Jul 5-12, 2017
The Cultural Cachet of Curation: Cincinnati Art Museum’s new curators reflect on the meaning and distinct importance of their profession
LISTEN: Indie Electronic duo Moonbeau unveils ‘Are We In Love Yet?’
Moonbeau has been performing its lush and infectious brand of Electronic Indie Pop on stages throughout Greater Cincinnati for the past few years, but today the duo’s first official original song release, “Are We In Love Yet?,” is ready to caress your eardrums in the comfort of your own home (or wherever you choose to…
Morning News: Poll shows many OK with Brent Spence tolls; Portman calls Trump Jr.’s Russia meeting ‘not appropriate’; no charges from DOJ in Crawford shooting
Hey hey Cincinnati. Here’s what’s going on in the news today. Yesterday we told you about the Cincinnati USA Chamber’s poll around transit issues. We highlighted results showing a slight majority of voters leaning toward a “yes” on a potential 2018 SORTA bus levy, but barely mentioned another very significant finding in that survey: overwhelming…
Moved Aside: Longtime residents are being uprooted as affordable housing options dwindle in OTR
Charles Wiley has lived in Over-the-Rhine since his father, a railroad man, packed his family onto a train called The Hummingbird and moved them from Alabama in the 1940s. For the last 27 years of his time in the neighborhood, Wiley has made his home at Parkway Towers, a 100-unit subsidized apartment complex among the…
Hamilton County’s Living Wage Torch-Bearer
Aftab Pureval, Hamilton County’s freshman clerk of courts, pushed his office to the forefront of the Ohio living wage movement Tuesday by declaring a $16-an-hour minimum wage for most of his 212 employees as well as paid leave to care for newborns and sick relatives. The new baseline wage — $16.48 to be exact —…
Morning News: Chamber survey finds some support for bus tax; former Evans Landscaping employees plead guilty to fraud-related charges; Sheriff Jones anti-Narcan policy sparks protest
Hello Cincy! Today’s news involves fraud, protesters, jail and metro buses. Read on for more. First, those buses. A recent survey by the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber found that Hamilton County voters would likely support a .5 percent sales tax increase to improve the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority’s Metro bus service. That tax hike…
Morning News: Cranley switches up campaign manager; GOP endorses three for City Council; march for DuBose draws hundreds in OTR
Good morning all. Here are some quick news bits today. A lot happened Friday in campaigns for big City Hall jobs. First, Mayor John Cranley shuffled up his bid for reelection with new campaign manager Chandra Yungbluth, who replaces Jay Kincaid at that post. Yungbluth has lots of experience running campaigning efforts. She helped run…
Stage Door: A Cat, an Artist and Some Serious Heat
Once the Fourth of July has passed, we officially move into a new theater season. But it takes some time to build up a head of steam for 2017-18. There aren’t any “mainstream” productions this weekend, but several onstage items might be of interest to theatergoers. Final performances of Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the…
Urban Artifact and Izzy’s Make Pickle Beer
Is your desire for a quality beer and a fun new brew putting you in a pickle? Izzy’s —“Best Deli in Cincinnati” — and Urban Artifact have teamed up to create a unique Pickle beer to the satisfaction of anyone who has eaten Izzy’s iconic pickle and thought, “But what if I could drink it?”…
Your Weekend To Do List (July 9-11)
FRIDAY 09 MUSIC: THE BRIGHT LIGHT SOCIAL HOUR Psychedelic music in the ’60s was characterized by thunderous volume, long flighty jams and seizure-inducing Pop Art light shows. Maybe the acid is better a half century later, but Psychedelia in the new millennium is more pastoral and reflective, sonic tendrils insinuating themselves into the cerebral cortex…
Morning News: Sen. Sanders to visit Covington; former GOP chair on marijuana application list; state GOP lawmakers fail to overturn Kasich Medicaid freeze veto
Good morning all. Hope you enjoyed your holiday and got to blow some stuff up. Let’s check out some news. Calling all Bernie boosters: Sander-claus is coming to town. I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it. Let’s try that again. Ahem. Former Democratic presidential primary hopeful U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders will be in Covington Sunday for…
CNN’s Mistake and the Snowflake in Chief
If you’re going to screw up in today’s media circus, why not do it in the center ring? Everybody will “ooooooh!” and “aaaaaah!” Then like ancient Romans at the Coliseum bored of blood sport, they’ll move on to the next sensation. There could be partisan pachyderms goring each other during the July 4 holiday. But…
Sound Advice: Carson McHone with Harlot (July 5)
Country singer/songwriter Carson McHone began drawing hometown attention with her pure, traditional sound at a relatively young age. And being from a big and supportive music scene like Austin, Texas, it didn’t take long for her gifts to garner attention on a bigger scale. Just around the time she was legally able to drink, McHone…
