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TAKE ME TO THE
Time
Drawn and Cornered
On the calamity of Tennessee’s new, blood-red electoral map. p7
PHOTO: CHAD STEMBRIDGE | UNSPLASH
PHOTO: COURTESY SHAYLEE QUICK A NEW IMMERSIVE ART PROJECT AIMS TO REVIVE MUD ISLAND.
Lanterns Light Memphis Night
An evening of glowing lanterns, live music, and shared re ection returns to Shelby Farms Park. p15
“TAKE ME TO THE RIVER OF TIME” BY CHRIS M c COY - 10 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT WE RECOMMEND - 15
- 16
DARK - 17
- 18
TIMES CROSSWORD - 19 WE SAW YOU - 20
PHOTO: JOANNA MICHELLE HARRIS
THE fly-by
MEM ernet
Memphis on the internet.
MAKES SENSE?
Nashville State Sen. Je Yarbro (D-Nashville) hit some cold, hard facts about the state GOP’s new voting map on X last week.
“So, Graceland in Memphis and the Cool Springs Best Buy in Williamson County are in the 9th congressional district bordering Mississippi and Alabama.
“But the Graceland Museum and the Cool Springs Mall are in the 5th congressional district bordering Arkansas, Missouri, & Kentucky.”
He also said:
“Curious when all the Republicans in West Tennessee are going to gure out they gerrymandered themselves too. Diluted their own primary vote. E ectively ve GOP congressional primaries will be decided in the Nashville suburbs. Biggest loss of rural power in the state’s history.”
TAYLOR
State Sen. Brent Taylor (RMemphis) announced he’d run for one of the new congressional seats (he didn’t say which one) on the same day the GOP created them.
{WEEK THAT WAS
By Flyer staff
Questions, Answers + Attitude
Edited by Toby Sells
Claude, xAI, & OUTMemphis
Anthropic picks Colossus, NAACP sues to stop Grok, and a Midtown shooting.
CLAUDE
Memphis will now be the home of Claude, the arti cial intelligence from San Francisco-based Anthropic, Memphis Mayor Paul Young announced last week.
e company will take over all of the servers at Elon Musk’s xAI Colossus 1 facility in South Memphis. Anthropic plans to use the additional computer to directly improve capacity for Claude Pro and Claude Max subscribers.
“ e company describes itself as a Public Bene t Corporation with a single purpose: the responsible development of advanced AI for the long-term bene t of humanity, with accountability to the public good embedded in its corporate DNA,” Memphis Mayor Paul Young said in a statement posted to X late last Wednesday.
e NAACP asked a judge to stop xAI operations in Southaven a er warning the company about its violations for months.
le two people injured.
“I will ght every single day to ensure harmful, so -on-crime policies never take root in Tennessee just like I systematically dismantled those policies in Memphis,” he said in a Facebook post.
FLAG is new state ag was proposed by u/amprather in the Memphis subreddit.
“What excites me is a conversation I had with Anthropic’s team, where they expressed genuine interest in becoming a great neighbor in Memphis, not just a tenant,” Young said.
NAACP SUES X AI
e National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) asked a court to force a halt at xAI’s plant in Southaven last week, citing permitting and Clean Air Act violations.
e group says turbines used to power the facility are potential contributors to Memphis and Southaven’s smog pollution. e turbines could also contribute to a rise in cancer, asthma, and hospitalizations due to emissions of particulate matter, carbon monoxide, and formaldehyde.
e NAACP wanted to stop “illegal and dangerous pollution in order to protect nearby communities that are facing imminent health harms.”
“We’ve warned xAI for months that its operation of unpermitted gas turbines violates federal law,” said Ben Grillot, a senior attorney at SELC. “But instead of xing these issues, xAI installed six more massive turbines to its personal power plant, increasing the amount of illegal pollution that it can pump into nearby communities.”
OUTMEMPHIS SHOOTING
OUTMemphis temporarily closed last week a er a shooting
“Our doors, when they open again, will remain open to the youth searching for belonging, the elders who built this movement, and every person in between who needs somewhere to land,” OUTMemphis CEO Molly Quinn said.
Memphis police made an arrest in the case last Wednesday, a er asking the public for help in identifying a suspect. Aljon Tyler was arrested and charged with three counts of attempted second-degree murder and possession of a weapon during the commission of a dangerous felony.
BUS CHANGES
e Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) announced last week it will add buses to its busiest routes, extend the service time on routes with growing ridership, and shorten operations on routes with low late-night ridership. e changes a ect less than 1.5 percent of riders on weekdays and are set to go into e ect May 17th.
Bus rider advocates Citizens for Better Service said, though, that these changes may be “service cuts in disguise” and called for a vote from a MATA board that now does not have enough members for a quorum.
A letter from advocates to Memphis City Council member Edmund Ford asked the council to intervene.
“If you look at the proposed service adjustments, bus riders are going to hurt more than they are hurting now,” the letter said.
Visit the News Blog at memphis yer.com for fuller versions of these stories and more local news.
PHOTO: CHRISTOPHER CHAMPLAIN
{ STATE WATCH
By Toby Sells and Kailynn Johnson
‘Attack on Democracy’
Voters don’t have to be noti ed of GOP’s new congressional map, which brought protests and lawsuits.
The quick and precise killing of a predominately Black congressional district last week brought lawsuits, public protests, a high-pro le arrest, and a question: Will a ected voters be told about their new districts and polling places?
Lawsuits
While Republicans were still shaking hands on the decision that a ernoon, the NAACP Tennessee State Conference had led a lawsuit to stop it in a Davidson County Chancery Court. At its heart was the argument that state law says you can’t change the voting maps mid-decade, an idea so simple, they said, that “this case is staggeringly easy for this court to decide.”
“It is a direct attack on our democracy and our Constitution to dismantle majority-Black districts,” said Kristen Clarke, NAACP General Counsel. “A democracy without Black representation is not a democracy.”
gallery at the request of House Speaker Cameron Sexton. KeShaun Pearson was released later that day.
A TikTok video posted by KultureVated showed a number of protesters taunting lawmakers as they exited the Tennessee State Capitol, calling them “Jimmy Neutron looking-ass boy” and “long-neck-ass boy.”
Noti ed?
A new law passed last week says county election commissions will no longer be mandated to notify a ected voters of district changes nor changes to their polling places. However, the GOP did allot funds to commissions to notify voters. So, election commissions no longer have to notify voters of changes, but they have the money if they want to.
e ink was barely dry on the Tennessee GOP’s new congressional districts — which dilute Democratic voting blocs in Shelby County — when state Democrats sued to stop them.
On Friday morning, the Tennessee Democratic Party, along with other plainti s, led a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee challenging the legality of them.
“We are taking this ght everywhere it must be fought, at the polls, in the courts, and in the streets,” Tennessee Democratic Party Chair Rachel Campbell said in a statement Friday. “We are outraged that Governor Bill Lee and Tennessee Republicans are attempting to roll back generations of civil rights progress in just three days through a redistricting scheme designed to unlawfully silence Black voters.
“ is is not only racist, it’s reckless. Changing the rules midstream will create chaos for voters and throw communities into upheaval.”
Protests
Protesters from around the state gathered in Nashville throughout the week for acts of civil disobedience.
A live video from state Rep. Justin J. Pearson (D-Memphis) showed protesters, including his brother KeShaun Pearson, being detained and arrested by state troopers for not clearing the
“A democracy without Black representation is not a democracy.”
e changes were reported by Deborah Fisher, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government (TCOG). She shared a post with an interesting note.
“Tennessee Elections Coordinator Mark Goins contacted me to say that it was not his intention of [the law], which he helped write, to eliminate statutory requirements to provide voter notice of changes to precinct boundaries,” Fisher said in a blog post. “[Goins] said that the language in [the law] replacing all notice requirements in Title 2 with publishing information on websites may have been ‘too broad.’”
POSTED TO TIKTOK BY KULTUREVATED Protesters confront lawmakers outside the Tennessee State Capitol.
Drawn and Cornered
On the calamity of Tennessee’s new, blood-red electoral map.
S
ome teens can’t wait to drive — or drink, or smoke, or have sex, or move out. I couldn’t wait to vote. In 2000, I was so annoyed not to be a voter that I made it my mission to convince as many eligible voters as I could nd to cast their ballots. Teenage Anna attempted to engage teachers, custodial sta , cashiers, whoever would listen, really, in discussions about the urgency of elections and the privilege of voting. At least a few folks claimed that I’d swayed them to go to the polls; we’ll never know if they were humoring me, or serious.
We tend to think that whatever era we currently occupy is unusually fraught. Without historical perspective, without the aerial-view context of time’s passage, the present day tends to feel like the loudest, brightest, sharpest, and scariest. In 2002, when I cast my rst ballot in a local election, fear and cynicism smoldered: Bush vs. Gore was recent news, September 11th still a fresh hell. Even though I knew my vote was merely a small stitch in a giant cloth, I felt empowered and energized, more than ready to add my voice to the adult conversation.
Last Tuesday, on May 5th, my stepson cast his very rst ballot. He’s 18, politically aware, more than ready to add his voice to the conversation. But he’s joining the electorate at a vastly di erent time than I was, 24 years ago. Cynicism was rampant then, too, but I had never entertained the notion that my vote mattered any less than anyone else’s vote. I never imagined, back then, that Memphis would undergo the radical disenfranchisement we’ve confronted in May of 2026.
e future was supposed to be better than the past — wasn’t it? In school, we studied the history of women’s su rage, without quite grasping the travesty that the su rage movement of the nineteenteens was strictly about white women’s su rage. We learned about the civil rights movement of the 1960s, but no one ever mentioned what redlining had done to cities and citizens. We studied history as if time marched toward ever better, ever more just and equitable futures. Now, I’m not so sure.
On April 29th, the U.S. Supreme Court found, in Louisiana v. Callais, that a congressional map drawn in 2023, following Robinson v. Ardoin, violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by purposefully creating a majority-minority district. e ruling immediately diminished the force of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, holding that the Act only protects against
Tennessee legislators have orchestrated a funeral for fair representation.
overt current racial discrimination and not against political manipulation, and opened the door to redistricting nationwide.
By May 7th, Tennessee legislators, emboldened by the Court’s decision, had redrawn this state’s congressional map.
Instead of a congressional seat centered in Memphis — where much of the population votes Democratic — Memphis will be part of three districts, all of which likely will be bright-red Republican. It’s no coincidence that Memphis votes for Democrats and that Memphis is majority-Black.
O cially, if unconvincingly, the change is strictly a political gerrymander, and has nothing whatsoever to do with race. It’s the worst kind of lie: a lie whose falsehood is glaringly obvious yet near-impossible to prove.
e new map, swi ly signed into law by Governor Bill Lee, trisects Tennessee’s Ninth Congressional District into three long, weird slashes, stretching all the way from Downtown Memphis to Williamson County, just outside Nashville; and to the far northern edge of the state in Stewart and Montgomery Counties; and to the cattle and whiskey of Bedford County. Shelby County will exist within three different Congressional districts.
State Senator Brent Taylor, a funeral home director and one of the strongest advocates for the bizarre new map, now says he plans to run for the U.S. House in the very District 9 he helped gerrymander into existence. He has created what is
e ectively the Brent Taylor District — and orchestrated a funeral for fair representation in the process.
Whoever is elected to represent my neighborhood in Midtown Memphis will also represent Centerville, Tennessee, and Hickman County (named for a man killed in an Indian attack at what’s now Defeated Creek, in 1791). at representative will not answer to my colleagues who live in East Memphis; instead, those folks will be sewn together with constituents in … Decaturville. Make sense? I didn’t think so. e Ninth District has been the site of a generational battle between incumbent Steve Cohen and challenger Justin J. Pearson. Now, under the new map, neither Cohen nor Pearson lives in that district, and hyper-conservative State Sen. Brent Taylor — a vocal advocate of the redistricting — says he’ll seek the o ce. Cohen has indicated he wants to represent Memphis and that, if the new map stands, he won’t run.
Pearson and Cohen have both joined a lawsuit arguing the state has violated voters’ and candidates’ constitutional rights, and the two have joined together in rallying against the seismic shi . “ is will not be good for your state,” Cohen told Republican lawmakers. “ is is what happens when you allow tyranny to govern,” said Pearson.
One small glimmer would be the two men standing shoulder-to-shoulder a er months of rancor. Cohen and Pearson have both joined a lawsuit against the new
map, along with other Tennessee lawmakers and the state’s Democratic Party, arguing that the map violates the Purcell principle against procedural changes that a ect elections midstream. e NAACP also is suing the state using similar procedural arguments.
