Arkansas Times - February 26, 2015

NEWS + POLITICS + ENTERTAINMENT + FOOD / FEBRUARY 26, 2015 / ARKTIMES.COM

ARTS

CENTERED WHERE? Desire for a new building could uproot Little Rock’s longtime cultural gem and send it across the river

BY LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK

Ride the ARKANSAS TIMES

BLUES BUS APRIL 11, 2015

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Adam Faucett & The Tall Grass Buffalo w/ Listen Sister

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FEBRUARY 26, 2015

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COMMENT

American id

After satisfying myself that Sen. Cotton really did say what he said about miscreants rotting in A.) hell, or B). Guantanamo Prison (in other words, that you guys weren’t just making this stuff up), I have to say that a part of me agrees 100 percent with him.That part is called the id. It’s the part of us that demands immediate gratification, the only part of our consciousness present at birth, probably located in our brain stem.

I tried to look up its exact location, but “location of Idaho” was as close as I could get. Close enough. Freud described the id as a riderless horse, which is apropos for our purposes here. Not for nothing do we have the word idiot. The Native Americans are supposed to have believed that the camera steals the soul.

Maybe “reveals” is a better word.

Indulging in this kind of kill-’em-all rhetoric feels good, but in order to defeat ISIS we’re going to have to reevaluate some of our own stuff in order to avoid playing into its hands, and bilge like Cotton’s is as good a place as any to start.

Mark Whitman Johnson Little Rock From the web in response to Michael Roberts’ Eat Arkansas blog post, “We can do better, Little Rock,” bemoaning Chick-fil-A ranking as 2014’s highest grossing restaurant in Little Rock and encouraging readers to eat at local restaurants instead.

I think we have some excellent local restaurants and I frequent them but Chick-fil-A is delicious for fast food.

Most people either don’t care about their politics or they agree with them but apparently many people think the chicken is a superior product. Good luck, but I don’t think you will be diminishing their sales with your rhetoric.

Andrew Branch I avoided Chick-fil-A for nearly four years due to politics, and I regret it.

Since my rediscovery of the amazing Chick-fil-A sandwich a few months ago, I eat there at least twice per week.

Perhaps instead of crying about how much money Chick-fil-A makes, you should encourage local restaurants to aspire to the clear success of Chick-filA. The market has spoken, and Chickfil-A rules. I do go out of my way to eat local and support local restaurants/ 4

FEBRUARY 26, 2015

ARKANSAS TIMES

farms. If a local restaurant had anything comparable to the deliciousness, speed, polite service and quality of a Chick-fil-A sandwich, I would eat there. But they don’t. infidel Y’all need to stop eating factoryfarmed chicken, which is all fast food.

Follow one of the trucks transporting chickens to the slaughterhouse to see what winds up on your plate. The chickens are filthy dirty and some of them are obviously sick and injured. theoutlier I’m shocked at the Chick-fil-A defense. Really. However, as much as I try to support local businesses over chains, all this clamoring for delicious fried chicken makes me hopeful that somewhere a Bojangles exec is reading these comments and is planning to open a Famous Chicken and Biscuits restaurant here in Little Rock!

The Rank Stranger Clearly many people on this thread know better than the common unsophisticated consumer how best to spend their hard-earned food dollars.

I wonder how many of the kitchen staff at South on Main or one of the other local restaurants are able to afford to feed their family of four if they must pay $9 per chicken sandwich. Be upset all you want, but in a state with a rather low average income, places like Chick-fil-A thrive because they offer a great product at a reasonable price working people can afford.

Sure it isn’t locally grown hormonefree chickens that were read poetry every night before bed, but who can afford that shit on a regular basis when they support a family on $20K per year.

DrewJD From the web, in response to Leslie Peacock’s cover story, “Little Rock’s flyover status grows, thanks to changes in the airline business”: Even though the airport is losing money if federal subsidies are not counted, the Airport Commission made up of successful businessmen and one woman fail to run the operation as they run their businesses. Declining passengers, loss of flights, increasing expenses and salaries while revenue declines seem to offer obvious solutions. Yet they seem hell-bent on giving the airport

True stories told by the LGBTQ Southerners who lived them.

Tuesday, March 3, 2015 Best Impressions Restaurant in the Arkansas Arts Center www.talesfromthesouth030315.eventbrite.com “The ‘End Hate’ series is a conceptual art project based on the labels once placed on doors, not that long ago, from our shameful past. These doors convey a message to remind others of how dangerous and repressive the labels of discrimination can be, and how everyone deserves the right to walk through any and ALL doors with dignity and respect.” -V.L. Cox

director a larger salary and a whopping bonus. What is wrong with this stinking picture? A wholesale change in leadership seems to be the answer. downtowner XNA has lost flights, too. Flights to Miami, Salt Lake City, Raleigh, Memphis, D.C. and Los Angeles have been dropped or reduced. Directs to Minneapolis will continue due to the significant overlap in business between accounts dealing with both Walmart and Target keeping the planes filled.

FSMXNA I have to fly for business. Tomorrow I catch a 9:45 flight, go to Dallas Love THEN go to New Orleans. I will not get in until 2 p.m. I have had to drive to Memphis several times to get cheaper direct flights that make the company happy but are a pain for me. Drive to Memphis, fly to destination ... work several days ... fly back to Memphis then drive back to Little Rock. Even flights out of Memphis are harder to work with. If not an international airport the regional airports are going to continue going down in the number of flights. Flying out of Little Rock is easy, few lines, quick security and relaxed, BUT if I cannot get the flights I need it is not going to matter.

Miss Ellie From the web in response to Max Brantley’s column “Little Rock’s time” (Feb. 19): To be tolerant yourself, would you not have to be tolerant of those whom you regard as intolerant? Although eliminating by law and, more importantly, by action, discrimination because of race, ethnicity, religion, and other such characteristics (please see above, regarding political points of view) is good for business, is not the better reason that practicing nondiscrimination is the right thing to do? deadseasquirrel From the web in response to the dining review, “Samantha’s taps into new Main vibe” (Feb. 19):

“End Hate: True Stories Told by the LGBT Southerners Who Lived Them” Wed, March 4th | 6pm-8:30pm The Oyster Bar, 3003 W. Markham, Little Rock Tickets: $15 in Advance, $20 at the Door www.talesfromthesouth030415.eventbrite.com

The waffle. OH MY the waffle.

Unlike any other waffle I’ve ever eaten.

Likely quite dangerous that Samantha’s is only a two minute walk from our front door. Love this place! They had me at PURSE HOOKS. AshAhrens

Hey, do this!

EVERY SUNDAY!

MARCH

Oxford American presents Local Live at South on Main. All shows are FREE and begin at 7:30 p.m.

3/4 THE AMY GARLAND BAND 3/11 CHUCK DODSON & JOE MCMAHAN 3/18 JOHN BUSH GROUP 3/25 CLAIRE HOLLEY Also this month the Oxford American brings That Arkansas Weather (March 14) and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band (March 19) to South on Main.

All are welcome to join us for meditation, reflection and prayer on Sunday mornings’ 9 – 9 at THE WOLFE STREET CENTER 10th and Louisiana. Presented by Friends of Wolfe St.

Food, Music, Entertainment and everything else that’s MARCH 3

As part of the Landers FIAT River Rhapsodies Series, the ARKANSAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA welcomes ARTIST OF DISTINCTION: VADIM GLUZMAN at the Clinton Presidential Center at 7 p.m. Tickets are $23 for adults and $10 for students and available at www. arkansassymphony.org.

MARCH 6

THE REV ROOM hosts the finale of the ARKANSAS TIMES MUSICIANS SHOWCASE featuring the best in local music after five weeks of competition.

Support your favorite act, and be there when the winner is announced. Doors open at 8 p.m. Admission is $5 for 21 and up, $10 for under 21 crowd.

MARCH 10-11

THE VAN-DELLS, the nation’s #1 rock n roll revue, return to MURRY’S DINNER PLAYHOUSE with the music of the ‘50s and ‘60s. Complete with costume changes, comedy and tight harmony, their show is not to be missed.

For show times and tickets, visit www.murrysdp.com.

MARCH 13

2ND FRIDAY ART NIGHT celebrates its 10th anniversary with a food drive supporting the Arkansas Food Bank. Support this important local cause while enjoying art, music and refreshments in the heart of the city with free shuttle and trolley service to and from participating locations.

MARCH 3

MARCH 6-APRIL 12

THE ARKANSAS REPERTORY THEATRE presents MARY POPPINS. Including a score filled with timeless classics such as “Feed the Birds,” “Jolly Holiday,” “Step in Time,” “A Spoonful of Sugar,” “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” and the Academy Awardwinning “Chim-Chim Cher-ee,” the Broadway production has received nominations for seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical, six Drama Desk Awards, including Outstanding Musical and nine Olivier Award nominations. Showtimes are Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday evenings at 7 p.m. with Friday and Saturday evening shows at 8 p.m. and Saturday (March 28 and April 4) and Sunday matinee performances at 2 p.m. For a complete list of special events and for ticket information, visit www.therep.org.

MARCH 11

EUREKA SPRINGS hosts its annual ST. PATRICK’S DAY parade through the historic downtown streets.

Enjoy the parade, and spend the day shopping, dining or relaxing with soothing spa experiences in the quaint Ozark Mountain town. n CHOCTAW CASINO welcomes ROB THOMAS. Tickets are $55 in advance and $75 day of show. Doors open at 7 p.m. Showtime is at 8 p.m. This event benefits the Sidewalk Angels Foundation. n DESIGN & DINE in Riverdale — retailers stay open late in the Warehouse District and Riverdale area. Shop and dine!

MARCH 21

The newly refurbished Lucy Lockett Cabe Festival Theatre at WILDWOOD PARK FOR THE ARTS will reopen with the angelic voices of the VIENNA BOYS CHOIR. This group of 25 boys tour around the world with a repertoire that spans the classics of Mozart and Schubert to contemporary hits from the stage and screen. The show starts at 7 p.m. Reserved seats are $35 and VIP tickets are $75. For tickets, visit wildwoodpark.org.

MARCH 6-8

WILDWOOD’S annual LANTERNS! Festival takes place at 6 p.m. nightly. Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for kids 12 and under. Tickets can be bought at wildwoodpark.org for a 20% discount. Wildwood’s annual deep-winter festival celebrates the first full moon of the lunar New Year. Held over three magical evenings, guests are transported to far away lands and times as the stroll through the beautifully lit pathways of Wildwood’s gardens. This year’s festival includes visits to Asia, Austria, Ireland, Mexico, Shakespeare’s England and America in the ‘50s.

MARCH 5

Boutiques and galleries stay open late for HILLCREST’S SHOP AND SIP featuring live music, nibbles and libations at your favorite local spots.

HERE TO STAY, A GERSHWIN EXPERIENCE, will be performed by the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra at the CONNOR PERFORMING ARTS CENTER AT PULASKI ACADEMY in Little Rock at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday and 3 p.m. on Sunday.

Tickets are $19-$58.

Mothership Productions is proud to present THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES in THE AUDITORIUM in Eureka Springs.

Directed by Janet Alexander, this 10th anniversary production of the play by Eve Ensler, is a fundraiser for Red Tent Sisters with a portion of proceeds to be offered in support of women, children and families dealing with domestic violence in Northwest Arkansas. The show starts at 7 p.m. Tickets are $25-$35. Visit www.eurekasprings. org for more information.

BOSWELL MOUROT FINE ART GALLERY hosts an opening reception for its newest exhibit from 6-9 p.m. The gallery is located at 5815 Kavanaugh Blvd. in the Heights. For more information, call 664-0030.

MARCH 10

EASTON CORBIN plays the CHOCTAW EVENT CENTER at the Choctaw Casino in Durant, Okla.

Doors open at 7 p.m.

Showtime is at 8 p.m.

Tickets are $20 in advance and $35 at the door. For tickets, visit www.choctawcasinos. com.

RIVERDALE 10 screens SINGING IN THE RAIN as part of its monthly classic movie series.

Admission is $5.

Showtime is 7 p.m.

MARCH 12-14

THE ARKANSAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA presents NIGHT SERENADES, an intimate neighborhood concert series, at St. James United Methodist Church at 7 p.m. Tickets are $25 for adults and $10 for students and available at www. arkansassymphony.org.

MARCH 14-15

MARCH 6

MARCH 7

MARCH 12

VERIZON ARENA hosts rockn-roll legends FLEETWOOD MAC at 8 p.m. On their On with the Show Tour, Fleetwood Mac is currently performing with their five-star lineup including Christine McVie who rejoined the band following a 16-year absence. Tickets are $52.50-$174 and available through Ticketmaster at www. ticketmaster.com.

MARCH 14

MARCH 5

UCA PUBLIC APPEARANCES brings the WOMEN OF IRELAND to the stage for an evening of Irish music and dance at 7:30 p.m.

Tickets are $30-$40 and available online at http://uca.edu. ticketforce.com.

FUN!

MURRY’S DINNER PLAYHOUSE welcomes back TRAVIS LEDOYT who flawlessly captures the sound and style of Elvis in the late ‘50s. He and his authentic three-piece band have captivated audiences worldwide. For show times and tickets, visit www. murrysdp.com.

MARCH 20-24

HOT SPRINGS hosts VALLEY OF THE VAPORS INDEPENDENT MUSIC FESTIVAL with music, art and creative workshops. This year’s musical lineup includes Water Liars, Two Cow Garage, Pallbearer, PeeLander Z, Blacklist Royals, the Memphis Dawls and more. VOV Fest Passes are available now. For passes and a complete schedule of events, visit www.valleyofthevapors.com.

MARCH 26

THE ARKANSAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA will perform a free CAPITAL HOTEL CONCERT at 5:15 p.m.

TALES FROM THE SOUTH Tues, March 03 Best Impressions in the Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock Wed, March 04 Oyster Bar, Little Rock Tues, March 10 South on Main, Little Rock Sun, March 15 Arts Center of the Ozarks, Springdale Tues, March 17 TBA Tues, March 24 Stickyz, Little Rock Tues, March 31 Oyster Bar, Little Rock Tickets available at www.talesfromthesouth.com

www.arktimes.com

FEBRUARY 26, 2015

5

EYE ON ARKANSAS

WEEK THAT WAS

Quote of the Week “Let me state, this is a local control bill and not a bill to support or oppose the addition of fluoride to the drinking water. If you live in Texarkana, Gravette, Corning or Lake Village, Little Rock is a capital far, far away.”

— Rep. Jack Ladyman (R-Jonesboro), arguing in favor of allowing local water distribution systems to control the level of fluoride added to water. Ladyman’s bill passed the House. 60-34.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson unveiled a major new plan for the state corrections system last week: It calls for spending an additional $64 million, most of which would go towardadding additional space in Arkansas’s jails and prisons. However, it does call for $14 million in starting alternative sentencing programs, hiring new parole officers and investing in “transition re-entry centers” to provide workforce training to offenders.

“Right now, if you leave prison, you get $100 and a bus ticket,” Hutchinson said. “That is really not going to help repeat offenders from going back in. They need an opportunity ... to find their way back into society.”

Cold and cruel In Randolph County, 46 dogs, mostly Great Pyrenees, were rescued from a suspected puppy mill late last week. Some animals were tied up outside with no shelter from the recent freezing cold temperatures, while others indoors were living in their own waste; several needed immediate medical care. The Humane Society said it’s working with legislators on a bill to 6

FEBRUARY 26, 2015

ARKANSAS TIMES

BILL MCENTIRE

Prepare for re-entry

HOME AT LAST: Mourners stand over the casket of Corporal C.G. Bolden of Clinton during a Feb. 21 memorial service. Bolden was taken prisoner while fighting in Korea in January 1951 and died in a P.O.W. camp four months later. His remains were returned to the U.S. by the North Korean government in the 1990s, and were identified through DNA testing in December.

inspect breeders with more than 10 dogs.

Walmart wage hike, by the numbers The nation’s largest private employer announced last week that it would increase wages for its lowest-paid U.S. employees to a minimum of $9 an hour by this April and $10 an hour in a year’s time. Rising pay at Walmart also makes it more likely that other low-wage employers — fast-food restaurants, for example — will follow suit.

500,000 — The number of Walmart employees who currently make under $9 per hour, which amounts to about 40 percent

of the retailer’s American workforce.

Most of those folks already make more than the federal minimum wage, $7.25 per hour, so their actual raises will vary between $1.75 to less than a dollar. $1 billion — Together with other programs, the amount the wage increase is expected to cost the company. $473 billion — Walmart’s gross revenue in 2014. According to a labor group, about $16 billion of that was profit. $3.16 billion — The combined value of dividends received by Rob, Jim and Alice Walton in 2014. The six richest members of the Walton family together have a net worth of $148.8 billion, according to Forbes.

Cybersecurity In our annual Big Ideas issue last December, Carlton Saffa suggested that the Little Rock Police Department create a safe place for individuals to carry

out Craigslist transactions. Now, the Maumelle PD is inviting the public to use its parking lot for just that purchase.

Only two weeks ago, a Sherwood man was robbed and killed in Little Rock while trying to sell a motorcycle to a potential buyer he met on Craigslist, so it’s a welcome service. Driving to Maumelle beats a gunshot, on most days at least.

School suits forever The battle over the Little Rock School District continues. Three former members of the defunct local school board are now suing the state over its January takeover of the LRSD, alleging that the State Board of Education acted outside its authority in seizing control of the district. The suit calls the takeover “arbitrary, capricious, [and] in bad faith” and asks a judge to return governance to the elected local board.

BILL MCENTIRE

OPINION

The free lunch legislature

I

s it any wonder the Arkansas legislature thinks you can get something for nothing?

I’ve written before about the sham of Amendment 94, the so-called ethics amendment that hornswoggled voters approved in November.

Thanks to its misleading good-government branding, votes approved it.

It was good for somebody, just not the public.

Thanks to Amendment 94, Arkansas legislators get to serve an unbroken 16 to 18 years in a single chamber of the legislature. They are soon to get a 150 percent pay raise. They get higher reimbursement auto mileage than full-time state employees. They draw per diem expense reimbursements for days they don’t go to work and thus don’t have expenses.

Finally, though Amendment 94 seemingly banned wining and dining of legislators, the free swill continues daily (and doesn’t offset their per diem).

Major lobbies feed lawmakers three meals a day many days. A couMAX ple of major lobBRANTLEY maxbrantley@arktimes.com byists — the nursing home industry and a law firm with blue-ribbon corporate clients — have standing cocktail hours at an apartment building across the street from the Capitol.

The legislature itself has declared these cozy cocktail parties and evening committee dinners at the fanciest restaurants in town as “scheduled activities” and thus exempt from the no-freebie rule, just as amendment architect Republican Sen. Jon Woods no doubt intended.

The state Ethics Commission hasn’t and apparently won’t exercise its supposed new powers to enforce ethics laws because it depends on the legislature for its own salaries and is hopeful of a tiny and long overdue budget

Rutledge roots for dirty coal

G

randstanding is one of the unwritten constitutional functions of state attorneys general, but it always helps to know who is in the cheering section.

When Arkansas’s new attorney general, Leslie Rutledge, joined a band of other Republican AGs who have sued the Environmental Protection Agency and the Obama administration to stop them from limiting the poisons from powerplant smokestacks, who do you think were in the rooting section?

Well, sure, the yahoos who would be cheering if you sued Obama to stop him from praying for orphans, but besides them? Rutledge ran for the office on the promise to sue the Obama administration at every chance, no matter the cause or the cost.

No, the real cheerleaders are the owners of the strip mines in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin who sell

coal to the five Arkansas generating plants that burn it for boiler fuel; the Union Pacific railroad, ERNEST which runs the DUMAS coal trains to Arkansas; perhaps silently the three power companies that will have to reduce their toxic smokestack emissions over the next 15 years to meet the EPA’s public health standards; and, inevitably, the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce.

National, state and local chambers have predicted economic calamity every time Congress has passed clean air and water laws and every time the EPA has set tougher standards under the Clean Air Act. Go back and check the chamber predictions of economic decline and massive job losses when Congress strengthened environmental laws

increase.

Hutchinson at least slowed this Elsewhere, tight budgets aren’t bill’s progress, pleading that his such a concern. budget was tight. It is indeed. Many state agencies face small budget cuts, Gov. Asa Hutchinson thinks the state can afford a tax cut for all — despite the inexorable rise of fixed except the 40 percent of taxpayers costs. State colleges — their students making less than $21,000 a year. The already strapped by tuition increases poorest workers are in the lap of lux- that outstrip inflation and the declinury thanks to welfare, Hutchinson ing value of lottery scholarships — are believes. They don’t face the “extraor- lucky to be hoping for flat budgeting dinary” burdens affecting those mak- this year. Public schools — with a stilling $75,000. disastrous employee insurance bill Hutchinson also thinks the state — are looking at only a tiny increase. can open some new prison beds, One rare legislator with a conthough it will mean taking one-time science — faced with the likely unconmoney from a reserve piling up at the stitutionality of an underfunded pubInsurance Department from excess lic defenders system — said that he premium taxes. wished the state could forego the $5 But Hutchinson is a highly respon- million necessary annually to raise sible money manager compared with legislative and other pay in line with the highway contractors lobby. They the dictates of the citizens commismay have the House votes to take sion empowered by Amendment 94.

Vain wish. The Constitution won’t an increasing amount annually from schools, colleges and public safety to allow it. The raises must be funded off instead build highways. This ignores the top, just as Sen. Woods and others an extraordinary rise in highway intended in writing the amendment spending in recent years, the failure attractively enough to get it approved to raise the inflation-depleted fuel by legislators for the ballot.

There’s no free lunch for poor taxtax in 16 years and the fact that most other states recognize users — such payers, much less a pay raise to help as damaging trucks — don’t pay their them pay for it themselves. Legislafair share. tors? That’s another matter.

in 1967, 1970, 1977 and 1990. The burdens on polluting industries were never supposed to be worth the meager gains in public health and environmental protection. But that record, from dramatic acid-rain reductions to stream restoration, also is there for all to see.

When she joined the suit that was filed last year against the EPA by the attorneys general in Alaska and 11 Southern and Midwestern states, Rutledge co-opted the chamber’s language. She said making Arkansas and other states with coal-burning plants reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions would have “a devastating impact on the economy.” The utilities don’t say that, merely that it will cost them money and they would like plenty of time and flexibility.

The rules actually give them both.

Entergy Arkansas, which is the utility most affected by the EPA rules because it operates two of the 50 dirtiest power plants in the country (Independence is 35th, White Bluff 42nd), already has taken one step to get in compliance. It and its sister subsidiaries have arranged to buy the giant Union Power Station, a largely unused gas-burning plant

a mile through the woods from my old home in Union County that can produce 2,200 megawatts of power at a fraction of the carbon and sulfur gases, mercury and arsenic emitted from the chimneys of its White Bluff and Independence plants. By itself, that will not be enough to meet the EPA standards by 2030. More about that in a minute, but first a little history.

