contributing editors Mike Breen, Music; Dale Doerman, Onstage; Rick Pender, Onstage; Steve Ramos, Film
contributing writers Karen Amelia Arnett, Brian Baker, Maureen Bloomfield, Terry Brown, Elizabeth Carey, Jane Durrell, Jeff Hillard, Jon Hughes, John James, Billie Jeyes, Josh Katz, Jonathan Kamholtz, Michelle Kennedy, Brad King, Kim Krause, Craig Lovelace, Perin Mahler, Lori McClung, Susan Nuxoll, David Pescovitz, Jeremy Schlosberg, Althea Thompson,
listings
editorial
CilyBeaf
Burning
PRINTED
DailyBrecf
Environment “Backyard Naturalist” Karen Amelia Arnett explores the crystalline world of snow 12
UtterKiosk
Index to calendar listings 13
Music CityBeat’s Mike Breen talks with Catherine, a band that raises the chaos to a religious level 15
Music John “Positively” James has the scoop on releases 17
ClassifiedAds
How to submit an ad 31
Back Beat Answer CityBeat’s question of the week 32
Film Nelson George, screenwriter and author of Blackface, comments on the work of Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor and Sidney Poitier 18 Onstage Review of Frankenstein
Project’s 3 Twisted Farces 24
Art Three galleries take risks with new Russian artists 25
Starting Over: Flood-
prone Mill Creek (right) has been channelized and partially paved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over 12 years, but a new study may concrete in favor of more environmentally sures. News & Views, 5.
Heads Up: Art Academy staffer novel interpretation for our cover mental health care, Part Two of ill in Hamilton County. The illustrations introduce Gaffney’s work to CityBeat “Head Lines” begins next week.
The Straight Dope
BY CECIL ADAMS
strayed beneath the mistletoe, he or she is implicitly saying: Be grateful it’s only a kiss, babe. I could have killed you. Maybe not such an inappropriate custom for the ’90s after all.
here did the practice of kissing under the mistletoe arise? Mistletoe is a fungus, for God’s sake.
Love Among The Annelids
WolfDixie, Indianapolis
What’s your problem with funguses? Some of my best friends are funguses. Fungi. Whatever. Besides, mistletoe isn’t
About that business of worms mating “with the opposite sex” in a recent column. Surely you know that worms are one of the few truly bisexual critters about. They possess both male andfemale necessities for producing offspring. They are, however, sexually social animals, and only, er, selfmate when not around other worms.
Peter Read, Little Rock, Ark.
Gawd. But what the foo, we haven’t had an in-depth treatment of animal reproductive habits for months. Sure, worms are hermaphroditic, having both male and female organs. Not wanting to sensationalize this, I quote from the encyclopedia: “Two worms mate with their heads pointed in opposite directions.” The term we used to describe this practice among humans during my vulgar youth was, uh, 69. The equivalent among worms, I guess, is II. Or maybe (). Then again, maybe it should be < >, meaning: they’re kinky. Or []: they’re Egyptian. But getting back to business.
a fungus. It is a parasitic shrub, which, granted, is not a vast improvement statuswise. Your grasp of the facts notwithstanding, your unease about mistletoe is well founded. Mistletoe berries, for one thing, are poisonous, and some species can kill the trees that host them.
Even worse is the legend that supposedly accounts for our custom of kissing under the mistletoe at Christmas. In the version recounted by Edgar Nash in the Saturday Evening Post in 1898, the Scandinavian god Baldur told his mother Frigga tflat he had a premonition that he was going to die, whereupon Frigga extracted promises from eveiy animal, vegetable, and mineral that it would not harm her son. She overlooked only the inconsequential mistletoe, a fact that came to the unfortunate attention of Loki, the god of destruction. Loki promptly hustled over to where the other gods, obviously in desperate need of entertainment, were hurling spears and whatnot at Baldur for the fun of seeing them swerve aside without harming
“Both worms secrete mucus, covering each other with a ‘slime tube’.... Sperm are released and carried in grooves, now formed into tubes by the adjoining slimecovered worm, to the sperm receptacles of the partner. The worms then separate. Later (each worm) secretes a mucous ring, which slides forward over the worm’s body, gathering several eggs from the oviducts and sperm from the receptacles as it does. Fertilization takes place within the mucous ring, which slips off the front of the worm, closing at both ends to form a capsule,” from which one or two worms hatch a few weeks later. Reminds me of my first and only philosophical insight into the reproductive act, which came to me immediately following my first experience: sex is sticky. I didn’t know the half of it.
Is
Lewis Center
I picked up the Jan. 12 issue of CityBeat and immediately read Jeffrey Hillard’s superb story on the Lewis Center in Roselawn. I must say I have not read a piece of journalism in this city in months which comes close to Mr. Hillard’s sound reporting!
I think of how little genuine news we get about the Lewis Center. We get little real news, only the security problems and so on. This article goes one-up on the two dailies in terms of its depth and presentation of people in the center making a difference. This is the first time I’ve ever heard of them!
Last February a relative of mine spent some time in the Lewis Center. To make a long story short, the relative was treated and released and is now doing nicely or much better. The Lewis Center is a big reason for this. Mr. Hillard analyzes people like my relative nicely. Moreover, I never did buy all the media bullshit about the so-called dangerous AWOLs. His article is sensitive to human beings who populate the place.
I do not know how long Jeffrey Hillard has been living in this city and writing, but I hope this is not the last article of his 1 see. I am looking forward to reading these kinds of stories in future issues of CityBeat.
Robert A. Campbell, Delhi Township
Editor responds: Jeffrey Hillard is a professor of humanities at Mount St. Joseph College and has published several books of poetry. The second part of his series on Cincinnati’s mental health system is in this issue. It begins on Page 8. And rest assured that this will not be his last piece for CityBeat.
Dept, of Education
In the Jan. 5-11 issue of CityBeat, Daniel Brown, in his
article “Fine Arts Face to Face,” quotes Cincinnati Art Museum Director Barbara Gibbs as stating: “I just made a department...I think education is an equal partner with the curators. I don’t think education is subordinate to the museum’s curatorial aspects.”
This letter comes to point out that in 1922 an Education Department was established at the Cincinnati Ait Museum, and that in 1989, upon a restructuring to expand the Museum’s Department of Education staff and budget, the department head was given the title of “Curator of Education” for the exact reason that Ms. Gibbs notes.
Gretchen A. Mehring, Cincinnati
Editor’s note: Gretchen A. Mehring worked at the Cincinnati Art Museum from 1973 to 1994, most recently as assistant director.
Talking Back
Each week, Cincinnati CityBeat poses a question on its back page. Our staff selects the best responses to print the following week, with published responses meriting a CityBeat T-shirt. Here are some of the responses to last week’s question: What was/is the worst job you ever had?
ROBERT E. PRESCOTT: Cleaning toilets in a gas station when 1 was 9 years old.
RAY BOLLHAUER: Simply put: Scraping dead animals off the highway; it paid well, though.
ROBERT L. BRODDER: I was a Bricklayer in Needles, Calif. It was always very hot; the bricks were very heavy; and my boss was a real mortar forker.
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.
Heimlich’s Maneuver No Way To Handle Panhandling
BY ALISON TRANBARGER
Once again, Cincinnati City Council or one of its members has singled out panhandlers as the reason Queen Citians don’t come downtown.
Councilman Phil Heimlich, backed by Downtown Cincinnati Inc. (DCI), planned to introduce a new antipanhandling ordinance Thursday.
According to a Jan. 12 press release, the proposed ordinance will “restrict panhandling in downtown Cincinnati and neighborhood business districts to the fullest extent allowed by law.” In the same release, Dave Phillips, DCFs chief executive officer, said, “We aim to deter those individuals who hassle shoppers, workers and visitors through panhandling.”
Cincinnati has had quit-’yer-beggin’ laws before. In 1991, City Council repealed a no-panhandling ordinance when questions about the law’s freedomof-speech constitutionality were raised. In 1992, council hoped to comply with the U.S. Constitution by prohibiting only “aggressive” panhandling, but that law has been challenged in court for being too vague.
Then came Cincinnati Cares. The 1993 program encouraged people to deposit in bins at businesses their spare change, which was given to local social service agencies. In exchange, those caring individuals received cards to give to panhandlers; these cards listed agencies offering food and shelter. After three months, only $2,000 had been raised a laughable amount, considering the average panhandler makes $26 a day, according to a study done in Philadelphia. (Hmm, at $26 a day, a panhandler who worked 20 days a month taking weekends off would earn $1,560 in three months.)
No one talks about Cincinnati Cares anymore. Instead they’re talking about getting tough. Heimlich’s ordinance would prohibit asking for money:
From anyone entering or exiting a vehicle.
Within 10 feet of an automatic teller machine or parking meter.
Within 6 feet of the face of any building fronting the right-of-way in the central and neighborhood business districts.
After dark.
It also would prohibit sitting or lying down on public sidewalks or on a blanket, chair, stool or other object put on a sidewalk between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m. Honestly, is this really necessary?
Cincinnati is an important city, or a least it wants to be. It wants to keep its big-boy sports teams, build a way-cool simulation movie theater and bring Broadway to Seventh and Walnut. Downtown planners envision caches of chi-chi restaurants, scores of suburban shoppers and rows of rehabbed residences.
Sounds like Georgetown in the District of Columbia. But Georgetown has its share of panhandlers. So does
New York, Chicago or any major city.
Panhandlers are shrubs in the urban landscape. Occasionally, they snag passers-by or add color to the day. Mostly they are invisible, until they’re gone.
I was living in Washington, D.C., when Mikhail Gorbachev visited the United States. It was 1987. At that time, it seemed the Soviets criticized Americans at every turn for our vast homeless problem. Unlike in Cincinnati, panhandlers in D.C. were allowed to be aggressive and approach pedestrians for money. But people who lived and/or worked in the District learned to avoid eye contact, to say no, to move on. They gave if they wanted to, but most did not.
The week Gorbachev visited, all Hie panhandlers disappeared. At first, I didn’t notice. But after a day or two, I realized entrances to Metro stations were cleared. The old guy with the “War Veteran” sign whom I always wanted to take a sandwich and hot chocolate to, but never did was gone at the Foggy Bottom stop. Even Lafayette Park/had been cleared away.
After Gorby left, the panhandlers came back. I don’t know where they were housed for those few days, but D.C. felt less human to me when they were gone.
And that is the key. I think what bothers people most about panhandlers is that for an instant individuals are reminded that “there, but for the grace of God, go I.”
Instead of getting tougher on panhandling, why not retool the existing law to make it less vague? Certainly people have a right to not be hassled on their way to shop or work or recreate. Panhandlers, too, have the right to make a living the way they want to. If they don’t want to seek help from social service agencies, that’s their business. Many do not because they don’t want to, or can’t, follow the rules: no alcohol, no drugs, etc.
In truth, a large portion of panhandled funds goes to purchase drugs and alcohol. So it’s feasible Heimlich’s proposal could lead to more drug-related theft as drugaddicted panhandlers attempt to make up for the lost income. (We should take a poll: Which would deter shoppers from coming downtown the most, panhandlers or thieves?)
And then there is the matter of the police. Gifcss we’ll have to buy them tape measures to mark out 10 feet from buildings and 6 feet from ATMs and meters. But panhandlers aren’t dumb; they’ll get their own tape measures so they can stand 11 feet away, or 7 feet out. So officers will spend time measuring sidewalks.
Cincinnati City Councilman Phil Heimlich is promoting his proposed panhandling ordinance as one that offers a compassionate alternative for those in need.
The ordinance, which Heimlich planned to introduce Thursday to City Council, would come as close to outlawing begging as recent court decisions allow. It's part of an effort to curtail the activities of professional panhandlers, whom Heimlich and business leaders blame for intimidating shoppers and hindering downtown business. Downtown Cincinnati Inc. (DCI) also would launch a campaign to encourage downtown visitors and shoppers to give their spare change to Salvation Army collectors instead of panhandlers.
That.does not mean that funds the Salvation Army collects will be given to the professional panhandlers, the Salvation Army's Lt. Col. William Bamford said.
But, he said, “The Salvation Army is in cooperative dialogue with Downtown Cincinnati Inc. regarding services, including job development and training, to improve the situations of our poorest citizens, including beggars and panhandlers.”
If Salvation Army funds will not go directly to panhandlers who Heimlich and others want off the streets, what does involving the organization accomplish other than giving the ordinance a compassionate appearance?
Heimlich said his plan was not necessarily geared to help panhandlers who did not want to change their ways.
Instead, he said, the Salvation Army element is needed “to divert revenue from panhandlers who spend it on drugs and alcohol to the agencies that are truly meeting the needs of the homeless.”
NANCY FIROR
Library Parking vs. Lazarus Parking
As downtown development continues, the area’s potential parking shortage is butting heads with expansion projects such as the one proposed for the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County’s main branch.
Cars parking in city garages during 1994 were up 200,000 over 1993, and that number is expected to swell in 1996 when the new Lazarus store and IMAX 3-D theater complex arfe built on Fountain Square West.