The term gerrymander famously comes from an early 19th-century governor of Massachusetts, Elbirdge Gerry, and … a salamander (Gerry + -mander). When Gerry created a particularly odd congressional district for political gain, the new district’s shape was observed to resemble the moist amphibian. Both major parties in this country have engaged in gerrymandering over the past two centuries, and both parties are advancing e orts now to build political power via creative redistricting.
Removing representation from a metropolis the size and character of Memphis, though, is particularly violent. Memphis, where the Civil Rights Movement reached a fever pitch. Memphis, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. fought for justice and in return was murdered. Memphis, long a bright blue dot in a great red sea.
“I AM A Man,” read the marchers’ signs in 1968, when Dr. King led Memphis sanitation workers in their battle for fair treatment under a segregated labor system. It needed saying then. It needs saying
continued from on 8
PHOTO: CHAD STEMBRIDGE | UNSPLASH Tennessee State Capitol
LEGACY REIMAGINED HISTORY ACTIVATED
civilrightsmuseum.org
p ower p ay
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continued from page 7
now, too. Memphis remains a majorityminority city, one too o en counted out, sold short, and otherwise disrespected. I happened to be out of town when the news broke of the redistricting. As soon as anyone heard my husband or I say the name “Memphis,” they started talking about what had happened with real animation. Back in Memphis, a few days later, and there’s much less energy to spare. is city can be admirably, ercely obstinate, but sometimes I sense a heaviness in the air. It is so much harder to stand up and ght back if you are starting already depleted. People here are tired. So tired.
deed took under ve minutes.
Relative to other primaries in recent years, voter turnout was high. Voter turnout was 16 percent. 89,848 of this county’s 577,527 voters cast ballots, and this exceeded expectations.
We weren’t electing a President that day, or a U.S. Senator, or a House rep.
We weren’t voting on Tennessee Republicans’ redistricting plan — because that was never on any ballot. Folks like you and me didn’t get a say. If this stands, even fewer folks will get a say, in any way that matters.
If the new map stands, and we effectively lose all national representation, it will be an American tragedy. And it will be yet another Memphis tragedy. is city has fought so hard simply to exist. We lost our charter in 1879, a er yellow fever incited population loss and economic peril. We lost our hope in 1968, a er Dr. King was assassinated. Yet Memphis has remained, bruised and battered though we are. We have built a culture of boisterous tenacity despite it all. I don’t know how we will persevere through this latest tragedy, but I believe in Memphis against all odds.
If the new map stands, and we lose all national representation, it will be an American tragedy.
Memphis can be a place of miracles. Curses, too. We can weather this travesty, somehow, though we shouldn’t have to. We’ll need strong leaders to see us through. I hope those currently in o ce, and those seeking o ce, are up to the task. Time is not on our side.
On May 5th, a glum and rainy day, I voted in the Shelby County primary. Having missed the window for early voting, I drove to my assigned polling place on Election Day. On my way inside, I chatted with two candidates for o ce. ere was no line. No wait. I presented my ID, agreed to use a voting machine, and made my selections. I’d done my research, so the entire
State Representative Antonio Parkinson, responding to the news, said, “Perhaps the legislature should explain why Memphis should continue to be part of the state of Tennessee.” Parkinson, a Democrat, went on: “You’re constantly beating on us. Allow us out.”
PHOTO: CHAD ROBERTSON | DREAMSTIME.COM I AM A MAN Plaza
The National Civil Rights Museum’s Legacy Experience reopens May 16 with deeper investigations into King’s assassination, the Poor People’s Campaign, and the movements still shaping justice today.
From the Lorraine to the Legacy, through four centuries, hope and resilience are constant.
TAKE ME TO THERiver of Time
A NEW IMMERSIVE ART PROJECT AIMS TO REVIVE MUD ISLAND.
COVER STORY
By Chris McCoy
Marvin Stockwell unlocks the front door to the former Mississippi River Museum on Mud Island and lets out a shout. e up escalator is working.
e escalators were rst installed when the Mud Island River Park was built in 1982, but they haven’t worked in years. Stockwell asks the worker installing huge vinyl decals on the window that say “BVO” who xed it. “I don’t know. It just came on,” he says.
“BVO” stands for “Baron Von Opperbean.” It’s a massive new immersive art project that is taking over the river history museum on Mud Island, which has been abandoned since 2019. It’s the brainchild of Christopher Reyes, the renowned artist who was behind the groundbreaking digital arts organization Live From Memphis in the 2000s and 2010s. For the last decade, Reyes has been pursuing a dream of creating a sprawling interactive installation that combines sculpture, video, sound, and play. I’m here three days before the launch on Friday, May 1st. Artists, technicians, and workers swarm the halls and exhibit rooms of the 36,000-square-foot facility, putting the nishing touches on the rst phase of the project. Everyone
is in a hurry. Clipped conversations between people looking for cables, warning you away from wet paint, and troubleshooting recalcitrant equipment all end the same: “72 hours. 72 hours. 72 hours.”
We catch up with Reyes and BVO CEO Jee Vahn Knight in what will become the gi shop 72 hours from now. Stockwell tells them about the escalator. “I went to meet him in the parking lot,
and when we came back, it was on,” he says. e need to x the broken escalators had come up between Vahn Knight and Reyes this morning, but now that one of them is working, no one knows who xed it. “We just sent that out into the universe,” says Reyes. “Sometimes, I get better results that way.”
FISH
It began with Fish
During the early 2010s, when Reyes started experimenting with projection mapping, Disney Imagineers had long been using specialized projectors to do things like make statues talk and ghosts appear in the Haunted Mansion, but the development of digital projectors and rapid advances in video so ware in the early 21st century had made wrapping physical objects with moving images accessible to artists without Disney-level budgets.
Ten years ago, in the spring and summer of 2016, Reyes, his then-partner Sara Fleming, and friend Laura Jean Hocking collaborated on the rst large-scale art exhibition to use projection mapping in Memphis. e project had begun as a documentary lm about the Memphis Zoo Aquarium, but Reyes suggested something more immersive. “I said, ‘Why do a lm that you get to show one night, when instead you could do an installation, and it’ll be there a month or two, and lots of people could get to see it?’ I think that resonated with them.”
PHOTOS: COURTESY BVO (top) River Room; (center) Rueben Brunson, Kathryn Hicks, Marvin Stockwell, Christopher Reyes, and Jee Vahn Knight; (above) Former Mississippi River Museum
“IF YOU JUST JUMP THROUGH A PORTAL IN THE MULTIVERSE, YOU THINK THERE’S GOING TO BE INSTRUCTIONS?”
Fish was the rst blockbuster exhibition mounted by Crosstown Arts. Reyes, Fleming, and Hocking transformed the gallery into a submarine. Portals painted on the walls revealed aquatic creatures swimming serenely, while an ambient music soundtrack soothed visitors.
e reaction to Fish was intense. People came back multiple times just to hang out in the darkened gallery. Yogis brought in their classes to stretch among the swirling imagery. In his review, Commercial Appeal art critic Fredric Koeppel wrote, “Fish is the most magical thing I have seen in Memphis probably ever. And the coolest, too.”
Reyes knew he was onto something. “I thought, ‘ is is what I want to do with the rest of my life.’ Fish showed me the amount of joy that you can bring people with very little, but you have to do it in a creative way. e immersive experience was the kind of thing where you could unlock people’s sense of joy.”
Reyes’ ambition told him to think bigger. Immersive environments could be beautiful, but in a world where so much is competing for people’s attention, it’s not enough. “It needed a story,” Reyes says. “ at’s where the idea of Baron Von Opperbean was born.”
THE BARON DEBUTS
Reyes spent the next few years building new worlds on paper. It was all centered around the character of Baron Von Opperbean, an eccentric tinkerer who developed technology to travel the multiverse. In Reyes’ concept, the Baron has gone missing, presumably lost somewhere in the multiverse, and visitors to the installation would go from room
to room, experiencing radically di erent environments while searching for clues to the Baron’s fate.
Reyes knew it would take a huge space to realize his vision. “I pitched it to a lot of people, but I just couldn’t get anybody to give me money to do it right. I went through several groups of folks that said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it in this location or this location.’ But I was never able to get anybody to commit.”
In early 2020, artist Yvonne Bobo purchased an unused factory o Vance Avenue in Midtown to open O e Walls Arts. e new facility’s rst exhibit was Quadrant 360, a 2,000-square-foot proof of concept meant to pave the way for a full-sized BVO. But just as it was scheduled to open to the public, the Covid-19 pandemic exploded. Reyes and a small group of dedicated friends soldiered through the construction and opened mid-summer with limited entry designed to help facilitate social distancing. It would prove to be an even bigger hit than Fish, selling more than 4,000 tickets in less than two weeks.
“It was crazy,” recalls Reyes. “I really thought that, with the success we had even in spite of Covid, that it would have been so much easier to convince people to do a permanent location, to get behind it and invest in it. From 2021, I’ve been hammering it every day. Let’s do this space or that space, the [Mid-South] Coliseum, the Luciann eatre. ere were tons of di erent spaces that I looked at, and had conversations with people, but it was like pulling teeth … I put so much e ort into telling this story and proving that it would work over time. I didn’t go in with a plan on a napkin. I had nan-
cials. I could show other industry projects that were extraordinarily successful.”
MEANWHILE, IN NEW MEXICO
e concept of immersive, interactive art has been around for years. In the late 1990s, St. Louis artist Bob Cassilly lled an abandoned shoe factory with thousands of interactive sculptures made from junk. Within two years, the City Museum was attracting 300,000 visitors per year; by the time Cassilly died in 2011, that number had grown to more than 700,000.
In 2008, a Santa Fe, New Mexico, artist collective picked two words out of a hat to name their new interactive project. “Meow Wolf became the No. 1
COURTESY BVO (above) BVO portal; (below) the view from BVO
tourist destination in the entire state of New Mexico within a year,” says Jee Vahn Knight. “ e entire [tourism] industry got completely ipped on its head by a city with 75,000 people.”
Vahn Knight already had experience in the museum world, such as working with NASA to preserve Saturn moon rockets at the Huntsville U.S. Space & Rocket Center, when she signed on with Meow Wolf as the organization’s director of marketing strategy. Now, Meow Wolf installations in Las Vegas, Denver, Los Angeles, and Houston draw millions of annual visitors.
“I got to Memphis six and a half years ago,” says Vahn Knight. “A er I got here, people annoyed me all the time, because they would say, ‘Hey Jee, there’s a Meow Wolf in Memphis!’ And I said, ‘ ere isn’t a Meow Wolf in Memphis, ’cause I le Meow Wolf when I moved to Memphis.’ en they said, ‘Oh, but Meow Wolf is coming to Memphis.’ I said, ‘Meow Wolf is not coming to Memphis. Meow Wolf is doing a whole other strategy.’ en they’re like, ‘Okay, there’s something like Meow Wolf that’s in Memphis. It’s called Oppenheimer or something.’”
DOWN BY THE RIVER
A er Quadrant 360, Reyes attracted some helpers: Marvin Stockwell, Kathryn Hicks, and Ruben Bruson. By this time, the prospectus had grown considerably; BVO was seeking millions of dollars in
continued on page 12
PHOTOS:
investment to make a state-of-the-art interactive installation.
“When I rst saw the pitch, I was like, okay, this sounds cool, but how are you going to do this?” says Nate Smith, director of programs at Epicenter Memphis. “I get what they’re going for, but then I met Chris and Kathryn, and I realized they actually had not just the creative talent — which is important, because you have to visualize all this — but the actual technical skill to build this. It’s not just a dream and some pictures, they’ve thought through physically how they would do this in an a ordable, sustainable way … I was familiar with Meow Wolf, so saw immediately the potential not just for an amazing attraction in Memphis, but for the opportunities for expansion and multiple revenue lines, and that this can really be an innovative driver of rapid economic growth in Memphis, which is what we’re really excited about.”
A er raising a round of funding through the crowdsourcing platform Wefunder, BVO nally found a home thanks to Carol Coletta of Memphis River Parks Partnership (MRPP). “I had known Carol since the early ’90s, because I had moved Downtown and she was giving tours to people, saying, ‘Look how much potential Downtown has!’” says Reyes.
While MRPP was focused on the $60 million revamp of Tom Lee Park, Mud Island had fallen into disuse and disrepair. Before she retired in late 2024, Coletta helped pave the way for BVO to take over the abandoned museum.
“Finally we got here and, I mean, it was like magic,” says Reyes.
Inside the museum were twisting corridors, ample room to build out exhibits, and, most extraordinarily, two full-sized mock-ups of river boats. When Reyes recon gured his plans around the existing assets, the project became known as Baron Von Opperbean and the River of Time.
