking on the Davenport Gap shelter, cleaning water bars and trimming back brush and overgrown vegetation. Distance hiked will probably be around 6 miles. Bring a lunch, work gloves and your hand tool of choice. I will have additional tools. Meet at Comcast on Asheville Highway, at 8:00 am. Leader: Steve Dunkin, jsdunkin@roaneschools.com. • FREE BIKE ZOO SATURDAY MORNING RIDE • The Bike Zoo • 9AM • Visit bikezoo.com. • FREE Sunday, Sept. 11 SMOKY MOUNTAIN HIKING CLUB: BLANKET MOUNTAIN • 8AM • Join us for a hike to the top of Blanket Mountain. The first part is the moderate hike up the Jakes Creek Trail to Jakes Gap, and the heritage part is the 0.5 mile off-trail up an overgrown former trail to the top of Blanket Mountain where we will find remnants of the former fire tower site. The off-trail part is not extreme but be ready for some “bushwhacking.” Hiking distance ~7 miles, rated moderate. Meet at Alcoa Food City, 121 North Hall Road, at 8:00 am. Leaders: Terri Cox, tcox@nxs.net and Mike Harrington, mike_harr@bellsouth.net. • FREE

ART

A1 Lab Arts 23 Emory Place SEPT. 2-30: Signification, an exhibition about art and language featuring work by Shannon Novak, Aaron Oldenburg, Norman Magden, Sara Blair McNally, Grayson Earle, Michael Arpino, Robert Thompson, Tracy Riggs, Elizabeth Mcnall, Beth Fox, Melanie Eichholz, Heath Schultz, Monique Grimord, Carson Grubaugh, Anna Ursyn, Peter Whittenberger, and the Bureau (Liat Berdugo, Josh Finn, Leora Fridman, and Shawn Manchester). An opening reception will be held on Friday, Sept. 2, from 6-10 p.m. Arnstein Jewish Community Center 6800 Deane Hill Drive AUG. 29-SEPT. 30: Artwork by David Barnett. An opening reception will be held on Monday, Aug. 29, fro, 5:30-7 p.m. Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts 556 Parkway (Gatlinburg) AUG. 15-OCT. 5: A retrospective exhibition featuring artwork by Bill Griffith, former Arrowmont program director. Art Market Gallery 422 S. Gay St. SEPT. 1-30: Paintings by Kathy Holland and gourd art by Jeannie Gravetti. An opening reception will be held on Friday, Sept. 2, at 5:30 p.m. Broadway Studios and Gallery

1127 N. Broadway SEPT. 2-30: All Scapes, an art competition featuring work by local artists in any -scape format: landscape, cityscape, seascape, etc. An opening reception and prize ceremony will be held on Friday, Sept. 2, from 5-9 p.m. Central Collective 923 N. Central St. Interruption, a series of manipulated slides by Kelly Hider. Friday, Sept. 2, at 7 p.m. The District Gallery 5113 Kingston Pike AUG. 19-SEPT. 10: Terra Madre: Women in Clay, an exhibit of work by Knoxville-area ceramic artists. An opening reception will be held on Friday, Aug. 19, from 5-8 p.m. Downtown Gallery 106 S. Gay St. SEPT. 2-30: Persona: Process Portraiture, an exhibition of work by Leah Schrager, Marcia Goldenstein, Judith Page, and Gail Skudera. An opening reception will be held on Friday, Sept. 2, from 5-9 p.m. East Tennessee History Center 601 S. Gay St. APRIL 16-OCT. 30: Come to Make Records, a selection of artifacts, audio and video recordings, and photographs celebrating Knoxville’s music heritage and the 1929-30 St. James Hotel recording sessions. Emporium Center for Arts and Culture 100 S. Gay St. SEPT. 2-9: Frutos Latinos, Hola Hora Latina’s 10th annual art exhibit and contest. SEPT. 2-30: Slot Machine, coloring pages by Stephen Reid Carcello; We the People, by Antuco Chicaiza; artwork by Emily Taylor; A Time of Recent Creativity, new paintings by Anthony Donaldson; and Cosmic Order, artwork by Eurichea Showalter Subagh Ball. An opening reception for all the new exhibits will be held on Friday, Sept. 2, from 5-9 p.m.

