Memphis Flyer 3/17/2022

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OUR 1725TH ISSUE 03.17.22

JERRY D. SWIFT Advertising Director Emeritus KELLI DEWITT, CHIP GOOGE, HAILEY THOMAS Senior Account Executives MICHELLE MUSOLF Account Executive ROBBIE FRENCH Warehouse and Delivery Manager JANICE GRISSOM ELLISON, KAREN MILAM, DON MYNATT, TAMMY NASH, RANDY ROTZ, LEWIS TAYLOR, WILLIAM WIDEMAN Distribution THE MEMPHIS FLYER is published weekly by Contemporary Media, Inc., P.O. Box 1738, Memphis, TN 38101 Phone: (901) 521-9000 Fax: (901) 521-0129 memphisflyer.com CONTEMPORARY MEDIA, INC. ANNA TRAVERSE FOGLE Chief Executive Officer LYNN SPARAGOWSKI Controller/Circulation Manager JEFFREY GOLDBERG Chief Revenue Officer MARGIE NEAL Chief Operating Officer KRISTIN PAWLOWSKI Digital Services Director MARIAH MCCABE Circulation and Accounting Assistant KALENA MATTHEWS Marketing Coordinator

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CONTENTS

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

Two years and a week ago, I went to the Flyer’s Beer Bracket Challenge award ceremony at the Young Avenue Deli. It was an odd time, as the reports of Covid-19 on the news were creeping closer and closer to home.

People weren’t quite sure how to act. Some of us shook hands, while some people opted for Last supper? Jesse Davis, Sydnie a more sanitary fist bump or even just waving Hammer, and Donna and Pete at each other. Our film editor’s wife had to Prunkl in early March 2020 keep reminding him not to touch his face.

It was the beginning of a working vacation for me. No, I don’t mean the time I spent working from home. I had planned to take a week to go visit family in North Carolina and, while there, interview barbecue pitmasters for a cover story for Memphis magazine. Again, no one was quite sure how to act. Some people shook my hand; some didn’t. But I ate a lot of great barbecue, had many interesting conversations about the history of different regional variations, and occasionally worried about this strange new disease everyone was talking about.

After the North Carolina portion of the trip, my fiancée and I stopped in Martin, Tennessee, where my sister and brother-in-law lived at the time. My mother was in town from Arizona. We were worried about her being in a full airplane, of course, but we weren’t sure just how worried we should be. And she had already bought the tickets — months ago, in fact. So we stayed home or went to the park.

With each day, the situation became more dire, until my work email started blowing up. We would be working from home. Everyone should come to the office, pick up their computers, and take ’em somewhere isolated and with internet. The Flyer’s then-editor Bruce VanWyngarden joked, “See you in June,” thinking we’d be home for two weeks, tops.

When I left Memphis for nine days of barbecue “research” and visiting family, Covid felt like something I should be vaguely concerned about. By the time I returned, the World Health Organization had declared Covid a worldwide pandemic. The Flyer offices were a ghost town when I ventured there to retrieve my computer. It felt somehow wrong.

Newsrooms, even ones as small as ours, are loud and no little bit chaotic. It was just me, the humming of fluorescent lights, and the accumulated dust, made obvious by the hastily packed-up computers and personal possessions.

We all have our own stories. For most of the world, the first few weeks or months of the pandemic were truly individual experiences. The guidelines seemed to change so quickly, at the mercy of rapidly progressing research into a new virus and the whims of an unprepared supply chain. We worried about our loved ones. We worried about the state of the nation. We worked, and our professions gave us a degree of safety — or they put us in harm’s way. I’ve worked as a cook, a dishwasher, a package handler — I can imagine what it must have been like to be on the job as one of those people in March and April 2020. Let alone a nurse, doctor, or other healthcare professional. Or a grocery store worker.

Then, it seemed at least that we settled into a pattern of waiting. There were portions of the pandemic that seemed distinct from others — the Tiger King binges, the bread-baking, the long walks outside. Even if you weren’t binging or baking (I wasn’t), you couldn’t help hearing about it.

So much has changed, now, two years after the pandemic was officially declared.

Frankly, I don’t think things will ever be as they were before. In the U.S. alone, 964,000 people have died from Covid. Globally, that number is more than 6 million.

We have lost people we’ll never get back, an incalculable loss. But the rest of us have to carry on, and forge some kind of equilibrium, a “normal.” It will just look a little different; it will take time. People have lost loved ones, friends, businesses. Young people have lost out on formative experiences. But I hope N E WS & O P I N I O N that we have gained things as well, though THE FLY-BY - 4 it will likely take just as much time to find NY TIMES CROSSWORD - 6 POLITICS - 8 perspective, to help us realize just what they AT LARGE - 10 may be. I hope that, in some aspect, virtual COVER STORY meetings will stick around. I hope we will be “SUN BLOCK” more aware of others’ health, of the need for

BY TOBY SELLS - 12 inclusivity — of what we lose without it.

WE RECOMMEND - 15 MUSIC - 16 More than anything, I hope we can be CALENDAR - 17 patient with each other as we try to emerge FOOD - 19 from this pandemic hole. And that we FILM - 20 refuse to leave anyone behind.

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

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fly-by

MEMernet Memphis on the internet. #H UZ Z AH

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Questions, Answers + Attitude Edited by Toby Sells

W H AT E V E R H A P P E N E D T O B y To b y S e l l s

The Greenline Extension at Tillman No construction has begun on the $5.3 million project announced six years ago.

POSTED TO FACEBOOK BY OVERTON PARK CONSERVANCY

Cheers rang through the MEMernet last week on news of a new deal for Overton Park, announced by officials from the city of Memphis, Memphis Zoo, and Overton Park Conservancy.

The deal will save the entire Greensward, end zoo parking on the field, add about 20 to 25 acres of parkland, add about 300 new parking spaces for the zoo, and more.

Tensions over Greensward parking go back to the 1980s but intensified in 2014 when Citizens to Protect Overton Park launched its “Get Off Our Lawn” campaign. The ensuing years had protests with police helicopters, three plans, and a second line for trees that were cut down.

EYE R O LL

March 17-23, 2022

POSTED TO YOUTUBE BY NICK JOHNSON

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Need rage? Go hate-watch Nick Johnson’s YouTube video titled: “Here’s Memphis, Tennessee: The Poorest, Most Dangerous Place in the South.”

The travel vlogger drove through South Memphis early one November morning and said, “Memphis is maybe the scariest place you could visit,” and “I wonder if Elvis would be sad about the way [his] hometown looks these days.”

G O, SAM! Memphian Sam White, known for his viral “You Can Be ABCs” video, sat with Ellen DeGeneres last week to talk about his new “You Can Be ABCs” book.

POSTED TO FACEBOOK BY MORE WITH SAM

Whatever happened to the project to extend the Shelby Farms Greenline west from Tillman?

For the third installment of our occasional series, called “Whatever Happened To,” we’re checking in on that project. The $5.3 million plan was announced in 2016, nearly six years ago, and construction has yet to begin on it.

Here’s how the project was described by the city of Memphis Bikeway and Pedestrian Program’s website in October 2016: “The scope of this project is from the Greenline’s current terminus at Tillman Street to Flicker Street. Due to the necessity of crossing an active railroad, the city will construct a bicycle and pedestrian bridge in between the Union Avenue and Poplar Avenue viaducts.

“Additionally, the city intends to build a new trailhead at Flicker Street, under or near the Union Avenue viaduct. Once complete, the bridge will allow the Greenline to one day push through Tobey Park, into the [Mid-South Fairgrounds], and possibly beyond.”

Since then, three different people have occupied the White House, a two-year pandemic changed the world, and The Fairgrounds is now called Liberty Park.

For answers on the delay, we turned to Nicholas Oyler, manager of the city’s Bike and Pedestrian Program.

PHOTO: CITY OF MEMPHIS

Construction is expected to begin on the extension in 2023.

Memphis Flyer: Whatever happened with this project?

Nicholas Oyler: This one is also federally funded. So, it’s also beholden to those same environmental clearance requirements [as the Poplar-Cooper Connector], and there are some other formalities that must be met.

