Memphis Flyer - 10.26.23

MATA CHANGES P4 • BLITHE SPIRIT P18 • KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON P20

OUR 1809TH ISSUE 10.26.23

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A Haunting in Memphis A frightening look at the ghosts, ghouls, and other paranormal legends lurking beneath the city’s surface.

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CONTENTS

SHARA CLARK Editor 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

OUR 1809TH ISSUE 10.26.23 The first book series I remember being immersed in was Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. I have a distinct memory of lying on the floor, elbows dug deep into the carpet, thumbing through them for the first time. I was probably 8 or 9 years old, my eyes half-closed in fright upon passing a page with one of Stephen Gammell’s ghastly illustrations. While the twisted tales of ghosts and ghouls, death and decomposition, and mania and murder were probably not quite fit for young minds or eyes (“the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out”), I eventually read the three installments several times through.

The stories and drawings embedded themselves into my psyche in a strange way — and taught me more about mortality and fear than I’d yet to learn from real-life experience.

It’s likely that Scary Stories contributed to my eventual attraction to horror movies and the macabre. Creepshow, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Friday the 13th were among my favorite films long before I had any business watching them. And Halloween — along with all its spooky accoutrements — has always been my favorite holiday. Oddly enough, there was something I liked about being afraid, dipping my toes into these uncomfortable emotions through terror-inducing scenes on paper or screen.

Interestingly, there’s some science behind this. Research has been done on the enjoyment of horror and fear (i.e. films, haunted houses, murder podcasts). In a Psychology Today article, “On the Psychology of Horror Movies,” Mathias Clasen, Ph.D., writes of studies conducted by the Aarhus University in Denmark’s Recreational Fear Lab: “We think that horror provides an imaginative context in which people can PHOTO: DLRZ4114 | DREAMSTIME.COM play with fear. Horror Gather ’round the campfire for some scary tales. movies invite viewers to immerse themselves in threat scenarios,” he writes. “ … those horrors stimulate the fear system with which evolution has equipped us.

And because the fear system evolved to respond selectively to ancestrally relevant threats, the threats depicted in horror movies tend to reflect dangers that have haunted our species for thousands or even millions of years.”

The New York Times also explored this in “How Horror Stories Help Us Cope With Real Life,” saying, “Scary movies, books, and podcasts can help people think through how they would respond to threats and prepare them for worst-case scenarios … and consuming horror in controlled doses may actually be helpful for our mental health.”

In purposely consuming content that instills fear, we’re activating our fight-orflight response, and this can help purge real-life, everyday anxieties and negative emotions — actually offering a type of catharsis. “Some studies have found that people who are feeling nervous or are prone to anxiety are drawn to horror films,” the Times’ Melinda Wenner Moyer continues. “Perhaps scary movies provide a new focal point for their worries: Instead of ruminating over, say, finances, they can worry about the zombies they’re watching.”

We get an endorphin rush viewing such scary scenarios — watching villains hunt down victims, for example — but from a safe vantage point. And today, we’ve got plenty of real fears — and things that make us feel unsafe — to sort through: unrelenting rises in cost of living, gun NEWS & OPINION THE FLY-BY - 4 violence, war, global warming. And we POLITICS - 7 can’t exactly hide our faces behind soft AT LARGE - 8 blankets to dispel them. Embracing and FINANCE - 9 immersing ourselves in fictional fears COVER STORY might help us feel more in control in a “A HAUNTING IN MEMPHIS” seemingly out-of-control world.

BY FLYER STAFF - 10 WE RECOMMEND - 14 As you settle into this Halloween MUSIC - 15 holiday, don your creepiest costume, and CALENDAR - 16 gather around a fire, be sure to share the NY TIMES CROSSWORD - 16 supernatural stories from this week’s cover ASTROLOGY - 17 story, “A Haunting in Memphis.” The tragTHEATER - 18 edies, mysteries, and myths therein may FOOD - 19 FILM - 20 provide some unexpected comfort this spooky season.

CL ASSIFIEDS - 22 LAST WORD - 23 Shara Clark shara@memphisflyer.com

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THE

fly-by

MEMernet Memphis on the internet.

October 26-November 1, 2023

BIG ASS CITY Our own Bruce VanWyngarden stirred the MEMernet last week in sharing his column, “Big Ass City,” on Facebook. His take on the Tom Lee Park situation drew comments like Liberty Park draws a barbecue team.

Fitz Dearmore asked Bruce, “Who got to you?”, suggesting some riverside conspiracy.

Another suggested the park POSTED TO FACEBOOK

BY BRUCE renovation was VANWYNGARDEN “intentionally evil.” However, a long line of luminaries jumped in the thread, too, like Tom Jones, Ron Olson, Geoff Calkins, Virginia McLean, George Abbott, Shea Flinn, and more.

4

S P O O K Y M A R K E TPLACE The local Marketplace was a bit spooky last week. As you can see above, someone in Southaven was selling, POSTED TO FACEBOOK

BY SPENCER basically, fancy ANDERSON Freddy Krueger gloves. In Memphis, someone was selling a five-foot posable skeleton with a hat that read “Make Racists Afraid Again,” and a devil-themed mechanical bull was up for $9,000.

S P O O K Y I N S TA G R A M Check our Instagram for short walking tours of some of the city’s best Halloween decorations. So far, we’ve been to the mean streets of Harbor Town, Central POSTED TO INSTAGRAM Gardens, and

BY MEMPHIS FLYER Cooper-Young.

Please send suggestions to toby@memphisflyer.com.

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Questions, Answers + Attitude Edited by Toby Sells

CITY REPORTER

By Kailynn Johnson

MATA Changes Riders react to plan that could cut routes, end nighttime service.

Public transit users and citizens reacted last week to Memphis Area Transit Authority’s (MATA) 2023 proposed winter service changes, with some saying that “MATA needs a complete do over,” and “MATA don’t care about the people.”

MATA said it may stop running buses after 7 p.m. It has also proposed several changes such as the suspension of a number of routes throughout the week. Route 16 Southeast Circulator, 28 Airport, 34 Walnut Grove, and 102 Madison Trolley will be suspended throughout the week, if accepted. Other routes, such as 7 Shelby/Holmes and 37 Perkins, will be suspended on certain days of the week.

The proposed service changes are a reflection of MATA’s “commitment to more timely arrivals” and a way to provide “more effective communication with riders.” They also said this is to make sure that replacement buses are immediately available.

The transit company published the proposed service changes on its website and has been presenting these changes during public meetings, which have also been livestreamed on MATA’s Facebook page.

According to MATA, these changes will be made effective on Sunday, December 3rd, and are being made to “give the community service it can rely on.” These changes are also based on MATA’s “low ridership” and “improving efficiency.”

However, many users believe that low ridership is a reflection of MATA’s service. A Facebook user named Karen English commented that the loss of riders is because “it’s too undependable for people to get to work.”

“You blaming the bad service on not having mechanics,” said Facebook user Grady Mangum. “The service has been getting [bad] over the years. You need to have bus service for the citizens that work late. Having the last bus leave Downtown at 7:30 [p.m.] is not helping the citizens that work late.”

Mangum also said that MATA’s low ridership is a reaction to the amount of changes to routes.

“The reason the ridership has dropped [is because] MATA keeps changing the routes,” Magnum said. “It use to be a time when a person could ride a bus anywhere in the city.”

In order to make these changes, MATA is required to

PHOTO: JUSTIN FOX BURKS

have public hearings, as well as have a “Title VI and Environmental Justice Equity Analysis in accordance of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

“The Title VI analysis has been completed to make sure that the impact of our services to low income and minority areas are minimized and that there are no disparate impacts to their groups,” said Chundra Smith, community engagement manager for MATA. Smith said the conclusion of this analysis is that these changes “do not create a disparate impact.”

Despite this, there are members of the ridership and community who disagree.

One of the most controversial changes is that MATA has proposed changes to their fixed routes on weekdays and weekends. MATA has proposed a 60-minute minimum headway on weekdays and Saturdays, and a two-hour (120 minutes) headway on Sunday.

John Lancaster, MATA’s chief development officer, said this is to make the system more reliable, and on time.

Facebook user Kimberly McClain said MATA “has never and will never care about their riders!” McClain also believes the bus changes and route eliminations are a reflection of this.

“Who wants to wait 90 minutes to two hours for a bus!!”

McClain commented.

MATA’s board was set to review these proposals during its meeting on October 24th. No changes can be made without that approval.

THC and Me A new UTHSC study seeks to uncover the links between genetics and the effects of cannabis.

How did you get the idea for this project?

Changes in regulatory policy and public attitudes towards cannabis have resulted

What do you hope to find out?

Although some of the targets of THC in the body are known, we have yet to characterize all of the genes and signaling pathways impacted by THC.

Set

Moreover, cannabis-derived products like THC and the biological signaling pathways that respond to them are now being explored as therapeutics or therapeutic targets to treat neurodegenerative diseases, pain, metabolic disorders, drug dependence, and anxiety, to name just a few.

At the same time, THC, especially in high doses, can have adverse health consequences. These include acute impairments in perception, memory, and motor skills, and cognitive impairments, psychosis, use disorders, withdrawal symptoms, and hyperemesis syndrome in some individuals following chronic use.

The goal of our study is to identify the gene variants and biological signaling pathways that make individuals respond differently to THC. This information could then be used to identify individuals who might be at risk for side effects or negative health consequences of THC use or to identify signaling pathways that could be therapeutically targeted to treat pain or disease.