Allen Tate 865-300-2537 a.tate@comcast.net 2010 1 (One) -

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Open Daily 9am for Breakfast & Brunch Sun & Mon til 3pm Tue, Wed & Thu til 9pm Fri & Sat til 10pm

September 16 7:30 PM

Ewing Gallery 1715 Volunteer Boulevard SEPT. 6-30: The Unbearable Flatness of Being, an exhibit of paintings by Sarah Emerson. Emerson will discuss her work on Thursday, Sept. 29, at 7 p.m. Fluorescent Gallery 627 N. Central St. Moving Theatre, a new local theater company, collaborates with local visual artists and presents two 15-minute performances of Anton Chekhov’s The Boor, “a joke in one act.” Friday, Sept. 2, at 6:30 and 9 p.m. SEPT. 8-10: Creamy, multimedia works by Rachel Byrd. Knoxville Arts and Fine Crafts Center 1127B Broadway AUG. 1-OCT. 31: Whimsical Creatures, paintings and photographs by Lela E. Buis. Knoxville Museum of Art 1050 World’s Fair Park Drive AUG. 7-SEPT. 4: Artwork by the Knoxville Watercolor Society. AUG. 26-NOV. 6: Romantic Spirits: 19th-Century Paintings of the South From the Johnson Collection (See Spotlight on page 41.) SEPT. 12-OCT. 7: Frutos Latinos, Hola Hora Latina’s 10th annual art exhibit and contest. ONGOING: Higher Ground: A Century of the Visual Arts in Tennessee; Currents: Recent Art From East Tennessee and September 1, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 33

CALENDAR Beyond; and Facets of Modern and Contemporary Glass. McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture 1327 Circle Park Drive SEPT. 7-JAN. 8: Knoxville Unearthed: Archaeology in the Heart of the Valley. JULY 12-OCT. 19: Land, Sea, and Spirit: Alaska Native Art From the 19th and 20th Centuries. ONGOING: The Flora and Fauna of Catesby, Mason, and Audubon and Life on the Roman Frontier. Pellissippi State Community College 10915 Hardin Valley Road THROUGH SEPT. 9: Artwork by members of the Vacuum Shop Studios. A reception will be held on Friday, Sept. 9, from 4-7 p.m.

FAMILY AND KIDS’ EVENTS

Thursday, Sept. 1 LITTLE LEARNERS • Blount County Public Library • 10:30AM • Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10:30 a.m., “Little Learners,” recommended for ages 3-5. Interactive sessions focus on language acquisition and pre-literacy skills incorporating stories, music, motion, play, crafts and more. • FREE CHESS AT THE LIBRARY • Blount County Public Library • 1PM • For middle and high school students, with coach Tom Jobe. Visit blountlibrary.org. • FREE LEGO CLUB • Blount County Public Library • 4PM • LEGO

Thursday, Sept. 1 - Sunday, Sept. 11

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 Friday, Sept. 2 S.T.E.A.M. KIDS • Blount County Public Library • 4PM • For grades K-5. 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. • FREE Saturday, Sept. 3 CHESS AT THE LIBRARY • Blount County Public Library • 10AM • For middle and high school students, with coach Tom Jobe. Visit blountlibrary.org. • FREE BLOUNT COUNTY NERD GROUP • Blount County Public Library • 3PM • Starting this summer, students can learn the basic principles of computer programming, also known as coding. By participating in the newly-formed Blount County Nerd Group, students seventh grade and up can learn skills such as making simple games, developing professional websites and creating mobile apps. Participating students are encouraged to bring their own technologies including a laptop. However, students who do not have adequate technology will be provided a laptop by the library when necessary. • FREE T.H.E. NEIGHBORHOOD SCOOP • Burlington Branch Library • 2PM • Town Hall East Neighborhood Association’s annual ice cream social, featuring free ice cream, cake walk, face painting, book swap, lawn games, and music. • FREE

