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IMPERMANENCE OF FRAGILE THINGS Memphis-based painter and educator Juan Rojo meditates on change with his exhibition “Vanitas.”

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JESSE DAVIS Editor SHARA CLARK Managing Editor JACKSON BAKER, BRUCE VANWYNGARDEN Senior Editors TOBY SELLS Associate Editor CHRIS MCCOY Film and TV Editor ALEX GREENE Music Editor SAMUEL X. CICCI, MICHAEL DONAHUE, JON W. SPARKS Staff Writers ABIGAIL MORICI Copy Editor, Calendar Editor LORNA FIELD, RANDY HASPEL, RICHARD MURFF, FRANK MURTAUGH, MEGHAN STUTHARD Contributing Columnists AIMEE STIEGEMEYER, SHARON BROWN Grizzlies Reporters ANDREA FENISE Fashion Editor KENNETH NEILL Founding Publisher

In middle school, one of my teachers assigned the novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. The book is fiction, but it gives a fairly accurate account of how horribly dehumanizing trench warfare was for WWI soldiers.

Of course, there are chapters dealing with what you might expect — snipers, charges across No Man’s Land, gas attacks. Beyond the more apparent atrocities of war, All Quiet on the Western Front spends time on the poor quality of the food the soldiers eat, the sorry state of the latrines, the mind-numbing boredom between attacks. Almost as much as the violence, those seemingly mundane details drive home the book’s message. War is hell. It strips everyone involved of their humanity.

Similarly, in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, when he writes that Billy Pilgrim, then a prisoner of war, “shit thin gruel,” I was struck by the horror of having so little control over one’s body, over what and when one ate.

Some might protest the use of a four-letter word in a book often read by high schoolers or that so much time and attention is devoted to bowel movements, but they’re missing the point. When a student is told about millions of people dying or being subjugated, the scope of the horror is too big to grasp. But when you’re confronted with someone who’s not allowed to dress themself or decide when they will relieve themself, you realize without a doubt that those people were denied even the barest semblance of dignity.

I write this because of the McMinn County School Board’s unanimous decision to remove Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel about the Holocaust, Maus, from the curriculum, ostensibly because of a drawing of mouse genitalia and some profanity. The logic seems to be that a drawing of an anthropomorphic mouse’s private parts and the occasional swear word is obscene and will make children uncomfortable.

I would find their explanation a little more believable if Tennessee weren’t already leading the charge against what some erroneously call “critical race theory” and others might more accurately describe as world and U.S. history and the myriad ways systemic racism continues to impact current social and economic structures.

Let’s speak plainly. This is not about protecting children. It is a clear and concerted effort to control the lens of history, to center white Christians in every narrative, whether or not they were the victims. It is inherently authoritarian and nationalistic, and it is dangerous. If your teaching of the Holocaust or the system of American slavery or the Trail of Tears isn’t, at times, obscene, then it is failing miserably to convey the horror and dehumanization of those atrocities. It is, in short, laying the groundwork for future acts of barbarism.

Scant weeks ago, worshipers in a Texas synagogue were held at gunpoint. Even now, a Jewish couple in Tennessee is suing the state’s Department of Children Services after being denied as potential foster parents, a step on the way to adopting a child with disabilities, because the agency “only provide[s] adoption services to prospective adoptive families that share our belief system.” Among the more bizarre examples of anti-Semitism is the QAnon belief in the Deep State, a conspiracy theory which has its roots in 20th-century European prejudice against Jewish people. Just days ago, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis danced around calls for him to condemn Nazi demonstrations in Orlando. DeSantis’ spokeswoman Christina Pushaw wondered if the demonstrators were “even Nazis.” They were waving fucking swastikas, so my guess is yes. So let’s please not act as though these issues are no longer with us here in the 21st century. Hatred is alive and well. It’s big business for some people, and we must use every tool available to combat it, to help today’s young people understand history and develop empathy.

Some will point out that Maus is now a bestseller on Amazon, which is nice, but it’s not the same thing as the book being made readily available to students. Not everyone has access to Amazon or Barnes & Noble; not everyone can afford a new copy of a graphic N E WS & O P I N I O N novel.

THE FLY-BY - 4 If our kids are strong enough to sit NY TIMES CROSSWORD - 6 through active shooter drills, they’re POLITICS - 8 strong enough to confront the past.

AT LARGE - 9 We owe it to them to teach them about COVER STORY “IMPERMANENCE OF FRAGILE the horrible things humanity has done, THINGS” and we must remember that learning

BY MICHAEL DONAHUE - 10 about the Holocaust should make them WE RECOMMEND - 14 uncomfortable.

MUSIC - 15 We must be honest about our past sins, CALENDAR - 16 or we’ll soon have even more atrocities to FOOD - 18 FILM - 20 add to some future curriculum.

C LAS S I F I E D S - 22 Jesse Davis LAST WORD - 23 jesse@memphisflyer.com

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THE

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MEMernet Memphis on the internet.

JA SINGS

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@EricTweetsNBA asked the MEMernet what Ja Morant was singing in a TV screenshot. Responses ranged from “I Will Always Love You” to “Living on a Prayer.”

HOUSE PARTY The Memphis subreddit got in early on the viral meme that says, “There’s a house party and every neighborhood in Memphis is a different person. What are each of them doing?”

“Midtown is hosting the party,” wrote u/Wild-Care. “They had an awkward handshake-or-fist-bump moment when they met Frayser, and they are trying a little too hard as a result.”

“Soulsville brought the food and music, to the relief of everyone since Collierville decided to bring potato salad with raisins,” wrote u/irishqueen811.

“Cooper-Young is in the kitchen explaining pronouns to a visiting [Tennessee] state legislator,” wrote u/ Boatshooz.

JPK TWEETS MEMernet all-star John Paul Keith tweeted the truth again: “The first question for any candidate for school board should be, ‘Do you know what cow dewormer tastes like?’”

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Questions, Answers + Attitude Edited by Toby Sells

CITY REPORTER B y To b y S e l l s

West Memphis Three New DNA testing sought of evidence thought to the lost or burned.

New DNA testing has been requested in the West Memphis Three case for recently rediscovered evidence once claimed to be lost or burned.

Damien Echols, one of three convicted of 1993 murders committed in West Memphis, asked the Crittenden County Circuit Court to allow the review in a petition filed last week. Specifically, he wants the ligatures — the shoelaces used to tie the young victims’ arms and legs — to be PHOTO: WIKIPEDIA tested with new DNA West Memphis Three hope new clues from DNA analysis of evidence could exonerate them. collection technology.

Echols hopes new clues from the analysis could exonerate himself, Jason and underwear, as well as the sticks used to hold the clothing Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley, known collectively as the West underwater, and the shoelaces used as ligatures to bind the Memphis Three. The three were teenagers when they were victims,” according to the petition. But none of the evidence accused and convicted of the murders of three younger boys, was ever transferred, no explanation was ever given, and “it Steve Branch, Christopher Byers, and James Moore. The West just never occurred.”

Memphis Three were released in 2011 after they entered Alford Keith Chrestman, the new prosecutor for West Memphis, pleas, which allowed them to claim their innocence but also told Echols’ attorney that some of the evidence in the case admit prosecutors had enough evidence to prove their guilt to had been “lost” after the three entered their Alford pleas. a jury.

