KNOXVILLE’S SOURCE FOR UNFAKE STUFF
APRIL 13, 2017 knoxmercury.com V.
3/ N.10
BY S. HEATHER DUNCAN
y ngly i s a e r c n i e h t Can e center r u t a n r a l u p o p ce strike a balauncation between edtion? and recrea The Case of Volunteer Landing’s Misplaced Markers
Knox Makers Provides Public Access to Tools and Tech
Unearthing History and Restoring Habitat at Brickkilns Garden
The Internet Rediscovers ’70s Band Rich Mountain Tower
TH E M AR BLE CITY S t o n e f r o m K n o x v i l l e - a r e a q u a r r i e s a d o r n s s o m e o f t h e m o s t fa m o u s b u i l d i n g s i n A m e r i c a .
Marble has played an important role in Knoxville’s cultural history. Knoxville’s first professional artist, Lloyd Branson, was best known for a 1910 painting of men and oxen hauling marble, called “The Toilers.”
Geologists note that Tennessee marble, often pinkish in hue, is actually a crystalline limestone. However, it has been known as “Tennessee marble” for two centuries. K nox v i l le marble is obv ious in t he architecture of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., claimed to be the largest marble building in the world. Other buildings that feature Knoxville marble include New York’s st ate capitol, the Lincoln Memorial in Washing ton, New York’s Grand Central Station, and the New York Public L ibrar y’s famous stone lions, Patience and Fortitude.
P u l it zer Pr izew inn ing invest igat ive reporter Paul Y. Anderson (1893-1938) grew up in a South Knoxville marble family. After his father was quarry accident, Paul’s youth was diff icult, which may explain his tough fearlessness as a journalist. He’s buried under an elaborate marble marker at Island Home Baptist Church. In the early 1930s, these “vertebrae” of Knoxville marble were ready to be assembled into columns for the then-new post-office building on Main Street. Today, that building is one of the region’s best examples of local pink marble in architecture.
K noxv ille has hosted several marble producers, including the Tennessee Marble Co., on Riverside Drive, the Ross-Republic Marble Company near Island Home, the Candoro Marble Works in Vestal, the Appalachian Marble Company on Middlebrook Pike, and the Gray Knox Marble Company on Sutherland Avenue. Ramsey House, built in 1797 on Thorngrove Pike in East Knox County, near traditional marble quarrying sites, is one of the earliest known Tennessee marble structures.
Knoxville began producing marble for commercial use by 1852, when James Stone opened a quarry two miles north of downtown to supply stone for Nashville’s new state capitol building. The arrival of railroads in 1855 made marble-quarrying a major local industry. The Ross and Mead families operated quarries on the south side of the river near Island Home, on what later became known as Ijams Nature Center. The oldest dates to the 1880s and, largely reclaimed by nature, resembles a small wooded canyon. “The Marble City” was a term often applied to Knoxville beginning by the 1880s. Multiple downtown businesses used that name, including the Marble City Bank and the Marble City Saloon. After 1910, a specific neighborhood along Sutherland Avenue became known as “Marble City,” reflecting the marble workers who lived there, near more than one marble company. The city as a whole was sometimes referred to as “the Marble City” as late as the 1950s.
Designed by architect Charles Barber in 1923, the colorfully unusual Candoro building in Vestal was built to highlight the marble varieties produced by the company.
Albert Milani (1892-1977), who grew up near the famous Carerra marble quarries in Italy, was one of several Italian stonecutters who moved to Knoxville to work for Knoxville’s marble industry. Milani’s work can be seen on the 1912 Holston Building on Gay and especially on the 1934 Post Office building on Main. He was also an accomplished sculptor. In conjunction with its continuing “Rock of Ages” marble exhibit, the East Tennessee History Center is hosting a Tennessee Marble Documentation Day and Panel Discussion this Saturday, April 15, at 9 a.m. to noon, inviting the public to bring pictures, records, and memorabilia about the marble industry. Prof. Susan Knowles, marble authority, will be on hand to discuss what she has learned. The Center, the oldest part of which dates to 1874, is Knoxville’s oldest public building built of local marble. Also at the History Center the following Thursday, Apr. 20, at noon, geology professor Don Byerly will offer a talk, “A Knoxville Heritage: Tennessee Marble.” The events are free. For more information, see easttnhistory.org. If that’s not enough, try the self-guided Pink Marble Tour at http:// tnpinkmarble.com/map/ Like the Mercury? You can help sustain it with a gift to the Knoxville History Project, by helping us renew this educational page for another year. See knoxvillehistoryproject.org.
The Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection, Lawson McGhee Library Image courtesy of Calvin M. McClung Collection • cmdc.knoxlib.org
Source
T h e K n ox v i l l e H i s to ry P r o j ec t, a n o n p r o fi t o r g a n iz at i o n d e vot e d to t h e p r o m ot i o n o f a n d ed u c at i o n a b o u t t h e h i s to ry o f K n ox v i l l e , p r e s en t s t h i s pag e e ac h w e e k to r a i s e awa r en e s s o f t h e t h em e s , p er s o n a l i t i e s , a n d s to r i e s o f o u r u n i q u e c i t y. L e a r n m o r e at
2 knoxville mercury April 13, 2017
knoxvillehistoryproject.org
o r em a i l
jack@knoxhistoryproject.org
April 13, 2017 | Volume 03: Issue 10 | knoxmercury.com “Struggle is a never ending process. Freedom is never really won, you earn it and win it in every generation.” —Coretta Scott King
HOWDY
6 Local Life
by Marissa Highfill
OPINION
8 Scruffy Citizen
Jack Neely reveals all—about the regretful placement of two markers at Volunteer Landing.
9 Possum City
Eleanor Scott surveys Greta Schmoyer’s native habitat restoration effort, Brickkilns Garden.
10 Perspectives
Joe Sullivan doesn’t think much of Sen. Lamar Alexander’s health care bill.
A&E
20 Program Notes
We recap the Rhythm N’ Blooms Festival, with photos by Clay Duda.
21 Inside the Vault
Eric Dawson talks with Dana Paul about his ’70s-era country rock band, Rich Mountain Tower.
22 Art COVER STORY
14 Ijams’ Path Forward Once a 20-acre, passive natural retreat,
PRESS FORWARD 12 Knox Makers
This community “makerspace” in South Knoxville provides public access to tools and tech. Josh Witt dives in.
Ijams Nature Center is now a bustling
thrill-seekers, and more. Ijams is entering a new era, with a new executive director who must balance its ever-growing popularity with its original mission of nature education.
23 Movies
April Snellings grapples with anime-turned-whitewashing-epic Ghost in the Shell.
CALENDAR
24 Spotlights
Welcome to Night Vale, Steel Panther, and more.
recreational mecca that attracts mountain bikers, trail runners, families, treetop
Denise Stewart-Sanabria reviews Alison Saar’s Breach, inspired by the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927.
VIRTUAL SUBSCRIPTIONS Now you can contribute to the Mercury on a monthly schedule! We may not actually mail you a copy, but you’ll be helping us produce all this content we give away each week. Go to knoxmercury.com/donate.
’BYE
37 News of the Weird by Chuck Shepherd
38 Open Book
by Harry Whiteside
38 Spirit of the Staircase by Matthew Foltz-Gray
39 Crooked Street Crossword
by Ian Blackburn and Jack Neely
S. Heather Duncan reports. April 13, 2017 knoxville mercury 3
Photo by Jeffrey Chastain
THE FACE BETWEEN THOSE BIG EARS When my wife and I lived in Manhattan, we savored our time with talented, disparate musicians. We equally enjoyed an Aboriginal didgeridoo artist on a peer and the Rolling Stones at Shea Stadium, Art Blakey at the Vanguard, and our saxophonist friend, Arkady, playing his Moscow bebop at a Russian gangster joint in Coney Island. All music lovers know that every performance has its own vibe. Having the extremely good fortune to be exposed to such a vast array of artists in New York developed and refined our visceral sense of the different connections between the artist(s) and the crowd. Listeners’ faces and what they reflected fed our greater awareness of this dynamic. However, it was not until this weekend’s Big Ears Festival that I was able to identify a listener’s music discovery face, or more aptly put, a Big Ears Face. From Thursday to Sunday, I caught 18 performances and the Big Ears Face was rampant. Whether festival participants were seated or standing and moving at a show, they projected their Big Ears Face. It’s a child’s look of awe when seeing baby chicks hatch for the first time, or when any of us saw an ocean for the first time. In these moments, we are immersed and fully present. We are experiencing wonder and cannot be distracted. With its carefully curated eclecticism, Big Ears engenders camaraderie, creative possibilities, and civic pride. At the heart of all of these gifts, we get a window to the world out of which we can see and hear so much that is unfamiliar and artistic. And when that opportunity presents itself, which it does with extraordinary frequency during a Big Ears Festival, the Big Ears 4 knoxville mercury April 13, 2017
Faces form: smiles slowly rise and eyes become alive. At the Big Ears launch party on Thursday, the festival’s founder/ curator, Ashley Capps, paid homage to the late great composer and Big Ears alumnus, Pauline Oliveros. Ashley’s words were edifying and inspirational. He shared with us that Ms. Oliveros had taught him the difference between listening to music and deep listening and that the latter was a practice. At a Big Ears show this past Sunday, I checked out the crowd and the Big Ear Faces were turning on. They looked like flashbulbs in super-slow motion, effortlessly illuminating. At that moment, it struck me that the Big Ears Face is the signal that a person is engaged in the practice of deep listening. You can actually see it manifest, and like a regular smile, it can be infectious. David N. Drews Knoxville
LOCAL MAN CLINGS TO RAGE OVER SOMETHING MICHELLE OBAMA SAID IN 2008 I am incredibly incensed at what your Ed. Note said pertaining to my letter in response to the letter by Gene Burr. [“An Entirely Different Definition of ‘Classy’”, March 30, 2017] You said his reference to First Lady Michele Obama was incidental: “‘Lady Bird’ did us proud, as did Michelle Obama.” This indicates to me that you were either also under the same rock as Mr. Burr or that you are an avid Obama supporter. How can anyone be a Michelle Obama supporter when one of the first things she said after he husband got elected was that she had never been proud of her country until he got elected? The woman did nothing but bring disgrace to the position of First Lady. “Incidental reference”? Not in my opinion at all! Joe C. Copeland Oak Ridge
SUBHEAD? The irony of the timing of a letter from Joe C. Copeland is rather stunning. He obviously does not like Michelle Obama, ranging from her statements
to her attire. That is his prerogative, of course. The irony has to do with his fussing about “separate flights to Hawaii vacations” and “taking non-family members on the trips” when the media has been awash over the last few days with reports on the extravagant outlays necessary to accommodate the Trump family. This includes a request from the Secret Service to supplemental funding of $60 million for the Trump family travels, including weekly golfing and socializing expeditions to Palm Beach and expenses incurred in NYC of up to $146,000 a day in security and other costs attributable to keeping Melania and Barron in Trump Tower. Can you imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth we would have from the “conservatives” if Michelle and the two Obama daughters had elected to stay in Chicago rather than move to D.C.? Of course, the fact that the Trumps are white may have something to do with this hypocrisy. Dudley W. Taylor Knoxville
EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP RE: Jim Frazee’s letter published Mach 30, 2017 regarding immigrants [“Out of Our…Country”]. I fully support Mayor Rogero’s approach to immigration. I trust Mayor Rogero’s leadership on this and other issues. Immigrants—people—aren’t the problem. U.S. immigration policies are the problem. To vilify people, as Mr. Frazee does, is embarrassing. Instead, how about holding elected officials accountable for failed policies? Mr. Frazee, Mayor Rogero is an effective politician. I volunteered on two of her campaigns. My 94-year-old neighbor, also a Rogero campaign volunteer, often observed that Mayor Rogero is a “really nice person.” We’re proud we worked to elect her. Knoxville—at last—has an efficient and effective city government that is also working collaboratively with the county government due to Mayor Rogero’s leadership. Ann Viera Knoxville
DELIVERING FINE JOURNALISM SINCE 2015 The Knoxville Mercury is an initiative of the Knoxville History Project, a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit whose mission is to research and promote the history of Knoxville. EDITORIAL EDITOR Coury Turczyn coury@knoxmercury.com SENIOR EDITOR Matthew Everett matthew@knoxmercury.com CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Jack Neely jack@knoxhistoryproject.org STAFF WRITERS S. Heather Duncan heather@knoxmercury.com CONTRIBUTORS Chris Barrett Joan Keuper Ian Blackburn Catherine Landis Hayley Brundige Dennis Perkins Patrice Cole Stephanie Piper Eric Dawson Ryan Reed George Dodds Eleanor Scott Thomas Fraser Alan Sherrod Lee Gardner Nathan Smith Mike Gibson April Snellings Carey Hodges Denise Stewart-Sanabria Nick Huinker Joe Sullivan Donna Johnson Kim Trevathan Tracy Jones Chris Wohlwend Rose Kennedy Angie Vicars Carol Z. Shane MULTIMEDIA ASSISTANT Jeffrey Chastain DESIGN ART DIRECTOR Tricia Bateman tricia@knoxmercury.com GRAPHIC DESIGNER Charlie Finch CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS David Luttrell Shawn Poynter Justin Fee Tyler Oxendine CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATORS Matthew Foltz-Gray PHOTOGRAPHY INTERN Marissa Highfill ADVERTISING PUBLISHER & DIRECTOR OF SALES Charlie Vogel charlie@knoxmercury.com SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Scott Hamstead scott@knoxmercury.com ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Michael Tremoulis michael@knoxmercury.com BUSINESS BUSINESS MANAGER Scott Dickey scott.dickey@knoxmercury.com KNOXVILLE MERCURY 618 South Gay St., Suite L2, Knoxville, TN 37902 knoxmercury.com • 865-313-2059 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR & PRESS RELEASES editor@knoxmercury.com CALENDAR SUBMISSIONS calendar@knoxmercury.com SALES QUERIES sales@knoxmercury.com DISTRIBUTION distribution@knoxmercury.com BOARD OF DIRECTORS Robin Easter Tommy Smith Melanie Faizer Joe Sullivan Jack Neely Coury Turczyn Charlie Vogel The Knoxville Mercury is an independent weekly news magazine devoted to informing and connecting Knoxville’s many different communities. It publishes 25,000 copies per week, available free of charge, limited to one copy per reader. © 2017 The Knoxville Mercury
TROLLEY FOR FREE! #travelbytrolley
katbus.com 301 Church Ave., Knoxville, TN 37915 T 865.637.3000
Service throughout Downtown & UT S © 2017 KAT
Tuesday, April 18
April 13, 2017 knoxville mercury 5
DUMPSTER highlights DIVE Weekly from our blog BUDGET CUTS SPELL TROUBLE FOR SMOKIES While the administration hasn’t provided much detail about the FY18 budget proposal, there is little question that the potential cuts would put the already under-funded National Park Service, which falls under the Department of Interior, in further decline. On an operational level, Great Smoky Mountains National Park has dealt with years of absorbing fixed-cost increases and across-the-board budget reductions without a significant base-budget increase—a situation many other national parks are in. The request for $11.6 billion for the DOI is $1.5 billion less than the 2017 continuing resolution level—a drop of 12 percent. Additionally, cuts to the EPA would harm the natural resources that the NPS is charged with protecting. If parks within the NPS are struggling at continuing resolution levels, then a 12 percent cut could be disastrous. “The administration’s FY18 budget blueprint was an opportunity to set parks on a path to recovery as they enter their next century of service,” says Emily Douce, associate director of Budget & Appropriations, Government Affairs for the National Parks Conservation Association. “Instead, the budget would harm parks and their clean air and water.” —Élan Young
LOCAL LIFE Photo Series by Marissa Highfill
Mural artist Victor Ving (New York) and photographer Lisa Beggs (Ohio) are traveling the country on their Greetings Tour, aiming to create “greetings” murals in all 50 states. Their 24th mural, sponsored by Visit Knoxville, appears on the wall of Nothing Too Fancy’s print shop at 1143 N. Broadway. Learn more at greetingstour.com.
PUBLIC AFFAIRS
4/13 WORKSHOP: NEIGHBORHOOD ORGANIZATIONS THURSDAY
6-8 p.m., Public Works Building (3131 Morris Ave.). Free. This monthly workshop series by the city’s Office of Neighborhoods offers info on “Building Strong Neighborhood Organizations.” This edition examines the balance between solving the neighborhood’s problems and/or building on the neighborhood’s assets. RSVP: dmassey@knoxvilletn.gov.
6 knoxville mercury April 13, 2017
4/15 18TH ANNUAL EARTHFEST SATURDAY
11 a.m.-5 p.m., Knoxville Botanical Garden and Arboretum (2743 Wimpole Ave.). Free. This year’s “zero-waste event for the whole family” moves to the Knoxville Botanical Garden—an absolutely perfect location for celebrating our efforts to preserve nature. There will be exhibits by local businesses, organizations, and nonprofits; musicians; a tree giveaway; a clean-fuel vehicle showcase; and more. Info: knox-earthfest.org.
4/18 LECTURE: “CLIMATE CHANGE & SOCIAL JUSTICE”
4/19 CLASS: MAINTAINING ONLINE PRIVACY
In celebration of Earth Day 2017, Dr. Lisa Reyes Mason, assistant professor in UT’s College of Social Work, will share her views on climate change and the many ways it is affecting society and social justice. Info: bakercenter.utk.edu.
Now that our defenders of personal liberty are making sure all of our online usage data can be sold to corporations, you might have a new interest in how to keep your browsing private. (Just for the sake of freedom, of course.) Learn all about the world of “virtual private networks.”
TUESDAY
1-2 p.m., Howard Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy (1640 Cumberland Ave.). Free.
WEDNESDAY
7:30 p.m., Modern Studio (109 W. Anderson Ave.). $10.
April 13, 2017 knoxville mercury 7
Scruffy Citizen | Possum City | Perspectives
The Case of the Misplaced Markers For the files: a correction to a 20-year-old historical mistake
BY JACK NEELY
A
few weeks ago, I wrote a column about trying to nail down what is to me one of the most intriguing sites in Knoxville history. “Vagabondia Castle” was the old house where Frances Hodgson Burnett and her brothers and sisters—most of them teenagers—lived after their mother’s death, without adult supervision, creating for themselves a kind of bohemian enclave of artists and musicians and at least one aspiring writer. The idea that Knoxville, an otherwise rough-edged, war-scarred, politically pragmatic, sometimes violent place might have been home to a community of artists who thought of themselves as bohemians, much less a British Victorian writer, the author of The Secret Garden—well, it has the makings of a fairy tale, in itself. Vagabondia was also the name of an offbeat fashion shop that was part of Market Square’s revival, a dozen years ago. Its late owner, Burnett fan Andie Ray, is the subject of a new memorial “Secret Garden,” with clever allusions to Burnett’s work, in the Knoxville Botanical Garden and Arboretum.
