House arrest day 36 (Fri)

The Downtown Neighborhood Association is hosting an Uptown Cleanup Day Saturday, May 2. Meet at the Greenlaw Community Center at 10 AM if you want to participate. They will provide trash bags and gloves.

And now, on to the rest of the news. This mor…

Huh? Magic words?

Please? Thank you? You’re welcome???

Oh. I get it.

On Saturday, May 2, you can help DNA clean up the Uptown neighborhood WHILE PROPERLY SOCIALLY DISTANCED. That’s right, folks, you can pick up trash while remaining six or more feet apart from your fellow humans. If you really want to be a party animal, you can wear some PPE to the cleanup!

Have y’all heard cats are now testing positive for COVID-19? No I am not kidding. Both house cats and big cats in zoos have tested positive. How are we going to get cats to socially distance? They won’t listen.

Did the Flying Saucer get robbed? I walked past there yesterday and there were “NO CASH ON SITE | VIDEO RECORDING IN PROGRESS” signs on the windows and the front door.

The Daily Memphian has a thorough article on the four doctors (Jain, Haushalter, McCullers, Warren) who are help shaping plans to re-open the economy. A plan for Memphis is expected early next week. You can catch Dr. Jain’s on the DM’s Behind the Headlines Podcast this week.

The DM also has an article on the new art in Fourth Bluff Park. The sculptures are here through a partnership with Nashville organization Tri-Star Arts.

Tonight is the second edition of the DJ Series, a virtual dance party broadcast from Central Station, presented by the Memphis Music Hub and I Love Memphis. This week’s party is all about women in soul and features DJ Alpha Whiskey. It will happen online 8:30-10:00 PM tonight. If you missed last Friday’s show, themed on old-school Memphis rap with DJ Spanish Fly, you can view it here (fast-forward to about 9:55 for the start of the show).

Yao’s China Bistro at Main and Gayoso has napkins, paper towels, and toilet paper for sale.

Should be obvious but I guess not: Don’t share screenshots of your stimulus check online

Let’s hear it for the good guys one more time.

Rev. Omma of The Broom Closet will teach a free Tarot Reading 101 class on Zoom Tuesday, April 28 at 7 PM. She’ll provide tips and tricks for drawing meaning from the cards, as well as best practice to prepare for a tarot reading and to receive one.

Local biz City Tasting Tours in the New York Times! It has an article about how entrepreneurs are adapting to live during COVID-19.

Happy weekend, YOGA! Downtown yoga studio Your Inner Yogi will host a free class tonight on Instagram at 6:30. The instructor will supply the playlist in advance for those who wish to flow to music. When the house arrest is lifted, these classes will move outdoors to Court Square.

Play Cerrito Bingo tonight at 8 on Zoom.

Lightclub Memphis will be on Twitch tonight with DJs Alora, Shinobi Senses, and Scotty B. 8-11 PM.

There will be a live stream from Wild Bill’s tonight 8:30-11:30. The Juke Joint AllStars and The Sensation Band will perform. Tips accepted via CashApp.

About that Scribd subscription…

More than 30 days have passed since I signed up for a free 30-day trial for Scribd, the service that lets you read unlimited books and magazines, and listen to unlimited audiobooks. Once the trial is up, it’s $9.95 a month to keep going. Having tried it out, I thought I’d give it a review.

First of all, the interface is easy to use. Reading a book is quite intuitive, very similar to the Kindle app on desktop or smartphone. I would read books all day on desktop, then take my iPhone to bed to continue reading, and one app would pick up where the other left off, never losing my place in my current book.

Scribd by no means carries every book ever published. I would say it carried about 20% of all the titles I searched for, so don’t jump in thinking a Scribd subscription is going to give you access to everything you’re interested in reading. However, it does have a really good “you might also enjoy” feature, so even if you don’t find the book you wanted, you might find something similar.

Scribd particularly excels in two areas:

  • Bestsellers: Scribd seems to have a contract to keep the latest and greatest on its virtual shelves for a period of months.
  • Audiobooks: Scribd has a lot of titles that it doesn’t have in print digital format but does have in audio format. Their audio player is easy to use. In my opinion Scribd is a better deal for audiobooks than Amazon’s Audible trial.

Overall verdict: It’s worth giving them a credit card number and trying it out for free. Just remember when you subscribed and make sure you cancel before your 30 days run out if you choose not to keep it. Canceling your subscription is easy and you don’t have to talk to anyone on the phone. There’s no risk and the reading might help pass time time, since Mayor Strickland has announced we will continue under house arrest until May 5 and possibly longer.

I read about 10 books on Scribd in the 29 days I had my free trial, and Face the Music, by Paul Stanley, co-founder of KISS, was the best I read. A quick synopsis of the book:

  • Gene was generally a good business partner but had a habit of making everything all about himself. The stories you hear about Gene being an astute businessman are as much self-marketing as they are truth.
  • Ace was an incredible talent when motivated – however, he was often not motivated.
  • Peter, in Stanley’s opinion, lacked the raw talent that the others had – however, he thought he was the be-all and end-all because he wrote “Beth.”
  • Though Paul Stanley was a wildly successful musician, he didn’t find true fulfillment until his late forties – and it was not through the band.

Ace and Peter have autobiographies on Scribd as well, but I ran out of free days before I could get to those.

You know what? I think I may take some of my blog’s own recommendations today. I should have a project I’ve been working on for a while wrapped up this afternoon. After that, I think I’ll walk around the corner at Main & Madison and see my friend Carl Winfield’s new store Downtown Wines & Spirits. Then tonight I will check out the Lightclub, Memphis Music Hub DJ Series, and Wild Bill’s live streams. Back tomorrow with more news, or later today if there are news items that can’t wait.