More National Kudos For Over-the-Rhine Renaissance
Over-the-Rhine is getting more national praise — this time from Conde Nast Traveler, which on its website in December named OTR one of the 10 best architectural sites in the Midwest. In “Seeking Frank Lloyd Wright: Best Architecture in the Midwest,” Ashley Petry writes: Not too long ago, Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood was one of the…
Literary: Walnut Street Poetry Society Kickoff Event
The Walnut Street Poetry Society kicks off its 2015 season at the Mercantile Library with readings from moderator, poet and Xavier University English Professor Dr. Norman Finkelstein and writer/educator Kathy Y. Wilson — you may know her from CityBeat? Throughout the year the society will focus on African-American poetry. Meetings/readings take place at noon the…
Event: Cin City Reptile Show
This reptile show is for everyone from collectors (of reptiles) to people who enjoy freaking themselves out by looking at snakes. Thousands of exotic reptiles, amphibians, supplies, feeders and inverts will be for sale and display from responsible vendors at the monthly Cin City Reptile Show. And, for those afraid of said reptiles, all animals…
Literary: Amber Hunt and David Batcher
As we await the possibility that it could be another Bush-Clinton matchup for the presidency in 2016, it’s a good time to think about that most storied of political dynasties: the Kennedys. Amber Hunt and David Batcher’s new book, The Kennedy Wives: Triumph and Tragedy in America’s Most Public Family, specifically looks at the women…
Sports: AMSOIL Arenacross
U.S. Bank Arena hosts AMSOIL Arenacross Saturday — an enclosed, dirt-track off-road motorcycle race filled with jumps, turns and other obstacles. Watch as a whole slew of amateur supercross racers stop in our fair city in the hopes of earning their license — and pro status — for the Monster Energy Supercross championship. In addition…
Art: Bricks, Barrel Vaults, & Beer
This favorite exhibit of Cincinnati’s 19th-century brewing industry returns to the Betts House. It features photos, charts and narratives of the tunnels, breweries, buildings and people of our beer past. Bricks, Barrel Vaults, & Beer also highlights the social and cultural influences that made Cincinnati a brewery destination, like immigration. Curators historian Mike Morgan and…
Event: Tap Room Trolley
In advance of February’s Cincinnati Beer Week, the Tap Room Trolley takes happy imbibers to six different Cincinnati breweries. The guided bus tour lasts approximately seven hours with three different routes — A, B or C — to take you to different alcoholic parts of town. All busses leave from the Moerlein Lager House, then route A…
Art: Behavior Caused by Joy: Michael Weber at Thunder-Sky, Inc.
Thunder-Sky’s artist-in-residence, Contemporary Arts Center gallery attendant and early member of Visionaries + Voices Michael Weber will have his first stateside one-man exhibit of brightly colored abstract paintings in the aptly named Behavior Caused by Joy. The work Weber is exhibiting has been inspired mostly by his recent trip to Japan, wherein he had his…
Event: Cavalcade of Customs
The Duke Energy Convention Center hosts the Cavalcade of Customs, with tons of custom cars, hot rods, trucks and motorcycles, plus the cars of The Fast and the Furious, a live-demo chop shop, a Miss Cavalcade pin-up challenge and more. You can also catch celebrities like WWE’s Big Show, Richard Rawlings from Gas Monkey Garage,…
Music: Louis Conducts Beethoven 2
Conductor Louis Langrée leads the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in “Louis Conducts Beethoven 2,” with guest pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet. The performance includes Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2, preceded by a reading of Beethoven’s Heiligenstadt Testament from a member of the Ensemble Theatre. The testament is a letter from Beethoven to his brothers despairing over his impending deafness. …
Event: Syrian Shrine Circus
The 94th annual Syrian Shrine Circus comes to the Bank of Kentucky Center. The Shriners’ three-ring circus features death-defying aerial acts, clowns and animal attractions like tigers and elephants. Along with gorging themselves on cotton candy and laughing at various clown gags, kids will have a chance to interact with and pet the animals —…
Dance: Swan Lake: A Waking Dream
Theatrical dance group InBocca Performance — with actors ranging in age from 8 to adult — presents a wild reinterpretation of Tchaikovsky’s fairy tale ballet Swan Lake at the Southgate House Revival. It features actor-created choreography, text and movement sequences that examine loneliness, the fear of being forgotten and the joy of discovery through the tale…
