[media-credit name=”Courtesy: Knoxville Jewish Alliance” align=”alignright” width=”300″][/media-credit] Arnold Schwarzbart died in Knoxville last week, at the age of 73, after a long illness. He was once best known here as a prominent modernist architect, the designer of unusual structures like […]

I’m just getting back out, a little, after almost half a year in a hole. I know 20 or 30 restaurant and bar owners, and want to be sure they know it hasn’t been anything personal. It’s just that I […]

Every year, millions will crowd around televisions to watch the most famous New Year’s Eve celebration in the world.  The ball drop at Times Square in New York has become a universally recognized symbol of an annual new beginning.  It […]

A key part of the Mercury launch is the formation of a new 501(c)(3) nonprofit, an educational organization known as the Knoxville History Project. It’s surprising, when you think about it, that Knoxville, almost 225 years old, has never had its […]

Last week I was at Time Warp Tea Room for a full house, a satisfying and inexpensive meal on a cold February night. Proprietor Dan Moriarty presides over the Time Warp like a benevolent spirit. It’s usually not a crowded […]

I can’t claim to have known Robby Griffith. In my many encounters with him at Lawson McGhee Library, where he worked for a quarter century, he was always cordial and quietly efficient. I don’t think I ever said, “Hey, Robby,” […]

John Lahr’s new biography is called “Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh.” It’s a pity Lahr chose that particular subtitle. Now, when I write my autobiography, I’ll have to come up with something else. The book’s a personal portrait […]

Here’s a coincidence. When I was naïve enough to think there might be a Metro Pulse still in publication in January, 2015, I made a note in my calendar to look into a column about President Obama’s traveling habits. For […]

Weathermen had predicted a white Christmas. It was almost cold enough. For days, the temperature never climbed out of the 30s, and then it got colder. But in Knoxville, all it did was rain, more than three inches on Christmas […]