DECEMBER 3–9, 2020 I VOLUME 39 I NUMBER 42 I NASHVILLESCENE.COM I FREE
CITY LIMITS: MAYOR SELECTS JOHN DRAKE AS NEW METRO POLICE CHIEF PAGE 6
MUSIC: NASHVILLE PUBLIC RADIO LAUNCHES MUSIC DISCOVERY STATION WNXP PAGE 41
Nashville’s health care professionals are fighting to save lives during a global pandemic
COVID-19 TEST ADMINISTRATOR JACQUELINE IKE FROM MEHARRY MEDICAL COLLEGE
2020
NASHVILLIANS OF THE YEAR
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NASHVILLE SCENE | DECEMBER 3 – DECEMBER 9, 2020 | nashvillescene.com
CONTENTS
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DECEMBER 3, 2020
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THIS WEEK ON THE WEB:
GIFT GUIDE
CITY LIMITS
A Tragic Recent Death Sheds Light on the Mental Health Crisis in Our City Organizations like Mental Health Cooperative are fighting an uphill battle BY STEVEN HALE
Mayor Selects John Drake as New Metro Police Chief
The MNPD veteran has served as interim chief since Steve Anderson’s retirement in August BY STEVEN HALE
ART
Crawl Space: December 2020
Nashville’s December gallery offerings bring a sophisticated twist to the holiday season BY JOE NOLAN
Positively Dolly
COVER STORY Nashvillians of the Year: Health Care Workers
‘The Chaos of It All’ ....................................9 Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s COVID-19 ICU staff
Dolly Parton, Songteller places the country icon’s songwriting at the center of her story
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Shop Hop: Stay Home, Stay Cozy ON THE COVER:
MUSIC
Halper Help Us ........................................ 39
COVID-19 test administrators from Meharry Medical College and elsewhere
BY CHARLIE ZAILLIAN
Rule of Thirds .......................................... 39
Vaccine researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s infectious disease unit
BY CHARLIE ZAILLIAN
BY J.R. LIND
Coupler’s new series of EPs reaffirms that good things come in threes
Take Another Look .................................. 40
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The Scene’s music writers recommend recent releases from Bryant Taylorr, Yours Truly Jai, The Watchman and tha Poet, and more
Check out Intersection’s LISTEN, watch Maren Morris’ stream from Brooklyn Bowl Nashville, buy stuff at Porter Flea Holiday Market, build your own streaming Brian De Palma film festival, watch The Owl House on Disney+, make your own chicken noodle soup and more
Nashville Public Radio launches music discovery station WNXP in a challenging time
CRITICS’ PICKS
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COVID-19 test administrator Jacqueline Ike from Meharry Medical College; photo by Daniel Meigs
Hired-gun guitarist Josh Halper embraces the spotlight on Alrightnik
BY STEPHEN ELLIOTT
‘We’ve Got Plenty of Nose Swabs to Test’ ....12
M.L. Rose ‘Burger of the Month’ Is No Burger at All
BY JACQUELINE ZEISLOFT AND CHAPTER 16
BY D. PATRICK RODGERS
‘That’s What We Do’................................ 10
The ‘Fashion House’ Is for Sale
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BOOKS
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Lightning 100 Launches Save Our Airwaves Campaign
Are You Experienced? ............................. 41 BY STEPHEN TRAGESER
43 FILM
Rotten in Denmark ................................. 43
FOOD AND DRINK
Sugar Shock: This Charming Candy
Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round is a wellcrafted if safe depiction of a reckless little experiment
Meet the father and daughter behind Poppy & Peep, Nashville’s prettiest chocolate shop
BY NATHAN SMITH
BY MEGAN SELING
Mank is a refreshing taste of cinema’s best
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BY CORY WOODROOF
Grape Expectations
BY JASON SHAWHAN
La Vie en Rosebud .................................. 43 Primal Stream 34 ................................... 44
VODKA YONIC
How learning about wine gave me the freedom to fail — and find myself BY MINDA WEI
A kung fu classic, a stoner epic, schlocky ’80s action and more, now available to stream
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NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD
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THEATER
Home for the Holidays
Arts organizations celebrate the season with a clever mix of virtual shows
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PET OF THE WEEK!
FROM BILL FREEMAN
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On Tuesday, Nov. 24, Republicans in the Tennessee House of Representatives decided to keep Speaker Cameron Sexton in charge. It was a unanimous vote by members of the GOP caucus, and with only 26 Democrats in the House, it’s a foregone conclusion that Sexton will be reelected speaker in January when lawmakers return to the state Capitol. Majority Leader William Lamberth (RPortland) and Tennessee House Republican Caucus Chairman Jeremy Faison (R-Cosby) will also remain in their positions. Lamberth, like Sexton, had no opponents in the party’s election. Faison was opposed but won over his challenger, Rep. Robin Smith (R-Hixson). In August 2019, Sexton — a banker from Crossville representing House District 25 — beat out five other representatives to replace Glen Casada, who had resigned his post as speaker. Sexton is proving to be refreshingly dissimilar to Casada, who was at the center of several scandals. You may recall reports of his hiring “research analysts” who were simply hall monitors hired to follow and eavesdrop on certain House members, or the sexually explicit and racist texts he received from his chief of staff. Sadly, those are just small examples of the trouble stirred up while Casada was speaker. Political observers think Sexton can make a very good name for himself and for his party if he simply asks himself “What would Casada do?” and then does the opposite. Sexton reminds me in some ways of former Tennessee Gov. Ned Ray McWherter. McWherter was certainly partisan, but when it came to doing what was best for the state, he set his partisanship aside. When Sexton was first appointed as speaker, he told The Tennessean, “The good news is we agree on a lot more than we disagree on.” Thereafter he mentioned quality education, jobs, infrastructure and health care. He further commented on the need for the parties to work together for the greater good, while recognizing there would be disagreements. Sexton is approachable and has obviously gained the respect of House members, though his preelection bus tour generated criticism.
On Oct. 25, The Tennessean reported that Sexton was “leading Republicans on a bus tour,” the objective being to “get out the vote.” This type of grassroots effort can be beneficial to the party, but some were scratching their heads. Billed as a joint effort between the state party, the governor and legislative leadership, the eight-day tour was mostly paid for by Sexton and organized by his staff. Observers have speculated Sexton could be using the tour for name recognition, to build on his own brand for some future statewide race. In that same Tennessean article, Sexton downplayed that possibility, saying, “As speaker of the House, my job is to make sure that we’re campaigning with our members, and this is a great way to do it.” He also stated, “It’s old-fashioned, go back to the old barnstorming days across the state and get out the vote.” That said, Sexton’s actions of making stops around the state, having his staff keep local media apprised of his appearances and a professional video featuring him at home with his family during COVID have raised some eyebrows. Are these actions a sign of things to come? Of a potential gubernatorial race, perhaps? If that is his plan, I think Sexton would be a formidable candidate. That may not be Sexton’s plan, but he is clearly distinguishing himself in his role as speaker. He readily distanced himself from Casada — an A-plus move in anyone’s book — and has received praise from both the governor and the Republican party chair. A quick read of the Nov. 26, 2019, Crossville Chronicle shows Sexton recognizes what Tennesseans need: better education, getting families out of poverty, better mental health and substance abuse programs, affordable health care, and much more. He cares about his constituents and about doing a good job. Whether Sexton runs for higher office, he is a good man trying to do good things for his party. If he keeps it up, he could make a fine governor. We’ll see.
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 Moye 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 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.
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NASHVILLE SCENE | DECEMBER 3 – DECEMBER 9, 2020 | nashvillescene.com
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nashvillescene.com | DECEMBER 3 – DECEMBER 9, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE
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CITY LIMITS
A TRAGIC RECENT DEATH SHEDS LIGHT ON THE MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS IN OUR CITY
in touch with a former patient, the person has lost the ability to recognize their own need for treatment. A person can be deeply unwell without meeting the criteria for hospitalization or being committed for treatment involuntarily. Since the co-op’s founding, Bracht says, Nashville has made progress, particularly when it comes to the communication and collaboration between mental health agencies and the law enforcement entities — like MNPD and the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office — that often interact with people suffering from mental illness. In September, Sheriff Daron Hall opened the new Behavioral Care Center, a 60-bed facility that will provide mental health treatment instead of a jail cell for people who are arrested and dealing with mental illness. Hall said at the center’s opening that around 30 percent of the local jail population struggles with mental illness. The Mental Health Cooperative serves as the care provider for the Behavioral Care Center, and while Bracht cites that facility and the co-op’s Crisis Treatment Center as important steps, she also acknowledges that the current resources are not enough. Nashville’s population is booming, which means local agencies that are already strained are falling even further behind. “I certainly see that in our crisis services,” Bracht says. “We’ve had year-overyear increases in the number of calls to our crisis line and people we’re seeing. Often it’s people who are brand-new to Nashville, who we have never seen before.” That would be true even in a normal year. “We’re playing catch-up in terms of trying to keep up with the actual demand,” she says. “Then you add a global pandemic on top of it.” EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM
new era in Nashville policing that many activists and community organizations have been demanding. But that doesn’t necessarily mean Drake won’t bring any change. He is a Black man now set to lead a department under scrutiny for the lack of diversity in its upper ranks and its treatment of Black Nashvillians in the community. His appointment comes one week after his Policing Policy Commission released a final report with recommendations aimed at guiding the next police chief toward “a Nashville model of policing.” Among those recommendations were taking action to address racial disparities in use-of-force incidents and increased collaboration with community organizations that offer alternatives to traditional approaches. At Monday’s press conference, Drake said he would be establishing a Crisis Intervention Team consisting of police officers and mental health experts, as called for in the commission’s report. “Never did I think as a child growing up on North Ninth Street in East Nashville that one day I would be a police officer, much less selected in 2020 to lead the Metro Nashville Police Department,” said Drake, who began his MNPD career as a patrol officer in the West Precinct in 1988. “I mention my upbringing on North Ninth Street for a reason. This is my hometown. I love this city. I really care about it.” He takes over the department after some of its most tumultuous years. The shootings of two Black men — Jocques Clemmons and Daniel Hambrick — by white officers put a spotlight on the broken relationship between the MNPD and many Nashville communities, particularly the city’s largely Black
neighborhoods. More recently, the department has been beset by internal sexual assault and harassment allegations that have painted a picture of a toxic culture inside the MNPD. Drake’s predecessor, Anderson, had become known in Metro circles as a political operator strongly averse to change and innovation. From the outset, Drake is committing — at least in his rhetoric — to a different approach. “Frankly, I have not always agreed with the
decisions of the police department leadership over the years,” he said during his press conference. “But those decisions, both right and wrong, helped to create for me a breadth of historical knowledge about policing in Nashville. I believe in change, and in fact, I embrace change. I’m here to tell you change is coming. Our changes, my changes, will be grounded in collaboration and community-based strategies.”
Organizations like Mental Health Cooperative are fighting an uphill battle BY STEVEN HALE
H
is body was found on an evening in late July by a group of people playing soccer. What had brought him to a wooded area near the Metro Soccer Complex in Southeast Nashville was unknown, just like his name. The Metro Nashville Police Department asked for the public’s assistance in identifying the man in a July 28 press release. There were no visible signs of trauma on his body, police said. He appeared to be in his 30s and of Middle Eastern descent, with dark-brown hair and a full beard. He was wearing a white T-shirt with green shorts but no shoes. You may not remember him. In the absence of many details about his death and the apparent lack of any foul play, the discovery of his body received minimal media coverage. He fell through the cracks of our attention in death just as he appeared to have fallen through the cracks of our society in life. The police did eventually identify him. The MNPD tells the Scene that the medical examiner’s office reported finding medications in the deceased’s system
MAYOR SELECTS JOHN DRAKE AS NEW METRO POLICE CHIEF The MNPD veteran has served as interim chief since Steve Anderson’s retirement in August BY STEVEN HALE
N
ashville’s new police chief is John Drake, the 32-year Metro Nashville Police Department veteran who has been serving as interim chief since Steve Anderson’s abrupt retirement in August. Mayor John Cooper made the announcement Monday afternoon, saying that Drake “has shown he is committed to collaboration, transparency and the dignity of every resident.” An MNPD lifer who was backed by the local police union and always considered the favorite to take over the job, Drake is hardly representative of the
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PHOTO: METRO GOVERNMENT OF NASHVILLE
that suggested he may have been treated for schizophrenia. A detective reached out to the Mental Health Cooperative to see if he might have received assistance from the nonprofit mental health agency. A caseworker recognized him and provided a possible name. It matched that of a man who was arrested in 2019 for criminal trespassing at a Waffle House on Murfreesboro Pike — a charge consistent with someone living on the streets or suffering from mental illness. Fingerprints from that arrest led to an identification. His name was Saeid Azamtarrahian. He died at age 37. Metro police spokesperson Don Aaron says Azamtarrahian’s family was notified, and that they told police he did have a history of schizophrenia and would sometimes wander off for days. A final autopsy report listed the manner of death as natural, with the cause of death being dehydration and malnutrition, with schizophrenia being a contributory cause. Hyperthermia, or overheating, could also not be ruled out as a contributing factor. The exact details of one man’s life and the circumstances that led to his death are
unique. But the discovery of his body near a soccer field on a summer evening is a tragic reminder of the way many among us can suffer in isolation. The Mental Health Cooperative was started in 1993 and focuses primarily on serving low-income Nashvillians with mental health issues ranging from depression to schizophrenia and severe bipolar disorder. The nonprofit employs care management teams who provide support beyond medication — like helping people with access to health care, food, stable housing and transportation. They also run crisis services offering 24/7 assistance to people experiencing psychiatric emergencies. In 2019, the coop opened its Crisis Treatment Center near MetroCenter, north of downtown. Amanda Bracht is the MHC’s senior vice president of clinical operations. Without discussing individual cases for privacy reasons, she speaks to the co-op’s work and the challenges facing mental health workers now. There are gaps in our approach to the crisis, she notes, and they’re big enough for many people to fall through. “There are services out there, but often people either fall through the cracks or they disengage,” Bracht says. “It’s not uncommon for someone with severe mental illness, particularly like schizophrenia, to have a crisis — they either get hospitalized or they have an interaction with law enforcement or they’re in jail. They get stabilized on medication, they get out, they engage in treatment for a little bit, but then something happens. They think they don’t need the medication anymore, or they have a stresser that they just can’t cope with, and the first thing that goes is followthrough with their treatment.” In some cases, even when mental health agencies like the co-op manage to get back
EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM
NASHVILLE SCENE | DECEMBER 3 – DECEMBER 9, 2020 | nashvillescene.com
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— Charley Pride When asked to declare his favorite song to sing, from an interview with the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
An incomparable singer with a distinctive southern baritone, Country Music Hall of Fame member Charley Pride has landed decades of hits, with songs including “Is Anybody Goin’ to San Antone” and “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’.” Visit the Museum to learn more about Pride’s groundbreaking career, and about the evolving story of country music.
DOWNTOWN NASHVILLE Visit CountryMusicHallofFame.org to buy tickets. Photo: Walden S. Fabry from the Walden S. Fabry Collection from the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
nashvillescene.com | DECEMBER 3 – DECEMBER 9, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE
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2020
H E A LT H C AR E WORKERS
Nashville’s health care professionals are fighting to save lives during a global pandemic BY STEPHEN ELLIOTT, STEVEN HALE, J.R. LIND AND D. PATRICK RODGERS
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PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND
NASHVILLIANS OF THE YEAR
T
he numbers keep coming — relentless, like a driving rain. New cases. New hospitalizations. New deaths. There were times in the spring and summer when we might have thought — naively, it seems now — that we were living through the worst of the coronavirus pandemic. We were not. What we are living through now is far worse. In Tennessee, record numbers of people are getting sick, being hospitalized and dying. The United States recorded 100,000 new daily cases for the first time on Nov. 4. Less than four weeks later, the country reported 200,000 new cases in a day. As of this writing, 368 Nashvillians have died from the virus, and 4,554 people have died statewide. Those numbers will continue to rise, as will the ambient grief that has marked most of this year. In a way, a pandemic puts us all on the front lines. We face the threat, to varying degrees, whenever we leave our home, and even when we stay inside it. By its very nature, it is — or at least can be — all around us at all times. We reduce the risks where we can, but we cannot eliminate them. Still, some among us have spent the better part of this year going directly toward the risk, taking the fight to the
‘THE CHAOS OF IT ALL’
Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s COVID-19 ICU staff BY D. PATRICK RODGERS
“I
PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND
truly wish people could see what it’s like in a COVID ICU every day,” says acute care nurse practitioner Christy Noblit. “It’s just — it’s terrifying for these patients. “It’s extremely stressful for the people that are providing the care, just because of the illness of the people and the amount of resources they need to try to get them to survive this illness. And then just the chaos of it all. It’s just constant noise, alarms. People can change in a minute, in the blink of an eye from this illness. You’ll have somebody who’s fine one second, and then the next minute you’re having to rush into their room to try to restart their heart because they’ve had a complication.” Noblit is one of five nurse practitioners at Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s COVID-19 intensive care unit who spoke
NURSE PRACTITIONERS FROM VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER’S COVID-19 ICU CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: WREN SHERRILL, KIPP SKIPLEY, JANNA LANDSPERGER, SARAH BLOOM, LISA FLEMMONS, OLIVIA KIRKPATRICK, CHRISTY NOBLIT
with the Scene in November. Many of them have been working overtime — often six days a week with 16- or 18-hour shifts, Noblit explains — caring for patients who are gravely impacted by the virus. Some of the patients are fortunate enough to recover from their illness. Many are not. Noblit and her colleagues paint a grim and vivid picture. “This is probably the scaredest that we’ve all been throughout the pandemic, I think in the last two or three weeks,” says nurse practitioner Olivia Kirkpatrick, a new mother who returned from her maternity leave in the middle of the pandemic. “Just because we know that there’s no new thing that we can add to turn this around, and we are pleading with the community to help us help them at this point.” VUMC’s COVID-19 ICU admits patients not only from Davidson County, but also from rural Tennessee counties as well as other states in the region. Nurse practitioner Wren Sherrill thinks of the ICU staff as “the final fighters in this war” rather than frontline workers. “We’re getting triage calls from other hospitals all over the Southeast asking us to take a COVID patient because they’re full,” she says. “They’ve called eight, nine different hospitals in the area and no one has room. And we’re having to turn them down simply because we don’t have capacity either. It kills me, because that’s someone’s loved one who can’t get the care that they need simply because we don’t have the resources and the capacity right now.” The nurses who spoke with the Scene say they have what they need in terms of personal protective equipment and other physical resources, but with their unit at
virus. Doctors and nurses have tended to the people it sickens, fighting for the lives of people whose bodies are in danger of being overwhelmed. These health care workers have cared for the ill and done their best to comfort the dying who are isolated from family in their final moments. The true impact of their heroic work — just like a complete rendering of the damage this year has wrought — is difficult to measure. It is reflected not just in the lives they save but the future they preserve through every patient they care for, the comfort they bring to every scared family. They have carried an immense weight, working endless hours and enduring a seemingly endless trauma. And they are not alone. The same spirit can be found in those working at testing sites around the city, caring for our elders at nursing homes and laboring to develop the vaccine that will give us a chance to break this societal fever. The Nashvillians we honor here are a representation of many more health care workers and medical experts who have faced down a historic threat on our behalf. We look at them with awe and gratitude precisely because they are not superheroes, but simply people, our fellow Nashvillians who have done an excruciating job on our behalf. They are 2020’s Nashvillians of the Year. —STEVEN HALE
nonstop full capacity, it’s the health care providers themselves who are the most endangered resource. “This is the hardest work that I’ve ever done in my life,” says nurse practitioner Janna Landsperger, who has worked in the medical ICU at Vanderbilt for 11 years. “It is physically draining, it is emotionally draining, it is all-encompassing and sucks everything out of you. I care very, very deeply for my patients. I care very deeply for the staff that I work with. And it’s just an untenable amount of stress. And the constant bad-news delivery, which we do every single day, is what’s very exhausting for me.” Every day after they make their rounds, the nurses call family members of their patients — often the only point in a day when these people hear about their loved ones’ status. Nurse practitioner Sarah Bloom explains that many of the patients she and her co-workers are seeing are in the 40-to-60 age range — empty-nesters and new grandparents who are still in the “prime of their life,” as she sees it. “Those patients have represented a large subset of the people I’m taking care of in the ICU,” she says, “and you really have this overwhelming sense that it’s years of life that are being lost. That they had a lot more life to live and it’s being cut short.” “It is absolutely all different ages and all different parts of our community now,” says Dr. Wesley Self, an emergency physician and vice president for clinical research networks at VUMC. “There are older people who have COVID, but there are certainly young adults and middle-aged adults who are having COVID as well. I treat only adults, so I can’t speak to children. But
certainly, the entire spectrum of adults — from 18 years old all the way up to 100 years old, and those who have chronic medical conditions, and those who don’t.” “In our ICU, it’s probably close to 90 percent of the patients are on the older side — honestly, that means 55, that doesn’t mean 70 — and do have comorbidities,” adds Landsperger. “But it’s that 10 percent — that is still a lot of people based on the volume we’ve seen — that has no explanation. We’ve had people that exercise every day, that eat healthy, are not on any prescription medications for any chronic conditions, come in with COVID and never leave the hospital.” The nurse practitioners express a deep frustration in not being able to give their patients’ loved ones the answers they seek — in not knowing why some people who contract COVID-19 experience light symptoms or no symptoms at all, while others find themselves in need of drastic medical intervention. That’s the vexing nature of this virus. It preys on the weak and the elderly, but also inflicts chaos at random, frequently leaving its victims with what appear to be long-term health effects. So how can we support these workers’ efforts? “I would say give some grace to our leaders, and the scientists that are making recommendations,” says Kirkpatrick. “And even if you’ve heard different things about a mask, it’s the least you can do as a human. Make the hard decisions — don’t hug someone when you see them. Your friends know you love them. … Do the things that we’re asking of you, and the rest will fall in line.”
