Queer City Spotlight: The Jenner Interview
Disclaimer: Although Jenner gave ABC, some news outlets and Jenner’s family permission to use "he," "him" and "his" pronouns until people become comfortable with the change, I am using gender neutral pronouns "they," "them" and "their "and dropping Jenner’s first name out of respect to an individual that has dealt being misgendered for a large…
Be Your Own Sausage King
Cincinnati knows sausage. Because of our German heritage and historical link to the hog industry — certainly you’ve heard the nickname Porkopolis bandied about — we’ve gotten pretty used to all manner of pork products playing a strong role in our diet. It also helps that we’ve had a butcher like Avril-Bleh supplying us with…
Sundry and Vice (Profile)
You know Cincinnati is becoming more of a destination city when people from larger cities start moving here to open businesses, which is exactly the case with the new apothecary themed Over-the-Rhine cocktail bar Sundry and Vice — “sundry” as in pharmacy and “vice” as in, well, drinking and druggin’. Two of the three owners…
Music: Peelander-Z
Japanese music culture has always been adept at absorbing Western musical forms and translating them into familiar but distinctly new concepts. Shonen Knife may have begun as a de facto Ramones tribute, but the band has grown into a unique sonic entity that embraces all genres and reconfigures them into its own singular sound. Given…
Music: Wilco and Steve Gunn
Chicago has given us many things over the years. Awesome pizza. Billy Corgan. The Cubs, who will always do worse than the Reds. And each winter a chance to look at the weather report and not feel quite as downtrodden about “all the snow” that we get. Chicago’s greatest gift to the world, however, came…
Music: Jayme Stone’s Lomax Project
The idea behind Jayme Stone’s all-star group, Lomax Project, is so brilliant it leads one to wonder why no one has thought of it before. Alan Lomax was the legendary song-catcher and in-the-field recorder who went out into rural areas, wrong sides of the tracks and the outskirts of America in the ’30s, ’40s and…
Event: Savor the Season: Farm to Fork Celebration
The phrase “farm-to-table” gets a literal translation at Gorman Heritage Farm’s annual Savor the Season celebration Saturday. This epicurean adventure, in partnership with Slow Food Cincinnati, focuses on reveling in spring’s bounty from the 122-acre working farm and farms around the area. Top local chefs — including Jose Salazar of Salazar, Allison Hines of Butcher…
Event: Derby Day Soiree
The Kentucky Derby takes a two-minute race and turns it into a weekend of festivities throughout Louisville — drinking signature cocktails, exclusive parties and many out-of-town celebrity guests in elaborate millinery. But why should Louisvillians have all the fun? Neons is gathering Cincinnatians together to craft derby hats, sip on three different kinds of juleps…
Event: GeoFair
The 50th annual GeoFair is Cincinnati’s largest gem, mineral, fossil and jewelry show. This year’s theme is “American Mineral and Fossil Treasures,” with displays containing private, university and museum-quality specimens, along with vendors and wholesalers, a swap area and free fossil, meteorite, mineral and gemstone identification. Demonstrations include gold panning, geode cracking and gemstone polishing.…
Event: Cincy-Cinco Fiesta on Fountain Square
Celebrate Cinco de Mayo with the Fiesta on Fountain Square. This authentic Latino festival is designed to share all aspects of Latin American culture, values and traditions with the Cincinnati community in a fun, family-oriented event. Live entertainment throughout the weekend includes performances from Latin band Tropicoso, Cincinnati Balia Dance Academy, Mariachi Zelaya and more,…
Art: V+V Teaching Artist Program Graduation Ceremony
Visionaries + Voices will celebrate the graduation of this semester’s Teaching Artist Program students with a ceremony and exhibition at their Northside location. As part of the program, V+V provides artists who attend the studio with opportunities to present their work and teach in community and classroom settings. These teaching artists go through a rigorous…
Onstage: The Music Man
As Hugh Jackman declared in his 2009 Oscars performance, “The musical is back!” Musicals and movie-musicals have lodged themselves in the mainstream consciousness though film productions like Les Miserables (in which the aforementioned Jackman starred) and Into The Woods (an Oscar-nominated adaptation of the Sondheim classic) and various frequent Broadway touring productions, like those at…
Art: Cheap AAArt
Local artist and curator Paul Coors (an Art Academy of Cincinnati grad and co-founder of former OTR art space Publico) will exhibit and host a silent auction — with assigned low starting figures and minimum raises — of his own artwork made within the past 10 years on Friday and Saturday at his Brighton loft/exhibition…