Tuesday, Sept. 6 LITTLE LEARNERS • Blount County Public Library • 10:30AM • Recommended for ages 3-5. Interactive sessions focus on language acquisition and pre-literacy skills incorporating stories, music, motion, play, crafts and more. • FREE Wednesday, Sept. 7 BABY AND ME • Blount County Public Library • 10:30AM • Recommended for ages 2 and under. These lapsit sessions for baby and caregiver feature short stories, action rhymes, music and pre-literacy tips and tricks for caregivers. It is also a great time for caregivers and babies to socialize. • FREE Thursday, Sept. 8 LITTLE LEARNERS • Blount County Public Library • 10:30AM • Recommended for ages 3-5. Interactive sessions focus on language acquisition and pre-literacy skills incorporating stories, music, motion, play, crafts and more. • FREE CHESS AT THE LIBRARY • Blount County Public Library • 1PM • For middle and high school students, with coach Tom Jobe. Visit blountlibrary.org. • FREE 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

LECTURES, READINGS, AND BOOK SIGNINGS

Saturday, Sept. 10 THUNDER ROAD AUTHOR RALLY 2016 • Maynardville Public Library • 9AM • A meet and greet for local authors. • FREE Sunday, Sept. 11 FAMILY OF EARTH: A SOUTHERN MOUNTAIN CHILDHOOD • East Tennessee History Center • 3PM • After Wilma Dykeman’s death in 2006, a typewritten manuscript was discovered among her papers. The publication of that manuscript, Family of Earth: A Southern Mountain Childhood, will be celebrated by her sons, Jim and Dykeman Stokely, at the East Tennessee History Center. Dykeman (1920–2006), one of the American South’s most prolific and storied writers, wrote this memoir while living in a stone cottage in the English Mountains of Cocke County, just east of Knoxville, during the final months of World War II. • FREE

CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS

Thursday, Sept. 1 AARP DRIVER SAFETY SMART DRIVER COURSE • Farragut Town Hall • 9AM • Call 382-5822.

SUPERHERO benefiting

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Visit www.DreamConnection.org to signup! Hero costumes not required but encouraged. 34

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 1, 2016

Thursday, Sept. 1 - Sunday, Sept. 11

GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted. PORTRAIT AND LIFE DRAWING SESSIONS • Historic Candoro Marble Company • 12:30PM • Portrait and life drawing practice at Candoro Art and Heritage Center. $10. Call Brad Selph for more information (865-573-0709). • $10 CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY: KNIT YOUR WAY TO WELLNESS • Cancer Support Community • 1PM • Whether you are a novice knitter or an old pro, you are invited to bring your own project or join others in learning a new one. Special attention will be provided to beginners interested in learning how to knit and experience the meditative quality of knitting. Supplies provided. Call 865-546-4661. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer. KNOXVILLE CAPOEIRA CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 6PM • Visit knoxvillecapoeira.org. • $10 SIX-WEEK STRENGTH AND BALANCE WORKSHOP • Ijams Nature Center • 6PM • Join Erik Andelman and Stephanie Leyland, certified Onnit instructors with South Knox Healing Arts, for a six-week course featuring bodyweight workouts combining yoga, calisthenics, flexibility training and traditional exercise forms from around the world. All ages and levels of fitness are welcome. Join us for an hour every Thursday evening from Aug. 11-Sept. 15. $100 for the full course or $20 for drop-in students. • $20-$100 THIRSTY (FOR KNOWLEDGE) THURSDAY • Old City Wine Bar • 6:30PM • Join our sommelier, Matt Burke, every Thursday in the cellar of the Old City Wine Bar for our ongoing wine education series. Free to listen and only $20-$25 to

