Vol. 3, Issue 11 Apr. 20, 2017 by Knoxville Mercury

Schedule, Pull-out Map, and More!

FESTIVAL

GUIDE

A BUDGET? WE’D LOVE TO HAVE ONE!

APRIL 20, 2017 knoxmercury.com V.

3/ N.11

WHO GETS HURT BY TRUMP’S

If you’re old, don’t make much money, or want to find a job in Appalachia, prepare to fend for yourself • BY S. HEATHER DUNCAN

WWE’s Kane Announces His Candidacy for Knox County Mayor

World’s Fair Beer— the Brew No One Actually Drank— Relaunches

YEP Unites Entrepreneurs and Students to Develop Business Ideas

OX KN

THE SC H

OF HA OL R O

KNOXVILLE TENNESSEE

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April 20, 2017 | Volume 03: Issue 11 | knoxmercury.com “The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.” —Aristotle

HOWDY

6 Local Life

by Marissa Highfill

OPINION

8 Scruffy Citizen

Jack Neely relates his reveries on a couple of country-music fantasies.

10 Much Ado

Catherine Landis believes facing the unfamiliar should be enlightening, not frightening.

A&E

24 Program Notes

Matthew Everett goes rambling with local folk singer Paul Lee Kupfer.

25 Movies

April Snellings discovers The Fate of the Furious.

CALENDAR

26 Spotlights & Featured Events Blink 182, Jason Isbell, Record Store Day, and more.

OUTDOORS

42 Voice in the Wilderness

Kim Trevathan jumps hip-deep into Citico Creek for some early spring fishing.

’BYE

COVER STORY

18 Who Gets Hurt by Trump’s Budget Cuts Many of the agencies and programs that would disappear under President Donald Trump’s proposed budget cuts are those that help the kind of working-class voters who helped propel him into office. In Knoxville, the budget cuts could end everything from community gardens to services that help senior citizens. S. Heather Duncan surveys the damage.

NEWS 12 Brewing Nostalgia

World’s Fair Beer—whose unopened cans still collect dust in many Knoxville basement bars—is being remastered into a craft beer launching this month, as Shannon Carey reports.

14 The Scene at Sweet P’s

Last week, Glenn Jacobs—aka WWE wrestler Kane— announced his candidacy for Knox County Mayor at Sweet P’s BBQ. Betty Bean describes the media event.

PRESS FORWARD 16 Youth Entrepreneurs Program

An A-E and Fulton High mentoring program unites entrepreneurs and students to develop community businesses. We talk with cofounder Paul Sponcia.

44 News of the Weird by Chuck Shepherd

45 Restless Native

by Chris Wohlwend

46 Spirit of the Staircase by Matthew Foltz-Gray

47 Crooked Street Crossword

by Ian Blackburn and Jack Neely

47 Mulberry Place Cryptoquote by Joan Keuper

ROSSINI FESTIVAL GUIDE Time to hit the streets downtown, eat lots of food, and imbibe in outdoor opera at this weekend’s Rossini Festival. Find out what is where and when with our handy guide.

April 20, 2017 knoxville mercury 3

WE’RE #1! In 1980, the Wall Street Journal called Knoxville “a scruffy little city.” What the writer would see today is a beautiful and thriving Knoxville. We live in a city and region that is truly world class. For example: We’re #1 in national parks with Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the most visited national park in America. We’re #1 in lifestyle media with Scripps Networks Interactive, RIVR Media, Jupiter Entertainment, NorthSouth Productions, and more. We’re #1 in homebuilding with Clayton Homes. We’re #1 in movie theaters with Regal Entertainment Group. We’re #1 in travel centers with Pilot Flying J. We’re in the #1 state for growth and innovation in education with programs like Tennessee Promise. We’re #1 in recreational boating with over 20 manufacturers including Brunswick, Malibu, and Mastercraft. We’re #1 in church management software and online giving with Ministry Brands. We’re #1 in pursuing novel

“Gannett is forgetting the big picture. Local stories by local journalists sell the paper. The more papers that are sold the more advertiser want in. Daily newspapers have been in trouble for years. Local people get their daily news from local TV and online. Daily newspapers should concentrate on local writers who get beyond the main story and dig for information. Possibly the most important part of any story is the ‘Why.’ Cutting your staff means less local stories, less readers and, as we can see with the News Sentinel, less advertisers. Sad.” —Mike Steely commenting on “News Sentinel’s ‘Historic New Approach’ Starts With Massive Layoffs,” Daily Dumpster blog post by Matthew Everett, April 6, 2017

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UNFAKE NEWS IS NOT FREE… “Pimiento is not ‘real’ cheese-right?” — Eileen Moffatt

“Pimiento is a type of sweet red pepper, roasted and peeled. That is combined (with other ingredients) into grated cheddar cheese.” — Valerie Frankel Pimiento cheese explained, in response to “Knoxville, Kentucky: Tennessee Williams, Clarence Brown, and Pimiento Cheese,” Scruffy Citizen column by Jack Neely, March 30, 2017

detection and treatment for cancer with companies including ProNova, Provectus, and EDP Biotech. We’re #1 in 3D printing with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Local Motors, and more. We’re #1 in outdoor recreation with the Urban Wilderness, Ijams, and hundreds of lakes, rivers, and parks. We’re #1 in nuclear safety and security with Y-12, Analysis and Measurement Services Corporation, and more. We’re #1 in jewelry e-commerce with Jewelry Television. We’re #1 in pet products with Radio Systems Corporation. We’re #1 in public power with the Tennessee Valley Authority. We’re #1 in important things that start with the letter B: beans (Bush Brothers), bacon (Benton’s), breweries (more than any other city in Tennessee), and barbecue (too many great places to list). According to Forbes, we’re the #2 happiest city to work in right now, but based on all of the above, I’d say we make a strong claim to #1. As we celebrate springtime in Knoxville with the Big Ears Festival, the Dogwood Arts Festival, the International Biscuit Festival, EarthFest, and the Rossini Festival, we can be sure that Knoxville is a pretty great place to live and call home. In fact, we’re #1. Brandon Bruce COO, Cirrus Insight Knoxville

I just wanted you to know how impactful your published blog post was to me. After reading the “News Sentinel’s Historic New Approach” blog published in the Dumpster Dive for April 6, I felt compelled to donate. I am a frequent reader of the Mercury, but this particular piece left me reeling. In an age of alternative facts and media blaming, we cannot afford to lose our local news sources, particularly those who speak the truth. Thank you for an eye-opening piece. Kristin Riggsbee Knoxville

…BUT YOU CAN HELP PAY FOR IT ON AN INSTALLMENT PLAN! It gives me great pleasure to now be able to commit to participate in your new monthly voluntary subscription program to the Knoxville Mercury. I now consider myself a true Benefactor of the Arts. I have never been one before now. Your efforts to provide our city’s past, present, and future touch on all areas and facets of life with love, humor and wisdom—they are appreciated. And your efforts are collectively without compare. Robert Bonfardin Knoxville

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR GUIDELINES • Letter submissions should include a verifiable name, address, and phone number. We do not print anonymous letters. • We much prefer letters that address issues that pertain specifically to Knoxville or to stories we’ve published. • We don’t publish letters about personal disputes or how you didn’t like your waiter at that restaurant. • Letters are usually published in the order that we receive them. Send your letters to: Our Dear Editor, Knoxville Mercury 618 S. Gay St., Suite L2 Knoxville, TN 37902 Send an email to: editor@knoxmercury.com Or message us at: facebook.com/knoxmercury

DELIVERING FINE JOURNALISM SINCE 2015 The Knoxville Mercury is an initiative of the Knoxville History Project, a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit whose mission is to research and promote the history of Knoxville. 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 CONTRIBUTORS Chris Barrett Joan Keuper Ian Blackburn Catherine Landis Hayley Brundige Dennis Perkins Patrice Cole Stephanie Piper Eric Dawson Ryan Reed George Dodds Eleanor Scott Thomas Fraser Alan Sherrod Lee Gardner Nathan Smith Mike Gibson April Snellings Carey Hodges Denise Stewart-Sanabria Nick Huinker Joe Sullivan Donna Johnson Kim Trevathan Tracy Jones Chris Wohlwend Rose Kennedy Angie Vicars Carol Z. Shane MULTIMEDIA ASSISTANT Jeffrey Chastain DESIGN ART DIRECTOR Tricia Bateman tricia@knoxmercury.com GRAPHIC DESIGNER Charlie Finch CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS David Luttrell Shawn Poynter Justin Fee Tyler Oxendine CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATORS Matthew Foltz-Gray PHOTOGRAPHY INTERN Marissa Highfill 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 Robin Easter Tommy Smith Melanie Faizer Joe Sullivan Jack Neely Coury Turczyn Charlie Vogel The Knoxville Mercury is an independent weekly news magazine devoted to informing and connecting Knoxville’s many different communities. It publishes 25,000 copies per week, available free of charge, limited to one copy per reader. © 2017 The Knoxville Mercury

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will be notified in advance. ry from weekly submissions. Winners reside nt, 18 years of age or older, n at random by the Knoxville Mercuwhere prohibited. Must be a legal U.S. r has 24 hours to respond. *Disclaimer: Winners will be chosePURC Void Y. SSAR NECE HASE winne (1 Pair of tickets per winner.) NOyee, family member, or household member of a sponsor. Once notified, Suite 404, Knoxville, TN 37902. and not be a sponsor or an emplo er of entries received. Sponsor: Knoxville Mercury, 706 Walnut Ave., numb on d depen g winnin of Odds

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BY THE NUMBERS Appalachia’s Economic Facts • The number of jobs in the nation has jumped 83 percent since 1975, while the number of jobs in Appalachia has increased only 50 percent over the same time period. • The health status of Appalachian residents continues to decline: the mortality rate in Appalachia is 27 percent higher than the national average, and the region has disproportionately higher rates of cancer, diabetes, substance abuse, and obesity. • Nearly a fourth of Appalachia’s 420 counties still face high poverty rates, low per capita market income, and high unemployment rates. • Between 1970 and 2012, counties that received Appalachian Regional Commission investments saw employment increase 4.2 percent faster and per capita income increase 5.5 percent faster than in similar counties that did not receive ARC investments.

LOCAL LIFE

—S. Heather Duncan

Photo Series by Marissa Highfill

Source: Appalachian Regional Commission

Yoga with kittens at a kickboxing place? Yes! On Saturday, Bullman’s Kickboxing & Krav Maga hosted this benefit for Young-Williams Animal Center, where participants could also adopt the kittens afterward. Kitten Yoga #3-Pilates Edition will be held on Sunday, May 7 at 11 a.m. at Breezeway Yoga Studio (4830 Kingston Pike).

PUBLIC AFFAIRS

4/20RIBBON-CUTTING: COLUMBUS HOME 4/21 OPEN HOUSE: COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT THURSDAY

10 a.m., Columbus Home (19 Dameron Ave.). Free. Catholic Charities of Knoxville will host this ribbon-cutting ceremony for Columbus Home’s new flooring, a project supported by Community Development Block Grants funds. (See cover story.) Columbus Home provides supportive housing for boys ages 12 and older who have been removed from their homes because of abuse, neglect, or other factors.

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FRIDAY

8-10 a.m., City County Building, Fifth Floor Atrium and Room 549 (400 Main St.). Free. Get to know the city’s Community Development Department with a slideshow of home renovations and testimonials from participants in programs like the Owner-Occupied Home Rehabilitation Program and the Commercial Façade Improvement Grants. Info: knoxvilletn.gov/development.

4/23 FESTIVAL: TASTE OF SCIENCE SUNDAY

1-5 p.m., Saw Works Brewing Co. (708 East Depot Ave.). Free. Beer and science do mix—or at least they will during the Taste of Science festival’s five days of scientific bar hopping around town. This kick-off event features ORNL and UTK scientists and a medical physicist from Provision Proton Therapy. If anything can elevate barroom discussions, it’s Taste of Science. Schedule: tasteofscience.org/knoxville.

4/25 CONVERSATION: A SEAT AT THE TABLE TUESDAY

6-8:30 p.m., TBA, North Knoxville. Free.

Hosted by Religions for Peace USA-Knoxville, these monthly dinners aim to bring people of different backgrounds and beliefs together for guided, intentional conversations. “Through these conversations, we seek to build community and meaningful relationships across religious and cultural differences.” Info: facebook.com/rfpusaknoxville.

A PR IL 22 IS EARTH DAY K n o x v i l l e h a s a d e e p h i s t o r y o f i n t e r e s t, a n d s o m e t i m e s n at i o n a l i n f l u e n c e , i n t h e n at u r a l e n v i r o n m e n t.

group, and worked with Broome toward the passage of the national Wilderness Act of 1964.

The heavy industry of the 19th century was hard on Knoxville’s environment. The term “air pollution” did not become common until much later, but the problem was hard to ignore, especially in terms of soot clinging to buildings, clothes, and skin. By 1910, University of Tennessee Professor J.A. Switzer was giving public lectures on Market Square on the subject of “the smoke nuisance.” A series of expositions at Chilhowee Park highlighted the area’s natural resources, both their potential and their problems. The National Conservation Exposition of 1913 was the world’s first big fair about conserving natural resources. Over two months, 1 million people visited the exposition. Its honorary chairman, who spoke at the event, was Gifford Pinchot, the well-known Pennsylvania conservationist.

In 1937, Knoxville native James Agee wrote a feature story for Fortune magazine called “Smoke,” an alarming account of the effects of air pollution up to that time, suggesting the difficulty of controlling it.

The official logo of the National Conservation Exposition, which drew 1 million visitors to Chilhowee Park in 1913. The world’s first big fair to advocate care for natural resources, it featured progressive speakers like Helen Keller, Booker T. Washington, William Jennings Bryan, and Gifford Pinchot. Several of its volunteers were later involved in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park project.

A decade later, another effort, largely led by Knoxvillians, aimed to start a national park in the Great Smoky Mountains, which had previously been a combination of farmland and harvested forests. Among the leaders were Knoxvillians businessman David Chapman and state Rep. Annie Davis, in 1925 Knoxville’s f irst female elected off icial. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park opened to the public in 1930, though it was not formally dedicated until later.

Meanwhile, the Wilderness Society was founded in 1935. Its members were different from the conservationists in that they promoted nature for its own sake, not for how it can serve mankind. That way of thinking was just becoming known as environmentalism. Among the influential society’s eight founders was attorney Harvey Broome, a lifelong Knoxvillian (1902-1968). Several others happened to be Knoxvillians at the time, having moved here to work for the Tennessee Valley Authority. Among them were Bernard Frank, Bob Marshall, and Benton MacKaye, already famous as the founder of the Appalachian Trail. They often met in Knoxville to discuss national issues. Soon, Ernie Dickerman, a Midwesterner who lived in downtown Knoxville for many years was another prominent leader of the

Source

UT alumnus Joseph Wood Krutch (18931970) grew up on Cumberland Avenue. He began his writing career in New York as a journalist and biographer. However, with books like The Great Chain of Life (1956), he became known a pioneer ecologist. Some of his words are inscribed on marble markers in Krutch Park, a green space which was established by a bequest of his brother Charles Krutch.

Knoxville has been celebrating Earth Day every April 22 since 1970, when a group organized by University of Tennessee professors and students walked along Kingston Pike from Western Plaza to UT, about three miles. The “Walk-In” was intended to encourage people to use clean forms or transportation. Volunteers cleaned up parts of Third Creek, and Circle Park hosted a “Celebration of Life.” “Deadwood Trail” bus tours pointed out the city’s most polluted neighborhoods.

That evening, 200 attended a lecture by author Jane Jacobs at the University Center. Jacobs (1916-2006), who wrote The Death and Life of Great American Cities, is considered a founder of new urbanism. She’s credited with helping inspire the revival of downtowns in the years since then.

Like the Mercury? Interested in new research into Knoxville history? You can help sustain both with a gift to the Knoxville History Project, by helping us renew this educational page for another year. See knoxvillehistoryproject.org.

The Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection, Lawson McGhee Library Image courtesy of Wikipedia • wikipedia.org

T h e K n ox v i l l e H i s to ry P r o j ec t, a n o n p r o fi t o r g a n iz at i o n d e vot e d to t h e p r o m ot i o n o f a n d ed u c at i o n a b o u t t h e h i s to ry o f K n ox v i l l e , p r e s en t s t h i s pag e e ac h w e e k to r a i s e awa r en e s s o f t h e t h em e s , p er s o n a l i t i e s , a n d s to r i e s o f o u r u n i q u e c i t y. L e a r n m o r e at

knoxvillehistoryproject.org

o r em a i l

jack@knoxhistoryproject.org

April 20, 2017 knoxville mercury 7

Scruffy Citizen | Much Ado

Sweet Dreams Reveries on a couple of country-music fantasies

BY JACK NEELY

’m obliged to submit a melancholy update. I’ve written a couple of articles about a rare and fascinating old building that nobody could figure out what to do with. The big WNOX auditorium, in the Whittle Springs area on the north side of town, was said to be state-of-the-art, futuristic, even, when it opened in 1955. But it ran into a thicket of disappointments in a rapidly changing society. It never got its anticipated TV station, and it never quite hit the heights expected of it as a magnetic performance venue, in terms of attracting audiences or sensations (give or take the two-night stand, that first year, by rock ‘n’ roll pioneers Bill Haley and the Comets). It witnessed the final days of the daily live radio show “Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round” and by the mid-1960s, the suburban auditorium was rarely full except for News-Sentinel spelling bees. A couple of passionate and well-intended attempts to revive the space as a performance venue in the ‘80s and ‘90s fizzled. It spent a couple of decades either hosting offbeat church services or dead empty. After a mandated demolition delay this past winter, the building finally disappeared. Nobody was very surprised, and though I know several preservationists and music, tech, and architectural aficionados who regret its loss, I haven’t heard from anybody who’s really angry. This time, we just didn’t have another idea. Five miles north of downtown, the WNOX Auditorium was an outlier,

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both when it was built and when it was torn down. For 60 years, we never knew quite what to make of it. At the McClung Collection this month I ran into Nashville journalist Craig Shelburne. He’s writing the first-ever full biography of singer-songwriter Don Gibson, who lived and worked in Knoxville in the 1950s. If you knew Gibson, let me know, and I can put you in touch. Shelburne recently turned up something I didn’t know. “Sweet Dreams” was a classic country crossover song recorded by Gibson, Faron Young, and later Emmylou Harris. It’s best known for the great Patsy Cline’s 1963 version, which peaked on the country and pop charts shortly after her death in a plane crash. Shelburne learned that Gibson, by his own account, wrote “Sweet Dreams” in 1955, backstage at that WNOX Auditorium, where he performed often that promising first year. I doubt that bit of intelligence would have made a difference in the building’s fate. Now it’s now just a couple of acres of unimproved land for sale. Maybe it was a sweet dream to think that we could have found another use for that unique place, which was unlike any other building in East Tennessee.

here’s fake news, and it has proven to be effective. There’s also fake history, and it seems to be pretty effective, too. I got a note from reader Melanie Hutsell (the novelist, no relation to the comic actress, though they both have intimate ties to Maryville). A few months ago she and her family encountered a puzzling display at an area Cracker Barrel. It was an authentic-looking poster hailing a concert by George Jones and his then-wife Tammy Wynette, with guests Mel Tillis, Donna Fargo, and Jerry Reed. According to the poster, that memorable concert was in Knoxville on Jan. 9, 1973. Everything about it looks right. Multiple-star shindig-style shows were still common then. On the poster, George and Tammy were labeled “Country’s Sweethearts,” and they were that. “Country Music / Dream Show,” it declares. Again, accurate-sounding. All five of those performers were at the peak of their careers in 1973. The advertised ticket price, $10, is plausible. Even though that was fairly steep for those days, this was a Dream Show, after all. The venue listed is Bergstrom Hall. Where was Bergstrom Hall, Hutsell wondered. As did I. Maybe, I thought, it was a short-lived speakeasy on Asheville Highway. Several large private clubs out there that thrived just under the liquor-control radar, and George Jones is known to have shown up now and then. But it would have to have been a very big one, to bring all those stars together with tickets $10 each. And most of those clubs wouldn’t have had much use for poster advertising. If you Google “Bergstrom Hall” in “Knoxville,” you get mainly references to that one poster about the George and Tammy concert. Other references to “Bergstrom Hall” tend to direct you to a couple of dormitories by that name in the upper Midwest where,

Maybe it was a sweet dream to think that we could have found another use for that unique place.

naturally, there are lots of Scandinavian names. I wasn’t ready to give up on the idea that maybe Bergstrom Hall was a short-lived venue in Knoxville. But there’s no reference to a Jan. 9 show in the Knoxville papers. Here’s the odd thing, as Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound’s chief operative, Eric Dawson, noted: George Jones and Tammy Wynette really did perform in Knoxville that winter. It was at the Civic Coliseum, on Dec. 30, 1972, just 10 days before that collectible poster’s heralded date. But it was a whole different show, no Mel, no Jerry, no Donna. Country’s Sweethearts were traveling with wellknown singer-songwriter Bobby Bare, famous for “Detroit City”—along with three minor stars, Wayne “Honky Tonk Wine” Kemp, O.B. McClinton (billing himself as “the Chocolate Cowboy,” he was one of the few blacks in the country-music business), and Anthony Armstrong Jones, who sang country versions of pop songs. Tickets weren’t 10 bucks, but $3.50 to $4.50, prices more typical for the time. The vintage posters for the alleged $10 show at Bergstrom Hall are being sold on Amazon and other outlets for $17, including shipping. Why would you pick a fake George and Tammy show 10 days after a real George and Tammy show? And why would you make up a venue? I don’t know, but maybe, rather than dummying up a counterfeit poster for a real show, it seems less odious to just make up a show and an unknown venue. A fantasy can’t sue you. And make-believe requires less research. Jack Neely is the director of the Knoxville History Project, a nonprofit devoted to exploring, disseminating, and celebrating Knoxville’s cultural heritage—not to mention publishing the Knoxville Mercury. The Scruffy Citizen surveys the city of Knoxville’s life and culture in the context of its history, with emphasis on what makes it unique and how its past continues to affect and inform its future.