A BEAUTIFUL KIND OF CRAZY
Despite the lack of funding, Reyes and a skeleton crew started to work on building the Baron’s world. Word started to spread, and nally, Vahn Knight’s curiosity got the better of her. She reached out to Stockwell on LinkedIn, sharing her experience with Meow Wolf, and seeking a meeting.
“When I came the rst time, the power was out,” she recalls. “Ruben, Chris, Marvin, and Kathryn had all these ashlights, running through the o ce like, ‘Let us show you the whole thing!’ I was just coming to say hi.”
“We had already hired her in our minds,” says Reyes.
Vahn Knight was stunned by what she saw. e original Meow Wolf
installation had been built in an abandoned bowling alley. is was a 36,000-square-foot readymade museum space. “ e size is insane. I love brutalist architecture. ere’s just a beauty in how monolithic it is,” she says. “When they walked me out onto the boats, I was half in wonder and half in the logistics of how do you get this open as soon as possible? My brain red in both directions, because here’s this asset, you can do whatever you want. It’s yours to modify. It’s yours to turn it into something new. It’s here, in the building. I was like, ‘Fellas, you are 17 miles down a marathon. You don’t even realize it.’”
Vahn Knight says Reyes is “… a particular, beautiful kind of crazy. He’s a grounded human being. I don’t know if everybody knows that, but there’s a practicality alongside his big ideas.”
Reyes says he’s grateful Vahn Knight found them. “ e amount of work and bureaucracy she takes on, I never imagined that kind of thing. When I rst got into this, I was thinking, oh, I would just put my head down and stay quiet and do my thing over here. But that’s not how stu gets done. at’s why it’s so important that we brought in Jee, someone with experience on that scale.”
to evolve.
“You could totally immerse yourself in the world of the Baron Von Opperbean universe, nding out little tidbits of information that help you get around in the space,” says Reyes. “As you nd interesting things about this universe, things around you start to make sense. We’ve got the world building, and what that does is, instead of it just being the story about the Baron, you’re supposed to have your own story, your own adventure. People are like, ‘Where are the instructions?’ And I’m like, ‘If you just jump through a portal in the multiverse, you think there’s going to be instructions?’ What’s amazing about the system we’ve made here is that we’ll go back and it will change over time.
“I want there to be a whole universe of possibilities.”
READY FOR LAUNCH
“ ere was an education on the investor side, there was an education on the municipal side,” says Vahn Knight. “Hope fatigue. at’s how I describe it. Not that hope is bad, but the city is clearly exhausted from being told to have hope and optimism, and told to get excited about something, and then it doesn’t follow through. You have a lot of people who are like, ‘I believe, Chris, I believe you.’ But they’re just exhausted from wanting to fully believe in the city, and it not coming to fruition, which is why we shi ed towards, ‘Don’t worry about it, just join us when we’re open. Come and see it. We’re not asking you to put your whole lives and dreams into it like we are. Just be open to the possibilities once we’re there.’
“ e alchemy or the spark in this project is Memphis. It is people who have been here for decades, whose creative life bleeds out of them into the ground.”
WORLD BUILDING
Soon a er I arrive for the BVO ribboncutting ceremony on April 29th, I see Graham Burks, the video artist known as In nity Stairs, and his collaborator, electronic musician omas Corbin, best known for his band General Labor. ey wander wide-eyed into the crowd pressing around the main entrance. “We just plugged our stu in, and it worked!” says Burks.
“It worked the rst time!” says Corbin.
e BVO build-out has employed a who’s who of Memphis artists. “I’m getting to work in my own town on stu that’s fun, and I don’t have to go to Nashville, which is rad,” says Michael Roy, the muralist and sculptor known as Birdcap. “It’s been pretty great! I get to run the shop down there and keep all of the tools running to try and get some nice, polished nishes.”
“Michael’s done a way better job than I would have done — like exceptionally better,” says Reyes.
Ari Morris is a music producer with 22 gold and platinum records on his resume. His experience with immersive Dolby Atmos surround sound has been invaluable for BVO, where a single room can incorporate more than 180 recorded tracks. “Installation experiences are always fun,” he says. “I’ve been working in immersive audio for the better part of a decade at this point, and this is de nitely the rst installation I’m doing that’s as complex as this, as far as the sound design that’s gonna be happening through the rooms. It’s a nice change of pace from being in the recording studio every day.”
e initial phase of BVO includes about 8,000 square feet of rooms and corridors full of handmade sciencection fantasy environments. e buildout will continue in phases until the entire 33,000 square feet of exhibition space is up and running sometime next year. Even then, BVO will continue
“I really think we’re going to be kickstarting a creative Renaissance here in Memphis,” says BVO co-founder Kathryn Hicks. “So I think it’s a big kicko to bringing life back to the island.” e prospects for success are certainly there. e immersive entertainment industry in America is currently valued at $148 billion and is expected to grow to four times that size by 2033. ose present for the ribbon cutting were sold by what they saw. “I’m very excited about this opportunity that’s something unique on Mud Island,” says Dr. Je Warren, the Memphis City Council Chair of the Parks and Environment Committee. “I think it’s a good way to rejuvenate this part of Mud Island, and this is going to bring a lot of people to Memphis that we have no idea about. I’m not really someone who’s done this, but I tell you, I think there’s a market for people who really like this experience, and I think it’s going to be something our kids and younger people, particularly gamers, are gonna really love.”
Baron Von Opperbean and the River of Time o cially opened to the public on May 1st. Stockwell says about 1,000 people came through the doors in its rst week. Many of the visitors also explored the River Walk. “ ey came for BVO, but they enjoyed the rest of the island, too,” says Stockwell.
Vahn Knight says, “ e city spends too much time thinking about what Memphis was, and too much time using phrases like ‘it will be,’ and forgets that the city is amazing right now. So stop letting the past steal, and stop letting the potential, the future, steal, and just be Memphis. People were talking about ‘When Mud Island gets redeveloped …’ What are you talking about? We’re doing it. It’s happening now.”
PHOTO: COURTESY BVO e River of Time
The Hot Tamale Capital of the World invites you to enjoy an eclectic
» MAY « Mississippi Wildlife Heritage Festival, including Frog Fest and Leland Craw sh Festival LelandChamber.com
Future Tour Golf Championship
» JUNE « Delta Soul & Celebrity Golf Event facebook.com/DeltaSoulGolf
Lake Washington’s “Straight O The Lake” Music Festival
» AUGUST « MS Delta Duck Boat Races at Lake Washington
» SEPTEMBER « Delta Blues & Heritage Festival deltabluesms.org
Gumbo Nationals greenvillespeedway.net Sam Chatmon Blues Fest facebook.com/SamChatmonBlues
Stephone Hughes Old Time Gospel Fest
» OCTOBER « Delta Hot Tamale Fest mainstreetgreenville.com/ delta-hot-tamale-festival
Highway 61 Blues Festival highway61blues.com
Monuments on Main Street Historic Greenville Cemetery Tour deltacenterstage.org/events
YMCA Cotton Classic 10K/5K Run racesonline.com/ymca-cotton-classic
» NOVEMBER « Roll’n on the River Car Show facebook.com/redwinecarshow
» DECEMBER « Christmas on Deer Creek LelandChamber.com
steppin’ out
We Recommend: Culture, News + Reviews
Lanterns Light Memphis Night
By Kimberly Ham
As the sun begins to set over Shelby Farms Park on Saturday, May 16th, the Water Lantern Festival promises an evening that is equal parts celebration and re ection. Beginning at 5 p.m., the event transforms the park into a lively community gathering lled with food trucks, local vendors, yard games, music, and families and friends soaking in the atmosphere before the night takes a more meaningful turn.
“ e balance is really the heart of everything we do,” says Tess Rowser, marketing manager for the Water Lantern Festival organization. “It begins as a celebration … and as the sun starts to set, it naturally shi s into something more re ective.”
at transition is what has made the traveling festival resonate with audiences across the country — and particularly in Memphis, where the event has returned to Shelby Farms Park for ve years. As twilight approaches, guests decorate oating lanterns with handwritten messages of hope, gratitude, remembrance, or personal dreams. A guided meditation and community storytelling help slow the pace before the lantern launch ceremony begins.
“It’s something you participate in, not just observe,” Rowser says. “People are o en surprised by how emotional and meaningful it becomes.”
Once released onto the water, the lanterns create a glowing display that feels both intimate and communal. Some attendees honor loved ones. Others celebrate milestones, relationships, or fresh starts. Rowser recalls attending a festival with her family in memory of her nephew, describing it as a rare opportunity to grieve, re ect, and celebrate together in a shared space. is year’s festival arrives as part of the organization’s new “Radiant Tour,” built around the message “We shine brighter together.” Expect interactive photo ops, themed prompts, and moments designed to encourage connection throughout the evening. e event is designed for all ages and experiences — whether it’s a family outing, date night, girls’ night, or solo evening of re ection. General admission includes a lantern kit, marker, drawstring bag, playing cards, conversation prompts, and entry into a scavenger hunt giveaway. Date Night packages include two tickets and a shared blanket package.
Rowser’s advice for rst-time attendees? “Don’t rush the experience. Slow down and be fully present. e more you lean into it, the more you’ll get out of the night.”
WATER LANTERN FESTIVAL, SHELBY FARMS PARK, 6903 GREAT VIEW DRIVE NORTH, SATURDAY, MAY 16, 5 P.M.
VARIOUS DAYS & TIMES May 14th - 20th
Teacher’s Night Out
Dixon Gallery & Gardens, Friday, May 15, 5-7 p.m.
Educators are invited to enjoy an a er-hours evening of light refreshments, artmaking, and gallery tours while connecting with fellow teachers and exploring the museum. Open to educators at every level. Supplies included.
Bumble Bee Atlas Community Science Workshop
Overton Park, Saturday, May 16, 9:30 am-2:30 p.m.
Help protect disappearing pollinators at a hands-on Bumble Bee Atlas training workshop with Overton Park Conservancy and the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. Participants will learn about bumble bee ecology and conservation, plus how to catch, photograph, and identify bumble bees in the
eld as part of a community science e ort tracking Southeastern species. e indoor/outdoor workshop is pay-what-you-can, with a suggested $10 donation. Registration required.
Family Fun Day
Metal Museum, Sunday, May 17, 11 am-3 p.m.
Bring the whole family to the Metal Museum for this free community event that features hands-on activities, live demonstrations, and kid-friendly games across the museum grounds, o ering an engaging a ernoon of creative and educational fun for all ages. Guests can also enjoy free admission to the museum throughout the day.
Cyanotyping Botanical Printing
Midtown Bramble & Bloom, Sunday, May 16, 2 p.m.
Create art with sunshine at a Cyano-
typing Botanical Printing workshop. Participants will learn the cyanotype process using fresh owers and botanicals to design a one-of-a-kind printed tote bag to take home, with all materials included. Guests can also upgrade to print on a personal fabric item and are invited to bring snacks and drinks for a relaxed, creative a ernoon. Rain date is Sunday, May 17th.
Story Time at Novel Novel, Saturday, May 16, 10:30 am Recommended for children up to 5 years old, the weekly gathering features songs, stories, and a mix of brand-new books and beloved favorites. is special story time event is partnered with Voices of the South.
Thursday June 11, 2026 at 7:30 a.m. at Memphis
Botanic Garden
Hardin Hall
750 Cherry Road Memphis, TN 38117
Memphis is home to an incredible community of talented and inspiring executives. These exceptional leaders are setting new standards of success across industries.
Join us on Thursday, June 11, 2026, as we honor the following distinguished leaders:
• Kevin Sharp of Dixon Gallery & Gardens
• Lindsey D. Rhea of Alia Wealth Partners
• Matt Thompson of Memphis Zoo
• Osi Imomoh of Southland Casino
Tickets are available for purchase for $30 per person and include breakfast. Tables of 10 are available for $300. Doors open at 7:30 a.m., and the program will begin promptly at 8 a.m.
Purchase your tickets today at bit.ly/4vDlRAl
PHOTO: COURTESY SHAYLEE QUICK
A child joins in launching her latern on the water.
MUSIC By Alex Greene
Miz Stefani’s Time to Shine
e local rocker and live music champion brings a little New York to everything she does.
There’s nary a regular in the Memphis music scene who couldn’t spot Miz Stefani in a crowd. She’s an inveterate clubgoer and clearly thrives in that domain with aplomb, sure to be among those playful partiers who, with a boldness, get decked out for any occasion. To be sure, she’s directly responsible for some of those occasions, such as the erstwhile monthly Women in Memphis Music (WiMM) series that she founded with Liz Lane and Fa Bahloul, which cast a much-needed spotlight on local women and femmeidentifying musicians. ough WiMM is now on hiatus, it’s but one example of Miz Stefani’s ubiquity in the music ecosystem.
