MemphisFlyer 11/12/2026 by Contemporary Media

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MICAELA WATTS

OUR 1968TH ISSUE • 11.12.26 • FREE

A toddler waiting for his mother to conclude her check-in at the ISAP office.

Deportation Trap

ICE is arresting a rash of immigrants at routine check-ins. Critics question the reliability of the agency’s smartphone app designed to monitor immigrants on supervised release.

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OUR 1968TH ISSUE 11.12.26

Deportation Trap ICE is arresting a rash of immigrants at routine check-ins. Critics question the reliability of the agency’s smartphone app designed to monitor immigrants on supervised release. PHOTO: MICAELA WATTS

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NEWS & OPINION THE FLY-BY - 4 AT LARGE - 7 COVER STORY “DEPORTATION TRAP” BY ERIKA KONIG AND MICAELA WATTS, INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC SERVICE REPORTING - 8 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT WE RECOMMEND - 12

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CARRIE BEASLEY Senior Art Director CHRISTOPHER MYERS Advertising Art Director NEIL WILLIAMS Graphic Designer

CONTENTS

SHARA CLARK Editor-in-Chief ALEX GREENE Managing Editor, Music Editor BRUCE VANWYNGARDEN Senior Editor KAILYNN JOHNSON News Reporter CHRIS MCCOY Film and TV Editor MICHAEL DONAHUE, JON W. SPARKS Staff Writers KIMBERLY HAM Calendar Editor, Copy Editor JESSE DAVIS, EMILY GUENTHER, COCO JUNE, ANDRIA LISLE, PATRICIA LOCKHART, KATHLEEN MURRAY, FRANK MURTAUGH, LINDSEY D. RHEA Contributing Columnists SHARON BROWN, AIMEE STIEGEMEYER Grizzlies Reporters KRYSTION PEGUES, DYLAN “RJ” RAND Editorial Interns

THE

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MEMernet Memphis on the internet. MEMPHIS, USA In the aftermath of Election Day, a Redditor proclaimed they were glad to “live in the state of Memphis.” This statement was followed by a blue heart emoji. One netizen commented, “I know it had Republican booty cheeks clenched to see all three gerrymandered districts they split Memphis into get closer than they expected.” T MACK

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During a Grizzlies game, TikTok user Devin Walker captured a man baring it all during a quick dance break on the jumbotron, before cutting back to game footage. He was later identified in the comments as Pastor Wayne Francis. “Win or lose it’s a party inside FedExForum,” Walker said.

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Questions, Answers + Attitude Edited by Kailynn Johnson

W E E K T H AT WA S By Flyer staff

Election, Lawsuit, & Chamber Results tallied, xAI lawsuit dismissal blocked, and Greater Memphis Chamber selects new leader. ELECTION U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn claimed victory as Tennessee’s first woman governor. She received 45.6 percent of the vote, with Democratic candidate Jerri Green receiving 43 percent. Independent candidate David Hatley received 9.3 percent. “Tennessee can and should be THE state of opportunity,” Blackburn said in a Facebook post. “My promise is simple: Tennessee will be a state where hard work pays off, families can put down roots, and everyone has the opportunity PHOTO: JOHN PARTIPILO | TENNESSEE LOOKOUT to build a better future.” U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn takes the stage before supporters at Green said she is “not The Pinnacle in downtown Nashville on Nov. 3, 2026. Blackburn eked out a narrow going anywhere” followwin to become Tennessee’s first woman governor. ing her loss, and she was “deeply proud” of the work her team did in the past year. She thanked her family, was brought by the National Association for the Advancevolunteers, and Tennesseans for their commitments. “While ment of Colored People (NAACP). The advocacy group this election has concluded, our work is far from over,” took legal action against the company for the operation of Green said in a statement. She brought attention to “urgent” its power plant located at 2875 Stanton Road in Southaven. issues facing the state, such as defending public education, The suit included information from the Mississippi Departexpanding healthcare access, and addressing the rising cost ment of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) that said they of living. understood the plant’s “combustion turbines” to be “mobile” Republican Sen. Brent Taylor will represent Tennessee’s 9th and “portable.” MDEQ said “the referenced turbines are Congressional District, following a close and contentious race exempt from permitting requirements.” The court, however, with Democrat Rep. Justin J. Pearson. Pearson conceded Nofound that the turbines in question “are not mobile sources” vember 4th — trailing his opponent by roughly 1.1 percent. by “federal regulations” and required air permits. The Taylor claimed victory after 11 p.m. on November 3rd. turbines must also comply with Clean Air Act standards. In Taylor shared, “Whether or not you voted for me, I hear October, the court also blocked an attempt by the United you loud and clear, and I vow to do everything I can as your States Department of Justice (DOJ) to dismiss the lawsuit. Congressman to lower the costs of gas, groceries, and utility bills.” Pearson professed his love for the state and congratulat- NEW PRESIDENT AND CEO ed constituents for “shocking the nation”: “Tennessee politics Joshua Gunn will serve as president and CEO of the Greater will never be the same,” he said. “We all learned that we have Memphis Chamber. The organization announced last more in common than we could have ever imagined.” Friday that Gunn, a former member of the National Board Republican Charlie Hatcher defeated Democrat Chaz of Directors for the Association of Chamber of Commerce Molder for the District 5 seat. Republican David Kustoff Executives, was selected following a national search for cansecured a District 8 win against Democrat Heidi Kuhn. didates. Officials said Gunn will start working in early December. Gunn’s appointment comes months after previous x AI LAWSUIT president and CEO Ted Townsend stepped down from the An attempt to throw out a lawsuit alleging that xAI, aka role in April. Townsend was voted into the role in 2022. Tennessee Lookout contributed to this report. SpaceXAI, violated the Clean Air Act was dismissed by the Visit the News Blog at memphisflyer.com for fuller versions United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi. xAI filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which of these stories and more local news.

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CITY REPORTER By Flyer staff

‘Substandard’ Conditions

Researchers said tenant experiences aren’t changing and called on the city and other elected leaders to address these challenges.

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emphis renters said they’ve experienced retaliation from their landlords after reporting housing problems, continuing a pattern monitored by the Memphis Public Interest Law Center. A report entitled “Haunted Housing: The Reality of Being a Renter in Memphis” from the Memphis Public Interest Law Center (MPILC) found that nine out of 10 renters interviewed experienced issues with their homes. However, half of renters said they received threats or eviction notices after reporting the issues. “Nearly every renter who encountered a problem notified their landlord as the law requires,” MPILC said. “Fewer than one in 10 renters who reported problems to their landlord saw those problems fixed[.]” State law outlines how landlords and tenants should interact when resolving housing issues. The purpose of the Tennessee Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act (URLTA) is to provide guidelines while also “promoting equal protection to all parties.” While the state has these safeguards and regulations in place, respondents reported disparaging behavior from landlords. “[The law] is not playing out every day on the ground or in our courts,” MPILC said. Renters must notify the landlord of pertinent problems, with 98 percent of respondents taking this step to repair their homes. However, only 8.3 percent of participants said “this step led to the problem getting fixed.” One renter said even though they emailed and visited their landlord’s office, they were consistently put off. “While most requests or repairs were ignored, some requests were met with something worse: a response designed to dissuade them from requesting again,” the report said. Researchers went on to say that renters who have pursued legal action against landlords for failure to provide a “fit and habitable” property or “supply essential services” faced eviction “and/ or monetary damages against them.” Renters also reached out to legal aid agencies, City of Memphis, and other groups for help in resolving

landlord issues. Sixty-seven percent of participants did this, which totaled 90 instances. “Renters only received assistance 22 percent of the time,” the report said. The MPILC said tenant experiences aren’t changing and called on the city and other elected leaders to address these challenges. Though they acknowledged there are laws in place for housing disputes and other issues, they said elected bodies need to prioritize “addressing poor housing conditions.” Renters reported structural issues, mold, insect and rodent infestations, plumbing issues, and more; 71 percent of renters reported structural problems including damaged roofs, floors, windows, and doors. In its 2025 edition of “Haunted Housing,” MPILC reported that residents stayed in “substandard conditions for extended periods of time.” They found this to be the case in their 2026 report as well.