8 knoxville mercury April 13, 2017
As we noted, all indications are that Vagabondia was somewhere in the general vicinity of what’s now the northern end of the Henley Bridge. Some recent finds by Agee scholar Paul Brown add a couple more clues in support of the two sites along Henley previously suspected. One especially astute reader noted that the likely sites of the original Vagabondia are pretty far—about a third of a mile—from the Volunteer Landing marker that indicates Vagabondia Castle as “near this spot.” Therein lies a melancholy tale. It’s time to come clean with a little regret that’s been bugging me since the last century. Just over 20 years ago, city contractors enlisted me to research the text to put on those markers. I worked on it for months, finding stories that seemed relevant to Knoxville’s history and its relationship to the river. It was a great idea, and I was happy to be part of it. Vagabondia was not very well known at the time, and its story was so far out of step with the typical thumbnail histories of Knoxville (Pioneers!
Civil War! TVA! Vols!) that it seemed to hold the power to crack a paradigm and open our culture up to different realms of complexity and potential. Most of the texts for the historical markers along Volunteer Landing were general history and culture, and could have been placed anywhere along the path. Only a couple were site-specific. The Coach Neyland marker went in at a spot dominated by a full view of the stadium named for the strategically eccentric football genius from Texas. (At least it was then; now, from Volunteer Landing, Neyland Stadium’s mostly eclipsed by the new Tickle Engineering Building.) They also put in some “interactive” panels with sound narrative by Bill Landry of the Heartland Series. I was skeptical at the time of how long anything electronic can work out in the weather, but they made a believer out of me. Twenty years later, almost half of them still work. Few of the markers were site-specific, but two in particular were. Those were the ones for poet Nikki Giovanni and Frances Hodgson Burnett. The Burnett one needed to be near the Henley Street Bridge, I indicated, preferably slightly to the west of it. Near Maplehurst, and near Vagabondia. The Giovanni one needed to be as far east as possible, because the neighborhood she described in her poetry and prose was just east of First Creek. They were the only two for which I made a point to use the phrase “near this spot.” Giovanni’s most famous work doesn’t deal with the river much, but she spent much of her childhood with her grandmother on Mulvaney Street, about a quarter-mile from the river, and that seemed close enough to bring her into the fold. The carvers embossed some marble boulders and slabs of various sizes, and did a good job. Then, when they were unveiled, I had a surprise. The Burnett one was
where the Giovanni one was supposed to be, and vice versa. Well, it was a simple matter, they explained. The Giovanni one was a vertical marker, and they had to put it with the other vertical markers, along the city side of the trail. The Burnett one was a horizontal marker, and they needed to lay that one flatter on the river side of the trail over east of Calhoun’s. The only easy way to fix it was to swap them. Simple as that, and no helping it. Only two markers had to be moved from their previously indicated locations. And they were the only two that included the phrase, “near this spot.” And Vagabondia seemed especially hard to picture right in the business part of downtown, in fact right in the area of the steamboat wharves. I protested, but at the time I was just a reporter, taking a needed freelance gig to pay some family bills. I was the guy who had done the research, but I wasn’t one of the ones who needed to be satisfied. So I sent them a letter for their files, to clarify things just in case there were ever a chance to rectify it. As I’ve learned over the years, working on other commemorative projects, nobody ever reads letters in files, and at a certain level of investment, mere facts don’t count for much. The markers have remained in the wrong spots ever since. So that’s why Nikki Giovanni’s marker is half a mile west of where she used to live, and the “Vagabondia was near this site” marker is a third of a mile upriver of the most plausible site of Vagabondia. To my knowledge, no one else complained. At the time they went in, there weren’t that many Knoxvillians in the river-walking mainstream who knew that either Burnett or Giovanni had even lived here. But from readers and attendees at public events, I get the impression that people know more, and are more interested, now.
Therein lies a melancholy tale. It’s time to come clean with a little regret that’s been bugging me for 20 years.
Scruffy Citizen | Possum City | Perspectives
effect. Green restoration projects help prevent erosion.” Every conservationist I’ve met rises to the endless war against invasives with a rueful glee, as does Schmoyer, who enjoys digging in the dirt and being outside. “In the woods, probably 97 percent of the understory vegetation was privet and bush honey suckle. In the sunny part it was almost entirely wisteria. It was nearly impenetrable all the way to the road. The very first thing I did was go through and give everything a haircut.” Left unchecked, Schmoyer says, wisteria builds “big billowing nets” of dead vines with new growth on top creating a shade canopy that prevents woodland plants from growing, kills trees, and makes the forest inaccessible to birds. “The wisteria battle is never going to be over,” she says. “At this point, I haven’t resorted to herbicides. It seems to be a matter of cutting it down and keeping it mowed back enough so other plants can out-compete it.” She’s planted over 25 different species of native trees and shrubs, including paw paw, buckeye, and river birch. One elderly neighbor became interested in her paw paw trees and asked his older sisters about them, who remembered the native fruit, once an important part of the Appalachian diet. Schmoyer knows native wild areas can be controversial in the city, but has received only support from residents. “If you took an empty lot and just let it grow up, codes is going to be
Pay Dirt Unearthing history and restoring habitat at Brickkilns Garden
BY ELEANOR SCOTT
I
“It was filled up with trash and overgrown with vines and invasive species. But having a nice-size pocket in the city with other contiguous pieces of land could create corridors for wildlife.” Schmoyer, a veterinarian with a master’s degree in public health, has seen groundhogs, rabbits, a variety of birds, nonvenomous snakes, salamanders, a box turtle, and a coyote on the property. One of Schmoyer’s favorite areas is a small valley with a trail running between man-made mounds, a pocket of cooler, wetter habitat she calls “the holloway,” where she has planted ferns and doghobble in an effort to control erosion. If not for the constant roar of interstate traffic, you would think you were deep in the woods. “Green space gives so many benefits that we can’t begin to understand or measure,” she says, “Having a space nearby that isn’t covered in concrete has a cooling
Eleanor Scott’s Possum City explores our urban forests, gardens, and wild places, celebrating the small lives thriving there. A freelance writer and columnist, she also maintains the Parkridge Butterfly Meadow in East Knoxville.
Photo by Eleanor Scott
Greta Schmoyer at her Brickkilns Garden, a native restoration project on the site of property used in the past by now-defunct Cherokee Shale Brick Company. Photo courtesy of Cooper Hewitt
n 2014 Greta Schmoyer bought a small dilapidated house in Parkridge, the last home built by famed architect George Barber—and the place he was living in when he died. I wrote about her meticulous historic restoration in our May 2016 issue of Abode. During the interview, Schmoyer showed me another project of hers that I found nearly more interesting. Also in 2014, she had bought three lots totaling 2 acres of wild land across the alley from the Barber house and embarked upon a separate native habitat restoration effort she calls Brickkilns Garden. Brickkilns is a hilly strip of mature forest and sunny meadows backing up to the soundwall of Interstate 40. The land has man-made furrows, mounds, clay ledges, and many bricks buried in the ground and strewn about on the surface. The Cherokee Shale Brick Company, a large brickworks most active in the 1930s, was once located down the hill on Mitchell Street. Schmoyer thinks the brick company harvested clay from the ridge and used it as a dumping ground for broken and flawed bricks. During her research, she found a vintage letterhead with a small engraving of the brickworks. In the background a 1920s-era excavator can be seen digging at a ridge, which she believes is the current site of Brickkilns Garden. “I thought the property had a whole lot of potential,” says Schmoyer.
after you and your whole project will get defeated,” says Schmoyer, citing Planting in a Post-Wild World by Claudia West and Thomas Rainer as a guidebook for how to design inoffensive sustainable landscapes. “If you can create something about the way you’re planting so it’s obvious to passersby that it’s maintained—clearly define borders and things that people innately read as, ‘Somebody is taking care of this property.’—then that can allow the whole thing to read in a more desirable light,” she says. “Outside stakeholders will then buy in and like the project instead of opposing it.” To that end, Schmoyer mows parts of the property, built a curb of scavenged brick along the edge of the alley, and planted a berry patch and fruit orchard in the most visible area. In the past, the dead-end alley attracted illegal dumping and criminal activity. Schmoyer says after she cut back the wisteria and hauled the bulky trash to the city dump, illegal dumping slowed down and drug paraphernalia stopped appearing on the ground. “If I see somebody back here now, it is almost always little kids from the neighborhood rather than somebody doing drugs or dumping trash,” Schmoyer says.
April 13, 2017 knoxville mercury 9
Scruffy Citizen | Possum City | Perspectives
Bad Exchange Alexander’s health care bill is a sham
BY JOE SULLIVAN
A
lthough I have often disagreed with Sen. Lamar Alexander, I’ve long respected him as a high-minded person. And I’ve admired his ability to work across the aisle to achieve bipartisan solutions to intractable problems, such as crafting a long-overdue successor to the defective No Child Left Behind Act. So while I don’t share his belief that the Affordable Care Act is fundamentally flawed and needs to be replaced, I was heartened when he convened a hearing of the Senate health committee that he chairs to address ways to fix what are undeniably broken features. “I think of it as a collapsing bridge,” he said. “You send in a rescue team and you go to work to repair it and you start to build a new bridge, and only when that new bridge is completed and people can drive safely across it do you close the old bridge.” What’s most in need of repair is the exchanges that the ACA established to make health insurance accessible and affordable to all, with subsidies for lower-income people and a prohibition against denying coverage because of a preexisting condition. Another, more controversial mandate was that everyone would have to get insured so that premiums from younger, healthier people
10 knoxville mercury April 13, 2017
coming on the exchange would counterbalance the higher cost of insuring older, sicker people. But it hasn’t worked out that way. The latter have signed up in much larger proportions, driving up premiums and causing many insurers to flee the exchange after incurring losses. The prospect of ACA repeal has caused further fright and flight, creating the specter that many sections of the country could be left without any insurers on the exchange. Such an exodus would undermine the construct for infusing the tax credits and other subsidies that have kept coverage affordable to an adversely selected risk pool. The Knoxville area happens to be the worst-case place in the country at the moment. The lone insurer offering exchange coverage here in 2017 has announced it’s pulling out at year-end, leaving lower-income Knoxvillians with no way to get affordable health insurance in 2018. (For the very poor with incomes below the federal poverty line, federally funded Medicaid expansion was intended to provide the coverage, but the state of Tennessee has disgracefully failed to do so.) Witnesses at Alexander’s committee hearing in early February, includ-
ing Tennessee Insurance Commissioner Julie Mix McPeak, recommended a variety of ways in which Congress could shore up the exchanges that could well gain bipartisan support. But so far Alexander hasn’t announced any plans to pursue any of these measures to induce more insurers to participate or at least prevent a void. Far from it—instead of working to repair the exchanges, he’s introduced a bill that anticipates and could contribute to their demise. The bill would provide a way for people to get tax credits to help pay for health insurance purchased off the exchange in a much less structured way. This recourse would only be available in locations where no exchange plans remain. And if Alexander’s bill provided a meaningful way for lower-income Knoxvillians to get affordable insurance, perhaps they should be grateful to him. But it doesn’t. With a lot of supporting infrastructure, the ACA provides for tax credits on exchange plans to be paid to insurers by the Internal Revenue Service on a monthly basis in advance. For those with incomes below 250 percent of FPL, it further provides for monthly cost-sharing subsidies that go toward offsetting their deductibles and co-payments. By contrast, to qualify for tax credits under Alexander’s bill, people would have to pay a full year’s worth of premiums out-of-pocket, then submit documentation of same with their tax returns in order to get a refundable credit per the ACA’s complex formula for its calculation. There is no provision for effecting the yet more complex cost-sharing subsidies, and the bottom line is that health insurance would be anything but affordable to lower-income people.
As it happens, there are three carriers presently offering individual health insurance off the exchange in Tennessee: Aetna, Freedom, and the Tennessee Farm Bureau Federation. The only one I succeeded in contacting, Farm Bureau, says its main reason for staying off the exchange is to avoid the administrative burdens of participation. But a bigger reason is probably that unsubsidized off-exchange health plans attract more affluent buyers who are likely to be healthier and thus a better risk than uninsured poor folks who have been unable to afford much health care. Making matters worse, due to a quirky Tennessee law, Farm Bureau is not deemed to be an insurance company that has to comply with the ACA. This means it can offer insurance that doesn’t include the act’s Essential Health Benefits, excludes people with preexisting conditions, discriminates by gender, and the list goes on. This makes for lower-cost insurance for the fortunate than ACA-compliant health plans. But it sure as hell doesn’t justify federal subsidies for non-compliant plans, which the Alexander bill would afford. Beyond that, in any locale where it applies, the bill would abrogate the ACA’s individual mandate, which needs to be fortified instead if the exchanges are to survive. In sum, the Alexander bill is a sham unworthy of the senator’s good name. He has labeled it the “Health Care Options Act of 2017.” A better name might be the “Tennessee Farm Bureau Benevolence Act.” Joe Sullivan is the former owner and publisher of Metro Pulse (1992-2003) as well as a longtime columnist covering local politics, education, development, health care, and tennis.
If Sen. Alexander’s bill provided a meaningful way for lower-income Knoxvillians to get affordable insurance, perhaps they should be grateful to him. But it doesn’t.
BUY LOCAL or
BYE,
ARAM
The
from ERA:BetheThere Beginning! New Music Director Aram Demirjian will conduct these upcoming concerts at the Tennessee Theatre!
NEXT WEEK
LOCAL Support the local economy by spending your dollars with Knoxville businesses.
ADULTS. FREE TUITION. FALL 2017.
GOLKA PLAYS CHOPIN Thursday, April 20 • 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 21 • 7:30 p.m. Aram Demirjian, conductor Adam Golka, piano CHOPIN: Piano Concerto No. 1 BIZET: Overture & Romance from The Pearl Fishers GOLIJOV: Night of the Flying Horses RAVEL: Daphnis & Chloe Suite No. 2
Do you qualify?
Sponsored by John H. Daniel
COMING IN MAY
BEETHOVEN’S 5TH Thursday, May 18 • 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 19 • 7:30 p.m. Aram Demirjian, conductor Timothy McAllister, saxophone
BATES: Mothership STRAUSS: Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks WILLIAMS: “Escapades” from Catch Me If You Can BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 5 Sponsored by The Trust Company and Old Forge Distillery
CLASSICAL TICKETS start at just $15!
Are you eager to reach active local shoppers? Advertise with us! sales@knoxmercury.com
865.694.6400
www.pstcc.edu
CALL: (865) 291-3310 CLICK: knoxvillesymphony.com VISIT: Monday-Friday, 9-5 April 13, 2017 knoxville mercury 11
PRESS FORWARD
Focus: Business & Tech Innovation
Knox Makers
Doug Laney
president of Knox Makers
A community “makerspace” in South Knoxville provides public access to tools and tech
K
nox Makers is an organization that hosts a community “makerspace.” They moved in to the East Tennessee Technology Access Center in July of last year, and have been working on improving and expanding their resources since then, investing over $40,000 in their new space, which held its grand opening April 1. Their space offers tools, equipment, and a meeting place for “makers,” the popular term for a community of creators, inventors, and tinkerers. On top of their workspace offering, Knox Makers works closely with local organizations to provide support and work on community projects. Since they’re based out of the East Tennessee Technology Access Center, they can work with ETTAC on projects like Toy Tech, where they modify toys to make them disability friendly. We talked with the group’s president, Doug Laney, about the benefits of being able to make stuff: “There is one level of satisfaction that comes from building a project for yourself. There’s another level of satisfaction that comes from building a project that makes an impact on the life of another,” Laney says.
What does Knox Makers offer the community? We think that Knox Makers offers the community a way to engage their innate creative urges. Whether they’re interested in learning to sew or work leather, to weld or make things out of wood, to get into 3D printing or hobby 12 knoxville mercury April 13, 2017
electronics, we have not only the tools and the space, but also a great community of people who are happy to guide you through the process of learning. Our classes and workshops provide unparalleled peer learning opportunities across a wide variety of interests. Whether people are interested in learning a new hobby, or are wanting to bring something new to their creative enterprises, we think that Knox Makers has something to offer.
How do you think Knox Makers is positively affecting the Knoxville community? First, we think that Knox Makers provides a real creative outlet for lots of people in the Knoxville community. There are many technical and creative types who don’t otherwise have a “third place”—a spot other than home or work where they can socialize comfortably. We think that Knox Makers provides a welcoming and comfortable spot for these people, where they can get support, encouragement, and inspiration from those around them. Second, we think that through the partnerships that we’re working on developing with places like ETTAC, TechCo, and the Muse, we’re able to create opportunities to channel the interests of our membership into meaningful projects in the community. We’re hoping to develop more of these opportunities in the future. Third, we think that Knoxville has a future as being the city with the most productive and supportive maker economy in the country. We
Photos by Marissa Highfill
BY JOSH WITT
hope that Knox Makers can help support that vision by providing a place where technical and creative people can meaningfully interact, and inspire each other. We think that by providing tools, workspace, and training that people can act on that inspiration and pursue their dreams.
How was Knox Makers started? The genesis of Knox Makers was a 2011 Craigslist post pitching the idea of forming a hackerspace in Knoxville. Eight folks responded and a dinner at Cafe 4 was arranged to discuss the idea. A loose-knit group formed and began meeting at each others’ homes. After a few months of that, another local nonprofit, the Technology Cooperative, allowed us to use their facility periodically. After spending several months meeting at TechCo, a real sense of community started to develop, and action was taken to get a space that was “ours.” Our founding members each kicked in some money and a lease was signed for a 1,000-square-foot unit in the Tech 2020 incubator in Oak Ridge.
Why move away from Oak Ridge? We outgrew the Tech 2020 space quickly; it simply wasn’t enough room for the tools and projects we wanted
KNOX MAKERS 116 Childress St. SW knoxmakers.org PROGRAMS • Knox Makers offers an area to tinker and create with community tools and resources. • They host Open Hack Nights most Tuesdays, where they open their space up to non-members. • Keyed workshop access for members. HOW YOU CAN HELP • Join as a member! • Donate tools, equipment, or materials to their space. • Donate money on their website.
to accommodate. Most of our potential community was actually in Knoxville, and most of them told us they were unwilling to make the drive to Oak Ridge on a regular basis. These factors limited our growth and spurred us to look for a larger facility within Knoxville. That search went on for a few years before we finally found a home with ETTAC.
How did you end up at the East Tennessee Technology Access Center? We looked at quite a few places. We even got close to signing some leases,
and then something would scuttle the deal. Cost was often the limiting factor. ETTAC was really excited about finding ways to be a partner, rather than being solely a landlord. They do fantastic work bringing technology to the disabled community, and Knox Makers works to make technology more accessible to all. We are currently working to develop plans to have a hack-a-thon focused on solving technological problems in the disabled community.
Why has it taken you so long to have a grand opening, nearly nine months a er moving in to your South Knoxville space? When we originally moved into ETTAC, only one of the three downstairs bays was available—about 3,400 square feet. We leased it and spent months installing our equipment, bolstering the electrical service, installing air conditioning, etc. Just as we got it all set up and ready to go, they offered us a second bay. We couldn’t say no to all that extra space. But there was a lot of work to be done there too. We had to redesign the whole workshop, expand our electrical capacity again, rework the lighting, and install dust collection and air filtration systems. It was absolutely worth it though; the workshop has benefited tremendously from having all that room to work.
Additionally, being in Knoxville made being a member of Knox Makers much more convenient. We lost a few members who live in Oak Ridge, which we regret, but we’re able to serve the larger community far more effectively in our new location. Seeing our membership and attendance increase has been greatly rewarding, and every new person who joins brings another set of skills to share with the community.
