“They took your life. They won’t take your name” — lyric from “Say Her Name,” by Louisville hip-hop artists Boss Scrilla and Dolla Green. The song, dedicated to Breonna Taylor’s mother, benefits the Louisville Urban League.
1. Emilia, my first-grader, upon learning that JCPS students won’t be returning to the classroom this month: “I have to stay behind the screen even though I don’t know how long I have to stay behind the screen? I guess I get to see Mommy and Daddy more.”
2. Louisville native/musician Dawn Landes spent seven years turning Tori Murden McClure’s memoir, A Pearl in the Storm, into a musical called ROW. (In 1999, McClure became the first woman and first American to row solo across the Atlantic.) The related album came out earlier this month, and, writes the C-J’s Maggie Menderski, the “showstopper and namesake, ‘ROW’” — featuring Louisville musicians Carly Johnson, Sheryl Rouse and Kimmet Cantwell — “conjures the spirits of Dolly Parton, Tina Turner and Cher.” Crank. It. Up.
A couple months into lockdown managing editor Mary Chellis Nelson did an interview with McClure, who’s now president of Spalding University. They talked about isolation and solitude, with McClure saying, “I’m so far from being a touchy-feely person, but I do miss that actual human interaction. And that was true on the Atlantic. I was surprised how much on the Atlantic I missed people, because I’m a world-class introvert. I think we’re all feeling that sense of separation. It isn’t replaced by just being able to see and hear somebody.
“The only thing that gives meaning to suffering is the transformation that can happen from it if it’s a positive transformation. A faculty member was talking about wanting things to get back to normal, and a graduate student observed that normal is bad. Like, normal is people being oppressed. Normal is the economic divide really hurting some individuals more than others. We don’t want to get back to normal. We want to get back to something better than normal. That’s going to require work and thought and care.”
3. Noooooooooooooooooo! Let’s pour one out for the Louisville Beer Store, which, after 11 years in business on East Market Street, announced its last day will be Oct. 31. I had a version of this conversation multiple times over the years when out-of-town friends visited:
Me: “I love the Beer Store. Wanna go?”
Friend: “Sure, what’s the beer store called?”
Me: “The Beer Store.”
I’m heading there after I finish this newsletter to buy some logo T-shirts to replace the holey navy and purple versions I got almost a decade ago.
I asked Lori Beck, who also co-owns the Holy Grale, to name the five beers they sold the most over the Beer Store’s history. (And listen up, 2020 2💩2💩: You need to stay far away from Holy Grale, got it?) Re the top five, Beck said, “Here is an educated guess”:
– Crooked Stave Von Pilsner
– Bearded Iris Homestyle
– Orval Trappist Ale
– Crooked Stave American IPA
– Against the Grain Citra Ass Down
Guess I’ll be throwing in a five-pack with the shirts.
4. Two weeks ago I mentioned the resurrected Black Scene magazine, which was originally published in Louisville from 1973 to 1976. That newsletter prompted reader Dorace Peters to send this motivational message:
“You help me remember my wonderful life in Louisville. I’m in Florida now and really miss Louisville — the restaurants, the seasons, the weekend trips, my artists, my musicians, my sarcastic and smart friends, my liberal and open-minded neighborhood. You bring back memories often of the ’60s and ’70s. The writer Carl Hiaasen lives here in Vero and, yes, he is right: It is weird here.
“I was telling someone recently how disappointed I am in journalists now. They have lost their sense of right and wrong. Why, you young whippersnappers: Keep on writing exactly what you feel.”
5. Last Friday, My Buddy Eric Who Has A Vintage Cardinal Mascot Tattooed On His Ass™ celebrated his birthday on the patio at River House. (Only the second time I’ve worn pants — meaning not shorts — since March 13. The jeans felt foreign against my shins.) Crab legs, setting sun streaking the sky in pink and orange to the west, the Belle of Louisville moseying east on the Ohio…and the Two Chubby Men covering Nickelback next door at KingFish. (At the risk of losing subscribers: I remembered all the words.) Newsletter slow clap to the Two Chubby Men: 👏…👏 …👏👏…👏👏👏…👏 👏👏👏👏👏👏.
A little something from the LouMag archive.
Dr. Joseph Kutz (pictured right), of Louisville’s world-renowned Kleinert Kutz Hand Care Center, died last Saturday at age 92. His colleague Dr. Harold Kleinert died in 2013 at age 91. The two garnered international headlines in 1999 when they were part of the team that performed the first-ever hand transplant.
According to a 2007 Louisville Magazine story about the duo and “the largest, most respected training ground for hand surgeons in the world,” Kleinert and Kutz both arrived at the office every morning in time for 6:30 lectures and regularly put in 10-hour days. One program fellow from Shanghai said, “Almost all of the hand surgery professors in Japan and the Asian countries — they trained here.”
In the 1950s, Kleinert, originally from Montana, started as an instructor at the University of Louisville Medical School, quickly moving into hand surgery after realizing it was an “untapped specialty.” Usually, Kleinert said, this work fell to the youngest resident who “would take the injured hand to the operating room, where there was an anatomy book. You would turn the page to the hand and go to work. That was the extent of hand surgery.” Kutz had planned to take a position studying under a top Detroit-area surgeon but filed his application one day late. That doctor mentioned Louisville. By the mid-1960s, Kleinert and Kutz were in private practice together.
“If I ever thought this was work, I probably would’ve quit a long time ago. But each day is a challenge,” Kutz said. “Even yesterday, I saw something I had never seen before in a patient. You get up every morning…with the idea that you’re going to learn something and maybe teach something.
“My wife always says the same thing. She tells people, ‘The day he drops over dead in the operating room, I’ll bury him.’”
Mary and I spent part of the day Wednesday rearranging our office for an upcoming photo shoot. With all the desks gone, the Two Chubby Men could perform Nickelback covers in here! (I’m giving a thumbs-up to the sentence and a thumbs-down to its meaning 👍👎 — senior editor Dylon Jones.)
We want to keep the project a surprise for now, but we’re so excited for you to see it when our next print issue comes out later this fall.
Josh Moss
editor, Louisville Magazine
jmoss@loumag.com