Comedy: Geoff Tate
Comedian Geoff Tate is adept at telling hilarious personal stories from his life, as well as making sharp observations about the seemingly mundane. “I think commercials are making fun of us,” he tells an audience. “They treat us like we’re dumb. All Coors Light tells you in their commercial is that their beer is cold.…
Music: Talib Kweli
In October, acclaimed rapper Talib Kweli was in the Queen City for a reunion show with Reflection Eternal, his duo project with renowned Cincinnati-based DJ/producer/artist Hi-Tek. This week, Kweli returns to the area to perform as a DJ. For Kweli’s visit to The Drinkery, the rapper/DJ will be joined by Brazilian-born/Florida-based MC NIKO IS, who…
Attractions: Martha: A Story of Extinction
Martha, the last passenger pigeon, died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914, effectively rendering the species extinct. After her death, she was stuffed and put on display at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. until 1999 — and she’s back there now until September for the exhibit Once There Were Billions. Despite the lack of her physical…
Onstage: Cinderella
Rodgers and Hammerstein created a musical about Cinderella for TV in 1957, watched by an audience of 107 million. It finally made its Broadway debut in 2013, with a contemporary story using their songs. In Douglas Carter Beane’s new script, the bedraggled chambermaid is Ella — taunted as “Cinderella” by her nasty stepsisters because she’s…
Zip’s Cafe Under New Ownership
Classic Mount Lookout burger joint Zip's Cafe is under new ownership — but don't freak out. Longtime general manager Mike Burke recently purchased the 88-year-old burger institution from Brian Murrie, who had owned the restaurant since 1996. "Over 18 years later, it's now time to pass the torch," Murrie said in a recent press release. "We've…
Zip’s Cafe Under New Ownership
Classic Mount Lookout burger joint Zip's Cafe is under new ownership — but don't freak out. Longtime general manager Mike Burke recently purchased the 88-year-old burger institution from Brian Murrie, who had owned the restaurant since 1996. "Over 18 years later, it's now time to pass the torch," Murrie said in a recent press release. "We've…
Collective Espresso Northside Now Open for Business
Collective Espresso now offers two of the city’s finest coffee shops found off the beaten path. Owned and operated by Dave Hart and Dustin Miller, Collective Espresso’s original alleyway location off Main Street in Over-the-Rhine quickly established itself as a worthwhile destination for caffeine-cionados. They’ve branched out with a second location between Happy Chicks Bakery…
Morning News and Stuff
Hey all. Hope your morning commute was safe and warm amidst the cold, nasty dusting of snow we got last night. I’m still glued to my space heater here at home, so I’ve yet to venture out into the grossness. Here’s what’s up today: It looks as if Cincinnati City Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld is seriously…
Ash American Fare Has Closed
Ash American Fare in Hyde Park closed on New Year's Day after a packed New Year's Eve. Owner Alex Mchaikhi is stepping down after nearly 30 years in the restaurant business. Mchaikhi, who also owns M next door to Ash, rebranded the space, which housed his former Indian-fusian restaurant Cumin, into the New American restaurant and burger spot…
Tom + Chee Expanding into Texas
Apparently the grilled-cheese-tomato-soup fast-casual concept was the smartest idea ever because the rapidly expanding local franchise Tom+Chee is headed to Texas. Founders Corey Ward and Trew Quackenbush have partnered with Tunica-Biloxi Holdings to expand into Sugarland and Katy, Texas, just outside of Houston. “We're excited to bring the Tom+Chee concept to the Houston market,” said…
Killing Animals
Recently on the Internet, I went to the website of the Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife Resources. I wanted to confirm when deer season was in this area. I live in Covington, so that’s why I checked out Kentucky instead of Ohio. I didn’t spend a bunch of time there because I’m not a…
The (Confusing) Red Cross Response
A reader gently chided me for writing that the American Red Cross “inexplicably” abandoned abdominal thrusts (the Heimlich Maneuver) as its recommended first response to choking. "Inadequately explained why may be more accurate,” my reader wrote, saying the Red Cross issued a “pretty decent explanation . . . about seven years after the fact.” That’s…
