Memphis Flyer - 8.17.23

HOW DO WE FIX THE MPD?

As the Department of Justice investigates the Memphis Police Department, new approaches to public safety are emerging.

SAMUEL X. CICCI

Managing Editor

JACKSON BAKER, BRUCE VANWYNGARDEN

Senior Editors TOBY SELLS

Associate Editor

KAILYNN JOHNSON

News Reporter

CHRIS MCCOY

Film and TV Editor

ALEX GREENE

Music Editor

MICHAEL DONAHUE, JON W. SPARKS

Staff Writers

ABIGAIL MORICI

Arts and Culture Editor

GENE GARD, EMILY GUENTHER, COCO JUNE, FRANK MURTAUGH

Contributing Columnists

SHARON BROWN, AIMEE STIEGEMEYER

Grizzlies Reporters ANDREA FENISE

Fashion Editor

KENNETH NEILL

Founding Publisher

CARRIE BEASLEY

Senior Art Director

CHRISTOPHER MYERS

Advertising Art Director

NEIL WILLIAMS

Graphic Designer

JERRY D. SWIFT

Advertising Director Emeritus

KELLI DEWITT, CHIP GOOGE

Senior Account Executives

KALON AMBROSE

Account Executive

CHET HASTINGS

Warehouse and Delivery Manager

JANICE GRISSOM ELLISON, KAREN MILAM, DON MYNATT, TAMMY NASH, RANDY ROTZ, LEWIS TAYLOR, WILLIAM WIDEMAN

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OUR 1799TH ISSUE 08.17.23

I’d like to start o this week by extending a heartfelt thank you to the handful of readers who emailed me in reference to last week’s “I’ve Got Mail” column, in which I shed light on my least favorite part of this job — receiving hateful feedback from “readers.” (I guess we’ll call them that, despite the lack of evidence they’ve actually read what any of us have written.) While that was the rst direct negative email I’ve gotten in the months since I’ve been editor of this paper, I do o en see angry comments from folks on social media. It’s best to laugh them o , I’ve found, as most times it’s akin to Yelp or Google reviewers who have plenty of time on their hands to rant publicly about bad experiences, but rarely take an opportunity to praise good ones.

e Memphis Flyer hasn’t o cially published “Letters to the Editor” in quite a while, but I’d like to devote some space here to share encouraging tidbits from some of the positive responses I received, from longtime (or lifelong) Memphians (who actually do read the paper). ey were healthy reinforcements of why we do what we do, week in and week out.

“Memphis is a deeply human city: living here regularly reminds me of the beauty, joy, misery, and cruelty that make up the human experience,” reads one email. “Too o en, I am disappointed and frustrated by the narrow-mindedness, coldheartedness, and fear that infect our largely hardworking, friendly, and generous community. Reading the ‘Checking In’ email that you received is one such incident. … I applaud your call for critical thought and for, above all, kindness. Your response reminded me of one of my favorite Gandhi quotes: ‘We have to answer lies with truth and meanness with generosity.’”

A “Proud ‘Demokrat’ who regularly reads the Flyer” humorously wrote in response to the misplaced-rage commentary, “I too have a mental disorder; I am a proud liberal. … Now y’all have my ever-loving gratitude by being just what I need: a respected member of the socialist insane asylum.”

I’ll admit, while in the throes of writing, editing, and cranking out a paper each week, it’s easy to forget that there are people who genuinely look forward to seeking a news rack and immersing themselves in what we produce, so this was especially moving:

“My weekly ritual involves grabbing a paper copy of the Flyer from the newspaper stand in the lobby of Clark Tower where I work. I typically read it over lunch and I always nd something new and di erent and interesting, every single week. We subscribe to all of the papers in this town but I enjoy and value the Memphis Flyer the most. My wife and I signed up as Frequent Flyers a few years back and I smile every time I see the email reminders.

“Keep up the good work. You and the Flyer crew are the best and Memphis is extremely lucky to have you.”

NEWS & OPINION

THE FLY-BY - 4

POLITICS - 7

To that, I say, we are extremely lucky to have you. Each and every one of you who makes a point to add us to your weekly routines, whether that is picking up a physical copy out in the world or reading through our news, politics, sports, music, food, lm, arts, culture, or opinion features online — you are the reason the Flyer is still here and going strong, more than 30 years a er our rst issue hit the streets. We appreciate everyone who has signed on as a Frequent Flyer — by contributing nancially, with a one-time or monthly donation. (You can learn more about our Frequent Flyer program via the “Support Us” link at memphis yer.com.)

COVER STORY

“HOW DO WE FIX THE MPD?” BY CHRIS MCCOY - 8 AT LARGE - 12

WE RECOMMEND - 13

AFTER DARK - 14

MUSIC - 15

CALENDAR - 16

NY TIMES CROSSWORD - 16

ASTROLOGY - 17

NEWS OF THE WEIRD - 18

FOOD - 19

FILM - 20

CLASSIFIEDS - 22

LAST WORD - 23

As an independent publication, always free to you — in print and online — keeping you informed and connected to our city is at the forefront of our mission. Every time you pick up a paper, pass a copy on to a friend, share our stories online, or do business with our advertisers, you are supporting what we do. For that, we extend our endless gratitude. e Flyer wouldn’t be here without you.

Shara Clark shara@memphis yer.com

PHOTO: MARCUS BYRNE | UNSPLASH

SHARA CLARK Editor

THE fly-by

MEM ernet

Memphis on the internet.

MARSHA, MARSHA

Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn tweeted, “Merrick Garland appointed David Weiss as special counsel because he knows Weiss will protect Hunter.”

Turns out she was one of 34 Republican senators that speci cally requested Weiss for the job in September. Enough X users pointed out this dissonance that the platform marked her tweet with that special box that reads, “Readers added context they thought people might want to know.”

CORPORATE MEMPHIS

Questions, Answers + Attitude

Edited by Toby Sells

{STATE WATCH

By Toby Sells

New Drug Rises

A new-ish design illustration trend, called “Corporate Memphis,” has emerged, and you’ve probably already seen it in Kroger TV ads.

YouTuber Cat Gra am explained the style to be “ at, digital illustrations with characters that have exaggerated proportions.” Gra am breaks the whole thing down in a video posted last week.

WELL DONE

Overdose deaths involving an emerging drug called xylazine have climbed in Tennessee, according to the latest state data, and while a new law outlaws the drug here (for illicit purposes), o cials are searching for ways to battle the drug.

Xylazine is a non-opioid tranquilizer used by veterinarians, usually to sedate horses or cattle. Its street name is “tranq” or “tranq dope.” In legislation this year, the Tennessee General Assembly called xylazine the “Drug of the Living Dead.” at might be because, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), those injecting the drug can develop severe wounds, including necrosis, the rotting of human tissue.

e powerful sedative is most o en mixed with other drugs, especially fentanyl, but also with heroin and cocaine. Xylazine is not listed as a controlled substance in the U.S., like cannabis or LSD, and is “readily available” to buy on the internet, the DEA said, with prices ranging from $6 to $20 per kilogram.

“At this low price, its use as an adulterant may increase the pro t for illicit drug tra ckers, as its psychoactive e ects allow them to reduce the amount of fentanyl or heroin used in a mixture,” reads the report. “It may also attract customers looking for a longer high since xylazine is described as having many of the same e ects for users as opioids, but with a longer-lasting e ect than fentanyl alone.”

country has ever faced, fentanyl, even deadlier,” said DEA Administrator Anne Milgram. “DEA has seized xylazine and fentanyl mixtures in 48 of 50 States.” e DEA Laboratory System said in 2022 approximately 23 percent of fentanyl powder and 7 percent of fentanyl pills seized by the DEA contained xylazine.

In Tennessee, 56 drug overdose deaths involved xylazine in 2020, according to the Tennessee Department of Health (TDH). at number jumped to 94 in 2021, the state said. In all of these deaths, xylazine was found mixed with other drugs, mostly fentanyl, methamphetamine, delta-9 THC, cocaine, and Xanax, TDH said.

e Shelby County Health Department does not break down suspected overdose deaths by drug type, an o cial said, so it’s unknown how many drug deaths here involved opioids, fentanyl, or xylazine. However, as of July 22nd, 239 had died of suspected drug overdoses Shelby County. Forty- ve percent of those were Black males and the most common age was 28.

e latest state data show 549 drug overdose deaths in Shelby County in 2021, the highest of any Tennessee county that year. DEA data found xylazine rose in all four quadrants of the U.S. but saw the highest rise (193 percent) in the South.

Bartlett Police Department and Bartlett Fire Department rescued a missing child from a storm drain this past weekend and posted the drone footage to X. “Everyone loves a happy ending,” reads the post. We do, too.

Alarm bells began to ring on xylazine a er the DEA report last year and newer reports that began to track the drug’s appearance in screens from overdose cases, especially fentanyl. More than half (66 percent) of the 107,735 drug poisonings from August 2021 to August 2022 were caused by fentanyl, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“Xylazine is making the deadliest drug threat our

Earlier this year, state lawmakers added xylazine to the state’s Schedule III, placing it alongside steroids, ketamine, and some other depressants. is made possession of the drug a Class A misdemeanor, which could come with jail time of up to 11 months and 29 days and a $2,500 ne. In April, the Biden administration used a brand-new designation for fentanyl mixed with xylazine, labeling it “an emerging threat to the United States.”

POSTED TO X BY SEN. MARSHA BLACKBURN

POSTED TO X BY BARTLETT POLICE

POSTED TO YOUTUBE BY CAT GRAFFAM

Overdose deaths climb for xylazine, dubbed “Drug of the Living Dead.”

PHOTO: LUCHSCHEN | DREAMSTIME.COM State o cials said 94 overdose deaths involved xylazine in 2021. at’s up from 56 xylazine-related overdose deaths in 2020.

TICKETS ON SALE NOW

{CITY REPORTER

By Kailynn Johnson

Expanding Healthcare

The YMCAs of Memphis and the Mid-South will house primary healthcare centers in the upcoming year.

Chamber Bene ts Inc. (a subsidiary of the Greater Memphis Chamber), the YMCA, and WeCare tlc said they plan to open the centers starting in 2024, targeting markets in Whitehaven, Downtown Memphis, and Cordova, and plan to open “the rst two centers a er enrolling a total of 6,000 lives in the program, including dependents.”

