Ohio’s Strange Monument Honoring Robert E. Lee
War-related memorials and monuments are one of the most common forms of public art, and it will probably stay that way as long as there are wars to remember. But just because we have these everywhere, we shouldn’t take their existence for granted. One of the strangest — not because of the way it looks,…
Morning News and Stuff
Good morning Cincy! Here are today's headlines. • Shree Kulkarni, the developer appointed to Cincinnati's Historic Conservation Board by City Manager Harry Black, has a history of destruction. In 2012, Kulkarni waged a two-year battled with the board to demolish a building in the Fourth Street Historic District that he claimed he was going to…
Leftovers: What We Ate This Weekend
Each week CityBeat staffers, dining writers and the occasional intern tell you what they ate this weekend. We're not always proud — or trendy — but we definitely spend at least some money on food. Jesse Fox: I had the best weekend of food eating in awhile. I am working with Mark Stroud, a local…
Morning News and Stuff
Good morning! I hope everyone had a great weekend. I managed to go check out the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center and learned a lot about our nation's history and got to see a signed copy of the Emancipation Proclamation. It's on display temporarily, so go check it out if you haven't already. But now…
Your Weekend To Do List (8/7-8/9)
FRIDAY EVENT: LUMENOCITY Lumenocity, the light and music architectural mapping spectacle projected onto Music Hall, is back for a third round, promising to be the perfect crescendo to your summer. Live Classical music, opera and ballet from the Cincinnati Pops, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, May Festival Chorus and Cincinnati Ballet Second Company coalesce in this radiant…
Your Weekend Playlist: Volcano Choir, Repave
If I could choose one album to listen to for a month straight (because, let’s be honest, the whole “rest of your life thing” is far too unrealistic), I would choose Repave by Volcano Choir. A buddy of mine showed this album to be about eight months ago. He was going through some pretty tough…
Morning News and Stuff
Hey Cincy! Normally, we’d be talking local news today, but it’s a bit slow and yesterday’s GOP presidential primary debate yielded plenty to discuss, along with I’m sure more than a few debate drinking game-related hangovers. So let’s talk about that, shall we? As previously noted, this was a big day for Ohio Gov. John…
Stage Door
Hundred Days, a Folk Rock Opera onstage at Know Theatre, continues to be the go-to show of the summer. The story of a marriage that gets short-circuited by a fatal illness turns into a joyous 75-minute concert music written and performed by the dynamic duo of Abigail and Shaun Bengson, with five musicians and singers…
I Just Can’t Get Enough
The big news this week: True love is dead. As we know, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner confirmed their separation earlier this summer after months (years?) of speculation. Similar rumors have circulated around Will and Jada Pinkett-Smith lately, probably because they’re always talking about how hot their marriage is like a couple of desperate stunt-queens.…
Morning News and Stuff
Good morning all. Here’s what’s up on this rainy Thursday. Cincinnati City Council yesterday voted to temporarily suspend an agreement with the University of Cincinnati Police Department that allowed that agency to make traffic stops on streets beyond UC’s campus. The decision comes in the wake of the shooting by UC officer Ray Tensing of…
Shaun the Sheep
Aardman team writers Mark Burton (Chicken Run) and Richard Starzak (Wallace & Gromit: The Aardman Collection) co-pilot the company’s latest animated production, the misadventures of a sheep named Shaun (voiced by Justin Fletcher). Shaun longs for the carefree days of old with his Farmer (John Sparkes) and the farm dog Trumper (Omid Djalili) before the…
Ricki and the Flash
Director Jonathan Demme seemed to have disappeared from the world of feature films after 2008’s Rachel Getting Married, devoting time to documentaries (Neil Young Journeys) and television (two episodes of The Killing). But he returns to big-screen narrative features with Ricki and the Flash, pairing him with hot screenwriter Diablo Cody (Juno) and Meryl Streep,…
The Gift
Joel Edgerton has clawed his way up the ladder in Hollywood, moving on up from the foreign indie ranks (The Square and Animal Kingdom) to featured co-starring roles (Warrior opposite Tom Hardy) and spots in larger projects (Zero Dark Thirty and The Great Gatsby), but The Gift allows the multi-hyphenate (as writer, feature debut director…
Fantastic Four
Following the less-than-stellar box office results of Tim Story’s two previous attempts to bring Marvel’s first family to the big screen, Chronicle director Josh Trank takes over with the assignment of injecting his dark and gritty sensibilities into the mix. Right off the bat, Trank and the screenwriting team of Simon Kinberg and Jeremy Slater…
Dark Places
Having written both the novel and the screenplay for David Fincher’s adaptation of the bestseller Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn hands the reins over to Gilles Paquet-Brenner (Sarah’s Key), who writes and directs this take on Flynn’s novel about Libby Day (Sterling Jerins), a 7-year-old girl whose family is brutally murdered in their Kansas farmhouse. The…
Music: Frontier Folk Nebraska
I f a band plays a concert and there’s no audience, do they make a sound? If a group plays in a sealed club with no patrons, are they simultaneously live and not live? What if a band threw a live album and nobody came? These are the hypothetical questions that plague frontman Michael Hensley…