nashvillescene.com | DECEMBER 3 – DECEMBER 9, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE
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PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS
NASHVILLIANS OF THE YEAR
‘THAT’S WHAT WE DO’
COVID-19 test administrators from Meharry Medical College and elsewhere BY STEPHEN ELLIOTT
W
hen COVID-19 reached Nashville in March, a consortium of governments, medical schools and health care providers teamed up to establish a citywide coronavirus testing program. Dr. Julie Gray of Meharry Medical College was an obvious choice to help spearhead the logistical challenge. It wasn’t because she had so much experience with airborne diseases like the one shutting down the city — in fact, she is a dentist by training, and teaches in Meharry’s School of Dentistry, where she is also assistant dean of student affairs. Rather, she was the clear choice because of her years of work overseeing an annual oral health day, during which students and staff provided free dental work to patients from around the state. The practical considerations were similar, though the two initiatives had different purposes.
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“Organizing our COVID-19 efforts is almost like having oral health day every single day,” Gray says. Like the oral health days, the drive-thru coronavirus testing relied heavily on volunteers in the early days, many of them Meharry students. Faculty and staff also joined in, especially when students returned to classes after the summer. Students from nearby universities including Belmont, Tennessee State and Fisk, as well as National Guard personnel, have also joined the effort. One such student is Jacqueline Ike, a registered nurse who last year was completing a master’s degree at Meharry and is now a first-year medical student at the historically Black college. According to supervisors of the unprecedented testing effort, Ike was one of the earliest and most enthusiastic volunteers back when much less was known about the virus and fewer people were willing to confront it. Ahead of the development of a vaccine for COVID-19, mass testing remains one of the most effective ways of reducing the spread of the disease. In the hot summer months when school was out, Ike worked nearly every day at pop-up testing sites at Meharry and Nissan Stadium, taking countless nasal swabs from Nashvillians. Wearing masks, face shields and other protective gear made standing on asphalt for several hours during the Tennessee summer harder, she recalls. “It got hard to breathe sometimes,” she
says. “You’d get lightheaded, you’d go hours without drinking water. You have to tell yourself to stop, take a break and drink some water. But you see the cars keep going so you keep going.” At first, Ike says, many of those seeking tests were older people, more vulnerable to the virus. Then, when businesses started opening up, Ike says more working-class people were seeking tests, in part because some were required to do so before returning to work. “Some people would come every week,” she says. “They were regulars.” Then came families, and now it’s pretty much everyone, as case counts and other virus metrics have ballooned. “People are afraid — they’re still afraid,” Gray says. “Some of the stories you hear from people coming to get tested truly tug on your heart.” Unprompted, Gray and Ike separately cite Meharry’s motto — “worship of God through service to mankind” — as inspiration for working the long days. And even though Ike was willing to expose herself to dozens of potentially sick people each day, she rarely worried about the risk. “I wake up, say my prayers, ask God to protect me, and I don’t really think about it,” she says. “Of course you have to be conscious of it and protect yourself, change your gloves and do the proper technique, but I feel like if you’re just constantly in fear you might end up doing more harm.”
JACQUELINE IKE ADMINISTERS COVID-19 TESTS AT THE MEHARRY MEDICAL COLLEGE TESTING LOCATION Now that she’s in her first year of medical school, Ike has less time to work at the sites, though she expects to continue to do so, especially as she settles into school more. She doesn’t know what kind of doctor she wants to be yet, though she is interested in internal medicine, primary care and emergency medicine. Her experience working at the test sites has changed at least one thing about her desired career path: Now, having seen its importance in fighting the pandemic, she wants to incorporate medical research into whatever path she chooses. Gray says she expects her students’ experience at the testing sites to have longlasting impacts on their careers as doctors and health care providers. The at-times “monotonous, thankless job” gives medical students and others valuable practice in the sort of empathy required of them in their careers, she says — especially when the people they encounter are thankless or eschew mask mandates designed in part to keep test takers safe. “That’s what we do, not only as Meharrians, but also as Tennesseans,” Gray says. “We are the Volunteer State after all.”
NASHVILLE SCENE | DECEMBER 3 – DECEMBER 9, 2020 | nashvillescene.com
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MEMBERSHIP HAS ITS PRIVILEGES The National Museum of African American Music is Nashville's newest cultural institution. NMAAM Members receive exclusive benefits including early access for Museum previews, unlimited free admission, gift shop discounts, and more. Join the family and become a member today!
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nashvillescene.com | DECEMBER 3 – DECEMBER 9, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE
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PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND
NASHVILLIANS OF THE YEAR
‘WE’VE GOT PLENTY OF NOSE SWABS TO TEST’
Vaccine researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s infectious disease unit BY J.R. LIND
V
accination has come a long way since the stomach-churning early days when English physician Edward Jenner used pus and scabs to develop the first smallpox vaccine, experimenting on the 8-year-old son of his gardener and a local milkmaid. Those earthy days are preserved only in the word we use for the process — “vaccine” from the Latin for cow, vaca, the source of the cowpox infection that ultimately was found to protect against smallpox. But the basic principle remains: The human body has a remarkable capacity to respond to infection, and if the infection can be controlled, the body can produce the necessary antigens to provide immunity. Some vaccines — like Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine — use an inactive version of the target disease. Others use a weakened version more easily overwhelmed by the body’s disease-fighters. It often takes years, even decades, to find the right formula. Just ask Dr. Spyros Kalams, the director of viral immunology studies at Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Infectious Disease Unit. He’s been working on a vaccine for HIV for nearly 30 years. Eventually,
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there will be one — he’s sure of it. But for now, Kalams and his team are focused on a monumental task: finding the magic bullet for COVID-19, a disease no one even knew about 14 months ago. “I’ve given several talks, and I always say it won’t take nearly as long for a coronavirus vaccine as it has for HIV,” Kalams says. “In any case, you have 30 years to prove me wrong.” It seems a safe bet at this point. The vaccine developed by Moderna — the one the Vanderbilt team is researching — showed a 94.5 percent success rate just three months after research began, a blink of an eye in the vaccine world. Studies led by Pfizer, AstraZeneca and others around the world show similarly promising early returns. It’s almost moonshotlevel astounding to think about: A disease that seemed to come out of nowhere roughly a year ago and essentially shut the world down is, maybe, hopefully, in its last days. Kalams said that’s in large part due to the infrastructure the vaccine-research community already had in place. He explains that there are networks of facilities like the one at Vanderbilt that are in constant communication and collaboration about their projects. There’s a flu vaccine network, an HIV vaccine network, a general catchall vaccine network and so on. And in the early summer, these networks all but dropped everything else, got together and took on the pandemic, pooling their resources and their very impressive brains. But, of course, the first step is the hardest, and this one was almost like stepping off into the abyss. “There’s vaccines that are weakened forms of the virus,” says Kalams. “Some that are killed virus. No one knows which one will work.” The Moderna vaccine, though, uses a method relatively new in the immunology
world. It’s called “naked RNA.” RNA is the single-strand cousin of the better-known DNA, and one type of RNA — called messenger RNA or mRNA — tells cells how to build certain proteins. RNA vaccines were first studied in the mid-2000s and have been subject to intense research since. Basically, in the Moderna version, strands of COVID-19 mRNA are injected into a patient, and the immune system and all its microscopic minions see that it’s not human and attack, producing the necessary antigens. (It’s far more complicated than that, of course, so be thankful there are people like Kalams and his team who understand the particulars.) The Pfizer vaccine is very similar, as is the AstraZeneca version, except that in the latter, the RNA is wrapped in a chimpanzee virus. Kalams was excited to do the testing on the RNA vaccine, in part because he and his team had been discussing trying a version for their long-term HIV study. In any case, it seems to be working. At the very least, it’s effective at preventing illness. Preventing infection altogether is another matter, though Kalams is optimistic the vaccine does that too. “We’ve got plenty of nose swabs to test,” he says. Of course, there’s no way of knowing if the immunity lasts forever or for six months, simply because not enough time has elapsed. But Kalams says it does appear to be effective for eight weeks, at least at staving off illness. If it can also prevent infection, and even if it’s for just eight weeks, that would go a long way toward ending the pandemic. The Moderna vaccine also has one very practical advantage over the Pfizer version. The latter requires intense, near-constant refrigeration at temperatures most doctors’ office fridges can’t sustain. It will require very careful transport and a mind-boggling amount of dry ice. That’s fine in the United States and other industrialized countries,
FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: CHRISTIAN WARREN, JESSE CASE, AMBER MASSEY, CARLTON GRIFFIN, SPYROS KALAMS, KATIE CRUMBO, ERIC OLSON, RITA SMITH, SHONDA SUMNER, JARISSA GREENARD, CINDY NOCHOWICZ, KYLE RYBCZYK but it isn’t exactly a logistical dream elsewhere. On the other hand, the Moderna vaccine is viable for a month in standard refrigeration and for a day at room temperature, making for a far less challenging delivery system for health departments. For now, the study continues, and Kalams says there is one little problem. Study participants are, perhaps, a little too enthusiastic, a little too invested in the research’s success. “People don’t want to ‘ruin’ the study, they want to help so much,” he says — and that means they aren’t often forthcoming with any side effects. A sore arm, similar to most other vaccines, and “feeling crummy” are very common, but Kalams says that’s good news really, because it means the body is producing a response. People’s desire to be a part of the study and help to the point of deception is heartwarming in its way. But for a doctor, it’s a little frustrating. Nevertheless, Kalams says the timeline laid out by White House Coronavirus Task Force head Dr. Anthony Fauci for a spring or early-summer widespread vaccination program seems completely reasonable to him — particularly if the FDA’s emergency-use authorization goes forward as planned later this month, and frontline workers and at-risk populations show positive results. And then? It’s onward with the HIV study, armed with new information, a new method and a new chance at eradicating another disease. EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM
NASHVILLE SCENE | DECEMBER 3 – DECEMBER 9, 2020 | nashvillescene.com
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THANK YOU
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CRITICS’ PICKS COMMUNITY
W E E K L Y
R O U N D U P
O F
T H I N G S
D O
[HOLLY DOLLY CHRISTMAS]
STREAM THE VIRTUAL CHRISTMAS PARADE
For 92 years, the Nashville Christmas Parade has kicked off the holiday season by filling the streets of downtown Nashville with floats, balloons, confetti, marching bands and celebrities, and they’re not about to let this burning-bag-of-dogpoop-left-on-your-front-porch year stop the beloved local tradition. In fact, this year’s installment is a dream come true for those of us who: A) hate standing in the cold, and B) don’t love crowds. The virtual parade starts at 9 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 5, on local ABC affiliate WKRN, with an hour’s worth of performances from Grammywinning gospel singer CeCe Winans, The Voice winner Danielle Bradbery, Country Music Hall of Famers The Oak Ridge Boys, R&B doo-woppers The Shindellas and more. There will also be heartwarming stories about all the good work beneficiary Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital does throughout the year, as well as footage from past parades. Want to sleep in? You can catch a rebroadcast at noon on Sunday, Dec. 6. Oh, and it’s probably worth mentioning that Dolly Parton will be making an appearance. 9 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 5; televised and via wkrn.com MEGAN SELING CLASSICAL
T O
C H R I S T M A S PA R A D E
[BEYOND BACH]
SATURDAY, DEC. 5
CHECK OUT INTERSECTION’S LISTEN
via WKRN
MUSIC
Even though more female composers are getting awards for their work, it’s still tough to find their music in concert halls. A 2015 study conducted by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra found Alicia Enstrom, a renowned violinist and that female composers accounted for vocalist. LISTEN will include interviews only 1.8 percent of the works performed with composers and musicians, as well as by 21 major American orchestras in 2014 activities and curricula to correspond with and 2015. Part of the reason is that only each work. The performance will premiere 11 percent of works performed were via Facebook, and will be archived on the written by living composers, with the group’s website, intersectionmusic.org. 11 average year of composition being 1886. a.m. Thursday, Dec. 3, via the Intersection Across the arts, small contemporary Facebook page ERICA CICCARONE organizations tend to be more nimble and willing to take risks, and Nashville’s own contemporary ensemble Intersection is a [WAITING ON A MIRACLE] fine example. With its multiyear project WATCH MAREN MORRIS’ STREAM LISTEN, the nonprofit will commission 25 FROM BROOKLYN BOWL NASHVILLE female composers to create new original There’s a lot to love about platinumsolo works designed for young audiences. selling, multiple Grammy- and CMA These works will be performed by Award-winning country star Maren Morris Intersection musicians. The roster casts and her work. She’s got a strong voice that a wide net stylistically, from Cuban-born happens to lean toward ’90s R&B, long a composer Ileana Perez Velazquez’s favorite touchstone for mainstream electroacoustic works to the country. She’s a fine writer with pop-influenced operatic a knack for highlighting the EDITOR’S NOTE: compositions of Errollyn intimate details of personal AS A RESPONSE TO THE ONGOING COVID-19 PANDEMIC, Wallen. Also on the roster is relationships that you’ll find WE’VE CHANGED THE FOCUS OF Beijing-born Nashvillian Wu at the core of the best country THE CRITICS’ PICKS SECTION TO Fei, a renowned virtuoso on songs. She’s spoken up about INCLUDE ACTIVITIES YOU CAN the guzheng (a plucked zither) making the country music PARTAKE IN WHILE YOU’RE AT HOME. whose style is influenced by business more inclusive, and Chinese traditional music and her recent single “Better Than Appalachian folk music alike. We Found It” advocates taking The first performance will premiere responsibility and not keeping your online with Intersection performer opinions to yourself for the sake of someone
MAREN MORRIS
nashvillescene.com | DECEMBER 3 – DECEMBER 9, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE
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CRITICS’ PICKS
your own shopping list; there are no rules during a pandemic, and you deserve a present too.) Visit porterflea.com. 10 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 5, through 5 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 6, via porterflea.com MEGAN SELING [I ALWAYS TELL THE TRUTH, EVEN WHEN I LIE]
BUILD YOUR OWN STREAMING BRIAN DE PALMA FILM FESTIVAL
Many of the major studios have decided to bite the bullet and send their big year-end releases straight to streaming services —
TV D. PATRICK RODGERS [YES WE CAN (RELAX)]
LISTEN TO THE AUDIOBOOK OF OBAMA’S MEMOIR
It was earlier this year that I learned with horror that people are soothed by the most irksome sounds — fingernails tapping together, tapioca beads stirred
with a spoon, a plastic back scratcher scraping against a microphone. This is ASMR, or autonomous sensory meridian response, a not-psychological term for the tingling, euphoric sensation brought on by various noises. (Try it at your own risk via a YouTube search.) But do you know what I do find soothing? Barack Obama’s voice. I could bathe in it. Those deep, resonant tones rise and fall, communicating confidence and a sense of gentle but consistent authority. The man could be saying anything — reciting his grocery list or reading aloud from an instruction manual. But Obama’s done us even better — he’s written a new book, and you can listen to him read it. A Promised Land is the first volume of his presidential memoir. For clues as to the quality of the work, which clocks in at around 800 pages, look to his 1995 memoir Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, which demonstrates an acute sensitivity to history and willingness to engage in personal reflection that you won’t find in the memoirs of most politicians. The Atlantic calls it “unusually interior, unusually self-critical, unusually modern.” The New York Times writes that he lays himself open to “savage selfquestioning.” Imagine, a president who can admit his faults, who can be honest with the
WATCH THE OWL HOUSE ON DISNEY+
LAURA HUTSON HUNTER
BOOKS
from Pixar’s Soul to Warner Bros’ Wonder Woman 1984 and beyond. So as we prepare for a holiday movie season spent on couches rather than in movie-theater seats, let’s keep rolling with our series of build-your-ownstreaming-fest recommendations. For this, our 28th installment, we’re focusing on the work of a filmmaker who has released 30 feature films over the past half-century: Brian De Palma. Really, watching every notable De Palma film would keep you occupied well into 2021, so we’re going to cherry-pick — beginning with 1974’s very far-out horror-comedy-musical Phantom of the Paradise, which is available to rent for $4 via Amazon Prime Video and YouTube. De Palma fanatics may curse me for skipping over some of the auteur’s late-’70s and early-’80s work (including Carrie, which we recommended a few months back in our Stephen King streaming-fest Critic’s Pick), but my next recommendation is 1981’s Blow Out ($4 on iTunes and Google Play), a truly unique John Travolta vehicle and a great slice of De Palma neo-noir. Up next is the filmmaker’s most iconic work, which needs no introduction — 1983’s absolutely singular Al Pacino-starring Scarface ($4 on Prime and YouTube). After those 170 minutes of carnage and cocaine, you might want to move away from the crime genre. But if not, you’ve got two excellent options with the 1987 ensemble piece The Untouchables ($4 on iTunes and Prime) and another Pacino-De Palma collab, 1993’s Carlito’s Way (ditto). Bring your BDP streaming fest home with one of two great ’90s offerings — 1996’s Mission: Impossible ($4 on Prime and iTunes, and peak Tom Cruise) or 1998’s Snake Eyes ($3 on Prime and YouTube, and peak Nicolas Cage), both of which I have somewhat irrational soft spots for. Of course, we’ve left out nearly two dozen of De Palma’s films, many of which are essential. But if you find yourself craving more, dip back into the director’s midcareer noir films. There’s plenty there to enjoy.
