Crime Blotter
Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!
The Memphis Police Department was investigating an incident where a man was reportedly being “stomped out” in the middle of the street on a Sunday afternoon. The incident occurred at the intersection of Latham Street and Lucerne Place, where officers responding to a call found a shirtless man gasping for air with a bloodied face. The man who apparently did the stomping had already left the scene in a black sedan, like a character in a 1970s blues song.
Our point here is that while saying the words “stomped out” or “stomped him out” may sound badass, the reality can be brutal, especially if you are the one getting stomped.
Baton Rouge Livestream
A Baton …
Bouquets and Brickbats
Bouquet
To Sam Shoemaker, who made — or grew — a kayak entirely from mushrooms and paddled it 26.4 miles from Catalina Island in California to San Pedro. Accompanying Shoemaker on his voyage, the longest open-water journey in a mushroom kayak ever recorded, was a 50-foot-long fin whale, which breached the water and then followed the kayak for three miles. “It was just like a psychedelic experience,” the artist and mycologist said afterwards, without admitting whether or not he himself was actually on mushrooms.
While dreams of replacing plastic with fungal materials and launching colonies of floating mushroom houses may never be realized, the experience of seeing a whale up close while paddling across the open seas in a new-age boat made of mushrooms certainly seems like a decent-enough bedtime story to tell future generations of Shoemakers. …
Critic's Corner
Dollywood
As a city kid, my first experience of the South was our Dear Lady Dolly Parton’s Appalachian theme park in Tennessee. The park is located in a tiny town called Pigeon Forge, in the middle of the Smoky Mountains. Pigeon Forge is kind of a mess. Driving through the main drag, you’ll see a bunch of competing over-the-top theme parks, mountainside roller coasters, and cracked-out 50s-themed diners targeted at Dollywood-goers.
Driving through West Virginia and North Carolina, I saw a much more stereotypical American South, with grassy fields, massive gas stations, rednecks in Ford pickups, and overweight men in overalls. Hunting for a spot to eat with vegetarian options was a fun challenge that usually resulted in a burrito bowl from Chipotle or a gas-station egg sandwich. Not to say these things are bad, but city living has definitely …
