Outside These Here City Walls

Long ago, in pre-historic times before written records existed, it must’ve been much easier to identify threats to your safety. The Earth, at the time, teemed with roving tribes of men and wild, mythical creatures whose presence gnawed at the mind of agricultural peoples who constructed settlements around the production of food. That the hinterlands beyond the city walls were dangerous was self-evident and required no beggaring. 

The modern world is different. The enemies are less visible. The terrain is more familiar, yet simultaneously, more inaccessible. The “threat” that rural residents pose to urbanites is basically non-existent. But the firmware to stoke such fears remains.

There is a market for propaganda that plays up this divide. That’s why we get NewsChannel 5’s “Footman” Phil Williams—a brave truth teller who wanders out into the wilderness and reports back to us about the dangers that lie outside the city walls. Williams is a generally unimpressive gumshoe reporter who, at the tail end of his career, has taken up the torch of town crier, warning those who live in Nashville’s urban enclave not to leave the 440 loop lest they encounter a raving MAGA-tard.

Phil has recently directed his scrutinizing eye toward a Millersville police officer he deemed the “conspiracy cop” and an increase of racist flyering incidents in Nashville. These stories fall neatly into the dominant narrative of “increasing white supremacy” set by media outlets like MSNBC and the New York Times—not to mention NGOs like the Southern Poverty Law Center—in the leadup to the 2024 presidential election.

💸 TSU Mismanagement of Emergency Funds Tennessee State University’s allocation of temporary Covid funding could have led many of the students who received one-time scholarships to drop out. The Managing Director for the consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal, Jim Grady, assessed the situation during his presentation at last week’s State Building Commission Meeting. According to Firefly, he told state leaders that there was a “23 percent increase in enrollment from fiscal year 2022 to 2023,” followed by a severe drop off this year.

“You’ve got families who had never had a child that had an opportunity to go to college, who were told, ‘You’ve got a full ride at Tennessee State University,’” Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett said. “To have the rug yanked out from under them with no plan at all for what’s going to happen in years two or three or four, that is the most heartbreaking, saddest thing in this whole situation.”

☢️ Going Nuclear Yesterday, Governor Lee announced the recommendations outlined in the Tennessee Nuclear Energy Advisory Council’s final report, which will help guide the advancement of the state's nuclear energy initiatives. According to the press release, the “19 recommendations in five key areas” will “reinforce Tennessee’s leading position in the nuclear industry and will enable deployment of critical baseload energy and support for a vibrant nuclear ecosystem that is key to the state’s overall economy.”

“I don’t believe there is a state with greater momentum in the nuclear space than Tennessee,” said Tennessee Department of Economic & Community Development Commissioner Stuart C. McWhorter. “The Fund has allowed us to attract and land new companies that will strengthen and expand our nuclear ecosystem and workforce, and none of this success would be possible without the forethought of Gov. Lee and our Tennessee General Assembly and the effective collaboration and support the council has given our department over the last year.”

The key recommendations include strengthening incentives to attract “additional supply chain assets to nuclear energy initiatives,” a “holistic, integrated approach for training and educating…new workers needed for an expanding nuclear industry,” and aligning “Tennessee’s regulatory, emergency preparedness, and workforce strategies with the needs of the nuclear industry.”

📱 Cell Phone Ban Fifteen states have followed in Florida’s footsteps to restrict cell phone use in schools, and State Representative Scott Cepicky (R-Culleoka) wants Tennessee to join the list. According to Newsweek, a 2023 Pew Research Center survey found “72 percent of high school teachers felt usage was a major problem,” but “60 percent said cell phone policies were very or somewhat difficult to enforce.”

The Tennessee bill filed on Tuesday would require “LEAs and public charter schools to adopt a policy to prohibit students from using wireless communication devices during instructional time except in certain circumstances.” But this isn’t the first time someone has tried to restrict cell phone use in the Volunteer state. Last session, Representative Rebecca Alexander (R-Jonesborough) and Senator Jon Lundberg (R-Bristol) tried to limit the use of handheld electronic devices in the classroom. According to WKRN, the legislation failed over a split vote in the House Education Administration Committee. Alexander has said that she would reintroduce the bill this year. Meanwhile, Lundberg was ousted this fall in Senate District 4 by his Republican opponent, Bobby Harshbarger. Perhaps Alexander will hop on Cepicky’s bill as a co-sponsor.

DEVELOPMENT

• Benji's Bagel to open new East Nashville location (Tennessean)
• The Salt Line expands to East Bank with first-out-of-market location (NBJ)
• Eyewear retailer finds permanent 12South space (Post)

✹ FIRST LOOK: MARIO CUOMO'S "LEFTOVERS" MUSIC VIDEO

Jay Curtis Miller has spent the last 14 months reliving Halloween. The Nashville-based filmmaker and music video director is currently finishing up the film festival run for his short film “Jack,” the one-take story of a love triangle gone bad on the scariest night of the year. 

After a string of festival premieres across the country that included the Nashville Film Festival and the Atlanta Horror Film Festival, Miller thought he was done with projects set during the holidays. But then, his “Jack” collaborator and Chicago-based musician Mario Cuomo had an idea. “Last fall, I was making ‘Jack,’ and I reached out to him because I needed a song in time with everything that's going on in that scene,” Miller said. “So, I asked Mario if I could use his song, ‘Punch Drunk.’ Then, I started listening to all of his work when I needed more songs. In August or September, Mario sent me the demo for ‘Leftovers’ and told me his concept. I was like, ‘Yeah, let's make this happen.’”

THINGS TO DO

View our calendar for the week here and our weekly film rundown here.

📅 Visit our On The Radar list to find upcoming events around Nashville.

🎧 On Spotify: Pamphleteer's Picks, a playlist of our favorite bands in town this week.

👨🏻‍🌾 Check out our Nashville farmer's market guide and yearly festival guide.

TONIGHT

🎸 Ratboys @ The Blue Room, 7p, $25.88, Info

🎻 Guerrero Conducts Dvořák, Sibelius and Shostakovich @ Schermerhorn Symphony Center, 7:30p, $29+, Info

🎸 Underoath @ Marathon Music Works, 6p, $47.05, Info

🎸 The Steel Woods @ Ryman Auditorium, 8p, Info

🪕 The Cowpokes @ Acme Feed & Seed, 12p, Free, Info

🍀 Live Irish Music @ McNamara’s Irish Pub, 6p, Free, Info

🎸 Kelley’s Heroes @ Robert’s Western World, 6:30p, Free, Info

✹ THANKSGIVING FILM RUNDOWN

The latest releases and special screenings hitting Music City this week. For a complete list of upcoming releases, check out our 2024 Film Guide.

Gladiator II (Dir. Ridley Scott; Starring Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, and Denzel Washington) Maximus’s son follows in his father’s footsteps by rising up the gladiatorial ranks to seek vengeance against a noxious imperial official. It’s probably entirely unnecessary, but as long as it’s more like The Last Duel than Napoleon, we’re in. Now playing in theaters. 

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Spy, Assassin (Dir. Todd Komarnicki; Starring Jonas Dassler) The iconic German priest who tried to kill Hitler gets a long past-due biopic as resonant with contemporary politics as it is inspiring. Read our interview with Komarnicki here. Now playing in theaters.

Bird (Dir. Andrea Arnold; Starring Barry Keoghan) The latest from the Fish Tank and American Honey director finds a distracted dad and his preteen daughter learning to commune with animals. It sounds a little like it’s spinning off the planet, but Arnold has yet to make anything close to underwhelming. Now playing at the Belcourt.

📰 Check out the full newsletter archive here.