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Rockin’ In Rhythm with Central High
How
PHOTO: JUSTIN FOX BURKS
Baby Money
A
PHOTO: ADITYA ROMANSA | UNSPLASH
The Kids Are Not Alright
THE fly-by
MEM ernet
Memphis on the internet.
MEMPHIS MADE
Memphis Made Brewing Co. announced last week it led for bankruptcy. Here’s what the company said on Facebook:
“While it’s a challenging time at Memphis Made Brewing Company, we want to make it clear we are still open for business. We’re brewing beer, supplying our distributors, and operating the taproom.”
ELI MANNING
NFL great Eli Manning went undercover as a FedEx delivery employee and a course o cial at the FedEx St. Jude Championship over the weekend.
{WEEK THAT WAS By
Flyer staff
Questions, Answers + Attitude
Edited by Toby Sells
TennCare, ICE, & Lead
in Water
Trump slashes state healthcare, Lee sends Guard for deportations, schools test positive for toxins.
TENNCARE CUTS
TennCare funding could decrease by up to $8.5 billion as a result of Medicaid cuts in President Donald Trump’s budget reconciliation law.
ere, he punked golfers Scottie Sche er, Justin omas, Jordan Spieth, and more. He made on-course deliveries, checked security badges, and hoisted the tournament’s signature “Hush Y’all” signs.
KATT WILLIAMS e PGA let comedian Katt Williams loose with a hot mic during the FedEx St. Jude tourney. Redditors described his voice as “honeysmooth” as he intoned colorful commentary like, “I have watched that guy’s ankles so much.”
KFF, a nonpro t health policy organization, released a report projecting the impact of healthcare cuts from Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill.” e group found that TennCare funding could be cut between $5 to $8.5 billion over the next decade.
As of June 2025, there are 1,414,000 Tennesseans enrolled in TennCare with a large portion of participants being under the age of 18 (840,000).
Shelby County has a total of 241,934 residents enrolled.
“TennCare covers approximately 20 percent of the state’s population, 50 percent of the state’s births, and 50 percent of the state’s children,” state o cials said.
e impact of Trump’s bill on those relying on TennCare has been highlighted by critics of the decision.
“About 45,000 people will lose TennCare coverage due to Medicaid rule changes, while 240,000 will lose access to a ordable coverage because the Trump bill also eliminates premium tax credits for many plans sold through Healthcare.gov, the A ordable Care Act marketplace,” the Tennessee Democratic Caucus said.
LEE HELPS ICE
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee is mobilizing the National Guard to help federal agents with President Donald Trump’s mass deportations.
e governor’s o ce told Tennessee Lookout last week that “Tennessee stands ready to support President Trump’s e orts to secure our nation’s borders and remove the most violent criminals from our streets.”
Acting on a request for assistance from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the governor authorized National Guard troops to assist with administrative and clerical duties at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) processing facilities in Tennessee. Guard members, working under the governor’s orders but being paid by the federal government, will help ICE with data entry, case management, and logistical support, according to the governor’s spokesperson, Elizabeth Johnson.
e mission is in the planning stage, and the Guard will work with state and federal agencies to decide how to respond to the request, according to Johnson.
“BEAUTIFUL” BILL IMPACTS HIGHER ED
e way students and parents pay for higher education will change as the Republican-sponsored “One Big Beautiful Bill” legislation is enacted.
Last week, the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC) said the policy a ects federal student-aid asset calculation, loan repayment and limits, and more. e changes coincide with an uptick in tuition and fees for the 2025-2026 academic school year.
State schools like the University of Memphis (U of M) are seeing an average total fee increase of 5.2 percent. Increases at community colleges averaged 3.5 percent. Tuition at Tennessee College of Applied Technology increased by 3.3 percent.
In June, the U of M Board of Trustees voted to increase tuition by 4.92 percent for the upcoming school year. School o cials said tuition and mandatory fees “support” educational and general operation costs.
LEAD IN SCHOOLS
Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) announced that elevated lead levels were found at 27 water sources across 24 school campuses including kitchen sinks, concession areas, stadiums, and ice machines.
Visit the News Blog at memphis yer.com for fuller versions of these stories and more local news.
Tennessee Lookout contributed to this report.
PHOTO: TENNESSEE AIR GUARD
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee is mobilizing members of the Tennessee National Guard to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
‘Shameful’ MATA Report {
CITY REPORTER
By Kailynn Johnson
Memphis City Council angered by new “disgusting” nancial report of beleaguered transportation agency.
Despite “glowing” reporting from the Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) on the state of agency a airs, Memphis City Council members are continuing to voice questions, concerns, and disapproval.
“ is council has invested into MATA to the tune of at least $30 million a year — sometimes up to $50 million — yet today we’re talking about broken benches and people who are on dialysis not being able to be picked up, disabled people not being able to [get to] church, [and] large areas like Frayser and Whitehaven not getting service,” Councilwoman Jerri Green said during last week’s meeting of the city’s transportation committee.
As a part of a new resolution, the transit authority is required to give monthly updates and reports to the city council as a grantee of city funds. MATA is required to give “a high-level overview of key developments, challenges, and achievements in the past month, along with major priorities for the coming month.”
Some of the agency’s achievements for the month included procuring 100
percent of their vehicles for xed route services, missed trips dropping from 33 percent to 7 percent, and progress toward steel-wheeled trolley recerti cation.
MATA also provided 1,600 pages of nancial documentation which contained copies of checks, invoices, and authorizing emails. is report follows the release of a nancial audit report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), which Green called “disgusting.”
“When you [TransPro] issued your report of MATA, I said it was scathing,” Green said. “ is [PwC report] is disgusting. is is shameful. Anyone who had a hand in this should be beyond embarrassed because this is a waste of taxpayer dollars in print.”
e report detailed several nancial failures by the agency, including incomplete invoices, unchecked spending, and operation “without a de ned budget.”
Green noted that MATA o cials, both past and present, have failed to be honest about the agency’s circumstances. MATA’s interim CEO John Lewis gave a report with several positive updates on the agency; however, council members noted
a contrasting reality for their constituents. Members spoke on transit reliability, elderly and disabled riders not being able to procure public transportation, and cosmetic problems such as broken benches.
Lewis said part of the agency’s service problem comes from having buses that are over 14 years old. MATA alluded to solutions to these challenges, such as purchasing gently used buses. Lewis also noted that the $2 million estimate given by previous leadership to get steel-wheeled trolleys road-ready has been reduced to less than $30,000; council members said no explanation was given to account for this change.
“I hope you understand when you come to us and tell us things are great, not a single person up here believes it,” Green said.
e agency also announced that a search for a permanent CEO is underway. While public transit advocates voiced their preferred quali cations for the next candidate at last week’s board meeting, city council members chimed in on the conversation as well.
“ e new CEO and CFO, I hope
they don’t come from what’s already within the department,” Councilwoman Yolanda Cooper-Sutton said. “Please do not bring anyone who has been part of this as a suggestion.”
Cooper-Sutton urged the agency to focus on xing routes and providing consistent service. She said while the city is a funding source for the agency, the money comes from taxpayers.
“ ey should have adequate service being provided to them,” Cooper-Sutton said. “Get those routes xed for the people. Get from behind the desk; go talk to the people. Get out and see what’s happening. No more paper pushers.”
PHOTO: MEMPHIS AREA TRANSIT AUTHORITY Some buses are more than 14 years old.
POLITICS By Jackson Baker
Kicking the Can
e county commission defers action on realignment of school board elections.
W-F
HAPPY HOUR MUSIC BINGO
In the wake of a decision by acting Circuit Judge Robert Childers to deny an immediate injunction sought by former Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) Superintendent Marie Feagins to restore her position, Feagins’ lawsuit continues.
And the larger controversies related to her January ring by the MSCS board continue as well.
e Feagins matter was central to Monday’s meeting of the Shelby County Commission, which had to deal with a riddle dumped on the commission by the Tennessee General Assembly.
is was the matter of a measure, passed in the 2025 legislative session, that requires Memphis-Shelby County School Board elections to be conducted in the same cycle and under similar term-limit requirements as county commission elections.
e assembly’s action was in some ways an outgrowth of the Feagins ring, which riled up state-government o cials, caused partisan tensions, and further complicated the matter of ongoing state encroachment over local options.
e next commission election is scheduled for 2026, and the problem is that MSCS board terms have, up to this point, been staggered, with ve members of the nine-member board having been elected in 2024, while the other four were elected in 2022.
e ve elected last year would ordinarily not be up for reelection until 2028, but the new law has presented the county commission with the issue of how and when to alter the MSCS cycle so as to achieve alignment of the two bodies’ elections.
Commission members devoted most of their time on Monday to the issue and, a er multiple amendments, substitute resolutions, and one formal reconsideration, managed to solve half the issue.
A resolution calling for the terms of the state law not to be implemented until 2030 was rejected a er much debate, and it was resolved that anyone running for an MSCS position in 2026 would be subject to the same term-limit restrictions — a maximum of two four-year-terms — as are members of the county commission.
Le unresolved, however, was the main issue of alignment. Just how many school board members should be running in 2026, and at what point do the MSCS terms become synchronized with those of
the county commission?
Audience members speaking to the issue before commission members tackled it were of two vehemently held and diametrically opposite opinions. One group, evidently consisting mainly of people outraged by the board’s ring of Feagins in January, wanted all MSCS elections to be held in 2026. is would have converted the terms of those board members elected in 2024 retroactively to two-year terms instead of four-year terms.
Two of those members, Natalie McKinney and Sable Otey — both of whom, coincidentally or otherwise, had voted for Feagins’ ring — were on hand Monday to speak against the contraction.
Sentiment on the matter was not only sharply divided; it was so intense that security o cers were compelled to physically remove two audience members, one of whom, in his insistence that the commission act to his satisfaction, kept shouting over and over, “Do your fucking job!” e commission itself was clearly divided on the matter of alignment, and the discussion — and the meeting — ended with a decision to kick the can further down then road. e commission voted to bifurcate the larger issue, deferring further action on the election-alignment question until the commission’s September 3rd committee-meeting date.
e commission’s Republican minority members, most of whom favored an immediate election-date realignment, got one concession from Monday’s meeting. For the rst time in years, the body’s annual chairmanship vote resulted in the choice of a GOP member, David Bradford, to serve as vice chair.
Democrat Shante Avant was elected chair of the commission for the coming year and will oversee the next move on election-date realignment.
PHOTO: DR. MARIE N. FEAGINS | FACEBOOK Marie Feagins
By Katie Stephenson
Baby Money
Welcoming your child into the world is one of life’s most transformative moments. It also brings a list of responsibilities that can easily feel overwhelming. Here are some actions to take as you have time — it doesn’t all need to be done at once. But you’ll feel better knowing you’ve taken action.
Tasks for First 30 Days ese are essential and time-sensitive tasks. Missing the deadlines may have nancial or legal consequences, so complete these as soon as possible.
• Add your child to your health insurance: You typically only have 30 days from the date of birth to enroll your child in your healthcare plan.
• Apply for a Social Security number: You’ll need this number to claim your child as a dependent on your taxes, open nancial accounts in their name, and more. Most hospitals o er this at the time of birth certi cate ling.
• Order your child’s birth certi cate: Request multiple originals — you’ll use these for passports, insurance, school enrollment, and more. ere’s no limit on how many you can order.
IRA, as the gains can be realized tax-free for tuition and education expenses. In some states, you can receive a state income tax deduction for your contributions. Share the contribution link with family and friends for birthdays and holidays — people love gi ing meaningfully.
• Freeze your child’s credit: Unfortunately, identity the can start early. Freezing your child’s credit with Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion prevents fraudsters from using your newborn’s Social Security number to apply for credit lines.
• Order your child’s passport and passport card: is is essential if you plan to travel internationally. e card also serves as a handy form of identi cation.
• Update your estate plan: As a new parent, you’ll want to take the following actions: 1) Add custodial provisions in your will — it may also be time for you to upgrade to a trust-based estate plan. 2) Add your child or your trust as a contingent bene ciary on retirement accounts (401(k)s, IRAs, Roth IRAs, etc.). 3) Update your life insurance bene ciaries.
Tasks for First Year ese tasks are important for protecting your child’s future and getting your household nancially prepared for the changes ahead.
• Review and adjust your nancial plan: 1) Revisit your budget to account for new expenses: diapers, childcare, medical costs, etc. 2) Update your tax withholdings to claim your new dependent. 3) Reassess your life insurance needs to ensure adequate coverage for your growing family. 4) Re-evaluate your employer bene ts (e.g., dependent care FSA, HSA contributions, or child life insurance).
