Ar times 3 13 14 by Arkansas Times

ARKTIMES.COM / MARCH 13, 2014 / NEWS + POLITICS + ENTERTAINMENT + FOOD

SPRING!

Bruno Mars, Cher, Little Rock Film Festival headline our annual arts guide.

ARKANSAS’S SOURCE FOR NEWS, POLITICS & ENTERTAINMENT 201 East Markham Street, Suite 200 Little Rock, Arkansas 72201 www.arktimes.com arktimes@arktimes.com @ArkTimes www.facebook.com/arkansastimes

Crazy Dave’s Carpet Outlet

Carpeting/Area Rugs Ceramic/Porcelain Laminate Flooring Vinyl/Resilient Wood Flooring

PUBLISHER Alan Leveritt EDITOR Lindsey Millar SENIOR EDITOR Max Brantley MANAGING EDITOR Leslie Newell Peacock

#40 Market Plaza • North Little Rock

501-955-5501

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Mara Leveritt ASSOCIATE EDITORS David Koon, David Ramsey, Doug Smith ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR Will Stephenson

7th & thayer, Lr

(501) 375-8400

Thursday, March 13

Water Liars w/ The See

Friday, March 14

Cory Branan

Wednesday, Two Cow Garage w/ Mad Nomad March 19 Friday, March 21

PATRICK SWEANY

Saturday, March 22

Kevin Kerby & Brent Best w/ RTB2

www.CrazyDavesCarpetOutlet.com

Check out additional shows at whitewatertavern.com

EDITORIAL ART DIRECTOR Kai Caddy PHOTOGRAPHER Brian Chilson ADVERTISING ART DIRECTOR Mike Spain ASSISTANT ART DIRECTOR Patrick Jones GRAPHIC DESIGNER Bryan Moats DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING Phyllis A. Britton SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Tiffany Holland ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Darielle D’Mello, Jo Garcia, Rebekah Hardin, Thanh Rasico ADVERTISING TRAFFIC MANAGER Roland R. Gladden ADVERTISING COORDINATOR Kelly Carr

Yellow Fever, Malaria, Tuberculosis, Cholera, Flu and Hookworm

SOCIAL MEDIA DIRECTOR Monika Rued SOCIAL MEDIA PRODUCER Warren McCullough SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Rose Gladner

A Fascinating History of Arkansas’s 200 Year Battle Against Disease and Pestilence

IT DIRECTOR Robert Curfman CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Jack Higgins CONTROLLER Weldon Wilson BILLING/COLLECTIONS Linda Phillips OFFICE MANAGER Kelly Lyles PRODUCTION MANAGER Ira Hocut (1954-2009)

association of alternative newsmedia

VOLUME 40, NUMBER 28 ARKANSAS TIMES (ISSN 0164-6273) is published each week by Arkansas Times Limited Partnership, 201 East Markham Street, Suite 200, Little Rock, Arkansas, 72201, phone (501) 375-2985. Periodical postage paid at Little Rock, Arkansas, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to ARKANSAS TIMES, EAST MARKHAM STREET, SUITE 200, Little Rock, AR, 72201. Subscription prices are $42 for one year, $78 for two years. Subscriptions outside Arkansas are $49 for one year, $88 for two years. Foreign (including Canadian) subscriptions are $168 a year. For subscriber service call (501) 375-2985. Current single-copy price is 75¢, free in Pulaski County. Single issues are available by mail at $2.50 each, postage paid. Payment must accompany all single-copy orders. Reproduction or use in whole or in part of the contents without the written consent of the publishers is prohibited. Manuscripts and artwork will not be returned or acknowledged unless sufficient return postage and a self-addressed stamped envelope are included. All materials are handled with due care; however, the publisher assumes no responsibility for care and safe return of unsolicited materials. All letters sent to ARKANSAS TIMES will be treated as intended for publication and are subject to ARKANSAS TIMES’ unrestricted right to edit or to comment editorially.

Health THE

PUBLIC’S

STory of a narraTIvE HI nSaS aS SE E In arka HEaLTH and dI Art, M.D. by Sam Tagg

tes, M.D. Joseph H. Ba Preface by

This is a great history of Arkansas that tells how public attitudes toward medicine, politics and race have shaped the public health battle against deadly and debilitating disease in the state. From the illnesses that plagued the state’s earliest residents to the creation of what became the Arkansas Department of Health, Sam Taggart’s “The Public’s Health: A Narrative History of Health and Disease in Arkansas” tells the fascinating medical history of Arkansas. Published by the Arkansas Times.

$1995

Payment: Check Or Credit Card Order By Mail: Arkansas Times Books P.O. Box 34010, Little Rock, AR 72203 Phone: 501-375-2985 Fax: 501-375-3623 Email:jack@arktimes.com 96 PP. Soft Cover • Shipping And Handling: $3 www.arktimes.com

MARCH 13, 2014

COMMENT

Olson killing needs attention I read the recent article (“The brutal randomness … ,” Feb. 27) about Samantha Olson’s apparently random shooting in North Little Rock. Myself and several of my neighbors and friends are chagrined that no reportable progress has been made related to this horrible case Two questions that occur to me are: 1. Has the North Little Rock police reached out to other law enforcement agencies for help (i.e. Arkansas Criminal Investigative Division or even the FBI)? 2. Can the NLR police department use any volunteers to help search DMV records or in any other capacity to help solve this case.? This case doesn’t seem to be getting the publicity that it deserves and should be kept in the public eye until solved. It’s too bad that it can’t be aired on a nationwide program such as America’s Most Wanted used to be. It’s hard to believe that progress can’t be made given the picture and the description of the truck with those wheel covers and the description of the toolbox in the back. Please keep reporting the progress of this case. Paul Harper Sherwood

From the web

Also in response to “The brutal randomness of Samantha Olson’s murder”: I still think someone that works at that Walgreens knows something. The front door of the Walgreens on the corner of McCain and JFK was in the direct line of fire. She may have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time for a random drive-by shooting. American household wastes moreany than 10,000 Did they even question employfrom easy-to-ﬁ x household leaks? Finding ees there? That Walgreens parking as “check,lot twist, getsreplace”: kinda rough at night even for that location so I shop at the one by the toilet with a few drops of food coloring in the North Hills instead. inkler system for winter damage. Theartist12

eaks?

hten pipe connections, and secure your hose to In response to “Spreading Jo Jo’s

xtures andLove,” irrigation controllers March 6 issue: that are wasting abeled models thatserver are independently certiﬁ ed Best in Little Rock and probrform well. ably one of the best in the world! Jason Panama Young

JoJo is amazing. I have know her most my drinking years and make Forofmore information, visit special stops where she works to see www.epa.gov/watersense.com her. She’s a huge win for Cache. or carkw.com RR 4

MARCH 13, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

Joann is great, we missed her the last couple of times at the Capital Bar & Grill. Now we have a reason to check out Cache! MysteryShopper In response to the March 8 Arkansas Blog post “Arkansas is ‘Ready for Hillary’ ”: I ran into a friend last night at the bar who was among the handful of nobodies who joined with Bill (before Hillary) when he ran his first race in 1974. He had already told me what a rag-tag poverty-stricken campaign

that was with Bill Clinton spending many a night sleeping on my friend’s couch. My friend spent a couple of thousand of his own he really couldn’t afford to spend, buying gas, buying food, paying for newspaper ads and printing bills. And of course Clinton was smothered on Election Day by the 3rd district’s version of Ronnie Reagan, John Paul Hammerschmidt. But after my friend left last night I thought of something I should have said to him and I will the next time I see him. .... If it wasn’t for him and

Got Leaks? Got Leaks? Got Leaks?

the rest of the nobodies, now mostly dead, the world wouldn’t know the most famous political couple in U.S. history, they wouldn’t know the most popular American on the planet today, we wouldn’t have had eight years of peace and prosperity from 1993 to 2001 and the next glass ceiling wouldn’t be set to be shattered when Hillary wins big in November 2016. All that’s quite an accomplishment for a bunch of old people now in their 70s-80s or in the cemetery who named themselves the Arkansas Travelers 40 years ago. The next President Clinton will only put more feathers in their caps! Deathbyinches

Check Check

Che

Twist Twist

In response to a March 6 article about a Van Buren organization working to legalize marijuana: Thank you for your efforts. I’m Did you know the average American household wastes more stage 1 than breast 10,000 cancer going through Did you know the average American household wastes more than 10,000 Did you know the average American household wastes more than 10,000 chemo and soon gallons of water each yearhousehold from easy-to-fi xFinding household leaks? Findingradiation, mmj would gallons of water each year from easy-to-fi x household leaks? Did youofknow average American wastes moreFinding than 10,000 gallons waterthe each year from easy-to-fi x household leaks? sure help out with a lot of the side and fixing leaks is as easy as “check, twist, replace”: and fiof xing is as as easy asx“check, replace”: gallons waterleaks year from easy-to-fi householdtwist, leaks? Finding and fixing leaks iseach as easy “check, twist, replace”: effects right now. and fixing leaks is as easy as “check, twist, replace”: Merinda Knight

• Check for silent leaks in the toilet with a few drops of food coloring in the ••Check for silent in the toilet in withthe a few dropswith of foodacoloring in the of food coloring in the Check for leaks silent leaks toilet few drops andfor check your sprinkler system fora few winter damage. •tank, Check silent leaks in the toilet with drops of food coloring the In response to a Feb. 13 article about tank, and and checkcheck your sprinkler system for winter damage.for winterin damage. tank, your sprinkler system • Twist faucet valves, tighten pipesystem connections, anddamage. secure your hose to tank, and check your sprinkler for winter train transport of crude oil through • Twist faucet valves, tighten pipe connections, and secure your hose to ••the Twist faucet tighten pipe connections, your to spigot. Twist faucet valves,valves, tighten pipe connections, and secure your hoseand to secure Arkansas andhose the risks: the spigot. the spigot. • Replace old plumbing fi xtures and irrigation controllers that are wasting I’ve noticed lots of trains transthe spigot. ••Replace old plumbing xtures and irrigation controllers that are wasting ®fifi Replace old plumbing xtures and irrigation controllers that are wasting porting oil through Little Rock and that areand independently certifi ed with WaterSense ® labeled models •water Replace old plumbing fixtures irrigation controllers that areIt wasting that are independently certifi ed water with WaterSense ®labeled models NLR lately. makes me feel uneasy. labeled models that are independently certifi ed water with WaterSense to use less water and perform well.® totowater use less water and perform well. labeled models that are independently certifi ed with WaterSense And of course we all depend on lots use less water and perform well.

Replace Replace

to use less water and perform well.

Repl

of oil. But I do worry that the regulations are all pro-business. Yes, the costs to step up safety are really high For more information, visit and it would be bad for business. For Formore moreinformation, information,visit visit www.epa.gov/watersense.com But it is not a free market if safety isLike us on www.epa.gov/watersense.com orwww.epa.gov/watersense.com carkw.com Likeususonon March 17 - 23, 2014 Like not paid for. If something happens,Facebook carkw.com March17 17- -23, 23,2014 2014 ororcarkw.com March carkw.com Facebook For more information, the companyvisit just goes bankrupt likeFacebook www.epa.gov/watersense.com at the chemical spill in West Virginia. 14-CAW Fix-A-Leak Week Insert.indd 1 14-CAW Fix-A-Leak Week 17 Insert.indd or carkw.com And we all pay the bill. March - 23, 14-CAW Fix-A-Leak Week Insert.indd 1 1 2014 To turn a blind eye to safety is a big subsidy for oil and prices alternative energy out of the mar14-CAW Fix-A-Leak Week Insert.indd 1 ket. ... Oh yes, and it’s dangerous. It looks like the AAR and the NTSB know what they are talking about. But the industry is lobbying against the costs. Tackling the issue ASAP and giving the industry time to implement higher safety standards sounds like the way to go to me. Carsten Platz

carkw.com carkw.com

carkw

Check Twist

Replace carkw.com

Like us on

Facebook

You

Tube 1/20/14 9:55 AM

Submit letters to the Editor, Arkansas Times, 201 E. Markham, Suite 200, Little Rock, AR 72201 We also accept letters via e-mail. The address is arktimes@arktimes.com. We also accept faxes at 375-3623. Please include name and hometown.

WORD S

It had to be byss Among the things Winston Churchill knew that I don’t (a rather lengthy list, incidentally): “There are learned men who do not know that byss is the opposite of abyss. He knew it; he had been haunting J.F. Moore’s bookshop and the school library.” Pete Seeger had the edge on me too, although in this case, it’s really one of Pete’s disciples that we admire. “ ‘How are we going to resurrect our humanity?’ This is the sobering question that Peter Yarrow — the “Peter” from Peter, Paul and Mary — asked a group of Woodstock-era grownups who are gathered in his Manhattan apartment. ‘We were the generation of protests and movement and revolution,’ he reminded us on this cold January evening. ‘We are working to fill a black hole of empathy.’ ” The writer is describing a gathering that took place sometime before Seeger’s death. Even I could figure that out. I couldn’t figure out whether

“Peter” was the tall bearded one or the short bearded one. I’m pretty sure Peter was not the DOUG blonde, beardSMITH less one who dsmith5201@comcast.com sang about wanting to be a single girl again. Regardless of which one it was, it takes a certain nerve to contrast empathy and sympathy. One authority does it this way: “Empathy. Sympathy. Empathy is the ability to imagine oneself in another person’s position and to experience all the sensations connected with it. Sympathy is compassion for or commiseration with another.” Pete Seeger famously had a hammer or the desire for one. I’m sure he would have had the ability to distinguish between empathy and sympathy too.

DRINK SPECIALS ALL N IGHT LON G

LIVE MUSIC @ 9PM

RODGE AND THE DIRT ROAD REPUBLIC

FREE FOR UFO MEMBERS

323 PRESIDENT CLINTON AVE. 72201 (501)372-8032 BEERKNURD.COM WEEK THAT WAS

It was a good week for ... COON DOG JUSTICE. A Lincoln County jury awarded $145,000 to a man whose hunting dog was shot dead while on a leash after treeing a coon on another man’s land. The jury awarded $5,000 for personal injury; $25,000 for the tort of outrage; $5,000 for destruction of personal property, and $100,000 in punitive damages. A NAME CHANGE. Tea Party Republican Conrad Reynolds, a 2nd District congressional candidate who legally changed his name to Colonel just in time for the May primary, said the name change was rooted in a desire to rid himself of a name that sounded like that of a girl. No, Conrad doesn’t sound like a girl’s name. But that was not his given name. It was Conald, shortened to Connie, a name he didn’t like and so he began calling himself Conrad, after the actor Robert Conrad. The timing of the name change was just coincidental, he said. TIMOTHY BROOKS. The U.S. Senate broke filibuster and confirmed the presidential appointment of Brooks, a

Fayetteville lawyer, to a federal district judgeship. The nomination had been pending for months, delayed by a general Republican roadblock to judicial confirmation.

It was a bad week for ... ASA HUTCHINSON. After the Arkansas Education Association, which represents 12,000 school teachers and school staffers, endorsed Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mike Ross, Hutchinson derided the AEA as an affiliate of the “left-leaning” National Education Association and said the endorsement put Ross in a league with Barack Obama and union bosses. Hutchinson had earlier sought the endorsement of the AEA. CIRCUIT JUDGE MIKE MAGGIO. He announced his withdrawal from the Arkansas Court of Appeals race because of reporting on his injudicious comments on Tiger Droppings, an LSU fan website. He acknowledged the comments and, while saying he took “full responsibility,” he nonetheless invoked the “politics of personal destruction” in his downfall.

VERIZON ARENA FRIDAY, AUGUST 8 GENERAL PUBLIC ON SALE TOMORROW, FRIDAY, MARCH 14 AT 10AM AT TICKETMASTER.COM PRESALE PRESALE TICKETS TICKETS VISIT VISIT CITIPRIVATEPASS.COM TODAY CITIPRIVATEPASS.COM TODAY ’TIL ’TIL 10PM! 10PM! :: A A B BE EA AV VE ER R P PR RO OD DU UC C TT II O ON N ::

www.arktimes.com

MARCH 13, 2014

EDITORIAL

EYE ON ARKANSAS

Two flags

Hard times

oulwise, these are trying times for Razorback sports fans, about as bad as we can remember. The women’s basketball coach has just been fired, unable to compete with the powerhouses of SEC women’s basketball. The men’s basketball team has been painfully inconsistent against opponents who are hardly powerhouses themselves. The men’s football coach has been all too consistent. The track and field team wins consistently, but few bother to watch it, and even fewer spend money on it. Even the gymnastics team has been less than we’d hoped for. When you can’t be successful with nubile young women flying through the air, you’re really out of luck. Personally, we’re ready to take up curling. Everybody watches. We don’t understand why, but they do. 6

MARCH 13, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

MATT AMARO

appy days are indeed here again, as they were in that time of peace and prosperity we remember as the Clinton administration. But we cannot say with equal conviction that It’s a Grand Old Flag (again). It kind of depends on which side you’re looking at. There’s no sign that the Tea Party now rejects the contemptible way it treated Max Cleland, when Cleland was a U.S. senator and a candidate for re-election who’d lost both legs in World War II. There’s no indication the Republican Right regrets its atrocious attacks on Cleland. (How dare he lose limbs without Rush Limbaugh’s permission?) Similarly, there’s no indication the Grand Old Party feels inclined, as it should, to apologize for its mistreatment of John Kerry. Kerry had been a true American hero during the Vietnam War. He was mocked for it by Republicans, including some Arkansas Republicans. Remember the right-wing Arkansas church that sneered at Kerry? Who would ever have expected such a thing? Or tolerated it? But Republicans, including Arkansas Republicans, are proud of their patriotism again. Arkansas Republicans are running a U.S. Senate candidate of whom nothing else favorable could be said, except that he served in his country’s uniform. Intellect? Compassion? There’s no hint of such things. There’s a back story here. Arkansas Republicans don’t love military service more. They hate more Democrats who didn’t serve, particularly Sen. Mark Pryor. Similarly, Republicans hated Sen. Mark’s father, Sen. David Pryor, not because he wasn’t a veteran, but because he didn’t kowtow to the Hussmann family. The Hussmans are accustomed to losing to the Pryors, and to hating them for it. This year, with their allies, the Koch brothers, the Hussmans see a chance for victory for themselves and their reactionary political views. There’s nothing grand about that old flag.

RIVER MARKET TUNES: Daryl Minefee, 60, has been playing the saxophone since he was 8. Minefee now plays for fun outside for people whenever there’s a nice day.

Shoffner: Dumb and dumber

he trial of former Arkansas Treasurer Martha Shoffner had few surprises. I go to press as jury deliberations continue. But ... As made clear months ago, Shoffner sent more than a half-billion dollars worth of state bond investments to a single broker, Steele Stephens, a rep for a tiny firm operating out of a house in Russellville. It was worth $2.5 million in commissions, a lot of money for selling the same stuff as competitors (and sometimes churning it without profit for the state.) Stephens testified that he paid Shoffner $6,000 every six months. His last payment, a roll of C-notes in a pie box delivered to her home in Newport, was recorded on hidden video camera for FBI agents waiting outside. There wasn’t much for defense lawyers to work with, which could explain why a plea bargain was initially struck in this case, then withdrawn on second thoughts by Shoffner. The defense tried, arguing that the cash amounted to “improper” campaign contributions, but not bribes and not interstate commerce worthy of federal prosecutors’ attention. Legal distinctions aside, the man on the street can be forgiven for seeing a quid pro quo and smelling something rotten under the Capitol dome. But let’s also consider some other questions. Is it illegal for people who receive commissions for state bond business to give hefty campaign contributions to the person running for treasurer and pass out other tangible gifts? It is not. Does it smell? It does. Has it been done forever? Yes. Have treasurers done business with their friends? They have. Is it legal to take the treasurer out to dinner? Up to $100 per dinner, it is. In theory, a state vendor could buy dinner for the treasurer every night of the week. And if each meal costs $100 or less, the politician would have nothing to report and no reason to fear the long arm of the law. This same rule applies as well to the

gifts — hams, turkeys, football and concert tickets — lavished on the staff of the treasurer’s office. A variety of efforts have been undertaken to eliminate pay-toplay in the bond business. You MAX don’t see heads of retirement sysBRANTLEY maxbrantley@arktimes.com tems golfing in Ireland courtesy of Wall Streeters like you once did. Legislators still have their ways of nabbing nominally official trips to exotic foreign spots, but it does seem there’s been some reduction in excesses. A favorite among bond daddies used to be taking municipal officials (and sometimes girlfriends) to champagnedrenched bond “closings” in New York. Beats the heck out of a simple bond issue check delivery in Dogtown. The question that nags me is this: If Martha Shoffner and a willing bond broker had a wink-and-nod deal in which he got millions in business and she got an untaxed cash pay supplement, surely somebody else in government has thought about doing the same thing. And maybe doing it a bit more discreetly. It wouldn’t be hard to be smarter than Martha Shoffner. She displayed her financial ignorance to staffers and further made enemies of them by treating them abusively. Even after her favoritism had been reported in news media — even after Legislative Audit and Republican legislators were baying after her — she couldn’t quit taking deliveries on Steele Stephens’ tasty pies. But for that one apple pie too many, she’d still be treasurer and none would be the wiser. Bottom line: We shouldn’t be electing the person who makes the final decision on administration of billions in state investments. The corruption begins in the campaign season and it’s all too easy to get away with that and worse unless somebody unduly stupid or greedy comes along.

OPINION

On foreign policy, Rand Paul makes sense

hen Senator Rand Paul owns the most sensible voice on a foreign crisis and still captures the blessings of the far right, you know things have gotten overheated. While everyone else in his party seized on the Russian incursion in Crimea as more evidence of President Obama’s weakness and of Russian imperialism, Paul addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference presidential cattle show and didn’t mention Vladimir Putin or the Russians. The day before, he cautioned against committing ourselves in Ukraine in a way that could lead to military intervention and said the United States should seek “respectful” relations with Putin. Meantime, other Republicans, a few Democrats and herds of columnists and editorialists resurrected Hitler and Stalin and compared Putin’s meddling in Crimea to all their butcheries and ethnic cleansings. Hillary Clinton, her shadow campaign for the presidency flowering everywhere, got into the act with a scary analogy to Hitler’s forays in eastern Europe to “protect” ethnic Germans.

