News: Tick … Tick … Tick …
This is the summer of serious talking. Only time will tell if the talk prevents Cincinnati from erupting anew — and time is in short supply. At least one member of the city's new race-relations task force, Cincinnati Community Action Now (CAN), is warning that too much time is passing with too little happening. "It…
News: Banned in Cincinnati
The operator of the Esquire and Mariemont theaters has banned CityBeat Film Editor Steve Ramos and cut all ties with the newspaper. The ban came one week after Ramos reported the operator had illicitly altered a film playing at the Esquire in Clifton (see "Esquire Cuts Sex Scene from The Center of the World," issue…
Diner: Cool Cuisine
Hair, lawn and appetite: the first three things to wilt during a heat wave. The first two are beyond the scope of a food article, but what about the appetite? We have to eat, even after the joy of ice cubes, Popsicles and watermelon melts away. First off, you might try taking your cue from…
Music: Life’s Been Good So Far
Tony Bennett doesn't want to be the best, just one of the best. He is a man of many passions — painting and music, critically acclaimed in both. As he talks in his Manhattan studio, Tony Bennett is involved in the former, even as he discusses the latter. Soon to be 75 (in August),…
Cover Story: Within the Bounds
Jymi Bolden Kofi Poetry seems to be a literary genre without limits, but poetry slams change the rules by putting up some boundaries. Poetry slams began in the 1980s when Chicago poet Marc Smith came up with the idea of a poetry competition to entertain regulars at a local bar. To get audiences involved,…
Building a Better Museum Through Dialogue
A place like the Cincinnati Art Museum (CAM) often looks its most ominous right before visiting hours. Outside the museum's doors, the world surrounding Eden Park and Mount Adams is one of warm sunshine and bright skies. Inside the vacant CAM galleries, dark stairwells and shadows give the place a ghost-story feeling. It's not the…
Cover Story: Because She Could Not Stop For Death
Jymi Bolden Carol Feiser Laque To some people, poetry is just light entertainment they enjoy hearing on Garrison Keillor's daily radio broadcast, The Writer's Almanac. To others, it's as impenetrable as Stephen Hawking's explanation of black holes. Some think poetry is the high art of phenomenal genius that must be fiercely protected. Opposing them…
Should City Council Have to Listen to Angry Citizens?
Will new rules at Cincinnati City Council stifle public input in an attempt to restore order and decorum? Several months of fiery, obnoxious behavior at council meetings have culminated in Mayor Charlie Luken's decision to establish new rules governing public participation. The new rules block citizens from voicing unsolicited opinions at the beginning of meetings.…
Cover Story: For the Eyeing of My Scars, There Is a Charge
Jymi Bolden Cate Marvin After moving from house to house in the Washington, D.C., area as a kid and finally settling down in Potomac, Md., Cate Marvin found it difficult to be like the wunderkinder who surrounded her, All-American teen-agers on the debating and chess teams looking forward to being doctors, lawyers and politicians.…
Curly Tales of the CIty
O Readers, Where Art Thou? Cincinnati's daily newspapers recently reported less-than-rosy numbers to Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), the standard by which dailies track and compare their readership. After circulation gains in recent years, The Cincinnati Enquirer saw big drops in circulation between March 2000 and March 2001: 3.7 percent on Monday-Thursday, 8.9 percent on…
Cover Story: Breaking the Rules
Poet Ana Castillo has never done anything by the book. Born in Chicago in 1953, she has constantly broken the rules. She breaks the mono-linguistic rule by writing a Chicana-brand of poetry in both Spanish and English, effortlessly intermingling the Latinate and Germanic languages, often breeding them into an intriguing hybrid. But it's not…
Relationships
I'm a little late, but I finally went to see Shrek. Yeah, OK, there was great animation and a cute little love story, but the lasting image for me was the Lord. That was one hairy animated character. Which just goes to show the importance of body hair if the DreamWorks animators felt the need…
Cover Story: Little Known Facts
Jymi Bolden Sylvester Little Jr. Parting is such sweet sorrow. It happens this time every year. Members of the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival (CSF) acting company move on in search of new pursuits. The reasons vary but, regardless, the family is torn apart. So it is that Sylvester Little Jr., a two-year CSF veteran, heads…
News: Paying Attention
Jymi Bolden Cecil Thomas says the city must address the quality of life in poor neighborhoods. Cecil Thomas brings a unique perspective to the issues dividing Cincinnati. As a retired cop, an African American and now a human rights watchdog, Thomas might hold the key to bringing together the people and police in a…
Bob Schneider
Bob Schneider For local musicians who think that working diligently to be at the top of your local scene will never pay off in the long run in terms of national success, one need only look at the story of Austin's Bob Schneider, which indicates otherwise. Schneider served as a bandleader for numerous Austin…
Channel Surfing: Ad Nauseam
I'm sick of other people deciding for me what is and isn't appropriate to watch. Can't I decide? Sure, I'm going to have opinions. I write, therefore I get pissed off. But my beefs shouldn't stop you from experiencing on your own whatever it is I'm railing against. Take my column last month on prescription…
Talk Up Not Down, Part 2
"Fuck Fangman" is scribbled graffiti-style on an Auto Mart circular box on Ninth Street downtown. A hand-drawn sticker depicting a bitten donut with the words "Less beatin more eatin, stop police brutality" is stuck to the side of a public pay telephone on Vine Street. Anti-police sentiments, once only perceived and rarely spoken in mixed…
Music: Floetry in Motion
Jymi Bolden By transcending the boundaries of race and ethnicity, poet Abiyah plans on changing the world. Abiyah, like the art she espouses, is an anomaly. She is a white woman wrapped in African-inspired clothing and bold jewelry with towering, Erykah Badu-esque head wraps, spitting verses over rubbery bass lines and thumping keyboards. That's…
Minor (Under 18) Damage
I'm not entirely comfortable around kids. I'm even less comfortable around education. "Then why in the world," a reasonable person might ask, "would you volunteer to be a mentor?" "Well," I'd inform this reasonable person with the impertinence I could do without, "I feel obliged to clue in some little pisher on a few items…
