Of course, the MEMernet was alive last week with ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith’s talk about Memphis and crime. Y’all saw the biggest tweets and memes. But here are some we’re still thinking about.
“A lot of talk about Memphis the last few days,” tweeted Evan Fox, videographer for sports commentator Pat McAfee. “I will always love that city because it is the home of one of the cleanest daps in recorded history.”
“Stephen A. Smith is, and always has been, a sweaty nutsack,” wrote u/ RedWhiteAndJew on Reddit.
“On my morning walk here in Memphis,” Grind City Media host and Grizz Gaming general manager Lang Whitaker tweeted with the photo above. “Sure is scary.”
“Only lames feel unsafe in Memphis,” tweeted former NBA star Will Barton. “One of the greatest cities to live in. Especially if you’re an athlete. Memphis embraces you like no other and protects you. But you gotta be a real one to understand it. Only goo es don’t rock with da M.”
UNRELATED
“Great seeing Penny Hardaway today in the capitol advocating for the University of Memphis!” state Representative John Gillespie (RMemphis) tweeted. We print it here without comment.
Questions, Answers + Attitude
Edited by Toby Sells
{WEEK THAT WAS
By Flyer staff
Schools Audit, xAI, &
Trans Care
State GOP allege chicanery, clean air lawsuit, and SCOTUS upholds state law against gender care.
DESTROYING DOCUMENTS?
Tennessee’s forensic audit of Memphis-Shelby County Schools will delve into allegations by key Republican lawmakers that the school district is destroying information in advance of a state audit.
Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) contacted Comptroller Jason Mumpower about the allegations as the state prepares to start a $6 million forensic audit of the district July 17th, according to spokesman John Dunn.
In a statement posted on X last week, Sexton and Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge) said, “Hearing Shelby County Schools is destroying documents ahead of the forensic audit – this is a crime! @TNCOT [Comptroller] has been noti ed. ose tampering with or destroying public records will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
x AI LAWSUIT THREATENED
Last week, the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) sent a letter to xAI notifying the company of its intent to sue over the data center’s permitless gas turbines. e letter was sent on behalf of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Both organizations have been vocal about their concern for the facility, as well as the harm it poses to the community — speci cally those in South Memphis.
e NAACP sent a letter to the Shelby County Health Department and Memphis Light, Gas and Water (MLGW) requesting that they force the facility to cease operations.
SELC has long monitored the project, sending a letter in April to Dr. Michelle Taylor, director of the Shelby County Health Department. e organization said it obtained aerial images in March that showed that xAI has 35 permitless gas turbines.
O cials sent a 60-day notice of intent to sue to xAI saying the gas turbines violate federal guidelines and that the project is required to “obtain appropriate air permits before operating its polluting gas turbines.”
SCOTUS UPHOLDS TRANS CARE BAN
e Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) upheld
Tennessee’s ban on gender-a rming healthcare for transgender youth last week.
e court released its ruling in the case of United States v. Skrmetti, which sought to ght the state’s e orts to restrict access to care for transgender minors. e ruling came months a er the court initially blocked the law from taking e ect in July of the same year. Governor Bill Lee signed the state law in March of 2023. It prohibits healthcare professionals from administering gender-a rming care to minors. is legislation makes gender-a rming hormone therapy and puberty blockers inaccessible for trans people in Tennessee until they reach the age of 18.
PROTECTIONS FOR IVF, BIRTH CONTROL
In a legislative session dominated by the GOP supermajority’s conservative agenda, Tennessee lawmakers this spring took the unusual, bipartisan step of protecting certain reproductive rights.
Beginning July 1st, Tennessee will become the rst — and only — state in the South to have codi ed the right to access fertility treatments and birth control into state law.
Introduced by two Republican women and signed into law by Governor Bill Lee, the legislation protects Tennesseans’ access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) and a range of birth control methods — reproductive health options that have not, in modern times, been restricted in the state but now have safeguards into the future.
Tennessee Lookout contributed to this report.
Visit the News Blog at memphis yer.com for fuller versions of these stories and more local news.
POSTED TO X BY EVAN FOX
POSTED TO X BY LANG WHITAKER
PHOTO: AKHERE UNUABONA | UNSPLASH
United States v. Skrmetti marked the rst time SCOTUS heard a case regarding healthcare for the trans community.
Sexy Screw? {
MINOR MEMPHIS MYSTERY
By Toby Sells
What is the story behind South Main’s Active Bolt & Screw Co. logo?
South Main’s Active Bolt & Screw Co. is famous for their unique logo. Have you ever wondered how in the world that winking, grinning, posestriking screw got to be so … sexy?
We gured this minor Memphis mystery was worth a question to the owners and perfect for our occasional series here: Minor Memphis Mystery.
Active Bolt & Screw is a privately held distributor of fasteners and industrial hardware in the Mid-South. at means bolts, screws, nuts, and more. e company’s website says it’s been “doing it right and keeping it tight for over 60 years.”
e business started in 1959 with Robert Collie Sr. selling these products out of his station wagon. He eventually bought the old post o ce building on South Main in 1986.
Memphis fun-seekers weren’t likely an ordinary sight there back then. But anyone now heading to Ghost River Brewing Co., Lo in Yard, or even Central Station may glimpse that warehouse and its iconic sexy screw. Turns out “ e Screw Lady” was invented by Collie’s wife, Betty, who laughed to hear people thought her design was sexy.
Active Bolt & Screw is still owned and operated by the Collie family. Dave Collie, Robert Collie Sr.’s grandson, returned our email about the design, saying, “We get asked about the logo quite a bit.”
Here’s what he said:
“ e original artist is my grandmother, Betty. When the business was rst started my grandmother had three kids under 3 but would stay up to help with clerical work once the kids were in bed.
“One night my grandfather, Bob, asked her to come up with a company logo and
PHOTOS:
SELLS “ e Screw Lady”
“In my opinion it is probably a bit of a self-portrait.”
that is what she designed. e logo has never had a name but always just referred to loosely as ‘ e Screw Lady.’
“As for why she is striking that pose, you’d have to ask my grandmother. … Haha. I told her that people said it was ‘sexy’ and she fell out in laughter. She said she never really thought of it that way. ‘Maybe eye-catching,’ [she’d say], but that’s a grandmother for you.
“In my opinion it is probably a bit of a self-portrait. From the photos I’ve seen, our grandmother was always dressed to the nines. High heels, miniskirts, and lipstick. At 90, she probably still has her makeup and lipstick on while at the retirement center. ey nally got her out of wearing high heels in her 80s.”
Minor Memphis Mystery solved.
TOBY
Remembering Fred Smith
A personal friend recalls a side of Smith we didn’t see.
Fred’s gone.
e man we could least a ord to lose died Saturday. Among many other things, he was a tennis player, and thanks to our mutual friend Pepper Rodgers I was one of his playing partners for 40 years. He called us “the leisure time boys” because, as newspaperman and coach without a team, we could get from Downtown to his house in East Memphis by ve o-clock most days.
e court in his backyard, of course, was “Smith Stadium” and the many children and grandchildren who played in the yard and had to be shooed o the court were “Smithereens.”
Fred was usually a minute or two late, and when he saw that I was in the match would shout, “Hey John, what’s in the news?”
O en the honest answer was “You are,” but I would mumble something about a trial, a public meeting, or gossip I had picked up while loa ng through lunch at e Little Tea Shop Downtown.
discreet, topical, informed, and usually o -the-record. He loved to talk sports, especially football when Pepper was in the game. He had a near photographic memory for old college ght songs and — prompted or baited — would launch into a verse in full throat. ( e Memphis Listening Lab at Crosstown Concourse pays tribute to Fred and his high school buddies John King, John Fry, and Ardent Records.)
He was a good player when I met him, like all of us are in the fog of memory. Big serve, big crosscourt forehand, crummy lob (“Never ever lob!!!” he would scold himself a er hitting one). He both was and was not particular about playing partners, including retired pros Terry Moor, Mike Cahill, Sandy Mayer, Rob Cadwallader, and Donald Dell.
At any age he tried to run down every ball. Once he crashed head rst into the net post chasing one of my miss-hits. But for the grace of God … Like all of us, he missed a call now and then and would defend his honor forcefully if challenged.
As everyone knows, he was a Marine through and through. A er the warmup, he would say, “Captain so-and-so (his partner) will line us up,” but he always played the forehand court. Likewise, he deferred to his partner to make the call on the spin of the racquet for rst serve, which in the autumn of our years meant making the opposition go rst. “Specialization,” he intoned, “is the key to any successful organization.”
His post-match conversation was
When the commentary and postmatch analysis of some ordinary moment dri ed into boastful exaggeration, as it o en did, he would crack in mock solemnity, “Ah, yes, where will we nd such men?”
Now he is gone. Where will we nd such men, indeed? is piece was originally published by Smart City Memphis, which John Branston has been contributing to for four years. Before that he wrote columns, breaking news, and long-form stories for e Commercial Appeal, Memphis Flyer, Memphis Magazine, and other print and online publications. He is author of the books Rowdy Memphis (2004) and What Katy Did (2017). He is a journalist and opinion writer. His stories are based on reporting, interviews, and quotes supported by notes or a tape recorder. He has written about people who made Memphis what it is, for better and worse; about sleep issues and depression; about racquet sports; and about travel in the South and West.
PHOTO: BRAD JONES
2008 photograph of Frederick W. Smith
Summer FUN
POLITICS By Jackson Baker
Doing the Numbers
A er debating for hours, the county commission makes its budget.
As I look forward to the Shelby County elections of 2026 and to the intense competitions that will develop for them, I can’t help wondering if all the would-be members of the Shelby County Commission, say, have even a remote idea of the skills that will be required of them.
Math skills, for example. Rare is the undergraduate who sees his confrontations with the world of numbers in this or that college course, basic or advanced, anything other than a curricular matter that he or she has to safely get through in order to graduate — never again to have to deal with in the real world.
But they will, they will. e men and women who sought membership on the city council or the county commission, hoping to represent the interests of this group or that class or to raise up the prospects of some noble idea for improving society or maybe just to advance themselves in the world, will discover that to do any of those things, they have to crunch numbers.
en these compromises would be done and redone, shu ed and reshu ed in accordance with the crests and redirections of an ever-shi ing debate.
Passions were aroused, as when Commissioner Henri Brooks, ghting over a suddenly available sum of $124,000, urged unsuccessfully that it be used to “feed hungry children” rather than to help establish pay parity for county prosecutors.
Ultimately the commissioners had to confront the bottom line, a property tax rate for the county.
Mick Wright, a member of the commission’s Republican minority, proposed a rate of $2.69, a gure that would align the county with a state-supported rate designed to maintain the county’s current level of expenditures and avoid a tax increase.
So hath it been the last few weeks for the 13 members of the current county commission, and progressively so as they neared the July 1st deadline for the 2026 scal year.
In an eight-hour session on Monday, climaxing just before midnight, the commissioners added and divided and fractionated numbers many times over, as they tried to arrive at mutually acceptable dividends that would both accomplish their personal and social goals and stay within the parameters of available nancial resources.
Partisans of the zoo, for example, would nd themselves vying with advocates for mental health, say, or the county’s embryonically developing crime lab, or the multitiered desiderata of a “moral budget” pro ered by various petitioners to the commission on behalf of underserved local populations.
More so than might have been expected, compromises were arrived at by the commissioners allowing all of the various claimants some share of the limited bounty available.
Democrat Charlie Caswell Jr., determined to advance the social goals of the moral budget group and others, proposed a rate of $2.74.
And for the next two hours commissioners went back and forth with various rate variations to achieve a variety of di erent policy outcomes — all of which rate variations failed to achieve simple majorities, much less the two-thirds vote needed to pass.
In the end, the commissioners were assisted somewhat by advice from Mayor Lee Harris, who suggested two possibilities — the originally preferred $2.69 rate or one of $2.73, with the increment dedicated to a fund for universal pre-K. ( is last had been an idea put forth by Commission Chair Michael Whaley.)
e $2.69 gure, cycling the rate debate all the way back to Wright’s rst proposal, was adopted. e hard circle was squared, and Shelby County had a budget.
PHOTO: SHELBY COUNTY Commissioners Edmund Ford Jr. and Mick Wright during budget debate
War of the Worlds
We will get fooled again. And again.
In 1938, the CBS Radio Network broadcast an episode of The Mercury Theatre on the Air called “The War of the Worlds,” based on the novel by H.G. Wells that chronicled an invasion of Earth by Martians. The broadcast is only notable some 87 years later because thousands of listeners to the show came to believe it was real, and that’s because it was presented as breaking news in a series of bulletins which periodically interrupted what purported to be a program of live music.
The first calm “news reports” describe an unusual object falling from the sky in Grovers Mill, New Jersey. The crisis escalates dramatically when an on-scene reporter describes creatures emerging from what is evidently a spacecraft. The aliens employ a heat ray against police and onlookers, and the radio correspondent describes the attack in an increasingly panicked voice until his audio feed abruptly goes dead.
Subsequent news updates describe an alien invasion that the U.S. military is unable to stop. Then the story is seen through the eyes of a survivor played by a young, then-unknown actor named Orson Welles. In the end, the Martians succumb to some sort of Earthly microbes.
Because so many people were fooled by the broadcast, there was an outcry against the show’s creators for the program’s faux realism and deceptive format. In a news conference the following day, Welles apologized.
has ever worked before.” Right. Beavis and Butt-Head would like a word.
After threatening Iran with another bombing and bragging how “there are many targets left” that would be “easy to attack,” Trump wrapped things up by praising his “spectacular” generals and adding: “I just want to thank everybody, and in particular, God. I just want to say we love you, God. And we love our military.” I’m sure God was honored.
Within minutes, Fox News and other Trump-fluffers jumped into action, praising the president for his bold decisiveness and “courage.” GOP politicians raced to the nearest camera to kiss Trump’s ass. Democrats were quick to accuse Trump of overstepping his authority and violating the U.S. Constitution by launching military attacks without the approval of Congress, but it was mostly just more futile noise. And there were rumblings from some in MAGA world, who vaguely remembered that Trump had promised he wouldn’t drag the U.S. into another war. Oops.
I was reminded of the “War of the Worlds” episode on Saturday, as I watched President Trump — flanked by fellow Martians J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth — announcing that the United States had just bombed three nuclear sites in Iran. Trump managed to get through 17 seconds of teleprompter text, ending with his carefully read pronunciations of the targeted sites, before going off on a ramble about how “everybody has heard those names for years” (Really?) and how the bombs would stop “Iran’s nuclear indrucement [sic] capacity.” Perhaps he meant “enrichment,” but who knows?