John Schneider, chairman of Downtown Cincinnati Inc.’s transportation committee, said that as Cincinnati development moved north through downtown where much of the area’s surface parking is new parking spaces would have to be added.
The proposed expansion of the public library north of Ninth Street between Vine and Walnut streets is one place where the battle between development and parking is being waged.
The proposed library expansion has prompted criticism because it calls for 140,000 square feet of new space for the library and would eliminate an existing parking garage. The library’s development plan has proposed replacing some of the lost parking, said Amy Banister, head of publie relations for the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County.
The library should not have to take further steps, Schneider said.
Why is the loss of parking associated with library expansion prompting resistance when the parking to be lost on Fountain Square West because of Lazarus is not?
“You are comparing apples and oranges,” said Mark McKillip, supervising development officer in the city’s economic development department. The city owns Fountain Square West, and if the businesses and city need to increase parking for everyone, the money would be, in part, public funds, he said.
The library is not a city project and is being asked to replace the spaces they’re removing during its expansion, he said.
BRAD KING
BURNING QUESTIONS is our weekly attempt to afflict the comfortable.
An Alternative Look at How and Why It Happened
Flip-Flop on Flood Control?
Regional
U.S. Army Corps ofEngineer officials want to reevaluate
12 years ofMill Creek work from the beginning
BY NANCY FIROR
Regional U.S. Army Corps of Engineer officials have done an about face on the Mill Creek flood-control project.
After completing about half of the 17.4-mile channel improvement project, which included straightening and paving parts of the creek, the corps halted the project in 1993 and called for a “project termination” study.
Now, corps officials in Cincinnati and Louisville are recommending a $2.4 million reevaluation study instead. The study not yet approved by corps officials in Washington D.C. might show a need to tear out or alter some of the work that already has been done.
“We’re not predisposed on anything,” said Ken Crawford, public affairs officer for the corps in Louisville. “We’re going back to where we were about 15 years ago.... We want to look at the whole project again from the beginning.”
Initial corps approval is good news to volunteers, environmentalists and officials who have worked to keep the project going in a way they believe will be better for the environment. The proposed study would explore flood-control options that include solutions deemed “environmentally sensitive” and explore the creation of recreational and greenway areas.
Conducting the reevaluation will mean that “if (the Mill Creek project) continues, it will be finished, and it will be finished under a different set of guidelines,” said Jerald Robertson, chairman of the Mill Creek Watershed Steering Committee, which worked with the corps in developing the study and last month asked corps officials to approve it.
The original flood-control project designed to protect the creek corridor from a 100-year flood spanned from Barrier Dam near the Ohio River north to Interstate 275. Work was suspended in 1993 after pro-' jected costs escalated to $341 million from an initial estimate of $42 million.
Approval of the reevaluation study and continued work on flood control is needed to head off problems an unfinished project will pose, said Robertson, whose steering committee was formed by the Hamilton County Environmental Action Commission.
That different set of guidelines, Robertson said, would help restore the corridor’s ecosystem and help lessen the impact of work done so far that has left areas of the creek such as a portion at Mitchell Avenue near Interstate 75 appearing to be nothing more than a “concrete ditch.”
Support from regional corps officials is a dramatic shift in the corps’ past attitudes and a major step toward correcting the Mill Creek’s problems, said Robin
Corathers, executive director of the Rivers Unlimited Mill Creek Restoration Project, a non-profit organization formed to provide environmental education forcertain students in the watershed and provide leadership in the restoration of the creek’s ecosystem.
The termination study the corps initially planned would be nothing more than “a narrow study to justify walking away,” Corathers said.
Members of the steering committee met Dec. 2 with Maj. Gen. Albert Genetti, the corps’ regional division head, to request that the corps replace its plan for a project termination study with the reevaluation study. Genetti has since recommended approval of the reevaluation, which has been forwarded for a final decision to corps officials in Washington.
According to a copy of the proposed reevaluation obtained by CityBeat, the study would include:
An evaluation of work that has been done and whether any changes should be made in that work to prevent future problems, though “when you look at the cost... I don’t think removing any work done is going to be on a large scale,” Crawford said.
An evaluation of the entire Mill Creek corridor designed to gauge flood-control needs and alternate flood-control methods, including channel widening, realignment, levees, non-structural solutions, restoration of flood plain storage and detention basins.
The study of a recreation/greenway plan for both completed and uncompleted sections of the project to include trails, greenways, parks and a picnic area.
An environmental impact statement, including fish and wildlife studies, that examines the potential environmental and socioeconomic impact of proposed work.
An analysis of and ways to remedy hazardous and toxic waste problems based on available testing results, points where sewer lines cross the creek and points
CONTINUES ON PAGE 6
The Mill Creek flows beneath the Ludlow Viaduct
MILL CREEK:
where sewage overflows from the public sewer system during times of heavy rainfall.
If approved, Crawford said, the study simply would be the first step in determining what future work was needed and feasible. As was the case when a termination study proposed to determine the consequences of permanently halting the project was being considered, corps officials have not made up their minds in advance about what action might result from a reevaluation, he said.
Most of the flood-control work completed to date has been south of Elmwood Place, though there has been some work done in a section that runs through Sharonville. Concrete paving has been used in sections that run through the industrial area in Saint Bernard and Cincinnati.
To .fund the reevaluation, Crawford said, the corps would be relying upon federal funds and $55,000 from the Millcreek Valley Conservancy District. The study also relies on services worth $511,000 which have been promised by the City of Cincinnati, other local governments along the Mill Creek and volunteers organized by the steering committee, he said.
“We’re going to look at all the alternatives, then evaluate resources and costs and see what’s possible,” Crawford said.
At least one hurdle for future improvements already has been identifled, he said.
FROM PAGE 5
The corps’ work hit a snag in 1990 when engineers reported that a section of the creek from Gest Street to the Western Hills Viaduct was contaminated with pollutants that ranged from human waste to cancer-causing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).
Environmental restoration funds used by the corps can be spent only on cleanup at an active corps facility or a former defense site, Crawford said.
Richard Mendes, Cincinnati’s deputy city manager, said that a study done by a consultant for the owners of the contaminated section the city and CSX Railroad showed that contamination was not as extensive as originally thought. But, he said, further study still was needed.
In addition, he said, the reevaluation study is needed to provide the best environmental solutions for concluding the overall, unfinished Mill Crepk project.
Despite past financial problems, James Johns, chief engineer and board secretary for the Millcreek Valley Conservancy District, said that because of the number of officials and volunteers who had come together to support the reevaluation study he was confident that funds for continued work could be found if it was decided that flood-control work should go forward.
Anumber of Cincinnati businesses might be ignoring a federal law that is getting more attention as Atlanta prepares to host the 1996 Summer Olympic Games.
By using the word “Olympic” in their business names, these taxpaying, otherwise law-abiding business owners technically are in violation of the Amateur Sports Act of 1978. They could face a civil lawsuit by the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) should the USOC decide to take issue.
In the Tristate, that means owners of a carwash, restaurant, parking lot service, cellular telephone company, dental lab, flooring distributor, garage, tax service, moving company, steel firm and health equipment company might want to start looking over their shoulders.
“I addressed it about 10 years ago,” said Jim Janssen, who owns Olympic Health Equipment in North College Hill. “The Olympic Committee wrote me a letter, and my attorney wrote them back telling them what they could do.”
Janssen and others think the issue is trivial. But USOC officials in Colorado Springs, Colo., disagree.
“As clumsy as it may appear, we are not embarrassed,” said Mike Moran, the USOC’s director of public relations. “It’s the way we raise our money.”
The USOC relies on private donations and funds raised through sponsorships, Moran said, and takes seriously those
who attempt to profit off the Olympics by circumventing the federal law, which was designed to offer restricted use of the Olympic name and identifying symbols to sponsors who pay fees to help field U.S. teams. It applies retroactively to any business established after 1950.
In Janssen’s case, he was using the Olympic logo and rings in his advertising. He agreed to drop the symbols but not the company name. The USOC usually tries to agree on such a compromise, Moran said. But sometimes the committee will sue, as it did about 16 months ago in Savannah, Ga.
In that case, he said, the owners of a Greek restaurant, the Olympic Cafe, changed its name and paid attorneys’ fees for the committee after the USOC claimed the restaurant was profiting filegaily from the Olympic name.
Most businesses that come under scrutiny have been turned in by people in the community or by trademark attorneys familiar with the law, Moran said. There also are companies, such as Columbus-based Wendy’s International, which do not violate the law even though they present an image of sponsoring Olympic athletes when “they don’t give a dime,” Moran said.
The members of the United States Olympic Fencing team will be announced in Cincinnati in June 1996. Cincinnati is the site for the last of 20 fencing events that will determine which three people will represent the United States in the 1996 Summer Olympics.
Because the week-long event is worth double the amount of points from previous years, it is likely that the final team lineup will be named in Cincinnati, said Selden Fritschner, executive director of
the U.S. Olympic Fencing Association. “This way we make them have to fight and fight hard through the last event,” Fritschner said from his Colorado Springs, Colo., office.
The U.S. Fencing National Championships has been tentatively set for June 2-10 at the Albert B. Sabin Convention Center. Cincinnati was one of seven cities that bid to host the championships.
LORI MCCLUNG
New Funding Ideas for the Arts
Link arts with education, international affairs to create more funding, less interference
ESSAY BY DANIEL BROWN
Anew Congress has convened, and, once again, the survival of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is at stake.
Perhaps it’s finally time to look at how the arts could get more money, not less.
Mutual agreement is evolving among corporate and cultural leaders concerning the necessity for a differently educated, more liberal arts-oriented, work force. The MBA days are mostly over, as corporate leaders recognize the need for a broaderbased general education and a balanced view of life. Education is the key to America’s future.
back their rights, consistent with current debates in Congress regarding unfunded mandates. Directors of state councils should be appointed by governors, serving as cabinet members or groups of advisors, linking arts and humanities with the broader concerns of education.
Putting It Together
It’s time, then, to reassess restructure, I’d propose the roles of culture in American life. The NEA and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) are due for overhauls, changes, redefinition of their missions in American life.
A restructured Department of Education should integrate botli the NEA and the NEH, thus preventing the arts and humanities from being separated from education generically. Overspecialization and fragmentation of subject matter might cease as a result. Other areas of arts and culture should be placed within the State Department, where cultural exchange programs could be proposed with other departments for overseas embassies.
A new Department of Education would fund operating expenses for all major American visual and performing arts organizations, libraries, historical societies and the like. Individual programming would be funded by corporations, individual patrons and private foundations only. Since operating expenses for theaters, museums and symphony halls are terribly high and difficult to fund, these institutions would be guaranteed such financial backing. Peer panels would include accountants, business leaders and lawyers, for example, to ensure proper fiscal procedures.
No federal or taxpayer dollars would be allocated for programming, finally removing artistic content from public scrutiny and debate. Operating expenses guaranteed, America’s great cultural institutions would be free to pursue programming as they please. If they can’t find funding, they’d have to reassess what they show or perform; whether programs are “liberal” or “conservative” would not matter once the taxpayers pick and choose what they want.
The roles of states’ arts and humanities councils would also change as part of the ongoing process of states taking
Individual artists would receive state or local money in return for providing residencies in public schools and universities. States’ arts councils could form a kind of Projects Pool, modeled on Cincinnati’s own Fine Arts Fund, to assist with funding smaller groups. Such grants would be large enough to subsidize an artist for one year, partially solving the crisis in public school arts programs. Private schools can pay for their own artistsin-residence.
American embassies around the world usually have a cultural attache as part of the ambassadorial team. Mechanisms can be created through the departments of State and Education (as revised and restructured) to select individual artists to serve as informal ambassadors and artists-in-residence at American embassies abroad.
Cultural exchange programs have long been utilized, to open communications between cultures and countries, but the individual contact from artist to artist could provide that human, oneon-one element so sorely needed in this pluralist/multicultural/nationalist world. Human contact could also provide the key to some mutual understanding: All the arts are, in a sense, an international or transnational language. America’s multicultural society reflects many of the world’s cultures.
The arts can play a much broader, not narrower, role in our evolving world; artists must use their own creativity to help bring about such changes. The NEA, NEH and state arts councils have become entitlement grants: Too much art seems made just for grants. The issues, in the last analysis, aren’t only about funding they’re mostly about education and communication through human contact.
This arts-as-education concept could provide a healing and communicating role for government, business and culture through individual contact with visual and performing artists.
*T HE DAVID ENRIGHT WILL START BOTH NIGHTS WITH A VERY SPECIAL SET
THURSDAY 6PM it really starts this early!
Sponsored in part by
Hamilton County’s mental health programs make great strides in treating the mind and the soul
STORY BY JEFFREY HILLARD
ILLUSTRATION BY
GARY GAFFNEY
Part II: Treating the mentally ill in Hamilton County
Last Week: The Lewis Center tries to mendfences after months ofsecurity problems and stressful relations with neighboring communities
Client X once inhabited the bleak world of a mental illness that’s familiar territory to many people.