PHOTO: ALLAN VEGA | UNSPLASH

Respondents said they lived in these environments for about 61 percent of the time they were tenants. The average tenancy was at least two years, MPILC said. Though 67 percent of participants moved from their affected areas, some experienced similar issues in other places. “This suggests that substandard housing conditions may persist across multiple residences, leaving renters facing the same challenges even after relocating,” the report said. MPILC said their findings exemplify a “recurring pattern” and called for change. “Effective reform must make repairs easier to obtain for renters, retaliation harder to carry out by landlords, legal assistance more accessible to renters, and relocation more realistic for renters when a home cannot be made safe,” MPILC recommended.

A T L A R G E B y B r u c e Va n W y n g a r d e n

Art of the Squeal It’s time to pull back the curtain.

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this, bitches. Trump has spent the past two years hanging giant posters of his face on federal buildings all over Washington, D.C. He’s created a coin with his image on it. He’s put his signature on all newly minted American paper money. He’s trying to put his name on more public buildings in the nation’s capital, including a proposed “Arc de Trump” that will loom over Arlington National Cemetery and that stupid White House ballroom. Trump has sought to impose his will, often via selective legal prosecution by his “Justice” Department, on the tech industry, law firms, universities, the media, museums, national parks, the energy sector, environment protections, and nonprofit foundations. Trump’s hand-picked Health and Human Services director, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has dismantled much of that department’s infrastructure, including health regulations, pharmaceutical controls, and vaccination requirements. Millions of dollars in medical research has been cut. Then there are Trump’s impulsive, misdirected tariffs, which raised the price of most imported consumer goods sold in the U.S. Given all of that, the blue wave shouldn’t have been a surprise. And Democratic leaders are now quite aware of what heads of state all around the world — from Iran to Ukraine to France to Canada to Mexico, and anywhere else you can name — have learned: Donald. Trump. Can’t. Be. Trusted. There is no treaty, ceasefire, truce, alliance, deal, or law he won’t break if it suits him. His word is worthless. He lies like he breathes. It is his go-to move. With this awareness top of mind, I expect the House and Senate to start reversing any harmful or illegal actions Trump has taken that are within their power to reverse. They have a clear mandate: Cut funding. Issue subpoenas. Investigate the grift and the no-bid contracts. Hold hearings. Expose Trump for who he is: a modern-day Wizard of Oz, a petty, delusional man operating behind a curtain of smoke, mirrors, and deception — an act the spineless Republican Party refused to do anything about, and for which they just paid the price at the polls. The ultimate irony is that by provoking one of the greatest political defeats in modern U.S. history, Trump and the GOP may have finally managed to Make America Great Again.

NEWS & OPINION

onald Trump is about to find out how it feels to be powerless. It may take a while before the reality of his situation fully sinks in past the hairspray (and his rapidly encroaching dementia), but it will. Because this president has screwed up epically — or as he would say: “Like no one’s ever seen before.” For starters, Trump and Defense Secretary (“War is Gel!”) Pete Hegseth blundered the country into a calamitous $50 billion war with Iran that they don’t know how to end — a conflict that’s alienated our allies, enriched our enemies, and jacked the price of fuel oil for the entire world. Then there’s Trump and Stephen Miller’s performative $150 billion immigration crackdown, which unleashed poorly trained, masked “agents” to terrorize hundreds of communities, destroy thousands of families and businesses, and got dozens of people killed — on the street and in hastily constructed prison camps. Several major agricultural-industry groups recently wrote to tell Trump that his deportation policies were hurting the nation’s food supply, including farmers, processors, and delivery systems, and raising grocery prices. About 66 percent of the country’s farmworkers are/were foreign-born, they noted. So how did Trump respond? He promoted Miller to chief of staff, making him arguably the second-most powerful man in the country. Way to read the room, Donny. And make no mistake, the room is pissed. Last week’s midterm blue tsunami delivered a clear message (at least to any normal politician): America has had enough of this administration’s bullshit. It was a complete and utter butt-whipping. Counties and districts and states that have voted GOP for eons turned blue. Governorships and Congressional and Senate seats flipped from coast to coast. Women, Black, Hispanic, and LGBTQ candidates won — even in Southern states. In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott, who delighted in shipping planes full of Hispanic immigrants to distant blue cities, got his ass shipped out of Austin by a woman named Gina Hinojosa. African American Scott Colom won a Senate seat in Mississippi. In New Mexico, Deb Haaland became the first Native American woman ever elected governor. The message to the GOP was the same all over the country: Enough of

C O V E R S T O R Y B y E r i k a K o n i g a n d M i c a e l a Wa t t s , I n s t i t u t e f o r P u b l i c S e r v i c e R e p o r t i n g

Deportation Trap

ICE is arresting a rash of immigrants at routine check-ins. Critics question the reliability of the agency’s smartphone app designed to monitor immigrants on supervised release.

November 12-18, 2026

arlon Urrutia Diaz traveled thousands of miles with his wife and small chilbecause the arrestees asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, the spokesperdren, crossing treacherous terrain and paying a cartel’s ransom to get from son responded, “When the media refuses to give names, it makes it impossible to provide Honduras to the U.S. details on specific cases or even verify any of this even happened or that the people even When he crossed the border early last year at Calexico, California, and turned himself exist. If you can’t do your job, we can’t do ours.” in, border agents learned why he’d come so far under such dangerous conditions: MemThe Institute eventually gave DHS the name of one arrestee, Urrutia Diaz, who had bers of the ruthless MS-13 gang had threatened his life, he said. He was briefly detained, nothing to lose because he’d already been deported. DHS, in turn, said Urrutia Diaz was then released, eventually finding work in Memphis as a maintenance technician at an arrested after he missed multiple check-ins, but it did not respond to a request for records apartment complex as his plea for asylum worked its way through the U.S. justice system. documenting Urrutia Diaz’s noncompliance. But Urrutia Diaz, 34, who has no criminal record, saw his fortunes suddenly sour last winter when he was re-arrested during a routine immigration check-in. Authorities A HUSBAND DISAPPEARS contend he failed to comply with conditions of his supervised release — allegations he Crying, shaking, and in the third trimester of her second pregnancy, the young woman denies. Urrutia Diaz and his family soon found themselves on separate airplanes back to stood outside a Memphis ICE office in the chill of a gray February morning. Honduras after a judge ordered him to be removed from the U.S. and his wife reluctantly The woman, 33, who said she feared retaliation and asked to be named only by her signed voluntary departure papers. first initial, “V,” is an immigrant from South America. Earlier that morning, her husband An examination by the Institute for Public Service Reporting found Urrutia Diaz is — an asylum-seeker like her — showed up for his monthly in-person check-in at the one of a number of previously detained immigrants who are suddenly getting arrested ISAP office near Memphis International Airport. and fast-tracked for deportation during routine visits to the local Intensive Supervision It should have been a routine visit involving questions about his whereabouts and dayAppearance Program (ISAP) office, even as their immigration or asylum cases remain to-day routines. Instead, agents pulled his arms behind his back, bound his wrists with a active before judges. zip tie, and marched him out of the back of Like Urrutia Diaz, many of these immithe office along with five others. grants are told they’re under arrest for failing Placed in an unmarked vehicle, he and to follow check-in procedures on a smartthe others were taken to a nearby ICE office phone app called BI SmartLINK that uses where arrestees are processed before being GPS and facial recognition software to track shipped to a detention center. That’s when V their whereabouts. Arrested immigrants went looking for her husband. interviewed by The Institute hotly contest She and a friend stood for nearly a half these claims. hour outside the ICE processing office before Some say the app is glitchy and often a plainclothes officer came out and handed malfunctions. Others contend that ISAP case V the keys to her husband’s car. V needed managers fabricate evidence of noncomplito know more. What about her husband’s ance. Still others say ISAP supervisors make cellphone? Wallet? Where were they taking him? “He told us that if we kept insisting, last-minute changes to appointment times he would call an immigration agent on us,’’ for in-person visits, making it impossible to V later said. So, she and her friend left. She show up on time, leading to possible arrest. picked up her husband’s car from the ISAP Sorting out the conflicting accounts office and went home. between government agents and arrested Later that night, using a location tracking immigrants can be extraordinarily difficult. app on her phone, V found out her husband But dozens of interviews and a review of was at the West Tennessee Detention Facility hundreds of pages of court records make this in Mason, Tennessee, some 40 miles northmuch clear: PHOTO: MICAELA WATTS east of Memphis. • The Memphis ISAP arrests are part of a V holds her infant in her apartment. Panicked, V began experiencing early nationwide rash of arrests of immigrants contractions that night. She was eight during routine check-ins. Critics say the months pregnant. V was taken to Baptist Hospital where the medical staff tried to help Trump administration is using in-person check-ins as a “trap’’ to boost arrests and her relax. V was at risk of needing an emergency C-section, a doctor told her. help meet President Trump’s goal of deporting a million immigrants a year. “I wanted to calm down for my son, because I know that he feels everything that I am • In its push to re-arrest previously detained immigrants, U.S. Immigration and going through, but it’s not easy,’’ V said. She remained in observation overnight and was Customs Enforcement (ICE) has committed a slew of civil rights abuses. The released the next day. Institute identified 12 separate rulings by federal judges in Memphis since January Two days after her husband’s arrest, V finally spoke to him by phone. It was then she that ordered the release of ISAP arrestees on grounds they had been denied bond found out that he was arrested for allegedly failing to comply with ISAP procedures — a hearings in violation of their constitutional rights. claim that he adamantly denied during a later phone interview with a reporter from the • Critics say the re-arrests are fracturing families, disrupting income streams of detention center. breadwinners, and harming the local economy. “It is a disaster, not just economiReports of increased arrests during routine check-ins at the Memphis ISAP office cally, but emotionally. And I tell you, the emotional damage is worse,” said combegan spreading through Memphis’ Hispanic community at the beginning of the new munity activist Nena Garza. Trump administration, said Nena Garza, a community activist who stays abreast of The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not respond to developments involving the immigration crackdown. several questions posed to it in emails from The Institute. Those questions included a reGarza said she understands ISAP participants are getting last-minute calls or texts to quest for data on the number of arrests made during routine check-ins and a request for change appointment times or schedule last-minute check-ins, making it difficult for imcomment on critics’ claims that check-ins are being used as a “deportation trap.” Other migrants to show up on time for appointments. “The lucky ones come out with an ankle questions involved the reliability of the BI SmartLINK app. monitor, but others are arrested that same day,” said Garza, whose phone consistently A DHS spokesperson at one point asked for names and dates of birth of the arrestees 8 buzzes with calls from immigrants in need. referenced in this story. When a reporter replied that she could not share those names

