Arkansas Times - September 15, 2016

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SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

3

COMMENT

Short and sweet In response to Max Brantley’s op-ed (Medical marijuana? Yes.), two words: Thank you!

Brad Bailey

Legalize it Arkansas voters will get the chance to legalize marijuana to some extent this November. Arkansans should definitely vote in favor of such initiatives, not just for medical use, but for the purpose of extending freedom and liberty to our fellow citizens.

What is freedom, anyway? Freedom is an individual experience in which a person can do whatever he wants. Unfortunately, in a society of men, some freedoms may be dangerous, but using marijuana is no danger. Some people complain that marijuana users inhale the spirit of the plant by smoking it. Should citizens of the U.S.A. not have the freedom to smoke, at least on private property?

And should citizens of the U.S.A. not be liberated from governments that take away more and more of their freedoms? There is also the issue of allowing industrialists to manufacture 25,000 products from the cannabis plan.

Although Arkansans talk a lot about freedom and liberty, it may be just a lot of talk. Sure, everyone wants freedom for himself, but do Arkansans really want to extend freedom to the marijuana user? Do Arkansans really want to liberate the marijuana user from prison? Maybe not. The cost of freedom is tolerating the freedoms of others. Arkansans who are not willing to tolerate the freedom of others do not really value freedom.

Gene Mason Jacksonville

Hillary as porcupine Could it be that the Congress is fixin’ to take another run at Hillary?

This should be good news for the Clinton camp. Every time they go after her she jumps in the polls. What the congressmen fail to realize is that, despite her 40 percent approval rating, she is 30 points ahead of them in that category. Any dog will bite a porcupine once. It takes a real special dog to bite the same porcupine repeatedly.

David Rose Hot Springs

From the web 4

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

In response to the Arkansas Blog post about Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” remark describing half of the Republican candidate’s supporters as racists, homophobes, xenophobes, etc.: Hillary was just doing what Donald Trump gets praised for: refusing to be “politically correct.” Most Trump supporters ARE racists. They need to own it.

AnnaHarrisonTerry I’m afraid I’d have to challenge

Hillary on her notion that 20 percent or so of Americans may be “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic.”

I think the number is much higher.

Most of the people I grew up with may put on a halfway decent front in public. But you sit down with them over a beer at a backyard barbeque and you hear the same sort of mouthing you heard when they were in school 50 or 60 years ago.

Oh, OK. I’ll concede one change.

When I was in school, the religious

bugbear was Catholicism, rather than Islam.

And in regard to news sources, anyone wish we still had a Chet Huntley, a David Brinkley, a Walter Cronkite, a Drew Pearson, a Jack Anderson?

Or any number of others whose name I can’t recall at the moment?

What was the name of the motherlytype television political reporter who occasionally weighed in during that era?

Doigotta I quit going to the local community center for breakfast once President Obama was a candidate since the “jokes” were constant. I still hold that if you put a “reinstate slavery” question on the ballot in this state, the over age 50 vote would be probably 60 percent plus pro. couldn’t be better The major candidates this year are both deplorable, so I’m voting for Gary “What is Aleppo?” Johnson.

Radical centrist Re Hillary Clinton’s stumble at a 911 event and her diagnosis of pneumonia: Better to have a president with a simple and curable pulmonary disease than a president with a galaxy of incurable psychiatric illnesses.

Henry Gardner Newell In response to the Sept. 8 cover story on Graham Gordy and his new show debuting on Cinemax: “There’s a terrible familiarity to the painstakingly accurate setting, like finding your own eyes in a Kodachrome portrait of your grandfather in an old family album.” — I love that line.

Great write-up, and I would definitely watch this show if I had skinemax.

Lucas Murray In response to the Sept. 8 review of the Tacos 4 Life restaurant in Conway, which donates a part of its earnings to the “Feed My Starving Children” nonprofit: We do Tacos 4 Life almost every time we’re in Conway. It’s quality food at a decent price. I just wish that the “starving children” were not required to go through proselytizing in order to eat. At least that’s my understanding.

I would love to find out otherwise.

Vanessa

In response to the Sept. 1 article on the latest extension of the River Trail to the edge of the Dillard’s headquarters on Cantrell: This is what eminent domain was designed for, people!

MysteryShopper Rather than eminent domain, why don’t we just stop giving city government contracts to Dillard’s and [its construction company] CDI? Dillards/CDI wins a $60 million bid to redo Robinson and then refuses to cooperate on the river trail — just astounding.

The quote about “not the best use of taxpayer money” is garbage. The trail needs a few feet across the Dillard’s property. craigsl

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SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

5

WEEK THAT WAS

“If you don’t want to bring scandal against your school, then don’t do things that discriminate against children.”

— Tippi McCullough, commenting on a new policy in Arkansas’s Catholic schools that seems to threaten LGBT students with expulsion if their “expression of gender, sexual identity, or sexuality should mislead others, or cause scandal, or have the potential to cause scandal.” Bishop Anthony Taylor has not answered questions on the policy from the press, but he’s taken a hard line against LGBT equality in the past. In 2014, when the same-sex marriage question was before the Arkansas Supreme Court, Taylor wrote a friend of the court brief that equated homosexuality with incest.

Final approval for Razorback stadium expansion The University of Arkansas Board of Trustees approved a $120 million bond issue last Thursday for a Razorback Stadium expansion that could cost $226 million or more when interest is included.

Trustees David Pryor and Cliff Gibson again voted no, as they did when the board approved the initial plans for the project. Pryor thanked the board for allowing him to express his opposition to the project as an outsized commitment to athletics against the primary educational mission of the university.

The Athletic Department has estimated the cost of the stadium expansion — with new high-dollar club seating and a variety of improvements to office and other facilities — at $160 million. Interest on the $120 million in bonds will require $186 million in revenue. The university hopes to raise $40 million for the project from sale of new “founders’ suites” that cost $3 million and up as well as from contributions from Athletic Department reserves and the Razorback Foundation. Ticket sales and student charges are pledged to the bonds, but officials have told the Times previously that the language about student charges was a standard feature of UA bonds and that no student charges were planned.

The final tab depends on the final bids for the work. Overruns are not 6

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

unheard of. Also, private contributions could alter the size of the bond issue.

Pryor has raised questions about what happens should fan interest wane, either because of a preference for TV games or because of a losing team. Athletic Director Jeff Long said he was confident in the continued passion of fans to back a selfsupporting roster of athletics. He also said the department had millions in TV contract revenue as a backstop.

Not a bad start G o v e r n o r Hutchinson will ask the legislature in 2017 to allocate $8.5 million in tobacco settlement money to help tackle a long-festering problem: the 3,000-person waiting list for families in desperate need of at-home services for developmentally disabled children. Some families have been waiting eight or nine years for services.

The tobacco money previously funded AR Health Networks, a health insurance program WONDERS OF MEXICO: Folk dance group Sol Azteca presents its show, "Maravillas de México," at a that was rendered Mexican Independence Day festival sponsored by the Mexican Consulate. obsolete when Arkansas expanded Medicaid to cover its lowest-income citizens.

Grounds Commission met this week to design and placement of the Ten ComIf the legislature signs on, the $8.5 milconsider four proposed monuments: the mandments only, Martin said. The other lion (plus another $20 million in federal Ten Commandments, a goat-headed three proposals will have to win legstatue of Baphomet proposed by the matching funds) should move 500 to islative approval before they can 900 people off the waiting list. That’s Satanic Temple, a brick “Wall of Sepwin a spot on the Capitol grounds. not a full solution, but it’s a start. aration” to symbolize the constitutional divide between church and state (proposed by the Saline Atheist & Skeptic Society) And congratulations to Savvy and a monument honorAccording to Secretary of State Shields of Fayetteville, Mark Martin, approval of a Ten Coming the families of those who won the 2017 killed in wartime.

Miss America pagmandments monument proposed for the Capitol grounds is a foregone conBecause the legeant in Atlantic City last islature has spoken, clusion, since the legislature passed weekend. Shields, 21, is the commission has a law permitting such a structure in a senior art major at the 2015. The Arkansas Capitol Arts and the authority to police the University of Arkansas.

BRIAN CHILSON

Quote of the Week:

EYE ON ARKANSAS

Obey my voice

There she is

OPINION

Dope, dice, death

U

nless the Arkansas Supreme Court decides otherwise, voters will have six constitutional amendments and one initiated act to consider in the Nov. 8 election.

The three from the legislature range from minor cleanup (allowing the governor to remain governor when out of state) to egregious — pledging state tax money to private business bond issues and giving tax money to big business lobbying organizations. In between is an amendment aimed mainly at giving sheriffs four-year terms.

The big battles come from petition drives.

DOPE: There’s the initiated act to allow nonprofit dispensation of marijuana for medical purposes and the amendment to allow for-profit dispensation. As I said last week, I’m for any step toward decriminalization of marijuana.

Governor Hutchinson assembled a bunch of doctors in lab coats Monday to reiterate his opposition. The group took the “reasonable” approach, solemnly

proclaiming that an FDA study process was the best course and claiming — despite avid disagreement from MAX tens of thousands BRANTLEY of satisfied users — maxbrantley@arktimes.com that prescription drugs exist that are better alternatives.

They were either ignorant or lying when they suggested that marijuana could only be smoked. They signaled coming demagoguery by suggesting there was a particular horror in using pot tax revenue to provide palliative marijuana to poor people.

Poor people are low on Asa’s totem pole.

The half of America that has already legalized is wrong. So, too, are the 75 percent of doctors who support medical marijuana, which has never killed anyone, unlike, say, alcohol or opioids.

You had to laugh when Hutchinson’s crew tried to compare Big Marijuana to Big Tobacco, as if private enterprise

Privacy hurts

H

illary Clinton’s decision to keep severely incapaciher mild case of pneumonia se- tated Franklin D. cret from all but a few of her Roosevelt is only staff and family may be only a momentary the most famous. campaign distraction, but it raises the A historian sifting question: Will she ever get it? through President ERNEST That is, after so many stumbles, will John F. Kennedy’s DUMAS she ever realize that her unrelenting papers in 2002 disinsistence on a “zone of privacy,” a citi- covered the breadth of the president’s zen’s right honored in the Bill of Rights, suffering from Addison’s disease and is a dead weight in the political world? addiction to painkillers and anxiety medIt is all that has stood between her and icine even as he took the country to the the presidency. brink of nuclear war over Russian missiles in Cuba in October 1962 (my drill John Brummett in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette imagined Clinton’s sergeant’s scolding that day is still fresh: response to the doctor’s prescription “Train hard, men, you’ll be shooting Rusof a few days’ rest. It probably comes sians in a few days”). Warren G. Harding close to a literal transcription. Since rest was treated for heart trouble, depresmight seem to be an affirmation of Don- sion and mental illness long before anyald Trump’s charges that her fall and one had a clue about how to treat them. concussion in 2012 left her physically Americans never knew that strokes left unfit for the presidency, she must keep Woodrow Wilson half-blind and parthe pneumonia secret and drive herself tially paralyzed. The rail-thin Andrew harder.

Jackson suffered headaches, bleeding “Hillary is sick” may be Trump’s least lungs, gum disease, near blindness and effective stratagem. There is never an pain from two bullets he took in duels. occasion when she is not more alert and William Taft, a 300-pounder, endured more responsive than he, nor is anyone hypertension, sleep apnea and double likely to be swayed by the charge unless vision. The senior President Bush had they hate her anyway. bleeding ulcers, arthritis, atrial fibrilMany presidents had big health prob- lation and Graves’ disease. The signs of lems that they diminished or hid entirely, the dementia that killed Ronald Reagan often with the media’s complicity. The showed up fairly early in his presidency.

was a boogeyman. Hutchinson’s PAC, by which he helps elect like-minded legislators, takes money from Big Tobacco. His former chief of staff, Michael Lamoureux, took it by the bucketful while sitting in the state Senate. Cheech and Chong couldn’t have scripted it.

DICE: A number of legislators and Bible beaters turned out for a campaign event against the amendment to allow two Missouri speculators to have sole rights to three casinos in Arkansas. It IS a bad idea. But, again, laughs were in order when the group moaned about the possibility that some guys from Missouri would get a monopoly for themselves written into the state Constitution. The folks at Oaklawn Park got a monopoly on parimutuel wagering on horses written into the state Constitution more than a halfcentury ago. And, wait for it ... the owners of that horse racing monopoly are from Missouri. With a little judicial and legislative sleight of hand, the Missouri horse race monopolists were joined by dog race monopolists in West Memphis in adding casino gambling to their lineup under the euphemism “electronic games of skill.”

DEATH: Nothing less than fair com-

pensation for a horrifying death is at issue in the effort led by the nursing home industry to pass an amendment that says a human life is worth as little as $250,000, no matter how much abuse, negligence or malpractice brought that life to an end.

What’s more, they want to cap attorney fees to further discourage lawyers from lawsuits over such neglect. The organized bar will fight the proposal if it makes the ballot. I’m guessing it will. Five of the seven Supreme Court justices who will decide whether it should be ballot eligible received big nursing home campaign contributions, most from nursing home magnate Michael Morton of Fort Smith. He has a good nose for judicial temperament when it comes to nursing homes. One justice, Rhonda Wood, got the majority of her money from nursing homes. She has been asked to get off an unrelated nursing home class action for that reason. As yet, no response. It also appears she participated in the court’s orders last week setting briefing schedules in the amendment cases and naming special masters to review compliance in the signature gathering process.

Do I sound cynical? I mean to.

President Eisenhower endured a heart attack, stroke and Crohn’s disease.

It is not her pneumonia that is troubling, but her decision, again, to hunker down and protect her privacy for fear that the plain facts might give somebody the impression that she is not the perfect moral, ethical and physical exemplar she wants to be. It has been so since she came on the political scene in Arkansas in 1974 to surreptitiously help her boyfriend Clinton in his first political race. Friends or aides always learn that their advice to just let everything hang out is unavailing.

In politics, nowadays if not so much in the past, shielding harmless or even highminded deeds from public scrutiny leads to the opposite result — in her case, the widely polled view that she is untrustworthy and Trump’s lustily cheered libel that she is “crooked.”

It would be pointless to rehash all the privacy stalls but for the two most famous, her refusal in 1993 to share with a newspaper or a congressional committee her law firm’s trivial work in the 1980s for a tiny Little Rock thrift, which led to eight years of investigation by the scourge Kenneth Starr, and now her State Department emails.

Memoirs by White House aides recall her dogged refusal, in spite of pleas by advisers and her husband, to surrender a few pages of her firm’s billings. Eventually, the independent Whitewater counsels found nothing wrong in the billings,

her toil for the little thrift or in any of the other “scandals” that arose in its wake: the travel office firings, FBI files, Vince Foster’s suicide, the claims of an Arkansas political enemy that the governor had asked him to make an illegal SBA loan, and on and on. Nothing came of it all but revelations of Bill Clinton’s unchecked libido.

But it produced the narrative, still recited by such reluctant Hillary supporters as David Brooks, that the Clintons were “scandal-ridden.”

Once The New York Times reported her private email server during her State Department years, she might have acknowledged that, like her predecessor Colin Powell and others in the George W. Bush presidency, she did it to avoid the press or anyone else accessing her thoughts and deliberations through the FOI or subpoena. She said it was just convenience.

She could have mentioned that the Bush White House switched to email servers at the Republican headquarters and destroyed 22 million emails, including the deliberations leading to the Iraq war. That surfaced in 2007 when Congress investigated the White House firing of Arkansas’s Bud Cummins and seven other federal prosecutors, but the press never made much of it.

Unequal treatment? Sure, but that is the world she works in. You don’t feed it. arktimes.com

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

7

Schlafly’s influence

P

hyllis Schlafly, mother, attorney and longtime antifeminist, died recently. What Schlafly promoted was not novel or new. Men had been saying that men and women were not equal for years. However, anti-feminism, anti-women language had much more power coming from a woman who professed to be looking out for the good of all women and families. Schlafly’s words hurt women and set us back, right when it seemed the Equal Rights Amendment had the momentum to pass.

My first introduction to Schlafly was in the mid-1980s, when one of my older sisters' classmates put on a wig, a scarf around her neck and a homemade “STOP ERA” lapel button to portray Schlafly in a presentation for National History Day. My sister and her friends did a take on Steve Allen’s “Meeting of Minds” television program and imagined a conversation on women’s rights between Schlafly, Susan B. Anthony, Gloria Steinem and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. I came away from that experience in awe of Gloria Steinem and with a negative impression of Phyllis Schlafly.

Over the next few years, Schlafly earned my scorn as she ranted about the evils of early education, equal pay and abortion. By the time I got to college in the early 1990s, I had chosen my path. I was Gloria Steinem and natural hair and Riot Grrrls. Third-wave feminism was here. I thought Schlafly and her meticulous grooming and old-fashioned ideas could not survive much longer.

Obviously, I could not have been more wrong. Schlafly’s brand of anti-feminism continued to be prevalent in politics over the years and still flourishes today, especially in Arkansas. It lives in the claims of state Rep. Brandt Smith (R-Jonesboro), who opposes pre-K education because he believes children should be home with their families. We all know what he really means is those children should be home with their mothers.

Schlafly’s influence is in the antifeminist claims U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton made while a student at Harvard that a woman’s greatest fear is being left by her husband. His votes against the Violence Against Women Act and his sponsoring of legislation designed to ban some birth control pills show he is still squarely in Schlafly’s corner. Sen. John Boozman is there, too. When he isn’t wor-

8

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

ried about naming post offices, he is voting against the Paycheck Fairness Act. It flourishes in AUTUMN the words of the TOLBERT preacher at the small evangelical church in Northwest Arkansas I attended several years ago on Mother’s Day as a guest of a family member. During the sermon, the preacher chastised the women in the audience who worked outside the home while completely ignoring the economic reality that those second paychecks were probably necessary to keep the households afloat. I still regret not asking him after the sermon why he didn’t encourage the men to make more money so that their wives could stay home. I have not heard anything that egregious since, but I still hear many Arkansas preachers using the complementarian ideals Schlafly promoted to justify her view that women should take on lesser roles at work, home and church.

Schlafly’s influence also remains in the “do as I say, not as I do” mentality that seems to permeate our state government.

Republicans who ran for office claiming we need smaller government turn a blind eye to Treasurer Dennis Milligan spending over $50,000 of taxpayer money on designer furniture and fancy desk sets.

Republican state Sen. Jason Rapert of Conway cries for religious freedom while he attempts to place a statue of the Ten Commandments on the Capitol grounds.

Numerous self-proclaimed pro-life, profamily politicians vote to cut food assistance and limit unemployment benefits every chance they get.

Schlafly was the master of this hypocrisy. While arguing a woman’s place was in the home, she attended law school, ran for political office and traveled the country to promote her agenda.

After years of observing Schlafly and her attempts to prevent women from having the same choices and freedoms as men, I can only hope that I am correct this time in thnking that we are in the last gasps of this “War on Women” and that the death of its matriarch is more than symbolic.

Autumn Tolbert is a lawyer in private practice in Fayetteville.

Global health is local health

F

irst with the 2014 Ebola outbreak and now with the Zika virus, Americans are becoming reacquainted with the fear of infectious disease. But although Ebola and Zika are both serious public health threats, they pale in comparison to three other diseases in terms of inflicting suffering and loss of life around the world — tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and malaria.

As a daughter of immigrants, I have always had an interest in the global implications of health-related issues. This interest has compelled me to volunteer with RESULTS, a national organization aimed at ending poverty worldwide by influencing legislation — mostly through the work of volunteer advocates. It’s also fueled my work in the field of rehabilitation at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Through research and travel, I have come to realize how the standard of living and human rights we enjoy in this country are but a dream for so many others across the world. The only thing that separates me from them is the luck of my birthplace.

Globally, the World Health Organization estimates 9.6 million people fell ill with TB in 2014 alone and 1.5 million died from the disease. There were 214 million cases of malaria worldwide in 2015, with almost half a million of those individuals dying from this curable disease.

And to date, 78 million people have been infected with HIV, with 35 million people having died from AIDS-related illnesses.

It’s important to note that the impact of these diseases is not limited to those who are killed. Survivors can experience disability, loss of income and poverty, emotional trauma and social stigma and abuse.

These threats may seem remote to many Arkansans, but they are much closer than one might think. Arkansas had 93 cases of TB in 2014, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, giving the state a higher TB rate than the national average. (Many of the TB infections that year occurred within Arkansas’s Marshallese community.) Although the overall annual number of TB cases reported in the U.S. has declined for years, experts worry about emerging antibiotic-resistant strains of the bacterium that causes TB. About 1,500 cases of malaria are diagnosed in the U.S. each year (there were eight reported cases in Arkansas in 2014) and

that number is rising. And in 2014, there were 5,456 Arkansans living with HIV. Our own health ABIGAIL here in the U.S. AKANDE depends on the management of these diseases overseas.

The single most important element in the fight against these epidemics is the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a public-private international financing organization responsible for 80 percent of the external funding that combats the three diseases worldwide. It is projected that by the end of this year, more than 22 million lives will have been saved by the Global Fund.

The U.S. government has led the way in financing the Global Fund in the past, and on Aug. 31, the Obama administration pledged to replenish the fund with up to $4.3 billion over the next three years, subject to congressional approval. In the past, such replenishment has attracted bipartisan support, and RESULTS hopes the same will hold true this time. Arkansas Senator John Boozman, a Republican, supports the appropriation.

Recently, I had the opportunity to meet Thokozile Phiri, the executive director of Facilitators of Community Transformation, a health organization in Malawi. She knows firsthand the devastating impact of infectious diseases, having lost her father and her brother to TB and HIV. During a recent conference call, Ms. Phiri told us, “It was every week that people used to go to funerals, burying their uncles, their sisters, even their brothers,” she said. “The coming of the Global Fund changed the whole scenario because people were able to access free drugs and diagnostics.”

Diseases like tuberculosis, HIV and malaria require us to acknowledge our global citizenship, because they know no borders. Phiri summed it up for me when she said, “My first point is about global solidarity … each life matters when it comes to health access.” We all have a role to play.

Dr. Abigail Akande is a Global Policy Volunteer with RESULTS Arkansas and an Assistant Professor of Rehabilitation Counseling at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. For more information, visit RESULTS.org.

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9

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SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

2-0

I

f you tuned in to ESPN Saturday night or settled into your seats at Fort Worth’s compact but energetic Amon Carter Stadium, you undoubtedly felt like the impending Arkansas-TCU tilt was going to be compelling, if for no other reason because it pitted a burgeoning Big 12 power against a rising SEC program, with both having that Southwest Conference badging that went dormant a quarter-century ago.