Music: J. Cole
Though he’s somehow not quite a household name yet, J. Cole is one of the biggest names in Hip Hop. His third album, 2014 Forest Hills Drive, was released late last year and went straight to No. 1 on the Billboard album charts, while also smashing the most first-week-streams record on Spotify (with more than…
Film: Other People’s Screens
Other People’s Screens, a monthly experimental film screening series at Chase Public now entering into its sixth consecutive month, typically focuses on documentary-style films. For August’s program “Body Doubles,” however, organizers have taken a bit of a detour with a lineup of six genre-blurring shorts (many fresh off the festival circuit) that call into question…
Event: Family Day at Stricker’s Grove
Stricker’s Grove is kind of like a mini Kings Island, only more focused on nostalgic rides and exclusive to renters during most of the year. But on Sunday, Stricker’s Grove holds a “family day” that allows everyone to visit the private amusement park. A Ferris wheel, flying Dumbo the Elephant ride, Electric Rainbow tilt-a-whirl, a…
Event: Second Sunday on Main
This monthly themed block party turns Main Street into a party every second Sunday. This month’s theme is EcoMAINia, featuring more than 100 earth-friendly vendors, a one-stop recycling event (which will accept everything from cell phones and plastic bags to cork, used writing instruments and clothing), live music, an interactive farmers tent with free vegetable…
Event: Slide the City
If you’ve ever been on a water slide and thought, “I wish I could do this, but on a Slip ‘N Slide and also in my neighborhood,” well, you’re in luck. Slide the City, an organization that takes its 1,000-foot water slide around the country, is coming to Cincinnati. The slide will run the length…
Comedy: Jim Gaffigan
Jim Gaffigan — Grammy-nominated pale comedian, New York Times best-selling author and star of the upcoming The Jim Gaffigan Show — brings his Contagious Tour to the Taft Theatre. Gaffigan’s known for clean observational humor about topics like fatherhood, being lazy and food — “Pie can’t compete with cake. Put candles in a cake, it’s…
Onstage: The Complete History of America (Abridged)
Every summer, Cincy Shakes reminds us that even the classics have a sense of humor. For several years they’ve made audiences laugh with The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). They’re down a different but familiar path this summer with this show by the same zany writing team, condensing our nation’s history into a riotous…
Sports: Delhi Skirt Game
Get some dirt in your skirts at the 38th-annual Delhi Skirts Game. This cross-dressing softball game features hairy dudes (many of them members of the local Delhi police and fire departments) dressed as this year’s thematic mash-up: Pixar vs. Hanna-Barbera characters. Think Wilma Flintstone taking on Joy from Inside Out. Along with a ridiculous and…
Event: World’s Longest Yard Sale
Running from Michigan to Alabama, the 127 Sale — aka “the World’s Longest Yard Sale” — has stops at every major and not-so-major city along the way. So named because it spans Highway 127, the yard sale is as much about socializing and community as it is about selling and buying. Some people drive the…
Comedy: Jon Dore
There’s a reason he’s known as “TV’s Jon Dore.” It all began when the Canadian funnyman began studying television production in college. “TV broadcasting inspired me to do something creative, and that led to me trying stand-up, and it was terrible,” he says. He quickly improved, but comedy wasn’t very lucrative, so he gave acting…
Event: Glier’s Goettafest
Goetta is the only food that might be more Cincinnati than Skyline, and this weekend Glier’s is holding a festival to celebrate the Queen City’s favorite breakfast food. In addition to live music, games and a goetta-eating contest, you can sample the crispy-creamy treat in more than 40 different forms, including nachos, gyros, jambalaya and…
Event: Hamilton County Fair
Rev your summer up by celebrating Hamilton County’s 160th annual fair, complete with two demolition derbies, donkey races, professional wrestling, a Pickled Brothers Freak Show, pie-eating contest and a host of other activities. If you want to go back in time, you can also catch a Civil War reenactment or watch a vintage baseball game,…
Event: Lumenocity
Lumenocity, the light and music architectural mapping spectacle projected onto Music Hall, is back for a third round, promising to be the perfect crescendo to your summer. Live Classical music, opera and ballet from the Cincinnati Pops, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, May Festival Chorus and Cincinnati Ballet Second Company coalesce in this radiant extravaganza — which,…
Dirt: A Modern Market
Farmers markets are always the best place to shop for the freshest local produce, meats, dairy, flowers and goods in general, and Over-the-Rhine’s Findlay Market — Ohio’s oldest surviving municipal market house — is certainly one of the finest. To put it bluntly, without farmers we have no food, but sometimes getting to a farmers…
Calle Cantina (Review)
Unless you’ve traveled to Mexico, especially Mexico City, you probably don’t know what true antojitos (street food) tastes like, because a lot of so-called authentic Mexican dishes north of the border have been Americanized. But Whit Hesser, head of farm-to-table restaurant and market Sprout in Mount Adams, and Josh Wamsley, who runs cult taco joint…
Jon Stewart Says Goodnight To ‘The Daily Show’
