‘NINE’ Is An Odd Title With An Even Mix of Artists
NINE is just fine — both the name and the Carnegie exhibit. The title discloses only the number of artists, who represent ceramics, sculpture, painting, glass and mixed media. The show is without an obvious or assigned theme. But rather than feeling like a mish-mash, it works. “Each gallery tells a different story from a…
Notable Photography Exhibits Continue Post-FotoFocus
If you drive to Columbus by Dec. 30, you can see a photography show — Annie Leibovitz — that serves as the culmination to the journey through celebrity/fashion photography begun by three FotoFocus-related museum shows here — Taft Museum of Art’s Star Power: Edward Steichen’s Glamour Photography; Contemporary Arts Center’s Image Machine: Andy Warhol and…
Bos Is Back
I n some big cities there are only vestiges of bygone era neighborhood taverns, but Northside’s Boswell’s has found a way to trump decay and reemerge with an unexpected second act. As the story goes, Mike and Jan Beck operated Boswell’s Alley (Alley has since been dropped) located on Blue Rock Street, a rather dim…
Words With Friends
A bout a year and a half ago, Libby Hunter was a residential real estate agent meeting with a client across from a Northside park when children started throwing rocks at the window. After Hunter spoke to them, she realized that there needed to be a way to reach the neighborhood children to help them…
Music: Opera Fusion presents Morning Star
Prolific composer Ricky Ian Gordon is in town to oversee workshop performances of Morning Star, his operatic setting of the 1940 film that follows a Russian Jewish immigrant family’s struggle to make it in America. “It is a piece about immigration, about sisters, about longing and loss … about being Jewish, being marginalized, about being…
Onstage: MamLuft&Co Dance and concert:nova
Cincinnati’s own — and only — purely modern dance ensemble, MamLuft&Co, is kicking off its sixth season. In keeping with its innovative, collaborative spirit, the company joins forces with nontraditional chamber music ensemble concert:nova and Cincinnati Art Museum for an intriguing, two-part concert/art installation experience. First, audiences are invited to check out the CAM’s free,…
Music: Marbin
Chicago-based group Marbin returns to the Blue Wisp Jazz Club Saturday for a night of exploratory instrumental Jazz/Fusion. Marbin formed in 2007 as a duo featuring Israeli-American guitarist Dani Rabin and Israeli saxophonist Danny Markovitch. The twosome — which performs about 250 dates a year with their own ensembles and others — recorded the much…
Art: Brazee Street Studios Family Open House: Ornaments
Though often casually purchased, when pulled out of their yearly hiding places, holiday keepsakes have the potential to remind us of loved ones and special times from days gone past. When even seemingly insignificant mementos have associated experiences of collaborative crafting, those same memories might last for generations to come. Brazee Street Studios provides an…
Event: Northside Record Fair
Cincinnati DIY promotions and record label DOME Presents is hosting the first ever Northside Record Fair this coming weekend. The event brings together an array of vendors (from store owners to anyone getting rid of a few albums) under the roof of the Hoffner Masonic Lodge, where you’ll find every single type of vinyl imaginable,…
Music: Beauty, Bliss & Branford
Take a step back to yesteryear this weekend and into the 1920s, a time when Wall Street was on the rise, Jazz was booming, alcohol was prohibited and speakeasies were the hot spot. Enjoy a performance by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra with special guest and Grammy Award-winning saxophonist and Tony Award nominee composer Branford Marsalis. Following…
Lit: Versus Book Release and Reception
Two local literary minds have coalesced for the release of Versus, a two-pronged collection of poems featuring Nick Barrow’s The Rabbit Punch Defense and Mark Flanigan’s Journeyman’s Lament. Barrows, a musician and former member of band Eagle to Squirrel, pens lyrics and poems intensely self-reflective and rattling; Flanigan, a CityBeat contributor and noted storyteller, writes…
Film: I Send You This Place
In this breathtaking feature-length documentary, filmmaking duo Andrea Sisson and Pete Ohs, both with ties to the Cincinnati arts scene, capture on film an apt deconstruction of the human psyche via a visually stunning holistic spiritual crusade across the limitless panorama of surrealistic, barren Iceland. At its core, the film grapples with the duo’s personal…
Comedy: Greg Warren
It’s the return of our adopted native son as Greg Warren comes back to town for a set of shows at The Funny Bone on the Levee. The St. Louis native started his comedy career here while working for P&G and left the company shortly after being transferred to Houston. He’s been doing a stand-up…
Onstage: Jersey Boys
The show that won the 2006 Tony Award for best musical was a hit with Cincinnati audiences in 2008. Fans have been clamoring for Broadway in Cincinnati to return it to the Aronoff Center, so the story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons from the 1960s is here for a two-week run. It’s the true…
The Mystery of Captain Murphy (and Why It Drives Us Nuts)
There is no mystery in music anymore. I‘ve been trying to find a scapegoat to blame for this. Most notably, I’d like to blame KISS for taking off their make-up in ’83, unveiling the Demon and Star Child as just a couple of goofy-looking New Yorkers dressed up like extras from a Dokken video. But…
The Supersuckers
When The Rolling Stones recently performed one of their 50th anniversary shows in London, one reviewer noted that the “bravado” was gone and there was no mention of their longtime motto, “The World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band.” Since the Stones aren’t using it, perhaps rockers Supersuckers can claim it. They have, after all, been…
Over the Rhine Prepping Two 2013 Releases