We’ve been in that environmental review phase ever since the project started. The good news on this one is that we received that environmental clearance just last August.

So, that cleared the way for the project to proceed with design work. The engineering design consultant has finished 60 percent of the construction plans, so we have the preliminary plans. Those will get reviewed by the state and by us internally.

We will be meeting with project stakeholders probably in the next three to four months. We’ll start talking about more of the amenities, the landscaping, opportunities for public artwork, and that sort of thing.

Kind of similar to [the Poplar-Cooper Connector], we anticipate we’ll be reaching construction mid-2023.

Currently, the Shelby Farms Greenline stops at Tillman Street on the west side. This project will push it farther to the west. So, it’s going to continue past Tillman, where it currently ties in with the Hampline.

It will continue past Tillman, go under the Poplar Avenue viaduct, and then kind of rise up, become elevated to go over those active railroad tracks that the Union Avenue viaduct goes over. It will come down and then land at Flicker Street, near the skate park and Tobey Park.

It is moving forward. Like I said, we expect construction to begin on this in mid-2023.

Ah, okay.

There’s also acquiring a formal railroad right of way. The project involves building a bridge over an active railroad. Anytime there’s a railroad involved, there’s even more legwork that has to be done, more boxes to check.

Is there anything I left out or anything you’d like to add?

We’re developing a kind of connection for people walking and people biking to continue from Flicker Street farther west to Cooper Street in Midtown. At this point, it’s just a feasibility study. But that’s another exciting connection that’s underway.

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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 21, 2018

Crossword ACROSS 1 Sorcery 6 Serving of butter, as might go on top of several answers in this puzzle 9 Welds 14 “Let’s see what you’ve got,” in poker 15 Linguistic ending 16 Menace in the 1957 film “The Enemy Below” 17 Car company headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif.

18 Cancel 19 1992 Joe Pesci title role 20 Kitchen shortening?

21 Kind of makeup 24 Instrument with a notable solo in Springsteen’s “Born to Run” 25 Keeps it together

27 Hearing-related 28 Christianity, for one 30 Swim with the fishes, maybe 32 Internet messaging pioneer 34 One of 18 French kings 37 Mama lobster 38 Flatten 41 Vane dir.

42 ___ noche (tonight: Sp.) 44 Spot for a flowerpot 45 “Love It or List It” channel 46 Hospital patron 48 Opposite of paix 50 Siri’s digital cousin 51 Carrier to Oslo 54 Assess, as a dress 55 On the ___ (fleeing)

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56 Breakfast food item 59 Au ___ (how a French dip is served) 60 Like a superfan 62 “Later!”

63 Broccoli ___ (leafy vegetable) 64 10 bucks, in slang 65 Totally committed 66 Sch. whose colors are “true blue” and gold 67 Info for a graduate 68 Item that might go under several answers in this puzzle 69 Gets by on, with “out” DOWN 1 Ball catcher 2 Terrific, in slang 3 [Horrors!]

4 “Licensed to ___” (1986 Beastie Boys album) 5 Nonsense 6 Place that’s “beneath the blue suburban skies,” in a Beatles song 7 Big name in athletic shoes 8 Banner with a single star 9 Minor 10 Tie that binds, in Japan?

11 Charged particles 12 “Peter Pan” dog

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13 River in which Achilles was dipped 22 Designation for the Buffalo Bisons and the Durham Bulls 23 Snake in “The Jungle Book” 25 Footlong, for one 26 W.W. II arena 27 Syrup brand 29 Syrup brand 30 1971 Tom Jones hit

49 Great Basin 31 “Them’s the people breaks,” genteelly 33 Hoarder’s possible 51 Fishhook line condition, briefly 52 Train from Boston to 35 Imperiled Washington 36 All the oceans, 53 “Don’t hold back!” colloquially 39 & 40 Something tapped at a pub 43 “La Cage ___ Folles”

57 “Stat” 58 Title film character based on William Randolph Hearst

45 Nameless woman 61 ___ Spiegel 47 Fist-bump

63 Regret

Online subscriptions: Today’s puzzle and more than 7,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/crosswords ($39.95 a year).

Read about and comment on each puzzle: nytimes.com/wordplay.

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The city’s first cannabis bar is headed to South Main.

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C A N N A B E AT B y To b y S e l l s

901-252-3434

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Memphis’ first cannabis bar is readying to open, promising drinks and products infused with CBD and THCV (what some call “diet weed”).

Bar Leafy Green “South Bluff ” is planned for 6 West G.E. Patterson in the South Main district, close to the corner of Front Street. No firm timeline was given for the date of the bar’s opening in the news release. But when it does, Bar Leafy Green will be open daily from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m.

The bar will feature “infused mocktails,” including Strawberry Jasper, Peach Crystal, Mango Opal, and more. Bar Leafy Green will also offer “snacks and a rotating list of fun activities: live music, comedy, speed dating, bingo, spades tournament, movie nights, paint and sip, and much more!”

“I want our locations to be warm, welcoming safe places for people to gather and create memorable canna experiences, learn all about canna effectiveness through our canna and community engagement and education,” said Bar Leafy Green founder Effren Bledsoe.

The new bar is described as a place to “choose your mood and your journey.” It’ll be a “safe place to consume our premium products,” a “true Mid-South canna bar,” and a “neighborhood gathering place.”

Bar Leafy Green claims to be “Tennessee’s first canna bar.” But it’ll have to battle Buds & Brews for the title. That restaurant and bar is planned to open in Nashville’s Germantown neighborhood sometime this spring. That restaurant will feature “a menu of upscale bar fare paired with our

PHOTO: KIMZY NANNEY | UNSPLASH

own line of delicious cannabis-infused condiments” with cannabis from a Nashville company.

• Electric Lettuce The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) said, again, this week that it will continue to provide power to all of its customers in Mississippi, even those in the cannabis business, but said it’s still checking in with the feds about it.

Last month, TVA said it was unsure if providing power to cannabis businesses violated federal law. Cannabis is illegal on the federal level, on the scale with heroin and meth. So, when Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves signed the state’s medical cannabis program into law in February, TVA said it wanted to see if there was a conflict with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

Brandon Presley, Mississippi’s public service commissioner, said cannabis businesses should be treated like any other and that TVA’s question had some businesses reconsidering a move to north Mississippi. TVA general counsel David Fountain said, again, power would continue to flow to all customers in Mississippi, with the following caveat: “TVA respects the role of state governments and the democratic will of their voters, in making decisions regarding state law. However, as a federal agency, TVA is required to adhere to federal law and regulations.”

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POLITICS By Jackson Baker

After Kelsey KUDZU KINGS

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Whoever succeeds the indicted GOP state senator will likely have a different legislative style.

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One looks for only Republican who has actually filed potential shifts in for the Senate position. And he is said political direction. to have the support of U.S. senators One case where Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty. that is sure to Paul Boyd, who served two terms happen is with state as Probate Court clerk after winning Senate District election to that office in the Republican 31, whose seatsweep year of 2010, has toiled holder up to now dependably in the GOP’s ranks for has been Brian Kelsey, the erstwhile decades and, as an African American, “Stunt Baby of Germantown,” who brings a bit of outreach to a party that, evolved from a prankster as minority to mince no words, needs it. member of the last Democratic-dominated House to a saboteur of the state constitution as a GOP senator in a supermajority Republican General Assembly, sponsoring an endless series of hyperpartisan constitutional amendments.

