Arkansas Times | October 2022

‘I’LL

FEATURES

24 PUPPETRY VS. PROGRESS

By Austin TO GREEN OR NOT TO GREEN

By

37 BOTTOMS UP

By

9 THE FRONT THE TO-DO LIST NEWS & POLITICS SAVVY KIDS CULTURE CULTURE HISTORY

By THE OBSERVER

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DISPATCH FROM THE TRENCHES

Unless you’re an unhappily or unhealthfully pregnant person, the end of abortion rights in Arkansas is probably not an issue occupying your thoughts at all waking hours. Should it be? Arkansas’s near-total abortion ban went into effect this summer, and the consequences — both intended and unintended — are already quite grave. Dr. Chad Taylor, a boardcertified OB-GYN and outspoken advocate for reproductive rights, talked with us about the brutality wrought by the trigger law establishing forced birth in Arkansas. (These are the opinions of Dr. Taylor and may not represent his employers.)

You’re an OB-GYN who does not perform abortions. Has your practice been affected by the ban?

I think it’s important that we offer the full scope of health care to all of our patients. And there are many times when we don’t think that a medical procedure will apply to us, and then suddenly it does. So a woman who does not intend to become pregnant, who has very bad heart disease, becomes pregnant. And under the current law, it’s difficult to tell if and when she might have the ability to terminate her pregnancy to save her life. When does it become an emergency? Do we have to wait until she is teetering to intervene?

FAMILY: My dad, who just moved to Little Rock from Texas, and my soon-tobe husband, Myron.

FAVORITE VACATION: Any beach, but I love Costa Rica.

FAVORITE SHOW: “Game of Thrones”

What other consequences have you seen that were maybe not anticipated?

Pharmacists don’t want to give medicine for medically managed miscarriages. With a miscarriage, there are three options. There’s expectant management [waiting for the miscarriage to happen naturally]; surgical management, which is a D&C [dilation and curettage]; and medication management with misoprostol. And misoprostol is one of the drugs used in medication abortion. So women get turned away, and it’s another stain on someone who’s doing something that’s perfectly legal. We had an issue with this just yesterday. We’re having to prescribe to certain pharmacies.

What’s the next step here to help women secure reproductive autonomy?

We need to encourage access to any kind of birth control that any woman wants, at any time. Health insurance might need rethinking, and I think we also need to be able to talk about birth control options in the teenage years. I have no issue with promoting abstinence as a form of birth control, but people who do not choose that as their form of birth control need to know there are other options.

I think fetal anomalies are always a surprise. And some of them are so profound that the general public is not even aware of their existence. People think that babies just pass away quietly in their mothers’ arms and that’s often not how it works. Sometimes babies born with fetal anomalies suffocate. Some of these anomalies are devastating, and the mothers are being forced to carry the babies to term. There’s no intent here to suggest how someone should treat this finding. It’s merely to suggest that different people may want different outcomes for their families. And that choice should remain within the family.

Is there an unforeseen consequence of Arkansas’s trigger ban that you’ve dealt with in your practice?

Yes. Consider a rupture of membranes at 16 weeks. There is a very high risk of premature labor and preterm birth. The baby has a very high risk of having respiratory failure at birth, and there’s a high risk of infection. Most people would say that if we believe there is infection, that the baby should be delivered, regardless of the presence of a heartbeat. And so, if the mother is 21 weeks pregnant, that baby will pass away because it’s pre-viable. But there is concern about how we act on pregnancies where a heartbeat is still detected, even for the benefit of mothers’ health.

What do young men need to know about abortion access in Arkansas?

It is critical, as a partner in this process with women, that they are also well-informed on reliable forms of birth control. They are not bystanders. This is not something that men do to women. This is an opportunity for us to stand by women.

You’ve been quite outspoken on this issue, which is a brave thing in a red state. Why do you put yourself out there like that?

There are many, many, many, many pro-choice OB-GYNs in this state, and they are terrified of speaking out for fear of retaliation. And most people in this state are pro-choice to some degree. I think that it’s important for the women of Arkansas to see that they have doctors who support them, and that they can point to them and meet them and know that they are real people and that they really exist. I would really like to go a step further and suggest that more pro-choice OBGYNs become more involved in this process. Nobody is ever out here promoting abortion or even suggesting that it is the better path. It’s just about making sure that a woman has autonomy.

— Austin Bailey

DR. CHAD TAYLOR ON THE CONSEQUENCES, BOTH INTENDED AND NOT, OF ARKANSAS’S ABORTION BAN

BRIAN CHILSON

THINKING BIG

VISIONS FOR A PARK THAT COULD DEFINE LITTLE ROCK.

BY LINDSEY MILLAR

The Arkansas Department of Transportation’s 30 Crossing project, the interminable, colossally expensive overhaul of the Interstate 30 bridge, is almost entirely bad news. Its 500 lanes of traffic (only a slight exaggeration) will create an ugly concrete sea in the middle of downtown Little Rock, and likely have little effect on rush hour traffic congestion.

If there’s any good news to be found in the project, it’s that Little Rock will get a new, prominent 20-acre park downtown. 30 Crossing has gotten rid of the on- and offramps in the River Market District, which frees up a spatula-shaped parcel of land that stretches under the interstate for park use. While the Department of Transportation will continue to own the land, it’s Little Rock’s to build out as a park. What that might look like is of course dependent on money, and despite new allocations for Little Rock parks from federal coronavirus relief funds and forthcoming money generated from the proceeds of the capital millage voters recently renewed, there’s not likely to be enough to do anything spectacular anytime soon.

That’s no reason we shouldn’t still consider visionary options, something the design nonprofit studioMAIN has encouraged Little Rock to do since it was founded a decade ago. Earlier this year, studioMAIN hosted the Envision Competition 2022, seeking plans for the parkland from professionals, students and members of the public. Juried and public choice awards were given. See all the submissions at studio-main.org.

ARKANSAS RIVER WALK

AMR Architects won the Wildcard Public Choice Award for its bold plan to bring the Arkansas River into downtown via a series of canals lined by green space and mixed-use development.

ÜNDRPASS

Kudos to Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects, winner of the Public Choice Little Rock Placemaking Award, for coming up with a very cool looking quilt-like installation that undulates under and around the interstate and othewise incorporating loads of green space in its design. But Little Rock has a “no umlauts” rule in park names.

LITTLE ROCK PARKWAY Cromwell Architects Engineers won the Public Choice Award for Establish Connections for its plan, which preserves the spiral framework of the old on- and off-ramps. The design has all the things a park should: a pavilion, an amphitheater, a splash pad, a playground, sports fields and courts, a big pond, a food truck area and lots of green space.

TOWN BRANCH PARK

Taggart Architects won the Jury Award in the Professional category for its modern vision that calls back the past. Town Branch was what the area was once known as, and Taggart envisions “reviving” a creek between Second and Third streets and constructing a “treehouse city” that’s supposed to recall historic city fabric of yore. There’s also a giant blue dino sculpture, Little Rock-y, that doubles as a climbing wall.

BY STEPHANIE SMITTLE, GLEN HOOKS, OMAYA JONES AND LINDSEY MILLAR

BUFFALO RIVER PARK RX WEEKEND

SATURDAY 10/8-SUNDAY 10/9.

BUFFALO NATIONAL RIVER, VARIOUS CAMPGROUNDS. FREE.

Discuss myths, mysteries and misconceptions about the full moon with Buffalo National River park rangers at the Tyler Bend Pavilion; do yoga in the park with instructors stationed at Steel Creek and Buffalo Point campgrounds; and spend the weekend sightseeing while you complete the parkwide photo geocaching scavenger hunt. Who says the Buffalo River season ends when the water levels at Ponca get low? Follow Buffalo National River on social media and Buffalo National River Partners at bnrpartners.org for details to come. SS

‘LIT’:

RAY ALLEN PARKER

THROUGH SATURDAY 10/22. BOSWELLMOUROT FINE ART, 5815 KAVANAUGH BLVD.

It might seem counterintuitive that a painter’s depictions of Virginia Woolf and Walt Whitman and Gabriel García Márquez could be a self-portraiture, but for Egypt (Craighead County) native Ray Allen Parker, the works in “Lit” are just that. Called a “visual autobiography” by Parker, who studied American and English literature at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, the exhibition at Boswell-Mourot features 15 uniformly sized 48-by36-inch portraits of writers who shaped his thinking, all rendered in only one or two colors, often chosen to correspond to the author’s most notable work. SS

AARON GATES/NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

MELVINS

WEDNESDAY 10/19. REV ROOM. 8 P.M. $25.

King Buzzo and drummer Dale Crover make up a decades-long through line in the seminal punk/sludge metal band the Melvins, and they’re headed to Rev Room to blast the same brand of havoc they’ve been blasting together since 1984, somehow managing along the way to influence every heavy band you know without succumbing to the trappings of above-ground fame. If the Melvins are a household name in your house, you’re in a good house. Come for “Mister Dog Is Totally Right,” thrash around to the e.e. cummings-esque lyrics to “Honey Bucket” and stay for the Redd Kross and Flipper covers they’ve been dosing their setlists with these days. We Are the Asteroid opens the show. SS

FOUL PLAY CABARET: WITCHES OF OUACHITA MOUNTAINS

SATURDAY 10/29. CENTRAL THEATRE, 1008 CENTRAL AVE., HOT SPRINGS. 8 P.M. $5-$35; $250 VIP COUCH.

If you think burlesque is just a thinly veiled excuse to see some particularly mentionable unmentionables with a veneer of moral impunity … OK, it actually is that. Nevertheless, may I introduce you to Foul Play Cabaret? The group of performers — Jezebelle Jax, Rosa Lee Bloom, Ruby Lead, Violet D’Vine and Doris Night — makes the striptease look like moving art, with extravagantly crafted costumes, whipsmart humor, a sex-positive ethos and relentless dedication to the night’s theme, whatever it may be. (Witchcraft, in this case.) And they’re ever clever at delivering the element of surprise: In one of the last shows of any kind I saw before the pandemic lockdown, a member of the troupe did a clever, artful tease in full tuxedo drag to the tune of a moody Smiths song (“This Charming Man,” was it?) and managed to remain entirely clothed for the duration, reaching into their blouse at the last second and letting go a mischievous cackle as they pulled out a hearty middle finger and bounced offstage. The audience went wild! And, because Arkansas has more good burlesque than we deserve, Foul Play is joined by host pepper Darling, Fifi Deluxx of Memphis and by Maxie Fauna, maker of meticulously engineered stagewear and radiant founder of the state’s foremost BIPOC burlesque troupe, Arkansas Shake Shakers. Costumes are encouraged for attendees. Get tickets at Eventbrite. SS

‘HOW DID THE FEELING FEEL TO YOU’: LIZ AND WILCOX

FRIDAY 10/14. HISTORIC ARKANSAS MUSEUM. 5 P.M. FREE.

Here’s a Second Friday Art night opening not to miss: Hot Springs native Liz Sanders is a brilliant documentary photographer whose work has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Nation and the Oxford American. Sanders’ work often explores the intersection between tradition and modernity and how that affects individuals and communities. Several years back, she put together a deeply personal and moving series about her late father’s final days living with dementia. Lauren Wilcox Puchowski is a

creative polymath. A poet, a former editor at the Oxford American and Heifer International’s World Ark and occasional contributor of writing and art to the Arkansas Times, she’s also the inventor of the boomloom, an ingenious handheld mini loom that’s easy enough for kids to use. She’ll exhibit her playful and modern enamel-on-copper sculptures of the detritus in her Jersey City neighborhood or oddball scenes that catch her eye. Meanwhile, Stone’s Throw Brewing will have a variety of ciders on offer.

LM

LAUREN

WILCOX

HOT SPRINGS DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL

FRIDAY 10/7-SATURDAY 10/15. ARLINGTON RESORT HOTEL & SPA. $150-$400.

As ever, the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival is a week-plus of films you’ll think about for years, plus parties you hopefully won’t regret the next morning. Highlights of 2022 include Mark Fletcher’s (“My Octopus Teacher”) undersea conservation tale, “Patrick and the Whale”; Kathlyn Horan’s “The Return of Tanya Tucker: Featuring Brandi Carlile”; Shaunak Sen’s awardwinning tale of a bird hospital in polluted New Delhi, “All That Breathes”; Violet Columbus and Ben Klein’s portrait of Tiananmen Square massacre documentarian Christine Choy, “The Exiles”; and loads more, much of it with connections to the American South. We’ll admit some partiality to the screening of Julia Bacha’s “Boycott,” featuring Arkansas Times publisher Alan Leveritt alongside Bahia Amawi in Texas and Mik Jordahl in Arizona, championing free speech in the battle over state government mandates against political boycotts of Israel. Visit hsdff2022.eventive.org/films to see the full lineup with details about each film. SS

EVERYBODY BIKES

SUNDAY 10/2. RECYCLE BIKES FOR KIDS, 717 E. 10TH ST., NORTH LITTLE ROCK. 4 P.M.-7 P.M. FREE.

Bike races, lawn games, food and music celebrate the efforts of Recycle Bikes for Kids, a program that collects bikes through individual donations, community bike drives and scrapyard donations and re-distributes the repaired bikes to kids who need them, often through partnerships with organizations like Our House, Habitat For Humanity and Arkansas CASA. Come party in the name of community bike riding, or check out the volunteer programs and get involved. SS BLUES

ARKANSAS TIMES FILM SERIES: ‘RAW’

TUESDAY 10/18. RIVERDALE 10 VIP CINEMA. 7 P.M. $5.99.

Blues is a tradition that thrives on live performance and the camaraderie that accompanies it, and while local cornerstones like Ben Brenner, Charlotte Taylor and Deb Finney have kept the flame burning in Central Arkansas, the post-pandemic resurgence of King Biscuit is paramount. This year, count on sets from Mavis Staples, Devon Allman, Zora Young, Rodney Block, Bobby Rush, Paul Thorn, the G-HOPE Gospel Choir and an ensemble of musicians paying homage to Arkansas’s own Michael Burks with a memorial jam. See the full lineup at kingbiscuitfestival.com. Better yet, grab a ticket on the Arkansas Times Blues Bus and catch roundtrip transportation to the Saturday festivities complete with lunch, on-the-bus adult beverages and on-the-bus entertainment from Jason Lee Hale. Get your spot at centralarkansastickets.com. SS

A car is driving down a two-lane highway. On one side of the road is a row of trees planted in a parallel line. On the other there isn’t much, maybe a ditch and some shrubs. Suddenly a body falls onto the road, seemingly out of nowhere, causing the car to swerve and slam into a tree. We hear the horn of the car, a constant assault on our ears. Soon, the body gets up, walks to the car, and then we cut to black. That’s the opening to Julia Ducournau’s 2016 debut feature, “Raw.” Firmly in the genre of body horror (where Ducournau feels comfortable), the movie is ultimately about two sisters and their ability to treat each other humanely in the worst of circumstances. It’s the latest film in the post-pandemic revival of the Arkansas Times Film Series, curated by Film Quote Films. Mark your calendars for the final screening of the year on Tuesday, Dec. 20, when we’ll show Nagisa Oshima’s “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.” OJ

ADA LIMÓN

THURSDAY 10/6. HENDRIX COLLEGE, STAPLES AUDITORIUM. 7:30 P.M. FREE; NO RESERVATIONS REQUIRED.

Ada Limón, who can make you feel within the first two lines of a verse that she’s somehow privy to your Google search history and has perhaps made similar private inquiries in the wee hours, was named as the nation’s 24th poet laureate in July. Her sixth book, “The Hurting Kind,” came out this year and, like its predecessors, lends itself to being spoken aloud in exactly this type of in-person gathering. Witness the barbed-wire edges of an old friendship laid bare in “Mastering,” for example, which she read for The New York Times in May. Limón is a former theater major and host of the podcast “The Slowdown,” after all, so plucking her words off the page and depositing them into the microphone is a bit of a specialty. A book signing follows the reading, and WordsWorth Books will sell select titles of Limón’s work at the event. Limón’s staff requests that all audience members wear masks. SS

HALLOWEEN SPOOKTACULAR

SATURDAY 10/22-SUNDAY 10/23. ROBINSON CENTER. 7:30 P.M. SAT.; 3 P.M. SUN. $16-$72.

All those classic spooky films in the canon wouldn’t be squat without their orchestral scores, and this program from the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra features themes from “Jaws,” “Beetlejuice,” the Harry Potter series, “SpiderMan” and “Game of Thrones,” as well as Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” Saint-Saens’ “Danse Macabre” and Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”

Theatrical direction comes from Katie Campbell, who directs the children’s theater at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, and the stage will be graced with guests from Little Rock Parkview High School Theater and Dance programs, Arkansas Circus Arts, Ballet Arkansas, Fancyful Parties and ASO’s own Spooky Singers ensemble. Patrons are invited to come in costume, and a costume parade will be conducted on stage immediately following intermission. Get tickets at arkansassymphony.org. SS

CENTRAL ARKANSAS PRIDE FEST AND PARADE

SATURDAY 10/15. ARGENTA ARTS

DISTRICT, NORTH LITTLE ROCK. FREE; DONATIONS ACCEPTED.

Pride is back, and if there were any doubt about the need for the celebration to honor its origins as a revolutionary uprising, consider that it was only weeks ago that the Arkansas Travelers were somehow OK with hosting our Pride chapter’s Out Days at the ballpark but balked at having a drag queen throw the first pitch. In the throes of a national culture war whose flames are stoked by our Republican gubernatorial nominee (see the cover story in this issue), even throwing a street festival with entertainment, food, vendors, community groups and a kids zone can be an act of empowerment and resistance. This year features headliner Robin S. (Remember “Show Me Love”?), and the parade begins at noon at the intersection of Broadway and Broadway in North Little Rock; registration for parade participants is open until Oct. 8. Follow Central Arkansas Pride on social media and at arpride.org for details about this year’s parade and celebration to come. SS

‘NOSFERATU’: A SYMPHONY OF HORROR

SUNDAY 10/30. TRINITY EPISCOPAL CATHEDRAL. 7 P.M. $15.

Improvised church organ against F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent film “Nosferatu” in an 1884 Gothic revival cathedral? Yes, please. Organist David Enlow plays the pipe organ accompaniment for the 100th birthday celebration of the Bram Stoker horror classic. Look, after the last couple years, this is the kind of Halloween programming we deserve. Get tickets at Eventbrite. SS

LUCAS MARQUARDT

Before casting your ballot this fall, get to know the candidates and their stances on important issues.

Twenty-four candidates in nine races will participate in “Election 2022: Arkansas PBS Debates,” which will livestream at youtube.com/arkansaspbs and air live on Arkansas PBS daily Oct. 17-21. Debates will also be rebroadcast during primetime beginning Oct. 17.

All debates will be held at the Donald W. Reynolds Performance Hall, 223 Beatrice Powell St., on the University of Central Arkansas campus in Conway. Admission is free, and the public is invited. Seating is available on a first come, first served basis. Doors will open one hour prior to taping times.

