Nashville Scene 1-14-21 by FW Publishing

CITY LIMITS: HEALTH PROFESSIONALS REACH OUT TO BLACK COMMUNITIES ABOUT VACCINE ROLLOUT PAGE 6

JANUARY 14–20, 2021 I VOLUME 39 I NUMBER 47 I NASHVILLESCENE.COM I FREE

FILM: CRITICS SOUND OFF IN OUR ANNUAL JIM RIDLEY MEMORIAL FILM POLL PAGE 28

“TO DO IT: RED SAND III” BY LILIANA PORTER, COURTESY OF THE FRIST ART MUSEUM

Looking ahead at the best art, theater, dance, music, film and literary events of the season

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— Emmylou Harris From the film Big Night (At The Museum)

Country Music Hall of Fame member Emmylou Harris has often taken her silvery, high-lonesome voice beyond the conventional parameters of country, while remaining true to her core, serving as a champion for the music. She recently performed “Love Hurts” with Rodney Crowell on Big Night (At The Museum), while playing Boudleaux Bryant’s guitar, in support of the Museum. The film is streaming now on demand, on the Museum’s YouTube channel.

DOWNTOWN NASHVILLE Visit CountryMusicHallofFame.org to buy tickets. Photo: Dan Reeder

NASHVILLE SCENE | JANUARY 14 – JANUARY 20, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

CONTENTS

FOOD AND DRINK

CITY LIMITS

Vanderbilt Health Professionals Reach Out to Black Communities Ahead of Vaccine Rollout ........................................................6 Black medical professionals discuss building trust and addressing skepticism in African American communities BY ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

Don’t Let the Coup Enablers Off the Hook ...............................................6 Marsha Blackburn, Bill Hagerty and the rest of the fawning Trump courtiers don’t deserve credit for fleeing the sinking ship

Sugar Shock: Sweet Dreams Are Made of These

BY MEGAN SELING

VODKA YONIC

Capitol Riot’s Alleged ‘Zip Tie Guy’Arrested in Nashville

Goodbye to Everything

We are leaving our cities while still living within them, and we can do nothing but watch BY ELLE CARROLL

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit Hispanic communities especially hard — including financially

ART

BY ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

THIS WEEK ON THE WEB: On J.T., a Grieving Steve Earle Celebrates the Memory of His Son

Tailgate Brewery’s new Sweet and Three softserve ice cream counter proves it’s never too cold for ice cream

BY J.R. LIND

Amid Housing Fears, Conexión Américas Helps People Pay Their Rent .....................7

JANUARY 14, 2021

Flora and Fauna

David Lusk Gallery sets sail into 2021 with new work from Alex Lockwood

Jewish Cowboy Nashville Offers Middle Eastern/Tex-Mex Pop-Up at RBQ Shop Hop: Love Your Kitchen, Clean Your Kitchen

BY JOE NOLAN

COVER STORY Winter Arts Guide

It Figures .....................................................8 A monumental Picasso exhibit tops our list of the season’s best visual art events BY LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

Clean Sweep ...............................................9 A contemporary art exhibit illustrates the potential destructive power of small things BY LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

Film .............................................................9

The Belcourt’s drive-in Sundance Film Festival series will be a bright spot in this winter’s uncertain film schedule BY D. PATRICK RODGERS

Books ....................................................... 10 Talking with author Andrea Williams about Baseball’s Leading Lady — plus, the season offers a bevy of virtual literary events to keep you warm

BOOKS

An Uptick in Fondness for the World

In his new nonfiction book, George Saunders shares his passion for 19th-century Russian masters of the short story BY SEAN KINCH AND CHAPTER 16

MUSIC

Another Look ........................................... 26

The Scene’s music writers recommend recent releases from Virghost, Thelma and the Sleaze, Savoy Motel and more

Nashville Predators ................................ 27 Avant-metal world-beaters Yautja preview their Relapse Records debut with a new split BY CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

BY ERICA CICCARONE

The Spin ................................................... 27

Arts companies mark milestones while adapting for the future

BY CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

Performing Arts....................................... 12 BY AMY STUMPFL

Music........................................................ 14 From the National Museum of African American Music to livestreams and new releases, Nashville’s music scenes are busy BY STEPHEN TRAGESER

ON THE COVER:

“To Do It: Red Sand III,” Liliana Porter. Colored sand and figurine on white wooden base, 36 x 40 x 40 inches (approx.). Courtesy of the artist. © Liliana Porter. Photo: Rhinebeck Studio

The Scene’s live-review column checks out Safety Net at The 5 Spot

28 FILM

The 2020 Jim Ridley Film Poll

Dedicated to late Scene editor and critic Jim Ridley, our poll asks critics, cinephiles and industry insiders about 2020 in film COMPILED BY JASON SHAWHAN

CRITICS’ PICKS

Stream Nashville Symphony’s Let Freedom Sing concert and events, check out the Young Writers’ Festival at Nashville Rep/Theater Bug, tune in to an author event with Crystal Wilkinson, stream obscure rock docs, get into Louis Jordan and more

Walk a

Mile

with J.R. Lind

29 30

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With feet on the street, we discover Nashville’s own unique beat – one mile at a time

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917A Gallatin Pike S, Madison, TN nashvillescene.com | JANUARY 14 – JANUARY 20, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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FROM BILL FREEMAN TRUMP’S WORDS ARE EMPTY, BUT HIS ACTIONS SPEAK VOLUMES

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Wednesday, Jan. 6. As I think back to that day, my heart goes out to our nation. Five people’s lives were lost so needlessly in the protest-turned-riot at our Capitol, and it’s one of the saddest moments I can recall. Who would have thought we’d see a day when our nation’s leader would encourage a riot, much less a riot on the steps and in the halls of the building that symbolizes the democracy most Americans hold so dear? But that’s what we witnessed — a stunning sequence of events. On Jan. 6, as Congress met to certify election results, President Donald Trump held a rally encouraging supporters to go to the Capitol, purportedly to support lawmakers who were planning to object to electoral vote outcomes of swing states in the certification process. The president repeatedly insisted the votes and outcomes were “rigged” despite multiple lawmakers and courts — many of them with Trump-appointed judges — finding no such proof. The seeds of this sorry moment were sown with a Dec. 20 tweet, in which Trump announced: “Big protest in DC on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” The president obviously expected mayhem. He told his supporters to “fight,” saying “never concede.” Obviously, those who invaded the Capitol took his words to heart. The president did tell the mob to “be peaceful,” and as they overtook the Capitol he was silent. He did not call them off; he did not ask them to vacate the property. He certainly did not reprimand them, which he did to Portland, Ore., protesters on July 27, tweeting: “Anarchists, Agitators or Protestors who vandalize or damage our Federal Courthouse in Portland, or any Federal Buildings in any of our Cities or States, will be prosecuted under our recently re-enacted Statues & Monuments Act. MINIMUM TEN YEARS IN PRISON. Don’t do it!” No. On the first Wednesday of 2021, he showed little regard for the safety of his supporters or for the safety of those inside the Capitol, and he showed reluctance at calling in the National Guard. In fact, The New York Times reports that it was Vice President Mike Pence who coordinated to deploy the National Guard to assist. It wasn’t until 5:01 p.m. that the president finally tweeted: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from the great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!” That tweet was later deleted, and Twitter froze — and later permanently banned — the president’s account due to “risks of further inciting violence.” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg suspended the president’s account until at least Jan. 21, stating “the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great.” After experiencing the Jan. 6 event, lawmakers in the president’s own party

quickly moved to distance themselves from him — some who’d originally planned to object to Biden’s certification reversed their positions, including Sen. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia and Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma. Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska called for Trump’s resignation, saying, “He has caused enough damage.” Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska said he believes “the president has disregarded his oath of office,” and “what he did was wicked.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky had rejected the president’s claims of election fraud, and upon restarting the proceedings after the mob had been removed from the Capitol, McConnell stated: “They tried to disrupt our democracy. They failed. This failed insurrection only underscores how crucial the task before us is for our republic.” The senator has now said he doesn’t wish to speak with President Trump ever again. Former Indiana Rep. Mark Souder also spoke out, saying the president should have immediately asked the people to leave: “It’ll be a stain on the Republican Party. No matter which side you’re on … either we respect the process and law and order, or we have chaos and break down America.” Multiple Trump administration officials, including Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, have resigned from their cabinet posts. Some of our own state lawmakers stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the president far too long, enabling and supporting the president until the rioting mob appeared on the scene. I wonder how they are feeling about themselves today — do they recognize their role in this? What consequences will they pay? Despite this tragedy and his crumbling administration, the president still takes no responsibility for his role in inciting violence. Further, though he says he will offer a “smooth transition” and transfer of power to President-elect Joe Biden, Trump has no plans to attend the inauguration. The last time a sitting president refused to attend his successor’s inauguration was 152 years ago, when President Andrew Johnson failed to attend the inauguration of Ulysses S. Grant. It’s Trump’s final act of rebellion as president, and his actions once again speak so loudly that I can’t hear a word he says.

Bill Freeman Bill Freeman is the owner of FW Publishing, the publishing company that produces the Nashville Scene, Nfocus, the Nashville Post and Home Page Media Group in Williamson County.

Editor-in-Chief D. Patrick Rodgers Senior Editor Dana Kopp Franklin Associate Editor Alejandro Ramirez Arts Editor Laura Hutson Hunter Culture Editor Erica Ciccarone Music and Listings Editor Stephen Trageser Contributing Editors Jack Silverman, Abby White Staff Writers Stephen Elliott, Nancy Floyd, Steven Hale, Kara Hartnett, J.R. Lind, William Williams Contributing Writers Sadaf Ahsan, Radley Balko, Ashley Brantley, Maria Browning, Steve Cavendish, Chris Chamberlain, Lance Conzett, Marcus K. Dowling, Steve Erickson, Randy Fox, Adam Gold, Seth Graves, Kim Green, Steve Haruch, Geoffrey Himes, Edd Hurt, Jennifer Justus, Christine Kreyling, Katy Lindenmuth, Craig D. Lindsey, Brittney McKenna, Marissa R. Moss, Noel Murray, Joe Nolan, Chris Parton, Betsy Phillips, John Pitcher, Margaret Renkl, Megan Seling, Jason Shawhan, Michael Sicinski, Ashley Spurgeon, Amy Stumpfl, Kay West, Andrea Williams, Cy Winstanley, Ron Wynn, Charlie Zaillian Art Director Elizabeth Jones Photographers Eric England, Matt Masters, Daniel Meigs Graphic Designers Mary Louise Meadors, Tracey Starck Production Coordinator Christie Passarello Events and Marketing Director Olivia Britton Promotions Coordinator Caroline Poole Publisher Mike Smith Senior Advertising Solutions Managers Maggie Bond, Sue Falls, Michael Jezewski, Carla Mathis, Heather Cantrell Mullins, Stevan Steinhart, Jennifer Trsinar, Keith Wright Advertising Solutions Manager Olivia Bellon, William Shutes Sales Operations Manager Chelon Hill Hasty Advertising Solutions Associates Aya Robinson, Price Waltman Special Projects Coordinator Susan Torregrossa President Frank Daniels III Chief Financial Officer Todd Patton Corporate Production Director Elizabeth Jones Vice President of Marketing Mike Smith IT Director John Schaeffer Circulation and Distribution Director Gary Minnis For advertising information please contact: Mike Smith, msmith@nashvillescene.com or 615-844-9238 FW PUBLISHING LLC Owner Bill Freeman VOICE MEDIA GROUP National Advertising 1-888-278-9866 vmgadvertising.com

Copyright©2020, Nashville Scene. 210 12th Ave. S., Ste. 100, Nashville, TN 37203. Phone: 615-244-7989. The Nashville Scene is published weekly by FW Publishing LLC. The publication is free, one per reader. Removal of more than one paper from any distribution point constitutes theft, and violators are subject to prosecution. Back issues are available at our office. Email: All email addresses consist of the employee’s first initial and last name (no space between) followed by @nashvillescene.com; to reach contributing writers, email editor@nashvillescene.com. Editorial Policy: The Nashville Scene covers news, art and entertainment. In our pages appear divergent views from across the community. Those views do not necessarily represent those of the publishers. Subscriptions: Subscriptions are available at $150 per year for 52 issues. Subscriptions will be posted every Thursday and delivered by third-class mail in usually five to seven days. Please note: Due to the nature of third-class mail and postal regulations, any issue(s) could be delayed by as much as two or three weeks. There will be no refunds issued. Please allow four to six weeks for processing new subscriptions and address changes. Send your check or Visa/MC/AmEx number with expiration date to the above address.

In memory of Jim Ridley, editor 2009-2016

Correction: In last week’s In Memoriam issue of the Scene, we stated that Kwame Lillard’s father was fellow civil rights figure Robert Lillard. The two were unrelated. We apologize for the error.

NASHVILLE SCENE | JANUARY 14 – JANUARY 20, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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1/11/21 6:12 PM

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nashvillescene.com | JANUARY 14 – JANUARY 20, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

CITY LIMITS

VANDERBILT HEALTH PROFESSIONALS REACH OUT TO BLACK COMMUNITIES AHEAD OF VACCINE ROLLOUT

Black medical professionals discuss building trust and addressing skepticism in African American communities BY ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

PHOTO: SUSAN URMY/VUMC

VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER’S MAMIE WILLIAMS RECEIVES THE SECOND DOSE OF THE PFIZER COVID-19 VACCINE FROM HALEY SMETHERS ON JAN. 10

ince February, Jarod Parrish has been visiting barbershops in North Nashville neighborhoods, getting to know the clientele and screening them for hypertension. It’s part of a study by Vanderbilt University Medical Center designed to bring preventative care to Black men, meeting them where they go for a haircut. The clinical pharmacist has become such a fixture that barbershop patrons have taken to calling him “Blood Pressure Man.” The Vanderbilt study, modeled on similar efforts based in Los Angeles, was interrupted — like just about everything else — by the COVID-19 pandemic. But Parrish managed to return to barbershops as the months progressed. “We thought it was vitally important to get back in there just because of how COVID can affect individuals with high blood pressure,” Parrish tells the Scene. A topic that has started to come up in barbershops is the COVID-19 vaccine — and whether it carries any risks. With a few versions of the vaccine approved by the FDA, rollouts have already begun, starting with those in the medical community. Parrish is able to offer some firsthand information about the vaccine and dispel skepticism and misinformation — which can range from reservations about the safety and the quality of the vaccines to more outlandish fears like microchips in the syringes. Parrish calmly listens to patrons’ concerns, and in response describes his own experiences receiving the shot or seeing his colleagues fill the vials of vaccine.

