Elvis was not a phenomenon. He was not a craze. He was not even, or at least not only, a singer, or an artist. He was that perfect American symbol, fundamentally a mystery, and the idea was that he would outlive us all – or live for as long as it took both him and his audience to reach the limits of what that symbol had to say.

– Greil Marcus – Dead Elvis: A Chronicle of a Cultural Obsession

It’s a shame Flannery O’Connor didn’t live long enough to see “Death Week.”

Death Week, as most people know by now, is the ritual observance of the anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death on August 16, 1977. The festivities include, but are not limited to: tours of Graceland, the King’s palatial estate hard by the Memphis boulevard bearing his name; picnics; Elvis impersonators of every age, race, creed, sex, and religious persuasion; ample opportunities to spend one’s life savings on a brain-numbing array of Elvis paraphernalia; and, of course, the climactic candlelight vigil at the grave site.

This being the fifteenth anniversary of the King’s alleged demise, the size of the celebration and the amount of media attention it received were greater than usual. City officials estimated the number of pilgrims descending on Mecca-by-the-Mississippi at between 20-50,000.

Social scientists of every stripe have sought for years to explain the St. Elvis phenomenon – an obsession which often borders on religious fanaticism.

Even Ms. O’Connor, the award-winning fiction writer who built her literary legacy around the degenerate comings and goings of Deep South white trash, would have had a hard time swallowing it all.

In his new book, Dead Elvis: A Chronicle of a Cultural Obsession, Greil Marcus says that “the identification of Elvis with Jesus has been a secret theme of the Elvis story at least since 1956; since Elvis’ death it has been no secret at all. In 1982 in Memphis,” he says, “Sam Phillips told a crowd of fans and believers that the two most important events in American history were the birth of Jesus and the birth of Elvis Presley.” That Jesus Christ wasn’t actually born in America is beside the point; what matters is that in Elvisism, we may be witnessing the genesis of a new religion. If the pseudo-cult has gained this much momentum in a scant fifteen years, goes the argument, just imagine what another 2000 years of hype might produce.

Of course, not all Christians are tent-revivalists. And, in the mold of the quiet, reflective believer, one national broadcast news outlet captured a man lamenting, in his best true-spirit-of-Christmas tone, that the whole sordid display had grown too commercial. This isn’t what Elvis’ life was all about, he said.

When the multitudes gather by the American Nile, the sublime and the ridiculous walk hand-in-hand.

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While barrels of ink have been devoted to Elvis, comparatively little attention has been paid to the City of Memphis itself as mythmaker. Often it’s treated as nothing more than “the city” to which “the country boy” in this rags to royalty tale migrated – as though Peoria might have served just as well.

But whether the Cult of Elvis fades or flowers, it couldn’t ask for a better place than Memphis, Tennessee to make a stand. A thumping metropolis of around 3/4 million people, the Bluff City has long been a proving ground; here dreams and even lives are tested against a history that’s the stuff of legend.

With every third door a blues club and names like Howlin’ Wolf, W.C. Handy, and B.B. King wherever you turn, it’s easy to understand downtown Beale Street’s billing as the birthplace of the blues.

And Sam Phillips’ celebrated Sun Studios launched the careers of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins.

But Memphis has also long been a focus in the nation’s struggle for racial equality. In the early 1860s, for example, Memphis was a way station on the Underground Railroad, through which abolitionists like Harriet Tubman spirited runaway slaves to safety in the Northern United States and Canada.

Roots author Alex Haley, who instilled in a generation of American blacks a sense of their racial history, was recently laid to rest in his nearby hometown of Henning, Tennessee.

Gunfire in Memphis on the morning of April 4, 1968 immortalized the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., endowing him in a martyr’s death with more power than any civil rights leader could ever claim in life.

And the National Civil Rights Museum opened in Memphis last September.

Dawn Massey, Communications Manager for the Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau, says that the museum’s goal is to build racial harmony through education.

“We want to make sure no one forgets.

“It’s been well-received by whites as well as blacks, too,” she adds. “Many whites are surprised to find that it’s relevant to their lives. The museum is about human rights, about what is acceptable and what is not acceptable in society.” Ironically, in a small municipal park downtown, across from the University of Tennessee’s Memphis Medical Center Campus, stands a statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest, Confederate General and co- founder of the Ku Klux Klan. This statue, not surprisingly, has been the source of some controversy over the past few years.

Put simply, Memphis can be a confusing, unpredictable place even for longtime residents.

This past May, when a Los Angeles jury acquitted the four police officers who beat Rodney King, many Memphians expected trouble. It never happened.