Yet because she’s so o en behind the scenes, few realize that she’s a powerful performer in her own right, with that rare ability to kick ass fronting an A-list rock combo. at’s how she’ll appear at 7 p.m. this Saturday, May 16th, at Bar DKDC, when she and her “fully loaded band” celebrate the release of her new EP, reads ough her performances have been relatively rare since she moved here from New York, now she’s ramping up her schedule, having already clocked in appearances at Crosstown Brewery and Radio Memphis this month. Celebrating the new release will lend the DKDC show an extra charge, as a record several years in the making will come to life over the course of the night — and the veterans in Stefani’s band are guaranteed to rock. “My band is so great, and they’re so fun,” Stefani says. e group includes drummer James Cunningham, in whose studio the album was cut, guitarist Lee Holiday, and multi-instrumentalist Khari Wynn. “And introducing Khari Wynn on guitar!” Stefani exclaims about her partner Wynn, laughing. “We say that as a joke, because, you know, he loves to play bass, and we have to beg him to play guitar.” Indeed, it was as a guitarist that Wynn distinguished himself as the onetime musical director for Public Enemy, as fans were reminded of when he opened Public Enemy’s 2025 RiverBeat set with a solo guitar rendition, à la Hendrix, of “Li Every Voice and Sing.” As Stefani puts it, “My secret sauce is, I write my songs on guitar and then I give them to Khari to make them better.”
e chance to play with such talent is but one thing the recent transplant appreciates about Memphis, yet
“I’m a trained vocalist. My degree is in opera and classical music. But even my music gigs here are almost like one-woman shows.”
the road leading her here has been circuitous. “I grew up in Fairfax, Virginia, right outside of D.C.,” she says. “ en I went to school in southwestern Virginia, where I worked three jobs, saving all my money. In February of 2000 I was o to New York, and I never looked back.”
Indeed, she thrived in the Big Apple for two decades, working in the music business (for Blue Note, EMI, and others) and nding her own voice as a performer. Singing in bands was only one facet of the talent she nurtured there. “I did small parts and indie lms, I walked the runway in modeling shows, I did a lot of O Broadway stu , and I love comedy, so I had a small all-female comedy troupe. I had my own band for many years,
and then I joined this band called Dear Comrade.”
But Stefani’s most profound experience was in the world of performance art. “I sang with Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping from 2005 till about 2017,” she says, “and that’s probably the most meaningful work I did in my career in New York. It was very anti-consumerist, anti-corporation.” During that time, Stefani appeared in the lm, What Would Jesus Buy?, a documentary about Reverend Billy and his exploits.
A chance to work with David Porter
at Made In Memphis Entertainment (MIME) lured Stefani to Memphis in 2019, and, despite some back-andforth moving when Covid lockdown reared its head, she settled here for good in 2021. Yet even today, those years of New York performance art still resonate through Stefani’s Memphis appearances.
“I’m 100 percent a singer, more than an actor,” she says, “I’m a trained vocalist, and my degree is in opera and classical music. But even my music gigs here are almost like one-woman shows. I talk between songs, and I’m always nding fun little things to add.”
Furthermore, she’s very particular about her wardrobe. And, appropriately enough for her imminent debut of reads, she’s lately been most inspired by the threads of Elvis Presley, as seen in Baz Luhrmann’s recent documentary EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert. “I was blown away, because I’ve never seen any of the movies Elvis has been in. is Baz Luhrmann movie was all footage taken from rehearsals, and behind the scenes type stu . And I can say that I walked out of that theater a changed person, in my views of Elvis. I was like, ‘I get it.’ And there was a scene where he’s prepping for his shows in Vegas, and he’s wearing this oral shirt and these black pants with this amazing silverturquoise belt. I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s the look! at’s the look I want. I’ve gotta recreate that look somehow.’”
A er many weeks of searching — a tale too serendipitous to relate here — her out t was complete, and a photograph of her sporting it graces the EP’s cover. It’s a mighty tough look, entirely appropriate for those about to rock. And that’s what Miz Stefani fully intends to do.
If you need any further proof, consider that Miz Stefani has yet another, harder-rocking persona in the Blu City. “I front an Ozzy Osbourne tribute band here in Memphis as well, Planet Oz. Obviously, it’s much more heavy rock. And it’s a whole other outlet for me that was quite unexpected, that I never really knew I needed until I did it. I was like, ‘ is is on a whole other level!’
“ ere’s not a lot of straight rock girls here,” she adds. “I’m sitting here wondering, what am I? Am I rock? Am I Americana? Am I folk? Am I hard folk rock? I couldn’t de ne it. en Khari said, ‘You’ve got that perfect rock voice.’ Well, I’m not gonna argue. I mean, I’ve got the pipes.”
PHOTO: KIMBERLY HILL Miz Stefani in the Elvis-inspired threads of her dreams.
AFTER DARK: Live Music Schedule May 14 - 20
Duane Cleveland Band
Friday, May 15, 6 p.m.
LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM
Headrush
Songwriter Series
With Graham Winchester, Aybil, and Curtis B. Scott.
ursday, May 14, 7 p.m.
HALLORAN CENTRE
Southbound and DJ
FERB
21+. ursday, May 14, 6 p.m.
THE PEABODY ROOFTOP
The Mighty Souls Brass Band
Friday, May 15, 5:30 p.m.
WOLF RIVER GREENWAY
Nia Nicholls
Country storytelling mixed with pop elements. Friday, May 15, 5 p.m.
FLYWAY BREWING COMPANY
Farmhouse Studio
Takeover
Featuring Gerry Finley, Bryan Hayes, Dave Miller. Saturday, May 16, 7 p.m.
SOUTH MAIN SOUNDS
John Williams & the A440 Band
ursday, May 14, 8 p.m.
NEIL’S MUSIC ROOM
Wendell Wells
Sunday, May 17, 9 p.m.
NEIL’S MUSIC ROOM
The Hank Nightshade
Duo
ursday, May 14, 6 p.m.
LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM
Hotrod Hillbillies
Texas rockabilly cowpunk.
ursday, May 14, 7 p.m.
THE HI-TONE CAFE
Iris Presents Studio
Ghibli Live Scores
e Iris Collective perform lm scores live while iconic frames play on screen. ursday, May 14, 6 p.m.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM
Portrayal of Guilt
With Street Sects, Taraneh, Sibyl. ursday, May 14, 8 p.m. 1884 LOUNGE
Brek Fest
Record label What’s for Breakfast showcases music from Memphis, Chicago, and beyond. Friday, May 15, 7 p.m.
LAMPLIGHTER LOUNGE
Copland’s Appalachian Spring
Robert Moody leads the MSO through Copland’s work as well as Mozart’s “Ha ner” Symphony. Friday, May 15, 6:30 p.m.
CROSSTOWN THEATER
Featuring Brilli and Dosie. Friday, May 15, 9 p.m.
GROWLERS
Juvenile’s Boiling Point
Album Release Tour
With e 400 Degreez Band. Friday, May 15, 8 p.m.
MINGLEWOOD HALL
Skinny Powers and More
With e Half of It, e English Word for It. Friday, May 15, 8 p.m.
HI-TONE CAFE
Folk All Y’all: Pynk Beard is Alabama native weaves country, soul, and gospel in uences. Saturday, May 16, 7:30 p.m.
THE GREEN ROOM
Hooves
With Coachlight, Fugitive Droids, Once Erased. Saturday, May 16, 8 p.m.
GROWLERS
Rice Drewry Collective Saturday, May 16, 5 p.m.
LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM
RMZI & Friends
An Afrofuturist, technologist, and musician. Saturday, May 16, 7:30 p.m.
OVERTON PARK SHELL
Artists promoting unity, collaboration, and community. Sunday, May 17, 7:30 p.m.
OVERTON PARK SHELL
Medium Walter Sunday, May 17, 3 p.m.
HUEY’S MIDTOWN
Rock Eupora
With the Sonny Wilsons, Your Academy, Shorty & the Grooves. Sunday, May 17, 7 p.m. THE HI-TONE CAFE
Southern Soul Rising Stars Featuring Marcellus the Singer, Fat Daddy, and K.M.
Sunday, May 17, 7:30 p.m.
MINGLEWOOD HALL
Harbour
With Fox Royale, KOTA. Tuesday, May 19, 8 p.m.
1884 LOUNGE
Keia
Tuesday, May 19, 7:30 p.m. THE GREEN ROOM
Soundhaus: Electric Highway Session
Wednesday, May 20, 7 p.m. B-SIDE
Turnt
With e Current Situation and Madison Jacobs. Wednesday, May 20, 8 p.m. GROWLERS
Treaty Oak RevivalWest Texas Degenerate Tour
ursday, May 14, 7 p.m.
BANKPLUS AMPHITHEATRE AT SNOWDEN GROVE
Nik Parr & The Selfless Lovers
Piano-driven roots rock. Friday, May 15, 8 p.m.
HERNANDO’S HIDE-A-WAY
Yella P
Monday, May 18, 8 p.m.
HERNANDO’S HIDE-A-WAY
Concerts in The Grove: Hope Clayburn’s Soul Scrimmage Danceable, soulful grooves.
ursday, May 14, 6:30 p.m.
THE GROVE AT GERMANTOWN PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
Germantown Symphony Orchestra: A Golden Celebration GSO’s 50th anniversary concert. Saturday, May 16, 7 p.m. GERMANTOWN PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
Dreamfest
PHOTO: COURTESY MARK PARSELL
Nia Nicholls will play at Flyway Brewing Co.
CALENDAR of EVENTS: May 14 - 20, 2026
ARTS AND SPECIAL EXHIBITS
Bill Killebrew: “The Four O’Clocks”
Killebrew’s pieces pull scenes from his everyday life, dinner parties, errands, a lobster boil with friends, and then create a world for the viewer, blending contemplative observation with heightened reality. rough May 30.
DAVID LUSK GALLERY
Dorothy Gunther Pugh: “Nature Yearns”
Dorothy Gunther Pugh’s contemplative drawings and watercolors of closely observed trees and their twisted branches, fallen limbs, and rotting stumps covered in lichen, may come as a surprise to many Memphians. Free. rough June 7.
DIXON GALLERY AND GARDENS
“Feels like earth but not”
Paintings by Elizabeth Alley that examine her connection to vulnerable landscapes and their precarious position in terms of climate change and government control. rough June 13.
SHAPESHIFTER ART SCHOOL & GALLERY
“FOOD: Science, Culture and Cuisine”
Exploring the concept of food and feasting through sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound. It is a multi-sensory feast of an exhibition that engages you in new ways to think about food. $21. rough May 24.
MEMPHIS MUSEUM OF SCIENCE & HISTORY AT THE PINK PALACE
Heather Parker Jones: “Introvert navigates an extrovert world” is collection of Jones’ recent works includes both paintings and prose inspired by her travels. rough May 28.
WKNO DIGITAL MEDIA CENTER
“Last Whistle: Steamboat Stories of Memphis” is show features boat models and explores the history of the iconic steamboats that docked at the city. rough June 26.
MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND HISTORY AT THE PINK PALACE
Mary Sims: “A Retrospective” is rst museum survey of Sims’s extraordinary career will be something of a revelation even to those who knew the artist and her work quite well. Free. rough June 7.
DIXON GALLERY AND GARDENS
“Meet the Dixons”
Learn how Margaret and Hugo Dixon’s vision became a reality with the opening of the Dixon Gallery and Gardens. Free. rough May 31.
DIXON GALLERY AND GARDENS
Meghean Warner Art Exhibition
e artist is inspired by Memphis, its people, and her faith. Free. rough May 30.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
“Memphis College of Art, 1936-2020: An Enduring Legacy” rough this exhibition of ninety faculty, administrators, and graduates, this show re ects on the school’s historical impact and celebrates its continued legacy regionally and beyond. rough Sept. 30.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM
“The Mystery of Cave Island”
Los Angeles-based artist
Eileen Havant Townsend presents eight dioramas of rocky landscapes alongside eight graphite drawings. rough June 20.
TOPS GALLERY
“Navigating Knowledge” is exhibition explores vessels and navigation as metaphors for the containment and transmission of knowledge. rough Oct. 31.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM
“Redemption of a Delta Bluesman”
A 29-painting exhibition by Memphis artist Andre L. Miller exploring the life of Robert Johnson. rough May 20.