The historical material is so abundant and so easy to mine and the arrogant little tyrant who runs Russia so unlikERNEST able that you can DUMAS hardly blame them. But Rand Paul didn’t succumb to the lure, and he deserves some credit because his party’s establishment was already after him for his isolationist approach to foreign affairs, which stands in contrast to the Republican Party generally. He opposed efforts to block accords with Iran over nuclear development and dared to say that, contrary to Israel’s policy, arms are not necessarily the solution to Middle East problems. He sued the president over the collection of phone records and filibustered the president’s use of drones to kill militant Muslims, the one Obama policy Republicans love. By the way, CPAC did a straw poll after all the Republican presidential maybes had made their pitches and 31 percent favored Paul, three times the votes of the runner-up, Sen. Ted Cruz. Our man Mike Huckabee,

Ron Paul had a clear-eyed grasp of hisif you are interested, finished in a four-way tie for 10th place. tory and of how America went wrong in Let’s not misunderstand Paul’s stance as the Middle East, with such morbid conneutrality. While he cautioned against the sequences, starting with President EisenCold War rhetoric, he condemned Putin’s hower’s decision to overthrow the demoinvasion of Crimea as a violation of inter- cratically elected government of Iran in national law, as it clearly is, not unlike our 1953 to please Winston Churchill, London own invasions of tiny Grenada, Panama, banks and the British petroleum companies. Iraq and Afghanistan, which three presiAnd Rand seems to have the same capacdents undertook because they thought our ity to view events with a little dispassion, grievances outweighed international law. even while recognizing the United States’ To counter his statesmanlike pro- competitive need to promote our interests nouncements Paul went on to identify steps to the detriment of Russia’s. The events in he would take to isolate Russia and punish Ukraine are not so one-sided as American Putin — generally steps that Obama had politicians, including the president and Hillalready taken, except for letting oil compa- ary Clinton, make them appear. nies build the Keystone XL pipeline, which The Crimean peninsula is made up he thought would terrify Putin by offer- largely of Russians who view themselves ing expensive Canadian oil to China and historically, through many wars, as the most Europe. heroic Russians of all. Crimea was part of You can overstate Rand Paul’s qualifi- Russia from 1783 until Nikita Khrushchev, cations to be president. He holds the same who stoked American fears by vowing to pure but nonsensical ideas about economics “bury” us, signed an order in 1954 detaching and the role of government as his old man, it from Russia and assigning it to his native Ron Paul, the thoroughly admirable old lib- Ukraine. Most Crimeans have resented it ertarian who stood his ground through all for 60 years. the jeering Republican presidential debates Obama’s sanctions will make Putin’s and wound up with the votes of the ideo- violation of international law costly to Ruslogues and no one else. But the son has a sians, though not so costly as were our own. presence that the whiny dad didn’t have. For the last two invasions, George W. Bush He may be a presidential contender, at least at the end bore those costs personally. The for the nomination, when you put him up tyrant Vladimir Putin, not so much, though against Chris Christie and Ted Cruz. he’s not Hitler or Stalin.

more important, the human expressions of poverty persist. This goes all the way down to the reality that some of JAY the same homeless BARTH and under-housed men that I saw several years back continue to wander the streets of the neighborhood. Two different writers have written in national publications in recent weeks about the persistence of poverty in Little Rock’s capital city that I experience on my runs, coming to diametrically opposed explanations for it. Conservative writer Jason Epstein, who directed a Great Society era antipoverty program centered in eastern Little Rock, writing an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal blames government programs for creating a culture of dependency in these neighborhoods where he once worked. In dramatic contrast, long-time Little Rock writer Ed Gray, in an essay for Salon, targets conservatives like Paul Ryan (and Epstein) for bullying the War on Poverty out of existence before it had a chance to succeed in places like east Little Rock.

In my view, neither have it quite right. Blame for the persistence of poverty — with all its human costs — in these neighborhoods is not solely that of the political left (as Epstein would have it) or the right (as would Gray). It is the willing disregard of elected officials from across the political spectrum at all levels — national, state and city — for the mere existence of such troubled neighborhoods and their equally troubled and increasingly disconnected residents. As just one example, with the exception of a resurfacing of a portion of Ninth Street, not a single capital project from the initial round of spending of the city’s heralded one-cent sales tax is for work in east Little Rock. The city government of Little Rock is not alone in its ignoring of the challenges of neighborhoods like this; its ignoring of their plight is simply the easiest to track. The constantly unmet needs of much of these swaths of our community is reminiscent of the central message of what is perhaps the most gorgeous piece of political rhetoric of the last century that I recently heard once again: Louisiana Gov. Huey Long’s 1928 election eve speech delivered in St. Martinville, La., under the mythical Evangeline Oak. There, Evangeline longingly waited for her lover Gabriel in the poem by Henry

Bitter tears

s I try to get back into some semblance of running shape, I’m now doing longer runs on weekends. Hills being a bane of my running, I typically seek the flattest possible option. That sends me to the most eastern parts of Little Rock to the neighborhoods surrounding the Clinton National Airport. These are neighborhoods I came to know pretty well campaigning door to door while running for office four years ago. But, in the years since that campaign, while I’ve driven through them fairly regularly, I’ve not paid as close attention to what’s going on in these neighborhoods east of I-30 as one does when seeking out distractions from the aches in 47-year-old knees. Unfortunately, the images I see today are exactly what I saw several years ago: the same potholed streets, the same cracked and uneven sidewalks, the same vacant lots, and the same distressed housing. Despite the genuine signs of progress along the Main Street corridor just a mile or so to the west (and the occasional home being restored in the Hanger Hill neighborhood that borders I-30), slow, continued deterioration of block after block is the reality in the bulk of these neighborhoods. Even

Wadsworth Longfellow. Long concluded his speech, “... but Evangeline is not the only one who has waited here in disappointment. Where are the schools that you have waited for your children to have, that have never come? Where are the roads and the highways that you send your money to build that are no nearer now than ever before? Where are the institutions to care for the sick and disabled? Evangeline wept bitter tears in her disappointment, but it lasted only through one lifetime. Your tears in this country, around this oak, have lasted for generations. Give me the chance to dry the eyes of those who still weep here.” Huey Long was a deeply flawed public official whose actions were decidedly less elegant than his rhetoric. However, he recognized the existence of citizens like those living the city blocks on my runs and understood their pain and frustration, borne from generations of inaction on the problems most pressing to them. As such, he was unlike all but a handful of those elected to serve the people of east Little Rock in recent decades. A start toward solving the problems of our poorest neighborhoods, crucial to the long-term health of the city as a whole, is for public officials to face up to the challenges found on some of the city’s oldest blocks. www.arktimes.com

MARCH 13, 2014

PEARLS ABOUT SWINE

Postseason purgatory

Centaurus A Galaxy NGC 5128

THE EVOLVING UNIVERSE

Photo by: NASA/CXC/CfA/ R. Kraft et al.; Submillimeter: MPIfR/ESO/APEX/A. Weiss et al.; Optical: ESO/WFI

JANUARY 25 – APRIL 6 Take a mind-bending journey with us from present-day Earth to the far reaches of space and the distant past. Explore how stars and galaxies—even the universe itself— change from birth to maturity to death, much like living things on Earth. The Evolving Universe is organized by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in collaboration with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and is circulated by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.

The Sun Photo by NASA/SDO-AIA Team, Lockheed Martin/SAO

Center of the Milky Way Galaxy Photo byPhoto: X-ray: NASA/CXC/ UMass/D. Wang et al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/D. Wang et al.; IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSC/S. Stolovy

LAMAN LIBRARY 2801 ORANGE STREET • NORTH LITTLE ROCK 5 0 1 - 7 5 8 -1 7 2 0 • W W W. L A M A N L I B R A R Y. O R G

MARCH 13, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

hat else can you say and/or write about this Arkansas Razorback basketball team? Senior Night cuts both ways, boys. Enjoy your own all you must, but be mindful of those vibes the last home game gives the host, lest you be bullied by a far inferior team. The Hogs were on cruise control at Bud Walton Arena on Wednesday night, and jammed in reverse three days later at Tuscaloosa, Ala. The end result of the week is the same postseason purgatory that this team’s been drifting in and out of for weeks, but temporally things went against the Razorbacks. You simply cannot end your regular season losing by 25 points (and let’s be honest, it was even uglier than that final margin suggested) to a very poor, sub-.500 team. You especially can’t do that after being a darling of sorts for a few weeks, having strung together several quality wins and just finished off a fading but still-respectable Ole Miss squad by 30 (and let’s be honest, it was even uglier than that final margin suggested). A 55-point swing within conference play is unheard of, and it’s undeniably damning when the last loss is (a) the 10th one of the season and (b) the last thing a tournament selection committee sees before the conference championships get underway. Arkansas was a veritable cruise missile against Ole Miss, canning all manner of shots from all over the court. Anthlon Bell, damn near rendered useless only a few games ago, pumped in a careerbest 23 and grinned broadly after his sixth and seventh threes went down. The 110-point output was the highestscoring SEC game for the Hogs ... EVER. Arkansas was a feeble little county fair slingshot against Alabama, tossing balls everywhere but into the cylinder. Bell was scoreless. The 16 points the team managed in the first 20 minutes was a season-low for a half, and it looked even worse than it was because Bama was firing in long-range daggers and streaking through the paint with abandon. It’s hard to fathom that I even wrote the previous two paragraphs within the same column, but it’s a function of Arkansas having its best and worst games of this frenzied season within 72 hours of each other. This is what we’re riding in March, folks. You don’t know if Thursday will be the last time we see any of these guys for six months, or if we’ll be bawling tears of joy later in the month because they’ve gathered themselves

and scrapped toward some kind of storybook finish. After they upended Kentucky at Rupp BEAU and then after WILCOX they summarily pounded Georgia and Ole Miss for nearly 200 combined points, the Hogs more closely resembled a miracle in the offing rather than a collapse in progress. Fittingly, the league tourney, long a bedeviler of this program, grants a redemption opportunity that actually must be cashed if Arkansas wants to find itself among the NCAA field of 68. And there’s a couple of things that happened Saturday that may have helped make the tank job at Coleman Coliseum irrelevant, both on the same court: Tennessee thumped Mizzou, which cemented the Vols as the SEC fourth seed ahead of Arkansas regardless of how the Bama debacle played out; and by losing, Missouri dipped to a pedestrian 9-9 in the standings, negating the impact of their season sweep of the Hogs. What this does is give the Hogs a de facto catbird seat for the first two days of the SEC tourney: They get a Wednesday bye, then take on the winner of Auburn vs. South Carolina in a 2:30 p.m. (CDT) game Thursday. The draw could be worse, and what it may lead to is a genuinely decisive Friday matchup against that very Volunteers squad. If this matchup materializes, it’s got the potential of being a true winnertake-all scenario. The Vols got roughly as hot as the Hogs did late in the year, and therefore both are pecking away at what everyone agrees is the last of the SEC’s few tourney bids. Tennessee’s got one of the season’s most impressive wins, a 35-point drubbing of ACC champ Virginia, but also lost twice to Texas A&M. The Hogs hold the distinction of being the only SEC team other than Florida to win multiple games against a Top 25 foe this season, and they also played Florida better than anybody did the last two months, but that bruise Bama dealt isn’t likely to totally fade fast. Add the rematch factor, too, because Arkansas led the Vols for long stretches of their matchup on Jan. 22 in Knoxville, only to let Tennessee end the game on a 26-11 run en route to an 81-74 win. The Hogs can’t permit a duplication of that collapse in Atlanta, regardless of what day or opponent it may be.

THE OBSERVER NOTES ON THE PASSING SCENE

Living history A FRIEND OF THE OBSERVER who works at the Arkansas Studies Institute just down the street from the Fortress of Employment sent us a link the other day to what we believe to be some of the most moving home video footage ever shot in the state: a soundless, 2-minute, 42-second clip that has been buried in its archives for a while now. It’s unknown who shot it, when or why. All that’s known is that it came in as part of an anonymous donation of 8-millimeter home movies during a drive to collect such things a few years back. They do that at the ASI: collect stuff from attics and closets and flaking trunks, stuff that seems like junk, but which actually paints a picture of what it was like to live in Arkansas back in The Good Ol’ Days (or The Bad Ol’ Days, as the case may be). This video — flickering, silent, flyspecked, black-and-white gone yellow with age — starts with a second of what seems to be a parade: men in the street, holding flags. Then there’s a cut, and you see the grand facade of Central High School, students leaving at the end of a bright day, the boys in buzzcuts and crisp white shirts, the girls in cat eye glasses and full skirts — the late ’50s, then — all of them walking in cliques and clumps and groups, as kids will. Then a group of girls splits, half left and half right, like the parting curtains of a stage. And there, walking in a sort of bubble, a kind of isolating force field into which no other boy or girl passes, are Elizabeth Eckford and Jefferson Thomas, two of Nine. She is wearing a black skirt and white shirt. He is holding a book in his left hand. They walk side by side, both so young but different from the rest, upright, made of iron. The camera stalks them as they turn and head down the street. Kids chatting in huddles about the school day look up and track them with their eyes like dangerous things, like animals set loose from the zoo. One boy snaps his arms across his chest as they pass, as if he is shielding his heart at the sight of them. His companion bodily turns to stare. Everyone keeps their distance. The two of them are alone in the crowd.

A cut, and then they are walking in the street, a throng of people on the sidewalk pacing them, staring, the film silent, thank God, because you realize you don’t really want to hear what was said on that day, by these children, to this boy and this girl. They walk past a finned Ford with a dent in the door. A cut, and they’re standing on the corner, the hungry camera circling them. A cut, and a motorcycle policeman sits before them, astride his Harley. A cut, and the camera lens peers between them, their heads close together, shrouded in gloom, looking across an intersection to where a crowd of white faces has gathered in the sun on the opposite corner, next to a police car, staring, staring, staring, staring. A cut, and a yellow Plymouth taxicab approaches. The two of them climb inside. The car turns. The car motors away into the blessed future. Then fade to black. And that is it, the whole video. The Observer can’t seem to stop watching it, so profound in its simplicity: A boy and girl emerge from an American high school, walk to the corner, and wait on a taxi. So brief and moving, a snapshot from a world much like ours but better left in the past. Watching it, we can’t help but think about all those people: where they are and what they think of that moment, if they remember it at all. As one of The Observer’s friends said when we posted the video to our page on Facebook: How many of those kids lied when their grandchildren came to them and asked whether they reached out in support and kindness? How many of them tried, retroactively, to leap across the gulf of their old shame to the right side of history? The Observer, however, can’t linger much on that in the face of such bravery. Instead, watching, we think: This is what courage looks like. This is what it looks like to do what’s right when almost everybody else around you is wrong. You can download the video from the ASI archives at http://tinyurl.com/ k8jqqqv.

Lucky You Discount 50% Off Joining Fee Join This Week & Enter To Win A

Family Owned & Operated Since 1997

FREE 3-MONTH Membership

15% OFF ANY FOOD PURCHASE. VALID AT ALL 4 LOCATIONS. Not valid with any other offer.

Happy Hour Everyday 3-7pm 4154 E. McCain • NLR • 501-945-8010 laspalmasarkansas.com www.facebook.com/laspalmasmexican

Riverdale Shopping Center 2516 Cantrell, Ste F 501-280-9005 membersfitnessclub.com

The University of Central Arkansas’ College of Fine Arts and Communication, supported by a group of community volunteers, presents

A biennial gala fundraising cocktail party and dinner featuring the Piano Puzzler,

Bruce Adolphe March 21, 2014

Guests will enjoy a pre-dinner cocktail party and dinner on the stage of Reynolds Performance Hall at UCA. Known as the “Piano Puzzler” on American Public Media’s Performance Today, Adolphe will perform his puzzlers on the stage of Reynolds Performance Hall. Guests will also enjoy a performance of selections of Adolphe’s most recent new work, commissioned by UCA, Mary Cassatt: Scenes from her Life, inspired by works of art at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Your support of Bravo! will allow students in the UCA Music Department to attend professional conferences in the United States and abroad.

$100 per person - Cocktail attire Seating is limited, so reserve your tickets now!

For information, please visit uca.edu/cfac/bravo For tickets and information, please contact Joshua Miller in the CFAC at (501) 450-3293 or jdmiller@uca.edu

www.arktimes.com

MARCH 13, 2014

Arkansas Reporter

THE

IN S ID E R

Tree squabble Trees don’t always make good neighbors. Ask the Hillcrest Residents Association. For years, the HRA has worked to plant trees along Kavanaugh Boulevard, the neighborhood’s main artery. Most have welcomed the work. Not Hal Kemp. Kemp, a lawyer and owner of a vacant garage at 2904 Kavanaugh, reacted sharply when holes were dug in the sidewalk in front of his building for tree planting last weekend. He sent a warning that the trees would be removed. Kemp, who practices a lot of real estate law, said his land extended through the sidewalk and beyond, midway into Kavanaugh. John Baker, a lawyer, volunteer for the HRA and backer of the long-running Tree Streets urban forestry project, disputes Kemp’s ownership of the sidewalk. But Kemp got City Manager Bruce Moore involved. Moore said he supports the HRA tree-planting project and believes it can plant trees in the right of way. But he’s not ready to pronounce on the case until the sides can meet and hash out ownership questions. Tree planting has been delayed until that can happen. Turns out trees aren’t so lovely to some people — a nuisance, even. Wrote Kemp: “The trees will be a nuisance, will obstruct the views of the building and will create a hazard for my family and any guests or invitees attending our property as well as members of the public. Moreover you have left an open hole in the sidewalk with inadequate warnings putting the traveling public at risk for injury.” City Manager Moore also told the Times he thought the HRA tree-planting program, though generally legal, might be well-served by a formal notice process when planting is contemplated.

Ready for Hillary One hundred and fifty people from all over the state attended the Ready for Hillary Super PAC fundraiser March 7 in North Little Rock, pitching in $36,000. Old Clinton hand Craig Smith made the media rounds beforehand about the group’s effort. His visit with the Times underscored how much things have changed since Smith was on the front lines as a former Bill Clinton gubernatorial staffer in the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign, in the era before email. Today, the Ready for Hillary campaign is channeling the Obama model of working all the social media connectors — Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and so on — to build digital lists of people committed to the cause of a Hillary Clinton presidential candidacy in 2016. CONTINUED ON PAGE 11 10

MARCH 13, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

Some special lawmaking Senator says S.L. subcommittee actions violate state constitution. BY BENJAMIN HARDY

he Special Language subcommittee is an esoteric corner of the Arkansas legislature that handles amendments to budget bills. A subdivision of the Joint Budget Committee, Special Language is a notoriously opaque place — if the numbing description alone isn’t enough to deter public interest, there’s also the fact that it typically meets at 7:30 a.m. and that the proposed amendments it considers aren’t generally available online to the public. Unlike standing committees such as Education, Public Health and Judiciary, its entire membership is directly appointed by the Speaker of the House and Senate President Pro Tem. On paper, Special Language is an afterthought, a legislative backwater; in practice, it’s long been a powerful tool for experienced legislators to shape policy. With the recent creation of fiscal sessions, though, it has assumed a central role in the legislative process that committee member Sen. David Johnson (D-Little Rock) said oversteps constitutional bounds. “It’s a grave constitutional concern,” he said. “I believe the legislature is slowly littering the code with things that may be perfectly good policies but nonetheless are unconstitutional perfectly good policies.” Before 2010, the General Assembly convened only on odd-numbered years. A voter-approved referendum in 2008 amended the state Constitution to also require sessions on even-numbered years, but only for the purpose of crafting a budget and for an abridged span of time. The legislature’s other major function, lawmaking, is explicitly disallowed during fiscal sessions except only in the most urgent of circumstances. The constitutional amendment authorizing fiscal sessions places

JOHNSON

DISMANG

handcuffs on the legislative process. Even introducing a non-appropriations bill first requires securing twothirds approval of both chambers, after which a second vote is held on the bill itself. The only legislation to pass this muster in 2014 was an uncontroversial measure that allowed the lieutenant governor’s office to sit vacant for a limited time rather than call a special election. Numerous other bills (most of which were forwarded by hardline conservatives in the legislature) were not even allowed out of committee for consideration. Yet several policy changes have emerged from the just-concluded fiscal session: a tax break on the sand used by gas companies to frack new wells; creation of an anti-fraud program under the new Medicaid Inspector General, and most significantly, a non-statutory prohibition on public outreach money for the ACA-created health insurance exchange or the private option. With a little dexterity, lawmakers can accomplish quite a bit inside a pair of handcuffs, and that’s why Johnson is worried. “We’ve got a number of instances during this session where we’ve done things other than strictly appropriations matters in appropriations bills that have not gotten a two-thirds vote,” he said. “It’s unconstitutional because the amendment to the state constitution ... limits the fiscal session to appropria-

tions measures strictly, unless there’s a two-thirds vote.” “At some point,” said Johnson, “there’s going to be a lawsuit over something.” Sen. Jonathan Dismang (R-Searcy), co-chair of Special Language, used a special language amendment to insert a tax break for fracking sand in the recent fiscal session. He sees the process as routine. “Special Language has existed for quite awhile. What’s happened this session is really not any different than prior action taken in previous sessions,” he said. “I think it probably does have more significance because of the fiscal session,” he acknowledged, “but it does serve a purpose. I think you saw that several times over the session.” Because the division between appropriations and policy isn’t black and white, the special language process exists to insert additional instructions into a budget bill. Like a suspicious parent doling out conditions along with allowance money, the legislature attaches various specifications, restrictions and caveats to the funds it dispenses to state agencies. Most such amendments are boilerplate clauses that perform routine functions such as authorizing transfers between line items or allowing funds to carry forward to the next fiscal year. Some are more specific, such as the language perennially attached to the Department of Health budget that prohibits state funds from being used for abortions. Some revise statutory law. This is the fiscal session workaround for savvy lawmakers who know a twothirds approval vote for introducing non-appropriations bills is a non-starter. The tax exemption on fracking sand, for example, was attached by Dismang to a general operations appropriation for the state’s revenue agency. Officials from the agency loudly protested Dismang’s amendment and said it was an unconstitutional circumvention of the fiscal session’s restrictions. Dismang argued that the committee has acted within its bounds on this and other issues in 2014. “I’m not sure what the outcome would be on the judicial side. But at this point, I think that the committee CONTINUED ON PAGE 34

LISTEN UP

BIG PICTURE

SPEAK, ARKANSAS

In our new series, Arkansans tell their life story in their own words. We begin with Gaylord Hunter, a Little Rock native with a front-row seat to music history.

attended Central High from ’65 to ’68. Our class was the first big class of black students. There were nine or 10 blacks in each class above us; there were more than 80 of us in our class. When I came over there I didn’t play that, name-calling and all that. They was spitting on black folks. I would fight. So I got accepted. They didn’t spit on me. I didn’t turn my back. I got to know everybody and everybody got to be my friend. I got into the hippie movement. After high school, I had mostly white friends. I went to the Atlanta Pop Festival and saw Jimi Hendrix. I saw Mothers of Invention, the Grateful Dead. I was free — it was a free movement. They called it a drug movement but it was a free movement. I kind of moved all around Little Rock. I could go from the black folks to the white folks, all the way from the ghetto to Pulaski Heights. I was accepted and had friends on both ends of town. I started helping out a radical underground paper called the Different Drummer. That was before the Arkansas Times. I was the only black, and I used to go around and help get the Different Drummer writers in with the black movement because they wouldn’t hardly accept no white folks in their meetings. In 1972 I left Little Rock to join my cousin Al Bell at Stax Records in Memphis. We were a very close-knit family, and I had always looked up to him and wanted to be a part of that. I got in to the music business with Stax and started promoting and marketing. I got an apartment in Memphis, a company car, oh I was big shit, you couldn’t tell me nothing. Isaac Hayes had just done his big thing. Johnnie Taylor, Little Milton, all of that.