Morning News and Stuff
Morning all. Hope your weekend was great. Let’s get to the news. About 300 people showed up Saturday outside Kings Mills High School for a candlelight vigil in remembrance of Leelah Alcorn, the Kings Mills transgender teen who took her own life last month. Many attendees were Alcorn’s friends and classmates, representatives from LGBT groups…
Morning News and Stuff
Hey hey Cincinnati! I hope your New Years Eve was as good as mine. I stayed out way too late and had more fun than you should be allowed to have while wearing a suit at CityBeat's speakeasy party. But enough about partying. Let’s get down to business. Carla Alcorn, who has been mostly silent…
Your Weekend To Do List (1/2-1/4)
You've had a day or so to nurse your New Year's hangover, so it's time to get out of the house. If you're looking for things to do this weekend to keep the party going, here's a list. Tenderly: The Rosemary Clooney Musical Photo: Sandy Underwood 1. Tenderly: The Rosemary Clooney Musical at the Cincinnati Playhouse in…
Stage Door: Start the New Year with a Show
With the holidays just behind us, there's a kind of a lull on local stages, but this weekend has a few offerings to consider. At the Cincinnati Playhouse there's a popular production that's been extended twice, so you still have chances to see Tenderly: The Rosemary Clooney Musical through Jan. 11. The show is a…
From the Copy Desk
Good morning readers! I hope ya'll had a very happy New Year. It feels very futuristic to say that it's 2015, doesn't it? Maybe that's because 2015 is the year the awesome movie Back to the Future II was set in, and it predicted that we'd have all sorts of crazy things (like flying cars…
Dubbing the New Year
Rave music, a pulsing subculture of sweaty warehouse basements and strobing audio-visual ritual, became widely popular in the U.K. in the 1980s. Ott, a British record producer and musician known for his deep-submarine, psychedelic Dub, got started during the excitement of that decade. Aside from House music, Ott feels the U.K. originally embraced purely Electronic…
Ancient Shades of Jade
A lthough Jim Aumann has been Warren County’s Treasurer since 2004, and Fort Thomas, Ky., resident Nick Root briefly entered the city council race this year, local politics isn’t where the Aumann/Root Venn diagram intersects most significantly. Their strongest connection is Jade, a Cincinnati band from the early ’70s with great potential but which had…
Winter 2015 TV Preview
We’ve looked back on some of our favorite moments on TV. Now, let’s look forward to new and returning shows for early 2015. Portlandia (Season Premiere, 10 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 8, IFC) – Season Five brings a Toni and Candace friendship flashback, Lance and Nina in couples counseling, Paul Reubens and raw milk. Girls (Season…
From Film to Streaming: Time and Technology Wait for No One
I saw fewer movies in 2014 than in any 12-month span since I became an adult. I didn’t attend a film festival for the first time in a decade. Of the new movies I did catch, I saw a smaller percentage of them in a theater than at any point since before Bill Clinton occupied…
Comedian Dave Landau Parties Like It’s 1999
Comedian Dave Landau’s final performances of the year (including a New Year’s Eve show) and first shows of 2015 will take place this week at Funny Bone on the Levee in Newport. It seems like a random gig for a comic that splits time between Los Angeles and his native Detroit, but Landau feels an…
FotoFocus Biennial Already Planning Ways to Ring in 2016
Most of us are still reflecting on the ending year, or at least looking at 2015 with just the vaguest of notions of what we’ll do with it. But the folks at the FotoFocus Biennial are already looking past it. They’re making plans for their next big celebration of lens-based art in 2016. The members…
A Long Time Coming
S kateboarding — a mixture of improvisational dance moves and gymnastics atop a moving, wheeled object — doesn’t get nearly the recognition it deserves as a performance art. It gets a bad rep because skateboarding can require an outright lack of respect for rules. There are few skate parks in which to practice, so public…
News in Review 2014
Hey all! In a minute, I’m going to hit you with the list: the biggest, the most interesting and the most disturbing stories we covered this year on a daily or weekly basis. We’ve already given you our favorite news cover stories; those long-form pieces which we spent weeks or even months putting together. Now…
Spoiler Alert: Top OMG TV Moments of 2014