GALLERY ALBERTINE
Savannah Jewell Art Exhibition
is widely traveled artist’s highly personal approach shines through in these works. Free. rough May 30.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
Shelby East Garden Club: “Garden Beds & Community Roots”
Archival photographs and personal stories that re ect decades of environmental stewardship and oral artistry. rough July 3.
TOWN OF COLLIERVILLE MORTON MUSEUM
Shelley Bolton Art Exhibition
Bolton’s work, in uenced by the Cubist style, is a re ection of the textures and rich, organic layers of the landscapes in which she is surrounded. Free. rough May 30.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
Spring Exhibitions ree exhibitions: “Shades of Heritage” by Wiley Henry, “A Rabbit With a Gun” by Lawrence Matthews, and “Club Walrus, Fluvial E uvia, and Know No Now” by Karl Erickson. rough June 7.
CROSSTOWN CONCOURSE
Summer Art Garden: “Wax Print Wonderland”
Samilia Pelshak presents an
PHOTO: COURTESY DIXON GALLERY AND GARDENS
Taijiquan with Milan Vigil teaches a relaxing Chinese martial art that improves balance.
enchanting installation of her vibrant African wax print designs. rough Sept. 27.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM
“Three Man Show”
An exhibit featuring work by local artists E.D. Bynum Jr., Joe Umphress, and Marc Wheetley. Free. rough May 26.
ST. GEORGE’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH
“What We Surround Ourselves With”
A love letter to the evolution of the work and stories shared through the museum’s community. rough July 31.
METAL MUSEUM
ART HAPPENINGS
Art Opening: “Beauty in My People” Opening reception for a show that re ects the vision and experiences of Kamien Bell, known artistically as Kam Darko. Free. May 16, 4 p.m.
URBANART COMMISSION
Living History Lab: Spill the Tea is is a hands-on program series that invites visitors to experience history beyond the exhibit case. Free. May 16, 12 p.m.
TOWN OF COLLIERVILLE MORTON
MUSEUM
Opening Reception: Bolton, White, Warner Opening for works by three artists on view in the Grand Hallway. May 17, 3 p.m.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
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.
spiritual and life discussions. Free. Wednesday, May 20, 7 p.m.
THE BROOM CLOSET MEMPHIS
CLASS/WORKSHOP
Stage & Sketch
Enjoy an evening of gure drawing the fantastical, the dramatic, and the interesting, organized by Shelda Edwards, artist and co-producer of Rainbow Rumble. Free. ursday, May 14, 6 p.m.
DIXON GALLERY AND GARDENS
Country Swing Dance Lessons
It’s never too late to start and a partner is not required to join the class. Friday, May 15, 7:30 p.m.
WHISKEY JILL’S
Bumble Bee Atlas
Community Science Workshop
BOOK EVENTS
A Novel Book Club: Anxious People is club invites one and all to meet and discuss Anxious People by Fredrik Backman. Wednesday, May 20, 7 p.m.
NOVEL
COMMUNITY
PNA Senior Expo
A giant information fair free for seniors, with 100+ sponsors and vendors. Free. ursday, May 14, 8:30 a.m.
AGRICENTER ARENA
Spring Tram Tours
Enjoy a 20-minute tram tour of the 96-acre Memphis Botanic Garden. ursday, May 14-Wednesday, May 20, 10 a.m. daily.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
What a Way to Go
What do deadly snowballs, poisoned cookies, shattered glass, and elevator pulleys have in common? Each played a role in a true and tragic story that now rests within the grounds of Elmwood Cemetery. $20. Saturday, May 16, 10 a.m.
ELMWOOD CEMETERY
The Wolf Pack Men’s Group
Monthly gathering of men for
Join Overton Park Conservancy and the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, training for a community science project aimed at gathering data needed to track and conserve bumble bees. $10. Saturday, May 16, 9:30 a.m.
OVERTON PARK
Cyanotyping Botanical Printing
Learn to use sunlight and fresh botanicals to create a one-of-a-kind printed tote using the cyanotype process. $49. Saturday, May 16, 2 p.m.
MIDTOWN BRAMBLE & BLOOM
The Tingey Painting with Parkinsons Program (TINCAN™)
A free art therapy program that supports people living with Parkinson’s. Wednesday, May 20, 10 a.m.
DIXON GALLERY AND GARDENS
COMEDY
Henry Cho: The Empty Nest Tour
Henry Cho on tour, bringing you all the laughs. Saturday, May 16, 7 p.m.
MINGLEWOOD HALL
PHOTO: COURTESY BROOKS MUSEUM
Enjoy the Figure Drawing Class at the Brooks Muesum of Art.
DANCE
Dance Among the Flowers
Ballet Memphis brings graceful, live dance performances to the Garden for a truly moving spring experience. Saturday, May 16, 10 a.m.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
FAMILY
Novels After Naps
Have your kids, from babies to 5 years old, enjoy a calm and cozy story session that fuels imaginations and encourages active time together. Saturday, May 16, 4 p.m.
GERMANTOWN COMMUNITY LIBRARY
Toddler Time
Bring your toddlers ages 1-3 to read and do cra s. ursday, May 14-Wednesday, May 20, 1 p.m.
BARTLETT LIBRARY
Story Time At Novel
Recommended for children up to 5 years, this event includes songs and stories, featuring brand-new books in addition to well-loved favorites. Saturday, May 16, 10:30 a.m. NOVEL
Super SaturdayAbstract Watercolors
A hands-on celebration of AAPI Month and the Memphis College of Art, inspired by Memphis-based artist Kong Wee Pang, whose striking abstract works have been featured in the MCA Gallery. Free. Saturday, May 16, 10 a.m.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM
Family Fun Day
Enjoy a day of fun, familyfriendly educational programming and enjoy free admission to the Museum. Sunday, May 17, 11 a.m.
METAL MUSEUM
Storytime and Sign
For babies through 5 years old, sing a song, learn a sign, dance a little jig, and sit for a story during this interactive, weekly story time for little ones and their caregivers. Tuesday, May 19-May 20, 10:30 a.m.
GERMANTOWN COMMUNITY LIBRARY
FESTIVAL
Memphis Water Lantern Festival is festival brings together individuals from all ages, backgrounds, and walks of life to join in one emotional and memorable night. Saturday, May 16, 5 p.m.
SHELBY FARMS PARK
FILM
Film Screening: A Ballet Season
A 2021 independent documentary by David Goodman and Steven John Ross chronicling a year in the life of Ballet Memphis during
the 2018-2019 season. Thursday, May 14, 5:30 p.m.
DIXON GALLERY AND GARDENS
Overton Square Move Night: Challengers
Watch a screening of Challengers in the courtyard for a free movie night. Thursday, May 14, 7 p.m.
OVERTON SQUARE
Movie Night in the Park - The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants
Bring your blankets, chairs, and the whole family for movie night in the park. Saturday, May 16, 5:30 p.m.
BICKFORD PARK
Superhuan Body: World of Medical Marvels
This film experience takes audiences inside the wonders of he human body and the incredible breakthroughs in science and bioengineering that are changing the course of human health. Thursday, May 14-May 20, 2 p.m. Closed Mondays.
GIANT SCREEN THEATER
The Sun: Our Living Star
The sun has shone on our world for four and a half billion years. The light that warms our skin today has been felt by every person who has ever lived. It is our nearest star and our planet’s powerhouse, the source of the energy that drives our winds, our weather and all life. Thursday, May 14-May 20, 1 and 3 p.m. Closed Mondays.
GIANT SCREEN THEATER
Walking with Dinosaurs: Prehistoric Planet
Our main characters are a heard of large, frilled, plant eating dinosaurs — Pachyrhinosaurus. The film follows their youngsters through the seasons and the challenges of growing up and establishing themselves in this prehistoric world. From the moment they hatch, they face predators, extremes of weather and natural disaster as they fight for survival. Thursday, May 14-May 20, 1 p.m. Closed Mondays.
GIANT SCREEN THEATER
FOOD AND DRINK
Canoes + Cocktails
Enjoy a guided sunset paddle on the lake, followed by specialty cocktails provided by Old Dominick, snacks from Feast & Graze, yard games, and music. Friday, May 15, 6:15 p.m.
SHELBY FARMS PARK
“Papa Bear Trivia” with Shawn
Bring your brainpower and your crew for a night of free trivia. Thursday, May 14, 7 p.m.
DRU’S BAR
Spring Wine Dinner
Enjoy a refined spring evening in Teton Trek Lodge, where you’ll enjoy a thoughtfully curated menu and exceptional wines. Ages 21+.
$175. Thursday, May 14, 6 p.m.
MEMPHIS ZOO
Food Truck Friday
Enjoy food trucks at the Dixon on Fridays. Friday, May 15, 11:30 a.m.
DIXON GALLERY AND GARDENS
Legacy at the Table: MCA Dinner Series
A three-part dinner series celebrating Memphis College of Art’s legacy and local artists through a fundraising dining experience at the museum. $200. Wednesday, May 20, 6 p.m.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM
HEALTH AND FITNESS
Yoga
Strengthen your yoga practice and enjoy the health benefits of light exercise with instructor
Laura Gray McCann. Thursday, May 14, 6 p.m.
DIXON GALLERY AND GARDENS
Songbird Stroll
Venture out to see what the birds are up to in the Old Forest. Free. Saturday, May 16, 8 a.m.
OVERTON PARK - EAST PARKWAY PAVILION
Taijiquan
Led by Milan Vigil, this Chinese martial art promotes relaxation, improves balance, and provides no-impact aerobic benefits. Saturday, May 16, 10:30 a.m.
DIXON GALLERY AND GARDENS
Wednesday Walks
Stretch your legs and meet someone new. Wednesday, May 20, 4 p.m.
OVERTON PARK
LECTURE
Munch and Learn: The Irresistible Charm of Flowering Shrubs
A talk about flowering shrubs by Celeste Scott, Western Region Horticulture Extension Specialist. Free. Wednesday, May 20, 12 p.m.
DIXON GALLERY AND GARDENS
PERFORMING ARTS
Starpower Talent Competition
Dancers and performers of all ages and levels from around the world come together to showcase their artistry, celebrate their passion, and shine at their fullest potential. A must-see for studio owners, teachers, performers, and
their families and friends. Saturday, May 16-Sunday, May 17, 5 a.m.
RENASANT CONVENTION CENTER
Eureka Live: Take-Over Drag Brunch
Eureka Live is taking over brunch. Drag. Brunch. Mimosas. Say less. Sunday, May 17, 12 p.m.
LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM
SPECIAL EVENTS
Teacher’s Night Out
Take a well-deserved break and join us for an evening just for educators. Free. Friday, May 15, 5 p.m.
DIXON GALLERY AND GARDENS
Cooper-Young Gardens Tour
This special two-day event features 60+ unique gardens bursting with creativity, color, and personality. Free. Saturday, May 16-Sunday, May 17, 9 a.m.
EXPERIENCE MEMPHIS GARDENS
Tako’s Secondhand Drop & Shop
Donation Drive
Drop off your quality used goods and shop the vintage and thrift collections after hours. Light refreshments provided. Wednesday, May 20, 5 p.m.
TAKO’S SECONDHAND SHOP
THEATER
Hood Miracles: Two Broke Maids
This isn’t just a stage play; it’s a soulful, threeact journey through the heart of the urban experience, exploring the “construction work” God does in our lives when we’re pushed to the limit. $30-$45. Friday, May 15-Saturday, May 16, 7 p.m.
TUCKERS TEMPLE COGIC
Jesus Christ Superstar
A rock opera telling the story of the last week of Jesus’ life from a different perspective: that of Judas Iscariot. Thursday, May 14-May 16, 8 p.m.
PLAYHOUSE ON THE SQUARE
Our Own Voice presents “The Forts: A Triptych” & “Help Me Out Blues” Premiere of a recently rediscovered play written by company founder and playwright Bill Baker in 1993, and a poetic, improvisational exploration of how to ask for and give help to one another. Friday, May 15-Saturday, May 16, 8 p.m.
THEATREWORKS @THE SQUARE
Primary Trust
Winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, this play dives into the mind of a seemingly ordinary middle-aged man named Kenneth who loses his job and must reinvent himself. Thursday, May 14-Saturday, May 16, 8 p.m.