[HOOT!]
Imagine that the perfect TV show exists. There’s imaginative world-building, magic, a school of witchcraft, actually funny characters, cool lesbian storylines and a satisfying season finale. The catch? It’s for 8-year-olds. The show’s target demographic is likely the only reason there hasn’t been more mainstream buzz around The Owl House, the outstanding animated series that debuted on Disney+ in October. But let me just tell you, even if you don’t have an 8-year-old in your life, you should be watching this show. It centers around Luz, a teenage human who stumbles across a portal into a magical world whose inhabitants include a rebellious witch named Eda the Owl Lady and her adorable demonic roommate, King. Creator Dana Terrace based much of the show’s design on the surrealistic paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, and it shows — there seem to be more outrageous and creative characters than can fit inside a single show, and even bit players are made with more imagination than anything outside of a Jim Henson universe. If Hayao Miyazaki and Matt Groening collaborated on a coming-of-age series, they’d be hard-pressed to do better.
[NO NEW TALE TO TELL]
READ JAIRED MESSING’S NEW COMIC DISTRIBUTION ROUT
Local writer and illustrator Jaired Messing has just released the first issue of his second comic book, Distribution Rout. Messing’s first work was the 187-page sci-fi opus The Fate of Terrene, a massive project that paired his graphic novel with a full soundtrack, scored by local musicians Jimmy Thorn and Patrick Copeland. His new work is a serialized book reminiscent of the Hernandez brothers’ alt-comic benchmark Love and Rockets, but with a much more violent streak. It’s the sort of gutsy graphic novel that you usually have to walk to the back of the comic shop to find. Find out more — including an option to purchase the new comic once it drops — at jaired.com. P.J. KINZER COMEDY
BUY STUFF AT PORTER FLEA HOLIDAY MARKET
LOVE & LION
FILM
THE UNTOUCHABLES
[FLEA AND EASY]
Porter Flea has had to restructure its flea markets due to COVID-19, but organizers are still making it easy to get all your holiday shopping done in a day with their virtual Porter in Place Holiday Market. Porter in Place Holiday will work the same as the summer virtual market did — by featuring a curated lineup of online vendors offering special pricing and/or exclusive merchandise through porterflea.com on Dec. 5 and 6 only. Stuff your family’s stockings with a tiny handcrafted ceramic animal from Unexpected Lullaby or a vibrant new mask from The Bombchel Factory. A few things on my personal wish list include some cute size-inclusive underwear from Hey Mavens, the gorgeous Watercolor Everyday Tee from Pamut Apparel, and Love & Lion’s “dumpster fire” and Ruth Bader Ginsberg ornaments. (Yes, you can and should put yourself on
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American people. It puts the past four years in perspective. But if you’re just looking for a few moments of zen this December, it’s great for that, too. ERICA CICCARONE
BOOKS
SHOPPING
else’s comfort. Along with Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby and Amanda Shires, Morris is one of The Highwomen, the extraordinary country supergroup that came together last year to showcase all the good things you get when you hand women the reins. The one downside to this is that it hasn’t been all that easy to see Morris perform live in recent years, as tickets to rare hometown concerts typically sell out with a quickness. While her performance Friday night, streaming live from Brooklyn Bowl Nashville, isn’t the same as catching one of her shows in person, it is a relatively rare opportunity to see and hear her do her thing in a context that isn’t a festival or an awards show — and since it’s a virtual gig, it won’t sell out by the time you’ve heard about it. Visit the event profile on fans.com for ticketing options and all the details. 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 4, at fans.com via Brooklyn Bowl Nashville STEPHEN TRAGESER
[PULLING FUNCHES]
WATCH A VERY FUNCHES CHRISTMAS SHOW
Before we head into what’s sure to be a long winter, put a little “ha” in your “happy holidays” with A Very Funches Christmas, “a night of stand-up, music and merriment with Ron Funches and friends.” Funches, if you aren’t familiar, is the hilarious comic who’s appeared on Conan and The Tonight Show, and you’ve probably heard his voice on Bob’s Burgers or Adventure Time. But my favorite Funches project is his podcast Gettin’ Better, in which he and his guests (Conan O’Brien! Eric Andre! Patton Oswalt! Maria Bamford!) have earnest, honest conversations about creativity, mental health, funny life moments and more. He’s exactly what we need during this weird and sad holiday season. As for the identity of special guests who will be appearing, some
NASHVILLE SCENE | DECEMBER 3 – DECEMBER 9, 2020 | nashvillescene.com
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Symphony Ball
2020 goes Virtual An Evening in Harmony A televised benefit for the Nashville Symphony
Saturday, December 12th at 7pm WSMV-News 4 Performances by Harmony Award Recipients Maren Morris & Keb’ Mo’ Hosted by Tracy Kornet & Enrico Lopez-Yañez Symphony Ball Co-Chairs: Melinda S. Balser & Susan P. Holmes to support, text @NSO to 52014 nashvillescene.com | DECEMBER 3 – DECEMBER 9, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE
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mild internet sleuthing led me to a tweet for the event in which Funches tagged fellow comedians Blair Socci, Jeremiah Watkins, Gabe Dinger and everyone’s favorite metal-loving Star Wars nerd Brian Posehn. It should be ho-ho-holarious. Tickets to the YouTube livestream are $10 and available at combustionlive.com. Livestreams at 9 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 5, via YouTube; available through Dec. 7 MEGAN SELING THEATER
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FIND THE PERFECT GIFTS FOR YOUR THEATER-LOVING FRIENDS AND FAMILY
Searching for that perfect gift for your favorite theater lover? From show posters and books to music and collectibles, there are plenty of Broadway and theatercentric options out there. You might start with a site like playbillstore.com or thespianswag.com for unique gifts and memorabilia. (I already have my eye on the new 2020 Playbill ornaments from the Broadway Cares Classic Collection.) Of course, cast recordings are always a safe bet, but don’t forget that some of your favorite Broadway stars have new holiday albums. (Leslie Odom Jr.’s The Christmas Album is at the top of my wish list, along with If The Fates Allow: A Hadestown Holiday Album.) There are also some great books out this year — including Michael Riedel’s Singular Sensation: The Triumph of Broadway and James Shapiro’s Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future. And while we won’t be able to share the gift of live performance this year, this is the perfect time to support your local arts organizations by purchasing tickets to virtual shows, classes or workshops. AMY STUMPFL TV
IN TOWN HOTTEST CHICKEN l, Too!) (Most Flavorfu
[GIFTS THAT KEEP ON GIVING]
[CRIME TIME]
WATCH TRUE CRIME SHOWS ON NETFLIX
If you have spent so much time watching TV in 2020 that you are in the market for a new couch, Netflix — now more than ever — is looking like a fridge full of food you don’t want to eat. True-crime lovers, however, never go hungry. The Unsolved Mysteries reboot, which I wrote about in the summer when the first season went up, recently
[SAY IT LOUD]
WATCH THE AMBER RUFFIN SHOW AND WILMORE ON PEACOCK
With the exception of the newly Afro’d Trevor Noah on The Daily Show, late-night TV is still a mostly lily-white affair. Luckily, NBC’s streaming service Peacock has given two African American late-night vets their own shows, where they can get Black and proud whenever they damn well please. Over at The Amber Ruffin Show, longtime Late Night With Seth Meyers writer and performer Ruffin plows through satirical comedy bits with cheeky aplomb, staying cute and chipper even when she’s hitting you with racially charged zingers. As for Wilmore (which wraps up its first season on Dec. 4), former Daily Show correspondent and veteran sitcom showrunner Larry Wilmore (The Bernie Mac Show, Blackish) basically does a bare-bones version of his canceled The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore. He riffs on the news, interviews guests and — as with Ruffin’s show — reminds you that Black perspectives are very much needed in this current late-night landscape. CRAIG D. LINDSEY [AT THE CROSSROADS]
READ ABOUT ROBERT JOHNSON
Few albums have had more effect on world music than Robert Johnson’s 1961 King of the Delta Blues Singers, released nearly a quarter-century after Johnson’s death in Mississippi. Johnson was such an amazing guitarist that his work might seem to eclipse that of equally brilliant pickers like Charley Patton and Skip James. Before Johnson’s work gained general currency in the ’60s, blues was both guitar music and vocal music; after Johnson, blues settled into its revisionist, guitar-hero phase. Listen to his records, which display his unerring sense of time and febrile touch on guitar. Meanwhile, three recent books attempt to demystify a performer who remains as elusive as Shakespeare. Veteran blues researchers Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow offer a somewhat stilted biography of Johnson in Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson. Their book has its merits, but Johnson’s stepsister, Annye C. Anderson, gives a
richer account of his life — including a description of his last show in Memphis in June 1938 — in Brother Robert: Growing Up With Robert Johnson, written with Preston Lauterbach. Johnson was by all accounts an elegant performer, and Mezzo and J.M. Dupont’s 2014 graphic novel, Love in Vain: Robert Johnson, 1911-1938, tells his story in beautifully rendered black-and-white drawings. EDD HURT FOOD & DRINK
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returned for a second round. You may have heard about American Murder: The Family Next Door, which examines the grisly death of a social-media-obsessed suburban mom and her two young daughters; I appreciated that one because the case was actually solved, and at a taut 82 minutes it didn’t try to be the next Making a Murderer — both reasons I bailed early on the stylish but insubstantial Disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Also recommended: the gripping second episode of World’s Most Wanted, which chronicles the international manhunt for East African warlord Felicien Kabuga and doubles as a horrifyingly graphic but necessary history lesson about the Rwandan genocide of the 1990s; and the one-and-done 2016 series Captive, which leans too heavily on reenactments, but offers an interesting window into ransomnegotiation tactics from the points of view of kidnappers, hostages and investigators alike, detailing minute-by-minute the delicate dance of bringing a loved one back alive. CHARLIE ZAILLIAN
[SOUL FOOD]
MAKE YOUR OWN CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP
When I moved away from home, one kitchen activity that boosted my confidence in my ability to feed myself was making my own granola, which I wrote about back in March. Another one, which is apropos as the days get short and chilly, is making chicken noodle soup from scratch. Before you start, make sure you have access to a pot that will fit a whole chicken, a bowl that’s nearly as big as the pot, and a strainer. Then, head to the grocery store and buy a rotisserie chicken from the deli. (It’s rewarding to roast one yourself, but a deli bird is fine.) You’ll also need a large carrot or two, a couple stalks of celery, an onion and some uncooked rotini pasta, plus salt, black pepper, garlic powder, parsley and thyme. Back in your kitchen, separate all the meat from the bones and skin. Cut the meat into bite-size pieces and set aside. Put the bones and skin into the pot and cover with water. Bring it to a boil, then turn down to a simmer and set a timer for one hour. Peel the carrot and onion and dice all your vegetables, making sure to get them fairly uniform so they cook evenly. Once your timer is up, use a big spoon to get out as much of the solid matter as you can, then pour the liquid through the strainer into the big bowl to catch the rest. Pour your broth back into the pot, add your meat and vegetables and sprinkle in a tablespoon of salt, two teaspoons of black pepper and three teaspoons each of garlic powder, thyme and parsley flakes. Bring it to a boil and then turn down to a simmer and reset the timer for 30 minutes. Taste your broth and adjust the spices; if you like the flavor blend but it seems a little weak, try a pinch or two of salt. Once it’s to your liking, add about a third of the box of pasta (or more if you like) and let it cook 10 minutes or so until it’s softened. Now, you’ve got about a gallon of hearty soup. If you’re used to getting your soup from mom (or Mama Campbell), this might seem intimidating at first. But once you’ve mastered it, you’ve got the fundamental know-how for hundreds of other recipes. STEPHEN TRAGESER
NASHVILLE SCENE | DECEMBER 3 – DECEMBER 9, 2020 | nashvillescene.com
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Generosity of space. Millions of twinkling lights and our soaring 48-foot Christmas tree. Hundreds of enhanced cleaning protocols. Boundless family-friendly holiday events, from tubing, ice skating and Breakfast with Charlie Brown™ & Friends to our brand-new I Love Christmas Movies™ immersive pop-up experience featuring ELF™, THE POLAR EXPRESS™, and more! Now Open - January 3 ChristmasAtGaylordOpryland.com Peanuts© 2020 Peanuts Worldwide LLC · ELF and all related characters and elements © & ™ New Line Productions, Inc. (s20) THE POLAR EXPRESS and all related characters and elements © & ™ Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (s20)
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nashvillescene.com | DECEMBER 3 – DECEMBER 9, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE
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THE PHILA AWARDS
VOTE STARTING DECEMBER 5 FOR THE FINALISTS! The Phila Awards celebrate the life of Phila Rawlings Hach by honoring people and organizations continuing her legacy of cooking virtuously. Charity organizations receiving an award will get a $400 award grant. Individuals/Businesses receiving an award will have a $200 donation given to a local charity of their choice. This applies to all awards in all categories.
Visit www.nashvillescene.com/phila-awards December 5 through 13 to cast your votes for the award finalist in 4 categories!
The Nation United
The Patti Myint
The Ruth
The Serving Spoon
GET SOME GRUB. GIVE SOME LOVE. Purchase gift cards to local restaurants while donating funds to support charitable food programs & hospitality workers. The Phund is a partnership between Sow Good (501(c)3) & TN Action for Hospitality. Your donation to the Phund is tax deductible.