He then freestyled a weave about how Iran’s “specialty” was “blowing off arms and legs,” before going on to congratulate fellow warmonger Bibi Netanyahu, adding that he and the Israeli prime minister “had worked as a team like perhaps no team
For me, the whole affair brought back the “weapons of mass destruction” facade erected by George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Colin Powell in order to invade Iraq in 2003. And we all remember how that worked out so very well.
War is never neat and clean. War is never spectacular, never easy. Nations that are attacked will retaliate, one way or another, no matter how “successful” the initial assault. Young people die in combat. Innocent men, women, and children become civilian collateral damage. Countries are destroyed. Cities are reduced to rubble. And victims don’t forget.
Remember their names: Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Gaza, and now Iran — places where hundreds of thousands of people died for lies, for politics, for machismo, for oil, for greed and ambition, and to deflect attention from domestic issues.
Now we’ve been sucked into another conflagration in the Middle East by a man with no concept of — or concern for — the potential destruction and death he’s enabled. For Trump, it’s all a show, about as real to him as “The War of the Worlds.” Except this time, the whole world is the audience, taking it all in and wishing it weren’t true.
By
John Reuwer
Dear Americans: What Is Your Red Line?
What is the price of freedom and who needs to pay it?
“Freedom isn’t free” is a slogan I have heard much of my adult life, almost always associated with praising our military and the sacri ce veterans have made. We are well educated about soldiers freeing us from British tyranny in the American Revolution and keeping us free from the Nazis and Japanese in the Second World War. e question of this moment is, what are the greatest threats to our freedom in the here and now, and what price will they demand from us? It is time to reconsider how we think about the price of freedom and who needs to pay it.
Living near Washington, D.C., as I do, I see Congress in action at committee meetings and votes. Many of these legislators clamor incessantly for preparations for war with China, Russia, and Iran, while cheering on the undeclared and illegal wars in concert with Israel against Palestinians, Yemenis, Lebanese, and Syrians. at cheering makes war inevitable, as we see with this latest attack on Iran. Neither Iran nor any of these nations is a signicant military threat to the U.S. but perhaps China is, which has not shown hostility to the U.S. except when we carry out war games and build dozens of military bases in their neighborhood. e only serious foreign threats to the U.S. that I see are the 12,000 nuclear weapons in nine di erent nations, which can annihilate civilization. at threat could be reduced or eliminated by reducing the number of nuclear weapons or eliminating them altogether. Instead, we are spending a fortune building new ones.
Less apocalyptic but more likely threats to freedom loom large in the rise of authoritarianism and the political divisions it thrives on, the outing of the Constitution and the rule of law (both domestic and international), environmental degradation, potential pandemics, and increasing wealth inequality impoverishing millions.
When ideologies make it hard to talk to neighbors and family, we lose trust in our common identity as Americans. When neighbors are kidnapped o the streets and sent to foreign prisons without due process and against court orders, our loss of trust in government becomes severe. Supporting genocide overseas diminishes our global reputation.
As I look at these threats, a strong military cannot protect us from any of them. In fact, huge expenditures on the military contribute directly to several of these threats through its monstrous environmental footprint and the way it stimulates potential enemies to arm themselves against us. It contributes indirectly by siphoning resources that could otherwise be used for tackling the many serious problems we face. Worst of all, the military can be co-opted by a tyrant, something that we saw being done in realtime with the ridiculous and costly parade on June 14th. Soldiers who nd identity in this kind of display will be the ones who enforce our loss of freedom, unless they ask themselves a question.
I urge every member of the armed forces and police to consider, what is your
PHOTO: BRPHOTO | DREAMSTIME.COM
Police on standby during the June 14th Los Angeles No Kings protest against government policies and supporting democracy and immigrant rights
red line? What order will you refuse to follow because it violates your oath to the constitution, your duty to protect the common good, or even defend basic human dignity? I think of the police o cers who surround every demonstration I witness. ey are usually polite, protect people from tra c, and sometimes intervene with counter protesters. Most of the time I appreciate their work. My question to them is, what will you do when they give you an order to arrest us for no more than we are doing today?
What will you do when they order you not just to arrest us but to intentionally harm us?
What will you do when they tell you to deport us to concentration camps?
Because they are either the prime enforcers of our freedom and safety or instruments of violence and tyranny, each armed o cer needs to know their red line
ahead of time, so when the order comes they do not follow it blindly.
Since armed forces can’t protect us from most modern threats, each of us must de ne our own red line.
How long we will look the other way when our neighbors are abducted, our colleagues doing useful work in science and medicine are laid o , and protest is criminalized?
When will we stop cooperating with violations of the law and brutality toward our neighbors? By cooperation I mean keeping our heads down and not speaking out and going about our business as though this is not our problem. We saw millions recognize their red line and demonstrate on June 14th. Will enough of our neighbors join us, and will demonstrations be enough?
How can we invite others to join us in using tools more powerful than demonstrations? Proven tactics from the huge array of nonviolent action: things like blockading illegal deportations, blocking illegal shipments of weapons, or refusing to pay taxes until the rich pay their fair share, and the government obeys the law. e single most powerful instrument for freedom is probably the general strike that can shut down the entire system or at least the worst parts of it. We need to learn about such things from our fellows in the unions and begin to train intensively to become e ective.
We will do well to stop thinking that the only thing between us and tyranny are the police and the military. e price of freedom needs to be paid by all of us. Let’s gather our neighbors and support one another in taking the bold and sometimes risky actions we need to preserve our freedom.
John Reuwer, MD, is adjunct professor of con ict resolution, St. Michael’s College, Colchester, Vermont.
A Breakfast Legacy
Food, family, and community fuel Brother Juniper’s continued success.
Brother Juniper’s has been voted “Best Breakfast” by Memphis Flyer readers for more than 20 years. e classic breakfast joint on the Highland Strip serves famously delicious and large portions of original family recipes dating back over 50 years.
“It’s an honor to win,” says owner Sarah Elliott. “We keep trying to put out the best food that we can with high-quality ingredients.”
We talked over a plate of one of her favorite meals: a potato dish with bacon, cheddar and mozzarella cheeses, green onions, sour cream, and an over-easy egg. I pierced the egg and watched the golden yolk coat the smoked bacon and roasted potatoes. “We get our eggs from an Amish farm. … ey have the bright orange yolk … and we serve it with love.”
Brother Juniper was an Italian monk who cooked for St. Francis of Assisi in the 13th century. Brother Juniper’s restaurants, a product of a missionary-outreach program, began opening across the country in the 1960s. e last remaining location is right here in Memphis. Elliott’s parents, Jonathan and Pauline Koplin, bought the restaurant when she was 12, and she’s been working there ever since. Elliott recently purchased the restaurant, making her the new o cial owner. She says her family has been helping her with the transition. “It’s stressful, but I’m so excited. I’ve grown up here and know all of the ins and outs.”
Brother Juniper’s rst Best of Memphis win was in 1999, the same year Elliot’s parents took over Brother Juniper’s College Inn in Memphis. Since then, they’ve added merchandise, hot sauces, jellies, catering, and most importantly, new and creative menu items. “ ere were
about ve omelets on the menu back then, now there are 15,” says Elliott. She’s the brains behind one of their most ordered dishes: the cinnamon roll pancakes. “Not to brag, but they’re really popular,” she says. e dish includes two massive pancakes with cinnamon sugar swirls and cream cheese icing. ey also added a co ee bar in 2010, which serves classic espressos, lattes, and more. “Some people come in just for a cup of co ee or to-go drinks, and we had to keep up with the hipster co ee spots,” says Elliott.
Many of the menu items come from Elliott’s family. “A lot of it was my dad, Jonathan. My grandmother was such a good cook that he learned most of it from her.” Besides the Koplin family’s contributions, other recipes originated from previous Brother Juniper’s owners across the country. e familial contributions are what take their dishes to the next level.
Besides serving the best breakfast in Memphis for over 20 years, Brother Juniper’s also serves Memphis citizens and nonpro ts. Local artists’ vibrant paintings add pops of color to the walls by the co ee bar. Elliott mentions Lindy Tate, a frequent customer who’s had art on the walls “forever.” Beyond that, they promote and support di erent nonpro t organizations each month on their “Community Spotlight” bulletin board. ere’s a tip jar by the entrance for cash donations and information about each organization. Brother Juniper’s also welcomes all Memphians to a free Christmas dinner every Christmas Eve. To Elliott, these parts of her business are nonnegotiable. “We want to be more than a restaurant.”
While my fork scraped the bottom of my plate, Elliott painted the scene of a typical Sunday morning at Brother Juniper’s. “ ere’s a crowd waiting outside the doors. … e dining room lls up, and people start running around like chickens with their heads cut o .” ey’ll serve hundreds of customers in the 10.5 hours they’re open on Saturdays and Sundays. e restaurant runs with an all-hands-ondeck team e ort, says Elliott. She’ll wait tables if they’re short-sta ed, run food, take co ee orders, greet arriving guests, and even step into the kitchen to help cook. She mentions Brother Juniper’s feature on Rachael Ray’s show, $40 a Day. “She kind of put us on the map for nationwide attention. at helped us blow up a bit.”
As Elliott takes the reins, she’s preparing to pass on the same traditions to her own children. “I have two little kids who will grow up here, and they already help me out. It’s great to keep the legacy.”
CALENDAR
7:30 PM THE GREEN ROOM
PHOTO: BROTHER JUNIPER’S | FACEBOOK
One of Brother Juniper’s delicious breakfasts
COVER STORY By Erika Konig, Institute for Public Service Reporting
SImmigration Crackdown
A working family lands in deportation crosshairs.
Editor’s note: Maria and Jose are not the real names of the two main subjects of this story. As a general practice, the Institute for Public Service Reporting does not use pseudonyms but is doing so in this case because of the sensitive nature of this story, which shines light on the plight of many immigrant families.
itting on a metal stool at her breakfast bar, Maria sighs and stares into the distance as she recalls her unlawful entry into the U.S. two decades ago.
“[Where I come from] it is nearly impossible to get a visa for this country,” says the curly haired mother of four who migrated here from Latin America in the early 2000s to escape crushing poverty and the roaming gangs that terrorized her hometown.
Her journey to a middle-class life in Tennessee came at great cost. e day she stu ed her life into a backpack, she said goodbye to her mother, father, and siblings — virtually everything and everyone she had ever known. She le with a tube of toothpaste, a toothbrush, a deodorant stick, and two changes of clothing as well as her ID that she stashed inside her bra for safekeeping.
“You don’t know if you will be killed or raped,’’ said Maria, who was a young adult when she hired a team of smugglers to guide her on a treacherous trek across towering mountains, murky rivers, and
rugged wastelands. “ ere is so much uncertainty.”
Following her husband, Jose, who came to the U.S. before her, she’s lived the past decade in Tennessee where she and Jose earn a living laboring with their hands. Together, they’re living an American dream, building a future for their children, three of whom were born and raised in the U.S.
But the family’s sense of security came tumbling down when Jose was arrested on a decades-old immigration violation — a legal dilemma that could result in his deportation. Back in the early 2000s, an attorney had advised Jose to skip an immigration court hearing, he said. It was poor advice — and a clear mistake.
Still, Jose thought he had put the matter far behind him, until recently when police pulled him over for a tra c violation. at’s when his old immigration case popped up in a computer check.
Police alerted federal authorities and Jose then was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and held in custody brie y before being released with a temporary work permit. He now attends routine immigration check-ins. e possibility of deportation — and family separation — is a constant threat hanging over both Jose and Maria.
“I go out, and I don’t know if I will make it back,” Maria said. “You could get
caught at work, stopped by police. … You can’t even go out to eat at a restaurant” without fearing being arrested by ICE agents, she explained.
What’s changed for Maria and Jose is a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment that’s spread across Tennessee, intensifying following the election last November of President Donald Trump. Much of that sentiment is built on contentions by Trump and others that the ranks of the U.S.’s estimated 11 million to 14 million undocumented immigrants are over owing with murderers, rapists, terrorists, and other hardcore criminals — “illegal alien monsters,” Trump called them in his address to Congress in March.
Examples of heinous crimes do exist. Yet repeated studies have shown immigrants are far less likely to commit crimes than the native population. One, a six-year study in Texas, found that “undocumented immigrants are arrested at less than half the rate of native-born U.S. citizens for violent and drug crimes.”
Getting to the truth can be di cult, given the broad secrecy and misinformation surrounding deportation e orts nationally and in Tennessee, according to records reviewed by the Institute for Public Service Reporting and interviews with more than a dozen immigrants, attorneys, law enforcement o cials, a college professor, and others who study U.S. immigration policy.
Maria and a crew of laborers on clean-up duty. is photo has been altered to protect identities.
e best evidence suggests that the typical undocumented immigrant more closely resembles Maria and Jose than Jose Antonio Ibarra, the infamous Venezuelan man convicted last year of murdering Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, whose story has become a rallying cry for the mass deportation movement.
“ e majority of us come here to work,” Maria said.
“Very loving people”
On a typical weekday Maria rises before the sun, cooks breakfast for her family, then gets ready for the day before driving her teenage daughter to school. By 8:45 a.m. she is dressed for work, ready to begin her day in manual labor.
It’s a tough, busy life, but not nearly as chaotic as the one she knew in her homeland.
“ ere are two things you can do: join the criminals or join the group of people who are living in hiding and constant fear,” Maria said of her options back home.
Growing up, Maria dreamed of becoming a medical professional. She found only misery and fear.
e best her hardscrabble hometown
PHOTO: ERIKA KONIG
I go out, and I don’t know if I will make it back.
people living in the country without authorization. She and her husband Jose pay taxes but receive no government bene ts such as Social Security or Medicaid.
could o er was the equivalent of 15 U.S. dollars a week mopping oors and cleaning bathrooms. en there were the heavily armed gangs that roamed the streets, stealing what little people had. One day, a man pointed a cold gun barrel at her back. He stole her watch — a Casio with a black leather wristband and goldcolored bezel — the only piece of jewelry she had ever owned. Incidents like this happened o en, she said. Her brother’s house has been burned down twice.
“Completamente inseguro,’’ Maria said in her native Spanish. Completely unsafe.
“You go out to work and could get robbed. You could be home and get robbed,” she said.
e Institute for Public Service
Reporting was not able to independently verify Maria’s account, but it is consistent with news reports and studies of the region of Latin America from where she and Jose are from.
Nothing has come easy for the couple, not even here in their adopted country.
Over the past two decades in the U.S., Maria has worked many jobs: as a nanny, a cook, a factory worker, and a laborer, all while juggling her responsibilities as a wife and mother working to make ends meet.
She is one of the estimated 13.7 million
“ ey believe in the Bible and what it teaches,” said their pastor, a lifelong Tennessean. “I’ve never had a problem with them as far as their honesty and the way they deal with people. ey’re very loving people. … ey love to serve and so they are very involved in the ministries.”
