Holiday: Turkey Bowl
This goofy, unconventional bowling event is fitting with Thanksgiving around the corner and is for a good cause. Attendees get the unique chance to bowl frozen turkeys on the Fountain Square ice rink. The best bowler will win $50 cash, a copy of the Wild Turkeyopoly board game and a trophy to show off his…
Music: The Sword
Last year’s widely acclaimed Apocryphon by thunderously heavy Texas rockers The Sword was the band’s first with new drummer Santiago “Jimmy” III Vela, as well as its debut for the diverse Razor & Tie label. While more lyrically personal than the band’s previous LP, the epic sci-fi concept album Warp Riders, Apocryphon still has the…
Holiday: Balluminaria
This hot air balloon glow and surrounding events have become a traditional way to kick off the holiday season and this year is no different. Come with your family and witness balloons illuminated from within and set against the nighttime sky of Eden Park. Holiday music, costumed characters from the Cincinnati Ballet’s Nutcracker and Santa…
Cincinnati’s ‘Equality Index’ Score Improves
Cincinnati obtained a 90 out of 100 in the 2013 Municipal Equality Index released by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) on Tuesday, giving the city a 13-point bump compared to 2012’s mixed score . The city aced categories for its relationship with the LGBT community, law enforcement and non-discrimination laws, which ban employment, housing and…
Event: Victory of Light Expo
This year’s metaphysical expo is set to be the largest to date as 3,500-4,000 people are expected to attend. Renowned medium Patricia Mischell will also be present to discuss her book Beyond Positive Thinking and give free psychic readings to the audience. About 250 vendors will be at the event to offer free readings, ghost…
Event: Northside Record Fair
Looking for Tiny Tim’s children’s album on vinyl or maybe Meet the Beatles!? How about an old Lonnie Mack 45 on Cincinnati’s Fraternity Records label? You might find those or who knows what else at Saturday’s Northside Record Fair. Besides vinyl, there will be CDs, cassettes, posters and memorabilia. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday. Early bird…
Holiday: Festival of Lights
Let the well-lit festivities continue with the Cincinnati Zoo’s annual Festival of Lights. This year’s event features a similar scene of sprawling lights, weaving in and out of the interior and exterior of the park, along with all the holiday fun that you can pack into one evening: Santa, train rides, hot chocolate and more. …
Event: Crafty Supermarket
Get in the holiday spirit as you fill your shopping bags with craft-tastic gifts sure to knock the stockings off everyone on your shopping list. Early birds can even win a swag bag filled with goodies of their very own, but beware: You’ll have to earn your spot in line before the supermarket opens to…
Holiday: The Nutcracker All Jazzed Up!
The Nutcracker season is upon us! De la Dance Company co-directors Mario de la Nuez and Meridith Benson have cooked up a full-cast treat featuring traditional ballet and jazzy dancing with music by both Tchaikovsky and Duke Ellington. The ballet opens in New York City in the ’40s, with Herr Drosselmeyer’s party entertainment “all jazzed…
Holiday: Christkindlmarkt
Join Cincinnati’s Germania Society for a weekend of authentic Christkindlmarkt-ing in Germania Park. Featuring all kinds of German holiday fun and fodder, including German music, German cookies and pastries, German beers, Gluhwein (hot mulled wine) and visits from St. Nikolaus and Santa Claus, this is “Cincinnati’s most authentic” Christkindlmarkt. 5-10 p.m. Friday; 11 a.m.-10 p.m.…
Onstage: Twelfth Night
Regulars at Cincinnati Shakespeare Company have enjoyed petite but dynamic performer Sara Clark in roles ranging from Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice to the Artful Dodger in Oliver Twist. Now, in her eighth season, she’s proven to be a resourceful director, too. Of Shakespeare’s sweet, jubilant comedy Twelfth Night, she says, “Rational hierarchy is…
Literary: Simon Tofield
Each “Simon’s Cat” video (an animated online cartoon series about a fat, funny cat) is like catnip for those who own and are owned by felines. The YouTube sensation has drawn more than 420 million views in five years. Now, the often-mischievous, constantly hungry and always adorable character is starring in a new book, Simon’s…