PHOTO (RIGHT): ERIKA KONIG

ISAP arrestees are taken through these back gates of the main Memphis ICE office for processing. PHOTOS (BELOW): ERIKA KONIG AND MICAELA WATTS

Birthday decor and a line of toys in V’s apartment

PHOTO (ABOVE): MICAELA WATTS

An arrest at ISAP PHOTO (LEFT): MICAELA WATTS

A young girl is led out of the ISAP office in mid-March.

Over a three-week period last winter, a team of reporters from The Institute watched as an assortment of people, including children, were escorted from ISAP offices by federal agents and transported to the nearby ICE field office where arrested immigrants are processed before being shipped off to detention centers. In interviews with 20 of the arrested immigrants, or their family members, The Institute found that 16 of the arrestees said they were told they had failed to comply with terms of their supervised release. Three immigrants said they weren’t given a reason for their arrest. The reason was unclear in one case. Seven arrestees interviewed said they were told they had failed to submit timely check-ins on the BI SmartLINK monitoring app that case managers had placed on their cellphones as part of ICE’s Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program. When a person is placed in the program, ISAP employees download an app onto the participant’s phone which helps them navigate the program, conduct weekly virtual check-ins, communicate with office staff, and keep track of upcoming appointments or changes. In six of those cases, the arrestees said they had, in fact, either complied with app check-ins or had attempted to do so but were blocked by technical impediments. In the other case, a Guatemalan man — who signed his voluntary departure while at the Mason detention facility — said he was arrested for “submitting his picture 30 seconds late,” a claim he denies. Verifying those claims is difficult, in part, because agents often seize the phones of arrestees and then lock them out of the app after their phones are returned. Court records show one immigrant contends he was falsely accused of failing to show for a scheduled app-based video conference with a supervisor and then was denied access to evidence that could have proved him right. “ICE failed to place the scheduled ATD video call, ignored Petitioner’s written

message confirming his availability, and then locked Petitioner out of the ATD application upon arrest, preventing him from accessing the very evidence that would have exonerated him,’’ attorney Ralph K. Noyes wrote in a pleading filed in April in U.S. District Court in Memphis on behalf of the immigrant, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation. The woman identified as V said she had a similar experience. She said she once snapped the obligatory selfie and submitted it through the app right away. However, she received a notification saying her submission was 30 minutes late. “I immediately opened the application and sent the picture,” V said in Spanish. “… It is not fair that [the app] says that the picture was half an hour late when that was not the case.” The ISAP SmartLINK cellphone app — introduced during the first Trump administration — is manufactured and managed by BI Inc., a community corrections subsidiary of The GEO Group Inc., a federal contractor that has received millions in payments for services that support President Trump’s immigration crackdown. “BI SmartLINK® provides a secure platform for real-time communication between officers and clients,” BI Inc. says of the app on its website. “This practical and affordable mobile monitoring app enables agencies to securely monitor, collect data, and automate administrative work, while enhancing client compliance and accountability.” continued on page 10

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

APP’S RELIABILITY QUESTIONED

continued from page 9 The GEO Group did not respond to emails from The Institute seeking comment. Yet critics contend the app is often glitchy and interferes with check-in processes. ICE rolled out the BI SmartLINK app in 2016 despite “failing accuracy rates,” according to a “fact sheet” published by Just Futures Law and two other criminal justice reform organizations. The fact sheet alleges that records obtained from ICE through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit show that 56 percent of facial recognition check-ins failed during a pilot test of the app involving 12,000 check-ins. But, as the fact sheet acknowledges, ICE now maintains that independent testing has found a 98.5 facial matching accuracy rate involving 12 million images.

CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATIONS

Among the 20 re-arrested immigrants contacted by The Institute, 18 filed habeas corpus petitions in U.S. District Court in Memphis, claiming the government had violated their constitutional rights by denying them bond hearings. Judges agreed in 12 of those cases, ordering officials to release the immigrants from custody. Five of the petitions were denied. One of the cases remains unresolved. In ordering the detainees’ release, judges have ruled that their detention without a bond hearing violates the Fifth Amendment, which states that no person shall “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” In midMarch, a federal appeals court made a similar ruling, calling ICE’s detention of immigrants without a bond hearing unconstitutional. The government’s decision to deny the arrestees bond hearings stems from a July 2025 policy change by the Trump administration designed to streamline deportations. Under the change, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security now considers anyone who entered the country unlawfully, regardless of how long they’ve been here, as “arriving aliens” who aren’t entitled to bond. The new policy was a radical change from past practice. Immigration attorney Andrew Rankin said that dating back to the administration of President Ronald Reagan, “the position of the government has been even if you enter unlawfully to the United States, you are eligible to request a bond if you are detained … “They are essentially, in my opinion, changing the tense of the verb from what it says, present, to has ever arrived or has arrived. They’ve changed the tense and therefore the scope of the statute,” Rankin said. Rankin has a theory as to why this policy change was implemented: “This was just one of [White House advisor] Stephen Miller’s anti-immigrant folks trying to figure out how to lock up more people. That’s all this was.”

November 12-18, 2026

PUTTING THE PIECES BACK TOGETHER

Although more than half of the arrestees identified by The Institute are now reunited with their families following favorable habeas corpus petitions granting their release, they face a host of new challenges. With the abrupt removal of a wage-earner, life unraveled for families The Institute spoke with. Some families fell behind on their rent and were given eviction notices. Others were kicked out of their rental homes without proper notice. Vehicles were repossessed due to a failure to make payments. Some lost family members while in detention. Others, like V’s husband, missed the birth of a child. His plans of recording his son’s birth and bringing pancakes and hot coffee to his newly postpartum wife never materialized. The hardest part, he said, was to be apart from his “osita” [little bear], a nickname he gave his 7-year-old daughter. At night while in detention, he clung to a body pillow he fashioned out of extra blankets and thought of his little girl. “It was really hard for me. I had to do that to pretend that my daughter was there. I did that and I would hug the pillow and I would cry,” he said. The father said he worries about the psychological trauma his daughter has suffered at such a young age: “She can’t even see a police officer getting close to me because she thinks they are going to arrest me.” His detention was a major financial and emotional setback for the family, but they are happy to reunite once again. Their future is still uncertain as they wait for their asylum case to unfold. “We are emerging once again. Emerging with hope even though we don’t know what will happen tomorrow,” the father said. Erika Konig is a first-generation college student and first-generation immigrant from Mexico. She is currently a graduate student in the U of M’s Open-Source Investigative Reporting program. Konig’s reporting on immigration has earned local and national recognition. Micaela Watts is a reporter covering the criminal justice system for the Institute for Public Service Reporting. A journalist in Memphis since 2015, she has previously worked for The Commercial Appeal, MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, and the Memphis Flyer.

