Jun 28 – Jul 5, 2017
Biking Beyond Boundaries: A plan to link Cincinnati’s scattered cycling infrastructure could empower low-income riders
Opinion: Cranley’s Cash Excess
John Cranley's mayoral campaign, already reeling from the primary loss, may have a money problem. In early June, the Charter Committee filed a formal complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission over his campaign’s accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in the form of disguised or unattributed contributions by LLCs. Forming an LLC (Limited Liability Company)…
The Triumphant Return of Lafcadio Hearn
Lafcadio Hearn, a talented and eccentric writer who launched his career here in the 1870s and achieved worldwide acclaim long after he left, has now returned — in a roundabout way — to the city where he learned the basics of journalism and good writing. And, serendipitously, his arrival comes just as events are shaping…
Stuffed-Crust Pizza Party
DiGiorno’s signature rising crust pizza changed the frozen pizza game. Commercials for the pizza brand heralded the tagline “It’s not delivery, it’s DiGiorno” because the pizza was that freaking good. As a kid in the Chicago suburbs, where delicious pizza is as plentiful as tap water, I remember going as far as to ask my…
Morning News: Why FC Cincinnati says it can’t stay at Nippert; Ghiz cites ‘unrest’ in sealing Tensing documents; Ohio job growth cut in half during Trump’s first six months
Good morning all. Are you ready for some fireworks? A wonderfully weird parade in a certain Cincinnati neighborhood on the north side of the city? Maybe some day beers? Well, we’re almost there. Let’s talk news for a minute before we get all to celebrating, shall we? Is “community unrest pulsating” through the city? Hamilton…
Kroger To Go
When it comes to cooking, there are a few select recipes stored inside my brain that I rifle through when I have time to prepare something outside the realm of the microwave. So when I heard Kroger had followed suit on the meal kit trend set by businesses like Blue Apron and HelloFresh, I made…
Minimum Gauge: Jenner sisters jack Biggie, Tupac, Ozzy and others
HOT: Kendall & Kylie’s Kewl Klothes Kibosh The youngest Kardashian family members, Kendall and Kylie Jenner, yanked a line of overpriced T-shirts after enduring the scorn of the music world. The sisters thought it would be, like, soooo awesome to put a twist on the “music T-shirt” concept and place their own faces over top…
Morning News: Cincinnati Water Works going solar; should LLC owners be able to give twice to campaigns?; Kentucky secretary of state declines to release voter info to Trump administration
Good morning all. It’s Friday. I have a huge cover story due in a few hours. There’s a big news pileup because we skipped morning news yesterday. So let’s get right to it with some brief catch-up stories to take you into the weekend. Cincinnati Water Works is going solar, Mayor John Cranley announced Wednesday.…
Conviction of Norwood daytime curfew violator affirmed on appeal
An Ohio appeals court has unanimously denied the challenge of an arrest and conviction under the city of Norwood’s daytime curfew for minors. The court sided with a policeman’s testimony that the defendant, who was 17 years old at the time, was not on his way to school and that he was instead planning to…
Stage Door: Pre-Fourth of July Offerings
OK, we’re at the halfway point in 2017, and from my perspective that means we’re tiptoeing into the 2017-18 theater season. Of course, with the Independence Day holiday coming along on Tuesday, most Cincinnati theaters are on a summer break, but there are at least three productions you might want to check out. Let’s start…
MadTree launches new IPA for people who don’t like IPAs
MadTree Brewing Company has added a new IPA to the family tree: Entropic Theory. The result of a two-year commitment from MadTree’s brewers and lab team, Entropic Theory defies the preset standards that surround a classic IPA, allowing avid craft beer connoisseurs who have previously avoided IPAs to expand their horizons. “We wanted all of…