GLOW!

2023

Ready

in increased cannabis use. Recreational use is now legal in 23 states.

At the same time, the levels of THC in cannabis and derived products have tripled. On average, 3 percent in dried cannabis in the 1980s [is] up to 15 percent today and even up to 30 percent for some strains. Extracts and edibles can contain as much as 50 percent and up to 90 percent THC. We have a very poor understanding of how individual genetic variation impacts health benefits of THC or the risk of adverse health consequences following use of high-potency products that contain large amounts of THC. This project was inspired by the urgent need to better understand the range of individual variation in THC response and to identify gene variants and biological signaling pathways that mediate differential sensitivity to THC.

presented by

11 21 23 Experience the lights of Starry Nights at the BuffaGLO Run at Shelby Farms Park!

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

Memphis Flyer: Can you briefly (and plainly) explain what this research project is about?

Megan Mulligan: The goal of our research project is to identify gene variants that contribute to individual differences in the physiological response to highdose THC. These gene variants could make individuals more or less sensitive to therapeutic or harmful effects of THC. To do the research, we will measure THC response in a genetically diverse population of rodents. In response to THC, both humans and rodents experience a drop in body temperature (hypothermia), reduced activity (hypolocomotion), and are less sensitive to pain or annoying stimuli (antinociception).

Just like humans, some rodents in this population are more or less sensitive to THC. For example, some rodents may show only a slight reduction in activity when given THC, while others might not move at all.

NEWS & OPINION

C

annabis hits everyone a little differently, doesn’t it?

A shared bowl of the same bud can produce varying effects in those sitting on the same couch. Why? That (and a whole lot more) is exactly what researchers at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) want to find out. Now armed with a $3.7 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, they’ll begin to unravel how genetic differences in animals change how tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) — the major psychoactive component in cannabis — affects them differently.

The study, the first of its kind, is led by Bob Moore, Ph.D., a professor in the department of pharmaceutical sciences, and Megan Mulligan, Ph.D., associate professor in the department of genetics, genomics, and informatics. Xusheng Wang, Byron Jones, and Robert Williams are assisting in the research. We caught up with Mulligan to help us better understand the project.

— Toby Sells

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POLITICS By Jackson Baker

In Their Own Words The opponents in the November 16th runoff election for council District 2 detail their plans.

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Jerri Green: I have been out knocking on doors and talking to my neighbors in District 2. From the grandmother concerned Scott McCormick: about the skyrocketing MLGW bills and As a district representative on the Memfrequent power outages to the funeral phis City Council, my main priority is to director concerned about the gun deaths advocate for the district I am elected to he sees each week to the parent wonderrepresent, District 2. ing about opportunities for their children Germantown Parkway is a bit like in a city that is in a crime crisis, each voter the Wild West. Just last week two banks is looking for leadership to take action. were robbed. Car break-ins occur in the The theme running through it all, various parking lots along the parkway District 2 is ready for change. And they and some businesses have been forced want someone who not only has a record to close due to criminal activity. People of success, but has proven they are tough want to feel safe. Wives, mothers, and enough to lean in on these hard issues daughters all want to and make a real difget their gas without ference. On the city looking over their council, I plan to focus shoulders. I want to sit on innovative stratedown with the police gies to tackle crime, director and discuss improve infrastructure, how law enforcement and support youth. resources are allocated As senior policy to District 2. advisor for Mayor “Out-of-town Lee Harris, I have landlords’’ neglect started the nation’s their properties when first free gun lock by vacant. Weeds are mail program by a allowed to take over local government to yards and visible disre- PHOTOS: COURTESY SCOTT MCCORMICK/ keep guns out of the JERRI GREEN pair is noticeable with wrong hands. I’ve Scott McCormick and many of these houses. supported our law Jerri Green One example is a enforcement officers house I pass almost evwith increased benefits ery day. The windows and in-precinct youth are boarded up and the counselors. I also garage door is barely started a jobs site for hanging [by] its rails. ex-offenders because It is an eyesore and if you’re too busy a nuisance. Another working, you’re too example was a new[s] busy to go back to a story about a Cordova life of crime. These are woman who moved in solutions with proven only to find the house results. was infested with rats.

All my plans start The landlord ignored with data. I will use her until the news stadata to make sure tion became involved. The council needs MLGW has a robust tree-trimming proto address this issue, as it not only affects gram that targets the areas most suscepDistrict 2 but all the districts. These real tible to power outages. I will also make estate companies, which own 400-plus sure proposed improvements align with homes, need to be held accountable to the costs being charged to customers. It is maintain their properties. time to hold the leadership accountable.

Cordova is a part of the city that conI would also be the first woman — and tracts its garbage service through a private mother — to hold this seat. That means I company. The service is unreliable. I perwill not just bring change, but also comsonally experience missed trash or recycle mon sense and compassion to my work, pick-up at least once a month. Yard waste especially as it relates to the next generawill sit on the curb for months at a time tion. You can count on me to always show before being picked up. Yard waste is supup for my children and yours.

NEWS & OPINION

In the emailed responses below, the District 2 council candidates outline their plans and priorities.

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’ve been a member of an email chain gang for a year or so. The other emailers are, like me, older guys with a little time on their hands. And, like me, they love to discuss (read: argue about) about politics. The basic drill is that someone emails an interesting or provocative link to a story from, say, The Washington Post or Vice or The Daily Beast, and the commenting and kvetching ensues.

Everyone in the group is relatively progressive. Nobody likes Trump, and everyone’s biggest fear is that he’s going to snare the GOP nomination and somehow stumble his way back into the presidency.

You wouldn’t think six or seven guys on the same side could find that many things to argue about. You would be wrong. For example, a couple of the gentlemen are dead-certain that Trump will win the nomination. They see no way for anybody else in the GOP to take it away from him and they savor being the no-nonsense, realpolitik adults in the room. “Trump will be the nominee,” they say. Period.

Others in the group aren’t so sure. They speculate that the publicity surrounding Trump’s numerous legal difficulties will grow, and as evidence against him becomes more specific and more damning, it will become increasingly difficult for him to waltz to the nomination. The “maybe not Trump” contingent also likes to point out that Trump’s mental acuity appears to be waning of late and that his 90-minute rambles are losing their zip. How, they ask, do you win the presidency with no policy proposals, and with a campaign based on a platform of “it’s not fair”?

Then there are those who raise the possibility that Trump might encounter a major health issue. He and Biden are both of an age when they should think twice before ordering a multi-year magazine subscription. Or buying green bananas. How, they ask, can anyone state with certainty that these two geezers will be the nominees?

Finally, there’s my old friend, “Kevin,” the Sir Lancelot of the group, who delights in swashing the buckles and tugging the short-hairs of the realpolitikers with ire-provoking predictions. His favorite lately is that Trump will at some point realize the jig is up, that Jack Smith and/or Fani Willis have him dead to rights, and that all his lawyers and supplicants have flipped and will provide detailed evidence of his schemes to subvert

the 2020 election and conceal top secret documents. According to Kevin’s theory, Trump will then see no way to bullshit himself out of his self-created mess and, confronting the likelihood of prison time or losing his fortune or both, will decide to fly off in his private jet … to Oman.

Or as Kevin likes to write: “Trump will become the Werewolf of Oman.”

No doubt it’s a phrase that has a ring to it, but why Oman? According to Kevin, it’s because of a June 30th New York Times story that centers around a multibillion dollar Trump business deal with the government of Oman. From the Times article: “The Omani government is providing the land for the development, is investing heavily in the infrastructure to support it, and will get a cut of the profits in the long run. …

PHOTO: CSABA | ADOBE STOCK

“Mr. Trump was brought into the deal by a Saudi real estate firm, Dar Al Arkan, which is closely intertwined with the Saudi government. While in office, Mr. Trump developed a tight relationship with Saudi leaders. Since leaving office, he has worked with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund to host the LIV golf tour and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner received a $2 billion infusion from the Saudi fund for his investment venture. Under its terms, the Trump Organization will not put up any money for the development, but will help design a Trump-branded hotel, golf course and golf club, and will be paid to manage them for up to 30 years, among other revenue.”

Quite the tempting retirement option, you must admit. Trump spends his final years in Mar-a-Oman, golfing, schmoozing, and sending out social media posts about how he was hounded from the country he loves by “crooked Joe Biden and thug Jack Smith and racist Fani Willis.” No foreign policy decisions or immigration messes or economic headaches. Just mid-day tee-times and endless sunshine. Sing it with me, now … “Ahhhooooo, Werewolf of Oman.”

FINANCE By Gene Gard

Open Enrollment Errors Avoid these common mistakes when reviewing employersponsored benefits.

W

elcome to fall, the season of changing leaves, falling temperatures, and, of course, open enrollment for employer benefits. Open enrollment is the period of time when eligible employees can enroll or make changes to their employer-sponsored benefits.

Unless you experience a qualifying life event, such as getting married or having a baby, open enrollment is the only time of year to make changes to your insurance coverage and spending account contributions. That’s why it’s important to carefully review all options and select benefits that make sense for your particular situation.

Following are eight common open enrollment mistakes to avoid.

3. Forgetting to consider how your life has changed It’s important to reevaluate your benefits in light of any major life events that occurred over the past year, such as marriage, divorce, the birth of a child, etc. Failing to account for these important changes may leave you underinsured or lead to higher-thannecessary costs.

