Vol. 2, Issue 50 Dec. 22, 2016

DECEMBER 22, 2016 KNOXMERCURY.COM

THAT’S A WRAP. SEE YOU NEXT YEAR! V.

NEWS

Gatlinburg’s Emergency Housing Dilemma— What Happens Next?

JACK NEELY

Knoxville’s Christmas, 100 Years Ago: That’s American Show Biz

2 / N.50

MUSIC

The Black Lillies End a Tumultuous Year and Look Ahead to a New One

STEPHANIE PIPER

Taking a Long Christmas Journey to Meet a Small Stranger

Local Holidays For history students like you, the Season offers a few other occasions to celebrate.

Christmas Eve is the 179th birthday of Henry Gibson (1837-1938), one of the most interesting congressmen ever to represent Knoxville’s district.

The Maryland-born Union veteran moved to Knoxville in 1866. A Republican, he became a prominent judge and author of books about law before serving in U.S. Congress for 10 years. In 1904, he was the bestknown survivor of the horrific New Market Train Wreck, which killed about 70. At that time, he dropped out of politics altogether and began writing epic poetry, creating a fantastical booklength poem called The Ban of Baldurbane. He and his wife, Frances, who was also a poet, are memorialized near the entrance to Old Gray Cemetery.

Mother of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Born in Louisville, Ky., she was a Bryn Mawr alumna who came to Knoxville with her industrialist husband Willis Davis in 1916. She and Willis had been traveling to the new western national parks when she made the proposal that the Smokies should get similar treatment. Her resourceful husband advanced the idea, and during her time as a state representative she promoted important legislation to make it happen.

The day before New Years Eve, Dec. 30, is the 115th birthday of artist Beauford Delaney (1901-1979).

Knoxvillian Annie Davis, who in 1925 won an election to the state legislature, where she promoted a new idea—at least partly hers— Born in East Knoxville, Delaney known as the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. showed artistic talent as a boy at Tuesday is her 141st birthday.

Austin High, and found work as an Image courtesy of The Great Smoky Mountains National Park via Christmas Day is the 259th apprentice at artist Lloyd Branson’s Clemson University and the National Park Service birthday of English-born Thomas Gay Street studio. Branson helped openparksnetwork.org Hope (1757-1820), Knoxville’s first send Delaney to art school, and by architect. Although he lived and worked in Charleston, S.C., the 1930s, he was well known in New York, where he became known for his portraits of leading black figures. After his move for a time, his two best surviving works are in Knoxville, to Paris, Delaney became known as one of the world’s greatest where he finally settled—Ramsey House off Thorngrove Pike, black abstract expressionists. His paintings were the subject and States View, a private residence visible from Peters Road in West Knoxville. of a recent retrospective in Paris.

Dec. 27 is the 152nd birthday of Clay Brown Atkin (18641931), a very successful manufacturer. The C.B. Atkin Co. claimed to be the world’s largest wooden-mantel business.

Atkin had multiple other business interests, including the once-famous Atkin Hotel, and was involved in the establishment of both the Bijou and Tennessee Theatres.

Dec. 27 is also the birthday of Annie Davis (1875-1957), who became a state legislator in 1925, Knoxville’s first woman elected to public office. That fact in itself would be worth commemorating. However, she’s more broadly known as the

Jan. 8 is the 172nd birthday of William Yardley (1844-1924).

Raised as a free black, Yardley worked as a teacher in West Knox County before becoming one of Knoxville’s first black attorneys. He served on Knoxville’s first fire department, and became a justice of the peace. In 1872, he was elected alderman.

A popular speaker throughout his life, Yardley startled the establishment in 1876 when he ran for governor of Tennessee.

Help us keep this educational page going into 2017!

See the Knoxville History Project’s new website, at knoxvillehistoryproject.org. Donations are tax-deductible.

Source: The 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 December 22, 2016

Dec. 22, 2016 Volume 02 / Issue 50 knoxmercury.com

CONTENTS

“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” —H. L. Mencken

12 The Worst (and Best) of 2016

COVER STORY

Let’s take a moment to savor this welcome fact: 2016 is nearly over. Between the sweeping losses of beloved artists and the rise of intolerance and willful ignorance as legitimized presidential selling points, our daily feed of national news has alternated between upsetting and depressing. Locally, there was a lot to be proud of, yet still plenty of events and issues to be concerned about—not to mention a cataclysmic disaster and its aftermath. Here are the stories of 2016, as told by a handful of writers in Knoxville, Tenn.

Help Support Independent Journalism!

Nobody said this would be easy. Turns out there’s a good reason why! But if you appreciate our effort to provide a locally

DEPARTMENTS

OPINION

A&E

4 Editor’s Note: Press Forward 5 Howdy

6 Scruffy Citizen

24 Program Notes: Waynestock VII and

Start Here: Dumpster Dive, Public Affairs, and PechaKucha Knoxville—each week, we run a slide from an interesting local presentation.

46 ’Bye

Finish There: At This Point by Stephanie Piper. Plus Crooked Street Crossword by Ian Blackburn and Jack Neely, Spirit of the Staircase by Matthew Foltz-Gray, and our new puzzle: Mulberry Place Cryptoquote by Joan Keuper .

Jack Neely reports on Knoxville’s Christmas, circa 1916.

8 Architecture Matters

George Dodds considers president-elect Donald Trump’s relation to architecture, among other issues.

NEWS

10 Sevier County’s Housing Crisis

Some 2,500 homes, hotels, and motels were destroyed in the Gatlinburg wildfire. There is no specific count on the number of people left homeless by the fire, but the loss of so many dwellings has definitely worsened the already-precarious housing situation faced by the thousands of workers who work largely hand-to-mouth jobs in the area tourism industry, officials say. Some are hopeful the rebuilding effort represents an opportunity to ensure more affordable housing is available in Sevier County. Thomas Fraser reports.

CALENDAR a Blue Plate Special break.

25 Shelf Life: Chris Barrett reveals

your source for free streaming of holiday music.

26 Music: Carey Hodges catches up

with Black Lillies frontman Cruz Contreras to get the skinny on new lineup changes.

22 Spotlights: Deerhunter, Gran

Torino, and other New Year’s Eve festivities.

OUTDOORS

44 Voice in the Wilderness

Kim Trevathan reluctantly joins an “interpretive hike” at Obed Wild and Scenic River.

27 Classical Music: Alan Sherrod shares his picks for favorite performances of the year.

28 Movies: April Snellings feels the Force in Rogue One.

December 22, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 3

EDITOR’S NOTE I

Pressing Forward Into a New Year

n three months, the Knoxville Mercury will be two years old. While I believe that’s also the same number of years this project has shaved off my life expectancy, it has nevertheless been a very rewarding effort—it’s not often that an entire community pitches in to help you create a new business.

When we launched the paper in March 2015, I noted that despite our staff’s collective experience in publishing, our “startover” was still a learning experience in how to create a feasible independent news publication in the digital age. And we’re still learning.

But along the way, we’ve made an impact with our stories, which has always been our ultimate goal. In this issue, you’ll find a condensed collection of the issues we believe are important to Knoxville, circa 2016.

From our law enforcement agencies’ complicated relations with the African American community to the “slut-shaming” sex education in our schools, from Knox County’s opioid epidemic to its profiteering jail policies, there have been plenty of controversies to cover. But there have also been uniquely Knoxvillian achievements to draw inspiration from, when citizens take it upon themselves to make the Knoxville area a better place to live in.

Next year, we believe it will be especially vital to support these productive endeavors. There will be a lot to worry about in 2017, which may very well be a year of trickle-down chaos, as institutions and democratic ideals are upturned. But locally, we must continue to work toward a Knoxville that is inclusive, just, and humane.

In our first issue of the year, we will be launching a new initiative: Press Forward.

We took the name from our own fundraising effort to create the Mercury because it expresses what we hope to accomplish with this series of stories: pushing ahead despite the odds. In every edition of 2017, we will

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY December 22, 2016

put our spotlight on someone who is pursuing their vision for a better Knoxville and East Tennessee—people who are making an impact. Their projects aren’t motivated so much by politics as they are by a common-sense desire to improve the quality of life here for everyone, one community at a time.

If some these initiatives spark your interest, we’ll tell you how to get involved. If you know of other projects that deserve attention, we’ll examine them. If you have ideas for new efforts to get off the ground, we’ll help spread the word.

Let’s work together to make sure Knoxville continues to progress toward an ideal we can all get behind: a place where good ideas still make sense.

We’ll continue to take aim at bad ideas, too, in our news coverage. But with our Press Forward section, we hope to create a rallying point for those who want to find ways to make a difference or who just need a regular dose of optimism.

To get Press Forward off the ground—along with several other plans—we’ll be taking the next two weeks off.

We’re still just a handful of people trying to put out a well-reported, trustworthy newsweekly that covers a variety of subjects—which is usually such an all-consuming effort that it doesn’t leave us with much time and energy to tackle other projects. After racing against the clock to publish the paper each week, we often find ourselves saying, “If only we had

more time to…” So, we’re going to give ourselves that time.

Starting in January, we will publish the print edition on a biweekly schedule through the winter months. Our online edition will continue to have daily and weekly updates—news stories, blog posts, calendar events. While this will lessen our street presence, it will allow us to do a better job at everything else we need to accomplish.

We’ve got a long to-do list, from revamping the paper’s lineup to developing new media platforms, from figuring out ways to market our services to finding new revenue streams. (Also, I have a ton of emails to reply to—sorry, everyone.) Finally getting these things done will help us succeed and continue to serve our readers.

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 Thomas Fraser thomas@knoxmercury.com CONTRIBUTORS

Chris Barrett Ian Blackburn Patrice Cole Eric Dawson George Dodds Lee Gardner Mike Gibson Carey Hodges Nick Huinker Donna Johnson Tracy Jones Catherine Landis

Dennis Perkins Stephanie Piper Ryan Reed Eleanor Scott Alan Sherrod Nathan Smith April Snellings Joe Sullivan Kim Trevathan Chris Wohlwend Angie Vicars Carol Z. Shane

INTERNS

Hayley Brundige Maria Smith

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

Charlie Finch

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

David Luttrell Shawn Poynter Justin Fee Tyler Oxendine Of course, there are a couple projects in town that we’re always eager to direct people to—especially those who want to help: the Mercury and its governing body, the Knoxville History Project, an educational 501(c) (3) nonprofit directed by Jack Neely.

I would argue that now, more than ever, there’s a dire need for smart, in-depth reporting on local issues. As the Facebook era has revealed, truth is hard to find these days because it doesn’t pay as well as lies. Buck the trend by making a donation (or two).

• Tax-deductible donations can be made to the Knoxville History Project, which will in turn take out a weekly full-page ad in the Mercury to help support it. Go to: knoxvillehistoryproject.org.

• Direct, non-tax-deductible donations to the Mercury can be made at our online store: store.knoxmercury.com.

• Or, better yet, take out an ad: sales@knoxmercury.com.

See you next year!

—Coury Turczyn, ed.

CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATORS

Matthew Foltz-Gray

ADVERTISING PUBLISHER & DIRECTOR OF SALES Charlie Vogel charlie@knoxmercury.com SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Scott Hamstead scott@knoxmercury.com ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Michael Tremoulis michael@knoxmercury.com

BUSINESS BUSINESS MANAGER Scott Dickey scott.dickey@knoxmercury.com

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

Photo by Thomas Fraser

HOWDY DUMPSTER highlights DIVE Weekly from our blog Read more at knoxmercury.com/blog SEVIER LATINO COMMUNITY RESILIENT Of those who lost their homes and jobs in the Sevier County wildfire, members of the Hispanic community perhaps face some of the most challenges. Not only did many lose their apartments and possessions, but they may also face a language barrier, and many undocumented workers are afraid to seek help.

LOST PETS STILL SEEK OWNERS The Sevier County Humane Society’s emergency shelter and clinic at the county fairgrounds off Old Knoxville Highway has housed 112 cats and dogs, increasingly a mix of fire victims and strays. Owners have reclaimed 34 animals, but fewer and fewer animals are being reunited with guardians or loved ones each day.

PECHA KUCHA NIGHT KNOXVILLE WHY KNOXVILLE’S ZONING CODE PROHIBITS GOOD URBAN DESIGN AND PREVENTS WALKABLE COMMUNITIES | Marshall Stair | Presented Aug. 18, 2016 | Walkability is key in improving health, the local economy, and the environment. Unfortunately Knoxville’s zoning code prohibits mixed use, requires too much parking, and mandates large setbacks, all of which make Knoxville less walkable and transit friendly. In this presentation, Marshall Stair explores Knoxville and discusses what could be done to promote walkability in future developments. | Watch the 6-minute presentation at pechakucha.org/cities/knoxville

PUBLIC AFFAIRS

12/22 RIBBON-CUTTING: PUBLIC RESTROOMS THURSDAY

11 a.m., Market Square. Free.

The day we’ve all dreamed of for so long is finally here: We will at long last be able to relieve ourselves on Market Square without shame (or trying to duck into a restaurant).

Join Mayor Rogero as she officially opens this auspicious five-stall restroom facility to the public. Huzzah!

12/30MEETING: YAPPY HOUR FRIDAY

6 p.m., Sugar Mama’s Bakery (135 S Gay St). Free.

Small Breed Rescue of East Tennessee is holding this informative meetup for anyone interested in becoming a volunteer or foster owner. And while you’re there, enjoy a craft beer or handmade pizza. Bonus: $1 per pint goes to SBRET.

12/31SAY SO LONG TO 2016 SATURDAY

9 p.m., Market Square. Free.

Let’s get this one behind us. The city’s official New Year’s celebration includes Harriman’s Temper Evans Band performing covers, 10:30-11:45 p.m.; midnight fireworks; a ball drop; an “Auld Lang Syne” sing-along; and a new lighted “2017” sign. Plus: a slide show.

NO MORE CURBSIDE GLASS RECYCLING If you recycle your glass waste curbside, your New Year’s resolutions might need to include making a regular trip to the closest recycling center. As of Jan. 1, the City of Knoxville’s curbside single-stream recycling program will no longer accept glass. Instead, residents will need to take their glass recyclables to one of five recycling centers in the city.

1/1 CALHOUN’S NEW YEAR’S DAY 5K SUNDAY

9 a.m., Volunteer Landing. $20-$30.

The Knoxville Track Club helps you put the right foot forward in 2017 with this kick-off to the 2017 KTC Grand Prix Series. The top 100 males and top 100 females crossing the finish line will be awarded! Plus, there should be some really good food. The USATF certified course runs out and back on Neyland Drive. Info: ktc.org.

December 22, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 5

SCRUFFY CITIZEN

Magnificent Distractions Christmas, 1916, saw a promenade of American show biz

BY JACK NEELY

I

f you were to step back 100 years, a lot of things would be familiar.

Christmas trees, both the big public one near Market Street and the one at home, glowed with electric lights.

Downtown stores were brightly lit, often in the same spaces as modern ones. A very Christmassy department store called Newcomers was in the building later occupied by Mast, and carried a lot of the same things, toys, kitchenware, clothing. You could buy trendy imported fashions at Arnstein’s, which occupied the same building as Urban Outfitters.

The newspapers trafficked in anxiety about the near future, especially about mass violence abroad and America’s place in the world. “Call it by what name you may, the European War is a crime against civilization,” stated the Republican-leaning Knoxville Journal. Later, the Sentinel remarked, “In the world’s history, the year 1916 was the worst for war…a year for the shedding of human blood and the taking of human life.”

That much seems all too familiar.

There was one striking difference, and a reason 1916 Knoxvillians would be disappointed to visit a 2016 Christmas.

The week before Christmas was cold. Temperatures had been in the single digits for days. Reports came that the Tennessee River had frozen over, 3 miles below Knoxville, in the vicinity of Bearden. The French Broad was frozen at Seven Islands. Steamboats were stranded. One steamer, the T.L. Brown, carrying a load of 6

KNOXVILLE MERCURY December 22, 2016

Christmas oranges, was stranded when a boiler pipe burst.

It had snowed, then melted. “Our beautiful snow quickly gave way to ugly slushes,” remarked the Journal.

Then the slush froze again.

Sledding was popular, especially outside city limits in Fountain City, accessible by streetcar. “Now that Knoxville is living in the automobile age, and there is seldom a period of five minutes in which a machine does not pass [in central Knoxville], the risk is too great, and the younger are forced to go outside the city to enjoy the sport.”

Even walking was hazardous.

Several were injured in falls, including 77-year-old John Bell Brownlow, one of Knoxville’s most prominent citizens. Walking home from work, the Union veteran fell near his home on Main Street and broke his collarbone. Later, an elderly visitor from Topeka, another Union veteran, was taking the trains to visit Johnson City relatives for the holidays. During a little layover in Knoxville, he stepped across the street to the drugstore on Depot. At the corner of Gay, he fell on the ice and didn’t get up. “Skull Crushed By the Impact!” went the headline.

A city judge decreed there’d be no more warnings. Any property owner who didn’t clear his public sidewalk would be arrested.

But maybe the hardest thing for us moderns to get used to would be the options. In the theaters and dance halls of 1916 Knoxville, Christmas was maybe the liveliest time of the year.

By 1916 Knoxville supported

several small movie theaters, but the stage shows still drew the biggest crowds. On Gay Street, the Grand featured vaudeville. Less than a block down the sidewalk, the Bijou featured vaudeville, too, but with more variety, including some famous national acts.

Across the street, Staub’s Theatre wasn’t too proud for vaudeville, but more likely to feature Broadway and opera acts.

The Bijou, “The Joy Spot of Knoxville,” “the Theatre Beautiful,” bought the most space in the papers.

“The Bijou Habit Is Like Love. You Always Hear About It… But You Have to Get It to Appreciate It.” Any holiday reveler who stepped out, especially to the Bijou, would have found something interesting.

The Imperial Bicycle Five played basketball on the Bijou’s stage. Ethel McDonough made her name as a “drummer girl” and as a high-dive act, but in 1916 she was a singer-comedienne and a “Statuesque Beauty.” Phil Bennett, “the Alpine Troubadour,” was a yodeler. Hazel Leona, “the Merry Sunshine of Vaudeville,” was on the same bill.

Among the many who performed at the Bijou in the days just before Christmas were Pietro Deiro, one of the country’s most famous accordionists; and Skipper and Kastrup, the song-and-dance duo billed as “the Original Grouch Destroyers.”

On Christmas Day, Mr. Choy Heng Wa and his troupe, variously known as “Chinese magicians” and “novelty acrobats,” performed several shows on the Bijou stage. They were known for spinning plates and breathing fire. On the same bill was Dorothy Kenton, the famous “Girl with the Banjo.”

A few days later, the Tun Chin Troupe, “Novelty Chinese Acrobats,” were at the Grand. As were violinist Jura Nilova; and Bob Lee, “the Talkative Trickster.”

Staub’s Theatre’s Christmas Day

show featured Al H. Wilson, “the Father of Laughter” himself, a comedian and singer specializing in sentimental old Irish songs, like that year’s hit, “My Killarney Rose.” The day after Christmas, Staub’s hosted the recent Broadway musical comedy Stop! Look!

Listen!, featuring “the catchy tunes of Irving Berlin.” The young songwriter was already famous, and his latest show featured a combination of ragtime and trendy Hawaiian pop. It was one of several one-night Broadway shows at Staub’s that holiday. Oh! Oh! Delphine was another.

In all, between Dec. 20 and Jan. 6, Knoxville witnessed around 200 performances from about 75 acts.

Most of them are forgotten today, but a few are standouts.

Billed five days before Christmas as “the Singing Comedienne,” Marion Harris, then only about 19 years old, was already causing a stir. She’s the blonde anomaly of early jazz history.

She would be more famous in the ’20s, introducing some early jazz standards, including “After You’ve Gone.” But her advocates claim recordings she made in 1916, like “I Ain’t Got Nobody,” were the first jazz records ever released. That was her new song in 1916; more than likely, she sang it at the Bijou.

And in the same room just after Christmas, Mons Herbert, “the Musical Waiter,” appeared. His name’s not familiar today, but his anarchic comedy was much admired by the Marx Brothers. He sometimes shared a bill with those younger guys when they were just developing their act. Harpo described the comedian’s act in his memoirs. “Mons used to set a dinner table on the stage, and play ‘The Anvil Chorus’ by blowing knives and forks against each other,” wrote Harpo. “For a finish he would blow up a prop roast turkey and deflate it in such a way that it played, ‘Oh, Dry Those Tears,’ out of its rump.” ◆

[Jazz pioneer] Marion Harris, then only about 19 years old, was already causing a stir.

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December 22, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 7

ARCHITECTURE MATTERS

Alt-Right Elite Donald J. Trump’s world of architecture

BY GEORGE DODDS

W

Donald Trump will be president when pigs fly. Hence the Chicago-based architectural firm, New World Design, created several photomontages of flying gilded pigs to cover the massive and controversial TRUMP sign on the Chicago Trump Tower.

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY December 22, 2016

him; never has anyone achieved so much having done so little for so many for so long.

The results of the November 2016 election cycle demonstrated much to those interested in learning from such an unprecedented phenomenon. Chief among these lessons was the tone-deafness of America’s left-leaning leaders. More astounding still, many of the brightest political observers of our generation continue

Renderings are the sole property of New World Design Ltd., Chicago, Ill. All rights reserved.

hile campaigning, Donald J. Trump liked to broadcast Elton John’s “Rocket Man” and “Tiny Dancer,” much to the chagrin of Mr. John. For the 65,476,535 Americans who cast votes on Nov. 8 (48.1 percent and counting), David Byrne’s “Burning Down the House” was more apt.

That said, on Jan. 20, 2017, Trump will be the first president since Thomas Jefferson with such close ties to the architectural world, albeit more as a collector than designer. But since this leader of the Alt-Right Elite is soon to become Leader of the Free World, it’s worth getting some sense of his past relation to architecture before he burns down any more houses.

The Italians have an expression for people like Mr. Trump—several of them actually. But the only one I can use in this venue is “Nato con una camicia.” The direct translation of which is “born with a shirt,” which essentially equates to being born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth. (Yet another trait he shares with Mr. Jefferson.) As Mr. Trump worked his way up from the top, he built a domain of perception—aka: a brand—based on an empire of building with other people’s money. You have to hand it to

their hearing impaired commentaries, learning little from seismic events.

Writing in the wake of Italy’s failed referendum causing the resignation of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, in his Dec. 5 New York Times column, Roger Cohen voices a claim made by many: “Democracies, it is clear, have not been delivering to the less privileged, who were disenfranchised or discarded in the swirl of technology’s advance.” Yet, like so much of liberal post-election self-flagellation, this is not only facile, it is also simply at odds with the facts. When such smart and level heads as Mr. Cohen get something so obviously wrong, one really begins to worry.

If we indeed live in a post-truth era, I choose to ignore it for the sake of argument. Facts and figures demonstrate that in the United States, the underprivileged have fared far better under the Obama administration than at any time since The Great Society, despite what the Republican-held House and Senate have tried to do to them. Over 13 million more have health insurance today than several years ago owing to the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

Unemployment is at record lows, as are mortgage rates. But as Bill Murray’s character, Tripper, chants in Meatballs, “It just doesn’t matter.”

Calm and shrewd stewardship at the executive level pulled President

Bush’s Reign of Error economy back from the brink. Meanwhile, House Republicans blithely passed 60 perfunctory bills to repeal all or part of Obamacare. During that same time, owing to unprecedented nominal legislative activity, the passing of resolutions to name U.S. post offices accounted for an average of 15 percent of all congressional productivity.

One area, sadly, where employment numbers are way down (and will stay so) is in coal mining, but this has nothing to do with imaginary illegal aliens or Secretary Clinton’s inexplicable choice of DSL over high-speed cable. It has been a trend since the end of the World War II and will continue, not because of globalization or new digital technologies, but because of longstanding lower demand and because strip mining and mountaintop removal have permanently replaced the subterranean coal miner.

What Mr. Cohen ought to have been talking about, therefore, was not the failure of liberal democracies to deliver to the underprivileged, but the perception of that failure. Managing the domain of perception is where Mr. Trump excels and the left has truly lost its way. And as everyone knows, perception always trumps reality, just as it trumped Mr. Cohen and convinced coal miners in places like Clay County, Ky. (America’s poorest county, which voted for Mr. Trump by as much

as 90 percent) to shoot themselves in both feet by backing a candidate who will strip them of access to one of their most basic human rights: affordable medical care. But it seems that this, too, just doesn’t matter.

What does matter (to architects, at least) is that very little of what The Trump Organization (TTO) has built approaches the level of architecture, which is clear to anyone well versed in the topic. It is more accurate to think of his buildings as Depreciating Monetary Delivery Systems. Among the TTO-built exceptions are Arthur Erickson’s hotel in Vancouver, Canada, and Chicago’s Trump® Tower (2008) by Adrian Smith of SOM in Chicago (largely funded by George Soros, back when Mr. Trump was still a card-carrying Democrat). The other exceptions are all previously existing landmarks, which he marks with his brand, from discrete buildings to vineyards to endangered 4,000-yearold Scottish dunes.

The former Bank of Manhattan Trust Building at 40 Wall St. (192930) is an elegant Art Moderne/Art Deco tower that, until the Chrysler Building’s antenna was completed in 1931, was the tallest building in the world. It now goes by the poetic moniker, “The Trump® Building.”

There must be several floors of New York’s Trump® Tower packed with round-the-clock staffers whose only job is to invent new names for Mr. Trump’s properties. As of this writing, excluding golf courses, there are no fewer than 25 major buildings branded Trump®.

The infamous MacLeod House & Lodge in Northeastern Scotland is the only one of his 15 resort hotels

unbranded, and for good reason. If traveling anywhere near Balmedie, Scotland, it’s probably best to let the natives assume you’re from Toronto, Calgary, or Drumheller. The only thing the locals dislike more than Mr. Trump is comparing the Jacobite Rebellion to the British invasion of the Falklands. He promised to spend $1.5 billion, build a large hotel complex, and employ thousands; instead he destroyed “Scotland’s Amazon,” employed relatively few, spent 1/30th the sum promised, and gave them the one thing Scotland desperately needed: another golf course.

There is a perception in our country that to be wealthy is to have good taste; you would think much of what we see in places like Palm Beach, Las Vegas, and most upper-middle class suburbs would have long ago demonstrated the inverse.

Similarly, Americans tend to believe that bigger is better; if any of the survivors of the Titanic were still around, they would tell a different story. Yet, we continue to get bigger and more tasteless buildings from the likes of Mr. Trump. During an interview while campaigning, he explained that what made one of his new building projects (that he is branding, not building) so much better than anything he had branded before was that instead of two towers, this one would have three. “It will be amazing!” It’s just this kind of razor-sharp reasoning that makes one curious about the acceptance rate at Penn’s Wharton School of Business back in the 1960s.

Mr. Trump’s “renovation” of Mar-a-Lago hints at what he may do to the White House—not with its power,

but the building. It will certainly be the smallest of his homes. Have you seen the Drottningholm Palace or the Kremlin? The private family quarters on the second floor will certainly be cramped for a man with so many wives and multi-generational children.

Additional levels of living space, a few new bathrooms here, a few bedrooms there, and closets—lots of closets. Not since Warren G. Harding has there been a president-elect entering his first term with more baggage in need of closets.

No doubt Mr. Trump sees its wealth of white classical detailing as mere substrate awaiting gold leaf. The Blue Room (restored by Jackie Kennedy) could use a few more colors, and the East Room (home to state dinners and the venue for awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom) could profit from a few water features and a retinue of gilded putti.

Already on the drawing boards no doubt are the Trump® White House Penthouses, which—after a proper amortization vigil—could easily be flipped into condos. Who knows, the White House could actually turn a profit. So many air rights, so little time. The Clinton administration’s Lincoln Bedroom kerfuffle seems quaint.

Not long after the election, many high-profile critics of Mr. Trump radically realigned their positions for personal gain. So, too, did entire industrial sectors, along with professional advocacy groups such as the American Institute of Architects, the latter demonstrating as an institution what Philip Johnson said of himself, quoted in a 1977 New Yorker interview: “Whoever commissions build-

ings buys me…. I’m for sale. I’m a whore.” Mr. Johnson was responsible for re-skinning the former Gulf and Western Building (1969) in Manhattan for Mr. Trump shortly after Trump acquired it in 1994. The architecture critic of The New York Times at the time characterized the results as “a 1950s International Style glass skyscraper in a 1980s gold lamé party dress….”

I’ve known several non-whore architects in my life, many of whom practice here in Knoxville. As for the self-proclaimed whore and leading figure in the American Nazi party throughout much of the 1930s, Mr. Johnson’s aphorism does a disservice to sex-industry workers. That the president-elect continues to pimp the Trump® brand even during the transition ought to surprise no one. It just doesn’t matter. After all, unlike Jefferson, at least Mr. Trump hasn’t slept with any of his slaves. But who knows, perhaps those tax returns will reveal more than we think. There may yet be a Sally Hemings in one of his many closets, which could go a long way to explaining his purchase of a vineyard in Albemarle, Va. In the meantime I vote for David Byrne to perform “Road to Nowhere” at the inauguration. I suspect Elton John would prefer it to belting out “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.” …Where the dogs of society howl You can’t plant me in your penthouse I’m going back to my plough… ◆ 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.

December 22, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 9

TRAVELERS MOTEL

Photo by Thomas Fraser

Sevier County’s Housing Crisis

As funds come in to aid untold homeless, some cite the disaster as a clean slate for new housing

BY THOMAS FRASER

B

obby pulls scrap from the malodorous rubble of the now-unrecognizable Travelers Motel. His burned-out Buick still sits in front of the ruined units, not far from where two neighbors met their end in the fire that descended upon the Gatlinburg area the evening of Nov. 28.

Bobby doesn’t want to give his last name, but he discusses that night, and his current plight, as he grimly removes piping and pulls wire in hopes of making a few extra bucks ahead of Christmas. He only got out of his room on East Parkway with his dog and his shotgun. His landlord gave him permission to extract what scrap he could find from the remains of the motel.

Some 2,500 homes, hotels, and motels were destroyed in the monstrous wildfire, which leaped from Great Smoky Mountains National Park after its start five days earlier near Chimney Tops. Fourteen people were killed and 14,000 had to flee.

Sevier County officials have estimated total economic losses at $500 million.

There is no specific count on the number of people left homeless by the fire, but the loss of so many dwellings has definitely worsened the already-precarious housing situation

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY December 22, 2016

faced by the thousands of workers who work largely hand-to-mouth jobs in the area’s tourism industry, officials say. Some hope the rebuilding effort represents an opportunity to ensure more affordable housing is available in Sevier County.

The Red Cross provided a total of 3,066 overnight stays at its seven shelters set up in Sevier County. All of those shelters are now closed after the last people left over the weekend, says Red Cross spokeswoman Suzanne Horsley. The Red Cross provided 16,000 meals in one of its largest regional responses in years. But that support is only meant to be offered in the immediate wake of disasters.

“We don’t tend to talk about where people lived before and where they’re living now,” Horsley says.

State and federal housing officials have poured into Sevier County to provide resources for emergency housing. Federal Emergency Management Agency funds are available for renters and homeowners, and the Tennessee Housing Development Agency is providing vouchers and emergency grants to those left homeless or facing homelessness.

Bobby found a home just across the street from the Travelers at another,

smaller block of units managed by the same company. He also had another vehicle. He’s fared better than the 15 other permanent and transient motel-dwellers he called neighbors.

“I just got lucky because I’ve always been a real good tenant,” he says. “Not everybody was as fortunate as I was.”

The Tennessee Housing Development Agency has a three-tiered response in place for those who lost homes in the fire: It is promoting tnhousingsearch.com, a listing of available homes in the area; it is distributing emergency funding of $165,000 to local homeless advocacy groups; and it is offering 50 housing vouchers that will defray the cost of rentals.

Only 17 rental units, some with waiting lists, are currently available in Sevier County, according to the website earlier this week.

The Tennessee Valley Coalition for the Homeless, Family Promise of Blount County, and Helen Ross McNabb Center have been tasked with connecting those in need of housing with resources. As of Tuesday, 12 families had been offered assistance and seven households had applied for the housing vouchers, according to THDA spokesperson Patricia Smith.

Family Promise Executive Director Kathi Parkins says she is surprised by the relatively few requests for assistance so far, but thinks most want to remain closer to home.

“All their ties are to Sevier and they don’t have any transportation and they don’t have any money,” Parkins says, noting that Family Promise can still provide for some needs to those staying in Sevier County.

Some of the vouchers won’t apply to short-term rental options like motels, but getting people established in permanent housing “is more sustainable than motels in the long run,” says Katie Moore, the East Tennessee liaison for THDA. “This provides us an actually unique opportunity,” she says. “There are so many needs for adequate sustainable housing for our service-industry staff and families, and we hope through this crisis that the end product will be more sustainable and decent, safe homes for Sevier County residents.”

She acknowledges, however, “there are no quick fixes,” while speaking at the Multi-agency Re-

source Center, set up last week in the former Belz outlet mall in Pigeon Forge to serve as a clearinghouse for resources available those affected by the fires. Such lasting adjustments and additions to local housing stock must wait for the work of insurance adjusters, debris removal, and eventual reconstruction, she says— and that might be a two-year process.

Timothy Hall, an employee of Ober Gatlinburg who lost his home at Creek Place efficiencies, showed up at the center seeking housing help. Ober had been paying for hotel stays for himself and other employees, but that largesse was to expire by Christmas.

“Hopefully I’ll be in a house by then,” he says. But housing options were slim in Gatlinburg and Sevier County.

One option was available in Newport.

“It’d be a little bit of a trek,” Hall says.

That illustrates another challenge: Housing might be available, but only in areas dozens of miles from workplaces.

Marci Claude, public affairs manager for the Gatlinburg Chamber of Commerce echoes—emphatically— the need to use the disaster as a springboard for more affordable housing in the community.

“I think our city and county leaders see this as an opportunity to address those affordable housing issues,” she says.

But for those who were already in a precarious financial position or lost their homes in short-term rentals, the challenge is immediate.

Some already faced substanceabuse or mental health issues, and many lost their cars and jobs.

“I talked to so many people who were so blank,” says Jeanine Frey, who has traveled regularly to Gatlinburg from her Lenoir City home to volunteer for the Red Cross. “Trauma will perpetuate existing conditions.”

Meanwhile, back up at the burned-out Travelers Motel, Bobby keeps pulling scrap from the ruins of his former home of two years. He has a new home, for now, but doesn’t know what became of his neighbors after fire raced down the now-blackened forested hillside behind what are now ashy piles of lives.

“I don’t know what’s in store,” he says, stripping metal from a dead electrical line. “I’m gonna keep on doing what I’m doing.” ◆

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December 22, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 11

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et’s take a moment to savor this welcome fact: 2016 is nearly over.

Between the sweeping losses of beloved artists and the rise of intolerance and willful ignorance as legitimized presidential selling points, our daily feed of national news has alternated between upsetting and depressing.

Locally, there was a lot to be proud of, yet still plenty of events and issues to be concerned about—not to mention a cataclysmic disaster and

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY December 22, 2016

Photo by Tricia Bateman

its aftermath.

Here are the stories of 2016, as told by a handful of writers in Knoxville, Tenn. This is not a comprehensive guide to every newsworthy event that happened in our area, nor is it even a list of every noteworthy issue we covered in the past 12 months. But it is a record of things that mattered, and of stories you could fi nd only in your dedicated community paper, the Mercury.

—Coury Turczyn, ed.

Photo by Clay Duda

increasing its capacity so more recordings can be uploaded from many cars at once, Rausch says.

Some individual dashcams have been replaced as part of routine annual equipment replacements, but the department has not moved to replace the larger dashcam system it has identified as outdated, nor started using body cameras.

That’s partly because Rausch wants to do both at once, but has voiced opposition to using body cameras if the recordings would be publicly accessible, as they currently are under Tennessee law.

• The Police Advisory Review Committee: The Police Advisory Review Committee had a change in leadership after director Avice Reid was promoted to Community Relations Director for the city. Clarence Vaughn III was hired as her replacement in April.

Can KPD Overcome the Doubts of Knoxville’s Black Community?

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hen you talk about police, the community, and race, there are a lot of “theys.” Since a 2014 police shooting in Ferguson, Mo., raised questions nationwide about police brutality toward blacks, local tensions between Knoxville’s black community and police have been discussed publicly by hundreds of people who attended forums held by Community Step Up, the FBI, and a local Black Lives Matter group.

Many blacks in Knoxville say they are targeted by police for minor traffic violations as an excuse to search them for drugs or check for warrants. In 2015, several court cases appeared to show a few white officers who patrol East Knoxville doing this repeatedly.

Residents of poor black neighborhoods, especially on the East Side, say they live “in a police state,” surrounded by cops who assume everyone on the street is a criminal.

“In our community, when we see law enforcement, we don’t see protection,” says the Rev. John Butler, president of the Knoxville chapter of the NAACP and pastor at Clinton Chapel AME Zion Church in Mechanicsville, a historically black neighborhood in Northwest Knoxville. “We see being stopped, arrested, and charged, even if we were not doing anything wrong.”

—S. Heather Duncan

UPDATE

• Biased policing: In November, Knoxville hosted one of four meetings around the country on the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, and it featured a sample of training to help officers understand their own implicit biases. Chief Rausch says he wants KPD to start offering something similar to all its officers.

• Minority recruiting: Partly to improve relations between police and the community, Rausch had said KPD was trying to aggressively recruit more minority officers. He had expressed hopes that the upcoming police academy would be one of the most diverse ever, but says many candidates were weeded out during the background check process because they did not disclose youthful drug arrests (which he says would not have disqualified them if they had only been honest). KPD had aimed to hire 50 new officers, but the candidate class has already been winnowed to just 38.

“It’s just so frustrating,” he says.

“We’ll actually start a process again very quickly, because we need the personnel.”

• Dashcams and body cams: Last year, dashboard camera footage disappeared or was not recorded in disputed altercations between police and black residents. Rausch says he’s not aware of similar problems this year, perhaps partly because shift supervisors were given new responsibility to check daily for the downloads.

A few weeks ago, KPD upgraded its wireless upload system for the dashboard cameras in police cruisers,

ISSUE 4: JAN. 28

Adrift: A 24-Hour Diary of Living Homeless

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5:57 p.m. t’s just after dusk when Drew Krikau appears at a trolley stop on a deserted street east of downtown, his small frame silhouetted by the graying sky, bundled up for the cold night ahead. A faded black jacket overlaps his army-green hoodie, the hood pulled up as temperatures begin a sharp descent with the onset of nightfall. A cheap camouflage tent and a few blankets are tucked in a

Fears of Gentrification

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ast week city officials brought out their consultants to present a detailed vision for refinishing Magnolia Avenue east of downtown, plans that were met with some

Photo by Clay Duda

ISSUE #2, JAN. 14

reusable shopping bag slung over his right shoulder. He’s waited until dark to make his move, so no one can see where he’s heading, as he looks for a place to stake out as his own. A place, he hopes, hidden enough not to draw unwanted attention—from the police or anyone else out wandering the streets—until dawn, when he’ll break camp and move on before the sun rises to the east.

Trails lead into the darkness, into this urban thicket dimly lit by the distant glow of sodium street lights and downtown’s skyline, overshadowed by a towering public housing complex, and visible in the periphery of the Knoxville Police Department headquarters in the distance. He’s thought it through, he says, and this place is a best bet for him and his fiancée, Stacy, to hole up for the night.

“When there’s so many people on the street every night, finding a safe place to sleep by yourself, they’re few and far between,” he says as he begins unfurling his tent in near-complete darkness among the sticks, stones, and trampled Styrofoam cups on this trash-strewn hillside.

For nearly two years now, Krikau, 45, has lived homeless on the streets of Knoxville.

—Clay Duda

December 22, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 13

UT Diversity Matters Gets Organized

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tudent protests in the heart of the administration building. Threats to cut funding by state legislators.

Calls for resignations of top university officials by politicians. Possible loss of university accreditation.

Since August 2015, all these disputes and more have assailed the University of Tennessee, pushing a school once primarily known as an SEC football powerhouse onto the front pages of the Huffington Post and Fox News websites over issues such as advisories on the use of gender-neutral pronouns and how to host a non-denominational holiday party. And now, amid an effort by state legislators to conduct a full-blown investigation of UT’s diversity efforts, pro-diversity student groups are uniting to make their own voices heard in the ongoing brouhaha.

Leaders of campus groups have formed UT Diversity Matters, a coalition of 16 faculty and student organizations, including the Black Student Union, Sexual Empowerment and Awareness at Tennessee, and the UT College Democrats. They have united in calling for the UT administration to better promote and protect marginalized students.

—McCord Pagan 14

KNOXVILLE MERCURY December 22, 2016

ISSUE 8: FEB. 25

The Magnificent Seven

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f you visit Knoxville Seven, the new exhibit at the Knoxville Museum of Art, you’ll almost certainly notice “Pop Goes My Easel.” Among the 70 or so pieces on display in KMA’s two ground-floor galleries—most of them abstract expressionist paintings and modernist landscapes—Carl Sublett’s 1963 painting stands out for its stark graphics, unusual technique, and charged political content.

“This is one of Carl’s masterpiec-

ISSUE 7: FEB. 18

Game Changers: The Center for Sport, Peace, and Society

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T’s Center for Sport, Peace, and Society was founded four years ago by Sarah Hillyer and Ashleigh Huffman, two down-to-earth former basketball players driven by their passion to use sports to empower women and, well, change the world.

They know it’s more than a game.

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

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

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

—S. Heather Duncan

UPDATE: For the first time this year, the center led a five-week exchange program to empower international leaders in the field of disability sport.

The initiative trains people from around the world to be better advo-

Photo courtesy of the Knoxville Museum of Art/Cathy and Mark Hill

ISSUE 5: FEB. 4

cates for sports programs that provide opportunities and accessibility for deaf and physically disabled adults and children. The VOLeaders Academy, launched by Hillyer and Huffman last year to build leadership skills among UT athletes, traveled to Brazil for a service learning trip during the 2016 Olympic Games.

Photo courtesy of the U.S. State Department

concerns and skepticism from people in the 70-person crowd gathered at the John T. O’Connor Senior Center.

The city wants to revamp the roadway and sidewalks with finishings not unlike those currently going in along Cumberland in Fort Sanders: a raised median, more benches and bike racks, and fancy new traffic lights, crosswalks, and turn lanes. Magnolia may also feature a “gateway” close to downtown, two 14-foot-tall brick and mortar pillars meant to represent the start of the East Knoxville community.

“Any time I hear urban revitalization I hear ‘whitewash,’” said Xavier Jenkins, a 40-year-old resident of East Knoxville.

Jenkins points to areas like the Old City and commercial corridors along N. Central Street that used to house minority businesses, but now either sit vacant or have white owners. “A community like this doesn’t need a facelift, it needs access to low-interest loans.”

—Clay Duda

es, from his relatively brief flirtation with pop art,” says Stephen Wicks, the museum’s curator, as he leads a private tour through the exhibit.

Sublett and the six other artists who are featured in Knoxville Seven— Robert Birdwell, Richard Clarke, C. Kermit “Buck” Ewing, Joanne Higgs Ross, Philip Nichols, and Walter Stevens—were among the first modern artists in East Tennessee. Their collaborations in the late 1950s and early ’60s invigorated Knoxville during a midcentury cultural drought and brought credibility to the University of Tennessee’s new art department.

Now, more than 50 years later, KMA has made the Knoxville Seven suddenly and startlingly relevant again. Wicks’ show not only highlights a neglected period in Knoxville’s art history—it’s also the culmination of the museum’s nearly decade-long quest to assert itself as the champion of East Tennessee art.

—Matthew Everett

Hate Groups on the Rise

H

ate is on the rise in Tennessee. If the number of hate groups active in the state is any indication, Tennessee may very well be one of the most hateful states in the nation.

According to the most recent count of hate-focused organizations throughout the United States, Tennessee had the fourth-highest number of active hate groups in 2015.

But when you compare the number of hate groups with state populations, Tennessee edges up a spot, to number three, as one of the most hateful states per capita. Only our neighbors to the west, Arkansas and Mississippi, boast more hateful affiliations compared with the number of people that live there.

The number of these hate groups operating in Tennessee increased more than one-third from 2014 to 2015, from 29 to 41, mirroring a national uptick, according to data compiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

—Clay Duda

ISSUE 10: MARCH 10

Mill and Mine Unveiled

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n Tuesday afternoon, at a press event announcing the opening of the Mill and Mine, a new venue and event space on West Depot Avenue, Mayor Madeline Rogero described the developers of the project as a “dream team of visionaries.” That might be overdoing it, but it’s true that developers David

Dewhirst and Mark Heinz and music impresario Ashley Capps have seen possibilities all around downtown Knoxville over the last two decades that others have overlooked (or couldn’t afford). Now they’ve announced a new project that will combine their specialties—Dewhirst’s knack for restoring historic buildings and Capps’ canny instinct for music programming. They say the bold new performance space will fill in important cultural and geographic gaps in Knoxville’s center city.

The new 20,000-square-foot venue is based on a model established by three other mid-sized spaces around the region that Capps’ company, AC Entertainment, books on a regular basis: the Orange Peel, in Asheville, N.C.; Track 29, in Chattanooga; and Marathon Music Works, in Nashville.

“My team, a week didn’t go by when they didn’t say, why can’t we be doing this in Knoxville?” Capps said.

—Matthew Everett

Photo by David Luttrell

ISSUE 9: MARCH 3

INTERESTING PEOPLE WE MET

Cassius Cash

ISSUE 11: MARCH 17

Sex in the Classroom

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L

t’s been a little more than a year since Cash took the helm of the GSMNP, the most popular national park in the country, a position his calls a “dream job.” He’s also the park’s first African-American superintendent, no small feat in a park system that employs only about two dozen minority superintendents overseeing its 410 units. His is an unlikely story that took a turn in college, when he landed an internship with the Forest Service, and over the past year he says he’s been surprised to learn the power of his story in connecting with people like himself: some minority, some inner-city, some just not given the opportunity to visit national parks and experience their allure. He thinks more people of different backgrounds would and should enjoy the woods that he’s come to love and has built a career on, and that’s the crux of his focus on the future…

Beyond his lofty goals of inspiring the next generation to love and support this park, Cash must also deal with his daily administrative duties and management of the park, overseeing its varied resources, hundreds of employees, and thousands of volunteers. It’s a constant balancing act of being both welcoming and prudent, accessible to millions of visitors yet accountable for protecting and promoting its natural splendor. If the Smokies were a bona-fide city, he’d be its 16th mayor.

—Clay Duda, April 14

et’s talk about sex.

But without, well, actually talking about it. To be more precise, let’s talk about not having sex. We’ll learn about how it can ruin your future—unless you are a happily married husband or wife. And you’ll learn a few methods of avoiding the pitfalls of pregnancy and disease, but with the understanding that the only reliable prevention is abstaining from sex altogether.

Photo by Clay Duda

UPDATE: Cash was tested during the tragic Chimney Tops fire this fall that sparked a firestorm in Gatlinburg, killing 14 and destroying more tan 2,400 buildings. Some have questioned whether Cash should have pushed the National Park Service for more resources to fight the fire more aggressively in its early days. Last week a federal fire-fighting command post was pulled out and the national park was put back in charge of handling the final vestiges of the fire. Cash is now left in charge of cleaning up debris, rebuilding trails and possibly rethinking the park’s approach to wildfire prevention in the years to come.

December 22, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 15

ISSUE 13: MARCH 31

KPD Conducts Undercover Panhandling Sting

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n recent weeks, people pushing and prodding for spare change on the streets of downtown have come up against a bigger roadblock than disdainful pedestrians and disgruntled business owners. In what city officials have a called a “first of its kind” operation, Knoxville Police Department officers earlier this month started going undercover to target panhandlers they say are acting aggressively when asking people for money.

Since March 11, KPD has undertaken three of these “sting” operations in different parts of downtown and the Old City. So far officers have issued 12 citations and made three arrests for “aggressive panhandling,” a broad and often subjective term that encompasses some genuinely-unfriendly actions, like “recklessly making physical contact” with a person, but also covers more benign behaviors such as asking the same person for money a second time within 20 feet, according to the city’s ordinance. There is also a separate 13-part ordinance dictating when and where general panhandling

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY December 22, 2016

Photo by Andrew Gresham

That is the general gist of the Knox County Schools’ sex-education curriculum, and some parents, students, and recent graduates are taking issue with how sex education is taught in Knox County. Critics, who have voiced objections and filed formal complaints, say they support sex education but find Knox County’s version factually misleading, sexist, and fear-based.

The issue has galvanized young people to action. Two recent Knox graduates have started a group called Just Educate to argue that the district’s approach is not only ineffective but, as presented, offensive and damaging to women and to anyone who is not heterosexual. College students Mikaela Faust and Caroline Rowcliffe got together in a classroom on their last day of high school at Hardin Valley Academy to brainstorm ways to protest the flaws they see in the district’s sex education presentation and to argue for comprehensive sex education in Tennessee.

—S. Heather Duncan

is permitted.

“We defend the right to solicit in a passive way, and that’s really what the city is targeting here. They’ve essentially banned that action because of a few aggressive panhandlers out there,” says Eddie Young of the the East Tennessee Peace and Justice Center. “But I think it’s like driving to work in the morning: Just because there are a few aggressive drivers, you don’t ban driving.”

—Clay Duda

ISSUE 14: APRIL 7

Old City Gardens Takes Root

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ayor Madeline Rogero’s April 1 press release announcing an “exciting new urban agricultural initiative” in the Old City sounded like a April Fool’s Day trick. Is there even arable soil in the Old City not covered by buildings and pavement?

As it turns out, yes there is: In a lonesome corner behind Knox Rail Salvage where East Depot Avenue dead ends at the high concrete wall of James White Parkway, a little over a half-acre of land sat for years, an odd grassy area surrounded by the hardscape of downtown. The hardware store that once stood there was torn down in the mid-2000s to make way for the parkway construction.

Now it’s the site of Old City Gardens, the city’s newest, and closest-to-downtown community garden, which had its ceremonial ground breaking Friday morning.

Old City Gardens is a partnership between Brenna Wright, owner of Knoxville’s flagship urban farm, Abbey Fields in Parkridge, and Old City landlords Jenny and Randy Boyd, who own the property. Inspired by the Fenway Victory Gardens in Boston, the Boyds expressed interest in starting an urban farm downtown.

—Eleanor Scott

Big Ears, Behind the Scenes

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t was, more than ever before, a festival of tips on smartphone apps.

Attendees got alerts about surprise performances and sold-out shows.

The tip I got was strictly analog, a word from a friend in a corner bar.

What I heard was that Friday night there would be, at the oldest church in Knoxville, something to witness.

Though tempted by some other shows, I was just curious enough to walk down to First Presbyterian. At the top of the marble steps, I tried the main front door, and found it open.

Hearing agreeable sounds inside, I slipped into the interior door, into the

sanctuary. Inside were five people.

One was a trim old man in black playing an old brown grand piano up in the front of the sanctuary. Near him was an eccentric-looking middle-aged woman with an electronic fiddle. Both were in black.

The woman was Laurie Anderson, one of the idols of my youth.

When I was 23, I played her ironic crypto-minimalist album, Big Science, so often I can still recite most of it.

The old man was Philip Glass. He is one of the most famous composers in the world. I knew him because he looked like Philip Glass and was playing a classic riff with descending chord changes.

They were rehearsing. I sat in the back at first, hoping they wouldn’t notice.

—Jack Neely

ISSUE 15: APRIL 14

Jim Crow’s Return

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hat do bathrooms, marriage counseling, and religious freedom have in common?

They represent some of the many ways that states are finding to limit the rights of gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual people—or, depending on your point of view, protect the rights of (mostly Christian) religious people who object to them.

The trend is being driven by conservative frustration with last summer’s U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing gay marriage nationwide, says Frances Henderson, associate politics professor at Maryville College. States such as Tennessee that had essentially outlawed gay marriage were left with a limited ability to control its cultural acceptance—not to mention the growing flexibility toward transgender people.

However, new laws addressing these issues in Indiana, Georgia, Mississippi, and North Carolina have been labeled discriminatory and caused an unprecedented backlash from businesses.

The Tennessee House had seemed to be edging away from this cliff the same week that North Carolina basically catapulted over it yodeling. But the General Assembly this week finalized a law allowing counselors to refer away patients whose therapy goals conflict with the therapist’s “sincerely held principles.”

—S. Heather Duncan

UPDATE: A proposed “bathroom bill”

with an extraordinary career.

Most of the buildings MPC helps save don’t tell such a story.

—Jack Neely

never came to a vote in Tennessee, but a bill allowing counselors to reject clients whose therapy goals might conflict with counselors’ “principles” was signed by Gov. Bill Haslam. The law doesn’t mention LGBT patients specifically, but legislative discussion revolved around them.

The first bill filed in the Senate for the 2017 legislative session attempts to restore the wording of the original bill, allowing counselors to refer away patients based on the counselor’s “personally held beliefs” rather than “principles.” It would also prevent the Board for Professional Counselors, Marital and Family Therapists, and Clinical Pastoral Therapists from adopting any rules based on a national association’s code of ethics. (Currently that professional body references the American Counseling Association Code of Ethics, which doesn’t allow this kind of behavior by counselors.)

ISSUE 17: APRIL 28

Save Our Sons

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hen Jajuan Latham was 12, he was shot and killed in the back of his father’s SUV in a random gang drive-by shooting at Danny Mayfield Park in Mechanicsville.

Latham’s April 16 death was the second recent high-profile gang shooting of an innocent in Knoxville.

His cousin Zaevion Dobson died in December protecting two Fulton High School classmates from misdirected gang bullets. Neither young man was involved with a gang himself.

The stresses of multi-generational poverty and violence in neighborhoods like Lonsdale, Mechanicsville, and parts of East Knoxville have led to a disturbingly high rate of young black men killing each other in the city. From 2003 to 2013, both victim and perpetrator were black in 56 percent of all murders committed with guns; 71 percent of the city’s gun killings were committed by people between the ages of 18 and 34, according to KPD statistics.

ISSUE 16: APRIL 21

No Historic Overlay for the Cal Johnson Building

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director Ronni Chandler, City Councilman Dan Brown, and local pastors and black activists.

“We’re not here to compete or replace groups that are already out there,” Rogero says. “We’re here to raise them up and connect them with resources.”

Some in the black community say Save Our Sons has spent too long planning and needs to take decisive action. Jackie Clay, the Save Our Sons coordinator, just completed drafting a set of measurable goals for the grant funds.

—S. Heather Duncan

UPDATE: Jackie Clay left her job running the Save Our Sons program for the city in August, and the city has not replaced her. Clay’s old position has been split. One employee is spending half her time managing the Tennessee Community Crime Reduction Program grant that funds many Save Our Sons initiatives. A second job will coordinate the grant’s outreach programs and broader Save Our Sons initiatives. Reid and some members of the mayor’s Save Our Sons Advisory Committee are interviewing candidates who were recommended by the advisory committee and community leaders, with the aim of filling the job early next year.

This year Save Our Sons began offering monthly job fairs in inner city neighborhoods and partnered on a new three-month job training program for construction trades.

ISSUE 18: MAY 5

An Old City Mural Disappears

I Photo by Tricia Bateman

ast Thursday afternoon, the Metropolitan Planning Commission unexpectedly rejected its own staff’s recommendations and declined to endorse Mayor Rogero’s much-publicized initiative to give the Cal Johnson Building on State Street H-1 historical protection.

It takes some imagination to call it a pretty building right now, but with some cleaning and refurbishing of the sort that has brightened most of the other historic downtown buildings in the last 25 years, it could be. And this one deserves the attention more than your garden-variety Victorian commercial building. Few American cities have a building with a comparable history. It was built in 1898 by a man who was raised to be a slave. His name is still on the facade: “CALVIN F. JOHNSON.” It’s unfortunate that the place where MPC chooses to take an uncharacteristic stand against a mayor’s preservationist initiative turns out to be the only historic building downtown built by an African American. It’s the oldest big building in town built by a black man, and the only remaining building associated

Mayor Madeline Rogero’s Save Our Sons initiative aims to combat this crisis by dealing with the underlying problems that lead to a culture of violence.

Despite being almost two years old, Save Our Sons remains little understood, partly because it keeps evolving and has spent a long time on gathering information. Its first high-profile, direct initiative was unveiled last week: A new $2.9 million “Change Center,” a hangout spot and job training initiative for teens and young adults, which aims to address some of the youth needs identified by Save Our Sons, particularly the need for nearby safe places and activities for at-risk youth.

Rogero proposed Wednesday for the city to put more money toward Save Our Sons initiatives in the coming budget, including doubling the budget for the SOS office itself and providing $381,000 in grants to community organizations that serve at-risk young black men (including the Change Center). This is more than three times what the current budget included for such initiatives, Rogero says…

The entire Save Our Sons effort was developed by an advisory committee appointed by Rogero, which includes Knoxville Police Chief David Rausch, Project GRAD executive

n April, workers hired by landlord/ developer Leigh Burch III, of Terminus Real Estate, unceremoniously painted over the Knoxville Music History Mural on the side of the brick building he owns at 118 East Jackson Ave., leaving a blank panel where a colorful tribute to local musicians had formerly been.

The mural, a Keep Knoxville Beautiful project, was designed and painted by Laurel High School students and artist Walt Fieldsa. It depicted over 40 significant players in Knoxville’s vibrant music history, from country star Dolly Parton to jazz pianist Donald Brown and indie/ December 22, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 17

Photo by Clay Duda

ISSUE 21: MAY 26

KCS Superintendent Jim McIntyre Checks Out

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hen Superintendent Jim McIntyre steps down next month, he deserves an acclaimed farewell. Despite the controversies that led up to his resignation in January, a great deal has been accomplished in Knox County Schools during McIntyre’s eight years at the helm, and he’s entitled to a lot of credit for these successes.

The fact that Knox County Schools were recognized last year by the state

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY December 22, 2016

as one of 12 Exemplary School Districts is testament to McIntyre’s success. The designation is based on “significantly improving student performance and narrowing achievement gaps,” and Knox County is the only large metropolitan school system in the state ever to be so recognized.

Yet McIntyre also became a lightning rod for a lot of teacher frustration and resentment over the evaluation methodology by which they are held accountable and by what many considered to be excessive standardized student testing.

—Joe Sullivan

UPDATE: The Knox County school board’s

search committee was selected on Nov. 4 and held its first meeting Nov. 22, more than 10 months after McIntyre announced his resignation.

ISSUE 22: JUNE 2

H-Town

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he back seat of James Gilman’s* car is filled with stolen meat, about $150 worth of prime-cut beef, as he whips his silver Chrysler into the side yard of a nondescript house in Mechanicsville, slams it into park, and jumps out the driver’s side door. (*James Gilman is an alias.

Some details have been changed to protect his identity.)

“This is my meat guy. Then I got a guy I sell tools to. I got a guy for everything,” he says, scooping up packs of steak and heading for the front door. He means he knows people that will pay him—in either drugs or cash—for just about anything he brings them, regardless of how he acquires it. He hates thieving, he says,

Photo by Tricia Bateman

alternative poet R.B. Morris.

The erasure of the music mural is the latest, and most public, of some unpopular changes to the 100 block of East Jackson Avenue since Burch took ownership of most of it in October 2014, buying three slightly shabby properties on East Jackson: the one with the mural and two housing the Knoxville Pearl, a family-owned cereal bar, and Hot Horse, an indie music store. The Pearl closed soon after their building changed hands.

Hot Horse closed this March under contentious circumstances.

Burch’s freshly painted brick storefronts, top-40 nightclubs, and empty 12-foot by 60-foot panel now available for signage do shave off the rough edges, perhaps making the Old City more palatable to casual visitors, weekend partiers, and middle-class shoppers. Meanwhile, history is effaced and authentic character is squandered. It is impossible to manufacture the soul of a place.

—Eleanor Scott

but he just got fired from a gig doing maintenance work, and even when he was pulling a $600 paycheck weekly it was hard to keep pace with the drug habit that’s been running his life.

For Gilman, that mostly means shooting heroin, or at times prescription painkillers, though the pills tend to cost more and wear off sooner, he says. Today he’s landed a 30 milligram “Roxy,” or Roxicodone, a narcotic pain pill that Meat Man offered in lieu of cash. Gilman pulls his car behind a mostly boarded-up house nearby, drops the pill in the fold of a $10 bill, and uses a lighter to crush it against the dash. He dumps the powdery substance into a bottle cap filled with water and draws the greenish liquid into a syringe.

“This probably won’t even get me high,” he says. “It’ll just make me feel better.”

There are a number of contributing factors that has led to an explosion of opiate use in Knox County and across the nation in recent years. A majority of people that end up on heroin start by using opiate-based prescription pills, state health officials say, and nationally Tennessee has been among the top states for the number of opiates prescribed. Within the state, a larger percentage of people died from opiate-induced overdoses in Knox County in 2014 than any other metropolitan county in Tennessee.

—Clay Duda

KSO’s New Music Director

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he Knoxville Symphony Orchestra picked youth this week when Aram Demirjian was named as KSO’s music director, ending a yearlong search that began with the resignation of Lucas Richman at the end of the 2014-15 season.

Demirjian, 30, grew up in Boston and studied at the New England Conservatory there; he has spent the last four years as associate conductor of the Kansas City Symphony.

“Orchestra music is about community, it’s about unity, and communication, it’s about many, many people all working extremely hard together as individuals to create something harmonious,” Demirjian said during a press conference for the announcement at the Tennessee Theatre on Tuesday afternoon.

—Matthew Everett

ISSUE 23: JUNE 9

Knoxville College’s Campus Woes

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(SUMMARY)

he historically black college apparently inked a deal with Knoxville company Southeast Commercial to redevelop part of the

ISSUE 24: JUNE 16

Plug Pulled on UT’s Pride Center

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he way all of this has been done just seems shady,” Johnathan Clayton tells the school administrators sitting across the table. “This is one of the simplest laws I’ve ever read, but it doesn’t seems like UT’s actions align with the law.”

Clayton is among a half dozen students crowded around a small picnic table in a courtyard outside Melrose Hall on the University of Tennessee campus, looking for answers. On the other side are three school administrators.

This informal encounter is the first sit-down meeting the Pride Ambassadors have managed to get with school officials since UT’s Pride Center saw its funding eliminated and its staff removed more than two weeks ago—a move that UT officials say was necessary to comply with a newly passed state law defunding the Office of Diversity and Inclusion over the next fiscal year.

While the University of Tennessee has continued to tout its support for diversity publicly, some students and faculty members have been raising questions about how the

Photo by Clay Duda

college property into some combination of senior and affordable housing, offices and possibly a charter school.

But most of that effort was put on hold as the state alleged that the A.K. Stewart Science Building, already the subject of a previous federal emergency cleanup, was still so contaminated with mercury that it might need to be placed on the state Superfund list.

Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation spokesman Eric Ward says the state is moving forward with additional tests in early 2017 before making a decision about whether to list the A.K. Stewart Science Building on the state “Superfund” list of most contaminated properties. TDEC is also continuing to research other parties besides the college that might be responsible for the contamination, he says. Meanwhile, the city set deadlines for the college to repair any buildings it wanted staff and volunteers to continue to use, and most of the others were declared unfit for human use.

The Knoxville College Trustees have been trying to reorganize so the college can begin offering classes again, albeit online. But the board did not meet its own goal of filing the proper paperwork with the state to offer classes in the 2016 fall semester or a traditional spring semester next year.

—S. Heather Duncan

INTERESTING PEOPLE WE MET

Trae Crowder

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ak Ridge comic Trae Crowder catapulted to social media stardom after his “Liberal Redneck” videos went viral. Upwards of 21 million people on Facebook alone have watched his breakout two-minute commentary railing against conservatives who want to control bathroom access for transgender people. (“Quit being a pussy and say what you mean: You’re freaked out,” he railed.)

The early videos didn’t even include Crowder’s name, and many who watched didn’t realize he was a comedian (although he really does have those opinions and talk like that). Yet the exposure launched his first comedy tour. Its initial leg is selling out through Southern cities, culminating in a show at the Grove Theater in Oak Ridge…

His profanity-laced manifestos have covered not only LGBT rights but also topics like Tennessee trying to designate the Bible the “state book” and Ted Cruz’s exit from the presidential race. (More election commentary to come, Crowder promises.) Shot on his cell phone, Crowder’s rants are an unexpected juxtaposition, which is incidentally one of the building blocks of comedy: Here’s a guy who looks, sounds, and acts like what you’d expect from a redneck, firing off opinions you’d expect from an educated liberal.

Which is what he is.

Well, he’s both.

Things you don’t know about the Liberal Redneck: He has an MBA. He manages engineering, utility, and construction contracts in a conservative workplace where button-up shirts are the norm and cursing is not. (He tries to keep his political views separate from his work environment, and asked us not to name his employer.) But he gets pretty het up if you question whether he’s a “real redneck.”

Perhaps what’s so shocking is that this is so shocking. Why can’t a redneck be a liberal? And can this liberal redneck do anything to change those rules?

—S. Heather Duncan, May 26

Photo by Clay Duda

UPDATE: Crowder and his touring comedy team of Drew Morgan and Corey Forrester sold out shows across the country all year and this summer published a book called The Liberal Redneck Manifesto: Draggin’ Dixie Outta the Dark. It only half-jokingly described the viewpoint of white rural Southerners abandoned by liberals, a premise that proved disturbingly prescient after the presidential election. Earlier this month, deadline.com reported that Fox is buying a single-camera sitcom starring Crowder based on his liberal redneck character returning to his conservative Tennessee hometown to start a job at an energy research facility, with his California-born wife in tow.

December 22, 2016

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ISSUE 25: JUNE 23

Zoo Knoxville’s Big Plan

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major expansion will soon move the gibbons and their neighbors the tigers, now almost hidden behind mesh and chain link, to the new “Asia Trek” section of the zoo.

The physical overhaul will not only be the zoo’s largest in a decade, but also signifies broader changes in the nonprofit’s vision and identity. The newly-renamed Zoo Knoxville aims to almost double its annual visitation, becoming more financially stable.

Zoo officials argue that, as the No. 1 tourist destination in the county, the zoo drives economic growth that benefits local governments, businesses and taxpayers—even residents who never set foot there or hear the gibbon’s call.

Knoxville politicians appear to be sold on this argument. City Mayor Madeline Rogero held her annual budget announcement at the zoo’s upgraded event tent, touting the city’s commitment of $10 million in bond funds to help finance the new and improved animal exhibits.

—S. Heather Duncan

UPDATE: Zoo officials were notified last week that they have been approved for a female tiger from California to join the zoo’s two males by the time the zoo’s new Tiger Forest exhibit opens in April, and (hopefully) have cubs in the future. The response to the zoo’s fundraising campaign for Tiger Forest was so good that the zoo has now moved on to raising money for the rest of the “Asia Trek” section and a new herpetology facility.

ISSUE 26: JUNE 30

Knox County Jail’s Profiteering Policies

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o letters. No in-person visits.

And every call or message has a cost. Once you’re inside the Knox County Jail, those who are outside seem much farther away than a few feet of concrete.

Knox County Public Defender Mark Stephens and members of the grassroots Knox County Incarceration Collective are publicly criticizing the Knox County Sheriff’s Office for policies they say sacrifice families, inmate health, and public safety to the almighty dollar.

Stephens says the Sheriff’s Office make it difficult or miserable for inmates to communicate with their families for free, forcing them to pay for the privilege as the county takes a cut of the profits. Historically, at least half of those in the Knox County jail, the work release center, and the Roger D. Wilson Detention Facility are awaiting trial and have not yet been

Photo by Patrick Murphy-Racey

school is interpreting and implementing this new law. Why were the offices closed earlier than may have been required? Out of four departments under the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, why was the Pride Center the only one to lose funding? Could more have been done to save it? And was it targeted even though it wasn’t specifically named in the law?

—Clay Duda

Photo by Tricia Bateman

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY December 22, 2016

convicted of a crime.

“The current visitation policy is maybe one of the most detrimental policies to be implemented at the detention facility and jail of any I’ve seen in the 35 years I’ve practiced,” Stephens says. “If we don’t have any compassion for individual defendants within our system, surely to God we have compassion for the children and loved ones of those individuals.”

Defense lawyers and activists claim the county’s money-grubbing extends to deliberately underfeeding inmates to boost revenue from the jail commissary, where those with enough money can supplement scanty meals with snacks. Knox County Sheriff’s Office communications director Martha Dooley provided a copy of the nutritional policy, which requires dietary allowances to be reviewed at least annually by a nutritionist to meet nationally recommended allowances for basic nutrition. But Stephens says 80 to 90 percent of his clients complain of hunger, and his poor clients almost always visibly lose weight in jail.

—S. Heather Duncan

UPDATE: Sheriff J.J. Jones changed the jail’s mail policy, effective Nov. 8, to allow prisoners to receive letters as

well as postcards. The change was part of an annual review of policies and procedures, says spokesperson Martha Dooley.

Paul Wright, director of the Human Rights Defense Center and editor of Prison Legal News says there have been new developments in the lawsuit against the county and Jones that Prison Legal News filed over the postcard policy more than a year ago.

ISSUE 27: JULY 7

Goodbye, Pat

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he first time I saw a Lady Vols basketball game was in 1996, when the Lady Vols were on their way to winning a fourth national title. But I didn’t know that. I followed football reflexively, a Knoxville survival mechanism, but women’s sports didn’t register at all.

For good reason. As a card-carrying UT alumni and theater geek, I survived the indignities of having theater parking lots commandeered and performances canceled whenever the basketball or football teams played. Years of trying to negotiate Byzantine performance schedules in order to avoid game days had built up a callous of resentment. The last

that probate court was requiring the home sold by Nov. 2. Planning and Zoning officials say no request for a zoning change was ever filed.

According to the Knox County Probate Court Clerk’s office, the estate was closed Dec. 2, and there are no documents in the file indicating the sale of the house. The Knox County Registrar of deeds indicates the house is still owned by the three brothers. Tim Howard, whose address is listed as the responsible party for the house, has not responded to an inquiry from the Mercury.

ISSUE 31: AUG. 11

Emerald Academy: Assessing Its First Year

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merald Academy, Knoxville’s first charter school, began its second school year a few weeks ago with two new grades—including sixth, its first foray into middle school. Privately-run charter schools like Emerald are approved by local school boards or the state board or education as a free alternative to public schools, and school tax dollars pay at least part of their costs. These schools, governed by charter, are given flexibility to try different teaching, testing, and discipline methods. While acknowledging

ISSUE 29: JULY 21

Rezoning North Broadway’s Howard House

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UPDATE: The fate of the house remains

unclear. The letter written this summer, signed by executor Nick Howard, stated

UPDATE: Emerald Academy announced last week that school director Jon Rysewyk is returning to Knox County Schools to become interim chief academic officer, and Renee Kelly will serve as interim school director starting in January until a permanent replacement is named. In the meantime, Kelly, a former principal at West Valley Middle School, will continue to serve in her previous role as Dean of Scholars. Rysewyk’s potential as a candidate for the open superintendent position in Knox County Schools has been the subject of speculation by some who follow local education issues closely.

ISSUE 32: AUG. 18

The Disc Exchange Winds Down

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ast weekend, the Disc Exchange in South Knoxville experienced a time warp to 1995: The parking lot was full of cars each day, music lovers browsed the aisles, and lines formed as shoppers carried their treasures to the counter. But the transformation was fleeting and the mood wasn’t altogether celebratory.

Many of the customers were actually paying their final respects to the last locally owned record store to offer new releases on CD, while others were taking advantage of its sudden 40-percent-off liquidation sale.

After nearly 30 years of slinging silver discs—the last 25 at their Chapman Highway storefront—owners Allan Miller and Jennie Ingram announced on Friday that they were shutting down the blazing yellow store that has been an integral part of Knoxville’s music scene. The resulting crowds were a bittersweet reminder of the days when physical media was the only game in town and consumers would buy their music in the real world—sometimes even conversing with other humans in the process.

—Coury Turczyn

ISSUE 34: SEPT. 1

Photo by Clay Duda

n estate controlling a historic Craftsman home on North Broadway has sent a letter notifying Knoxville City Council and Mayor Madeline Rogero of its plans to seek commercial zoning for the property.

If approved by the Metropolitan Planning Commission and Council, the change would likely pave the way for demolition of the house built in 1910 and owned by former city councilman Paul Howard until his death in 2014.

During the past 18 months, the Howard House has become a lightening rod for the tension between private property rights and historic preservation. It has also been a driver in conversations about what businesses and neighborhoods in the North Broadway corridor want future development to look like.

Howard’s will requires his three sons to sell the house and divide the profits. A development company that builds Walmart Neighborhood Markets offered the family $1.27 million for the property last year, before backing away from the deal in September in the face of public opposition.

—S. Heather Duncan

that its first year with the two youngest grades was probably the easiest, Emerald Academy leaders express confidence about student growth.

It’s too soon to conclude whether Emerald’s educational model is more effective than the public schools’. But despite a few hiccups, many parents say they’re happy with Emerald’s rigorous and individualized teaching approach. It’s a new model for Knox County, which the school system is backing with millions in tax dollars in hopes of improving performance among children from inner-city neighborhoods with low-performing public schools.

—S. Heather Duncan

Photo courtesy of Disc Exchange

thing I wanted to do was support the local sports hegemony in any way, shape, or form.

And I really didn’t like basketball.

My only memory of the game was playing half court in high school gym class. There was no women’s varsity team and our gym teacher explained that we weren’t allowed to play full court because the constant running might cause our vaginas to fall out.

Seriously.

This is why women of my age don’t just love Pat Summitt, we revere her.

Unlike men, most of us didn’t grow up with team sports. We weren’t taught how to be competitive. To reach for greatness. In anything, ever. At least I wasn’t. But Pat has been teaching all along that it’s in there—in each of us, if we’re willing to work for it.

—Jayne Morgan

UT’s New Mantra: Build, Raze, Repeat

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n August 2015, the University of Tennessee demolished the Apartment Residence Hall dormitories on December 22, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 21

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

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.

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?

—George Dodds

redundantly named Apartment Residence Hall 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

ISSUE 42: OCT. 27

Will Randy Boyd Bring Back the Smokies?

Photo by Clay Duda

INTERESTING PEOPLE WE MET

Stan Brock

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ou’d be hard pressed to find Stan Brock somewhere else besides the 55,000-square-foot campus of Remote Area Medical headquarters in Rockford near Old Knoxville Highway. If he’s not here in East Tennessee, he’s likely out somewhere offering help—Guyana, Haiti, Baton Rouge, or some hollow in rural Appalachia—directing the latest batch of volunteers on a disaster relief mission, or helping lead pop-up clinics to provide free medical care to America’s uninsured.

Today, he’s in the corner parking lot of RAM HQ in his trademark safari gear, matching khaki pants and shirt, with RAM logos fixed above his breast pockets and on his shoulder straps. His silver hair is slicked back and well manicured, accenting the imposing demeanor he was known for as co-host of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom in the 1960s.

He’s looking over a newly purchased pull-behind trailer, one RAM volunteers will help retrofit to serve as a mobile command center during future disaster-relief operations, like the one volunteers are at now in Baton Rouge after flood water inundated parts of the city and some surrounding parishes.

For the past three decades, Brock has devoted most every waking hour to helping RAM and its mission; from navigating red tape and regulations, to get volunteers on the ground, to volunteering himself and coordinating its latest relief efforts. Now in his 80th year, Brock shows no signs of slowing down.

—Clay Duda, Sept. 15

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY December 22, 2016

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ocal governments used to love the hackneyed baseball-movie mantra: “If you build it, they will come.” Economic development officials claimed having a sports arena or stadium would provide a boost to the local economy. While that idea has been pretty much universally debunked—it just moves local entertainment spending and jobs around, rather than creating new ones—cities today justify subsidizing sports venues as a way to revitalize distressed urban neighborhoods.

But will it turn around a struggling area?

“Some communities have managed to do that successfully, but it has to be planned very carefully, and it does not always work,” says David Swindell, director of the Center for Urban Innovation at Arizona State University.

Knoxville may need to figure this out within the next 10 years. A series of property purchases by Knoxville business magnate Randy Boyd, which culminated in early September, led to the revelation that he is considering moving his Tennessee Smokies baseball team back to Knoxville from Kodak when its current lease runs out in 2025.

Boyd, who is also the state economic development commissioner, has repeatedly denied having a specific plan for the property. But emails among Boyd and top city officials indicate Boyd has been in preliminary

talks with Knoxville leaders about the possibility of moving the Smokies to that specific area.

—S. Heather Duncan

ISSUE 44: NOV. 10

Sex Trafficking in Knoxville

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or a woman who lived most of her life in a very dark place, Destiny beams light. Her hair is scraped back tightly to reveal bright eyes shining from a round face and a smile that flashes like a lighthouse beam. But her bubbly demeanor can mask other emotions close to the surface. It’s a daily struggle to trust others and to forgive herself and her family for the manipulation, addiction, and prostitution that dominated her life until a year ago.

Today, Destiny (who chose a pseudonym for this article) is working her first legit job as a hostess at a popular local family restaurant. Her career goal is to be a chef on a cargo ship, because she loves to feed people using her own recipes. (Her jerk chicken, she says, is renowned).

Until recently, Destiny could not have imagined such a future, or even her life today: A paycheck to spend as she chooses. A quiet evening at home.

A bed that is hers alone.

Sex trafficking is a very old crime.

But treating it as a crime is new.

Since 2011, Tennessee has become a national leader in the effort to uncover and punish sex trafficking.

Yet Knoxville—the only major city in the state with no safe house for trafficking victims—lagged in understanding the problem until the last 18 months or so. Since then, there have been more arrests of pimps and men who pay for sex, an expansion of support services for victims, and a push to open a safe house in 2017.

—S. Heather Duncan

ISSUE 45: NOV. 17

Groups Form to Show Support for Knoxville’s Immigrants

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s the results of the U.S. presidential race rolled in early Wednesday morning, Hannah

HAPPY HOLIDAYS from the staff of the Knoxville Mercury!

ISSUE 48: DEC. 8

Gatlinburg’s Aftermath

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t’s Tuesday in Gatlinburg, and the smoky aftermath of last night’s fire is draped like a dirty quilt across this mountain town. From its folds Gatlinburg-Pittman High School has emerged as a command center for first responders and a refuge for displaced residents.

It is one of several shelters set up in churches and community centers in the area, and for the first few hours of the day the outpost is eerily calm.

The evacuees seeking refuge in the school’s athletics complex, Rocky Top Sports World, are visibly exhausted. Some attempt rest on cots in the gymnasium, Red Cross blankets pulled over their heads to block out the cheerful fluorescent lights. Others sit slumped in chairs, staring at images of their ruined neighborhoods on television screens, try to piece together the narrative of a waking nightmare that continues to unfold.

Carol Lilleaas watches the screen intently, searching for any clue that her home of 12 years survived the night.

“I know nothing,” she says. “It will either be there or it won’t.”

—Leslie Wylie Bateman

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Photo by Bruce McCamish

Houser was feeling hopeless. She thought of Yassin Terou, the bubbly Syrian-American owner of Yassin’s Falafel House on Walnut Street.

“I was thinking, what’s a good way to make everyone remember they’re loved and welcome in Knoxville?” she says. “And Yassin always makes me feel that way.”

So she used Facebook to invite all the other Knoxvillians who agreed to come to Yassin’s for a Love Trumps Hate Lunch to share the message of solidarity and respect while helping the Syrian immigrant’s business.

Houser’s simple Facebook event has expanded into the creation of several community groups focused on finding ways to support progressive causes and marginalized community members.

The largest is Love Trumps Hate: Knoxville, founded by Houser soon after the Yassin’s lunch. After almost a week, the group had close to 7,000 members on Facebook. Houser and other coordinators plan to meet soon to discuss concrete goals and service opportunities arising from the group, which has also spawned some neighborhood-based groups like South Knox United.

—S. Heather Duncan

Thank you for your support and look for exciting new initiatives in 2017!

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December 22, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 23

A&E

P rogram Notes

Free Lunch

hen Waynestock was first held, in 2011, it seemed like a nice gesture—a local-music benefit to raise money for News Sentinel music writer Wayne Bledsoe and his family after the death of Bledsoe’s 23-year-old son, Andrew, the previous year. In 2012, though, it felt like something similar was needed after the death of Phil Pollard, a garrulous character and talented, perhaps even visionary musician who had led the unclassifiable jazz-rock combo Band of Humans in Knoxville. So Waynestock II raised money for Pollard’s family.

By 2013, the good news was that Waynestock didn’t need to be a memorial fundraiser—so the third Waynestock raised money for the lively Community School for the Arts.

And it’s been held every winter since, with the best of Knoxville’s music community filling up Relix Variety Theatre in Happy Holler for a weekend of musical mayhem.

“Waynestock began because of something terrible, but it became something amazing,” says Maryville Daily Times music writer Steve Wildsmith in a short documentary on the festival’s website.

Waynestock VII, set for Feb. 3-4 at Relix, will benefit Pilot Light, the Old City rock club that earlier this year became a nonprofit organization.

The lineup for Waynestock VII includes the indie rock band the Billy Widgets, soul-rock up-and-comers Electric Darling, Jefferson City country-rock band Exit 65, members

of the local hip-hop coalition the Good Guy Collective, Americana band Guy Marshall, veterans Mic Harrison and the High Score, the eclectic Greg Horne Band, the R&B/honky-tonk ensemble the John Myers Band, world music-inspired Paperwork, and jangly indie rock group Sweet Years, plus Nashville Americana band Andrew Leahey and the Homestead.

Saturday night’s set concludes with an all-star jam session paying tribute to notable musicians who died in 2016.

Music starts at 7 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 3, and 6 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 4.

Admission is $5 each night, with raffles and door prizes. Visit waynestock.org for more info and a complete schedule.

—Matthew Everett

WDVX’S BLUE PLATE SPECIAL WILL TAKE A WINTER HIATUS For more than a decade, six days a week, all year long, WDVX has broadcast an hour of live music, performed in front of an audience, on the Blue Plate Special lunchtime show hosted by Red Hickey. It’s the only show like it we know of—a modern-day tribute to Knoxville’s old live country-music radio broadcasts from the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s, like the Mid-Day Merry Go Round.

Country, or at least country-ish music is still the main focus, but the Blue Plate Special recognizes no strict genre boundaries. You’re as likely to hear jangly indie pop or beefy electric guitars as traditional country or old-time music.

The series began in 2004, not long after WDVX moved its headquarters from an old camper on a hilltop near Clinton to the Knoxville Visitors Center on Gay Street. Over the last 12 years, the Blue Plate Special has hosted performances by the Avett Brothers, Old Crow Medicine Show, Nickel Creek, Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton, and St. Paul and the Broken Bones, among many other notables.

But the series, one of downtown Knoxville’s distinctive attractions, will take a break this winter during renovations to the Visitors Center. Starting on Jan. 2, the Visitors Center will move its operations into a temporary building in the parking lot next door. The Visitors Center is scheduled to reopen on Friday, March 3, with Blue Plate Special performances resuming then.

The schedule for the remaining Blue Plate Specials includes the Wooks and Scott Southworth (Dec. 22), Emi Sunshine and the Tennessee Sheiks (Dec. 23), Todd Steed and the Christmas Suns (Dec. 24), Sydni Stinnett (Dec. 26), Mudbone (Dec. 27), Cassidy Lynn and Adam Graybeal’s Hillbilly Soul (Dec. 28), the Knox County Jug Stompers and Sam Hatmaker (Dec. 29), Lacy Green and Barefoot Sanctuary (Dec. 30), and Kim Smith, David Boettcher, and Cassidy Diana (Dec. 31).

A series of WDVX Blue Plate Special Road Shows are planned during the hiatus. You can also check out WDVX’s two other live-broadcast performance series: the weekly Tennessee Shines concerts on Wednesday nights at 7 p.m. at the Jig and Reel in the Old City (admission is $10) and the 6 O’Clock Swerve, hosted by Wayne Bledsoe from Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria on Thursdays at 6 p.m. (admission is free). Visit wdvx.com for more info.

—M.E.

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PAPERWORK

GREG HORNE

GUY MARSHAL

ELECTRIC DARLING

Friends With Benefits Local music scene reconvenes for Waynestock VII

W

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Shelf Life: Christmas Music

KNOXVILLE MERCURY December 22, 2016

Music: Black Lillies

Classical: Best Performances

Movie: Rogue One

Shelf Life

Music for Merry-Making Enjoy some sounds of the season from Knox County Public Library’s streaming music service

BY CHRIS BARRETT

K

nox County Public Library has hundreds of compact discs of winter holiday music. But as you may have already learned the hard way, most of them are checked out just now, raising spirits yonder. Don’t despair. The library’s Music Online database has an even larger selection.

And unlike some of our other digital collections, Music Online is not limited by licensing, so you won’t need to wait or reserve anything. Music Online may be your best value for instant gratification this holiday season.

I’ll recommend that you search and explore. Be bold. If that sounds too much like holiday homework, I’ll spot you these places to begin. Handy algorithms will help you pursue new titles aligned with those you hear and like. You can find the Music Online link at knoxlib.org/explore-collection/e-media; first-time users will need to register and login. (If you view the online version of this column, recommended titles—and a playlist I put together just for you—will have links to assist.)

VARIOUS ARTISTS BLUES, BLUES, CHRISTMAS

Rocking the blues for Christmas may strike you as counterintuitive, but I will advise that Titus Turner, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Half-Pint Jackson, Butterbeans and Susie, or any of the other performers and preachers on this three-hour throwdown are likely to change your way of thinking. The Document Records label, based in Austria, has long been the premier archival label for early 20th-century American blues. If blues is your thing, you’ve probably seen the other choice Document CD titles we keep on the shelves. The variety contained here

plays like a short-course survey in music made by black Americans between 1925 and 1955. There’s big-band swing, hot jazz, Delta moaning, and a bunch of the guitar- or piano-driven straight-up dance music that primed the planet for rock ’n’ roll.

I mentioned in a previous column that Alexander Street, the publisher of our Music Online database, was created to support academic research. From the playlist for this title (like many others), you can view and download a PDF of the 20-page booklet that accompanies the retail version, plush with details about the songs, personnel, and recording sessions. I apologize for not tipping you to this in time for you to hijack the office Christmas party, but there’s always next year.

THE CZECH CHAMBER SOLOISTS AND CZECH PHILHARMONIC CHOIR CONDUCTED BY PETR FIALA MORAVIAN CHRISTMAS

This is an album of terrific festive choir music, alternating between 19th-century Czech traditional material and contemporary compositions in the same style. If you’re familiar with the music of Leoš Janáček, it should be easy for you to imagine. Janáček shares roots with this choir from Brünn, where he spent his formative years. The mood and sounds vary ecstatically from rapturous full chorus to male and female soloists to recitative.

While we’re on the subject of esoteric music, don’t be fooled by my shameless use or misuse of a vocabulary that I understand only superficially. I make use of KCPL’s online Oxford Encyclopedia of Music, and I invite you to do the same and even bookmark it. It’s a fantastic resource to track down anything from mere facts

A&E

to future favorites—be they hillbilly music or avant-whatever.

TENNESSEE TECH TROMBONE CHOIR CHRISTMAS TROMBONES TENNESSEE TECH TUBA ENSEMBLE CHRISTMAS TUBAS

Granted, bass-clef brass is not for everybody. But fine instrumental music ought to be. So much of the holiday music you’ll hear this season is dominated by post-prime pop vocalists. Even if the accompanists are decent, they rarely have an opportunity to demonstrate the fact.

These talented young people seem to be having the time of their lives working out on this familiar music.

The tempos and range of sounds—especially on Christmas Tubas—is impressive and unexpected. Earbudding Jose Feliciano’s “Feliz Navidad” on tubas and euphoniums playing call-and-response allows you to be sly and ironic and yet sincere on so many clever levels.

VARIOUS ARTISTS BELLS AND WINTER FESTIVALS OF GREEK MACEDONIA

I have been listening closely to this library for many years, and this collection of field recordings from the winter holidays of 2000 and 2001 is one of the most fascinating things I’ve come across. Folklorist Steven Feld captured these sounds—ranging from belled goats being herded up-mountain to revelers, wearing perhaps the same bells, getting a second wind after midnight on New Year’s Eve—to accompany a book of photographs.

KCPL does not appear to have that book, but the PDF liner notes are richly illustrated and transporting. The sounds of these villages—parades, conversations in many languages, footfalls aplenty, doors opening and closing, animals everywhere, and of course the bells from the title—are evocative and real. Listen, then imagine field recordings of your own party-hopping this week. Headphones recommended if you have a dog in the house. ◆ Shelf Life explores new and timely entries from the Knox County Public Library’s collection of movies and music.

December 22, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 25

A&E

Music

Photo by Joseph Llanes

Season Finale The Black Lillies end a tumultuous year and look ahead to a new one

BY CAREY HODGES

W

ith 200-plus shows, the theft of tens of thousands of dollars in gear, and lineup changes on the horizon, 2016 has been an eventful year for the Black Lillies—and the pace doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon.

Songwriter/frontman Cruz Contreras is used to the unexpected, though. The bandleader has learned to thrive despite the constant change—which is a good thing, considering that pedal-steel guitarist Jonathan Keeney and vocalist Trisha Gene Brady, two of the band’s key members, will be leaving the group in the new year.

“You know, for the past two years, we’ve had continuous lineup changes,” Contreras says. “That’s nothing new as far as the band’s concerned.

It’s been an evolving project ever since the first record, really. New Year’s Eve will be Trisha and Jonathan’s last hometown show. And our guitar player, Dustin Schaefer, has already started working on his solo

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY December 22, 2016

project. There are five of us in the band who are all going to start pursuing solo projects in addition to playing together. It’s exciting.”

The Lillies’ New Year’s Eve show at the Mill and Mine kicks off a fresh set of shake ups for the band, which released its fourth album, Hard to Please, in October 2015. A departure from the Americana act’s previous three LPs, the album’s bold, soultinged sound earned it a spot on the Americana Music Association’s Top 100 Albums of 2016 and inspired write-ups in Rolling Stone, Billboard, and Vanity Fair. But for the band members, who have steadily toured and released albums since the beginning, the success feels more like a natural progression than an unexpected breakthrough.

“It’s our fourth record, so in one sense, we’re building on what we’ve done in the past,” Contreras says.

“With each record, we potentially have more fans. We have more people to check out the music, pass it along,

and share it with others. Hopefully we’ve proven our craft over the years.”

As for why the record has resonated with a larger audience?

“It’s certainly one of those things that’s not for me to decide,” Contreras says. “I don’t know if it just means more people are listening to it, or if it’s better, or if it’s just different. We hired a producer [Ryan Hewitt] for Hard to Please, so it’s different sonically. And we definitely have a bigger team than we had in the beginning. In the beginning, there was no team. It was like, ‘Here’s the record in the palm of my hand.’”

More people are definitely listening. The current lineup of Contreras, Brady, Keeney, Schaefer, Sam Quinn, and Bowman Townsend continues to fill larger venues, with fans from across the country turning to social media to praise performances and request tour stops. By having its New Year’s Eve show at the 1,200-capacity Mill and Mine, the band hopes to pack in as many people as possible.

“It’s a big night for us,” Contreras says. “You know, in 2017, the Black Lillies are going to have some new members. So it’s a big step. I really think it’s important that everyone is in the moment and makes the most of this night. We have fans nationwide that are travelling to be a part of it. It’s an opportunity we have, sharing our music, for people to come together and really celebrate the things we have in common.”

In addition to lineup changes, 2017 will also mark a first for the Lillies—an overseas tour. Starting in February, the band will hop between Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, and the U.K. for a month-long series of shows.

“It’s something we’ve been aiming to do for years,” Contreras says. “For a band like us that’s independent, it’s certainly not easy to do on our own. We’ve been looking for the right booking agent over there who’s looking to take a chance on us.

It’s really just timing.”

According to Contreras, the band will be promoting Hard to Please, which has received some airplay in

the European market.

“In all of our years of touring, we’ve certainly met people in the States from [Europe] who have asked us to come,” he says. “We’ll definitely have a welcome reception.”

Between touring, publicity, and spending time with his son, Contreras says he’s been working on new material.

“I’m taking baby steps. It’s kind of a great position I need to put myself in where I can get back to the time and energy to focus on creating.”

But regardless of what 2017 brings, Contreras says that his main focus is—and continues to be—the Black Lillies as a band, which he hopes will resonate with fans on New Year’s Eve. “We’ll certainly have some guest artists,” he says of the New Year’s performance. “But at the same time, I really want to focus on the Black Lillies. You know, our band has years of experience, and I want to make sure that it’s a priority that we do our thing. I think it’s a great way to put a cap on this year. It’s a good way to show our hometown fans—all of our fans, really—what we’ve been up to, and say thank you for everything.” ◆

WHO

The Black Lillies with Alanna Royale

WHERE

The Mill and Mine (227 W. Depot Ave.)

WHEN

Saturday, Dec. 31, at 9 p.m.

HOW MUCH $30-$50

INFO

themillandmine.com or theblacklillies.com

Classical

A&E

MOST MEMORABLE CHAMBER-MUSIC PERFORMANCES

From the Top The most memorable classical-music performances of 2016

BY ALAN SHERROD

I

n the introduction to my “Most Memorable” list for 2015, I wrote about the “explosion in the variety of classical-music performances as well as the emergence of new performers and ensembles.” That continued in 2016, but with several added twists, not the least of which was the installation of Aram Demirjian as new music director for the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra.

The year also saw the introduction of a community participation ensemble, Scruff y City Orchestra, as well as a novel approach to production by Knoxville Opera with its multi-venue take on Puccini’s Tosca. And, the 2016 Big Ears Festival revealed yet another dimension of Knoxville’s diverse music identity, blurring categories and opening eyes and ears.

Here, then, are my 2016 picks for “Most Memorable” classical music performances and performers.

MOST MEMORABLE ORCHESTRAL PERFORMANCES

With half of 2016 dedicated to the audition concerts for KSO’s next music director and the other half to the transitional fi rst season of Demirjian’s tenure, this category had some obvious complexity. Nevertheless, I have chosen three KSO performances, listed here in chronological order.

Despite the anxiety of a January weather scare and the subsequently smaller-than-usual audience, Demirjian’s audition concert, with works by John Adams, György Ligeti, Max Bruch, and Beethoven (Symphony No. 7), had an energetic wildness that, even if not completely intentional, was truly impressive.

KSO candidate Eckart Preu led his February audition concert with works by Richard Strauss, Mozart, Jennifer Higdon, and Prokofiev. In my review, I noted that “conductor and orchestra had developed a unity of purpose, a chemistry, that took the performance to another level.”

KSO resident conductor James Fellenbaum led May’s Masterworks concert, which featured The Ring, An Orchestral Adventure, a one-hour distillation of music from Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle by the Dutch arranger Henk de Vlieger. From my review: “Fellenbaum gave the audience a superb program fi lled with clever moments and solidly captivating performances.”

MOST MEMORABLE CONCERTO SOLOISTS

Violinist Phillipe Quint contributed substantially to Demirjian’s January concert with Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1. From my review: “[T] he second Adagio movement carries the Romantic heart of the concerto where Quint’s judicious balance of lushness and melody was poignant and striking.”

In an October KSO Chamber Orchestra performance of Piazzolla’s The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, soloist Edward Pulgar, the orchestra’s principal second violin, “gave a sensational performance … creative in presenting focused statements of theme and background, but also lovingly precise in delivering colorful tonal details.”

Mention also goes to pianist Orion Weiss’ September KSO performance of Rachmaninoff ’s Piano Concerto No. 3.

The mixing of KSO performers and University of Tennessee School of Music faculty members continued to yield auspicious results. UT faculty pianist Kevin Class wrapped up his series of Brahms’ complete chamber music with piano with two works: the Piano Quartet in A Major and the Piano Quintet in F Minor. Joining Class were KSO quartet members Miroslav Hristov, Kathryn Gawne, and Andy Bryenton and KSO quintet members Ruth Bacon Edewards, Sara Matayoshi, Hillary Herndon, and Stacy Nickell.

KSO’s Concertmaster Series wowed its audiences with a January performance of Dvorak’s Piano Quartet No. 2 with Gabriel Lefkowitz, Class, Gawne, and Bryenton.

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MOST MEMORABLE OPERATIC PERFORMANCES

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Knoxville Opera’s April production of Tosca drew acclaim in two ways: its novel scheme of using separate, nontheatrical locations for each of its three acts and a sensational cast.

Jonathan Burton, as Mario Cavaradossi, soprano Kerri Marcinko, in the title role of Floria Tosca, and baritone Scott Bearden, as Baron Scarpia, made the experience all the more memorable.

An excellent fall grouping of two one-act operas, La Divina and Gallantry, with only minimal sets and props, made it clear that Marble City Opera deserves its chamber/contemporary niche in Knoxville’s arts scene.

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MOST MEMORABLE CONTEMPORARY MUSIC PERFORMANCES

The Big Ears Festival continued to push the diversity of the music scene into new territory. KSO’s stunning festival performance of John Luther Adams’ Become Ocean was a defi nite marker for the future.

UT’s Andrew Bliss and his extraordinary nief-norf Summer Festival pushed contemporary music—and its mind-expanding experience—into greater visibility for Knoxville audiences. ◆

Third Edition

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December 22, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 27

A&E

Movies

Galactic Detour With Rogue One, director Gareth Edwards contributes a non-sequel to the ultimate film franchise

BY APRIL SNELLINGS

W

hen news first began trickling out of the Disney/Lucasfilm camp about a series of standalone Star Wars films whose stories would play out at the edges of the core saga, it was met with an understandable mix of hopefulness and skepticism—the Star Wars universe is an incredibly rich one that can reward expansion and exploration, but it wasn’t until the release of last year’s The Force Awakens that the ratio of good Star Wars movies to bad ones finally tipped in fans’ favor.

Now that the first installment of what would eventually be dubbed the Star Wars Anthology Series is out, we can defer our concerns until the as-yet-untitled Han Solo movie draws closer to its planned May 2018 release. By design, Rogue One doesn’t aspire to the mythic scope of its predecessors; it’s a geeky refraction of a single familiar plot point, centering

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY December 22, 2016

almost entirely on the types of characters usually given little more to do than delivering exposition, providing comic relief, or dying nobly in service of the hero’s quest. It’s the Star Wars equivalent of giving the Howling Commandos their own movie while ignoring guys like Nick Fury or Captain America. And while it’s far from perfect, it’s satisfying in ways that are wholly different from other Star Wars entries.

From the get-go, Rogue One is a smaller, more contained film that borrows as much from paranoid war thrillers as soaring space fantasies.

Set just before the opening scenes of Episode IV, the story concerns the previously unnamed rebel spies who famously stole the Death Star plans.

These include Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), a cynical young woman whose father, Galen (Mads Mikkelsen), is the planet-killer’s main architect, and

Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), a rebel captain who has essentially sold his soul to fight the Empire.

The two of them are forced together by plot machinations that I’d rather not go into, partly to keep the story’s surprises intact but mostly because Rogue One’s first half is meandering and unnecessarily convoluted. A dizzying array of new characters are introduced: Besides Jyn and Cassian, there’s reprogrammed Imperial droid K-2SO (voiced by cast standout Alan Tudyk); blind warrior-monk Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen) and his battle-hardened companion, Baze Malbus (Wen Jian); radical resistance fighter Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker); and defected Imperial pilot Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed).

If it sounds like a lot to take in, it is. On their own, none of these characters are all that compelling— they’re likeable enough, but it isn’t until they begin to care about each other that we begin to care about them. To Rogue One’s detriment, this takes a long time and involves some dodgy plot contrivances, leaving the first half to rely more on its stellar (pun intended) production design and visual FX than on story and character.

Ultimately, what makes Rogue One so appealing is the very thing that holds it back for so long. It’s a movie about the sort of people who don’t really carry movies—it’s all Wedges and no Lukes. (If you don’t get that reference, be forewarned that many of Rogue One’s most robust

pleasures will fly over your head in less than 12 parsecs. It’s not exclusively tailored to the faithful, but it certainly rewards them.) And its status as a stand-alone story means these are probably not characters who are being groomed for sequels and spin-offs; the story takes a few surprising turns that wouldn’t be on the table in a Star Wars movie with a roman numeral baked into its title.

But if the first half feels sterile and noisy, the second half is a rousing, frenetic thriller that makes good on promises you didn’t even know the movie had made. Director Gareth Edwards, whose only previous theatrical features were 2010’s Monsters and 2014’s underrated Godzilla reboot, knows his way around an action scene and has an eye for stunning visuals, shooting AT-ATs like monstrous kaiju emerging from fog banks and TIE fighters like menacing, insectile swarms. Rogue One has imagination to spare and looks as good as any Star Wars film to date.

My favorite thing about it, though, is that it contains something so old-fashioned that it seems quaint in today’s world of big-budget genre films: an ending. We’d like to know more about some of the scruffy characters introduced here, but by the time the credits roll, there’s a definite sense that they’ve served their purpose. I had all but forgotten how it feels to walk out of a $200 million movie that’s gutsy enough to tell a story rather than simply set one in motion. ◆

"Against the assault of laughter,

"Laughter is a force

nothing can stand.�

for democracy.�

- Mark Twain

- John Cleese

40 comedians from five states are gathering in Knoxville to stand up for civil liberties. Be a part of the WHAT A JOKE National Comedy Fest taking place Inauguration Weekend in 29 cities across the country, including here in Knoxville. Proceeds from all shows will be donated to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Stand up for everyone. Join us in Knoxville for live comedy and to raise funds to defend our civil liberties at these venues:

Thursday, January 19

Friday, January 20

The Pilot Light Pretentious Glass Co.

The Central Collective Modern Studio Ironwood Studios

A full festival schedule TBA on WhatAJokeKnox.com

Advance Tickets go on sale Friday, December 16 at whatajokeknox.bpt.me $10 (Thursday only); $15 (Friday only), $20 (Full Weekend Pass) PRODUCED BY:

www.whatajokefest.com www.facebook.com/whatajokefest twitter: @whatajokefest

ADDITIONAL SPONSORS:

*WHAT A JOKE is not an affiliated entity with the ACLU. We are an independent entity donating proceeds.

December 22, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 29

CALENDAR MUSIC

Thursday, Dec. 22 THE WOOKS WITH SCOTT SOUTHWORTH • 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 BILLY STRINGS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 6PM • FREE OPEN CHORD SCHOOL OF MUSIC CHRISTMAS RECITAL AND CONCERT • The Open Chord • 7PM • Open Chord will be having it’s semi-annual student recital featuring our students. Music will start out acoustic and transition to electric as the night progresses. The teachers will close out the evening. This event is open to the public as well as family and friends. Come support our students as they play music for you.

THE BIG VALLEY MUSTANGS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 8PM Friday, Dec. 23 EMI SUNSHINE • 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 WENDEL WERNER • Red Piano Lounge • 6PM LEAH GARDNER AND ONE BADASS BAND • Holly’s Corner • 7PM • Local Knoxville artist Leah Gardner will be performing soulful and folky swing with one badass band including Devan Jones, Seth Hopper, Jon Whitlock, Matt Coker, and Clint Mullican. • $10 HEADWATER • Vienna Coffee House (Maryville) • 7PM • FREE FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose • 8PM • Jason Thompson’s band doesn’t play bebop, the mainstay of the American saxman for more than half a century. He prefers to do something different. Frog and Toad can sound more old-fashioned than bebop, with Dixieland and ragtime tunes. But then, in the same set, they’ll sound more modern than bebop, with funk or fusion, or something original he wrote last week. • FREE HAZEL WITH THE HOLIFIELDS AND BOYS WITH SHIRTS • The Open Chord • 8PM • Local bands plays your favorite holiday songs. All ages. • $5 TRACTORHEAD • Preservation Pub • 8PM • 21 and up.

MOJO:FLOW • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 9PM THE COVERALLS • Scruffy City Hall • 9PM • Knoxville’s long-running bar/wedding/special event favorites are masters of mood—they know what an audience wants, whether it’s Top 40 hits, Motown, classic rock, or jazz standards, and they deliver, on time, every time.

CAPTAIN SUCK AND THE MEDIOCRE BAND • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM SPECTRUM • Red Piano Lounge • 9PM DEVAN JONES AND THE UPTOWN STOMP • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE SOULFINGER • Preservation Pub • 10PM • Funky big-band soul and R&B. COLE WITH PERSONA LA AVE AND SOFT BODIES • Pilot Light • 10PM • 18 and up. • $5 WILL CARTER • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM Saturday, Dec. 24 TODD STEED AND THE CHRISTMAS SUNS • 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 30

KNOXVILLE MERCURY December 22, 2016

Thursday, Dec. 22 - Sunday, Jan. 15

Sunday, Dec. 25 SAM QUINN’S CHRISTMAS DEBACLE • Preservation Pub • 10PM • Sunday night, Quinn will return to Preservation Pub in downtown Knoxville for his fifth annual “Christmas Debacle,” a night of music and merry-making featuring random guests, friends and musical compatriots who adhere to no particular setlist, no rehearsal and no planning. Despite the ramshackle nature of the performance, however, it always ends up being a whole lot of fun and, to the surprise of many who might come out just to watch a train wreck, it’s often pulled off with semi-professional aplomb. 21 and up. • FREE

Americana standouts the V-roys. When the V-roys broke up in 2000, Harrison joined with local rockers the High Score, with whom he has released a string of sterling releases, making a dent or two in the Americana charts and garnering a measure of college radio airplay along the way. His trad-country roots notwithstanding, Harrison’s latest batch of tunes is situated squarely on the rock ’n’ roll side of the musical spectrum. • FREE THE NAUGHTY KNOTS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria

(Maryville) • 8PM THE DEADBEAT SCOUNDRELS WITH JIMMY AND THE JAWBONES AND BRANDON HARMON AND THE HALFWAY HEARTS • The Open Chord • 8PM • $5 FREEKBASS • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up.

MARK SCHIMICK AND FRIENDS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM Friday, Dec. 30 LACY GREEN WITH BAREFOOT SANCTUARY • WDVX • 12PM •

Monday, Dec. 26 SYDNI STINNETT • 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 9TH STREET STOMPERS • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 6PM • FREE THE BLUEPRINT • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM GA-NA-SI-TA • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up.

Tuesday, Dec. 27 MUDBONE • 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 MAGGIE VALLEY BAND • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 7PM • FREE THE MARBLE CITY FIVE • Red Piano Lounge • 8PM • Groove to Vance Thompson’s small combo, an offshoot of the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra.

SHAKE IT LIKE A CAVEMAN • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM

GRAN TORINO

Wednesday, Dec. 28 CASSIDY LYNN WITH ADAM GRAYBEAL’S HILLBILLY SOUL • 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 • Jason Thompson’s band doesn’t play bebop, the mainstay of the American saxman for more than half a century. He prefers to do something different. Frog and Toad can sound more old-fashioned than bebop, with Dixieland and ragtime tunes. But then, in the same set, they’ll sound more modern than bebop, with funk or fusion, or something original he wrote last week. • FREE THREE STAR REVIVAL • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 7PM • FREE GROOVE THERAPY • Red Piano Lounge • 8PM • It’s Soulful Wednesday at the Red Piano Lounge.

NEW RADIO DIALECT • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up.

Bijou Theatre (803 S. Gay St.) • Saturday, Dec. 31 • 9 p.m. • $37 •

Thursday, Dec. 29 THE KNOX COUNTY JUG STOMPERS WITH SAM HATMAKER • 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 MIC HARRISON • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 6PM • For those who don’t know, Harrison is the beer-swilling, big-hearted blue-collar guitarist, singer, and songwriter who moved to Knoxville from a West Tennessee sawmill back in the early 1990s, taking a spot beside songwriter extraordinaire Scott Miller as co-frontman of local

Since reforming in 2014 for a benefit for the Bijou Theatre, the Torinos seem to keep finding special occasions for reunion shows. In 2015, they played another benefit show, for Green Magnet Academy (where GT trombonist Dexter Murphy is principal), and now they’re regrouping once again for what promises to be the funkiest and most soulful New Year’s Eve blowout in Knoxville.

Don’t get complacent just because the band has played twice in the last two years—every chance to funk it up with Gran Torino might be the last. (Matthew Everett)

knoxbijou.com or grantorino.org

Years before Daptone and other soul-revival record labels made the sounds of classic ’70s funk and soul popular again, Knoxville’s Gran Torino rode the smooth, hard-hitting sounds of James Brown, the Commodores, and the Ohio Players to cult success. The 11-member band, led by charismatic frontman Chris Ford and ignited by the powerhouse horn-and-brass battery of PeeJay Alexander and Jason Thompson, tore up local campus clubs starting in 1995, quickly building a local reputation for long, sweaty, locked-in funk jams that lasted into the early morning hours.

By the end of the decade, that reputation had spread well beyond Knoxville—Gran Torino had established itself as one of the most popular touring bands in the Southeast, serving an updated version of old-school R&B to an entirely new generation of fans. The group recorded three albums and made an appearance at the inaugural Bonnaroo Music Festival in 2002 before calling it quits the next year—keeping an 11-person band together for 200-plus tour dates a year while waiting for a major payoff turned out to be an impossible task. Alexander, Thompson, and other members remained active on the local scene; Ford opened Sweet P’s Barbeque and Soul House and its sister restaurant, Sweet P’s Barbecue and Downtown Dive.

34

Spotlight: Deerhunter

38

Spotlight: New Year’s Eve

Thursday, Dec. 22 - Sunday, Jan. 15

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 WENDEL WERNER • Red Piano Lounge • 6PM DAVID CHILDERS AND THE SERPENTS • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 7PM • FREE TAYLOR MARIE • Vienna Coffee House (Maryville) • 7PM • FREE FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose • 8PM • Jason Thompson’s band doesn’t play bebop, the mainstay of the American saxman for more than half a century. He prefers to do something different. Frog and Toad can sound more old-fashioned than bebop, with Dixieland and ragtime tunes. But then, in the same set, they’ll sound more modern than bebop, with funk or fusion, or something original he wrote last week. • FREE SOMETHING WICKED WITH THE BILLY WIDGETS AND THE VILLAGE GREEN PEOPLE • The Open Chord • 8PM • All ages.

• $5-$8 DIRTY POOL • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 9PM HOLY SMOKES AND THE GODFORSAKEN ROLLERS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 9PM PISTOL CREEK CATCH OF THE DAY • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM KUKULY AND THE GYPSY FUEGO • Red Piano Lounge • 9PM • Kukuly Uriarte hails from Peru, by way of Argentina. She 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.

THE KNOX COUNTY JUG STOMPERS • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE THE EDWARD HONEYCUTT BAND WITH SWEET LEAF • Scruffy City Hall • 10PM Saturday, Dec. 31 KIM SMITH AND DAVID BOETTCHER • 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 NATTI LOVE JOYS • Bar Marley • 6PM • Celebrate New Year’s Eve with East Tennessee’s best reggae band—plus a drum circle, fire dancers, a buffet, and more. • $20-$22 RYE BABY • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 7PM • FREE THE DIRTY DOUGS • Brackins Blues Club ( Maryville) • 8PM TEEN SPIRIT WITH NEW POWER SOUL • Scruffy City Hall • 8PM SOUTHBOUND • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 9PM GRAN TORINO • Bijou Theatre • 9PM • $37 • See Spotlight on page 30.

KITTY WAMPUS • Roger’s Place • 9PM THE MARBLE CITY FIVE • Red Piano Lounge • 9PM • Groove into 2017 with Vance Thompson’s small jazz combo, an offshoot of the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra.

THE PIPER JONES BAND • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE THE JOJAX WITH JUST SAY MAYBE • Preservation Pub • 10PM JAKE SMITH’S CRIPPLE CREEK MARINERS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM THE BLACK LILLIES WITH ALANNA ROYALE • The Mill and Mine • 8PM • Hard To Please, the band’s fourth studio album, is an alternately rip-roaring and deeply intimate record, showcasing both Cruz Contreras’ lyrical evolution as a writer and a more sonically sophisticated side of the band than we’ve heard before. • $30-$100 • See preview on page 26.

CALENDAR

Sunday, Jan. 1 SUNDAY JAZZ BRUNCH • Downtown Grill and Brewery • 11AM • Knoxville’s coolest jazz artists perform every Sunday. • FREE SHIFFLETT’S JAZZ BENEDICT • The Bistro at the Bijou • 12PM • Live jazz. • FREE PALE ROOT • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM Monday, Jan. 2 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 Tuesday, Jan. 3 PAUL LEE KUPFER • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM Wednesday, Jan. 4 FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose • 6:30PM • Jason Thompson’s band doesn’t play bebop, the mainstay of the American saxman for more than half a century. He prefers to do something different. Frog and Toad can sound more old-fashioned than bebop, with Dixieland and ragtime tunes. But then, in the same set, they’ll sound more modern than bebop, with funk or fusion, or something original he wrote last week. • FREE TANK AND THE BANGAS • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up.

Friday, Jan. 6 ALIVE AFTER FIVE: EVELYN JACK AND THE KEITH BROWN BAND • Knoxville Museum of Art • 6PM • Evelyn Jack and the Keith Brown Band perform the fourth installment of their tributes to the R&B classic hits. • $10-$15 FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose • 8PM • Jason Thompson’s band doesn’t play bebop, the mainstay of the American saxman for more than half a century. He prefers to do something different. Frog and Toad can sound more old-fashioned than bebop, with Dixieland and ragtime tunes. But then, in the same set, they’ll sound more modern than bebop, with funk or fusion, or something original he wrote last week. • FREE EXIT 60 • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 9PM CIRCUS NO. 9 • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE THE BIG WOOLY • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM Saturday, Jan. 7 TALL PAUL • Crafty Bastard Brewery • 6PM • Music, beer, and a fundraiser for breast cancer.

MAGNOLIA JUSTICE • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 6PM • FREE 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.

THE JAILHOUSE REVIEW • Two Doors Down • 9PM THE YOUNG FABLES • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE BELLAS BARTOK • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up.

Sunday, Jan. 8 SUNDAY JAZZ BRUNCH • Downtown Grill and Brewery • 11AM • Knoxville’s coolest jazz artists perform every Sunday. • FREE SHIFFLETT’S JAZZ BENEDICT • The Bistro at the Bijou • 12PM • Live jazz. • FREE THE RANSOM NOTES • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM Tuesday, Jan. 10 MATT NELSON, GARRIT TILLMAN, AND JAKE EDWARD SMITH • Pilot Light • 6PM • A free live improv showcase. 18 and up. • FREE

Wednesday, Jan. 11 FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose • 6:30PM • Jason Thompson’s band doesn’t play bebop, the mainstay of the American saxman for more than half a century. He prefers to do something different. Frog and Toad can sound more old-fashioned than bebop, with Dixieland and ragtime tunes. But then, in the same set, they’ll sound more modern than bebop, with funk or fusion, or something original he wrote last week. • FREE DEERHUNTER • Bijou Theatre • 8PM • $20-$22 • See Spotlight on page 34.

Thursday, Jan. 12 THE RAGBIRDS • The Open Chord • 8PM • For years, “home” was a place The Ragbirds rarely visited. The band’s music — a genre-bending hybrid of indie-pop melodies, global rhythms and songwriting styles influenced from all over the world — was as broad as their audience, which stretched from the group’s hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan, to the shores of Osaka, Japan (where they scored a Number One pop hot with the song “Book of Matches”). • $8-$10 Friday, Jan. 13 SHILOH HILL • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 6PM • FREE ALIVE AFTER FIVE: THE STREAMLINERS SWING ORCHESTRA • Knoxville Museum of Art • 6PM • The fabulous 17-member Streamliners perform the swingin’ hits of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Louis Prima, and more. • $10-$15 THE STEEP CANYON RANGERS • Bijou Theatre • 8PM • What does North Carolina sound like? In a state that’s also produced Doc Watson, James Taylor and the Avett Brothers, there’s hardly a more well-rounded answer than the Steep Canyon Rangers. A bluegrass band at their core, the Steep Canyon Rangers effortlessly walk the line between festival favorite and sophisticated string orchestra. They’re as danceable as the most progressive, party-oriented string band, and equally comfortable translating their songs for accompaniment by a full symphony. Visit steepcanyon.com. • $23 FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose • 8PM • FREE CYRUS CHESTNUT • The Square Room • 8PM • Cyrus Chestnut is quite simply one of the most dynamic pianists of his generation. The son of a church choir director and church organist, Chestnut combines deep-seated gospel roots, impeccable jazz artistry and fun-loving showmanship into an irresistible concoction that has been thrilling audiences worldwide for more than three decades. . • $25 WEDNESDAY 13 WITH BOURBON CROW AND LA BASURA DEL DIABLO • The Concourse • 8PM • 18 and up. Visit internationalknox.com. • $12 JOSIAH AND THE GREATER GOOD WITH DYLAN MCDONALD AND THE AVIANS AND THE SEDONAS • The Open Chord • 8PM • All ages. • $7-$10 SHORT TERM MEMORY • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 9PM JUBAL • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE REALM • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up.

Saturday, Jan. 14 THE LOW COUNTS • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 6PM • FREE SOUTH CAROLINA BROADCASTERS • Laurel Theater • 8PM • Tight harmonies and exceptional instrumentation give the group a powerful old-time sound. They’ve played with some of the great string bands of the past-Ivy with the

*Times listed are door times

December 22, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 31

CALENDAR Roan Mountain Hilltoppers and Andy with Benton Flippen’s Smokey Valley Boys. Visit jubileearts.org. • $15 HILLBILLY JEDI • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 9PM SUNDY BEST • Cotton Eyed Joe • 9PM • Since signing with eOne Music in 2013, the band has released three separate studio projects — a deluxe version of their independently produced album Door Without A Screen, early 2014’s Bring Up The Sun, and now, a brand new collection of songs titled Salvation City, their second effort working with veteran producer RS Field (Justin Townes Earle, Allison Moorer, Todd Snider, Webb Wilder, Sonny Landreth.) 18 and up. • $10 ADRIAN AND MEREDITH KRYGOWSKI • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE SHIFFTY AND THE HEADMASTERS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM THE BURNIN’ HERMANS • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up.

Sunday, Jan. 15 SUNDAY JAZZ BRUNCH • Downtown Grill and Brewery • 11AM • Knoxville’s coolest jazz artists perform every Sunday. • FREE SHIFFLETT’S JAZZ BENEDICT • The Bistro at the Bijou • 12PM • Live jazz. • FREE SHILOH HILL • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM

OPEN MIC AND SONGWRITER NIGHTS

Thursday, Dec. 22 - Sunday, Jan. 15

Thursday, Dec. 22 SCOTTISH MUSIC SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • A proud tradition, Scots love nothing more than music and drink. The drink is strong and the music is steeped in the history of the green highlands and rocky cliffs.

Whether lyrics or no lyrics, every song tells a story. The hills of East Tennessee are a home away from home for this style. Pull up a chair to listen or play along. Held on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month. • FREE JON MASON BLUES SESSIONS • Red Piano Lounge • 8PM Tuesday, Dec. 27 PRESERVATION PUB SINGER-SONGWRITER NIGHT • Preservation Pub • 7PM • 21 and up. Visit scruffycity.com.

OLD-TIME JAM SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • The musicians sit together and pick and strum familiar tunes on fiddles, guitars, and bass. Open to all lovers and players of music. No need to build up the courage to join in. Just grab an instrument off the wall and take a seat.

Hosted by Sarah Pirkle. Visit jigandreel.com. • FREE Wednesday, Dec. 28 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.

BRACKINS BLUES JAM • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM • A weekly open session hosted by Tommie John. • FREE Thursday, Dec. 29 JON MASON BLUES SESSIONS • Red Piano Lounge • 8PM

Tuesday, Jan. 3 PRESERVATION PUB SINGER-SONGWRITER NIGHT • Preservation Pub • 7PM • 21 and up. Visit scruffycity.com.

OLD-TIME JAM SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • The musicians sit together and pick and strum familiar tunes on fiddles, guitars, and bass. Open to all lovers and players of music. No need to build up the courage to join in. Just grab an instrument off the wall and take a seat.

Hosted by Sarah Pirkle. Visit jigandreel.com. • FREE

Tuesday, Jan. 10 PRESERVATION PUB SINGER-SONGWRITER NIGHT • Preservation Pub • 7PM • 21 and up. Visit scruffycity.com.

OLD-TIME JAM SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • The musicians sit together and pick and strum familiar tunes on fiddles, guitars, and bass. Open to all lovers and players of music. No need to build up the courage to join in. Just grab an instrument off the wall and take a seat.

Hosted by Sarah Pirkle. Visit jigandreel.com. • FREE

Wednesday, Jan. 4 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.

BRACKINS BLUES JAM • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM • A weekly open session hosted by Tommie John. • FREE

Wednesday, Jan. 11 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.

BRACKINS BLUES JAM • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM • A weekly open session hosted by Tommie John. • FREE

Thursday, Jan. 5 IRISH MUSIC SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • Held on the first and third Thursdays of each month. Visit jigandreel.com. • FREE BREWHOUSE BLUES JAM • The Open Chord • 8PM • Join Robert Higginbotham and the Smoking Section 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.

Thursday, Jan. 12 SCOTTISH MUSIC SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • A proud tradition, Scots love nothing more than music and drink. The drink is strong and the music is steeped in the history of the green highlands and rocky cliffs.

Whether lyrics or no lyrics, every song tells a story. The hills of East Tennessee are a home away from home for this style. Pull up a chair to listen or play along. Held on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month. Visit jigandreel.com. • FREE

Sunday, Jan. 8 EPWORTH MONTHLY OLD HARP SHAPE NOTE SINGING • Laurel Theater • 6:30PM • Visit jubileearts.org. • FREE

Santa knows the best gifts are from M. S. McClellan

Sunday, Jan. 15 FAMILY FRIENDLY DRUM CIRCLE • Ijams Nature Center • 3:30PM • Drumming for kids of all ages on the third

for the Men

Barbour · Peter Millar True Grit · Canali · AG Denim

for the Ladies

Lafayette 148 · Nic+Zoe Lilla P · Kinross Cashmere · Barbour

5614 Kingston Pike at Melrose Place (865) 584-3492 · www.msmcclellan.com 32

KNOXVILLE MERCURY December 22, 2016

CALENDAR

Friday, Dec. 23 RETRO WEEKEND DANCE PARTY • Hanna’s Old City • 9PM • Hanna’s Retro Weekend dance party with DJ Ray Funk is where you will hear all of your favorite 80’s and 90’s dance hits. So get down to Hanna’s in the Old City this weekend to party like it is 1999.

SOUTHBOUND FRIDAYS • Southbound Bar and Grill • 9PM • With DJ Eric B. Friday, Dec. 30 RETRO WEEKEND DANCE PARTY • Hanna’s Old City • 9PM • Hanna’s Retro Weekend dance party with DJ Ray Funk is where you will hear all of your favorite 80’s and 90’s dance hits. So get down to Hanna’s in the Old City this weekend to party like it is 1999.

SOUTHBOUND FRIDAYS • Southbound Bar and Grill • 9PM • With DJ Eric B. Saturday, Dec. 31 THE INTERNATIONAL NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY • The International • 8AM • Featuring Warren Peace, Demongirl, and Z Is Not a DJ on the Concourse stage and Huglife, Ede Gee, James Scott, and Jason Paul on the International stage. 18 and up. • $10-$25 NEW YEAR’S EVE IN THE OLD CITY • The Old City • 8PM • Purchase one wristband and gain access to seven different venues to for the evening: Southbound Knoxville, Hannas Old City, Carleo’s, Wagon Wheel, NV Nightclub, 90 Proof Night Club and Southbound, The Bowery. Each venue offers a different theme to keep you entertained all night long. Wristbands can be purchased in advance for $15 and $20 day of the event. Visit carleoentertainment.com. • $!5-$20 Saturday, Jan. 14 TESTIFY! VINTAGE SOUL AND FUNK DANCE PARTY • Scruffy City Hall • 10PM • Featuring some of the best regional and national DJs and collectors of northern soul, modern soul, funk, R&B, and Motown obscurities on original 45 rpm vinyl. DJs for Saturday, Jan. 14, include Greg Belson, Nick Soule, Daniel Mathis, and Nathan Moses. Visit Facebook. com/testifyknox. • $5

CLASSICAL MUSIC

Thursday, Jan. 5 KNOXVILLE CHORAL SOCIETY AUDITIONS • 6PM • Knoxville Choral Society will hold auditions for all voice parts.

Please call or email for a scheduled appointment time.

We will provide a location at that time. Auditions will include assessment of vocal quality, sight-reading and tonal memory drills. No prepared piece is required. For more information about the Knoxville Choral Society or to download an audition form, visit our Website at knoxvillechoralsociety.org. Please call 865-312-2440 or send an e-mail to membership@knoxvillechoralsociety. org. • FREE Saturday, Jan. 7

Thursday, Jan. 12 ASHER ARMSTRONG AND MIROSLAV HRISTOV • University of Tennessee Natalie L. Haslam Music Center • 6PM • A piano and violin guest artist/faculty recital. • FREE

RIDE THE

DJ AND DANCE NIGHTS

KSO POPS SERIES: OZ WITH ORCHESTRA • Knoxville Civic Auditorium • 8PM • Experience “The Wizard of Oz” as never before! The exquisitely re-mastered film is projected on the big screen as the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra performs the unforgettable score live.

Saturday, Jan. 14 KNOXVILLE OPERA: ‘LA BOHEME’ • Blount County Public Library • 11AM • Puccini’s “La Boheme” will be performed as a full opera by Knoxville Opera under the direction of Brian Salesky. Visit blountlibrary.org. • FREE

THEATER AND DANCE

Friday, Jan. 6 THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (ABRIDGED)’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • All 37 plays in 97 minutes—three terrible actors decide to perform all of Shakespeare’s plays in comically shortened or merged form. Laden with physical comedy, fast and furious entrances and exits, popular and local references, and the actors changing costumes, characters, and plays at a hilarious pace, this is a wild and fun introduction to Shakespeare’s canon that is accessible to all. Jan. 6-22.

Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 Saturday, Jan. 7 THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (ABRIDGED)’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • Jan. 6-22. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 Sunday, Jan. 8 THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (ABRIDGED)’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 3PM • Jan. 6-22. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 Monday, Jan. 9 TENNESSEE STAGE COMPANY NEW PLAY FESTIVAL AUDITIONS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 7PM • The New Play Festival will consist of fully staged world premiere presentations, staged readings, and table readings. Roles are available for a wide variety of ages and types. Dates for the New Play Festival begin with table readings in early February and the final performances will conclude in late March. Auditions will consist of cold readings. No appointments are necessary.

For further information please contact the Tennessee Stage Company at 546-4280. • FREE Tuesday, Jan. 10 TENNESSEE STAGE COMPANY NEW PLAY FESTIVAL AUDITIONS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 7PM • The New Play Festival will consist of fully staged world premiere presentations, staged readings, and table readings. Roles are available for a wide variety of ages and types. Dates for the New Play Festival begin with table readings in early February and the final performances will conclude in late March. Auditions will consist of cold readings. No appointments are necessary.

For further information please contact the Tennessee Stage Company at 546-4280. • FREE Thursday, Jan. 12

FREE ALL DAY! Service throughout Downtown & UT #travelbytrolley

© 2016 KAT

Sunday of the month. Bring a drum or share one of ours.

Bring a blanket or chair. Open to drummers of all ages and levels. Free and fun. • FREE OLD-TIME SLOW JAM • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 4PM • A monthly old-time music session, held on the third Sunday of each month. Visit jigandreel.com. • FREE

katbus.com 301 Church Ave., Knoxville, TN 37915 • T 865.637.3000 December 22, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 33

CALENDAR

Thursday, Dec. 22 - Sunday, Jan. 15

THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (ABRIDGED)’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • Jan. 6-22. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15

THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (ABRIDGED)’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • Jan. 6-22. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15

Friday, Jan. 13 THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (ABRIDGED)’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • Jan. 6-22. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15

Sunday, Jan. 15 THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: ‘THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (ABRIDGED)’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 3PM • Jan. 6-22. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15

Saturday, Jan. 14

COMEDY AND SPOKEN WORD

Thursday, Dec. 22 GOOD MEDICINE: A PRESCRIPTION OF STAND-UP COMEDY TO BENEFIT REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH CARE • Scruffy City Hall • 7:30PM • Election woes and the entirety of 2016 got you down? We’ve got some good medicine for you. Join us for a night of stand-up comedy with all proceeds benefiting local reproductive health care providers and advocates: Tennessee Advocates for Planned Parenthood; Knoxville Center for Reproductive Health; Knoxville Abortion Doula Collective; and Lady Parts Justice League.

Featuring Coor Cohen, Liz Brooks, Riley Fox, Gail Grantham, Drew Morgan, and Jessee Mutter. • $15-$20 SUGAR HIGH!: JAKE HEAD • Sugar Mama’s • 8:30PM • NYC comedian Jake Head brings his southeastern comedy tour to Sugar Mama’s on Gay Street for this month’s Sugar High! Joining Jake will be Atlanta comedians Paige Bowman and Andrew Michael, along with popular Knoxville comics Jeff Blank and Shane Rhyne. • FREE Monday, Dec. 26 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 Tuesday, Dec. 27 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

DEERHUNTER Bijou Theatre (803 S. Gay St.) • Wednesday, Jan. 11 • 8 p.m. • $20-$22 • knoxbijou.com or deerhuntermusic.com

In the fall of 2009, at the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in New York, Deerhunter singer/ songwriter/guitarist Brandon Cox announced that the Atlanta indie-rock band would be taking a long break after the festival. It seemed like a deserved vacation—since forming in 2001, Deerhunter has faced more than its fair share of adversity, from the death of original bassist Justin Bosworth in 2004 to Internet leaks and a 2014 incident in which Cox was hospitalized after being hit by a car. But the hiatus proved to be a short one; a year later, the band was back on the road and preparing to release Halcyon Digest, its fifth album in five years.

Looking back, Halcyon Digest feels like a much-needed reset for the band. The back-to-back release of Microcastle and Weird Era Cont. in June and October 2008 marked the culmination of the band’s early career—dense, psychedelic garage pop of almost overwhelming emotional intensity that seemed impossible to follow. But Cox found a way forward, turning to classic pop songcraft influenced by R.E.M., the Everly Brothers, and Bruce Springsteen on Halcyon Digest and its follow-ups, Monomania (2013) and Fading Frontier (2015). A few years ago, Deerhunter seemed like a band destined to burn brightly and fade quickly; now, Cox and company seem to be quietly setting themselves up as one of the most significant American rock bands of the 21st century. (Matthew Everett)

34

KNOXVILLE MERCURY December 22, 2016

Wednesday, Dec. 28 FULL DISCLOSURE COMEDY • The Open Chord • 8PM • Full Disclosure Comedy is Knoxville’s long-form improvisational troupe, bringing together community members for laughs and overall general merriment. • FREE Sunday, Jan. 1 UPSTAIRS UNDERGROUND COMEDY • Preservation Pub • 8PM • A weekly comedy open mic. Visit scruffycity.com.

Monday, Jan. 2 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 Tuesday, Jan. 3 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. Visit einsteinsimplified.com. • 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, Jan. 6

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

Monday, Jan. 9 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 Tuesday, Jan. 10 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. Visit einsteinsimplified.com. • FREE KNOXVILLE POETRY SLAM • The Open Chord • 8PM • All ages. • $5 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 Wednesday, Jan. 11 FULL DISCLOSURE COMEDY • The Open Chord • 8PM • Full Disclosure Comedy is Knoxville’s long-form improvisational troupe, bringing together community members for laughs and overall general merriment. • FREE Thursday, Jan. 12 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, Tyler Sonnichsen, and Sean Simoneau) serves as your guide to introduce you the best of our region’s comedy scene. • FREE Saturday, Jan. 14 RON WHITE • Tennessee Theatre • 7PM and 10PM • Comedian Ron “Tater Salad” White is best known as the cigar smoking, scotch drinking funnyman from the “Blue Collar Comedy” phenomenon. But with two Grammy nominations, a Gold Record, three of the top rated one-hour TV specials in Comedy Central history, a book that appeared on the New York Times Best Seller List, and CD and DVD sales of over 10 Million units, Ron has established himself as a star in his own right. Over the past 5 years he has been one of the top 3 grossing comedians on tour in the United States. • $49.50-$84.50 DECADENCE: TOP SHELF CABARET AND BURLESQUE • Red

CALENDAR Piano Lounge • 7PM • 18 and up. • $10-$20 Sunday, Jan. 15 UPSTAIRS UNDERGROUND COMEDY • Preservation Pub • 8PM • A weekly comedy open mic. Visit scruffycity.com.

FESTIVALS

Thursday, Dec. 22-30 HOLIDAY FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS • Concord Park • 6PM • The three-quarter-mile greenway trail will be illuminated nightly from 6 to 9 p.m. The Holiday Festival of Lights has grown over the past few years with illuminated displays and a series of lights coordinated to music. Visitors walk the three-quarter mile greenway trail to view the lights. Every day through Dec. 30, except for Christmas Day. • FREE Saturday, Dec. 31 NEW YEAR’S ON THE SQUARE • Market Square • 10:30PM • Ring in 2017 with friends and family. Ball drop at Midnight. This jam-packed, season-long holiday schedule is organized by the City of Knoxville, Visit Knoxville, and the Downtown Knoxville Central Business Improvement District with significant support from a variety of corporate sponsors. Details about what’s happening city-wide can be found at visitknoxville.com. Downtown Knoxville merrymaking can be found at downtownknox. org/holiday. • FREE

SPORTS AND RECREATION

Thursday, Dec. 22 HOLIDAYS ON ICE • Market Square • 1PM • Knoxville’s Holidays on Ice, presented by Home Federal Bank, is an outdoor ice skating rink in the heart of downtown Knoxville on Market Square. Enjoy skating under Christmas lights and stars while listening to music every night. The ice rink will be closed during inclement weather, please check the Holidays on Ice Facebook page to stay updated, Facebook.com/KnoxvillesHolidaysonIce. For questions about Knoxville’s Holidays on Ice please call 865-215-4423. • $7-$45 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 NORTH KNOXVILLE BEER RUNNERS • Central Flats and Taps • 6PM • Meet us at Central Flats and Taps every Thursday night for a fun and easy run leading us right through Saw Works for a midway beer. • FREE 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. Visit fleetfeetknoxville.com. • FREE CEDAR BLUFF CYCLES DOWNTOWN GREENWAY RIDE • Cedar Bluff Cycles • 6:30PM • Join us every Thursday evening for our winter greenway rides to downtown and back.

Ride is 30+ miles at a 13/14 mph pace. Visit cedarbluffcycles.com. • FREE

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Friday, Dec. 23 HOLIDAYS ON ICE • Market Square • 10AM • For questions about Knoxville’s Holidays on Ice please call 865-2154423. • $7-$45 Saturday, Dec. 24 HOLIDAYS ON ICE • Market Square • 10AM • For questions about Knoxville’s Holidays on Ice please call 865-2154423. • $7-$45 WEST BICYCLES SATURDAY ROAD RIDE • West Bicycles • 9AM • Join us every Saturday morning for a group road ride. Divides into two groups: A Group at 17-20 mph and B Group at 14-16 mph. Store open for pre-ride services including full service tech support, energy bars/gels/ chews, clean restrooms, plenty of parking, and terrific routes. Cookies and coffee on return. Visit west bikes. com. • FREE BIKE ZOO SATURDAY ROAD RIDE • The Bike Zoo • 9AM • Join us every Saturday for a group three-hour road ride of 50+ miles at a fast pace of 18/20 mph. Weather permitting.

Visit bikezoo.com. • FREE KNOXVILLE BICYCLE COMPANY SATURDAY RIDE • Knoxville Bicycle Company • 9AM • Join us every Saturday for a group road ride. Divides into groups: shorter route is 27 miles; longer route is determined at regroup at Melton Hill Dam. Weather permitting. Visit Facebook.com/ KnoxvilleBicycleCo. • FREE Monday, Dec. 26 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. Visit tnvalleybikes.com. • 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 YOGA FOR RUNNERS • Fleet Feet Sports Knoxville • 7PM • Join us on the second and fourth Monday of every month for our Yoga for Runners session with Shaheen Dewji, a certified yoga instructor and an experienced runner, with the knowledge and experience to help you improve your running through yoga. Sessions are free for current training program members, and $5 for everyone else.

Visit fleetfeetknoxville.com/training/yoga-for-runners. • $5 HOLIDAYS ON ICE • Market Square • 1PM • $7-$45 Tuesday, Dec. 27 CYCOLOGY BICYCLES TUESDAY MORNING RIDE • Cycology Bicycles • 10:30AM • Join Cycology Bicycles every Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. and 10:30 am for a road ride with two group options. Weather permitting. Visit cycologybicycles.com. • 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. • FREE HOLIDAYS ON ICE • Market Square • 1PM • $7-$45 Wednesday, Dec. 28

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Short sleeve: grey, black, and white.

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R E V I R T A S U F O L L FROM A S R E T T I F T U O S T R O SP ille Thank you Knoxv for making us your favorite local outdoor retailer this year.

Come on in for daily in-store specials!

r Bluff. nd and in West Ceda Visit us on Sutherla 0066 rs.com • 865-523riversportsoutfitte December 22, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 35

CALENDAR FLEET FEET WEDNESDAY LUNCH BREAK RUN • Fleet Feet Sports Knoxville • 12PM • Join us every Wednesday at for our lunch break run. All levels welcome. We’ll run 30-60 minutes. Visit fleetfeetknoxville.com. • 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 p.m. 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. Call 865-540-9979 or visit tnvalleybikes.com. • FREE HOLIDAYS ON ICE • Market Square • 1PM • $7-$45 Thursday, Dec. 29 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 NORTH KNOXVILLE BEER RUNNERS • Central Flats and Taps • 6PM • Meet us at Central Flats and Taps every Thursday night for a fun and easy run leading us right through Saw Works for a midway beer. • FREE FLEET FEET GROUP RUN/WALK • Fleet Feet Sports Knoxville

36

KNOXVILLE MERCURY December 22, 2016

Thursday, Dec. 22 - Sunday, Jan. 15

• 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. Visit fleetfeetknoxville.com. • FREE CEDAR BLUFF CYCLES DOWNTOWN GREENWAY RIDE • Cedar Bluff Cycles • 6:30PM • Join us every Thursday evening for our winter greenway rides to downtown and back.

Ride is 30+ miles at a 13/14 mph pace. Visit cedarbluffcycles.com. • FREE HOLIDAYS ON ICE • Market Square • 1PM • $7-$45 Friday, Dec. 30 HOLIDAYS ON ICE • Market Square • 10AM • $7-$45 Sunday, Dec. 31 SMOKY MOUNTAIN HIKING CLUB: PANTHER CREEK STATE PARK • 8AM • This will be a joint hike with the SMHC and the East TN chapter of the TN Trails Assoc. End the year on a good “foot” by hiking in this state park located near Morristown. Winter should offer some good views of the lake and the Cumberland Mountains. We will hike out on the horse connector trail to the Maple Arches Loop and return the same way. Hike: 8 miles, rated moderate due to several steep climbs and rocky trail. Meet at Comcast, 5720 Ashville Hwy at 8:00 am. Leaders: Chris Hamilton, hikeintenn@gmail.com, and Mindy Fawver, mindyfawver@gmail.com. • FREE WEST BICYCLES SATURDAY ROAD RIDE • West Bicycles •

9AM • Join us every Saturday morning for a group road ride. Divides into two groups: A Group at 17-20 mph and B Group at 14-16 mph. Store open for pre-ride services including full service tech support, energy bars/gels/ chews, clean restrooms, plenty of parking, and terrific routes. Cookies and coffee on return. Visit west bikes. com. • FREE BIKE ZOO SATURDAY ROAD RIDE • The Bike Zoo • 9AM • Join us every Saturday for a group three-hour road ride of 50+ miles at a fast pace of 18/20 mph. Weather permitting.

Visit bikezoo.com. • FREE KNOXVILLE BICYCLE COMPANY SATURDAY RIDE • Knoxville Bicycle Company • 9AM • Join us every Saturday for a group road ride. Divides into groups: shorter route is 27 miles; longer route is determined at regroup at Melton Hill Dam. Weather permitting. Visit Facebook.com/ KnoxvilleBicycleCo. • FREE HOLIDAYS ON ICE • Market Square • 10AM • $7-$45 Sunday, Jan. 1 CALHOUN’S NEW YEAR’S DAY 5K • Volunteer Landing • 9AM • The New Year’s Day 5k is an exciting and wonderful way to start the new year. Visit ktc.org. • $20-$30 HOLIDAYS ON ICE • Market Square • 1PM • $7-$45 Monday, Jan. 2 UT ARBORETUM NEW YEAR’S WALK • University of Tennessee Arboretum • 9:30AM • Start out the year on the “right foot” by joining the walk that begins at 9:30 a.m. at the UT Arboretum Auditorium where you will be greeted by fellow hikers and offered coffee, hot chocolate and

snacks. At 10:00 a.m. the group will leave for a guided walk that will last about 45 minutes. The hike will follow a forest trail and will visit the Elmore Holly Collection, giving participants the opportunity to see the hollies still covered with berries. This is an easy walk on the trails and is suitable for all ages. The Arboretum Society encourages everyone to come out to enjoy an outdoor respite before heading home to watch the bowl games on TV. To learn more about the Arboretum Society, go to www.utarboretumsociety.org. For more information on the hike call the Arboretum at 865-482-4836. • FREE 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. Visit tnvalleybikes.com. • 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 HOLIDAYS ON ICE • Market Square • 1PM • $7-$45 Tuesday, Jan. 3

CALENDAR CYCOLOGY BICYCLES TUESDAY MORNING RIDE • Cycology Bicycles • 10:30AM • Join Cycology Bicycles every Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. and 10:30 am for a road ride with two group options. Weather permitting. Visit cycologybicycles.com. • 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. • FREE HOLIDAYS ON ICE • Market Square • 1PM • $7-$45 Wednesday, Jan. 4 FLEET FEET WEDNESDAY LUNCH BREAK RUN • Fleet Feet Sports Knoxville • 12PM • Join us every Wednesday at for our lunch break run. All levels welcome. We’ll run 30-60 minutes. Visit fleetfeetknoxville.com. • 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 p.m. 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. Call 865-540-9979 or visit tnvalleybikes.com. • FREE HOLIDAYS ON ICE • Market Square • 1PM • $7-$45 Thursday, Jan. 5 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 NORTH KNOXVILLE BEER RUNNERS • Central Flats and Taps • 6PM • Meet us at Central Flats and Taps every Thursday night for a fun and easy run leading us right through Saw Works for a midway beer. • FREE 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. Visit fleetfeetknoxville.com. • FREE CEDAR BLUFF CYCLES DOWNTOWN GREENWAY RIDE • Cedar Bluff Cycles • 6:30PM • Join us every Thursday evening for our winter greenway rides to downtown and back.

Ride is 30+ miles at a 13/14 mph pace. Visit cedarbluffcycles.com. • FREE HOLIDAYS ON ICE • Market Square • 1PM • $7-$45 Friday, Jan. 6 HOLIDAYS ON ICE • Market Square • 10AM • $7-$45 Saturday, Jan. 7 RUNNER’S MARKET SATURDAY GROUP RUN • Runner’s Market • 9AM • Every first Saturday of the month at 9 a.m., 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 runnersmarket.com. • FREE WEST BICYCLES SATURDAY ROAD RIDE • West Bicycles • 9AM • Join us every Saturday morning for a group road

ride. Divides into two groups: A Group at 17-20 mph and B Group at 14-16 mph. Store open for pre-ride services including full service tech support, energy bars/gels/ chews, clean restrooms, plenty of parking, and terrific routes. Cookies and coffee on return. Visit west bikes. com. • FREE BIKE ZOO SATURDAY ROAD RIDE • The Bike Zoo • 9AM • Join us every Saturday for a group three-hour road ride of 50+ miles at a fast pace of 18/20 mph. Weather permitting.

Visit bikezoo.com. • FREE KNOXVILLE BICYCLE COMPANY SATURDAY RIDE • Knoxville Bicycle Company • 9AM • Join us every Saturday for a group road ride. Divides into groups: shorter route is 27 miles; longer route is determined at regroup at Melton Hill Dam. Weather permitting. Visit Facebook.com/ KnoxvilleBicycleCo. • 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 HOLIDAYS ON ICE • Market Square • 10AM • $7-$45 Sunday, Jan. 8 HOLIDAYS ON ICE • Market Square • 1PM • $7-$45 Monday, Jan. 9 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. Visit tnvalleybikes.com. • FREE BEARDEN BEER MARKET FUN RUN • Bearden Beer Market • 6:30PM • Visit beardenbeermarket.com. • FREE YOGA FOR RUNNERS • Fleet Feet Sports Knoxville • 7PM • Visit fleetfeetknoxville.com/training/yoga-for-runners. • $5 Tuesday, Jan. 10 CYCOLOGY BICYCLES TUESDAY MORNING RIDE • Cycology Bicycles • 10:30AM • Join Cycology Bicycles every Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. and 10:30 am for a road ride with two group options. Weather permitting. Visit cycologybicycles.com. • 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. • FREE Wednesday, Jan. 11 FLEET FEET WEDNESDAY LUNCH BREAK RUN • Fleet Feet Sports Knoxville • 12PM • Visit fleetfeetknoxville.com. • FREE KTC GROUP RUN • Runner’s Market • 5:30PM • 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. Call 865-540-9979 or visit tnvalleybikes.com. • FREE Thursday, Jan. 12 CYCOLOGY BICYCLES THURSDAY MORNING RIDE • Cycology

Do you camp, hike, rock climb, fish, hunt, boat, ride ATVs, or just enjoy nature in general? If so make plans now to join us for East Tennessee's only All Outdoors show, the Great Smoky Mountains Outdoor Expo.

• Guns, Knives, Gear • Lumberjack Show • Rock Climbing Wall • Professional Seminars

• 4 x 4 Conversions • Overland Excursions • Something for Everyone

JANUARY 21-22 KNOXVILLE CIVIC COLISEUM www.greatsmokymountainsoutdoorexpo.com

C O M E WA T C H & P L AY F O R N E W Y E A R’ S D AY !

O P E N N E W Y E A R’ S D AY W I T H L O T S O F T V ’ S

MON. - FRI. 4 PM - 1:30 AM • SAT. - SUN. 11 AM - 1:30 AM (21+ AFTER 9PM UNLESS CHILD WITH PARENT) KITCHEN NIGHTLY UNTIL 12:30 AM MAPLEHALLKNOX. COM

December 22, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 37

CALENDAR Bicycles • 10AM • Visit cycologybicycles.com. • FREE NORTH KNOXVILLE BEER RUNNERS • Central Flats and Taps • 6PM • Meet us at Central Flats and Taps every Thursday night for a fun and easy run leading us right through Saw Works for a midway beer. • FREE

Thursday, Dec. 22 - Sunday, Jan. 15

FLEET FEET GROUP RUN/WALK • Fleet Feet Sports Knoxville • 6PM • Visit fleetfeetknoxville.com. • FREE CEDAR BLUFF CYCLES DOWNTOWN GREENWAY RIDE • Cedar Bluff Cycles • 6:30PM • Visit cedarbluffcycles.com. • FREE

NEW YEAR’S CELEBRATIONS, SHOWS, PARTIES, AND MORE SATURDAY, DEC. 31

NEW YEAR’S EVE FESTIVAL OF FLOWERS

Bar Marley (760 Stone St.) • 6 p.m. • $20/$22 at the door • barmarley.com • Sweep out 2016 with a Caribbean-themed party featuring all the hibiscus punch you can drink, a dinner buffet, a limbo contest, a drum circle, and music by the Natti Love Joys.

THE INTERNATIONAL NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY

The International and Concourse (940 Blackstock Ave.) • 8 p.m. • $10-$500 • internationalknox. com • Two venues, two stages of EDM—greet the new year with some bass from Huglife, Ede Gee, James Scott, Jason Paul, Warren Pewace, Demongirl, and Z Is Not a DJ. (For $500, you and seven friends get a private lounge and champagne.)

NEW YEAR’S EVE IN THE OLD CITY

8 p.m. • $15/$20 at the door • carleoentertainment.com • Purchase one wristband and gain access to seven different venues to for the evening: Southbound, Hanna’s Old City, Carleo’s, Wagon Wheel, NV Nightclub, 90 Proof, and the Bowery.

THE BLACK LILLIES

The Mill and Mine (227 W. Depot Ave.) • 9 p.m. • themillandmine.com or theblacklillies.com • With Alanna Royale. See preview on page 26.

GRAN TORINO

Bijou Theatre (803 S. Gay St.) • 9 p.m. • $37 • knoxbijou.com or grantorino.org • See Spotlight on page TK.

THE MARBLE CITY 5

Red Piano Lounge (4620 Kingston Pike) • 9 p.m. • theredpianolounge.com or knoxjazz.org • Groove into 2017 with Vance Thompson’s small jazz combo, an offshoot of the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra.

NEW YEAR’S ON THE SQUARE

Market Square • 10:30 p.m. • Free • visitknoxville.com or downtownknox.org/holiday • Ring in 2017 with friends and family at the midnight ball drop.

SUNDAY, JAN. 1

KNOXVILLE TRACK CLUB CALHOUN’S NEW YEAR’S DAY 5K

Volunteer Landing • 9 a.m. • $20-$30 • ktc.org • Shake off the first hangover of the year on KTC’s flat and fast USATF-certified course, starting near Calhoun’s and running out and back on Neyland Drive. Awards go to the first 100 men and the first 100 women to finish and to the oldest and youngest finishers.

38

KNOXVILLE MERCURY December 22, 2016

Sunday, Jan. 15 KTC WANDERERS’ TRAIL RACE • Maryville College • 2PM • This race has been a four miler since its inception but this year we’re introducing a rip-snorter of a 5k trail course that still meanders through the woods, crossing hills, dales, rocks, roots, streams, and grassy knolls, but eliminates the occasional bit of asphalt. The kids course will similarly meander through the January countryside — and the kids race is only five bucks (ten if you want a shirt just like the grownups). • $15-$20

ART

Art Market Gallery 422 S. Gay St. JAN. 3-30: Mixed-media art by Lynnda Tenpenny and fiber art by Julia Malia. An opening reception will be held on Friday, Jan. 6, at 5:30 p.m. Visit artmarketgallery.net.

Broadway Studios and Gallery 1127 N. Broadway JAN. 6-31: Opportunity Knocks, an open-call competition.

An opening reception will be held on Friday, Jan. 6, from 5-9 p.m. Visit broadwaystudiosandgallery.com.

Central Collective 923 N. Central St. THROUGH JANUARY: Delays and Interruptions, an exhibit of collaborative drawings by Brian Hitelsberger and Jessie Van der Laan. An opening reception will be held on Friday, Jan. 6, from 7-10 p.m. The gallery is open by appointment. Visit thecentralcollective.com.

Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge 461 W. Outer Drive (Oak Ridge) THROUGH DECEMBER: Parks in Focus Photography Exhibit.

Visit childrensmuseumofoakridge.org.

The District Gallery 5113 Kingston Pike DEC. 2-30: My Knoxville: Interpretations of Home, a group exhibit featuring artwork by Cinamon Airhart, Mike C. Berry, Gary Dagnan, Connie Gaertner, Kathie Odom, and Joe Parrott. Visit thedistrictgallery.com.

Downtown Gallery 106 S. Gay St. JANUARY: Meandering Mythologies by Gary Monroe and Timothy Massey. An opening reception will be held on Friday, Jan. 6, from 5-9 p.m. Visit downtown.utk.edu.

East Tennessee History Center 601 S. Gay St. NOV. 19-APRIL 30: Rock of Ages: East Tennessee’s Marble Industry. NOV. 19-JAN. 2: A Man and His Bike, an exhibit remembering Waymon Earl Terrell. Visit easttnhistory.org.

Emporium Center for Arts and Culture 100 S. Gay St. DEC. 2-23: Arts and Culture Alliance 2016 Members Show. JAN. 6-27: Breaking Ground by the O’Connor Senior Center Painters; Beautiful Iron by the Appalachian Area Chapter of Blacksmiths; and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Commission Gallery of Arts Tribute. An opening reception will be held on Friday, Jan. 6, from 5-9 p.m. Visit knoxalliance. com.

Ewing Gallery 1715 Volunteer Boulevard

JAN. 11-FEB. 11: A Common Lineage, sculpture by Lee Benson and his family. Visit ewing-gallery.utk.edu.

Fountain City Art Center 213 Hotel Road NOV. 18-JAN. 12: Fountain City Art Guild Annual Holiday Show and Sale. Visit fountaincityartcenter.com.

Knoxville Museum of Art 1050 World’s Fair Park Drive NOV. 25-JAN. 8: East Tennessee Regional Student Art Competition. ONGOING: Higher Ground: A Century of the Visual Arts in Tennessee; Currents: Recent Art From East Tennessee and Beyond; and Facets of Modern and Contemporary Glass.

McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture 1327 Circle Park Drive SEPT. 17-JAN. 8: Knoxville Unearthed: Archaeology in the Heart of the Valley. ONGOING: The Flora and Fauna of Catesby, Mason, and Audubon and Life on the Roman Frontier.

Pioneer House 413 S. Gay St. NOV. 4-DEC. 31: Folk art, clothing, Nativa American artifacts, and more from the personal collection of Marty Stuart. Visit pioneer-house.com.

Rala 323 Union Ave. THROUGH DECEMBER: Artwork by Brian Pittman and Cynthia Markert. Visit shoprala.com.

Westminster Presbyterian Church Schilling Gallery 6500 Northshore Drive NOV. 8-JAN. 2: Paintings by Rebecca Mullen. Visit wpcknox.org.

FAMILY AND KIDS’ EVENTS

Thursday, Dec. 22 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. Visit blountlibrary.org. • FREE Friday, Dec. 23 CHESS AT THE LIBRARY • Blount County Public Library • 1PM • For middle and high school students, with coach Tom Jobe. Visit blountlibrary.org. • FREE Saturday, Dec. 24 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. Visit blountlibrary.org. • FREE S.T.E.A.M. KIDS • Blount County Public Library • 4PM • For grades K-5. Every week will be a different adventure,

CALENDAR from science experiments to art projects and everything in between. Visit blountlibrary.org. • FREE Tuesday, Dec. 27 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. Visit blountlibrary.org. • FREE DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS • Blount County Public Library • 5:30PM • Recommended for ages 10 and up but any age may join in the fun of this tabletop role-playing game by learning about the game and sharing your love of fantasy.

Visit blountlibrary.org. • FREE Wednesday, Dec. 28 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. Visit blountlibrary.org. • FREE Thursday, Dec. 29 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. Visit blountlibrary.org. • FREE Friday, Dec. 30 CHESS AT THE LIBRARY • Blount County Public Library • 1PM • For middle and high school students, with coach Tom Jobe. Visit blountlibrary.org. • FREE Saturday, Dec. 31 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 PUBLIC LIBRARY FAMILY STORYTIME • Blount County Public Library • 10:30AM • Recommended for ages 5 and under. Bring the whole family out for stories, songs, movement and activities that are fun for all ages and that help encourage important early literacy skills. • 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. Visit blountlibrary.org. • FREE 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. Visit blountlibrary.org. • FREE Tuesday, Jan. 3 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. Visit blountlibrary.org. • FREE DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS • Blount County Public Library • 5:30PM • Recommended for ages 10 and up but any age may join in the fun of this tabletop role-playing game by learning about the game and sharing your love of fantasy.

Visit blountlibrary.org. • FREE Wednesday, Jan. 4 BABY AND ME • Blount County Public Library • 10:30AM • Recommended for ages 2 and under. These lapsit

Bach or Basie?

sessions for baby and caregiver feature short stories, action rhymes, music and pre-literacy tips and tricks for caregivers. Visit blountlibrary.org. • FREE Thursday, Jan. 5 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. Visit blountlibrary.org. • FREE

Your music, your choice.

Saturday, Jan. 7 DISNEY’S ‘FROZEN’: SING-ALONG EDITION • Tennessee Theatre • 10AM • Get ready to “Let it Go” at this very special interactive sing-a-long screening of Disney’s beloved musical, Frozen, one of the “coolest” animated hits of all-time! Sing-along as fearless optimist Anna teams up with rugged mountain man Kristoff and his loyal reindeer Sven in an epic journey to find Anna’s sister Elsa, whose icy powers have trapped the kingdom of Arendelle in eternal winter. Encountering Everest-like conditions, mystical trolls and a hilarious snowman named Olaf, Anna and Kristoff battle the elements in a race to save the kingdom. On-screen lyrics make it easy to join in the fun, and dressing up as your favorite character is encouraged! (Children one year of age and older require a ticket.) • $10

Your classical and jazz station.

Sunday, Jan. 8 KMA ART ACTIVITY DAY • Knoxville Museum of Art • 1PM • Every second Sunday of each month, the KMA will host free drop-in art activities for families. A local artist will be on-site to lead hands-on art activities. • FREE

FIX THIS BASTARD

Saturday, Jan. 14 WUOT_Ad_4.625x5.25_ClassicalJazz_KnoxMerc.indd MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. KIDS AND FAMILIES FAIR • Blount County Public Library • 2PM • This family-oriented fair for all ages will incorporate a variety of fun activities and educational displays to celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Visit blountlibrary.org. • FREE WDVX KIDSTUFF LIVE • WDVX • 10AM • Sean McCollough’s weekly kids’ music show hosts a live studio audience on the second Saturday of each month. Visit wdvx.com. • FREE

LECTURES, READINGS, AND BOOK SIGNINGS

2

9/17/16 5:00 PM

Live Music | Dancing | Spirits | Food & Fun!

SELECTED FRIDAYS @ 6:00 - 8:30pm

Tuesday, Jan. 10 KNOXVILLE CIVIL WAR ROUNDTABLE • Bearden Banquet Hall • 7PM • Featuring notable historians and other Civil War experts. Call (865) 671-9001 for reservations. • $3-$17

CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS

Thursday, Dec. 22 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Balanced You Studios • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail. com. Donations accepted.

KNOXVILLE CAPOEIRA CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 6PM • Visit knoxvillecapoeira.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

January 6th

“Tribute to the R&B Classic Hits, part 4” featuring Evelyn Jack w/ the Keith Brown Band Like us on c

January 13th

featuring The Streamliners Swing Orchestra

865-525-6101 • KNOXART.ORG

ALIVE AFTER FIVE - KNOXVILLE MUSEUM OF @RT

December 22, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 39

CALENDAR BELLY DANCE LEVELS 1 AND 2 • Knox Dance Worx • 8PM • Call (865) 898-2126 or email alexia@alexia-dance.com. • $12 Saturday, Dec. 24 YOGA AT NARROW RIDGE • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 9:30AM • For information call 865-497-2753 or email community@narrowridge.org. • FREE Monday, Dec. 26 RESTORATIVE YOGA • St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral • 5PM • For more information or to reserve your spot, email sjc@performancetraininginc.com.

BEGINNER MODERN BELLY DANCE • Broadway Academy of Performing Arts • 6PM • $13 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Balanced You Studios • 6PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail. com. Donations accepted.

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, Dec. 27 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Balanced You Studios • 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)

40

KNOXVILLE MERCURY December 22, 2016

Thursday, Dec. 22 - Sunday, Jan. 15

622-3103 or visit knoxvillepersonaltraining.com. • $4

community@narrowridge.org. • FREE

Wednesday, Dec. 28 BEGINNER MODERN BELLY DANCE • Broadway Academy of Performing Arts • 6PM • $13

Monday, Jan. 2 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Balanced You Studios • 6PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail. com. Donations accepted.

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

Thursday, Dec. 29 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Balanced You Studios • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail. com. Donations accepted.

KNOXVILLE CAPOEIRA CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 6PM • This class is an hour of student-led training and review of Capoeira skills and exercises.

Come prepared to sweat. • $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 ACROYOGA • Breezeway Yoga Studio • 7:30PM • This beginner level class is for those either brand new to AcroYoga or just starting out. Each class explores the foundations of the AcroYoga practice. • $15 BELLY DANCE LEVELS 1 AND 2 • Knox Dance Worx • 8PM • Call (865) 898-2126 or email alexia@alexia-dance.com. • $12 Saturday, Dec. 31 YOGA AT NARROW RIDGE • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 9:30AM • Narrow Ridge invites you to join us every Saturday morning for yoga instruction from Angela Gibson. This class can be tailored to each individual’s ability level. For information call 865-497-2753 or email

Tuesday, Jan. 3 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Balanced You Studios • 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 Wednesday, Jan. 4 CLIMBING FUNDAMENTALS • River Sports Outfitters • 6PM • Come learn the basics of climbing every first and third Wednesday of the month. Space is limited so call 865-673-4687 to reserve your spot now. Class fee $20.

Visit riversportsoutfitters.com/events. • $20 Thursday, Jan. 5 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Balanced You Studios • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail.

com. Donations accepted.

CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY: KNIT YOUR WAY TO WELLNESS • Cancer Support Community • 1PM • 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 • This class is an hour of student-led training and review of Capoeira skills and exercises.

Come prepared to sweat. • $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 BELLY DANCE LEVELS 1 AND 2 • Knox Dance Worx • 8PM • Call (865) 898-2126 or email alexia@alexia-dance.com. • $12 Saturday, Jan. 7 YOGA AT NARROW RIDGE • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 9:30AM • For information call 865-497-2753 or email community@narrowridge.org. • FREE Sunday, Jan. 8 CIRCLE MODERN DANCE BALLET BARRE CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 1PM • Visit circlemoderndance.com. • $10 CIRCLE MODERN DANCE: MODERN DANCE FOUNDATIONS CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 2PM • Visit circlemoderndance.com. • $10 CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY MINDFULNESS-BASED STREET REDUCTION EIGHT-WEEK SERIES • Cancer Support Community • 4:30PM • This series is a systematic practice

CALENDAR that involves focusing attention in the present moment in order to relax the body and calm the mind. Evidence shows regular mindfulness practice helps us manage stress, reduce anxiety and depression and cultivate well-being. This series meets January 22-March 12. RSVP. 865-546-4661. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer. • FREE Monday, Jan. 9 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Balanced You Studios • 6PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail. com. Donations accepted.

REI BIKE MAINTENANCE BASICS LEVEL 2: BRAKES AND DRIVE TRAIN • REI • 6PM • Visit rei.com/stores/knoxville. • FREE 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, Jan. 10 CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY NUTRITION AMMUNITION • Cancer Support Community • 12PM • Call (865) 546-4611.

All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer.

GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Balanced You Studios • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail. com. Donations accepted.

ARTS AND CULTURE ALLIANCE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ARTISTS’ SEMINARS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 5:30PM • Visit knoxalliance.com. • $5-$8 KNOXVILLE CAPOEIRA CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 6PM • Capoeira originated in Brazil and is a dynamic expression of Afro-Brazilian culture. It is an art form that encompasses martial arts, dance, and acrobatic movements as well as its own philosophy, history, culture, music, and songs. 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 Wednesday, Jan. 11 CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY: HEALING THROUGH ART • Cancer Support Community • 1PM • No experience necessary. RSVP. 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 CHAIR YOGA • Cancer Support Community • 2PM • 865-546-4661. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer.

REI WINTER CAMPING BASICS • REI • 6PM • Visit rei.com/ stores/knoxville. • FREE CIRCLE MODERN DANCE OPEN LEVEL BALLET CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 6:30PM • Visit circlemoderndance.com. • $10 Thursday, Jan. 12 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Balanced You Studios • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail. com. Donations accepted.

KNOXVILLE CAPOEIRA CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 6PM • This class is an hour of student-led training and review of Capoeira skills and exercises.

Come prepared to sweat. • $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 BELLY DANCE LEVELS 1 AND 2 • Knox Dance Worx • 8PM • Call (865) 898-2126 or email alexia@alexia-dance.com. • $12

MEETINGS

Thursday, Dec. 22 NARROW RIDGE COMMUNITY POTLUCK • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 6:30PM • This fourth Thursday event is an opportunity to introduce folks to the Narrow Ridge community as well as for friends and neighbors to come together to share good food and conversation.

Guests are invited to bring a dish to share. For information, call 865-497-2753 or email community@ narrowridge.org. • FREE ADULT CHILDREN OF ALCOHOLICS/DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILIES • The Birdhouse • 6PM • A 12-step meeting for adults who grew up in alcoholic or dysfunctional homes.

The group offers a safe space for emotional healing.

Contact Laura at 706-621-2238 or lamohendricksll@ gmail.com for more information or visit the international ACA website at adultchildren.org. • FREE AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 6PM • 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. Five different meetings during the week: Understanding Ourselves literature study (Sundays), fellowship family group (Tuesdays), literature study (Wednesdays), Beginning Again Family Group (Thursday), and Reflections book study (Saturdays). Visit farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon. org. • FREE Saturday, Dec. 24 AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon. org. • FREE NARROW RIDGE SILENT MEDITATION GATHERING • Narrow 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 Sunday, Dec. 25 AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 5PM • Visit farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon. org. • FREE Monday, Dec. 26 GAY MEN’S DISCUSSION GROUP • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 7:30PM • We hold facilitated discussions on topics and issues relevant to local gay men in a safe and open environment. Visit gaygroupknoxville.org.

APPALACHIAN MOUNTAIN BIKE CLUB • Sweet P’s Barbecue and Soul House • 7PM • Interested in getting involved with the mountain biking community here in Knoxville?

The Appalachian Mountain Bike Club meets the fourth Monday of each month. Visit ambc-sorba.org. • FREE Tuesday, Dec. 27 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. Visit meetup.com/KnoxvilleAtheists. • FREE

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December 22, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 41

CALENDAR DER GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS STAMMTISCH • Los Amigos • 6PM • A weekly gathering for Germans and anyone interested in German culture and the German language. • FREE AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 7PM • Visit farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon. org. • FREE THREE RIVERS! EARTH FIRST! • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM • 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 Wednesday, Dec. 28 AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon. org. • FREE THE BOOKAHOLICS BOOK GROUP • Union Ave Books • 12PM • Union Ave Books’ monthly book discussion group. Visit unionavebooks.com. • FREE KNOX HERITAGE PRESERVATION AND LIBATIONS • The Crown and Goose • 5:30PM • Join friends of historic preservation for a drink and good conversation. No need to RSVP, just stop by. Free and open to the public. Visit knoxheritage.org. • FREE Thursday, Dec. 29 ADULT CHILDREN OF ALCOHOLICS/DYSFUNCTIONAL

Thursday, Dec. 22 - Sunday, Jan. 15

FAMILIES • The Birdhouse • 6PM • A 12-step meeting for adults who grew up in alcoholic or dysfunctional homes.

The group offers a safe space for emotional healing.

Contact Laura at 706-621-2238 or lamohendricksll@ gmail.com for more information or visit the international ACA website at adultchildren.org. • FREE AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 6PM • Visit farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon. org. • FREE BLACK LIVES MATTER • The Birdhouse • 7:30PM • #BlackLivesMatter is working for a world where Black lives are no longer systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. Visit blacklivesmatterknoxville.org. • FREE

Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 11AM • For information call 865-497-2753 or email community@narrowridge.org. • FREE

Friday, Dec. 30 SMALL BREED RESCUE OF EAST TENNESSEE YAPPY HOUR • Sugar Mama’s • 6PM • Adopt, don’t shop—volunteer, foster, donate. Small Breed Rescue of East Tennessee, rescuing one little dog at a time. If you’ve ever thought about becoming a foster come join us in a casual atmosphere and let’s yap. Enjoy a local craft beer, yummy handmade pizza, something delicious for your sweet tooth and much more. SBRET volunteers will be there ready to answer your questions. $1 per pint goes to Small Breed Rescue of East Tennessee. • FREE

Tuesday, Jan. 3 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. Visit meetup.com/KnoxvilleAtheists. • FREE AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 7PM • Visit farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon. org. • FREE THREE RIVERS! EARTH FIRST! • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM • Call (865) 257-4029 for more information.

• FREE

Saturday, Dec. 31 AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon. org. • FREE NARROW RIDGE SILENT MEDITATION GATHERING • Narrow

Sunday, Jan. 1 AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 5PM • Visit farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon. org. • FREE Monday, Jan. 2 GAY MEN’S DISCUSSION GROUP • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 7:30PM • We hold facilitated discussions on topics and issues relevant to local gay men in a safe and open environment. Visit gaygroupknoxville.org.

Wednesday, Jan. 4 AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon.

org. • FREE Thursday, Jan. 5 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.

AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 6PM • Visit farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon. org. • 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.

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY December 22, 2016

10

CALENDAR Saturday, Jan. 7 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.Visit sosknoxville.org. • FREE AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon. org. • FREE NARROW RIDGE SILENT MEDITATION GATHERING • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 11AM • For information call 865-497-2753 or email community@narrowridge.org. • FREE Sunday, Jan. 8 SKEPTIC BOOK CLUB • Books-A-Million • 2PM • The book club of the Rationalists of East Tennessee meets on the second Sunday of every month. Visit rationalists.org. • FREE AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 5PM • Visit farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon. org. • FREE Monday, Jan. 9 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, Jan. 10 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. Visit meetup.com/KnoxvilleAtheists. • FREE HARVEY BROOME GROUP OF THE SIERRA CLUB • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 7PM • FREE AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 7PM • Visit farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon. org. • FREE THREE RIVERS! EARTH FIRST! • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM • Call (865) 257-4029 for more information.

• FREE Wednesday, Jan. 11 AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon. org. • FREE

STFK SCIENCE CAFE • Zoo Knoxville • 5:30PM • A free monthly discussion of science-related topics, hosted by the Spirit and Truth Fellowship of Knoxville. Email rsvp@ knoxsciencecafe.org. • FREE AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 6PM • Visit farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon. org. • FREE BLACK LIVES MATTER • The Birdhouse • 7:30PM • #BlackLivesMatter is working for a world where Black lives are no longer systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. Visit blacklivesmatterknoxville.org. • FREE

ETC.

Thursday, Dec. 22 HAPPY KNOXVOLLIDAYS • Central Collective • 8PM • Now that it’s coming to the end of another year, how about we all come together to celebrate the holidays? We’ll have a multitude of musicians performing their own special take on holiday and Christmas tunes at The Central Collective in North Knoxville. They’ll be performing “in-the-round” style, playing with others they may never have performed with together before! Not only will it be a wonderful evening of music, but we’ll also be giving all of the proceeds to help The Love Kitchen here in Knoxville. They have been working hard in order to help the folks of our community. • $6 Saturday, Jan. 7 SCOTTISH COUNTRY DANCE • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 4PM • Dancing is just as important as music in the Scottish tradition, and upbeat rhythms make for great foot stomping. Those that are more experienced can even present a well-practiced jig or reel. Led by Cynthia West on the first Saturday of every month. Visit jigandreel.com.

• FREE

Christmas Eve at Church Street Noon 3 p.m.

5 p.m.

10:30 p.m.

All services include candlelight and Holy Communion.

900 Henley at Main Across from the Knoxville Convention Center www.churchstreetumc.org

Thursday, Jan. 12 KNOXVILLE SQUARE DANCE • Laurel Theater • 8PM • Visit jubileearts.org. • $7 Saturday, Jan. 14 NOURISH KNOXVILLE WINTER FARMERS’ MARKET • Central United Methodist Church • 8AM • Visit nourishknoxville. org. • FREE

Send your events to calendar@knoxmercury.com

Thursday, Jan. 12

SOLUTION TO CRYPTOQUOTE

Heal, hardy air, harm in earth.

And yield these lungs the while to breathe It takes to whisper out that worth Whose cloudy forehead you enwreathe.

— James Agee, Lyrics

From The Collected Poems of James Agee. Robert Fitzgerald, Ed. (Boston, MA, Houghton Mifflin Company 1968. Copyright 1962, 1968 by the James Agee Trust,)

December 22, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 43

Photos by Kim Trevathan

OUTDOORS

Voice in the Wilder ness

Guided Tour Joining an interpretive hike in the Obed Wild and Scenic River area

BY KIM TREVATHAN

O

ne of my most memorable trips into wilderness—a three-day float down the Green River through Dinosaur National Monument in Utah and Colorado—was nearly ruined by the guides who made us participate in community building activities and listen to bad poetry around otherwise excellent campfires.

I’m not a big fan of being guided through the wilderness. It’s not because I know so much or that I think I know so much about the outdoors. Mostly, I like having my own agenda, going at my own pace, reveling in silence, and finding my own way, even if it leads to an outbreak of chiggers, poison ivy, or

44

KNOXVILLE MERCURY December 22, 2016

bewilderment—as it has, more than once.

So it was with some trepidation that I attended an interpretive hike in the Obed Wild and Scenic River area.

Ranger Rick Ryan, who leads a hike on the Obed every month, would take us on the Point Trail to some overlooks, an arch, and a section of a climbing wall called Tieranny Roofs. I knew Ryan from two other Obed events: Climb with a Ranger, also a monthly program, and Night Skies over the Obed, a gathering of star gazers.

I drove under a leaky sky from Maryville and wondered if I’d be the only one there, if I’d have Ryan to

myself to interrogate the entire hike, for I had many questions. Dr. Drew Crain and I had been there twice looking for a legendary fishing spot off-trail. The first time we got lost, and we were found by chiggers. The second time, we found our fishing spot, but I nearly stepped on a copperhead and a mysterious jokester fish broke both our lines.

To my surprise, 12 other hikers joined me and Ranger Rick, along with Ranger Veronica Greear, and two interns at the Lilly Overlook parking area. People had come from Knoxville, Oak Ridge, Kingston, Loudon County, and Allardt, near Jamestown, to hike in the dimness of this day in celebration of the impending winter solstice. A man and his two young sons had come from nearby Coalfield. There were no dogs, but you could bring one, if you kept him on a leash.

The day got brighter as we hiked in a straggly line through the woods, descending to a creek with an elaborate wooden bridge and then climbing up a rocky defile to the top of a ridge.

One of the hikers, Ava Sears, from Allardt, pointed out a rash of pale mushrooms protruding from a fallen log. Sears didn’t know the

Left: The author’s group stopped for lunch at a place that overlooked the Obed River. Right: Ranger Rick Ryan takes in the vista from the Clear Creek Overlook. scientific names, but she said she “knew the ones you could eat, the ones that would poison you, and the ones that made you see cartoon characters.”

Ryan would stop every half-mile or so and give us a short talk. He’d wait for the interns to bring up the rear with the slower-paced hikers and tell us what we were looking at or where he was taking us.

The park, he told us, was arcshaped as it followed the Obed River.

He would lead us to a couple of places where we could look down into the river gorge. We would also descend a “scramble” (if we wanted) to Tieranny Roofs.

“You get some of your best views on a day like this,” he said, “when the mist rolls into the gorge.”

At the first overlook, the flat rocks we walked on were layered with iridescent green reindeer moss, intricate antler-like patterns that reminded me of a coral reef. Ryan asked us to avoid stepping on it.

He pointed at Clear Creek, 100 feet below us, and across the gorge,

OUTDOORS

where a section of the Cumberland Trail ran along the ridgeline to a place called the Devil’s Pulpit.

At a couple of other overlooks we stared down at the Obed River, a narrow stream that tumbled through rock gardens and slackened into deep water sections. Ryan said you could do a loop from the Cumberland Trail, cross the Obed, and join the point trail below the Obed Wall, just below us. Yes, he told me, it was permissible to hike off-trail in the Obed.

Ryan, an experienced rock climber, said the dropdown to the Tieranny Roofs was a “five-second scramble” for him. He and an intern spotted us as we picked our way down a narrow gap in the wall, turning around backward and using a knotted rope to descend a 15-foot long section of steep slippery rock.

Our destination took us along the base of the Obed Wall, a 2-mile-long section of sandstone with dozens of climbing routes. It hurt my neck and made me a little dizzy to trace the routes visually, the overhangs 100 feet or more above us. Periodically, you could see silver bolts for climbers to clip onto, and sometimes the rock was honeycombed with places you might wedge a foot or hand, but there were also smooth, blank, inscrutable expanses that looked impossible to scale.

The terminus of our hike was a

Left: An intern helped hikers down the scramble from the trail above. Right: This antler-like moss grew around the rocks near the Clear Creek overlook. large, flat boulder below Tieranny Roofs that Ryan said was ideal for lounging, with the river visible below through the trees, sending up a faint murmur, the wall looming above you, and the sun suffusing the rock surface with heat. He was surprised there were no climbers that day.

By the end of the hike, I’d learned a lot from Ryan and the other hikers.

Though I’m prone to seek out solitude and flee human chatter in the wilderness, it’s instructive to see a beloved place through the eyes of others experiencing it for the first time and to hear from veterans like Ryan, who pass on knowledge that enriches one’s interaction with wilderness that deserves reverence and vigilant protection.

Ryan couldn’t tell me what broke my line and Dr. Crain’s that day, but he did know a spot where we might hook a razor-toothed prehistoric muskellunge. And one of the interns told me that mentholated body powder would ward off chiggers. Come summer, I can’t wait to test it.

A writing instructor at Maryville College, Kim Trevathan is the author of Paddling the Tennessee River: A Voyage on East Water and Coldhearted River: A Canoe Odyssey Down the Cumberland.

9715 Kingston Pike - 865-357-8566 Coming soon to Sevier Ave. in South Knoxville unclelems.com

December 22, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 45

’BYE

At This Point

Christmas Journey Meeting the stranger

BY STEPHANIE PIPER

W

e’re traveling far this Christmas, thousands of miles to meet a small stranger. I’m fairly certain he won’t be a stranger for long. From what I hear, he’s a born extrovert. As for us, we’re already smitten, sight unseen.

He’s 20 months old. By chance or providence, he has landed in the home of two exceptional souls who seem to have been waiting for him all their lives. He arrived on a September night, rescued from danger by police and delivered to this safe place by a social worker. He came with a plastic bag of ill-fitting clothes and a tattered blanket and a look of bewilderment.

He was meant to stay for 24 hours.

Three months later, he’s still there.

Too often, the stories we hear about foster care are sad ones. An overburdened system, inadequate resources, and the inevitability of human error leave children at risk.

Sad stories make headlines. Hopeful ones, not so much.

This story is about hope and about courage, the everyday kind that

doesn’t get much press. It’s about two people who decided they wanted to make a difference in a child’s life.

They’d given to local charities and written checks to support needy youngsters in distant lands. Somehow, it wasn’t enough.

So they signed up for the training and the screening and the background checks and the home studies. They answered every question and filled in every form. They submitted their lives to the fine-toothed comb of bureaucratic scrutiny. One day last July, their foster-care license arrived in the mail.

They framed it and hung it on the wall. And then they waited.

The call, when it came, required an immediate answer. This was an emergency placement, unlikely to be long term. But the need was pressing.

It was late, the baby was exhausted and frightened. They said yes.

They had been told by experts that this commitment is not for the faint of heart. They had been warned about the risks, the emotional roller coaster of caring for a child who may

BY MATTHEW FOLTZ-GRAY

46

KNOXVILLE MERCURY December 22, 2016

www.thespiritofthestaircase.com

stay forever or be gone tomorrow.

Still, they said yes.

They have been saying yes every day since then. Yes to sleepless nights.

Yes to another incomprehensible state requirement that defies logic. Yes to the persistent joy of seeing a little boy thrive in their care. Yes to the constant anxiety about his future.

Here is what I pray every day, one of them told me. I pray that everything and everyone may work together for his good. I try not to ask for anything more.

I tell them that they are living in the hardest place of all, that limbo between hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. I tell them that each night they can be sure of one thing: that they have given him another day of grace.

I stand on the front porch and look up. The brilliant star that I see each December is back, pinned to the night sky like a sign from heaven.

Tomorrow we begin our journey.

We’re not shepherds or kings, but we’re drawn inexorably to a faraway place where a child has found shelter.

In this story, there is room at the inn, a warm bed, bright new toys, a fridge full of toddler-friendly delicacies.

There are soft lights and soft voices and in lieu of sheep and cows, a gentle and extraordinarily patient Norwegian elkhound.

I look at the star and think about the words of a favorite carol: For those who would the stranger greet/Must lay their hearts before him.

I think about risk and about trust, and finally about the simplest definition of love: to will the good of another.

And to ask for nothing more. ◆ Stephanie Piper’s At This Point examines the mystery, absurdity, and persistent beauty of daily life. She has been a newspaper reporter, editor, and award-winning columnist for more than 30 years.

They had been warned about the risks, the emotional roller coaster of caring for a child who may stay forever or be gone tomorrow. Still, they said yes.

’BYE

BY IAN BLACKBURN AND JACK NEELY

CLASSIFIEDS

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HOUSING

COMMUNITY

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MULBERRY PLACE CRYPTOQUOTE BY JOAN KEUPER Each letter takes the place of another. Hint: In this solution, “H” replaces “S”.

____, _____ ___, ____ __ _____.

SARC, SRUFP RYU, SRUO YW ARUKS. ___ _____ _ _ _ _ _ _____ RWF PYACF KSANA CGWDN ___ _____ __ _______ KSA BSYCA KE MUARKSA __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ YK KRHAN KE BSYNTAU EGK ____ _____ KSRK BEUKS _____ ______ ________ BSENA JCEGFP IEUASARF ___ ___ _ _ _ __ _.

PEG AWBUARKSA. —_____ ____, ______ —LROAN RDAA, CPUYJN

Calhoun's New Year's Day 5K Run / Walk

January 1st, 2017 • 9 A.M. • Pre- and Post-Race Activities at Calhoun's on the River • Awards to Top 100 Male and Female For more information visit: ktc.org or runsignup.com/Race/TN/Knoxville/ CalhounsNewYearsDay5KRunWalk Sponsored by:

December 22, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 47

TICKETS ON SALE JANUARY 3RD THE EVENT SWEEPING THE NATION IS COMING TO KNOXVILLE!

A Portion of the Proceeds to Benefit:

ALL YOU CARE TO TASTE 60 BEERS/40 BOURBONS

p LOTS OF BBQ p TASTING THEATER CLASSES p ARTISTS & BREWERANIA p SHRINE OF SWINE p LIVE MUSIC, FUN GAMES & MUCH MORE!

2 FOR 1 VIP TICKETS WHILE SUPPLIES LAST! WWW.BEERANDBOURBON.COM Tickets are non-refundable. Show is rain or shine. Please drink responsibly. Advance ticket sales close 05/17/17. On-site tickets subject to tax.