Jon Stewart might not be the only host of The Daily Show — Craig Kilborn hosted the original program from 1996-98 — but the comedian-commentator will always be associated with his work on the show, spanning from 1999 through this week’s final episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (11 p.m. Thursday, Comedy Central).…
‘Irrational Man’ Argues Against Rationalizing a Career
I think it might be time to start evaluating the career of Woody Allen by comparing it to the musical output of LL Cool J (aka James Todd Smith). After a strong start out of the gate with Radio (1985) and Bigger and Deffer (1987), LL was criticized for the commercial feel of Walking with…
Keep on Fighting
This slim volume tells a remarkable story in such undecorated prose, the reader sometimes must go back to read again before grasping the meaning of what’s just happened. An African-American woman now in her advanced 90s was a leading force in the desegregation of Cincinnati’s Coney Island amusement park and Cincinnati schools, and in furthering…
Slow Burn
Andrew Welsh-Huggins has got their number — the number that relates to classic hard-boiled mystery novels with flawed heroes; complicated goings-on that come clear only in the final pages; love affairs a long way from first love but more interesting than that well-traveled route; and an ending that brings you up short by way of…
The Past Is the Present at Taft Museum’s Curtis Show
You can feel like you’re viewing the history of photography — as well as American history — from one of those disorienting, spinning Rotor amusement-park rides as you walk through Taft Museum of Art’s Enduring Spirit: Edward Curtis and the North American Indians. The work is powerful and artful, yet seems disconnected from the realities…
Lessons Learned: Theater Educator Dee Anne Bryll
If you read playbills carefully, you’ve probably seen Dee Anne Bryll’s name. She’s worked at most every theater in town — from the Playhouse to the Covedale Center, from Northern Kentucky University to University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, plus countless engagements with local schools. As a choreographer, director and especially a teacher, she’s constantly…
Refreshing a Classic
A s Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra concluded its 40th anniversary season last June, the organization faced significant challenges. In addition to seeking a new music director, the CCO confronted losses in attendance, funding and visibility. What a difference a year makes. That, and bold, creative leadership put into action. Kelly Kuo was appointed interim music director…
This Week’s Dining Events
WEDNESDAY 05 Chicken and Waffles — An easy class where you’ll create various types of chicken and waffles. 6-8 p.m. $75. The Learning Kitchen, 7659 Cox Lane, West Chester, thelearningkitchen.com. WingFlig! — Washington Platform serves up more than 40 different types of wings, bone-in or boneless, with sauces ranging from mild to hot to stupid.…
Morning News and Stuff
Good morning all. I dunno about you, but I’m pretty drowsy today after too much mid-week fun last night. But we’re going to push through together and get this news thing taken care of, right? Right. Here’s what’s up today. Cincinnati is one of 10 more cities newly eligible for more than $100 million in…
Cobra’s Corner
As part of its Cincinnati Legends series, ArtWorks on Oct. 3 will unveil a mural of legendary Cincinnati boxer Ezzard Charles on a three-story building at West Liberty and Republic streets. The mural will provide a splash of color on the corner while celebrating the heavyweight pugilist’s legacy and connection to other local legends like…
The Cincinnati Cobra
L incoln Park Drive in the West End was rechristened Ezzard Charles Drive nearly 40 years ago, yet when one asks a typical Cincinnatian whether they are familiar with the man after which the street is named, a quizzical look almost certainly comes across their face before answering, “Uh, not really.” It seems even Ezzard…
Task Force Suggests Reducing Mayoral Power
A task force charged with suggesting amendments to Cincinnati’s charter has floated two ideas that could strip the city’s mayor of major powers, and Mayor John Cranley isn’t happy about it. Cranley last week voiced deep opposition to clarifications to the city’s charter suggested by the city’s Charter Review Task Force. Following Cranley’s consternation…
City Agrees to Settlement in ‘Bones’ Lawsuit
The city of Cincinnati July 30 released the details of its settlement with the estate of David “Bones” Hebert over the Northside musician’s controversial 2011 police shooting death. Hebert’s estate will get $187,000 from the settlement, but the point, his advocates say, is the city’s acknowledgement that police acted improperly in his shooting death. In…
Birthday Celebration
HOT: “Birthday” Celebration? Soon you may be able to sing “Happy Birthday” in a YouTube video and not have to pay for it! Makers of a documentary about the history of “Happy Birthday to You,” one of the most popular songs ever, sued Warner/Chappell (supposed keepers of the copyright) to let them use the tune…
Medicaid in Action
C harles McClinon was in a tough spot in 2013 when he lost his health coverage. The 52-year-old Cincinnati native, who has epilepsy, had returned to school in Chicago when the medication he took for his seizures started affecting his short-term memory. He applied through his student health insurance for an operation that would have…
Worst Week Ever! Aug. 5-11
Robot Umpires Debut in Hokey California Baseball League, Fans Are Like “Hell Yeah” America is a place that loves the sound, smell and promise of innovation and advancement. No matter what is out there or what has functioned just fine for decades, there is always a very vocal segment of the population that feels better…
How Does It Feel?