April 20, 2017 knoxville mercury 9

Scruffy Citizen | Much Ado

Strange Territory Facing the unfamiliar should be enlightening, not frightening

BY CATHERINE LANDIS

oward the end of a hauntingly beautiful concert on the last day of the Big Ears Festival, Norwegian bass player Mats Eilertsen thanked the audience for coming. We applauded, but Eilertsen stayed at the mic as if he had not quite made himself clear. Thank you, he added, for coming out to hear music you’ve maybe never heard before. And with that, in charmingly broken English, Eilertsen articulated one of the intangible pleasures I get out of Big Ears: placing myself in strange territory. I’m a musical neophyte, and so I plunge into Big Ears without knowing what the heck I’m going to hear or if I’m going to like it, but it doesn’t matter. The exposure to new sounds opens me up. Like exercising a muscle, the mental and emotional conditioning forces me to consider art that’s sometimes difficult, sometimes shocking, sometimes joyful, sometimes ecstatic, but always worth every minute. I remember feeling a similar expansiveness in Sacramento recently, walking into 99 Ranch, an Asian grocery store as big as a Super Kroger. In the produce section were fruits and vegetables I’d never heard of. Lots of them. Fruits and vegetables as common as carrots to the people around me. The whole grocery store was like that, aisle after aisle of

10 knoxville mercury April 20, 2017

surprises, including the dried shrimps and anchovies we sought to make a Malaysian dish. The shoppers came from all over the world, speaking languages I did not understand, placing me definitively in the minority. I was in strange territory. It was exhilarating and enlightening. And then I found myself feeling sorry for Donald Trump. I imagined he would not feel exhilarated or enlightened, walking around 99 Ranch. He might, instead, feel threatened. And that’s a shame. Regrettably, he’s not alone. There are so many Americas who feel likewise. Some see our country as a refuge for people seeking justice and a government of laws. Others see it as the guardian of culture for people descended from Western European Christians. The latter view won the day here when Tennessee became the first state to use the 10th amendment to sue the federal government to keep refugees out of here—and again when Knox County Sheriff Jimmy “JJ” Jones applied to a controversial ICE program that seeks to identify

undocumented immigrants. I can’t help wondering if, consciously or unconsciously, we’re preparing for the coming tsunami of people fleeing climate change catastrophe by practicing the cruel art of pulling up the drawbridge. This is personal. Through Bridge Refugee Services, a friend and I began helping an Iraqi family resettle here in Knoxville eight years ago. The family’s story was sadly familiar. For working with the U.S. Army, their lives had been threatened by a bomb planted in their yard. They fled first to Syria, then to the U.A.E, until finally immigrating to the United States where, five years later, they became proud citizens. The transition was not easy. During one difficult day, I was commiserating with my new Iraqi friend when she looked at me, astonished. Difficult? In Iraq, she said, opening her front door meant she never knew if she would be shot and killed. That was difficult. I tend to see my country through a complicated lens: historically, both champion of human rights and perpetrator of genocide and slavery. My Iraqi friends see a safe harbor, and I’ve never met people who love the U.S. more than they do. Why doesn’t Tennessee want more of that? Show me one foreign terrorist and I will find 10,000 stories of grateful refugees. Show me one undocumented thief and I’ll find 10,000 stories of irreplaceable immigrants. Show me one Dylan Roof and I’ll find 10,000 stories of compassionate young white men. Fear is what drives us to lump people into categories and treat them accordingly. Fear allows us to believe Muslim bans and insane walls will make us safe, while cutting biomedical research at the National Institute of Health is no big deal. Which should we fear more: a Syrian refugee, a Guatemalan maid, or an Ebola-like virus? Fear keeps us from entering strange territories, and I’m not talking

My Iraqi friends see a safe harbor here, and I’ve never met people who love the U.S. more than they do. Why doesn’t Tennessee want more of that?

about Big Ears or grocery stores in Sacramento. When we fill our eyes and ears and minds with messages of fear, it is difficult not to feel afraid. But we can choose to turn down the volume of hysteria used by cynical media organizations and engage in the harder pursuit of evaluating what’s true and what’s truly a threat. Then we should recognize and resist careless language. My mother remembers the words with which her grandmother referred to Italians, Japanese, Mexicans, Germans, Blacks, and Jews. It’s not from political correctness that those words are no longer respectable. It’s called not being rude. Or cruel. So how is it acceptable to call human beings “illegal aliens?” Even recent history tells us that “illegal alien” can morph into “scum” and then into “vermin,” and vermin can be exterminated. We do not have to tolerate language used as propaganda to demonize groups of human beings. Nor should we tolerate legislators who support bills targeting our LGBTQ communities that, besides being morally reprehensible, invite boycotts against Tennessee’s many cultural and economic treasures. Like Big Ears. We should grab opportunities that challenge us. For me, that might mean engaging with a Trump supporter. For someone else, it might mean listening to unfamiliar music or someone from a different faith or a transgender woman. New experiences that open hearts and challenge assumptions are worth it, especially if they’re difficult. There are a lot of Americas, but only as mental constructs. In reality, this stretch of land between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans contains all kinds of people. It’s a strange territory but it doesn’t have to be scary. I choose to work toward a country that says, “Thank you for coming.” With Much Ado, Catherine Landis examines how political decisions and social trends affect the lives of the people around her. A former newspaper reporter, she has published two novels, Some Days There’s Pie (St. Martin’s Press) and Harvest (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press).

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The intrepid Phileas Fogg with his loyal valet, Passepartout, voyage from Victorian London through the Indian subcontinent, to Asia and across the Pacific to America on a wager that he will return in precisely 80 days. Literally, a theatrical tour-de-force.

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From left: Harrison Collins, head of marketing for the new World’s Fair Beer, and Marty Velas of Fanatic Brewing Company

Brewing Nostalgia World’s Fair Beer—the brew no one expected to ever dare return—relaunches with a new recipe BY SHANNON CAREY

here’s more than beer in the vats at Fanatic Brewing Company these days. There’s also a heaping helping of nostalgia as Fanatic owner/brewmaster Marty Velas oversees something old that’s new again: World’s Fair Beer. Four Knoxville friends are relaunching the beer in honor of the 1982 World’s Fair’s 35th anniversary, but with one major change: This time, it’s going to taste great. As anyone who’s seen those iconic, unopened cans on display amid the dark paneling and shag carpet of their parents’ (or grandparents’) dens can attest, the original run of World’s Fair Beer was more for collecting than it was for drinking. In fact, the beer has achieved cult status for, of all things, its badness. So, when original World’s Fair Beer marketer Rick Kuhlman Jr. decided to revive the beer, and looped son Rick Kuhlman III and

12 knoxville mercury April 20, 2017

friends Harrison Collins and Chase Wilson in on the project, the group vowed to break out of that bad image. Wilson, an award-winning homebrewer, did a bit of revisionist history and created a recipe for a craft pale ale. The result being brewed at Fanatic stays true to World’s Fair Beer’s light color, but is “very drinkable, flavorful, hoppier, but not bitter,” Velas says. According to Collins, who is handling the marketing for the beer’s revival, World’s Fair Beer has been “remastered as a craft beer. We’re playing on the ’80s, but it’s done in a 2017 way.” The group hopes World’s Fair Beer will appeal to several age groups as well. “I think it serves a dual purpose,” Collins says. “The folks who were at the fair and bought the beer and look back on 1982, I think it’s going to serve as a huge piece of nostalgia for them. I also think for younger generations and

transplants who missed the fair, they’ll enjoy partaking in this because you get some of that back. “There’s so many pieces [of the 1982 World’s Fair] that remain, that you know of if you grew up in Knoxville. It sounds like the most incredible event, and it makes you proud of Knoxville, too. The Scruffy Little City pulled it off. This beer is sort of cheers to that.” In the early 1980s, Rick Kuhlman Jr.’s father’s wholesale company, Kuhlman and Murphy Company, was sold to Pinnacle Sales of Knoxville, and Kuhlman stayed with the new ownership. Then, Knoxville landed a chance that had only been the purview of big cities in the past: hosting a world’s fair. “There was a ton of excitement, and [Kuhlman] was thinking, ‘What can we do to leave our mark on this historic event?’” Collins says. Kuhlman asked his boss, the late Pat Gleason, if he could make and distribute World’s Fair Beer in collectible cans, a new can design to be released nine times during the fair. Secret, coded messages made their way onto the cans, adding to the beer’s cult status. “[Mr. Gleason told Kuhlman] he would agree if he could pre-sell 10,000 cases, that’s 240,000 cans,” Collins says. Kuhlman pulled that off and then some, ultimately selling 250,000 cases. Kuhlman is now in his 60s, and according to Collins he promised

Gleason that he would one day revive the beer in his honor. In January, Kuhlman made good on his promise and asked the three friends, all of whom he had mentored, to join in the venture with him. “I missed out on the fair, so to have a small piece in what was such an historic event in Knoxville, I am really thankful,” Collins says. Collins says the group was surprised with the amount of positive response they received when they announced their revival of World’s Fair Beer. They were also pleased to contract with Fanatic Brewing Company to make the beer. “Knoxville’s craft beer community is just so friendly,” Collins says. “All the brewers were so thrilled and excited. That to me has been affirming and it’s made this process that much more enjoyable.” The beer will launch at a friends-and-family event in, of course, the Sunsphere, April 26. Catering will, also of course, be provided by Petro’s. After that, World’s Fair Beer will be available on tap at select Knoxville-area restaurants April 28 for two months, followed by the canned beer released in late June or early July. The cans are designed by Tom Namey of Namey Design, and will look like the original 1982 cans, but with some changes. Legal requirements for labeling have changed in 35 years, requiring health warnings and a lengthy approval process. The back of each can will detail the beer’s history, and offer a dedication in honor of Pat Gleason. The group is also planning on donating 20 percent of their profits to local charities. “You can even put it on the shelf next to your 1982 versions,” Collins says. “But the difference is that your 2017 cans will be empty because you drank them.” Follow the World’s Fair Beer relaunch and find 1982 World’s Fair memorabilia at worldsfairbeer.com and by searching World’s Fair Beer on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.

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Glenn Jacobs—aka, WWE wrestler Kane— announces his candidacy for Knox County Mayor BY BETTY BEAN

or Tampa, Fla. native Elijah Ortega, learning that he and his childhood hero, World Wrestling Entertainment bad guy Kane share the same adopted hometown was a bonus reaped from moving to Knoxville. Ortega’s not real political, but he’s an avid wrestling fan, and when he saw a post on Glenn (“Kane”) Jacobs’ Facebook page saying that he’d be making an announcement at Sweet P’s Barbeque and Soul House in South Knox County last Tuesday, not even a signature Kane choke slam could have kept Ortega away. He showed up at the eatery on the Little River with a backpack full of WWE pictures and magazines suitable for autographing, and hopes of handing his cellphone to someone willing to snap pictures of him with his hero. He stood by the ramp on the edge of the crowd and waited for his chance. “I’m really shaking right now,” he said as the big man worked his way through a cluster of reporters and well-wishers, moving ever closer to the spot Ortega had staked out. “I grew up watching him. He was my hero since I was nine or 10 years old.” A couple of ticks later, Ortega scored. Somebody handed his cell phone to Tennessee Conservative Union Chairman Gary Loe, who snapped pictures of Jacobs signing autographs and shaking Ortega’s hand. Ortega went home with a backpack full of memorabilia and said he’ll be voting for Jacobs for Knox County mayor next year. Politics didn’t appear to figure into his decision. The announcement was wellstaged, as one might expect from a seasoned entertainer: a decent-sized crowd crammed into a small space for

14 knoxville mercury April 20, 2017

maximum effect, lots of media, clever stage management by Brian Hair (a banker who ran Bob Corker’s Knox County operation when he was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2007), and a heartfelt introduction by Gibbs High School social studies teacher Dean Harned, who praised Jacobs for his compassion and record of public service, called him a dear friend, and said they met 20 years ago when Jacobs was raising money in Halls for St. Mary’s Hospice. The candidate and his wife, Crystal, made a dramatic entrance set to Brooks and Dunn’s “Only in America.” Jacobs’ speech was short and full of Reaganesque references— low taxes, small government, making Knox a shining county on the hill. It was enthusiastically received. A self-identified libertarian, Jacobs brushes off criticism that he’s not a “real” Republican. “Libertarianism is a political philosophy. Ronald Reagan spoke of himself as a libertarian,” Jacobs says, pointing to libertarian Republicans like U.S. Senator Rand Paul and a handful of members of Congress, including Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Freedom Caucus member Justin Amash of Michigan and, closer to home, John J. “Jimmy” Duncan. Paul was Jacobs’ first choice in last year’s GOP presidential primary, and he also says he admires incumbent County Mayor Tim Burchett’s frugal ways. After his announcement, Jacobs outlined his political philosophy in a radio interview with Tea Party activist Jack Hunter. Jacobs, the owner of an insurance agency on Maynardville Highway, rejects critics who say he hasn’t been

GLENN JACOBS

Photo courtesy of Glenn Jacobs

The Scene at Sweet P’s

here long enough to have paid sufficient dues to run for office. “I’m running to have a positive impact on my community. I’ve lived in East Tennessee for 22 years and in Knox County for four years. Crystal and I have done business in Knox County forever. It’s not like I just moved here from Russia,” he says. There were lots of new-to-politics faces in the crowd at Sweet P’s, and Jacobs’ message resonated. He drew a strong reaction when he advocated open, transparent government and took direct aim at “Black Wednesday,” the notorious 2007 County Commission meeting that replaced a slate of county officeholders after the state Supreme Court ruled that they could no longer thumb their noses at the county’s term limits law. Few Republican Party activists embraced the reform movement spawned by Black Wednesday, and many term-limited officeholders are now playing a courthouse version of fruit-basket turnover to keep themselves on the public payroll. One of them, Jimmy “JJ” Jones, was appointed sheriff that day, and could join the field as a candidate for mayor in the GOP primary, where the race will be decided. Jones, now term-limited out of running for re-election as sheriff, has appointed a campaign treasurer for a mayoral run but has not yet formally announced. Jacobs grew up in rural Missouri, raised by a retired career military father and a homemaker mother. He played football and basketball at Northeast Missouri State (now Truman University) and jokes that he led the league in offensive fouls. He was hoping for a career in the NFL until a knee injury forced him to reorder his priorities. Ultimately, his physique (he stands 6-8 and weighs 300 pounds) and his athletic ability dictated his destiny. He says the exposure to drama and theater he got as an English literature major played into his decision, since professional wrestling is entertainment, first and foremost. “What do you do with an English degree? I’d planned to become a teacher, but I’d always been a casual fan of wrestling,” he says. A past WWE champion, Jacobs, at 49, isn’t wrestling these days and

spends his time running the Jacobs Insurance Agency and doing good deeds in his community. His agency is a designated “Community Champion” in the Kindness Revolution, a nonprofit organization with the lofty goal of promoting dignity, respect, and kindness. Jacobs visits schools delivering an anti-bullying message and handing out rubber wristbands to kids who get caught doing something nice. He is deeply interested in education and believes more attention should be paid to Career Technical Education (formerly known as vocational education), and is critical of national efforts like No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top for devaluing CTE while pushing “pure” academics. He gets his hair cut by cosmetology students at Gibbs High School. So far, he and County Commissioner-at-large Bob Thomas, a career radio man with showbiz ties of his own, are the only declared candidates. Jacobs is the first big-time wrestler to seek public office since Jessie Ventura, and TMZ was all over a potential run between Jacobs and Thomas, who had a role in Friday Night Lights. Jones could pull the trigger on running any day now, and his campaign will be surely be linked that of his employee, deputy chief Lee Tramel, who is running to succeed him as sheriff. Sixth District County Commissioner Brad Anders, who is term-limited, is also known to be mulling over a run for county mayor. And there could be more, given that the county primary isn’t until May 1, 2018.

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Focus: Business & Tech Innovation

Youth Entrepreneurs Program BY COURY TURCZYN

aul and Alexa Sponcia are not only partners in life and as owners of Hard Knox Pizzeria, but they are also co-directors of supplemental education programs at Austin-East and Fulton high schools. In 2015, they launched the School of Hard Knox, which gives students firsthand knowledge of the restaurant business by bringing Knoxville chefs into the schools’ kitchens to teach. Then they jumped into an even larger endeavor: the Youth Entrepreneurs Program, or YEP. The original idea was to engage juniors and seniors into a Shark Tank-like competition, where they would pitch their own business ideas for grants. That concept evolved into an educational program that lasts the entire school year, enlisting local business leaders and entrepreneurs to act as mentors and guide them through the process of creating a business. YEP partnered with Project GRAD-Knoxville to develop the program and has earned grants from Launch Tennessee, the Great Schools Partnership, and AmeriCorps VISTA. On April 20, 5:30-7 p.m., at the Knoxville Entrepreneur Center (17 Market Square, #101), YEP will be conducting the final pitch session for this year’s class, with a panel of judges selecting the top three ideas from 10 students and awarding them grants to fund their start-ups.

16 knoxville mercury April 20, 2017

Here, Paul Sponcia explains why he and Alexa saw a need for YEP at these schools.

How does YEP work? We introduce the kids to the concept throughout the school year, recruiting for the next year. Then we have an application process where the students apply to be a part of the program. Once they’re accepted into the program, we begin the process in the fall with three big phases. The first phase we call “helping them dream again,” which is a little bit of a market research project where we’re trying to spark the creative energy in them: “What is missing in your community? What opportunities exist in your community? And how could you fill those gaps?” At the end of that process, the kids will present their ideas on what could be done to improve their community through business ventures—and it could be for-profit or nonprofit, either way. We migrate from that to about six weeks of taking whatever their idea is and moving it through a development process: What’s the competition? What’s the market? What is the problem you’re solving, and how are you solving it? What barriers to entry exist? And then we spend the last 10 to 12 weeks really preparing them to stand up in front of a set of judges and have 3 minutes to pitch the idea and

co-founder

Photos courtesy of Paul Sponcia

An A-E and Fulton High mentoring program unites entrepreneurs and students to develop community businesses

Paul Sponcia

YEP STUDENTS AT PERSHING, YOAKLEY, AND ASSOCIATES, P.C.

win. The winning first, second, and third prizes are $10,000, $5,000, and $2,500, so it’s a significant amount of money specifically because we believe that if we give them the right amount of money, and then usher them through a process where there are mentors and people who are walking alongside them, then they have a better opportunity of getting it off the ground and making it happen. The culmination of that after the pitch will be a summer accelerator where they spend eight weeks actually launching the business—how do we do this thing?

What kinds of business ideas did the first class of students develop? One of the criteria for the winners was that you have to start your business within 3 miles of Austin East or Fulton High School, and they have six years to use the money. So the first-place winner’s idea was a boutique that also sells her own creative designs, and when she pitched, she wore shoes that she’d made and a shirt that she had designed—and that was one of the key reasons why she won because they could see the end result of what she was wanting to do. Her plan this summer is to do some pop-ups around Knoxville for her boutique. The second-place winner were

YOUTH ENTREPRENEURS PROGRAM facebook.com/YEPKnox paul@llhope.org PROGRAMS • YEP brings in local business owners to Fulton and Austin-East high schools to mentor students. • Students develop business start-up ideas over the course of the school year, with a focus on bettering their communities. • The program culminates in a pitch competition, with three students being selected for grants to help start their businesses. HOW YOU CAN HELP • Financial support to establish YEP’s sustainability is a priority. • YEP is in need of a wide variety of mentors, specifically those with business leadership, start-up, and ownership experience.

these three kids from Fulton who are rappers, and their whole idea was they want to create a management company. Their heart was: A, There’s a lot of hip hop and R&B talent in Knoxville that maybe doesn’t get a lot of exposure, and B. They’ve seen a lot of hip hop and R&B talent that squander their resources and their money. So they want to change that. Their mentor is James Trimble, the [former] lead singer of the Dirty

Guv’nahs, and James has been real instrumental in pushing them to get a website developed; they’re also going to a rap concert and do a backstage tour for how it works. The third place winner was a junior who’s in the program now as a senior, and her story was she has a friend who is autistic and she felt like he didn’t have the opportunities to be as independent as he could be, even though he’s pretty high-functioning— there was always this stigma. Her heart was: How can I create a conduit to take kids in high school who have some disabilities and connect them with the resources that can give them independence? They may not know what those resources are because there’s so many of them and they don’t know where to go, so her heart is to be a nonprofit connector. The pitch night was really neat to see—emotional. A lot of these kids have never really won anything like that, so it’s a big deal for them just to be acknowledged: “We’re choosing you. We believe in you.” A lot of wet eyes in the house that night.

Have you considered expanding the program to other schools? We have, but our primary focus currently is how do we push it “down”—not go wide, but how do we go deep? From the beginning, our idea was we’d actually like to start the process in the sixth grade, so sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth would be a building-block program just about entrepreneurial skills, business skills, leadership skills, relationship skills. Our first focus is the Project GRAD middle schools, so Gresham, Whittle Springs, Northwest, Vine. Once we create this sustainability at the high school level, how can we move it down to the middle schools so that by the time they get to their junior and senior years, they’re really well prepared? And that will really change the complexion of the way program works in the junior and senior year, too. Once we do that, then I think we’d be open to how we can expand it out to other schools.

Have there been any surprises for you in launching and running YEP? I’m not sure if “surprise” is the right

word for it, but I am completely blown away by the quality of the kids at Fulton and Austin East. I think there’s a historical tendency to overlook or even marginalize our kids at those two schools, or maybe perceive them mainly as athletes because the schools have reputations for great athletics. But I am really blown away by their ingenuity, their tenacity, their stories. I mean, you listen to some of these kids’ stories, and they’re just really heartbreaking. So when I hear someone say, “Everybody has the same opportunities,” I just think: You have no idea what you’re talking about. If you sit and listen to these kids… they don’t know, sometimes, where mom and dad’s going to be… just tough situations. Almost all of these kids have a story of pain—not all of them, but a majority—that maybe we don’t really understand so we tend to be like, “Everybody has the same chance in 2017.” But it’s not true. It’s just not true. I listen to some of these stories and I’m blown away—“I don’t even know how you did that.” How do you develop the drive inside of you to decide, “That’s not the right way. I’m going this way.”

presented by Regal Entertainment Group, a fun event to benefit the Autism Society of East Tennessee

6:30 to 10:00 p.m.

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Tickets ickets are $50 (until April 15th, then $55)

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Know someone doing amazing things for the future of Knoxville? Submit your story suggestions to: editor@knoxmercury.com Contact us for sponsorship opportunities: charlie@knoxmercury.com CATEGORIES Civic & Humanitarian Arts & Culture Business & Tech Innovation Environmental & Sustainability Health & Food Education

All proceeds benefit the Autism Society East Tennessee, a nonprofit that provides support, services, advocacy, education, and public awareness for all individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and their families as well as educators and other professionals throughout 36 East Tennessee counties. April 20, 2017 knoxville mercury 17

WHO GETS HURT BY TRUMP’S

If you’re old, don’t make much money, or want to find a job in Appalachia, prepare to fend for yourself • BY S. HEATHER DUNCAN

t was cold in Khadeja Al-Khelaifi’s house. In winter, she paid as much as $250 a month to heat the 800-square foot home—to 40 degrees. “We would sit in one room with three space heaters all winter,” she says. The house, built in 1899, had been in Al-Khelaifi’s family for generations. But the wiring, floors, and walls were in bad shape, and she and her two kids (now age 10 and 13) slept in the single bedroom dormitory-style. The single mom’s job working the front desk at a medical practice is their 18 knoxville mercury April 20, 2017

Photos by Tricia Bateman

primary source of income, and she couldn’t afford a better place. A relative told her about Knoxville’s Owner Occupied Rehabilitation Program, which helps low- to moderate-income homeowners make significant home repairs. The program determines what improvements are needed, provides low-interest and forgivable loans, and coordinates the work. Al-Khelaifi’s home needed so much improvement that city officials decided it would be cheaper to tear it down and rebuild. The program paid

for her to rent another place until it was finished, and in January she and her kids were able to move into an Energy Star-certified home with a bedroom for each person. “It’s such a blessing,” Al-Khelaifi says. “I couldn’t have done this without the program…. I can’t even begin to explain to people that don’t know how hard it is.” The program that helped her is funded through the federal HOME Homeowner Rehabilitation program and Community Development Block Grant funds. Those are two of many

programs—along with Energy Star— that would be completely eliminated in the 2018 federal budget proposed by President Donald Trump. Many of the agencies and programs that would disappear are those that help the kind of working-class voters whose support helped propel Trump into office. They also improve the lives of the poor, often by using a public/private partnership approach that normally meets with enthusiasm from Republicans, who control the U.S. Congress and the White House.

In Knoxville, the budget cuts could end everything from community gardens to services that help senior citizens live independently. Among the programs with the biggest footprints in East Tennessee are the Community Development Block Grant Program; the Appalachian Regional Commission , which helps pay for infrastructure and create jobs in Appalachian counties including Knox and those that surround it; and Legal Services Corporation, which provides free legal help to abused, disabled and poor clients in civil cases. That’s just a sampling of agencies on the chopping block, many of them not well-known because they quietly help lower-income folks keep decent housing and jobs, improving the economy.

HOUSING AND NEIGHBORHOODS The Community Development Block Grant Program that helped Al-Khelaifi has become a cornerstone of neighborhood redevelopment efforts for many cities. During the past five years, the $7.1 million in these grants awarded to the City of Knoxville paid for 548 households receiving emergency home repairs. These repairs are especially important because Knoxville already has a drastic shortage of affordable rentals, says Barbara Kelly, executive director of the Knox County Community Action Committee. “It has a three-pronged benefit,” she says. “It’s for the individual, the housing stock, and for the neighborhood.” According to the city’s Community Development Department, the grant funds saved 62 senior citizens from homelessness by providing new roofs, and made homes accessible to 32 disabled residents who needed modifications like ramps and rails. A ribbon cutting will be held Thursday at Columbus Home, which used the grant funds to install new flooring in its Dameron Avenue group home for teenage boys. Ending the CDBG program would halt 150 rehabilitation projects over the next three-and-a-half years, and scupper plans for 232 new affordable rental units, according to the community development department.