4. Selecting the wrong type of health insurance coverage Many health insurance plans offer different levels of coverage. Selecting the wrong level may result in insufficient coverage or require you to pay higher premiums than necessary.

5. Missing out on employer matching contributions If your employer offers a 401(k) match, make sure you’re contributing enough to take full advantage of this money.

6. Overlooking the benefits of flexible spending accounts (FSAs) and health savings accounts (HSAs) FSAs and HSAs offer a tax-advantaged way to save for qualified medical expenses. Take time to understand how these plans work, the differences between the two plan types, and how you can maximize your contributions.

2. Overlooking plan changes Don’t assume this year’s coverage is the same as last year’s. Both employers and insurers can change plan details, such as coverage levels, premiums, in-network providers, and out-ofpocket costs. That’s why it’s important to carefully review all plan documents for updates.

8. Procrastinating Waiting until the last minute to enroll in benefits can lead to rushed decisions and missed opportunities. Begin the open enrollment process as soon as possible, and work with your wealth manager to ensure your benefit elections are in line with your overall financial plan and long-term goals.

Gene Gard, CFA, CFP®, CFT-I™, is a Private Wealth Manager and Partner with Creative Planning. Creative Planning is one of the nation’s largest registered investment advisory firms providing comprehensive wealth management services to ensure all elements of a client’s financial life are working together, including investments, taxes, estate planning, and risk management. For more information or to request a free, no-obligation consultation, visit CreativePlanning.com.

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

1. Failing to review all options Many employers offer multiple types and levels of health, life, and disability insurance coverage. Be sure to review all options available to you and select coverage levels that make sense for your personal life and financial situation. Your wealth manager can help you evaluate your options and select appropriate levels of coverage.

NEWS & OPINION

PHOTO: ALEXANDR PODVALNY | UNSPLASH

Give benefits a thorough review.

7. Failing to update beneficiaries If you have employer-sponsored life insurance or retirement accounts, it’s important to regularly review your beneficiary designations to ensure they continue to reflect your wishes as your life evolves over time.

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COVER STORY By Flyer Staff PHOTO: JOELEE CREATIVE | ADOBE STOCK

A Haunting in Memphis A frightening look at the ghosts, ghouls, and other paranormal legends lurking beneath the city’s surface.

T October 26-November 1, 2023

is the season to be spooky.

Halloween is just around the corner, which means our Flyer writers are busting out the Ouija boards and lighting the seance candles. Memphis is the home of blues and barbecue, but also the “boos,” with plenty of supernatural citizenry contributing to the city’s frightening side. Our writers risked life and limb to brave the paranormal horrors of Bluff City to bring our readers some of Memphis’ scariest legends.

met with disbelief and teasing. Days later, when the transparent girl reappeared, dripping with water splashing at her feet, she did so in front of Clara and a few other students. Needless to say, they were terrified and ran away, but Clara stayed behind long enough for the apparition to reveal herself to

Editor’s note: This story contains discussions of suicide and death, which may be sensitive for some readers.

Pink Lizzie & Clara

In February of 1971, 13-year-old Clara Robertson was practicing her piano lessons in one of the upper rooms in the Greek-revival school building of the Brinkley Female College. She was a bit shy, sometimes nervous, but intelligent. That day, as she lifted her gaze above the keys she played, an emaciated girl appeared before her. She wore a tattered strawberry-stained pink dress, rusty pink slippers, and mildewed stockings. She seemed to be covered in a layer of slimy mold, and Clara could see right through her.

Immediately, Clara screamed and 10 ran to her fellow classmates, only to be

PHOTO: ABIGAIL MORICI

Clara Robertson was haunted by the ghost of her husband’s first wife. be Lizzie Davie, the girl who used to live on the school property that once belonged to her family before the current owners had obtained it (supposedly) illegally. Lizzie told Clara of a jar, buried under a tree stump in the schoolyard, which held treasures like gold coins, jewelry, and, most importantly, the papers that would show all

the wrongs committed against Lizzie’s family. Unless this jar was found, Lizzie promised she would “never do good to or for anyone.”

Soon, news of the specter (and the buried treasure) spread throughout Memphis and the country. Some thought the whole thing was a hoax; others dove into spiritualism, with mediums holding nightly seances around town, some of which Clara even attended to communicate with Lizzie. Bartenders began selling “ghost cocktails” (recipe unknown); stores closed early; parents withdrew their frightened daughters from the Brinkley Female College, which closed later that year due to the sensational story; men and women were afraid to go out alone at night.

Meanwhile, Clara’s father J.R. Robertson, a lawyer, hired men to start digging for that jar, which they soon found. Upon Lizzie’s instructions, the moldy jar could not be opened for 60 days after its discovery, so, until its opening, Robertson hid the jar, at least 12 inches tall and wide, in the safest place possible: the outhouse (seriously). He planned a public opening, with an admission fee of $1 — only that never happened. He was robbed at gunpoint by four men and forced to surrender the jar, which has since never been recovered.

After her encounters with Pink

Lizzie, those close to Clara say she became a changed girl. She continued to practice spiritualism afterward, both privately and onstage, and she even allegedly received letters about her story with Pink Lizzie from President Grant and Queen Victoria. At 18, Clara married a much older widower, whose first wife’s ghost “would return at night and kick her out of bed.” She died of consumption at 25. — Abigail Morici

Of Gothic and Ghosts There are plenty of ways for students to spend their time on campus at Rhodes College. Pursuing a fulfilling liberal arts degree, participating in collegiate athletics, rushing Greek life, or … ghost hunting? Campus lore contains a trove of diverse tales ranging from the comedic (escaped zoo monkeys running riot) to the macabre. But since we’re in spooky season, we’ll keep the focus on some of the college’s scarier legends.

For parents sending their kids off to university for the first time, perhaps the only thing more frightening than their child revealing they’re going to pursue a theater major might just be an actual ghost haunting the walls of Rhodes’ McCoy Theatre. Legend has it that back in the ’70s, undergraduate student “Annie” was so devastated that she wasn’t accepted into the Zeta

The Arkansas Wild Man Nobody thinks Memphis is Bigfoot country. The last time anyone suspected a Bigfoot of anything around here, an investigation by wildlife officials only yielded a new Memphis cryptid, the once-famed Midtown Coyote.

Bigfoot sightings are more scarce in Memphis than those of alive-and-well Elvis Presley. There have been reports, though, and some of them are lame.

One woman told the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization that in the 1980s she got cozy with a family of Bigfoots that lived in a nearby cave, noting they loved apples and “sweets.” C’mon.

Some are more credible, though.

An eye witness told the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization that in 1985

they and some friends were driving toward Shelby Forest one night when they saw “it” cross the road in front of their headlights.

“It was very big black and looked like it was covered with fur,” the eyewitness said. “It ran with a slight forward tilt and with very little arm bend.”

But dig around the pre-internet wayback machine and you’ll find that a “wild man” once roamed right across the river. It brought terror and, maybe (that’s a big maybe), secured Memphis a special spot in Bigfoot history.

Wild Man stories emerged around St. Francis, Greene, and Poinsett Counties in the 1830s. But a Baltimore Sun story in 1846 gave some details.

“His track measures 22 inches, his toes are as long as a common man’s fingers,” reads the story, “and in height and make, he is double the usual size.”

PHOTO: MICHAEL | ADOBE STOCK

Sightings of the enormous, yet elusive, Arkansas Wild Man stretch all the way back to the 1830s.

By 1851, The Patriot and State Gazette newspaper of New Hampshire said an expedition was forming to find this “wild man.” It said a posse led by well-respected men of the community reportedly left Memphis on horseback that year in what might have been the first organized Bigfoot hunt in American history. Didn’t see that coming, right?

The Arkansas Wild Man was “of gigantic size and covered with hair,” the story said, and it had been seen by hunters and farmers. Once the Wild Man had been seen chasing a herd of cattle, and it ran away from two men who saw it, leaping some 12 feet to 14 feet at a time.

Four years later, The Pittsfield Sun reported “a wild man, seven feet high, is stated to be roaming through the great Mississippi bottom in Arkansas. Numerous travelers and hunters have asserted that they have seen him, but none have been able to get near enough to give particulars concerning the strange being.” That same year, the Wisconsin Patriot said the Wild Man was seen breaking the ice of a frozen lake. He was “covered with hair of a brownish cast” and “well muscled.”

Later, another group of hunters tracked

the creature, lost it in the snow-covered Ouachita Mountains but not before the creature ripped one man from his saddle, scratched his eyeball nearly from its socket, and viciously bit parts of his shoulder away.

Is all of this true? Well, these stories were printed in newspapers. So, they must be true, right?

Real or not, add the Arkansas Wild Man stories to your campfire quiver and fuel Memphis nightmares in a whole new way. — Toby Sells

Justine’s Haunted Wine Cellar Janet Stuart Smith remembers the time she saw the ghost in the wine cellar at the legendary Justine’s restaurant.

It was back in the ’80s, says Smith, whose parents, the late Justine and Dayton Smith, owned the now-closed restaurant, which was housed in the circa 1860 Italianate house at 919 Coward Place.

“I had to go down to the wine cellar, which was not being used at the time, to reset the air conditioner,” Smith says. “It was creepy down there. But I thought someone was behind me. I thought it was one of the waiters trying to scare me. Kid me.”