This Week’s Dining and Food Events
Events, tastings, classes and more to feed your inner foodie. WEDNESDAY APRIL 29 Oyster Festival — Washington Platform’s Oyster Festival features more than 40 different oyster menu items. Through May 2. Prices vary. Washington Platform Saloon and Restaurant, 1000 Elm St., Downtown, washingtonplatform.com. Wine Down Wednesdays — The sixth annual Wine Down Wednesday at Greenacres…
Attractions: Zoo Babies
Celebrate the newest arrivals at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden during the entire month of May, where you'll find the cutest baby faces from all over the globe. Follow the six-foot-tall pink and blue stork statues displayed throughout the zoo to lead you to baby African lions, penguin chicks, bonobo monkeys, a whole litter…
Sports: Flying Pig Weekend
On your mark, get set and go to the 17th annual Flying Pig Marathon. Come and see thousands of runners and walkers of all skill levels take part in this beloved race (a Boston Marathon qualifier). Stand on the sidelines and cheer or register and take part in a course that travels along the streets…
Comedy: Andy Kindler
“For the last couple of hours I’ve been arguing with right-wingers on Twitter,” says comedian Andy Kindler from his home in Los Angeles. “I can’t help myself.” Kindler is still puzzled by the amount of disrespect some show toward the President. “With Clinton, I knew it was all BS — why they tried to impeach…
Onstage: The Sound of Music
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s great musical theater collaboration — The Sound of Music — has been in the news recently, celebrating the Academy Award-winning movie’s 50th anniversary. If you’d like to dig further into the past (56 years ago it won five Tony Awards in its Broadway debut), you’ll find it onstage at the Covedale Center.…
Morning News and Stuff
Good morning y’all. Here’s the news today. There are a ton of things happening, so I’m just going to give you a brief rundown of them all. A controversial Ohio marijuana legalization effort has a new booster. Cincinnati State Technical and Community College President Dr. O’dell Owens announced yesterday that he supports a ballot initiative…
Onstage: Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike
Playwright Christopher Durang, now 66, has kept audiences laughing with his absurdist, provocative writing. His most recent work, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, winner of the 2013 Tony and Drama Desk awards for best play, has been the most produced play on American stages for two seasons with nearly 40 theaters presenting it. …
Sports: Workout on the Green
Time to wear your leggings for something other than brunch/work/grocery shopping/sleeping/etc.: Washington Park’s free summer workout series is back. Head to the main lawn on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings for two different instructor-led classes. On Tuesday, it’s total body sculpting with the YMCA followed by boot camp with FitNext. On Wednesday, there’s Pilates with CORE…
Music: Arkells
Five-piece AltRock band Arkells aren’t household names in the U.S., but just north of the border in their homeland of Canada, the group is among the country’s current big-name domestic acts. One listen to the band’s 2014 full-length, High Noon, shows that stateside success is well within reach for Arkells. The band boasts a sound…
Music: Nicki Bluhm & The Gramblers
If you're starting with Nicki Bluhm & The Gramblers' latest album, the just released Loved Wild Lost, you've been drawn into a Country/Roots/Pop/Rock maelstrom that suggests Grace Potter and the Nocturnals if they'd been raised on the Bakersfield sound and dreamy California Folk/Rock, translated with a contemporary ass-kick. You'd then work back to The Gramblers'…
Art: Albano Afonso: Self-Portrait as Light
Light acts as a talisman in Albano Afonso: Self-Portrait as Light, the Brazilian artist’s first solo U.S. show. Flashes conceal the artist’s face in portraits he photographed while standing before a mirror. His hands appear to hold a mystical orb that both illuminates and obscures. Light is what creates a photograph and enables our eyes…
Art: Remember the Future
Daniel Arsham’s Remember the Future is anchored by a gray mountain of hundreds upon hundreds of pop culture artifacts cast from volcanic ash, obsidian, quartz and glacial rock. Yet colorful, not-so-distant memories stir as the viewer circles the heap and notices boom boxes, video game controllers, keyboards, cameras, turntables, guitars, film reels and videotapes. Arsham also…
Leftovers: What We Ate This Weekend
Ilene Ross: Thursday night is one of the best nights to head to The Anchor-OTR — not that there’s a bad night — but on Thursday, it’s "Oyster Mania," when oysters are a buck a piece. So a friend and I split a dozen oysters, some grilled octopus and a whole branzino with salt-roasted potatoes.…
Morning News and Stuff