The illness schizophrenia triggered a spectrum of other problems: a difficulty with the rigors of daily living, an inability to cope in the workplace and a lack of response to medication, to name a few. Yet this individual, as with others facing similar conditions, has gradually become a success story, a model of progress.
Client X was treated for an extended time at the Pauline Warfield Lewis Center in Roselawn with the revolutionary, anti-psychotic drug Clozapine, branded by mental health experts as “the Rip Van Winkle drug” because it can induce an enlightening, active behavior pattern in severely mentally ill persons unresponsive to other drugs. Often, the drug paves the way for a mixture of medical and behavioral treatment.
A team of psychiatric and social workers at the Lewis Center judged Client X ready for release. Following protocol, the center assigned the client to a community case management provider service which, in turn, arranged for a case manager to oversee the client’s progress. These days Client X is living in an apartment, working a job and continuing with medication.
This story is a small portrait of an era of growth and improvement in treatment of the mentally ill in Hamilton County and across the nation. It also underscores why mental health experts spurn the word “patient,” which implies confinement, and prefer the term “client.”
Those experts point to the late 1980s and early ’90s as a turning point in the way mental health treatment is practitioned, from state mental hospitals like the Lewis Center and local treatment centers to group homes and transitional living programs.
“The goal is to erase any notion of ‘dumping’ the mentally ill into society without a plan,” says Ron Arundel], associate professor of Behavioral Sciences at the College of Mount St. Joseph. “It’s integrating
19-25,
that person with real treatment and He cautions that risks are always client is to be properly placed in a even back into society especially chronic condition such as schizophrenia.
“Let’s say someone in treatment people the same age who are normal,” better prepare the person for that that person into society may very
He says an old, undeserving stigma mentally 01 individuals: that the public they’re kept out of sight.
Clozapine drug treatment, he says, and may also benefit from other experimental drugs now being tested. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is currently reviewing nearly 20 new drugs with a potential equal to or greater than Clozapine, Wilson says.
The population of mentally ill persons in Hamilton County is consistent with that of other metropolitan areas its size across the country, says Bill Coombe, public affairs coordinator of the Hamilton County Community Mental Health Board. “But when you think depression a common mental illness you’ve got tens of thousands affected right here.”
The National Institute of Mental Health has studied geographic areas, including Hamilton County, to better grasp the population breakdown of those suffering mental illness. “Cincinnati
CoverStory
tends to be typical of the average American city in these studies,” says Mary Fleming, mental health board executive director. “But there are still people who need treatment and aren’t getting it. We need to reach them.”
Hamilton County will spend $51.6 million in fiscal year 1994-95 for mental health services. In 1994, 17,390 county residents received some form of client-to-specialist treatment for a mental illness ranging from routine therapy to substance abuse programs. Nearly 2,000 children were treated. An average of 100,000 persons per year inquire about being treated or counseled through local mental health board funding. This number includes about 20,000-25,000 calls to the 281-CARE Crisis Hotline; University Hospital’s Psychiatric Emergency Services unit receives more than 10,000 visits a year.
Fleming Connects With the Community
The diverse population of Hamilton County’s mentally ill may have its most tireless voice and most influential advocate in Mary Fleming, executive director of the Hamilton County Community Mental Health Board.
In 1995, if she can persuade the publie to view the mentally ill in a more optimistic light, Fleming could well be the catalyst in keeping this region at the forefront of innovative mental health care.
The mental health board is in the planning stages of campaigning for a November tax levy to sustain programs underway and add even better ones.
Local mental health care is at a critical juncture, Fleming says. Workers are dealing with a burgeoning clientele of the mentally ill, many of whom are being suecessfully integrated into the community.
At the same time, though, there’s a demand for more sophisticated programs which officials are wary of pursuing until they can better educate the public as to who exactly a mentally ill person is and how these programs can benefit such a person.
The county board must first determine what it will cost to keep current programs alive, Fleming adds, as well as to implement more creative ones such as those running at Talbert House, Tender Mercies, West By Northwest and others.
“We're talking about clients in programs who are family members, a neighbor, children and adults, suburban and inner-city residents, the homeless or substance abuser who is mentally ill," she says. "The dynamics of who’s treated are mindboggling." Hamilton County already has a national reputation for its major advancements in caring for the mentally ill. Historically, it’s regarded by professionals in the field as an innovator in community programs and individualized treatment.
“Colleagues of mine around the country always point to Cincinnati's terrific treatment programs," says Dr. Randy Hillard, chairperson of Psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati. “This city is near the top in its medical and psychiatric offerings.” Cincinnati was recognized in 1987 for such endeavors when it was awarded a $1.4 million Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant based on a proposal to expand and upgrade job training and placement of mentally ill individuals. Only nine cities across the county received the grant.
Before it determines any levy amount, Fleming says, the mental health board is surveying Hamilton County residents to see what they know about treatment programs and what they expect these areas to do. “We'll get expectations first,” she says, “and then deal with numbers.”
Fleming says she thinks the board is connecting with the local community. Its future course is to work collaboratively with city agencies.and programs, she says, to improve the mentally ill person’s job and living arrangements. This year the board will ask Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority for more assistance in getting housing for the mentally ill.
“The housing authority serves a similar disenfranchised population, so why not use it?” Fleming says. “We need to connect.”
JEFFREY HILLARD
The mental health board has responded- as it should in advocating new approaches to treating an ever-increasing number of mentally ill people, Coombe says. The wisest approach, in his view, was the board’s forming the Comprehensive Care Management Providers (CCMP) system in 1990.
Four lead agencies make up CCMP: Central Psychiatric Clinic/West By Northwest; Cincinnati Restoration Inc.; Queen City Case Management; and Central Community Health Board. The agencies plan and coordinate all services for the county’s mentally ill, from assigning case managers to offering treatment programs.
“There aren’t so many walls between community programs now,” Coombe says. “There’s better communication between workers in different parts of the county, more awareness of clients’ needs. This translates into improved treatment.”
If a client’s condition necessitates a change in treatment, it is protocol for his current service provider to contact another provider before the change is made. Still, the client must give final consent to any change in treatment.
There are 60 treatment sites for the mentally ill in Hamilton County: private hospitals; the Lewis Center; facilities co-funded by the county such as psychiatric units at University, Christ and Jewish hospitals; and specialized housing such as Talbert House and Tender Mercies. Thirty-eight of the sites are privately funded, although the mental health board contracts with each to ensure that clients are appropriately matched with one of the four CCMP lead agencies as they pursue individualized treatment.
West By Northwest
At least a decade ago, Kathy Walzer envisioned that big changes would reshape care for Cincinnati’s mentally ill.
Walzer worked for 20 years as an oncology nurse and then served for two and a half years on the Hamilton County Mental Health Board. She now directs Community Support Services at West By Northwest, a private, multi-service treatment facility for the mentally ill located in College Hill.
The guiding philosophy for Walzer and her colleagues, she explains, is that most mental illness is treatable. “Change hasn’t been wasteful either,” she says. “Better ways of bringing treatment into the field always come first in our minds. Mental illness is not a character defect. It’s not misbehavior. This is often tough (for the public) to comprehend.”
While on the mental health board, Walzer spearheaded a grant-writing campaign that, in 1987, resulted in the county being awarded a prestigious, five-year Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant. The $1.4 million award spawned a new generation of local innovative treatment programs.
“Without the grant, some programs would not have sprouted the way they have,” Walzer says. “And then it’s anyone’s guess as to where many mentally ill
people might be now.”
The future of mental health care in the United States was pioneered during the John F. Kennedy administration, she says, when a federal law was passed requiring regions in all states to establish a set number of community mental health service centers.
“This set the stage for today,” Walzer says. “The roots of why so many programs are able to get clients ready for a life in the community go back to that law. It’s taken a while to get here, but I’m not surprised at the progress made in the ’90s.”
West By Northwest’s roster reached 1,000 clients last year on either an outpatient or temporary resident basis. Each client is assigned to one of 30 case managers the facility provides, and all outpatient clients are placed in group homes.
The facility provides an outpatient counseling division, adolescent substance abuse program, temporary hospitalization (in an outpatient capacity) and a temporary respite center with 14 beds and the capacity to house clients up to three weeks.
Like the other CCMP lead agencies, West By Northwest places its clients in programs or housing best suited to their conditions. Clients are “stringently evaluated” before they’re assigned to any program or facility, Walzer says, whether the client stays at West By Northwest or goes elsewhere.
“Occasionally we may see that client again (if) he or she didn’t exactly make it.”
Tender Mercies
In the bustling, small lobby of Tender Mercies, two clients play checkers near the front door while a few others huddle around Becky Montag, program director of the treatment agency.
They share bits of gossip as Montag checks her schedule. Straightening a sofa cushion and scanning the lobby, she gives one the impression she’s in control, detailed, not easily flustered. She says she’s used to the intensity level that
Kathy Walzer, director of Community Support Services, West By Northwest
Mary Fleming, executive director, Hamilton County Community Mental Health Board
comes with serving her focused population of clients.
Tender Mercies Inc. is located at 28 West 12th St. on the edge of Over-theRhine. It offers permanent and transitional housing and related services for homeless, mentally ill clients. The agency has grown considerably since its origin 10 years ago, when two priests found such a service lacking in the inner city. After two mentally ill women were murdered, the priests founded Tender Mercies as part of their mission of community service.
“But we’ve reached a sort of comfort level where we don’t expect, or want, to grow much more,” Montag says. “Everyone knows each other here, and we watch out for one another. We don’t want to lose that communal feeling.”
Tender Mercies’ three divisions are spread out over several buildings. The Dana Hotel, owned by the county mental health board, houses 40 chronically mentally ill clients who require case managers. Clients in Permanent Housing, who do not require a case manager, stay in four other buildings. Clients in Transitional Living have a case manager and are allowed to stay in the program a maximum of 18 months.
Montag and her staff of seven workers instruct clients in “life’s domains,” she explains. They help clients improve personal hygiene and coordinate leisure time while offering spiritual reflection. The staff also tutors many clients in their quest for a General Equivalency Diploma.
A total of 140 clients are served on a 24-hours basis by a rotating staff of 45 workers. One case manager is dedicated full-time to inspecting local homeless shelters and soup kitchens for prospective clients who may be in need of care.
A veteran of 25 years as a social worker, Montag says the last five years have seen a dramatic change in the procedure of understanding and reacting to a client’s behavior. “Training and awareness has gotten so much better. Workers are much more adept at understanding behavior.”
She’s candid, though, about working with those who bare psychotic behavior: “Listen, we tolerate a lot of wild behavior here. It gets crazy, literally. But this is where my heart is."
Talbert House
The recent, tragic suicide of a local high school student compelled school officials to call upon the Talbert House for joint group and individual counseling. The event’s urgency and impact on other students became the focal point of a mobile crisis management team that spent several days at the school.
The call was placed through the Talbert Center’s Crisis Intervention Hotline at 281-CARE, one of its four major community-oriented programs.
The hot line is Hamilton County’s most widely used link between a counseling agent and an individual or group seeking mental health services, says Neil Tilow, president of Talbert House, and his facility oversees the entire system.
Known largely as a treatment center for drug and alcohol abusers including DUI offenders and voluntary adult and juvenile clients Talbert House is much more. Crisis Intervention now covers three distinct areas: immediate counseling through 281-CARE; scheduled consultation on an outpatient basis; and, as in the school crisis, a mobile team of professional social workers.
Tilow believes, too, that Talbert House’s other programs will gain more prominence in the next few years.
One is SAMI (Substance Abusers who are Mentally Ill), which offers residential occupancy for the severely mentally ill, a day treatment program attended by nearly 40 clients each day and outpatient case management which provides 12 to 15 case managers for about 200 clients.
Another is COPE (Community Outreach Prevention and Education), which teaches social workers and client families newer ways to confront situations where mental illnesses surface.
“Children’s Training,” Tilow says, shows professionals efficient methods of identifying symptoms in children. “Childreach” is a combination of day-care treatment for children up to 5 years old and outreach service to teachers who learn to identify the needs of children experiencing mental illness.
Talbert House’s newest ifiilestone, Tilow says, is the Victim Service Center, which represents the “necessary leap” into the community. Its sole mission, he says, is to counsel victims of violent crime, a segment of the population more and more overlooked and undertreated.
The future of mental health care, these local experts suggest, is nothing less than an ongoing experiment of the truly moral kind. From medical innovations to sociological improvements, the ground upon which care is spread is seemingly endless so long as opportunities continue to present themselves the way they have in recent years.
Imagine this: a Sunday morning dawns on a snow-covered Cincinnati. The newly fallen white blanket sparkles on the trees, the cars, the rooftops. Swaddled in a natural sound absorber, the cityscape is hushed. There’s no need to rush to work, so you can enjoy the snow rather than curse it. Savor it coating the street, softening the heavy footprints of human intervention.