As many of us watched enraged blacks trying to burn Los Angeles to the ground, the Memphis in May Beale Street Music Festival went on as planned. According to Massey, it seemed like blacks and whites were going out of their way to be nice to each other.

Not bad for a city which even Massey, who’s lived here her whole life, admits has a checkered history where race relations are concerned. Not bad at all.

Civil rights to the blues to Elvis – what a strange place the 20th Century would be without the Bluff City.

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Perhaps the city’s legendary stature stems in part from its overwhelming Southernness. Neal Bowers, the highly-regarded Southern poet, critic, and biographer who now teaches at Iowa State University in Ames, says there’s a unique gothic element to life below the Mason-Dixon.

According to Bowers, Southerners often take for granted a degree of weirdness that the average Yankee would find genuinely unsettling. Stories like William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily,” O’Connor’s “The Life You Save May Be Your Own,” and Tar Heel novelist T.R. Pearson’s acclaimed A Short History of a Small Place are classic examples of the matter-of-factness with which we Southerners sometimes greet the bizarre.

In this respect, at least, Memphis is an almost archetypal Southern city. Many residents insist that they hear about so many horrible crimes that even the truly outlandish ones don’t register anymore. One woman says she remembers a murder last year where somebody got dismembered, but she didn’t really pay attention to the details.

Actually, there were a couple of notable dismemberments, according to a local reporter, who asked not to be identified. In one case, a woman of questionable mental capacity strangled her roommate. After a few days, the odor forced her to drag the body into the bathroom, where she began a series of “medical experiments” – dissections and the like – designed, ultimately, to bring the body back to life. She felt sure she was on the right track, because the body was talking to her.

Her attempts to control the odor of decay, however, proved futile, even though she covered the body with baking soda, peat moss, and kitty litter.

In the second case, a man murdered his roommate, and like the woman in the first case, discovered that corpses don’t age all that gracefully. So he decided to stuff the body in a steamer trunk and toss it in a creek. Problem was, the body wouldn’t fit, so he had to saw off a leg.

Once the body was contained, he dumped it into his favorite fishing hole south of town, whereupon it immediately failed to sink. A day or two later, a couple of fishermen decided that a steamer trunk was an odd thing to have floating around in a creek, and the rest is a matter of public record.

A third case of interest involves a former Army sergeant and his transvestite, would-be transsexual, uh, friend. A drunken argument in a local bar turned into a drunken murder back at the Ponderosa, with Sarge on the wrong end a gunshot through the eye.

The trial was delayed during jury selection, however, when several prospective jurors begged off, saying their personal beliefs would undoubtedly prejudice them against a male defendant wearing a dress in court.

So… Whether you’re interested in rich cultural history, cluster housing-infested urban sprawl, or colorful criminal activity, Memphis is a city whose character is decidedly Southern, occasionally Gothic – and it’s also one well worth visiting.

The basic tourist looking for an upbeat vacation will find diversions aplenty, from the mythical Graceland to Mud Island to Beale Street to The Pyramid; and for the cynical tourist – the one more interested in “that man behind the curtain” than the Wizard himself – well, Memphis is just about the next best thing to Oz. Yes, indeed, the Thinking Man’s – and Woman’s – tour of America should allow for a couple days in the Bluff City.

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The last time I visited Beale Street, in July of 1988, it seemed like there was a police officer every 15 feet or so. Despite this, one man, evidently a low-overhead pedestrian vendor of some sort, tried to sell my traveling companion and me some marijuana – in full view of at least 20 officers.

This struck me as odd behavior at the time; now, though, such brashness just seems a natural part of the Beale fabric. There’s a dangerous edge to the nightlife here that no amount of police presence can lessen. Maybe that’s good, in a way. The undercurrent of danger may be an essential part of the neighborhood’s charm.

In addition to the uniformed law enforcement, there always seemed to be ambulances and emergency medical personnel nearby, apparently for good reason.

While having dinner in one of Beale’s many outstanding restaurants, my companion and I noticed two police officers strolling casually through the dining room into the kitchen. They were followed about five minutes later by two paramedics – neither of them in any hurry.

Apparently a man had entered the kitchen from the alley and tried to make off with the cook’s boom box. Unfortunately for the stereo thief, cook was in the process of cleaving someone’s dinner and so had a weapon at hand, which he wielded expertly on the thief.

Robbery thwarted, law enforcement and rescue personnel summoned.

When the EMTs finally got the poor slob stitched together, the police cuffed him and dragged him unceremoniously back through the dining room and out the front door, where a shiny cruiser awaited.

