May 10-17, 2017
A Different Drum: Ben Sloan brings his Percussion Park to a progressive Price Hill
Making Price Hill’s Library an Avant-Arts Center
Just three weeks into his job, Steve Kemple doesn’t fit the traditional image of a library manager. He sees and does things differently. For instance, confronted with the new task of interviewing a job applicant for a staff position at his Price Hill branch of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, he sent out a…
Minimum Gauge: Phoenix debut band concert merch vending machine
HOT: Phoenix Tries RoboMerch Certain government officials justify efforts to crack down on immigration to the U.S. as a job-saving tactic. Meanwhile, robots continue their takeover of the global workforce without a peep. French band Phoenix unveiled a new way to sell T-shirts at its recent tour kickoff; instead of waiting in line at a…
Smooth Nitro Coffee: Creamy and Caffeinated Downtown
More reminiscent of a craft brewery than a coffee shop, Smooth Nitro Coffee, located in a kiosk at the Huntington Bank Center lobby at 525 Vine St. downtown, is revolutionizing the café experience with cold brew coffee on tap. Daniel Thaler opened his shop three weeks ago, but got his start more than a year…
Morning News: Library settles lawsuit, will provide transgender benefits; questions arise about public group running The Banks; Trump’s Russia slip
Good morning Cincy. Let’s talk news. The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County will change its healthcare plan to cover gender confirmation surgery and other transgender health care after it settled a lawsuit brought by employee Rachel Dovel, her attorneys announced yesterday. Last year Dovel wrangled with the library’s board over coverage as she…
Woodward Theater announces new concert series showcasing young Greater Cincinnati talent
Last week, Woodward Theater announced plans for a new recurring series of shows spotlighting the potential future sound of the Greater Cincinnati music scene. The Kids Are Alright events will feature area bands with teenaged members who perform their own material, giving local audiences a chance to see the possible next Walk the Moon or…
Critic’s Pick: ‘Erma Bombeck: At Wit’s End’ at Cincy Play
“I feel like I’ve stepped into my grandmother’s 1970s home,” says Artistic Director Blake Robison on the opening night of Erma Bombeck: At Wit’s End at the Playhouse in the Park. It’s true — no detail has been spared in Daniel Conway’s set design, from the Mid-Century dining set and coffee service to the avocado-green bedspread.…
Morning News: Video released in bullying at CPS school; Keep Cincinnati Beautiful faces audit; prosecutors: Tensing’s Confederate flag shirt relevant to trial
Hello all. Hope you had a fantastic weekend, soaked up the perfect weather and called your mom to wish her a happy Mother’s Day. If you didn’t, you better hurry up and do that now. Done? OK. On to news. Hamilton County Prosecutors are looking into an assault against a Cincinnati Public Schools student at…
Stage Door: A Dose of Everyday Wisdom, a Battle for Broadway
From a modest beginning as a local journalist in Dayton, Erma Bombeck became one of America’s most read columnists from the 1960s to the 1990s, dispensing funny, pragmatic wisdom about domestic life and motherhood. The Cincinnati Playhouse’s one-woman show about her life, Erma Bombeck: At Wit’s End, opened last evening on the Shelterhouse stage. The…
WVXU announces local-music-focused ‘Tiny Desk Showcase’
Longtime Cincinnati public radio station WVXU (91.7 FM; wvxu.org) has announced its second-annual concert featuring local bands and solo artists who submitted videos for NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest, a nationwide contest launched in 2015 that plays off of the popular Tiny Desk Concerts series. The concept of the original series is surprisingly simple, yet remarkably…
Your Weekend To Do List (May 12-14)
FRIDAY 12 ONSTAGE: OVO See the world through the compound eyes of insects and arachnids in Cirque du Soleil’s OVO. Watch as red ants juggle their food and each other, fleas create acrobatic art, crickets reach impressive heights and spiders balance gracefully on their webs. OVOcombines Cirque du Soleil’s strengths: colorful costuming; transportive set design;…
Morning News: Council approves contested Liberty and Elm project; arrested faith leader to get help with code compliance; Husted’s tricky tax semantics
Good morning all. Here’s what’s up today. If you’re tired of updates about a proposed project at Liberty and Elm called Freeport Row, well, this may be the last one you get for a while. After lots of back and forth about the $26 million mixed-use project, Cincinnati City Council voted yesterday to approve the…
City budget proposal: Cuts to neighborhoods and human services, but no closures or layoffs
Cincinnati City Manager Harry Black this morning presented his $1.1 billion fiscal year 2018-2019 city budget proposal. You can pore through his suggestions for the city’s operating and capital budgets here. The budget comes as the city faces a $26 million budget shortfall brought about by lower-than-expected tax receipts. Black asked all city departments except…
Timothy Snyder’s Quest to Prevent Tyranny
When he visited his hometown near Dayton, Ohio last year, Yale history professor Timothy Snyder realized the 2016 election was like no other. “Coming to Ohio made me see, for the first time, that we were sinking into a world where talking about politics with someone who had different views was becoming weird,” he says.…
What a Week! May 3-9
WEDNESDAY, MAY 03 We all remember the depressing image from Inauguration Day — not the SAD attendance or subsequent lies about crowds, or even the sight of a former Domino’s spokesperson becoming president of the United States. It was the moment when Donald Trump turned to face his smiling wife onstage, said an unintelligible word…
Regrettable Rupert Murdoch
Proverbs is a treasure house of maxims. My current favorite is Prov. 26:11: “As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly.” It came to mind reading about Rupert Murdoch’s $14 billion bid for Britain’s Sky satellite TV. His last attempt was scuttled by outrage over phone hacking by his British reporters…
Look Who’s Eating: Kate Cook
As a produce supplier to dozens of our top local chefs, restaurants, bars and markets, Carriage House Farm’s garden manager Kate Cook knows her stuff. Since 2010, Cook has overseen the four-acre garden located within the 300-acre registered Ohio Century Farm, which has been in farm manager Richard Stewart’s family for five generations. Although small,…
The Handmaid’s Cautionary Tale
During a time when futuristic dystopian stories dominate our screens and pages — and are, strangely enough, increasingly marketed to the young adult audience — a mature interpretation of the genre with feminist literature roots is a welcome change. Halfway through the first season of The Handmaid’s Tale (Wednesdays, Hulu), it’s easy to see why the…
Evolving Gender Identity in ‘3 Generations’
It is such a quaint notion now to refer to a story as a “TV movie” because the meaning has dissolved as we’ve become submerged in an ever-evolving stream of content. We have overcome elitist considerations about where we watch movies — from the big screens of theaters to the small screens, which used to…
Run Away and Join the Cirque?