Crackdown on illegal immigration
Stories of unauthorized immigrants like Jose and Maria can’t be found on ICE’s news releases web page. e site serves as a virtual rogue’s gallery of nefarious characters, seeming to reinforce the nation’s worst fears of an immigrant crime wave. ICE arrested a Guatemalan child sex o ender on March 7th in New York, the site says. It removed a Romanian fraudster a day earlier in New Jersey. e agency has taken down a Mexican fugitive wanted for kidnapping, an El Salvadoran child rapist, a Chinese sex tra cker, a Colombian child molester who once served as a priest, and scores of others since Trump took o ce in January.
Trump’s “border czar,’’ Tom Homan, told reporters last month the crackdown has achieved “unprecedented success.’’ e White House reported then that about 139,000 people had been deported since Trump took o ce in January. ough deportation numbers at times fell short
Activists march outside the ICE’s Nashville eld o ce last month as a bus leaves with dozens of detained individuals following a series of raids.
no criminal record or with records of petty o enses are being swept up in the mass deportation e orts, immigration advocates say.
of numbers under former President Joe Biden, the Trump administration says the comparison is not fair. at’s because illegal border crossings have fallen precipitously. e federal government reported in March that 7,181 people were apprehended nationwide during border crossings, a 95 percent decrease from March 2024, according to the Associated Press.
“We’re going to keep doing it, full speed ahead,” Homan said of the crackdown.
In his address to Congress, Trump recited the story of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old Georgia nursing student who was abducted and murdered last year by an undocumented immigrant from Venezuela who had been previously arrested on a the charge. Her murder stirred a national debate over border security, leading Congress in January to pass the Laken Riley Act, which allows ICE to detain unauthorized immigrants accused but not necessarily convicted of the -related crimes.
Immigrant advocates like Matthew Orr say the Laken Riley law has helped create an atmosphere of zero tolerance in which Hispanic- or foreign-looking people are racially pro led.
“What is to prevent local, state, and/ or federal authorities from levying a completely false shopli ing charge against an immigrant, for the sole purpose of detaining them?” asks Orr, managing attorney for Latino Memphis, a nonpro t that advocates for Hispanic residents seeking healthcare, education, and justice.
Already, numbers of people with
In February, the Department of Homeland Security sent more than 170 Venezuelan nationals to Guantanamo Bay; National Public Radio (NPR) reported that about a third of them had no criminal record.
In March, a er the Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act, more than 250 undocumented immigrants were rounded up without hearings and own to a maximumsecurity prison in El Salvador on suspicion of belonging to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. e administration has conceded that many do not have criminal records, e Washington Post reported. Many of the deportees, among them a Venezuelan soccer player, continue to claim they are not gang members. CBS News reported that “an overwhelming majority have no apparent criminal convictions or even criminal charges.”
Earlier this spring, the administration also began arresting international students who are in the country legally and without criminal records. Several of them have been linked to pro-Palestinian protests. e federal government has accused some of them of being “pro-Hamas” and acting in “erratic behavior,” prompting more allegations of unjust treatment.
Latino Memphis’ Orr warns that the erosion of the right to due process could have dire consequences for immigrants and citizens alike. “Due process protections are not a privilege for criminals but a safeguard for the innocent. is is not a political issue,” he said.
Secrecy and missteps in Tennessee Tennessee is attempting to gauge the
continued on page 14
PHOTO (ABOVE): KAREN PULFER FOCHT
A solid work ethic helped Maria, a laborer, pull her family up into the middle class. Now, she and her husband Jose live in fear of deportation and separation from their U.S.-born children.
PHOTO: MARTIN CHERRY | NASHVILLE BANNER
impact of crime by undocumented immigrants under a law passed last year by the General Assembly. It requires local law enforcement to report the number of people living here without authorization who’ve been charged with or convicted of crimes.
In its rst report under the law, the Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference in January released its 2024 Immigration Report. e report captured data only from the last quarter of 2024. During that three-month period, there were 2,719 reports of crimes committed by individuals unlawfully present statewide, the report said.
Overall, the report listed 3,854 charges (some defendants had multiple charges), including 447 violent o enses. ose violent o enses included 11 homicide charges, six counts of aggravated rape, and three others involving rape of a child.
But the report is de cient on several counts, said Meghan Conley, assistant professor of practice in the Department of Sociology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
For one, the report fails to separate criminal convictions from mere allegations, Conley said.
e report also fails to provide overall state crime numbers needed to assess the share of crime committed by undocumented immigrants. But numbers obtained from other sources suggest the percent of crime committed by undocumented immigrants is low.
For example, the Immigration Report cited 59 reports of criminal acts by undocumented immigrants in Shelby County for the last quarter of 2024. Over the course of a year, that total would reach 236 criminal acts. at represents about 1.7 percent of the approximately 14,000 criminal incidents reported in Shelby County last year by the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission.
One would expect that share to be larger based on population numbers. According to the Migration Policy Institute there are about 26,000 unauthorized persons living in Shelby County. at represents about 2.9 percent of the county’s population of 910,530.
Conley sees additional problems with the report including a awed data collection system.
“Law enforcement o cers do not have training to understand the complexity of immigration law and immigration status,” Conley said.
Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy agreed, saying the data might be unreliable for reasons that include lack of training.
His theory proved di cult to test, however. Neither the Memphis Police Department nor the Sheri ’s O ce responded to inquiries about the training that o cers received to collect this data.
Digging deeper, the Institute requested
the raw data that the District Attorneys General Conference received from local law enforcement agencies, but the request was denied. e report comes as Tennessee also is developing a state immigration division to assist in President Trump’s mass deportation initiative. By law, many records in that o ce are exempt from disclosure.
Mulroy said drug tra cking passing through Shelby County does have a distinct foreign-born element, and that is an issue of concern. But he adds that “exaggerated fear and loathing of undocumented people” and “migrant crime” are unwarranted: “Based on my experience, I have no reason to think they commit any more crime than documented people or native-born people,” Mulroy said.
In a joint investigation in 2019, the Marshall Project and e New York Times found little correlation between changes in crime rates and changes in estimated undocumented immigrant populations in 161 cities around the country — including
tra c stop, an o cer told him to expect a call from a detective.
“I gave her my phone number, and when I heard that, I knew the police would not call,” he said. “Immigration is going to show up at my house.”
Weeks later, ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations o cers knocked on his door, he said.
In another twist, o cials who reviewed his record decided to release him on his own recognizance and provided him with a work permit, he said. Records held by ICE were unavailable.
In the wake of the tra c stop and the decision to allow him to remain in the U.S. at least temporarily, Jose was overcome with emotion.
“I cried like a baby,” he said.
Given the intensity of the current crackdown on illegal immigration, however, Jose may still face an uphill battle to remain in the U.S.
An undocumented immigrant who is under supervision following an order of removal “can be removed at any
Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga, and Knoxville — between 2007 and 2016.
“ ere’s no connection at all that we could see between any type of crime and the undocumented immigration,” said Anna Flagg, senior data reporter at the Marshall Project.
Crime rates remained the same in metro areas regardless of whether the population of undocumented immigrants increased or decreased, Flagg said.
Jose is arrested
e crackdown on illegal immigration has hit close to home for Maria and Jose.
eir troubles started when Jose was pulled over by police due to an equipment failure on his car.
As Jose tells it, an o cer told him that ICE had a warrant for his arrest. It was issued years ago by an immigration judge a er Jose failed to show up for a court hearing. In his absence, the judge issued an order to remove him from the country. In an interview, Jose said he didn’t go to the hearing for fear of being deported and due to bad legal advice. During the recent
immigration attorney Orr.
On the other hand, entering the country without express authorization is a crime. Avoiding examination or inspection by the federal government violates 8 U.S. Code § 1325, and is a misdemeanor punishable by a ne or up to six months in jail.
By some estimates, nearly half the U.S.’s undocumented population entered the country legally as students, professionals, or workers who then overstayed their visas. ose infractions are violations of civil law, not criminal law.
Orr likens overstaying a visa to a publicly traded corporation violating the Securities and Exchange Commission’s civil rules and regulations. He nds it infuriating that many unlawfully present immigrants are portrayed as dangerous criminals.
“ e idea is to place all of the ills of society at the feet of the immigrant and to convince the general public that immigrants are your enemy. ey’re taking your jobs; they’re criminals; they’re dangerous,” he said.
e criminal migrant rhetoric is proving e ective. A February poll conducted by NPR concluded that people who get their news from conservative news outlets are more likely to believe false statements about immigrant communities, including that large numbers of migrants coming into the U.S. have been released from jails or mental institutions and that immigrants are more likely to commit crimes than the U.S.born population.
Maria and Jose’s pastor said that lack of knowledge is troubling.
“If most people knew the lengths that people went to be here and contribute, I think they would have a little di erent attitude,” he said.
PHOTO: ERIKA KONIG
Like Maria, Jose earns a living laboring with his hands. A recent tra c stop has raised his fears of deportation.
time in ICE’s discretion,” said Memphis immigration attorney Sally M. Joyner. An immigrant’s options for remaining in the country include proving that he or she failed to receive notice of a removal hearing, establishing a reasonable fear of persecution or torture if deported, or requesting humanitarian status, Joyner said.
Jose said if he’s ordered to be removed he will appeal his case even though he doesn’t have an immigration lawyer and says he can’t a ord one.
“Every day I pray to God to give me the opportunity to stay here with my kids,” he said.
Violation of immigration laws
Contrary to popular opinion, living in the U.S. without permission isn’t necessarily a crime. It’s a civil violation, according to
“ e majority of the people that have come here and they’re undocumented that I have known have been very decent people, hardworking people, loving people,” he said. “I would not have any idea what the percentage is, but to be violent criminals, I would say it would be a very small percentage, and I wouldn’t think it would be any higher probably than any other group of people that’s here.
“I think most of them want to be here to stay; they want to raise a family; they want it to be a safe environment; they want it to be a stable economy because it’s their future.”
Meanwhile, Maria and Jose live with the knowledge that anything can change at any given moment. Maria said her family gathers strength from the moments they spend with each other, their interactions with friends, and through their daily prayers.
“I’m here because of God’s greatness,” said Maria.
“Everything is in God’s hands.”
e Institute of Public Service Reporting’s Marc Perrusquia contributed to this article.
steppin’ out
We Recommend: Culture, News + Reviews
Scroll Away
By Abigail Morici
is ursday, the Dixon Gallery & Gardens invites all to collaborate on a project that will draw in more than 250,000 participants from around the country and, eventually, culminate in a visual art installation at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. It’s called the National Scrollathon.
Created by brothers Steven and William Ladd, each Scrollathon has its participants roll fabric strips around wooden dowels. Participants make two of these rolls, one to keep for themselves — “like a little memento,” says Kristen Rambo, the Dixon’s communications manager — and one for a community piece that’ll be photographed for the D.C. installation. e piece created ursday may even go into the Dixon’s permanent collection. e Scrollathon is meant to bring together community members of all ages and backgrounds as participants imbue personal stories and statements into the making of their scrolls, o en sharing with the group. e idea began in 2006 when the Ladd brothers were looking for something young students could create. Turns out, kids weren’t the only ones who could bene t in the scrolls’ opportunity for self-expression, the artists realized. And so, over the years, the Ladds have hosted Scrollathons for the incarcerated, veterans, seniors, and festivals.
Now, the National Scrollathon, say the brothers on their website, “will bring one Scrollathon to every state; ve U.S. territories; Washington, D.C.; 10 locations that will speci cally involve individuals of native ancestry. e scrollathons [take] place over ve years, concluding at our nation’s 250th birthday in 2026.”
“We’re the only participant in Tennessee,” Rambo says.
To participate in the Dixon’s Scrollathon, register for a onehour time slot at dixon.org/events.
SCROLLATHON AT THE DIXON, DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS, 4339
PARK AVENUE, THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 10 A.M.-2 P.M.
VARIOUS DAYS & TIMES June 26th - July 2nd
Outlaw Music Festival 10th Anniversary Tour
Radians Amphitheater at Memphis Botanic Garden, 750 Cherry Road, Friday, June 27, 3-11 p.m., $96+
The 2025 Outlaw Tour features an unparalleled lineup of legends and superstars who will make a stop at Radians Amphitheater, with Willie Nelson & Family, Bob Dylan, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, Trampled by Turtles, and Tami Neilson.
General Admission section ticket-holders should bring their own lawn chairs (coolers and outside food/drink are NOT allowed). VIP packages are available.
Purchase tickets at membg.org.
Participate in art-making at the Dixon and be part of the National Scrollathon visual art installation in Washington, D.C.
Comedian Sam Evans (JFL Montreal, Cracked) headlines Flyway Comedy Club . Gwen Sunkel (Vice, Limestone Comedy Festival) Flyway Brewing Company, 598 Monroe Avenue, Saturday, June 28, 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., $10/advance, $15/ at the door
Flyway Comedy Club showcases touring and local underground comedians the last Saturday of every month. is month’s headliner is NYC-based Sam Evans, who’ll be running the new special he’s recording later this summer. e event will feature Indianapolis-based comic and former Memphian Gwen Sunkel and a lineup of the regular strange creatures who are funny at other bars around the city.
Tickets are $15 at the door, but only $10 online, so get them in advance at tinyurl.com/24yc5n8u.
e 24 Hour Plays: Memphis eatreWorks at the Evergreen 1705 Poplar Avenue, Saturday, June 28, 7 p.m., $15
e 24 Hour Plays: Memphis is back for a fourth year. is year, LoneTree Live will bring together rising ninth graders to recently graduated seniors to produce a show they create with mentorship from local theater artists. In just 24 hours, high school writers, directors, and actors from the Memphis-area community will produce short plays written and prepared just for you. is ultimate creative challenge is set to be presented for one night only at eatreWorks at e Evergreen. e rst three editions of this unique event sold out.
Purchase tickets at lonetreelive. com/the-24-hour-plays-memphishs.
PHOTOS: (TOP) LADD BROTHERS; (ABOVE) CHARLES ZIZZO
MUSIC By Alex Greene
New Music for the Ages
e Belvedere Chamber Music Festival is Memphis’ most intimate concert series.
There will be a distinctly personal aspect to the four-day Belvedere Chamber Music Festival when it kicks o its 19th year this Wednesday, June 25th, at Grace-St. Luke’s Episcopal Church — and that personal quality exempli es just how much Luna Nova Music, the nonpro t that launched the festival, is built on relationships that span the globe. Italian composer Gianluca Verlingieri began attending the festival in 2007 as the winner of its rst Student Composition Contest. Now, many years later, he’ll be paying bittersweet tribute to a recently deceased Memphis friend.