After the first Arab oil embargo, in 1967, created oil and gas shortages, Arkansas and a few other states that had generated power only from water, oil and natural gas looked at coal, which was cheap but had huge environmental risks, as Appalachian plants had shown. The legislature set up procedures for utilities to demonstrate environmental compatibility for coal-burning plants to the state utility and pollution agencies. The Public Service Commission granted permits for the White Bluff and Independence plants on the condition they erect smokestacks tall enough to catch the winds and spread the noxious compounds over a wide territory to the east, the Appalachian states.

But the PSC rejected Attorney CONTINUED ON PAGE 38 www.arktimes.com

FEBRUARY 26, 2015

7

2nd FRIDAY ART NIGHT Tenth Anniversary Celebration Food Drive benefiting Arkansas Food Bank

Join the friends and the people that make 2nd Friday Art Night possible – on March 13th from 5 – 8 pm.

See old and new friends and help a great cause – a Food Drive benefiting The Arkansas Food Bank.

We also honor friends who were instrumental in the formation of 2FAN, like Debra Wood, owner of ArtSpace, now with the Arkansas Food Bank, Louise Terzia retired from HAM, now with Argenta Arts Gallery and Reita Walker formerly with CALS, now with Regional Recycling District.

A special thanks to all the art lovers across Arkansas that support the participating museums and galleries.

OLD STATE HOUSE COX CREATIVE CENTER BUTLER CENTER GALLERIES ARKANSAS CAPITAL CORPORATION GROUP HISTORIC ARKANSAS MUSEUM GALLERY 221 & ART STUDIOS 221 MOSIAC TEMPLARS CULTURAL CENTER STUDIO MAIN HEARNE FINE ART THE RIVER MARKET And our long time restaurant supporters:

COPPER GRILL AND DIZZY’S GYPSY BISTRO Food collection areas will be at all locations including the Trolley!!

FOOD BANK NEEDS:

Canned goods (chicken, tuna, veggies, beans, fruit) Canned/packaged meals • Soup • Peanut Butter • Cereal • 100% Juice Powered Milk • Diapers • Bath Tissue (Non perishable only, no glass or jars or homemade foods)

FREE TROLLEY RIDES!

A Butterfly Community Project

The 14th Annual Community Service Awards Dinner The Honorable

Honoring Patti Julian and Rep. Eddie with Special Guest

Armstrong

Mayor Joe Smith

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Silent Visual Art Auction 6:00 p.m.

Dinner 7:00 p.m.

Argenta Community Theater

405 North Main Street North Little Rock, Arkansas

with Gratitude to our Sponsors

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FEBRUARY 26, 2015

ARKANSAS TIMES

ISIS is losing

I

t’s the Ebola panic all over again.

Except they’re calling it ISIS this time.

OMG! OMG! We’re all going to die!

Cable TV news networks won’t be happy until they’ve got the whole country hiding in the basement, glued to Wolf Blitzer’s lugubrious team of terrorism experts warning of theoretical, if not downright imaginary, threats to America’s shopping malls and vital fast-food industry, while square-jawed pundits on Fox News and MSNBC debate nomenclature and counsel manly resolve.

Hardly a day passes in this country without a mass-shooting episode or toddler-involved homicide. Yet ISIS has them in a tizzy. Even “Hardball’s” excitable Chris Matthews has caught war fever.

Again.

Sometimes I wish they had the collective intelligence of my wife’s personal kitten. Martin’s an orange tabby the big dogs found abandoned on a gravel road in the woods last year. Now that he’s too big to sit on her head comfortably, he sometimes watches ballgames with me.

Mostly, he ignores the TV. But the other day, Martin got so excited during a Razorback basketball game that he jumped from the ottoman and tried to capture a player running across the screen. I believe he pounced three times before concluding that what looked like prey was a two-dimensional illusion.

Martin’s career as a basketball fan ended abruptly.

Clearly, ISIS is no mere illusion. But it’s definitely more of a TV show than an existential threat to national security. However, when I see polls suggesting that a growing majority of Americans now supports sending ground troops back into Iraq (and Syria?) to fight yet another ultimately unwinnable war against “evildoers,” I wonder if we’re capable of learning anything as a nation.

Yes, the organization’s sickening “snuff videos,” as blogger Digby aptly calls them, are uniquely infuriating.

Sadistically choreographed and slickly produced ISIS’s stonings, beheadings, and live burnings elicit exactly the fear and revulsion they’re meant to. The immediate impulse is to exterminate all the brutes. Until I gave it 10 seconds thought, I could even sympathize with an Arkansas politician’s call to nuke

the SOBs. But look at it this way: The videos are also symptomatic of madness and GENE increasing desLYONS peration. As President Obama has suggested, ISIS is clearly more of a criminal death cult than a military organization. For a Western analogy, think Jim Jones or David Koresh in the wilderness.

What’s more, for all the messianic delusions in ISIS’s primitive theology, as explained in Graeme Wood’s epic exegesis in The Atlantic, the organization has already checkmated itself.

“Much of what the group does looks nonsensical,” Wood explains, “except in light of a sincere, carefully considered commitment to returning civilization to a seventh-century legal environment, and ultimately to bringing about the apocalypse. ... They refer derisively to ‘moderns.’ ” Rather like cracked “End Times” thinkers in our own tradition, ISIS believes that it can force God’s hand and bring about the Apocalypse by reestablishing a Muslim “Caliphate,” and then luring the “Crusaders” into battle.

A glance at the map, however, reveals that ISIS has basically conquered all the thinly populated desert territory it can reasonably hold. It can maintain a semblance of control only through stark brutality and terror. It’s basically a rag-tag, pickup-based militia lacking any means of attacking the United States unless we make it easy for them by reinvading Iraq.

ISIS has no air force, no navy, no real artillery or armored brigades apart from captured Iraqi gear it can’t effectively service or repair. The Turks could crush ISIS whenever they choose, but choose not to act for fear of empowering the hated Assad regime in Syria and/or its Iranian Shiite allies (themselves protecting Baghdad).

Meanwhile, Obama’s tactics for confronting ISIS may not be very exciting in the action/adventure film sense, but they’re nevertheless surrounded on all sides.

Writing in Vox, Zack Beauchamp cites a consensus of informed observers: “If you want to understand what’s happening in the Middle East today, you need to appreciate one fundamental fact: ISIS is losing its war for the Middle East.”

CONTINUED ON PAGE 38

SB202: short-Term Loss, long-term gain

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any understandably believe the enactment of SB202 — the legislation that bars local governments from creating protected classes not presently recognized in state law — to be a significant step back for LGBT rights in Arkansas. Indeed, as veteran gay writer Michelangelo Signorile wrote last week, some argue that the stealth nature of SB202 could well create long-lasting national hiccups for the LGBT movement. Instead, no matter the disappointment and anger voiced by its opponents in recent days, the battle over SB202 may well aid the continued advancement of LGBT rights in Arkansas both politically and legally.

First, as with every effort to limit LGBT progress towards equality in recent years, LGBT Arkansans have spoken up about the direct and indirect ramifications of such actions on them and their families, as was shown in the grassroots effort encouraging Governor Hutchinson to veto the legislation. Just as important as this empowerment of LGBT Arkansans is their allies’ feeling called to step up and speak out on a key civil rights issue of their time. While much of this dialogue occurs on social media, increasingly those allies are in positions of political influence. Eureka Springs Alderman James DeVito’s quick action in advance of the House’s passage of SB202 means that a key hurdle to the inevitable court challenge to the legislation should be overcome. (The bill’s proponents were thoroughly disingenuous about a Tennessee case they cited as support for the Arkansas legislation since a Tennessee court never considered the merits of the case, saying instead that the plaintiffs lacked standing.) Moreover, the eloquent arguments by allies like Representatives Clarke Tucker (D-Little Rock) and Warwick Sabin (D-Little Rock) aided in holding down the margin of victory in the state House meaning that the bill’s emergency clause failed. The extra months before the law goes into effect means that more local governments can join Eureka Springs in passing antidiscrimination ordinances. Along the way, even in places where such efforts are unsuccessful, hundreds of LGBT Arkansans and their allies will speak up for LGBT rights in their communities.

Second, as SB202 worked its way through the legislative process, it also

became more legally fragile.

The proponents of SB202 were welladvised to avoid any specific referJAY ences to sexual oriBARTH entation or gender identity in the legislation itself because US Supreme Court’s 1996 Romer v. Evans decision that struck down a Colorado state constitutional amendment barring such local ordinances said the effort was clearly driven by “animus” toward gays and lesbians; the explicit inclusion of “sexual orientation” in the text of that amendment made the case clearer. As Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the Romer opinion: “If the constitutional conception of ‘equal protection of the laws’ means anything, it must at the very least mean that a bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot constitute a legitimate governmental interest.” (It is noteworthy that, early in the legal road of the Romer case, statewide “uniformity” of laws — the justification for SB202 — was shot down as a legitimate state goal.)

In the state Senate debate over the measure, issues of sexual orientation and gender identity were generally absent, just as the proponents with an eye to later court challenges hoped. Opponents of the legislation focused wholly on the bill’s intrusion into “local control” as a strategy to provide cover to members of the GOP majority political cover to not vote in favor of the measure. In the state House, however, the “animus” driving the legislation became quite clear with Rep. Mary Bentley (R-Perryville) accusing opponents of the legislation of “hiding behind an acronym” and, after spelling out the categories included in LGBT, essentially dehumanized lesbians, gays, bisexual, and transgender Arkansans, saying “those are the things that we’re talking about.” Even if the text of the legislation avoids explicit references to sexual orientation or gender identity, the legislative history is now clear why SB202 came into being, making Romer a strong precedent for opponents.

Moreover, the legal landscape may soon change to the advantage of LGBT legal advocates. While most are focused on the substance of the coming decisions on marriage equality, those cases — to be CONTINUED ON PAGE 38

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ARKANSAS TIMES

T

he dearth of team cohesiveness had killed Arkansas basketball in recent years. “Hawgball” more or less died because in-house friction led to on-court product that bore the evidence of dissent. Not to pick on any individual players, but you never sensed that in the last years of Nolan Richardson’s regime or Stan Heath’s or John Pelphrey’s respective tenures that the players did the so-called “buy-in” or cared much about team unity.

That worry persisted for this columnist a good few weeks into Mike Anderson’s fourth season. Guys like Hunter Mickelson, Devonta Abron and Rotnei Clarke curiously bailed out, and the past three seasons, late February undid all the positives that had accumulated along the way. Many losses were of the unwatchable variety. Even a year ago, as the Razorbacks made a final push to pierce the NCAA tourney bubble, they left two stinkers for the selection committee to stew over, a complete collapse at Alabama and then a league tournament slipup against lowly South Carolina.

The Hogs’ last couple of games this season illustrate how fine that line between irrelevance and dominance can be. Against Missouri, the unquestioned dregs of the conference, Arkansas was shaky early but ultimately ended up with a comfy 15-point home win. By no means was it a perfect effort but it was more than enough. In contrast, when the Hogs went down to Tuscaloosa last year to play a sub-.500 Crimson Tide team, they were inexcusably listless for a bunch with so much at stake.

Against Mississippi State at Starkville on Saturday, the circumstances were more or less akin to those the Hogs faced against the Gamecocks. The gym was almost barren, the offense wasn’t in sync, and the foe was playing well above its standards at both ends of the court. That meant that as the game went into its waning stages with the Bulldogs clinging to smallish leads and answering just about every surge that the Hogs managed, it would take pure guts to get out of town on the right side of the line.

Turning to an invigorated defense is the linchpin now, and every individual is making a mark there even when the shots aren’t falling. To wit, senior forward Alandise Harris had a horrible performance by most metrics with a scoring goose egg and four pretty bad fouls that sidelined him until the end.

But he made two massive plays as the Hogs tried to snatch momentum, the

first of which was unselfishly taking a charge when it could’ve easily been the kind of home-cooking BEAU call that left him WILCOX shackled to the seats for the remainder of the action.

How beautifully this group has meshed is wrapped up in a play like that: A senior with no real professional aspirations, mired in a stinker of a game, literally left it all on the floor.

When the Hogs watched a seemingly safe six-point lead dissolve to one, the new glue, Anton Beard, did his job.

The freshman’s decisive steal and cool free throw touch combined to seal a four-point win that theoretically should never have happened. Mississippi State played inspired ball, got Bobby Portis out of rhythm early, and stood prepared to sweeten up a sour year with a takedown of a ranked team. And yet for all the Bulldogs’ excelling they went eight minutes without a field goal and clanked some free throws, emblems not just of their own failures, but of the Hogs’ sudden intimidation factor. Even as Mississippi State worked its smallish crowd into a frenzy with some big second-half stretches, Arkansas never faltered and maintained perceptible poise.

Stretching their records to 22-5 overall and 11-3 in the SEC, the Hogs embark upon the program’s biggest game in a good while Saturday. Regardless of the results of Tuesday’s homecoming against Texas A&M, the date at Rupp Arena with spotless Kentucky is a barometer game with long-term implications. Win it, or even succumb at the very end, and Arkansas stands ready to rend the blue blanket that John Calipari has draped across the region.

The comforting thing is that Arkansas, with five road wins in seven conference contests, and a certain return to the field of 68 secured, is genuinely on the map again. Even being blasted by unbeaten and rarely challenged Kentucky might do nothing to spoil what has been transpiring the past few weeks. Clearly the Wildcats are operating at an exalted plane this season, but they’ve also had to overcome some sloppy play at times.

Calipari has blathered ad nauseam after those games about how his team still has so much learning and proving to do to be championship caliber, yadda, yadda, so why not take him at his word?

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he Observer usually tries to stay out of politics, just because we want to be the go-to column for everybody, regardless of their political persuasion, to read while sitting alone in a coffee shop or pizza place. The Observer sees you there, Dear Reader, reading and smiling. We accept your smiles with silent gladness.

However, when the political football in question is peoples’ lives, we must weigh in.

And so we say: You are better than this, Arkansas.

The Observer, as you know if you’ve read this column for a while, has reported on all kinds: governors and criminals, newborn babes and 105-year-olds, cowards and heroes.

But the bravest people we’ve ever known, bar none, have been our gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender neighbors.

It is hard for a straight person, The Observer included, to imagine what it would be like to be born gay — to be shipwrecked here on this spacegoing clod, where nearly every textbook, novel, film and television show, nearly every blaring screen or billboard or magazine ad, reinforces the idea that “normal” means “heterosexual.” Pop culture is getting better about that, of course. We were, for instance, watching “The Walking Dead” the other night, and boom! Gay character, kissing his spouse, protecting him, helping him survive. But we are definitely not there in this Cruel Old World, and we will never get there if we keep taking these giant leaps backward. That is, of course, the point. There are those who live only to spread division and confusion, usually by making a fish wrapper of Holy Scripture. But we, you and I, are better than that.

Straightfolk: Imagine, just for a minute, what it would be like to grow up knowing you were gay or lesbian.

Imagine coming up in a household where conformity to Biblical teaching is drilled into you every day. Imagine hearing from your parents and

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preacher and Sunday School teacher that while God loves even the Romans who scourged Christ, The Almighty is so against the wretched thing you are as to set down a prohibition on your head. Imagine how it would eat at your insides to hear your mother or father say that they hate queers, them fags, those goddamn homos, not knowing that The Enemy stands beside them with their blood and cowlick and quirky smile, that child drinking the poisonous fear and shame of those words every day.

Now, imagine the courage it would take to be yourself under those circumstances — to reveal your true heart, knowing that many of the people you love will cast you out. The Observer has, in our career, met dozens of Arkansans who tell a version of that story — exiled from the ones they love, but exiles in their own skins no more.

And that, Dear Friend, is the meaning of courage.

Here is a story for you, Straightfolk of Straightworld: In May 1895, the great writer Oscar Wilde was put on trial in London for the crime of sexual indecency with other men. He was convicted and sentenced to spend two years in prison. When he got out in May 1897, he found that everyone he knew had basically abandoned him.

Before long, the great man had been reduced to an impoverished drunk, hanging out in cafes of Paris, hoping not to be recognized.

In Richard Ellmann’s biography of Wilde, Ellmann includes details from a letter about a meeting between Wilde and a young college freshman from Arkansas named Armstrong. According to Ellmann’s account, Armstrong was sitting in the Cafe de la Regence in Paris when someone behind him asked for a match.

He turned, and there was Oscar Wilde.

Armstrong bought him a drink. Then a friend came up and passed Armstrong a note saying, “That is Oscar Wilde.”

At that, Wilde collected his things, said, “I remove the embarrassment,” then disappeared into the crowd.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 38

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FEBRUARY 26, 2015

11

Arkansas Reporter

THE

IN S ID E R

Walmart said on Monday it opposed Senate Bill 202, passed to protect legal discrimination against gay people.

The law became official earlier this week because Gov. Asa Hutchinson refused to veto it. But it won’t take effect until 90 days after the legislative session because it lacks an emergent clause.

Walmart has stood mute on this issue, despite repeated calls from critics of the bill for corporations with anti-discrimination policies, such as Walmart, to speak up.

In a statement to the Associated Press, a spokesperson for Walmart said the legislation runs counter to its core beliefs and “sends the wrong message about Arkansas.”

A day late and many billions of dollars short. A Walmart position before Monday might have meant something.

Walmart critics took note of the Bentonville retailer’s cowardice days ago and listed reasons it should be in the fray. These included past praise from LGBT advocates for the company’s own improvement on that score; its financial support for Gov. Hutchinson; the $450,000 it has poured into Republican state legislative races since 2000; and Walton-owned Arvest Bank’s support of discrimination bill sponsor Sen. Bart Hester, its leadership in the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce, another shamefully silent member of the business community.

A cynic might speculate there’s worse at work here than cowardice. Perhaps the Waltons have bigger fish to fry in this session — charterizing the state’s public schools, for example — and don’t want to agonize the gay haters who can also be expected to carry that ball for them.

A more hopeful bit of speculation — wildly speculative though it is — is that Walmart will now become forceful in opposition to pending HB 1228, a much broader piece of gay discrimination legislation. SB 202 merely prevents local governments from protecting the civil rights of gay people.

HB 1228 would give a pass to anyone who wants to discriminate against gay people in any fashion: job, housing, services. They need only say that their conscience prevents them from treating gay people equally.

Hot Springs woman sues; says she was fired for being transgender One of the biggest lies in the battle to institutionalize legal discrimination against LGBT people in Arkansas is that protections are unneeded.

Meet Patricia Dawson, a Hot Springs electrician, who was fired after her employer 12

FEBRUARY 26, 2015

ARKANSAS TIMES

Turning back the clock on civil rights New anti-gay law forgets history.

BY JOHN A. KIRK

COURTESY OF THE UALR PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTION/UALR CENTER FOR ARKANSAS HISTORY AND CULTURE

Walmart weighs in, too late, against gay discrimination legislation

SIT IN: At Woolworth’s in Little Rock in 1960.

B

arely 50 years ago, in a landmark case originating in Little Rock, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the rights of two individuals against discrimination by private businesses. At present, the Arkansas General Assembly, in passing Senate Bill 202, is in a very direct way challenging the laws won by the civil rights movement in the 1960s. It is yet another example of how the gains of a period in U.S. history that many revere as a triumph of democracy are being attacked and undermined in our own time. It also demonstrates how the African-American struggle for civil rights helped to establish legal precedents that are still fundamental in preserving all of our civil rights today.

On April 13, 1960, two African-American Philander Smith College students, Frank James Lupper and Thomas B. Robinson, requested service at the Gus Blass Department Store’s downtown lunch counter. The white store manager told them he was not prepared to serve them and he asked them to leave. They refused.

The assistant manager then called the police, who escorted the two students from the building. The students were charged under

Arkansas’s prosegregation Act 14, which made it “unlawful for any person to refuse to leave the business premises of any person when so requested by the manager or owner thereof.”

Shortly before the sit-in arrests of Lupper and Robinson, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s Legal Defense Fund (LDF) had discussed its legal strategy for handling sit-in cases in the courts. LDF director-counsel Thurgood Marshall considered a number of defenses all based on the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.

However, in the Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883), the U.S. Supreme Court had made it explicitly clear that the equal protection clause did not cover private individuals, organizations or establishments, which were free to choose their own clientele even if that meant discriminating on the grounds of race. The 14th Amendment applied only to state-sanctioned discrimination. What, then, would happen in a case where there was no connection between state action and the conviction of sit-in participants, and where the private wishes of proprietors were solely involved? Did owners of

private establishments still have the right to discriminate as the Civil Rights Cases suggested?

LDF lawyers looked to the more recent case of Shelley v. Kraemer (1948) as a precedent for extending the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause to private discrimination. Shelley prevented the use of restrictive covenants in property contracts to prevent the sale of homes to African Americans. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the use of such covenants on the grounds that state action was required to actually enforce these private contracts.

This allowed a very wide interpretation of what constituted state action. As LDF lawyer Jack Greenberg put it, “Since private decisions cannot be enforced without an ultimate, although sometimes only implicit, state sanction, is everything we do ‘state action’? Do all personal decisions present constitutional questions? Where should the courts draw the line?”

It was these questions that the U.S. Supreme Court confronted in the sit-in cases that arrived before it in the early 1960s.

In the cases, the Court consistently reversed convictions. At the same time, it refused to extend the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause to instances of private discrimination as NAACP lawyers wanted.

Instead, the Court devised other ways to reverse sit-in convictions.

On May 13, 1963, the Arkansas Supreme Court handed down its ruling in the Little Rock sit-in cases. Chief Justice James D. Johnson, an arch-segregationist and former president of the Associated Citizens’ Councils of Arkansas, upheld the convictions of Lupper and Robinson. The Court ruled that the state had not violated their 14th Amendment rights, since, “By its terms and on its face, the statute applies to all who refuse to leave and it is not restricted to negroes. There is nothing uncertain, indefinite or vague about Act 14. It prohibits trespass.” The court also held that the students had no inherent right to service at lunch counters and that store owners could legitimately choose to serve or not to serve customers at their discretion. It was exactly the sort of case the NAACP feared would be ambiguous if the U.S. Supreme Court did not extend the meaning of the equal protection clause.

When the state court refused a rehearing of the case, it eventually went to the U.S. Supreme Court on appeal.

The following year, on July 2, Congress CONTINUED ON PAGE 14

Ten to add to the BIG PICTURE Encyclopedia of Arkansas THE

Here at the Arkansas Times, we’re big fans of the online Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture (encyclopediaofarkansas. net). It’s where we begin our research. It’s where we kill time. Where else can you peer into the gullet of an alligator snapping turtle and read about the histories of drag shows in Arkansas?

But despite a recent Times headline (“From the civil rights to slime molds, the Encyclopedia has all of Arkansas covered”), our browsing has turned up some holes. That’s to be expected, of course. The Central Arkansas Library System, whose Butler Center for Arkansas Studies launched the project in 2006, has pledged to support the encyclopedia into perpetuity. It’s always been envisioned as something that will grow and be modified over time. In that spirit and with some self-interest at work (cough, No. 10, cough), we humbly submit our top 10 entries missing from the encyclopedia. Criteria for inclusion, by the way, is that an event or person must be of state or national significance, Encyclopedia of Arkansas editor Guy Lancaster has told us.

1. John Walker. The Little Rock attorney and state representative has been a civil rights champion in Arkansas for six decades.