partake in the libations. • $20-$25 BELLY DANCE LEVELS 1 AND 2 • Knox Dance Worx • 8PM • Call (865) 898-2126 or email alexia@alexia-dance.com. • $12 KNOXVILLE PERSONAL TRAINING PILATES • Beaver Creek Cumberland Presbyterian Church • 6:30PM • Every Tuesday and Thursday. First class is free. Call (865) 622-3103 or visit knoxvillepersonaltraining.com. • $4 Friday, Sept. 2 AARP DRIVER SAFETY SMART DRIVER COURSE • Farragut Town Hall • 9AM • Call 382-5822. Saturday, Sept. 3 YOGA AT NARROW RIDGE • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 9:30AM • For information call 865-497-2753 or email community@narrowridge.org. • FREE IMPROV COMEDY CLASS • The Birdhouse • 10:30AM • A weekly improv comedy class. • FREE THE LIVING THEATRE • The Birdhouse • 5PM • A workshop on nonviolent direct-action training. • $5-$20 SUP 101 • Outdoor Knoxville Adventure Center • 10AM • $45 KNOX HERITAGE HISTORIC WESTWOOD WORKSHOP • Knox Heritage • 10AM •.Join Knox Heritage for a workshop session on becoming a docent at Historic Westwood. For more information visit www.knoxheritage.org. • FREE Sunday, Sept. 4 CIRCLE MODERN DANCE BALLET BARRE CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 1PM • Visit circlemoderndance.com. • $10

CALENDAR

CIRCLE MODERN DANCE OPEN LEVEL MODERN TECHNIQUE CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 2PM • Visit circlemoderndance.com. • $10 SUNDAY SAVASANA • Central Collective • 3PM • In restorative yoga you use all the props (blankets, blocks, bolsters, straps) to be fully supported in each pose for one to five minutes, which promotes complete relaxation. The goal of restorative yoga is to restore your body back to homeostasis and full relaxation. • $15 CIRCLE MODERN DANCE IMPROVISATION CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 3:30PM • Visit circlemoderndance.com. • $10 BEGINNING BRIDGE LESSONS • Knoxville Bridge Center • 1:30PM • Contact Jo Anne Newby at (865} 539-4150 or email KnoxvilleBridge@gmail.com. • $5 Monday, Sept. 5 BEGINNER MODERN BELLY DANCE • Broadway Academy of Performing Arts • 6PM • Tribal fusion belly dance is a modern blend of traditional belly dance infused with hip-hop, modern dance, and more to create a new, unique dance form. Each class will include an invigorating warm-up designed to increase flexibility and strength followed by an overview of posture, isolations, and basic footwork. At the end of class we put the moves together in a fun and simple combination. No dance experience is necessary. • $13 KNOXVILLE PERSONAL TRAINING BOOT CAMP • Beaver Creek Cumberland Presbyterian Church • 6:30PM • First class is free. Call (865) 622-3103 or visit knoxvillepersonaltraining.com. • $15

Tuesday, Sept. 6 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted. KNOXVILLE CAPOEIRA CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 6PM • Visit capoeiraknoxville.org. • $10 KNOXVILLE PERSONAL TRAINING PILATES • Beaver Creek Cumberland Presbyterian Church • 6:30PM • Every Tuesday and Thursday. First class is free. Call (865) 622-3103 or visit knoxvillepersonaltraining.com. • $4 BEGINNING BRIDGE LESSONS • Knoxville Bridge Center • 6PM • Contact Jo Anne Newby at (865} 539-4150 or email KnoxvilleBridge@gmail.com. • $5 Wednesday, Sept. 7 CIRCLE MODERN DANCE INTERMEDIATE/ADVANCED MODERN TECHNIQUE CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 6PM • Visit circlemoderndance.com. BEGINNER MODERN BELLY DANCE • Broadway Academy of Performing Arts • 6PM • Tribal fusion belly dance is a modern blend of traditional belly dance infused with hip-hop, modern dance, and more to create a new, unique dance form. Each class will include an invigorating warm-up designed to increase flexibility and strength followed by an overview of posture, isolations, and basic footwork. At the end of class we put the moves together in a fun and simple combination. No dance experience is necessary. • $13 HANDS-ON CHEESEMAKING WORKSHOP • Central Collective • 6:30PM • Eileen Moffatt, who learned cheesemaking at The San Francisco Cheese School, will

