contributing editors Mike Breen, Music; Dale Doerman, Onstage; Rick Pender, Onstage; Steve Ramos, Film.
contributing writers Karen Arnett, Brian Baker, Maureen Bloomfield, Terry Brown, Elizabeth Carey, Jane Durrell, Kathleen Heins, Jon Hughes, John James, Billie Jeyes, Josh Katz, Jonathan Kamholtz, Brad King, Kim Krause, Craig Lovelace, Perin Mahler, David Pescovitz, Jeremy Schlosberg, Brian Sweeney, Althea Thompson, Fran Watson.
photographers Jymi Bolden, Staff; Jon Hughes; Marty Sosnowski
listings editor Billie Jeyes
editorial intern Joe Ciborek
art director Paul Neff
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CityBeat
News&Views
Burning Questions Singling out abortion for a waiting period; the KKK spreads that old-time religion; Mayor Roxanne Qualls goes
News City Councilman Charles Winbum accuses The Post and The Enquirer of biased City Hall coverage, then threatens to investigate certain reporters 5
News Young political campaign staffers face winning and losing 6
Putting it Together Bureaucracies, whether government or private, are by their nature unresponsive 7
DailyBrecf
Health & Fitness Echinacea, an herbal product, is used to ease the aches and sniffles from colds 13
Technology News and notes from Silicon Valley and beyond 13
UtterKiosk
Film A review of Luc Besson’s sexy thriller The Professional 17
Music Profiles of three struggling local Alternative bands, plus loads of reviews and local music news 21
Feet don’t fail us now: Raging for control of future development finally be coming to a head. City changed their policies regarding neighborhood and (at least on port behind multi-income development. enough to break the deadlock sides?
Cover
Counter culture: Nice guy that he is, Steve Ramos takes some local clerks to see the latest Generation-X film, Clerks. Then he wants to know if art imitates life “behind the counter” at UDF and the video store
Question authority
Irreverent, informative and downright illuminating are how we would describe the prototype of Cincinnati CityBeat which we recently picked up from a friend on our way through town.
It’s been nearly one year since we moved from Cincinnati, but it appears littie has changed: anti-abortionists continue to ram their beliefs down other peopie’s throats; Marge Schott is still throwing her weight around town; and Delhi Township remains “mad as hell” at the nuns and airport noise. If a city ever needed an intelligent alternative newspaper, it’s Cincinnati.
Cincinnati CityBeat will no doubt do a superb job of covering the local arts and entertainment scene, and for that your readers will rejoice. Yet, we will read with earnest “Burning Questions” and “News & Views,” for it is. in these forums alternative journalism truly shines. So, put us down for a subscription and continue to question authority.
Joe and Donna Abel Columbus
New York frame of mind
I recently read your prototype edition from midOctober and was pleasantly impressed. Having just returned to Cincinnati from living in New York City the past five years, I had grown
accustomed to being offered a variety of news coverages from divirsilied sources with very different perspectives (i.e., the Village Voice, New York Press, etc.).
The Cincinnati area needs to be informed from different points of view, and I hope your publication helps fill this void here.
I wish you the best of luck and success in your efforts.
Mark Marron Mt. Adams
You’re my vehicle
Thanks for mailing me a copy of your colorful and exciting prototype. Considering that it was a “practice issue,” I was impressed by the clean design and good writing.
As a twentysomething bon vivant trapped in a thirtysomething body, I’m always on the lookout for different, interesting activities and destinations in the Cincinnati area. We all know these “alternatives” exist here but, somehow, remain difficult to find. I’ve looked for the local media to provide answers or at least clues for my searches, only to be disappointed.
Let’s hope the “real” issues of CityBeat provide the comprehensive, informative vehicle your prototype hints at.
Tony Ciabattoni Kenwood
Letters policy
CINCINNATI CITYBEAT accepts letters for publication.
mail to: Letters, Cincinnati CityBeat 23 E. Seventh St., Suite 617 Cincinnati, OH 45202. fax to: 513/665-4369
Please include the letter writer’s name, address and daytime phone number. Writers may request their names be withheld from publication. Letters may be edited for length. Please type letters if possible.
The Beal of the City
A conversation amongfriends, not a sermon from your elders
BY JOHN FOX
There probably are a thousand topics to address in the very first editorial of our very first publication. Believe me, I’ve started this column quite a few times and come to a halt again and again.
I finally decided to stop trying to explain the entire concept and story of Cincinnati CityBeat all in one take. Let’s instead look at the basic questions floating around in readers’ minds: What is this paper, who are you peopie, what do you mean by “altemative” and why should I care? We’ll save the remaining 996 topics for future columns.
CityBeat is a weekly alternative newspaper covering community issues, entertainment and the arts throughout Greater Cincinnati. It’ll be distributed every Thursday, free of charge, throughout the urban landscape of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky.
Our reporters’ “beat” are the city’s people and neighborhoods, faces and places the mainstream media tend to miss. Our reviewers and critics hear the “beat” of local musicians and follow the work of local performing and visual artists. Our staff may even “beat” down a few closed doors in government or corporate offices to get to the bottom of an important and overlooked story.
We are a small, enthusiastic group of journalists, designers, photographers and sales people hoping to provide what we think is sorely needed here: a locally based, independent media voice that provokes thought and encourages action.
In short, we will track the “beat” of Cincinnati, the pulse of life, the heart of the city.
We are a small, enthusiastic group of journalists, designers, photographers and sales people hoping to provide what we think is sorely needed here: a locally based, independent media voice that provokes thought and encourages action. We combine years of experience in the alternative press with some “converts” from daily newspapers and mix in quite a few young, innovative writers and editors. Alison Tranbarger, our managing editor, has assembled a “profile” of our full- and part-time staff. (See Page 12.)
You may already be familiar with many of the names in our staff box. If not, I hope that you’ll take time during the coming weeks and months to get to know us.
The alternative press has thrived in the United States since the 1960s, when important papers such as the Village Voice, Chicago Reader, Boston Phoenix
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BURNING QUESTIONS News&Views
An Alternative Look at How and Why It Happened
Are Knights’ Signals Crossed?
They’re back. And once again they say they’re fighting for everyone.
At 3 a.m. on Dec. 17 the Knight Riders will raise their cross on Fountain Square which they claim will bring Christianity back to Christmas.
The City of Cincinnati is challenging the Knight Riders’ cross-raising plans in the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In the group’s hands, the city claims, the cross represents “fighting words.”
“On the fighting words," said Ron Lee, the organization’s vice president, “the city is way off base and out to lunch.”
Racial bigotry, he said, is not an issue for his group now that it has broken ties with its national affiliate, U.S. Knights.
But based on a history of hate and violence perpetuated by the U.S. Knights an order of the Ku Klux Kian why would the Knight Riders believe they have credibility as messengers of Christianity?
“We are destined to be doing what we’re doing,” Lee said. "We are predestined to stand against the new world order of the religion of Lucifer.”
BRAD KING
U.S. Mayors Brace for Reforms
Concerned about the effects a GOP landslide could have on urban centers, 25 to 30 mayors from across the country gathered Monday at the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Chicago. Cincinnati Mayor Roxanne Qualls was among them.
Part of the discussion, she said, focused on the potential impact on cities of the “Contract with America,” signed Sept. 27 by Republican Congressional challengers and incumbents who pledged to bring to the House of Representatives legislative reforms that include a balanced budget amendment, welfare reform, family and middie class tax cuts, economic growth and term limits.
The Conference of Mayors, Qualls said, wants to work with new GOP leadership to find constructive solutions that do not cause setbacks for urban centers.
What is the foremost problem the mayors are concerned about?
Qualls said another mayor summed it up best: “The way things were is not the way things are anymore.”
NAN C Y FIROR
To Speak with a Doctor, Press *
Planned Parenthood Association of Cincinnati has made it easier to comply with Ohio's new Informed Consent Law, and pro-lifers are none too happy about it.
A new voice-mail system allowing women to set up appointments and speak to health-care professionals over the telephone has angered Right to Life advocates and found a loophole in State Rep. Jerome Luebbers’ (D-Cincinnati) law. The Ohio law requires a woman seeking an abortion to be given information on fetal development and abortion risks and alternatives at least 24 hours before the planned procedure.
John Willke, national Right to Life co-founder, said waiting periods for non-abortion surgical procedures did not need to be legislated because face-to-face consent had “always been done. (Abortion) is the only exception.”
Barbara Rinto, executive director of Planned Parenthood, said informed consent had always been a part of the clinic's philosdphy. A waiting period never needed to be legislated because time constraints and insurance concerns kept women from walking in off the streets for same-day abortions.
Well then, if it’s not about consent or waiting periods, what is the legislation about?
Willke and Luebbers are just “upset that women were making a choice at all,” Rinto says. "Consent was never the issue.”
BRAD KING
BURNING
Both sides are pointing fingers in a fight that has erupted between Cincinnati City Council Member Charles Winburn and the city’s dailies. Reporters, who in the past have held back smirks and shrugged off Winburn’s controversial speeches at council meetings, charge Winburn is trying to intimidate some members of the media with threats of investigating their personal lives.
Winburn’s Paper Chase
Council member charges ‘Post’ and ‘Enquirer’ “stance ” against him
BY NANCY FIROR AND JOHN FOX
Winburn counters he’s exercising his right to defend himself against attacks by some at The Cincinnati Enquirer and The Cincinnati Post who have taken their cues from Mayor Roxanne Qualls.
“What this is bordering on is religious and ethnic intimidation,” Winburn said. “I really believe that I am being intimidated because I’m a black conservative and because of my religion.”
Post Editor Paul Knue has a different explanation.
“It seems to me that Winburn took exception to an editorial we wrote, went off the deep end and has been at it ever since,” Knue said. “The guy’s got thin skin.”
In a Nov. 1 editorial, the Post scolded Winburn for making patronizing insinuations about the mayor by describing Qualls as having an “emotional crisis.” The editorial also criticized four other council members, saying their actions promoted the patronizing messages.
But Winburn said the problem started long before the editorial, when he publicly began criticizing “various members of council” and “some members of the media.”
Now, he’s naming names. And he’s promising equal treatment for any reporter who wants to investigate his personal business.
“I think they ought to look into my background,” Winburn said in a Nov. 10 interview with CityBeat. “But guess what? We’re going to look into their backgrounds.”
Winburn traces the origin of this media feud to when he supported Issue 3, which last year repealed a city ordinance that gave fair housing and other protections to gays and lesbians. Because of hi? stance for the issue, Winburn said, the mayor decided he was a bigot.
“She even called my group ‘dangerous,’” said Winburn, a minister and a founder of the Kingdome Church on North Bend Road.
Since then, he said, some reporters increasingly have taken their cues from the mayor.
“They’re taking their cues from me?” Qualls said. “I wish.”
Winburn said the media attack intensified as it had become apparent he was stepping on the mayor’s toes.
“My toes are just fine,” Qualls said.
Winburn said he was being targeted by the media for actions the mayor disapproved of. The foremost exam-
Charles Winburn
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Playing the Game
Hyatt and DeWine staffers learn about winning losing politics
BY BRAD KING
The young staffers are shaken and reluctant to talk
Some seek each other out, crying on shoulders. Others stand silently. Democrat Joel Hyatt has lost his race for the U.S. Senate.
At GOP headquarters in Columbus, Republican Mike DeWine’s camp declares victory, and excitement grips the young Republicans who have labored for months on his campaign.
“Everything has paid off,” says Craigg Gould, 26, DeWine’s caging manager who handles financial reports. “Everything you have strived to do has finally paid off.”
Then, as fast as it approaches, the rush is over. The young workers, who make up the bulk of the behind-the-scenes workers in campaigns across the country, now must resume life as usual.
After working 70-hour weeks for months, many are not sure where their career choices will lead. But most agree the experiences gained on the campaign trail will prove valuable no matter what job path they seek.
From the very beginning, the young workers were submerged in the race, sampling a little bit of the entire process. Staffers moved around in the beginning of the campaign, trying to find where they fit best.
Once they settled into their specific jobs, other departments still occasionally needed help. Whether distributing campaign materials to an upcoming rally or making sure that a campaign stop runs smoothly, monotony wasn’t a worry.
“Everything about the race is an experience,” Katherine Malone, a 23-year-old finance associate for DeWine, says.
And for a generation that grew up bombarded by stimuli from every direction, this face-paced environment is geared to the young staffers’ learning styles.
Kristen Conelly, a 22-year-old DeWine finance assodate, says it has been fascinating to learn how campaign slogans are developed. Seeing how ideas develop has changed how she looks at the political process. She feels more informed.
That exposure helps workers beyond the race. Leslie Green, Hyatt’s 22-year-old deputy field director
and a Miami University graduate, says she is “learning a ton about politics” and “learning how to get things done.”
The 16-hour days drag endlessly, seemingly unreachable goals mount and sometimes chaos erupts. But because of their abundant numbers, the young staffers find themselves in a supportive environment.
“Everyone understands what you are going through,” Gould says. “It’s a family atmosphere.”
But being with the same people for that long can be difficult, even with those who understand similar frustrations. The office isn’t always the best environment in which to get things done. For a generation unaccustomed to holding its tongues, politics teaches a hard-knocks course on social graces. Green finds that her ideas aren’t always welcome and that the idealism of youth is sometimes brushed aside.
“You can’t always say what you think,” she says.
Still, most young staffers say their input in daily operations is valued and necessary. They are given freedom to do their jobs without watchful eyes over their shoulders. Yet young people can expect to do much of the grunt work, and the office hierarchy limits the impact staffers have on candidate’s views.
And all the anguish isn’t related to office politics and chains of command.
Putting in time to do grassroots’ work, organizing position papers, talking to voters, setting up rallies only to see a candidate defined by the media has caused more than one headache.
“It seems so much of the information that people use is based on 30-second sound bytes and 30-second ads,” says Rick Manoloff, Hyatt’s 29-year-old issues and research director from Cincinnati.
Since the media are out of direct control of campaigns, he says, there isn’t much staffers can do to combat the problem.
“We are stuck,” Green explains. “We have to play the game if we want to win. Without lying or saying anything untrue, we have to play the game.”
The games the political sparring turn elections into personal battles. They offer little hope that both sides will be able to work together.
In the midst of this celebration and mourning, many wonder about their future in the political world. Others have no doubt.
Manoloff is going back to work at a law firm and doesn’t know if he will join the fray again. Malone wants to make a life of running campaigns.
Knue said. “Never have I had anyone say anything like that about her.”
Knue also gave CityBeat a copy of an Oct. 24 letter from Winbum to Sturmon. In the letter, Winburn wrote: “I had an opportunity to review all of my news clippings since December ’93. I wanted to let you know that I appreciate your fairness and balanced reporting regarding my initiatives on City Council.”
In a follow-up call to Winburn about the letter, Winburn said he was claiming that the Post's “stance” against him not its news coverage —was what he believed to be unfair. Equally unfair, he said, is the stance the Enquirer has taken against him.
Winburn said he was personally fond of Enquirer Associate Editor Peter Bronson, Publisher Harry Whipple and Editor Lawrence Beaupre. “But I don’t understand why I’m being targeted by their paper.”
Beaupre said he had spoken to Winburn twice in the past week, and during both conversations Winburn stressed the Enquirer's news coverage had been fair.
“I would say we have been, too,” Beaupre said. Winburn said he was suspicious of the Enquirer because of information he had received from a credible source, whom he would not name. According to that information, he said, Enquirer reporter Richard Green had been assigned to destroy Winburn’s reputation. While Winburn said some of Green’s coverage indicated this informant could be correct, Winburn said he did not personally think Green would set out to hurt him.
Still, he said,, some of Green’s reports lent credibility to idea that Winburn was being targeted. He cited a report by Green about Winburn spending more taxpayers’ money on postage than other council members.
Also supporting the idea that the Enquirer is against him, Winburn said, are four negative political cartoons about Winburn published by the newspaper during the past five months.
Further heightening his suspicions about being targeted was a telephone call he received during an interview with CityBeat when an Enquirer reporter requested a tax document pertaining to Winbum’s church.
“There’s a plan to hurt and harm all of us,” Winburn said. “There’s a plan and scheme to hurt and harm us.”
Green deferred public comment to Beaupre.
As for any investigation the Enquirer might be conducting, Beaupre said it is a paper’s job to investigate information it receives to determine if it is accurate.
As for any investigation of Enquirer editors or reporters, Beaupre said Winburn is free to do so.
Despite the hype there's no difference between public and private bureaucracies
ESSAY BY DANIEL BROWN
It’s currently fashionable to blame “big government” for all of America’s problems and woes from overspending to regulation, waste and bloated personnel, excessive entitlements and welfare fraud.
As demonstrated again in last week’s elections, Republicans and Democrats at all levels of government run their campaigns as alleged “outsiders.” No one outside the Washington Beltway wants to be seen as ,jn that “power loop,” where elected officials and appointed bureaucrats churn out seemingly incomprehensible rules, regulations and restrictions debasing the capitalist entrepreneur, the middle-class taxpayer, the individualistic loner in a garage with a dream.
Putting It Together
bills is in error and one in 10 wrong phone numbers activates someone else’s fax machine. Figured out air fares since deregulation? Been harassed by CitiBank customer service, even if you plead they’ve got the .wrong Daniel Brown? Implored that you really do not
Bureaucracies exist in all large organizations where seemingly no one is in charge and where Joe/Jane Q. Citizen always gets connected to the wrong department, wrong person and wrong extension, eventually to be told “No, you can’t.”
The inefficiencies of government/public sector bureaucracies are legendary: $500 wrenches at the Pentagon; Social Security checks undelivered; intelligence services in the departments of State, Defense and Treasury overlapping and competing with the CIA; welfare payments to alleged 15-year-old “baby machines.”
So the cliches run; some are true, but all are blamed on local, state and (primarily) the federal government.
Voters know
Alarm over voter apathy may actually reflect the citizenry’s accurate assessment that both political parties mouth similar pieties, masking the same desire for the same power for the same big government to dole out the dough to differing constituencies.
After all, the United States bailed out Penn Central, Chrysler, Donald Trump and the defense and banking industries pillars of the vaunted Republican private-sector expertise. Remember that we, the taxpayers, bailed out Federated Department Stores and will pay for all the failed savings and loans forever.
Those who distinguish between the public and private sectors argue against “big government” while idealizing the alleged efficiencies of Corporate America. If only the government would “get off our backs,” they claim, our economy would flourish, our entrepreneurial know-how would return, the poor would vanish, African Americans would go back to Africa and the homeless would buy Zaring homes. This distinction, however, is phony the core problem is all large systems and big bureaucracies, both public and private.
German sociologist and economist Max Weber’s six books on bureaucracies make no distinctions between public and private systems. Bureaucracies exist in all large organizations where seemingly no one is in charge and where Joe/Jane Q. Citizen always gets connected to the wrong department, wrong person and wrong extension, eventually to be told “No, you can’t.” Nameless, faceless bureaucrats hide behind the system itself, thwarting the simplest request or question.
The hassles of daily living
Think of your own daily life: Are the majority of your transactions with public or private sector bureaucracies? Have you attempted to have your telephone service changed or explained by Cincinnati Bell? Tried getting someone to answer at the CG&E customer-service department? Asked about your outstanding Visa balance? Had your money-machine card eaten?