It wasn’t one of the servers. “It was a tall, dark figure. I could kind of see through her. And her feet were not touching the ground.”

The figure looked like “mist,” Smith says. She’d heard the story of the ghost, whom they called “Miss Mary,” all her life from servers and others who worked at the restaurant, but that was the first and only time she saw it.

Servers played poker in the wine cellar until someone saw the ghost. They still had to go downstairs on occasion, but they took someone with them.

The ghost wasn’t scary, she says. She thought it was cool. It was “just another dimension.”

About a year later, Smith saw a guest, who was attending a party upstairs, sitting in a chair with a puzzled expression on her face. Smith asked, “Are you okay? Is something wrong?”

PHOTO: JANET STUART SMITH

A painting of the old Justine’s facade by Janet Stuart Smith

The woman answered, “Is there a ghost story to this house?”

When Smith said yes, the woman pointed to the ladies’ room, where she said she saw a ghost going back and forth. Smith, who thought Miss Mary stayed downstairs, had heard the ghost was a woman “from the Civil War days who lost her child in childbirth and was looking for her.”

But Smith later heard some chilling news after the incident with the woman at the party. “I found out years later from my dad or someone that the upstairs ladies’ room was the original nursery in the house.”

Smith, who devoted two pages to the ghost in her book, Justine’s: Memories & Recipes, said goodbye to Miss Mary when she left the house for the last time after the restaurant closed in 1995. “I hate leaving the ghost. I wish I could have brought her to my house with me and all the Justine’s memorabilia.”

The old house, which has been renovated, still stands. “I’ll bet she’s still there.” — Michael Donahue

The Mynders Hall Ghost Mynders Hall, originally a women’s dormitory on the University of Memphis campus, eventually becoming co-ed in 2014, is closed for renovations, but one resident has never left. Indeed, the fact that she died 111 years ago never stopped her from moving in — after all, it’s her building.

When the West Tennessee State Normal School opened on September 10, 1912, Seymour A. Mynders, the college’s first president, was still grieving the death of his 21-year-old daughter, Elizabeth. She’d only been married four months before perishing, and papers of record neither recorded her spouse’s name nor her cause of death, only that this building, among the first three on campus, was christened in her honor.

And its very shape, resembling a giant E, seems to embody her.

So too did the large portrait of her that hung in the lobby for decades, and students who felt her ghost’s presence would greet the framed picture every day to stay in Elizabeth’s good graces.

Meanwhile, her spirit seemed mostly concerned that occupants of her building remained studious. As reported in The Daily Helmsman, former associate dean of residence life Daniel Armitage recalled one resident who “had a test the next day and couldn’t sleep. She noticed an outline of a person in her chair, so she turned on the light and no one was there. She looked at her desk, and there was the book she was supposed to study, opened to the chapter she was being tested on. She claimed she put the book up before bed.” continued on page 12

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Tau Alpha sorority, that she marched into the sorority house and hanged herself. Years later, after Zeta Tau Alpha disbanded and the structure was converted into the McCoy Theatre, tales grew of the spectral Annie, who in death haunted the halls of the building she was desperate to be a part of while alive. It became tradition for students to summon Annie to every performance, a seat set aside in the audience for her, lest her vengeful spirit break chairs or other props.

Was Annie real? Probably not.

But with Rhodes having shuttered its theater degree in 2021, the specter should have plenty of companionship from the ghosts of theater majors past.

Over on the other side of campus is a spectral tale that may be informed by a true tragic story. An actual student in the ’70s, William Thomas Bayley, sadly took his own life in his dorm room at Bellingrath Hall. That tale is perhaps the foundation for the legend of the Bellingrath Ghost, a haunting tale that reached my ears within just a couple of days of setting foot on campus at the start of my freshman year (which was all the way back in 2011, a truly scary thought).

Every year, students report signs of paranormal activity in Bellingrath Hall: spectral hazes showing up in photographs, ghostly moans echoing throughout the night, and all manner of strange noises and occurrences.

According to a 2018 article by Rylan Lorance in the campus newspaper The Sou’wester, reports of the Bellingrath ghost and related phenomena trace back to the ’80s, including the Bellingrath fire of 1987. Fire aside (no proof it was the ghost), the campus ghosts seem to be harmless companions. And for aspiring ghost hunters, dig a little deeper on campus, and there may be even more ghosts and ghouls lurking among the Gothic walls. Still no sign of that B.S. in parapsychology, however.

— Samuel X. Cicci

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Intrigued by such terrifying tales, I ventured to Mynders Hall myself, hoping to lure Elizabeth out. All I had to go on was a ritual recommended by a spiritsavvy friend: carrying a satchel full of textbooks (weighing at least 23 pounds), one must approach the hall at dusk and, walking in circles, recite the following chant: “My notes are in my three-ring binder/My cup’s fresh from the coffee grinder/May my teacher be much kinder/

Find her, find her, Lizzie Mynders!”

What happened next still has me trembling. As the sun sank, a hand beckoned me from a window above, and just inside the back entrance I spied a little table and chair. “Join me in my study party,” said a laughing, girlish voice. “Tee-hee!” Just then the door blew open, and Elizabeth’s echoing words commanded, “And now we cram for the exam. This is one all-nighter that will last … an eternity!”

— Alex Greene

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Memphis’ biggest and weirdest Halloween party began humbly enough. Black Lodge Video opened the last week of October 2000, says owner Matt Martin. “But nobody came in for the first couple of days because nobody knew we existed.”

The first customer for the video store on Cooper was musician Eldorado Del Rey, who wandered in on Halloween. “He was like, ‘What the fuck is this?’” says Martin.

PHOTO: CHRIS MCCOY That Halloween, a couple Louise Page at the 2021 Black Lodge more people found Black Halloween Masquerade Ball Lodge and rented movies, so Martin and co-founder Bryan Hogue decided to celebrate. “We had a party that night to celebrate that somebody finally figured out who we were,” he recalls.

“One year later, when Halloween came around, and we had actually survived the year — quite the opposite of what we had thought, which was that no one would ever come — we’d gotten really popular. We threw another party to celebrate our one year, but this time a whole bunch of people showed up. That started the ball rolling, no pun intended.”

During the ’00s, the Black Lodge Halloween Masquerade Ball was invitationonly. The festivities got bigger and crazier. Many of the Black Lodge regulars were horror, sci-fi, and psychotronic movie fans who also happened to be really into costuming. “Everybody brings out their A game on the cosplay,” says Martin.

Hogue, who died in November 2020, had the idea to bring bands and DJs in to perform in the video store. “I think it was in 2011 when Hogue and Craig Brewer said we should open it up,” says Martin, who was apprehensive at first. “It’s one thing when we’re having our own party; it’s another thing when we invite the public.”

The party didn’t stop when Black Lodge vacated their original location and went looking for a new, bigger space. In 2014, Craig and Jodi Brewer merged their long-running Halloween house party with the Masquerade Ball, which was held at Earnestine & Hazel’s. The theme was Heaven and Hell. “That’s what took it to the stratosphere,” says Martin. “People heard about it and it just blew up. I remember we stepped out the front door and the line to get in stretched a good block or two down Main Street.”

When Black Lodge moved into a new location in Crosstown, the Ball was the first thing on the calendar. In 2020, what would have been a gala anniversary celebration was moved online. “I remember at the time we said, ‘I don’t want to not do the Ball, but we can’t have people here,’” recalls Martin. “So we streamed it online, and you could party in your own house. It was one of the moments that really hammered it in for me, how this was like nothing I’d ever experienced. I was proud that we kept the tradition alive, and you better believe in 2021 we brought it back!”

This year’s Black Lodge Halloween Masquerade Ball will be on Saturday, October 28th. There will be fire dancers, hoopers, sideshow performers, and “surprises.” Music entertainment includes Little Baby Tendencies, Joybomb, Optic Sink, Turnstyles, The Sheiks, and Jack Oblivian. After midnight, DJs Selector Jack and Graveyard Gloria take over the dance floor. As Martin says, “Let the ceremony begin!”

— Chris McCoy

Fall Public Meeting Raleigh Branch Library 3452 Austin Peay Hwy

Saturday November 4, 2023 4-pm to 5:30 pm

A watershed is an area of land that drains to the same waterbody. A large watershed (like the Wolf River) can include smaller ‘watersheds’ , called basins. In the map below, you can see how many of the basins drain to the Wolf River. Memphis has three large watersheds (the Wolf River, Loosahatchie River, and Nonconnah Creek) that drain to the World’s fourth largest watershed- The Mississippi River Watershed!

Storm water can carry harmful pollution to our rivers through the watershed. Come learn what this means to you!

A SNAPSHOT OF BASINS IN THE RALEIGH AREA...

Yale Rd

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Lake Windermere

RALEI GH

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James R

Coleman R d

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Map Legend Raleigh Library

Basin Boundary

Wolf River

Path of Flow

Did You Know?

The Wolf River drains to the Mississippi River.

Wa

t e r b o dy

LEARN MORE AT

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d

TN 1 4

James R

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steppin’ out

We Recommend: Culture, News + Reviews

DEVIL TRAIN

When They Go High

By Abigail Morici

THURSDAY, OCT 26

6:30 PM, Gates Open at 5:30 PM

PEANUT BUTTER & JAM

¡OLÉ! BY FLAMENCO MEMPHIS

SATURDAY, OCT 28 10:30am

October 26-November 1, 2023

VICTOR WOOTEN AND THE WOOTEN BROTHERS

MASTERS OF MAYHEM: STUDENT SHOW, HIGH EXPECTATIONS AERIAL ARTS, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28, 5 P.M., $9/KIDS, $15/ADULTS. MASTERS OF MAYHEM: EVENING CABARET, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28, 8:30 P.M., $25/IN ADVANCE, $30/AT THE DOOR.

VARIOUS DAYS & TIMES October 26th - November 1st Friends of the Memphis Library Fall Book Sale Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library, Friday, October 27, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Saturday, October 28, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sunday, October 29, 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

Thousands of gently-used books, CDs, DVDs, vinyl records and more will be for sale for bargain prices.

FRIDAY, NOV 3 8:00 PM

In the Duncan-Williams Performance Hall

Co-presented by

IT’S ALL HAPPENING AT GPAC!

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Villains — you either love them or you hate them. Morally speaking, you probably shouldn’t be their biggest fans, but if they can put on a good show, who can blame you? And, let me tell you, they’re going to put on a good show this weekend at High Expectations Aerial Arts this weekend. We’re talking aerial silks, hoops, lyra, contortionists, trapeze — they’re gonna do it all.

The villains, some of whom you’ll recognize like Freddy Krueger and the Red Queen, will appear in two performances: a family-friendly student show and a PG-13 evening cabaret. All of it will be original choreography created just PHOTO: CREATED THROUGH MIDJOURNEY | COURTESY HIGH EXPECTATIONS AERIAL ARTS for the show. “The really cool thing about aerial is not only is there floor work Villains doing trapeze? We’re in. that some of our performers do, but then they have that vertical plane they can work in as well,” says Sarah Bolton, owner of High Expectations. “So they’re able to go up and do dramatic drops, and it just adds a whole other element of drama and sort of intensity to any performance. So that’s a lot of fun to play with.”

This year will be the first year High Expectations does a cabaret in addition to their typical student showcase, which includes students of all ages. “The cabaret was an audition-only show,” Bolton says. “Our long-term goal is to present these types of cabaret performances several times a years, maybe even taking them to different locations. So it’s just an effort to challenge our advanced performers. In the future, we would love to include hoopers or dancers or acrobatics or pole dancers. This is sort of our test run, but we’re hoping for it to be very much a community thing in the future.”

Ultimately, for Bolton, being able to share her love of aerial arts — whether that’s through classes or performances like these — is especially rewarding. “[Aerial is] so empowering. Especially for women — a lot of our students are women … — and they’re all so strong and so powerful. … I joke that we all ran away and joined the circus, but, really, that’s kind of what happened. It’s just that element of fun and relief from a doldrums of being an adult norm — aerial’s really great for that too. So the shows are fun for that too because people get to see us having fun and us creating a character and the whole thing is just about having a blast.”

Already, tickets for both of Saturdays shows are selling fast, so be sure to secure yours as soon as possible at highexpectationsaerialarts.com. Tickets for the cabaret performance include a Halloween-themed mocktail.

gpacweb.com (901) 751-7500

“Ghetto Girls Deserve Good Things” Opening Reception Beverly + Sam Ross Gallery at CBU, Friday, Ocotber 27, 5-8 p.m.

Zaire Love’s “Ghetto Girls Deserve Good Things” is an ode to the originators of carefree expressive style and culture that influences contemporary culture. There is a demand for ghetto aesthetics and ingenuity but often the creators are erased while the “pseudoinnovators” write a new story with stolen culture. Love’s exhibition is on display through December 15th.

Women and Witches in Beer Halloween Candy and Beer Pairing Wiseacre Brewery, Saturday, October 28, 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., $25, 21+ Celebrate the rich and spooky history of women in beer!

Did you know that the original beer brewers were women? Did you know that for the vast majority of history, women ran the beer world? Did you know that Halloween candy and beer are actually a delicious combo?

Well, this is the class to find out!

Join Wiseacre on a tour of their Downtown HQ facility while they talk all about beer history, women in beer, and where witches come in to play.

Reefer Madness The Musical TheatreWorks@The Square, performances through November 5, $30 Inspired by the original 1936 film of the same name, this raucous

musical comedy takes a tonguein-cheek look at the hysteria caused when clean-cut kids fall prey to marijuana, leading them on a hysterical downward spiral filled with evil jazz music, sex, and violence.

Performances are Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m.

More info at newmoontheatre.org.

Halloween Comic Fest 901 Comics East, Saturday, October 28, noon-4 p.m.

Free comics, candy, and more!

Come in costume or dress as yourself. Members of the MidSouth Cartoonists Association will be on hand selling their latest zines, comics, and art. If you love Free Comic Book Day, you’re gonna love Halloween Comic Fest, too!

MUSIC By Alex Greene

Activist, Artist, Man

PHOTO: RICHARD WILLIAMS

The Mad Lads Thus, they’re a key to understanding the local Black community at the time.

Another Memphis quality of the group was how close to the musical world its members were, and this week’s celebration of The Invaders will also spotlight a Stax Records singing group of the era, the Mad Lads. The film screens at the Crosstown Theater on Thursday, followed by a performance by the Mad Lads at the Stax Museum of American Soul Music on Friday, and the twin events are a hat-tip of sorts to a founder of both the Mad Lads and The Invaders, John Gary Williams, who died in 2019. His presence will be deeply felt by many who attend.

It makes perfect sense, then, that the Mad Lads performance (led by Williams’ brother Richard) will be preceded by the

unveiling of a new exhibit area at the Stax Museum focused solely on John Gary Williams and his impact. Stax Museum collections manager and archivist Leila Hamdan says, “This exhibit is very important and meaningful. John Gary lived his last years as a very strong community member. He was a minister. He was a family man. And, you know, we want to honor him in all the phases of his life, not for being an Invader, or being in the Mad Lads. He was a lot more than that.”

Williams developed a following over the years for his work with both groups, but also for his solo album on Stax and its title single, “The Whole Damn World is Going Crazy.” All told, his story is one of increased awareness of the world’s injustices, underscored by his service in Vietnam, and his attempts to address that through both activism and art.

For Ari “King” Khan, whose brilliant, ’70s-soul-inflected score brings The Invaders to life, the two are inseparable. Well before last year’s Gonerfest, he was already excited about this week’s events. “For the 20th Anniversary of the Stax Museum, they’re going to make a John Gary Williams exhibit, and include the jacket of The Invaders in it,” he enthused.

“They want to shine a light on revolution.

I feel like Stax was so important, spiritually, cosmically, and politically. By embracing the story of The Invaders, the museum’s correcting a grand error. Imagine if Dr. King had met with the Invaders and said, ‘We’re going to convert all the Black Power groups to working through nonviolence.’ Imagine if the ghettos had been transformed into intellectual playgrounds for poor people.

America would look very different. People are very hopeless right now, but there’s a beautiful connection between doo-wop, rock-and-roll, and Black Power to inspire us, and it’s all there in the story of John Gary Williams.”

A Celebration of the Mad Lads and the Invaders includes a screening of the film at Crosstown Theater on Thursday, October 26th, 7 p.m., and a performance by the new Mad Lads at the Stax Museum on Friday, October 27th, 6 p.m. Original Invaders member John B. Smith will speak at both events. Free.

TICKETS AVAILABLE ORPHEUM-MEMPHIS.COM/ONSTAGE THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

A

mid the smorgasbord of screenings available during this week’s Indie Memphis Film Festival, there’s one non-festival screening that any aficionado of either documentaries or Memphis activism should make a point of seeing. While The Invaders was featured at Indie Memphis seven years ago, it’s more relevant than ever. The local activist group from which the film takes its name was both a part of and ahead of its time.

Many reviews note that The Invaders were not unlike the Black Panthers, but as original Invader John B. Smith told the Memphis Flyer after the film was made, “We were not the Black Panthers. We were not gun toters or anything. We were a social change organization. We had a program that we were running in the community, we were working with young people, and when we got involved in the sanitation strike is when the Commercial Appeal and the Press Scimitar picked up on the Invaders. We had been operating a year before then.”

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

Twin events honor founder of both the Mad Lads and The Invaders, John Gary Williams.

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PHOTO: MATTHEW MURPHY

FA M I LY

CALENDAR of EVENTS: October 26 Nov. 1

Beetlejuice ... Beetlejuice ... Beetlejuice. Say his name three times, and summon a night of spooky fun with the iconic musical’s run at the Orpheum.

Halloween Spooktacular

It’s all treats and no tricks at this must-do annual festival for the family.

Saturday, Oct. 28, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

CHILDREN’S MUSEUM OF MEMPHIS

Rock-n-Romp

Family-friendly concert to feature costume contest, arts and craft activity for kids. $5. Saturday, Oct. 28, 1-5 p.m.

Halloween Comic Fest 2023

RAVINE

Free comics, candy, and more. Saturday, Oct. 28, noon-4 p.m.

Underwater Bubble Show

Go below the surface into a majestic world where fantasy becomes reality. $35. Thursday, Oct. 26, 5 p.m., 7 p.m.

901 COMICS EAST

H A L LOW E E N E V E N TS

BUCKMAN ARTS CENTER AT ST. MARY’S SCHOOL

F ES T IVA L

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

Howlloween Dog Costume Contest

23rd Annual Black Lodge Halloween Masquerade Ball

A night of music and mischief, of costumes and chaos, as a devilish mix of dancing, drinks, and debauchery is unleashed. $20-$25.

