Feb 22 – Mar 1, 2017
Inspiration Times Two: Hip Hop artist Napoleon Maddox mines his great-grandaunts’ experience as conjoined twins to explore African-Americans’ dual lives
Morning News: will Cincy get big chunk of state cash for transportation?; Hamilton County deputies to get body cams; Kasich says Medicaid expansion repeal “not acceptable”
Good morning all. Here’s a bit of news on this stormy Tuesday. Will Cincinnati score big on the state’s upcoming transportation funding bill? Local Republicans and Democrats alike are crossing their fingers that the Ohio General Assembly will pass the bill, which has made it through a House committee. Included in the legislation are more…
Critic’s Pick: ‘Something Rotten!’ at the Aronoff
A musical that makes fun of musicals, playing to an audience that loves musicals: That’s a fair distillation of Something Rotten!, the touring Broadway hit presently onstage at the Aronoff Center. It also pokes some serious fun at the greatest playwright of all time, William Shakespeare. In fact, the show’s second song is “God, I…
Let’s Wish Deters Well — It’s Our Only Choice
This year, our Court of Appeals will have four new judges out of six. That’s a major shakeup, brought about by a confluence of circumstances — one judge lost reelection, one maxed out on age, two were elected to the Ohio Supreme Court. The court reviews decisions of all courts in the district. (Our 1st…
Kentuckians rank 45th in high school attainment, so lawmakers authorize a Bible class for public schools
Kentucky promoters like to talk about bourbon and racehorses while sidestepping the state’s longstanding failure to see its young people through high school. So while American students fall further and further behind their global counterparts in math and science, the Kentucky Legislature has decided to make the public high school curriculum more competitive than ever…
Stage Door: Shakespeare, For Better AND For Worse
If you need of an evening of laughter, there’s a good chance you’ll find it at the Aronoff Center, where the current touring production of Something Rotten is onstage through March 5. I haven’t seen the tour yet, but I saw the Broadway production back in November 2015 (I took this photo of a digital billboard…
Morning News: Should streetcar accident reports be public?; city manager: spike in shootings requires police overtime funding; Boehner says Congress won’t repeal Obamacare
Hello all. It’s Friday, the weather is an improbable 65 degrees, the sun is shining and I’ve got some news to tell you about. It just doesn’t get any better. Should the public have access to reports about streetcar accidents? A state lawmaker thinks so. Currently, the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority and the Ohio…
Your Weekend To Do List (Feb. 24-26)
FRIDAY 24 ART: TWICE THE FIRST TIME Napoleon Maddox, the socially conscious frontman of the Hip Hop group IsWhat?!, does everything with passion and thought. But he’s giving at least double his usual effort to Twice the First Time, an intensely personal project that makes its world premiere Wednesday night at the Contemporary Arts Center.…
Morning News: City budget shortfall could mean cuts for departments; Park Board fight continues; Mandel spends tax payer money on ads featuring… Mandel
Hello Cincy. Let’s do this news thing real quick. City of Cincinnati officials are facing a $25 million budget deficit, and city departments are being asked to make cuts. City Manager Harry Black outlined the extent of the city’s shortfall — due, according to a University of Cincinnati Economics Center report, to lower-than-expected income tax…
LISTEN: Cincinnati Music Releases – February ’17 Playlist
This weird year sounds like it’s off to a good start — if you’re listening to the music coming out of Greater Cincinnati, at least. Even if the Apocalypse is just on the horizon, we can go down with a great soundtrack in the background. Our Cincinnati music playlist for February includes everything from Jazz…
What a Week! Feb. 15-21
WEDNESDAY, FEB. 15 Sometimes, a local news story comes along that takes importance over all national and global matters. People across the Tristate this week turned their attention away from national news, their work and families to focus on one shocking headline: Skyline changed its crackers. Following the outraged response on social media, The Enquirer,…
‘Legion’ is a psychedelic, psychiatric romp
Employing an unreliable narrator is a popular technique in TV and film, especially lately — think Rami Malek’s Elliot in Mr. Robot or Emily Blunt’s Rachel in The Girl on the Train. Showrunner Noah Hawley puts his stamp on this device in his psychedelic, psychiatric romp through the X-Men universe, Legion (10 p.m. Wednesdays, FX). Legion is the mutant…
Predicting This Year’s Oscar Winners and Their Place in History
As the Academy Awards season nears its end with Sunday night’s ceremonies, I find that I have been curiously drawn to Blind Vaysha, writer-director Theodore Ushev’s Best Animated Short nominee. It perfectly encapsulates the dilemma critics and discriminating film fans face every year when preparing to make Academy Award predictions. Its succinct narrative presents the…
Critic’s Pick: ‘Richard III’ at Cincy Shakes