• Start a 529 College Savings Plan: is tax-advantaged account can grow with your child for their expected education costs. 529 plans grow similar to a Roth
Non-Urgent Tasks
Although these next points aren’t high priority, they’re valuable ways to provide peace of mind for your family and longterm advantages for your child.
• Register baby gear for recall notications: is is especially important for items like cribs, strollers, car seats, and bassinets. Hold onto instruction manuals and proofs of registration.
• Create an email address for your child: Besides being required for things like Global Entry, it’s a way to send them photos, stories, and letters over the years.
• Carry copies of key documents while traveling: Birth certi cate and immunization records may be required for certain ights, day care enrollment, or medical visits.
Katie Stephenson, JD, CFP, is a Private Wealth Manager and Partner with Creative Planning. Creative Planning is one of the nation’s largest registered investment advisory rms providing comprehensive wealth management services to ensure all elements of a client’s nancial life are working together. For more information or to request a free, no-obligation consultation, visit CreativePlanning.com.
Home Sweet Home
PHOTO: ADITYA ROMANSA | UNSPLASH Planning for baby
AT LARGE By Bruce VanWyngarden
Thin ICE
The few, the proud, the clerical.
“Help Wanted! Would you like to wear a mask and carry weapons and bully your way into people’s houses, schools, and offices and drag them off to sketchy ‘detention centers’ in undisclosed locations? Well, you’re in luck! Uncle Sam needs you! The only qualifications? Be able to spot brown people and be willing to take them into custody, no questions asked — or responded to. We’re now hiring! Contact your nearest ICE office today!”
That’s not a real ad, but it could be. ICE is indeed hiring because it’s been “underperforming.” Arrests by ICE agents dropped nearly 20 percent in July, to 994 per day, according to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. That’s down from 1,224 daily arrests in June, and a long way from the 3,000-per-day goal touted by the president’s glowering Racist-in-Chief, Stephen Miller.
ICE is having trouble carrying out Donald Trump’s ambitious campaign pledge to deport 11 million people, but it’s certainly not for a lack of money. ICE was just funded at more than $100 billion by the One Bigoted Beautiful Bill, making it the country’s most expensive law-enforcement organization.
About half of that money is going to private prison corporations like Nashville-based CoreCivic, the nation’s largest owner of correctional and detention facilities, so they can build more concentration camps like Alligator Alley. But that still leaves billions of dollars to help ICE hire the thousands of agents needed to snatch up 11 million people. ICE is offering signing bonuses of up to $50,000. They’ve lowered age requirements so teens can get involved, and raised age limits, so seniors can now stop greeting folks at Walmart and start grabbling them off the street. They’re even paying off student loans!
Trump and Miller have made personal pitches. Here’s ALL-CAPS Donny: “We need MORE courageous men and women to MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN. Join ICE now! We will take GREAT care of you, just like you take care of us!”
And here’s Miller: “Do you want to deport criminal invaders from the United States? The newly-passed Big Beautiful Bill provides extraordinary incentives for new ICE hires.”
Not to be outdone, DHS Director Kristi Noem posted a bold come-on to white supremacists: “Serve your country! Defend your culture!”
I mean, who wouldn’t want to defend
our culture and deport invaders and “MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN”?
Sieg Heil, y’all!
But as I said, none of it is working. These fools couldn’t sell water to a parched camel, and it appears there may not be enough Americans who want to join the junior Gestapo. Who knew? That’s why the government is now ordering hundreds of FEMA employees (in the middle of hurricane season) to go to work for ICE. And it’s also why Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has joined 20 other GOP governors around the country in volunteering their states’ National Guard troops to work for ICE.
“Tennessee stands ready to support President Trump’s efforts to secure our nation’s borders and remove the most violent criminals from our streets,” said Lee, last week, with a completely straight face.
So what will our stalwart soldiers be doing? Funny you should ask. The governor has authorized Tennessee National Guard troops to — get this: “assist with administrative and clerical duties at Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing facilities. Guard members, working under the governor’s orders but being paid by the federal government, will help ICE with data entry, case management, and logistical support.”
Troops will no doubt be issued a new patch for their uniforms: “The Few, The Proud, The Clerical.”
I can assure you that no National Guardsman (or woman) thought they were signing up to provide data entry or case management to help arrest agricultural employees, construction laborers, and restaurant workers when they volunteered to serve their country.
But even that role could change. According to a report by Tennessee Lookout last week, the Department of Homeland Security is now considering using National Guard troops for detention and transportation of immigrants, as well as finding “fugitives.”
Turning Tennessee’s troops into prison guards and bounty hunters is a complete perversion of the National Guard’s role, and Lee knows it. He just doesn’t care. He’d rather curry favor with the private prison industry and Trump.
So the question arises: Will our troops still proudly wear their Tennessee National Guard uniforms while they’re guarding prisons and hunting immigrants, or will they switch over to the official ICE uniform of masks, T-shirts, guns, and beer guts? Stay tuned.
RoKi’ In RhTh WIt CeTrL HIg
HOW THE HIGH SCHOOL’S JAZZ BAND BECAME THE BEST IN THE WORLD — AND WHAT LIES AHEAD.
By Alex Greene
Any casual bystander in the vicinity of, say, Times Square this May would surely have done a double take, pausing and wondering, “What’s that sound?”
A distant clamor on the breeze could be heard over the tra c, and as it got louder, people would slowly realize: ose were the voices of two dozen teenagers advancing forward en masse, closer and closer, louder and louder, singing … what? Not pep rally chants, not camp songs, but a full score composed in 1952 by jazz great Gerry Mulligan.
“Bweebida Bobbida!” sang the teens, their rollicking voices echoing through the city as they walked. Oblivious to any stares they drew, the group only grew more swinging, more joyous as they
neared Lincoln Center’s Metropolitan Opera House, by then having moved on to Ellington scores, each youth singing a di erent interlocking part, complete with counterpoint, rhythm, and harmonies. Who were these possessed adolescents? Was it some college hazing ritual?
Nope, those were just the kids from our own Central High, e High School, on their way to being named the best high school jazz band in the world.
THE DOCTOR IS IN
at head-turning movable concert was, it turned out, instigated by Dr. Ollie Liddell, Central High School’s band director, who uses such techniques to help his jazz players internalize their parts. “We do a lot of singing,” he says matter-of-factly. “We were singing every day. Because we wanted to get that connection to the music. We were singing walking from the hotel, through Times Square. We were singing in line outside, in the street. You couldn’t hear
or see us, but we were singing backstage. Loud, too! I mean loud. And it was, you know, something I pushed initially, but then the kids started doing it themselves.
ey’d just kick us right o , ‘Uh-one and uh-two!’ and they would just sing their parts, note for note.”
“Yep, we were walking down the streets of New York, literally just singing, getting looks and everything,” recalls alto saxophone player Jackson Hankins, now a rising senior as the band begins its 2025-26 year. “It was fun.”
Seasoned trumpeter Johnny Yancey, who teaches many Central students through the Memphis Jazz Workshop, could scarcely believe it. “I went with them, and I mean, every day we walked from the hotel to the competition, almost a mile, and they sang all of their songs, harmony and all,” he marvels. “Even when they got there to register — they sang this whole Duke Ellington set!”
e students’ unbridled enthusiasm was understandable. ey were in New York to compete in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s 30th Annual Essentially
GILBERTO TADDAY/JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER. e Central High School jazz band performs at Lincoln Center’s Rose eater on Saturday, May 10, 2025, at the 30th Annual Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition and Festival.
Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition and Festival, long the highwater mark for such ensembles across the country, and including international high schools for the rst time this year. An initial pool of 127 bands was narrowed down to the 30 invited to New York, and by May 11th, all but the top three were eliminated. e nal rankings that fateful day put Osceola County School for the Arts of Kissimmee, Florida, in third place and Sant Andreu Jazz Band of Barcelona, Spain, in second, while Central High
COVER STORY
PHOTO: (ABOVE & TOP RIGHT)
School of Memphis, Tennessee, took home the rst place trophy and an award of $10,000.
And yet, though Memphis boasts plenty of raw musical genius, this win wasn’t due to talent alone, but rather the steady, systematic work put in by Liddell and his students over months and years. Nor did it boil down to simply singing their parts. Much of the pedagogical approach pursued by Liddell, who earned his Ph.D. in music education from the University of Mississippi a er he’d begun teaching, is grounded not just in using your instrument or your voice, but in learning to be quiet.
ALL YOU NEED IS EARS
Listening is key to both teachers’ and students’ practice, the way Liddell sees it, and it’s imbued in every level of the music program he’s built up at Central since starting there in 2012. at begins with his evaluation of each student’s growth as a player. “I teach every band kid,” he says. “So even the non-jazz folks, I’m teaching them. And there are some fundamental skills that are necessary to play jazz, which is the most advanced, the most challenging, the most sophisticated form of music there is, and you can de nitely quote me on that.”
Always keeping an ear out for rapidly advancing players who might be suited to the jazz band, Liddell nonetheless ensures that there are di erent options for di erent types of talent. Under his guidance, Central has established a concert band, a symphonic band, a percussion ensemble, and a wind ensemble — and then there’s always the marching band, in which everyone plays (except pianists or guitarists).
As Liddell told DownBeat on the occasion of that venerable jazz magazine
awarding him a Lifetime Achievement Award for Jazz Education in 2023, “Some band directors specialize and focus on their jazz band or their marching band. But I believe that’s cheating your students. You really need to push every aspect of every band and combo you teach and strive for excellence. It can be really di cult and a lot of work, but everything has to be stressed. at’s my philosophy.”
And one can’t accuse Liddell of giving the Central Warriors Marching Band short shri : ey are prize-winners, too, having just won USBands’ traditional show band grand national championship in Huntsville, Alabama, last November, not to mention similar national victories in 2017 and 2018.
As Liddell notes, marching bands are typically a school’s top priority.
“Especially in this part of the country, most band directors are hyper-focused on marching band. People call this the Bible Belt. I call it the Football Belt. is is the South, we are football crazy, so therefore marching band is where they spend most of the energy. Marching band is the most visible portion of your group. We call it the front door of your band. When most people think of band, they think of the marching band. ey don’t think of the wind ensemble, the chamber ensembles, the jazz band, or anything like that, right?”
IT DON’T MEAN A THING IF IT AIN’T GOT THAT SWING
e same could have been said for Liddell himself as he came up through the school music programs in his youth. ough he single-mindedly drills Central’s jazz band and other ensembles into forces to be reckoned with today, that wasn’t his focus when he was a high school student.
“My dad was a band director for 40 years,” Liddell explains. “First as a high school band director, then at several colleges, but he spent the majority of his career as director of bands at Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi. So I’ve been around band my whole life.”
With his family moving frequently in his youth, Liddell played trombone “in some really great band programs and some really bad turkeys. I know what it looks like to be in a top band program; I know what it looks like to be in a trash band program, because I was in it. And we had jazz bands in high school, but it wasn’t serious. It was something to do. I
then went to college at Jackson State, and that’s when a friend of mine handed me this J.J. Johnson mixtape, and that was when I lost my mind, man! I listened to it over and over and I got hooked on jazz — you know, learning to swing.”
He had caught the bug, and though he had majored in chemistry as a bankable career move, he was so smitten with
continued on page 14
PHOTO: JUSTIN FOX BURKS
Jackson Hankins takes an alto sax solo at the New Daisy eatre.
music that a er graduating he joined a series of bands on the Chitlin’ Circuit for the next 10 years. Finally, he pivoted to teaching at East High School in 2008, and moved to Central from there, never losing his love of jazz in a world dominated by football.
On that point, Liddell’s eager to share his thoughts. “Let me speak on this,” he says. “In the grand scheme of music education, jazz is like the red-headed stepchild, right? It’s the black sheep of the family. It’s not embraced as universally as marching band. ere are many schools that don’t o er jazz band as a class throughout the school day. We’re blessed to in Central but there are many schools that don’t. Even colleges, they may have a jazz band, but is it something they really take seriously? Do they invest in faculty? Do they invest in time and resources, like scholarships? It’s not the case in most schools in the South.”
THE CHAMPIONS OF SIR DUKE
Schools like Central are changing that, with considerable help from a very music-friendly local scene, especially the Memphis Jazz Workshop, which teaches all of Central’s jazz players in sessions outside of school hours. But larger institutions, like Jazz at Lincoln Center, are also helping to ip the marching band bias on its head. As Todd Stoll, the organization’s vice president of education, says, Essentially Ellington is more than just a performance contest. “When Wynton Marsalis founded this program, it was, ‘Let’s just put great music, great art, the works of our greatest American artistic gures, in front of young people to study,’” says Stolls. “ e idea was to just improve the quality of the literature, and then, almost as a secondary bene t, make it a competition. When you have a competition, America pays attention. We’re a competitive country. And look, it’s a friendly competition. We do our best to try and make it more about the festival aspect than the competition aspect. But when you have a competition, that hones and sharpens everyone’s focus.”