Event: Afterhours Bridal Show
When it comes to wedding planning, every bride needs her own mafia — or at least that’s what A Bride’s Mafia wedding planners are out to prove as they bring local brides “an unusual twist on your usual bridal show.” Brides, grooms and their families are invited to take advantage of an all-access evening pass…
Attractions: ’12 Years a Slave’ Tour
The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center gives guests the opportunity to take a trip into the 19th century and delve into the history behind the major motion picture 12 Years a Slave, based on the true story of Solomon Northup. Guests use a self-guided tour to learn about various aspects of Northup’s life, from his…
Report: Poverty Skews Urban School Funding
Urban schools spend considerably less on basic education for a typical student than previously assumed after accounting for miscellaneous expenditures related to poverty, according to a Nov. 19 report from three school advocacy groups. If it’s accepted by state officials and taxpayers, the report could give way to a reorientation of how school funds are…
REVIEW: Another Cultural Landslide – Last Days Last Days
Is it merely coincidence that I revisited Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music in the same week that the latest missive from Another Cultural Landslide wound up in that same CD drawer? Probably. Is it happenstance that ACL's new soundtrack for the imminent end of the world, Last Days Last Days, is coming out at a…
Morning News and Stuff
Cincinnati’s State Sen. Bill Seitz says he will introduce a “compromise” bill that still weakens Ohio’s energy efficiency and renewable standards but allows some of the current requirements for in-state renewable sources to remain for a few years. Environmental and business groups argue Seitz’s original bill would effectively gut the state’s energy standards and, according…
Ohioans Rally for Global Warming Regulations
More than 200 Ohioans gathered at the Ohio Statehouse on Saturday to call on U.S. Sens. Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman to support federal regulations that would attempt to curtail human-caused global warming. The regulations would impose stricter pollution limits on power plants across the nation, which Environment Ohio says are responsible for 41 percent…
Q&A with Jonathan Tyler and the Northern Lights
Jonathan Tyler and the Northern Lights (JTNL) is a Texas-born/California-based Rock band with a bluesy, rootsy edge that has been a workhorse on the road, touring anywhere and everywhere since forming in 2007. Along with tour jaunts with musical giants like ZZ Top, JTNL has also been very popular on the festival scene, every summer…
Curmudgeon Notes 11.13.13
We voted absentee before flying to Spain late last month. Home again and catching up with election results, I was impressed by the Enquirer’s pre-election link to its accumulated campaign coverage without the misery or cost of its cockamamie archives. • I went cold turkey for 10 days without Internet, radio or TV news; we…
Remembering Cairo in 1979
News continues to remind me of Cairo in 1979 where my assignment expanded to post-Camp David interviewing. Today, from every news medium I read or hear, Cairo and much of Egypt outside the capital are suffering a nasty hangover from a soured “Arab Spring.” Thirty-four years ago, I spent three weeks interviewing officials and others…
Music Tonight: PHOX
A lot of the great up-and-coming touring artists that made September’s MidPoint Music Festival one of the best yet have been building on their MPMF momentum and returning to the area. Even some of the bands that canceled their MPMF appearances have made their way back. Korea’s Love X Stereo had travel issues and missed…
REVIEW: Nico Muhly’s ‘Two Boys’ (Metropolitan Opera, New York)
The main event Thursday evening was not a part of Performa 13. Instead, the evening saw my virgin visit to the Metropolitan Opera to take in the final night of composer (and frequent Cincinnati visitor) Nico Muhly's Two Boys. Muhly became the youngest composer to be commissioned by the Met when they asked him to…
Morning News and Stuff
