Onstage: Love Rides the Rails at The Drama Workshop
The Drama Workshop (TDW), a venerable community theater, has recently established its home at the onetime Glenmore Bowl, built in 1928. In 2013 and 2014, for the second season at the Glenmore, a diverse array of shows is planned: the comic musical Nunsense (October), 1940’s Radio Christmas Carol for the holidays, the riveting courtroom drama…
Art: Paper Trail2
There’s something special about ideas committed to paper. While our thumbs rest from texting, our fingertips appreciate the tactile sensation of a physical page. As we create and study images, our brains connect moments from our past, forming a trail. Phyllis Weston Gallery’s Paper Trail2 celebrates local artists working with paper. This memorable show is…
Event: LumenoCity
Since opening just more than a year ago, Washington Park has become the go-to venue for everything from concerts to fundraisers. Now, Music Hall’s tenants who call the park “our front yard” are gearing up for LumenoCity, a musical and visual collaboration that is the first of its kind in the world, featuring the Cincinnati…
Music: Lil Wayne and 2 Chainz with T.I.
New Orleanian Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., better known to the world at large as Lil Wayne, has jammed a couple of lifetimes into his first 30 years, but that’s bound to happen when you sign a music contract at age 9. His solo effort, Tha Carter, in 2004 vaulted Wayne into the musical stratosphere, exposing him…
Music: Bonnie “Prince” Billy & Dawn McCarthy and Anwar Sadat
It doesn’t really come as a surprise that slanted Americana-flavored singer/songwriter Will Oldham (aka Bonnie “Prince” Billy) was an Everly Brothers fan as a kid growing up in Louisville, Ky. More curious is the fact that Oldham’s latest album, What the Brothers Sang, is a tribute to the Everlys’ iconic employment of vocal harmony. The…
Music: It’s Commonly Jazz
It’s Commonly Jazz returns this Thursday. One of the oldest free series of its kind in the region, the It’s Commonly Jazz showcases have been running for 28 years, presenting marquee artists like Eddie Harris, McCoy Tyner, Javon Jackson and David “Fathead” Newman. The free series — running every Thursday in August — returns to…
Music: Grizzly Bear
Grizzly Bear is the kind of band that sneaks up on you. Its atmospheric, richly textured songs take time to process, its hooks less overt than your typical Indie Rock outfit’s. The band’s four multitalented members are just as understated in personality and presentation, all of which makes Grizzly Bear’s steady upward trajectory somewhat surprising…
Event: Tristate Antique Market
Slip into your grandpa’s Oxfords and make your way to Indiana’s largest antique and vintage market. These goods are your momma’s antiques: Any fake items or contemporary reproductions are actively discouraged, and all merchandise is required to be at least 30 years old. From artwork to kitchen appliances to special accessories, the Tristate Antique Market…
Event: Sayler Park Sustains
Sayler Park Sustains Festival celebrates a kid-friendly day of community, stewardship and sustainability with music, hands-on demonstrations, local vendors, food and drink. There will be demonstrations for urban farming and chicken keeping, DIY solar project installation, permaculture, rain barrels, bee keeping and more. There will also be live music by The Part-Time Gentlemen, Casey Campbell,…
Music: Lebanon Blues Festival
The Blues are rampant in Cincinnati this weekend — and that should make everyone pretty happy. If you aren’t heading down to Sawyer Point for Cincy Blues Fest, head to historic downtown Lebanon. The Lebanon Blues Festival has food, beer, attractions — for kids and adults, including a motorcycle show and classic car show —…
Art: Brighton First Saturdays
After the closure of Museum Gallery/Gallery Museum and a general slow down when area Universities went on summer break, Brighton’s current stable of galleries will once again be in full swing this coming first Saturday. Third Party Gallery will host Everything is Anything Else, an exhibition of collaboratively produced photographs by Jason Lukas, Zachary Norman…
Event: Legends of the Night Sky
Take a lighthearted trip through the Orion, Perseus and Andromeda constellations by exploring the popular myths surrounding them at the Drake Planetarium. Part of planetarium’s laser show series, Legends of the Night Sky features an imaginative display of animation and history, accompanied by narrators Aesop the owl and Socrates the mouse. The show has won…
Music: Cincy Blues Fest
Presented by the Cincy Blues Society, the Cincy Blues Fest is the Blues event of the summer for the region. This year’s event — again taking place at Sawyer Point — will feature a “Women in the Blues” showcase on Friday, with EG Knight, Tempted Souls Band, The Juice and Rio & The Ramblers. The…
Lit: Literary Lunch with Leah Stewart