Dear Santa Ono: At the risk of putting everybody all up in our business, I am writing you this as a sincere favor — to help you by telling you some key things about yourself, your current station and ways you can redeem yourself and the University of Cincinnati. For any of this to work,…
Music: Smashing Pumpkins
Even in the early ’90s, as Smashing Pumpkins were just becoming one of the leading acts in the “Alternative music revolution,” mastermind Billy Corgan had a contentious relationship with the press. When 1993’s Siamese Dream was coming out, the knock was that he was a control freak, something that became a primary focus of early…
Sound Advice: Smashing Pumpkins with Marilyn Manson
Even in the early ’90s, as Smashing Pumpkins were just becoming one of the leading acts in the “Alternative music revolution,” mastermind Billy Corgan had a contentious relationship with the press. When 1993’s Siamese Dream was coming out, the knock was that he was a control freak, something that became a primary focus of early…
Music: Tokio Hotel
Based on their early albums, anything Tokio Hotel didn’t know about making crunchy Alternative Rock would fit comfortably in a pinky thimble with room for Donald Trump’s liberal views on Mexican immigrants. Tokio Hotel’s first three releases crackle with the kind of careening Guitar Rock that has become the stock in trade of young American…
Sound Advice: Tokio Hotel with MXMS
Based on their early albums, anything Tokio Hotel didn’t know about making crunchy Alternative Rock would fit comfortably in a pinky thimble with room for Donald Trump’s liberal views on Mexican immigrants. Tokio Hotel’s first three releases crackle with the kind of careening Guitar Rock that has become the stock in trade of young American…
Music: Cash Box Kings at Cincy Blues Fest with Samantha Fish and More
When the Blues migrated north, it found adoptive homes that were supportive and nurturing, but few embraced the form and its purveyors with the passionate conviction of Chicago. Maybe the city’s response was simply mirroring the talent it attracted, but whatever the reason, the Blues loved Chicago and Chicago loved the Blues — an affair…
Sound Advice: Cash Box Kings at Cincy Blues Fest with Samantha Fish and More
When the Blues migrated north, it found adoptive homes that were supportive and nurturing, but few embraced the form and its purveyors with the passionate conviction of Chicago. Maybe the city’s response was simply mirroring the talent it attracted, but whatever the reason, the Blues loved Chicago and Chicago loved the Blues — an affair…
Music: Living Colour
Living Colour’s “Cult of Personality,” a slab of politically minded Hard Rock from 1988’s debut album Vivid, remains the NYC quartet’s calling card and commercial apex. Fueled by founder and figurehead Vernon Reid’s slashing guitar and actor-turned-singer Corey Glover’s impassioned wailing, “Cult of Personality” won a Grammy for “Best Hard Rock Performance” and caught the…
Sound Advice: Living Colour with Howard Brothers Band and Citizen Zero
Living Colour’s “Cult of Personality,” a slab of politically minded Hard Rock from 1988’s debut album Vivid, remains the NYC quartet’s calling card and commercial apex. Fueled by founder and figurehead Vernon Reid’s slashing guitar and actor-turned-singer Corey Glover’s impassioned wailing, “Cult of Personality” won a Grammy for “Best Hard Rock Performance” and caught the…
Outdoor Music (Without Lasers)
If you’re up for an outdoor music experience this week but weren’t able to score tickets to the hugely popular Lumenocity concerts in Washington Park, there are some alternatives. There might not be laser-light displays, but there will be some good music. • The first Cincy Blues Fest took place in 1992 and featured local…
F**kin’ Live
I f a band plays a concert and there’s no audience, do they make a sound? If a group plays in a sealed club with no patrons, are they simultaneously live and not live? What if a band threw a live album and nobody came? These are the hypothetical questions that plague frontman Michael Hensley…