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

– Thurmeisha White, Youth Villages employee

steppin’ out

We Recommend: Culture, News + Reviews

Two Novels, Two Worlds

November 12-18, 2026

MAKE YOUR CLOSET HAPPY, MANE.

VISIT US AT

GRINDCITYDESIGNS.COM/ MEMPHISFLYER TO PLACE AN ORDER.

By Kimberly Ham

Memphis author and Burke’s Book Store co-owner Corey Mesler is celebrating two new novels that explore very different territory: the whimsical mythology of Memphis filmmaking and the deeply personal experience of living with agoraphobia. On Thursday, November 12th, Mesler will host a reading and book signing at Burke’s for Memphis Movie Two: The Recrudescence of Eric Warberg and Happy Happy. The sequel to Mesler’s earlier Memphis Movie, Memphis Movie Two follows a pair of young filmmakers embarking on an improbable adventure to make their first movie. Along the way, readers can expect familiar faces, new characters, ghosts, movie stars, romance, and plenty of Memphis lore. Inspired in part by Mesler’s own experience writing short films for the Indie Memphis Film Festival, the novel is PHOTO: TOBY MESLER also a love letter to the city he has called home since he was 5. Corey Mesler “Memphis, a city with a deep mythology, is the music running underneath the surface of the novel,” Mesler says. “It’s like the soundtrack to the movie being made by the characters in the story.” The second novel, Happy Happy, takes a more introspective turn. Originally conceived as a memoir, the book draws on Mesler’s painful personal experience with agoraphobia. When revisiting those memories became too emotionally and physically difficult, he turned to fiction, weaving fantasy into the story of Col Merrysee, a man who finds love, builds a family, and embraces a happy life before being confronted by sudden, debilitating fear in public spaces. “It’s a very painful book,” Mesler says. “If I tell this story, I will let fantasy do it.” The novel is dedicated to Mesler’s former therapist, Steve Blumberg, who helped him navigate those difficult years, and his wife, Cheryl, whom he credits as an unwavering source of support. With 24 novels and books of short stories and 37 poetry collections to his name, Mesler continues to find inspiration in creating characters and discovering the worlds they inhabit. He also draws inspiration from Burke’s, the historic independent bookstore he operates with Cheryl. The November 12th event runs from 5:30 to 7 p.m., with the reading beginning at 6 p.m. Attendees can meet Mesler, hear selections from both novels, and have their books signed. READING AND BOOK SIGNING WITH COREY MESLER, BURKE’S BOOK STORE, 936 S. COOPER ST., THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 5:30-7 P.M.

VARIOUS DAYS & TIMES November 12th - 18th Carrie Lee South: In the Woods They Wait Novel, Sunday, November 15, 2 p.m. Memphis author Carrie Lee South celebrates the release of her debut novel, In the Woods They Wait. A suspenseful thriller, the story follows Audrey Figg, whose younger brother disappeared 15 years ago during a family vacation to Devil’s Den State Park. Now a park ranger with wilderness search-and-rescue expertise, Audrey is still haunted by his disappearance. When another child goes missing in the same woods, Audrey begins to suspect the cases are connected — and that something far more sinister may be lurking in the wilderness. As she searches for answers, she must also confront a long-buried secret from her past. South, who holds an MFA from the Arkansas Writers Workshop, is the fiction editor at Story-

Bottle Co., with work published in several literary journals. Lantern Festival Memphis Zoo, select dates through Sunday, February 14, 5-9:30 p.m. The Lantern Festival returns with an entirely reimagined holiday light experience featuring larger-thanlife illuminated displays, colorful animal-shaped lanterns, glowing pathways, and a new interactive Christmas maze. The festival transforms the zoo into a dazzling winter wonderland, complete with simulated snowfall, holiday food and beverages, and opportunities for festive family photos. Guests can also take in the displays from above on the zoo’s 130-foot zipline for an additional fee. The festival runs select evenings from November 13th through February 14th.

Autumn Alchemy Memphis Botanic Garden, Sunday, November 15, 2 p.m. Explore the flavors of fall at this hands-on mixology workshop for ages 21 and older. Led by Hunter Coleman, bar manager at Bari Ristorante and director of Mixology and Product Development at Waymar Gin House, the workshop will teach participants to craft three seasonal cocktails using warm, aromatic flavors and select gardengrown ingredients. Guests will also learn about growing herbs for a home cocktail garden. Tickets include ingredients, expert instruction, and a take-home recipe guide. Participants are welcome to bring charcuterie or snacks.

MUSIC By Alex Greene

Country’s Supermom Even while touring the world, Hannah Harper keeps family front and center.

PHOTO: BROOKE TAYLOR

Hannah Harper Nowadays, she somehow juggles all of the above, from being a mother and wife to being an in-demand country star — even while continuing to live in smalltown Missouri. To better understand how she manages it, I spoke with her on the phone recently. Memphis Flyer: You grew up in a small town. Is that where you’re living now? Hannah Harper: No, but nearby. I like to say that I married into Willow Springs,

Missouri. It’s a community closer to where my husband is from. How do you balance raising kids in a small town and a music career? It must be a challenge. It definitely is. We are weekend warriors, so the bus leaves out on Thursday, and we usually get home either on Saturday night or Sunday morning, and then that gives us, you know, Monday through Thursday to continue to have a normal life. My kids do an online school, and so we all come home during the week, trying to have a little bit of normalcy. My mom is the nanny. So when I’m on stage, my mom’s the one watching my boys. I know who’s taking care of them, and my husband’s always out on the road with us as well, so the normalcy is something we try to keep consistent for them.

Family looms large in your songs, and your first single dealt with the demands of motherhood. Have you always written songs? Not really. After I had my first son when I was 19, I went back to college to become a physical therapist, and I took a class on interpersonal communications that unlocked a part of my brain, like a coping thing. Something about the class trained my brain how to actually put my thoughts onto paper. My first single, “String Cheese,” was probably the third song that I had ever written. And I’m still very new to the writing world. I’ve probably only been writing music for about two years, but I don’t really know how to write surface-level things. Everything I write, I want it to be deep and personal — because that’s how I learned to write.

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It seems like your kids have plenty of family around. Yes! I have a crew of 14, and all but two of them are related to me. Both of my brothers are in my band, Dalton and Dillon, and my dad plays banjo and he drives the bus. He’s been a truck driver, and he was our bus driver back in 2009 when we traveled as The Harper Family. So he has lots of experience there. My mom’s the nanny. My uncle Bob, my mom’s brother, plays fiddle, and then my sister-in-law does my hair and makeup. I also have two cousins on the road. One runs sound, the other one runs merch. There’s a lot of family that we’ve chosen from, and a lot of that had to do with the fact that my kids are on the bus with me. It’s kind of hard to bring your kids on the bus with a bunch of people you’re not comfortable with. We kind of have a convoy when we go places.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

n Memphis, music and family are often thought of in the same breath; the through-line of talent crossing generations within the Selvidge, Gales, and Hodges families, among others, is legendary here. But musical families spawning future stars are not exclusive to Memphis by any means, as will be clear enough this Saturday, November 14th at the Bartlett Performing Arts and Conference Center (BPACC), when Hannah Harper takes the stage. Casual listeners may know her from her big win during the 24th season of American Idol this year, but her story is far deeper and richer than that suggests. In fact, she began writing songs long after performing for years with her parents’ gospel and bluegrass band, The Harper Family, later The Harper Collective, inspired by what she did after leaving that family ensemble: starting a family of her own. As her website puts it, during her musical youth, she “honed her musical talents.” Then, “taking a position as worship leader at a small church in Missouri brought a new chapter in her life — it’s where she met her husband, Devon.”

CALENDAR of EVENTS: Nov. 12 - 18

afternoon of reading, relaxation, connection, and gratitude. Saturday, Nov. 14, 2:30 p.m.

ARTS A N D S P EC I A L E X H I BI TS

“Generations”

POPLAR & HIGHLAND PARK

Art by three creators: paintings by Lucia Dickinson, photographs by Steve Selvidge, and mixed media by Jimmy Crosthwait. Through Nov. 18.

