This darkest season is darker with an unimagined loss. Twenty-odd years ago, Andie Ray was a familiar face at the checkout desk at Lawson McGhee Library. Even if you never saw her after that, you’d remember her. Her distinctive features […]

Contrary to some assumptions, Knoxville has a winter. Cold weather has played a big part in Knoxville’s history. Some Knoxville industry was oriented toward contending with winter. Some major Knoxville-based businesses, notably C.M. McClung, sold cast-iron heating stoves. Knoxville Woolen […]

Dread was in the air that December, threats of terrorism and gruesome stories of mass killings in Europe. Even the pope was saying the level of killing was “unprecedented.” An editorial predicted the closing year would be remembered as “a […]

Charles Dickens never visited Knoxville, but may have had a bigger influence on our culture than any mayor. Until Dec. 20, Clarence Brown Theatre presents the holiday favorite, A Christmas Carol, a play based on the novel by English author […]

America’s resourcefulness about sources of outrage is inexhaustible. Is “Happy Holidays” a modern heresy of this secular-humanist century? Many Americans, when they hear that greeting, begin humming a merry song. “Happy Holiday” (the title’s singular, but the plural comes in […]

The Tennessee Theatre is always busy in December, as it is this year, with major musical attractions, a Broadway show, a classic film, and a favorite ballet. First opened in October 1928, as a “motion picture palace,” the Tennessee was designed […]

I often find myself in the middle of a conversation about Game of Thrones, House of Cards, The Walking Dead, and don’t know what to do. I do my best to keep up—it is, I gather, the duty of every American […]

You still have time to consider an inexpensive and unusual Christmas gift for a close friend or relative who lives in an old house. Surprise them with a history of their home! It’s easier than you may think. You can spend […]