Community gardens—such as this one at Beardsely Community Farm, which grows vegetable seedlings for lowincome recipients—would have their budgets pruned.

Similarly, the HOME program has used $3.9 million to help 183 Knoxville households over the past five years, according to the department. It issued a fact sheet noting that HOME is one of the few gap-financing options available to encourage developers to build new, affordable rental units. The city released a draft Community Development Annual Action Plan last week that would allocate almost a third of its 2017 budget—the last budget in which HOME and Community Development Block Grant funds are a safe bet—to construct 167 affordable rental units for low-income residents. “I think the loss of these programs would be devastating for the city,” says Becky Wade, director the city’s Community Development Department. “We certainly see the value in them and understand it does keep people in their homes. It prevents them from having to go to some sort of institutional living or be homeless. Their homes are more energy efficient, their quality of life is better, and it improves the neighborhood.”

The Trump budget also defunds other programs that help people stay in their homes: the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program and the Weatherization Assistance Program, both of which make utility bills more manageable. The Home Energy Assistance Program, administered locally by the Community Action Committee, provides about $450 once a year to help low-income Knoxvillians with utility bills, Kelly says. She provided data showing that between July 1 and March 30, the program had helped 5,259 people, including 694 in crisis situations. Within those households were 4,191 children and 4,438 disabled people who benefited. “It’s truly unbelievable that anyone would consider cutting that program, because that comes down to the ‘heat or eat’ choice: Do I pay my

utility bill or put food on the table?” Kelly says. “For many people, the inability to pay a utility bill can be the first step on the slippery slope to homelessness,” especially since renters in subsidized or government housing can lose their apartment if their utilities are turned off. Homeowners can reduce their reliance on heating assistance by making physical improvements like adding insulation and installing more efficient heating systems. Knoxville is unusual for having three programs to help with this: the federal Weatherization Assistance Program as well as a KUB Round-Up program and a two-year TVA program (although that ends this September). Surrounding counties have only the Weatherization Assistance Program that Trump wants to shutter. Many of these housing-related initiatives work with each other, or with state and local funds, to leverage private investment. According to the city, for every $1 of HOME spending, $1.27 is provided by another source. The Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation (operating under the name NeighborWorks) claims to leverage even more: $91 for every federal dollar in fiscal 2016, according to its website. The Congressionally-chartered nonprofit relies on the federal appropriation for 80 to 90 percent of its budget, says NeighborWorks communications manager Douglas Robinson. NeighborWorks, which held a national conference in Memphis this week about relieving persistent rural poverty, funds local groups that create affordable housing and help homeowners avoid foreclosure. Its website states that the $127 million spent by NeighborWorks in Tennessee in fiscal 2016 led to 360 homes being preserved or renovated, and created 938 new homeowners. In Knoxville, NeighborWorks supports projects of HomeSource East Tennessee, formerly known as the Knox Housing Partnership. The partnership emerged in the 1980s from a community redlining protest, and went on to fight slum housing. HomeSource now operates in Knox, Blount, and Campbell counties, focusing on preserving affordable April 20, 2017 knoxville mercury 19

rental housing, says president and CEO Jackie Mayo. Many landlords that once provided subsidized housing are converting to market-rate apartments, driving out long-time tenants, she says. HomeSource renovates rundown units and then continues to manage them for low-income residents and seniors, keeping rates affordable. HomeSource is using NeighborWorks funds to leverage bank investment in a housing complex—tentatively called the Village at Holston—for people coming out of nursing homes or closed group homes, Mayo says. The supportive housing includes two houses and 30 apartments, but she says the last dozen apartments might not be built if NeighborWorks is killed. HomeSource is also planning to rehabilitate the Normandy Chateau apartment complex in North Knoxville, a project that relies on both NeighborWorks and Community Development Financial Institution funds—which Trump also proposes to eliminate—to attract private investment, Mayo says. NeighborWorks funding is especially important to HomeSource because it not only provides construction money but also operating dollars that pay salaries and keep the lights on. May says HomeSource earns enough to cover 65 percent of its budget, but most of the rest comes from federal programs Trump proposes to end. “We would certainly have to scale back on a major level,” says Mayo, who spent a week in March visiting elected officials in Washington to argue for maintaining the funds. “We’ve been very actively going after rental units, trying to preserve them for affordable rentals, and that would just come to a screeching halt.” That could affect not only residents but neighborhoods. For example, HomeSource completed an unfinished apartment complex in LaFollette that had become a major hub for criminal activity. The project not only provided housing but made the neighborhood safer and saved taxpayers money by relieving police of constant surveillance.

HELP FOR SENIORS Other Trump budget cuts target programs that help elderly and 20 knoxville mercury April 20, 2017

Gaines Clabough signs a lease on a new apartment that caseworkers Jennifer Tackett (above) and Carol Lamb (right, middle) helped him find when he and his wife were forced to move after 17 years.

disabled stay in their homes instead of being forced into an institution. The Community Services Block Grant pays for case managers at the Community Action Committee. They arrange shopping assistance, food delivery, transportation to doctor’s appointments, and other services to help people remain independent. “It’s cheaper and better to let people live as long as they can in the safety of their homes,” Kelly says, adding that the fastest-growing population segment is the “very old” [over 75]. Gaines Clabough thinks he might not be alive if it weren’t for a case manager whose salary is funded by the Community Services Block Grant program. Gaines, 84, has liver cancer, and his wife Darlene, 69, doesn’t drive and has her own health issues. Gaines was already receiving hospice care when he and his wife were notified in February that they were being evicted from their apartment of 17 years. The new owner had decided to no longer accept Section 8 housing vouchers. The voucher program subsidizes the cost of rent for low-income residents;

without it, the Clabough’s rent was set to rise from $271 a month to $679, Darlene Clabough says. They were given a month to vacate. A doctor referred the couple to Project LIVE (Living Independently Through Volunteer Efforts) at the Community Action Committee, and case workers Jennifer Tackett and Carol Lamb helped them find a first-floor apartment in a quieter area. “I love it ever since I’ve seen it,” Darlene Clabough says. “I couldn’t have found a place by myself.” It wasn’t easy even for Tackett, because there are so many more Section 8 vouchers in town than landlords who will accept them, she says. Tackett and Lamb helped two other seniors who were forced to move out of the same apartment complex as the Claboughs. “The past few years, we’ve had a crisis of senior evictions, and the number of seniors becoming homeless is

really high,” Tackett says. Tackett and Lamb can often help seniors resolve conflicts with landlords by setting up housekeeping services or finding a representative to handle paying bills for a senior with dementia. Gaines Clabough guesses that without Tackett’s help, he’d have ended up in a nursing home. He looks at Darlene, his wife of 35 years. “We’ve never been away from each other” except when one was in the hospital, he says. “If I was in a nursing home I wouldn’t last a week, and she wouldn’t last much longer.” With the help of movers paid for by the Community Action Committee, Tackett and her father spent all day settling the Claboughs in their new apartment. But the stress took a toll on Gaines, who was convinced he wouldn’t survive the day. Almost two weeks later, he was sitting up watching a Western. “I been much better since I got over here,” says the retired Baptist minister. “Now I sometimes have two or three days I feel good in a row. That never happened before.” The Community Action Committee operates several other programs that benefit seniors using federal programs Trump wants to defund. Among them are the retired senior volunteer program, the foster grandparent program (in which seniors act as tutors and role models for at-risk children), the senior community service employment program (which provides on-the-job training preparing seniors for unsubsidized jobs in the private sector), and the senior companion program. Last year, the senior companion program paid 100 low-income seniors a small stipend to become a trained helper to 360 other elderly people. The companions fix meals, help pay bills and clean up, and give caregivers a break—but they also build friendships. Rhonda Brooks, 60, spends four days a week reading, taking walks, and coloring with an elderly woman who has dementia and lives with her working daughter. “If I weren’t to do it, I don’t know what her daughter would do,” says Brooks, who has been a senior companion for five years. “She’d

APPALACHIAN REGIONAL COMMISSION After Trump promised to bring back coal and manufacturing jobs, some of his most ardent supporters were former industry workers from Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. So one of the most ironic proposed cuts would completely kill the 50-year-old Appalachian Regional Commission, an agency that has been funded at a higher level the last few years precisely because of its focus on helping coal communities shift to other industries and income streams. Created to provide a better quality of life and economic opportu-

Taking Aim at Legal Aid for the Poor

ne in six Tennesseans is too poor to hire a lawyer, even when they need one: When an abused wife needs a restraining order against her husband. When an elderly person falls victim to a younger relative stealing from her. When a renter gets kicked out of his apartment for asking the landlord to fix the hole in the floor. In Knoxville and 25 other counties, the poor can turn to Legal Aid of East Tennessee for help—but that could change if President Trump succeeds in shutting down the nonprofit that provides half of its funding. Legal Services Corporation was created by Congress more than 40 years ago in recognition that the poor and elderly struggled to find justice in civil court. In all states, Legal Services funds local legal-aid organizations that act as a civil court version of a public defender, taking only cases private attorneys would reject as unprofitable. Legal Services would be eliminated under Trump’s proposed 2018 “skinny budget.” Because Legal Aid can’t take criminal (or immigration-related) cases, it is not covered by other legally-mandated public funding. A 2014 study by the University of Tennessee College of Social Work for the Tennessee Alliance for Legal Services found that six out of 10 low-income Tennessee households surveyed had one or more civil legal problems in the previous year. The working poor were more likely to face these problems than people who were unemployed. Last year, Legal Aid of East Tennessee closed more than 6,000 cases and served more than 12,000 people, including 718 in Knox County alone, according to data supplied by executive director Sheri Fox. “We change lives,” Fox says. “We enable people to stay in their

homes so they don’t become homeless. We prevent wrongful repossessions of automobiles, so people can go to work, because otherwise the business and entire community suffers. When we go in and help your elderly neighbors or domestic violence victims who live in your community, it doesn’t just help them, it helps everybody…. When we get an order of protection, that reduces number of ER visits so it lowers cost of health care and reduces cost to law enforcement.” She notes that because Legal Aid charges clients nothing, all judgments won go straight to the person who was wronged. Fox estimates the organization protected or recovered about $824,000 for Knoxville-area clients last year. An example was a woman who realized she had actually paid more than the price of her car (and the interest) in her monthly payments. When she questioned the company, it illegally repossessed her car repeatedly until Legal Aid was able to win her a settlement in court, Fox says. “If Legal Services Corporation stopped, we could serve about half the people we did in 2016,” Fox says. “It would be devastating.”

Those impacts could be felt in the broader community. A 2015 study released by the Tennessee Bar Association and the Corporate Counsel Pro Bono Initiative found $188.6 million in positive financial impact generated from cases handled by the state’s legal aid organizations in 2013 alone. It determined that every dollar invested in legal aid produced over $11 in financial returns to governments, businesses, and individuals across all social classes. Even with current funding, Legal Aid can serve only 20 percent of the eligible population, Fox says. The federal Legal Aid money also pays to coordinate volunteer attorneys, who help fill in the gaps on some cases. To reach more of the underserved, Legal Aid operates a legal advice hotline and holds legal clinics in counties across the state; recent clinics in Sevier County were focused on helping fire victims establish and argue insurance claims, for example. Fox expects the demand from Sevier County to climb for the next three years—the average for a natural disaster—as survivors cope with fire-related legal issues. —S.H.D.

thinkstock

probably have to quit. And if she quit, how would they live?” Brooks looked forward to aging herself because she had seen her own mother, who is now 84, enjoy being a senior companion for going on 20 years. Brooks’ first client was a man whom everyone told her would not speak. She talked to him anyway, and when she told him about her military service, he perked right up and started swapping stories. “They tell you not to get close, but you can’t help it,” says Brooks. “I’ve had many jobs before, but this is a job that I love. Just being with them and hearing their stories—these people need you and want you there. It feels so good.” Many low-income seniors who live in the city also benefit from the Green Thumb Community Garden Program, which provides free vegetable seeds so people can grow their own food and provides gardening space near high rises, senior homes and food pantries. In Knoxville, garden program coordinator Adam Caraco tills and cares for 19 gardens in places like Lonsdale Homes, St. Mary’s Riverview, and Northgate Towers, in addition to helping maintain another four. He says he provides seeds to 113 households, including more than a dozen gardeners who share their bounty with older neighbors. “I have people who cry in the spring when I come to bring seeds and they talk about their plots,” Caraco wrote in an email.

April 20, 2017 knoxville mercury 21

nity in the mountain region, the commission has now invested $75.5 million specifically to diversify the economy in 236 coal-impacted counties across nine Appalachian states, including Tennessee. Together, these investments are projected to benefit more than 23,000 students and workers and leverage nearly $142 million into the region’s economy. The commission announced on March 28 an additional $2.4 million to keep or create jobs in these communities and “build a workforce pipeline” through community colleges. According to the agency, every dollar it has spent since 1978 has leveraged an average of $6.40 from the private sector. Between October 2015 and this January, the commission supported 58 projects in Tennessee with $14.7 million in grants, according to data provided by Ted Townsend, Tennessee’s representative on the commission. The federal money was matched by $14.2 million from other sources. Tennessee prioritizes commission grants for adding infrastructure, training workers and developing the tourism industry in Appalachia. In Fiscal 2016, the Appalachian Regional Commission contributed $35,000 (half the cost) to develop a plan for implementing the Maryvilleto-Townsend Greenway; $500,000 for a medical clinic for Cocke, Campbell and Scott Counties; and $245,00 to development of the Cumberland Trail. It also provided $2 million of the $2.9 million needed for design of the Oak Ridge Airport. Over the years, commission grants have been key in bringing new companies and educational opportunities to Tennessee’s 52 Appalachian counties. For example, an ARC grant extended sewer service to establish the Hardin Valley campus of Pellissippi State University, says Terry Bobrowski, executive director of the East Tennessee Development District. Another allowed the Clinton Utilities Board to upgrade sewer lines that helped attract and serve Aisin Automotive Casting, which now employs 580 people. A similar sewer extension in Claxton, partly funded by the commission, helped Anderson County support a commercial business district there, 22 knoxville mercury April 20, 2017

A federal program that supports 19 community gardens in Knoxville would end under the proposed 2018 federal budget.

Bobrowski says. The East Tennessee Development District itself receives about $130,000 a year from the commission to help member counties with economic and community development, Bobrowski says. “The ARC is very active in our 16-county region,” Bobrowski says, especially in five counties identified as “distressed”: Union, Scott, Claiborne, Campbell and Cocke. But he adds, “Every community has benefited from ARC funds. They’re very efficient—every penny goes into the ground. The money is not lost between agencies and contractors.” Although Tennessee’s coal jobs mostly disappeared a long time ago, many Appalachian counties count coal-fired power plants and companies that transport coal as significant employers, Bobrowski notes. He says a fear remains that more plants will close. In Scott and Campbell counties, which had been big coal producers in the past, the East Tennessee Development District had been hoping to pursue ARC grants for Highland Telephone to provide broadband access, Bobrowski says. “One of the big initiatives ARC

been involved with is broadband expansion: giving tools to local governments to create their own jobs, improve education systems, and enable folks to work from home,” he says. “In some rural areas you see kids having to go to McDonald’s to do their homework because it’s the only place they can log in.” Local and state leaders have found ways to pair Appalachian Regional Commission funds with other federal programs on the chopping block, for maximum impact. Townsend, who is also chief operating officer of the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, said in an email that the Appalachian Regional Commission, Community Development Block Grants and the Delta Regional Authority have helped his department provide about $347 million in grants since 2011. (The Delta Regional

Authority, also slated for elimination, provides incentives for airlines to serve small markets.) “In several cases, (these) grants have played an integral role in the expansion of existing companies as well as the recruitment of new businesses to the state,” he wrote. They helped start Launch TN (launchtn.org), a program that has helped more than 500 companies start or accelerate their growth since 2012. One of its components is the Knoxville Entrepreneur Center on Market Square, which provides mentoring to small businesses on marketing, product development, intellectual property and more. It will be up to Congress to decide how to hone the proposed 2018 budget, and whether to support the suggested cuts. In March, the co-chair of the commission presented Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander an award on behalf of the Development District Association of Appalachia for being “a stalwart champion of ARC’s mission and vision for Tennessee and across the region,” according to its March newsletter. Through a spokesperson, Alexander declined to share his position on eliminating the Appalachian Regional Commission. Representatives of Sen. Bob Corker did not respond to the same question. Alexander provided a prepared statement listing his budget priorities as a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee: national defense, national laboratories, the National Institutes of Health, and national parks. He added that reductions should be aimed at “entitlement spending” like health care and Medicaid. “We will not balance the budget by cutting discretionary spending, which is only 31 percent of spending and is already under control because of earlier budget acts,” he said. As always, the budget will evolve. “The situation is probably going to be difficult in the best-case scenario, but we want people to remember this is the first step, not the last,” Kelly says. “We need to keep on doing the work and tell the story and make sure the impacts are understood by the people who hold the ultimate authority to adopt the budget.”

Got a Low Income? You’re On Your Own.

ere are some of the programs that help working-class and poor people, proposed for complete elimination by President Trump, and their annual budgets: Water and Wastewater loan and grant programs ($498 million) that fund utility service in rural communities.

The Economic Development Administration ($221 million), which provides small grants to improve job growth in communities. The Weatherization Assistance Program ($121 million) and Low Income Home Energy Assistance Programs ($3.4 billion), which help low-income families reduce their energy bills and make their homes more energy efficient. HOME Program ($948 million),

which pays for home repairs and preserves affordable housing.

(including Knox) to improve the lives and job opportunities of residents.

The Community Services Block Grant ($714 million) which provides services addressing employment, housing, nutrition, and education to reduce poverty in local communities.

Legal Services Corporation ($366 million), which provides free representation and legal assistance to the poor, abused and disabled in civil cases.

The Community Development Block Grant ($3 billion), which provides decent housing and expanded economic opportunities for people with low incomes and helps stabilize neighborhoods.

The Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation ($175 million), which improves access to affordable housing in local communities.

HITTING CLOSE TO HOME

The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness ($4 million), which coordinates federal efforts to reduce homelessness.

Here’s a selection of Knoxville-Knox County Community Action Committee programs that are funded through federal funds that would be eliminated in the Trump budget:

Appalachian Regional Commission ($119 million), which leverages investment in Appalachian counties

Community Services Block Grant: $791,444, serving 2,524 households and 5,032 individuals.

NEIGHBORWORKS IN TENNESSEE

Total investment Families assisted with affordable housing Congressional appropriation leverage Jobs created and maintained Customers counseled and educated

$126,815,617 4,114 $109 : $1 173 2,389

FY2016 IMPACT IN TENNESSEE

$1,163,051

427

$3,092,315

106

Grants distributed Taxes generated

938

New homeowners

Rental homes Rental homes constructed, acquired and preserved

360

Homeowners with preserved or rehabilitated homes

1,940

National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling customers: non-network

Includes funding for: • East, West and South CAC Neighborhood Centers. • Community Gardens: 23 gardens serving 120 households. • Case management for 300 seniors to help them maintain independent living. • Services for homeless youth (about 20 currently). • East Center Mentoring and Tutoring program: A small program with a waiting list that works with 29 children who struggle with basic reading and math skills. Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program: $3 million a year. • Provides utilities assistance for 6,500 households per year. • Average benefits $450 per household. Senior Corps: $796,896, covering the following programs: • Foster Grandparents: 113 providing services to 515 at-risk children. • Senior Companions: 100 serving 75,610 hours and providing services to help 360 frail seniors live safely in their own homes and apartments. • Retired Senior Volunteers: 298 providing 37,734 hours of service at more than 30 nonprofit agencies (delivering meals to homebound, transporting people to shopping and doctor appointments, leading workshops in managing pain, distributing health care insurance information, etc.). Senior Community Service Employment Program: $364,303, providing 87 seniors on-the-job training through paid community service, to prepare them for unsubsidized jobs in the private sector. Source: Knoxville-Knox County Community Action Committee

Source: neighborworks.org

April 20, 2017 knoxville mercury 23

Program Notes | Movies

Rambling Man Wandering troubadour Paul Lee Kupfer finds a part-time home in Knoxville

noxville singer-songwriter Paul Lee Kupfer takes the mythology of the American folk singer seriously. Since the first time he heard Delta blues records on college radio in his home town of Philadelphia, he’s embraced the romantic idea of the rambling troubadour, wandering from place to place with just a guitar and a batch of songs. “I heard some old Blind Blake and Big Bill Broonzy recordings one night and was fascinated by the sound that one guy and his guitar could make,” Kupfer says. “I’ve always been a restless person, but I also fell in love with the idea of being a traveling musician, meeting new people, finding new places, learning new songs. The idea of a singer and his guitar getting to travel around and play for different folks in different places really took a hold of me. I just related to the sound and the idea and said to myself, that’s me, that’s what I want to do.” Kupfer’s nomadic post-Philadelphia period took him all over the country. “After I left Philly, I lived out of my car for some time and ended up in Nevada City, Calif.,” he says. “I lived in a cabin with no electricity outside of Nevada City for almost two years, formed a band out there, and we played around Northern California.” Kupfer had made two important connections during his wandering: folk singer Ian Thomas and Matt Morelock, the banjo enthusiast and former owner of Morelock Music, who now lives in Hawaii. Around 2013, Kupfer settled down in Knoxville. “Knoxville was just kind of next

24 knoxville mercury April 20, 2017

on the list,” he says. “I was lucky to have some friends in town that welcomed me.” “Settled” just means a permanent mailing address, though. Kupfer spends big chunks of the year on the road, playing clubs and bars around the Southeast and out west and as many spots along the way as he can book. Sometimes he plays solo; he also travels with Thomas and their friend Danny Freund as the Bus Driver Tour. “We are all independent songwriters and we have all been out on the road playing solo for a long time,” Kupfer says. “Ian and I used to do a thing where we would switch between drums and guitar to back each other up. We could play more clubs as a duo than as a solo performers. That idea just expanded to the Bus Driver Tour. We switch between bass, drums, and guitar and act as each others’ backing band. It’s a light way to travel and it is really fun switching instruments and playing different kinds of music during the same show.” Kupfer’s planning to spend most of the summer in Montana—he’s booked shows in Bozeman, Butte, and several other cities during June, July, and August. Before he leaves, he’s got a handful of local shows scheduled. On Thursday, April 20, he’s playing the WDVX Six O’Clock Swerve at Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria from 6 to 7 p.m., followed by a full set on the same stage at 10 p.m. (Admission to both shows is free.) He’ll play Boyd’s Jig and Reel on Friday, May 12, at 10 p.m. (That one’s free, too.) For all his restlessness, though,

PAUL LEE KUPFER

Kupfer has found some stability in Knoxville that might be hard to give up. He released Where the Wind Goes, his second solo album, in late 2016. It’s a major step up from his 2012 debut, The Old Dirt Road, which was basically a home-recorded demo. The plan is to follow Where the Wind Goes with another new album in a year or two. “Where the Wind Goes was recorded in a day and a half at Wild Chorus Studio, with Scott Minor and Carey Balch,” Kupfer says. “It was mostly live, analog to tape. We wanted it to sound like a band playing in a room, not too overproduced, but not as lo-fi as The Old Dirt Road. The process of releasing Where the Wind Goes has been a step forward for me as far as the quality of the musicians on the record—Jamie Cook, Robert Richards, Evie Andrus, Josh Oliver— and the recording process. I really like what we got.” —Matthew Everett

WHO Paul Lee Kupfer WHERE Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (200 E. Jackson Ave.) WHEN Thursday, May 20, at 10 p.m. HOW MUCH Free INFO barleysknoxville.com or paulleekupfer.com

What If? Donizetti’s Mary, Queen of Scots takes liberties with history but fulfills the virtuosic mission of bel canto opera BY ALAN SHERROD

2 | ROSSINI

2017 festival guide

the structure of recitatives, arias, and ensemble numbers. Donizetti stood apart from many of his contemporaries for his ability to expand textural flavors and dramatic complexity while disguising, but remaining true to, the musical conventions of the day. The bel canto revival in the mid 20th century rescued many of Donizetti’s works that had languished since their premieres. With the Metropolitan Opera’s first performance of Maria Stuarda coming only four years ago, much of the thanks must go to sopranos Joan Sutherland and Beverly Sills at New York City Opera in the 1960s and ’70s, who brought enthusiastic audiences back to Maria Stuarda.

photo courtesy of Knoxville Opera

n opera generally, and specifically in Gaetano Donizetti’s 1835 bel canto masterwork Maria Stuarda (“Mary, Queen of Scots”), creative license and fictional what-ifs add an angle or two to the audience’s enjoyment. The history of Mary Stuart and her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I—the reigning monarch of England from 1558-1603—is complicated. Catholicism versus Protestantism, murders, assassination plots, and claims to the throne, as well as common human jealousy, are all factors in that bloody history. Donizetti’s opera, though, isn’t drawn from history; the composer’s source material is Maria Stuart, by the German playwright Friedrich Schiller, starting at a point shortly before Mary’s execution, during her long incarceration under Elizabeth. Donizetti and his librettist, Giuseppe Bardari, condensed some of Schiller’s extensive construction, including limiting the cast to just six characters. But they retained the play’s most essential scene of conflict: a fictional visit by Elizabeth to the jailed Mary. Brian Deedrick, the stage director for Knoxville Opera’s production of Mary, Queen of Scots, weighed in on his dramatic approach to communicating the conflict. “It’s an interesting piece, because it depends on which layer of fact, or which layer of fiction, you want to deal with,” Deedrick says. “Donizetti wrote an opera, based on a play, based on a fiction; the two of them, Elizabeth and Mary, never actually met. How do you tell the story? And how do you tell it authentically? Are you telling the authentic Mary, Queen of Scots story, or are you telling the Schiller play, or

WHAT Knoxville Opera: Mary, Queen of Scots are you telling Donizetti’s variation on all of it? “Mary really had a terrible life. But in Donizetti’s opera, it is made to feel like it is all taking place within one week. Aside from the fact that they never met, Mary was imprisoned by Elizabeth for almost 19 years. What we are trying to do here is play around a little with the time frame. Yes, we have the authentic date of her death, but we are going to set Act I when the two of them were young and vibrant women and give a feeling of time passing. We’re developing a sense of a lifelong feud. “I’m excited about this production, because even though we are fundamentally dealing with a lie, this

great span, this arc, the relationship—or non-relationship—between the two women is something we can really explore.” Despite getting high marks for using compelling history and literature-based subject matter for many of his tragic operas—Lucia di Lammermoor, Anna Bolena, and Roberto Devereux, for example, in addition to Mary, Queen of Scots— Donizetti’s fame ultimately came from exploiting the exquisite qualities of the human voice in his music, the very definition of bel canto opera. His audiences in the 1820s, ’30s, and ’40s came to the theater for the coloratura and vocal fireworks. They expected certain conventions in

WHERE Tennessee Theatre (803 S. Gay St.) WHEN Friday, April 28, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, April 30, at 2:30 p.m. HOW MUCH $13 - $99 INFO knoxvilleopera.com DRESS REHEARSALS The final dress rehearsal, at the Tennessee Theatre on Wednesday, April 26, at 6:30 p.m. is open to students of all ages. Students will be admitted free; $5 for accompanying adults.