JobsOhio, the state-funded privatized development agency, grants more tax credits around Columbus , the state capital, than anywhere else in the state. According to The Cincinnati Enquirer , the discrepancy might be driven by Columbus’ high growth rate and the city’s proximity to the state government, which could make Columbus officials more aware of tax-credit…
City Council Seeks $30,000 for Winter Shelter
City Council’s Budget and Finance Committee on Thursday called for the city administration to locate $30,000 to help fund the winter shelter, which would push the shelter closer to the $75,000 it needs to remain open from mid-to-late December through February. The shelter currently estimates it’s at approximately $32,000 in contributions, according to Josh Spring,…
How The Enquirer Got Today’s Anti-Streetcar Story
Most Cincinnatians don’t view The Cincinnati Enquirer as a beacon of journalistic innovation, but today’s homepage headline pointing out that streetcar construction is costing the city an average of $50,000 a day was a reminder of how interested our Sole Surviving Daily is in drumming up negativity about the project. Hundreds of streetcar supporters packed…
WATCH: The MidPoint Sessions featuring The Happy Maladies
Last Friday we featured the first video from a series of clips created by The Queen City Project from footage shot at “The MidPoint Sessions,” a day party at the Art Academy of Cincinnati held during September’s MidPoint Music Festival in Over-the-Rhine/Downtown. The first clip featured Athens, Ohio’s The Ridges, who curated the acoustic performances,…
Music Tonight: Andy McKee, Shy Guy Says and More
Acoustic guitar phenom Andy McKee performs downtown tonight at the Ballroom at Taft Theatre. Admission is $18 for the 7 p.m. show which, unlike most Ballroom performances, will be a seated affair. Though he works his magic with just wood and strings, technology played a big role in McKee’s success story. About seven years ago,…
The Complete History of Comedy (abridged) (Review)
Critic's Pick Having assembled satires that distill the works of William Shakespeare, the Bible, American history, Hollywood, sports and “Great Books,” the Reduced Shakespeare Company has finally gotten around to its true subject, The Complete History of Comedy (abridged). Their philosophy: “Get in. Get the laugh. Get out.” They live by it. This is their…
Cincinnati Named Best Place to Retire
Livability.com — an online resource that explores what makes small to mid-sized cities great places to live, work and visit — has ranked Cincinnati as the No. 1 place to retire. Using data collected from their list of the Top 100 Best Places to Live (Cincy ranked 73), the editors concluded that due to our…
Your Weekend To Do List: 11/15-11/17
According to the plethora of holiday shopping commercials (which started airing before freaking Halloween), we’re apparently expected to have already begun buying gifts for the upcoming season. If you want to get a head start on shopping without supporting big box stores, check out The City Flea Small Mall at 21c Museum Hotel this Sunday.…
Stage Door: Theatre Large and Small
There's a fine community theater production of A Chorus Line at the Aronoff Center's Jarson-Kaplan Theater. It's by Cincinnati Music Theatre, and they've recruited a talented cast of dancers, singers and actors to tell the stories of 16 performers competing for roles in the chorus of a Broadway show. There are many fine performances in…
Morning News and Stuff
Supporters of the $133 million streetcar project packed Mercantile Library and Fountain Square last night to start a two-week campaign to prevent Mayor-elect John Cranley and the newly elected City Council from halting the ongoing project. The goal is to convince at least five of the nine newly elected council members to support the project.…
Streetcar Supporters Pack Mercantile Library, Fountain Square
Supporters of the $133 million streetcar project on Thursday night packed Mercantile Library and Fountain Square to start a two-week campaign that seeks to prevent the incoming mayor and City Council from canceling the ongoing project. Turnout was particularly strong as supporters reached the 200-person capacity at Mercantile Library before the event started. Another 200…
Streetcar Cancellation Would Cost Cincinnati Federal Funds