According to Harper’s magazine, one in five hospital
have a middle name? Found all the voice-mail “options” but not the one you need or want? Do you form intimate relationships with talking Coke machines or elevators? Tried to find your way around hospital garages? What about insurance companies? Pay a fortune in premiums for health, car, home, life? Notice how your specific need just happens not to be covered? Tried to get an explanation?
The U.S. Postal Service is private, not public, sector. Are you thrilled with their service, the rates, the wait followed by “next window please” when no one is at the next window?
My 75-year-old mother has bought Ivory Snowflakes for the better part of a 57-year marriage. Unable to locate a box in early 1994, she telephoned Procter & Gamble’s customer service for assistance. She was asked if she represented the media, an environmental group or an animal-rights group. “No,” she said, “I’m a consumer.” Frustration led her to someone’s executive assistant, who informed her the product had been dropped. After she made a fuss, P&G sent her a “sampie” of something she neither wanted nor needed. Ever received a long bill with a heading titled “miscellaneous charges”? Dealt with lost luggage? Tried to enroll in a class at a university? Get called by the same charity three times in a row, always during dinner?
Top (social) security?
In 1974,1 was in New York and invited to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a Spanish exhibition; the King and Queen of Spain were to be present. I was asked to go the U.S. Mission to the United Nations for security clearance. All they asked for was my Social Security number, and 24 hours later, I was cleared with an entire dossier of my life in their hands.
When the Queen of Jordan recently came to the Cincinnati Art Museum, an event to which I was invited, I offered my Social Security number in advance; again, I was cleared by security, as no further information was requested.
Bureaucracies have taken over our lives. Computers and credit companies store information and misinformation and, every day, some error seems to occur for which rectification seems impossibly difficult.
Governments, public sectors, are provably wasteful, but let’s drop the pretense of private-sector efficiency, courtesy or lack of waste. The problem isn’t public vs. private sector inefficiencies; the problem is large bureaucracies that, as Weber wrote, are always the same. In the end,-bureaucrats are seemingly accountable to no one.
Advocates for redevelopment and for low-income housing face off on
the future of Cincinnati’s oldest neighborhood, while city officials figure out their next move
Tin OveiK
he-Rhine
BY NANCY FIROR
PHOTOS BY J Y M I BOLDEN
he results of tunneling money for decades into Over-the-Rhine’s stock of low-income housing are in.
More than 2,000 units for low-income residents have been created. The neighborhood’s population has plummeted. Buildings stand vacant. The tax base has dwindled.
Along the way, gentrification on Main Street has begun. So has what could be the final showdown between two sides with opposing holds on the future of economic revitalization in Over-the-Rhine.
“They are entrenched” in their positions, says David Prather, manager of Over-the-Rhine and West End development for the city’s Department of Economic Development. “There is, I think, a consensus from City Council not to treat this as a war. Some common ground needs to be found where (both sides) work together instead of against each other. They’re presenting us with an either/or situation.”
On one side are supporters of Race Street Tenant Organization Cooperative (Restoc), one of the neighborhood’s largest property holders, who want the city to continue to make low-income housing a top priority for city funds.
“The low-income housing, all of that is being swept away,” says Nannie Hinkston, president of the Over-the-Rhine Community Council. “Development has a bad impact on the neighborhood. On Main Street, people have lost their homes. (City officials) have changed everything. Now they’re wanting to say that the business is more important. The lower-income business people are being pushed out.”
On the other side are business leaders who demand that city officials live up to past commitments by putting a stop to the neighborhood’s concentration Of low-income housing and related services.
Over-the-Rhine’s economy has been choked, they argue, blocking redevelopment that could improve the quality of life for everyone poor or otherwise.
The situation is “way beyond compromise,” says Marge Hammelrath, executive director of the Over-the-Rhine Chamber of Comjnerce.
The forces at work in this showdown include:
A majority of Cincinnati City Council members who have committed to redevelopment that attracts all income levels to Over-the-Rhine, even though council’s actions do not always reflect such clear plans, Local business and government leaders who say Buddy Gray, a Restoc founder and current treasurer, must re-evaluate his views on how to best serve low-income residents if he wants to be a part of redevelopment in the neighborhood on downtown’s northern edge.
Goals for increases in retail, market-rate housing and other areas being devised and implemented by Downtown Cincinnati Inc. (DCI), a private non-profit group formed last year to spur development.
A call from some business leaders for City Council to be accountable for the ghetto it has created in Over-the-Rhine.
The suggestion that there should be further negotiations between Restoc and business leaders, Hammelrath says, shows that city officials still do not understand the
problem completely.
“I tried that for three years,” she says. “I will not walk that walk again because there is no honesty in it.”
Battle brews
Battle lines between Restoc and redevelopment proponents were drawn in 1993 when a committee which included representatives from all sides and met for more than a year reviewed the city’s priorities for 0ver-the-Rhine.
“We fought like crazy,” recalls Cincinnati lawyer Peter Strauss, the former council member who formed the committee.
The committee reached a tenuous consensus, recommending that the city keep the preservation of low-income housing and related services a top priority. The issue was bitterly debated again before the Planning Commission, where pressure from business leaders won out as did arguments that a continued emphasis on low-income housing was not improving quality of life in the neighborhood.
The 1985 Over-the-Rhine Urban Renewal Plan was then amended, changing the city’s top priority for the neighborhood to the preservation and creation of housing for all income levels.
Associates of Restoc and Gray want the original goals to remain, explains Pat Clifford, administrative coordinator for the Drop Inn Center shelter who also has done work for Restoc. But they are not interested in making another attempt to agree on philosophies with the opposition, he says.
Compounding the animosity, battle lines were redrawn last month when City Council approved $594,371 for Restoc’s Recovery Hotel, which will provide housing and support service for recovering alcoholies and drug abusers in the 1200 block of Vine Street.
Neighborhood business leaders see this approval as contradicting City Council’s commitment to redevelopment by imposing a greater concentration of shelter services in the Over-the-Rhine. Restoc supporters see it as hope that council will continue to make low-income housing and related services a top focus in the future.
“That would be a misinterpretation,” says Cincinnati Mayor Roxanne Qualls. Nor is it correct, she says, to call approval of the Recovery Hotel a contradiction that will further hinder efforts aimed at balancing the neighborhood.
“The balance is out of whack already,” Qualls says. “The Recovery Hotel does not throw the balance out of whack.”
While it would be helpful to get both sides working together, Qualls says, neither camp should enter into such discussion without accepting that “the majority of council is committed to multi-income development in Over-the-Rhine.”
Housing vs. displacement
Unless multi-income development includes a priority on funds for low-income housing, Clifford says, Over-the-Rhine poor will be displaced with nowhere to go.
Hinkston, who also was on the Strauss Committee, says that a city-led effort to get all sides together and work things out is needed even though it has been tried before.
“If they want to really make things work, they are going to have to sit down and strategize,” she says.
But Clifford says such efforts are futile unless the discussion focuses on specific goals such as what to do about drug dealers or how to create playgrounds instead of trying to agree on philosophy. Restoc is willing to participate in discussions that focus on specific action, he says.
“The main thing is not that (Restoc) wants to stop development, but we want to be a part of it,” Clifford says.
Restoc’s stated intent, however, is where many close to this issue disagree.
Restoc is a non-profit organization that acquires and rehabilitates properties for low-income housing. According to city buildings and inspections records, Restoc and other organizations Gray is affiliated with own at least 79 buildings and vacant lots, mostly concentrated in Over-the-Rhine. The city has ordered that 27 of the buildings be kept vacant because of substandard living conditions or structural defects, while another.21 have orders pending for various repairs, according to city records.
Clifford says making improvements often is a lengthy process because many properties are donated to Restoc
CONTINUES ON PAGE 10
Over-the-Rhine Residents on the Move?
Redevelopment that does not displace the neighborhood’s low-income residents is the policy Cincinnati city officials have approved for Over-the-Rhine.
But CityBeat has learned that residents in an estimated 400-500 households might be at risk of losing their homes as a result of development in the neighborhood. Anti-displacement plans being formulated include the possibility of moving residents who want to leave to other neighborhoods.
"Given their choice, a lot of them would like to move out of Over-the-Rhine,” says Marge Hammelrath, executive director of the Over-the-Rhine Chamber of Commerce.
For those who want to stay, the chamber and the fair housing group Housing Opportunities Made Equal (HOME) are planning a program that will locate alternate housing in Over-the-Rhine, according to a draft HOME anti-displacement plan.
Hammelrath says she is confident that housing, possibly safer and better than what residents had before, can be found for everyone who needs it.
But some neighborhood low-income housing advocates say those plans will not prevent displacement.
According to HOME'S draft report, residents at risk are those whose housing is not guaranteed by government subsidy or community-based non-profit groups an estimated 167 family and 248 non-family households.
Pat Clifford, administrative coordinator at the Drop Inn Center shelter, says the plan assumes there will be room for those people in existing governmentsubsidized housing, which is not the case, he says, “it’s a non-plan.”
On the contrary, chamber and HOME officials say, they will be relying on a network of agencies, such as Franciscan Home Management, which own subsidized housing and have agreed to give displaced residents first priority.
While Clifford says city officials can prevent homelessness only by continuing to prioritize funds for low-income housing, City Council members have approved redevelopment principles that call for attracting residents of all income levels to Over-the-Rhine.
That is the only way to bring in new jobs, boost the economy and improve the quality of services for neighborhood residents, low-income or otherwise, says Bill Berger, HOME’S fair housing development specialist.
"We’re in an ambiance where nobody knows the facts,” Berger says. “(Neighborhood housing advocates) have no data, just as we have no data. believe there has been some displacement from redevelopment.”
But low-income housing advocates who have tried to keep Over-the-Rhine a “low-income ghetto,” Berger says, have actually been working against the needs of low-income people.
The chamber expects to finish the comprehensive housing study it is conducting and release its anti-displacement plans early next year.
NANCY FIROR
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 9
in bad shape. In addition, he says, the group relies on volunteers to do the work and, to get funds, often has to wait for grants to be approved.
“How does it help the homeless for (Gray) to buy these buildings and board them up?” asks City Council member Phil Heimlich, who, along with council member Tom Luken, voted against the Recovery Hotel on Oct. 19. “Clearly, he wants to control the neighborhood.”
Gray who refused to be interviewed for this story presents his cause as a class struggle, many close to the issue say, with the poor banding together in a united voice with which to defend themselves. Some who have supported that view in the past say it is time for that view to change.
“I’m losing that voice because I don’t think most people are willing to raise children in crime-ridden neighborhoods,” says Charlotte “Tommie” Birdsall, a senior planner in the city’s Planning Department who was the project director for the 1985 Over-the-Rhine Urban Renewal Plan. “I used to feel I could support (Restoc’s) position. Now I think we just have to find ways to accommodate the low-income in ways that also break up the problems of the ghetto.”
Heimlich says redevelopment will not force people to leave Over-the-Rhine, which has already lost thousands of residents without any significant development taking place.
“That area’s losing people without any help from anyone,” he says. “We have to get our tax base back.” Others say that won’t happen.
Neither city nor DCI officials have given developers the support they need to further redevelopment amid the massive number of properties owned by Restoc, says Warren Church, a carpenter who rehabilitates buildings in Over-the-Rhine. He also is an economist who used to operate a business in the neighborhood.
Gray, Church says, uses his buildings and his people like pieces on a chess board to block development. No developer wants to take the risk of being the first to develop property in “dead zones” abutted by Restoc property or certain government-subsidized housing. As a result, he says, redeveloping Over-the-Rhine likely is to result in a few alternating “yuppie blocks” next to “low-income blocks” next to some “dead zones” frequented by drug dealers.
“Do you want to be the first one in a dead zone to put up market-rate housing?” Church asks. “You’re putting a gun to your head.”
Plans yet to come
DCI and city officials point to incentives that have been created and plans still being devised to attract new business and spur the development of market-rate housing. A specific plan to
implement the Over-the-Rhine Urban Renewal Plan as it was amended in 1993, however, was never developed.
“It would be a huge task,” says the city’s Prather. “You’ve got to be careful when you use the word ‘plan’ because the general perception is that plans don’t result in tangible improvements.”
As an example, he cites the Cincinnati 2000 plan the city’s guide for overall urban renewal through the rest of this decade. While many of the plan’s goals have been attained, resources and circumstances have not allowed others to be.
But, Prather says, the city has taken some action in the case of Over-theRhine. While the economic development department is awaiting the pending reorganization of the city’s Department of Neighborhood Housing and Conservation before formulating more specifics, the city has created and expanded a tax abatement zone in Over-the-Rhine in an attempt to attract new business.
The city also is narrowing the field of consultants from which it will choose one to perform a market analysis and business plan for the Findlay Market House and surrounding retail area. For parking and other improvements in the area, Prather says, the city has budgeted $3 million in 1995 and 1996.
The city has also established a partnership with Western-Southern Life Insurance and the Cincinnati Development Fund to offer a $5 million
Clockwise from top left: Mayor Roxanne Qualls, Phil Heimlich, Buddy Gray, Jim Tarbell and Nick Vehr
loan fund for market-rate housing in Over-the-Rhine. And the city is providing about 30 percent of the budget for DCI.
Since DCI formed last fall to spur downtown revitalization:
DCI committees have been formed and are devising and implementing plans to spur increases in retail, market-rate housing and other areas for all of downtown.
Partly funded by DCI, the Over-the-Rhine Chamber of Commerce in conjunction with various neighborhood groups has begun a comprehensive housing study to determine the neighborhood’s housing needs. It also is working on an anti-displacement program designed to find alternate housing in Over-the-Rhine and other neighborhoods for residents who are at risk of being displaced by redevelopment.
Planning is a major part of the effort to revitalize the neighborhood as well as downtown, says David Phillips, DCI’s chief executive officer. Previous planning efforts by city officials have fallen short, he explains.
“This is what happens if you don’t have a planning process in place,” Phillips says. “What (city officials) have had has been in a vacuum.”
Past failures, future hopes
Similar observations were made in 1991 by Housing Opportunities Made Equal
Borders
Books & Music presents
(HOME), a fair housing group that issued a report titled Over-the-Rhine: A Permanent Ghetto?.
The report traced the effects of what it called a-massive expenditure more than $100 million in city and federal funds channeled into low-income housing in the neighborhood since new federal housing programs began in 1970. At that time, according to the report, Over-the-Rhine had virtually no low-income housing.
HOME criticized the city for the ensuing concentration of low-income housing and related services in Over-the-Rhine.
The group called for a moratorium on low-income housing and efforts to develop similar housing in other city neighborhoods. Similar to subsequent DCI recommendations, HOME also called for incentives to lure new business and encourage the development of market-rate housing.
“After 20. years, the low-income residents of Over-the-Rhine... must endure crime, drug use, inadequate public service levels and many social problems that are arguably even more grave than before housing assistance began,” the report reads. An economically mixed, integrated neighborhood is needed to “benefit present neighborhood residents who will enjoy a safer, cleaner, more stable environment as economic and racial diversity is achieved.”
Citing the same U.S. Census data used by HOME, redevelopment proponent Jim Tarbell, owner of Arnold’s Bar CONTINUES ON PAGE 12
J. Kevin "Doc" Wolfe
The Fat-Free JunkfoodCookbook
Sat., Nov. 26 at 2 pm
It sounds too good to be true, but it's not. Join us and learn Doc Wolfe's secret to healthier eating with food you like. He will even be bringing a treat with him so you can see if it truly tastes good.
Rick Sowash
Ripsnorting Whoppers
Sat., Nov. 19 at 2 pm
Rick Sowash is a master of the tall t§le and Ripsnorting Whoppers is full of it (er - I mean THEM). Rick will be here entertaining us with his outlandish stories. Join us for a ripsnorting good time.
John Ruthven
In the Audubon Tradition Sun., Nov. 20 at 3 pm
Ruthven's works have long been considered some of the. best wildlife paintings. In the Audubon Tradition finally puts together a comprehensive collection of his works.
BORDERS
BOOKS AND MUSIC CINCINNATI
Reversal of Fortune
More than $100 million in federal and city funds have been funneled into low-income housing in Over-the-Rhine since 1970, when new federal programs began. By 1990:
Approximately 2,500 units of low-income housing were created.
• The neighborhood lost 42 percent of its population. It lost 36 percent of its households.
Through abandonment and demolition, Over-the-Rhine lost 34 percent of its housing units.
The vacancy rate remained high, with almost one unit in four vacant throughout the period. In 1990, 24.3 percent of units were vacant compared to 9.8 percent in 1960.
The population shifted from fairly integrated to 71 percent African-American.
Population in Over-the-Rhine has declined steadily:
and Grill, says it’s time to stop the debate and calls for compromise.
“We have results that, need to be accounted for,” says Tarbell, who also sits on DCI’s Housing Committee. “There are hard and fast figures here that demonstrate concentrating low-income housing doesn’t work in 0ver-the-Rhine.
While 20/20 hindsight suggests that might be true, former Council Member Strauss says, “A lot of low-income housing was built in Over-the-Rhine because nobody else wanted it.” And, he says, because residents’ Section 8 certificates match up with specific buildings, future redevelopment efforts will incur the same problems as before.
“It’s partially appropriate to blame the city, but one of the realities is that all these Section 8 housing certificates go with the buildings,” Strauss says. “The reality is: How do you change the housing or living patterns there?”
Change starts, Tarbell suggests, by refusing to fund more low-income housing, shelters and the like. And by focusing on incentives to attract businesses that will provide jobs, encourage the development of market-rate housing and bring vacant buildings up to standards where they can be occupied, he says.
There is plenty of room for all residents, rich or poor, Tarbell says, as long as they are willing to co-exist in a neighborhood that holds everyone drug
dealers included responsible for their actions.
There is not room, he says, for politicians who will not lead.
Enraged during the council debate that ended in approval of the Recovery Hotel Over-the-Rhine’s 15th shelter
Tarbell verbally thrashed City Council member Nick Vehr, who voted in favor of the measure. Vehr did publicly warn Gray that it was time for Gray to talk to his opposition and understand that redevelopment was coming to the neighborhood.
Vehr also told Gray that council’s approval of the Recovery Hotel was no reason for Restoc to declare “victory” while the chamber and business leaders declared a loss.
But after the vote, Gray stood outside council chambers declaring victory and offering this reason for why it is not his place to compromise or make amends: “We didn’t go attack anybody. We haven’t left our land going to assault anybody. Maybe somebody’s trying to take our land.”
If Gray cannot improve his land and make his buildings safe for people to live in, Vehr says, maybe it’s time for Gray and Restoc to start selling them to peopie who can.
‘Cincinnati CityBeat’ staff is rhore than the sum of its crock pots, ZIP codes and ages
BV ALISON TRANBARGER
During the weeks leading to the launch of Cincinnati CityBeat, I’ve stated countless times: “We’re the new newspaper; have you heard of us?”
This led me to wonder who that we is and how well we match the profile of our intended readers: educated, hip, urban Generation-Xers and Boomers.
To find out, I created a survey to inventory the demographics, interests and attitudes of our assorted freelancers and part- and full-time employees.
I gave out 34 surveys. From the 24 that returned, I gleaned these facts:
Our average age is 33.4.
The male-female ratio is 2 to 1.
We’re 83.3 percent white, with other responses to the “Race” query being Latino, English/Portuguese, Human and “a long one.”
We’re 95.8 percent straight, with one employee having a gay/lesbian sexual orientation.
