News: 2008 Presidential Race
The Ohio primary on March 4 was a critical moment in the Democratic presidential race, with Hillary Clinton's wins here and in Texas meaning the fight for the nomination continues. Area residents also voted in party primaries for various state and local races as well as Issue 10 (Cincinnati Public Schools levy), Issue 17 (Cincinnati…
Jitney (Review)
August Wilson’s Jitney, in its Cincinnati premiere at the new Madisonville Arts Center (MAC), is where the late playwright’s “Century Cycle” truly began. The set of 10 plays portraying African-American life in each decade of the 20th century grew from a one-act version of Jitney in 1979. Wilson had been a poet, but a theater…
Obsolete (Review)
Critic's Pick It’s sad news that Polaroid has discontinued production of most of its instant photo hardware and film. Feralmade Gallery’s current exhibition seems conceived to iterate that sadness. Obsolete is a remarkable sendoff featuring the work of Joseph Koehl, Melissa Fields and Ryan Thomas. The included artworks are all made with Polaroid’s instant photography…
Cover Story: The Girls Are Back in Town
Kurt Strecker The Fairmount Girls live "Forever": (L-R) Randy Cheek, Beth Cheek, Pat Hennessy, Dana Hamblen and Melissa Fairmount. Wandering through The Fairmount Girls' rehearsal space — dubbed "Sprout House" because of the alfalfa sprout-growing landlord who occupies the building's first floor — on the eve of the release of Forever, their first new…
Film: Review: Wanted
Universal Pictures Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman shoot things up in Wanted. Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) might seem more than vaguely familiar to both film and comic book fans. Wesley is a societal drone in a world that has never felt genuinely dynamic or three-dimensional. He's an analyst of some sort for a faceless,…
Feralmade, Mike Armstrong, The Fairmount Girls and much more…
Cincinnati Arts Museum David Macaulay's "Rome Antics" WEDNESDAY 6/25 ART: FERALMADE's latest exhibition, Obsolete, highlights a dying photographic medium: the Polaroid. See review here. ART: CINCINNATI ART MUSEUM David Macaulay can turn anything inside out and does so with marvelously deft and amusing drawings in Building Books: The Art of David Macaulay. Ostensibly Macaulay…
Onstage: Review: Jerry Springer: The Opera
Think about it for a bit and you
Free to Be True Americans
A dark cloud started to move over downtown around 6:15 p.m. June 20, just as CityBeat staff were gathering beside the stage on Fountain Square. We were about to deliver our official response to the pressure group that had been attacking the paper, and the sun disappeared and the wind kicked up. After so many…
By Land or Seabird
Jon Willis Seabird Local AltRock band Seabird is ready to host what is sure to be the most unique local music experience of the year (and the most original "CD release party" concept since late local Indie Pop band Morals Galore had theirs at a Northern Kentucky strip club). To celebrate its new album…
The New Era of Connectedness
No, it´s not another cold Northerner going barking mad under the warm Tuscan sun. Rather, my epiphany proceeds from the Mac PowerBook G4 laptop I bought from ComputerDNA in Blue Ash and connected to our host´s DSL in Florence, Italy. I long have marveled at the seemingly inescapable connectedness of younger Americans and Europeans; time…
Dianne McElwain
Local botanical artist Dianne McElwain exhibits her aesthetically pleasing and scientifically accurate paintings nationally and internationally, but right now you can see her work at Phyllis Weston-Annie Bolling Gallery through June 28. Here, she shares five things that inspire her. (Tamera Lenz Muente)Frank McElwain. My husband is my first and foremost source of inspiration. His…
News: Invisible American Families
Graham Lienhart Austino Lewis (left) and son, natives of Liberia, currently call South Fairmount home. On a cloudy day in the early spring, Austino Lewis sits at a table in a sleepy Arby's in South Fairmount before taking two busses to cover his shift as a cook at a local nursing home. Talking about…
Chip’s First Shot
For Chip Taylor, becoming an Americana/contemporary Folk music legend has been a long, strange trip worthy of a Grateful Dead song. In a telephone interview to mark the release of his latest album on Train Wreck Records, the topical New Songs of Freedom, he says he owes it all to Cincinnati's influential but long-vanished King…