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY 35

CALENDAR lead you through the hands-on process for making a batch of fresh mozzarella. Attendees are welcome to bring wine or their beverage of choice to enjoy during the class. Visit thecentralcollective.com. • $32 CIRCLE MODERN DANCE OPEN LEVEL BALLET CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 7:30PM • Visit circlemoderndance.com. • $10

MEETINGS

Thursday, Sept. 1 NAACP • Beck Cultural Exchange Center • 6PM • The mission of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination. Join the fight for freedom by becoming a member of the NAACP. Regular individual annual membership rates vary. 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. CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY BREAST CANCER NETWORKER • Thompson Cancer Survivor Center West • 6PM • This drop-in group is an opportunity for women who have or have had breast cancer to come together to exchange information, offer support, education and encouragement. Bring your favorite seasonal snack to share. Call 865-546-4661 for more info. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer. ADULT CHILDREN OF ALCOHOLICS • The Birdhouse • 6PM • A meeting group for adults who grew up in alcoholic or dysfunctional homes. The group aims to bring emotional healing to those who have been or who are in these situations and have experienced any level of trauma or abuse as a result. Led by Laura Moll, the class is free to attend. • FREE KNOXVILLE WRITERS’ GUILD • Central United Methodist Church • 7PM • The Knoxville Writers’ Guild exists to facilitate a broad and inclusive community for area writers, provide a forum for information, support and sharing among writers, help members improve and market their writing skills and promote writing and creativity. A $2 donation is requested. Additional information about KWG can be found at www. KnoxvilleWritersGuild.org. Saturday, Sept. 3 SEEKERS OF SILENCE • Church of the Savior United Church of Christ • 9AM • Seekers of Silence is an ecumenical and interfaith gathering of men and women who come together to listen. We listen to presenters speak on spirituality topics; we listen to God in silent prayer; we listen to each other in small group sharing. Participants come from a variety of religious traditions. Visit sosknoxville.org. • FREE 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 NARROW RIDGE SILENT MEDITATION GATHERING • Narrow 36

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 1, 2016

Thursday, Sept. 1 - Sunday, Sept. 11

Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 11AM • Narrow Ridge invites you to join us for our Silent Meditation Gathering. The gatherings are intended to be inclusive of people of all faiths as well as those who do not align themselves with a particular religious denomination. For information call 865-497-2753 or email community@narrowridge.org. • FREE GERMAN TREFF • GruJo’s German Restaurant • 2PM • Whether you have lived in Germany and would like to share some memories, would like to explore your roots, practice the language, or if you are just curious and like to meet new people, this monthly meeting, held on the first Saturday of each month, is a great opportunity to have a wonderful time. • FREE Sunday, Sept. 4 THREE RIVERS! EARTH FIRST! • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 7PM • Three Rivers! Earth First! is the local dirt worshiping, tree hugging, anarchist collective that meets every Sunday night on the second floor of Barley’s in the back room (when its available) to organize against strip mining, counter protest the KKK and Nazis, to clean up Third Creek and to fight evil corporations in general. Open meeting, rotating facilitation, collective model. Y’all come. Call (865) 257-4029 for more information. • FREE REFUGE RECOVERY • Losel Shedrup Ling • 8:30PM • A peerled weekly group gathering to supplement your dedicated practice (AA, NA, Smart Recovery, etc.) for recovery from addictions of all kinds. All are welcome to join us in investigating the practices of mindfulness, compassion, forgiveness, and generosity to heal the pain addiction has caused in our lives and the lives of others. Contact David at 865-306-0279 for any further questions. • FREE Monday, Sept. 5 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. Tuesday, Sept. 6 KNOXVILLE COMMUNITY STEP UP • Beck Cultural Exchange Center • 11AM • Do you have an incarcerated relative, friend, or loved one? Do you need a support system to keep your relative, friend, or loved one from going or returning to prison? Then come and join us! Our goal is to connect ex-offenders to established organizations offering the needed services that will provide the support and resources to prevent them from re-entry into the prison system. Membership is a one-time fee of $5. 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 STFK SCIENCE CAFE • Knoxville Zoo • 5:30PM • A free monthly discussion of science-related topics, hosted by the Spirit and Truth Fellowship of Knoxville. Email rsvp@ knoxsciencecafe.org. • FREE Thursday, Sept. 8 CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY LEUKEMIA, LYMPHOMA, AND MYELOMA NETWORKER • Cancer Support Community • 6PM • Call 865-546-4661 for more info. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer. ADULT CHILDREN OF ALCOHOLICS • The Birdhouse • 6PM • FREE

