Batman vs. Mad Men
I can mark my life as a Baby Boomer — and maybe, too, our changing society — by the ongoing waves of cultural impact Batman has had. As Boomers have grown into adults, Batman has stayed with us as an icon worthy of discussion and analysis. But now, while the latest Caped Crusader juggernaut, the…
The Road to a Transparent Peace
"I am exactly like you! I hate my house more and more because it is becoming for me an island," artist Saad Ghosn says during a recent interview. "I come here … I am so angry with everything that is going on in society. I come here … I isolate myself." If you know of…
Thistle (Profile)
It's been said that being in a band is a lot like being married. If that's the case, thistle is celebrating their crystal anniversary as a Post-Punk power trio with the release of their latest and consistently excellent full length, The Small Hours. A decade and a half after coalescing as a high school diversion,…
Summer Vacation and a Pilgrimage of Trust
I've been on lots of roads trips, but none of them compare to the Walnut Hills Fellowship's recent weekend journey to Chicago. Start to finish, it was a thing of rare beauty. We'd been talking about it for months, but I think most of our neighborhood friends didn't really believe it was going to happen.…
Nanette Burstein discusses her glossy documentary American Teen
High school is a crazy, emotionally volatile time in a young person's life. Filmmaker Nanette Burstein (The Kid Stays in the Picture) was determined to capture this pivotal moment in her new documentary, American Teen, which generated a fair amount of buzz at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Slick to the point of being borderline…
Andy Warhol Does Ohio
This fall, Andy Warhol is continuing to make his ubiquitous pop-art presence felt in Ohio, some 21 years after his death. A new round of local Warholmania is coming, just in time for what would have been his 80th birthday — he was born Aug. 6, 1928, in Pittsburgh. It started here in Cincinnati in…
Nunsense (Review)
Even when Nunsense was new and fresh — in 1985 — I found its punning, pseudo-religious humor to be labored. But it has its charms, especially as a gee-whiz, let's-put-on-a-show kind of entertainment. That's pretty much what guest director Ty Yadzinski and his spirited cast have created with Jersey Productions' second show of the summer,…
Music: Out of the Garden
Chris Cornell has a problem. For the rest of us, having a problem usually means trouble paying our bills, maybe filling our tanks. But for Cornell, he just can't figure out what to play onstage for his fans since his fans sometimes aren't even sure exactly who he is to them. Is he the frontman…
MidPoint Music Festival FAQs
In just over a month, the streets of downtown and Over-the-Rhine (and one stage in Newport) will be jumping with local, regional, national and international musical artists as the annual MidPont Music Festival returns (Sept. 25-27). Here are some of the latest updates, in FAQ form.
Choosing to Ride the Bus
People always want to extend their sympathies to me when I tell them I got where I was going by riding a Metro bus. Maybe I'm poor, can't get my car fixed, don't have a car, don't have a driver's license or have some other reason that I'm down on my luck and must abide…
Armor For Sleep, Peter Mulvey
Armor For Sleep with the Projekt Revolution Tour Friday
Bouchard’s Anything’s Pastable (Lunch Review)
Consider the pastabilities of lunch at Findlay Market. There are lots of options, but the newest is Bouchard's Anything's Pastable at the Elm Street end of the Market house (513-381-5838). Renee Bouchard, whose son is the chef at Reserve at Newport on the Levee, is a pretty darn good cook herself and an incredible baker.…
Babies and Strollers
I live in Westwood these days but still find myself downtown often. On this particular Friday afternoon, I'm on a No. 6 bus heading in that direction. The bus goes down Queen City Avenue toward Fairmount. I can't help but notice some of the people who get on, especially the women with strollers. They lift…
Comic Book Tattoo elaborates graphically on Tori Amos’ narratives
It's seldom that two parts of my personality are reconciled in one medium, especially the highly questionable parts. I wear many of my tastes and opinions directly on my sleeve, but I choose not to air all of my dirty laundry for fear of being branded "one of those guys." If the world knew I…
Tony’s on the River (Review)
Critic's Pick He doesn't look like Matt Damon, but Tony DeFrancesco could teach the Talented Mr. Ripley a thing or two about playing multiple roles on a Tuesday night in a semi-full restaurant on the Ohio River, all while dodging the path of a mewing, schizophrenic cat in heat. The night we shuffled into Tony's…
Cloud Tectonics (Review)
One character asks, "When did we meet?" A simple question, right? Not so in Cloud Tectonics, a 75-minute 1995 Jose Rivera script that Transit Five Productions is premiering locally at Xavier University studio theater. Three characters — pregnant Celestina (Julia Albain) and two brothers, Anibal (Jonathan Helvey) and Nelson (Drew Tholke) — coexist but in…
Where Are the Dog Days?
The cooler weather has screwed up my internal calendar, and the kids are headed back to school next week. Is summer over already? It seems to me that summers are shorter these days. Maybe time is just flying by quicker as I get older. When I was a kid — way back in the previous…
Rev Run & Justine Simmons, getting scared by ‘Blue Velvet,’ Macabre, Black Family Reunion, lots of art openings and much more
WEDNESDAY 8/13 ART: ART ACADEMY Christa Dalien's newly opened exhibition of works on paper entitled Not Fade Away runs smoothly across the walls of the Art Academy of Cincinnati's Convergys Gallery. Botany (including both indoor and outdoor plants) is delicately rendered in colored pencil and acrylic, set against quirky tessellations and brightly colored abstract mounds…
Another seven days of spying, cheating and illegal touching
WEDNESDAY AUG. 6 A couple of anti-violence groups found out last week that one of their higher-ups doesn't even care about stopping gun violence and sells their anti-gun plans to the National Rifle Association. According to the liberal investigative magazine Mother Jones, 62-year-old Mary Lou McFate — an unpaid board member of anti-violence organization CeaseFirePA…
Barney Fife Visits Hamilton County
Rogelio Santana's story is sad and frustrating on multiple levels. The Cincinnati Enquirer last week reported the details of how Santana, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, was wheeled away from a nursing home by relatives instead of facing charges for allegedly robbing a Westwood convenience store in November. Santana, 27, was confined to a wheelchair…
Tribal Belly Dance class offers an exotic world of coordination, connection and community
Editor's note: This is the second installment of a three-part series highlighting dance classes offered around town. I feel I have entered another world. It's a peaceful oasis draped in multihued kaleidoscopic batik tapestries — on walls and covering some comfy-looking furniture. It's a good-sized room with open floor space, mirrors along one wall and…
When Bad People Do Great Good
With the admission of Jonathan Edwards' adultery in 2006, many are speaking as if he's a completely useless man. Edwards did more damage to himself than to anyone else. Certainly he hurt his wife, and he deserves blame for this; he also let down his loyal followers. But his error does nothing to neutralize the…
China Offers Amazing Window into Its Culture Via Olympics
Like no other event that takes place in the world, the Olympics make us think we have a window into the human condition. Every four years we find out if the world can cooperate for a few simple games without interference from political statements or rogue grudges. More often than not we fail — if…
Blame Game
It took a year longer than expected and there were several bumps along the way, but a court-appointed monitor recently concluded that the Cincinnati Police Department has improved enough to be released from federal court oversight. Sometime this month, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Dlott will review the monitor's recommendation and decide whether to end…
Shelter Is Protection
To seek shelter is to look for protection. To offer shelter is to provide protection, though in the case of the YWCA Battered Women's Shelter it also means to provide escape — services that help women move into a new life away from a violent situation. That can happen only when a woman is ready…