What you probably did not expect is that the most bizarre face-off of the first two weeks of major college football would ensue thereafter. Thusly, this recap should hopefully do it proud: • Arkansas was outgained in the first half, but Cole Hedlund punched through two field goals to theoretically build his confidence and Brooks Ellis made a nifty pick of Kenny Hill’s third-and-23 toss en route to an easy pick-six for a 13-0 halftime lead. TCU was last shut out in a first half only two games before that, 31-0 to Oregon in the Alamo Bowl, which of course…

• Ended up with the Horned Frogs making a historic comeback to win, which may help to explain why Arkansas, still assertively in charge with a 20-7 lead in the fourth quarter, started to feel the Pucker Effect almost immediately after Rawleigh Williams broke a long run to get the Hogs set up with first-and-goal from the Frogs’ 2. From there…

• An apparent Razorbreakdown hit high gear. Bad execution by the Hogs left Hedlund with a 22-yarder, and thanks to a high snap, the maligned sophomore kicker smacked the gimme off the right upright. The Frogs were born anew, and showed it, blistering down the field not once, not twice, but three times for scores while suffocating the Hogs’ offense to the point of being utterly punchless. Hill cushioned TCU’s narrow lead by scampering into the end zone with 2:05 left for a 28-20 advantage, but …

• Hill’s costly post-score penalty — the long-unforgivable throat slashing gesture — helped stake the Hogs to solid field position after the kickoff. Quarterback Austin Allen got four clean snaps and pockets in succession, and made the most of them all. The last strike was to senior Keon Hatcher in the end zone, and suddenly Arkansas was back within 28-26 and needing two to tie, which …

• Came by way of Hatcher and Allen

again, but not conventionally.

Pinpoint execution of a double reverse had Hatcher rollBEAU ing to the left — WILCOX who knew that was his dominant hand! — and lofting a perfect toss to Allen near the sideline. The 28-28 tie seemed short-lived, though, because …

• TCU very nearly broke it three times over the final seconds. First, the kickoff return by the electric KaVontae Turpin nearly did the trick by itself. Then, Hill spotted Emanuel Porter streaking toward the end zone and nailed the leaping receiver for a seeming six, but that was waved off because Porter had brushed the sideline shortly out of his route, making the catch illegal contact by rule. Undaunted, TCU drove to the Hog 10, and had a chance to make the Hogs pay permanently for shanking their short field goal if Ryan Graf could stick one in. Naturally …

• Graf booted it firm but low, and Dan Skipper was among a cadre of the longest Hogs on the block team. Skipper got his fourth career kick block easily, sending the game to overtime.

• The teams traded touchdown throws in the first OT, with Allen finding Jimmy Sprinkle and Hill delivering to Taj Williams, before the gassed Arkansas defense summoned three great snaps successively to hold the Frogs to Graf’s field goal. This one was true, but Arkansas had one more bit of third-down magic left to deploy, and …

• Allen kept his legs churning on third-and-goal from the 5, taking the designed run right behind Colton Jackson and Jake Raulerson, both of whom had been having forgettable games, and through TCU’s front for the winning score.

Exhausting, huh? For the second time in 10 months, an Arkansas team went into hostile territory against a Top 20 foe, lost its grip on the game only to restore it late, and then left the fate of the game on the legs — rather than the right arm — of an Allen brother near the goal line. Against Ole Miss, Brandon memorably surged across the plane on a two-point try, and in this one, his younger bro established his crunch-time grit in only his second career start.

THE OBSERVER NOTES ON THE PASSING SCENE

Complaints

T

he Observer has engaged in some egregiously bad science lately, from atop a skirtless kayak skimming the surface of the Great Backwash of Carpenter Dam, the twin sister of Lake Catherine sprung fully formed from the thigh of Arkansas Power & Light: Lake Hamilton. That is to say, we’ve scoured the perimeter of the alternately soupy and craggy shore in an act of pure confirmation bias, favorably noting evidence to support an assumption we've harbored for years: that the construction of recreational homes has veered sharply away from its mission statement, eschewing the very naturalistic assets for which homeowners staked out lakeside territory in the first place shade, tranquility, privacy.

The New Guard bursts forth in the only way it knows how, clearing the blackgum and shortleaf pine and laying down windowless red-brick behemoths over the exposed clay loam, only to discover that the scene, bereft of foliage, looks rather naked, at which point younger replacements are brought in to shade a patio, meticulously mulched to accelerate their resemblance to their uprooted predecessors. (We can’t help but wonder if, in what is a symbol of either poetic injustice or cyclical beauty, the twiggy upstarts are protected at their bases by remnants of that same old growth, hauled off, ground into chips, dyed red or brown and bagged and shelved for purchase at the Lowe’s off of Hot Springs' Central Avenue.) A freewheeling lime green jet ski peels by the “slow down” warning buoy bobbing up and down at the entrance to the cove, leaving it looking for all the world like the pedestrian at the street corner whose suit has just been splashed with mud; jaw dropped, red-faced, seething, gesturing wildly at the “No Wake” warning across its chest. Beams of high wattage outdoor lighting make the moonlight look downright dumpy by comparison. Hammocks are anchored to poles erected on concrete pads until the new trees are strong enough to hold them up.

And, interspersed between McMansions, the Old Guard peers hesitantly out from behind the treeline like car-

toon eyes in the dark. A-frames from the 1970s tread lightly, prudently, clinging to the hillside, extending an ugly, unpainted toe toward the foot of the spongy water in the form of an aging dock. Cinder block and wooden houses occupy a scant quarter of the property on which they lie, and landscaping means bagging up leaves once a year or so. Past-their-prime canoes and wooden paddles hide under rudimentary carports. Fishing implements are hung from nails on the undersides of dock covers, battered by the elements.

Sure, the gathering of this sensory data admits an inherently biased hypotheses, and probably a self-righteous air of stodgy fist-shaking at The Sheer Audacity of These Johnny-ComeLatelys, not to mention the hypocrisy of critiquing a Manifest Destiny sense of privilege from a place of only-slightlyless-privilege, but given the choice between a johnboat patched up with gobfuls of J-B Weld and the gleaming green jet ski, give us the johnboat.

ON ANOTHER NOTE: The Dixie Chicks played a two hour show at Verizon Arena on Friday night before an admiring crowd that had longed to see the Chicks even now, years after they made their last recording. It was a wonderful night — though the black-andwhite pop art and Rohrschach blots threatened to send some of us into grand mal seizures — and especially when all 9,000 in attendance lustily sang “Goodbye Earl” with the Chicks. “Earl had to die, goodbye Earrrrrrl!” The thing about “Goodbye Earl,” in which an abusive husband gets his just desserts, is its cathartic effect for women, who know restraining orders are no protection. Take that, you bastard! Those black-eyed peas, they tasted all right to me, Earrrrrl! Maybe none of us would actually kill the asshole, but we can sing about it, can’t we?

On Sunday morning, we read a story in the newspaper about a judge who asked a teenage rape victim why she couldn’t have just kept her knees together. And we pictured all the women in the courtroom, singing: Ain’t it dark wrapped up in that tarp, juuuudge?

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SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

11

Arkansas Reporter

THE

Know your ballot measures A survey of the substance of three issues.

BY LINDSEY MILLAR AND DAVID RAMSEY

program under the state Department of Health and allow patients who live more than 20 miles from the nearest dispensary to grow a small amount of their own marijuana. It would also require that all sales tax revenue go back into the medical marijuana program. The amendment sets no cap on patient card fees, puts oversight of the program under Alcoholic Beverage Control, does not allow patients to grow their own marijuana

A

mong the ballot measures that may appear before Arkansans at the Nov. 8 general election are four initiated measures that address three issues: Tort reform, medical marijuana and gambling. A summary follows.

Issue: Damages in medical lawsuits.

Popular Name: An Amendment to Limit Attorney Contingency Fees and Non-Economic Damages in Medical Lawsuits.

What it does: Requires the legislature to set a cap on noneconomic damages that a jury may award in medical lawsuits, with a minimum of $250,000 per defendant; limits attorneys’ fees to one-third of the net recovery in such a suit.

The stakes: A chilling effect. The amendment would discourage most lawsuits in cases of abuse or negligence by medical institutions such as nursing homes, given the time and expense necessary to bring such a case. The legislature would be empowered to limit the ability of a jury to award noneconomic damages — that is, compensation for harms that are difficult to quantify, like pain and suffering — to just $250,000, even in cases of extreme suffering.

Who’s for it: The Arkansas Health Care Association, which lobbies for nursing homes, and nursing home operators such as Michael Morton.

Who’s against it: Attorneys and patient advocates.

Here come the lawsuits: The Arkansas Bar Association filed suit with the Arkansas Supreme Court in August, arguing that the amendment would 12

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

effectively abridge the constitutional right to a trial by jury. A second lawsuit was also filed in August by the Committee to Protect AR Families, a group formed to fight the amendment. That suit alleges that backers of the amendment didn’t get the required background checks for paid canvassers before gathering signatures this summer.

Issue: Medical marijuana.

Popular Names: The Medical Cannabis Act and the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment.

What they do: Each would legalize medical marijuana. The initiated act would set a cap on the fees required for patients to get a card to purchase marijuana, place the implementation of the

and divides tax revenue between the medical marijuana program and other state funds.

The stakes: Sick people and patients with chronic pain will get relief.

Who’s for it: See above. Also, former U.S. Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders and right-thinking people across the state.

Who’s against it: Arkansans Against Legalized Marijuana, a group that includes the state Chamber of Commerce, Arkansas Farm Bureau and the religious right Family Council. Arkansas Surgeon General Greg Bledsoe has been a spokesman for the group. Backers of the two rival initiatives have also sniped at one another.

Here come the lawsuits: Arkansans Against Legal Marijuana has filed suit

against both ballot measures, alleging problems with the language in the ballot titles. Meanwhile, Kara Benca, a Little Rock criminal defense attorney, has also filed suit against the initiated act, alleging that paid canvassers didn’t follow the law when gathering signatures.

Issue: Casino gambling.

Popular Name: An Amendment to Allow Three Casinos to Operate in Arkansas … .

What it does: The amendment would allow specific corporations, established and controlled by two Missouri investors, to operate casinos in Washington, Boone and Miller counties. The establishments would have casino gaming as well as sports betting, and be allowed to sell alcohol.

The stakes: The big money here is a battle pitting casinos against casinos. Current law allows “electronic games of skills” at establishments that offer parimutuel gambling — that would be Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs (horses) and Southland Gaming in West Memphis (greyhounds).

Demand for gambling, alas, is high, while the state’s various euphemistic rules keeps supply low. Existing establishments want to protect their piece of the pie.

Who’s for it: Missouri investors trying to break in to the Arkansas gaming business, plus the Cherokee Nation.

Who’s against it: Religious groups such as the Family Council and the state’s two existing casinos — Oaklawn and Southland.

Here come the lawsuits: The Committee to Protect Arkansas Values/Stop Casinos Now, a group formed to oppose the amendment, filed suit earlier this month. The suit asks the state Supreme Court to disqualify the amendment, arguing that the ballot title is defective and questioning whether the paid canvassers met the demanding terms of the Arkansas petition law. The group has not yet filed disclosure of its financial backers, but Oaklawn and Southland will likely help fund the lawsuit.

The Lobbyist Penthouse

THE

BIG

The Mullenix Land Co. (that would be Ted Mullenix, the lobbyist and former legislator) plans to build a four-story building at 204 S. Bishop Street, just off Third Street. It would have mixed uses, including a top floor penthouse with fireplace and balcony to look across the way at the State Capitol. It will be a fine place to entertain legislators, since Mullenix will surely find a way to get around the supposed constitutional prohibition against wining and dining legislators. BYO OK, I guess.

PICTURE

A top-secret floor plan that outlines uses of the various rooms in the new building came in through the transom at the door to the art director’s office. Here’s what we know so far: "Scheduled Events" planning lounge Room where ordinary Arkansans get screwed

Chamber of Commerce helipad

Scrooge McDuck style silo full of gold coins for swimming in

Telescope for viewing governor's office Exit for Muslims, gays, and Joycelyn Elders

Oaklawn Memorial dining room

Legislators entrance to secret tunnel system

Bible reading room

Iron Man

Group shower

"Taco truck" Swill Service

"Taco truck" Steak Dispensary

Freebie bar and breakfast room

"Taco truck" Loan provider Lobby lobby

arktimes.com

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

13

F E S T I VA L OF IDEAS 2016

V ISIONA RY A R K A NSA NS They make an impact.

BY BENJAMIN HARDY, DAVID KOON, LINDSEY MILLAR, LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK, ZOË ROM AND STEPHANIE SMITTLE

I

t’s time again for our annual Visionaries issue, a celebration of Arkansans with ideas of transformative power. This year’s class is filled with people who are devoted to enriching life here. They’ve built state history museums (Bill Worthern), brought down corrupt politicians (Matt Campbell) and writ-

ten award-winning books (Geffrey Davis). They’re advocating for commonsense gun policies (Austin Bailey and Kat Hills), aiming to bring large-scale bicycle manufacturing back to the United States (Tony Karklins) and working on the NASA team designing the James Webb Telescope, which will be the succes-

sor to the Hubble (Amber Straughn). Lauren Haynes, the new curator of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, plans to highlight more modern artists of color. Lost Forty’s Grant Chandler is isolating wild yeast strains in a lab to brew award-winning beer.

All 20 are people with bold visions.

ARKANSAS TIMES

Join us Saturday, Sept. 24, for a companion Festival of Ideas, featuring presentations, interviews and demonstrations with five Visionaries.

12:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Arkansas Innovation Hub 201 E. Broadway St. North Little Rock FREE

14

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

F E S T I VA L OF IDEAS 2016

12:30 p.m.: Matt Campbell 1:30 p.m.: Dr. Carolina Cruz-Neira 2:30 p.m.: Chris Balos and members of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby 3:30 p.m.: Officer Tommy Norman 4:30 p.m.: Grant Chandler

ARKANSAS TIMES

TRUTH IN ART: Lauren Haynes, the new contemporary art curator at Crystal Bridges, will work for inclusivity, both in the museum's collection and in the people who visit.

XXXxxxxxx

Lauren Haynes Correcting art history.

L

auren Haynes has not yet met Alice Walton, the founder and patron of the museum where, starting in October, Haynes will be installed as curator of contemporary art. But she’s seen examples of Walton’s sensibility at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art — attention to women artists — and that fits right in to Haynes’ own vision for what a museum should be: a place that tells “a more correct and inclusive story” about American art.

Haynes, who is leaving her job as assistant curator at The Studio Museum of Harlem to come to the Bentonville museum, recently curated a show there about the late abstract expressionist Alma Thomas, who was the first African-American woman to have a solo show at the Whitney

Museum of American Art, yet whose name is not as widely known as it should be. (Women abstract expressionists have had to fight their way into art history; imagine being an African-American painter competing for recognition with the famed “Irascibles” like Jackson Pollock and Willem deKooning.)

Hence Haynes’ delight in seeing “Lunar Rendezvous — Circle of Flowers,” an Alma Thomas painting, hanging on the wall at Crystal Bridges.

“I was really excited by the fact that the institution was thinking about not just black artists, but also women artists,” Haynes said, and not only “owning their work but showing it.” At some museums, the work of women and minorities is collected but relegated to the stacks. “At Crystal Bridges the

works are up and there is a concerted effort to actually collect a wide range of artists,” she said.

Haynes, 34, who was born in Tennessee and moved to New York at age 13, says she did not grow up going to museums. She discovered her passion at Oberlin College, when she got a work-study job in the college museum and started taking art history classes. Haynes is interested not only in diversity on the walls of a museum, but in its visitors: She wants to put the lie to the notion that museums are “only for certain people.” “You may not love everything you see” at a museum, Haynes said, “but that is OK.” She wants museumgoers to feel comfortable asking questions, to know they don’t have to have a background in art to appreciate art, “to know that they can learn something.”

Part of Haynes’ job will be creating public programs, not just at Crystal Bridges, but at the new performing and visual art space that Steuart and Tom

Walton, nephews to Alice Walton, are creating in a former cheese factory south of the Bentonville square. The undeveloped museum, referred to as “the plant,” will include open studio space for artists; Haynes, who has experience in the oversight of artist residencies, was excited by the space.

Haynes will also create exhibitions and advise on collection development, but says it’s too early to think about what sort of shows she’d like to curate.

She wants to know more about the audience first — “You can’t make an exhibition for people you don’t know,” she said — and familiarize herself with the collection and the museum’s longterm goals.

Haynes does know one thing she will do upon arrival in Arkansas, however. A New Yorker, she’s never learned to drive a car. “I am signing up for driving lessons immediately,” she said.

— Leslie Newell Peacock

arktimes.com

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

15

JUSTIN BRYANT: Teacher and painter both.

Justin Bryant

Crowning African Americans.

L

angston Hughes, in his poem “Negro,” writes,

“I’ve been a slave: Caesar told me to keep his door-steps clean.

I brushed the boots of Washington.

I’ve been a worker: Under my hand the pyramids arose.

I made mortar for the Woolworth Building.”

The idea of Africans and African Americans building edifices in which they were not welcome inspires artist Justin Bryant. His watercolors feature portraits of black men wearing plantation houses, cut down to size, on their heads, like crowns. One of these watercolors, a self-portrait from his “All the King’s Men” series, appeared on the June 23 cover of the Arkansas Times, for a story about an exhibition of work

by African-American artists at the Arts & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas, in Pine Bluff.

“I’ve always been fascinated by plantations,” the 28-year-old Stuttgart native said. Unlike his white friends, he sees them as “scary, not inviting. … It’s fascinating to me that some people have weddings there.” His white friends may be able to celebrate there, but plantations and other structures built by slave labor

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SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

throw Bryant into an emotional limbo: How can you be proud of the achievement of the builders of these imposing structures when it was achieved through slavery? How can you accommodate such cognitive dissonance, as he puts it, handle two opposing ideas at once?

Bryant is exploring that question by appropriating icons of white supremacy not only in watercolor, but in performance art as well. Now living in Louisiana, where he’s working on a master’s degree in fine art at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Bryant’s been thinking about the second line parades of New Orleans — born of African tradition, dancing and marching, joyous but trailing the upper-crust crewes — as an example of African Americans making good out of bad. In response to that and controversy around Confederate symbols, he’s made videos of himself dancing in front of Confederate memorials, “relating them to Congo Square,” an area in New Orleans’ Treme neighborhood where in the 19th century African slaves were allowed to congregate, dance and sing on Sundays.

Bryant’s goal, however, is not just to express his own ideas, but to help others express theirs. After earning a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Bryant taught art, first at the International School on

the UALR campus, and then at The Art Connection, a program for high school seniors at The Innovation Hub in North Little Rock. From the start of his college career, Bryant knew he wanted to teach, but, he said, “I try not to say that too often, because people say, ‘Oh, then you don’t want to make art.’ ” He wants to do both — he is, in fact, doing both now, painting at LSU and teaching, in Baton Rouge during the school year and, this summer, at the Arkansas Arts Center. If you have a plan for your life, he said, “I really believe you should start today.”

That doesn’t mean Bryant has everything worked out. In fact, he said making art is a way of discovering your thoughts, not just expressing them. He’ll think, “I don’t know what this is; let me paint it more clearly.” That’s a lesson he wants to continue to share with minority students, as he did at The Hub. Studying art, or making art, is “really about the experience, and I’m starting to learn that it’s not what you are learning but the experience of going there” that is valuable.

“Most of the time, I’m making bad paintings,” Bryant said. “But my interest is what keeps me there.” His students won’t be the only ones learning, either. He said he learns from those he teaches “all the time. Mainly through conversation and telling them things, I start to realize I don’t know something.”

A pause. “Kind of like this interview.”

— Leslie Newell Peacock

Carolina Cruz-Neira

Virtual reality pioneer leads UALR’s system.

D

r. Carolina Cruz-Neira, who heads the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s George W. Donaghey Emerging Analytics Center, didn’t start out with the goal of being a world-renowned expert and innovator in the field of virtual reality.

“Strangely enough, I come from classical ballet dancing,” she said. “That’s my background. Then I broke a knee.

That threw me into engineering. I grew up since I was 3 or 4 years old until I was almost 30 on the stage, dancing and performing with my tutus and my toe shoes.”

After her injury, Cruz-Neira threw herself headlong into computer engineering at the Universidad Metropolitana in Caracas, Venezuela. It was during work for her doctorate in 1991 that Cruz-Neira hit upon the idea that would define her career: the CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment) virtual reality system.

“At that time, everything was [virtual reality] helmets, like we’re seeing today,” she said. “There were very good helmets, but I missed the face-to-face social aspect that the helmets take away from you because the face is covered. I crossed that over again with my stage background.”

Released to the public in 1992, the

CAVE system is essentially a room with 3D images projected on three walls, the floor and ceiling. By using optic sensors to locate a person within the artificial space, the system allows a viewer to get the feeling of moving through a threedimensional, fully interactive version of any computer-generated environment, from architectural models to geologic formations deep underground. Realworld applications of the CAVE system include theme park modeling, oil and gas exploration and virtual prototyping.

“If you follow the public eye — the press — virtual reality is going to bring us a lot of interesting entertainment. A lot of really cool games and really cool immersive movies. But that’s not really what I do,” Cruz-Neira said. “What I do is what virtual reality brings to make our lives better. For example, very few people know that the work I’ve done in the past 20 years right now is behind pretty much every single car that’s driven around the world. … Every car, whether it’s an American brand, an Asian brand, a European brand or any other brand, was designed with virtual reality.”

In her lab at UALR, Cruz-Neira demonstrated another amazing technology that she hopes will benefit doctors of the future: a virtual cadaver, which UALR is working on in cooperation with the

University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Put on a pair of 3D glasses and a lifelike human body seems to spring from a table. Fully interactive, it can be virtually dissected with a handheld controller.

“A [real] cadaver is a human being,” she said. “You have all the ethical issues surrounding manipulating a cadaver.

You have all the safety, health and hygiene issues of that. And you also have that it’s a destructive procedure.

If a person does an incision in a cadaver, then the student can’t practice that procedure anymore because that particular cadaver already has that. With our work, we have virtual cadavers that actually give unlimited access to a brand-new body to practice every procedure with every single student, and also a variety of bodies.”

Cruz-Neira, who said she is the only woman in the world running a virtual reality research lab of the magnitude of UALR’s Emerging Analytics Center, has traveled around the world, consulting and speaking about the virtual future.

Though her focus is industrial application, Cruz-Neira has taken on entertainment challenges using the CAVE system.

“I’ve done a lot of fun things around the world with music concerts, where we embedded the CAVE into the music concert. I have done three or four dance performances, in New York and Los Angeles. I did another one in Tokyo.

It’s fun. I’m not your average professor.”

— David Koon

arktimes.com

BRIAN CHILSON

CAVE WOMAN: Dr. Carolina Cruz-Neira's Cave Automatic Virtual Environment allows you to enter a virtual room.

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

17

Chris James

Building community through art.

C

Daniel Hintz

Urban planner’s ‘theater of cool’ staged Bentonville’s revival.

I

f the square in modern downtown Bentonville looks like someone constructed a tiny-scale model of it on a conference room table somewhere, gluing down a miniature 21c Hotel or a dime-sized Walmart Museum, there’s a reason for that. Monica Kumar, on her Bentonville Project website, said Daniel Hintz and his firm The Velocity Group had the vision for downtown Bentonville: “Much of our delightful bustling downtown square was dreamed up many moons ago in Daniel’s head.”

According to its website, Hintz’ Velocity Group seeks to help cities “attract people, retain talent, produce revenue, generate champions and celebrate the human spirit” through what it calls “the DNA of place,” an approach that seems to have cleared the tumbleweeds from the Bentonville square for the foreseeable future.

