Jan 20-27, 2016
Pages and Perseverance: Cartoonist Carol Tyler Explores Life Through Art
Event: Listen to This! Remembering David Bowie
Cincinnati’s Main Library devotes the latest installment of its Listen to This! record-listening session to the music of the late, dearly departed David Bowie, who died on Jan. 10. With Steven Kemple leading the record selection and discussion, expect to hear Bowie material ranging from his pre-Ziggy Stardust days looking for a sound to his…
Event: Cincy Stories
Cincy Stories’ mission to build community through narrative continues with the next installment. Let walls come down and allow empathy and understanding to grow in their place through listening to life stories told by Cincinnati Enquirer engagement editor Katie Vogel, MORTAR co-founder Derrick Braziel, Tom+Chee co-founder Corey Ward, Black Owned co-owner Cam Means, community connector…
Film: Moving Images: Thomas Struth and Thomas Ruff
The Cincinnati Art Museum’s monthly Moving Images film series starts off 2016 with short documentaries about two contemporary German photographers named Thomas: Ralph Goertz and Werner Raeune’s Thomas Struth and Goertz’s Thomas Ruff. Both Struth and Ruff studied with Bernd and Hilla Becher, whose deadpan architectural photos have proven very influential. Also, both Struth and…
Event: Park + Vine Vegan Chili Cook-Off
Cincinnati’s favorite vegan café and green general store invites you to show off your unique twist on chili, with recipes featuring tofu, tempeh, seitan and/or vegetables. Enter your recipe to be judged by local celebrity foodies — including Colonel De and Joanne Drilling of Cincinnati Magazine — in categories like Most Likely to Serve to…
Event: Cincinnati Entertainment Awards
You know the bands. You’ve seen them perform. You’ve voted for your favorites. Now it’s time to find out which local musical acts are winners of the 2016 Cincinnati Entertainment Awards. CityBeat’s 19th-annual CEAs take over Covington’s Madison Theater for a night of unforgettable results and performances. CEA nominees including Jess Lamb, The Slippery Lips,…
Art: The People’s State of the Union Exhibition and Story Circle at Artspace Lofts
Through her work as a cultural agent for the radically inclusive grassroots “U.S. Department of Arts and Culture” — not affiliated with any governmental agency — artist and activist Joi Sears has organized an exhibition and storytelling event called The People’s State of the Union at the new Artspace Hamilton Lofts this weekend. Artists and…
Event: MadTree’s Winter Bonanza
MadTree celebrates its third birthday with the annual Winter Bonanza. This event features nearly 60 warming craft beers with favorites, limited releases and barrel-aged brews from MadTree, plus guest taps from other local and regional breweries. All beer tickets are $5, and pours range from 7-16 oz. depending on the brew. Keep your ears open…
Art: Matthew Kolodziej at Carl Solway Gallery
Carl Solway Gallery hosts an opening reception for Matthew Kolodziej’s Patch Work: New Paintings, a selection of work informed by the painter’s interest in materials, archeology and construction processes. Although they resemble Abstract Expressionism, Kolodziej’s pieces are multi-layered fragments of visual details captured from architectural sites in flux. The painter, a professor of art at…
Music: Otis
Hailing from the small community of Sulphur Well in south central Kentucky, the four-piece band Otis takes its influences from a wide-range of electric Blues legends, from early artists like Muddy Waters to ’60s/’70s Blues exploders like Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin to Southern Blues Rock greats like The Allman Brothers Band. None other than…
Event: Art After Dark: Winter Wilderness
The Cincinnati Art Museum’s Art After Dark: Winter Wilderness celebrates art and nature with an after-hours party. There will be live Folk music by local band Wilder and guided tours of the exhibit Field Guide: Photographs by Jochen Lempert. Lempert is a German photographer who studied biology and presents a special view on plants and…
Is OTR Affordable?