U.S. House of a.m., p.m. a.m., p.m.

MONDAY, OCT. 17

U.S. p.m.,

U.S. a.m.,

TUESDAY, OCT. 18

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 19

THURSDAY, OCT. 20

FRIDAY, OCT. 21

U.S. House of p.m., p.m. at 1 p.m., p.m.a.m., 7 p.m. at 2 p.m., reairs Wednesday, Oct. 19, at 8 p.m. at 10 a.m., at 7 p.m.

myarpbs.org/elections Frank Kalagias Boozman Dale Westerman Mallett-Hays Beth Gibson Rutledge Womack

CONGRATULATIONS TO LA TERRAZA RUM & LOUNGE

FOR BEING VOTED WINNER OF THE BEST MARGARITA AT LAST WEEKS’S MARGARITA FESTIVAL COMPETITION. “WE H AD LOTS OF F UN AND WILL DEFINITELY BE BACK NEXT YEAR TO DEFEND OUR CHAMPIONSHIP,” SAYS ARMANDO BALANOS, OWNER.

THE RUNNERS UP WERE THE BUTCHER SHOP RESTAURANT AND THE ZEN WINE BAR, ALL OF LITTLE ROCK.

SO LET’S ALL GO OUT AND VISIT THESE FINE RESTAURANTS AND SEND YOUR COMPLEMENTS TO THE BARTENDER!

The Arkansas Times and Milagro Tequila want to thank all the over 400 patrons that attended the Festival last Thursday night at the Argenta Plaza in N Little Rock. We also want to thank the City of North Little Rock, Jimmy’s Jerk Chicken, Taco Godoy, Mr Cajun’s Kitchen and Jorge the DJ from Club 27. Thank you all for a great evening. The Arkansas Time’s next event is the Brewed in Arkansas Craft Beer Festival coming October 7, 6-9PM at the Argenta Plaza, downtown North Little Rock. Place,

The BridgeWay is more than a hospital-it’s a place of hope and recovery from substance use disorders and mental illness. With the belief that each person can change and heal, we offer a program and treatment plan unique to each patient.

Our outpatient treatment represents our least restrictive and most flexible care options. Our Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP) and Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) offer either day or evening schedules. These options allow patients to receive recovery-focused treatment that addresses a full range of psychiatric and addictive issues while attending to daily family and work obligations. In addition, our outpatient programs provide specialized group therapy for adults 18 and older with specific mental health or substance use disorder needs. North Little Rock, AR 72113 disease

A POINT OF NO RETURN

AN END TO INCOME TAX IN ARKANSAS WOULD BE PERMANENT.

BY ERNEST DUMAS

That little three-day session of the Arkansas legislature in August must be counted as the roaring success that the Republican Party and its state leaders touted. Like no other in nearly a century, the session advanced the central goal of today’s GOP: to wreck the state’s fiscal system so that people of inherited riches or high incomes will never again have to worry about paying much in the way of taxes to support education, health care and law enforcement — i.e., government services for the needy and the commoners, for which a few comfortable people think they should not have to pay.

Presuming that Sarah Huckabee Sanders is sincere about her promises, and that Republicans are loyal enough to elect her governor in November in spite of her evasiveness, we will shortly (in eight years, by her schedule) see the end of income taxes in Arkansas on both corporate and individual taxpayers. Like all the other Republican candidates for governor, real and would-be (that includes Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin and Attorney General Leslie Rutledge), Sanders

has promised to end the taxes, not just reduce them a little more than the timid Governor Hutchinson has.

Realistically, that will be forever. Neither Hutchinson nor any of the Republicans championing the elimination of state income taxes ever mention what their goal really means: Thanks to a Depression-era provision in the state constitution (Amendment 19), there will be no state income taxes ever again — only sales taxes, excise taxes and property taxes, which are most burdensome on the poor and ordinary wage earners, who are too often ignorant of what is happening to them. After all, freeing the rich from tax burdens is exactly what Donald Trump would do if the “socialists” hadn’t stopped him. And once the income tax is scrapped, thanks to Amendment 19 it realistically cannot be reinstated.

Is that an overstatement? Not if you have a modicum of knowledge about Arkansas history, or even American history. The income tax goes back to the Civil War and the first Republican, Abraham Lincoln, who got the Republican

Congress to levy an income tax to pay for his war against treason. It was scrapped after the war.

But it is Arkansas history that gives us a tutorial on what Hutchinson and the overwhelming Republican majority in the legislature, with Sanders’ promised help, have wrought. Remember that, although the state this summer was drowning in tax revenue — a planned event, as I will explain — Republican legislators could see no reason to spend any of the vast surplus to raise pay for teachers, despite the enormity of the education crisis as schools from border to border can’t find qualified teachers for their classrooms (not to mention the fact that Arkansas teachers are among the most poorly paid in America).

Future historians will compare Hutchinson and his legislative majority to their counterparts in 1932 — a popular and goodhearted governor named J. Marion Futrell and a legislature of 135 like-minded conservative Democrats. The country was in the depths of the Great Depression and Arkansas was the dreariest

FISCAL FOLLY: For a lesson on the dangers of reckless tax slashing, look to the Arkansas history books.

place in the land, suffering from floods, drought and famine on top of a complete collapse of the economy. In 1929, just before the stock-market crash and the economic collapse, Arkansas had enacted its first income tax — at least the first that withstood judicial scrutiny. It was a nearly meaningless tax because the law provided no reliable system for collecting it (withholding didn’t come along until 1966) — and besides, almost no one in the state was earning anything more than subsistence, so collections were slim. The legislature also had just mandated public education for the first time, although since 1874 the constitution had required the state to provide a suitable and equal education for every child. Now every kid was obliged by statute to go to school.

Three previous governors — Tom McRae, John E. Martineau and Harvey Parnell — had set out to provide a good education to everyone, like prospering states had been doing, and to raise some taxes to do it. These would have included the first income and severance taxes in the state, although the Arkansas Supreme Court struck down McRae’s tiny income tax (a tenth of 1% tax on income over $1,000 a year). The final income tax was Parnell’s. However, his successor, Futrell, thought education was overrated, and he was outright opposed to the state spending a dime on high schools. Universal secondary education was a waste of taxes, he said.

In 1933, Futrell and the legislature slashed some of the few taxes on the books. The state defaulted on its debts, and Arkansas became a ward of the federal government. Federal taxes then paid for basic commodities for starving white families in east Arkansas and also the paltry payments that were made to school teachers (many teachers got IOUs or county scrip in lieu of money).

The Roosevelt administration declared an end to its sufferance of the Arkansas beggarliness in early 1935. If the state did not raise some taxes to support the schools and other services, as all the other states had done, the feds would end all their aid to Arkansas on March 15 of that year. Fearing a march of thousands of beggars on the state Capitol, Futrell pleaded with the legislature to raise some taxes — and it did, creating the first sales tax, legalizing and taxing liquor, and taxing racetrack wagering. So, the federal aid continued. Arkansas has continued to be a marginal ward of the federal government ever since, which partly accounts for the big surpluses Hutchinson and the legislature are parceling out, with income-tax cuts and big bonuses to key bureaucrats and lawmen.

Champions of the wrongheaded notion that

low and nonexistent taxes, notably on income and wealth, are the secret to economic growth and prosperity might ponder the history of the Depression era, but also every era before or since. Low taxes never mean growth and prosperity, and higher taxes never mean lower growth and recession. A summary of that history, state and national, from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump (and James Conway to Asa Hutchinson in Arkansas) may be the subject of another disquisition.

J.M. Futrell’s legacy is even worse than his

also to spend them. The amendment states that state taxes can never be raised, except by a statewide vote at a general election or in a dire emergency by a three-fourths majority of both houses of the legislature. And the legislature can appropriate money to be spent only by a similar three-fourths vote — unless the money is to be used for pensions for Confederate veterans and their widows, public education, highways or to pay “the just debts of the state.” Futrell’s Amendment 19 didn’t define “just debts of the state,” and it is still a mystery. By his own actions after the amendment became law (for example, signing bills that didn’t get the three-fourths votes), Futrell insinuated that anything passed by the legislature was a just debt. We haven’t followed his example, so a nay-saying minority of the legislature decides how state revenues are to be spent.

There is no evidence that the three-fourths-vote threshold ever kept taxes any lower or saved even a dime of spending. It merely affected who had to pay the taxes, and who got the money.

hasty succession of tax cuts and tax increases. As he took office in 1933, he wrote two amendments to the state constitution, and the legislature passed them along to the voters at the 1934 election. Once passed by the voters, they became known as the Futrell Amendments. One of them, Amendment 20, barred the government from ever going into debt without a statewide vote. Subsequent governments, helped often by tolerant courts, found ways to skirt the mandate and go into debt. Embracing the idea of the modern Federalist Society, the courts concluded that constitutional authors like Futrell hadn’t really meant what they wrote.

Futrell’s other legacy, the aforementioned Amendment 19, was meant to make it much harder for the legislature to raise taxes and

The principal effect was to make it impossible to raise income taxes except under the rarest of political conditions, and to make the new tax source — retail sales — the go-to tax. Needing only 18 votes in the Senate and 51 in the House, sales taxes assumed a big burden of financing almost everything: schools, local governments, lakes, streams, parks, and finally highways. Ever since, Arkansans have paid it in bits and chunks every day and never marked its burden — unlike income taxes, which are shown on weekly pay stubs and tax preparations every April. If the legislature really wanted to stimulate economic growth, cutting sales taxes would do the job. At least Hutchinson and the legislators have not embraced the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s simple and unconstitutional idea of suspending income taxes for five years for people who will establish residence in Arkansas. The most desirable citizens are supposed to be people who don’t want to pay taxes.

Only four governors, two Republicans and two Democrats, ever tried to climb the cliff and increase either corporate or personal income taxes: Republicans Winthrop Rockefeller and Mike Huckabee (that’s right, Sarah’s dad), both of whom sought to raise both corporate and personal rates, and Democrats Dale Bumpers and Bill Clinton, who succeeded in raising one or the other. Rockefeller, in 1969 and again in 1970, proposed raising personal income taxes to a top rate of 12 percent, which would have been

GOV. J. MARION FUTRELL: His Amendment 19 to the Arkansas Constitution made it practically impossible except in the rarest of circumstances for Arkansas to raise income taxes.

the highest in the country (Witt Stephens and Rockefeller himself might have been the only ones to pay the top rate). Rockefeller also sought to raise sales, tobacco, gasoline and other excise taxes. The overwhelmingly Democratic legislature rejected Rockefeller’s personal income tax, but adopted his corporate tax, raising it from a top rate of 5% to 6%. Bumpers tried to raise the top individual rate to 9% but, after repeated defeats in both houses, settled for 7%. He declared that he would never raise the sales tax. Clinton in 1991 went along with a slight raise in the corporate tax rate, from 6 to 6.5%. And Hutchinson, who was defeated in his first race for office in 1986 by Bumpers, has now denigrated Bumpers’ legacy by reducing the rate on wealthier citizens below where it was when Bumpers took office.

Mike Huckabee’s actual record demands some attention, since his daughter seems to suggest, in the few things she’s said about how she would govern, that she would govern more like Trump than like her dad. The senior Huckabee raised more taxes than any governor in Arkansas history, and he can still be seen on archival video begging the Democrat-led legislature to raise income taxes, or indeed any kind of tax. Send the bill to me, he said, and I will sign it into law. And so, he did. He signed bills adding a 3% surcharge on every individual and corporate taxpayer for a couple of years. Huckabee also signed or supported many other tax increases, since he happened to be governor just when the state suffered revenue shortages from the delayed first George W. Bush recession as well as court decisions ordering the state to meet the constitutional requirement that it furnish a good education for every child. Huckabee did his best to carry out the constitutional edict of well-funded schools.

Mike’s daughter has other ideas. After first saying when she announced for governor that she would abolish income taxes entirely, Sarah Sanders lately has talked about “phasing” them out. You have to presume that her daddy, who has moved back to Little Rock from Florida’s Redneck Riviera, has told her from personal experience that if she eliminates $5 billion a year in tax receipts — the state’s income-tax haul last year — she will have to raise sales taxes by half or else implement a four-month school year (along with a further reduction in teacher salaries). Of course, that doesn’t mean she still won’t do it. The current legislature would jump at the chance.

Politicians of every stripe are moved to do what will be popular today with little regard

for the distant, or even near, future, but it is a dangerous motive for changing the constitution, because it will limit the available solutions when we are faced with new and emerging problems. That was Futrell’s profound mistake, closing the options for future generations. Thanks to Amendment 19, Hutchinson’s tax cuts have made it realistically impossible for future leaders to raise needed revenues with income taxes. If Sanders carries through and eliminates corporate and individual income taxes, no future governor or legislature can raise money that way. They can only raise sales taxes, which land heavily on low- and moderate-income families. Amendment 19 says that without a three-fourths vote in each house, the legislature can never levy income taxes on even one bracket of taxpayers as

and wanes from year to year, usually a little behind the nation’s. Arkansas had a net loss of jobs during Trump’s four years. Job growth has been a little better since Trump departed but is still nothing to brag about.

Much of that surplus in the state treasury is not from Hutchinson’s economizing and industrial growth, but from Arkansas’s old patron from the Depression era, Uncle Sam, who in the last days of Trump and the first year of Biden flooded the state with money — more than Hutchinson could or even wanted to pass out to people and businesses clobbered by the pandemic and the recession it induced. But the first big inducement was Obamacare, which took effect in 2014 and poured money into Arkansas — especially after Governor Beebe and the legislature, unlike those in other Southern states, opted to participate fully in Medicaid coverage for low-income people. Beebe and the legislature had the foresight to build the state’s Medicaid structure in such a way that insurance companies could participate and, therefore, keep the state treasury flush with premium taxes as well as income taxes. It continues to be a fiscal bonanza for the state, although Hutchinson tried to limit medical coverage for the very poorest people, the unemployed. Sanders, a critic of Obamacare, may end the Medicaid participation and all that cash flow.

Budget surpluses are almost never surprises; they are planned.

described in the 1929 law. If the legislature simply re-enacted that old law — which it might do with a simple majority if the courts acquiesce — even very poor families would pay the same rate as billionaires. That is where Hutchinson and, presumably, Sanders are taking us.

The vast majority of Arkansans (and of people everywhere) believe that the rich, whether they are heirs of fortunes or just engaged in lucrative careers, do not pay their fair share of taxes. Some of them even think that their model Donald Trump, whose daddy paid few taxes even when he was legally bound to do so, probably should pay a little more.

Hutchinson’s cover has been the big budget surplus which, largely thanks to the federal government, shows up in the treasury every July 1 at the end of the fiscal year. It looks like Asa has fashioned such a booming economy and has saved so much money with his government reorganization that the only thing to do is cut taxes and give the surplus to needy groups like the National Guard Association. The state, apparently, just has no need for so much money.

The facts are considerably different. The Arkansas economy has always followed the nation’s, usually a little slower and later but not in every case. Job creation in Arkansas waxes

The governor can pretty well control whether there will be a surplus in any year, and about how much. Every June or so, his fiscal director calculates what the economy is going to do in the next 12 months and picks a revenue forecast that will be short of what is likely to be collected, and then money is parceled out to agencies every month based on that conservative forecast. In recent years and probably the years ahead, the public schools, most of the colleges (but of course not the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, home of the Razorbacks) and the prisons are starved of aid because the governor and the legislature calculate beforehand how much money they should get. Whatever their needs might be — most notably the schools, under the Lake View v. Huckabee court settlement — a minimal sum goes into the allotments decided by the governor with the consent of legislative leaders. Lake View is no longer effective.

That is the explanation for the growing teacher shortage, the surge of retirements and resignations, and the growing fiscal problems at the state’s regional colleges like the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and Henderson State University.

The worst is to come.

CHRIS JONES AND THE INVISIBLE WOMAN

Arkansans don’t see or hear from Sarah Huckabee Sanders much, but that doesn’t mean they won’t vote for her.

BY AUSTIN BAILEY PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN CHILSON

Taking the summer off is an unorthodox strategy for a candidate staring down a November election. But when you’re floating a red wave to victory on family connections and Donald Trump’s blessing, why pop the raft? Staying mum and out of the public eye makes some sense when you have all the votes you need and your only goal is to not lose them.

And so, after rolling through solidly red enclaves like Benton, Searcy and Harrison on her shiny red Freedom RV, making tightly controlled public appearances, Republican frontrunner Sarah Huckabee Sanders largely disappeared from Arkansans’ view from the end of May until early September. Out-of-state media sent word of Sanders’ meetups with Trump and Ron DeSantis at political functions in D.C. and Florida, and she reportedly spoke at the Republican Party of Arkansas’s July convention in the air-conditioned conference halls of Little Rock’s Embassy Suites. No cameras were allowed inside, though, so we can only take attendees’ word for it.

While Sanders cloistered herself away from press and public, Democratic candidate Chris Jones took the opposite approach. Without the name recognition that comes with being the daughter of a former governor and the spokesperson of an infamous former president, the rocket scientist girl dad from Pine Bluff is running on his own merits and working hard to introduce himself.

Having announced plans to visit all of Arkansas’s 75 counties and walk a mile in each, Jones hustled and sweltered his way through the summer months. Scheduled between the church services, picnics and door knocking that stuffed his schedule, the walks helped Jones get his steps in to counteract the offerings of peach pie, cheese dip and other temptations of the campaign trail. “I feel healthier, which is good, and I have every grandmother in the state giving me food to eat,” he said.

Libertarian Ricky Dale Harrington Jr. joins the 2022 race

HAVE YOU SEEN ME?: Chris Jones made appearances in all 75 Arkansas counties this year. Sanders took a very different approach, remaining mostly hidden from public view.

for Arkansas governor, but in a September poll was claiming only 2% of the vote. Between the two leading candidates, it’s clear Jones is the only one doing much running. And while Sanders’ name will be on the ballot in November, Jones’ real opponent is the outsized out-of-state cushion of money and influence that has so far kept Sanders from needing to even break a sweat.

IT ACTUALLY IS ROCKET SCIENCE THOUGH

Jones took a circuitous route from his native Pine Bluff to the Arkansas campaign trail, plotting his path through Atlanta, Boston and Washington, D.C., before coming back to Little Rock in 2018. A son of a truck driver and a school principal, Jones’ childhood was pocked with patches in his clothes and eviction notices on the door. But Jones earned his ticket with a NASA scholarship to Morehouse, then headed to MIT to become a nuclear engineer and earn a Ph.D. in urban planning.

After stints as a ninth-grade math teacher, MIT dean and urban planner, Jones came back to Arkansas with his wife, Dr. Jerrilyn Jones, a veteran and emergency room physician, and their three daughters. All that East Coast polish and the five degrees he collected didn’t rid Jones of his enthusiasm for the decidedly Arkansan pursuits of four-wheeling and turkey shoots, or of his affinity for his home state. If you’re looking for a good success story, this one is hard to beat.