CIRCUIT PLAYHOUSE
Crossword
ACROSS
1 Impromptu places to conk out for the night
10 Prime spot for a tat
13 Archenemy of the Fantastic Four
15 Home to Matisse, Mondrian and Monet, informally
16 Addendum to a common pentad
17 Sierra Nevadas, e.g.
18 Finally chooses
19 Media big Zuckerman
20 Either constituent of table salt
21 One of the Three Musketeers
23 Ceases production
26 Enjoys oneself immensely
28 Spike Lee’s “___ Gotta Have It”
29 With 53-Across, one whom you might blame for something bad that you did
31 Brand owned by Kraft Foods
32 What 100-proof alcohol has
33 Island in NW Greece
35 Touched the ground
36 Paris is found in it
38 Race
39 Fires (up)
40 Handles with care?
42 Perform a Thanksgiving cooking task
44 “Thumbs down from me”
45 Grp. that Ronald Reagan once supported
46 Grp. that Ronald Reagan once supported
47 Congressman who served the most consecutive years as speaker of the House (1977-87)
53 See 29-Across
54 Radio sign-off
56 Go on and on about something
57 Seatbelts, e.g.
58 “Listen!”: Sp.
59 Sabermetrics whiz, e.g.
DOWN
1 Stack at a music store
2 They’re all over Down Under, informally
3 Top
4 Leave in
5 Tout’s offering
6 Brand that treats acid reflux
7 They might work on something for 60 seconds
8 Pulls off
9 Meh
10 Object seen in the Ralph Lauren logo
11 Old Food Network show with the catchword
Crystal clear, as an image
Letter before Lima and after Foxtrot when spelling 27-Down
Shortz
“Ish”
Clickable message at the start of an online
Democracy in action
Graffiti and such
Sci-fi author Simmons with the 1989 Hugo-winning novel “Hyperion”
___ skill
Old boosted rocket stages
PUZZLE BY JOE DEENEY
MWe Saw You.
usic fans didn’t skip a beat when asked, “Who are you going to see?” or “Who was your favorite?” at RiverBeat, which was held May 1st through 3rd at Tom Lee Park.
On Sunday, when I was there, names included The Red Clay Strays, Wu-Tang Clan, Bill Butler, Hope Clayburn’s Soul Scrimmage, St. Vincent, T-Pain, and, of course, Dave Matthews Band, Sunday’s headliner.
The rain-free afternoon was a perfect day for music lovers to see some new performers as well as the legendary Carla Thomas.
PHOTOS: MICHAEL DONAHUE
left row: (top and below) Brody Haire, Dan Haire, Lorne Green, Patsy Detroit, and Patience Johnson; Ned and Hallie Biggs, Dr. Jesse and Dr. Meere Wright
below: (left to right) Aidan Smith, Dinah Mitchell; Andrew Mayo and John Fox; John Zarshenas and Emily Bird; Jay Seals, Chandra Pointer bottom right: Philip Ulesich and Slater Peck
with
michael donahue
row: (top and below) Ava Lunsford, Scott Norman, Trace Vescovo, Ruthie Gilland; Brett Wright, Emma Cool, Lee Olswanger below: (le to right) Tucker C.; Elizabeth and Philip Jolly; Montie Doss and Margit Mikkelson; Sarah Rapp, Daniel Bean bottom le : Jason, Amanda, and Nick Viera
above: Christopher Champlain and Shara Clark
right
By Buddy Jones
Beer is America
Nothing says USA quite like an American lager.
In the Blu City, there’s no shortage of locally brewed cold ones in the beer dating pool. With a slew of local breweries, Memphians have their pick of American-style lagers to dance with. But who can forget their rst love? Known simply as the original Memphis lager, Goldcrest 51 was created in 1936 by the Tennessee Brewery to honor 51 years of operation. e beer remained a top seller until the brewery closed in 1954.
But in February 2024, Jake Schorr (owner of Westy’s and great-grandson of John Wolfgang Schorr, who founded Tennessee Brewing Company in 1885) and Souls & Spirits brewmaster Ryan Allen hit Goldcrest 51 with the “U up?” text. Why bring back one of the top-selling beers in Memphis history? My guess: Nothing tastes better than nostalgia.
Beer is in our culture. It’s in our music. It’s in our refrigerators next to the eggs, butter, and whatever that le over food is in the Cool Whip tub. e most popular style of suds in America is unquestionably the American lager.
As Americans, we love apple pie, baseball, pickup trucks, and using pyrotechnics (with the occasional lost nger). But nothing is as American as beer. While apple pie has contributed to bigger waists since 1697, beer has provided liquid courage as far back as 1587.
In 1620, the May ower stopped at Cape Cod because, as one can only assume, one of the pilgrims yelled, “Hey y’all, we’re out of beer and there ain’t no 24-hour 7-11 open for at least another 350 years.” And one of the earliest concerns for Harvard College was constructing a brew house in 1636, centuries before hollow balls bounced o tables into red 16-ounce solo cups in the dorm rooms of our
American higher education institutions.
e Colonial-era English-style suds were murky brown, top-fermented ales with smoky caramel or fruity pro les, served toasty and thermal. ese beers were o en bitter, brewed at home with wild hops, molasses, and unique local ingredients like spruce tips or pumpkin due to the lack of local malt.
Fast-forward to the mid-19th century. German immigrants ooded Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and St. Louis, an area that would become known as the German Triangle. Germans introduced America to bratwurst, kindergarten, and fahrvergnügen. (Back then, if you asked any old Joesf Schmosf his opinion on the warm, English-style ale, he’d probably say something like, “Dieses bier taste like Schmidt.”)
Before “pass me a cold one” became popular in American dialogue, German immigrants had a palate for ice-cold beer. Back home, the Deutschland brews were stockpiled in cold caves in summer. (Lager is a German word meaning “to store.”)
Two-row barley, standard in Germany, did not thrive in the U.S., so they improvised and used six-row barley. Its enzyme content could convert larger amounts of American adjunct grains like corn and rice. e settlers adapted their traditional methods to produce crisp, refreshing American lagers. (Beer … nds a way.)
e popularity of the American-style lager helped propel legendary breweries like Schlitz and Pabst in the late 1890s. Nearly a century later, Miller introduced the “diet” beer with Miller Lite in 1975. en came Coors Light in ’78 and Bud Light in ’82. e launch of the “light beer wars” gave us catchphrases: “Tastes great. Less lling.” It chilled us out when worried if our beer was cold enough to drink (look for the blue mountains). It convinced men that Spuds MacKenzie hooked up with more women on his way to the re hydrant than most men do all year.
It’s been more than two years since the Memphis and Goldcrest 51 romance reignited, and it’s still solid. When you drink Memphis’ original lager, you’re just not tasting cracker malts, sweet corn, or subtle spices, you’re tasting Memphis history. And you’re tasting American history.
A staple in the U.S. for generations, no matter what you call it — brewski, a cold one, golden nectar — it’s more American than apple pie. Like Andy Dufresne told Captain Hadley, “I think a man working outdoors feels more like a man with a bottle of suds in his hand.”
Buddy Jones is a longtime Memphis bartender and comedian who hosts a weekly comedy night at Peoples on Beale.
PHOTO: BUDDY JONES
Goldcrest 51, Memphis’ own American lager.
FOOD By Michael Donahue
Marshall Steakhouse Now Selling BBQ
Barbecue arrived for the rst time at Marshall Steakhouse on May 13th.
It’s available at lunch between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Wednesdays, ursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at the restaurant in Holly Springs, Mississippi, says owner Randall Swaney.
ey also will cater barbecue, Swaney says. “We’re going to be doing a lot of catering,” he says.
Swaney decided to begin selling barbecue a er Clancy’s Cafe in nearby Red Banks, Mississippi closed. He once told the restaurant’s owner, Tyler Clancy, that he wouldn’t sell barbecue at Marshall Steakhouse because Clancy’s was selling it. “We’re friends, so I said, ‘OK. I’m not going to get in your business.’”
Swaney is now selling smoked dry ribs and pulled or chopped shoulders and butts with various barbecue sauces. He also is featuring boneless chicken thighs wrapped in bacon and served on a bed of macaroni and cheese.
Sides include baked beans, slaw, mac and cheese, green beans, squash, French fries, and okra. “And we’ll probably be adding fried cat sh here in the next couple of weeks. People are going to love it,” he says.
Swaney hired veteran barbecuer Ben Burt from Tupelo, Mississippi to do the barbecuing. But whether it’s eating it or cooking it, Swaney himself is no stranger to barbecue. “I love barbecue,” he says. “I could eat it every day.”
For four years or so, he was on the Naegele Swign (a play on ‘Swine’) Co. barbecue team in the Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest. “I was down there every day,” he says. Swaney was one of the team’s cooks. “I’ve got a smoker on my farm. I’ve smoked my own stu for years.”
He’s bought a Hendrix smoker for his new barbecue endeavor. “It belonged to one of the world champion barbecuers at one point. e company that made it is a very famous company that makes vent hoods and stu . I bought it from another guy who had a restaurant in DeSoto County. He said it was too big for him. (It’s) eight feet
long, probably ve-feet tall, and threefeet deep.”
Opening a restaurant “was an accident,” Swaney says. “I had never been in the restaurant business. I had never worked in a restaurant.”
Born in Memphis, Swaney grew up in Holly Springs. A er graduating from the University of Mississippi at Oxford, Swaney went to work for Naegele Outdoor Advertising Inc. for 10 years. He then was one of the founders of Trans Ad, which produced the back-lit ads at Memphis bus stops. A er that company was sold, Swaney remained with
Swaney himself is no stranger to barbecue. “I love barbecue,” he says. “I could eat it every day.”
“like a gymnasium.” Swaney thought. “ is would be a waste of space to use for a sawmill once a month whenever I wanted to cut something. I decided to make it a feed store.” But he was told he would only make 50 cents from each bag of feed he sold. So, Swaney decided to add a gun store to the feed store. He then got the idea to add a 10-foot-by-10-foot screened-in porch, “and have a Weber grill and come in and cook hamburgers at lunch,” he says. “Everybody thought that was a good idea.” en someone said, “Maybe you ought to have steaks one night a week.”
“ at’s where the idea came from. So I completely switched gears from sawmill to feed store to feed store/gun store to steakhouse that sold prime steaks.”
When he told his wife he was going to open a steakhouse she said,“You’ve got to be kidding. You’ve lost your mind.” Friends said the same thing: “ at’s the worst idea ever, to build a steakhouse in Marshall County in the middle of nowhere.”
To which Swaney responded: “Well, if they like prime meat cooked on a charcoal grill they will come.” And, he says, “Being in the billboard business, I knew all about demographics.” He also knew about tra c patterns. Marshall Steakhouse can be seen from Interstate 22, “where there’s 55,000 people a day,” he says.
the company as president for another year before opening his own billboard business, Swaney Outdoor Advertising. Marshall Steakhouse originally was supposed to be a sawmill. Swaney built it with 35-foot tall red iron pieces from the old Batesville Convention Center “that blew over about 20 years ago.”
While that convention center was 200feet wide, Swaney’s building is 60-feet wide and the height of a three-and-ahalf story building. “ ese are massive steel beams,” he says. “Five feet wide and a half inch thick.”
His building ended up looking
Swaney cut all the wood used for the restaurant. e inside is pine and oak. “Some of the boards are oak. And all the trees holding up the mezzanine level are 150-to-200-year-old cedar trees.” He also built the slab tables from “a stand of what was probably the largest white oak trees in the state of Tennessee. ose were 200 to 250 years old.”
Swaney opened Marshall Steakhouse in July 2017. e restaurant seats about 320 people inside. And they have about 20 picnic tables outside. “We have a place for bands. We’ve had a lot of events here, and we’re getting ready to start doing a lot more outdoor events.” He’s currently building a Marshall Steakhouse in Oxford, Mississippi, slated to open this fall. And Swaney will be selling barbecue there, too.
Ribs, shoulders, and chicken have been added to the lunch menu.
PHOTO: (ABOVE) MICHAEL DONAHUE; (BELOW) COURTESY BEN BURT (above) Randall Swaney and Ben Burt; (below) Ribs
By Emily Guenther
Taurus’ Quiet Magic
Let steady rhythms ground you this season.
May always brings a subtle shi in the atmosphere.
e frantic energy of early spring begins to settle.
e world feels less like it’s bursting open and more like it’s stretching into itself. Trees leaf out with con dence. Flowers stop rushing and start lingering. Even the sunlight seems to thicken, warming the skin instead of merely brushing it.
Astrologically, this shi aligns with the heart of Taurus season, a time associated with steadiness, embodiment, and the simple magic of being fully present in life. You don’t have to follow astrology to feel it. It is less about belief and more about sensation. It’s the part of spring that invites us to slow down, breathe deeper, and reconnect with the physical world in a way that feels grounding and transformative.
