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8.21.2020

100 — As of Monday, the number of homicides in Louisville this year.

FIVE.

1. The city is on pace this year for a record number of homicides, which last Friday included a three-year-old named Trinity Randolph and her father, making them the 96th and 97th victims in 2020. In a WFPL piece, Jess Clark quoted Trinity’s aunt, who said, “(Trinity) thanked her mother for having her brother. She was just overjoyed to become a big sister.” I couldn’t make it through Lucas Aulbach’s C-J story with dry eyes. Trinity was in her Frozen playhouse at the time of the shooting.

2. I’ve mentioned this before, but on June 16 Louisville Magazine opened its office to seven of the city’s Black leaders for a socially distanced discussion, and in last week’s newsletter four of the participants — Jecorey Arthur, Hannah Drake, Brianna Harlan and Cassia Herron — answered this: How do you escape when you need even just a little break from everything? The question came to mind after reading a 1996 Louisville Magazine profile about the Rev. Louis Coleman, “Louisville’s most outspoken provocateur for civil rights” who jogged two miles every morning to clear his mind. After suffering several seizures, he died in 2008 at age 64.
            Here’s how the other three from the discussion answered:

Charles Booker, Kentucky state representative and founder of Hood to the Holler: “Very few ways for me to escape. Haven’t had a real vacation in years. The closest I get is some quiet time when the girls are asleep. Maybe some bourbon and music. Woodford, and I am a fan of the artist SiR right now.”
 
Quintez Brown, junior political science major at U of L and a C-J writer, who kept a diary for a week this month: “My brother, 19 like me, and I always play the NBA 2K video game when we get together, and my dad really enjoys joining along. I like a team with a good big man that can stop players I consider to be cheat codes, like Giannis and LeBron. A go-to would be the Mavs because Doncic is legendary and Boban and Kristaps are huge!
            “Alone, I love to get into a good show or movie on Netflix. If you haven’t watched The Office, that should be your top priority. I’d also highly recommend Black Mirror, and you can add Stranger Things and The Flash to that list as well. I’m currently starting Umbrella Academy and Lucifer.”

Ricky Jones, director of the Pan-African Studies Department at U of L: “It’s funny you asked me this. My column this week is about how fighting against racism can consume a person’s life and be detrimental to their psychological and physical well-being.
            “The only thing I can do to escape is simply disconnect for a few days here and there. Not answer the phone. Not go anywhere. Just sleep. Periodic trips home to Atlanta help, but those have grown less and less frequent. I try my best to pay attention to my daughter — attend her volleyball games, play video games. She is 12 and has a Nintendo Switch. We mostly play Fortnite, Mario Kart here and there. The relief is always too brief. 
            “Frankly, like many others, I find myself often on the precipice and am trying to figure out ways to take better care of myself. I believe racism and the constant fight against it cut Louis Coleman’s life short. If we’re not careful, they will take many more of us as well.” 
 
Last week, Harlan, a mixed-media artist and community organizer, mentioned reading fiction. A recommended author: the late Octavia Butler, who wrote science fiction. “Escapism is necessary,” Harlan says.

3. Our friends at Kertis Creative have released a new documentary called Public Record (check out that trailer), with members of its team editing together footage that Louisvillians shot of their everyday lives on their smartphones, first during the pandemic, then also during the protests. Rent the film on Vimeo for $5.

4. Business First is conducting a five-question Derby survey, the results of which will appear in their Sept. 4 issue. I haven’t completed mine yet because I’m still not sure how to answer the last part. On a scale from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”: I am concerned about the chances of the Kentucky Derby being run in May 2021 in front of a capacity crowd at Churchill Downs. 2021!

5. And speaking of Derby: Tomorrow is two weeks out from the first Saturday in September. Managing editor Mary Chellis Nelson, senior editor Dylon Jones and I got an exclusive sneak peek at the names of this year’s 20-horse field:

We Can’t Be Doin’ That
Airborne
Zoom
Maskimum Security
Six Hands Apart
Bleach
Our New Normal
Unprecedented Times
American Phailure
Hydroxychlor-Equine
Fresh-Baked Sourdough
Double Ply
Sixty Percent Alcohol
Flattening Curve
Swab
Curbside Pickup
Sweatpants
Super Spreader
Foolish Pleasure
Genuine Risk

(Yes, you’re right, those last two are actual past Derby winners —Foolish Pleasure in 1975 and Genuine Risk in ’80 — but those names seem to capture what it’ll feel like to attend Derby this year.)

A special thanks to Louisville Collegiate School, Simmons College of Kentucky and the University of Louisville, sponsors of this year’s Best of Louisville dedicated to the 2020 class of high school seniors. We asked almost 400 of them a bunch of questions, including: If you could have a traditional ending to your senior year, but you had to start over from the beginning of the school year, would you do it? Yes: 48%; No: 40%; Not sure: 12%.
            Virtual school starts next Tuesday for the majority of Louisville students. Here’s just some of what the class of 2020 needed to survive NTI.

“Arnold Palmers.” — Colin Weaver, Manual

“Fuzzy Crocs.” — Taylor Goode, Collegiate

“My robe.” — Jackson Burton, Butler

“I’ve worn white and gray the most because those colors make me feel calm and relaxed.” — Bendjy Charles, Doss

“Rainy-day-type music — not too sad, not too happy, pretty chill.” — Joseph Falcon, Shawnee

And Cheez-It, Cheetos, Animal Crackers, Goldfish, Nutella, Pringles, ramen (lots and lots of ramen), Pop-Tarts, Froot Loops, Hot Pockets, Fruit Roll-Ups….

OH!

A little something from the LouMag archive.

Anne Marshall’s February 2017 cover story recounted a surge in gun violence in 2016, when Louisville saw a record-breaking “117 murders, nearly all of them the result of gunshot wounds. In mid-January 2017, that 117 got bumped to 118 because a 14-year-old died who had been shot on Christmas Day.” Marshall wrote that 2016 was a year “in which a veteran JCPS teacher counted 12 of her former students killed by gun violence in 12 months.”
            So many scenes have stuck with me, including these two:

            “During a homicide investigation, detectives use black folders to keep track of paperwork — witness statements, corner’s reports, etc. Green folders indicate a death investigation, like a suicide. Tonight, they’re so low on black folders they have to go digging around in drawers.”

            “By about 6 p.m., the coroner zips (the) black body bag. The young boy in the window ducks back inside. Police tear down the yellow tape tethered to concrete pillars and gates, wadding it up and tossing it into a dumpster. As the scene clears, Beecher Terrace exhales. Children still in school polo shirts and khakis stream outdoors from the buildings that surrounded the body. One young girl breaks into hip-hop dance. Two others, about the same age and wearing only long-sleeve shirts in the sub-40-degree weather, cling to a fence and swing their bodies like pendulums back and forth.”

TOO...

Oscar’s Hardware only had one green lightbulb left when my wife was there last week.

Josh Moss
editor, Louisville Magazine
jmoss@loumag.com

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