“I feel like misinformation spreads a lot faster than the truth does, so that’s another reason why I’m glad I’m out there, because I can actually talk to people about my experience,” he says. “[I’m] not pushing anything on anyone, just letting you know that it’s happened to me and that it’s safe.” There’s a sense of urgency to get the right information into Black communities. Nationally, the COVID-19 pandemic has hit African Americans particularly hard, with higher infection and mortality rates — Hispanic and Native American groups have also seen disproportionately large numbers of cases and deaths. In Tennessee, Black people make up 16 percent of the population and account for 13 percent of COVID-19 cases, but 18 percent of the deaths. So it’s important to reach out, and Parrish notes that when it comes to medicine, representation matters — it helps when Black Nashvillians can speak to a Black medical professional like himself. Chardé Parrish, a specialty pharmacist at VUMC and Jarod’s wife, agrees. “People want to see themselves represented in an authentic and genuine way,” she says. Before joining Vanderbilt, Chardé was a community pharmacist at Kroger, and she says Black customers were happy to see someone who looked like them working behind the counter — no small matter since a pharmacist is often the most accessible medical professional to a community, Chardé says. It’s a job that reinforced for her the importance of listening to people, understanding where they’re coming from and not dismissing their concerns. “If a patient comes to us and they have

mistrust, it’s so important to listen for a while to see what are the reasons behind the fear,” she says. “And then from there ask them, ‘May I offer some information that may be useful to you?’ ” Misinformation is abundant in all communities, of course — from conspiracy theories circulated online to politicized talking points from the anti-mask crowd — but African Americans have legitimate reasons to be skeptical of the health care industry. Those can stem from higher pregnancy-related death rates among African Americans to the history of unethical clinical experiments carried out on Black Americans to their own personal experiences with biased physicians. Mamie Williams, a nurse practitioner and co-chair of the African American employee affinity group at VUMC, notes this “wellfounded mistrust” could be particularly pitched in the South. For example, people concerned about the virus reference the infamous mid-20th-century Tuskegee study in Alabama, in which doctors lied to hundreds of African American patients about their diagnoses and the treatment they were receiving. “They would bring up the whole Tuskegee syphilis study and how those health care professionals — and they were health care professionals, they were nurses — allowed those men to suffer the way they did,” says Williams. Williams organized town halls to help inform all VUMC employees — not just medical staff — about the virus and the vaccine, including explanations of how clinical trials have changed over the years. Dr. Consuelo Wilkins, who is familiar with such research, spoke at one of the events. “There’s all this discussion about, ‘How do we increase trust among Black people?’ ” says Wilkins, who is vice president for health equity at VUMC and lead author on a research paper about addressing health disparities in COVID-19 response systems. “I think that the first thing we have to do is stop asking that question. We have to ask, ‘How will we be more trustworthy? How will we demonstrate to people that we are worthy of their trust?’ ” Again, representation helps a lot when it comes to building that trust. “The data shows that African American and Hispanic patients are more likely to adhere to treatments, and follow up with more racially concordant physicians,” says Dr. André Churchwell, the chief diversity officer at VUMC and Vanderbilt University. When it comes to outreach during the pandemic, Churchwell points to the work that the historically Black Meharry Medical College has been doing, like managing testing sites. He also calls the school’s president James Hildreth “an extremely important spokesman … and an important person to ensure that the vaccine and screenings are appropriately [available] in North Nashville.” Challenges remain, of course. Churchwell also highlights structural challenges to access, such as “the lack of pharmacies and health clinics in the African American community and our Hispanic communities.” “They just aren’t there in abundance as opposed to our white community,” he says. Churchwell adds that many essential workers are people of color who can’t work from home. Everyone who spoke with the Scene had received at least one of the two doses that

make up the COVID-19 vaccine. Other than a sore arm (and a headache in one case), all said their experience receiving the vaccine was just fine. EMAIL EDITOR@NASVILLESCENE.COM

DON’T LET THE COUP ENABLERS OFF THE HOOK

Marsha Blackburn, Bill Hagerty and the rest of the fawning Trump courtiers don’t deserve credit for fleeing the sinking ship BY J.R. LIND

hat happened Jan. 6 at the United States Capitol was beyond shameful, beyond regrettable, beyond disappointing — beyond whatever mush-mouthed words Republicans will offer in the weeks to come. It was a putsch, an insurrection, a violent mob intent on subverting a basic constitutional process, one that’s been performed with rather boring regularity over and over again through wars (both Civil and otherwise), depressions (both Great and otherwise) and any manner of other things that have befallen or gripped us as we wrestle with the designed mess of democracy. These were not people merely expressing their opinions who got out of hand. Years of angry rhetoric and speech after nonsensical speech stoking the grievances of people who claim to hate grievance culture boiled over into an eruption, as the Stochast-in-Chief urged them from one side of Pennsylvania Avenue to the other, saying: “We will never give up. We will never concede. It will never happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved. Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore.” “You’ll never take back our country with weakness,” President Trump said at a rally. “You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.” “So we’re going to, we’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, I love Pennsylvania Avenue, and we’re going to the Capitol,” he said. “The Democrats are hopeless. They’re never voting for anything, not even one vote. But we’re going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones, because the strong ones don’t need any of our help, we’re going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.” Of course, Trump didn’t actually go with them. He holed up in the White House. But spurred on by a man who has consumed them with lies for the better part of five years, march they did to the Capitol, charging barricades, climbing walls, breaking glass, assaulting police and on and on, halting the business of the people and, with five people dead, once and for all putting paid to the notion that America’s greatest asset is its constant peaceful transfer of power. Trump rightly is taking the blame, though of course not accepting it. His lily-livered effort at halting the sedition ended with him reminding his supporters — and they were indeed his supporters, despite whatever nonsense you’ll hear and read

NASHVILLE SCENE | JANUARY 14 – JANUARY 20, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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1/11/21 6:14 PM

AMID HOUSING FEARS, CONEXIÓN AMÉRICAS HELPS PEOPLE PAY THEIR RENT

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit Hispanic communities especially hard — including financially BY ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

ven with the federal eviction moratorium extended until Jan. 31, renters are still feeling pressure to pay rent and afford other necessities. Two rounds of stimulus checks — coming in increments of $1,200 and $600, and issued several months apart — didn’t address everyone’s needs, nor reach everyone who needed the cash. Conexión Américas is a Nashville nonprofit dedicated to supporting Latino families in everything from education to home

SENS. MARSHA BLACKBURN AND BILL HAGERTY

Blackburn, like Trump, is a deeply unserious politician who has never grasped the great truth that her solemn duty is not to a man or a party. It is her duty to represent all her constituents, not to kowtow to the loudest and most virulent of those who already support her. Her oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies to the best of her ability really should mean something. Beyond that, Blackburn, who claims to be this great exemplar of conservatism, has never seemed to understand the very foundations of conservatism: The institutional guardrails against mob rule and autocracy must be maintained, and ordered liberty tempered by responsibility is a fragile inheritance that has to be cultivated and protected if it is to be passed on. They cannot be discarded for the fleeting, ephemeral trinkets of power or the pot shards of ambition. Sadly, Hagerty seems cut from the same cloth, though his first two votes were both “against” Trump. The two will almost certainly try to wriggle out of the net in the weeks and months to come, claiming their obsequiousness at the altar of the wannabe child-god wasn’t what it seemed. But disingenuously placating the madman to sate their own thirst for power and influence is as despicable as the only other alternative, which is that they really did support this toxic malefactor all along, right until he started poisoning the well they drink from. They were warned, and it doesn’t take a genius — or even Lindsey Graham — to see this is how it was always going to end. Tennessee’s U.S. senators, for the time being, finally stopped applauding the president. But never forget how long they clapped.

admission the whole charade was kabuki. At least Graham stood up and said he was wrong. Blackburn self-righteously proclaiming that breaching the Capitol was a crime and that violence was wrong — seemingly in disbelief that she was complicit with her unwavering support for the cult leader who spurred it on — is like Pandora running around wondering why no one will close that box she opened. At one point Blackburn tweeted, “I will vote in support of certifying the electoral college votes.”

All it took was open rebellion for her to abandon the wicked farce. Brave. Bravery isn’t meekly and silently doing the right thing at literally the very last minute when you’ve known all along what the right thing is — when you’ve not only tolerated the mendacity that led to the violence, but encouraged and supported and parroted it. Bravery is telling people the truth when it’s hard to hear, particularly when those people are your supporters.

ownership to business development. After nearly 10 months of navigating the pandemic to help out their usual clients in the Latin American and immigrant communities, Conexión Américas noticed many folks in Nashville just needed enough cash to get through the month. “We started seeing and learning that many families were being impacted by the housing and mortgage crisis,” says Juliana Ospina Cano, executive director of Conexión Américas. “And through different funds and resources, we’ve been able to distribute almost $1 million in assistance to prevent and avoid evictions for families.” The program has helped folks like Karla. Karla — who asked that the Scene withhold her last name, concerned about the stigma surrounding receiving direct aid — worked as a housekeeper at a motel when the pandemic hit, but as business slowed down, she was let go. It was a big setback — her job was the family’s main source of income, and she has four kids at home to take care of. She also has two older children in her home country of Mexico. The pandemic hit even closer to home when Karla and her family members caught COVID-19, a particularly scary experience since she has an infant son. Karla worries she might have caught it from a coworker at her old job. In November, Karla approached Conexión Américas for assistance, receiving direct assistance to pay her rent for that month and December. She calls the money “a gift from God.” “I’m thankful that Conexión Américas was able to open their doors to us and to help the

Latino community,” she says, speaking in Spanish via an interpreter. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a moratorium on evictions in September as well as an extension in December, but the Eviction Lab at Princeton University reports that 208,957 evictions have still happened across the nation since the CASA AZAFRÁN start of the pandemic. And handed out 2,700 masks. Conexión Américas as the Scene has previously has also managed to give out $100,000 in busireported, relaying information about the ness loans, she says. halt on evictions caused confusion among The COVID-19 pandemic has hit Latino at-risk Nashville renters. and immigrant communities especially hard, The direct assistance is just the latest enwith areas like South Nashville becoming hot deavor for the nonprofit. Since the pandemic spots over the summer. Health care experts began, Ospina Cano says, the organization attribute that partly to factors like multihas been adapting both its existing programs generational households and the amount (moving them online, for example) and reof essential workers in these communities purposing its building — Casa Azafrán on — folks who still show up to their jobs as the Nolensville Pike. pandemic rages on. Ospina Cano says closing down the buildConexión Américas has received some ing was one of the hardest decisions early on more funding to help with direct assistance in the pandemic. in 2021. The organization will also look into “With that [decision] came the responsibilthe federal relief package to see what fundity of knowing that we are at the core and at ing may be available to continue their rent the heart of the gateway to the Nashville inrelief effort. ternational district,” she says. “So we started “We’ll see how we can hopefully tap into doing weekly food distribution rounds for it, and if there’s any funding available to supfamilies impacted by COVID-19 in partnerport families,” says Ospina Cano. “We know ship with Second Harvest Food Bank.” The nonprofit distributed more than 21,000 that housing and shelter is what we need in order to survive.” fresh produce boxes and 10,000 prepared EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM meals, says Ospina Cano. They’ve even

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

nashvillescene.com | JANUARY 14 – JANUARY 20, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS

from the Great Denial Swamps and also Tennessee elected officials (to the degree those things can be differentiated) — that he loves them and that they are special. They sure are. The man who claimed to be the law-and-order president, who at his inauguration warned of “American carnage,” directly rejected law and order and sparked carnage himself. No, of course he didn’t say “occupy Nancy Pelosi’s office” or “get into an armed standoff at the Capitol.” But all Henry II said was, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” and FitzUrse, de Morville, de Tracy and le Breton knew exactly what he really meant. They left Becket bloody on the floor of Canterbury Cathedral. So yes, blame Trump — by all means, because he deserves it. But there’s lots of blame at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, and no, those collaborators most certainly do not get any credit for ultimately voting to certify the election results. Come hell, highwater and Helsinki, Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty, along with the rest of Trump’s courtiers, stood by fawning while he descended even further into Learian madness. Then there are masochists like Ted Cruz (he who’s married to the woman Trump called ugly, he whose father Trump accused of being involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy). And there’s Lindsey Graham, who finally unknotted himself from the kraken’s tentacles, exhaustedly proclaiming he was finished with the farce on the Senate floor in the wee hours after the coup attempt was pacified. But even Cruz and Graham deserve more credit than do Tennessee’s Goneril and Regan. At the very least, Cruz maintained the illusion that his opposition to certification was based on principle, unlike Blackburn and Hagerty, whose flip-flop was a tacit

PHOTO: MATT MASTERS

CITY LIMITS

1/11/21 6:14 PM

Looking ahead at the best art, theater, dance, music, film and literary events of the season

WINTER ARTS GUIDE WINTER ARTS GUIDE: VISUAL ART

IT FIGURES

A monumental Picasso exhibit tops our list of the season’s best visual art events

he arc of the 20th century moves from order to chaos in the portraiture of Pablo Picasso. In 2021, the best examples of that trajectory will be on view in Nashville. A selection of more than 70 paintings, sculptures, drawings and etchings by last century’s greatest artist is making a single stop this year — the Frist Art Museum. The works in Picasso. Figures are on loan from the Musée Picasso in Paris, the largest public collection of Picasso’s works in the world, and are unified by their subject matter: the human figure. In the exhibition statement, the Frist’s chief curator Mark Scala explains the appeal of focusing on the artist’s figurative works. “Viewers will see how, as Picasso continuously deconstructed and then remade the body, he was also recasting the history of figuration as a combination of his own psychological view of humanity and observations about the disruptive nature of life in the 20th century.” A work like “The Barefoot Girl,” painted by an impossibly young Picasso in 1895, falls so early in the artist’s timeline that it’s usually categorized under the generic “Early Years” period. The 29-by-19-inch oil painting shows a level of realism not often associated with Picasso, whose frequently jumbled arrangement of facial features has been aped in everything from The Far Side to Toy Story. The wide, expressive eyes — each so singular that it hardly seems like part of a pair — and thick feet hint at elements that will recur throughout the artist’s prolific career. Of interest to fans of the groundbreaking “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” is a handful of paintings from that period showing the artist gaining mastery over the mask-like

“THE SUPPLICANT,” PABLO PICASSO. MUSÉE NATIONAL PICASSO-PARIS, PABLO PICASSO ACCEPTANCE IN LIEU, 1979. MP168. © 2020 ESTATE OF PABLO PICASSO / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK. PHOTO © RMN-GRAND PALAIS (MUSÉE NATIONAL PICASSO-PARIS) /MATHIEU RABEAU

BY LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

NASHVILLE SCENE | JANUARY 14 – JANUARY 20, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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a stark background and black-block dress cubist facial constructions. Two works, — conjure the twin ailments of anxiety and “Seated Nude” and “Bust,” are even subdespair. titled as studies for the 1907 masterpiece, For the Frist to host an exhibition as and feature clues into the process behind monumental as Picasso. Figures — and to be “Demoiselles” — the 48-by-37-inch “Seated the only American institution to do so Nude” includes a curtain pulled back in 2021 — speaks to a level of confialong its edge, for example. dence in Nashville’s residents and Another standout is the 1937 oil visitors. But it’s also proof that painting “The Supplicant,” an exPICASSO. FIGURES the visual art community is vital traordinary portrait of a crying FEB. 5-MAY 2 AT THE FRIST ART MUSEUM to the city’s prosperity. woman with arms stretched to “The selection of the Frist in the sky. Her frenzied expression Nashville as the only U.S. venue evokes another Picasso masterfor this show is a wonderful testapiece — the 25-foot-long anti-war ment to our city’s growing national and painting “Guernica,” which features international stature as a cultural destinaa figure with a similar skyward-grasping tion,” says Frist director Susan Edwards in stance and was painted in the same year. a press release. As the Frist celebrates its But “The Supplicant” is masterful in its 20th anniversary after one of the most chalown right, and shows how the artist’s comlenging years in Nashville’s history, it’s hard bination of detail and minimalism — the to imagine a more appropriate signal. almost cartoonishly exaggerated mouth EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM and grasping, claw-like hands are set off by

“MAN WITH AXE AND OTHER STORIES,” (DETAIL), LILIANA PORTER. COLLECTION PÉREZ ART MUSEUM MIAMI, MUSEUM PURCHASE WITH FUNDS PROVIDED BY JORGE M. PÉREZ, 2017.013. © LILIANA PORTER. PHOTO: RHINEBECK STUDIO

WINTER ARTS GUIDE: VISUAL ART

WINTER ARTS GUIDE: FILM The Belcourt’s drive-in Sundance Film Festival series will be a bright spot in this winter’s uncertain film schedule BY D. PATRICK RODGERS

“I

t’s a very weird year to try and write a preview for a film section,” Belcourt programming director Toby Leonard tells the Scene, empathetically. He goes on to describe conversations he’s had with friends and colleagues in the world of independent film distribution lately. “Every conversation at some point is like, ‘Look, anything can still change at any given time, with a couple of weeks’ notice, frankly.’ ” Leonard’s widely beloved Hillsboro Village theater knows that all too well. Back in November, the Belcourt reopened for in-person screenings with limited capacity and a slew of COVID-19 safety precautions in place. The theater closed up shop and went back to virtual screenings only on Jan. 1, however, citing Tennessee’s post-Thanksgiving spike in COVID cases. While, as Leonard notes, events planned during the pandemic are always subject to change, there’s a bright spot on the horizon. Weeks ago, the Belcourt announced that it had been selected as one of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival’s so-called Satellite Screens — partner theaters offering exclusive premieres of Sundance-selected films. Since the announcement, Sundance and many of its satellite partners have had to pivot from in-theater screenings, and now, eight films are currently slated to show as drive-in selections in the Belcourt’s parking lot. The nonprofit cinema saw great success with its drive-in series back in the late summer and fall, and will return to that approach with its Sundance selections Jan. 29-Feb. 1, with tickets now on sale.