“If you were required to place a bet on somebody on their third birthday, he’s not the guy you’d place the bet on,” Democratic Party of Arkansas Chairman Grant Tennille said. The odds are against Jones again now during his first run for political office, as he takes on a candidate buoyed by the most donations of any governor hopeful in Arkansas history.

“The thing we know is that the more people hear about him, the more they like him. I’ll also tell you that the same is not true for her,” Tennille said of Sanders.

Chatting with Jones, you might not know right away that he’s a nuclear physicist and ordained minister. He doesn’t play up these lofty qualifications as much as he might, but both inform his campaign.

Take, for instance, Jones’ theory of nuclear energy as fuel for political engagement. Jones likens the energy he hopes to bring as a product fusion, not fission. You can produce atomic energy either way, he explained. Fusion is harder to achieve, but stronger.

“The politics of fear, of division, are powerful and forceful, and that’s what a lot of folks use,” Jones said, nodding to his

opponent’s snarling and repeated accusations against some vague and sinister “radical left.”

“There’s another kind, the combining of atoms, that’s harder to get to,” Jones explained. “There are very few who actually get there. It takes more effort, but it’s far more powerful.”

There’s little question Jones is putting in the effort, racking up miles and offering up policy ideas on Arkansas-specific issues that Sanders seems to not pay much attention to. Sanders applauded the Arkansas legislature’s passage of tax cuts for the state’s more well-todo, but kept quiet on the teacher raise debate that energized public education advocates.

Jones pressed for significant raises for public school educators, while Sanders avoided taking any public stance on the issue, then deployed her usual deflect and attack play.

In a textbook example of her offenseas-defense strategy, Sanders pledged to release her education plan at some future date (infrastructure week, maybe?), then unleashed a noxious cloud of outrage to hide behind. In August the Sanders campaign accused the reliably Republican Arkansas Democrat-Gazette of liberal media bias because its opinion editors opted, back in February, not to run an op-ed they deemed too “campaign-y.” The fission here, a manufactured division between the press and everyone else, is a reliable old saw to keep voters angry, defensive and energized.

It’s tricky running a campaign against a candidate who touts the vague and opinionpoll-tested concept of freedom but can’t be pinned down on much else.

“She hasn’t said anything of substance except to bash some mythical liberal who lives in Arkansas and to throw out a talking point about eliminating income tax but not saying how she’s going to fill the budget,” Jones said. “Let’s talk about the ideas. If we disagree, we disagree. She’s not offering anything and expects to just walk in. I would say the moment requires a different approach.”

And so Jones campaigns for things, rather than against them. He’s for universal broadband and preschool across the state, and wants to create an economy that supports public infrastructure like roads and hospitals. He likes to target shoot, and also likes the idea of respecting the social contract by keeping guns locked up so they can’t be stolen or used to harm. He’s for the right of pregnant people to seek abortion care if that’s their choice.

Jones is great at math, as his stack of degrees can attest. And he can read the poll numbers. Arkansas went big for Trump in 2020, and that red wave still churns despite Trump’s

mounting legal trouble over purloined documents, insurance fraud and the whole Jan. 6 treason thing.

As White House press secretary, Sanders stood as Trump’s staunchest defender, spinning and hyping as Trump stoked xenophobia and racial tensions with Muslim travel bans, praise for Tiki-weilding white nationalists and a brutal campaign to separate brown children from their parents at the southern border. Plenty of Arkansans flock to Sanders’ campaign not despite that history of racism, but because of it.

For a Black man in the South to take on these odds? Jones’ sanguine take might give us more credit than we deserve.

“We make these assumptions about folks based on one or two factors, when in fact, we’re very complex people,” he said. Jones hosted his mile-long walk in Mena at dusk to push back on the town’s reputation as a “sundown town” where people of color weren’t safe to show their faces after dark. “The narrative of Arkansas is often different from the lived experience of Arkansas,” he said.

It’s possible, Jones said, that Arkansas voters will choose to walk this way again on Nov. 8. September poll numbers put Sanders ahead with 51% of the vote, suggesting the governor’s race remains an impossible one for Jones to win, but less impossible than it once seemed. While Sanders’ numbers indicated she was underperforming expectations, Jones’ claim to 40% of the vote was better than expected, and he still had nearly two months and many miles to go.

News that Sanders underwent surgery for thyroid cancer in mid-September could move poll numbers either way, but is unlikely to move Sanders further out into the public eye.

WHO EVEN IS SARAH SANDERS? IT’S DEBATABLE.

As someone who made her name by alternately ignoring and attacking the media, it might go without saying that Sanders did not return calls or email requests to be interviewed for this story. Piecing together her message from curated videos put out by her campaign or by watching her brief snippets on national news shows left us with little to go on. Sanders loves freedom and preppy wallpaper, hates “the radical left” and CNN, and believes public school children are at grave risk of being indoctrinated into a phantasmagoria of anti-heterosexual ideologies, despite no evidence this has ever happened in Arkansas, or really anywhere. That’s all we got.

The value of an interview with Sanders is questionable anyway, considering her remarkable track record of lying, and then lying some more. Her better-known whoppers from her 2017-2019 stint in the White House press room include her insistence that Trump never endorsed violence, despite his instruction to supporters at a rally to knock the crap out of anyone who looked ready to hurl a tomato. Sanders boldly claimed she heard from “countless … individuals who work at the FBI who said they were very happy” with Trump’s decision to fire James Comey. That “countless” number was likely zero, and Sanders eventually walked back her statement, claiming it was a slip of the tongue. Sanders pushed a talking point that Trump did more to alleviate unemployment for Black people than had President

Obama, despite numbers proving Obama created four times as many jobs for people of color than did Trump.

This remarkable talent to spin, redirect and obfuscate is a product, ironically, of one of those public school educations for which Sanders and her party hold seemingly so little regard. A 2000 graduate of Little Rock Central High, Sanders was a member of the school’s debate team during what now-retired debate coach Melinda Beith remembers as a golden age of genuine curiosity and intellectual pursuit.

Sanders landed at Little Rock Central when her Republican father, Mike Huckabee, stepped into the governor role vacated by Democrat Jim Guy Tucker after Tucker was implicated in the Whitewater affair. Tucker’s daughter was also on the debate team at Central High at the time, and Sarah Huckabee and Sarah Tucker forged an unlikely alliance as debate partners, calling themselves “Sarah Squared.”

“They were class acts,” Beith remembered. “It could have been awkward for everybody, but it wasn’t.”

When you see that classic Sanders move of fielding a question not by answering it, but by attacking someone else, Beith deserves some of the credit (or blame, depending on your point of view). Beith recognized those tricks of her trade often when she watched Sanders speaking behind the White House press room lectern. “I saw her cross ex skills from debate, where you take a question and turn it and take control. Deflect, redirect, go off on something else and hope they won’t see you’re doing it,” Beith said.

While Beith remembered Sanders fondly and was reluctant to say anything negative about a former student, the former debate coach spoke to a shift in culture that runs from the classroom to the Capitol and every place in between. Swaggering attacks against people or groups land a bigger punch than learned exchanges about issues and ideas. This century’s political arena is less of a Roman forum than a WWF event, the fighter doling out the most abuse and humiliation claiming the belt.

When Sanders was a student, “we were still at the place where we were debating ideas,” Beith said. “That’s one of the tenets of debate, that you debate ideas, not people.”

And so, she said, the “radical left” label Sanders and other conservative politicians hurl about gives Beith pause.

“I think when you label people anything you have a problem, because you don’t know the people you’re stereotyping. There’s always somebody who fits it, but most people don’t,” Beith said. “I don’t know that the radical left is much different than the radical right. They have ‘radical’ in common, but I don’t think that’s where most people are.”

Still, Beith takes obvious pride in Sanders’ career path so far, which she sees as a series of savvy decisions to take well-timed advantage of unique opportunities. And Beith said she doesn’t take Sanders’ “education, not indoctrination” attacks on public schools personally. She does take them seriously, though. Public schools have been the path out of poverty for generations, Beith said, so she worries that the Republican-championed school choice industry that seeks to make money with public

STEPPING UP: (Clockwise from top) Chris Jones launched his “Walk a Mile” tour in Little Rock on June 1, and aimed to log steps in each of Arkansas’s 75 counties. Jones took a selfie group shot before leading a tour toward the Governor’s Mansion, with a stop at Loblolly Creamery for a scoop of cookies and cream. Jones and Sarah Huckabee Sanders greeted each other at the Arkansas Capitol on filing day.

education dollars in the form of vouchers and for-profit charter schools will siphon away the resources and buy-in that make public schools effective.

Sanders herself is one example of the solid foundation built by a public school education, and her classmates are no slouches, either. Central High debate alumni of that era include state Sen. Clark Tucker and Chris Wheat, a former staffer for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel who’s now an academic and political strategist.

Sanders stops shy of fomenting violence like her old boss did, but fomenting division is her main talking point. If we were to make a word cloud for her, “radical” and “left” would be the biggest by far. So it’s notable that Tucker, not the most leftist of Democrats out there but certainly a progressive kind of guy, describes Sanders as kind, smart and hardworking. The two aren’t close, he said, but they’ve kept up a bit over the years, and their children have been to playdates together.

A seasoned politician himself, Tucker doesn’t let rhetoric hurt his feelings. He’s more concerned about this new era Trump and Co. ushered in, where facts are not solid and unyielding, but slippery and malleable. Tucker said he’s endorsing Jones for governor.

Wheat, Tucker’s high school debate partner, left Arkansas 18 years ago to launch a career working for and with Democrats, including

a couple of years in the Chicago mayor’s office under Emanuel. He’s helped run local campaigns, worked at the National Resource Defense Council and is now director of the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Watching the Arkansas governor’s race with the advantage of distance and the perspective that brings, Wheat said he still can’t say if the Sarah Huckabee he remembers from his high school debate days matches the choreographed and controlled Sarah Sanders public persona of today.

Wheat, who is Black, said that while the Central High debate team of that era was diverse along racial lines, most of the debaters leaned Democratic. So it’s possible that Sanders was a Republican hardliner even back then who just chose to keep her ideology to herself.

More likely, though, Sanders floated with the tide carrying the entire Republican Party rightward.

“I don’t know if Sarah, or lots of Republicans today, resemble what they were 20 years ago. I don’t know if lots of Republicans resemble who they were 10 years ago,” Wheat said. “There’s often a difference between the person and the politician. Maybe they are one and the same for Sarah. I have no knowledge whether or not that’s true, but I hope not.”

A scholar of political history, Wheat noted that the Huckabee political legacy in Arkansas

is quite different than the current combative moralizing to end abortion access, attack transgender children and ban books that carry even a whiff of critical race theory. Mike Huckabee’s failed attempts at the presidency folded in plenty of folksy populism, but never advocated the complete destruction of the administrative state that’s become the hallmark of the Republican Party, Wheat said. Attacking the institution of government, the very entity that Sanders and her family have made a living on, resonates with a lot of voters. Becoming an agent of the institution she derides as one of waste and abuse is a goal to which she once again aspires.

The adrenaline of obliterating an opponent with an atomic drop on Election Day pushes voters to the polls, and Arkansas Republicans are expecting a rout. But whether Sanders’ willingness to shapeshift to keep Arkansas voters angry and therefore engaged is a recommendation or a black mark depends on whether she’s running her campaign simply to win it, or if she aspires to actually govern well.

From a strategy point of view, Wheat said, there’s no reason for Sanders not to hold the ball and run out the clock. “She comes from a very controlled and defensive media strategy from the Trump White House. She learned from the best,” he said. “It doesn’t make for a good democracy, but it makes for a win.”

RADICAL RIGHT: Sarah Huckabee Sanders rolled her Freedom Tour to Conway in September of 2021. She learned some of her oratory tricks at Little Rock Central High where, despite her campaign talking points, she was educated, not indoctrinated.

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ARKANSAS VOTERS TO DECIDE WHETHER TO LEGALIZE MARIJUANA. BY GRIFFIN COOP

For the first time in Arkansas history, a constitutional amendment to legalize recreational marijuana in Arkansas will appear on the ballot in November.

Voters have the chance to make Arkansas the 20th state in the country and second in the South (after Virginia) to legalize marijuana for adults.

WHAT WILL THE AMENDMENT DO?

Known as the Arkansas Adult Use Cannabis Amendment, the measure would amend the state constitution to legalize recreational marijuana use for adults 21 and older. The measure would also increase the number of dispensaries and cultivators from the current limits imposed by the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment passed by voters in 2016.

Arkansas voters legalized medical marijuana that year by a vote of 53.11% to 46.89% and with a winning margin in 38 of the state’s 75 counties.

That amendment allowed for a maximum of 40 dispensaries and eight cultivators and allowed patients to obtain a medical marijuana card if they had one or more of 17 qualifying conditions.

The state Medical Marijuana Commission has issued all eight cultivation licenses and 38 of the 40 dispensary licenses. The commission is prohibited by a court order from issuing the remaining two dispensary licenses.

This year’s recreational marijuana amendment would increase the maximum number of cultivation facilities to 20 and increase the maximum number of dispensaries to 120.

The eight existing cultivation facilities would be granted Tier I cultivation licenses and would be allowed to cultivate as many cannabis plants as they wanted, as they are allowed to do now under current medical marijuana laws.

The additional 12 cultivation facilities will receive Tier II licenses and would only be allowed to cultivate up to 250 cannabis plants. Eddie Armstrong, chair of Responsible Growth Arkansas, described these smaller cultivation facilities as being similar to micro-breweries. The Tier II licenses would be awarded through a lottery system similar to what the state Alcoholic Beverage Control division uses to award liquor licenses.

The owners of the 40 medical marijuana dispensary licenses would be allowed to keep those licenses and would be granted a second dispensary license. An additional 40 licenses would be awarded through a lottery system.

The existing medical dispensaries would be able to sell to both medical and recreational consumers, but the new dispensaries would only be able to sell to recreational consumers, according to Responsible Growth counsel Steve Lancaster.

The amendment would eliminate the taxes on medical marijuana and institute new taxes on recreational marijuana. Patients currently pay a 6.5% sales tax and a 4% privilege tax on medical marijuana purchases. Dispensaries also pay the 4% privilege tax when they make

purchases from cultivators.

Under the new amendment, recreational marijuana purchases would be taxed with a 10% supplemental sales tax that consumers would pay on top of existing state and local taxes. The 4% privilege tax would be eliminated.

The tax revenue would be earmarked for certain purposes. According to the amendment, 15% of the new tax revenue would fund a stipend for certified law enforcement officers, 10% would support the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and 5% would support drug courts, with the remainder going to the state’s general revenues.

The amendment would not allow consumers to grow their own plants, and it would not expunge any prior marijuana-related convictions.

A recreational marijuana initiative that will appear on the ballot in Missouri in November would expunge certain nonviolent marijuanarelated convictions. A recreational marijuana initiative in Oklahoma, facing challenges at the Oklahoma Supreme Court, would also provide a pathway for the expungement of some previous marijuana convictions.

SUPPORTERS

The amendment is sponsored by Responsible Growth Arkansas, an industry-backed group that has raised more than $4 million since the group was formed about a year ago.

In November, the state’s first five cultivators chipped in $350,000 each to kickstart the effort. Those five – Natural State Medicinals, Osage Creek Cultivation, BOLD Team, Good Day Farm Arkansas and the company that owns Revolution Cannabis – contributed a total of $1.75 million early on, then doubled down with more donations in the following months.

Many of the state’s dispensaries chipped in as well. The owners of Plant Family Therapeutics in Mountain Home, The Source dispensary in Rogers and Acanza dispensary in Fayetteville donated more than $50,000 each, just to name a few.

A corporation called Ozark REA LLC of Sherwood donated $150,000 in August to increase its total contribution to $175,000.

Responsible Growth Arkansas is chaired by Armstrong, a former state legislator from North Little Rock who is the CEO of Cannabis Capital Group, which consults with groups wanting to pursue licenses in the industry.

The group is represented by a team of lawyers from Little Rock law firm Wright Lindsey Jennings. That group includes Steve Lancaster, who has been the face of the campaign in recent months as the effort became bogged down in

Arkansas

voters have the chance to make Arkansas the 20th state in the country and second in the South (after Virginia) to legalize marijuana for adults.

legal arguments and court cases. Lancaster officially filed the group’s 192,000 signatures with the secretary of state in July. The group’s most recent financial filing with the state Ethics Commission showed it raised $605,000 in August.

The group’s first TV ad debuted in late August as well, highlighting the portion of tax revenue that will fund a stipend for law enforcement. The ad characterized the amendment as “a vote to support our police” and only mentioned cannabis once when it said the amendment will “safely legalize the sale of cannabis to adults 21 and older.”

Arkansas Democratic gubernatorial nominee Chris Jones said in August he supports the measure and would push for additional criminal justice reforms related to marijuana if he is elected. Libertarian nominee Ricky Dale Harrington Jr. also stated he supports the amendment.

OPPONENTS

The amendment has plenty of opposition. Two groups, Safe and Secure Communities and Save Arkansas from Epidemic, formed ballot question committees to oppose the amendment.

Governor Hutchinson publicly stated his opposition in early August when he urged the Arkansas Municipal Police Association to “stand firm” in its opposition to legalization, according to news reports. Hutchinson predicted sponsors would try to sell the initiative as something that was good for law enforcement before Responsible Growth debuted its first TV ad promoting the tax revenue dedicated to law enforcement. A former U.S. attorney and the former head of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, Hutchinson told the crowd marijuana is a “harmful drug,” the report said.

Safe and Secure Communities is funded by $1.25 million from Little Rock chicken magnate Ron Cameron and $750,000 from Illinois Republican megadonor Richard Uihlein.

In September, Hutchinson reiterated his opposition to the amendment in a tweet and linked to the website of Safe and Secure Communities. Since then, Arkansas Sens. Tom Cotton and John Boozman have also made tweets against the amendment and linked to the website of Safe and Secure Communities.

Cameron has a history of donating to Hutchinson’s campaigns, dating back to at least 1996, according to Open Secrets.

Uihlein has also been involved in recent Arkansas campaigns, contributing more than $2 million to a political action committee that supported Jake Bequette in his unsuccessful

attempt to unseat Boozman in the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate in May.

Cameron and Uihlein also contributed to a political action committee that supported Will Jones in his successful race for prosecutor in the Sixth Judicial District (Pulaski and Perry Counties) against Alicia Walton. Save Arkansas from Epidemic was formed by Little Rock attorney AJ Kelly and David Burnett, chief of police of Fairfield Bay. The group has not listed any financial contributions but did intervene in the Supreme Court case and offered an affidavit from Kevin Sabet, a former advisor to Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

A third group, Family Council Action Committee, was formed in August by Tom Lundstrum of Elm Springs, Jerry Cox of Little Rock, Reg Hamman of North Little Rock and Ruth Carney of Hot Springs. The group reported its only monetary contribution is a $78,600 donation from Cameron.