Some of the evidence was “misplaced,” according to the court “Echols knows that his DNA is not on those ligatures papers, and some of it “was destroyed by fire” in a building fire. because he had no role in committing these murders,” reads However, the evidence was found by Benca in a fall visit to the the petition from Echols’ attorney Patrick Benca of Little Rock. West Memphis Police Department storage facility.

“Others might not be so certain, though, and who those others Echols and his attorney now want that evidence tested are surely needs to be determined if it can be ‘in the interests using a system company officials say is “like comparing a of justice.’” hand broom to a carpet cleaner,” when it comes to collecting The petition comes after evidence in the case was material that might contain DNA. rediscovered in December. The petition also outlines the Benca said the shoestrings already provided biological tough and lengthy process required to find that evidence, material used as evidence in the case and are pieces of namely the ligatures used in the murders. In 2020, a true crime evidence that “we can most confidently say were necessarily documentary asked if new DNA testing methods might yield handled by the killer(s). new results in the case. Scott Ellington, the prosecutor in the “No one knows, of course, whether additional testing of the case, “balked” at the idea at the time, according to the petition. ligatures with the new M-Vac DNA collection technology will One of Echols’ attorneys later asked Ellington about testing lead to the recovery of new DNA samples for testing or not,” the evidence again, and at that time the prosecutor “had no Benca wrote. “But one thing for certain is that such evidence problem” with the idea. The two agreed on the evidence to be will definitely not be found if testing with this new technology tested: “the victims’ shoes, socks, Boy Scout cap, shirts, pants, is not done.”

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The New York Times Syndication Sales Corporation 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018 For Information Call: 1-800-972-3550 For Release Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Crossword ACROSS 1 Quickly take down 4 UV rays, to the skin 8 Alternative to paper 15 Singer whose name sounds like a cry of dismay 16 Highlands hillside 17 One-named singer whose real first name is Robyn 18 Onetime resident of Mauritius 20 Here and there 21 Former Hawaiian senator Daniel 22 “Um, sure” 24 Pant-leg tugger, perhaps 25 Sea cave dwellers 26 They might have 21/2 or 3 stars 30 Partner of yon 32 YouTube offering

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38 Designer of attractions at Walt Disney theme parks 39 Dorm watchers, in brief 42 Volcanic discharge 43 Plus 46 ’Fore 49 ___ Troopa (Mario foe) 51 Some stoves 53 Skilled sorts 54 ___ 500

55 Live 56 Selassie of Ethiopia 57 The ten of a ten-speed 59 Leaves full 63 Finish third 65 “___ Misérables” 66 Diamond V.I.P.s 68 Jewish deli supply

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State leaders want transparency from the federal government on the flow and placement of refugee children throughout Tennessee in a report issued Friday.

State House and Senate leaders created the Joint Study Committee on Refugee Issues last May after media stories of “overnight flights of [refugee] children into the Chattanooga area.” Concerns over this rose to the White House. In May, press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that Tennessee just happened to be centrally located and that the children “are simply on their way to unite with relatives and sponsors, to meet sponsors in the state, or just traveling through Tennessee until they reach another destination to unite with family members or legal sponsors.”

However, state officials pressed for more information on the federal program that oversees unaccompanied alien children (UAC) and how it operates in Tennessee. But they found few answers.

The report said Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests went unanswered and phone calls were not returned. In one conference call about the flights, officials with the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) could not tell Tennessee officials about future flights, the locations the minors were going to, or answer many other questions about these activities. ORR officials pointed further inquiries to policies available on a federal website.

In June, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee and Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds asked for a federal Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the matter. They called the situation part of “the current border cri-

PHOTO: JULIE RICARD | UNSPLASH

A new report found few answers on the federal refugee children program operating in Tennessee. sis” and blamed the Biden Administration.

Last summer, stories of abuse began to surface about the main agency that managed those children in Tennessee.

After investigations, three employees of the Baptiste Group’s Chattanoogabased La Casa de Sidney were arrested.

The facility’s license was suspended but couldn’t be revoked immediately under due process. Proceedings in the case were ongoing at press time.

Baptiste hoped to establish another home for refugee children in Memphis in 2019. The group had a $3.7 million grant from the federal government to house children at the former South Side Middle School. But the deal fell apart under scrutiny by Chalkbeat Tennessee and members of the Shelby County School Board. Records uncovered by the state study group said “the Baptiste Group received [$14.1 million] in Memphis. There is no known Baptiste Group facility in Memphis.”

For all of this and more, the joint committee’s Friday report recommends a host of changes that may see bills proposed in this session of the Tennessee General Assembly. Lawmakers want state approval from the federal government to locate refugee children in Tennessee. They also want new reporting requirements for residential child care facilities and the ability to immediately revoke licenses of such facilities.

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POLITICS By Jackson Baker

The Hot Race Incumbent Republican D.A. Weirich and Democratic challenger Mulroy are taking their shots.

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In these still early days of the 2022 election field, one political race above all is drawing the most attention and seems to be getting fully underway. This is the contest between Republican incumbent District Attorney General Amy Weirich and her most likely Democratic opponent, University of Memphis law professor and former County Commissioner Steve Mulroy.

Both Mulroy and Weirich are on the campaign trail, which at this stage of the game means they are holding fundraisers that function simultaneously as opportunities to get their message out. Mulroy has been getting in the first licks, never failing to call attention to Weirich’s periodic sanctions for judicial misconduct by the Tennessee Supreme Court, by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, and by the ethics panel of the Tennessee bar.

Weirich does not respond to these charges, though her supporters will cite them as proof of her zeal in pursuing crime and of a muscular approach that might sometimes cross over a line, but always in the interests of the victims of crime. “I’m tough and I’m fair,” she said Monday night at a well-attended fundraiser at the East Memphis home of GOP County Commissioner Brandon Morrison and her husband Joe. “And I’m never gonna apologize for being tough on crime. And if you want a D.A. that’s not going to fight for victims, that ain’t me. I’ll tell you that right here and right now.”

Mulroy sees things differently. At a pair of fundraisers he held this past week, at the home of Shawn and Shawna Lynch and the Donati Law Firm, he scourged Weirich for what he sees as her undue emphasis on locking offenders up as hype arrest statistics and her failure, as he said in his announcement remarks, to pursue “a conviction review unit like one now operating in Davidson County, an emphasis on justice rather than simply winning verdicts, sequestration of juveniles from adult offenders, and reform of what he called ‘bail inflation.’”

Without naming Mulroy, Weirich singled out this last point on Monday

night: “I am not your D.A. if you want someone to commit to letting everyone out without bond. That is not the solution.

We saw a little bit of that during the pandemic. And what happened to our crime rate is, it went up.”

Of course, Mulroy maintains, as he did at the Lynch fundraiser, that the Shelby County crime rate, violent crime in particular, “has gone up consistently every year under Weirich’s administration after having slowed down just before she took office.”

PHOTOS: JACKSON BAKER

Weirich and Mulroy at respective fundraisers Another point of contention between them concerns what Weirich expresses this way: “Much of what frustrates the community right now and has for many years are the laws and the way the system is designed to let people out too soon, and add a disrespectful rate to the victims of those crimes. We need truth in sentencing.”

Mulroy opposes that notion and sees flexibility in incarceration procedures as ways both of applying pure and fair-minded justice and avoiding the indiscriminate long-term pile-up of bodies that, he says, turns prisons into crime schools.

All this being said, we aren’t yet in the general election. Weirich seems so far to be home free in the Republican primary, with no opponents. Mulroy, on the other hand, has two primary opponents, Linda Harris and Janika White, each seemingly wellcredentialed enough to make a case for herself. They’re not crazy about Weirich’s record, either.