Given to buzzworthy phrases like “activating a neighborhood” and “working the master plan,” Hintz, who calls himself an “experience architect,” applies a theatrical analogy to his methodology: He helps direct “the theater of cool,” in which a city decides what sort of experience it wants its citizens to have when they come downtown and then builds that experience in the same way a tech crew would design a set, build it, set up props and introduce actors (tenants, in this case) to engage with those elements.

“In downtown Bentonville, it was 1,765 acres” that The Velocity Group worked on, Hintz said. The “stage” in downtown Rogers was 467 acres. “So we set that stage and understand what 18

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needs to happen in there, economically, socially, culturally, physically.”

Hintz’s consulting work takes into consideration the delicate balance between, as he puts it, “experience vs. commodity.” As evident by the homogeny of the Applebee’s, Walgreen’s and Chick-fil-A’s triumvirate — or some variation thereof — that graces highway exit after highway exit along the interstate, “the commodity is the ‘everywhere.’ And there, you compete for price … a lot of quick development that values up very quickly and then devalues very quickly.

You buy a fast food restaurant in much the same way as you’d buy an orange,” Hintz said. Towns in Arkansas live by sales tax revenue generated in those “commodity” areas.

But Hintz’s work is about the “somewhere”: “I try to work on helping communities understand their ‘somewhere,’ to understand their ‘unique,’ and then capitalize on their ‘unique.’ ” Asked what he sees as evidence that the work he’s done in downtown Bentonville has been successful, he points to the burgeoning culinary scene. “From engaging the James Beard Foundation to seeing a community that really cares about this — the farmers and the amazing chefs and the investors and people spending their hard-earned dollars in these restaurants, what I really love to hang my hat on is the level of cooperation that the food community has up here.”

Hintz gave a TEDxFayetteville talk on the “DNA of Place”; you can find a link to the video at tedxfayetteville.com.

—Stephanie Smittle

BRIAN CHILSON

'EXPERIENCE ARCHITECT': Hintz helps cities find their “unique.”

an art save the world? Maybe doned houses,” he said. “So I said, what not, but Chris James, founder can we do as artists to make an impact of the Roots Art Connection in these type of communities? So I came and North Little Rock’s House of Art, up with ‘Buy Back the Block.’ … We said, is giving it a go, working to make his we’re going to buy these houses, we’re own little corner going to renovate of the world a bit these houses, and more beautiful we’re going to put and livable. He an artist in each calls it “social enroom for very low trepreneurship.” [rent]. Artists will “We’re all able to stay there for $300 to $400 about connecting art to community, a month, and that to education and will be their total to opportunities expenses. That’s for commerce to all they have to pay. In return underserved artists in our comfor that opportumunity,” he said. nity, they have to “That’s the goal. go back into the We really want community and to be connected use their art to to everyday type impact their comof people, the peomunity.” ple who normally The Roots NOURISHING COMMUNITIES: Chris James, with the Roots Art Connection Art Connecdon’t get opporand 'Buy Back the Block.' tion has already tunities and don’t purchased two get heard from.”

James, 26, got his start in the arts houses in Little Rock, one on 21st Street as a spoken word poet, and has since and the other on Hanger Street, and branched out into photography. renovation of the first house is under“That was my entry to the art world. I way. The goal is to buy and restore two opened [House of Art] because I felt like houses per year. Another facet of the there wasn’t enough art and poetry happroject is a partnership with Bank of pening for people like me and the type the Ozarks to teach inner city residents of people that follow me. We started how to become homeowners. doing open mics in 2010, but we always “If they become homeowners,” James had to rent a venue. You could only see said, “they’ll take a lot more pride in the poetry, like, once a month in Little Rock, communities. A lot of people don’t realso I opened this space so it could hapize that they’re paying $600 in rent, but pen on a weekly basis, to create some could pay a $400 mortgage and own the kind of consistency.” house. … We’re conditioned to believe that a traditional loan isn’t possible.”

The Roots Art Connection (online at rootsartconnection.com), founded in James said he believes exposing 2013, is now headquartered at the House people to art in unexpected places can of Art, 108 E. Fourth St. in Argenta. lend a more colorful perspective to their Since opening the House of Art a year lives and bring out their youth and innoand a half ago, James has hosted open cence. He said he wants to make positive mic poetry readings there every Friday change happen whenever and whernight and the “Starve No More” proever he can. gram, which feeds the homeless on the “Some people make change being polthird Saturday of every month. There iticians, some people make change being are also pop-up classes on everything pastors, some people make change havfrom sewing to basic financial literacy ing a lot of money,” he said. “But I realat the House of Art. ize I’m able to make change in my comAnother project James is passionmunity with my art, and bringing people ate about right now is “Buy Back the together through art. I know that I’m able to do that. Art is my superpower, Block,” which aims to use collective action to chip away at the issue of innerand it makes me happy to see the results city blight. and the impact I have.”

—David Koon “In Little Rock, we have a lot of aban-

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Gloria Majors

Powering the future.

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loria Majors graduated from high students from school tends to hurt them academically and otherwise. school in Prescott in 1964, a time in which the small Southwest Majors became personally invested Arkansas town’s students were still segrein the issue in 2008, after one of her 11 We offe gated into McRae High School (black) and grandchildren, a high school freshman, Prescott High School (white). By the time got into a fight he didn’t start. Majors for su the schools desegregated in 1969, Majors accepted that the school’s zero-tolerance had moved to Calipolicy required him And—we t fornia to build a life. to be suspended h c ommtoittee When she returned but she objected m to her hometown the fact that he’d m a g ic in 2006 to enjoy miss his final exams retirement, Majors in several subjects found much had and would not be allowed to make Alleg changed, and much Arkansas them up, potenhad not. White and black students now tially wrecking his Ce attend classes togrades. She spoke gether — but their to the superintenexperiences are dent and the school Party Tim often strikingly difboard and found her concerns fell Ro ferent. s In Prescott, as on deaf ears.

CFO in most schools “I told them that across the nation, I thought Exour ecufirst tiv there persists a progoal in school wase Netw nounced academic to educate our chil-Frien MAKING A DIFFERENCE: Majors and other Prescott parents. “achievement gap” dren. Discipline is Fros between black and about trying to corG&G white students, the rect what’s going Jack Ne legacy of generations of discrimination wrong. … You’re trying to help that perPaschall and poverty. In 2010, after hearing a son change that behavior, not just punish presentation by an organizer from the them. I think that’s the difference thatSaimmon UCP T lot of schools just don’t see,” Majors said.

Arkansas Public Policy Panel, Majors and other parents started a group to address In Prescott, that may be changing. NotKevin BilMajors’ l Hartn the achievement gap in their community, long after the incident with grandedy & Bla the Concerned Citizens of Prescott. The son, the district hired a new superintengroup is working to improve pre-K educadent, Robert Poole, who Majors said is tion as part of the “Good to Great” initia- “really trying to work with us.” Majors’ tive, a project of the Public Policy Panel, group wants to bring a program to the Arkansas Advocates for Children and schools called “Conscious Discipline,” Families and Arkansas State University. which emphasizes nonpunitive solutions The group has been successful in pushing to behavior problems and reinforcing for changes in how the Prescott School positive behavior. Poole is receptive to the District approaches student discipline. idea: “It’s a more proactive approach — to The district’s student body is about help kids before things escalate into big55 percent white and 38 percent black. ger problems,” he told the Arkansas Times.

However, when the Concerned Citizens The Concerned Citizens of Prescott is of Prescott looked at a snapshot of kids now seeking a grant to institute the program. referred to the school office for discipline, “We found that they had 160 black to 80 Majors believes that Prescott “is really white referrals,” she said. “So it’s a disparmaking progress in race relations,” even if ity. … We know that there are more black “we still have a ways to go.” Better discipline, she said, begins with “lifting a perchildren being referred.” Indeed, state and national data show African-American son’s self-esteem rather than tearing them students in most schools are punished down … from the youngest to the oldest.

I think if we can get that going, and each more frequently and more harshly than teacher gets that training and can apply their white peers and are suspended at much higher rates. Meanwhile, there is that training, it would help students all a developing consensus among educaaround — no matter what color they are.”

— Benjamin Hardy tion researchers that suspensions should be used as a last resort, since removing BRIAN CHILSON

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BRIAN CHILSON

A GIFT FROM GOD: That's what being transgender is to her, Rev. Fry says.

Gwen Fry

Transgender priest serves as bridge between trans and faith communities.

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hile most of our visionaries are still out there pursuing the goals that landed them on this list in the first place, Rev. Gwen Fry might be our first Visionary to ever lose the ability to follow her passions because of something about herself she cannot change. Ordained as an Episcopal priest in 1990, Fry is transgender.

Having risen to the position of priestin-charge of Grace Episcopal Church in Pine Bluff, she publicly revealed she was transitioning from biologically male to female in February 2014, a choice she said was a matter of living or dying.

“Within a week of coming out, I’d

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lost my position,” she said. “I was pretty devastated. I thought there was a real chance of me staying in the position through my transition. Unfortunately that did not happen.” Fired from her job by the church she has devoted her life to since her earliest memories, Fry, 56, is still an Episcopal priest, but she is currently cleaning houses in order to keep a roof over her head.

A native of Northern Kentucky, Fry was called to the ministry from an early age. She knew there was something different about herself as early as age 5, but could never put a name to it until she was 17, when she saw trans pioneer

Renee Richards on television, playing tennis at the U.S. Open. At the time, Fry was at a gathering of her close-knit family, and rode a rollercoaster of emotion in that moment.

“The commentators were talking about a controversy that was happening at the U.S. Open,” she said. “That controversy just happened to be Renee Richards entering the tournament as a transgender woman. As soon as I heard that, everything just clicked for me. There was that spark, an identification. This is me. They’re talking about me. That was an amazing five seconds, because right after that, my aunt turned to the family and said, ‘He’s a freak,’ and my father chimed in, ‘He’s a monster.’ That spark was extinguished.”

Fry struggled for years with her identity, getting married and having a child, all the while continuing her ministry in the Episcopalian Church. She accepted her identity privately 15 years ago, but the inner turmoil of not living as her authentic self finally pushed her to come out. The results have been personally devastating. In addition to losing her position in the parish, Fry eventually divorced, and was estranged from her daughter for a while. Even so, Fry said, she would do it all again.

“I do not regret making the choice I made,” she said. “It came down to a choice of living or not. So yes, I would make this choice again.”

Since her transition, Fry has carried on her ministry, trying to connect transgender people and the faith community. The church doesn’t know what to do with a transwoman who is a priest and neither does the trans community, she said with a laugh, “but here I am in the middle holding both of these sides together. I see my ministry as building that bridge.”

Being transgender, she said, is a gift from God, just another facet of the brilliant and vibrant diversity seen throughout creation. Coming out and losing so much, she said, has taught her more than she expected about herself, her faith and her calling.

“It has taught me that living an authentic life is a life we all need to strive for and live into for ourselves,” she said. “I’ve learned that there’s great power in being vulnerable. The strength that I’ve gained from the ability to live authentically and vulnerably has been life-changing. I think that’s what we’re all called to do as Christians, is to be transformed. My transformation just happens to be a little more public and visible than others.”

— David Koon

Susana O’Daniel

Of course, I like to believe that the public drives the Policy wonk advocates for early childhood education. decisions over there.”

Democracy, she likes to very moment in our lives is a vention, to make sure we’re tell people, isn’t a spectagrain of sand, and any one of capturing all that brain tor sport, which is why she them can grow into the pearl development early on,” tries to get people engaged that defines us. For Susana O’Daniel, that O’Daniel said. “I know my and active in the political moment was the day she started attendfamily benefited from it, I process whenever she can. ing a Head Start pre-K program in tiny know I benefitted from it, She knows the factors that Shirley (Van Buren County).

I know there were advokeep ordinary citizens from getting involved, and works “I remember two things about it very cates who advocated for clearly,” she said. “I learned the words Head Start and other pre-K to help people overcome to ‘This Land Is Your Land’ — I’m a huge programs for generations those barriers. music person, and music is something before they ever knew me.

“People are trying to that influences my life a lot, and of course But they advocated for that survive day to day. They’re the lyrics and the meaning behind that program so it was there so I trying to put food on the song have become very important to could benefit from it as well table. It’s not easy,” she said. “People feel like me as I’ve gotten older and been able as my family. That, to me, is maybe they don’t have to understand them. But I also learned a huge motivator. … how to write my name. To me, that was “That early brain develthe right clothes to wear very empowering. It felt very empoweropment that happens in to the Capitol. They feel children, you never get ing to be able to write your name. Those intimidated by that space. are the skills that I was able to start kinthat time back. If you don’t I really try to demystify dergarten with.” the process for people. make sure those children I try to do a lot of voter O’Daniel, director of public affairs for are engaged, you lose that and you cannot recoup it.” the Arkansas Education Association, is education and empowerstill big on the ideals found in that famous Arkansas is lucky, ment. If there’s anything O’DANIEL: Says pre-K is crucial to learning, lauds legislative O’Daniel said, in that Woody Guthrie tune, and still a vocal that’s my focus right now, response. advocate for pre-Kindergarten education the state has led the way it’s really empowering peofor kids. It’s a cause she championed durnationally in funding early childhood O’Daniel said there are people — herple to speak up. Don’t just tell people to ing her four years as director of outreach education, with officials of both parties self included — at the Capitol working to speak up. Show them the path to do that. lending their support to the cause. The at Arkansas Advocates for Children and make sure that funding stays in place, Help them understand that your legislaFamilies, and which she has continued to legislature currently invests $111 million who can often be found walking the tor may be a farmer. He or she may not be an expert on pre-K education. You as support in her work with the AEA. She annually in the Arkansas Better Chance marble over there, making sure pre-K Program, she said. often talks to educators about the differand other causes close to her heart are a mother may be an expert on your child, “That’s a huge success story, but that ence between kids who benefited from preserved. She said she feels good about and why that program would work for pre-K education and those who didn’t, them and improve their life.” funding has been flat for the past several the future of early education in Arkansas. and has been told the difference is like — David Koon years,” she said. “It was flat until this “It’s just too important of an issue that between daylight and darkness. last legislative session when Governor to walk away from,” she said. “I actu“To me, that is such a motivator to Hutchinson put in $3 million. Those are ally feel fairly optimistic about it. I think make sure that kids have that early interone-time funds.” there’s widespread public support for it.

BRIAN CHILSON

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ARKANSAS PEACE WEEK

Make Peace our “Natural” State! • September 18-25, 2016

AR Peace Week includes free, public events hosted by organizations throughout our state. Featured events include:

OPENING CELEBRATION - PEACE ACROSS FAITHS: Monday, Sept 19, 6pm – Islamic Center of Little Rock. An Interfaith Program with Food and Fellowship.

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEACE: Wednesday, Sept. 21, 5:30pm – Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall, UALR. Exhibit and discussion in conjunction with UALR Galleries “War -Toys” Exhibit.

ARKANSAS PEACE FEST: Saturday Sept. 24, 1-5 PM – Bernice Gardens on South Main. Fun activities for all ages; music; speeches; booths for non-profits to share their work for peace and justice.

For more information, visit www.arkansaspeaceweek.com or www.arpeaceandjustice.org Arkansas Peace Week is conducted by a coalition of local, national and international organizations, faith groups and individuals all with whom share a mission to promote peace and instill justice, end war, alleviate poverty, protect planet earth and eliminate the scourge of violence in our communities. arktimes.com

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

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Arkansas Voices for the Children Left Behind Announces Our 10th Public Awareness Event

SAVING THE INDUSTRY’S SOUL: Tony Karklins, with part of a carbon bike frame manufactured by HIA Velo.

GRANDPARENT AND RELATIVE CAREGIVERS FOR CHILDREN LEFT BEHIND ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2016, 11:00 AM STATE CAPITOL ROTUNDA This is our annual celebration of the 64,000 Grandparents and Relatives who care for 70,000 children of incarcerated parents in jail or prison, along with children of deceased, disabled, or unavailable parents.

Studies of Arkansas Caregivers indicate these caregivers save our state foster care program more than 38 Million Dollars. Sadly, the state does not provide support for these families, other than a TANF child only payment without a COLA increase since 1996.

These caregivers are Arkansas’ Greatest Natural Resources.

SINCE 1994 For more information, call 501-366-3647, Dee Ann Newell

Tony Karklins

Bicycle industry vet wants to revive American manufacturing.

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n a nondescript warehouse in Little Rock’s Riverdale neighborhood, Tony Karklins is busy readying his new bicycle manufacturing company, HIA Velo (HIA stands for “handmade in America” and velo is “bicycle” in French), to turn out highperformance road, gravel and mountain bikes made of aluminum, steel and carbon-fiber composite. Already nearly 20 people are at work creating the time-intensive carbon frames — manipulating a massive laser cutter, applying strips of carbon-fiber composite around molds in just the right pattern, operating large heat-set machines, sandblasting — with 10 more set to join the company before the year is up, including specialty painters and welders. n HIA Velo’s first year of operation, it will produce 2,000 bicycles, Karklins says. He expects to be doing 10,000 within four years. Bikes, with various brand names HIA Velo owns, will retail between $2,500 and $6,000. “It’s quite possible we could have $200 to $300 million in sales

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within a decade,” he says. ehind all that is another mission: Karklins wants to spark a revival of American manufacturing within the bike industry.

There are people in the performance bicycle business with more experience than Karklins, 46, but surely no one has spent more of his life working in the field. He got his first paying job at the Chainwheel bike shop when he was 11, changing flat tires and doing other odd jobs, and at 16 he became a partner in the business, where he stayed for 19 years, overseeing the store’s expansion and move to West Little Rock. Then at a trade show in Europe he happened upon the Spanish-bike brand Orbea.

“I knew damn near everything in the bike industry, but I didn’t know Orbea,” Karklins said. “It was kind of a sleeping giant. It had been just in Spain and more of a Schwinn-level product for most of its history. They were just moving upmarket when I was introduced.”

Karklins secured the North American rights in 2001 to distribute the brand just as Orbea had its first team

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Amber Straughn

Journeying to the edge of the universe.

BRIAN CHILSON

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riding in the Tour de France. The bike sold so well that the Spanish company determined it would be a longterm success and formed Orbea USA, a joint venture with Karklins with a 10-year contract. The deal matured in 2014 and Karklins sold his interest.

“It was a great run,” Karklins said. “For many of those years, we were the No. 1 selling European bike in the U.S.” After Orbea, Karklins went back to Europe to hunt for another brand to work with in the U.S., but ultimately decided he wanted to get into manufacturing.

A decade or so ago, when lightweight and stiff carbon-fiber composite replaced aluminum and steel as the preferred material with which to make performance bicycle frames, most of the manufacturing jobs in the bicycle industry went to Asia.

“When it was steel and aluminum, the cost of producing the frame was mostly the material and a little bit of welding,” Karklins said. “It didn’t cost a whole lot.

But when you’re developing composite [frames], the majority of cost is labor.

Naturally, it had to go to Asia. You’re talking $25 an hour vs. $2 an hour, times 30 hours. The math is the math. I see why it happened.

“But the effect to me was devastating because most of the bike brands stopped manufacturing their own bikes. They became these design agencies. To me the bike industry started to lose its soul.”

Karklins initially sought to realize his vision with BST Nano Carbon, a San Diego manufacturer of mostly carbonfiber golf clubs that wanted to get into bicycle manufacturing. When that company started to struggle in late 2015, he returned to Little Rock and started to put together a new plan right around the time Guru Bicycles of Montreal, the second largest carbon-composite bike manufacturer in North America after Trek, declared bankruptcy. He and partners Sam Pickman (a longtime member of the bicycle company Specialized’s senior engineering team) and Douglas Zell (the founder of Intelligentisa Coffee) purchased the assets and HIA Velo was born.

Already, Karklins has managed to recruit what one online bike publication dubbed an “all-star team” of industry veterans from throughout North America. What’s the draw? “They all believe in American manufacturing,” Karklins said. “Everything is manufactured by us in this building.”

— Lindsey Millar

hen NASA launched the Hubthe early universe, and we don’t have a great idea of how they got so big so fast. ble Space Telescope into low … One of the fun things about being an Earth orbit in 1990, Amber Straughn was an elastronomer is that ementary school stuwe’ve learned so much using teledent in Bee Branch who dreamed of bescopes, in space and coming an astronaut. on the ground — but Though she never there’s still so much made it into space we don’t know yet. herself, Straughn We’re never going has done one better. to run out of quesNow an astrophysitions to ask and cist at NASA’s Godthings to look for.” dard Space Flight Webb will shed Center in Maryland, light on such quesshe’s part of the team tions, as well as even building Hubble’s more rarefied cossuccessor, a deepmic puzzles (such as what’s behind space observatory of the accelerating unprecedented powexpansion of the STAR GAZER: Astrophysist er. The James Webb Straughn at work on telescope.

Space Telescope, universe itself). But which has been in it will also examine the works for almost two decades, is objects closer to home, such as exoplanscheduled to launch in 2018 and will be ets — that is, planets that orbit other the largest such device ever deployed: stars. Astronomers now know there are As wide as a tennis court and as tall as likely billions of exoplanets in our Milky a four-story building, Straughn said, it Way, and Webb will allow those bodies will be about 100 times as powerful as to be studied in detail for the first time. the venerable Hubble.

“When I was a kid, we only knew of “[Hubble] completely changed, in the nine planets in our solar system — fundamental ways, how we understand well, it’s no longer nine,” Straughn said how the universe works,” she said. “But with a laugh. “Now we know they’re there’s a lot of ways in which we’ve everywhere, and that’s such a fundapushed Hubble to its limits, and so we’re mental paradigm shift in how we think designing Webb to answer some of the about the universe. What we want to do biggest questions in astronomy today is watch planets pass in front of their that Hubble just can’t quite answer.” star [and] look at the starlight passing Straughn would know. After she through the atmosphere and coming graduated from the University of Arkantowards us. You can imagine how difsas in 2002, her doctoral dissertation at ficult that gets, because stars are bright, Arizona State University drew on data planets are tiny and their atmospheres from the “Hubble Ultra Deep Field” — are miniscule. … But with Webb, we an image of thousands of galaxies that have this huge mirror and such ultraexisted some 13 billion years ago, when sensitive detectors that we expect to be the universe was only a few hundred able to do transit spectroscopy.” That million years old. Straughn’s research means the telescope should be able to today concerns the formation and evoludeduce the chemical compositions of tion of galaxies, which have a dynamic the atmospheres of planets outside our life all their own on an inconceivably solar system based on their infrared vast scale. (Our own Milky Way, which light signature, and possibly detect the presence of water vapor. contains between 100 and 400 billion stars, is one of perhaps 200 billion galAs for the question of what led axies in the observable universe.)

Straughn to the stars, that’s easy to “Galaxies come in all different shapes answer. “Being from Bee Branch. The and sizes and colors, and the galaxies in sky there was, and still is, beautiful and the early universe, in the distant unidark. And that really is what got me into verse, are very different from the ones astronomy as a kid — the beautiful, dark, we see nearby. But there’s a lot we just rural sky.”

— Benjamin Hardy don’t know yet,” she said. “For example … we see galaxies that are huge in arktimes.com

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FOR COMMON SENSE: Austin Bailey (left) and Kat Hills say moms are key to gun safety laws.

Moms advocating for commonsense gun violence prevention and policies.

