Cinciditarod Video
The lovely people at PROJECTMILL filmed the Cinciditarod. If you missed the race, check out this footage.
Contemplating Fantasy Baseball
Fantasy sports bring out the worst in me, and that's why it is with great excitement that I tell the two losers who regularly read my illustrious column that my fantasy sports franchise, Hoagy Time Ltd., will be throwing it's hat in the ring and entering the rarified air of fantasy baseball this year.—- While…
Art: A Glimpse from the Past at Betts House
On the cusp of another seismic change in downtown’s look, with the Great American Tower set to thrust a tiara onto our skyline, Betts House offers A Glimpse from the Past, underlining the constancy of change. Chris Smith, Cincinnati Public Library history reference librarian, teamed with photographer Alex Bell to find exact vantage points in…
Art: A Comma in the Sky at Creative Gallery
Jake Constantine’s solo exhibition A Comma in the Sky has been extended to run through April 25 at Creative Gallery in Over-the-Rhine. Stringing together sci-fi sensibilities, dialogues about technological advancement and the angst and nostalgia often associated with “progress,” Constantine portrays the mundane alongside the fantastic. He’s found about half a dozen different ways to…
Comedy: The Naughty and Sorta Nice Tour
Comics April Macie and Christina Pazsitzky have quite a lengthy name for their combined tour, The Naughty and Sorta Nice, Sex in Every City Tour. The moniker does give a fairly good indication of the premise, as both are attractive, but there’s a reason the tour poster shows one dressed as an angel and the…
Music: Ridge Runner
Country Rock sextet Ridge Runner just returned from Nashville, where they showcased for labels, collected business cards and passed around their sophomore CD, the aptly titled Kickin’ and Stompin’. As half of the band — lead vocalist/acoustic guitarist Jeff Workman, bassist/vocalist Troy Brown and fiddler/vocalist Ron Ball — relaxes over beers and fish and chips…
Attractions: Dinosaurs Unearthed and Alive
It’s awesome. There’s all kinds of real-looking dinosaurs, from a humongous T-Rex to a little baby Triceratops, and they all moved and roared and stuff. You could even press buttons and make their arms go up and down. The movie was cool but a little scary. My favorite part was when the meat-eater chased the…
Music: Afro-Cuban All Stars
Today, rarely is there a chance to witness musicians who represent both the roots and evolution of a genre. In the ’60s, you could witness music history being written in Jazz clubs all over the country, featuring artists who were not just masterful players but creating and expanding an entire musical tradition. Their names are…
Gossip, Celebrity and Politics
Being a drinker, having black ancestry or being a secret Catholic were more likely to end a political career in the early years of this country than being a cannibal or caught with a stripper in a compromising position. Gail Collins, New York Times columnist and Cincinnati native, provided the proof of this historical anomaly…
The NCAA Tournament Doesn’t Seem Right Without Billy Packer, UC and UK
The first thing one noticed on hearing the selections for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament was that Billy Packer had nothing to complain about, because the so-called “mid major” conferences received only two at-large bids. But the second thing one noticed was that Packer wasn’t there to complain. Packer left CBS quietly last July for…
Onstage: Richard Kogan
Dr. Richard Kogan must be a multi-tasker on a level that most humans would find completely baffling. A piano student from age 4, he studied at Julliard until he was 18, but under his father’s medical tutelage during the same stretch he ultimately decided to pursue a degree in medicine from Harvard. But Kogan’s musical…
Music: Obits
Obits are a band without a plan. Even though their debut full-length, I Blame You, will be released via Sub Pop Records on the same date that they’ll headlining in Newport, this Brooklyn quartet has yet to outline any of their long-term ambitions for the group. This sense of irresolution is to be expected from…
Race to Witch Mountain (Review)
The Witch Mountain adventure series gets updated here with the focus in this first installment squarely on Jack Bruno (Dwayne Johnson), the cab driver who picks up a couple of stray teens (AnnaSophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig) in Las Vegas during a huge science fiction convention. It’s all so obviously ironic, of course, because with…
Television: Taking the Stage
Five local kids from the School for Creative and Performing Arts will star in MTV's new reality musical, Taking the Stage. The 10-part show follows these students in their senior year as they prepare for life after graduation, highlighting their hard work and dedication to their craft and the teenage pitfalls and drama along the…
Events: Millennicon
Even though we crossed the millennial threshold a good nine years ago, the world of science fiction, fantasy and futurism is still scoping it all out. So dust off your regulation spacesuit, anime costume or Klingon outfit, get decked out to the nines and make your way to the Holiday Inn off I-275 North for…