Eight staffers (33.3 percent) are single; three (12.5 percent) are in committed relationships, and 13 (54.2 percent) are in long-term relationships, which includes marriage.
Fifty percent share space with spouses/family; 25 percent share space with roommates/friends; the other 25 percent can’t share.
Zero percent have four grandparents alive.
Some 70.8 percent don’t have kids, but 58.3 percent have pets. One staffer has four kids; another staffer has 12 pets (four cats, seven fish and one turtle).
Most staffers have or are acquiring bachelor’s degrees. Five staffers have master’s degrees; there’s one Ph.D. candidate and one Ph.D.
Who’s counting?
Since CityBeat is an alternative paper, I had to throw in some alternative questions, like:
ZIP code. The staff average is 47253.37. (Seriously, the Clifton/ University of Cincinnati area is the most popular neighborhood with nine staffers living there, followed by Blue Ash with four.)
Piercings. Nine (37.5 percent) of us have none. The rest of us have one to three piercings in our ears. One of us has two piercings in other unnamed body parts.
Tattoos. One of us has one.
Crock pots. Eight of us have one, and one of us has three.
Pairs of shoes. Not counting the two staffers who said “hundreds” a male and a female the staff average is 10.5 pairs. One staffer, though, claims only one pair of shoes.
Phones. Six have one, nine have two, three have three and six have four.
Attitudes in action
Beyond what we do and don’t have, our behaviors tell who we are:
Twice as many of us don’t smoke as do. (Algebra, anyone?)
All but three of us recycle.
Half as many do buy white bread as don’t. (How fast will Plane B have to fly to catch Plane A?)
Only four use the Internet so far.
Fourteen staffers (58.3 percent) channel surf.
A different grouping of 14 staffers (58.3 percent) like voice mail.
Four (16.6 percent) rely on their feet, thumbs and the bus to get around.
Monthly, we spend an average $60 on clothes, $16 on soda, $19 on movies, $78 dining out and $56 on music.
Our druthers
Let’s play “favorites” for a while:
A third of us say our favorite hangout is home, with bed being a variation. Others like to hang out at any bookstore, the art studio, New York City, pool halls and the Greenwich Tavern. Five restaurants were mentioned, but with no consensus: No Anchovies, Plum Street Cafe, Fries Cafe, Perkins and the Maisonette.
Watching TV is the top favorite mindless activity, preferred by eight folks. Other picks include jogging, sleeping, shining shoes, walking, reading comic books and listening to music.
My favorite answers on the survey came from the “last spiritual experience” question. Those experiences occurred “in church on Oct. 16,” while hiking Bryce Canyon, on a USAir jet flying through a storm, while meditating, “in the park with my dogs” and at a Flaming Lips concert. The birth of a daughter a few months ago continues to be a spiritual experience for a male staffer.
Another wrote: “The Piano CD / Beck’s Dark / lovemaking / on a rainy Friday afternoon.” There also was a wedding, a visit with a dying father, “the day I met my husband” and when “I realized in the truest sense how great my wife is.”
As a group, our favorite time of year is not summer. The sunny season is not tops with a single staffer, but six (25 percent) love spring, with three (12.5 percent) favoring winter and/or Christmas. That leaves but one season fall, autumn, now that’s tops with 62.5 percent of the staff. What better time of year, then, to launch this paper?
So in the weeks to come, when I state “We’re the new newspaper; have you heard of us?” the answer will be “Yes, you’re the folks who aren’t keen on Cincinnati summers, don’t have full sets of grandparents but have phones and own shoes.”
On Oct. 7, in the closing hours of the 103rd Congress, the House passed and sent to President Clinton the Digital Telephony Bill. The bill requires telcos’ new digital telephone networks to be built “wiretap ready’’ for FBI eavesdropping as long as the Feds have a warrant. Clinton is expected to sign the bill, which was introduced in August by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Rep. Don Edwards, D-Calif.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a computer users' lobbying group that participated in developing the bill, has been flamed on the 'Net for its support. The lobbyists say their acceptance of the bill lies in its additional privacy provisions and its specific application the wiretapready requirements do not apply to Bulletin Board Systems or Internet-access providers.
In addition, under the bill the FBI must get a court order as opposed to the current administrative subpoena required before examining an individual’s on-line records, including e-mail and downloaded information.
In vehement opposition to the bill, the Electronic Privacy Information Council (EPIC) is continuing with a Freedom of Information Act-based lawsuit. The suit demands the FBI release cited reports that allegedly demonstrate the need for the wiretap legislation. An EPIC report written after the bill passed says the bill sets a “dangerous precedent for the design and development of the National Information Infrastructure.” Judging by reports that Congressional offices were overwhelmed with e-mail, phone calls and faxes opposing the bill, many citizens agree with EPIC.
"The grass-roots campaign that emerged to oppose the wiretap legislation shows the potential of the Internet as a means of educating the public and promoting democratic participation in the policy-making process,” the EPIC report says.
To contact the Electronic Privacy information Center, email info@epic.org or call 202-544-9240. To contact the Electronic Frontier Foundation, e-mail info@eff.org or call 202-347-5400.
Pit Stop on the Infobahn
Music enthusiasts looking for a true alternative and unsigned bands yearning for worldwide exposure! should check out the Internet Underground Music Archive (IUMA). Founded a year ago by two University of California at Santa Cruz students, the IUMA offers songs, band bios and publicity photos for browsing or downloading by anyone on the Internet. The musical offerings range from Folk to Jazz to Alternarock to Japanese Noise. (The Duke of Uke’s ukulele cover of The Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated” is a real gem.)
The IUMA is free to access and is supported by donations from the bands that send in tunes.
To reach the IUMA, point your World Wide Web browser to: http://www.iuma.com/index.html For more information, e-mail info@iuma.com or snail mail 903 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz, CA 95060.
Gutenberg Galaxy
OUT OF CONTROL by Kevin Kelly (Addison-Wesley, $28). Wired executive editor and former Whole Earth Review editor Kevin Kelly theorizes that the most viable paradigms for creating and interacting with the next wave of electronic and technological systems are found in nature. For example, he compares the “hive mind” intelligence of a thriving bee swarm to parallel computing networked computers working together for faster and more efficient problem-solving. As Kelly explores the beautifully complex and chaotic systems surrounding us, he also profiles the key scientists, artists and "digerati" creating the future the book addresses.
Former Cincinnatian DAVID PESCOVITZ (pesco@well.com) is Wired magazine's ■Reality Check’ columnist. He resides in San Francisco.
Extracting the Facts about Echinacea
Anecdotal evidence suggests old-time snakebite cure helps lymphatic system rid itself of toxins
Ablast from the past is making a comeback and may be just what the doctor ordered or, in this case, didn’t order to help folks through winter and the cold that is sure to tag along.
Echinacea angustifolia is an herbal extract that, proponents say, will ease and eliminate the aches, pains, runny nose and general blahs a cold can deliver.
Derived from the roots and leaves of the purple coneflower and sold as a dietary supplement, echinacea is a top-selling herbal product.
“They are popular,” says Eric Blake, the resident herbalist at the New World Foodshop in Clifton. Blake, who began using echinacea and other herbal products four years ago, says a number of his customers swear by the extract’s curative properties.
Echinacea is thought to strengthen the ability of white blood cells to fight off, kill or digest toxins that enter the body. Research done in the United States and in Germany indicates echinacea also cleanses the lymphatic system, which is the network of vessels that produce and. store cells that combat infection.
Blake became a believer in echinacea while working at a restaurant in 1990. “I felt myself getting sick, and a woman who worked there suggested a mixture of echinacea with another herb. It worked.”
He says he now takes echinacea whenever he feels himself getting sick. Others ingest it regularly.
Echinacea, also known as Snake Root, was first used by the Plains Indians to treat snakebites and as a salve. It was introduced to the medical profession in the late 1800s and was commonly used until the introduction of antibiotics in the 1940s.
Its resurgence began about 20 years ago. Available at health-food shops in several forms capsules (the most popular), powder, liquid extract and tea echinacea is the second best-selling herb, behind ginseng, say clerks at local stores.
Marilyn Gorman, an assistant manager at Cincinnati Natural Foods in Madeira, attributes the extract’s popularity to personal testimonies, like those from Blake’s
customers, and to its lack of side effects.
“There are so many side effects with .drugs,” she says.
But herbs and their extracts can cause side effects, which is why the Herb Society of Greater Cincinnati frowns upon claims that herbal products can aid the healing process.
“We do not recommend medicinal use at all simply
The Plains Indians used an extract of the purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) to treat snakebites. because there is so much variation in the strength of the herb,” says Pamella Shinn, former society president. “We certainly know there is a medical basis for many of the herbs; obviously the pioneers had to use something.”
The extract, like all herbal supplements, is not regulated; so people who sell echinacea are careful in what they say about it. (“Honestly, you can get more out of books at the library than what I’m allowed to tell you,” says a sales clerk at a Blue Ash nutrition center.)
PHOTO: COURTESY OF WAYSIDE GARDENS. HOGES. S.C. y Likewise, product labels are generic. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration closely watches the labels, ensuring no claims of medicinal value are attached. Should that happen, the products would need FDA approval before they could be sold commercially.
Still, the lines aren’t crystal-clear, says Eric E. Batchlor, an FDA compliance officer in Cincinnati. “The folks who put these products out wordsmith them very carefully,” he says.
For example, on a label for echinacea herbal tea, there are no medical claims. But there are assurances it has been tested: “Echinacea’s virtues have been recognized by medical and scientific researchers throughout the world,” the label says.
Submit information for CityBeat calendar listings in writing by noon Thursday, seven days before publication.
Mail to: Listings, Cincinnati CityBeat, 23 E. Seventh St., Cincinnati, OH 45202.
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Please include a contact name and daytime phone number.
for one day in the seaside resort town of Blackpool. The o,lder women question the actions of the young. They look for support from the men in their life, but question if it is even possible. Prejudice is an all too frequent occurrence. These are women who have lived a life, only to have start anew in a new home. Bhaji on the Beach has that one thing which many American movies lack, feminine creative control. Here in the’ United States, movies seldom have time for women’s issues. Other than Mississippi Masala, no other recentAmerican movie addressed the feelings of Asian Indians in a foreign land. The fact that Bhaji spotlights this minority seldom addressed in American film, makes
This week’s theme is an absolute no-brainer. This is the INAUGURAL issue of CityBeat, after all, and our turn to step into the spotlight as the season’s wacky DEBUTANTE. But we’re not the only debut this week. The area’s holiday season OPENS with the arrival of Cincinnati Zoo’s Festival ofLights on Friday, the Honda Starlight Celebration at Bicentennial Commons on Saturday. See our Attractions listings for details. Associate Conductor Keith Lockhart kicks off the Cincinnati Symphony’s 1994-95 Casual Classics” series Sunday with an ORIGINAL program celebratthe orchestra’s 100th anniversary. (Onstage listings.) Local ’zine publisher Tim Lucas signs copies of his first NOVEL, Throat Sprockets, Saturday at Joseph-Beth Booksellers. (Literary listings.)
Many of the area’s biggest Folk-Rock acts take the stage to celebrate the MAIDEN recording release of Cincinnati’s Wendell Bros, on Saturday. (Club listings.)
Natalie Portman PREMIERES as the 12-year-old protege of a hitman in The Professional. (Film.) Xavier and UC basketball teams try to shake out some butterflies as they invite FRESH meat into their buildings for exhibition games. (See Sports listings.)
it more unique. With Sarita Khajuria, Nisha Nayar and Renu Kochar. (Unrated; opens Friday at Real Movies.)
No screening.
GRIEF Director Richard Glatzer’s Grief is a hip, urbane, slightly gay look at a bunch of writers whose desires soon intermingle among themselves. Chances are that unless you read The Village Voice you have not heard of Grief. Think of it as just another one of those offbeat, never-heard-of films that our downtown cinema prides itself on. It’s set in an office of wacky television writers on the daytime soap opera The Love Judge. Their show is full of circus lesbians and schizoid opera singers who appear in court before a ornery old judge. Sounds like a funky version of The People’s Court. The staff that ereates the show is just as over the top as the characters they create. Somebody wants somebody who is
sleeping with somebody else. Perhaps, downtown love
strong-willed, Wilson’s performance fashions a fantaistic role model for young girls.
Unlike Tim Allen’s Santa Clause, Miracle on 34th Street has no eye popping effects. In an old-fashioned way, Miracle's magic stems from its performances. Thankfully, it has also kept the schmaltz factor to a minimum. Adults will find many touching moments in Miracle's story. Children should be wowed by the fantasy. Here is the best kind of Christmas present which Hollywood can give, a family movie that is not sappy. (Rated PG;
(Rated
in the mix.
Did we also mention that she’s sexy? Besson’s The Professional thrills like few films this year. With Jean Reno and Natalie Portman. (Rated R; opens Friday at area Loews Theatres.)
CityBeat grade: A. (Feature review on Page 17.)
STAR TREK GENERATIONS
There is a changing of the guard in the Star Trek movie universe. It was bound to happen. The Next Generation gang (Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton and Brent Spiner) have been on TV for more than seven years. Now, they have their chance at big-screen time. Unfortunately, they had to give up their small-screen gig to get there. If they don't make a splash at the box office, looks like they’ll be out of a job. The story involves evil scientist Dr. Soran (Malcolm McDowell), who harnesses a rift in time for ill-gotten gain. Hey, this is a job so big it needs two captains of the Enterprise. Luckily, this limbo (called the nexus) brings together
Trek Generations.
Capts. Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and James T. Kirk (William Shatner). Many lives will be lost. Well, when you’re fighting for the safety of the universe, blood is bound to spill.
Star Trek Generations possesses all the visual flash that fans have come to expect. It is a bright and beautiful piece of technology. Amazing special effects create images that are far more astounding than those seen in current sci-fi favorite Stargate. In one extraordinary sequence, the Enterprise crashes into a planet with believable fury. Now, there, is this question of an interesting story. Star Trek Generations is sorely lacking in this category. An adventure is only as good as its villain. McDowell (A Clockwork Orange) has the look, but he is not given the dialogue. His talent is wasted on a character who is poorly written. When the bad guy is dull, battling him also becomes boring. This adventure has a finish that is anything but climactic. t Previous Star Trek films such as Wrath ofKhan and The Voyage Home were so great, they were entertaining even for people who never watched the TV show. Sadly, this endeavor will only please the most ardent devotees. They get those inside jokes about an android’s sense of humor. All that the rest of us can do is just sit there. Generations will be remembered as another one of those big-budget films that lacked a quality story. Too bad, the old-timers (Shatner, James Doohan and Walter Koenig) deserve a better send off. You trekkers deserve better, too. (Rated PG; opens Friday at area Showcase Cinemas.)
CityBeat grade: C. THE SWAN PRINCESS Here is a parent’s dilemma: You can either take the kids to The Lion King for the umpteenth time, or you can talk them into seeing a different animated musical, The Swan Princess. Telling the youngsters that director Richard Rich (The Fox and the Hound) used to work at Disney won’t mean much to them. Instead, simply talk about the story.
A young prince (the voice of Howard McGillin) and princess (the voice of Michelle Nicastro) grow up together. Their adolescent pranks slowly blossom into love. Just as marriage seems apparent, an evil sorcerer (the voice of Jack Palance) intervenes with a dastardly plan of revenge. Without giving too much away, let’s just say that someone turns into a swan. Sure, it may be easier to plop your children in the rec room with that Snow White tape you spent good money on, but children deserve the magic of going to the movies. Thankfully, family movies are booming. Parents, your choices are
wright (John Cusack) receives tips from an unlikely source. Allen’s trademark elements of witty dialogue, quality production and a stellar ensemble cast are in place. Thankfully, his work pace is prolific. One can never see enough of such smart, funny films. With Diane Wiest, Chazz Palminteri and Jennifer Tilly. (Rated R; at*Loews Kenwood Towne Centre and Neon Movies in Dayton, Ohio; opens Friday at the Esquire.)
CAMP NOWHERE Now, today’s kids have their own version of Meatballs. Based on its box office results, this film is even too childish for children. With Christopher Lloyd. (Rated PG; at Norwood, Turfway, Forest Fair and Biggs Place Eastgate.)
getting better. Please don’t drag the young ones to see Tim Allen grow fat in Santa Clause only because you want to see it. Hey, The Swan Princess is bedtime story material. Maybe the theater managers will let the children wear their pajamas. With the voices of Sandy Duncan, John Cleese and Steven Wright. (Rated G; opens Friday at area Loews Theatres.) No screening.
Continuing
★ THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT Do not believe for a second that this wonderfully wacky musical is too cool for you. Priscilla’s fun is infectious. This musical-comedy wears an old-fashioned heart on its gold-sequined sleeve. Suprisingly, the film promotes gentle themes of family and romance. But in true ’90s fashion, these protagonists dress in drag. With Terence Stamp and Hugo Weaving. (Rated R; closes today at the Real Movies, opens Sunday at Little Art Theatre Yellow Springs)
★ AFRICA: THE SERENGETI
The wild plains of Africa beg for the Omnimax treatment. Its beauty deserves the technology. Up-close and projected to gigantic heights, Serengeti thrills much like a roller coaster. Omnimax productions continually remind us that educational films and fun can go hand in hand. With lions, elephants and other beasts. (Not rated; closes Friday at the Museum Center at Union Terminal.)
★ ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD This remake of the 1950s baseball comedy becomes more poignant in the aftermath of this year’s strike. Its story has plenty of slapstick for children and a touching storyline for adults. Now, if only some angels would do something to Bud Selig. With Danny Glover and Christopher Lloyd. (Rated PG; at Norwood, Turfway, Forest Fair, Biggs Place Eastgate.)
★ THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR Damn that Dayton. They get fantastic Hong Kong cinema, and Cincinnati does not. Looks like another road trip up Interstate 75. Bride tells a story about a soldier (Leslie Cheung) who falls in love with a wolf girl (Bridgitte Lin). For those who have never seen any Hong Kong fantasy movies, you are missing out on great fun. (Unrated; at Neon Movies, Dayton, Ohio; 1-221-SHOW.)
★ BULLETS OVER BROADWAY Woody Allen remains one of American film’s more consistent auteurs with his latest comedy. Allen the man may be something of an enigma, but the filmmaker is siitiply brilliant. A young play
★ CLERKS Smart people stuck ill stupid jobs. That awful truth sums up life for many young men and women today. Film-school dropout Kevin Smith lived the life of a convenience-store clerk and made a film about it. Clerks is sometimes crude, often rude but always hilarious. This cheaply shot, black and white movie is as far away from Hollywood as any film can be. Just when you thought that Miramax Films was becoming another blase, big studio, it takes a chance on a refreshingly honest American independent. With Brian O’Halloran and Jeff Anderson. (Rated R; at the Esquire Theatre.)
★ THE CLIENT Novelist John Grisham and Hollywood are made for each other. Both chum out mindless entertainment. Tommy Lee Jones and Susan Sarandon are two of the industry’s more intelligent actors. It’s fun to watch them in a no-brainer. Luckily, director Joe Schumacher’s film moves so fast that you do not realize there is nothing there. With Brad Renfro, Mary-Louise Parker and J.T. Walsh. (Rated PG-13; at Norwood, Turfway, Forest fair and Biggs Place Eastgate.)