C LASS/ WOR KSH OP

Patterns in Nature and Works of Art

OTHERLANDS COFFEE BAR

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

Barrie Foster is a nationally awardwinning artist and a children’s book illustrator. Through Nov. 25.

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

ART HA P P E N I N G S

PHOTO: BARRIE FOSTER

Barrie Foster’s Iris and Milkweed is on display at Gallery 1091 in her show, “Time for Art.”

GALLERY 1091

“Assembly Required: Zine & Collage Art Show” Work from the library’s and Like Really Creative’s workshops. Free. Friday, Nov. 13, 6 p.m.

brother’s disappearance at Devil’s Den State Park. Sunday, Nov. 15, 2 p.m.

Sultana Disaster Museum Grand Opening

Reading and Book Signing with Corey Mesler

NOVEL

BENJAMIN L. HOOKS CENTRAL LIBRARY

Celebrating Mesler’s two new novels, Memphis Movie Two and Happy Happy. Thursday, Nov. 12, 5:30 p.m.

See the new space dedicated to the 1865 steamboat disaster. Free. Saturday, Nov. 14, 10 a.m. SULTANA DISASTER MUSEUM (MARION, AR)

BURKE’S BOOK STORE

B O O K E V E N TS

DIXON GALLERY AND GARDENS

COM EDY

The Best of Second City

The Best of Second City blends their signature improv comedy with hilarious songs, classic characters, and timeless sketches. Saturday, Nov. 14, 8 p.m. GERMANTOWN PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

DAN C E

Solace Awakening Variety Show

COMM UN I T Y

Carrie Lee South: In the Woods They Wait

Whether you are an artist, art lover, or are entirely new to the world of art, the practice of observation will enhance your ability to interact with art and inspire your own search into the mysteries of nature. Saturday, Nov. 14, 10:30 a.m. | Sunday, Nov. 15, 1:00 p.m.

Booksgiving: A Silent Reading & Book Swap Experience The NewAudrey York Figg’s Times Syndication Corporation quest to understandSales her little

620 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018 Bringing Memphis book lovers together for an For Information Call: 1-800-972-3550 For Release Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Journey through life’s challenges, shadows, transformation, and overcoming, brought to life through mesmerizing performances of partner acrobatics, aerial arts, fire, and belly dance. Saturday, Nov. 14, 8 p.m. | Sunday, Nov. 15, 3 p.m. OFF THE WALLS ARTS

FEST I VAL

Lantern Festival

Crossword ACROSS

54 1981 hit with the lyric “We can make it if we try” … or a possible 7 Cousin of a lark title for this 35 Pull an all-nighter puzzle 14 Nonsense word repeated in 59 So far 36 Expand Stephen Foster’s 60 Getting some “Camptown 38 Giggle shut-eye Races” 61 Composer Bizet 39 Be laid up in bed 15 Literally, “empty 62 Alternatives to orchestra” 40 Call to a lamb Ho Hos 16 “Spare me your 41 Garden plant also lame reasons!” called stonecrop DOWN 18 Home of Wall St. 42 Facial hair for 1 Mideast’s Gulf and Fifth Ave. Sam Elliott and of ___ 19 “Chicago ___” Wilford Brimley 2 Squarish (NBC drama) 46 Equipment 3 Necessity for 20 With 24-Across, hauled by a achieving one’s food coloring in roadie goals? Twizzlers 4 Ending with 47 Course covering 21 Compound with a “umich.” or axons and fruity scent “upenn.” dendrites, for short 5 Rapper Lil ___ X 24 See 20-Across 6 Topics for book 26 Roman emperor 48 Maple product clubs who wrote 50 Chinese zodiac “Meditations” 7 Slated events, in creature for brief 2019 32 Waiting for a 8 Material for pitch 51 Consumer safety Icarus’ wings org. 33 Siesta, e.g. 9 Circle segment 10 Branch of the ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE Olympics? C A P D E E R D O D G E D 11 Misplace R I O I D L E O R I O L E 12 Gave the go-ahead E S P R U M M A G E S A L E E L U D E U R N C L A P 13 Anderson who directed “The P E L I C A N S T A T E Grand Budapest A E T N A P E R I L S Hotel” R A T S A D O S E N D O W 17 “Buona ___” A L I S T I L T O N I R A (Italian greeting) S T O V E R E U P P O E M 22 Rip-off P O N I E D D E B I T 23 Famed child S K I N N Y D I P P E R ruler, informally A U D I S A O S E R T A 24 Compete in W H A T S M Y N A M E O U T Pictionary E U R O P A O P E C O D E 25 “You betcha!” S H E R Y L S E N T F E D 26 Colorful parrot

November 12-18, 2026

1 Missing school

34 Michael of “Weekend Update” on “S.N.L.”

Edited by Will Shortz 1

No. 0723 8

A holiday light experience featuring loads of new larger-than-life illuminated fixtures that are unique, but still as awesome as ever. Friday, Nov. 13, 5 p.m. | Saturday, Nov. 14, 5 p.m. | Sunday, Nov. 15, 5 p.m. MEMPHIS ZOO

16 18

19 21

FI LM

32 35

Crosstown Arts Film Series Presents: The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (2011)

20 25

Between 1967 and 1975, Swedish journalists traveled across the United States documenting the Black Power movement and the social upheaval surrounding it. Thursday, Nov. 12, 7 p.m. CROSSTOWN THEATER

PER FOR M I N G AR TS

Opera Goes to Broadway

50 55

CLARK OPERA MEMPHIS CENTER

PUZZLE BY KYLE DOLAN

27 Some heart chambers 28 Card game with suits of four different colors 29 Caffeinated summer drink 30 “You betcha!” 31 Teacher’s note that makes one go [gulp] 36 [Oh. My. God!] 37 Piece of siege equipment 38 Get wind of

The great American songbook meets the operatic voice. This crowd-favorite concert brings Opera Memphis singers out of the opera house and into the world of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Sondheim, and the showstoppers that built Broadway. Saturday, Nov. 14, 7:30 p.m. | Sunday, Nov. 15, 3:00 p.m.

T H EAT ER 40 Wander here and there, with “around” 41 Disco ___ (“The Simpsons” character) 43 Any member of the 2019 N.B.A. championship team 44 Meter or liter 45 Mall cop’s transport 48 Apartment building V.I.P., in slang

49 Regarding 50 Benches along an aisle 52 “Hamilton” climax 53 Nile biters 54 Put a cork in it! 55 “Star Trek” spinoff series: Abbr. 56 It’s groundbreaking 57 Spanish for “bear” 58 Timeworn

Online subscriptions: Today’s puzzle and more than 7,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/crosswords ($39.95 a year). Read about and comment on each puzzle: nytimes.com/wordplay.

Disney’s Frozen

The story follows Elsa and Anna, the princesses of Arendelle. After Elsa’s hidden powers plunge Arendelle into a world of ice and snow, Anna must journey to save not only the kingdom, but also the bond she shares with her sister. Friday, Nov. 13, 7 p.m. | Saturday, Nov. 14, 2 p.m. | Sunday, Nov. 15, 2 p.m. PLAYHOUSE ON THE SQUARE

The Last Night of Ballyhoo by Alfred Uhry

1997 Tony Winner for Best Play, The Last Night of Ballyhoo is set in 1939 Atlanta, Georgia. The story centers on the Freitags, a family of elitist German Jews, and their thoughts and feelings about the cotillion ball called Ballyhoo. Thursday, Nov. 12, 7 p.m. | Saturday, Nov. 14, 7 p.m. | Sunday, Nov. 15, 2 p.m. MEMPHIS JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER

We Saw You. with MICHAEL DONAHUE

PHOTOS: MICHAEL DONAHUE

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

above: (left to right) Greg and Dr. Dory Sellers Gaston; Michael Mayo, Stacey Richards circle: Jarvis Greer below: (left to right) Harrison, Jon, Courtney, Hunter, and Nicholas Nea; Gerry Finney and Lori Millar; Logan Traylor, Gunner Livingston bottom row: (left to right) David, Turner, Addison, Cameron, and Kim Douglas ; Greg Hollenbeck, Kyndal Chamberlain, Hayden Hollenbeck; Kim Fort, John May, Aliyah Alexander

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

he CTC (Courage Thru Cancer) Celebration drew almost 400 to its 11th annual event, which was held October 30th for the first time at FedEx Event Center. Guests moved to various food and drink stations as they listened to music by Almost Famous and Thumpdaddy. “We honored 11 cancer survivors and two oncologists who have had a profound impact on the fight in our community,” says Jon Neal, president of Courage Thru Cancer Inc. And, he says, “We had over 125 cancer patients and survivors attend the event due to the generosity of our table sponsors.” Proceeds go to Baptist Cancer Center, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and West Cancer Foundation.

