Nov 8-15, 2017
Two Decades of Musical Acclaim: Looking back at Cincinnati Entertainment Awards’ 20 years of celebrating local music
‘Lady Bird’ Soars on Gerwig’s Creative Wings
Greta Gerwig, who wrote and directed the superb new Lady Bird, has been waiting quite some time for her big moment to come. It’s here now. A decade ago, she co-wrote and starred in Joe Swanberg’s indie romantic dramedy Hannah Takes the Stairs, which landed her squarely in the middle of the Mumblecore scene. A…
“Curb Your Enthusiasm” Hasn’t Missed a Beat
Six years since the last season of Curb Your Enthusiasm (10 p.m. Sundays, HBO), after nearly all fans had given up hope for a revival of the oddball comedy, Larry David and friends are back — and they’re as funny as ever. Little has changed in Larry’s world since we last saw him. He’s still…
Beyond Dreaming
On Sept. 5, President Donald Trump signed an executive order rescinding a five-year-old Obama administration policy called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. It was a harsh moment for immigrants in the U.S. Trump ordered the Department of Homeland Security to find an “efficient and orderly” way to end the program, part of the…
Crunch time for Metro
Cincinnati’s bus system continues to face big financial challenges. The Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority’s board yesterday released its $98.1 million 2018 budget. That spending plan narrowly avoids deficits in the coming year, the board says, but big changes — including route cuts and fare increases — will be necessary without more funding. The city’s…
FCC: We’ll pay for the stadium if taxpayers cover the infrastructure
FC Cincinnati announced at a news conference yesterday it will pay for the entirety of a $200 million, 21,000-seat soccer stadium it says it needs to win a bid for a Major League Soccer franchise. But that’s not everything, and there are still a whole lot of questions. The team is asking the city of…
On the High Seas of Imagination
This must be the season for playwrights having writer’s block. Two months ago it was Shakespeare in Love at the Cincinnati Playhouse with an impatient producer breathing down the Bard’s neck about a promised script. Now it’s the tour of the Broadway show Finding Neverland in which another impatient London producer is barking at his…
The Zen of Jen
After three minutes of conversation that sounded like she was travelling through a dead zone on a bullet train, Jen Kirkman’s line went dead. When we were reconnected, she offered a plausible explanation. “I have the new iPhone and so far it sucks for making calls,” she says from her Los Angeles home. “I think…
‘Candide’ starts CCM’s Bernstein Celebration
The scathing Candide, published in 1759 by the French Enlightenment writer Voltaire, lampooned the philosophy that “all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.” Nearly 200 years later, in 1956, a comic operetta version debuted on Broadway with a libretto by Lillian Hellman — aided with lyrics by an array of…
What a Week!: Nov. 8-14
Tiffany’s Markets “Everyday Objects” to Rich People The holiday season between Halloween and New Year’s is also known as engagement season since so many people put a ring on it this time of year. It’s a good time to cave after your significant other has been dropping hints all year and a surefire way to…
No-Cook Thanksgiving
Ditch the stress this holiday season and celebrate Thanksgiving at these local eateries. Coppin’s at Hotel Covington — Enjoy a Southern-style Turkey Day buffet at Coppin’s. Menu highlights include free-range turkey with gravy and cranberry chutney, sweet potato and parsnip casserole with oat marshmallow streusel, and bourbon pecan pie. RSVP to 866-501-1700. 11 a.m.-4 p.m.…
Herzog Music is for the children (and also, of course, grown-ups)
Besides offering a selection of vinyl, guitars and various music equipment and services (like repairs and lessons), the new Herzog Music (at 811 Race St., in the ground-floor storefront of the downtown building that once housed the historic E.T. Herzog Recording Company studio) has been presenting a variety of free, all-ages events. Among the increasing…
Pour Over Craft Coffee Fest Returns
Similar to the craft beer scene in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, the craft coffee scene here has exploded in the past few years. Just this year, Landlocked Social House, Ferrari Barber & Coffee Co., Brick Coffee Co. and a Findlay Market location of Deeper Roots have opened. This forward momentum is the reason why last…
Morning News: prosecutor won’t file charges against city manager; top State House staffer asked to resign
Good morning all. Here’s some quick news today. Hamilton County prosecutors announced today they won’t file charges against Cincinnati City Manager Harry Black in relation to a late-night phone call he made to Cincinnati Fraternal Order of Police President Dan Hils late last month. In the call, Black asked the FOP president to stand down…
Great Cincinnati Jazz is on the menu at Jazz & Frog Gig 2017
This weekend at Washington Platform (1000 Elm St., Downtown) you can sample delicacies of both the edible and aural kind as the bar/restaurant presents its third-annual Jazz & Frog Gig. The “Frog” part of the event’s moniker refers to the array of frog-leg dishes available on the menu (everything from frog leg curry to Gong…
Pere Ubu continues its Art Rock dominance with accessibly weird new album
With all the light-saber rattling and threatened nuclear aggression being espoused by the infantalists in charge of the U.S. and North Korea, it might be tempting to interpret the latest Pere Ubu album as a political statement. 20 Years in a Montana Missile Silo is the band’s quasi-concept album about a military man who spends…
Cincinnati Entertainment Awards’ return Sunday for 20th-anniversary celebration
Last week, we looked back at 19 years of celebrating Cincy’s music scene at the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards (if you missed it, check out the retrospective — and lots of photos — here). This week, we are looking forward and getting ready to make new memories at the 20th-anniversary edition of the CEAs, which take…
Colerain just says no to Republican conformity