Bridging the Gender Communication Gap
A husband and wife come home from a long day at work and sit at the dinner table to discuss the day. When asked how his day was, the husband answers, "Pretty good, lots of meetings." His wife responds in great detail, "Mine was horrible! First I spilled coffee all down the front of me,…
Another Seven Days of Cheap Ice and Expensive Corn
WEDNESDAY JUNE 18Home City Ice is in big trouble — perhaps $100 million of it — after a federal investigation connected the locally based company to a price-fixing scheme involving three other frozen water sellers accused of dividing the U.S. into four ice-selling markets. According to The Enquirer, the investigation was brought on by a…
Down and Out in Clifton Heights
Uncle Woody's is about to bite the (saw) dust. The restaurant and bar known to many a University of Cincinnati student — past and present — as a place to eat, drink and be merry closed its doors June 2. Owner Buzzy Gaz, 47, says the drifting, sluggish economy is the main culprit that caused…
Good Theater Is Good Theater
One of the reasons Cincinnati has a fine local theater scene is because of our strong community theaters across the Tristate. Approximately two dozen of these companies constitute ACT-Cincinnati, the "association of community theaters," which are groups of volunteers in neighborhoods all over the area — several good ones operate in Northern Kentucky — who…
Music: The Three-Minute Challenge
Oliver Meinerding "Those songs on the radio may glorify violence, but in my house we give glory to achievement, self-respect and hard work." – Sen. Barack Obama, June 15, 2008 (Father's Day) Before I launch into my political Hip Hop tirade, I'll set the stage: Most of today's radio-friendly Rap singles run about three…
A Good Sunday
On that Sunday morning, after giving myself an insulin shot, I had my normal breakfast: cereal with soymilk and a wheat bagel. I then went into the shower. It was Father's Day, and I wanted to get an early start and get a few things done before my kids took me out for lunch. While…
Don’t Punish the Children
Thank you for Joe Wessels' column about Mount Washington ("Not Too Cool for the Pool," issue of June 4). When I worked so hard to get that new rec center, my dream was to have it provide what's needed to prevent the incidents that Wessels recounted. I saw the demographics of Mount Washington changing and…
Krivsky’s Biggest Trade Looks Good Two Years Later
Way back in the old days, before life was so fast, prudence dictated that no baseball trade could be properly evaluated for at least two years. Commentators still always assessed trades immediately, but the mediasphere was smaller and much more quiet. Baseball front offices basically did what they wanted under much less public pressure. Baseball…
Sound Advice: : Amina Figarova and Corey Smith
Amina Figarova Thursday
Mad Anthony (Profile)
Chris Grote Mad Anthony William Shakespeare once noted that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but the members of Mad Anthony would likely take issue. Guitarist/vocalist Ringo Jones, guitarist Adam Flaig and drummer Daniel "Deadly" Durick shed their previous bands two years ago and assembled as the Black Scabs. Response…
Is It Christian to Lie to Voters?
People often say the strangest things when they think they're talking to a small audience of like-minded people — including truths they wouldn't dare utter elsewhere. The latest example involves former Hamilton County Commissioner Phil Heimlich discussing whether the county really needs a new jail on his radio talk show. Heimlich, you'll remember, made a…
Why Koka Coffee House Rules
We all have our favorite coffee houses, even those of us who are supposed to remain objective about these things. Mine is Koka Coffee House (1101 St. Gregory St., Mount Adams, 513-381-5652). It's my neighborhood coffee house. Last Tuesday my car's brakes went out, preventing me from getting to the restaurant CityBeat had slated for…
Oceanaire (Review)
Joe Lamb Oceanaire There were two Cincinnati Reds at tables near us at The Oceanaire Seafood Room the other night, Adam Dunn and Corey Patterson. Professional athletes — you'd have to be one to polish off the portions at this new chic spot downtown. But Oceanaire is not all about quantity. There are some…