“ e goal of the program is to expand access to healthcare for businesses and individuals, especially in areas of Memphis where a ordable primary care options are needed the most,” said the organizations in a joint statement.

“Now in the rearview mirror of the pandemic, we understand that access to quality equitable healthcare is even more punctuated,” said Ted Townsend, president and CEO of the Greater Memphis Chamber. “ e need for an o ering like this throughout our community is absolutely critical and vital.”

Townsend said not only are they focused on a healthy economy, but a healthy community as a whole.

rough partnerships with the YMCA and WeCare, Townsend said they are continually looking for ways to create advantages for businesses, speci cally small businesses.

rough the ChamberCare Health Centers, businesses of all sizes can enroll their employees in the program for $40 per month per employee, said partners. Individuals may also enroll for $40 per month, and dependents are included at no extra charge.

e centers will be operated by WeCare, a second-generation, familyowned, and Tennessee-certi ed Women Business Enterprise company. Townsend explained that they pride themselves on working with all kinds of businesses, especially those minority- or women-

owned. Raegan Le Douaron, CEO and owner of WeCare tlc, said the company itself was born out of the need for small business owners to control their healthcare costs.

“ is program is something that employers pay for, but the employees do not,” said Le Douaron. “Full primary care is o ered to the employees and their dependents on their health plan at no cost to the employees.”

Le Douaron also honed in on the regional impact of their partnership. “We’ve always known that if you can have one employer on their health plan, [then] that’s terri c. e real value is when you compound that over an entire region,” she said.

According to partners, the centers will be approximately 2,500-squarefeet, and will have full-time sta , primary care physicians, and health coaches. Townsend said they want these health centers located “all across Memphis and the Mid-South,” which is why he said their partnership with the YMCA is so critical.

“ ey have the existing infrastructure with their YMCA centers across the community,” said Townsend. He explained that this increases access to a “neighborhood amenity,” and is a major step in accessibility to healthcare by expanding primary care access in “lowincome neighborhoods.”

Jerry Martin, president and CEO of the YMCA of Memphis & the Mid-South, said not only does this community partnership provide more access to healthcare, but it also has the “potential to create lasting change in our communities’ health and wellness.”

“ is potential partnership perfectly aligns with our mission and will serve a crucial need in our communities and enables the Y to broaden our services to continue to help families and individuals to thrive in their health and wellness journeys,” said Martin.

PHOTO: GREATER MEMPHIS CHAMBER, WECARE TLC, AND YMCA

YMCA and Greater Memphis Chamber to open WeCare clinics in Ys next year.

POLITICS By Jackson Baker

Rumblings

Events — political and otherwise — take a potentially critical turn.

As the recent nonstop turbulent weather subsided somewhat, last weekend saw the culmination of candidate endorsements by the People’s Convention, a citizens movement of some years’ standing, with roots in the inner city and among progressives. at turned out to be a mano a mano between NAACP president Van Turner, the early favorite of Democrats and progressives, and Paul Young, the Downtown Memphis Commission CEO who has undeniable momentum (and cash reserves) feeding his goal of across-the-board support.

Despite a stem-winding address to the 300 or so attendees by Turner in which the candidate recounted his many services in his NAACP work, as a county commissioner, as a Democrat, and as a prime mover in the removal of Confederate memorabilia Downtown, the win went to Young, the election season’s most unstinting mayoral aspirant, who focused his remarks on his past services as a workhorse in city and county government, which, he said, had garnered support for such community additives as the Memphis Sports and Events Center at Liberty Park itself, where the People’s Convention was being held this year under the direction of the Reverend Earle Fisher.

Fisher has in recent years revived the convention, which had rst been held in 1991 and had been a force that year in the election of Willie Herenton as the city’s rst Black mayor. Ironically, Fisher on last Saturday would chastise both Herenton, a mayoral candidate again, and Sheri Floyd Bonner, another aspirant, for their no-shows this year at the People’s Convention.

Bonner had opted instead for a wellattended forum on women’s issues, being held simultaneously at the IBEW building on Madison under the auspices of the

Democratic Women of Shelby County. Eight other mayoral contenders also participated in that event.

e mayoral-preference vote at the People’s Convention last Saturday was 224 for Young and 116 for Turner, and owed much to the disproportionate sizes of the supportive claque each brought with him.

Other Convention preferences were for Jerri Green in council District 2; Pearl Walker in District 3; Meggan Kiel in District 5; Michalyn Easter- omas in District 7; JB Smiley Jr. in Super District 8, Position 1; Janika White in Super District 8, Position 2; Jerred Price in Super District 8, Position 3; and Benji Smith in Super District 9, Position 1.

• Later last Saturday night (actually early Sunday morning), a massive and unruly crowd materialized in Downtown Memphis, resulting in shots being red. Eight victims were injured, and an MPD o cer was roughed up by out-of-control youths.

e event illuminated the issue of crime as a dominant motif in this year’s election. Mayoral candidates Bonner and Herenton especially have emphasized the importance of the issue and their determination to deal with it.

Fisher would also weigh in on the matter, condemning the violence but calling for long-term community-based alternatives to repressive-suppressive techniques for crime control. (Of note to Flyer readers: is week’s cover story by Chris McCoy also considers such alternatives.)

As a kind of footnote to things, the Shelby County Commission last Monday considered, but deferred for two weeks, action on proposals for restrictions on preemptive tra c stops and use of specialized units by the Sheri ’s Department.

Similar curbs were recently imposed on the MPD by the city council.

PHOTO: FACEBOOK | PEOPLE’S CONVENTION Reverend Earle Fisher with mayoral candidates Van Turner and Paul Young at the People’s Convention

By Chris McCoy | A Memphis Flyer /MLK50 Collaboration

HOW DO WE FIX THE MPD?

On July 27, 2023, the Department of Justice opened a civil rights investigation of the Memphis Police Department. Although the investigation comes six months a er the beating death of Tyre Nichols at the hands of the MPD, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said the investigation was not prompted by any single incident, but rather by multiple reports of violence and racism which suggested fundamental problems with the department’s standards and practices.

“It can’t be overstated how important it is, and what a critical opportunity this is for our community,” says Josh Spickler, founder of Just City, a nonpro t devoted to criminal justice reform.

Around the same time the DOJ announced its investigation, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation released its 2022 crime report, which breaks down all reported crimes and arrests in each jurisdiction. As reported in “What’s Wrong With e MPD?,” the previous Memphis Flyer story in this series, MPD’s 2021 clearance

rate, the ratio of crimes reported to arrests made, was 22 percent.

In 2022, it fell to 18 percent.

Clearance rates have been falling across the country for years. In 1960, the national clearance rate for murder was higher than 90 percent; today, that number is just over 50 percent. e

Nashville Metro Police Department’s 2022 clearance rate was 25 percent.

Even so, the MPD’s ine ectiveness, as measured by their own standards, is shocking, especially given that the police department’s $284 million budget represents 39 percent of the total city budget. “If we talk about the basics of government function, which our current mayor does quite a bit, one of the basic responsibilities of a police department is to try to solve crime. Eighty-two percent

of the time, they’re failing to do that,” says Spickler.

“Hopefully we will have some really frank conversations about the results of the [DOJ] investigation. We have to have accountability for this police department because that’s what leads to trust. Trust leads to solving crimes, which leads to this clearance rate going up, which leads to people who commit crime and harm us being held accountable. at’s what we all ultimately want.”

GUNS EVERYWHERE

When you talk about crime in Tennessee, guns are the elephant in the room.

According to the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission, gun-related violent incidents have been climbing steadily since 2016. So far this year, gun crime is up 11 percent over 2022.

Guns are everywhere in Tennessee, and that’s how the Republican supermajority in the legislature likes it. In 2021, the Tennessee State Legislature made it legal for almost anyone to carry a rearm without a permit. A er the March 2023 Covenant School shooting in Nashville, where a former student killed three children and three teachers with a legally purchased AR-15 assault ri e, a student-led protest movement urged the legislature to pass red ag laws, which would allow authorities to con scate guns from people who are deemed dangerous to themselves or others. When Democratic state represen-

As the Department of Justice investigates the Memphis Police Department, new approaches to public safety are emerging.

PHOTO (ABOVE): ANDREA MORALES FOR MLK50 Justin J. Pearson and Gloria Johnson (le ) march to a Shelby County Commission meeting in April.

PHOTO (LEFT): ANDREA MORALES FOR MLK50 Josh Spickler

PHOTO: COURTESY HEAL 901 K. Durell Cowan

tatives Justin J. Pearson, Justin Jones, and Gloria Johnson brought the protests into the House chamber, the Republican supermajority responded by expelling Pearson and Jones, both of whom are Black. (Johnson, who is white, missed expulsion by one vote.) President Joe Biden called the expulsions “shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent.” Both Pearson and Jones were easily reelected to their seats earlier this month, in time to participate in a special session called by Governor Bill Lee, ostensibly to address the state’s exploding epidemic of gun violence.

“ e erosion of our protections from gun safety legislation has led to a direct increase of the number of funerals of children that we go to and the number of people in our community who are being killed because of gun violence,” says Pearson.

“Gun violence is the number-one killer of children because of the decisions of the Tennessee state legislature that invoked permitless carry and that have put the values of the Tennessee Firearms Association, American Firearms Association, and the National Ri e Association over the lives of people.

“We need to have more laws that protect kids, not guns,” Pearson continues. “We need laws such as extreme risk protection orders that take guns away from people who are domestically abusing their spouses. We need laws that strengthen background checks to make sure people who are getting access to guns who shouldn’t have them no longer have them. We need to be able to track where these guns are coming from and how they are getting into our community. Memphis doesn’t have any gun manufacturers, yet we have this extreme amount of gun violence. We need to gure out why that is and who is proliferating and pro ting o of the pain and su ering we are experiencing.”

Recent proposals before the city council would repeal permitless carry in Memphis and ban the sale of assault ri es. Many assume that if these proposals passed, the Republican supermajority in the state legislature would simply preempt them. “In fact, our racist Speaker Cameron Sexton said that he was an ‘overseer’ to more progressive cities,” says Pearson. “ e reality is, we are always going to be facing the issue of preemption. Our state legislators who

represent Memphis and Shelby County, they’re going to have to start standing tall and speaking up and using their voices.”