Since I had been exposed to rock music, I started going around promoting a lot of the white groups that we had that not a lot of people knew about. Then I started working on the R&B side. I would get stuff played on the radio stations — white and black — make sure the record stores across the country had our products. There was so much energy and it was mixed because Stax was a mixed-race company. You had white and black musicians, producers, artists. All of them mingled together back then. Booker T. and the M.G.s, the Bar-Kays, Albert King. It was just a cohesiveness of talent, it was a nonstop thing. Everybody would go into the studio and they would work with each other. Then at night Elvis Presley would rent out the studio. His background singers, the Sweet Inspirations, were signed to Stax. They would come in around midnight and leave at 4 or 5 in the morning. Memphis and Stax were just like the nucleus of everything. I was traveling across the country promoting and I would run into different artists wanting to come to Stax. I met Lionel Richie down in Tuskegee, Ala. He was performing at a Holiday Inn, which is where I would stay when I came through there, and we would hang out together. He ended up going to Motown. I told him I thought he could become a star. And he did. After the demise of Stax, Al and I eventually came back to Little Rock in the late ’70s. We were still doing the record thing, but we got involved in political work. Because at that point, we were marketing experts. We worked with Charles Bussey, Cliff Hoofman, Patrick MATT AMARO

THE

Tune in to the Times’ “Week In Review” podcast each Friday. Available on iTunes & arktimes.com

CONTINUED ON PAGE 34

INSIDER, CONT. This PAC is not just about raising big money from a few billionaires and buying TV ads. It’s a grassroots PAC. He said 23,000 people had already contributed at the $20.16 level. The idea is to build a national voter list, related data and willing volunteers. He said this, too, about the “inevitability” question. (Remember 2008, when Hillary’s nomination was a foregone conclusion?) Nothing is being left to chance. A lack of primary organizing in 2008 won’t be replicated in 2016. For example, he said Iowa Democratic county committees will meet March 7 and that the Ready for Hillary organization will have a representative at all 99 meetings. Similar organizational efforts are underway in other early primary states. Does it mean Clinton is running? Smith says he doesn’t know and wishes he did. He can’t talk with the candidate or her husband lest the Super PAC violate non-coordination rules. If she does run — and that decision isn’t likely before November because her decision to enter will take millions that might go to other candidates — then the grassroots information the PAC has provided can be rolled over into the campaign in a variety of ways and the PAC will go away. The PAC does coordinate with other super PACS, such as the Correct the Record PAC staffed by old Clinton loyalists and headed by former Clinton foe David Brock. It is doing what its name indicates: providing instant war-roomstyle response to what it sees as erroneous, misleading or incomplete reports about Mrs. Clinton. If Hillary was definitively NOT running, this PAC wouldn’t exist.

Hubbell, novelist The Times recently received a press release on a book coming from Webb Hubbell, the former Little Rock lawyer and Clinton administration official who went to federal prison for stealing from clients of the Rose Law Firm. Hubbell’s novel, “When Men Betray” is set in Little Rock and delves into politics, law and Southern society, thus drawn from his own experience. The book is pitched as the first of a series based on the fictional exploits of antitrust lawyer Jack Patterson. The book is set for May release by Beaufort Publishing.

CORRECTION The final quote in last week’s cover story “Farm Team to Table” was incorrectly attributed to Lee Richardson. In fact, Hive chef Matt McClure said, “I’m damn proud to be cooking food in Arkansas, this food in Arkansas. We have the opportunity to become a culinary destination, and the fact that I’m a part of the conversation, I couldn’t be happier.” www.arktimes.com

MARCH 13, 2014

SPR ING A R T S

YOU’LL HEAR A SYMPHONY And Cher, Salty Dogs, Salt-N-Pepa and more. BY WILL STEPHENSON

t’s spring, the birds are singing, and music is being made by the human persuasion, too. On March 20, the Robinson Center Music Hall will host weirdo, novelty a cappella singers Pentatonix, who cover pop songs with unsettling sonic precision and were the season three winners on “The Sing Off,” an NBC show about weirdo, novelty a cappella acts. The next night, the Clear Channel Metroplex will welcome upstart Atlanta rapper Rich Homie Quan, best known for his once-ubiquitous street hit, “Type of Way.” Quan hasn’t won any NBC shows (yet), but he’s a hero in Georgia and his star is rising. Prolific local songwriter and butcher Kevin Kerby will play at White Water Tavern on March 22 alongside Brent Best, sharing a bill with Denton, Texas, garage rock duo RTB2. That same night, over at Stickyz, Little Rock rapper Big Piph, fresh from his adventures in Africa (ask him about it), will perform with his band Tomorrow Maybe. Little Rock’s honky-tonk heroes, The Salty Dogs, will be at South on Main on March 26 celebrating the release of their new EP, “Too Old To Fight,” and will follow it up with a show at White Water on March 28 with the Buffalo City Ramblers. Meanwhile, Cher’s “Dressed to Kill” Tour will roll through town March 28, stopping at the Verizon Arena with special guests Pat Bena-

MARCH 13, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

OUTLAW: Merle Haggard will perform at the Robinson Center Music Hall April 2.

tar and Neil Giraldo. Chicago native and former child prodigy violinist Rachel Barton Pine will perform with the Arkansas Symphony Youth Orchestra at Wildwood Performing Arts Center on March 30. On April 2, Amasa Hines will bring its cinematic, lavishly orchestrated indie rock to South on Main. That same night, Outlaw Coun-

try legend and irrepressible curmudgeon Merle Haggard will be at Robinson Center Music Hall. In Fayetteville, on April 3, world-renowned soprano Laura Aiken will perform at the Walton Arts Center, and Red Dirt country artist Stoney LaRue will be at George’s Majestic Lounge. That same day in Little Rock, Dax Riggs, former front-

SPR ING A R T S

TYPE OF WAY: Rich Homie Quan will be at the Clear Channel Multiplex March 21.

man of the ’90s sludge metal group Acid Bath, will play at Stickyz. On April 4, swamp pop act Shinyribs, the solo project of The Gourds’ Kevin Russell, will come to White Water, which, the following night, will showcase the best of Arkansas garage punk’s youngest generation, featuring Bombay Harambee, Teenagers and Pagiins. Country singer and Rogers native Joe Nichols will headline the Washington Regional Gala at the Walton Arts Center with Backroad Anthem on April 8, and Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase

finalist John Willis will play a free show as part of South on Main’s Local Live series on April 9. On April 10, the Rev Room will host Kansas City underground rap legend Tech N9ne and Gary, Ind., country rapper Freddie Gibbs, alongside Krizz Kaliko, Jarren Benton, Psych Ward Druggies and 870 Underground. Grammy-nominated English R&B singer and former Floetry member Marsha Ambrosius will perform at Juanita’s on April 11. In honor of the recently deceased country icon, South on Main will present “That Nash-

ville Sound: A Tribute to Ray Price” on April 13, featuring performances by Katmandu, Amy Garland, Bonnie Montgomery, Mark Currey, Dave Almond, Ben Meade, Lauralee Williard, Buddy Case and John Talley. Birmingham, Ala., Sub Pop-signees Lee Bains III and the Glory Fires will be at White Water on April 15 playing ruthless Southern rock. On April 17, Houston rap stalwart Paul Wall will take over the Rev Room with Triggaman, Young Jose and The Corner Kingz. Fellow Texan Adam Carroll, CONTINUED ON PAGE 22

www.arktimes.com

MARCH 13, 2014

SPR ING A R T S

SPRING ARTS CALENDAR GREATER LITTLE ROCK BOOKS APRIL 10: An Evening with Murphy Visiting Writer Trenton Lee Stewart. Hendrix College, 7:30 p.m. APRIL 24-27: Arkansas Literary Festival. Award-winning fiction writers, journalists, screenwriters and artists offer presentations, panels, workshops, readings and book signings. Various venues in downtown Little Rock.

COMEDY APRIL 30-MAY 11: The Second City. Arkansas Repertory Theatre, 7 p.m. Wed.-Sun., 9:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat. $35. APRIL 4: Mike Epps and Friends. Robinson Center Music Hall, 8 p.m., $50.15-$58.85.

CULTURAL EVENTS MARCH 20: Bless the Mic: Paula White. Philander Smith College, 7 p.m., free. APRIL 26: 4th Annual Indie Arts and Music Festival. Kavanaugh Boulevard between Walnut and Palm streets, 11 a.m. APRIL 27: Jewish Food Festival. War Memorial Stadium, 8:30 a.m. MAY 3: Arkansas Times Heritage Hog Roast. Wholehog cooking competition, with live music, beer and more. Argenta Farmers Market Plaza, 5 p.m. JUNE 7-8. AnimeCon Arkansas. Clarion Hotel Medical Center, $15-$35.

DANCE APRIL 25-27: Ballet Arkansas, “Momentum.” Arkansas Repertory Theatre, 7:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sun., $30-$35.

FILM MARCH 20: “Girl Rising.” Gathr Film Series screening. UA Breckenridge Village, 7:30 p.m., $10. MARCH 20-23: Little Rock Horror Picture Show. 3rd annual horror film series. Day passes can be purchased for $20, festival passes for $50. Ron Robinson Theater, 10 p.m. MARCH 27: “Hide Your Smiling Faces.” Gathr Film Series screening. Ron Robinson Theater, 7 p.m., $10. MARCH 28: Del Shores’ “Southern Baptist Sissies.” Presented by The Weekend Theater and the Little Rock Film Festival to kick-off Shores’ appearance at the Ron Robinson Theater. Ron Robinson Theater, 7:30 p.m., $13.50. MARCH 30: “Fruitvale Station.” Ron Robinson Theater, 7 p.m., $5. APRIL 4-6: “Mandela.” Ron Robinson Theater, 7 p.m., $5. APRIL 18-20: “Inside Llewyn Davis.” Ron Robinson Theater, 7 p.m., $5. MAY 2: “Her.” Ron Robinson Theater, 7 p.m., $5. MAY 13-18: Little Rock Film Festival. The Ron Robinson Theater, The Argenta Community Theater, The Arkansas Repertory Theatre, and other Little Rock venues. MAY 29-31: “The Grandmaster.” Ron Robinson Theater, 7 p.m., $5.

MUSIC, LARGE VENUES MARCH 20: Pentatonix. Robinson Center Music Hall, 8 p.m. MARCH 21: Rich Homie Quan. Clear Channel Metroplex, 9 p.m., $20-$50. MARCH 28: Cher. “Dressed to Kill” Tour, featuring Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo. Verizon Arena, 8 p.m., $36.50-$127. March 30: Rachel Barton Pine and the Arkansas Symphony Youth Orchestra. Wildwood Performing 14

MARCH 13, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

MARCH: Civil Rights Icon and Congressman John Lewis will appear at this year’s Arkansas Literary Festival to promote his graphic novel memoir, “March: Book One.” Arts Center, 3 p.m., $10-$30. APRIL 2: Merle Haggard. Robinson Center Music Hall, 7 p.m., $50-$80. APRIL 12-13: Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. Robinson Center Music Hall, 8 p.m. April 12, 3 p.m. April 13, $14-$53. APRIL 19: Brantley Gilbert. The “Let It Ride” tour. Verizon Arena, 7:30 p.m., $36-$48.50. APRIL 22: Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, chamber, Beethoven and Wagner. Clinton Presidental Center, 7 p.m., $23. APRIL 22-23: Cirque Du Soleil: Michael Jackson, The Immortal World Tour. Featuring 49 international dancers, musicians, and acrobats. Verizon Arena, 8 p.m., $52.50$152.50. APRIL 24: Little Rock Wind Symphony, “Pictures at an Exhibition.” Second Presbyterian Church, 7:30 p.m. MAY 3-4: Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, Pops, “The Music of James Taylor.” Robinson Center Music Hall, 8 p.m. May 3, 3 p.m. May 4, $18-$59. MAY 8: REO Speedwagon. Robinson Center Music Hall, 8 p.m., $52-$88.50. MAY 10: Iris Dement. Ron Robinson Theater. MAY 14: Brit Floyd “Discovery World Tour.” Featuring music from all 14 Pink Floyd studio albums and a light and laser show. Verizon Arena, 8 p.m., $55. MAY 15: Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, “Mozart by Candlelight.” Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, 7 p.m. MAY 23-25: Riverfest. Featuring Hank Williams Jr., Salt-NPepa, Buckcherry and other performers to be announced. First Security Amphitheatre and other stages, $20 adv. JUNE 1: Little Rock Wind Symphony, “Sunday Serenade.” St. Paul United Methodist Church, 3 p.m. JUNE 7: Little Rock Wind Symphony, A Stars and Stripes Celebration. MacArthur Park, 7 p.m. JUNE 10: Bruno Mars. The “Moonshine Jungle” Tour. Verizon Arena, 8 p.m., $66-$99. JUNE 16: Glenn Miller Orchestra. Robinson Center Music Hall, 8 p.m., $50.50-$66.50. JUNE 20: Night of the Proms. Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, The Pointer Sisters and Nile Rodgers backed

by Il Novecento and Fine Fleur. Verizon Arena, 7:30 p.m., $45-$99.

MUSIC, SMALL VENUES MARCH 20: Sister Sparrow and The Dirty Birds, Stays in Vegas. Juanita’s, 9 p.m., $10 adv., $12 day of. MARCH 22: Kevin Kerby and Brent Best, RTB2. White Water Tavern, 9 p.m. MARCH 22: Big Piph, Tomorrow Maybe. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 10 p.m. MARCH 23: Protest the Hero, Battlecross, Safety Fire, Intervals, Night Verses. Juanita’s, 7 p.m., $12 adv., $15 day of. MARCH 23: Lost and Nameless Orchestra. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 7:30 p.m., $5. MARCH 25: Air Loom. White Water Tavern, 10 p.m. MARCH 26: The Salty Dogs. South on Main, 7:30 p.m., free. MARCH 27: AfroZep. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9 p.m., $7. MARCH 28: Benjamin Del Shreve. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 8:30 p.m., $7. MARCH 28: The Salty Dogs. White Water Tavern, 9:30 p.m. MARCH 29: Matt Stell and Deep Roots. Revolution, 9 p.m., $8 adv., $10 day of. MARCH 29: Graham Wilkinson, Sarah Hughes. White Water Tavern, 9:30 p.m. APRIL 2: Local Live: Amasa Hines. South on Main, 7:30 p.m., free. APRIL 3: Dax Riggs. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9 p.m., $10. APRIL 4: Shinyribs. White Water Tavern, 10 p.m. APRIL 5: Bombay Harambee, Teenagers, Pagiins. White Water Tavern, 9 p.m. APRIL 5: Tyler Bryant and The Shakedown. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 8:30 p.m., $8 adv., $10 day of. APRIL 8: The Goddamn Gallows. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9 p.m., $7 adv., $10 day of. CONTINUED ON PAGE 17

SPR ING A R T S

DON’T JUST DREAM A DREAM Live it, with “Les Mis,” “The Wizard of Oz” and more. BY LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK

hat do a hunted convict on the run, a dance hall girl seeking love, a woman on trial for killing her husband, a humbug wizard and a medieval prince have in common? They’re all coming to the stage this spring, in a theater season heavy on musicals with a good measure of Shakespeare and rising comedians thrown in so that there’s something for everyone. You will hear the people sing at The Arkansas Repertory Theatre’s production of the epic and enormously popular “Les Miserables” (Wednesday through Sunday through April 6), Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg’s musical based on Victor Hugo’s novel. It stars Douglas Webster, who’s played the role of the hounded Jean Valjean for a quarter of a century, so he’s got it down pat. The play is a co-production with Arizona’s Phoenix Theatre. The jazzy and funny musical “CHICAGO” (nightly through March 16) at the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville stars John O’Hurley (J Peterman on “Seinfeld”) in the role of slick lawyer Billy Flynn. The story of rouged-knee dancers/killers Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly won six Tonys and a Grammy and deserved them all. Charity Hope Valentine is a dancer, too, but the resemblance stops there in “Sweet Charity,” Neil Simon’s story of the unlucky-in-love romantic. This is the musical that brought us “Hey Big Spender”; it will be staged for one night only, at 7:30 p.m. March 20, at UCA’s Reynolds Performance Hall. If there’s a big musical to compete with “Les Mis,” it’s Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Wizard of Oz,” coming to the Walton Arts Center (nightly April 1-6). The Community Theatre of Little Rock stages Horton Foote’s “A Trip to Bountiful” (April 25-May 11) at the Public Theatre, 616 Center St. (auditions are at 2 p.m. Friday and Saturday, March 15-16.) The Arkansas Shakespeare Theater, whose season starts in June, departs from the Bard midway through to put on the musical “Pippin,” about a medieval prince and palace politics (June 11-27), at Reynolds Performance Hall. Now for the big laughs: The Second City brings back its adult humor and amazing improv to The Rep for a two-week run (Wednesday through Sunday, April 29-May 11) on its “Happily Ever 16

MARCH 13, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

CHICAGO: John O’Hurley stars in the musical, playing nightly through March 16 at the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville.

After” tour. The Second City in Chicago and its touring company have produced star performers Tina Fey, Stephen Colbert, Amy Poehler and other big names; see the troupe’s latest batch before they get too big to come to Little Rock. Rep producing director Bob Hupp and the cast will make a noon appearance at the Clinton School of Public Service on April 29. The Rep keeps our spirits up with “The Compleat Wrks of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged)” (Wednesday through Sunday, June 4-29), directed by Nicole Capri and written by Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield. The shtick: The works of the Bard are crammed into one play in under two hours (keep your ears open for the 43-second “Hamlet”), in what the New York Times has called a “goofy production” that “speaks, quite loudly, to the sophomore in all of us.” If 43 seconds is not enough “Hamlet” for you, you’re in luck: Two companies are performing

it this spring. Shakespeare’s famed existential question once again be posed as Fayetteville’s TheatreSquared performs the play in the Studio Theatre at the Walton Arts Center’s Nadine Baum Studios and in the Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre’s production. Whether you decided to go, or not to go, the TheatreSquared performance is Thursdays through Sundays April 10 through May 4 and the Shakespeare Theatre’s June 20-29 at Reynolds Performance Hall. The Shakespeare Theatre will also stage “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” (June 5-22), to be performed outdoors at the Village at Hendrix and the Laman Library Argenta Branch; and “The Comedy of Errors” (June 24-28), at Reynolds Performance Hall. Tickets to the season’s plays can be bought online at therep.org, uca.edu/publicappearances, waltonartscenter.org, theatre2.org and arkshakes. com.

SPR ING A R T S

CALENDAR CONTINUED FROM PAGE 14

APRIL 9: Local Live: John Willis. South on Main, 7:30 p.m., free. APRIL 9: The Slackers. Juanita’s, 9 p.m. APRIL 10: G-Eazy, Torey Lanez. Juanita’s, 9 p.m., $15. APRIL 10: Tech N9ne, Freddie Gibbs, Krizz Kaliko, Jarren Benton, Psych Ward Druggies, 870 Underground. Revolution, 9 p.m., $25 adv., $30 day of. APRIL 11: Marsha Ambrosius. Juanita’s, 9 p.m. APRIL 12: Michael Shipp Band. White Water Tavern, 9 p.m. APRIL 13: Midnight Special, “The Classic Rock Experience.” Juanita’s, 8 p.m., $15. APRIL 13: “That Nashville Sound”: A Tribute to Ray Price. Featuring performances by Katmandu, Amy Garland, Bonnie Montgomery, Mark Currey, Dave Almond, Ben Meade, Lauralee Williard, Buddy Case, and John Talley. South on Main, 5 p.m., $10. APRIL 14: Rehab. Juanita’s, 8 p.m. APRIL 15: Eisley, Merriment. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 8 p.m., $12 adv., $15 day of. APRIL 15: Lee Bains, The Glory Fires. White Water Tavern, 9:30 p.m. APRIL 17: Paul Wall, Triggaman, Young Jose, The Corner Kingz. Revolution, 9 p.m., $20-$30. APRIL 17: The Sideshow Tragedy. White Water Tavern, 9:30 p.m., $5. APRIL 18: Adam Carroll record release. White Water Tavern, 9:30 p.m. APRIL 18: Wrangler Space, “Widespread Panic Tribute.” Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9:30 p.m., $6 adv., $8 day of. APRIL 19: Four On The Floor. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9 p.m., $6. APRIL 20: Touch, “Grateful Dead Tribute.” Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 8 p.m., $4. APRIL 20: Wayne Static, We Are The Riot, Dark From Day One. Juanita’s, 7 p.m., $15 adv. APRIL 25: Future Islands, Ed Schrader’s Music Beat, Fine Peduncle. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 8:30 p.m., $10 adv., $12 day of. APRIL 25: Zoogma. Revolution, 9 p.m., $10 adv., $12 day of. APRIL 30: Moot Davis. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 8 p.m. MAY 2: Of Montreal. Revolution, 9 p.m., $15 adv., $18 day of. MAY 4: Black Star Riders. Juanita’s, 8 p.m. MAY 5: The Dillinger Escape Plan, Tera Melos, Vattnet Viskar, Fear The Aftermath. Juanita’s, 7:30 p.m., $14

adv., $16 day of. MAY 6: Old Man Markley. Juanita’s, 9 p.m., $8 adv., $10 day of. MAY 9: Mayday Parade, We Are The In Crowd, Transit, Divided By Friday. Juanita’s, 8 p.m. MAY 15: Wild Belle, Caught A Ghost. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 8:30 p.m., $10 adv., $12 day of.

to social commentary, Arkansas Arts Center. MAY 9-JULY 27: “53rd Young Arkansas Artists,” Arkansas Arts Center. JUNE 27-SEPT. 28: “56th annual Delta Exhibition,” Arkansas Arts Center. JUNE 27-SEPT. 28: “Susan Paulson: Wilmot,” Arkansas Arts Center.

THEATER

BATESVILLE

MARCH 5-APRIL 6: “Les Miserables.” All-new production of Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg’s adaptation of Victor Hugo’s novel. Arkansas Repertory Theatre, 7 p.m. Wed.-Thu., Sun.; 8 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sun., $50-$55. MARCH 7-22: “The Water Children.” The Weekend Theater, 7:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat., $12-$16. MARCH 20-30: “Fool for Love.” A play by Sam Shepard. The Public Theatre, 7 p.m. Thu.-Sat., $14. MARCH 29: Del Shores’ “My Sordid Best.” Del Shores’ one-man show. VIP tickets available. Ron Robinson Theater, 7:30 p.m., $28.50-$48.50. JUNE 4-29: The Compleat Wrks of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged). Arkansas Repertory Theatre, 7 p.m. Wed.Thu., Sun.; 8 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. $30-$35.