2. Acxiom. The Little Rock tech company, founded in Conway in 1969, has — or at least had recently — the world’s largest commercial database on consumer behavior and interests.

4. The Mayflower oil spill. The story of the most significant environmental disaster in Arkansas in modern time isn’t finished — court battles over damages and regulatory decisions about the fate of the ruptured pipeline won’t be resolved anytime soon — but that shouldn’t keep it from being memorialized.

C. P. VAUGHN

3. Nate Powell. At 37, he’d be younger than most of the people featured in the encyclopedia, but even if the Little Rock-born cartoonist and graphic novelist stopped publishing tomorrow, his oeuvre — especially his graphic novel “Swallow Me Whole” and the autobiographical “March” series about the life of Congressman John Lewis for which he’s provided the art — merits his inclusion. His internationally beloved band Soophie Nun Squad deserves an entry, too.

Malvern-born songwriter Blaze Foley circa 1981.

5. P. Allen Smith. He’s the Martha Stewart of the South!

6. Walton Family. There’s an entry for Sam Walton, of course, but the heirs to his fortune aren’t represented singly or collectively. As the chief patron to Arkansas’s greatest art museum, Alice Walton deserves inclusion. So too does the Walton Family Foundation, one of the world’s largest nonprofits and a major player in supporting environmental causes and the charter school movement.

7. Blaze Foley. The legendary Austin singer-songwriter, born Michael David Fuller in Malvern, wrote “If I Could Only Fly” and inspired songs by Townes Van Zandt (“Blaze’s Blues”) and Lucinda Williams (“Drunken Angel”).

8. Diabetes, obesity. There are entries for hookworm, polio, yellow fever, etc., but not for the big public health problems of the present.

9. True Soul Records. Inspired by Stax, Lee Anthony’s Little Rock funk and soul label stands on its own. Original vinyl from the label is a hot commodity on eBay and among collectors.

10. Arkansas Times. How does the Oxford American, a 22-year-old magazine that was founded and nearly spent half of its life in Mississippi (which, for the record, we’re big fans of), get an entry, but we rate not even a paragraph? Alan Leveritt, Mara Leveritt, Max Brantley, Bob Lancaster and Ernie Dumas each need solo attention, too. Other pubs (all defunct) that deserve consideration: The Arkansan, Spectrum Weekly and Localist.

LISTEN UP

Tune in to the Times’ “Week In Review” podcast each Friday.

Available on iTunes & arktimes.com

INSIDER, CONT. learned she was transgender.

The ACLU has filed a federal lawsuit on her behalf.

Dawson tells her story for the ACLU: “The day I got my driver’s license with the gender marked ‘F’ and my new legal name was one of the best days of my life. I was assigned male at birth, and my parents named me Steven. But I’d known for many years that I am a woman, and now I had the identification to prove it.

“That year also included many of the hardest days. My parents, who belong to a conservative church, disowned me. My next-door neighbor hosed me in the face with a chemical poison. And I was fired from the job that I loved — all because I am transgender.

“I’m an electrician, and I was working at H&H Electric, a contractor in Hot Springs, Arkansas. The day after I got my new driver’s license, I told my boss that I am a transgender woman. He looked shocked. He told me that I was one of his best people and that he would hate to lose me. I was stunned that his first reaction was that he might have to fire me.

“He didn’t fire me right away, but he didn’t let me come to work as a woman, either. He told me I couldn’t discuss my transition with anyone at work or use my legal name, Patricia.

“Even though I didn’t say anything, people at work noticed that I was transitioning. My hair was growing out, and I’d started hormone therapy. Some of my co-workers were kind to me, but others were cruel.

Twice, co-workers tried to sabotage my work.

One of those instances could have caused an explosion that could hurt or even kill someone. Fortunately, I discovered it in time, and no one was hurt.

“The more time passed, the more it became obvious that I am a woman. Eventually I felt brave enough to wear makeup and a blouse to work. I was on top of the world.

I had a great job, and I was finally being myself. That week, my boss pulled me aside and said, ‘I’m sorry, Steve, you do great work, but you are too much of a distraction and I am going to have to let you go.’

“I am not a distraction. I am a woman, and I shouldn’t be fired for being who I am.“ Arkansas has no law at the state or local level protecting people like Patricia Dawson.

If Sen. Bart Hester, Rep. Bob Ballinger and Gov. Asa Hutchinson continue to have their way, it never will.

Is it right? Hester, according to an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette article on Tuesday, seemingly suggested to a Presbyterian minister you’ll go to hell if you think otherwise.

Tough “love.”

www.arktimes.com

FEBRUARY 26, 2015

13

TURNING BACK THE CLOCK ON CIVIL RIGHTS, CONT.

Yellow Fever, Malaria, Tuberculosis, Cholera, Flu and Hookworm A Fascinating History of Arkansas’s 200 Year Battle Against Disease and Pestilence 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.

Health THE

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passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which, among other measures, outlawed segregation in public facilities and accommodations. The Little Rock cases of Lupper and Robinson, consolidated with the South Carolina case of Hamm v. City of Rock Hill, were the first to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The Court reversed the convictions of the Little Rock students and all other sit-in protestors. Over 3,000 cases pending before the courts were dismissed as a result of the decision.

In another two landmark rulings after the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld congressional power to pass desegregation laws that applied to accommodations involved in interstate commerce, rather than relying on the provisions of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. This marked a new direction in civil rights law that had been encouraged by the John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson presidential administrations. In Heart of Atlanta Motel Inc. United States, the Court ruled that the motel was obliged to accommodate AfricanAmerican patrons since a failure to do so would interfere with interstate commerce.

In Katzenbach v. McClung, the Court ruled that Ollie’s Barbecue in Birmingham, Ala., could not refuse to serve African-American customers since the food cooked in the restaurant originated from out of state.

The 50th anniversary of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 last year came amid new developments in the ongoing constitutional debate about the relationship between public and private spaces and the laws that govern them. Precisely one day before the act’s anniversary, on July 1, 2014, Mississippi brought into effect the Mississippi Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Quickly dubbed an “antigay” law, along the lines of similar laws formulated in other states, many feared that its main purpose was to empower private businesses to refuse service to gay customers on the grounds that business owners had the right to exercise freedom of religious conscience. Of course, many white Southerners believed that racial segregation was biblically sanctioned, too, and they could well have argued for upholding the separation of the races on the grounds of religious freedom in the past if the courts had been receptive to those arguments then.

Arkansas’s current SB 202 “anti-gay” law appears to advocate a state’s rights position. It does two things: First, it appears to assert the primacy of intrastate commerce over interstate commerce. Yet the 1964 Civil Rights Act established over 50 years ago that interstate commerce has a far reach in its protection of civil rights and one with which states cannot interfer.

Second, it asserts that cities cannot create a “protected classification” for the rights of a particular group of citizens. One of the things the 1964 Civil Rights Act did not do was to specifically extend equal protection to individuals in interstate commerce on the basis of sexual orientation. Local civil rights ordinances such as those being considered by a number of Arkansas municipalities are essentially, in a piecemeal way, providing a patch for the Civil Rights Act and extending the already established protections for other groups to gay people. Another ominous turn of phrase in SB 202 is that it is necessary for the “preservation of the public peace,” which is identical to the language used by Gov. Orval Faubus to justify calling out the National Guard to Central High School in 1957.

Arkansas SB 202 is part of a wave of legislation that looks to uphold discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. In doing so, it is very directly engaging with legal arguments resolved over 50 years ago, but which have been under challenge since and are now being attacked more vigorously than ever.

Arkansas is actively seeking to turn the civil rights law clock back to a time before the civil rights movement occurred.

But Little Rock more than any other city should be aware of how defending discrimination works out. The economic consequences of the 1957 school crisis were catastrophic. It stalled economic investment altogether for four years as businesses avoided the city like the plague. The damage continued, arguably, for decades afterward, as the state capital remained stigmatized by the school crisis — as, indeed, it still is. Economic consequences have made other states think twice about their current moves to uphold discrimination. Arizona dropped its proposed anti-gay law last year after it risked the NFL’s withdrawing the Super Bowl from the state. In Mississippi, businesses have actively denounced discriminatory legislation, hanging up signs that read: “We Don’t Discriminate: If You’re Buying, We’re Selling.”

Arkansas appears not to have heeded either its own past experiences or more recent developments. Instead, it seems hellbent on learning the lessons of history the hard way again, whatever the cost to the state.

John A. Kirk is the George W. Donaghey Distinguished Professor of History and department chair at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. His latest book, an edited collection of essays, “Race and Ethnicity in Arkansas: New Perspectives,” was recently published by the University of Arkansas Press.

VOTE!

FINAL ROUND

READERS CHOICE AWARDS 2015

FINALISTS FROM AROUND THE STATE Overall Last year’s winner: The Hive (Bentonville) 2015 finalists: Arkansas Fresh Bakery Cafe (Bryant), James at the Mill (Johnson), Mike’s Place (Conway), Postmasters Grill (Camden)

Food truck Last year’s winner: N/A 2015 finalists: Crepes Paulette (Bentonville), Hammontree’s Grillenium Falcon (Fayetteville), Natural State Sandwiches (Fayetteville), Nomad’s Natural Plate (Fayetteville)

New Last year’s winner: The Hive (Bentonville) 2015 finalists: Arkansas Fresh Bakery Cafe (Bryant), Delta Q (Forrest City), The Farmer’s Table (Fayetteville), Wood Stone Craft Pizza (Fayetteville)

Fried chicken Last year’s winner: Monte Ne Inn (Rogers) 2015 finalists: A.Q. Chicken House (Fayetteville), The Hive (Bentonville), Holly’s Country Cookin’ (Conway)

Chef Last year’s winner: Matthew McClure (The Hive) 2015 finalists: Tyler Hensley (Postmasters Grill, Camden), Miles James (James at the Mill, Johnson), Patrick Lane (The Depot, Fayetteville), Rob Nelson (Tusk & Trotter, Bentonville)

Fun Last year’s winner: The Hive (Bentonville) 2015 finalists: The Depot (Fayetteville), Central Park Fusion Cuisine (Hot Springs), Gaskins Cabin Steakhouse (Eureka Springs), Mike’s Place (Conway)

Bakery Last year’s winner: Sugarbelles Cupcakes (Ward) 2015 finalists: Ambrosia Bakery Co. (Hot Springs), Apple Blossom Brewing Co. (Fayetteville), Arkansas Fresh Bakery Cafe (Bryant), Serenity Farm Bread (Leslie)

Gluten free Last year’s winner: ZAZA Fine Salad & Wood Oven Pizza Co. (Conway) 2015 finalists: The Depot (Fayetteville), Greenhouse Grille (Fayetteville), Rolando’s Restaurant (Hot Springs), Serenity Farms Bakery (Leslie)

Barbecue Last year’s winner: McClard’s Bar-B-Q Restaurant (Hot Springs) 2015 finalists: Craig’s Bar-B-Q (DeValls Bluff), Delta Q (Forrest City), Jones’ Bar-B-Q Diner (Marianna), Whole Hog Cafe (Conway) Breakfast Last year’s winner: Mud Street Cafe (Eureka Springs) 2015 finalists: Arkansas Fresh Bakery Cafe (Bryant), The Depot (Fayetteville), The Hive (Bentonville), Stoby’s Restaurant (Conway) Brunch Last year’s winner: The Hive (Bentonville) 2015 finalists: Arlington Hotel Venetian Dining Room (Hot Springs), The Depot (Fayetteville), Emelia’s Kitchen (Fayetteville), The Hive (Bentonville), Stoby’s Restaurant (Conway) Buffet Last year’s winner: Brown’s Country Store & Restaurant (Benton) 2015 finalists: Dondie’s White River Princess (Des Arc), India Orchard (Bentonville), Kelley’s Restaurant (Wynne), The Skillet Restaurant (Mountain View) Burger Last year’s winner: David’s Burgers (Conway) 2015 finalists: CJ’s Butcher Boy Burgers (Russellville), Greenhouse Grille (Fayetteville), The Hive (Bentonville), Postmasters Grill (Camden)

We’re nearing the final round of our annual readers restaurant survey.

We’ve tallied the nominations from the first round, determined the top four vote getters and added the WINNER from last year – for a total of five finalists.

The final round of voting runs from February 16 through March 6. That’s three weeks to vote for your favorite restaurants in Arkansas.

Vote online at arktimes.com/restaurants15 Winners will be announced in the April 2 issue of the Arkansas Times. An awards party for all winners and runners-up will be held after the issue at the Pulaski Technical Culinary and Hospitality Institute on April 7.

Business lunch Last year’s winner: Mike’s Place (Conway) 2015 finalists: The Depot (Fayetteville), Belle Arti Italian Ristorante (Hot Springs), The Hive (Bentonville), Fayrays (El Dorado)

Home cookin’ Last year’s winner: Holly’s Country Cooking (Conway) 2015 finalists: Anne’s Country Cafe (Pine Bluff), Calico County (Fort Smith), Mama Max’s Diner (Prescott), Monte Ne Inn (Rogers) Indian Last year’s winner: None 2015 finalists: Desi Den Indian Restaurant (Bryant), India Orchard (Bentonville), The New Delhi Cafe (Eureka Springs), R&R’s Curry Express (Fort Smith) Italian Last year’s winner: Ermilio’s Italian Home Cooking (Eureka) 2015 finalists: Bordinos (Fayetteville), DeVito’s Restaurant (Eureka Springs), Pasta Grill (Conway), Pesto Cafe (Fayetteville) Japanese Last year’s winner: Umami Sushi Lounge and Grill Fusion (Conway) 2015 finalists: Crazy Samurai (Hot Springs), Fuji Japanese Steakhouse & Sushi Bar (Searcy), Kimono Japanese Steak House (Paragould), Meiji Japanese Cuisine (Fayetteville)

Steak Last year’s winner: Sonny Williams’ Steak Room 2015 finalists: Arthur’s Prime Steakhouse, The Butcher Shop, Doe’s Eat Place, Faded Rose Vegetarian/vegan Last year’s winner: ZAZA’S Fine Salad & Wood Oven Pizza Co. (Conway) 2015 finalists: The Depot (Fayetteville), Farmer’s Table (Fayetteville), Greenhouse Grille (Fayetteville), Local Flavor Cafe (Eureka Springs) Wine list Last year’s winner: The Hive (Bentonville) 2015 finalists: Bordinos (Fayetteville), Central Park Cuisine (Hot Springs), Gaskins Cabin Steakhouse (Eureka Springs), Tavola Trattoria (Bentonville) Best Restaurants Benton/Bryant Last year’s winner: Baja Grill 2015 finalists: Arkansas Fresh Bakery Cafe, Desi Den Indian Restaurant, Eat My Catfish, La Hacienda Conway Last year’s winner: ZAZA’S Fine Salad & Wood Oven Pizza Co. 2015 finalists: Blackwood’s Gyros and Grill, Hot Rod Wieners, Mike’s Place, Umami Sushi Lounge and Grill Fusion Eureka Springs Last year’s winner: Ermilio’s Italian Home Cooking 2015 finalists: Bavarian Inn, DeVito’s Restaurant, Gaskins Cabin Steakhouse, Local Flavor Cafe Fayetteville/Springdale/ Johnson Last year’s winner: None 2015 finalists: The Depot (Fayetteville), Bordinos (Fayetteville), Hugo’s (Fayetteville), James at the Mill (Johnson) Rogers/Bentonville Last year’s winner: The Hive (Bentonville) 2015 finalists: Carrabba’s Italian Grill (Rogers), Havana Tropical Grill (Rogers), Eleven (Bentonville), Tusk & Trotter (Bentonville)

Mexican Last year’s winner: Taco Mama (Hot Springs) 2015 finalists: Burrito Loco (Fayetteville), El Acapulco (Conway), Table Hot Springs Mesa (Bentonville), Vina Morita Restaurant and Wine Bar (Hot Springs) Last year’s winner: Rolando’s Restaurante 2015 finalists: Deluca’s Pizzeria Napoletana, Don Juan Authentic Other ethnic Mexican Restaurant, Osaka Japanese Steakhouse and Sushi Bar, Last year’s winner: Layla’s Gyros and Pizzeria (Conway) Taco Mama 2015 finalists: A Taste of Thai (Fayetteville), Rolando’s (Hot Springs), Salathai (Fayetteville), Wiederkehr Weinkeller Restaurant (Altus)

Catfish Last year’s winner: Eat My Catfish (Benton) 2015 finalists: Catfish Hole (Fayetteville), Dondie’s White River Princess (Des Arc), Flying Fish (Bentonville), Woods Place (Camden)

Pizza Last year’s winner: ZAZA’S Fine Salad & Wood Oven Pizza Co. (Conway) 2015 finalists: Deluca’s Pizzeria Napoletana (Hot Springs), Rocky’s (Hot Springs), Tommy’s Famous (Mountain View), Wood Stone Craft Pizza and Bar (Fayetteville)

Chinese Last year’s winner: Jade China Restaurant (Conway) 2015 finalists: Hunan Manor (Fayetteville), Madame Wu’s Hunan Restaurant (Russellville), Oriental Gardens Restaurant (El Dorado), Wok Express (Hot Springs)

Place for kids Last year’s winner: Purple Cow Restaurant (Hot Springs) 2015 finalists: Bulldog Restaurant (Bald Knob), Calico County (Fort Smith), Stoby’s (Conway), ZAZA’S Fine Salad & Wood Oven Pizza Co. (Conway)

Coffee Last year’s winner: Onyx Coffee Lab (Fayetteville) 2015 finalists: Arsaga’s Cafe (Fayetteville), Blue Sail Coffee (Conway), Jitterbug Coffeehouse (Heber Springs), Perfect Cup (Camden)

Romantic Last year’s winner: James at the Mill (Johnson) 2015 finalists: The Depot (Fayetteville), Gaskin’s Cabin (Eureka Springs), The Hive (Bentonville), Luna Bella (Hot Springs)

Deli/gourmet to go Last year’s winner: Cafe 1217 (Hot Springs) 2015 finalists: Arkansas Fresh Bakery Cafe (Bryant), Bentonville Butcher & Deli (Bentonville), Cabot Cafe and Cake Corner (Cabot), The Green Submarine Espresso Cafe & Sub-Shop (Fayetteville)

Sandwich Last year’s winner: Non, new category 2015 finalists: Arkansas Fresh Cafe (Bryant), Craig’s Bar-B-Q (DeValls Bluff), Green Submarine Espresso Cafe & Sub-Shop (Fayetteville), Hammontree’s Grillenium Falcon (Fayetteville).

Desserts Last year’s winner: Charlotte’s Eats & Sweets (Keo) 2015 finalists: The Bulldog Restaurant (Bald Knob), Cocoa Rouge (Bryant), The Depot (Fayetteville), The Hive (Bentonville)

Seafood Last year’s winner: Mike’s Place (Conway) 2015 finalists: Central Park Fusion (Hot Springs), Dondie’s (Des Arc), Eat My Catfish (Bryant), Fisherman’s Wharf (Hot Springs) www.arktimes.com

31 NOVEMBER 9, 2011 ARKANSAS TIMES

FEBRUARY 26, 2015

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ARTS

CENTERED WHERE?

Desire for a new building could uproot Little Rock’s longtime cultural gem and send it across the river.

BY LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK

trying to discredit reporting on the Arkansas Blog that North Little Rock could expect significant gifts from the Stephens family. Warren Stephens, whose pockets are as deep as the ocean, is a longtime supporter of the Arts Center, has chaired the Foundation board and is a member of the board.

If the Arts Center — whether in Little Rock or North Little Rock — can’t can’t count on Warren Stephens to fork over a substantial sum for a new building, one the Foundation hopes will be “visionary,” with a bigger vault to, perhaps, safely store his father’s French impressionist paintings on loan to the Arts Center, why should the public be interested?

BRIAN CHILSON

***

A

drawing in the Arkansas Arts Center’s nationally recognized collection of works on paper is a charcoal by David Bailin, “Anticipated Exile.” In it, a drawing of buildings against a yellow background is set, cloud-like, into a hillside. A path runs alongside it. It’s hard to know if the exile is toward the buildings or away from it.

Life has been imitating art at the Arkansas Arts Center for the past month, as the details of an Arts Center in transformation have emerged. The first stroke in the picture was the revelation of a privately paid poll of voters in North Little Rock asking if they’d be willing to tax themselves an extra penny to be split evenly for police and fire needs and a museum complex on the riverfront. The picture has been sketched in slowly, and the surmise of the Times’ Arkansas Blog, based on good sources and interviews with the mayor of North Little Rock, that the Arkansas Arts Center Foundation was behind the poll and that the members of its board had embarked on project to build a new arts center proved 16

FEBRUARY 26, 2015

ARKANSAS TIMES

to be correct.

Rather than approach the leaders of the city where the Arts Center was founded nearly 80 years ago, Foundation board members discussed a plan for a publicprivate partnership with the friendly mayor of North Little Rock, a town eager to develop its riverfront and grab a little prestige. That is a part of the picture that, as is the case with all fine art, will be left up to the viewer to interpret.

As the details were filled in, the Foundation protested in a statement to the public that it has “no current plans to move the Arkansas Arts Center to North Little Rock.” Well, of course not. It has no current guarantee of a steady flow of tax dollars from North Little Rock.

It could, however, have that as soon as August, when a special election could be held.

The chairman of the Foundation, Bobby Tucker, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (he has not returned calls from the Arkansas Times) that no private funds had been committed to the project. He was apparently

In 2012, Arts Center Director Todd Herman invited museum design firm head George Sexton to the center to assess the needs of the building and how well it was being used. That assessment provided input into the Arts Center’s strategic planning in 2013 and 2014: The Arts Center needs more room for art storage and preparation. Its galleries’ lighting system, now obsolete, needs replacing, and its mechanicals need updating. The Museum School is out of room. In the past few years, the Arts Center has had problems with its air conditioning, has had to replace its boilers and has had roof leaks.

Few would argue the Arts Center doesn’t need more room and some spiffing up, though its galleries remain beautiful spaces in which to hang art. (One incorporates the old façade of the Museum of Fine Arts, with its WPA relief carvings.) With minor exceptions, the lower lobby, theater and classrooms have not been altered since the 1963 opening of the Arts Center. Now that it no longer uses the Terry Mansion as the Decorative Arts Museum, the Arts Center needs a gallery for its contemporary craft collection.

In a recent conversation with a reporter, Herman pointed to the many stages that have cobbled the Arts Center together and the difficulty of tying new construction to old, which would argue for a new building entirely. He is preparing a request for proposals for a new analysis of the Arts Center’s needs. He declined to put a price to what it would take to either add to the Arts Center or build new.

At first, the purposely wispy picture of machinations by the Foundation to build a new arts center was a little

the Fine Arts Club of Arkansas. The Fine Arts Club brought into being the Museum of Fine Arts in 1937, in a WPA-designed building in MacArthur Park. The Junior League of Little Rock, with the help of Winthrop and Jeannette Rockefeller, began raising money in the late 1950s to raise money for a new center, and in 1960 Little Rock passed an ordinance creating the Arkansas Arts Center. The new building opened in 1963. The Arts Center has benefited from its largely Little Rock membership and patronage. Now, it seems like the venerable institution could find a new home on what some people in Little Rock think is the wrong side of the Arkansas River.