I

t’s become the conventional political wisdom: If the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, where the victims included 20 children, 6- and 7-year-olds, didn’t move lawmakers to do anything to curb gun violence, nothing will. But Austin Bailey, who serves as the volunteer leader of the Arkansas chapter of the national advocacy group Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, sees hope in the example of another group of activist mothers: Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

“Before MADD came along, people would be killed by drunk drivers and other people would say, ‘What a terrible, tragic accident, that’s such a shame.’

And then MADD showed up, and I’m sure that no one wanted to go to parties with them … and they were social pariahs and nags, but after 10 years or so they were able to see significant legislation passed that’s saved so many lives.”

While Moms Demand Action is open to anyone who supports its mission, Bailey and Little Rock chapter communication leader Kat Hills think that the moms will be essential to its success.

“I think we’re more rabid,” Bailey said. “I know that I wouldn’t have been this vehement about [gun-related issues] before I had kids.”

“From the moment they come out, you worry about every little thing — are they eating enough, are they sleeping, where should I send them to school? …

[Their getting shot] is not something we should have to worry about it,” Hills said.

Bailey and Hills stress that Moms Demand Action is pro-Second Amendment and bipartisan. Hills’ husband is a hunter, and many of the group’s members, including women on the leadership team, own weapons. They’re advocating for moderate, “commonsense” policies.

The group talks about the need for universal background checks and want to see Arkansas pass a Child Access Prevention law, which would impose criminal liability on a guardian whose negligence allowed a child access to a firearm.

Members plan to mobilize if state lawmakers introduce legislation allowing firearms to be carried on college campuses (currently, law allows staff at colleges and universities to carry conceal weapons, but it also allows colleges and universities to opt out of the law on an annual basis; nearly all have). But much of the work of Moms Demand Action is on the ground. They regularly pass out gunlocks at events and at the Hillary Rodham Clinton Children’s Library and do presentations on gun safety.

The S.M.A.R.T. campaign is a particular focus. It’s an acronym: Secure all firearms. Model responsible behavior if you’re a gun owner. Ask when your kid goes to a friend’s house if anyone in the home has guns and whether they’re secured. Recognize the signs of teen suicidal thinking. Tell your friends about the importance of gun safety.

Bailey and Hills say parents should think of asking the guardians of playmates about guns just as they would about dogs or swimming pools.

“Let’s make it part of normal conversation,” Bailey says. “Right now, talking about guns is gauche, it’s like religion or politics. I feel like that’s been orchestrated. The gun lobby controls the conversation, so they control the game.”

— Lindsey Millar arktimes.com

BRIAN CHILSON

Austin Bailey, Kat Hills and members of the Arkansas chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

27

Chris Balos

Fighting climate change, from Congress to the Marshall Islands.

A

s a child, when Chris Balos visited his family in the Marshall Islands, he played on a stretch of beach near his grandmother’s house in Majuro, the capital. But the last time he returned, in 2007, the spot was gone.

“There was no beach,” he recalled. The ocean had covered it.

As global temperatures have risen over the past century (a pattern that tracks closely with the growth of greenhouse gas emissions), rising sea levels are threatening coastal communities around the world. The Republic of the Marshall Islands is nothing but coastland — about 70 square miles of land in the South Pacific, parceled into 29 ribbon-thin, low-lying coral atolls with an average elevation of 7 feet above sea level. If temperatures keep rising at the rate predicted by climate models, the entire nation could disappear. That’s why Balos, 28, a resident of Springdale, is sounding the alarm on climate change.

“It’s threatening the livelihood of my family and friends, their homes,” he said. “Even graves … are washing away, because the rising tides are taking them away,” he said. His grandmother’s house, which sits against Majuro’s lagoon, is itself in danger. “We’ve got a seawall that breaks the waves from coming into the backyard … [and] it’s pretty

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SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

much losing ground. … It’s crazy.” Also, seas that are warmer and more acidic (another consequence of increased carbon emissions) are harming coral and the other marine life that depends on it. “Coral is the bedrock of the ecosystem. It’s how my people survive, living on those islands,” Balos said.

In June, Balos was among a group of Arkansans who traveled to Washington, D.C., as part of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby, a nonpartisan effort to build support in Congress for a national fee on carbon. They met with staff from the offices of Sen. Tom Cotton and Rep. Steve Womack and visited in person with Sen. John Boozman, all of whom are Republicans skeptical that climate change is fueled by human activity.

Nonetheless, “They were very receptive. They listened,” Balos said.

“I was able to be a spokesman for my friends and family back home. I think that’s one of the main reasons why they were so receptive — because it came from a personal point of view.” The point of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby is “trying to find common ground. Instead of yelling at deniers, we’re trying to understand them from where they’re coming from.”

Born in the islands, Balos moved to the United States with his mother at

age 2 and grew up mostly in California.

About six years ago, he and his mother relocated to Springdale, which is home to the largest Marshallese population in the continental U.S. outside Hawaii.

There are perhaps 10,000 Marshallese people living in Northwest Arkansas — an extraordinary number, considering the population of the Marshall Islands is only about 72,000 — and if rising seas force an exodus from the islands, there will surely be more.

Most Marshallese came to the U.S. to escape poverty, not climate change.

“We’re trying to find better health care, better education, better jobs,” Balos said.

“We left to seek a better life.” Balos’ day job is with the Ozark Literacy Council, teaching English to Marshallese workers at a Tyson chicken plant in Springdale before their shift starts.

But in his spare time, he’s working urgently to educate Marshallese and Americans alike about climate change.

He’s started a youth organization called Lamoran, which means “homeland” in Marshallese, to spread the word.

“I’m trying to raise awareness of the issue within my community. Many people … are still thinking it’s an act of God. They don’t realize that we humans have a role to play in [causing] this, and a role to play in trying to prevent it. … I don’t want some of these people — my people — to grow up and ask, ‘Why did nobody teach me about this?’ ” — Benjamin Hardy

SEEING THE ISLANDS SINK: Chris Balos says the rising sea level threatens the property and livelihood of the residents of the Marshall Islands, including his family.

Grant Chandler Experimental brewer.

M

ost days, Grant Chandler does what a number of Lost Forty brewers do: regular production brewing, an almost rote process. But soon, he’ll be the brewery’s quality control manager, analyzing beer samples with lab equipment and, maybe, with his curly hair growing further upward and outward, also the resident mad scientist, experimenting with different fermentation methods.

Chandler is overseeing construction and assembly of what in the not-too-distant future will surely be the first in-brewery laboratory in the state. A native of Houston, Chandler went to Hendrix College, where he majored in biochemistry and molecular biology. After graduation, he worked as a research technician at a microbiology and immunology lab at the Arkansas Children’s Hospital Research Institute. It was a stable job that provided Chandler with a schedule that allowed for a lot of free time.

Graduate school was supposed to be next, but he found that instead of studying for the GRE, he was picking up new hobbies: gardening, kickboxing, computer coding,

bread-making and brewing.

Brewing, especially, took hold. “It’s the best mix and balance of all my interests,” Chandler says. “Every time I try to list them all out, I forget something, but they include things like science, art, business, history, community, nutrition, alcohol. It really brings together a whole lot of things I take for granted — I suppose I take for granted the things that are most meaningful.”

Self-taught initially, Chandler reached out to Matt Foster, whose Flyway Brewing was then a weekend and after-work pursuit.

Chandler was especially interested in Foster’s Arkansas Native Beer Project, an effort to brew beer made only with Arkansas ingredients. Foster tasked Chandler with finding a wild yeast strain in Little Rock.

“Most brewers order yeast from the lab just like any other ingredient,” Chandler explains. “For the most part, they’re selling the same yeast strains that have been used for a long time. …

“Yeast is everywhere. The trick isn’t finding yeast or even growing yeast. You can literally take sugar water and leave it

out and it will get fermented. That’s yeast and bacteria doing fermentation. It’s making pure cultures that’s a little more difficult, that is, taking one organism out from many mixed organisms and separating it from the rest and growing it in a pure manner.”

Chandler, who built a lab with his roommate in a spare bedroom of their house, found a strain of Brettanomyces yeast in the Dunbar Garden and used it to homebrew a hoppy American ale he called Dunbar Wild, which won a homebrew competition at Damgoode Pies and was, soon thereafter, possibly the first “wild” ale commercially available in Arkansas. Chandler got the job at Lost Forty not long after.

He’s still homebrewing, though. Early this year, his Dunbar Brett, a variation on Dunbar Wild, won gold in the American Wild Ale category and Best of Show at the Blue Bonnet Brew Off in Dallas, the largest single-site homebrewing competition in the country.

Whatever the future holds, Chandler is confident it will “be around beer, for beer or about beer. … Brewing by its nature is rather experimental. The possibilities are endless with beer.”

— Lindsey Millar

arktimes.com

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

BRIAN CHILSON

SUDS SCIENTIST: Grant Chandler will head up state's first in-brewery laboratory, at Lost Forty.

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WORKING FOR A MORE LIVEABLE LITTLE ROCK: Cyclist and 30 Crossing opponent Tim McKuin.

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Tim McKuin

Cyclist gives voice to the ‘street view’ in 30 Crossing debate. statement reads, to “shift the conversation on cycling, transit, planning & design in Central Arkansas.”

When it became evident that the AHTD had zero intention of incorporating the sorts of green alternatives that cities like Milwaukee and Boston have employed — replacing freeways with boulevards and expanding trolley, bike, pedestrian and bus options — the onceniche issue entered the sphere of public discourse. McKuin started working with Ellen Fennell, Pratt Remmel, Barry Haas, John Hedrick, Rebecca Engstrom, Kathy Wells, Paul Dodds, City Director Kathy Webb and members of the social media group Improve 30 Crossing to disseminate data and discussion points regarding Little Rock’s pivotal decision about the interstate expansion and, more broadly, about what its citizens want their downtown to look like in the future. He waded through a labyrinth of Google Earth mockups, ran his own cost-benefit analyses of the AHTD’s $600 million project, spoke at public meetings about alternatives to the expansion design, and helped recruit a consultant to run an independentlyfunded, citizen-led analysis of traffic data to compare with the congestion numbers AHTD reported. AHTD has tweaked some of its planning, but still plans to substantially widen the highway and the gap between east and west Little Rock and North Little Rock.

Despite many setbacks, including a failed transit ballot initiative and a highway department that often seems to prize cars over the people inside them, McKuin remained optimistic and evenkeeled about the possibilities for his city.

“In my opinion, nothing’s set in stone until the concrete’s poured,” he said.

— Stephanie Smittle

BRIAN CHILSON

S

omewhere between downtown Little Rock and the grassfed chicken operation he operated on a farm near Pinnacle Mountain, “It started to sink in,” Tim McKuin said.

“That there was a problem, and how big it was: You needed a car to participate.”

McKuin had sold his car after graduating from Hendrix College and moving to Brooklyn, where he taught high school. In New York, he didn’t need a car to get around. Though his commuting needs here changed — the chicken farm didn’t last (“it became a very expensive hobby,” McKuin said) — he still wanted to see Central Arkansas take a smarter approach to transit. That goal landed him squarely in the middle of the ongoing debate over the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department’s 30 Crossing project.

When the aging Interstate 30 bridge that crosses the Arkansas River in downtown Little Rock was deemed “structurally deficient,” the AHTD did what it does best: designed a plan to pour more concrete. Armed with an unwavering belief that traffic congestion is best remedied by widening our state’s highways, the highway department unveiled a plan in 2015 to replace the bridge and widen I-30 through Little Rock and North Little Rock from six to 10 lanes (and more in places).

McKuin, who had “always enjoyed seeing how local government worked” since his college days attending Conway City Council meetings, was working for bike retailer Competitive Cyclist and wondering what sort of effort it might take for “the older core” of Little Rock/ North Little Rock to become more bikefriendly when he and Cary Tyson established the blog Move Arkansas. The blog was dedicated to imagining a livable, walkable Little Rock and, as its mission

arktimes.com

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

31

NORMAN AND GIVENS: Friends, not just cop and resident. Trust is the key to policing, Norman says.

Tommy Norman

Community policing, with love and respect.

N

BRIAN CHILSON

orth Little Rock Police Officer Tommy Norman is known for his style of policing not just in Arkansas, but all over the country. He’ll throw out the first pitch at the St. Louis Cardinals game on Sept. 29 — he’s that kind of famous.

But he wasn’t on this writer’s radar until a friend told her that her daughter had asked Norman to be her junior prom date at Mayflower High School, and showed me a photograph on her phone of the two: a smiling 40-ish white man in uniform, his head shaved, and a proud African-American teenager in a purple satin gown. This writer thought, that’s something: This policeman escorted a child to the prom just because she asked. Then this writer started seeing Norman’s name everywhere: in the newspaper, on the cover story of a local magazine, online. He even has his own Wikipedia page.

That’s because Norman, 44, who’s been an officer for 18 years, has gone the extra mile in his beat — Interstate 40 south to the river and Pulaski Technical School on the west to Smothers Street in Rose City — to get to know the neighborhood. He spends more time outside his patrol car than in it. He knows everyone by name.

He takes endless selfies and videos with kids and posts them to Twitter and Facebook, where he also posts information about people in need.

People from all over the country send books, games, letters, even checks to the people Norman has mentioned on social media.

Last week, Norman let this reporter and a photographer follow him a bit on his rounds. First stop: an alley behind Moss Street where a group of older men and women were

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enjoying some early morning libations.

Norman introduced a man named Willie, saying, “Willie’s my buddy. We’ve been through a few things and he’s been a good friend.” Willie had stolen some copper pipe to pay his light bill, it turns out, and “paid the price,” Norman said.

When Norman posted about Willie on his Facebook page, a woman from Rhode Island sent him a check to pay the bill.

“She wanted him to know that someone loved him enough to encourage him to do better,” Norman said. “Love” is a word Norman uses all the time.

In turn, Willie said he tries to do right; “I try not to make no messes.”

Next stop was a house on 18th Street, where a woman was in her yard talking to a couple in a car. This woman was mourning: Her little sister had been beaten to death in Alabama and she needed to get there to take care of the arrangements. Norman had posted about the woman’s plight a few days ago; Brigitte Gibson of Hot Springs, a follower of Norman’s on Facebook, drove to Little Rock the next day to cut and color her hair for the journey.

Now this woman was someone you might hesitate to touch, much less embrace, such was her lack of hygiene.

When we turned to leave, Norman said, “Give me a hug,” and she did. Later, in an interview, he said he believed that society turns its back on people like Willie and the bereaved but unkempt woman. “More of us should really pay more attention to those people and [know] their names.”

Norman can be respectful even to a murder suspect; he said a homeless man who’d killed someone in Little Rock and was in North Little Rock was told “there was a police officer he could surrender to peacefully,” and turned himself in to Norman.

Around the corner, Norman stopped to talk to Eddie Givens, who was cleaning up from a Labor Day barbecue he’d held for folks in his front yard. Asked what he thought about Norman, Givens said, “He’s officer of the year to me. He’s been a real nice guy and showed a lot of effort. The other [officers on the beat] are good, too, but he’s a special guy.”

Givens once repaired the Velcro straps on Norman’s bulletproof vest.

“So there’s trust, right?” Norman said.

“That’s a relationship we formed.”

Givens said he was, of course, “leery” of Norman when he first met him, 11 years ago. “But, like, he stood out.”

When he was a young officer, Nor-

man said, he thought community policing was rolling the patrol car window down and waving at folks. Now he knows it’s more important to put mileage on your shoes, not your car, and commit to the relationships you make.

Today, he said, there are hundreds of front porches on his beat where he could sit, put his feet up, and no one would say, “What are you doing on my porch?”

“If you are doing community policing the right way,” Norman said, “people should view you — it’s not the gun, the

badge, the police car that makes you a police officer. It’s your heart, it’s how you lead with your heart. If you lead with your heart, with passion, you’re going to win the community over.”

By forming friendships with the people on his beat, Norman said, he hopes they’ll hesitate to do something that they know would let him down.

Givens asked the reporter if she’d heard of James Brown. “When I was a kid, whenever James Brown was on television, everybody would come

watch, ‘There’s James Brown!’ Now it’s ‘There’s Officer Norman,’ the same thing.”

Meanwhile, Norman called out to a young man across the street, saying, “You know you look just like Drake?” and laughing, and as he drove away, he stopped to fist bump a man down the street.

— Leslie Newell Peacock

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33

BOWIE KNIVES AND MORE: Bill Worthen, the first director of the Historic Arkansas Museum, and his staff have overseen the maturation of the museum and added to what we know of Arkansas's material culture in the 19th century.

Bill Worthen Getting history right.

W

hen Bill Worthen was hired to run the Arkansas Territorial Restoration in 1972, the houses on the eastern half of Block 32 of the original city were furnished in a way that the museum’s original driving force, Louise Loughborough, thought proper, and the grounds were landscaped in a similar vein, with formal gardens. Loughborough had single-handedly rescued the dilapidated structures on the block three decades earlier, convincing the state General Assembly to fund their restoration and create the museum. She made them see the worth of rescuing the oldest building in Little Rock (the Hinderliter Grog Shop) and the other buildings, including one in which the founder of the Arkansas Gazette printed the newspaper. The “savvy” Loughborough — Worthen’s word — also knew

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that by proclaiming one of the houses as the home of Elias Conway, the fifth governor of Arkansas, she could grab the public’s interest.

In later years, the restoration, once a part of Arkansas Parks and Tourism, was virtually run from the office of architect Ed Cromwell — “There’s a man who was a visionary,” Worthen said. Worthen had voluntarily written a study guide for the museum for students he was teaching in Pine Bluff, and Cromwell thought “I might bring a fresh perspective to the place. And he thought I was moderately competent.”

Thus Worthen was hired as the first director of the Arkansas Territorial Restoration (there had been superintendents earlier.) Worthen said it took him about three years of “on-the-job training” to gain confidence in the position.

In 1979, the museum sought accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums, but was rejected because “they said we didn’t have a good enough security system, because we didn’t have any security system.” The legislature was sympathetic and increased the museum’s funding for security; the museum, now part of the Department of Arkansas Heritage, was accredited in 1981.

Under Worthen and his staff, the museum took a more professional turn.

“The first thing that we really needed to do was have the museum’s houses accurately reflect the period they represented,” Worthen said. That meant researching probate inventories, newspaper articles, photographs, paintings and other material culture in Arkansas from the 1820s and ’30s, an effort led

by Deputy Director and Chief Curator Swannee Bennett. The carefully footnoted research changed the furnishings of the houses and formed the basis for an interpretive narrative for the museum’s living history actors.

BRIAN CHILSON

But, “when we did the research for the interpretative narratives, that’s when we had to face the fact that the Conway House was not, alas, Conway’s house,” Worthen said. It was the home of James McVicar, the head of the state penitentiary.

“That was part of getting real with what we had,” Worthen said. “I felt like I didn’t have Mrs. Loughborough’s strength of personality or drive … but I had to fall back on history, fall back on doing it right, come what may.”

And by falling back, the museum went forward. Its living history program — one of its primary missions — tells an accurate story of 19th century Arkansas, including the story of slavery. The museum’s research into Arkansas’s material culture was seminal, bringing to light the state’s silversmiths and gunsmiths and potters and painters — artisan apprentices and employees who came to Arkansas to run their own shops. No longer was Arkansas seen as a place that produced log cabins and woven baskets and brooms and little else. Bennett and Worthen eventually published a survey on Arkansas material culture in two "Arkansas Made" books (a third volume is due next year).

In 2001, thanks to funding from the 1/8-cent conservation tax, which provides continuing support (“God bless Mike Huckabee,” who campaigned for the tax, Worthen said); private dollars; and state and federal dollars; the museum opened its facility on the western half of original Block 32 and changed its name to the Historic Arkansas Museum. It now includes several galleries, including one devoted to the Indians of Arkansas and another devoted to Worthen’s passion, the Bowie knife, and storage for a portion of its collection of Arkansasmade items.

So what impact have Worthen and the staff of HAM had on Arkansans’ appreciation of their state’s history?

“I have people tell me they don’t visit” the museum, Worthen said, “but then they look at me earnestly and say, ‘I’m so glad it’s there.’ That might be a majority of the citizens of Arkansas.

They are glad somebody is preserving some of the history.”

Thanks to the Old State House and HAM and the Encyclopedia of Arkansas — “the greatest thing for Arkansas in possibly forever,” he said — the state’s history is no longer a secret.

“You really see among the younger generation less of the self-consciousness or awareness of the barefoot

hillbilly caricature,” Worthen said.

They’ve grown up with a president from Arkansas. “Our museum and others are trying to promote the fact that Arkansas has a worthy history, an interesting history, and we ought to preserve it.”

Worthen has done his part, and will retire at the end of December this year.

He’ll finish a catalog on the museum’s 2013-14 Bowie knife exhibition, the largest ever curated in the U.S., and said “there may be another Bowie knife book left in me.”

— Leslie Newell Peacock

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SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

35

AT TERRY: Principal Register and her staff "go above and beyond" to get good results.

Sandra Register

High performance, high poverty, high expectations.

A

rrange the 30 traditional public and charter elementary schools in Little Rock by student poverty rates, and a stark divide emerges. In 2014, at nine schools, between roughly one-quarter and onehalf of students were eligible for free or reduced lunch based on household income: Forest Park, Roberts, Jefferson, LISA Academy, eStem, Fulbright, Gibbs, Williams and Pulaski Heights (eStem and LISA are charter schools). In the city’s other 21 elementaries (including one charter, Little Rock Preparatory Academy), low-income children made up between 80 and 97 percent of the population.

The nine elementary schools in Little Rock with the highest test scores in literacy and math were those with lower poverty rates — with one exception.

Although 84 percent of Terry Elementary’s students were from poor households in 2014, 82 percent of its kids scored proficient or advanced on the literacy portion of the test and 86 percent did so in math. That placed Terry among the highest performing elementary schools in the city and earned it one of only four “A” grades in the Little Rock School District in 2014. (Carver Magnet Elementary, another high-poverty

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ARKANSAS TIMES

LRSD school, wasn’t far behind and also earned an A.) In a city where demographics are too often destiny, Terry performs as if it were an affluent school, but its student demographics resemble those of the LRSD as a whole: 67 percent AfricanAmerican, 15 percent Latino, 13 percent white. Fourteen percent of students have “limited English proficiency,” and 15 percent are eligible for special education services.

Sandra Register, who has been the principal at Terry for five years, attributes the school’s success partly to teachers willing to put in long, long hours. “You have to go above and beyond the contract hours of the day,” she said. “I work at least one of the days almost every weekend, and many times there are several teachers here as well. … I never demand that [they stay late], but I do say, ‘I’m going to be checking on this or checking on that.’ Well — they better get it done sometime.”

Register has been working in public education for 39 years, including more than two decades as a teacher, and she said the staff at Terry rises to her expectations. “Not that I’m a tyrant or anything, because I’m not. The people that work here love it,” she said. She

demands intensive academic collaboration: A large portion of teachers’ planning time every week is dedicated to group lesson planning sessions for literacy and math. (One recent change concerns Register: The school has lost two full-time math and literacy instructional facilitators who “planned, met with [teachers] weekly, pulled groups and worked with kids … They were my right and left hands.” She believes the facilitators were a key piece of Terry’s impressive performance in 2014. This year, the district, which is facing a tightened budget due to the impending loss of state desegregation payments, has the facilitator positions rotating between multiple schools.)

If Register drives her teachers hard, she and Assistant Principal Patricia Boykin earn their goodwill by doing as much as possible to lessen their noninstructional workload. “Get assessments ready for them, run off materials. … Anything that we can possibly do for those teachers, we take that away from them so they can teach. Same thing about discipline: If it’s serious enough that you need to stop instruction, you need to send them over here and we’re going to take care of it.” The school

also has an on-site behavioral health provider, New Beginnings, with a fourperson staff that helps counsel students before problems develop.

All of this adds up to a calm, stable environment in which the priority can be placed on classroom instruction, rather than putting out fires. That’s all the more essential when most of the kids in a given class are starting out at a huge disadvantage relative to their higher-income peers in terms of access to pre-K, exposure to the written and spoken word, nutrition and health, transportation, stability of housing and a dozen other factors.

Register doesn’t dwell too much on those glaring disparities on a day-today basis — you “move on, start teaching them, get them caught up” — but she also acknowledges that at the most affluent schools, they “don’t have to teach like my teachers teach … because the kids have parents that are going to study with them at night, take them here and there. [Those children] have this, this and this — and they come in the building already being way ahead of these little babies.”

— Benjamin Hardy

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arktimes.com

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

37

Matt Campbell

Crusading attorney, muckracker on the side.

M

att Campbell was in Doe’s Eat Place for lunch a couple of weeks back with another lawyer and a client who’s been active in Republican politics. State Republican Party Chairman Doyle Webb came by to say hello to the client. When Webb stuck out his hand to Campbell and Campbell introduced himself by name, he said Webb flinched and pulled his hand back.

“He ran away like he was afraid someone was going to take a picture,” Campbell said, laughing. Such is the legend of the 38-year-old lawyer in private practice who, in his spare time, is perhaps the state’s most successful investigative journalist.

Through reporting on his blog, Blue Hog Report, he’s led to the downfall of Lt. Gov. Mark Darr, Circuit Judge Mike Maggio (who was running for the state Court of Appeals at the time) and Little Rock School District Superintendent Dexter Suggs. How has a full-time lawyer managed massive scoops on the side? “Sometimes I get a tip and a story is 80 percent formed,” Campbell said.

“Some of it comes on a hunch. Because I’m a lawyer and I have sued people for [Freedom of Information Act] violations, most agencies comply with my requests. I’m also willing to go through records.”

That willingness to put in long hours was typified in the Darr expose in 2013.

It started with a tip: Look at the lieutenant governor’s use of gas cards. Campbell made FOIA requests, and he and his wife, Leabeth, spent six weeks combing through campaign finance reports and credit card receipts at night, with everything spread out on their dining room table and Leabeth working a calculator.

Finally, after cross-referencing enough

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records, Campbell realized: “This guy is using his campaign money as an ATM.” It’s illegal to use campaign funds for personal use. Campbell filed an ethics complaint against Darr, who ended his justlaunched campaign for U.S. Congress.

Darr was later found to be in violation of ethics laws and resigned from office.

Campbell’s professional career has included time as an investigator at the Pulaski County Public Defender's office, as an attorney for the Department of Human Services for several weeks (he hated it) and as assistant criminal justice coordinator at the Arkansas Supreme Court. Since 2013, he’s been in practice in his own firm, the Pinnacle Law Firm Lately, he estimates he’s spending 75 percent of his time on civil rights cases.

Perhaps most prominently, he’s been engaged in a legal battle with the city of Fort Smith. One is a whistle-blower lawsuit involving former and current police officers who, Campbell said, were retaliated against after confronting superiors about illegal activity within the department. Another, filed in federal court on behalf of Fort Smith Police Department Cpl. Wendall Sampson Jr., alleges racial discrimination in hiring and promotion. “They haven’t promoted a black officer since 1998. He’s the only one in an agency of 167 officers in a city of 88,000 people. … It’s fertile ground,” Campbell said.

The Fort Smith Police Department tried to hack his computer and once followed him and a client and photographed them while they ate lunch, Campbell said. It’s just more fodder for his blog. “I’ve found that if you give too much of a fuck, you’re giving in to them,” he said.

— Lindsey Millar

THE BLUE HOG: Matt Campbell has led to downfall of an elected official, a judge and a school superintendent.

A. POULIN JR. PRIZE WINNER DAVIS: Writing "just kept happening."

Geffrey Davis

Professor and poet finds inspiration in family history, fishing.

BRIAN CHILSON

N

ational Book Award-winning poet Terrance Hayes has said that Geffrey Davis’ poetry “translates and transforms our contemporary modes of love, violence and history.” That poetry, which has been published in the New York Times magazine and Crazyhorse, landed Davis, 33, a position at the University of Arkansas’s Master of Fine Arts program in 2014 shortly after the publication of his debut collection of personal poems, “Revising the Storm,” which won the prestigious A. Poulin Jr. Prize.

Davis was born in Tacoma, Wash., an urban port city south of Seattle. His upbringing, in the shadow of Mount Rainier, was turbulent thanks to a father who struggled with drug addiction. His father went through a string of rehabilitation programs that ultimately landed the family in Onalaska, a tiny rural town that was primarily agricultural, in an effort to reduce his father’s risk of relapse.

Once in recovery, Davis’ father picked up fly fishing and took Davis along. “Early on we fished any water we could find, then we fell in love with trout and salmon,” Davis said. He loved the quiet he and his father found on the banks of Washington streams, the space and silence they were able to share as they cast their lines into crystal waters. This meditative activity brought strength and structure to their relation-

ship, and provided a healing quality to his father in recovery.

“For my father, limits were good. He was someone who really sort of resisted limits. The limits on a stream are set, there are only so many outcomes. You’re either going to catch a fish or you’re not,” Davis said.

Fly fishing also offered an opportunity for the elder Davis to impart valuable lessons to his son, lessons Davis would in turn pass on to his own son. This rural, outdoor space brought unique challenges and prejudices with it.

“My father, as this black man in rural Washington, trying to get into these streams on private or public property, taught me a sense of fearlessness,” Davis said.

The shared bond of family and fishing would become fundamental in Davis’ later poetry, coloring it with cyclical patterns of life, fishing line and family lineage. These early years in Onalaska are a frequent inspiration for his writing.

When time came for college, Davis was determined to integrate his love of the outdoors and nature with his creativity, and set out to major in biology and photography. It was at Oregon State University that Davis was first introduced to writers such as Jacques Derrida and Roland Barthes, and they stirred in him a latent interest in writing

and philosophy. One day, spurred on by friends, Davis started writing himself.

“It wasn’t something that I felt compelled to do, and I didn’t identify as a writer,” Davis said. “Then, it just kept happening.”

He brought to his poetry a focus similar to that required by fishing, a presence and immediacy that is evident in his kinetic yet smooth verse. “Revising the Storm” abounds with verse inspired by his time on Washington’s rivers, streams and sea with his father.

While fly fishing inspires his poetry, it’s also Davis’ best escape from it. Fishing gives him a new rhythm to attune himself to, a different meter to adhere to than that of his own poetry.

“When I go to the river to fish, it’s one of the few spaces where I don’t feel ‘dispersed through in one body,’ ” said Davis, quoting fellow poet LiYoung Lee. “There’s a healthy backdrop of sound, and I’m only responsible for looking at certain things. It’s a rare kind of presence on the stream.”

Davis attempts to transfer this focus to his many pursuits — teaching, boxing, writing and now a father himself — to his own family life. It is this focus and continuity that make his poetry and his person so compelling. Still at the beginning of his career, in writing as in teaching, there is surely more exciting verse to come, more streams to fish. All things are cyclical, without end.

Davis said it best himself: “Every poem I’ve ever written felt like the last.

Then, somehow, it is not.”

— Zoë Rom

arktimes.com

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

39

Arts Entertainment AND

THE BOY FROM HOPE: (from left) Composer Bonnie Montgomery works with pianist Louis Menendez and cast members Drew Lucas, Stephanie Smittle and Clay Sanders in rehearsal for 'Billy Blythe,' an opera that depicts Bill Clinton's adolescent years.

An Arkansas opera

‘Billy Blythe’ explores the life of a young Bill Clinton.

BY DAVID KOON

E

very state has its pantheon of figures that cast a shadow long enough to make them something like living legend. In Arkansas, few figures loom larger than Bill Clinton, the political wunderkind and boy governor who went on to become a two-term president of the United States. You may have seen his library down by the Arkansas River.

Arguably the most inspirational part of Clinton’s story lies in his humble beginnings, with the boy who would be president raised largely by his mother,

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ARKANSAS TIMES

the flamboyant Virginia Cassidy (later Blythe, later Clinton, later Dwire, later Kelley), in Hope and Hot Springs. Clinton’s father, William Blythe, was killed in a car accident in May 1946, three months before the future president was born.

The idea of an orphaned boy from nowhere growing up to become the leader of the free world was dramatic enough that it caught the eye of singer/ songwriter and Searcy native Bonnie Montgomery. While reading Clinton’s autobiography, “My Life,” in 2006,

Montgomery was so taken by a single image — Clinton’s description of watching his mother put on her makeup — that she was moved to song. Collaborating with writer Brittany Barber, they worked for the next five years to craft the one-act opera, “Billy Blythe.” Set in 1959 in Hot Springs, the 45-minute piece is built around young Bill’s relationship with his mother, and a turning point in the future president’s often tumultuous relationship with his alcoholic stepfather, Roger Clinton.

“Blythe” is the first opera by Montgomery, a Searcy native whose country music albums earned her the title of Ameripolitan Music Award’s 2016 Outlaw Female. The first production of the opera was a workshop-length piece staged at Little Rock’s White Water Tavern in 2010; its stage premiere was with Opera Ithaca in Ithaca, N.Y., and it was later performed in New York City.

Writing opera, Montgomery said, was a fascinating experience. “It felt so relevant and alive, and so much more in depth than a country song,” Montgomery said. “There are so many intricacies in the composition of an opera and the subject, too, as far as what you can convey, as far as the psychology of the characters with the music. It’s a whole different ballgame.”

While Montgomery never met Virginia Kelley, she said that she was drawn to her as an example of a strong, largerthan-life Southern woman who was able to hold her family together under difficult circumstances. Montgomery said she looks up to her as a personal hero.

“She was really progressive for her time,” Montgomery said. “She was an optimist, too, which I found inspiring.

She said in her book that she could steel her mind to anything negative and only let in positive thoughts. I just thought

ROCK CANDY

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

A&E NEWS

BRIAN CHILSON

“DAMNATION,” THE UPCOMING USA Network drama from University of Arkansas graduate and “Longmire” writer Tony Tost, which shares a class struggle sensibility with Western heist film “Hell or High Water,” will share its director as well. David Mackenzie joins producing partner Gillian Berrie as directors and executive producers of the “Damnation” pilot, which introduces viewers to Seth Davenport, a man masquerading as a preacher in an effort to incite economic insurrection in 1930s Iowa.

Though the roles have not yet been cast, several heavy hitters have joined the list of executive producers: Guymon Casady (“Game of Thrones”), James Mangold (“Walk the Line”), Daniel Rappaport (“Office Space”) and Tost himself.

that was a great way to be.”

Stephanie Smittle (who, full disclosure, is the entertainment editor of the Arkansas Times) will sing the role of Virginia in the Opera in the Rock production. While Smittle has performed in Mozart operas in Italy and the United States, this will be her first time singing about figures that are still living. A Cave Springs native who often visited Hope and Hot Springs growing up, Smittle says singing about places she’s familiar with puts a different spin on things.

She says it’s especially moving to be playing the part while Hillary Clinton is campaigning for the presidency. Like Montgomery, Smittle identifies with the strong, independent Virginia.

“There’s this core of strength to her that’s like, ‘it doesn’t matter what you do, you will not shake me,’ ” Smittle said. “I think a lot of people would think about that as a sort of Southern strength, but

certainly Hillary is that way, and she didn’t grow up down here and didn’t grow up under the same circumstances.

It’s been very cool. It’s like: revolution.

It really feels like a leaf is turning. So it’s strange to be in the position of studying the history of how that came to be before Hillary was ever in the picture.”

Montgomery said she didn’t write the opera specifically for Bill Clinton, but does hope it honors his legacy. Currently brainstorming on an opera about Hot Springs madam Maxine Jones, she says she is often asked whether she plans to expand “Billy Blythe” to include later moments in Clinton’s life, especially now that Hillary is on the verge of taking the White House.

“I’ve had that question every time this has been performed,” she said. “Of course there are questions about the scandals and ‘why not the love triangle’ or whatever. But I don’t know if I’m

really inspired to go further into the Clinton life. I do think he’s an extraordinary person, and I do think all the different phases of his life are fascinating.

But for some reason there’s something about it being set in Arkansas in the ’50s in Hot Springs. Really, it’s a tale of Arkansas life, more so than it being really about Bill Clinton.”

“Billy Blythe” is the latest production by Opera in the Rock. Along with the Arkansas premiere of Richard Wargo’s one-act opera “The Music Shop,” it will be staged at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 16-17 at Pulaski Technical College’s Center for Humanities and Arts, 3000 W. Scenic Drive in North Little Rock. Tickets are $25, or $15 for students, and can be purchased at the Pulaski Tech box office, or at the Opera in the Rock website, oitr. org.

AMAZON HAS RELEASED the first trailer for “Goliath,” a legal drama set to star Malvern native Billy Bob Thornton.

Written by David E. Kelley (“Ally McBeal,” “The Practice,” “Boston Legal”) and Jonathan Shapiro (also of “The Practice”), the series depicts a washed-up lawyer, Billy McBride, who’s resorted to ambulance chasing and discovers a chance to exact revenge on “Goliath,” the law firm representing a deep-pocketed aerospace company headed up by Wendell Corey, played

by Dwight Yoakam. The series, which was escorted past the red ropes of Amazon’s pilot process to a direct commission for 10 episodes, premieres Oct. 14 on Amazon’s on-demand service, Amazon Video.

OSCAR AND EMMY recipient Louis Gossett Jr., who starred in the documentary “Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise,” joins Emmy, Grammy, and Golden Globe recipient Beau Bridges (“An Inconvenient Truth”) as co-chair of the 25th annual Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, to be held Oct. 7-16 at the Arlington Resort Hotel & Spa. NATIONAL HISPANIC HERITAGE Month begins this week, commemorating the independence anniversaries of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, Belize and Chile.

The Mexican Consulate of Little Rock, in partnership with Argenta Gallery and the Latino Art Project of North Little Rock, presents “Raices Mexicanas,” a collection of works by artists with ties to Mexico.

The show is on display at Argenta Gallery through Oct. 1. On Tuesday, Sept. 20, Mayor Mark Stodola will make a “Welcome Week” proclamation at the City Board of Directors meeting on “plans for the city of Little Rock to be more open to increasing diversity in the region.” arktimes.com

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

41

THE

TO-DO

LIST

BY LINDSEY MILLAR AND STEPHANIE SMITTLE

SATURDAY 9/17

DISCO 3000

9 p.m. Club Sway. $14-$36.

Before things went far south enough to inspire a subpar Macaulay Culkin film, the Limelight Club in New York City was home to Disco 2000, a glittering bacchanalia of naked skin, neon platform shoes and drug-fueled abandon. Inspired by that ’90s “club kid” culture, Little Rock’s House of Avalon has put its own #glitterrock twist on the party and called it Disco 3000, its biggest and most outlandish shindig of the year. Ostensibly, it’s a big dance party, but — and this is made most clear from any Disco 3000 photo gallery online — it’s really a challenge to self-expression through elaborate DIY costumes. The event is met with so much enthusiasm that, unlike other Avalon parties, there are no scheduled performers at Disco 3000; the party itself is the performance. This year, the theme is “subtly about technology, its role in our lives and in the parties we throw,” House of Avalon co-founder Hunter Crenshaw said. “We hand-make all of our costumes to directly correlate with the themes and our personal identities. This year, our costumes are inspired by Renaissance paintings, mixed with digital technology. It’s going to be beautiful.” SS BLOW THE WHISTLE: Thirty years into his career, Too $hort, one of the founding fathers of the West Coast hip-hop sound, makes a stop at Revolution 10 p.m. Friday, Sept. 16, $35-$250.

TP AND THE FEEL

FRIDAY 9/16

9 p.m. South on Main. $15.

TOO $HORT

10 p.m. Revolution. $35-$250.

Maybe now that he’s in the valedictory stage of his career, Too $hort isn’t worried about pulling the curtain back. “You’re not gonna come to my house at 7 in the morning, when I wake up, and it’s like 15 girls laying over the couches and stuff. It’s not like that,” he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal this week. “Most songs are not true. They’re just meant to be entertaining.” The truth sometimes hurts. A prostitute cussed out the pioneering West Coast rapper, who built his career on lascivious songs like “I’m a Player” and “Freaky Tales,” after he told her he wasn’t really a pimp. “It was disturbing to

her,” he told the Review-Journal. “But that’s what makes artistry good, is you make it believable.”

More confessions from $hort Dawg, who turned 50 this year and is celebrating 30 years rapping: A lot of his songs sound alike on purpose. He told Complex in 2012 that he admired how funk groups like Parliament and Ohio Players often revisited music with small changes. “I liked that technique, so I brought it into hip-hop. … Like if you [use] something like a certain drum kit [that] makes some certain sounds and you use a bass guitar or you use some kind of keyboard and you make a hit record with it, go back and use those same instruments, change the notes, and make another fucking hit.

People like that sound.” LM

The 2016 album “I Am Trap Jazz” by Quincy Watson (known to some as “QNote”) and musical partner Phillip Mouton (known to some as Philly Moo) pushes the definition of hip-hop vintage a bit further back than the days of Eric B & Rakim or De la Soul.

It refers to Charlie Parker and especially to Miles Davis’ spoken word interludes, putting beats and loops under improvised saxophone riffs that result in a vibe that’s positively pinot noir, and though their full-band sound leaned slightly more toward straight R&B, it unquestionably informed the new direction the duo is headed. The “T” and the “P” in “TP and the Feel” refer to trombonist Emanuel “Tiko” Brooks and to Mouton; the bop’s filled out by Watson on keyboards, Joshua Stark on drums and Shawn Nelson on bass. The dormant Afterthought Bistro and Bar was home to the band’s sound for years, though members of the group sounded right at home in the Old State House Museum when they peeled out a medley of Sister Rosetta Tharpe hits at a tribute to the pioneer last May. SS

in the past or the yet-to-come end on the temporal spectrum, Papercuts will give visitors a pretty good idea of where the scene stands now. Billed as the “4th annual All Ages Small Press/Self-Published Zine and Mini-Comix Shindigthinggy,” the event features cut-and-paste masterpieces for sale, trade, and even a few for free from the area’s zine community. Nonliterary sustenance includes food from Southern Salt Food Co., draft beer made from hops grown in the adjacent Dunbar Garden, and live performances from Fayetteville’s Nite Pup and William Blackart, the Russellville spinner of sad songs and author of a lovely zine himself, “Good Night World,” whose spines are made of deconstructed cardboard from packages of Busch Light. SS

SATURDAY 9/17

FRIDAY 9/16

PAPERCUTS

7 p.m. Dunbar Garden. $3-$5 suggested donation.

The heyday of DIY zine culture in Central Arkansas is difficult to pin down. Was it the advent of Towncraft-era punk zines like Fluke, Lighten Up! and Eyepoke that helped mobilize the punk and art scenes of the early 1990s? Or does it span the long-running tenure of Mary Chamberlain’s independent literature distributor Tree of Knowledge, which, as Microcosm Publishing’s Joe Biel states in his book “Good Trouble,” served — and still serves — as a “mail-order house filled with all kinds of literary and iconographic artifacts with punk roots or touchstones?” Whether its heyday lies 42

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

SATURDAY 9/17

ARKANSAS TIMES

WARREN BLUES FESTIVAL

5 p.m. Bradley County Fairgrounds. $1.

Histories of the blues in Arkansas don’t often mention the Southeast Arkansas town of Warren, but according to Greg “Big Papa” Binns, whose grandfather once owned a bakery on the blackowned business street “Catfish Row,” it was home to performances from the likes of Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Muddy Waters, BB King and Howlin’ Wolf as a stop on the so-called “Chitlin’ Circuit” that helped kickstart their musical careers in the ’40s and ’50s. To honor that legacy, the Bradley County Fair will host the first-ever Warren Blues Festival, featuring performances from CeDell Davis and Brethren, Lucious Spiller, Zakk and Big Papa Binns, Cameron Kimbrough and The Backyard Players. SS

IN BRIEF

THURSDAY 9/15

SATURDAY 9/17-SUNDAY 9/18

FIREHOUSE HOSTEL AND MUSEUM GRAND OPENING CELEBRATION

5 p.m. Sat., noon Sun. Firehouse Hostel and Museum. $5-$28.

In 1892, Little Rock established its first professional fire department, a significant step up from the days of volunteer bucket brigades, and in 1917 built the Spanish Revival-style Fire Station No. 2 in MacArthur Park (then

called City Park). That building, long admired by preservationists for its exposed rafters and glazed-brick interior, is now home to the Firehouse Hostel and Museum, a project of the city of Little Rock and Hostelling Arkansas that’s nearly 10 years in the making. The museum shows off firefighting relics like alarms, ladders and a fire pole converted into a bar-height table, and the hostel offers 36 twinsize bunk beds, a communal kitchen,

Wi-Fi, free parking and breakfast for guests at $28/night. To inaugurate the hostel, the public’s invited to book a room and stay overnight Saturday evening, when there will be food trucks, a photo booth and live music from Connor Rayburn. Or, come Sunday, Sept.

18, at noon for a tour of the premises and peace-themed arts and crafts to kick off Arkansas Peace Week. To book a bunk, call 501-476-0294 or visit firehousehostel.org. SS

Acclaimed French-Canadian guitarist Antoine DuFour picks fingerstyle with the help of acrylic fingernail tips, The Joint, 7:30 p.m., $20. Austin’s Julia Lucille brings the results of her fieldrecorded “Bedroom Tapes” to South on Main with Sea Nanners, 9 p.m., $10. Steve “Mudflap” McGrew goes for laughs at The Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m.

Thu., 7:30 and 10 p.m. Fri.-Sat., $10-$15.

“Beautiful and Bright” meets “Trails and Traces” when Kevin Kerby and Jacob Furr share a bill at the White Water Tavern, 9 p.m., $6.

FRIDAY 9/16 The Weekend Theater gives its treatment to “Twelve Angry Men” through Oct. 1, 7:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 2:30 p.m. Sun., $12-$16. Sad Daddy plays a show to celebrate the release of its new album “Fresh Catch,” White Water, 9:30 p.m., $7.

Live-looping reggae-dub duo Max Dab performs at King’s Live Music in Conway, 8:30 p.m., $5. John Neal plays a free set at Ya Ya’s Euro Bistro, 6 p.m. The Salty Dogs honky tonk at Argenta’s Four Quarter Bar, 10 p.m., $7. Bob Bidewell directs The Studio Theatre’s two-weekend run of “Doubt: A Parable,” 7:30 p.m., $15$20. Ron Robinson Theater screens noir mystery “Blue Velvet,” 6 p.m., $5.

SATURDAY 9/17

NSA BLUES: Natural Child’s brand of boogie pairs best with Busch Light and bad decisions. The Nashville garage rockers share a bill with Faux Ferocious and Bombay Harambee at the White Water Tavern at 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 21, $7.

WEDNESDAY 9/21

NATURAL CHILD

9:30 p.m. White Water Tavern. $7.

Divinely inspired by a batch of weed brownies, the members of Natural Child wrote collaboratively for about two years straight, primarily from within one of two minivans, or so they told Paste Magazine. That process yielded a trilogy of earnest rock albums decked out with cuts that are alternately airy and open, as on “Bailando con Lobos” (2014), or reckless and driving, as on the earlier “Laid, Paid, and Strange.”

If the tracks on the band’s Sept. 16 release “Okey Dokey” are any indica-

tion, the group owns that duality. “Now and Then” channels the straightforward English rock vibe that characterized “Hard In Heaven,” one of two albums the band released in 2012, and “Sure Is Nice” — the track that opens “Okey Dokey” — sounds like it’d be best enjoyed in a mixtape dominated by Canned Heat outtakes, heard from the passenger seat of a Ford Ranger without air conditioning on the way to do something that will result in a sunburn. As a commenter on those previewed tunes so succinctly put it, “These guys make me feel good.” Natural Child’s joined

by Bombay Harambee, a local quartet whose lyrics drip with subversion even when they’re downright academic: “Lost all those penny stocks to noblesse oblige/In the interval best clutch your tickets flush.” Rounding out thenight is Faux Ferocious, a Nashville rock quartet whose upcoming release, “Clone the Rubicon,” oozes pathos and bite, as in the deceptively self-assured “Who I Become”: “What’s the matter? You didn’t think I knew? Yeah, we talked and he was cool and relaxed. What’s he got that I don’t got? And is it something I can get?” SS

Jason Lee Hale and special guests celebrate the release of Hale’s new album, “Child of the Dark,” at White Water Tavern, 9 p.m., $5. The rebooted lineup of Squirrel Nut Zippers brings the neo-swing to Four Quarter Bar for the band’s 20th anniversary, 10 p.m., $35. Jam band Freeverse plays a free show at the Tavern Sports Grill, 7:30 p.m. Museum of Discovery hosts “maker” activities at Tinkerfest, 9 a.m., free-$10. Hot Springs’ The Muses Project stages Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” at Woodlands Auditorium, 8 p.m., $30. Govinda blends “gypsy violin” and belly dance at Revolution, 8 p.m., $10.

Chicago’s blues-inspired North By North shares a bill with Casual Pleasures and The Talking Liberties at Stickyz, 9 p.m., $7.

MONDAY 9/19 Cast members from The Rep’s “Spamalot” perform musical numbers from the show, cabaret-style, at The Lobby Bar, 7 p.m., $25.

TUESDAY 9/20 Former Dwight Yoakam sideman Brian Whelan’s gone solo, and he lands at White Water with Brad Williams, 9:30 p.m. Kevin Merida, editor-in-chief of ESPN’s “The Undefeated,” gives a free lecture at the Clinton School for Public Service, 6 p.m. arktimes.com

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

43

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, SEPT. 15

MUSIC

Antoine DuFour. The Joint, 7:30 p.m., $20.

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

Drageoke. Hosted by Queen Anthony James Gerard: a drag show followed by karaoke. Sway, 8 p.m. 412 Louisiana. clubsway.com.

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

Julia Lucille. With Sea Nanners. South on Main, 9 p.m., $10. 1304 Main St. 501-2449660. southonmain.com.

Justin Bratcher. Kings Live Music, 8 p.m., free. 1020 Front St., No. 102, Conway. kingslivemusic.com.

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

Katmandu. Part of the Live at Laman concert series. Laman Library, 7 p.m., free.

2801 Orange St., NLR. 501-758-1720. lamanlibrary.org.

Kevin Kerby, Jacob Furr. White Water Tavern, 9 p.m. 2500 W. 7th St. 501-3758400. whitewatertavern.com.

Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-4782. littlerock.erniebiggs. com.

Mister Lucky. Cajun’s Wharf, 9 p.m., $5.

2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. cajunswharf.com.

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

Open jam with The Port Arthur Band.

Parrot Beach Cafe, 9 p.m. 9611 MacArthur Drive, NLR. 771-2994.

Open Mic. Faulkner Count y Librar y, through May 31: third Thursday of every month, 7 p.m., free. 1900 Tyler St., Conway.

501-327-7482. fcl.org.

RockUsaurus. Casa Mexicana, 7 p.m. 7111 JFK Blvd., NLR. 501-835-7876.

A. Sinclair, Beat Bums. Maxine’s, 8 p.m., free. 700 Central Ave., Hot Springs. maxineslive.com.

Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 8 p.m., free. 111 W. Markham St. 501-3707013. www.capitalbarandgrill.com/.

Trey Johnson. The Tavern Sports Grill, 7:30 p.m., free. 17815 Chenal Parkway. 501-8302100. thetavernsportsgrill.com.

Troy C ar t wright. George’s Majestic Lounge, 7 p.m., $10. 519 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-442-4226. georgesmajesticlounge.com.

“Where Song Meets Symphony.” Nashville songwriters Billy Montana, Chris Destefano and Marcus Hummon perform

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SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

GET US IN TROUBLE: Forrest City native Milton Patton’s making his way up the country charts after impressing judges on NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” and brings what he calls “the authentic Arkansas country blend” home to Jimmy Doyle’s Country Club, 8 p.m., Friday, Sept. 16., $10.

with a 14-piece symphony. Arkansas State University at Mountain Home, 7 p.m., $21$41. 1600 S. College Ave., Mountain Home. thesheid.com.

COMEDY

Steve “Mudflap” McGrew. The Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m.; Sept. 16, 10 p.m., $10-$15. 10301

N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-228-5555. loonybincomedy.com.

EVENTS

A ntique/Boutique Wa lk. Shopping and live entertainment. Downtown Hot Springs, third Thursday of every month, 4 p.m., free. 100 Central Ave., Hot Springs.

ArkiePub Trivia. Stone’s Throw, 6:30 p.m., free. 402 E. 9th St. 501-244-9154. stonesthrowbeer.com. #ArkiePubTrivia. Stone’s Throw Brewing, 6:30 p.m. 402 E. 9th St. 501-244-9154.

ReStore & After. Benefitting Habitat for Humanity and ReStores. Embassy Suites, 9 a.m., $50. 11301 Financial Centre. 501-3129000. centralarkansastickets.com.

Zoo Brew. A craft beer fest to support the Arkansas Zoological Foundation. Little Rock Zoo, 6 p.m., $25-$35. 1 Jonesboro Drive. 501-666-2406. littlerockzoo.com.

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FILM

RuPaul’s Drag Race: Watch Party. Sway, 7 p.m., free. 412 Louisiana. clubsway.com.

LECTURES

“Can the Gift of a Cow Really Change a Life?”. A talk with Alex Winter-Nelson

RIVERDALE 10 VIP CINEMA 2600 CANTRELL RD 5 0 1 . 2 9 6.9 955 | R I V E R DA LE1 0.CO M

ELECTRIC RECLINER SEATS AND RESERVED SEATING

SHOW TIMES, FRI SEPT 16 – THURS, SEPT 22

Librar y, 3:30 p.m., free. 190 0 Tyler St., Conway. 501-327-7482. www.fcl.org.

POETRY

POETluck. Literary salon and potluck. The Writer’s Colony at Dair y Hollow, third Thursday of every month, 6 p.m. 515 Spring St., Eureka Springs. 479-253-7444.

SPORTS

Christine DeMeo. Ya Ya’s Euro Bistro, 6 p.m., free. 17711 Chenal Parkway. 501-821-1144. yayasar.com.

Sad Palomino. With The Chads. Smoke and Barrel Tavern, 10 p.m., free. 324 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-521-6880. smokeandbarrel.com.

KIDS

Garden Club. A project of the Faulkner County Urban Farm Project. Ages 7 and up or with supervision. Faulkner County

MR. CHURCH PG13 | 2:00 4:25 7:00 9:25

FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS PG13 | 1:45 4:15 6:45 9:30

SULLY PG13 | 2:15 4:30 7:15 9:25 WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS PG13 | 2:00 4:20 7:00 9:20

MUSIC

and Peter Goldsmith, who will present the results of an ongoing study with Heifer International. Sturgis Hall, 6 p.m., free. 1200 President Clinton Ave. 501-683-5200. clintonschool.uasys.edu.

HELL OR HIGH WATER R | 2:00 4:20 7:00 9:20

BLAIR WITCH R | 2:15 4:30 7:15 9:20

FRIDAY, SEPT. 16 All In Fridays. Envy. 7200 Colonel Glenn Road. 501-562-3317.

“Billy Blythe” and “The Music Shop.” A production of Bonnie Montgomery’s “Billy Blythe” and Richard Wargo’s “The Music Shop” from Opera in the Rock. Pulaski Technical College, Sept. 16-17, 7:30 p.m., $16-$65. 3000 W. Scenic Drive, NLR. oitr.org.

Blindsnakes. Markham Street Grill and Pub, 8:30 p.m., free. 11321 W. Markham St. 501224-2010. markhamstreetpub.com.

The Bristol Hills, Rios, Recognizer. Maxine’s.

700 Central Ave., Hot Springs. maxineslive. com.

Christine DeMeo and Cassie Ford. Pop’s Lounge, Sept. 16-17, 7 p.m., free. 2705 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 501-623-4411. oaklawn.com.

DJ Shortfuze. Smoke and Barrel Tavern, 10 p.m., free. 324 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville.

479-521-6880. smokeandbarrel.com.

Eclipse the Echo. West End Smokehouse and Tavern, 10 p.m., $7. 215 N. Shackleford.

501-224-7665. westendsmokehouse.net.

Goose. George’s Majestic Lounge, 8:30 p.m., $10. 519 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville.

479-442-4226. georgesmajesticlounge.com.

Jack Ferrara. South on Main, 9 p.m. 1304 Main St. 501-244-9660. southonmain.com.

John Neal. Ya Ya’s Euro Bistro, 6 p.m., free. 17711 Chenal Parkway. 501-821-1144. yayasar.com.

Liar’s Tongue, Dismal Dream, Inrage.

Vino’s. 923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. vinosbrewpub.com.

Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-4782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com.

Max Dab. Kings Live Music, 8:30 p.m., $5.

1020 Front St., No. 102, Conway. kingslivemusic.com.

Milton Patton. Jimmy Doyle’s Country Club, 8 p.m., $10. 11800 Maybelline Road, NLR. 501-945-9042.

Richie Johnson. Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 p.m., free. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. cajunswharf.com.

Ryan Sauders. The Tavern Sports Grill, 7:30 p.m., free. 17815 Chenal Parkway. 501-8302100. thetavernsportsgrill.com.

Sad Daddy: Record Release Show. White Water Tavern, 9:30 p.m. 2500 W. 7th St. 501375-8400. whitewatertavern.com.

Salsa Dancing. Clear Channel Metroplex, 9 p.m., $5-$10. 10800 Col. Glenn Road. 501217-5113. www.littlerocksalsa.com.

The Salty Dogs. Four Quarter Bar, 10 p.m., $7. 415 Main Street, NLR. 501-313-4704. fourquarterbar.com.

Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 8 p.m., free. 111 W. Markham St. 501-370-7013. www.capitalbarandgrill.com/.

Upscale Friday. IV Corners, 7 p.m. 824 W. Capitol Ave.

SNOWDEN R | 1:45 4:15 6:45 9:30

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ARKANSAS TIMES

Tweet North Little Rock 501-945-8010 Russellville 479-890-2550 Little Rock 501-455-8500 Conway 501-329-5010

laspalmasarkansas.com www.facebook.com/laspalmasarkansas

LOCAL

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SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

45

AFTER DARK, CONT.

GOT THEIR OWN THING NOW: Squirrel Nut ZIppers perform at the Four Quarter Bar on Saturday, September 17.

COMEDY

“Electile Dysfunction.” The Joint, through Nov. 19: 8 p.m., $22. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointargenta.com.

Steve “Mudflap” McGrew. The Loony Bin, through Sept. 17, 7:30 p.m.; through Sept. 17, 10 p.m., $10-$15. 10301 N. Rodney

Parham Road. 501-228-5555. loonybincomedy.com.

DANCE

Contra dance. Park Hill Presby terian Church, 7:30 p.m., $5. 3520 JFK Blvd., NLR. arkansascountrydance.org.

CAMARO JR.

EVENTS

Latin Night. Featuring performances from Lola B. Fierce, Gianna Colucci, Reprobabe, Vega, Elizabeth Rivera, Melissa Diaz De Leon and Go-Go Boy Edwin Espinoza.

Sway, 9 p.m. 412 Louisiana. clubsway.com.

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 501-244-9690 or search “DYSC” on Facebook. First Presbyterian Church, 6:30 p.m. 800 Scott St. Shine a Light on Literacy. A fundraiser for Literacy Action of Central Arkansas, inaugurating the 2016 Bridget Fennell Farris Outstanding Tutor Award. Next Level Events, 6 p.m., $55-$65. 1400 W. Markham St. 501-376-9746. literacylittlerock.org.

FILM

“Blue Velvet.” Ron Robinson Theater, 6 p.m., $5. 1 Pulaski Way. 501-320-5703. ronrobinsontheater.org.

SPORTS

Raising Gray. Silk’s Bar and Grill, Sept.

16-17, 10 p.m., free. 2705 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 5016234411. oaklawn.com.

SATURDAY, SEPT. 17

MUSIC

Andy Frasco. George’s Majestic Lounge, 7 p.m., $12. 519 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville.

46

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

479-442-4226. georgesmajesticlounge. com.

Andy Tanas. Markham Street Grill and Pub, 8:30 p.m., free. 11321 W. Markham St. 501-224-2010. markhamstreetpub.com.

Ben Byers. Ya Ya’s Euro Bistro, 6 p.m., free. 17711 Chenal Parkway. 501-821-1144. yayasar.com.

“Billy Blythe” and “The Music Shop.” See Sep. 16.

Caleb Williams, Justin Bratcher, Zac Walthal. Vino’s, 8:30 p.m., $5. 923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. vinosbrewpub.com.

Christine DeMeo and Cassie Ford. Pop’s Lounge, 7 p.m., free. 2705 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 501-623-4411. oaklawn.com.

“Don Giovanni.” A production by The Muses. Woodlands Auditorium, Sept. 17, 8 p.m.; Sept. 18, 3 p.m., $30. 1101 De Soto Blvd., Hot Springs Village. 501-922-4231. themusesproject.org.

Freeverse. The Tavern Sports Grill, 7:30 p.m., free. 17815 Chenal Parkway. 501-8302100. thetavernsportsgrill.com.

Frontier Circus. Kings Live Music, 8:30 p.m., $5. 1020 Front St., No. 102, Conway. kingslivemusic.com.

Govinda. Revolution, 8:15 p.m., $10-$13.

300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. revroom.com.

Jason Lee Hale. A release party for Hale’s album “Child of the Dark,” featuring Lance Womack, Mike Nelson, Stuar t Baer, Brian Nahlen, Larry Mann, Darrell Johnson, Stephen Winter, Jay Jackson, Amy Garland, Barbara Raney, The Broken Hipsters, Chris Long, Reade Mitchell, Justin McGoldrick, and Jay Wedaman.

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

Karaoke at Khalil’s. Khalil’s Pub, 7 p.m.

110 S. Shackleford Road. 501-224-0224. www.khalilspub.com.

Karaoke. Zack’s Place, 8 p.m., free. 1400 S. University Ave. 501-664-6444. Casa Mexicana, 7 p.m. 7111 JFK Blvd., NLR. 501-835-7876.

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.

Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-4782. littlerock.erniebiggs. com.

Manateees, The Mold. Maxine’s. 700 Central Ave., Hot Springs. maxineslive. com.

Nor th by Nor th, C asual Pleasures, Talking Liberties. With Casual Pleasures and The Talking Liberties. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9 p.m., $7. 107 River Market Ave. 501-372-7707. stickyz.com.

Palomino Shakedown. Smoke and Barrel Tavern, 10 p.m., free. 324 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-521-6880. smokeandbarrel.com.

Pickin’ Porch. Bring your instrument. All ages welcome. Faulkner County Library, 9:30 a.m. 1900 Tyler St., Conway. 501-3277482. www.fcl.org.

RVS. Cajun’s Whar f, 9 p.m., $5. 240 0 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. cajunswharf. com.

Squirrel Nut Zippers. Four Quarter Bar, 10 p.m., $35. 415 Main Street, NLR. 501313-4704. fourquarterbar.com.

Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 8

p.m., free. 111 W. Markham St. 501-3707013. www.capitalbarandgrill.com/.

tickets! tickets! tickets! tickets!

COMEDY

“Electile Dysfunction.” The Joint, through Nov. 19: 8 p.m., $22. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointargenta.com.

Steve “Mudflap” McGrew. The Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m., $10-$15. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-228-5555. loonybincomedy.com.

EVENTS

Disco 3000. A House of Avalon party. Sway, 9 p.m., $14-$36. 412 Louisiana. clubsway. com.

Falun Gong meditation. Allsopp Park, 9 a.m., free. Cantrell and Cedar Hill Roads.

Hillcrest Farmers Market. Pulaski Heights Baptis t Church, 8 a.m.-noon. 2 20 0 Kavanaugh Blvd.

Historic Neighborhoods Tour. Bike tour of historic neighborhoods includes bike, guide, helmets and maps. Bobby’s Bike Hike, 9 a.m., $8-$28. 400 President Clinton Ave. 501-613-7001.

Little Rock Farmers’ Market. River Market pavilions, 7 a.m. 400 President Clinton Ave. 375-2552. www.rivermarket.info.

Pork & Bourbon Tour. Bike tour includes bic ycle, guide, helmet s and maps.

Bobby’s Bike Hike, 11:30 a.m., $35-$45.

400 President Clinton Ave. 501-613-7001.

& After

2016 Gala Benefiting Habitat for Humanity of Central Arkansas

Tonight, September 15, 2016 | 6 - 9 p.m.

Embassy Suites Hotel - Little Rock

For Tickets: CentralArkansasTickets.com

SPORTS

ReStore & After Sponsor:

Raising Gray. Silk’s Bar and Grill, 10 p.m., free. 2705 Central Ave., Hot Springs.

5016234411. oaklawn.com.

DSRA

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SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

47

ARKANSAS TIMES

F E S T I VA L OF IDEAS 2016 S A T U R D AY, S E P. 2 4

12:30 P.M. - 5:30 P.M.

FREE

INNOVATION HUB 2 1 0 E . B R OA D WAY S T. NORT H LIT T L E ROCK

With presentations, interviews and demonstrations by Arkansas Visionaries…

North Little Rock Police Officer Tommy Norman, who's gotten national attention for his devotion to community policing.

Lost Forty Brewing’s Grant Chandler, who’ll use his microbiology background in the brewery’s soon-to-open lab.

Dr. Carolina Cruz-Neira, director of UALR’s George W. Donaghey Emerging Analytics Center and an internationally regarded expert on virtual reality.

Lawyer, civil rights champion and muckraker Matt Campbell.

AND MORE…

AF TER PA R T Y LO C A T IO N CRUSH W I N E BA R

This year’s complete list of Arkansas Visionaries, who’re doing things to make the state a better place, will be revealed in the Sept. 15 issue.

48

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

AFTER DARK, CONT.

KIDS

Tinkerfest. Museum of Discovery, 9 a.m., free-$10. 50 0 Clinton Ave. 396 -7050, 1-800-880-6475. museumofdiscovery.org.

SUNDAY, SEPT. 18

MUSIC

7 Hills Shelter Jam. Featuring Los Peos Viejos, Big Uns, Bill Dollar & Loose Change, Dimebox, Sugar Creek, Gene Marshall Wallace Band, The Last True Heathens, and Parker Green & Hawkins.

George’s Majestic Lounge, 2 p.m., $10. 519 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-442-4226. georgesmajesticlounge.com.

“Don Giovanni.” A production by The Muses. Woodlands Auditorium, 3 p.m., $30. 1101 De Soto Blvd., Hot Springs Village. 501-922-4231. themusesproject. org.

Irish Traditional Music Session. Hibernia Irish Tavern, 2:30 p.m. 9700 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-246-4340. www.hiberniairishtavern.com.

Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-4782. littlerock.erniebiggs. com.

R i v e r C i t y M e n ’s C h o r u s : “ N e w Beginnings.” Second Presby terian Church, Sept. 18, 3 p.m.; Sept. 19, 7 p.m.; Sept. 22, 7 p.m., free. 600 Pleasant Valley Drive.

EVENTS

Bernice Garden Farmer’s Market. Bernice Garden, 10 a.m. 1401 S. Main St. www. thebernicegarden.org.

WWE Live. Featuring WWE Champion Dean Ambrose, WWE Women’s Champion Charlotte, Sasha Banks, Bray Wyatt and the Wyatt Family. Verizon Arena, 7 p.m., $18-$103. 1 Alltel Arena Way, NLR. 501975-9001. verizonarena.com.

MONDAY, SEPT. 19

MUSIC

Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-4782. littlerock.erniebiggs. com.

Open Mic. The Lobby Bar. Studio Theatre, 8 p.m. 320 W. 7th St. R i v e r C i t y M e n ’s C h o r u s : “ N e w Beginnings.” Second Presby terian Church, Sept. 19, 7 p.m.; Sept. 22, 7 p.m., free. 600 Pleasant Valley Drive.

Third Monday Jazz. Featuring The Goat Band, comprised of members from The Rep’s orchestra. The Studio Theatre, through Nov. 21: third Monday of every month, 7:30 p.m., donations. 320 W. 7th St. thestudiotheatre-lr.org.

FILM

“The Lobster.” Ron Robinson Theater, Sept.

19-20, 6 p.m., $5. 1 Pulaski Way. 501-3205703. ronrobinsontheater.org.

CLASSES

Scottish Country Dance Classes. Park Hill Presbyterian Church, through Dec. 5:

7 p.m., $60. 3520 JFK Blvd., NLR. arkansasscottishcountrydancing.com/.

TUESDAY, SEPT. 20

MUSIC

Big Papa Binns. Dizzy’s Gypsy Bistro, 6 p.m., free. 200 River Market Ave. 501-3753500. dizzysgypsybistro.net.

Brian Whelan. With Brad Williams. White Water Tavern, 9 p.m. 2500 W. 7th St. 501375-8400. whitewatertavern.com.

Jef f 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 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-4782. littlerock.erniebiggs. com.

Trivium. With Sabaton and Huntress. Clear Channel Metroplex, 7:30 p.m., $24. 10800 Col. Glenn Road. 501-217-5113. metroplexlive.com.

COMEDY

“Punch Line” Stand-Up Comedy. Hosted

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

EVENTS

Little Rock Farmers’ Market. River Market pavilions, 7 a.m. 400 President Clinton Ave. 375-2552. www.rivermarket.info.

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

FILM

“The Lobster.” Ron Robinson Theater, 6 p.m., $5. 1 Pulaski Way. 501-320-5703. ronrobinsontheater.org.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22ND · 5-8PM LakeHill Shopping Center on JFK in North Little Rock

LECTURES

Kevin Merida. A talk from the editor-inchief for ESPN’s “Undefeated.” Sturgis Hall, 6 p.m., free. 1200 President Clinton Ave. 501-683-5200. clintonschool.uasys. edu.

POETRY

Words & Wine. An adult, guided creative writing class with poet Kai Coggin.

Emergent Arts, through Sept. 27: 7 p.m., $12. 341-A Whit tington Avenue, Hot Springs.

BOOKS

“My Holiday in North Korea.” A lecture by author Wendy E. Simmons. Arkansas State University at Mountain Home, 6 p.m., free.

1600 S. College Ave., Mountain Home.

870-508-6214. thesheid.com.

FOOD TRUCKS, BEER, MARGARITAS, WINE, LOCAL VENDORS & MORE!

DOGTOWN SOUND STAGE Amy Garland: 5-5:45pm Brian Nahlen and Nick Devlin: 6-6:45pm Stephan Neeper & the Wild Hearts: 7-8pm

$1

MUSIC IN THE BEER GARDEN Joe Darr

ENTRY FEE

Kids 12 and under are free.

Benefiting Park Hill Business and Merchants Association (501 Non Profit)

RUNNER UP BEST NEIGHBORHOOD FESTIVAL PRE S E NTE D BY

FOR MORE INFO, VISIT PARKHILLBUSINESS.COM

arktimes.com

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

49

OUT IN ARKANSAS

A Q&A with Bryan Borland The poet and publisher talks about his new book, ‘Dig.’

W

BY SETH BARLOW

hen I first met Bryan Borland we were standing in a parking lot, and he was shoving books into my hands. “I just brought you everything

we had, so you’ll get a feel for what we do,” he’d said. He was giving me the collected issues of “Jonathan,” a journal of fiction that he published through Sibling Rivalry Press, the Little Rock company he founded to feature authors from the LGBTQIA community.

“Dig” is chronological. It takes readers through the course of your first relationship and its ending and then your new relationship with your husband. Did you set out to write that narrative or did you look at your collected poems and see the pattern?

When I organized the book and when I was working with my editors to figure out the order of the poems, I instinctively went toward a storytelling aspect, but I think that generally comes secondary for me. That’s after the poems have been written. When I’m writing, I don’t necessarily think of how they’re going to fit into a book. It’s only when it comes to building the book that that aspect comes into play for me.

That said, I write better when I’m writing on a theme, when I have a project in mind, but I never try to write in order. I always want there to be an arc to the books I write because I want the reader to come on a journey with me.

When I put the manuscript together, I lay all the poems out on the floor and 50

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

SETH PENNINGTON

The press’ first book was Borland’s self-published poetry debut, “My Life as Adam.” He went on to publish a second book in 2012 and was a named Lambda Literary Fellow in Poetry in 2015. He was recently awarded the Judith A. Markowitz Emerging Writer Award.

His newest book, “Dig” (Stillhouse Press), comes out Sept. 16.

TRUTHFUL: Poet Borland writes about the struggle to define himself.

I try to put myself in the shoes of the reader. And this book was so difficult … .

I’m not naming everybody in these poems, but I’m dealing with different people just referred to as “he.” It’s easier when it’s “I” or there’s one “he,” but when I’m making the transition from one relationship to another and those “he’s” intersect, it’s difficult. One early form of the book had everything interwoven. It would go back and forth and that was very confusing, particularly when you were dealing with the pronoun “he.” At one point the book had seven sections with just a few poems in each and I pulled that back a little

bit. But there’s a line in the first poem: “Relationships are never linear.” And that’s a theme of the entire book; it’s still jumping around a little bit. So in the end, I thought that this format worked best: the start of the previous relationship, the end, then the current marriage.

And that middle section is full of all of the experiences that make us who we are, and the book is about recognizing that we all bring history into whatever relationship we’re in.

You talk about this being a book of love poems, and while that’s definitely true, there’s a pretty wide range of love on display here. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows here.

I wanted to make sure that, even in love poems, they were honest and real. I didn’t want to write just happy, happy love poems. I wanted there to be some reality there.

Was there ever any hesitation on your part or even your husband’s part about your being so transpar-

ent with your relationships?

No, I don’t think I have any other choice in that. I process things through writing about them. Now, that doesn’t mean that I’m going to put everything I ever write in a book, but I did feel a responsibility to be truthful. It’s easier because [Borland’s husband Seth Pennington is] a poet, too, and so he understands that. But also, it’s difficult to see your intimate moments put in a book for the public. I get that, too, when Seth writes about us. It can be really awkward sometimes; you’re at a public space and he’s reading about a moment that we’ve shared. That’s just our relationship, though. It looks at how our publishing company came into being and how we balanced that, how I struggled to define myself as a poet vs. a publisher vs. just a man. I think to shy away from that would be dishonest to myself and my readers.

I’ve often heard you talk about being Bryan “the poet,” but you’re also Bryan “the publisher.” How do you balance those parts or facets

of yourself with Bryan “the man” and Bryan “the husband” in your poetry?

That’s something I’ve had to learn how to balance, and it’s a difficult balance. You see that a lot with the poems here; a lot of them overlap sometimes. It’s very freeing when I can only write about one thing, or one part of myself — it can be a totally different face of myself. I think the people that have read the book so far have ... have picked up on that people in a relationship, any kind of relationship … it’s dealing with desire. Desire is a concept we all have: desire for romance, desire for sex, desire for success in our careers. Bringing that into a relationship means finding a balance between all of that and then figuring out what to give the other person, how much of yourself to hand over. How much of the desire we carry do we give up? How much do we compromise to make that relationship work? Sometimes I’ve been unsuccessful in finding that balance. Other times, I’ve been successful and that’s part of the journey of the book.

I’m a big fan of your second book, “Less Fortunate Pirates,” which dealt with the death of your father. How does “Dig” fit into your larger body of work?

You had the first book [“My Life as Adam”], which was dealing with my coming out and understanding who I was in regard to sexuality, religion and family. It was very much my youth on the page. I didn’t read my poetry then — I was the poet that said he liked poetry, but never actually read any.

Hopefully now it’s evident how much I love poetry and how much I read it.

The second book was even more personal than the first. … [“Dig”] is really my first book as an adult. This is the place I’ve carved out in the world, this is the most honest I’ve ever been. This is all of me on the page. The heart of the cover is my heart. It’s everything I’ve got. It’s a bridge between where my writing was and where it’s

going.

I’m curious to know what you were reading while you were writing these poems.

Well, I don’t read contemporary poetry when I write. I’ll read older stuff.

For this book I was reading a lot of stuff from the 1960s and ’70s, but I don’t want to read a lot of new stuff by my contemporaries because I don’t want to sound like anyone else. I’ll pick up their style.

It won’t be intentional, but it’ll still happen. It’s interesting, you know, because I feel like poetry has sort of ruined reading fiction for me because I read it like a poem. If the fiction doesn’t have a poetic element, if it’s not beautiful, then I don’t have any patience for it. I can read a lot of nonfiction, but that’s about it.

I understand what you mean. Are there specific poets that you found yourself going back to while writing these poems?

Adrienne Rich for sure; she’s at the top of my list. I think the things she wrote decades ago are still so applicable to today’s political climate; they just fit so perfectly. She balances the political and the personal in a way that just fascinates me. I want to go there next, but I don’t know how to do it exactly. The way she balances sexuality, romance and her acknowledgment of herself as a writer was really beneficial to me. On the other side is Anne Sexton, the iconic confessional poet who was one of the first women to write about her period or abortion, these things that are so uncomfortable but true. She has such lyricism in what she wrote and she’s definitely all over this book, too.

Is writing something that comes easily for you?

I can never say that I’m going to write on a certain day at a certain time. I have no control over that at all. I can write anywhere, but I like it to be quiet, very little distraction. For me, my favorite poems and my best poems are ones that are nearly one-shot deals, where I can sit down and write them from beginning to end. I might tinker with them and revise a bit, but the bones are all there from the beginning. The ones I have to mess with are never my favorite. I’ll work on them, and I’ll get them there in the end, but they never quite have the magic of the one-shots.

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51

AFTER DARK, CONT.

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AT GALLERY 221: Sean LeCrone’s “Resurrecting Memories” exhibition features paintings by the Gravel Ridge native. The show runs through October at the gallery, at 221 W. Second St. Also at the gallery is work by Arkansas artists William McNamara, Tyler Arnold, Amy Edgington, EMILE, Kimberly Kwee, Greg Lahti, Mary Ann Stafford, Cedric Watson, C.B.Williams, Gino Hollander and Siri Hollander, along with jewelry by Rae Ann Bayless.

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Saturday, September 17 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Tinkering takes over the Museum of Discovery with more than 50 hands-on, interactive activities that will engage visitors of all ages!

Tinkerfest is included in regular museum admission

52

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

museumofdiscovery.org

WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 21

MUSIC

Ar trageous. Par t of the Hot Springs Village Concerts Association. Woodlands Auditorium, Sept. 21-23, 7:30 p.m., $30.

1101 De Soto Blvd., Hot Springs Village.

501-922-4231. hsvticketsales.com.

Brian and Nick. Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 p.m.

2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www. cajunswharf.com.

David Bowie Tribute. As par t of the Sessions Series, curated this month by Cliff Aaron. South on Main, 8:30 p.m., $10. 1304 Main St. 501-244-9660. southonmain.com.

Def tones. With Burn. Clear Channel Metroplex, 8 p.m., $40. 10800 Col. Glenn Road. 501-217-5113. metroplexlive.com.

The Floozies. With Chet Porter and Daily Bread. Revolution, 9 p.m., $15-$18. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. revroom.com.

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.

Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-4782. littlerock.erniebiggs. com.

Natural Child. With Bombay Harambee

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

Open Mic Nite with Deuce. Thirst n’ Howl, 7:30 p.m., free. 14710 Cantrell Road. 501379-8189. www.thirst-n-howl.com.

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

Sunny Sweeney. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 8:30 p.m., $10-$12. 107 River Market Ave. 501-372-7707. stickyz. com.

Tonya Leeks. As part of the Jazz in the Park series. Riverfront Park, 6 p.m., free.

400 President Clinton Avenue.

COMEDY

The Joint Venture. Improv comedy group.

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

Josh Phillips. The Loony Bin, Sept. 21-24, 7:30 p.m.; Sept. 23-24, 10 p.m., $8-$12.

10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-2285555. loonybincomedy.com.

DANCE

ACANSA Arts Festival Opening Night. A performance from Ballet Arkansas. Junior League of Little Rock, 6:15 p.m., $75. 401 S. Scott St. 501-375-5557. acansaartsfestival.org.

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-

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schedule of events September 21-25, 2016 Event

Date

time

ACANSA Gallery Butler Center for Arkansas Studies

Friday, September 9 – Friday September 30

Monday – Saturday 9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.

Lunch and Learn Days See Website for Locations

Wednesday – Friday September 21-23

Noon – 1:00 p.m.

Wednesday, September 21

6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

Thursday and Friday September 22 and 23

6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

Thursday, September 22

8:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.

Thursday, September 22, Late Night

9:30 p.m. – 11:00 p.m.

Thursday, September 22

8:00 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.

Cut, Pieced, and Stitched: Denim Drawings by Jim Arendt Reception and Demonstration Arkansas Arts Center

Friday, September 23

5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.

My Mother Has 4 Noses Argenta Community Theater

Friday and Saturday September 23 and 24

8:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.

Bring on the Arts! Hillary Rodham Clinton Children’s Library

Saturday, September 24

11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

ARTS

Children’s Public Art Project at the Little Rock Food Truck Festival Little Rock’s Main Street Corridor

Saturday, September 24

Drop in from 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

THEATER

Arkansas Symphony Orchestra with Jason Vieaux and Julien Labro Pulaski Technical College

Saturday, September 24

8:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.

“In the Heat of the Night” Late Night Alley Party Ron Robinson Theater

Saturday, September 24

9:30 p.m. – Midnight

Gospel Brunch with St. Marks Baptist Church Choir Wildwood Park for the Arts

Sunday, September 25

11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

350-4712. www.littlerockbopclub.

FILM

“C ri s i s Hot line: Vete ra n s Pres s 1.”

MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, 6:30 p.m., free. 503 E. 9th St. 501376-4602. www.arkmilitaryheritage.com.

POETRY

Wednesday Night Poetry. 21-and-older show. Kollective Coffee & Tea, 7 p.m., free. 110 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 501321-0909. maxineslive.com/shows.html.

SPORTS

Chris Henry. Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 p.m., free.

2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. cajunswharf.com.

Paul Morphis. Dizzy’s Gypsy Bistro, 6 p.m., free. 200 River Market Ave. 501-375-3500. dizzysgypsybistro.net.

ACANSA Arts Festival. Featuring visual art, a children’s public art display, a discussion and one-man play on the life of journalist Edward R. Murrow, and a one-woman play on caring for a loved one with dementia, “My Mother has 4 Noses.” Little Rock, various locations, Sept. 21-25, free-$50.

Markham Street. acansaartsfestival.org.

“All the Way.” TheaterSquared’s production of Robert Schenkkan’s Pulitzer Prizewinning play. Walton Arts Center’s Nadine

Festival Opening with Ballet Arkansas JLLR Headquarters Murrow REP’s Black Box at the Annex Parsons Dance Pulaski Technical College The Main Thing REP’s Black Box at the Annex The Legacy of Television Journalism: Discussion and Reception Samantha’s Tap Room

To purchase tickets visit our website: www.ACANSAartsFestival.org or call 501.663.2287

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SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

53

AFTER DARK, CONT. Baum Studios, through Sept. 18: Wed.-Sat., 7:30 p.m.; Sat., Sun., 2 p.m., $15-$45. 505 W. Spring St., Fayetteville. 479-443-5600. waltonartscenter.org.

“Doubt: A Parable.” A play by John Patrick Shanley, directed by Bob Bidewell. The Studio Theatre, Sept. 16-17, 7:30 p.m.; Sun., Sept. 18, 2:30 p.m.; Sept. 22-24, 7:30 p.m., $15-$20. 320 W. 7th St. thestudiotheatre-lr.org.

Spamalot. Arkansas Repertory Theatre, through Oct. 1: Wed., Thu., Sun., 7 p.m.; Fri., Sat., 8 p.m., $30-$55. 601 Main St. 501-378-0405. therep.org.

“Twelve Angry Men.” Directed by Jamie Scott Blakely and Drew Ellis. The Weekend Theater, through Oct. 1: Fri., Sat., 7:30 p.m.; Sun., Sept. 25, 2:30 p.m.; Thu., Sept.

29, 7:30 p.m., $12-$16. 1001 W. 7th St. 501374-3761. weekendtheater.org.

NEW IN THE GALLERIES, ART EVENTS

EMBASSY SUITES, 11301 Financial Centre Parkway: “ReStore and After,” benefit for the Habitat for Humanity and ReStores, auction of items from ReStores made into works of art, 6-9 p.m. Sept.

15, $50. Tickets at centralarkansastickets.com.

GALLERY 221, 2nd and Center Sts.: “Resurrecting Memories,” paintings by Sean LeCrone, through October; also work by William McNamara, Tyler Arnold, Amy Edgington, EMILE, Kimberly Kwee, Greg Lahti, Mary Ann Stafford, Cedric Watson, C.B. Williams, Gino Hollander, Siri Hollander and jewelry by Rae Ann Bayless. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat. 8010211.

GREG THOMPSON FINE ART, 429 Main St., NLR: “Best of the South,” opens with reception 5-8 p.m. Sept. 16, Argenta ArtWalk, show through Nov. 12.

10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 11 a.m.-4 p.m.

Sat. 664-2787.

L&L BECK ART GALLERY, 5705 Kavanaugh Blvd.: “14 Holes of Golf,” through September, drawing for free giclee 7 p.m. Sept. 15. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Sat. 660-4006.

LAMAN LIBRARY ARGENTA BRANCH, 420 Main St., NLR: “Seeing with the Artist’s Eye: The Monday Studio Exhibit,” paintings by Shirley Anderson, Barbara Seibel and Caryl Joy Young, opens with reception 5-8 p.m. Sept. 16, Argenta ArtWalk, demonstration 11:20-

12:45 p.m. Sept. 17, show through Oct. 8. 10. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Sat. 687-1061.

MUGS CAFE, 515 Main St., NLR: “Rorschach’s Buddy,” ink paintings by Diane Harper, reception 5-8 p.m. Sept.15, Argenta ArtWalk. 7 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Sat. 379-9101.

UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK: “WAR-TOYS: Israel, West Bank and Gaza Strip,” photographs interpreting children’s artwork by Brian McCarty, through Oct. 20, reception 5:30 p.m.

Sept. 21 with talk by McCarty to follow; “Arkansas Women to Watch: Organic Matters,” work by Sandra Luckett, Katherine Rutter, Dawn Holder and Melissa Wilkinson, through Oct. 20. 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

Mon.-Fri., after Labor Day also 10 a.m.-1 p.m. and 2-5 p.m. Sun. WILDWOOD PARK FOR THE ARTS, 20919 Denny Road: “Shades of Green: Land and Cityscapes of Arkansas,” paintings by John Kushmaul, through Oct. 9, reception 6-8 p.m. Sept. 15 with music by Kevin and Gus Kerby. 10 a.m.4 p.m. Mon.-Fri., noon-4 p.m. Sat.-Sun. 821-7275.

org.

EL DORADO SOUTH ARKANSAS ARTS CENTER, 110 E. Fifth St.: “Contraption Series,” 23 large-scale watercolors by Kathryn B. Phillips, closing reception 6-8 p.m. Sept.

30. 870-862-5474.

MOUNTAIN VIEW OFF THE BEATEN PATH STUDIO TOUR: 15th annual self-guided tour of 22 working artists’ studios within a 30-mile radius of Mountain View, including studios of jeweler J.P. Rosenquist, glass bead artists Tom and Sage Holland, basketmaker Owen Rein, ceramicists David and Becki Dahlstadt and Joe Bruhin, and others, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Fri.-Sat., Sept.

16-17, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sun., Sept. 19. Tour guides available at the Arkansas Craft Gallery, the Ozark Folk Center and online at www.offthebeatenpathstudiotour.com.

NEW IN THE MUSEUMS

BENTONVILLE CRYSTAL BRIDGES MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, One Museum Way: “Distinguished Speaker Series: Judy Chicago,” on the emergence of women artists, with curator Chad Alligood and artists from the “State of the Art: Discovering American Art” exhibition, 7-8:30 p.m. Sept. 16 (sold out); George Dombek, signing his book “Barns and Portrait Paintings,” 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Sept.

17, “American Made: Treasures from the American Folk Art Museum,” 115 objects including quilts, carvings, signs, samplers, weathervanes and more, through Sept. 19; American masterworks spanning four centuries in the permanent collection. 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.

ESSE PURSE MUSEUM & STORE, 1510 S. Main St.: “The Art of Handbags,” contemporary purses by Rhode Island artist Kent Stetson, through Sept. 26, closing reception 5-7 p.m. Sept. 22, $10; “What’s Inside: A Century of Women and Handbags,” permanent exhibit. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Sun. $10, $8 for students, seniors and military.

916-9022.

MOSAIC TEMPLARS CULTURAL CENTER, 9th and Broadway: “Treasured Memories: My Life, My Story,” debut of new works in museum’s 2016 Creativity collection by Barbara Higgins Bond, Danny Campbell, LaToya Hobbs, Delita Martin, Aj Smith and Rex Deloney, 5:307:30 p.m. Sept. 15, with music by Kemistri featuring Nikki Parrish, show through December; permanent exhibits on African-American entrepreneurship in Arkansas. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat. 683-3610.

CONWAY “ARTSFEST”: 10th annual citywide arts festival, opening Sept. 22 with eventlong exhibit at Bob’s Grill, 1112 Oak St., 5 a.m.-2 p.m.; Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Reynolds Performance Hall, 7:30 p.m.; followed by visual and performing art events through Oct. 1, including “Light Up the Night” live music and art activities with Red Octopus Theatre, The Curvy Soprano, MotherFunkShip, The Shady Rose, and Arkansauce on Sept. 23, “Arts in the Park” on Oct. 1, and other events. Full schedule at artsinconway.

The Central Arkansas Library System is seeking a qualified artist to create a permanent, non-figurative outdoor artwork for the Thompson Library at 38 Rahling Circle. The work should represent the late Central High valedictorian Roosevelt Thompson’s love of learning and public service. Budget for the project is $45,000; deadline to submit a model and other information about the sculpture is Nov. 1. For more information and the Request for Proposals form,

CALL FOR ENTRIES

2016 CATEGORIES

ARKTIMES.COM/TOAST16 54

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

Vote Now thru Sept. 30

contact Colin Thompson, colint@cals. org, at the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies.

The Arkansas Arts Council is accepting applications for Arts in Education Mini Grants and Arts for Lifelong Learning Mini Grants, residency programs, through August 2017. Artists must match the grant award of $1,000 with either cash or an in-kind contribution. For more information, go to the Available Grants section of arkansasarts.org.

The Arkansas Arts Council is seeking nominations for the 2017 Arkansas Living Treasure Award, which recognizes a craftsperson who has significantly contributed to the preservation of the art form. Deadline for nominations is Oct. 21. Nomination forms are available at Arkansasarts.org or by calling 324-9766.

For more information, call Robin Muse McClea at 324-9348 or email her at robin. mcclea@arkansas.gov.

The Argenta branch of the William F. Laman Library invites Arkansas art teachers to enter the 2nd annual Juried Arkansas Art Teacher Exhibition, to be held Nov. 18-Dec. 10 at the library. Guy Bell, artist and owner of Drawl Gallery, will be juror. Deadline to apply is Oct. 28. Cash prizes will be awarded. For information on how to enter, email Rachel Trusty at rachel.trusty@lamanlibrary.org.

Wildwood Park for the Arts invites printmakers to submit works with a theme of nature for the February 2017 “Nature in Print” exhibit. Deadline to submit proposals online is Dec. 1. Find more information at wildwoodpark.org/art.

ONGOING GALLERY EXHIBITS

ARKANSAS ARTS CENTER, MacArthur Park: “Jon Schueler: Weathering Skies,” abstract paintings and watercolors, through Oct. 16; “Cut, Pieced and Stitched: Denim Drawings by Jim Arendt,” through Oct. 23; William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s “Admiration,” loan from the San Antonio Museum of Art. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat., 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun. 372-4000.

ARGENTA GALLERY/ROCK CITY WERKS, 413 Main St., NLR: Paintings, jewelry, pottery and glass. 11 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Tue.-Sat. 258-8991.

BOSWELL MOUROT FINE ART, 5815 Kavanaugh Blvd.: New works on paper by Anais Dasse. 664-0030.

BUTLER CENTER GALLERIES, Arkansas Studies Institute, 401 President Clinton Ave.: ACANSA Arts Festival Pop-Up Gallery, Concordia Hall, through September, “Arkansas League of Artists,”

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Bar (Around the state)

Neighborhood bar

Local brewery (Around the state)

Bartender (Central Ark.)

Bar for pool, darts, shuffleboard or other games

National brewery

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Bar for food

Locally brewed pale ale

Bar for live music (Central Ark.)