Shakespeare’s Richard III, written in the early 1590s, has been produced continually for more than four centuries. The power-mad royal who died in battle in 1485 at the end of the War of the Roses was Shakespeare’s first great villain. Cincinnati Shakespeare Company’s Billy Chace is currently grabbing the part furiously with both fists and…
Samurai Armor as a Fashion Statement
With a title like Dressed to Kill: Japanese Arms & Armor, you might think this is purely a warlike exhibit, aiming for throngs of young (and older) men rushing to the Cincinnati Art Museum through May 7 to imagine themselves in battle with the weaponry on display. And there may be that aspect to it.…
Two new Contemporary Arts Center exhibitions confront politically charged topics
The two separate exhibitions currently on view at the Contemporary Arts Center — one by artist Noel Anderson and one by Andrea Bowers — are timely reminders of the power art can wield to catalyze social change. Both artists sift through the archives of the past, making new totems toward an expanded understanding of how…
Bockfest Is Coming
Last week, Cincy got another craft brewery — Brink Brewing Co., College Hill’s first — but at the end of the month, the city will lose one when Ei8ht Ball inside Northern Kentucky’s Party Source pours its beers for the final time. To celebrate our long-standing brewing heritage and its ebbs and flows, the 25th…
Morning News: Cranley launches re-election bid; work begins on Wasson Way; Sen. McConnell greeted by 1,000 protesters
Good morning all. Here’s your news today. Last night, Mayor John Cranley officially kicked off his re-election bid with an event in Price Hill. Cranley is facing challenges from Cincinnati City Councilwoman Yvette Simpson and former University of Cincinnati Board Chair Rob Richardson Jr., both fellow Democrats who have pitched themselves as progressive alternatives to…
A Brief History of Fish Logs
If you’ve ever driven on Spring Grove Avenue on your way to Northside, you know the Old Timber Inn. Or should I say: the fish logs place. Right. That place. The giant blue-gray building featuring a mural of a happy couple and waitress painted on the side — the one whose sign is perpetually advertising…
Napoleon Maddox mines his great-grandaunts’ experience as conjoined twins to explore African-Americans’ dual lives
Napoleon Maddox, the socially conscious frontman of the Hip Hop group IsWhat?!, does everything with passion and thought. But he’s giving at least double his usual effort to Twice the First Time, an intensely personal project that makes its world premiere Wednesday night at the Contemporary Arts Center. Maddox’s multimedia piece, part of CAC’s Black…
Singles Going Steady
• Last week, Northern Kentucky singer/songwriter Wonky Tonk (aka Jasmine Poole) celebrated the release of a vinyl 7-inch titled Love Detox. Issued by Brooklyn, N.Y.’s Leesta Vall Sound Recordings (leestavall.com), the release features just two tracks, but they show the breadth of Wonky Tonk’s unique gifts and her ability to jump off from a traditional…
Big Gigantic preaches the gospel of hope, love, charity and dance with ‘Brighter Future’
In the current sociopolitical climate of discord and dread, it’s a challenge to remain upbeat. Against all odds, EDM/Synth Pop/Soul duo Big Gigantic is striving to steer its fans away from despair and back toward the light of hopefulness. The twosome’s message is blazingly apparent in the title of its latest album, last year’s Brighter…
Sound Advice: Frontier Ruckus (Feb. 23)
As has often been noted, much of today’s commercially successful Country music seems to simply be Pop music with the light addition of fiddle, banjo or some other instrument so crucially tied to the genre. It seems like as soon as those elements were stripped from, say, Taylor Swift’s music, she was instantly moved from…
Sound Advice: Ne-Hi with Cross Country (Feb. 25)
“Offers,” the title song on Ne-Hi’s freshly minted second album, is a brief, slow-burn Psych rocker heavy on atmosphere and light on words (20, to be exact). It’s a curious left turn for a band known for the jangly, upbeat approach present in songs like the album’s opener, “Palm of Hand,” which brings to mind…
Sound Advice: Jason Ringenberg/Farmer Jason (Feb. 26)
When events are advertised as “fun for the whole family,” that typically means they are considerably more enjoyable for the shorter members of the clan and at least tolerable for the taller ones. When a Jason Ringenberg appearance is the event, you can believe the hype. When Ringenberg isn’t out front with Jason and The…
Last Days for the Dennison?
Patches of sky were visible through the top-floor windows at the back of the 125-year-old Dennison Hotel the morning of Feb. 20, and a thick, drifting fog enveloped the building in downtown Cincinnati’s Main Street Historic District. As contractors began to demolish it by removing portions of its roof, a crane stood nearby at the…
Minimum Gauge: Grace Slick donates Chick-fil-A’s dirty money to LQBTQ organization
HOT: Donating the Chicken Scratch If it seemed weird to hear a song that Classic Rock icon Grace Slick sang on used in a Chick-fil-A commercial (even if it is “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now,” a grating Pop tune by distant Jefferson Airplane offshoot Starship), the singer herself is in your corner. In an op-ed…
