Jun 21-28, 2017
Pride: Celebrating the Queens of the Queen City, LGBTQ+ activism, fundraising and Cincinnati Pride
Founders of A Tavola to open gelateria in Madeira
Jared and Nick Wayne, founders of A Tavola and Taglio, are stepping away from their wood-fired pizza ovens momentarily to launch a new venture: an authentic Italian gelateria. Named for the city in Italy where gelato production was industrialized, La Grassa Gelateria will offer Madeira a taste of Bologna — nicknamed “the fat one” or…
Morning News: Local hospitals push back against Senate health care bill; president of black police union reacts to Tensing mistrial; Kasich website hacked with pro-ISIS messages
Good morning all. Let’s do the news thing right this second. Leaders at Cincinnati’s major hospitals are blasting a health care bill drafted by Republicans in the U.S. Senate that would repeal portions of former president Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. That bill would cost 22 million people their health insurance over the next decade,…
Critic’s Pick: ‘Frida’ by Cincinnati Opera
Frida Kahlo lived a life of vibrant primary color. Virtually every moment of the Mexican painter’s existence was tempestuous. Her deeply personal images vividly expressed her passions, her fears, her anxieties and her joys. That made her the perfect subject for an opera, an art form in which characters are often larger than life. You…
July Fourth Festivities
For four days, Cincinnati will fill backyards with smoke, streets with sparklers and skies with crackling colors in honor of American independence. Nearly every neighborhood has its own festivities, so leave the research to us and get out there this Fourth of July weekend for some freedom and flag waving. SATURDAY, JULY 1 Kings Island…
Morning News: Tensing jury says it can’t reach verdict, ordered to keep deliberating; Cranley vetoes part of budget; controversy over AHCA continues
Hello all. Let’s talk news real quick before the weekend gets here. The jury in the retrial of former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing this morning told Hamilton County Court Judge Leslie Ghiz that they could not come to a unanimous verdict. Ghiz, however, sent them back into deliberations “for a little while…
Stage Door: Say Farewell to Erma Bombeck and a Few More Shows — or Catch an Opera!
Since early May the Cincinnati Playhouse has clearly had a hit on its hands with Erma Bombeck: At Wit’s End on its Shelterhouse Stage. The one-woman show about the beloved newspaper columnist from the Dayton area has sold a lot of tickets: It was originally slated to close on June 4; after three extensions, it’s…
Sound Advice: Hex Bombs with Yellow Paper Planes, Lost Coast and Jims (June 23)
One of the best aspects of Punk Rock is that it’s universal. No matter where you go in this world, if you look hard enough you’ll find some very pissed off people yelling about exactly what it is that’s pissing them off at the moment. It makes life a lot easier when, say you’re a…
Your Weekend To Do List (June 23-25)
FRIDAY 23 EVENT: DESCHUTES BREWERY STREET PUB Deschutes Brewery is taking its taps on tour this summer with a Street Pub traveling pop-up party. The one-day-only outdoor pub will feature more than 50 beers on tap, local food from Thunderdome Group (Bakersfield, Maplewood, Eagle, etc.) and Metropole and live music from the likes of Hebdo…
Interns at Lunch: Allez Bakery
A blue, smiling sloth is depicted on the door of the unassuming Allez Bakery at 1208 Main St. in OTR. Inside the small space, the smell of fresh bread swells, ranging from parmesan black pepper to sourdough and baguettes. Donning a white apron and blue baseball hat covered in flour, Tom McKenna explains that he…
A ‘Hero’ for All Seasons
More than any other actor I can think of, Sam Elliott is the epitome of a hero, despite the fact that he has never played a superhero, a super spy or the kind of dashing figure we typically expect when we utter the word “hero.” He’s like a hero sprung free from the page of…
Morning News: Council passes budget; street named for Jim Obergefell, late partner; Portman constituents hold sit-in
Good morning all. Here’s what’s going on around Cincy and beyond today. I spent a great deal of time watching Citicable yesterday so you wouldn't have to, but you don't need to thank me. Just please send me some Advil. After an all-day fiscal marathon, Cincinnati City Council yesterday passed its 2018 budget. It was…