Local resident Leah Stewart stops by the Mercantile Library’s Literary Lunch series this week to discuss her latest novel, The History of Us, a Cincinnati-set, sneakily addictive coming-of-age tale about a family thrown together via unfortunate circumstances. Stewart, who is also a creative writing professor at the University of Cincinnati, uses this setup to investigate…
Comedy: Kevin Brennan
Over the years, comedian Kevin Brennan has gone from telling jokes about partying and the usual pursuits of young people to current events and politics. Of course, he still has an eye for everyday life. “I just had my second kid,” he tells an audience. “It’s a nightmare. One kid’s bad enough, but two kids?…
Event: World’s Longest Yard Sale
Stretching 690 miles from Michigan to Alabama, the 2013 World’s Longest Yard Sale is a colossal social and shopping extravaganza. Folks along the Highway 127 corridor set up shop in their front yards, welcoming visitors from all over the country to browse and buy unusual finds. In addition to miles of merchandise, the sale is…
Event: Glier’s Goettafest
Gotta get some goetta? Glier’s Goettafest — a festival dedicated to the mouthwatering meat — has got you covered. The blend of pork, beef, whole grain, oats, onions and spices takes on new levels of deliciousness in creative concoctions like goetta-based fudge and pizza, all available for $6 or less. Rock out to live entertainment…
Film: Cincinnati Film Society Bar Series
The Cincinnati Film Society, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to encouraging appreciation of film as an art form, screens a movie the first Thursday of every month at The Greenwich bar in Walnut Hills. This month, CFS will screen The Comedy, a film about an aging hipster indifferent to the prospects of inheriting his father’s estate. …
Onstage: Grease
This musical about hot-rodding, high-spirited teens at Rydell High ran for eight years on Broadway with good reason — great tunes in the ’50s style of Buddy Holly, Little Richard and Elvis plus lots of youthful energy. It’s the kind of show audiences love to see again and again. Grease is a perfect show for…
Council to Undo $4 Million in Budget Cuts
A motion proposed by a majority of City Council today would use leftover revenue from the previous budget year to undo cuts to various programs, including human services, parks and the Health Department. The restorations mean no city workers will be laid off as a result of the operating budget passed in May. Previously, 60…
Morning News and Stuff
City Council could use leftover revenue from the previous budget cycle and money from the parking lease to fund a disparity study that would gauge whether minority- and women-owned businesses should be favorably targeted by the city’s contracting policies. The study could cost between $500,000 to $1 million, according to city officials. Because of a…
Another ‘Dress on the Line
There is an old homily which quite wisely states that if something is operating properly, it might be considered imprudent to attempt a repair. Or, in a slightly less circuitous manner of speaking, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. For well over a decade, the Sundresses have been anything but broken. Brad Schnittger, Jeremy…
City to Consider Funding for Disparity Study
City Council could use leftover revenue from the previous budget cycle and money from the parking lease to fund a disparity study that would gauge whether minority- and women-owned businesses should be favorably targeted by the city’s contracting policies. “Once we conclude the parking lease agreement and see the results of the close-out of the…
Morning News and Stuff
John Deatrick is taking over as project executive of the Cincinnati streetcar project , moving on from his previous work as project manager of The Banks. Deatrick’s hiring announcement happened in April , but it was delayed while City Council fixed the project’s budget gap . Deatrick and his team previously won an award for…
Giffords’ Anti-Gun Violence Organization Opens Ohio Chapter
The gun violence prevention group founded by former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords on July 27 announced the launch of Ohioans for Responsible Solutions, which will continue the organization’s efforts to support officials who back responsible gun legislation. The new chapters, in Cleveland and Columbus, are part of Americans for Responsible Solutions (ARS), which Giffords and…
Q&A with Ann Wilson of Heart
Heart introduced a fresh, rebellious sound in the early 1970s when a particular voice was truly needed. That timeless voice belonged to singer Ann Wilson. In a time when the female frontwoman was just gaining steam, Heart found their identity in theirs. To this day Wilson embodies the band’s sound and message. She helped make…
An Avalanche of Hilarity