Indeed, the ve-day event in New York this spring was only the tip of the iceberg. As a statement from Jazz at Lincoln Center notes, long before any competition ensues, the organization supplies “free transcriptions of original Duke Ellington recordings — accompanied by rehearsal guides, original recordings, professional instruction, and more — to thousands of schools and community bands in 58 countries. To date, more than 7,100 high school bands have bene ted from free charts and resources.”
Furthermore, these aren’t just your average jazz charts. “Our transcriptions are actually based on what Duke Ellington le behind in his archives,” Stoll
says. “I always say it’s more like Indiana Jones. It’s an archeological experiment because we go to [the Duke Ellington Collection at] the Smithsonian and we pull all the copies of things. A lot of the original charts are still there, and we reassemble them from recordings, so it’s a little bit of everything, and it’s something we’re committed to and we love doing. Our institution was founded with the surviving members of the Duke Ellington Orchestra almost 40 years ago, and Duke Ellington is still kind of a touchstone — the center of what we believe is important about the music.”
Scores by other jazz luminaries, like Gerry Mulligan’s “Bweebida Bobbida” or works by Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, or even Memphis’ legendary Jimmie Lunceford (who led the Manassas High School band to national stardom nearly a century ago) are also made available, but
every subtlety of the greats, they are also listening. “We do a lot of listening,” Liddell says of his students. “ at’s the most important thing to mastering this music. You’ve got to listen to the greats. Listen to Duke Ellington play over and over, over and over and over and over, to every little nuance and detail of his playing. It’s like you’ve got to put yourself in that person’s body. So the lead alto saxophone [in Ellington recordings] is Johnny Hodges. ‘You’ve got to become Johnny Hodges,’ I joke with Jackson.”
Hankins couldn’t agree more. “I think it’s of the highest necessity,” the budding alto saxophonist says of the deep listening Liddell promotes. “With this music especially, but frankly any music. I mean, not doing it is equivalent to wanting to be an artist, but you’ve never seen a painting before. Like, you have no reference on how to do the thing. So listening and
it’s ultimately up to every band to pick scores that will show them in their best light. Again, that’s where Liddell falls back on his default approach: listening.
“ e music we played this year, the kids picked it,” he says. “Now, obviously I screened some of it because some of the stu they wanted was like, ‘Nah, that’s not gonna work for us.’ Like, if you have a strong, strong trumpet section, you want songs that feature the trumpet section — to play up your strengths and downplay your weaknesses. You have to pick one from the current year’s list, and you have to pick one, regardless of the year, that’s by Duke Ellington. And then from there, we just picked what works, you know?”
SOUL DEEP
Liddell is wise to run with scores that caught the students’ attention, resulting in the band’s players being deeply invested in the music. And as they internalize
part of internalizing the greatest jazz players. “I’ll say, ‘Man, you’ve got to be Johnny Hodges.’ Get his style and swing, but then comes the next-to-the-last step: You’ve got to sound like you as well. Develop yourself. How would you play this? And then comes the last step: Forget all that, and just have fun.”
To be sure, fun was had by all this May. As Stoll says of the nal Essentially Ellington show, “ e single most obvious thing with Central was how much joy was on stage when they were playing. Just absolute, unbridled, complete joy. And there was a spontaneous clapping, dancing, and moving in the audience that we’ve never really seen at Essentially Ellington before. If you look at the video, you can see it: All of a sudden, the audience is rocking.”
at was also re ected in the other awards Central scored at Essentially Ellington, including Outstanding Rhythm Section, Outstanding Trumpet Section, and Outstanding Trombone Section, not to mention the Outstanding Soloist prizes given to Hankins (alto sax), Marqese Cobb (trombone), and Kingston Grandberry (trumpet).
e experience has made Hankins all the more eager to get the new school year rocking. inking back on Central’s win in May, he says, “It was hard work, and I plan to work 100 times harder this time around. I think we’re already o to a good start, though.”
He’s optimistic, despite seeing some key band members graduate a er their win. “Since last year, we’ve lost our lead trumpet player, lead trombone player, our baritone saxophone player — a lot of people. But I think we have all the tools to recover. It’s always a rebuilding process to some degree. I mean, the leaders of the band, we’re already stepping up, and we’re taking it upon ourselves to be teaching people, to just keep our eyes on the prize, and keep our heads to the grindstone.”
really internalizing the sound, the spirit, the harmonic devices, the way these people sing through their instruments, it’s so important because through them, I think you nd yourself.”
Hearing him play on videos from the New York performances or live at the band’s triumphant homecoming show at the New Daisy eatre a er their win, Hankins did convey startling amounts of both gravitas and playfulness in his solos, expressively nuanced to a degree that made listeners’ jaws drop (especially on “Isfahan” by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn). Indeed, all of the band members played — and Liddell conducted — with an infectious swing that revealed how much fun they were having.
As Liddell says, that must always be
In the end, working through another year may not be too di erent from those long walks through New York every day during the competition, singing parts, which, for Hankins, expressed more profound qualities than simply rehearsing. “I really think it was all about our spirit as a group together,” he says. “We were all great friends. Everyone knew everyone. It was not like someone was excluded. I mean, yeah, we did use it as a device to practice the music and make sure that we’re hearing it properly. But also, I think it was like the ultimate expression of us having fun and loving one another.”
And once they hit the stage, such mutual support only fanned the ames of joy higher. “It was absolutely exhilarating,” Hankins says of playing Lincoln Center. “Everyone in the room, all my peers, dancing and cheering to the music we were playing … I just pray for a moment like that to happen again in my life.”
PHOTO: JUSTIN FOX BURKS e Central High jazz band at the New Daisy eatre, May 29th
LIVE MUSIC +FOOD & DRINK
Wednesday, September 24th, 2025 5:30pm - 8:30pm
7 W. Carolina Ave. Memphis, TN 38103
steppin’ out
We Recommend: Culture, News + Reviews
Chicken and Beer
With delicious food and local breweries, the Memphis Chicken & Beer Festival marks its seventh year on Saturday at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium, this year presented by iHeartMedia, Lincoln of Memphis, and e Original Clubtails Cocktail in a Can. As iHeartMedia’s regional event director Caroline Hall says, “Everyone loves the event, [which] is a true re ection of Memphis. It’s a diverse event with tailgating at the stadium.”
e beverages for this year’s event are by Angry Orchard, Blue Moon, Coors Seltzer, Jack Daniel’s, Meddlesome Brewing Company, Memphis Made Brewing Co., Simply Spiked Lemonade, White Claw Hard Seltzer, and more.
By Morgan Thomas
Food will be available for purchase from restaurants and vendors such as Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken, Smurfey’s Smokehouse, KFC, Waldo’s Chicken & Beer, Owens Bakery, Dipsticle Artisan Gelato Cafe, and CueGuard Smokehouse. Live music will be provided by the Memphis Funk-N-Horns band, singer Devin Crutcher, and DJ Mic Tee from radio station K97. ere will also be fun festivities like a mechanical bull ride, football, and basketball hoops.
Pro ts from the event will go to Merge Memphis, a nonpro t that aims to support underserved women in the Memphis area.
Tickets to the Memphis Chicken & Beer Festival include admission, a souvenir glass, all beverage samples, and a portion bene ting Merge Memphis. General admission starts at $54.35 plus taxes and fees. VIP tickets are $94.87 plus taxes and fees and include early 30-minute entry, a VIP lanyard, and access to the VIP lounge. You must be 21 or older to attend.
VARIOUS DAYS & TIMES August 14th - 20th
Memphis Urban Fashion Week
Various locations, through Saturday, August 16
Memphis Urban Fashion Week (MUFW) debuted this week. e ve-day celebration is spotlighting the designers, entrepreneurs, and creative voices shaping the future of style in the South, including the Grizzlies, South of Mane, Ashton Hall, Immoral Ink, FUBU, Prep Curry, and more.
e Fashion Jookin Battle on ursday, August 14, from 7 to 9 p.m. will pair local designers with Memphis jookers in a high-energy, head-to-head showdown where style meets street dance at the New Daisy eatre. en on Friday from 7 to 10 p.m., guests are invited to dress to impress and express their boldest, most y selves on the dance oor for the Adult Prom at Grindhouse Dance Studio.
On Saturday at 7 p.m. is the
MUFW X FUBU Fashion Show, which will bring together Memphis’ most visionary designers at LeMoyne-Owen College. A portion of proceeds from the night will bene t St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, so every ticket helps make a di erence in the lives of children and families.
Reading and Book Signing with Corey Mesler
Burke’s Book Store, 936 South Cooper Street, ursday, August 14, 5:30-7 p.m.
Join Burke’s Book Store for a reading and book signing with Corey Mesler for his three new books of poetry: e Sylvi Poems (Ambidextrous Bloodhound Press), Tom Jake Gretchen Meadow (Bottlecap Press), and A Troubling of Gold sh (Big Table Publishing).
Unapologetic.10: Ten Year Anniversary Celebration
Memphis Made Brewing Co., 16 South Lauderdale Street, Saturday, August 16, 5-10 p.m.
Unapologetic celebrates 10 years. Expect the unexpected. Pop-ups. Performances. Games. Burning things. Skits. Guest appearances. Surprises everywhere. Testimonies being recorded. Stories being told. Tapes being dropped.
A Bridgerton-Inspired A ernoon Tea istle & Bee, 3092 Poplar Avenue, Chickasaw Oaks Plaza, Suite 14, Sunday, August 17, 2 p.m., $40
Prepare for an a ernoon of elegance and charm as istle & Bee transforms into a Bridgerton-inspired escape lled with sweet melodies, dainty treats, and timeless grace. Regency attire encouraged, but all are welcome just as they are.
MEMPHIS CHICKEN & BEER FESTIVAL, SIMMONS BANK LIBERTY STADIUM, 335 SOUTH HOLLYWOOD STREET, SATURDAY, AUGUST 16, 6-10 P.M., $54.35-$94.87.
PHOTO: COURTESY MEMPHIS CHICKEN & BEER FESTIVAL Chicken and beer — what could be better?
MUSIC By Alex Greene
UNAPOLOGETIC.10
Founder IMAKEMADBEATS tells the collective’s story a er a decade of innovation.
“I don’t know if it feels like it’s been one year or 30,” laughs James Dukes, aka Nemo, aka IMAKEMADBEATS, or just MAD, the producer/ composer/entrepreneur who founded UNAPOLOGETIC. While he’s more prone to looking forward than backward, this summer is prompting thoughts of a more historical nature as the grassroots music, media, and apparel collective celebrates its rst decade. “Some days it feels like I’ve been doing this since the ’80s, but other days, it feels like we just got started, you know?”
Either way, the days and years are going to be toasted most heartily this Saturday, August 16th, at the free event simply titled UNAPOLOGETIC.10, hosted at Memphis Made Brewing Co. from 5 to 10 p.m. It’s sure to be big, with a list of sponsors as long as your arm (including the city of Memphis), but what actually will go down is more to be discovered than announced. e collective’s statement on the event says only to “Expect the unexpected. Popups. Performances. Games. Burning things.” But, given that the group now has over a dozen performers in their stable, there will surely be music. In the case of Unapologetic, the more appropriate word might be “musics,” plural. Rarely has any label or collective stretched so far in so many directions, from hip-hop to neo-soul to folk rock. e global reach of the group thus prompts me to ask MAD, “If there was a book about the rst decade of Unapologetic, how many chapters would there be and where would the chapter breaks fall?” And with a sly grin, MAD begins to answer …
“When AWFM joined, it created the North and the South Pole. Cameron was the North.”
Chapter One: e First ree
When MAD moved back to Memphis a er building his career as a producer/ engineer in New York, he had to learn the Blu City landscape all over again. “Chapter One would be the six months leading up to Unapologetic, so it would probably start at the end of 2014,” he says. “ at’s when I met Kid Maestro, not knowing who he was, but being impressed by him immediately. And at the same time, maybe a few weeks before that, in February, Cameron
Bethany reaches out to me and says he wants me to produce a song for him. All of that happened in a three or four month span, and that really gave me the con dence to be like, ‘I have to build something here.’”
Chapter Two: Culture Creation
“Chapter Two would be from 2015 up to 2018, which was a time of culture creation. Bringing in AWFM in 2016 lit one of the biggest bombs inside of Unapologetic. Before then, we had Cameron Bethany as an artist, the silkiest, most enchanting singer you’ll ever hear. Adding AWFM was like adding, you know, Old Dirty Bastard, multiplied by Sticky Fingaz from Onyx, you know what I’m saying? So I had told Kid, ‘I need a rapper, one that will do anything and say anything, who will naturally make you uncomfortable with how authentic he is.’ A couple weeks later, Kid came back and told me he had found him. He’d seen some dude rapping on top of a chair who called himself A Weirdo From Memphis.”