Throw in the possibility that the Arkansas Repertory Theatre and the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra could be lured to the project’s new performance space, and you could have an exodus of the arts to the north shore.

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MOUROT

FINE ART

OPENING RECEPTION

NEW WORKS

Friday, March 6 6-9 pm Through March 28

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***

HERMAN: Arts Center director.

too abstract for Little Rock. It didn’t get it.

In an early conversation with a reporter, Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola seemed doubtful that the North Little Rock poll had anything to do with the Arts Center. (He wasn’t alone: The editorialist for the Democrat-Gazette, though that paper had broken the news about the poll, didn’t believe the Arkansas Blog’s reporting either, calling it a “non-story.”)

When Stodola finally became convinced that where there is smoke there

is fire, he said, “That disappoints me greatly.” The mayor said he thought he had an understanding with North Little Rock’s leadership that the cities would not poach one another’s assets.

Now the picture is clear: The Arkansas Arts Center may be up for grabs, going to whatever city can promise it a bundle of tax dollars.

Talk about the Shock of the New. The roots of the Arkansas Arts Center date back a century, with the 1914 founding of

North Little Rock Mayor Joe Smith, the source of the initial reporting on the Arts Center Foundation’s desire for a new building, has described the north shore complex as a $100 million project. North Little Rock would contribute $60 million through a 10-year bond issue financed by the $8 million a year that would be generated by the museum’s half of the new penny tax. Once the bond issue was paid off, the city would continue to levy the tax, to provide for upkeep of the exterior of the building and grounds (but not utilities or operations).

Smith says the riverfront between the Main Street Bridge and the Junction Bridge would be the “perfect place” for a multi-building arts complex. As he envisions it, the building would be cantilevered over Riverfront Drive, with a long glass front and a view of the Lit-

ELENA PETROUKHINA

CONTINUED ON PAGE 18

KATHY BAY

BRIAN CHILSON

5815 KAVANAUGH BLVD LITTLE ROCK, AR 72207 (501) 664-0030 boswellmourot.com INSIDE: The Arts Center’s main entry hall. www.arktimes.com

FEBRUARY 26, 2015

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BRIAN CHILSON

tle Rock skyline. He’d also like to see a “full-service hotel” built nearby. (There is the little matter of the Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum and submarine; under Smith’s scenario, they’d have to move a league or so upstream. On Sunday, the museum announced it needed more room and was considering an expansion.)

If Smith is talking $100 million, then another $40 million will need to be found.

Which leads us back to the private money.

Warren Stephens has been involved in a private-public partnership with North Little Rock before, donating the land for the Arkansas Travelers’ Dickey-Stephens Park after the city voted in a temporary penny sales tax. The city’s contribution: $28 million. Ballpark revenue: $5.6 million. Warren Stephens: land valued at $6.3 million and $440,000 and change in cash.

The Stephens family’s support for the Arts Center includes both exhibit sponsorships by Warren Stephens and his wife, Harriett, and Stephens Inc. support. Stephens’ father, Jackson T. Stephens, gave $5 million to the Arts Center in its 2000 capital campaign, and the late financier’s collection of French impressionist paintings are apparently on permanent loan to the Arts Center, rotating through a gallery renamed for him.

Others who might be counted on to provide support: industrialist James T. Dyke, who donated the Signac watercolors in the Signac gallery; Merritt Dyke, a frequent sponsor of exhibits; Curt and Chucki Bradbury, art collectors and longtime supporters; Robyn Horn, a wood sculptor and patron of the arts, especially the Arts Center’s contemporary craft collection; David and Terri Snowden, frequent exhibit sponsors; and maybe John Tyson, whose art collection has a home at Tyson Foods as well as his own home. Curtis and Jackye Finch have been giving the Arts Center works from their portrait collection; a more spacious and state-of-the art vault would be in their interest as well.

If the idea for a new building has secretly been in the works for many years, perhaps the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation has been approached for a grant. The Reynolds Foundation, which is spending down its principal, has not taken grant applications in several years, so the request would have had to come a while ago. Its art grants were restricted to entities that had already received Reynolds money. The Arts Center did get a small grant to establish the erstwhile Reynolds Study Center for scholars wanting to study its collection of works on paper. A Reynolds grant would be poetic,

POTENTIAL SITE FOR POTENTIAL MOVE: The north shore of the Arkansas River between the Main Street and Junction bridges.

given that the sale of Donrey Media to Stephens Media in 1993 provided a substantial amount of the foundation’s assets.

Still, even $100 million may be just short of what it takes to build a showstopper facility. Verizon Arena came in just under $80 million 15 years ago. (Crystal Bridges has never made public what Alice Walton spent on the museum, designed by internationally renowned architect Moshe Safdie and four years in construction, but $300 million would have taken care of it.)

*** As might be expected, Mayor Stodola is not crazy about the idea of North Little Rock making off with Little Rock’s major cultural asset, even if the location is within walking distance, over the Main Street Bridge, of Little Rock. Yet, he’s not proposed a specific way to keep the Arts Center in Little Rock, other than to say there are “options” out there.

One would be for Little Rock to add a penny to its hamburger tax, collected by the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau. That tax produced nearly $10 million in 2014. The LRCVB, however, would have to enter into some sort of binding agreement that the penny would go to the Arts Center. The Little Rock Board of Directors could add a penny to the hamburger tax by fiat, but citizens could then demand a referendum. Adding a penny to the sales tax would almost certainly be defeated, even if the board could bring itself to propose one. Little Rock could also seek a millage increase.

One board member says Little Rock needs to do “whatever it takes” to keep the Arts Center in Little Rock. “It doesn’t belong in any place but in Little Rock,” Ward Four Director Brad Cazort said.

“This is a major attraction and amenity of this city and we have a responsibility

to keep it where it belongs.” He called a hamburger tax merely “an arrow in the quiver” in terms of options.

At-large Director Joan Adcock, however, is as opposed as Cazort is for, though she acknowledged, “It’s not something I have paid attention to.” But Adcock said the city is “coming up short” on millions of dollars of street and other improvements from the last sales tax and should keep its promises to the citizens first.

Somewhere in the middle is Dr. Dean Kumpuris, also at-large and, like the members of the Arts Center Foundation, in the upper echelon of Little Rock society. Does he think the Arts Center should stay in Little Rock? “I think we need to assess what the needs are and if there are things we can do to take care of the situation. … We have an art collection that needs to be displayed the best way we can.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement for Little Rock. Would he support a third hotel/hamburger penny tax? “I’d have to think about that.”

Stodola, who, unlike his North Little Rock counterpart, faithfully attends Arts Center board of director meetings as an ex-officio member, has pointed to the $15 million or so the city has invested in the Arts Center over the years, and the fact that Little Rock has raised its yearly contribution to the Arts Center from $200,000 a decade ago to $550,000 this year. The Foundation, however, invests a couple of million every year, and bailed out the Arts Center to the tune of $3 million in 2011 when the Arts Center was suffering from the blow of a failed gift and an underperforming and costly exhibit, “World of the Pharaohs.”

(The Arts Center is paying the Foundation back.)

Perhaps more important than money, however, was the investment of time and energy that the men and women of Little Rock in the 1950s put into first creat-

ing the Arkansas Arts Center and then bringing it back from the brink years later when the Rockefellers, rightly, reminded the community that it was the Arkansas Arts Center and the community needed to support it with their own dollars.

Jeanne Hamilton, an emeritus member of the Arts Center’s board of directors, was one of the key players in the formation of the Arts Center in 1960 and in keeping it open after the Rockefellers later pulled back some of their support.

She knows more about its creation and history than anyone else in Little Rock.

“I’ve been around for a long time, and I’m not dumb, but obviously I was shocked when I heard what all was going on,” Hamilton said. “I think the Arts Center has become a very important part of our community.” She said the Arts Center had weathered challenges before, raised the money it needed, and would do it again — without moving away from Little Rock. “To move to North Little Rock would be absolutely … I can’t even think of a word. It would not be the Arkansas Arts Center as it was envisioned to be.

This is a Little Rock institution, born and developed and supported by the community of Little Rock.”

Another former board member, June Freeman, who also once worked for the Arts Center in its Artmobile outreach and other areas, doesn’t think the Foundation is the entity that should be calling the shots. The Arts Center’s Board of Directors, she said, is the body responsive to the public, and the one that will have to eventually decide what the fate of the Arts Center should be. She takes offense at the top-down approach, though it must be said that the founding of the Arts Center wasn’t exactly grassroots. Its goal, however, was to bring art to the people of Arkansas, a goal expanded upon by 30-year director Townsend Wolfe, who made sure the entire community

Make money by Making a difference. felt welcome there, both with his hires and outreach.

Board member Charlotte Brown, who as a former development director is the Jeanne Hamilton of the Arts Center’s move into the 21st century, said she wants “what is best for the Arts Center, the whole community. I’m going to keep an open mind and an open heart.”

Brown said she is part of the “warp and woof” of the Arts Center. “I gave nine years of my life, blood, sweat and tears” raising money for the Arts Center, achieving what was then a record sum for the 2000 expansion that added three new galleries, a new restaurant, offices, and a gift shop, all off a two-story atrium. Now, however, she added, “a lot has happened, a lot gets old and tired. We have got to be thoughtful about the future. ... I know we are sitting on a building that needs an exorbitant amount of money” to maintain.

Brown gave voice to fears that some surmise is partly behind the idea to move: safety in MacArthur Park, located on Ninth Street between Commerce and McMath. She believes going to North Little Rock’s riverfront is safer “than it is to come to Ninth Street at this point in time. I love my Arts Center, but I’m not locking my doors as fast when I drive over the river.”

“I know we’re city owned, I’m grateful for what the city has done. But we can’t go on like we are,” Brown said. The Arts Center must thrive, she said, “for the community as a whole and that includes North Little Rock and the state.”

Yet, she added, to assume the Arts Center will leave MacArthur Park “is premature.”

*** MacArthur Park may be perceived as unsafe in some quarters, though the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s William H. Bowen School of Law and St. Edward’s Catholic Church and school are its neighbors in this historic part of town.

People who don’t work downtown, who confine their world to the Heights and West Little Rock, have an exaggerated fear of downtown because of its proximity to poorer areas.

There is also this: Older, longtime residents of Little Rock still see the Arkansas River as the Great Wall, and the north side as a foreign country no one particularly wants to visit. You don’t hear North Little Rock referred to as Dogtown much anymore (and North Little Rock has embraced the name the way Obama has Obamacare, to neutralize the pejorative), but still. The river has been a psychological barrier to interaction.

Mayor Stodola sure thinks so. He doesn’t think the conventioneers at the Statehouse or the tourists coming from the Clinton Presidential Center in the busy River Market district will walk the bridge to get to a north side arts center, even if it’s a Taj Mahal of a joint. He thinks MacArthur Park is a good setting, and if the Foundation wants a new building, it should consider putting it there, where there is ample room to grow.

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HOW TO REUSE THE ARTS CENTER BUILDING DEVELOPER SPECULATES.

So, say the Arkansas Arts Center Foundation decides that the best way to move forward to create a “visionary” new facility is to abandon the old building. What would happen to that building?

Jimmy Moses of downtown development firm Moses Tucker has been thinking about that.

“If the Arts Center wasn’t at MacArthur Park, I would be arguing for some other institutional use that is lacking in the community right now,” Moses said. For example, he said, the Arts Center could become a joint higher education facility, a campus shared by the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Pulaski Technical College, Philander Smith College and other institutions of higher learning.

“Another thing I wondered about, with the burgeoning Little Rock Film Festival and Institute, maybe something could be done with them” to take the festival and film studies to the next level, Moses said.

Moses said he thinks the first option should be to see what could be done in MacArthur Park. Or, perhaps a location along Main Street, “say in the area south of Capitol but north of I-630.” A consideration should be what area needs a great “shot in the arm.”

The Foundation is made up of “real good folks,” Moses said, and “they want to see good things happen. … It’s got to be looked at as an opportunity to grow.”

There is also the issue of the Terry Mansion, deeded to the city for use as a community arts center and managed by the Arts Center. The antebellum structure is an icon; Little Rock will have to take care of it if the Arts Center leaves it behind. Moses did not have any ideas for it.

Drivers Please be aWare, it’s arkansas state laW: Use of bicycles or animals

Every person riding a bicycle or an animal, or driving any animal drawing a vehicle upon a highway, shall have all the rights and all of the duties applicable to the driver of a vehicle, except those provisions of this act which by their nature can have no applicability.

overtaking a bicycle

The driver of a motor vehicle overtaking a bicycle proceeding in the same direction on a roadway shall exercise due care and pass to the left at a safe distance of not less than three feet (3’) and shall not again drive to the right side of the roadway until safely clear of the overtaken bicycle.

anD cyclists, Please remember...

You’re vehicles on the road, just like cars and motorcycles and must obey all traffic laws— signal, ride on the right side of the road and yield to traffic normally. Make eye contact with motorists.

Be visible. Be predictable. Heads up, think ahead. www.arktimes.com

FEBRUARY 26, 2015

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Arts Entertainment AND

very late and the night was cold, which made their achievement all the more impressive. “If aliens land in Arkansas and want to know what American rock and roll is,” Crisp wrote, “this is the band to take them to see.”

Here’s the lineup for round five, which will be at Stickyz starting at 9 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 26:

Katie Johnson

BRIAN CHILSON

Pine Bluff singer-songwriter Katie Johnson aspires “not just to make feelgood music but to make feel-everything music,” as she puts it on Facebook. As influences, she cites Led Zeppelin, Babyface, Aretha Franklin, Christina Aguilera, Coldplay and the Backstreet Boys.

Accordingly, she makes soulful pianorock with pervasive glissando and primary color emotional cues.

WAILING: Elliott S. Cotten, lead singer of American Lions, winner of week 4 of the 2015 Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase at Sticky Fingerz.

American Lions take round four The Showcase continues Thursday, Feb. 26.

BY WILL STEPHENSON

Introduced twice as “Space Monsters,” the opener at last Thursday night’s round of the Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase was in fact called Space Mother. The five members of the band met originally in a laundromat, and aim, they say on Facebook, to sonically guide us “through a cosmic sinew of inquisition, tribulation and resolution.”

I was open to this.

As you might expect, they played what judge Derek Brooks described in his ballot as “kick-down-the-frontdoor rock,” further characterized by judge Joe Holland as a “two-headed monster spitting out simultaneous highs and balls.” Judge Shayne Gray noted, “I would like some weed & lazer lights,” next to which he drew a smiley face.

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FEBRUARY 26, 2015

ARKANSAS TIMES

Guest judge John Willis asked, rhetorically and a little ambiguously, “Is this really happening?” Judge Mitchell Crisp, for her part, complimented the bass player’s hat.

Next up was local synth-punk band The Casual Pleasures, who sang with a glam rock snarl and used auxiliary percussion and sax to practically No Wave effect, and who Gray pretty reasonably compared to Oingo Boingo and The Cure. Willis called them “smart and unexpected,” and Holland deemed them the “most dynamic band so far.” Speaking for all of us, Crisp asked, “Well who doesn’t like a sexy saxophone?” The answer is almost no one. (Except Brooks, who worried the sax might occasionally be “overpowering.”)

Fayetteville indie rock band High Lonesome, who named their band and new album after Southern literary legend Barry Hannah, followed with a set that reminded Crisp of Lou Reed, Jonathan Richman and of “sundresses and all the windows open and dancing around the kitchen while you mop with a bucket of citrus fruit juice and an organic vinegar concoction found on Pinterest.” (She was a fan.) Willis found that they demonstrated “for the elucidation of everyone present the age-old maxim, ‘Less is more.’ ’’ Holland called them “eclectic,” but seemed distracted by his poorly considered decision to dip Stickyz’s chicken fingers in Jameson (“Not Good,” he wrote, somewhat surprisingly).

It was a particularly close call this time, but the last band of the night, American Lions, won the day with what Willis described as “wailing Southern guitar” and what Holland called “the best front man in the Showcase.” Brooks thought they “expressed the most emotion” out of all the bands in competition, and Gray wrote that they were “like T-Rex meets The Band.” By their set, as Mitchell Crisp noted in her ballot, it was

Comfortable Brother

Comfortable Brother is a Fayetteville indie rock band central to the Arkansas weirdo art-rock label Let’s Talk Figures. Featuring four members of Conway’s Don’t Stop Please, these guys will hopefully bring a much-needed sense of humor to the whole Showcase enterprise. They’re an inspiring mess — expansive slacker rock built from weed and imagination and boredom.

Michael Leonard Witham

Little Rock songwriter Michael Leonard Witham has a backstory that involves dumpster-diving in Shreveport about five years ago — he found a Yamaha acoustic guitar with no strings, he says, and taught himself to play it, at which the songs “almost effortlessly poured out.” According to his Facebook profile, he has “been called a ‘songwriter’s songwriter,’” and specializes in “raw” vocals and songs that “defy categorization.” He released his debut, “A Scandal in the Violets,” last year.

Enchiridion

Enchiridion is a Little Rock metal band that started four years ago in Searcy, possibly named after the Enchiridion of Epictetus, a second century manual of Stoic ethics. They make progressive metal with bleak imagery and song titles like “The Earth Dies Screaming” and “Onslaught.”

ROCK CANDY 2600 CANTRELL RD 5 0 1 . 2 9 6 . 9 9 5 5 | R I V E R D A L E 1 0 .C O M

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

A&E NEWS CLARK TERRY, the jazz trumpeter who performed early in his career with Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus, and who went on to mentor a generation of jazz musicians from Miles Davis to Dizzy Gillespie (who said he considered Terry the greatest trumpeter in the world), died Feb. 21 at his home in Pine Bluff, where he retired in 2006. He was 94.

“He left us peacefully, surrounded by his family, students and friends,” his wife Gwen said on Facebook.

Terry, who won a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award in 2010, was also the first black member of the “Tonight Show” band, which he played with from 1960 to 1972, and later toured the world as a “jazz ambassador” for the State Department.

In December we wrote about a visit

by Wynton Marsalis to Terry’s hospital in Pine Bluff. Marsalis described it on Facebook: “As Clark’s bed was wheeled in we launched into Duke and Strayhorn’s ‘Peanut Brittle Brigade’ from their version of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Nutcracker.’ After playing, we each went over to his bed, introduced ourselves and said a little something about our pedigree and how much we appreciated his contributions to our personal development and to the music. He recognized each of us and responded to every salutation with some pithy comment of joyful appreciation.”

LOOKING AHEAD IN THE ARKANSAS TIMES FILM SERIES: John Waters’ original “Hairspray” is set for April 16 (in advance of his appearance at the Arkansas Literary Festival), the Levon Helm-narrated NASA epic “The Right Stuff” for May 21, Alfred Hitchcock’s spy-thriller masterpiece “North

by Northwest” for June 18 and cult favorite documentary “Hands on a Hard Body” for July 16.

LIVE MUSIC COMING UP IN MARCH: Fleetwood Mac plays at Verizon Arena (3/11); at White Water Tavern, Cedell Davis (3/6) and The Frontier Circus (3/7) play record release show (3/7), soul singer Leon Bridges returns (3/9) and German punk duo DYSE shares a bill with the Venezuelan-born guitarist Felix Martin (3/20); at Revolution, the Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase Finals (3/6) and Wade Bowen (3/13); at Juanita’s, Whitechapel (3/12) and Circa Survive (3/23); at Stickyz, Barrett Baber (3/7) and Sons of Bill (3/24); at South on Main, The John Bush Group (3/18) and The Dirty Dozen Brass Band (3/19).

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ARKANSAS TIMES

MUSICIANS SHOWC ASE ‘15 February 26 Round 5!

Round 4 Winner: American Lions

ROUND 5 9pm

9 pm - Katie Johnson 10 pm - Comfortable Brother 11 pm - Michael Leonard Witham 12 am - Enchiridion

10pm

LIVE AT STICKYZ!

$5 cover 21+ $10 under 21

11pm

A crowd vote is part of the judging. Come out to support your favorite band.

Pick up the 2015 Showcase Tee! Featuring artwork designed by Keith Carter of States of Mind Clothing.

Participating bands listed on back Only $10 Cash & CC accepted

12am

www.arktimes.com

FEBRUARY 26, 2015

21

THE TO-DO

LIST

BY WILL STEPHENSON

FRIDAY 2/27

‘TO LIGHT A CANDLE’

7 p.m. Ron Robinson Theater. Free.

Maziar Bahari’s sister was imprisoned by the Ayatollah Khomeini in the 1980s, his father by the Shah decades earlier. Bahari himself wasn’t arrested by the Iranian government until 2009, during the election protests in Tehran.

He’d been a documentary filmmaker and journalist (for Newsweek and the BBC) for over a decade, and his incarceration was widely protested. Hillary Clinton called for his release. After 118 days, despite the 11 counts of espionage he’d been charged with, he was released on bail. He began to speak out on behalf of other imprisoned journalists in Iran, worrying publically that the government had “people all around the world, and they can always bring me back to Iran in a bag.” He wrote a New York Times bestseller, adapted last year into a film by Jon Stewart called “Rosewater.” His new film is the documentary, “To Light a Candle,” which focuses on the Iranian government’s persecution of Bahá’ís, and on the Bahá’í Open University, which has been the target of government raids for decades. The Ron Robinson Theater will present the film Friday along with a program featuring live Persian music and a panel discussion.

FRIDAY 2/27

7 BANDS 7 BUCKS 8 p.m. Low Key Arts. $7.

The Valley of the Vapors is Hot Springs’ annual independent music festival hosted by community arts organization Low Key Arts. This year’s festival will be March 20-24, and will feature a relatively huge lineup of local favorites and touring bands (early-bird passes are on sale now at valleyofthevapors.com), and this weekend they’re holding their annual fundraiser and “Deep Fried Rock and Roll Buffet.”

This year’s lineup includes All The Way Korean!, May the Peace of the Sea Be With You, Collin Vs. Adam, Ghost Bones, Dangerous Idiots, Radradriot and Glittercore, with no breaks or sound checks in between sets — the idea, they say, is to have “140 minutes of continuous rock and roll noise.”

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FEBRUARY 26, 2015

ARKANSAS TIMES

PLATINUM: Miranda Lambert performs at Verizon Arena with Justin Moore st 7:30 p.m. Friday, $52.50-$69.

FRIDAY 2/27

MIRANDA LAMBERT

7:30 p.m. Verizon Arena. $52.50-$69.