What projects does Knox Makers have going on right now? We’re getting ready to launch KillSwitch, our lightweight robot fighting league. This will consist of a few months of classes and workshops to teach people the skills necessary for combat robot building, followed by the actual competition. We’re in the early stages of working with the Muse to build micro-exhibits that they can display in their space. We’re looking forward to growing the Toy Tech program with ETTAC, as well as developing the hack-a-thon for disabled technologies. Internally, we’re working on implementing keycard access for our members and then tying that to tool authorization.
How has your membership been affected by the move? Our membership and public Tuesday nights have grown by leaps and bounds since moving. The bigger space allows us to really expand the types of workspaces we can offer.
Don’t Suffer Any Longer! Medical Neuropathy Treatment Successful for More Than 4 out of 5 People!
The Neurogenx Nerve Center of Knoxville now provides a BREAKTHROUGH medical neuropathy treatment proven to help 87% of patients*: • Reverse nerve damage • Grow new, healthy nerve fibers • Reduce or eliminate neuropathy symptoms Our medical providers are passionate about what they do and our patients are excited about the results they’re getting. Many patients report being pain-free for the first time in years!
Can you imagine that for yourself?
Do you suffer from:
Why do you think people join Knox Makers? Most people are initially attracted to gaining access to our tools, but they stay because of our community. We’ve worked really hard to develop a culture that promotes sharing. When you show up, it’s easy to see that folks in our community are willing to jump in and help someone or offer ideas or teach someone else. We have folks from all walks of life, with a huge diversity of knowledge and experience to share.
Burning, Tingling, Numbness or Pain?
Know someone doing amazing things for the future of Knoxville? Submit your story suggestions to: editor@knoxmercury.com Contact us for sponsorship opportunities: charlie@knoxmercury.com CATEGORIES Civic & Humanitarian Arts & Culture Business & Tech Innovation Environmental & Sustainability Health & Food Education
• Pins and needles in your feet or hands • Burning foot, leg, hand or arm pain • Numbness • Sharp, stabbing or electric-like pains in your feet or legs • Inability to sleep due to painful feet
NEUROGENX CAN HELP!
CLEARED MEDICAL DEVICE
NO PILLS - NO SURGERY
JUST RELIEF!
This treatment is for people who: • Have neuropathy due to diabetes or chemotherapy
• Are tired of taking medications that aren’t working
• Have chronic nerve pressure from the spine
• Want a 2nd opinion
• Have been told nothing else can be done • Who want results, but aren’t getting any
• Are afraid their neuropathy is getting worse • Are looking for an effective solution
The Neurogenx Care Network
Includes 20 NerveCenters & More Than 200 Providers Nationwide!
Call Now for Your
FREE
Consultation & Exam
865-240-0530 $250 Value Yours Free
Limited Time Only - Special Offer Expires 5-5-17
Use bottom right code when making your appointment
SUCCESS RATE *
Keri McFarlane, MD - Medical Director
2046 Town Center Boulevard, Knoxville, TN 37922 - www.neurogenx.com/knoxville *87% reduction in symptoms is based on published medical studies. Offices following these protocols have seen similar results. Results may vary depending on age, condition, treatment compliance, genetics, diagnosis and other factors. Not all patients are candidates for treatment or are accepted for care.
(c) 2017 Neurogenx. All rights reserved.
KNX-011
April 13, 2017 knoxville mercury 13
BY S. HEATHER DUNCAN
y ingly s a e r c n i e h t n Ca nter e c e r u t a n r a l popu ce strike a balauncation between edtion? and recrea
Photo by Coury Turczyn
14 knoxville mercury April 13, 2017
Photos by Coury Turczyn
O
n a sunny spring Saturday at Ijams Nature Center, a group of girls lie on their stomachs with their faces suspended inches over the murky water of a pond, ponytails bobbing in a row. One girl swoops down her green net and squeals, “I caught another tadpole!” Nearby, two mountain bikers in full gear swing into their seats, one shifting a backpack carrying a small, fluffy dog wearing fitted sunglasses. Parents speak in French and Chinese as they watch their young kids walk logs like balance beams and whack hanging reeds. Ivan Gutirrez has brought his 7-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son from Crossville to try the ziplines, but while they wait, they admire the sculpture of a butterfly made from saw blades. Perry Cooper sits at a picnic table playing old Appalachian fiddle tunes. “I love Ijams,” says Cooper, who rehearses there daily for senior fiddle competitions. “It’s peaceful like the mountains, but not as far.” Once a 20-acre, passive natural retreat, Ijams Nature Center is now a bustling recreational mecca that attracts mountain bikers, trail runners, families, treetop thrill-seekers, gardeners, and teenagers on low-pressure dates. The hub of South Knoxville’s recreational activity, Ijams is entering a new era, with a new executive director who must manage the demands of all these users rubbing elbows on 300 acres of woods, meadows, and former marble quarries. In the past few years, Ijams has developed private partnerships and a regional profile. Its trails comprise a key portion of the South Loop trail system of the popular Urban Wilder-
ness, tying Ijams closely with Knoxville’s burgeoning identity as an outdoor recreation destination. These changes have not been without their growing pains and even a tragedy. A week after for-profit partner Navitat opened its treetop adventure course, a visitor died in an accident. (An investigation found the cause was a combination of equipment elements that worked poorly together, a problem not previously recognized in the industry.) Some boaters have complained about the privately controlled monopoly on boats at Mead’s Quarry lake. And last fall, a popular climbing area that had been developed by volunteers was closed to unsupervised climbing over insurance issues. At the root of these controversies are concerns about how for-profit pressures affect the nonprofit mission,
and whether limits on free access are appropriate. At the same time, the very popularity of biking and paddling at Ijams could overshadow its focus on nature education. New executive director Amber Parker took over in February and is already juggling. She is in the early stages of planning new preschool and citizen science programs and is considering additional programming locations. And she announced at least a temporary solution to the climbing quandary last week: Giving management of “The Crag” portion of the property back to the City of Knoxville, which owns it and will assume the liability. A priority now is raising more money—through memberships and potentially through more user fees—to make sure Ijams can continue to handle the growing number of visitors
Ijams’ trails and Mead’s Quarry Lake, where River Sports Outfitters rents watercraft, have made the property popular for outdoor recreation—although that is secondary to Ijams’ mission of nature education.
and expand its educational programs. Paul James, who led the nonprofit for 12 years, says Ijams “used to be labeled one of Knoxville’s best-kept secrets—and it’s still sometimes labeled that way, which is amazing.” Insiders don’t have the corner on Ijams any more, and Parker promises it will be soon be even more widely known. “There are some nature centers we talk about in whispers because they’re doing such extraordinary, innovative things for the community,” Parker says. “Ijams is going to be one of those in a few years.” April 13, 2017 knoxville mercury 15
16 knoxville mercury April 13, 2017
Photo by Michael McCollum
Harry and Alice Ijams purchased 20 acres on the river in 1910 and built a home, turning the rest into a bird sanctuary and gardener’s paradise. “It’s amazing the Ijams family even chose that site, given the daily explosions [at the marble quarries nearby] and the way it was hemmed in between industrial sites and the river,” James says. In the 1960s, the family property became a public nature park through a partnership among the City of Knoxville and local garden clubs. The city operated it as a passive park, even after a board of directors was formed in 1976. In 1989 the nonprofit board negotiated to run the 40 acres and hired Bo Townsend as executive director. He stayed for a decade, and then recently filled in as interim director. He recalls that the board wanted him to quickly transform Ijams into an “aggressive” promoter of environmental education. Ijams started its “River Rescue” annual cleanup of the Tennessee River, developed a water quality forum with the Knoxville Utilities Board, and began taking educational programs to schools and offering field trips. “In 1995, we were undergoing a $4 million capital campaign and had master plans for 100 acres, and that’s when we built the visitor’s center and the Bill Miller center down at the old home site,” Townsend says. The visitor’s center houses a small collection of native mammals, reptiles, and birds that kids can touch during nature programs and birthday parties. When British native Paul James moved from the job of development director to running the nature center in 2004, he says, “The message was: How do we get people here? They’d say, ‘I don’t even go downtown. Why would I go to Ijams?’ I was pushing the boulder uphill a long time.” But then downtown’s resurgence, followed by the popularity of the Urban Wilderness, made South Knoxville a destination and drew more visitors to Ijams. The nature center has continued to provide workshops and festivals for children and gardeners. But it also hosts everything from drum circles to movie nights, as well as big fund raisers like Symphony in the Park.
Photo by Coury Turczyn
A Century of Sanctuary
Left: A family walks the tracks that lead toward the old Ross Marble Quarry. Above: Near Mead’s Quarry stands a habitat for chimney swifts—common birds that often make their homes in man-made structures.
Meanwhile, the acreage expanded dramatically. The popular riverfront boardwalk was added about two decades ago, then Mead’s Quarry (which for years had been a “horrendous illegal dump,” James says), Ross Marble Quarry with its popular Keyhole trail, and the Will Skelton Greenway connection to Forks of the River Wildlife Management Area. The new property allowed Ijams to add paddling, climbing, and bouldering to its summer camps. James partnered with Legacy Parks and the Appalachian Mountain Bike Club to incorporate the old quarries and develop trails around them. “(He) took kind of a gamble with us in allowing us to expand, and I think it’s worked out well for the community and for Ijams,” says Brian Hann, a local mountain biker whose vision helped create the Urban Wilderness. “I think it’s brought a lot of people to Ijams who would not otherwise recreate, and I think that’s a great audience to capture.” He noted that before Ijams took over the quarry, many people were riding ATVs, motorcycles, and bikes there, sometimes destructively. Now Ijams not only has cleaned up the area but also recently added permanent restrooms. Ijams is likely to become even more of a hub once Legacy Parks completes the G&O rails-to-trails project connecting Mead’s Quarry with downtown, Hann notes. “Ijams has
been key in the whole Urban Wilderness/South Loop initiative,” he says.
Shifting Partners and Leaders But many recreational visitors, like the hundreds of mountain bikers that gather there on Tuesday nights, don’t even know that the trails are run by the nature center or that Ijams offers programming. In the last few years, Ijams has begun revenue-sharing partnerships with private companies to provide boat and bike rentals (River Sports Outfitters) and “treetop adventures” (Navitat). It earned about $18,900 last year from its partnership with River Sports and about $7,900 from Navitat, Parker says. James says these partnerships resulted from Ijams seizing opportunities as they arose. With Navitat, James says, “We felt it was an opportunity to experience Ijams in a different way. There was a shared excitement about people in the treetops. It’s not a rowdy experience. It’s kind of a ‘head space’ experience.” The death on the ropes course and its temporary closure afterward didn’t seem to lessen local interest in the experience, says Bumpas, who is also president of Visit Knoxville. Still, Ijams’ rapid evolution led to some tension in the last few years. Bumpas took over as board chair a few years ago when it became clear that no one else would take the job, she says. “The board had gotten whip-
per-jawed,” she says, her phrase for being “out of sorts.” Generally, it was disengaged, with the exception of a few strong-willed board members who were putting pressure on James, she says. “Boards can sometimes overstep and get a little too into the weeds, and that had happened at Ijams.” Bumpas says she spent the first year redefining how the board would function and working closely with James. “I discovered Ijams had become this dynamic beast and was struggling with its identity of how does the recreational component combine with the nature education part of its mission,” Bumpas says. A contentious example emerged last September. A group of climbers who have become known as “The Quarry Boys” had cleared The Crag cliff face at Ijams and set climbing bolts for different routes, only to discover the area closed to the public overnight. Climbing would be permitted only when supervised by Ijams or River Sports Outfitters. Bumpas says the board didn’t even know The Crag had been developed for this sport until it was done, and learned “at the twilight”— days before the park’s insurance was set to lapse—that the insurance company wouldn’t cover Ijams if unsupervised climbing were allowed. Ijams owns little property itself. The land around the visitor’s center and near the river belongs to the city, as does The Crag climbing area, and
Photos by Kim Trevathan
Mead’s Quarry belongs to Knox County. Ijams leases the land for a symbolic fee; the city contract required Ijams to have insurance, while the county’s simply renounces county liability. James says insurance companies seem to have a certain tolerance for adding more recreational activities, “but you reach a certain number—and I don’t know what that is—and carriers get nervous.” The Crag uproar happened shortly before James resigned, but he says it was not the deciding factor. “I had been considering moving on for a while, and it was good for me and good for the organization,” he says. James, who is now the development director for the Knoxville History Project (the Mercury’s governing body), added that Parker “seems like a great fit and I wish her well.” Bumpas says James was not asked to resign. “Sometimes an organization starts to outpace the leadership. Paul is a good man, a Knoxvillian, and his heart is so pure. He cared so much about that organization that after a year of reflection with me and the executive committee, he recognized it was evolving faster than he could—or wanted to—keep up with.” In the last year, a significant number of board members have turned over as well, says Bumpas, who will remain board chair until the end
of June and then serve as vice chair for another year.
Questions Over Access The Crag closure led to questions about residents having to pay a private company to use public land and waterways. Southern Forest Watch, a nonprofit that successfully sued to eliminate backcountry camping fees in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, threatened in November to file a lawsuit against Ijams for restricting public access to The Crag. Southern Forest Watch and climbers argue that Ijams is protected from liability by the Tennessee Recreational Use Statute. Even if so, the city contract required insurance, James points out. “At the end of the day, we are a small nonprofit and can’t afford the liability,” Bumpas says. “The goal was 30 days (to reopen The Crag), and it just couldn’t happen. And it broke my heart.” Climber Kelly Brown, who bolted two of the climbing routes at The Crag, expressed frustration in early April that a solution had taken so long. “It kills me. Everyone’s dragging their feet,” he says. “It’s been over six months, and now it’s spring and everyone wants to climb.” Brown, an artist whose whimsical woven-vine wigwams are a favorite feature in the children’s play area at Ijams, says it’s a good idea for the city to
Navitat’s ropes and ziplines rise above Ijams. Rock climber and artist Kelly Brown, who wove many of the vine structures at Ijams, was impatient with the slow pace of Ijams’ efforts to reopen The Crag, a rock face he volunteered to make accessible to local climbers.
take over The Crag. One of Parker’s first actions was a meeting with The Crag Committee of climbers, which all sides described as positive. Some of the climbers even agreed to help with the River Rescue cleanup earlier this month, scrambling down steep escarpments into creeks that had seemed unreachable in the past. Climber Micah McCrotty says the meeting with Parker made the Crag Committee confident The Crag would be reopened. “She has an interesting and interactive vision for Ijams,” he says. “I was impressed with her.” Townsend and Parker say they heard nothing more from Southern Forest Watch about a lawsuit. But John Quillen, its board president, says he and four lawyers met with the Crag Committee in January to plan a legal strategy, which included giving Parker time to settle in. Quillen says he had planned to deliver a notice of intent to sue on Monday, until the quarry was reopened two days before that. He called Parker’s claim to have heard nothing more about
a lawsuit “disingenuous” but adds, “I’m happy with this outcome.” Quillen says Bumpas and Townsend scoffed at his suggestion last fall that the city manage The Crag, claiming that insurance coverage was pending. He says he remains concerned that Parker has called the city hand-off a temporary solution, because he doesn’t want Ijams in charge of The Crag in the future. Parker says it may be permanent, but she wants the board to consider its options during an upcoming long-term planning process. Quillen and others have also criticized Ijams’ decision not to allow private boats on Mead’s Quarry Lake. “That quarry belongs to the citizens of Knox County, all of them. Not just the ones that pay River Sports for the privilege of renting a boat,” Quillen wrote in an email. He sent Parker a letter Tuesday asking that the lake be opened to private boats and swimmers, saying he’d appeal to the Knox County Commission if Ijams’ board did not April 13, 2017 knoxville mercury 17
18 knoxville mercury April 13, 2017
Photo by Heather Duncan Photo by Tricia Bateman
agree. But fees for using county parks are nothing new. The county charges for the use of ball fields and golf greens, and has a concession with River Sports to rent boats and paddle boards at The Cove, a county park. That contract was also questioned this year by a company that was outbid, publicly claiming River Sports had privileged information about maintenance practices that allowed it to bid lower. Ijams leaders say they’ll continue to limit lake access, although Parker says the boat rental contract will be opened to bidding in the future. County Parks Director Doug Bataille, who also serves on the Ijams board, says he’ll be part of the long-term planning process as Ijams discusses such policies. “The benefit of rental-only access is that it helps ensure a safe and enjoyable experience by limiting the number of boats on such a small body of water,” Bataille says. “We want good public access, but safety is the most important factor.” Hann says he “was one of the chief complainers” about the policy at first, but it now makes sense to him for the same reasons Bataille cites. “I think it had a rocky start, but it’s working out well,” Hann says, noting that private boats can now access the river at Ijams. Partnerships like the one with River Sports allow Ijams to offer experiences it couldn’t manage on its own, Parker says. “That’s why we often work with people to bring someone in who does have that expertise,” she says. But she adds that Ijams should re-evaluate those partnerships each year. “If we ever find it’s in conflict with the mission, then it doesn’t need to happen.” Bumpas says she thinks the for-profit partnerships provide Ijams with benefits beyond dollars—like the way Navitat’s marketing raises Ijams’ profile, too. “(Parker) will be focused on how we maximize those partnerships and looking at new contract terms,” Bumpas says. “Those could go deeper than money—to create a unique experience for visitors so they want to come back, and also to drive revenue back to Ijams.”
Moving Forward Townsend returned to run Ijams in October until a new director was chosen. Its budget had doubled to about $1.2 million since he left, although the number of staff are about the same. “What’s been nice is I think the nature center has taken on its own identity,” Townsend says. “When we did our search for a new director, we had applications from across the country. Ijams is viewed very favorably among other nature centers.” It took only a few months to name a new director. Parker has a history in the region, having served as special programs coordinator and education director at Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont in Great Smoky Mountains National Park from 2001 to 2008. Her most recent job was running the Chincoteague Bay Field Station in Virginia, which juggles many partnerships. No matter how popular recreation at Ijams has become, its mission will always be education, Townsend says. “We recognized early on that if we capture children’s imaginations at 6, 10, even teenagers—when they got older, they had an appreciation for the natural world,” Townsend says. “And so our hope was always that future lawyers, developers, and businessmen
of this community would have that foundational piece within them: ‘I like nature. I want to take care of it.’” Parker’s already planning to add extensive new preschool programming. (Some premier nature centers actually operate a half-day preschool program.) While declining to share details yet, education director Jennifer Roder says the additional preschool offerings “are going to be big.” Parker also wants to expand the current “preschool playdate” model to offer creative, muddy, off-trail experiences to more age groups. A recent playdate featured a “mud pie kitchen.” Naturalist Ashlind Koskela provided a big bin full of sticky mud the consistency of chocolate frosting, and the kids dug in with plastic spatulas and big spoons, “seasoning” their creations—Meatballs! Truffles!—with the dirt under their feet. A little girl shoveling up mulch said, “We need sprinkles.” “One of the things we like to do is find leaves and sticks and make soup for the fairies,” Roder explained. “Someone gets a bonus! Miss Ashlind found a worm!” A parent interrupted to ask on behalf of a teen-age tag-along, “Can he pick up frogs?” “If he’s careful, yes,” Roder replied.
