Brunner promises cleaner presidential election in Ohio this fall
When U.S. voters go to the polls in November to elect the next president, media pundits and advocacy groups again will be keeping a close eye on Ohio. As almost anyone with a pulse knows, President Bush won reelection in 2004 thanks to Ohio's 20 electoral votes. And he won the Buckeye State by a…
Know Theatre lightens up in new musical
At midsummer, no one wants to think to hard or be presented with moral dilemmas. Know Theatre of Cincinnati often deals with such matters, so it's nice to see them relax with a new show, What's the Point? Truth to tell, the point of this musical revue is mostly to evoke smiles and laughter, perhaps…
Rumors, Lies and General Misunderstandings
Several performers have been announced for this September's MidPoint Music Festival (the first with CityBeat at the controls). National booked performers include Robert Pollard, Mates of State, Say Hi, Why?, The Purrs, Rosehips, Oh My God, The Swimmers and a showcase presented by Lujo Records, featuring locals Pomegranates and its Lujo labelmates Look Mexico, Baby…
Cincinnati Opera closes a stellar season
Three! Four! Five! Hockey has hat tricks, meaning three goals by one player. Baseball has grand-slam homers that clean the bases and sweep in four runs. Well, the 2008 Cincinnati Opera (CO) season will go into the books as Five in the Sky. Five soprano debuts. Five triumphs. Actually, one was a debut in a…
Enquirer Right to Focus on Local News
An aging, loving reader frequently called The Enquirer asking why some story in The New York TimesThe Enquirer was his paper. wasn't in his local paper. Jim wasn't angry, just disappointed. He expected so much more because He never accepted that The Times was much richer and larger and could do things his paper couldn't.…
Sports
BY Bill Peterson | Posted 07/23/2008 The following is offered in the spirit of the late Harry Caray, who might be considered a Wittgensteinian in the circles of baseball commentary, if only baseball commentators were familiar with philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Like Wittgenstein, Caray offered insights of such elegant simplicity that they strike the initiated dumb…
Seeing Cloud People
BY C.A. MacConnell | Posted 07/23/2008 Excerpt from my memoir: Dusk. When the days grew longer, when dark was not yet creeping up on the seven hills of Cincinnati, I escaped to the farmer's field behind our house. There, I studied skies. There were more hidden pictures in the clouds than I could imagine. Backside…
Mad Men: Season One (Lionsgate)
BY P.F. Wilson | Posted 07/23/2008 Mad Men: Season One 2007, Not Rated Quality scripted drama is not dead, it's just getting harder to find. One place it turns up is AMC via this acclaimed drama that debuted last year. Season two starts Sunday, and the first-season DVD arrives in time for viewers to catch…
Worst Week Ever!
BY Danny Cross | Posted 07/23/2008 Pizza WEDNESDAY JULY 16 The National Football League doesn't need any more bad press — dogfighting rings and shootings outside of strip clubs are bad enough for business. That's why the league is being proactive about the possibility of players flashing gang signs during their on-field celebrations, which often…
Extra Golden blends Kenyan music with Indie Rock for a compelling hybrid
BY Brian Baker | Posted 07/23/2008 Paul Mawson Africa meets Indie Rock in the sounds of Extra Golden Four years ago, Washington, D.C., ethnomusicology major and Extra Golden guitarist Ian Eagleson was sitting in a Nairobi nightclub with local musician Otieno Jagwasi, a leading light in Kenya's Benga music scene and guitarist in his own…
La Traviata, Great Cincinnati Families at Home, tennis in Mason, Pajama Game, Final Friday and much more
BY Staff | Posted 07/23/2008 Additional Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 myspace.com/mansions Mansions' Christopher Browder WEDNESDAY 7/23 ART: MANIFEST CREATIVE RESEARCH GALLERY hosts Master Pieces, a juried show featuring eight artists. See Angela Kilduff's review here. MUSIC: LUCINDA WILLIAMS AND JOHN MELLENCAMP play Riverbend Music Center. See Sound Advice preview here. MUSIC:…
Wessels
BY Joe Wessels | Posted 07/23/2008 It's not very often that I find myself getting into a swimming pool these days. When I was a kid, though, on a hot, humid Cincinnati summer day there was no better escape. Lucky for me, my parents paid to send me (and my little sister) to the Powel…
There’s Something About Sake
BY Michael Schiaparelli | Posted 07/23/2008 Photos.com I first tasted sushi at a mall food court when I was a teenager. It was god-awful, rank, foul-smelling stuff, and the experience convinced me that I hated sushi. Years later, I realized that I really only dislike bad sushi, while freshly prepared, pristine sushi is now among…
Bosco Rossi (Profile)
"I wish you would look at me like you look at her, but you don't," Molly Sullivan bellows out on "Texas Toast," a compelling acoustic song that's both bite-your-lip-strong and achingly fragile, fully capturing Sullivan's style — the punch of early, unapologetic Ani Difranco combined with the soul-grabbing, raw jolt of Cat Power. Yeah, guts…
Schedule Favors Reds Climbing Back into Contention … If They Can Beat Bad Teams
BY Bill Peterson | Posted 07/23/2008 Jerry Dowling The following is offered in the spirit of the late Harry Caray, who might be considered a Wittgensteinian in the circles of baseball commentary, if only baseball commentators were familiar with philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Like Wittgenstein, Caray offered insights of such elegant simplicity that they strike the…
Books: Selective Perspective
BY Maija Zummo | Posted 07/23/2008 Douglas Rowe Ellen Everman recalls 1950s Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky in her new novel, Pink Dice. There's the threatening cliché that if we don't learn from our past we're doomed to repeat it. But sometimes you have to wonder if the past is really all that bad, especially when…