AT L A R G E B y B r u c e Va n W y n g a r d e n

Wink: A Dog’s Tale Sometimes, there’s more to a pup than meets the eye.

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couple weeks ago, on a day a day later. To be honest, I was becoming when the temperature was fond of her. She was gentle, nonin the low 20s, I decided to aggressive, high-spirited, and didn’t run take my dogs on a walk to the door and bark every time a delivery at Overton Park. They were acting antsy person came onto the porch — like my and I figured I could handle the cold for a two idiots do six times a day. She was half-hour or so. also a great TV-cuddler and would sleep We usually hit the Overton Bark dog through anything once she conked out. enclosure first, so my dogs can get their There were a few suitors. One young ya-yas out with other dogs before walking couple brought their dog, but it didn’t like the trails. On this cold day, however, there Wink. Another guy said he’d get back to was only one dog there — a shivering me. Another had a family emergency. white pup with no collar or tags. She was These things take time, Mary said. standing on an icy patch of ground and My wife and I noticed that Wink was her eyes were wide and fearful. An older very independent. She’d snuggle, loved couple walked by in thick parkas and said, to play and fetch, but wouldn’t come “That dog’s been here for a while. Do you when called. She was quirky. Something think her owner’s taking a walk?” seemed off.

No, I thought. I think some asshole The next night, it clicked. I was dumped this prepping the innocent pup at dog bowls in the a dog park on a kitchen, my two freezing winter day, hounds at my feet, hoping someone excited, waiting for would rescue her. the nightly miracle.

I took my dogs for Wink was in the a walk, resolving next room, snoring that if the pup was in a chair. When the still there when we bowls were ready, I got back, it was my hollered at her. No karma to save her. response. I whistled.

A half-hour I walked over to later, as I put her in her and clapped the back of my car, my hands over her there was a little head. No response. grumbling from my Wink was deaf as PHOTO: BRUCE VANWYNGARDEN two, but nothing a stone.

Wink serious. The pup Everything looked like a pitbull suddenly made mix, female, and sense: the deep sported one sassy sleeps (she was eye that looked like basically in a it had been made-up sensory-deprivation

by RuPaul. She was tank); the lack of rib-skinny but affectionate and trusting. response to sweet-talk or calls to “come” or When we got home, I put food in a bowl attempts to give her a name. How this deaf for her. She inhaled it like oxygen, then dog survived out on the streets, I have no lay down on a dog bed and slept for four idea. How she survived and retained such hours without moving, recovering from the a loving nature toward humans and other cold, exhaustion, and whatever she’d been dogs is nothing short of a miracle. through on the streets of Memphis.

In a couple of days, she began to I named her Wink because of that respond to hand signals. I’ve ordered a eye, and I called my daughter Mary, who sub-sonic whistle, in hopes she’ll be able works with Blues City Animal Rescue. to hear it. Wink is going to make it. She’s She’s a pro at this stuff. We put out some going to find her true home. We’re patient, feelers on social media and, after a couple and she’s a survivor. You heard it here first. of days, found a foster home for Wink.

Email me if interested: brucev@ But it didn’t work out, so I got Wink back memphisflyer.com.

9

COVER STORY BY MICHAEL DONAHUE / PHOTOS COURTESY JUAN ROJO

IMPERMANENCE OF FRAGILE THINGS Memphis-based painter and educator Juan Rojo meditates on change with his exhibition “Vanitas.”

J

Fe b r u a r y 3 - 9 , 2 0 2 2

uan Rojo credits his mother for his interest in painting.

A native of Valladolid, Spain, Rojo says, “My mother wasn’t a professional or anything, but she liked to paint with oil.

I remember the house smelling like oils.

I associate that with my mother. And, I suppose, that was my first connection to art, in a way.”

Between February 4th and March 1st, Rojo will exhibit 17 works in “Vanitas” at Jay Etkin Gallery.

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Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man In addition to exhibiting his works in shows at Etkin, Rojo featured his art in numerous galleries, including the Dixon Gallery & Gardens, where he was included in “Memphis 2021,” and Galeria Rodrigo Juarranz in Burgos, Spain. His work was also in the Affordable Art Fair in London.

Closer to home, Rojo’s works are in the permanent collections of the City of Memphis and the Memphis International Airport. Showing his works in galleries in three countries didn’t happen overnight, though. “I’ve been painting 30 years nonstop this year,” says Rojo, who also teaches art at Southwind High School.

“Juan is one of the strongest figurative

artists in town,” says Etkin, who has represented Rojo for many years. “He might be considered a realist, but his paintings are imbued with mystery and emotion and immersed in a surrealist sensibility.”

Rojo, who was more interested in playing “in the streets” as a child, didn’t start doing any type of artwork until he was 12 years old. “I was a very shy kid,” he says.

“Very introverted. Drawing was kind of a nice excuse to be alone and do something I

enjoy.

I was not really good at it, but I really liked the solitude.”

His mother was a “hobbyist” artist. “She did portraits. Very surreal portraits,” Rojo remembers. “When she was young she was not ‘gothic’ — that probably wasn’t a word that was around — but she wore dark clothes.”

His mother liked painting her women in “dramatic” blues, Rojo says. “Like Picasso, in a way. Sad faces, sad women. It was kind of a naive painting. She wasn’t classically

painting or trained. She did what she could.”

Rojo just began drawing one day. “I don’t remember the first thing I drew, but I liked to draw people. I started copying the masters. We had a book of art history at the house. When my mother saw that I spent all my days drawing — and my drawings were terrible — she took me to an academy where they paint and draw. I just started learning to draw there.”

Practice makes perfect, and following in the footsteps of the greats doesn’t hurt either. So he copied Michelangelo’s drawings from the Sistine Chapel. “I could draw some of those from memory.”

At the time, Rojo used pencil and charcoal. “I remember saying I didn’t want to paint because painting was boring.”

Drawing was “something I could control in my life. Drawing was very precise and a way to describe things. I got good at it.”

And, he adds, “The human figure has always been my interest. I did some landscapes, but I cannot look at a painting for more than a month if they don’t have eyes. If they don’t return the look, look back, I cannot keep painting that for a year like I do sometimes.”

One of his teachers kept pushing him to start painting, Rojo says. Finally, the

“MY DRAWINGS AT 14 WERE TERRIBLE, BUT I LOVED DOING IT.”

PHOTOS (LEFT): COURTESY JUAN ROJO

Hidden (far left) and Hidden II (far right) are part of a triptych of paintings that prominently feature the floral motif within Rojo’s “Vanitas” collection.

Evoking Shakespeare’s tragic character, Ophelia (second from left) captures the ephemeral nature of mortality, with flowers that float in space and time.

Snowglobe I (second from right) and Snowglobe II (center circular image) illustrate characters frozen in space and time as if entrapped in a snow globe with flowers and vines floating around them.

PHOTO (RIGHT): JESSE DAVIS

Juan Rojo poses beside his paintings in his home studio.

PHOTO (BELOW): JUAN ROJO

teacher had him work on a big painting of one of Michelangelo’s drawings. “Instead of pencil, I did it in paint. I loved it so much.

The process. The application of paint.

“I copied it on a canvas. I probably used oil because at that point acrylic was not really a thing [because] the quality was not that good. An ochre and something very toned down. White, brown, black, and ochre to create the shadows and light. The same way you do with pencil.”