Almost a century ago, British novelist John Buchan wrote a potboiler about espionage and double-dealing. Twenty years later in 1935, film director Alfred Hitchcock turned The 39 Steps into a much-admired cinematic thriller. In 2007, Patrick Barlow — with his tongue firmly in his cheek — plucked stories, scenes, events and lines from Buchan’s novel…
A Music Festival Kind of Weekend
• Macy’s Music Festival — still often referred to locally as “Jazz Fest” as a nod to the fest’s roots (despite a complete lack of Jazz nowadays) — returns to downtown’s Paul Brown Stadium tonight and tomorrow. The festival is a Cincinnati tradition, a true “event,” regardless of what music is featured (which may explain…
Stage Door: Curtain Goes Up
Finally, a weekend with some theater choices for your entertainment, even though the weather is beautiful enough to keep us outdoors. But you want to see a curtain go up somewhere, right? You'll have fun for sure if you go to see The 39 Steps at Cincinnati Shakespeare Company. If that title sounds vaguely familiar,…
Morning News and Stuff
Meet Roger Jeremy Ramundo , the man police shot and killed on July 24 after what’s now being called a “life or death struggle.” Police say they first tried to subdue Ramundo, who had a history of mental health problems. But when Ramundo fired his gun once, an officer retaliated by firing two fatal shots…
City Might Reduce Budget Cuts
City Council could partly or totally undo the latest budget cuts to human services, parks and other areas by using higher-than-expected revenues from the previous budget cycle, Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls announced today. When City Council passed the budget in May, it was unclear how much revenue would be left over from fiscal year 2013,…
The Unexpected Death of Jeremy Ramundo
Who was Roger Ramundo? First of all, those who knew him called him by his middle name, Jeremy. On Wednesday, July 24, Jeremy was shot and killed by a Cincinnati Police Officer in what the CPD is describing as a violent, “life or death struggle,” with a mentally ill, violent and heavily armed man. Those…
So You Wanna Redesign a Box Truck
Besides all of the great music, one of the most fun elements of the MidPoint Music Festival (coming Sept. 26-28 to various venues in Over-the-Rhine and Downtown) is the MidPoint Midway, with its carnival-like atmosphere, music offerings, food and other vendors bustling along the fest’s 12th Street vein. The “Box Truck Carnival” is one of…
Morning News and Stuff
Being one of the first to discover a critical memo put Cincinnati Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld at the center of an ongoing drama regarding the city’s plans to lease its parking meters, lots and garages to the Greater Cincinnati Port Authority. The memo criticized the financial details of the lease, but it was kept from the…
REVIEW: Big Country at Thompson House
Something about the mythology around The Alarm makes it seem perfectly fitting that frontman Mike Peters would assume the role of hired gun for his old friends from Scotland, Big Country. That band tragically lost their lead singer, guitarist and co-founder Stuart Adamson in December of 2001. In 2010, the surviving members asked Welshman Peters,…
ICYMI: The Bunbury Music Festival Rocked
BUNBURY MUSIC FEST: DAY 1 After months of rising anticipation and weeks of weirdly intermittent and torrential rain, Bunbury's first day looked to be a winner. A great announced lineup, no precipitation in the forecast and nothing but sunshine expected for the day; against all odds, that's exactly what we got. But it wasn't the…
State Budget Cuts Local Government Funding
The recently passed state budget means cities and counties will get even less money from the state , according to a new report from progressive think tank Policy Matters Ohio . The report looks at “three blows” of cuts to local governments: less direct aid, no money from a now-repealed estate tax and the beginning…
Rush Delivers, Bonzo’s Resurrection and New Freddie Needed
HOT: Rush Delivers In 2011, the U.S. Postal Service announced that they would finally allow living people to be portrayed on U.S. postage stamps, reversing a long-standing rule. A blatant marketing move, the USPS still hasn’t delivered the first such stamp. But in Canada, they’ll put almost anyone on their stamps. Gordon Lightfoot, Michael J.…
LISTEN: Formerly Ghosts’ ‘Predisposed’
Locals Formerly Ghosts will cap off a string of East Coast tour dates this Sunday with a show at Northside club Mayday with Bear (the Ghost) and The Never Setting Suns. The show starts at 6 p.m. The band, which was formed in 2011 by Sebastien Hue and Pyn Wayne (and is currently a five-piece),…
Vacation Takes off on ‘Candy Waves’
Local musicians Peyton Copes and Jerri Panic have had quite the summer already. One of their bands, Tweens (with Bridget Battle), is the most talked about Indie band in Cincinnati right now, with word spreading far and wide thanks to regular touring (including dates with fans, The Breeders) and a freshly-inked deal with Frenchkiss Records. …