Happy hour

Locally brewed IPA

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Drinking brunch

Locally brewed stout

New Bar

Patio or deck for drinking

Liquor store

Wine bar

Cocktail list

Brewpub

Sports bar

Coldest beer

Beer selection (bar or restaurant)

Pick-up bar

Bloody Mary

Beer selection (retail)

Gay bar

Martini

Wine selection (retail)

Dive bar

Margarita

‘RORSHACH’S BUDDY’: That’s the name of a new exhibition of work by Diane Harper, including “Owl,” at Mugs Cafe, 515 Main St. in Argenta. Mugs and other Argenta galleries will be open 5-8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 16, for the monthly Argenta ArtWalk.

juried show, through Oct. 22; “From the Vault,” work from the Central Arkansas Library’s permanent collection, including works by Win Bruhl, Evan Lindquist, Shep Miers, Gene Hatfield, Ray Khoo and Jerry Phillips, through Oct. 22. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Sat. 320-5790.

CANTRELL GALLERY, 8206 Cantrell Road: “Always Coming Home,” new paintings by John Wooldridge, through Oct. 29. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat. 2241335.

CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 509 Scott St.: “Last Glimpses of Authentic Polaroid Art,” photography by Brandon Markin, Darrell Adams, Lynn Frost, Rachel Worthen and Rita Henry, through Sept.

30. 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Mon.-Thu., 9 a.m.-noon Fri., 8 a.m.-7 p.m. Sun. 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.

DRAWL SOUTHERN CONTEMPORARY ART GALLERY, 5208 Kavanaugh Blvd.: “Woodruff County Portraits &

Other Paintings,” work by J.O. Buckley, through Sept. 27. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tue.-Sat. 680-1871.

GALLERY 360, 900 S. Rodney Parham Road: Abstract paintings by Brian Wolf, through Sept. 24. 663-2222.

GINO HOLLANDER GALLERY, 211 Center St.: Paintings and works on paper by Gino Hollander. 801-0211.

HISTORIC ARKANSAS MUSEUM GALLERIES, 200 E. 3rd St. “Heinbockel, Nolley and Peterson: Personal Rituals,” watercolors by Amanda Heinbockel, fiber art by Marianne Nolley and mixed media by Brianna Peterson; “Walter Arnold and David Malcolm Rose: Modern Ruins,” constructions from Rose’s “The Lost Highway,” photographs by Arnold; “Tiny Treasures: Miniatures from the Permanent Collection,” through Nov. 6; “Hugo and Gayne Preller’s House of Light,” historic photographs, through October. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 324-9351.

HEARNE FINE ART, 1001 Wright Ave.: “Two Fronts,” multimedia drawings by

Alfred Conteh. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sat. 372-6822.

LAMAN LIBRARY, 2801 Orange St., NLR: “Nature and Nurture,” mixed media artwork and sculpture by Carol Corning and Ed Pennebaker, through Nov. 4, reception 6-8 p.m. Sept. 23. 9 a.m.-8 p.m.

Mon.-Thu., 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Fri.-Sat. 7581720.

M2 GALLERY, 11525 Cantrell Road: Retrospective of etchings by state Artist Laureate Evan Lindquist, paintings by Steve Adair. Noon-5 p.m. Mon., 10 a.m.5 p.m. Tue.-Sat. 225-6257.

MATTHEWS FINE ART GALLERY, 909 North St.: Paintings by Pat and Tracee Matthews, glass by James Hayes, jewelry by Christie Young, knives by Tom Gwenn, kinetic sculpture by Mark White.

Noon-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat. 831-6200.

RED DOOR GALLERY, 3715 JFK, NLR: “Spiritual Journey,” new work by Paula Jones, 10 percent of sales benefit Pulaski Technical College and will be matched by the Windgate Foundation; also work

by Jeff McKay, C.J. Ellis, TWIN, James arktimes.com

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AFTER DARK, CONT.

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Hayes, Amy Hill-Imler and Ellen Hobgood.10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat. 753-5227.

ARTS CENTER OF THE GRAND PRAIRIE, 108 W. 12th St.: “2016 Small Works on Paper,” through Sept. 29. 870-673-1781.

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.

YELLVILLE PALETTE ART LEAGUE, 300 Hwy. 62 W: Work by area artists. Noon-6 p.m. Wed.Sat. 870-656-2057.

CONWAY UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL ARKANSAS: “Curious Devotion,” paintings by Danielle Riede, ceramics by Dawn Holder, installation by Langdon Graves, through Oct. 20, Baum Gallery.

HISTORY, SCIENCE MUSEUM EXHIBITS

FAYETTEVILLE SUGAR ART GALLERY, 1 E. Center St.: “Running Toward Dreams,” work by young Iranian and U of A student artists, traveling exhibit. 417-699-2637.

FORT SMITH REGIONAL ART MUSEUM, 1601 Rogers Ave.: “The Art of Transcendence,” RAM annual invitational, through Oct. 16. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 479784-2787.

HOT SPRINGS ALISON PARSONS GALLERY, 802 Central Ave.: “Wonders in LaLa Land,” whimsical art by Lori Arnold, through September; also paintings by Polly Cook and Patrick Cunningham and photographs by Jim Pafford. 11 a.m.-4 p.m.

Wed.-Sat. 655-0604.

EMERGENT ARTS, FINE ARTS CENTER, 341 Whittington Ave.: “More Than “Just a Pretty Face,” Hot Springs Gallery Walk.

613-0352.

FINE ARTS CENTER, 626 Central Ave.: “A Study of Light,” plein air artworks, through Oct. 1. 624-0489.

GALLERY CENTRAL, 800 Central Ave.: “Paintings from Provence,” work by Bob Snider and Holly Tilley. 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Mon.-Sat. 318-42728 GARVAN WOODLAND GARDENS: “Traditional Art Guild,” work by local artists, September and October, Magnolia Room.

JUSTUS FINE ART, 827 A Central Ave.: New textiles by Jennifer Libby Fay, painted paper on canvas by Donnie Copeland, sculpture by Robyn Horn, paintings by Dolores Justus. 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Wed.-Sat. 321-2335.

JONESBORO ARKANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY: “Night Women,” mixed media printmaking by Delita Martin; “Dinner Table,” installation by Martin; “Seat Assignment,” photographs by Nina Katchadourian; “Continual Myth,” drawings by Tad Lauritzen Wright; “Arkansas Neighbors,” photographs by Andrew Kilgore, through Oct. 9, Bradbury Art Museum. Noon-5 p.m.

Tue.-Sat., 2-5 p.m. Sun. 870-972-2567.

PERRYVILLE SUDS GALLERY, Courthouse Square: Paintings by Dottie Morrissey, Alma Gipson, Al Garrett Jr., Phyllis Loftin, Alene Otts, Mauretta Frantz, Raylene Finkbeiner, Kathy Williams and Evelyn Garrett. Noon-6 p.m. Wed.-Fri, noon-4 p.m.

Sat. 501-766-7584.

PINE BLUFF ARTS AND SCIENCE CENTER FOR SOUTHEAST ARKANSAS, 701 S. Main St.: “Here. African American Art from the Permanent Collection,” through Oct. 15. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 1-4 p.m. Sat. 870-536-3375.

STUTTGART

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ARKANSAS INLAND MARITIME MUSEUM, North Little Rock: The USS Razorback submarine tours. 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Fri.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 371-8320.

ARKANSAS NATIONAL GUARD MUSEUM, Camp Robinson: Artifacts on military history, Camp Robinson and its predecessor, Camp Pike, also a gift shop. 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Mon.-Fri., audio tour available at no cost. 212-5215.

ARKANSAS SPORTS HALL OF FAME MUSEUM, Verizon Arena, NLR: 10 a.m.4:30 p.m. Mon.-Sat. 663-4328.

CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL MUSEUM VISITOR CENTER, Bates and Park: Exhibits on the 1957 desegregation of Central and the civil rights movement. 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. daily. 374-1957.

HISTORIC ARKANSAS MUSEUM, 200 E. 3rd St.: Renovated and replicated 19th century structures from original city, guided tours Monday and Tuesday on the hour, self-guided Wednesday through Sunday, $2.50 adults, $1 under 18, free to 65 and over. 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 324-9351.

MacARTHUR MUSEUM OF ARKANSAS MILITARY HISTORY, 503 E. 9th St. (MacArthur Park): “Waging Modern Warfare”; “Gen. Wesley Clark”; “Vietnam, America’s Conflict”; “Undaunted Courage, Proven Loyalty: Japanese American Soldiers in World War II. 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

Mon.-Sat., 1-4 p.m. Sun. 376-4602.

MUSEUM OF DISCOVERY, 500 President Clinton Ave.: “Wiggle Worms,” science program for pre-K children 10 -10:30 a.m. every Tue. Hours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun., $10 ages 13 and older, $8 ages 1-12, free to members and children under 1. 396-7050.

OLD STATE HOUSE MUSEUM, 300 W. Markham St.: “We Make Our Own Choices: Staff Favorites from the Old State House Museum Collection,” “First Families: Mingling of Politics and Culture” permanent exhibit including first ladies’ gowns. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 324-9685.

WITT STEPHENS JR. CENTRAL ARKANSAS NATURE CENTER, Riverfront Park: Exhibits on fishing and hunting and the state Game and Fish Commission. 9070636.

BENTONVILLE MUSEUM OF NATIVE AMERICAN HISTORY, 202 SW O St.: 1930s sandpainting tapestry by Navajo medicine man Hosteen Klah, from the collection of Dr. Howard and Catherine Cockrill, through December. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat. 479273-2456.

CALICO ROCK CALICO ROCK MUSEUM, Main Street: Displays on Native American cultures, steamboats, the railroad and local history. www.calicorockmuseum.com.

ENGLAND TOLTEC MOUNDS STATE PARK, U.S. Hwy. 165: Major prehistoric Indian site

It’s the Party to the Party!

Ride the Arkansas Times BLUES BUS to the King Biscuit Blues Festival in Helena

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MOVIE REVIEW

AFTER DARK, CONT. with visitors’ center and museum. 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., noon-5 p.m. Sun., closed Mon. $3 for adults, $2 for ages 6-12. 961-9442.

JACKSONVILLE JACKSONVILLE MUSEUM OF MILITARY HISTORY, 100 Veterans Circle: Exhibits on D-Day; F-105, Vietnam era plane (“The Thud”); the Civil War Battle of Reed’s Bridge, Arkansas Ordnance Plant (AOP) and other military history. 10 a.m.5 p.m. Mon-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. $3 adults; $2 seniors, military; $1 students. 501241-1943.

MORRILTON MUSEUM OF AUTOMOBILES, Petit Jean Mountain: Permanent exhibit of more than 50 cars from 1904-1967 depicting the evolution of the automobile. 10 a.m.5 p.m. 7 days. 501-727-5427.

‘SULLY’: Tom Hanks (right) portrays the pilot who safely landed a passenger jet in the Hudson River; Aaron Eckhart portrays his co-pilot.

Brace for impact ‘Sully’ uncovers the human ingenuity behind the ‘Miracle on the Hudson.’

BY GUY LANCASTER

T

he word “miracle” is a slander against the power of human intelligence, hard work and random chance. Just ask Dr. Ranjan Mustafi, one of the physicians in India who treated Monica Besra for a tubercular tumor only for her to turn around and attribute her cure to the ghost of an Albanian nun, which “miracle” the Vatican used to declare Mother Theresa a saint earlier this month. (Clearly, the patron saint of physicians had the day off when that decision was handed down.)

Although the movie “Sully” advertises itself with the word “miracle” — being “The Untold Story of the Miracle on the Hudson” — it is actually an unadulterated celebration of the human ingenuity that holds our world together. The movie opens not long after Capt. Chelsea “Sully” Sullenberger (Tom Hanks) and his first officer, Jeffrey Skiles (Aaron Eckhart), successfully landed US Airways Flight 1549 in the middle of the Hudson River after hitting a flock of geese that disabled both engines. The men try to accommodate themselves to this world of instant celebrity, of seeing their faces on every television and being hugged by strangers, while participating in the investigation of the National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB). Sully, in particular, 58

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ARKANSAS TIMES

finds himself wracked with doubt, playing the events of Jan. 15, 2009, over and over in his head and wondering, despite the fact that all 155 people onboard that plane lived, if he could have done anything differently.

The actual water landing is presented piecemeal in flashback, revealing the true value of experience and training — and not just from the pilots. The air traffic controller works feverishly to find options for the plane and, when it dips below radar, to spread the word about its fate. The cabin crew works to disembark 150 panicked passengers onto the wings of the floating airplane. Ferry operators begin staging an unprecedented evacuation of the sinking plane, while the NYPD scrambles a helicopter with scuba divers to rescue passengers who ended up in the river.

Hanks has long been the go-to guy for everyman characters, and he does not disappoint here, playing a man with some 40 years of experience who is uncomfortable under the spotlight. Eckhart, as Hanks’ co-pilot, is the younger, somewhat brasher man, but he does not overact this role; indeed, his portrayal of the moment when his Skiles finally receives some much-wanted praise from Sully is absolutely perfect but would be easy to over-

look. Moreover, the screenplay avoids the standard “based on a true story” model by giving us the arguable climax, the water landing of the airplane, not near the end but interspersed throughout and presented such that the tension is present in each and every iteration.

The one discordant note in the movie is the role of the NTSB, whose investigators are depicted cartoonishly as wanting to disprove the narrative offered them by Sully, their standard questions about his personal life or alcohol consumption rife with insinuation and their reconstructions of the event deliberately tilted toward suggesting that the captain had more alternatives than were immediately before him. Perhaps screenwriter Todd Komarnicki felt himself unable to write a story without a villain? Or, maybe he simply enjoys trading in the stereotypes of petty bureaucrats. Whatever the case, the people who study each crash intensively in order to make air travel safer are a part of this “miracle,” too. As Sully notes in the hearing at the end of the movie, no one person ruled the day — “It was all of us.”

The real-life Sully once told an interviewer, “One way of looking at this might be that for 42 years, I’ve been making small, regular deposits in this bank of experience, education and training. And on Jan. 15 the balance was sufficient so that I could make a very large withdrawal.” This is the movie in a nutshell — a celebration of all the hard work that goes into making our world go around.

No need have we to wait upon miracles.

Our miracle workers are workers, and they stand right here before us.

PINE BLUFF ARTS AND SCIENCE CENTER FOR SOUTHEAST ARKANSAS, 701 S. Main St.: “Exploring the Frontier: Arkansas 1540-1840,” Arkansas Discovery Network hands-on exhibition; “Heritage Detectives: Discovering Arkansas’ Hidden Heritage.” 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 1-4 p.m. Sat. 870-536-3375.

POTTSVILLE POTTS INN, 25 E. Ash St.: Preserved 1850s stagecoach station on the Butterfield Overland Mail Route, with period furnishings, log structures, hat museum, doll museum, doctor’s office, antique farm equipment. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Wed.Sat. $5 adults, $2 students, 5 and under free. 479-968-9369.

ROGERS ROGERS HISTORICAL MUSEUM, 322 S. 2nd St.: “Let Us Pray: Rogers’ Early Churches.” 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon. and Wed.-Sat., 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Tue., 1-5 p.m.

Sun. 479-621-1154.

SCOTT PLANTATION AGRICULTURE MUSEUM, U.S. Hwy. 165 and state Hwy. 161: Permanent exhibits on historic agriculture.

8 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. $4 adults, $3 children. 961-1409.

SCOTT PLANTATION SETTLEMENT: 1840s log cabin, one-room school house, tenant houses, smokehouse and artifacts on plantation life. 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

Thu.-Sat. 351-0300. www.scottconnections.org.

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Payment: CHECK OR CREDIT CARD Order by Mail: ARKANSAS TIMES BOOKS 201 E. MARKHAM ST., STE. 200, LITTLE ROCK, AR 72201 Phone: 501-375-2985 Fax: 501-375-3623 Email: ANITRA@ARKTIMES.COM

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Dining WHAT’S COOKIN’

CREPES PAULETTE, Bentonville's purveyor of French pancakes stationed near the entrance to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, had a “heartening” soft opening Monday at its new storefront at 706 S. Main St. in Bentonville. Crepes Paulette’s definition of “soft opening,” according to the restaurant’s Facebook page, is one “precipitated by a weariness of unforeseen complications of NOT BEING OPEN, characterized by an unexpanded menu, unfinished signage and decoration, limited opening hours and an unwavering trust in the patience and understanding of the best clientele in the world, all rolled up and served in delicious hot crepes.” It is serving a “streamlined menu” daily, including buckwheat crepes and blackberry jam.

THE SIXTH ANNUAL Main Street Food Truck Festival will draw hungry masses and massive horses to Main Street and Capitol Avenue on Saturday, Sept. 24. Besides the chow — 58 food trucks over six blocks — this year’s celebration of street eating will also include a clop-in by the Budweiser Clydesdales and a pop-up urban design sponsored by studioMAIN and members of the Downtown Little Rock Partnership Financial Quarter Group, on Capitol from Center to Spring streets. Main Street will be blocked off from Third to Eighth streets and Capitol from Main to Spring streets for the event, which starts at 11 a.m. and runs to 5 p.m.

Volunteers are needed; to sign up, email clongstreth@downtownlr. com or call 375-0121.

WESTOVER WEDNESDAYS, THE market at Westover Hills Presbyterian Church in the Heights, canceled its September food truck gathering after the owner of market regular Rock N Flavors was murdered.

Sharniece Hughes, 35, owned and operated the Italian ice food truck, which debuted in June. She was shot several times outside her home on Mabelvale Pike on Labor Day; police have issued a warrant for the arrest of Curtis Dorsey, 32, her business partner and boyfriend.

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Core goes for more Le Bouvier chef adds food to the brew.

I

n early March, Core Brewing Co. opened its sixth “public house” on Main Street in North Little Rock’s bustling Argenta neighborhood. Core’s beers are made in Northwest Arkansas, and its other five pubs are also in that quadrant of the state.

Core’s original plan was to sell only beer, and management encouraged patrons to bring their own food. The plan was so solid that the Core team reportedly removed the kitchen equipment that remained from the days when Starving Artist occupied the space.

But man … or woman … or public house doesn’t live by beer alone. In late August, a relatively small but adventuresome menu debuted, featuring the creations of James Wetzel, who operates Le Bouvier, a French-focused food truck in Bentonville.

Central Arkansas has plenty of places cranking out standard bar fare, some quite well and some not so well. So our first glimpse of Core’s menu was exciting and encouraging, and, for the most part, the somewhat novel bar food concepts played out well.

On a recent Wednesday evening Core had a crowd. In the beer-only days it was pretty sparse. Our group of six sat down at one of the odd mish-mash of tables with the even odder mish-mash of chairs: Ours were black wroughtiron patio chairs that naturally recline, which wasn’t conducive to our hunkering down over a meal.

The open-faced BLT bites ($5) are a great concept — bacon, tomato, chivedosed creme fraiche and high-quality balsamic vinegar atop house-made rosemary bread. The flavors worked perfectly together, and the tomato tasted like an heirloom, rare this time of year.

Core Public House 411 Main St. North Little Rock 372-1390 corebeer.com

QUICK BITE Jeff Wetzel, the food truck owner who is the mastermind behind the food at this Core, told us similar menus will be implemented at the other five Core public houses in Northwest Arkansas, which to this point have offered only a small selection of typical bar food.

HOURS 3 to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 3 to 11 p.m. Friday, noon to 11 p.m. Saturday and noon to 9 p.m. Sunday.

OTHER INFO You can order Core merchandise from its website.

We would have liked more bacon; the tomato pieces were larger than the bacon pieces.

We also were psyched to see Gulf Coast deviled eggs ($7), pickled deviled egg halves topped with a perfectly fried, smallish oyster, a dollop of remoulade sauce and a bit of bacon, though the menu didn’t list that. Here we have a suggestion for Core: Don’t pickle the egg.

The appetizer that drew the most raves was the Naughty Bacon Bleu Cheese Fries ($8). The base was a generous pile of thick, hand-cut fries that were just salty enough, crispy and creamy. How can you go wrong slathering fries with a creamy blue cheese, bacon and chives? At Core, you can’t.

We tried five of the seven entrees.

All got good marks, but not all got raves.

The fried oyster po-boy ($12 with fries) featured seven crisp oysters on a 6-inch bun from Gambino’s, a renowned New Orleans purveyor. It was topped with lettuce, tomato and a mustardy remoulade.

The fish tacos featured two fillets across four corn tortillas. The spicy bean-corn relish was a hit. The accompanying fried tortilla chips were unevenly cooked: Some were super chewy.

The Bouvier burger ($12 with fries) must be a popular item from the chef’s food truck. The half-pound “steak blend” patty — served on a hoagie bun and not the “house-made everything pretzel bun” as advertised — was almost too thick to easily negotiate, and it came

CHOW NOW AT CORE: The Bouvier Burger (above) pairs well with the Hazelnut Southern Brown Ale; Core also serves chicken tenders (right) and other creations by James Wetzel.

well done, not medium as ordered. It was good, nevertheless.

The fish and chips included only one fillet, but the price — $14 — justified two.

The batter was cornmeal-based, usually used for catfish, and not the traditional flour-based pub batter.

The most surprising inclusion on the Core menu might have been the best thing we had. The Buddha Bowl ($9) is the best vegetarian dish we’ve tried outside an Indian restaurant in a long time. Perfectly cooked couscous, kale, bell peppers, shredded carrot, snap peas and pickled radish were blended with a generous portion of goat cheese that made the dish creamy and tangy. A subtle roasted shallot vinaigrette bound all the flavors.

We finished our meal with the ricotta donut holes (four for $5). They were fluffy, but not so cheesy. We found the

BELLY UP

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accompanying strawberry “gastrique” too tart.

We worked through a broad crosssection of the Core beer menu; all were solid representations of their styles.

They weren’t too cutting-edge, which made sense given the large market Core

is going after.

Besides the odd collection of furniture, we were surprised that we were presented plastic forks and knives — wrapped in a nice cloth napkin, mind you. Hey, Core: Real silverware isn’t expensive or hard to find. Get some.

GROW grow LOCAL ARKANSAS TIMES arktimes.com

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

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ENTRY LEVEL POLICE & FIRE EXAMINATIONS City of Maumelle The City of Maumelle, AR will be testing Saturday, October 15, 2016 for Entry Level Police & Fire Examination and will be accepting applications through 5 p.m., Friday, October 7, 2016.

NOTE: No applications will be accepted after October 7, 2016.

September 16, 17, 23, 24, 25, 29, 30, October 1, 2016 Thu, Fri, Sat 7:30PM • Sun 2:30PM $16 Adults • $12 Students & Seniors $2 Off Thursday Discount

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NOTE: A City of Maumelle Employment Application must be completed.

A job description and an application may be found at the City of Maumelle website (www.maumelle.org) Human Resources Department webpage. Completed applications should be mailed to: City of Maumelle – Human Resources Department – 550 Edgewood Drive, Suite 590 – Maumelle, Arkansas 72113. For questions, you may contact the Human Resources office at (501) 851-2784, ext.

242 between the hours of 7AM and 5PM Monday-Friday “EOE – Minority, Women, and Disabled individuals are encouraged to apply.”

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