Pearson says the Black communities in Tennessee are disproportionately a ected by gun violence. Twelve percent of Tennesseans are Black, but they represent 38 percent of crime victims in the TBI report. “I buried a friend this year,” says Representative Pearson. “Last year, I buried a mentor who died from gun violence. is is not normal.”

WHAT WON’T WORK

Is the solution to Memphis’ crime problem simply to hire more police o cers? “ ere is evidence that the presence of police has an impact on crime, which feeds this [faulty] argument that we just need more of ’em,” says Spickler. While people are less likely to commit crime in the presence of a police o cer, the assumption that a bigger police department leads to safer communities does not hold up to scienti c scrutiny. A meta study published in the August 2016 Journal of Experimental Criminology collected all available data about police force size and crime rates from 1968 to 2016. e researchers found that “ e overall e ect size for police force size on crime is negative, small, and not statistically signi cant,” and that “Changing policing strategy is likely to have a greater impact on crime than adding more police.”

A just-published report from Catalyst California and ACLU of Southern

California crunched data on sheri ’s o ces throughout their state. “A common, long-held belief is that communities need to greatly invest in law enforcement — rather than other potential safety solutions — to prevent serious violence from occurring,” the authors wrote. “ is ‘tough on crime’ approach views law enforcement as the primary (if not sole) solution to protect community members from heinous harms like homicide, robbery, and assault. It presumes that law enforcement agencies signi cantly focus their e orts on responding to calls for help (e.g. 911) from community members in imminent danger, and that their actions are an e ective means of harm prevention.”

Instead, the study found that California sheri ’s departments spent very little time actually responding to calls for help. In Los Angeles County, only 11 percent of deputies’ time was spent on “service calls.” e rest of the time was spent on tra c stops, two-thirds of which were non-moving violations used as a pretext to search for drugs and weapons.

While this study did not cover Tennessee, it is consistent with a larger pattern in modern policing.

e incident that ended in Tyre Nichols’ death began as a pretextual tra c stop by the MPD’s SCORPION unit. “ e reality is that things like ‘jump out squads’ have been happening in communities, especially poor communities of color, for generations,” says Spickler.

“Fundamentally, we have to rethink the Memphis Police Department,” he says. “I think that it needs to be replaced with something broader than a police department — something more along the lines of an o ce of public safety that includes not just armed people in cars patrolling, but also people who can be responsive to

some of the drivers of what people think of as crime but are really more nuisances or public health issues.

“Administrative things like tra c and car tags, mental illness, homelessness — those are all things that we can respond to in another way. It will keep us from having things like Tyre Nichols or the many, many other use-of-force incidents we’re familiar with. is department needs to essentially go away and be rebuilt and rebranded as something di erent than an occupying force that is out there trying desperately to do something about crime. It’s no knock on the people out there trying, wearing the badges. at’s an impossible task. Let’s give them a job that they can accomplish instead of just sending them in to fail.”

SIGNS OF HOPE

K. Durell Cowan knows the e ects of injustice rst hand. In 2010, his uncle died in police custody in Richmond, Virginia. In 2015, a friend asked Cowan to give him a ride. e friend had just been robbed, and Cowan says, “He ended up seeing the guy who actually robbed him that day, and [my friend] killed him. Just because I’m a big Black guy in Memphis, no one would believe that I had no involvement in the thing. I was charged with rst-degree murder.”

Cowan avoided serious jail time, but he lost his job as an o ce manager. His life in ruins, “I was admitted into two mental hospitals in Memphis. In the middle of a mental episode, a voice came to me and said, ‘If you had another chance in life, what would you do?’ … Heal 901 was created from taking my pain and turning it into power.”

Heal 901 began by feeding the homeless and bringing social services to people who could not access them. In 2019, a brawl erupted at a basketball game between Westwood High School and Fairley High School. In the a ermath, Cowan stepped in to mediate between the feuding groups. e experience inspired him to expand his con ict-resolution e orts to the streets of South Memphis. “We look at gun violence at Heal 901 as a public-health issue, understanding that guns are readily available, and

it

that we have been desensitized when

PHOTO (ABOVE): COURTESY YOUTH VILLAGES Renardo Baker, far right, executive director of I Shall Not Die But Live! and his Memphis Allies SWITCH (Support With Intention to Create Hope) team. ey are the newest ally organization — joining LifeLine to Success and Neighborhood Christian Centers — elding SWITCH teams alongside Youth Villages. Baker’s group launched Memphis Allies work in Orange Mound.

PHOTO (ABOVE): COURTESY YOUTH VILLAGES Daniel Muhammad, of the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, leads a training for Memphis Allies sta . continued on page 10

comes to the value of life.”

Heal 901’s crew of violence interventionists are drawn from “those who have been part of the justice system,” Cowan explains. “We give them the opportunity to go and fix the same neighborhoods that some of them played a part in destroying. We work closely with the Shelby County Office of Reentry, Probation, and Parole to find qualified candidates to go out and do this work. … My staff walks into an environment where people are walking around holding AR-15s, AK-47s, long guns, short guns, extended high-capacity magazines. And they’re out there with nothing but a cell phone.”

Heal 901’s current target area is the New Horizon Apartment Complex at Winchester and Millbranch. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that when you hear loud yelling and commotion, those verbal altercations lead to physical altercations, which lead to gun violence. That’s the flow; that’s the formula. You have to interrupt as soon as you hear the chitter-chatter.”

The interventionists defuse volatile situations. “You tell them that you care about them as an individual, to take the time to help them associate themselves with reality. Like, hey, this is probably not the best move when you got children who depend on you. Gun violence is not something that takes a long time to do. It takes less than three seconds to pull a gun

and pull the trigger. So you have to intervene quickly and have someone thinking of something else before they make that decision. Because it’s now to a point that people are reacting with these weapons.”

Susan Deason is executive director of Memphis Allies, an initiative that was launched by Youth Villages in 2021 to reduce gun violence in Memphis and Shelby County. She says, “This is a collaborative initiative that engages multiple other organizations in addition to Youth Villages to serve those at highest risk for involvement with gun violence and to provide services to those individuals to change the trajectory that they have been on previously.

“We serve individuals anywhere from the ages of 12 to 30 and above. There’s a few criteria we look at, and of course you also have to get to know the individual to understand their particular circumstances. But typically it would be somebody who does have an extensive history with the legal system. So they may have already received some weapons charges. They have recently, within the past 12 to 18 months, been shot or shot at. They have close friends or family members who have been recently shot or shot at. They are typically out of school or unemployed and are also typically involved in a gang or a crew.”

Deason says most people are looking for a way out of their violent circumstances. “While there are individuals who don’t need to be out on the streets based on the

crime that they committed, ultimately we believe everybody needs a chance to be rehabilitated and to make different choices — and oftentimes, someone who is at highest risk and who is involved in gun violence doesn’t really know about those other opportunities, or hasn’t had somebody to help them make those changes. And it’s very difficult to make a complete lifestyle change on your own.”

Cowan agrees it’s important to help people understand they’re not alone. “It’s sad to hear adults say that they’re afraid of children, and these children are literally asking for help.”

In April 2022, Mayor Strickland appointed Jimmie H. Johnson, a 12-year MPD veteran, as the administrator for the city of Memphis’ Group Violence Intervention Program. “We’ve contracted with 901 Bloc Squad as our street intervention team, and they have staffed up to approximately 100 individuals,” Johnson says. “They are mainly out there in the neighborhood, staying abreast of what’s going on between groups, keeping street beefs down to a minimum. We have approximately eight hospital interventionists that are assigned to and at the disposal of Regional One, and we’re soon to be in Methodist North Hospital. We want to expand to every hospital in the city.”

Johnson’s “credible messengers” talk to people with fresh gunshot wounds. “When somebody’s being transported to the hospital, you have to go to them and say,

‘We’d like to stop this cycle of violence. We wanna help you.’”

ROOT CAUSES

Throughout history, crime and violence have always been associated with poverty. It’s no coincidence that the American cities with the highest crime rates, including Detroit, St. Louis, Baltimore, and Memphis, are among the country’s poorest cities. According to the University of Memphis’ 2022 Memphis Poverty Fact Sheet, 23 percent of Memphians live below the poverty level, 10 points higher than the national average. Thirty-three percent of Memphis’ children are impoverished, almost double the national average of 17 percent. “The most important thing that we can do to deal with gun violence and gun violence prevention is to deal with the issue of poverty,” says Pearson. “If we don’t address root causes of economic inequality and racial injustice in Memphis and Shelby County in Tennessee, then these types of issues like gun violence are going to continuously be entrenched in policies and practices of the legislature and of people in positions of power.”

While there are signs of hope on the poverty front, restoring the community’s trust in policing will be a long, painstaking process. “It’s not one switch that we just haven’t found yet,” says Spickler. “One day, we can get to a trust place again, but it ain’t gonna be anytime soon until we deal with the past and plot a course for the future.”

Math Hysteria

Counting votes and voters is a numbers game.

You are about to enter a column with math, which I’m not usually great at, but this is important stu . According to a recent Tu s University study, there were an estimated 8.3 million voters who were newly eligible for the 2022 midterm elections — “newly eligible,” meaning those who had turned 18 since the previous general election in November 2020. ey are members of what’s commonly referenced as Generation Z (those born between 1997 and 2012).

e newly eligible voters — approximately 4.5 million of them white and 3.8 million people of color — turned out in historically high numbers, and voted overwhelmingly (by 27 percent) for Democrats in the 2022 midterms. Tu s reported that young voters swung results in Georgia and Nevada, and tilted races toward Democrats in Arizona, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

Another report, published by NPR in February, polled Gen Z-ers about their political concerns. ey ranked “protecting abortion access” at a higher level than any other age group. It’s worth noting that Gen Z voters will be the most educated group in our history, statistically, and the higher a voter’s education level, the more likely they are to vote. And the majority of Gen Z college graduates are female.

Using this data, you could predict that women and young people are going to have an increasing say in electoral outcomes in the U.S. Or you could just look at recent statewide elections, where it’s already happening. Start with the abortion referendum in 2022 in blood-red Kansas, where abortion rights prevailed by a nearly 60 percent to 40 percent margin, thanks to an unprecedented turnout by women and young people. ere were similar results in Michigan a few months later, where abortion rights prevailed 57 to 43 percent, and last week in Ohio, where pro-choice voters also won by a 57 to 43 percent margin.

