Though Shelton Clothiers generally is a men's suiting store, they will host their second women's custom suit event TOMORROW from 5 - 9 p.m. Suits are available from $695 to $895 and pieces include custom jackets, pants, and skirts. Wine and hors d'oeuvres will be served, and for every suit you buy, you'll get a $150 gift certificate.

The newest store from Divine Rags is The White Horse at the Avenue Carriage Crossing in Collierville. The White Horse's Grand Splash is this Saturday, November 21st. If you go in before then, you will get 10 percent off, and I believe there will be specials Saturday, as well.

While not technically clothing related, I also want to mention MCA's 60th Annual Holiday Bazaar this Friday, November 20th, from 6 - 9 p.m., and Saturday, November 21st, from 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. The Bazaar features food, cash bar, photos with Santa and his elves, and original artwork by MCA students, alumni, faculty, and staff.

Also, the Flyer's next Work It Wednesday event will be held at the Beauty Shop in Cooper Young December 2nd. Specials include 10 percent off all menu items, $5 house wine, and $2.50 domestic beer.

Just the other night, a tidbit in the New Yorker about Harper Simon's self-titled debut caught my eye — mainly because the album was recorded with American Studios session alums Gene Chrisman and Mike Leech. What slipped my attention was the news that Simon was performing at the Hi-Tone Cafe tonight, after a month-long residency at Los Angeles' famed Largo nightclub.

The son of the iconic Paul Simon (and the subject matter of tunes such as "St. Judy's Comet" and, yes, "Graceland"), Harper updates Sweethearts of the Rodeo-era Byrds and Dylan's Nashville oeuvre with the help of legendary producer Bob Johnston, who manned the control board for Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited, Nashville Skyline, Blonde on Blonde and John Wesley Harding; the Man in Black's Hello, I'm Johnny Cash; Leonard Cohen's Songs From a Room; and Simon & Garfunkel's Sounds of Silence, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, and Bookends.

FACS (Blue Team):
Andrew (Captain), Freshman
Hannah, Junior
Zach, Junior
Megan, Senior
No alternate

Results:
Round One: Marion 55, FACS 80
Round Two: Marion 100, FACS 85
Round Three (Lightning Round): Marion 40, FACS 30
Tiebreaker: Marion 0, FACS 10
Final: Marion 195, FACS 205

Marion? Huh? According to the taping and broadcast schedules on the official Knowledge Bowl website, Match 3 was set to be FACS vs. Wooddale. For some reason, the team from Marion High School in Arkansas played against FACS. I can currently give no explanation. (Marion didn't appear elsewhere in the tournament either, so I'm going to chalk it up to Wooddale being unable to play for some reason and Marion being the first alternate to fill in.)

The Game: The early moments of the game provided an answer for a hypothetical future KB FAQ. Marion rang in early and missed a question before they actually had any points, ostensibly accruing a five-point penalty. The scoreboard doesn't tally negative points, so Marion had an understood -5 score.

This was confirmed after Marion's first correct answer (Nicole: "Civil War"), when the scorekeeper posted Marion's first sum as 5 instead of 10.

Round one was tighter than it should’ve been. Marion only answered two toss-ups correctly, but they did get the two bonuses. FACS, though it got 6 toss-ups correct, only cashed in on one bonus question.

The end of Round Two saw Marion within 10, setting up a tense finale. The Lightning Round was thrilling as promised, with Marion tying it up with 4 correct answers to FACS' 3.

Host Jim Jaggers, unaware of the tie, was about to go to commercial when someone off-camera shouted, "No no no no no! Tiebreaker."

I love the light, that little bite in the air, and the way you can go outside without immediately passing out from heat stroke.

Actually, what I like most is the way you can wear sweaters and such sans outerwear. Or with outerwear. Or whatever makes you most comfortable. It's really a very versatile time.

Take kindergarten teacher Jamie Thompson, for instance.

She is wearing a light, long-sleeved green-on-green argyle sweater with plaid slacks, sunglasses, and pumps.

To me, this seems very versatile: she could easily wear this just about anywhere and be comfortable: inside, outside, to lunch, to the office, or for doing what she was doing: watching her two small children play outside of City Hall.

When we ran into her outside of the COGIC convention last week, she was wearing a green cardigan layered over a black lacey tee, a banded skirt, and black boots (Everyone has been wearing boots lately! I know they were in last year bigtime, but it seems like they've only gotten bigger since then!)

"I don't like to be confined," she says of her outfit. "I didn't want to walk around and tiptoe in some heels. ... I can be comfortable and praise the Lord at the same time."

I bet some of you ladies who don't like heels are giving her an "Amen" right now.

Just guess what Valencia Woods' favorite color is.

I'll give you a hint: There's an Aerosmith song by the same name. And a pop star with a Top 40 hit right now on the pop charts. And a Victoria's Secret clothing line.

"I wear pink every day," says Woods. "I love pink."