Your Fourth of July Weekend To Do List (June 30-July 4)
Happy Fourth of July weekend! Find even more Fourth festivities here. FRIDAY 30 ONSTAGE: BLITHE SPIRIT Noël Coward’s tried-and-true fantasy/comedy from 1945 has entertained audiences for generations — a 2009 Broadway production featuring Angela Lansbury won a Drama Desk and a Tony Award. It’s the kind of fun-filled summertime show we’ve come to expect from…
Melt Eclectic Café to Reopen Fourth of July
UPDATE: Due to a small issue with the café's inspection July 3, Melt's opening has been postponed. Stay tuned on their Facebook page for a new opening date and more information. As music from local and national touring artists permeates the streets of Northside during the annual Rock n’ Roll Carnival on the Fourth of…
Hundreds protest Tensing mistrial at UC
Thirty-two thousand fans coming to an FC Cincinnati game last night at the University of Cincinnati were greeted with cries of “we don't care if you watch the game, just say his name — Sam DuBose.” About 300 protesters marched across UC’s campus decrying the second mistrial of UCPD officer Ray Tensing in the shooting…
What a Week! June 21-27
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21 You know the old phrase, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach?” It seems Bill Cosby is taking that to heart. The man who has been accused of sexual assault by more than 60 women throughout his life — whose court case recently ended in mistrial, with 10 out of the…
‘The Keepers’ is haunting true-crime at its finest
Since Truman Capote’s 1966 non-fiction novel In Cold Blood established the genre, true crime media have remained popular among the masses. For years, the trend was represented on the small screen as sensationalized 24-hour coverage of salacious trials and dramatized, lowbrow cable offerings. A prestige take on true crime emerged just a few years ago, however,…
The Daring Genius of ‘Baby Driver’
A sense of cool bordering on the existential fueled Nicolas Winding Refn’s 2011 film Drive, about a stuntman and mechanic (Ryan Gosling) who also moonlights as a getaway driver. Anonymous and impossibly skilled, Gosling’s driver is straight out of urban mythology, a modern version of Clint Eastwood’s nameless gunslingers of old, with even less to…
‘Pop Press’ finds beauty in the bizarre
Before weird news was something to click, it was something to clip. Graphic designer Scott Bruno’s collection of offbeat but absolutely real articles, photos, advertisements, TV listings and fliers is the inspiration for Pop Press, the new Thunder-Sky, Inc. exhibit. It riffs on truth being stranger than fiction and recognizes that some oddity runs through…
British Art at the Taft Museum
The temporary exhibition at the Taft Museum of Art through Oct. 1, Treasures of British Painting 1400-2000: The Berger Collection, provides a fascinating glimpse into one way that a museum — in this case, the Denver Art Museum — can build an important new collection in contemporary times. As such, it provides a striking contrast…
Funky Sunshine keeps alive the hippie-era fashion trend of tie-dyeing
It’s the trend that will never die. But it is certainly preoccupied with dyeing. With more than 80 colors at their fingertips and an assortment of products, Funky Sunshine’s three proprietors are reinventing the tie-dye fad. Since tie-dyeing was such a fad of the 1960s and early 1970s, we’ve all seen its bursting colors and…
Minimum Gauge: Chance the Rapper has better things to do than fight with a snack company
HOT: Not a Chance to Take After delivering a speech in which he called out the U.S. government after receiving the Humanitarian Award at the BET Awards, Chance the Rapper took on a tastier enemy. In response to a Hostess tweet that compared the greatness of “Chance the Snacker” (groan!) to that of the company’s…
What’s the Hops: Happy Anniversary!