The official web page of state Rep. Robin Lundstrum says her husband’s name is Tom and lists the same P.O. Box that Tom Lundstrum listed on Family Council Action Committee’s filing documents. Cox is the founder and president of Family Council, a conservative lobbying group that its website says promotes “traditional family values” that are “reflected in the bible.” Carney was elected mayor of Hot Springs in 2014 and served until she resigned in 2017.

MARIJUANA ADVOCATES IN OPPOSITION

In an unusual twist, two outspoken opponents of the legalization effort are two of the state’s most prominent advocates for marijuana: David Couch and Melissa Fults.

Couch wrote the medical marijuana amendment that voters approved in 2016, but he does not support the Responsible Growth amendment that he believes is too favorable to the industry.

Couch summarized his opposition succinctly.

“In simple layman’s terms, it’s an attempt by the current licensees to monopolize the marijuana market for their own benefits and would be detrimental to consumers and patients. Period,” Couch said.

Couch’s biggest complaint is that while the amendment adds 12 new cultivators, those cultivators will be so limited in what they can produce that they won’t even be able to begin to compete with existing growers.

The addition of 12 new Tier 2 cultivation licenses is “deceptive,” he said, because those growers would be limited to growing 250 plants. Couch estimated that all of the Tier 2 cultivators

“It’s an attempt by the current licensees to monopolize the marijuana market for their own benefits and would be detrimental to consumers and patients. Period.”

— attorney and amendment critic David Couch

combined would not be equal to one of the existing cultivators because he estimated that all of the existing cultivators are growing more than 3,000 plants.

“I call that eye candy,” he said. “They crafted this entire amendment to make it appear as if it was somewhat fair when, in fact, it is not,” he said.

Fults, a longtime marijuana advocate, sponsored a separate amendment this year but did not garner any financial contributions and dropped the effort before the signature deadline.

Fults said she will work to put a recreational marijuana amendment on the 2024 ballot if the Responsible Growth measure is defeated by the voters.

If the measure passes, it will be virtually impossible to change, she said, because it is unlikely an effort could come together with enough funding to make a change to the constitutional amendment.

Fults expressed concern that medical marijuana patients will be left behind under the Responsible Growth plan. She said she fears there would not be enough cultivators to supply the number of consumers, which she estimated at 300,000. Fults said she is also concerned cultivators will focus on producing products with high THC and not on producing lower THC products that might be more suitable for some patients.

But, for a marijuana advocate, isn’t some form of legalization better than none?

“Something is not always better than nothing,” she said. “This is worse than nothing.”

Fults said an activist like herself would be better qualified to write a recreational marijuana amendment than business owners in the industry.

“An activist, I think, is better qualified to write an amendment that is good for everyone in the state than someone who is writing it for greed,” she said.

A recent poll suggests the measure has a good chance of passing. A poll of 835 likely voters conducted this month by Talk Business & Politics and Hendrix College found that 58.5% of voters support the amendment and 29% oppose it. The share of voters who support the measure grew from a previous poll in February that found 53% of voters in support.

The ledge wants to make it harder for people to change the constitution

Arkansas voters will consider Issue 2, referred to the ballot by the state legislature, that would require a 60% majority to pass constitutional amendments.

Ballot initiatives now need only a simple majority (50% + 1) to pass. If Issue 2 is successful, a simple majority would no longer be enough. Ironically, Issue 2 only needs a simple majority to pass in November and does not need to meet its own 60% threshold.

Two groups have formed to fight the measure. The Arkansas Public Policy Panel, led by Bill Kopsky of Little Rock, and Protect AR Constitution, a coalition of chapters of the League of Women voters, have created committees to oppose the amendment. Neither group has reported any financial contributions.

Many initiatives that passed in recent years would not have passed if they had needed 60% of the vote. Amendments legalizing medical marijuana and casino gambling are among the measures that would have failed under the proposed 60% requirement.

Voters will also vote on Issue 1, which would allow the state legislature to call themselves into special session instead of relying on the governor to do so, and Issue 3, which is called the Arkansas Religious Freedom Amendment. Each was referred to the ballot by the state legislature.

— Griffin Coop

EAT,

Presented by Arkansas Times in conjunction with the CALS Six Bridges Book Festival time for

PUB-or-PERISH

Attention writers, authors, poets, readers and anyone that enjoys the written word - funny, sad, true, made up, you get it! Locals and Six Bridges Book Festival all

FEATURED SPEAKERS

BITTY MARTIN, author of Snake Eyes: Murder in a Southern Town, will be featured at this year’s Pub or Perish. In her early career, Martin worked for several local media. Now residing back home in Hot Springs, AR.

JOHN KIRK is the author of Winthrop Rockefeller: From New Yorker to Arkansawyer, 1912-1956 (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2022), and the George W. Donaghey Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Originally from the United Kingdom, he moved to Arkansas in 2010.

Friday, Oct. 21

The Library Kitchen & Lounge 313 President Clinton Ave in the River Market (next to Nexus Coffee and Flying Saucer)

Performances begin 6:30 until 9:00 (drop in performances welcome). Open seating — casual, fun, entertaining — full food menu, and drinks available. Also join representatives from WordsWorth Books selling speakers books and more!

Also ZAIN KHALID, ELI CRANOR, RONNIE WILLIAMS, JASMINE JOBE, FELICIA RICHARDSON. arktimes.com

“Little Rock’s oldest locally owned independent bookstore.”

RSVP via Facebook event page for Pub or Perish Attention poets, writers, comedians, rappers, etc. all welcome!

Contact Phyllis Britton, phyllis@arktimes.com, if you’d like to reserve a slot to perform.

SNAP YOUR FINGERS FRIENDS!!

Arkansas Times Pub or Perish is a related free event of the Six Bridges Book Festival, hosted by Central Arkansas Library System and presented in the evening 6:30-9:00 October 21, author panels and special events: www.sixbridgesbookfestival.org

Bitty Martin TIMES PERISH Author, of

John Kirk

CHEERS TO THESE TOAST OF THE TOWN WINNERS

Whether it’s old, cold beers, newfangled cocktails in alarming hues, or world-class sake coming to Hot Springs, people in Central Arkansas have strong opinions about their adult beverages. Our annual Toast of the Town survey captures those opinions and serves as a handy guide for thirsty readers hoping to see what Central Arkansas’s breweries, distilleries and various watering holes have to offer. Whether you’re looking for a friendly bartender, cheap drafts, mocktails, bar food or a fancy mimosa, raise a glass to our winners and finalists, and let these recommendations be your guide.

PRE-PRODUCTION:

(From left) Cassady Harris, Ben Bell and Matt Bell in the koji room surrounded by Japanese sugi wood. It’s where sake rice will go through the malting process.

Arkansas is Ripe for sake

BY RHETT BRINKLEY PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN CHILSON

Over the years many people have made the connection that sake — the national beverage of Japan and to most Arkansans the rice beverage served exclusively at Japanese restaurants — would be a natural fit for Arkansas production. Sake is mostly made from rice, after all, and Arkansas is the No. 1 rice producer in the U.S. According to Arkansas native Ben Bell, vice president of Origami Sake, the new sake brewery off U.S. Highway 70 in Hot Springs, sake daydreamers almost all come up with the same clever name for the potential brand.

“I’ve heard it so many times from different people that are like, ‘I got the perfect name for the brand.’

“And I’m like, ‘Is it Arkansake?’ ”

But for Bell it’s more than a business

opportunity and a chance for fairly obvious pun branding. It’s a passion that goes back more than a decade. He became intrigued by an impressive bottle of sake at Colonial Wines & Spirits in 2007. Bell had been working at Colonial for a few years at that point, and learned early on that customers expected him to know about the wines they were shopping for. So he took to the job and started learning about wines. When it came to sake, though, he didn’t know much else about the beverage except that it was made from rice.

A friend with a relative in Japan and a little knowledge of the subject suggested that they try home brewing sake, a process which produced drinkable batches that gave them slight buzzes, Bell said.

But his interest didn’t stop there. Bell went to

New York to attend a Japan Society sake tasting. He saw table after table of sakes with presidents of the breweries and master brewers standing behind the tables.

“I was all trained up on how to taste wine and you usually take a lot of tasting notes in that world, and I remember going from sake to sake and just writing down furious notes, and I was like, ‘Holy crap, these are so different from each other and so good and so interesting.’ ”

Bell said that was his eureka moment.

“This is absolutely a thing and people don’t know about it yet, and it’s just been a matter of staying on that path this whole time,” he said.

GOING TO THE SOURCE

Having completed a three-day professional sake course taught by sake luminary John

ORIGAMI SAKE BREWERY IN HOT SPRINGS AIMS TO MAKE THE NATURAL STATE THE NAPA VALLEY OF AMERICAN SAKE.

Gauntner, Bell flew to Japan in 2012 to interview at a sake brewery called Mitobe Shuzo. The interview didn’t go well.

“I think I really oversold how much Japanese I could speak at that time,” he said.

Bell had been practicing on his own using an app, but hadn’t had an actual conversation with someone in Japanese.

“I think people do this thing where they know like 10 words of a language and they’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, I speak a little,’ and from a real functional standpoint it’s like, ‘No, you don’t speak this at all.’ ”

He said he knew he was in trouble when he was lost at a train station in Tokyo after arriving and didn’t understand a word the attendant was saying to him. When he showed up for the interview, slightly late, exhausted with jet lag, the president of the brewery asked him if he could do the interview in Japanese.

“I said no. He said, ‘Oh, OK. You can’t work here.’ ”

The interview ended there.

“I would put that up against anyone’s terrible interview moments,” Bell said.

But Bell didn’t leave completely emptyhanded. The president gave Bell a tour of the brewery and Bell was able to articulate some of his knowledge. He was invited to come back to train for two weeks.

The next year Bell returned to Japan and received his Advanced Sake Professional certification in Tokyo and completed two weeks of training at Mitobe Shuzo.

After returning to the states he went to an

alumni meeting for Hot Springs’ Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts. Over beers someone asked him if he knew that Hot Springs was part of a sister city program with Hanamaki, Japan. Bell almost immediately wondered if there was a sake connection, and found that Hanamaki is home of the Nanbu Toji brewing guild, which Bell said is the largest sake brewing guild in Japan.

“I don’t know if words can express what a crazy coincidence that is,” Bell said. Bell got in touch with Mary Zunick, cultural affairs manager of Visit Hot Springs and the sister city program director. As it turns out Zunick was already looking for someone from the Hot Springs side of the sister city program to go to Japan to train to make sake. Bell enthusiastically nominated himself and was soon on his way back to Japan, where he took three months of Japanese language training in Hanamaki before reporting to work at Nanbu Bijin brewery, where he stayed for two years.

THE NAPA VALLEY OF SAKE Bell returned from Japan in 2016 with a crew lined up and the goal of opening a sake brewery in Arkansas. The plan involved Isbell Farms, a multigenerational Central Arkansas rice farm focused on sustainable production that’s been cultivating sake rice for 20 years. When Bell speaks of farmer Chris Isbell and Isbell Farms, he uses words like “pioneers,” “forward-thinking” and “innovative.” Bell had the Arkansas rice part of the pitch, as well as a crew, but he hadn’t been able to connect with a business partner.

When talks of a sake partnership with an investor fell through, Bell took a job with wine and spirits distributor and importer Skurnik Wines in New York in 2019. “I honestly did not think I was going to be coming back to Arkansas to do this,” he said.

His pitch did work, though. It just needed time.

In 2016 Bell had a backyard conversation with Matt Bell, who at the time was a partner at Entegrity, a sustainability and renewable energy service company.

Matt Bell, who’s not related to Ben, remembers Ben explaining all the benefits and competitive advantages Arkansas has for making sake: great quality spring water, a sake rice crop and the sister city program.

“For me, when I had that conversation he summed it up with a pretty logical summary, which is that Arkansas should be the Napa Valley of American craft sake,” Matt Bell said.

Matt Bell said he never forgot about that conversation. When an investor offered to purchase his interests in Entegrity, he made the leap to the sake project.

“I knew it was going to be a new chapter, and I wanted to do something fun and creative and really focused on something good for the state. This was always at the top of my list.”

He found a 22,000-square-foot, FDAapproved, prepped-for-food-grade production facility in Hot Springs at 2360 E. Grand Ave. In the end, it was Matt Bell pitching Ben Bell’s idea back to him. Matt serves as president of the company and with his experience in renewable

SUSTAINABILITY: Origami will be generating all of its power with renewable energy solar panels onsite, Matt Bell said. Additionally, Isbell Farms is using solar energy to produce Origami rice, “which will make it one of the most sustainable beverages probably made in the U.S.”

energy, one of the major focuses of Origami Sake is ingrained in the brand, he said.

“Sustainability is going to be a key part of what we’re doing as far as making the story of locally sourced rice and Hot Springs water,” he said. “It lends itself to be sustainable by the nature of production and the sources we have here.”

Origami will be generating all of its power with renewable energy solar panels onsite. Additionally, Isbell Farms is using solar energy to produce Origami rice, Matt Bell said, “which will make it one of the most sustainable beverages probably made in the U.S.”

Matt Bell said the Hot Springs water happened to be ideal for sake because it has virtually no iron or manganese, two elements that produce unwanted flavors in sake.

“For us to be able to use natural water from the aquifer here in Hot Springs is one of the components that really is driving the sense of place,” Matt Bell said. “It’s just premium water and premium rice, which is 99.9% of what goes in sake.”

The other parts? “Yeast, of course, and you need koji spores,” Ben Bell said. “This is a mold that you grow on the rice for the malting process. You turn your starches into fermentable sugars.” Those sugars ferment into alcohol.

Key members of the business will begin arriving in Hot Springs in November, and they’re coming from all over the world. Two future employees are currently living in Japan.

That includes Consulting Master Brewer Satoshi Tamakawa from Nanbu Bijin and certified Sakasha (equivalent to a master of sake) Justin Potts, a Seattle native who has spent years living in Japan brewing sake and working with breweries to promote sake tourism. Quality Assurance Manager Brock Bennett has worked at sake breweries in Norway and, most recently, England. Operations Manager Cassady Harris has already moved here from New Orleans.

“We’re going to immediately make worldclass sake in Hot Springs,” Matt Bell said.

The biggest pieces of equipment are expected in October. The crew will arrive by November. The first batches of sake could be available for sale by January of 2023.

CHANGING THE PERCEPTION

Sake is strong and distilled, and should be shot like liquor because it comes in those little cups. Right? Actually, these are common misconceptions that Ben Bell is out to dispel. He thinks that most people who have those misconceptions haven’t had good craft sake. Once they do, he said, it will change their perception of what sake is.

And while sake is generally tied to Japanese restaurants in the U.S., Ben Bell said he hopes we’ll soon see sake as a standard offering in more bars and restaurants. “We want to show 100% that you can pair sake with anything,” Ben Bell said. “If I want a good glass of wine, I don’t have to go to a French or Italian restaurant. If I want

a good beer, I can go to any kind of restaurant. That’s what sake’s future is. It’s easier to pair with food than wine and it’s more versatile. The biggest change is sake taking its place as a legit category that you can find anywhere,” Ben Bell said.

People who have questioned Ben Bell’s pitch about Arkansas becoming the Napa Valley of American sake say, “Yeah, but Napa Valley’s in California, and it’s right next to San Francisco,” he said.

He acknowledges that Arkansas is a smaller market, but counters by naming a couple of whiskey producers in Kentucky and Tennessee that you might’ve heard of — Jack Daniels for example, one of the biggest liquor brands in the world.

“It’s in a god dang dry county,” Ben Bell said. “I want Arkansas and the Delta to be the Napa Valley of sake because we are a natural home for it. Kentucky and Tennessee whiskey, your Jack Daniels and Jim Beam, those are massive global brands in rural Southern states. To me, it’s absolutely possible.”

“Our advantage is Arkansas is an affordable place to live, it’s central to the U.S. and we have a source of the product,” Matt Bell said.

“America has the history to show it’s possible,” Ben Bell said. He referenced the U.S.’s previously poor reputation for wine and beer and how much things have changed. “Pick a major category, America has done it,” he said. “There’s no reason why we can’t do it with sake.”

THE NATURAL STATE OF SAKE: Hot Springs water, an Arkansas sake rice crop and a sister city program Hot Springs shares with Hanamaki, Japan, are some of the advantages Arkansas has for sake brewing, but not all.

Old cold beer in an old frozen mug

BY RHETT BRINKLEY

After the Arkansas Razorbacks opened the football season defeating the Cincinnati Bearcats in a hard-fought battle in Fayetteville, Coach Sam Pittman was interviewed on the field, where the reporter asked him about his drink of choice for the celebration. Pittman smiled affably and said, “Well, you know, I’m not promoting it, but I like some old cold beer. I think I’m gonna have one. I’m not promoting it now.”

Not that Razorback fans needed another reason to like Pittman, who has calmly and coolly brought the program back to a top 10 ranking after years in the wilderness, but just saying that he liked old cold beer inspired many tweets and adoration from fans who also enjoy beer that has achieved its proper chill level. It’s relatable. It makes our coach seem like one of us, someone who might sit down at the tailgate and accept whatever beer you happen to toss him from the cooler. (As long as it’s cold.)

The importance of cold beer was already on my mind because I’d recently noticed that my old long-time employer Pizza Cafe was a finalist in the Arkansas Times annual Toast of the Town readers’ survey in the coldest beer category. It’s a category Pizza Cafe is known for because it has been serving up some of the coldest draft beer in town in frozen mugs since it opened on Rebsamen Park Road in 1991. Co-owner Richard Harrison said he bought the original freezer for $75, used.

“It put a badass freeze on the mugs,” he said. “Your beer might have small icy crystals floating on top. The old regular Michelob was the most popular draft, and we were noted for ‘coldest beer in town’ hoopla.”

In addition to the ice crystals, sometimes a ring in the shape of the rim of the mug would break off like a floating garnish on the top foam layer.

I worked there on and off from 1999 until 2020, and there were many staff changes, a few menu additions and subtractions, regulars who came and went, but the mugs were always frozen. Although sometimes we would get so busy on weekend nights that we couldn’t keep up with the demand and would desperately dump ice in the sanitizing dishwashing station to give the mugs a chill before we put them in the freezer. We knew how important the cold mugs were to people because regulars would gripe at us and give off surly vibes if the chillness didn’t meet their expectations.

So you can imagine what it was like to pop in there last year and notice a new freezer — without years’ worth of memorabilia taped to it — serving as a dark storage closet full of tepid glass mugs.

“Wait, no cold mugs?” I asked.

I was told that I didn’t know the half of it, and that it was one of many replacement freezers owner Frankie Fuhrman had purchased recently that had suddenly quit working after a few days. It was a mystery of modern science that electricians and contractors couldn’t solve. My jovial reunion

with the crew suddenly fell silent. We’d worked through the worst part of the pandemic together, and now the beer wasn’t even cold. Pour one out for cold mugs?