Cincinnati could lose up to $45 million in federal funds if it cancels the $133 million streetcar project, according to a new letter from the Federal Transit Administration released on Thursday by Mayor Mark Mallory. The letter confirms much of what was stated in a previous June 19 letter to Mallory, and it presumably acts…
PREVIEW: Friday and Saturday’s Ubahn Fest
This weekend brings the uniquely “underground” Ubahn Fest to downtown Cincinnati. The two-day music festival (its name a play on the German word for underground rapid transit systems) features a mix of Electronic music, DJs and Hip Hop artists, including many local and regional performers. Ubahn is a collaboration between the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber,…
City Council Accepts City Manager’s Resignation
City Council on Thursday accepted City Manager Milton Dohoney’s resignation, setting the stage for the end of more than seven years of service that fostered Cincinnati’s nationally recognized economic turnaround, the $133 million streetcar project and the controversial parking plan. The request comes just one day after Mayor-elect John Cranley announced Dohoney’s resignation. Cranley says…
REVIEW: Performa 13 (Part Two)
Another Performa show, another mesmerizing experience. But we'll get to that. While my nights are reserved for performances, the days allow me an opportunity to put some miles on my MTA card, shuttling around the city to meet people in various outposts. Wednesday morning saw me grab breakfast and coffee with artist Roberto Lange, a…
Bill Would Stop Insurers From Offering Abortion Coverage
Union Township Rep. John Becker doesn't exactly have a history of standing up for causes CityBeat agrees with, and this week we're seeing more of the same. He's the voice behind another Republican-backed bill introduced Nov. 14, that, if passed, would introduce regulations that would ban most public and private health insurance policies, including Medicaid,…
Music Tonight: Stepdad, Sonny Landreth, Jaheim and More
Buoyant Electro Pop group Stepdad pulls into MOTR Pub in Over-the-Rhine tonight. The free show kicks off around 10 p.m. with locals Halvsies. Stepdad was formed in Chicago in 2009 by frontman Mark “Ultramark” Tafel and his roommate, Ryan McCarthy. The duo — which has grown Stepdad into a five-piece band over time — soon…
‘Pioneer Woman’ Cooking Star Ree Drummond Visits Joseph-Beth
Food Network TV star and New York Times best-selling author Ree Drummond, better known as the Pioneer Woman, visits Joseph-Beth to discuss and sign her latest cookbook: Pioneer Woman Cooks: A Year of Holidays: 140 Step-by-Step Recipes for Simple, Scrumptious Celebrations. Drummond's life and TV cooking show, The Pioneer Woman, take place in the kitchen…
Morning News and Stuff
Supporters of the streetcar project are rallying in a last-stand effort to save the streetcar from an incoming city government that’s threatening to cancel the project. Supporters plan to meet today in a town hall-style meeting at 7 p.m. at the Mercantile Library, 414 Walnut St. #1100, downtown Cincinnati. Some of the supporters of the…
REVIEW: Performa 13 (Part One)
Arriving in New York for a work-related trip always causes my nerves to stand at full attention. I typically overcomplicate my schedule with back-to-back caffeine dates in different neighborhoods, or try and sneak in one more performance than would be wise. At the same time, I know when I'm back here that I'm going to…
Penis Sighting at Nippert Stadium
UPDATED 3:29 P.M. "This definitely puts Nippert Stadium in a hard place.""He just wanted to stick it to the man.""Hopefully the dean doesn't blow up in his face." — Staff writer German Lopez UPDATED 3:28 P.M. "If that prankster doesn't keep it up, he might just get off with a warning." — Hannah McCartney UPDATED…
Two New Domestic Violence Laws Join Others in Ohio House
Two bills discussed today at a hearing of the Ohio House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee would, if passed, offer greater protections to victims of domestic violence and extend them more legal rights to protect their employment, housing and financial livelihood. Those bills will join H.B. 243 and H.B. 160, which are still awaiting hearings before…
David Wolfenberger Returns to the Stage Tonight
Outside of singing at his church occasionally, brilliant Americana singer/songwriter David Wolfenberger hasn’t performed in the area for quite some time. After working with the group The Marshwiggles in the late ’90s, Wolfenberger put out three stellar solo albums between1999-2006, earning him high praise both domestically and abroad. But besides occasional performances and scant new…