Happy with the results, he thought, “Okay, we can try this painting thing.”

Rojo began copying the work of his inspirations: Alberto Giacometti, Frank Auerbach, and Lucian Freud.

He liked Giacometti, in particular, because his paintings are “the bridge between drawing and painting. His paintings are like drawings with a little bit of color. The moment I started mixing colors, I relaxed. That was what I wanted to do.”

Rojo loved the way Auerbach used so much paint in his work. “I started painting highly dense and full of paint.”

Rojo’s early paintings were very expressionistic. “I think I was a natural with painting, so it didn’t take me long. I think I was a better painter than a drawer at that point.”

But he doesn’t describe himself as a “natural artist,” Rojo says. “I tell my students I don’t believe in talent in that sense. My drawings at 14 were terrible, but

I loved doing it. At some point I got better and I got good.”

Still Life with School Art Rojo taught private art lessons to adults and children before he entered the University of Salamanca. “I’ve been teaching since I was very young,” he says, “even like being a counselor at summer camp.”

Salamanca was “very classical, so everything was working with models. We had five years of drawing nude models, five years of painting nude models. So, for me, it was like heaven.”

He met his wife, Clara, who was studying medievalist literature at Salamanca. “I think it was the theory of literature class. And she was there and we met and that was it.”

Juan and Clara married before moving to Washington, D.C., in 2004 so his wife could get her doctorate at Georgetown University.

They lived in Washington for six years.

“I came on a spouse visa. You cannot do much on a spouse visa, so I was basically painting for a couple of years.”

Rojo, who got his masters of art at

the University of Maryland, moved to Memphis about 10 years ago after his wife got a job teaching Spanish medieval literature and Spanish at Rhodes College.

They loved Memphis from the beginning. “We spent a year in Kentucky — Lexington — after Washington. It was good, but it was a small town. We came here and it was kind of an upgrade.”

Rojo quickly got into the Memphis art scene and began showing his work. “It’s not that hard, in Memphis, to meet the art community.”

While showing his work at the old Circuitous Succession Gallery, Rojo met Etkin. “When the gallery closed, I approached Jay and we started working together.”

Rojo taught for a couple of years at the University of Memphis until his wife got a fellowship at the University of Notre Dame.

Rojo taught at Notre Dame as a visiting artist for a year. “I did a lot of photography there,” he says. “That really helped me in my work.”

No Cookie-Cutter Compositions After returning to Memphis, Rojo began teaching art at Southwind High School. It wasn’t easy at first. “When I started, it was just surviving,” he says.

It took him a while to learn the methods for managing a classroom, Rojo says. “The continued on page 12

COVER STORY m e m p h i s f l y e r. c o m

“Vanitas” features 17 works, including paintings and drawings.

11

continued from page 11

Fe b r u a r y 3 - 9 , 2 0 2 2

things you do and things you don’t need to do. You learn on the job. The first year was tough. The second year was tough. By the third year, I knew how to run a class and just really get the kids involved in art.

Get them involved in what they want to do in art.”

He found his students responded when he told them, “Now I’ll teach you how to do this. What do you want to do with this?”

Rojo says, “They love that. They want to draw what they want. Design what they want. Within the margins of what they learn to do in class.”

And, he adds, “I realized soon if you give the kids choices and give them options to do what they want, they surprise you.”

Rojo knew what he did not want to do as an art teacher. “Sometimes art is like a cookie maker,” Rojo explains. “Kind of cookie-shaped things. You tell them everything and at the end you have 35 cookies that are the same. I hate that. I don’t do that.”

Eventually, he began having his students paint murals. “We paint some of them outside, some of them inside. We have seven murals in the high school.”

Rojo makes sure to keep his students involved in every step of the process, so the

PHOTO: COURTESY JUAN ROJO

Just as he teaches his students, Rojo creates his art inside and outside.

life. “You have flowers. You have a skull.

You have things that die. They are passing.

Future or life is like a dream, in a way, that goes so fast.”

“Vanitas” paintings are about “the mortality of people,” the artist explains. They capture the finite nature of all things — cut flowers, human lives — and highlight the importance of these fleeting moments.

Rojo’s paintings have elements of vanitas in them, but instead of focusing on death, the paintings in his “Vanitas” show are “more about enjoying life while it lasts.”

He places flowers and other objects on his models, photographs them, and then does a painting using the photograph as a reference. The artist can be found “literally tying down the flowers to their heads. I use flowers and things that are going to die. It’s not permanent, what I build there. That beautiful scene that I build is not made to be permanent. It’s ephemeral sculpture.”

The flowers and other objects “have expiration dates. Not the painting, but the object. Once they [the models] move, they fall. And then that image disappears. Like, literally, you cannot really hold the same pose for more than a minute before things start falling from your head. Delicately placed there, it wants to be permanent, but it can’t be.”

Rojo mostly uses women models. “If

and I don’t want to. I’m just helping them build up their ideas.”

students come up with the subjects for the murals. “They choose, so some of them are weird and scary.”

The students vote on what subject they want to paint. “I take it to the principal and he approves them and they do them. I don’t have a part in the creative process of this

“Vanitas” As for his own work, Rojo says his paintings have changed over the years. He switched to acrylics instead of thick oils after he moved to the United States. His paintings became flatter. But, he says, “The common thread is the human figure.”

“Vanitas” paintings are a type of still

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Savages & Princesses: The Persistence of Native American Stereotypes

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and The National Endowment for the Arts

What Comes After Rojo plans to include soap bubbles in his paintings in his next show, he says. “Soap being something that goes fast. They’re beautiful and they explode. Like death, I suppose, in a way.”

Rojo also will be in some of his new paintings. “A friend of mine took photos of me with things on my head.

I’m excited about that. They were pretty amazing. Flowers and stuff. Some classical. Saint Sebastian. The guy that’s got the arrows. Some funny stuff will see the light at some point.”

Rojo also includes drawings in his Etkin show. He did a series of drawings and watercolors of lilies and carnations from the time they are alive to the time they die. He recorded their life span by observing them. “I didn’t use photographs.”

In addition to his work for the “Vanitas” show, Rojo completed an UrbanArt Commission mural last December. He created and painted a mural for Porter-Leath & University of Memphis Early Childhood Academy at Orange Mound. The 9-by-18-foot mural features 23 figures.“It’s based on classical

“A LOT OF THE PAINTINGS IN THIS SHOW ARE LIKE THINGS FROZEN IN TIME.”

compositions from the Renaissance. I designed it with four layers of kids running around, going on bicycles. Some are blowing bubbles.”

One of his paintings was acquired for the soon-to-open new terminal of the Memphis International Airport. “A painting of my daughter under the tree in my backyard.”

Fellow Memphis artist Carl E. Moore is a Rojo fan. “Juan Rojo is a friend and one of the most consistent and productive artists I know because of his studio practice and his work ethic,” Moore says. “His art is full of playfulness, passion, and drama

created with color and composition painted as a theatrical performance. His style is a playful use of wardrobe and props, allowing his muses to become the center of the creative artwork.”

Rojo is in a good place in his life. “In terms of art and producing art and selling art, I’m getting appreciated,” he says. “It’s been a really nice time. A horrible time to be living in, but I cannot complain. I’ve been very lucky in the last year and a half.”

“Vanitas” is on view at Jay Etkin Gallery from February 4th through March 1st.

Jay Etkin Gallery is at 942 Cooper Street; (901) 550-0064.