It’s hard to believe Rhinegeist has been pouring its suds for four years now, but on Saturday the brewery is hosting a funky ’70s-style fourth-anniversary party with limited-edition beer releases, “slick grooves and vintage mayhem,” a giant disco ball, DJs and a blowout party on the rooftop. Following in Rhinegeist’s footsteps (beersteps?), Fibonacci commemorates two years in Mount…
Goats, Greens and a Grocery Bike
Nestled in the industrial belly button of Camp Washington, equidistant from the I-75 on-ramp, River City Correctional Center and everyone’s favorite salt dome, is an unassuming and unexpected oasis: the Camp Washington Urban Farm. Since its inception in 2013, this little two-acre tract of land has been providing sustainably grown produce and agricultural education to…
Morning News: Camp Washington marijuana site clears more hurdles; DuBose family responds to mistrial, slams Judge Ghiz; Portman opposes Senate health care bill after GOP pulls it
Good morning all. Here’s some quick news. Cincinnati City Council's committees have moved through a slew of items in the past few days. Let’s run through a few of them really quickly, starting with an effort to bring a medicinal marijuana facility to Camp Washington. Council in committee yesterday gave approval to that plan, moving…
Acclaimed singer/songwriter Jason Isbell continues his upward creative trajectory with ‘The Nashville Sound’
Jason Isbell is on a serious winning streak. The Alabama-bred singer/songwriter’s latest, The Nashville Sound, is his third straight next-level release following 2013’s Southeastern and 2015’s Something More Than Free. It can’t be a coincidence that Isbell’s creative evolution has coincided with getting sober — he was reportedly kicked out of the Drive-By Truckers in…
Vibrant Troubadours Rock Through ‘Cool Grass’
Saturday at MOTR Pub (1345 Main St., Over-the-Rhine, motrpub.com), promising Wilmington, Ohio rockers Vibrant Troubadours celebrate the release of their second full-length, Cool Grass. The duo is joined by The Whiskey Shambles and Maine’s When Particles Collide for the free 10 p.m. show. Consisting of brothers Cullen Corcoran (vocals/guitar) and Myles Corcoran (drums), Vibrant Troubadours…
Plea deal offered, trial date set in Neri killing
A court date has been set for the trial of 23-year-old Earl Jones, who is accused of killing 19-year-old Kevin Neri last year after an ongoing argument via text messages regarding Neri’s relationship with Jones’ ex-girlfriend Cyerra Prather, with whom Jones has a child. Jones will stand trial Oct. 10 for shooting Neri, who was…
A plan to link Cincinnati’s scattered cycling infrastructure could empower low-income riders
Rick Perryman is a bike mechanic, bike infrastructure advocate and hardcore cyclist. That description might make you picture a guy of a certain income, maybe even of a certain race, in spandex, advocating for a trail in Hyde Park, or a fixie-riding Millennial pushing bike lanes in Over-the-Rhine. That’s not Perryman. But he is definitely…
A second trial, a second hung jury: Tensing case puts Cincinnati at an impasse
The rain kept coming June 23, starting around the same time Hamilton County Judge Leslie Ghiz announced at 2:15 p.m. that the jury in the retrial of Ray Tensing could not reach a verdict. It steadily gathered force from there as the angry ghost of Tropical Storm Cindy glided over Cincinnati, dousing protesters and police…
Sound Advice: The Mountain Goats with Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit (July 1)
The Mountain Goats’ newest album, Goths, does not set out to sound like something ravers would expect to hear at an underground club where everyone is dressed like they’re in The Matrix. Goths comes from a very intelligent songwriter who went through an influential Goth phase during adolescence but never fully committed. John Darnielle is that…
Sound Advice: Mod Sun with Trademark Aaron and Raised x Wolves (June 30)
There may be no more fascinating character in Hip Hop, or any musical genre, than Derek Smith, better known as Mod Sun. A child of divorce, the Bloomington, Minn. native was well traveled at a young age, between his mother’s frequent moves for work and his father’s relocation to Long Beach, Calif. As a child,…
Sound Advice: The Church (June 30)
In the realm of bands that never managed to be the arena-sized, global-scaled sensations they deserved to be, The Church looms fairly large. Formed in 1980 by bassist/frontman Steve Kilbey and guitarist Peter Koppes, the Australian quartet had Top 25 hits with its debut album, 1981’s Of Skins and Heart, and second single, “The Unguarded…
On-the-Move MidPoint Music Festival Announces Initial 2017 Lineup
The annual MidPoint Music Festival has announced the first batch of performers for this year’s event, as well as a few other changes. Heading up the lineup is Cincinnati’s own Walk the Moon, which is working on its anticipated follow-up to hit album Talking Is Hard (featuring the huge single “Shut Up and Dance”). Joining…