The next thing I know, the police are apologizing to the cook for all the trouble. Everybody’s smiling and laughing, and none of the bar patrons – regulars, one assumes – even seemed to notice. “It doesn’t pay to mess with people down here, does it?” I remarked to the waiter.

He smiled and said something to the effect of “That’s advice we’d all do well to remember, sir.” But that was three years ago. This time I’m accompanied by my little brother John, who’s lived here his whole life, and his lovely girlfriend Billie.

Beale is wide open this particular Thursday night. The brand new B.B. King’s Blues Club & Restaurant at the corner of Beale and 2nd is in full swing, and from down the street comes the distinctly non-bluesy sound of a live reggae band. The great thing about Beale is that everybody gets a shot.

Also, you never need a program. Just start walking – if you don’t know what’s going on inside a particular building, there’s always someone standing just outside the door who’ll be happy to fill you in. At least one club tonight features a live blues band and no cover charge – good news for the budget tourist.

In addition to the numerous restaurants and blues clubs, Beale also features pool halls, street vendors, souvenir shops, art for sale, and art for hire – in this case a caricaturist who offers to draw Billie. For a small fee, of course.

Strange Cargo, a T-shirt shop, proves to be one of the most eclectic and ultimately cool shops in town. Prices start at $6, and there’s something imaginative for just about anybody.

Memphis Music also sells shirts, as well as an array of musically-inspired jewelry and the most extensive collection of blues CDs I’ve ever seen. Their series of blues legends T-shirts features black & white studies of Cab Calloway, Buddy Rich, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Little Boy Blue, to name a very few. One especially hot black T sports a b/w photo of a young Howlin’ Wolf.

And, in a stack by the door, you’ll find copies of the Memphis Press/Scimitar, August 17, 1977: “A Lonely Life Ends on Elvis Presley Blvd.” The Commercial Appeal, that same morning: “Death Captures Crown of Rock & Roll; Elvis dies, apparently after heart attack.” $5 apiece for the genuine article.

As we walk back toward the car, the EMTs are in front of Silky Sullivan’s loading a drunk college-aged kid with an air cast on his leg into an ambulance. It looks like maybe he fell off of something, but there’s no telling what.

He looks okay, but the scene reminds me, yet again, that while the festivities proceed apace, the paramedicals always seem to be busy down on Beale.

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“Not since the majestic rerboats of the 1800’s (sic) has there been such a breathtaking sight on the banks of the Mississippi,” trumpets the brochure.

“Feel the Power of the Pyramid. The Pyramid soars into the sky 32 stories (321 feet), rising out of the Mississippi Delta like a great shining diamond. It could hold 200 million gallons of water. Its base is as big as six football fields. The interior height, 280′ from the floor to the Observation Deck above, is greater than the exterior dimensions of The Astrodome or Superdome.” The Pyramid, of course, is Memphis’ new $62 million coliseum. It replaces the not-so-stupendous Mid-South Coliseum, an ancient acoustical nightmare where ceiling tiles routinely fell on hapless concert-goers.

And The Pyramid is, as the promotional literature promises, a wonder to behold. It’s the size of the Great Pyramid of Cheops, the world’s largest, located in Egypt at Memphis on the Nile. Memphis, pyramid, by a big river…get it?

The building’s exterior is covered with 9200 stainless steel panels, and frankly, the effect is awe-inspiring. Staring at the peak too long may cause you to lose your sense of perspective.

As I stood on the street looking up at the pinnacle, cumulo-nimbus clouds drifting past, the pyramid seemed to be sailing through the sky like a steel-clad clipper.

The other thing I noticed was the heat; Memphis in July can be unbearably muggy, and the midday sun reflecting off 8 1/2 acres worth of stainless steel helped me appreciate how it might feel to be a bug under a magnifying glass.

A visitor from another planet might easily stand here on such a day and mistake The Pyramid for a grandiose temple to some major sun-god. Given the religions of ancient Egypt and the 20-foot statue of Ramses the Great which guards the main entrance, such an error could be forgiven.

Actually, The Pyramid is more of a grandiose temple to another major deity worshipped hereabouts: college basketball.

The Pyramid arena seats 20,000 for hoops and up to 22,500 for concerts. The scoreboard is 25′ square and 36′ tall, weighing 40,000 pounds. The computer matrix screen in the middle is composed of 27,000 light bulbs.

In addition to ten “performer” dressing rooms, two large “chorus” dressing rooms, and eight individual “star” dressing rooms, The Pyramid boasts four fully-equipped athletic dressing rooms. That’s four, as in The Final Four.

Memphis State’s master dressing room led one official to observe that, after playing at MSU, pro basketball would be a disappointment.

