Literary: Kim Harrison
A strange magic is attacking Cincinnati in Kim Harrison’s The Undead Pool, the 12th (and penultimate) entry in her best-selling Hallows series of urban fantasy books. Harrison’s long-running protagonist, Rachel Morgan, is a crafty detective witch, who this time out must save the Queen City from a possible civil war between human beings and the…
Class: Plan Your Own Vegetable Garden
Live sustainably and learn how to not kill your tiny plants with the Civic Garden Center’s veggie garden tutorial. Jerry Luebbe, a seasoned vegetable gardener, will introduce the basics of planning a successful vegetable garden. Topics include site selection, soil preparation, choosing what you want to grow, what to plant where, when to plant and…
Film: Hate Crimes in the Heartland
Hate Crimes in the Heartland is a documentary about race relations in America that examines the 1921 Tulsa Race Riots and the 2012 Good Friday murders. Filmmaker and Emmy award-winner Rachel Lyons has created 65 films, documentaries and international series that focus on human and civil rights issues. Cincinnati is one of seven cities chosen to premiere the…
Event: Art on Vine at Rhinegeist
Enjoy a Sunday filled with artwork, handmade crafts and beer with Art on Vine at Rhinegeist brewery, presented by Photography For The People. This boutique art fair will showcase art and photography from more than 20 different artists. Food from Holtman’s donuts and the panino food truck will be available inside, as will special offers…
Film: Scumbags and Scholars Premiere
Filmmaker Andy Licardi premieres his latest “audio/visual experiment” Scumbags and Scholars, a skate video consisting of seven years of footage filmed on a Sony vx1000. Many of the skilled skateboarders Licardi filmed between 2005 and 20012 — like locals Alex Davis, Jordan West and Scott Zellner — have grown up and come into their own…
Event: 20th Century Cincinnati Show
Whether you’re a committed collector, a Mad Men madman or a Gatsby wannabe, the 20th anniversary of the 20th Century Cincinnati Show invites you to put more of the 20th century in your life — from mid-century modern to deco, disco and everything in between. Its lineup of more than 75 dealers sets up shop…
Event: Bourbon and Bluegrass
Join the Rumpke Mountain Boys for some good ole Trashgrass and bourbon at Memorial Hall this Friday. Using banjo, mandolin, bass and acoustic guitar, the band leaves no genre of music untouched. Reception will start with an open bar at 6:30 p.m., followed by a Rumpke Mountain Boys set at 8 p.m. At 9:30 p.m., guests…
Event: Mardi Gras on Woodburn
With flight delays and cancellations piling up right along with Cincinnati’s snow and ice, heading down to the Big Easy is probably out of the question. Not to worry — there will be plenty of beads and feathers as Mardi Gras comes to Woodburn this weekend. The businesses of historic East Walnut Hills invite you…
Comedy: Keith Alberstadt
When you’re a stand-up comedian who travels a lot, you see some odd things, as Keith Alberstadt will tell you. “I was in an airport,” he tells an audience. “And a lady was trying to locate her son who had wandered off. That’s got to freak you out, right? But I couldn’t help but laugh…
Event: Saugsage Queen Preliminaries
Bockfest, Cincinnati’s annual celebration of beer and spring, is looking for the 2014 Little Kings Sausage Queen. The Sausage Queen helps lead the annual Bockfest parade — along with a bock beer barrel-toting goat — carrying a symbolic tray of sausage. The queen competition is underway and there are only three preliminary rounds left to…
Onstage: Pluto
Mysterious things are happening in Elizabeth’s life. While trying to get her withdrawn son to open up, her kitchen is getting weirder and weirder: a talkative three-headed dog sits nearby; the fridge is shaking like a cement mixer; and the radio is speaking directly to her. Steve Yockey’s world-premiere script, set in a world that…
Music: Bunbury Lineup Launch
Just a few acts — including Fall Out Boy and Paramore — have been announced for this summer’s Bunbury Music Festival, which returns for its third year along the riverfront July 11-13. This Thursday, Bunbury and CincyMusic.com will offer your first chance to hear about the next round of artists with a special free “Lineup…
Event: Cincinnati Auto Expo
Whether you’re in the market for a new car, looking to see the latest models or you’re really into that “new car smell,” the Cincinnati Auto Expo is the place to be. Cincinnati’s only annual automotive industry event showcase will have knowledgeable product specialists and dealer representatives on hand to answer all of your questions…
Local Infant Mortality Rates Still Far Above National Average