A few one-o sessions with AWFM followed. And, as MAD says, “Now, if I’m interested in you, I don’t knock on your door. I kind of just let time tell me the truth. You know, character over everything. I want to see who and what you are over time.
“So when AWFM called me and said, ‘Hey, I want to record an EP there,’ I’m looking at Kid Maestro again, like, ‘You see, this guy keeps coming back, right? Yo, man, why don’t you two just lock in for the summer.’ And they did, and at the end of the summer, Kid and
AWFM had done, like, 60 or 70 songs. I said to AWFM, ‘Hey, man, you wanna be part of Unapologetic? And he said yes. We took a photo of that moment. When AWFM joined Unapologetic, it created the North and the South Pole. Cameron was the North Pole, and I could literally create every scheme for AWFM by just inversing whatever I would do with Cameron, right? And there was further development of the culture of Unapologetic, with critical members joining like CmaJor, Aaron James, PreauXX, and Cat Patton, who created our visual aesthetic. And we were building Dirty Socks Studios [in two rooms in MAD’s home].”
Chapter ree: e Rise
“Chapter ree, at the end of 2018 and throughout 2019, I call that ‘ e Rise.’ Our visibility changed trajectory to a steeper north,” says MAD. Indeed, that’s when Unapologetic appeared on the cover of the Memphis Flyer. “We were running around doing crazy stu . e Red Show, my TEDx talk, the Main Street/Mane Street petition, the Unapologetic Youth Scholarship. It was the era of turning up Unapologetic Garments and our merchandise releases. Everything just kind of went upward.”
Chapter Four: Turmoil
“Chapter Four would be ‘Turmoil,’” says MAD of an era when he faced some debilitating health issues. “2020 was just dedicated to, like, ‘Can I hold a cup?’” he recalls. “But also Kid being elevated in leadership, when I made him president. So he was already in place, and he held
us down [during MAD’s illness]. I had a whole year to gure out what the hell I was doing. And in 2021 I had a relapse, and then that put me into a deeper depression. But also, you know, 2022 was the height of the Orange Mound Tower development, and being featured in e New York Times. We threw huge celebrations on the tower grounds. So there was a sense of, like, ‘Okay, if we can just get through this, there are some other things working in our favor.’”
Chapter Five: Outerspace
“Chapter Five would be moving into Outerspace here,” he says, as we sit in the fantastical Afrofuturist alien décor of Unapologetic’s custom-made studios. “It was in June of 2022,” MAD recalls, savoring the moment. “We were completely out of my home, and it also began a new era of talent: Nubia Yasin, Eillo, now Uni’q. ere have been new brand partnerships, a di erent company structure, and all of that is a ecting how and what we’re doing creatively, like making movies. When we moved in here, we changed from being a label to being a storytelling label.” A case in point: MAD’s multimedia album, WANDS, and its planetarium premiere. Having brought us up to the present, MAD re ects on what comes next, sensing a page turning just over the horizon. “I think we’re still in Chapter Five,” he muses. “In fact, I think we’re ending it. A lot of the things that we pulled o this year are going to get to work in our favor,” he adds with a faraway look in his eyes. “I think at the start of next year, we’ll be in Chapter Six.”
PHOTO: TREY EASTER
(l-r) Aaron James, Sarai, Cameron Bethany, Catherine Patton, Kid Maestro, PreauXX, CmaJor, She’Chinah, 35Miles, Eillo, Gabrielle Du e, Eric Sta ord, IMAKEMADBEATS, Marie Dukes, and AWFM in 2020
AFTER DARK: Live Music Schedule August 14 - 20
J. Carmichael is songwriter/mandolinist writes about love, God, and a world spinning out of control. Wednesday, Aug. 20, 8 p.m.
HAVENHAUS
Mari Deweese, Becky D, and Ashtyn Barbaree Friday, Aug. 15, 7-9 p.m.
SOUTH MAIN SOUNDS
Richard Wilson
Original jazz and blues. ursday, Aug. 14, 11 a.m.-1 p.m.
BUTTERIFIC BAKERY & CAFE
The Pretty Boys
Sunday, Aug. 17, 3 p.m.
HUEY’S DOWNTOWN
UNAPOLOGETIC.10: Ten Year Anniversary Celebration
Expect the unexpected. Popups. Performances. Games. Burning things. Skits. Guest appearances. Free. Saturday, Aug. 16, 5-10 p.m.
MEMPHIS MADE BREWING
Breeze Cayole’s Bayou Review
Sunday, Aug. 17, 3 p.m.
HUEY’S POPLAR
The Brad Birkedahl Band Rock-and-roll with a healthy dose of Elvis. 65+. $7/general admission. Wednesday, Aug. 20, 11 a.m.-noon | Wednesday, Aug. 20, 1:30-2:30 p.m.
THEATRE MEMPHIS
Play Some Skynyrd (Lynyrd Skynyrd Tribute) Saturday, Aug. 16, 8 p.m.
NEIL’S MUSIC ROOM
Aberrant
Sunday, Aug. 17, 10 p.m. B-SIDE
Anna Rose Baker, Runi
Salem
Wednesday, Aug. 20, 8 p.m. HI TONE
Carrellee With Cloud Canyon. Friday, Aug. 15, 8 p.m. BAR DKDC
Chora
With Interna, Plague of Carcosa. Monday, Aug. 18, 8 p.m.
HI TONE
Don Ramon Latin Band Saturday, Aug. 16, 9 p.m.
B-SIDE
Electric 30 Friday, Aug. 15, 8 p.m.
B-SIDE
Formerly Known As Friday, Aug. 15, 9:30 p.m.
LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM
PHOTO: BANKPLUS AMPHITHEATER
Teddy Swims
Galactic Empire with Nini ursday, Aug. 14, 8 p.m.
MINGLEWOOD HALL
Half Dollar Rodeo With Wilshire, Shorty and the Grooves. Saturday, Aug. 16, 7 p.m.
HI TONE
Jazz Jam with the Cove Quartet
Sunday, Aug. 17, 6-9 p.m.
THE COVE
Joe Restivo 4
Sunday, Aug. 17, noon.
LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM
Kevin & Bethany Paige ursday, Aug. 14, 6 p.m.
LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM
Spek Was Here
Hear upcoming collaborative EPs made with collaborators Ash Leon & Dame Mufasa. ursday, Aug. 14, 6 p.m.
MEMPHIS LISTENING LAB
Triple Annie Saturday, Aug. 16, 9 p.m.
LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM
Wyndrider With Sleuthfoot, Mudshow. Friday, Aug. 15, 9 p.m.
HI TONE
WYXR All Star DJ Jam & Fundraiser Sunday, Aug. 17, 8 p.m.
BAR DKDC
Strictly Jazz: The Music of Mulgrew Miller and More ft. Keith Brown
A tribute to Memphis pianists Miller, Harold Mabern, James Williams, and Donald Brown. $20/GA advance, $25/GA door, $10/student. Saturday, Aug. 16, 7:30-10 p.m.
THE GREEN ROOM AT CROSSTOWN
ARTS
The Cosmic Gospel of Drunken Prayer With San Salida. Sunday, Aug. 17, 8 p.m.
LAMPLIGHTER LOUNGE
The Downsprouts
With the Hit Parade. Saturday, Aug. 16, 8 p.m.
BAR DKDC
Tigerheart
With Phases, Franko Coleman feat. Jasades ursday, Aug. 14, 7 p.m.
HI TONE
Ben Scruggs Rockabilly Boogie Brunch
Twelve-year-old Ben Scruggs
— from the legendary Scruggs music family — makes his debut. Sunday, Aug. 17, 1-3 p.m.
HERNANDO’S HIDEAWAY
Elvis: Live on Stage
A live band plays to Elvis on lm. $70.75/reserved seating. Saturday, Aug. 16, 7-10 p.m.
GRACELAND SOUNDSTAGE
Elvis Week 2025: From King to Country ursday, Aug. 14, 9:30 p.m.
HERNANDO’S HIDEAWAY
Jason D. Williams
Piano-pounding Williams celebrates Elvis Week. ursday, Aug. 14, 6-8 p.m.
HERNANDO’S HIDEAWAY
Joshua Ray WalkerThe Tropicana Tour
A captivating storyteller. Friday, Aug. 15, 7-11 p.m.
HERNANDO’S HIDEAWAY
Memphis Morning: A Black Elvis & Friends Brunch
Featuring Robert Washington. Saturday, Aug. 16, noon-1:30 p.m.
HERNANDO’S HIDEAWAY
Ronnie McDowell Music, memories, and stories during Elvis Week. Saturday, Aug. 16, 4 p.m. | Saturday, Aug. 16, 9 p.m.
HERNANDO’S HIDEAWAY
Soulful Sounds Music and comedy with Acute In ections. $30/general admission. Sunday, Aug. 17, 4-5:30 p.m. | Sunday, Aug. 17, 7:30-9 p.m.
SMOOTH LIVING
Stax Revue: Live in ’65!
Launch Party
Celebrate this 2CD/2LP set with vinyl mastering engineer Je Powell. Free. ursday, Aug. 14, 6 p.m.
STAX MUSEUM OF AMERICAN SOUL MUSIC
Teddy Swims e I’ve Tried Everything But erapy (Part 1) Tour. With Cion Ducrot. Saturday, Aug. 16, 8 p.m.
BANKPLUS AMPHITHEATER
Hours of
Mon-Wed 12pm-3am • Thurs 12pm-4am • Friday 12pm-5am Sat 4pm-5am • Sun 4pm-3am
CALENDAR of EVENTS: August 14 - 20
ART AND SPECIAL EXHIBITS
“100 Years in the Making: Collierville’s 1970 Centennial Celebration” rough photographs, artifacts, and stories, this exhibition highlights the grand festivities that marked 100 years of Collierville’s history.
rough Sept. 6.
MORTON MUSEUM OF COLLIERVILLE HISTORY
“2024 Accessions to the Permanent Collection”
is series honors the new additions to the museum’s permanent collection each calendar year. rough Nov. 2.
METAL MUSEUM
“B.B. King in Memphis” Exhibit
1982, B.B. King performed at the Mud Island Amphitheater. Photographer Alan Copeland documented the moment in these stunning black and white photographs. rough Oct. 19.
STAX MUSEUM OF AMERICAN SOUL MUSIC
“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
Cat Lencke: “Wild Light, Urban Lines: A Watercolor Journey Through the City & Forest”
e exhibition encourages viewers to nd connection in contrast, revealing how both natural and urban environments stir the human spirit and shape our sense of place. rough Sept. 5.
ANF ARCHITECTS
“CREATE | CREA”
A dynamic space designed to spark creativity, curiosity, and hands-on exploration. is vibrant environment invites guests of all ages to dive into the creative process. rough Sept. 21.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
Ernest Withers: “I AM A MAN”
Ernest Withers’ famous photographs of the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike illustrate the dignity of workers’ activism, which still feels inspirational decades later. rough Oct. 12.
PINK PALACE MUSEUM & MANSION
“[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,
PHOTO: MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
At Friends of My Big Backyard’s Saved by the Bell, enjoy activity stations and playful performances.
and tradition, as sta members maintain their own artistic practices. rough Sept. 14.
CROSSTOWN ARTS AT THE CONCOURSE
“Horizon Lines”:
Anthony Lee, Matthew Lee, and Sowgand
Sheikholeslami
Working independently west of Memphis in Arkansas, along the corridor of US Highway 61, these artists have each created bodies of work showcasing the unique characteristics of the region. rough Sept. 21.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
“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
“Last Whistle:
Steamboat Stories of Memphis”
Featuring detailed model boats and original steamboat artifacts, this exhibit rekindles the romance of the steamboat era while sharing stories and insights about their role in shaping the region. rough June 26.
PINK PALACE MUSEUM & MANSION
“Layers”: New Works by Carolyn Cates
Meet the artist at an opening reception for “Layers: New Works by Carolyn Cates.” rough Sept. 22.
BUCKMAN ARTS CENTER AT ST.
MARY’S SCHOOL
Libby Anderson Exhibit
Anderson has traveled from California to New York to learn from oil artists that she admires such as Carol Marine, Dreama Perry, and Karen O’Neill. rough Aug. 31.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
“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
“Navigating Knowledge” is exhibition explores vessels and navigation as metaphors for the containment and transmission of knowledge. rough Oct. 31.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART
“Overcoming Hateful Things”
Featuring over 150 items from the late 19th century to the present, including items from
Send the date, time, place, cost, info, phone number, a brief description, and photos — two weeks in advance — to calendar@memphisflyer.com.
