Cover Story: Choosing Our Battles
Holla Back NYC My favorite street harassment is the two-second walk-by survey: "Got a boyfriend?" And the guys swing on past, chortling and nudging each other or slinging less euphemistic invitations over their shoulders. Sometimes it's a single male, and he actually slows down to see how I'll reply. I lift my chin and…
Living Out Loud: : Come June
By Larry Gross Where the hell does the time go? I turned around last week and suddenly realized I've become an old geezer. I had a birthday. Turned 53. While that doesn't exactly make me old, I'm no spring chicken either. I think I'm in the time of my life where people will remember me…
Music: Eleven Years of Folking Around
Blue Jordan Records Blue Jordan recording artists (clockwise from left) David Wolfenburger, Liz Bowater, Mike Helm and Sharon Udoh Plenty of music scenes around the country have spawned record labels, but very few scenes have actually become the record label. That's exactly what happened back in 1996 when the musical participants in the defunct…
Film: In a Rut
The Weinstein Co Jason Bateman (left) and Zach Braff do battle in The Ex. Zach Braff needs a new shtick. His goofball, everyman charms worked well in the endearing yet derivative Garden State as well as his recurring character on TV's Scrubs. But The Last Kiss, a slightly more conventional variation on a twentysometing…
Film: Zombies and Viruses
Fox Atomic Robert Carlyle runs for his life in 28 Weeks Later. Novelist and screenwriter Alex Garland apparently has issues with the individual finding a place of security in a nightmarish world. From his novels The Beach, The Tesseract (both of which have been adapted into films) and The Coma to his screenplays done…
Cover Story: Women’s Issue 2007
Casey Riordan Millard "Separate but equal" didn't pass the smell test with the U.S. Supreme Court when it came to racial segregation, and the same stink wafts around gender separation. Title IX directs educational institutions with male athletic programs to create, offer and fund women's athletic programs. Insurance companies paying for Viagra must also…
Cover Story: All Wo/Men Are Created Equal…
C. Matthew Hamby Is it surprising that women still make only a fraction of men's salaries when we are surrounded by Chairmen and Congressmen? You might try to dismiss a connection between language and equality as an exercise in political correctness, but our words have the unique power to create images and concepts. While…
Cover Story: Veiled for Allah
Natalie Hager Paige Robbins, a Woodlawn resident and local music therapist The clothes do not make the woman, but they can make an impact during a job interview. Self-expression is a typical explanation for low-riding jeans and funky shoes as much as it is for body piercings and hair color. Yet Islamic women who…
Diner: Review: Southview
Joe Lamb Review by Anne Mitchell When a restaurant is headed in the right direction, there are benchmarks. If recently opened Southview follows those benchmarks, they're on the way to becoming a very good restaurant. I'd already been warned before I went to Southview that they might not be ready for prime time, but…
Onstage: Marching Along
Dean Rettig Taylor Reynolds (left) and Darin Art star in Footlighters' Parade. As I waited in the lobby at The Footlighters' Stained Glass Theatre in Newport, someone said, "Well, it begins with a murder and ends with a lynching. It's not your typical musical." She was describing Parade, a 1999 Tony Award-winning musical getting…
Cover Story: Peace Not Presents
C. Matthew Hamby Waves of violence that rise and fall — not peace — surround Mother's Day, and that's far from the legacy its originator had in mind. Generations have come to know the second Sunday in May as a breakfast-in-bed/gift-giving event. Yet the "Mothers' Day for Peace," as it was called by Julia…
News: A New Kind of President
Mark Bealer Jane Anderson, who teaches political science at the University of Cincinnati, says U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton must overcome deeply held gender perceptions about the presidency if she hopes to win. The African-American candidate and the female candidate that presidential history has waited for probably will be greeted with less regard for skin…
Will Clemens Make Middle-Age Mercenaries a Common Sight?
Jerry Dowling Three decades following the demise of baseball's reviled reserve clause, Roger Clemens has extended the logic of free agency into a new dimension of semi-retired influence, to say nothing of affluence. Some time next month, when Clemens toes the mound at Yankee Stadium, perhaps he will usher in a new breed of…
Spanish Values Off the Beaten Path
To find value, you have to make supply-and-demand work for you by looking where others aren't. If you're willing to stray off the beaten path, you can find some awesome values. Spain, for example, produces a flood of terrific wine from regions and grapes that are sometimes challenging to pronounce — and often fly under…
Locals Only: : Frontier Folk Nebraska
Lacey Sickinger Frontier Folk Nebraska Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska sounds best on vinyl, roughly crackling out from the needle, an authentic American man telling us what it's like to be in his callused skin, delivering natural legends, giving the working man, as the song says, a "Reason to Believe." Although local band Frontier Folk Nebraska…
Spend Time on the Square
Regarding Phil Weintraub's letter "Downtown Needs New Ideas, New Direction" (issue of April 25), I find it ironic that he would make an assessment of Fountain Square based on one photograph. He doesn't even know when it was taken. I've been in Millennium Park in Chicago at times when it was empty. And if he…
Music: Louvin the High Life
Alan Messer Country music legend Charlie Louvin hopes to tap into the college music market with his new CD. Charlie Louvin is just about as self-deprecating as a legend can be. When he answers his cell phone and fields a request for Mr. Charlie Louvin, he responds with a jovial drawl, "Well, if you…
Searching and Seizing: Two New Rulings