“Snapped” is a true crime series on the Oxygen network that features stories about women who have killed or attempted to kill their abusive husbands or boyfriends. One episode highlighted a woman who lived in Tyler, Texas, out on County Road 233. Her husband had been hitting her for some time, and one day she “snapped.” She shot and killed him and left his body in the bedroom for two years. This episode made

a particularly powerful impression on country star (and Dodge Ram spokesperson) Miranda Lambert, who recognized both the narrative and the location (County Road 233) from her own top 10, platinum-certified hit “Gunpowder and Lead,” off her 2007 album “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.” “His fist is big but my gun’s bigger,” Lambert sings, “He’ll find out when I pull the trigger.” In the music video, unusually naturalistic for the genre, Lambert sits in a porch swing loading a shotgun. Then she’s inside on the couch smoking a cigarette and working her way through a 12-pack of

Budweiser. It never shows the act; in the end, though, there’s a black-andwhite sequence in which Lambert is depicted digging a grave. Then her boyfriend comes home, walks up on the porch, goes inside. The screen cuts to black and a shot rings out. “You know, women have come up to me and said, ‘You gave me the courage to leave after 10 years of him hitting me,’ ” she told Entertainment Weekly, who asked her about the real-life Tyler murder. “That’s the best compliment I could get. But don’t shoot him, or don’t blame it on me if you do.”

in Houston. Their latest album, “Make Out King and Other Stories of Love,” was released last year to much praise in places like Spin (who called it “40 minutes of natural charisma and steamy hooks”) and the New York Times (who singled out front woman Asli Omar’s “sticky, soulful howl”). They’ll share a bill at Stickyz on Friday night with

fellow Houston indie rock band Wild Moccasins, who make dreamy, danceable post-punk. The Houston Chronicle wrote of them, “If chemistry — the harmonious interaction, not the science — came with a soundtrack, it would be supplied by Wild Moccasins.” That doesn’t make any sense to me, but it sure sounds like a recommendation.

FRIDAY 2/27

THE TONTONS, WILD MOCASSINS 8:30 p.m. Stickyz. $10.

On Twitter once, UGK’s Bun B called The Tontons the “best band in Houston.”

As far as I’m concerned, what this means is that The Tontons are the best band

IN BRIEF

THURSDAY 2/26

SATURDAY 2/28

‘JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH’ 2 p.m. Ron Robinson Theater. $5.

I haven’t seen “James and the Giant Peach” since it was released in 1996, but I remember it as a visually mindblowing and highly personal film with a Randy Newman soundtrack and

a dark, idiosyncratic tone. A 1930s period piece set largely on the Atlantic Ocean and featuring crocodile tongues, seagulls tied up via spider’s silk, the Arctic, personable insects, a demonic killer rhino who lives in the clouds, etc., the film was the vision not of Tim Burton (often wrongly credited as its director) but Henry Selick, the

stop-motion visionary — our generation’s Ray Harryhausen. Selick, who started his career as a third-string animator in Disney’s dark ages (working on films like “The Fox and the Hound”), went on to direct “Coraline” and sign a contract with Pixar. This movie was great when I was 6, and it’s probably even better today.

The Little Rock Wind Symphony presents their “Diabolical!” program at Second Presbyterian Church, 7:30 p.m. Portland-based banjo and slide guitar virtuoso Tony Furtado plays with Smokey and the Mirror at South on Main, 7:30 p.m., $17. Comedian Gabriel Rutledge performs at the Loony Bin through Saturday, Feb. 28, 7:30 p.m. (with shows at 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday), $7-$10. Magician Maxwell Blade is at The Joint in Argenta at 8 p.m., $20. Round 5 of the Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase is at Stickyz at 9 p.m., featuring Katie Johnson, Comfortable Brother, Michael Leonard Witham and Enchiridion, $5.

Revolution hosts Indie Music Night, with DJ Fatality, Yung Mo, D. Dirt, Marcelles, Black Sand and more, 9 p.m., $10.

FRIDAY 2/27 Dr. Robert L. Williams II, professor emeritus of psychology and African and Afro-American Studies at the Washington University in St. Louis, lectures at the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center at 9:30 a.m. (and at the Clinton Center at 7 p.m. Airlifter Brass, a U.S. Air Force Brass Quintet, performs at the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, 7 p.m., free.

Tennessee-based family band The Isaacs (who play regularly at the Grand Ole Opry) are at UCA’s Reynolds Performance Hall in Conway at 7:30 p.m., $8-$25. Local comedy troupe The Main Thing performs their original production “Frost Bite Me!” at The Joint, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, $22.

Pagiins and Hydrogen Child play at the Lightbulb Club in Fayetteville at 9 p.m. Helen Kelter Skelter is at Vino’s with Peckerwolf and The Federalis.

Adam Faucetttt is at White Water Tavern with Listen Sister, 10 p.m.

THAT SUMMER FEELING: Jonathan Richman plays at Juanita’s 8 p.m. Sunday, $15.

SATURDAY 2/28 SUNDAY 3/1

JONATHAN RICHMAN 8 p.m. Juanita’s. $15.

Ernie Brooks, a founding member of the seminal 1970s proto-punk band The Modern Lovers, first heard about the band’s front man, Jonathan Richman, from his college roommate, Jerry Harrison (also a founding member, and later of The Talking Heads), who’d seen him playing on the Cambridge Commons at Harvard. He told the story to Legs McNeil, the writer and punk historian: “At that time, Jonathan used to wear these suits with a very conservative white shirt and tie, sport coat, and dress pants,”

he said, “and he had really short hair — it was really funny. There was something about it that was really confrontational in an interesting way.” At Harvard, Brooks studied poetry with Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Creeley, and in Richman he found what he believed was a similar, but maybe more immediate artistic perspective. “Instantly,” he told McNeil, “I could hear the visionary poetry.” Whether or not you agree with that assessment, there is something at least retroactively visionary-seeming about the songs Richman went on to record in the mid-1970s, songs with refrains like “Pablo Picasso

never got called an asshole.” The Modern Lovers’ best-known song, “Roadrunner,” spoke of “the spirit of 1956,” and there was something to this, too: Richman specialized in recasting Beach Boysstyle Americana as ambiguous, cyptoironic art-rock. He set the template for `90s indie rock — one he would go on to slip into himself as a solo artist maybe too comfortably — and, most impressively, he’s become a part of the iconic American cultural fabric he was initially so fascinated by as an outsider (witness “Roadrunner” on the “School of Rock” soundtrack or referenced by M.I.A.).

The 29th Annual Depression Era & Vintage Glass Show and Sale is at the Arkansas State Fairgrounds through Sunday, March 1, 9 a.m., $5.

The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra performs Schubert’s “Unfinished” at the Maumelle Performing Arts Center, 7:30 p.m. (and Sunday, March 1, 3 p.m.), $19-$58. Redefined Reflection plays at Vino’s with Harvest Mill, Wayland and Ten Foot Beast, 8 p.m., $7. Rodney Block and The Real Music Lovers are at White Water Tavern, 9 p.m., $10.

Stickyz hosts the Wakarusa Winter Classic at 9 p.m., $5. Fayetteville country-rock band Backroad Anthem is at Revolution, 9 p.m., $10.

www.arktimes.com

FEBRUARY 26, 2015

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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.

THURSDAY, FEB. 26

MUSIC

2015 Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase Semifinals Round 5. With Katie Johnson, Comfortable Brother, Michael Leonard Witham and Enchiridion. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9 p.m., $5. 107 River Market Ave. 501-372-7707. www.stickyz.com.

Indie Music Night. With DJ Fatality, Yung Mo, D. Dirt, Marcelles, Black Sand and more.

Revolution, 9 p.m., $10. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. www.rumbarevolution. com/new/.

“Inferno.” DJs play pop, electro, house and more, plus drink specials and $1 cover before 11 p.m. Sway, 9 p.m. 412 Louisiana. 501-9072582.

Jim Dickerson. Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave. 501-324-2999. www.sonnywilliamssteakroom.com.

Karaoke. Zack’s Place, 8 p.m., free. 1400 S. University Ave. 501-664-6444.

Little Rock Wind Symphony, “Diabolical!”

Second Presbyterian Church, 7:30 p.m. 600 Pleasant Valley Drive.

Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 President Clinton Ave. 501372-4782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com.

Open Jam. Thirst n’ Howl, 8 p.m. 14710 Cantrell Road. 501-379-8189. www.thirst-n-howl.com.

Open jam with The Port Arthur Band. Parrot Beach Cafe, 9 p.m. 9611 MacArthur Drive, NLR. 771-2994.

Rhonda Vincent and The Rage. Walton Arts Center, 7 p.m., $17-$37. 495 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-443-5600.

RockUsaurus. Senor Tequila, 7-9 p.m. 10300 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-224-5505.

Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 7:30 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-370-7013. www.capitalbarandgrill.com/.

Tony Furtado, Smokey and the Mirror. South on Main, 7:30 p.m., $17. 1304 Main St. 501244-9660. southonmain.com.

Tragikly White (headliner), Smokey and Mayday by Midnight (happy hour). Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 and 9 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road.

501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf.com.

COMEDY

Gabriel Rutledge. The Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m.; $7. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-2285555. www.loonybincomedy.com.

EVENTS

The Magic and Comedy of Maxwell Blade.

The Joint, 8 p.m., $20. The Joint, 8 p.m., $20.

301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com.

FRIDAY, FEB. 27

MUSIC

Adam Faucett, Listen Sister. White Water Tavern, 10 p.m. 2500 W. 7th St. 501-375-8400.

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FEBRUARY 26, 2015

ARKANSAS TIMES

SWAMPED: Portand-based banjo and slide guitar virtuoso Tony Furtado plays at South on Main with Smokey and the Mirror 7:30 p.m.

Thursday, $17. www.whitewatertavern.com.

Airlifter Brass at the Arsenal. MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, 7 p.m., free. 503 E. 9th St. 376-4602. www.arkmilitaryheritage.com.

All In Fridays. Club Elevations. 7200 Colonel Glenn Road. 501-562-3317.

Backroad Anthem. George’s Majestic Lounge, 10 p.m., $10. 519 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville.

479-442-4226.

Canvas (headliner), Richie Johnson (happy hour). Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 and 9 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf.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. 501-2211620. www.1620savoy.com.

The Deltatones. Another Round Pub, 9 p.m.

12111 W. Markham. 501-313-2612. www. anotherroundpub.com/.

Helen Kelter Skelter, Peckerwolf, The Federalis. Vino’s. 923 W. 7th St. 501-3758466. www.vinosbrewpub.com.

The Isaacs. Reynolds Performance Hall, UCA, 7:30 p.m., $8-$25. 350 S. Donaghey, Conway.

Lagniappe. Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 9 p.m., $7. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www. afterthoughtbistroandbar.com/.

Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 Clinton Ave. 501-3724782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com.

Miranda Lambert, Justin Moore. Verizon Arena, 7:30 p.m., $52.50-$69. 1 Alltel Arena Way, NLR. 501-975-9001. verizonarena.com.

Pagiins, Hydrogen Child. The Lightbulb Club, 9 p.m. 21 N. Block Ave., Fayetteville. 479444-6100.

Route 66. Agora Conference and Special Event Center, 6:30 p.m., $5. 705 E. Siebenmorgan,

Conway.

Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 9 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-370-7013. www. capitalbarandgrill.com/.

The Tontons, Wild Mocassins, Rose Quartz.

Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 8:30 p.m., $10. 107 River Market Ave. 501-372-7707. www. stickyz.com.

Tragikly White. Revolution, 9:30 p.m., $10. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. www. rumbarevolution.com/new/.

7 Bands 7 Bucks. A Valley of the Vapors fundraiser featuring All the Way Korean!, May the Peace of the Sea Be With You, Collin Vs. Adam, Ghost Bones, Dangerous Idiots, Radradriot and Glittercore. Low Key Arts, 8 p.m., $7. 118 Arbor St., Hot Springs.

COMEDY

“Frost Bite Me!” An original comedy by The Main Thing. The Joint, 8 p.m., $22. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com.

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

DANCE

Ballroom Dancing. Free lessons begin at 7 p.m.

Bess Chisum Stephens Community Center, 8-11 p.m., $7-$13. 12th and Cleveland streets.

501-221-7568. www.blsdance.org.

Contra Dance. Park Hill Presbyterian Church, first and third Friday of every month, 7:30 p.m.; Fourth Friday of every month, 7:30 p.m., $5. 3520 JFK Blvd., NLR. arkansascountrydance.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

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. Little Rock Marathon Health & Fitness Expo.

Statehouse Convention Center, Feb. 27-28, 9 a.m., free. 7 Statehouse Plaza.

FILM

“To Light a Candle.” Ron Robinson Theater, 7 p.m., free. 1 Pulaski Way. 501-320-5703. www. cals.lib.ar.us/ron-robinson-theater.aspx.

LECTURES

The 2015 Arkansas Black Hall of Fame Distinguished Laureate Lecture Series.

Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, 9:30 a.m.

501 W. 9th St. 501-683-3593. www.mosaictemplarscenter.com.

“The Psychology of Race: Finding a Way Forward.” Dr. Robert L. Williams II, Professor Emeritus Of Psychology and African and AfroAmerican studies at Washington University in St. Louis. Clinton Presidential Center, 6 p.m.

1200 President Clinton Ave. 370-8000. www. clintonpresidentialcenter.org.

SATURDAY, FEB. 28

MUSIC

Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. Schubert’s “Unfinished” Maumelle High School, 7:30 p.m. $19-$58. 100 Victory Drive. 501-851-5350.

Backroad Anthem. Revolution, 9 p.m., $10.

300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. www. rumbarevolution.com/new/.

Club Nights at 1620 Savoy. See Feb. 27.

John Keathley, Ashley McBryde. Another Round Pub, 7 p.m. 12111 W. Markham. 501313-2612. www.anotherroundpub.com/.

Karaoke at Khalil’s. Khalil’s Pub, 7 p.m. 110 S. Shackleford Road. 501-224-0224. www.khalilspub.com.

Karaoke. Casa Mexicana, 7 p.m. 7111 JFK Blvd., NLR. 501-835-7876. Zack’s Place, 8 p.m., free.

1400 S. University Ave. 501-664-6444.

Karaoke with Kevin & Cara. All ages, on the restaurant side. Revolution, 9 p.m.-12:45 a.m., free. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. www.rumbarevolution.com/new/.

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. 501-3724782. 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.

Redefined Reflection, Harvest Mill, Wayland, Ten Foot Beast. Vino’s, 8 p.m., $7. 923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. www.vinosbrewpub.com.

Rodney Block and The Real Music Lovers.

White Water Tavern, 9 p.m., $10. 2500 W. 7th St. 501-375-8400. www.whitewatertavern.com.

Shannon Boshears (headliner), Some Guy Named Robb (happy hour). Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 and 9 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-3755351. www.cajunswharf.com.

Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 9 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-370-7013. www. capitalbarandgrill.com/.

Waka Winter Classic. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9 p.m., $5. 107 River Market Ave. 501-372-7707. www.stickyz.com.

COMEDY

“Frost Bite Me!” An original comedy by The Main Thing. The Joint, 8 p.m., $22. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com.

Gabriel Rutledge. The Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m., $10. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-2285555. www.loonybincomedy.com.

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

29th Annual Depression Era & Vintage Glass Show and Sale. Arkansas State Fairgrounds, Feb. 28-March 1, 9 a.m., $5. 2600 Howard St. 501-372-8341 ext. 8206. www.arkansasstatefair.com.

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. 501-6137001.

Little Rock Marathon Health & Fitness Expo.

Statehouse Convention Center, 9 a.m., free.

7 Statehouse Plaza.

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.

FILM

“James and the Giant Peach.” Ron Robinson Theater, 2 p.m., $5. 1 Pulaski Way. 501-3205703. www.cals.lib.ar.us/ron-robinson-theater.aspx.

KIDS

Little Rockers Kids Marathon Final Mile. Little Rock City Hall, 10 a.m. 500 W. Markham St.

SUNDAY, MARCH 1

MUSIC

Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. Schubert’s “Unfinished” Maumelle High School, 3 p.m., $19-$58. 100 Victory Drive. 501-851-5350.

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.

Jonathan Richman. Juanita’s, 8 p.m., $15. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www. juanitas.com.

Karaoke. Shorty Small’s, 6-9 p.m. 1475 Hogan Lane, Conway. 501-764-0604. www.shortysmalls.com.

Karaoke with DJ Sara. Hardrider Bar & Grill, 7 p.m., free. 6613 John Harden Drive, Cabot.

501-982-1939.

Ken Gaines. The Lightbulb Club, 7 p.m. 21 N. Block Ave., Fayetteville. 479-444-6100.

Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 Clinton Ave. 501-3724782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com.

EVENTS

29th Annual Depression Era & Vintage Glass Show and Sale. Arkansas State Fairgrounds, 9 a.m., $5. 2600 Howard St. 501-372-8341 ext.

8206. www.arkansasstatefair.com.

Lightwire Theater. “The Ugly Duckling” and “The Tortoise and the Hare.” Walton Arts Center, 2 p.m., $8. 495 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-443-5600.

Little Rock Marathon. Little Rock City Hall, 8 a.m. 500 W. Markham St. “Live from the Back Room.” Spoken word event. Vino’s, first Sunday of every month, 7 p.m. 923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. www.vinosbrewpub.com.

MONDAY, MARCH 2

MUSIC

Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 Clinton Ave. 501-3724782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com.

Monday Night Jazz. Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 8 p.m., $5. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-6631196. www.afterthoughtbistroandbar.com/.

Open Mic. The Lobby Bar. Studio Theatre, 8 p.m. 320 W. 7th St. Richie Johnson. Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf.com.

TUESDAY, MARCH 3

MUSIC

Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. Artist of Distinction: Vadim Gluzman Clinton Presidential Center, 7 p.m., $23. 1200 President Clinton Ave. 370-8000. www.clintonpresidentialcenter.org.

Gil Franklin & Friends. Holiday Inn, North Little Rock, first Tuesday, Wednesday of every month. 120 W. Pershing Blvd., NLR. Jeff Ling. Khalil’s Pub, 6 p.m. 110 S. Shackleford Road. 501-224-0224. www.khalilspub.com.

Jim Dickerson. Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave. 501-324-2999. www.sonnywilliamssteakroom.com.

Karaoke Tuesday. Prost, 8 p.m., free. 322 President Clinton Blvd. 501-244-9550. willydspianobar.com/prost-2/.

Karaoke Tuesdays. On the patio. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 7:30 p.m., free. 107 River Market Ave. 501-372-7707. www.stickyz. com.

Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 Clinton Ave. 501-3724782. littlerock.erniebiggs.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.afterthoughtbistroandbar.com/.

William Blackart, Peace Boner, Fiscal Spliff.

White Water Tavern, 9:30 p.m., $5. 2500 W. 7th St. 501-375-8400. www.whitewatertavern.com.

Women of Ireland. Reynolds Performance Hall, UCA, 7:30 p.m., $30-$40. 350 S. Donaghey, Conway.

COMEDY

Stand-Up Tuesday. Hosted by Adam Hogg.

The Joint, 8 p.m., $5. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com.

DANCE

“Latin Night.” Juanita’s, 7:30 p.m., $7. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www. littlerocksalsa.com.

EVENTS

Foul Play Cabaret. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9:30 p.m., $10. 107 River Market Ave. 501-372-7707. www.stickyz.com.

Trivia Bowl. Flying Saucer, 8:30 p.m. 323 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-8032. www. beerknurd.com/stores/littlerock.

FILM

“Beast of Yucca Flats.” Vino’s, 7:30 p.m. 923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. www.vinosbrewpub.com.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4

MUSIC

Acoustic Open Mic. Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 8 p.m., free. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-6631196. www.afterthoughtbistroandbar.com/.

The Amy Garland Band. South on Main, 7:30 p.m., free. 1304 Main St. 501-244-9660. southonmain.com.

Brian and Nick. Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajun-

swharf.com.

Cody Johnson. George’s Majestic Lounge, 9 p.m., $12. 519 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville.

479-442-4226.

Drageoke with Chi Chi Valdez. Sway. 412 Louisiana. 501-907-2582.

Gil Franklin & Friends. Holiday Inn, North Little Rock, first Tuesday, Wednesday of every month. 120 W. Pershing Blvd., NLR. Jim Dickerson. Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave. 501-324-2999. www.sonnywilliamssteakroom.com.

Karaoke at Khalil’s. Khalil’s Pub, 7 p.m. 110 S. Shackleford Road. 501-224-0224. www.khalilspub.com.

Karaoke. MUSE Ultra Lounge, 8:30 p.m., free.

2611 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-6398.

Lincoln Durham. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9 p.m., $8 adv., $10 day of. 107 River Market Ave. 501-372-7707. www.stickyz.com.

Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 Clinton Ave. 501-3724782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com.

Open Mic Nite with Deuce. Thirst n’ Howl, 7:30 p.m., free. 14710 Cantrell Road. 501-3798189. www.thirst-n-howl.com.

Roy Hale. Another Round Pub, 6:30 p.m. 12111 W. Markham. 501-313-2612. www.anotherroundpub.com/.

Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 7:30 p.m., free. 111 W. Markham St. 501-370-7013. www.capitalbarandgrill.com/.

COMEDY

The Joint Venture. Improv comedy group.

The Joint, 8 p.m., $7. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com.

Matt Sadler. The Loony Bin, March 4-7, 7:30 p.m.; March 6-7, 10 p.m., $7-$10. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-228-5555. www. loonybincomedy.com.

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 and Cleveland streets. 501-350-4712. www. littlerockbopclub.

EVENTS

“Mary Poppins” Preshow Director Talks.

Arkansas Repertory Theatre, 6:15 p.m., free.

601 Main St. 501-378-0405. www.therep.org.

SEC Women’s Basketball Tournament.

Verizon Arena, $100. 1 Alltel Arena Way, NLR. 501-975-9001. verizonarena.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.

ARTS

THEATER

The Australian Bee Gees Show. Walton Arts Center, Fri., Feb. 27, 8 p.m., $22-$52. 495 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-443-5600.

“The Sound of Music.” The Weekend Theater, through March 1: Fri., Sat., 7:30 p.m.; Sun., 2:30 p.m., $20. 1001 W. 7th St. 501-374-3761. www.weekendtheater.org.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 26 www.arktimes.com

FEBRUARY 26, 2015

25

AFTER DARK, CONT.

“…I will make it felony to drink small beer.”

—2 Henry VI, Act IV, scene ii

Come to Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre’s Bard Ball 2015: The Taming of the Brew and sample big-flavored beers, a catered buffet, silent and live auctions, and music by AST music director Mark Binns! You’ll also get a taste of our 2015 season as stars of previous AST productions perform songs from Fiddler on the Roof!

when & where Saturday, Feb. 28, 7 PM at The Venue, 1069 Markham St., Conway

TICKETS $40 in advance (online at arkshakes.com) $50 at the door $500 per table of 10 Tickets include admission, food, and beer tastings; “bottomless cups” are available for a suggested $20 donation at the event.

CONTACT Mary Ruth Marotte, 501.428.4165 mrmarotte@arkshakes.com

THANKS TO OUR 2015 SPONSORS

NEW GALLERY EXHIBITS, EVENTS FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 201 W. 4th St., NLR: “Music Is a Verb,” paintings by Rex Deloney, through February. 10 a.m.-1 p.m.

Mon.-Fri. 501-837-1342.

J.W. WIGGINS GALLERY OF NATIVE AMERICAN ART, 2801 S. University: “Inuit Sculpture from the Top of the World,” carvings in antler, stone, whale bone and ivory, through April 3. 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri. 658-6360.

LAMAN LIBRARY ARGENTA BRANCH, 506 Main St., NLR: “The Art of Arkansas,” photographs by Mike Anderson, through March 16.