Saturday, Oct. 28, 7 p.m.

India Fest

Providing a greater understanding and appreciation for the diversity of India’s culture.

Saturday, Oct. 28, 10 a.m.-8 p.m.

BLACK LODGE

Black October

AGRICENTER MEMPHIS

DUE TO SPACE LIMITATIONS, Dress to impress the creatures of the night.

Oktoberfest at Overton Square ONGOING WEEKLY EVENTS $10-$20. Saturday, Oct. 28, 9 p.m.-2 a.m.

Immerse yourself in a vibrant atmosphere filled ORANGE MOUND TOWER WILL APPEAR IN THE FLYER’S with the sights, sounds, and flavors of Germany.

ONLINE CALENDAR ONLY. Saturday, Oct. 28, noon-5 p.m.

Dia de los Muertos Festival & Parade OVERTON SQUARE FOR COMPREHENSIVE EVENT Honor your ancestors and celebrate the cycle of life and death. Saturday, Oct. 28, 11:30 a.m.LISTINGS, VISIT EVENTS. The New York Times Syndication Sales Corporation 3:30 p.m.

MEMPHISFLYER.COM/CAL. 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018

For Information Call: 1-800-972-3550 For Release Thursday, February 21, 2019

Crossword ACROSS

30 Jumping-off

points?

31 “The Simpsons” 7 Slim amphibian clown 11 Genre for Jay-Z 33 Brexit land and Master P 35 Govt. ID 14 Relative of a llama 36 E.M.T., at times 15 “Damn right!”

38 Dict. listing 17 Carnegie ___ 41 One interred in Red Square 18 Two tablespoons 42 Line on a weather map 19 Shovel’s go-with 44 Sated for now, with “over” 20 Performances with no 47 “Thelma & accompaniment Louise” studio 22 Mostly bygone 49 “Scat!” airline amenity 50 Disquiet 23 Many a Clint 52 Attends without Eastwood role a date 25 Bay of ___, body separating 54 Toboggan, e.g.

Spain and 55 YugoslavFrance American tennis great 27 Chick of jazz 28 Plea at sea 57 ___ Major

October 26-November 1, 2023

1 Made jokes

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ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE L A S H A D D S E T C H A L I A S R O U E S O H O B U T T W E I G H T T O A T T M I A D A M B E L T S E N D I N G A I S L E B E E C A L M S E A S P A A A A H E E D C P L U S R U T B U Y C H A N T S T H E S E E I N H O S T R O Y E T S D O L U N C H E W E G U I S E P A N E R A S T R A P L I A M Y E T T R O Y C Z E C H P L E A S L U L L S I C K S O A M I E E L Y I T T Y T R O T

58 Question

that might be answered “Muy bien, y usted?”

60 Belgian brew, familiarly 62 Movie franchise that set a record opening weekend gross in 2018 ($640 million) 63 Be visibly precarious 64 Neighbor of Homer 65 Dumb ___ (oafs) 66 Feels

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Party with your ghouls and jam to DJ Bassventura in the Haunted Coach House. Saturday, Oct. 28, 6 p.m.-1 a.m.

LOFLIN YARD

October Trolley Night on Spooky Main Summon your scream squad and join in a frightfully fun time. Friday, Oct. 27, 6 p.m.

S. MAIN ST.

Parties at the Pyramid - Costume Party Dance the night away with the best skyline view of Memphis. Friday, Oct. 27, 6 p.m.

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THE BROOM CLOSET

Time Warp Drive-In: Shocktober 10 - Legends of Horror

Screening the landmarks of fright films: Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. $25. Saturday, Oct. 28, 7 p.m.

Women and Witches in Beer Halloween Candy and Beer Pairing

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This workshop will cover some of the history, traditions, and customs of Samhain and will be followed by a mini Samhain ritual. Free.

Saturday, Oct. 28, 3 p.m.

MALCO SUMMER 4 DRIVE-IN

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Loflin Graveyard

Samhain 101 Workshop and Ritual

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SHELBY FARMS PARK

BIG CYPRESS LODGE

Edited by Will Shortz

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Celebrate the rich and spooky history of women in beer. Halloween candy beer pairing.

Saturday, Oct. 28, 1 p.m.

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P E R FO R M I N G ARTS

Masters of Mayhem

Get ready for Masters of Mayhem, a night of aerial arts and contortion inspired by the world’s most iconic villains. $25-$30. Saturday, Oct. 28, 8:30-9 p.m.

HIGH EXPECTATIONS AERIAL ARTS

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1 Fills to the gills

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MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART

Every dog who dresses up will receive free goodies and be eligible to enter our costume contest! Saturday, Oct. 28, 10-11:30 a.m.

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and Noras, PUZZLE BY ROSS TRUDEAU formally 11 “The magic 48 Ending with 34 Always, to a 3 Printing of a Fannie or bard word” magazine with Ginnie 37 Pep 12 Epic that two different opens “Of arms covers, e.g.

38 Prognosticated 51 County in and the man I England or New 39 One taken by 4 Counts Jersey sing …” the arm 5 Green prefix 13 Geometric 40 Grosses out 53 Leaders before diamonds 6 Matisse’s “La 41-Across 41 Entice 16 Meme feline ___” 43 Volcanic rocks 56 French “to be” 7 What Alice goes 21 Hosp. areas 44 Native of through to find 24 Animosities 59 Maniacal Florence, e.g.

“Jabberwocky” 26 Hindu retreats leader?

45 Head over printed heels 29 Aspen or Tahoe 61 Big name in backward denim 32 Urge 46 Judged 8 Baylor’s home 9 Quite wee Online subscriptions: Today’s puzzle and more than 7,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/crosswords ($39.95 a year).

10 Home of the Read about and comment on each puzzle: nytimes.com/wordplay.

Tisch Sch. of the Arts

T H EAT E R

Beetlejuice

Beetlejuice … Beetlejuice … Beetlejuice. $45$135. Tuesday, Oct. 31-Nov. 5.

ORPHEUM THEATRE

Blithe Spirit

A crime writer who has been creatively blocked since the death of his first wife is now tensely remarried to an uptight second wife.

So he summons a spiritualist who summons his first wife’s ghost. Through Oct. 29.

THEATRE MEMPHIS

Reefer Madness The Musical

This raucous musical comedy takes a tonguein-cheek look at the hysteria caused when clean-cut kids fall prey to marijuana. Through Oct. 29.

THEATREWORKS @ THE SQUARE

TO U R S

True Crimes of Bygone Times: A Tour of Elmwood Cemetery

A tragic tour of twisted tales. $20. Saturday, Oct. 28, 2-3:30 p.m.

ELMWOOD CEMETERY

about the best way to generate the good fortune. Some people say the open end of the horseshoe should point upward, since that collects the luck. Others insist it’s best for the horseshoe to point down, as that showers luck on those who enter and leave the house. If you experiment with this fun myth, I advise you to point the open end up. It’s time for you to gather blessings, help, and fortuity. Halloween costume accessories: good luck charms like a four-leaf clover, acorn, cat’s eye gemstone, ankh, dragon, laughing Buddha, Ganesh statue, and horseshoe.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The country where I live, the U.S., has banned over 2,500 books in recent years. I’m appalled by the ignorance that fuels this idiotic despotism. But there has been an amusing consequence, which I am pleased to report: Banning the books has sometimes hiked their sales. Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe had a 130 percent increase. Art Spiegelman’s Maus and Maus II jumped 50 percent. Let this scenario serve as an inspirational metaphor for you in the coming weeks. If any person or institution tries to repress, deny, or resist you, do what you’re doing even bigger and better. Use their opposition as a power boost. Halloween costume suggestion: rebel, dissident, or protestor.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): There would be no life on Earth if it weren’t for the sun.

Our home star’s energy is the central force at work in the creation and sustenance of all humans, animals, and plants. Yet we must be sure not to get extravagant amounts of our good thing. An overabundance of solar heat and radiance can cause failed crops, dehydration, droughts, skin cancer, and wildfires. Are other factors at work in your sphere that are also nourishing in moderate amounts but unhealthy in excess? And do you know when just right becomes too much? Now is a favorable time to ruminate on these matters. Halloween costume suggestion: Goldilocks, Lady Justice with her scales, or a body suit adorned with a giant yin and yang symbol.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Do you ever feel you are treated unfairly at your job?

Is your workplace sometimes detrimental to your health? Is it possible that a few small changes could add up to a big improvement in how you feel while you’re earning a living? There’s rarely a perfect moment to address these concerns, but the coming weeks will be a more favorable time than usual. If you decide to seek shifts, devise a strategy that’s as foolproof as possible. Resolve to be calm, poised, and unflusterable. Halloween costume suggestion: a worker doing your ideal job.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): The earliest known human settlement is Göbekli Tepe, in what’s now the country of Turkey.

When archaeologists first excavated it in 1994, they realized it was built over 11,000 years ago. This was shocking news, since it dramatically contradicted previous estimates of how long people have lived in villages. I’m predicting a comparable shift in your understanding of your own past, Libra. The full effect may not be apparent for months, but there will be interesting jolts soon. Halloween costume suggestion: archaeologist, time traveler, or yourself in a past life.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Cancerian comedian Dave Barry says that as he grows older, he looks forward to “continued immaturity.” That sentiment is probably based on the fact that his humor is often juvenile and silly. (I like it, though!)