Visit www.PHUND.org to support those feeding Nashville. 20
NASHVILLE SCENE | DECEMBER 3 – DECEMBER 9, 2020 | nashvillescene.com
FOOD AND DRINK
THIS CHARMING CANDY
Meet the father and daughter behind Poppy & Peep, Nashville’s prettiest chocolate shop BY MEGAN SELING
PHOTOS: ERIC ENGLAND
SUGAR SHOCK
MARK AND EVANE STONER
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t was the display of brightly colored bonbons that first caught my eye when I walked through the door of Nashville’s newest chocolate shop Poppy & Peep. Two glass cases are lined with more than a dozen different flavors, POPPY & PEEP 374 HERRON DRIVE, UNIT 6 all decorated in difPOPPYANDPEEP.COM ferent ways. Perusing the selection — bourbon-caramel topped with gold leaf, birthday cake dotted with a rainbow of confetti, and lemon-strawberry adorned with the tiniest hand-painted lemon — feels a bit like shopping for fancy jewelry. It’s all so dazzling and entrancing (and a tad pricey at $20 for a box of six), and if it weren’t for the glass barrier, I’d probably scoop them all up, just to hold them, just to see how they feel in my hand. Poppy & Peep is tucked away at the end of Herron Drive in what was originally a onebedroom, one-bathroom unit in the newish Alloy apartment complex near Nolensville Pike. It’s a strange place for a candy shop, sure, but there’s also something about the location that makes it feel like you’re privy to some kind of secret. And while Poppy & Peep is only about 600 square feet — with a good portion of that taken up by its kitchen — every nook is packed with tasty treasures. Bins are full of individually wrapped pieces of caramel and nougat in flavors like passion fruit, strawberry-pistachio, espresso and ginger-orange-almond. Shelves hold a selection of chocolate bars for purists and more adventurous types alike — some are decorated with Oreo cookies, roasted pumpkin seeds and dried fruit, and others are
made entirely in-house, bean-to-bar style, with beans imported from Haiti, Belize or Guatemala. There are tubes of chocolatecovered cherries and espresso beans, bags of chocolate-dipped dried pineapple and jars of hazelnut-praline spread. For the brave, there are even dark-chocolate bars laced with the mouth-burning extracts of ghost pepper and Carolina reaper peppers — apparently they’re hot enough to require a warning label. (I was too much of a coward to confirm.) So who owns this confectionary wonderland? Mark and Evane Stoner, a father (Poppy) and daughter (Peep) duo who, before opening this shop, had no culinary experience to speak of other than really, really liking candy. Mark is the founder and president of Ashbusters Chimney Service and SirVent Chimney & Venting Franchise, and he doesn’t shy away from embracing new business ventures. In fact, he literally wrote the book on it — 2016’s Blue-Collar Gold: How to Build a Service Business From the Dirt Up. It was while promoting his own business at a convention at New York City’s Javits Center that he grabbed an opportunity to get in on the chocolate business by way of Chocolate Moonshine Co., a Pennsylvania-based chocolate company that supports a network of independent operators around the country. “We sold chocolate at two different malls and kiosks, and our company was called Chocolate Moonshine of Tennessee,” Evane says. “We did that for two years and were like, ‘OK, we’re either going to get totally out of the chocolate world or we’re going to go all the way in.’ ” They decided to go all-in, but they had
a lot to learn about the business. The two spent a year attending classes and workshops at chocolate companies around the country: Map Chocolate Co. in Eugene, Ore.; CocoaTown in Alpharetta, Ga.; and Barry Callebaut’s Chocolate Academy in Chicago. Evane also attended the Women in Chocolate retreat, hosted by fellow Nashville-based chocolatier Sophia Rea, in Santa Fe, N.M. (Rea is now Poppy & Peep’s chocolate sommelier, which is a job I never knew existed and a job I would very much like to have.) “[Rea’s] business is about understanding the culture of chocolate,” says Evane. “When I went to this retreat I really started to understand what this whole bean-to-bar thing was, like where chocolate comes from and how it’s made and why it’s important to make all the effort to source chocolate sustainably. There’s a lot of child slave labor in chocolate. [Rea helps people] understand the dark history of chocolate. ... I think in the U.S. we have a really skewed understanding of what chocolate is and how it’s made.” Evane and her two-person staff of pastry chefs make all the bean-to-bar chocolate bars in the shop. The rest of the candy — the bonbons, the chocolate-dipped fruits and some of the flavored chocolate bars — is made with couverture chocolate, which has a higher percentage of cocoa butter. And Evane is proud to note that the shop’s everevolving list of options reflects both her and her dad’s wildly different tastes. “My dad loves really sweet sweets,” she says. “We have a totally different palate, so it makes for a good dynamic of different confections and chocolates. He’ll tell me, ‘Build me a chocolate box like I would like,’
and I will put chocolate fudge, sea-salt caramel and that kind of stuff in his box. Mine would be, like, pine nut and almond, the notas-sweet stuff.” And the secret to getting them to look so pretty? Nail-art tools. Evane has collaborated with different artists including Annie Phimmachack (@gelhiigh on Instagram), the nail artist whose client list includes Lily Aldridge and Maren Morris. Painting chocolate, though, comes with an entirely different set of challenges. “It’s been interesting, because the chocolate has to be painted at 89 to 90 degrees the whole time,” says Evane. “You’re holding a heat gun in your hand and the temperature gun and a brush, and you’re painting into a hole, so it all has to be timed well. “It’s been fun to experiment with other artists,” she adds. “I would like to have more artists come in and understand how the paint works so they can do more collaborations. I love collaborating with people, and that’s where I want [Poppy & Peep] to go.” EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM
nashvillescene.com | DECEMBER 3 – DECEMBER 9, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE
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VODKA YONIC
GRAPE EXPECTATIONS How learning about wine gave me the freedom to fail — and find myself
Vodka Yonic
BY MINDA WEI
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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was acting like a yuppie long before I was a working professional, and for a while, trying to be someone who had it all figured out felt almost like a core identity. If I scroll back too far on my Instagram feed, I see a tiny aspiring adult wearing a tucked-in Express Portofino button-up against a backdrop of STEM students in free T-shirts from the campus career fair. I had a five-year plan carved in granite: I was going to shatter glass ceilings, get married in the third quarter of 2018, and have two perfect children by 27. I shoved myself into a tidy, goal-oriented box and Marie Kondo’d the notion that I could be anything else. But by 25, my “dream job” had me fantasizing about getting into a minor car accident to avoid going into the office every day — not exactly what I had entered into my Google Calendar. At the beginning of the year, I decided to leave my cushy job as a computer hardware engineer to chase the dream of becoming a comedy-TV writer. I gave my notice, and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t have a five-year plan. I didn’t even have a five-week plan. But I trusted the universe to be soft when I fell flat on my face, and trusted that I could pick myself back up when I did. I found freedom under the fig tree of funemployment, treating it like an all-youcan-eat buffet. Free of any timeline, I threw myself into art, food, acting, writing and music in an attempt to “turn my hobbies into jobbies.” And it half-worked — I checked off creative goals and got hired at a musicfestival company in the months leading up to pandemic lockdown. But after working hard to find new footing, in March, I ended up unemployed and confused again. While I felt like my life was regressing, two of my close friends bought houses. For one friend’s housewarming, I gave him wine glasses, which I described in my journal as “such an adult gift.” For the other, I wanted to buy a bottle of wine. Like a disoriented toddler, I stood in the aisle of Trader Joe’s looking for a present, trying to figure out if Pouilly-Fuissé was the name of the vintner or the grape. It felt like asking a Magic 8-Ball, “Is this one of the two wines that I like?” and having the results come back in Latin. The Old World wine aisle of Trader Joe’s taunted me like a sign on the gate of a roller coaster: “You must be this grown-up to ride.” Amid the chaos, I started learning about wine. I pored over books by experts about
AS I BROKE THE RULES OF WINE, I FOUND IT EASIER TO QUESTION THE RULES THAT I LET DEFINE ME. tawnies and rubies, learning that a 2008 crop from Beaujolais is apparently wine for clowns thanks to a rainy growing season. I watched Ratatouille too many times, wondering how Anton Ego knew what to pair with “perspective.” I figured all of these rich people could blow it out their ass, but I kept reading. The salespeople at the wine megamart told me that they arranged the French wines according to east-west geography, while I myself cannot remember if east is right or left without doing some mental math about it. I did this all as a broke, newly re-unemployed idiot clinging to some semblance of belonging in our classist culture, as if knowing about wine would allow me to keep calling myself a “real adult.” Then, I read an article on the website Wine Folly and Jon Bonné’s The New Wine Rules, both of which said the best way to learn more about wine is to drink a lot of it, indiscriminately. To dislike a particular bottle did not mean I should write off an entire varietal. As I learned about Old World wines and New World wines, I developed a love for sangiovese, the same grape that Hannibal Lecter enjoys with fava beans and a census taker’s liver. I tasted around, learned how to pronounce txakoli (chah-koh-lee), and fell in love with a gas station that hawked the best craft wine in town. There are no rules. Before, I struggled with absolutes: “Today I do not feel funny; therefore, I’ll never make it as a comedy writer,” or, “Today I was lonely; therefore, I am unloved.” I also had a lot of hard absolutes about what adulthood should look like. As I broke the rules of wine, I found it easier to question the rules that I let define me. Just because I disliked a bottle of syrah doesn’t mean I dislike all syrah. Just because my dreams felt impossible didn’t mean they were. I found the freedom to try, fail and try again, undefined by a onetime assessment of good or bad, successful or doomed. Today, I am prosecco with fries — messy but classic. Tomorrow, I am rosé in the winter, nostalgic for the joys of the past, yet excited for the summer to come. Wine, in its essence, is fermented grapes, yet it contains so much more. Its nuance and complexity are found in filtering what’s simple through generations of knowledge, care and love for the craft. Thinking about the ways we explore wine helped me settle into who I am in my adulthood: containing multitudes, with notes picked up from everything that came before. EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM
NASHVILLE SCENE | DECEMBER 3 – DECEMBER 9, 2020 | nashvillescene.com
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THEATER
HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS Arts organizations celebrate the season with a clever mix of virtual shows BY AMY STUMPFL A CHRISTMAS CAROL
T
he holidays are quickly approaching, and already the Tennessee Performing Arts Center has wrapped up the perfect treat with its newly filmed version of Mark Cabus’ acclaimed solo performance of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. But what started as a way to reach local students has emerged as a meaningful gift for audiences young and old. “Mark Cabus is a Nashville treasure, and TPAC has been proud to present his dynamic adaptation of A Christmas Carol to students for years as part of our annual Season for Young People,” says Jennifer Turner, TPAC president and CEO. “When
we started looking for a new way to engage students virtually, we turned to Mark and found an energetic partner ready to dive in and create something truly special. After ensuring we could provide it free to schools across the region, we wanted to make sure everyone had the opportunity to experience Mark’s performance and the story’s timeless message.” In his clever adaptation, Cabus — an accomplished actor, writer, director and teaching artist — takes on 18 characters, offering an especially vibrant interpretation of the familiar tale. But with all the uncertainty sparked by COVID-19, he wasn’t sure how best to reach students in 2020. “We knew we had to do something,”
MORE UPCOMING PERFORMANCES:
Cabus says. “Initially, we talked about offering a few livestream performances, but we wanted to be sure teachers had some flexibility. We also realized that we weren’t just talking about Metro schools — kids all over the state were going to be missing out on arts programming this year. Film seemed the obvious answer, but there were so many moving parts to figure out — location, lighting, sound, where the cameras would be located. Plus, we wanted to be careful to preserve the theatricality of the piece.” Cabus began talking with Nashville-based film producers/directors Clarke Gallivan and Coke Sams of RightBrain/LeftBrain Entertainment, along with producer Dona Spangler. He also connected with Grammywinning songwriter-composer Mike Reid, who has created a new score for the piece, which was filmed in TPAC’s Polk Theater in October. “It’s been a labor of love, and I’m incredibly grateful to everyone involved,” Cabus says. “Everyone’s been so generous with their time and talents — I think we all just wanted to provide kids with some sense of joy and normalcy in this strange season. And while I’ll dearly miss standing on that stage, singing ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’ with a live audience, I love that we’re able to reach so many more students this way.” In fact, according to TPAC, more than 18,000 students have registered to view A Christmas Carol, compared to around 2,000 students in past years. Home audiences will be able to register for free streaming access via tpac.org, beginning Dec. 4. TPAC also has planned a number of community activities to complement the viewing experience — from virtual talkbacks to an interactive cooking demonstration by chef Matthew Bell of Gray and Dudley. “This play is so special to me, but this year it feels particularly meaningful,” Cabus adds. “I’m thrilled to be able to share it with audiences in this way.” EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM
DEC. 12: Taylor Mac’s Holiday Sauce … Pandemic! at OZ Arts Ibsen Award winner and MacArthur Fellow Taylor Mac is back with a “dazzling and at times shocking takedown of the sentimentality of the holidays.” Blending music, film, burlesque and more, it’s recommended for ages 16 and up. (ozartsnashville.org)
PETE THE CAT’S ROCKIN’ RED CARPET PREMIERE
PHOTO: REED HUMMELL | NCT
DEC. 18 (re-airing Dec. 24 and 25): Nashville Ballet’s Nashville’s Nutcracker
DEC. 6: Pete the Cat’s Rockin’ Red Carpet Premiere at Nashville Children’s Theatre It may not be a holiday show, but NCT is marking its 90th season with a charming musical based on the popular book series by James Dean. Abe Reybold directs and choreographs a terrific cast, including Gerold Oliver, Brian Charles Rooney, James Rudolph, Melissa Tormene and Meggan Utech. (nashvillechildrenstheatre.org)
Nashville Ballet is partnering with NewsChannel 5 to present a free televised premiere of this Music City tradition. The unique production features 186 costuming pieces and 500 scenery pieces, plus an introduction and narration by former Tennessee Titan Eddie George. There’s even a behind-the-scenes special about the filming on Dec. 11 and 14. (nashvilleballet.com)
DEC. 19: Manual Cinema’s A Christmas Carol at OZ Arts Featuring hundreds of paper puppets, miniatures and silhouettes, plus a live original score, this family-friendly world premiere event offers an imaginative, cinematic twist on a true classic. (ozartsnashville.org)
DEC. 20: Twas the Night Before … A Nashville Rep Holiday Special The Rep offers a look back at those wonderful holiday specials of the 1960s and ’70s. Join Nashville favorites Maria Logan, Patrick Thomas, Jennifer Whitcomb-Oliva, Mia Blaise Campbell, Micah Williams, Kara Jackson, Meggan Utech, Jonah Jackson, David Ridley, Sarah Zanotti and more as they share holiday traditions, memories and songs. (nashvillerep.org)
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NASHVILLE SCENE | DECEMBER 3 – DECEMBER 9, 2020 | nashvillescene.com
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BARNES AND NOBLE AT VANDERBILT | 2501 West End Ave, Nashville, TN 37203 | vanderbilt.bncollege.com/ shop/vanderbilt/home
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Featuring a vintage-inspired graphic celebrating Vandy football, this is a versatile hoodie with a brushed fleece lining (100% cotton). We are open for safe holiday shopping. Parking is free in the 2525 garage. A great selection of general reading and children’s books, toys, games, and Vanderbilt-identified merchandise.
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FROTHY MONKEY TRAVEL TUMBLER
FROTHY MONKEY | frothymonkey.com/ product/traveltumbler Frothy Monkey Travel Tumbler with a sleek coffeeinspired illustration by @chrismonachino. This white MiiR brand tumbler with gold graphic is insulated, leak-proof and will fit in most cupholders. It is sure to keep 12 ounces of your favorite hot or cold beverage at a tasty temp for hours. $30 at frothymonkey.com or at any Frothy Monkey location.
MAISON BONANGE CHOCOLATE BARS
LITTLE GOURMAND | Market & Cafe: 2209 Bandywood, Ste. D, Nashville, TN 37215 | Patisserie Française: 717 Craighead St., Nashville TN 37204 | littlegourmand.us
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14 different bars, all organic and made and packed with care in the heart of the Cité Royale of Versailles. Classic and adventurous flavors such as ginger, fennel, cardamom, geranium flower, bergamot or thyme. They are molded in the image of the Marble Court of the Château de Versailles and the emblem is a representation of a little angel affiliated with Marie-Antoinette.
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COCO BOW TIE AND MASK CLIFTON + LEOPOLD | cliftonandleopold.com
Clifton + Leopold was born from a love of classic men’s accessories and the desire to make them more reflective of the world today. A world that is more diverse, bold and inclusive. Our ties, bow ties, pocket squares and scarves are handcrafted in the U.S. for dapper humans everywhere.
OLIVE OIL W/BOURBON VANILLA FROM OLIVERAIE JEANJEAN
LITTLE GOURMAND | Market & Cafe: 2209 Bandywood, Ste. D, Nashville, TN 37215 | Patisserie Française: 717 Craighead St., Nashville TN 37204 | littlegourmand.us
It makes perfect sense on pan-fried scallops or a baked white fish. It will delight a fruit salad, a cake, a red fruit sorbet or a chocolate ice cream. Oliveraie Jeanjean was established in 1994 south of Nimes. The Jeanjean family have passed their passion for their work from father to son. All olives are carefully selected and pressed directly in their own mill.
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GHD CURVE AND GHD AIR HAIR DRYER
ESCAPE DAY SPA + SALON | 6000 Highway 100, Ste 102, Nashville, TN 37205 | escapenashville.com The ghd curve and ghd air hair dryer are the perfect combo to start the day off for that in-salon, glossy finish. Our 1 ¼ inch soft-curve curling iron maintains heat constantly and evenly across the barrel, achieving gorgeous, shiny curls in five to eight seconds, saving both your hair and you time. Automatic shut off after 30 seconds for peace of mind. Hair dryer $199 curling iron $199
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CANDLE - DEUX
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CLIFTON + LEOPOLD | cliftonandleopold.com The first snowfall always felt like magic. But it was the second one that made it real.The Deux canidé is hand-poured American-raised soy wax with holiday notes of vanilla, citrus peel, eucalyptus + balsam, pine and juniper needles. They’re housed in a white glass container and enjoy a lifespan of 45 hours. The perfect gift for the ones you love.
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CHOCOLATE & CHAMPAGNE PAIRING GIFT BOX (24 PCS)
LITTLE GOURMAND | Market & Cafe: 2209 Bandywood, Ste. D, Nashville, TN 37215 | Patisserie Française: 717 Craighead St., Nashville TN 37204 | littlegourmand.us Champagne, like chocolate, is a celebration of true craftsmanship. It inspired Neuhaus to create exquisite multilayered pralines, each crafted to be savored with sparkling wine. Belgian Top Sommelier Yanick Dehandschutter collaborated with Maîtres Chocolatiers to provide a series of pairing recommendations to create the best possible flavor combinations.
OI HOLIDAY SET
GREEN PEA SALON | 1113 12th Ave South, Nashville, TN 37203 | 4105 Charlotte Ave, Nashville TN 37209 | greenpeasalon.com
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BUCHES DE NOEL (CHRISTMAS YULE LOGS)
LITTLE GOURMAND | Market & Cafe: 2209 Bandywood, Ste. D, Nashville, TN 37215 | Patisserie Française: 717 Craighead St., Nashville TN 37204 | littlegourmand.us SAINT GERMAIN: Three chocolate Bavaroise (dark, milk and white), chocolate genoise and chocolate frosting. PIGALLE: Mango Bavaroise, Passion fruit, Joconde biscuit, Yuzu cream. Each cake is $69.99 plus tax and has to be preordered before Dec. 12. Serve 8/10 Complimentary tastings in both stores on Saturday, Nov. 28.
PARNASSUS BOOKS | 3900 Hillsboro Pike, Ste. 14, Nashville TN 37215 | parnassusbooks.net/holiday2020
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The perfect gift for the book lover on your list! (Maybe that’s you.) Get a handselected book delivered to your door — or available for in-store pickup — every month. Choose from First Editions Club (literary fiction), ParnassusNext (YA) or Spark Book Club (middle-grade). Available in 3-, 6-, or 12-month increments.
The perfect product combination for all hair types, this OI holiday set is designed to indulge those who desire beautiful, shiny and fragrant hair. These bestsellers are the perfect choice for nourishing and softening your hair. Includes OI Shampoo, OI Conditioner and OI Oil. Add a Green Pea Salon gift card and you’re gift-ready!
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FIRST EDITIONS CLUBS
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ULTRALUXE BB OIL
ESCAPE DAY SPA + SALON | 6000 Highway 100, Ste 102, Nashville, TN 37205 | escapenashville.com Give the gift of more youthful and radiant skin from the inside out. BB Oil by Ultraluxe is the perfect oil to repair any and all skin types. A blend of six natural oils provides instant hydration to plump your skin, soften lines and wrinkles. With Vitamin E, soothing lavender and rosemary, this will be the gift that they keep asking for. BB Oil $50.50
BREAD CSA SUBSCRIPTION
BAKERY BY FROTHY MONKEY | 12South, Nations, East, Downtown, Franklin, Chattanooga | frothymonkey.com/bakery Give the gift of freshly baked artisan bread with a Frothy Monkey Bread CSA Subscription. The CSA program also offers loaves not typically available for retail such as challah, gluten-free and specialty seasonal sourdough. 12- and 26-week subscriptions are available with weekly pickup at the new Frothy Monkey in East Nashville. Visit frothymonkey.com/ csasubscriptions for more details.
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KERASTASE HOLIDAY KITS ESCAPE DAY SPA + SALON | 6000 Highway 100, Ste 102, Nashville, TN 37205 | escapenashville.com
Nothing says “happy holidays” more than a personalized at-home hair-care system. The variety of Kerastase gift sets contain our bestselling shampoos, conditioner, heat protectants and hair primers. Satisfying their hair with any of their hair needs or desires, leaving them with exceptional hair. -Blonde Absolute $90 -Resistance $80 -Nutritive $80 -Extentioniste $90 -Discipline $90 -Reflection $80
ADVERTORIAL | INTERESTED IN ADVERTISING IN THE SCENE SHOP LOCAL GIFT GUIDES? EMAIL MIKE AT MSMITH@NASHVILLESCENE.COM
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GIFT GUIDE
THEaHERMITAGE Give the gift of Scene membership THEHERMITAGE.COM
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>>> Memberships GIFT AN EXPERIENCE & SUPPORT LOCAL ADVENTURE SCIENCE CENTER 800 FORT NEGLEY BLVD., NASHVILLE, TN 37203 ADVENTURESCI.ORG Adventure Science Center has several different membership levels, making it easy to give the science lover in your life a gift they’ll be sure to enjoy! Purchasing membership is also a great way to help support the museum as we recover from significant financial loss due to COVID-19. It’s the win-win we all need this holiday season!
The Nashville Scene has been serving our city for three decades and counting.A strong, independent voice, the Scene covers news, music, film, food, art, culture, and state and local politics in a way that only we can — with hard news, creative feature writing, long-form reporting, analysis and criticism that serves a diverse readership, and does so with a voice. Give the Gift of a membership today!
This season, give your favorite history lover the gift of membership to Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage. The home of the seventh president offers regular and seasonal tours and exhibits, special events and educational opportunities, plus tastings at the all-new Natchez Hills Winery located onsite. Members receive unlimited admission and great perks year-round. All funds directly support the mission to preserve, educate and inspire.