Ijams plans to expand its programming for young children, who enjoy meeting the resident native wildlife and making mud pies at toddler play dates. Above, from left, sisters Sirena Mueller, 3, and Aveana Mueller, 4, sprinkle their creations with moss and bark.
Elizabeth Summers and Lori Lawson said they hope to enroll their (momentarily muddy) 4- and 5-yearold in Ijams’ home school field trip program next year—this year’s home school slots filled in minutes—and wish Ijams offered a curriculum for older home schooled students, too. “You can’t beat the price,” Lawson said. After all, it’s free. “Here you get to learn a ton and get the kids outside.” Parker wants to further explore how Ijams can engage “underserved users” in the community, like those learning English as a second language and those who lack transportation. Ijams has already partnered with Girls Outside for guided girl hikes, and with the Boys and Girls Club of the Tennessee Valley to send inner-city youth to Ijams’ outdoor summer camps for free. (Volunteers were busy last month building new play spaces and an eating area at the camp drop-off.) Parker wants Ijams to be a resource for local governments, too. “Is Ijams just at Ijams, or is it broader?” she asks. “People in the western part of the county may have trouble getting here. Does the county need help with programming in other parts of the county?” To expand adult education options, Parker envisions classes on painting and nature photography. She wants to
of what a real East Tennessee habitat should be like,” Parker says. “Now you have to go to the Smokies to see that, and you shouldn’t have to go that far.” Some choose not to. Stephanie Mueller and her family live in Kodak, about an equal distance from Ijams and Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but she says she often brings her daughters to Ijams because it’s less crowded and offers so many playgroups and programs for young kids. At the preschool playdate mudfest, her daughters Sirena, 3, and Aveana, 4, concentrated seriously on patting mud into aluminum pans and decorating the tops of their “cakes” with moss, mulch and nuts. Parker acknowledges that Ijams’ popularity and all this new programming might lead to increased staff and space needs, as well as more trained
volunteers. (Ijams estimates it already has 1,600 volunteers.) She’d like to create a volunteer speakers’ bureau, for example. “In a couple of years, we’re probably going to be looking at where to have other facilities,” she adds. Before Ijams makes any significant changes, Parker will work with the board on redefining Ijams’ priorities in a five-year plan, Bumpas says.
Parker says she hopes to start that in fall, but needs a grant for planning public stakeholder meetings to get community input. “We want to find a way for everyone to see Ijams holistically,” instead of from the viewpoint of a single type of activity, she says. “We want to help everyone see the whole picture and see a path forward.”
Photo by Michael McCollum
engage visitors in citizen science projects and include more STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) elements in school programs. “Nature centers across the country now are really going to be the ‘go-to places’ for science,” Parker says. “We are seeing some changes in public policy right now, and we have to step up and find new ways to engage the public in science, whether it be climate change, how to deal with invasive plants in your yard, or how to get kids outside.” She says she’d like to start a campaign to educate the public about invasive plants while recruiting volunteers to “help us be warriors” against the English ivy, periwinkle, and other invasives that overrun the woods around Ijams. “We want people to have a vision
Greenbacks for Growing Greenspace Ijams leaders say Knoxville’s premier nature center is in good financial shape. However, the nonprofit has operated at a loss for the last two years. Tax documents show Ijams’ expenses exceeded revenue by about $70,000 in 2015 and by about $54,000 the previous year. (2016 returns are not complete.) Its fund balance appears to have made up the difference, but the nonprofit has been slowly drawing down its savings a little each year, to $3.8 million in 2015. Executive Director Amber Parker says she prefers to see surpluses that can be re-invested into the organization, and will work toward that at Ijams, probably through a combination of program revenue, cost savings, membership, and fundraising. On the plus side, income from contributions and grants increased from about $590,000 in 2014 to $644,000 the following year. Board president Kim Bumpas says she would like Ijams to focus more on meeting revenue goals. Ijams charges small fees (usually between $5 and $15) for some programs. But parking, hiking, biking, and touring the visitor’s center are free. Townsend says the key may be doing a better job of conveying what Ijams is and what it needs. “More and more this recreation piece has come into play, so a lot of people enjoy the park but don’t realize we are underwritten heavily by donations and membership,” Townsend says. “Many people think we’re just a city park, but the city is only about 12 to 13 percent of our budget.” Even Marta Willard, who has brought two generations of children to catch frogs at the pond, didn’t know Ijams had a membership program. She visited on a recent Saturday with her 4-year-old granddaughter Jordan, who was dragging a stick three times her size and weaving it through holes in a big limestone rock. Bumpas says the first priority is getting more of Ijams’ visitors to purchase memberships. Memberships brought in about $200,000 of the $1.2 million in revenue Ijams earned in its last budget year, says Parker.
More for-profit partnerships could also boost revenue. For example, Parker says she’s been talking with Yee-Haw Brewing Company about putting on some food and music events. (Yee-Haw is already the supplier of the beer Ijams sells at Mead’s Quarry.) But Bumpas says she’d also like to see Ijams offer fewer programs and events that don’t relate to nature, like Halloween fright trails and movies. Past and present leaders agreed that it’s unclear how much more room there is for new day-to-day private concessions because of the need to protect habitat for wildlife. Parker says the strategic planning process will look at the question of the carrying capacity in different parts of the park.. “The problem used to be: How do we let people know we’re here? And now it’s: How do we manage all those different uses?” says Bo Townsend, who spent a decade running Ijams in the 1990s and recently returned as interim director until Parker came on board in February. “We may exclude people from certain areas. We’re anticipating that will get harder. So far the impact hasn’t been unmanageable, but I think it could be if we’re not careful.” Still, Parker says an organization needs to be nimble enough to take advantage of opportunities, as Ijams did in acquiring the quarry and establishing boat rentals through River Sports. “I think of it as the ‘ready, fire, aim’ method, and I like it,” she says. “Do it and see what happens, and then you aim it more.” Bumpas says Ijams has missed some opportunities to earn revenue from the outdoor recreation on the property, but declined to elaborate, saying such changes would be up to Parker. “I think if people knew that every dollar you dropped went to the mission, they’d be willing to pay,” Bumpas says.
April 13, 2017 knoxville mercury 19
Program Notes | Inside the Vault | Art | Movies
Rhythm N’ Blooms Roundup
I
f you were looking for some peace and quiet or rest and relaxation last weekend, the Old City wasn’t the place for it. The eighth installment of Dogwood Arts’ Rhythm N’ Blooms music festival hit the neighborhood on Friday, April 7, and ran through Sunday, April 9—three fully packed days and nights of rock, pop, country, folk, and more. Officially a celebration of roots music, Rhythm N’ Blooms challenges the limits of that designation every year. The festival maintained especially loose boundaries in 2017, with headlining sets on the Cripple Creek Stage under Interstate 40 from the laid-back SoCal indie-folk-pop band Young the Giant, New York bohemian internationalists Gogol Bordello, and Nashville singer-songwriter Dave Barnes and appearances by acts as diverse as Beyoncé collaborator Ruby Amanfu, soul survivor Lee Fields, the Asheville experimental jazz trio led by Jon Stickley, Knoxville rapper and spoken-word artist Black Atticus, local electronic R&B duo Peak Physique, and the teenage sister power trio the Pinklets. There were secret shows, late-night jams, the ever-popular silent disco, and panel discussions; 15,000 people from around the world attended the festival. One of those was former Mercury reporter Clay Duda, who visited and took photos. Here’s a sample—visit knoxmercury.com to see all our RN’B pictures. —Matthew Everett
CRUZ CONTRERAS
Photo by Clay Duda
LEE FIELDS
20 knoxville mercury April 13, 2017
THE ROYAL HOUNDS
GOGOL BORDELLO
DAVE EGGARS
NIKKI LANE
Program Notes | Inside the Vault | Art | Movies
Tower Records The Internet rediscovers Knoxville ’70s country-rock band Rich Mountain Tower
BY ERIC DAWSON
I
’m constantly surprised where Knoxville musicians turn up on the Internet. Looking for a copy of the 1969 album by Freddy Fender’s acid-rock group Satan and Deciples [sic] on the underground music website Forced Exposure, I noticed the Aurora label had also reissued Rich Mountain Tower’s debut album on CD. Forced Exposure describes the album as “well ahead of its time.” Named for a ranger lookout in Cades Cove, Knoxville country-rock act Rich Mountain Tower found some national success in the 1970s. With David Carr on lead guitar, William “Sandy” Garrett on bass and vocals, Doug Moisson on lead and pedal steel guitar, Dana Paul on 12-string acoustic guitar and vocals, and Bob Tucillo on drums, the band gained popularity playing in Knoxville clubs like Bradley’s Station, the Place, the Longbranch, and Yosamite [sic] Sam’s before getting their break following a show in Nashville. “We were playing this tiny club in the middle of nowhere,” Paul says, speaking on the phone from his home in the mountains of North Carolina. “Joe Melson, who co-wrote some of
Roy Orbison’s biggest hits, saw us and loved us. He introduced us to Don Tweedy, who had some industry sway after producing Bobby Goldsboro’s 1968 hit ‘Honey.’” Tweedy helped the band sign with Ovation Records and booked studio time. The band recorded its self-titled debut in 1971 with the brand-new Quadrophonic recording process; unfortunately, not many people had the expensive Quadrophonic stereo equipment, so the full sonic experience was largely lost on those who bought the album. Even listening to the record on Spotify with computer speakers, you can tell it was well engineered. It’s a mostly mellow country-rock affair, awash in acoustic guitars and harmonies reminiscent of CSN&Y and the Grateful Dead circa Workingman’s Dead. While mixing the record in Chicago, the band was asked by Ovation to begin work on their second album, Can’t you Feel It? Unfortunately, the label shelved the record, and the band wouldn’t record again until 1975. They continued to play around Knoxville and tour, opening for such
acts as Steppenwolf, the Rascals, the Eagles, Steve Miller, the James Gang, Earl Scruggs, and the Four Seasons. They also found some success gigging in Canada, especially in Montreal. Their third album, Playin’ to the Radio, was recorded there, with Jesse Winchester producing. It was released by the band on their own Beaux Geste label. Curiously, soon after it came out, Ovation decided to finally issue Can’t You Feel It? “We didn’t even know it had come out—they didn’t tell us,” Paul says. “David went to talk to them about royalties from the first album and came back with some copies. I had even left the band by that point. I suspect they did it as a tax write-off.” Though a few tracks sound like outtakes from their mellow country-rock debut, most of Playin’ to the Radio displays a band that has absorbed soul and funk influences, with room for extended guitar solos. The production isn’t as fussed over as the Quadrophonic Nashville sessions, resulting in a sound not unlike Tom Dowd’s work on Derek and the Dominos’ Layla. It’s the band’s loosest and most rocking effort, but there weren’t many copies pressed. It’s the most difficult to find of the band’s records. Today, Garrett still lives in Knoxville and operates Songwriters Recording Studio. Paul runs a pottery business in North Carolina, occasionally getting together with Knoxville’s Lonesome Coyotes to play music. Carr and Tucillo have died. Rich Mountain Tower has had something of a second life in the Internet age. A blog devoted to “Southern flavored rock” made all three of the band’s albums available for download, and Paul filled in some band history in the comments section. He was unaware, however, that the debut album had been reissued on CD. “You’re telling me something I didn’t know,” he says. “They didn’t contact us at all. But I’m just glad our music is reaching people any way it can. I’ll have to contact them and see if I can get a CD.”
Live Music | Dancing | Spirits | Food & Fun! 865-525-6101 • KNOXART.ORG
SELECTED FRIDAYS @ 6:00 - 8:30pm
April 14th
with Aftah Party
April 21st
with Mac Arnold & Plate Full O’ Blues
April 28th
with Geoff Achison & The Soul Diggers
865-525-6101 KNOXART.ORG LIKE US ON c
ALIVE AFTER FIVE KNOXVILLE MUSEUM OF @RT
Inside the Vault searches the Knox County Public Library’s Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound for nuggets of lost Knoxville music and film history. April 13, 2017 knoxville mercury 21
Program Notes | Inside the Vault | Art | Movies
Photo courtesy of UT Downtown Gallery
Water Lines Alison Saar’s Breach reflects on 21st-century injustice by exploring the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927
BY DENISE STEWART-SANABRIA
T
he most horrific flood in recorded American history was the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. What happened in the official response to the flood and how it impacted people in its path is the basis for Alison Saar’s Breach, currently on display at the University of Tennessee’s Downtown Gallery. Saar, a California artist, had been researching the event when she visited New Orleans eight years after Hurricane Katrina. She was shocked at how little recovery was evident in the Ninth Ward, the poorest section of the city, with the lowest elevations.
22 knoxville mercury April 13, 2017
The correlation between the two historic events, almost a century apart, was disturbing. The massive flooding in 1927 impacted 27,000 square miles, up to 30 feet deep at its epicenter. The initial levee breach, in Mound Landing, Miss., had twice the velocity of Niagara Falls. Of 630,000 people affected by the flood, 200,000 were African Americans, most of them sharecroppers. The flood magnified the already unjust sharecropping system to beyond criminal. When you enter the Downtown Gallery and view Breach, it is possible
to envision what the gallery would look like filled with water. Saar’s unframed figurative drawings, all containing a continuous water horizon line, hang on opposing walls. Three figurative sculptures in the center floor area could each be making its way through the same imaginary floodplain. The largest sculpture, “Breach,” is a commanding life-size nude wood sculpture covered with a surface of vintage patterned tin ceiling tile. She holds a long wooden staff to guide the raft she stands on and carries her worldly goods—a massive stacked pile of steamer trunks, pans, books, and a chair—balanced on her head. The patterns of the ceiling tile are reminiscent of traditional scarification patterns practiced by many West African tribes whose members were kidnapped and sold into slavery. Saar created her as a natural-disaster survivor Mami Wata water spirit, more powerful and protective than dangerous. The two smaller sculptures and a series of four drawings speak of the culturally significant music and dance that emerged from the flood. “Siltdown Shimmy” and “Black Bottom Stomp,” both named for emergent dances, had river silt embedded into their tin tile surface. Bessie Smith’s “Black Water Blues,” from 1926, describes the Cumberland River flood that seemed to predict the monster to come. Most iconic down through the generations was Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy’s “When the Levee Breaks.” A low musical soundtrack of these songs lent atmosphere on First Friday. Saar’s unframed drawings are rendered with charcoal, watercolor, and indigo dye on vintage cloth sugar sacks with the original patchwork remaining. The figures inhabit the fabric with a kind of organic tactile patina. They don’t struggle under the stacked possessions on their heads, but seem to glide effortlessly through the transparently stained water. Two of the drawings are stretched over the bottoms of steamer-trunk drawers. “Silted Brow” portrays Saar’s only casualty of the devastation, the subject figure lying beneath the water with her head at an unnatural angle. The painted figures dance in a trance state through the floodwater on
strips of mattress ticking and canvas. Their eyes, left blank, seem to defy outside intrusion. “Backwater Boogie,” “Sluefoot Slide,” “Swampside Shag,” and “Muddy Water Mambo” need no further explanation. An intriguing extension of the Breach installation is found at the rear of the gallery. A collaboration project with poet Samiya Bashir, “Haydes D.W.P. ll (Department of Water and Power)” is an indictment of the failure of Flint, Mich., to provide safe drinking water to its citizens, filtered through Greek mythology. Five jars of alarmingly colored “drinking” water sit on a shelf, each with an accompanying drinking ladle. Each jar is named after one of the five rivers of death: Acheron, the river of pain; Phlegethon, the river of fire; Lethe, the river of forgetfulness; Styx, the river of hatred; and Cocytus, the river of wailing. Bashir’s sharp and minimal prose, delicately transferred onto sheer fabric, beats out insistent phrases that call for awareness. We are living in a world where recurring injustices can never be excused. Thousands of years of art and literature have repeatedly illuminated humanity’s failings. As a contemporary participant in this chain of communication, Alison Saar’s eloquent work quietly asks for attention and justice, once again.