Along with abortion rights, Gen Z voters cited racism, the environment, gun violence, and LGBTQ/gender issues among their top concerns. ey are the least traditionally religious generation in our history.

It’s almost as if the Republican Party read that NPR report, saw the recent state election returns, and said, “You know what? Let’s see what we can do to really piss o young voters. Maybe we should

start something like ‘a War on Woke,’ where we force women to have babies against their will and demand open-carry laws and suppress LGBTQ rights and drill for oil in baby seal habitats. at’ll show ’em we mean business!” I don’t know how else you explain what appears to be a GOP death-wish agenda for 2024.

It’s enough to make a logical person think that the upcoming election will be a walkover for the Democrats, but these coots ain’t made for walkin’. In the midst of this epic demographic swing toward youth, the Democrats are stuck ridin’ with Biden, an 80-year-old who Republicans are painting as a barely sentient geezer who can’t tie his own shoes. It’s ageist, unfair, and unfortunate, but it’s where we are.

Fortunately for the Democrats, in addition to the genius strategy of going against every policy favored by young people and women, the GOP seems hellbent on renominating a multiple-indicted 77-year-old loon with a Grateful Deadlike following of cosplaying cultists. He’ll be running for president in between court appearances and possible jail time for witness tampering. e media will consume and regurgitate Trump and his lies ad nauseam. Orange will be the new gack.

Frankly, given mortality tables, the odds of both of these Boomers getting through a stressful, yearlong presidential campaign without a health crisis seem slim. It seems more likely that we’ve got 14 months of chaos of one kind or another looming ahead.

is is when it helps to remember that even though the candidates might look the same as four years ago, the electorate will not. In the four years between the 2020 and 2024 elections, the country will have gained another 16 million young eligible voters. And in each of those four years, 2.5 million older Americans will have died, meaning there will be 10 million fewer older voters. at’s a net swing of 26 million younger eligible voters. I may not be good at math, but I know how to count change when I see it.

PHOTO: STEVE MANN | DREAMSTIME.COM

AT LARGE By Bruce VanWyngarden

steppin’ out

We Recommend: Culture, News + Reviews

Black American Portraits

By Abigail Morici

In the wake of the killing of George Floyd, the general public was ooded with images of Black pain and su ering. From news stations to social media feeds, these images proliferated by modern technology were and are instantaneous with nothing, really, to prevent them from surfacing on our screens.

To counteract this, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) curated the “Black American Portraits” exhibition, lled with portraits celebrating and depicting Black joy, power, and love. And now the exhibit has made its way to the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art.

With 129 pieces of art in total, the exhibition spans over 200 years in history, from 19th-century studio photography to paintings completed as recently as this year. e works hang in the “salon style” with the art lining the walls in a way that one might adorn their own walls — a more contemporary piece may be placed beside antique tin types, one artist’s work may hang above that of another. It’s almost domestic in that way, says Patricia Daigle, the Brooks’ curator of modern and contemporary art. Still, the exhibition is divided into three gallery spaces, with each space focusing on power, love, and joy, respectively. “A lot of us think we understand what power looks like or what love feels like,” says Daigle, “but I think one thing you’ll see in this exhibition is that these are really complicated concepts and emotions. And they’re presented through a Black lens.”

“We’re not trying to present an image that’s like a rose-colored-glasses view of the past,” adds Efe Igor Coleman, Blackmon Perry assistant curator of African-American art and art of the African Diaspora at the Brooks. “But it’s important to see that [power, love, and joy] existed and still exists, … [that] people are able to nd joy and love and power in periods of incredible di culty or su ering.”

While some of the images are from historical moments or are of recognizable gures, a large portion of the pieces highlights the ordinary: the love of spending time with family, the joy of listening to music, the power in seeing oneself represented. As Coleman says, “For Black folks, owning yourself, owning your own presentation, like literally being able to hang an image of yourself, is really important,” and that’s also part of why the Brooks wanted to bring this exhibition to Memphis, a majority-Black city. One of the questions that the curators ask of every show they generate at the Brooks is, she says, “Why Memphis?”

And thanks to Daigle and Coleman, the exhibition has Memphis connections with works by local artists Jarvis Boyland, Derek Fordjour, Catherine Elizabeth Patton, and the Hooks Brothers. “Memphis has always been joyful,” says Coleman. “So [the exhibition’s] banking on that legacy and showing o that legacy, especially as we’re part of this monumental national tour.”

VARIOUS DAYS & TIMES August 17th - 23rd

PLOT/TWIST

e Green Room at Crosstown Arts, ursday, August 17, 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, August 19, 7:30 p.m., $10

ICEBERG New Music partners with Blueshi Ensemble and Memphis’ premier improv group Blu City Liars to create a new program of music and improvised drama. Ten pieces of never-before-heard music will inspire 10 never-before-seen plays, performed by some of Memphis’ best contemporary musicians and improvisers.

ese concerts will feature Memphis premieres by Drake Andersen, Victor Baez, Stephanie Ann Boyd, Alex Burtzos, Yu-Chun Chien, Derek Cooper, Jack Frerer, Max Grafe, Gala Flagello, Robin Haigh, Paul Novak, and Harry Stafylakis. Like all ICEBERG and Blueshi Ensemble events, the two performances will be followed with an opportunity to talk with the composers, musicians, and improvisers.

Meet the Authors: Ann Patchett and Lindsay Lynch

Novel, Friday, August 18, 6 p.m. Novel welcomes Ann Patchett in conversation with Lindsay Lynch to celebrate the release of Patchett’s new novel Tom Lake and the release of Lynch’s new novel Do Tell Line tickets are required to meet the authors and are free with the purchase of one or both books. Line tickets guarantee you a place in line but do not guarantee a seat. Seating is rst come, rst served.

Ballet Memphis Open House

Ballet Memphis, Saturday, August 19, 9 a.m.-5:30 p.m., free

For Ballet Memphis’ open house, the entire building will be activated with classes, chances to learn about Pilates, exclusive new Ballet Memphis tees, a food truck, performances, and more.

National Day of Photography Celebration

Cossitt Library, Saturday, August 19, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

Celebrate National Day of Photography with an all-in party at the Cossitt Library! e branch will be transformed into a large-scale photography space, from the front patio all the way to the second oor. is celebration is the culmination of a week of events during which you can learn about and practice various aspects of the art of photography.

Some of the featured exhibitions include: detailed and fun sel e stations, back-to-school pictures, pet portraits, a Polaroid station, artist booths, an exhibition on the history of photography, and more. ere will also be miniature photo workshops. For more information on both the day and the week leading up to it, visit memphislibrary.org.

“BLACK AMERICAN PORTRAITS,” MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART, ON DISPLAY AUGUST 17-JANUARY 7.

PHOTO: COURTESY LACMA Sargent Johnson’s Chester

901 Live! presents Bird Williams, Stacey Merino, and Terry Harris

$45. Saturday, Aug. 19, 7 p.m.

THE HALLORAN CENTRE

Alter Bridge

$35-$109.50. Tuesday, Aug. 22, 7 p.m.

ORPHEUM THEATRE

Blind Mississippi Morris

Friday, Aug. 18, 8 p.m.midnight; Saturday, Aug. 19, 8 p.m.-midnight.

BLUES CITY CAFE

Bluff City Born

No better way to spend a Tuesday night than to spend it jamming out to local artists!

Tuesday, Aug. 22, 8 p.m.

TIN ROOF

Deep Roots Trio

Tuesday, Aug. 22, 6-9 p.m.

CENTRAL BBQ

Donna Padgett Bowers

Presents

Variety show of Memphis talent. Free. Friday, Aug. 18

WESTY’S

Elevation Memphis

Saturday, Aug. 19, 6-9 p.m.

CENTRAL BBQ

Eric Hughes

ursday, Aug. 17, 7-11 p.m.

RUM BOOGIE CAFE

Fran Mooney Duo

Sunday, Aug. 20, 3-6 p.m.

HUEY’S DOWNTOWN

Free World

Friday, Aug. 18, 8 p.m.midnight; Saturday, Aug. 19, 8 p.m.-midnight.

RUM BOOGIE CAFE

Phoenix Star Band

Saturday, Aug. 19, 6:30 p.m.

K3 STUDIO CAFE

John Boyle, Miz Stefani

Friday, Aug. 18, 7 p.m.

SOUTH MAIN SOUNDS

Jon Stork

Friday, Aug. 18, 8 p.m.

TIN ROOF

KennLynn

Saturday, Aug. 19, 6-9 p.m.

OLD DOMINICK DISTILLERY

LL Cool J

Featuring e Roots, DJ Jazzy

Je , and DJ Z-Trip, plus other

iconic acts. Tuesday, Aug. 22, 8 p.m.

FEDEXFORUM

Mule Man

Friday, Aug. 18, 4-7 p.m.; Saturday, Aug. 19, 12:30-3:30 p.m.

RUM BOOGIE CAFE

marek stycos

Free. Monday, Aug. 21, 7-11 p.m.

SAM PHILLIPS RECORDING STUDIO

Wendell Wells & The Big Americans

Saturday, Aug. 19, 9 p.m.-1 a.m.

WESTY’S

Adrianne Black Song Bird & Diamonique Jackson

Saturday, Aug. 19, noon-4 p.m.

PERIGNONS RESTAURANT & EVENT

CENTER

Elmo & the Shades, Eddie Harrison

Wednesday, Aug. 23, 7-11 p.m.

NEIL’S MUSIC ROOM

High Point

Sunday, Aug. 20, 6-9 p.m.

HUEY’S POPLAR

LaserLive with Al Kapone

$15-$18. Saturday, Aug. 19, 6:30-9:30 p.m.

MUSEUM OF SCIENCE & HISTORY

The Duelers

Sunday, Aug. 20, 6-9 p.m.

HUEY’S SOUTHWIND

Tribute to Fleetwood Mac

$10. Friday, Aug. 18, 8 p.m.midnight; Saturday, Aug. 19, 8 p.m.-midnight.

NEIL’S MUSIC ROOM

Backsliders

$7. Saturday, Aug. 19, 9:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m.

THE COVE

Bug Bites

With special guests Spence Bailey, Daykisser, and Foster Falls. Sunday, Aug. 20, 8 p.m.

LAMPLIGHTER LOUNGE

Canaan Cox

Saturday, Aug. 19, 8 p.m.