ETC.

Thursday, Sept. 1 MARBLE SPRINGS SHOPPING AT THE FARM FARMER’S MARKET • Marble Springs State Historic Site • 3PM • FREE Friday, Sept. 2 LAKESHORE PARK FARMERS MARKET • Lakeshore Park • 3PM • FREE Saturday, Sept. 3 SEYMOUR FARMERS MARKET • First Baptist Church Seymour • 8AM • FREE OAK RIDGE FARMERS MARKET • Historic Jackson Square • 8AM • FREE MARKET SQUARE FARMERS’ MARKET • Market Square • 9AM • The MSFM, a project of Nourish Knoxville, is an open-air farmers’ market located on historic Market Square in the heart of downtown Knoxville. Visit marketsquarefarmersmarket.org. • FREE Tuesday, Sept. 6 EBENEZER ROAD FARMERS MARKET • Ebenezer United Methodist Church • 3PM • • FREE Wednesday, Sept. 7 MARKET SQUARE FARMERS’ MARKET • Market Square • 11AM • The MSFM, a project of Nourish Knoxville, is an open-air farmers’ market located on historic Market Square in the heart of downtown Knoxville. Visit marketsquarefarmersmarket.org. • FREE OAK RIDGE FARMERS MARKET • Historic Jackson Square • 3PM • FREE UT FARMERS MARKET • University of Tennessee • 4PM • For more information about the UT Farmers’ Market you can visit the market website: vegetables.tennessee.edu/ utfm.html or find it on Facebook. • FREE Thursday, Sept. 8 BEARDSLEY COMMUNITY FARM RAISE THE ROOTS DINNER • The Plaid Apron • 6PM • The sixth annual Raise the Roots dinner will feature the rich bounties of summer on the farm. Dinner will be prepared by the owner and chef of the Plaid Apron, Drew McDonald, and his team. Guests will have an opportunity to learn about Beardsley Farm, meet farm volunteers, and share their experiences gardening and cooking in Knoxville and East Tennessee. All proceeds from the dinner will directly benefit Beardsley Farm. To learn more about Beardsley and the Plaid Apron please visit beardsleyfarm.org and facebook. com/ThePlaidApron. • $60-$200 MARBLE SPRINGS SHOPPING AT THE FARM FARMER’S MARKET • Marble Springs State Historic Site • 3PM • FREE KNOXVILLE SQUARE DANCE • Laurel Theater • 8PM • Jubilee Community Arts presents Knoxville Square Dance with live old-time music by The Helgramites and calling by Stan Sharp, Ruth Simmons and Leo Collins. No experience or partner is necessary and the atmosphere is casual. (No taps, please.) • $7

Send your events to calendar@knoxmercury.com

Delivering Fine Journalism Since 2015

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 Brian Canever Patrice Cole Eric Dawson George Dodds Lee Gardner Mike Gibson Carey Hodges Nick Huinker Donna Johnson

Rose Kennedy Catherine Landis Dennis Perkins Stephanie Piper Ryan Reed Eleanor Scott Alan Sherrod April Snellings Joe Sullivan Kim Trevathan Chris Wohlwend

