Wednesday update

The AAF, the league in which the Memphis Express plays, suspended operations yesterday. There will be no AAF championship game. There will be no more Johnny Manziel games in Memphis. Turn out the lights, the party’s over.

Happy Wednesday, YOGA! This post is going to be a yoga lover’s dream as I have three upcoming events to tell you about. There will be plenty of non-yoga news too.

Yoga is coming to the Memphis Farmers Market the first Saturday of every month, including this Saturday, April 6. The all-levels class by Downtown Yoga will start at 9:45 and participants need to bring a mat and some water. This will be a pay-what-you-can class, with money raised donated to a different charity every month.

Goat yoga, the practice of doing yoga with goats around, has become a thing lately. It comes to Health Sciences Park in the Medical District Saturday, April 27. This is a free class but donations to Memphis Animal Services will be accepted. There are two sessions. You must sign a waiver to participate.

Downtown Yoga will host The 5 Animals Qigong Series, a series of four classes beginning April 27. This 2000 year old practice is a fun way to energize the body, imitating the movements of five animals: the Tiger, Deer, Bear, Ape, and Bird. There is said to be a correspondence between the animal movements and five internal organs. The series will progress as follows:

  • April 27 – first and second movement for each animal
  • May 25 – third and fourth movement for each animal
  • June 22 – fifth movement for each animal, correspondence with internal organs, five phases and healing sounds
  • July 27 – putting theory and practice together with the complete 25 movement set

Memphis BBQ chain Tops BBQ has been sold, but the new owners plan on keeping the Tops experience the same. Notable for Downtowners: The new president of the 15-location restaurant chain will be Terry Trim, longtime director of operations at Kooky Canuck.

The Green Beetle will host a neighborhood crawfish boil the afternoon of Sunday, April 14. Beale Street Wine Race is that day and you can go get crawfish after the races end.

Wine Race, by the way, is on a different day than usual this year due to Easter. Usually it’s the last Sunday of April. That most likely means, for the first time in years, it won’t fall on the same day as the “take your dog to the Redbirds” promotion so folks won’t have to choose between the two events.

The Memphis Flyer has an article about the new tables at Southland, the name now changed to Southland Casino Racing.

Get your 2019 Redbirds schedule poster this weekend:

The Jam for Justice will happen Saturday, April 20 in the B-Side bar in Minglewood Hall. John Paul Keith, Grace Askew, and Cameron Bethany from Unapologetic will perform. This event benefits the Community Legal Center, an agency providing legal services to those who would otherwise be unable to afford them.

Do you live, work, or play in The Edge or would you like to? Take this survey and tell urban planners what you would like to see in the neighborhood.

Peppa Pig returns to Memphis:

As if the 16-person party bikes were not bad enough, now there are mobile hot tubs rolling around Nashville. I guess they’ll be showing up here in Memphis soon. The party bikes are Amateur Hour On Demand and I suspect the mobile hot tubs will be much the same.

Teens can now apply for Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris’ youth jobs program.

Jerry Patton, Dylan Dunbar, Jennifer Westwood, and Pierce Crask perform at South Main Sounds, 550 S. Main, this Friday at 7 PM.

The April South Main Association meeting will be something different: It’s going to be on Friday night, April 26, on Trolley Night. It will be held at Old Dominick Distillery.

The Tambourine Bash benefiting Memphis Music Export, an organization which raises awareness of Memphis music in other cities in the region, will happen at Century House, 151 Vance, from 7 to 10 PM Thursday, April 18. Live music on two stages will feature Nick Black, Marcella Simien, Talibah Safiya, Coldway, Daz Rinko, Cameron Bethany, the Unapologetic Crew, and more acts to be announced. There will be food by the Majestic Grille, cocktails by Old Dominick, and a photo booth.

I can’t resist embedding one more tweet from author Reva Steenbergen who wrote The Gaslighting Effect. This is a short one but it really hit home for me:

The tweet seemed like a shorter version of something an extremely insightful friend once said:

She watched you from afar for years, gathering information about you, learning your likes and dislikes, who your friends were, where were the places you loved to go… and when she had all the information she needed, she stepped into your life and tried to push you out of it, tried to take away your friends and your favorite places and leave you with nothing.

That is the essence of The Gaslighting Effect, a book that describes narcissistic abuse, in one sentence. Read it in paperback format or on Kindle.

Finally, we’re back to shorts weather. Should be a lovely day. Back tomorrow with more news.