You’ve heard that bit of popular wisdom that no two snowflakes are alike; taking this as a challenge, you get out your field guide, a magnifying glass, pull on your mukluks and go exploring. Here’s a primer
Grueling Experience
Former congressman and orphanage official Ted Strickland comments on ‘Contract With America' plan to reduce welfare costs
Q & A BV ELIZABETH
CAREY
m w &
A crystal of snow begins with a microscopic speck that has found itself in a cloud. It might be a particle of clay, residue from the exhaust of a car, or a shard of ice. In subfreezing temperatures, water vapor deposits itself, molecule by molecule, as ice around this foreign nucleus. Growth is slow: It's estimated that the crystal needs half an hour to reach 1 millimeter in diameter.
Two hydrogens around an oxygen in the water molecule lead to a hexagonal snow crystal. Beyond that, snow may take on a stunning variety of shapes, influenced by temperature and humidity as it grows.
We’ve all heard that Eskimos have dozens of names for different types of snow; meteorologists have accepted seven main categories to describe falling snow crystals, although a more recent proposal includes 80 classes. (Those crystals are crying out “We’re unique!”)
There are thin needles. Columns, hollow or solid, are r\ like minute prisms. There are. "spatial dendrites,” globby crystals with fernlike arms skewed in all directions. There are plates, hexagonal forms inscribed with intricate patterns. Capped columns are prisms with plates stuck on each end. There are stellars, the most ornate of all. These deeply filigreed and lacy star-shaped crystals are what dance in our mind’s eye when we think of snowflakes.
Occasionally two will stick one atop the other to give the appearance of a 12-rayed star.
A science as systematic and thorough as to categorize snowflakes is certain to have the occasional unruly subject. The feathery stellars break up easily in buffeting winds and sometimes regrow in odd shapes; hence, a category of (what else?) irregular.
Water has the amazing ability to remain in liquid form at temperatures well below its freezing point, so that clouds may be composed of a mix of ice and “supercooled” droplets. These droplets are content to remain in their spherical dimensions until they come into contact with some solid object, and then presto, they turn to ice. That object may be an airplane wing flying through the cloud, or it may be a snow crystal. In its descent, a snow crystal may bump into numerous minute cloud droplets, each only l/10th to l/100th of a millimeter in diameter, which freeze onto the crystal. If the crystal collects enough of this “rime” ice, as in a quickly developing snow shower, the snow may fall as pellets. Meteorologists call this “graupel."
When it's relatively warm near the ground, 23 to 32 degrees Fahrenheit, snow acts sticky, clumping together, making for the perfect snowball. Then the snow falls in big flakes, and hangs on every branch and telephone line. Look closely at a big snowflake and you’ll see dozens of ornate stellars joined at the tips. In really cold temperatures, the snow is more likely to be individual sparkling prisms or columns, glittering in the air as they drift separately earthward.
Snow crystals are best viewed while fresh. As they sit, the fragile crystals begin to self-destruct and work their way toward spherical shapes. The delicate branches of the stellars break up and pull themselves into rounded grains. The snow cover sinks. There is a granular quality to old snow, and it can be very strong. Quite a difference from the fluff of which 20 inches is the equivalent of 1 inch of rain!
A miniature world of beauty awaits if you are willing to take a close look. A Field Guide to Snow Crystals, by Edward R. LaChapelle, can be a handy companion. So gather ye snowflakes while ye may. Enjoy!
Commercial pilot KAREN AMELIA ARNETT was a U.S. Air Force meteorologist for five years.
As part of its “Contract With America,” the Republican Party promised the American peopie it would reform the welfare system to reduce the budget. Part of that plan is to reduce welfare benefits to unwed mothers and instead place their children in orphanages.
Before his election to office in 1992, former Sixth District Rep. Ted Strickland (D-Ohio) worked at the Versailles Methodist Home, a live-in facility funded by the church. Between 1966 and 1975, Strickland held various positions at the home, most notably as assistant superintendent. Strickland, a clinical psychologist, also has served as assistant professor of psychology at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth and as counselor to prisoners at Lucasville Correctional Facility. CityBeat asked him to comment on his views of this aspect of the Contract with America.
CB: What are your views on the plan to reduce welfare benefits to unwed mothers and place their children in orphanages?
Strickland: First, I think there’s a misuse of language here by (House Speaker Newt) Gingrich. As I understand it, orphanages are facilities where children without parents are cared for. I think he is referring to group homes, or residential care facilities, where children are likely to have living parents. The Methodist Home was a children’s home with some orphans, but most children had one or both living parents.
There are others that did not do well and continue to live dysfunctional lives. Those that did succeed were given opportunities. Those that had the ability to attend college were able to go through assistance from the church. There were advantages that were available at the Methodist Home that would not be available in publie institutions. The children were treated as individuals and given whatever resources were available. It would be almost impossible for the same kind of flexibility and allocation of resources to exist in a state-run institution.
I’m not saying that children should not stay in group homes. It may be of benefit to them, for a brief period, to stay in a group-home setting. When a child is being abused or mistreated, it is in their interest in being removed from that environment.
(Putting poor children in orphanages) is so unacceptable, as to be almost beyond rational thought, to think that in this day and age that we would consider that kind of governmental interference in a family.
As I understand it, the federal government will make certain decisions regarding welfare programs, reduce those benefits and collapse the money into block grants. Those block grants would be given to the states. Among the options which the states can use the money for are orphanages.
One of the places where they hope to get money for these programs is by refusing money to unmarried women under age 18, with some states opting as high as 21. They would no longer get cash benefits those supposed savings could be used to create these homes.
I object to what they are saying from a lot of viewpoints. Currently, if the child is being mistreated or abused, they can be removed and placed in an alternative setting. To my knowledge, no state which currently reserves the right to remove children from their parents can choose to do so because they are poor.
CB: How does a real-life group home, such as the Methodist Home, compare to the image of the orphanage in the movie Boys Town.
Strickland: Well, I think historically the experiences that we’ve had rearing children in institutions has been very uneven. Some of the children that lived at the Methodist Home are doctors, attorneys and engineers.
As I understand what Mr. Gingrich is suggesting is that children who do not have these kinds of problems be put in these settings. He suggests that women who do not have the means to support these children, to put food on the table, to provide for the children, may lose custody of the child, and find them placed in institutions.
That is so unacceptable, as to be almost beyond rational thought, to think that in this day and age that we would consider that kind of governmental interference in a family.
CB: What effect does institutional living have on children?
Strickland: Children who are reared in institutional settings frequently have greater difficulties in developing trusting relationships, more likely to be emotionally aloof or detached. They frequently find themselves in situations where they find they have to compete for adult attention. They have a very significant disadvantage. It’s very difficult for a child in an institutional setting to receive the personal attention they need, the attention that they are likely to get in a family setting.
CB: What would be the economic ramifications of this plan?
Strickland: I don’t know what the average costs would be to maintain a child in an institution. I’ve read some estimates that put the cost over $30,000 per year. Certainly this would be multiple times more costly than the meager benefits available in most states. When you take into consideration programming, staffing and facility management, we’re going to find that it is incredibly expensive.
CB: In looking at the plan as proposed, does it strike you that it seems to attack women?
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Please include a contact name and daytime phone number.
Sungarden Lounge at the Hyatt Regency, 151 West Fifth St., Downtown. $5. 579-1234.
KENNY BROWN Jazz piano. 8 p.m. Saturday. Dayton Art Institute’s Renaissance Auditorium, Forest and Riverview avenues, Dayton, Ohio. $15.513- 223-3655.
SOUTHERN OHIO JAZZ ALLSTARS Jazz. 8 p.m. Saturday. The Manchester Inn, 1027 Manchester Ave., Middletown. $10,. or four tickets for $30. 721-1000.
GILBY CLARKE Rock guitarist. 7 p.m. Monday. Bogart’s, 2621 Vine St., Clifton. $7/$8 day of show. 281-8400.
JESSE HUNTER Country. 7 p.m. Wednesday. Coyote’s, 400 Buttermilk Pike, Fort Mitchell. $3. 341-5150 or 721-1000.
★ SOUNDS OF CINCINNATI
SHOWCASE This two-day event (Wednesday and Jan. 26) showcases the best, new Alternative bands in Cincy.
Not Just an Entertainment Calendar... A State of Mind
This Week’s Theme: Global vision
A little more than two years ago, Maya Angelou mesmerized millions during the bright, cold Inaugural morning. Don’t miss the charismatic poet and author, who is known the WORLD over, as she makes her way to NKU. (See Upcoming listings.)
INTERNATIONAL artists are high on the Queen City’s venue. For example, the Malton Gallery is housing Foreign Exchange, which features the etchings of Sweitlan Krazynam, a POLISH/RUSSIAN-born artist working now in FLORENCE, ITALY, and many other artists. (See Art listings.) What child doesn’t enjoy pounding on things? The Children’s Museum has an interactive area, and on Friday the young ones can drum along with the wonderful Drums of AFRICA. (See Attractions.) Exposure to intricate tunes might increase the circulation when Jingond Cai conducts a selection of CHINESE favorites including music by Taoist composer Ah-Bing the Blind at Memorial Hall. The CSO will be joined by lute player Ming Ke and violinist Siqing Lu. (See Onstage.) Max Steele, award-winning author and adviser to the Paris Review, will read from his works and give an informal lecture at UC. (See Literary.)
SILVER ARM Celtic. 8 p.m. Friday. Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Rookwood Pavilion, Madison and Edwards roads, Norwood. 396-8960.
BRIAN EWING Alternative Folk. 8 p.m. Saturday. Blue Mountain Coffee Co., 3181 Linwood Ave., Mount Lookout. 871-8626.
WINTON JAZZ ENSEMBLE Jazz. 8 p.m. Saturday. Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Rookwood Pavilion, Madison and Edwards roads, Norwood. 396-8960.
JASON PARSLEY, ROBIN ROLAND AND CINCINNATI
DANCING PIGS Folk. 7 p.m. Sunday. At The Leo in the University YMCA, 270 Calhoun St., Clifton. 321-8357 or 829-8360.
Wednesday’s lineup features Moth, Tommyhaus, Charleston Entry, Crambone, Hogscraper, Beel Jak, Ditchweed, Schwah and Sound
THURSDAY JAN. 19
BIG EYES Cheap Trick favorites. Sudsy Malone’s. Cover. THE BLUE BIRDS Blues. Shady O’Grady’s Pub. Cover.
BLUE LOU AND THE ACCUSATIONS Blues. Burbank’s Forest Fair. Free.
CALLAHAN Acoustic. Local 1207. Cover.
Eclectic. Mt. Adams Pavilion. Cover.
WHISKY Rock. Club A. Cover. POSITIVE REACTION Reggae Club Gotham. Cover. THE REMOTES Rock favorites. Jim and Jack’s. Cover. SNOWSHOE CRABS Alternative Rock favorites. Salamone’s. Cover. SONNY AND THE DOGS Blues. Burbank’s Eastgate. Free. MORE, PAGE 14
DAVE NUTT Acoustic guitar. Foley’s Pub. Free. FOREHEAD AND FESTIVE SKELETONS Alternative favorites. Blue Note Cafe. Cover. FRANK POWERS TRIO Eclectic. Arnold’s. Free. GOSHORN BROS. Classic Rock. Tommy’s. Cover. HARAMBE Reggae. Ozzie’s. Cover. IVORY’S OPEN HOUSE Jazz. Ivory’s. Free. JOHNNY SCHOTT WITH AIN’T HELEN AND DAVID SCHAFER Open mike. Courtyard Cafe. Free. KEVIN TOHLE Rock favorites. Zipper’s. Cover. THE LEMMINGS Funk. Ripleys. Cover.
SATURDAY, JAN.
Music
STUFF Rock. Allyn's Cafe. Cover.
TIM MCCORD BAND Jazz Blue Wisp. Cover.
TOMMY MILES Rock. New Nineties. Cover.
U.P.C. Rock. Club One. Free.
UPTOWN RHYTHM AND BLUES Rhythm and Blues. Stow’s. Cover.
WILLIE RAY AND THE MIDNIGHTERS Blues. Burbank's Sharonville. Free.
FRIDAY JAN. 20
THE ALLSTARS Blues. Burbank’s Sharonville. Free.
ANN CHAMBERLAIN JAZZ TRIO Jazz. Coco’s. Cover.
BANJO Alternative. Zipper’s. Cover.
BRIAN LOVELY AND THE SECRET Alternative Rock. JA Flats. Cover.
CRAWDADDY Rock favorites. Club Gotham. $2.
CRAZY TRAIN Ozzy favorites. Annie’s. Cover.
THE DUKES Blues. Burbank's Florence. Free.
THE EMBARCADEROS College Rock. Shady O’Grady’s. Cover.
FULL CIRCLE Rock. Katmandu Cafe. Cover.
HIGH SCHOOL BAND CHALLENG Various. Bogart’s. $6.50. HOPHEADS Rockabilly. The Stadium. Cover.
HOPPER WITH SPOONBENDER Alternative. Top Cat’s. Cover. IN THE POCKET Rock. Silky Shanohan’s. Cover.
JEFF TERFLINGER’S BLUEQRASS BAND Bluegrass. Arnold’s. Free.