WHAT Alison Saar: Breach WHERE University of Tennessee Downtown Gallery (106 S. Gay St.) WHEN Through April 29 HOW MUCH Free INFO downtown.utk.edu
Program Notes | Inside the Vault | Art | Movies
Shell Game Soulless remake underscores Ghost in the Shell’s revolutionary 1995 significance
BY APRIL SNELLINGS
G
reat science fiction doesn’t always age well, but Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 anime classic Ghost in the Shell still feels remarkably prescient and forward-looking. That’s probably because it had so much more on its mind than its obvious cyberpunk trappings. It was the post-Blade Runner standard-bearer for stories about the eroding lines between humanity and technology, but it also touched on whether ethnic and tribal barriers might be even harder to erase, wondered if we were evolving toward a post-gender society, and considered what all that might mean for notions of identity and individualism. The film and its 2004 sequel have held up well—arguably even better than the manga that inspired them. So it’s strange that the inevitable but long-delayed Hollywood remake, which boasts cutting-edge visual effects and America’s most bankable actress, feels so dated. There’s some
novelty, I guess, in seeing some of the anime’s most memorable images rendered as seamless CG effects, and watching Scarlett Johansson play a character wearing a slinky human suit hasn’t gotten old yet. But you’d need to plug yourself into a pre-Matrix mainframe to find much else of interest here. The bones of the plot have been ported over more or less intact: Johansson stars as Major, a woman whose brain has been plucked from a human body and installed in a sleek, super-powered humanoid form. Major works for a government security agency that has been more or less taken over by a shadowy corporation called Hanka Robotics, and soon her work puts her at odds with a seemingly superhuman hacker (Michael Pitt) who means to take down the company and anyone associated with it. There are flashy visuals, to be sure, many of which are almost shot-for-shot reconstructions of
sequences from Oshii’s film. Major’s techno-ethereal birthing from a vat of milky fluid is faithfully reproduced, as are her balletic freefalls and her habit of switching to invisibility mode to clear a roomful of heavies. (My fellow nerds of a certain age will remember that this is called thermoptic camouflage, and that it was a novel visual effect in 1995.) As much as director Rupert Sanders (Snow White and the Huntsman) fetishizes the franchise’s now-classic imagery, though, he and his writers (Jamie Moss, William Wheeler, and Ehren Kruger) ignore everything that’s really interesting about the property, opting instead for something that’s more in line with a by-the-numbers superhero origin story. There are more troubling problems, too, like the now-infamous choice to retain the film’s Asian setting but cast Caucasian actors in all but one of its major roles. (The script actually addresses this choice, in a stunningly tone-deaf plot twist.) Still, the international cast, which includes Japanese pop-culture legend “Beat” Takeshi Kitano, as Major’s handler, and Danish actor Pilou Asbæk, as her camera-eyed sidekick, is the film’s strongest asset, and its best moments are the quiet interludes between the slick but too-familiar action scenes. There was a time when seeing Johansson take out a clutch of sweaty mobsters while chained to a stripper pole would have been a special effect in and of itself. Now it just seems like a good time to make a popcorn run. The film’s one noteworthy stylistic contribution is a pulsing, hypnotic score by Clint Mansell and Lorne Balfe; the visuals, though competently executed, are mostly borrowed from other, better films. If the only goal was to purge the story of its philosophical underpinnings and still-relevant social commentary and reduce it to a forgettable action flick, Paramount’s glitzy rehash is pretty successful. And now that I think about it, maybe there’s a bleak, if entirely accidental, statement hiding beneath the CG veneer. It’s more than a little creepy, after all, that this new high-tech iteration of a story about the evolution of the soul doesn’t have one of its own. April 13, 2017 knoxville mercury 23
EMILY ANN ROBERTS
Thursday, April 13 — Sunday, April 23
MUSIC Thursday, April 13 DAVID DONDERO WITH RIVERBED REUNION • WDVX • 12PM
• Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week live-broadcast lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE EMILY ANN ROBERTS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 6PM • The WDVX 6 O’Clock Swerve is weekly musical trip with talented regional artists featuring live performances and insightful interviews in a living room atmosphere. • FREE COCO MONTOYA • The Concourse • 7:30PM • Montoya’s unpredictable guitar playing and smoking soul vocals blend effortlessly with a backing band featuring renowned musicians . • $20-$25 MARIA SCHNEIDER • Bijou Theatre • 8PM • Maria Schneider is quite simply one of the world’s most acclaimed composers. Her music has been hailed by critics as “evocative, majestic, magical, and heart-stoppingly gorgeous.” Her five Grammy awards (two this year alone) come in multiple genres, including jazz, classical and a collaboration with pop icon David Bowie. Visit knoxjazz.org. • $35.50 CRAWDADDY JONES • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 8PM KATH BLOOM • Pilot Light • 8PM • 18 and up. • $10 SILENT HORROR WITH LA BASURA DEL DIABLO AND U.S. POLICE STATE • The Open Chord • 8PM • All ages. • $5 MO LOWDA AND THE HUMBLE WITH ELYSIAN FEEL •
Preservation Pub • 9PM JON DEE GRAHAM WITH AMY COOK • Barley’s Taproom
and Pizzeria • 10PM BRAD BLACKWELL • Wild Wing Cafe • 9PM • FREE
Friday, April 14 THE DARREN ZANCAN BAND WITH KIRBY SYBERT AND KALOB GRIFFIN • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue
Plate Special, a six-days-a-week live-broadcast lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE LUCY ROSE GEORGE • Vienna Coffee House ( Maryville) • 6PM • FREE RODNEY PARKER AND 50 PESO REWARD • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 7PM • FREE FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose • 8PM • FREE ANDY WOOD • Bijou Theatre • 8PM • Andy Wood is 24 knoxville mercury April 13, 2017
recognized as part of the forefront of this generation’s top influential guitarists. Currently touring as the guitarist and mandolinist for country super group Rascal Flatts, Andy is also performing live with his own band promoting Caught Between the Truth and a Lie, the new double album which showcases Andy’s vast musical influences and abilities. • $16.50-$18.50 MALCOLM HOLCOMBE • Laurel Theater • 8PM • Malcolm Holcombe is highly regarded and recognized by contemporaries in Americana music including Emmylou Harris, Wilco, Steve Earle. His most recent release Another Black Hole features the mix of country, acoustic blues and rugged folk his many fans admire. • $13 BOMBADIL WITH BRISTON MARONEY • The Open Chord • 8PM • All ages. • $10-$12 THE PAUL WARREN PROJECT • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM THE JEFF JOPLING BAND • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 9PM THE YOUNG FABLES • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 9PM TENNESSEE’S DEAD • Scruffy City Hall • 9PM ASEETHE WITH BEREFT • The Birdhouse • 9:30PM • Aseethe’s unrelenting slow-doom is often compared to drone music because of its core repetitions. This distinctly non-metal approach combined with harsh vocals and unusual samples gives Aseethe a unique voice among metal’s boundary pushers. Bereft is a post metal band from Madison, Wis., blending classic doom and black metal styles into a loud and atmospheric wall of music. ALL THEM WITCHES • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • The Nashville band All Them Witches has been heading toward something big since forming back in 2012. With Dying Surfer Meets His Maker, recorded in 2015 in Pigeon Forge, they nailed it—their third album (following Our Mother Electricity and Lightning at the Door) was a heady chunk of psychedelic existentialism. They’ve just released their fourth album, Sleeping Through the War. • $5 FIRESIDE COLLECTIVE • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE THE WILD THINGS • Preservation Pub • 10PM ALIVE AFTER FIVE: AFTAH PARTY • Knoxville Museum of Art • 6PM • Formed in 2008, this 10-member band with 3-piece horn section is based out of Knoxville is known for their high energy performances and large diverse crowds. The band draws inspiration from artists such as Stevie Wonder, P-Funk, Jimi Hendrix, Chaka Khan, Prince, and Erykah Badu to name a few. In 2009, they released their debut album “Welcome To
Photo courtesy of WME Entertainment
SPOTLIGHTS 27 Welcome to Night Vale 31 Steel Panther
Date
Saturday, April 15
EMILY ANN ROBERTS
EARTHFEST
Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 6 p.m. • Free • The former Voice runner-up returns to her home town for a slot on WDVX’s weekly Six O’Clock Swerve live broadcast series from the Old City.
Knoxville Botanical Garden • 11 a.m.-5 p.m. • Free • Celebrate Mother Nature at this annual zero-waste party—there’s live music, food, drinks, information booths, and entertainment for kids.
Friday, April 14
Wednesday, April 19
ALIVE AFTER FIVE: AFTAH PARTY
CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS
Knoxville Museum of Art • 6 p.m. • $10 • This 10-member band brings its mashup of R&B, funk, soul, and hip-hop to KMA’s weekly dance party.
ANDY WOOD Bijou Theatre • 8 p.m. • $16.50-$18.50 • Wood, a local bluegrass prodigy and former guitarist for the hard-rock band Down From Up, takes a break from the Rascal Flatts touring band to showcase his own jazz/country/rock fusion.
ALL THEM WITCHES Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10 p.m. • $5 • Nashville’s gnarly psychedelic adventurers are frequent visitors to Knoxville, bringing a heady mix of Crazy Horse-style feedback jams and brain-ripping riffs. This time, they’ll be playing music from their brand-new album, Sleeping Through the War.
Clarence Brown Theatre • 7:30 p.m. • $22-$42 • The stage adaptation of Jules Verne’s classic adventure novel, about Phileas Fogg’s breakneck world tour with his valet, Passepartout, closes Clarence Brown Theatre’s 2016-17 season. Through May 7. ALL THEM WITCHES
April 13 – April 23
Tha Aftah Party,” an eclectic blend of soul, jazz, blues, and funk. • $10 THE POP ROX • Wild Wing Cafe • 10PM • FREE BUKU WITH DMVU, EDE GEE, AND OOKAY DADDY • The Concourse • 10PM • From the first glimpses of Robert Balotsky’s work as Buku, it was clear that the Pittsburgh native and graduate of Music Technology was onto something. With an effortless grasp on sound design and music theory, the young producer combines deceptively simple and emotive melodies, laden with resounding bass drops and intricate drum patterns. With a love of drums rooting from childhood, his work reflects the obsession – emitting percussive elements only a trained ear could produce. 18 and up. Visit internationalknox.com. • $10-$15
Saturday, April 15 THE YOUNG FABLES WITH KRISTA SHOWS AND SCOTT SHARPE • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate
Special, a six-days-a-week live-broadcast lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE STEPHEN RHODES • Vienna Coffee House (Maryville) • 6PM • FREE BADD HATT’RS WITH COVALENCE • Pilot Light • 6PM • All ages. • $5 CHRISTIAN LOPEZ AND DON GALLARDO • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 7PM • FREE APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION WITH THE NICK SWAN BAND • The Shed at Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson (Maryville) • 7:30PM • A tribute to Guns N’ Roses. • $10 THE NAUGHTY KNOTS • Laurel Theater • 8PM • The East Tennessee trio The Naughty Knots bring together a blend of country, jazz and blues and old time fiddle tunes that are as homegrown as garden tomatoes. • $15 SUNSHINE STATION • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM • Local trippy-hippy music. COUNTY WIDE • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 9PM CINEMECHANICA WITH GAMENIGHT, GEOMETERS, AND MEMORYFOX • Pilot Light • 9PM • 18 and up. • $5 TREETOPS WITH MILKSHAKE FATTY • Preservation Pub •
9PM ROOTS OF A REBELLION • Scruffy City Hall • 9PM SAM OUTLAW • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM •
Sam Outlaw is a country singer living in Los Angeles. His songs capture the spirit of the classic country and rock music he learned from his favorite singers and songwriters, such as Don Williams, James Taylor, Gene Watson, Keith Whitley, Tom Petty and Gram Parsons. • $5 M. ROSS PERKINS • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE KNOXVILLE PLAYS IT FORWARD MUSIC FEST • The Open Chord • 7PM • The primary purpose of Knoxville Pays It Forward is to help low income families, the homeless, the disadvantaged, and senior citizens. With music by the Chillbillies, Mystic Rhythm Tribe, Kincaid, the Real Life Heavies, and Larry Blair. All ages. Visit openchordmusic.com. • $10 THE BLAIR EXPERIENCE • Wild Wing Cafe • 10PM • FREE
Sunday, April 16
SUNDAY JAZZ BRUNCH • Downtown Grill and Brewery •
11AM • Knoxville’s coolest jazz artists perform every Sunday. • FREE PALE ROOT • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM • FREE NATTY’S COMMON ROOTS • Preservation Pub • 10PM
Monday, April 17 TOM SAVAGE WITH THE ADAM LOPEZ TRIO • WDVX • 12PM
• Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week live-broadcast lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE THE BROTHERS BURN MOUNTAIN • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • • FREE T.V. MIKE AND THE SCARECROWES • Preservation Pub • 10PM • “Cosmic twang stompers” from the West Coast. 21 and up. HIP NIGHT WITH BEN SHUSTER • Wild Wing Cafe • 10PM • FREE SAMURAI SHOTGUN WITH BANGARANG, RISING DOWN, 79 SORCERY, WALLY CLARK, AND EARL GRAE • Scruffy City
Hall • 10PM
Tuesday, April 18 LA TERZA CLASSE WITH TV MIKE AND THE SCARECROWES •
WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week live-broadcast lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE STONEY POINT • Wild Wing Cafe • 5:30PM • FREE BOBAFLEX WITH ANOTHER LOST YEAR, THE COMPLICATION, ANNANDALE, AND MUDD • The Open Chord • 7PM • All
ages. Visit openchordmusic.com. • $15 CODY JINKS WITH WARD DAVIS AND COLTER WALL • The Mill and Mine • 8PM • After a dedicated stint as a frontman in a thrash metal band, Jinks willingly found himself back to where it all began. “My dad loved the outlaw country icons, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard. That never ending consistency of incredible music growing up laid some very deep seeds.” • $25-$30 STEEL PANTHER • The International • 8PM • The Los Angeles glam band Steel Panther has released four albums of increasingly raunchy and over-the-top party rock. 18 and up. Visit internationalknox.com. • $22-$45 • See Spotlight on page 31. TIME WITH COFFINWOMB, GOD’S BUFFET, AND CRISWELL COLLECTIVE • Pilot Light • 9PM • 18 and up. • $5 THE LOST FIDDLE STRING BAND • Barley’s Taproom and
Pizzeria • 10PM • FREE LA TERZA CLASSE • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up.
The intrepid Phileas Fogg with his loyal valet, Passepartout, voyage from Victorian London through the Indian subcontinent, to Asia and across the Pacific to America on a wager that he will return in precisely 80 days. Literally, a theatrical tour-de-force.
This production employs the use of haze, fog, strobe lights and the sound effects of gunfire.
Wednesday, April 19 THE ZACH LONGORIA PROJECT WITH DARYL SHAWN • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week live-broadcast lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE SONGWRITERS IN THE SOUL HOUSE: TIM CARROLL AND LUELLA
• Sweet P’s Barbecue and Soul House • 6PM • FREE April 13, 2017 knoxville mercury 25
April 13 – April 23
FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose
room atmosphere. • FREE
• 6:30PM • FREE
THE WIDDLER WITH LEVITATION JONES, REZ, ORCHESTROBE, HYPERBOLIC HEADSPACE, PROPHET, AND NEMATODES • The
TENNESSEE SHINES: THE JOSH DANIEL AND MARK SCHIMICK PROJECT • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7PM • Part of
WDVX’s weekly live-broadcast series. • $10 MIKE MCGILL • Sweet P’s Downtown Dive • 7PM • • FREE NATHANIEL RATELIFF AND THE NIGHT SWEATS • The Mill and Mine • 8PM • Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats practically explodes with deep, primal and ecstatic soulfulness. This stunning work isn’t just soul stirring, it’s also soul baring, and the combination is absolutely devastating to behold. Visit themillandmine. com or nathanielrateliff.com. 18 and up. • $25-$28 MIKE SNODGRASS • Wild Wing Cafe • 8PM • FREE KARIMA WALKER • Pilot Light • 9PM • 18 and up. • $5 THE CAM DUFFY BAND • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up.
Thursday, April 20 WILLIAM MATHENY WITH LAUREN LIZABETH • WDVX •
12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week live-broadcast lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE PAUL LEE KUPFER • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 6PM • The WDVX 6 O’Clock Swerve is weekly musical trip with talented regional artists featuring live performances and insightful interviews in a living
Concourse • 8PM • 18 and up. Visit internationalknox. com. • $15-$20 MIKE BAGGETTA • Pilot Light • 8PM • $5 JASON ELLIS • Wild Wing Cafe • 9PM • FREE THE MALLET BROTHERS WITH MATT URMY • Preservation Pub • 9PM • 21 and up. PAUL LEE KUPFER • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • FREE
Friday, April 21 BRACKISH WATER JAMBOREE WITH DAVID CLIFTON • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week live-broadcast lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE ANDY SNEED • Vienna Coffee House (Maryville) • 6PM • FREE ALIVE AFTER FIVE: MAC ARNOLD AND PLATEFUL O’ BLUES • Knoxville Museum of Art • 6PM • $15 FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose • 8PM • FREE 90S GRUNGE NIGHT • The Open Chord • 8PM • The Crucible is a timely and historical snapshot of the powerful force that comes from a conviction of lies and hysteria, and the deadly aftermath of those
convictions in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. April 21-23. Visit music.uk.edu. • $5 EMMA HERN • Preservation Pub • 8PM • 21 and up. THREE BEAN SOUP • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM THE MATTHEW HICKEY BAND • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 9PM OLIVIA BAKER • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 9PM BOY NAMED BANJO • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • $5 TINY HAZARD • Pilot Light • 10PM • 18 and up. • $5 STEVE RUTLEDGE AND THE GROOVE EVOLUTION • Wild Wing Cafe • 10PM • FREE
PERRY BONCK • Vienna Coffee House (Maryville) • 6PM• JASON ISBELL WITH WILLIAM TYLER • Tennessee Theatre
KEYS N KRATES WITH BRANCHEZ, FISHERMEN, SPOOKY JONES, AND PSYCHONAUT • The International • 10PM • 18
and up. Visit internationalknox.com. • $20-$45 THE HOLLOWS WITH SOUTHERN ACCENTS • Scruffy City Hall • 10PM CHARGE THE ATLANTIC WITH OMEGA SWAN • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up.
Saturday, April 22 DAVID LUNING WITH STEVEN J. PUSH • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week live-broadcast lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE
• 8PM • Every once in a while, a popular musician comes along whose work is both profoundly personal and evocative of the larger moment. The work of such artists as Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, and Kurt Cobain – and now Jason Isbell, with his new album Something More Than Free – spreads irresistibly outward from the soul. • $44-$79 JAY CLARK AND GREG HORNE • Laurel Theater • 8PM • With a style best described as a mixture of folk and bluegrass, Jay Clark’s handcrafted lyrics run the gamut of hard living, hard drinking, civil disobedience, and old-time religion. Greg Horne has been a fixture on the Knoxville song writing and old time music scene for many years. Both have recently published CDs -- Jay’s Of Mountains & Heartbreak and Greg’s Working on Engines. • $15 EUPHORIA • The Open Chord • 8PM • A benefit for the Joy of Music School. All ages. Visit openchordmusic. com. • $8-$10 THE JOHN SUTTON BAND • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM BETTER DAZE • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 9PM AVENUE C • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 9PM THE REALITY • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 9PM THE KARATE IN THE GARAGE TOUR • The International • 9PM • With Step Brothers, Scotty ATL, and RedDot. 18
Yee-Haw Brewing Co. Presents tHe 2017
Arcade Decathlon Benefiting
A contest featuring a different arcade game each month to crown the next king or queen of the arcade in Knoxville!
Round 1 Skeeball WinnER Pone Tone
Round 9
Grand Prize for november 16 the winner of Galaga ROUND 2 is a pair of passes to see Spoon at the Round 8 october 19 Mill & Mine! All proceeds go to help to keep Volunteer Radio 90.3 The Rock on the air!
wUtK 90.3
Round 2 Thursday April 20 “Foos20!” Foosball
Each event is a mini-tourney to determine who squares off in the Round 3 Championship event. May 18
Afterburner & Tomcat
2017
Championship Event december 14
Ghosts & Goblins
Sponsored by Harrogate’s Lounge and KS Absher Marketing & Events
Round 7 September 21 darts
Registration: 6-7 pm Competition: 7 pm
Round 4 June 15 nBA Jam
10
$
registration fee for each event
Round 5 July 20 Cruisin’ uSA
Round 6 August 17 Pinball
Cool raffle prizes eaCh night for partiCipants! Stay tuned to WUTK and check out wutkradio.com for details!
Streaming 24.7.365 at WUTKRADIO.COM 26 knoxville mercury April 13, 2017
April 13 – April 23
and up. Visit internationalknox.com. • $20-$75 BREATHERS WITH PERSONA LA AVE, FLORAL PRINT, AND A CERTAIN ZONE • Pilot Light • 9PM • 18 and up. • $6 KITTY WAMPUS • Paul’s Oasis • 9:30PM THE DEEP FRIED 5 • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM THE MIKE SNODGRASS BAND • Wild Wing Cafe • 10PM •
FREE SOULFINGER • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up.