NASHVILLE ZOO NASHVILLEZOO.ORG
Nashville Zoo Membership benefits include: SUPPORT.NASHVILLESCENE.COM • Free admission and parking during regular hours
Save 15% on Zoo memberships this holiday season. Visit www.nashvillezoo.org/gift
for one year • Free or discounted admission to most special events. • Discounted admission to over 170 zoos and aquariums nationwide • Access to “Members Only” events • 10% discount on concessions and retail purchases • Savings on some education programs • E-updates on new exhibits, special happenings and member programs
Only you can define you
cliftonandleopold.com
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SIGNED JON MEACHAM BUNDLE
PARNASSUS BOOKS | 3900 Hillsboro Pike, Ste. 14, Nashville TN 37215 | parnassusbooks.net/holiday2020
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Need a gift idea? Book bundles to the rescue! A trio of books signed by historian and bestselling author Jon Meacham is one of our most popular bundles. But there are lots to choose from — cookbooks, cocktails, Nashville, kids and more!
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PARNASSUS MERCH
PARNASSUS BOOKS | 3900 Hillsboro Pike, Ste. 14, Nashville TN 37215 | parnassusbooks.net/holiday2020 Show your book love with some great Parnassus merchandise! Consistently named one of the best independent bookstores in the country, Parnassus is a local treasure — and from T-shirts to adjustable masks, there are plenty of ways to sport your book love in style.
MARIANELLA’S HAND SANITIZER
ESCAPE DAY SPA + SALON | 6000 Highway 100, Ste 102, Nashville, TN 37205 | escapenashville.com
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This year give that loved one the hand sanitizer that feels as fancy as it looks and smells. Marianella’s amazing hand sanitizer is something everyone needs on hand. With 70 percent alcohol and aloe gel that not only hydrates hands as you sanitize but also smells of spruce and lavender once it dries. Marianella’s 2 oz. $14, 8 oz. $24
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NOURISH NASHVILLE COOKBOOK
NASHVILLE SCENE | nourishnashville.com It’s no secret, Nashville is delicious. Now you can make some of Music City’s best dishes from the comfort of your own home! The Scene’s new cookbook, Nourish Nashville, is available now. Inspired in part by the time we’ve all had to spend at home during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — experimenting and honing our home-cooking skills while social distancing — this cookbook features 40-plus of the city’s most celebrated chefs sharing their most beloved recipes.
ESCAPE DAY SPA + SALON ROBE ESCAPE DAY SPA + SALON | 6000 Highway 100, Ste 102, Nashville, TN 37205 | escapenashville.com
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Transform your home into your very own spa by wrapping up in one of our cozy luxurious robes that gets softer with each wash. From Small to 3xl, everyone deserves some relaxation. $175
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NEST HOLIDAY CANDLE
GREEN PEA SALON |1113 12th Ave South, Nashville, TN 37203 | 4105 Charlotte Ave, Nashville TN 37209 | greenpeasalon.com The legendary Nest Holiday Candle is a host/ teacher/sister/mom/bff gift pleaser, this year in beautiful new recyclable packaging. This candle is joined by a series of new fragrances and scents that will please anyone on your list. Call ahead for multiple orders!
NATUROPATHICA CBD ELIXIR AND CBD KAVA BALM ESCAPE DAY SPA + SALON | 6000 Highway 100, Ste 102, Nashville, TN 37205 | escapenashville.com
Take a deep breath and chill — you now know what to get everyone on your list. Our CBD Kava Balm and Microdose Elixir instantly relieve muscle tension and melt the worries away. Chill CBD is also the perfect addition to add to a massage, facial and soak. Exfoliating brush $29, CBD elixir $88, CBD Kava Balm $76
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MISS KITTY’S BOUTIQUE
MISS KITTY’S DOG RESORT | 4308 Kenilwood Dr, Nashville, TN 37204 | misskittysnashville.com Our dog clothing changes with the season and ranges from practical items like sweaters and rain gear to wedding dresses, tuxedos and accessories. We also stock jerseys and tees for our college and professional sports teams in Nashville!
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Give the gift of Nfocus This holiday season, order a subscription of Nfocus for yourself or a friend, or sign up to become a member and receive perks all year long.
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shopnfocus.com
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UPCOMING VIRTUAL EVENTS FRIDAY DEC 4 3:00PM FACEBOOK LIVE with SARAH HAYS COOMER The Habit Trip
SATURDAY DEC 5 10:00AM VIRTUAL HOLIDAY STORYTIME with MARY UHLES
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28 ULTRALUXE TRIPLE ACID EXFOLIATING PADS AND ACID CLEANSER
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ESCAPE DAY SPA + SALON | 6000 Highway 100, Ste 102, Nashville, TN 37205 | escapenashville.com
SCENE MEMBERSHIP
NASHVILLE SCENE | nashvillescene.com/support
The Nashville Scene has been serving our city for three decades and counting. A strong, independent voice, the Scene covers news, music, film, food, art, culture, and state and local politics. Now more than ever, we need your support so that we can continue to provide Nashvillians with free, independent press from a source you can trust. Please consider becoming a member today and enjoy year-round perks, so that we can keep supplying our city with journalism and keep putting news in your hands.
MISS KITTY’S BAKERY
MISS KITTY’S DOG RESORT | 4308 Kenilwood Dr, Nashville, TN 37204 | misskittysnashville.com Pitter Pats are our signature cookie and continue to be a top seller. Little dogs love the heart-shaped treats because they’re thin like wafers, perfect for itty-bitty pups who don’t have the jaw strength for big bones. One bite, and you’ll see why our clients call them puppy crack!
The top duo gift this holiday season. Acid Cleanser gently washes away impurities and rejuvenates dull skin to a soft, smooth, glowing complexion. The Triple Acid Exfoliating Pads have a unique combo of salicylic, lactic and mandelic acids that evens skin tone, removes impurities and refines pores ... pads can be used 1-2 times per week. Exfoliating Pads $48, Acid Cleanser $ 37
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SUNDAY DEC 6 1:00PM FACEBOOK LIVE with AMY-JILL LEVINE & MARC ZVI-BRETTLER The Bible With and Without Jesus
THURSDAY DEC 10 6:00PM FACEBOOK LIVE with TIM WISE Dispatches from the Race War
GET TICKETS & LEARN MORE AT PARNASSUSBOOKS.NET/EVENT
GIFT CARDS MAKE GREAT GIFTS! AVAILABLE IN STORE AND ONLINE
OPEN FOR BROWSING!
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ESCAPE DAY SPA + SALON GIFT CARD ESCAPE DAY SPA + SALON | 6000 Highway 100, Ste 102, Nashville, TN 37205 | escapenashville.com
An Escape gift card is one of the easiest gifts to give and one of the best gifts to receive. From our full-service hair salon, to our healing therapeutic massages, to our advanced skincare and luxurious body treatments, who doesn’t need the gift of wellness? Gift cards available in store or online at escapenashville.com
Tuesday - Saturday : 10:00am - 6:00pm Sunday : Noon - 6:00pm
SHOP ONLINE parnassusbooks.net Curbside pickup available!
parnassusbooks.net 3900 Hillsboro Pike in Green Hills | 615.953.2243 @parnassusbooks1
@parnassusbooks
@parnassusbooks1
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Clothing created on purpose to encourage you to Clothing created on purpose to encourage you to Folklore Collection of Jewelry, Books, and House Wares Folklore Collection of Jewelry, Books, and House Wares get dressed on purpose and live in your purpose get dressed on purpose and live in your purpose
RESERVE YOUR COPY NOW (AT 30% OFF!) A Promised Land, by Barack Obama (to be released November 17)
To reserve your copy or for more information, please call
615 343-4369
Store Hours Monday to Saturday 10 am to 7 pm Sunday 11 am to 6 pm
2501 WEST END AVENUE (Across from Centennial Park)
This Is The Nope This Is The Nope Earrings ($22-$24) Distressed Dyed Sweat ShirtDistressed Dyed Sweat Shirt JANUARY MOON JANUARYMOON.COM
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January Moon combines shape, color and texture January Moon combines shape, color and texture with premium safety-tested materials to create with premium safety-tested materials Fresh Baked to create Goods You Can’t Resist. downright drool-worthy teething solutions. downright drool-worthy teething solutions.
Rainbow Sherbet Pacifier Clip Rainbow + CloudSherbet Pacifier ClipBuckeyes + Cloud Feeding Set price: $26, $18, full Feeding set $44 Set price: $26, $18, full set $44 ($15/dozen)
Earrings ($22-$24)
DE-LISH BY DEB DELISHBYDEB.COM Fresh Baked Goods You Can’t Resist.
Buckeyes ($15/dozen)
ADVERTORIAL | INTERESTED IN ADVERTISING IN THE ADVERTORIAL SCENE SHOP|LOCAL INTERESTED GIFT GUIDES? IN ADVERTISING EMAIL MIKE IN THE AT SCENE MSMITH@NASHVILLESCENE.COM SHOP LOCAL GIFT GUIDES? EMAIL MIKE AT MSMITH@NASHVILLESCENE.COM
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THE HERMITAGE
GIFT GUIDE
THEHERMITAGE.COM
This season, give your favorite history lover the gift of membership to Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage. The home of the seventh president offers regular and seasonal tours and exhibits, special events and educational opportunities, plus tastings at the all-new Natchez Hills Winery located onsite. Members receive unlimited admission and great perks year-round. All funds directly support the mission to preserve, educate and inspire.
SCENEGIFTGUIDE.COM
>>>
>>> Memberships GIFT AN EXPERIENCE & SUPPORT LOCAL ADVENTURE SCIENCE CENTER
NASHVILLE ZOO NASHVILLEZOO.ORG
800 FORT NEGLEY BLVD., NASHVILLE, TN 37203 ADVENTURESCI.ORG Adventure Science Center has several different membership levels, making it easy to give the science lover in your life a gift they’ll be sure to enjoy! Purchasing membership is also a great way to help support the museum as we recover from significant financial loss due to COVID-19. It’s the win-win we all need this holiday season!
Save 15% on Zoo memberships this holiday season. Visit www.nashvillezoo.org/gift
Nashville Zoo Membership benefits include: • Free admission and parking during regular hours for one year • Free or discounted admission to most special events. • Discounted admission to over 170 zoos and aquariums nationwide • Access to “Members Only” events • 10% discount on concessions and retail purchases • Savings on some education programs • E-updates on new exhibits, special happenings and member programs
Happy Holidays !
ORDER YOUR BÛCHE DE NOËL NOW ! 2209 Bandywood, Green Hills / 717 Craighead, Berry Hill ADVERTORIAL | INTERESTED IN ADVERTISING IN THE SCENE SHOP LOCAL GIFT GUIDES? EMAIL MIKE AT MSMITH@NASHVILLESCENE.COM
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Meet the Owners Q & AS WITH LOCAL BUSINESS PEOPLE
SCENEGIFTGUIDE.COM
Christopher Lester
SHOP OWNER AT CLIFTON + LEOPOLD cliftonandleopold.com
Kelly Mason
SHOP OWNER AT GREEN PEA SALON greenpeasalon.com
Jennifer Sheets
CO-OWNER/CREATIVE DIRECTOR AT FROTHY MONKEY frothymonkey.com
Guenievre Milliner
SHOP OWNER AT LITTLE GOURMAND littlegourmand.us
Q: What Inspired you to open your store? Q: What Inspired you to open your store? Q: What Inspired you to open your store? Q: What Inspired you to open your store? A: Clifton + Leopold is the cumulation of all the were A:equally To create a space where our team and clients A: What inspired the store to open: We are really share A: Imyhavepassion always been a foodie and wanted to things I love — dapper dresswear, handcrafted qualhappy and to celebrate the best in the focused on bringing people together and serving for French food. ity, the maker’s movement, my entrepreneurial spirit, and a community of like-minded people. So, when I got tired of coming up with reasons not to launch the store, I finally stopped and did it.
salon industry. We also knew we wanted to share the best products we could find with our clientele, so it’s fun to always be on the search for these products.
Q: What trends are you loving right now? A: It’s funny to think about trends when we’ve spent most of the year in our own space, but I’m
Q: What trends are you loving right now? A: Sustainable, organic, healthy, good for the environment. Quality and affordability are coming
loving some overarching themes for sure — bold patterns, high-waisted pants, the move to more androgenous styling, the French tuck, and the universal desire everyone has to wallpaper their bathroom.
closer together for some of the best products we’ve seen to date.
Q: A: Shopping local means everything to me both as a shop owner as well as a consumer. We make What does “shop local” mean to you and your store?
100% of our products here in the South, so when someone buys a piece from Clifton + Leopold, they’re supporting 50-plus people in our community. As a consumer I just feel better when I shop local. I feel like I’m doing something good for a fellow human and that just feels, well, good.
Q: A: The support of your own neighbors, local businesses, and local families — people in our comWhat does “shop local” mean to you and your store?
munity that contribute to the fabric of what makes our Nashville life so rich.
our neighbors. Coffee and community inspire everything we do.
Q: What trends are you loving right now? A: We love how innovation and creativity have fueled us in 2020. Q: What does “shop local” mean to you and your store? A: Shop local to us (Frothy) means that the money being spent in our stores stays in our community for the most part. We live here, our kids go to school here and we invest in relationships with nearby farmers and purveyors who can grow along with us. If we didn’t have the support of our local community we wouldn’t be here.
Q: Favorite items in your store right now? Q: Favorite items in your store right now? Best gift item in your store? Best gift item in your store? A: We always have some amazing coffees, but my favorite giftable item we have right now is our A: We have exclusive lines like Malin + Goetz, Bread CSA, because who doesn’t want to be given a and the whole Nest candle line — an absolute favor-
Q: What trends are you loving right now? A: I think that in a very special year we all need comfort, so I would say chocolate is my favorite “trend” for the holidays this year.
Q: A: Shop local — supporting small, locally owned businesses is more important than ever. My husWhat does “shop local” mean to you and your store?
band and I try to shop and eat local as much as we can, we are giving back to local nonprofits. This is the only way to make it through these hard times.
Q: A: My favorite items are the incredible jams from La Confiture Parisienne and the Hedene honeys. I Favorite items in your store right now? Best gift item in your store?
didn’t really enjoyed honey before these, now I am a fan. And the lovely boxes of Neuhaus chocolates are my favorite gift for the season.
fresh loaf of bread on the weekly? Runner up is the ite for giving — but their new Blue Cypress and Snow adorable Cold Brew Can Glass featuring an illustraClassic Candle is a showstopper! Q: Favorite items in your store right now? Q: Favorite “Nashville” thing you do when not tion by @drawmatthewdraw. Best gift item in your store? working? A: Don’t make me choose my favorite kid! I have working? Q: Favorite “Nashville” thing you do when not Q: Favorite “Nashville” thing you do when not —A:we areWe extremely currently don’t go out a lot except for work an attachment to so many pieces in our current cautious. But in normal times, collection. I can’t get enough of the oversized ’70smy favorite thing is enjoying a cocktail and appetizworking? inspired bow ties — Hollywood, Coco and Cher. But ers at the beautiful Hermitage Hotel, then going to a A: Supporting our local neighborhood restauif I was honest, Icarus is probably my favorite piece concert at the Ryman or a Broadway show at TPAC. rants by grabbing a few friends and meeting up, if A: My favorite “Nashville” thing to do outside of right now. Sometimes I wear it around the house Can’t wait to go back! the weather holds — on my motor bike. work is to dig through vinyl at Grimey’s and catch just because it makes me feel so damn happy. On some live music. I’m looking forward to being able the gift front, hands down it would be one of our to do those things again! candles. Who doesn’t love a good candle? And what a great way to create your own personal sanctuary, or tell someone else how much you love them, by giving them a way to create theirs? ADVERTORIAL | INTERESTED IN ADVERTISING IN THE SCENE SHOP LOCAL GIFT GUIDES? EMAIL MIKE AT MSMITH@NASHVILLESCENE.COM
Shop local Cigars From
THE HERMITAGE
GIFT GUIDE
THEHERMITAGE.COM
This season, give your favorite history lover the gift of membership to Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage. The home of the seventh president offers regular and seasonal tours and exhibits, special events and educational opportunities, plus tastings at the all-new Natchez Hills Winery located onsite. Members receive unlimited admission and great perks year-round. All funds directly support the mission to preserve, educate and inspire.
A. FUENTE • ASHTON • CAO • COHIBA • DAVIDOFF LIGA PRIVADA • MONTECRISTO • PADRON • TATUAJE SCENEGIFTGUIDE.COM ZINO & MANY MORE
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PREMIUM CIGARS & GIFTS Belle Meade Plaza 4518 Harding Road, Nashville, TN
615-297-7963
ADVENTURE SCIENCE CENTER
Support Local
800 FORT NEGLEY BLVD., NASHVILLE, TN 37203 ADVENTURESCI.ORG Adventure Science Center has several different membership levels, making it easy to give the science lover in your life a gift they’ll be sure to enjoy! Purchasing membership is also a great way to help support the museum as we recover from significant financial loss due to COVID-19. It’s the win-win we all need this holiday season!
Save the dishwashing for later
NASHVILLE ZOO NASHVILLEZOO.ORG
Shop local
GIFT GUIDE Save 15% on Zoo memberships this holiday season. Visit www.nashvillezoo.org/gift
Visit nashvillescene.com for our daily takeout picks.
Nashville Zoo Membership benefits include: • Free admission and parking during regular hours for one year • Free or discounted admission to most special events. • Discounted admission to over 170 zoos and aquariums nationwide • Access to “Members Only” events • 10% discount on concessions and retail purchases • Savings on some education programs • E-updates on new exhibits, special happenings and member programs
Will you commit to shop local this holiday season? Text LOCAL to 888-111 and receive special offers, info on our gift guides and more! 2 Msgs/Month. Reply STOP to cancel, HELP for help. Msg&data rates may apply. Terms & privacy: slkt.io/bY77
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Shop local Meet the Owners Meet the Owners Q & AS WITH LOCAL BUSINESS PEOPLE Q & AS WITH LOCAL BUSINESS PEOPLE
GIFT GUIDE GIFT GUIDE SCENEGIFTGUIDE.COM
Tami Sprintz Hall
SHOP OWNER AT ESCAPE DAY SPA + SALON 6000 Highway 100 Nashville, TN 37205 | escapenashville.com
SCENEGIFTGUIDE.COM
Gina Tami Sprintz Wells Hall
Karen Gina Wells Hayes
Q: What What Inspired Inspired you you to to open open your your store? store? A: We Fifteen opened yearsour ago resort we started because escape we didn’t day spa feel andlike salon there to provide was a place a place we where trustedone to leave couldour truly
Q: What Inspired you to open your store? Q: What Inspired you to open your store? A: There We opened is a long ourstory, resortbut because to keepwe it short, didn’t when A: There is a long story, but to keep it short, when Davis-Kidd feel like there closed was 10 a place yearswe ago, trusted both to Ann leave andour I Davis-Kidd closed 10 years ago, both Ann and I
little escape 3-pound their every dog for day. grooming, You can come lodging fororone other hour services. or you can Hercome name forwas the“Miss entireKitty”, day and hence feel the like company you’ve had name, a miniMiss vacation. Kitty’s Dog Resort.
realized little 3-pound that someone dog for grooming, needed tolodging step uportoother open another services.independent Her name was bookstore. “Miss Kitty”, We decided hence the to team company up. name, Miss Kitty’s Dog Resort.
realized that someone needed to step up to open another independent bookstore. We decided to team up.