Miss March (Review)
It seems that the teen sex comedy is experiencing a resurgence of sorts at the box office. Post-American Pie, teen guys are discovering the joys of not just T&A but also a degree of depravity that might honestly be more disgusting than the audience is willing to admit. Back in the day, it was all…
Onstage: The Foreigner
As the foundation for its laughter The Foreigner, now at Cincinnati Playhouse, asks audiences to accept a lulu of a gimmick. Many comedies do. The problem with gimmicks is that once they’re established, the playwright must create characters and situations so funny and so convincing that they transcend the gimmickry. Shakespeare and Chase managed. Foreigner…
Onstage: Mauritius
Playwright Theresa Rebeck, who happens to be a Cincinnati native, once told an interviewer, “I’m actually interested in poor behavior. I’m interested in what drives people to poor behavior. I do believe that there are monsters out there, and that they are monsters.” I hope it wasn’t growing up here (she’s a grad of Ursuline…
Music: Ratatat
Evan Mast’s and Mike Stroud’s kaleidoscopic, pop-culture-saturated interests yield instrumental soundscapes that range from guitar-driven anthems to atmospheric tunes that could double as the soundtrack of a spaghetti western as directed by Wes Anderson. The scruffy-headed Brooklyn duo known as Ratatat — Mast plays keyboards and crafts beats; Stroud plays guitar and various other things…
Music: No Saints, No Saviors
The Allman Brothers are still a popular touring attraction these days, taking their soulful Blues/Rock sound to outdoor arenas around the country pretty much every summer. But for hardcore local Allman fans, one show every couple of years at Riverbend just isn’t enough. Lucky for them, there’s a new band of local Blues/Rock all-stars offering…
Last House on the Left (Review)
The Wes Craven canon is enjoying a resurgence thanks to the remake culture of Hollywood (what’s old is new again as long as nobody’s paying attention). Nightmarish brutality trumps supernatural thrills in this tale about a family that encounters a crew of murderous felons while on vacation at a lake house. The deck is evenly…
Events: Climate Change and Water Film Festival
With climate change comes change to our global water supply, and that can be especially burdensome for poorer countries. The Climate Change and Water Film Festival tries to tackle these developing issues — from flooding to the drying up of water supplies. Xavier University will be one of nine universities around the U.S. to hold…
Yes, They Paid
This week’s issue of CityBeat, which hits the streets Wednesday, features a Porkopolis column about the “Cincinnati Tea Party” rally held last weekend on Fountain Square. As is often the case, space constraints prevented us from including all the information gathered for the column. One bit that didn’t make the cut answered a common question…
The Worst of the Best of Cincinnati
In the long tradition of expressing discontent by writing "Mickey Mouse" on election ballots, Best of Cincinnati voters also felt compelled use the ballot as a forum to express opinions outside of the typical selections. The CityBeat staff spent hours cleaning spam, obscenities and other shenanigans out of the online ballot. —- These faux write-ins…
Harris to Propose Bike Route
Are you a Northside or Clifton resident who finished his or her last final of Winter Quarter yesterday? Then you have about two hours to hop on your bike and cruise down to City Hall at 1:30, when Councilman Greg Harris will unveil a proposal for a Spring Grove Avenue bike route. With major street…
Murder Sucks
Murder sucks. Rape sucks. In fact, all violent crime sucks. Eradicating it sure would make the world a nicer place to live. I don’t know anyone who would argue with any of that. But after all that agreement, unity breaks down. Emotional outrage and grief take hold and rational thought evaporates. What then?—- When an…
America’s Next Top Model Stampede
Have you seen this yet? Thousands of conceited women with eating disorders almost killed each other at an America's Next Top Model audition in New York. —- Apparently they all wanted to be B-level celebrities who host reality television shows about other models (e.g. CariDee and Oxygen's Pretty Wicked) or to fade into obscurity after…
Live Webcam of Air Hockey World Championship
The Air Hockey World Championship brackets have been announced in Las Vegas, and the first-round is underway as of 4:30 p.m. The USAA is streaming the matches live at airhockeyworld.com. The 65-man bracket has Jason Cornell as the 54 seed and Jeff Huisman the 56. They will be matched up against the 11th and 9th…
Air Hockey Duo Arrives in Vegas
Cincinnati’s hometown-hero air hockey players are safe and sound in Las Vegas, preparing for Saturday’s first round of the Air Hockey World Championships. Jason Cornell and Jeff Huisman left Cincinnati at 3 a.m. Friday to catch their 6:45 a.m. flight, then enjoyed breakfast with Huisman’s parents in Las Vegas, who flew in from Seattle to…
Where Da Party @?