HOW IT ENDS

CLEAN SWEEP

murals that line the walls at the 50th Street subway stop in New York’s Theater District, tempers the work A contemporary art with a dollhouse scale. “To Do It” is the most recent of the works in Porexhibit illustrates the ter’s exhibit Man With Axe and Other Stories, but potential destructive the exhibition’s title takes its name from the show’s power of small things centerpiece. Its scale is both miniature and grand — the man and his axe are tiny, but the items he’s left in BY LAURA HUTSON HUNTER his path of destruction include plates, books and a full-sized piano. “The tableau illustrates that, like time itself, a tiny ondense the mess of recent events — thing — a virus, a dangerous ideology, or a lone pereverything from the pandemic to the son — can bring down a kingdom or a world,” Trump administration — into a writes Frist Art Museum chief curator Mark single piece of art and you’d Scala in an exhibition statement. The come up with something like Liliana PorLILIANA PORTER: array of destroyed objects in “Man With ter’s “To Do It: Red Sand.” (See it on the MAN WITH AXE AND OTHER STORIES Axe” works like an illustration in the chilcover of this week’s issue.) In the instalFEB. 5-MAY 2 AT THE dren’s book series I Spy, and the novelty lation, a female figurine holds a broom FRIST ART MUSEUM of seeing a pile of broken dishes and dirt like she’s in the opening credits of The on a museum floor is similarly compelling. Carol Burnett Show, the task before her Like the sand mandala that was painstaka monstrous swirl of bright-red sand. The ingly produced by Tibetan monks inside the Frist New York-based Argentinian artist made the work in 2017 only to be swept away in a ritual cleansing, in 2020, and if it were any more symbolic it would Porter’s exhibition shows that destruction is often the be wheat-pasted to a highly visible building like an first step toward rebirth. overserious Banksy graffito. But Porter, whose long art career includes the Alice in Wonderland mosaic EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

Scheduled for Friday, Jan. 29, are “pre-apocalyptic comedy” How It Ends (6 p.m.) and Swedish documentary The Most Beautiful Boy in the World (9 p.m.). The former, starring and co-directed by Zoe Lister-Jones, follows an Angeleno as she makes her way to a literal end-of-the-world party. The latter is a tale of celebrity and the “curse of beauty” centering on actor Björn Andrésen. Set to show Saturday, Jan. 30, are actor Fran Kranz’s grief-centered directorial debut, Mass (6 p.m.), and director Lucy Walker’s Bring Your Own Brigade (9 p.m.), a documentary about wildfires. Up on Sunday, Jan. 31, is Transpecos director Clint Bentley’s Jockey (6 p.m.), starring the always-stellar Clifton Collins Jr. as the film’s titular athlete. Also scheduled to show on Sunday is The Blazing World (9 p.m.), the debut film from writer-director Carlson Young, who also stars. That one is a fantastical psychological drama in which Young’s character, Margaret, delves into her own “twisted inner life.” The Belcourt’s slate of Sundance drive-in selections will wrap up on Monday, Feb. 1, with Together Together (6 p.m.) and Judas and the Black Messiah (9 p.m.). Together Together stars wonderful rising comedian-actor Patti Harrison as the surrogate mother for a middle-aged app designer played by Ed Helms. Judas is a biographical drama starring the phenomenal Daniel Kaluuya as Black Panther leader Fred Hampton and the also-excellent LaKeith Stanfield as William O’Neal, the FBI informant who sold Hampton out to feds. Of course, the Belcourt has more planned than just the Sundance films set to show this winter, even with a timeline for in-person theater screenings still a question mark. Hungarian drama Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time — which Leonard describes as “just fantastic, a beautiful film” — will begin screening via the Belcourt’s virtual theater on Friday, Jan. 22. The arthouse is also planning a virtual run of a restoration of legendary folk and country documentary Heartworn Highways beginning on Friday, Feb. 5. Other films that Leonard & Co. have their eyes on for possible Belcourt openings — virtual or otherwise — include a pair of extremely critically acclaimed dramas: Chloé Zhao’s Frances McDormand-starring Western Nomadland, and Lee Isaac Chung’s tale of Korean-American immigration Minari. Keep your eyes trained on belcourt.org for news about possible February openings of both films and more. What’s more, cinephiles can expect further installments in the Scene-sponsored Belcourt series Living Room Film Club, featuring special guest speakers talking about their favorite flicks via Zoom. EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

nashvillescene.com | JANUARY 14 – JANUARY 20, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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WINTER ARTS: BOOKS Talking with author Andrea Williams about Baseball’s Leading Lady — plus, the season offers a bevy of virtual literary events to keep you warm BY ERICA CICCARONE

ome 3,400 Black athletes played in the Negro Leagues from 1920 to 1948, but it took 100 years for Major League Baseball to recognize them as major-league-caliber players and to enter their achievements in the historical record. Author Andrea Williams loves the sport, but early on, she found herself even more curious about the business that makes it work. Her curiosity led her to discover a little-known Black American woman named Effa Manley, the co-owner and business manager of the Negro Leagues’ Newark Eagles. Williams’ new nonfiction YA book, Baseball’s Leading Lady: Effa Manley and the Rise and Fall of the Negro Leagues, shows Manley as a pioneer who understood the value of the leagues, while others insisted it was inferior. Writes Williams in her introduction, Manly “saw the Negro Leagues as a vehicle to transport the Black community to a position of equality in American society, to provide jobs and financial stability where they were sorely lacking, and to give Black boys and girls regular opportunities to witness victory when so much of their lives was mired in defeat.” Williams, who is a Scene contributor, views the sport’s history through the lens of equity, documenting the contributions of Black players and team owners in order to correct the historical record. The Scene spoke with Williams about her book, which is available now from Roaring Brook Press.

on the wall, her and her husband, Abe. I was like, “Yo, who is that?” ... I was always looking to see who are the women who are in this space that I can look to, model a career after. Or maybe meet them, and get some tips, and let them mentor me whether from afar or up close. ... When I saw Effa’s picture and started asking questions, and then doing my own research, I began to understand that what she actually did — as a Black woman in the ’30s and ’40s — is incredible. I was drawn to her. Bob let me throw together a couple of little events to honor her. … [I was thinking], how do we call attention to the women who were trying to create a space in baseball and pro baseball? How do we lift up the next generation of which, I was at that time, a part? How do we make it easier so that we get 20 more Effas? Finally, in 2019 it was like: “All right, I need to do this. I’m going to do it for kids because I wish that I had had her story when I was younger.” With having four kids, my oldest child reads voraciously and hates nonfiction. I’m like, “We got to fix that.” There should be more nonfiction that is compelling, that is entertaining, but that’s also educational — that will help kids see the world in a way that they can’t from school curriculum. … I don’t see myself going into the business of textbook writing, but if I can write these books that will be a supplement for history teachers to give their kids to read while they’re working on a unit on the Great Migration, or the Harlem Renaissance, or the integration of baseball or whatever. That is why there’s lots of weaving in and out with Effa’s story.

EFFA’S EARLY ACTIVISM, LEADING A BOYCOTT OF A DEPARTMENT STORE, SEEMS TO HAVE LAID THE FOUNDATION FOR HER WORK IN THE LEAGUES. In

reading about Effa, I just loved that she was so willing to stand up for what she believed in. … I think she was completely fearless in that regard. She saw an issue. She saw that in Harlem, which was this Black enclave, SO WHY BASEBALL, AND WHY EFFA? The goal this kind of promised land for Black people was always to be the first female general who were traveling up north from the manager of a Major League Baseball team. American South, but also from islands in the I’d grown up loving baseball. My first real Caribbean, trying to find that space where job was at Kauffman Stadium where the they can have community and also hope for Royals play. … I was a server, I took snacks a better future. But here we are in the midst and drinks out to the people while they were of that, and you’ve got these white-owned watching the game. ... It was just the most businesses that are happy to take money amazing experience. ... I loved baseball. I from the Black community, are happy to played softball, but I knew that I was more have them as customers, but again, interested in kind of the off-theare setting up these walls and not field operations. It was the busihiring them in these roles that ness for me. Like, how do you would best enable them to run a team? And what does BASEBALL’S LEADING LADY: EFFA MANLEY AND THE RISE AND provide for their families. that signage mean out in the FALL OF THE NEGRO LEAGUES She ended up helping to outfield? Are people really BY ANDREA WILLIAMS launch this boycott that was making money from that? ROARING BROOK PRESS ultimately successful, even How does stadium financ336 PAGES, $20 though it didn’t turn out fully ing work? All of that stuff is the way she wanted it to. But it where my mind was going. certainly did lead to measurable So I studied sports management change. To me, the part that I love the at Georgia Southern [University]. most is her interaction, when they’re kind of … The shift came when I was graduating sitting there in the midst of the negotiations. and wanted to be back home. I got hired at They’re talking to the owner and she’s esthe Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. Bob sentially like: “Look, if you don’t hire these Kendrick, who is the president now and girls, what are they going to do? Become was the marketing director at the time, had prostitutes? Is that what you want?” Again, just created a new position for a marketing if you think about the context, in the 1930s, assistant, and I was freaking all over it. On a woman even being in the meeting is almy first day, Bob gave me a tour of the muready a lot. But to be so outspoken and to say seum. I just remember seeing Effa’s picture

something that forcefully is a big freaking deal, and it catches everybody off guard. But what happens when they’re caught off guard? It’s like, “OK, well, we probably should listen to this — maybe we need to take this seriously.” I love that about her. I think it’s hard to change history when you’re always willing to play by the rules, and Effa wasn’t really into playing by the rules.

A THEME IN THE BOOK IS HOW BLACK AMERICANS CREATED THEIR OWN SPACES OUTSIDE THE WHITE POWER STRUCTURE, WHERE THEY COULD FIND WEALTH AND FIND JOY AND EVEN START TO CREATE SOME GENERATIONAL WEALTH. BUT THEN ONE OF THE IRONIES OF INTEGRATION IS THAT IT UPENDED SOME OF THESE INSTITUTIONS. Branch Rickey and other white executives in Major League Baseball made it super clear that they didn’t consider the Negro Leagues of a professional stature. … Branch Rickey, when he signed Jackie Robinson, he doesn’t pay the Monarchs for his contract. He didn’t pay for Don Newcombe’s contract. Roy Campanella, he didn’t pay for his contract. … We also have to talk about the Black community and the Black sportswriters, like Wendell Smith, who saw this happening. This is where there’s always context, and context, and then more context, and we peel these layers of these onions of being Black in America. When you are enslaved for as long as Black people were enslaved, and you understand that that is your lot in life by virtue of your skin, the opposite of that becomes the thing to which you strive, right? This white entity, this white organization that

becomes the thing for which you hope for and strive for, without even fully seeing the value of what you’re doing. This is not the fault of any of these people. It is how they were trained to think and to behave. … There was never a question that we would do integration the way we did, that we would take Black players and then insert them into white baseball, which was positioned not just by the white people, but also by the Black people, as the ultimate best representation of all in this country. That was always the plan. … By the time you realize that you’re only being tolerated, you’re not really being appreciated, it’s too late. Because you’ve already abandoned that space that did appreciate you. And it’s too late to go back now and rebuild it. I keep saying, “It’s not just for kids,” and that is true. But it is also very much for kids. If they get nothing else from this book, I want them to start to think about integration or desegregation in this country with a more critical lens than we are taught to in school. … What I’m saying is, now we have the benefit of hindsight and can afford to analyze this and say, “Was this the right move?” It’s 2020 and we are saying: “Well, how come there aren’t very many Black players? And how come there are even fewer Black executives? And how come there are no Black owners of professional baseball teams?” We need to go back and look at that. Why do we need to go back and look at that? Because we will still continue to encounter these situations. If we don’t know the mistakes of the past, we will make them again. EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NASHVILLE SCENE | JANUARY 14 – JANUARY 20, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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WINTER ARTS: BOOKS Virtual Literary Events Lee Conell, author of The Party Upstairs, in conversation with Nancy Reisman via The Porch Writers’ Collective, Vanderbilt University Creative Writing Program and the Nashville Jewish Book Series 8 P.M. THURSDAY, JAN. 14 Robert Gordon, author of It Came From Memphis, in conversation with Ann Powers via Parnassus Books 6 P.M. THURSDAY, JAN. 21 Marcus Whitney, author of Create and Orchestrate: The Path to Claiming Your Creative Power From an Unlikely Entrepreneur, in conversation with Annie Klaver via the Nashville Jewish Book Series 7 P.M. THURSDAY, JAN. 21 Parnassus Book Club Featuring Ruta Sepetys’ Fountains of Silence 6:30 P.M. MONDAY, JAN. 25, AND TUESDAY, JAN. 26 Ariel Lawhon, author of Code Name Hélène, in conversation with Helen Ellis via Parnassus Books 6 P.M. TUESDAY, FEB. 2 Michael Eric Dyson, author of Long Time Coming: Reckoning With Race in America, in conversation with Andrea Blackman via Parnassus Books 6 P.M. WEDNESDAY, FEB. 3 Cameron Douglas, author of Long Way Home, in conversation with Dan Peres, author of As Needed for Pain: A Memoir of Addiction via the Nashville Jewish Book Series 7 P.M. THURSDAY, FEB. 4

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Michelle Duster, author of Ida B. the Queen: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. Wells via Parnassus Books 6 P.M. THURSDAY, FEB. 4 Heartbreak Happy Hour via The Porch Writers’ Collective 7 P.M. SUNDAY, FEB. 14 Birthing the Book with Simon Han, author of Nights When Nothing Happened via The Porch Writers’ Collective 5:30 P.M. MONDAY, FEB. 15 Richard Ford Thompson, author of Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History via Parnassus Books 6 P.M. TUESDAY, FEB. 16 Sue Eisenfeld, author of Wandering Dixie: Dispatches from the Lost Jewish South, in conversation with Scene contributor Margaret Littman via the Nashville Jewish Book Series 7 P.M. THURSDAY, FEB. 18 Chang-rae Lee, author of My Year Abroad, in conversation with Ann Patchett via Parnassus Books 6 P.M. FRIDAY, FEB. 19

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WINTER ARTS: PERFORMING ARTS

Other Upcoming Theater and Dance Performances JAN. 27-FEB. 5: Tennessee Playwrights Studio’s 2020 Reading Festival This virtual event is free to the public and features six exciting new works from Tennessee Playwrights Studio’s 2020 Fellows — including Christopher R.C. Bosen, Greg Morneau, Brooke Bryant, Shawn Whitsell, Caitlin Myers and Preston Crowder. Also upcoming: TPS has partnered with Angela Gimlin, founder and COO of Nashville’s Inebriated Shakespeare Company, for a virtual workshop reading on Feb. 24 of That Woman — which “explores the stories of women in history romantically linked to John F. Kennedy.” (tnplaywrights.org) FEB. 20: TPAC’s 40th Anniversary Tennessee Performing Arts Center will mark its 40th anniversary with a star-studded virtual celebration. Produced by Matt Logan and filmed in TPAC’s Polk Theater, the program includes performances from TPAC’s resident companies — including Nashville Ballet, Nashville Opera and Nashville Repertory Theatre — along with special appearances by Tony nominee Susan Egan, Diana DeGarmo and other guest artists. The program itself is free, but at-home dining and entertainment packages are available. (tpac.org)