JENNI HUSS R&B. Ivory’s. Cover.
KATIE LAUER Jazz vocalist. Blue Wisp. Cover.
THE ZIONITES Reggae. Sudsy Malone’s. Cover.
LUBE, OIL AND FILTER Rockabilly. Mt. Adams Pavilion. Cover.
SATURDAY JAN. 21
THE MENUS Rock favorites. Sleep Out Louie’s. Cover.
THE ALLSTARS Blues. Burbank’s Sharonville. Free.
THE MIDNIGHTERS Blues. Allyn’s Cafe. Cover.
BRIAN LOVELY AND THE SECRET Alternative Rock. JA Flats. Cover.
CRAWDADDY Rock favorites. Club Gotham. $2.
CRAZY TRAIN Ozzy favorites. Annie’s. Cover.
* MOJO FILTER KINGS The Filter Kings combine elements of Rock, Country, Jazz and Blues for a sound that is reminiscent of Little Feat. Tommy’s. Cover.
Clubs Directory
MUSIC
ALLYN’S CAFE 3638 Columbia Parkway, Columbia-Tusculum. 871-5779.
CANAL STREET TAVERN 308 E. First St., Dayton, Ohio. 513-461-9343.
CLUB A 9536 Cinciruiati-Colurabus Road, Route 42. 777-8699.
CLUB GOTHAM 1346 Main St., Over-the-Rhine. 352-0770.
CLUB ONE 6923 Plainfield Road, Silverton. 793-3360.
COCO’S 322 Greenup St., Covington. 491-1369.
HANGBOXERS Rock. The Stadium. Cover.
COURTYARD CAFE 1211 Main St., Over-the-Rhine. 723-1119.
HIGH SCHOOL BAND CHALLENGE Various. Bogart’s. $6.50. HIGH STREET RHYTHM ROCKERS Blues. Burbank's Forest Fair. Free. IN THE POCKET Rock. Silky Shanohan’s. Cover. KATIE LAUER Jazz vocalist. Blue Wisp. Cover. KRIS BROWN Acoustic
COYOTE’S 400 Buttermilk Pike, Oldenberg Complex, Fort Mitchell. 341-5150.
DANIEL’S PUB 2735 Vine St., Corryville. 281-1026.
FIRST RUN
36 E. High St., Oxford. 513-523-1335.
FOLEY’S PUB IN O’BRYONVILLE 1998 Madison Road, 321-5525. THE FRIENDLY STOP 985 Congress Ave., 771-7427.
FLANAGAN’S LANDING 212 Pete Rose Way, Downtown. 421-4055.
OZZIE'S PUB & EATERY 116 E. High St., Oxford. 513-523-3134. PALACE CLUB 2346 Grange Hall Road, Ohio. 513-426-9305.
RIPLEYS 2507 W. Clifton Ave., 861-6506. QUIGGLEY’S DOWN 433 Johnson St., Covington.
RICHIE AND THE STUDENTS
CELTIC JAM Celtic. Hap’s Irish Pub. Free.
EKOOSTIK HOOKAH Dead Rock. Ozzie’s. Cover. FIRST LIGHT Reggae. Ripleys. Cover.
FOREHEAD Alternative favorites. Murray’s Pub.'Cover. GREENWICH TAVERN JAZZ ENSEMBLE —Jazz. Greenwich Tavern. Cover. THE MENUS Rock favorites. Katmandu Cafe. Cover. NOAH HUNT Acoustic Open Jam. Local 1207. Cover. OVERDUE AND THE MENUS Rock favorites. Blue Note Cafe. Cover.
PHIL BLANK BLUES BAND Blues. Burbank’s Sharonville. Free.
PIGMEAT JARRETT Blues. Allyn’s Cafe. Cover.
SHINDIG Rock favorites. Murray’s Pub. Cover.
SONNY MOORMAN AND THE DOGS Blues. Fat Frank’s. Cover.
★ SPOILER WITH COBRA JUDY Raw, scraping and melodic sounds from the New York underground. Top Cat’s. Cover.
THE WEBSTERS Alternative favorites. Salamone’s. Cover.
UtterKiosk
Catherine the Great and the Temple of Noise
Chicago band raises the chaos to its pop sound to Cincinnati
INTERVIEW BY MIKE BREEN
Better Living Through Noise. That’s the motto emblazoned on all products made by the Chicago band Catherine.
The five-piece group which includes guitarist/singer N.eil Jendon, bassist Keith Brown, drummer Kerry Brown, guitarist Jerome Brown and singer/guitarist Mark Rew has been honing its sound since 1989. Catherine has put out several releases, including a couple of 7-inch singles and the EP Sleepy and the newest disc, the full-length Sorry.
But don’t let the noise tag fool you. Though the band does punctuate its sound with blasts of feedback and effects, the real essence of the Catherine sound is found in the band’s sublime songs. They’re a mix of bittersweet balladry and full, muscular and melodic rock. Catherine’s use of noise is artistic (a la My Bloody Valentine), and, as Jendon explains, it’s more a
Catherine is (from left) Keith Brown, Mark Rew, Neil Jendon, Jerome Brown (on his stomach) and Kerry Brown.
Spectator
PROFESSIONAL BOXING
Ronnie Martinez and Johnny Ramierez fight for the MidAmerican Middleweight Title; Cincinnati’s Reggie “Nightlife" Strickland and Louisville’s Tyrone “Mamba” Moore fight for the MidAmerican Super Middleweight Title; Ravea Springs and Coco Shinholster, both undefeated Cincinnatians, face each other; and lastly, special added attraction Rocky Ray Phillips, Covington's Heavyweight contender, makes appearance. 8 p.m. $25. reserved seating; $15 general admission. Tuesday. Coyote’s Music & Dance Hall, 400 Buttermilk Pike, Fort Mitchell. 721-1000.
CINCINNATI CYCLONES IHL hockey vs. Detroit. 7:30 p.m.
MORE, PAGE 16
JANUARY 20 & 21
(22 Donald Road, Fairfield)
Call our all new information line for tour dales and get on our new mailing list! 331-5023
result of spontaneity and fidgeting than any kind of a statement.
“A lot of people see us as being very noisy,” Jendon says. “I just think it’s funny. I like both ends. I like things that are tuney and poppy and well-constructed, but I also like a bit of chaos. There’s a lot of times when you just hit the wrong tunnel in the studio, and all the sudden there’s a huge burst, and we’re like, ‘Well, we should keep it.’
“You can’t turn your back on any accident,” he continues. “You never know. Brian Eno said something to the effect of embracing the happy accident, the event you could not do if you planned it. I really try to keep it organic and prevent contrived maniacal silliness. I think there, are so many bands out there that have a forced, contrived brand of outrage. Very self-conscious. They’re like, ‘Hey look how crazy we are. We’re all in on our littie secret, just making a bunch of noise.’ It’s just a trick, a gimmick.”
The motto, Jendon says, was originally conceived as “just a joke” in ’89, right when Catherine was becoming more than just a glimmer in Jendon’s eye.
“Mocking corporate identification was starting to come into vogue now it’s in full force,” he explains. “It’s mocking the whole GE thing. I mean, what a brilliant thing to say. Just buying this product will make your life better. And people really believe that. It raises consumerism to religious levels. So let’s bring noise up to a religious level.”
The members of Catherine have been tooling their musical shrine around the country for the past couple of years as both headliners and supporting act for bands
religious levels, brings Music
such as Dig and fellow Chicagoans the Smashing Pumpkins. Jendon says the experience of touring with such Alternative heavyweights was a mixed blessing.
“When we went out on the road with the Pumpkins, it was great,” says Jendon, whose band’s link to the Smashing Ones goes back to when the Great Pumpkin Billy Corgan produced Catherine’s EP and has led to the formation of Star Children (an ever-changing hybrid of
the two groups) and the marriage of drummer Brown to Pumpkin’s bassist D’Arcy.
“The shows were great, and I met a lot of great peopie, but there’s also that plague of people who just want to talk to you because you might know where Billy is. You just get used to it. It puts your ego in check. The cool thing is you get exposed to people who wouldn’t come see you otherwise.”
And those people keep coming back. Catherine’s live show is a captivating and addicting blend of subtle sarcasm and classic Rock swagger. Jendon says this is a result of the escape he feels when in front of a crowd.
“The great thing about being on stage is that you’re in a place where you can do pretty much anything you want,” Jendon says with a laugh. “That’s always what I wanted to do since I was a little kid, seeing films of Led Zeppelin and stuff. There’s a total swagger. I’m making fun of it only because I find that swagger very entertaining myself. The scary thing is that there are people who aren’t on stage and still behave like that. It’s an outlet so we don’t have to act like jerks elsewhere.”
Catch CATHERINE Saturday at Sudsy Malone’s (2626 Vine St., Corryville. 751-2300) with local acts Roundhead and Tierra Del.
Friday. IHL hockey vs. Peoria. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. $6-$12 adults; $4-$10 students. Cincinnati Gardens, 2250 Seymour Ave., Norwood. 531-7825.
TURFWAY PARK Live racing. 7 p.m. Wednesday-Friday; 1:30 p.m. weekends. Simulcasts from Churchill Downs, Hollywood Park, Bay Meadows, Fairgrounds and Aqueduct. Parking $2, valet parking $3; grandstand admission $3.50, clubhouse $2.50. 7500 Turfway Road, Florence. 371-0200.
UC BEARCATS UC men’s basketball vs. St. Louis. 8:05 p.m.
Thursday. UC men’s basketball vs. DePaul. 8:05 p.m.Saturday. $12 adults; buy one, get one free for UC students. Shoemaker Center, Stadium Drive, University of Cincinnati, Clifton. 556-CATS.
XAVIER MUSKETEERS Mens basketball vs. Wright State. 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. Dayton, Ohio. $11. 745-3411.
Recreational
CAPTURE NATURE THROUGH PAINTING AND DRAWING A
professional artists will teach children ages 8-11 the art of nature painting and drawing. Sponsored by the Cincinnati Park Board. 4:305:45 p.m. Thursdays. Through March 9. LaBoiteaux Woods Nature Preserve, 5400 Lanius Ln., College Hill. 542-2909.
CINCINNATI RECREATION COMMISSION HOT LINE For the latest in CRC events, call 684-4945.
EXPLORERS NATURE CLUB
Children ages 6-10 can learn about animal hibernation and finding messages from Indians with clues placed by naturalists. 3:30-4:45 p.m. Thursdays, starting Jan. 26. $15. Avon Woods, 4235 Paddock Rd., Paddock Hills. 861-3435. ...Ongoing classes are taking place 3:45-5 p.m. Tuesdays. $15 (prorated) California Woods Nature Preserve, 5400 Kellog Ave.
THE GORGE IN WINTER HIKE Nature lovers will learn about trees and their lore when they join the Hamilton County Park District Naturalist for a guided hike through the Sharon Woods Gorge. 2 p.m. Sunday. Meet near the Richard H. Durrell Gorge Trail. Sharon Woods, US 42, Sharonville. 572-PARK.
NATURALIST TRAINING IN THE GREAT OUTDOORS Cincinnati Park Naturalists will offer environmental activities, studies in natural history and interpretive walks. Recommended for ages 11-14. $15.Avon Woods, 4235 Paddock Rd., Paddock Hills. 861-3435.
PRESCHOOL NATURE CAMP
Children ages 4 and 5 can explore a winter wonderland, celebrate groundhog day and test maple
syrup. A different nature theme will be presented every week. Classes begin this Monday and will take place weekly from 12:30-2:15
p.m. $30. Avon Woods, 4235 Paddock Rd., Paddock Hills. 861-3435. An ongoing class takes place 12:30-2:30 p.m. every Monday through March 13. No class Feb. 20. $30 (pro-rated). California Woods Nature Preserve, 5400 Kellog Ave., California. 231-8678.
WINTER BIRD WALK Visitors will search for overwintering birds when they join the Hamilton County Park District Naturalist. 9 a.m. Saturday. Visitor Center. Sharon Woods, US 42, Sharonville. 572-PARK.
WINTER FUN FOR PRESCHOOLERS Preschoolers can explore a winter wonderland every Monday. 12:30-2:15 p.m. Through March 20. $30. Avon Woods, 4235 Paddock Rd., Paddock Hills. 861-3435.
Local Scene SPILL IT
BY MIKE BREEN
Admission for both nights is a one-time price of $5, to be paid at the door Wednesday. The shows start at 6 p.m. with kickoff performances each night by solo performer Dave Enright. The festival is an all-ages event. The show is being organized by Crambone’s Robert Moore and Kellogg Club booking man Travis Threlkel (who's bringing the incredible Sebadoh to the club March 13).
Threlkel says that, as a bonus to the bands, a CD will be released about a month after the show on his new Kellogg Records label featuring performances of each band’s set at the fest. He says, “The CDs will help the bands because they'll have something on disc that an A&R (artists and repertory) guy at a label can just pop in and listen to."
