If you grew up in the Midwest you’ve probably heard the catchy jingle for “Stanley Steemer, the Carpet Cleaner.” But I bet you’ve never heard it sung operatically, or with some bebop or thrash. Now you can do that — all in one three-minute video featuring University of Cincinnati musical theater grad Mia Gentile, a 2011 grad of the College-Conservatory of Music. Local audiences know her for several amusing turns in incarnations of The Marvelous Wonderettes at Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati and the sold-out (and revived) production of next to normal, but trust me, this girl is bound for glory.

People who’ve never heard of her or the carpet cleaning company are tuning in now by the thousands, thanks to a YouTube video, cleverly titled “The Stanley Steemer Variations (by Mia).” Gentile generated with local musician and producer Roger Klug. Julie Spangler, a professional pianist and musical theater instructor at CCM, introduced Klug and Gentile, who wanted to produce a voiceover demo of the various musical styles she could reproduce (which appears to be limitless). Klug convinced her to translate her vocal performances into a video, which they shot in one day over the summer. “It was a total collaboration,” Klug tells me. “We talked about what each character would look like, she did the makeup and hair, I shot and edited the thing. We completely did it for no other reason than ‘just for the fun of it.’” It was shot at the local studio Mental Giant with Klug using a Sony Handycam.

Well, that it was — it’s apparent from watching. But everyone is getting in on the fun, and the video has taken off virally on YouTube. When Klug contacted me on Monday morning, it had had 40,000 hits in just a few days. By midnight the piece had exploded, exceeding 100,000 hits. He and Gentile have created a blog site to support it: http://miavideo.wordpress.com.

Even better, the Stanley Steemer people have picked it up, hyping it on their Facebook page, which has led to a suspicion that the whole thing is a clever marketing ploy. “Another faction thinks Stanley Steemer owes us a big check,” Klug jokes, “which I'm inclined to agree with!” It’s spread to an international audience now, dare I say “picking up steam” with a mention and a link in the U.K. edition of The Huffington Post. Before this winds up, Gentile will need her own 1-800 number!

The efforts to erect a plaque at the site of the old King Records facility (as well as myriad events related to the past and future of the ground-breaking record label, including this year’s Cincinnati Entertainment Awards) hopefully turned a lot of people on to the fact that Cincinnati’s music history is as rich as any city in the country.

Now, some of the same people who sought to honor King’s legacy are turning their focus on another monumental happening that should further enhance Cincy’s reputation as a blockbuster music town.

This coming Monday marks the 60th anniversary of a profoundly important recording session that took place at 811 Race St. in Downtown. Today, that building is home to CityBeat world headquarters, but 60 years ago, it was Herzog Studios.

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Last night, Fox 19's website reported that veteran local musician, talent booker and event promoter Johnny Schott passed away unexpectedly on Wednesday morning in his home in Tennessee.

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Miranda Lambert took the stage with her pink guitars Saturday night to a packed house at Dayton's Nutter Center on her CMT Revolution Tour with her latest single “Only Prettier.” She continued to entertain the audience with her contagious energy through 20 more hits throughout the evening. Don’t let her pretty smile fool you, because the songs got more soulful as she sang ballads (“The House That Built Me” and “Dead Flowers”) and got the crowd on their feet for her gritty song about justice called “Gunpowder and Lead;” at the end of the song she held up her microphone stand shaped like a shotgun.

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As their press release so eloquently puts it, “2008’s ‘Best New Bar in Cincinnati’ slowly died three weeks ago, and no one seemed to notice. From being consistently full of thirsty bohemian patrons and hosting national up-and-coming bands (Vampire Weekend played a week before their debut on SNL) to a potted-plant-ridden empty mess—The Gypsy Hut’s rise and fall was about as meteoric as MC Hammer’s. … Luckily, two devoted Northsiders have been working feverishly to reopen and restore the bar to its former glory and more.”

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Chris Finney must be feeling rather schizophrenic lately.

The local attorney and arch-conservative activist is offering his services free of charge to the NAACP’s Cincinnati chapter, where he is chair of legal redress. His duties include assisting the chapter’s efforts at advancing the interests of the area’s African-American residents.

At the same time, Finney continues his legal work for ex-State Rep. Tom Brinkman Jr. and their political group, the Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes (COAST). His latest effort there is a lawsuit trying to overturn the Ohio law prohibiting former state lawmakers from lobbying in Columbus for one year after they leave office.

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“Light painting and graffiti are very similar,” says Matt Treece, 23-year-old local photographer and light painter. “I realized this when I found myself hopping through a shattered first story window on the backside of an abandoned factory on the East Side at 2:30 a.m., alone, with my backpack on, creeping around in the darkness looking for a good spot.”

Treece is searching for that “magical spot.” He doesn’t risk the charge of vandalism like graffiti artists, but he still risks a trespassing charge with every foray into the night.

Light painting is a photography technique that involves moving a camera or adding a light source while operating with a slow shutter speed. The resultant images include colorful, swirly lines and other creative effects. Like graffiti artists, “both of us trespass illegally. Both of us are night owls. Both of us have explored tunnels, creeks, bridges and abandoned buildings and have gained such a good understanding about the layout of the city,” Treece says.

Suffice it to say, Treece’s understanding of all the nooks and crannies of the city is far more in-depth than the average daylight city dweller.

Before his nightly jaunt into the darkness, Treece packs his equipment bag. At first glance, you wouldn’t think anything is out of the ordinary. Treece stuffs a Nikon D90 camera, remote shutter release, Nikon SB-600 Flash and two tripods into the main compartment of the bag. But the smaller compartments receive the stranger tools of the trade.

He reveals children’s toys, ones that light up. Treece begins to stuff light swords, mini color changing glow sticks, six different kinds of flashlights, laser pointers, finger LEDs, glow sticks and his custom nine LED light orb tool into every remaining compartment of his equipment bag.

All that’s missing is the party favors. At this point, it’s almost unclear if he’s going to a rave or going out to light paint.

Treece almost forgets the most important tool: batteries — lots of them.

Light painting hasn’t always been Treece’s passion, however. “I’ve always been interested in art, but my interest in light painting started sometime around May or June of last year,” he says. “I was browsing the Internet randomly and saw a picture of what looked like a spinning waterfall of sparks. I had seen light painting prior to this photo, but it really didn’t click that these [light painters] were using super long exposures and crazy light sources to create works of art.”

That night, Treece spent hours reading up tutorials on the website lightpaintingphotography.com and a particular online community that called itself “the light junkies.” There he learned that it was plausible to make his own contribution to the light painting community.

Not all places are created equal in the light painting community. Living in Cincinnati is both wonderful and a pain. Clifton Heights, Treece’s main stomping ground, provides him with an incredible amount of light pollution, which can be attributed to the area’s attempt to curb crime activity.

Cincinnati still provides an ample amount of opportunity to create. “[Cincinnati] has some of the most bad-ass tunnels built in the early 1900s. … Cincinnati also has a creek system, which over time had to be cemented because of industrial waste,” Treece says. “These tunnels and channels have created some of the best spaces for light painting.”