Taurus is an earth sign, and earth energy is rarely loud. It doesn’t announce itself with fanfare or urgency. Instead, it works through texture, rhythm, and repetition. It asks us to notice what’s right in front of us — our routines, our homes, our bodies, our senses — and to treat these everyday experiences as worthy of attention. In a culture that o en glori es speed and productivity, this can feel almost radical.
minds us that grounding isn’t a metaphor but a practice rooted in the physical world. is is also a time when beauty becomes more than decoration. In Taurus season, beauty is nourishment. It’s the way sunlight lters through new leaves; the scent of honeysuckle dri ing across a neighborhood; the satisfaction of arranging a room so it feels like a sanctuary. It isn’t about perfection, it’s about harmony — creating spaces, moments, and experiences that support our well-being.
Now is an ideal time to refresh your surroundings, not through dramatic overhauls but through small, intentional acts. Open windows. Bring in a plant. Rearrange a corner of your home so it feels more inviting. ese gestures can shi the energy of a space in ways that ripple outward into mood, clarity, and motivation. Tending to the physical world is a form of tending to the inner world.
Simply resting is one of Taurus season’s
superpowers.
One of the de ning qualities of Taurus season is its emphasis on embodiment. A er months of winter hibernation and early-spring restlessness, this is when we begin to inhabit ourselves again. We remember what it feels like to be in a body, not just a mind. We crave warmth, comfort, and tactile pleasures: so blankets, good meals, fresh air, bare feet in grass. ese aren’t indulgences, they’re invitations to reconnect with the moment. ere’s a spiritual dimension to this kind of presence. Many traditions teach that the body is a doorway to deeper awareness. When we slow down enough to feel our breath, heartbeat, or the ground beneath us, we’re not just relaxing, we’re returning to ourselves. Taurus season re-
Another hallmark is the call to slow down. Not to stop, but to move with purpose rather than momentum. Taurus energy values consistency over intensity and reminds us that sustainable progress o en comes from steady e ort, not dramatic leaps. Recommit to routines that support your well-being — morning walks, mindful meals, creative hobbies, or simply giving yourself permission to rest without guilt. Rest, in fact, is one of this season’s quiet superpowers. In a society that o en treats rest as a reward rather than necessity, we’re now invited to reconsider our relationship with stillness. Rest is not laziness. It’s restoration. It’s the fertile pause that allows growth to take root. Nature models this beautifully: Nothing blooms nonstop. Everything has cycles of activity and cycles of replenishment.
Consider embracing the quiet magic of this season. You don’t need rituals or elaborate practices, just a willingness to slow down and pay attention. Step outside and feel the air on your skin. Savor your morning co ee instead of rushing through it. Notice the colors, scents, and textures around you. Let yourself be present in your own life. e sacred is not always found in the extraordinary. Sometimes it’s in the steady rhythm of daily living, in the beauty of the natural world, and in the act of being here, now, in a body that carries us through it all. Emily Guenther is a co-owner of e Broom Closet metaphysical shop. She is a Memphis native, professional tarot reader, ordained Pagan clergy, and dog mom.
PHOTO: DEBORAH LEE ROSSITER | DREAMSTIME.COM
quiet
15 – 17
Suggs Park Collierville
Syndication
Field Report
Ronaldo, a man from Cascavel, Brazil, was walking to work when two vicious dogs attacked him, Ratopati reported on Feb. 26. The dogs lunged at his neck, and as he fought them off, one bit down on the cellphone in his shorts pocket, which turned out to be fortuitous: The phone exploded, scaring the dogs off. “That moment was terrifying, but that very mobile phone saved my life,” Ronaldo said. He did sustain some minor burns on his leg. The dogs’ owner apologized and agreed to cover his medical expenses and the cost of a new phone.
[Ratopati, 2/26/26]
See You Later, Alligator
REGISTER NOW & SAVE!
Anthony Buhl, 56, and March Chadwick, 57, are awaiting arraignment after being charged in Florida for driving with a dead alligator on the roof of their car, The Smoking Gun reported. On April 4, witnesses and license plate readers tracked Buhl and Chadwick as they drove from central Florida to the Atlantic coast with the carcass in plain view. After learning that possession of an alligator is illegal in Florida, the two tourists came up with a solution: They covered the deceased with a white sheet. A Fish and Wildlife Conservation (FWC) commissioner finally caught up to them and pulled them over, but it’s unclear whether the pair still had the alligator at that point. The arrest report indicated that they had earlier called the FWC dispatch to inform them they had disposed of the alligator. The report also offered an explanation: Evidently, the duo “admitted taking the roadkill alligator and wanting to take it to a taxidermy office to have it stuffed.” They were booked into the Brevard County jail and released after paying a $5,000 bond. They were scheduled to appear in court on April 28. [The Smoking
Live, From Cincinnati WKRP is finally coming home to Cincinnati. D.P. McIntire of Raleigh, North Carolina, runs a media nonprofit that has been the proud owner of the call sign WKRP since 2014. McIntire, 56, recalled watching the first episode of the 1978 CBS sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati: “I got up and I proclaimed, ‘I’m going to be in radio.
And if I ever have the opportunity, I’m going to run a station called WKRP.’”
According to The Associated Press, McIntire’s local broadcast WKRPLP — 101.9 FM — went live on Nov. 30, 2015, and boasted “irreverent” offerings such as a show called “Weird Al and Friends,” and even an annual Thanksgiving turkey giveaway, where McIntire’s team gives out gift certificates for a local grocery store — a nod to the sitcom’s famous Turkey Day episode. When McIntire sought bids on the call letters, Cincinnati answered. “I cannot, by contract, tell you when. I cannot tell you who. But I can tell you, direct to the camera, WKRP, after 48 years, is coming to Cincinnati,” McIntire said. “It has a special place in the hearts of an awful lot of people, and we have been very, very, very proud to have been a steward of that legacy.” [AP, 4/3/26]
In the Mood
In London, younger millennials and older Gen Zers are ditching the dating apps for slide decks. At “Date My Mate,” a live dating event hosted by a north London pub, participants create and present PowerPoint slides to pitch their close friends as potential dates for those looking for love, Reuters reported on March 27. Attendees adorn “Date” or “Mate” stickers, and friends boast about their pals. “A bit more about Lauren. She’s 30. She’s a structural engineer, so even though she will stop walls from falling down, she’ll always be there to support you,” said one friend. All 150 tickets sold out within minutes, and organizers are already planning additional events. “Date My Mate” comes as satisfaction with dating apps has dropped across the U.K. in recent years. The wine company Nice helped organize the event and hopes to plan as many as one per week across the country.
[Reuters, 3/27/26]
Send your weird news items with subject line WEIRD NEWS to WeirdNewsTips@amuniversal.com.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): When naturalist John Muir wanted to experience a storm, he climbed to the top of a 100-foot Douglas fir and rode it for hours through gale-force winds. He later reflected that the danger, in his judgment, was “hardly greater” than staying under a roof, and that the exhilaration and sensory richness justified his experiment. I’m not counseling you to be exactly like Muir in the coming weeks, Aries. Please don’t take foolish risks. However, I would love you to explore what truths are available when you put yourself in the path of intensity.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): I suspect you would benefit from engaging with a friendly devil’s advocate in the coming weeks. Your clarity and understanding will deepen in just the right ways if you converse with affectionate skeptics who like and respect you but also want to help you grow. I realize that such people may be hard to find. If you can’t locate any, you could hire one. Or do the next best thing: Argue with yourself. Entertain lines of thought that are contrary to your usual ideas. Don’t let your habitual self get away with its usual rationalizations. The benefits of this exercise will be unpredictably huge.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): In the Northern Hemisphere, the North Star holds a fixed place in the sky. Also known as Polaris, or the Pole Star, it hangs in almost the same spot throughout the night while other stars rise and set. Because of this steadfast presence, it has long served as a trusted marker for navigation, especially for sailors at sea. Over time, it naturally came to represent an inner compass or a guiding ideal. In your own experience, Cancerian, what serves as your symbolic North Star? What’s the steady, orienting force that helps you decide where and how to move next? Now is an auspicious moment to tend to and revitalize your bond with this central source of direction.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In the mid 1950s, researchers developed reliable methods for creating synthetic diamonds in the laboratory. Since then, advances in technology have made it possible to grow large, high quality diamonds from small seed crystals in a relatively short time. I invite you to make this one of your operative metaphors, Leo. In the coming weeks, the forces of destiny will align with your efforts if you experiment with nurturing and expanding the parts of your life that are most like a diamond. Facilitate the development of your valuable beauty.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Scientist Stuart Kauffman theorizes that living systems are healthiest when they operate near the “edge of chaos.” There’s a critical zone between rigid order and unstructured randomness where complexity and adaptability can flourish. Too much
By Rob Brezsny
organization creates brittle stiffness, while excessive chaos prevents coherence. Life thrives when it has some of both. I invite you to ruminate on these themes in the coming weeks, Virgo. According to my edgy analysis of the astrological omens, you’re being invited to cultivate and foster your own personal “edge of chaos” territory. Your interesting task is to create sweet spots where structure and spontaneity synergize. Locate these happy places and abide there for a while.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Choose two small and specific ways you’re going to stop pretending. One example might be how you respond when someone asks how you’re doing. Another may be an opinion you’ve been softening to keep the peace. Or maybe there’s a desire you’ve been downplaying because it feels impractical or too revealing. Here’s the name of this experiment: Incremental Precision Liberation. The key is to do it casually, with no melodrama or selfconsciousness. If it’s successful, you could try another round in two weeks.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Scorpio primatologist Frans de Waal devoted years to watching chimpanzees reconcile with each other after enduring discord. He was fascinated by how they rebuilt trust through elaborate rituals of appeasement, grooming, and kind gestures. Once the chimps stopped fighting, he marveled, they actively repaired their connection, which often emerged stronger than it was before the dispute. I hope you will borrow their primate wisdom in the coming weeks, Scorpio. Do your best to navigate through conflict or alienation, and then instigate generous acts of rebonding. Don’t sulk, be evasive, or go silent. Be creative as you work to replenish what was damaged. The renewed relationship could be closer for having weathered the difficulties.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): The wandering albatross harnesses the wind, enabling it to travel vast distances with minimal effort. There’s an initial effort that leads to big energy savings. The bird climbs into strong winds and then relaxes as it gets transported, surfing the air currents. I mention this, Sagittarius, because I suspect you’ve been trying too hard and working too much — unnecessarily so. Less strenuous exertion, more gliding, please! Ask yourself what flows are already streaming in your favor. Could you catch a ride on existing momentum? Here’s my advice: Figure out where life’s tides are already moving, then position yourself to get carried along.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Ethnomusicologists studying throat singing know that Tuvan singers can produce two or more tones simultaneously. The
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
Soil biologists say a teaspoon of productive soil may contain billions of living organisms. These bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and nematodes work in cooperative networks, generating a hidden abundance that ensures everything above ground thrives. Your immediate future has this quality, Taurus. Beneath the visible surface of your life, beneficial processes are generating fertility and possibility. You don’t need to see the miracle to trust it’s happening. Your role is simply to have faith as you maintain the conditions that allow this mysterious abundance to do its work.
human voice, it turns out, has the ability to harmonize with itself. Most of us never discover this because we never try. What other multidimensional capacities are you not using because you’ve never investigated them or tested their limits, Capricorn? The coming weeks are ideal for experimentation. What unexpected capacities might you get access to if you explored possibilities you’ve assumed were beyond you? You may be able to develop aptitudes and acquire gifts you haven’t discovered yet.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Cartographer Gerardus Mercator created his famous world map in 1569, enabling sailors to plot straight-line courses across oceans. But his technique dramatically distorts the size of landmasses. Greenland appears larger than Africa, when in reality Africa is 14 times bigger. And the truth is that every map privileges certain truths while distorting others. This is a key teaching for you right now, Aquarius. Examine the mental maps you’re using to navigate your life. Might they be hiding or warping reality in any way? Consider whether you would benefit from redrawing your inner visualizations of the wide, wild world out there.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Perfectionism has increased dramatically in recent decades. Young people are especially affected. But here’s the twist: The compulsion for perfection rarely improves performance. It’s more likely to undermine achievement by triggering paralysis and excessive self-criticism. Now is a favorable time for you, Pisceans, to rebel against the trend. I encourage you to cultivate a relaxed devotion to being “good enough” as you enjoy yourself thoroughly. Do you know the difference between cheerfully seeking excellence and grimly striving for perfection? Move away from what demands your obsessive rigor and focus on what requires soulful completion.
FILM By Kailynn Johnson
The Devil Wears Prada 2
Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway reunite for a fabulous take on the world of fashion.
In a time of constant remakes, reboots, and reimaginings, I must say I’ve grown a bit weary. Doing things for the sake of nostalgia is a cute concept — especially when one gets to experience things anew, this time with a fully developed frontal lobe. However, treating movies merely as intellectual property to be reintroduced as a nostalgic cash-grab has soured me on the idea.