Perhaps you’ve heard that Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is shutting down. I suppose it’s outlived its popularity, but it surely entertained people for years. Does this mean the phenomenon of the circus is over? Not really. There’s a singular counter-example in town this week: Cirque du Soleil. Its arena show OVO performs at U.S.…
One-woman show reveals how humorous columnist Erma Bombeck made the ordinary extraordinary
Erma Bombeck was a journalist whose three-times-weekly columns evoked chuckles from 30 million readers across America for more than three decades. And she was from this region —born in Bellbrook, Ohio, she eventually made her home in Centerville, south of Dayton. Despite the fact that she was read by millions, appeared regularly on national television…
Seafood-focused Eighth & English is a welcome successor to O’Bryonville’s Enoteca Emilia
Enoteca Emilia, the former restaurant in what is now Eighth & English, filled a dining void for the central neighborhoods of Walnut Hills, O’Bryonville and western Hyde Park, and I was happy when I heard a new tenant was imminent. Now that we’ve sampled the fare, I’m even happier. This seafood-centric, Italian-flavored eatery — which…
After essentially starting over, Boyz II Men let passion and industry savvy guide the group back to a fulfilling career
Boyz II Men may no longer dominate radio, sell albums by the millions or command attention as one of music’s most popular acts, but band member Nathan Morris has no complaints about the group’s current circumstances. “We call this our second career, which a lot of people don’t really get a chance to have,” he…
Sound Advice: Sean Rowe with Faye Webster (May 12)
Some songs are just so all-around drop-dead gorgeous — in the heartfelt poignancy of their vocals, the gently mournful exquisiteness of their melodies and the poetic specificity of their lyrics — that you stop everything the first time you hear them. And then you want to seek them out again and again. Sean Rowe’s “Gas…
Sound Advice: Eyes Set to Kill with Bad Seed Rising and The Nearly Deads (May 13)
Since emerging from the Post Hardcore/Metalcore scene in Phoenix in 2003, Eyes Set to Kill has had a tumultuous history, enduring over a dozen lineup shifts, including perhaps the most fundamental in the band’s 14-year tenure. In 2016, the band lost founding bassist Anissa Rodriguez, but more recently enlisted Tiaday Ball (ex-The World Over member)…
Sound Advice: Devin Townsend Project with Thank You Scientist and Oni (May 14)
Some people are to the music manor born, and Devin Townsend is certainly among that rarified elite. The British Columbia native played banjo at 5, guitar at 12 and joined a succession of high school Metal bands before recording under the Noisescapes banner in his early 20s. His demo earned him a Relativity Records contract…
Hip Hop duo Sons of Silverton dazzle on debut LP
On May 5, dynamic Hip Hop duo Sons of Silverton released its first full-length album, the extraordinary Or Forever Hold Your Peace, which is as good of a debut album as you will ever hear. Sons of Silverton had a little head start though — the project consists of two experienced MCs with a long…
Ben Sloan brings his Percussion Park to a progressive Price Hill
Just as there have been such recreational innovations as skateparks and bike trails in recent years, there are now “outdoor musical instrument” parks — places that encourage people to come and play music for awhile. Some are “percussion parks” with such built-in instruments as marimbas, chimes, cymbals, tuned drums and vertically arranged pagoda bells. One…
Court maneuvers ahead of the Ray Tensing retrial could mean a new jury won’t see the same evidence
Cincinnati will once again see national attention for a racially charged police shooting when the retrial of a white University of Cincinnati police officer who shot a black unarmed motorist begins later this month. As former UCPD officer Ray Tensing faces murder and manslaughter charges a second time for shooting Avondale resident Samuel DuBose July…
