Although the Internet is challenging the existence of many forms of print communication, there is one area where books have — and probably always will have — an upper hand. They are superior to e-books as a form of tactile, multi-dimensional art. Cincinnati's Main Library, at 800 Vine St., Downtown, currently has two exhibits celebrating books as art.  

Sometimes in pop music, they have to invent a new category — a new genre — in order to describe a singular artist’s musical approach. While it would be an overstatement to say Americana was invented solely to describe Lucinda Williams’ groundbreaking mixture of literate singer/songwriter Folk and bluesy, energized Country Rock, delivered with a twangy and soulful enunciation, she had a lot to do with its creation.  

In a very alternative and “outsider” way, Raymond Thunder-Sky seems to becoming the next Cincinnati artist — after Charley Harper — to be discovered internationally. Considered an Outsider Artist, he probably had autism and was beset with numerous physical ailments when social worker Bill Ross discovered his drawings in 1999.  

In a very alternative and “outsider” way, Raymond Thunder-Sky seems to becoming the next Cincinnati artist — after Charley Harper — to be discovered internationally. Harper, the Art Academy-trained Modernist long popular locally for his streamlined and colorful wildlife imagery, was championed late in life by the designer Todd Oldham. Harper died at about the same time the book appeared, but his work has grown ubiquitous since.  

Now that those obligatory fireworks displays are out of the way, you can spend the rest of your July doing something really exciting — catching the final month of Cincinnati Art Museum's The Amazing American Circus Poster exhibit, featuring 80 colorful, sometimes-thrilling and sometimes-bizarre posters from its collection of posters by Cincinnati-based Strobridge Lithographing Company.  

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington has many active supporters in the Cincinnati area, including the local Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education. As a result, the museum’s director of curatorial affairs, Scott Miller, came last week to Amberley’s Adath Israel Congregation to discuss a sensitive ongoing oral history project. Implicit in the visit was a call for donations, despite the ongoing recession, because time is of the essence.  

Derailroaded, which Josh Rubin and Jeremy Lubin named after a Fischer song and worked on for years as a labor of love, both with and without an often-troubled Fischer’s cooperation, considers whether Zappa insensitively opened a Pandora’s box without understanding the consequences, but it also shows that Fischer’s wild music and good humor — when he was in the right mood — was pretty infectious on those who encountered him.  

Over the years, singers and songwriters found symbolism in Ohio. Maybe it’s just the fact that since kids learn to spell the state as “round on the ends and high in the middle,” Ohio has the kind of goofy geometric (and geographic) connotations that call out to be expressed in song. It becomes an easy target.  

The work of longtime Cincinnati photographer Gordon Baer forms the heart of a new exhibit, Cincinnati Meets the Beatles! 1964 & 1966, opening Thursday night from 7-9 p.m. at the Behringer-Crawford Museum in Covington’s Devou Park. In 1966, Baer was able to photograph the Beatles on- and off-stage during the second of their two Cincinnati visits — for a concert at Crosley Field.  

This warm, engaging, entertaining and award-winning documentary concerns a New Zealand singing duo — Jools and Linda Topp — with a singularly unusual background. They are middle-aged twin sisters, lesbians and in their act mix rootsy, heartfelt Folk/Country material with the creation of comic characters. Grade: B-plus.