ROSSINI FEST

INTERNATIONAL STREET FAIR SATURDAY, APRIL 22 10 A.M. — 9 P.M. • 11 hours of non-stop entertainment on 5 different stages! • 60+ food booths & food trucks! • Hundreds of booths including artisans, exhibitors, food and beverage!

JOIN THE MOVEMENT JOIN THE CAUSE JOIN THE Y For 160 years, the YMCA OF EAST TENNESSEE has been serving Knoxville with programs that build a healthy spirit, mind, and body. We’ve got something for everyone: group classes for all fitness levels, 6 pools in Knoxville, programs for kids and seniors, and free childcare while you work out.

With five locations in Knoxville, you’re never far from a Y. Stop by and see what you’ve been missing!

We’re more than a gym.

We’re a cause.

www.ymcaknoxville.org

festival guide

ROSSINI 2017 | 3

RED BLOCK 152 Greek Mediterranean Cuisine 153 Greek Mediterranean Cuisine 154 Rocky Top Korn 155 Richard Jacobus Metal Art

NORTH STAGE

156 Jewelry by Renee 157 Dr. Sid Artography 158 Set in Stone Sisters 159 Murph’s This & That 160 Murph’s This & That 161 Sak’s Salon Henna Tattoos 162 Nik Naks Jewelry REGAL CINEMAS 163 Kotah Moon Sculpture 164 Kotah Moon Sculpture 165 Gentry Family Farm 166 Chloe Lia 167 Briarvale Pottery 168 Vintage Again/Red Tail Forge 169 Oneiro Ceramics and Skin 169A Coolato Gelato 170 International Concessions 171 International Concessions 172 Concessions by Cox 173 Concessions by Cox 208 Rice, Rice Baby 209 Rice, Rice Baby 210 Repicci’s Italian Ice 211 Southern Porch Scents 212 Tony’s Caricatures 213 Riot Printing 214 Lost Life on Wax 215 Regal Entertainment

216 217 218 219 220

Terranova Fine Arts Terranova Fine Arts Terranova Fine Arts Gourmet Blends Kichi

1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

ORANGE BLOCK 177 Lackey Concessions 178 Denene’s 179 O’Natural Shea Products 180 Southern Prettys 181 Faces Gone Wild 182 Just for Me-Mi Jewelry 183 Cement 6 184 Inkas Music Art 185 Just 4u Jewelry 186 Pinnacle Home Improvement 187 For You By Q 188 Patriot Threads 189 Ceramics by Sutton Serendipity 190 Greek Corner Foods 191 Two Ladies Italiano 192 Chocolate Moonshine 193 Chocolate Moonshine 194 Simply Gourdgeous 195 Incas Andes 196 Incas Andes

Y 3 3 3 3

3 3 3 3 3

3 3 3 3

152 153 154 156 157 158 159 160 161

125 Merriwater Gourds & Botanicals 126 The Silversmith 127 Deona’s Sleepy Little Dreams 128 Itty Bits Trinkets & Treasures 129 HLF Woodworking 130 Lips, Lips Baby 131 Dharma Cowgirl Jewelry 132 Wild Child Clayworks 132A Babalu Tapas & Tacos 244 K-Town Creamery 245 Coal Creek Smokehouse BBQ 246 Mrs Grissom’s Salads

GREEN BLOCK 133 Papa Vince 134 Burke Heart Gifts 135 Can Creations 136 EL’s SilverWear 137 Sweet T Boutique 138 Lily’s Bath/ Wrapped Tight Gems 139 Dragonhorse Silk Studio 140 Stonelink Designs 141 Bonnie’s Biscuits 142 Time and Again Designs 143 Native SW 144 Native SW 145 Nectar of the Vine 146 Sherri’s Crab Cakes 147 Cevapcici 148 Greek Corner Foods 149 Greek Corner Foods

111 112 113 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132

BLUE BLOCK 112 TCDE Bake Sale 113 Walkabout Sally 114 Costco Wholesale 115 Granite Transformations 116 Endless Impressions 117 Mark’s Designs 118 Boulder Park Gems 119 Vintage Liz 120 Asparagus Soap 121 Papaw’s Eats & Treats 122 Papaw’s Eats & Treats 123 Two Ladies Italiano 124 Checkerboard Cheese

150 Sapphire 151 Five 224 Denton’s Fun Foods 225 Denton’s Fun Foods 226 Denton’s Fun Foods 227 Denton’s Fun Foods 228 Friendly’s Heartland Express 229 Friendly’s Heartland Express 230 Friendly’s Heartland Express 231 Rainbo Ice & Funnel Cakes 232 Kitchen Art 233 The Love Kitchen 234 The Little Things Photography 235 Wright Mason Jar Lamps 236 Jessica Klaaren Jewelry 237 Brenda’s Fused Glass 238 Brenda’s Fused Glass 238A Skybox & Mirage 239 Watson & Co 240 Lillian Pearl Designs 241 Sharp Creative 243 Little Jimmy’s Italian Ice

BATHROOMS

AP M T EN

Wood Oven Eats Mimi’s & Opa’s Soaps Madaris Siding & Windows Thrive Chiropractic Knoxville Mercury Knoxville Pridefest Fine Jewelry HomeSpun Happiness

133 134 135 136 137 ATM 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151

250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257

WINE

FOOD

M9 M10

M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 M6 M7 M8

S1 S2 S3 S4

M26 M25

MARKET M30 M29

MARKET SQUARE GREENSPACE

M28 M27

S14 S13 S12 S11

KRUTCH

STAGE

FunZone

MERCH

220 219 218 217 216 215 214 213

BEER

WINE

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ATM

243 242 241 240 239 238 237 236 235 234 233 232 231 230 229 228 227 226 225 224

VOLUNTEER TENT

BATHROOMS

ATMs

MARKET SQUARE

ATM

246 245 244

FOOD

WINE

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MERCH Opera Merchandise

UNION AVE. U1 LeafFilter North of TN U2 Holy Smokin’ BBQ U3 Holy Smokin’ BBQ U4 Holy Smokin’ BBQ U5 Artistic Pops U6 Sealife Creations

Wine Vendor

SEE INSET FOR DETAILS

U1 U2 U3 U4 U5 U6 U7 U8

WINE

MARKET SQUARE S-1 Lloyd's Electric S-2 Lloyd's Electric S-3 WNOX S-4 WNOX S-5 TN Water Technology S-6 Glassadazical S-7 Historic Trade/Sock Zen S-8 Lichen Hollow Jewelry S-9 CISV Peace Bracelets S-10 Boy Scouts S-11 Silly Willy Caricatures S-12 Sweet Little Owl

Beer Vendor

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S10

Food Tickets

FOUNTAIN

FOOD

BATHROOMS

ATM

259 258 257 256 255 254 253 252 251 250

SE ST

28 knoxville mercury April 20, 2017

YELLOW BLOCK 300 Willy’s Butcher Shop 301 Smoothie Island 302 Smoothie Island 303 Homecraft Gutter Protection 304 Real Time Pain Relief 305 International Flair Jewelry 311 3B Concessions 312 3B Concessions 313 Republic of Arts Henna Tattoos 314 Brown Chiropractic 315 Bob’s Basement 316 American Home 317 Burning Art

332 333 334 335

Sculpture VIP TENT

SOUND

K5 K6

KRUTCH PARK EXTENSION K5 WATE Television K6 WATE Television

K7 Sculpture

K8 K9 K10

PARK

K15 K14 K13 K12 K11

BATHROOMS

H UTC

177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190

FOOD

WINE

BEER

BATHROOMS

162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173

160 161

BEER

Burning Art Wild Pony Studio Renewal by Andersen The Raw Edge Jewelry Fancy Paints Knoxville News Sentinel As the Wood Turns Vicki Love Designs Lori Sloan Laubach Pottery Rich Robes Appalachian Woodcarving Flamingo Silk Sarah Brobst Designs Metal Art from Greg’s Garage TN Handspinners Redhed Beads/ Helen Harmon Art Angelware International Hugh Bailey Pottery

WINE

318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331

FOOD

T.H.E Pearl Pagoda The Forge/Rocky Flats Soap Hats by Patricia KDD Jewelry Element Tree Essentials Gripps Grill Philly Pretzel Factory TNT Snacks Greek Corner Foods Greek Corner Foods TN Lottery

OPERA STAGE

197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207

FOOD

M9 M10 M11 M12 M13 M14 M15 M16

M5 M6 M7 M8

M22 M21

M24 M23

M26 M25

M28 M27

MARKET STREET

MARKET STREET M1 Freedom Chiropractic M2 Quick Fix Coffee M3 Quick Fix Coffee M4 Tropical Island Concessions M5 Tropical Island Concessions M6 International Concessions M7 Kona Ice M8 Kona Ice M9 Hillbilly Soda M10 Hillbilly Soda

300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307

BREWTOPIA

314 315 316

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311 312 313

A Craft Beer Garden presented by

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CH1 CH2 CH3 CH4 CH5 CH6 CH7 CH8 CH9 CH10 CH11 CH12

323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338

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ARTISAN ROW CH 1 Barony of Thor’s Mountain CH 2 Barony of Thor’s Mountain CH 3 Knoxville Academy of the Blade

SOUTH STAGE

MAIN STAGE

SEE INSET FOR DETAILS

CL1 CL2 CL3 CL4 CL5 CL6 CL7 CL8 CL9

207 206 205 204 203 202 201 200 199 198 197 196 195 194 193 192 191

212 211 210 209 208

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SELFIE STATION

M11 Bruster’s Real Ice Cream M12 Bruster’s Real Ice Cream M13 Big O’s Famous BBQ M14 Big O’s Famous BBQ M15 Hawg Dawgs M16 Hawg Dawgs M21 The Pit Crew M22 The Pit Crew M30 Ignition Church

ATM

April 20, 2017 knoxville mercury 29

The Queen Mezzo-soprano Catherine Daniel, as Elizabeth I, makes her American debut in Knoxville Opera’s Mary, Queen of Scots

BY ALAN SHERROD

6 | ROSSINI

2017 festival guide

photo courtesy of Knoxville Opera

hat did Gaetano Donizetti find so fascinating about England’s Queen Elizabeth I? Drawing from a well of popular plays and novels based on her life and reign, the composer created four separate operas over eight years that involved the character in some way. The rarely performed Il castello di Kenilworth (“Kenilworth Castle”), a work about Elizabeth and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, came in 1829. Anna Bolena, on the subject of Elizabeth’s parents, followed in 1830. Composed in 1834 and premiered in 1835, Maria Stuarda (“Mary, Queen of Scots”), is Knoxville Opera’s Rossini Festival offering next weekend. That work was based on a play by Friedrich Schiller that explored Elizabeth and the final days of Mary Stuart. Finally, in 1837, Donizetti premiered Roberto Devereux, about the Earl of Essex, a once-favored member of Elizabeth’s court who was eventually executed. In the opera world, the latter three have earned the sobriquet the Three Queens. Singers, too, find the character of Elizabeth fascinating, and look to the Three Queens for the dramatic and vocal opportunities the roles present. Taking the formidable role of Elizabeth in Knoxville Opera’s production of Mary, Queen of Scots is the young Canadian mezzo-soprano Catherine Daniel, making her American opera company debut. Daniel’s career got a boost last month at her hometown Edmonton Opera. As understudy for the role of Klytämnestra in Richard Strauss’ Elektra, she stepped into the spotlight on short notice when the original singer withdrew for medical

reasons. In his review in the Edmonton Journal, critic Mark Morris was impressed: “[Daniel] pulled it off triumphantly, rather imperious in her stage presence, with a chilling range of vocal expression, colour, and often menace. Stepping in as an understudy can make a singer’s reputation, and that may well be the

case here.” Buoyed by that success, Daniel is ready for more challenges, but she is also realistic about the road ahead. “I was able to step into this very challenging repertoire, and pull it off, both vocally and dramatically— hopefully proof to everyone, and myself, that I’m ready for these heavy

hitters,” she says. “When I auditioned for [Knoxville Opera director] Brian Salesky in New York, I sang Amneris’ Judgement Scene from Aida. He was very enthusiastic but heard in my voice this repertoire, heard an Elizabeth with a huge range and a lot of colors. But saw that I was an emerging artist in that this would be my first leading, big queen role. It’s proof that you have to persevere.” Opposite Daniel in the leading role of Mary Stuart will be soprano Rochelle Bard. In previous Knoxville Opera appearances, Bard sang the title role in Bellini’s Norma and the role of Leonore in Verdi’s Il Trovatore. (“Bard was magnificent in her debut as the chief Druid priestess, Norma, handling the visceral lows with richness and intent and the highs with confidence wrapped in a tender but brilliant softness,” I wrote in my 2014 review of Norma.) Also making return appearances with Knoxville Opera are Scott Bearden (William Cecil) and Linda Barnett (Anna Kennedy). Bearden, who has previously sung Iago in Otello, Tonio in Pagliacci, and Jack Rance in La fanciulla del West with Knoxville Opera, electrified audiences a year ago as Baron Scarpia in Tosca. Making Knoxville Opera debuts will be tenor David Guzmán as Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and bass Darren K. Stokes in the role of George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury. Brian Deedrick, returning for his third Knoxville Opera production this season, is stage director. Salesky will conduct the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra.

Vendor List Artisans Angelware International, 334 Appalachian Woodcarving, 328 As the Wood Turns, 324 Asparagus Soap Co, 120 Bob’s Basement, 315 Bonnie’s Biscuits, 141 Boulder Park Gems, 118 Brenda’s Fused Glass, 237-238 Briarvale Pottery, 167 Burke Heart Gifts, 134 Burning Art, 317-318 Can Creations, 135 Cement 6, 183 Ceramics by Sutton Serendipity, 189 Chloe Lia, 166 CISV Peace Bracelets, S-9 Deona’s Sleepy Little Dreams, 127 Dharma Cowgirl Jewelry, 131 Doctor Sid Artography, 157 Dragonhorse Silk Studio, 139 EL’s SilverWear, 136 Element Tree Essentials, 201 Endless Impressions, 116 Faces Gone Wild, 181 Fancy Paints, 322 Fine Jewelry, 256 Flamingo Silk, 329 For You By Q, 187 The Forge and Rocky Flats Soap, 198 Gentry Family Farm, 165 Glassadazical, S-6 Gourmet Blends, 219 Hats by Patricia, 199 Historic Trade/Sock Zen, S-7 HLF Woodworking, 129 HomeSpun Happiness, 257 Hugh Bailey Pottery, 335 Incas Andes, 195-196

Inkas Music Art, 184 International Flair Jewelry, 305 Itty Bits Trinkets and Treasures, 128 Jewelry by Renee, 156 Jessica Klaaren Jewelry, 236 Just For Me-Mi Jewelry, 182 Just 4u Jewelry, 185 KDD Jewelry, 200 Kitchen Art, 232 Kotah Moon Metal Sculpture, 163-164 Lillian Pearl Designs, 240 Lily’s Bath/Wrapped Tight Gems, 138 Lips, Lips, Baby, 130 The Little Things Photography, 234 Lori Sloan Laubach Pottery, 326 Lost Life on Wax, 214 The Love Kitchen, 233 Mark’s Designs, 117 Merriwater Gourds & Botanicals, 125 Metal Art from Greg’s Garage, 331 Mimi & Opa’s Soaps, 251 Murph’s This and That, 159-160 Native Southwest, 143-144 Nectar of the Vine, 145 Nik Nak’s Jewelry, 162 O’Natural Shea Butter Products, 179 Oneiro Ceramics and Skin, 169 Papa Vince, 133 Patriot Threads, 188 The Raw Edge Jewelry, 321 Redhed Beads/Helen Harmon Art, 333 Republic of Arts Henna Tattoos, 313 Rich Robes, 327 Richard Jacobus Metal Art, 155

Sak’s Salon Henna Tattoos, 161 Sarah Brobst Designs, 330 Sealife Creations, U6 Set in Stone Sisters, 158 Sharp Creative, 241 Silly Willy Caricatures, S-11 The Silversmith, 126 Simply Gourdgeous, 194 Southern Porch Scents, 211 Southern Prettys, 180 Stonelink Designs, 140 Sweet Little Owl, S-12 Terranova Fine Arts, 216-218 T.H. E. Pearl Pagoda, 197 Time and Again Designs, 142 TN Valley Handspinners, 332 Tony’s Caricatures, 212 Vicki Love Designs, 325 Vintage Again/Red Tail Forge, 168 Vintage Liz, 119 Walkabout Sally, 113 Watson & Co., 239 Wild Child Clayworks, 132 Wild Pony Studio, 319 Wright Mason Jar Lamps, 235

Children’s Area Boy Scouts, S-10 CISV Peace Bracelets, S-9 Glassadazical, S-6 Historic Trade/Sock Zen, S-7 Lichen Hollow Jewelry, S-8 Silly Willy Caricatures, S-11 Sweet Little Owl, S-12 TN Water Technology, S-5 WNOX Radio, S-1-4

Food Vendors Artistic Pops, U5 Babalu Tapas & Tacos, 132A Big O’s Famous BBQ, M 13-14 Bruster’s Real Ice Cream, M 11-12 Cevapcci, 147 Checkerboard Cheese, 124 Chocolate Moonshine, 192-193 Coal Creek Smokehouse BBQ, 245 Concessions by Cox, 172-173

Coolato Gelato, 169A Denene’s, 178 Denton’s Fun Foods, 224-227 Five, 151 Friendly’s Heartland Express, 228-230 Greek Corner Foods, 148-149, 205-206, 190 Greek & Mediterranean Cuisine, 152-153 Gripps Grill, 202 Hawg Dawgs, M 15-16 Hillbilly Soda. M9-10 Holy Smokin’ BBQ, U 2-4 International Concessions, 170-171, M-6 K-Town Creamery, 244 Kichi, 220 Kona Ice, M 7-8 Lackey Concessions, 177 Little Jimmy’s Italian Ice, 243 Mrs. Grissom’s Salads, 246 Papaw’s Eats & Treats. 121-122 Philly Pretzel Factory, 203 The Pit Crew, M21-22 Quick Fix Coffee, M2-3 Rainbo Ice and Funnel Cakes, 231 Repicci’s Italian Ice, 210 Rice, Rice, Baby, 208-209 Rocky Top Korn, 154 Sapphire, 150 Sherri’s Crab Cakes, 146 Skybox & Mirage, 238A Smoothie Island, 301-302 TCDE Bake Sale, 112 3B Concessions, 311-312 TNT Snacks, 204 Tropical Island Concessions, M4-5 Two Ladies Italiano, 123, 191 Willy’s Butcher Shop, 300 Wood Oven Eats, 250

Food Truck Court Freedom Chiropractic, M-1

Big O’s Famous BBQ, M 13-14 Bruster’s Real Ice Cream, M 11-12 Hawg Dawgs, M 15-16 Hillbilly Soda, M 9-10 Ignition Church, M 30 International Concessions, M-6 Kona Ice, M 7-8 The Pit Crew, M21-22 Quick Fix Coffee, M 2-3 Tropical Island Concessions, M 4-5

Riot Printing, 213 Sapphire, 150 Sweet T Boutique, 137 Thrive Chiropractic, 253 3B Concessions, 311-312 TN Education Lottery, 207 TN Water Technology, S-5 WATE Television, K 5-6 WNOX FM, S-1-4

Food Tickets

Gay at Church American Home Builders, 316 Angelware International, 334 Appalachian Woodcarving, 328 As the Wood Turns, 324 Barony of Thor’s Mountain, CH 1-2 Bob’s Basement, 315 Brown Chiropractic, 314 Burning Art, 317-318 Casual Pint Brewtopia, 299 Fancy Paints, 322 Flamingo Silk, 329 Homecraft Gutter Protection, 303 Hugh Bailey Pottery, 335 International Flair Jewelry, 305 Knoxville Academy of the Blade, CH 3 Knoxville News Sentinel, 323 Lori Sloan Laubach Pottery, 326 Metal Art from Greg’s Garage, 331 The Raw Edge Jewelry, 321 Real Time Pain Relief, 304 Redhed Beads/Helen Harmon Art, 333 Renewal by Andersen, 320 Republic of Arts Henna Tattoos, 313 Rich Robes, 327 Sarah Brobst Designs, 330 Smoothie Island, 301-302 3B Concessions, 311-312 TN Valley Handspinners, 332 Vicki Love Designs, 325 Wild Pony Studio, 319 Willy’s Butcher Shop, 300

Food Ticket, 176, 223, 247, 310, K1, M17

Adult Beverages Beer & Wine, 174-175, 221-222, 248-249, 308-309, K2-3, M18-19

Sponsors American Home Builders, 316 Brown Chiropractic, 314 Casual Pint Brewtopia, 299 Costco Wholesale, Inc, 114 Eagle Distrib. 174, 221, 249, 308, K5, M19 Freedom Chiropractic, M-1 Granite Transformations, 115 Homecraft Gutter Protection, 303 Ignition Church, M 30 Incas Andes, 195-196 Knoxville Mercury, 254 Knoxville News Sentinel, 323 Knoxville Opera Merchandise, 213 Knoxville Pridefest, 255 LeafFilter North of TN, U1 Madaris Siding & Windows, 252 Papa Vince, 133 Pinnacle Home Improvements, 186 Real Time Pain Relief, 304 Regal Entertainment, 215 Renewal by Andersen, 320