INTERN Josh Witt

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

Charlie Finch

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 ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Michael Tremoulis michael@knoxmercury.com

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY 618 South Gay St., Suite L2, Knoxville, TN 37902 knoxmercury.com • 865-313-2059 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR & PRESS RELEASES editor@knoxmercury.com CALENDAR SUBMISSIONS calendar@knoxmercury.com SALES QUERIES sales@knoxmercury.com DISTRIBUTION distribution@knoxmercury.com

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Jack Neely Coury Turczyn Joe Sullivan 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

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September 1, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 37

’BYE

Sacred & P rofane

Little Doll

Memories from a new best friend BY DONNA JOHNSON

eva and I sit surrounded by boxes full of clothes, shoes, make-up, sheets, and miscellaneous items such as wind chimes, incense, CDs, a blood pressure monitor, and a couple of dolls with eyes so blue they look like marbles. It might be the stock room in a Family Dollar Store instead of someone’s living room. Reva is wearing a faded nightgown even though it is the middle of the afternoon, and I am wearing a pair of hot-pink pedal pushers and a white blouse with a prim lace collar from the ’50s that I dug out from one of the boxes. I have been having my own private fashion show from these boxes, and I prance back and forth in front of a broken mirror with each new outfit. “I’m thinking of having a yard sale,” says Reva, flicking the ashes of her cigarette into the already overflowing ashtray. “Right,” I say, taking a sip of vodka. “And I’m thinking about going to treatment right after I return from my vacation on Mars.” Our eyes meet and we laugh, but there is a trace of despair in our laughter, as we have both been promising ourselves to do these things

for months, without either one of us making a single step toward our goals. Despite all the chaos inside the house, Reva and her family have become a kind of sanctuary for me. Reva and I have a bond with one another that runs deep and we sometimes have conversations without words—through gestures and long, soulful looks. There are moments when we just burst into laughter without knowing why. Though we grew up in the same rural town in Middle Tennessee, our circumstances couldn’t have been more different. Whereas I only had to point at some shiny, useless object and say “mine” for my parents to buy it for me, Reva’s family barely had enough food, with her mother having to walk 4 miles each morning to catch a ride to the shirt factory she worked at 30 miles away. “She used to stop at the little store along the way and buy a piece of chocolate,” Reva say. “A small part of it she would eat on her journey, the rest she would save for us kids when she got home.” I marvel at the love and devotion behind the sacrifice of such an act. “So your mother walked 4 miles

BY MATTHEW FOLTZ-GRAY

KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 1, 2016

www.thespiritofthestaircase.com

in the morning along highway 127 and then again at night, probably in the dark. Eight Miles a day.” I shake my head in wonder, remembering with shame my whining and complaining when the bus was 10 minutes late. We are a spoiled generation. “It was a big deal for us to get one Coke,” Reva says, “which we would share and it was such a treat.” She pushes her long hair out of her eyes. Reva is quite beautiful, with creamy skin, high cheekbones, and the forthright manner and Southern drawl of an Appalachian woman. It is her simplicity that I find so appealing, without even a trace of affectation. “When I was a little girl,” she says, “there was an old man up at the Kayo service station who used to give me little toys from Cracker Jack boxes. That old man put light in my world because there wasn’t much at home. He would see me coming up the hill, all excited to get my treat, but once in a while he would tease me. “‘Little Doll,’ he would say, putting me on his knee. ‘I’ve got some bad news.’ My heart would sink. ‘The

treat fairy didn’t make it in today.’ “‘Oh, that’s okay,’ I’d say, my heart breaking. “Then all at once he’d take something from behind his back and give it to me. A caramel, a Reese’s Cup, or maybe a miniature ballerina dressed in pink from out of a Cracker Jack box—and my heart would soar. On rare occasions I’d sneak one of the candies, but mostly I saved them in a Mason jar to share with my brothers and sisters for their birthdays. “‘You’ll always be my little doll, no matter how tall you grow,’ he said. “‘Promise?’ I asked. “‘You know it,’ he said, after which I would skip happily home.” Home was not always a happy place for Reva and her siblings. A veteran of World War II, Reva’s father suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. At that time, not much was known about PTSD, so he dealt with his emotional anguish the best way he knew how. He drank. He also ran a still with drive-through service. Unfortunately, like many people who drink excessively, her father would sometimes go into violent

Though we grew up in the same rural town in Middle Tennessee, our circumstances couldn’t have been more different.

