Wake the Bear — a.k.a. one-man-band Scott Cunningham — celebrates the release of his third album, Player Piano, this Saturday at the Northside Tavern. Dan Mecher of Turnbull ACs opens the free show, Cunningham plays in the middle (with his unique loop-and-sample-centric set-up) and new pop rockers The Mighty close the night.  

Julie Fay and her business partner, Mike Markiewicz, had been involved in various aspects of Cincinnati’s Main Street arts and entertainment district since the early 1990s. After St. Theresa’s Textiles moved from a building that Fay owned, she decided to open a “destination business” that would bring people to the area.   

There is now no question as to who is the hardest-working man in showbiz. In what appears to be an effort to never spend a second off stage or out of a recording studio, Jack White has formed yet another “side project.” Scary thing is, once again, it’s a fantastic project.  

Maybe it’s the blank look on every one of their faces. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve never gone for the ladies with plastic high heels, the big soles and the leg warmers. But that’s exactly who and what was flirting with me last Saturday night at the Deja Vu strip club in Milford. It wasn’t my idea to go there.   

Young professionals, the creative class, punks who think they own the city … whatever you call them or want to be called, these twenty- and thirty- and sometimes as late as freshly fiftysomethings have been recognized as a key demographic for keeping Greater Cincinnati competitive in a global marketplace.  

While looking at the countless New Year’s Eve options Wednesday night and seeing the bloated cover charges, you may be thinking of a night at home with a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon and watching, uh, whoever counts down the ball-drop in Times Square these days (are they still propping Dick Clark up this year?).  

Five FBI investigations into human trafficking are underway in Greater Cincinnati alone. Despite that, the Ohio Legislature is getting pressure from lawyers not to pass a law that would define modern-day slavery and make it a crime in Ohio.  

Bitter cold. The air seemed to be made of sharp, solid metal, slicing through pants and shirtsleeves with tiny saw-like teeth that chewed at the skin. Hello goosebumps. Dressed in layers, I headed to Sharonville to teach my regular noon yoga class.  

Charlie Kaufman takes things to a whole new level in Synecdoche, New York, an acutely dour metaphysical mind-fuck of a movie with Philip Seymour Hoffman playing an emotionally battered theater director in modern-day Manhattan.  

Will Mr. Smith go to Washington? That’s Marvin Smith, who is the Ollie behind Ollie’s Trolley, the West End landmark dining car. Ollie has catered five of soon-to-be-president-elect Obama’s campaign events and has pictures to prove it.