DUE TO SPACE LIMITATIONS, ONGOING WEEKLY EVENTS WILL APPEAR IN THE FLYER’S ONLINE CALENDAR ONLY. FOR COMPREHENSIVE EVENTS LISTING, VISIT EVENTS.MEMPHISFLYER.COM/CAL.
popular culture and images of violence against AfricanAmerican activists. rough Oct. 19.
PINK PALACE MUSEUM & MANSION
Robert Rector: “Poetic Reconstructions”
Over his 50-year abstract painting career, Rector has explored the relationship between the natural environment and human experience through experimentation with surface treatments. rough Aug. 30.
DAVID LUSK GALLERY
Rural Route Artists
Works by artists of the annual Rural Route art tour: Butch Boehm, Jimmy Crosthwait, Agnes Stark, Lizi Beard Ward, and the late Deborah Fagan Carpenter. Free. rough Aug. 29.
GALLERY 1091
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
“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
“Susan Watkins and Women Artists of the Progressive Era” Centered on the career of Susan Watkins (1875–1913), the exhibition explores the environment in which Watkins and other female artists of the time forged their professional identities. rough Sept. 28.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
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
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
“Tyré Nichols: A Photographic Legacy”
A rare and intimate view of Nichols’ passion for capturing nature, urban landscapes, and quiet moments of everyday life. His images speak to his keen artistic eye and humanity. rough Aug. 31.
JAY ETKIN GALLERY
“Unmuted”
Curated by U of M graphic design professor Sanaz Feizi, this exhibit invites cisgender, transgender, and nonbinary members of the community to break the silence around menstruation. Central to the exhibition are participant-created masks: a visual perception of menstruation informed by the research, o ering a powerful way to express identity, reclaim space, and give form to rarely spoken experiences. rough Aug. 23.
ART MUSEUM OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS
Mary Anna Evans: The Dark Library
Estella Ecker has returned to Rockfall House, the last place on Earth she wants to be. Years a er she ran away from her overbearing father, she has been forced back home to walk in his footsteps. ursday, Aug. 14, 6 p.m. NOVEL
Peter Guralnick Book
Signing
Guralnick will be signing copies of his new book, e Colonel and the King (release date August 5th), a groundbreaking dual portrait of the relationship between the iconic artist and his legendary manager. Friday, Aug. 15, 2-4 p.m. | Saturday, Aug. 16, 3-5 p.m.
GRACELAND EXHIBITION CENTER
Reading and Book
ART HAPPENINGS
Junk Journal Jam with Like Really Creative
Bring your favorite journal, rummage through vintage magazines and rare ephemera, choose your favorite art supplies, and create mixed-media collages. Free. ursday, Aug. 14, 6-8 p.m.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART
“Loose Ends” Exhibition Opening Memphis photographer Zach Shappley presents images of past, present, and future projects woven together to create a cohesive canvas. Friday, Aug. 15, 6-9 p.m.
LOADED FOR BEAR
Super Saturday - Playful Pottery
Shape, squish, and mold your own sculpture using model magic. Explore the world of 3D art and discover inspirations in the Brooks’ collection. All ages. Free. Saturday, Aug. 16, 10 a.m.-noon.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART
BOOK EVENTS
A Novel Book Club:
Remarkably Bright Creatures
Join other readers to discuss the book by Shelby Van Pelt. All are welcome, whether you’ve ever attended a meeting or not. Wednesday, Aug. 20, 7 p.m.
NOVEL
Lit in the Park: Peabody Park
Featuring Red Flag Diaries: True Story Accounts and en Some by Dr. NaRicia Futrell, with the author present. is adults-only event will feature games, Big Apple Italian Ice, and refreshments. Saturday, Aug. 16, 6 p.m.
PEABODY PARK
Signing with Corey Mesler
Featuring Mesler’s works A Troubling of Gold sh, Tom Jake Gretchen Meadow, and e Sylvi Poems. ursday, Aug. 14, 5:30-7 p.m.
BURKE’S BOOK STORE
Silent Book Club
Maggie and Linzie, aka the Book Clubbin’ Besties, are hosting a silent book club meeting with Stacie’s Sweets on hand. Free. Sunday, Aug. 17, 2-4 p.m. NOVEL
Valerie Burns: Icing on the Murder Maddy Montgomery has sold plenty of wedding cakes before, but before she turns one out for her and her ance’s wedding, she’ll have to solve a little case of murder rst. Saturday, Aug. 16, 2 p.m. NOVEL
CLASS / WORKSHOP
Flower Happy Hour
Learn new design techniques and special tricks as you build a snapdragon arrangement to take home. BYOB. 21+. $55. ursday, Aug. 14, 6 p.m.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
Free Saturday Seminar: How to Kill a Houseplant
Whether you’re just getting into gardening or an experienced green thumb, you’ll learn how to avoid killing houseplants while spending some time with fellow enthusiasts. Free. Saturday, Aug. 16, 10 a.m.
URBAN EARTH GARDENS, NURSERY & MARKET
Lunchtime Meditations
Visit the Dixon for free meditation sessions every Friday. Friday, Aug. 15, noon-12:30 p.m.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
continued on page 20
Seed Library Presents: Colorcopia
Learn about what’s growing at the Dixon while getting creative with ever-changing, seasonally inspired cra s. No experience with art necessary, all supplies provided. Tuesday, Aug. 19, 1 p.m.
BENJAMIN L. HOOKS CENTRAL LIBRARY
Terrarium Workshop with Sheryl
Learn everything you need to know to create a unique and beautiful terrarium. is workshop is “bring your own container” but they are available for purchase at the store. $60.58. Sunday, Aug. 17, 1 p.m.
URBAN EARTH GARDENS, NURSERY & MARKET
COMEDY
Comedy Night with Ben Pierce
Freewheeling hilarity on the open mic. ursday, Aug. 14, 7 p.m.
BAR DKDC
Lee Syatt
With Katie Stewart, Hunter Boros, Forrest Bopp.
Saturday, August 16, 9 p.m.
HI TONE
Open-Mic Comedy
Hosted by John Miller. Free. Tuesday, Aug. 19, 7 p.m.
HI TONE
COMMUNITY
Explore Memphest
Do you love Memphis? Join this celebration of our city!
Saturday, Aug. 16, 1-4 p.m.
MEMPHIS PUBLIC LIBRARIES
Memphis Urban Fashion Week 2025: Fashion Show e rst Memphis Urban Fashion Week, hosted by Prep Curry. A percentage of proceeds will be donated St. Jude. Friday, Aug. 15, 7-10 p.m.
THE CADRE BUILDING
Pre-Gonerfest Explore Memphest
An all-ages celebration of our city with free food, live music from Blvck Hippie and Model Zero, and story time and cra s. Saturday, Aug. 16, 1-4 p.m.
BENJAMIN L. HOOKS CENTRAL LIBRARY
Train Heritage Day
A community celebration of Collierville’s railroading legacy, with activities across multiple historic locations. With model train displays by the TCA Casey Jones Chapter, railroad safety info from TDOT, hands-on family activities, free Mempops for the rst 350 guests, and a special commemorative gi for the rst 50 visitors. Free admission and fun for all ages. Saturday, Aug. 16, 10 a.m.-3
p.m.
MORTON MUSEUM OF COLLIERVILLE HISTORY
PHOTO: GRACELAND
Whitehaven Library’s 5th Annual Back to School Extravaganza!
An unforgettable day of fun, food, and the spirit of the community! Saturday, Aug. 16, 11 a.m.-1 p.m.
WHITEHAVEN BRANCH LIBRARY
DANCE
Country Swing Dance Lessons
It’s never too late to start and a partner is not required to join the class. Friday, Aug. 15, 7:30 p.m.
WHISKEY JILL’S
Dance Lessons
Swing lessons with Matt and Lara, 7:30 p.m., and line dance lessons with Dancing with Boss Lady, 8:30 p.m. ursday, Aug. 14, 7:30 p.m.
WHISKEY JILL’S
Line Dancing with “Q”
Whether you’re a seasoned dancer or just learning the steps, “Q” will guide you through the moves and make it a night to remember. Tuesday, Aug. 19, 6 p.m.
DRU’S BAR
EXPO/SALES
Southern Flea Market
Starts at 8 a.m. on Saturday and 9 a.m. on Sunday. Saturday, Aug. 16-Aug. 17.
LANDERS CENTER
FAMILY
Create Community Night
Bring the family to the Dixon to design, experiment, and explore! Whether you’re a doodler, builder, designer, or simply curious, Create Community Night is your chance to get creative and connect. Free. Saturday, Aug. 16, 5-8 p.m.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
A Night at the Museum is just one of the special tours during Elvis Week. CALENDAR: AUGUST 14 - 20
Douglass Splash Pad
Grand Opening
An unforgettable evening lled with music, frozen treats, and family-friendly fun. Saturday, Aug. 16, 5 p.m.
DOUGLASS PARK
Friends of My Big Backyard: Saved by the Bell
Families will enjoy interactive activity stations, playful performances, and creative ways to get curious about the world around them before heading back to the classroom. Saturday, Aug. 16, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
Get Outside Fitness: KidoKinetics
rough age-appropriate games and activities, young children build con dence, coordination, and a love for active play through a variety of sports in an encouraging, noncompetitive environment. ursday, Aug. 14, 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, exibility, balance, and mindfulness. Parents are welcome to join, too. Wednesday, Aug. 20, 5-6 p.m.
SHELBY FARMS PARK
Magic Carpet: On Your Toes with the Sugar Plum Fairy Saturday mornings are for the kids at the Buckman. Saturday, Aug. 16, 10-10:45 a.m.
BUCKMAN ARTS CENTER
14-Aug. 20, 2 p.m.
PINK PALACE MUSEUM & MANSION
Brunch at the Movies: Girls! Girls! Girls!
Savor a delightful brunch while enjoying Elvis’ 1962 classic. Watch Elvis charm as a carefree charter boat pilot in Hawaii, moonlighting as a nightclub singer. Saturday, Aug. 16, 10 a.m.
GUEST HOUSE AT GRACELAND (THEATER)
Forward to the Moon
A planetarium show about the Artemis program, NASA’s project to return to the moon, from landing humans on the surface, to building a space station in lunar orbit, to establishing a human lunar base. rough Aug. 31.
PINK PALACE MUSEUM & MANSION
Memphis Skies: What’s That in Our Night Sky?
Hop through constellations, learn cool star names, and groove to planetarium space music in this full dome audiovisual experience. rough Aug. 31.
PINK PALACE MUSEUM & MANSION
Movies and Brews: The Big Lebowski
Pre-School Story Time
Enjoy stories, songs, art activities, and creative play that connect with Collierville history. Friday, Aug. 15, 10:3011:30 a.m.
MORTON MUSEUM OF COLLIERVILLE HISTORY
Read with a Pup
A reading therapy program for children up to 12 years old. Read to a sweet, friendly pup and practice your reading skills. Saturday, Aug. 16, 11 a.m.-1 p.m.
BENJAMIN L. HOOKS CENTRAL LIBRARY
Story Time at Novel
Recommended for children up to 5 years, with songs and stories, featuring brand-new books in addition to wellloved favorites. Wednesday, Aug. 20, 10:30 a.m. NOVEL
Story Time at Novel: Buzzwell Learns to Go Slow with Comeshia Williams
Buzzwell Bee loves to zip and zoom through his day. But sometimes, going too fast makes him spill honey and miss out on fun. Saturday, Aug. 16, 10:30 a.m. NOVEL
Summerween Sip & Solve
For all Halloween enthusiasts and cozy vibe seekers aged 6 and up, beat the heat by celebrating Summerween every ursday. ursday, Aug. 14, 5-8 p.m.
COSSITT LIBRARY
FILM
Black Holes is planetarium show gives an overview of what black holes are, how they form, and what would happen if you fell inside one. ursday, Aug.
T. Rex: Greatest of All Tyrants
e most dazzling and accurate giant screen documentary ever made on this legendary predator — and its carnivorous Cretaceous cousins.
ursday, Aug. 14-Aug. 20, 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
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 Chefe’s, yard games, and music. A “cocktails only” ticket omits the paddling part. $35-$80. Friday, Aug. 15, 6 p.m.
SHELBY FARMS PARK
Cooper-Young Community Farmers Market
A weekly outdoor market featuring local farmers (no resellers), artisans, and live music. Saturday, Aug. 16, 8 a.m.-1 p.m.
FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
Dinner and Music Cruise
Pre-show programming will enhance your enjoyment and knowledge of the featured lm. One free beer included with ticket. Saturday, Aug. 16, 5:30 p.m.
PINK PALACE MUSEUM & MANSION
Oceans: Our Blue Planet
Embark on a global odyssey to discover the largest and least explored habitat on earth. New ocean science and technology has allowed us to go further into the unknown than we ever thought possible. ursday, Aug. 14-Aug. 20, 1 p.m.