This weekend hosts an inundating clusterfuck o’ good shows! So intimidating that one o’ those nights I may need to take a detox day and lay off o’ the sauce and stay home, rather than make crucial band viewing decisions. My liver needs a well-deserved furlough. I recommend you man up and go out though.…
Sources: Pepper Eyes Statewide Office
UPDATE AT BOTTOM: Now it makes sense. Many political observers wondered why Hamilton County Commissioner David Pepper would agree to introduce Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory at last Wednesday's event and endorse Mallory’s re-election bid. After all, although Pepper and Mallory are both Democrats, they were rivals in the 2005 non-partisan mayoral race and have starkly…
Bent (Review)
Critic's Pick There's a twisted thread running through human nature that too often revels in persecuting people who are different. A thread in the spirit of some that necessarily answers this tendency, one that might be bent but not broken despite vile treatment, often counters it. That’s the focus of Martin Sherman’s 30-year-old play Bent,…
Events: Fountain Square As O’Nati’s Irish Pub
St. Patrick's Day starts early on Fountain Square (renamed O'Nati's Irish Pub for the weekend) with live music, food and beverages the night before the official St. Patrick's Day party and parade. On Friday they'll be pouring Guinness and offering Irish music. Music starts at 5 p.m. with U2 cover band Joshua’s Tree, followed by…
Stage Door: Don’t Be Afraid of Friday the 13th
There's nothing unlucky about Friday the 13th in the theater world. (Theater folks have enough other superstitions anyway.) So you have lots of excellent choices this weekend, from the very funny The Foreigner at the Playhouse (just opened) to the satiric Timon of Athens at Cincinnati Shakespeare (see review here). If you want a heavy-duty…
Mountains in Covington
OK, so there aren’t any mountains on the other side of the river, but there will soon be mountain bike trails in Devou Park. This effort to bring urban mountain bike trails is a community service project started by Give Back High, an off-shoot of Give Back Cincinnati. On March 28, 150 high school volunteers…
Charlie’s Corner: Wine Tasting (at Findlay Market)
This weekend the Cincinnati International Wine Festival is taking place at the Plum Street divider known as the Cincinnati Convention Center. Tickets range from about $55 to like a million dollars. I know some of the proceeds go to charity while the rest goes to cleaning up the puke from the old woman that didn’t…
Filthy 15
Remember when car manufacturers balked at the idea of making cars that would get – gasp – 30 miles to the gallon? Innovation was forced on the automobile industry because they were content to remain with the status quo, regardless of consequences. Reliance on coal and other fossil fuels is the current equivalent to status-quo…
Expecting Change in Bearcat Land
Mick Cronin’s overhaul of the University of Cincinnati basketball program was destined to be a multi-year effort. No one could be expected to take over a program with one scholarship player and only the summer to recruit his first class and then immediately compete in the Big East. UC’s first two seasons under Cronin were…
Music: Wussy CD Release Party
Wussy, set to release its newest (a self-titled effort) for locally-based Shake It Records, shows a natural progression and tightness that has resulted in its best album yet. The album is a culmination of everything the band does well — eccentric but grippingly clever wordplay, crafty vocal interplay and dirty, buzzing Pop songs that bubble…
Music: Tropicoso Anniversary Party
Tropicoso’s show Saturday at the Mad Frog is a celebration of the band’s longstanding Monday night gig there, but Latin Monday at the Frog dates back even further. Nicholas Radina of Tropicoso had a previous band and Tropicoso’s precursor, Bailando Desnudo, that began the tradition in the mid-’90s, and the night has remained a powerful…
Cruel and Unusual Punishment
Muntazer al-Zaidi, an Iraqi TV news reporter, was sentenced this week to three years in prison for throwing his shoe at then-President George W. Bush during a visit to Baghdad in December.—- The Iraqi Criminal Court convicted al-Zaidi of assaulting a foreign leader on an official visit, which carries a more severe penalty than simple…
Reminder: MusicNOW 2009 Concludes Tonight!