★ CORRINA, CORRINA After a long drought, Whoopi Goldberg gets a role which is equal to her abilities and intelligence. This tender drama about love and loss is one of the best family movies of the year. With Ray Liotta. (Rated PG; at Norwood, Turfway, Forest Fair and Biggs Place Eastgate.)
DOUBLE DRAGON American film buffs love the furious stunts of Hong Kong action flicks. Perhaps, American children also would appreciate similar adventures. Inspired by the self-titled video game, its story about two Kung-Fu brothers in an apocalyptic future fits the genre. Unlike quality Hong Kong cinema, Double Dragon has little action, no imagination and weak stunts. The kids deserve better. With Mark Dacascos. Scott
Wolf and Robert Patrick. (Rated PG-13; at area Showcase Cinemas.)
★ ED WOOD Filmmaker Tim Burton possesses the morbid style, dark humor and most importantly the authentic affection to bring Ed Wood’s story to life. Wood (Johnny Depp) epitomizes the crass showmanship which is integral to the Hollywood myth. His film Plan 9 from Outer Space says as much about
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Film
movie’s
★
★
Martin’s voice may be the only black, female mouthpiece at the studio level. From evidence of this film, one hopes for a long and prolific career. With Lauren Velez, Jon Seda and Griffin Dunne. (Rated R; closes today at Loews Kenwood Towne Centre.)
★ INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE It still puzzles why Anne Rice took a full-page ad out in Variety (later reprinted by producer David Geffen in the New -m York Times') to praise Neil Jordan’s adaptation of her novel. Her grandiose, self-congratulatory stance outshines the movie which is just good, not great. Interview possesses a few scary moments, some horrific, blood drenched sequences and one truly creepy scene. Unfortunately, these scenes unfold between long, dull stretches. In places where the novel speaks of loss, futility and longing, the film becomes tongue-tied. Tom Cruise is fine as Lestat, as is Brad Pitt as Louis. Thankfully, Interview ends on a wild scene that is both terrifying and hilarious. Too bad that tone was not held throughout the entire film. With Antonio Banderas, Stephen Rea and Christian Slater. (Rated R; at area Showcase Cinemas.)
IN THE ARMY NOW Whatever may be Pauly Shore’s appeal, let’s hope that it is fading fast. This latest stab at slapstick is easily his worst. The weasel should stay out of films and stick to MTV. With Lori Petty. (Rated PG; at Norwood, Forest Fair, Turfway and Biggs Place Eastgate.)
IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU With Nicholas Cage, one expects lunacy. Paired with Bridget Fonda, the goal this time out is a tear-jerky, light-hearted romance. Together, they create few laughs and even fewer tears. With Rosie Perez, Wendell Pierce and Isaac Hayes. (Rated PG; at Norwood, Turfway, Forest Fair and Biggs Place Eastgate.)
★ JASON’S LYRIC In a beautiful woman named Lyric, young Jason seeks respite from all the hurt that surrounds him in Houston’s inner city. Much of the sex has been removed from first-time director Doug Henry’s effort, but the violence remains intact. (Unfortunately, the Motion Picture Association of America has trouble with young AfricanAmerican adults making love.
Although, African-Americans shooting each other is just fine.) Even after the MPAA’s fooling around, Henry’s film retains its true-to-life poignancy. With Forest Whitaker, Allen Payne and Jada Pinkett. (Rated R; at Showcase Cincinnati.)
★ KILLING ZOE Not that long ago, Roger Avary was clerking with Quentin Tarantino at a video-rental store. Times have changed. Avary both wrote and directed this thriller about an American safecracker (Eric Stoltz) who falls into an ill-planned bank heist. Set in contemporary Paris on Bastille Day, this robbery turns into bloody mayhem, with the emphasis on blood. Avary co-wrote the hit film Pulp Fiction. That qualifies him as a foot soldier in this new, violent cinema movement that everyone’s talking about. With Julie Delpy and Jean-Hugues Anglade. (Rated R; closes today at Real Movies.)
LASSIE This poor pooch seems terribly out of place in the ’90s. Director Daniel Petrie (A Raisin in the Sun) brings nothing new to this tired tale of a boy and his dog. Woof. With Helen Slater and Richard Farnsworth. (Rated PG; at Loews Florence and Northgate.)
LITTLE GIANTS Two brothers a former football hero (Ed O’Neil) and a nerd (Rick Moranis) coach separate football teams for the right to represent their small town. As a high concept comedy for kiddies, Little Giants works well enough. There may even be a valuable lesson learned. (Rated PG; at Loews Northgate, Florence and 275'East.)
LITTLE RASCALS Fresh from The Beverly Hillbillies director Penelope Spheeris moves further back in time with this rehash. Kids do not even know who Hal Roach and Our Gang were. Spheeris once made intelligent, avant-garde films. Now after going Hollywood, she churns out crap. With Travis Tedford and Bug Hall. (Rated PG; at Norwood, Turfway, Forest Fair and Biggs Place Eastgate.)
LOVE AFFAIR Now, during America’s infatuation with the ultra-violent, movie audiences have no time left for love. Real-life couple Warren Beatty and Annette Bening take their turn at another remake of the classic tear-jearker An Affair to Remember. Glenn Gordon Caron is the credited director, but Beatty produced, cowrote and controlled the final cut of this stiff treatment of a forbidden relationship. He and his wife look great. It’s too bad that the film is so flat. With Gary Shandling, Kate Capshaw and Katharine Hepburn. (Rated PG-13; at area Showcase Cinemas.)
★ THE MASK In this special-effects-laden comedy, Jim Carrey’s performance resembles a Tex Avery cartoon. Still, his manic contortions remain true to the spirit of the film. Of all the fluff from this past summer, The Mask possessed the most originality. With this hit, Carrey became a million dollar baby. With Dumber and Dumber coming out this Christmas, the pundits are waiting to see if he strikes gold again. With Peter Riegert and Cameron Diaz.
(Rated PG-13; at Norwood, Turfway, Forest Fair, Biggs Place Eastgate and Westwood.)
★ NATURAL BORN KILLERS
Director Oliver Stone pushes his cinematic skills to new heights. As a result, NBK may be the most daring studio release of the year. Stone’s script is based on an original story by Hollywood hot man Quentin Tarantino. What the film lacks in substance, it makes up with hypnotic visuals. With Robert Downey and Tommy Lee Jones. (Rated R; at Norwood, Turfway, Westwood, Forest Fair and Biggs Place Eastgate.)
THE NEXT KARATE KID When his career is down, director John Avildson can always make another Karate Kid movie. This time, the kid is a young girl. Unfortunately MORE, PAGE 18
Little Miss Marksman
Maker of ‘La Femme Nikita arrives in Hollywood armed
with La almost-Femme Natalie
REVIEWED BY STEVE RAMOS
French filmmaker Luc Besson finally comes home with The Professional. America is where Besson truly belongs, because his fondness for the violent and sexy is truly American. He has thankfully retained his French sense of style, though. Hollywood thrillers seem cheap and childish in comparison to The Professional, which takes the action genre to a level of haute couture and whose sensibilities are also of an adult nature.
A 12-year-old girl, Mathilda (Natalie Portman), finds herself suddenly alone when her entire family falls vietim to crooked Drug Enforcement Agency cops led by agent Gary Stansfield (Gary Oldman).
Mathilda finds comfort and protection at the hands of a male neighbor, Leon (Jean Reno), who lives a reclusive life. As an esteemed hit man, of course, Leon may find his solitude an occupational necessity.
With reluctance, a strong bond forms between these two. Leon discovers paternal emotions for perhaps the first time; while Mathilda creates a new family to serve as her means of revenge.
There is much this young girl can learn from Leon’s trade justice will be served, innocence lost. From the inevitable carnage, a new life springs forth.
Surrounded by other films which are equally bloody (Natural Bom Killers, Pulp Fiction), The Professional carves a controversial niche for itself by centering its violence and sexuality around a child-. Movie shoot-outs come and go, but put a little girl inside the spray of bullets, and you’ve got something different.
Put a gun in that same girl’s hand, and you have cinema at its most daring.
Perhaps Mathilda is not really a little girl. She talks with the savvy of an adult. She moves like a vivacious
his native France starred in many popular movies (Les Visiteurs, Claire Femme). As Leon, uses his physical to full effect. Reno ers over the other actors just as his acter hints at powers that are trans-human.
But he never lumbers.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, this film’s pleasures Besson chose 2,000 auditions. Put emerges victorious. Portman occupies panache and credibility. impressive debuts Portman succeeds Action is a genre Reno knows what
Film
ride. With Eric Thai, Julie Warner and Will Patton. (Rated R; closes today at Loews Kenwood Towne Centre, Tri-County, Florence and Northgate.)
for newcomer Hilary Swank, this movie stinks. With Pat Morita. (Rated PG; at Norwood and Turfway.)
ONLY YOU Rehashes often appear tepid in comparison to the original. Director Norman Jewison and screenwriter Diane Drake would argue that their work is distinct and different from either Moonstruck or Roman Holiday. Still, Marisa Tomei’s misguided search for romance in Italy feels more like a travelogue than a movie. True love is far more interesting than this. With Robert Downey Jr. and Bonnie Hunt. (Rated PG; at area Showcase Cinemas.)
★ THE PUPPET MASTERS
★ PULP FICTION After only two films, director Quentin Tarantino has shifted from cult favorite to mass media darling. With wild frenzy, Tarantino mixes together gun play, drug abuse and racial epithets into a series of interrelated crime tales. Certain to send teen-age boys into wet-dream heaven. Adults may rather emphasize Tarantino’s skill at fast and funny dialogue. If Pulp Fiction did not reveal strong growth in Tarantino’s technique, his personal hype might have overshadowed this fantastic film. An accurate reflection of what really makes America go round, violence, drugs and racism. With John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson and Uma Thurman. (Rated R; at area Showcase Cinemas.)
★ QUIZ SHOW Finally, a film whose qualities are proportional to its critical acclaim. Taking a cue from attorney Richard N. Goodwin’s book Remembering
Now that the Cold War is over, Robert Heinlein’s stoiy may have lost its ideological punch. Simply as a creepy sci-fi thriller, The Puppet Masters hits the mark. Gooey aliens and the always unnerving Donald Sutherland come together for a fun and frightening
THE BELL
America: A Voice From the Sixties director Robert Redford has crafted his best movie to date. Today, many people may regard the scandals regarding TV game show Twenty-One as trite. Through phenomenal performances from Ralph Fiennes as star contestant Charles Van Doren, Rob Morrow as Goodwin and John Turturro as discontent Herb Stempel, Quiz Show both entertains and educates. Sure, it’s not historically accurate, but that makes Quiz Show more pleasurable. With Mira Sorvino, David Paymer and Paul Scofield. (Rated R; closes today at area Showcase; opens Friday at area Loews.)
★ THE RIVER WILD Meryl Streep takes a successful leap as an action heroine in the latest effort from director Curtis Hanson (The Hand that Rocks the Cradle). Streep’s character leads her husband and son on a white-water rafting trip, only to face terror from two criminal goons. What the story lacks in substance and character development, it makes up with frantic action and breathtaking photography. For her fans, Streep’s role may seem like slumming. Hey, the girl just wants to have fun. With Kevin Bacon and David Straithairn. (Rated PG-13; at area Loews Theatres.)
★ THE ROAD TO WELLVILLE Nutty Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (Anthony Hopkins), breakfast cereal kingpin and health maven finds a kindred spirit in director Alan Parker. Based on T. Coraghessan Boyle’s novel, Parker’s film re-creates all the mayhem of his 1907 Battle Creek (Mich.) Sanitarium. Hopkins as the good doctor leads a march of lunatics through an enjoyable romp. Parker’s tendency for going overboard seems appropriate to the material this time. With Matthew Broderick, Bridget Fonda and Dana Carvey. (Rated PG-13; at Showcase Cincinnati, Springdale and Eastgate.)
THE SANTA CLAUSE Tim Allen makes the leap from TV stardom to the big screen. His sense of ease for kiddie comedy is wasted on this unimaginative story. Hopefully, Disney has Allen in mind for another Son ofFlubber. Kids may eat up the story about a grouchy dad who becomes Kris Kringle. Do they know what “tool time” even means? Adults may wish there was less cute and more camp. Instead, rent the kiddies the ultimate, ftinky X-mas movie Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. With Judge Reinhold and Peter Boyle. (Rated PG; at area Showcase Cinemas.)
THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION
Based on the Stephen King short story Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption director Frank Darabont (screenwriter of Kenneth Branagh’s Frankenstein) inspires more than frightens with his tale of friendship behind bars. What King’s tale lacks in depth, Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman make up with their performances. With William Sadler and Clancy Brown. (Rated R; at Loews Kenwood Towne Centre and Florence.)
SILENT FALL Near the end of this film, a prominent psychiatrist (Richard Dreyfus) explains,that “abuse victims are always the best actors.” Silent Fall proves him wrong. Its plot combines an autistic murder witness, a sexy young woman and a guilt-ridden older man with predictable results. The up-and-down career of director Bruce Beresford plummets further with this one. With Linda Hamilton, Liv Tyler and Akiva Goldsman.
(Rated R; closes today at area Loews Theatres.)
SPEED It is hard to explain how this blase, routine actioner became the unexpected hit of the summer. By now, you probably can recite the bus and bomb plot in your sleep. The American movie audience have elevated Keanu Reeves into a box-office star. Now, audiences must accept responsibility for their actions. With Sandra
Center, Columbus. 614-292-2354.
AVA AND GABRIAL: A LOVE STORY
Bullock, Jeff Danials and Joe Morton. (Rated R; at Norwood, Turfway, Forest Fair and Biggs Place Eastgate.)
SQUANTO A WARRIOR’S TALE
This movie is so bad that Native Americans may cry defamation. Poor Squanto (Adam Beach), this could have been his big break at making a huge impact on the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers crowd. Instead, he comes off as a boring chump at the hands of the white man’s movie camera. With Mandy Patinkin and Michael Gambon. (Rated PG; at area Showcase Cinemas.)
around a search for stolen loot, but that’s not important. Director Stanley Kramer brought together a gang of ’60s superstars for the sole purpose of making a huge, silly mess. 7 p.m. Friday, 7 p.m. Saturday. Emery Theater, Over-the-Rhine. 721-2741.
NATIONAL LAMPOON'S ANIMAL HOUSE Hey, food fights never go out of style. Director John Landis made a lot of money with this little film about college hijinks set in 1962. Some of these Delta guys went on to become big stars (including John Belushi). Others (Tim Matheson) just faded from view. Animal House became one of those films where it was essential to get drunk before watching. Of course, this was back before there was M.A.D.D. (Rated R; midnight Friday and Saturday at Westwood.)
THE SPECIALIST Two of Hollywood’s hardest bodies, Sly Stallone and Sharon Stone, come together in a soft and limp action vehicle. On paper, the film looked like a winner. The sad reality is a story with too much talk and not enough action. It’s frustrating when Hollywood starts missing the mark on this type of fluff. With James Woods, Eric Roberts and Rod Steiger. (Rated R; at area Showcase Cinemas.)
STARGATE Cutting-edge special effects wrap around a rather old-fashioned science-fiction epic. Unlike recent action films, Stargate takes nothing seriously. Its childlike innocence is refreshing. Consider Stargate as a hip Forbidden Planet. In true ’90s fashion, The Crying Game’s Jaye Davidson steals the show instead of Robby the Robot. With Kurt Russell and James Spader. (Rated PG-13; at area Loews theaters.)
PLAN 9 FROM OUTERSPACE Sure, you can watch Ed Wood, Tim Burton’s movie about the man who made this movie, or you can watch the real thing. Camp this bad deserves a screen bigger than your TV. Now, the weird question is whether Martin Landau is a better Bela Lugosi than Lugosi himself. (Rated Utterly Awful; 11:30 p.m. Saturday, 9:40 p.m. Wednesday at Neon Movies, Dayton. 1-221SHOW.)
TIME COP Jean Claude Van Damme desperately wants to be another Sylvester Stallone. To his frustration, goals once considered easy quickly turn difficult.
SHORT REELS A selection of short subjects from the Prized Pieces competition. 7:30 p.m. Thursday. Wexner Center, Columbus. 614-292-2354.
SHOWS AND MOVIES For those who happen to be in Wilmington this weekend, the Murphy Theater continues to match movie blockbusters from the past with live musical performances. The match-ups do not always make sense, but every film is a winner. Camelot, 8 p.m. Saturday. Murphy Theater, Wilmington. 382-3643.
Timecop pales in comparison to Sly’s earlier take on sci-fi Demolition Man. Looks like the Muscles of Brussels may be doomed for being an action genre second banana forever. With Mia Sara and Ron Silver. (Rated R; at Norwood, Turfway, Forest Fair and Biggs Place Eastgate.)
TRUE LIES Big Arnold
WINNER’S SHOWCASE A matinee
Schwarzenegger does not save the day here. A better editor would have. Director James Cameron has made a movie so big that it needs two plots. The part that focuses on Arnold’s homelife bores. To no surprise, the action sequences excel. See if the theater manager will let you sneek in for the last 30 minutes; that is the only portion of the movie worth seeing. With Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Arnold and Tia Carrere. (Rated R; at Norwood, Turfway, Forest Fair, Eastgate, Carousel; closes today at Westwood.)
THE WAR Often, chUdren ereate something good only for adults to step in and ruin it. Through his young character’s eyes, director Jon Avnet contemplates issues of poverty, racism and violence in the Deep South, circa 1970. The young stars of director Jon Avnet’s drama, Elijah Wood and Lexi Randall, shine. Its seasoned performers, Kevin Costner and Mare Winningham, languish. The
pointing result is a mixed film,
Hey, Better Check That Attitude
Real-life clerks comment on flick about smart people doing dumb work
When Jurassic Park took the country by storm, no one asked any paleontologists for their professional opinion. Who. even knows a paleontologist?
Here at CityBeat, we don’t know many folks who dig fossils, but we do know of a lot of men and women who clerk. So, we thought it would be a good idea to take some clerks to the movie Clerks and ask their opinion.
Nothing sums up our generation more than the idea of putting intelligent people in meaningless work. Anyone who rings up our Twinkie purchases and Drew Barrymore movie rentals day in and day out without ridicule, deserves recognition.
Unsung clerks, CityBeat gladly puts the spotlight on you: Chris Thomas, a clerk at Blockbuster Video in Hyde Park: “It’s a dark, twisted mirror of my worst day.”
Pat Powell, clerking at UDF, Clifton: “It definitely had a lot of the stuff you deal with day to day. I just thought it was weird because it’s in black and white.”
Susan Hessler, clerking at Home Cinema, Clifton:
Susan Hessler, left, a clerk at Home Cinema, says characterizations of customers are dead-on in ‘Clerks.’
“The most annoying customers were pretty much right-on. Anybody who has to deal with customers on a daily basis would probably enjoy it. It’s pretty off-beat, being filmed in black and white and all.”
James Madden, clerking at UDF, Walnut Hills: “I loved it. It’s about two guys who work in a store and have an outrageous day. A lot of these situations happen to me or to other clerks. I thought it was great.”
Jeremy Hausman, clerking at UDF, Clifton: “It’s pretty much true to the fact. The customers are shitty, and we give them a shitty attitude when they come in.”
Jamie Noppert, clerking at UDF. Walnut Hills: “It’s pretty realistic. There’s a bunch of humor in the regular, everyday things.”
