Do you Kroger or BI-LO? Would you prefer a Food City or a Food Lion? Economic slowdown or no economic slowdown, people gotta eat, and in Knoxville the grocery store wars are at an unprecedented pitch. But with the city already exceeding national averages for food market space and new stores popping up left and right, are we due for a shakeout? Barry Henderson goes shopping for answers.

Joe Tarr asks why Maryville College has such a hard time saying "vagina," Matthew T. Everett checks up on plans for a new amphitheater on the World's Fair Park, and Matt Edens reports on plans for the historic Brownlow School building.
Plus: Seven Days, Meet your City, and Knoxville Found.

Joe Sullivan urges the city to look into redevelopment tax breaks in Insights, Attica Scott takes on the Good Old Girls network in Color Conscious, and Jack Neely visits some empty suburban storefronts in Secret History.

They come every January from miles around—singers, dancers, banjo pickers, guitar heroes. They wait for hours for just a few minutes in the spotlight, their one chance to impress the men with the clipboards. They are the annual flock of Dollywood auditioners, and Mike Gibson is there to record the whole scene.

Jesse Fox Mayshark wakes up country-rocker and former Jayhawk Mark Olson in the Music Feature, while Eye on the Scene finds out what's up with Three Nineteen. Heather Joyner finds nothing pedestrian about the Downtown Walking photography of New York transplant John Barbarino in Artbeat. Our crack critic crew lends some ears to recent discs from Pavement's Stephen Malkmus, jazz legend Pat Metheny, and neo-pop grrls Le Tigre in Platters. Ally Carte goes into orbit with the new evening offerings of the Crescent Moon Café in Restaurant Rover.

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