PINK PALACE MUSEUM & MANSION
Premiere Watch Party for National TV Show
Selling Memphis
Step into an exclusive evening with Mitanni Spruill-LeSueur, ADTV’s captivating national TV host and the visionary behind e Spruill Agency real estate brokerage. $20/VIP tickets, $8/general admission. ursday, Aug. 14, 5-8 p.m.
MALCO PARADISO
Superman
From DC Studios and Warner Bros. Pictures comes Superman, the rst feature lm in the newly imagined DC universe. Written and directed by James Gunn, the lm stars David Corenswet as Superman. ursday, Aug. 14,-Aug. 20, 3 p.m.
PINK PALACE MUSEUM & MANSION
The Sound of Music
Sing-A-Long
A screening of the smash-hit 1965 movie musical in glorious, full-screen technicolor, complete with on-screen lyrics. Grab your lederhosen, practice your best Maria von Trapp impression and get ready to enjoy the timeless music of Rodgers & Hammerstein. Saturday, Aug. 16, 2 p.m. ORPHEUM THEATRE
Come enjoy a two-hour cruise on Ol’ Man River featuring live entertainment (blues and jazz) and a meal. $50/general admission. ursday, Aug. 14, 7-9:30 p.m. | Friday, Aug. 15, 7-9:30 p.m. | Saturday, Aug. 16, 7-9:30 p.m. | Sunday, Aug. 17, 7-9:30 p.m.
MEMPHIS RIVERBOATS
Left Right Center
An easy-to-learn, fast-paced dice game. Grab a drink, roll the dice, and let the good times roll. Sunday, Aug. 17, 2 p.m.
DRU’S BAR
Memphis Farmers Market
A weekly outdoor market featuring local farmers and artisans, live music, and fun activities. Saturday, Aug. 16, 8 a.m.-1 p.m.
MEMPHIS FARMERS MARKET
Multi-Sensory Wine Tasting
An enriching wine tasting experience where you will delve into the world of wine aromas and avors. In this blind tasting you can gauge your perceptions of various aromas and notes. $40-$50. Saturday, Aug. 16, 3-5 p.m.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART
“Papa Bear Trivia” with Shawn
Bring your brainpower and your crew for a night of free trivia, testing your knowledge across a variety of topics.
ursday, Aug. 14, 7 p.m.
DRU’S BAR
Slider Sunday Sessions
Delay your Sunday scaries for a few more hours with curated DJ sets and drinks. Sunday, Aug. 17, 6-9 p.m.
SLIDER INN - DOWNTOWN
HEALTH AND FITNESS
Get Outside FitnessLine Dancing Learn a variety of dance rou-
tines while enjoying the outdoors. is class is beginner-friendly, focusing on basic steps and choreography for popular songs, and can improve coordination and balance. Monday, Aug. 18, 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 exibility. e session is designed inclusively for everybody. Friday, Aug. 15, 4:30 p.m. | Saturday, Aug. 16, 8 a.m.
SHELBY FARMS PARK
Get Outside Fitness: Mental Fitness
Learn to relax your mind and prepare it to enter a meditative state by balancing the right and le hemispheres of the brain. Please bring a yoga mat and water. Saturday, Aug. 16, 10:30 a.m.
SHELBY FARMS PARK
Taijiquan with Milan Vigil is Chinese martial art promotes relaxation, improves balance, and provides no-impact aerobic bene ts. Ages 16 and older. Free. Saturday, Aug. 16, 10:30-11:30 a.m.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
Wednesday Walks
Take a casual stroll around the Old Forest paved road! Wednesday, Aug. 20, 4-5 p.m.
OVERTON PARK
Yoga
Strengthen your yoga practice and enjoy the health bene ts of light exercise with yoga instructor Laura Gray McCann. All levels welcome. Free. ursday, Aug. 14, 6 p.m.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
LECTURE
Live Podcast: Peter Mutabazi, The Foster Dad Flipper
Meet the most famous foster dad in America who’s fostered 47 kids and adopted three kids! Free. Wednesday, Aug. 20, 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m.
AGAPE CHILD & FAMILY SERVICES
Munch and Learn: The Art of Financial Planning Through the Lens of Chinese Calligraphy
Cathy Lu Espel, vice president and nancial planner, First Horizon Bank, is passionate about helping women master their nances, and has studied Chinese calligraphy since the age of 6. Wednesday, Aug. 20, noon-1 p.m.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
PERFORMING ARTS
Gettin’ Grown Podcast: Live in Memphis
Live at the Kitchen Table with Jade and Keia: An intimate live show experience with the hosts of the Gettin’ Grown Podcast. $35/advance (plus fees), $45/door . ursday, Aug. 14, 7:30-10 p.m.
THE GREEN ROOM AT CROSSTOWN ARTS
Memphis Magic Night starring Joe M. Turner with Rob Love
e Blu City’s favorite evening of magic, mentalism, and comedy. Monday, Aug. 18, 7:30-9 p.m.
BAR DKDC
Open Stage: A Talent Showcase for All is is your chance to shine. What to expect: a supportive and fun environment for showcasing your talent, amazing local acts and hidden gems, and delicious food and drinks to enjoy during the show. Sunday, Aug. 17, 6 p.m.
DRU’S BAR
SPECIAL EVENTS
Barking Bingo with Streetdog Foundation
All funds raised at any SDF event go straight to the rescue dogs in need. $15/10 cards, $20/20 cards. Wednesday, Aug. 20, 7-9 p.m.
FLYWAY BREWING COMPANY
CALENDAR: AUGUST 14 - 20
Candlelight Vigil at Graceland
A er an opening ceremony at the gates of Graceland, fans are invited to walk up the driveway to Elvis’ grave site and back down carrying a candle in quiet remembrance. Free. Friday, Aug. 15, 8:30 p.m.
GRACELAND MANSION
Saluqi Weekends
Meet advisors, connect with nancial aid counselors, and plan their academic journeys and career paths. Friday, Aug. 15, 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. | Saturday, Aug. 16, 9 a.m.-3 p.m.
SOUTHWEST TENNESSEE COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Trivia with Damien at MFS
Team trivia at MFS. Saturday, Aug. 16, 5-7 p.m.
MFS BREWING
SPORTS
Memphis Redbirds vs. Gwinnett
Stripers
$13-$86. Tuesday, Aug. 19, 6:30 p.m. | Wednesday, Aug. 20, 6:30 p.m.
AUTOZONE PARK
Race: Cobra Den Trail Series
King 10k & Half Marathon (Race #4). Course route includes the Wolf River Trailhead. Saturday, Aug. 16, 7 a.m.
SHELBY FARMS PARK
THEATER
Come From Away
Regional premiere of an incredible true story of the 7,000 stranded passengers forced to land in a small town in Newfoundland. Friday, Aug. 15, 8 p.m. | Saturday, Aug. 16, 8 p.m. | Sunday, Aug. 17, 2 p.m.
PLAYHOUSE ON THE SQUARE
Creative Aging Concert Series: Something Rotten!
When a soothsayer foretells that the future of theater involves singing, dancing and acting at the same time, Nick and Nigel set out to write the world’s very rst musical. $10/General Admission. Friday, Aug. 15, 7:30-9:30 p.m. | Saturday, Aug. 16, 7:30-9:30 p.m. | Sunday, Aug. 17, 2-4 p.m.
THEATRE MEMPHIS
Jubilee
PHOTO: COURTESY ORPHEUM THEATRE
Sing along to
The O’Kays
Set in the gritty, soulful landscape of 1970s Memphis, e O’Kays follows three young men on a thrilling journey to chase fame and fortune in the city’s booming R&B music scene.
Saturday, Aug. 16, 5 p.m.
ORPHEUM THEATRE
TOURS
A Night at the Museum
A special tour experience at Elvis: e Entertainer featuring live tour guides sharing stories about the King of Rock-and-Roll and his legendary career, with an artifact show.
Saturday, Aug. 16, 9 p.m.
GRACELAND EXHIBITION CENTER
With spirituals and hymns of the Fisk Jubilee Singers like “Wade in the Water,” “Ain’t at Good News,” and “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen,” this a cappella performance will thrill audiences. $35. ursday, Aug. 14, 7:30 p.m. | Friday, Aug. 15, 7:30 p.m. | Saturday, Aug. 16, 7:30 p.m.
HATTILOO THEATRE
ACROSS
1 Some ranges 7 Verses versus verses events
12 Unassisted
14 Two-masted vessel
16 Qualify
17 The way to do this is the #1 how-to search, according to Google
18 Rungs
19 Children’s author Silverstein
21 Actress Headey of “Game of Thrones”
22 Sea dogs
23 Slowpoke
24 Calls for reserves?
25 It may be crushed or shaved
26 Blacksmith’s workplace
28 Corruption 29 1998 Winter Olympics locale
31 Be sure of 33 Grade school classroom accessory
34 Pre-Christmas purchase
35 Prefix with science 39 Built up 41 Countless 42 Much-used wood for tool handles
Perfect child 47 Shareable doc format
48 Instruction to a typesetter
50 Traveling, so to speak, in basketball 51 Goes pfft!
52 A light one goes a long way
53 Dress that may leave the midriff exposed
54 Glutinous rice cake of Japan
55 Midsize Kias
57 Knocked, like heavy machinery
59 30th anniversary gift
60 Not this or that
61 Fast ___ Felson, “The Hustler” character
62 Locking horns DOWN
1 What an accomplice may be doing
2 Wild and crazy
3 Second person?
4 Gritty films, informally
5 Ironically, they live on every continent except Antarctica
6 Seasoning for une omelette
7 Item of cookware
8 Most common Korean surname after Kim
9 In any way
10 Actress Janet with a Tony, Drama Desk and Olivier Award
Eastern faith
Like some questions
for
Opposite of paleo-
Twilight Tours at the Zoo
An a er dark ed-venture at the Memphis Zoo to nd out what the animals are up to once the sun starts to set. $35. Saturday, Aug. 16, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
MEMPHIS ZOO
BY LEWIS ROTHLEIN
We Saw You.
with MICHAEL DONAHUE
Rugby players got a break at the recent Elvis 7s Rugby Tournament. As in a break in the weather. Not fractures.
Temperatures were in the 80s instead of the 90s at the annual event, held August 2nd at McBride Field in Tobey Park.
Not only was the weather on the cool side, but the tournament was cool, too. It paid homage to Elvis. Recorded music by e King played while the ruggers played the game. Elvis trivia was shared through a loudspeaker. A Mr. Sideburns contest was held. e event, which celebrated its 38th anniversary, is sponsored by the Memphis Blues Rugby Club.
“ ere were 12 men’s teams and four women’s teams,” says event founder Wally Dyke. “We had one team from Waco, Texas. New Orleans had a team here.” e Falcofsky Falcons of Murfreesboro won the men’s championship and the Memphis Pink Flamingos won the women’s championship.
And a woman “who put on a wig” won the Mr. Sideburns contest, Dyke says.
above: (front) Mimsy Milnor-Scott and Carley Fontenot (back) omas Strickland, Joshua Scott, and Ethan Scott below: (le to right) Caleb “Hair” Dunlap, Matthew Gilbert, John Sutton, Jordan Williams, Trey Maokhamphiou; August Moon Stevens; Deshun Randolph bottom row: (le to right) Caleb Goeddertz; Chris and Terry Lemons
PHOTOS: MICHAEL DONAHUE
right: (le to right) Devin Faletto and Marcel Bauby below: (le to right) Drew Moyes; Brandi Bohmeyer and Spencer Hansen; Camryn Finkenbeiner and Kyle Baker; Matthew Wrage bottom le : (le to right) Shane Waldick and Brandy
above: (le to right) Lindsay Jones, Kaelin Boyd, and Katie McCord; Natalie, Noah, and John Elmore
FOOD By Michael Donahue
Tasty and Gluten-Free
e Baker’s Corner Gluten-Free Cafe & Co eehouse in Hernando serves up pastries, breakfast, and lunch.
iners can feast on items ranging from the Homestyle Hashbrown Casserole with sausage, toast, and peach jalapeño jam to the Hernando Italian sandwich made with ham and three types of cheese at Leslie King’s cozy restaurant in Hernando, Mississippi.
But everything is gluten-free, says Leslie, owner of e Baker’s Corner Gluten-Free Cafe & Co eehouse at 39 West Commerce Street.
A lot of people don’t understand what “gluten-free” means, says her husband Charles, who works with her. “I tell everybody when it comes to food, when you say ‘blank-free’ and ll in ‘low-fat’ or ‘sugar-free,’ everyone has this misconception: ‘Oh, it tastes bad.’”
He adds, “Sometimes it’s true.”
Even though everything in Baker’s Corner is gluten-free, Leslie and Charles assure you, it all tastes good.
It’s “the only dedicated gluten-free” restaurant in the “whole Mid-South Memphis area,” Charles says.
He says, “[People] with celiac disease have no worries about coming in here for cross contamination.”
Gluten-free food means “no wheat, barley, or rye in that product,” Leslie says. “And it has not come in contact with it.”
Leslie discovered she was gluten intolerant when she was 31. “I had some testing done. I had migraines as far back as when I was in kindergarten. And I had gone to neurologists and they put me on medicine. It didn’t help.”
She nally went to an allergy wellness doctor.
Cooking gluten-free is “not hard. I guess I’ve been doing it so long it just comes naturally to me. But I guess there is a misconception that it is hard, but it’s really not if you just put a little e ort into it. “
Adds Charles: “When she found out there were no recipes or anything out there to be had, she developed these recipes in a book.”
He told Leslie, “You need to o er this to the world.”
Leslie’s love of cooking began when she was 11 years old growing up in the bootheel of Missouri. “I guess my daddy was my inspiration because he loved desserts, and I started making things for him. e rst thing was chocolate nobake oatmeal cookies.”
e recipe came from her mom. “ ey were drop cookies. I was just surprised that they turned out right.”
Life went on. “I grew up, got married, had kids. Stayed at home with the kids for a little while. Went to college o and on.” en she decided to go to culinary
school — the now-closed Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in St. Louis, Missouri. “It was fun. I enjoyed it, but I honestly don’t recommend it. I think it’s like a lot of school. ere’s no real-life training in school. It was just a general program, but I knew it would get my foot in the door.”
e rst door was at Mike Shannon’s restaurant in Downtown St. Louis, where she worked as a pastry chef. “I just worked there for a summer.”
But she learned “the ow of how to keep up and maintain inventory.”
She also learned “the savory side” of cooking while she was at Mike Shannon’s.
Leslie went on to work at P.F. Chang’s in St. Louis, where she learned to make spring rolls and egg rolls. “All the detailed things.”
She also made a name for herself in St. Louis. She supplied high-end Downtown restaurants with her Gooey Butter Cake. “ at’s a St. Louis thing,” she says. at paid o . “I could pretty much walk into any restaurant and people knew who I was.”
She got into gluten-free baking a er she moved. “I le St. Louis for a few months and helped a lady in Jonesboro, Arkansas, open a gluten-free bakery. So I did have a bit of experience with her.”
Leslie returned to St. Louis and worked for Planter’s House restaurant for six years before moving to Cochran, Mississippi, near Hernando in 2019.
Charles, who she married a er she and her rst husband were divorced, encouraged her to open a business using her gluten-free recipes.
“I opened a small business in January of 2021,” Leslie says. “I was just in the corner of a boutique here in town. I was there four years. On 51 just north of the courthouse. Same name. But it was a bakery. A true bakery.”
e owner of Co ee Central was downsizing, so she asked Leslie if she was interested in moving into her building. “Which is a coveted location. It’s in the middle of town right across from the post o ce. We have our own parking. It’s a hundred-year-old house.”
Leslie, who moved into the new location last January, went from 400 square feet to 2,000 square feet. “It’s a whole house,” Leslie says.
ey also went from four seats to 70. e restaurant includes two dining rooms in the rear, a hearth room in front, and a conference room upstairs.
She and Charles changed the concept shortly a er moving, Leslie says. “Well, we tried to be a bakery when we opened earlier this year, but I don’t have the
capacity to do birthday cakes, wedding cakes, or decorate cakes anymore. We do have a lot of baked goods, but now we o er a full breakfast and lunch menu.”
ey also o er a “full co ee bar,” Leslie adds. ey feature RoZark Hills co ee from RoZark Hills Co ee Roasterie in Rose Bud, Arkansas. “It’s a well-known co ee shop on the campus of Harding University,” Charles says.
“Probably the second month we decided we had to, I guess, change the image because people were expecting us to keep doing cakes and stu like that,” Leslie says.
Now, she says, they make their own gluten-free white bread, frozen casseroles, and other items.
ey o er three di erent types of quiche: Garden, which includes spinach, tomato, and feta cheese; Farmhouse, with bacon and cheddar cheese; and Blueberry, which includes maple, blueberries, and sausage in a “fresh blueberry feta cheese and maple syrup.”
eir avocado toasts range from the “more simple cream avocado and prog-
ress to a cold one that is smoked salmon, avocado, cream cheese, house-made hot honey, and red pepper akes.”
Non-avocado toasts include e Jailhouse, which is made of banana, honey, peanut butter, and, for an extra dollar, Nutella.
ey also feature sandwiches; açaí bowls, which are pureed fruit and housemade granola; and Southern Staples: chicken salad, pimento cheese, potato salad, and spinach dip.
e Oatmeal Cream Pie is the most popular item, Charles says. It’s made with certi ed gluten-free rolled oats, molasses, and a marshmallow lling. And it has no preservatives, Leslie says.
She describes e Baker’s Corner Gluten-Free Cafe & Co eehouse as “cozy, inviting. Lots of people come in to study, come in to work.”
Someone has already approached them about franchising the business, Leslie says. She’s “not opposed to it. We have talked about it.”
But, she says, “I’m just not ready for that yet. Maybe one day.”
PHOTO: MICHAEL DONAHUE (top) A tasty treat at e Baker’s Corner Gluten-Free Cafe & Co eehouse (bottom) Leslie and Charles King
NEWS OF THE WEIRD
By the editors at Andrews McMeel Syndication
Bright Idea
FRIDAY OCT 10
FedEx Event Center at Shelby Farms
Join us for a fantastic evening of great tastes and great fun, bringing together bourbon and whiskey distillers from around the region PLUS great bites from some of your favorite local restaurants! VIP Admission starts at 5pm, GA at 6pm.
HOSTED BY
PARTNER
Out in ski country, employees at Breckenridge Ski Resort in Colorado hit the slopes in early June for a completely different event: the Mountain Cleanup Day. KDVR-TV reported that 150 workers cleared about 780 pounds of debris off the mountains — stuff that had fallen out of pockets or flown off skiers as they schussed down the runs. Unusual items included a hamburger flipper, a $2 Canadian coin, piles of ski poles, and a message in a bottle, which turned out to be a Covid-19 vaccination record. The resort hopes the cleanup will remind people to “pack out what you bring in.” [KDVR, 6/24/2025]
Freak Accident
A lifeguard in Asbury Park, New Jersey, was trying to set a chair umbrella in its holder on June 25 when it got away from her and ended up impaling her through her shoulder, WABC-TV reported. “She fell backwards off the bench and the umbrella came with her … and landed on her arm,” said lifeguard Joe Bongiovanni. Firefighters cut most of the pole away but left a piece about a foot long in her arm before she was transported to the hospital and in stable condition. [WABC, 6/25/2025]
News That Sounds Like a Joke
being upgraded to business class. The woman screamed at flight attendants that she had “pain in my butt” and needed business class “because I was working.” She then threatened to open the emergency exit and began to remove her shirt, presumably hoping that would help her cause, but no: Some burly passengers moved her to the back of the plane, where she was restrained until Egyptian authorities took her off after landing. [U.S. Sun, 6/25/2025]
Crème de la Weird Neil Hopper, 49, a vascular surgeon from Truro, England, has been the subject of a two-and-a-half-year investigation after he allegedly tried to defraud two insurance companies, The Guardian reported on July 23. Devon and Cornwall police said that in 2019 he “made a false representation to insurers, namely the injuries to his legs were the result of sepsis and were not self-inflicted.” Hopper is accused of amputating his own legs in the scheme, hoping to gain $320,000 from one company and $314,000 from the other. Before his legal problems, he was short-listed in the European Space Agency’s search for an astronaut with a disability. He was scheduled to reappear in court on Aug. 26. [Guardian, 7/23/2025]
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The Chongqing Forestry Bureau has sucked all the fun out of a gimmick at a hotel in Pengshui, China, according to United Press International. The bureau ordered the Lehe Ledu Liangjiang Holiday Hotel to cease using red pandas to make wake-up calls to guests, UPI reported on June 25. For an extra charge, hotel guests could sign up for one of four red pandas to come to the room and climb onto the bed. They could linger with guests depending on their mood. The forestry bureau said the service could be considered animal abuse because the pandas are sensitive and their stress responses could endanger themselves or the humans. [UPI, 6/25/2025]
The Golden Age of Air Travel
The U.S. Sun reported on June 26 that a woman aboard Aeroflot flight SU734 from St. Petersburg, Russia, to Egypt finally had to be restrained after she launched into a tantrum about not
Or not. Several victims reported on July 19 that they had been subjected to an involuntary “golden shower” at The Landing in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Smoking Gun reported that 30-yearold Matthew Day “entered the rooftop bar … and urinated from the balcony onto the sidewalk,” according to police, with urine striking people on the ground. Security officers saw the incident and showed Day the door; he was charged with disorderly conduct and released on $500 bond. [The Smoking Gun, 7/21/2025]
Send your weird news items with subject line WEIRD NEWS to WeirdNewsTips@amuniversal.com.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Rama is the star of the ancient Hindu epic story, the Ramayana. I love him! He’s one of my favorite legends! His heroic journey isn’t fueled by a greed for power or personal glory. Unlike 90 percent of modern action heroes, he’s not pumped up with anger or a lust for vengeance. Instead, he is animated by a sense of sacred duty. Against all odds, and in the face of bad behavior by weird adversaries, he acts with exemplary integrity and calm clarity. During your upcoming exploits, Aries, I invite you to be inspired by his exalted and unwavering determination. As you proceed, ask yourself, “Is this in rigorous service to my beautiful ideals? Are my decisions and words in alignment with my deepest truths?” Be motivated by devotion as much as by hunger. Aim not just for novelty and excitement, but for generosity of spirit.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In the Mexican festival of La Noche de Rábanos — Night of the Radishes — giant radishes are carved into elaborate altars and scenes. Humble roots become fancy art. I think you’re engaged in a metaphorically similar process, Taurus: sculpting with uncommon materials. Something you’ve regarded as modest — a small breakthrough or overlooked strength — is revealing unexpected value. Or perhaps a previously latent or indiscernible asset is showing you its neglected magic. Celebrate your subtle but very tangible luck. Take full advantage of half-disguised treasures.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In Zen archery, the aim is not simply to hit the target. Instead, it’s to align one’s body, breath, mind, and bow so fully that the arrow releases itself naturally and effortlessly. It shoots itself! I would love for you to adopt this breezy attitude in the weeks ahead, Gemini. See if you can allow an evolving project, relationship, or vision to reach a new maturity, but not through pushy effort. Rather, trust life to bring you the precise guidance exactly when you need it.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): In ancient Rome, the priestesses known as the Vestal Virgins tended an eternal flame. They never let it be extinguished, not even for a moment. Their devoted focus on nurturing the fire was both a religious practice and a symbol regarded as essential for the well-being, prosperity, and survival of the Roman state. I propose, Cancerian, that you engage in your own version of Vestal Virgin-like watchfulness. Assign yourself the role of being the keeper of a sacred promise or resource. What is it, exactly? Identify this repository of spiritual wealth and dedicate yourself to its sustenance.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): In ancient Greek drama, the peripeteia was a term for
Rob Brezsny
the moment when everything turns. The pivot doesn’t happen through force, but through the revelation of what was always true. I see the coming weeks as your peripeteia, Virgo. There may be no fireworks or grand announcements. Just a soft spiraling crackle that signifies a realignment of the system, a cathartic shift of emphases. Confusion resolves. Mysteries solve themselves. You might say, “Oh, yes, now I see: That’s what it all meant.” Then you can glide into the future with a refined and more well-informed set of intentions.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In coastal Portugal, there’s a lighthouse called Farol do Cabo da Roca. Built on a cliff where land ends and the Atlantic Ocean begins, it marks the westernmost edge of continental Europe. We might say it’s a threshold between the known and unknown. I believe you will soon be poised at a metaphorically similar place, Libra. An ending is at hand. It’s not catastrophic, but it is conclusive. And just beyond it are shimmers, questions, and a horizon that’s not fully visible. Your job is to finish your good work, even as you periodically gaze into the distance to see what’s looming.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): I Invite you to channel the spirit of Kali — not in her form as the destroyer, but as the fierce liberator. She has the power to burn away stagnation, neutralize the poison of old lies, and slice through illusion with a sword of compassion — and so do you. I believe you are ready to sever a bond that has secretly (or maybe not-so-secretly) limited you. Don’t be afraid of the emptiness that results. It may appear to be a void, but it will quickly evolve into a fresh sanctuary. Into this newly cleared room, you can pour your strongest longings and most rebellious love. What are the wildest versions of your truths?