I wasn’t the only former employee deflated by the news. Former interim manager Murdock Jones had his first legal beer at Pizza Cafe after turning 21 in 2001. He was visiting town for the first time since the pandemic and stopped in for a beer that was served in a warm mug. He said he felt betrayed.

“That Bud Light just didn’t hit the same,” he said.

Jennifer Finley worked at Pizza Cafe from 2004-2015. Her husband Jared Admire is a current manager at Pizza Cafe. She said when Admire told her about the mug situation she couldn’t believe it because the frozen mug was part of what distinguished Pizza Cafe from other restaurants over the years.

“The frosty cold mug was a part of the experience,” she said. “I knew in that moment that if the frozen mug didn’t come back it could be the end for Pizza Cafe.”

If that sounds dramatic from a former employee standpoint, current customers expressed similar concern.

“We definitely had some disappointed customers,” general manager Tony Mesa said.

Chuck Hamilton is one of those customers. He’s been a Pizza Cafe regular since 1992.

“They almost lost me over the mugs,” Hamilton

THE LENGTHS A LOCAL PIZZA RESTAURANT (AND MY OLD EMPLOYER) WENT THROUGH TO CONTINUE ITS ENDURING TRADITION OF SERVING BEER IN FROSTY MUGS.

COLD AND CRISP: Pizza Cafe’s draft Michelob AmberBock checks all the boxes.

BRIAN CHILSON

said, though he did appreciate efforts made by the staff to try and keep the regulars happy.

“They would take a few mugs and tuck them back in the walk-in cooler, but it just wasn’t the same as pulling them right out of the freezer,” he said.

Admire said there were desperate, futile attempts like filling a mug with ice and sticking it in the refrigerator.

“They were trying anything to get ’em cold,” Hamilton said. He remembers people migrating to Pizza Cafe for cold beer after Diego’s Hogs Breath Cantina closed in Riverdale. When Pizza Cafe added a deck, he said it became one of the best places in town for a cold beer in cool, fall weather.

“Pizza Cafe’s a staple. Everyone loves it,” Hamilton said, “but without the cold mugs it just kind of takes something away.”

Owner Frankie Fuhrman said she went through five freezers and consulted with contractors, heat and air specialists, handy people and an electrician who came out twice and determined the outlet wasn’t on its own circuit.

Fuhrman said she was hearing excuses like, “They just don’t make freezers like they used to,” but she knew that there was a solution to the problem and decided to purchase a five-year warranty with the fifth freezer, which she found at a mom-and-pop shop in Benton.

Like the others, it quit working after a day or two and she sent it back. They sent her a replacement. When it stopped running after a few days, she called again and was informed that the first one was running just fine. “They were like, ‘It’s not us, it’s you,’ ” Fuhrman said.

I stopped in Pizza Cafe last week for a salad. Harrison was having a coffee at the bar while Mesa was working. I asked them how they finally resolved the issue. Harrison said it was a venting issue and the freezer needed more room to breathe because it’s crammed into a tight space. But Mesa shot that idea down and said that after the fifth freezer quit working he decided to plug it into a different outlet.

“Twenty minutes later it was cold,” he said. “When Tony told me that, my jaw nearly hit the concrete,” Harrison later told me.

Harrison mentioned that sometimes the answer to an electrical ordeal lies in the question: “Is it plugged in?” But this wasn’t one of those embarrassing situations. It was plugged in. Each freezer briefly worked. And they consulted with experts.

Fuhrman said most of the money spent on freezers was refunded, but she did pay for one that didn’t work. All told, the project took a lot of time and energy.

“It was driving me crazy,” she said. “I think I shed a tear or two.”

I asked her if there was any point in time when she considered giving up.

“No,” she said, laughing. “It was frustrating, but I never gave up. It just didn’t feel right to not have frozen mugs.”

Going mad for mimosas

@ THE CORNER

Just right next door to the office of the Arkansas Times, it seems like people are always pulling up a chair to a sidewalk table to have a drink or enjoy a meal from @ the Corner. The place is busy on the weekends, often with a line that extends outside. At noon on a weekday, it was comfortably busy with a steady stream of guests, but no line for a table. The diner offered six types of mimosas on its “Brunch Bubbles” menu, from the OG OJ and prosecco to California champagne with a choice of mixed berry, watermelon, pineapple, peach or fruit gusher. I tried the original and the fruit gusher, both of which were served in a stemless cup with ice and garnished with a small orange slice. The drinks came in at $11, the most expensive in this list. The orange juice is freshly squeezed, though not on-site, one employee said. Pulp floated in the classic beverage, and what looked like bits from berries floated in the fruit gusher flavor. Both drinks seemed to have a balanced ratio of alcohol and juice, although the latter tasted like a confused concoction of fruits with watermelon as the lead.

weekends, you can catch a $10 bucket deal, which includes a whole bottle of champagne and a jug of orange juice, as well as the number of glasses you request. The bucket probably serves about 10 mimosas and lets the drinker determine how weak or strong each drink should be, so be careful — or have a blast and grab an Uber. This juice looked like it was straight out of a Simply jug, but who really cares when it’s that cheap? Every table in sight on the West Little Rock patio had at least one mimosa bucket celebrating a Razorback game day. The patio had a nice breeze, and if you’re not seated next to the deafening roar of zealous Hogs fans, it’s relaxing. There was no wait and plenty of space at noon, and the breakfast pizza paired with the mimosas was stellar. I’d recommend keeping your ingredients chilled on the ice in the bucket to keep each mimosa as fresh as it can be.

Some may argue about the appropriate time to start drinking, and maybe such a thing differs from season to season. Brunch flourishes during the summertime, but surely football fans don’t consider it inappropriate to tip one back at autumnal tailgates before an early afternoon kickoff. Weather aside, mimosa lovers will tell you that breakfast is as good a time as any to start drinking. Though it can be a simple drink — one made with orange juice and champagne — there are factors that can boost the taste level of a mimosa. Of course, the quality of the alcohol used changes one basic element of the drink, but the introduction of pulp, juice freshness and new flavors can really amp it up a notch.

U.S. PIZZA

For those balling on a budget, U.S. Pizza has it going on with a $4 mimosa. If you’re there between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. on the

RADUNO

If you’re looking to feel classy on a Sunday morning, Raduno might be the place for you. The brunch menu options of fluffy buttermilk pancakes and biscuits and gravy pair perfectly with their pale mimosa. It’s filled to the top of a thin glass flute and is made with “the finest Tropicana,” the waiter said. Though the OJ is not freshly squeezed, the drink tasted crisp and helped OF SOME OF LITTLE FINEST. MARY

JUICE CLEANSE: Sampling mimosas from (left to right) Hill Station, Raduno, @ The Corner and U.S. Pizza.

to offset the muggy weather on the outdoor patio. At around 11 a.m. on a Sunday, the only available seats were at the bar or looking out on SoMa. The bartender leaned more into the champagne than the juice, so one mimosa was enough to enjoy. The classic flavor rang up at $7.50, but if you can manage 50 cents more, you can try a cucumber mimosa — which the waiter did say was freshly prepared.

HILL STATION

Brunch can be a rarity — exclusive to Sundays at many restaurants. Hill Station follows that format, keeping its brunch menu reined in from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. on Sunday. The weekends can get pretty busy, filling up the inside and outdoor seating. (Dogs are allowed, too; not sure if they can order a mimosa, though.) But don’t worry, the $8 mimosas are available anytime, and there are no rules that mimosas can’t be enjoyed outside of brunch constraints. Hill Station offers four flavors of the drink; cranberry, pineapple and grapefruit juice are offered as replacements to the classic orange juice combo. A $24 deal will get you the whole bottle of alcohol and four glasses. I tried the classic and the cranberry variety. In the orange, pulp was kept to a minimum, and it was fresh and chilled. It was a true mimosa flavor, everything you’d expect of the drink — and tasty. Cranberry teetered on the edge of a great experiment, but it didn’t push the limits for me. Not to say it still wasn’t great. It was. Both drinks were strong on the champagne and filled up half a wine glass.

BARS

BEST BAR

FOUR QUARTER

Finalists: Ciao Baci, The Hillcrest Fountain, Town Pump, White Water Tavern

BEST NEW BAR

CHARLEE’S GOOD TIME DRINKERY

Finalists: El Sur, Camp Taco, The Grumpy Rabbit (Lonoke)

BEST BARTENDER

HOLLEE RUSSO (Four Quarter)

Finalists: Luke Hornberger (Allsopp & Chap ple), David Burnette (Brood & Barley), Mary Katherine Peek (Flying Saucer), Mailyn Schneider (Ciao Baci)

BEST BAR FOR NONDRINKERS TO TAG

ALONG

RADUNO

Finalists: Four Quarter Bar, Hill Station, The Hillcrest Fountain, Petit & Keet

BEST NEIGHBORHOOD BAR

FOUR QUARTER

Finalists: The Hillcrest Fountain, The Pantry, Raduno, White Water Tavern

BEST BAR TO BRING YOUR KIDS

THE RAIL YARD

Finalists: Flyway Brewing (North Little Rock), Hill Station, Lost Forty, Stickyz Rock ’N’ Roll Chicken Shack

BEST DRINKING BRUNCH

RADUNO

Finalists: Charlee’s Good Time Drinkery, The Fold: Botanas & Bar, Hill Station, Lost Forty, U.S. Pizza

BEST PATIO OR DECK FOR DRINKING HILL STATION

Finalists: Brood & Barley (North Little Rock), Camp Taco, Ciao Baci, U.S. Pizza Hillcrest

BEST HOTEL BAR

CAPITAL HOTEL BAR & GRILL

Finalists: AC Hotel and Lounge, The Lobby Bar at Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort (Hot Springs), The Rooftop Bar at The Waters Hotel (Hot Springs), Table 28

BEST THEATER BAR

THE JOINT (North Little Rock)

Finalists: The Arkansas Rep, Movie Tavern, Murry’s Dinner Playhouse, The Studio The atre (Lobby Bar)

BEST BAR FOR POOL, DARTS OR SHUFFLE BOARD

FOUR QUARTER

Finalists: The Hillcrest Fountain, Midtown Billiards, Pizza D’Action, Town Pump

BEST DIVE BAR

FOUR QUARTER

Finalists: Grumpy’s Too Neighborhood Bar & Grill, Midtown Billiards, Town Pump, White Water Tavern

FOUR QUARTER

BRIAN CHILSON

BEST PICKUP BAR

FOUR QUARTER

Finalists: The Hillcrest Fountain, Khalil’s Pub & Grill, Lucky Lou’s, Midtown Billiards

BEST BAR FOR LIVE MUSIC

WHITE WATER TAVERN

Finalists: Four Quarter, Revolution Music Room, Stickyz Rock ’N’ Roll Chicken Shack, Vino’s Brewpub

BEST GAY BAR

610 CENTER

Finalists: Chaps (North Little Rock), Dis covery, C4 nightclub and bar (Fayetteville), Triniti

BEST WINE BAR

CRUSH WINE BAR

Finalists: By the Glass, The Pantry, Petit & Keet, Zin Wine Bar

BEST BAR FOR FOOD

FOUR QUARTER

Finalists: Brood & Barley, Capital Hotel Bar & Grill, Lost Forty, The Pantry

BEST HAPPY HOUR

BROOD & BARLEY

Finalists: Charlee’s Good Time Drinkery, The Hillcrest Fountain, The Pantry, White Water Tavern

BEST SPORTS BAR

DUGAN’S PUB

Finalists: Brewski’s Pub & Grub, Buffalo Wild Wings, Lucky’s Sports Bar & Grill (Mau melle), Prospect Bar and Grill

BEST BAR TO TAKE YOUR DOG

BARK BAR

Finalists: Fassler Hall, The Fold: Botanas & Bar, Hill Station, The Rail Yard

BEERS

BEST ARKANSAS BEER

FLYWAY BLUEWING

Finalists: Fossil Cove Orange Cream Ale, Lost Forty 2nd Rodeo, New Province Space Suit, Ozark Onyx Coffee Stout

BEST ARKANSAS PALE ALE

VINO’S FIREHOUSE PALE ALE

Finalists: Diamond Bear Pale Ale, Lost Forty Pale Ale, Ozark Beer Co. American Pale Ale, Preston Rose Heritage Pale Ale

BEST ARKANSAS SELTZER

LOST FORTY PUNCHY BING BING BLACK CHERRY

Finalists: Core Scarlet Letter, Diamond Hard Sparkling Seltzer, Ozark Hard Water, Nor fork Brewing

BEST ARKANSAS PILSNER

BROOD & BARLEY PROPER PILS

Finalists: Gotahold Traditions, Lost Forty Bare Bones, Norfork Brewing Woodsman Pilsner

BEST ARKANSAS IPA

FLYWAY EARLY BIRD IPA

Finalists: Lost Forty Rock Hound, Lost Forty Trash Panda, Norfork Brewing Company Scurvy Dog Ale, Ozark Beer Co. IPA, Superi or Bathhouse Brewery Space Force

BEST ARKANSAS LAGER

LOST FORTY 2ND RODEO

Finalists: Norfork Brewing Company EZ Ryder Lager, Ozark Beer Co. Lager, Stone’s Throw Ama deus Vienna Lager

BEST ARKANSAS SEASONAL BEER STONE’S THROW BREWING ICH BIN EIN BERLINER WEISSE

Finalists: Flyway Imperial Red Velvet Ale, Lost Forty The Hunter Oktoberfest, Lost Forty Nighty Night, Ozark Beer Co. BDCS

BREWERIES AND DISTILLERIES

BEST ARKANSAS BREWERY

FLYWAY (North Little Rock)

Finalists: Diamond Bear (North Little Rock), Fossil Cove Brewing Co., Lost Forty, Ozark Brewery, Superior Bathhouse Brewery (Hot Springs)

BEST NATIONAL BREWERY

LAGUNITAS

Finalists: Bell’s Brewery, New Belgium Brew ing Co., SweetWater Brewing Co., Yuengling

BEST ARKANSAS DISTILLERY

ROCK TOWN DISTILLERY

Finalists: Crystal Ridge Distillery (Hot Springs), Delta Dirt Distillery (Helena-West Helena), Fox Trail Distillery (Rogers), Post master Spirits

BEST NATIONAL DISTILLERY TITO’S

Finalists: Buffalo Trace, Jim Beam, Maker’s Mark, Woodford Reserve

BEST BREWPUB VINO’S BREWPUB

Finalists: Diamond Bear (North Little Rock), Lost Forty, Preston Rose, Stone’s Throw Brewing

DRINKS

BEST MARTINI THE PANTRY

Finalists: Cache, Hill Station, Raduno, Sauced

BEST MARGARITA

THE FOLD: BOTANAS & BAR

Finalists: Baja Grill, Casa Mañana, Heights Taco & Tamale Co., Local Lime

BEST COCKTAIL LIST PETIT & KEET

Finalists: Ciao Baci, Copper Mule Table & Tap, Hill Station, The Pantry

BEST MOCKTAIL CYPRESS SOCIAL (North Little Rock) Finalists: Ciao Baci, Heights Taco & Tamale Co., Hill Station, Petit & Keet, Raduno

COLDEST BEER

FOUR QUARTER

Finalists: The Hillcrest Fountain, Oyster Bar, Pizza Cafe, Twin Peaks

BEST BLOODY MARY

RADUNO

Finalists: Four Quarter, The Grumpy Rabbit (Lonoke), Oaklawn Casino & Racing Resort (Hot Springs), Red Door

BEST MIMOSA

RADUNO

Finalists: @ the Corner, Best Cafe (Hot Springs), Red Door, Trio’s

RESTAURANTS, LIQUOR STORES AND GROCERY STORES

BEST BEER SELECTION (Liquor Store)

COLONIAL WINES & SPIRITS

Finalists: 107 Liquor (Sherwood), Grapevine Liquor, Legacy Wine and Spirits, O’Looney’s Wine & Liquor

BEST WINE SELECTION (Liquor Store)

COLONIAL WINES & SPIRITS

Finalists: 107 Liquor (Sherwood), Heights Wine & Spirits, Legacy Wine and Spirits, O’Looney’s Wine & Liquor

BEST WINE LIST (Bar or Restaurant)

PETIT & KEET

Finalists: Allsopp & Chapple, Bruno’s Little Italy, Capital Hotel Bar & Grill, Table 28

BEST BEER SELECTION (Grocery Store)

KROGER

Finalists: Edwards Food Giant, Fresh Market, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods

BEST WINE SELECTION (Grocery Store)

TRADER JOE’S

Finalists: Edwards Food Giant, Kroger, Sam’s Club, Whole Foods

BEST LIQUOR STORE DELIVERY

107 LIQUOR

Finalists: Colonial Wines & Spirits, Legacy Wine and Spirits, O’Looney’s Wine & Liquor, Springhill Wine & Spirits

BEST LIQUOR STORE

COLONIAL WINES & SPIRITS

Finalists: 107 Liquor (Sherwood), Hillcrest Liquor and Fine Wines, Legacy Wine and Spirits, O’Looney’s Wine & Liquor

BEST DRIVE-THRU/CURBSIDE

FIREWATER (North Little Rock)

Finalists: Colonial Wines & Spirits, Legacy Wine and Spirits, O’Looney’s Wine & Liquor, Sullivants

BEST BEER SELECTION (Bar or Restaurant)

FLYING SAUCER

Finalists: Fassler Hall, The Hillcrest Fountain, The Pantry, Samantha’s Tap Room & Grill

OPENING NIGHT GALA

Directed by Mark Fletcher U.S. Premiere

7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 7, Arlington Resort Hotel, Crystal Ballroom (Cinema 1)

Dive underwater to witness the extraordinary connection between one person and the natural world waiting just below sea level. Renowned wildlife photographer and television host Patrick Dykstra has traveled the world pursuing his passion for marine life and the Earth’s oceans. While filming a population of sperm whales near Dominica, Dykstra has a life altering experience when he meets and begins interacting with Dolores, a female whale. What begins as play transforms into attempts at communication and, ultimately, the formation of a meaningful bond. Executive produced by James Reed, the Academy Awardwinning filmmaker of “My Octopus Teacher,” director Mark Fletcher’s gorgeously photographed documentary is a conservation tale rooted in a sense of awe and wonder that examines the interconnected nature of life on Earth.

CLOSING NIGHT GALA

Directed by Kathlyn Horan

7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 15, Arlington Resort Hotel, Crystal Ballroom (Cinema 1)

Enter the studio with country music legend Tanya Tucker as she records her first album of new material in nearly two decades. Under the guidance of producers Brandi Carlile and Shooter Jennings, Tucker creates a moving and vulnerable work that showcases her voice, both as a quintessential singer in the country canon and as an authentic and vulnerable songwriter. With her smash hit “Delta Dawn,” 13-year-old Tanya Tucker burst into the country music scene with her powerful voice and charisma. As her star continued to rise, she faced media scrutiny amidst her own personal struggles. This invigorating music documentary presents an intimate portrait of an artist ready to claim her rightful place in music history.

