Sound Advice: : Michelle Shocked, Mic Harrison and Gil Mantera’s Party Dream
Ben Mistak Gil Mantera's Party Dream Michelle Shocked with Over the Rhine Saturday ´ Taft Theatre In 1984, Texas native/political activist/budding Folk singer Karen Michelle Johnston took part in a San Francisco demonstration decrying the American corporate practice of contributing financially to both major parties in order to curry favor from whoever won the…
Music: License to Confuse
Piper Ferguson The Lemonheads' Evan Dando refuels on new CD. One of the cooler things about Evan Dando is that he always keeps us guessing. Which incarnation is he pushing these days? His main Lemonhead gig or his solo projects? Who is he playing with now? What kind of condition is he in? Starting…
‘Light’ Foods Might Have More Than You Want
You have to read food labels really carefully to make sure you're not getting hoodwinked. The Nutrition Facts labels on the B-side of your food packaging are deceptively simple. For instance, I was surprised to learn that the 20-ounce bottle of Faygo on my desk is supposed to serve 2.5 people. When was the last…
Interview (Sony)
INTERVIEW 2006, Rated R In this remake of the Danish movie by murdered director Theo Van Gogh, Steve Buscemi plays Pierre, a political journalist who in the midst of one of Washington's biggest scandals is ordered to interview Katya (Sienna Miller), a blonde actress with talent just as questionable as Pierre's ethics. When it…
I Am Cuba: The Ultimate Edition (New Yorker/Milestone)
I AM CUBA: THE ULTIMATE EDITION 1964, Not Rated In the early 1960s, a team of Russian filmmakers led by visionary director Mikhail Kalatozov (The Cranes Are Flying) joined forces with Cuban comrades to create cinema at its most perfect — the sensual, musical, liberating and incendiary agitprop masterpiece, I Am Cuba. Filtered through…
Rock and Roll Xmas
Tis the season for hipster kids to rock out all that nutty tree-trimming with a brand new beat in a chunky stocking full of new holiday CD's. … For 17 seasons Darlene Love has sent The Late Show with David Letterman into the twinkling twilight with her signature Phil Spector smash, "(Christmas) Baby, Please Come…
Margaret Ellen Jeffreys
Jersey Productions Liz Vosmeier sits with the children's chorus for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, which opens Friday at The Carnegie in Covington. I was out of town when MUSICAL OF MUSICALS: THE MUSICAL opened at the Cincinnati Playhouse last month; I finally saw it Dec. 8. (Tom McElfresh gave it an A…
News: Season of Giving Back
Stephen Carter-Novotni Maurice Mason, head chef at Our Daily Bread soup kitchen, works with many volunteers. The holiday season is a feast for social services, yielding the most donations and volunteers they see all year. It's still not enough to plug the gaping need that exists. The famine comes during the other 51 weeks.…
MainEvent: Catacoustic Consort offers sounds of the season
Annalisa Pappano CATACOUSTIC CONSORT Ancient Sounds of the Season As the artistic director for the CATACOUSTIC CONSORT, Annalisa Pappano is like Mission: Impossible's Jim Phelps. Her mission, which she has chosen to accept since 2000, is to assemble the best possible collection of Classical musicians to perform the unusual programs she envisions. Of course,…
Courage and Creativity
Take this pill. It makes what you do matter. It guarantees results. No side effects. No drug rep hiding behind me ready to stab you with his free pen and inflamed copays. Michael Moore isn't here; he's at McDonald's getting supersized. The pill guarantees that whatever cause or movement your activism supports will prevail. You…
Locals Only: : The Blue Wisp
Jazz isn't big in Cincinnati, and Downtown isn't heavily frequented. So why would three separate parties compete to buy a struggling downtown Jazz club that had been left in debt? Because it's the Blue Wisp. The name brings waves of nostalgia and smoky memories to many musicians and patrons alike. After surviving nearly three decades…
‘Spirited’ Books for Giving
Some of my most treasured possessions are books I've received over the years for birthdays, Christmases and graduations. When I re-read them, I'm always reminded of the people who gave them to me. In that spirit, I offer the following recommendations for your special holiday gift giving. Have a history buff on your list? Tom…
News: Social Justice Seeking YPs
Joe Simon Chris Lawson says young professionals are a good match for Community Shares. The yuppies of today — Gen-X, Gen-Y, millennials — want to do more than toss coins into a red bucket outside a grocery store. But how to get plugged in when the mainstream media talks about institutions older than their…