Though an engaging sort personally, Kelsey has been a take-noprisoners type as a legislator, and his easy way with the PHOTO: JACKSON BAKER machinations of the Brent Taylor exiting the SCEC GOP’s extremist fringe was no doubt useful to him in a cutting-edge career that Naser Fazlullah, an engaging and now, alas, has left him bleeding on the near-omnipresent figure among local battlefield — indicted for campaignRepublicans, is a native of Bangladesh finance violations and compelled to who has been in charge of the party’s drop out of his re-election race while he outreach efforts overall. Well-liked prepares a legal defense. and uncontroversial, he is likely to end Kelsey’s would-be successors in up instead on the ballot for GOP state the Republican primary are wholly committeeman. different types — all Republican regulars And there is Brandon Toney, a but all more at home in a bipartisan political newcomer without much of an environment. That is certainly the established pedigree in GOP ranks. case with Brent Taylor, who recently Four years ago, Democrat Gabby resigned as chairman of the Shelby Salinas came close to ousting Kelsey County Election Commission and in a much-watched race. During her seeks state service as a way of crowning successful run for the Shelby County a career that has included significant Democratic chairmanship last year, stints on the Memphis City Council and Salinas more or less committed to not Shelby County Commission. being a candidate for elective office this Taylor, who once had an uncanny year. But Ruby Powell-Dennis, who resemblance to the TV character was a strong runner-up to Salinas in Pee-wee Herman, has matured into the 2020 Democratic primary for the a statesmanlike presence who had House District 97 seat, has basically stabilizing roles as an elective politician been running hard for the District 31 and on the Election Commission. So Senate seat for some time and must be far, Taylor, who recently sold off an reckoned with in a district with purplish extensive funeral-home business, is the tendencies.

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

The Big Chill Spring gets sprung … and sprung again.

T MASTERWORKS SERIES

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wo weekends ago, I walked and snow and frigid temperatures. They out into the Saturday morning were calling the storm a “cyclone bomb” sun. It was 65 glorious degrees and saying it would hit Memphis Friday and headed into the mid-70s night. We’d be lucky to survive, it appeared. by afternoon. March was just a day away The ensuing weekend would be a frozen, and March means spring in Memphis. And snowy, icy mess. In a city that is still littered spring in Memphis means it’s time for Yard with piles of limbs from a February ice Man to get after it. storm that left 150,000 people without So I rolled the electric mower out of power, this was not good news. the garage and ran it over the front yard to Alas, the storm did arrive Friday night, mulch last October’s standing leaf harvest. right on schedule, and it was a doozy, with Very satisfying. Very mulchy. I could hear sleet, lightning, strong winds, freezing rain, the grass giving thanks. four inches of snow, and temperatures in Then I crawled around the flower beds the mid-20s. I built a fire in the fireplace that make up most of our backyard and but there was no joy in it. Feeling fatalistic, clipped and snipped the I decided to just let dead stems, marveling my new flowers tough at the annual miracle it out. Snow would of perennial shoots protect them from emerging from the soil, freezing, I’d heard. ready for another season Whatever, spring. You of life. I made a large pile bastard. of brown vegetation. Also The next morning, quite satisfying. just one week after Next, I was drawn I’d welcomed spring like a salmon returning to my yard, the city to its home waters, to awoke to a coat of thick the Midtown Home PHOTO: BRUCE VANWYNGARDEN wet snow. The socialDepot, where (as one Signs of spring are media photos were does) I picked up a blossoming. lovely, folks. Thanks. mega-package of paper But there was also sun towels, some birdseed for the feeder, six on this new morning, and lots of it, and light bulbs, some floor cleaner, two bags before long, rivulets of meltwater were of potting soil, and a partridge in a pear everywhere. Heavy clumps of snow were tree. And lots of plastic pots of blooming falling from the trees and rooftops. There annuals to brighten up the deck — were no broken limbs, no power outages. petunias, anemone, lobelia.

Huzzah.

There is a clear and simple joy in sitting At midday, I got out in it and walked in the sun and putting fresh plants into old around the neighborhood, taking in clay pots, digging out last year’s roots and the snowmelt, the wet streets, the bright putting the fresh square bundles of soil into sun reflecting it all, the warming air. It their new homes. The smell of loamy earth, put me in mind of a John Updike quote the dirty fingernails, the stained trouser that I return to on occasion: “I am now knees — all the rituals of spring, of rebirth. in my amazed, insistent appreciation of I liberated the faithful hose from its the physical world, of this planet with its winter abode and filled it with purpose. The scenery and weather … that every day new plants were watered and it was good. and season has its beauty and its uses, that Yard Man was content. And there was beer. even a walk to the mailbox is a precious All was well in the kingdom for a couple experience, that all species of tree and weed of days. I took inordinate pleasure from have their signature and style and the day the new flora each time I walked out the is a pageant of clouds.” back door — the blues, whites, purples, and When I returned home I was happy yellows. I noticed the buds emerging on the to see that the petunias, anemones, and fig tree, the white blossoms on the plums, lobelia were blooming bright in their and the big oaks turning green at their tips. snow-crusted pots, literally no worse for Spring was well and truly sprung. the weather. And I looked again at the And then we began to hear rumblings buds emerging on the fig tree, the white of trouble from the West. A cold front blossoms on the plums, the big oaks was coming, they said, a real one, with ice turning green at their tips.

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COVER STORY BY TOBY SELLS

SUN BLOCK

PHOTO: VACLAV VOLRAB | DREAMSTIME.COM

ENVIRONMENTALISTS SAY TVA IS A HURDLE TO A RENEWABLE FUTURE.

B

March 17-23, 2022

lue Oval City, the planned automotive assembly plant operated by Ford Motor Company and SK Innovation, supercharged local imaginations. Jobs, business, and money — sure — but this project could allow West Tennessee to be a rugged, “built-Ford-tough” cowboy from the past and Captain Planet for the future at the same time.

The project proves Ford Motor Co. is dead serious about that marriage of ideas.

The 1,500-acre campus will cost $5.6 billion to build, the biggest manufacturing investment in the company’s history. The planned megacampus in Haywood County is the first Ford will build “in more than a generation.”

This bold pivot to electric vehicles was a hard-to-miss shift in the wind. It’s a massive bet that customers still want the mythical, American self-reliance projected by its iconic F-150 truck — but they also want it without the gas-guzzling, planet-choking, tailpipe fog of most cars made in the last 100 years.

The moment was bold enough that Ford CEO Bill Ford told reporters, “We’re on the cusp of a revolution,” one that would help “build a better future for America.” It doesn’t stop at trucks.

“The all-new megacampus just outside of Memphis, called Blue Oval City, aspires to have 100 percent renewable energy, zero waste to landfill, and reusing 12 every drop of water, to ensure our planet is in it for the long haul,” Ford Motor Co.

tweeted at the time.

But if nothing changes, the all-electric F-150 Lightnings that roll off the line here first will be ready for antique Tennessee license plates by the time that plant is powered entirely by renewable energy. Blue Oval City sits squarely in the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) service area, and that power provider says it won’t be carbonneutral until 2050, about 25 years after the Ford plant is expected to open.

If TVA’s power mix remains the same, that cutting-edge factory — and those Earth-saving trucks — will be charged with a mix heavy with nuclear power, coal, and natural gas. Only 14 percent of TVA’s power-generation portfolio is renewable, including hydroelectric (11 percent), wind and solar (3 percent), and some energyefficiency programs (1 percent). Though, TVA says it leads its Southeastern peers with a generation portfolio that is already 63 percent carbon-free.

Throughout the Tennessee River Valley, major corporations, big Tennessee companies, cities, counties, and more have publicly stated environmental goals. They all want to reduce waste and reduce their carbon footprints, meaning they want less reliance on fossil fuels and more on renewables, like wind and solar.

TVA knows this, according to internal documents, and considers it a threat to its bottom line, one it means to fix. If this sounds off, U.S. House members thought so, too, enough to launch an investigation

into TVA’s business practices on renewables.

JOINED AT THE HIP ON CLIMATE CHANGE Memphis and Shelby County’s climate goals around renewable energy will depend much on TVA, and some say that could be problematic.

Greenhouse gas emissions from energy accounted for nearly half (46 percent) of all of the Memphis area’s total emissions, according to the latest environmental inventory taken back in 2016 for the Memphis Area Climate Action Plan adopted in 2019. Energy emissions include those in buildings: houses, apartments, stores, salons, banks, museums, restaurants, warehouses, factories, and more. The rest were emissions from two other major categories: transportation (52 percent) and waste (like landfills and wastewater treatment) at 12 percent.

The climate plan — approved by the Memphis City Council, the Shelby County Commission, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, and Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris — commits these governments to developing renewable energy generation at key facilities (like solar panels on government buildings) and/or buying renewables through energy certificates, green tariff products, and participating in community shared solar projects.