According to Dawn Massey, the Tigers’ training facilities are augmented by a large-screen video suite for reviewing game tapes, and dressing areas are more like Broadway star vanities than lockers, each with lighted mirrors and black & white glossies of the players.

As rabid as the Atlantic Coast Conference is about college basketball, nobody in the league has anything remotely like The Pyramid. Compared to this place, the DeanDome looks like a quonset hut.

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I’ve long suffered from a terror of heights, but I’ve never been in a building that inspired such vertigo from the floor. It was probably just my imagination, but the steps leading up into the nosebleed seats looked more like ladder rungs than stairs. You could lose your footing around tip-off and not hit bottom before halftime.

The Pyramid is also the only coliseum I’ve visited with its own Pizza Hut (two, actually). A huge concourse just inside the South entrance is lined with a variety of food and beverage booths and entrances to several of the 28 luxury boxes, one of which is open to tourists. Two of the suites are specially equipped for the handicapped.

Each of these lavish suites, which lease for $25,000 a year, has a closed-circuit television inside and another mounted above the observation balcony, presumably to provide a better view of instant replays.

Memphis State University Athletics Department officials must be ecstatic about the boost this facility will lend its recruiting efforts.

A bright-eyed high school scoring phenom considering MSU and, say, the University of Arkansas has, up until now, had a fairly clear-cut choice; Nolan Richardson’s Razorbacks play Big Time Hoops; Memphis State, while certainly a respectable program, nonetheless occupies a slot in the NCAA’s second tier. MSU is where you wind up if none of the places you’d really like to play offer you a scholarship.

Now, though… Now the Assistant Coach can walk the kid and his parents through The Pyramid. “This is where Junior and his teammates will suit up,” he’ll say, showing them the opulent dressing facilities, and “imagine seeing Junior’s face up there on that 27,000-light computer matrix scoreboard.” “Yes ma’am, Arkansas has a first-rate program, no doubt about it. But they ain’t got nothing like this,” he’ll say, spreading his arms and gesturing grandly. And he’ll be right.

Expect Larry Finch’s Tigers to show steady improvement over the next few years.

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The only thing more impressive than the building itself is the promotional campaign which accompanies it. This estimate is purely unscientific, but if postcard racks around town are any measure of what a town is proud of, The Pyramid is a solid second behind Elvis.

And these postcards, like my Pyramid brochure, feature some stunning photography. A lot of these photos were taken at night, and many are from a vantage that puts the river in the background.

For some reason, though, none of these photos quite capture the true, um, character of the neighborhood in which the building sits.

Fact is, promotional photography notwithstanding, the neighborhood surrounding The Pyramid is fairly typical of the city’s aging, deteriorating riverfront. Across the street from the Ramses statue, for example, stands a row of what appear to be beaten-up and occasionally burned-out warehouses.

Granted, any major metropolis needs a major events arena; not only is such a structure good for the city’s image, big venues attract major concerts, circuses, rodeos, etc., which generate much-needed income for the city and local businesses.

And no one is suggesting that the city’s promotional materials need to include whatever ugliness is at hand.

But considering the mythical connotations of the Egyptian pyramids and the effort that Memphis expends conjuring something of that aesthetic beauty for its own image, it’s easy to wonder where the city’s priorities lie.

Dawn Massey says that opposition to The Pyramid was pretty much what you’d expect in any big city considering an expensive building project. But city leaders view the building as a spur for development, and believe that in the long run it will more than pay for itself.

The financial report for its first year showed the operation in the red, but Massey says that was expected.

“It wasn’t even open a full year,” she says, and there were lots of start-up costs. Projections for the current fiscal year, on the other hand, show The Pyramid at worst breaking even.

A walk down by the river, says Massey, allows you to see where The Pyramid has already generated new business investment in the neighborhood.

Harbor Town, located on the Mississippi’s Mud Island, features an apartment complex and a subdivision of New Orleans-style homes. Massey says that, in spite of the recession and the sluggish housing market, units in Harbor Town were sold as fast as they were built.

The developer is planning to add a mini-mall for Mud Island residents, she adds, and there’s also talk of building a school on the island.

In addition, numerous small businesses designed to capitalize on Pyramid events have cropped up nearby.

“There are lots of little delis, bars, and pubs,” says Massey, “and a plethora of pay-to-park places.

“Some people park down at Beale Street (about 1 1/2 miles south of The Pyramid), have dinner, then catch one of the trolleys up to The Pyramid. It only costs fifty cents, and some of the restaurants even give away free trolley tokens with dinner.” In so many ways, The Pyramid is everything the city had hoped, and then some.

Walkthrough tours are $2, and smoking is prohibited inside.