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festival guide

ROSSINI 2017 | 7

ENTERTAINMENT SCHEDULE PILOT FLYING J OPERA STAGE (Krutch Park) 10:00 Lindsey Fuson, soprano 10:30 Elizabeth Peterson, mezzosoprano 11:00 Kathryn Frady, soprano 11:30 Alexandria Shiner, soprano 12:00 Dominick K. White, baritone KNOXVILLE OPERA MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS CAST: 12:30 Linda Barnett, soprano 1:00 Darren K. Stokes, bass-baritone 1:30 Catherine Daniel, mezzosoprano 2:00 Rochelle Bard, soprano 2:30 Mayors’ Welcome Ceremonies: Mayors Madeline Rogero and Tim Burchett Maestro Brian Salesky The Cast of MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS 3:00 David Guzman, tenor 3:30 Scott Bearden, baritone 4:00 4:30 5:00 5:30 6:00 6:30 8 - 10

Jacquie Brecheen, soprano Elizabeth Peterson, mezzosoprano Linda Barnett, soprano Dominick K. White, baritone Alexandria Shiner, soprano Good Thymes Ceilidh Band The Streamliners Swing Orchestra

CHORAL STAGE (North) 10:15 ReVOLution and VOLume (Univ. of Tennessee) 11:15 Webb S chool Madrigal Singers 12:15 Cedar Bluff Middle School Concert Choir 1:15 Sound Company Children’s Chorus 2:15 Maryville College Choir 3:15 Knoxville Gay Men’s Chorus 4:15 Greyscale, East Tennessee State Univ. 5:15 Variations (Pellissippi State Comm. College) 6:15 Knoxville Opera Gospel Choir 7:15 Sound of the Smokies Women’s Chorus 8:15 Ready for Rain (youth choir) INSTRUMENTAL STAGE (South) 10:45 Knoxville Community Band 11:45 Tennessee Wind Symphony 12:45 Tennessee Schmaltz 1:45 Ensemble Swing Time 2:45 Pellissippi State Comm. College Brass Ensemble 3:45 Knoxville Jazz Youth Orchestra 4:45 Pellissippi State Comm. College Jazz Band 5:45 Oak Ridge Community Band 6:45 The Good Thymes Ceilidh Band 7:45 UT Trombone Choir

YMCA DANCE STAGE (Market Square) 10:30 Momentum Dance Lab 11:30 Debka and the Oasis Dancers 12:30 Broadway Academy of Performing Arts Dancers 1:30 Sandsation Dancers 2:30 Lucia Andronescu Flamenco Dancers 3:30 Albi Belly Dance Troupe 4:30 Circle Modern Dance 5:30 Go! Contemporary Danceworks 6:30 Ballet Gloria 7:30 Vikhr Russian Dancers JAZZ STAGE (Clinch Ave.) 10:30 Tinadre Flamenco Dancers 11:00 William Lovelace Harp Ensemble 12:00 Pellissippi State Community College Bluegrass Band 1:00 Black Oak Brass 2:00 UT Jazz Messengers 3:00 HartStrings (youth ensemble) 4:00 Knoxville Symphony Youth Orchestra Wind Quintet 5:00 Epworth Old Harp Singers 6:00 Bright Boys Saxophone Quartet 7:00 Powell Middle School Steel Drums Band

Don’t miss UT School of Music Opera Theatre’s production of Robert Ward’s The Crucible at Bijou Theatre! April 21 at 8:00 pm, April 22 at 2:30 pm and 8:00 pm, April 23 at 2:30 pm Tickets available at ticketmaster.com or call 800-745-3000.

Thank you for supporting the cultural arts in East Tennessee!

8 | ROSSINI

2017 festival guide

Program Notes | Movies

READ AMERICAN NOSTALGIA

Tempting Fate The Fate of the Furious steers the over-the-top motorhead franchise back on track

BY APRIL SNELLINGS

’m not sure what’s most impressive about the Fast and Furious franchise: That it survived the death of one of its main players, that it’s morphed into a blockbuster version of a G.I. Joe cartoon, or that, eight movies in, it’s still fun. Probably the last one, since the wheels were starting to wobble in the seventh installment. The novelty of the franchise’s improbable evolution from a scrappy street-racing soap opera to a blue-collar James Bond knockoff had worn off by then, and the obsessive commitment to one-upmanship that drives the series was getting tedious. Somehow, though, it’s back on track for The Fate of the Furious, the eighth outing. It’s still insane, of course. One scene has dozens of cars raining from the sky, and another sees Dwayne Johnson redirect an incoming torpedo with his bare hand. But while Furious 7 was a little too furious—all that noise and chaos is numbing when it never

lets up—Fate benefits from a less manic pace that gives the cast some breathing room. It’s just the right amount of furious. It’s clear from the opening scene that director F. Gary Gray is keenly attuned to the essential elements of a Fast and Furious movie. By the time Fate hits the 10-minute mark, Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) has rhapsodized about the importance of family, turned an ancient beater into a street-racing monster, and driven said beater, backwards and on fire, through the streets of Havana to earn the respect of a fellow gearhead. (I know, reader; men are weird.) It’s equal parts ridiculous and thrilling, and it’s fun to see the series return to its comparatively modest roots, if only for a few minutes. In the unlikely event that you care about the plot, it involves a supervillain known as Cipher (Charlize Theron) who wants Dom to help her steal some nuclear warheads so she can take over the world or

something. He refuses, of course, until she shows him something on a cellphone that convinces him to turn on his team and do her bidding. This puts Dom in the crosshairs of blackops spook Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell), who coordinates the globetrotting effort to track him down. It doesn’t have to make sense; it just has to string together the elaborate action sequences and make room for the franchise’s ever-expanding cast, which is both its best asset and its biggest challenge. Some of the problems that plagued the last installment are still present here, but separating Dom from the rest of the team, especially for the first film without late co-star Paul Walker, pays off. What really matters, of course, is whether Fate delivers the goods in the action department, and the answer is an enthusiastic yes. Gray, who honed his car-chase chops with the 2003 The Italian Job remake, turns in some of the most effective and visually inventive set pieces of the series. The film is about a half-hour too long—you have to go back to 2009 to find a Fast and Furious movie that clocks in at under two hours—and all that destruction devolves into tedium by the time it gets to the final showdown at a Russian submarine base, but Gray sustains the energy for a remarkably long time. I’m still not convinced the wheels won’t fly off before the 10th installment (supposedly) closes out the series in 2021, but for an action series that’s eight movies deep and 16 years old, Fast and Furious still seems to be a pretty efficient machine.

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April 20, 2017 knoxville mercury 25

JASON ISBELL

Thursday, April 20 — Sunday, April 30 Spotlight: 29 Blink-182

MUSIC Thursday. April 20 WILLIAM MATHENY WITH LAUREN LIZABETH • WDVX •

12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week live-broadcast lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE PAUL LEE KUPFER • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 6PM • The WDVX 6 O’Clock Swerve is weekly musical trip with talented regional artists featuring live performances and insightful interviews in a living room atmosphere. • FREE • See Program Notes on page 24. THE WIDDLER WITH LEVITATION JONES, REZ, ORCHESTROBE, HYPERBOLIC HEADSPACE, PROPHET, AND NEMATODES • The

Concourse • 8PM • 18 and up. Visit internationalknox. com. • $15-$20 MIKE BAGGETTA • Pilot Light • 8PM • Jazz guitarist Mike Baggetta fled New York’s hectic music scene in 2016 and landed in Knoxville, where he’s quietly established himself as one of the city’s most accomplished and forward-thinking musicians. • $5 JASON ELLIS • Wild Wing Cafe • 9PM • FREE THE MALLET BROTHERS WITH MATT URMY • Preservation Pub • 9PM • 21 and up. PAUL LEE KUPFER • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • FREE • See Program Notes on page 24. KATIE BUXTON WITH CARLY BANNISTER • Modern Studio • 8PM • All ages. • $7-$10

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 90S GRUNGE NIGHT • The Open Chord • 8PM • $5 EMMA HERN • Preservation Pub • 8PM • 21 and up. THREE BEAN SOUP • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM THE MATTHEW HICKEY BAND • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 9PM OLIVIA BAKER • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 9PM BOY NAMED BANJO • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • $5 TINY HAZARD • Pilot Light • 10PM • 18 and up. • $5 STEVE RUTLEDGE AND THE GROOVE EVOLUTION • Wild Wing Cafe • 10PM • FREE KEYS N KRATES WITH BRANCHEZ, FISHERMEN, SPOOKY JONES, AND PSYCHONAUT • The International • 10PM • 18

and up. Visit internationalknox.com. • $20-$45 THE HOLLOWS WITH SOUTHERN ACCENTS • Scruffy City Hall • 10PM CHARGE THE ATLANTIC WITH OMEGA SWAN • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. TERRAPLANE DRIFTERS • Last Days of Autumn Brewery • 8PM • FREE WILLIAM MICHAEL MORGAN • Cotton Eyed Joe • 9PM • $10

Friday, April 21

Saturday, April 22

BRACKISH WATER JAMBOREE WITH DAVID CLIFTON • WDVX

DAVID LUNING WITH STEVEN J. PUSH • WDVX • 12PM •

• 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week live-broadcast lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE ANDY SNEED • Vienna Coffee House (Maryville) • 6PM • FREE ALIVE AFTER FIVE: MAC ARNOLD AND PLATEFUL O’ BLUES • Knoxville Museum of Art • 6PM • Here are a few highlights from Mac Arnold’s amazing resume. His first band included James Brown on piano. When Mac moved to Chicago, Muddy Waters hired him on the spot. He even played bass on the Sanford and Son television show when he wasn’t playing bass for Otis Redding and B.B. King. • $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

Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week live-broadcast lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE PERRY BONCK • Vienna Coffee House ( Maryville) • 6PM• JASON ISBELL WITH WILLIAM TYLER • Tennessee Theatre • 8PM • Every once in a while, a popular musician comes along whose work is both profoundly personal and evocative of the larger moment. The work of such artists as Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, and Kurt Cobain – and now Jason Isbell, with his new album Something More Than Free – spreads irresistibly outward from the soul. • $44-$79 JAY CLARK AND GREG HORNE • Laurel Theater • 8PM • With a style best described as a mixture of folk and bluegrass, Jay Clark’s handcrafted lyrics run the gamut of hard living, hard drinking, civil disobedience, and old-time religion. Greg Horne has been a fixture on the Knoxville song

26 knoxville mercury April 20, 2017

Thursday, April 20

PUBLIC CINEMA: DAVID LYNCH: THE ART LIFE

Scruffy City Hall • 8 p.m. • Free • The Public Cinema film series, coming off a major screening program at Big Ears last month, continues its spring schedule with Jon Nguyen’s portrait of one of America’s most distinctive directors. Friday, April 21

THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE FINAL ADVENTURE

Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8 p.m. • $15 • TKD continues its 2016-17 season with a fast-paced parody/homage that combines plot points and characters from two of the most memorable Sherlock Holmes stories: “A Scandal in Bohemia” and “The Final Problem.”

UT OPERA THEATRE: THE CRUCIBLE

Bijou Theatre • 8 p.m. • $20 • The University of Tennessee’s student opera company presents Robert Ward’s Pulitzer-winning operatic adaptation of Arthur Miller’s play, in which the Salem witch trials serve as an allegory for McCarthyism. Saturday, April 22

RECORD STORE DAY

The annual springtime cavalcade of collector consumerism known as Record Store Day is upon us again—expect limited-edition exclusives, extended hours, and live music performances at Basement Records, Lost and Found Records, McKay’s, Raven Records and Rarities, and Wild Honey Records. Knoxville’s newest record shop, Magnolia Records, is not an official participant (yet), but they’ll have that new (and nearly sold out) vinyl edition of the V-Roys’ Just Add Ice.

JASON ISBELL

Tennessee Theatre • 8 p.m. • $44-$79 • Between 2007 and 2013, Jason Isbell was

mostly known as a former member of the Drive-By Truckers. Then he released Southeastern. Isbell’s post-DBT, post-rehab solo breakthrough album is a polished, intimate, elegant example of singer-songwriter folk-rock, considered by many to be a masterpiece. Isbell’s Saturday night show is sold out, but tickets are still available for his Sunday concert. With opening act William Tyler. Sunday, April 23

TURNPIKE TROUBADOURS

The Mill and Mine • 8 p.m. • $18 • 18 and up • The Turnpike Troubadours have released just four albums in a decade together—evidence that these Oklahoma shit-kickers make tried-and-true bar-band heartland rock, tested in front of real live audiences. The band’s 2015 self-titled album cements the case; it’s a powerhouse set of straightahead, sing-along country-rock anthems about drinking, bad relationships, and bad decisions. With the Cordovas. Monday, April 24

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN

Bijou Theatre • 7:30 p.m. • $40 • The Pulitzer-winning historian and cable news fixture will discuss her most recent book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. (So far, no one appears to have accused Goodwin of plagiarism for that one.)

HENLEY ROSE PLAYWRIGHT COMPETITION FOR WOMEN STAGED READING SERIES

Modern Studio • 7:30 p.m. • Free • In April and May, the local theater company Yellow Rose Productions presents staged readings of the top three plays from its annual contest. The series begins with a reading of Donna Kennedy’s Harvested, the third-place selection.

April 20 — April 30

writing and old time music scene for many years. Both have recently published CDs -- Jay’s Of Mountains &amp; Heartbreak and Greg’s Working on Engines. • $15 EUPHORIA • The Open Chord • 8PM • A benefit for the Joy of Music School. All ages. Visit openchordmusic. com. • $8-$10 THE JOHN SUTTON BAND • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM BETTER DAZE • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 9PM AVENUE C • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 9PM THE REALITY • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 9PM THE KARATE IN THE GARAGE TOUR • The International • 9PM • With Step Brothers, Scotty ATL, and RedDot. 18 and up. Visit internationalknox.com. • $20-$75 BREATHERS WITH PERSONA LA AVE, FLORAL PRINT, AND A CERTAIN ZONE • Pilot Light • 9PM • 18 and up. • $6 KITTY WAMPUS • Paul’s Oasis • 9:30PM THE DEEP FRIED 5 • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria •

JOIN US FOR THE 15TH ANNUAL

reflecting the final articulated words of an individual before death, often to be immortalized as the centerpiece of a particular ...movement…. It’s a pertinent name for a band whose lyrical concepts and themes revolve around life, death, hope and love. All ages. Visit openchordmusic.com. • $10-$12 JASON ISBELL WITH WILLIAM TYLER • Tennessee Theatre • 8PM • $44-$79 RUNNING DOGS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM SWEET SWEET • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. THE TURNPIKE TROUBADOURS WITH THE CORDOVAS • The Mill and Mine • 8PM • On Goodbye Normal Street, the Troubadours’ third full-length album, the band takes that blend of nice and easy and nice and rough and distills it into a 43-minute ride that takes in the scenery of America’s Heartland and the inner workings of a group of 20-somethings on a quest for something better. 18 and up. • $18-$20

10PM

Monday, April 24

THE MIKE SNODGRASS BAND • Wild Wing Cafe • 10PM •

NIC LYN CAGLE • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week live-broadcast lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE THE BLUEPRINT • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • Local pianist Keith Brown’s cool jazz combo. HIP NIGHT WITH BEN SHUSTER • Wild Wing Cafe • 10PM • FREE COMMUNITY CENTER • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up.

FREE SOULFINGER • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. RICHARD LLOYD • Lost and Found Records • 12PM • The

former Television guitarist headlines Lost and Found’s Record Store Day lineup, which also includes Mic Harrison and the High Score, the Shazam, Bark, the Cancelled, Whole Wizard, and Daddy Don’t. • FREE DANIEL MILLER • Preservation Pub • 8PM • 21 and up. • FREE MAYBE APRIL • Modern Studio • 8PM • Maybe April, who Billboard hailed as an one of the top groups to watch in the emerging trend of all-female country music acts, will be coming to Modern Studio. • $8-$10 PEAK PHYSIQUE WITH LLAMA TRAIN AND MEOB • Scruffy City Hall • 9PM • Peak Physique’s woozy, processed tunes recall the carnal slow jams of Wright’s defunct wizard-rap crew Lil Iffy. But that project’s cheekiness is replaced here by the vulnerability common to the two songwriters’ most personal output, and it’s that intimate vibe that really sells the record’s songs of lust and devotion. 21 and up.

Sunday, April 23 SUNDAY JAZZ BRUNCH • Downtown Grill and Brewery •

11AM • Knoxville’s coolest jazz artists perform every Sunday. • FREE SMOKY MOUNTAIN BLUES SOCIETY BLUES CRUISE • Star of Knoxville Riverboat • 4PM • Join the Smoky Mountain Blues Society as they present some of the best-known local, regional, and nationally touring blues artists during specialty cruises on the Tennessee River. From April through October, blues lovers will celebrate this American art form during a three-hour Sunday afternoon cruise on the Star of Knoxville Tennessee Riverboat. Call (865) 525-7827 or visit tnriverboat.com/ blues-cruises-2. • $16-$20 FAMOUS LAST WORDS WITH THE FUNERAL PORTRAIT, CONVICTIONS, AND THE CREATURES IN SECRET • The Open

Chord • 7PM • “Famous Last Words” - A phrase

Tuesday, April 25 PI JACOBS WITH MIKE WOOTAN AND THE MONTANA SWING DUO • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate

Special, a six-days-a-week live-broadcast lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE GRASSICALLY TRAINED • Wild Wing Cafe • 5:30PM • FREE ELEMENT A440 WITH DECONBRIO, JUSTIN SYMBOL, AND KEYCHAIN • Open Chord Music • 7PM • All ages. Visit

openchordmusic.com. • $10 THE STASH! BAND • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • SEEPEOPLES • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. SURFER BLOOD • The Concourse • 8PM • Surfer Blood’s fourth album, Snowdonia, (in stores Feb 3, 2017) is a return to their DIY recording roots, and at the same time, an ambitious step forward, musically and lyrically. 18 and up. Visit internationalknox.com. • $12-$15

VOLAPALOOZA

MUSIC FESTIVAL PRESENTED BY THE CAMPUS EVENTS BOARD

FEATURING

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TICKETS ON SALE AT KNOXVILLETICKETS.COM

Wednesday, April 26 MIKE WHEELER WITH CIRCUS NO. 9 • WDVX • 12PM • Part

of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week live-broadcast 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 • FREE

CAMPUS

EVENTS

BOARD

UNIVERSITY HOUSING

RECYCLING

For more information or to arrange disability accommodations, please contact the Center for Student Engagement at (865) 974-5455.

April 20, 2017 knoxville mercury 27

April 20 — April 30

TENNESSEE SHINES: UNDERHILL ROSE • Boyd’s Jig and

Reel • 7PM • Part of WDVX’s weekly live-broadcast concert series. • $10 MIKE MCGILL • Sweet P’s Downtown Dive • 7PM • FREE DAWES • Bijou Theatre • 8PM • After recording its last two albums, Stories Don’t End and All Your Favorite Bands, in Asheville, North Carolina, and Nashville, respectively, the Los Angeles band has returned to the city that has been both home and inspiration since its inception in 2009 to record its fifth album, We’re All Gonna Die, with longtime friend and Grammy nominated producer Blake Mills at the helm. • $29 MIKE SNODGRASS • Wild Wing Cafe • 8PM • FREE MAD DOCTORS • Pilot Light • 9PM • 18 and up. • $5 FORT DEFIANCE • Preservation Pub • 9PM • 21 and up.

Thursday, April 27 THE COPPER CHILDREN WITH SALLY AND GEORGE • WDVX •

12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week live-broadcast lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE PALEFACE • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 6PM • The WDVX 6 O’Clock Swerve is weekly musical trip with talented regional artists featuring live performances and insightful interviews in a living room atmosphere. • FREE NEWSBOYS • Knoxville Civic Auditorium • 7PM • Helping

define the sound of Christian music for more than two decades, Newsboys’ live performances continue to sell out venues across the country. • $28-$106 BACKUP PLANET AND THE HEAVY PETS • The Concourse • 8PM • Backup Planet’s arena-size anthems echo with progressive intricacy, funk swagger, and even a little metallic edge. SIX MILE EXPRESS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 8PM KING GHOUL WITH SWEETTALKER AND RAVINER • Open Chord Music • 8PM • All ages. Visit openchordmusic. com. • $5 BYX ISLAND PARTY • University of Tennessee • 8PM • Since the founding of BYX at the University of Tennessee in 2012, Beta Upsilon Chi has hosted Island Party in celebration of the completion of another great school year. Island Party is a week filled with fun activities concluding in a massive outdoor concert in the heart of campus. Island Party is based on the purpose of growing community on and giving back to campus. This year’s concert, benefiting Tiva Water, will feature Headliner, Cody Fry, and Opener, My Red and Blue. Visit utkislandparty.com. • FREE SHAUN ABBOTT • Wild Wing Cafe • 9PM • FREE PALEFACE • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM MODEL INMATES • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. BLINK-182 WITH WAAVES • Knoxville Civic Coliseum • 8PM • $32-$86 • See Spotlight on page 29.

THE BLACK ANGELS WITH A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS •

The Mill and Mine • 8PM • The sultry neo-psychedelic sound of the Black Angels came together in spring 2004, taking their name from a Velvet Underground classic, “The Black Angel’s Death Song.” • $18-$20

Friday, April 28 SCOTT AINSLE WITH THE TERRAPLANE DRIFTERS • WDVX •

12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week live-broadcast lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE VOLAPALOOZA 2017 • World’s Fair Park • 5:30PM • The University of Tennessee’s annual end-of-spring-semester concert features X Ambassadors, COIN, Pell, Mountains Like Wax, Electric Darling, and DJ A-Wall. • FREE-$30 JOHN CONDRONE • Vienna Coffee House • 6PM • FREE ALIVE AFTER FIVE: GEOFF ACHISON AND THE SOUL DIGGERS

• Knoxville Museum of Art • 6PM • Geoff Achison is an award winning blues-roots artist from Australia known for his energetic live performances and unique guitar mastery. • $15 KITTY WAMPUS • Quaker Steak and Lube • 7PM FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose • 8PM • FREE CAGE THE ELEPHANT: LIVE AND UNPEELED - THE ACOUSTIC TOUR • Bijou Theatre • 8PM • “With this record, we

wanted to be more transparent,” says Matt Shultz, lead singer of Cage the Elephant. “We wanted to capture the sentiment of each song, and whatever emotional response it provoked, to be really honest to that.” • $49.50 BLACKFOOT WITH INWARD OF EDEN • Open Chord Music • 8PM • If there’s one thing Rickey Medlocke cant do, its sit still. The Blackfoot cofounder and Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist is constantly looking for ways to challenge his creative impulses, and his latest pet project has been to shepherd the next-generation incarnation of his beloved Blackfoot. All ages. Visit openchordmusic. com. • $15-$20 SCOTT AINSLE • Laurel Theater • 8PM • As a musician with expertise in Southern Appalachian fiddle and banjo traditions as well as Piedmont and Delta blues, Scott Ainslie has specialized in performing and presenting programs on the European and African roots of American music and culture. • $15 THE KIRK FLETA BAND • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM STANTON WARRIORS WITH DJ ICEY, HUGLIFE, PCKNS, AND JASON PAUL • The Concourse • 9PM • 18 and up. Visit

internationalknox.com. • $15-$18 MILKSHAKE FATTY WITH 3-TREE • Preservation Pub • 9PM • 21 and up. THE COVERALLS • Scruffy City Hall • 9PM • Knoxville’s long-running bar/wedding/special event favorites are

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Zac Brown Band

Transatlantic Sessions with Jerry Douglas and Aly Bain featuring James Taylor and more!