VISUAL ARTS, HISTORICAL EXHIBITS THROUGH MARCH 2014: “Lights! Camera! Arkansas!” Old State House Museum. THROUGH APRIL 6: Mid-Southern Watercolorists “44th Annual Juried Exhibition,” Historic Arkansas Museum. THROUGH APRIL 20: “Earthly Delights: Modern and Contemporary Highlights from the Collection,” Arkansas Arts Center. THROUGH APRIL 27: “Ties that Bind: Southern Art from the Collection,” Arkansas Arts Center. THROUGH APRIL 27: “Spies, Traitors and Saboteurs: Fear and Freedom in America,” Clinton Presiden tial Center, $7 adults, $5 college students, $3 ages 6-17. THROUGH MAY 4: “Ciara Long: A Different Perspective,” Historic Arkansas Museum. THROUGH MAY 24: “Southern Voices,” contemporary quilts, Butler Center Galleries. THROUGH JUNE 1: “The Crossroads of Memory: Carroll Cloar and the American South,” Arkansas Arts Center. THROUGH JUNE 22: “A Sure Defense: The Bowie Knife in America,” Historic Arkansas Museum. THROUGH JUNE 29: “Inciteful Clay,” ceramics dedicated

FILM APRIL 2-6: Ozark Foothills FilmFest. Screenings of narrative and documentary features, shorts and animation, with visiting filmmakers and a screenwriting workshop. Various venues in Batesville, $25.

BENTONVILLE VISUAL ARTS THROUGH APRIL 21: “At First Sight,” watercolors from the collection of Alice Walton, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. THROUGH JULY 7: “The William S. Paley Collection: A Taste for Modernism,” works by Paul Gaugin, Andre Derain, Henri Matisse, Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas, Pablo Picasso and others, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. MAY 17-SEPT. 15: “American Encounters: Anglo-American Portraiture in an Era of Revolution,” Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

CONWAY MUSIC APRIL 7: Pianist Norm Boehm. Reves Recital Hall, Hendrix College, 7:30 p.m. APRIL 21: Wind Ensemble Outdoor Concert. Grounds outside Staples Auditorium, Hendrix College, 5:30 p.m. APRIL 22: Chick Corea and Bela Fleck. Reynolds Performance Hall, UCA, 7:30 p.m., $30-$40.

THEATER MARCH 20: “Sweet Charity.” Neil Simon and Bob Fosse’s 1966 musical. Reynolds Performance Hall, UCA, 7:30 p.m., $30-$40. CONTINUED ON PAGE 20

Get Your Downward Dog On!

JOin us FOr YOga, PilaTes, Tai Chi Classes. PrivaTe insTruCTiOn alsO available.

regeneration fitness

Kathleen l. Rea, Ph.D.

(501) 324-1414 117 E broadway on the North Shore.

left to right: gir and David shropshire, instructor.

Yeah, it’s Dogtown. Purchase Classes, Fitness Training, or Massage Therapy Online.

www.regenerationfitnessar.com

Www.ozarkfoothillsfilmfest.org $G SDLG IRU ZLWK D FRPELQDWLRQ RI 6WDWH )XQGV DQG 2]DUN *DWHZD\ 7RXULVW &RXQFLO )XQGV ZZZ R]DUNJDWHZD\ FRP www.arktimes.com

MARCH 13, 2014

SPR ING A R T S

‘ALL CHEERLEADERS DIE’: Kicks off Little Rock Horror Picture Show.

SPRING FILM!

Cinema blooms in the spring, including Horror Show, LR Film Festival, Foothills and the Ron Robinson Theater. BY DAVID KOON

pring is nearly upon us, cinephiles, and while the jonquils’ bloom signals the Big, Dumb Summer Blockbuster Extravaganza is not far away, it also serves as the unofficial kickoff to what has become a few very active months in the Arkansas film festival scene. There’s plenty of excitement to be had around the state for lovers of film. First out of the blocks this year is the third annual Little Rock Horror Picture Show, the horrid thing that festival parent Little Rock Film Festival keeps in its basement, where it survives solely on bitter tears and an occasional bucket of fish heads. The LRHPS kicks off on Thursday, March 20, and runs through March 23. Not only does the festival have a new day-pass system for 2014, the LRHPS will also be the first festival under the Little Rock Film Festival umbrella to take advantage of the Central Arkansas Library System’s spanking-new 315-seat Ron Robinson Theater in the River Market District (don’t get any gore on the upholstery, kids). Justin Nickels with the LRHPS said the new digs give Horror Picture Show attendees an experience they won’t get anywhere else. “It’s exciting,” he said. “The digital projection there, with the big films we’re bringing in, it’ll be the clearest projection of these films you’ll see anywhere in the state of Arkansas.” Nickels said that this year the festival went a little broader with its choices, accepting not only submissions of horror, but also sci-fi, fantasy and animated flicks. The festival will include 40 films this year. The result is a more eclectic mix, with the goal of morphing the LRHPS into a festival that appeals to more people. Nickels said that one of the coolest things this year is a Saturday night showing of director Fritz Lang’s silent sci-fi masterpiece “Metropolis,” to be accompanied by a live, original score performed by 2013 Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase winners Sound of the Mountain. There will also be actors, directors and crew from several of the films 18

MARCH 13, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

in attendance, including the lead actress from the opening night film, “All Cheerleaders Must Die,” and the Arkansas-made film “Steal Kill Destroy,” which was shot near Texarkana. Day passes ($20) will allow horror fans with limited time or funds to pick their poison by the day. The full festival pass ($50) allows the holder access to every event at the festival and grants priority seating privileges. You can buy passes at eventbrite.com. Also new this year is a partnership with the Arkansas Food Bank: Attendees receive $5 off a full festival pass or $3 off a day pass if they bring three or more canned goods. A little further into the calendar is the Ozark Foothills Filmfest, April 2-6 in Batesville. Many of the films will be shown at the historic and recently restored Landers Theater. OFF Director Bob Pest said the festival will feature several new things for its lucky 13th year, including a free day for all showings — April 5 — thanks to a grant from the Arkansas Humanities Council. Pest said another grant, for $3,300 from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which sponsors the Academy Awards, allowed the festival to bring in four films, along with some of the filmmakers who created them, that focus on foreign cultures in the U.S. “On Saturday,” Pest said, “we’re going to have the filmmakers for the films from the AMPAS grant. They’re going to be on a panel in the morning and then we’re going to show all four films on Saturday and have a reception on Saturday night.” The four films on the panel will be: “Sweet Dreams,” by Lisa and Rob Fruchtman, a 2012 documentary about Rwanda’s first ice cream shop; “I Learn America,” a documentary about the immigrant students of Brooklyn’s International High School at Lafayette; “Detroit Unleaded,” a romantic comedy about ArabAmericans struggling for the American Dream in Michigan, and “Fambul Tok,” a documentary about discussions between former enemies who fought

in Sierra Leone’s bloody civil war. A Sunday program of international animated films is also new this year. For more information, visit ozarkfoothillsfilmfest.org. “This year’s festival has a wider range of things,” Pest said. “The animation and the international films are a big part of that, but then there are a lot of the kind of usual narrative films and documentaries that you’re used to. This year, I think we’re going to open up some doors to people about what’s really out there in the film world.” The big daddy of spring cinema is the Little Rock Film Festival, which will run May 13-18. Festival spokesperson Mallory Nickels said that plans for what will screen are still firming up. The big news for the Little Rock Film Festival this year is the festival’s new home at the Ron Robinson Theater. Nickels said that the theater — from sound, to seating, to projection, to ambiance — is “amazing,” and should add to the experience of everyone in attendance. “Just having a central location from which everything will occur is pretty exciting as well,” she said. “In the past few years, the festival has been growing, and [venues have] changed every few years ... . So to have something we know is going to be consistent for years to come is pretty exciting.” Speaking of the Ron Robinson Theater: While it’s not quite a film festival, the programming there sure has felt like something close. Recent screenings have shown the promise of the place, with free or reduced-cost showings of great films, including a three-night tribute to the late Philip Seymour Hoffmann, a screening of “Stripes” in tribute to the late Harold Ramis (with cast member Judge Reinhold participating in a post-screening Q&A), this weekend’s “Bolli Holi Day” screenings of Bollywood flicks, and more. Upcoming films include “Fruitvale Station” on March 30, “Mandela” April 4-6, “Inside Llewyn Davis” April 18-20, and “In a World,” April 11 and 13, a comedy about a woman who does voice-overs for film trailers. Tickets for all are $5. All concessions, including bratwurst, popcorn, soft drinks and fruit smoothies, go for $1. The screenings of “In a World” will be part of a contest in which CALS picks the “voice” of the Ron Robinson Theater. The contest will start on April 1 and end on April 11. Keep an eye on the Ron Robinson Theater Facebook page for more details coming soon. Angela Stoffer, manager of the Ron Robinson Theater, said that a committee meets every other Friday to decide what should play during the next few weeks. “We sit and talk about what’s coming up, what’s coming out, what we currently have scheduled,” she said. “As many things that we do that we charge for, because we’re associated with the Central Arkansas Library System we have to do as many free [screenings as possible]. The committee tries to get together and find that balance.” While programming films in response to events in the news isn’t what you’d expect from a regular movie theater, Stoffer said, “We don’t want to be a regular theater. We just want to be: ‘You never know what they’re going to do.’ ”

More doesn’t have to cost more with XFINITY.

XFINITY delivers fast, reliable Internet. XFINITY Internet gives you consistently reliable speeds so you’ll always have a fast connection, and everyone can get online and do more on their devices all at the same time. ®

Get more for your money today with XFINITY Internet. And, only XFINITY Internet includes Constant Guard , the most comprehensive suite of online protection offered by any major Internet Service provider. ®

GET STARTED WITH XFINITY INTERNET for as low as

FAST SPEEDS

NO TERM CONTRACT

a month for 12 months

Call 1-877-813-0856 to switch today! comcast.com/xfinity Offer ends 4/21/14. Restrictions apply. Not available in all areas. Offer limited to Economy Plus Internet service for new residential customers. Equipment, installation, taxes and fees extra, such charges and fees subject to change during and after the promotion. After promotional period, regular charges apply. Comcast’s current monthly service charge ranges from $29.95 to $39.95 depending on area and other Comcast services subscribed to, if any (pricing subject to change). Service limited to a single outlet. May not be combined with other offers. Actual speeds vary and are not guaranteed. Not all features compatible with Macintosh systems. Money-Back Guarantee limited to one month recurring service and standard installation charges up to $500. Call for restrictions and complete details or visit www.comcast.com. ©2014 Comcast. All rights reserved. Constant Guard and associated logos are a trademark or federally regulated trademark of Comcast Corporation. For details about Constant Guard for Macintosh, visit www.xfinity.com/CGMAC. AR 3/14 ®

More_Internet_9.25x11.25_AR.indd 1

www.arktimes.com

MARCH 13, 2014

3/7/14 4:24 PM

SPR ING A R T S

GEORGIA GLAM: Of Montreal will perform at Revolution on May 2, 9 p.m.

CALENDAR CONTINUED FROM PAGE 17

FAYETTEVILLE COMEDY APRIL 12: Sinbad. Walton Arts Center, 8 p.m., $25-$55.

MUSIC, LARGE VENUES

A CELEBRATION OF FOOD

APRIL 3: Laura Aikin. Walton Arts Center, 8:15 p.m., $75. APRIL 8: Joe Nichols, Backroad Anthem. Washington Regional Hospital Gala. Walton Arts Center, 7 p.m., $75 (main floor sold out). APRIL 25: Ramsey Lewis and John Pizzarelli, “Straighten Up and Fly Right.” A tribute to Nat King Cole. Walton Arts Center, 8 p.m., $36-$52. MAY 3: Mariachi Los Camperos. Walton Arts Center, 8 p.m., $10-$25. MAY 6: Lyle Lovett and His Acoustic Group. Walton Arts Center, 7 p.m., $49-$79. MAY 20: Shannon Wurst. Walton Arts Center, 6:30 p.m., $10. MAY 29: Chapel Series Concert: Cry You One. Walton Arts Center, 6:30 p.m., $10. MAY 30: Chapel Series: The Dover Quartet. Walton Arts Center, 6:30 p.m., $10.

MUSIC, SMALL VENUES We’re proud to have Scott Robertson on our team.

Thanks again to Arkansas Times readers for your continued support and for recognizing Brave New Restaurant among the best in Arkansas year after year.

Best seafood

Best Overall • Best Wine list Best Chef, Peter Brave Best server, scOtt rOBertsOn

An AwArd winning restAurAnt since 1991

Lunch M-F 11-2 / Dinner M-S 5-10

Reservations of any size accepted for lunch and dinner. 2300 Cottondale Lane • 501-663-2677 Full menu at bravenewrestaurant.com

MARCH 13, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

MARCH 20: Blackberry Smoke. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9 p.m., $17.50. MARCH 21: Carolyn Wonderland. George’s Majestic Lounge, 6 p.m., $5. MARCH 22: Voltaire. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9 p.m., $15 MARCH 26: Icon For Hire. George’s Majestic Lounge, 8:30 p.m., $12. MARCH 29: Terrapin Flyer, Tom Constanten, Bob Bralove. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9 p.m., $18. APRIL 1: Band of Heathens. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9 p.m., $10. APRIL 3: Stoney LaRue. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9 p.m., $17. APRIL 4: Royal Southern Brotherhood, Samantha Fish. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9 p.m., $20. APRIL 5: Tab Benoit, The Cate Brothers. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9 p.m., $20. APRIL 6: Elephant Revival. George’s Majestic Lounge, 8:30 p.m., $15. APRIL 9: The Lacs, Moonshine Bandits. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9 p.m., $20. APRIL 10: Josh Abbott Band. George’s Majestic

Lounge, 9 p.m., $20. APRIL 11: The Paul Thorn Band. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9:30 p.m., $20. APRIL 13: Blue October. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9 p.m., $25. APRIL 18: Catherine Russell Group. Walton Arts Center, 7 and 9 p.m. APRIL 18: Split Lip Rayfield. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9 p.m., $12. APRIL 19: Tragikly White, Ultra Suede. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9 p.m., $10. APRIL 22: Trampled by Turtles. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9 p.m., $20. APRIL 23: Randy Rogers Band. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9 p.m., $20. APRIL 24: Whiskey Myers. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9 p.m., $10. APRIL 26: Zoogma. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9 p.m., $12. APRIL 27: Slightly Stoopid. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9 p.m., $27.50. APRIL 29: GRIZ. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9 p.m., $18. APRIL 30: St. Paul and The Broken Bones. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9 p.m., $10. MAY 3: Leftover Salmon. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9 p.m., $20.

THEATER APRIL 1-6: Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Wizard of Oz.” Walton Arts Center, 7:30 p.m. Tue., 7 p.m. Wed.-Thu., 8 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sat.-Sun. $26-$83. APRIL 10-May 4: “Hamlet.” Walton Arts Center, 7:30 Wed.-Sat., 7 p.m. Sun., 2 p.m. Sat.-Sun., 10 a.m. Wed. $10-$35. APRIL 23: The Improvised Shakespeare Company. Walton Arts Center, 7:30 p.m., $10$25. JUNE 17: “SPANK! Harder.” Sequel to “Fifty Shades of Grey” parody, Walton Arts Center, 7:30 p.m., $20-$45.

HOT SPRINGS MUSIC JUNE 1-14. Hot Springs Music Festival. Hot Springs National Park, $150.

OZARK MUSIC JUNE 5: Wakarusa 2014. Campout and music festival featuring The Flaming Lips, The String Cheese Incident, STS9, BASSNECTAR, Umphrey’s McGee, Dr. Dog, and many others. Mulberry Mountain, $179.

Celebrate Arkansas Artisans! Beautiful handmade quality products by Arkansas artists!

DIY Scrimshaw Knife Kit

No Place Like Home Tee

WooHoo! Snacks

Boxley Buffalo River Shirt

Mollyjogger Fayetteville, AR

ShopELL Little Rock, AR

Woo Hoo! Little Rock, AR

Mollyjogger Fayetteville, AR

Build something practical with this DIY Scrimshaw Knife Kit. The kit includes everything you need to create a one-of-a-kind pocket knife. It’s a perfect starter introduction for scrimshaw. Add a family name, original design or an organization’s symbols to the classic trapper-style pocket knife.

No matter where you go, your home town is always close to your heart. The No Place Like Home Tee is a super soft, relaxed fit grey tee, with “there’s no place like home” boldly printed in black letters. This unisex shirt is perfectly low-key and begging to be your new go-to shirt.

A perfect afternoon pick-me-up. An accompaniment to your favorite adult beverages. A near-sinful pleasure for any time of the day. Blah tasting snacks chock full of unhealthy ingredients are being overtaken by by this salivating recipe made with incredible ingredients. WooHoo!

The Boxley Buffalo River Shirt has been appropriately named after the scenic Boxley Valley, also known as “The Big Buffalo Valley Historic District,” in the Buffalo River National Park. The vintage charcoal print on green was designed by Arkansas native Bryce Parker Harrison and we think it makes for the perfect summer shirt.

Handmade Girls Dress

PK Grills – The King Of Charcoal Cooking

Junior League Cookbook

Tea Cookies in Lemon, Key Lime and Raspberry

Kayla J. Rose Designs Jonesboro, AR

PK Grills Little Rock, AR

These beautiful, expertly-crafted Handmade Girls Dresses are the perfect, easy go-to summer outfit for your favorite southern girl. She’ll love putting on either of these fun numbers from Kayla J. Rose. This Handmade Girls Dress is full of color and complete with ruffle sleeves and a simple and stylish drawstring waist.

PK Grills are the shizzz. Smokes as well as it grills. Superb temperature control, 4 vents. Heavy cast aluminum construction that will never rust. Reflected heat allows for more even cooking. Hinged grid allows easy refueling, without removing food.

More at:

ArtisanArkansas.com Order online today!

Junior League of Little Rock Little Rock, AR

The Junior League of Little Rock’s newest fundraising cookbook, “Big Taste of Little Rock” received high praise. You’re sure to find something to tempt your taste buds with over 250 recipes in six chapters, and filled with gorgeous photography, it’s a treat for the eyes as well. It is sure to be a treasured kitchen companion.

ARTISAN ARKANSAS By Arkansas Grown Products

J&M Foods Little Rock, AR Delicate and sweet, these tea cookies are the perfect way to satisf y your inner sweet tooth. Made with only the finest natural ingredients like creamer y butter, chocolate, raspberries, real lemon and lime juices, cinnamon and nutmeg. Enjoy them with your favorite cup of tea, cof fee, ice cream or all by themselves!

arkansas times

SPR ING A R T S

THE WORLD’S SHORTEST PARADE FOR ONE OF THE WORLD’S

longest running holidays.

THE FLAMING LIPS: Will play the Wakarusa festival in Ozark on June 5.

YOU’LL HEAR A SYMPHONY CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13

who otherwise has absolutely nothing in common with Paul Wall, will celebrate his new record release at White Water April 18, with opener Christian Marie Carroll. Country star and Georgia native Brantley Gilbert will bring his “Let It Ride” tour to Verizon Arena on April 19, featuring Thomas Rhett and Eric Paslay. Legendary jazz pianist Chick Corea, who began his career performing with Cab Calloway and Miles Davis, will be at UCA’s Reynolds Performance Hall on April 22 with Bela Fleck, the world’s most famous banjo player. Also on April 22, the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra’s chamber group will perform an ambitious program of Beethoven and Wagner compositions at the Clinton Presidential Center, and Cirque Du Soleil will present its “Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour” show at Verizon Arena. The show features 49 dancers, acrobats and musicians, many of whom toured with Jackson while he was alive. On April 25, The Walton Arts Center will offer a tribute to Nat King Cole, “Straighten Up and Fly Right,” featuring Ramsey Lewis and John Pizzarelli. In Little Rock, synth-heavy North Carolina indie rock band Future Islands will be at Stickyz with Ed Schrader’s Music Beat and Fine Peduncle. (Ballet Arkansas’s “Momentum” will open on April 25 as well, and will run through the 27th.) Athens, Ga., group Of Montreal will bring its colorful and hyper-disorienting dance-pop funhouse vibe to the Rev Room on May 2. The Arkansas Sym22

MARCH 13, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

phony Orchestra, maybe anticipating his August appearance at the Verizon Arena, will perform a tribute to the music of James Taylor at the Robinson Center Music Hall May 3-4. Grammy-winning L.A.-based mariachi ensemble Mariachi Los Camperos will play at Walton Arts Center on May 3, and alt-rock-mathcore group The Dillinger Escape Plan will be at Juanita’s on May 5 with Tera Melos, Vattnet Viskar and Fear The Aftermath. On May 6, country singer Lyle Lovett and His Acoustic Group will be at Walton Arts Center. REO Speedwagon, meanwhile, is still around and will perform at Robinson Center Music Hall on May 8, while Arkansas native Iris DeMent will be at the Ron Robinson Theater on May 10. On May 14, you can bliss out to Brit Floyd’s “Discovery World Tour,” a Pink Floyd tribute and laser show, at Verizon Arena, and on May 15 the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra will perform “Mozart by Candlelight,” set at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. Bruno Mars will take his incredibly named “Moonshine Jungle” Tour to Verizon Arena on June 10. Music festival season kicks off with Riverfest 2014 on May 23-25. Headliners this year will include Hank Williams, Jr., Salt-N-Pepa, Buckcherry, Chicago, Three Days Grace, Len Brice and many others yet to be announced. The Hot Springs Music Festival is next, June 1-14. On June 5, the giant campout and music festival Wakarusa will take place at Mulberry Mountain in Ozark. This year’s lineup includes The Flaming Lips, The String Cheese Incident, STS9, BASSNECTAR, Umphrey’s McGee, Dr. Dog and many others.

M O N D AY, M A R C H 1 7 4:30 P.M.

Blarney Stone Kissing Contest – Arkansas Blarney Stone

5:30 P.M.

Festivities kick off with four Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders – Bridge Street

6:25 P.M.

Measuring of the parade route – Bridge Street

6:30 P.M.

World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade – Bridge Street

7:30 P.M.

Post-parade free concert, Hot Springs All-Star Review Band – Bridge Street Stage

A 1,629-year-old holiday meets 98 feet of insanity. Join us in the Spa City for The First Ever 11th Annual World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade. This weird, wacky, and wonderful event – grand marshaled by TV and movie star Jim Belushi – is a big, fun parade packed into an astonishingly short 98 feet.

1-888-SPA-CITY | HotSprings.org

Festival Pass

$ 35

of the most

Includes: Entrance into all shows including Low Key Arts events, Secret Shows, Trail Shows, a VOV t-shirt, and fanzine! Festival Pass available at valleyofthevapors.com!

innovative underground bands from 6 countries converging to celebrate The VOV’s 10 Year Anniversary!

