The Early Word: Should TVA pull plug on xAI? Plus, Belz gives art to Brooks
Morning, muggles. It’s Wednesday, July 31, and if Harry Potter were real, he’d be somewhere in his mid-40s today. The internet seems divided on his actual age, but the books were set in the 1990s. To celebrate, Soul and Spirits Brewery is hosting a birthday party with seven (!!!) new Harry Potter-themed beers, themed trivia and English treats from the Whisks of Doom food truck. Also, Grind City Brewing Co. is serving butterbeer all day.
The Southern Environmental Law Center wants the Tennessee Valley Authority to say “no” to Elon Musk’s xAI. TVA and xAI remain in talks on a contract that would require the supercomputer to shed some load when power-grid demand is high. The SELC, on behalf of several Memphis environmental groups, sent a letter this week arguing that TVA does not have enough electric capacity to serve xAI’s 150-megawatt electric load. The letter also questioned xAI’s impact on majority-Black communities in Southwest Memphis.
Imagine going art shopping in a museum. That’s what the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art got to do recently when Memphis’ Belz family invited the museum to take whatever Chinese art it wanted from their Belz Museum of Asian and Judaic Art. Jack and Marilyn Belz amassed more than 10,000 pieces of art during their collecting days. And about 1,000 of those pieces, including textiles, paintings and jade and porcelain pieces, much of it dating to the 17th and 18th centuries, are on display in their Downtown museum. The Brooks expects to acquire about 100 pieces, and a few select pieces are on view now. But you might not see the rest for awhile.
Plus, Seth Rider finally gets his Olympic shot, the Lipscomb & Pitts sign is gone from Union Extended and a new all-girls’ school is coming to Downtown.
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Bianca Phillips
Bianca Phillips is a Northeast Arkansas native and longtime Memphian who’s worked in local journalism and PR for more than 20 years. In her days as a reporter, she covered everything from local government and crime to LGBTQ issues and the arts. She’s the author of “Cookin Crunk: Eatin’ Vegan in the Dirty South,” a cookbook of vegan Southern recipes.
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