Sam Bush Band

Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives

Del McCoury Band

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April 20 — April 30

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. THE NINTH STREET STOMPERS • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE DEROBERT AND THE HALF TRUTHS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM AUNT BETTY • Wild Wing Cafe • 10PM • FREE

Saturday, April 29 GRAYSON JENKINS WITH NICK NACE • WDVX • 12PM • Part

in the universe, and that pure honest ...rock and roll has once again returned to this planet on a mission to unite true believers. All ages. Visit openchordmusic. com. • $7-$10 THE BROCKEFELLERS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM • FREE DAY AND AGE WITH ALL HELL • Pilot Light • 9PM • Depending on the day, Day and Age could be could be pegged as everything from post-punk to hardcore to indie rock, but for the Knoxville band, that’s beside the point. 18 and up. • $5

T.I. • The International • 9PM • Grammy-award winning

rapper, actor and Grand Hustle Records founder Tip “T.I.” Harris is set to introduce his new line-up of artists signed to his label during the 29-city U.S. “Hustle Gang Tour “kicking off April 26 and making stops in New York, Washington, DC, Birmingham, AL and Philadelphia, PA. • $35-$100

OPEN MIC AND SONGWRITER NIGHTS

of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week live-broadcast lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE MARILYNE AND LOGAN ASBURY • Vienna Coffee House (Maryville) • 6PM • FREE

SATURDAY

JUNE 17

FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE WITH DUSTIN LYNCH AND CHRIS LANE • Thompson-Boling Arena • 7PM • With their inno-

vative fusion of country, rock, hip-hop and pop, Florida Georgia Line have already proven themselves as a once-in-a-generation force of change in modern music, but the duo of Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley is far from done pushing the envelope. Visit floridageorgialine.com or tbarena.com. • $25-$75 TUESDAY’S GONE WITH DRAKE FREEMAN • The Shed at Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson (Maryville) • 7:30PM • A tribute to Lynyrd Skynyrd. • $10 The Dead Deads with the Acorn People and the Cryptoids • Open Chord Music • 8PM • The Dead Deads are comprised of a pair of siblings and three childhood best friends who came together for a girls jam night that turned into much more. All ages. Visit openchordmusic.com. • $10-$12 THE REALITY • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM SOUTHBOUND • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 9PM THE LARK AND THE LOON • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 9PM ROCKIN’ THE RIVERBOAT • Star of Knoxville Riverboat • 9PM • With music by Natural Born Leaders, Profit Levi, the Jaystorm Project, Bobby Fuego, Loch Brown, Shanese, YTM, and Earl Grae. • $15-$20 CALABASH WITH EARPHORIK • Preservation Pub • 9PM • 21 and up. GIMME HENDRIX • Scruffy City Hall • 9PM FRAZIERBAND • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE GONE COUNTRY • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • Knoxville’s premier 80s-90s country cover band. • FREE WILDWOOD • Wild Wing Cafe • 10PM • FREE WICK-IT THE INSTIGATOR WITH PAERBAER, XYON, AND KWIKFLIP • The Concourse • 10PM • 18 and up. Visit

internationalknox.com. • $5

Sunday, April 30 SUNDAY JAZZ BRUNCH • Downtown Grill and Brewery •

11AM • Knoxville’s coolest jazz artists perform every Sunday. • FREE MOTHERSHIP WITH INDIGHOST, MASS DRIVER, AND PART OF THE PROBLEM • Open Chord Music • 7PM • Supersonic

Blink-182 Knoxville Civic Coliseum (500 Howard Baker Jr. Ave.) • 8 p.m. • $32-$86 • knoxvillecoliseum.com or blink182.com Blink-182 recently released a lyric video for “Can’t Get You More Pregnant,” a barrage of pop-punk riffs and juvenile sex humor. The funny part? “Pregnant” is 35 seconds and two sentences long. It’s vintage Blink-182—and like the band’s seventh album, 2016’s California, the nostalgia feels purposeful.

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The second single, “She’s Out of Her Mind,” is an uncanny hybrid of TRL-era fan favorites “First Date” and “Rock Show,” and, in a more obvious wink to fans, the band members paid tribute to their classic “What’s My Age Again?” video by running naked through Los Angeles. California and the band’s subsequent touring cycle mark a pivotal new chapter, following the confusing 2015 departure of founding guitarist Tom DeLonge. With their former frontman focused on UFO research, bassist Mark Hoppus and virtuoso drummer Travis Barker have carried on with Alkaline Trio guitarist Matt Skiba. DeLonge’s status in the band remains unclear, but the lineup shift hasn’t affected Blink-182’s capacity to pack arenas. On May 19, the trio will release a deluxe version of California featuring 11 bonus tracks (including “Pregnant”). Nathan Williams’ acclaimed indie-rock project, Wavves—the opening act on Blink-182’s current tour—will issue its fifth album, You’re Welcome, that same day. (Ryan Reed)

intergalactic heavy rock trio Mothership based out of Dallas, Texas give a real sense of hope that all is well April 20, 2017 knoxville mercury 29

April 20 — April 30

Thursday, April 20 IRISH MUSIC SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM •

Held on the first and third Thursdays of each month. Visit jigandreel.com. • FREE

Friday, April 21 PELLISSIPPI PRIDE OPEN MIC NIGHT • Sugar Mama’s •

8PM • Come have fun and communicate a message of love by sharing your talents, telling your story or listening to new stories from unheard voices. Everyone is welcome. For more information contact Pellissippi Pride at ppride@pstcc.edu. • FREE

Tuesday, April 25 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 • Hosted by Sarah Pirkle. Visit jigandreel.com. • FREE

Wednesday, April 26 BRACKINS BLUES JAM • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) •

9PM • A weekly open session hosted by Tommie John. Visit Facebook.com/BrackinsBlues. • FREE

Thursday, April 27 SCOTTISH MUSIC SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM

• Visit jigandreel.com. • FREE

CLASSICAL MUSIC

Sunday, April 23

Saturday, April 29

Thursday, April 20

UT OPERA THEATRE: ‘THE CRUCIBLE’ • Bijou Theatre •

2:30PM • April 21-23. Visit music.uk.edu. • $20

OAK RIDGE CHORUS • First Baptist Church Oak Ridge • 7:30PM • The Oak Ridge Civic Music Association presents the Oak Ridge Chorus, led by recently appointed chorus director Jaclyn Johnson, in a delightful evening of American music. Visit www. ORCMA.org or call (865) 483-5569. • $15

KSO MASTERWORKS: GOLKA PLAYS CHOPIN • Tennessee

Thursday, April 27

Theatre • 7:30PM • Notable concert pianist Adam Golka returns to Knoxville to join the KSO in April for Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1. . • $13-$83

KNOXVILLE CHAMBER CHORALE SPRING CONCERT •

• The Crucible is a timely and historical snapshot of the powerful force that comes from a conviction of lies and hysteria, and the deadly aftermath of those convictions in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. April 21-23. Visit music.uk.edu. • $20

Episcopal Church of the Ascension • 7PM • The Chamber Chorale is Knoxville’s premier chamber choir. The concert includes classics like Jauchzet dem Herren and Richte Mich, Gott, Psalm 43 from Mendelssohn. Also included are many other selections such as Hear My Prayer, O Lord from Henry Purcell, Amazing Grace from Eriks Esenvalds, and Lord, If I Got My Ticket Can I Ride? arranged by Sheldon Curry. For more information, please visit www.knoxvillechoralsociety.org. • FREE

Saturday, April 22

Friday, April 28

UT OPERA THEATRE: ‘THE CRUCIBLE’ • Bijou Theatre •

KNOXVILLE OPERA: ‘MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS’ • Tennessee

Monday, April 24

2:30PM and 8PM • April 21-23. Visit music.uk.edu. • $20 BELLE TRISTE • Episcopal Church of the Good Samaritan • 7PM • Through carefully-chosen repertoire, new arrangements and original compositions, Belle Triste has prepared a thoughtful, expressive and entertaining program of music that brings influences of many genres into a classical setting and appeals to a broad range of audiences. Visit knoxvilleguitar.org. • $20

Theatre • 2:30PM • Elizabeth I, fearing her rival in love and politics, has imprisoned Mary Queen of Scots for 18 years. What happens when Elizabeth and her cousin, Mary Stuart, finally meet face to face? A riveting, explosive showdown featuring unspeakable insults and violent, vocal fireworks. Fighting for her crown and survival, Elizabeth sends Mary to the executioner’s scaffold in Donizetti’s dynamic 1835 masterpiece. Visit knoxvilleopera.com. • $21-$99

HENLEY ROSE PLAYWRIGHT COMPETITION FOR WOMEN STAGED READING SERIES • Modern Studio • 7:30PM •

Friday, April 21 UT OPERA THEATRE: ‘THE CRUCIBLE’ • Bijou Theatre • 8PM

Sunday, April 30 KNOXVILLE OPERA: ‘MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS’ • Tennessee

Theatre • 7:30PM • Elizabeth I, fearing her rival in love and politics, has imprisoned Mary Queen of Scots for 18 years. What happens when Elizabeth and her cousin, Mary Stuart, finally meet face to face? Visit knoxvilleopera.com. • $21-$99

THEATRE AND DANCE

Yellow Rose Productions, a Knoxville based theatre company, is hosting the second annual Staged Reading Series for the Henley Rose Playwright Competition for Women. The 2017 reading schedule includes Harvested, by Donna Kennedy (April 24 at Modern Studio); Moonshine by Liz Appel (May 1 at Modern Studio); and The Flora and Fauna by Alyson

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KNOXVILLE’S SPRING CRAFT BEER FESTIVAL

APRIL 29 TH SOUTHERN RAILWAY TERMINAL

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April 20 — April 30

Mead (May 8, Clarence Brown Lab Theatre). Visit yellowroseproductions.org. • FREE

Circle Modern Dance circlemoderndance.com LAYER BY LAYER • Modern Studio • An evening of

SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE FINAL ADVENTURE • The world’s

greatest detective has seemingly reached the end of his remarkable career when a case presents itself that is too tempting to ignore. In this spirited, fast-moving and thoroughly theatrical adaptation, Steven Dietz presents Holmes at the height of his powers. April 21-May 7.

exploration and commentary through movement, celebrating Circle Modern Dance’s past 26 years while looking forward to many more years of dancing. CMD core dancers and guest performers will explore vulnerability, love, and loss. Layer by Layer is an accumulation of months of exploration into overarching ideas that influence our daily lives and how we as humans react to them. April 27-29 • $13-$15

COMEDY AND SPOKEN WORD

Clarence Brown Theatre clarencebrowntheatre.com

Tosh will host and perform an evening of standup comedy featuring writers and comedians from his Comedy Central show “Tosh.0.” • $45-$75

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS • Adapted by Mark

DANIEL TOSH • Knoxville Civic Coliseum • 8PM • Daniel

Your classical and jazz station.

Monday, April 24 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

Maryville College Theatre claytonartscenter.com

EINSTEIN SIMPLIFIED • Scruffy City Hall • 8PM • Visit

Tuesday, April 25

Wednesday, April 26

Oak Ridge Playhouse orplayhouse.com

SMOKY MOUNTAIN FIBER ARTS FESTIVAL • Townsend

group the Marvelous Wonderettes as they take the stage at their 1958 senior prom. Through classic hits of the 50’s we learn about their lives and loves, discovering that their dreams are as big as their crinolines. A decade later, the Wonderettes reunite, eventually discovering that no matter what life has thrown their way or what the future may bring, they can conquer it together. April 28-May 14.

Pellissippi State Community College pstcc.edu ONE’S NIGHT • An evening of student-written one-act

plays: The Stubborn Artichoke and the Pompous Potato; Lauren Spencer Is Ready to Die; Serve and Protect; Alexandra; and Dominant Women. April 14-23.

FIX THIS BASTARD

einsteinsimplified.com. • FREE

will present Lysistrata, the Greek comedy by Aristophanes. The play, which is adapted by Ellen McLaughlin, centers on the title character Lysistrata, a woman of Athens who calls for her fellow women of Greece to help end the Peloponnesian war. Lysistrata has devised a plan for the women to withhold sex from their husbands in hope that they will see reason for peace. Due to adult content, this play is intended for mature audiences. April 27-30. • $10

THE MARVELOUS WONDERETTES • We first meet the girl

Your music, your choice.

Friday, April 21

Brown from the novel by Jules Verne. The intrepid Phileas Fogg with his loyal valet, Passepartout, voyage from Victorian London through the Indian subcontinent, to Asia and across the Pacific to America on a wager that he will return in precisely 80 days. Literally, a theatrical tour-de-force. April 19-May 7.

LYSISTRATA • The Maryville College Theatre Department

Bach or Basie?

Theatre Knoxville Downtown theatreknoxville.com

WUOT_Ad_4.625x5.25_ClassicalJazz_KnoxMerc.indd 2

9/17/16 5:00 PM

FULL DISCLOSURE COMEDY • Open Chord Music • 8PM •

Full Disclosure Comedy is Knoxville’s long-form improvisational troupe, bringing together community members for laughs and overall general merriment. • FREE

FESTIVALS Friday, April 21 Visitor’s Center • 9AM • Smoky Mountain Fiber Arts Festival is a unique event that takes place every spring in Townsend. Join our classes, demonstrations and vendor exhibits to learn and celebrate the fiber arts. Visit smokymountainfiberartsfestival.org.

Saturday, April 22 SMOKY MOUNTAIN FIBER ARTS FESTIVAL • Townsend

Visitor’s Center • 9AM • Visit smokymountainfiberartsfestival.org. ROSSINI FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL STREET FAIR • Downtown Knoxville • 10AM • Knoxville Opera’s annual Rossini Festival International Street Fair, now in it’s 16th year, has been designated a “legacy event” by Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero and serves as a celebration of the performing arts. The public enjoys 11 consecutive hours of live entertainment on five outdoor stages (opera, jazz, ethnic music, gospel, modern and ethnic dance, ballet, vocal and instrumental ensembles) and the

Thursday, April 27, 7pm • Friday, April 28, 7pm Saturday, April 29, 3&7pm Modern Studio Bring a pillow: the floor 109 W. Anderson Ave. Tickets $13 & $15 at door Advance tickets $10 & $13 at circlemoderndance.tix.com 865-309-5309 • circlemoderndance.com

is your friend!

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April 20 — April 30

YMCA FunZone while shopping at exhibits of over 100 prominent Artisans and enjoying cuisine from dozens of food vendors. This unique event transforms downtown Gay Street, Market Square, and the adjoining streets into a European-style pedestrian street mall appropriate for the entire family. • FREE • See insert.

their work with you. The best part is you don’t have to be a scientist to enjoy them — we want anyone with an interest to come, listen, and ask questions. Science affects everyone so should be accessible to anyone, including you. Taste of Science runs April 23-28 at various venues around Knoxville. Visit tasteofscience. org for details. • FREE

Sunday, April 23

Monday, April 24

SMOKY MOUNTAIN FIBER ARTS FESTIVAL • Townsend

TASTE OF SCIENCE • Starting gently by bringing

Visitor’s Center • 9AM • Visit smokymountainfiberartsfestival.org. KITE FESTIVAL • Pearson Springs Park (Maryville) • 10AM • Come out and spend a relaxing day with family and friends. We will have kites for you to paint and fly, or you can bring your own. We will have music, boomerangs, art competitions and flying competitions too. Vendors will be available for shopping and food trucks will be on site for lunch. • FREE TASTE OF SCIENCE • Starting gently by bringing scientists to bars to talk to non-scientists, Taste of Science is now introducing these scientists to other social situations. We organize accessible science events in all of your favorite hangouts. Curious about the cosmos? Intrigued by evolution? Your questions have answers, and we bring you the brilliant minds who have found them. Taste of Science is an annual festival where the best science researchers share

scientists to bars to talk to non-scientists, Taste of Science is now introducing these scientists to other social situations. Taste of Science runs April 23-28 at various venues around Knoxville. Visit tasteofscience. org for details. • FREE

Tuesday, April 25 TASTE OF SCIENCE • Starting gently by bringing

Wednesday, April 26 TASTE OF SCIENCE • Starting gently by bringing

scientists to bars to talk to non-scientists, Taste of Science is now introducing these scientists to other

Yee-Haw Brewing Co. Presents tHe 2017

Arcade Decathlon Benefiting

A contest featuring a different arcade game each month to crown the next king or queen of the arcade in Knoxville!

Round 1 Skeeball WinnER Pone Tone

Foosball

All proceeds go to help to keep Volunteer Radio 90.3 The Rock on the air!

Each event is a mini-tourney to determine who squares off in the Round 3 Championship event. May 18

Afterburner & Tomcat

2017

Round 9

Grand Prize for november 16 the winner of Galaga ROUND 2 is a pair of passes to see Spoon at the Round 8 october 19 Mill & Mine!

wUtK 90.3

Round 2 Thursday April 20 “Foos20!”

Championship Event december 14

Ghosts & Goblins

Sponsored by Harrogate’s Lounge and KS Absher Marketing & Events

Round 7 September 21 darts

Registration: 6-7 pm Competition: 7 pm

Round 4 June 15 nBA Jam

registration fee for each event

Round 5 July 20 Cruisin’ uSA

Round 6 August 17 Pinball

Cool raffle prizes eaCh night for partiCipants! Stay tuned to WUTK and check out wutkradio.com for details!

Streaming 24.7.365 at WUTKRADIO.COM 32 knoxville mercury April 20, 2017

social situations. Taste of Science runs April 23-28 at various venues around Knoxville. Visit tasteofscience. org for details. • FREE

Thursday, April 27 TASTE OF SCIENCE • Starting gently by bringing

Friday, April 28 ROCK AROUND THE DOCK FOR AUTISM • The Shrimp Dock • 6:30PM • The 4th annual Rock Around the Dock for Autism benefits the Autism Society of East Tennessee. Tickets to the Margaritaville-style event include live music, Cajun shrimp boil, complimentary wine, beer, and non-alcoholic beverages, and admission to the silent auction. In addition to single tickets, VIP reserved tables of 8 are available for $750. • $50 HEALTHY LIVING EXPO • Knoxville Convention Center • 9AM • The 13th annual Healthy Living Expo will focus on fitness, nutrition, health and wellness. Over 100 exhibitors will offer educational displays, cooking demonstrations, informative speakers and fun entertainment. Guest speakers include Dr. Bob Overholt, Sam Venable, and Dr. Bill Bass. For more

information visit www.TheHealthyLivingExpo.com. • FREE-$10 DOGWOOD ARTS FESTIVAL • Market Square • 11AM-9PM • With quality arts and crafts booths, performing arts, and an expanded children’s creation station, several blocks of downtown Knoxville are transformed into a lively street fair for the Dogwood Arts Festival. There will be more than 60 local and regional juried artists exhibiting and selling their original work in mixed media, clay, drawing/pastels, glass, jewelry, leather, metal, painting, photography, sculpture, and wood. In addition to the artist areas in Market Square and Krutch Park extension, enjoy cooking demonstrations, and festive food creations. • FREE

Saturday, April 29 HEALTHY LIVING EXPO • Knoxville Convention Center • 9AM • For more information visit www.TheHealthyLivingExpo.com. • FREE-$10 DOGWOOD ARTS FESTIVAL • Market Square • 10AM-9PM • With quality arts and crafts booths, performing arts, and an expanded children’s creation station, several blocks of downtown Knoxville are transformed into a lively street fair for the Dogwood Arts Festival. There will be more than 60 local and regional juried artists exhibiting and selling their original work in mixed media, clay, drawing/pastels, glass, jewelry, leather, metal, painting, photography, sculpture, and wood. In

April 20 — April 30

addition to the artist areas in Market Square and Krutch Park extension, enjoy cooking demonstrations, and festive food creations. • FREE

Sunday, April 30 DOGWOOD ARTS FESTIVAL • Market Square • 11AM-5PM •

With quality arts and crafts booths, performing arts, and an expanded children’s creation station, several blocks of downtown Knoxville are transformed into a lively street fair for the Dogwood Arts Festival. There will be more than 60 local and regional juried artists exhibiting and selling their original work in mixed media, clay, drawing/pastels, glass, jewelry, leather, metal, painting, photography, sculpture, and wood. In addition to the artist areas in Market Square and Krutch Park extension, enjoy cooking demonstrations, and festive food creations. • FREE

FILM SCREENINGS Thursday, April 20 NOKNO CINEMATHEQUE: DIRTY PRETTY THINGS • Central

Collective • 7PM • • FREE PUBLIC CINEMA: ‘DAVID LYNCH: THE ART LIFE’ • Scruffy

City Hall • 8PM • David Lynch: The Art Life looks at Lynch’s art, music, and early films, shining a light into the dark corners of his unique world and giving audiences a better understanding of the man and the artist. Visit publiccinema.org. • FREE

Saturday, April 22 NARROW RIDGE FILM NIGHT: ‘SURVIVING PROGRESS’ •

Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 7PM • This month’s film, Surviving Progress by Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks, presents the story of human advancement as awe-inspiring and double-edged. For more information call 865-497-3603 or email community@narrowridge.org. • FREE

Sunday, April 23 THE GREAT GILLY HOPKINS’ • Clayton Center for the Arts

(Maryville) • 5PM • “The Great Gilly Hopkins” is a 2016 movie based on Katherine Paterson’s beloved 1978 young-adult novel; the story follows a teenager who moves from one foster home to another until finally meeting the woman who wants to be the mother this troublemaker needs – a relationship that will end up benefiting both of them. • FREE

Monday, April 24 BIRDHOUSE WALK-IN THEATER • The Birdhouse • 8:15PM •

The Birdhouse Walk-In Theater hosts free movies every Monday night. Each month carries a different theme and provides free popcorn. Contact us about screening ideas: birdhousewalkin[at]gmail.com. • FREE

Tuesday, April 25 PUBLIC CINEMA: ‘THE SHOW ABOUT THE SHOW’ • Pilot

Light • 7:30PM • Independent Filmmaker Caveh Zahedi persuades BRIC TV, a Brooklyn non-profit arts

organization, to finance a television show whose premise is that every episode will be about the making of the previous episode. In the process of creating the show, everything can—and does—go wrong. Visit publiccinema.org. • FREE

Sports and Recreation Thursday, April 20 CYCOLOGY BICYCLES THURSDAY MORNING RIDE • Cycology

com. • FREE ECHELON BICYCLES THURSDAY ROAD RIDE • Echelon

Bicycles • 6:15 PM • Join Echelon Bicycles every Thursday evening at 6:15 pm for a 30+ mile road ride at an average pace of 18 mph, with regrouping. • FREE CEDAR BLUFF CYCLES THURSDAY ROAD RIDE • Cedar Bluff Cycles • 6:20 PM • Visit cedarbluffcycles.com. • FREE BEARDEN BEER MARKET FUN RUN • Bearden Beer Market • 6:30PM • Visit beardenbeermarket.com. • FREE

Friday, April 21 ALLIANCE BREWING VOLLEYBALL NIGHT • Suttree’s Landing • 4PM • Visit alliancebrewing.com. • FREE

Saturday, April 22 WEST BICYCLES SATURDAY ROAD RIDE • West Bicycles • 9AM • Visit westbikes.com. • FREE BIKE ZOO SATURDAY ROAD RIDE • The Bike Zoo • 9AM • Visit bikezoo.com. • FREE KNOXVILLE BICYCLE COMPANY SATURDAY RIDE • Knoxville Bicycle Company • 9AM • Visit Facebook.com/ KnoxvilleBicycleCo. • FREE CYCOLOGY WOMEN’S RIDE SERIES • Cycology Bicycles • 9:30AM • The Women’s Road Series includes hour-long clinics on maintenance, local bike routes, training, advocacy, and more followed by a group road ride. Visit cycologybicycles.com. Registration for the full series is $30. • $30 NARROW RIDGE BIRD WALK • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 9AM • On our bird walk we identify some of our feathered neighbors and will reserve some time for questions, answers and discussion. Be sure to bring a sack lunch if you wish to spend time on the land in the afternoon. For more information contact Mitzi at 865-497-3603 or community@narrowridge. org.

TENNESSEE ASSOCIATION OF VINTAGE BASE BALL •

Historic Ramsey House • 12PM and 2:30PM • The Tennessee Association of Vintage Base Ball was established in 2012 to entertain and educate our communities by recreating the civility of 19th century base ball • FREE

Sunday, April 23 SMOKY MOUNTAINS HIKING CLUB: SMOKY MOUNTAIN RAILROAD HIKE • 2PM • We will hike part of a new

section and also hike the section between Charter Doyle and parks. Leaders: Tim Bigelow, bigelowt2@ mindspring.com and Michael Vaughn, mvaughn@ knology.net. • FREE

Monday, April 24 KTC GROUP RUN • Balter Beerworks • 6PM • Visit ktc.org.