March 14-18, 2014 - Hot Springs, AR The Last Slice started with one goal; to make people dance. In 2008 when the band originally formed, they had been previously experimenting with a style that resembles what some in the ska scene refer to as “punk rock with horns,” but were soon to find out that maybe it’s not all about guitar solos and epic horn lines. The Last Slice brings to the table a more advanced approach to the simple style of traditional ska. By mixing elements of punk rock, ska, reggae, dancehall, and straight rock ‘n’ roll, The Last Slice comes up with songs that keep the dance floor lit up with excitement. March 14 | Low Key Arts

R. Ring is Kelley Deal & Mike Montgomery. It is voices, guitars and keys. It is sparse, chaotic, abrasive and lulling, often within the same song. You may recognize Kelley Deal’s name from her other project, The Breeders. March 15 | Low Key Arts

Fenster uses stuff like guitars, shovels, malfunctioning circuits, drums, and humans to make pop songs. Since March 2012, Fenster has played numerous shows in the USA, Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, Croatia, Italy, Belgium, The Netherlands, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, and Denmark. They have played US festivals like SXSW in Austin and CMJ in New York and EUROSONIC, Fusion, Immergut, and more in Europe. March 16 | Low Key Arts

Oberhofer With an unforgettable way of speaking directly from the heart, Brad Oberhofers songs have a pulse that form the very core of what makes Oberhofer to put it quite simply, a great rock & roll band. Armed with a belief that you spend your entire life searching for the socially aware version of the 5 year old “you,” he tries to inject each song with the innocence felt by that same kid, sitting on the couch of his parents house playing the broken guitar he spent months teaching himself how to play. March 17 | Low Key Arts

Good Graeff (pronounced “grayf”),

The VOV and Low Key Arts are supported, in part, by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts - Art Works.

made of twin sisters Brooke and Brit, creates powerful folk-charged indie pop that centers on Brooke’s dynamic & original vocals and upbeat acoustic chord progressions, which are finessed into creative and memorable pop songs by Brit’s melodic, classically influenced cello riffs. March 18 | Low Key Arts

Schedule Thursday, March 13

7-9PM | VOV Opening Reception: Unveiling of the VOV Festival print by Jay Ryan Free & Open To The Public Ozark Bathhouse | 513 Central Ave

Friday, March 14

7PM | The Last Slice (OK), All Eyes West (Chicago), Rude King (TX), The Fabulous Minx (OK), The Fur Coats (Chicago), Bruiser Queen (St. Louis), Mad Nomad (Winner of AR Times Musicians Showcase) Low Key Arts | 118 Arbor 8-10PM | Andrew Anderson (Seattle): Artist In Residency Maxine’s | 700 Central Ave

Saturday, March 15

7PM | Fenster (Germany), AAN (Portland), Jack Topht (Buffalo), Vadaat Charigim (Tel Aviv, Israel), Disco Doom (Switzerland), Habits (Los Angeles), Liquor Store (NJ) Low Key Arts | 118 Arbor 8-10PM | Andrew Anderson (Seattle): Artist In Residency Maxine’s | 700 Central Ave

Monday, March 17

12PM | Trail Show: Brian Martin (Americana/ Folk/Blues, Arkansas) Superior Bathhouse | 329 Central Ave

2-6PM | Art Show: Cube Music (Sound & Light Art Installation), Sun Boxes (Solar Powered Sound Installation, weather pending) Free & Open To The Public Ozark Bathhouse | 513 Central Ave

12PM | Trail Show: The Old Time Remedy (United States, bluegrass) Superior Bathhouse | 329 Central Ave

4PM | Workshop: Cardboard Guitar Building Cost is $30, Register at valleyofthevapors.com Ozark Bathhouse | 513 Central Ave

2-6PM | Art Show: Cube Music (Sound & Light Art Installation), Sun Boxes (Solar Powered Sound Installation, weather pending) Free & Open To The Public Ozark Bathhouse | 513 Central Ave

4PM | Workshop: Clowning Free & Open To The Public The B Inn | 316 Park Ave

4PM | Workshop: Screen Printing Free & Open To The Public Ozark Bathhouse | 513 Central Ave 6PM | Secret Show: Doomsquad (Magical Canadian Electronics) Location TBA Via Facebook & Twitter Day Of Show 7PM | My Gold Mask (Chicago), R. Ring feat. Kelley Deal of The Breeders (OH), Motel Beds (OH), Water Liars (MS), Haymarket Riot (Chicago), Big’n (MO) Low Key Arts | 118 Arbor 8-10PM | Andrew Anderson (Seattle): Artist In Residency Maxine’s | 700 Central Ave

Sunday, March 16

12PM | Trail Show: Andrew Anderson (American/Folk/Punk, Seattle) Superior Bathhouse | 329 Central Ave

2-6PM | Art Show: Cube Music (Sound & Light Art Installation), Sun Boxes (Solar Powered Sound Installation, weather pending) Free & Open To The Public Ozark Bathhouse | 513 Central Ave 4PM | Workshop: Clowning Free & Open To The Public The B Inn | 316 Park Ave 6PM | Secret Show: DTCV (Indie Rock, Los Angeles) Location TBA Via Facebook & Twitter Day Of Show

6PM | Secret Show: Fenster (Indie, Germany) Location TBA Via Facebook & Twitter Day Of Show 7PM | Oberhofer (NY), Diarrhea Planet (Nashville), Radkey (MO), Ryan Power (VT), Guerilla Toss (experimental), Tweens (OH), Darsombra (Baltimore) Low Key Arts | 118 Arbor

Tuesday, March 18

12PM | Trail Show: Christian Lee Hutson (Folk/ Old Time Country) Superior Bathhouse | 329 Central Ave

2-6PM | Art Show: Cube Music (Sound & Light Art Installation), Sun Boxes (Solar Powered Sound Installation, weather pending) Free & Open To The Public Ozark Bathhouse | 513 Central Ave 4PM | Workshop: Cardboard Guitar Building Cost is $30, Register at valleyofthevapors.com Ozark Bathhouse | 513 Central Ave 6PM | Secret Show: Weeknight (Dark Pop/ Shoegaze, NY) Location TBA Via Facebook & Twitter Day Of Show 7PM | Pontiak (VA), Monogold (Brooklyn), Starlight Girls (Brooklyn), Good Graeff (Vietnam/FL), Swearing at Motorists (Germany), Banditos (AL), Schwervon (Kansas City), Lost in Society (NJ) Low Key Arts | 118 Arbor

SCHEDULE SUBJECT TO CHANGE | Low Key Arts shows open to all ages

va ll e yoft h e va p ors .co m

Arts Entertainment

MATT AMARO

AND

MAD NOMAD

MAD NOMAD FOR THE WIN Of the 2014 Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase. BY WILL STEPHENSON

“M

ake some noise for Budweiser! Make some noise for cold hard cash!” So said host and Cher impersonator Ambrosia Bordeaux at the start of the Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase finals, which wrapped up Friday night with performances by Peckerwolf, John Willis, Mad Nomad, Duckstronaut and John Neal Rock & Roll. The crowd dutifully made some noise. “It takes a lot of people to make the Rev Room feel full,” said Joe Holland, singer for the night’s winners Mad Nomad, near the middle 24

MARCH 13, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

of their set. “And tonight it feels full.” Peckerwolf kicked things off with a typically pitiless and destructive performance. Their strategy, I assume, was to ensure that all we heard the rest of the night was a distant ringing in our ears. Pretty smart — and it almost worked. “Dude screams well,” said judge Stephen Neeper, while guest judge Grayson Shelton commended the musicians’ “excellent choice in bolos.” Judge “Big” John Miller was evocative in his praise, writing that during their set, “I picture glowing molten

lava flowing down the mountain and over the town below ...” Ambrosia, who for the record was dressed as Cher from the “If I Could Turn Back Time” video, next asked that we “make some noise” for John Willis, which we did. Willis started his set with a short a cappella intro, the sonic inverse of Peckerwolf’s set, and kept things at a consistently softer pitch throughout, presenting what judge Bryan Frazier called a “floral arrangement of pop, rock and show tunes.” Duckstronaut gave another fascinating, duck-themed performance with washboard ambient effects interludes and the most energetic dulcimer playing I’ve ever seen. Grayson

Shelton called them “hard hitting and emotional,” and Stephen Neeper appreciated the “crazy melodic noise.” “Big” John Miller wrote that their set “sounds like a space train ride with the Pixies, Primus, Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper and a psychedelic duck that plays dulcimer. What’s not to like?” Bryan Frazier was thinking along oddly similar lines, writing, “A duck-shaped starship slashes through space. Its intentions are sweet, but it encounters mood swings along the way.” The closing band, and in Grayson Shelton’s view the “best dressed” as well, was John Neal Rock & Roll, who “Big” John Miller brilliantly noted combined the “earnestness of a country preacher, the coolness of an early rockabilly star and the smoothness of an aged Mexican tequila.” “That’s some high-powered shit!” wrote Shelton of the night’s winners, Mad Nomad, who played third. (Shelton also jotted “I got drunk” in parenthesis at the top of his judge sheet.) The other judges agreed, and seem to have anticipated the win. “This has been my favorite band,” wrote Stacie Mack, while Stephen Neeper called them “by far the BEST band in the 2014 Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase.” Another thing more than one of the judges pointed out was that they actually remembered Mad Nomad’s songs from their earlier set, which seems crucial. I remembered “The Crowd,” the first track from their album, “Black Out.” If someone were to make a Little Rock compilation circa 2014, this would belong at the very end of it. Their brand of working class post-hardcore is ideally suited to tapping into the whole neurasthenic teenage complex, and “The Crowd” finds them at their best. Their win is well-deserved. The prize package includes a spot on a main stage at Riverfest, performances at the Arkansas Sounds Music Festival and the Valley of the Vapors festival, T-shirts from Section 9, gift certificates to Trio’s Restaurant and Jacksonville Guitar, four hours of recording time at Blue Chair Studio, a photo shoot with Arkansas Times photographer Brian Chilson and, most importantly, a drink named in their honor at Stickyz and Revolution, who will also throw them a party celebrating the win.

ROCK CANDY Check out the Times’ A&E blog arktimes.com

A&E NEWS THE 3RD ANNUAL LITTLE ROCK HORROR PICTURE SHOW, which will be held March 20-23 at the Ron Robinson Theater, has unveiled several new additions to its lineup, including a screening of Fritz Lang’s Expressionist sci-fi epic “Metropolis,” featuring a live score performed by last year’s Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase winners The Sound of the Mountain. Other screenings announced include “As the Palaces Burn,” a documentary about murder and the metal band Lamb of God directed by Don Argott, and Conor Long’s 1980s science fiction homage “Point B.” VERIZON ARENA announced that James Taylor will perform in Little Rock the night of Aug. 8. Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. March 14 and range from $78-$99.50. And as if they saw this coming, the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra has planned a tribute called “Shower the People: The Music of James Taylor,” which will be held at the Robinson Center Music Hall at 8 p.m. May 3 and 3 p.m. May 4. RIVERFEST, continuing its piecemeal approach to leaking details about its 2014 lineup, has today added Chicago, Three Days Grace and Lee Brice to this year’s schedule. They’ll join Hank Williams Jr., Salt-N-Pepa and Buckcherry, making for one of the strangest festival green rooms imaginable. This year’s festival will be held May 23-25, and three-day passes will be on sale at half-price ($20) starting April 1. JEFF NICHOLS, the Little Rock-born filmmaker, and the cast of his 2013 film “Mud,” were awarded the Robert Altman Award at this year’s Independent Spirit Awards ceremony hosted by Patton Oswalt and held earlier this month. The award honors the legendary filmmaker by celebrating the year’s best ensemble cast.

Spring Is Just Around the Corner! Check out our selection of Potting Benches, Patio Furniture, Porch Chairs, Gates, Fences, Concrete Planters, Birdhouses and Bottle Trees!

ESTATE SALE! MARCH 21 & 22 • 9-3 2900 LINDA KAY DR. • LITTLE ROCK

Oliver’s

Antiques 501.982.0064 1101 Burman Dr. • Jacksonville Take Main St. Exit, East on Main, Right on S. Hospital & First Left to Burman.

tues-fri 10-5. sat 10-3 or by appointment

April 28, 2014

Frances Flower Shop, Inc. In downtown Little Rock two blocks from the State Capitol. We send flowers worldwide through Teleflora. 1222 West Capitol little RoCk • 501.372.2203 fRanCesfloWeRshop.Com

6:30pm - 9:00pm The Capital Hotel

Don’t miss an evening of delicious food from some of Little Rock’s most talented chefs, rub elbows with local celebrities, and be an integral part of funding the Thea Foundation’s life-changing scholarship program. $100 Per Ticket Purchase Tickets At governorsculinarychallenge.com

wmichaelabstract.com With Works available at

Stephano’S Fine art Gallery 1813 n. GRant (Ba fRameR shoWRoom) (501) 563-4218 • stephanostudios.Com

8 Chefs 2 Mixologists 10 Local Celebrities theafoundation.org

WILLIE NELSON will perform at the Walmart AMP in Fayetteville on July 7 with Alison Krauss and Union Square (featuring Jerry Douglas) and special guest Jason Isbell. Tickets, $39-$99, go on sale March 14. Purchase by calling 479-443-5600 or by visiting www.arkansasmusicpavilion.com. Other upcoming concerts at the venue, which is still under construction, include Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers on Aug. 3 and Jake Owen on Sept. 11. www.arktimes.com

MARCH 13, 2014

THE TO-DO

LIST

BY WILL STEPHENSON

THURSDAY 3/13

WATER LIARS

9:30 p.m. White Water Tavern.

“When I am run down and flocked around by the world,” begins Barry Hannah’s story “Water Liars,” the first in his 1978 collection, “Airships,” and it is a great beginning, the kind of beginning that stays with you. Not long ago I was feeling run down and flocked around by the world, and so I drove down to Oxford, Miss., where Hannah finished out his career and died. I went to Proud Larry’s and saw the band Water Liars play; they’re from Oxford (though singer Justin Kinkel-Schuster is Arkansan by birth), but maybe that’s obvious. It was so cold. On the porch, they had those stem-shaped space heaters set up, and you had to get so close as to practically touch them to feel anything. The band was good, kind of like Will Oldham in his Palace days, indie rock with real traces of scary, atavistic hillbilly discordance. Songs like “Cannibal” and “I Want Blood” might even take you off guard, but as Hannah once wrote, “Some days even a cup of coffee is violence.” They’ll share a bill with Little Rock’s The See.

I WANT BLOOD: Water Liars will be at White Water Tavern Thursday night, 9:30 p.m.

THURSDAY 3/13-TUESDAY 3/18

VALLEY OF THE VAPORS

Various venues in Hot Springs. $35.

Hot Springs’ 10th annual Valley of the Vapors independent music festival will be held, not by accident, immediately after SXSW this year, and will fea-

ture 41 bands from all over the world, many of them stopping by on their way home from the other, better-known and vastly more crowded and expensive festival. This year’s lineup includes R-Ring (featuring Kelley Deal of The Breeders), Diarrhea Planet, Fenster and, in case

FRIDAY 3/14

“A FACE IN THE CROWD”

5 p.m. Old State House Museum. Free.

Budd Schulberg’s “A Face in the Crowd” (his second collaboration with director Elia Kazan, after “On The Waterfront”) is an adaption of one of his short stories, “Your Arkansas Traveler,” about a drifter (here played by Andy Griffith) who maneuvers his way into cynical media celebrity and decadence. Much of the 26

MARCH 13, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

you miss them Thursday night, Water Liars. Concerts will be held at Low Key Arts, Maxine’s, the Ozark and Superior bathhouses and, best of all, deep in the woods of Hot Springs National Park: The National Park Service will be providing tour guides to pair small audiences with

a given performer for hikes that include “an unplugged, acoustic performance among the trees, birds and squirrels.” The festival will also host daily workshops on topics like DIY screen printing, guitar building and “basic clowning skills.”

SATURDAY 3/15 location shooting was done in Piggott, where Hemingway also lived briefly and wrote portions of “A Farewell to Arms.” Five thousand extras from the Natural State were hired and paid a dollar a day in August 1956. The production team even built the city a swimming pool. The film is dark and prescient — a “political horror film,” as critic J. Hoberman has called it — and Griffith’s prison-blues sequence is one of the best Arkansas-set Hollywood scenes ever made.

BOLLY HOLI DAY

Noon. Ron Robinson Theater.

The Ron Robinson Theater will celebrate the Hindi spring festival Holi with a day of Bollywood screenings, including “Sholay” at noon, “Bhool Bhulaiya” at 3 p.m. and “Om Shanti Om” at 6 p.m. “Sholay” is a classic, a 1975 Western homage directed by Ramesh Sippy and produced by his father, G.P., with music by the seminal Indian film

composer R.D. Burman. “Bhool Bhulaiyaa” is from 2007 and looks completely wild, a horror-comedy about a family whose ancestral home is haunted by the ghost of a Bengali classical dancer named Manjulika. “Om Shanti Om,” which is about reincarnation and the ’70s Bollywood industry, is also from 2007 and was for a while the highestgrossing Hindi film of all time. All three are filled with vibrant visuals and lavish, hallucinogenic dance sequences.

IN BRIEF

FRIDAY 3/14

SATURDAY 3/15

KENNETH JOHNSON SEMINAR

7 p.m. St. James United Methodist Church. Free.

A modest and unsung Pine Bluff native named Kenneth Johnson will give a lecture Friday titled “Cheats That Work: Tricks of the Filmmaking Trade.” Who is Kenneth Johnson to give such a lecture? In the 1970s he wrote for “The Six Million Dollar Man,” “The Bionic

Woman” and “The Incredible Hulk.” He created and directed the seminal 1983 sci-fi miniseries “V,” and all of its offshoots. He directed the sequel to “Short Circuit.” He directed — this authentic Arkansan visionary — “Steel,” the 1997 superhero movie starring Shaq as a “RoboCop”-like crime-fighter who says things like “It’s hammer time.” (As he had done the year before with “Kazaam,” Shaq also contributed to the

soundtrack, rapping alongside Ice Cube, KRS-One and Cypress Hill’s B-Real on the theme song, “Men of Steel.”) Kids who watched television in the ’90s — or parents of those kids — may also remember Johnson for a pair of strange and resonant Disney movies he directed in 1999: “Don’t Look Under the Bed” and “Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century.” So yes, Kenneth Johnson knows the tricks of the filmmaking trade.

Anthropologist James Veteto will give a lecture at the Clinton School titled “The Slaw and the Slow Cooked: Culture and Barbecue in the Mid-South,” noon. The Arkansas Chambers Singers will present their Spring Concert, “Sacred Spirit” at the St. James United Methodist Church, 7:30 p.m., $22, featuring the music of Mozart and Haydn. The Arkansas Repertory Theatre will continue its production of “Les Miserables,” with performances Wednesday through Sunday, $33-$55. The Weekend Theater’s production of “The Water Children” will continue through March 22, with performances every Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m., $12-$16. At Revolution, DJ Rap will headline on an EDM bill that also includes Snig, Mix Mafia, Danny Enzo and Broseph Stalin, 8 p.m., $12. Nashville songwriter Cory Branan will perform at White Water Tavern at 9:30 p.m., $10, and Shonna Tucker and Eye Candy will be at Stickyz with Swampbird, 9 p.m., $7.

SATURDAY 3/15

The St. Patrick’s Day Parade, coordinated by the Irish Cultural Society of Arkansas, will be held in downtown Little Rock beginning at Fourth and Rock Streets at 1 p.m. Afterward, a St. Patrick’s Day Block Party will be held at and around Dugan’s Pub beginning at 4 p.m. It will feature food, beer, arts and crafts, and is open to all ages. Later that night, Corey Smith will be at Revolution with The Railers, 9 p.m., $20, and The Revolutioners will be at Juanita’s with Dark From Day One and Siversa, 10 p.m., $10.

MONDAY 3/17

MOLK ROCK: King Buzzo will perform at Stickyz Sunday night, 8:30 p.m.

SUNDAY 3/16

KING BUZZO

8:30 p.m. Stickyz. $12 adv., $15 day of.

King Buzzo is Melvins guitarist and singer Buzz Osborne, who founded the group with some high school friends in the early 1980s and never left. Today, the Melvins are most often mentioned as an extensive footnote in the early history of Nirvana, as Osborne went to high school

with Cobain, played bass in his first band, introduced him to Dave Grohl and influenced the whole grunge community in fundamental, unarguable ways. The group was weirder than Nirvana though, slower and heavier and less compulsively catchy — not catchy at all, actually. They foreshadowed sludge metal, imitating Black Sabbath at their heavi-

est and druggiest but with the instrumentation and recording aesthetic of a hardcore punk band. This has been billed as King Buzzo’s solo acoustic tour, promoting his new, well-titled acoustic record, “This Machine Kills Artists.” As he told Rolling Stone, “What I’m doing, it’s not folk music, it’s not heavy metal. It’s ‘molk,’ how about that?”

At noon, the Clinton School will host a panel discussion on ending childhood hunger in the United States featuring Gov. Mike Beebe and actor Jeff Bridges (reserve your seat at publicprograms@clintonschooluasys.edu or by calling 683-5239). The 11th Annual World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade will be held at the Hot Springs Convention Center beginning at 4:30 p.m., featuring appearances by Jim Belushi, Mountain Man from “Duck Dynasty,” and the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. Speedy Ortiz will play at Vino’s with Big Ups, Bombay Harambee and Crash Culture, 7 p.m., $6, and ZZ Ward will be at Juanita’s with Linus Young and The O’Mys, 9 p.m., $18-$100.

TUESDAY 3/18 MONDAY 3/17

“THE RAID 2: BERANDAL”

7 p.m. Ron Robinson Theater, $10.

“The Raid: Redemption,” the 2011 action film by Welsh director Garth Evans, was an object of fascination in the American market, which had been for the most part otherwise unexposed

to the Indonesian fighting style, pencak silat, on display in almost every frame of the film. It was pulsing and elaborately aggressive, and the sequel, “Berandal” is supposed to up the ante considerably. There is a certain breed of action movie that, due maybe to patient, unobtrusive cinematography and the complexity of

the fight choreography, leads critics to invoke Fred Astaire — this is exactly that sort of movie. There are quick and well-executed fights in all manner of rooms, climates and emotional states. The film will screen in Little Rock for one night only as part of the Gathr Film Series.

Pulaski Technical College will host a panel discussion at 6 p.m. on “Writing for a Living in Central Arkansas,” featuring Bobby Ampezzan, a writer and editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette; Annie Berman, Global Communications Manager for Heifer International, and Eliza Borne, managing editor of the Oxford American. Also at 6 p.m., Dallas Morning News architecture critic Mark Lamster will give a lecture called “Sizing Up Architecture: A Critic’s View.” www.arktimes.com

MARCH 13, 2014

AFTER DARK All events are in the Greater Little Rock area unless otherwise noted. To place an event in the Arkansas Times calendar, please email the listing and all pertinent information, including date, time, location, price and contact information, to calendar@arktimes.com.

CLASSES

“Hope for the Future” Symposium. A daylong symposium on Alzheimer’s disease and caregiving. Geyer Springs Baptist Church, 8:30 a.m. 12400 Interstate 30. 501-455-3474. www.gsfbc.org.

KIDS

THURSDAY, MARCH 13

The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Arkansas Arts Center, through March 23: 7 p.m., $12.50. 501 E. 9th St. 501-372-4000. www.arkarts.com.