As Patricia Gray, executive director of Luna Nova, explains, Breen Bland and Jeanie Mercer “were complete believers in this whole project. We used to bring the student composers to Memphis for the festival from wherever they came, and I would nd housing for them. At the very rst one, the rst-place winner was an Italian composer named Gianluca Verlingieri, who stayed with Breen and Jeanie, and they got to be big friends. ey had all these things in common. ey were big cooks. ey liked the same music. Well, it turns out that they kept this up over all these years. When they would go to Europe, they would visit Gianluca. He is now a very successful composer in Italy.”
A er Bland passed away in December, “Gianluca volunteered to write a piece that was dedicated to Breen, to be premiered at the festival,” Gray notes. “So he wrote this piece for violin and cello that’s going to be on the rst concert. And Gianluca will be back in Memphis for this performance of his piece for Breen.”
As the composer notes in the program, the Galician-Portuguese title, “Falar sen voz [To speak without a voice], in memoriam Breen Bland,” describes “what music o en does. And it is also what the memory of a loved one does — continuously — within us.”
These works reflect our lives, our language, our loves, and our loss as we exist today.
Verlingieri’s piece in Bland’s memory not only evokes the deep personal connections behind the festival; it also reveals one strength of any concert series primarily devoted to contemporary compositions, as opposed to works from over a century ago: Whether personal or political, new music speaks to our time. Consider the works’ titles, so unlike the dry catalog
PHOTOS: LUCY OWENS
(top) Ensemble for “Freda’s Voice” by Robert Patterson, far right; (bottom, le to right) Mark Volker, John McMurtery, Gregory Maytan
entries of older works in the classical repertoire: “Fast Track,” written in 1999 by Jonathan Chenette; “Ghost Rags,” written by William Bolcom in 1970; “Flouting Convention,” Louis Anthony deLise’s 2024 work; “Moonsong,” David Crumb’s piece for piano and cello, also from last year; or, perhaps most evocatively, “Glimpses of a Better World,” a new piece written by P. Brent Register, with movements like “Trapped,” “Find It,” “Little ings,” “Silence,” and, arguably the most unlikely of classical titles, “I Like Dogs.” ese works re ect our lives, our language, our loves, and our loss as we exist today.
As for the newest of the new music, one aspect of the festival evokes not only the present, but the future. e Belvedere Student Composition Contest may be the festival’s most impactful element, shining a light on the latest up-and-coming talent and providing a venue to debut their work. is year, the festival honors “is it still autumn?,” a piano trio by rst-prize winner Matthew Tirona of the New England Conservatory and Tu s University; “ ree Urban Scenes,” a piece for ute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano by second-prize winner Ethan Resnik of Rice University; and “Piano Trio No. 1” by third-prize winner Brittney Benton of Yale University.
Beyond that, the festival o ers an opportunity for Luna Nova’s players to
stretch out on less common material both old and new. As Gray sees it, including older works is important to the festival’s programming, providing historical context to the newer works, as with the chaconne movement of Bach’s Partita No. 2 in D minor that will kick o the festival. “Bach is a towering gure that puts the whole world in perspective,” says Gray. “We feel like it’s kind of a cleansing thing to start with some movement of Bach.” is year, that particular passage will also serve as a tribute to Breen Bland. “Breen and Jeanie also were the hosts for Gregory Maytan, an amazing violinist that’s coming here from Germany, and Gregory of course has played that Bach chaconne a number of times. In fact, Breen had a recording of it that Gregory listened to at home o en. So that was another reason it made sense to begin the rst concert with it.”
Other recognized giants of the classical world will make an appearance, largely through 20th century works such as Romanian Folk Dances and selections from “Duos for Two Violins” by Béla Bartók, “Suite for Violin, Clarinet and Piano” by Darius Milhaud, “Five Melodies for Violin and Piano” by Sergei Proko ev, and L’Histoire du Soldat by Igor Stravinsky, not to mention pianist Maeve Brophy’s take on “A Shaded Lane” from Florence Price’s Vil-
lage Scenes, and cellist Hannah Schmidt’s interpretation of Philip Glass’ Orbit, which premiered in a 2013 Yo-Yo Ma performance that also featured Memphis-born dancer Lil Buck.
Expect many sonic surprises from roughly two dozen contemporary composers (including music inspired by art at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens composed by Gray’s husband, Robert Patterson of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra).
If the chamber music form lends itself to every variety of musical exploration, its inherently close-up and personal nature has led the Belvedere Chamber Music Festival to touch the hearts of Memphis audiences, and they keep returning. “I think it’s an easier draw,” Gray muses, “because you can tailor these programs to what you have available, to who you know you’ve got to play, and what they play, and how good they are. And you can tailor it to your audience. I think that there’s something that’s very approachable about it, just from the point of view of it being pretty easy to get in the car and go to a church and listen to music for an hour.”
e free Belvedere Chamber Music Festival takes place evenings at 7 p.m., June 25th to 28th, at Grace-St. Luke’s Episcopal Church (use the west entrance), with additional concerts on June 27th and 28th at 3 p.m. Visit belvederefestival.org for details.
Ashton Riker & The Memphis Royals
ursday, June 26, 8 p.m.
B.B. KING’S BLUES CLUB
Baunie and Soul
AFTER DARK: Live Music Schedule June 26 - July 2
Wendell Wells
Wendell Wells sings original honky tonk, cow jazz, and barnyard blues, with songs about religion, politics, freedom, oppression, love, and money. Sunday, June 29, 1:30-4:30 p.m.
MFS BREWING
Looking for something to do on a Tuesday night? Enjoy some live music. Tuesday, July 1, 7-11 p.m.
RUM BOOGIE CAFE BLUES HALL
Blind Mississippi Morris
ursday, June 26, 7 p.m.
BLUES CITY CAFE
Earl “The Pearl” Banks
Tuesday, July 1, 7 p.m.
BLUES CITY CAFE
Eric Hughes
ursday, June 26, 7-11 p.m.
RUM BOOGIE CAFE
Flic’s Pics Band
Led by the legendary Leroy “Flic” Hodges of Hi Rhythm.
Saturday, June 28, 4 p.m. |
Sunday, June 29, 2 p.m.
B.B. KING’S BLUES CLUB
FreeWorld
Friday, June 27, 7-11 p.m. |
Saturday, June 28, 7-11 p.m.
RUM BOOGIE CAFE
FreeWorld
Sunday, June 29, 8 p.m.
BLUES CITY CAFE
Ghost Town Blues Band
Friday, June 27, 8 p.m. |
Saturday, June 28, 8 p.m.
BLUES CITY CAFE
Memphis Soul Factory
ursday, June 26, 4 p.m. |
Sunday, June 29, 8 p.m.
B.B. KING’S BLUES CLUB
Soul Street
Wednesday, July 2, 7-11 p.m.
RUM BOOGIE CAFE
Sunday Evenings with Baunie and Soul
Music spanning a wide range of genres, including soul, blues, R&B, and party music.
Sunday, June 29, 7-11 p.m.
RUM BOOGIE CAFE
The B.B. King’s Blues Club Allstar Band
Friday, June 27, 8 p.m. |
Saturday, June 28, 8 p.m. |
Monday, June 30, 8 p.m.
B.B. KING’S BLUES CLUB
Vince Johnson
Monday, June 30, 6:30 p.m. |
Tuesday, July 1, 6:30 p.m.
RUM BOOGIE CAFE
Llana Williams, Graham Winchester, and Jeremy
Stanfill
Friday, June 27, 7-9 p.m.
SOUTH MAIN SOUNDS
Southbound
ursday, June 26, 6 p.m.
THE PEABODY HOTEL
Steve & Shannon
Sunday, June 29, 3-6 p.m.
HUEY’S DOWNTOWN
Tuesday Tunes
Live music, drink specials, and delicious food. Tuesday, July 1, 4-7 p.m.
RENASANT CONVENTION CENTER
Big Wheel
Saturday, June 28, 9:30 p.m.
ROOSTER’S BLUES HOUSE
Boneyard
Friday, June 27, 9:30 p.m.
ROOSTER’S BLUES HOUSE
Elmo & the Shades
Wednesday, July 2, 7 p.m.
NEIL’S MUSIC ROOM
John Williams & the A440 Band
ursday, June 26, 8 p.m.
NEIL’S MUSIC ROOM
Outlaw Music Festival
10th Anniversary Tour e biggest Outlaw Tour to date, featuring Willie Nelson & Family, Bob Dylan, Nathaniel Rateli & the Night Sweats, Trampled by Turtles, and Tami Neilson. Friday, June 27, 3-11 p.m.
RADIANS AMPHITHEATER AT
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
Sunday Originals
Sunday, June 29, 6 p.m.
ROOSTER’S BLUES HOUSE
The Deb Jam Band
Tuesday, July 1, 6 p.m.
NEIL’S MUSIC ROOM
The Settlers
Sunday, June 29, 3-6 p.m.
HUEY’S POPLAR
Van Duren
e singer-songwriter, a pioneer of indie pop in Memphis, performs solo. ursday, June 26, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
MORTIMER’S
Alexis Grace New Music Listening Session
Memphis-born artist Alexis Grace rst caught national attention on American Idol, where Simon Cowell dubbed her the “dark horse of the competition.” But she was already a xture in Memphis music and is an original artist in her own right. Friday, June 27, 6-8 p.m.
MEMPHIS LISTENING LAB
Area 51
Friday, June 27, 6 p.m.
LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM
Belvedere Chamber Music Festival
A four day festival produced by Luna Nova Music, featuring masterworks of the 20th and 21st centuries as well as new works by young composers. Evenings at 7 p.m., Friday and Saturday at 3 p.m. also. Free. rough June 28.
GRACE-ST. LUKE’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH
Big Love Car Wash
With Mike Hewlett and the Racket [Small RoomDownstairs]. Friday, June 27, 9 p.m.
HI TONE
Camper of the Week
With Dr. Timebomb. 21+.
Free. ursday, June 26, 7 p.m.
LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM
Deborah Swiney Duo ursday, June 26, 7-10 p.m.
THE COVE
Denim and Diamonds Tour
With Sir Charles Jones, Jay Morris, and Myia B. All ages. Sunday, June 29, 7 p.m.
MINGLEWOOD HALL
Devil Train
Bluegrass, roots, country, Delta, and ski e. ursday, June 26, 9 p.m.
B-SIDE
Eggy (Orion Free Concert Series) ursday, June 26, 7:30 p.m.
OVERTON PARK SHELL
Elijah Cruise
With Jupiter Jones, Pan de Muerto. Saturday, June 28, 7:30 p.m.
B-SIDE
Jazz Jam with the Cove Quartet
Jazz musicians are welcome to sit in. Sunday, June 29, 6-9 p.m.
THE COVE
Joe Restivo 4
Guitarist Restivo leads one of the city’s nest jazz quartets. Sunday, June 29, noon.
LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM
Level Three
Wednesday, July 2, 10 p.m.
LOUIS CONNELLY’S BAR
Mak Ro (Orion Free Concert Series)
Friday, June 27, 7:30 p.m. |
OVERTON PARK SHELL
Marcus Scott
Saturday, June 28, 9 p.m.
LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM
Mattstock - A Memphis
Community Fundraiser with Tora Tora
A community fundraiser with Tora Tora, Stopgap Solution, Fevertree, e Shotgunbillys, Risky Whispers, and Seeing Hell. $44/general admission. ursday, June 26, 5:30-7 p.m.
MINGLEWOOD HALL
Memphis Reggae Nights
With Original Bris. Sunday, June 29, 7:30 p.m.
B-SIDE
Problems
With Dinosauria, Cel Shade, Neon Glittery. $10. Saturday, June 28, 8 p.m.
LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM
Ra’id – New Album Listening Event
e artist notes: “ is is my rst solo e ort as an artist (normally I’m a drummer by trade). is is not only a showcase of voice, but a showcase in penning a song.”
Saturday, June 28, 6-8 p.m.
MEMPHIS LISTENING LAB
RussT
With JRobot, Polyglamorous. $7. Sunday, June 29, 8 p.m.
LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM
Salon After Dark: Summer Music Showcase Series feat. Massey Lane and Deaf
Revival Featuring original performances by local acts, spanning across genres from hard-hitting alternative rock to dreamy indie pop. $10/ general admission. Friday, June 27, 8 p.m.
MEMPHIS ART SALON AT MINGLEWOOD HALL
Will Sexton Trio
Sunday, June 29, 3-6 p.m.
HUEY’S MIDTOWN
Breeze Cayole’s Bayou Revue
Sunday, June 29, 6-9 p.m.
HUEY’S SOUTHWIND
Hounds
An alternative rock band based in Nashville, Tennessee, with melodies that bury themselves deep in your mind. ursday, June 26, 7-11 p.m.
HERNANDO’S HIDE-A-WAY
Old Dominion: How Good Is That World Tour
Heroes of mainstream country bring their winning formula to Memphis. With Ernest, Redferrin. Friday, June 27, 7 p.m.
BANKPLUS AMPHITHEATER
School of Rock
(Houston, TX)
e talented students from School of Rock in Cypress, Houston, Texas, bring their passion for music to Memphis. Friday, June 27, 7-10 p.m.
San Salida
With Lily Unless & the If Onlys. Friday, June 27, 9 p.m.
LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM
Sip & Spin
Bring your own vinyl, as DJ Chris Rohling, the evening’s musical pilot, keeps the turntables hot. Enjoy tunes and top-tier brews. Saturday, June 28, 5:30 p.m.
CROSSTOWN BREWING COMPANY
Sleep Theory: The Afterglow Tour With Nevertel, Stray View, and more. $30.50/general admission. Saturday, June 28, 7-8:30 p.m.
MINGLEWOOD HALL
Sounds of MemphisSteve Lee
Experience the soulful sounds of Memphis Jazz Workshop’s Steve Lee for an enchanting evening featuring smooth melodies and rich improvisations. Free. ursday, June 26, 6-8 p.m.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART
Stax Music Academy (Orion Free Concert Series)
Saturday, June 28, 7:30 p.m.
OVERTON PARK SHELL
Symptoms With Pinky’s [Small RoomDownstairs]. ursday, June 26, 9 p.m.
HI TONE
Those Pretty Wrongs
Mojo magazine described one album by this partnership between Jody Stephens and Luther Russell as “irresistible” due to its “celestial harmonies” and “wrangled emotions.”
Friday, June 27, 7:30 p.m.
THE GREEN ROOM AT CROSSTOWN ARTS
Thumpdaddy
Friday, June 27, 9:30 p.m.
LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM
HERNANDO’S HIDE-A-WAY
The Bugaloos
Sunday, June 29, 6-9 p.m.
HUEY’S SOUTHAVEN
Benton Parker & The Royal Reds
Sunday, June 29, 6-9 p.m.
HUEY’S GERMANTOWN
Concerts in The Grove with DJ A.D. and the Vibe Tribe
Enjoy music, food trucks, and corn hole in a beautiful, park-like setting, and dance the night away. Kids under 18 are free. $9/general admission. ursday, June 26, 6:30-8 p.m.