Local Music Fest
Threlkel says the only drive behind the festival is to support the blossoming scene. “I think it's a really good representation of newer Cincinnati bands," he says. “It's a really good sampler. And everyone will be performing short, halfhour sets so people won’t be bored sitting through something they hate."
Do not miss a one-of-a-kind local music fest Wednesday and Jan. 26 at Metal club Annie’s Alternative alter-ego, the Kellogg Club (4343 Kellogg Ave., East End. 321-2572).
Support your local music scene and do not miss this show. Send all
The two-day event will feature 18 of Cincinnati's best Alternative bands.
The fest is an effort to raise awareness about local music in general, especially for newer bands. The roster mixes both established and up-and-coming bands.
REVIEWS BY MIKE BREEN
CARLEEN ANDERSON True Spirit (Virgin).
Performing Wednesday are Moth, Tommyhaus, Charleston Entry, Crambone, Hogscraper, Beel Jak, Schwah, Ditchweed and Soundmind. The Jan. 26 show includes Gospel On Wetsel, Fourteen, Stitch, Higbee, Snotboy 77, Snaggletooth, Croatan, Sistern and Bu Bu Klan.
This low-, smoky-, silky-voiced diva is the newest addition to the respectable female Soul vocalist club, joining such elite company as Sade and Anita Baker. Anderson’s voice has such a classy spirit and character that it allows her music to transcend being merely a product. The diverse sound of True Spirit rims from the mellow; smooth “Ain’t Givin’ Up On You” (for lovers) to the Hip-Hop feel of “Mama Said” (for dancers) to the ballad “Only One For Me” (for fans of the artist formerly known as Prince). The style and overall elegance and understatement of True Spirit make it a supreme Standout in the R&B world. CityBeat grade: A.
SUMMARIES AND CAPSULE REVIEWS
SPOILER Crashpad (PCP/Matador, Box 1689 New York, NY 10009-8908).
BY STEVE RAMOS
Opening
Hailing from the NYC underground and fronted by Live Skull’s Mark C. on vocals, Spoiler has that scraping, cement soul that the Big Apple’s best (Jon Spencer, Chrome Cranks, Unsane) are known for. But there’s more to the band than bare, bombastic assault because, beneath the artistic exterior, lies a true (albeit black) Pop heart. The title track, for example, is driven by a wall of wah-wah guitar and general (but not random) noise and then falls into a harmonizing, addictive chorus. The vocal play between C. and guitarist Lin Culbertson is a unique standout, as is the way the band balances bittersweetness with dissonance. Very, very killer stuff. (Spoiler plays Wednesday at Top Cat’s with
THE CRIMSON PIRATE Here’s the proof that actor Burt Lancaster was a circus acrobat before answering the call of Hollywood. Lancaster’s physical stunts are amazing in this tale of an 18th century pirate who teams up with an inventor to save an island’s inhabitants against an evil tyrant. The Crimson Pirate (1952) keeps its tongue firmly in its cheek throughout the entire movie.
Thankfully, Lancaster soon proved that his thespian skills were as impressive as his physicality. Another classic example of a film genre that does not exist anymore. When will someone make a new pirate movie? When another Burt Lancaster walks onto a studio lot. With Nick Cravat and Eva Bartok. (Unrated; opens Friday at the New Neon Movies, Dayton.)
CityBeat grade: B.
HEAVENLY CREATURES —It may be the most famous criminal case in New Zealand history. In 1952, two young girls Pauline Parker (Melanie Lynskey) and Juliet Hulme (Kate Winslet) look to escape. Their friendship has garnered concern from their parents.
Will you kill for love? This is the
With a sublime mix of Country, Rock, Blues and Jazz, the Filter Kings create an incredibly endearing sound reminiscent of Little Feat and Exile. (Exile’s Paul Martin produced the disc.) The Lexington-based sextet is hard to pigeonhole, but, unlike a lot of bands that attempt eclecticism, the Filter Kings’ music is a cohesive whole. There’s smoky, slinky Blues, a wholesome twang, an occasional Big Band-ish feel and an overall good-time vibe. It’s boogie-woogie music with soul. (Mojo Filter Kings play Saturday at Tommy’s on Main.) CityBeat grade: A.
BUSH Sixteen Stone (Interscope).
Imagine Richard Butler fronting Nirvana. No, silly, it’s not Love Spit Love, but new British band Bush. For the most part this is pretty substandard, uninspired Grunge Inc. There are a couple of saving points: “Glycerine,” a stark, slow piece graced with flighty strings, is both sparse and lush (a difficult thing to pull off); and “XGirlfreind” is a distorted, soulful ballad. Unfortunately, these two tunes are buried at the end of the record. Most everything else on the disc is linear, run-of-the-mill mimicry. But Offspring ripped off similar riffs far less creatively and sold bazillions of records, so Bush has a potentially lucrative future. CityBeat grade: d.
Short Takes
locals Cobra Judy, which contains more Live Skull alumni.) CityBeat grade: A.
This month Rhino Records will begin a three-month release schedule that will reissue eight long out-of-print and eagerly awaited albums from the ever cryptic, ever kinky, ever wonderfully twisted musical wunderkind Robyn Hitchcock alone and with his merry band of Egyptians. Hitchcock's hands personally have overseen this project, selected bonus tracks for each CD, with expanded liner notes, new photos and new artwork.
If you’re not familiar with his extensive body of work and enjoy challenging lyrics of dreams, pensive hallucination and eccentric British humor driven by exquisite solo noodling and tight team melody, I urge you to take a chance on this tremendous talent. Remember: Genius is often only hairlines away from delightful insanity.
The first three albums are set for next week Black Snake Diamond Role from 1981; Gravy Deco, which is a combination of two albums from 1982 into one (Groovy Decay, produced by Steve Hillage, and its demo twin Groovy Decoy)', and my personal favorite, / Often Dream of Trains, a solo acoustic guitar and piano effort that contains the a cappella advice to parents, "Uncorrected Personality Traits.”
Next month's reissues will be Fegmania, Gotta Let This Hen Out and Element of Light. In March the albums Eye, Invisible Hitchcock and a new collection of rarities and unreleased songs. Also on the horizon is possibly a spoken-word album of Hitchcock’s freeform storytelling often unleashed upon audiences between live sets, an announcement of a spring tour in the United States and a 7-inch release on the super cool K Records label.
Releases Expected Tuesday
Auteurs & U-ziq U-ziq vs. Auteurs (Astralwerks/ Caroline); Badfinger —Come and Get It (Capitol), best of; Bettie Serveert Lamprey (Matador); Bim Skala Bim Eyes and Ears (Bib Records); Bolt Thrower For Victory (Earache); The Chieftans Long Black Veil (RCA), with Mick Jagger, Tom Jones, Ry Cooder and more; David Crosby Live (Atlantic), with Chris Robinson from the Black Crowes; the Cruel Sea The Honeymoon is Over (A&M), from Australia; Dana Dane Rollin’ With Dane (Maverick/Sire); Miles Davis Live At the Plugged Nickle (Columbia), seven-CD box set; George Duke Illusions (Warner Bros.); Easy-E Str.8 Off the Streez of Muthaphuklin Compton (Ruthless); Mary Hopkin Those Were the Days (Capitol); Jason & the Scorchers A Blazing Grace (Mammoth), after five-year hiatus; Brenda Kahn Goldfish Don't Talk Back (Sony/Chaos); Kitchens of Distinction Cowboys & Aliens (A&M); Laughing Hyenas Hard Times (Touch & Go); Local H Ham Fisted (Island); Love 666 American Revolution (Amphetamine Reptile); Low Pop Suicide The Death of Excellence (World Domination); Kirsty MacColl Galore (I.R.S.); Mad Professor It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (Ariwa), 14-dub tracks from the archives; Magnetic Fields Wayward Bus (Merge), combines 1991's Wayward Bus and 1992’s Distant Plastic Trees: Massive Attack Protection (Virgin); Van Morrison Blowin’ Your Mind (Sony Legacy), gold mastersound CD; Morrissey ‘‘Boxers" (Warner Bros.), three-track CD five inch; Negativeland Fair Use of the Letter (Seeland); Prick Prick (Atlantic), co-produced by Trent Reznor; Rancid/Avail split single (Lookout), seven-inch and CD five-inch single; Speaking Canaries Songs For the Terrestrially Challenged (Scat), CD and double-gatefold vinyl; Swans The Great Annihilator (Invisible); the Jerky Boys original soundtrack (Atlantic); Too Short Cocktails (Jive); Van Halen Balance (Warner Bros.); the Waterboys The Secret Life Of (EMI), compilation; the Wolfgang Press Funky Little Demons (4AD).
JOHN JAMES can be found behind the counter at Wizard Records in Corryville.
question that Pauline and Juliet must ask themselves. Everything they cherish may be taken away by the adults in their lives who just don’t understand. For love, murder becomes for happiness. Leave it to New Zealand director Peter Jackson to make a movie that is one part love story and one part horror movie. His zombie flick Dead Alive is a favorite for gore freaks worldwide. All those things that make a splatter movie go splat, Jackson brings to Heavenly Creatures. In a moment’s notice, Jackson will turn up the volume to a screeching pitch. His camera swoops down upon the actors. Heavenly Creatures unfolds like feverish dream. At moments it’s too loud and sometimes the action speeds up with an over the top intensity. All of which makes Heavenly Creatures the wildest ride to be had at the movies. With Clive Merrison and Sarah Peirse.
(Rated R; opens Friday at the Esquire Theatre.)
CltyBeat grade: A. LATCHO DROM Through song, music and dance, director Tony Gatlif tells the history of gypsy life while focusing on the evolution of their music. Traveling to many exotic locales such Spain, India and Hungary, Gatlif’s film catches all the energy of the gypsy culture and transfers it into a magical work of entertainment. Already a huge hit in many other cities, this will probably be your only chance to see Latcho Drom. (Unrated; opens Friday at the Little Art Theatre, Yellow Springs. 513-767-7671.) No screening.
MURDER IN THE FIRST A young man, Henri Young (Kevin Bacon) faces unrelenting brutality during his incarceration at the notorious prison Alcatraz. Fighting for his humanity, Young finds himself facing a charge of first-degree murder. His quest for justice teams him up with an idealistic public defender, James Stamphill (Christian Slater). Based on a true story from the ‘40s, Murder in the First addresses themes of cruelty and hope in story that may hit a bit close to home. With Gary Oldman and Embeth Davidtz.
(Rated R; opens Friday at area Loews Theatres.) No screening.
MY LIFE'S IN TURNAROUND Stuck in dead-end jobs, two young men while away time with thoughts about the ideal girlfriend. Desperate to jump-start their lives, they decide to make a film about themselves. What unfolds is hilarious look at the independent film industry that matches Robert Altman’s The Player for satirical insight into all of the crap involved in making movies. Too funny to let pass by. Plus, there’s a goofy cameo of Phoebe Cates as Phoebe Cates. With Eric Schaeffer and Daniel Lardner Ward. (Unrated; opens Friday at the Little Art Theatre, Yellow Springs. 513-767-7671.)
CltyBeat grade: B.
Continuing
A LOW DOWN DIRTY SHAME Here’s something we normally don’t see an adult, African-American action-comedy. It looks like Low Down Dirty Shame is high on car chases and shoot-outs. With funny man Keenan Ivory Wayans in the lead, A Low Down Dirty Shame could turn out to be a Shaft with a sense of humor. With Jada Pinkett, Charles S. Dutton and Sally Richardson. (Rated R; at area Showcase Cinemas.)
★ CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER Some critics refer to Harrison Ford as the thinking man’s Arnold Schwarzenegger. Ford deserves better kudos than that. Clear and Present Danger brings some unexpected substance to a normally flimsy genre. Canadian actor Henry Czerny excels in his role as Jack Ryan’s nemesis.
brawn. (Rated PG-13; at Norwood.)
space shuttle as it repairs the Hubble, and the images are amazing. Move over Star Trek Generations here’s a real out-of-space adventure. (Unrated; at Robert D. Lindner Family Omnimax Theater.)
★ DISCLOSURE Sex. Power. Betrayal. Disclosure, director Barry Levinson’s film of the bestselling novel by Michael Crichton, rightfully sidesteps any controversy and sticks to pure entertainment. Set in the offices of DigiCom, a high-tech computer firm, Disclosure turns sexual harassment upside down. Few topics are as timely and volatile as sexual harassment. Still, Hollywood is not in the business to develop polemics. Hollywood makes movies that simply entertain. Those who go to Disclosure expecting an intelligent treatment of a controversial issue forcing their brains where they do not belong. All of which makes Disclosure great entertainment. With Michael Douglas and Demi Moore. (Rated R; at area Loews Theatres.)
DROP ZONE —If skydiving itself is exciting, then one would think that a movie about the sport also would be riveting. Putting scenes of people jumping out of planes into a plot about terrorists stealing
Paul Newman plays Sully, a many who must come to terms with having aban doned his family, in Nobody’s
secrets from the Drug Enforcement Agency should guarantee an exciting time. Wrongo. Director John Badham (War Games, Blue Thunder) wastes the talents of Gary Busey and Wesley Snipes. Drop Zone also throws away a strong female performance by Yancy Butler (Hard Target). Action movies seldom are blessed with a great female action role. Butler is fantastic. Unfortunately, everything around her is awful; What is really frustrating about Drop Zone is that the skydiving sequences do not even Fool.
Friday, Jan 20 SUDSY MALONE’S 751-2300 Saturday, Jan 21 FIRST RUN OXFORD 1-513-523-1335 LOOK FOR
sometimes required subtleties.
With Jeffrey Jones and Kim Greist.
(Rated PG; at area Loews Theatres.)
IN THE ARMY NOW Whatever may be Pauly Shore’s appeal, let’s hope that it is fading fast. Shore makes Jim Carrey seem like comic genius. This latest stab at slapstick is easily his worst. The weasel should stay out of films and stick to MTV. With Lori Petty.
syrupy pathos with humor. Those people who complain about the movie’s glorification of the retarded are forcing politics where it does not belong. Let’s hope that the Christian Coalition does not use Gump as some kind of twisted poster boy. With Gary Sinese, Robin Wright and Sally Field. (Rated PG-13; closes Thursday at Loews Florence.)
(Rated PG; at Turfway.)
★ I.Q. With the new year here, someone may toss around phrases like best romantic comedy of 1994 with credibility. Catherine (Meg Ryan) emphasizes her head over her heart. As the niece to renowned physicist Albert Einstein (Walter Matthau), her priorities come as no surprise. Still, life has a way of tossing a wrench into things just when one least expects it. Ed (Tim Robbins) reads sci-fi magazines when he is not busy fixing cars at the local gas station.
HIGHER LEARNING No one can fault filmmaker John Singleton for filling his latest movie with broad generalizations, stereotypes and cliches. Any two-hour movie that attempts to address all the issues and problems surrounding today’s college campuses has to portray its characters in broad strokes. There’s not enough time to closely look at so many subjects such as racism and date rape. Singleton’s movie has to be didactic. That doesn’t mean that it also has to fall victim to the one-sidedness and biased storytelling that it supposedly wants to overturn. Every cop on the campus of Christopher (jolumbus University is white, bigoted and dumb. In fact, the only white character that receives even a little sympathy is a young woman who is raped. HigherLearning becomes a dangerous film because, it attempts to address some volatile issues with powerful sounds and visuals. This is a story that needs to address the truth from different sides. Singleton tells it with blinders on. Higher Learning feels like the cinematic equivalent of revisionist history. For talent like Singleton, it is the worst kind of failure. With Omar Epps and Laurence Fishburne. (Rated R; at area Showcase Cinemas.)
Upon seeing Catherine, Ed knows that she is the woman he loves. Ed is just an Average Joe with an Average Joe-like noodle. Catherine only has eyes for whiz-kids like herself. Here, her Uncle Albert and his group of loopy colleagues come to Ed’s rescue. Director Fred Schepisi (Roxanne, Six Degrees ofSeparation) has taken a screenplay from two seasoned TV writers, Andy Breckman and Michael Leeson, and fashioned the most enjoyable romantic comedy of the year. In a time when Hollywood believes laughs only occur in broad slapstick, I. Q. reminds us that believable characters with humorous dialogue ereate the finest comedy. Failures such as Speechless remind us how special films such as I.Q. are. This is the type of movie that inspires one to return and watch it again.
With Charles Durning and Gene Saks. (Rated PG; at area Loews Theatres.)
JASON’S LYRIC In a beautiful woman named Lyric (Jada Linkett), young Jason (Allen Payne) seeks respite from all the hurt that surrounds him in Houston’s inner-city. Much of the sex has been removed from firsttime director Doug Henry’s effort, but the violence remains intact. Unfortunately, the Motion Picture Association of America has trouble with young African-American 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. (Rated R; at Forest Fair.)
Hollywood Shuffle
After spending many years on the sidelines writer Nelson George jumps into the screenwriting game
INTERVIEW BY STEVE RAMOS
Thursday, 1/19
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★ HOOP DREAMS Another critically acclaimed film comes to Dayton before Cincinnati. Lovers of good film better get used to the trip up Interstate 75. Three documentary filmmakers spend seven years following the lives of two young African-American men from Chicago’s inner-city. This film speaks powerfully about life in America. Often political, Hoop Dreams unfolds with the power of a tense dramatic narrative. No other recent film matches the intensity of Hoop Dreams. Chances are that people who complain about its length, haven’t seen it; With Arthur Agee and William Gates. (Rated PG-13; at New Neon Movies, Dayton.)
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THE JUNGLE BOOK Because it’s just too hard to get children to watch National Geographic videos, here’s a new adaptation of the Rudyard Kipling classic that combines great photography of the Indian landscape and wildlife with a timeless story. Children love animals and the idea of a wild jungle boy like Mowgli (Jason Scott Lee). Sounds like Disney has put together a fun way for young people to learn something new about their world. With Sam Niell, Gary Elwes and Lena Headey. (Rated PG; at area Showcase Cinemas.)
JUNIOR Director Ivan Reitman (Kindergarten Cop, Twins), more than any other filmmaker,
Granny Bitchin’ The Unknown The Unknown
Yankee Grey Relayer
Granny Bitchin’
He needs to find a new challenge.”
George sees Richard Pryor as another AfricanAmerican in need of a challenge. “Pryor was just a guy ahead of his time,” George says. “He was never comfortable in Hollywood, and Hollywood was never comfortable with him. Being the only guy out there puts a lot of strain on you, and Pryor was not the most stable guy.”
Nelson George thinks of himself as a survivor. After years of writing film reviews for The Amsterdam News, music reviews for Billboard and a number of books on AfricanAmerican popular culture, including his latest, Blackface, George has a new career as a screenwriter. He wrote the screenplays for the films Strictly
For George, Pryor left a legacy of “bad taste and movies done just for the money.” Murphy and Pryor can learn a lot from Sidney Poitier. “Poitier had the burden of being the black guy in Hollywood during the Civil Rights era,” George says. “Everything he did was symbolic of something, and I’m sure that he was tired of it.” Poitier never stopped working and contributing to the film industry. “Poitier worked at the highest levels as an actor and walked away to work as a director,” he says. “By reinventing himself, he did a real bold thing.”
George remembers how Poitier always played the smartest person in his films. It’s a rule that today’s African-American actors like Wesley Snipes should follow, he says. After seeing Drop Zone, George says Snipes is hurting himself. “Wesley’s not even the smartest guy in his movies. I look at Snipes in Sugar Hill, Boiling Point and Drop Zone, and I think he has really bad taste. I think Wesley is becoming Bruce Willis. If he’s making action movies to fulfill some fantasy of black empowerment, I don’t even think these movies do that.”
Nelson George
Eventually it always comes down to whether a film is any good or not. That’s why he believes people will watch Spike Lee’s films 30 years from now. “He’s Jackie Robinson. Spike’s been really ambitious stylistically. He’s opened the door and kept the door open.”
Through this door arrive more African-American films such as a Black Panther movie written by the father-son team of Melvin and Mario Van Peebles (due later this year) and director Carl Franklin’s Devil in a Blue Dress starring Denzel Washington.
Molly Hatchet w/Granny Bitchin’
Callfor info and tickets Major Credit Cards Accepted
HOUSEGUEST Kevin Franklin (Sinbad) is a con artist on the run from loan sharks. During a desperate escape attempt at the airport, he spots the key to his safety. Gary Young (Phil Hartman) is waiting for a long lost friend that he has not seen in more than 25 years. Before long, Kevin has convinced the absent-minded Gary that he is that friend. It looks like worlds and cultures collide in this family comedy of mistaken identities. Makes one wonder what Disney has in mind for the street-sawy Sinbad. Director Randall Miller had sueworking with Kid’n’Play in
Business and CB 4, but don’t call George a success story. Sure, he’s impressed when he sees one of his movies on TV, but that’s not good enough for patting himself on the back. “There’s a certain level of accomplishment when you get something done and through a system,” says George from his office in New York. “Once you do that, you have to raise your standards higher.”
“We got to really open up the language of the films we’re making cinematically,” George says. “We need to make more adult dramas that deal with the problem of being an adult. Most of the films are seen through young eyes. What about a film that shows what it’s like to be a black adult?”
As a filmmaker, George believes the most important standard to work by is the audience’s. “I don’t care what critics say. I think it’s more important to reach an audience. Audiences determine whether a film is a success or not.”
should know how to make Arnold Schwarzenegger funny. In Junior, he has the best sight gag, a pregnant Schwarzenegger. Reitman blows this golden, comic opportunity by miscasting Danny DeVito as a straight man and Emma Thompson as some slapstick clown. Junior could have been hilarious instead of just being cute. With Pamela Reed and Frank Langella. (Rated PG-13; at Norwood, Turfway, Forest Fair and Biggs Place Eastgate.)
★ THE LAST SEDUCTION
Director John Dahl knows that good stories eventually find their way to the big screen. Earlier, his film noir thriller Red Rock West traveled from cable TV to video and finally to a successful theatrical release. Now, with The Last Seduction Dahl runs through that vicious cycle again.
Bridget Gregory (Linda Fiorentino) persuades her husband, Clay (Bill Pullman), to pull off a drug deal and then turns on him. In the process of her get-rich schemes, she cons a small-town boy (Peter Berg) to do her bidding on some deadly deeds. No one escapes from the traps set by this beautiful and dangerous woman. Fiorentino grasps what might have been another cliche-ridden femme fatale character and pulls her kicking and screaming into new heights. Watching her chew up the scenery is a wildly wonderful joy ride. For her performance, Fiorentino has earned Best Actress awards from both Los Angeles and New York film critics. She gives The Last Seduction a fresh jolt of originality. More than a homage to past genre, The Last Seduction steps forth on the strength of Dahl’s excellent screenwriting and camera work. Here is a director who is not only good with setting up objects, but more importantly he is good with people. At every level, The Last Seduction is a superior thriller. Think of Fiorentino’s performance as the icing on a delicious cake. Dahl’s next project will be for MGM. He’s ready for Hollywood. One wonders if Hollywood is ready for the dark visions of John Dahl. With J.T. Walsh and Bill Nunn. (Unrated; at the Esquire Theatre.)
* LEGENDS OF THE FALL As the owner of large Montana ranch, Col. William Ludlow (Anthony Hopkins) and his three
sons his oldest Alfred (Aidan Quinn), his middle son Tristan (Brad Pitt) and his youngest Samuel (Henry Thomas) share an isolated existence. The colonel’s wife left some years ago, and he chose to raise the boys alone. Something happens to men who have lacked the company of women for a long time. The Ludlow men learn all of this with a furor. The youngest Ludlow, Samuel brings his fiancee Susannah (Julia Ormond) back to meet his family. Subsequent actions will break the Ludlows apart. From the cruelties of World War trench warfare to the hardships of a changing frontier, the Ludlows suffer great pain through both long and eventful lives. Just when matters appear most bleak, a bond of family brotherhood emerges to offer closing act of hope. Legends of the Fall is the best kind of soap opera. One that is larger than life. Every action occurs with a high intensity. Emotions this overwrought need a sweeping score and cinemascopelike visuals. The tale of the Ludlow
★ LITTLE WOMEN A cherished literary classic receives a wonderful adaptation at the hands of director Gillian Armstrong (My Brilliant Career). Almost everyone knows Louisa May Alcott’s tale of the young March women, but Armstrong brings this story alive with such visual flourish and care for her actresses that this film takes its place as a classic in its true right. Told through the narration of the tomboy Jo (Winona Ryder), Little Women emerges as one of those few family films thaf deserve to be described as a tar sure. Leaving behind her perr as some Slacker-generati^’ model, Ryder excels in 11perhaps she was dp’ ne Beautiful to wat.r uscles of hear and so m ironment Little Wow IPian skills, of young Allied know hr jio team against tear- warlord Gen. M. So. _.te Raul Julia). Steven vias proven his knack for y writing the successful ■plays for Die Hards 1 & 2. yhe gets the chance to prove if an direct all the cool stuff that imagination comes up with.
family unfolds with all the fury of r Greek tragedy. Finally, melodram. when the children get bored with receives the Tiffany treatment t’ their toys, this may be the movie this genre rightfully deserves Karina Lombard and Gordoi Tootoosis. (Rated R; at aren Theatres.)
★ THE LION KING H' kids were clamoring for nice folks at Disney bro\ d_ animated blockbuster ayslet’s get one thing str. a great opportunity at more money out' tale. It’s also g ,*e special mote their sum- uier Pochantas. You cti0n epic, cle of life? Thin is, cle of cash. seriously. Matthew Brc :e is refreshand Whoor a hip Norwood n true '90s Biggs PI: img Game’s Jaye Westwc he show instead LITTLE -Pt. With Kurt a fon: Spader. (Rated O’Neil) a; nd, Turfway, coa .t Biggs Place for th small GENERATIONS com is a changing of the wor a Star Trek movie unieve Wext Generationhas (Rories T. Kirk and compaFa they want to see. With Kylie Minogue and Wes Studi. (Rated PG-13; at area Loews Theatres.)