But those are details. The plan and, therefore, everyone who approved it, agreed on one thing: “grid decarbonization — or

increasing the carbon-free energy sources in our electric supply — has the greatest impact on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions in our community.” They all agreed, too, that there was little they could do about it.

“As noted in the discussion of community-wide education targets, a large portion of these 2020 reductions are expected as a result of actions outside local control,” reads the plan, “for example, TVA’s planned increase in carbon-free energy sources in their energy portfolio.”

To see just how closely the city’s goals are dependent on TVA, consider their timelines to carbon-free energy. The Memphis Area Climate Action Plan calls for the electric grid to be 80 percent carbon-free by 2035.

So do TVA’s plans. (Even though President Joe Biden’s climate goals want totally carbon-free energy by 2035.) Memphisarea leaders want a completely carbon-free electric grid by 2050. So does TVA. A mix of solar and wind projects helped the TVA to reduce carbon emissions by 63 percent from 2005 to 2020. But solar leads the way in the Southeast, and TVA says it’ll be mainly solar projects that will aid it in its future reductions.

But environmental watchdog groups claim TVA has thrown up roadblocks to solar projects, especially for homeowners and business owners, to protect its finances.

The reasons are complicated, but one thing is clear to Maggie Shober, research director with the Southern Alliance for Clean

WHERE DO WE STAND? When it comes to solar, Tennessee (with about 390 megawatts of solar capacity) ranks third to last in the Southeast, ahead of only Mississippi (362 megawatts) and Alabama (319 megawatts). Florida leads the region with 7,765 megawatts of solar capacity, followed by North Carolina (7,460 megawatts) and Georgia (3,444 megawatts).

All of this is according to late-2021 figures from the Solar Energy Industries Association.

Among power providers in the Southeast with more than 500,000 customers, TVA ranks 10th of 13 on solar watts per customer, according to SACE’s annual “Solar in the Southeast” report. The Southeast average of watts per customer is 423 watts. TVA provides 105 solar watts per customer, according to the report. The highest is North Carolina’s Duke Energy with 1,952 solar watts per customer. The lowest is Tampa, Florida’s Seminole Electric Co-Op, providing only 45 solar watts per customer.

Among TVA’s biggest Tennessee customers, Memphis Light, Gas and Water (MLGW) ranks second for solar watts per customer. MLGW offers 66 solar watts per customer, only slightly behind Nashville Electric Service, offering 67 solar watts per customer. These figures fall below the Southeast average of 423 solar watts per customer and the TVA average of 90 watts per customer hour.

So, Tennessee ranks near the bottom on solar. TVA ranks near the bottom on solar.

And MLGW ranks below TVA’s average for access to solar power.

“TVA will be quadrupling solar capacity by 2024, yet continues to trail the other large utility systems in the Southeast,” reads the SACE report. “By 2024, SACE projects TVA to reach the 2020 region average.”

WINDS DON’T BLOW In 2010, Houston-based Clean Line Energy Partners answered a call from the U.S. Department of Energy for a new project to modernize the country’s electric transmission structure, increase domestic energy sources, support new jobs, and do it all without taxpayer money. Clean Line proposed a $2.5 billion, 700-mile-long transmission line from Oklahoma to end at a connector near Millington.

If the deal was done, 3,500 megawatts

PHOTO: SOUTHERN ALLIANCE FOR CLEAN ENERGY

The utilities companies that serve 74 percent of Southeast retail customers. of clean wind power from Oklahoma and Texas would have pumped through Memphis and into the TVA service area and beyond starting in 2020. But it wasn’t.

So, it’s not. And TVA was the deal-breaker.

The connector project alone was valued at $259 million. It had broad support here from government, civic, and business groups. It was even supported by the Memphis and Shelby County Economic Development Growth Engine (EDGE) with $23.3 million in tax breaks, which the group said would yield $37.1 million in benefits back to the community.

Then-Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Maryville) opposed the project, claiming the power was unreliable and that, over decades, it would increase TVA rates. ThenShelby County Commissioner Terry Roland (R-Millington) fired back at Alexander, a fellow Republican, claiming the project would be a financial boon for the area and that Alexander “put his own agenda ahead of what’s best for West Tennessee.”

For TVA, though, the clean-energy deal got down to economics. After nearly seven years of study — with the company spending money to move the project forward — TVA said it didn’t really need any extra power, no matter the source.

Bill Johnson, TVA president at the time, told the Chattanooga Times Free Press in 2017, “We’re looking at a power demand in the future that is flat, or declining slightly, so we don’t anticipate needing major additions to power generation for a decade or more.”

While TVA said the move did not make

financial sense at the time, it welcomed Clean Line to come back with a new proposal. They did not. The company withdrew its proposal at the end of 2017 and sold the land for the project to NextEra Energy, the world’s largest utility company, to divert more wind power to the Southwest.

Environmentalists blasted TVA’s “thanks, but no thanks” on the wind-energy project.

Others, like Alexander, celebrated it as a solid example of financial stewardship.

Either way, it remains TVA’s highest-profile example of saying “thanks, but no thanks” to renewables, especially ones it does not own.

“By 2024, SACE projects TVA to reach the 2020 region average.”

A RATE-MAKING RUBIK’S CUBE While the Clean Line dismissal was a highdollar, high-profile deal conducted largely in public, some say TVA is still blocking renewables, especially solar, in a smaller, more complicated way. But it’s a way that directly affects and involves its customers.

In 2018, TVA approved a “grid access fee.” With it, TVA charges MLGW the fee to use its electricity grid and 7,000 miles of transmission lines. If demand for TVA’s power will stay the same or go down in the future, as former TVA CEO Johnson said in 2017, then that means fewer dollars for TVA as expenses rise. Fixed fees, like the grid access charge, ensure a steadier stream of dollars, instead of the up-and-down whims of market demand.

The Sierra Club explained grid access fees this way: “TVA’s board of directors today approved a mandatory fixed fee that will force customers to pay more on their electric bill before they even flip a switch.”

MLGW spokeswoman Stacey Greenberg said the utility, TVA’s largest customer, paid $59.1 million in grid access fees in the 2021 fiscal year. When asked if those fees were passed on to MLGW customers, Greenberg said, “As stated in the response to the first question, the change was a revenue neutral change at the system level and MLGW did not change the fixed or variable portions of any retail rates.”

When asked to clarify if those fees were passed on to MLGW customers, Greenberg did not respond. Left to guess at how much MLGW customers paid for TVA’s grid access fees, the figure appears to be about $138 per customer every year. (That’s taking the $59.1 million and dividing it equally among MLGW’s 429,000 customers.)

So, what does this have to do with solar?

These fees will remain the same no matter how much solar you sell back to the grid.

Solar advocates say these fees undercut savings on electric bills and, therefore, cut the amount of clean, renewable solar power that businesses and homeowners will install on their buildings.

But in 2018, TVA said solar projects for specific sites were not fair and that its current energy prices “over-incentivize consumer installation of [distributed energy sources like solar] leading to uneconomic results for the people of the Valley as a whole.”

“Over the next decade, forecasted load is expected to be flat or declining, resulting in little need for new energy sources,” according to a 2018 TVA report. “At the same time, consumer interest in renewable energy continues to rise. The imbalance created by uneconomic [on-site solar projects] investment means that costs are shifted to consumers throughout the Valley who cannot afford [on-site solar projects] or otherwise choose not to invest in [on-site solar projects].”

But it came to light that dissing these solar projects was about more than economic justice for TVA. A Freedom of Information Act request by SACE found an internal TVA PowerPoint presentation. It claimed that distributed energy resources (like solar panels on homes or businesses) present “a threat to our business model.”

“Essentially all ‘normal’ large commercial customers would benefit economically from some amount of on-site solar installations,” reads the PowerPoint published by SACE. The presentation then listed several major corporations with renewable energy goals, companies like McDonald’s, continued on page 14

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

Energy (SACE).

“TVA is behind,” Shober said on solar energy. “TVA is behind the Southeast, and the Southeast is behind the rest of the country.”

However, TVA says it is now building the “energy system of the future,” which aspires to net-zero emissions by 2050 and to add 10,000 megawatts of solar.