• FREE TVB MONDAY NIGHT ROAD RIDE • Tennessee Valley Bikes • 6PM • Visit tnvalleybikes.com. • FREE BEARDEN BEER MARKET FUN RUN • Bearden Beer Market • 6:30PM • Visit beardenbeermarket.com. • FREE

Tuesday, April 25 SMOKY MOUNTAIN WHEELMEN TUESDAY MORNING COUNTRY CRUISE • Howard Pinkston Branch Library •

9AM • Join Smoky Mountain Wheelmen cyclists for a weekly, recreational, no-drop club ride. The routes and distances vary depending upon group experience. Check facebook.com/groups/smwbikeclub for ride details and information on the upcoming Cherohala Challenge for registration and volunteer positions. • FREE CYCOLOGY BICYCLES TUESDAY MORNING RIDE • Cycology Bicycles • 10AM and 10:30AM • Visit cycologybicycles. com. • FREE WEST HILLS FUN RUN • West Hills Flats and Taps • 6PM • Every Tuesday all runners are welcome to come join us on a quick 2.3 mile fun run from West Hills Flats and Taps through Jean Teague Park and back, starting at 6pm. All runners of age receive a free Blackhorse Brewing pint of their choice and $1 off any more Blackhorse brews. • FREE ECHELON BICYCLES TUESDAY ROAD RIDE • Echelon Bicycles • 6:15 PM • Join Echelon Bicycles every Tuesday evening at 6:15 pm for a 30+ mile road ride at an average pace of 18 mph, with regrouping. • FREE CEDAR BLUFF CYCLES TUESDAY ROAD RIDE • Cedar Bluff Cycles • 6:20 PM • Visit cedarbluffcycles.net. • FREE BIKETOPIA TUESDAY ROAD RIDE • Biketopia • 6:30PM • Visit biketopia.com. • FREE

Wednesday, April 26 FLEET FEET WEDNESDAY LUNCH BREAK RUN • Fleet Feet

Sports Knoxville • 12PM • Visit fleetfeetknoxville.com. • FREE ALLIANCE BREWING VOLLEYBALL NIGHT • Suttree’s Landing • 4PM • Visit alliancebrewing.com. • FREE KTC GROUP RUN • Runner’s Market • 5:30PM • Visit ktc. org. • FREE April 20, 2017 knoxville mercury 33

April 20 — April 30

TVB EASY RIDER MOUNTAIN BIKE RIDE • Ijams Nature

Center • 6PM • Call 865-540-9979 or visit tnvalleybikes.com. • FREE WEST BICYCLES WEDNESDAY ROAD RIDE • West Bicycles • 6:10 PM • Visit westbikes.com. • FREE

Thursday, April 27 CYCOLOGY BICYCLES THURSDAY MORNING RIDE • Cycology

Bicycles • 10AM • Visit cycologybicycles.com. • FREE FLEET FEET GROUP RUN/WALK • Fleet Feet Sports Knoxville • 6PM • Visit fleetfeetknoxville.com. • FREE NORTH KNOXVILLE BEER RUNNERS • Central Flats and Taps • 6PM • Meet us at Central Flats and Taps every Thursday night for a fun and easy run leading us right through Saw Works for a midway beer. • FREE RIVER SPORTS GREENWAY SOCIAL RIDE • River Sports Outfitters • 6PM • Visit riversportsoutfitters.com. • FREE ECHELON BICYCLES THURSDAY ROAD RIDE • Echelon Bicycles • 6:15 PM • Join Echelon Bicycles every Thursday evening at 6:15 pm for a 30+ mile road ride at an average pace of 18 mph, with regrouping. • FREE CEDAR BLUFF CYCLES THURSDAY ROAD RIDE • Cedar Bluff Cycles • 6:20 PM • Visit cedarbluffcycles.com. • FREE BEARDEN BEER MARKET FUN RUN • Bearden Beer Market • 6:30PM • Visit beardenbeermarket.com. • FREE

Friday, April 28

Landing • 4PM • Visit alliancebrewing.com. • FREE

Saturday, April 29 KTC DOGWOOD CLASSIC 5K • Sequoyah Park • 8AM • Visit

ktc.org. • $15-$30 CYCOLOGY WOMEN’S RIDE SERIES • Cycology Bicycles • 9:30AM • The Women’s Road Series includes hour-long clinics on maintenance, local bike routes, training, advocacy, and more followed by a group road ride. Visit cycologybicycles.com. Registration for the full series is $30. • $30 DOGWOOD ARTS BIKES AND BLOOMS SCENIC RIDES • Outdoor Knoxville Adventure Center • 2PM • Discover new routes on these family friendly bike rides through scenic neighborhoods and on local greenways. Rides are approximately eight miles long and are geared to help you learn how to do your own road rides. Visit dogwoodarts.com.

Sunday, April 30 DOGWOOD ARTS BIKES AND BLOOMS SCENIC RIDES •

Suttree Landing Park • 2PM • Discover new routes on these family friendly bike rides through scenic neighborhoods and on local greenways. Rides are approximately eight miles long and are geared to help you learn how to do your own road rides. Visit dogwoodarts.com.

ALLIANCE BREWING VOLLEYBALL NIGHT • Suttree’s

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

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ART Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts arrowmont.org MARCH 10-MAY 6: Un//known, new works by Arrowmont artists in residence.

Art Market Gallery artmarketgallery.net

easttnhistory.org NOV. 19-MAY 14: Rock of Ages: East Tennessee’s Marble Industry.

Emporium Center for Arts and Culture knoxalliance.com

APRIL 4-30: Paintings by Harriet Howell and mixed-media artwork by Marilyn Avery Turner.

APRIL 7-28: Little River Artists Exhibit; paintings by Sharon Gillenwater and Michael McKee; Connections, a mixed-media exhibit by Renee Suich; artwork by Kat Lewis; and the Barbara West Portrait Group Exhibit.

Broadway Studios and Gallery broadwaystudiosandgallery.com

Ewing Gallery ewing-gallery.utk.edu

APRIL 7-29: Interrupted Signal, artwork by Charlesy Charleston McAllister.

APRIL 4-21: MFA Thesis Exhibitions.

Central Collective thecentralcollective.com APRIL 7-30: Boy Howdy, illustrations by Laura Baisden.

Downtown Gallery downtown.utk.edu

Knoxville Museum of Art knoxart.org 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.

APRIL 7-29: Breach, a mixed-media exhibition exploring issues of gender, race, and the African diaspora through the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927.

McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture mcclungmuseum.utk.edu

East Tennessee History Center

FEB. 3-MAY 7: Divine Felines: Cats of Ancient Egypt. Ongoing: The Flora and Fauna of Catesby, Mason, and

April 20 — April 30

Audubon and Life on the Roman Frontier.

Westminster Presbyterian Church wpcknox.org MARCH 5-APRIL 30: Paintings by Shirley Wittman and Lauren Lazarus and blown glass by Johnny Glass.

FAMILY AND KIDS’ EVENTS Friday, April 21 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. • FREE

Saturday, April 22 IJAMS CREATURE FEATURE • Ijams Nature Center • 10AM

and 2PM • Have you met all the animals that call the Ijams Visitor Center home? If not, be sure to stop by every Saturday for a chance to get nose-to-beak with some of our resident furred and feathered ambassadors. This program is free, but donations to support animal care are welcome. • FREE THE BRIDGE TO KATHERINE PATTERSON • Blount County Public Library • 2PM • The family-friendly event will celebrate the life and work of Katherine Paterson on the pedestrian bridge behind the Blount County Public Library and will include music, sidewalk chalk art, readings, crafts and games. This event is part of a three-day celebration of Katherine Paterson’s work. For more information about the three-day celebration of events go to maryvillecollege.edu. • FREE BLOUNT COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY NERD GROUP • Blount County Public Library • 3PM • Students can learn the basic principles of computer programming. 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.• FREE BLOUNT COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY CHESS GROUP • Blount County Public Library • 10AM • For middle- and high-school students. • FREE

Sunday, April 23

Wednesday, April 26 IJAMS PRESCHOOL PLAY DATES • Ijams Nature Center • 10AM • Join us for our weekly playdates, where we build family relationships while having fun outside. This program is free, but pre-registration is required. Please call (865) 577-4717, ext. 110 to register. • FREE

Friday, April 28 IJAMS AMPHIBIAN NIGHT HIKE • Ijams Nature Center •

7PM • Join us as we explore the creeks and ponds around Ijams Nature Center in search of these seasonal singers. Pre-registration is required; please call (865) 577-4717, ext. 110 for registration and information. • $8

Saturday, April 29 VIRGINIA COLLEGE SUMMER CAMP FAIR • Virginia College • 10AM • Representatives from summer camps will be available to share information, answer questions and take signups. For more information about Virginia College in Knoxville, visit www.vc.edu/knoxville. • FREE SMOKY MOUNTAIN BICYCLE SKILLS RODEO • Founders Park • 9AM • The clinic will provide children ages 7-12 with an introduction to bicycle safety, including rules of the road, bike basic maintenance, bike helmet, and bicycle skills. Free helmets are available for children who do not have a proper fitting one. For more information about the Smoky Mountain Bicycle Skills Rodeo or to volunteer contact Smoky Mountain Wellness. SmokyMountainWellness.com or 865-803-8887. • FREE IJAMS CREATURE FEATURE • Ijams Nature Center • 10AM and 2PM • This program is free, but donations to support animal care are welcome. • FREE

Saturday, April 29, 2017 6-8:30PM at the Knoxville Museum of Art 1050 Worlds Fair Park Drive Knoxville, Tennessee

11AM • With cancer in your family, chances are there is more stress for everyone. Saturday Family Fun Day is a chance to play together and spend time with other families living with a cancer diagnosis. MCCLUNG MUSEUM FAMILY FUN DAY: TREASURES FROM THE VAULT • McClung Museum of Natural History and

Culture • 1PM • Join us for free a free Family Fun Day featuring activities, crafts, tours, and more. This family event will bring out a variety of objects from the museum’s collection in storage. • FREE

Sunday, April 30

FREE

IJAMS CREATURE FEATURE • Ijams Nature Center • 1PM •

Monday, April 24

This program is free, but donations to support animal care are welcome. • FREE

Roll and Read is a free, interactive learning experience for children under 5 and their families. Experience our safari adventure where books come alive through hands-on activities. Knox Roll and Read is sponsored by the Parents as Teachers program and Great Schools Partnership and is hosted by The Muse. For more information, contact Parents as Teachers at 865-594-1159. • FREE

Awards Reception & Art Sale

CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY: FAMILY FUN WITH DRUMMING AND MUSIC • Cancer Support Community •

IJAMS CREATURE FEATURE • Ijams Nature Center • 1PM •

KNOX ROLL AND READ • Chilhowee Park • 12PM • Knox

A Plein Air Painting Event

LECTURES, READINGS, AND BOOK SIGNINGS Thursday, April 20 DON BYERLY: “A KNOXVILLE HERITAGE: TENNESSEE MARBLE” • East Tennessee History Center • 12PM •

FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC 865-525-6101 • KNOXART.ORG KNOXVILLE MUSEUM OF ART

Don Byerly will explain the history and significance April 20, 2017 knoxville mercury 35

April 20 — April 30

of this important stone to our region. For more information on the lecture, exhibitions, or museum hours, call 865-215-8824 or visit the website at www.EastTNHistory.org. • FREE

Saturday, April 22 EARTH DAY WITH JIM CORTESE • Wilson Fine Gardens •

10AM • Jim Cortese will discuss best tree choices for your landscape, proper placement, and care for healthy trees. • FREE

Monday, April 24 MARK DAVIDSON: “THE LITTLE TENNESSEE RIVER” • Blount

County Public Library • 7PM • Mark Davidson will discuss the origin, history and usages of the Little Tennessee. • FREE

Tuesday, April 25 DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN • Bijou Theatre • 7:30PM •

Goodwin’s presentation will be on her award-winning book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, an epic tome that illuminates Lincoln‘s skills as political operative during the most trying time in our nation‘s history. • $40

Wednesday, April 26 BOOKS SANDWICHED IN • East Tennessee History Center

lecture series features local experts talking about recent books of interest. Upcoming lectures include Daniel H. Magilow of UT’s Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures, discussing Peter Hayes’ Why? Explaining the Holocaust (April 26); Kim Trent, of Knox Heritage, discussing Kevin C. Murphy’s The Past and Future City: How Historic Preservation Is Reviving America’s Communities (May 24). Visit knoxlib.org. • FREE “THIRD PARTIES AND THE LEFT: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS” • University of Tennessee John C. Hodges

Library • 6PM • Electoral politics are a longstanding problem for the U.S. Left. In recent decades, a number of parties have formed as an alternative to the Democratic Party: the Labor Party, the Green Party, and now, the Justice Party. However, these parties risk becoming little more than networks of activists or pressure groups on the Democratic Party, and it still remains unclear whether a serious electoral challenge to the Democratic Party is possible. • FREE

Thursday, April 27 MARY CAMPBELL: ‘CHARLES ELLIS JOHNSON AND THE EROTIC MORMON IMAGE’ • Union Ave Books • 6PM • Book

signing with UT professor Mary Campbell, discussing her book Charles Ellis Johnson and the Erotic Mormon Image. • FREE

Saturday, April 29 UT COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN 2017 SPRING LECTURE SERIES • Bijou Theatre • 2PM • The University

of Tennessee College of Architecture and Design will host a variety of internationally renowned architects and guest lecturers during the 2017 spring semester. • FREE MCCLUNG MUSEUM CIVIL WAR LECTURE SERIES • McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture • 2PM • The McClung Museum’s seventh annual Civil War Lecture series, given by Civil War Curator Joan Markel, will be held at 2 p.m. one Sunday each month, from January– April. The lectures are free and open to the public. • FREE

Sunday, April 30 JULIE WARREN CONN: “STONE STORIES” • East Tennessee History Center • 2:30PM • Julie Warren Conn will discuss her career as a sculptor working with Tennessee Marble and will share her memories of an older generation of stone carvers in Knoxville, whom she describes as Italian, “true stone carvers, working as Michelangelo did centuries before...with simple hammers and chisel.” For more information on the lecture, exhibitions, or museum hours, call 865-215-8824 or visit the website at www. EastTNHistory.org. • FREE

• 12PM • The Knox County Public Library’s monthly

HHHH

OUTSTANDING!

“

CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS Thursday, April 20 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 •

Whether you are a novice knitter or an old pro, you are invited to bring your own project or join others in learning a new one. Call 865-546-4661. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer. BCPL TECH TIME • Blount County Public Library • 2:30PM • FREE CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY RESTORATIVE YOGA SERIES

• Cancer Support Community • 3PM • Deep relaxation helps combat stress and heals the body. Learn simple techniques to guide your body into a state of deep, restful healing and design a “mini-battery charge” practice you can do at home. 865-546-4661. 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) 2016 - 2017

S E A S O N PERFORMANCE

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on the campus of Maryville College 502 E. Lamar Alexander Pkwy. Maryville, TN 37804

BOX OFFICE: 865-981-8590 ClaytonArtsCenter.com

April 20 — April 30

622-3103 or visit knoxvillepersonaltraining.com. • $4 BLOUNT COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY ADULT COLORING GROUP

• Blount County Public Library • 7PM • Remember the carefree joy of picking up your favorite crayon or marker and adding color to a beautiful picture? Experience the same fun and relaxation even though you are now an adult. FREE BELLY DANCE LEVELS 1 AND 2 • Knox Dance Worx • 8PM • Call (865) 898-2126 or email alexia@alexia-dance. com. • $12

Friday, April 21 NARROW RIDGE YOGA • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy

Center • 9AM • For more information call 865-497-3603 or emailcommunity@narrowridge.org. • FREE

Saturday, April 22 GROW YOUR GARDEN: SUMMER FRUITS AND VEGGIES •

Knoxville Botanical Garden • 9AM • Join us as for the continuation of the Grow Your Garden series. Participants will learn about growing a fruits and vegetables this summer and discuss container gardening, what to plant, when to plant it, and how to grow a summer edible garden. • $20 CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY: MINDFULNESS IN EVERYDAY LIFE • Cancer Support Community • 10AM •

Life is full of challenges. What can we do when our lives feel out of control? A practice of mindfulness can help. Call 865-546-4661 for more info. KNOXVILLE WRITERS’ GUILD WALKABOUT WRITING WORKSHOP • Awaken Coffee • 10AM • Learn to write

about character as you immerse in a lively downtown setting. Additional information can be found at www. KnoxvilleWritersGuild.org. • $50 KNOX COUNTY MASTER GARDENERS • Bearden Branch Public Library • 1:30PM • Join Master Gardeners Joe Pardue and Marcia Griswald for a presentation on growing killer tomatoes while preventing tomato killers. Call 865- 588-8813. • FREE

Sunday, April 23 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 IJAMS FAMILY DRUM CYRCLE • Ijams Nature Center • 3:30PM • They say everyone marches to the beat of their own drummer, and this program will help you do just that. Gather your family and friends and get outdoors with a family-friendly drum circle. Please call (865) 577-4717, ext. 110 to register. • FREE ROOFTOP YOGA • Central Collective • 5:30PM • Take your yoga practice outside and breathe in some fresh air. This class will be accessible to all levels, and will include some breath and body awareness at the beginning to help calm the mind and get centered for class. • $10

Monday, April 24

KMA DROP-IN FIGURE DRAWING CLASS • Knoxville Museum of Art • 10:30AM • Artists of all skill levels and media are welcome to join these self-instructed drop-in figure drawing sessions. These sessions are ongoing throughout the year. • $10 CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY: QUICK AND TASTY COOKING • Cancer Support Community • 12PM • Call

865-546-4661 for more info. 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 MONDAY NIGHT YOGA • Church Street United Methodist Church • 7PM • Cost is $5, with first class free. Contact Micarooni@aol.com with questions. • $5

ARAM

The

from ERA:BetheThere Beginning! New Music Director Aram Demirjian will conduct these upcoming concerts at the Tennessee Theatre!

UP NEXT!

TONIGHT & TOMORROW

Tuesday, April 25 NARROW RIDGE YOGA • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 9AM • For more information call 865-497-3603 or emailcommunity@narrowridge.org. • FREE KNOX COUNTY MASTER GARDENERS • Karns Senior Center • 11AM • Join Master Gardener Sandra Lee to learn which plants are least appetizing to deer yet are attractive additions to your landscape. Call 865-951-2653. • FREE GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Balanced You Studios • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@ gmail.com. Donations accepted. GROW YOUR GARDEN: SUMMER FRUITS AND VEGGIES • YWCA Phyllis Wheatley Center • 12PM • Join us as for the continuation of the Grow Your Garden series. Participants will learn about growing a fruits and vegetables this summer and discuss container gardening, what to plant, when to plant it, and how to grow a summer edible garden. • $20 NEW DAD CLASS • Baby and Company • 5:30PM • Learn how to support your partner, bond with your baby and discuss the kind of dad you would like to be at our New Dad’s Class. Taught by Sam Ford of the Tennessee Fathering Initiative. • FREE KNOXVILLE CAPOEIRA CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 6PM • Visit capoeiraknoxville.org. • $10 SHEBOOM!: A WEEKLY DROP-IN DANCE CLASS FOR ALL BODIES • Broadway Academy of Performing Arts • 6PM

• $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

GOLKA PLAYS CHOPIN Thursday, April 20 • 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 21 • 7:30 p.m. Aram Demirjian, conductor Adam Golka, piano CHOPIN: Piano Concerto No. 1 BIZET: Overture & Romance from The Pearl Fishers GOLIJOV: Night of the Flying Horses RAVEL: Daphnis & Chloe Suite No. 2 Sponsored by John H. Daniel

COMING IN MAY

BEETHOVEN’S 5TH Thursday, May 18 • 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 19 • 7:30 p.m. Aram Demirjian, conductor Timothy McAllister, saxophone

BATES: Mothership STRAUSS: Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks WILLIAMS: “Escapades” from Catch Me If You Can BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 5 Sponsored by The Trust Company and Old Forge Distillery

CLASSICAL TICKETS start at just $15!

Wednesday, April 26 TENNESSEE VALLEY BIKES YOGA • Tennessee Valley Bikes • 6:15 AM • Join us Wednesday mornings for an hour and 15 minutes of yoga. Cost for each class is $12 but if you ride your bike in the cost is reduced to $10. There is no subscription or membership required. • $10-$15

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

KNOXBIJOU.COM TICKETS AVAILABLE AT THE TENNESSEE

THEATRE BOX OFFICE, TICKETMASTER.COM, AND BY PHONE AT 800-745-3000

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April 20 — April 30

Thursday, April 27

and Culture • 6PM •. Visit capoeiraknoxville.org. • $10

GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Balanced You Studios •

KNOXVILLE PERSONAL TRAINING PILATES • Beaver Creek

12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@ gmail.com. Donations accepted.