10 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Sat. 758-1720.

SOUTH ON MAIN, 1304 Main St.: Unveiling of V.L. Cox’s painting “River Bridge,” 5-8 p.m.

March 3.

UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK: “Scholarship Exhibition,” March 4-19; “Making Public Art,” lecture by Aaron P. Hussey, 6 p.m. March 5, Fine Arts Building 157. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-1 p.m.

Sat., 2-5 p.m. Sun. 569-3182.

BENTONVILLE CRYSTAL BRIDGES MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, One Museum Way: “Van Gogh to Rothko,” masterworks from the AlbrightKnox Gallery, through June 1, lecture by curator Manuela Well-Off-Man on the use of color by van Gogh, Kandinsky and Rothko, 1-2 p.m.

Feb. 28; American masterworks spanning four centuries. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon., Thu.; 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Wed., Fri.; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sat.Sun., closed Tue. 479-418-5700.

CONWAY UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL ARKANSAS: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Thu. uca. edu/art/baum.

FAYETTEVILLE UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS: “New Faculty Exhibition,” works by David Chioffi, Dylan DeWitt, Sean King, Marty Maxwell Lane, Mathew McConnell, Marc Mitchell and Sean Morrisey, March 2-27, Fine Arts Center Gallery.

9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 2-5 p.m. Sun. 479575-7987.

NEWPORT DOWNTOWN NEWPORT: 7th annual “Delta Visual Arts Show,” 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Feb. 28, work by 192 artists at the Iron Mountain Train Depot on Front Street, the Newport Business Resource Center and the old post office on Hazel Street, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on Third Street, the First United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall on Laurel and other locations. director@newportaredc.org.

CALL FOR ARTISTS

Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre is proud to make our home on the campus of the University of Central Arkansas 26

FEBRUARY 26, 2015

ARKANSAS TIMES

THE MOSAIC TEMPLARS CULTURAL CENTER is taking requests for proposals for artwork that interprets the theme “Ancestral Landscapes: From Africa to Arkansas” for its “Creativity Arkansas” collection. Work may be 2D or 3D and in any medium. The application form requires an artist statement/biography and three images. Deadline to apply is 4 p.m.

March 9. A committee will review the applications March 16. For more information, go to

www.mosaictemplarscenter.com.

THE BATESVILLE AREA ARTS COUNCIL is accepting submissions through March 13 for its third annual “National Juried Exhibition,” a show of 2D media. The show will run April 28 through June 13 at the BAAC Gallery on Main Street. For more information, go to batesvilleareaartscouncil.org.

CONTINUING GALLERY EXHIBITS ARKANSAS ARTS CENTER, MacArthur Park: “Mid-Southern Watercolorists 45th Annual Juried Exhibition,” through April 12, Strauss Gallery; “How to Kill,” war images in watercolor by Robert Andrew Parker, Rockefeller Gallery, through March 8; “Humble Hum: Rhythm of the Potter’s Wheel,” recent work by resident artist Ashley Morrison, Museum School Gallery, through June 21. 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

Tue.-Fri., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat., 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

Sun. 372-4000.

ARKANSAS CAPITAL CORP. GROUP, 200 River Market Ave., Suite 400:“Life by Design,” paintings by Elizabeth Weber, Dan Thornhill and Ashley Saer. 374-9247.

BUTLER CENTER GALLERIES, Arkansas Studies Institute, 401 President Clinton Ave.: “Captured Images,” photographs from the permanent collection; “Reflections on Line and Mass,” paintings and sculpture

by Robyn Horn, through April 24; “Of the Soil: Photography by Geoff Winningham,” through February; “Echoes of the Ancestors: Native American Objects from the University of Arkansas Museum,” Concordia Gallery, through March 15. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Sat. 320-5790.

COX CREATIVE CENTER, 120 River Market Ave.: Arkansas Society of Printmakers exhibition. 918-3090.

CANTRELL GALLERY, 8206 Cantrell Road: “45th Birthday Party/Big Group Show,” through February. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat. 224-1335.

CHROMA GALLERY, 5707 Kavanaugh Blvd.: Work by Robert Reep and other Arkansas artists. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Sat. 664-0880.

CHRIST CHURCH SIXTH STREET LIBRARY, 509 Scott St.: Architectural photographs by Tim Hursley.

THE EDGE, 301B President Clinton Ave.: Paintings by Avila (Fernando Gomez), Eric Freeman, James Hayes, Jerry Colburn, St. Joseph Thomason and Stephen Drive. 9921099.

ELLEN GOLDEN ANTIQUES, 5701 Kavanaugh Blvd.: Paintings by Barry Thomas and Arden Boyce. 664-7746.

GALLERY 221, Pyramid Place, Second and Center streets: “Politics in Art,” works from private collections, through February. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat. gallery221@ gmail.com.

GALLERY 26, 2601 Kavanaugh Blvd.: Amy Edgington, Sulac, recent work, through March 14. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Sat. 664-8996.

GALLERY 360, 900 S. Rodney Parham Road: “Poison Into Medicine,” work by Melissa “Mo” Lashbrook and Kelley Naylor Wise. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Mon.-Fri, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Sat. 663-222.

GINO HOLLANDER GALLERY, 2nd and Center: Paintings and works on paper by Gino Hollander. 801-0211.

GREG THOMPSON FINE ART, 429 Main St., NLR: “20th Anniversary Show,” work by William Dunlap, Rebecca Thompson, Pinkney

Herbert, John Harlan Norris, Glennray Tutor, Sheila Cotton and others, through March 14. 664-2787.

HISTORIC ARKANSAS MUSEUM GALLERIES, 200 E. 3rd St.: John Harlan Norris: “Public Face,” through May 3; Lisa Krannichfeld: “She,” through May 3; “Capturing Early Arkansas in Depth: The Stereoview Collection of Allan Gates,” through April 5; “The Great Arkansas Quilt Show 3,” juried exhibit of contemporary quilts, through May 3; “Arkansas Made,” ongoing. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 324-9351.

LAMAN LIBRARY, 2801 Orange St., NLR: “Mail Call,” Smithsonian traveling exhibition that tells the history of the military postal system with artifacts, including a “Victory Mail” kit, through April 15. 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Mon.-Thu., 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Fri.-Sat. 758-1720.

L&L BECK ART GALLERY, 5705 Kavanaugh Blvd.: “Ducks in Arkansas,” through February.

LOCAL COLOUR, 5811 Kavanaugh Blvd.: Rotating work by 27 artists in collective. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat. 265-0422.

M2GALLERY, 11525 Cantrell Road (Pleasant Ridge Shopping Center): Works in all media

by Robin Tucker, Dan Thornhill, Milan Todic, Caleb McNew and others. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.Fri., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat. 944-7155.

RED DOOR GALLERY, 3715 JFK, NLR: Paula Jones, new paintings; Jim Goshorn, new sculpture; also sculpture by Joe Martin, paintings by Amy Hill-Imler, Theresa Cates and Patrick Cunningham, ornaments by D. Wharton, landscapes by James Ellis, raku by Kelly Edwards and other works. 753-5227. 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat. ST. JAMES UNITED METHODIST CHURCH, 321 Pleasant Valley Drive: “People, Places and Things,” paintings by Emile, through March 10. 217-6700.

STUDIOMAIN, 1423 Main St.: “Designs of the Year,” AIA, ASLA and ASID design awards. facebook.com/studio.main.ar.

TABLE 28, 1501 Merrill Drive: “Puzzling Narratives,” work by Robert Bean and Patrick Fleming, Burgundy Hotel, through February.

224-8051.

THEA FOUNDATION, 401 Main St., NLR: “Fourteen Minutes and Fifty-Nine Seconds,” paintings and sculpture by Guy W. Bell, through February, part of The Art Department series. 379-9512.

UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK: “The Penland Experience,” art objects made by almost 50 Penland School of Crafts instructors, resident artists, fellowship students and workshop participants, through March 6; “Revere,” metalware installation by Jeffrey Clancy, Maners/Pappas Gallery (Gallery II), through Feb. 26; “Facade (To Face),” paintings by Taimur Cleary, through Feb. 26. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Sat., 2-5 p.m. Sun. 569-3182.

BENTON DIANNE ROBERTS ART STUDIO AND GALLERY, 110 N. Market St.: Work by Dianne Roberts, classes. 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Wed.-Fri., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat. 860-7467.

BENTONVILLE 21C MUSEUM HOTEL, 200 N.E. A St.: “Duke Riley: See You at the Finish Line,” sculpture; “Blue: Matter, Mood and Melancholy,” photographs and paintings. 479-286-6500., ceramics and other crafts. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tue.-Thu., 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Fri.-Sat., noon-4 p.m. Sun. calicorocket.org/artists.

MOVIE REVIEW

SONNY DOES MORE THAN STEAK!

IN THE TUB: Glenwood native Clark Duke (right) is among the stars.

All American Food & Great Place to Watch Your Favorite Event

Could have been worse

O f W in e - 33 5 Se le ct io ns s - 35 By Th e Gl as ss m Ac ro - Fin e Sp ir its Fr o Th e Wo rl d o m Ev er y - Sc otc h Lis t Fr an d Re gi o n O f Sc otl Bo ur bo ns - 6 Sin gl e- Ba rr el

‘Hot Tub 2’ scores some chuckles.

Free Valet Parking

BY SAM EIFLING

In The River Market District • 501.324.2999

s o n n y w i l l i a m s s t e a k ro o m . c o m

If you ever need a couple of hours of quality alone time, check out a matinee showing of “Hot Tub Time Machine 2” the day of the Oscars.

You won’t ever have this chance again, I’m afraid, given that there’s not a snowball’s chance in a hot tub that “Hot Tub Time Machine 2” will ever get another theatrical release.

Maybe, in a nearby and clearly warped future of the sort that “Hot Tub Time Machine 2” envisions, such a thing could happen. But for serious, only in a movie as glue-huffingly daft as “Hot Tub Time Machine 2” would “Hot Tub Time Machine 2” be considered anything but a whoopee cushion committed to film, an instant classic solely in that it will be gone instantaneously and remembered forever as the movie that wore its bottomless stupidity in that idiot nametag it calls a title.

Yeah, no one went to see this thing.

That’s fine. It’ll be on basic cable on rainy days soon enough, as the good Lord intended. You’ll get to see Rob Corddry as Lou, a drug-addled metalhead who stuck around in 1986 (oh, spoiler left over from “Hot Tub Time Machine”:They go back in time … via a hot tub) and started coming up with amazing and incredibly lucrative ideas for tech products,

such as massive search engine Lougle, which he’s also running into the ground. Also, there’s Craig Robinson as Nick, a pop star with the gift of anticipating exactly the right song for the moment, but only because he’s already heard them all. This may be why you should rush out and see “Hot Tub Time Machine 2” before your local cinema ditches it for something borderline respectable: Robinson’s alternate-dimension ripoff version of Lisa Loeb’s “Stay” with the lyrics he pieces together by memory. You may guffaw freely in your solitude.

Actually, for a low-budget bonehead comedy, you could do a lot worse than “Hot Tub Time Machine 2.” Despite the reasonable success of the seminal “Hot Tub Time Machine,” this one was made for only 40 percent of the original’s bankroll. That meant skipping such important cinematic elements as, uh, John Cusack. You do, however, get Arkansas’s own Clark Duke, playing Lou’s kid, Jacob. Events move when the father, a careening jackass, takes a shotgun blast to the family jewels during a mansion party and has to jump into the hot tub time machine to go back and prevent the shooting.

Instead Lou, Nick and Jacob wind up in New Orleans in 2025 (a city

Shop shop LOCAL ARKANSAS TIMES

CONTINUED ON PAGE 38 www.arktimes.com

FEBRUARY 26, 2015

27

Dining WHAT’S COOKIN’

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

THE NEWLY REMODELED and revamped One Eleven at the Capital is one of 25 restaurants throughout the country nominated for Best New Restaurant in the 2015 James Beard Awards. The Capital Hotel opened the fine dining restaurant in the space long occupied by Ashley’s in August 2014 under Chef Joel Antunes.

Chef Matthew McClure of The Hive in Bentonville’s 21c Museum Hotel was also nominated. It’s his second year as a semifinalist for Best Chef in the South.

DINING CAPSULES

1515 CAFE This bustling, business-suit filled breakfast and lunch spot, just across from the state Capitol, features old-fashioned, buffet-style home cookin’ for a song. Inexpensive lunch entrees, too.

1515 W 7th St. No alcohol. $-$$. 501-376-1434. L Wed.-Fri., D Mon-Sat. 1620 SAVOY Fine dining in a swank space, with a menu redone by the same owners of Cache downtown. The scallops are especially nice. 1620 Market St. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-221-1620.

D Mon.-Sat., BR Sun. 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 Mon.-Sat., L Sun. ACADIA A jewel of a restaurant in Hillcrest.

Unbelievable fixed-price, three-course dinners on Mondays and Tuesday, but food is certainly worth full price. 3000 Kavanaugh Blvd. Full bar, CC. $$-$$$. 501-603-9630. D Mon.-Sat. ADAMS CATFISH & CATERING Catering company in Little Rock with carry-out trailers in Russellville and Perryville. 215 N. Cross St. All CC. $-$$. 501-336-4399. LD Tue.-Fri. AFTERTHOUGHT BISTRO AND BAR The restaurant side of the Afterthought Bar (also called the Afterthought Bistro and Bar) features crab cakes, tuna tacos, chicken tenders, fries, sandwiches, burgers and, as entrees, fish and grits, tuna, ribeye, chicken and dumplings, pasta and more. Live music in the adjoining bar, also private dining room. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. Full bar, All CC. 501-663-1196.

ALL ABOARD RESTAURANT & GRILL Burgers, catfish, chicken tenders and such in this trainthemed restaurant, where an elaborately engineered mini-locomotive delivers patrons’ meals.

6813 Cantrell Road. No alcohol, All CC. 501-9757401. LD daily.

ALLEY OOPS The restaurant at Creekwood Plaza (near the Kanis-Bowman intersection) is a neighCONTINUED ON PAGE 30 28

FEBRUARY 26, 2015

ARKANSAS TIMES

BRIAN CHILSON

AMERICAN

DELICIOUS: Coq au vin at Boulevard Bistro and Bar in the Heights.

Bravo, Boulevard

New Heights’ bistro and bar delights.

N

ew, fabulous local restaurants just keep coming, continually building on Little Rock’s reputation as a “foodie” town. And surely the restaurateurs who operate the highly regarded pillars of the local dining community cringe every time a new, worthy competitor pops up —which is happening almost monthly, it seems.

One of the newest kids on the block that absolutely must be visited by lovers of fine food and reckoned with by other restaurants in town is Boulevard Bistro and Bar, the next logical step for Boulevard Bread that was made possible by the exit of New Traditions, the clothing store adjacent to the fabulous bakery/ grocery/cafe in the Heights.

It all makes perfect sense. Boulevard opened in 2000, and immediately those who had noshed in Europe knew this baguette and ciabatta was the equal of

what you find there. And who didn’t love those fabulous meats and cheeses, the selection and quantity of which we’d not had available here? Next the store shelves were stocked with high-end sundries, and there was a soup of the day, and sandwiches, and then the meals to take home. Soon the cafe expanded, wine and beer were added, and it quickly became a popular hangout. We might not have gotten the order of all that right, but it made perfect sense when, 15 years after it opened, Boulevard Bread spawned Boulevard Bistro and Bar, the place where so much of that great food — and that same commitment to quality — comes together for dinner.

Love Boulevard’s pimiento cheese?

Get it as an appetizer ($7) — topped with bread crumbs, baked and served with six toasted slices of that fabulous Boulevard bread. And delight in its gooey wonder-

fulness with just the right amount of red pepper zip. Ever bought papparadelle pasta off the Boulevard shelves (pretty pricey at $8.95 for a half-pound)? Then order the Papparadelle Bolognese ($14), served in a light cream sauce with ground pork and beef studded with carrots and topped with shaved pecorino. You’d swear the pasta was house-made, but as with many things Boulevard sells but doesn’t make, this pasta is at that level: tender and tasty.

As Boulevard fans would expect, the new space is sleek and hip, yet cozy.

The cool gray and black color scheme is warmed by subtle color accents (example: a red HVAC duct) and interesting, striated, shiny wood tabletops. Beautifully upholstered banquettes now reside in the Kavanaugh-facing windows where mannequins once modeled. There’s room for about 60, a rough count suggests, in the two-room dining area and another 20 or so in the bar area, which certainly is worthy of spending time in no matter if or what you plan to eat. You can keep an eye on the game via the muted TV tucked above the bar, visible throughout

BELLY UP Check out the Times’ food blog, Eat Arkansas

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

BRIAN CHILSON

arktimes.com

BRIAN CHILSON

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the

real deal

 authentic new orleans cuisine

LITTLE ROCK’S MOST AWARD WINNING RESTAURANT

THE BURGER: At Boulevard.

most of the space.

Those interested in three of Boulevard’s house-created meats — duck rillettes, pork belly and country pate — can buy them individually for a combined $26 or, as we did, choose those three as your Meat and Cheese Board selections (among eight meats and eight cheeses) and get very decent portions of each for $15. Plus you get individual cups of orange, apple and currant preserves, olives, almonds, cornichons, plus a huge blackberry, slices of Granny Smith apple and strawberries, and pickled cauliflower, carrots and garlic — truly a substantial meal unto itself.

The duck rillettes are flavorful and predictably fatty, almost over-the-top fatty (but don’t they make your coat nice and shiny?). The two pieces of pork belly — think of them as thick, succulent, lesscrispy bacon — come topped with a sweet onion confit, and the pate is meaty and richly flavored.

The coq au vin ($18) features a tender Falling Sky Farm chicken leg and thigh — their skin browned up nicely, resting on a bed of very rich red wine reduction.

The only quibble? It was a little salty, but our tablemate cleaned his plate.

The true star of the show — and one of the best dishes we’ve had in a very long time — was the Parisian Gnocchi ($14), soft-dough dumplings teamed with mushrooms over a bed of sauteed fresh spinach leaves in a delicate, thinnish truffle cream sauce and enhanced greatly by the inclusion of shaved Comte, the bold, nutty house cheese of many Parisians. We’ve never had gnocchi so light, so tender. They were “like a cloud,” waxed a dining companion. We begged our waitress to talk the secret out of chef Chris McMillan — a longtime Boulevard employee who also worked as general manager at The Fold — but she said he declined to reveal it. We don’t blame him.

The only less-than-stellar item we tried was the soup of the day (eight

S

ounces for $4.50, 12 for $5.50) — “cream” of asparagus. We put cream in quotation marks because this was broth-based with just a dollop of cream (we’re guessing creme fraiche) to stir into it. It was watery with not a lot of taste.

We hit home runs with our two desserts — an apple “hand pie” and ice cream sandwiches (each $7). The hand pie had a buttery, flaky, brioche-type crust encasing cinnamony apples with a scoop of Loblolly buttermilk ice cream (perhaps our favorite flavor of all the Little Rock boutique producer’s). The ice cream sandwiches brought into play two more fabulous Boulevard bread creations — the cherry-studded oatmeal cookies and the pecan chocolate chip cookies, two smaller versions of each sandwiching scoops of Loblolly ice cream. We’re glad there were two of us to tackle these.

We had dinner twice in four days at Boulevard Bistro and Bar. We’ll be back soon — and often.

Boulevard Bistro and Bar 1920 N. Grant St. 501-663-5949 boulevardbread.com

QUICK BITE The Boulevard website lists hours for the bistro and bar as 7 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday through Wednesday and 7 a.m.-11 p.m.

Thursday through Saturday, but it is important to note that the dinner menu is only served beginning at 4:30 p.m. Before then you are welcome to buy food from Boulevard Bread and consume it in the bistro and bar space where there is bar service earlier than 4:30, we’re told.

HOURS 4:30 until 10 p.m. Monday through Wednesday and 4:30 p.m. until 11 p.m.

Thursday through Saturday.

OTHER INFO Reservations accepted only for parties of eight or more, full bar, credit cards accepted.

1619 Rebsamen Rd. 501-663-9734

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29

DINING CAPSULES, CONT. borhood feedbag for major medical institutions with the likes of plate lunches, burgers and homemade desserts. Remarkable chess pie. 11900 Kanis Road. Full bar, All CC. $-$$.

501-221-9400. LD Mon.-Sat. ANOTHER ROUND PUB Tasty pub grub. 12111 W. Markham. Full bar, CC. $-$$. 501-313-2612.

D Mon.-Thu., LD Fri.-Sun. APPLE SPICE JUNCTION A chain sandwich and salad spot with sit-down lunch space and a vibrant box lunch catering business. With a wide range of options and quick service. Order online via applespice.com. 2000 S. University Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $$. 501-663-7008. L Mon.-Fri. (10 a.m.-3 p.m.).

ARKANSAS BURGER CO. Good burgers, fries and shakes, plus salads and other entrees. Try the cheese dip. 7410 Cantrell Road. Beer and wine, CC. $-$$. 501-663-0600. LD Tue.-Sat. ASHER DAIRY BAR An old-line dairy bar that serves up made-to-order burgers, foot-long “Royal” hot dogs and old-fashioned shakes and malts. 7105 Colonel Glenn Road. No alcohol, No CC, CC. $-$$. 501-562-1085. BLD Tue.-Sat. ATHLETIC CLUB SPORTS BAR & GRILL What could be mundane fare gets delightful twists and embellishments here. 11301 Financial Centre Parkway. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$.

501-312-9000. LD daily.

B-SIDE The little breakfast place in the former party room of Lilly’s DimSum Then Some turns tradition on its ear, offering French toast wrapped in bacon on a stick, a must-have dish called “biscuit mountain” and beignets with lemon curd. 11121 Rodney Parham Road. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-716-2700. B-BR Sat.-Sun. BAR LOUIE Mammoth portions of very decent bar/bistro fare with an amazingly varied menu that should satisfy every taste. Some excellent drink deals abound, too. 11525 Cantrell Road, Suite 924. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-228-0444.

LD daily, BR Sat.-Sun. BEST IMPRESSIONS The menu combines Asian, Italian and French sensibilities in soups, salads and meaty fare. A departure from the tearoom of yore. 501 E. Ninth St. Beer and wine, All CC. $$. 501-907-5946. L Tue.-Sun., BR Sat.-Sun. BIG ORANGE: BURGERS SALADS SHAKES Gourmet burgers manufactured according to exacting specs (humanely raised beef!) and properly fried Kennebec potatoes are the big draws, but you can get a veggie burger as well as fried chicken, curried falafel and blackened tilapia sandwiches, plus creative meal-sized salads. Shakes and floats are indulgences for all ages. 17809 Chenal Parkway. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-821-1515. LD daily. 207 N. University Ave. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-379-8715. LD daily.

BIG WHISKEY’S AMERICAN BAR AND GRILL A modern grill pub in the River Market District with all the bells and whistles - 30 flatscreen TVs, whiskey on tap, plus boneless wings, burgers, steaks, soups and salads. 225 E Markham St. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-3242449. LD daily.