What a Week! June 14-20
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 14 Women dressed like characters from The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood’s novel-turned-Hulu series) crashed the Ohio Senate this week as legislators made their case for Ohio’s SB 145. The women dressed as handmaids to protest the bill, which would effectively criminalize abortions in the second trimester. If you’ve been under a rock and…
Considering Inaccurate Stories
Staying with a story until it’s right — even admitting the original was wrong — can be satisfying. Embarrassing, but satisfying, especially when seemingly reliable sources knew or should have known better. Locally, The Enquirer did that after digging farther for numbers being tossed around in City Hall about the streetcar system. Farther afield, NPR…
Rooting for the Women of ‘Fargo’
On the surface, it’s easy to know who to root for in Fargo (Season Finale, 10 p.m. Wednesday, FX). Every season features bad guys and good cops, but sometimes the good guy breaks bad (like Martin Freeman’s Lester Nygaard in Season 1) and you’re left pulling for the often-compelling villains (Bokeem Woodbine as Mike Milligan…
Experience the joy of ‘Alive and Kicking’
I love the old adage that if you smile the whole world smiles with you. While watching the gloriously infectious documentary Alive and Kicking about the international resurgence in Lindy Hop and Swing Dance, I felt that there should be an equally strong and compelling addendum to the smile factor. Wouldn’t it be great if…
World Culture in Covington
His eyes are closed. His shoulder-length dreadlocks begin to escape the knot on top of his head as he moves to the beat. He is leading an African drumming class with a series of long, bottomless chants, a hand-carved djembe drum between his knees and a conga drum to his right. The setting is Baoku’s…
Two Books; One Odd, One Unusual
Journalism is an unsure route to either fame or fortune, but early in the last century, Oscar Odd McIntyre, once of the Cincinnati Post, went to New York City and achieved both in spades. A recently released biography of McIntyre, An Odd Book by R. Scott Williams (Newseum), recounts “how the first modern pop culture…
The Pride Issue
Happy Pride! The city is currently in the midst of Cincinnati Pride Week, and we're celebrating with an issue dedicated to our local LGBTQ+ community and allies. Within its pages, you'll meet local drag queens at the forefront of activism and LGBTQ+ expression, learn about Nancy Yerian's Vibrant Kin project sponsored by People's Liberty and…
Heart to Heart with Heartland
A framed sheet crowded with signatures from 2015’s Pride march sits next to the door of Heartland Trans Wellness Group. Each year, an average of 600 to 700 people stop by their table at Cincinnati’s Pride, making it a vital moment of exposure. The center, which moved to its new location in Mount Auburn two…
A Royal Organization
San Francisco, 1965: José Sarria, an openly gay Latino, drag queen and political activist, proclaims herself the empress of the California city. The declaration lays the foundation for the Imperial Court de San Francisco, an organization aimed at fostering a greater sense of gay pride, identity and unity within the community. Fifty-two years later, that…
Queer Visibility on TV
LGBTQ+ characters and storylines depicted on TV are often met with controversy. Pushback comes from both sides of the aisle: Some argue these choices are a sign of liberal media spreading the “gay agenda” (the jury’s still out on what agenda that might be). On the flipside, token representations of LGBTQ+ characters can be stereotypical…
Tough Transitions
Last month, a Cincinnati resident prevailed in efforts to get her high-profile public employer to cover transgender-inclusive medical care. But other battles loom. While employees of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County won’t have to fight as Rachel Dovel did for such care, legal confrontations over employer-provided health care for transgender individuals are…
History, Her-story and Their-story
When Nancy Yerian returned to Cincinnati in 2013 after graduating from Smith College, she doubted she’d stay. She didn’t feel connected to her hometown’s LGBTQ+ community. “I didn’t see a vibrancy or radical activism,” she says. It turns out the history major just needed to look back a half-century. Yerian, 26, now hopes her…
Queens of the Queen City