Cincinnati and Hamilton County saw infant mortality rates drop to the lowest on record in 2013, but the city and county’s rates for infant deaths remained far above the national average, according to a report released Tuesday by advocacy group Cradle Cincinnati. In 2013, the city saw 53 babies die before their first birthday, or…
WATCH: The Afghan Whigs’ “Algiers” Video
One of the Queen City’s greatest musical exports, The Afghan Whigs, have just unveiled the music video for their new single, “Algiers.” The track is taken from the band’s forthcoming Do to the Beast album, the Whigs' first all-new full-length release in 16 years. The album is due for release April 15 on Sub Pop…
Morning News and Stuff
Gov. John Kasich’s administration in 2012 privately discussed a public relations campaign to help bring fracking to three state parks. The plan was apparently abandoned. But ProgressOhio, which released documents showing the discussions, says the plan highlights a trend in the Kasich administration of looking out for business interests first. Fracking is a drilling technique…
Red Feather Kitchen (Review)
Red Feather Kitchen and Wine Bar comes from a partnership of three Ohio natives — chefs Brad Bernstein and Brett Crowe and sommelier Devon Barrett. Each has wide experience in the restaurant and hospitality industry and their friendship and shared backgrounds led to this new addition to the Eastside Cincinnati dining scene. Located in the…
‘Downton Abbey’ Season Four, Episode Seven
Upstairs: Upstairs is busy with rigidity and drama this week, and it’s about what it’s always about: bribery and corruption. The big pig debacle is teaching all of the upstairs cast about life and hard work. Mr. Blake and Mr. Gillingham are in the same room with Mary, and things get heated. Mr. Blake finally…
Morning News and Stuff
A coalition between Equality Ohio and other major LGBT groups on Friday officially declared it will not support a 2014 ballot initiative that would legalize same-sex marriage in the state. Instead, the coalition plans to continue education efforts and place the issue on the ballot in 2016. But FreedomOhio, the LGBT group currently leading the…
Commons at Alaska Leaders to Meet With Avondale Residents
The group heading a supportive housing project in Avondale on Friday announced it will initiate monthly "good neighbor" meetings to address local concerns, with the first meeting scheduled at the Church of the Living God, located at 434 Forest Ave., on Feb. 25 at 6 p.m. National Church Residences (NCR) says the meetings will help…
Report: Kasich’s Tax Proposal Favors Wealthy
Gov. John Kasich's income tax proposal would disproportionately favor Ohio's wealthiest, an analysis from Policy Matters Ohio and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found. Specifically, the proposal would on average cut taxes by $2 for the bottom 20 percent of Ohioans, $48 for the middle 20 percent and $2,515 for the top 1…
Trending Topics
Each week our intern Amber will be exploring what Cincinnatians are interested in by scouring the local Twitter trends and reporting on what she’s found. From serious tweets to goofy hashtags, she’ll highlight what Cincy’s been buzzing about. So get to tweeting, folks. #CollegeDropout The ten-year anniversary of Kanye West’s College Dropout album was Monday,…
WATCH: Buggs Tha Rocka’s ‘State of Hip Hop Freestyle’ Video
Creative Cincinnati MC Buggs Tha Rocka has just released a video for his “State of Hip-Hop Freestyle” track, featuring sounds from the late, great J. Dilla and taken from 2012’s The Wrath of Zeus mixtape, which was hosted by DJ Clockwork and is available for free download here. The “State of Hip Hop” clip was…
Celebrate Valentine’s Day with a New Four-Legged Friend
Whether you’re single, attached or a socially awkward penguin this Valentine’s Day, that special someone may still be missing from your life. No, I’m not talking about that guy in your OkCupid inbox or that girl in your yoga class. Pets can offer that unconditional kind of love that we humans yearn for so earnestly.…
Stage Door: Valentine’s Weekend
Last night I caught the opening of 4000 Miles at the Cincinnati Playhouse. What with today being Valentine's Day, this tale of a feisty grandmother and her hippie grandson — separated by a 70-year gap in age — might not seem like a very typical love story. But it's about understanding and finding common ground,…
Morning News and Stuff
State Rep. Peter Beck, a Republican from Mason, now faces 69 felony counts and increasing pressure to resign. Beck is accused of helping mislead investors into putting hundreds of thousands of dollars into an insolvent West Chester startup company and putting some of the funds from the company into his own campaign. Beck says he's…
What Is Responsible Bidder?