THE BLUFF

Cruisin’ Heavy Acoustic

Friday, Aug. 18, 6 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Deerfields, The Stupid Reasons, Ben Ricketts

$10. Friday, Aug. 18, 8 p.m.

HI TONE

Hinder with Goodbye June

Wednesday, Aug. 23, 7 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Hulvey

50th Anniversary

Tribute to Jerry Jeff Walker’s Viva Terlingua

Featuring Brian Blake, Davey Coleman, Alice Hasen, and other special guests. $10. Friday, Aug. 18, 7-9 p.m.

B-SIDE

Alex Greene, Jeremy Scott, Mark Edgar Stuart

Wednesday, Aug. 23, 8 p.m.

BAR DKDC

Alexis Jade

ursday, Aug. 17, 7-10 p.m.

THE SLIDER INN

Sunday, Aug. 20, 7 p.m.

MINGLEWOOD HALL

Indeed, We Digress With e Wailing Banshees, Lipstick Stains, Heels, and e Ellie Badge. $10. Saturday, Aug. 19, 8 p.m.

HI TONE

Jared Petteys & The Headliners with Mario Monterosso and DJ Amy

Dee $10. Tuesday, Aug. 22, 8 p.m.

B-SIDE

Jay Jones Band

Sunday, Aug. 20, 8 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Jazz in the Galleries

Saturday, Aug. 19, noon-2 p.m.

MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART

Kevin & Bethany Paige

Friday, Aug. 18, 10 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Liam St. John with Wheelwright and Nate Bergman

$18-$22. Friday, Aug. 18, 7 p.m.

GROWLERS

One Man Graham, Hail Maria Duo, Cocoma

Friday, Aug. 18, 9 p.m.-midnight.

BAR DKDC

Otto, Bastardane, Burn the Witch, Dependant $15-$17. ursday, Aug. 17, 6 p.m.

GROWLERS

Pigeon Man, whit3corset, Feral God, bennett.io $10. Sunday, Aug. 20, 7 p.m.

GROWLERS

Renee Gros and Tiago Guy with Alexis Jade

Saturday, Aug. 19, 7:3010:30 p.m.

BAR DKDC

Robert Traxler

With Pyrrhic Vic, Arti cer, and Revenge Body. $10. Sunday, Aug. 20, 8 p.m.

HI TONE

Rock the Boat

ursday, Aug. 17, 7 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Scott Sudbury

Monday, Aug. 21, 6 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Sinfonietta Memphis

A performance of Joseph

Haydn’s Symphony No. 6 “ e

Morning” and Louise Farrenc’s Symphony No. 3. Friday, Aug. 18, 7:30 p.m.

CATHEDRAL OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

Sinfonietta Memphis

Saturday, Aug. 19, 7:30 p.m.

SCHEIDT FAMILY PERFORMING ARTS

CENTER

Southern Grind Sessions

Tuesday, Aug. 22, 6 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Sunny Side Jazz Band

Sunny Side provides a full New Orleans style jazz band experience. $15, $20. Wednesday, Aug. 23, 7:30-9 p.m.

THE GREEN ROOM AT CROSSTOWN ARTS

The Bugaloos

Sunday, Aug. 20, 3-6 p.m.

HUEY’S MIDTOWN

The New Pacemakers

Sunday, Aug. 20, 3:30 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

The PRVLG

Friday, Aug. 18, 8-10 p.m.

RAILGARTEN

Wendell Wells & The Big Americans

Friday, Aug. 18, 9 p.m.

TJ MULLIGAN’S, MIDTOWN

Wyly Bigger ursday, Aug. 17, 6-9 p.m.

COOPER HOUSE PROJECT

Clint Back ursday, Aug. 17, 7:30 p.m.

THE SOUNDSTAGE AT GRACELAND

Elvis Presley AllRequest Show with Terry Mike Jeffrey $32. ursday, Aug. 17, 2 p.m.

GUEST HOUSE AT GRACELAND

Ground Control

Sunday, Aug. 20, 8 p.m.

GOLD STRIKE CASINO

Java

Sunday, Aug. 20, 6-9 p.m.

HUEY’S OLIVE BRANCH

Kassi Ashton with Cyrena Wages

$15. ursday, Aug. 17, 7 p.m.

HERNANDO’S HIDE-A-WAY

Lindsey Stirling with Walk off the Earth

Friday, Aug. 18, 7 p.m.

BANKPLUS AMPHITHEATER

Richard Marx

Saturday, Aug. 19, 8-10:30 p.m.

GRACELAND SOUNDSTAGE

Rowdy & the Strays

$10. Saturday, Aug. 19, 8 p.m.

HERNANDO’S HIDE-A-WAY

Soul Food

Sunday, Aug. 20, 4 p.m.; Sunday, Aug. 20, 4 p.m.

GOLD STRIKE CASINO

Southern Hospitality

Saturday, Aug. 19, 4 p.m.

GOLD STRIKE CASINO

The Pistol & the Queen

Sunday, Aug. 20, 6-9 p.m.

HUEY’S SOUTHAVEN

Duane Cleveland Band

Sunday, Aug. 20, 6-9 p.m.

HUEY’S COLLIERVILLE

Richard Wilson

Friday, Aug. 18, 12:30 p.m.

MUSIC By Michael Donahue

Strings Attached

Violinist Basil Alter to release rst EP, Mooncat

Basil Alter’s rst violin was made out of a tissue box and a stick used for stirring paint. His bow was a dowel. at was his violin before he was 3 years old.

Alter, 23, now performs with a violin that belonged to his mother. “It was made around the 1820s in Italy by a man named Giuseppe Baldantoni, who also made weapons,” Alter says.

He doesn’t know what kind of weapons Baldantoni made, but Alter can knock people out of their seats with his violin while playing Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso Opus 28” or any Niccolò Paganini piece.

He’s performed around the country, including Carnegie Hall in New York.

Alter, who is about to move to London to study at the Royal Academy of Music, doesn’t limit himself to classical music. In addition to his longhair music, he also lets his hair down and plays jazz on occasion with Joyce Cobb. He played rock on two albums with Jesse Wilcox’s band, Daykisser. He also played on Ben Callicott’s new album, Late. And he played on “sweet state of mind” by Forty ieves (Ali AbuKhraybeh).

In late August, Alter will release his rst EP, Mooncat, which he describes as “sitting somewhere between the classical idiom and the jazz idiom. e o cial label on the genre is ‘new age.’”

Born in South Carolina, Alter initially learned the Suzuki method of violin playing from his mom, but he got more interested in percussion and timpani in grade school and middle school. e school’s string program “wasn’t as exciting as band.”

church [All Saints’ Episcopal] in East Memphis, which was fun. I did a few recitals. I played with the Germantown Symphony [Orchestra].”

Alter also worked with local artists on their projects. “I think the good thing about not being in school is you get the opportunity to try a bunch of di erent things and see what you like and what you don’t like.”

In 2020, Alter recorded his first single, “Billings,” which was inspired by the music of William Billings, an American composer in the 18th century.

Songs for Violin,” is a two-movement work “inspired by Chick Corea’s children’s songs.”

“Mooncat,” the second track, is “more of a jazz tune.”

Alter plays solo violin on the third track, “Laika,” which he describes as having more of a “cinematic and movie” style. The title came from the dog, Laika. “The Soviets put this street dog into space.” Naming the song after the dog fit in “with the cosmic theme of the album.”

He began to take violin seriously when he was 12 and realized that was the instrument he “most enjoyed.”

When he was 19, Alter moved to New York to study at the Manhattan School of Music. He moved back to Memphis in August 2022. “I just wanted a break from school. And [to] hang out until I tried to gure out what my next move was.”

He’s kept busy in Memphis. “I started a chamber music series at a

The new age classical piece was, like all his original work, “music I wanted to listen to that didn’t exist already.”

His Mooncat EP, which he began working on two years ago, just features himself on violin and Michael Manring of Windham Hill on bass. Alter met Manring through fingerstyle guitarist Jake Allen, who is mixing and mastering Mooncat . Calvin Lauber is the engineer.

The first track, “Two Children’s

Alter was accepted to the Royal Academy of Music after his audition there last March. “One of the best auditions of my life.”

He plans to move to London in about two weeks.

But getting back to his violin. “My mother was a freelancer in New York and ended up playing a lot of odd jobs with this violin, including the theme song for Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous and the Obsession cologne ad that won a lot of awards. Seems like when I bring it up, everyone who was alive then knows about it.”

The new age classical piece was … “music I wanted to listen to that didn’t exist already.”

PHOTO: MICHAEL DONAHUE

Basil Alter

CALENDAR of EVENTS: August 17 - 23

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

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

ART HAPPENINGS

Ballet Memphis Open House

The entire building will be activated. See Instagram @balletmemphis for details. Free. Saturday, Aug. 19, 9 a.m.-5:30 p.m.

BALLET MEMPHIS

Candle Making Hand-pour three 8-oz. candles and learn candle-making techniques and best practices.

$65. Thursday, Aug. 17, 6:30-8:30 p.m.

ARROW CREATIVE

BOOK EVENTS

Book Event and Author Talk with Leta McCollough Seletzky

An engaging dialogue featuring the novel The Kneeling Man: My Father’s Life as a Black Spy Who Witnessed the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Thursday, Aug. 17, 6 p.m.

NATIONAL CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM

Meet the Authors: Ann Patchett and Lindsay Lynch

Novel welcomes Ann Patchett in conversation with Lindsay Lynch to celebrate the release of their new books. Friday, Aug. 18, 6 p.m.

NOVEL

Speed Dating with Books

Potentially meet the love of your life, or, at the very least, some great book recommendations!

$20. Friday, Aug. 18, 5 p.m.

COMEDY

Good Vibes Comedy

Featuring Matthew Blevins, Jeremy Roach, Tommy Oler, and more. $15. Friday, Aug. 18, 8:30 p.m.

HI TONE

COMMUNITY

Community Evening of Prayer to End Gun Violence

On the eve of the Tennessee General Assembly special session about gun legislation, Lindenwood Christian Church will host a Community Evening of Prayer to End Gun Violence. Sunday, Aug. 20, 5-6 p.m.

Pick Up for a Pint

How about an easy little act of service in exchange for a beer from Cooper-Young’s best craft brewery, Memphis Made? Saturday, Aug. 19, 12:30 p.m.

