There comes a time every spring in the Mid-South when the outdoors just gets damned hostile. We had such a beautiful and mild and relatively dry April. Then here comes May, thrashing like an atmospheric adolescent, tantrum after tantrum after tantrum. It feels like we’ve been under siege from the outside for days, but it’s only been about 24 hours. Still, those 24 hours have brought, what, half a dozen tornado warnings in my ‘hood?…
When my friends Brandon and Amanda moved into their new apartment, they came upon an April 4, 1950, issue of The Commercial Appeal, and they were kind enough to let me get my grubby paws on it. The thing is quite yellowed and brittle, and has a tendency to shed bits of itself as you flip carefully from page to page. It’s fascinating stuff; the pages are absolutely chock full of tiny briefs and stories…
(For the full account of the meaning of this madness, read this.)
The Majestic remains one of my favorite places Downtown for food and drink and a taste of the ritz.
Sometimes you happen to be in the right/wrong place at the right/wrong time, and you see weird stuff go down. Tonight after work, I drove out to the gym. As I pulled in the parking lot, I saw a guy sort of standing around a truck. Didn’t think much of it. People stand around sometimes. But as I was gathering up my bags and getting ready to get out of the car, I noticed a…
Details will be posted here as they’re set. (illustration by the talented Jamie Sanford)
I woke up at 6 a.m. to get ready to take Tamara to the airport, and checked Twitter (a regrettable but sometimes useful ritual), only to see @mdinstuhl telling everyone to look outside. I hadn’t been keeping up with the news and usually if there is any chance of solid precipitation coming, its impendingness is a major, major deal and everyone spends the entire night prior making milk-and-bread jokes. But nothing, not a peep.…
Completely forgot to post these back in December. Oops. It’s a pretty remarkable story, especially when you consider it’s about a young lesbian of color. How often does a story like that make it into the paper? And check out this little explainer video about the series, which was featured today at the annual H.F. Guggenheim Symposium on Crime in America in New York: The CA has nominated the series for a Pulitzer.
Today I waged a word battle at work and I lost. It was over this story on The CA‘s site. The headline: “Third ex-Memphis police officer pleads guilty to forced sex with prostitutes.” “Forced sex,” huh? Like, sex you don’t want to have but that someone else makes you have? So … like … rape? After seeing my pal Amanda’s complaint about the euphemism on Twitter, I read the story and agreed totally with her.…
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