Options for housing in one of Cincinnati’s most popular neighborhoods are becoming more diverse but also less affordable for the city’s lowest-income renters, a new study shows. Xavier University’s Community Building Institute on Jan. 25 released a housing inventory commissioned by the Over-the-Rhine Community Council of the housing stock in the quickly developing neighborhood. The…
Comedy: Chad Daniels
“I think one of the biggest problems I’m talking about right now is parents giving their kids excuses,” says comedian Chad Daniels. “The problem is all the kid knows is excuses and he just keeps acting like an asshole. That’s the middle of my set right now.” But Daniels is quick to point out, “I…
Event: Miller Gallery Grand Reopening
Miller Gallery, the city’s oldest art gallery, had been owned by one family since its founding in 1960. Jayne Menke of Artonomy design consultancy bought the space last year and kept the name, but she’s updated the Hyde Park Square institution. After months of renovations, the wraps are off to reveal a brighter, more open…
Event: Hilton Netherland Plaza 85th Birthday Party
It’s been more than eight decades since the Hilton Netherland Plaza opened its doors for its Grand Opening Gala, and the hotel is commemorating the occasion with a frozen-in-time, food-filled celebration this weekend — exactly 85 years to the day since its opening. Eat your way through an eight-course menu at Orchids at Palm Court, featuring…
Film: Winter French Film Series
The University of Cincinnati and Alliance Française present a partnered Winter French Film Series at Clifton’s Esquire Theatre. The series starts with the first of three contemporary social comedies: Cédric Klapisch’s 2011 My Piece of the Pie. In this film, a woman takes a job as a maid for a powerful broker who helped close…
Onstage: Grounded
Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati’s 30th-anniversary season continues with an intense one-woman story told through the eyes of a fierce fighter pilot whose pregnancy “grounds” her. Instead of spending time flying missions, she is stationed in a windowless trailer in the desert outside Las Vegas, flying military drones above the Middle East to hunt down and kill…
Morning News and Stuff
Good morning, Cincinnati! Here's your daily round-up of headlines: At a Monday evening meeting of the Hamilton County Improvement District, city and county officials agreed that fixing the troubled Western Hills Viaduct is beyond their budgets. The bridge connecting the city to the West Side is in bad need of replacement and will cost a…
Henry VI: Onstage Action Movie
Cincinnati Shakespeare Company continues its five-year project to produce the Bard’s “History Cycle,” tracing the reigns of King Richard II and III, and three Henrys (IV, V and VI) in between. Each of these productions has opened with a genealogical tree backdrop showing the tangled web of brothers, cousins, uncles, fathers, sons and various marriages…
Morning News and Stuff
Good morning, Cincinnati! Here are your morning headlines. The city of Cincinnati could soon seize seven buildings in Over-the-Rhine and one in Avondale if the owner doesn't make costly repairs by March 15. Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Jerome Metz declared the eight buildings "public nuisances" after previously requesting that the buildings' owner, Washington,…
10 Days to Iowa: The Fight for the Democratic Nomination Gets Close
After a series of attacks against against Bernie Sanders have seemingly backfired, Hillary Clinton’s campaign has begun to backpedal and soften their defensive rhetoric against the 74-year-old Vermont senator. Like attacking GOP front-runner Donald Trump, attacks against Sanders seemingly makes him stronger. Clinton allies likely were not happy this week after Chelsea Clinton told a…
Your Weekend To Do List (1/22-1/24)
FRIDAY EVENT: A MOVEABLE FEAST Whether you are a theatergoer, symphony lover or tech junkie, the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music’s most popular fundraiser has something for you. Enjoy cocktails and gourmet hors d’oeuvres in between lively performances that sample the best of CCM, including musical theater, dance, drama, opera, choral music, chamber music,…
Stage Door
Cincinnati Shakespeare Company is staging the original “game of thrones” — England’s Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453) as retold by the Bard’s history plays — eight shows being presented in chronological order across five theater seasons. (Cincy Shakes is only the second theater company in the U.S. to present the history cycle in Chronological order.) We’ve…
Eagle is On the Wing
I first encountered the phenomenon that is Josh Eagle on a warm August evening four and a half years ago. We were meeting for an interview to discuss his then new album with his band, Harvest City, A Good One is Hard to Find. When I located him at Northside Tavern, he was seated in…
Morning News and Stuff
Good morning all. Here’s a quick rundown of the news today before we’re all buried in snow, or at least tweets about snow. The Ohio Supreme Court yesterday ruled that suspended Hamilton County Juvenile Court judge Tracie Hunter can avoid jail for now as she continues to appeal her 2014 felony conviction. Meanwhile, a state…
Slice of Cincinnati: Cuban Pete
It’s a Wednesday, and the line at Cuban Pete Sandwiches on Court Street downtown stretches out the door during lunchtime. Hungry customers don’t mind waiting in line for the only authentic Cuban cuisine in Cincinnati. The staff is prepared, having pre-made 50 traditional Cuban sandwiches at the start of their shift. The restaurant catches the…
Morning News and Stuff
Good morning, Cincy! Here are your morning headlines. Eight of the nine City Council members have signed a motion to go forward with the purchase of four miles of railway needed for the Wasson Way trail project. The city has a $12 million purchase agreement with Norfolk Southern Railroad that is set to expire in…
Pages and Perseverance