“The Return of Tanya Tucker: Featuring Brandi Carlile”

“Patrick and the Whale”

FESTIVAL HONOREES

CAREER ACHIEVEMENT

AWARD RECIPIENT: BRENT RENAUD

Before being killed while covering the war in Ukraine in March of 2022, Brent Renaud had spent over two decades traveling the world making character driven verité documentaries. Along with his brother Craig, Renaud won almost every major award in television journalism. The Renaud Brothers’ 10-part series “Off to War” was the first time a group of soldiers had been filmed for an entire deployment at war. Brent Renaud served as a visiting distinguished professor of journalism ethics at the University of Arkansas and was a Harvard Nieman Fellow. Having grown up in Arkansas, and as a co-founder of the Little Rock Film Festival and alumnus with multiple films at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival (starting with “Off to War” in 2005), Renaud had strong ties both to HSDFF and the state.

An award presentation will be held with special guests on Friday, Oct. 7 at the Opening Night Ceremony and going forward the award will be known as the “Brent Renaud Career Achievement Award.”

IMPACT AWARD RECIPIENT: CHRISTINE CHOY

A pioneer Asian American filmmaker, Christine Choy has made more than 85 films and received over 60 international awards, including her Oscar nominated film, “Who Killed Vincent Chin?” (1987). She has been a recipient of numerous fellowships, among them: John Simon Guggenheim, Rockefeller, Asian Cultural Council, Fulbright Senior Research and an award for best cinematography from the Sundance International Film Festival. Choy’s latest collaborative documentary film, “The Exiles,” won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2022. She is the founding director of Third World Newsreel and School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, a member of Project Vetting committee of the Film Development Fund, Hong Kong, and an International Trustee Member of the Asia Society from 1995 to 2002. She is a member of AMPAS (Academy of Motion Pictures and Science of the United States of America). Christine Choy will be in attendance to accept the award on 5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 14 before the screening of “The Exiles.”

U.S. CENTERPIECE

“THE EXILES”

Directed by Ben Klein and Violet Columbus

5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 14, Arlington Resort Hotel, Cinema 2

The bold and brash documentary filmmaker Christine Choy tracks down three exiled dissidents from the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre to find closure on an abandoned film project.

INTERNATIONAL CENTERPIECE

“ALL THAT BREATHES”

Directed by Shaunak Sen

7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 13, Arlington Resort Hotel Crystal Ballroom, Cinema 1 Despite limited resources, two Muslim brothers operate the only New Delhi bird hospital treating birds of prey amidst rising anti-Muslim sentiment and escalating pollution.

FRIDAY, OCT. 7:

7 p.m.: Opening night gala: U.S. premiere “Patrick and the Whale” at the Arlington Hotel Crystal Ballroom, Cinema 1.

9 p.m.: Opening night party presented by Oaklawn Racing & Gaming at the Oaklawn Event Center.

SATURDAY, OCT. 8

9 a.m. HSDFF Wellness Series: hike and meditation at the Arlington Hotel front steps.

10:30 a.m. “Butterfly in the Sky” Cinema 1

11 a.m. “Hidden Letters” Cinema 2

1 p.m. “Mama Bears” Cinema 1 1:30 p.m. Shorts Program: Flora + Fauna Cinema 2 4 p.m. “You Have No Idea” Cinema 1 5 p.m. Shorts Program: Experimentations Cinema 2 7 p.m. “Retrograde” Cinema 1 7:30 p.m. “The Pez Outlaw” Cinema 2 9 p.m. After party at the Gangster Museum of America

SUNDAY, OCT. 9

9:30 a.m. HSDFF Wellness Series: Sound Bath Meditation at the Arlington Hotel in the Magnolia Room

10:30 a.m. Shorts Program: This American Life Cinema 1

11 a.m. “Let The Little Light Shine” Cinema 2 1:30 p.m. “A Run For More” Cinema 1 2 p.m. “Midwives” Cinema 2 4 p.m. “Turn Every Page” Cinema 2 4:30 p.m. “Scout Master” Cinema 1 6:30 p.m. Shorts Program: Faces to Remember Cinema 2

7 p.m. “Still Working 9 to 5“ Cinema 1 9 p.m. After Party at Deluca’s Pizzeria

MONDAY, OCT. 10

11:30 a.m. “Mariupolis 2” Cinema 1

12 p.m “The Time of the Fireflies” Cinema 2

2 p.m. “It Runs in the Family” Cinema 2

2:30 p.m. “Reciprocity Project” Cinema 1 4:30 p.m. “Skate Dreams” Cinema 2

5 p.m. “Pasto Bueno” Cinema 1

7 p.m. “Lakota Nation vs the United States” Cinema 2

7:30 p.m. “A Thousand Fires” Cinema 1 9 p.m. After Party at Splash Wine Bar

TUESDAY, OCT. 11

9 a.m. Student Screening: Educational Shorts Block Cinema 1

11 a.m. “Deconstructing Karen” Cinema 2

12:30 p.m. “Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams” Cinema 1

1 p.m. “Emerging Filmmakers Program” Cinema 2 3:30 p.m. “A Decent Home” Cinema 1 5 p.m. “After Sherman” Cinema 2 7 p.m. “Bad Axe” Cinema 1 7:30 p.m. “Sirens” Cinema 2 9 p.m. After Party at Superior Bathhouse Brewery

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 12

9 a.m. Student Screening: “Lakota Nation vs. The United States” Cinema 1

12 p.m. “Nelly and Nadine” Cinema 2 1 p.m. “Shorts Program: Stand Up, Fight Back!” Cinema 1

2:30 p.m. “Outta The Muck” Cinema 2 4 p.m. Shorts Program: Social Animals Cinema 1 5 p.m. “And Still I Sing” Cinema 2 7 p.m. “Boycott” Cinema 1 7:30 p.m. “The Art of Making It” Cinema 2 9 p.m. After Party at Grateful Head Pizza Oven and Beer Garden

THURSDAY, OCT. 13

9 a.m. Student Screening: “The Cave Of Adullam” Cinema 1 11 a.m. “Sansón and Me” Cinema 2 12:30 p.m. “De Humani Corporis Fabrica” Cinema 1 1 p.m. Renaud Retrospective: “Off to War” Part 1 & 2 Cinema 2 4 p.m. “Growing Up Grovey” Cinema 1 5 p.m. “I Didn’t See You There” Cinema 2 7 p.m. “Body Parts” Cinema 2

7:30 p.m. International Centerpiece Film: “All That Breathes” Cinema 1 9 p.m. After Party at the Rooftop at the Waters Hotel

FRIDAY, OCT. 14

10:30 a.m. “Turn Your Body to the Sun” Cinema 1 12 p.m. Shorts Program: Respect Your Elders Cinema 2 1 p.m. “Fashion Reimagined” Cinema 1 3 p.m. “Blurring the Color Line” Cinema 2 3:30 p.m. Shorts Program: Creative Spirit Cinema 1 5 p.m. US Centerpiece Film: “The Exiles” Cinema 2 7 p.m. “Finding Her Beat” Cinema 1 7:30 p.m. “Tantura” Cinema 2 9 p.m. After Party at The Clubhouse of Hot Springs

SATURDAY, OCT. 15

9:30 a.m. HSDFF Wellness Series: Yoga at the Arlington Hotel in the Magnolia Room

10 a.m. “Billion Dollar Babies: The True Story Of The Cabbage Patch Kids” Cinema 1

10:30 a.m. “Framing Agnes” Cinema 2 12 p.m. “The Delights” Cinema 1 12:30 p.m. “Choy Retrospective: Who Killed Vincent Chin?” Cinema 2

2:30 p.m. “Roots of Fire” Cinema 1

3:30 p.m. “The Thief Collector” Cinema 2 7 p.m. Closing Night Gala: “The Return of Tanya Tucker: Featuring Brandi Carlile” Cinema 1 9 p.m. Closing Night Party at Whittington Place

PARTIES

OPENING NIGHT PARTY PRESENTED BY OAKLAWN RACING CASINO RESORT

Friday, Oct. 7

9 p.m.-midnight

2705 Central Ave.

Presenting sponsor Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort invites you to celebrate the opening night of the 31st Annual Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival at their brand new Event Center!

AFTER PARTY AT THE GANGSTER MUSEUM OF AMERICA

Saturday, Oct. 8th

9 p.m.-midnight

510 Central Ave.

Transport yourself back in time to the 1930s, when mineral water, gambling, bootlegging, and a very fragile ceasefire brought gangsters from all across America to Hot Springs. Rich in historic photos and casino ephemera from the town’s freewheelin’ past, The Gangster Museum of America is a fascinating glimpse into a forgotten era of made men and shady ladies. Try your luck at blackjack, craps, and roulette alongside filmmakers and special guests.

AFTER PARTY AT DELUCA’S PIZZERIA

Sunday, Oct. 9

9 p.m.-11 p.m.

831 Central Ave

DeLuca’s Pizzeria Napoletana has become a regionwide destination for foodies. Each pie is handcrafted by owner Anthony Valinoti, with locally supplied organic ingredients. Experience Anthony’s authentic New York style pizza for yourself, alongside filmmakers and friends. Discover for yourself why the name DeLuca’s is fixed on everyone’s lips!

AFTER PARTY AT SPLASH WINE BAR

Monday, Oct. 10 9 p.m.-11 p.m.

325 Ouachita Ave.

Splash Wine Bar is one of the newest and hottest additions to downtown Hot Springs. Equipped with an expansive outdoor patio and fireside seating, Splash provides a taste of paradise right in the heart of downtown!

AFTER PARTY AT SUPERIOR BATHHOUSE BREWERY

Tuesday, Oct. 11 9 p.m.-11 p.m.

329 Central Ave.

Located on historic Bathhouse Row, Superior Bathhouse Brewery is the nation’s only craft brewery headquartered inside a National Park. Long time festival supporter and head brewer Rose Schweikhart welcomes visiting filmmakers and festival guests to the only brewery in the world that uses thermal spring water as the main ingredient for craft beer.

AFTER PARTY AT GRATEFUL HEAD PIZZA OVEN AND BEER GARDEN

Wednesday, Oct. 12 9 p.m.-11 p.m. 100 Exchange St.

Occupying a historic building once known as The Exchange, Grateful Head boasts the most spacious and inviting mountainside patio in Hot Springs, only a few steps from Bathhouse Row and cradled on the steep slope of National Park’s West Mountain.

AFTER PARTY AT THE ROOFTOP AT THE WATERS HOTEL

Thursday, Oct. 13

9 p.m.-11 p.m. 340 Central Ave.

More than 100 years after it was built, the Thompson Building has been renovated and reborn as the Waters Hotel. Join us at this unforgettable rooftop bar and take in the scenic view of bathhouse row as you enjoy some of the best this renown restaurant has to offer!

AFTER PARTY AT THE CLUB HOUSE

Friday, Oct. 14 9 p.m.-midnight 118 Arbor St.

Join us for a dance party at The Club House, the newest event venue in Hot Springs! Where downtown meets uptown, the newly renovated Club House invites you to put on your dancing shoes and cut loose!

CLOSING NIGHT PARTY AT WHITTINGTON PLACE PRESENTED BY SAM’S PIZZA AND BOURBON IN THE BAY

Saturday, Oct. 15

9 p.m.-midnight 301 Whittington Ave.

Hot Springs just got hotter! Step inside this historic church to dance it up and enjoy a delicious spread. Flanked by breathtaking stained glass windows and a church organ of truly Biblical proportions!

BOX OFFICE INFO

All tickets and passes can be purchased on our website at HSDFI.ORG.

IN PERSON BOX OFFICE

(Located on the Arlington Mezzanine)

Oct. 7: Open from 12 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

Oct. 8 - 15: Open from 9 a.m. - 7:30 p.m.

TICKETS AND PASSES

Tickets for regular screenings are $12. All Access and other pass options can be found on our website at hsdfi.org.

VIRTUAL SCREENINGS: Oct. 16 - 21

Catch up on what you missed during our virtual screenings. Tickets are $10 per screening, or $125 for a Virtual Pass.

“You Have No

“Growing Up Grovey”

“Butterfly In the Sky”

EXECUTIVE

PRODUCER Artois Forty

OCT. PROMOS:

$80,000

Saturdays, Oct. 1 –6PM-10PM

Win a Lincoln Nautilus, Oct.

More than 80 gas card

Earn entries with every 20 points See Player Services for details.

SPIN & WIN

Mondays in Oct.

Earn 50 points for a spin & claim your prize 1-7PM at Player Services See Player Services for details.

$40,000 50+ FRENZY

Tuesdays,12-8PM

Guests age 50+ get a FREE scratch off card at Player Services and a special menu in Big Al’s.

HOT SPRINGS VILLAGE DAYS

Thursdays 12-8PM

Village residents/members get a free scratch off at Player Services and a special menu in Big Al’s.

$40,000 GIRLS NIGHT OUT Fridays.

Drinks specials in The First Turn Bar and The OAK room & bar, 5-9PM. 100 ladies win $100 CASH from 6-10PM.

ARKANSAS WATCH PARTIES

Join us on Saturdays to cheer on our favorite college team!

Doors open 1 hour before kick-off Large video wall with surround sound Food & drink specials

SHELF

LOCAL AUTHORS THEIR BOOKS

Fine Arts are Fantastic at PCSSD

Fine Arts are Fantastic at PCSSD

Fine art programs in school have been proven to help students with motor skills, language and math, and help students with problem solving and decision making. All of these reasons, and more, is why the Pulaski County Special School District is dedicated to providing high quality fine art instruction to students across central Arkansas.

Fine art programs in school have been proven to help students with motor skills, language and math, and help students with problem solving and decision making. All of these reasons, and more, is why the Pulaski County Special School District is dedicated to providing high quality fine art instruction to students across central Arkansas.

This year, PCSSD has a number of new fine arts educators bringing their skills and expertise in their creative field to students. There is a new band or choir director in three middle schools and one high school.

This year, PCSSD has a number of new fine arts educators bringing their skills and expertise in their creative field to students. There is a new band or choir director in three middle schools and one high school.

Mr. Christopher Cross is the new choir director at Joe T. Robinson Middle School. “This year, my plan and focus is to help students develop independent and group artistry,” said Mr. Cross. “I want them to develop and engage their imagination. I believe a vocal music program is a system of uniquely gifted individuals learning to develop their talents in community with other artists. Each artist learns from one another how to develop their perspective gift.”

Mr. Christopher Cross is the new choir director at Joe T. Robinson Middle School. “This year, my plan and focus is to help students develop independent and group artistry,” said Mr. Cross. “I want them to develop and engage their imagination. I believe a vocal music program is a system of uniquely gifted individuals learning to develop their talents in community with other artists. Each artist learns from one another how to develop their perspective gift.”

Mr. Ray Cross is the new middle school band director at Mills Middle School.

Mr. Ray Cross is the new middle school band director at Mills Middle School.

“Teaching music to children is the best job in the world, in my opinion, and having the opportunity to do exactly what I want to be doing in my first year, I could not pass up,” said Mr. Cross. “I am looking forward to building relationships, helping scholars succeed at their highest level, and to hone in on my personal craft as a music educator.”

“Teaching music to children is the best job in the world, in my opinion, and having the opportunity to do exactly what I want to be doing in my first year, I could not pass up,” said Mr. Cross. “I am looking forward to building relationships, helping scholars succeed at their highest level, and to hone in on my personal craft as a music educator.”

Mr. Joshua Jackson is the new head band director at Maumelle High School. “The Maumelle Band program and its students have a reputation and tradition of working hard to achieve superior results both as a music ensemble and as individuals,” said Mr. Jackson. “I wanted to have the chance to be a small part of this wonderful program, to work alongside my colleagues, Mr. Williamson and Mr. Meadows, and of course teach the wonderful band students of Maumelle High School.”

Mr. Joshua Jackson is the new head band director at Maumelle High School. “The Maumelle Band program and its students have a reputation and tradition of working hard to achieve superior results both as a music ensemble and as individuals,” said Mr. Jackson. “I wanted to have the chance to be a small part of this wonderful program, to work alongside my colleagues, Mr. Williamson and Mr. Meadows, and of course teach the wonderful band students of Maumelle High School.”

And Mrs. Anna-Wray Robinette is the new choir director at Sylvan Hills Middle School. “My plan for this year is to give my students as much knowledge and experience as possible,” said Mrs. Robinette. “Most of all, I want to give them a positive musical experience that will help them appreciate music for life.”

And Mrs. Anna-Wray Robinette is the new choir director at Sylvan Hills Middle School. “My plan for this year is to give my students as much knowledge and experience as possible,” said Mrs. Robinette. “Most of all, I want to give them a positive musical experience that will help them appreciate music for life.”

These educators are great additions to PCSSD’s long list of existing talented educators and we are looking forward to watching them grow and pass on their passion to our scholars.

These educators are great additions to PCSSD’s long list of existing talented educators and we are looking forward to watching them grow and pass on their passion to our scholars.

ABOUT PCSSD

ABOUT PCSSD

Pulaski County Special School District spans more than 600 square miles in central Arkansas and requires highly skilled and passionate personnel to adapt educational policies and personalization to 26 schools. Every school is accredited by the Arkansas State Board of Education. PCSSD has served schools across Pulaski County since July 1927.

Pulaski County Special School District spans more than 600 square miles in central Arkansas and requires highly skilled and passionate personnel to adapt educational policies and personalization to 26 schools. Every school is accredited by the Arkansas State Board of Education. PCSSD has served schools across Pulaski County since July 1927.

PCSSD is committed to creating a nationally recognized school district that assures that all students achieve at their maximum potential through collaborative, supportive and continuous efforts of all stakeholders.

PCSSD is committed to creating a nationally recognized school district that assures that all students achieve at their maximum potential through collaborative, supportive and continuous efforts of all stakeholders.

OCTOBER 2022 NEWS & NOTES

OCTOBER IS PACKED WITH FESTIVALS AND FUN. WE CAN’T INCLUDE EVERYTHING HERE, BUT WE OFFER THE HIGHLIGHTS.

SOLID STANCE FOR UNITY & COMMUNITY

Oct. 1

12-4 p.m.

Solid Stance for Unity & Community is offering this awesome, free event for one and all at Unity Martial Arts. FREE seminars will take place all afternoon. You can spectate or jump right in and learn some techniques. Cuong Nhu karate, self-defense and Iyengar Yoga demonstrations will be performed by Unity students, and there will be games, activities, food trucks and door prizes.

Solid Stance is a new community nonprofit whose goal is providing training and stability to at-risk members of our community.