And Thomas again: “Anyone who does not like this film never had a sense of humor and never worked in the front line of a restaurant. Some of the things they said hit home.
dating to 1788. Through a.m.-9 p.m. weekdays; p.m. Saturday; 1-5 p.m. special exhibit of maps WWII are on view through A tour of the library’s facilities takes place at 10 a.m. Thursday. 800 Vine St., Downtown. 369-6960.
Events
SANTA CLAUS 19XIX 19 are hosts of “Santa’s Premiere on
PHOTOS: JYMI BOLDEN
Jamie Noppert, left, and James Madden can be found clerking at the UDF in Walnut Hills.
Concerts
★ NATIVE BLACK WITH III
FRUM THA SOUL AND RAMSEY
Local R&B band Native Black has amassed a giant Cincinnati following and gained national attention. 7 p.m. Friday. Bogart’s, 2621 Vine St. $10/$ 12 day of the show. 281-8400.
ROSEMARY CLOONEY
Rosemary Clooney performs for regional high school students.
2 p.m. Saturday, Northern Kentucky University. $10. The general public can see her at 8 p.m., when she appears with the Blue Wisp Big Band, the Highlands High School Guys and Dolls Show Choir and the Northern Kentucky Children’s Ensemble. Nick Clooney and Bob Braun will host. $75. (If that price is too steep, you can catch the free four-hour rehearsal Saturday afternoon.) Greaves Concert Hall. Northern Kentucky University, Highland Heights. 1-800-255-0651. (A special brunch honoring Rosemary Clooney begins at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Metropolitan Club. 50 E. Rivercenter Blvd., Covington. $45. 491-2400.)
BIG MOUNTAIN WITH IDENTITY
7 p.m. Sunday. The Newport, 1722 N. High St., Columbus. $17.50. 614-228-3582.
PRIDE & GLORY 7 p.m. Monday. Bogart’s, 2621 Vine St.
$6/$7.50 day of the show. 2818400.
Varied Venues
WINTON JAZZ ENSEMBLE Jazz standards. 8 p.m. Friday. Borders Books & Music, 11711 Princeton Pike, Springdale. Free. 671-5853.
CURTISS VICKERS, RON DEVORE, TOM ARNOLD AND BERNICE MOORE Folk 8 p.m.
Saturday. Joseph-Beth Booksellers, .Rookwood Pavilion, Madison and Edwards roads, Norwood. Free. 396-8960.
★ DIAMANDA GALAS WITH JOHN PAUL JONES For a totally unique’ and freaky night out, see cult performance artist and vocalist Diamanda Galas, who comes armed with a band led by ex-Led Zep bassist John Paul Jones. 8 p.m.
FESTIVE SKELETONS College Party Rock. The Palace Club. Cover.
FLY AND SHOOT THE GIFT Alternative Rock. Top Cat’s. Cover.
FRANK POWERS JR. Eclectic. Arnold’s. Cover.
GOSHORN BROTHERS Classic Rock. Tommy’s on Main. Cover.
JOSHUA BREAKSTONE TRIO Jazz. Kaldi’s. Free.
POSTER CHILDREN WITH STEAK DADDY 6 AND SISTERN Alternative Noise-Pop. Sudsy
Malone’s. Cover.
SNOWSHOE CRABS Alternative Rock favorites. Salamone’s. Cover.
WILLIE DICKER BAND Classic Rock. Katmandu Cafe. Cover.
FRIDAY
ANN CHAMBERLAIN JAZZ TRIO Jazz. Coco's. Cover.
BLUE LOU & THE ACCUSATIONS Blues. Mansion Hill Tavern. Cover.
BRITISH STEEL Judas Priest tribute. Annie’s. Cover.
DOCK ELLIS WITH SUPAFUZZ Heavy Alternative. Top Cat’s. Cover.
GOSHORN BROTHERS Classic Rock. Tommy’s on Main. Cover.
GREAT SPECKLED Eclectic. Arnold’s. Cover.
THE LEMMINGS AND SNOOZE BUTTON TRIVIA Funk. Sudsy Malone’s. Cover.
RON ENYARD QUARTET WITH PAUL PLUMMER Jazz. Kaldi’s. Free.
RUFF MIX Hard Rock. Club One. Free.
THUMPER WITH CAN’T SAY AND SKA HUMBUG Ska. The Palace Club. Cover.
THE TIME MACHINE Classic Rock. Ms. Kitty’s. Cover.
WILLIE DICKER BAND Classic Rock. Katmandu Cafe. Cover.
MONDAY
BIG BONGO WITH JANET
PRESSLEY Folk/Altemative. Kaldi’s. Free.
SATURDAY
THE BLUE RAVENS Blues. Mansion Hill Tavern. Cover.
FITZ OF DEPRESSION AND DIE 116 Underground Rock. The Palace Club. Cover.
BRITISH STEEL Judas Priest tribute. Annie’s. Cover.
FRED GARY AND DOTT1E WARNER Eclectic. Arnold’s. Cover.
NEW BEDLAM Hard Rock. Club One. Free.
MS. KITTY’S SALOON 218 W. Third St., Downtown. 721-9520. MT. ADAMS PAVILION 949 Pavilion St., Mount Adams. 721-7272.
RON ENYARD QUARTET WITH PAULA OWEN Jazz. Kaldi's. Free.
SILVER ARM Celtic. Arnold’s. Cover.
MURRAY’S PUB 2169 Queen City Ave., Fairmount. 661-6215. OZZIE’S PUB & EATERY 116 E. High St., Oxford. 1-523-3134.
★ SNAGGLETOOTH WITH MR. UNIVERSE AND SOUNDMIND Personality-driven Alternative rockers Snaggletooth feature vocals of Ali Edwards, a cross between Bjork and Sinead O’Connor. Sudsy Malone’s. Cover.
PALACE CLUB 2346 Grange Hall Road, Dayton, Ohio. 1^126-9305. RIPLEYS 2507 W. Clifton Ave., Clifton. 861-6506.
TIGERLILIES AND HOPPER Punk Power-Pop. Top Cat’s. Cover.
★ THE WENDELL BROS. The Brothers Wendell celebrate the release of their first CD, Lowly & Drench. The Folk Rock festivities get under way at 9 p.m. with a slew of special guests, including Flowerfist,. Plow On Boy, Jon Rocket and the Vultures, John Kogge and the Lonesome Strangers. The Stadium. Cover.
Clubs Directory
MUSIC
ALLYN’S CAFE 3538 Columbia Parkway, End. 871-5779.
SALAMONE’S 5800 Colerain Ave., Mount Airy. 385-8662.
SHADY O'GRADY’S PUB 9443 Loveland-Madeira Road, Loveland. 791-2753. SILKY SHANOHAN’S 1582 E. Kemper Road, Sharonville. 772-5955. SOUTHGATE HOUSE 24 E. Third St., Newport. 431-2201.
WILLIE DICKER BAND Classic Rock. Katmandu Cafe. Cover.
GOSHORN BROTHERS Classic Rock. Tommy’s on Main. Cover.
LINDA IMPERIAL WITH SIRROCCO, NELLIE OLSEN AND MORE Disco. The Dock. $12.
LOUDSPEAKER WITH HAIRY PATT BAND AND COBRA JUDY Underground Rock. Sudsy Malone’s. Cover.
OPEN JAM Classic Rock. Katmandu Cafe. Cover.
COTTON CLUB DANCE Dance to live Jazz. Greenwich Tavern. Cover.
SANDRA LUTLEDGE Jazz Vocalist. Ivory’s. Cover. SCARCE AND WHIRLYGIG Alternative. Sudsy Malone’s. Cover.
GOSHORN BROTHERS Classic Rock. Tommy’s on Main. Cover.
TUESDAY
BRIAN LOVELY AND THE SECRET Alternative Rock. Tommy’s on Main. Cover.
THE JUNIOR CRUISERS Eclectic. Arnold’s. Cover.
OVERDUE Rock favorites. Salamone’s. Cover.
★ PANSY DIVISION WITH SHOOT THE GIFT Check out Bay-area punksters Pansy Division, who are in the midst of a sold-out tour with former label mates/MTV darlings Green Day. The sound is pure, youthful and adrenalized Punk. And don’t miss the rough and catchy song stylings of the great local crew Shoot The Gift. Sudsy Malone’s. Cover.
WEDNESDAY
ARNOLD’S WEDNESDAY NIGHT
GUYS— Eclectic. Arnold’s. Cover. BOB CUSHING Solo Acoustic. Arlin’s. Cover.
BLUE NOTE CAFE 4520 W. Eighth St., 921-8898.
BLUE WISP JAZZ 19 Garfield Place, 721-9801.
TOMMY’S ON MAIN 1427 Main St., Over-the-Rhine. 352-0502. TOP CAT’S 2822 Vine St., Corryville. 281-2005. DANCE THE CONSERVATORY 640 W. Third St., Covington. 9 p.m.-2 a.m. Friday-Saturday. 491-6400. THE DOCK 603 W. Pete Rose Way, Downtown. Until 4 a.m. FridaySaturday. 241-5623. EMPIRE 2155 W. Eighth St., Price Hill. 8 p.m.-2 a.m. Tuesday-Saturday. 921-8008.
BOBBY MACKEY'S WORLD 44 Licking Pike, 431-5588. CLUB ONE 6923 Plainfield Road, 793-3360.
COCO’S 322 Greenup St., 491-1369.
KING TUT'S WA WA HUT 1338 Vine St., Over-the-Rhine. 10 p.m.-2:30 a.m. WednesdayThursday, 10 p.m.-4 a.m. FridaySaturday. 241-6045.
RON ENYARD QUARTET WITH STEVE SCHMIDT Jazz. Kaldi’s. Free.
STACY THE BLUES DOCTOR AND BLUES U CAN USE Blues. Local 1207. Cover.
COYOTE’S 400 Buttermilk Pike, Complex, Fort Mitchell. 341-5150. FIRST RUN 36 E. High St., Oxford. 1-523-1335. GREENWICH TAVERN 2440 Gilbert Ave., 221-6764.
HURRICANE SURF 411 W. Pete Rose Downtown. 241-2263.
THE WATERFRONT 14 Pete Rose Pier, Covington. 8:30 p.m.-2 a.m. Friday-Saturday. 581-1414.
IVORY’S JAZZ 2469 W. McMicken, Over-the-Rhine.
KALDI’S COFFEE BOOKSTORE 1204 Main St., Over-the-Rhine. 241-3070.
KATMANDU CAFE 633 Donaldson Road, 342-7000. THE KELLOGG CLUB 4343 Kellogg Ave., 321-0220.
LOCAL 1207 1207 Main St., Downtown. 651-1207.
LONGWORTH’S 1108 St. Gregory Adams. 579-0900.
MANSION HILL 502 Washington 431-3538.
MOLLOY’S ON 10 Enfield Place, 851-5434.
Burlington Pike, Burlington. 586-6117.
HARDING MUSEUM OF THE FRANKLIN AREA HISTORICAL SOCIETY Open 1-5 p.m. Sunday and by appointment. 302 Park Ave., Franklin. 746-8295.
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE HOUSE Open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday. Free. 2950 Gilbert Ave., Walnut Hills. 632-5120.
I&O SCENIC RAILWAY Follow an old stage coach route on a nostalgic excursion train with a 40-foot, open gondola car. Through Nov. 20. $9 adults; $8 seniors; $5 children 3-12. The Mason Station is just off U.S. Route 42 in the heart of Mason; the Lebanon Station is on South Broadway in downtown Lebanon. Call 398^8584 for departure times.
JOHN HAUCK HOUSE MUSEUM A Victorian house and garden. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Thursday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Friday, 1-5 p.m. Sunday. $2 adults; $1 seniors; $.50 children. 812 Dayton St., West End. 721-3570.
KROHN CONSERVATORY Frightful, Delightful, Haunted Greenhouse continues through Nov. 27. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily. Krohn Conservatory Horticulture Series continues with food, a presentation on the rain forest and music by Walnut Hills High School at 6-9 p.m. Wednesday. Admission free for Cincinnati residents, children 5 and under and school groups; $2 adults; $1 children, seniors and groups of 25 or more. 1501 Eden Park Drive, Eden Park. 421-4086.
MIMOSA MANSION Built in 1853-55 as a Tuscan Villa featuring 1850s laminated Rococo Revival 4 furniture and an exceptional collection of early lighting devices. 1-6 p.m. weekends; weekdays and evenings by appointment. $4 admission. 412 E. Second St., Covington. 261-9000.
OLDE SPRINGBORO VILLAGE The town crier welcomes visitors to Olde Springboro’s Christmas festivities. 7-10 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m.-lO p.m. Saturday; noon-6 p.m. Sunday. Route 73 at Route 741, Springboro. 748-2558.
PROMONT Furnished 1867 Italianate villa belonged to former Ohio Gov John M. Pattison. Victorian Christmas through mid-January. 1:30-4:30 p.m. Friday and Sunday. $2 adults; $1 children. 906 Main St., Milford. 831-4704.
QUEEN CITY RIVERBOATS Lunch, dinner, sightseeing cruises. $6-$24.95. All cruises depart from Queen City Landing, 303 Dodd Drive, Dayton, Ky. 292-8687.
SHARON WOODS VILLAGE Christmas in the Village, a retrospective of 19th century holiday customs, celebrates its 20th anniversary. Through Nov. 20. Noon-3 p.m and 6-9 p.m. weekdays; 12-9 p.m. Saturday; noon-5 p.m. Sunday. Free to Historic Southwest Ohio members; $5 for adults; $3 seniors; $2 children 6-12. Brunch With Santa noon Saturday. $10 adults; $7 children. Sharon Woods Park, Route 42, Sharonville. 563-9484.
STAR OF CINCINNATI Lunch,. dinner, brunch, Starlight Party and TGIF cruises. Cruises depart from Star Landing at 15 Mehring Way, Downtown. 723-0100.
WARREN COUNTY HISTORICAL
SOCIETY MUSEUM Features artifacts from 1790 to the present, including Shaker and Victorian furniture. 9 a.m.-4 p.m. TuesdaySaturday. 105 S. Broadway, Lebanon. 932-1817.
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT
NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE
This Greek Revival-style house is the only memorial to the nation’s 27th president and 10th chief justice. Free. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. daily. 2038 Auburn Ave., Mount Auburn-. 684-3292.
UtterKiosk
MORE, PAGE 24
Beneath the Underdog
A look at three new alternative bands from the Cincy scene
In the past year or so, some national attention has shifted toward Cincinnati’s Alternative music scene, based on the fact that several artists (Ass Ponys, Afghan Whigs, Throneberry, Over The Rhine, etc.) have nabbed national record deals. As a result, there hve been some interesting perks.
For one, the attention seems to have given local bands a lot more hope, and the average shelf life of a group has grown.
Another side effect is that audiences seem to be appreciating what they have a little more.
The “scene” has been criticized as being too clique-oriented and very socially based, which made many new potentially solid groups frustrated enough to pack it in. More recently, it seems audiences have been a little more sensitive to new up-and-comers.
Since clubgoers have started paying attention, they seem to be realizing that the music is, indeed, good.
Perhaps this is because they want to say they were supporting a future big-time band on the ground level, but hopefully (and probably) it’s because Cincinnati is churning out bands that deserve attention.
Here are profiles of three new Alternative bands. They are not the only good new bands, but they are indicative of the large amount of extraordinary musicians in town. This is the first of three easy installments. Look for Part Two very soon.
Beel Jak
“We’re honest, and that pisses people off,” says bassist/singer/shouter Damien Spangler about Beel Jak’s infamous reputation. “When we don’t like somebody, we tell them. We’re dicks but we’re honest about it.”
Spangler, guitarist Jeremy Springer and drummer Dave Hilshorst have been building their notoriety since ’91. They describe their brand of sludge-core as a cross between the groove-heavy noise of Jesus Lizard and the punkish aggressive hard-core of old Godflesh.
The band released a four-song EP last year (which, Springer confides, “really sucks”) and recently completed work on a single for a label to be named later. The musical progression on the new material is stunning, and live Beel Jak has transformed itself from a smartaleck noise violation to a smart-aleck, intense and aggressive group with a lot of potential.
Though its core following is growing steadily, the group has been drawing fewer people than the “bigger named” local bands. Beel Jak sees this as a result of members’ stern defiance against sucking up to people. “Every band in Cincinnati has their own clique
Music
Matt Hart and Matthew Collins. Ali Edwards, left, spins and weaves the vocals for Snaggletooth. except for us,” Springer says. “It seems like most bands either fall in the category of, like, Brainiac or like that ‘I’m going to drive my car down the street’ kind of thing.”
“Our shows aren’t a social event,” Spangler explains. “Most bands spend more time making friends than they do music. A lot of people go to shows because they’re friends with someone. We don’t go see bands we don’t like and say, ‘Come see us.’ I’m not going to a show of a band that I don’t like..
So what should one expect from a Beel Jak show?
“We’ll slap you around, and we’ll beat you down,” rants Hilshorst like a manic street preacher. “Beel Jak comes straight from hell. When we play out, you can be damn sure that we’re bringing the demons and the whole posse. Straight out of hell we come and straight back to hell we go.”
Snaggletooth
“My influences are Julio Iglesias, Judy Garland and Twisted Sister,” says an unprovoked Ali Edwards, lead
Poetic pop springs from Clifford Nevernew, above, (from left) Eric Appleby,
The brutally honest members of Beel Jak, above, are (from left) Dave Hilshorst, Damien Spangler and Jeremy Springer.
Short takes
REVIEWED BY MIKE BREEN
ASS PONYS Electric Rock Music (A&M).
On these Gincy faves’ major label debut, the band perfects its twangy, twisted, yarn-spinning and surrealistic Folk-Pop into a collection of memorable tunes and tales. With impeccably catchy songs about an array of strange characters and situations, the Ponys have taken the formula from the last record, Grim, to a nearly perfect nadir. Highlights include “Little Bastard,” “Live Until I Die” and “Earth to Grandma.” CityBeat grade: A.
THE CULT The Cult (Sire).
Huh? This'band has gone from Goth to Psychedelia to Metal and on its latest release decided to go Post-Grunge. A band with this much of a finandally inspired identity crisis barely warrants the ink on this page, but just consider this a warning. The songs are watered-down, unmemorable fluff with contrived doses of chic noise and whatever else the kids are buying today. CityBeat grade: d.
VARIOUS ARTISTS 1101 East Second Street (Poke-AMoose, 1101 E. 2nd St., Dayton, OH 45403).
On this Dayton-area band compilation there’s a lot of interesting do-it-yourself-style punk (Sourbelly, Oxymorons, Cage) which will probably be the sound to make Dayton music famous. Elsewhere there’s a big variety including more acoustic-based things as well as a dose of thrash, quite a bit of funk and a lot of quirky Alternative Rock. As with any compilation album with this many bands, not every song is a gem. But for the most part, it’s a decent representation of the Dayton music scene as a whole. CityBeat grade: b.
COMMON SENSE Resurrection (Relativity).
It’s hard these days to make an original rap record, and most rappers don’t even try. Common Sense comes close to something unique with stellar rhyming skills and intensely clever phrasing (mildly recalling Del). Musically, Sense also proves himself to be a solid force in Hip-Hop though it doesn’t break new ground. Sparse, jazzy samples over laidback Funk and several references to the old-school crews may indicate just another face in the Rap crowd, but one listen and you know this is smarter, less-contrived and funkier than most anything in the current Hip-Hop world. Best of all, there’s no weak “gangsta” aftertaste. CityBeat grade: b.