GERMANTOWN PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
El Ced & Groove
National
Sunday, June 29, 6-9 p.m.
HUEY’S MILLINGTON
Happy Friday at the Grove
Featuring Josh relkeld. Friday, June 27, 5 p.m.
THE GROVE AT GPAC
Jack & the Fat Man
Sunday, June 29, 8-10:30 p.m.
HUEY’S CORDOVA
Tequila Mockingbird
Sunday, June 29, 6-9 p.m.
HUEY’S OLIVE BRANCH
The Groove
An intimate experience with an open bar and two curated sets by mystery DJs. ursday, June 26, 7-11 p.m.
OLIVE SOCIAL CLUB
The Pretty Boys
Sunday, June 29, 6-9 p.m.
HUEY’S COLLIERVILLE
PHOTO: PAMELA SPRINGSTEEN
Willie Nelson
CALENDAR of EVENTS: June 26 - July 2
ART AND SPECIAL EXHIBITS
“2024 Accessions to the Permanent Collection” is series honors the new additions to the museum’s permanent collection. rough Nov. 2.
METAL MUSEUM
Alaina NJ: “Bird Sanctuary”
Notes NJ, “ is series aims to bring together vivid gardens and happy birds, in layers of bold color and texture. Each piece intends to capture a moment where nature feels abundant and intimate.” rough June 30.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
Art by Carol Sams
An artist working with oil on panel, watercolors, and fabric collage, including three-dimensional crocheted and woven works. rough July 23.
CHURCH HEALTH
ARTSmemphis: “GRANTEDTime Exhibition”
An exhibit curated by Brittney Boyd Bullock, a visual artist working ber, mixed media, and abstraction. rough Aug. 5.
ARTSMEMPHIS
Bartlett Art Association Exhibition: “Summer Arts Fest”
Works by members of this non-pro t organization chartered in 1988 to encourage, educate, improve, exhibit, and support ne art. rough June 29.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
Becky Ross McRae: “All About Color”
McRae’s high-resolution photos are printed on metallic paper, mounted on aluminum, and covered with a thick layer of acrylic, giving them a threedimensional e ect. rough June 29.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
“Bleeding Together – A Correspondence”
A collaboration between Andres Arauz, who specializes in photo collage, design, and photography, and Abby Meyers, a visual artist, poet, and award-winning lmmaker. rough Sept. 14.
CROSSTOWN ARTS AT THE CONCOURSE
“Building a Bright Future: Black Communities and Rosenwald Schools in Tennessee”
e Tennessee State Museum brings the award winning temporary exhibit into every part of Tennessee. Davies Manor is thrilled to host this exhibit the farthest west it has ever been. rough July 31.
DAVIES MANOR HISTORIC SITE
PHOTO: COURTESY MOSH e striking replace at the historical Mallory-Neely House in the Victorian Village Historic District
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 EVENT LISTINGS, SCAN THE QR CODE OR VISIT EVENTS.MEMPHISFLYER.COM/CAL.
Carroll Todd: “New Sculpture”
Todd is celebrated for whimsical bronze sculptures that are formally sophisticated but never solemn. His practice explores form and movement with an e ortlessness and grace. rough July 26.
DAVID LUSK GALLERY
CBU Spring 2025 BFA Exhibition
Christian Brothers University is proud to present the 2025 Spring BFA Exhibition, featuring works by graduating seniors in the department of visual arts. Free. rough July 11.
BEVERLY + SAM ROSS GALLERY
Colleen Couch and Dolph Smith: “Walk in the Light”
“Walk in the Light” traces the arc of Smith’s work, presents new pieces by Couch inspired
by Smith, and highlights recent collaborations between the two. rough June 29.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS “[Fe]ATURED
AR[Ti]STS”
Works created and curated by sta members of the Metal Museum. Just as elements are the building blocks of artists’ materials, the museum is built on creativity, collaboration, and tradition. rough Sept. 14.
CROSSTOWN ARTS AT THE CONCOURSE
“Landshaping: The Origins of the Black Belt Prairie”
Learn about the geologic event known as the Mississippi Embayment and its e ect on this region. Fossils and farm tools will be displayed alongside photographs by Houston Co eld. rough Oct. 12.
PINK PALACE MUSEUM & MANSION
PHOTO: COURTESY DAVID LUSK GALLERY
Carroll Todd’s whimsical bronze sculptures, like (below), are formally sophisticated but never solemn.
Leigh Sandlin Solo Exhibition
e works include vibrant abstract paintings in cold wax, linoleum, and mono prints, as well as encaustic collages. rough June 26.
GALLERY 1091
“Light as Air”
Explore the beauty in tension: a balance of forms, the contrast between heavy and light, and the signi cance of negative space. rough Sept. 7.
METAL MUSEUM
“Memphis Skies: What’s That in Our Night Sky?” Hop through constellations and groove to planetarium space music in this full dome audiovisual experience. rough Aug. 31.
PINK PALACE MUSEUM & MANSION
“Overcoming Hateful Things”
e exhibition contains over 150 items from the late 19th century to the present, including items from popular culture and images of violence against African American activists. rough Oct. 19.
MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND HISTORY
AT THE PINK PALACE
Roseanne Wilson Exhibit
“I love to work in vibrant colors, capturing nature at its best,” says Wilson. “I have also begun working in a di erent medium, creating 3D shadow box art.” Tuesday, July 1-July 31.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
Sean Nash: “Cosmic Produce”
Nash’s sculptural paintings from this series are hybrids that take their shaped forms from marine organisms, painted in vivid splashy and dappled colors, orders of magnitude larger than reality. rough Sept. 14.
TOPS AT MADISON AVENUE PARK
The Art of the MidSouth Cartoonists Association
See the artwork collection of the Mid-South Cartoonists Association members. Free. rough July 11.
PLAYHOUSE ON THE SQUARE
Tributaries: Leah Gerrard’s “Longline” Seattle-based fabrication artist Leah Gerrard, the museum’s newest Tributaries artist, shapes ethereal steel forms, blending basketry, jewelry, and large-scale pieces. Free. rough Sept. 14.
METAL MUSEUM
ART HAPPENINGS
Reception: “Summer Opener” Art Exhibit
Reception with artists Jane Brakin, Anna Carr, Randy Parker, Pat Patterson, Jeanne Seagle, Angela Stevens and Lance David White. Saturday, June 28, 4-6 p.m.
“Speaking Truth to Power: The Life of Bayard Rustin” Exhibition
“Speaking Truth to Power” explores Bayard Rustin’s innovative use of the “medium” to communicate powerful messages of nonviolence, activism, and authenticity. $20/adult, $18/senior, college student, $17/children 5-17. rough Dec. 31.
NATIONAL CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM
Summer Art Garden: “A Flash of Sun” Immerse yourself in the radiant spirit of summer with these geometric sculptures that cast vibrant hues in the shi ing sunlight. rough Oct. 20.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART
“Summer Break”
A new group exhibition featuring work from Justin Tyler Bryant, Sai Clayton, Coulter Fussell, Carl E. Moore, and Melissa Wilkinson. rough July 26.
SHEET CAKE
Tad Lauritzen Wright: “Zen on the Installment Plan”
Contemplating humanity, nature, and repeated histories through photo abstractions and sculptural works constructed from salvaged wood. rough Sept. 14.
CROSSTOWN ARTS AT THE CONCOURSE
Tennessee Craft
Southwest’s Fine Craft Showcase
Featuring work a wide range of media, including weaving, wood turning, clay, glass work, jewelry, quilting, painting, sculptures, and much more. Monday, June 30-July 25.
GALLERY 1091
ST. GEORGE’S ART GALLERY AT ST. GEORGE’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH
Scrollathon at the Dixon e National Scrollathon will bring together the creativity of over 250,000 people from all over the country in a collaborative, multidimensional display of American unity. You can keep your scroll. ursday, June 26, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
The Art of the MidSouth Cartoonists Association Reception
A reception for the exhibit featuring work by the MidSouth Cartoonists Association members at Playhouse on the Square. Free. Friday, June 27, 5-7 p.m.
PLAYHOUSE ON THE SQUARE
BOOK EVENTS
Chris McClain Johnson: Three Guesses e author will read from his debut work. ursday, June 26, 5:30-7 p.m.
BURKE’S BOOK STORE
Club de lectura (Spanish Book Club) is month: Brenda Navarro’s Ceniza en la boca. Tuesday, July 1, 6-7 p.m.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
Dixon Book Club: James is month: James by Percival Everett. Tuesday, July 1, 6-7 p.m.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
Novel Manga Club: Shadows of Kyoto Vol. 1
Written and illustrated by Yumeya, follow Kotone, a simple tour guide, through four stories where she introduces some less than savory tourists. ursday, June 26, 7 p.m.
NOVEL
continued on page 20
continued from page 19
The New Romantics Book Club: The Love Haters
It’s a thin line between love and love-hating in the newest laugh out loud, all the feels rom-com by in-house bestselling author Katherine Center. Sunday, June 29, 2 p.m.
NOVEL
CLASS / WORKSHOP
Candle Making 101
Discover the art of candle making with Keith McBride II of Candles by Deuce. $35. Saturday, June 28, 2-4 p.m.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART
Fiber Arts Open Studio
Bring your fabric, yarn, and tools to the Dixon for a collaborative fiber arts open studio. Free. Thursday, June 26, 5:30-7:30 p.m.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
Figure Drawing (Long Pose)
Figure drawing is back by popular demand. $18/general admission. Sunday, June 29, 2-4 p.m.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART
Lunchtime Meditations
Visit the Dixon for free meditation sessions every Friday. Friday, June 27, noon-12:30 p.m.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
Make Your Own: Wire Sculptures
Learn how to create a fun, funky, colorful wire sculpture inspired by the museum’s exhibiting artist, Leah Gerrard. Instructor: Paige Porter; skill level: beginner. Ages 5+. Saturday, June 28, 2:30-4:30 p.m.
METAL MUSEUM
Reelfoot Lake Photo Workshop
Experience and photographs sunrises, sunsets, birds, and nature at it’s finest. Get up close and personal on a boat to photograph wildlife Free. Friday, June 27, 5 p.m.
REELFOOT LAKE PHOTO WORKSHOP
Women Who Win Big Workshop - Quarter 2
An empowering event designed for women ready to conquer their goals. This quarterly workshop provides strategy, accountability and support that will blow your mind. Thursday, June 26, 9 a.m.-noon.
775 RIDGELAKE BLVD SUITE 400
COMEDY
Comedian Sam Evans
NYC-based Sam Evans (JFL Montreal, Cracked, Audible)
headlines a fun night of stand-up, featuring Indybased (and Memphis native)
Gwen Sunkel (Vice, Limestone Comedy Festival) $10/ earlybird discount. Saturday, June 28, 7 and 9 p.m.
FLYWAY BREWING COMPANY
CALENDAR: JUNE 26 - JULY 2
PHOTO: COURTESY THE ART PROJECT
What’s a “Get Messy” Camp? Think splatter paint, finger paint, and painting with fun toys and tools.
Comedy Night with Ben Pierce
Freewheeling hilarity on the open mic. Thursday, June 26, 7 p.m.
BAR DKDC
Comedy on Tap
Comedy on Tap is bringing the punchlines and the pints.
Friday, June 27, 7 p.m.
CROSSTOWN BREWING CO.
Mike Hanford
Hanford has been a guest on Comedy Bang! Bang! and is a member of the sketch group the Birthday Boys. Friday, June 27, 7 p.m.
GROWLERS
Open Mic Comedy Night
A hilarious Midtown tradition. Tuesday, July 1, 8 p.m. HI TONE
COMMUNITY
Cohort Culminating Program
Enjoy good food and special performances while celebrating Memphis’ youth STEM community! $20/admission. Friday, June 27, 6-7:30 p.m.
MIDDLE COLLEGE HIGH SCHOOL
GYM
Dog Social at the Brewery
Enjoy cold beer, tail wags, and good vibes with fellow dog owners. West Tennessee K9 will be on-site. Friday, June 27, 6-8 p.m.
MEMPHIS MADE BREWING
(DOWNTOWN THE RAVINE)
KIPP Kickback
Looking for a school where family, fun, and community come together? Take part in this family-friendly event to help you connect, cool off, and get ready for the new school year. Free. Friday, June 27, 2-6:30 p.m.
OVERTON PARK
Memphis Listening Lab Birthday Bash
MLL is turning 4: Celebrate with some cake from Lucy J’s Bakery and great beer from Red Panther Brewing Co. Jeff Kollath will be the guest DJ. Friday, June 27, 3-5 p.m.
MEMPHIS LISTENING LAB
New Memphis Summer Experience
During several speed rounds, you’ll have the opportunity to gain firsthand knowledge of what it takes to launch your career in Memphis. Perfect for current college students and recent grads. Free. Thursday, June 26, 5:30 p.m.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
Family Drop-In Day:
Build Your Own Museum
Dig into history by excavating your own artifacts and creating a mini museum display. Through hands-on discovery and curation, explore how artifacts help tell the story of the past. Thursday, June 26, 10:30 a.m.
MORTON MUSEUM OF COLLIERVILLE HISTORY
“Get Messy” Camp
This camp is for 5- to 8-yearolds who love getting their hands messy. Think splatter paint, finger paint, and painting with fun toys/tools. $175. Monday, June 30-July 3.
THE ART PROJECT
Get Outside Fitness:
KidoKinetics
Through age-appropriate games and activities, young children build confidence, coordination, and a love for active play through a variety of sports in an encouraging, noncompetitive environment. Thursday, June 26, 5 p.m.
SHELBY FARMS PARK
Get Outside Fitness:
Kids Yoga
Kids yoga is designed to be fun and engaging, teaching basic yoga poses with playful names that build strength, flexibility, balance, and mindfulness. Parents are welcome to join, too. Wednesday, July 2, 5-6 p.m.
SHELBY FARMS PARK
Kiddie Rave
South City HeritageFest
Celebrating the rich history of one of Memphis’ oldest neighborhoods, a day of live entertainment, food, art, vendors, games, a kids’ zone, and more. Saturday, June 28, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.
L.E. BROWN PARK
Update on The Wolf River Greenway
Wolf River Conservancy executive director Erik Houston and Greenway coordinator Findley Frazier will dive into the latest on the development of the Greenway. Thursday, June 26, 6 p.m.
CROSSTOWN CONCOURSE
EXPO/SALES
EDGE Third Annual Small Business Loan Expo
The Small Business Loan Expo, hosted by EDGE, is a free event designed to connect small business owners with funding opportunities. Thursday, June 26, 11 a.m.-1 p.m.