Following county commissioner’s Feb. 12 meeting, the dispute between Cincinnati and Hamilton County over contracting rules for Metropolitan Sewer District (MSD) projects appears to be heading to court. The court battle comes after the county dismissed multiple concessions from the city and put MSD’s revamp of the local sewer system on hold in protest of…
Cincinnati Is the Most Everything
Just in time for Valentine’s Day shopping, Amazon.com released a list of the 20 “most romantic” cities, based on sales data of romance novels, sex and relationship books, romantic comedy DVDs, Barry White CDs (seriously) and sexual wellness products (per capita) since Jan. 1, 2010. As your aunt, boss and childhood neighbor probably already shared…
Folk & Fiction Series Brings Writers and Musicians Together
Beginning Feb. 27, Northside’s The Listing Loon will host a new onstage series called Folk & Fiction where music and writing will be interwoven to bring together the audiences of various genres. The monthly event, each final Thursday, was created in collaboration with Brooks Rexroat, Matt Mooney and Margaret Darling. The trio was at an…
Ohio Ranks No. 8 for Solar Jobs
Ohio ranked No. 8 among states for solar jobs in 2013, with solar employment growing to 3,800 from 2,900 over the year, according to the Feb. 11 census report from the Solar Foundation. Still, the state actually dropped five spots to No. 23 in per-capita rankings, which measure the amount of solar jobs relative to…
Obamacare Enrollment Improves
The federal government reported slightly better numbers in January for Obamacare’s once-troubled online marketplaces, but Ohio and the nation still fall far short of key demographic goals. For the first time since HealthCare.gov ’s glitch-ridden rollout, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) numbers show the amount of new enrollees actually beat projections…
REVIEW: To No End’s ‘Peril & Paracosm’
Nick Dellaposta is a graphic designer, web developer, guitarist, vocalist and songwriter for Cincinnati/Dayton band To No End. If he did brain surgery on the side, he'd be Buckaroo Banzai. And for a guy with little discernible local profile, Dellaposta has a metric ton of history that begins with learning guitar and writing songs at…
New Wussy Album Due This May
Besides being rid of this depressing winter weather, there's another great reason for local music fans to be excited about the coming spring. One of the more celebrated and acclaimed bands in and outside of Cincinnati, Wussy, will release its new album, Attica, on May 6. The recording will be the band’s fifth full-length of…
Know Introduces New Artistic Director
Know Theatre formally introduced its incoming artistic director, Andrew Hungerford, before a full house on Wednesday evening. He might not approach the boundless energy of his predecessor Eric Vosmeier (more on his half-dozen years at the helm here), but Hungerford has a kind of boyish enthusiasm for the job he's taking on that feels fresh…
Morning News and Stuff
With Cincinnati’s child poverty and economic mobility rates among the worst in the country, it’s clear the city’s poor can get stuck in a vicious cycle of poverty. Although the impoverished trend afflicts more than half of the city’s children, every level of government has in some way cut services to the poor. The end…
What Is Cranley’s Parking Plan?