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): In some early maps of the cosmos, Sagittarius wasn’t just an archer. Your sign was symbolized by a centaur with wings: part horse, part bird, part god. I bring this to your attention because I suspect your own hybrid nature is extra wild and strong these days. A part of you wants to roam, and a part wants to ruminate. A part wants to teach, and a part needs to learn. How should you respond to the glorious paradox? I say, don’t force harmony. Let contradiction become choreography. Maybe liberating joy can arise through a dance between apparent opposites.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): In Sardinia, there are tombs carved into rock called Domus de Janas — “houses of the fairies.” People once left offerings there to court the help of beings they couldn’t see. They truly believed that fairies are real and can exert effects in this world. In modern times, fewer Capricorns actively consort
LEO (July 23Aug. 22): In medieval Europe, pilgrims traveling to the shrine of Saint James in Spain often wore scallop shells. These were badges to signify they were on a sacred path in quest of divinely inspired transformation. The shell also had practical uses. It was a scoop for food and water, underscoring the humility and simplicity embraced by wayfarers on the road. I invite you to acquire and wear your own equivalent of this talisman, Leo. You have begun a new chapter in your self-perception, and life is asking you to proceed without pretense. You don’t need definite answers. You don’t have to rush to the end of the journey. The becoming is the point. I hope you seek out inspirational symbolism and generous companions to help nurture your brave transformations. (PS: Your best conversations may be with people who will lov ingly witness your evolution.)
with invisible presences than any other zo diac sign. But I hope you will take a short break from your usual stance. Mysteri ous and mythic influences are gathering in your vicinity. You’re being nudged by forces that defy explanation. What do you have to lose? Why not have fun making room to be delighted and surprised by miracles and wonders?
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Thou shalt embrace the confounding contradictions, Aquarius. That’s the first commandment. Here’s the second commandment: Thou shalt caress the tricky incongruities. Third: Thou shalt whisper endearments to the mysterious ambiguities and invite the mysterious ambiguities to whisper endear ments to you. Fourth: Thou shalt rumble and cavort with the slippery paradoxes. Commandment number five: Thou shalt chant spicy prayers of gratitude to the incongruities, paradoxes, contradictions, and ambiguities that are making you deeper and wiser and cuter.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In early medieval gardens, there was sometimes a space called the hortus conclusus. It was a walled sanctuary that protected plants and herbs from harsh weather and predation by animals. It comprised a microclimate and provided a private, peaceful space for contemplation, prayer, and study. Some time soon, Pisces, I would love for you to create your personal equivalent of a hortus conclusus — even if it’s metaphorical. You will harvest maximum benefits from sur rounding yourself with extra nurturing. The insights that would come your way as you tend to your inner garden would be gently and sweetly spectacular.
FILM By Chris McCoy
The Kids Are Not Alright
Disappearing children throw a small town into chaos in Weapons
The comedy-to-horror pipeline is real. It might seem counterintuitive at first, but comedy is in fact the most difficult of all genres to do well. Getting a laugh is much harder than just putting on a funny hat and mugging for the camera. As Conan O’Brien says, you have to find the balance point between smart and stupid. You need a high degree of emotional intelligence to figure out the line between funny and mean. e most important skill a comedian can have is good timing. You have to know when to hit them with the punch line and when to milk a moment for maximum impact. It turns out, that’s one of the most important skills for a horror director as well.
The most prominent example of the comedy-to-horror pipeline is Jordan Peele. His Comedy Central series Key & Peele is a milestone of millennial humor, but after that show ended in 2015, Peele branched out into horror with the all-time classic Get Out , which was No. 8 on The New York Times ’ 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century list.
The latest rider on the pipeline is Zach Cregger, who was a founding member of The Whitest Kids U’Know comedy troupe. After a sitcom career that spanned the ’10s, he branched out with the horror film Barbarian in 2022. I liked that film okay, but I loved his latest, Weapons Barbarian is a terrifying take on gentrification and its discontents. Weapons is a meditation on grief, at least partially inspired by the untimely death of his Whitest Kids co-founder Trevor Moore. The story is framed as an urban legend. It begins with a child’s voice (Scarlett Sher) explaining that the story is true, but you haven’t heard about it because the powers that be covered it up. But, the voice assures us, a lot of people die in really weird ways. This is what we call “setting reasonable expectations.”
The film is set in exurban Pennsylvania, where one morning, 17 third graders don’t show up for class. Their teacher Justine Gandy (Julia Garner) arrives to a classroom empty except for Alex Lilly (Cary Christopher), a shy kid who was relentlessly bullied by his classmates. The police immediately get involved, but they quickly run out of clues. When the distraught parents check their doorbell cameras, all they see
When 17 third graders go missing at once, who’s le to blame in Weapons?
I wouldn’t call Weapons a horror-comedy, per se, but it got more laughs than any horror film I have seen since Jordan Peele’s Us.
is their children walking calmly out their front doors at the same time — 2:17 a.m. — and disappearing into the night.
Suspicion falls on Justine. In a highly emotional town hall meeting, Archer Graff (Josh Brolin), the father of one of the missing children, confronts Justine. What went on in her classroom before the disappearances? What does she know?
Justine insists that she knows nothing but is wracked with guilt just the same. Police Chief Ed Locke (Toby Huss) grilled her for a month and decided she is innocent, but Archer is unconvinced. He pressures Principal Miller (Benedict Wong) into putting Justine on a leave of absence. But sitting alone at home with her vodka and sodas is the worst thing that could happen to Justine. She demands to see Alex, but the cops and Principal Miller nix that idea, so she takes the investigation
into her own hands. And by that I mean, she stalks the child, following him back to his perfectly normal looking home, where she discovers that the windows have been covered with newspaper, and the lights never come on. Meanwhile, she drunkenly hooks up with her ex Paul (Alden Ehrenreich). Since he is a) a cop; b) married to Donna (June Diane Raphael), the daughter of the police chief; and c) in recovery for alcoholism, this turns out to be a very bad idea.
Part of the brilliance of Weapons is its Rashomon-like construction. e story is told from the points of view of Justine, Archer, Paul, a homeless meth head named James (Austin Abrams), Principal Miller, and, nally, Alex. Cregger leads us down each story path in turn, revealing much about how his characters’ inner lives and responses to trauma inform their actions while also dropping details which slowly reveal
the bigger picture. It certainly helps that Cregger has some primo acting talent to sell his story. Brolin is nearly unrecognizable as the frantic father whose grief drives him to extreme measures. Garner is dynamite as a train wreck of a person who is probably holding up better than I would under the circumstances.
Nine-year-old Cary Christopher is poised beyond his years. His scenes with Amy Madigan, who plays his Aunt Gladys, are exceptionally creepy. I wouldn’t call Weapons a horrorcomedy, per se, but it got more laughs than any horror film I have seen since Jordan Peele’s Us . Cregger is an instinctive crowd-pleaser, and while Weapons definitely has something to say about grief and the madness of crowds, it is above all an immensely satisfying night at the movies.
Weapons Now playing Multiple locations
Our critic picks the best films in theaters.
It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley
This documentary reveals there was much more to the singer than creating the definitive version of “Hallelujah.” Director Amy Berg traces his life as the estranged son of a folk star to his ’90s alternative fame until his untimely drowning in the Wolf River. This limited release is held over for the second week at Malco Ridgeway.
Highest 2 Lowest
Spike Lee and Denzel Washington team up for this reimagining of Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low. Washington stars as David King, a wealthy businessman who is fighting for control of his corporation. But when some gangsters try to kidnap his son, they accidentally get his chauffeur’s
son. Also starring Jeffrey Wright, A$AP Rocky, and Ice Spice in her film debut.
Nobody 2
Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk) is a retired assassin. A run-in with the Russian mob exposed his identity in the original film. Now he’s on vacation, dealing with the repercussions. Also starring Connie Nielsen, RZA, Colin Hanks, Michael Ironside, Sharon Stone, and Christopher Lloyd.
Sketch
This independent film stars Tony Hale as a widowed father whose daughter Amber (Bianca Belle) is flagged by her school for disturbing artwork. Tony finds an enchanted pond that heals broken things, and when one of Amber’s drawings falls in, the monsters on the page come to life.
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An Arbitrary Agreement
A “community bene ts agreement” for Musk project o ers no justice for Black Memphians.
Memphians in the predominantly Black Whitehaven and Westwood neighborhoods are asked to celebrate a 25 percent “community bene ts agreement” tied to Elon Musk’s xAI project. But we need to be honest: What does that number really mean, and how did we get there? is isn’t about the spirit of the Community Bene ts Ordinance (CBO). I believe in the idea of codifying corporate accountability and setting a oor for how developments should reinvest in the communities they impact. at’s progress. But the substance of what’s been agreed to in this case falls short.
e percentage of the ordinance feels arbitrary. To be clear, the target isn’t grounded in Memphis precedent, nor is it tethered to a formal Community Bene ts Agreement (CBA) model as seen in other cities where tax subsidies or public-private partnerships are involved. In fact, the gure appears to be more aspirational than accountable. It feels like more of a marketing metric than a mandate. e number isn’t tied to the racial and economic demographics of the neighborhoods most a ected. It hasn’t been publicly unpacked or defended in ways that help everyday people understand the math.
An agreement related to the xAI facility does the Black community no favors.
And if we’re talking about environmental and economic justice in places like Westwood and Whitehaven — neighborhoods that are over 90 percent Black and still healing from decades of environmental harm and economic divestment — then why 25 percent? Why not 50 percent? Why not 65 percent, the percentage of Black people in Memphis? What we’re being asked to accept feels like a oor built more on political pragmatism than moral clarity and monetary necessity. is is not an indictment of city or county leaders. I know many of them are working in good faith and under complicated circumstances. But that’s exactly why we must pause and assess the deeper patterns that keep repeating themselves. Because once again, we’re in a position where Black communities are expected to celebrate symbolic wins that don’t fully re ect the weight of what we’re being asked to carry.
We’re told xAI is a win for Memphis. But the Shelby County Health Department granted permits for Colossus I and the plant was activated before most of the public even understood what was happening. Colossus II is already underway. e permitting process, though technically legal, has clearly failed to ensure su cient environmental oversight or community protection on the front end. at’s a policy problem, not just a public relations one. It’s why I support the legal challenges currently underway, led by the Southern Environmental Law Center, the NAACP, Memphis Community Against Pollution (MCAP), and Young, Gi ed & Green. eir collective e orts to appeal xAI’s air permits are not just about slowing a development; they are about protecting people, about pushing for the kind of procedural integrity that should’ve been there in the rst place.
We need more elected o cials to stand with them, not just in press conferences, but in policy. We need laws that close the loopholes that allow corporations to go 364 days without regulation, exploiting silence, confusion, or lack of clarity. Because without clearer laws, stronger oversight, and enforceable timelines, what’s to stop this from happening again? at’s where the CBO falls short. e nancial gure, in theory, is a step in the right direction. But without transparent particulars and processes, it’s just a number. A decent move, yes, but dangerously incomplete. I also have a lingering unease about how this CBO framework might end up intersecting with broader issues of public safety. In a city still reeling from the Department of Justice report on the Memphis Police Department’s pattern and practice of excessive force and racial bias, it’s hard to separate the enthusiasm around corporate expansion from the silence around state-sanctioned violence.
Community members deserve more than job training and infrastructure improvements. We deserve protection, transparency, and a political apparatus that prioritizes their safety as much as it does Silicon Valley’s satisfaction. We must ensure the funds for this initiative are not absorbed by an already burdensome budget item allocated to public safety.
Because here’s the hard truth: ese projects are not guaranteed to last. If the economics stop working in billionaire Musk’s favor, he can — and likely will — leave. e infrastructure, the environmental risks, the political fallout? at stays with us. And unless we’re willing to build protections before the damage is done, we’ll continue being stuck in this cycle of reactive outrage instead of proactive justice.
is is why transparency, not just transaction, matters. e public deserves to understand how these deals are made, how these numbers are chosen, and what accountability mechanisms are in place. We deserve more imagination and courage from our leaders about what “bene t” really means in Black communities that have historically been treated as bargaining chips instead of partners. is isn’t about being anti-progress or anti-technology. It’s about being pro-people. It’s about making sure that innovation doesn’t mean exploitation. at equity is more than a buzzword. at justice is built into the system, not tacked on as a press release. Because if we don’t ask deeper questions now, we’ll keep getting answers that leave our people behind. And I, for one, am not willing to accept that.
Not now. Not ever.
Rev. Earle J. Fisher is the Senior Pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee – e Blackest Church in Memphis and Shelby County. He’s also the founder of #UP eVote901, a nonpartisan voter empowerment initiative committed to producing political power and increasing voter turnout.
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