She will generally pair her pink with black — like she did on this day — or she'll pair it with lime green or purple.

After Midtown label Goner Records dropped the King Khan & BBQ Show's self-titled debut album five years ago, plenty of locals jumped on board the party wagon helmed by this Berlin-meets-Montreal duo, currently in the midst of a relentless tour promoting the release of Invisible Girl, just released on In the Red Records.

Sure, King Khan and BBQ's pastiche of Little Richard-inspired falsetto runs anchored with punk rock sing-along choruses makes for a great reason to get out of the house tonight. However, my money's on tour openers Those Darlins, who came from nowhere (okay, Murfreesboro) and have recently exploded on the national scene, thanks to scorching appearances at the Scion Garage Fest and at SXSW and rave write-ups in Paste, the New Yorker and even Oprah Magazine. No strangers to Memphis, Jessi, Kelley and Nikki Darlin have volunteered their efforts for the Delta Girls Rock Camp and played countless gigs in town, most recently with the Magic Kids last April.

Rude, raucous and brilliant, off-the-cuff musicians, Those Darlins are the aural equivalent of the babysitter you wish you had when you were twelve — willing to teach you how to smoke, cuss and kiss, before loading you up on ice cream and shots of your folks' whiskey.

Download "Wild One," from their self-titled debut, here.

And don't miss tonight's show at the Hi-Tone. Admission is $10 and doors open at 9 p.m.

West Memphis Christian:
Timothy (Captain), Senior
Braden, Senior
Shea, Junior
Michael, Junior
Alternate: Jonathan

Results:
Round One: Bartlett 130, WMC 30
Round Two: Bartlett 110, WMC 65
Round Three (Lightning Round): Bartlett: 10, WMC 10
Final: Bartlett 250, WMC 105

The Game: The only real tense moments in what was ultimately a pretty dominating game was about halfway through the second round. With the answer “Quadratic,” by West Memphis Christian’s Timothy, the Black Knights pulled the score to 130-100. Then Bartlett answered the next five correct toss-ups (and three bonuses) and put it out of reach for good.

Some might say there was a conspiracy afoot. West Memphis Christian reduces to WMC — the call letters for a TV rival to News Channel 3. Well, that was the kind of thing I thought about while scrawling out my voluminous notes for this first round match. I took two-and-a-half pages of notes, including every correct, incorrect, and bonus answer. I may not do that again, but I wasn’t sure at the time what info I might need for promised statistics. (See more, below.)

3.

I've listened to "Love And Theft" more in the last four months than I've listened to the supposedly sacred Time Out of Mind in the last four years. Casually profound and profoundly casual, this startling return to form reminds us that the key to Dylan's greatness has always lain less in the weighty pronouncements that got him dubbed the "Voice of a Generation" than in the warm, open tone of his music, the freeness of his vocals, and the consistent humor and wit of his lyrics. It is (Oh no! Here it comes!) his best record since Blood On the Tracks.

Song Sample: "Summer Days"

Oxford, Mississippi, bassist Laurie Stirratt, best known around these parts for her work with alt-country trailblazers the Hilltops and Blue Mountain, pictured above, is now cooking up a storm at Tallulah's Kitchen.

The New Orleans born, Mandeville-raised rocker-turned-chef is showing off her Louisiana roots via a rotating menu, which includes red beans and rice, chicken and sausage jambalaya, crawfish etouffee, and homemade Italian meatballs. The restaurant-within-a-restaurant — TK's shares a kitchen with Catfish One — is located at 2028 University Avenue, just a mile east of Oxford's town square.

6.

I admire most of Harvey's albums, and all of them up to this point. But Stories from the City, Stories From the Sea is the only one I love — probably because it's so full of affection itself. After years of tormented, severe, magnificent English blues-rock of her own imagining, Harvey crossed the Atlantic and made her love album: A woozy, breezy, blushing but endlessly rocking romantic ramble through Manhattan and Brooklyn. In truth, I hadn't listened to it front-to-back in a few years before pulling it out during a summer vacation road trip this year. And I was taken aback at how gloriously well it had held up.

Song Sample: "You Said Something"

Further: Dan Aykroyd = Yogi. Anna Faris to play a documentary filmmaker. I smell Oscuster (an Oscar-winning box-office blockbuster).

No word yet if the script will have Boo Boo bringing pic-a-nic baskets back.

Like his former cohort Judy Peiser, with whom he co-founded the Center for Southern Folklore, Ferris understands how to be a true folklorist: He disappears into the background and, with tape recorder and camera, documents his subjects in their natural light.

In this week's issue of the Flyer, Leonard Gill reviews Ferris' newest book, Give My Poor Heart Ease. As Gill notes, the Mississippi-born Ferris, founder of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at Ole Miss and the former chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities, who currently works at the Center for the Study of the American South at UNC, will return to his former stomping grounds — the Center for Southern Folklore — for a booksigning at 7 p.m. tomorrow.