When e Devil Wears Prada 2 was announced, I never thought it would come to fruition. Not only does it call for big names like Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci to nd time in their schedules — and money in the budget — to come together, but the lm’s iconography is too precious to risk. Seeing the Target and Old Navy collabs for the movie with items in uenced by the “It’s Wine O’Clock” craze made me especially wary of the sequel. But cheugy marketing aside, e Devil Wears Prada 2 is stylish and polished, a perfect companion to its predecessor.
Twenty years a er Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) le Runway magazine as Miranda Priestly’s assistant, she’s now a journalist for a newspaper in New York doing hardhitting pieces with several accolades to her name. A er a perfect ’00s-era montage lled with Easter eggs and nods to the rst lm, Andy and her newsroom colleagues attend an awards banquet. Moments before Andy is announced as the recipient of an award, the entire sta is noti ed via text that they’ve been laid o . Meanwhile, Runway employees Nigel (Stanley Tucci) and Miranda’s assistant Amari (Simone Ashley) are trying to run damage control on an issue before Miranda arrives at the event. But just as Miranda arrives, it is revealed that a scathing piece has been published about the magazine a er they ran a “glowing” piece about a brand using sweatshops.
In hopes of reviving the magazine’s credibility, Irv Ravitz (Tibor Feldman), owner of Runway’s parent company Elias-Clark, o ers Andy a job as the head of his magazine’s features department. As she mulls over the idea of returning to Runway with her journalism colleagues, one of them suggests Andy write a tell-all book about Miranda. Andy dismisses the idea, but her friend still pitches an editor about the possibility.
Andy’s return to Runway is a shock to Miranda, as she was hired without
e Devil Wears Prada 2, starring Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, and Emily Blunt
The film is loaded with fan-service without overdoing it.
her knowledge. Without fully settling into the new Runway, Andy is whisked away with Miranda and Nigel to deal with the fallout of their latest piece with a major advertiser. It’s revealed that the advertiser is Dior, with Emily (Emily Blunt), Andy’s former coworker, at the helm. Afraid of losing advertising revenue, Miranda agrees to a lengthy feature on the brand and assigns it to Andy.
Andy is shocked by how easily Miranda gave in, and soon nds out that Irv is set to announce Miranda as head of global content at Elias-Clark any day now. is revelation shows Andy that Miranda’s success is reliant on her, so she sets out to do more serious pieces at Runway
Initially, Andy’s more in-depth stories receive only minimal praise and traction until she lands an exclusive interview with Sasha Barnes (Lucy Liu), the ex-wife of a billionaire tech mogul. Runway’s image is elevated beyond a mere glamour factory, seemingly securing Miranda’s promotion. But the celebration is short-lived. When Irv has a heart
attack and dies at his 75th birthday party, control of the conglomerate is thrown in doubt, with Miranda’s and Runway’s future hanging in the balance.
I was seven when I watched the rst lm, and I was in it mostly for the out ts and the 2000s rom-com vibes. It played a big part in my ambition to become a journalist. It’s been a mainstay in my lm Rolodex for years, and once I got past the iconic out ts, I realized how much the lm was a relic of turn-of-the-century fashion and magazine culture. Oh, how I envy those who experienced this masterpiece as it was intended upon its release!
e Devil Wears Prada perfectly encapsulates the authority fashion magazines had as arbiters of style and trends, as well as the blinkered ambition of young-career journalists. Andy’s tenacity in enduring the cutthroat culture at Runway so she could get a “foot in the door” for her career is palpable in retrospect, and Hathaway’s performance is timeless even a er 20 years’ worth of perspective. at’s why it’s so
rewarding to see a re ned and con dent Andy who is well into her career juxtaposed with a Miranda who’s still as domineering and demanding as ever, and only slightly grazed by politically correct culture.
e stakes are high for a sequel made two decades a er its original. e rst lm casts such a large shadow over both fashion and popular culture that a new installment needed to be timely and o er a unique perspective.
e Devil Wears Prada 2 does that perfectly, o ering commentary on the state of print media and its contributors’ commitment to keep it alive in an evolving landscape.
e lm is loaded with fan-service without overdoing it. It doesn’t lean too hard on its ample star power or the audience’s nostalgia. Director David Frankel and writer Aline Brosh McKenna deliver a lm that can stand on its own. Maybe I will add an Andy Sachs Funko-Pop to my collection.
e Devil Wears Prada 2 Now playing Multiple locations
Our critic picks the best films in theaters.
Obsession
Bear (Michael Johnston) is a mildmannered guy secretly obsessed with his co-worker and childhood friend Nikki (Inde Navarrette). When he buys a mysterious “One Wish Willow” in a head shop, he wishes Nikki would love him more than anyone. It works — too well. Nikki becomes obsessed with Bear. She starts to see things that aren’t there. Or maybe they are. Director Curry Barker graduates from YouTube to the big screen, with Indie Memphis alum Vivian Gray as production designer.
The Sheep Detectives
If you’re like me, you saw the title to this film and wondered, are the sheep the
detectives, or is it about human detectives who solve sheep crime? Here’s your answer: Julia Louis-Dreyfus stars as the voice of Lily, a Shetland sheep who sets out to find the killer of her shepherd George Hardy (Hugh Jackman), with the help of Bryan Cranston, Chris O’Dowd, Regina Hall, Patrick Stewart, and Bella Ramsey.
Mortal Kombat II
The most violent video game of the ’90s returns to theaters for another metaphysical slugfest. Karl Urban returns as Johnny Cage, an American action movie star transported to a mystical dimension to fight against the forces of Shao Kahn (6-foot-8 Martyn Ford) for the freedom of Earthrealm (that’s where you live.) All the faves (Kitana, Raiden, etc.) are on the scene to FINISH HIM!
LEGAL NOTICES
2010 HONDA ACCORD
VIN: 1HGCP2F38AA098360
If anyone has any interest in this vehicle, call 901-591-0262 by May 27, 2026.
BUY, SELL, TRADE
WANTED: OLD WINDUP
Victrolas & old 45 & 78 records. Call Paul 901-734-6111.
SHARED HOUSING
ROOM FOR RENT
Midtown/Medical District. Furnished rooms, great area, wifi, and utilities included. $160 - $185 per week. 901-699-6962.
EMPLOYMENT
HYOSUNG HICO, LTD. has an opening for a full-time Sr. Test Lab Engineer 2nd Shift (M-F 4p-12:30a) in Memphis, TN 38109.
Duties include but are not limited to leading testing of power transformers; troubleshoot and diagnose testing equipment problems; prepare detailed test plans based on customer specification, test specification, nameplate, control drawings; maintain/ repair test equipment & ensure equipment is calibrated; ensure engineering changes are acted upon as required and communicate nonconformances to the quality assurance department. Provide work leadership and train junior engineers and test technicians. Prepare failure reports, provide technical expertise to MRB teams to troubleshoot and solve transformer testing issues; support of ongoing business activities such as the ISO-9001 program, daily and routine manufacturing and QC inspection issues, and lean manufacturing initiatives, internal audits, customer visits or field assessments, testing issues or general QA/ QC procedural matters. Assist with on-the-job training in the areas of testing. Bachelor’s or its foreign equivalent in Electrical or Electronics Engineering or related engineering field. Plus 5 years experience in transformer testing in heavy industries or utilities. Also needed are experience in Quality Assurance and Manufacturing Department procedures, performing electrical power tests, using inspection
tools, instruments and equipment and performing test equipment and tool inspections and calibration. Up to 10% international or domestic travel for training/conferences. Email resumes to: careers@hyosung.com
REAL WORLD EVIDENCE
ANALYST (MULTIPLE POS.), SMITH & NEPHEW, INC., MEMPHIS, TN:
Query & exec. feasibility &/or fast track analysis from broad functional users incl. clinical strategy, market access/ commercial in an appropriate manner (SQL, SAS, R Studio or other languages). 100% Telecomm. Must be willing to travel up to 15% (95% Domestic & 5% international) to visit other Smith & Nephew offices, conferences & trainings. For complete job description, list of requirements & to apply go to https:// tinyurl.com/mr4ae8jb.
ST. JUDE CHILDREN’S RESEARCH HOSPITAL (MEMPHIS, TN) SEEKS A BIOINFORMATICS ANALYST (JOB ID: SJ003JR): Modify and operate data analysis pipelines for biomedical datasets. Req’s Bach or equiv in Bioinformatics, Cheminformatics, Stat/Comp Sci or rlt & 2 yr exp. in bioinformatics or rel. Telecommuting permissible, from Memphis, TN area. Send resume w/job# to John Rochford, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, 262 Danny Thomas Pl, MS 507, Memphis, TN 38105 or email Recruiting@stjude.org. St. Jude is an EEO/AA/Vet/Disability Employer.
Ballroom Blitz
Reckless overspending amid curtailing of civil liberties proves this administration is not owed the bene t of the doubt.
Mere days a er the Supreme Court of the United States gutted the Voting Rights Act, which required states with a history of racial discrimination, like Tennessee, to draw majority-minority districts, the Tennessee Legislature passed a new U.S. House map that will heavily favor Republicans in all nine of the state’s districts. ough the Volunteer State nished its regular legislative session on April 23rd, Governor Bill Lee wasted no time calling lawmakers back for a special session.
ese are complicated, nuanced issues that require careful handling — until it’s time to disenfranchise Black voters, at which point Tennessee Republicans will gladly put their vacations on hold. “If one doesn’t feel that a law is restrictive, then why work so hard to repeal it?” any logical person might ask.
“ e provisions in the Voting Rights Act are outdated and unnecessary,” Republicans argue, “because America has outgrown its long history of racism. We’re all better now. Really.”
Of course, as soon as the maps could be redrawn, they were. It’s a story we have seen played out in other avenues of public life and national or state policy, and at a certain point, as former President George W. Bush famously said, “fool me twice … you can’t get fooled again.”
During Trump’s rst term, he enacted an aggressive deregulation campaign, withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, repealing the Clean Power Plan, and reversing dozens of environmental protections. Some talking heads argue that so many regulations prevent business from operating at its full potential. at’s the point.
Given free rein, the business class will run roughshod over American consumers. Businesses get a refund system for losses sustained because of Trump’s unconstitutional tari s. Taxpayers who, as individual consumers, paid more for goods and services are out of luck. You don’t close the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau unless your intent is to bilk some consumers. Don’t believe me? is February, the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban A airs Minority Sta released a report that calculated that the Trump administration’s attack on the CFPB has cost American consumers $19 billion.
Everything is too expensive, and everyone agrees. So naturally, now is the appropriate time to double down on that ballroom renovation, also known as the “East Wing Modernization Project.”
e ballooning price tag for the new White House ballroom has jumped from $200 million to double that amount at $400 million, and that’s before considering the addendum to Immigration & Customs Enforcement budget, which allocates $1 billion to enhance the security infrastructure of the EWMP.
Why shouldn’t American taxpayers foot the bill for a fancy, schmancy new ballroom where the ultra-wealthy, parasitic Epstein class can enjoy special access to the president and other politicians?
In the ’80s, the Project on Government Oversight reported that the Pentagon had overpaid for several items, including a $435 hammer and a $600 toilet seat, with those items and prices o en con ated in the public’s eye, leading to the orepeated myth of the “$600 hammer.”
Of course, those prices were a budgetary convenience, a way of accounting for funds. Still, it seems quaint and rustic, the idea of a nation incensed over such a pittance. ese days, $200 million becomes $400 million, which then requires an additional $1 billion. All while the price of gas soars with no concerted plan to see American taxpayers through the crisis, even as the country still deals with the cost of the One Big Beautiful Bill ( at’s right, I’m still talking about it!). If we cannot a ord to keep healthcare premiums from increasing, we cannot a ord a gilded ballroom. If we cannot fund the Medicare Savings Program adequately, we cannot a ord a war — or “military con ict,” if you prefer — in Iran. Or Venezuela.
Yet for “Ballroom Republicans,” this is national budgetary policy now: ere is money for me, but not for thee.
Put simply, it is as ludicrous to believe that regulations enforcing civil and human rights are unnecessary as it is to believe that corporate entities with a duciary responsibility to shareholders will e ectively self-regulate. ese goons need oversight, and they need it now. Jesse Davis is a former Flyer sta er; he writes a monthly Books feature for Memphis Magazine. His opinions, such as they are, don’t expect to get an invitation to the new ballroom’s grand opening.
PHOTO: KRISTINA VOLGENAU | UNSPLASH Regulate polluters or renovate the mansion? at is the question.