Sunday, April 23 SUNDAY JAZZ BRUNCH • Downtown Grill and Brewery •
11AM • Knoxville’s coolest jazz artists perform every Sunday. • FREE SMOKY MOUNTAIN BLUES SOCIETY BLUES CRUISE • Star of Knoxville Riverboat • 4PM • Join the Smoky Mountain Blues Society as they present some of the best-known local, regional, and nationally touring blues artists during specialty cruises on the Tennessee River. Call (865) 525-7827 or visit tnriverboat.com/blues-cruises-2. • $16-$20 FAMOUS LAST WORDS WITH THE FUNERAL PORTRAIT, CONVICTIONS, AND THE CREATURES IN SECRET • The Open
Chord • 7PM • All ages. Visit openchordmusic.com. • $10-$12 JASON ISBELL WITH WILLIAM TYLER • Tennessee Theatre • 8PM • $44-$79 RUNNING DOGS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM SWEET SWEET • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. THE TURNPIKE TROUBADOURS WITH THE CORDOVAS • The Mill and Mine • 8PM • Over the course of the past five years, the Turnpike Troubadours have honed the rowdy, quick-witted sound that’s brought folks of all stripes together in front of those stages. And on Goodbye Normal Street, the Troubadours’ third full-length album, the band takes that blend of nice and easy and nice and rough and distills it into a 43-minute ride that takes in the scenery of America’s Heartland and the inner workings of a group of 20-somethings on a quest for something better. 18 and up. • $18-$20
OPEN MIC AND SONGWRITER NIGHTS Thursday, April 13 SCOTTISH MUSIC SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM
• Visit jigandreel.com. • FREE
Tuesday, April 18 PRESERVATION PUB SINGER-SONGWRITER NIGHT •
Preservation Pub • 7PM • 21 and up. Visit scruffycity. com. OLD-TIME JAM SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • Visit jigandreel.com. • FREE
Wednesday, April 19 OPEN CHORD OPEN MIC NIGHT • The Open Chord • 7PM •
For bands and solo performers. Sign-up starts at 6 p.m. Visit openchordmusic.com. • FREE BRACKINS BLUES JAM • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville)•
Welcome to Night Vale Bijou Theatre (803 S. Gay St.) • Saturday, April 15 • 8 p.m. • $25-$35 • knoxbijou.com or welcometonightvale.com As of this writing, the fiction podcast Welcome to Night Vale has produced more than 100 episodes over five years, and its writers Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor have co-written two novels based on the Night Vale world. Additionally, they take the show on the road. The live shows share the podcast format of broadcasts from the unusually perilous desert town of Night Vale, reporting in frequently H.P. Lovecraft-inspired language the city’s strange everyday goings-on: the movements of a sinister, hive-minded city council; the machinations of a five-headed dragon whose heads are at odds; a parallel dimension lurking in the dog park; and various other hyphenated and cockeyed things hiding in plain sight. A central architectural concept of Lovecraft stories is the fact that horror exists within the human mind. (That, and a belief in white racial supremacy.) That notion that madness is the inescapable, truly horrific conclusion of glimpsing what goes bump in the night sounds awfully quaint in a world where The Human Centipede-level body horror exists. But it’s the same world enamored with podcasts, and therefore one ready to embrace that rich mine of evocative language. Night Vale takes advantage of both positions and plays them to satisfying—and occasionally deeply touching—comic and dramatic effect, insisting that regular life trains people to deal with absurdity, and anyone who has lived is no stranger to some degree of existential madness. Expect long and winding expressions of ennui, abrupt tone shifts from ominous to buoyant, and a hard-won happy ending. This optimism in the face of unfriendly forces is given life through Night Vale’s deeply human characters (even when they aren’t human). That burden falls mostly to Night Vale star and Knoxville native Cecil Baldwin, whose narration moves nimbly from knowing to adorably dunderheaded as the script demands. Baldwin makes everyman community radio announcer Cecil Palmer irrepressibly lovable as he wears his heart on his sleeve. Perhaps the best illustration of just how charming Baldwin has been in this role is an episode in which he barely appears: Night Vale’s 100th celebratory episode. It features the rotating cast of guest stars offering congratulations, one by one. As the episode unfolds (spoiler), it’s revealed that the residents of Night Vale aren’t patting the show on the back, but rather toasting Palmer’s marriage to his boyfriend, Carlos (try getting that deal out of Lovecraft). I totally cried. At heart, Night Vale is about celebrating people, who are resilient and powerful and will fight for each other, hard. And, much as in real life, that power of human love extends to floating cats living in the radio station bathroom. (Amanda Mohney)
April 13, 2017 knoxville mercury 27
April 13 – April 23
9PM • A weekly open session hosted by Tommie John. Visit Facebook.com/BrackinsBlues. • FREE
convictions in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. April 21-23. Visit music.uk.edu. • $20
Thursday, April 20
Saturday, April 22
IRISH MUSIC SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM •
UT OPERA THEATRE: ‘THE CRUCIBLE’ • Bijou Theatre •
Held on the first and third Thursdays of each month. Visit jigandreel.com. • FREE
2:30PM and 8PM • April 21-23. Visit music.uk.edu. • $20 BELLE TRISTE • Episcopal Church of the Good Samaritan • 7PM • Belle Triste consists of Candice Mowbray on classical guitar and Anita Thomas on clarinet. Through carefully-chosen repertoire, new arrangements and original compositions, Belle Triste has prepared a thoughtful, expressive and entertaining program of music that brings influences of many genres into a classical setting and appeals to a broad range of audiences. Visit knoxvilleguitar.org. • $20
DJ AND DANCE NIGHTS Saturday, April 15 TEMPLE DANCE NIGHT • The Concourse • 9PM •
Knoxville’s long-running alternative once night. 18 and up. Visit facebook.com/templeknoxville. • $5
CLASSICAL MUSIC
Sunday, April 23
Thursday, April 20
UT OPERA THEATRE: ‘THE CRUCIBLE’ • Bijou Theatre •
KSO MASTERWORKS: GOLKA PLAYS CHOPIN • Tennessee
2:30PM • April 21-23. Visit music.uk.edu. • $20
Theatre • 7:30PM • Notable concert pianist Adam Golka returns to Knoxville to join the KSO in April for Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1. . • $13-$83
THEATRE AND DANCE
Friday, April 21
Clarence Brown Theatre clarencebrowntheatre.com
UT OPERA THEATRE: ‘THE CRUCIBLE’ • Bijou Theatre • 8PM
TOP GIRLS • What would you sacrifice to get to the top?
• The Crucible is a timely and historical snapshot of the powerful force that comes from a conviction of lies and hysteria, and the deadly aftermath of those
In a world of the “Supermom” and a shattering glass ceiling, Caryl Churchill’s play considers the conflicts that come with the pursuit of success and the desire
Theatre Knoxville Downtown theatreknoxville.com
to “have it all.” March 29-April 16 at Clarence Brown Lab Theatre. AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS • Adapted by Mark Brown from the novel by Jules Verne. The intrepid Phileas Fogg with his loyal valet, Passepartout, voyage from Victorian London through the Indian subcontinent, to Asia and across the Pacific to America on a wager that he will return in precisely 80 days. Literally, a theatrical tour-de-force. April 19-May 7.
SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE FINAL ADVENTURE • The world’s
greatest detective has seemingly reached the end of his remarkable career when a case presents itself that is too tempting to ignore. In this spirited, fast-moving and thoroughly theatrical adaptation, Steven Dietz presents Holmes at the height of his powers. April 21-May 7.
Knoxville Children’s Theatre knoxvillechildrenstheatre.com
COMEDY AND SPOKEN WORD
THE MIRACLE WORKER • Trapped in a secret, silent
Thursday, April 13
world, unable to communicate, young Helen Keller is violent, spoiled, almost subhuman, and treated by her family as such. Only Annie Sullivan, a young Irish teacher, realizes there is a mind and spirit inside Helen, waiting to be rescued from the dark and tortured silence. March 31-April 16. • $12
PIZZA HAS • Pizza Hoss • 8PM • On the second Thursday
of the month, Pizza Hoss in Powell hosts a showcase featuring sets from some of the best comedians in East Tennessee along with selected up-and-coming talent. Each month one of the hosts of Rain/Shine Event productions (Shane Rhyne, Tyler Sonnichsen, and Sean Simoneau) serves as your guide to introduce you the best of our region’s comedy scene. • FREE
Pellissippi State Community College pstcc.edu
Saturday, April 15
ONE’S NIGHT • An evening of student-written one-act plays: The Stubborn Artichoke and the Pompous Potato; Lauren Spencer Is Ready to Die; Serve and Protect; Alexandra; and Dominant Women. April 14-23.
WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE • Bijou Theatre • 8PM •
Welcome to Night Vale is a twice-monthly podcast in the style of community updates for the small desert town of Night Vale, featuring local weather, news,
Bach or Basie? Your music, your choice. Your classical and jazz station.
THE UT DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY PRESENTS
HISTORY STUDIES FUND VISITING SCHOLAR LECTURE SERIES
THE EMPIRE OF NECESSITY:
Slavery in Herman Melville’s America The Empire of Necessity paints an indelible portrait of a world in the throes of revolution, providing a new transnational history of slavery in the Americas and capturing the clash of peoples, economies, and faiths that was the New World in the early 1800s.
APRIL 20, 3:30 PM
HOWARD H. BAKER CENTER FOR PUBLIC POLICY, RM. 103
SPEAKER: GREG GRANDIN Professor of History, New York University
FIX THIS BASTARD 28 knoxville mercury April 13, 2017 WUOT_Ad_4.625x5.25_ClassicalJazz_KnoxMerc.indd 2
9/17/16 5:00 PM
Free and open to the public. history.utk.edu
April 13 – April 23
announcements from the Sheriff’s Secret Police, mysterious lights in the night sky, dark hooded figures with unknowable powers, and cultural events. Turn on your radio and hide. • $25-$35 • See Spotlight on page 27.
Monday, April 17
JOIN US FOR THE 15TH ANNUAL
SPRING WILDFLOWER PILGRIMAGE • Great Smoky Mountains National Park • Details online at springwildflowerpilgrimage.org/.
SMOKY MOUNTAIN FIBER ARTS FESTIVAL • Townsend
comedy night named after the former red-light district near the Old City. Visit facebook.com/friendlytownknoxville. 18 and up. • FREE
Tuesday, April 18
Saturday, April 22
EINSTEIN SIMPLIFIED • Scruffy City Hall • 8PM • Einstein
SMOKY MOUNTAIN FIBER ARTS FESTIVAL • Townsend
Simplified Comedy performs live comedy improv at Scruffy City Hall. It’s just like Whose Line Is It Anyway, but you get to make the suggestions. Show starts at 8:15, get there early for the best seats. No cover. Visit einsteinsimplified.com. • FREE
Visitor’s Center • 9AM • Visit smokymountainfiberartsfestival.org. ROSSINI FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL STREET FAIR • Downtown Knoxville • 10AM • Knoxville Opera’s annual Rossini Festival International Street Fair, now in it’s 16th year, has been designated a “legacy event” by Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero and serves as a celebration of the performing arts. The public enjoys 11 consecutive hours of live entertainment on five outdoor stages (opera, jazz, ethnic music, gospel, modern and ethnic dance, ballet, vocal and instrumental ensembles) and the YMCA FunZone while shopping at exhibits of over 100 prominent Artisans and enjoying cuisine from dozens of food vendors. This unique event transforms downtown Gay Street, Market Square, and the adjoining streets into a European-style pedestrian street mall appropriate for the entire family. • FREE
Friday, April 21 DANIEL TOSH • Knoxville Civic Coliseum • 8AM • Daniel
Tosh and special guests will be appearing at Knoxville Civic Coliseum on Friday, April 21 for one night only. The appearance is part of Tosh’s “Tosh.Show On Campus Tour,” which travels to college towns like Knoxville where the University of Tennessee is located. “Tosh.0” currently airs on Tuesday nights at 10 p.m. ET/ PT on Comedy Central. Daniel Tosh will host and perform an evening of standup comedy featuring writers and comedians from his Comedy Central show “Tosh.0.” • $45-$75
FESTIVALS
Sunday, April 23
Thursday, April 13
Visitor’s Center • 9AM • Visit smokymountainfiberartsfestival.org. KITE FESTIVAL • Pearson Springs Park (Maryville) • 10AM • Come out and spend a relaxing day with family and friends. We will have kites for you to paint and fly, or you can bring your own. We will have music, boomerangs, art competitions and flying competitions too. Vendors will be available for shopping and food trucks will be on site for lunch. • FREE
SPRING WILDFLOWER PILGRIMAGE • Great Smoky
Mountains National Park • The Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage is an annual, five-day event in the national park offering professionally guided programs exploring the region’s rich wildflowers, wildlife, ecology, culture, and natural history through walks, motorcades, photographic tours, art classes, and evening seminars. Details online at springwildflowerpilgrimage.org/.
Friday, April 14
SMOKY MOUNTAIN FIBER ARTS FESTIVAL • Townsend
FILM SCREENINGS
SPRING WILDFLOWER PILGRIMAGE • Great Smoky
Saturday, April 15
Mountains National Park • Details online at springwildflowerpilgrimage.org/.
NATIONAL BIRD • The Birdhouse • 8:30PM • National Bird follows whistleblowers who, despite possible consequences, are determined to break the silence around one of the most controversial issues of our time: the secret U.S. drone war. The film gives rare insight through the eyes of both survivors and veterans who suffer from PTSD while plagued by guilt over participating in the killing of faceless people in foreign countries. • FREE
Saturday, April 15 EARTHFEST 2017 • Knoxville Botanical Garden • 11AM •
As always, EarthFest is a free, zero-waste event for the whole family, including pets. EarthFest is excited to celebrate Earth Day at the Knoxville Botanical Garden, which offers plenty of green space, views of the mountains and access to public transportation. For more information on EarthFest 2017 visit www. knox-earthfest.org. • FREE
MUSIC FESTIVAL PRESENTED BY THE CAMPUS EVENTS BOARD
Friday, April 21 Visitor’s Center • 9AM • Smoky Mountain Fiber Arts Festival is a unique event that takes place every spring in Townsend. Join our classes, demonstrations and vendor exhibits to learn and celebrate the fiber arts. Visit smokymountainfiberartsfestival.org.
FRIENDLYTOWN • Pilot Light • 7:30PM • A weekly
VOLAPALOOZA
Monday, April 17 BIRDHOUSE WALK-IN THEATER • The Birdhouse • 8:15PM •
FEATURING
X AMBASSADORS WITH COIN, PELL, & LUKE PELL
AND APPEARANCES BY MOUNTAINS LIKE WAX, ELECTRIC DARLING, AND DJ A-WALL
WORLD’S FAIR PARK 5:30PM-11PM
TICKETS ON SALE AT KNOXVILLETICKETS.COM
CAMPUS
EVENTS
BOARD
UNIVERSITY HOUSING
RECYCLING
For more information or to arrange disability accommodations, please contact the Center for Student Engagement at (865) 974-5455.
April 13, 2017 knoxville mercury 29
April 13 – April 23
The Birdhouse Walk-In Theater hosts free movies every Monday night. Each month carries a different theme and provides free popcorn. Contact us about screening ideas: birdhousewalkin[at]gmail.com. • FREE
Thursday, April 20 NOKNO CINEMATHEQUE: DIRTY PRETTY THINGS • Central
Collective • 7PM • • FREE PUBLIC CINEMA: ‘DAVID LYNCH: THE ART LIFE’ • Scruffy
City Hall • 8PM • David Lynch: The Art Life looks at Lynch’s art, music, and early films, shining a light into the dark corners of his unique world and giving audiences a better understanding of the man and the artist. Visit publiccinema.org. • FREE
Sunday, April 23 THE GREAT GILLY HOPKINS’ • Clayton Center for the Arts
(Maryville) • 5PM • “The Great Gilly Hopkins” is a 2016 movie based on Katherine Paterson’s beloved 1978 young-adult novel; the story follows a teenager who moves from one foster home to another until finally meeting the woman who wants to be the mother this troublemaker needs – a relationship that will end up benefiting both of them. • FREE
SPORTS AND RECREATION
Saturday, April 15 IJAMS WAG-N-WALK • Ijams Nature Center • 9AM • Grab
your favorite four-legged friend and join Ijams’ own veterinarian, Dr. Louise Conrad, as she walks her own canine companions. She’ll review good doggy etiquette at the park and help owners understand the special safety concerns for dogs in nature. The fee for this program is $5 for non-members and free for members. Please call (865) 577-4717, ext. 110 to register. • $5 CYCOLOGY WOMEN’S RIDE SERIES • Cycology Bicycles • 9:30AM • The Women’s Road Series includes hour-long clinics on maintenance, local bike routes, training, advocacy, and more followed by a group road ride. Visit cycologybicycles.com. Registration for the full series is $30. • $30 RESURRECTION RUN 5K • Sandy Springs Park (Maryville) • 8:30AM • Circular course running through the historic Maryville residential area with a fast downhill finish. Visit runsignup.com.
RAILROAD HIKE • 2PM • We will hike part of a new
section and also hike the section between Charter Doyle and parks. Leaders: Tim Bigelow, bigelowt2@ mindspring.com and Michael Vaughn, mvaughn@ knology.net. • FREE
ART Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts arrowmont.org MARCH 10-MAY 6: Un//known, new works by Arrowmont artists in residence.
Art Market Gallery artmarketgallery.net
downtown.utk.edu APRIL 7-29: Breach, a mixed-media exhibition exploring issues of gender, race, and the African disapora through the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. See review on page 22.
East Tennessee History Center easttnhistory.org NOV. 19-APRIL 30: Rock of Ages: East Tennessee’s Marble Industry.
Emporium Center for Arts and Culture knoxalliance.com
APRIL 4-30: Paintings by Harriet Howell and mixed-media artwork by Marilyn Avery Turner.
APRIL 7-28: Little River Artists Exhibit; paintings by Sharon Gillenwater and Michael McKee; Connections, a mixed-media exhibit by Renee Suich; artwork by Kat Lewis; and the Barbara West Portrait Group Exhibit.
Broadway Studios and Gallery broadwaystudiosandgallery.com
Ewing Gallery ewing-gallery.utk.edu
APRIL 7-29: Interrupted Signal, artwork by Charlesy Charleston McAllister.
APRIL 4-21: MFA Thesis Exhibitions.
SMOKY MOUNTAINS HIKING CLUB: WHITE OAK SINKS • 8AM
• We will visit White Oak Sinks - after all, who can go too many times to see the wildflowers there? Leader: Pat Watts, watts_at_home@yahoo.com. • FREE
Central Collective thecentralcollective.com
APRIL 6-19: The Art of Recycling
Wednesday, April 19
Sunday, April 23 SMOKY MOUNTAINS HIKING CLUB: SMOKY MOUNTAIN
APRIL 7-30: Boy Howdy, illustrations by Laura Baisden.
Downtown Gallery
Knoxville Convention Center Knoxville Museum of Art knoxart.org JAN. 27-APRIL 16: Outside In, new paintings by Jered
www.TennesseeTheatre.com
30 knoxville mercury April 13, 2017
April 13 – April 23
Sprecher. FEB. 3-APRIL 16: Virtual Views: Digital Art From the Thoma Foundation. ONGOING: Higher Ground: A Century of the Visual Arts in Tennessee; Currents: Recent Art From East Tennessee and Beyond; and Facets of Modern and Contemporary Glass.
McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture mcclungmuseum.utk.edu FEB. 3-MAY 7: Divine Felines: Cats of Ancient Egypt. Ongoing: The Flora and Fauna of Catesby, Mason, and Audubon and Life on the Roman Frontier.
Westminster Presbyterian Church wpcknox.org
Saturday, April 15 IJAMS CREATURE FEATURE • Ijams Nature Center • 10AM and 2PM • Have you met all the animals that call the Ijams Visitor Center home? If not, be sure to stop by every Saturday for a chance to get nose-to-beak with some of our resident furred and feathered ambassadors. This program is free, but donations to support animal care are welcome. • FREE KNOX LIT EXCHANGE • Central Collective • 11:30AM • The Knoxville Literary Exchange is a free, monthly poetry and prose writing workshop open to high school age students. For further information, please contact organizer Liam Hysjulien at KnoxLitExchange@gmail. com. • FREE
MARCH 5-APRIL 30: Paintings by Shirley Wittman and Lauren Lazarus and blown glass by Johnny Glass.