RENASANT CONVENTION CENTER
FAMILY
Collaborative Village
Unleash your inner architect with this “tiny town built entirely by kids.” Ages 6-12. Thursday, June 26, 1-3 p.m.
BENJAMIN L. HOOKS CENTRAL LIBRARY
Film at the Museum: How to Survive a Plague
This gripping film chronicles the harrowing challenges faced by the LGBTQ community during the AIDS crisis and highlights the indomitable spirit of those who fought tirelessly for their rights. $5. Sunday, June 29, 2-4 p.m.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART
I Read That Movie @ the Library: Big Fish
This June, this “page-toscreen” book club for teens and adults is reading the 1998 novel Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions by Daniel Wallace. Saturday, June 28, 2-5 p.m.
BENJAMIN L. HOOKS CENTRAL LIBRARY
Midweek Movie at Carriage Crossing: The Sandlot
A free showing of The Sandlot. Wednesday, July 2, 7:30 p.m.
CARRIAGE CROSSING
T. Rex: Greatest of All Tyrants
The most dazzling and accurate giant screen documentary ever made on this legendary predator — and its carnivorous Cretaceous cousins. Thursday, June 26, 11 a.m. | Thursday, June 26, 2 p.m. | Friday, June 27, 11 a.m. | Friday, June 27, 2 p.m. | Saturday, June 28, 11 a.m. | Saturday, June 28, 2 p.m. | Sunday, June 29, 11 a.m. | Sunday, June 29, 2 p.m.
Dance your heart out at the library’s first ever kiddie rave, turning the story time room into a dance club. Wear your best neon clothes or just come as you are. For ages 8 and younger. Friday, June 27, 3-5 p.m.
BENJAMIN L. HOOKS CENTRAL LIBRARY
Story Time at Novel
Recommended for children up to 5 years, Story Time at Novel includes songs and stories, featuring brand-new books in addition to wellloved favorites. Saturday, June 28, 10:30 a.m. | Wednesday, July 2, 10:30 a.m. NOVEL
Ziggy’s Arts Adventure Music Festival
Dance and sing along with live music with special appearances by Ziggy and WKNO’s Teacher Teacher! Friday, June 27, 5-7 p.m.
WKNO DIGITAL MEDIA CENTER
FILM
A Minecraft Movie
Thursday, June 26-July 2, 3 p.m.
PINK PALACE MUSEUM & MANSION
Él
A 1953 Mexican film by Luis Buñuel based on the novel by Mercedes Pinto, originally released in the U.S. as This Strange Passion. Bleak, powerful, and relevant. Thursday, June 26, 7 p.m.
CROSSTOWN THEATER
PINK PALACE MUSEUM & MANSION
FOOD AND DRINK
Canoes + Cocktails
A guided sunset paddle on the lake followed by specialty cocktails provided by Old Dominick, snacks from Cheffie’s, yard games, and music. A “cocktails only” ticket omits the paddling part. $35-$80. Friday, June 27, 6 p.m.
SHELBY FARMS PARK
Celtic Crossing’s 20th Anniversary Celebration
It’s time to celebrate. Visit Celtic Crossing all weekend long as they commemorate their 20th anniversary with live music and specials. Thursday, June 26, 11 a.m.
CELTIC CROSSING
Food Truck Fridays at Dixon Gallery & Gardens
Grab a bite from a local food truck and enjoy lunch in the beautiful Dixon gardens. Friday, June 27, 11:30 a.m.1:30 p.m.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
Red, White & Rosé Brunch at Char Memphis
The cost of the brunch includes a four-course meal, wine pairings, tax, and gratuity. Must be 21+ to attend. $75. Saturday, June 28, 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
CHAR RESTAURANT
Refined Palettes: Art and Wine Pairing
A guided tasting of three wines paired with three works of art selected by Jake Smith, a local sommelier with a passion for art history, with a discussion of the ways the worlds of wine and art intersect. Thursday, June 26, 5-7 p.m.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART
Rolling Flavors: Food Trucks
Take your lunch break to the next level with Rolling Flavors, a June weekday food truck series on the Soulsville Campus. Thursday, June 26, noon-2 p.m. | Friday, June 27, noon-2 p.m.
STAX MUSEUM OF AMERICAN SOUL MUSIC
Whet Thursdays: Ballroom on the Bluff
Cat’s Ballroom Dancing instructors will guide participants through basic steps and techniques. With the Say Cheese food truck and drinks from The Tipsy Tumbler. Thursday, June 26, 5-8 p.m.
METAL MUSEUM
HEALTH AND FITNESS
Get Outside Fitness: Body Combat
A YMCA-led mix of martial arts moves that will get you fit, fast, and strong — and leave you feeling fierce and empowered. Class is entirely noncontact; no martial arts experience required. Wednesday, July 2, 9 a.m.
SHELBY FARMS PARK
Get Outside Fitness: Line Dancing
Learn a variety of dance routines while enjoying the outdoors. This class is beginner-friendly, focusing on basic steps and choreography for popular songs, and can improve coordination and balance. Monday, June 30, 5:30-6:30 p.m.
SHELBY FARMS PARK
Get Outside Fitness: Mat Pilates
A full-body, low-impact workout that emphasizes dynamic core work to enhance strength, balance, and flexibility. The session is designed inclusively for everybody. Friday, June 27, 4:30 p.m. | Saturday, June 28, 8 a.m.
SHELBY FARMS PARK
Taijiquan with Milan Vigil
This Chinese martial art promotes relaxation, improves balance, and provides no-impact aerobic benefits. Ages 16 and older. Free. Saturday, June 28, 10:30-11:30 a.m.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
TGYF Yoga
TGYF yoga is designed for beginner to intermediate yoga practitioners. Variations are offered to accommodate each individual’s level with an emphasis on correct alignment. $5/suggested price. Thursday, June 26, 10-11 a.m.
UNITY CHURCH OF PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY
Walk The Greenway - Wolf River Crossing
Wolf River Crossing is the section of the Wolf River Greenway that runs from Walnut Grove to the Shelby Farms Greenline. Saturday, June 28, 10-11 a.m.
WOLF RIVER CONSERVANCY
Wednesday Walks
Take a casual stroll around the Old Forest paved road! Wednesday, July 2, 4-5 p.m.
OVERTON PARK
Yoga
Strengthen your yoga practice and enjoy the health benefits of light exercise with yoga instructor Laura Gray McCann. All levels welcome. Free. Thursday, June 26, 6 p.m.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
LECTURE
Munch and Learn
Enjoy lunch at this weekly lecture series, featuring presentations by artists, scholars, and Dixon staff. Wednesday, July 2, noon-1 p.m.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
CALENDAR:
JUNE 26 - JULY 2
PERFORMING ARTS
Bingo Loco
Bingo Loco flips the traditional game of bingo on its head and turns it into a three-hour-long interactive stage show complete with dance-offs, rave rounds, lip sync battles, and throwback anthems. $33.55/general admission. Friday, June 27, 7-8:30 p.m.
MINGLEWOOD HALL
Drag Queen Bingo feat. Cheri Lie Maid
Slay and play this Friday at Drag Queen Bingo with the fabulous Cheri Lie Maid. Friday, June 27, 7-9 p.m.
MOXY MEMPHIS DOWNTOWN
QCG Big Top Tease: “Loud and Proud!”
A bold, high-energy spectacle packed with dazzling performances, jaw-dropping looks, and unapologetic queer pride. This is the Big Top event you won’t want to miss. Saturday, June 28, 10 p.m.
DRU’S PLACE
Rainbow Rumble: High Fantasy
A monthly drag and performer competition hosted by Moth Moth Moth. $18.50. Saturday, June 28, 9 p.m.
HI TONE
THEATER
A Bronx Tale Step into the vibrant streets of 1960s Bronx with this captivating musical adaptation of a beloved play and film. Friday, June 27, 8 p.m. | Saturday, June 28, 8 p.m. | Sunday, June 29, 2 p.m.
PLAYHOUSE ON THE SQUARE
Ain’t Misbehavin’
This musical celebration of the legendary Fats Waller evokes the delightful humor and infectious energy of an American original. Five performers are featured with rowdy to risque songs. Free. Thursday, June 26, 7:30-9:30 p.m. | Friday, June 27, 7:30-9:30 p.m. | Saturday, June 28, 7:30-9:30 p.m. | Sunday, June 29, 2 p.m.
THEATRE MEMPHIS
Kimberly Akimbo
Winner of five Tony Awards including Best Musical. $29-$130. Thursday, June 26, 7:30-10 p.m. | Friday, June 27, 7:30-10 p.m. | Saturday, June 28, 2-4:30 p.m. | Saturday, June 28, 7:30-10 p.m. | Sunday, June 29, 1-3:30 p.m. | Sunday, June 29, 6:30-9 p.m.
ORPHEUM THEATRE
Mystic Pizza
A “slice of life” musical, with all of your favorite hits from the ’80s and ’90s. Friday, June 27, 7:30 p.m. | Saturday, June 28, 7:30 p.m. | Sunday, June 29, 2:30 p.m.
HARRELL THEATRE
ACROSS
1 Word found before and after “and,” in a phrase
5 Unit for a YouTube video
9 Object
14 Mr. : English :: ___ : Persian
15 Novel on which the film “Clueless” is based
16 Picky ___
17 Matter for the Postal Inspection Service
19 “Is this really necessary?”
20 *Not formally worded
21 *Like the pitcher in a batting order, often
22 Ending with orange or lemon
23 Basis of some scholarships
25 Part of a Snickers bar
26 *Peacocks, but not peahens
28 Mork’s birthplace on “Mork & Mindy”
30 Stack
31 A, B, C, D and E, to nutritionists
35 Stop signal
36 What the answers to the starred clues are each anagrams of
39 When doubled, uncritically enthusiastic
40 Joined the Army, say
41 Sheik’s peer
43 Bask on the beach
44 *Wandered
48 Postchampionship celebration
50 Building by a barn
53 Dark loaf
54 *Like some foreign protests
55 *What keeps a part apart
57 Engraved stone marker
58 Pale-colored beer
60 What Britain voted to Brexit from, for short
61 Cordon (off)
62 Give off
63 Wall St. “500”
64 Gets a Venmo request, say
65 Article’s start, in journalism jargon
DOWN
1 Who asked “Would you eat them in a box? Would you eat them with a fox?”
2 Lake Victoria lies on its southern border
3 A little chipper 4 Campus building 5 “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” author
6 Public perception
7 Down Under bird
8 Spitball, e.g.
9 Conductor’s beat
10 Bring before a superior for reprimand
Once On This Island, Jr.
A Caribbean-inspired fairy tale and musical about Ti Moune, a young girl who falls in love with Daniel, a wealthy boy from a different part of the island. Thursday, June 26, 7:30 p.m. | Friday, June 27, 7:30 p.m. | Saturday, June 28, 2 p.m. | Saturday, June 28, 7:30 p.m. | Sunday, June 29, 2 p.m.
HATTILOO THEATRE
The 24 Hour Plays: Memphis
Six writers, six directors, and 24 actors will produce six short plays that are written and rehearsed in 24 hours. Here are the results. Saturday, June 28, 7-9 p.m.
THEATREWORKS AT THE EVERGREEN
Tutti Frutti: The Life and Music of Little Richard
A stage production starring award winning writer and actor Dedrick Weathersby in the titular role, telling the story of The Architect of Rock-and-Roll. Saturday, June 28, 7 p.m. THE HALLORAN CENTRE
TOURS
Mallory-Neely House Tours
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places and located in the Victorian Village Historic District, the Mallory-Neely House is one of Memphis’ treasured historic sites. $16. Friday, June 27-June 28.
MALLORY–NEELY HOUSE
PUZZLE BY JOEL FAGLIANO
ARTS By Abigail Morici
‘Home Is a Dream I Keep Having’
Noah omas Miller and Sara Moseley present new works in an UrbanArt Commission show.
The houses in Fiskars, Finland, look the way houses are supposed to look, Noah omas Miller says. He was there earlier this year for an artist residency. “I would go on hikes and look at these country houses, and I feel like this is the way you thought the world was going to be when you were a little kid.”
e houses had matching red roofs, as if they’d been plucked out of an illustrated storybook. So he brought back those little buildings, engraving them into Baltic birch wood and painting them with those signature red roofs. “I made my own town in that same sort of way that’s very picturesque, just making these dreamy homes,” Miller says.
He even titled one of the pieces “Home Is a Dream I Keep Having,” and the dual UrbanArt Commission show he’s presenting with Sarah Moseley has taken on the same name. e two are friends and found inspiration in each other for the show. “Sarah is the rst person outside of my sister that I’ve worked on pieces with,” Miller says.
For Miller, visual art is somewhat of a new bullet point for his resume. He’s been a lmmaker for most of his creative career; that’s what he studied at the Memphis College of Art. But a er working behind a computer screen for so long at his day job, not even counting his hours spent editing lm and looking at footage, he wanted to do something with his hands, to take a break from the all-consuming screens.
So he signed up for a membership in Crosstown Arts’ woodshop only a few years ago.
He started with furniture. It was practical. Until it wasn’t. “We can only have so many tables, so many chairs.”
But he learned the machines, the tools; he learned that he could carve grooves for coasters to stay put on tables and record cabinets. His skills evolved, and so did his ideas. “It was like, ‘Oh, I can use this to draw.’”
Soon, he was making paintings of sorts on wood. He would get his paint — house paint — mixed at Lowe’s. “I’m not a traditional painter. I’ve never studied painting. I just started doing this,” Miller says. For the past few years, he has had a set of ve or so colors he turns to for his color palette.
“ ey feel like my colors,” he says. In this show, he introduced a pale blue and brown, yet there’s comfort in this palette, a familiarity that’s not unlike home to the artist.
Likewise, it was natural that Miller turned to wood when in a creative need, for its familiarity. He’d always been working with the material, helping his dad renovate their homes. “I feel like every place we lived, my family renovated themselves,” he says. “We bought really cheap, and then our house was always just a construction site in a way. And growing up in that, this became familiar. And the last few series and shows I’ve had have all been kind of about houses and the idea of home because I do have the biggest attachment to all of these houses and my family members. …
And then in a di erent way now, I paint houses and build houses.”
Miller hasn’t forgotten his love for lm, though.
“I know some people have described my pieces … like storyboards in a way,” he says, but for this show, he tried to marry the forms more overtly. In one piece, he inserted lm strips from his time in Finland among carvings of his red-roofed houses — something he hopes to do more of for future pieces. In another piece, he has included a lm photograph by Moseley, situated in the skies above another redroofed home.
Moseley, for her part, turned to lm for its
unfamiliarity. She’s the art director at Goner Records and is used to working in digital design, creating posters, yers, and props. It’s been years since her last solo art show in 2017, and back then she was showing collage and illustration mostly. “Making physical work unique to me is kind of a new exploration,” she says.