13

continued from page 13 Walmart, Amazon, Cargill, FedEx, Google, Unilever, Hilton, and more. TVA identified its customers with renewable goals. If they met their goals on renewables, the utility projected losses of up to $500 million.

If they passed the grid access fees, “the number of economic [solar] installations decrease by [about] 40 percent.”

It wasn’t until January 2022 that all of it caught the attention of members of the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Four ranking Democrats on the committee issued a letter to TVA president and CEO Jeff Lyash that month.

They sought an explanation of TVA’s rate changes and whether they “were intended to interfere with the deployment of distributed energy resources.” The group also wanted “an explanation for TVA’s comparative underinvestment in solar and wind generation.”

“TVA has also interfered with the adoption of renewable energy by its commercial and residential customers,” reads the letter. “TVA has also permitted local power companies to impose new fees on distributed solar generation in order to lessen the potential decrease in TVA load that may occur through the adoption of [behind the meter] generation.”

A timeline for answers back to the committee was not known as of press time.

Still, TVA says it will achieve its clean-energy goals, especially the 10,000 megawatts of added solar, in a way that will not “put the financial burden on other consumers while maintaining our 100 percent reliable delivery of electricity to Memphis and Shelby County.”

“Reliable electricity is extremely important, not only for homes and businesses in our region but also for attracting jobs and industry,” TVA spokesman Scott Brooks said in a statement last week. “While other regions like Texas had blackouts and failing power grids in the last two February storms, TVA’s delivery of power to Memphis remained intact. And we’re doing all this while holding wholesale power rates steady for a third year in a row, with a commitment in our strategic plan to maintain rates for the next decade.”

POWER AND WATER Another way TVA could block renewables, according to an ongoing lawsuit, is through the length of TVA’s new contracts. These 20-year contracts replace previous sevenyear contracts, enough for plaintiffs in the suit to call them “never-ending.” The plaintiffs — Protect Our Aquifer (POA), Alabama Center for Sustainable Energy, and

Appalachian Voices — say these long-term contracts lock customers in and lock out other providers who may be less reliant on fossil fuels than TVA. “There are growing calls in the Tennessee Valley for cheaper, cleaner, and renewable power options — but the Tennessee Valley Authority is able to ignore these demands through the use of its longterm agreement program,” said Southern Environmental Law Center Tennessee Office director Amanda Garcia. “These contracts automatically renew each year and require 20-years notice to terminate, making it practically impossible for local power companies to leave TVA. By locking its customers into these never-ending contracts, TVA is able to bankroll new fossil fuel plants and slow-walk its transition to clean energy solutions — like solar and wind power, energy efficiency, and battery storage technology — that are effective, affordable, and available right now.”

As for the public’s interest, POA executive director Sarah Houston said TVA’s new natural-gas-power Allen Combined Cycle Plant is a threat to the sustainability of the Memphis area’s drinking water.

That plant used 653 million gallons of water in 2020, according to a report in The Commercial Appeal, to cool its turbines.

That water, though, does not come from

the Memphis Sand Aquifer, but from the Davis well field just south of the cycle plant.

However, Scott Banbury, conservation program coordinator and lobbyist with the Tennessee Sierra Club, said drawing water there could still bring toxic elements into the aquifer. In general, though, Houston said, “with renewables, you have a lot less local water use and water impact compared to frack-gas plants and coal plants.”

In August 2021, United States District Judge Thomas Parker dismissed TVA’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

BIG DECISION All of this comes in the backdrop of MLGW’s historic decision on whether or not to break with TVA and find another power provider. In its search, MLGW makes it clear it wants more solar power, too.

MLGW’s request for proposals says it’s looking for someone to install 1,000 megawatts of solar power, divided equally between two facilities in North Memphis and South Memphis.

As MLGW’s search goes on, the path to more renewable energy for Memphians is still unclear, but with a commitment to more solar power, the sun may still shine on a more renewable, less fossil-fuel-dependent future.

March 17-23, 2022

LET THE MEMORY LIVE AGAIN

MARCH 22-27

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steppin’ out (& stayin’ in)

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We Recommend: Culture, News + Reviews

By Abigail Morici

“I’ve always loved cemeteries,” Sheena Barnett says. “I’ve just always been that weirdo.” So, true to her character, Barnett began volunteering at Elmwood Cemetery a few years ago, but it wasn’t until May of 2020 that she began cleaning gravestones.

“I call this my sob story,” she says. “[In May 2020] my dad died of Covid, and a week later I was laid off. And it was these two back-to-back blows where I was just like, What do I with myself and my life?” So she went to Elmwood, where she was PHOTO:COURTESY ELMWOOD CEMETERY suggested to take up headstone cleaning. “I just fell in love with it. I was out there, Elmwood’s popular tour returns. not everyday but close to it, for about a month or so. And then I finally found a job again, and so now I clean about once a week. I’ve cleaned over 300 stones so far, and it’s really helped me with my grief. … It’s so peaceful.”

Research was another source of therapy in this endeavor, Barnett says. “Every time, I cleaned a stone I would research that person.”

And her interest in true crime compelled her toward the stories of those who were murdered or were murderers. One of Barnett’s favorite stories involves Prohibition, tamales, and a one-armed broom-peddler. Barnett offers the gist: “Someone took time out of beating this couple to death to eat tamales,” but for the full story, you’ll have to head over to Elmwood Cemetery for Barnett’s True Crimes of Bygone Times tour.

“It’s 100 percent my baby,” Barnett says of the walking tour, in which guests will learn about, among other stories, a woman accused of lacing cookies with arsenic and another married seven times and accused of offing at least three of her spouses. The stories range from the mid-19th century through the 1940s. “We wanted to focus on telling older stories, nothing new, nothing fresh.”

Barnett led her first tour back in June, and it sold out. The subsequent tours in the fall followed suit in popularity. As such, this spring, Elmwood is offering two walking tours, one on March 19th and the other on March 26th, as well as an indoor, seated presentation based on the tour on March 26th at 11 a.m. Register at elmwoodcemetery.org.

TRUE CRIMES OF BYGONE TIMES: A WALKING TOUR OF ELMWOOD CEMETERY, SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2-3:30 P.M., $22.

March 19th The soul shockers

March 24th Mighty Souls Brass band

Midsouth Sober Living Art Auction Memphis Botanic Garden, 750 Cherry, Friday, March 18, 6-9 p.m., $30 ($50 for two tickets) Live music, sparkling beverages, hors d’oeuvres, and cash bar. Benefiting Midsouth Sober Living, which provides individuals with the opportunity to learn to live outside of the structure of a rehabilitation program while maintaining their alcohol- and drugfree lifestyle.

Cherry Blossom Picnic Memphis Botanic Garden, 750 Cherry, Saturday, March 19, 10 a.m.4 p.m., free with garden admission Celebrate spring with a hanami or cherry blossom picnic. Enjoy lunch from an Asian-inspired food truck, take a guided tour through the Japanese Garden, and participate in traditional crafts and games during one of the most beautiful times at the garden.

Pygmalion 2.0 Playhouse on the Square, 66 S. Cooper, Friday-Saturday, March 1819, 7:30 p.m., $40-$60 A titillating double bill, exploring themes of desire, destiny, and robot lovers, that pairs Donizetti’s Il Pigmalione with the provocative rom-com, The Companion.

An Evening of Dark Poetry The Broom Closet, 546 S. Main, Saturday, March 19, 7-9 p.m.

Partake in a salon of vampire poetry and a decadent world of word and thought. Bring your own original work to share or read the work of another. Costumes are encouraged, and performance is applauded.

The Hot Foot Honeys Present HERStories Buckman Arts Center at St. Mary’s School, 60 N. Perkins Ext., Saturday, March 19, 8 p.m., $25 Join the Hot Foot Honeys, Memphis’ only professional tap dance company, live and in person at the Buckman Performing Arts Center for their ninth annual spring showcase, HERStories. Through music, dance, spoken word, and videos produced

by Eric Swartz (Event One Media), this performance explores feminine inspirations in the lives of each choreographer. From Maya Angelou and Judy Garland to mythological characters and mothers, the show is both an education and celebration of women from all walks of life who have persevered and prevailed.