Mayor John Cranley on Feb. 12 officially unveiled his plan for Cincinnati’s parking meters, lots and garages, providing the first clear option for the city’s parking system since the Greater Cincinnati Port Authority agreed to halt the previous plan. The proposal seeks to effectively replace the previous administration’s parking privatization plan, which outsourced the city’s…
How to Become a Cincinnatian, for Non-Natives
They say you move to Cincinnati and put on a pair of goggles — the longer you stay, the harder it is to take them off. And why would you want to? I’ve lived here for five years and still manage to fall deeper in love with this city every day. For all you newcomers,…
Free HIV Testing on Valentine’s Day
Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio (PPSWO) Region’s HIV Prevention Project has teamed with the Gay & Lesbian Community Center of Greater Cincinnati and the Imperial Sovereign Queen City Court of the Buckeye Empire (ISQCCBE) for a free HIV testing event from 7-10 p.m. on Valentine's Day at Below Zero Lounge (1122 Walnut St., Over-the-Rhine). The testing…
Valentine’s Day Dinner Deals
Some dinner deals for couples (or people who want to eat together) on Valentine's Day. Reservations required for all. Reserve via the restaurant or opentable.com. Bella Luna — Celebrates “Amore Week” from Feb. 11-16. Couples can enjoy a three-course dinner for only $50. 4632 Eastern Ave., East End, 513-871-5862, bellalunacincy.com. Bistro Grace — Offers a three-course surf…
Park + Vine Customer Appreciation Day Thursday
Park + Vine is showing their appreciation for you and me with a customer appreciation day from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Thursday (Feb. 13). They'll be offering free food and drink samples from local businesses, mini massages, live music and discounts — 20 percent off groceries and 10 percent off everything else. Free samples offered by…
A Fatter ‘Enquirer’ and More Media Musings
The Enquirer inadvertently demonstrated the case for evolution. Abandoning its historic and hardline anti-abortion stance, the paper said this last Tuesday: “Abortion is a medical issue for some and a moral issue for others, but residents should be able to depend on health officials making decisions based on medical care. Forbidding publicly funded hospitals from…
Mahogany’s: In the Dark
Word of mouth kept me away. News of the recent financial woes dogging Mahogany’s co-owner Liz Rogers are not surprising, shocking or even new. They date back to 2012 when City Council was color struck and split by the very idea of a black-owned business along the otherwise all-white stretch of The Banks development. Some…
I Just Can’t Get Enough
Dumb Starbucks, we hardly knew you! The “parody” coffee shop, which mimicked the real Starbucks' name, logo, menu (Dumb Frappuccino, Dumb Espresso, served in Dumb Tall, Dumb Grande or Dumb Venti), everything — even font — opened in L.A. Friday only to be shut down by the Los Angeles Health Department Monday. Forbes posted Dumb…
Local Hip Hop Artist Up for MTV Spins
Cincinnati Hip Hop MC Santino Corleon’s latest music video, “Night Still Young,” is one of the five music videos by emerging artists currently featured in MTVu.com’s “The Freshmen” competition. If the 2013 Cincinnati Entertainment Awards nominee beats out the other nominees in the weekly contest, the clip will be put into “on-air rotation” on MTV’s…
REVIEW: Arctic Monkeys at Madison Theater
It was quite a treat for area fans of (forgive the term) Alternative Rock as Arctic Monkeys rolled into Covington’s Madison Theater again this past Monday night. As one of the millennium’s most influential acts, the band from the English Midlands can normally be found playing arenas and large theaters, or headlining festivals throughout their…
Winter’s Tale
Celebrated screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind and I Am Legend) turns to novelist Mark Helprin for his first effort at the helm. Winter’s Tale is pure fantasy; the story of Peter Lake (Colin Farrell), a small-time burglar who breaks into the home of a sickly young heiress named Beverly Penn (Jessica Brown Findlay) and…
The Wind Rises
Japanese animation wizard Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Ponyo) serves up more of his unique brand of visual storytelling that refuses to strip away art for the sake of dumbing down the content to cater to younger audiences with The Wind Rises. Going one key step further, Rises explores biographical subject matter — the life of…
RoboCop
This Valentine’s weekend offers up a love letter to the 1980s with José Padilha’s reimaging of Paul Verhoeven’s Robocop as the third treat from that seemingly seminal movie decade. As excited as I am to see Joel Kinnaman (The Killing and Easy Money) step up to leading man status, the rating of this new version…
Gloria