Kill Your Darlings
As literary advice, the notion that beleaguered writers must be willing to “kill your darlings” in order to find the truth in a passage or overall story is daring indeed. Striking that lovely line, crafted with such care and infused with panache, might just sink the whole piece, or it could guarantee a myth for…
Great Expectations
Like William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, Great Expectations from Charles Dickens seems to bubble up once every generation or so, offering an adaptive look at our times. This time, the reliable Brit Mike Newell (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Love in the Time of Cholera) takes the helm as yet another young orphaned…
Biblical Bruce, Bad Lyrics Sites and a Jagged Little Musical
HOT Bruce and The Bible Since Bruce Springsteen is a god in New Jersey, it’s not shocking that the state’s Rutgers University is offering a theology class based on the biblical references in The Boss’ song lyrics. Taught by an associate professor of Jewish studies (and, obviously, a huge Springsteen fan), the course examines Bible…
Blue is the Warmest Color
The coming-of-age narrative tends to come alive for audiences in its reflection and recollection for us of situations and memories that simply cannot be denied. We long to relive our own experiences seemingly mirrored on the screen, but something quite startlingly different happens in Abdellatif Kechiche’s Palme d’Or winner (with prizes going to the director…
The Best Man Holiday
Writer-director Malcolm D. Lee gathers all of the usual suspects from his breakout comedy The Best Man for a follow-up that reunites them 15 years later at a holiday gathering that promises to rekindle all of the drama from the first go-around. It looks like some unhealthy melodrama creeps into the proceedings here, but with…
‘Charlie Countryman’ Finds Love and Trouble Abroad
What are we supposed to expect from a character named Charlie Countryman played by Shia LaBeouf? Sure, LaBeouf sports a ratty hipster beard and stringy, unwashed dark locks and displays the unfortunate penchant of baring his body at the drop of a hat, which means he’s wandering down a decidedly different and more unsavory path…
Ubahn Gives Hip Hop and EDM Fans a Fest of Their Own
This Friday and Saturday, a new music festival will take place in Cincinnati’s (literal) underground, as the unique Ubahn Fest makes its debut. The two-day music festival (its name a play on the German word for underground rapid transit systems) features a mix of Electronic music, DJs and Hip Hop artists, including many local and…
Cincinnati’s Brewing Renaissance
What began with local brewer Davis Embree’s first commercial draft beer in 1812 blazed the trail for beer barons like Christian Moerlein (1853), Hudepohl (1885) and Wiedemann (1870). By 1860, Ohio was the third-largest brewer in the nation. Twelve years later, breweries in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky numbered 38. And by 1890, with a population…
Lizzy Caplan Shines as ’50s Sex Researcher
Combining dramatized history, a late-’50s American setting and the topic of sex is guaranteed to attract an audience to nearly any show. But Masters of Sex (10 p.m. Sundays, Showtime) delivers beyond these popular tropes to explore the real-life early scientific study of human sexuality. The show’s title borrows the name of Dr. Bill Masters…
A ‘Superunknown’ Impulse Binds Neo-Folk Artists
Northside’s Thunder-Sky, Inc. wrestles with the term “outsider” art. Though it’s a marketable label, it can heap sometimes-false assumptions upon artists. They’re presumed to be uneducated, untrained, isolated, developmentally disabled and/or indifferent to profit. Thunder-Sky, Inc. co-founders Keith Banner and Bill Ross prefer “unconventional” to describe the works. But an appetite for definitive labels persists.…
Cincinnati vs. the World 11.13.2013
Covington, Ky. liquor store Cork ’N Bottle removed the graffiti works from art collective The London Police, brought to the store last year with the help of local design agency BLDG, a day after BLDG owner Mike Amann died from a years-long battle with neuroendocrine cancer. CINCINNATI -2 A old, white, anti-gay Republican narrowly won…