FOOD By Michael Donahue

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Sweet Spot Phillip Ashley Rix opening new store.

hillip Ashley Rix will hold a soft opening of his new shop, “GXXD. Chocolate by Phillip Ashley,” on Black Friday, November 27th, at 910 West Poplar Avenue, Suite 4 in Collierville, Tennessee. The grand opening will begin February 8th and continue through Valentine’s Day week. The new place is going to be sweet. “It’s still a chocolate shop,” Rix says. “Much of what we’ve always done. Distilling it down to our very best. A lot more focus on turtles and some of the signature chocolates. A lot of it will be seasonal, focusing on celebrations, the holidays.” Also planned are his signature bonbons, bourbon pecan pralines, bleu cheese chocolate, and Grand Marnier blossom honey chocolate. This will be Rix’s first retail shop since his Cooper-Young store closed in 2019. He describes his new shop as “sleek. Chic. We’ll have artwork on the walls. Some really cool paintings.” On November 11th, Rix relaunched his website, gxxdchocolate.com, for online ordering. Rix, who was featured on Food Network’s Chopped Sweets and ABC World News Tonight with David Muir, says, “I’m just trying to renew my focus on craftsmanship. Making pivots. Just getting things figured out after a lot of changes. Figuring out what’s next.” His mom, Arnettie Rix, passed away in 2023. “She was just a very big part of operations. She did all the customer service, a lot of the administration stuff. She was an integral part of what was going on up to that point. So, that created a big vacuum when she left.” But, Rix says, “Making chocolate is still the thing for me. Just kind of getting back to, in a way, the roots of what I was doing. And focusing on doing really good work.” Giving back is part of that. “Part of every box we sell, we will donate a dollar to causes and things like that.” A native Memphian, Rix grew up in the Raleigh area. Just about everyone in his family cooked, but his Grandmother Jean was his biggest influence. Rix’s chores included shucking peas and cleaning greens. “I grew up eating whole, raw turnips like apples.” Along the way, he “found a love for cooking.” Ironically, ice cream instead of candy was a bigger thing for him as a child. “From a candy standpoint, growing up, Snickers and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups were probably the two

things that stood out.” What made him “even think about doing chocolate” were special times when his mom bought Godiva chocolate truffles for him on shopping mall trips. “[They were] my first exposure to, I guess, what you might call ‘fancy’ chocolate,” he says. In his 20s and 30s, Rix worked at “corporate America jobs. FedEx and a few other places doing sales, marketing. That sort of stuff. The plan was to climb that corporate ladder and do that whole deal.” But he also thought about culinary school. “When I decided chocolate was the route I wanted to go, I realized I had to create my own education,” he says. “Back then there were not really schools that specialized in chocolate.”

PHOTO: MICHAEL DONAHUE

Phillip Ashley Rix He learned by reading books, watching videos, and attending lectures. Everything from pastry design to how to make ganaches. “When I started, I was just making samples and handing them out to people where I worked and that sort of stuff,” says Rix. “I started doing pop-ups before popups were really a thing at different banks and things. I set up in their lobby, doing tastings.” His first chocolate tasting was at Prichard’s Distillery in Kelso, Tennessee. “I’d talk about the nuance of the flavor profiles of the chocolate and how it pairs with the various types of whiskey they were making,” he says. “And I’d use tastings as live focus groups. What were people liking?” Over the years he’s come up with “hundreds of different flavors, new collections, new holiday things.” One chocolate tastes like barbecue, another like a soul food dinner. “The whole goal was to be telling stories through chocolate,” he says. But the main ingredient in Rix’s chocolates is probably the sharing of his experiences with people and places. “My personality, my view of life, my take on art,” he says. “And just kind of putting that into a chocolate.”

SPIRITS By Andria Lisle and Kathleen Murray

A Little Local Spirit The Thanksgiving bar cart: because somebody’s going to need a drink.

OU T

Hannah Harper won 2026’s American Idol, the first female country artist to win Idol since Carrie Underwood! She captured audiences with her moving song, String Cheese, crossing 50 million TikTok & Facebook views. Her schedule is filled with festivals – 2 Dollywood shows – 3 at Grand Ole Opry. Buy your tickets now. Hannah Harper…only at BPACC!

TICKETS @ BPACC.org

901.385.5588 — Box Office Hours — 10a.m. to 2p.m. Michael Bollinger — Artistic Director

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

HANNA HARPER NOV. 14 / 2:00 & 7:30P.M.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

othing says Thanksgiving feel as if they’ve already eaten the meal. quite like Champagne. For wine, we like a white BurKathleen learned this her gundy: Louis Latour Mâcon-Lugny Les first November in New Genièvres, with enough body and texture York City, when one roommate worked at to stand up to turkey, gravy, and sides a fancy restaurant whose chef extended an without getting lost. At under $25 for a unforgettable invitation: a lavish Thanks750 mL bottle, it’s also a reasonable investgiving dinner in an Upper East Side ment. That said, Thanksgiving is not a apartment with its own elevator, a turkey wine-pairing exam. Open something you stuffed with chestnuts and foie gras, and like. Pour generously. Move on. rosé Champagne that cost more than Of course, no Memphis ThanksgivKathleen made in a week. ing bar cart should overlook bourbon. We can’t promise you the elevator or Our friend Ron Payne, of the Payne’s foie gras, but we can agree that ChamBar-B-Que dynasty, has been appointed pagne belongs on the Thanksgiving bar by his sister to make the family’s signacart (in an ice bucket, please). The bubbles ture Thanksgiving bourbon smash. He are festive, the acidity cuts through a rich traditionally uses Kentucky-made Buffalo meal, and sparkling wine gives everyone Trace, but this seems an excellent opporsomething to enjoy while the kitchen detunity to bring Memphis into the mix with scends into its annual state of emergency. Blue Note Juke Joint Bourbon (around It doesn’t have to be expensive, either. $35 for a 750 mL bottle). A smash is easyIf you’re building a Thanksgiving bar going and adaptable, and assigning one cart, think variety, not theme. You don’t person the signature cocktail is a pretty need a cocktail recipe requiring trips to good division of holiday labor. three specialty groceries in Germantown. We’re also eyeing a batched BoulevardThe point is to make the day easier, not ier, bourbon’s slightly more sophisticated give yourself another assignment. And cousin to the Negroni. Made with whiswhile we may be a few flights short of key, Campari, and sweet vermouth, it’s a Kathleen’s old NYC apartment, we do little bitter, a little sweet, and an excellent think there’s something special about after-dinner option. Blue Note Juke Joint giving the holiday a little local flavor. After Bourbon or Old Dominick Tennessee all, Kathleen has been in Memphis since Whiskey (around $30 for a 750 mL bottle) 2018, and Andria has had decades to would be right at home. Batching it ahead develop her local drinking habits. means you can pour when the moment Memphis has some good spirits calls for something with more worth pouring, and buying local backbone. keeps more of those holiday dollars And please don’t forget the close to home. Old Dominick’s people who aren’t drinking. A roots go back to 1866, when cranberry sauce spritz gives Domenico Canale first sold his designated drivers, abstainers, whiskey. Blue Note Bourbon is born and anyone taking a break from in Kentucky but raised in Memphis, alcohol something that feels like where it’s aged and crafted by B.R. an actual holiday drink rather Distilling. Supporting local doesn’t than a consolation prize. Dress have to mean spending more; it up with an orange slice and rosemary sprig, and serve it sometimes it just means choosing a bottle with a in a proper rocks glass. little hometown character. The secret is knowing when to stop adding When making the Thanksgiving drink menu, things. Stock a few local spirits, let guests pour the cranberry Collins is high on our list. You know their own drinks, and we can’t resist a gin cocktail, remember that if someone brings a bottle, you aren’t and this one is a welcome obligated to open it imchange from the heavier mediately. Thanksgiving flavors. Old Dominick gin (around $26 After all, the best for a 750 mL bottle) makes a Thanksgiving bar cart isn’t local base. Cranberry brings the one with the most elabseasonal color and tartness, orate setup. It’s one that lets while club soda and thyme everyone enjoy themselves, keep things bright. It’s a good especially the person who cooked the turkey. They’ve way to start the afternoon PHOTO: COURTESY B.R. DISTILLING COMPANY without making everyone already done enough.