MEMPHIS MADE BREWING COMPANY

EXPO/SALES

Choose 901’s End of Summer Market

New Memphis merch designs; over 20 of your favorite local vendors. Thursday, Aug. 17, noon-8 p.m.; Friday, Aug. 18, noon-8 p.m.; Saturday, Aug. 19, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

CROSSTOWN CONCOURSE

Kidstown - Children’s Consignment

A large sale where consignors bring their quality, gently used children’s and nursery items. Thursday, Aug. 17, 10 a.m.-7 p.m.

AGRICENTER INTERNATIONAL

FESTIVAL

20th Annual Tri-State Blues Festival

The lineup will feature Tucka, Calvin Richardson, King George, Chick Rodgers, Pokey Bear, J-Wonn, and Bobby Rush. $51. Saturday, Aug. 19, 12:30 a.m.

LANDERS CENTER

Germantown International Festival

The New York Times Syndication Sales Corporation 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018 For Information Call: 1-800-972-3550 For Release Saturday, February 9, 2019

LINDENWOOD CHRISTIAN CHURCH

SERV RESTAURANT

Crossword

Edited by Will Shortz No. 0105

Enjoy authentic foods, cultural booths, and live performances! Free. Saturday, Aug. 19, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

AGRICENTER INTERNATIONAL

Memphis Water Lantern Festival

Witness the magic of lanterns as they light up the water. $45.99, $55.99. Saturday, Aug. 19, 6-10 p.m.

SHELBY FARMS PARK

FOOD AND DRINK

Ale to Tail Beer Dinner

Beat the heat with Central BBQ! Featuring a slow smoked whole hog by Craig Blondis, ice-cold Memphis Made beers, and classic Southern sides. $75. Saturday, Aug. 19, 6 p.m.

CENTRAL BBQ

Canoes + Cocktails

Enjoy the best views of the Memphis sunset with a guided paddle on Hyde Lake followed by snacks, cocktails, music, yard games, and more. Friday, August 18, 6:30 p.m.

SHELBY FARMS PARK

The Great Wine Performances

This fun and funky fundraiser brings 10 exciting shows to life and pairs them with 10 different wines to create an evening you won’t soon forget! $75. Tuesday, Aug. 22, 5:30-8 p.m.

PLAYHOUSE ON THE SQUARE

LECTURE

Why Isn’t Remembering Enough To Repair?

A collaborative panel discussion with Zocalo Public Square with professor Andre E. Johnson, artist Ken Lum, and reparations leader Robin Rue Simmons. Wednesday, Aug. 23, 6 p.m.

NATIONAL CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM

PERFORMING ARTS

Fashion Forward Rainbow Rumble

Talented queens will grace the stage in jawdropping ensembles, pushing the boundaries of creativity and serving looks that will leave you breathless. 18+. $15. Saturday, Aug. 19, 8 p.m.

BLACK LODGE

THEATER

The Prom

A group of Broadway stars come to the rescue when a student is refused the opportunity to bring her girlfriend to the prom in the town of Edgewater, Indiana. Friday, Aug. 18-Sept. 17.

PLAYHOUSE ON THE SQUARE

ARIES (March 21-April 19): The Lincoln Calibration Sphere 1 is a hollow globe of aluminum launched into Earth orbit in 1965. Fifty-eight years later, it continues to circle the planet — and is still doing the job it was designed to do. It enables ground-based radar devices to perform necessary calibrations. I propose we celebrate and honor the faithfulness of this magic sphere. May it serve as an inspiring symbol for you in the coming months. More than ever before, you have the potential to do what you were made to do — and with exceptional steadiness and potency. I hope you will be a pillar of inspiring stability for those you care about.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): “Live as though you’re living a second time and as though the first time you lived, you did it wrong, and now you’re trying to do things right.” Holocaust survivor and author Viktor Frankl offered this advice. I wouldn’t want to adhere to such a demanding practice every day of my life. But I think it can be an especially worthwhile exercise for you in the coming weeks. You will have a substantial capacity to learn from your past, to prevent mediocre histories from repeating themselves, to escape the ruts of your habit mind and instigate fresh trends.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Gemini author Jamie Zafron wrote an article titled “To Anyone Who Thinks They’re Falling Behind in Life.” She says, “Sometimes you need two more years of life experience before you can make your masterpiece into something that will feel real and true and raw. Sometimes you’re not falling in love because whatever you need to know about yourself is only knowable through solitude. Sometimes you haven’t met your next collaborator. Sometimes your sadness encircles you because, one day, it will be the opus upon which you build your life.” This is excellent advice for you in the coming months, dear Gemini. You’ll be in a phase of incubation, preparing the way for your Next Big Thing. Honor the gritty, unspectacular work you have ahead! It will pay off.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): You’re entering a phase when you will generate maximum luck if you favor what’s short and sweet instead of what’s long and complicated. You will attract the resources you need if you identify what they are with crisp precision and do not indulge in fuzzy indecision. The world will conspire in your favor to the degree that you avoid equivocating. So please say precisely what you mean! Be a beacon of clear, relaxed focus!

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “Life is not so bad if you have plenty of luck, a good physique, and not too much imagination.” Virgo author Christopher Isherwood said that. I’m offering his thought

because I believe life will be spectacularly not bad for you in the coming weeks — whether or not you have a good physique. In fact, I’m guessing life will be downright enjoyable, creative, and fruitful. In part, that’s because you will be the beneficiary of a stream of luck. And in part, your gentle triumphs and graceful productiveness will unfold because you will be exceptionally imaginative.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): “You know how crazy love can make you,” write Mary D. Esselman and Elizabeth Ash Vélez in their book Love Poems for Real Life. “On any given day, you’re insanely happy, maniacally miserable, kooky with contentment, or bonkers with boredom — and that’s in a good relationship.” They add, “You have to be a little nuts to commit yourself, body and soul, to one other person — one wonderful, goofy, fallible person — in the hope that happily-everafter really does exist.” The authors make good points, but their view of togetherness will be less than fully applicable to you in the coming months. I suspect life will bring you boons as you focus your intelligence on creating well-grounded, nourishing, non-melodramatic bonds with trustworthy allies.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): “I don’t adopt anyone’s ideas — I have my own.” So proclaimed Scorpio author Ivan Turgenev (1818–1883). Really, Ivan? Were you never influenced by someone else’s concepts, principles, art, or opinions? The fact is that all of us live in a world created and shaped by the ideas of others. We should celebrate that wondrous privilege! We should be pleased we don’t have to produce everything from scratch under our own power. As for you Scorpios reading this oracle, I urge you to be the anti-Turgenev in the coming weeks. Rejoice at how interconnected you are — and take full advantage of it. Treasure the teachings that have made you who you are. Sing your gratitude for those who have forged the world you love to live in. You now have the power to be an extraordinary networker.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): The Tibetan term lenchak is often translated as “karmic debt.” It refers to the unconscious conditioning and bad old habits that attract us to people we would be better off not engaging. I will be bold and declare that sometime soon, you will have fully paid off a lenchak that has caused you relationship problems. Congrats! You are almost free of a long-running delusion. You don’t actually need an influence you thought you needed.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): If you’re like many of us, you have a set bathing routine. In the shower or bath, you start your cleansing process with one particular action, like washing your face, and go on

LEO (July 23Aug. 22): Unless you are French, chances are you have never heard of Saint-John Perse (1887–1975). He was a renowned diplomat for the French government and a poet who won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Now he’s virtually unknown outside of his home country. Can we draw useful lessons for your use, Leo? Well, I suspect that in the coming months, you may very well come into greater prominence and wield more clout. But it’s crucial for the long-term health of your soul that during this building time, you are in service to nurturing your soul as much as your ego. The worldly power and pride you achieve will ultimately fade like Perse’s. But the spiritual growth you accomplish will endure forever.

to other tasks in the same sequence every time. Some people live most of their lives this way: following well-established patterns in all they do. I’m not criticizing that approach, though it doesn’t work for me. I need more unpredictability and variety. Anyway, Capricorn, I suspect that in the coming weeks, you will benefit from trying my practice. Have fun creating variations on your standard patterns. Enjoy being a novelty freak with the daily details.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): In July 1812, composer Ludwig van Beethoven wrote a 10-page love letter to a woman he called “My Angel” and “Immortal Beloved.” He never sent it, and scholars are still unsure of the addressee’s identity. The message included lines like “you — my everything, my happiness … my solace — my everything” and “forever thine, forever mine, forever us.” I hope you will soon have sound reasons for composing your own version of an “Immortal Beloved” letter. According to my astrological analysis, it’s time for your tender passion to fully bloom. If there’s not a specific person who warrants such a message, write it to an imaginary lover.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): At age 32, artist Peter Milton realized the colors he thought he used in his paintings were different from what his viewers saw. He got his eyes tested and discovered he had color blindness. For example, what he regarded as gray with a hint of yellow, others perceived as green. Shocked, he launched an unexpected adjustment. For the next 40 years, all his paintings were black and white only. They made him famous and have been exhibited in major museums. I love how he capitalized on an apparent disability and made it his strength. I invite you to consider a comparable move in the coming months.