PHOTO: PEYTON HOGE

ATTITUDE

NASHVILLE OPERA

year. And although we can’t be together, it still feels like a real celebration. I’m looking forward to seeing the retrospective of our BY AMY STUMPFL 40-year history, although I’m really not so excited about seeing some of those photos of myself from 25 years ago. But it’s going to n a season marked by uncerbe a lovely evening — a beautiful show with tainty, Nashville Opera CEO and some wonderful performances.” artistic director John Hoomes Looking ahead, Hoomes says he is remains characteristically foalso pleased to share news about the cused and optimistic. company’s upcoming outreach program “It’s been such a challenging time — Opera ON WHEELS. Later this spring, for everyone in the arts world, but we’ve Nashville Opera will unveil a stylish new done our best to stay strong and keep movmobile stage created by Aero Build, a ing forward,” says Hoomes, who has served Nashville-based business that specializes in as Nashville Opera’s artistic director since customized trailers. 1995. “Heading into this fall, we were deter“We’ve always talked about taking opera mined not to surrender to this pandemic. We into more nonconventional spaces, and with have a wonderful Opera Guild and incredtheaters shuttered, the timing just seemed ible supporters, so knew we just had to get right,” Hoomes says. “I love the idea of creative. So yes, our season has looked a little having a mobile presence and being able to different this year, but we’re still here. We bring opera to the people — serving differwere able to keep all of our staff on board, ent neighborhoods or maybe some of and we were able to continue producNashville’s many festivals. We’re ing good work this fall — and I’m so excited about the possibilireally proud of that.” ties, whether it’s extending the Nashville Opera will reach of our educational procelebrate these accomplishSTREAM NASHVILLE OPERA’S grams, or perhaps being able ments and much more with LA BELLA NOTTE AT 7 P.M. to offer pop-up concerts for its annual La Bella Notte SATURDAY, FEB. 6; RESERVE TICKETS AT NASHVILLEOPERA.ORG area retirement homes. Best gala on Feb. 6. The alwaysof all, this will be an ongoing popular event — which program. So even once we get benefits the opera’s education back to the theater, we can conand outreach programs — is taktinue to to build this program and ing place online this year. But the reach more people. evening still promises plenty of fun and “I truly miss being in the theater — the “operatic flair,” as it honors both the opera’s music, energy, the collaboration,” he adds. 40th anniversary and Hoomes’ 25th year as “I can’t wait to get back, and I think audiartistic director. The festivities will include ences feel the same. We’ll get there. And everything from a virtual red carpet and in the meantime, we’re going to keep luxury auction to patron perks and gourmet working, keep finding new and creative dining packages. Opera creative director ways to stay connected.” Cara Schneider is hosting the program, EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM which was filmed at the Noah Liff Opera Center and features performances OPERA ON by soprano Jessie Neilson, mezzoWHEELS soprano Jennifer Whitcomb-Oliva, RENDERING contralto Valerie Nelson and tenor

PHOTO: KARYN KIPLEY OF KARYN PHOTOGRAPHY

Arts companies mark milestones while adapting for the future

Tyler Nelson. “It was quite an undertaking, due to strict health and safety protocols,” Hoomes says. “But everyone did such a great job. All the traditional elements are there, they’ve just been reworked into a different format this

MARCH 5-7: Attitude at Nashville Ballet This acclaimed annual series has been reimagined as a two-part virtual series for 2021. Attitude Part I revisits audience favorites Under the Lights (featuring choreography by Christopher Stuart and music by Johnny Cash) and Superstitions (with choreography by Jennifer Archibald and music by Cristina Spinei). And keep an eye out for Attitude Part II, which runs April 2 to 4 and features Paul Vasterling’s gorgeous Seasons. (nashvilleballet.com) BEGINNING MARCH 12: Prism at OZ Arts Conceived and choreographed by Nashville’s own David Flores, Prism is a “a unique theatrical installation experience exploring aspects of voyeurism, interpersonal connection, and the role of chance in determining ultimate outcomes.” These in-person but distanced performances will take place in OZ Arts’ expansive warehouse space, enabling small audience groups to experience intimate dance cycles, lasting about a half-hour each. (ozartsnashville.org) PRISM

AVAILABLE MARCH 30: Filmed productions at Nashville Shakespeare Festival In place of its annual Winter Shakespeare and live educational programs, Nashville Shakes is presenting a pair of filmed educational productions — a five-actor Romeo and Juliet and a twoactor take on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Both films feature strong casts and original music, and will be available for schools in mid-March, and then to the general public via pay-per-view on March 30. (nashvilleshakes.org)

NASHVILLE SCENE | JANUARY 14 – JANUARY 20, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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| JANUARY 14 â€“ JANUARY 20, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

RENDERING OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSIC

From the National Museum of African American Music to livestreams and new releases, Nashville’s music scenes are busy BY STEPHEN TRAGESER

or many musicians, fans and music-biz folk, 2021 began with a sigh of relief — COVID-19 vaccines are rolling out, and Congress approved federal aid for independent music venues that haven’t been able to conduct business as usual since March. But it’s clear that we’re far from out of the woods. There’s still an indeterminate span of time before it’s safe to fully reopen venues large and small, making it all but impossible to plan a tour. All the same, there’s plenty of music across a broad spectrum that you’ll be able to enjoy — from home or in public at a safe social distance — while we wait. If you feel comfortable going out, one place that should be on your list is the National Museum of African American Music. After more than 20 years of planning and development, the institution exploring Black Americans’ fundamental contributions to global music culture will host a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Jan. 18, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Museum members will be able to schedule small-group tours with staggered start times Jan. 23 and 24, and the general public can do the same beginning Jan. 30. See the museum’s website for up-to-date information on ticketing, COVID precautions and more. NMAAM occupies a corner of the Fifth + Broadway development, across Fifth Avenue from the Ryman and across Broadway from Bridgestone Arena. One more block down Fifth from the arena is the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, which on Jan. 15 will open The Station Inn: Bluegrass Beacon. The exhibit features instruments, venue seating (decommissioned from Lester Flatt’s tour bus) and more from the tiny club that began building a bluegrass scene in Nashville in 1974 and has been a destination for top players and fans ever since. See the hall’s site (countrymusichalloffame.org) for ticketing and COVID precautions, and visit the venue’s site (stationinn.com) for details

on shows streaming via Station Inn TV. Nashville’s classical ensembles up and down the scale struggled in 2020, with the nature of their performances making it difficult to pivot to pandemic-safe programming. The Nashville Symphony had to cancel its 2020-21 season, but its annual Let Freedom Sing event commemorating the civil rights movement and honoring Dr. King returns in a virtual format. Highlights of the online programming, running daily Jan. 11 to 17, include performances from the phenomenal Inversion Vocal Ensemble on Jan. 14 and from the Nashville Symphony Celebration Chorus and Youth Chorus on Jan. 17. See the Symphony website for the full program. Meanwhile, the city’s indie and contemporary classical ensembles bring a wealth of offerings to the table. In late December, chatterbird premiered an inventive, shapeshifting commission from composer and electro-pop artist Leila Adu called “Mahakala Oratorio.” The group will follow that April 29 with “Body and Soul, After the Plague,” a streamable multimedia work developed by Mark Volker. The piece revolves around a 14th-century poem called “The Body and Soul Debate,” in which a recently deceased person’s spirit and corpse argue, ultimately illustrating how much we rely on each other to survive. See chatterbird’s site for more. CRISTINA SPINEI

In November, Intersection announced its new Listen series, a project set to span more than two years that will spotlight new compositions from 25 female-identifying composers. The inaugural piece, violinist Alicia Enstrom’s “Fall,” premiered on Intersection’s Facebook page last month. The second installment features Wall Flowers, a five-movement suite for solo viola composed by Cristina Spinei and performed by Carl Larson. You can check out the performance video when it premieres on Facebook Jan. 28 at 11 a.m. Intersection also has plans for a virtual edition of its annual February program Upon These Shoulders, celebrating the civil rights movement. In addition to a panel discussion, the group is set to stream more than an hour of filmed performances of the work of Black composers, including Nashville’s Dave Ragland and U.K.-residing Errollyn Wallen. Exact dates and times have yet to be confirmed, but watch Intersection’s website (intersectionmusic.org) for updates. It’ll still be a while before we get to enjoy a crowded, sweaty release show in person, but there’s a ton of new music to look forward to. Mark your calendar for power-popsmith Aaron Lee Tasjan’s Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan!, out Feb. 5, followed Feb. 12 by a self-titled release from inventive rock trio Styrofoam Winos. On Feb. 19, look for innovative post-folkster Katy Kirby’s debut fulllength Cool Dry Place, and on Feb. 26, seek out Dark River, stellar string player Lydia Luce’s first LP as a singer-songwriter, and Little Oblivions, the latest from extraordinary songsmith Julien Baker. Philoso-rocker Ron Gallo incorporates approaches from electronic pop to hip-hop on his new album Peacemeal, lending the tracks a more easygoing feel than his earlier work, while hardcore punks Thirdface keep it on the edge on their debut LP Do It With a Smile. Both records are out March 5. Country legend Loretta Lynn’s latest — appropriately titled Still Woman Enough and featuring guest appearances from Margo Price, Tanya Tucker, Reba McEntire and Carrie Underwood — is out March 19. Many more exciting projects don’t have firm release dates yet. Nashville rappers hit the ground running in 2021, with a wealth of new singles and projects in the first couple weeks. Petty has launched a series of singles called 53 Fridays with a new track dropping every week this year; Lackhoney has his own

Friday singles series set to run through July.

Gee Slab has a project in the works called Nature Knows No Kings, and a follow-up to Tenn Toes Down, his collaborative playlist with Vibe editor-in-chief Datwon Thomas, is also in the works. Malcolm DeWayne has been in the studio with producer and engineer Chazen Bright working on a full-length called Zen Buddah and the Soul Dragon, while Jung Youth has an EP called Clairvoyant on deck as well as an LP called Old Soul. Standout contemporary pop players like Phangs and Bantug have more new work on the way. Pop maestro Whoa Dakota has an old-school country EP on deck, as well as tracks coming from a new folk-leaning project called Rodeo Glow. R&B ace Milly Roze’s forthcoming EP will be her first new release since 2016, while soul heroine Alanna Royale has a full-length follow-up to 2018’s EP So Bad You Can Taste It. You’ve heard keyboardist Paul Horton with Alabama Shakes, Brittany Howard and Concurrence; his experimental debut EP as No Stress is coming via YK Records. Label chief Michael Eades also says to expect a noirish new instrumental EP called Now What from stellar guitarist (and Scene contributing editor) Jack Silverman and a new EP called Days from superlative post-punker Jay Leo Phillips, among other releases. Rock-focused label Sweet Time has new releases from The Shitdels and Schizos in the queue. Blurring the lines around the edges of rock, you’ve got an album from shoegazers Slush, Casters’ Little Death full-length, Tayls’ debut LP Have You Ever? I’ve Always, Pet Envy’s album A Modern Way and even more to look forward to. Throughout the winter and early spring, you’ll absolutely want to keep an eye on artists’ and venues’ social media for announcements of streaming performances or in-person shows for limited audiences — we’ll offer a handy digest as well on our music blog, Nashville Cream. One streaming series that’s been announced is Live From Josh’s House, organized by Cold Lunch Recordings, the label and booking enterprise behind great mini-festivals like Spewfest. They’ll be streaming performance videos from the home studio of video wizard Josh Whiteman roughly once a month, starting Jan. 14 with Heaven Honey, who Scene writers recognized as Best New Band in our Best of Nashville 2020 issue. EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

PHOTO: DARLING JULIET

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CRITICS’ PICKS STREAM THE ‘KING BLVD’ BLOCK PARTY

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Dailey, Dave Ragland and Inversion Vocal Ensemble, Titus Underwood and more. The event culminates on Sunday with a performance of “Lift Every Voice and “I don’t give a fuck where you are in Sing” from the Celebration Chorus and America,” Chris Rock once quipped in a Celebration Youth Chorus, along with stand-up special. “If you on Martin a live panel discussion moderated Luther King Boulevard, there’s by Tamar Smithers, director some violence going down.” EDITOR’S NOTE: AS A of education and public The comedian who’s known RESPONSE TO THE ONGOING programs at the National for his arresting truth-telling COVID-19 PANDEMIC, WE’VE CHANGED THE FOCUS OF THE Museum of African American highlighted the dark reality CRITICS’ PICKS SECTION TO Music. Plus, there’s a host of of the streets named for a INCLUDE ACTIVITIES YOU CAN additional curriculum and champion of nonviolence. PARTAKE IN WHILE YOU’RE AT study materials available, Hundreds of streets around HOME. touching on everything from the country that bear King’s the Fisk Jubilee Singers to the name exist in neighborhoods music of the civil rights movement. that elected officials pretend aren’t Let Freedom Sing runs all week long, with there — neighborhoods in need of social new content released each day at 10 a.m. services to aid those experiencing poverty, For complete details and schedule, visit locally owned small businesses to boost the nashvillesymphony.org. Through Jan. 17 via economy, and better-funded public schools nashvillesymphony.org AMY STUMPFL in order to achieve the peace and prosperity that King dreamed about. Filmmaker Earl Hardy’s short film “King Blvd” looks at [GREATEST STORIES EVER TOLD] this study in contrast through the eyes of STREAM A CONVERSATION BETWEEN a young man (Branden Lindsay) fresh out GEORGE SAUNDERS AND ANN of grad school. Struggling to find a job, he PATCHETT thinks his address on the boulevard might A new George Saunders book is always be the problem, and wants to restore the cause for celebration — the award-winning street to something worthy of King’s legacy. writer is a masterful storyteller with a Hardy is currently raising funds for a balance of wit and readability that puts feature film, and he’s hosting a virtual event him in the same league as Barthelme and to spread the word about the project. This Vonnegut. But his latest release is especially weekend’s MLK Block Party will feature exciting. Its full title — A Swim in the Pond a discussion with University of Tennessee in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a professor Dr. Derek Alderman, whose area Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life of expertise includes public memory, race — describes its singular mission: to deeply and critical place-name studies in relation explore the seven classic short stories by to the Black Southern freedom struggle. Chekov, Turgenev, Tolstoy and Gogol that We’ll hear from community leaders who are Saunders has been teaching for 20 years revitalizing MLK Boulevards in their own as a professor at Syracuse University’s cities, including Dr. E. Michelle Morgan of Dallas and Deshea Agee, executive director of Historic King Drive Business Improvement District No. 8 in Milwaukee. The event will also include music, a spokenword performance by Boise Holmes, and conversations with community leaders across the country. Learn more, watch the short film and register to join the event at kingblvdfeaturefilm.com. 3 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 17, via kingblvdfeaturefilm.com [WHOSE STREETS]

O F

T H I N G S

T O

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prestigious MFA creative writing program. (Read our review of Saunders’ book on p. 25.) “These essays are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works,” says the Parnassus event page, “and why it’s more relevant than ever in these turbulent times.” I can think of no better guide for talking with Saunders about writing than Parnassus co-owner and author Ann Patchett, whose most recent novel The Dutch House was just released in paperback and is its own kind of storytelling mastery. You can listen in on the conversation between these two enthusiastic experts on the craft of writing — register via the Eventbrite link at parnassusbooks.net. The ticketed virtual event takes place over Zoom, and includes a signed copy of A Swim in the Pond in the Rain. Tickets are roughly $40 if you can pick the book up directly from Parnassus, and $50 if you’d like to have the book shipped. 6 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 19, via Parnassus Books

artistic director Cori Anne Laemmel and the Rep’s playwright-in-residence Nate Eppler. This weekend, the six plays will be presented in virtual staged readings featuring a cast of professional actors. The lineup includes Eclipse by Christopher Cooper (Centennial High School); Sinister Love by Meronica Forrester-Kent (Harpeth Hall); Alone Together by Liliana Gomez (Nashville School of the Arts); The Bat by Dock Havey (Hillsboro High); Turn of the Tables by Caroline Luttrull (Harpeth Hall); and Birthday Wishes for Emilia by Tigris Parada (homeschool). Watch a livestream of the festival via Nashville Rep’s YouTube and Facebook pages. To learn more, visit nashvillerep.org. 7 p.m. Jan. 15-16 via Nashville Rep AMY STUMPFL

LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

The Porch Writers’ Collective has long prioritized inviting writers of color to teach classes and participate in literary events — writers such as luminaries Jericho Brown, Andre Perry, Yurina Yoshikawa and Ciona Rouse. The organization is stepping up efforts even further this year with the BIPOC Visiting Writers Series. It kicks off with native Kentuckian Crystal Wilkinson, a writer of fiction, poetry and essays whose novel The Birds of Opulence tackles the stilltaboo topic of mental illness in a close-knit Southern town, or as the author describes it, a “river of crazy women.” Her lyrical writing captures the rhythms of daily life — the kind of sentences that I go back to read again, not because I wasn’t paying attention, but because they soothe something deep inside that needs comforting. Wilkinson will

[CELEBRATING YOUNG VOICES]

CHECK OUT THE YOUNG WRITERS’ FESTIVAL AT NASHVILLE REP/ THEATER BUG

Nashville Repertory Theatre has long been a driving force in the development of new plays, thanks to its nationally recognized Ingram New Works Project. Now the Rep has partnered with The Theater Bug to present its first Young Writers’ Festival. More than 20 students — all between the ages of 13 and 18 — submitted original short plays, which were evaluated by the staff of both companies. Six plays made the final cut, and those writers took part in a virtual developmental workshop in December led by Theater Bug

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More than 50 years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we continue to honor and celebrate the life and legacy of this remarkable civil rights leader. As part of that celebration, the Nashville Symphony will once again present its annual Let Freedom Sing concert. Now in its 28th year, the event is taking place virtually this week, offering a great mix of interviews, conversations and performances. The 2021 program includes a number of notable artists, including Odessa Settles, Patrick

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teach an online class on revision at 2 p.m. Her 4:30 p.m. reading is free and open to all, and it will be followed by a Q&A. Attend the event, and look for Wilkinson’s upcoming essay, “Conjuring My Grandmother’s Kitchen: A Balm in the Time of COVID-19,” in an Alice Randall-edited issue of Oxford American. Register at porchtn.org. 4:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 16, via The Porch

[IT MIGHT GET LOUDER]

STREAM OBSCURE ROCK DOCS

THEATER

[LONDON CALLING]

WATCH LONDON’S NATIONAL THEATRE PROGRAMS VIA NATIONAL THEATRE AT HOME

Long before COVID hit, London’s National Theatre was working to extend its reach and build its audience through innovative digital programs. Those included NT Live, which broadcasts live productions to cinemas and arts venues around the world, and National Theatre Collection, which offers recordings of shows to schools across the U.K. In response to the pandemic, the company launched National Theatre at Home, making favorite productions available for free limited viewing via YouTube. Happily, National Theatre at Home is now available as an ondemand streaming service, with familiar titles available to rent or access through subscription programs. Either way, it’s an impressive catalog of work. You might start with Tom Hiddleston’s searing performance in the title role of Coriolanus. Or perhaps Helen Mirren’s devastating take on the tragic Phèdre. Other intriguing works include Lucy Kirkwood’s drama Mosquitoes,

AMY STUMPFL [IF YOU BUILD IT]

ENTER THE NASHVILLE PUBLIC LIBRARY’S LEGO COMPETITION

The Nashville Public Library is once again accepting submissions for its annual LEGO contest, open to builders young and old. So embrace your inner architect/child with an ambitious LEGO (or similar plastic brick) build. Designs have to be original creations — not from a kit or website — and must fit on a base no bigger than 24 by 24 inches, and no taller than 4 feet. You can enter solo or with a team across six age categories, ranging from preschool to adult. Contestants begin dropping off their entries Feb. 3, and more information can be found at library.nashville.org. And even if you’re not the competitive type, there are plenty of LEGO kits and online designs that can help you pass a night (or several) assembling a masterpiece at home, brick by brick. ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ [KEVONLINE]

GET THE KEVONSTAGE STUDIOS APP

All Def (formerly All Def Digital), the YouTube channel that was once owned and operated by Russell Simmons, has been churning out a lot of funny videos from a den of African American comedians these past few years. One of them, Texas-born comic Kevin Fredericks (aka KevOnStage), has recently branched out with his very own company, KevOnStage Studios. Among the company’s offerings is an app that lets you watch the latest content, which includes stand-up shows and original programs from Fredericks and his fellow funny people. It’s $5.99 a month after the seven-day free trial, but it’s worth it to watch Real Comedians Challenge Show, in which Fredericks and fellow comedians Tahir “Wording Is Hard”

Moore, Angel Laketa Moore and Tony Baker (the guy whose animal voice-over vids have landed him more than a million followers on Instagram) engage in challenges that often descend into chuckle-heavy chaos. They’re already a couple episodes deep — they tackle songwriting and playing basketball — and I’ve never been more entertained by Black folk doing stuff that’s both so wrong and so right. Visit kevonstage.vhx.tv for details. CRAIG D. LINDSEY MUSIC

starring Olivia Colman and Olivia Williams, and Inua Ellams’ adaptation of Chekhov’s Three Sisters, which resets the action to 1960s Nigeria. To browse titles or check out subscription options, visit ntathome.com.

CHILDREN

The Beastie Boys, Bee Gees and GoGos all got the documentary treatment in 2020 — maybe the music-movie genre’s strongest year since 2012, when A Band Called Death, Searching for Sugar Man and Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me joined the canon. Looking to go deeper down the rock-doc rabbit hole? Check out PBS’ Twin Cities Hardcore, a seven-part series about the Reagan-era Minneapolis scene that famously birthed Hüsker Dü and The Replacements; Netflix’s ambitious fourparter Break It All: The History of Rock in Latin America, covering a half-century’s worth of parallel-universe bands soundtracking social change; and Amazon’s Transmissions After Zero, which immortalizes Brainiac — a supernova of a band from the freak scene of Dayton, Ohio — and makes a nice companion to Couldn’t You Wait?, Nashville filmmaker Seth Pomeroy’s under-seen 2013 doc on the similarly star-crossed ’90s group Silkworm, which you can buy for $5 via VHX at buy.couldntyouwait.com. Other docs to stream include Bones of Brundage, a 2019 music-history lesson on Bakersfield, Calif., the rough-and-tumble California oil town made famous by Buck Owens and Korn, which is available on Amazon. Also notable is Accidents Waiting to Happen — a Last Waltz-style concert film about 12 Rods, the very first recipients of a 10.0 from Pitchfork (a mixed blessing), that was made by the adoring younger brother of a band member in 2017. Rent it for $3.99 on Vimeo. (Spoiler alert: None of these features Dave Grohl or Ian MacKaye among their talking heads.) CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

COMEDY

FILM

ERICA CICCARONE

[HE WANTS TO SHOW YOU HIS ETCHINGS]

GET INTO LOUIS JORDAN

One of the coolest cultural phenomena of 2020 was the advent of Verzuz’s ongoing series of online rap battles. If he hadn’t died in 1975, it would be an absolute treat to watch Louis Jordan take part. The widely traveled Arkansas native came up as a sax player and singer with big swing bands during their heyday in the 1930s, but he’s best known for work he did in the 1940s. Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five were pioneers in what’s known as jump blues, a lively and slyly sophisticated cousin of blues and R&B, a precursor to rock ’n’ roll with catchy melodies and unfussy but fiendishly clever arrangements. Jordan’s way with words, whether he wrote them or not, was second to none, and you could think of classics like “Caldonia” as overlooked if not necessarily missing links between blues and hip-hop. Jordan had timing to rival any comedian, as well as a superb understanding of what makes human relationships work and why they’re so funny. And he could turn nearly any group of syllables into a stream of mind-bending patter: Hear “Boogie Woogie Blue Plate,” a fun chronicle of the orders a server at a diner shouts to the kitchen, which also captures the rhythm of a busy eatery during the lunch rush. You can stream Jordan’s work on most streaming services, or pick up a fine box set like JSP’s five-disc Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five. You could also get your first taste of Jordan the way I did, by catching Pete Wilson’s jump-blues-centric radio show Nashville Jumps. Back then, it was on

[TERRAN UP MY HEART]

LISTEN TO THE SCI-FI PODCAST SERIES DUST

With somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 million active podcasts currently in existence, it’s safe to say there’s something for everyone in the podcast world. A little corner of that world I’ve recently been exploring? Sci-fi podcasts. Of course, not much beats a good novel or anthology, and a well-done science-fiction podcast shouldn’t be all that different from an audiobook — though some series are doing great things with sound design and voice casting. Take for instance DUST, the science-fiction podcast series from production company Gunpowder & Sky. Having now released three seasons, DUST kicked off in 2019 with an anthology series called Horizons featuring seven stand-alone short-story episodes — including “Beyond Lies the Wub,” the very first sciencefiction story ever published by late genre luminary Philip K. Dick, and “Pendulum,” an early work from Ray Bradbury and his co-author Henry Hasse. Most DUST authors are far more obscure, and if you crave a piece of long-form fiction, dive into the series’ second and third seasons. Season 2, Flight 008, focuses on a nonstop flight from Tokyo to San Francisco that mysteriously lands its passengers 20 years in the future. That one features voice performances from Dan Stevens, Calista Flockhart, Alfred Molina and more. For my money, however, the best thing DUST has put out is its third season, Chrysalis, a 14-part series written by enigmatic Reddit poster S.H. Serrano. Featuring outstanding voice performances from Matthew Wolf, Corey

Hawkins, Toni Collette, Lance Reddick and others, Chrysalis centers on an A.I. being who awakens on Earth after humanity has been wiped out by an unknown alien race. What follows is an enrapturing pangalactic journey that bounces between the perspective of the A.I. and the various civilizations that must reckon with the powerful sentient being seeking vengeance on behalf of a now-ruined Earth. It’s great storytelling that is terribly easy to binge — fingers crossed Season 4 comes soon. Listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts D. PATRICK RODGERS

NASHVILLE SCENE | JANUARY 14 – JANUARY 20, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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PHOTOS: DANIEL MEIGS

esley Keegan, the owner of Tailgate Brewery, laughs when I ask him why he’d launch a new business venture in the midst of an unpredictable pandemic. Keegan opened Sweet and Three, the cleverly named new soft-serve ice cream counter inside Tailgate Brewery’s Charlotte Pike location, in October, serving up dipped cones, waffle-cone sundaes,

“monster” shakes (with and without booze) and Stackers, parfait-style soft-serve sundaes. “I want to clarify — we opened up an ice cream shop in the pandemic and the start of winter,” Keegan says. “From a business sense standpoint, like, there’s none. “The answer though — this was actually planned,” he adds, still chuckling a bit. “May 1 was the target I was shooting for, and then the tornado and COVID paused everything. This was always something I

GLOW UP STACKER, $8.99

was interested in. I had felt that there was a premium soft-serve void in Nashville. I mean, really, kind of everywhere. Indeed, soft serve is in short supply around here. Ever since Frisson Soft Serve closed in September 2019, Nashville institution Bobbie’s Dairy Dip has been the only local, non-fast-food-chain option for fans of swirling towers of creamy and cold cones and sundaes. The self-serve, toppings-focused froyo trend burned out like a dying star. “When I was going through college, there was cheap froyo everywhere, and it wasn’t good ice cream at all,” Keegan says. “The toppings were fun, so my thought was, ‘This worked and people loved it, but the quality wasn’t there.’ As a fan of ice cream, I thought there was an opportunity that we could still hit that premium topping segment, but offer it in a simple platform.” Sweet and Three currently only offers two ice cream flavors — vanilla and chocolate, duh — and Keegan put in the

work to find a premade ice cream base that he says is better than most out there. (Though he does hope to make ice cream in house in the future, he also admits he likes the reliability gained by using an experienced outsider.) “The cool thing about soft serve is it’s a measurement of butterfat,” says Keegan. “Froyo is the low end, and the highest-end you can go and still be a premium soft serve is 12 percent. We have a 12 percent butterfat soft serve. We did a ton of taste testing and checked every single product that was in the market and found one that nobody here is carrying.” Need some context? Dairy Queen’s soft serve has only a 5 percent butterfat content, while Forbes reports that traditional scoop-style ice cream from Ben & Jerry’s and Häagen-Dazs contains around 16 percent. Keegan also aimed to improve upon the long-practiced but historically flawed sundae format. “The problem when you get soft serve or ice cream with toppings, most of the time they just kind of dump it on the top,” Keegan says. “After the first couple of bites, it’s over. That kind of defeats the purpose of having those toppings in the first place.” * Enter the Stacker, which is exactly what it sounds like — a cup or waffle cone “stacked” with layers of soft serve and your choice of toppings. Stackers aren’t Keegan’s invention — they can also be found in ice cream shops like Cow Tipping Creamery in Texas and Modern Cone in Michigan — but until now the burgeoning trend hadn’t made its way to Nashville. It’s the perfect (if not blatantly obvious) solution to the sundae’s long-standing icecream-to-topping ratio issues. In Sweet and Three’s Glow Up Stacker is a menagerie of M&Ms, cookie-dough chunks and rainbow sprinkles. The PB Cup, meanwhile, is a peanut butter lover’s dream, with three (yes, three) different variations of the stuff — peanut butter cups, Reese’s Pieces and peanut butter sauce. Should you choose to build your own, you could make one of nearly 7,000 flavor combinations using the 19 different candies and sauces. It sounds like a lot, and it is! In fact, early versions of the Stacker were originally served in what Keegan describes as a “really awesome ‘40 percent in the cup and 60 percent outside of the cup’ ” ratio. They were enticing, yes, but messy. “Within about 10 seconds it’s already melting and you can’t eat it fast enough,” says Keegan. “They photoed really, really well, but if you tried taking one to go you would hate us. Now it’s just in a big 20-ounce cup, and it looks pretty egregious, but it’s plenty easy to eat.” And therein lies the rub with #modern #desserts. Not only do food makers have to deliver something that tastes good, but they also have to present the creation in innovative ways in order to catch customers’ eyes. Sweet and Three hit similar bumps in the road when creating their monster shakes, aka $12.99 milkshakes crowned with whole strawberry Pop-Tarts, toasted marshmallows kebabs, Oreo cookies and more. While similar

NASHVILLE SCENE | JANUARY 14 – JANUARY 20, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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FOOD AND DRINK

February 1-7 Join us for the Nashville Scene’s 5th Annual HOT CHICKEN WEEK, and indulge in a specialty

$7 Hot Chicken Dish

all week long at participating restaurants during lunch and dinner!

Participating Restaurants

PRINCESS [PEANUT] BUTTERCUP SHAKE, $12.99 concoctions can be found at Legendairy Milkshake Bar downtown and Gracie’s Milkshake Bar on Charlotte Avenue — the latter of which stuck a whole goddamn carrot into their “Frosty” shake last month — Sweet and Three pulls back on the toppings just a bit and fits everything into a portable plastic cup. “I think there are two ways to succeed in the food industry,” says Keegan. “You either need to be really healthy or the other end of the spectrum. You can come to our place now and get beer, liquor, loaded fries, which are like nachos but with waffle fries, pizza and now ice cream. I am that opposite end of the spectrum in every sense of the word. “People can make regular at home,” he adds. “It falls on us to actually create something special.”

and more to come! visit www.hotchickenweek.com

to see the full list of restaurants, learn how you can win prizes and start strategizing your week. It's gonna get HOT!

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* Seriously, how people have accepted this nonsense for literal generations is beyond me. EVOLVE, PEOPLE.

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

nashvillescene.com | JANUARY 14 – JANUARY 20, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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VODKA YONIC

GOODBYE TO EVERYTHING

We are leaving our cities while still living within them, and we can do nothing but watch

Vodka Yonic

BY ELLE CARROLL Vodka Yonic features a rotating cast of women and nonbinary writers from around the world sharing stories that are alternately humorous, sobering, intellectual, erotic, religious or painfully personal. You never know what you’ll find in this column, but we hope this potent mix of stories encourages conversation.