MUSIC

“Inferno.” DJs play pop, electro, house and more, plus drink specials and $1 cover before 11 p.m. Sway, 9 p.m. 412 Louisiana. 501-907-2582. Irish Traditional Music Sessions. Dugan’s Pub, 7-9 p.m. 401 E. 3rd St. 501-244-0542. www. duganspublr.com. Judah and the Lion, Little Chief. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9 p.m., $10. 519 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-442-4226. Krush Thursdays with DJ Kavaleer. Club Climax, free before 11 p.m. 824 W. Capitol. 501-554-3437. Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 Clinton Ave. 501-372-4782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com. Michael Eubanks. Newk’s Express Cafe, 6:30 p.m. 4317 Warden Road, NLR. 501-753-8559. newks.com. Open jam with The Port Arthur Band. Parrot Beach Cafe, 9 p.m. 9611 MacArthur Drive, NLR. 771-2994. RockUsaurus. Senor Tequila, 7-9 p.m. 10300 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-224-5505. www.senortequila.com. Stoney LaRue. Revolution, 9 p.m., $15 adv., $18 day of. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. revroom.com. Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 7:30 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-374-7474. www.capitalhotel.com/CBG. Valley of the Vapors Independent Music Festival. Featuring The Last Slice, All Eyes West, The Old Time Remedy, My Gold Mask, DOOMSQUAD, Fenster, Vaadat Charigim, Habits and many others. Low Key Arts. 118 Arbor St., Hot Springs. www. valleyofthevapors.com. Water Liars, The See. White Water Tavern, 9:30 p.m. 2500 W. 7th St. 501-375-8400. www.whitewatertavern.com.

COMEDY

Matt Sadler. The Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m., $7-$10. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-228-5555. www.loonybincomedy.com.

DANCE

Art of Motion: Tango. Arkansas Arts Center, 7 p.m.-9 p.m., $10 for non-members. 501 E. 9th St. 501-372-4000. www.arkarts.com.

FILM

“Le Weekend.” Gathr Film Series screening. Ron Robinson Theater, 7 p.m., $10. 1 Pulaski Way. 501-320-5703. www.cals.lib.ar.us/ron-robinsontheater.aspx.

LECTURES

“Fostering a Sense of Fairness and Justice for People Seeking a Second Chance: A Presentation about Improving the Clemency and Pardon A Process.” A lecture by former Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich. Sturgis Hall, 6 p.m. 1200 President Clinton Ave. 501-683-5200. clintonschool.uasys.edu.

SPORTS

Horse racing. Oaklawn, 1:30 p.m., $2.50-$4.50. 28

MARCH 13, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

SATURDAY, MARCH 15

MUSIC

SURVIVOR BLUES: Cory Branan will be at White Water Tavern Friday night, 9:30 p.m. 2705 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 501-623-4411. www.oaklawn.com.

FRIDAY, MARCH 14

MUSIC

Arkansas Chamber Singers, “The Sacred Spirit.” St. James United Methodist Church, 7:30 p.m., $22. 321 Pleasant Valley Drive. 501-225-7372. www.stjames-umc.org. Cory Branan. White Water Tavern, 9:30 p.m., $10. 2500 W. 7th St. 501-375-8400. www.whitewatertavern.com. Club Nights at 1620 Savoy. Dance night, with DJs, drink specials and bar menu, until 2 a.m. 1620 Savoy, 10 p.m. 1620 Market St. 501-221-1620. www.1620savoy.com. Corey Smith. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9:30 p.m., $20. 519 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479442-4226. DJ Rap, Sniq, Mix Mafia, Danny Enzo, Broseph Stalin. Revolution, 8 p.m., $10 adv., $12 day of. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. revroom.com. “For the Love of Art.” Cajun’s Wharf, 7 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf. com. Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 Clinton Ave. 501-372-4782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com. The Muses, “Celtic Spring.” Second Baptist Church, 7:30 p.m., $10. 222 E. 8th St. 501-3749284. www.2bclr.com. Shonna Tucker and Eye Candy, Swampbird. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9 p.m., $7. 107 Commerce St. 501-372-7707. www.stickyz.com. Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 9 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-374-7474. www.capitalhotel.com/CBG. Valley of the Vapors Independent Music Festival. See March 13.

COMEDY

Gabriel Iglesias. Robinson Center Music Hall, 8 p.m., $52.70. Markham and Broadway. www.littlerockmeetings.com/conv-centers/robinson. Matt Sadler. The Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m., $7-$10.

10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-228-5555. www.loonybincomedy.com. “Winter Sucks.” Original sketch comedy by The Main Thing. Call to make reservations. The Joint, 8 p.m., $20. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-3720205. thejointinlittlerock.com.

DANCE

Ballroom Dancing. Free lessons begin at 7 p.m. Bess Chisum Stephens Community Center, 8-11 p.m., $7-$13. 12th & Cleveland streets. 501-2217568. www.blsdance.org. “Salsa Night.” Begins with a one-hour salsa lesson. Juanita’s, 9 p.m., $8. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www.littlerocksalsa.com.

EVENTS

Fantastic Friday. Literary and music event, refreshments included. For reservations, call 479-9682452 or email artscenter@centurytel.net. River Valley Arts Center, Every third Friday, 7 p.m., $10 suggested donation. 1001 E. B St., Russellville. 479-968-2452. www.arvartscenter.org. LGBTQ/SGL weekly meeting. Diverse Youth for Social Change is a group for LGBTQ/SGL and straight ally youth and young adults age 14 to 23. For more information, call 244-9690 or search “DYSC” on Facebook. LGBTQ/SGL Youth and Young Adult Group, 6:30 p.m. 800 Scott St.

FILM

“A Face in the Crowd.” Second Friday Cinema screening Old State House Museum, 5 p.m. 500 Clinton Ave. 501-324-9685. www.oldstatehouse.com.

LECTURES

“The Slaw and the Slow Cooked: Culture and Barbecue in the Mid-South.” Lecture by the anthropologist James Veteto. Sturgis Hall, 12 p.m. 1200 President Clinton Ave. 501-683-5200. clintonschool.uasys.edu.

SPORTS

Horse racing. Oaklawn, 1:30 p.m., $2.50-$4.50. 2705 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 501-623-4411. www.oaklawn.com.

Club Nights at 1620 Savoy. See March 14. Corey Smith, The Railers. Revolution, 9 p.m., $20. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. revroom.com. K.I.S.S. Saturdays. Featuring DJ Silky Slim. Dress code enforced. Sway, 10 p.m. 412 Louisiana. 501-492-9802. Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 Clinton Ave. 501-372-4782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com. Pickin’ Porch. Bring your instrument. All ages welcome. Faulkner County Library, 9:30 a.m. 1900 Tyler St., Conway. 501-327-7482. www.fcl.org. The Revolutioners, Dark from Day One, Siversa. Juanita’s, 10 p.m., $8 adv., $10 day of. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www. juanitas.com. Singer/Songwriters Showcase. Parrot Beach Cafe, 2-7 p.m., free. 9611 MacArthur Drive, NLR. 771-2994. Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 9 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-374-7474. www.capitalhotel.com/CBG. Valley of the Vapors Independent Music Festival. See March 13.

COMEDY

Matt Sadler. The Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m., $7-$10. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-228-5555. www.loonybincomedy.com. “Winter Sucks.” See March 14.

DANCE

Little Rock West Coast Dance Club. Dance lessons. Singles welcome. Ernie Biggs, 7 p.m., $2. 307 Clinton Ave. 501-247-5240. www. arstreetswing.com.

EVENTS

2014 St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Coordinated by the Irish Cultural Society of Arkansas (ICSA). Downtown Little Rock, 1 p.m. Falun Gong meditation. Allsopp Park, 9 a.m., free. Cantrell & Cedar Hill roads. Hillcrest Farmers Market. Pulaski Heights Baptist Church, 7 a.m.-2 p.m. 2200 Kavanaugh Blvd. Historic Neighborhoods Tour. Bike tour of historic neighborhoods includes bike, guide, helmets and maps. Bobby’s Bike Hike, 9 a.m., $8-$28. 400 President Clinton Ave. 501-613-7001. Insure Affordable Care. Get free help enrolling in the Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace. Laman Library, 9 a.m.-1 p.m., free. 2801 Orange St., NLR. 501-758-1720. www.lamanlibrary.org. Pork & Bourbon Tour. Bike tour includes bicycle, guide, helmets and maps. Bobby’s Bike Hike, 11:30 a.m., $35-$45. 400 President Clinton Ave. 501-613-7001. St. Patrick’s Day Block Party. Featuring food, beer, arts and crafts. All ages welcome, hosted by the 3rd

   Looking to ease into

Street Merchants Association. Dugan’s Pub. 401 E. 3rd St. 501-244-0542. www.duganspublr.com.

FILM

Bolly Holi Day. A day of Bollywood films at the Ron Robinson Theater, including “Shoolay” at noon, “Bhool Bhulaiya” at 3 p.m. and “Om Shanti Om” at 6 p.m. Ron Robinson Theater. 1 Pulaski Way. 501-320-5703. www.cals.lib.ar.us/ ron-robinson-theater.aspx.

LECTURES

“Cheats That Work: Tricks of the Filmmaking Trade.” Hollywood veteran and Pine Bluff native Kenneth Johnson will give a seminar on filmmaking. St. James United Methodist Church, 7 p.m. 321 Pleasant Valley Drive. 501-225-7372. www. stjames-umc.org.

SPORTS

Downtown Dash. Sponsored by the Junior League, the races begin at the intersection of 4th and Scott streets. Downtown Little Rock, 8 a.m. Horse racing. Oaklawn, 1 p.m., $2.50-$4.50. 2705 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 501-623-4411. www. oaklawn.com. Thin Mint Sprint 5K. Girl Scout-sponsored 5K. All participants get a free box of Thin Mints. Pine Bluff Regional Park. Cecil Moseley Drive, Pine Bluff.

CLASSES

Quilting Workshop. Plantation Agriculture Museum, 9 a.m., $20. 4815 Hwy. 161 S., Scott. 961-1409. www.arkansasstateparks.com/plantationagriculturemuseum.

KIDS

The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Arkansas Arts Center, through March 23: 2 p.m., $12.50. 501 E. 9th St. 501-372-4000. www.arkarts.com.

SUNDAY, MARCH 16

MUSIC

Andy Frasco, LA Band. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9 p.m., $10. 519 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479442-4226. The Front Bottoms, The So So Glos. Juanita’s, 7 p.m. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www.juanitas.com. Irish Traditional Music Session. Hibernia Irish Tavern, first and third Sunday of every month, 2:30 p.m. 9700 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501246-4340. www.hiberniairishtavern.com. King Buzzo. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 8:30 p.m., $12 adv., $15 day of. 107 Commerce St. 501-372-7707. www.stickyz.com. Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 Clinton Ave. 501-372-4782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com. North Little Rock Community Concert Band, “People, Places and Things.” Patrick Henry Hays Center, 3 p.m. 401 W. Pershing, NLR. 501-7582576. www.nlrcommunityband.com. Valley of the Vapors Independent Music Festival. See March 13.

EVENTS

Arkansas Puzzle Day 2014. The event will feature crossword and Sudoku contests, and a film screening of the award-winning documentary “Wordplay.” Sturgis Hall, 1 p.m. 1200 President Clinton Ave. 501683-5200. clintonschool.uasys.edu. “Live from the Back Room.” Spoken word event. Vino’s, 7 p.m. 923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. www.

vinosbrewpub.com.

SPORTS

Horse racing. Oaklawn, 1:30 p.m., $2.50-$4.50. 2705 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 501-623-4411. www.oaklawn.com.

KIDS

The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Arkansas Arts Center, through March 23: 2 p.m., $12.50. 501 E. 9th St. 501-372-4000. www.arkarts.com.

MONDAY, MARCH 17

MUSIC

J Roddy Walston and The Business, Fly Golden Eagle. Revolution, 8:30 p.m., $10 adv. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. revroom.com. Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 Clinton Ave. 501-372-4782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com. Monday Night Jazz. Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 8 p.m., $5. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbar.com. Speedy Ortiz, Big Ups, Bombay Harambee, Crash Culture. Vino’s, 7 p.m., $6. 923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. www.vinosbrewpub.com. Valley of the Vapors Independent Music Festival. See March 13. ZZ Ward, Linus Young, The O’Mys. Juanita’s, 9 p.m., $18-$100. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501372-1228. www.juanitas.com.

EVENTS

11th Annual World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Featuring Jim Belushi, Mountain Man from “Duck Dynasty,” and the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. Hot Springs Convention Center, 4:30 p.m. 134 Convention Blvd., Hot Springs. 501-321-2027. www.hotsprings.org.

FILM

“The Raid 2: Berandal.” Ron Robinson Theater, 7 p.m., $10. 1 Pulaski Way. 501-320-5703. www. cals.lib.ar.us/ron-robinson-theater.aspx.

LECTURES

“Empowering Women and Girls.” A panel discussion featuring Penny Abeywadena, Jimmie Briggs, Ruby Johnson, Jerry jones, Sarah Kambou and Immaculee Kayitare. Sturgis Hall, 6 p.m. 1200 President Clinton Ave. 501-683-5200. clintonschool.uasys.edu. Panel Discussion on Ending Childhood Hunger in the United States. With Gov. Mike Beebe, actor and hunger campaign spokesman Jeff Bridges and Billy Shore, founder and CEO of Share Our Strength. Sturgis Hall, 12 p.m. 1200 President Clinton Ave. 501-683-5200. clintonschool.uasys.edu.

St. Patrick’s Day weekend? Have fun with that.

Now if you are looking to dive in head first, Biggs has got you covered. It’s gonna’ be a

crazy good time. Come get Irish with us! Open 7 Days A Week • 8pm-2am Shows Start at 8:30pm

Located in the Heart of the River Market District 307 President Clinton Avenue

501.372.4782 www.erniebiggs.com

  Come celebrate

TUESDAY, MARCH 18

MUSIC

Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 Clinton Ave. 501-372-4782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com. Lucious Spiller Band. Copeland’s Restaurant of CONTINUED ON PAGE 30

OPEN UP A CAN OF

WOOT! WOOT! Enjoy Responsibly



St. Patty’s Day with us! Green beer and drink specials start at 5pm. BE HERE.  



 



 

All American Food & Great Place to 

Watch Your Favorite Event



CLASSES

2014 Ozark Folk School. Classes in blacksmithing, pottery, weaving, soap making, broom making and more. Ozark Folk Center State Park, March 17-21, $20. 1032 Park Ave., Mountain View.

MARGARITA WITH A TWIST

  rock town whiskey Now oN Tap!

September September 33 –– 3 – September OctOber OctOber 5 March 18 - April519 5 OctOber When a conservative When a conservative radio hostradio host

AWhen Madcap Comedy Byradio Ken host Ludwig a conservative

announces theheairand that he and announces on the airon that announces on the air that he and his renew wife will renew his wife will their vowstheir vows his wife will renew their vows in all SinofCity, of the residents of in Sin City, the all residents of in Sin City, all of the residents of Tuna, Texas come Tuna, Texas come along for along the for the Tuna, Texas come along for the ride.characters Favorite characters ride. Favorite from pastfrom past ride. Favorite characters from past Tuna productions return, Tuna productions return, and new and new Tuna productions return, and new are introduced! “What hapones are ones introduced! “What hapones are introduced! “What happens stays in Vegas stays in pens in Vegas in Vegas, butVegas, but pens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but what happens when what happens when Tuna hits Tuna the hits the what happens when Tuna hits the lodge delightfully slots mayslots lodgemay delightfully in your in your slots may lodge delightfully in your for a lifetime.” - L.A. Times head for ahead lifetime.” - L.A. Times head for a lifetime.” - L.A.17 Times April 22 – May

“A Slick, lively, funny comedy.” – N.Y. Times

OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK | 11AM - LATE 225 E MARKHAM • LITTLE ROCK, AR



(501) 324-2449

bigwhiskeyslittlerock.com



562-3131 562-3131 562-3131 murrysdp.com

Share us on Share us on

www.arktimes.com

MARCH 13, 2014

Share us on

AFTER DARK, CONT. Little Rock, 6-9 p.m. 2602 S. Shackleford Road. 501312-1616. www.copelandsrestaurantlittlerock.com. Music Jam. Hosted by Elliott Griffen and Joseph Fuller. The Joint, 8-11 p.m., free. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com. Tuesday Jam Session with Carl Mouton. Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 8 p.m., free. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbar.com. Valley of the Vapors Independent Music Festival. See March 13.

DANCE

“Latin Night.” Revolution, 7:30 p.m., $5 regular, $7 under 21. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501823-0090. www.littlerocksalsa.com.

EVENTS

Tales from the South. Authors tell true stories; schedule available on website. Dinner served 5-6:30 p.m., show at 7 p.m. Call for reservations. Starving Artist Cafe, 5 p.m. 411 N. Main St., NLR. 501-372-7976. www.starvingartistcafe.net. Trivia Bowl. Flying Saucer, 8:30 p.m. 323 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-8032. www.beerknurd.com/ stores/littlerock.

LECTURES

“Gardens fit for a Queen.” A lecture by Todd Longstaff-Gowan. Sturgis Hall, 12 p.m. 1200 President Clinton Ave. 501-683-5200. clintonschool.uasys.edu. “Sizing Up Architecture: A Critic’s View.” Lecture by Mark Lamster, architecture critic for the Dallas Morning News. Arkansas Arts Center, 6 p.m. 501 E. 9th St. 501-372-4000. www.arkarts.com.

BOOKS

“Writing for a Living in Central Arkansas.” Panel discussion featuring Bobby Ampezzan, Annie Berman and Eliza Borne. Pulaski Technical College, 6 p.m. 3000 W. Scenic Drive, NLR.

CLASSES

2014 Ozark Folk School. See March 17.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19

MUSIC

Acoustic Open Mic. Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 8 p.m., free. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbar.com. Boy Meets World, Motion in Color, Wreckless Endeavor. Juanita’s, 9 p.m., $8 adv., $10 day of. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www. juanitas.com. Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 Clinton Ave. 501-372-4782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com. Local Live: TwiceSax. South on Main, 7:30 p.m., free. 1304 Main St. 501-244-9660. https://www. facebook.com/SouthonMainLR. Open Mic Nite with Deuce. Thirst n’ Howl, 7:30 p.m., free. 14710 Cantrell Road. 501-379-8189. www.thirst-n-howl.com. Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 7:30 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-374-7474. www.capitalhotel.com/CBG. Two Cow Garage, Mad Nomad. White Water Tavern, 9:30 p.m., $7. 2500 W. 7th St. 501-3758400. www.whitewatertavern.com. Yonder Mountain String Band. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9 p.m., $25. 519 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-442-4226.

COMEDY

The Joint Venture. Improv comedy group. The Joint, 8 p.m., $7. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com. 30

MARCH 13, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

DANCE

Little Rock Bop Club. Beginning dance lessons for ages 10 and older. Singles welcome. Bess Chisum Stephens Community Center, 7 p.m., $4 for members, $7 for guests. 12th & Cleveland streets. 501-350-4712. www.littlerockbopclub.

EVENTS

Women’s History Month event. In partnership with the Arkansas National Guard, the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History presents a free event to honor the service of women in the armed forces. MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, 11:30 a.m. 503 E. 9th St. 376-4602. www.arkmilitaryheritage.com.

POETRY

Wednesday Night Poetry. 21-and-older show. Maxine’s, 7 p.m., free. 700 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 501-321-0909. maxineslive.com/shows.html.

CLASSES

2014 Ozark Folk School. See March 17.

THIS WEEK IN THEATER

Chicago: The Musical. Seven performances of “Chicago: The Musical” featuring Seinfeld’s John O’Hurley. Walton Arts Center, through March 17, 7 p.m., $39-$83. 495 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-443-5600. “Les Miserables.” The Rep presents an allnew production of Alain Boublil and ClaudeMichel Schönberg’s “Les Miserables.” Arkansas Repertory Theatre, through April 6: Wed., Thu., Sun., 7 p.m.; Fri., Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m., $30$55. 601 Main St. 501-378-0405. www.therep.org. “Ripped and Wrinkled.” An original rock musical about a world famous band from North Little Rock called The Dogs. The Joint, through May 31: Fri., Sat., 8 p.m., $20. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com. “The Water Children.” The Weekend Theater, through March 22: Fri., Sat., 7:30 p.m., $12-$16. 1001 W. 7th St. 501-374-3761. www.weekendtheater.org.

GALLERIES, MUSEUMS

NEW EXHIBITS, EVENTS

ARKANSAS ARTS CENTER, MacArthur Park: “Sizing Up Architecture: A Critic’s View,” lecture by Mark Lamster of the Dallas Morning News and assistant professor at UT-Arlington, reception 5:30 p.m., talk 6 p.m. March 18, sponsored by the “Architecture and Design Network”; “The Crossroads of Memory: Carroll Cloar and the American South,” 70 paintings by the late Arkansas native, curated by Memphis’ Brooks Museum, through June 1; “Ties that Bind: Southern Art from the Collection,” atrium, through April 27; “Earthly Delights: Modern and Contemporary Highlights from the Collection,” through April 20, Strauss and Smith galleries. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat., 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun. 372-4000. BUTLER CENTER GALLERIES, Arkansas Studies Institute, 401 President Clinton Ave.: “2nd annual Arkansas Printmakers Membership Exhibition,” work by Warren Criswell, Samantha Kosakowski, Robert Bean, Diane Harper, Dominique Simmons, David Warren, Shannon Rogers, Win Bruhl, Debi Fendley, Jorey May Greene, Melissa Gill, Neal Harrington, Tammy Harrington, Evan Lindquist, Houston Fyer, Thomas Sullivan and Sherry O’Rorke, March 14-June 28; “Southern Voices,” contemporary quilts by the Studio Art Quilts Associates, March 14-May 24; “Unusual CONTINUED ON PAGE 34

A r k a n sa s Tim e s pr e s e nt s

c i k r ’ s t a D P ay . t s

Pub Crawl in the

Argenta Arts District

Monday, March 17th 6–9pm 6 to 7

The Joint

7 to 8

Reno’s Argenta Cafe

8 to 9

Cregeen’s Irish PuB

Signature Drinks at each location ! No green beer here !