Hey all. Looks like a good number of folks out there have read our big feature on a group of refugees struggling and building community in the often-forgotten Millvale and North Fairmount area. If you haven’t gone and checked it out, you should. The folks we talked to for this story are brave, kind and…
Call Board: Coming Attractions for Cincinnati Theatergoers
Get your calendars read for another avalanche of shows from local theaters. Know Theatre just announced its 2015-2016 season, and several others have done the same recently, so you’ll find everything rounded up in this “Call Board” blog for CityBeat theater fans. Nearly two dozen full-scale shows and a handful of other events are headed…
People’s Liberty Announces 2015 Spring Project Grants
People’s Liberty, a local group that describes itself as a “philanthropic lab that brings together civic-minded talent to address challenges and uncover opportunities to accelerate the positive transformation of Greater Cincinnati,” has announced eight new grantees who will receive help and funding from the organization for their various project proposals. The group previously announced two…
Seeking Refuge
Nestled just below the hills marking Cincinnati’s West Side and just above the trains humming and screeching through the industrial Mill Creek Valley lie a series of small communities far removed from the bustle of redevelopment currently lighting up downtown. Just off Beekman Street, which passes through these enclaves to the west of the…
Moby Dick Symposium Starts Today at CAM
Tonight at 6:30 p.m., Cincinnati Art Museum will host a symposium on Moby-Dick: How a 19th Century Novel Speaks to the 21st Century. This free event features Elizabeth Schultz, author of Unpainted to the Last; Samuel Otter, editor of Leviathan; Matt Kish, author of Moby-Dick in Pictures, and Emma Rose Thompson of Northern Kentucky University. The…
Stage Door: Searing Drama and Silly Comedy
A group you might not have heard of, Diogenes Theatre Company, is establishing a solid reputation with its recent production of Twilight: Los Angeles 1992 and its current staging of Ariel Dorfman's Death and the Maiden, featuring three professional actors you will know if you're a regular Cincinnati theatergoer. It's an award-winning moral thriller that explores…
Early-Bird MidPoint Music Festival Tickets Now On Sale
A limited amount of early-bird passes to the 2015 MidPoint Music Festival are on sale now. Tickets good for all three days of the fest are available for $69, while V.I.P. passes are only $149. Once this first batch of passes is gone, weekend passes will be $79 (and $179 for V.I.P.s) through Labor Day, when…
Forgotten Classics: Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier
We all have that one Disney movie that we love dearly. The one film that, despite whatever age we are, we can watch and enjoy. For me there are several that meet that criteria: The Three Caballeros (1945), Beauty and the Beast (1991), The Great Mouse Detective (1986) and countless others. But the one film…
Morning News and Stuff
Hello Cincy. You know what time it is. Yep, news time. It’s become a dependable, even comforting, routine. On Thursday mornings, I sit down and tell you all about the ways in which City Council bickered over the streetcar in its Wednesday meeting. The tradition continues. A discussion yesterday about proposed Over-the-Rhine parking plans, which…
Roughly Hewn Since 1965
I like to think my father caught my mother on the basement steps, maybe as she was coming up with a clean load of laundry, on the landing to the back door where there would have been just the right ambient lighting coming through the door’s top pane. And no kids running through or teenagers…
Worst Week Ever! April 15-21
Black Person Elected Mayor in Missouri Town, Cops Resign Missouri keeps on making the news in ways that portray the Show Me State as a place where it seems like all it specializes in is showing the rest of the world that race relations within its borders seem to be similar to how they were…
Check It Out
“Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.” Updated, that ancient caution could warn, “Journalists whom the gods would destroy, they first afflict with hubris.” The antidote is skepticism and discipline. Together, they embrace the ethical obligation to “check it out.” The Internet and social media haven’t changed that if we’re talking about…
The Water Diviner
Academy Award-winning actor Russell Crowe assumes double duty on both sides of the camera with The Water Diviner, the tale of an Australian farmer (Crowe) who, after the Battle of Gallipoli in 1915, ventures to Turkey to discover what happened to his three missing sons who fought in the conflict. It is intriguing to watch…
The Salt of the Earth
Photographer Sebastião Salgado, a 40-year veteran in the field with experience capturing international conflicts, the face of global starvation and heartbreaking exoduses, shifts his focus to the discovery of new and untouched lands with wild fauna and flora, where he endeavors to pay tribute to the grand vistas and forgotten treasures of the planet. Through…