Did anyone make it to last night's MusicNOW opening, featuring world-class string quartet Kronos Quartet? If so, let everyone know how it went in the comments.
Ashley Judd Takes on Mountaintop Removal
Actress Ashley Judd — who grew up in Kentucky, is a high-profile UK sports fan and supports progressive political causes — appears today at 5 p.m. to do a Q&A on the topic of mountaintop removal on the DailyKos web site. Go here to join the conversation. Margo Pierce wrote a news story ("Leveling Appalachia")…
Sole Survivors
Small Streams-2, the newest offering from Cincinnati Choreographers’ Collective this weekend at Contemporary Dance Theater’s College Hill Dance Hall, features the diverse work of eight highly regarded choreographers in two full-length evening performances. Just another reminder that no matter what happens in the world around them, a significant handful of dance artists in Cincinnati stubbornly…
It’s Like Deja Vu All Over Again
Maybe it’s the blank look on every one of their faces. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve never gone for the ladies with plastic high heels, the big soles and the leg warmers. But that’s exactly who and what was flirting with me last Saturday night at the Deja Vu strip club in Milford. It…
Patti Smith: Dream of Life
Steven Sebring spent 11 years working on this film about Rock icon/poet/activist Patti Smith, as worthy a subject for a documentary as anyone in Pop music. But his project at some point overwhelmed him. Rather than deciding on a focused approach to presenting his black-and-white and color footage, he wanders through her life in a…
Eurydice (Review)
Critic's Pick Mythology has the power to focus our attention on fundamental issues like love and grief. The sad tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, with its roots in ancient Greece, has evoked tears, heartache and sadness for several millennia. In Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice, it’s given a fresh new voice that speaks to contemporary audiences while…
Unions Are Not Racketeers
When attorney G. Robert Blakey drafted the federal RICO Act in 1970, it was designed as a new legal tactic to bring down the Mafia by making it easier to confiscate money and other assets like casinos, mansions and cars. Under RICO (the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act), any member of a group that’s…
More Harveys, Please
Not to be uncharitable, but I’m wary when people who don’t see many movies complain “they don’t make good movies anymore.” True, they don’t make as many good movies as they should (and never have). As an article in The New Yorker recently observed, people in Hollywood cheerfully set out to intentionally make bad movies…
Tropicoso (Profile)
Nicholas Radina’s schedule is so tightly packed with things demanding his attention, by all rights he shouldn’t be taking time for lunch. He’s a sound engineer, running concerts and events at the 20th Century Theater, as well as a local promoter (he co-founded the CincyLatino festival in 2003), erstwhile Over the Rhine tour manager and…
Greed, Suites and Bailouts
I haven’t been using my ATM card lately to withdraw money from my checking account. With this financial crisis, I’m afraid that one of these days the receipt coming out of the machine is going to read, “Sorry, you’re a day late. We had to spend your money yesterday to pay our utility bill.” So,…
‘Add Market-Rate Housing and Stir’
Reduce crime, preserve architecturally significant buildings, support social diversity and create a beautiful community in which everyone is welcome — these appear to be the goals of development efforts in dilapidated urban neighborhoods such as Over-the-Rhine. When concerns are raised about displacing existing poor residents, developers argue that these people will be raised out of…
The Romance of Astrea and Celadon
At 88 years old, French auteur Eric Rohmer is still at the top of his game detailing the intricacies of young romantic relationships with his latest, The Romance of Astrea and Celadon. Reportedly the last feature film by the octogenarian French New Wave alum, this adaptation of Honore d’Urfe’s 17th-century novel tracks the tumultuous, forbidden…
City Council’s Bait and Switch
It’s a sorry fact that political party leaders in Hamilton County like to undermine voters when it suits their own interests, but now some Cincinnati City Council members are jumping on that bandwagon. People who follow local politics remember the odious deal struck last year between the local Democratic and Republican parties regarding the two…
Dakota Fanning As a Runaway, Beatles Got Game and Country Fans Are Stumped
[HOT] Country Fans Ask “What’s a Google?"We’ve often wondered if it’s even possible to get through the day in these times without using the Internet. Turns out there’s a pretty big base of music fans that could never steal music because they don’t have Internet access. A study by the Country Music Association found that…
Wussy Shakes It Again