BJ’S RESTAURANT AND BREWHOUSE Chain restaurant’s huge menu includes deep dish pizzas, steak, ribs, sandwiches, pasta and award-winning handcrafted beer. In Shackleford Crossing Shopping Center. 2624 S. Shackleford Road. Beer, All CC. 501-404-2000.

BLACK ANGUS CAFE Charcoal-grilled burgers, hamburger steaks and steaks proper are the big draws at this local institution. Now with lunch specials like fried shrimp. 10907 N. Rodney Parham. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$.

501-228-7800. LD Mon.-Sat. 30

FEBRUARY 26, 2015

ARKANSAS TIMES

THE BLIND PIG Tasty bar food, including Zweigle’s brand hot dogs. 6015 Chenonceau Blvd. Full bar, CC. $-$$. 501-868-8194. D Wed-Fri., LD Sat. BOBBY’S COUNTRY COOKIN’ One of the better plate lunch spots in the area, with some of the best fried chicken and pot roast around, a changing daily casserole and wonderful homemade pies. 301 N. Shackleford Road, Suite E1. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-224-9500. L Mon.-Fri. BONEFISH GRILL A half-dozen or more types of fresh fish filets are offered daily at this upscale chain. 11525 Cantrell Road. Full bar, All CC. $$$.

501-228-0356. D Mon.-Fri., LD Sat-Sun. BOOKENDS CAFE A great spot to enjoy lunch with friends or a casual cup of coffee and a favorite book. Serving coffee and pastries early and sandwiches, soups and salads available after 11 a.m. Cox Creative Center. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501- 918-3091. BL Mon.-Sat. BOSTON’S Ribs and gourmet pizza star at this restaurant/sports bar located at the Holiday Inn by the airport. TVs in separate sports bar area. 3201 Bankhead Drive. Full bar, All CC. $$.

501-235-2000. LD daily.

BOULEVARD BREAD CO. Fresh bread, fresh pastries, wide selection of cheeses, meats, side dishes; all superb. Good coffee, too. 1920 N. Grant St. Beer and wine, All CC. $$. 501-6635951. BLD Mon.-Sat., BL Sun. 400 President Clinton Ave. Beer and wine, All CC. $-$$.

501-374-1232. BLD Mon.-Sat. (close 5 p.m.), BL Sun. 4301 W. Markham St. No alcohol, All CC. $$. 501-526-6661. BL Mon.-Fri. 1417 Main St. Beer and wine, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-375-5100.

BL Mon.-Sat. THE BOX Cheeseburgers and french fries are greasy and wonderful and not like their fastfood cousins. 1023 W. Seventh St. No alcohol, CC. $-$$. 501-372-8735. L Mon.-Fri. BRAVE NEW RESTAURANT Chef/owner Peter Brave was doing “farm to table” before most of us knew the term. His focus is on fresh, high-quality ingredients prepared elegantly but simply. Ordering the fish special is never a bad choice. His chocolate crème brulee sets the pace. 2300 Cottondale Lane. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-663-2677. LD Mon.-Sat. BRAY GOURMET DELI AND CATERING Turkey spreads in four flavors — original, jalapeno, Cajun and dill — and the homemade pimiento cheese are the signature items at Chris Bray’s delicatessen, which serves sandwiches, wraps, soups, stuffed potatoes and salads, and sells the turkey spreads to go. 323 Center St. Suite 150. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$.

501-353-1045. BL Mon.-Fri. BREWSTERS 2 CAFE & LOUNGE Down-home done right. Check out the yams, mac-andcheese, greens, purple-hull peas, cornbread, wings, catfish and all the rest. 2725 S. Arch St. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-301-7728. LD Mon.-Sat. BROWN SUGAR BAKESHOP Fabulous cupcakes, brownies and cakes offered five days a week until they’re sold out. 419 E. 3rd St. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-372-4009. LD Tue.-Fri. (close at 5:30 p.m.), L Sat. BUFFALO GRILL A great crispy-off-the-griddle cheeseburger and hand-cut fries star at this family-friendly stop. 1611 Rebsamen Park Road.

Full bar, CC. $$. 501-296-9535. LD daily.

BUFFALO WILD WINGS A sports bar on steroids with numerous humongous TVs and a menu full of thirst-inducing items. The wings, which can be slathered with one of 14 sauces, are the starring attraction and will undoubtedly have fans. 14800 Cantrell Road. Full bar, All CC.

$$. 501-868-5279. LD daily.

BUTCHER SHOP The cook-your-own-steak option has been downplayed, and several menu additions complement the calling card: large, fabulous cuts of prime beef, cooked to perfection. 10825 Hermitage Road. Full bar, All CC. $$$. 501-312-2748. D daily.

BY THE GLASS A broad but not ridiculously large wine list is studded with interesting, diverse selections, and prices are uniformly reasonable. The food focus is on high-end items that pair well with wine — olives, hummus, cheese, bread, and some meats and sausages. Happy hour daily from 4-6 p.m. 5713 Kavanaugh Blvd. Beer and wine, All CC. $$.

501-663-9463. D Mon.-Sat. CACHE RESTAURANT A stunning experience on the well-presented plates and in terms of atmosphere, glitz and general feel. It doesn’t feel like anyplace else in Little Rock, and it’s not priced like much of anywhere else in Little Rock, either. But there are options to keep the tab in the reasonable range. 425 President Clinton Ave. Full bar, All CC. $$$. 501-850-0265. LD Mon.-Fri., D Sat. CAFE 201 The hotel restaurant in the Crowne Plaza serves up a nice lunch buffet. 201 S. Shackleford Road. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-2233000. BLD Mon.-Fri., BD Sat., BR Sun. CAFE BRUNELLE Coffee shop and cafe serving sweets, tasty sandwiches and Loblolly ice cream. 17819 Chenal Parkway. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-448-2687. BLD daily.

CAFE@HEIFER Serving fresh pastries, omelets, soups, salads, sandwiches and pizzas. Located inside Heifer Village. 1 World Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $. 501-907-8801. BL Mon.-Fri. CAJUN’S WHARF The venerable seafood restaurant serves up great gumbo and oysters Bienville, and options such as fine steaks for the non-seafood eater. In the citified bar, you’ll find nightly entertainment, too. 2400 Cantrell Road. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-375-5351.

LD Mon.-Fri., D Sat. CAMP DAVID Inside the Holiday Inn Presidential Conference Center, Camp David particularly pleases with its breakfast and themed buffets each day of the week. Wonderful Sunday brunch. 600 Interstate 30. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-975-2267. BLD daily, BR Sat.-Sun. CAPERS It’s never been better, with as good a wine list as any in the area, and a menu that covers a lot of ground — seafood, steaks, pasta — and does it all well. 14502 Cantrell Road. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-868-7600. LD Mon.-Sat. 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. $$-$$$. 501-370-7013. 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. CATCH BAR AND GRILL Fish, shrimp, chicken and burgers, live music, drinks, flat screens TVs, pool tables and V.I.P room. 1407 John Barrow Road. Full bar. 501-224-1615.

CATERING TO YOU Painstakingly prepared entrees and great appetizers in this gourmetto-go location, attached to a gift shop. Caters everything from family dinners to weddings and large corporate events. 8121 Cantrell Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-614-9030. Serving meals to go: LD Mon.-Sat. CATFISH CITY AND BBQ GRILL Basic fried fish and sides, including green tomato pickles,

and now with tasty ribs and sandwiches in beef, pork and sausage. 1817 S. University Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-663-7224. LD Tue.-Sat. CHEDDAR’S Large selection of somewhat standard American casual cafe choices, many of which are made from scratch. Portions are large and prices are very reasonable. 400 South University. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-614-7578.

LD daily.

CHEERS IN THE HEIGHTS Good burgers and sandwiches, vegetarian offerings and salads at lunch, and fish specials and good steaks in the evening. 2010 N. Van Buren. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-663-5937. LD Mon.-Sat. 1901 Club Manor Drive. Maumelle. Full bar, All CC. 501-851-6200. LD daily, BR Sun. CHICKEN WANG & CAFE Regular, barbecue, spicy, lemon, garlic pepper, honey mustard and Buffalo wings. Open late. 8320 Colonel Glenn Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-562-1303.

LD Mon.-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. COAST CANTINA A variety of salads, smoothies, sandwiches and pizzas, and there’s breakfast and coffee, too. 400 President Clinton Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-371-0164.

LD Mon.-Sat. COLD STONE CREAMERY This national chain takes a base flavor (everything from Sweet Cream to Chocolate Cake Batter) and adds your choice of ingredients or a combination of ingredients it calls a Creation. Cold Stone also serves up a variety of ice cream cakes and cupcakes. 12800 Chenal Parkway. No alcohol, All CC. $. 501-225-7000. LD daily.

COMMUNITY BAKERY This sunny downtown bakery is the place to linger over a latte, bagels and the New York Times. But a lunchtime dash for sandwiches is OK, too, though it’s often packed. 1200 S. Main St. No alcohol, CC. $-$$.

501-375-7105. BLD daily. 270 S. Shackleford.

No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-224-1656. BLD Mon.-Sat. BL Sun. COPELAND’S RESTAURANT OF LITTLE ROCK The full service restaurant chain started by the founder of Popeye’s delivers the same good biscuits, the same dependable frying and a New Orleans vibe in piped music and decor.

You can eat red beans and rice for a price in the single digits or pay near $40 for a choice slab of ribeye, with crab, shrimp and fish in between. 2602 S. Shackleford Road. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-312-1616. LD daily.

COPPER GRILL Comfort food, burgers and more sophisticated fare at this River Marketarea hotspot. 300 E. Third St. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-375-3333. LD Mon.-Sat. CRACKER BARREL OLD COUNTRY STORE Home-cooking with plenty of variety and big portions. Old-fashioned breakfast served all day long. 2618 S. Shackleford Road. No alcohol, All CC. 501-225-7100. BLD daily. 3101 Springhill Drive. NLR. No alcohol, All CC. 501-945-9373.

BLD daily.

CRAZEE’S COOL CAFE Good burgers, daily plate specials and bar food amid pool tables and TVs. 7626 Cantrell Road. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-221-9696. LD Mon.-Sat. CUPCAKE FACTORY About a dozen cupcake varieties daily, plus pies, whole or by-the-slice, cake balls, brownies and other dessert bars.

18104 Kanis Road. No alcohol, All CC. 501-8219913. L Mon.-Fri. CUPCAKES ON KAVANAUGH Gourmet

DINING CAPSULES, CONT. cupcakes and coffee, indoor seating. 5625 Kavanaugh Blvd. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$.

501-664-2253. LD Mon.-Sat. DAVE AND RAY’S DOWNTOWN DINER Breakfast buffet daily featuring biscuits and gravy, home fries, sausage and made-to-order omelets. Lunch buffet with four choices of meats and eight veggies. 824 W. Capitol Ave. No alcohol. $. 501-372-8816. BL Mon.-Fri. DAVE’S PLACE A popular downtown soupand-sandwich stop at lunch draws a large and diverse crowd for the Friday night dinner, which varies in theme, home cooking being the most popular. Owner Dave Williams does all the cooking and his son, Dave also, plays saxophone and fronts the band that plays most Friday nights. 201 Center St. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-372-3283. L Mon.-Fri., D Fri. DAVID FAMILY KITCHEN Call it soul food or call it down-home country cooking. Just be sure to call us for breakfast or lunch when you go. Neckbones, ribs, sturdy cornbread, salmon croquettes, mustard greens and the like. Desserts are exceptionally good. 2301 Broadway. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-3710141. BL Tue.-Fri., L Sun. DAVID’S BURGERS Serious hamburgers, steak salads, homemade custard. 101 S. Bowman Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-227-8333.

LD Mon.-Sat. 1100 Highway 65 N. Conway.

No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. (501) 327-3333 4000 McCain Blvd. NLR. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$.

501-353-0387. LD Mon.-Sat. DELICIOUS TEMPTATIONS Decadent breakfast and light lunch items that can be ordered in full or half orders to please any appetite or palate, with a great variety of salads and soups as well. Don’t miss the bourbon pecan pie — it’s a winner. 11220 N. Rodney Parham Road.

No alcohol, All CC. $$. 501-225-6893. BL daily.

DEMPSEY BAKERY Bakery with sit down area, serving coffee and specializing in gluten-, nutand soy-free baked goods. 323 Cross St. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-375-2257. Serving BL Tue.-Sat. DIZZY’S GYPSY BISTRO Interesting bistro fare, served in massive portions at this River Market favorite. 200 River Market Ave. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-375-3500. LD Tue.-Sat. DOE’S EAT PLACE A skid-row dive turned power brokers’ watering hole with huge steaks, great tamales and broiled shrimp, and killer burgers at lunch. 1023 W. Markham St. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-376-1195. LD Mon.-Fri., D Sat. DOUBLETREE PLAZA BAR & GRILL The lobby restaurant in the Doubletree is elegantly comfortable, but you’ll find no airs put on at heaping breakfast and lunch buffets. 424 West Markham St. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-372-4371.

BLD daily.

EJ’S EATS AND DRINKS The friendly neighborhood hoagie shop downtown serves at a handful of tables and by delivery. The sandwiches are generous, the soup homemade and the salads cold. Vegetarians can craft any number of acceptable meals from the flexible menu. The housemade potato chips are da bomb. 523 Center St. Full bar, All CC. $-$$.

501-666-3700. LD Mon.-Fri., BR Sun. THE FADED ROSE The Cajun-inspired menu seldom disappoints. Steaks and soaked salads are legendary. 1619 Rebsamen Park Road. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-663-9734. LD daily.

FILIBUSTER’S BISTRO & LOUNGE Sandwiches, salads in the Legacy Hotel. 625 W. Capitol Ave. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-3740100. D Mon.-Fri. THE FINISH LINE CAFE Great breakfasts and

a widely varied lunch selection including daily plate lunches, sandwiches, pizzas and whatever the students at the Arkansas Culinary School at Pulaski Tech come up with on any particular day.

Great way to eat gourmet food cheap. 13000 S. Interstate 30. Alexander. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-831-2433. BL Mon.-Thu. FLIGHT DECK A not-your-typical daily lunch special highlights this spot, which also features inventive sandwiches, salads and a popular burger. Central Flying Service at Adams Field.

Beer and wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-975-9315. BL Mon.-Sat. FLYING FISH The fried seafood is fresh and crunchy and there are plenty of raw, boiled and grilled offerings, too. The hamburgers are a hit, too. It’s counter service; wander on through the screen door and you’ll find a slick team of cooks and servers doing a creditable job of serving big crowds. 511 President Clinton Ave. Beer and wine, All CC. $$. 501-375-3474. LD daily.

FLYING SAUCER A popular River Market hangout thanks to its almost 200 beers (including 75 on tap) and more than decent bar food. It’s nonsmoking, so families are welcome.

323 President Clinton Ave. Full bar, All CC. $$.

501-372-8032. LD daily.

FORTY TWO Solid choice for weekday lunch, featuring entrees and sandwiches from around the world. 1200 President Clinton Ave. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-537-0042. L Mon.-Sat. FRANKE’S CAFETERIA Plate lunch spot strong on salads and vegetables, and perfect fried chicken on Sundays. Arkansas’ oldest continually operating restaurant. 11121 N. Rodney Parham Road. No alcohol, All CC. $$. 501-2254487. LD daily. 400 W. Capitol Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $$. 501-372-1919. L Mon.-Fri. FRONTIER DINER The traditional all-American roadside diner, complete with a nice selection of man-friendly breakfasts and lunch specials.

The half pound burger is a two-hander for the average working Joe. 10424 Interstate 30. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-565-6414. BL Mon.-Sat. GARDEN SQUARE CAFE & GROCERY Vegetarian soups, sandwiches and wraps just like those to be had across the street at 4Square Cafe and Gifts, plus a small grocery store.

4Square does unique and delicious wraps with such ingredients as shiitake mushrooms and the servings are ample. A small grocery accompanies the River Market cafe. River Market. No alcohol, All CC. 501-244-9964.

GIGI’S CUPCAKES This Nashville-based chain’s entries into the artisan-cupcake sweetstakes are as luxurious in presentation as they are in sugar quantity. 416 S. University Ave., Suite 120.

No alcohol, All CC. $. 501-614-7012. BLD daily.

GINO’S PIZZA AND PHILLY STEAK 8000 Geyer Springs Road. 501-562-0152. LD daily.

GRAMPA’S CATFISH HOUSE A longtime local favorite for fried fish, hush puppies and good sides. 9219 Stagecoach Road. Beer and wine, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-407-0000. LD Tue.-Sat, L Sun. THE GRAND CAFE Typical hotel restaurant fare from this Hilton cafe. 925 South University Ave. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-664-5020. BD daily.

GREEN LEAF GRILL Cafeteria on the ground floor of the Blue Cross-Blue Shield building has healthy entrees. 601 S. Gaines. No alcohol, CC. 501-378-2521.

GRUMPY’S TOO Music venue and sports bar with lots of TVs, pub grub and regular drink specials. 1801 Green Mountain Drive. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-225-3768. D Mon.-Sat. GUILLERMO’S GOURMET GROUNDS Serves gourmet coffee, lunch, loose-leaf tea, and

tapas. Beans are roasted in house, and the espresso is probably the best in town. 10700 Rodney Parham Road. CC. 501-228-4448. BL 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. $-$$. 501-372-2211. LD daily. 400 N. Bowman. Beer. $-$$. 501-400-8745. LD daily.

HERITAGE GRILLE STEAK AND FIN Upscale dining inside the Little Rock Marriott. Excellent surf and turf options. 3 Statehouse Plaza. Full bar, All CC. $$$. 501-399-8000. LD daily.

HILLCREST ARTISAN MEATS A fancy charcuterie and butcher shop with excellent daily soup and sandwich specials. Limited seating is available. 2807 Kavanaugh Blvd. Suite B. No alcohol, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-671-6328. L Mon.-Sat. HOMER’S Great vegetables, huge yeast rolls and killer cobblers. Follow the mobs. 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. BLD Mon.-Sat., BL Sun. HONEYBAKED HAM CO. The trademark ham is available by the sandwich, as is great smoked turkey and lots of inexpensive side items and desserts. 9112 N. Rodney Parham Road. No alcohol, All CC. 501-227-5555. LD Mon.-Sun. (4 p.m. close on Sat.).

IRONHORSE SALOON Bar and grill offering juicy hamburgers and cheeseburgers. 9125 Mann Road. Full bar, All CC. $. 501-562-4464.

LD daily.

IZZY’S It’s bright, clean and casual, with snappy team service of all his standbys — sandwiches and fries, lots of fresh salads, pasta about a dozen ways, hand-rolled tamales and brick oven pizzas. 5601 Ranch Drive. Beer and wine, All CC. $$. 501-868-4311. LD Mon.-Sat. J. GUMBO’S Fast-casual Cajun fare served, primarily, in a bowl. Better than expected. 12911 Cantrell Road. Beer, All CC. $-$$. 501-916-9635.

LD daily.

JASON’S DELI A huge selection of sandwiches (wraps, subs, po’ boys and pitas), salads and spuds, as well as red beans and rice and chicken pot pie. Plus a large selection of heart healthy and light dishes. 301 N. Shackleford Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-954-8700. LD daily.

JERKY’S SPICY CHICKEN AND MORE Jerk chicken, Southern fried chicken, Southern fried jerk chicken, along with burgers, sandwiches, salads. 2501 Arch St. No alcohol. 501-246-3096.

JIMMY’S SERIOUS SANDWICHES Consistently fine sandwiches, side orders and desserts for 30 years. Chicken salad’s among the best in town, and there are fun specialty sandwiches such as Thai One On and The Garden. Get there early for lunch. 5116 W. Markham St. No alcohol, CC. $-$$. 501-6663354. LD Mon.-Fri., L Sat. JOUBERT’S TAVERN Local beer and wine haunt that serves Polish sausage and other bar foods. 7303 Kanis Road. Full bar, CC. $-$$.

501-664-9953. D Mon.-Sat. K. HALL AND SONS Neighborhood grocery store with excellent lunch counter. The cheeseburger is hard to beat. 1900 Wright Avenue. No alcohol, CC. $. 501-372-1513. BLD Mon.-Sat. (closes at 6 p.m.), BL Sun. KILWINS Ice cream, candies, fudge and sweets galore made in-house and packaged for eat-itnow or eat-it-later. 415 President Clinton Ave. No alcohol, CC. $-$$. 501-379-9865. LD daily.

KITCHEN EXPRESS Delicious “meat and three” restaurant offering big servings of homemade soul food. Maybe Little Rock’s best fried

chicken. 4600 Asher Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-666-3500. BLD Mon.-Sat., LD Sun. KRAZY MIKE’S Po’Boys, catfish and shrimp and other fishes, fried chicken wings and all the expected sides served up fresh and hot to order on demand. 200 N. Bowman Road. Beer, All CC. $$. 501-907-6453. LD Mon.-Sat. LASSIS INN One of the state’s oldest restaurants still in the same location and one of the best for catfish and buffalo fish. 518 E 27th St. Beer and wine, All CC. $$. 501-372-8714. LD Tue.-Sat. LE POPS Delicious, homemade iced lollies (or popsicles, for those who aren’t afraid of the trademark.) 5501 Kavanaugh Blvd. Ste. J. No alcohol, CC. $. 501-313-9558. LD daily.

LINDA’S CORNER Southern and soul food.

2601 Barber St. 501-372-1511.

LOBLOLLY CREAMERY Small batch artisan ice cream and sweet treats company that operates a soda fountain inside The Green Corner Store.

1423 Main St. No alcohol, CC. $-$$. 501-3969609. LD Mon.-Sat., L Sun. LOCA LUNA Grilled meats, seafood and pasta dishes that never stray far from country roots, whether Italian, Spanish or Arkie. “Gourmet plate lunches” are good, as is Sunday brunch.

3519 Old Cantrell Road. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$.

501-663-4666. BR Sun., LD Mon.-Fri., D Sat. LOST FORTY BREWING Brewery and brewpub from the folks behind Big Orange, Local Lime and ZaZa. 501 Byrd St. Beer and wine, All CC. $$. 501-319-7335. LD Wed.-Sun. LOVE FISH MARKET Part fish market, part restaurant. Offering fresh fish to prepare at home or fried catfish and a variety of sides.

1401 John Barrow Road. No alcohol, CC. $-$$.

501-224-0202. LD Mon.-Sat. LULAV A MODERN EATERY Bistro-style menu of American favorites broken down by expensive to affordable plates, and strong wine list, also group-priced to your liking. Great filet.

Don’t miss the chicken and waffles. 220 W. 6th St. Full bar, CC. $$$. 501-374-5100. LD Mon.-Fri., D Sat. MADDIE’S PLACE Owner/chef Brian Deloney has built quite a thriving business with a pretty simple formula: making almost everything from scratch and matching hefty portions of Cajun and Creole with reasonable prices in a fun, upbeat atmosphere. Maddie’s offers a stellar selection of draft beers and a larger, better wine list than you might expect. 1615 Rebsamen Park Road. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-660-4040.

LD Tue.-Sat. MAGGIE MOO’S ICE CREAM AND TREATERY Ice cream, frozen yogurt and ice cream pizza. 17821 Chenal Parkway. No alcohol, All CC. $. 501-821-7609. LD daily.

