It was a second beautiful day for RiverArtsFest yesterday, and I spent the day wandering around, looking at art, talking to people, and popping in Calhoun’s for a PBR now and then. Several people commented that, due to the weather and the fact that it wasn’t as crowded, RiverArtsFest was better than Cooper-Young Fest this year. I picked up several flyers promoting stuff going on Downtown, and I’ll recap the best of them below.
I’ve been asked to mention the Rumba Room, Downtown’s first Latin and salsa dance club, which is now open on South Main in the space next to Pearl’s Oyster House. They have salsa nights Tuesday, Friday and Saturday, and the Red Hot Lindy Hop group does swing dance lessons and parties there on Wednesday nights. Their menu includes flautas, quezadillas, tamales and pupusas. You can go to their website and sign up for their newsletter. Note that they have a “business casual” dress code, which includes no shorts and no tennis shoes.
A group called Memphis Art Park is proposing a plan for the Downtown Promenade, the blocks along Front Street from Union to Adams. They want to put an arts center, performance venue, parking garage and rooftop park in that space. You can read more about their vision for the promenade here.
Need a haircut? Downtown will have a new hair stylist soon. Wilfredo Rodriguez will move into the space next door to the Butcher Shop at 109 S. Front. He does hair styling, color, makeup, and art, and has over 20 years’ experience. He’s done styling for Cubana television, the Tropicana Nightclub, and the National Ballet of Cuba. His salon will be called “Revolution” and will be open mid-December.
These weren’t the only flyers being handed out at RiverArtsFest. There were some kids who were very aggressively handing out flyers to get flu shots at the Memphis Music Foundation. Note: When you see someone eating BBQ nachos, it probably isn’t the best time to hand them a flyer.
Then there was Mikey, who was a walking, talking commercial for Calhoun’s the entire weekend. I mean, I like the place a lot and they did have the best beer deals, and I sent many people there myself over the course of the two days. But if you talked to Mikey, you’d get the idea that Calhoun’s holds a religious significance for Downtowners similar to that of Mecca for Muslims; that Calhoun’s is where Jonas Salk discovered the cure for polio in 1954; and that the beers served at Calhoun’s have rejuvenating qualities that cause skin to look younger, teeth to look whiter, and hair to re-grow. Calhoun’s stayed packed throughout the duration of the festival.
(Sigh) And now it’s Monday, and a great party weekend has come to an end. Guess I’d better get some work done. I have a new website to launch (actually it’s a re-launch of a long forgotten site), and I need to get back to someone with a quote on a freelance web design project.
More posts to come later today… I’m about ready to do the post on how to recognize Memphis douchebags who are worthy of being on the Hot Chicks with Douchebags site. If not later today, I’ll get to it sometime this week.
Still completely undecided where to watch the election tomorrow night. I need to look around and see if there are any election-night drinking games. I have a feeling Dr. Booze may do a post about that within the next 24 hours.