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

VARIOUS DAYS & TIMES March 17th - 23rd

March 25th Third Coast

railgarten.com 2 1 6 6 C e n t r a l Av e .

Memphis TN 38104

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

A Grave Affair

15

MUSIC By Alex Greene

Bigger Sounds Bailey Bigger: “I’m settling into my own shoes” with Coyote Red.

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ailey Bigger is on solid footing now, and that’s a good thing. While some music fans hope their favorite artist will never get too comfortable, feeling that great art comes only from suffering, Bigger is here to show that the opposite is true.

Her new album on Madjack, Coyote Red, is an object lesson in being secure enough to open up in one’s art and, thus, reveal something truer than ever.

We last spoke with her upon the release of her 2020 EP, Let’s Call It Love (Big Legal Mess), and it was no accident that we characterized those songs as “confronting trauma.”

Even then, her strong alto, evoking a classic era of strong female singers like Joan Baez, was in full effect, as was her ability to turn a phrase and a melody. Now, with the imminent release of her first full-length album, those qualities are more apparent than ever, with the added bonus of “blood harmonies” — that almost inseparable harmony some singing siblings share — with her brother, Wyly Bigger, who also contributes piano. She recently touched base with the Flyer to fill us in on what’s changed.

Memphis Flyer: It feels like a lot has changed since your last release.

Bailey Bigger: That was released in December of 2020, and

I guess we all have gone through a transformation since then. I think Let’s Call It Love was more centered on that first breakthrough, of saying enough is enough with certain aspects of your life and deciding you want to change the way it’s going. With this record, I don’t think I’ve written anything that has felt more like me. I feel like I settled into myself in these last two years, more than I ever have, and that reflects in this album.

It’s a little more of an honest look into who I am, without all of these ordeals and setbacks fogging my mind and my heart. I’ve found myself again, but in a new form, where I can still bring back those parts of my innocence and my childhood. I’m settling into my own shoes and finding that inner joy again. I think everyone around me was feeling that simultaneously.

“Everyone” meaning the band and producer Mark Edgar Stuart?

Yeah. Mark and I have become really good friends, and I think him taking the reins really set the tone for it immediately. We had the same vision. And all the musicians he got to play on it, and Kevin Houston engineering, just set the energy for the record immediately and kind of made it this little paradise of friends. That sounds so cheesy, but it was just so fun and real and raw. I think the experience we had is captured in the music because it was really emotional, and everyone who was there experienced the same thing, which was pretty powerful.

What was Mark’s approach as a producer?

He was very hands-off. And I think we equally trusted each other. We both knew we had the same vision. So we trusted

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March 17-23, 2022

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Bailey Bigger each other’s calls. He wanted it to come off as personal, as these songs of mine are, so he stepped back in all the right places. But he helped me pick out the songs, and he actually supported a lot of songs that I was down on. That gave me confidence to create what this is. I don’t think I would have chosen half the songs on the album if it wasn’t for his encouragement. He brought that outsider’s perspective.

There’s a song called “Wyly,” which is about my brother, obviously. It was a song I wrote for him in 10 minutes one night, when I was really emotional. I was kind of down on it, because I thought, “It’s one of those songs that I just spit out, that’s not refined enough.” Mark was the one who said, “No, no, no, this is the gold right here. You can’t recreate something that’s that raw.” He said, “I think this record’s about you showing who you are, in a genuine, down-to-earth way.”

Bailey Bigger and band will play a free record release show on Friday, April 1st, at Hernando’s Hide-A-Way, 8 p.m.

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:

March 17 - 23

Exhibition of work by Rahn Marion that reimagines ancient stories and mythologies through the Black male figure.

Through March 19.

TONE

“Lonesome”

Exhibition of work by Adam Higgins. Friday, March 18-May 7.

TOPS GALLERY

“One Part of My Small Story”

Exhibition of paintings by Hamlett Dobbins, who reflects on moments of whole-body pleasure through his work.

Through April 23.

DAVID LUSK GALLERY

ART HAP P E N I N G S

Midsouth Sober Living Art Auction

Benefiting Midsouth Sober Living. Live music, sparkling beverages, hors d’oeuvres, and cash bar. $30/advance, $35/

MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN

B O O K EVE N TS

The Night Owls Comedy Competition

Apollo-style comedy competition. Hosted by Desofunny.

Sunday, March 20, 8 p.m.

THE COMEDY JUNT

901 Poetry Open Mic

Hosted by award-winning writer, author, spoken-word artist, and actor Steve Fox and fellow poet, writer, and renaissance man Francis, The Truman. $9.01. Monday, March 21, 7:30-10:30 p.m.

The Jack D. Farris Visiting Writers Series at Rhodes College presents Meghan O’Gieblyn

C O M M U N I TY

2022 Women’s History Month Series: Breaking the Ceiling with Soul!

A reading by O’Gieblyn with book-signing to follow. Wednesday, March 23, 5-8 p.m.

HI TONE

A Q&A session with Beverly Robertson, president and CEO of Greater Memphis Chamber, as she shares stories, insight, and advice. Free. Wednesday, March 23, 4:30-5:30 p.m.

RHODES COLLEGE

An Evening of Dark Poetry

C O M E DY

A salon of vampire poetry and a decadent world of word and thought. Bring your original work to share or read the work of another. Costumes are encouraged, and performance is applauded. Saturday, March 19, 7-9 p.m.

CJ Walton

STAX MUSIC ACADEMY

Friday, March 18, 8 p.m.; Saturday, March 19, 8 p.m.

Memphis Volunteer Orientation: American Foundation for Suicide Prevention

THE COMEDY JUNT

FAF Open Mic

Wednesday, March 23, 7:30 p.m.

The evening begins with a meetand-greet reception followed by a presentation on AFSP’s work and ways to get involved. Tuesday, March 22, 6 p.m.

CHUCKLES COMEDY HOUSE

THE BROOM CLOSET

Michael Colyar

Dixon Book Club

Friday, March 18, 7:30 p.m., 10 p.m.; Saturday, March 19, 7:30 pm., 10 p.m; Sunday, March 20, 8 p.m.

This month’s book is La Luministe by Paula Butterfield.

Thursday, March 17, 6-7 p.m.

THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS

BENJAMIN L. HOOKS CENTRAL LIBRARY

continued on page 18

CHUCKLES COMEDY HOUSE

THIS IS HOW WE LIVE.

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“Ecce Homo”

Theatre Memphis’ production of the musical La Cage aux Folles runs through March 27th.

at the door. Friday, March 18, 6-9 p.m.

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CALENDAR: MARCH 17 - 23 continued from page 17 World Down Syndrome Day Celebration Hosted

By Walkin’ in Memphis

Live music by Mudflap King, beer and cocktails, food trucks, outdoor games, photo booth, and more. Don’t forget to wear blue and yellow. The more people who come, the more money and awareness will be raised! Friday, March 18, 5:3010 p.m.

WISEACRE BREWERY

Through March 20.

LECTU R E

CELTIC CROSSING

“Memphis Water” with Sarah Houston

St. Patrick’s Day Meddlebration

Director of Protect Our Aquifer discusses issues involving local water resources. Wednesday, March 23, 6:30-7:30 p.m.

Time to don some green apparel and drink straight from the barrel! Thursday, March 17, 4 p.m.

WOLFRIVER.ORG

MEDDLESOME BREWING COMPANY

Suicide Prevention in West Tennessee

The 5th Annual Lucky’s St. Patrick’s Day Crawl Memphis

Join the Tennessee Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention for a community Lunch and Learn. Tuesday, March 22, 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m.

The luckiest bar crawl of the year! $15. Saturday, March 19, 4-11:45 p.m.

ATOMIC ROSE

CHURCH HEALTH

F I LM

Crosstown Arthouse presents Miracle in Milan A band of vagabonds work together to form a shantytown.

When it is discovered that the land they occupy contains oil, it’s up to orphan Totò to save their community from greedy developers. $5. Thursday, March 17, 7:30-9 p.m.

CROSSTOWN THEATER

Soul Cinema: Judas & The Black Messiah

FBI informant William O’Neal infiltrates the Illinois Black Panther Party and is tasked with keeping tabs on their charismatic leader Fred Hampton. Free.