Local Frame Sellers Make the Most of Abandoned Warehouse Surplus
It’s a shopping experience that will leave you with a trunkload of antique décor, a minor dent in your wallet and a lot of dust on your hands. Since August of this year, Janet Baltzersen and her team of friends and family have been holding monthly open houses to showcase and sell a staggering number…
A Brother and a Sister in Arms (Veterans Day Flashback)
My father had three school-aged young boys and a young daughter by two women when he met and married my mother. My mother raised those four children while having and rearing three children of her own. All three black boys in that first set served this country: one in the Navy, one in the Air…
Winter Shelter Still Needs $43,000 to Open in December
Cincinnati’s winter shelter for the homeless might not be able to open until mid-January if it doesn’t get more contributions, says Josh Spring, executive director of the Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition. That means hundreds of homeless people could be left out in the cold — literally — for at least a month longer than usual…
Cock-and-Bull Stories
Know Theatre is typically the last of our local professional theaters out of the gate in the fall. It takes the small company a while to recuperate from the Fringe Festival, from being a venue for the MidPoint Music Festival and from the numerous other activities they host at their Jackson Street venue in Over-the-Rhine.…
The Glass Is Half Full, Or at Least Not Empty
Passionately rooting for local sports franchises, chili and other things that people hate on make up significant parts of Cincinnati’s character and the identity of its citizens. Regardless of which part of the city people were born in or where they reside today, they harbor deep allegiances to some local teams and unshakable intolerance for…
Parking Plan Called Off
Mayor-elect John Cranley, the newly elected City Council and the Greater Cincinnati Port Authority on Nov. 12 agreed to eliminate the city’s plan to lease its parking meters, lots and garages to the Port Authority once newly elected officials take office in December. But it remains unclear how much it will cost to terminate the…
Halting Progress
O ver-the-Rhine businesses and residents are organizing with supporters of the $133 million streetcar project in a last-stand effort to stop the newly elected city government from halting construction on the project, which would link Over-the-Rhine and downtown in a 3.6-mile loop. Within days of voters ushering John Cranley and an anti-streetcar supermajority into City…
In Living Color
I f I were to recommend just one show at a regional art museum right now, it would be the Matisse, Life in Color: Masterworks from the Baltimore Museum of Art exhibition at the Indianapolis Museum of Art through Jan. 12, 2014. With more than 100 artworks — paintings, sculpture, prints and artist books —…
Worst Week Ever!: Nov. 6-12
City to Build Entire Streetcar Before Cranley Takes Office Anti-streetcar champion John Cranley might have won the mayor’s office in a landslide victory on Nov. 5, but the city administration today proved that it won’t let go of its streetcar project without a fight, if by fight you mean a minimally increased cancellation cost and…
Soulbird Soars Again
A bout 13 years ago, India.Arie was on top of the music world. Her unique singing voice and the earthy grooves found on her debut album, Acoustic Soul, led to seven Grammy nominations in 2001. Famously, she didn’t win a single award that year. Still, she was on a roll. She had arrived. Arie would…
Morning News and Stuff
Mayor-elect John Cranley and the newly elected City Council announced on Tuesday that, upon taking office in December, they will terminate the city’s plan to lease its parking meters, lots and garages to the Greater Cincinnati Port Authority , following an agreement with the Port Authority to hold off on a bond sale that would…
UPDATE: Cork ‘N Bottle Removes London Police Mural
UPDATE: Cork ‘N Bottle has reached out to BLDG and the public to apologize for the removal of The London Police mural made possible by BLDG and Mike Amann, who passed away Sunday. Cork ‘N Bottle’s Tim Hue met with BLDG owners to apologize for the unfortunate timing of the mural removal. The company says…