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his is not an essay about leaving a city. Granted, I’ve been tempted to write that essay. The only thing writers like better than writing about writing — the craft — is writing about leaving a city, especially New York, although any godforsaken banner-name metropolis where the young and beautiful overpay for studio apartments will do. Joan Didion popularized the trend with her 1967 essay “Goodbye to All That” — all that being Manhattan, both island and symbol. The title references Robert Graves’ autobiography Goodbye to All That, a document of his permanent departure from England following a miserable childhood and service on the Western Front, the latter brought to an abrupt end in 1916 when a shell fragment tore through his lung. Didion’s own complaints include occasionally having to charge gourmet food at Bloomingdale’s, improperly weighted curtains and feeling nauseated at the sight of women walking Yorkshire terriers on Madison Avenue. The horror. My own departures from cities, Nashville most recently, land me far closer to Didion’s camp than Graves’. I arrived in Nashville optimistic. As the skyline appeared on the horizon, I decided here was the place I would (in order) look hip on Instagram for being in a noncoastal city, finally understand the appeal of country music, meet a boy in a band who would be a decent tour guide and a fantastic fuck, and accelerate my career in some way or another. Instead I spent months in selfexile. On days I wasn’t tasked with selling reprints of Elvis concert posters to tourists, I got out of bed at noon. I was stuck, so I did something drastic. I moved to Berlin. In Berlin, I decided without a hint of irony or self-awareness, I would (in order) look worldly on Instagram, finally understand the appeal of techno, have dynamite sex with a hot Berliner named Hans, and accelerate my career in one way or another. I might even get into raving. Self-exile was over. No longer would I stay confined to my bedroom. I took runs past the Reichstag and went to the movies a dozen times a month. I cried like Didion over socialist tax forms that my Englishonly, American-capitalism-addled brain struggled to comprehend on multiple levels. I got into Kraftwerk.

Then the pandemic arrived. COVID-19’s human toll is devastating on its own. The fact that it has also laid bare shocking political ineptitude and irreconcilable social divisions is welldocumented. But I am increasingly aware of a strange, quieter casualty: the city itself. When this crisis is “over,” the cities we return to will not be the ones we left. With each closure of a small business left floundering without government aid, its replacement with a Sweetgreen all but inevitable, we are saying goodbye to all that — all without ever having left. Our to-be-determined reintroduction into our own cities will be bizarre. Would being confined to the room with the poorly weighted curtains ultimately have convinced Joan Didion to stay in New York? Didion claims the grand, central lesson of her time in the city was that “it is entirely possible to stay too long at the fair,” but she never faced a situation where the fair might leave her behind. That’s what we face. A few weeks ago, the Dec. 7 cover of The New Yorker went viral. Drawn by Adrian Tomine, it depicts a woman smiling into her webcam, martini in hand, presentable from the waist up. Around her, the detritus of life under lockdown accumulates: Amazon boxes, takeout containers, etc. Those of us lucky enough to work from home and summon sushi to our doorsteps might deign to feel #seen. But it pales in comparison to New York magazine’s December cover by Jeanne Verdoux, featuring 34 simple black-ink drawings of various nowshuttered businesses. Unlike its New Yorker counterpart, it’s not an exercise in middle-class narcissism. It is an elegy for the places where we were together, centers of pleasure and communion, not just profit accumulation and consumption. And now these spaces, and hundreds of others everywhere, are gone. The city without the people, to paraphrase Shakespeare, is a bland, corporatized hellhole where we all live cynical, hyper-atomized existences. It’s photos of disorientingly empty streets. It’s a place where we are alone, mindlessly scrolling through the glut of saccharine reality shows and sequels to sequels. It’s an endless supply of plastic wrapped in cardboard that lines Jeff Bezos’ pockets. And it sucks. We are leaving our cities while still living within them, and we can do nothing but watch. That is a profound tragedy. But it is a profound tragedy in a line of profound tragedies, the sheer abundance rendering it all but rote. The bodies pile up. The businesses close. What’s one more loss added to the pile of immeasurable losses? And can it be delivered tomorrow via Prime? EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NASHVILLE SCENE | JANUARY 14 – JANUARY 20, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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ART

FLORA AND FAUNA David Lusk Gallery sets sail into 2021 with new work from Alex Lockwood

development and consumerism have on the natural spaces and species all around them. Lockwood’s art makes viewers consider natural creatures and their habitats while simultaneously confronting them with the plastic trash that stands in for the perils of petroculture as a whole. All artists who work with recycled materials are part of this bigger environmental conversation, but not all of them have Lockwood’s eye for materials and his facility for transforming them. Lockwood’s best work finds him exploiting a less-than-obvious capacity in the stuff he collects before utilizing his discoveries to build structures and create textures that are perfectly matched to the qualities of his altered, manipulated materials. The best works in Watch for My Signals are Lockwood’s lottery-ticket snakes — perfect examples of how the artist’s strongest expressions emerge from his ability to match striking combinations of material and form. In these works, Lockwood interconnects countless folded lottery tickets to create the slithering bodies of these serpents. The reiterating patterns and textures of the folded cards evoke the scales of a reptile, and the structures of these works allow them to twist, bend and hang with venomous realism. I appreciate the messaging in Lockwood’s artist statement, which speaks to the insidious nature of the legal lottery games that function as a school tax paid by poor communities. But in the context of this show, I’m much more captivated by how Lockwood must’ve spent hours folding and connecting “Large Black Snake” before deciding to finish off its tail with a rattle made from a row of purple and green plastic balls. The cartoonish rattle reads like a punchline — and it’s funny — but the joke works because the rest of the sculpture is so surprising, inventive, transformational and beautiful. Watch for My Signals also includes a number of Lockwood’s recent shotgun-shell sculptures of wildflowers, plants and fruits. Lots of these also offer strong examples of how the artist is able to shred, smash and loop his found plastic tubes into stems and stamens, leaves and blossoms that seem all the more real due to the colorful, waxy material of the shells. I particularly like a piece called “Nobelsportanthus,” which brings an element of transmedia fiction into the display. The sculpture of the flower boasts beautiful blossoms made from red shotgun shells that have been cut down and squashed flat — the flower comes complete with a tangle of roots fashioned

statement explains that Armiceae comes from the Latin “armis,” which means weapons. More importantly, the scientific nomenclature is half-madeup and comes from the imagination of the artist, who adds a smart twist to the piece by conjuring a science-fictional context for his fake flowers to exist in. While lots of Lockwood’s work is silly or even zany, it’s often genuinely transcendent in its sensational presence, its unexpected scale and especially in its formal characteristics — its intricate designs and chromatic, shiny, toy-like surfaces. Lusk’s Nashville space is intimate compared to OZ, and there won’t be kids swinging from the art at Watch for My Signals. But there’s still plenty of that Lockwood delight on display at the new exhibition. “Fruits” reads like a nod to classic art still lifes with its arrangement of a pineapple, grapes and a tomato. The stiffness of the shotgun-shell plastic makes the contours of the fruits amusingly square, like pixelated digital renderings. “Full Vase” is a gorgeous display of various flowers — many native to Tennessee. From a distance, this one looks like an actual flower bouquet. If Lockwood ever needs an extra gig, “Full Vase” shows he’s got a knack for floral arranging — another example of the artist’s knack for diverse and deftly deployed materials and techniques. EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

“NOBELSPORTANTHUS,” ALEX LOCKWOOD

lex Lockwood’s 2015 solo exhibition at OZ Arts, Shake, introduced the artist to Nashville’s wider gallery-going culture. His work had been included in groups shows at Coop and the nowdefunct Cumberland ALEX LOCKWOOD: WATCH FOR MY SIGNALS Gallery, and showed THROUGH FEB. 6 AT what he could do DAVID LUSK GALLERY DAVIDLUSKGALLERY.COM with texture and color. But OZ gave him an opportunity to inhabit a massive space. Shake featured works made from recycled materials: plastic bottle caps, spent shotgun shells, colorful plastic coat hangers and the rectangular plastic tabs that cinch plastic bread bags closed. Lockwood combined his materials in repetitive patterns to create colorful tapestries, big rolling balls, wearable head-covering masks, and colorful chandelier-like forms that dangled from the ceiling. Guests were encouraged to roll the balls and swing the chandeliers using attached cables. Tapestries were touched, merry-go-rounds made from plastic coat hangers were spun, and visitors of all ages were treated to one of the most interactive — and loud — gallery gatherings one can imagine in the usually hands-off, voices-hushed environment of an art-exhibiting space. Lockwood’s practice has expanded into curation, gallery ownership and studio landlording in the nearly six years that have passed since Shake. The artist’s Elephant Gallery, which hosts its own roster of artist studios, opened in 2017 in North Nashville, and Lockwood is now one of Nashville’s most recognized artists. His work — and his gallery — have brought a more casual and playful aesthetic to Nashville’s contemporary art scene, and it’s resonated with a larger viewership beyond the fanatics of the hardcore art audience. Much of what made Lockwood’s big solo splash so affecting can still be found in his latest exhibition, Watch for My Signals. The show opened at David Lusk Gallery’s Nashville outpost on Jan. 6. This new exhibition offers a colorful environment full of Lockwood’s plant and animal sculptures, along with a selection of banners that adopt the language of maritime signal flags. The artist is still borrowing, recycling and transforming. Lockwood’s art is often self-consciously silly and humorous. He curates other artists with similarly off-kilter and popculture-inspired aesthetics — even the colorful exterior of Elephant Gallery seems to announce itself as “Fun” rather than “Serious Art.” Lockwood’s sculptural creations continue to be informed by the detritus they’re crafted from. And while his work is totally accessible to broad audiences, it’s Lockwood’s use of recycled materials that pushes his work into more serious art conversations. Viewers don’t have to ponder the vague vastness of global warming to connect to the destructive pressure that

“LARGE BLACK SNAKE,” ALEX LOCKWOOD

BY JOE NOLAN

from shredded plastic. The whole plant is mounted to a board like a scientific specimen — there’s even a label that equates the so-called Nobelsportanthus flower with the taxonomic family Armiceae. Lockwood’s

nashvillescene.com | JANUARY 14 – JANUARY 20, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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NASHVILLE SCENE | JANUARY 14 – JANUARY 20, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

BOOKS

AN UPTICK IN FONDNESS FOR THE WORLD In his new nonfiction book, George Saunders shares his passion for 19th-century Russian masters of the short story BY SEAN KINCH

n the introduction to A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life, George Saunders explains that this book emerged from a course on 19thcentury Russian short stories he teaches in Syracuse University’s graduate writing program. The aim of the class is to help students understand “the physics of the form,” the mechanics of constructing narrative, “escalating” the stakes and sticking the endings. To learn how to write like a master, Saunders argues, one must first become an astute reader who grasps how literature inspires, instructs, entertains A SWIM IN A POND IN THE and confuses — RAIN: IN WHICH FOUR RUSSIANS GIVE A MASTER sometimes all at CLASS ON WRITING, once. His meticulous READING, AND LIFE analyses dissect BY GEORGE SAUNDERS fictional tradecraft RANDOM HOUSE like a manual for 432 PAGES, $28 magicians, but one SAUNDERS WILL DISCUSS that increases the HIS BOOK AT A TICKETED student’s appreciaVIRTUAL EVENT 6 P.M. TUESDAY, JAN. 19, VIA tion of illusion. These PARNASSUS BOOKS Russian wizards appear miraculous even after Saunders pulls back the curtain on the trapdoors and falsebottomed boxes. What makes this volume intriguing is the way it transcends its stated purpose as a “workbook” for writers. Saunders suggests the higher-order pleasure of these exercises when he shares his recent realization “that some of the best moments of my life, the moments during which I’ve really felt myself offering something of value to the world, have been spent teaching that Russian class.” His passion comes through in each essay, his enthusiasm for these literary heroes pushing Saunders’ prose into ecstatic encomia. Assessing Gogol’s “The Nose” — particularly a scene “in the newspaper office when somehow, magically, a group of people waiting to place ads get transformed into that which they are advertising” — Saunders asserts, “That’s what makes Gogol great.” Gogol’s “strange, happy confidence” rubs off on Saunders: “The inexplicable uptick in fondness for the world I feel, moving through that section, which is not essential to the action of the story but seems to have been done just for the fun of it, is, for me, what Gogol is all about.” A Swim in a Pond in the Rain has seven long chapters, each starting with a story, followed by Saunders’ commentary on what makes it work. The first, on Chekhov’s “In the Cart,” examines the story one page at a time, pausing to “take stock of where we find ourselves” and to ask, “What has that page done to us?” This approach, based on an exercise Saunders uses in class, effectively demonstrates how Chekhov raises readers’ expectations and then complicates them with each narrative “beat.” This method is also

tedious, as Saunders acknowledges. For the following six chapters, we read the full stories before he supervenes, a process that provides opportunities for rereading, essential for comprehending the authors’ art. The book includes one story each from Gogol and Turgenev, two from Tolstoy (including the 50-page “Master and Man”) and three from Chekhov, a distribution that suggests the balance of Saunders’ esteem. Chekhov’s stories are ideal for this collection: They embody the writing rules that Saunders sets forth but in ways that feel surprising and organic, never paint-bynumbers. Chekhov teaches us to distinguish “the pace of the story versus the pace of real life: the story is way faster, compressed, and exaggerated.” To illustrate the Ruthless Efficiency Principle — “that nothing exists in a story by chance or merely to serve some documentary function” — Saunders observes that every moment of Chekhov’s “In the Cart,” every word choice, contributes to its emotional impact. Fans of Saunders — who have become legion with the popularity of his story collections and his best-selling novel Lincoln in the Bardo — will read this volume for clues to his writing process. Though he keeps his beloved Russians center stage, Saunders shares personal lessons he has gleaned through trial and error. Early in his career, he tried to become a “Hemingwayesque” realist — “everything I wrote was minimal and strict and efficient and lifeless and humor-free” — but it was a mold that didn’t suit his personality. After scribbling “dark little Seussian poems” and discovering that his wife genuinely enjoyed them, he started a story in this “mode” of absurd humor, “allowing myself to be entertaining.” The resulting story “was the best thing I’d ever written” and the most distinctive, possessing “some essential ‘meness’ in it — for better or worse, no one else could have written it.” Finding his voice did not, however, reduce the amount of work required to produce good stories. To Saunders, writing fiction puts us “in conversation with our reader, but with this great advantage: we get to improve the conversation over and over.” Young writers may be daunted by Saunders’ onerous practice of revision, which he describes as “a repetitive, obsessive, iterative application of preference … through (sometimes) hundreds of drafts, over months or even years.” His ambition is to produce stories that, like Tolstoy’s, cause readers to forget that they’re fiction. “That’s the kind of story I want to write, the kind that stops being writing and starts being life,” Saunders says. “But, Lord, it’s harder than it looks.” For more local book coverage, please visit Chapter16.org, an online publication of Humanities Tennessee. EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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SCENERY Arts and Culture News From the Nashville Scene

Looking for the latest on art and culture in Nashville? Subscribe to Scenery, our weekly newsletter that covers visual art, theater, comedy, books, film and more. Subscribe at nashvillescene.com/subscribe nashvillescene.com | JANUARY 14 – JANUARY 20, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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MUSIC

ANOTHER LOOK

The Scene’s music writers recommend recent releases from Virghost, Thelma and the Sleaze, Savoy Motel and more BY LANCE CONZETT, EDD HURT, P.J. KINZER, BRITTNEY MCKENNA, MEGAN SELING, STEPHEN TRAGESER, RON WYNN AND CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

020 was an exceptionally chaotic year, for the world in general and the music community in particular, and 2021 doesn’t seem like it’ll be smooth sailing either. Yet a kaleidoscopic array of Nashville FIND LINKS TO STREAM AND musicians conBUY THESE RECORDS AT tinued to make NASHVILLESCENE.COM/MUSIC great music in abundance. Below, the Scene’s music writers have nine new recommendations of recent releases for you. Note that Bandcamp Friday, the promotion in which the platform waives its cut of sales on the first Friday of each month, is coming back from at least February to May. If you’re saving up, you can add these to your shopping list and put them in your streaming rotation.