Monday, March 21, 7-9 p.m.

STAX MUSEUM OF AMERICAN SOUL MUSIC

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

Fairytales on Ice

Beloved, classic stories come to life. Friday, March 18, 5-9:30 p.m., 8-9:30 p.m.

BUCKMAN ARTS CENTER AT ST. MARY’S SCHOOL

T H EAT E R

Memphis International Guitar Festival

Three days of classical guitar concerts, master classes, and a competition. $20-$75. Friday, March 18, 10 a.m.

UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS

THE HALLORAN CENTRE

S PO R TS

901 FC vs. Oakland Roots

Saturday, March 19, 6 p.m.

AUTOZONE PARK

S P EC I A L EV E N TS

Annual Daffodil Show

See the varieties of daffodils.

Saturday, March 19, 2 p.m.

Memphis Grizzlies vs.

Brooklyn Nets

Wednesday, March 23, 6:30 p.m.

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Aran & Im

Interactive celebration of language, land, and Irish food. $15$27. Sunday, March 20, 3 p.m.

TENNESSEE SHAKESPEARE COMPANY

CATS

An extraordinary tribe of cats gathers for its annual ball to rejoice and decide which cat will

This light-hearted musical centers on Georges and his lover Albin, star at their drag nightclub in St. Tropez. $35.

Through March 27.

THEATRE MEMPHIS

Tumbling Down

The play revisits the Jim Crow era and shows the stratagems that led to the statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest tumbling down. $30. Through April 3.

HATTILOO THEATRE

TO U R S

Tree Tour: The Many Magnolias & More of Elmwood

Visit the majestic magnolias of Elmwood Cemetery. $20. Saturday, March 19, noon-1:30 p.m.

ELMWOOD CEMETERY

Women’s History Tour

Hear stories from the likes of Annie Cook, Ida B. Wells, Marion Scudder Griffin, Mary Church Terrell, Madam Vincent, Florence McIntyre, Marion Keisker, Lillie Mae Glover, and an appearance from an icon! $30/adult; $15/child. Saturday, March 19, 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

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AUTOBAHN INDOOR SPEEDWAY & EVENTS

Henrik Ibsen’s classic revolutionized the concept of modern theater with his play about the Helmer family. Now, with Lucas Hnath’s Part Two, the complete story of the Helmers can be told. $27. Friday, March 18-April 10.

La Cage aux Folles

Presened By: Prime Benefit Solutions

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Beat the Autobahn Leprechaun racer’s time in a race and win a prize! Thursday, March 17, 9 a.m.

A Doll’s House & A Doll’s House: Part Two

ORPHEUM THEATRE

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A momentous, eight-day lineup of St. Patrick’s Day festivities.

THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS

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ST. PAT R I C K ’ S DAY E V E N TS

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Vitaly breaks the realm of the impossible with magic. $37.50.

Saturday, March 19, 5 p.m., 7:30 p.m.

Hamlett Dobbins’ “One Part of My Small Story” is on view at David Lusk Gallery.

be reborn. $29-$125. Tuesday, March 22-March 27.

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Josh McLane is a master of sandwiches at South Point Grocery.

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f John Montagu was the Earl of Sandwich in the 1700s, Josh McLane could be the Sammie King in 2022.

McLane created all except one of the sandwiches at South Point Kitchen in the new South Point Grocery. These include The HEELS, named after the rock band featuring McLane and Brennan Whalen.

The sandwiches are selling like hotcakes.

Since the store opened March 10th, they’ve been “slammed,” McLane says. “It’s turning out very well right out of the gate.”

PHOTO: COURTESY JOSH MCLANE

Josh McLane McLane, who describes himself as “the menu-maker and prep guy,” says the current menu features nine sandwiches, as well as garlic bread. “I kept it small and moderately simple, so I knew we could put out a good-quality product every time. … I don’t swing too hard for the fences and set myself up to fail.”

McLane, who opened the Hi Tone kitchen, credits that venue and its owner Brian “Skinny” McCabe “for pulling any of this off.”

Patrick Kickham works with McLane at South Point Kitchen. “I got Patrick from the Hi Tone. That’s how I knew he was good.

It’s as close to us going to the same college as I could get.”

In addition to The HEELS, made with spicy peanut butter, jalapeño strawberry jam, bacon, and provolone cheese, the menu includes Me Spinach, which features fresh spinach with garlic butter, provolone, French onions, and tomatoes. “It’s done on a griddle like a grilled cheese sandwich.

We’ve been selling those like they’re going out of style.”

The Grinder, McLane’s go-to sandwich, includes salami, banana peppers, pesto, and coppa, which is “like salt-cured ham with a little bit of a bite to it.”

The Club is the sandwich McLane didn’t create. “I totally ripped off Subway,” he says. “They stopped making The Club, so I was like, ‘Well, that was one of my favorite sandwiches, so I’m going to make it.’ Turkey, roast beef, bacon, tomato, and Swiss. I covered it. It’s just a damn cover song.”

Everything except The Grinder and The Club were staples at the Hi Tone.

Asked how he created his sandwiches, McLane says, “I made lunch for me.”

His wife, Cara, a vegetarian, taste-tested his vegetarian sandwiches, and friends tried out the others. “I would make them for wrestling pay-per-views for my buddies.”

The sandwich shop will be doing specials in the future. “The best part about having a talented crew is letting them come up with specials,” McLane says. “If you have people full of creativity, you’d be stupid to not let them show that.

My crew is awesome, and they’re all very talented.”

McLane began creating sandwiches as a child. “I made one. I thought I created it, but I was kind of ripping off other people. I did a Thanksgiving leftovers sandwich with dressing and turkey and cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes.”

Describing his sandwich-making process, McLane says, “I open the fridge and see what I have. My sandwich creating is very much like if you’re buzzed at 11 p.m. after you’ve been out and you’re hungry.”

But, “That’s not exactly how I do it.”

As for future items, McLane says. “I want to do a breakfast sandwich and call it Green Eggs and Ham.” That will feature pesto, two fried eggs, and country ham.

“And it’s gangbusters, dude.”

A “lot of different specials” are in the works, but, McLane says, “I like paying attention to the present instead of worrying about the future.”

A stand-up comedian, McLane recorded an upcoming comedy album, Even If It’s Nothing. And he and Whalen recorded a new HEELS album, Pop Songs for a Dying Planet, which will be released later this year.

Whalen hasn’t yet visited South Point sandwich shop, McLane says. “Brennan is a good friend and is waiting until we’ve been open a week or two. Until we have our sea legs. He’s being nice.”

South Point Grocery is at 136 Webster Avenue; (901) 672-8225.

Fairytales on Ice

MARCH 24 4:00 AND 7:00 P.M. Join Buckman Arts Center for a remarkable evening guaranteed to thrill, chill, and entertain! Sit on the edge of your seat as professional, champion ice skaters, Broadway singers, and cirque performers bring to life the beloved, classic story of the Little Mermaid and a rousing new take on Pirate Adventures. Audiences will be awed as the Buckman stage converts into an ice rink before their eyes for two shows only!

TICKETS

BuckmanArtsCenter.com (901) 537-1483 60 Perkins Ext., Memphis, TN 38117

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FILM By Chris McCoy

Panda Panic Attack!

Turning Red takes on preteen angst with a Pixar edge.

March 17-23, 2022

B

efore he expertly defined pandemic-era ennui with Inside, Bo Burnham made his directorial debut with the 2018 comedy Eighth Grade. Elsie Fisher stars as Kayla, a 13-year-old girl who is desperate to be liked and repeatedly crushed when no one notices her. The beauty and charm of Eighth Grade is in Kayla’s relentless optimism. She spends her time producing a YouTube advice show, even though she has no idea what she’s doing in her own life. In the end, she still doesn’t feel like she fits in, but she just doesn’t care so much about fitting in anymore. She closes the film with a message to her future self to keep going no matter how hard things get.