THE MAIN CHEESE A restaurant devoted to grilled cheese. 14524 Cantrell Road. Beer and wine. $-$$. 501-367-8082. LD Mon.-Sat. MARIE’S MILFORD TRACK II Healthy and tasty are the key words at this deli/grill, featuring hot entrees, soups, sandwiches, salads and killer desserts. 9813 W Markham St. No alcohol, CC. $-$$. 501-225-4500. BL Mon.-Sat. MARKHAM STREET GRILL AND PUB The menu has something for everyone, including mahi-mahi and wings. Try the burgers, which are juicy, big and fine. 11321 W. Markham St. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-224-2010. LD daily.

MILFORD TRACK Healthy and tasty are the key words at this deli/grill that serves breakfast and lunch. Hot entrees change daily and there are soups, sandwiches, salads and killer desserts. Bread is baked in-house, and there are several veggie options. 10809 Executive Center Drive, Searcy Building. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-223-2257. BL Mon.-Fri., L Sat. www.arktimes.com

FEBRUARY 26, 2015

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Giving Back SINGLE PARENT SCHOLARSHIP FUND OF PULASKI COUNTY Helping single parents attain their educational goals.

M

ost college scholarships help students go to college, but the Single Parent Scholarship Fund of Pulaski County (SPSF) helps low-income, single-parent college students stay in school and finish their degree. The organization provides scholarships, nurtures families through its strong student support system and creates new futures through educational opportunities.

Founded in 1991, SPSF has disbursed more than $1.3 million to more than 1,800 students in Pulaski County. The fund’s success rate is as impressive as its recipients — 92 percent of SPSF recipients graduate or stay in school. With a strong, working board and an incredible base of volunteers who are committed to the students’ success, SPSF works closely with administrators, faculty and staff in Pulaski County from partner colleges and universities, which include: ➤ Pulaski Technical College ➤ University of Arkansas at Little Rock ➤ University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences ➤ Baptist Health Schools ➤ Philander Smith College ➤ Harding University (North Little Rock Campus) ➤ ohn Brown University (JBU- Little Rock Campus) ➤ Park University (LRAFB campus) ➤ Arkansas Baptist College

YOU CAN HELP!

➤ Volunteer opportunities are always available ➤ “Adopt A Student” for $1,000 a semester or $3,000 annually 32

FEBRUAURY 26, 2015

ARKANSAS TIMES

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Eriana Williams, shown here with her daughter Haidyn Minor, graduated in May 2014 with her Associate of Applied Science in Nursing (RN) degree from University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) and is currently on track to complete her Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from UALR in summer 2015.

➤ Contribute to SPSF at spsfpulaski.org ➤ Attend an event – the first “With Your Help” event is scheduled for April 9 For more information: Karin Bara, Executive Director 501-301-7773 http://spsfpulaski.org

KYE-YAC INTERNATIONAL Giving children a chance to thrive.

K

YE-YAC International believes all children deserve a chance to thrive. The importance of modeling and teaching compassion for others is a guiding principle of KYE-YAC, as is the concept “A World of Giving.” The group’s goal is to achieve a future in which youth around the world collaborate to create a better tomorrow and strive to make philanthropy a lifelong practice..

Each year, the all-youth KYE-YAC board chooses children’s charities to support after in-depth research and numerous site visits.

Since its 2009 inception, KYE-YAC has supported well over 100 causes, contributing nearly $500,000 in charitable giving to youth in Arkansas and beyond.

The work of KYE-YAC can be supported by making a donation online at www.kye-yac. org or by mailing to KYE-YAC, c/o The Hot Springs Area Community Foundation, PO Box 56, Hot Springs, AR 71902. All donations are tax-deductible, and every penny raised by KYE-YAC goes directly to charity.

Most college scholarships help students go to college. Single Parent Scholarship Fund of Pulaski County (SPSF) helps low-income, single-parent college -./ (.- -. 3 #( - "))& ( Ĺ?(#-" ." #, !, | *,)0# - ")& ,-"#*-} nurture families through our strong student support system, and create new /./, - .",)/!" / .#)( & )**),./(#.# -| /, -/ -- , . #- - #'*, --#0 as our recipients—92% of SPSF recipients graduate or stay in school.

YOU CAN HELP!

• )&/(. , )**),./(#.# - , &1 3- 0 #& & • “Adopt A Studentâ€? for $1000 a semester or $3000 annually • ĂŠ)(.,# /. .) . -*- */& -%#|),! • ĂŒ.. ( ( 0 (.” )/, Ĺ?,-. “With Your Helpâ€? 0 (. on April 9, 2015.

Contact: Karin Bara, Executive Director

501-301-7773 | spsfpulaski.org

Attendees at Wolfe Street Center’s “Lights, Camera, Action Academy Award Gala� fundraiser.

THE WOLFE STREET CENTER SHINES BRIGHT FOR PEOPLE IN RECOVERY

W

alk into the Wolfe Street Center and you will see just how welcoming, friendly and sparkling clean it is. For those in recovery, it is a beacon of support for working the original 12 steps to obtain and maintain sobriety. For their families and friends, it’s a light of hope for the groups and individuals faithful to the original 12 steps of recovery that share their personal experiences and stories and invite other members to determine on their own what lesson they could apply to their own lives.

On Feb. 22, the lights of Hollywood beamed on Wolfe Street Center as it raised money to support programs through the Lights, Camera, Action Academy Award Gala fundraiser. A favorite charitable event in Central Arkansas for 15 years, the Academy Awards Gala benefiting the Wolfe Street Foundation helps keep the doors of the Wolfe Street Center open for 16 hours each day, every day of the year. “Wolfe Street serves more than 100,000 people a year, and these individuals remain faithful to the original 12 steps of recovery.

501.372.5662 • WolfeStreet.org • 1015 Louisiana Street in downtown Little Rock 34

FEBRUAURY 26, 2015

ARKANSAS TIMES

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The groups pay rent to Wolfe Street Foundation, but there is no cost to individuals who access the programs and resources that Wolfe Street Center provides,” said Markey Ford, executive director of the Wolfe Street Foundation. “In fact, the oldest AA group west of the Mississippi meets at Wolfe Street Center.”

The Wolfe Street Center helps members and visitors find peace and serenity as they attend meetings, prevention and educational workshops, seminars and social events.

They also can meet in complete anonymity with their sponsors in the 5th Step Room, meditate in the 11th Step Room, use the computer in the library and shop for books and other recovery materials in the bookstore. While the mission of the Wolfe Street Center is to offer a place for all members of the community to meet in the recovery of alcoholism, the mission of the Wolfe Street Foundation is to raise funds to pay for the meeting place and programs for members of the groups and individuals faithful to the original 12 steps of recovery.

“Alcoholics Anonymous cannot raise funds lest it divert us from our primary purpose, which is to get sober, stay sober and help others do the same.” Ford said. “The Wolfe Street Foundation raises the funds that support the work and resources the Wolfe Street Center provides.”

Ford was a beneficiary of Wolfe Street Center’s services, and as the executive director of the Wolfe Street Foundation for almost a decade, she is now giving back what she feels was so freely given to her.

“Every day, I see the difference Wolfe Street makes in people’s lives,” Ford said. “Research by the National Institutes of Health shows that one in 10 Americans abuse alcohol while five or six others are directly affected by it, such as family, friends, coworkers, etc. Wolfe Street’s aim is to let these people know they are not alone. We do this together, one day at a time.”

If you or someone you know is affected by alcoholism, visit the Wolfe Street Center at 1015 Louisiana St. in downtown Little Rock, call the office at 501-372-5662, email wolfestreetlr@gmail.com, or visit online at wolfestreet.org/.

If you wish to make a monetary contribution to the Wolfe Street Foundation, visit wolfestreet.org/ become-a-supporting-patron, or wolfestreet.org/friends-of-wolfestreet/ to volunteer as a Friend of Wolfe Street.

PRIDECORPS

Empowering GLBT youth.

P

ridecorps is a community-based nonprofit founded by Jon Etienne Mourot, Ph.D., J.D., on Aug. 26, 2014. Its mission is to celebrate, support, and empower GLBT youth ages 14-20. Educational programs and fun activities offered twice a month provide GLBT youth the opportunity to meet others from Little Rock and communities beyond their school environments.

This is particularly important for those from small rural communities.

Youth participants are reached through referrals from other youth, educators, health care providers, church leaders and community events. Participants hail from the Little Rock metro area, including Benton, Cabot and Jonesboro. Topics of facilitatorled discussion include, but are not limited to, coming out and disclosure; substance abuse; mental health; suicide prevention; bullying and harassment; self-esteem; safe sex; HIV and STI prevention; and wellness and nutrition. Program options selected by the youth are offered by a diverse group of volunteers. Rev. Britt Skarda and retired Episcopal Bishop Larry Maze are but two

presenters from the religious community.

Yoga instructors Cai Carvalhaes and John Willis lead ongoing 30-minute yoga sessions. Luci Towbin, a tai chi master, will introduce this ancient form of meditation in movement in the spring. Amy Smith, a nutritionist and Cordon Bleu-trained chef, will soon share how to make easy nutritious snacks.

Pridecorps youth meet at Pulaski Heights United Methodist Church at 4823 Woodlawn in Little Rock on the second and fourth Saturdays of each month.

Board members and other volunteers facilitate the groups. Pridecorps has no paid staff. Board members, youth meeting facilitators and support staff are all volunteers who have passed background checks. The long-term goal is to hold meetings each Saturday afternoon, to add a group for those 21 and older, and to hire someone to conduct the

groups. We invite any assistance the community can provide. If you would like to be added to our mailing list, please go to pridecorps.org/support/ If you would like to inquire about our program or to volunteer in any capacity, please email info@pridecorps.org and a board member will contact you. Information is also available at our Facebook page.

Pridecorps is awaiting approval of its 501(c)(3) application.

Jon Etienne Mourot is the founder and co-chair of Pridecorps board of directors.

Catherine Crisp, Ph.D., MSW, Associate Professor of Social Work at UALR, also serves as co-chair. Angela Frazier, CPA, is the treasurer. Tippi McCullough, B.S.E., M.S.E., serves as a board member and oversees curriculum development. Other board members include Kyle Boswell, Sonia Rios, Colin Robinson, Karen Suen and Susann Walters.

SEIS PUENTES

A Remarkably Unique Organization.

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is name is “Juan,” and he’s an undocumented worker who has been in Southeast Arkansas for many years picking cotton with his wife working alongside. Now his children go to public school and he and his wife have been taking classes at Seis Puentes. They learned to speak English, and his wife was the first female in his family get her high school equivalency. He is now a foreman on the farm, his wife works and his family is close to citizenship. This is one of many similar stories at Seis Puentes.

“Seis Puentes is a remarkably unique organization here in Arkansas,” board chair Vincent Insalaco said. “Many people overlook the fact that we are a nation of immigrants, beginning with my family. There are estimates that Arkansas now has about 200,000 Hispanic immigrants. We need to welcome and do all we can to make this community blend in and feel at home.”

Seis Puentes is a project of Butterfly Community, which began as a Methodist nonprofit assisting the North Little Rock Hispanic community with English language and high school equivalency classes, interpreting for doctors’ appointments, and in some cases teaching people how to reach emergency services. Seis Puentes also partners with the Mexican Consulate in providing an educational program called Plaza Comunitaria. This program is an adult educational program that provides the opportunity for a Spanish speaker to begin or finish their high school education in Spanish using the Mexican educational programs, which are provided by the Mexican government through the consulate.

Butterfly Community was founded in 2001 when former North Little Rock Mayor Patrick Hays approached Insalaco and other members of the First United Methodist Church to help

with the Our Club Program in the Sherman Park community.

Several years later, as the Hispanic community grew in North Little Rock, Butterfly started Seis Puentes, which means “six bridges,” with a mission to empower and support the Latino community through education and outreach. The name Seis Puentes refers to the bridges over the Arkansas River connecting Little Rock and North Little Rock, and symbolizes the program’s work to create connections and opportunities between the Latino community and general life in Arkansas.

Now in its ninth year, Seis Puentes operates the only Hispanic Resource Center in Arkansas, which has a 12-station computer center used by the entire Levy community. The center’s approximately 400 students of all ages learn English and earn general equivalency diplomas through a partnership with the Pulaski County Special School District. Seis Puentes also partners with Studio One Dance, where about 25 Hispanic children learn ballet, tap and jazz.

Seis Puentes will host the 14th annual Community Services Awards Dinner on March 3 at the Argenta Community Theater.

This year’s recipients will be state Rep. Eddie Armstrong and former state Rep. Patti Julian. Past recipients have included former North Little Rock Mayor Patrick Hays, former First Lady Ginger Beebe, Pulaski County Judge Barry Hyde and former state Sen. Mary Anne Salmon. For more information on how to purchase tickets, email vmi96@aol.com.

Seis Puentes is a nonprofit that operates on donations, and all of its board members and staff are volunteers. Donations can be mailed to Seis Puentes at 567 Silverwood Trail, North Little Rock, AR 72116.

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Stepping Spring INTO

One Sandal,

Endless Possibilities

If you’re like us, you’re ready for the cold weather to be gone and to start wearing lighter clothing and shoes! A great shoe option for spring and beyond is this cute sandal from Sseko. Buy the T-strap accent sandal and get many different looks with interchangeable accents. The best part? The sandal doesn’t just look good, it gives back. By wearing Sseko Sandals, you’re helping to empower and educate women around the world. Handcrafted in Uganda and available locally.

BOX TURTLE 2616 Kavanaugh Blvd., 661.1167 shopboxturtle.com

Best Gift Shop

M-F 10-6 • SAT 10-5 2616 KAVANAUGH BLVD. LITTLE ROCK 501.661.1167 | WWW.SHOPBOXTURTLE.COM

RVCA | NIXON | HIPPYTREE | VOLCOM |AG IRON&RESIN | WESC | DIESEL | SCOTCH&SODA

AgateStyle JARED LANG / 7 DIAMONDS / JACHS MAVI CULT / CITIZENS / JOE’S / FIDELITY

Provisions For The Cultured Gentleman 11220 N Rodney Parham Rd | Suite 3 501.246.5466 shopcultureclothing.com 36

FEBRUAURY 26, 2015

ARKANSAS TIMES

CASUALLY DRESSING THE BEST DRESSED MEN IN LITTLE ROCK 14810 Cantrell Road, SUITE 120 Little Rock, AR 72223 (501) 367-8280 • Shopthelabel.biz

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Spring into March with this agate slice and tassel necklace

by Michelle Rhodes, Myrrh Handmade Jewelry. It’s the perfect complement to any spring look. Visit Ember Mon.-Sat. to complete your spring wardrobe or stop in during Third Thursday in the Heights for after hours shopping.

EMBER 5709 Kavanaugh Blvd.

225.3220 shopemberfashion.com

Color

Pop!

Be the most stylish of your friends this spring by brightening up any outfit with a pop of color! This floral snapback cap from WESC paired with a fresh Nixon watch will carry you into summer. The watch is waterproof up to 300 feet so you won’t have to worry if you decide to take a dip in the pool.

Another way to accent an outfit is with a great bracelet like the handmade friendship bracelet (pictured) from Half United where each purchase goes to the Feed the Children fund.

CULTURE CLOTHING 11220 N. Rodney Parham Road Ste. 3 246.5466 shopcultureclothing.com

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JUST CURIOUS

➥ Friends and customers of BOX TURTLE have probably missed seeing the smiling face of longtime manager Leslie Nelson around the store lately, and it’s been for a very sad reason.

According to Box Turtle owner Emese Boone, Nelson had a serious reaction to a medication in July 2014, which resulted in the diagnosis of Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, lupus and other autoimmune problems. In late January, she had another flare-up of Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, which causes severe burns to the skin. Since then, she’s been in the hospital, first at Baptist, then at the burn unit at Arkansas Children’s Hospital and then on to another hospital when complications set in. It’s been a hard road for Nelson and her family, with months of healing and physical therapy still in the future.

To help offset the cost of Nelson’s medical treatment, Boone has set up an online fund raiser at www.youcaring.com/medical-fundraiser/ help-leslie-nelson-/308042. The hope is to raise enough money so that Nelson and her family can concentrate on getting her better instead of worrying about hospital bills. Please make a donation if you can, but good thoughts and prayers are also appreciated.

For updates on Nelson’s condition and healing journey, visit www.caringbridge.org/ visit/leslienelson. ➥ If you’re looking forward to spring, take note that the opening day for the ARGENTA FARMERS MARKET has been set for March 28. In addition to great deals on in-season, locally grown fruits, vegetables and other treats, there will also be live music with The Boomers playing. ➥ CANTRELL GALLERY is hosting a limited-time exhibit benefitting Central Arkansas Rescue Effort for Animals (CARE), featuring art by local artist Sandra Graves, who paints under the name R.S. Perry. The exhibit will be March 6-14, with an opening night reception from 6 to 8 p.m. March 6. CARE will receive 70 percent of all sales of Graves’ art during this exhibit, and Cantrell Gallery will donate 20 percent of any reframing of Graves’ art to CARE.

Relaxed, Still Stylish

For a casual, yet stylish look that will carry you through more relaxed days, walk into spring in these Carson shoes by Bed Stu. With classic lines and lace-up finishing, these shoes are the perfect way to transition to spring wardrobes.

The Label has plenty of stylish options in store to help you look good for spring and every season. A move to their new location in Pleasant Ridge Shopping Center is coming soon. Until then, visit them in their current location, Facebook or Instagram for all your wardrobe needs.

THE LABEL 14810 Cantrell Rd., Ste. 120 367.8280 facebook.com/thelabellittlerock

5709 KAVANAUGH BOULEVARD LITTLE ROCK, AR 72207 WWW.SHOPEMBERFASHION.COM 501.225.3220

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FEBRUAURY 26, 2015

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DUMAS, CONT. General Jim Guy Tucker’s insistence that the utility install stateof-the-art environmental equipment like scrubbers, which would sift the sulfur dioxide and other compounds from smokestack fluegas and turn them into solid waste.

In those days, attorneys generalfought for the public, not the energy industry.

When sulfur dioxide in the air mixes with water it forms sulfuric acid, the “acid rain” that was killing forests across the Appalachians and the seaboard. Finally, the Clean Air Act of 1977 mandated that new power plants install scrubbers, but White Bluff and Independence were grandfathered and their production of sulfur, mercury, arsenic and nitric acid continue. But, nationally, acid rain declined 65 percent.

But the battle the past two decades has been over carbon dioxide. The great expansion of coal-burning generation quickened the pace of climate change. Seaboard states — those showboating attorney generals again — sued to force the EPA to comply with the Clean Air Act and regulate the carbon emissions that were bringing environmental havoc. The Supreme Court in 2007 said they were right, that the Clean Air Act required President George W. Bush’s EPA to do something. The EPA pondered what to do until he left office, leaving the task so feared by the coal industry to the Obama administration.

Arkansas’s regulators and energy industry must devise a plan to reduce carbon emissions significantly. Attorney General Rutledge wants the Supreme Court to stop them before it’s too late.

Arkansas has options. Utilities can retrofit their coal units to clean up their emissions (and create jobs), as Southwestern Electric is doing at its Gentry plant, develop or purchase wind power as the Sierra Club advises, buy gas plants as Entergy is doing or build them, or else convert their coal boilers to natural gas or biomass as other Southern states from Louisiana to South Carolina have been doing. Imagine that — using an Arkansas product like natural gas instead of enriching the coal monarchs of Wyoming.

Economic devastation in the making, the chamber and the attorney general tell us.

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OBSERVER, CONT. A few days later, Armstrong was painting the Seine at the Pont de la Tournelle when Wilde happened along and recognized him from their previous meeting. Drawing on his great intellect and wit, Wilde began discussing the finer points of painting — why it is so difficult to paint water, and canvases on display in nearby museums. Eventually, Wilde asked where Armstrong was from. Learning he was from Arkansas, Wilde asked if there were springs there. “Yes,” Armstrong said.

“Hot springs.”

At that, Wilde looked into the distance and said: “I would like to flee like a wounded hart into Arkansas.”

He stood there in silence for a while, then told Armstrong: “Thank you for listening. I am much alone.” Then he walked away. Wilde died in Paris on Nov. 30, 1900, at the age of 46.

“I would like to flee like a wounded hart into Arkansas.”

It would be easy to see that as the statement of a broken man, but it’s really not.

It’s Wilde dreaming of a place where he could truly be himself. Free from judgment. Free from discrimination. Free from the forces that had conspired to crush his spirit because he dared to live as himself.

For him, Arkansas — a vast, green wilderness beyond the sea — was that place.

And so it should be again.

It doesn’t have to be this way, Arkansas.

You are better than this.

MOVIE REVIEW, CONT. chosen, surely, for its timeless feel, more than for Louisiana’s generous movie tax credits) with little time to retroactive solve the crime.

In this future, Jacob is innovating the future at Lougle, Lou is a brokendown drunk and Nick, having abandoned his pop ripoffs for original crap, has seen his career implode.

Maybe there are lessons to be gleaned here about how to live, how to realize ourselves more fully during this flickering mortal moment we are blessed to inhabit. Or maybe it’s all a string of testicle surgery gags, bare boobs, made-up future drug humor, “Terminator” and “Looper” references, projectile vomiting, drunk brides, virtual televised quasi-consensual man sex, Chevy Chase’s animated remains and whatever else they could think to throw into this goulash. You have to admire the forthrightness of a movie calling itself “Hot Tub Time Machine 2”: It implicitly promises several highly idiotic laughs, and then proceeds to hurdle that admittedly scant bar quite easily.

LYONS, CONT. U.S. air strikes have blunted the terrorists’ ability to launch effective attacks. Many are foreign fighters drawn by the lure of charismatic ideology and seemingly dramatic victories who now find themselves far from home, “outgunned, outnumbered and friendless.”

The very theological certitude that attracts young jihadists has also made the movement strategically dumb.

Attacking the Kurds was criminally stupid. Drawing Jordan into the fight could also prove a fatal error.

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“ISIS has staked its entire political project on one theory,” Beauchamp explains. “They are the true revival of the early Islamic caliphate, destined not only to maintain and expand their theocratic state but to bring on the apocalypse. Once you understand that, ISIS’s blunders look less like miscalculations and more like inevitable results of its animating ideology.”

An ideology that cannot but fail, if the United States has the political maturity to remain calm until that happens.

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39

SAVE THE DATE!

MAY 2, 2015

for the next Arkansas Times ART Bus trip to Crystal Bridges for

Van Gogh

TO

Rothko MASTERWORKS FROM THE

ALBRIGHT-KNOX ART GALLERY

76 artworks by 73 influential artists from the late 19th Century to the present Featuring masterpieces by some of the most prominent names in art history including: Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Georgia O’Keefe, Salvador Dalí, Frida Kahlo, Andy Warhol and Mark Rothko An art-filled day is planned ... Stay tuned for more details.

ARKANSAS TIMES Round-trip bus transportation provided by Arrow Coachlines.

40

FEBRUARY 26, 2015

ARKANSAS TIMES

TIM HURSLEY

RIDE THE ARKANSAS TIMES ART BUS