“Spoiler Alert”: This increasingly popular warning speaks volumes to the current trends of watching and discussing television and film. Viewers like to watch elaborate drama unfold on screen — and they like to talk about it even more. It’s dangerous out there for movie and TV fans who can’t keep up. On one hand, it’s…
The Top 10 Films of 2014
What you see is what you get, so the saying goes, and that sentiment certainly applies to this year’s list of the 10 best films. Every year, compiling such a list frustrates and bedevils me to no end. How am I to whittle my way through the year’s best films when so many of the…
A Top Ten, or What I Did on My Bummer Vacation
This year held such promise on Jan. 1, 2014. The prospect of a crap year behind and a fresh calendar ahead seemed like not only a reasonable consideration but a real possibility. And as the year draws to a close, I sit typing this list in the Bunker while horking up a functional lung and…
Top 10 Things I Learned from Top 40 Radio in 2014
When my daughter was born a decade ago, I did what I imagine most music-snob parents do and tried playing her a lot of music with substance, songs that I hoped would stick with her and, by the time she was 10 or so, make her interested in all kinds of cool music and not…
Ten 2014 Albums or EPs You Should Be Embarrassed To Play
Please keep in mind they might actually sound wonderful, but I was too embarrassed to play them to find out. In the list below, the artist’s name comes first, followed by the title and, in parenthesis, the label. It might be hard to figure that out if not indicated. All were taken from online lists…
Top Ten Albums of 2014
My 10 favorite albums of 2014 (minus Beyoncé’s last-minute 2013 surprise, the fascinating new D’Angelo record, which I’ve only listened to a handful of times since it dropped Dec. 15, and the new Spoon, which, though reliably stellar, sounds pretty much like the last five Spoon albums since D’s last one, Voodoo, hit 15 years…
Kings Mills Teen Killed on I-71 Committed Suicide Over Transgender Status
A King’s Mills teen committed suicide Dec. 28 after a long struggle with depression over her inability to find acceptance as a transgender woman. Leelah Alcorn, whose given name was Joshua, was born male, but felt female since the age of 4, according to a suicide note posted to social media site Tumblr. Alcorn died…
Ohio Supreme Court: No Jail for Tracie Hunter During Appeal
The Ohio Supreme Court Dec. 26 upheld former Hamilton County Juvenile Court Judge Tracie Hunter’s request for a stay on her six-month sentence until after an appeal of her felony conviction can be heard. The decision is the latest chapter in a dramatic court fight for Hunter, who had to wage an earlier, year-long legal…
Granting Support
I n Hamilton County, hundreds of kids are homeless each night. For Lighthouse Youth Services, that’s way too many. The organization strives to identify and help at risk youth before they have nowhere else to turn. “Our focus is ending youth homelessness in Cincinnati by 2020,” says Lighthouse Director of Communications Sheri Hager. “All the…
There Went the Neighborhood
The city of Cincinnati has designated Woodburn Avenue in my East Walnut Hills neighborhood an “entertainment district.” The legions of (mostly) white folks who’ve been stalking and developing the stately real estate and prime storefront properties may now apply for liquor licenses. This means sleep deprivation, parking headaches and serious aggravation for those of us…
Cincinnati vs. The World 12.31.14
The FDA has approved a rapid-response blood test that can help diagnose cases of Ebola faster than ever, CBS News reports. The blood test, which can detect the virus in just over three hours in patients showing symptoms of infection, may now be used in West Africa. World +1 Orchids at Palm Court was ranked…
Worst Week Ever!: Dec. 24-30
Overpriced, Overhyped Coffee Makers Now Designed to Wake You up Real Good Most people’s days start way too early with the jolting buzz of an alarm clock and the startling and quick transition from a dream that was either about doing it, adventuring, or something else cool back into the reality that your life choices…
Lively Variety of Art at the Latest ‘Changing Perceptions’ Exhibition
Art Beyond Boundaries, the Main Street gallery where work by artists with disabilities is seen all year long, opens its space to artists without disabilities as well for what has become a popular yearly exhibition called Changing Perceptions, on view now in its ninth edition as Changing Perceptions: Merge. The gallery is cheerfully full of…