THE WENDELL BROS. Lowly & Drench (Sundial Records, 114 W. Nixon, Cincinnati, OH 45220).
The Bros, are highlighted by the crafty songwriting skills of Chris Allen and Kevin Grasha. The two talented singer/songwriters are from the school of well-written, clever songs that grow on you like a friendly plague although the focus of a few songs seems to drift off. Think Freedy Johnston, Paul Westerberg, Big Star, American Music Club and early Lemonheads all mixed together and you have an idea of these local songsmiths’ niche. Standout tracks include the whispery and beautiful “Diamond Ring” and the sparse, dynamic and emotive “She’s Killer.” CityBeat grade: B.
EARTH EIGHTEEN Earth Eighteen (Futurist, 6 Greene St., New York, NY 10013).
Sounding a bit like a perky Nine Inch Nails, this four-song EP reeks of mediocrity. Vocally, the sound is NIN, but the lyrical content is more along the lines of Warrant. Musically, Earth Eighteen guys take a similar route, combining a dancey, industrial guitar groove with an upbeat feeJ that makes for a pretty irritating listen. CityBeat grade: d.
Beyond Betty Bebop
Strong vocals and literate backing ignite Betty Carter's Teed the Fire' and reconfirm her as living legend
BETTY CARTER Feed the Fire (Verve).
Betty Carter’s voice is an instrument like an alto or tenor horn and when she sings, no, performs, words and lyrics mean little.
It’s the sound that matters.
And what a joyful noise she delivers on her latest release, Feed the Fire. Recorded live in 1993 at London’s Royal Festival Hall, the disc includes perhaps the only three Jazz musicians competent and literate enough to hold court with the only living Jazz diva.
There’s Geri Allen on piano, Dave Holland on bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums. That alone should be enough said, but this disc deserves some ink.
Although seven of the 10 songs were written by others, these are now Carter’s songs. The singer duets with each musician on three cuts that are sandwiched together late in the album a shrewd tactic. After sev-. eral listens, Carter’s mastery of tonality and shading are evident as is her now-legendary ability to push and challenge musicians through seemingly endless scat-filled meanderings.
“If I Should Lose You” absolutely shines wherein Carter and Allen are so much in sync that is difficult to discern which comes first Allen’s notes or Carter’s tones. Here and throughout, Allen demonstrates why she has been the critics’ darling for years. Her style is reminiscent of Keith Jarret and McCoy Tyner, two players able to induce nearly transparent subtlety one moment while growing thunderously percussive the next.
On “All Or Nothing At All,” Carter and Holland get slightly funky as Carter manipulates the chorus into the refrain, “I gotta say no I gotta say no...” Holland evokes deep, rich tones never overplaying which causes Carter to cluck, pop and scat, sounds perhaps she hears the bass making that we do not.
And on “What Is This Tune?” DeJohnette delivers tasty, understated mallet and cymbal work, only ||| two reasons why he |f remains in con| stant demand. At 64, Carter has done things her way for 45 years in a genre supposedly built on the foundation of creative, interpretive freedom. In doing so, she has often stood on the perimeter while her peers Sarah, Ella, Billie and Carmen either fell ill, died or dabbled at other musical styles in search of wider recognition.
On Feed the Fire, Carter finally quits the teaching job she’s held in recent years. A fierce taskmistress, her backing trios have graduated some of the best and brightest young lions, notably pianist Cyrus Chestnutt.
Years ago, Lionel Hampton nicknamed Carter Betty Bebop. Given her career-long stylistic stretch, this seems restrictive. More accurate was the late Carmen McRae, who once said, “This lady is the only one of us who hasn’t copped out. She’s the only Jazz singer left.” Indeed.
CityBeat grade: A.
New tunes
POSITIVELY YEAH YEAH YEAH
BY JOHN M. JAMES
Well, seekers of the groove, I’m back with the “triple yeah.” After a summer hiatus, the juices are flowing to share with you the gospel of good tunes and music news from my sunny side of the street. Thank you for allowing me to babble these yips and yipes, in hopes that whatever your musical taste might swing ’ya toward something that'll rock thee.
Precious Pearl Jam
Let’s face it. The whole world’s gone Pearl Jam nuts, and rightfully so. A great band with loads of credibility and vision, Pearl Jam has consistently given fans what they want and plenty of it. Anyone trying to locate the rare “Yellow Ledbetter” track since WEBN started playing it, only to find it on the import CD 5 of “Jeremy,” has surely discovered the plethora of live and previously unreleased cuts on the band’s import CD singles. For those collectors, please add another rare “gotta have it" item to hunt down: the three-part live CD set, Dissident, which when collected together comprises Pearl Jam’s entire Atlanta concert from earlier this year.
The first of these CDs is best to hunt down in its rarest form a fold-out digi-pack version that leaves room for the inclusion of the other two discs. This first part, with a total of seven tracks, is out in stores now. The other two will trickle in over the next months.
The new Pearl Jam album, Vitalogy, is set in stone for a Dec. 6 release after many delays because of elaborate packaging. On Tuesday, there will be a special early release on vinyl (that's a record kids ’ya put ’em on a turntable and listen to 'em). The CD will feature a goldembossed cover and a 32-page book inside a special slip case. Even the cassette version will house a 16-page book.
Look for select retailers to fight it out for customers with midnight release parties and other special promotions.
Cover act
This week’s interesting cover versions of note: Seaweed's raucous version of Fleetwood Mac's “Go Your Own Way” on the Chaos Records soundtrack to the new flick Clerks; and the lovely duet of The Breeders’ Kim Deal and Guided By Voices’ Robert Pollard crooning the Nazareth/Everly Bros, tear-jerker “Love Hurts” on the killer Epic Records soundtrack of Love & a .45.
New releases for Tuesday
And like the winds, young grasshopper, they’re subject to change
Aerosmith - Box of Fire (Columbia), 13-CD box set; Ass Ponys - Electric Rock Music (A&M), third album; Boredoms - Onanie Bomb Meets the Sex Pistols (Warner Bros.), reissue; Brainiac - Bonsai Superstar (Grass); The Dead Milkmen - Chaos Rules (Restless), live; Dumb and Dumber (RCA), original motion picture soundtrack; Robert Fripp - 1999 (DR), live ambient from Argentina; John Frusciante - Niandra Ladies and Usually a Shirt (American), ex-Red Hot Chili’s solo project; John HiattHiatt Comes Alive at Budokan (A&M), 15 live tracks; Ice Cube - Bootlegs & B-Sides (Priority); King Tee - King Tee IV Life (MCA); Pearl Jam - Vitalogy (CBS), LP release; Petra - Come and Jdin Us (Epic); Prince - The Black Album (Warner Bros.), after all these years!; Shudder to Think - “X-French Tee Shirt" (SubPop), 7-inch single; Frank Sinatra - Duets II (Capitol) with Jimmy Buffett, Chrissie Hynde, etc.; STR8 G - Shadow of a G (A&M); Swans - The Great Annihilator (Invisible); Vanessa Williams - The Sweetest Day (Mercury); Stevie Wonder - Conversation Piece (Polygram).
BANDS: CONTINUED FROM PAGE.21 singer for multi-personality-driven Snaggletooth.
While you may not hear the influence of each of those cultural icons in the band’s music, her statement sums up the dynamic and diversity that make Snaggletooth unique.
Snaggletooth which also includes Todd Drake (drums), Chris Lee (guitar) and Dan Bennett (bass) is a collection of personalities and influences. One listen to the group’s first release, the three-song cassette Gg, and the diversity is evident.
The band, which performs Saturday at Sudsy Malone’s, organically flows from heavy, tribal riffdom to airy, dreamlike vitality and the music breathes and shreds with a naturalness that few others can pull off.
“We all just think of each song differently,” says Drake of his band’s schitzo-dynamic.
The group got its start about a year ago when Drake, Bennett and Lee drafted the then-stage-wary Edwards after a series of auditions yielded nothing but Edie Brickels.
or Robert Frost, but occasionally a musician will come along and help blur the line. Clifford Nevernew, a Power-Pop trio, is balancing on that line pretty well.
“With our lyrics we’re not trying to say anything,” says singer, guitarist and main lyricist Matt Hart of his surrealistic style. “It doesn’t move from sense to sense or sense to nonsense. Usually we’re not trying to tell a story. It’s very imagistic moving from image to image, but it’s not stream of consciousness. There are all these images with nothing connecting them but the song structure.”
‘We all get really engrossed into a song when we play. Generally I don’t think any of us even look at anybody else. I didn’t even realize what (singer Ali Edwards) was doing until some* one told me.’
TODD DRAKE, OF SNAGGLETOOTH
“I was a cocktail waitress and a barfly,” the dreadheaded Edwards says of her pre-band life.
Edwards’ singing falls somewhere between Bjork’s and Sinead O’Connor’s and, although she always wanted to sing, she says she had some reservations about joining a band. “I was always scared. You grow up and your parents tell you, ‘You can’t be in a Rock ’n’ Roll band.’ But from my lifestyle before Snaggletooth, it’s definitely a step up.”
Dayton’s Mutant Renegade Records is readying a split single that will feature Snaggletooth and Cincy’s Shoot The Gift. But live is where the band manifests itself in its purest form. Backed by the intensity of the musicians, Edwards is intermittently silly, winceful and frightening, embracing the full realm of theatrical performance and twisting it all into a truly original show.
“We all get really engrossed into a song when we play,” Drake says. “Generally I don’t think any of us even look at anybody else. I didn’t even realize what (Edwards) was doing until someone told me.”
Edwards says her convulsive, neurotic stage presence is pure instinct. “It came out of just being nervous and not knowing what to do with my hands,” she says. “Somebody told me early on, when I was really nervous and stuff, ‘Well they paid money to see you play.’ And from then on it became a really free place. You can do anything. It’s total freedom. It’s like therapy.”
Clifford Nevernew
Rock music has given the world some of the finest and most profound poetry ever written. “I wanna Rock aifd Roll all night / And party every day,” are just a coupie lines that come to mind.
OK, so maybe the standard ridiculous nature of Rock lyrics doesn’t put Rock stars on par with e.e. cummings
From the band’s two EPs, it’s pretty evident that Clifford which also features Eric Appleby on bass and Matthew Collins on drums is not of the “cars, chicks and Rock” ilk.
“To eat the prizest pumpkins / or dole out the morning sweet rolls / but I’ve got redder lips / Than Hegel had on his mouth,” Hart sings on “Dandy (Lion)” from the band’s most recent release.
Clifford Nevernew formed as a performance art/poetry “band” when the members met at Ball State. After finishing school and relocating to Cincinnati, the band members began playing local clubs. But they soon found that, although they do “rock,” their more cerebral and literary approach was appreciated more in local coffeehouses, where the band feels more comfortable improvising.
“It’s a really big difference in playing clubs vs. playing coffeehouses,” Appleby says. “It’s a whole different feeling, and there’s an intimacy at the coffeehouses. Those Rock-posing things that seem very natural in a club just don’t fly.”
Hart adds, “In coffeehouses, everyone is right in your CONTINUES ON PAGE 24
Tons of Vinyl LPs, 12” & 7” CASH PAID FOR CDs ^ Records 41 Tapes
Spill It
BY MIKE BREEN
Milkminer Lou Gurrein on drums and Wes Gurley (formerly of Borgia Popes) on bass.
Mr. Universe plays Saturday at Sudsy Malone’s with Snaggletooth.
Wilson is working with a variety of people (including members of Cobra Judy) but says he’s in no rush to start playing clubs.
The Mortals, local kings of stompy Garage Rock, have decided to end their career after recording two splendid albums for the Estrus label. Guitarist Denny Brown says the split came because “Bill (Grapes) quit, and he was the founding member. So we just decided to sfop because the Mortals was his baby.”
Hey, hey. “Spill It” is Cincinnati CityBeat’s weekly local music column. I will try to pass on information about what musicians are doing; label signings, tours and big gigs; and whatever else that’s of interest.
Brown isn’t sitting around moping. He has already joined The Hgerlilies, which needed a replacement for guitarist Steve Schmall who’s now with Lazy. (Sort of like a soap opera, ain’t it?)
“Spill It” will cover every form of original regional music (Rap, Jazz, Metal, Alternative, Gospel, R&B, Polka, Celtic whatever). To do this, I need musicians and fans to keep me updated on what bands are up to. If your group puts out a single, gets a record deal or does anything that may be considered print-worthy, contact me.
The Tigerlilies will perform Saturday at Top Cat’s. And look for their first full-length CD to be released around March by the Chicago label Atavistic.
Etc.
I wanted to do this column because it’s necessary. Local daily papers have only recently started to acknowledge original local music. Although local media have been increasingly supportive of local musicians and clubs, coverage is still minimal. I hope this column can be a consistent service to everyone. Local music is a priority at CityBeat. And on that note
Tough Breaks
Native Black a local R&B band that has amassed a giant Cincinnati following and has generated some national attention appears Friday at Bogart’s with III Frum Tha Soul and Ramsey.
The Wendell Bros, will celebrate the release of their first CD, Lowly & Drench, at the Stadium in Oxford on Saturday. The festivities will get under way at 9 p.m. with a slew of special guests, including Flowerfist, Plow On Boy, Jon Rocket and the Vultures, and John Kogge and the Lonesome Strangers. Pick up the new CD at Wizard’s and Everybody’s Records (in Cincy) and Loony T-Bird’s Records (in Oxford).
Two of Cincinnati’s finest Alternative bands, with nationally released albums recently broke up.
Send all music-related materials to MIKE BREEN, Cincinnati CityBeat, 23 E. Seventh St., Suite 617, Cincinnati, OH 45202.
Milkmine, the two-bass, no-guitar Underground Noise-core trio that released a widely acclaimed CD on Choke Inc., has unfortunately called it quits for now.
BANDS: CONTINUED FROM PAGE 23
face. Everything that happens is immediate. You can’t hide at all. If you’re out of tune, you’re out of tune right there in their faces.”
All the members are involved with writing and performing poetry. Hart and Appleby edit Forklift, Ohio, a free poetry newspaper. And Hart’s collection of poems has been published by Mississinewa Press.
The members plan to continue making music separately, but bassist Jay Wilson says, “I wouldn’t be surprised if we got back together, but there’s just no interest from any of us now.”
have created Clifford’s musical persona. Hart has played in Punk bands since high school while Collins and Appleby grew up in musical households. But the fact that all the members have broad musical tastes is what makes their music so diversified and difficult to classify.
You can already check out Mr. Universe, a local supergroup of sorts that features Milkmine’s John Nash on vocals, Tim Davison of Schwah on guitar, former
But all the links to the literary world shouldn’t divert attention from the fact that, musically, Clifford is expressive and inventiye. Catchy melodies flow to spontaneous, Sonic Youth-like jams with a sound that is hard to pin down.
The unique, unpretentious sound comes from the variety of influences that
THE holidays FROM THE HAND AND THE HEART AT OH1)7 OTtlStS. COME
Openings
CINCINNATI ART MUSEUM Manet to Toulouse Lautrec: French Impressionists to Post-Impressionist Prints and Drawings. Nov. 20-March 5. 10 -a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday; 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday. Eden Park. $5 adults; $4 students and seniors; children free; free to all on Saturdays. 721-5204. ★ CONTEMPORARY ARTS CENTER Light Into Art features light-as-sculpture, including virtual reality. This show contextualizes computerized virtual reality with a well-chosen, eclectic group of acclaimed artists working with light as their medium; well-conceived in an
Experience The Museum Of The Future
Light Into Art
From Video to Vi rtual Reality
November 19,1994January 14,1995
EXPLORE THE TRADITIONS OF FOLK ART. gifts by nationally known artists unique selection of hand carved ornaments, santas, angels, and more... bybee pottery joe deluco furniture reduced 25% 1315 main street
hours tues.-sat. 11-5 open house friday dec. 2 6 a.m-10 p.m.
UtterKiosk
Galleries & Exhibits
ADAMS LANDING ART CENTER
Group show of midcareer regional artists, including paintings by Stewart Goldman, photographs by Thomas Schiff and sculpture by Joel Otterson and Derrick Woodham. Through Nov. 26. 11
a.m.-3 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday or by appointment. 900 Adams Crossing, East End. 723-0737.
ARTS CONSORTIUM OF CINCINNATI Images, Imaginations and Visions depicts a vibrant spectrum of media and techniques by the African American Visual Artists of Dayton, Ohio. Through Nov. 18. Names Project Memorial Quilt. Through Dec. 31. 1-8 p.m. T\iesday-Thursday; 1-5 p.m. Friday-Saturday. 1515 Linn St., West End. 381-0645. Art For City
Walls is a year-long exhibit focusing on local artists. 1-5 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, 12-5 p.m. weekends. Union Terminal, 1301 Western Ave., Queensgate. 241-7408.
BEAR GRAPHICS AND ILLUS-
TRATION GALLERY Paintings, prints and sculptures by January Knoop feature constructions using animal bones and images of imaginary creatures. Through Nov. 30. 12-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday.
ARTS Sculptures by Alan LeQuire and paintings by Louise LeQuire in the gallery. Painted silk angels by Margaret Agner in the first-floor lobby. 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday, 9 a.m.-noon Saturday. 101 S. Monument Ave., Hamilton. 863-8873.
GALLERY AT WELLAGE & BUXTON Features the ink drawings and stone carvings of James Alan Sauer. Through Nov. 29. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday. 1431 Main St., Downtown. 241-9127.
GALLERY 48 Artist’s Choice: Dreams and Seeing features multimedia works by Carol Kerfoot Hall, mandalas integrating dreams, imagination and landscape based on mythological/autobiographical childhood memories. Through Nov. 30. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays. 1223 Central Parkway, Over-the-Rhine. 381-4033.
GALLERY 99 Features works by 20 gallery members. Through December. 12—6 p.m. Thursday and Sunday, 12—9 p.m. Friday and' Saturday. 1101 St. Gregory St., Mount Adams. 651-1441.
GOLDEN RAM GALLERY Showing floral and landscape oils by Cincinnati artist Nelle Ferrara. Through Nov. 30. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday; 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Wednesday; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday. 6810 Miami Ave., Madeira. 271-8000.
HEBREW UNION COLLEGE SKIRBALL MUSEUM —Aishet
424 Findlay St., West End. 621-0069.
CARNEGIE ARTS CENTER
The Second Annual Miniature Silent Auction is a group show juried by Cincinnati sculptor Derrick Woodham. Bidding continues until 4 p.m. Nov. 26. Donations will be given to the League for Animal Welfare. Veronica is a-collection of “digital-traditional” paintings and prints by Daniel Jasper. Through Nov. 26. 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 12-4 p.m. Saturday. 1028 Scott Blvd., Covington. 491-2030.
CHIDLAW GALLERY, ART ACAD-
EMY OF CINCINNATI Edward Potthast Paintings a show in coordination with the Cincinnati Atr Museum by the worldacclaimed, turn-of-the-century Cincinnati American Impressionist.
9 a.m.-5 p.m. Weekdays. Adjacent to the Cincinnati Art Museum. Eden Park. 721-52^.
CINCINNATI ART CLUB Viewpoint ‘94 is a juried show with awards for Cincinnati artists. Through Nov. 27. 1-5 p.m. Thursday-Sunday. 1021 Parkside Place, Mount Adams. 241-4591.