The book's title comes from a 21-minute film produced by Yale University Media Design Studio with the Center for Southern Folklore back in 1975. (View it at Folkstreams.net.)

Meanwhile, the book itself is chock full of revelations, such as this first-person narrative from Otha Turner in his prime:

"I can dance. I can sing, ride horses, chop cotton and plow, whoop and holler, cut somersets, do all that stuff. I got two acres and two-tenths of land. I bought it. Scurrying hard, my labor paid for it. I paid one thousand for the land and 150 dollars for the house. Paid three hundred dollars to move the house. And I rent twelve acres and a half of cotton land."

With that, Memphis will lose its access to fabulous November fashion. I mean, let's be honest, the convention is known as much for hats as its economic impact or spiritual message.

So the other day, Justin let me tag along with him. Unfortunately, it was mid-morning and there weren't that many hats out and about, but on the other hand, a lot of the outfits sparkled in the mid-morning sun. There were diamonds and rhinestones, iridescent fabrics, beads, sequins, jewelry. Take Shelia Sewell's outfit, for example.

She was wearing a cream-colored three-piece skirt suit in lace. But her leopard print hat includes a big satin bow and a rhinestone trim.

And her jacket clasp is completely inlaid with rhinestones, as well. Which matches her necklace and earrings.

Cute little Faith Jackson was in town from Chicago to attend the convention and wore this gray skirt with a short-sleeved black cotton blouse because she thought it was going to be hot.

(Funny how our perceptions change depending on what we're used to. See the next item.)

"My skirt looks like it's wool, but it's actually cotton," she says.

She says her style is simple, but sophisticated. I especially liked her silver name necklace.

Texan Christin Gordon was one of the vendors out on the Main Street Mall this week.

(I think I'll let you guess what she was selling.)

I loved her mix of high and low — what she called her "Chicago" coat, the stripey tee and jeans, and her Texas A&M/Aggie camo cap.

"I wanted to be warm," she said. "It's beautiful now, but when the wind starts to blow, it gets cold."

She also brought a number of different scarves with her, not just to Memphis, but to the booth.

"I love scarves. I have a bunch," she says. "You can still be cute in the cold."

9.

Sri Lankan-born world citizen M.I.A. mashes up Western pop (Modern Lovers, Pixies, Duran Duran) with Third World rhythms on this follow-up to her ecstatic debut Arular. Where the earlier record was an intensely pleasurable, beatwise brass-ring grab, Kala is a more rattled, woozy sonic miasma. Fantasizing about a Third World stick-up of First World wealth as she demands (or does she?) that soulja boys the world over toss away their guns; losing her mind in the midst of putting "people on the map who never seen a map"; falling in love on a Darfur tour, rapping joyfully with Aborigine kids: No album this year took in more of the world or did so with such a playful, disorienting rush of ideas.

Song Sample: "World Town"

Goner Records' Alley Party, rescheduled after a rainy October, is on for Barbaro Alley (Main Street between Union and Gayoso) at 5:30 p.m. today.

It's free, it's outdoors, and the current weather couldn't be better — plus, who hasn't missed the enigmatic Harlan T. Bobo, who spent the last several months in France, slinging ice cream and awaiting the birth of his firstborn son, Nino Bobo?

On a side note, if you haven't caught the Magic Kids yet, here's a perfect opportunity to do so. See why the rest of the world — including Red Kross genius Steven McDonald, who traveled to Gonerfest to see 'em, along with the powers-that-be at eMusic, Matador Records and U.K. label Stiff Records — is going bonkers for the Kids' Phil Spector-meets-punkish pop pastiche.

I’ve chosen to implement a completely different strategy for determining my Pearl Jam list than my last one, however. With U2, I listened to every album for a refresher and then made my list after the fact. For Pearl Jam, I have listened to each album, in order, and ranked each song as they played. (To wit: “Once” was number-one on my list until I listened to “Alive,” and then it dropped to two, until I listened to “Why Go,” when it dropped to three, and so on.)

Pearl Jam recently released a new album, Backspacer. I haven’t listened to it yet, and it seemed mildly appropriate to work up a list based on everything that came before it. Consider this a snapshot of my Pearl Jam opinions the day before I buy their next.

A note about eligibility: Pearl Jam has something like an open-source relationship with their fans. They’re prolific and they release scads of material in non-traditional formats such as fan-club extras, soundtracks, tributes, EPs, singles, official bootlegs, etc. In light of this, I created a list that assumed no studio Pearl Jam song was off-limits. That’s not to say I’ve heard everything there is out there. But I made a fairly concerted effort to access as much as is commonly available. Many rarities were collected on the band’s Lost Dogs two-disker, and I highly recommend it to anybody who’s into Pearl Jam enough to still be reading the words I’m typing here.

I ruled ineligible all live versions, because I just ain't got that kind of time on my hands. This is Knowledge Bowl season, yaknow.

Pearl Jam Top 40 Songs: