If you’ve read any of the news stories about the Lester Street killings online, you know that it’s often the comments people make about the stories that are most revealing.
In the first days after the horrible murder of four adults and two children that sent another three grievously wounded kids to Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center, you didn’t have to read very far into the comment string before you heard from people who used to live in Memphis, but had moved.  “Memphis used to be great,” they’d write, “but crime/gangs/Mayor Herenton ruined everything.”

It always makes me angry to read that kind of comment. For one thing, if you really don’t care that much about Memphis, why spend  your time running us down? And though I have never been to Lester Street, I know for a fact that what happened at 722 Lester isn’t a complete reflection of that community.

If I’m defensive, imagine how Pastor Keith Norman (that’s him in the picture, in front of the old Lester Street School back in 2005) feels. Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes something is SO Memphis you can’t help but smile, and this time I’m talking about all the yapping about the Tad Lauritzen Wright art installation that wraps the trees on the Parkways with blue vinyl strips. It’s one of ten UrbanArt installations around town, and people’s reactions are, well, fascinating. Stacey Greenberg, who has my undying admiration for teaching her kids to actually eat and converse in restaurants, likes Wright’s idea, but, predictably, most of the comments on The CA story today are, um, negative. (Some more background from artbutcher.)

I hope all the controversy doesn’t make the folks at the UrbanArt Commission back off of their plans to try to keep putting interesting art in public places in Memphis. I’m not wild about the Blue Parkway installation myself, but I love that it happened, and I’m loving watching and listening to the conversation around it. And, after all, isn’t that what art is supposed to do? Maybe make you think a little?

Yeah, you probably already know that PMS is the name of the book “PMS: Problems Men Started,” a funny and fun book by the publisher and founder of Skirt!, Nikki Hardin, who’s in town today signing her book at Davis-Kidd, 6 pm. (That’s Nikki, in love with Stephen Colbert, who inexplicably refused to wear a skirt for her and the magazine!) We hope you also find a copy of the February issue of Skirt! — click HERE for a list of places to pick one up. It’s free!

I took a break from writing my column in the newspaper over the holidays and into January, and I really missed it. So now I’m back, and Sunday my column was about a totally cool collection of photos that The Brooks acquired, from the old Memphis World newspaper, which closed in 1974. I’ve seen them all (the one on this post is a Hooks Brothers photo of the Zeta Phi Beta sorors at “Carmen Jones” at the Ellis Auditorium in 1953). Most of the photos are as fascinating as this one, mostly for the ordinary life of middle-class black Memphians they show. The photos will be part of an exhibit that goes up at the Brooks and Rhodes later this summer.

Even though I needed a column break, I never really run out of ideas, but if you’ve been wondering why I write the way I do, and have a suggestion for something for me to write about, please send it along. Hope I’ll hear from you …

I’m fast becoming campaign-obsessed, vacuuming up info about the presidential candidates as “mega-Tuesday” (that’s what Donna Brazile calls it) gets ever closer. The Washington Post (campaign junkie’s news outlet of choice) does a good job today dissecting what will happen on Feb. 5, but there’s nary a mention of what the campaigns, particularly the Democratic campaigns, are doing in Tennessee, much less Memphis. Are we even on the radar? And what are local politicos doing to advance their candidates? Can anyone tell?

Today I got an e-mail from Hillary (oh, yeah, we’re on a first name basis … not; I get e-mail from all kinds of politicos, dating back to my time on the CA editorial board and as a senior editor at the paper). Anyway, Hillary has launched a Tennessee Women’s Council (you mean she didn’t have one already?), and lists exactly ONE woman from  West Tennessee — Paula Barnes of Cordova. (Uh, wouldn’t that be Memphis? Why not say so? And Paula, who are you?) Read the rest of this entry »