* CINCINNATI ART GALLERIES Mysteries features unusually thought-provoking and mysterious paintings by Cole Carothers: landscapes of the mind, neither naturalistic nor realistic, proving that.art is never a representation of reality. Through Nov. 30. Also, The Art of the Watercolor features the works of J. Anthony Buzzeli, Florence Smithbum, Paul Chidlaw, Stanley Bielecky, Reginald Grooms, Arthur Helwlg, Carl Zimmerman, Carolyn Zimmerman and others. Through Nov. 23. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Saturday. 635 Main St., Downtown. 381-2128.
THE CIVIC GARDEN CENTER OF GREATER CINCINNATI New paintings by midcareer
Cincinnatian Joanne Honschopp run through Nov. 26. 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
Features a conservative collection of maritime paintings and prints by Cincinnati favorite John Stobart. Through Dec. 31. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday; 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursday. 7866 Montgomery Road, Kenwood. 762-5510.
fitton center for creative
Absence Makes the Soul Grow Fonder
Works in group show at Machine Shop Gallery reflect mystery of what is not evident
REVIEWED BY JONATHAN Z. KAMHOLTZ
The 12 artists showing at the Machine Shop Gallery (a space as quiet and mysterious as a partly excavated archeological site) have little in common, in style, theme or scale. They are brought together in an often powerful but not rigorously curated show called Rebinding: Psyche, Spirit, Soul, which explores a range of spiritual callings seen and felt.
Hayil:. Woman of Valor features paintings, textiles and sculptures. Through Feb. 25. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 2-5 p.m. Sunday. 3101 Clifton Ave., Clifton. 221-1875.
HILLEL JEWISH STUDENT CENTER Survival in Sarajevo: How a Jewish Community Came to the Aid ofIts City is a collection of photographs by Berlin artist Edward Serotia documenting the Jewish Community’s rescue effortsin Sarajevo initiates Hillel’s “Winter Aid for Bosnia Campaign” for citizens of all faiths in Sarajevo. Through Dec. 9. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Friday. 2615 Clifton Ave., Clifton. 221-6728.
IN SITU The Exigent vs. the Unconscious features paintings, objects and drawings by Colin Beatty. Through Nov. 19. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. 1435 Main St., Over-the-Rhine. 651-4631.
JAMAR GALLERY - Objets D'Art features still lifes in oil by Cincinnati artist Irene Paian. Through Nov. 25.10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday; 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Tuesday. 135 W. Fourth St., Downtown. 333-0022.
KALDI’S - Paintings by Tom Sanker. 7 a.m.-l a.m. Monday-Thursday, 7 a.m:-2:30 a.m. Friday, 10 a.m.-2:30 a.m. Saturday, 10 a.m.-midnight Sunday. 1202-04 Main St., Over-the-Rhine. 241-3070.
LEFTHANDED MOON Features black and white prints and photographs transferred to stones and tiles by Robert Giesler. 11:30 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday-Saturday. MaryAnne Meyer will .do rune readings. Noon-3 p.m. 48 E. Court St., Downtown. 784-1166.
★ MACHINE SHOP GALLERY
Rebinding: Psyche, Spirit, Soul group show proves the high quality of imagination and technique represented by artists living and working in this region. Through Dec. 2. 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. 100 E. Central Parkway, Over-the-Rhine. 556-1928.
★ MARTA HEWETT GALLERY Contemporary Glass features state-of-the-art new art glass from internationally acclaimed Pilchuk master craftsman Dante Marioni. Spare, elegant and contemporary, Marioni’s work is amongst the best, reflecting an international interest in art glass.
MORE, PAGE 26
Psyche, spirit and soul as opposed to what? The show lacked a statement of group goals; the participating artists share the conviction that art should transcend object and objectivity and reflect the passage of time, the mystery of what is absent. At their best, thes.e works transform the mundane thing into things of spirit and silence and sorrow, and occasionally even wonder and exhilaration.
Elsewhere in the show, however, things seem resistant. They do not transcend: They slip-slide away (in the hope that they will reach a critical mass), or they are about someone else’s transformations, not your own. These works have a silence and a sorrow of their own.
In “Star Skip #1,” Cal Kowal searches for the theme of the show by mischievously asking: “What On Earth/Are You Doing/For Heaven’s Sake?” Things keep getting in the way. As a photographer, Kowal sees the world framed and presents framed pictures showing stars caught in a frame. As he has done for years, Kowal celebrates the difficulty of distinguishing between what is real and what is a copy. His work is a partly sardonic effort to chase something that can’t be captured; in Kowal’s world, it doesn’t matter whether it gets captured. We may end up with is more stuff another knife, another book, another word.
Jeff Casto puts together evocative, text-laden assemblages. They evoke children’s fears and adolescent sexuality (which for him are not the same). The clutter of objects is reminiscent of toy chests and dresser tops, where each thing is magical but utterly divergent. There is something pagan in this fetishism (one of the show’s several attempts to invoke alternate spiritualities, but Casto’s blizzard of objects seem to place the soul at risk.
Karen Heyl and Jack Hennen seem completely sure of their relationships to their materials. Heyl’s showstopping “Secret Garden” series effortlessly links the forms of woman and vine. Some curves flow; other curves twist. The opaque Portuguese marble sculptures are stiff and elegant; the pieces of translucent Italian alabaster are more sensuous and let a marvelous show of light filter through the stone. If stone can become this light, who knows what’s in store for us?
Hennen, who must be forgiven his cartoonish intersection of male and female symbols in “Clash of the Titans,” created a monumental gilded chalice that seems to have dissolved under the molten heat of what’s been in it called “Do This in Memory of Me.” Blood is a powerful metaphor these days. So are portals. In “Through Me, All Things are Possible,” he has taken apart an old-fashioned door, gilded it and reassembled it into a spire, a hieroglyph and an entranceway. There are no curves in this majestic piece except for the doorknob
and the hinges, highlighting Both entranceway ready to be painted For Italy still inspire. Art votive offering (and sketched miniatures white on the other suggests, he shows merely be juxtaposed, cautious distance. which is both decorative designed to measure), best seen as a man “Man Mapped” is not cal and sensual. Perhaps felt.
Patrice Trauth’s ing ease with which fantasy. She revels phobically tight spaces painted constructions designs, for much ones. She encloses worlds within worlds,
Over-the-Rhine. 241-6672.
Art
Through Nov. 28. 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
Tuesday-Friday, 12-5 p.m.
Saturday. 1209 Main St., Over-the-Rhine. 421-7883.
MILLER GALLERY
RAYMOND GALLERY —New England Landscapes features oils by Connecticut artist Leis Nillson, while Floral Paintings features acrylics by Holly Schapker. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday and Friday; 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday and Wednesday. 2700 Erie Ave., Hyde Park. 871-7373.
SEMANTICS GALLERY Los Muertos... Dos interprets Mexico’s Day of the Dead. Through Nov. 20. Noon-5 p.m. weekends. 1125 Walnut St., Over-the-Rhine. 684-0102.
Neo-Impressionist paintings by late world-renowned artist Samuel Oppenheim. Ten percent of sales benefit the Cincinnati Art Museum.
Through Nov. 30. Objects of Desire III features eclectic ceramic teapots, decoupage by Cincinnatian Alice Balterman and crystal sculptures by Christopher Ries and Gary Fitzgerald. Nov. 23-Dec. 31. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday. 2715 Erie Ave., Hyde Park. 871-4420.
MULLANE’S PARKSIDE CAFE
★ STUDIO SAN GIUSEPPE AT THE COLLEGE OF MOUNT ST. JOSEPH Gyorgy Kadar: Survivor ofDeath, Witness to Life features haunting images from a Hungarian Nazi concentration-camp survivor. The drawings are first-rate, reminding us of art’s potency to bear witness; a real coup for Mount St. Joseph. Sponsored by Jewish Federation of Cincinnati. Closing reception features speaker and Holocaust rescuer Irene Opdyke at 1:30 p.m. Dec. 11. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. weekday,; 1:30-4:30 p.m. weekends. College of Mount St. Joseph, 5701 Delhi Road, Delhi Township. 244-4314.
First watercolor exhibition from Art Academy star alum Heinz Pradac. Through Dec. 30. 11:30
TANGEMAN GALLERY The Harem Within: Fear of the Difference presents four female artists integrating photography, mixed media and pure text to explore the seclusion/exclusion of women in Arab culture. Through Dec. 2. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays. Third floor of Tangeman Center, University of Cincinnati, Clifton. 556-2839.
SITY ART GALLERY The main gallery features the Boog-a-loo-Beat Series paintings by UC professor Tarrence Corbin. Through Nov. 30. 9 a.m.-9 p.m. \ weekdays, 1-5 p.m. weekends. ; Northern Kentucky University, Highland Heights. 572-5148.
TONI BIRCKHEAD GALLERY Collaborative studio furniture by husband-and-wife team Rob Gartzka and Kathie Johnson, who jointly combine painting and sculpture, functional and sculptural “artiture." 10 a.m.-4 p.m. weekdays, Saturday by appointment. 342 W. Fourth St., Downtown. 241-0212.
OLMES GALLERY The Dana Series includes pastels by Nancy Suddeth-Corbett and new works by Noriko Fields. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. ; Tuesday and Wednesday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Thursday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday and Saturday. 3515 Roundbottom Road, Newtown. 271-4004.
-ONLY ARTISTS —Minne Adkins and the Kentucky Folk Carvers ; features brightly painted whimsical animals created by a 15-member group of naive carvers. Through Dec. 2. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. 1315 Main St.,
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UC CLERMONT COLLEGE ART GALLERY A two-person exhibition of Cincinnati artists with paintings by Yvette Lafollette Mazza and sculpture by John Leon. Through Dec. 2. 4200 Clermont College Drive, Batavia. 732-5224.
UC HEALTH SCIENCE LIBRARY
From Kent to Xinjiang is a three-person show featuring oils, watercolors and sculpture. 231 Bethesda Ave., Clifton. 558-0756.
WENTWORTH GALLERY
Figures features the work of L. Field Estate, B. Mack and Asfour. Through Nov. 21. 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Saturday, noon-6 p.m. Sunday. Kenwood Towne Centre, 7875 Montgomery Road, Kenwood. 791-5023.
WESTIN HOTEL University of Cincinnati College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning presents a special exhibit by UC students celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Through .Nov. 25. Westin Hotel Atrium, Fountain Square, Downtown. 381-3300.
WOMEN’S ART CLUB OF CINCINNATI Group show by members. Through Jan. 2. Parisian Gallery, Forest Fair Mall, 1047 Forest Fair Drive, Fairfield. 922-3585.
WRIGHT STATE UNIVERSITY ART GALLERIES
Object/Environment showcases Arts Midwest grant winners Fred Bruney, Barbara Cooper (Chicago) and Judith Yourman (St. Paul, Minn.) in sculpture-as-environment-as-installation. Through Dec. 18. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, noon-5 p.m. weekends. Creative Art Center at Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio. 1-873-2978.
XAVIER UNIVERSITY GALLERY Group show from full-time and adjunct faculty. Through Nov. 22. Noon-4 p.m. Monday-Friday. 3800 Victory Parkway, Evanston. 745-3811.
CAC’s King Expected to Resign Within Days
BY DANIEL BROWN
Contemporary Arts Center Director Elaine King is expected to resign within days, after a tenure of just more than one year. King arrived as director in July 1993, after the sudden departure of former Director Dennis Barrie. Sources from the CAC’s staff and board of trustees discuss a near gridlock relationship between King and the CAC board.
★ YWCA WOMEN’S ART GALLERY Living With the Enemy is a collection of photographs by Donna Ferrato, featuring frighteningly shocking images of abuse against women that recharge a topic sensationalized by the media. Sponsored by the Academy of Medicine and its Medicine Alliance. Proceeds go to YMCA Domestic Programs and the Women’s Art Gallery. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday. 898 Walnut St., Downtown. 241-7090.
840 GALLERY Showing Recent Works: Drawings & Prints by University of Cincinnati graduate student Randy Simmons. Through Wednesday. 8 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays. D.A.A.P. Building, University of Cincinnati, Clifton. 556-2962.
The last director to leave without acrimony was Jack Boulton in 1976. Robert Stearns, who preceded Barrie, left under unpleasant circumstances.
King, who has been in Slovakia on curatorial business, is expected to be present at the center’s exhibit openings and gala Friday and Saturday. Her plans are unknown pending resolution of contractual arrangements with the CAC; no details of a settlement have been made available.
Museums
King came to Cincinnati from Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University, where she remains a professor. She arrived in Cincinnati facing a board divided over post-Mapplethorpe policies, programs and funding, aware that key board members had voted against her candidacy as director.
exposure and protection. Ana England’s sculptures suggest that the body is always on the verge of a great change. Her “Self-Portrait” is midway between a mummy and a coiled clay vase not yet smoothed into final shape. In “Chrysalis,” an empty mussel shell (or overturned bathtub) suggests that something has just completed a phase of its evolution and has left, perhaps set free. Barbara Ahlbrand showed three large paintings of subjects who encountered specifically Christian destimes a nun, a priest, a child with a gold crucifix. It has been anything but reassuring for them. The subjects respond to their uncertainty with earnestness and do not flinch at being seen. They have a privacy they are aching to share.
★CINCINNATI ART MUSEUM New Art 3 is a photo-based installation investigating memory and loss by Christian Boltanski, a cutting-edge contemporary international artist. This brilliant, interactive installation utilizes light as metaphor, as well as being beautifully installed and executed. Through Jan. 26. Also on display are eight paintings from the CAM’s permanent collection by the world-acclaimed, tum-of-the-century- Cincinnati American Impressionist Edward Potthast. Through March 5. The Questfor Quality highlights museum acquisitions from the 20-year directorship of recently retired Millard F. Rogers. Through Jan. 29. Kurdish Tribal Rugs of the Senneh Tradition includes carpets and kilims from the CAM collection and the Markarian Foundation from Kurdistan. Through Dec. 11. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday. Eden Park. $5 adults; $4 students and seniors; children free; free to all on Saturdays. 721-5204.
CONTEMPORARY ARTS CENTER
Carol Grape’s extraordinary miniatures pay homage to another spirit set free, a mother lost to suicide. These pieces (like Casto’s and Ahlbrand’s) remind us that psychotherapies are also attempts to rebind body and spirit, and help deal with loss.
Video and Electronic Project: David Janecek is a photo-film installation exploring the possibility of interpersonal communication by the former Czech' dissident who now lives in Germany. Through Nov. 23. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday-Saturday. $2 adults; $1 students and seniors; children 12 and under free; free to CAC members; free to all on Mondays. 115 E. Fifth St., Downtown. 721-0390.
DAYTON ART INSTITUTE
While Mary Anne Donovan examines the domestic in hope of finding the mythic (“Domestic Bliss”), Grape takes the house of childhood (always, in its own way, the scene of the crime) and gives a new charge to the fearful conviction that you can’t go home again. Her houses, falling down like old barns, are both abandoned and protected, marked inside and out by words as if with hex signs. Grape’s work has extraordinary intellectual, emotional and sensual power. We are always looking inside the house, and we have always arrived just too late.
From Botticelli to Tiepolo: Three Centuries ofItalian Painting. Through Dec. 3. Childe Hassam: Etchings and Lithographs by the turn-of-the-century American artist. Through Jan. 29. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Sunday; 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Tuesday. 465 Belmonte Park North, Dayton, Ohio. 1-223-5277.
So it is with the dramas of the soul. But Rebinding would be worth the trip for Grape’s works alone. Nowhere does the body seem more fragile than in her tiny gloved hands; nowhere does it seem more probable that the empty house perpetually becoming doll house, shrine and museum represents part of the world that patiently endures, richly remembers, heroically outlast the soul’s absence.
INDIANAPOLIS MUSEUM OF ART Textiles by West African Nakunte Diarra. Through Dec. 31. Kay Rosen: Back Home in Indiana features paintings by the Indiana native. Through Jan. 8. Written on Stone features works by Garo Antreasian. Through Jan.
Onstage
love distortion continues through Dec. 10. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m Saturdays. Gabriel’s Comer, 1425 Sycamore St., Over-the-Rhine. $7.50 adults, $6 students and seniors, $5 for groups of 12 or more. 559-0642.
UtterfCrosfr
Classical Music
CINCINNATI CHAMBER
ORCHESTRA Join Keith Lockhart and Jerrold Pope for a fun-filled hour of holiday favorites in the Holiday Family Concert
10.30 a.m. Thursday. $5. Memorial Hall, 1225 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine. 723-1182.
★ CINCINNATI SYMPHONY
ORCHESTRA The May Festival chorus combines forces with the Gifu Ninth Symphony Chorus for the Basically Beethoven Festival. Jesus Lopez-Cobos conducts Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 in B Minor (“Unfinished”) and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in D Minor (“Choral”). 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday. $11—$44. Lecture by Carole Rosen, author of The Goosens, A Musical Century at 7 p.m. in Corbett Tower; free to concertgoers. Associate Conductor Keith Lockhart continues the popular CSO Casual Classics series by offering a personal look at the stories behind the music in Life Begins at 100, 2 p.m. Sunday. $12.50 adults; $9 children. Music Hall, 1241 Elm St„ Over-the-Rhine. 381-3300.
COLLEGE-CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC Earl Rivers conducts the Chamber Choir with Gerhard Samuel conducting the Philharmonia Chamber Orchestra, presenting Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Trumpets, Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante and Haydn’s Harmonie Messe. 4 p.m. Sunday. $10. Christian Ministry Center, 42 Calhoun St., Clifton. Christopher Zimmerman conducts the Concert Orchestra 8 p.m. Tuesday. $10; $5 students and seniors. Corbett Auditorium, University of Cincinnati, Clifton. 556-4183.
DAYTON PHILHARMONIC
ORCHESTRA Seventh annual Salute to High School Bands conducted by Clark Haines. 9:30 and 10:45 a.m. Tuesday. $3.50. Masonic Temple, 525 W. Riverview Drive, Dayton, Ohio. 1-224-3521.
The 1994 theater season has seen two new semiprofessional companies arrive on the boards in Greater Cincinnati.
Covington’s Carnegie Theatre is the home of the Frankenstein Project, and the Fahrenheit Theatre Company offers its dramatic fare at Gabriel’s Corner in Over-the-Rhine, the Carnegie Theatre and the Dance Hall in Corryville.
Both companies have tested the waters in previous seasons and now present their first full seasons. Both companies include a core of performers from one college or university, both could become new permanent professional companies and both are intent on bringing the classics to Cincinnati-area audiences.
In grand decay
Frankenstein Project organizer Duffy Hudson along with several other company members graduated from Thomas More College. He had been working in New York when he toured the 19th century Carnegie Theatre three years ago with Buzz Davis, a fellow alum and Carnegie Theatre manager. Hudson confesses his relationship with the Carnegie was love at first sight: “I looked up at the dome, and I thought of doing Frankenstein. It was the first play that came to my mind. I thought, ‘Wouldn’t Frankenstein really be fun.’ This big grand building, and there’s all this decay in it, and that’s really the idea (in Frankenstein)."