Cumberland Presbyterian Church • 6:30PM • Every Tuesday and Thursday. First class is free. Call (865) 622-3103 or visit knoxvillepersonaltraining.com. • $4

CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY: HEALING THROUGH ART •

Cancer Support Community • 1PM • No experience necessary. RSVP. Call 865-546-4661 for more info. BCPL TECH TIME • Blount County Public Library • 2:30PM • Need help with technology and don’t know where to start? Tech Time is designed to be space to get your questions answered and set you on the path you need for technology success! Having trouble with email? Can’t find what you need on the internet? Curious about Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest? Need help with eBooks? Bring your technology questions and get assistance from a Tech Time facilitator. • FREE KNOX COUNTY MASTER GARDENERS • Humana Guidance Center • 2:45PM • Join Master Gardeners Joe Pardue and Marcia Griswald for a presentation on growing killer tomatoes while preventing tomato killers. For more information phone 865-329-8892. • FREE

Friday, April 28 NARROW RIDGE YOGA • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 9AM • For more information call 865-497-3603 or emailcommunity@narrowridge.org. • FREE

Saturday, April 29 AARP DRIVER SAFETY CLASS • Westminster Presbyterian

Church • 9AM • Call (865) 675-0694. NATIVES IN THE LANDSCAPE • Knoxville Botanical Garden • 9AM • We love native plants. Natives can make a beautiful, durable, and ecologically beneficial addition to the landscape. The Natives in the Landscape workshop will be led by our friends with the Native Plant Rescue Squad. • $20

CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY RESTORATIVE YOGA SERIES

KNOXVILLE COMMUNITY DARKROOM INTRODUCTION TO PINHOLE PHOTOGRAPHY CLASS • Knoxville Community

Darkroom • 10AM • Learn to take photographs with it and develop the negatives in the darkroom. We will also show you how to make a contact print. To sign up online go to theknoxvillecommunitydarkroom.org, email news@knoxdarkroom.org, or call (865) 742-2578. • $50

KNOXVILLE PEOPLE’S CLIMATE TEACH-IN • Church of the Savior United Church of Christ • 1PM • Knoxville People’s Climate Teach-in will feature a wide-ranging discussion of the social and environmental consequences of climate injustice. . • FREE LEARN TO MEDITATE WORKSHOP • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 2PM • By the author of 800 Stepping Stones to Complete Relaxation. Email mikewright102348@gmail.com. • FREE

Sunday, April 30 IJAMS FAMILY DRUM CYRCLE • Ijams Nature Center • 3:30PM • Please call (865) 577-4717, ext. 110 to register. • FREE

MEETINGS Thursday, April 20 AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit

farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon.org. • FREE CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY LEUKEMIA, LYMPHOMA, AND MYELOMA NETWORKER • Cancer Support

Community • 4PM • 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 • Cancer Support Community • 6PM • Call

865-546-4661 for more info. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer. CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY FAMILY BEREAVEMENT GROUP • Cancer Support Community • 6PM • Call

865-546-4661 for more info. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer. ADULT CHILDREN OF ALCOHOLICS/DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILIES • The Birdhouse • 6PM • Contact Laura at

706-621-2238 or lamohendricksll@gmail.com for more information or visit the international ACA website at adultchildren.org. • FREE BLACK LIVES MATTER • The Birdhouse • 7:30PM • Visit blacklivesmatterknoxville.org. • FREE

Saturday, April 22 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 more information call 865-497-3603 or emailcommunity@ narrowridge.org. • FREE

Sunday, April 23 SUNDAY ASSEMBLY • The Concourse • 10:30AM • To find

out more, visit knoxville-tn.sundayassembly.com or

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“ With us his name shall live, Through long succeeding years, Embalmed with all our heart can give, Our praises and our tears. “ — Resolutions in memory of Gen. Fred c. Houk, adopted by the Knoxville Bar Association March 22, 1930 (Source: Tennessee Ancestors, A Publication of the East Tennessee Historical Society, December 2014, Vol. 30 No. 2)

April 20 — April 30

email saknoxville.info@gmail.com. • FREE AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon.org. • FREE OVEREATERS ANONYMOUS • Sacred Heart Cathedral • 4PM • For more info call or text (865) 313-0480 or email OASundayknoxville@gmail.com. • FREE

Monday, April 24

Sunday, April 30

GAY MEN’S DISCUSSION GROUP • Tennessee Valley

AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit

Unitarian Universalist Church • 7:30PM • Visit gaygroupknoxville.org.

farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon.org. • FREE OVEREATERS ANONYMOUS • Sacred Heart Cathedral • 4PM • For more info call or text (865) 313-0480 or email OASundayknoxville@gmail.com. • FREE

Tuesday, April 25 AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit

farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon.org. • FREE ATHEISTS SOCIETY OF KNOXVILLE • West Hills Flats and Taps • 5:30PM • Visit meetup.com/KnoxvilleAtheists. • FREE THREE RIVERS! EARTH FIRST! • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM • Call (865) 257-4029 for more information. • FREE

Wednesday, April 26 KNOXVILLE WRITERS’ GROUP • Naples Italian Restaurant

• 11AM • Guest speakers read from and discuss their work. All-inclusive lunch is $12.00. RSVP to 865-983-3740. 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 • Visit knoxheritage.org. • FREE LESBIAN SOCIAL GROUP OF KNOXVILLE • Kristtopher’s • 6:30PM • Just a casual gathering of women to socialize and plan activities. Meetings are the second and fourth Wednesday of the month. • FREE AGAPE CAFE • St. Paul United Methodist Church • 6:30PM • St. Paul United Methodist Church seeks to combine TED Talks and the Chautauqua tents of the early 20th century into one package called the Agape Cafe, celebrating life through music, art, talks and performances. . • FREE

AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit

ETC. Thursday, April 20 NEW HARVEST PARK FARMERS MARKET • New Harvest Park • 3PM • Visit facebook.com/newharvestfm. • FREE

Friday, April 21 LAKESHORE PARK FARMERS MARKET • Lakeshore Park •

3PM • Visit easttnfarmmarkets.org. • FREE SBRET ADOPTION EVENT • Casual Pint (Farragut) • 6PM • Adopt a forever friend from Small Breed Rescue of East Tennessee at the Casual Pint. • FREE

Saturday, April 22 OAK RIDGE FARMERS MARKET • Historic Jackson Square •

8AM • Visit easttnfarmmarkets.org. • FREE NORTH HILLS PLANT SALE • North Hills Park • 9AM • This plant sale is a popular event for local gardeners who value native plants that thrive in our area. Residents of historic North Hills donate more than a hundred different varieties of hardy perennial plants and shrubs harvested from their own gardens. • FREE MARYVILLE FARMERS MARKET • Founders Park • 9AM • FREE NOURISH KNOXVILLE WINTER FARMERS’ MARKET • Central United Methodist Church • 10AM • Visit nourishknoxville.org. • FREE UNEARTHED: SAVORING SPRING • Wild Love Bakehouse • 6:30PM • A dinner celebrating the flavors the season has to offer. The dinner will be prepared by two accomplished local chefs, Joey Edwards and Laurence Faber, that will use their talents to produce a five-course meal that will include wine pairings for each course. • $95

Thursday, April 27

Sunday, April 23

AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit

MAYAPPLE MARKETPLACE • Ijams Nature Center • 11AM •

farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon.org. • FREE

This fun filled event will feature gardening vendors, local handmade artists and crafters, music, kids’ activities, and even food and beer. Everything you need to take advantage of this beautiful time of year in Knoxville. • FREE MODERN STUDIO CRAFT FAIR • Modern Studio • 12PM • Join us for our montly craft fair and shop for local goods in the comfort of our space. • FREE BEER AND HYMNS • Scruffy City Hall • 7PM • Donations to the Knoxville History Project and Knoxville Mercury.

ADULT CHILDREN OF ALCOHOLICS/DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILIES • The Birdhouse • 6PM • Contact Laura at

706-621-2238 or lamohendricksll@gmail.com for more information or visit the international ACA website at adultchildren.org. • FREE

Saturday, April 29

May 20, 2017, 1-6 pm Oak Ridge, Tennessee Melton Lake Park 20 Tennessee Wineries 100+ Wines & Ciders Entry Ticket Includes :

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Barrels of Fun Charry Race! www.NineLakesWineFestival.com Tickets online through May 17 Save off gate price! Top Sponsors:

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April 20 — April 30

• FREE

Tuesday, April 25 EBENEZER ROAD FARMERS MARKET • Ebenezer United

Methodist Church • 3PM • Visit easttnfarmmarkets.org. • FREE

Thursday, April 27 KNOXVILLE SOUP • Dara’s Garden • 6:30PM • Knoxville

SOUP is a dinner and micro-funding event at which creative projects are proposed, voted on and enacted by members of the Knoxville community. NEW HARVEST PARK FARMERS MARKET • New Harvest Park • 3PM • Visit facebook.com/newharvestfm. • FREE

Friday, April 28 LAKESHORE PARK FARMERS MARKET • Lakeshore Park •

3PM • Visit easttnfarmmarkets.org. • FREE

Saturday, April 29 ARTISTS ON LOCATION • Knoxville Museum of Art • 6PM

• Local and regional artists have been invited to showcase their talent by producing work out of doors around Knoxville between April 26 and 29. Artists will then exhibit and sell those works at the Awards Reception and Art Sale. • FREE CASUAL PINT ART AND CRAFT BEERS SHOW • Casual Pint (Northshore) • 4PM • Join us for an afternoon of local

art, local craft beer, and local music. Curtis Glover has been working for weeks on our new mural in the hall spotlighting Knoxville’s fantastic local breweries. • FREE KEEP KNOXVILLE BEAUTIFUL EAST KNOXVILLE CLEAN-UP • 9AM • The event will kick off at Eternal Life Harvest Center Plaza, where participants will gather supplies then disperse into their own communities to pick up litter. • FREE WALK MS: KNOXVILLE • World’s Fair Park • 10AM • Since 1988, hundreds of thousands of people have taken part in Walk MS events across the country raising critical funds and awareness for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. COMMUNITY SHARES CIRCLE OF CHANGE AWARD • Bearden Banquet Hall • 6PM • Circle of Change is closely tied to Community Shares mission of promoting a more just and caring community through supporting the work of more than 30 member organizations working on social, economic and environmental issues. • $65 AN EVENING OF EVERYTHING CHOCOLATE • Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church • 6:30PM • Sample chocolate desserts, savor the flavors and support Agape House of Oak Ridge at its third annual Evening of Everything Chocolate, featuring tables filled with chocolate culinary temptations. • $30 KNOXVILLE BOTANICAL GARDEN SPRING PLANT SALE •

Knoxville Botanical Garden • 8AM • We’ll be in LeConte Meadow with a wide variety of plants to choose from, including hydrangeas, native perennials, annuals, shade plants, and herbs & vegetables. • FREE OAK RIDGE FARMERS MARKET • Historic Jackson Square • 8AM • Visit easttnfarmmarkets.org. • FREE MARYVILLE FARMERS MARKET • Founders Park • 9AM • FREE KNOXVILLE MARCH AND RALLY FOR CLIMATE, JOBS, AND JUSTICE • Downtown Knoxville • 9:30AM • Knoxville

March and Rally for Climate, Jobs, and Justice will feature marching, speakers, music, a kids’ performance, and networking with neighbors. • FREE

Sunday, April 30 CARS AND COFFEE • West Town Mall • 8AM • West Town Mall invites all automobile fanatics to make a pit stop at Cars and Coffee. The event will include free coffee and doughnuts, a chance to mingle with other vehicle buffs and the opportunity to simply revel in all things auto. • FREE

“ALL PHOTOGRAPHS ARE ACCURATE. NONE OF THEM IS THE TRUTH.” — RICHARD AVEDON

Do you have an existing photo series of life around Knoxville? We’re on the lookout for new views of our city’s many different neighborhoods—and we’ll feature them in our Howdy section. For more information or to submit samples, email tricia@knoxmercury.com.

SEND YOUR EVENTS TO CALENDAR@KNOXMERCURY.COM

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OUTDOORS

Voice in the Wilderness

Going With the Flow Fishing on a fine spring day, hip-deep in Citico Creek

BY KIM TREVATHAN

else I’d rather be at that moment, on Good Friday, the wildflowers blooming red, blue, and yellow on the banks, butterflies and dragonflies thick in the air, trout and smallmouth taunting us in water as clear as any stream I remember. Maryville College biologist Drew Crain, his son Jared, and I had chosen this officially designated wilderness area in the Cherokee National Forest after much deliberation. Drew had already caught a couple of the

Citigo Creek is in a designated wilderness area in the Cherokee National Forest. The author caught a sunfish (!) and managed to avoid a banded water snake.

Photo by Jared Crain

n the middle of Citico Creek, wearing a borrowed pair of chest waders and felt-soled boots three sizes too big, I sat down on a rock that was a half-foot underwater and let the frigid water flow around me. I faced downstream, the direction I had been walking. Riffles and eddies played out in the foreground, and swath of whitewater roared about 50 yards downstream. Although I hadn’t caught anything yet, I couldn’t think of anyplace

I announced for some reason that my license had expired a month or so ago, and a joker who had been dipping minnows for customers asked, “Have you fished since then?” I said I couldn’t remember. He made a motion toward the front of the store and said, “Officer, here is the lawbreaker.” There was no fish cop at Sloan’s. Regardless, Drew had gone to a lot of trouble on the phone with TWRA to make sure we could legally fish Citico on this holiday. Normally, the creek is closed to fishing on Thursdays and Fridays. With our new licenses and our Citico permits, we lit out for the wilderness on Highway 360, which took us past the Sequoyah Museum, the confluence of the Little Tennessee and the Tellico rivers, and the ancient Cherokee Overhill villages of Toqua, Chota, and Tanasi. Citico, another Overhill town, once stood at the mouth of the creek we were fishing, a few miles downstream where it meets the old Little Tennessee River, now Tellico Lake. After resting on the rock a bit, I

rainbow at the first place we stopped, a weir dam, where we had fished from the bank. Above the dam, dozens of browsing fish feigned interest in the rooster tail lure I reeled past them, and veered away when they got within a foot or so. Drew caught his rainbow—a species that the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency stocks in Citico Creek—below the dam in the churning, oxygenated waters. Normally, I don’t really care that much if I catch fish or not, but after he scored the two-to-nothing lead and we pulled on the waders, I was motivated to get up close and stalk the wary fish. I changed to a Panther Martin lure. We’d seen a few other fishermen and met some traffic on narrow (mostly gravel) Citico Road, which winds alongside the creek most of the way. The forest service campsites were all taken. But at the next place we stopped after the dam, we took a short hike from the road to the creek itself, and it truly seemed like Citico was living up to its wilderness designation. A couple of hours earlier, at Sloan’s Super Center in Vonore—a general store, sporting goods store, grocery, gas station, and restaurant, all in one—we stood in line with others getting our fishing licenses renewed.

Photos by Kim Trevathan

42 knoxville mercury April 20, 2017

got up and started casting toward the far side of the creek in the deeper water. That first strike, I thought I’d snagged a rock like the other times, but then the line started zig-zagging and the rod bent as I stumbled toward the fish on the uneven and slippery terrain of the creek bed. A minute or so later, I held a sunfish in my hand, the biggest one I’d caught in a long time, his breast so brightly orange it hurt to look at. After showing him to Jared, I released him. Drew had disappeared upstream around the bend, unaware that I was closing in on his lead. After a bit, we drove farther downstream and bushwacked through the woods for a few hundred yards to the creek. I headed upstream toward a fallen tree, Drew headed downstream, and Jared sat down midstream, content to let the fish come to him. Walking on a creek bed like Citico’s, I was getting vivid physical feedback about the fish’s habitat, the shelves and the pools that I thought they liked, a terrain of peaks and valleys that had me lurching and fighting for my balance much of the time. Casting toward water that glittered in the sun midstream, too shallow for fish, I thought, I caught two smallmouth, one of them a keeper that I put on Drew’s stringer with his

Fishing partner Drew Cain reels in a rainbow at a weir dam.

rainbow. When we were loading up to leave, Drew commented that wader fishing worked the mind, body, and soul. It took mind and body to stalk the fish. Being part of the stream, feeling the weight of the water as you tossed a lure, plunging deep into a chest-deep pool unexpectedly, hearing the birdsong all around—that confluence of sights and sounds on a brilliant spring day was what fed the spirit. Catching the most fish doesn’t matter, unless, of course, you’re the one who caught the most fish. You can get to Citico Creek from Highway 411 south, turning on Highway 360 at Vonore, which meets up with Citico Road. Or you can approach from Tellico Plains and take Highway 165 (the Cherohala Skyway), turn left toward Indian Boundary Campground, then right onto Citico Creek Road. The permit to fish Citico costs $6 for one day. 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. April 20, 2017 knoxville mercury 43

News of the Weird | Restless Native | Cartoon | Puzzles

Jetpacks! All the odd news that’s mostly fit to print BY CHUCK SHEPHERD

WORLD’S COOLEST CITY Recently, in Dubai (the largest city in the United Arab Emirates), Dubai Civil Defense started using water jetpacks that lift firefighters off the ground to hover in advantageous positions as they work the hoses. Also, using jet skis, rescuers can avoid traffic altogether by using the city’s rivers to arrive at fires (and, if close enough to a waterway, can pump water without hydrants). Even more spectacularly, as early as this summer, Dubai will authorize already tested one-person, “Jetsons”-type drones for ordinary travel in the city. The Ehang 184 model flies about 30 minutes on an electrical charge, carrying up to 220 pounds at about 60 mph.

LATEST HUMAN RIGHTS • Convicted murderer Philip Smith (a veteran criminal serving life for killing the father of a boy Smith had been sexually abusing) escaped from prison in New Zealand with the help of a disguise that included a toupee for his bald head—before being caught. Prison officials confiscated the toupee, but Smith said a shiny head behind bars made him feel “belittled, degraded, and humiliated” and sued for the right to keep the toupee. (In March, in a rare case in which a litigant succeeds as his own lawyer, Smith prevailed in Auckland’s High Court.) • In March, star soccer goalkeepr Bruno Fernandes de Souza signed a two-year contract to play for Brazil’s 44 knoxville mercury April 20, 2017

handed the iPad with a potential suitor showing, merely crushed the tablet. (Apps are not quite to the point of offering animals the ability to digitally smell each other.) • Peacocks are “well known” (so they say) to flash their erect, sometimes-6-foot-high rack of colorful tail feathers to attract mating opportunities. However, as researchers in Texas recently found, the display might not be important. Body cameras placed on peahens at eye level (to learn how they check out strutting males) revealed that the females gazed mostly at the lowest level of feathers (as if attracted only to certain colors rather than the awesomeness of the towering flourish).

SPECTACULAR ERRORS! Boa Esporte club while he awaits the outcome of his appealed conviction for the 2010 murder of his girlfriend. (He had also fed her body to his dogs.) He had been sentenced to 22 years in prison, but was released by a judge after seven, based on the judge’s exasperation at the years-long delays in appeals in Brazil’s sluggish legal system.

AWESOME! The Cleveland (Ohio) Street Department still had not (at press time) identified the man, but somehow he, dressed as a road worker, had wandered stealthily along Franklin Boulevard during March and removed more than 20 standard “35 mph” speed limit signs—replacing all with official-looking “25 mph” signs that he presumably financed himself. Residents along those two miles of Franklin have long complained, but the city kept rejecting pleas for a lowered limit.

MATING STRATEGIES • The Apenheul primate park in Apeldoorn, Netherlands, is engaged in a four-year experiment, offering female orangutans an iPad loaded with photos of male orangutans now housed at zoos around the world, with the females able to express interest or disinterest (similar to swiping right or left on the human dating app Tinder). Researchers admit results have been mixed, that some males have to be returned home, and once, a female

(1) In March, jurors in Norfolk, Va., found Allen Cochran, 49, not guilty of attempted shoplifting, but he was nowhere to be seen when the verdict was announced. Apparently predicting doom (since he had also been charged with fleeing court during a previous case), he once again skipped out. The jury then re-retired to the jury room, found him guilty on the earlier count and sentenced him to the five-year maximum. (Because of time already served, he could have walked away legally if he hadn’t walked away illegally.) (2) In March, Ghanian soccer player Mohammed Anas earned a “man of the match” award (after his two goals led the Free State Stars to a 2-2 draw), but botched the acceptance speech by thanking both his wife and his girlfriend. Reportedly, Anas “stumbled for a second” until he could correct himself. “I’m so sorry,” he attempted to clarify. “My wife! I love you so much from my heart.”

LEADING ECONOMIC INDICATORS It turns out that Layne Hardin’s sperm is worth only $1,900—and not the $870,000 a jury had awarded him after finding that former girlfriend Tobie Devall had, without Hardin’s permission, obtained a vial of it without authorization and inseminated herself to produce her son, now age 6. Initially Hardin tried to gain partial custody of the boy, but Devall

continually rebuffed him, provoking the lawsuit (which also named the sperm bank Texas Andrology a defendant) and the challenge in Houston’s First Court of Appeal.

MOST COMPETENT CRIMINAL An astonished woman unnamed in news reports called police in Coleshill, England, in February to report that a car exactly like her silver Ford Kuga was parked at Melbicks garden center—with the very same license plate as hers. Police figured out that a silver Ford Kuga had been stolen nearby in 2016, and to disguise that it was stolen, the thief had looked for an identical, not-stolen Ford Kuga and then replicated its license plate, allowing the thief to drive the stolen car without suspicion.

LEAST COMPETENT CRIMINALS (1) Thieves once again attempted a fruitless smash-and-grab of an ATM at Mike and Reggie’s Beverages in Maple Heights, Ohio, in March—despite the owner’s having left the ATM’s door wide open with a sign reading “ATM emptied nightly.” Police are investigating. (2) Boca Raton, Fla., jeweler “Bobby” Yampolsky said he was suspicious that the “customer” who asked to examine diamonds worth $6 million carried no tools of the examination trade. After the lady made several obvious attempts to distract Yampolsky, he ended the charade by locking her in his vault and calling the police, who arrested her after discovering she had a package of fake diamonds in her purse that she likely intended to switch.

GREAT ART! At what was billed as part of a cancer fundraising event at the AvantGarden in Houston in February, performance artist Michael Clemmons and a partner, working as the act Sonic Rabbit Hole, had the elegant idea that one give the other an enema on stage, but there was a “spraying” accident. Viewers were led to believe the procedure was authentic, but the artists swore later that the sprayed contents were just a protein shake. “What I did is not all that (extreme),” protested Clemmons. “I don’t understand why I’m getting the attention for this.”

News of the Weird | Restless Native| Cartoon | Puzzles

Bread Run High drama on the Swan’s Bakery delivery route

BY CHRIS WOHLWEND

ilbert’s Grocery, on Mississippi Avenue in North Knoxville’s Lonsdale neighborhood, held the distinction of being my most reliable order when I was responsible for a Sunday delivery route at Swan’s Bakery in the mid-1960s. Mr. Gilbert, who operated out of what had obviously been built as a small residential dwelling, always wanted the same order: one standard loaf of white bread, wholesale priced, as I remember, at 18 cents. I never asked Mr. Gilbert why he needed that one loaf of bread on Sundays, but I always suspected that it was for his family dinner. I never saw a customer in his store, though sometimes his wife would be present. Gilbert’s, my third stop when I was running that particular route, was a quiet refuge after my first two customers, both of which were interesting in different ways. I began my route on University Avenue at a small café a couple of blocks from Knoxville College. There were a half-dozen tables and a counter with stools. The owner, a slender black man, was always friendly, and depending on how busy he was, usually had a joke or two. And, though it was early on Sunday morning, he always had several customers drinking coffee and eating breakfast. Once, when I caught him during a slow period, I made a comment about how much business he did in spite of the early hour. He laughed and said, “Everybody comes in here to find out who got cut on Saturday night.” Deciding to play it straight, I chuckled and told him I’d see him next week. My second stop was the Cas Walker store two blocks away on

Western Avenue. There, the manager I had to deal with—as with most Cas Walker stores—was usually difficult, holding a rather high opinion of his position as it related to his suppliers. His favorite way of demonstrating his power was to be absent when I needed him to count the loaves and buns, a task required at all Cas Walker stores. (Cas was going to make sure he was not being charged for bread he didn’t get.) Usually, I would find him out back smoking a cigarette or joking with the butcher. He would then wave me off with, “Be with you in a minute.” After he had counted and I had priced and shelved, we would walk back to the front of the store so he could pay me from one of the cash registers. (At Cas Walker stores we were always paid cash on delivery.) As we trudged up the aisles—me wrestling with the flattened bread boxes I had just emptied—he would invariably hawk and spit on the floor of his grocery store. If I had needed an excuse not to do any of my own shopping at a Cas Walker store, he provided it. After Gilbert’s, I had one more stop before crossing over the interstate into the friendlier environs of Happy Holler. The Beaumont Milk Depot was a generally cheerful place, operated by a woman who sold bread, milk, eggs, and butter, but whose primary money-maker was hamburgers and hot dogs and soft drinks. She had a couple of tables and a counter with a few stools, and usually by the late-morning hour when I arrived she had three or four customers, including a friend or two who had stopped by to visit with her. Sometimes I would pony up for a 50-cent hamburger and eat lunch with her.

One spring morning, just as I was getting ready to leave the store, a car stopped in front and a shirtless guy who looked to be in his late 20s got out of the back passenger side. There were a couple of other men in the car, and the driver quickly sped off, with the former passenger angrily yelling at him. He then turned toward the Depot. Besides my truck, there was a dark blue Chevrolet sitting near the door. Its driver, a woman friend of the store’s owner, was inside. There was one other customer, a man about 35, also a friend of the owner. Everyone was looking out the open door at Shirtless, who now started yelling at us. “What are you all looking at?” he wanted to know. He punctuated his question by hitting the trunk of the Chevy with his fist. “Don’t hit my car,” the driver said. Shirtless glared at her, then noticed a lead pipe on the ground at the corner of the building. Arming himself with the pipe, he started hitting the Chevy. Meanwhile, the Depot’s owner was calling the police. The car’s owner was screaming and yelling as Shirtless started using the pipe on the car windows, breaking the back windshield, then the front. He moved on to walloping the top, the trunk lid, the hood. The male customer grabbed a butcher knife from behind the counter and started toward the door, but the rest of us prevented him from going outside. Finally a couple of police cruisers arrived. Shirtless took one look and threw the pipe on the ground and stood quietly, waiting to be cuffed. After I had told the policeman what I had seen, while the Chevy’s driver was tearfully telling her husband what had happened to their car, I got in my truck and headed to Happy Holler, where, hopefully, my next stop would be routine. Chris Wohlwend’s Restless Native addresses the characters and absurdities of Knoxville, as well as the lessons learned pursuing the newspaper trade during the tumult that was the 1960s. He now teaches journalism part-time at the University of Tennessee. April 20, 2017 knoxville mercury 45

News of the Weird | Restless Native | Cartoon | Puzzles

BY MATTHEW FOLTZ-GRAY www.thespiritofthestaircase.com

46 knoxville mercury April 20, 2017

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