Searches and seizures come in many different forms. This column looks at two recent challenges under the Fourth Amendment, which protects us from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. Traffic stops for investigative purposes form the basis of many Fourth Amendment challenges. The police may not just stop motorists on a whim. The police…
News: Exclusive Charter
Joe Lamb Justin Jeffre (left) and Jason Haap: One got to join Charter, one was barred. For a political group dedicated to transparency and accountability in Cincinnati government, the venerable Charter Committee is being uncharacteristically secretive about why it won't allow a local blogger to join the organization and is sending mixed messages to…
Film: Girls Will Be Boys
Sony Classics Shawesteh Irani stars in Jafar Panahi's Offside. In Offside, Iranian teenage girls disguised as boys beg, bribe and sneak their way into a soccer stadium so they can watch their beloved home team battle Bahrain for the championship. They're discovered and arrested by young soldiers who'd rather be watching the match themselves…
Web Onstage: Tragedy Within
Michael Shooner Fool for Love-Nathan Neorr and Cat Cook The world of Sam Shepard's 1983 play Fool for Love is a surreal one where love and relationships are twisted and incomplete, and time circles back on itself. The deeper we dig, the more incoherent things seem. New Edgecliff Theatre is offering a staging of this…
Writing As Renewable Resource
My attempts to tell the truth about myself used to feel like describing foliage by studying a topographical map: I could guess what people expected to grow where, but I really couldn't tell what I was looking at. My version of my life was a 30-second elevator pitch. It was nodding and smiling, smiling and…
Web Onstage: Smokin’
Back in 1991 when director Alan Bailey and writer Connie Ray's original Smoke on the Mountain (SOTM) was new, The Raleigh News-Observer in North Carolina remarked how it "celebrates a lost age of innocence (and) old time religion in song and silliness." Say amen to that. Much the same can be said of the newest…
Big Joe Duskin 1921-2007
Cincinnati Blues legend Big Joe Duskin passed away May 6. He was 86 years old. With the death of H-Bomb Ferguson late last year, Big Joe was the last of the great Cincinnati bluesmen who was around as Blues was in its early stages, helping to shape and mold it into what it is today.…
News: In Defense of Youth
Scott Beseler Court's in session: Peers judge one another in the new Teen Court. Daveyon Robinson, a freshman at Withrow High School, recently faced trial by a jury of his peers. The prosecutor, defense attorney and, in fact, almost everyone in the courtroom were also his peers — fellow teenagers from area high schools.…
Cover Story: The Taxing Cost of Reproduction
Ali Calis Mothers who opt to stay home with their children and remove themselves from the conventional workplace stand to lose $1 million over their lifetimes, according to Ann Crittenden, author of The Price of Motherhood. Although the figure might sound shocking, it includes missed salaries, tax breaks, pay raises and promotions. The IRS…
Cover Story: Moving Beyond Needlepoint
Natalie Hager Teacher Marilyn Herring (left) and student Alison Weber For many women the idea that needlework and etiquette could constitute the core curriculum of a serious educational program is laughable. There was a time, however, when this curriculum was the norm; equally ridiculous was the concept of female doctors, lawyers, architects and politicians.…
News to Use
Grateful Vegans EarthSave Cincinnati presents "An Evening Of Gratitude" at 4:30 p.m. May 20 at Clifton United Methodist Church. The program includes a cooking presentation by Mark Stroud of Gratitude Restaurant; and demonstrations of yoga, tai chi and belly dancing by instructors from Gratitude Motion Studio; and a potluck dinner. Take a vegan dish to…
Lookwhos: Look Who’s Eating – Stefan Kraus
Graham Lienhart Sefan Kraus, chef at aqua Stefan Kraus fell into his career by accident. "I was 17 and working as a river guide in West Virginia. You got paid more if you cooked meals," he explains. "So I started cooking." That winter, he went to Colorado and took a kitchen job at a…
Cover Story: Her Heart Belongs to Daddy
Casey Riordan Millard She's all dolled up in tiara and ball gown, sitting on her man's lap, arms around his neck, kissing his cheek. He's grinning from ear to ear and trying to look comfortable in a rented tux. He's placed a ring on her finger, they've exchanged vows before God and for dessert…
Radio’s Big Boys Screw Up Big Time
Graham Lienhart Jason Riveiro, local representative of the League of United Latin American Citizens, wants to help WLW-AM learn cultural sensitivity. There's nothing like a racist joke to remind us that not everyone is a white, middle-class, white-collar professional. The latest reminder came in the form of billboards posted by WLW (700 AM). First…
Upcoming Concert Reviews of Daniel Johnston, Animal Collective and More…
Toasters.org The Toasters DANIEL JOHNSTON WITH MATTHEW SHELTON AND WIL COPE Friday · Southgate House In the world of outsider music, Daniel Johnston might be the outsiderest of them all. His story is so compelling and improbable and astonishing that if it were written down as fiction, it would be dismissed as too outlandish…
Music: Loco Motion
Greg Allen Surf heroes Los Straitjackets (pictured with vocalist Big Sandy, far right) didn't get a boost from the film Nacho Libre, but Pulp Fiction helped considerably. Introducing in this corner the notorious, surfin', twangin', wrestlin', Rock & Roll combo, Los Straitjackets, who are here to take on our sedate Queen City in a…
Art: Meet Your Director
Raphaela Platow, the charismatic new 34-year old director of the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC), returns my phone call as she’s “sitting in the sun” in Waltham, Mass., where she is still senior curator at the Rose Art Museum. “I’ve been working like 70-hour days!” she says in a delightful German accent. “But it’s been a…
In The Vise Of Evils
Cincinnati Playwrights Initiative (CPI) gives aspiring writers the chance to have their plays read in a public forum, usually once a month in the Aronoff Center's Fifth Third Bank Theater. They've been doing that for a decade, drawing small, thoughtful audiences who watch and comment on scripts presented publicly for the first time. The…