NEWS OF THE WEIRD

By the editors at Andrews McMeel Syndication

It’s Come to This Cedric Lodge, 55, and his wife, Denise, 63, of Goffstown, New Hampshire, were indicted in federal court on June 14th after it was revealed that they allegedly were stealing and selling human body parts, the Associated Press reported. Lodge was the manager of the Harvard Medical School morgue until May 6th, when he was fired. He and his wife offered a shopping opportunity at the morgue, where buyers could pick which donated remains they wanted. The Lodges would then take the items home and ship them through the mail. The parts included heads, brains, skin, and bones. Three others were indicted: Katrina Maclean, 44, of Salem, Massachusetts; Joshua Taylor, 46, of West Lawn, Pennsylvania; and Matthew Lampi, 52, of East Bethel, Minnesota. Prosecutors say they were part of a nationwide network of people who buy and sell human remains. Harvard called the actions “morally reprehensible.” [AP, 6/15/2023]

Smooth Reaction

When Martin Trimble, 30, tried to rob a convenience store in Durham, England, in May, the shop owner got the best of him: He lowered the store’s steel shutter, trapping Trimble on his back half in and half out, and waited for authorities to arrive. Once Trimble realized he was pinned to the ground, Fox News reported, he popped open one of the beers he’d tried to steal and drank it as he waited to be arrested. Trimble pleaded guilty on June 16th to attempted robbery and possession of a knife and was sentenced to three years in jail. [Fox News, 6/18/2023]

Bright Idea

Self-pitying Belgian TikToker David Baerten, 45, has a morbid sense of humor — or a fragile ego. According to Sky News, Baerten and his family decided to “prank” his friends by faking his own death because he felt “unappreciated” by them. The funeral, which took place in early June near Liege, drew a crowd of friends and family, who were shocked when a helicopter landed nearby and Baerten stepped out. “What I see in my family often hurts me. I never get invited to anything. Nobody sees me,” Baerten said. “That’s why I wanted to give them a life lesson.” [Sky News, 6/14/2023]

Weird Science

KTVX-TV reported on June 21st that snow in the mountains of Utah is turning pink, red, and orange — what scientists call “watermelon snow.” Experts said the colored snow results from blooming green algae, which is found in mountain ranges. “The snow algae produce a pigment that basically darkens their cells,” said Scott Hotaling, an assistant professor at Utah State University’s department of watershed sciences. Basically, the algae turn colors to protect themselves. One young visitor said the snow turned his shoes orange. “I thought that was pretty cool,” he said. [KTVX, 6/20/2023]

You Had One Job

The town of Stuart, Iowa, needed a new water tower to handle its growing population, according to KCRG-TV. But when residents saw the name painted on one side, they cringed. Rather than STUART, the tower was painted with START. Mayor Dick Cook called the social media attention about the misspelling “hilarious,” and the tower has been repainted. [KCRG, 6/21/2023]

Maybe the Dingo Did Eat Your Baby

On K’gari beach (formerly Fraser Island) in Australia, a 10-year-old boy was bitten and dragged under the water by a dingo on June 16th, The Guardian reported. Not two weeks earlier, another dingo was euthanized after biting multiple tourists, including a French woman who was bitten on her posterior as she sunbathed. In the most recent event, the boy’s older sister rescued him, and he was treated for puncture wounds to his shoulder and arms.

“These animals are capable of inflicting serious harm … some are quite brazen and are not fleeing when yelled at or when someone brandishes a stick,” said ranger Danielle Mansfield. “Children and teenagers must be within arm’s reach of an adult at all times.”

[Guardian, 6/21/2023]

News of the Weird is now a podcast on all major platforms! To find out more, visit newsoftheweirdpodcast.com.

NEWS OF THE WEIRD

© 2023 Andrews McMeel Syndication. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.

MEMPHIS presents “SISTER ACT”

Music by ALAN MENKEN n Lyrics by GLENN SLATER

Book by BILL STEINKELLNER and CHERI STEINKELLNER Director ANN MARIE HALL n Choreographer COURTNEY OLIVER

Music Director JEFFERY BREWER

FOOD By Michael Donahue

In Tune With Tacos

Along with his tacos, Jordan Beatty is making twopound colossal burritos at his Taco Tuesdays setup at Memphis Kitchen Co-Op.

Beatty, 29, isn’t Mexican, but, he says, “I would de nitely say Mexican food is part of my vibe.” And, he adds, “I wanted to share my passion for Mexican food with other people who would enjoy it. I’ve been working on my Mexican food for about two years now. I’m really honing in on it. I’m really proud of my product.”

Tacos were Beatty’s introduction to Mexican food. “ e rst time I ever ate Mexican food was probably Taco Bell. My father was regional manager at Taco Bell for six or seven years. He managed four di erent stores, so we ate Taco Bell. I have three brothers my size. We are very large men. We ate Taco Bell almost every night ’cause that’s what my dad could get for free.”

“You’d see me dancing on the side of the road with that sign.”

Beatty also cooked. “ ey showed me how to make pizzas. And then I started working the line. I learned how to make dough.”

In college, Beatty wanted to be a teacher. He later opened Tiger Paws Landscape, his own landscape business, but he closed it a er he developed “an allergy to trees, grass, and weeds.”

Beatty, who married a professional chef, Lee Anna Beatty, while he had his landscaping business, told her he was interested in learning to cook. “I just didn’t really know where to start. It just so happened that week chef Spencer McMillin posted on his Facebook page that he needed a dishwasher for the space where he was. Caritas Village. I started the next day.”

He rose from dishwasher to souschef, thanks to McMillin’s guidance. “I loved it. I went straight into it. I haven’t looked back.”

Beatty also worked at Tamboli’s Pasta & Pizza, e Vault, and FLIP SIDE Memphis before he moved to Memphis Kitchen Coop and began working for co-owner Richard McCracken’s Ampli ed Meal Prep.

He also became his wife’s chef at Busy Bee Catering. “We do a little bit of everything. I would say mostly we are Asian fusion, Mexican inspired, and classic Americana.”

Beatty’s Taco Tuesdays is a part of Busy Bee Catering. “We’ve been serving what I call a premium taco bar for a while.”

He held his rst o cial Taco Tuesday on August 8th. “I make my own adobo sauce, which is the basis of a lot of my Mexican cooking. A mixture of peppers, onions, garlic, vinegar, spices, and oil.

Mexican food gives him “a good feeling,” Beatty says. “It’s very straightforward and honest. e ingredients speak for themselves without any real intense culinary techniques. It’s just pure avors put together.”

Opera singing was Beatty’s rst vibe. “When I was in elementary school, I wanted to be an opera singer. Not a chef. I would sing opera music to anyone who would listen.”

A “true baritone,” Beatty, who sang in the choir in middle school, high school, and college, liked the “emotion, the intensity” of opera music. Cooking wasn’t on his radar. “I come from a long line of people who can’t cook at all.”

Little Caesars pizza was Beatty’s rst restaurant job. “I was the sign shaker from 11-3 p.m. And then I would go inside and scrub and clean.”

One sign was shaped like a guitar.

“I marinate my meats in it and my mushrooms. And that’s how I make my taco sauce.”

He o ers chicken, beef, shrimp, barbacoa, and marinated mushroom tacos. “And I do one chef special every week that’s going to change.”

His rst one was pollo adobo blanco. “Adobo beurre blanc over marinated chicken.”

And, yes, Beatty still sings. “Constantly. But not really for other people’s enjoyment. Just my own.”

Instead of opera, Beatty sings rock, folk, Americana, and country music.

“ at’s one of the great parts of being a chef. e kitchen is my stage. I can just enjoy my time and sing and just kind of have a good time. And as long as I’m doing that, I don’t feel like I’m working at all.”

Memphis Kitchen Co-Op is at 7946 Fischer Steel Road in Cordova.

PHOTO: MICHAEL DONAHUE Jordan Beatty

Jordan Beatty cooks up colossal burritos and tacos at his Taco Tuesdays setup.

Maggie Anderson Benny Pough

Scotty Hendricks Kontji Anthony

FILM By Chris McCoy

Men Behaving Badly

Director Ira Sachs speaks about his new lm Passages, the NC-17 rating, and karaoke.

If you’ve heard one thing about Ira Sachs’ new lm Passages, it’s probably that it earned an NC-17 rating from the Motion Picture Association. Many have pointed out that the lm, while frank about matters of love and intimacy, is neither prurient in intent nor really, in the big picture, all that racy. What the ratings board seems to have found so objectionable is that about half of the lm’s sex scenes involve a gay couple.

“It’s a warning to other artists and lmmakers that if you create certain images, they will be punished,” says Sachs. “It’s a legacy of the Hays Code, directly created in the late 1920s by and for the Catholic Church to limit what is available to the public and what art is created.”

During the days of the Hays Code, Memphis was notorious for the strictness and arbitrary nature of its censorship board. But what’s so frustrating to the lmmaker about the whole a air is that he never intended for Passages to be a lm remembered for its sex scenes. “It’s

not about sex,” says Sachs. “I mean, sex is part of the story. But I wanted to make an actor’s lm — a lm that, for me, recalled certain kinds of cinema. I think particularly of [John] Cassavetes, and also of the French New Wave, which were actordriven and really about what happens between people in the moment. I think about [Cassavetes’] A Woman Under the In uence, but I also think about [Jean-Luc

Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos) catches the eye of Tomas (Franz Rogowski) in Passages.

Godard’s] Contempt. It’s just this kind of thing that is monumental, which gets lost in the kind of neutered space of contemporary American cinema, where there are no humans. I mean, the number-one movie in America is about a doll!”

When we rst meet Tomas (Franz Rogowski), he is working with a difcult actor on the set of a new lm he is directing. He is demanding of the people around him, but also seemingly unsure of exactly what he’s looking for. ese are recurring themes for Tomas as he navigates his relationship with his husband Martin (Ben Whishaw). When a young woman Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos) catches his eye during the wrap party, Tomas sends Martin home and hooks up with her. e next morning, he returns home to Martin, exclaiming, “I had sex with a woman last night!” is will not be the last tone-deaf moment from Tomas, who spends the rest of the lm ping-ponging between his two lovers, wrecking lives in the process. “I recommend to your readers to go on YouTube and type in ‘Franz Rogowski Chandelier,’” says Sachs. “You’ll see a karaoke performance that you’ll never forget. at was, to me, the inspiration to write a lm for Franz. He’s a purely cinematic form who takes great risk and

great danger and isn’t scared to make himself look bad. We talked a lot about James Cagney making the film because I think, similarly, he’s someone who creates a performance of a man behaving very badly, but done so beautifully.

“I wrote the film for Franz, and then I needed to find actors who were similarly brilliant and also alive and comfortable with risk and failure. That’s what I found in Adèle and Ben. Failure is really important in the creation of an interesting piece of work — the possibility that you’ll get a pie in your face. I think what this film is for me is, you’re given the opportunity to see people who are comfortable sharing some part of themselves that is the most personal and the most vulnerable. Interestingly, Adèle said the most difficult scene for her was not either of the sex

scenes she’s in, but the moment when she sings a song to Tomas, which was a moment where she felt very, very exposed.”

Tomas is the latest in a long line of Sachs’ characters who could be described as toxic narcissists, such as Rip Torn’s indelible performance as a Memphis music producer in 40 Shades of Blue. “I resist those terms, which have become too generalized,” says Sachs. “It’s a character who’s not uncomfortable with taking up space, and also who believes that the rules of society are not necessarily made for him. … I think that there’s been a continual interest since I started making work in trying to understand what men with power do with it and what are the consequences.”

Passages opens Friday at Malco Ridgeway.

FILM By Chris McCoy

901-575-9400

classifieds@memphisflyer.com

LEGAL NOTICES

AUCTION NOTICE

Steve’s Tire Auto, 4811 Poplar, Memphis Tn 38117, 901-680-1998.

Vehicles auctioned @ 12pm on 0908-2023.

1993 Chevrolet 1500

VIN # 2gcec19c4p1246841

2010 Mitsubishi Galant

VIN # 4a32b3ff7ae012194

1997 Dodge Ram VIN # 1b6mc36d3vj587921

AUTO AUCTION

Rides 4 Less Motor & Recovery sale of 2016 Nissan Maxima, Friday August 18th @ Noon.

Vin #1N4AA6AP9GC411928

Contact 901-644-7205 for more information.

NOTICE TO SALE

2005 Chevrolet Corvette with vin # 1CP4PJMLB8KD273635.

EDUCATION

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES.

Teach undergraduate and graduate courses in the department of biological sciences. Employer: The University of Memphis. Location: Memphis, TN. To apply, go to https://workforum.memphis.edu/ postings/37408.

EMPLOYMENT

AMERICAN HOME SHIELD CORPORATION

in Memphis, TN seeks: Software

Engineer L4 (job code 2023-3187

) Must have bach in Comp Sci, Electrical Engr, or related & 5 yrs of product dev exp, incl: Golang, AWS Lambda, C#, Python; Mongo Datastore, Oracle, Postgres; Splunk dashboard & monitoring; PCI coding practices & standards; NACHA coding practices & standards; stripe credit card processing integration; microservice architecture. Automation Engineer (job code 2023-3188 ) Must haveBach in Comp Sci or related & 5 yrs of development exp, incl 3 yrs exp w/the following: Maintaining scripts or applications; Automated testing frameworks; Working across the SDLC; Automated builds & deployments; Designs to build automated test suites to validate business & technical requirements; Knowledge of REST

APIs; Testing frameworks using Selenium, Java, Cucumber, Protractor, .NET, & JavaScript; Performance testing using JMeter; API Testing using Postman, SOAP UI; Work with CaaS based applications deployed using AWS/Kubernetes; JIRA & Confluence.Sr. Information Security Engineer ( job code 2023-3184)

Must have bach in Comp Sci or related & 5 yrs of exp in Information Security, Cybersecurity, Identity and Access Management (IAM) incl: at least two of the following: Python, Golang, Bash, Shell Script, C++, & Java; Vulnerability Management & Incident Response; performing threat modeling, design & code reviews to assess security implications & requirements for the introductionof new systems & technologies; expertise in multiple security domains or crypto systems; PCI, SOC2, SOX, NIST, & ISO standards; Agile/SCRUM; designing, implementing & deploying large distributed cloud based systems (e.g. AWS); application security experience designing, building, or testing web & API-based architectures; implementing & leveraging logging & monitoring solutions; Docker & Kubernetes. Must have at least 2 yrs of exp w/ government regulations. Employer will also accept a master’s and 3 yrs of exp in lieu of a bach plus 5. Remote work is an option. To apply, please search job code above at https:// frontdoor.jobs/. EOE

GLOBAL SOLUTIONS

MANAGER-SAP

needed at Buckman Laboratories

International, Inc in Memphis, TN. Must have bach in Business Management and Administration, Engineering, Technology, or related(or 3 yr post-sec edu). Must have 10 yrs’ exp in ERP (SAP) systems including leading & implementing large ERP (SAP) projects with the cross functional business & IT teams, Supply chain, manufacturing & associated business processes & associated data, Expertise with SAP Supply Chain modules (MM, IM, WM, PP), cross functional knowledge of other SAP modules & associated customizations & functionality, Implementation of SAP for Batch manufacturing environment. Must have 5 yrs of exp in the chemical industry implementing SAP Supply Chain modules (MM, IM, WM, PP).

Email CVs to recruiting@buckman. com. EOE.

SR DIGITAL EXPERIENCE & MARKETING ANALYST

needed at AutoZone in Memphis, TN. Must have bach in Comp Sci, Comp Engr, MIS, or related & 5 yrs of digital marketing or eCommerce exp incl: data analysis & building Machine Learning Models (Regression, Time Series) using SAS, R, & Python; writing SQL queries that have been modified for data extraction & computational efficiencies; SAS data steps & macro programming; statistical functions using Base SAS, advanced SAS Enterprise Guide; creating associated ETL Data pipelines for Datawarehouse purposes; report creation, automation (Unix Cron) & communicating results to business stakeholders; designing & measuring multivariant test leveraging tools including APT or Kibo Commerce; building dashboards in Power BI, Tableau, or Looker; & cloud technologies including AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform. Email resumes totaresume@autozone. com. EOE

SYSTEMS ENGINEER (FULL STACK DEVELOPER)

needed at AutoZone in Memphis, TN. Must have bach in Comp Sci, or related & 5 yrs of full stack dev exp incl: developing software apps using Java; writing SQL queries & using relational databases incl Oracle, Informix, & SQL Server; Linux shell scripting; developing software using Agile processes & Scrum framework; SCM tools incl Git, GitLab, & GitHub; troubleshoot production issues across applications & infrastructure; & develop performant & scalablerestful web services. Email resumes to taresume@autozone.com. EOE

SYSTEMS ENGINEER (SYSTEM SECURITY ENGINEER)

needed at AutoZone in Memphis, TN. Must have bach in Comp Sci, or related & 5 yrs of network & endpoint security exp incl: Checkpoint, Cisco, & Palo Alto firewalls; Bluecoat & Squid proxies; Cisco ISE; core networking concepts incl Cisco router & switches; & Trend Micro anti-malware. Email resumes to taresume@autozone. com. EOE

SHARED HOUSING

FURNISHED ROOMS Bellevue/McLemore, Jackson/ Watkins, Airways/Lamar. Call 901-485-0897.

By Robert C. Koehler

Facing Climate Change As One World

In an us-vs.-them world, “we” have to face the facts.

“… We need to do everything we can to keep [global] warming as low as possible.”

When it comes to climate change, one two-letter word has me totally perplexed: “we.” ere’s an implication of global unity — a transcendent “we,” marching as to war (so to speak) — facing humanity’s greatest crisis, undoing the exploitative, Earth-destroying aspects of our social structure and grabbing control over the planet’s rising temperature. We need to do everything we can!

Yeah, sure. And then it turns out “we” aren’t doing nearly enough. e blame gets passed around — to the rich countries of the global north, to the world’s largest fossil fuel companies. And the ice keeps melting; the wild res rage; average temperatures keep setting records. Scientists grow ever more distraught. e cry repeats itself: We need to do everything we can!

I don’t disagree with this. I just don’t know who “we” are, and hardly feel like a participant in the process, except in small ways: when I recycle stu or argue with a climate-change denier or walk rather than drive wherever (achy legs, balance issues — I mostly drive). is isn’t enough, of course. It’s change from the social margins. e global warming — the global “weirding” — continues unabated, as do the warnings from the science community. National promises to change remain minimal, and are ultimately bypassed and ignored.

What I’m trying to say is this: ere is a “we” that most Americans embrace and feel a part of, but it has nothing to do with the warming planet and collapsing ecosystem. Before we can begin “doing everything we can,” we have to transcend our limited sense of who we are and what matters.

e New York Times’ Brad Plumer, for instance, writing about a report recently released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body of experts convened by the United Nations, noted: “Governments and companies would need to invest three to six times the roughly $600 billion they now spend annually on encouraging clean energy in order to hold global warming at 1.5 or 2 degrees, the report says. While there is currently enough global capital to do so, much of it is di cult for developing countries to acquire. e question of what wealthy, industrialized nations owe to poor, developing countries has been divisive at global climate negotiations.”

ese words quietly scream for a fundamental shi in the planet’s political infrastructure. “Encouraging clean energy” isn’t really any nation’s rst priority, especially if it’s rich and powerful. As I read that paragraph, what popped into my head is this: e planet’s annual military budget is about $2.2 trillion (with the United States accounting for nearly half of that). War is hell, but that’s okay. It’s the primary manifestation of nationalism, the primary expression of power.

We have treaties and such — some nations are allies — but the essence of the situation is this: We live in an us-vs.-them world. We have to be continually cautious and, if necessary, aggressive. is is a divided world. Any questions?

e problem, of course, is that the divisions are mostly arbitrary, not to mention pragmatic. ere’s nothing like a good enemy to help a country maintain its unity, to help a government assert control over the population. (Careful, he may be a commie.) But these arbitrary divisions are also distinct and speci c; they’re called borders. Borders have nothing to do with reality, but “we” pretend that they matter — o en to the detriment of people who need to cross them. And as climate change continues to create chaos, it makes certain regions uninhabitable. More and more human beings will nd themselves being pushed out of the “human climate niche,” which means they’ll have to go somewhere else.

As Anju Anna John and Stefano Balbi write at Common Dreams, regarding a study called Quantifying the Human Cost of Global Warming:

“In the worst-case future scenario — where the world reverts to fossil-fueled development and has a population of 9.5 billion at the end of the century — the study found that 5.3 billion people would be le behind. We would be looking at a world where about half the world’s population would no longer be able to live in regions they once considered home.”

So they’d have to move. ey’d have to become climate refugees, which probably means confronting a foreign bureaucracy at some border or other. Uh oh. at could be a problem, even though, according to e Guardian:

“… [T]he richest 1 percent of the world’s population is responsible for twice the amount of greenhouse gases as the world’s poorest 50 percent, who su er the brunt of the harms.

“So far, the rich countries of the global north are regarded as having promised too little — and delivered even less — for climate adaptation e orts in poorer countries.”

We need to do everything we can — to minimize global warming, to deal with its inevitable e ects on some. But this will only happen minimally in the context of the present moment, in which the wealthy and powerful are motivated primarily to protect and expand their wealth and power, and who will casually dehumanize those who are in the way or who attempt to cross a sacred border. is is not the “we” that’s going to do everything it can to save the planet, but it’s the “we” we’re stuck with, at least for now. Truly dealing with climate change — doing everything we can — means transforming who we are and reorganizing ourselves as one world.

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

PHOTO: MARKUS SPISKE | UNSPLASH Global warming continues unabated.