HALLORAN CENTRE

M E TA P H Y S I C A L C O N N E C T I O N B y E m i l y G u e n t h e r

Retrograde Recalibration Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto rewrite the inner landscape.

LIVE MUSIC

N MEMPHIS SONGWRITERS SERIES HOSTED BY MARK EDGAR STUART

Celebrate the art of songwriting and the inspiration behind the music featring Keer, Deanna Dixon, and Frank McLallen. Sit back and enjoy as host Mark Edgar Stuart passes the mic to Memphis’ ﬁnest singer-songwriters in a personal, conversational setting. Experience the music, the stories, and the inspiration behind the unique creations that shape the distinctive sound of Memphis music.

November 12-18, 2026

NOVEMBER 19 - 7:00 PM HALLORAN CENTRE

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ovember brings an unusual stillness this year, not one that silences us, but one that echoes through the deeper chambers of our inner world. Four outer planets — Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, plus dwarf planet Pluto — are retrograde this month, creating a rare cosmic tableau that asks us to look inward and reconsider the structures that shape our lives. Outer planet retrogrades don’t typically bring the day-to-day disruptions we associate with Mercury’s. Instead, they work like slow tides, pulling at the foundations of our beliefs and sense of purpose. Saturn, the great architect of discipline and responsibility, is the first of these deep currents. In retrograde, Saturn’s stern voice softens, not to let us off the hook, but to invite us to examine the rules we’ve been living by. This retrograde is a chance to ask whether our commitments still reflect our values. Saturn’s backward motion encourages a restructuring of the internal scaffolding, those habits, expectations, and self-imposed limitations that may have become too rigid. This is a month for renegotiating the contracts we’ve made with ourselves. Uranus, the cosmic liberator, adds a different flavor to the retrograde landscape. Known for sudden breakthroughs and rebellious shifts, this retrograde turns that lightning bolt inward. Instead of external upheaval, it brings quiet realizations that crack open old assumptions. Uranus retrograde often reveals where we’ve been resisting change out of fear or familiarity. This month, many people may feel a subtle but persistent urge to break free from outdated identities or roles. It’s not the time for dramatic leaps, but for honest reflection on what freedom truly means. Neptune, the dream-weaver, moves retrograde through the fog of intuition and imagination. When Neptune reverses course, illusions thin out. The fantasies we’ve clung to begin to dissolve, revealing truths we may have avoided. This retrograde encourages clarity in the emotional and spiritual realms. It’s a powerful time for meditation, journaling, and creative work that taps into the subconscious. Neptune doesn’t ask us to abandon our dreams, but to refine them, separate inspiration from confusion, and trust the quiet voice of inner knowing. And then there is Pluto, the dwarf planet of transformation, shadow work, and rebirth. Pluto retrograde is never subtle. It exposes what has been buried. This month, Pluto’s retrograde motion invites us to confront the deeper

motivations behind our choices. Power dynamics, whether personal, relational, or professional, may come into sharper focus. This is a time for releasing old wounds and patterns that no longer serve our evolution. Pluto retrograde doesn’t demand immediate change; it demands honesty. It asks us to acknowledge what must eventually be transformed. Together, these four retrogrades create a month that is less about outward momentum and more about profound internal recalibration. November becomes a cosmic review period, a chance to pause and examine the architecture of our lives with compassion and curiosity. Saturn asks us to refine our structures. Uranus asks us to liberate our authenticity. Neptune asks us to clarify our dreams.

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Three outer planets and Pluto will appear to move backwards. Pluto asks us to confront our shadows. This is not a stagnant month. It is a deeply active one, but the activity happens beneath the surface. Think of November as a spiritual low tide: the waters pull back, revealing what has been hidden, offering us the chance to gather insight before the next forward motion begins. By the time these planets resume direct movement, the inner work done now will become the foundation for the choices, breakthroughs, and transformations that follow. If November feels introspective, heavy, or unusually reflective, trust that you are moving in rhythm with the cosmos. Retrogrades are not obstacles; they are invitations. And this month, the invitation is to step into deeper alignment with your truth, purpose, and evolving self. Emily Guenther is a co-owner of The Broom Closet metaphysical shop. She is a Memphis native, professional tarot reader, ordained Pagan clergy, and dog mom.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): A ship’s anchor doesn’t work by weight alone. Some of its holding power comes from how its blades dig into the seabed. A heavy anchor sitting on smooth rock is useless; a lighter anchor that catches in mud or sand can hold a massive vessel against storms. So the anchor’s value resides as much in its grip as its mass. Regard this as a useful metaphor, Taurus. Don’t try to hold yourself in place through sheer gravity, with accumulated possessions and commitments piling up like ballast. You need to hook yourself into a strong foundation. GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Editors of dictionaries continually add new words while retiring obsolete definitions. Language remains vital and wild because it adapts to shifting realities. In that spirit, I invite you to eagerly edit the words you speak and the concepts you use to interpret your experience. Maybe you’ve attached labels to yourself that have become outdated. For example, you’re “multifaceted,” not “scattered.” One of your relationships isn’t so much “complicated” as “intricate” and “evolving.” A feeling you call “confusion” might be more accurately named “curiosity.” Fresh vocabulary may unlock intriguing and catalytic possibilities. CANCER (June 21-July 22): When a Pakistani student named Malala Yousafzai was 11, she became a passionate advocate for female education. Girls had been banned by the Taliban from attending school in her native district. Her tireless work in this righteous cause angered conservatives, and at 15, she was shot in the head by a would-be assassin. Yet she survived and prevailed, redoubled her efforts, and at age 17, she became the youngest person to win a Nobel Peace Prize. Since then, she has continued her quest to aid girls and women, and extended her activism to assist refugees and immigrants. Can you guess her astrological sign? Cancer, of course. Who nurtures and protects so fiercely? Who fights tenderly for people in need to be safe and free? Now is an excellent time to decide how you can be inspired by Malala.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): During my first show as a lead singer for a rock band, age 19, I was absurdly anxious about hitting every note perfectly. Afterward, a friend critiqued my performance, saying I seemed locked up inside my own head. The next time I took the stage, I sang looser, sloppier, and wilder. I focused on connecting with the audience and allowing their enthusiasm to feed my energy. Much better! My technical execution was less than perfect, but I was far more engaging and entertaining. I dare you to apply this lesson to your own life in the coming weeks. VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): I advocate giving people the resources they need when they’re experiencing scarcity or deficiency. I also believe that exceptional ability deserves encouragement and support to thrive and ripen. That balance offers a useful way to think about your life right now. You’ve devoted plenty of attention to the parts of yourself that need help, while giving too little care to the parts that shine. To restore the balance, I suggest you seek out tools, teachers, and adventures that will challenge and nurture your talents. A gift that comes naturally isn’t a finished achievement. With practice, it can become even more extraordinary. LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Libran poet Ocean Vuong describes tenderness as a courageous force rather than a sentimental one. Please try out this idea. Imagine the ways that gentle devotion and creative affection mobilize your most interesting strengths. Explore how your ability to express nourishing kindness empowers you to spawn wonders and marvels. Remember that water, yielding and supple, can reshape mountains and carve canyons. Your tenderness, too, may have the patient power to transform what seems fixed and unyielding. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Sagittarian novelist Jane Austen wielded her drollery with aplomb. In a letter to her sister, she wrote, “I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.” Over two centuries later, I still find that joke funny. Jane was a wickedly independent spirit who refused to sugarcoat the raw truth or perform affection she didn’t feel. Let’s make her your guardian spirit for the coming weeks, Sagittarius. I hope she’ll inspire you to leaven your honesty with humor and liberate yourself from the need for people’s approval. Can you be blunt and genuine with wit and grace? I think you can. Feel no obligation to like or praise what hasn’t earned it. CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Who are your favorite wild women? One of mine is Capricorn magician Patti Smith, whose untamed creativity has inspired

me for years. At the root of her output as a musician and writer is her disciplined devotion: decades of patient, faithful labor at her craft, never chasing trends, simply doing the deep work year after year. She has been experimental and diligent; iconoclastic and tireless; oneof-a-kind and collaborative. I salute her contributions to my life and encourage you to be inspired by her skillful weaving of hard work and soulful expression. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Aquariusborn inventor Thomas Edison treated failure as useful information. He tinkered with thousands of materials as he sought a workable light bulb filament. After each dud, he insisted he hadn’t misfired but had just found another way that didn’t work. Eventually, his numerous failures cleared his path to creating the light bulb. In the coming weeks, I propose that you make him your role model, Aquarius. Your inventive, future-facing mind will be at its best when it treats setbacks not as verdicts but as data, clues pointing toward the solution. The breakthrough you’re in quest of will come just past the last dead end. PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): The painter Henri Matisse said he wanted his art to provide “a soothing, calming influence on the mind.” Yet his work shimmered with bold color and daring composition. Joyful vitality spilled out of his creations. For him, serenity wasn’t bland. I’d love for you to incorporate his attitude and approach in the coming weeks. There will be no need to choose between excitement and peace. You can attract experiences that are simultaneously stimulating and harmonious. My advice: Expect and pursue intriguing adventures that leave your nervous system feeling nourished.