The Principle
The question regarding our place (and by extension the planet Earth’s) in the universe has never truly been explained, at least not satisfactorily and it appears that a new round of investigation may further alter our perceptions. The Principle, from writer Rick DeLano and director Katheryne Thomas, presents new scientific evidence that challenges the assumptions…
Monsters: Dark Continent
In Monsters (2010), Earth and its inhabitants struggled to deal with the aftermath of an alien invasion, which was concentrated in Central America, despite America and Mexico’s best efforts to contain the infected zone. Now, 10 years later, infected zones have popped up all over the globe with a new insurgency in the Middle East,…
Little Boy
It seems like the scheduling team missed an opportunity with the release of Little Boy, from co-writer (with Pepe Portillo) and director Alejandro Monteverde (Bella), a story bathed in the endearing and enduring love between a father (Michael Rapaport) and a young son (Jakob Salvati) forced apart due to World War II. A great and…
Ex Machina
Writer-director Alex Garland (writer-producer of 28 Days Later and Sunshine) engineers a film in Ex Machina that speaks to the astronomically escalating advances of technology and its impact on our understanding of what it means to be human in a future that doesn’t seem that far removed from the present. Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson), a shy…
The Age of Adaline
For more literary-minded moviegoers, the premise of The Age of Adaline might draw comparisons to novelist Pete Hamill’s Forever, which does not serve as the basis for the ABC television series of the same name despite the fact that the show bears an uncanny resemblance to the book. The overall point here is all about…
Hit and a Miss: NKU’s Y.E.S. Festival
Northern Kentucky University’s 17th biennial Year End Series (Y.E.S.) Festival began last week and continues through April 26. According to NKU professor Sandra Forman, who oversees the project every two years, no other university in America undertakes a festival on this scale. It began in 1980 after several NKU theater professors attended an early iteration…
This Week’s Dining and Food Events
A beer festival at Listermann Brewing Company, a wine festival in Milford, a food truck competition and the Midwest Culinary Institute at Cincinnati State's annual 1 Night 12 Kitchens bash. Plus, Northside's new Urban Artifact brewery opens Monday. WEDNESDAY APRIL 22 Rhinegeist Beer Dinner at Moerlein — The Moerlein Lager House presents a paired beer…
Morning News and Stuff
Good morning! News time. Here’s a juicy story involving alleged sabotage, political intrigue and weed. A marijuana legalization group called Ohio Rights Group filed a complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission last week alleging that ResponsibleOhio, another legalization effort, sabotaged its campaign to get a pro-marijuana law on Ohio’s ballot. The filing says that ResponsibleOhio’s…
Too Much of a Good Thing
The third play in Northern Kentucky University’s biennial Year End Series (Y.E.S.) Festival is David L. Williams' The Divine Visitor. (In addition to this production, the 17th biennial festival is presenting Colin Speers Crowley’s Encore, Encore, about legendary wit and caustic critic Dorothy Parker, and Joe Starzyk’s It’s a Grand Night for Murder, a murder…
Damage Looms in the ‘Clouds of Sils Maria’
Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche) lives in rare air. She is an accomplished actress on both stage and screen, beautiful and recognizable by those within the industry — the power players who matter most, especially when it comes to casting. This means she doesn’t have to audition; producers and directors seek her out. They come to…
Cameras Out = No Neko
HOT: Cameras Out = No Neko Two years ago we reported on singer/songwriter Neko Case’s Cincinnati concert and some contentious moments with the audience during which Case intermittently stopped the show to chastise smartphone photo-takers. Case hasn’t given up her crusade against chronic smartphone abuse. According to reports it was one fan at a Portland…
Stranger Than Fiction, Funnier Than Reality
Comedians playing fictional versions of themselves on scripted television is nothing new — just ask Lucille Ball or Jerry Seinfeld — but it’s certainly a hot trend right now. Louis C.K.’s Louie is a prime example, but there’s also Abbi and Ilana of Broad City, Matt LeBlanc in Episodes, Marc Maron in Maron and Jim…
MidPoint Indie Summer Lineup Showcases Locals and Much More
The lineup for this year’s MidPoint Indie Summer concert series was recently announced. Along with a slew of solid local acts (including headliners who’ve garnered national attention, like Wussy, Buffalo Killers and Tweens), this year’s free Friday night concerts at downtown’s Fountain Square will feature more big name national acts than ever before. Here’s the…