I’m guessing it’s also because he aspires to remain youthful and innocent and surprisable as he ages. I mention this, fellow Cancerian, because the coming weeks will be an excellent time to celebrate and honor the parts of you that are still blooming but not yet in full blossom. Be grateful you have not become a jaded know-it-all.

Would you consider revisiting joys you loved as a child and teenager? Halloween costume suggestion: your younger self.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Horseshoes have symbolized good luck in many cultures.

A common usage is to hang them over front doors. But there’s disagreement

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Only two items appear more often in the world’s landfills than disposable diapers. They seem to be among the least ecologically sound products. Or maybe not. Japanese researchers at the University of Kitakyushu have made building materials out of them in combination with gravel, sand, and cement. (Read more: tinyurl.com/BetterWaste). In the spirit of this potentially glorious alchemical transmutation, and in accordance with astrological omens, I encourage you to ruminate on how you might convert wasted stuff into usable valuables in your own sphere. Halloween costume suggestion: a janitor or maid wearing a gold crown and pearls.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Of all the ideas propounded by major religions, the saddest is the Christian assertion that

all of us are born sinful — that we come into this world with a corruption that renders us fundamentally flawed: tainted, soiled, guilty, foul. I reject this stupid nonsense. In my spiritual philosophy, we are all born gorgeous, loving geniuses.

Tough experiences may diminish our radiance and make it a challenge to be our best, but we never lose the gorgeous, loving genius at our core. In accordance with astrological mandates, your task in the coming weeks is to get into close touch with this pure source. Halloween costume suggestion: your gorgeous, loving genius.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): According to my meticulous analysis of the astrological omens, you now have a sacred right to expand your ego at least one full size.

Even two sizes will probably be fine. Your guardian angel is lobbying for you to strut and swagger, and so are your muses, your ancestors, and God Herself. I hope you will overcome any shyness you feel about expressing your talents, your intelligence, and your unique understanding of the world. Halloween costume suggestion: a charming braggart, charismatic egomaniac, or beautiful narcissist.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “The secret for harvesting the greatest fruitfulness and enjoyment is to live dangerously!”

Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said that. “Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius!” he added. “Send your ships into uncharted seas!” As for you in the coming weeks, Pisces, I don’t recommend you live dangerously, but I do suggest you live adventurously. Surpass your limits, if you dare! Transcend your expectations and explore the frontiers. Those activities will be a good use of your life energy and are likely to be rewarded. Halloween costume suggestions: daredevil, swashbuckler, gambler, fortune-hunter, or knight-errant.

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ARIES (March 21-April 19): Shadow work is a psychological practice that has been deeply healing for me. It involves exploring the dark places in my soul and being in intimate contact with my unripe and wounded aspects. Engaging in this hard labor ensures that my less beautiful qualities never take control of me and never spill out into toxic interactions with people. I bring this up, Aries, because the coming weeks will be a favorable time for you to do shadow work. Halloween costume suggestion: Be your shadow, demon, or unripe self.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Scorpio author Ófeigur Sigurðsson writes, “You should never do what’s expected of you; there’s always another path through life than the one before you.” I wouldn’t recommend his approach to any other zodiac sign but Scorpio. And I would only advocate it for maybe 40 percent of Scorpios 10 percent of the time. The coming weeks will be one of those 10-percent times. So if you are among the 40 percent who would thrive on this demanding but potentially exhilarating counsel, get ready to be as original and imaginative in living your life as you have ever been. Halloween costume suggestion: unicorn, dragon, or phoenix.

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Blithe Spirit The Theatre Memphis play is quirky, curious, and unpredictable.

D

uring the opening scene of Theatre Memphis’ production of Blithe Spirit, I was worried. Noël Coward’s arguably most successful play starts out with a quiet moment between husband and wife, the exposition leisurely woven into the mundane, everyday sort of conversation that occurs between spouses. What made me anxious was the possibility that I would have to work to give my full concentration to this show — I’m currently going through the sort of personal crisis that makes distracting my mind difficult.

Fortunately, my worries proved fruitless. Once the action got going, I experienced one of the purest joys of entertainment: I forgot everything else.

Blithe Spirit is funny in the way that I like best: There are plenty of big laughs, but much of the humor is hidden in the dialogue-heavy play; blink and you’ll miss it. Luckily, the cast makes you want to pay attention.

Blithe Spirit is a black comedy, one that is perfect for October as it is rife with both death and the arcane. Upper-crust author Charles Condomine and his second wife, Ruth, are planning a dinner party/ seance in order to covertly observe their town’s local medium, Madame Arcati.

Charles wants to see the “ticks of the trade” in action as research for his next literary project. Charles, Ruth, and their two friends are all decided skeptics, but it turns out that Madame Arcati is the real deal. During the seance she inadvertently summons the spirit of Charles’ first wife, Elvira, though Charles is the only person who can see or hear her. Crises ensue.

I always enjoy plays with unsympathetic protagonists. Characters who are inherently flawed are the most interesting and realistic, but in watching this play, I am fully on Ruth’s side, all imperfections notwithstanding. A woman making every effort to remain level-headed while attempting to rationally explain something to a (predictably obtuse) man is something I gleefully identify with, all the more so because of Lena Wallace Black’s energetic performance. I’ve observed Wallace Black in other productions, but seeing her embody Ruth Condomine I realized she possesses a rare gift, one that pertains to the physicality of acting. Simply put, her movements look natural, which may

sound easy but is actually one of the most difficult things to achieve onstage.

Each member of this relatively small cast brings their own panache to the humor of the script, but one thing that stood out was the way Martha Jones approached the somewhat odd (if we’re being polite), downright weird (if we’re not) character of Madame Arcati. This is a role that could very easily fall into an archetype pitfall of being boring to watch, as audiences know what to expect from a batty fortune teller.

Jones, however, brings a sincerity to the character that makes her antics that much more humorous; it’s obvious she’s having fun playing this character, which in turn makes it fun to witness.

PHOTO: CARLA MCDONALD

Martha Jones as Madame Arcati There’s not really a weak link in this cast, as even the character I was least interested in — Charles Condomine — shifts at the last minute and becomes much more intriguing. The ending of this play is one that had me scratching my head, but not in a bad way. Adam Remsen plays Charles Condomine as a kind of weaksauce, limp-fish-handshake man who is ruled not only by the women in his life but also by his own selfishness. In short, a pretty familiar male cliche. That is, until the final scene, when the hitherto boring Mr. Condomine becomes something else.

Remsen does a delightful job in showing Condomine’s true colors, leaning into the snide, boorish cad that has been hiding under the surface all along.

What I’m curious about, in contemplating the close of this play, is this: Is Charles Condomine acting like such a selfish prick in order to drive away the spirits of his wives (yep, by this time they’re both dead) for their sakes, or is he truly just another asshole finding his stride? The latter seems far more likely, but it is an added layer of entertainment to wonder.

Blithe Spirit runs through October 29th at Theatre Memphis.

FOOD By Michael Donahue

Southern Charcuterie

PHOTO: MICHAEL DONAHUE

Paula Kovacs, Chelsey Barringer, and Amber Winters Describing her charcuterie boards, Barringer says, “You get fresh fruits, fresh vegetables. You get curated meats and cheese. And you get two dips. One is my homemade cookie dough fruit dip.”

She also includes her fried pickle dip, hummus, and bacon cheddar ranch dip.

And in a separate box she adds “flavored popcorn, crackers, miniature chocolate chip cookies, a cranberry ice stick,” as well as “an assortment of nuts and praline pecans.”

Barringer and her husband, Bryan, who grew up in New Iberia, Louisiana, love to order charcuterie boards at restaurants. But, she says, “It was kind of hard to find one that wasn’t predominantly meat or had enough cheese, accompaniments, or jam.”

She was hooked after she made her first charcuterie board for a baby shower.

The board, which reflected her “Cajun Southern style” (her husband taught her to cook Cajun food), consisted of “a crawfish Rotel dip that you could eat with Fritos chips. Or we had red tortilla chips.

Dolphins made out of bananas. I made a shark out of a watermelon by carving it. It was sliced watermelon with feta and

balsamic vinegar on top.”

The 12-by-4 foot board served close to 75 or 100 people.

Her creativity in the kitchen began when she was in the fifth grade and started cooking dinner for her single working mother and her two sisters. “We would kind of play around with different ingredients. As disgusting as this sounds, one was mac and cheese, hot dogs, and baked beans. It had to be the maple brown sugar baked beans. That’s how I fell in love with that savory sweet combination.”

Barringer was a mortgage officer for six years before quitting to concentrate on her charcuterie boards.

She thought her business would “be like a little side hobby.” But her business “took off ” after she began posting photos of her boards on Facebook.

It really took off when she began doing catering jobs for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Evangelical Christian School, and Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital.

Barringer’s charcuterie boards range in price from $65 to $880. And customers get to keep the boards, which they can return to get refilled at a reduced price.

After outgrowing her kitchen and her mother’s kitchen, Barringer opened Graz’n Tables Charcuterie at 1996 Houston Levee Road, Suite 102, in Collierville. Her sister, co-chef Amber Winters, and their mother, Paula Kovacs, work with her.

In addition to charcuterie, Barringer makes a variety of breakfast biscuits, breakfast burritos, croissant sandwiches, and her Memphis Muffuletta, which consists of fresh baked sourdough bread with olive tapas, four slices of provolone cheese, pepperoni salami, and prosciutto.