Sunday, April 16
FAMILY AND KIDS’ EVENTS
• FREE
IJAMS CREATURE FEATURE • Ijams Nature Center • 1PM
Wednesday, April 19 IJAMS PRESCHOOL PLAY DATES • Ijams Nature Center •
Steel Panther The International (940 Blackstock Drive) • Tuesday, April 18 • 8 p.m. • $22-$45 • 18 and up • internationalknox.com For the record, the Los Angeles glam band Steel Panther isn’t recognized by Encyclopaedia Metallum, the online bible of heavy metal. In other words, this is not “real” metal—never mind that the group’s first single, in 2009, was “Death to All But Metal,” a profane celebration of spandex-clad excess couched as a screed against Top 40, pop-punk, and radio rock. The band, formed in the early 2000s under the name Metal Skool, has released four albums of increasingly raunchy and over-the-top party rock, inspired mostly by second-tier mid-’80s L.A. bands like Autograph, Faster Pussycat, and Warrant, with traces of European power metal and early thrash—Feel the Steel (2009), Balls Out (2011), All You Can Eat (2013), and the brand-new Lower the Bar. The effect is like a cover band, with all those not-very-clever double entendres ironed out so you don’t miss the dirty joke, or Andrew W.K. without the postmodern self-help affirmation. Song titles like “Weenie Ride,” “I Like Drugs,” “Gloryhole,” and “Fat Girl” tell you exactly what you’re in for. (Matthew Everett)
April 13, 2017 knoxville mercury 31
April 13 – April 23
10AM • Join us for our weekly playdates, where we build family relationships while having fun outside. Since unstructured time in nature is a critical part of early childhood development, let Ijams help you make time to explore the magical world of nature play. Each week, our play leaders will introduce families to fun ways to engage with their children and encourage them to be imaginative and creative. This program is free, but pre-registration is required. Please call (865) 577-4717, ext. 110 to register. • FREE
Saturday, April 22 IJAMS CREATURE FEATURE • Ijams Nature Center • 10AM
and 2PM • FREE THE BRIDGE TO KATHERINE PATTERSON • Blount County
Public Library • 2PM • The family-friendly event will celebrate the life and work of Katherine Paterson on the pedestrian bridge behind the Blount County Public Library and will include music, sidewalk chalk art, readings, crafts and games. This event is part of a three-day celebration of Katherine Paterson’s work. For more information about the three-day celebration of events go to maryvillecollege.edu. • FREE
Sunday, April 23 IJAMS CREATURE FEATURE • Ijams Nature Center • 1PM •
FREE
LECTURES, READINGS, AND BOOK SIGNINGS Saturday, April 15 TENNESSEE MARBLE DOCUMENTATION DAY AND PANEL DISCUSSION • East Tennessee History Center • 9AM •
In conjunction with the feature exhibition Rock of Ages: East Tennessee’s Marble Industry the Museum of East Tennessee History is inviting public participation in its ongoing efforts to study and document items made from marble quarried in East Tennessee, including photographs, documents, and stories relating to marble history and workers. Anyone with relevant information is encouraged to bring these to a Tennessee Marble Documentation Day. A special panel discussion will be held. For further information, call (865) 215-8829 or visit www. eastTNhistory.org. • FREE
Monday, April 17 UT COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN 2017 SPRING LECTURE SERIES • University of Tennessee Art and
Architecture Building • 5:30PM • The University of Tennessee College of Architecture and Design will host a variety of internationally renowned architects and guest lecturers during the 2017 spring semester. . • FREE UT WRITERS IN THE LIBRARY SERIES • University of
Tennessee • 7PM • The University of Tennessee’s annual Writers in the Library series features novelists, poets, and nonfiction writers from around the region and visiting writers at UT, reading from and discussing their work in the auditorium of the John C. Hodges Library. Visit lib.utk.edu/writers/. • FREE
Tuesday, April 18 MARK ARMSTRONG: “HELPING AND ENJOYING HUMMINGBIRDS” • Seymour Public Library • 7PM • The
talk is part of Friends of Seymour Library’s “How We Live: Then and Now” series on East Tennessee people and culture, and is free and open to the public. For more information call the library at 573-0728. • FREE
Thursday, April 20
which won the Bancroft Prize in American History. Grandin writes on American Exceptionalism, United States foreign policy, Latin America, genocide, and human rights. • FREE
Friday, April 21 UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE SCIENCE FORUM • Thompson-Boling Arena • 12PM • The University of Tennessee’s Science Forum hosts weekly presentations about cutting-edge research on a variety of topics, ranging from the truth about GMOs to the recent Gatlinburg fires. Science Forum talks are held from noon to 1 p.m. most Fridays in Thompson-Boling Arena Cafe private Rooms C-D. They are free and open to the public. Visit scienceforum.utk.edu. • FREE
DON BYERLY: “A KNOXVILLE HERITAGE: TENNESSEE MARBLE” • East Tennessee History Center • 12PM •
Saturday, April 22
Don Byerly will explain the history and significance of this important stone to our region. For more information on the lecture, exhibitions, or museum hours, call 865-215-8824 or visit the website at www.EastTNHistory.org. • FREE
• 10AM • FREE
GREG GRANDIN: ‘THE EMPIRE OF NECESSITY: SLAVERY IN HERMAN MELVILLE’S AMERICA’ • Howard H. Baker
Thursday, April 13
Center for Public Policy • 3:30PM • Grandin’s lecture is based on his recent book The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World,
GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Balanced You Studios •
SATURDAY MORNING PHYSICS • University of Tennessee
CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@ gmail.com. Donations accepted.
Your Stream is Tougher S
TR
ONG
A STRE
M
S
Retain the Roots
Trees prevent land and money from eroding away
Plant roots prevent excess dirt from polluting the streams
Restore with Natives
Native plants and trees along the stream take care of themselves, requiring less time and money Native species produce beautiful blooms year round Regional plants provide habitat and food sources for wildlife such as songbirds and butterflies Saves Time and Money
Repair the Bare
Beautifies
Topsoil is valuable. Protect it! Earth-friendly Plant grasses or shrubs to stabilize bare soil Trees provide shade to keep streams cool and fish happy
Knox County Stormwater ~ Knoxcounty.org/stormwater ~ Stormwater@knoxcounty.org 32 knoxville mercury April 13, 2017
April 13 – April 23
BCPL TECH TIME • Blount County Public Library • 2:30PM
• FREE CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY RESTORATIVE YOGA SERIES • Cancer Support Community • 3PM • 865-546-4661. All
Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer. KNOXVILLE CAPOEIRA CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 6PM • Visit capoeiraknoxville.org. • $10 BREAST CANCER: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW • Cancer Support Community • 6PM • 865-546-4661. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer. KNOXVILLE PERSONAL TRAINING PILATES • Beaver Creek Cumberland Presbyterian Church • 6:30PM • Every Tuesday and Thursday. First class is free. Call (865) 622-3103 or visit knoxvillepersonaltraining.com. • $4 BASIC WILDFLOWER AND MACRO PHOTOGRAPHY • REI • 6PM • Cameras don’t take pictures, people do. But cameras are not always easy to understand. Learn more about your camera and the feature of capturing Macro Images making wildflowers and ordinary subjects extraordinary. Register at rei.com. • $50
Friday, April 14 NARROW RIDGE YOGA • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center
• 9:30AM • For more information call 865-497-3603 or emailcommunity@narrowridge.org. • FREE
Monday, April 17 KMA DROP-IN FIGURE DRAWING CLASS • Knoxville
Museum of Art • 10:30AM • Artists of all skill levels and media are welcome to join these self-instructed drop-in figure drawing sessions. Please note – art materials are not supplied. • $10 IJAMS CREATIVE SERIES • Ijams Nature Center • 6PM • Join artist Julie Boisseau-Craig in a four-part drawing class. • $35-$100 KNOX COUNTY MASTER GARDENERS • Davis Family YMCA • 1PM • Join Master Gardener Sandra Lee to learn which plants are least appetizing to those 4-legged nibblers, yet are attractive additions to your landscape. Call 865-777-9622. • FREE GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Balanced You Studios • 6PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail. com. Donations accepted. KNOXVILLE PERSONAL TRAINING BOOT CAMP • Beaver Creek Cumberland Presbyterian Church • 6:30PM • First class is free. Call (865) 622-3103 or visit knoxvillepersonaltraining.com. • $15 MONDAY NIGHT YOGA • Church Street United Methodist Church • 7PM • Contact Micarooni@aol.com with questions. • $5
Tuesday, April 18 NARROW RIDGE YOGA • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy
Center • 9AM • For more information call 865-497-3603 or emailcommunity@narrowridge.org. • FREE GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Balanced You Studios • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@ gmail.com. Donations accepted.
AARP DRIVER SAFETY CLASS • Asbury Place • 1PM • KNOXVILLE CAPOEIRA CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts
and Culture • 6PM • Visit capoeiraknoxville.org. • $10 SHEBOOM!: A WEEKLY DROP-IN DANCE CLASS FOR ALL BODIES • Broadway Academy of Performing Arts • 6PM
• Each week we do something different from jazz to funk to hip hop to lyrical. • $10 KNOXVILLE PERSONAL TRAINING PILATES • Beaver Creek Cumberland Presbyterian Church • 6:30PM • Every Tuesday and Thursday. First class is free. Call (865) 622-3103 or visit knoxvillepersonaltraining.com. • $4
presented by Regal Entertainment Group, a fun event to benefit the Autism Society of East Tennessee
LADY PARTS: KNOXVILLE’S FEMALE BICYCLE MAINTENANCE CLASS • DreamBikes • 7PM • Lady Parts is an all female
and femme bicycle maintenance class. It is a safe and inclusive space for women to learn about how to fix their bikes. In our second season of courses we are collaborating with DreamBikes Knoxville to teach our classes at their non-profit bike shop. • FREE
6:30 to 10:00 p.m.
Wednesday, April 19 FOCUS ON SENIORS: RESPITE CARE AND RELIEF FOR CAREGIVERS • Blount County Public Library • 11AM •
Representatives from senior health care and residential facilities will discuss some of the services that are available to provide a break for the family members or others who are providing care. • FREE AARP DRIVER SAFETY CLASS • Asbury Place • 1PM • GROW YOUR GARDEN: SUMMER FRUITS AND VEGGIES • SEEED Knox • 5:30PM • Join us as for the continuation of the Grow Your Garden series. Participants will learn about growing a fruits and vegetables this summer and discuss container gardening, what to plant, when to plant it, and how to grow a summer edible garden. • $20 THE BEAUTY AND BURDEN OF GIVING CARE • Cancer Support Community • 6PM • As an internist and ordained Episcopal priest, Dr. Richard Carter will offer his unique lens on both the challenges and benefits of caregiving. 865-546-4661. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer. CIRCLE MODERN DANCE OPEN LEVEL BALLET CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 6:30PM • Visit circlemoderndance.com. • $10 HANDS-ON CHEESE WORKSHOP • Central Collective • 6:30PM • Using everyday ingredients, you can learn to make a Crème de Ricotta that is so luscious and so delicious, you’ll never buy store-bought again. Please feel free to bring the adult beverage of your choice to enjoy as we make cheese. • $37 TENNESSEE VALLEY BIKES YOGA • Tennessee Valley Bikes • 6:15 AM • Join us Wednesday mornings for an hour and 15 minutes of yoga. Cost for each class is $12 but if you ride your bike in the cost is reduced to $10. There is no subscription or membership required. • $10-$15
Thursday, April 20 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Balanced You Studios •
12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@ gmail.com. Donations accepted. CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY: KNIT YOUR WAY TO
5210 Kingston Pike
Tickets ickets are $50 (until April 15th, then $55)
and include: Live Music Cajun Shrimp Boil by The Shrimp Dock Complimentary wine, beer, and non-alcoholic beverages Admission to the silent auction VIP tables for 8 available for $750 through April 15th
For tickets, visit www.shrimpboilforautism.com
All proceeds benefit the Autism Society East Tennessee, a nonprofit that provides support, services, advocacy, education, and public awareness for all individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and their families as well as educators and other professionals throughout 36 East Tennessee counties. April 13, 2017 knoxville mercury 33
April 13 – April 23
WELLNESS • Cancer Support Community • 1PM •
Whether you are a novice knitter or an old pro, you are invited to bring your own project or join others in learning a new one. Call 865-546-4661. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer. BCPL TECH TIME • Blount County Public Library • 2:30PM • FREE CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY RESTORATIVE YOGA SERIES
• Cancer Support Community • 3PM • Deep relaxation helps combat stress and heals the body. Learn simple techniques to guide your body into a state of deep, restful healing and design a “mini-battery charge” practice you can do at home. 865-546-4661. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer. KNOXVILLE CAPOEIRA CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 6PM • Visit capoeiraknoxville.org. • $10 KNOXVILLE PERSONAL TRAINING PILATES • Beaver Creek Cumberland Presbyterian Church • 6:30PM • Every Tuesday and Thursday. First class is free. Call (865) 622-3103 or visit knoxvillepersonaltraining.com. • $4 BLOUNT COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY ADULT COLORING GROUP
• Blount County Public Library • 7PM • Remember the carefree joy of picking up your favorite crayon or marker and adding color to a beautiful picture? Experience the same fun and relaxation even though you are now an adult. FREE
Friday, April 21 NARROW RIDGE YOGA • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy
growing killer tomatoes while preventing tomato killers. Call 865- 588-8813. • FREE
Center • 9AM • For more information call 865-497-3603 or emailcommunity@narrowridge.org. • FREE
Sunday, April 23
Saturday, April 22 GROW YOUR GARDEN: SUMMER FRUITS AND VEGGIES • Knoxville Botanical Garden • 9AM • Join us as for the continuation of the Grow Your Garden series. Participants will learn about growing a fruits and vegetables this summer and discuss container gardening, what to plant, when to plant it, and how to grow a summer edible garden. • $20 CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY: MINDFULNESS IN EVERYDAY LIFE • Cancer Support Community • 10AM •
Life is full of challenges. What can we do when our lives feel out of control? A practice of mindfulness can help. Call 865-546-4661 for more info. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer. KNOXVILLE WRITERS’ GUILD WALKABOUT WRITING WORKSHOP • Awaken Coffee • 10AM • Learn to write
about character as you immerse in a lively downtown setting. Additional information can be found at www. KnoxvilleWritersGuild.org. • $50 KNOX COUNTY MASTER GARDENERS • Bearden Branch Public Library • 1:30PM • Join Master Gardeners Joe Pardue and Marcia Griswald for a presentation on
PRESENTED BY SMOKY MOUNTAIN BREWERY
BREWFEST IS BACK! SATURDAY JUNE 17, 2017
4-8 PM
DOWNTOWN KNOXVILLE* ALL NET PROCEEDS BENEFIT
CURE DUCHENNE
EARLY BIRD SPECIAL
$45
TICKETS ON SALE NOW!!
*EXCITING NEW LOCATION-700 BLOCK OF GAY ST. NEXT TO BIJOU THEATRE
KNOXVILLEBREWFEST.COM
34 knoxville mercury April 13, 2017
CIRCLE MODERN DANCE BALLET BARRE CLASS • Emporium
Center for Arts and Culture • 1PM • Visit circlemoderndance.com. • $10 CIRCLE MODERN DANCE: MODERN DANCE FOUNDATIONS CLASS • Emporium Center for Arts and Culture • 2PM •
Visit circlemoderndance.com. • $10 IJAMS FAMILY DRUM CYRCLE • Ijams Nature Center • 3:30PM • They say everyone marches to the beat of their own drummer, and this program will help you do just that. Gather your family and friends and get outdoors with a family-friendly drum circle. Please call (865) 577-4717, ext. 110 to register. • FREE ROOFTOP YOGA • Central Collective • 5:30PM • Take your yoga practice outside and breathe in some fresh air. This class will be accessible to all levels, and will include some breath and body awareness at the beginning to help calm the mind and get centered for class. • $10
MEETINGS Thursday, April 13 AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit
farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon.org. • FREE
ADULT CHILDREN OF ALCOHOLICS/DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILIES • The Birdhouse • 6PM • Contact Laura at
706-621-2238 or lamohendricksll@gmail.com for more information or visit the international ACA website at adultchildren.org. • FREE STFK SCIENCE CAFE • Zoo Knoxville • 2PM • A free monthly discussion of science-related topics, hosted by the Spirit and Truth Fellowship of Knoxville. Email rsvp@knoxsciencecafe.org. • FREE
Saturday, April 15 AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit
farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon.org. • FREE NARROW RIDGE SILENT MEDITATION GATHERING • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 11AM • For more information call 865-497-3603 or emailcommunity@ narrowridge.org. • FREE
Sunday, April 16 RATIONALISTS OF EAST TENNESSEE • Pellissippi State
Community College • 10:30AM • Visit rationalists.org. • FREE AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon.org. • FREE OVEREATERS ANONYMOUS • Sacred Heart Cathedral • 4PM • Offering a Big Book study. This open meeting
April 13 – April 23
welcomes all who want to stop eating compulsively. For more info call or text (865) 313-0480 or email OASundayknoxville@gmail.com. • FREE
Monday, April 17
#BlackLivesMatter is working for a world where Black lives are no longer systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. Visit blacklivesmatterknoxville. org. • FREE
GAY MEN’S DISCUSSION GROUP • Tennessee Valley
Saturday, April 22
Unitarian Universalist Church • 7:30PM • We hold facilitated discussions on topics and issues relevant to local gay men in a safe and open environment. Visit gaygroupknoxville.org.
AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit
Tuesday, April 18 AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit
farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon.org. • FREE ATHEISTS SOCIETY OF KNOXVILLE • West Hills Flats and Taps • 5:30PM • Visit meetup.com/KnoxvilleAtheists. • FREE THREE RIVERS! EARTH FIRST! • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM • Three Rivers! Earth First! is the local dirt-worshiping, tree-hugging, anarchist collective. Call (865) 257-4029 for more information. • FREE
Wednesday, April 19 AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit
farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon.org. • FREE THE SOUTHERN LITERATURE BOOK CLUB • Union Ave Books • 6PM • Union Ave Books’ monthly discussion group about Southern books and writers. Visit unionavebooks.com. • FREE ORION ASTRONOMY CLUB • The Grove Theater (Oak Ridge) • 7PM • ORION is an amateur science and astronomy club centered in Oak Ridge. • FREE
Thursday, April 20 AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit
farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon.org. • FREE CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY LEUKEMIA, LYMPHOMA, AND MYELOMA NETWORKER • Cancer Support
Community • 4PM • Call 865-546-4661 for more info. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer. CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY BREAST CANCER NETWORKER • Cancer Support Community • 6PM • Call
865-546-4661 for more info. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer. CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY FAMILY BEREAVEMENT GROUP • Cancer Support Community • 6PM • Call
865-546-4661 for more info. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer. ADULT CHILDREN OF ALCOHOLICS/DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILIES • The Birdhouse • 6PM • Contact Laura at
706-621-2238 or lamohendricksll@gmail.com for more information or visit the international ACA website at adultchildren.org. • FREE BLACK LIVES MATTER • The Birdhouse • 7:30PM •
merlefest.ORG 800-343-7857
farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon.org. • FREE NARROW RIDGE SILENT MEDITATION GATHERING • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 11AM • For more information call 865-497-3603 or emailcommunity@ narrowridge.org. • FREE
Sunday, April 23 SUNDAY ASSEMBLY • The Concourse • 10:30AM • To find
out more, visit knoxville-tn.sundayassembly.com or email saknoxville.info@gmail.com. • FREE AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit farragutalanon.org or email FindHope@Farragutalanon.org. • FREE OVEREATERS ANONYMOUS • Sacred Heart Cathedral • 4PM • Offering a Big Book study. This open meeting welcomes all who want to stop eating compulsively. For more info call or text (865) 313-0480 or email OASundayknoxville@gmail.com. • FREE
Zac Brown Band Transatlantic Sessions with
ETC.