Photography was a break from the art she’d make for work, and a break from life around her. “A really good friend of mine died,” she says, “and he gave me a bunch of cameras when he was alive, and I put my cameras down for, like, seven years. I didn’t touch him for a long time. His death was traumatic. And then I was cleaning and I came across these vintage cameras that I’ve had forever, and I was like, ‘Well, I need to take these out and use them.’”
She began taking pictures of nature around her home, on her walking path along the Vollintine-Evergreen Greenline. “ ese owers and trees, I feel like they are part of the house, my home. … It’s my mental chill pill,” she says. “I have a lot of anxious energies sometimes. I give it to the trees; they can handle it.”
Film, too, can handle her anxious energies, subverting her perfectionist tendencies, Moseley would learn. She began making double exposures, where two images layer in one photograph. “You just kind of let go and just see what happens. It’s so experimental and you really have no idea what you’re doing.” ese photographs, in turn, are centered in her pieces, framed in wood that had been stored in her
ABIGAIL MORICI
Noah omas Miller’s pieces in “Home Is a Dream I Keep Having” take inspiration from Finnish landscapes.
house’s attic for years. e frames themselves are hand-painted in bright colors with symbols of life and death, new beginnings — candles, lit and extinguished; a sun and moon.
“I bought my rst house in 2022,” Moseley says, “and it’s just something that I never thought I’d be able to do, and I got really lucky. And it’s a really old house with really old house problems. And I feel like the house is alive in a way, and I’ve been getting to know it.
“For this show, I contacted the lady that I bought the house from. She was like, ‘I’ll tell you my story about my life, how I ended up with the house, and what I did when I lived there.’ She sent me this, like, novel about the beautiful Sunday dinners she would have with her queer friends in the ’80s and moon nights and music nights. … It was just really beautiful to get to hear about the life that was lived before me in my house, like my studio.”
To Moseley, the house is active; its history matters, as do the people that come and go in search of home, of that dream. Perhaps it’s the dream of familiar red-roofed homes, consistent, lled with memories. Perhaps it’s something else, a longing that can’t be described or met until change comes around.
“Home Is a Dream I Keep Having” will be on view through July 18th.
PHOTO:
AUDIO By Toby Sells
Dramatic Listening
Audio dramas are having a golden era and there’s never been a better time to try one.
A
udio dramas have been described as television for your ears.
If you’ve never heard of audio dramas before, you may have heard the term audio ction, ction podcast, radio play, or full-cast audio drama. ey have a full cast of voice actors, sound e ects, and a score. So, yeah, like television for your ears.
If this still sounds like a foreign concept, remember the original Orson Welles’ “War of the Worlds” that had everybody in an uproar? at was an audio drama. Remember how Ralphie in A Christmas Story listened to Little Orphan Annie on the family radio? at was an audio drama, too.
But before you start thinking audio dramas hum only from wooden, old-timey radios, a resurgence of the form has made the last few years a sort of golden era for them. Why? Some have speculated that audio dramas were easier to produce when everyone was home during Covid. e pandemic shut down much of the entertainment world, so really good writers, producers, and actors turned to audio dramas to keep themselves busy (or keep themselves a oat).
But whatever happened, audio dramas are back and seem back to stay. Market research rm Digital Bulletin valued the U.S. audio drama market at $2.7 billion last year and projected growth to $6.1 billion in 2033.
Whatever happened, audio dramas are back and seem back to stay.
All of this is to say: ere has never been a better time to listen to audio dramas. I’ve been a fan for years and I listen to shows when I work out, work in the yard, cook, walk, or whatever. If I can put my brain on pause for a minute, I can stick a show in there and
be whisked away while my body cuts the grass.
To get started, nd the ction section of your favorite podcast app. It’s just called “ ction” in Apple Podcasts. en scroll until you nd something you like. Or hit up the audio drama subreddit for recommendations.
Big warning here, though: e quality of shows varies greatly. In some, the acting will suck (like, really suck). In others, the writing and story will suck. But in the best ones, it all clicks, and while you do the dishes, you’re transported to the deck of the Pequod hunting Moby Dick.
In the best audio dramas, the writing, story, and acting will all click.
seasons continue the taut storylines laid out in the rst season.
Exeter mesmerizes and never forces you to suspend your disbelief, especially on its Southernness.
e Lovecra Investigations
I didn’t know I loved H.P. Lovecraft (his stories, anyway) until I heard The Lovecraft Investigations for the first time.
In its rst season, podcasters Matthew Heawood (Barnaby Kay) and Kennedy Fisher (Jana Carpenter) set out to discover how a young man named Charles Dexter Ward went missing from his locked room at a Rhode Island asylum. ey pull at any loose thread they can nd until they uncover a powerful cult that has worshipped (and kept alive) a Mesopotamian god for 1,000 years. is thread continues through seasons two, three, and four. In them, Matt and Kennedy nd friends, chase UFOs, and watch as an entire town vanishes before their eyes.
Treat
Here are three recommendations to, hopefully, help you nd your rst (or next) audio drama favorite.
Exeter
Jeanne Tripplehorn ( e Firm) and Ray McKinnon (Deadwood; O Brother, Where Art ou?) play detective partners in the small South Carolina
County of Exeter in 1995. In the rst season, detectives Colleen and Pruitt follow evidence and hearsay to unravel a string of grisly murders: a woman found in the woods, mauled to death by a pack of dogs; a local preacher’s head found in the middle of the road placed on a collection plate. e second and third
e audio drama format is perfect for horror. If that’s your thing and you’re looking to dip a toe into the audio ction world, nd Treat
Kiernan Shipka (Mad Men, Twisters) stars as an unpopular teenager in a quiet town that holds a killer secret. Can she save her town, her family, or even herself from this evil from the past? Listen to Treat (billed as a hourand-a-half audio movie). Dun-dunDUNNNN!
Ties to Egypt
emphis was founded on May 22, 1819, by a group of investors that included John Overton, James Winchester, and Andrew Jackson. It was o cially incorporated as a city in 1826. e investors named it a er the ancient capital of Egypt on the Nile River, seizing the opportunity to one-up the founders of the newly formed Cairo, Illinois. Memphis was so named in hopes of it one day being the seat of great kings, like its river-adjacent namesake.
Memphis, Egypt, no longer exists as the bustling capital it used to be. Now it is a set of archeological sites practically in the suburbs of Cairo, sitting at the head of the Nile River Delta. e Nile is the only reason civilization exists in Egypt, so its Memphis was strategically placed on the great waterway. Being at the river delta, Memphis was a hub for commerce and trade.
trade. A re ection of the magnitude and importance of Memphis is the extension of its cemeteries, more than 30 kilometers in length, on the edge of the desert and the western bank of the Nile.
Memphis, Tennessee, our home, sits on the Chickasaw Blu along the banks of Ol’ Man River. Tennessee’s Memphis is located on the edge of the Mississippi River Delta, although not technically a part of the local river delta like Egypt’s Memphis was. It would be 13 years until its rst church was constructed. In 1832, a group of Methodists built a modest meeting house for their congregation. It was the rst religious building in the city and still stands today as the First United Methodist Church. Our Memphis has followed in the religious footsteps of its namesake, becoming a hub of religion that has helped shape the country.
Tennessee’s Memphis is also a hub of commerce and trade thanks to our location on the Mississippi River. Memphis has evolved from a storied river port into a dynamic transit hub, seamlessly integrating rail and air logistics, with FedEx at the heart of its global connectivity. Once dened by the Mississippi’s currents, the city now channels commerce across highways, railways, and the skies, solidifying its role as a pivotal nexus in modern trade.
per session for no insurance
Egypt’s Memphis was the residence of pharaohs and the capital city from the beginning of the dynastic period (approximately 3000 B.C.E.) through the end of the Old Kingdom period and into the First Intermediate Period (approximately 2181 B.C.E.). Even a er the capital shi ed to other locations, such as ebes, Memphis remained an important place and religious center. Its temples were among the most important in the country. During the New Kingdom period (approximately 1550 to 1070 B.C.E.), Memphis most likely functioned as the second capital of Egypt. At one time it seems to have been the principal residence of the crown prince, and at least three well-known pharaohs were born there.
Memphis was always one of the most populous and renowned places in Egypt, inhabited by a cosmopolitan community. Its port and local workshops played an important role in Egyptian foreign
Over the years, Memphis, Tennessee, has paid tribute to its namesake through architecture. Memphis’ oldest known Egyptian tribute is the Ballard & Ballard Obelisk Flour building Downtown, dating back to 1924. e building is lled with Egyptian Revival elements — obelisks, unintelligible hieroglyphics, and three arched entrances resembling those of ancient temples.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, Memphis, Tennessee, underwent a small Egyptian revival. In 1991, the city built its own pyramid. Initially, the Pyramid was built as an event center, hosting concerts, sporting events, and other attractions (remember the “Wonders” exhibits?). en there is the Memphis Zoo, with its full facade of Egyptian tribute, built to re ect the shape of ancient Egyptian monuments.
I cherish both Memphis, Tennessee, and Memphis, Egypt — each a testament to the enduring spirit of civilization. As a proud Memphian, I appreciate the historical homage woven into my hometown. Take a drive through the Blu City and see if you can spot its Egyptian revival echoes.
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.
group will start again in August, September, October and November*
MY HEALTH is our health
Since welcoming little one, life expanded while my world contracted.
More complexity, less time
Every day I advocate for my baby whether it’s at daycare or the doctor’s office.
And every day, I push off one thing my own health.
Cardiovascular disease is the #1 killer of new moms, with risks can last for months post-partum.
So, I’m taking action and starting the conversation, with not just my doctor, but with other moms I know, too.
Because not only do I want to be a great mom — I want to be a mom for a very long time.
Locally supported by
NEWS OF THE WEIRD
By the editors at Andrews McMeel Syndication
ChatGPT can perform many impressive tasks — sometimes with amusing results — but it may need to stay out of tasseography. Greek reported on April 26 that a Greek woman recently filed for divorce from her husband after the OpenAI chatbot asserted that the man was having an affair and that his mistress was intent on destroying their home, a conclusion the bot came to upon “reading” the coffee grounds in the couple’s mugs in a photo the woman uploaded to the app. “I laughed it off as nonsense,” the husband said, “but she took it seriously. She asked me to leave, told our kids we were getting divorced, and then I got a call from a lawyer. That’s when I realized this wasn’t just a phase.” The husband’s lawyer maintains that ChatGPT’s claims have no legal standing. , 4/26/25]
Turkmenistan’s top tourist attraction is the Gateway to Hell, a huge gas leak that has been burning since 1971 in the Karakum Desert, Yahoo! News reported on June 5. The fire started when Soviet scientists accidentally drilled into an underground pocket of gas and then ignited it, starting a blaze that could be seen from several kilometers away. Officials announced this week that the fire has been reduced three-fold. “Today only a faint source of combustion remains,” said Irina Luryeva, a director at the state-owned energy company Türkmengaz. Wells have been drilled around the site to capture the methane from the leak, she said. [Yahoo! News, 6/5/2025]
Amsterdam has out-Amsterdammed itself with a new exhibit at the Rijksmuseum, the Associated Press reported on June 3. As part of an exhibition called “Safe Sex?” the museum is displaying a condom from 1830 that is enhanced with erotic art. The prophylactic is made from a sheep’s appendix and, the museum says, “depicts both the playful and the serious side of sexual health” with its image of a nun and three clergymen. The phrase “This is my
choice” is written in French along its length, which may refer to the Renoir painting The Judgment of Paris Historians believe the condom might be a souvenir from a brothel. You can see it until the end of November.
[AP, 6/2/2025]
Saw That Coming
After performers debuted Westphalia Side Story on Paterborn Cathedral’s altar in Berlin, Germany, on May 15, more than 22,000 people signed a petition demanding that the archbishop apologize and reconsecrate the cathedral. The Associated Press reported that the production included a song and dance which featured two shirtless men and one woman displaying raw, plucked chickens wearing diapers while singing “Fleish ist Fleish” (“Meat is Meat”). The song was part of a larger production celebrating the 1,250th anniversary of Westphalia, Germany, a region in the country’s northwest. The finished show will premiere in September.
[AP, 5/30/2025]
Least Competent Criminal Richard Pruneda, 42, of Edinburg, Texas, managed to get himself arrested twice over the Memorial Day holiday in Eddyville, Kentucky, the West Kentucky Star reported. The Lyon County Sheriff was called on May 25 to a business where Pruneda was allegedly intoxicated and making “alarming” statements to an employee. The next day, after bonding out of jail, Pruneda called the sheriff’s office to ask about retrieving personal items from his impounded car. When the officer picked up and inventoried the items, he found cocaine in the trunk. Eddyville Police assisted as they went to Pruneda’s motel and arrested him for a second time.