VIRGHOST, SEARCHING FOR SHILOH (CAPITOL MINDS) Shiloh Dynasty has never had an official release of their own, even digitally, but has developed an avid following anyway. This enigmatic and private individual posted hauntingly beautiful snippets of melancholy R&B songs on Vine and Instagram over several years. Though those clips stopped appearing in September 2016, a wide range of artists has continued to sample them, most famously late rapper XXXTentacion. Standout Memphis-raised Nashville rapper Virghost uses both inspiration from the Dynasty mystery and samples of their work in his new EP Searching for Shiloh. It’s a new sound and feel for Virghost, but his trademark mature perspective on family and other relationships and his masterful bars are the core of this release, as they are throughout his catalog. STEPHEN TRAGESER

SINAI VESSEL, GROUND ASWIM (SINGLE OCCUPANCY) Sinai Vessel offers up an appealing mixture of folk-tinged indie rock with slowcore and math-rock flourishes on Ground Aswim. The third LP from singersongwriter Caleb Cordes, a native Tar Heel now living in Nashville, contains 11 sturdily crafted songs highlighting the group’s keen

understanding of how to use negative space to their advantage. Sensitive-but-not-wimpy standouts “Fragile,” “George” and “Guest in Your Life” conjure mirthful basement shows in Midwestern college towns like Bloomington and Champaign in the best way. Fans of Pinegrove, Bedhead and local heroes Shell of a Shell should find Ground Aswim well worth their time. CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

LILLY HIATT, LIVE AT EXIT/IN DURING COVID (NEW WEST) When Lilly Hiatt released her countrykissed rock record Walking Proof in March, the pandemic robbed fans of the opportunity to sing its songs — and the spirited chorus of “Never Play Guitar” (“Baby paint your cheeks up, tell ’em who you are!”) — in a room with fellow revelers hypnotized by Hiatt’s magnetic presence. Not the same, but appreciated nonetheless, Hiatt scratched that live itch in August by performing Walking Proof at Exit/In, empty but for a crew that filmed the show for streaming. That set — rounded out with songs from Hiatt’s previous albums Trinity Lane, Royal Blue and Let Down — was released on Bandcamp in December, with proceeds benefiting East Nashville’s Trinity Community Commons. Play it loud, dance hard and consider it training for the day we’re able to safely gather again. MEGAN SELING

KYLE FREDERICK, BURN YOUR POOR MOUTH DOWN (MELODY CHEF MUSIC) In the annals of post-bluegrass folkcountry with a spiritual bent, Kyle Frederick’s new full-length Burn Your Mouth Down stands tall. A native of Louisville, Ky., who grew up in Bowling Green, Frederick played lead guitar with country artists like Joe Sun and Foster & Lloyd in the 1980s. Burn demonstrates his gift for writing pithy, pained songs that are often idiosyncratically shaped. “Jessamine” finds Frederick subtly skewing the conventions of singersongwriterdom, while you can hear Frederick shift into power-pop mode on “I’ll Be Dead,” suggesting a fusion of Chris Bell and post-grass. Frederick goes into

power-pop mode on his excellent four-song EP, Mother Humble, which was released back in the spring. EDD HURT

DANNY STRIMER, NEW LOVE SONGS: BOSSA NOVA & BEYOND (STRIMER SONGS) Vocalist-guitarist Danny Strimer expands his repertoire into the realm of jazz and numbers influenced by the Great American Songbook on his most recent release. It’s a delightfully sung and well-played 10tune selection of originals, predominantly devoted to celebrating love’s joys and beauty. Strimer co-wrote all the selections with top songwriter Alan Miller, better known for cuts by The Mavericks and Rick Trevino. Incidentally, Mavericks leader Raul Malo co-wrote “Not Enough,” one of the best selections on New Love Songs. Miller nicely makes the shift into jazz territory, while Strimer’s lush acoustic guitar support is framed in fine arrangements buttressed by such prominent area jazz musicians as vocalist Jeff Hall and guitarist James DaSilva. Pianist Jody Nardone’s sparkling melodic interplay and support are another bonus, as well as tight rhythmic support from bassist Brian Zonn and drummer/ percussionist Pino Squillace, who coproduced the session with Strimer. Aside from the seasonal piece “First Day of Spring,” these songs are an expressive chronicle of the charms and joys of romance, as in the passionate tribute piece “Lena Smiles.” Love’s pitfalls are there too: Hear “Now That You’re Gone.” RON WYNN

THELMA AND THE SLEAZE, SACRED AS HELL (THE WHAT OF WHOM) Thelma and the Sleaze squeeze all they can out of a home recording setup on their new seven-song set Sacred as Hell, bending genre to their will and making wordplay the servant of song-master Lauren “L.G.” Gilbert. The EP runs the gamut from the sentimental countrified ballad “In Pictures,” to the heavy-guitar slow jam “Makin Me Hot,” to the flawless, skinny-tied power pop of “Good Girls,” showing off how TATS’ bag of tricks gets ever deeper. This time around, L.G. also took on just about every other role in the recording process, with only the assistance of drummer Bailey “PigPen” Chapman, resulting in a raw, heartfelt release. P.J. KINZER

HERU HERU, CASHVILLAINS (1619893 RECORDS) In early December, hip-hop duo Heru Heru dropped Cashvillains, a new fivetrack EP and a follow-up to 2019’s Heal Hop.

Ah-Deli and Foundation Mecca describe their duo as “inspired by [hip-hop’s] golden era” with a focus on lyricism. By the sound of Cashvillians, they’ve gotten the blend down pat. Singers Sup3r8 and Ro guest on “Without You,” a bilingual love song with a laid-back, jazzy arrangement and flows reminiscent of the aforementioned ’90s hip-hop. Ah-Deli, who is of Iranian descent, speaks multiple languages, including Spanish and Farsi; he peppers a few lines of Italian into the song. Closing track “New Addition” is another standout, channeling the socially conscious lyrical style of rappers like Talib Kweli and Common, referencing violent police and Malcolm X.

BRITTNEY McKENNA F_FOREVER✰, BINARY ✰✰✰’S (SELF-RELEASED) My one enduring hope for the local pop scene has been for it to wander beyond the ease of mainstream formula and into abject weirdness. On binary ✰✰✰’s, the debut EP by f_Forever✰, singer Caroline Lucent (aka Caroline Williams, who also fronts local punk outfit Soy Milk Boy) and producer Daydream Nathan at last make that wish a reality. Like PC Music before them, f_Forever✰ takes electronic pop sounds to their extremes and celebrates them, all without a trace of irony. Songs like “pyrite heart” and “tmf ♥♥♥” revel in experimental artificiality, but they’re also unmistakably pop bangers. It’s an impressive debut, one that seems like it would be as at home at Circuit Benders’ Ball as it would on the dance floor. LANCE CONZETT

SAVOY MOTEL, LOVE YOUR FACE (OFFICIAL MEMORABILIA) About a year after we crowned their self-titled debut Best Album-Length Trip to the ’70s in 2017, Savoy Motel went into suspended animation. The project reemerged in late 2019 with original singerbassist Jeffrey Novak and guitarist Dillon Watson joined by drummer Ryan Donoho and keyboardist Christina Norwood — all veterans of the local rock scene of the past decade. Love Your Face, the album that the new configuration released in December, leans away from the mechanical funk and winking cool of Savoy Motel and toward power pop and pastoral psychedelia. What hasn’t changed is the group’s knack for playful and kinetic rhythms and a wealth of old-school sounds, making the LP feel like a delightful surprise you stumbled on in a dusty record bin. STEPHEN TRAGESER EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NASHVILLE SCENE | JANUARY 14 – JANUARY 20, 2021

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MUSIC

NASHVILLE PREDATORS Avant-metal world-beaters Yautja preview their Relapse Records debut with a new split BY CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

ashville’s Yautja is a worldclass metal band in our own backyard. For the past decade, the trio — named for the trophy-hunting alien species from the Predator films — has capCHEPANG/YAUTJA SPLIT tivated audiences OUT FRIDAY, JAN. 15 VIA locally and abroad GCBT RECORDS with its atypical triple-threat of hardcore-punk grit and speed, death-metal growls and blast beats, and molasses-thick, Melvins-esque sludge. Where most metal bands’ sounds lie on one end of the visceral-or-cerebral spectrum, the racket conjured by bassist Kayhan Vaziri, guitarist Shibby Poole and drummer Tyler Coburn occupies the middle. A carefully crafted mixture of paint-peeling noise-rock riffs, metallic pinch harmonics, gut-rumbling lowend churn, and off-the-wall but in-the-pocket percussion, it’s simultaneously complex, forceful and clear. One recorded example of the group at the peak of its powers is “Faith Resigned,” a seven-minute elegy of repetition and feedback from 2014’s debut Songs of Descent. Another is “Crawling,” which closes Descent’s rawer 2015 companion EP Songs of Lament with a shotgun marriage of trudging doom and grindcore chaos. Both Songs volumes were recorded locally with Mikey Allred at his studio Dark Arts Audio, and issued by Richmond, Va., label Forcefield. The group’s catalog also includes a 2016 split with Boston band Fórn and 2017’s one-sided 12-inch Dead Soil. Last summer came the

lone digital track “Test Subject.” Things have been relatively quiet, but they’re about to get a whole lot louder. Friday will mark the release of a split 7-inch with Chepang, a grindcore combo from Queens by way of Kathmandu, Nepal, who Yautja met at Maryland Death Fest. “They do a ton to contribute to and support underground metal [and] grind from all over the world,” says Vaziri in an email to the Scene. Yautja’s contributions to the release are the aforementioned “Test Subject,” a breakneck-paced crust-punk exercise in the spirit of Memphis’ legendary His Hero Is Gone, plus a second aptly titled scorcher, “The Kindling.” The former features vocal assists from Maddy Madeira and David Reichley from fellow Nashvillian outfits Sallow and Thirdface. Those two tracks are just a foreshock, however. They come from an eight-day session the band undertook in January 2020 with Scott Evans of fellow thinking-person’s alternative-metalers Kowloon Walled City, who flew out from Oakland, Calif., to produce the band’s long-awaited second LP. He and the band stayed and worked at Electrical Audio, the Chicago studio where owner-operator Steve Albini has lent his naturalistic touch to influential records by The Jesus Lizard, Neurosis and many others who are part of Yautja’s musical DNA. “It was pretty surreal being in a studio where so many amazing records have been made — a dreamlike scenario,” says Vaziri. Though they didn’t work with Albini directly, “it was rad just seeing him in his

work environment and engaging in small talk here and there.” There are still finishing touches to put on the new album, like finalizing a title and artwork. These are details the band always pays attention to — note the intricate etching adorning the back of Dead Soil on vinyl. But they carry some extra weight this time around, as Yautja appears poised to make a great leap forward. The album, set for a late-summer release, is the band’s debut for Philadelphia’s Relapse Records, a label whose impact on heavy music over the past

three decades is comparable to Sub Pop’s contributions to indie rock or Epitaph’s to pop-punk. The full-length, Vaziri promises, will be worth the wait. “We’ve been working on this material for five years,” he says. “I’d call them the most dialed-in songs we have. Some longer ones for sure, but also some quicker, faster bangers. It’s on-brand for us — we’re definitely still a metal band — but I’m hoping it reaches a bunch of ears who’ve never heard us, and surprises them. It’s a hefty slab of music.” EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

THE SPIN KEEPING THE STREAM ALIVE BY CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

n abbreviated, irreverent cover of The Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up,” played at double the speed of the original, was one of many surprises in Safety Net’s performance, streamed Friday from The 5 Spot via StageIt. The trio gained its sea legs in the months before the COVID-19 pandemic, supporting similarly minded locals Faux Ferocious, Goner Records no-wave heroines Nots and a reconstituted version of ’70s proto-punks Simply Saucer. But until putting the four-song Health EP on Bandcamp in September, Safety Net remained largely a mystery left to word-of-mouth. Singer-guitarist-keyboardist Connor Cummins, bassist and co-frontman Sean Flint and drummer Cam Sarrett pulled the curtain back on Friday, delivering on the good buzz with 15 songs, including threefourths of Health, the aforementioned Stones cover and other studies in sturdy, catchy art punk. Anyone who’s seen Cummins play live in Spodee Boy, his long-running, rabble-rousing lo-fi punk project, knows he can entertain. But in Flint, he’s found a hell of a foil. The black-clad bassist’s fierce, emotive bellow contrasted well with Cummins’ tenser, firmer singing style, and his solid, melodic lines worked in lockstep

SAFETY NET

with Sarrett’s motorik drumming. That freed Cummins to run wild along the fretboard — and occasionally a nearby Korg keyboard — firing off pensive upstroked arpeggios, jagged barre chords, gnarly surf riffs and furiously strummed harmonic chords, often within the same passage. Safety Net’s influences are classic — Public Image Ltd (“Instincts”), The Buzzcocks (“Be With You”), Mission of Burma (“Health”) — but their particular synthesis of them felt novel, exciting and fun. This set was the longest the group had ever played, Cummins noted, and its last several songs were all works in progress — but it didn’t show. He also mentioned that the group has some studio time coming up, so keep an eye out for a new release. More and more acts are signing up for pro-shot, pro-recorded livestreams from The 5 Spot, suggesting that word’s getting around about what the club and its co-owner Todd Sherwood are offering our starved underground during these lean times: an intimate stage that encourages bands to push outside their musical comfort zones. The shows are also a blank canvas visually, which Tape Deck Mountain, who played Saturday, made

TAKING IT BY STRATEGY: TAPE DECK MOUNTAIN

the most of. Debuting six new cuts from their forthcoming fourth album True Deceiver, the foursome crowned Best Shoegazers in the Scene’s 2018 Best of Nashville issue dimmed the lights and settled in against a backdrop of soft purple, green and blue projections. The colors suited TDM’s sonic aura. The songs swung steadily, with tones as thick as the smog layer over bandleader Travis Trevisan’s native Southern California. Guitarist Greg Harp, bassist David Sullivan and drummer Andy Gregg round out the lineup. The ways technology isolates and divides us were an overarching theme of Trevisan & Co.’s most recent album, 2018’s Echo Chamber Blues. Newer material

like “Screen Savior,” played during the stream, takes a similar lyrical tack, but with an added layer of cynicism. “Are you staring at your phone / Pretending you’re not alone?” Trevisan asks in “NOMO,” before he deadpans: “Your username is ‘Sad Trombone.’ ” The dual Jazzmaster-powered grandeur and intensity of TDM’s in-person live show can’t be fully conveyed on-screen, and at 35 minutes, Saturday’s set could’ve been a song or two longer. But with True Deceiver slated for a vinyl release in the spring, as Trevisan announced from the stage, the band’s socially observant shoegaze is something you’ll be able to luxuriate in again soon — no smartphone required. EMAIL THESPIN@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

nashvillescene.com | JANUARY 14 – JANUARY 20, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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FILM

THE 2020 JIM RIDLEY FILM POLL

Dedicated to late Scene editor and critic Jim Ridley, our poll asks critics, cinephiles and industry insiders about 2020 in film COMPILED BY JASON SHAWHAN

FIRST COW

iven the chaos and enervating travails of 2020, it was going to be a challenge to find the right assortment of folks to get at the heart of this unpredictable year in cinema. An international assemblage of critics, filmmakers, podcasters, teachers, actors, exhibitors, publicists, festival programmers, artists and even a beloved horror host stepped up to get hierarchical and reflective. We do this every year in honor of the late, great Jim Ridley, who believed strongly in the value of conversations about film. So buckle up, it’s a wild ride ahead.