A Nice Pair
Mark Utley has proven to be pretty great in the songwriting department; perhaps less so on the editing end. The last two Magnolia Mountain albums, 2010’s Redbird Green and 2012’s Town and Country, were legitimate double albums, packed to the very edge of a CD’s load limit. Both albums were designed with an intentional four-sides-of-vinyl…
Nature Boy
Besides being an extraordinarily resonant Americana singer/songwriter, Sean Rowe is in the rare, fortunate position of knowing the sound of a tree falling in the forest. A devoted naturalist as well as a performing songwriter whose album The Salesman and the Shark is getting widespread praise, Rowe once spent 24 days completely on his own,…
Morning News and Stuff
Democratic attorney general candidate David Pepper is criticizing Republican Attorney General Mike DeWine for contesting the case that’s forcing the state to recognize the same-sex marriage of two Cincinnatians, one of who is currently sick with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a deadly neurodegenerative disease with no known cure, and expected to die soon. “Above all, an…
Ohioans Increasingly Reliant on Public Health Insurance
A poll analysis released July 22 suggests more than 1.25 million Ohioans between the ages of 18 and 65 are uninsured, representing about 17 percent of the state’s working-age population. The poll also found that working-age Ohioans are obtaining health insurance less often through employers and more often through public insurance programs like Medicare, Medicaid…
Report: Fracking Accidents Could Pose Huge Costs to Taxpayers
Ohio taxpayers could be on the hook for millions of dollars if something goes wrong at an oil and gas drilling operation, according to a report released on July 18 by advocacy group Environment Ohio. Recent technological advancements have spurred a boom in fracking, an extraction technique that involves pumping millions of gallons of water…
Parking Lease Facing Another Legal Challenge
A conservative organization is threatening more legal action to stop the city’s plans to lease its parking meters, lots and garages to the Greater Cincinnati Port Authority. In a July 17 letter to the city solicitor, the Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes (COAST) claimed that the city manager made “significant and material” changes…
Judge Rules Ohio Must Recognize Out-of-State Same-Sex Marriage
The same-sex couple who last week sued the state of Ohio for discrimination earned statewide recognition of their marriage, an advance some are calling a benchmark victory in rights for same-sex Ohio couples following the federal overturn of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in June. U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Black on Monday granted…
Thwart Authority
C incinnati Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld was one of the first to find out about a memo that’s spurred renewed calls to halt the city’s plans to lease its parking meters, lots and garages to the Greater Cincinnati Port Authority. Not only was the memo critical of some of the lease’s financial details, but it was…
Film: The Cincinnati Film Society presents Life Tracker
Earlier this week, Cincinnati Film Society (CFS) kicked off its latest film series at the Art Academy of Cincinnati with Life Tracker, an indie sci-fi apocalyptic tale about a company that claims it can predict individual human events based on an analysis of a person’s DNA strand. When a bumbling documentary filmmaker (Barry Finnegan) begins…
Viral sensation Lil BUB: The Cat with 166,000 Friends
Seeing Lil Bub in person is just as magical as you’d expect. The Internet sensation, referred to online as a “perma-kitten” due to her cartoonlike baby cat appearance, is as unusual and hypnotically adorable as she appears on her daily Facebook photos that reel in an average of 10,000 likes each. She’s tiny, only about…
The Wolverine
Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) has been the focal point of the X-Men saga, not simply the face of the franchise on film, but also its heart and soul. After a lackluster solo attempt to tell his backstory, The Wolverine tackles the wild mutant’s ronin phase, re-configuring his timeline a bit, but there’s an emotional logic at…
The To Do List
Halfway to becoming another 40-Year-Old Virgin, high school valedictorian Brandy (Aubrey Plaza) channels her intellectual skills and aptitude into solving her own virginity dilemma. Over the course of the summer before she starts college, Brandy initiates a step-by-step plan to prepare for her first “F.” Writer-director Maggie Carey teams up with a solid comedic ensemble…
Cincinnati vs. the World 07.24.2013