Barringer mashes it down with a panini press and serves it with mustard and aioli and her homemade pasta salad.

A big community supporter, Barringer carries locally-made products. And she believes “no child should go hungry in this city. Memphis is a food city. I even have a sign in my store, ‘If you can’t afford a meal, let me know and we’ll supply one.’”

Barringer will hold a “Trunk or Treat” at 7 p.m. on October 27th at Graz’n Tables Charcuterie. About 25 of her vendors will load up the back of their cars in the parking lot with homemade chili, chicken chili, cornbread, and other items. Inside, Barringer will provide apple cider and hot cocoas.

“We’ll be serving families throughout the night. And kids can go through the cars and go trick-or-treating.”

And, she adds, “It’s free from my vendors. Just show up.”

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

C

helsey Barringer credits Lunchables as the inspiration for Graz’n Tables Charcuterie.

“As kids, we loved Lunchables,” says Barringer, owner of the business that specializes in custom-made charcuterie boards. “We loved eating with our hands.”

Lunchables, which are still made, were “predominantly cheese and crackers” and were favorites of hers growing up “as a ’90s child” in Raleigh.

The snacks, which were “like a miniaturized version of a board,” were in the back of her mind when she began creating charcuterie boards. She thought, “What happened if you created a healthier version? Not processed things. Adult size.”

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

Chelsey Barringer’s Cajun chartuterie boards are never boring.

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FILM By Chris McCoy

Killers of the Flower Moon Martin Scorsese delivers a masterpiece for the ages.

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away. Oil was discovered on land belonging to the Osage tribe, upending the racial hierarchy to which the white Oklahoma establishment is accustomed. Scorsese deftly demonstrates the new power dynamic in a sweeping tour of the town that ends with a white car dealer on his knees begging a well-heeled Osage couple to buy one more luxury automobile so he can feed his family.

The exception to the ever-present racial tension is King Hale, who has earned the Osage’s admiration with his generosity and fair dealing. In public, he treats them like any other rich landowners. He even pushes his nephew Ernest into courting an Osage woman named Mollie (Lily Gladstone). Ernest, a simple man who just wants a woman who “smells good,” goes along with the plan, first becoming Mollie’s driver, then worming his way into her bed.

On-screen chemistry is a delicate and elusive thing; I dare say there has never been a film couple like Gladstone and DiCaprio. Mollie is impassive and reserved. Ernest is twitchy and clingy,

hen I asked Craig Brewer why people love Hustle & Flow, he attributed the film’s success to DJay, memorably portrayed by Terrence Howard. DJay is a pimp and lowlevel drug dealer, but he’s also a rapper who loves Shug (Taraji P. Henson). DJay veers back and forth between doing good — creating music, building community, and giving Shug hope — and doing bad — exploiting women and hurting people.

The audience roots for DJay to do the right thing, and the drama is whether or not he will transcend his circumstances and emerge a more complete person.

Martin Scorsese’s new masterpiece Killers of the Flower Moon is animated by the same moral tug-of-war. Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a veteran returning to his hometown of Gray Horse, Oklahoma, after serving as a cook in the Army during World War I. The not-exactly war hero is taken in by his uncle, William Hale (Robert De Niro, in top form), who insists to be called by his middle name, King.

Things have changed since Ernest went

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always looking for the right lie to fit the situation. His come-ons to Mollie are transparently lame, but he eventually wears down her defenses.

Gladstone reveals Mollie’s shifting, layered motivations with an uncanny subtlety. She and her sisters, like many of the newly flush Osage women, take trophy white guys for husbands. But while her family is rich on paper, Mollie is in a state-ordered conservatorship because she has been declared “incompetent” on the basis that she’s not a rich white guy, so why should she have money? Marrying a white man means that her children will be the masters of their own financial fates — assuming she and the family fortune live that long. For one thing, the

Based on a true story, Scorsese’s latest film receives critical acclaim.

Osage are plagued by diabetes, which Dr. James Shoun (Steve Witting) tells Mollie is because they’re eating like white people.

For another, the wealthy Osage are being murdered for their money and the mineral rights to their oil fields.

Scorsese spends the first part of this 206-minute epic methodically doling out the story of Ernest and Mollie’s weird romance. He paints Ernest as a thick schlub who lucked into a supportive family and the love of a good woman. Mollie thinks she can trust Ernest because his lies are so transparent. Then, the director casually reveals that Ernest is also a bush-

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FILM By Chris McCoy whacker and bank robber. In fact, the man orchestrating the murder of the Osage is their biggest champion, King Hale. He’s methodically killing off Mollie’s sisters while waiting for her elderly mother Lizzie Q (Tantoo Cardinal) to join the ancestors.

Once Mollie is the sole heir of the family fortune, Ernest will kill her with tainted insulin, thus bringing her oil rights under King’s control.

Killers of the Flower Moon is based on a 2017 nonfiction book by David Grann, subtitled The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI. After the Osage plead for relief from President Calvin Coolidge, the newly formed FBI shows up in the form of Agent Tom White (Jesse Plemons) and starts digging into the locals’ secrets. Scorsese brings all of his thematic threads together in a jaw-dropping scene where White

meets with his investigators on a lonely Oklahoma hilltop. As they piece together King Hale’s genocidal plot, they see in the distance men fighting a grass fire, their forms shimmering through the heat and flame like souls condemned to hell.

Many of Scorsese’s recurring themes appear — toxic masculinity, mystic spirituality, American society’s constant undertone of violence — but changing the setting from the Northeastern urban centers to the Oklahoma plains has provided new perspective, and a wider canvas. Killers of the Flower Moon is an exceedingly rare gem: a late-career breakthrough from one of America’s greatest artists.

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THE LAST WORD By Abigail Morici

On Alice and Freda A story of love, murder, and memory.

In 1892, when Parisian Sarah Bernhardt made a visit to the county jail, she was warned not to speak with the 19-year-old prisoner whose sensational crime called to her like a siren. The actress was in Memphis on tour for the play Fedora, for which she starred as a grieving woman hellbent on avenging her recently slain fiance. When Bernhardt wasn’t on stage, she was consuming every newspaper column she could find about the murderous and so-called insane girl in the cell before her. She cut articles out and pasted them into a scrapbook; she went to the murder scene and sketched it. It was for research, she said, for she hoped she could find a writer to create a play that favored her penchant for blood-thirsty roles. It was a great story, a “sublime tragedy with a grand motive.”

And it was — and is, as the writer in me must admit — a great story. It captivated audiences throughout the world at the time, and put Memphis on the map in some ways. People have always loved true crime.

It all started at the Higbee School for Girls, a finishing school for the daughters of prominent Memphians, where Alice Mitchell and Freda Ward would roam the school halls kissing, hugging, and hand-holding. Back then, this kind of behavior wasn’t seen as anything more than “chumming,” a kind of rehearsal for the courtship by a young woman’s future husband.

But for Alice and Freda it was more — especially for Alice, who became deeply obsessed with Freda.

Freda, it turned out, was in love with two men in addition to Alice. Soon, Freda’s family left Memphis, visiting only during the summer months, leaving Alice depressed and desperate. She proposed marriage, saying she would begin dressing as a man and that they could live as husband and wife in St. Louis. Freda accepted, but her older sister discovered their engagement and forbade them from communicating with each other.

The next time Alice saw Freda she slashed her throat with her father’s razor. Freda died within moments. When Alice confessed to her crime, she said if she couldn’t marry Freda, then no one should, a perplexing motive to just about everyone at the time.

To those in the 1890s, same-sex love just wasn’t heard of — at least, it wasn’t publicly recognized. Doctors diagnosed Alice with a “malady of the mind” that could easily “lead on to murder,” and the jury for her trial found her insane on the basis of her “unnatural” love for Freda.

Subsequently, the state ordered her to be committed to the Tennessee State Insane Asylum in Bolivar.

The actress Bernhardt kept in touch with Alice, but the play about Alice she wanted written never materialized. Bernhardt would go on to have a successful career, though, playing dreadful and powerful women on stage, while Alice withered away in an asylum and Freda laid in her unmarked grave, which remained so until 2018.

Alice died in 1898 of unknown causes in Bolivar. Today she is buried in Elmwood Cemetery, only a short walk from Freda’s grave. Her gravestone shows the wear of years — a chunk of stone is missing at the bottom, it’s discolored in places, spotted with moss in others, with the occasional drop of bird mess. It’s a reminder of her ordinariness, that she wasn’t some monster, a Medea in wait for her final act. She was just a girl — a murderer, to be sure — but first a girl, and then a story that has since faded from collective memory, replaced by more sensationalized and gruesome stories, which will one day be replaced themselves.

Through a modern lens, Alice’s case can seem more sympathetic, with our understanding of the LGBTQ community and mental health issues. We can analyze her case for the impacts of her family’s wealth and race; we can note its relevance. We can look at the bigger picture. We have to look at the bigger picture. After all, it’s the bigger picture which all the gravestones beside Alice and Freda helped create before passing it onto the next generations — the very gravestones who poured over the newspapers detailing the salacious story.

But, as the Commercial Appeal wrote in her death announcement, “sensations are ephemeral, for the death of Alice Mitchell recalls to many the fact that she had lived.”

And, I would add, the murder of Freda Ward recalls to many the fact that she, too, had lived.

“… sensations are ephemeral, for the death of Alice Mitchell recalls to many the fact that she had lived.”

PHOTO: ABIGAIL MORICI

THE LAST WORD

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