[ West Kentucky Star , 6/3/2025]
Send your weird news items with subject line WEIRD NEWS to WeirdNewsTips@amuniversal.com.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): The Hawaiian word pō refers to a primal darkness from which all life flows. It’s not a fearsome void but a fertile mystery, rich with future possibilities and the ancestors’ hopes. In the coming weeks, I invite you to treat your inner life as pō. Be as calm and patient and watchful as an Aries can be as you monitor the inklings that rise up out of the deep shadows. Have faith that the cloudy uncertainty will ultimately evolve into clarity, revealing the precise directions you need.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In the 17th century, the Taurus polymath Athanasius Kircher constructed a fantastical machine called the Aeolian harp. It wasn’t designed to be played by human fingers but by the wind. It conjured music with currents invisible to the eye. I nominate this sublime contraption as your power object for the coming weeks, Taurus. The most beautiful and healing melodies may come from positioning yourself so that inspiration can blow through. How might you attune yourself to the arrival of unexpected help and gifts? Set aside any tendency you might have to try too hard. Instead, allow life to sing through you.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): The painter Vincent van Gogh wrote, “Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” That’s good advice for you right now. Your ambitions may feel daunting if you imagine them as monumental and monolithic. But if you simply focus on what needs to be done next — the daily efforts, the incremental improvements — you will be as relaxed as you need to be to accomplish wonders. Remember that masterpieces are rarely completed in a jiffy. The cumulative power of steady work is potentially your superpower. Here’s another crucial tip: Use your imagination to have fun as you attend to the details.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In certain medieval maps, unexplored territories were marked with the Latin phrase hic sunt dracones — “here be dragons.” It was a warning and a dare, a declaration that no one knew what lay beyond. In the coming weeks, Leo, you may find yourself traveling into one of those unlabeled regions. Rather than flinching or dodging, I invite you to press forward with respectful curiosity. Some of the so-called dragons will be figments. Others are protectors of treasure and might be receptive to sharing with a bright light like you. Either way, productive adventures are awaiting you in that unmapped territory. Go carefully — but go.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): In traditional Japanese carpentry, joints are made so skillfully that they need no nails, screws, or adhesives. Carpenters use intricate joinery techniques to connect pieces of wood so
Rob Brezsny
tightly that the structures are strong and durable. They often require a mallet for assembly and disassembly. In metaphorical terms, you are capable of that kind of craftsmanship these days, Virgo. I hope you will take advantage of this by building lasting beauty and truth that will serve you well into the future. Don’t rush the joinery. If it’s not working, don’t force it. Re-cut, remeasure, breathe deeply, and try again.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Here’s one of my unruly rules about human competence: In every professional field, from physicians to lawyers to psychics to teachers, about 15 percent of all the practitioners are downright mediocre, even deficient. Seventy-five percent are at least satisfactory and sometimes good. And 10 percent of the total are surpassingly excellent, providing an extraordinary service. With this in mind, I’m happy to say that you now have a knack for gravitating toward that exceptional 10 percent in every domain you are drawn to. I predict that your intuition will consistently guide you toward premium sources.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): The Japanese concept of shinrin-yoku means “forest bathing.” It invites people to immerse themselves in the natural world, drawing on its restorative power. In accordance with astrological portents, I urge you Scorpios to maximize your forest bathing. To amplify the enrichment further, gravitate toward other environments that nourish your soul’s need for solace and uplift. The naked fact is that you need places and influences that offer you comfort, safety, and tender inspiration. Don’t apologize for making your life a bit less heroic as you tend to your inner world with gentle reverence.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
The camera obscura was a precursor to modern cameras. It projected the outside world upside down onto interior walls. Artists loved it because it helped them see reality from new angles. I hereby proclaim that you, Sagittarius, will be like both the artist and the camera obscura lens in the coming weeks. Your perceptions may feel inverted, strange, even disorienting, but that’s a gift! So let unfamiliarity be your muse. Flip your assumptions. Sketch from shadow instead of light. Have faith that the truth isn’t vanishing or hiding; it’s simply appearing in unfamiliar guises. Don’t rush to turn right-side-up things. Relish and learn from the tilt.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): I’m sure you enjoy gazing into some mirrors more than others. It’s amazing how different you might look in your bathroom mirror and the mirror in the restroom at work. Some store windows may reflect an elegant, attractive version of you, while others distort your image. A similar principle
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
Welcome to a special edition of “What’s My Strongest Yearning?” I’m your host, Rob Brezsny, and I’m delighted you have decided to identify the single desire that motivates you more than any other. Yes, you have many wishes and hopes and dreams, but one is more crucial than all the rest! Right? To begin the exercise, take three deep breaths and allow every knot of tension to dissolve and exit your beautiful body. Then drop down into the primal depths of your miraculous soul and wander around until you detect the shimmering presence of the beloved reason you came here to this planet. Immerse yourself in this glory for as long as you need to. Exult in its mysterious power to give meaning to everything you do. Ask it to nurture you, console you, and inspire you.
is at work in the people with whom you associate. Some seem to accentuate your finest attributes, while others bring out less flattering aspects. I bring this to your attention, dear Capricorn, because I believe it will be extra important in the coming weeks for you to surround yourself with your favorite mirrors.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Leonardo da Vinci filled thousands of pages with sketches, notes, and experiments. He never finished many of them. He called this compilation his “codex of wonder.” It wasn’t a record of failures. It was an appre ciation of his complex process and a way to honor his creative wellspring. Taking a cue from da Vinci’s love of marvelous enigmas, I invite you to be in love with the unfinished in the coming weeks. Make inquisitiveness your default position. Reconsider abandoned ideas. Be a steward of fertile fragments. Some of your best work may arise from revisiting composted dreams or incomplete sketches. Here’s your motto: Magic brews in the margins.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In the remote Atacama Desert of Chile, certain flowers lie dormant for years, awaiting just the right conditions to burst into blossom in a sudden, riotous explosion of color and vitality. Scientists call it a superbloom. Metaphorically speaking, Pisces, you are on the verge of such a threshold. I’m sure you can already feel the inner ripening as it gathers momentum. Any day now, your full flowering will erupt — softly but dramatically. You won’t need to push. You will simply open. To prepare yourself emotionally, start rehearsing lively shouts of “HALLELUJAH! HOORAY! WHOOPEE!”
TV By Chris McCoy
Ziggy’s Arts Adventure Comes to Memphis
A new public television show teaches kids about art on WKNO-TV.
iggy’s not from around here. He’s an alien who found humanity’s greatest gi to the cosmos.
Launched by NASA in 1977, the two Voyager spacecra explored the outer solar system before rocketing o into deep space. On board each one was a golden record inscribed with the sounds of Earth — natural sounds, human speech, and, most crucially, music. Ziggy found one of the records oating in space, and now he’s come to Earth to ask for more Chuck Berry songs — and nd out more about our art.
at’s the premise of Ziggy’s Arts Adventure, a 15-minute kids show produced by Louisiana Public Broadcasting (LPB). On the rst episode of the third season, which recently premiered on WNKO-TV, Ziggy and his friend River decide to repaint the gate of their junkyard arts center. But what colors should they work with?
“Color is something I can work with?” exclaims Ziggy.
It is indeed. Along the way, Ziggy learns that “the more the merrier” is not always the case with colors, but on the other hand, “It’s hard to see what’s special when there’s only one color.”
Ziggy takes to the talk show desk to quiz New Orleans watercolorist Katherine Klimitas about complementary hues and the color wheel. en he and his non-puppet friend imble lead a real elementary school class in a color-by-number exercise. Finally, safe inside his
It’s the culmination of a lifetime’s work, Achee says, beyond his wildest childhood dreams.
spaceship, Ziggy reports back to his home planet on what a dizzying array of colors the humans have discovered.
It’s all in a day’s work for Clay Achee, who created Ziggy’s Arts Adventure in a “punk rock warehouse” in Louisiana. “I grew up here in Baton Rouge, and as a kid, I was very artsy,” Achee says. “I loved painting and drawing, and I loved puppet stu , but that wouldn’t come up until way later in my life.”
Achee studied lm at the Savannah College of Art and Design. “I was in Georgia and sort of expected to be
like a Bruce Springsteen song, where I was free from my hometown, and I was never going back. en they passed a bunch of tax incentives in Louisiana right when I was graduating lm school, so I came right back and worked for a lot of years in the lm industry here in di erent aspects. I was doing a lot of assistant directing by the end. But while I was doing that, I was really sad about not making my own stu . It was a very strange progression from ‘I miss making stu with my hands,’ to ‘I loved puppets as a kid!’ to ‘Hey, we have YouTube now and I can learn to do anything!’ And I kind of started making puppets as a hobby. I started giving them as presents. Our friend’s pregnant; here’s a puppet for your kid. en I was selling them at arts markets, and eventually I started doing this YouTube channel.”
Achee re ned the show that would become Ziggy’s Arts Adventure over the course of several years. ings really clicked when he met Chase Bernard, who became Ziggy’s puppeteer. “We were shooting stu in my garage, and then we moved into this punk rock warehouse in an industrial part of town, where we were trying to shoot very wholesome children’s content.”
When the pandemic hit in 2020, “I’m in my 30s. I’m having a baby, and I nd myself in a punk rock warehouse working on a kids’ show without any funding, and I wonder how I ended up there.”
When he reached out to LPB, they were already watching the show. “ ey asked, ‘Do you think you could teach
like a school subject with this?’ And I was like, ‘Is art a school subject?’ … ey had gotten a little grant, and they rolled the dice on us.”
Ziggy’s Arts Adventure is fast-paced and colorful. anks to production designer Christian Walker — himself a Memphis lmmaker and member of the Blu City punk rock institution Pezz — the elaborate world of the junkyard arts center is reminiscent of Pee-wee’s Playhouse, which Achee says was a big inspiration to him as a budding puppeteer. Ziggy exists in a great tradition of Southern puppetry. Mississippian Jim Henson’s Muppets are an obvious in uence, both in cra smanship and tone. Alabama artist Wayne White was the main puppeteer for Pee-wee’s Playhouse and also was the art director for Peter Gabriel and Smashing Pumpkins videos. “I watch his documentary [Beauty Is Embarrassing] about once a month now!” says Achee.
Ziggy’s Arts Adventure was a hit for Louisiana Public Broadcasting. “We were able to do three seasons, and we’re super proud and excited about the third one. is is the rst time that it’s being shown outside the state of Louisiana, thanks to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helped us fund a pilot program. We’re in Memphis and South Carolina,” says Achee. “ e Ziggy outreach program has begun!”
is Friday, June 27th, WKNO will host Ziggy’s Arts Adventure Outdoor Music Festival from 5 to 7 p.m. Ziggy (performed by Chase Bernard) will
be joined by African drummer Ekpe Abioto, Cazateatro Bilingual eatre Group dancers, Rozelle Elementary, and the Memphis Youth Arts Initiative Drumline. ere will be drop-in mini workshops by local organizations and a kids zone complete with a waterslide. Cherry the Miniature Horse will be on hand to perform tricks, and there will be food trucks and icy treats to cool o during this rst week of summer. e big outreach event comes at a perilous time for public television, which is being threatened with a massive funding cut by the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress.
Achee hopes his show can help turn kids on to art the way his mind was expanded by his art heroes. It’s the culmination of a lifetime’s work, he says, and beyond his wildest childhood dreams. “It’s weird when I think about it that way — what would the little 10-year-old in me say to ‘What would you like to do when you grow up?’ I would like to swim in pools of ice cream! rough the lm industry, and through my love of puppetry, there’s a ton of things that I was pursuing in my life that ended up making a lot of sense.”
Ziggy’s Arts Adventure airs Friday at 11 a.m. and Saturday at 6:30 a.m. on WKNO-TV, and online at ziggy.lpb.org.
Puppeteer Chase Bernard brings Ziggy, an alien curious about human creativity, to life.
Our critic picks the best films in theaters.
F1: The Movie
Brad Pitt stars as Sonny Hayes, a New York City cab driver who crashed out of Formula One racing in the 1990s. He’s called from retirement to mentor Joshua “Noah” Pearce (Damson Idris) for a big race. Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski feels the need for speed again with this Jerry Bruckheimer production featuring real POV racing footage from actual F1 races around the world.
M3GAN 2.0
Everyone’s favorite unstoppable murderous robot is back — but this time, they’re the good guy! No, I’m not talking about Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Allison Williams returns as Gemma, the AI coder
who accidentally created M3GAN (Amie Donald and Jenna Davis) and who is now advocating for regulation while trying to rehabilitate her creation. But when a defense contractor steals the M3GAN code to use it for killer robots — “Terminators,” if you will — Gemma must decide whether to unleash her creation for good this time.
28 Years Later
Danny Boyle and Alex Garland return with a fresh look at the world they created in 2002’s 28 Days Later. The Rage zombies are still walking the Earth, while human survivors huddle in fortified compounds. Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Spike (Alfie Williams) venture out into the world and find things are much stranger than they imagined.
BUY, SELL, TRADE
degree in Information Systems, Computer Science, or a related field and three (3) years of experience in a Data Engineering role with emphasis in analytics — OR — a Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems, Computer Science, or a related field followed by five (5) years of experience in a Data Engineering role with emphasis in analytics. To review the full job description and apply, go to https:// www.stjude.org/jobs/alsac.html (Job ID R0009823).
Laurie Stark
THE
LAST WORD By
Jesse Davis
The Basement Tapes
You can’t go home again — unless you’re broke and you bring a baby.
At the beginning of this month, my wife and I made a move, one that we hope will go some way to improving our fortunes. We’re joining the not-insigni cant number of millennial adults who have moved back in with their parents.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 50 percent of millennials who have moved out of their parents’ home have, at some point, moved back. at was a number I never thought to nd myself in, though. at particular safety net didn’t exist for me until I got married. Both my parents live with their respective sisters, so to move “back home” was something of a logistical challenge, not that it was exactly an outcome I had hoped for, either. So, with my wife’s Bonus Mom, as she calls herself, renting her basement to us for the family discount, an amount not unlike pre-Covid-in ation rental rates, I recognize the privilege I have. Not everyone has a safe place to fall back to a er they’ve fallen on their face.
Still, despite how fortunate we are, it rankles that our economic reality turned on the whims of a South African billionaire and his team of underquali ed coders at DOGE. eir cuts to funding for federal agencies like the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation spelled doom for the future of science research in this country, true, and also for my wife’s and my jobs. It’s not so much that a sudden change in national policy so drastically a ected my household that bothers me. A er all, we are all subject to changes in the global climate; new trends and technologies change how we interact and consume, and livelihoods are a ected. No, it’s the frivolous nature of DOGE’s cuts that gall me, how completely devoid of merit the entire organization is, how shortsighted their so-called “savings” will prove to be, and how much harm has been done, now and far into the future.
I can’t help but wonder how many other American citizens are making similar moves, just so a self-obsessed con dence trickster can create the illusion of scal responsibility and Art of the Deal-like economic wizardry — all while adding to the national debt and simultaneously eroding the nation’s few bulwarks against future threats, such as climate disaster, severe storms, and disease. Are there former NASA scientists navigating a terrifying new medical diagnosis while also guring out what insurance they now qualify for? Are there former national parks employees moving themselves and their kids into smaller apartments? Surely, there must be. I can say for certain, there are two new parents with a new baby and new (low-paying) jobs who have just moved into a parent’s basement while they work to save and strive for more secure careers.
Life goes on for us average Joes, as our leaders throw themselves military parades, order illegal air strikes, do the trade-war tango with our allies and enemies, and bully local governments into sucking up to them. Shouldn’t our national policies and budgetary goals strive to make life safer and more secure for the vast majority of us? Businesses fail, droughts and oods and blizzards happen; no one is perfectly protected from life’s bu ets. But that statistic I mentioned earlier — that more than half of millennials now live or have lived with their parents a er moving out — that doesn’t seem like an indicator of a healthy and thriving economic system. Unless, that is, it’s meant to work more like a casino slot machine than anything else. It’s paying out, dummy — just not for you.
I had hoped to litter this feature with statistics and quotes from reputable sources. I wanted to add context about the minimum wage, tax structures over time, etc. But to be perfectly honest, I’ve got work at a temp job soon, boxes to unpack, and probably a baby diaper to change. So take these words with a grain of salt, and be careful what you read on the internet (and in print). Just because someone has a fancy byline in a newspaper doesn’t mean they don’t live in their wife’s step-mother’s basement.
Jesse Davis is a former Flyer sta er; he writes a monthly Books feature for Memphis Magazine. His opinions, such as they are, have literally never ordered avocado toast. Not even once.
PHOTOS: JESSE DAVIS
Just two millennials moving back home
The Hot Tamale Capital of the World invites you to enjoy an eclectic collection of events and entertaining stops.
» 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