THE 25 BEST FILMS OF 2020

1. First Cow 2. Lovers Rock 3. Possessor 4. Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets 5. Nomadland 6. I’m Thinking of Ending Things 7. Vitalina Varela 8. Spontaneous 9. The Invisible Man 10. She Dies Tomorrow 11. David Byrne’s American Utopia 12. Driveways 13. Da 5 Bloods 14. (tie) Mank 14. (tie) Tenet 16. Collective 17. Never Rarely Sometimes Always 18. Time 19. Bacurau 20. Promising Young Woman 21. Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) 22. City Hall 23. (tie) The Assistant 23. (tie) Emma 25. Gretel and Hansel

Jeff Nichols. Thashana McQuiston There are four filmmakers I’d love to see make a film about the pandemic. First, Spike Lee because his film would reflect his personality: acerbic, witty, unpredictable and ultimately insightful. Second, Martin Scorsese because no one is better at telling all aspects of a complex story, though it would also probably be super-lengthy. Third and fourth, Barry Jenkins and Ava DuVernay, in my view the best of the newer generation of Black filmmakers who could offer their views on how it has disproportionately affected the Black community, the impact on Black families and women, etc. Not that Lee’s wouldn’t as well, but they could present it from a younger perspective than his. Ron Wynn Truthfully, I think it would be Aki Kaurismäki. He would downplay the global horror and emphasize how local communities came together to provide aid to the weakest and most vulnerable. Michael Sicinski John Waters of course! I’d love to see his take on this hellhole of a moment. David Ninh The only artist I care to see tackle this period in history is Larry David, who I trust will approach it with the irreverence and splenetic disgust it deserves. I actively dread the maudlin coronavirus relationship dramas coming soon to a film festival near you. (Twenty bucks says Drake Doremus has shot at least three of them already.) All I know is that when we finally get back to the movies, the last thing I’m gonna want to

see up there on a big screen is a fucking Zoom call. Sean Burns Pedro Almodóvar. The essays he released this spring during Spain’s quarantine were some of the most somber but delightful pieces I’ve read about isolation, and I think he would be the perfect filmmaker to find the humor in the situation without dismissing its drama and gravity. Brennan Klein I mean, Chantal Akerman. Every time I’m wandering from one room to the next, turning on and off lights, I think of Jeanne Dielman, one of the great films about barely leaving one’s apartment, only going out for necessary supplies. Matt Prigge One of the most curious aspects of early quarantine days was the reconsideration of Todd Haynes’ Safe, a film about, among other things, contagion connected to domestic or bourgeois identity. I think, not unlike Soderbergh (whose own Contagion was frequently in discussion), Haynes has a keen eye on the wide web of deceit and interpolation from system and institution to the individual. And what was COVID-19’s irreparable impact, particularly in the United States, if not a failure particularly on a systematic level? I think Haynes would be able to draw the connections easily and astutely, and employ genre tropes in his typically postmodern affect to an effective degree, finding insight that few filmmakers would be able to grasp. Kyle Turner Karyn Kusama, for an unexpected and complex take. What I always want from a film is an escape, especially during the pandemic, and I trust Kusama to offer that and somehow make me laugh and cringe. Or a version by Cronenberg (David or Brandon). Unhinged is what I crave, in conclusion. Sadaf Ahsan Honestly, none of them. I know our cinema will inevitably reckon with it in some ways but I’m looking forward to not watching movies about the pandemic once it’s over. Nathan Smith

OF ALL THE 2020 RELEASES THAT HAPPENED DURING THE PANDEMIC, WHICH IS THE FILM YOU MOST WANT TO SEE IN A THEATRICAL ENVIRONMENT?

His House. Odie Henderson Vitalina Varela had the most amazing cinematography of any movie I watched this year by far. The closest I could come to doing it justice while streaming it on my TV was to watch it at night with every light in the house turned off. I long for the day when I get to see it on the big screen. Richie Millennium Monster Hunter. Nathan Smith My mind says Tenet; my heart says Crazy World with a good crowd. James Spence When I saw Lovers Rock at the digital edition of the New York Film Festival, I really wished I could’ve seen it surrounded by other people. Not with a New York Film Festival crowd, though; no disrespect to the folks who frequent Lincoln Center, but there are some theatrical experiences that demand an audience with roots in the Global South, or at least people among whom letting loose and really expressing yourself at

the cinema isn’t considered taboo. Maybe somewhere in Flushing. People would’ve danced in the aisles if this had gotten a theatrical release. I know I would’ve. Siddhant Adlakha I would have loved the chance to have seen Tremors: Shrieker Island in a theater. Even without a pandemic, I doubt that the film would have had a theatrical run, but it’s what Burt Gummer deserves, and I’ll give anything to see graboids on the big screen again. B.J. Colangelo Bacurau, because that will always be the most 2020 movie to me, and I’d love to experience the audience’s reaction when that one dude’s head gets blown off, preferably at a rowdy midnight screening. Sean Burns

HAS THE PANDEMIC AFFECTED YOUR ABILITY TO FOCUS WHEN VIEWING A FILM?

Definitely, and it’s also affected my memory and impacted my desire to see anything new. I watched fewer new films this year not only because accessing them was more difficult, but also because revisiting older TV shows and films felt safer and more comforting. I can tell I’m feeling hopeful about the future, though, because I have a sudden urge to watch everything. Lisa Williams Focusing on movies at home is always more difficult than focusing on one inside a blackened movie palace — I’m the sort of person who shrieks if somebody even checks the time on their phone inside a theater, but at home most everything is watched from over the glow of my open laptop, in between bathroom breaks. Jason Adams I hate my phone. Please confiscate it. Siddhant Adlakha Nah. I was always absolutely riddled with anxiety. Scout Tafoya No. I do think it’s harder to focus watching at home overall, but I think I’ve been able to focus more during the pandemic because I would much rather focus on movies than reality. William Mahaffey More than anything, it’s made me become a realtime fact checker while watching documentaries. I’ll pause and try to string together events to determine a possible shooting timeline depending on the doc’s format. This is useless, for example, with Wiseman’s City Hall, but it was incredibly engaging with David Osit’s Mayor. John Lichman The pandemic has absolutely shifted the way I watch films. I need to turn my phone off because I don’t have the “I’m in church” feeling of a theater, and the comfort of home triggers an almost Pavlovian response to check notifications. Everyone knows everyone is home (or should be!), which has now spiked pressure to stay connected at all times, which is really hurting the way so many of us take time for self-care or entertainment. We’ve all got to rewire ourselves. B.J. Colangelo Not only to focus while viewing a film, but to watch films in general. The fact that my movie-watching

OF ALL THE FILMMAKERS WHO COULD MAKE A MOVIE ABOUT THE PANDEMIC, WHICH ONE DO YOU WANT TO SEE MOST? Roy Andersson. Elric Kane Errol Morris. D. Patrick Rodgers

LOVERS ROCK

POSSESSOR

NASHVILLE SCENE | JANUARY 14 – JANUARY 20, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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CROSSWORD

FILM numbers went down, not up, during the pandemic was the biggest surprise of the year for me. I can’t explain it, and I might always regret it. Sam Smith

WHAT’S THE MUSICAL MOMENT THAT HAS STUCK WITH YOU FROM THIS YEAR’S CINEMATIC OFFERINGS?

It’s a tie between Leslie Odom Jr. leading the audience in an a cappella sing-along of “Chain Gang” in One Night in Miami and Mads Mikkelsen’s amazing dance at the end of Another Round. Craig D. Lindsey Everybody getting buck to “Kunta Kinte Dub” in Lovers Rock and making the DJ run it back multiple times, the multiple meanings of “Psycho Killer” in Bloodshot, the scene in This Is Paris where she’s getting ready to go onstage for a DJ set at an EDM festival and her drunk German boyfriend reveals himself to be a complete manipulative asshole. Nathan Smith The usage of Paris Hilton’s “Stars Are Blind” in Promising Young Woman was ingenious. The downbeat string-quartet cover of Britney Spears’ “Toxic” from the same film was also exhilarating. Also the entirety of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe film Lovers Rock. Witney Seibold Ethan Hawke’s rendition of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” in Michael Almereyda’s Tesla. I love Tears for Fears! David Ninh The “Bhankas” number from the Bollywood film Baaghi 3. I have my (extreme) misgivings about the politics of the movie, but as a big, blustery action movie, it’s a terrific sugar rush, and the thing I love about Bollywood is that they give this ass-kicking actioner room for a full-tilt production number at a wedding. Brennan Klein Keith Sweat’s “Make It Last Forever” in the NYFF short film “A Sudden Darkness.” “Welcome to the Pleasuredome” in WW84. Janis Ian’s “Hymn” in Ask Any Buddy. “Pyaar Tenu Karda Gabru” in Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan, and its similarly subversive sibling “Megatron Man” in Palm Springs. Robyn’s “Honey” in And Then We Danced. The karaoke number in After Midnight that I daren’t spoil. Several of the arrangements in Valley Girl. “Husavik” in Eurovision Song Contest. And everything in Lovers Rock. Jason Shawhan In She Dies Tomorrow, when the needle is dropped multiple times, repeating the same version of Mozart’s Requiem. It goes from pretentious to darkly funny and shifts how you view the film in one sequence. Elric Kane The obvious choice here is the rapturous “Silly Games” sing-along in Steve McQueen’s Lovers Rock. But because I’ve already written about that magnificent sequence elsewhere (and suspect that other contributors to this poll will cite it), I’ll go with a much less heralded moment: the scene in The Climb where Kyle, one half of the dysfunctional friendship at the center of the film, does a basement lip-sync pole dance for his fiancée, Marissa (Gayle Rankin), to the tune of Shawn Mullins’ dopey 1998 FM hit “Lullaby.” The scene’s an inspired, unexpected bit of physical comedy that’s a little like The Climb in microcosm, in that it benefits in about equal measure from performance and expertly choreographed action. And I’m a sucker for any needle drop that finds sincere meaning in a bad song: After all he’s already been through, some 15 minutes into the movie, Kyle really could use some reassurance that “everything is going to be all right.” A.A. Dowd “Husavik” from Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga was my most-listened-to song on Spotify this year, and I feel absolutely zero shame in admitting it. The music is absolutely gorgeous, and it has quickly become one of my go-to “belt my face off at the stoplight” songs. As far as a needle drop is concerned? I still cannot believe that in 2020, God proved that she is real by giving us Carey Mulligan and Bo Burnham singing Paris Hilton’s “Stars Are

Blind” in Promising Young Woman. B.J. Colangelo Carey Mulligan and Bo Burnham singing and dancing along to Paris Hilton’s iconic “Stars Are Blind” in Promising Young Woman. I’ve always felt that song never quite got its due, and maybe this is the moment it was made for all along. It’s a bizarrely perfect choice for a moment in which our heroine finally unclenches, with a sweetly endearing nostalgic purity. Be warned, though: you’ll never get it out of your head. Sadaf Ahsan The “Silly Games” scene in Lovers Rock. Easily the scene of the year and the moment that most made me lament being trapped in my house for the past 10 months. Odie Henderson

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING IN 2021?

The inside of a theater. Craig D. Lindsey I cannot WAIT to eat buttery popcorn, sneak in outside Popeye’s in my bag, watch tons of trailers and judge them, laugh, cry during a film, or be overcome with nostalgia revisiting an older film, or be overwhelmed by an experience of a new movie that touches me or makes me react. I can’t wait to be able to have that first group drink with my friends after a film and discuss it in depth. David Ninh If there’s something that screams “must watch in theaters,” it’s a fourth Matrix movie by one of the original directors, Lana Wachowski. Not a single Hollywood action film has rivaled what the original Matrix did. Not one. Come on, it’s a no-brainer. Siddhant Adlakha I’d love to see In the Heights or Judas and the Black Messiah in a theater. Can’t wait for Ed-DEE’s return to Zamunda in Coming 2 America, either. Odie Henderson Like surely just about everyone else, I’m looking forward to Dune, as well as the next Bond and Matrix installments. But I’m really, truly crossing my fingers that I’ll be able to see Nobody in a theater — Bob Odenkirk as action star, directed by the guy who did Hardcore Henry? I could not be more interested. D. Patrick Rodgers Nia DaCosta’s Candyman. All three minutes of Kyle Richards and her bangs in Halloween Kills. It’s a vastly incompent title for a sequel to a vastly incompetent reboot, but God do I love Kyle Richards (and her bangs)! I’m sure they’re going to kill her brutally for being a Real Housewife and give Anthony Michael Hall’s Tommy way more screen time even though he didn’t even originate the role. Anthony Hudson Nia DaCosta’s Candyman. Nia DaCosta’s Candyman. Nia DaCosta’s Candyman. Nia DaCosta’s Candyman. Nia DaCosta’s Candyman. B.J. Colangelo No Time to Die is the only movie I am looking forward to, ever. Kyle Turner Very much hoping that WB sorts out their Dune mess because I very much need them sandworms to gape open their five-story-tall butthole-mouths in spectacular IMAX. Jason Adams Other people. Michael Sicinski

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PARTICIPANTS:

Jason Adams, Siddhant Adlakha, Sadaf Ahsan, Sean Burns, B.J. Colangelo, Jacob Davison, A.A. Dowd, Alonso Duralde, Steve Erickson, Dr. Gangrene, Odie Henderson, Anthony Hudson, Elric Kane, Brennan Klein, John Lichman, Craig D. Lindsey, Brian Lonano, William Mahaffey, Thashana McQuiston, Richie Millennium, E.J. Moreno, David Ninh, Brian Owens, Matt Prigge, Vadim Rizov, D. Patrick Rodgers, Witney Seibold, Jason Shawhan, Michael Sicinski, Nathan Smith, Sam Smith, James Spence, Scout Tafoya, Kyle Turner, Lisa Williams, Cory Woodroof, Ron Wynn

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ACROSS Orthodontic challenges Doctor’s order Grp. that might hold a raffle “Please, enough already!” Like some residents on the Gulf of Aden What’s anything but neutral? Siding? Sarcastic sentence ender Traveling figure, briefly It shares a 1,650+ mile border with the U.S.: Abbr. “I’m game if you’re game!” Sound track? ___ Heep, David Copperfield rival Oration? Dermatologist’s concern Q2 and Q3 maker ___-green Juice brand Female? What “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” supposedly isn’t about Factor for determining one’s grade in school Podcast host Maron Hill with no peak Aground? Foil, e.g. Discuss work outside of work, say Rock’s Joan ___ & the Blackhearts Main squeeze, in modern lingo Réunion buddy Were present? Cold? ___ Fields Fried snack dusted with cinnamon sugar ___ Millions It hits close to home “On again, off again” love stories, say Hope beyond hope

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One on a slippery slope Novelist/essayist Susan World’s largest theater chain Informal word of agreement Hometown hero of Louisville, Ky. Swingin’ Longtime Life Savers flavor Lacking bite Colonial workers, maybe Little fella Wheedle It may be glossed over Infirmary sight Top round steak, e.g. Grp. that determines what a 24-Down is Pompeii, for one ___ Lock (PC key) When repeated, “You get the idea” Frequent filers, for short Player with a record 10 World Series championships Superficial inspection Discussed over Slack, say, in brief Like shark attacks Magic 8 Ball, e.g. You may find a range of these: Abbr. Sight at a winery

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Online subscriptions: Today’s puzzle and more than 9,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/ crosswords ($39.95 a year). Read about and comment on each puzzle: nytimes.com/wordplay.

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nashvillescene.com | JANUARY 14 – JANUARY 20, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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Rental Scene

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Howard C. Gentry, Jr., Criminal Court Clerk It is my privilege as your elected Criminal Court Clerk to notify all citizens of Davidson County, that relative to grand jury proceedings, it is the duty of your grand jurors to investigate any public offense which they know or have reason to believe has been committed and which is triable or indictable in Davidson County. In addition to cases presented to the grand jury by your District Attorney, any citizen may petition the foreperson (foreman) of the grand jury for permission to testify concerning any offense in Davidson County. This is subject to provisions set forth in Tennessee Code Annotated 40-12105. Pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated 40-12-104 and 40-12-

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Sr. Security GRC Applications Eng. (IT Security Specialist) needed for HCA/Management Services, Nashville, TN. Engage in business analysis, gathering of business requirements, and developing applications within RSA Archer Suite, a risk management software solution. Will manage IT security risks through identity and access management. Utilize Power BI, Visio, XML/XSLT, JIRA, and VBA Macros. Write SQL Queries. The employee may work remotely from home within commuting distance of Nashville, TN up to 3 days per week. Must have a BS degree in computer science, business or Engineering and 5 yrs. of overall progressive exp. engaging in Business Analysis which includes 2 yrs. of exp. in the skills listed above. Send resumes to: elaine.healy@hcahealthcare.com

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