MotorCar Festival, ‘Superpower Dogs’ and Bernadette Peters
LISA DENTON: Barry, we have a new event happening this weekend, the Chattanooga MotorCar Festival, which will bring a bunch of vintage and historic automobiles to the Scenic City.
BARRY COURTER: I attended the announcement for this event at the Westin, and I would have happily driven home any one of the gorgeous cars they brought in for the occasion. This will be a world-class event.
LISA: I picture everyone arriving looking like Hugh Grant in “Bridget Jones’s Diary.” Remember that scene where he’s driving a Mercedes-Benz convertible through the countryside on the way to a romantic getaway? He couldn’t be more suave as Daniel Cleaver, but then Renee Zellweger, as Bridget, loses her scarf along the way and the wind blows her hair up to three times its normal size. I’m not judging. I have pictures of myself like that from the ’80s when it was normal for hair to look like that.
BARRY: I picture Smedley with his leather skull cap, goggles and scarf from the Chilly Willy series on the old Woody Woodpecker cartoons. And I’m pretty sure we are both going to be correct.
LISA: They’ll be doing time trials, a concours d’elegance, a rally and family activities. NASCAR’s Bill Elliott will be among the drivers. If Awesome Bill from Dawsonville is OK with something called a concours d’elegance, then I’d say it’s not too highfalutin for the rest of us.
BARRY: That does sound highfalutin, doesn’t it? Kind of like plein-air art, which just means y’uns went outside to do yer paintin’. My mom called that peace and quiet. The car people you and me hang out with call them car shows or meet-ups, and we stage them in the Hooters parking lot.
LISA: People are serious about cars. I’m just happy that Hocus Focus can get me from Point A to Point B without needing gas every 20 minutes. The check-engine light flickered on the other night, and looking at it without my glasses, the lines sort of blurred together so that it resembled a tiny, amber pumpkin. Fall is my favorite season, so I felt OK about it.
BARRY: Hmmmm. Pumpkin pie, pumpkin spice tea … wait, where are we? Anyway, Exit 111 is also this weekend up at Great Stage Park in Manchester on the same farm where Bonnaroo is held. I’m hoping to get up there just to see the layout of things, but also maybe to do a little headbanging, and not the kind we do around here every so often.
LISA: Yes, on the desk is a whole different sort of headbanging.
There’s also a movie opening Friday at the Tennessee Aquarium’s Imax Theater. “Superpower Dogs 3D” is about regular dogs who can do extraordinary things, like therapy or search-and-rescue missions. Thursday there’s a sneak preview of the film at 6:30 p.m., followed by a parade of local “superpower dogs.” I think it would be hard to narrow the field, since so many folks think their dog is the greatest of all time.
When is a dog not a dog? When it’s a GOAT. I just made that up.
BARRY: Nice. I had a dog that played the piano during thunderstorms. Name was Elvis. Not kidding. That’s a scary 2 a.m. wake-up, let me tell ya. Then it was funny. Louis York and the Shindellas are the Levitt Amp act on Thursday at the Bessie, and The Trinity Lines are the Friday Noon-Tunes act at Miller Park.
And the lovely Bernadette Peters joins the Chattanooga Symphony & Opera on Saturday at the Tivoli.
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Contact Lisa Denton at ldenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6281. Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-7576354.