COVER STORY m e m p h i s f l y e r. c o m

I feel confident enough, I can get some level of intimacy with the models, attaching things to their heads. They need to be comfortable with me doing that.

Normally, I feel more females are going to be better with that. But I have male models, too. It’s not an exclusive thing.

It’s just a matter of who I have confidence and trust in that this is going to be fun for both of us, the process is going to be comfortable for both of us and they will enjoy it,” the artist explains.

It took Rojo about two years to complete his show at Jay Etkin Gallery.

“This one is purely all pandemic. During the pandemic I didn’t have models. I could have, I suppose, but I didn’t feel safe bringing models to the studio. So, I’ve been painting a lot of my daughter because she was there in the house. But also using old photographs, images of models I took over the years.”

Rojo had plenty of time to paint during the pandemic. “We taught from home. So, for almost a year, I did my class from my computer. And the rest of the day I painted. I didn’t have drive time, so I could work more on the paintings.”

Some of the works, which are in a round format, are based on snow globes.

“A lot of the paintings in this show are like things frozen in time. That’s how I felt with the quarantine and the pandemic.

Everything is kind of still. Frozen.”

Instead of snowflakes, Rojo has “things floating like they’re inside of snow globes.” Like leaves and birds.

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steppin’ out (& stayin’ in)

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Savages and Princesses February 4th - 7:00pm Lucky 7 Brass Band

February 5th - 7:00pm Bob Marley tribute

2/4 - 7pm

Lucky 7 Brass Band

2/5

By Abigail Morici Centuries after Columbus sailed the ocean blue, harmful stereotypes about Native Americans have permeated our society and still have yet to be corrected. “All of our tropes about Native Americans come from these very static notions of what it means to be Native American,” says Raka Nandi, the Museum of Science & History’s director of exhibits and collections.

To challenge these stereotypes that pervade pop culture from sports mascots to Halloween costumes, the traveling exhibit “Savages and Princesses” has come to MoSH. It features more PHOTO: COURTESY MOSH than 40 pieces by 12 contemporary Indigenous artists from different tribes, whose work of ... But I Can’t Prove It, Tom Farris different mediums challenges and subverts preconceived ideas about Native-American cultures and people. “I tend to think that art is a really unique tool for having difficult conversations,” Nandi says, “and it’s a way in which you can surprise people and knock them out of their comfort zones, and so that’s what these art pieces are doing.”

One of the artists, Zach Presley of the Chickasaw tribe, was inspired after being rejected from Native-American art shows because his work was not “Native enough.” In response, Presley, who works in collage and digital art, created images with stereotypical imagery of tepees, leaders in headdresses, and the like, with superimposed lettering that pokes holes in what is expected of Native-American art, like Nandi’s favorite of Presley’s, which reads, “Here is yet another goddamn southwest painting to go above your couch.”

Other pieces are much darker. Micah Wesley’s examines the disturbing history of scalping. “There was a time when Native Americans’ scalps were taken and collected as artifacts,” says Nandi. “Hair, bones, and skin of Native-American people were displayed as curiosities, and this piece is examining the brutality that Native-American bodies have been subjected to.”

But by including artists of different points of view, Nandi says, “I hope when people come to see this exhibit that they realize the Native-American communities are incredibly diverse and the stereotypes these artists are confronting have a real impact on how Indigenous people are viewed today.”

Bob Marley tribute

2/11 - 7pm

“SAVAGES AND PRINCESSES: THE PERSISTENCE OF NATIVE AMERICAN STEREOTYPES,” MUSEUM OF SCIENCE & HISTORY, 3050 CENTRAL, ON DISPLAY THROUGH MARCH 16TH.

Lucky 7 Brass Band

2/12 - 8pm

Marcella Simien

Fe b r u a r y 3 - 9 , 2 0 2 2

2/17

Joselyn and The Sweet Compression

2/18

Memphis All Stars

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VARIOUS DAYS & TIMES February 3rd - 9th Book Talk: Race Against Time civilrightsmuseum.org, Thursday, Feb. 3, 6 p.m.

Author Jerry Mitchell and advocate Reena Evers-Everette discuss Mitchell’s book Race Against Time: A Reporter Reopens the Unsolved Murder Cases of the Civil Rights Era. Mitchell’s book is based on his multidecade research of investigating the cold cases of the Civil Rights Movement.

Memphis Mobility Symposium: Better Transit for a Better Memphis Rhodes College, 2000 N. Parkway, Thursday-Friday, Feb. 3-4 Transportation can be a challenge for many working-class Memphians, and this two-day symposium combines lectures, discussions, and interactive activities.

Torch Song Playhouse on the Square, 66 S. Cooper, opens Feb. 4 Arnold Beckoff is on an odyssey to find happiness in New York. All he wants is a husband, a child, and a pair of bunny slippers that fit. But a visit from his overbearing mother reminds him that he needs one thing more: respect.

Memphis Jookin’ Community Class The Halloran Centre, 225 S. Main, Saturday, Feb. 5, 1-2:30 p.m.

Local Memphis Jookin’ legends invite you to join them for this workshop open to all ages and abilities. Explore the fundamentals of this street dance phenomenon in the city where it was created, learn about the evolution of varying styles, and express yourself through movement.

Art Opening Party: “Black Soliloquy” Urevbu Contemporary, Saturday, Feb. 5, 5:30-7:30 p.m.

Urevbu Contemporary returns with its first exhibition of 2022 in honor of Black History Month.

“Black Soliloquy” is a celebration of Black art across the globe, bringing together the work of a trio of Black artists from the U.S., Nigeria, and Ethiopia: Omari Booker, Birhane Worede, and Jimmy Nwanne.

Enjoy an early drinks reception and explore the amazing artwork that will be on view. Only 50 attendees will be allowed. RSVP online.

MUSIC By Alex Greene

In the Pocket Todd Snider on cutting his teeth in Memphis.

Todd Snider

MEMPHIS SONGWRITERS ASSOCIATION

ACCEPTING ENTRIES FEB. 1 – MAR. 14

I didn’t even know there was a way to play in time … until I got to Memphis. been able to come up with that unless I felt I was doing a concept album or something. [laughs] I always compare it to when WASP did a concept record. Or like when Kiss did The Elder [laughs].”

Snider even has a name for the recurring preacher character. “We call him Willy B. Wasted.”

This week, Snider will appear at The Green Room at Crosstown Arts. “I’m gonna play five or six songs. I used to have this band called the Nervous Wrecks, and two of those guys still live in Memphis. And Will Kimbrough, who was also in the band, is coming to open the show. So we’re going to work up eight or nine songs as a full band, and then we’ll wing the encore. We had so much fun with the Nervous Wrecks. I miss it sometimes. Lots of times. I still really, really enjoy this job.”

Todd Snider plays the Crosstown Theater on Friday, February 4, and Saturday, February 5, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets start at $38. Visit crosstownarts.org for details.

Top 8 compete April 14th at

FIND OUT MORE AT

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m e m p h i s f l y e r. c o m

guitar, banjo, and piano, and sang all the backing vocals. The end result is not unlike the arrangements of songwriters like early Beck or Ani DiFranco, but it bears Snider’s own distinctive lyrical stamp. His trademark wit and the teeth of his most politically charged work is still there in full force.

Alongside songs like the funky, spoken/sung environmental wake up call, “That Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” there are more quiet moments, like the piano ballad honoring John Prine, “Handsome John,” or the wistful “Sail On, My Friend.” Others revel in offthe-cuff lyrical riffs, as in “Stoner Yodel Number One,” or a sardonic preacherly prayer to God, the funky closer “The Resignation vs. The Comeback Special.”

“When I started, I only had the song ‘Sail On’ and one about John Prine.

And the rest, I just had to come up with stuff. So I just made up the last two songs quickly. The last song’s my favorite, and I don’t think I would have

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emphis is known for its sound, but which sound you consider that to be is all over the map.

There are the historic sounds of Sun and Stax. There are the many variations of the trap sound that rose to world popularity this century, Young Dolph being exhibit A. Then there are the punk sounds, from the Oblivions through Jay Reatard and beyond, making their mark.

But then there are the songwriters, who often combine more intricate lyrics with a full-throttle band’s wallop. Of the latter genre, Todd Snider is a prime example.

Snider is not a Memphis native and has been based in Nashville for many years, but living in the Bluff City in the ’90s marked him in ways that he carries to this day. “I’ve got a ton of friends down there,” he says. “What you call ‘cutting your teeth,’ I cut mine at the Daily Planet. And all around, all up and down Highland. Keith Sykes got me my first record contract. He was like a life coach at that time. Not only did he help me with making songs and melodies, he taught me about time, tempo.”

Memphis, it turned out, introduced young Snider to the mysteries of rhythm and groove, after he moved here from Austin. “I came to Memphis from Texas, where it was all about lyrics,” Snider recalls.

“Keith and others showed me how to have the Booker T. sound as a benchmark: bass and drums and playing in time. I didn’t even know there was a way to play in time or out of time until I got to Memphis. The whole town is in the pocket.”

All those lessons came out in force with the release of his last record, First Agnostic Church of Hope and Wonder (Aimless), which delves into funk more than any of his other works. “That was a fun project. I was using old Memphis records as models.

The drummer Robbie Crowell and I would both listen to old beats and things. Soul and funk grooves. And I think we got away with it for the most part.”

Another aspect of the album was trying his hand at all the parts himself, except the drums. “I always wanted to make an album where I play all the instruments. And since there was a pandemic, I had a good excuse. I couldn’t just call a better guitar player.

And I got to play bass!” All told, he plays electric bass, acoustic guitar, electric

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Send the date, time, place, cost, info, phone number, a brief description, and photos — two weeks in advance — to calendar@memphisflyer.com.

DUE TO SPACE LIMITATIONS, ONGOING WEEKLY EVENTS WILL APPEAR IN THE FLYER’S ONLINE CALENDAR ONLY. FOR COMPREHENSIVE EVENTS LISTING, VISIT EVENTS.MEMPHISFLYER.COM/CAL.

CALENDAR of EVENTS:

February 3 - 9

ART AN D S P EC I A L E X H I B ITS

“A Cosmic Womb”

Exhibition of work by John Shorb. Through March 5.

TOPS GALLERY

“From Shadow to Radiance: Jeannine Paul Art Exhibit”

Exhibition of work by Jeannine Paul. Through March 15.

MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN

“I Remember Mayfair”

Virtual exhibition of work by Mary “Mayfair” Matthews.

Through Feb. 28.

WKNO.ORG

“Janelle Lynch: Another Way of Looking at Love” An exhibition of photographs.

Thursday, Feb. 3-March 3.

MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN

Fe b r u a r y 3 - 9 , 2 0 2 2

Master Metalsmith: Kim Cridler | Held

John Shorb’s “A Cosmic Womb” exhibition investigates fragmentary ancient texts, soaked in cryptic spiritual meaning.

“Moment After”

A solo exhibition by Birminghambased Alex McClurg. Through Feb. 28.

FLICKER STREET STUDIO

“Poetics of Gesture”

Exhibition of paintings by Tad Lauritzen Wright. Through Feb. 5.

“Waves of Change”

Exhibition of fused glass by Christie Stratton Moody.

Through April 2.

DAVID LUSK GALLERY

“Savages and Princesses: The Persistence of Native American Stereotypes”

BUCKMAN ARTS CENTER AT ST. MARY’S SCHOOL

Exhibition of 12 contemporary Native American visual artists who explore how to represent Native Americans authentically.

Through March 16.

A R T HA P P E N I N G S

30th Annual Works of Heart Art Auction

The Memphis Child Advocacy Center’s 30th annual Works of Heart art auction will be online.

It’s free to browse and bid. All proceeds benefit kids served by the Memphis CAC. Sunday, Feb. 6- 12.

MUSEUM OF SCIENCE & HISTORY

“The 12 Months of Memphis”

Original oil paintings by local artist Jane M. Croy. Through March 2.

MEMPHISCAC.ORG

PLAYHOUSE ON THE SQUARE

An annual exhibition celebrating the most influential contemporary metal artists. Through March 6.

“Vanitas”

METAL MUSEUM

JAY ETKIN GALLERY

Art Opening Party: “Black Soliloquy”

Exhibition of recent paintings by Juan Rojo. Friday, Feb. 4-March 1.

Urevbu Contemporary returns with its first exhibition of 2022 in honor of Black History

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UREVBU CONTEMPORARY

“Ecce Homo (Behold a Man)” Opening Reception

A solo exhibition by Rahn Marion, whose work reimagines ancient stories and mythologies through the Black male figure.

Saturday, Feb. 5, 4-7 p.m.

TONE

Meet the Artist: Jeannine Paul Meet the artist of the “From Shadow to Radiance” exhibition. Sunday, Feb. 6, 2-4 p.m.

MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN

“Moment After” Opening Reception Binder Projects is pleased to present “Moment After,” a solo exhibition by Alex McClurg.

Saturday, Feb. 5, noon-3 p.m.

FLICKER STREET STUDIO

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“You Can Dance Underwater and Not Get Wet” Opening Reception

A solo exhibition by Kevin Brisco Jr., whose work is concerned with issues of place and representation. Saturday, Feb. 5, 4-7 p.m.

TONE

B O O K EVE N TS

Book Talk: Race Against Time Author Jerry Mitchell and advocate Reena Evers-Everette discuss Mitchell’s book Race Against Time: A Reporter Reopens the Unsolved Murder Cases of the Civil Rights Era. Thursday, Feb. 3, 6 p.m.

CIVILRIGHTSMUSEUM.ORG

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Memphis Jookin’ Community Class

Join instructor Hannah Underhill for this crash course in using a cell phone to take photographs of flowers. $15.

Monday, Feb. 7, 9 a.m.-noon.

COM M U N ITY

F I LM

Morris and Mollye Fogelman International Jewish Film Festival

The 10 featured films include a wide wide variety of awardwinning national and international Jewish-themed films that represent a variety of genres. $10, $130. Through Feb. 24.

MEMPHIS JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER

Local Memphis Jookin’ legends invite you to join them for this workshop. Free. Saturday, Feb. 5, 1-2:30 p.m.

Sweet Street: First Friday

This weekend, find your place to volunteer and grow at the Memphis Botanic Garden’s volunteer fair.

L E CT U R E

Memphis Mobility Symposium: Better Transit for a Better Memphis

Transportation can be a challenge for many working-class Memphians, and the two-day symposium combines lectures, discussions, and interactive activities. Thursday, Feb. 3-Feb. 4.

RHODES COLLEGE

The Wonderful Women of Elmwood: An Indoor Presentation

Women have helped shape the history of our country and our city. There are incredible women at rest in Elmwood Cemetery, and their stories are waiting to be told. $20. Sunday, Feb. 6, 2 p.m.

ELMWOOD CEMETERY

Bundle up and head to the Broad Avenue Arts District for a sweet party. Get your $5 punch card and sample mouthwatering treats from local retailers. Friday, Feb. 4, 5-8 p.m.

P E R F O R M I N G A R TS

Peanut Butter & Jam at GPAC: Mario the Maker Magician

Kids and parents are invited to move and groove in this highly interactive performance. Free.

Saturday, Feb. 5, 10:30-11:30 a.m.

Scholastic Art Awards Exhibition Presented by the Brooks Museum League

Congratulations, Mary Margaret!

Senior Best-in-Shool | Houston High School

Open in Overton Park

As a summer storm rages outside a Miami police station, inside there is a squall involving an interracial couple awaiting news of their missing son. $25.

Friday, Feb. 4-Feb. 20.

THEATRE MEMPHIS

Hadestown

Hadestown intertwines the tales of Orpheus and Eurydice and of King Hades and Persephone. $29-$125. Through Feb. 6.

THE ORPHEUM

May We All

S PO R TS

Jenna Coates, a small-town girl whose big-city singing career is over before it even begins, returns to the people and the places of her past to find a path to the future. Through Feb. 20.

Memphis Grizzlies vs. Los Angeles Clippers

The Mountaintop

BROAD AVENUE ARTS DISTRICT

Tuesday, Feb. 8, 7 p.m.

FEDEXFORUM

GERMANTOWN PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

THE HALLORAN CENTRE

Jan. 22 - Feb. 20

American Son

MUSEUM OF SCIENCE & HISTORY

Volunteer Fair

MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN

T H EAT E R

Fab Fridays: Laser Motown in the Planetarium

Featuring some of the most iconic songs in American music, Laser Motown is a 46-minute celebration of legendary Motown tunes. Friday, Feb. 4, 7 p.m.

MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN

Learn about upcoming volunteer opportunities at the garden. There will be booths from a variety of horticulturists, as well as youth education and Radians Amphitheater staff.

Saturday, Feb. 5, 9 a.m.-noon.

S P EC IA L EVE NTS

Memphis Tigers vs.

Tulane

Wednesday, Feb. 9, 7 p.m.

FEDEXFORUM

Memphis Tigers vs. UCF Saturday, Feb. 5, 7 p.m.

FEDEXFORUM

PLAYHOUSE ON THE SQUARE

A gripping reimagination of events the night before the assassination of the civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. $30. Through Feb. 13.

HATTILOO THEATRE

Torch Song

Arnold Beckoff is looking for happiness in New York. All he wants is a husband, a child, and a pair of bunny slippers that fit.

Friday, Feb. 4-Feb. 20.

PLAYHOUSE ON THE SQUARE

m e m p h i s f l y e r. c o m

Opening reception for exhibition of recent paintings by Juan Rojo. Friday, Feb. 4, 6-8 p.m.

Photographing Flowers Class

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Opening Reception for “Vanitas”

17

FOOD By Michael Donahue

Fire it Up Sami Jodeh serves authentic Jordanian food at Flames.

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This project is funded under a Grant Contract with the State of Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services.

ami Jodeh owns Flames Mediterranean & Grill, at 546 South Highland Street near University of Memphis.

He opened his second location January 31st at 698 Waring Road.

Jodeh, 31, remembers when he worked at two restaurants at the same time. He worked the morning shift at McDonald’s, but, because he didn’t have a ride back to his house for a few hours, he got a job working the night shift at Burger King.

Jodeh surprised customers who saw him when they ate breakfast at McDonald’s and then saw him again when they ate dinner at Burger King. The restaurants were across the street from each other.

Working those jobs sparked his interest in opening his own restaurant one day. “I enjoyed doing it,” Jodeh says. “I just feel like you don’t have to worry about anything but cooking. It takes me to a different zone.

I love seeing people’s smiling faces and them complimenting me on how good my food is.”

Growing up in Amman, Jordan, Jodeh was surrounded by family members who cooked.

“Most of them worked in the restaurant business. Some servers, some chefs.”

Jodeh was more into sports than cooking. “I’m a professional soccer player. I played all my life, even when I came to Memphis.”

His family moved to Memphis when he was 16. “I cried for the first few days.

I wanted to go back. The language was pretty tough.”

After two years in the fast food business, Jodeh said, “I will have my own restaurant.

This is what I love doing.”

In 2009, Jodeh “went straight into the business.” He worked for a Mediterranean-style restaurant, which was owned by family members. “They were doing the cooking and I was doing the service and helping with the cooking.”

He worked at various locations of Shark’s Fish & Chicken before taking a job as chef at a Middle Eastern grill in Jacksonville, Florida, where he created some of the dishes he now sells at his Memphis restaurants.

One of them, the Toshka, is a mixture of lamb and beef. Jodeh adds bell pepper, onions, jalapeños, and garlic. “You fry the meat

as a burger,” he says. “Mix it with mozzarella cheese, put it on a slice of pita bread, and toast it. It’s like a Middle Eastern burger.”

When he was 26, Jodeh picked up the lease on a gas station/restaurant in Earle, Arkansas. “I had the fried food, but also added chicken shawarma and a few other things. I introduced Middle Eastern food to Earle, Arkansas, and people were just amazed: ‘What is this?’ I had peach cobbler on one side and chicken shawarma on the other side.”

In 2019, Jodeh opened his Highland location of Flames Mediterranean & Grill, where he serves “authentic Jordanian food.”

“I wanted people — as soon as you say ‘Flames’ — to say, ‘Oh, you have the best food. And freshest and healthiest food.’”

PHOTO: MICHAEL DONAHUE

Sami Jodeh The Tikka is one of the most popular items on his 40-plus-item menu. “It’s a half chicken grilled on a char grill. It can be spicy or not spicy. It’s marinated overnight.

It comes on a bowl of rice with a side of Greek salad, pita bread, and tzatziki sauce.”

Jodeh wants to open 50 restaurants — one in each state — with his “type of food … something like I would serve in Jordan.”

He plans to add a new item to the menu at his Waring restaurant. “What got me interested in this location is the huge smoker. I’m going to try to bring Middle Eastern barbecue to Memphis.”

Jodeh will add Middle Eastern spices and seasonings to a whole lamb, which he will put in the smoker. Customers can choose the part of the lamb they prefer.

“The way it’s going to be cooked is different,” he says. “The marinade is different.

I’ll make customers feel like they’re having that barbecued lamb in a desert or somewhere in Jordan.”

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19

FILM By Chris McCoy

Road Trip Acclaimed Japanese import Drive My Car cruises into awards contention.

A

Fe b r u a r y 3 - 9 , 2 0 2 2

friend recently moved from Downtown Memphis, where they work, to a suburb beyond the 240 loop. They used to walk to work in five minutes, but now have a 30-minute commute to the office. I asked if they hated spending an hour a day in their car, but to my surprise, they said no. The commute might get old after a few years, but for now, they said the time spent inside their car is a little respite from the outside world, a time to listen to their music and be alone with their thoughts.

In Drive My Car, Yusuke (Hidetoshi Nishijima) feels the same way about the time he spends in his beloved red Saab. The Tokyo native is a theater actor and director, acclaimed for his innovative productions where he casts actors from many different countries who deliver their lines in their own languages.

Yusuke used to be married to Oto (Reika Kirishima), a screenwriter, but he found her dead of a brain hemorrhage two years ago. Now, all that is left of his wife are tapes she made where she reads all the parts except for his in the plays he starred in, to help him memorize his lines. As he drives to Hiroshima for a stint as a visiting scholar at a university, he listens to Oto read Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, the play he is

scheduled to direct.

The Hiroshima theater department practically begs him to appear as Uncle Vanya, but after Oto died, he lost his appetite for the stage. Instead, he has inexplicably cast the handsome, young Koji (Masaki Okada) as the middle-aged, sad-sack Uncle Vanya.

It’s a head-scratcher of a choice, but that’s the kind of strange juxtaposition Yusuke is famous for.

But there’s one thing the university is adamant about. Yusuke can’t drive himself. It seems that another visiting scholar got drunk and killed a pedestrian, causing the school major liability headaches. So they have hired a professional driver named Misaki (Tôko Miura) to chauffeur Yusuke. During their commutes along the picturesque Japanese coast, the red Saab becomes both sanctuary and confessional, as the production of Uncle Vanya unravels, and Yusuke’s secret pain bubbles to the surface.

Directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi and adapted from the short story collection Men Without Women

In Drive My Car, a red Saab becomes a safe haven for Oto (Reika Kirishima) and Yusuke (Hidetoshi Nishijima), both of whom dwell in tragedy.

by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, Drive My Car isn’t in any hurry to get where it’s going. In what must be some kind of record, the opening credits come approximately 45 minutes into the three-hour picture, after an extended cold open which explores the last days of Yusuke and Oto’s marriage. To Hamaguchi’s credit, there’s more story and emotion before the main plot gets rolling than in most films you’ll see this year.

Yusuke and Oto have an amazing sex life, where she enters a kind of erotic trance state and recites visions and stories to him while they do it. Later, he fills her in on what she said, and she turns the stories into screenplays.

Great films establish their own rhythm and seduce you into living on their time. As Drive My Car glides along country roads and squirms in uncomfortable table reads, small gestures and expressions are amplified. That’s especially true if they’re coming from

Fridays Nights

during February WWW.MOSHMEMPHIS.COM

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in the planetarium

FILM By Chris McCoy Nishijima, who is a master of letting micro-emotions flit across his stoney face. Miura, in the front seat, is just as taciturn and damaged. The story of her traumatic childhood, and how she became such a good driver, becomes a strange counterpoint to Yusuke’s guilt and regret. Kirishima’s turn as the enigmatic Oto is so delicate and elegant that you can see why the director was reluctant to leave any of it in the editing room.

Drive My Car was the best of the “slow cinema” selections at Indie Memphis 2021, and it’s become a critic’s

darling, as the first film since The Hurt Locker to win Best Picture from three different American film critic groups.

It’s not for everyone — the long scenes of theater rehearsals almost drove my film editor wife around the bend, but if you’ve ever wanted to see most of Uncle Vanya performed badly in English, Korean, and sign language, this is your time. But the contemplative pacing is a deliberate reaction to the relentless information treadmill of smartphone life, and once you start vibing on Hamaguchi’s frequency, you’ll find Drive My Car a richly rewarding trip.

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White Tears and ‘Current Voters’

THE LAST WORD

“The concern is misplaced because if you look at the statistics, African-American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell at a recent press conference.

Even if Mitch McConnell’s viral gaffe last week is as innocent as he claims it to be, the stench of something deep — the unexamined racist fear and shame at the core of GOP policy — is unavoidably noticeable: There’s “them” and there’s “us” and never the twain shall meet. And we’ll make sure of that. (Shhhh … don’t tell anyone.)

What’s fascinating to me is the fact that blatant racism — manifested in voter-suppression laws over the years, gerrymandering, and, more recently, hysteria over the teaching of actual history in the public schools — can no longer be put forth publicly and unapologetically as The Truth, as it was for most of American history. Politicians and public figures can no longer declare things like “This country must be ruled by white people. … Negro suffrage is an evil,” as a Mississippi judge named Solomon Calhoon wrote in 1890. Nowadays, racism has to be covered up with clichés and political correctness and, in particular, white victimhood.

The prevailing right-wing dogma, at least on the surface, is not that white people are no longer just plain better than Black people; white people are victimized by people of color. “Come on,” they cry, “judge us by the content of our character, not the color of our skin.”

Here’s Tucker Carlson, for instance, quoted by The New York Times columnist Charles Blow, explaining “white replacement theory” on his Fox News show last year as a Democratic plot “to replace the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters, from the third world. … Every time they import a new voter, I become disenfranchised as a current voter.”

PHOTO: WIKIPEDIA Not a white voter, simply a “current” voter. This is the impact the Civil Rights Movement has had on right-wing Republicanism.

Mitch McConnell And then there’s critical race theory (CRT). In the past year, according to Education Week, 36 states have scapegoated this otherwise unknown academic concept, introducing legislation or taking other steps to ban whatever-it-is from being taught in public schools. The state of Virginia has even established a special tip line that parents can call to report that their kids’ school has been feeding them CRT — which means, of course, teaching actual American racial history. And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to go even further, giving parents the power to sue the school if it has the nerve to teach CRT. As I say, whatever that means. Education Week points out that there’s almost no clarity about what this might mean, and “leaders in states where these laws have passed have reported widespread confusion about what kind of instruction is and is not allowed.” Many teachers fear the rules can be broadly interpreted and amount to banning “any discussion about the nation’s complicated past or the ongoing effects of racism in the present day.”

“This isn’t an idle fear,” the report goes on. Last June, for instance, “a parents’ group in one Tennessee district challenged the use of an autobiography of Ruby Bridges, who in 1960 was one of the first Black children to integrate an elementary school after Brown v. Board of Education. The parents complained that in depicting the white backlash to school desegregation, the book violated the state’s new law in sending the message that all white people were bad and oppressed Black people.”

This is now the national divide, apparently. Jim Crow suddenly wails in anguish. As a bill in the Florida Senate puts it, a student “should not be made to feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race.” Note: Such a bill wasn’t introduced in 1890 or 1930. I wonder why?

For me, this opens a deep sense of wonderment. Mostly it opens up some profound questions about how the country can and should face not just its past but also its future. While there may be a lot of blame and guilt to spread around regarding the nation’s pre-civil rights era, addressing the future requires a larger, more complex perspective. It’s not about blaming, but healing … and changing.

The anti-CRT crowd wants to keep the clichés in place, as though “one nation, under God, yada, yada” is all that’s needed to guide us into the future. Of course, the military-industrial complex knows there’s more to it than that. Waging war, staying dominant, staying wealthy — these are not simple tasks! It’s not about saluting the flag and revering the Founding Fathers. It’s about passing gargantuan military budgets.

And it’s also about keeping as much of the public as possible (in the words of Tucker C.) “obedient” — that is, patriotic, believing that the USA is the greatest country in the world and only kills evil terrorists plus occasional collateral bystanders.

If CRT were actually taught in schools — not in order to spew shame on some, but to open everyone’s minds, to grasp the nature of hatred, dehumanization, and dominance, and create a future that transcends our past — a lot more would be put at risk than some people’s psychological distress.

The meaning of nationalism itself would have to change. And suddenly everyone becomes a participant in creating the future.

Robert Koehler (koehlercw@gmail.com), syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a Chicago award-winning journalist and editor. He is the author of Courage Grows Strong at the Wound.

m e m p h i s f l y e r. c o m

The furor over critical race theory is both an attempt to rewrite the past and solidify control over the country’s future.

23

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