News: The Persecution of Charles Li
Yeong Ching, the fiancee of Dr. Charles Li, helped launch a campaign in California with a stop on Fountain Square in an effort to get Li released. A nationwide tour in support of Dr. Charles Li — a U.S. citizen imprisoned by the Chinese government for practicing Falun Gong — visited Cincinnati Aug. 30. Yeong-Ching…
Locals Only: : The Art of Noise
Dale M. Johnson Chestah T Are you still down? Remember me? If beat-boxing could speak for itself, perhaps we would be entertaining these questions as food for thought. Once upon a time, long before Hip Hop became sanitized for corporate protection, beat-boxing was Guerilla Funk. It opened more ciphers than a decoder ring and…
News: Urban Warrior
Watch for turf wars between suburbanites and reality in the future, says urbanist author James Howard Kunstler. The University of Cincinnati has a "miserable" campus, the nation could fall into the hands of "maniacs" and gentrification of inner-city neighborhoods is a positive development, according to James Howard Kunstler. A leading voice in the urbanist…
Ritual
Human beings have a basic need for spirituality in order to live a full, healthy life. One way of meeting that need is through ritual. Rituals can be a secular local custom or practice that expands our consciousness when done mindfully, such as covering our hearts during the Pledge of Allegiance or standing when singing…
Cover Story: Almost There
Editor's Note: Jack Kerley's story is one of dreams sought and found. The Northern Kentucky writer wasn't directly searching for a book contract when he entered the Mercantile Library Short Story Competition. He simply submitted a piece on a dare from a friend in the Cincinnati Writers Project. Aspirations of agents and publishing houses had…
Cover Story: The ExFoleyation of Mick
Jymi Bolden Ex-professional wrestler Mick Foley says his debut novel, Tietam Brown, makes readers think. Sitting demurely across from World Wrestling Entertainment title-holder Mick Foley, statistics swam around inside my mind. Six concussions, two broken noses, six broken ribs, more than 300 stitches — all injuries incurred during his wrestling career. Prepared at any…
Whirlygig: 94: Out on the Town
What a Girl Wants Wedding bells traditionally have been rung in the spring — remember the saying about there's nothing like a June bride — but September appears to be gaining popularity for weddings. At least two such invites presented this fall for September weddings, which might not be a trend but more of a…
Well Meaning
Last week's What's the Matter with Self? exploded with fed-up rage and fear over the proliferation of white T-shirted black drug dealers. Black folks are mad over nigga shit. The pull of middle-class black rage — that we can and should self-criticize without trading in our blackness — confuses whites, who won't ever understand this…
News: Hog Heaven
Jene Galvin For a while downtown Milwaukee was awash in Harley riders and those who only hope to someday be among the two-wheeled elite. MILWAUKEE — It's 5 p.m. Saturday on the downtown corner of Wisconsin Avenue and Third Street. Marquette University is a couple of blocks west, the lakefront a quarter mile to…
Travel & Getaways
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Cover Story: Trainspotting
Angela Johnson and Loren Long haven't yet met in person, but their words and images made I Dream of Trains a reality. In the fields of Mississippi, a young boy pauses while picking cotton to listen for the whistle of Casey Jones flying down the Illinois Central rail line. To him, this is the…
Dan is the man, but the acronyms are out of control
This is probably the least entertaining letter you'll ever get, but I hope it'll make a nice break between snot-suckers and shit-eaters. I'm 18 now, going to college and I think I might be in love. I know it might seem like I'm jumping in with both feet, but I don't think I am. I…
Cover Story: Down by the Banks
Dennis Kurlas sponsors the Riverbank Poetry Project because everyone has the need to express themselves. Dennis Kurlas has a "go with the flow" attitude, a fitting attribute for the man whose Red Squirrel restaurants underwrite the Riverbank Poetry Project. Like an actual riverbank, Kurlas and many others work as a support system for local…
Cover Story: Reality Bites
Ohio native Brad Warner says working on Ultraman products in Tokyo is "actually a fairly boring job." If you look in your local New Age book store or browse the philosophy/religion section at the nearby Book-a-Doodle mega mart, you'll notice that there are very few books with toilets on their covers. If you find…
Cover Story: Well Enough Alone
Matthew McIntosh's Well The trick, he said, is to refuse to believe that any of this makes sense. Because when it does — when the world and life and the way things are make sense — then you know there's really something wrong with you. — Matthew McIntosh, Well "Hello? Hello?" Such is the…
Cover Story: The Shop(s) Around the Corner
Catherine Walker Blink and you'll miss the town of Shandon and one of its main attractions, Books in Shandon. Does the possibility of life exist for bookstores beyond the doors of the behemoth Barnes & Noble? The chain has claimed space with eight storefronts in the Cincinnati area in the past decade, combining the…
Joey Kern Survives the Grind
Joey Kern Kentucky native and St. Xavier High School graduate Joey Kern is in a good career place, appearing in two Hollywood releases in less than a month. In the recent boys-on-the-road comedy Grind, he plays the movie's skateboarding Lothario, Sweet Lou. He shifts from laughs to scares in the horror movie Cabin Fever…