ART NOTES

➥ FOUNDERS BREWING CO., a craft beer brewery based in Michigan, recently announced it is expanding its distribution territory to include the Natural State, with PREMIUM BRANDS OF NORTHWEST ARKANSAS, COCO BEVERAGE AND GOLDEN EAGLE OF ARKANSAS slated to represent the brand across Arkansas beginning in April. Residents of Arkansas can expect to find Founders’ year-round and seasonal products, both in bottles and on draft, in the first shipment. Specialty releases will follow the brewery’s release schedule from there. For a list of all the states in which Founders is available and the brewery’s 2014 availability calendar, visit foundersbrewing.com. ➥ Believe it or not, spring might actually get here soon, so if you’re thinking about trying your hand at a vegetable garden, be sure to attend the GOOD EARTH GARDEN CENTER’S free square foot gardening seminar, scheduled for 10 a.m. March 15 and 6 p.m. March 17. The seminar will be conducted by Bill Francis, Good Earth’s in-house organic specialist. According to www.squarefootgardening.com, square foot gardening is “a simple method for planting seeds in a specific way in a raised bed garden.” The seminar is free, but space is very limited; so register by calling at 501-868-4666 or emailing info@ thegoodearthgarden.com. ➥ March is jam-packed with events at Barbara/Jean. Here are some of the happenings for this week: March 13-14 — Kaufman Franco, March 13-14 — Christine A. Moore hats and March 14 — Hourglass Cosmetics. ➥ Tired of the same old birthday party options? Studio One Dance recently unveiled their new Dancing Star Birthday Party packages for ages 3 to adult. The birthday party package includes invitations; cake with candles; water or juice for kids’ parties; table settings (plates, cups, forks, napkins, and table cloths); a party host; and an experienced dance instructor leading a 30-minute dance experience to fun (clean) pop music. Special packages for adults and teens are available. Call 833-6000 or send an e-mail to Studio1Dancenlr@att.net for more information or to book a party. 32

MARCH 13, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

COLLECTION OF MRS. PATRICIA SANDSTEAD CLOAR MILSTED

hearsay

CHARLIE MAE LOOKING FOR LITTLE EDDY: At the Arkansas Arts Center.

‘Crossroads of memory’: Unforgettable Cloar exhibition one of Arts Center’s best. BY LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK

arroll Cloar isn’t exactly unsung, but he’s not sung enough. That might be because the Earle native’s tempera on Masonite paintings must be seen in person to be fully appreciated, his millions of tiny brushstrokes and dots and scumbling unreproducible on paper or jpeg. To see a Cloar is to see a mix of all great things: primitive portraiture, Seurat’s pointillism, Rousseau’s naïve symbolism and vegetation, Pollock’s drips, all in the service of Southern storytelling, stories about his own life. Hence the name of the Cloar retrospective at the Arkansas Arts Center, “The Crossroads of Memory: Carroll Cloar and the American South,” an exhibition so vast and entrancing that you’ll walk through it like a child wading through a shallow creek, slowly, happy to feel the soft mud under your feet. Cloar was born in 1913, and the show, which originated at the Brooks Museum in Memphis last year, marks the centennial of his birth with paintings from 46 private and public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum

of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Gallery, along with Arkansas collections, by Dianne and Bobby Tucker and the H. Tyndall and Carrie R. Dickinson Family Collection among others. The show is mostly paintings, some of them attended by sketches Cloar made before beginning the work. Tempera is a flat medium that allows for precise fine brushstrokes; Cloar must have worked many, many long hours to achieve the effect of grass, leaf and cloud. Maybe it’s because the Delta landscape is so familiar to me, or because I love the stylized way he renders African Americans, especially his childhood friend Charlie Mae, but I would rank this exhibition among the Arts Center’s greatest. There are paintings here you will want to stand in front of for quite some time, several of them featuring Charlie Mae or another young girl. “Charlie Mae Looking for Little Eddie” is one, with a large okra plant front and center, a vast green depth made of tiny points of paint as the background and Charlie Mae and the goat separated in the middle ground. The composition is perfect. “Charlie Mae Practicing for

the Baptism,” the child in murky green waters with the bank’s pickerel weed reflected in the waters, is Oriental in its aestheticism and just a stunning painting in greens and purples, a complementary palette that Cloar uses quite a bit. “Been a Long Old Lonesome Day” is Henri Rousseau’s jungle paintings transferred to the Arkansas Delta: As Rousseau’s “Dream” woman reclines on a velvet couch in a lush jungle, Cloar’s child sits on a Humko oil can in front of a patch of stylized and oversized weeds; as Rousseau’s “The Hungry Lion Throws Itself on the Antelope,” Cloar has placed a deep sun sinking in the horizon. “Children Pursued by Hostile Butterflies” is perhaps Cloar’s most famous painting, and the interpretation provided in the gallery reveals that Cloar splattered the paint that he later turned into butterflies as an experiment in Pollock’s gestural application. The picture plane is covered in splashed orange and yellow butterflies converging on a girl, petticoat flying, and two other children running for a house. It may be accidental, but Cloar’s “Halloween,” in which a child wearing a fright mask skips in a wide yellow field under a moon while a group of Klansmen in their hoods appear distant on the horizon, has the same composition and troubling nature as Andrew Wyeth’s “Christina.” There are many moving works here, such as “Black Levee,” which depicts black children waving long sticks standing on a levee whose vegetation is a patchy black grass that Cloar creates tiny stroke by tiny stroke. There is also the humorous: In “Getting the Car Ready,” three men looking under the hood of truck stand by a barn on which a sign, “JESUS CHRIST IS COMING BE READY,” is hung. The amazing “Artist in His Studio” depicts Cloar staring at his famously newspaperwallpapered studio wall, with each clipping pasted there reproduced in pencil; you’ll find yourself reading the headlines (“Faubus and Eisenhower Agree to for Fast Settlement”) and awed by his reproductions of newspaper photographs. A section of Cloar’s actual newspaper-wallpapered studio is erected in the gallery. There are paintings that glow yellow (“Bridge Over the Bayou”), paintings that vibrate with red against blue (“The Girl Tree”), paintings in a palette that in some places reproduces the haze of an Arkansas summer. “The Crossroads of Memory” runs through June 1.

MOVIE REVIEW

THEATER REVIEW

Rep goes big with ‘Les Mis’ A must-see for musical theater fans. BY JOHN C. WILLIAMS

Bloodier! Nakeder! Dumber! ‘300: Rise of an Empire’ doesn’t rise to the occasion. BY SAM EIFLING

he phrase sword-and-sandal used to evoke vaguely homoerotic visions of old-timey masculinity, back when Spartacus roamed the screen. (“Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?” Capt. Oveur asked in “Airplane,” and a knowing nation chortled.) Whereas the high-aspiring (and eventual Best Picture winner) “Gladiator” didn’t leer at its players’ bodies to any gratuitous degree, its successors have shown no such restraint. “Troy” sold Brad Pitt’s thighs and Eric Bana’s chest with aplomb, and cleared a tidy profit. Then “300” came along to dispense with any pretense of aiming middlebrow. By my math, exactly 2,400 individual abs starred in “300,” as every last Spartan sported a set of motocross hills over his belt, framed by a cape. Most slaughterhouse exposes feature less damp beef than “300.” Ladies leaned forward in their seats. Straight dudes who registered all the taut skin chalked their interest up to the film’s plethora of quality killing. Less-straight dudes experienced no such internal conflict. Everyone left a winner, except, spoiler alert, 300 well-muscled corpses. In crafting the sequel, “300: Rise of an Empire,” director Noam Murro and screenwriter Zack Snyder (director of the first “300,” plus “Man of Steel” and “The Watchmen”) decided that if mostly naked worked the first time, maybe even nakeder would land even better. The quality killing is still here, painted in the kind of over-digitized, starkly color-contrasting palate that gave “300” its signature graphic-novel feel. “Rise of an Empire” won’t outshine its progenitor (no “Empire Strikes Back,” this one). But it goes for broke along the way: gruesome pitched sea battles, trashy sex, blood by the tankerload, monsters, maimings, beheadings, atrocity, fire, more Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), and scads of rippling man muscles,

again framed in capes. The R-rating, such a rarity as studios water down this sort of fare for ninth-graders, is as appreciated as it is deserved. The movie isn’t particularly good, though, even as a “300” sequel. It’s dark and murky, and its lead, the Greek general Themostokles (Sullivan Stapleton), lacks the raw magnetism of Gerard Butler’s brutish Leonidas. After killing a Persian king in an attempted invasion, Themostokles earns the ire and begrudging admiration of the king’s adopted daughter, Artemisia, whom Eva Green plays as a bloodthirsty goth set on conquest of Greece. She’s one of the high points of the film, actually, paving a swath of sheer nastiness across every scene she blights. At her command are a thousand slave-rowed battleships; in her sights are Themostokles and his ragtag fleet of wooden ships. Many will die! And those quite horribly! And ... that’s about all that happens. The notions of valor and loyalty are the same recycled tropes we’ve gathered from generations of classical-ish war movies. The battle scenes are so oversaturated with digital effects that it’s hard to take them seriously as anything but a lurid Saturday morning cartoon. Every shield-and-spear orgy of the past 20 years has trailed the graphic analog savagery of “Braveheart,” and “Rise of an Empire,” like “Troy” before it, suffers in the comparison. The Greeks are underdogs, and we love ’em for that, but they don’t give us much more reason to root for them. The Spartans of “300” were feral macho surfboard models; these Greeks, no slouches, yet pattycake around with democracy and architecture and other frivolities. No one, not even Capt. Oveur, goes to see gladiator movies for the intellectual stimulation. But a shred more personality couldn’t hurt.

ictor Hugo described his novel “Les Miserables” as a journey from “bestiality to duty” and from “nothingness to God.” Viewers of the Arkansas Repertory Theatre’s musical version probably won’t experience such extremes. But they will come away thoroughly entertained by a rousing and well-executed production. Some basic exposition, for those who don’t know or perhaps have forgotten: Jean Valjean has just been released from prison after a 19-year sentence. Recidivism sets in. Our hero is bound for the slammer again and would make it there if not for a priest who rescues him from official trouble. Inspired to clean up his act, Valjean does so with remarkable success, soon becoming the owner of a profitable factory. Yet he cannot shake his pursuer Javert, a very determined inspector with a very long memory who can’t seem to forgive Valjean for stealing a loaf of bread decades after the fact. Valjean himself has a guilt complex, made worse after he discovers that one of his employees, Fantine, has been fired by his foreman and forced to work as a prostitute. To atone, Valjean pledges to raise the dying Fantine’s daughter, Cosette. Politics, revolution and love follow. Important characters die. Some suspension of disbelief may be required. Obviously, “Les Mis” is not about the plot. It’s all about the production, and The Rep delivers the goods. The songs, of course, are front and center. Whether you’re a follower of musical theater or not, you have probably heard these tunes before and will come away humming after hearing them afresh. The cast sings with passion and verve. For vocal pyrotechnics, see Fantine’s “I Dreamed a Dream” (performed by Danielle Erin Rhodes, made up to look like Anne Hathaway’s blonde doppelganger). On the lighthearted side, the standout is the ribald “Master of the House,” joyfully rendered by Michael Sample (as the depraved innkeeper Thenardier) and Terey Summers (as his equally depraved wife). Just as impressive as the songs are the set and lighting design. “Les Mis” is clearly a high-maintenance production,

JOHN DAVID PITTMAN

‘300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE’: Eva Green stars.

‘LES MISERABLES’: Douglas Webster and Sydni Whitfield star in The Rep’s production.

and the Rep has done an excellent job staging it. In the first half, the primary setpiece is an industrial-looking apparatus consisting of clean lines, curves, and plenty of stairs for the actors to bound up and down. In the second half, the set is dominated by a barricade, upon which the actors mimic battle. Smoke pours through the floors to provide additional emphasis. When the battle is over and the barricade strewn with bodies, the entire set rotates as spotlights pick out the dead revolutionaries. This is perhaps the most impressive technical feat in a production that has plenty of them — be it the projection of an orange and purple sunset or use of lighting to create the sensation of one character’s long fall from a bridge. The Rep staged “Les Mis” in the autumn of 2008, and you might reasonably ask whether you need a return viewing just five years later. If you have even an iota of interest in musical theater, the answer is yes. The cast once again features Douglas Webster as Valjean and Christopher Carl as Javert, and these two are so good that you will want to applaud them again. To see a musical of this scale in a theater the size of the Rep? That’s a pretty rare thing. When it’s done with this sort of care and attention, there’s no reason to miss it. www.arktimes.com

MARCH 13, 2014

AFTER DARK, CONT. Portraits: New Works by Michael Warrick and David O’Brien,” through March 22. Open 5-8 p.m. March 14, 2nd Friday Art Night, with music by Tribal Motion and the Motioneers; retail gallery featured artist Judy Tipton Rush. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Sat. 320-5790. COX CREATIVE CENTER, 120 River Market Ave.: Staff works in “A Thousand Words” gallery. Open 5-8 p.m. March 14, 2nd Friday Art Night. 9183093. GALLERY 221 & ART STUDIOS 221, Pyramid Place: New work by Greg Lahti, also Tyler Arnold, Kathi Couch, Emile, Gino Hollander, Sean LeCrone, Mary Ann Stafford, Bryon Taylor, Siri Hollander and Rae Ann Bayless. Open 5-8 p.m. March 14, 2nd Friday Art Night. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat. 801-0211. GALLERY 26, 2601 Kavanaugh Blvd.: Recent works by Ben Krain, Logan Hunter and Jason Smith, opens with reception 7-10 p.m. March 15 with music by the Rolling Blackouts, show through May 10. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Sat. 664-8996. HISTORIC ARKANSAS MUSEUM, 200 E. 3rd St.: “Ciara Long: A Different Perspective,” sketches, March 14-May 4; film “The Cherokee Word for Water,” screening 6 p.m. March 20, Q and A with filmmakers to follow, reserve at 324-9351; Mid-Southern Watercolorists “44th Annual Juried Exhibition,” through April 6; “A Sure Defense: The Bowie Knife in America,” through June 22; “Arkansas Made,” ongoing. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Open 5-8 p.m. March 14, 2nd Friday Art Night. Mon.Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 324-9351. MOSAIC TEMPLARS CULTURAL CENTER, 501 W. 9th St.: Family Fun event to create sculpture with found objects, led by Danny Campbell in conjunction with the exhibition “Repurposed Wonders: The Sculpture of Danny Campbell,” noon-2 p.m. March 15; permanent and changing exhibits on black entrepreneurship in Arkansas. 683-3593. OLD STATE HOUSE MUSEUM, 300 W. Markham: Second Friday Cinema: “A Face in the Crowd,” reception 5 p.m., screening 5:30 p.m.; “Lights! Camera! Arkansas!”, the state’s ties to Hollywood, including costumes, scripts, film footage, photographs and more, through March 1, 2015; “Things You Need to Hear: Memories of Growing up in Arkansas from 1890 to 1980,” oral histories about community, family, work, school and leisure, through March. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 324-9685. PAPER SCISSORS LITTLE ROCK, 300 River Market Ave.: Open 5-8 p.m. March 14, 2nd Friday Art Night. STEPHANO’S FINE ART, 1813 N. Grant St.: Scott Carle, botanical paintings. 563-4218. BENTONVILLE CRYSTAL BRIDGES MUSEUM OF AMERICAN

SPEAK, ARKANSAS, CONT.

ART, One Museum Way: “The William S. Paley Center at Mountain Home and to compete in Collection: A Taste for Modernism,” works by the Quick Draw competition at the “Art, Music Paul Gaugin, Andre Derain, Henri Matisse, Paul and Barbecue” in Cotter May 2. Landscape artist Cezanne, Edgar Degas, Pablo Picasso and oth- Bruce Peil will be judge. Artists’ registration will ers, March 15-July 7; “At First Sight,” watercolors be April 30 thru May 2. Preregistration of artists is from the personal collection of museum founder encouraged. For more information go to White Alice Walton, through April 21; “Edward Hopper: River Artists on Facebook, email whiteriverartists@ Journey to Blackwell’s Island,” preliminary sketches gmail.com or call 870-424-1051. on loan from the Whitney Museum of American Art, the finished painting and other watercolors by Hopper, through April 21; permanent collection of CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 509 Scott St.: American masterworks spanning four centuries. 11 Work by Scotty Shively, Herb and Patty Monoson, a.m.-6 p.m. Mon., Thu.; 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Wed., Fri.; Glenda Josephson, Dr. L.P. Fraiser, Dee Schulten, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sat.-Sun. 479-418-5700. Judy Johnson, Susie Henley and Maka Parnell, through March. FAYETTEVILLE THE EDGE, 301B President Clinton Ave.: Paintings UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS: “Faith and the by Avila (Fernando Gomez), Eric Freeman, James Devil,” installation by Lesley Dill, through April Hayes, Jerry Colburn, St. Joseph Thomason and 4, Fine Arts Center Gallery. Stephen Drive. 992-1099. L&L BECK ART GALLERY, 5705 Kavanaugh Blvd.: JONESBORO “Potpourri,” paintings by Louis Beck, through ARKANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY: “You Lookin’ March; drawing for free giclee 7 p.m. March 17. Good, Goin’ Goin’ Gone!” photographs by 660-4006. Rogerline Johnson Sr., Dean B. Ellis Library, UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK, through March 30; “Disparate Acts,” paintings 2801 S. University Ave.: “The ERUDITE,” metand drawings by David Bailin, Warren Criswell and alworks by non-traditional students in applied Sammy Peters, Bradbury Gallery, Fowler Center, arts, through March 17, Gallery II, gallery recepMarch 13-30, noon-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 2-5 p.m. Sun. tion 5-7 p.m. March 17; “Primary Clay,” work 870-972-3471. by Summer Bruch, Ty Brunson, Aaron Calvert, Dawn Holder, Jeannie Hulen, Beth Lambert, Linda SCOTT Lopez, Mathew McConnell, Adam Posnak, David PLANTATION AGRICULTURE MUSEUM, U.S. Smith, Liz Smith and Kensuke Yamada, Gallery III, 165 S and Hwy. 161: Quilting workshop, 9 a.m.-4 through March 27; “Say It With Snap! Motivating p.m. March 15, $20 admission, $10 kit fee; arti- Workers by Design, 1923-29,” historic posters, facts and interactive exhibits on farming in the through March 16. 569-3182. Arkansas Delta. $3 adults, $2 ages 6-12. Open 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 501-961-1409. CLINTON PRESIDENTIAL CENTER, 1200 President Clinton Ave.: “Spies, Traitors and The Arkansas Arts Council is taking applications Saboteurs: Fear and Freedom in America,” from for $4,000 artist fellowships in short story writing, the International Spy Museum in Washington, theater directing and artworks on paper. Deadline D.C., through April 27; permanent exhibits on to apply is April 18. Fellowships are awarded the Clinton administration. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.based on artistic ability and to encourage devel- Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. $7 adults; $5 college students, opment of the fellows. For more information, call seniors, retired military; $3 ages 6-17. 370-8000. the Arts Council at 324-9766 or email robinm@ ESSE, 1510 S. Main St.: “What’s Inside: A Century arkansasheritage.org. of Women and Handbags (1900-1999),” purses The Arkansas Arts Center is taking entries now from the collection of Anita Davis, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. through April 17 for its 56th annual Delta Tue.-Sun., $10-$8. 916-9022. Exhibition, open to artists in Arkansas and con- MOSAIC TEMPLARS CULTURAL CENTER, 501 W. tiguous states. Show dates are June 27-Sept. 28. 9th St.: “Repurposed Wonders: The Sculpture of Juror will be Brian Rutenberg. Prizes include the Danny Campbell,” permanent and changing exhib$2,500 Grand Award, two $750 Delta Awards its on black entrepreneurship in Arkansas. 683-3593. and a $250 Contemporaries Delta Award. Artists MUSEUM OF DISCOVERY, 500 President Clinton may register and upload images at www.arkan- Ave.: “Wiggle Worms,” science program for pre-K sasartscenter.org. children 10-10:30 a.m. every Tue., 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Plein Air on the White River 2014, to be held Tue.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun., $10 ages 13 and older, $8 April 30-May 3, is accepting entries from art- ages 1-12, free to members and children under ists to show work at the Vada Sheid Community 1. 396-7050.

CONTINUING EXHIBITS

ONGOING MUSEUM EXHIBITS

CALL FOR ENTRIES

SOME SPECIAL LAWMAKING, CONT. Continued from page 10 does have the authority to do that, and I think there is a proper process. You saw some items that did not make it out of committee and some that did. And it’s just another tool, another part of the legislative process.” Even constitutional issues aside, questions persist about the process. Sen. Joyce Elliott (D-Little Rock), a critic of the special language process as it currently exists, agrees that the committee is necessary but said she believes it has 34

MARCH 13, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

been misused. “Whether you’re in a regular session or a fiscal session, there are going to be some things that have discrete, little nuanced changes or exceptions that needed to be made, but in small ways that have to be reconsidered every year. Temporary things, not something that’s going to set in place a profound, sustained policy going forward. “It was never meant to make substantive changes to policy, in my estimation — otherwise, that would just be a bill that would go through any other com-

mittee hearing.” Elliott also questioned the appointment process for the committee, noting its lack of diversity. “From the Senate side, it’s eight white males on Special Language. On the House side, there is one woman. ... We are considering things that maybe don’t fit into any particular category, which screams for having a more diverse group of opinions and folks on that committee. And these decisions about who’s on S.L. is strictly up to the President Pro Tem and the Speaker.”

Continued from page 11 Hays. Then in the early ’90s, I went and joined Al in L.A. after he started Bellmark Records. We set up on Hollywood Boulevard and that’s when we struck gold again. We hit with “Whoomp There It Is.” We hit with “Dazzey Duks.” We hit with Prince’s “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” after Warner Brothers told him that song wasn’t radio friendly. At first there were six of us and then all of a sudden we had 60 employees. This was all 15 years after Stax had been destroyed, after they had almost destroyed Al. I was young then and I was a fighter. Coming out of Little Rock with my experience, that made me a fighter. I’m living on the Boulevard and we hitting it good. I’m back in the Stax days. But if we repeated the success of Stax, we repeated the other side, too. Just like Stax, people were working against us and the company went bankrupt in 1997. We went through all this money real fast. We were back, but now we done lost again. Eventually, I came back home. I was having a battle with alcohol at that time and I was down. I came into [lawyer and state representative] John Walker’s office and John put me back up. I started working campaigns for the school board, worked for Joyce Elliot. They utilized my talent. God gave me the gift of marketing. Ever since I was a kid ... when I was at St. Augustine in North Little Rock, the sisters would have me sell raffle tickets. I was a real dark little boy, nappy hair, and they would put me on the bus and send me in front of Franke’s Cafeteria. I would hold those tickets out and tell people how we were raffling off 10 beautiful prizes. If they called me “nigger” and told me to get out of their face, I would just say, “God bless you.” Usually then they would say, “OK, come on back here.” Every year, I won the contest to sell the most tickets. Even when I was a kid, I ain’t never had no problem talking to nobody. Black people, white people. It doesn’t faze me. Same with working politics today. Now I’m working for Regina Hampton, who’s running for state auditor. People are astonished how I’m able to get on the phone, call people and just automatically talk to them. But I’ve been doing it all my life. I’m doing the politics, still dabbling in the music business, and I’ve started doing upholstery work again too — that’s a trade my daddy taught me when I was growing up. Doing whatever I need to do: That’s where I am today. I’m 66 years old. I’m a survivor. — As told to David Ramsey

2014 ARKANSAS TIMES

MUSICIANS SHOWC A SE congratulations,

Mad nomad Winner of the 2014 Musicians Showcase!