HOWL-O-WEEN PARTIES IN THE PLAZA

Oct. 15, 22, 29

Head to the Little Rock Zoo dressed in your Halloween best to see a magic show, meet fairytale characters and enjoy a ride on the scaredy cat carousel.

HARVESTFEST

Oct. 22

Presented by the Hillcrest Merchants Association, HarvestFest in Hillcrest is an all-day event that celebrates the season. There’s a wide array of activities for kids and adults, vendors selling their wares, food, a beer garden, live music and a dog show!

LITTLE ROCK BIG BOO!SEUM BASH

Oct. 27

5:30-8:30 p.m.

Area museums offer trick-or-treating, games and more. Pick up a game card at any participating location and collect stamps for visiting each museum or cultural attraction — then turn in your game card to be entered into a grand prize drawing for a new tablet.

ARKANSAS STATE FAIR

Oct. 14-23

It’s the fun-for-all, fair-for-all Arkansas State Fair! The question is, will you take the traditional route and eat a funnel cake and turkey leg or go for something more adventurous like Fried Spaghetti & Meatballs on a Stick and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos Walking Taco?

CENTRAL ARKANSAS PRIDE FEST

Oct. 15

Let your Pride flag fly! Enjoy food trucks, live music, drag performances, vendors and a parade at Argenta Plaza in North Little Rock. It’s fun for the whole family.

CAMP ALDERSGATE

FISH FRY

Oct. 16

11:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.

Who doesn’t love a good fish fry? And this year’s event is back and in-person. Camp Aldersgate is also introducing “Camp Crawl”—a chance to walk in the shoes of a camper by participating in an immersive camp experience.

Check the website for more info and pricing. campaldersgate.net/ signature-events/fish-fry

BALLET ARKANSAS PRESENTS “DRACULA”

Oct. 20-23

Just in time for Halloween, Ballet Arkansas offers this bold retelling of Bram Stoker’s legendary novel and features chilling imagery, edge-ofyour-seat choreography and, of course, vampires! Check balletarkansas.org/tickets for showtimes and ticket info.

This year's participating locations are Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, Historic Arkansas Museum, Little Rock Visitor Information Center at Historic Curran Hall, MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, Museum of Discovery, Old State House Museum, Witt Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Nature Center and Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum.

ANNUAL WORLD CHEESE DIP CHAMPIONSHIP

Oct. 30

12-4 p.m.

Head to the Rivermarket to enjoy dips from amateurs and professionals around the country and cast your vote to crown the World Cheese Dip Champions. Pro tip: bring a muffin tin to hold the sample cups. (Anyone remember the first year when they ran out of chips, and people were driven to doing cheese dip shooters?)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Pumped for pumpkin patches: BoBrook Farms (Roland), Motley’s (Little Rock), and Roseberry Farms (Benton) to name a few. Check farm websites for dates and hours of operation.

By Katherine Wyrick

As a kid, I ran away from home to hide in the generous canopy of my neighbor’s magnolia tree. I took with me a boxy floral suitcase that held my favorite stuffed animal, a cellophanewrapped Twinkie pilfered from my dad’s secret stash, and a copy of “Black Beauty.” I’ve always believed that a book is the best companion — especially when on the lam.

In this issue, we’re celebrating books, and there’s no better time with the Central Arkansas Library System’s Six Bridges Book Festival taking place Oct. 20-30. We look at what’s scheduled for kids and families as well as ask a few local young adult/children’s authors and a teacher for their book suggestions.

SIX BRIDGES BOOK FESTIVAL

On the agenda for kids this year at Little Readers Rock at the Hillary Rodham Clinton Children’s Library & Learning Center, Sat., Oct. 22: It’s a full day of fun family events, including an author visit, a performance, activities, snacks, book giveaways and more. Throughout the day, Little Readers Rock will have stations to play Go Fish, take a photo and receive free books.

Begin the day with AMFA ArtStart! Put on your art goggles and thinking caps as you examine the whimsical Toys Designed by Artists collection from the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts and discover “How to Spot an Artist” with the book by Danielle Krysa. Kids will also harness the power of the sun to create unique designs on nature print paper and be guided through creating an origami lotus flower for the “Art Garden”

community installation, part of the grand opening celebrations at the newly renovated AMFA.

Afterward, head over to the theater where Little Rock’s favorite kids’ magician Tommy Terrific will perform. (Sidenote: We hired him for my son’s birthday party many years ago, and our rascally dog sneaked behind the curtain and ate some of the props. To Tommy’s credit, he took it all in stride.)

Midday, kids can get a Grab and Go lunch from the front desk and also participate in a food-related activity.

Some may need a nap at this point, but if not, the exceptionally talented artist Charly Palmer makes a special visit in the afternoon to discuss his debut children’s book, “The Legend of Gravity,” inspired by his childhood Milwaukee. His remarkable exhibition “Telling Stories: Illustrations & New Works” will be at Hearne Fine Art from Oct. 7-Dec. 1.

Then, it’s on to “Chinese Folk Tales and Fu Characters” with Ashley Wang, co-chair of Little Readers Rock, who will read an exciting Chinese folk tale and then help kids make a craft.

Northern Irish author/illustrator Oliver Jeffers is one of my family’s favorites. His work is quirky, droll and just the right amount of tender. We’re eagerly anticipating his latest, “Meanwhile Back on Earth …: Finding Our Place through Time and Space,” which serendipitously comes out this month! The library is hosting an exhibition of Jeffers’ work, “Oliver Jeffers: 15 Years of Picturing Book,” that will include more than 80 pieces. And 400 of his books will be given away over the course of the exhibition!

As part of the book festival, and in honor of the exhibition, kids can learn how to make their own crayons, an activity inspired by Jeffers’ book “The Day the Crayons Quit.”

A costume party and parade will also take place. Ghosts, goblins, princesses, cowboys, princess cowboys — all are welcome. Don’t have a costume? You can make a mask. (An aside: You can donate gently used Halloween costumes by Oct. 3 at McMath Library for its costume swap on Oct. 8.)

The day ends with a boisterous, energetic concert from the popular duo mömandpöp.

There’s also a chance for students to engage directly with writers as part of the CALS Writers in the Schools (WITS) Initiative. A slate of diverse authors will all visit area schools over the course of the festival to speak directly with students.

Visit SixBridgesBookFestival.org for more info.

With her signature shock of pink hair, whimsical earrings, affinity for superheroes and gift for making learning fun, Ms. Hall is a treasure — the teacher we all wish we'd had and the one former students remember for the rest of their lives. Here’s her short list.

Favorite Children’s Books: “The Book with No Pictures” by B.J. Novak “Julián Is a Mermaid” by Jessica Love “The Monster at the End of this Book” by Jon Stone “The Wild Robot” by Peter Brown “Wonder” by R.J. Palacio “The Lifters” by Dave Eggers

What she’s working on now: Wrangling and teaching a new class of lively third graders.

BARBARA HALL

Third grade teacher at Pulaski Heights Elementary

READ LOCAL

We’re not short on local talent in these parts. Here’s but a sampling:

• Dog advocate and author Pat Becker writes books about the special bond between dogs and their people. She also supports other writers who do the same. Find all her work at Patbeckerbooks.com.

• Just released — “Beanies, Ball Caps, and Being Bald: Different Isn’t Bad, Different Is Just Different” published by local Et Alia Press, written by Tracy Peterson with Matthew Shelby and illustrated by Lindsey Witting. Based on a true story, this book opens up conversations about physical difference and explains the basics of alopecia to children.

A Q&A WITH MONICA CLARKROBINSON: AUTHOR, ACTOR, EDUCATOR, LIBRARIAN

Did you know you wanted to write books for young people, or did you just know you wanted to tell stories and it evolved from there?

I've been in love with story my whole life in all its forms — poetry, novels, plays, movies, oral storytelling, everything! Stories connect us across all our differences. I came to writing for children and teens first because those are the books I personally love the most! There's some part of me that will always be 13, I think. I also love writing for younger people because I believe that the right book at the right time can change a kid's life. I know there were books like that for me when I was a kid.

Why do you think kids need books?

Kids and teens need books that mirror their own experiences and give them windows into the experiences of others. Books can give them a sense

AYANA GRAY

New York Times-bestselling author of the “Beasts of Prey” trilogy and Little Rock resident

Favorite Children's Books (Classics)

“Charlotte's Web” by E.B. White

“The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” by C.S. Lewis “Outcast of Redwall” by Brian Jacques

Favorite Children's Books (Contemporary)

“Aru Shah and the End of Time” by Roshani Chokshi “Ghost Squad” by Claribel A. Ortega “Amari and the Night Brothers” by B.B. Alston

What I’m working on: “I'm currently writing the third and final book in the Beasts of Prey trilogy, which should be published in a year or so!”

of being seen and understood, and they can also help build compassion for others. It can show them lives and problems and cultures different from their own, which is in essence what an education is all about. A reader is a self-led, lifelong learner. As writers, educators, librarians and parents, we're not just building readers — we're building people!

What makes a good children’s book?

I believe a great children's book must first be written for the children, not the adults or the award committees. I know a book is terrific when it hooks me from page one with a relatable child's voice, when the character pops off the page, when it takes me right back to what it felt like to be 10, 12 or 16.

How do you think your work in the theater and as a voiceover artist inform your writing?

My work and training as an actor have informed my writing so much. It helps the most with getting in the minds of the characters I write and inhabiting them in my words and dialogue. Everything I do comes from that same desire to resonate with a character and to hook an audience or readers into caring about them deeply. I do read my writing out loud a lot, pretending I'm the audiobook narrator. It helps me find places where the voice isn't right or it doesn't feel authentic.

My current favorite kids' books:

Picture books for younger kids:

• “We Are Water Protectors” by Carole Lindstrom, illustrated by Michaela Goade

• “We Are in a Book” by Mo Willems (An Elephant and Piggie Story)

For older elementary and middle grade readers:

• “The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise” by Dan Gemeinhart (any book by him, honestly)

• “Fighting Words” by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

• “Starfish” by Lisa Fipps

• “Melissa” by Alex Gino

And for teens:

• ANYTHING by Elizabeth Acevedo, but especially “The Poet X”

• The “Gone” series by Michael Grant

• “Last Night at the Telegraph Club” by Malinda Lo

Find out more about Clark-Robinson’s work at monicaclark-robinson.com, and be sure to check out her award-winning books:

“Let the Children March,” a Coretta Scott King Illustration Honor award book and International Literacy Association Nonfiction Debut winner, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for Kids, illustrated by Frank Morrison

“Standing On Her Shoulders,” a Junior Library Guild Spring 2021 Gold choice, Scholastic's Orchard Press, illustrated by Laura Freeman

And forthcoming in 2024 from Quill Tree Books, “Teacher to a Movement: Septima Clark's Legacy of Literacy and Liberation,” co-authored with Yvonne Clark-Rhines and illustrated by Abigail Albano-Payton

TRENTON LEE STEWART

New York Times-bestselling author of “The Mysterious Benedict Society” series among other books and an Arkansas native/Little Rock resident

A few favorite books for the especially young: “The Gruffalo” by Julia Donaldson “The Squirrel’s Birthday and Other Parties” by Toon Tellegen “Uno’s Garden” by Graeme Base

For the slightly less young: “Frog and Toad Quartet” by Arnold Lobel “Finn Family Moomintroll” by Tove Jansson

For the almost old: “A Wrinkle in Time” by Madeleine L’Engle “Watership Down” by Richard Adams “Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow” by Jessica Townsend

What I’m working on: “I’m currently working on a children’s mystery adventure novel called ‘The Starfish and the Scorpionfly.’ ”

Unprecedented Child Health. Defined and Delivered.

Arkansas Children’s is the state’s only health system built just for kids. By working within the communities we serve, it’s our mission to make children better today and healthier tomorrow. We are Champions for Children where they live, learn and play. CHILD’S HEALTH IS A BIG DEAL. Promise:

Supported/made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, Arkansas Humanities Council, National Endowment for the Humanities, United States Congress, Arkansas State Library, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The Junior League of Little Rock is a partner for the Little Readers Rock events.

TEN REASONS TO PAY ATTENTION TO HEAVY MUSIC IN ARKANSAS IN 2022

FROM B.L.A.S.T. TO ZILLA, A GUIDE TO THE NEWISH LOCAL BANDS TO KNOW.

BY JEFF MORGAN

Like the bubbles from alligator nostrils deep within Lake Conway, heavy music in Arkansas always finds its way to the surface. As the local gators spawn in alarming numbers, so spawn the myriad amazing new local bands, wreaking havoc from damp, smelly stages all over our fine state. Needless to say, it is glorious to watch, even if it is painful to hear once you realize you’ve accidentally left your earplugs at home.

As most of you know, the ebbs and flows of local music scenes are normal; they can be disheartening during the lulls, and raging to the point of god-like power during their peaks. We are fortunate to find ourselves currently in the latter. From Northwest Arkansas, all the way over to Jonesboro, down to El Dorado, and all throughout all of Central Arkansas, there are more active heavy music projects right now than at any time in the last 25 years. While bands like Pallbearer, Terminal Nation, Crankbait, (my band) Rwake and Living Sacrifice have formed a solid layer of crust to build upon, it’s time to turn the focus towards the new breed carrying torches of distortion into the apocalyptic future.

In a time with so many killer bands, narrowing this list down to 10 bands was no easy task, but if you are new to the heavy music scene, out of the loop or just doom-curious, here are 10 reasons why you should be tuned in to the local heavy music scene right now.

B.L.A.S.T.

When it comes to creating new music, finding a sound that has never been done before is a rarity. It requires a strange collective magic in the jam room amongst the folks in a band, and B.L.A.S.T. has tapped that vein. Originally formed as Shoe!!!, B.L.A.S.T. made its mark at a number of house shows before swapping out the bass spot and formulating the new lineup, hence cementing their current magic three. They had the amazing opportunity to record their self-titled release at the legendary Sun Studios in Memphis, and their split release with fellow local musicians Lap (coming soon) is guaranteed to suffocate all who lay their head upon it. The future is large for B.L.A.S.T., and Little Rock is lucky as hell to have them.

SECOND LIFE

“Get in the van! Let’s go!” Hard work means more than almost anything else in the music world. Sweating in the van, getting lost, endlessly looking for a parking spot, trying to find a place to put your gear, stressing out, savoring every pizza crust: these are the things that will break you or make you. When your music is as solid as Second Life’s, all that hard work is worth every ounce of hardship. “Sin and Punishment” (featuring Stan Liszewski from Terminal Nation) is available on Bandcamp, and is one the heaviest things this venerable town has ever produced — it is crushing hardcore that you know will always lead you to those blowto-the-head breakdowns. Even listening to this at home, sans pit, will leave you looking over your shoulder for the inevitable forearm coming your way.

SCORCHED EARTH

Like getting a haircut with a hedge trimmer, this stuff will rip your head to shreds: It’s grimy as it grinds through mid-tempo death worship to pummeling breakdowns and even into furious black metal carnage. Their most recent release, “This Place Is Not My Home,” pushes and pulls your mind through endless levels of gritty terror. Formed under the name Low Spirits in 2018 with the full intent to reclaim the glory of old school death metal, they quickly evolved into the newly titled Scorched Earth, and their sound has expanded into a new, more humongous, hideous monster. Dip your blade into their previous stuff when they were known as Low Spirits, and check out their new record as Scorched Earth, then get ready to be destroyed at one of their many upcoming dates.

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On-site Realtor, Hot Springs: Judy Kelly, 501-609-6996

MUD LUNG

Quaking out of Northwest Arkansas is a force of nature that has been scaring geologists since 2013. No, Mud Lung is not technically “new,” but the band has recently been churning up a new level of sludge doom punk blues that demands attention outside of the Fayetteville hills. Their 2020 self-titled release was recorded in Fayetteville at the mighty Holy Anvil Studios. Come levitate with them at any upcoming show to feel their full sonic force, or throw on some headphones, click on their eponymous album, grab the bong and float above this great state for a while.

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OPEN KASKET

In April 2022, Open Kasket came raging out of the cemetery gates with some of the most putrid and pure sounding death metal this state has ever produced. Their first demo track from earlier this year, “Deth By Grathnacht,” spews forth with an effortless brutality that brings both the hunger for battle and the thirst for blood. The most recent release, “Planetary Devastation (Pluto’s Not Dead),” conjures up a frenzy in the mind of a metalhead not witnessed since the days of Jacksonville’s own Shredded Corpse. With a new EP forecast to claw its way out very soon, we can fully expect Open Kasket to become one of the best bands ever to escape an Arkansas grave.

MORBID VISIONZ

If a band could ever capture the sounds and horror from inside the house of 1974’s “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” this would be it. This sawing, growling dream team of terror formed in 2020 and has been busy building weapon-like riffs ever since. While there are clearly strong tentacles of influence from the pioneers of death metal and speed metal, there is more to this story than just holding the severed head high to the old gods. The gory saturation and hardcore overtones make this a force all of its own, and it is a bloody good time.

MAMMOTH CARAVAN

Barely out of their embryonic state, this low end doom-heavy troop is marching hard, taking on every chance they have to bring its frozen glaciers of sound to the masses. With Arcticsized amps spewing riffs heavier than the force of gravity itself, this is the decibel-driven future that Little Rock needs. As there are only two songs available at this time, the best way to catch this behemoth is by hunting them in the wilds of the Little Rock nightlife. However, by all means, acclimate to their frozen tones on all streaming platforms before leaving base camp.

GOREPIG

Brooding behind the scenes, a project that started as studio-only is now festering and mutating like a boar corpse once bitten, almost ready to rise again and feast on the flesh of the farm. Cody Slambert conjured up plenty of online frenzy with the first hoof-scratching masterpiece, “Boar King,” in 2019, and it’s been all bacon ever since. As they are now under the Heavy Hits management wing, look for things to move pretty quickly into a fully active live band. This is grindcore slam at its most glorious, and it couldn’t fit in any better in a state that lives to call the Hogs. Woooo (Gore)Pig Sooie!

TEL ANORATH

There is a clear understanding from this Northwest Arkansas band of Swedish death thrash, black metal anthemic glory and hypercomplex tech death, all surrounded by thick atmospheric synth-rich textures. Their 2019 release, “PITH,” ranks amongst the heaviest slabs of death ever to cascade out of Fayetteville. Look for a new full-length soon, and keep an eye out for an upcoming video that is sure to crush you “like the insect you arrrrgh!”

ZILLA

Rocking the nights with PBRs held high, Zilla has been commanding crowds since its inception in 2020. (Well, technically since after that weird omicron wave passed and we could all throw beer on each other again.) No, they are not a murderous-sounding metal band like some of the others here, but heaviness comes in all forms, and this is the most fun heaviness around. Spawning from influences like King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Ween and the Replacements, Zilla’s post-punk noise rock is the thing you need to see live as soon as you can. They are spellbinding. In the meantime, you can dose up on their new release, “Mushroom Kingdom,” available on streaming platforms, but please go ahead and buy this (and everything else of theirs) on Bandcamp, because none of the other streaming services compensate the artists as well as Bandcamp does.