Kayla, the middle schooler with her anxieties fully on display, who is both fascinated and scarred by social media, is one of the most completely drawn characters in recent film history. There’s more than a little bit of her DNA in Mei Lee (voiced by Rosalie Chiang), the eighth-grader heroine of Turning Red. She has Kayla’s false facade of self-assuredness covering a core of anxiety. But instead of being a Midwesterner with a struggling single dad, Mei is a second-generation Asian from Toronto with a domineering mother named Ming (Sandra Oh) and an easygoing dad named Jin (Orion Lee). Mei funnels all of her anxious energy into being the perfect daughter for a mother whose aspirations for her include secretary-general of the United Nations. So, no pressure.

Unlike the unpopular Kayla, Mei has friends.

Miriam (Ava Morse), Abby (Hyein Park), and Priya (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) think Mei is brainwashed by her mother. Together, the girl gang are obsessive fans of the boy band 4*Town. (“Why are they called 4*Town if there are five of them?” asks Mei’s mom, to no good answer.) Closer to home, they’re currently crushing on a hunky 17-year-old behind the counter at the local convenience store. Mei thinks the boy obsessions are silly, until she finds herself absently drawing pictures of the bodega clerk as a sexy

merman. To her horror, Mei’s mother outs her innocent crush to the pimpled teenage boy, who is understandably disdainful of her nascent merman fetish.

When Mei erupts in rage for what may be the first time in her fiercely controlled life, she finds herself transformed. Not in the spiritual or mental sense, but physically transformed into a huge, fluffy red panda.

Her attempts to keep her panda-osity a secret quickly fail, and her mother informs her that it’s something of a family curse. Their ancestor Sun Yee was granted the ability to transform into a cuddly but very large red panda to defend her home from invaders, and all of the women since then have had the same ability. But since Bruce Banner can tell you it’s inconvenient to turn into a giant monster every time you get upset, the family has developed a magic ritual to imprison the panda spirit in a talisman. “There’s a darkness to the panda,” Ming says, and it’s better to bottle it up than allow it to roam free.

But is that really the right thing to do, wonders Mei? Her doubts only grow when her grandmother

Pixar’s Turning Red explores more than the hormonal changes a preteen endures in a typical coming-of-age film.

Wu (Wai Ching Ho) arrives to supervise the ritual with her girl gang of Asian aunties in tow. Should she embrace the panda within or submit to soul-crushing but safe normality?

Director Domee Shi is the first woman to helm a Pixar feature. Like her short film “Bao,” which won

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FILM By Chris McCoy the Oscar for Best Animated Short in 2018, Turning Red is a family story told from the perspective of a child in an Asian immigrant family. Although she’s only 34, Shi has storyboarded eight Pixar features, including the seminal Inside Out. As you would expect from a product of the Pixar machine, Turning Red is fleetly paced and visually inventive. Mei’s turbulent tween emotions bend reality around her before subsiding just as quickly as they came, and there’s a great reference to the mirror scene in John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness, only

with cute animals instead of demons.

The lycanthrope as stand-in for puberty trope works just as well here as it did when it happened to Michael J. Fox in Teen Wolf. It sets up some truly bizarre moments, such as when intergenerational panda trauma manifests itself as a furry-pocalyptic kaiju attack on the SkyDome.

As a Pixar fanatic, Turning Red is a welcome return to form after the unfocused Onward, but only time and rewatches will tell if it belongs in the storied animation studio’s upper echelon.

Turning Red is streaming on Disney+.

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PUBLIC AUCTION The following unclaimed and/or abandoned vehicles will be sold at public auction on March 21, 2022, from 8 am -10 am at Bobo’s Towing Services 771 Neptune St Memphis, Tn 38104.

2008 Nissan Sentra 3N1AB61E28L637677(Traylor); 2012 Kia Optima (Anderson) 5XXGN4A71CG043963; 2000 Ford Mustang 1FAFP45X4YF264453(Wardley); 2016 Nissan Altima 1N4AL3AP7GN351175(Sweezer); 1998 Toyota Camry 4T1BG22K4WU342.

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Easter is the Bane of Rabbit Rescue

THE LAST WORD

On a lovely spring evening in 2015, I arrived home from work and parked on the busy West Los Angeles street outside the house I shared with my fiancée. As I exited the car, a highly unusual sight caught my eye: a small rabbit hopping alongside the curb. Mostly white with brown markings and spiky tufts of hair around its face, this rabbit couldn’t be wild. Someone lost their pet bunny! I quickly called my fiancée, who came outside with a cardboard box. To our immense surprise, we easily scooped up the tiny wanderer.

I set out to find the owner of this missing bunny. I checked with neighbors. I scoured social media sites for lost rabbit posts. Nothing. Where did she come from? At the time, I didn’t make the connection that Easter had occurred three weeks earlier.

By the next day, I was completely smitten and convinced this adorable creature was meant to be with us. We named her Charlotte, a newsworthy name at the time because of the birth of the granddaughter of Princess Diana.

So began my obsession with rabbits. I volunteered with a rabbit rescue and learned that Charlotte, like so many bunnies at the rescue, was very likely an impulse Easter purchase. When the novelty of a live Easter bunny wore off, her owners released her into the traffic-ridden streets of Los Angeles.

In the summer of 2016 my wife and I moved to Memphis, and I wanted to get involved again with a rabbit rescue. To my great disappointment, the closest one was in Nashville. Finally in early 2021 my vet told me about New Beginnings Animal Rescue, a nonprofit, foster-based rescue for cats and dogs in the Mid-South, around since 2011, that recently expanded its PHOTO: B. WELLS rescue efforts to include rabbits.

Charlotte the bunny Volunteering with NBAR has been incredibly rewarding as we seek to fulfill the need for rabbit rescue in Memphis and the Mid-South. Our goal is to find homes for rescued bunnies while educating the community about caring for them. We love rabbits and want you to love them too, but it’s important to understand the commitment and care they require.

Easter is coming up. Each year thousands of rabbits are purchased as Easter gifts for children and then quickly neglected, set “free,” or worse. Why? Rabbits are greatly misunderstood as pets, and many breeders sell bunnies without informing buyers about the needs of a house rabbit. These unique creatures have individual personalities and generally live 8 to 12 years. The oldest rabbit I’ve known was just shy of 18 when he passed. That bunny was almost legal!

Other details about pet rabbits and their care may surprise you as well. The cages marketed for rabbits are entirely too small and inhumane for an adult bunny. Some rabbits grow to the size of a cat or small dog. Could you imagine putting your cat or dog in a small cage for its whole life? Of course not. Like their feline and canine friends, rabbits need space to run and play.

Drinking water from a bowl, not a bottle, is natural for rabbits. You’ve not really lived until you’ve heard the delicate slurps of a bunny drinking from a bowl. In terms of diet, rabbits are like tiny horses. Their primary source of food should be hay (not carrots!), and they enjoy pooping while grazing.

Speaking of poop, rabbits are easily trained to use a litter box unless they’re not spayed or neutered. “Fixing” your rabbit also helps prevent unwanted behaviors such as mounting, urine spraying and other territorial marking (pooping everywhere), and aggression. Females can produce a litter every 28 days, so spaying and neutering is paramount in preventing unwanted litters.

Bunnies that aren’t littermates must go through a bonding process before living together. Nonbonded rabbits will fight and could seriously hurt each other. Bunnies can also injure you if not picked up properly and handled with care. As prey animals, their first instinct when lifted is to kick with their powerful back legs to free themselves.

For rabbit rescues, the weeks after Easter are stressful and heartbreaking. Many stray bunnies are badly injured, require expensive vet care, or don’t even survive their injuries. As the only rabbit rescue in the Mid-South, we’re sometimes forced to turn away requests for help due to lack of funds, fosters, or resources.

This April if you want an “Easter bunny,” a furry toy or chocolate rabbit is an excellent choice. If you’re serious about a pet rabbit, contact us about adopting. Or consider fostering to experience life with a rabbit without the long commitment. We’re here for the rabbit community and want to provide education, guidance, and hoppy endings for everyone!

Although she’s a transplant, B. Wells is a proud Memphian who’s here to stay. When she’s not rescuing rabbits, you’ll find her roller-skating on the Greenline, hanging out in the upstairs back room at E&H, or swing-dancing at Hernando’s Hide-A-Way.

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

As spring and springtime holidays draw near, remember that a rabbit is more than just a cute gift — it’s a long commitment.

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