Memphis is awash in dramatic examples of adaptive reuse, from a Downtown shopping mall turned corporate headquarters to a Sears warehouse building turned “vertical urban village” to even a Pyramid-shaped arena turned world’s biggest bait shop. But Mud Island and the Mid-South Coliseum have proved trickier for rebirth. 

Right now, in Memphis, we’re suffering — directly for some, psychologically for all — from a spate of unusual crimes. The fear for some is that the unusual is now morphing into usual. But it’s felt that way before. 

As tensions continue between Memphis in May and the Memphis River Parks Partnership, the festival’s stance has communicated to potential ticket-buyers that anything different than the old festival on the old footprint is destined to be a lesser experience. But it doesn’t have to be. 

The controversy over Tommy Kha’s photography was about art at the airport. But it was also about the living legacy of old, dead Elvis in the city that made him. 

All of the NBA wants two-way wings, midsized players who can affect both ends of the floor. The Grizzlies are among the teams hunting for these players. But in Brooks and Anderson, they might already have one of the league’s best such combos.

Rolling Stone just published its latest list of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” and Chris Herrington was among the voters. A look at the Memphis music that did and didn’t make the list, plus Chris’ own ballot. 

Our schools: A two-front political battlefield our kids didn’t ask for and really don’t need right now. Education shouldn’t be conscription, especially in the service of others’ political ambitions.

Road recklessness has been notable for more than a year, the rise perhaps coinciding with pandemic shutdowns. But it doesn’t seem to be diminishing, even as COVID restrictions ease.

The iconography atop the General Lee is the battle flag of a slavery republic. Violence in the name of white supremacy is its inherent, explicit meaning.

It only took a dozen days after that March 8 news conference for Mayor Jim Strickland to invoke the first civil emergency order in Memphis in more than a generation, closing gyms, bars and indoor restaurant dining.

Related story:

Year 1 of the novel coronavirus pandemic, by the numbers

With available, clean drinking water an increasingly precious commodity, Memphis’ supply is perhaps the city’s most important asset. We did nothing to earn it. But it’s on us to preserve and manage it. 

Here’s to the iced-over trees that began our winter week. We got the eerie beauty without much of the damage. Here’s to the giant icicles forming from gutters and awnings, giving neighborhood strolls a beyond-the-Wall “Game of Thrones” vibe.

Given what we actually know about COVID spread and what we should value, it’s never felt right to me that I could sit inside a restaurant dining room but my kids couldn’t sit inside a classroom.

The new president’s inaugural address called for unity and a lowering of the political temperature while still drawing some firm lines. Joe Biden said that “politics need not be a raging fire” and called for an end to an “uncivil war.”

Plus, Zach Randolph’s honor, a case for Scooby Doo, and restaurants that are gone but not forgotten.

It was not a question of whether Blackburn or Hagerty or Kustoff would stand with Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden or Mitt Romney. Would they even be willing to stand with Mitch McConnell? None of them wanted what happened on Wednesday afternoon, but they all helped prepare the stage. 

Plus, what we mean when we talk about defunding the police and where to get a good tamale in Midtown on Saturdays.

Dolly versus Marsha; Christmas lights at Shelby Farms, Memphis Zoo and the Botanic Garden; and Don Bryant’s Grammy nomination. 

This Thanksgiving is a brief but particularly fraught moment of decision, another unwelcome marker in Our COVID Year, may it manage to remain singular. 

Among Tennessee counties, the late vote didn’t change much, but some tightening in Shelby County meant that for the first time since 2000 – when Nashville’s Al Gore was on the ballot – Davidson County was actually more “blue” than Shelby. 

Putting BVOE in the Mid-South Coliseum remains Reyes’ dream scenario. And, yes, this seems far-fetched. But let me ask you this: What Mid-South Coliseum idea isn’t far-fetched?

Chris Herrington says he’s worried about kids going back to school, but worried about them not going back to school, and is rooting for SCS to find a safe way to do it. Plus, nine more opinions.

Historically, I’m an Election Day voter. This year, I’m planning to break precedent. We’re in a pandemic. Everything’s a little unsettled. Well, everything except my personal ballot, which will be short on truly contested races and even shorter on indecision.

It’s a truism that “all politics is local,” but perhaps a current truth is that all politics is exhaustingly national. With less than a month to go before the presidential election, it’s been hard to think about much else this week. So pardon me while I try to get it out of my system, from a Memphis-centric perspective. 

Reyes’ collaborated with more than 20 other Memphis artists to create the astounding “BVOE Quadrant 360” on the edges of Downtown Memphis. The multimedia artist launched and operated the late, lamented “Live From Memphis.”