An 11-day literary blowout is happening in Little Rock in the weeks leading up to Halloween, the charms of which include but are not limited to: a screening of “Serial Mom” as pre-game for a talk from Our Godfather of Camp, John Waters; a teen poetry competition; Kimberly Wehle’s tutorial on “How to Think Like A Lawyer; a pie bake-off at The Root Cafe; J. Estanislao Lopez’s poetic interrogation of men and masculinity; a tribute concert from George Michael impersonator Robert Bartko; and tons more.

Importantly, the Arkansas writers’ scene is not only present and accounted for, but teeming with deep-dive-worthy work: Sean Fitzgibbon’s meticulously painted graphic telling of yesteryear’s spirits haunting Eureka Springs’ Crescent Hotel; Ronnie Williams’ gripping account of the murder of his brother while in police custody at the Faulkner County Jail; a “build your own book cover” workshop with artist Robert Bean; Brooks Blevins’ sprawling account of Ozark identity amalgamated from Branson and Walmart and big poultry; Ayana Gray’s chartbusting, Netflix-bound fantasy fiction; an all-Arkansas exhibition of comics and graphic novels; Bitty Martin’s true crime tale of a suspicious death at Hot Springs’ Blacksnake Ranch; and, lest we forget, Arkansas Times’ own annual open mic throwdown, Pub or Perish. Find the full schedule at sixbridgesbookfestival. org, and check out our mini-Q&As with three Book Fest authors below.

OK, so there are about a thousand “dystopia circa 2022” themes I encountered in the first story in the book: the perils of seeking happiness through virtual reality, of course, but also maybe the dangers of curating any experience at all. The way we curate our lives for social media, for example. Or just the way we tend to relive past regrets, wishing we’d acted in some different, nobler way. It’s brilliant and it goes by in a flash, just like the memories it references. Did you always know this would be the first story in the collection? Thank you! While I was writing the collection, I had the vague sense that some stories would be early ones or later ones, that certain stories needed to be in conversation with each other, but the final order was heavily influenced by my editor, Masie Cochran. Putting “Pre-Simulation Consultation XF007867” first was actually her idea. I’d thought it was one of the weirder stories, and that readers had to be eased into weirdness, whereas Masie thought that the right readers would appreciate the breadth of themes and being thrown into the deep end immediately. She thought we should get weird on the first page. She was right!

It feels so perfect that you’ve been paired with Little Rock’s own Kevin Brockmeier at the upcoming Six Bridges Book Festival, since he’s a writer who shares your gift for reminding us how bizarre childhood and adolescence can feel while you’re in it. Like, not the glossedover version of adolescence and childhood that adult memory tends to cultivate, but how

it actually felt. Like the kid in “Liddy, First to Fly” who yells out, “Dogs pee there! You’re sitting in dog pee!” I 100% KNEW that kid. Do you have children in your life? Or did you keep a diary as a teen? What do you do to tap into younger people’s worlds that helps you do it so effectively?

I’m such a huge fan of Kevin. I did keep detailed journals through my childhood and teen years — I have a journal from when I was 6 marked “book two,” so I assume there was a book one — and I think that did embed those memories a little deeper in my brain. And watching my nieces and nephews grow up has been a revelation. But ultimately, I think I’m just fascinated by early adolescence — the complex and terrifying social dynamics, the use of magic and speculation to patch over an incomplete and ever-expanding understanding of the world.

The last story in the book, “Do You Remember Candy,” imagines that the whole world collectively loses its sense of taste. You wrote it in 2019, before the pandemic, yes? What sorts of feelings came up for you when you first knew, like, “Oh, the thing in my story is a real live symptom of COVID-19”?

I worried that the story would be painful or offensive to readers in ways that I didn’t intend. Since the book came out, I’ve heard from a few readers who lost their sense of taste for an extended period of time, and they felt the story took their pain seriously in a way they hadn’t otherwise seen. The interpretations of that story continue to change in ways I never could have predicted, but I hope that’s how it’s generally received — as parallel in its emotions, in some poetic and not one-to-one literal way, as respectful.

KIM FU

(“Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century”) Saturday, Oct. 29, 1-2 p.m., Main Library, Darragh Center

JANIS F. KEARNEY

(“Only on Sundays: Mahalia Jackson’s Long Journey”)

Saturday, Oct. 29, 2:30-3:30 p.m., Main Library, Darragh Center

What are your earliest memories of Mahalia, and what led you to her as a subject for your latest book?

My first memory of her is my family sitting in front of that 12-inch, black-and-white television watching “Imitation of Life,” where she sings the funeral song. It’s kind of iconic, and my family would watch it every year. Same story, same movie, and we had the same response every year. It brought tears to everyone’s eyes when Mahalia Jackson sang “Troubles of the World.” … I didn’t know anything else about her until my husband and I moved to Chicago in 2001, and around 2005 we met Roland Burris, who was the former comptroller in Illinois, and we became friends with him and his wife. And we had dinner there in their beautiful home, and we talked about different parts of the home only to find out that the home had been owned by Mahalia Jackson. And just as we were leaving, he went upstairs and came back with this box, and it had documents, letters, things like that, of Mahalia Jackson’s, which had been left when she left the home. And he said, “I’m giving this to you because I know you’re a writer, and only if you promise to, one day, write about Mahalia.” So, during COVID, during the time we were all locked in, I decided this was a good time for me to take care of that promise I made a long time ago.

I loved what you took away from that spring of 2020, which you described in a note accompanying the book on Mahalia, where you frame that cultural moment by saying, “For writers of color, it was a collective realization that our stories, our histories,

when told, were most times not told from our own perspectives. ... When we held our own archives up to the light of day, we find the annals of American literature and history sorely lacking in the rich stories of African Americans who lived, survived, and even thrived during these last four centuries.”

I think so many of us began thinking the same way: “We’ve gotta do some things differently. We’ve gotta know that life can change at any moment, and the things we need to leave behind are our stories. Our truths.” We all know that truth is nebulous, but as much as possible, let’s tell things that impacted us, how we dealt with it, how we came out of it. And people like Mahalia Jackson who packed so much into a life — I don’t think it’s ever been done justice, and I’m trying to be part of that. … She’s one of those singers who immediately give you chills. It means she’s getting to the bone. Because of her truth, I think. Whatever song she’s singing, it’s her song at that time. You trust her as a singer.

You call this book a work of creative nonfiction, rather than a biography, and you say that a work in this genre must be the truth but also impart upon the reader the impact of storytelling. Do you think of it as a blend of biography and memoir, or maybe a little like what a playwright does?

I really hesitated about what I would call this. I think it’s a combination of all of those — biography, historical nonfiction, creative nonfiction. I always want to put something in that people didn’t know, or that a straight biographer might not find interesting or impactful. My writing always has some of that; when I wrote my memoir, “Cotton Field of Dreams,” people thought it read like a novel. But it’s the truth! And I try to use my own experiences when I write about others — especially a Mahalia Jackson or a Daisy Bates, whose lives I can see so much of myself in.

SAM QUINONES

(“Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic,” “The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth”)

Tuesday, Oct. 25, 6:30-7:30 p.m., Ron Robinson Theater

We know that meth use has a complicated but inseparable link to homelessness. Is there a place in this country where this is being addressed in an effective way? Who, if anybody, is doing it right in terms of homelessness and addiction?

I’m not sure I can point you to a place where something’s going well and right. One reason for that is I think we’re just now beginning to confront it. Part of that’s because COVID took up so much of the conversation. Rightfully so. But it’s only in the last few years that this [new] meth has reached nationwide and begun to affect homelessness, encampments and all the rest. I believe that this meth is a major force — not the only force, but a major force — in the expansion of the numbers of homeless people as it has marched across the country since around 2012, 2013, after the Mexican trafficking world began to figure out how to make it, and to make a more sophisticated methamphetamine. … There are many reasons why people become homeless. It’s a complicated story — about as complicated as every human being who is homeless. There’s addiction. A surgery the family can’t afford. Job loss. Release from prison without any family backup. Emancipation from foster care. Domestic violence. Sexual abuse. You can go on and on. But methamphetamine is certainly a major force.

You talk in the introduction to “The Least of Us” about the way in which, initially, the opioid crisis accelerated quietly. That the crisis was “abetted by a national silence.” We

didn’t hear more noise about it because the families of the addicted were too ashamed to talk about it. Undoubtedly, many of those families sensed that they would not be met with the same sense of empathy as they would if their loved one had died another way. Do we have an empathy crisis in the U.S.? Is that what I’m meant to take from the verse from the Bible that opens your book, Matthew 25:40?

It does seem perplexing that for people to really feel this problem, they have to have someone near them who’s affected by it. A loved one, someone in their business or church or whatever.

… People coming to understand that it’s far, far more nearby than they ever imagined. But we are a country who has grown dangerously OK with our own isolation. And when that happens, it is hard to see other people as needing understanding. There’s also the fact that addiction is very damaging to love and to trust. The nature of addiction is behavior that is callous to people who are showing you love and understanding. It’s not a one-way street.

The title “The Least of Us,” from the Book of Matthew, wasn’t simply about finding compassion for those going through tough times, although it certainly is that, too. But it’s also the idea that maybe the way we find a way forward is to focus on the smallest kind of daily efforts. Showing up. We’re a culture that seems to be enamored with the big, sexy, magic answer. Anything short of a complete solution is believed to be a waste of time. And I don’t believe that.

What seem to be the smallest efforts are actually the most effective when done over the long term. I just read a quote in a story that I thought was pretty interesting: The Romans had a phrase which, when translated from the Latin, means “A stone is hollowed out by the drops of water that fall upon it daily.” You start doing small stuff and little by little, you create conditions through which you can see slightly larger approaches and solutions.

I think it’s cool that the bio on your website is mostly a list of people you’ve known or met — Los Tigres del Norte, “drag queens in Mazatlan,” the last Trotskyites in Cuernavaca.

The work that I’ve done has been trying to find human stories, almost exclusively, and to understand areas, regions, cultures, countries, societies, time periods through the stories of other people. For me, that’s really what my whole career has been about. I’m never trying to tell a story without a human.

BY ERNEST DUMAS

This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture.

“Down From the Hills” is a two-volume memoir written by Orval Eugene Faubus, the longserving Arkansas governor who precipitated the national constitutional crisis over school desegregation in 1957 by sending soldiers to block nine Black children from entering Central High School in Little Rock. “Down From the Hills,” which essentially covered his first four years as governor and included the school crisis, was published in 1980, while “Down From the Hills II” appeared in 1986 and covered the last eight years of his administration and his threetime struggle to regain the governor’s office while navigating personal and family ordeals.

The two volumes, each on oversized eight-by-11-inch pages, totaled 1,074 pages. An earlier memoir, “In This Faraway Land,” published in 1971, covered another 736 pages and recounted his experiences as an infantry soldier in Europe in World War II. All three books were prepared more as day-by-day documentaries than as personal narratives by Faubus, although the excerpts from newspaper articles, editorials, speeches, personal letters and favorable letters to newspapers are intermingled with his own descriptions of state, local and national events and, at crucial times, his own rationale for what he and his administration had done.

IN FAUBUS’ NARRATIVES: A defense of his political strategy, a list of acknowledgments to supporters and a tale of a secret love affair.

BRIAN CHILSON

Although they accumulate more than a million words, both volumes of “Down From the Hills” constitute albums more than they do memoirs. They are packed with hundreds of illustrations and photographs of the governor on almost every public occasion, including one of him wielding an axe in the woods when he joined a Highway Department crew in 1963 to trim a road rightof-way near Huntsville. He devoted three pages to his efforts at highway beautification. Nearly every turn of a page reveals newspaper editorial cartoons, mostly sympathetic ones by Arkansas Democrat cartoonist Jon Kennedy, but many iconic caricatures of Faubus by Arkansas Gazette cartoonist George Fisher and many by cartoonists for other American newspapers and magazines are included.

Faubus, who had written for his small Madison County newspaper when he was serving in the military and later published and edited the paper, was an excellent and occasionally eloquent writer. But his books — with their endless excerpts, subheads, disjointed topics and selfserving commentary — provide little literary compensation for readers. A primary purpose seems to have been to mention as many names as possible: every political supporter and friend he could think of and perhaps everyone who served in his administration beyond regular government employees. Appendices list every state legislator who served with him and everyone whom he appointed to the hundreds of state boards and commissions in 12 years.

For Faubus, the two volumes represent something of an Apologia Pro Vita Sua — the classic defense of his life written by Cardinal John Henry Newman. In his work, Faubus seeks to counter the notion that his actions were politically motivated (that is, designed to fend off challenges from rabid segregationists) rather than those actions likeliest to promote the greatest public good.

Faubus finished the second volume of “Down From the Hills” as he was planning his last race,

against Governor Bill Clinton in the spring of 1986, which is not mentioned in the book. Its final pages are his most earnest and compelling narrative, covering the bitterness he felt over so many friends and supporters abandoning him in the 1974 race against David Pryor, when he thought he would surely win back the office he had so cherished. This section also covers a few of his many personal travails, including the mental and emotional trials and suicide of his only child, Farrell; his running over and killing Farrell’s beloved terrier at Faubus’

Allsopp Park and in the woods west of the city in the summer of 1968, the year before Faubus’ divorce from his first wife.)

Faubus described an amorous tryst with Westmoreland in a secluded Ozarks forest:

“On a large beech we carved our initials and the date. In the years that followed, we returned each year to the spot and carved another date on the tree’s trunk. Now the giant beech, with a round hole in its side made by the woodhens which inhabit the valley to reach the ants in its decaying

Fay Jones-designed house on a cliff overlooking Huntsville; his sentimental recollections of Farrell’s troubled youth and adulthood; his mad, furtive extramarital romance with the sultry Elizabeth Westmoreland of Wisconsin (who famously wore a beehive hairdo and miniskirts); their later tumultuous marriage; and her murder in Houston, Texas. Faubus omits many of the most opprobrious episodes, like the couple’s ugly battles with the townspeople in his native Madison County, their flight to Houston, and Elizabeth’s ordering him back to Arkansas and filing divorce papers shortly before her murder in 1983. His books make passing references to his wife of 38 years, Alta Haskins Faubus.

His narrative tells about his and Westmoreland’s secret love affair in the two years after he left office after she had landed a job in Little Rock doing political radio shows for his old Democratic friends, often using scripts that Faubus had sent her from Huntsville. (Actually, the romance was not much of a secret except from family members. Governor Winthrop Rockefeller had a photographer with a telephoto lens take pictures of the lovebirds around Faubus’ room in the Crestwood Manor apartments in Little Rock’s

Faubus paid for the publication of the books and carried piles of them with him in the trunk of his car for years, until shortly before his death. He would set up a table in the rotunda of the State Capitol and at craft fairs and other events in the Ozark Mountains, autographing and selling them. He tried to establish a rapport with people who stopped by so that he could find a relative or an acquaintance in the voluminous index and scribble a note by their name. He expected that by his listing every legislator and everyone he appointed to the hundreds of state boards and commissions over 12 years, they or their relatives would buy a book. Like everything else that happened to him in the last 20 years of his life, the book sales were a bitter disappointment. Little was ever written about the books in newspapers, given that they were viewed as scrapbooks rather than literature. WITH IN THE

heart, stands in the quiet forest at a location known only to me. The winds whisper through the trees, the woodhens call to each other, and the stream murmurs in the valley below, as the beech, with a set of initials and ten dates carved in its smooth bark, waits for two lovers who will never return.”

YOU CAN’T HAVE HOLLAND WITHOUT AMSTERDAM

Mrs. Observer and I hit the road recently for a late summer vacation that we could have used about two months earlier. Trips for June and July were unexpectedly canceled and we were left wiling away most of the summer in scorching hot Arkansas waiting for our time to get away.

When the date finally arrived, we loaded up the car to the brim and made our way up to Michigan. It’s too far for us to drive in a day, so we stopped in Champaign, Illinois. It might be a nice town, but I wouldn’t know. All I saw was our Holiday Inn Express and the Subway sandwich shop where we ate dinner.

The next day we made it to our destination: Holland, Michigan. Never heard of it? Most people haven’t. It’s a small, interesting town in southwestern Michigan that sits on Lake Michigan. The town’s Dutch influence is everywhere. Like Deboer Bakkerij (that’s “bakery”) and Van Wieren Hardware. There’s even a wooden shoe factory and a tulip festival.

Thanks to Michigan’s legalization of recreational marijuana in 2018, the area is also home to another Dutch staple: marijuana. A billboard for a dispensary read: “You can’t have Holland without Amsterdam.” Clever.

To be fair, the dispensary wasn’t in Holland but a town not far away. My visit there was my

first time in a dispensary. The smell, of course, hit me as soon as I opened the door. Two young men behind computers took down all my information before I could enter. I’m not sure why. I suppose legalized recreational marijuana isn’t yet on the level of legalized Budweiser. Or maybe I should say Amstel Light, to keep with our Dutch theme.

I perused some samples of marijuana flower while an employee took Mrs. Observer around the store. I smelled each jar of bud to see if I could detect the flavor notes indicated on the accompanying signage. I’m not exactly a cannabis sommelier, but I did notice some jars had a stronger smell than others.

The budtender helping Mrs. Observer described all the products in the glass case and answered all of our questions before we settled on a few items. We paid with a debit card because, well, who has cash anymore? And the dispensary can’t take credit cards because of federal restrictions.

A few days later, I found myself stressed to the gills. Who gets stressed out on vacation? I do, apparently. So, I asked Mrs. Observer if I ought to try one of the cannabis mints we bought at the dispensary.

I decided to go for it. You should know this was a big step for me. I grew up pretty conservative,

studied religion in school for way too long and lived on the Quiet Lifestyle floor in college. Yes, that’s a real thing. And, yes, I lived there.

I took a 2.5 mg mint. Basically, a baby dose, but it was plenty for me. Within no time, I was relaxing on the couch and reading a book. A little while later, I found myself curling up for a nap. In no time at all, I had calmed down and found a little peace. When I woke up, I noticed my legs weren’t quite as sore from all the running I had been doing each morning. Whether cannabis alleviated some soreness or it was psychosomatic, I don’t really care. I just liked that my legs were feeling better.

What’s also interesting to me is what my experience didn’t include. My vacation didn’t turn into a Cheech & Chong movie. I didn’t find my 2.5 mg mint to be a “harmful drug,” as Governor Hutchinson described marijuana recently. I took a nap. Is that harmful?

A couple of days later, we packed up and headed back to Arkansas. We discussed how we can’t wait to make a return trip to our pseudoDutch beachtown. Maybe next time, I’ll try something else from the dispensary.

In a way, I guess it’s kind of cool that this kid from the Quiet Lifestyle floor can always say he had his first cannabis experience in Holland. It’s not quite Amsterdam, but almost.