The headliner of this year’s Saturday night Pride Festival is a collection of queens who competed on RuPaul’s Drag Race: Derrick Barry, Pearl, Tatianna, Roxxxy Andrews and BenDeLaCreme. And while they may be closing out the evening, the Queen City’s rich queen scene will be on full display all day on two stages with a…
Dinner and some shows at NKU
For more than three decades, summertime has meant dinner-theater entertainment in Highland Heights via productions by Northern Kentucky University’s Commonwealth Theatre Company, typically lighter fare in the form of comedies and musicals. The current two-show season offers a production of The 39 Steps, the very tongue-in-cheek, four-actor stage rendition of an Alfred Hitchcock spy movie…
Minimum Gauge: The Slants score First Amendment victory with Supreme Court case
HOT: Naming Rights Though much of the coverage of the Supreme Court’s ruling that not granting a trademark for something that is deemed offensive is unconstitutional focused on the Washington Redskins’ ability to now trademark its name, the case SCOTUS was actually reviewing was brought by an independent Rock band from Oregon called The Slants.…
David Blaine brings signature tricks and ‘insane’ new feats to the Taft Theatre
David Blaine is a singular figure, a man with seemingly supernatural talents and a superior mindset. The New York City native has carved out a unique place for himself on the cultural landscape as a magician who is as deft at performing a card trick as he is at completing seemingly death-defying feats. He’s done…
Clifton Market launches home grocery delivery
Everybody loves an underdog, especially one that is fighting in their own backyard. The Gaslight District’s sparkling new Clifton Market has initiated an online ordering and home delivery system to go toe-to-toe with its competitors, including the recently formed Goliath in the Whole Foods/Amazon deal. To take a deeper dive into the grocery market, Amazon…
The much-anticipated Mexican/Latin restaurant Casa Figueroa puts Pleasant Ridge on the culinary map
More than a year ago, I heard that an important addition to our foodie world was coming to an out-of-the-way corner of the metro area. A Mexican/Latin restaurant with an ambitious chef and design-conscious owner would open in Pleasant Ridge, probably by the end of last summer. As it happened, though, the chef went elsewhere…
Paul Shaffer takes his vintage Rock and Soul passion — as well as his old TV band — on the road
For 33 years as David Letterman’s music director, bandleader and keyboardist, and before that as a musician and occasional featured player during Saturday Night Live’s first years, Paul Shaffer cultivated the image of a cheerfully old-school hipster, caustically mocking the Pop and Rock music he played. He may have even been condescending about showbiz itself,…
Aaron Collins strips down for ‘Cloud Hug’
Multi-talented Cincinnati musician Aaron Collins has drummed for progressive local Indie Rock bands like SHADOWRAPTR and Comprador, and he’s been a singer in the vintage Funk/Soul/Motown cover band Fresh Funk. His solo and bandleader ventures have been captivating and equally diverse. On his debut solo album, Godlessly Oscillating, Collins showed the breadth of his talent,…
Sound Advice: Le Butcherettes (June 22)
Teresa Suárez is an uncommonly intense woman. Best known as Terri Gender Bender, her stage name as the frontwoman for the lacerating Rock band Le Butcherettes, Suárez also has a lighter side, some of which shines through via her other musical projects with good buddy Omar Rodríguez-López (of The Mars Volta and At the Drive…
Sound Advice: Jessica Hernandez & the Deltas with Hebdo, Clubhouse and The Buzzard Kings (June 24)
Jessica Hernandez & the Deltas’ long-simmering follow-up to their well-received 2014 debut, Secret Evil, is a double album with a unique wrinkle — dubbed Telephone/Telefono (and dropping Friday), it features one album in English and the other in Spanish. Even more curious is the fact that, unlike artists who have attempted similar bilingual endeavors, each…
Sound Advice: MisterWives with The Greeting Committee (June 27)
In a relatively brief five-year span, New York-based MisterWives has compiled a press kit filled with impressive accomplishments. The band got its start in 2012 when lead vocalist Mandy Lee was looking for an ’80s cover band to play her 18th birthday party and decided to form one rather than hire one. Lee started with…