’BYE rages, which would wreak havoc on the family. When Reva was 10, her mother delivered a boy that was stillborn. “They didn’t have the money to have a proper burial, so Daddy took the baby out in the woods and buried him there. He never told anyone where he buried him but it affected him and he sometimes cried in the night over it,” she says. When Reva was 12 she was raped. “When I tried to tell the sheriff he just laughed,” she says. “He and his deputies had a great time over this, so I went home, got into Daddy’s moonshine and got drunk. When my brother got home, he beat me to a pulp for being drunk. So I never mentioned it again until now.” Despite the hardships of her life, Reva remembers the good times they had, too. “We used to hop freight

BY IAN BLACKBURN AND JACK NEELY

trains and ride them as far as they went, then come back home,” she says, smiling at the memory. “It was great fun. And then we would jump on an old tire and ride down Duck River.” It’s wonderful to see Reva’s smile—like a rainbow rising up out of a dark forest. And her ability to remember the good things from out of the bad is a lesson we could all benefit from. I glance at the clock and see that it is almost time for my bus. It is getting dark and I must run to catch the bus. As I go through the woods and on to Springdale Street, I hear Reva call out to me: “Get to bed early!” “Why?” I ask. “We’ve got to get up early, have that yard sale, and get you into treatment.” I laugh and feel utter joy and abandon, for suddenly I am 10 years old again and have a best friend that was made just for me. ◆

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FOR SALE

PORTABLE SAND BLASTER AND OIL FREE AIR COMPRESSOR. Paid $550 for both; sell for $400. 2 years old; kept indoors. Great for sand etching glass and stone. Text questions and interest to 865-246-9694.

HOUSING

PARKRIDGE APARTMENT, $485 / 2BDR. MINUTES TO UT. AVAILABLE NOW. Upstairs unit is clean & ready to lease. First/Last and Deposit required at signing. Enjoy good neighbors & rooms with a view. Pets accepted with $300 pet rent. Call (865) 438-4870 ext. 865. OFFICE SPACE FOR LEASE. - 10’ x 11’ Gay Street Window Front, Furnished. Call 637-1403

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COMMUNITY

WILLOW - is a two year old Grey and White Tabby, who’s very playful and adorable. She’s a hunter who’s dream is to receive endless amounts of toys. Visit Young-Williams Animal Center / call 865-215-6599 for more information.

BABY BLUE - is a brighteyed, fuzzy & cheerful Siamese male cat who is looking for a permanent home. He’s 5 years old. Visit Young-Williams Animal Center / call 865-215-6599 for more information.

ANNIE ANN - is a 1 year old American Pit Bull Terrier. She’s a champion sprinter who enjoys staying active! She’s extremely athletic & is eager to learn new tricks. She loves affection & getting attention. Visit Young- Williams Animal Center / call 865-215-6599 for more information.

ZACH - is a handsome 6 year old Boxer/ Boston Terrier mix who’s best suited in a home as the only pet. He enjoys going on long walks, and is a gentleman who loves to snuggle. Visit YoungWilliams Animal Center / call 865-215-6599 for more information.

LET ’ S W I S H K N OX VI LLE A

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Knoxville is celebrating its 225th Anniversary on October 3. The Mercury will mark the occasion with a special publication on September 29 highlighting 25 reasons why knoxville ma ers. And for $25 you can be in it. Share a favorite Knoxville wish, memory, poem, celebrity story, or tall tale in 25 words or less and we’ll publish your tribute.

For more info, visit store.knoxmercury.com

September 1, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 39