School Levy Coming, Amount Unknown
Joe Lamb Eileen Cooper-Reed says last month's elections weren't just a financial setback but also a challenge for the school board to be accountable. Voters' rejection of a tax levy last month for Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS) means options need to be considered by the board of education. The fallout is more than financial,…
He’s a Lonely Old Soul
(Re: "He's Always There" post on CityBeat's Living Out Loud blog about seeing the same older man every time the writer is in a certain bar.) I find myself doing this also from time to time, looking at a lonely old soul and wondering if I'll turn into that person someday. I kind of doubt…
‘Tis the season for benefit shows
´ A benefit show for the Michael W. Bany Scholarship Fund — an annual music scholarship named in the memory and spirit of the local musician — goes down this Friday at York Street Cafe in Newport. The 8:30 p.m. show is hosted by Roger Yeardley and the Balance Allstars (currently prepping a CD release)…
Carew tower Arcade
Sean Hughes Holiday symmetry: the Carew Tower arcade 'Tis the season once again, the time of year to compete with the neighbors over holiday light displays, time to gather with loved (or tolerated) ones, time to celebrate in whatever way your faith dictates. It's also time for gifts galore and shopping malls. But remember…
News: Not Streicher’s Money
Graham Lienhart (L-R) Police Chief Thomas Streicher and City Manager Milton Dohoney overrode council's spending plans. Cincinnati officials are grappling with what's more important: cops walking their beats or making repairs to police headquarters and hosting a fancy conference. City council has made the use of police walking patrols through city neighborhoods a priority…
UC Might Be Facing Some Big Losses This Week
Jerry Dowling Those who tire of saying nothing ever changes in Cincinnati might take note this week as the Crosstown Shootout loomed on the back burner while the University of Cincinnati needed to worry about retaining its football coach. UC head football coach Brian Kelly is a Massachusetts native who's become something of a…
Cover Story: Psychotic Festival
Joe Lamb Victor Paruta, who runs the Victory of Light Psychic Festival, feeds off the energy around us all. Your dead dog is trying to reach you. So is your late grandmother. Gnomes, fairies and elves have information to share with you. You can communicate with all these beings if you have about $30…
Film: Review: My Kid Could Paint That
Sony Classics Gifted artist or fraud?: 4-year-old Marla Olmstead's abstract paintings have raised questions about boththe artistic merit and the authenticity of the work. One of the fault lines of modernism has always been Abstract Expressionism. Those who just don't get the intellectual concept behind it — that painting is about color (or the…
Manufactured Landscapes (Zeitgeist Films)
MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES 2006, Not Rated This transfixing documentary has an odd construction. It's ostensibly about the meticulously composed panoramic photographs that Edward Burtynsky takes of the world's landscapes as industrialization changes the rural to urban and the unspoiled to the despoiled. But as director Jennifer Baichwal artfully moves from all-encompassing close-ups of the photographs…
Living Out Loud: : Drug Choices
I was walking up East Eighth Street a few afternoons ago, heading toward the main library to return some books. I got stopped by an older man who asked for a cigarette. He had on a baseball cap, and his hair under it was long and gray. His face was red, and his hands trembled…
News to Use
Public Campaign Financing Christ Church Cathedral hosts a discussion, "Money and Politics: The Case for Public Financing," at noon Dec. 13. Sponsored by Common Cause Ohio and the Fair Elections Coalition, the discussion will focus on public financing for congressional campaigns. John Rauh, president of Americans for Campaign Reform, is the featured speaker. Admission is…
Diner: Review: Seny
Joe Lamb Seny When Seny opened earlier this year in East Walnut Hills, executive chef Travis D. Maier's concept was refreshingly high-minded for such a Middle American city as ours. After studying his craft in the Basque region, Maier constructed a menu that combined traditional Spanish tapas with molecular gastronomic techniques, offering dishes that…
Music: The Soundtrack of Their Lives
Dan Monick Even If It Kills Us, the new album from Motion City Soundtrack, touches ontopics from the war in Iraq to Pop Tarts and Transformers. It's not a big deal, but Motion City Soundtrack guitarist Joshua Cain would like the public to know that the "Autobots" reference on "Calling All Cops," the fifth…