Q: What What trends trends are are you you loving loving right right now? now? A: We I think lovemy thatfavorite peoplehair taketrend the care right and now wellis the being lived-in of color their four-legged you get withfamily balayage. members The hand more paint-
Q: What What trends are you loving right now? Q: trends are you loving right now? A: We love that people take the care and wellbeing of theirawareness four-legged family members more by A: More and promotion of books seriously everwriters. before.Just Puptake parents areatmore BIPOC andthan LGBTQ a look the
Q: What trends are you loving right now? A: More awareness and promotion of books by BIPOC and LGBTQ writers. Just take a look at the
educated want more information before makwinners ofand the National Book Awards this week. ing the important decision about leaving theirmakpup Publishers and literary organizations are also in the hands of others. ing shifts in staffing and positions of power that reflect this trend also.
winners of the National Book Awards this week. Publishers and literary organizations are also making shifts in staffing and positions of power that reflect this trend also.
OWNER SHOP OWNER AT MISSATKITTY’S ESCAPEDOG DAYRESORT SPA + SALON 4308 Dr.,Nashville, Nashville,TNTN37205 37204| 6000Kenilwood Highway 100 escapenashville.com misskittysnashville.com
CO-OWNER OWNER AT MISS AT PARNASSUS KITTY’S DOG RESORT 3900 4308 Hillsboro KenilwoodPike, Ste. Dr., Nashville, 14, Nashville TN 37204 TN 37215 parnassusbooks.net misskittysnashville.com
Karen Hayes
CO-OWNER AT PARNASSUS 3900 Hillsboro Pike, Ste. 14, Nashville TN 37215 parnassusbooks.net
Walk a
Mile
With feet on the street, we discover Q:Nashville’s A: own unique Q: beat – A: one mile at Q: a time with J.R. Lind
What Inspired you to open your store?
Fifteen years ago we started escape day spa and salon to provide a place where one could truly escape their every day. You can come for one hour or you can come for the entire day and feel like you’ve had a mini vacation.
What trends are you loving right now?
I think my favorite hair trend right now is the lived-in color you get with balayage. The hand painting technique of highlighting hair is so natural and mimics natural highlights from the sun. It also allows your hair to look more natural as the highlights grow out and go longer in between appointments
seriously ing technique than ever of highlighting before. Puphair parents is so natural are more and educated mimics natural and want highlights more information from the sun. before It alsomakaling lowstheyour important hair to look decision moreabout natural leaving as thetheir highlights pup ingrow theout hands andofgoothers. longer in between appointments
Q: A: In Shopping January local 2021means we celebrate supporting 30 years Nashville in business families that rightarehere supporting in Nashville. the Nashville We havecommunity. clients
What does “shop local” mean to you and your store?
What What does does“shop “shop local” local”mean mean to to you you and and your your store? store?
It also means that more dollars stay in the community to help the community grow and stay healthy. My parents started a local business, Sprintz Furniture, when I was in high school that today is still very successful. I learned at a young age that supporting local businesses was vital for the people of our city to do for our community. When I have a choice to shop, personally I always choose local first!
that It also have means beenthat coming more to dollars us forstay 30inyears the commuand some nity toofhelp them theare community on their grow third-and or fourth-generstay healthy. My ation parents pup. started We’vea loved local business, them all from Sprintz when Furniture, they brought when I was them in high home school as young that today puppies, is still loved verythem sucthrough cessful. Itheir learned lives, atand a young thenage been thatthere supporting when they local had businesses to say goodbye. was vital for the people of our city to do for our community. When I have a choice to shop, personally I always choose local first! Favorite items in your store right now? Best gift item in your store? Favorite items in your store right now? Pup item Holiday Gift Baskets! Best gift in your store? The baskets are individually made for small pups and big pups, with wonderful things inside eat, at play with, and enjoy! My favorite gift wetohave escape is always my favorite gift this time of year and that is a gift card! Especially now with so much stress and anxiety, a Favorite gift card to get away and spend timenot on “Nashville” thing you some do when yourself is the perfect antidote. working?
A: Shopping local means supporting Nashville families that are supporting the Nashville community.
Q: A: My favorite gift we have at escape is always my favorite gift this time of year and that is a gift Favorite items in your store right now? Best gift item in your store?
card! Especially now with so much stress and anxiety, a gift card to get away and spend some time on yourself is the perfect antidote.
Q: Q: A: A: Q: A: My favorite “Nashville” thing to do outside of work is still downtown people-watching, although it’s much less eventful that it used to be!
Q: What What does “shop local” mean to you and Q: does “shop local” mean to you and your store? your store? A: In January 2021 we celebrate 30 years in business in Nashville. clients A: Shopright localhere means supportingWe thehave businesses thatentrepreneurs have been coming to usthis forcity 30unique. years and and that make These
some them are onthat their third-locally, or fourth-generare theoforganizations employ pay taxes loationsupport pup. We’ve them all from whentailored they cally, local loved charities, provide services brought them homeand as young puppies, to their communities know you by yourloved name.them through their lives, and then been there when they had to say goodbye. Favorite items in your store right now? Best gift item in your store? Favorite items in your store right now? It is item a tie: in Barack Obama’s A Promised Land Best gift your store? and Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics. Pup Holiday Gift Baskets! The baskets are individually made for small pups and big pups, with wonderful things inside to eat, playyou with, enjoy! Favorite “Nashville” thing doand when not working?
Q: Q: A: A: Q: A: Q: Take Favorite a walk “Nashville” in Percy Warner thing Park. you do Thewhen perfect not activity for social distancing. working? A: My favorite “Nashville” thing to do outside of work is still downtown people-watching, although
Q: A: Shop local means supporting the businesses and entrepreneurs that make this city unique. These
What does “shop local” mean to you and your store?
are the organizations that employ locally, pay taxes locally, support local charities, provide services tailored to their communities and know you by your name.
Q: A: It is a tie: Barack Obama’s A Promised Land and Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics. Favorite items in your store right now? Best gift item in your store?
Q: A: Take a walk in Percy Warner Park. The perfect activity for social distancing.
Favorite “Nashville” thing you do when not working?
it’s much less eventful that it used to be!
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| DECEMBER 3 – DECEMBER 9, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE
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ART
CRAWL SPACE: DECEMBER 2020 Nashville’s December gallery offerings bring a sophisticated twist to the holiday season BY JOE NOLAN
I recently found out that the upcoming Sundance Film Festival will be completely virtual. The step back from in-person events has also inspired smaller programmers to create their own MOST OF NASHVILLE’S virtual movie preART SPACES ARE OPEN BY sentations. Coop APPOINTMENT FOR INheld a microcinema PERSON VIEWING. event in September, CHECK THE GALLERY’S WEBSITE BEFORE PLANNING and Unrequited LeiYOUR VISIT. sure’s Adjust the Lens series of experimental video and film runs from Dec. 3-6. Unrequited’s commitment to screen-based exhibitions means that its programming always offers nearly identical experiences for viewers in the gallery and online. This project represents the evolution of a traveling program of strange cinema that the gallery has curated annually since 2018. Adjust the Lens will be screening online with new work premiering every day. The entire selection will also run on a loop in Unrequited Leisure’s Packing Plant space for the duration of the festival. Go to unrequitedleisure.com for virtual screening times and more information. Paul Collins painted 350 get-out-the-vote yard signs during the 100 days leading up to November’s election. The works were given away and displayed all over the state — one was even on the cover of the Scene’s Election Issue. Coop will host an outdoor display of 60 of the signs outside their digs at The Packing Plant on Saturday from 5 to 6 p.m. Expect fire pits, refreshments and only a bit of lingering post-election anxiety. An outdoor art show is a super cool concept for an alternative exhibition during this time, but don’t miss Collins’ display of photographs
“DIVINING ROD AND EMBERS,” WENDY WALKER SILVERMAN
WEDGEWOOD-HOUSTON
WENDY WALKER SILVERMAN AT TINNEY CONTEMPORARY and early versions of the signs on the walls inside the Coop gallery space. Coop asks that visitors wear a mask, mind their personal distance, and enjoy the art. Jared Small’s paintings of crumbling Victorian houses, flower bouquets and trees are meticulously rendered against abstracted backgrounds and decorated with spontaneous gestures that can leave the viewer feeling like they’re falling into the space inside the frame. In Small’s new exhibition at David Lusk Gallery, the painter’s latest works are simultaneously gorgeous and mysterious, and they speak to contemporary anxieties about disappearing history and architecture with magical surrealism.
EAST NASHVILLE
son, Dion Johnson, Christopher Pate and Mason Peters. This exhibition runs through Jan. 16, or
with a show of works by recent Austin Peay State University graduates Ashanté Kindle and Khari Turner. Kindle’s monochrome black paintings speak to the textures of Black hair in impasto waves of dark reflecting pigment washing over canvas. These works speak generally to identity and the particulars of Black hair culture. But they’re also formally gorgeous works that are engrossing as purely sensual abstractions removed from cultural narratives. Turner’s abstracted portraits and narrative scenes feature figures whose faces are often obscured by chromatic smears of oil, acrylic and watercolor paints, and even ocean water. Like Kindle, Turner makes work that reflects Black experience, and — beyond their subjects — these works vibrate with the tension between Turner’s precise execution of representational elements and the chaos of the unchecked materials he lets loose in his abstracted spaces.
until the gallery walls are stripped bare like how the Grinch did with that Christmas tree.
The Red Arrow Gallery closes its 2020 calendar
“WHEN I THINK ABOUT MYSELF,” KHARI TURNER
SOUTH NASHVILLE
ASHANTÉ KINDLE AND KHARI TURNER AT THE RED ARROW GALLERY
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While it’s refreshing to see most of Nashville’s gallery scene forgoing the usual holiday-group-show route, it’s also still nice to see spaces like Modfellows Art & Design Gallery fully committing to it. It just wouldn’t be the holidays without a display that offers something for every price point just in time for the gift-giving season — it’s as traditional as mulled wine, twinkling lights, gingerbread and indoor trees. Modfellows’ second annual Art for the Naughty & Nice show is a salon-style cornucopia of works that are available for same-day cash-and-carry purchases. The show includes work by Maggie Sanger, Mark Hobley, Nathaniel Covington, Andy King, Danielle Krysa, Dooby Tomkins, J. Todd Greene, Price Harri-
DOWNTOWN
The Art of Unity at Chauvet Arts isn’t exactly a gift-centric holiday show, but it does focus on the importance of supporting artists during a year when exhibition spaces and opening receptions have become a public health hazard. The exhibition includes work from across Chauvet’s broad roster, and utilizes all the display space in the sprawling gallery. The group show aims to remind viewers and collectors about some of the gallery’s legacy artists, while also introducing new faces — making sure all of the gallery’s artists have a chance to sell work and maintain our region’s creative class through to the other side of this pandemic. Wendy Walker Silverman’s solo show at Tinney Contemporary will close out the year at the downtown space, and it’s a great exhibition to end 2020 on. Silverman is a longtime painter with a BFA from Louisiana Tech, but her recent run of Nashville exhibitions only began in 2013. At that time, Silverman was making work that was pleasant and decorative, but in the very short time since, the painter has relentlessly honed her vision — and the exhibition at Tinney finds Silverman at the top of her game. Two similarly titled paintings, “Divining Rod and Circling Crows” and “Divining Rod and Embers,” are gorgeous arrangements of black, white and orange lines, fields and forms that could hang alongside the work of any of Silverman’s formidable peers from Nashville’s very deep bench of talented abstract painters. EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM
NASHVILLE SCENE | DECEMBER 3 – DECEMBER 9, 2020 | nashvillescene.com
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BOOKS
POSITIVELY DOLLY
Dolly Parton, Songteller places the country icon’s songwriting at the center of her story BY JACQUELINE ZEISLOFT
D
olly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics follows the country legend’s life and career from her earliest days growing up in Appalachia to her most recent creative ventures. DOLLY PARTON, Co-written by Parton SONGTELLER: MY LIFE IN and Nashville-based LYRICS music journalist BY DOLLY PARTON WITH ROBERT K. OERMANN Robert K. Oermann, CHRONICLE BOOKS Songteller includes 368 PAGES, $50 full lyrics to 175 of Parton’s songs, as well as unabashed anecdotes from the remarkable woman with the “Smoky Mountain DNA.” In her roughly 60-year career, Parton’s image has gone through varying iterations in the public consciousness. She first gained attention as Porter Wagoner’s pretty young duet partner. To my mother’s generation, she’s the “Islands in the Stream”-singing, 9 to 5-starring crossover superstar with the enviable hair. To my generation, she is an icon: the winner of numerous lifetime achievement awards, and the legend with a Netflix series (2019’s Heartstrings) — she’s also the subject of a viral podcast (WNYC’s Dolly Parton’s America) — to prove her enduring relevance. But to Parton herself, she has always been one thing above all others: a writer. In the early pages of the book, she explains: “I decided to call my book Songteller because that pretty much sums me up. I love songs. I love to tell stories, and most of all, I just love to write. It’s just who I am.” Writer Dolly comes through in Songteller. Not only do we get to marvel at lyrics from a small sampling of the 3,000 songs she’s written, but we also get to read Parton’s take on what inspired the songs, where she was when she wrote them and what they mean to her now. Despite the book’s gorgeous and glittering embossed cover and coffee-table format, Songteller reads like a memoir. Parton’s voice — emotive and funny — kept me turning pages. She begins with stories of her “hardscrabble” upbringing. One of 12 children, Parton was raised in Sevierville, Tenn., at the foot of the Great Smoky Mountains. At her birth, the family paid the local doctor a sack of cornmeal for delivering Dolly. Songteller includes the lyrics to “Dr. Robert F. Thomas,” which honors the late doctor’s legacy and impact on Parton and her hometown. Parton describes her early days as a teenage entertainer, her aunts and uncles driving the young singer between Sevierville and Knoxville for radio appearances. It takes a village, as they say, and Dolly thanks the behind-the-scenes players from Tennes-
see who saw her off to stardom. The pages of lyrics remind readers of Parton’s finesse as a fiction writer. She populates her songs with tragic characters: doomed lovers, poor children, small-town preachers, sex workers and alcoholics. The story often ends badly. “I’ve killed a lot of puppies and kids and ladies in my songs,” Parton writes. “I’ve killed myself a few times. I don’t want to do it in real life, but I can do it in a song. You’re safe doing it that way.” The creative power struggle of the Porter Wagoner years brings cinematic drama to Parton’s narrative. Wagoner and Parton were a Nashville hit as duet partners, bandmates and co-stars on The Porter Wagoner Show. But the two “fought like cats and dogs.” “Those seven years of being with Porter, it was damn near like being married to him,” Parton recalls. When the two eventually split in 1974, Wagoner slapped her with a $3 million breach-of-contract lawsuit. Parton wrote a hit — “I Will Always Love You,” she explains, is about leaving Wagoner. Despite years of legal battles, the two eventually reconciled, and she still thinks of him every time the song plays. In a lot of ways, the early ’70s were the beginning for Parton. Newly liberated from Wagoner, she reached a solo hit-making stride. She writes, “It’s possible that ‘Jolene’ and ‘I Will Always Love You’ were written on the same day.” The rest of Songteller takes us through her Hollywood stardom, collaborations with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt, and the countless projects and collaborations for which she is well-known. Today, Parton enjoys an exceptional status that very few living entertainers know. She’s respected, worshiped and genuinely loved. She uses her songwriting as a platform to support social causes and wins young admirers with her charity, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. (“We’ve given away 130 million books so far,” she writes, “and it’s still growing.”) And she remains a light to older fans who have been with her since the beginning. Parton is iconic for her prolific creative output, her fashion sense, her explosive success across media and her commitment to equality and fairness. But for me, what sets her apart is her unique genius as an artist. Pairing sky-high wigs, rhinestone suits and sharp-witted humor with gut-wrenching songs about poverty, grief and heartbreak, she is a product of her whims as much as her pain. The unlikely combination shouldn’t work — but somehow, for her, it does. After all, there is no one else like Dolly Parton. For more local book coverage, please visit Chapter16.org, an online publication of Humanities Tennessee. EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM
:
ING R U T A FE
PLUS: MATTHEW WEST · LECRAE SIDEWALK PROPHETS JAMIE KIMMETT · LEANNA CRAWFORD · AND MORE!