Cover Story: Waters’ Filthy World
BY Jason Gargano | Posted 07/23/2008 Additional Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 Sean Hughes John Waters' Filthy World John Waters' four-decade career is as distinctive as his signature pencil-thin mustache. The writer/director's early cult films reveled in copious amounts of fun, filth and depravity, culminating with his self-described "trash trilogy"…
Hooray for the American League
BY Readers | Posted 07/23/2008 Thanks to Bill Peterson for his insightful analysis regarding American League dominance in baseball ("The American League Is Superior Thanks to the Yanks," issue of July 16). I'm 61 and suffered for decades during my youth as a die-hard AL fan. The ghosts of Johnny Callison have been exorcised! When…
Onstage: Review: Edges
BY Rick Pender | Posted 07/23/2008 Perhaps I've not paid enough attention to Transit Five, a theater company of high school and college students now in its third season. Or perhaps I picked exactly the right moment to see their show, Edges, a new musical revue about that awkward transitional moment between adolescence and adulthood.…
Editorial
BY John Fox | Posted 07/23/2008 Cincinnati is having one of those weeks where good news and bad news try to outdo each other. On the positive side, good feelings remain from last week's NAACP national convention. Given the pressure to prove that the group chose wisely in holding the convention here instead of in…
Sound Advice: : Lucinda Williams and Film School
BY Brian Baker | Posted 07/23/2008 Additional Images: 1 | 2 Lost Highway Records Lucinda Williams Lucinda Williams with John Mellencamp Wednesday • Riverbend Music Center It's hard to fathom now, but there really was a time when Lucinda Williams was not the iconic Americana artist that she is today. Ten years ago Williams was…
McCain’s Inaction Speaks Louder Than Words
If the way Sen. John McCain is running his presidential campaign in Greater Cincinnati is any indication, maybe it's a good thing that he's trailing Barack Obama in nearly every recent national poll. McCain's judgment is under scrutiny again after he appointed Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters as his campaign's southwest Ohio regional chairman despite…
Review: Riverside Korean
Riverside Korean Restaurant doesn't seem to change much over the years. The restaurant, which opened in 1995, has five floor tables and five grill booths (put into action if you order a grilled dish for two or more people) along the opposite wall for dining. By the way, how do older Korean men and women…
You Think You Really Know Me: The Gary Wilson Story (Plexifilm)
BY Steven Rosen | Posted 07/23/2008 You Think You Really Know Me: The Gary Wilson Story 2008, Not Rated Gary Wilson's self-released 1977 album, You Think You Really Know Me, is prized by record collectors constantly in search of Rock's "great lost masterpieces." It's included as a CD in this two-disc package, along with a…
The Man of A Thousand Faces (Universal Studios)
BY Phil Morehart | Posted 07/23/2008 The Man of A Thousand Faces 1957, Unrated Hollywood's posthumous feting of legendary silent film chameleon Lon Chaney is a mixed bag. It's unfortunate, because the man behind the memorable grotesqueries in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Phantom of the Opera and more lived a life tailor-made for…
Poor Judgment
The old joke goes like this: "Did they give you a lawyer?" "No, I got a Public Defender." The tired saying becomes a harsh indictment of the Public Defender's Office in Hamilton County and the way our community handles criminal justice after reading the new report Taking Gideon's Pulse: An Assessment of the Right to…
Bursting Forth in Summer
Just like the economy, Cincinnati's theater scene runs in cycles. Ten years ago, summer was full of theater choices: UC's College-Conservatory of Music entertained us with new or seldom-seen shows at Hot Summer Nights and the Cincinnati Playhouse offered interesting fare. Those series dried up for budgetary reasons about five years ago, but suddenly summer…
Onstage: Review: West Side Story
BY Rick Pender | Posted 07/23/2008 (enlarge) Jersey Productions has moved from Covington's Carnegie Center to downtown's Aronoff Center for its third season. The focus remains on classic works of musical theater, as the current offering is West Side Story. Director Larry Smiglewski has assembled a cast of 27, and choreographer Vincent Briguccia has trained…
Film: Review: Gonzo
BY Steven Rosen | Posted 07/23/2008 Magnolia Pictures Man on a mission: '70s-era Dr. Hunter S. Thompson in Gonzo After winning this year's Best Documentary Oscar for Taxi to the Dark Side and being nominated for Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Alex Gibney takes a break from investigating today's governmental and corporate corruption…
This Week in Wellness
BY Stephen Carter-Novotni | Posted 07/23/2008 Join MoBo Bicycle Co-op for a class on tuning up your brakes and gears. Free with $20 membership. 7-9 p.m. July 24. The Village Green, 1415 Knowlton Ave., Northside, www.mobobicyclecoop.org. The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center opens its doors for FreedomFest. Admission is free all day and includes kids…
Richard Fruth
BY Tamera Lenz Muente | Posted 07/23/2008 Richard Fruth Richard Fruth Richard Fruth's wall-mounted sculptures present miniature psychodramas infused with humor and sarcasm. Here he shares what inspired his new solo show, Everything was Going Great, Until Now, opening Friday at KraftHaus Gallery, 1334 Main St., Over-the-Rhine; reception at 6-9 p.m. Challenges: I set goals…
Manifest Gallery’s juried show focuses on eight artists
BY Angela Kilduff | Posted 07/23/2008 Manifest Gallery Metra Mitchell's "Cessation" How do you define a masterpiece? In its current exhibition, Master Pieces, Manifest Gallery takes a literal approach to the question. The juried show requested submissions from artists who are working toward or have just completed a Master of Arts degree. Thirteen works by…