It’s a frigid January afternoon a couple weeks before Carol Tyler’s exhibition featuring work from her past, present and future is set to open at the University of Cincinnati’s Meyers Gallery. The intimate space, which resides in the shadow of Nippert Stadium amid the heart of UC’s campus, consists of two rooms, each of which…
Better to Be Alone in ‘Mojave’
The tortured artist stands as one of the most iconic of human figures. Whether through an investigation of the senses or the intuitive and expressive embodiment of their craft, the artist unlocks secrets within and lays them bare for the rest of us, offering reflections that we might not be able to recognize or face…
NYC Tenement Museum Sets Example for OTR
When Ruth Abram speaks Friday at the Mercantile Library about how she founded New York’s successful Lower East Side Tenement Museum, many in attendance will be wondering if they can do here what she did there. There is an active local nonprofit group trying to start the Over-the-Rhine Museum, modeled on the Tenement Museum but…
Girl Power at the Playhouse
The Cincinnati Playhouse has premiered new plays since its earliest days, the first in 1962, just two years after its founding. With upcoming productions of Karen Zacarías’ Native Gardens and Lauren Gunderson’s The Revolutionists, the theater’s total has more than doubled in two decades. (These are the 71st and 72nd works premiered.) Nearly 30 percent…
Groundbreaking Partnership
Eight members of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company appear this weekend in Body Against Body at the Aronoff Center. The company was founded in 1982 by Bill T. Jones and his partner Arnie Zane, who died in 1988. Cincinnati audiences will see three illuminating pieces that return to company roots: Duet X 2…
Worst Week Ever! Jan. 13-19
Local Political Windbags Share More Opinions About Sports Politics are stupid and sports are annoying. When you mix the two you get things that are stupid and annoying. Chemistry is real! After the Bengals' most recent crushing defeat that made parts of your heart and head hurt that you didn’t even know were part of…
American Made
Cincinnati is experiencing somewhat of a burger renaissance; you could say burgers are the new food trend of 2016, toppling tacos and Southern-style comfort cuisine. Last year, Nation Kitchen & Bar opened in Pendleton, and in late 2015 both Bru Burger and Americano Burger Bar opened downtown — Americano just last month. So far, no…
Sound Advice: Those Darlins
The latest Those Darlins tour should have been the celebratory launch of the band’s 10th anniversary, but, in light of their “indefinite hiatus/time to move in different directions” announcement last month on Facebook, this circuit will be Those Darlins’ victory lap before dismantling one of the best bands to come out of Nashville, Tenn., in…
Sound Advice: X_X with Obnox and All-Seeing Eyes
If you draw a blank at the mention of the Cleveland Art-Experimental-Noise-Proto-Punk band X_X, that’s what its founder, John D. Morton, wants. That’s because the band’s name is pronounced “X-blank-X,” and it has been known to insert some other name into that blank space to fit the mood or project of the moment. It’s the…
Sound Advice: Luke Wade
Unlike a lot of contestants on The Voice, NBC’s vocal talent show, Luke Wade wasn’t looking to get a record deal out of the experience. He had already released his sophomore album, The River, the spring before he successfully navigated the competition’s audition process and secured a spot on Pharrell Williams’ team until his eventual…
Sound Advice: Steve Forbert
It’s been 40 years since Steve Forbert lost his job as a truck driver in his hometown of Meridian, Miss., and blew into New York City with an ass-pocket full of Folk/Rock songs and a dream to make a living from them. In relatively short order, Forbert went from subway busking and opening for Talking…
Lazy Heart Celebrates Stunning Debut Release
Remarkable Cincinnati trio Lazy Heart came together in its current state in 2014, after singer/guitarist Stephen Patota (also of The Happy Maladies) and drummer Ben Sloan (who tours the world with popular locally based group Why?) welcomed bassist/cellist/singer Josh Fink (formerly of Zamin) into the fold. Sloan and Patota had played together for several years…
Hello, Newman
There aren’t many career paths that include studying at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music and working for a boss in a meat dress. Trumpeter Brian Newman has traveled that stretch over the past decade and a half, from his truncated CCM history to sessioning and performing with Lady Gaga, Tony Bennett and many…
Zach Galifianakis Keeps Things Weird
When an offbeat up-and-comer hits it big — be it a musician, actor or comedian — they can lose their edge. Sometimes stars sell out on their way to the top. So it’s nice to know that even though Zach Galifianakis is making that Hangover money, he’s still staying true to his weirdo roots. The…
Measuring Up
A s Ohio Gov. John Kasich continues to fight an underdog battle for the GOP presidential nomination, he’s made his economic know-how a keystone of his pitch in debates, campaign appearances and ads. Kasich has argued that his experience as a U.S. Representative in the 1990s and his time as Ohio’s governor show he…
Police-Shooting Stats and the Media
While federal officials dithered, The Washington Post and U.S. staff of London’s daily Guardian compiled lists of Americans killed by law enforcement last year. It was slogging journalism at its best: searching for sources, following up leads, digging out death reports and circumstances, using interviews to double-check everything. I’ve written about this before. Here are…
Killer Spin Doctor
HOT: Killer Spin Doctor Republicans would already have a field day blasting Bernie Sanders if he becomes the Democratic presidential nominee by simply shouting “Socialist!” over and over. They could also use the “big scary rapper!” card, after Hip Hop MC Killer Mike worked the spin room for Sanders after the most recent Democratic candidate…