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NASHVILLE SCENE | DECEMBER 3 – DECEMBER 9, 2020 | nashvillescene.com
MUSIC
RULE OF THIRDS
Coupler’s new series of EPs reaffirms that good things come in threes BY CHARLIE ZAILLIAN
PHOTO: MONICA MURRAY
“I ALRIGHTNIK OUT FRIDAY, DEC. 4, VIA DEAR LIFE RECORDS STREAMING LIVE FROM GRIMEY’S VIA YOUTUBE 7 P.M. WEDNESDAY, DEC. 16
HALPER HELP US
Hired-gun guitarist Josh Halper embraces the spotlight on Alrightnik BY CHARLIE ZAILLIAN
“I
feel weird saying this while I’m promoting my own music,” Josh Halper tells the Scene in a phone interview, “but I don’t really consider myself a songwriter.” Hearing Halper say this after listening to Alrightnik, the excellent solo debut from the 26-year-old freelance guitar player (and reluctant songwriter), brings to mind Dana Carvey’s soft-spoken Garth in Wayne’s World remarking sheepishly “I like to play” after ripping a tremendous drum solo. Alrightnik, out digitally and on cassette Dec. 4 via Philly’s Dear Life Records, is not an in-your-face album — he isn’t making a bid to open for Queen or Alice Cooper. But it’s expertly written and played. For a Nashville native son like Halper, it’s as simple as this: You grow up in Music City, you play. Especially when your dad is a hardcore Deadhead who’s been to more than 250 shows and your mom is an old-school scenester who frequented the Rock Block before it earned its nickname and used to write for Billboard. Says the younger Halper: “She went to Exit/In every night in the ’70s — she’s a badass.” The youngest of two boys, Halper picked up guitar at age 5. He’s an alum of Belmont’s School of Music and the University School of Nashville before that, and his college years coincided with the early-2010s explosion of local garage rock centered around brothers Jamin and Jake Orrall’s Infinity
Cat label. A frequent showgoer himself, Halper was at one point juggling three bands — chamber-folk ensemble Honey Locust, fuzz-pop combo Big Surr and Stone Roses-indebted psych rockers Western Medication — with session work for country artists. He built a rep as a skilled player and positive presence, and was affectionately nicknamed “Sweetbaby Josh” by elders in the scene. In Western Medication, co-founders Justin Landis and Devin Mason wrote the tunes, while Halper helped arrange them. He describes his role in the group as “introducing sonic ideas, making the songs a little more dynamic.” Western Meds called it quits following their second LP Taste in 2018, but not before giving Sweetbaby Josh his touring-musician sea legs. Crisscrossing the continent opening for Diarrhea Planet in 2016 “was the most fun I’ve ever had on a tour,” he says. “I used to live with [DP’s] Emmett Miller and all those guys. I look up to them so much.” Between gigs, tours and sessions, Halper began to write and woodshed a solo set of his own, putting himself out there to open any show, any genre, any time. Says Halper, “I love heavy music, love punk shit, but what comes most naturally when I’m sitting down to write — which usually takes months — is either fingerstyle nylon-stringed guitar, or Randy Newman rip-off songs.” On Alrightnik, you’ll hear both. Halper begins the proceedings with a cover of Newman’s “Dayton, Ohio — 1903,” before mov-
ing on to his originals. There’s a fluid mix of wordless solo-guitar meditations and “singing songs” like “Who Knows,” an ambling ode to youthful indiscretion. There’s also “Whale in a Field,” which has been in Halper’s repertoire since 2012 and borrows its bluesy chords and parlor piano from his hero Newman’s 1995 hit (and Toy Story soundtrack staple) “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.” Alrightnik features no less than a dozen musicians across its nine eclectic tracks, but the self-produced collection never feels cluttered or rushed. Untethered by percussion, the instrumental “Desperation Waltz” verges on chamber music, while “Prelude in B Minor” is simultaneously pastoral and jazzy. The striking “Reflection,” with its elliptical guitar figures, cymbal washes and resonant pedal steel, nods to a quintessentially Nashville influence: fellow USN grad William Tyler. Halper’s mother Pat painted a tranquil still-life of a lone bicycle next to a tree, against green grass and blue skies, which adorns the cover. The aforementioned cast of locals backing up Halper includes members of Heinous Orca, Oginalii and Jeremy Ivey’s band The Extraterrestrials. Alrightnik comes across as a heartfelt, homespun time capsule of one musician’s unique experiences orbiting the parallel universes of punk and Americana. “As Nashville natives, we’re so inundated with country music that a lot of us growing up are like ‘No way, we don’t listen to that.’ But we all come around to it eventually. All the different aspects of my journey, my upbringing, have turned me into a consumer of all kinds of music. And I try to show that with my music, while also making something cohesive.” EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM
like threes in music — I don’t like when music sounds too circular,” Coupler’s Ryan Norris tells the Scene. The Chicago-residing Nashville expat and composer of nuanced, cerebral electronic music releases The Forgotten Openness of the Closed World on Friday. It’s the second in a trilogy of threesong EPs highlighting different sides of Norris’ work. Issued by longtime champion of Nashville music Michael Eades’ YK Records, the three EPs mark Coupler’s first new releases since its 2017 YK debut Gifts From the Ebb Tide. The relative deluge of material is a change of pace for a musician who has favored a slow-and-steady approach through the years. But when Spotify CEO Daniel Ek was quoted in the summer saying that contemporary artists essentially have two choices — put out new music constantly, or risk extinction — Norris took it not as a threat, but a challenge. His response: “One, fuck you. Two, I’m going to try it.” Coupler’s history is circuitous. Norris founded the project in 2011, five years after landing in Middle Tennessee from his native Tuscaloosa, Ala. He worked at Grimey’s New and Preloved Music and played guitar and keys in Lambchop during his decade in Nashville, contributing to more than 10 releases in and adjacent to the legendary indierock outfit’s catalog, including 2016’s standout FLOTUS. What Kurt Wagner is to Lambchop, Norris is to Coupler — the leader of a group in THE FORGOTTEN OPENNESS OF THE which membership is CLOSED WORLD OUT fluid. Sometimes it’s FRIDAY, DEC. 4, VIA a solo act, sometimes YK RECORDS a trio, other times an octet. Since 2016 it has been based in Chicago, where Norris lives with his partner, fellow former Grimey’s staffer Mia Krout. But the project’s ties to Music City remain strong. In recent years, a unique niche for Coupler emerged: live film scores. In 2015, the Belcourt Theatre’s Zack Hall and Toby Leonard commissioned Norris to craft an original soundtrack to Our Heavenly Bodies, a 1925 German film Norris describes as “part educational, part sci-fi, with a weird biblical edge.” The performance went so well that Norris and his core collaborators, Rodrigo Avendano and Rollum Haas, went on to score a second silent film: 1933 Japanese gangster movie Dragnet Girl. The trio took Dragnet on the road to film festivals and museums — everywhere from Knoxville’s Big Ears Festival to the Smithsonian and Lincoln Center, where the event sold out. They also had three pieces of music featured in Astrup: Flammen over Jølster, a 2019 biopic on Norwegian painter Nikolai Alstrup. “Doing movie scores wasn’t by design — I wasn’t like, ‘I want Coupler to be the new Alloy Orchestra,’ ” Norris says, referring to a Cambridge, Mass., ensemble that has done similar work since the ’90s. “But I like it. It’s a fun way to tour and make money … and it felt like we were working toward something.” Norris, Haas and Avendano previously appeared together on Gifts From the Ebb Tide and Blue Room Sessions, a live recording made with an eight-piece group at Third Man Records. As they were working on the film scores, the trio developed a separate set of
nashvillescene.com | DECEMBER 3 – DECEMBER 9, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE
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11/30/20 5:19 PM
MUSIC
TAKE ANOTHER LOOK
The Scene’s music writers recommend recent releases from Bryant Taylorr, Yours Truly Jai, The Watchman and tha Poet, and more BY EDD HURT, BRITTNEY McKENNA, OLIVIA LADD, STEPHEN TRAGESER, RON WYNN AND CHARLIE ZAILLIAN
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t’s remarkable just how much fantastic work Nashville musicians have released into the world during this wild and frequently hellacious year. Below, our writers recommend eight standout releases from recent months. Many FIND LINKS TO STREAM OR are available on BUY THESE RECORDS AT Bandcamp, and NASHVILLESCENE.COM/MUSIC Dec. 4 is the final #BandcampFriday of the year — a promotion in which the music platform waives its cut of sales on the first Friday of the month. So there’s no time like the present to stock up.
BRYANT TAYLORR, RARE (SELF-RELEASED) Bryant Taylorr has lent features to some of Nashville’s best MCs, including a number of celebrated collaborations with rapper Tim Gent. But the R&B singersongwriter serves up plenty more than just assists, as showcased on his newest project, Rare. Across seven tracks, Taylorr displays his knack for crafting melodies that are both catchy and unexpected, as well as his emotive songwriting and serious vocal chops. On single “Pretty Women,” produced by A.B. Eastwood, Taylorr glides effortlessly between a slow-jam croon and a rhythmic flow, following the complex emotional narrative at the track’s core. Nashville’s R&B talent is top-tier, and Taylorr is among the best.
BRITTNEY McKENNA THE WATCHMAN AND THA POET, NOTES FROM NATIVE SONS (WATCHMAN MUSIC PRESENTS) Jazz and R&B bassist-producer Greg Bryant and rapper Rashad tha Poet are veteran players, working together for the first time as The Watchman and tha Poet. There’s a lot about their EP Notes From
Native Sons that feels very old-school, from the nods to their upbringings in Music City to the jazz and soul foundations of the headnodding beats. But the looks to the past are about respecting the power of Black culture, communities and art, and the roles they’re playing in reckoning with the present and shaping a better future. STEPHEN TRAGESER
MEADOWNOISE, THREEVE (YK) On Threeve, the third LP from his project Meadownoise, MVP multi-instrumentalist Matt Glassmeyer also examines growing up in and around Nashville. The album evokes the way memories fade and distort over time in its subtly warped and sometimes jumbled soundscapes, with snippets of melody, found sound and insistent rhythms that feel like they’re traces of the same experience, even if you’re not always totally sure what it is. Most of us listen to music on headphones a lot these days, but this is an album that’s best experienced in that intimate stereoscopic environment. STEPHEN TRAGESER
YOURS TRULY JAI, MONARCH (SELF-RELEASED) Monarch, the debut EP that Yours Truly Jai released in September, is a succinct and expressive offering from Nashville’s underground hip-hop scene. It blends contemporary R&B styles from decades past with clean contemporary pop production. Yours Truly Jai’s mellifluous vocals flow seamlessly over ethereal beats and Southern soul guitar licks, accompanied by crisp layers of harmony. In Monarch’s six tracks, Yours Truly Jai contemplates love and spiritual wealth and establishes boundaries. A guest feature from rapper Chuck Indigo on closing track “One Day” makes this all-consuming, warm
and richly textured listen even sweeter.
OLIVIA LADD I COULD LIVE IN HOPE, PSA, NOT OK (SOMEWHERECOLD) Tape Deck Mountain main man Travis Trevisan’s self-described “political slowcore” side project doesn’t just draw on Low’s gentle-but-menacing signature sound — it also takes its name from the pride of Duluth’s first album. Trevisan even enlisted a Minnesotan to play drums, Ronnie Lee of Twin Cities psych-rockers The Cult of Lip. The bleakness of 2020 hangs heavy over the long-distance duo’s debut EP PSA, Not OK, released (during election week, naturally) via Kentucky label Somewherecold. Rather than scream into the void, however, Trevisan and Lee channel their indignation at the deadbeats in charge into a moody yet not unbearably morose sonic snapshot of the doom and gloom that surrounds us. Once this year is far enough in the rearview, PSA should prove useful for not losing sight of just how grim things got; for now, it’s a perfect stocking stuffer for fans of True Widow’s stoned Texan ’gaze and Trevisan’s chronically underrated Tape Deck Mountain — and the almighty Low, of course. CHARLIE ZAILLIAN
DE3RA, OLD SCRATCH (SELFRELEASED) About the only thing that could make DE3RA’s debt to rock circa 1970 even more explicit on Old Scratch would be for the psych-rock quartet to have covered, say, Captain Beefheart’s 1972 track “Little Scratch”— itself a progenitor of the band’s style. I caught DE3RA at a 2019 Nashville show where they stomped through a post-Canned Heat boogie titled “Stump Juice.” The band has grown since then: Old Scratch runs 51 minutes, and it’s gratifyingly detailed throughout. The album’s “50 Bucks” evokes Taj Mahal, while “Pillow Gaze” updates psych folk. Like Beefheart, Black Sabbath and underrated English prog-folk-blues band Family, these guys know how to twist rock basics to their own devious ends. EDD HURT
GREAT PEACOCK, FOREVER WORSE BETTER (BALDWIN COUNTY PUBLIC RECORDS/ SOUNDLY MUSIC) Americana is a Nashvilleized version of classic rock, with different hats than David Crosby wore. That process of transformation usually produces strange music — not to mention some questionable headgear choices — but Great Peacock exemplifies what can be great about Americana. Forever Worse Better is the group’s third full-length, and their latest batch of songs gives voice to the anxiety than runs through the genre. On tracks like the superb “Strange Position,” Great Peacock creates complex pop that recalls everyone from Gin Blossoms and The Band of Heathens to classic rockers like Blue Öyster Cult and R.E.M. These guys know how to write and sing, too — one song is titled “Dissatisfaction,” and they make you feel that emotion in a completely satisfying way. EDD HURT
COYOTE MOTEL, STILL AMONG THE LIVING (DOLLY SEZ WOOF) Multitalented instrumentalist and journalist Ted Drozdowski’s Coyote Motel ensemble blends and mashes up idiomatic references and elements in dazzling, freewheeling fashion. Their latest release Still Among the Living offers eight sizzling selections that run the gamut from autobiographical reflection to fiery social protest, insightful probing and energetic declarations. Drozdowski is the central driving force with his exuberant vocals, jovial personality and sonically flamboyant guitar solos, which merge avantgarde jazz’s experimental edge with heavy metal’s equally unpredictable fireworks. Still, everything’s fortified by a lyrical foundation steeped in the blues sensibility of irony, resilience and response. All tracks but one were recorded live at The 5 Spot, and are vivid reminders of the joy and inspiration music fans have lost since the pandemic essentially shuttered live entertainment. Special guest guitarist Stan Lassiter adds guitar ferocity to the mix, while vocalist Luella pays homage to the riveting North Mississippi hill country sound of the late Jessie Mae Hemphill on her swirling version of “Homegoing.” RON WYNN EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM
uptempo electronica inspired by Detroit house, vintage Kraftwerk and Homework, Daft Punk’s funked-up 1997 debut. They’d discussed making a full-length in that style, but it was on the backburner even pre-pandemic — Norris’ bandmates were set to spend 2020 on the road with Soccer Mommy. Haas plays drums and Avendano guitar and keys in the popular indie band led by Nashville singer-songwriter Sophie Allison, which released its second LP Color Theory in February. While isolating during the pandemic, Norris sought to clear the deck of miscellaneous unreleased recordings — some with the trio, others with YK labelmate Matt Glassmeyer of Meadownoise and Chicago colleague Michael Hilger. But the material wasn’t making sense to Norris’ ears as a potential album. When Krout suggested parceling it out into three EPs and staggering the releases over several months, “it made the whole thing cohere,” Norris says. The Rhythm Method, with Haas and Avendano, came out in October, and it’s a techno-pop triumph that would’ve made late Kraftwerk co-founder Florian
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Schneider proud. The Forgotten Openness of the Closed World, meanwhile, is a slight return to the ambient, minimalist Coupler of yore, with Glassmeyer appearing on the title track and Hilger playing pedal steel on all three. Completing the triptych is The City Is a Lie We Tell Ourselves, which features Hilger in a more prominent role production-wise and comes out in March 2021. As the EPs’ evocative titles suggest, the insular lifestyle and negation of place that mark our current social climate are unifying themes. But where The Rhythm Method and Forgotten Openness reflect where Coupler has been sonically, the forthcoming The City represents where it could be going. The final installment in the series promises “a different direction, new terrain,” says Norris. “I was starting to feel like if I didn’t finish this, I wasn’t going to make it. But when there’s chaos around you, you create order.” Your move, Ek. EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM
COUPLER’S MICHAEL HILGER (LEFT) AND RYAN NORRIS
PHOTO: MIA KROUT
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NASHVILLE SCENE | DECEMBER 3 – DECEMBER 9, 2020 | nashvillescene.com
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MUSIC
ARE YOU EXPERIENCED? Nashville Public Radio launches music discovery station WNXP in a challenging time BY STEPHEN TRAGESER
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ashville Public Radio, whose flagship is the National Public Radio-affiliated news station WPLN on 90.3 FM, has been through some significant changes in recent years. Another notable shift TUNE TO 91.1 FM OR VISIT took place Nov. 30: WNXP.ORG TO HEAR THE 91 Classical ceased NEW STATION terrestrial broadcast. The nonprofit operated the 24-hour classical music station on 91.1 FM since 2011, when it bought the broadcast license for that frequency, which had been used by Vanderbilt University’s beloved student and community radio station WRVU. Classical music continues streaming on 91classical.org and on WPLN’s HD Radio 2 channel, which requires a special receiver to listen to. Longtime local music and media fixture Jason Moon Wilkins, who joined WPLN as a news host in 2016, is now the program director at 91.1. Bearing the call letters WNXP and the tagline “Nashville’s Music Experience,” the new station is modeled on other public radio stations like Seattle’s KEXP and Austin, Texas’ KUTX, whose programming is aimed at music discovery. The idea is to help listeners get intimately familiar with rising artists via repeat plays on the station’s weekly playlists, live interviews and feature profiles, videos and audio that will appear on the main NPR Music website, and more. WPLN is hiring an arts and culture beat reporter, who will also regularly produce stories on local music and music business for WNXP. Among others, you’ll hear from Wilkins’ core team when you tune in: assistant program director Mickey Lernard Parks, music director Jewly Hight and production coordinator Marquis Munson. While the station won’t be playing exclusively local music, there will be a focus on Nashville musicians. These days, you might expect locals’ best bet for finding a spotlight to be blowing up on streaming services. Wilkins says that WNXP will focus on doing what streaming can’t. “I love Release Radar on Spotify — I think it’s fantastic,” Wilkins tells the Scene via phone. “But it doesn’t tell me what’s happening in my city. It doesn’t connect how this song was recorded with this person — a lot of the basic information. You don’t really get liner notes with streaming. You don’t get even the commentary [provided by a radio DJ]. … What about the follow-up question?” WNXP is emerging into a notoriously crowded radio market. Its most direct potential competitor is Lightning 100, one of an increasingly rare breed of independent commercial music stations. Murfreesboro’s WMOT covers many Nashville artists as part of its Americana format. Though WNXP’s format is distinct, its mission overlaps somewhat with community stations like WRFN, which went on the air in 2005 and got a citywide signal boost in 2014, and WXNA, whose 2016 launch was orchestrated in part by former WRVU DJs. Still, Wilkins sees WNXP as having carefully carved out its own niche.