In a county where political party endorsements dictate many election outcomes, voters in Colerain Township went totally unhinged last Tuesday and elected candidates of their own choosing. For the Colerain Board of Trustees, that is. Colerain, whose 58,924 residents make it the second most populous township in Ohio, is run by three elected trustees. Two…
Minimum Gauge: Metal singer defeats proud homphobe for Virginia House of Delegates seat
HOT: Metal Singer Beats Proud Homophobe One of the best stories from the recent possibly tide-shifting elections across the U.S. was the victory of Danica Roem in the race for a Virginia House of Delegates seat. One of the first transgender candidates to win an election in the U.S., Roem’s victory was sweeter because she…
Defining the Future of Womanhood
An important show, The Future is Female, opens Saturday at the 21c Museum Hotel. It consists of contemporary feminist art from the collection of 21c founders Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson. Organized by Chief Curator and Museum Director Alice Gray Stites, the show aims to “illuminate the legacy and persistence of the struggle for…
Look Who’s Eating: Jean-François Flechet
If you follow local restaurant lore, you’re probably familiar with the tale of the tall, lanky Belgian dude who showed up one day at Findlay Market, waffle iron in hand, and proceeded to set the town on fire with his hometown cuisine, becoming an integral part of our region’s business community. The story is mostly…
Morning News: Former Walnut Hills Kroger in hands of neighborhood group; Kasich: GOP should dump Senate nominee Moore
Good morning all. I hope you’re coming back from our frozen tundra of a weekend with all your digits intact and frostbite free. Luckily, mine mostly work so I’m going to type you up some news. Mayor John Cranley on Friday teased a coming announcement about a soccer stadium for FC Cincinnati. The mayor was…
Review: ‘American Originals’ a Great Success
The Cincinnati Pops has always sounded great in a Rock context; its collaboration with Peter Frampton was a truly transcendent experience. But what happens when the Pops is paired with a handful of artists whose modus operandi is to strip everything down to the barest necessities and present their Folk/Swing/Bluegrass material in its most elemental…
Stage Door: Groucho, Peter Pan, Rosie and a Diva Nun
It’s been three decades since Groucho Marx passed away, but his iconic presence as a comic genius has not faded. A master of physical and verbal humor, Marx’s exaggerated presence — overextended eyebrows and mustache, glasses and a cigar — and quick wit are still readily recognized. Actor Frank Ferrante has helped to sustain Marx’s…
Sound Advice: A Perfect Circle with The Beta Machine (Nov. 19)
If it feels like it’s been a hot second since you’d heard from A Perfect Circle, don’t worry — you’re (probably) not old and out of touch. Save some sporadic touring, A Perfect Circle has stayed almost entirely off the radar since its last album, 2004’s eMOTIVe. But all signs point to a return for…
Sound Advice: Chandler Travis Philharmonic (Nov. 18)
Chandler Travis isn’t especially well known in Greater Cincinnati. His visits have been rare, but in Massachusetts, especially Cape Cod, Cambridge and Boston, he’s as much a beloved, eccentric institution as Fenway Park. And among fans of NRBQ, Travis is seen as a kindred soul with a similarly skewed but all-encompassing musical worldview. Originally, Travis…
Sound Advice: Eleanor Friedberger with Lisa Walker (Nov. 16)
There’s always been something mysterious and offbeat about Eleanor Friedberger. Lanky with bangs to spare, she comes off like a character in a J.D. Salinger short story — wry and knowing yet somehow unknowable. Friedberger made her name as frontperson for The Fiery Furnaces, the band she founded with her older brother Matthew. Chicago-area natives,…
Developer Floats Ideas for Major Clifton Project
A spot in the heart of one of Cincinnati’s most distinctive neighborhoods could see big redevelopment soon. Gaslight Properties, Clifton Town Meeting and city of Cincinnati planning department employees held a community visioning session Nov. 7 to ask residents what they’d like to see in a prominent part of the neighborhood at the corner of…
Morning News: FOP president, city manager tangle over police accountability; taxpayers could be on the hook for 4th and Race
Hey hey Cincy. Let’s get straight to news this morning. A newly released phone call between Cincinnati City Manager Harry Black and Cincinnati Fraternal Order of Police President Dan Hils reveals deep tension between the city and the FOP on police accountability measures, even as the two work to refresh the city’s historic Collaborative Agreement…
‘The Florida Project’ Sees an Invisible Class
We see what we want to see; that’s how invisibility actually works. There’s nothing miraculous or special about being unseen. While it served as a metaphoric superpower for the Invisible Girl in the Fantastic Four comic book series, in real life it can define the forgotten rather than the extraordinary. In The Florida Project, the…
Morning News: The Election Edition
Hello Cincy! We’re back with a little bit of the ole morning news. As we reported last night, Mayor John Cranley won a decisive victory in his re-election battle with challenger Councilwoman Yvette Simpson. On the surface, the map looked much the same as it did in the May primary for the two candidates. Simpson…
The Cincinnati Entertainment Awards celebrate 20 years of Greater Cincinnati music makers and supporters
In 1997, CityBeat founders John Fox and Dan Bockrath solidified an idea to complement the arts coverage in their 2-year-old altweekly: throw a big party celebrating local performing artists, try to get as many of them to show up as possible, make sure alcohol is available and give out some trophies under the guise of…
Cranley, Council Incumbents Prevail
Mayor John Cranley handily won a second term tonight, besting opponent Councilwoman Yvette Simpson with 54 percent of the more than 60,000 votes cast. All Cincinnati City Council members seeking re-election also got the nod from voters, though vacancies mean three new faces — Republican Jeff Pastor and Democrats Tamaya Dennard and Greg Landsman —…