Unferth (played by C. Charles Scheeren), left, challenges Beowulf (Jason McCune) in Fahrenheit Theatre
Commitments with projects in New York kept Hudson from com- Company’s pleting the script for the production ofFrankenstein. But the production of delay allowed for the formation of ‘Beowulf.’ the Frankenstein Project, a confederation of artists dedicated to Frankenstein who also produced other works in the meantime, i.e. last season’s The Miracle Worker and Italian /American Reconciliation. Finally Hudson emptied his New York apartment and moved back to Greater Cincinnati to devote more time to the project.
company season and dous success judging crowds at the theater. present two short Charles Morrow and playwright Tom Harsham Theatre. Requiem another writer who things that are closer age local playwrights, inal every year.”
Contact the Frankenstein
Back to the
The Fahrenheit ly offer classical theater. Jasson Minadakis, eral other company Madison University at Ensemble Theatre were looking to get banded together, formed structure and went notes that there was offered regularly in possibility of forming “People were interested about,” he says. “Classical mainly trained in. a theater company,
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Onstage
the 1860s. 7:30 p.m. Friday; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday. Nov. 18-27. $7. Raymond Walters College, 9555 Plainfield Road Blue Ash. 852-0888.
FOREST VIEW GARDENS Sit down to a three-hour meal brought to you by your singer/server who will perform Highlights From West Side Story.
6 p.m. Thursday; 7 p.m. Friday; 5 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 5 p.m. Sunday. Through Nov. 26. Reservations required. 4508 North Bend Road, Monfort Heights. 661-6434.
MIAMI UNIVERSITY THEATRE Presents Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare’s classic tale of star-crossed lovers. 8 p.m. Friday-Sunday. $6 adults; $4 students and seniors. 131 Center for the Performing Arts, Oxford. 1-529-2247.
MIAMI VALLEY DINNER THEATRE Presents the musical revue Memories of Ch'ristmas. 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday; 6 p.m. Friday-Saturday; 10:45 a.m. and 5 p.m. Sunday. Through Dec. 31. $26.95-$34.95. Route 73, Springboro. 1-746-4554.
NORTHERN KENTUCKY SONS OF DIXIE CHORUS Dine and be entertained by the Beefand Barbershop Show. 6 p.m. Friday-Saturday. $15. D'Andreas Hall, 1939 Dixie Highway, Fort Wright. 441-7021.
STAGECRAFTERS Presents Beau Jest a family comedy. 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 7 p.m. Sunday. $7. Jewish Community Center, 1580 Summit Road, Roselawn. 351-1234.
WRIGHT STATE UNIVERSITY Presents the musical She Loves Me. 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 3 p.m. Sunday. $11-$14.adults; $10-$11 students. Festival Playhouse. Samm-Art Williams’ Home originally produced by the Negro Ensemble Company in 1979, is directed by Sheila Ramsey, a member of the Human Race Theatre Company. 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday; 3 p.m. Sunday. $5 adults; $2 students and seniors. Celebration Theatre, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio. 1-873-2500.
XAVIER UNIVERSITY PLAYERS Present Moliere’s Tartuffe. 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday. $7 adults; $3 students. Xavier University Centre Theatre, Evanston. 745-3939.
Comedy
GO BANANAS Apollo veteran Vince Morris headlines, with John McClellan as the featured act, through Nov. 20. HBO alum Alan Proffitt headlines, with Martin Funk as the featured act, Nov. 23-27. 8:30 and 10:45 p.m. Friday-Saturday; 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday. Call for prices. 8410 Market Place, Montgomery. 984-9288.
MARIEMONT PLAYERS Follow 3 M-F 6:30-5:00 SAT 7:45-3:00 120 E. 4TH ST. V 3 MERCANTILE ARCADE /2’ DOWNTOWN 'O 721-2233 ^ the tuneful tribulations of Della Juracko in Blue Plate Special. 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 7 p.m. Sunday. $10. Walton Creek Theatre, 4101 Walton Creek Road, Plainville. 684-1236.
RAY COMBS CINCINNATI COMEDY CONNECTION Def Comedy Jam veteran June Boykin headlines, with Carson and Leno guest Doc Barham as the middle act. 8 p.m. Thursday and Sunday; 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. Friday. Over 21. $6.50 weekdays; $8.50 weekends. Carew Tower, 441 Vine St., Downtown. 241-8088.
EXPERIENCED BY POLLY CAMPBELL
Noticed it’s no longer enough for bookstores to sell books? With author signings and weekend Jazz and art shows, bookstores are becoming one-stop culture centers, with $2 coffee with Italian names to wash it all down.
changing lunch specials daily.
When Barnes & Noble opens its new super bookstores complete with Starbucks Coffee espresso bars in Kenwood and Florence in the next week, there will be five such bookstore-coffee bar combinations in Cincinnati.
Starring... Starbucks
Recently, I had a fresh, just-sweet-enough Welsh spice scone ($1.25) with no butter, but it didn’t need it. A small latte cost $1.75. Another day, the lunch special was a ham-and-swiss-stuffed croissant ($2.50), which was hot and flaky, garnished with grapes. The China Oolong tea ($.85) was rather staletasting and weak, though.
The Essentials of Good
In-store cafes combine books, coffee and dessert test is whether patrons can enjoy all three
I can’t help but feel a little uneasy at the thought that the state of reading has gotten so low that we have to be bribed to enter a bookstore. Still, I really fall for the coffee-book combo. Throw in dessert, and you’ve got three of the essential ingredients for the good life.
Cincinnati’s operating bookstore-coffee bars
Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Borders Books & Music, and Kaldi’s Coffee House & Bookstore do throw in dessert and more.
Greater Cincinnati gains two Barnes & Noble Bookstores in the next week. Each will include a cafe with seating for 120, pastries and desserts, and the distinct dark and rich Starbucks Coffee roast. Soup and sandwiches will be added later.
One store opens Friday across from Florence Mall, the other Tuesday at Sycamore Plaza (formerly Kenwood Mall). That will bring to five the total of bookstore-cafes that are cultural centers in their own right:
Barnes & Noble Bookstore, 7663 Mall Road, across from Florence Mall, Florence, 647-6400.
The Cafe at Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Rookwood Pavilion, Madison and Edwards roads, Norwood, 396-8966.
Kaldi’s Coffee House & Bookstore, 1204 Main St., Over-the-Rhine, 241-3070.
Moreover, they all fit the criteria for a good bookstore cafe: It is possible to sit and sip Guatemalan Antigua while reading a magazine or the first few chapters of a book.
Borders’ espresso bar looks like something designed at corporate HQ, with Formica tables and unpadded chairs. (No-frills Kmart owns Borders.)
The equipment and drinks are regulation Italian. But there is local word-oriented art on the wall; the pastries are from local bakeries such as Take the Cake, the Bonbonerie and Stonemill Bread Co.-There also are
What’s good about Borders is it’s right next to the periodical section. I read half of an issue of the Utne Reader magazine while I drank my tea. There is Jazz in the espresso bar on Fridays and other music on Sunday afternoons. What made for an even-better coffee-culture experience on another visit were the two men next to me were drinking double espressos and speaking French. I could imagine for just a few minutes a sidewalk, Paris, all the European cafe images that espresso bars promote. (Do you think they hired these guys?) Then, several days later at the Cafe at Joseph-Beth, people on one side of me were speaking French and on the other side, with English accents. Call me shallow, CONTINUES
When going to the Cafe at Joseph-Beth Booksellers, save room and time for dessert.
Supernatural Soap
REVIEWED BY BILLIE JEYES
Anne Rice is up to her old melodramatic tricks as she continues her witches tale in ‘ Taltos
Taltos: Lives of the Mayfair Witches is the most recent installment in the continuing saga surrounding the Mayfairs, a family of witches which, for generations, has been haunted by the restless spirit Lasher.
The first book in the series, The Witching Hour, was a welcome relief from Anne Rice’s vampire novels, which had reached a low point with the excruciatingly self indulgent Queen of the Damned.
Those who haven’t read Lasher should skip the next few paragraphs. Predictable as the book is, I wouldn’t want to spoil it.
Lasher, the second in the witch series, tells the story of the spirit itself and its quest to attain material form. The only way it can do this is by waiting for centuries until a female Mayfair is born .with the extra genetic strand required to create a Taltos.
Twentieth century Rowan Mayfair carries such a gene and unwittingly meets and marries Michael Curry who, lo and behold, also has the requisite genetic strand.
Once born, Lasher achieves adult form almost immediately and attempts to reproduce his species by raping Rowan repeatedly. When this doesn’t work, he goes off and rapes as many female Mayfairs as he can. But, lacking the necessary genetic strand to produce his kind, they bleed to death.
Finally, Rowan gives birth to a female Taltos, Emaleth. But, upon realizing that Lasher will use Emaleth to propagate his species and bring an $nd to the human race, Rowan and Michael are forced to kill them both.
Taltos is the third in the series and revolves around a kinder, gentler member of the species named Ashlar. But, unlike the demonic Lasher, Ashlar has lived for centuries and believes he is the last of his kind.
When Taitos begins, Rowan has lapsed into a trancelike state, neither speaking nor acknowledging her surroundings. She is brought back to consciousness when her friend, Aaron Lightner, is murdered by rogue members of the Talamasca, an ancient scholarly organization
devoted to the study of the supernatural and to which Aaron belonged until his inexplicable excommunication. Determined to avenge his death, Rowan and Michael go to England. There, they meet Ashlar, who has come to find out more about his fellow Taltos, Lasher. Together, they try to uncover the treachery within the Talamasca. But once these three ally themselves, the suspense dwindles completely. Alter all, it is pretty hard to worry about two powerful witches and a 7foot giant who has lived for himdreds of years, especially when their enemies are mere mortals.
Meanwhile, back in New Orleans, Rowan’s cousin, the sexually precocious 13-year-old Mona, is pregnant with Michael’s child. Mona, it seems, is also endowed with the extra genetic strand required to produce a Taltos.
Mercifully, Mona’s pregnancy curtails her sexual activity, but we are forced to put up with a new character, Mary Jane Mayfair, whose chatter is enough to drive anyone insane.
The soap-opera twists are part of the appeal of these books. And Taltos is just another installment in an ongoing supernatural soap opera.
Much of Taltos is spent recapping The Witching Hour and Lasher, which is useful for the initiate but tedious for the rest of us. The problem, of course, is that each book should stand by itself.
In the last third of Taltos, Ashlar recounts his life story. Usually, this is Rice’s forte. But this time, it drags because Ashlar spends so much time recounting the history of the Taltos, that he tells us nothing of himself. The result is a series of vague recollections chronicling the-rise and fall of the Taltos who, it seems, are responsible for most of the world’s mysteries including the secret of Atlantis, the origin of the Little People and the construction of Stonehenge.
Worst of all, it seems that Rice has dispensed with endings. Her books are like Flash Gordon episodes. But, instead of waiting a week for the next episode, readers have to wait a couple of years.
Kids are armed. The youth have all gone crazy over Prozac. Images of youth angst and rebellion point toward apparent doom.
In the mass of decadence', though, eyes are beginning to turn back to the ’60s, looking for a way to channel this energy to make sense of the world. Art, and poetry in particular, has taken a central place in that search.
Kaldi’s Coffee House & Bookstore, Border’s Books & Music and Cafe Vienna all host poetry readings. Louisville’s Literary Renaissance holds RANT festivals that bring music, art and poetry together. And
Newport’s York Street International Cafe is attempting to develop a stable place for poetry, theater, music and visual arts to grow and develop. For better or worse, these events emphasize the spirit of this “alternative” community over the art itself.
Ken Kawaji, the poet-in-residence at Kaldi’s, attributes this rise of the poetry scene as society’s attempt to re-establish human connections.
“We live in a medicated society where you are told you are completely on your own. But we need the (human) connection to survive,” Kawaji says.
Kaldi’s holds eight to 14 poetry events a month,
CONTINUES ON PAGE 30
Literary
Signings, Readings, & Events
MARIE ANGNARDO and signs 377 Simple Ways Can Make A Difference: Suggestionsfor Busy People. p.m. Sunday. Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Rookwood Pavilion, Madison.and Edwards roads, Norwood. 396-8960.
TERRANCE CALLAN dean and professor of biblical ies at the Athenaeum of The Origins of the Christian Faith. 11 a.m.-l p.m. Saturday. Innervisions, 8508 Beechmont Ave., Cherry Grove. 474-5972.
CHRIS CHANDLER AND DA STARK Poetry reading. p.m. Tuesday. Kaldi’s Coffee & Bookstore, 1202 Main Over-the-Rhine. 241-3070.
★ RON CHERNOW The of the National Book Award The House ofMorgan reads his 1993 bestseller, The Warburgs: Saga of a Jewish Family. 8 p.m. Thursday. Community Center, 1580 Road, Roselawn. 761-0203.
SANDRA ELLIOT AND SANDY SMITH Read from Amalgam Poems. 7 p.m. Thursday. Joseph-Beth Booksellers.
R. KENT GOODRIDGE AND GOODRIDGE Sign and pictures from The Discovery the Little Yodel People. Sunday. Joseph-Beth Booksellers.
Breakfast i Brunch + Lunch + Dinner and a fullbar. books.
DIANE HEILENMAN Deihonstrates bulb forcing autographs her helpful guide, Gardening in the Lower Midwest. 3 p.m. Saturday. Joseph-Beth Booksellers.
LINDA RAYMOND Reads signs Rocking the Babies. Friday. Joseph-Beth Booksellers.
‘Open 7:30 am - seven days a week.*
RICK SOWASH Local tells tall tales from his book,
Taltos: Lives of the Mayfair Witches by Anne Rice (Alfred A. Knopf, $25).
UtterKiosk
Suburban Torture
BY JULIE LARSON
CONTINUED
ranging from the monthly Bread for Bedlam poetry slam to the open mic readings held intermittently. Kawaji sees all of these events as an attempt to return to the oral tradition, which emphasizes community and spirituality.
The experience of community-style readings, while increasing in popularity, has its problems. The randomness of events, as well as the lack of a physical place where daily events can go on, prevent people from getting involved.
CAFES: CONTINUED FROM PAGE 28
but I was impressed.
Though Joseph-Beth’s cafe is far from the periodical section, people ate as they read everything from a biography of Mary Todd Lincoln to Art News.
The menu is filled with quite delicious items. I had an Indonesian egg salad on whole wheat toast flavored with curry, peanuts, carrots and raisins. It was good enough that I wished there had been more egg salad in the sandwich ($3.95).
The next time, I had an excellent spinach salad with a sweet, thick bacon dressing. I also got a cup of tomato soup ($4.50 for the combination), which was disappointing. The soup was all tomato chunks relieved only by little grains of Parmesan.
Too much tomato also marred another lunch special a croissant stuffed with pureed Italian vegetables and served with a spicy tomato sauce. A friend had the Cheese and Nut Loaf ($5.95). Made with three cheeses, cashews, walnuts and mushrooms, served on noodles with a walnut sauce, it was delicate and rich. I would change only the name.
Joseph-Beth’s desserts from tiramisu to caramel apple pie and chocolate peanut butter pie were worth their $2-$4 prices. (Don’t order the mousse in a chocolate shell with custard and raspberry sauce
FROM PAGE 29
need a place where they can go regularly to express themselves, he says.
To participate
To get involved,call: Borders Books & Music, 671-5852.
Cafe Vienna, 621-6655' Kaldi’s Coffee House & Bookstore, 241-3070.
York Street International Cafe, 261-9675.
M.G. Groneman part of the writers workshop that ran the now-defunct readings at Arnold’s Bar & Grill notes another problem. In places where there are eating, drinking and talking, people only occasionally listen to the reading.
“I think that it’s a trend,” she says.
But this artistic revival signals a larger need in society. As the Information Age depersonalizes communication and political correctness redefines the language, people have become unsure of their roles in a constantly changing society.
“Poetry is a sort of crying out when other language breaks down,” says Terri Ford, the poet in charge of Cafe Vienna’s readings.
Read in a community atmosphere, poetry may be the easiest way to transmit feelings and emotions as it becomes a dialogue between reader and audience.
Matt Hart, lead singer of Clifford Nevernew, says many poets read for the first time at the open mic events he organizes for Borders. They have an “important feeling radiating from them,” he says. “They have a reason to read. They have a need.”
Twentysomethings, of which Hart is one, are trying to find their way and
Ron Whitehead executive director of Literary Renaissance, an international organization based in Louisville that puts on RANT festivals is trying to create such a space. Black is the color of choice at the four-day festivals black hair, black boots, black stockings, black jackets. People crowd on the floor, into booths and wherever else they can so they can listen to poets read. The experience of music, poetry and community is the driving force behind RANTs. However, when Sunday arrives, participants must head back to a world where they feel they don’t fit in.
Whitehead’s organization is “non-profit, so all of our pockets have holes in them. It would be nice if somebody would come forward and help out so we wouldn’t have to wonder if we are going to die or survive.”
Indeed money and space are the biggest problems with turning an artistic trend into a cohesive movement.
Enter Greg Schell. With backing from David Hosea, the owner of Hosea Worldwide Inc., Schell has created the York Street International Cafe in Newport, which is slated to open before the end of the year.
The cafe’s Attic Art Gallery will be run by a co-op of 35 artists. The coffeehouse will have poetry readings and literary discussions. There will be a floor dedicated to local bands. And there will be spaces where people can gather and talk.
He isn’t worried about the difficulties of creating a space for this community.
unless you have half an hour to eat and savor it.)
Joseph-Beth has 120,000 book titles and digital access to plenty more. Kaldi’s, on the other hand, has a fairly small collection of used books, with only serendipity to help you find something you want.
What Kaldi’s has is atmosphere the literary bohemian coffeehouse atmosphere that inspired this linking of words and caffeine in the first place.
At lunch time and during the afternoon, the pace at Kaldi’s is slow fine for reading. But during “Bohemian dating hour” (4-7 p.m. weekdays) or later at night, when Main Street heats up, there is Jazz, crowds of alarmingly arty-looking people and a fullservice bar.
At lunch one day, I had vegetarian lasagna ($5.95) that was hot, mildly spicy and filling. It didn’t go with my cappuccino ($1.85) very well, though.
There is a relatively new menu at Kaldi’s, with a small selection of nice things. There is a tasteful wine list, and coffee drinks with real liqueurs instead of syrups.
“It took everybody by surprise the actors and the audience loved it,” he says. “That’s the kind of thing that can happen when you are really close to your audience, and everybody can see.”
Who will patrons seen in a Fahrenheit audience?
It’s a unique mix of young and old, singles and families. “The audience we are cultivating now is a very open, active audience, and it’s a fun bunch of people to be around. Our target audience has been hard to pinpoint because we get people who are 80+ who have season tickets, and we have high school and college students. It’s a very engaging audience. I’ve never seen an audience that’s so ready to laugh. It’s neat to have the lights up during our Shakespeare and see the audience watching each other laugh and watching us laugh with them.”
Minadakis describes the eight-perfor-
mance run of Beowulf in September at the Dance Hall in Corryville as “a huge success, with the last two performances sold out because you can’t get this story anywhere else.”
“We’re booked at high schools, and we’re booked for speaking engagements. Classes at (the University of Cincinnati) have been structured around our season. We are serving a purpose here in Cincinnati, which is what every theater longs to do, as well as entertain.”
The Fahrenheit season continues with Twelfth Night, Nov. 25-Dec. 10 at Gabriel’s Corner; The Color Wheel, a world premiere, Feb. 16-March 11 at the Carnegie Theatre; and Julius Caesar, June 9-24 at Gabriel’s Corner.
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