Well before social media made it easier to connect directly to fans, veteran Cincinnati music legends Over the Rhine were already whispering in their fans’ ears via regular notes on the band website, written intimately and poetically by OTR’s Linford Detweiler (mostly). The direct, worded contact fit well with Detweiler and wife Karin Bergquist’s mystical,…
Morning News and Stuff
In the Ohio House of Representatives, the difference between a Republican supermajority and a normal majority is now 14 votes . That’s how many votes are splitting Republican Rep. Al Landis and Democratic challenger Josh O’Farrell. The small difference has already triggered an automatic recount and likely a series of lawsuits from Democrats over counting…
Mr. Gnome with Shadowraptr
The guitar/drums duo was one of Rock’s freshest clichés in the wake of The White Stripes’ enormous success, as dozens of similarly structured outfits sought to capture the same lightning in a two-person bottle. Few duos make the visceral impact or cover the incredible range of Cleveland’s Mr. Gnome, comprised of impish guitarist/vocalist Nicole Barille…
As I Lay Dying
Christianity in Metal is an awkward combination. Metal always seemed like something sacredly evil that shouldn’t be tainted by all the good, well-meaning moral messages of religion. Then again, maybe the idea of Christian Metal was just ruined by bands like Stryper (and, to an extent, Creed), which spoiled the subset before it even had…
Tim O’Brien
When Tim O’Brien plays guitar, mandolin or fiddle, the result could generally be described as Bluegrass. But it also represents the breadth of his myriad influences (Bluegrass, Folk, Country, The Beatles) and his startling ability to incorporate them into his personal style. O’Brien heard his first Bob Dylan album at 12 years old and subsequently…
City to Pursue Privatizing Parking to Balance Budget
City Manager Milton Dohoney Jr. unveiled his 2013 budget plan at a press conference today. The proposal, which must be approved by City Council and the mayor, seeks to close a $34 million deficit while avoiding major cuts and layoffs. The proposed budget will only set the city’s course until mid-June, when the city will…
County Commissioners Approve 2013 Budget
For the sixth year in a row, Hamilton County’s budget will be getting some cuts. The Hamilton County Board of Commissioners today approved $14.4 million in across-the-board cuts in a 2-1 vote, with Democrat Todd Portune voting no and Republicans Greg Hartmann and Chris Monzel voting yes. The budget’s cuts will affect every county department,…
Morning News and Stuff
Screw Cyber Monday; it’s budget day! The Hamilton County Board of Commissioners is set to vote on its 2013 budget today. The initial vote was delayed when commissioners couldn’t all agree on the full details. In City Council, a memo revealed the budget should be unveiled today . One part of the Cincinnati proposal has…
The Importance of Being Earnest (Review)
Critic's Pick It doesn’t really matter whether your preference at teatime is for cake or muffins. You’ll be pleased with Cincinnati Shakespeare’s production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, full of sweets, bon mots and precisely timed comic performances. The skilled cast finds humor in every scene, line and character, making Wilde’s “trivial…
Council Approves Plan Cincinnati
Cincinnati City Council on Wednesday approved the first comprehensive plan in the last 32 years to direct future city growth and development. All eight present members of council voted in favor of the plan, after a 10-minute “love-fest,” as Councilwoman Yvette Simpson put it, praising one another and the team that created the plan. The…
The Clean and the Unclean of Comedy
Eddie Murphy’s best story about his early success has been told in various forms, but this is my personal favorite. Murphy, of course, became a sensation in the early ’80s as a cast member on Saturday Night Live and with his frenetically urban stand-up act. He then showed his power as a box-office draw with…
Music Tonight: Newbees, Miss May I and Much More
Tonight's allegedly the "busiest bar night of the year," so if you like to hang out at places that are really packed, this is your jam. If you like to hear live music when you go out, you're also in luck, as a lot of the top acts seek out lucrative Wednesday-before-Turkey-Day gigs because of…
Morning News and Stuff
Public service announcement: There will be no Morning News and Stuff Thursday and Friday due to Thanksgiving break. Happy Thanksgiving, and CityBeat will see you again on Monday! With gains in the civilian labor force, Cincinnati’s seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate dropped to 6.8 percent . The city’s unadjusted unemployment rate is below the nation’s rate…
Silver Linings Playbook
Family is a tricky proposition in the world of David O. Russell. Whether the ones we’re born into (Spanking the Monkey or The Fighter), those that raise us (Flirting With Disaster) or the bonds we form along the way (Three Kings), dysfunctions lurk and threaten to stunt his hapless protagonists in their human pursuits. In…
Rise of the Guardians
An evil spirit named Pitch (Jude Law) unleashes a full-out assault on the planet and it’s up to a team of Immortal Guardians to protect the children of the world in this animated adventure. Jack Frost (Chris Pine) joins North (Alec Baldwin), Tooth (Isla Fisher) and Bunny (Hugh Jackman) in what amounts to a fairy…
Red Dawn
Based on the prevailing studio model in Hollywood, all remakes fail to pass any litmus test for the basic right to exist because these shameless money grabs never offer any significant reconsideration of the original material, outside gluing the latest It-faces of the moment onto the screen. Action-oriented second unit director Dan Bradley (The Bourne…
Life of Pi
Yann Martel’s bestselling novel captured the hearts and minds of readers from the moment of its release and kicked off feverish discussions for an adaptation, although the challenging story — about a young man adrift at sea with a Bengal tiger as his only companion — scared off several would-be Oscar-chasing helmers. Somehow it makes…
