what do you know about KNOXVILLE?

Totally taking my kids to this next weekend: https://www.facebook.com/events/785600241485238/.

awesome! see you there

Does this start at 330 or 4pm? Website says 4

oops it started at 4

That's okay. We wound up getting downtown late and hungry. Made it to Market Square which was a hilarious contrast in terms of development and economic stratus.

http://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/knoxville_mercury_metro_pulse.php?

innaresting, esp the profit/nonprofit mix

If all goes as planned, the Knoxville Mercury will launch in February, and it will be in many ways a resurrection of Metro Pulse—a mix of news, opinion, features, and entertainment, aimed at a civic-minded, well-educated, mostly 30-something audience. Like a typical alt-weekly, the Mercury will publish a free printed paper, plus a website with daily stories and an arts calendar. But its structure would be distinctive: The new publication would operate as a for-profit subsidiary of a new 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization devoted to the city’s history and culture.

Hey, I’m a very (very!) infrequent poster but obsessive reader of ILX. (I met a few of you during the last Big Ears at brunch with tipsy mothra.) I’m one of three former Metro Pulse editors involved in the above project to launch a new alt-weekly in Knoxville. We have what we think is a solid plan to make it financially viable and editorially independent—you can read more here: http://www.knoxmercury.com

MP was a good paper. We won a lot of awards—for news reporting, criticism, and music and arts coverage. A handful of ILXors wrote for us or were written about by us over the years. Knoxville’s had a good run over the last 10 or 15 years, but the city needs a publication that supports local music and arts, keeps an eye on local government, and connects people who make good things happen. (We also did A LOT of Big Ears coverage—we were the only major outlet in town that understood the festival from the start.)

Part of our plan is a Kickstarter campaign, which you can find out more about here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/789676771/knoxville-mercury-launch

If you can donate, please do! It’s a good cause, and it doesn’t take much to help. If you can’t donate, help us spread the word.

And now back to your regular ILX programming …

Flying back to Tellico Village for a week tomorrow. Does anyone have any contacts with the KnoxMakers group?

hey, that's great news re. knoxville mercury!

This band from Knoxville is pretty fun.

http://massdriverrockpower.bandcamp.com/album/mass-driver

hey mte!! i am in knoxville now. have just forwarded that link to every knoxvillian i know.

Thanks, Tracer Hand! Every time you share, an angel gets its wings, or something like that.

hey kingfish - i know some knoxmakers ppl

I have met some of the Knox Makers guys -- last I heard they were looking to start a maker space in Knoxville proper (current one is in Oak Ridge). They're nice fellas.

Tracer, when did you move back to the US?

If I get the chance, I'm going to try to stop by their meeting this week. I've gotten hooked on wiring up Arduino shit.

So, monday we went to dollywood, and I posted some photos which will hopefully amuse.

For example, these are not the unlicensed cartoon characters I'd first expect to see at an airbrush kiosk in Dollywood in 2014, but there you go:

https://scontent-a-atl.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/10464060_10152511779226596_9063586482227108219_n.jpg?oh=31dd362df32a2936700792e94eae2d88&oe=55457F1A

i've spent years avoiding dollywood or indeed the whole Pigeon Forge scene. sounds horrible.

Dollywood is great and amusingly strange. Bits of Branson mashed in with Colonial Williamsburg mashed with a Six Flags/Cedar Point.

Uh, any suggestions for the least annoying moviegoing experience for my extended clan to see a certain space movie on Xmas day? I wanna avoid Turkey Creek multiplexes like the fuggin' plague.

HELLO

there is a new community radio station in knoxville! WAZO

http://wozoradio.com/

YASSIN FALAFEL! Hometown hero!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz4Q_SlbZgQ

The lede from a short item I wrote for our daily email. What a world.

The talk of local social media yesterday was the announcement that Tom Boyd, the inventor of DNA testing for dog poop and the father of our state university president, plans a $40 million resort behind a South Knoxville Walmart that seems clearly derivative of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth. He even wrote his own accompanying book -- which you can download for free -- called The Bobbins -- Outcast to the Inner Earth.

guys this looks incredible! (the “Jazzbilly” thing)

https://knoxvillehistoryproject.org/events/

https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAscOyurzIuH9zGM8ITIr-T1RAixF037MNg

i wish it was in person but still

Thanks I’ve been getting antsy missing two years’ wort of Big Ears festivals.

Was just thinking about the shrimp and grits at Tupelo Honey :(