A super-conservative Christian consultant group tried to ease equally super-conservative Rep. Michele Bachmann’s migraine pain by gifting her with a head massager but accidentally bought her a “female pleasure machine” instead. WORLD +2 Ohio’s Buckeye Firearms Association has started a fundraising campaign to help George Zimmerman buy a new gun. CINCINNATI -1 Two Indian men…
Stuck In Love
Dramedies have overtaken the indie summer season. Newbie writer-director Josh Boone steps up with Stuck in Love, which examines the life of a successful writer (Greg Kinnear), his ex-wife and their children as each finds themselves caught up in tangled web of love and emotion. With a cast that includes Kristen Bell, Logan Lerman, Lily…
Fruitvale Station
First-time feature writer-director Ryan Coogler gets key production support from Oscar winners Octavia Spencer and Forest Whitaker to chart the final moments of a young man (Michael B. Jordan) on Dec. 31, 2008. Oscar Grant, a San Francisco Bay area resident, seems intent on getting a head start on his New Year’s resolutions — being…
Worst Week Ever!: July 17-22
WEDNESDAY JULY 17 Most journalists find it at least somewhat amusing to see online commenters using industry terms to tell us what we should be doing better (the best ones involve using sarcastic quotation marks when mentioning “journalism”). But for every anonymous suggestion that we replace a quarter-page crossword puzzle with an investigative news story…
Q&A with Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Johnny Van Zant
Where do you begin with a band like Lynyrd Skynyrd? Everyone has been out at a bar or a concert and heard some crazy and/or drunk lunatic shouting to the band on stage, “FREE BIRD!!!” They are the epitome of and gold standard for Southern Rock music. Even now, through the tragedy of the plane…
You Better Recognize
If the equation of two people joining together in the schematics of marriage equals wealth-building and legacies, then I now fully understand the fear and loathing behind the heterosexual family of man’s attempts to block and deny same-sex marriages — not unions or commitments or any other non-binding verbiage or soft-focus attempts at appeasement —…
Women Versus Clothing: WTF Is a Size 8?
Chances are if you’ve ever had trouble buttoning a pair of jeans in a fitting room, someone has thrown this adage over the door: “Don’t worry, Marilyn Monroe was a size 16” — along with the next size up. Obviously this is supposed to make you feel better because a) size is just a number,…
Fast Food, Slow
Except perhaps in remote rural neighborhoods, fast food restaurants are like gas stations — they are everywhere. Wherever you are right now, there is more likely than not a McDonald’s, Wendy’s or other such restaurant within a short walk or drive. So what possible reason would one have to purchase “fast food” at a grocery…
Locked up and Loving It with Jenji Kohan
The woman behind Weeds — no, not Nancy Botwin, but Jenji Kohan — is back with another addictive dramedy, this time taking viewers inside a real-as-it-gets women’s federal penitentiary. Based on a true story, Orange Is the New Black (now available on Netflix) follows Piper Chapman (played by a very convincing Taylor Schilling) as she…
How ‘Excited’ Should We Be About the New Almodóvar?
With certain directors, every new release takes us back to the first time we experienced their work. We remember the visceral thrills, the powerful sensuality or the intellectual austerity that captivated us and we want relive those sensations, which means we set the bar at a level so high that only a talented few can…
Back to the Future of Ceramics
If the eternal quest of the contemporary artist is to create something, ahem, “new” or “original” — forgiving the triteness of the implications of that generalization — then the contemporary artist who works in a traditionally process-driven medium like ceramics is challenged all the more to think beyond the formal techniques dictated by their praxis.…
Seeing Opera (and the World) Through Jay Bolotin’s Eyes
The complexity, mysterious beauty, level of accomplishment and downright strangeness of Jay Bolotin’s art is continually amazing. Because of the elaborateness of his work as well as the thought-through vision (it feels like he’s exploring a foreign land that somehow avoided modernism), it can seem that each piece, each show, is part of some slowly…
Buona Terra (Profile)
B uona Terra, the good land — the land of gelato, sorbettos and crepes — opened in Mount Lookout just in time for the sweltering days of summer. Owners Matt Wu, Eric Roeder and Stijn Van Woensel came up with the idea to bring a little taste of European street food to Cincinnati and wanted…
Maps, Magazines, Money
T he Engraving Trade in Early Cincinnati: With a Brief Account of the Beginning of the Lithograph Trade is a beautiful book, as it should be, given its subject matter. In the early years of the 19th century, before photography — let alone the multitudinous means of communication of the early 21st century — images…