Jerry Douglas and Aly Bain featuring James Taylor and more!
Thursday, April 13 NEW HARVEST PARK FARMERS MARKET • New Harvest
Park • 3PM • Visit facebook.com/newharvestfm. • FREE
Friday, April 14 LAKESHORE PARK FARMERS MARKET • Lakeshore Park • 3PM • Visit easttnfarmmarkets.org. • FREE
Saturday, April 15 CENTRAL COLLECTIVE GOOD SPORT NIGHT • Central Collective • 7:30PM • Calling all good sports. Here’s the deal. You purchase a ticket to a mystery event. Show up to The Central Collective at the specified date and time, and be ready for anything. Note: We will not be meeting at The Central Collective for this month’s Good Sport Night. We will email you the meeting location on the day of the event by 4 p.m. The location is near downtown Knoxville. • $56 LEGACY PARKS VOLUNTEER DAY • 8AM • Want to do your part for the environment and our community this Earth Day? Join Legacy Parks Foundation and the Appalachian Mountain Bike Club for Comcast Cares Day, where more than 200 volunteers will help spruce up Baker Creek Preserve. Together we will remove invasive plants, build benches, improve trails, and leave this popular outdoor adventure destination looking better than ever. Registration is strongly encouraged. More information and a registration link can be found at legacyparks.org/ccd. • FREE OAK RIDGE FARMERS MARKET • Historic Jackson Square • 8AM • Visit easttnfarmmarkets.org. • FREE
The Avett Brothers Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives
Del McCoury Band
Sam Bush Band
The Earls of Leicester feat. Jerry Douglas
P l u s M a ny M o r e Pe r fo r m e r s !
13 Stages of "Traditional Plus " Music!
ON THE CAMPUS OF wilkes community college wilkesboro, NC
April 13, 2017 knoxville mercury 35 Knoxville Mercury_4.625x10.75.indd 1
3/23/2017 2:58:29 PM
April 13 – April 23
Tuesday, April 18 Methodist Church • 3PM • Visit circlemoderndance. com. • FREE
to offer. The dinner will be prepared by two accomplished local chefs, Joey Edwards and Laurence Faber, that will use their talents to produce a five-course meal that will include wine pairings for each course. • $95
Thursday, April 20
Sunday, April 23
NEW HARVEST PARK FARMERS MARKET • New Harvest
MAYAPPLE MARKETPLACE • Ijams Nature Center • 11AM •
Park • 3PM • Visit facebook.com/newharvestfm. • FREE
This fun filled event will feature gardening vendors, local handmade artists and crafters, music, kids’ activities, and even food and beer. Everything you need to take advantage of this beautiful time of year in Knoxville. • FREE
EBENEZER ROAD FARMERS MARKET • Ebenezer United
Friday, April 21 LAKESHORE PARK FARMERS MARKET • Lakeshore Park •
3PM • Visit easttnfarmmarkets.org. • FREE
Saturday, April 22
SEND YOUR EVENTS TO CALENDAR@KNOXMERCURY.COM
OAK RIDGE FARMERS MARKET • Historic Jackson Square •
8AM • Visit easttnfarmmarkets.org. • FREE NORTH HILLS PLANT SALE • North Hills Park • 9AM • This plant sale is a popular event for local gardeners who value native plants that thrive in our area. Residents of historic North Hills donate more than a hundred different varieties of hardy perennial plants and shrubs harvested from their own gardens. • FREE MARYVILLE FARMERS MARKET • Founders Park • 9AM • FREE NOURISH KNOXVILLE WINTER FARMERS’ MARKET • Central United Methodist Church • 10AM • Visit nourishknoxville.org. • FREE UNEARTHED: SAVORING SPRING • Wild Love Bakehouse • 6:30PM • A dinner celebrating the flavors the season has
10% OFF Champagne through
865.525.7575 phone 407 S. Gay Street Mon - Thurs 11AM - 10PM Fri - Sat 11AM - 11PM Follow us on Instagram (@dtwineandspiritsknox) for weekly specials and tastings.
the month of April !
2017 Student Design Showcase Pellissippi State Community College
A TBR Institution An AA/EEO College
Bagwell Center for Media & Art
April 20th 2017 4–8 pm www.pstcc.edu/cgt_showcase
36 knoxville mercury April 13, 2017
News of the Weird | Open Book | Cartoon | Puzzle
High-Tech TP All the odd news that’s mostly fit to print BY CHUCK SHEPHERD
TP GOES HIGH TECH China’s public-park restrooms have for years suffered toilet-paper theft by local residents who raid dispensers for their own homes (a cultural habit, wrote Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, expressing taxpayer feelings of “owning” public facilities), but the government recently fought back with technology. At Beijing’s popular Temple of Heaven park, dispensers now have facial-recognition scanners beside the six toilets, with pre-cut paper (about 24 inches long) issued only to users who pose for a picture. (Just one slug of paper can be dispensed to the same face in a 9-minute period, catastrophic for the diarrhea-stricken and requiring calling an attendant to override the machine.)
LATEST RELIGIOUS MESSAGES • The church-state “wall” leaks badly in Spindale, N.C., according to former members of the Word of Faith Fellowship (reported in February by the Associated Press). Two state prosecutors (one a relative of the church’s founder), in nearby Burke and Rutherford counties, allegedly coached Fellowship members and leaders how to neutralize government investigations into church “abuse”— coaching that would violate state law and attorney ethical standards. Fellowship officials have been accused of beating “misbehaving” congregants, including children, in order to repel their demons. (Among the Fellowship’s edicts revealed in the AP report: All dating, marriages, and procreation subject to approval; no wedding-night intimacy beyond a “godly” cheek kiss; subsequent marital sex limited to 30 minutes, no foreplay, lights off, missionary position.) • Babies born on the Indonesian island of Bali are still today treated
regally under an obscure Hindu tradition, according to a February New York Times report, and must not be allowed to touch the earth for 105 days (in some areas, 210). (Carrying the infant in a bucket and setting that on the ground is apparently acceptable.) Each birth is actually a re-birth, they say, with ancestors returning as their own descendants. (Accidentally touching the ground does not condemn the baby, but may leave questions about negative influences.) • Catholic priest Juan Carlos Martinez, 40, apologized shortly after realizing, as he said, he had gone “too far” in celebrating March’s Carnival in a town in the Galicia area of Spain— that he acted inappropriately in dressing as Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner, reclining on a red satin sheet on a parade float carrying men dressed as classic Playboy “Bunnies.” Despite apparent public support for Father Martinez, his archbishop asked him to attend a “spiritual retreat” to reflect on his behavior.
THE BEDROOM OF TOMORROW • In March, vibrator customers were awarded up to $10,000 each in their class-action “invasion of privacy” lawsuit against the company Standard Innovation, whose We-Vibe model’s smartphone app collected intimate data (vibrator temperature and motor intensity) that could be associated with particular customers—and which were easily hackable, and controllable, by anyone nearby with a Bluetooth connection. The Illinois federal court limited the award to $199 for anyone who bought the vibrator but did not activate the app. • The company British Condoms is now accepting pre-orders for the iCon Smart Condom, with an app that can track, among other data, a man’s “thrust
velocity,” calories expended “per session,” and skin temperature, as well as do tests for chlamydia and syphilis. Projected price is about $75, but the tech news site CNet reported in March that no money will be collected until the product is ready to ship.
PERSPECTIVE The U.S. House of Representatives, demonstrating particular concern for military veterans, enhanced vets’ civil rights in March by removing a source of delay in gun purchases. A 2007 law had required all federal agencies to enter any mentally-ill clients into the National Instant Criminal Background Check database for gun purchases, but the new bill exempts veterans (including, per VA estimates, 19,000 schizophrenics and 15,000 with “severe” post-traumatic stress syndrome). (An average of a dozen veterans a day in recent times have committed suicide with guns.)
FINE POINTS OF THE LAW Police and prosecutors in Williamsburg, Va., are absolutely certain that Oswaldo Martinez raped and killed a teenage girl in 2005, but, though he was quickly arrested, they have—12 years later—not even put him on trial. Martinez, then 33, is still apparently, genuinely (i.e., not faking) deaf, illiterate, and almost mute, and besides that, the undocumented Salvadoran immigrant has such limited intelligence that test after test has shown him incapable of understanding his legal rights, and therefore “incompetent” to stand trial. (Police made multiple “slam dunk” findings of Martinez’s DNA on the victim’s body and also linked Martinez via a store camera to the very bottle of juice left at the crime scene.)
EYEWITNESS NEWS On the morning of March 20 in Winter Park, Fla., Charles Howard, standing outside his home being interviewed live by a WFTV reporter, denied he had committed a crime in a widely reported series of voicemail messages to a U.S. Congressman, containing threats to “wrap a rope around your neck and hang you from a lamp post.” He boasted that “proof” of his having done nothing wrong was that if he had, he would have already
been arrested. “Three minutes later,” according to the reporter, agents drove up and arrested Howard.
PEOPLE DIFFERENT FROM US Hey, How About a Little “Remorse”: (1) Royce Atkins, 23, told the judge in Northampton County (Pennsylvania) in March that he was so sorry he did not stop his car in 2015 and help that 9-year-old boy he had just hit and killed. However, Atkins had earlier been jailhouse-recorded viciously trashtalking the boy’s family for “reacting like they’re the victims. What about my family? My family is the victim, too.” (Atkins got a four-year sentence.) (2) In February, in a Wayne County (Michigan) court during sentencing for a DUI driver who had killed a man and severely injured his fiancee, Judge Qiana Lillard kicked the driver’s mother out of the courtroom for laughing at the victim’s sister who was tearfully addressing the judge. (Lillard sentenced the mother to 93 days for contempt, but later reduced it to one day).
THE ARISTOCRATS! Among the facts revealed in the ongoing criminal proceedings against U.S. Navy officials and defense contractor Leonard (“Fat Leonard”) Francis, who is charged with arranging kickbacks: In 2007, Francis staged a party for the officials at the Shangri-La Hotel in the Philippines during which (according to an indictment unsealed in March) “historical memorabilia related to General Douglas MacArthur were used by the participants in sexual acts.”
THE PASSING PARADE (1) A 23-year-old Albuquerque woman performed cartwheels instead of a standard field sobriety test at a DUI stop in February, but she did poorly and was charged anyway. On the other hand, student Blayk Puckett, stopped by University of Central Arkansas police, helped shield himself from a DUI by juggling for the officer. (2) Oreos fans sampling the limited-edition Peeps Oreos in February expressed alarm that not only their tongues and saliva turned pink, but also their stools (and leaving a pink ring in the bowl). A gastroenterologist told Live Science it was nothing to worry about. April 13, 2017 knoxville mercury 37
News of the Weird | Open Book | Cartoon | Puzzle
Have Faith The Back Door Tavern is brought back from the dead by its congregation BY HARRY WHITESIDE
E
veryone remembers Mark Twain’s response to the news that he had died: “The report of my death was an exaggeration.” And many are familiar with the response to the news that a certain apocalyptic preacher had risen from the dead: “Hallelujah!” they shouted with joy. Likewise, many comments both sacred and profane are being proclaimed with the news that the Back Door Tavern, once dead, is miraculously alive and well in Bearden. It closed in February when, after 35 years or so, owner Barry Cook had decided that it was time to retire. It seemed that the end was truly nigh; the memorabilia on the walls were auctioned off, all the beer was sold, the coolers were removed, and—in a gesture that symbolized the finality of everything—the “FREE HOT DOGS WITH BEER PURCHASE!” scrolling sign was taken down. In their grief, some of the heartbroken faithful removed pieces of the iconic wooden fence to take home and create shrines to their beloved neighborhood dive.
But occasionally in this life, good news cometh to those who believe. Sorrow has turned to joy with the revelation that a gathering of the faithful has refused to accept the inevitable, garnering their resources to keep the place open. Steve Polte, a long-time patron, has spearheaded the process and developed a business plan that should keep the bar open for the foreseeable future. This plan includes updates to the place. That’s right, updates—to a bar that hasn’t been updated during its lifetime. But fear not, o ye of little faith. These won’t change the atmosphere that gives the BDT its charm. Rather, they include behind-the-scenes types of improvements such as accepting credit cards. Who says that miracles only happened in the ancient days? Other updates include social media and, wait for it… advertising! Who knows, maybe there will even be curtains for the men’s restroom, which would add a nice touch, especially in the winter when the leaves are off the trees. But back to the plan. As one
BY MATTHEW FOLTZ-GRAY www.thespiritofthestaircase.com
38 knoxville mercury April 13, 2017
might imagine, there was a major problem facing Polte and the faithful who gathered for a revival meeting: money. A substantial amount (around, oh, $25,000 or so) was needed to pay bills and fix things. Word went out (on social media!) that the BDT might yet rise up and live again. A capacity crowd of believers gathered, and Polte frankly presented his plan, which was enthusiastically received. This was followed by a call for an offering. The congregants rushed forward in an overwhelming display of conviction; the $25,000 was raised in about two hours, with many who arrived late being disappointed that it was cut off once the target had been reached. High risk, no return; that’s conviction. One cynical patron, Snake the Lawyer, pledged a substantial sum, although he (Doubting Thomas-style) was skeptical. The outpouring of support convinced him otherwise and, his faith renewed, he offered more if necessary (it wasn’t). Another of The Lawyers, Don Howell, offered his services pro bono to navigate the legal aspects. Even the landlord, Virginia Anagnost, wanted in; she offered to keep the rent the same for the first month. Getting the BDT back up and running has not been easy. For instance, most of the iconic memorabilia that gave the place character had been auctioned off, snatched up by regulars in the immediate moments of shock and grief. Polte says that Toddy Cook, the owner before his son Barry took over, hadn’t planned on covering the walls with the hundreds of
photographs that ended up there. Rather, one night some drunken patrons (so the story goes) became particularly rowdy, the result of which was several holes in the walls. That didn’t look nice, so Cook brought in some pictures to cover them up. And lo, a tradition was born. But when the place closed down a few weeks ago, the walls that were once covered with pictures of clientele past and present had been stripped bare. So how can the BDT recapture its signature ambiance? Easy—many of the pictures (that people paid good money for at the wake) are finding their way back to the bar, donated by those who want the BDT to live for all eternity. Also, people are bringing in new material as well. Polte points out that this has resulted in an interesting confluence of the old and new— enough of the old to keep its unique character but also the new to reflect its second coming. Speaking of a confluence of old and new—once everything was in place, the new management planned a grand reopening. And for those of you who still refuse to believe that a higher power is involved, it turns out that the chosen day for this gala—coincidentally, I say—happened to be Barry Cook’s birthday. A large cake was prepared, and the faithful, packed shoulder to shoulder, raised their voices together in song. Never was a more joyful chorus of “Happy Birthday” heard across the hills of East Tennessee. But was it a coincidence? That, my friend, is a decision you must make for yourself.
Puzzle
CROOKED STREET CROSSWORD BY IAN BLACKBURN AND JACK NEELY
CLASSIFIEDS
Place your ad at store.knoxmercury.com
Support the Knoxville Mercury and sell your stuff by purchasing an ad in our classifieds section.
HOUSING
FOR SALE VEHICLE AUCTION 10092 Chapman Highway. April 23rd, 2017 at 10 a.m. 2004 Nissan XTerra 3.3L RWD, needs engine.
ENVIRONMENTAL ECOLOGY CENTER LAND TRUST SITE NOW AVAILABLE FOR LEASE. Country land adjoining Narrow Ridge Center offers secluded home site for the ecoconscious. Access to Norris Lake. Remote place that is buildable; provides quiet haven. Protective conservation easements. Paths through 108-acres of shared dense community woods. Old shared community tobacco barn. 1-time payment - $19,750. 3.9 acres. 865 525-8877 blackfoxlandtrust.com narrowridgecenter.org PLACE YOUR AD AT STORE.KNOXMERCURY.COM
COMMUNITY WANTED: INFORMATION ON PATRICIA HALSTEAD SEAVER, for injured party. Call (540) 850-8377
MADDUX - is a very smart and obedient Terrier/Pit Bull mix. He already knows “sit” and he wants to learn more from you! Maddux is available for adoption at our Bearden location. Visit Young-Williams Animal Center / call 865-215-6599 for more information.
BENNETT - is a talkative boy that loves getting attention! He’s a friendly cat that will immediately grab your attention with his bright, green eyes. Visit Young-Williams Animal Center / call 865-215-6599 for more information.
PERU -may be the most playful pup you’ll ever meet! He is a 1-year-old Shepherd mix. He is very friendly! Peru will jump on his new friends, but he calms down when he is comfortable. Visit Young-Williams Animal Center / call 865-2156599 for more information.
SCOOTER - is an outgoing 4-year-old Labrador/ Border Collie mix. He is a champion snuggler who enjoys learning new tricks, going on outdoor adventures, and playing with other dogs. Visit Young-Williams Animal Center / call 865-215-6599 for more information.
JEWEL - is a 6-year-old domestic longhair mix that is a cuddly kitty, but she wants to have all the attention. Jewel prefers to be the only cat at home. Visit Young-Williams Animal Center / call 865-215-6599 for more information.
WIN TICKETS! DISTRIBUTION LOCATIONS Is your location out of the Mercury? We’re constantly in the process of adding more locations, so if the distribution point closest to you is all out, check our map for another place nearby. If you’ve got location suggestions, let us know. knoxmercury.com/find-us
Win a Family 4 pack of tickets! d in 80 Days
nce of Around the Worl To the opening night performa n Theatre Friday April 21st. at Clarence Brow ANSWER TO WIN
Where in the world would you like to go?
ry.com er to contests@knoxmetorcu nt. eve r Enter by sending the answ prio ted 7. Winner will be contac 201 Drawing will be April 14,
will be notified in advance. from weekly submissions. WinnersU.S. or older, n at random by the Knoxville Mercurywhere be a legal resident, 18 years of age Must ited. prohib *Disclaimer: Winners will be chose Void Y. r has 24 hours to respond. PURCHASE NECESSAR of a sponsor. Once notified, winne404, er (1 - 4 pack of tickets per winner.) NO memb 2. hold 3790 house TN or er, ville, Knox memb family ry, 706 Walnut Ave., Suite and not be a sponsor or an employee, entries received. Sponsor: Knoxville Mercu Odds of winning depend on number of
April 13, 2017 knoxville mercury 39