MANY THANKS TO SOME OF ARKANSAS’S BEST BANDS! The Fable & The Fury, Basement Brew, Peckerwolf, People’s Republic of Casio Tones, Fox Blossom Venture, John Willis, Deadend Drive, Bombay Harambee, Chris Alan Craig, Flight Machine, Flameing Daeth Fearies, The Talking Liberties, Crash Meadows, The Machete with Love, Duckstronaut, My Brother My Friend, Shawn James & the Shapeshifters, John Neal Rock’n’Roll, The Vail

THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS FOR DONATING PRIZE PACKAGES

brian chilson

Dining WHAT’S COOKIN’ TERRIFIC NEWS FOR THE SWEETTOOTHED AMONG US: Ashton Woodward, the baking wizard behind Arkansas Fresh Bakery, plans to start a chocolate line featuring handmade traditional Belgian-style chocolates. Foodies know Woodward as the man behind some of the best breads and buns in town, featured at restaurants like Big Orange, Boscos, The Pantry, 1620 Savoy and many others. Now he’s ready to apply his artisinal care to chocolate. “I worked for a couple years in Chicago doing handmade bonbons,” Woodward said. “Nobody [locally] has come close to the quality of work that I learned in Chicago and that I intend to replicate. It’s a big deal for the bakery because it’s an expansion of an already good product line.” One likely project is a partnership with Rock Town Distillery, with a line of chocolates using its liquors. “Some of my favorite pieces I learned to bake in Chicago use liquor, and I’m drawing a lot of inspiration from traditional cocktails,” Woodward said. Rock Town might sell the chocolates through its own retail space and might also look to distribute through liquor stores it sells to. The symbiotic relationship for the two local companies wouldn’t just be crosspromotion — it would also give Woodward a chance to affordably use high-quality liquors, a rare luxury for a chocolatier. In addition to that partnership, Woodward is hoping to release a larger Arkansas Fresh chocolate line — eventually he’d like to offer a half-pound box of assorted chocolates. In addition to the liquor-filled chocolates, Woodward said he plans to develop a large variety in the Belgian style. “They use a lot of really bold flavors, a lot of nut flavors,” he said. “But anything that goes with chocolate is fair game. We did a chili pepper and cinnamon piece in Chicago. I would, of course, draw from as many local inspirations as possible — like this deal with Rock Town, that’s a great starting point.” Woodward is hoping to have both his own line and the Rock Town line ready by the holiday season. Like the bakery, he’d probably start selling the chocolates wholesale but with an eye toward retail sales down the road. The chocolate shop will be in the same space as his bakery in Bryant, and Woodward envisions eventually selling both fresh bread and chocolates in the front of the shop. In the meantime, what about those of us looking to get Woodward’s baked goods directly? Arkansas Fresh was selling retail out of Argenta Market, but now that that store has closed, Arkansas Fresh CONTINUED ON PAGE 38 36

MARCH 13, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

BRAZILIAN DELIGHT: Cafe Bossa Nova’s Salpicao.

Small bites A sampling from our food and drinks blog, Eat Arkansas.

Salpicao at Bossa Nova There are several cuisines we are deficient in here in Little Rock — Thai, Korean and Spanish immediately come to mind. But we’re happy to have a Brazilian option in Cafe Bossa Nova. The Hillcrest staple was established in 2002 by Brazil native Rosalia Monroe, using recipes she brought with her from South America. The place remains a popular dining location for both dinner and lunch, and with the addition of the adjoining bakery, Rosalia’s Family Bakery, this little corner of Little Rock is irreplaceable. Looking through the menu, one dish in particular might get brushed over thanks to its somewhat odd combination of ingredients. But this dish is placed at the top of the “Especialidades da Casa” section for good reason — the Salpicao deserves your attention. It starts with a base bed of white rice topped with shredded chicken. From there you’ll find chopped Fuji apples, carrots, sweet peas and herbs all blended with mayonnaise and finished with crispy fried potato strings. The marriage of flavors and textures in this dish is remarkable. Sweet and salty, crisp and creamy — it’s well-balanced and delightful to dig through. The chopped apples — a component I initially balked at — were the stars of the plate, though the crisp potatoes were

not far behind. My only beef with Bossa Nova is its prices — the Salpicao will set you back about $16, but it’s not even the most expensive of the lunch options, and dinner only goes up from there. With drink and tip, my lunch cost me more than $20, and while the portion was decently sized, the tab felt a little steep for a casual lunch. Perhaps if Bossa Nova threw in some complementary samples of its famous yucca-flour cheese bread, the tab would be a little easier to swallow, but as it is, price is the single factor that keeps me from heading there more often. But I’ll be back — I’m not done with exploring their intriguing and original menu. I’m inspired by the Salpicao, and I’m eager to eat my way through more of their especialidades. Cafe Bossa Nova is located at 2701 Kavanaugh Blvd., Suite 203. — Daniel Walker

South on Main pork skins The pork skins at South on Main are like no other I’ve tasted. The restaurant decided to make them as a way to curb waste: Much of its pork comes from Falling Sky Farms in Marshall, and it comes with the skin on. Rather than chuck all that pork skin into the trash, the SoM crew decided to scrape

it and fry it in grease to make these puffy treats I’m raving about. The result is an airy confection that starts with a slight crunch and then dissolves into what recent dining companion Steve Schuler, producer for the Little Rock Foodcast podcast, called “a blissful memory of pork.” The light spicy seasoning on these pork skins adds a bit of kick, but it’s the flavor of those high-quality pigs that shines through in every bite. Imagine, if you will, something that melts on your tongue like cotton candy but tastes like the best pork you’ve ever eaten. The South on Main pork skins are available on the restaurant’s bar menu, so the next time you feel the need to get one of David Burnette’s cocktails into your system, soak up some of that alcohol with a bowl of these lovely bits of crunchy pork. I promise you’ll be glad you did. South on Main is located at 1304 S. Main St. — Michael Roberts

Vino’s specialty brews Ah, beer. Cool, refreshing, thirstquenching — the very basis of civilization itself. This glorious concoction of malted barley and hops is generally considered to be an everyman drink, something to ease a mind stressed from work or wash down the various burgers, pizza slices, or hot wings while the ball game is on television. But beer has gotten feisty in the past decade, and brewers have moved beyond basic lagers and ales into some very new territory. Beer drinkers have gone right along, gravitating toward beers so hoppy that they’re almost wormwood bitter, imperial stouts that hit the gut like a shot of bourbon, and wild yeast sours that pucker the jaw as they hit the tongue. Experimental brewing is here in Arkansas, too, folks, and once again, Josiah Moody of Vino’s Brew Pub is right at the forefront. Moody has pushed the small microbrewery at the Seventh and Chester restaurant beyond anything I ever thought possible, and the result has been a string of fantastic brews unique on the Arkansas drinking scene. A recent trip to Vino’s saw two of these unique brews on tap, the first a doppelbock that had been cask-conditioned with locally grown Dunbar Garden hops. Despite clocking in at a

Information in our restaurant capsules reflects the opinions of the newspaper staff and its reviewers. The newspaper accepts no advertising or other considerations in exchange for reviews, which are conducted anonymously. We invite the opinions of readers who think we are in error.

B Breakfast L Lunch D Dinner $ Inexpensive (under $8/person) $$ Moderate ($8-$20/person) $$$ Expensive (over $20/person) CC Accepts credit cards

DED R FA OS R E S TA U R A N T E

DINING CAPSULES relatively high (for beer) ABV of 8.5 percent, the doppel was smooth and refreshing, and as it warmed slightly, the flavor of the hops opened up into a wonderful array of floral and aromatic flavors. It’s one of Moody’s best beers to date, one with which he is justifiably pleased. The second specialty beer on tap was something called the Holy Mole, a milk stout made with milk sugar and a healthy dose of scorpion peppers, also grown at Dunbar. The scorpion pepper ranks among the hottest peppers on Earth, requiring the folks using it to take special precautions to prevent chemical burns. I tried Josiah’s prototype pepper stout last year and was surprised at how the spicy pepper added some bite to the stout while the milk sugar served to break down and balance out all that heat. This year’s stout, however, wound up being a little spicier than last year’s, thanks to a more pungent crop from Dunbar. Working with peppers can be thought of as comparable to the Castle Bravo nuclear test carried out in the mid-1950s — scientists wound up with a yield nearly double what they expected due to the volatile nature of the ingredients used. So yeah, this is a spicy beer — but is it still good? The answer is a resounding “yes,” especially for folks who dig spicy food. There is a certain segment of craft beer lovers known as “hop heads” because of their fondness for strong IPAs and other hoppy brews; I think beers like this might spawn another subset called “spice heads” who seek out different brews made with peppers to compare the relative merits and flavors present when the hot stuff is added to beer. There’s more to this milk stout than heat, however. When the initial heat fades, there are nice chocolate notes that are rounded out by the creamy texture of the beer. Anyone who has ever had Aztec-style hot chocolate knows how invigorating a cup of spicy, creamy chocolate can be, and this beer fulfills much of that same flavor profile. I’m glad to have put a glass of this into my belly, and while I don’t think this could ever be a session beer, it’s certainly one worth trying at least once (or five times). Vino’s is located at 923 W. Seventh St. — Michael Roberts

REAL DEAL

authentic new orleans recipes

AMERICAN

4 SQUARE CAFE AND GIFTS Vegetarian salads, soups, wraps and paninis and a broad selection of smoothies in an Arkansas products gift shop. 405 President Clinton Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-244-2622. BLD daily. ARKANSAS BURGER CO. Good burgers, fries and shakes, plus salads and other entrees. Try the cheese dip. 7410 Cantrell Road. Beer, Wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-663-0600. LD Tue.-Sat. ASHLEY’S The premier fine dining restaurant in Little Rock. The menu is often daring and always delicious. 111 W. Markham St. Full bar, All CC. $$$. 501-374-7474. BLD Mon.-Sat. BR Sun. BRAVE NEW RESTAURANT Chef/owner Peter Brave was doing “farm to table” before most of us knew the term. His focus is on fresh, highquality ingredients prepared elegantly but simply. Ordering the fish special is never a bad choice. His chocolate crème brulee sets the pace. 2300 Cottondale Lane. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-663-2677. LD Mon.-Fri. D Sat. BRAY GOURMET DELI AND CATERING Turkey spreads in four flavors and the homemade pimiento cheese are the signature items at Chris Bray’s delicatessen, which serves sandwiches, wraps, soups, stuffed potatoes and salads and sells the turkey spreads to go. 323 Center St. Suite 150. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-353-1045. BL Mon.-Fri. CAPITAL BAR AND GRILL Big hearty sandwiches, daily lunch specials and fine evening dining all rolled up into one at this landing spot downtown. Surprisingly inexpensive with a great bar staff and a good selection of unique desserts. 111 Markham St. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-374-7474. LD daily. CAPITOL BISTRO Serving breakfast and lunch items, including quiche, sandwiches, coffees and the like. 1401 W. Capitol Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-371-9575. BL Mon.-Fri. CATFISH HOLE Downhome place for wellcooked catfish and tasty hushpuppies. 603 E. Spriggs. NLR. Beer, All CC. $-$$. 501-758-3516. D Tue.-Sat. CIAO BACI The focus is on fine dining in this casually elegant Hillcrest bungalow, though excellent tapas are out of this world. The treeshaded, light-strung deck is a popular destination. 605 N. Beechwood St. Full bar, All CC. $$$. 501-603-0238. D Mon.-Sat. DOE’S EAT PLACE A skid-row dive turned power brokers’ watering hole with huge steaks, great tamales and broiled shrimp. 1023 W. Markham St. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-3761195. LD Mon.-Fri., D Sat. FLYING FISH The fried seafood is fresh and crunchy and there are plenty of raw, boiled and grilled offerings, too. 511 President Clinton Ave. Beer, Wine, All CC. $$. 501-375-3474. LD daily. GUS’S WORLD FAMOUS FRIED CHICKEN The best fried chicken in town. Go for chicken and waffles on Sundays. 300 President Clinton Ave. Beer, CC. $-$$. 501-372-2211. LD daily. HOMER’S Great vegetables, huge yeast rolls and killer cobblers. 2001 E. Roosevelt Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-374-1400. BL Mon.-Fri. 9700 N Rodney Parham. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-224-6637. LD Mon.-Sat. CONTINUED ON PAGE 38

THE

LITTLE ROCK’S MOST AWARD WINNING RESTAURANT 1619 Rebsamen Rd. 501-663-9734

SHRIMP & GRITS

,/.0&'('-1)&2 34567889158:;<=638>?74@ <AB<<6@%C%D38>?E<=6 BFG<4H@4:%C%>B<<>6@859<458

!"#$%&'(%)*+,-.''%-(

!"#$%#&$%'"&

0*I,%'J+)/% ,J-+*-&J+(K

!"#$%&!'#()&*+,-#"$. /,,),(0&1'2(-3&4,(2 5"++%&562'&72,.89'#&:8;+<& =+,(&>"?, @"?,'#(A&BC"#$"D$, !"#$%&"'$%(')$%&*"%+%,,-./,,0. 123%4%!-5%+%,,-./63)#37*5

WINE BuYS 750ML

1.75L Spirits

Mar 12 - Mar 18

Decoy Sonoma Cabernet, Pinot Noir, & Napa Red Blend Reg $27.99.............................. Sale $18.99

Dewars White Label Scotch Reg $39.99 ............................ Sale $34.99

2014

BEER SPECIALS

Decoy Sonoma Chardonnay & Sauvignon Blanc Reg $17.99 .............................. Sale $13.99

Modelo Especial 12pk Cans Reg $16.99.............................. Sale $14.99

MacMurray Ranch 2011 RRV/Sonoma Pinot Noir Reg $25.99 ............................. Sale $18.99

Boulevard Irish Ale 6pk Bottles Reg $8.29 .................................. Sale $7.29

Michael David 2013 Sauvignon Blanc Reg $14.99...............................Sale $11.99

Marshall Big Jamoke 6pk Bottles Reg $9.79.................................. Sale $8.79

We Will MatCh any loCal, advertiSed priCe! Bring in the ad to Save.

Prairie Artisan Ales Funky Galaxy 16.9oz Bottle Reg $8.99 .................................. Sale $7.99

*in Store only • While Supplies last.

George Dickel #12 Tennessee Whiskey Reg $39.99 ............................ Sale $32.99 360 Organic Vodka Reg $24.99 ............................. Sale $19.99 Don Q Cristal & Gold Rum Reg $20.99 ............................. Sale $16.99

750ML CONNOISSEuR SELECTIONS Knob Creek Single Barrel Bourbon Reg $29.99 ............................ Sale $23.99 Don Julio Blanco Tequila Reg $45.99 ............................ Sale $38.99 Tito’s Handmade Vodka Reg $20.59 ............................. Sale $16.99 Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum Reg $16.49..............................Sale $13.49

11200 W. Markham Street · 501-223-3120 · colonialwineshop.com · facebook.com/ColonialWines C E L E B R AT E R E S P O N S I B LY.

www.arktimes.com

MARCH 13, 2014

DINING CAPSULES, CONT. THE ROOT CAFE Homey, local foods-focused cafe. With tasty burgers, homemade bratwurst, banh mi and a number of vegan and veggie options. Breakfast and Sunday brunch, too. 1500 S. Main St. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-414-0423. BL Tue.-Sat., BR Sun. SONNY WILLIAMS’ STEAK ROOM Steaks, chicken and seafood in a wonderful setting in the River Market. Steak gets pricey, though. Menu is seasonal, changes every few months. 500 President Clinton Ave. Full bar, All CC. $$$. 501-324-2999. D Mon.-Sat. SOUTH ON MAIN Fine, innovative takes on Southern fare in a casual, but well-appointed setting. 1304 Main St. Full bar, CC. $-$$. 501-244-9660. L Mon.-Fri., D Tue.-Sat. TABLE 28 Excellent fine dining with lots of creative flourishes. Branch out and try the Crispy Squid Filet and Quail Bird Lollipops. 1501 Merrill Drive. Full bar, CC. $$$-$$$$. 224-2828. D Mon.-Sat.

ASIAN

A.W. LIN’S ASIAN CUISINE Excellent panAsian with wonderful service. 17717 Chenal Parkway. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-821-5398. LD daily. HANAROO SUSHI BAR One of the few spots in downtown Little Rock to serve sushi. With an expansive menu, featuring largely Japanese fare. Try the popular Tuna Tatari bento box. 205 W. Capitol Ave. Beer, Wine, All CC. $$. 501-3017900. L Mon.-Fri., D Mon.-Sat. MIKE’S CAFE VIETNAMESE Cheap Vietnamese that could use some more spice, typically. The pho is good. 5501 Asher Ave. Beer, CC. $-$$. 501-562-1515. LD daily. MR. CHEN’S ASIAN SUPERMARKET AND RESTAURANT A combination Asian restaurant

BARBECUE

ZAFFINO’S BY NORI A high-quality Italian dining experience. Pastas, entrees (don’t miss the veal marsala) and salads are all outstanding. 2001 E. Kiehl Ave. NLR. Beer, Wine, All CC. 501-834-7530. D Tue.-Sat.

EUROPEAN / ETHNIC

COTIJA’S A branch off the famed La Hacienda family tree downtown, with a massive menu of tasty lunch and dinner specials, the familiar white cheese dip and sweet red and fieryhot green salsas, and friendly service. 406 S. Louisiana St. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-244-0733. L Mon.-Fri. FONDA MEXICAN CUISINE Authentic Mex. The guisado (Mexican stew) is excellent. 400 N. Bowman Road. Full bar, CC. $$-$$$. 501-3134120. LD Tue.-Sun.

and grocery with cheap, tasty and exotic offerings. 3901 S. University Ave. $. 501-562-7900. LD daily.

CHIP’S BARBECUE Tasty, if a little pricey, barbecue piled high on sandwiches generously doused with the original tangy sauce or one of five other sauces. 9801 W. Markham St. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-225-4346. LD Mon.-Sat. PIT STOP BAR AND GRILL A working-man’s bar and grill, with barbecue, burgers, breakfast and bologna sandwiches, plus live music on Friday and Saturday nights. 5506 Baseline Road. Full bar, No CC. $$. 501-562-9635. BLD daily.

ANATOLIA RESTAURANT Middle of the road Mediterranean fare. 315 N. Bowman Road. No alcohol, CC. $-$$. 501-219-9090. L Tue.-Sun., D Tue.-Sat. ISTANBUL MEDITERRANEAN RESTAURANT This Turkish eatery offers decent kebabs and great starters. Possibly the best Turkish coffee in Central Arkansas. 11525 Cantrell Road. No alcohol, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-223-9332. LD daily. NEXT BISTRO & BAR Mediterranean food and drinks. 2611 Kavanaugh Blvd. Full bar, All CC. 501-663-6398. D Tue.-Thu., Sat.

ITALIAN

CIAO ITALIAN RESTAURANT Don’t forget about this casual yet elegant bistro tucked into a downtown storefront. The fine pasta and seafood dishes, ambiance and overall charm combine to make it a relaxing, enjoyable, affordable choice. 405 W. Seventh St. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-372-0238. L Mon.-Fri., D Thu.-Sat.

We’re Pleased To Welcome carrie Hencyk To our Team! (Formerly with Gordon Foods) Purveyors of Gourmet Products • Serving Little Rock, Memphis & Oxford (901) 794-4800 • www.gallerfoods.com

Pork • lamb • antIPasta • graIns • desserts • Flours • duCk • WIld game

SPECIAL INTRODUCTORY RATE FOR NEW SPA CLIENTS: SWEDISH MASSAGE OR BIODYNAMIC FACIAL FOR JUST $5000 MARCH 13, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

Veal • olIVes • CharCuterIe • ChoColates

Pastas • ImPorted Cheese • VInegars

Pastas • ImPorted Cheese • VInegars • olIVe oIl • loCal Farmstead ProduCts

WHAT’S COOKIN’, CONT.

LATINO

ARKANSAS TIMES

MARKETPLACE TO ADVERTISE IN THIS SECTION, CALL LUIS AT 501.375.2985

addicts will have to rely on the Argenta Farmers Market for their fix. On that front, one more piece of good news: Plans are in the works for a Farmers Market partnership with Jonathan Wilkins, who until last summer was making transcendent bar food (featuring Arkansas Fresh buns) at White Water Tavern. Wilkins, who has been putting in some time at the bakery, will likely be contributing to the Arkansas Fresh farmers’ market stall. “He brings a lot of skills to the table,” Woodward said. Details are still being hammered out — Wilkins might offer pickles or other cottage-industry prepared foods, farmraised eggs, or perhaps hot food eventually.

Full-time customer service representative needed for local payroll firm. Must be personable, pleasant, and eager to assist callers. Applicants fluent in Spanish are welcome! Benefits available. Email resume to careers@palcofirst.com.

local payroll Firm seeking data entry clerk m-F. Must have a strong work ethic and willingness to learn, proficient in MS Office. Benefits available. Email resume to careers@palcofirst.com.

ARKANSAS TIMES MARKETPLACE

Macximize

Learn to get more from your Mac at home or office.

• Aid in choosing the right Mac for you and your budget • iMac, MacBook, iPad, iPhone • Troubleshooting • Wireless internet & backup

• Data Recovery • Hardware Installs • Hard drive installation & memory expansion • Organize photos, music, movies & email

Call Cindy Greene - Satisfaction Always Guaranteed

MOVING TO MAC

www.movingtomac.com

cindy@movingtomac.com • 501-681-5855

1001 W. 7th Street, Little Rock, AR 72201 is proud to present

IT’S HAPPENING RIGHT NOW ON THE ARKANSAS BLOG. WWW.ARKTIMES.COM

ARKANSAS TIMES

❤ Adoption ❤

At-home-mom, Financially Secure Couple, LoVE & Laughter, travel awaits baby. Expenses paid.

1-800-557-9529 Lisa & Kenny

❤❤❤❤❤❤

Finance Officer Bilingual

(Spanish/English)

A thought-provoking, funny play capturing the pro-life vs. pro-choice battle with wit and compassion for both sides.

Fridays March 14 & 21

Faith Dental Clinic Beautiful SmileS make Happy people!

ChiLDren anD aDuLtS

We accept: ar-KiDS, Medicaid and all types of insurance. PayMent PLanS · Monday-Saturday

saturdays March 15 & 22

www.faithdentalclinic.com

Lilliam Prado, DDS

show starts at 7:30pM For ticket information please visit weekendtheater.org or call 501-374-3761

Applies technical skills in risk management, compliance, finance, and accounting to promote effective and efficient financial management & accountability. Ensures alignment with regulatory, organizational, & bestpractice standards. Bach + 5 yrs exp. Fluent English/Spanish.

To apply heifer.org/careers 7301 Baseline rd · Little rock · (501) 565-3009

Heifer International is an AA/EOE.

Find us on Facebook Faith Dental Clinic · www.faithdentailclinic.com www.arktimes.com

MARCH 13, 2014

e r e h e W n i t I h S k c s i e t S o D n u S e Th

mbrio 500 Ca stomize ® T IA new F s to cu ph, the 00,000 way m 0 6 o 5 ks up t r over at wor eir views. Fo h t f o o are th sition r m. ree-po o want to sh to fiatusa.co h t e u h uniq r go le w With a ed for peop IAT Studio o F n l ig is des ur loca visit yo , s r u o y