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Tough Guys Do Walk

Lunchers on Market Square did a double-take when a casually dressed elderly man with white hair walked by alone with a silver-headed cane. He made a slow counter-clockwise loop of the square, stopping here and there to read a posted menu. Someone asked him if he was looking for a good place to eat some lunch, and he said no, us old folks don't need to eat much. He commented to a stranger that Knoxville's lucky to have a place like Market Square, and remarked on the 19th-century architecture.

Then he sat alone on the concrete steps. When he did, he drew a small crowd, because the man was Norman Mailer. In town to give a lecture at UT, Mailer was just taking a walk from his room at the Radisson. He remembered having been to Knoxville to speak before, but disclaimed the 25-year-old legend that he challenged a whole bar to arm-wrestling matches. He said he did recall being in a Knoxville bar and witnessing "a hell of a fight" sometime in the '70s, but denied that he had anything to do with it.

With Opponents Like These...

To judge by Mayor Victor Ashe's list of campaign contributors, support for the mayor is remarkably broad-based. Included on the list is a $100 contribution in 1997 from Ashe's all-but-declared opponent Randy Tyree.

Newspaper or Marauding Menace?

Okay, sure, The Underground has gotten itself in some deserved hot water (as we reported here two weeks ago). But the Sunday News-Sentinel threw all sense of proportion right out the window with a headline drawn from some B-movie idea of sleazy tabloidism: "Dance club or death trap?" If you bothered to read the story—and let's face it, not many N-S readers do—you found out the "death trap" tag had no basis in anything but the fevered imagination of a mother who wrote a letter to KPD asking them to shut the place down. Quoting the letter was fine; putting it in the headline, especially without quotes, was worse than a cheap shot—it was malicious misrepresentation. Even worse, the story went on to rehash the same old "death of the Old City" stuff, mentioning for the umpteenth time that the Spaghetti Warehouse shut down, but somehow leaving out the fact that Barley's has been open and bustling in that same location since last fall. Kind of makes you wonder if anybody at the only daily paper we've got ever actually goes to the Old City.

All For One

When people talk to them about cut-throat competition, the newbies at the brand-new Fairbanks Roasting Company, Rob Collignon and Thomas Dillon, say they haven't a clue about that kind of behavior. In fact, they've gotten by with more than a little help from their friends. Kelly Litton (of Litton's) gave them a big steam kettle and an ice cream machine. Linda Jones, Rob's sister and the head baker at Litton's, trained Fairbanks' baker Mark Dutton in the Litton's kitchen. Serge Coant, who owns the Chef Bistro and Bakery, gave Rob a week's training on the finer points of French pastry, as well as sharing recipes, expertise on buying fish and produce.

Passages

Nick Pavlis, who left his longtime job at the family business, A&B Distributing, has gone to work for the competition, Robert Orr SYSCO Food Services. And you've got about another week if you want to get your 'do done at Metz & Kerchner House of International Beauty. It's closing next week. Also, our condolences go to the many patrons who'll be missing Perry's on the Square once the Market Square fixture closes at the end of this month—we'll be feeling especially sorry for ourselves when the last spinach lasagna Thursday comes and goes. (Note to Perry: PLEASE OPEN A NEW RESTAURANT!)