CAC Takes Audiences Into the Deep, Dark Woods
Want to take a contemplative walk in the woods? The Contemporary Arts Center is offering a chance to see nature in a new light — or darkness — on Friday and Saturday. CAC Performance Curator Drew Klein is presenting two evenings of Night Tripper, an award-winning work of performance art from Norway that’s been staged…
How to Collect Art in a ‘Share’ Economy
The role of art collecting in the emerging (and possibly illusory) “sharing economy” has yet to be set, but the local experiments with community ownership/financing of artworks keep growing. The two local community supported art (CSA) groups — C-S-Arts Cincinnati and The Carnegie CSA — have both announced plans for 2015 after their first seasons…
Peter Hook & the Light: A Joy Division Celebration
For show-going Indie Rock fans and show-playing Indie Rock bands alike, 2004-2015 (and counting) has been a goldmine. In the past decade or so, Pixies, Pavement, Pulp, The Stone Roses, Archers of Loaf and The Replacements have been some of the many outfits that have returned for shows and, less often, recordings. But what of…
Drawing on the Walls
T he Cincinnati Art Museum’s most recent renovation, the Rosenthal Education Center, built just to the left of the Great Hall, is bright, open and cheerful. “Color” is the theme of the 2,300-square-foot space’s first installation (there will be three rotating installations a year) engaging “children of all ages” in the CAM’s permanent collection with…
Strung Out with Red City Radio, La Armada and The Lockland Brakes
Punk was always intended to be fast, loose and fleeting; The Ramones didn’t have a pension plan. Neil Young wasn’t wrong when he noted that it’s better to burn out than to fade away and yet, for every band like The Sex Pistols that existed for a moment in the sun, there’s a band like…
Sphynx with Multimagic
Austin, Texas, Electro Pop trio Sphynx makes magnetic, jubilant noise — ’80s-tinted but also rooted in contemporary sounds like EDM and Indie Pop. Like a mix of Chromeo and MGMT at their grooviest, Sphynx’s music is a call to the cool kids to put down their phones and get on the dance floor. And the…
Barrence Whitfield & the Savages with The Sonics
Barrence Whitfield is the rare vocalist that comes around as infrequently as a December hurricane, with the same power and surprise. But Whitfield will tell you himself that a frontman is nothing without the right backing, and the best foil for the frenetic vocalist has always been guitarist Peter Greenberg. Whitfield and Greenberg met as…
Hooked on Sonics
If there is ever a contest to declare The Great American Rock Band, past or present, The Sonics should be high in the running. True, The Beach Boys or R.E.M. or Nirvana are better known and had greater immediate impact, but The Sonics — in the best American tradition — turned their weaknesses into strengths…
Naked & (Un)afraid
There’s something to be said about a person who has gotten hundreds of strangers to pose nude in public for photos and yet doesn’t come off as creepy. But when you’re balancing on a trashcan mid-day in downtown Cincinnati, trying to get a decent shot of four naked people walking alongside the Contemporary Arts Center,…
City to Ask Feds for Bike Path Grant
The city of Cincinnati plans to apply for federal grants to build a network of bike trails branching off the proposed Wasson Way route. The city is preparing to apply for Transit Investment Generating Economic Recovery, or TIGER grants, that would help finance the network of commuter bike paths. The U.S. Department of Transportation has…
Gov. Kasich Creates Fundraising Org for Potential Presidential Run
Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s campaign registered with the IRS a nonprofit April 20 called A New Day for America, officially setting up the fundraising organization for the Republican’s nascent presidential bid. The so-called 527 group, named for the section of the IRS tax code that governs political campaign nonprofits, has some heavy hitters on its…
City Council Calls for Report on Phase 1B of Streetcar
Cincinnati City Council April 15 passed a resolution asking the city administration to draw up a report on possible funding sources for the planning and construction of phase 1B of the city’s streetcar. The relatively small step caused a firestorm of controversy, illustrating how politically divisive the transit project remains. The motion, authored by City…
Turning Tide
Over the past few years, America has seen dynamic changes when it comes to same-sex marriage. Federal court rulings have extended marriage equality to a majority of states, and now a series of cases to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court involving Ohio and three other states could be the issue’s most definitive national…