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ARIES (March 21-April 19): There is an old way of making fire: Strike a sharp edge of flint in a hard, glancing blow against steel. The flint shears off small particles of metal. Heated by the blow and exposed to air, they oxidize so swiftly that they burn as sparks. The fire is born from the fierce meeting of two hard things. This is a fitting emblem for you, Aries. Your fire often comes alive through bold contact, like a decisive strike or a willingness to meet resistance head-on rather than avoiding it. In the coming weeks, seek out, enjoy, and use the friction that ignites you. Find worthy flints and make sparks. Some fires can only be lit by impact.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Some of our most powerful medicines come from feared venoms. A compound from the deadly cone snail became a painkiller stronger than morphine. Venoms from vipers and lizards have yielded drugs that treat blood clots and diabetes. The very chemistry that evolved to harm, once understood and transformed, becomes the chemistry that heals. This is your native alchemy, Scorpio. You grasp, as few others do, that the dangerous and the toxic can be transmuted into potent medicine when wrangled with courage and skill. But wait! Stop! None of this will be relevant for you in the coming weeks. Some of your best medicines will be sweet, agreeable, pleasant, and filled with light. I invite you to expand beyond your usual attitude and approach.

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people in countries you can’t even spell,” he says to his partner Lee Chesterfield (Rockwell), who is forced to admit that he can’t spell Czechoslovakia. For a crack CIA agent entrusted with the state’s darkest secrets, Chris can’t seem to keep his mouth shut. When we meet him, it’s 1973, and he is in an airport blabbing about his

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that their socialist President Salvador Allende is about to be forcibly deposed. Lee tries to laugh it off as a joke, but when the girls are gone, he chides Chris to be more professional. But the aging operator is dying of lung cancer, addicted to morphine, and just plain out of fucks to give. The partners have had a busy few months planning the upcoming coup with their boss MJ (Steve Buscemi) and tagging leftists for assassination, so they’re taking a break on scenic Easter Island. Chris wants to see the big heads before he dies. Before they leave the mainland, he makes a heavy request of Lee. Facing a long and painful death, Chris asks Lee to kill him on the island once he’s finished dictating his memoir. Despite all of the deceit and murder his profession demands of him, he’s a practicing

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ver since his 2008 debut In Bruges, Martin McDonagh has shown a talent for depicting weirdly dysfunctional male relationships. In that film, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson are an odd couple of London hitmen hiding out in Belgium. In 2022’s The Banshees of Inisherin, Farrell and Gleeson reunited as a couple of lifelong friends on an isolated Irish island who have a falling out for reasons neither one of them really understand. The latest in the long line of McDonagh’s dysfunctional guy friends is one of his most fruitful. Sam Rockwell and John Malkovich go on a road trip to Easter Island, but only one of them is going to come back. As one of his colleagues says, Chris Carlisle’s (Malkovich) personal history is the history of the CIA. “I’ve killed

our new distribution FILM By Chris McCoy Catholic, so killing himself would be a mortal sin. It’s only fitting that a professional do it, and besides, doesn’t he kind of deserve to be murdered after killing so many people? MJ is keenly interested in getting his hands on those memoir tapes, plus a certain brown suitcase, to secure the secrets within. Lee must decide whether or not to honor his old friend’s final wish. Plus, what to do with the mysterious agents who seem to have followed them to Rapa Nui. McDonagh’s screenplay is unapologetically talky. The wit is the point. But he’s not just making silly wordplay. The humor and pathos are all derived from the two well-drawn characters at the center. Rockwell is the CIA agent as college ROTC bro

gone pro. The CIA’s reckless culture has slowly eroded his discipline, but he is still focused on the mission. Malkovich’s performance is among the best of his storied career. He veers between impish humor, jingoistic pride, and a deep resignation that the evil he has done outweighed any alleged benefit for “the greater good.” Wild Horse Nine has some gorgeous cinematography of Easter Island. But if you’re looking for a political thriller as spectacle, look elsewhere. What it does have is a wicked sense of humor, a deep sense of history, and a cast full of actors who can deliver the goods. Wild Horse Nine is now playing at Malco Collierville, Cordova, Paradiso, and Ridgeway.

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THE LAST WORD By Jesse Davis

Fund the Future

Will Sen. Marsha Blackburn continue Gov. Bill Lee’s legacy of fighting for school vouchers? On January 17, 2027, current Senator Marsha Blackburn will be sworn in as the first female governor of Tennessee. Not who I would have chosen, but you do you, Volunteer State. Blackburn is a fairly vocal proponent of current Governor Bill Lee’s school voucher grift, I mean, scheme, I mean system, so the state’s students, educators, and parents can probably expect more of the same. We will know more once Blackburn has selected her team, but I wouldn’t gamble my nest egg on a sudden and profound investment in education in the state. Still, there’s always 2030. The bright side, I suppose, is that the PHOTO: MARSHA BLACKBURN | FACEBOOK state already ranks dead last in the nation for spending on students Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee’s governor-elect in grades K-12. It almost seems as though a blindingly obvious solution to a vast array of problems facing the state could be addressing that dismal 50th-place statistic. What if we funded the schools? I know Memphis is hardly working with a budgetary surplus, that the state government is rarely quick to send funds our way, and that the nation’s attention and investments often flow elsewhere. Eventually, though, Tennessee will get it together, and our governor will be qualified to do more than smile and quote from the party playbook. When that day comes, we need to have a list of demands ready to go, and fully funding the education system needs to be at the top of the list. School is where we can find and fix the root ailment that causes so many of the other problems we discuss from the pulpit and the campaign stump. Emotional regulation, simple social skills, basic literacy, and the ability to do simple arithmetic can take someone a surprisingly long way, but those skills aren’t always taught and supported at home. That kind of care isn’t free, though. “As governor, one of the first things that I will do is create Tennessee’s very own version of DOGE so that we can slash wasteful spending and have more space in our budget for what truly matters, like education,” Blackburn told Chalkbeat Tennessee. DOGE cut money from the national education budget, it might be worth noting. Teachers bring in snacks that they purchase with their own money to help feed hungry students. They teach students so much more than academic subjects — they’re teaching these kids how to regulate their emotions, behave in public, and navigate social situations. It’s hard, thankless work that includes so many social skills not on any curriculum and lasts long after the last bell has rung. School teaches so many foundational skills, skills that are needed not just to get a job, but to successfully stand in line at Cash Saver or the post office without annoying your fellow human beings. How do we improve literacy and reading comprehension? How do we address sinking test scores? How do we attract business to Memphis? How do we stop crime before it happens? Maybe all these questions have the same answer. Maybe we should throw money at the education system, the same way we would address almost any other problem. New Mexico has tried that approach, with some early success, all with the idea of attracting more business in the science and technology sectors with their impressively educated populace. Why not try it? What’s the worst that could happen, some Memphis kid discovers a previously unknown love for some art form in an elective that might have been cut otherwise, and becomes the next Jimmie Lunceford or Aretha Franklin or William Eggleston or Penny Hardaway or … you get the idea. We may be looking at another four years of school voucher plans and dwindling education budgets, but Memphis and its people have always been skilled at working with a shoestring budget. One day, though, I hope that our local educators won’t be forced to make miracles happen on a regular basis. They deserve to receive the same level of support they give our kids. Jesse Davis is a former Flyer staffer; he writes a monthly Books feature for Memphis Magazine. His opinions, such as they are, include the deeply held belief that he would not have been able to write this column were it not for the effort of a series of severely overworked and underpaid educators.

THE LAST WORD

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

“One of the ﬁrst things that I will do is create Tennessee’s very own version of DOGE.” - Marsha Blackburn