Scoring glowing reviews in national music magazines for your first two albums might intimidate some artists. But for Wussy, set to release its newest (a self-titled effort) for locally-based Shake It Records, a natural progression and tightness has resulted in its best album yet. The brilliant Wussy will get “CD release partied” this Friday at…
American Grit
The young blonde girl in the photograph looks perplexed. She’s standing in front of a bus called “Willie’s Wiener Wagon,” which is plastered with signs that read, “If You Don’t Support Victory, You Don’t Support Our Troops” and “Proud to be an American.” New York-based documentary filmmaker and photographer Cheryl Dunn took the photograph during…
‘Forward’ Motion
Musician Tom Kaper remembers seeing jazz great Herb Ellis pull up to the Blue Wisp Jazz Club several years ago in his ’72 “beat-to-shit” Ford LTD. “That said it all to me,” Kaper recalls. “Here’s arguably the greatest Jazz guitarist that ever lived. That was his tour bus, and he drove up from Texas to…
Battlestar Galactica: Season 4.0
Last winter’s writer’s strike reeked havoc across the television universe. And while that hastened the demise of the likes of Back to You, a lot of good scripted TV suffered. Like many shows, this acclaimed series was forced to produce an abbreviated season (this show’s fourth), which concluded last June and just picked up in…
Vitor’s Bistro (Review)
Critic's Pick The last time I was at Vitor’s Bistro was several years ago when we went for a CityBeat Best of Cincinnati breakfast feature. They were just starting to experiment with serving dinners on the weekend in the small storefront they occupied on Harrison Avenue in Westwood. Vitor’s, now serving breakfast, lunch and dinner…
Kottonmouth Kings with La Coka Nostra
There’s no other way to cut it: The Kottonmouth Kings love marijuana, and they do it as unabashedly and as loudly as legally possible. They have songs like “We Got the Chronic,” “Proud to be a Stoner,” and “Where’s the Weed At?” Album titles include 1998’s Royal Highness, 2000’s High Society, 2002’s Rollin’ Stoned and…
Young UC Basketball Team Proves It’s Not Ready for the Big Time
The older one gets, the more college sports make the head shake. It’s not the money or the corruption. It’s not the academic compromises involved in putting on athletic shows. All of that’s been around forever, and it’s part of the guilty pleasure involved with following college sports. But the kids. You just don’t know…
Parkside Cafe (Lunch Review)
Housed in a former Frisch’s Big Boy, Parkside Cafe (1024 E. McMillan St., Walnut Hills, 513-221-2026) keeps it real with its own drive-thru window, soup and salad bar and what seems to be the original Frisch’s furniture. They must still have the same ice machine, too, because the ice was Frisch’s ice. You know the…
Free Markets
Free Markets Kevin, you can choose whatever side you want on the debate and you can even charge Republican politicians with being unnuanced thinkers and knee-jerk cries of “socialism” (or “fascism” from the left) or being mindless, but whatever flaws the free market may have it really does provide more nuance and choice to the…
Another Seven Days of New Neighborhoods and Old Senators
WEDNESDAY MARCH 4 Cincinnati might have finally broken ground on The Banks project, but by the time people get to live, work and play in the riverfront neighborhood it could be called something completely different. The Enquirer reported today that the possibility of changing the name arose when developers Carter and the Dawson Co. realized…
The Fruits of Their Labor
When Pomegranates released their 2008 debut full length, Everything Is Alive, it was the culmination of a number of significant advances in a relatively short time. Within months of forming, the quartet had notched accomplishments that evade some bands for years. “We self-released our first EP in June 2007, then we played with a band…
Hollywood Undead with Senses Fail
The past few months have been a blur for Hollywood Undead. The SoCal Rap Metal sextet celebrated their A&M/Octone debut, ironically titled Swan Song, last September and promptly took the show that made them one of the Hollywood club scene’s hottest draws to a national audience. Hollywood Undead began as high school friends (Johnny, J-Dog,…
As Eric Lee Departs, Taft Museum of Art Has a Hit
As Eric M. Lee, whose last day as director of Taft Museum of Art is Friday, prepares to lead the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Tex., he leaves behind a smash-hit show: Fashion in Film: Period Costumes for the Screen. “We are trying to reach out to a broader audience with this show and…
Ireland Forever
They say everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. You should be so lucky. Being of Irish descent myself, I suppose pretending you’re Irish one day a year is better than nothing at all. But it’s not the same as the real thing, now is it? Ha, there’s nothing like a little ethnic smack talk…