Sound Advice: The Bright Light Social Hour with Current Events and Jettison (July 7)
Psychedelic music in the ’60s was characterized by thunderous volume, long flighty jams and seizure-inducing Pop Art light shows. Maybe the acid is better a half century later, but Psychedelia in the new millennium is more pastoral and reflective, sonic tendrils insinuating themselves into the cerebral cortex with a subtle yet palpable power and a…
Sound Advice: Volbeat with Avenged Sevenfold (July 10)
Active for over a decade and a half, Danish quartet Volbeat has released six studio albums and a pair of concert DVDs, all exhibiting the band’s signature blend of classic Metal, Thrash, Post Punk and Hard Rock with shades of Pop melodicism and the wild-card inspiration of early Rock & Roll/Country icons like Elvis Presley…
Fresh and Funny ‘Spider-Man’ Reboot
Marvel Comics’ cinematic division of late has found some intriguing ways to push the comic book genre’s boundaries after starting out in traditional and quite familiar terrain. After dispensing with origin stories (Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and a couple of Hulks), the narratives have gotten funky, mixing in espionage thrills (Captain America: The Winter…
Andy Gabbard goes deeper into Pop on new LP
Though still retaining its earthy Rock & Roll base, the melodic prowess in the songwriting of Buffalo Killers — one of Greater Cincinnati’s finest bands of the past decade — has grown more evident with each album release. A key component to that appears to be band member Andy Gabbard, whose solo work is some…
Feeling Good About ‘The Big Sick’
It is hard to imagine writing a review of Michael Showalter’s The Big Sick that doesn’t reference either Judd Apatow or Aziz Ansari, so I’m letting you know up front that I will weave both of them into this piece. As the director of movies like The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Trainwreck, while also producing Superbad,…
Youth is not wasted on Bluegrass-and-beyond wunderkind Billy Strings
Singer/songwriter Billy Strings could easily pass for a Bluegrass artist — he earned accolades for his 2016 six-track debut, titled simply EP — but the 24-year-old Michigan native’s musical history is too complex to be constrained by a single genre tag. He grew up in Ionia, a small community northwest of Lansing, and at an…
Summer TV Preview
Longer days, warm nights, grill-outs and pool parties can only mean one thing: It’s time for summer shows! New series and seasons are rolling out across channels and platforms in the coming weeks, turning summer into a promising television season. Here are a few worth checking out. Snowfall (Series Premiere, 10 p.m. Wednesday, FX) –…
Photographing the Industrial Landscape
In his artist statement for Planes, Lattices and Interstices, a solo exhibit at Iris BookCafé through Aug. 25, photographer Lars Anderson says his latest body of work was born out of failure. We should all be so unlucky. Unable to always obtain permission to take pictures inside the grounds of active and abandoned factories around…
A ‘Julius Caesar’ for a Troubled America
It’s gratifying to know that people beyond the theater world still pay attention to things happening onstage. But when they miss the point of what playwrights and productions of their plays can achieve and when they misinterpret intentions — well, that can be troubling. Such is the case with the Public Theater’s recent free summertime…
Archaeology-related organizations are pushing for World Heritage Site status for some of Ohio’s ancient earthworks
Ohio’s ancient earthworks, including nearby Fort Ancient and Serpent Mound, represent incredible achievements by the region’s first peoples, experts say. For centuries, European settlers and their ancestors demolished them, seeing them as nothing more than piles of dirt. But work to gain recognition from the United Nations could secure a better future for the roughly…
Mini Microcinema Summer
When C. Jacqueline Wood started her Mini Microcinema in 2015, it was temporary — she used a $15,000 Globe Grant from the People’s Liberty philanthropic lab to program shorts, art movies and documentaries for several months at the lab’s office space near Findlay Market. It was a hit, and its beautiful red and white cinema…
Cincinnati Art Museum’s new curators reflect on the meaning and distinct importance of their profession
The popular overuse of the term “curator” has broadened — some might say diluted — the word’s context to the point where many have forgotten the traditional meaning. Blogs, shopping lists and dinner party menus can be curated. But professional curators have a very important traditional role within our cultural institutions. In museums, curators of…
Pastries on the Promenade
“The building is from 1864, so everything is a little wobbly,” says Blair Fornshell, baker and owner of the soon-to-open Brown Bear Bakery on E. 13th St. in Over-the-Rhine. “The speed racks, when I’m trying to pull things out of the oven, they run away from me. I’m like, ‘Wait!’ So I have little blocks…