“Nashville’s truly gotten big enough now to where it not only can sustain but needs multiple stations and platforms to serve the community,” he says. “We definitely have enough stories and enough interest to go around to make that happen. … There’s a kind of communal spirit to public radio in general — the people who are drawn to it, the people who are involved in it. I think we all see opportunities to support each other as opposed to compete.” Though 91 Classical isn’t going away entirely, its diminished presence is noteworthy. That goes for listeners who’ve come to rely on it as the only full-time classical broadcast on the local FM dial, and anyone interested in the growth of the arts in a city with a proliferation of indie classical ensembles and a Grammy-winning orchestra. The nonprofit hopes to expand classical programming again in the future, but it won’t be simple. 91 Classical music director Nina Cardona returned to WPLN as morning host; Colleen Phelps continues only as host of the podcast Classically Speaking; and longtime hosts Kara McLeland and Ed Lambert lost their jobs outright. Steve Swenson took over as CEO of Nashville Public Radio in April 2019, following decades in commercial news radio in Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C. After his arrival, the nonprofit established a three-pillar growth plan. The first pillar is broadening WPLN’s coverage with new staff — including host Rachel Iacovone and reporters Samantha Max, Damon Mitchell and Ambriehl Crutchfield — and its own forthcoming morning news program. A second pillar is expanded community outreach, with a possible new space for public events like debates, town hall meetings and concerts, though this can’t move forward until COVID-19 is under control. The third pillar is WNXP. Originally, Swenson tells the Scene, the plan was to acquire a new frequency for the station, but a search proved fruitless. And there’s a financial issue. Despite the value of the public service 91 Classical provided to 40,00060,000 weekly listeners, that’s simply not enough for the station to pay its bills. Swenson estimates it takes weekly listenership of 80,000 to break even, and efforts to raise the numbers failed. Seeing that 91 Classical lost about $250,000 annually, and feeling pushed by the pandemic to speed up the growth plan, he decided to cull it. As the economy continues to be hamstrung by the pandemic, the entertainment economy continues to struggle. Radio is not immune: At press time, Lightning 100 launched a campaign called Save Our Airwaves to cover the financial gap left by reduced advertising and the inability to produce its Live on the Green festival series. Today, it’s easier than ever to tap directly into whatever interests you, but COVID-19 is emphasizing the value of shared experience — and the role economic forces play in what’s available to experience together. EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM
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OR NE H T AU A L A IN T S I R
. 10 C E ,D Y M A O D S O R Z THU M. ON 7 P. Discuss Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman Behind Hitchcock Presented by the Nashville Scene and The Belcourt Theatre
Learn more and register at
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NASHVILLE SCENE | DECEMBER 3 – DECEMBER 9, 2020 | nashvillescene.com
FILM
ROTTEN IN DENMARK
Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round is a well-crafted if safe depiction of a reckless little experiment BY NATHAN SMITH
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homas Vinterberg emerged amid a rapscallious generation of Danish filmmakers, the notorious Dogme 95 movement, a wave whose most infamous progeny is of course professional troll and possible ANOTHER ROUND NR, 117 MINUTES; IN neo-Nazi Lars von DANISH WITH ENGLISH Trier. But eventuSUBTITLES ally everyone settles AVAILABLE DEC. 4-17 VIA down. Vinterberg BELCOURT.ORG has quieted in the years since, becoming a much more respectable and predictable filmmaker, though also highly malleable in his style and capable of everything from tense thrillers to period pieces with immaculate production design. What unites his varied output is, above all, a sense of psychological precision and an interest in emotional situations that could turn volatile at any moment. Vinterberg’s latest, Another Round, reunites him with Mads Mikkelsen, that rare actor who seems perfectly at home in almost any role, whether he’s working in his native Denmark or within the assembly line of the American studio system. He’s capable of an almost effortless charisma, oozing a natural charm, but he can turn it off just as
easily — he’s just as believable in Another Round as someone rather ordinary and absent. Mikkelsen plays Martin, a schoolteacher who feels equally distant from his students, the subject matter he teaches and his home life. The little pleasure left for him is in reminiscing with his middle-aged male colleagues, all at similar emotional plateaus. A night of drunken revelry and emotional reflection on their stalled-out lives leads the crew to test out a cockamamie scientific hypothesis, that humankind is born with a natural alcohol deficiency and operates at an improved performance level with a constantly managed blood alcohol concentration of .05 percent. As all scientists conducting experiments do, the men put limits on the study: Alcohol can only be consumed during working hours, never after 8 p.m. or on weekends. What begins strictly under the guise of academic enterprise becomes at first a hobby, and then, inevitably, an almost uncontrollable obsession. Martin, a history teacher, is emboldened and inspired by the examples of the great day drinkers of history, your Winston Churchills and Boris Yeltsins, men with impressive résumés and even more impressive livers. At a consistent .05 percent, sneaking off to the bathroom for a quick swig of
Smirnoff between classes or spiking their coffees with whiskey, all the men find their lives renewed and revived. Their jobs come easier, the rapport with students flows more naturally, and even marital problems start to slip away as the liquor sands down emotional edges that have hardened over time. But as can only be expected, the appetites and tolerances of the group steadily grow, until eventually the stench of liquor is palpable and the real-life consequences are unavoidable. Much like the men in Another Round, who try to renew their creativity with a bootleg scientific experiment, the Dogme 95 filmmakers wanted to send a shockwave through the often staid and serious quarters of European cinema by governing their
LA VIE EN ROSEBUD
Mank is a refreshing taste of cinema’s best BY CORY WOODROOF
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uteur David Fincher’s return after six years away from feature filmmaking is a glorious, talky jaunt into cinema’s past. It also serves as a relevant glimpse at just how little has really changed since Oscar-winning screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (played here by Gary Oldman) strolled about the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios lot in 1930s California. Mank is far removed from Fincher’s icy, structured, Jeff Cronenweth-shot past works. The director dusted off a screenplay by his late father, Jack Fincher, about Mankiewicz and the backstory behind Citizen Kane’s script. He brought it to MANK life as a true passion R, 131 MINUTES project funded by Netflix NOW PLAYING AT THE BELCOURT; AVAILABLE VIA — it’s black-and-white NETFLIX FRIDAY, DEC. 4 and is made with the same cinematic gusto and chatty energy of a melodrama from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Seriously, this film feels like it was quite literally made in 1942 — cigarette burns and all. (Yes, Fight Club fans, they’re back.) Old Hollywood dorks will have a field day with this one. Even if you aren’t the kind of cinephile who scours the internet for Otto Preminger memorabilia, Mank should strike you as hyper-relevant, coming as it does on the heels of one of the most contentious elections in American history. The film centers in part on
California’s 1934 gubernatorial race, in which MGMbacked Republican Frank Merriam took on literary icon and former socialist Upton Sinclair. Citizen Kane was a controversial indictment of 20th-century titans of politics and industry, their lifestyles and what ultimately unraveled them. An often-intoxicated, silver-tongued chum to most everyone he meets, Mank saunters through Hollywood’s Depression-era backlots with as much power as one can muster amid an economic collapse. As of the early ’30s, he has no problem keeping to his studio writing contract; he just wanders onto random film sets, with half the crew eager to shake his hand. Despite his vices, he’s well-liked — particularly by the
bigwigs of his time, like studio head/accused abuser Louis B. Mayer (a terrific Arliss Howard) and publishing mogul/father of contemporary American tabloid journalism William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance). The film cuts back and forth between flashbacks of Mank’s heyday on the MGM lot and the writing process for Kane. During that stretch, a much more subdued Mank is holed up in a random location, often in traction and on the bottle, speeding to get pages out to an impatient Orson Welles (The Souvenir’s Tom Burke, uncanny). Though Oldman won an Oscar for his makeup-heavy portrayal of Winston Churchill, his Mank portrayal is much more invested and intriguing. At times, he’s the happiest man on earth, blissfully
filmmaking with a strict set of rules that gradually loosened over time. The film in question shares little with the actual Dogme movement — The Celebration, Vinterberg’s debut film, is an intensely emotional and confrontational watch that also makes incredible usage of the often grody and degraded quality of early digital video, while Another Round is like a glossier take on John Cassavetes. Though there’s emotional weight to the performances and a sense of competence to the craftsmanship of Another Round, one has to wonder if Vinterberg needs, like his protagonists, to push himself to the limit with a reckless little experiment, no matter what the fallout might be. EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM
unaware of his real standing in his social circles. At others, he’s both the smartest and the most selfdestructive man in the room. Oldman zips in and out of witty euphoria and pensive melancholy like a machine. It’s no wonder he continues to land some of Hollywood’s best roles. There’s a lot you can say about Mank, and heaps of praise to be bestowed. (Amanda Seyfried might get an Oscar nod for her take on Marion Davies.) But it’s the shocking relevance that you’ll remember. It’s 2020’s definitive take on the issue of “fake news” and the efforts of the powerful to exploit the powerless. There are false news segments made by MGM to trick California voters, and Fincher makes it a point to show just how little some of the folks in charge care about anything other than having fun, winning and making money. Sound familiar? While Mank certainly shares some DNA with Tim Burton’s B&W showbiz masterpiece Ed Wood and the Coens’ manic Hollywood satire Barton Fink, it’s almost Fincher’s version of The Great Gatsby. Outright dismissive of the notion that a major industry is automatically progressive just because some of its stars are, Mank takes up the Mr. Smith Goes to Washington/High Noon “one man versus the system” mantle by film’s end. Mankiewicz and Welles battled over who should get writing credit on the film, and it’s hard not to side with Mank. At least in this dramatized universe, Citizen Kane was Mank’s most definitive revenge, a way for him to pull back the curtain on Hollywood’s elite and reveal them to be nothing more than angry, lonely men clinging to the past. The powerful can do what they may, but if Mank proves anything, it’s that the pages of history will have the last word — and it’s usually the writer who’s in control of those. EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM
nashvillescene.com | DECEMBER 3 – DECEMBER 9, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE
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FILM happening. It brought the house down at its 2016 late-night Belcourt screening.
HAROLD AND KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE ON HULU
CLASH OF THE TITANS
PRIMAL STREAM 34 A kung fu classic, a stoner epic, schlocky ’80s action and more, now available to stream BY JASON SHAWHAN
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ue to the relative stability of the moment this is coming together, this week’s Primal Stream is a bit different from most. There’s no horror to be found this week. Here are action, comedy and fantasy offerings, including two entire film series to binge if you get the inclination. There are 33 whole weeks of previous recommendations if you’re interested in digging a little deeper, and I hope you’re staying as safe as possible in these weird times.
CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981) ON NETFLIX The last hurrah for the golden age of stopmotion animation, this swords-and-sandals epic was a grand achievement for specialeffects master Ray Harryhausen and the delight of anyone looking to get a crash course in the imagination of classical mythology on a grand budget. Also, the Greek and Roman
gods are a great way to teach the youth about the vicissitudes of human beings. Abrahamic religion is not ideal for understanding the weird and venal twists and turns that human behavior thrives on, and Clash of the Titans’ pantheon of gods is a who’s-who of pop culture that draws from classical theater, art cinema and Love Boat guest-star casting calls. Plus it’s got Maggie Smith with all the venomous asides and magical chaos one could want. Add in the kraken (making its debut in mass consciousness), giant scorpions, the best Medusa ever put on film, so very many oiled-up nipples and that beloved robot owl Bubo.
CLOUD ATLAS ON NETFLIX Letting their cosmic freak flag fly, Lana and Lilly Wachowski and Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) adapted David Mitchell’s time-spanning novel Cloud Atlas with a dynamite cast who trade genders, races
CLOUD ATLAS
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and species across its six stories. It’s an uneven collection that nonetheless displays more ambition, hope and creativity than anything else in the intervening eight years. Far from a block that fits neatly into any sort of structured agenda, Cloud Atlas is a symphony of emotion that plays the synapses and the spine, a film that absorbs into the nervous system and shocks the viewer out of the normal for three brisk, visceral hours.
THE EIGHT DIAGRAM POLE FIGHTER ON AMAZON PRIME VIDEO A kung fu classic that also deals with PTSD and the double-edged sword of family obligations, The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter is a work of imaginative joy. If you’ve never seen any of the classics of martial arts cinema, this is a great place to start. Imaginatively staged by director Lau Kar-leung and filled with the distinctive energy of early-’80s Shaw Brothers films, this is one of those movies that you can put on in any context and it will win people over regardless of whatever else may be
The joyful power of a Wilson Phillips sing-along. Battleshits. “Let’s burn this motherfucker down, Pookie.” Kumar’s montage of life with the giant bag of weed. Neil Patrick Harris changing the entire trajectory of his career. Rose Royce’s “I Wanna Get Next to You.” There are so many amazing and enduring moments in the 2004 stoner epic Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle that it’s easy to lose sight of how innovative this film was in terms of representation and perspective. Kal Penn and John Cho are, well, iconic, in their titular roles, with more than enough good will to sustain the somewhat lesser sequel Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay — they rebounded with the utterly delightful A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas. (It’s sad how difficult it is to see the latter in 3D these days, as it is one of the best 3D films of the past decade.) Getcha some of your favorite greasy comfort food and spend some time with Harold and Kumar — the time is right for some socially optimistic comedy.
HARD TICKET TO HAWAII ON TUBI Action cinema packed to the gills with labyrinthine conspiracies, wild gadgets, lush location photography, sex-having/gunwielding secret agents and so many bosoms — these are the works of Andy Sidaris. An innovator in the technology of sportscasting who believed wholeheartedly in tacky humor, explosions and a Russ Meyer-level devotion to statuesque and busty women, Sidaris understood the emerging value of the home-video market. He made 19 films with interconnected characters, organizations, plots and mysteries. Though Malibu Express is the first, chronologically, you’re best starting off with 1987’s Hard Ticket to Hawaii. It’s got exploding skateboarders, a radioactive snake, an unexpected treatise on gender, and that razor-frisbee sequence immortalized at countless Belcourt preshows. All 19 of the films in Sidaris’ L.E.T.H.A.L. Ladies series are on Tubi now. Enjoy! EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM
HAROLD AND KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE
NASHVILLE SCENE | DECEMBER 3 – DECEMBER 9, 2020 | nashvillescene.com
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CROSSWORD EDITED BY WILL SHORTZ ACROSS 1
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Serfs of olden days
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Jackie Chan police film
18
Long-handled hammer
60
Money in Oman
21
Driving nuisance
62
Twin bed, perhaps
23
66
Film performer Diggs
Four clubs, for example
67
Surgery locales, in brief
24
Close ___ (approach)
25
68
Surface
Concerning, in a memo
69
Son of Zeus
28
Conn of “Grease”
70
Many a dorm room, in a manner of speaking
30
Embarrasses
31
Leave alone
32
Use a divining rod
35
House member, in brief
38
Sound off?
39
Paper handed in for school
“I’m busy!” … or, if read in four pieces, an aid in solving several clues here
7
14
51
71
6
NO. 1029
A cookbook from the Nashville Scene
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE E F L A T
S P E C
P L A T Y S E S U P
T U B
F R E E D O M
E I S
F A Y
C O F F E E P O T S A W O R D V E G E
E T I M S O N
L I M E
A U S T R A L I A
O U T L I E R S
M R S
B O A S
N A D A
T R U
M E A
K A N G
O O R A
T A R O T
T R A M P O L I N E
H A M
S R A
R E P O M E N
O A K
T A P
M A C A R O N I
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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11/30/20 11:45 AM
Rental Scene
Welcome to Madison Flats
Your Neighborhood Local attractions: · Opry Mills Mall · Wave Country · Broadway Downtown · Neighborhood Dining and Drinks: · Hearts · Pelican and Pig · Jays family restaurant
Enjoy the outdoors: · Two Rivers Walking Trail · Cedar Hill Park · Madison Park · Local Family Fun: · Gaylord Opryland Local Entertainment: · AMC Theatre · Indian Lake Regal Cinema · The Ryman Auditorium
FEATURED APARTMENT LIVING
Fave Neighborhood Bar: · Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge · Mickey’s Tavern · Your new home amenities: · Laundry Facility · Swimming Pool · Dog Park
135 Brinkhaven Ave Madison, TN 37115 | www.madisonflatsapartments.com | 615.285.5981
To advertise your property available for lease, contact Keith Wright at 615-557-4788 or kwright@fwpublishing.com
British Woods 264 British Woods Drive Nashville, TN 37217 1 bed / 1 bath 725 sq ft $1084+ per month
2 bed 1.5 / 2 bath
3 bed / 2.5 bath
1025 to 1150 sq ft $1227+ per month
1650 sq ft $1670+
5 floor plans
www.britishwoodsapartments.com | 615.205.1862 Dupont Avenue Apartments 601 N. Dupont Avenue Madison, TN 37115
1 bed / 1 bath 650 sq ft $872 to $1184 3 floor plans
www.dupontavenue.com | 615.285.5687
Gazebo Apartments 141 Neese Drive Nashville TN 37211 1 Bed / 1 Bath 756 sq ft $1,119 +
2 Bed / 1.5 Bath - 2 Bath 1,047 – 1,098 sq ft $1,299 +
3 Bed / 2 Bath 1201 sq ft $1,399 +
5 floor plans
www.Gazeboapts.com | 615.551.3832 46
NASHVILLE SCENE | DECEMBER 3 - DECEMBER 9, 2020 | nashvillescene.com
Madison Flats Brinkhaven Ave Madison, TN 37115 1 bed / 1 bath 630 sq ft $960
2 bed / 1 bath 810 sq ft $1130
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www.madisonflatsapartments.com | 615.285.5981 The Residence at Old Hickory Lake 2401 Lakeshore Drive, Old Hickory, TN 37138
1 bed / 1 bath
2 bed / 2 bath
3 bed / 2 bath
$1,325 to $1,555
$1,695 to $1,805
749 sq ft
1092 - 1211 sq ft
$2,319 to $2,324 1382 sq ft
Rental Scene
Studio 325 sq ft $850
5 floor plans
Non-Resident Notice Fourth Circuit Docket No. 20D1391
www.residenceatoldhickorylake.com | 615.258.6088
ANITA FOX vs.
Nob Hill Apartments 180 Wallace Rd. Nashville, TN 37211
TROY ELLIOTT BICE
Non-Resident Notice Fourth Circuit Docket No.19D2032 Nancy Eileen Duke vs. Larry Wayne Duke
InjuRy Auto ACCIdEnts WRongFul dEAth dAngERous And dEFECtIvE dRugs
Voted Best Attorney in Nashville Call 615-425-2500 for FREE Consultation
www.rockylawfirm.com LEGALS Non-Resident Notice Fourth Circuit Docket No.19D2032
Nancy Eileen Duke vs. Larry Wayne Duke In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a non-resident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon Larry Wayne Duke. It is ordered that said Defendant enter His appearance herein with thirty (30) days after December 10, 2020 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan
Richard R. Rooker, Clerk W. North Deputy Clerk Date: October 30, 2020 Cynthia Bohn Attorney for Plaintiff NSC 11/12, 11/19, 12/3, 12/10/20
Non-Resident Notice Fourth Circuit Docket No. 20D1391 ANITA FOX vs. TROY ELLIOTT BICE In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a non-resident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon TROY ELLIOTT BICE. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HIS appearance herein with thirty (30) days after December 24, 2020 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on January 25, 2021. It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville. Richard R. Rooker, Clerk M. De Jesus, Deputy Clerk Date: November 20, 2020 Patricia G. Campbell
Richard R. Rooker, Clerk M. De Jesus, Deputy Clerk Date: November 20, 2020 Patricia G. Campbell Attorney for Plaintiff NSC 12/3, 12/10, 12/17, 12/24/20
Non-Resident Notice Fourth Circuit Docket No. 20A54 JACQUELINE RUTH JONES, ET AL.
SMITH
Vs. KIARA ALANA BIDDIX In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a non-resident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon KIARA ALANA BIDDIX. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HER appearance herein with thirty (30) days after December 3, 2020 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on January 4, 2020. It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville. Richard R. Rooker, Clerk W. North Deputy Clerk Date: October 15, 2020 Laura Tek Attorney for Plaintiff NSC 11/5, 11/12, 11/19, 12/3/20
1 bed / 1 bath 690 sq ft $1003 to $1303
2 bed / 2 bath 950 sq ft $969 to $1366 2 floor plans
www.nobhillnashville.com | 615.768.8862 EMPLOYMENT Network Engineer needed for HCA/Management Services, Nashville, TN. Perform services in a CISCO environment. Engage in building and maintaining remote access using Pulse Remote Secure. Create and maintain firewalls using Check Point and Intrusion Protection System and will engage in Application Load balancing using F5LTM and GTM. 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 or engineering and 4 yrs. of exp. in the skills listed above. Will also accept a MS degree in computer science or engineering and 2 yrs. of exp. in the skills listed above. Send resumes to: elaine.healy@hcahealthcare.com
Application Developer. Develop and enhance proprietary software applications and systems in coordination with third-party platforms for customization and integration with core systems for a healthcare data analytics company. Employer: PopHealthCare, LLC. Location: Franklin, TN. May work remotely on occasion. To apply, mail resumĂŠ (no calls/e-mails), to A. Briggs-Paige, 113 Seaboard Lane, B200, Franklin, TN 37067.
Design Engineer. Design, develop and coordinate infrastructure projects for utilization of land and physical facilities. Employer: Catalyst Design Group, PC. Location: Nashville, TN. Mail resume to: Andrew Wolthers, Principal, Catalyst Design Group, PC, 5100 Tennessee Ave., Nashville, TN 37209
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In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a non-resident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon Larry Wayne Duke. It is ordered that said Defendant enter His appearance herein with thirty (30) days after December 10, 2020 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on January 11, 2020. It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.
In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a non-resident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon TROY ELLIOTT BICE. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HIS appearance herein with thirty (30) days after December 24, 2020 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on January 25, 2021. It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.
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