One of my personal favorites from this past year’s Toronto International Film Festival (where it was announced as Chile’s representative in the race for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards), Gloria focuses on a dynamic fiftysomething divorcee with two grown children in Santiago confronting the bleak dating realities for a woman of a…
Enroll America Seeks Out Ohio’s Uninsured
With HealthCare.gov mostly fixed after its glitch-ridden rollout, outreach campaigns are now doubling efforts to get Americans enrolled in the online marketplaces provided through the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”). One of the organizations now involved in outreach efforts is Enroll America. It plans to connect with uninsured residents in Ohio and 10 other states to…
Legalizing Marijuana Is Serious Business
It’s almost impossible to discuss legalizing marijuana, whether for medical or recreational purposes, without a few giggles. But the issue really deserves the type of serious attention Ohio gives to the bad economy, government budget issues, women’s rights and LGBT rights. It’s not funny, for example, that an Ohio cancer patient struggling with nausea and…
Collaborative Nature
W hen Cincinnati officials and Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS) leaders on Feb. 6 announced plans to work closer together and align policy goals, it was under a notably positive environment that might not have been possible just 10 years ago. And many local officials say the school system’s innovation with community learning centers is largely…
Road to Nowhere
A t Lower Price Hill’s Oyler School, the nurses begin many students’ visits to the school’s expansive medical wing with one question: “Are you hungry?” In many cases, the students aren’t actually sick; they’re genuinely confusing a stomachache or other symptoms of illness with the most basic need to eat. “Working here really keeps me…
Endless Love
The story of star-crossed lovers from opposite sides of the tracks gets a new glossy take in director/co-writer (with Joshua Safran) Shana Feste’s remake of Franco Zeffirelli’s Endless Love — a movie that along with Blue Lagoon came to define this teenage boy’s unrealistic coming-of-age fantasies during the 1980s. Gabriella Wilde steps up onto the…
About Last Night
This minor Brat Pack classic (based on David Mamet’s play Sexual Perversity in Chicago) from the 1980s gets a cultural makeover and an intriguing upgrade that speaks to contemporary sensibilities. The focus of the original was the rakish charm of Rob Lowe opposite the sultry throaty tones of Demi Moore, while this time out, the…
Morning News and Stuff
Mayor John Cranley says his parking plan intends to alleviate Cincinnati’s ongoing budget woes by increasing parking revenue, but the plan will need approval from a majority of City Council to become law. The plan wouldn’t increase parking meter rates downtown, but it would increase neighborhood rates by 25 cents to 75 cents an hour.…
Talk Show Changes Spark Renewed Excitement for Late Night
A new era in NBC late night begins this week as Jay Leno passes The Tonight Show on to a new host, Jimmy Fallon. Fallon previously hosted Late Night beginning in March 2009 through last Friday’s final show. The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (Premiere, midnight Monday, NBC) promises a fresh take on the classic…
Iranian Filmmaker Boldly Explores Emotional Minefield
In America, our notion of family has always adhered to simplistic models. The ideal was nuclear — husband, wife and two children, preferably a boy and a girl. Statistics told us that, in truth, families consisted of 2.5 children and every time we cited that number, it felt like, in our hearts, we longed for…
Murals’ Rescue Turns Solway Gallery into Flower Place
Carl Solway Gallery has obtained Robert Kushner’s The Four Seasons murals from downtown’s Tower Place mall and is showing them with recent paintings by the New York artist in the exhibit Robert Kushner: Paintings 2010-2013 & The Four Seasons. Commissioned in 1990, Kushner’s 9-by-27-foot triptychs hung in Tower Place’s atrium more than two stories above…
‘Allegro’ Is the Ghost of Great Murals Past
Downtown, Over-the-Rhine and other city neighborhoods are being colorfully transformed by the mural program shepherded by ArtWorks. But a forgotten Downtown mural called “Allegro” — a ghost of murals past — deserves recognition as not just one of Cincinnati’s finest, but also as an enduring piece of public art, period. ArtWorks, a nonprofit arts organization,…
From The Ground Up
H onor, valor, love, betrayal — these are the thematic elements of Cincinnati Ballet artistic director and CEO Victoria Morgan’s full-length world premiere, King Arthur’s Camelot, opening this weekend with five performances at the Aronoff Center. As the centerpiece of Cincinnati Ballet’s 50th anniversary season, the production, with a cast of 38, is also significant…