TALES FROM THE CRYPT PRESENTS DEMON KNIGHT —That giggling ghoul the crypt keeper has developed a huge following from its TV airings of Tales of the Crypt. Now, this unique mix of black comedy and pulp horror makes its way to the big screen. One wonders if these adaptations of the old EC comic can be any more gross and disgusting. Director Ernest Dickerson (Juice) does his best to keep the horror and gross-out fiends happy. With Billy Zane. (Rated R;
laughs. Melanie Griffith as hooker with a heart of gold gets lost in the process. With Ed Harris. (Rated PG-13, at Norwood, Turfway and Forest Fair.)
★ MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET Sure, have this tale of WEST LOEWS COVEDALE THEATRES 1&2 4990 Glenway Ave., Price Bill. 921-7373. LOEWS NORTHGATE THEATRES 9727 Colerain Ave., Northgate Mall, Bevis. 385-5585. LOEWS TRI-COUNTY THEATRES 11600 Princeton Pike, Cassinelli Square, Springdale. 771-4544. ROBERT D. LINDNER FAMILY OMNIMAX THEATER SHOWCASE CINEMAS ERLANGER Route 236 West off Interstate 75, Erlanger. 342-8866. TURFWAY PARK 10 7650 Turfway Road, Erlanger. 647-2828. WORTH THE TRIP LITTLE ART THEATRE 247 Xenia Ave., Yellow Springs. 513-767-7671. THE NEW NEON MOVIES 130 E. Fifth St., Dayton, Ohio. -922-SHOW
Christian Slater, left, plays a young attorney who puts his career on the line to defend an Alcatraz prisoner
Film
department-store Santa Claus who insists he is the real thing before, but this version really shines. Give credit to the wonderful performances from its leads, Richard Attenborough and young Mara Wilson. It’s not often that young girls experience strong role models such as Wilson at the movies. With Elizabeth Perkins, Dylan McDermott and Frasier’s Jane Leeves. (Rated PG; closes Thursday at Norwood and Turfway.)
★ NATURAL BORN KILLERS
Director Oliver Stone (Platoon, Wall Street) pushes his cinematic skills to new heights. As a result, Natural Born Killers may be the most daring studio release of the year. Stone’s script is based on a original story by Hollywood hot man Quentin Tarantino. What the film lacks in substance, it makes up with hypnotic visuals. (Rated R; at Norwood.)
★ NELL With her own production company (Egg Pictures), Jodie Foster has emerged as the industry’s most powerful woman. So what does Hollywood’s superwoman pick as her latest project? Nell, based on the stage play Idioglossia, tells a story about a young woman who lives in a cabin deep in the woods. Nell communicates in a series of sounds that are uniquely her own. Discovered by Dr. Jerome Lovell (Liam Neeson), a local physician, Nell gains the attention of some university psychologists, including Dr. Paula Olsen (Nastasha Richardson). Lovell believes Nell should be left to live on her own. The university psychologists feel that Nell should be placed in a hospital under their care. Questions concerning Nell's rights arise. For these doctors, her secret language holds the mystery to her life and her capabilities. Foster must see the character as
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★ NOBODY’S FOOL An American acting treasure returns to the silver screen with a melancholy tale of an older man, Sully (Paul Newman), who faces up to abandoning his family in a small New England town. Magazines may declare that Newman is the sexiest 70-year-old alive, and that may be true. More importantly, he is an extraordinary talent that lights up a movie with his presence. Based on the novel by Richard Russo, Nobody’s Fool offers Newman fantastic dialogue, touching scenes and a character that is worthy to his abilities. Here is a movie that stands heads and shoulders above the competition. A classic. With Bruce Willis and Melanie Griffith. (Rated R; at area Loews Theatres.) THE PAGEMASTER The older Macaulay Culkin gets, the less kids like him. At least, that’s what Hollywood fears. Well, -the folks at 20th Century Fox have found a way to keep Mac just the way kids want him turn the child-star into a cartoon. A young boy, afraid of just about everything, is transported off into a cartoon land, where he must battle with famous figures from classic novels. The Pagemaster teaches kids some great lessons about bravery, friendship and more importantly good reading skills. Unfortunately, this cool world is not that cool after all.
His wacky new friends are more boring than wacky. What did the kiddies think? Well, this reviewer saw The Pagemaster with a coupie hundred children one Saturday morning, and they cheered more during the trailer for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers The Movie than the feature movie. The children have spoken. With the voices of Patrick Stewart and Whoopi Goldberg. (Rated G; at Norwood, Turfway and Forest.
Linkett), yotff.pewSoii (Mien---Payne) seeks respite from all the hurt that surrounds him in Houston’s inner-city. Much of the sex has been removed from firsttime director Doug Henry’s effort, but the violence remains intact. Unfortunately, the Motion Picture Association of America has trouble with young African-American 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. (Rated R; at Forest Fair.)
of good film better get used to the trip up Interstate 75. Three documentary filmmakers spend seven years following the lives of two young African-American men from Chicago’s inner-city. This film speaks powerfully about life in America. Often political, Hoop Dreams unfolds with the power of a tense dramatic narrative. No other recent film matches the intensity of Hoop Dreams. Chances are that people who complain about its length, haven’t seen it: With Arthur Agee and William Gates. (Rated PG-13; at New Neon Movies, Dayton.)
THE JUNGLE BOOK Because it’s just too hard to get children to watch National Geographic videos, here’s a new adaptation of the Rudyard Kipling classic that combines great photography of the Indian landscape and wildlife with a timeless story. Children love animals and the idea of a wild jungle boy like Mowgli (Jason Scott Lee).
Sounds like Disney has put together a fun way for young people to learn something new about their world. With Sam Niell, Cary Elwes and Lena Headey. (Rated PG; at area Showcase Cinemas.)
JUNIOR Director Ivan Reitman (Kindergarten Cop, Twins), more than any other filmmaker,
Granny Bitchin’ The Unknown The Unknown Yankee Grey Relayer
Granny Bitchin’
Molly Hatchet w/Granny Bitchin’
HOUSEGUEST Kevin Franklin (Sinbad) is a con artist on the run from loan sharks. During a desperate escape attempt at the airport, he spots the key to his safety. Gary Young (Phil Hartman) is waiting for a long lost friend that he has not seen in more than 25 years. Before long, Kevin has convinced the absent-minded Gary that he is that friend. It looks like worlds and cultures collide in this family comedy of mistaken identities. Makes one wonder what Disney has in mind for the street-sawy Sinbad. Director Randall Miller had suecess working with Kid’n’Play in smart, articulate and attractive) and makes it work. Foster pulls off master-stroke. It is an exercise worth watching. With Jeremy Davies. (Rated R; at area Loews Theatres.)
REVIEW BY STEVE RAMOS
i-'h and make funny faces. At the drop of v start dancing around rooms with wild not so strange. This is what little stories to each other under messages that speak of a know about.
Nelson George deadly conse-
Business and CB 4, but don’t call George a he most story. Sure, he’s impressed when he sees one oT 1952, movies on TV, but that’s not good enough for pattO and himself on the back. “There’s a certain level of accopme. plishment when you get something done and throughsystem,” says George from his office in New York. “Onffl you do that, you have to raise your standards higher.”
As a filmmaker, George believes the most important standard to work by is the audience’s. “I don’t care what critics say. I think it’s more important to reach an audience. Audiences determine whether a film is a success or not.”
George believes that finding the audiences for African-American films may not be as clear-cut as many people think. Sure, films like Strictly Business, Menace to Society, CB 4 and Daughters of the Dust are all African-American films, but they also have different audiences. He says Strictly Business appeals to a middle-class, black adult audience, while CB 4 appeals to both white and African-American fans who are five to 10 years younger.
A big star may broaden a film’s appeal. Eddie Murphy drew African-American and white audiences to the theaters for hit movies like 48 Hours and Beverly Hills Cop. Murphy reached the top, but after getting there, George says Murphy could not figure out what to do next. “He could have had more power and done more things in terms of employing African-Americans in the industry,” George says.
“Murphy could produce films, but everything centers around himself. He tried to direct and didn’t like that.
Heavenly Creatures. In a moment’s notice, Jackson will turn up the volume to a screeching pitch. The girls’ shrieks hit the audience at a deafening level. His camera swoops down upon the actors. It sprints alongside the girls as they bolt through the woods screaming bloody murder.
Heavenly Creatures unfolds like a feverish dream. At moments it’s too loud and sometimes the action speeds up with an over-the-top intensity. All of which makes Heavenly Creatures the wildest ride to be had at the movies. It’s beyond campy. Jackson injects the film with equal doses of film noir suspense and sequences straight out of a MGM musical. (Orson Welles leaps from The Third Man and chases the girls down the street. Life-size claymation people surround them as they stroll through their fantasy kingdom.)
Jackson’s eclectic style overwhelms any and all substance. It’s a style that pulls two unnerving performances from Lynskey and Winslet. Dementia finds a believable home in their portrayals of Pauline and Juliet. Their overboard behavior fits in perfectly with the tempo of the film. Jackson sets no limits. Lynskey and Winslet can whoop and holler at the top of their lungs. Temper-tantrums make sense. Pouting fits right in. Lunacy is a given.
In this story, murder takes priority over romance. You can’t blame Jackson. His fascination for the shocking over tender-hearted moments should come as no suruprise. Heavenly Creatures is not a thoughtful analysis bif two troubled friends. It is a roller-coaster ride that thxists simply for the thrill of it.
E-ome art-film patrons may not know what hit them, any glenly Creatures possesses few subtleties, nuances watch' type of intellectual insights they expect from Robinsocal art theater. Jackson does not make movies opened ‘Dinner with Andre; he’d rather make movies
Throil,meone wllo eats a man named Andre for dinfilms such £reaks don’t cry sellout. Jackson might have father-son h° a different genre, but he has not left his later this yea,behind. His gore-master past is evident in Blue Dress stHeavenly Creatures. Sure, some elements
“We got tcf et *ost in a11 the Some people we’re making ??e a director like The Piano’s Jane make more aduP story with more emphasis on the intelbeing an adult. M, eyes. What about,Heavenly Creatures an art film that black adult?”
For a writer as matter of time bel t’s about time.
Melanie Lynskey, left, and Kate Winslet play two teens who plot to kill one of their mothers in Heavenly Creatures, a famous case from New Zealand.
American cinema’s more honest portrayals of being a single adult. Like the characters themselves, this film will make
Repertory
ACADEMY
development, it makes up with frantic action and breathtaking photography. For her fans, Streep’s role may seem like slumming. Hey, the girljust wants to have fun. With Kevin Bacon and David Straithaim. (Rated PG-13; at Norwood, Turfway and Biggs Place Eastgate.)
SAFE PASSAGE Few things in the movies are rarer than a part for a mature woman. So Susan Sarandon should be thrilled, right? Not only has she snared a part that allows her to act her age (Sarandon is 48), she even plays the lead in director Robert Allan Ackerman’s Safe Passage. Mag (Sarandon) is ready to begin life. Estranged from her husband Patrick (Sam Shepard), she plans to move into a new house and a new job. Poor Sarandon. She must hate herself. Here, she receives cherished part and botches the job. Sarandon could have been a hero. Safe Passage might be a critical hit and a box office favorite. Yeah, right. Safe Passage will probably sink without a trace, and Sarandon will emerge as the scapegoat for actresses everywhere. Just what Hollywood needs to
and Peter Boyle. (Rated PG; at area Showcase Cinemas.)
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 Norwood, Turfway, Forest Fair, Biggs Place Eastgate.)
SPEECHLESS Director Ron Underwood’s Speechless tackles the most basic of stories two adults falling in love. Two political speech writers, Kevin Vallick (Michael Keaton) and Julia Mann (Geena Davis) meet incognito in the middle of a tense campaign for a New Mexico congressional seat. The film should have appropriated All’s Fair, the book that chronicles the romance between President Clinton’s campaign manager James Carville and head of the George Bush campaign, Mary Matalin. Carville and Matalin’s real-life story contains more laughs than anything that Speechless screenwriter Robert King dreamt up. Speechless takes two seemingly intelligent adults and forces them to say stupid things and act in foolish ways. With Christopher Reeve and Bonnie Bedelia. (Rated PG-13; 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 Norwood, Turfway, Forest Fair and Biggs Place Eastgate.)
STAR TREK GENERATIONS There is a changing of the guard in the Star Trek movie universe. TV’s Next Generation .has pushed James T. Kirk and compa
ny off the silver screen. Who would have thought that a seemingly momentous occasion would result in such a dull affair? Generations’ flimsy story about an evil scientist who harnesses a rift in time is high on technology and low on drama. Too bad, trekkers deserve better and non-fans won’t get any of the inside jokes. A mediocre movie doesn’t seem to stop moviegoers from crowding the multiplexes. Then again, Star Trek Generations was the only family-adventure movie out this holiday. That doesn’t mean the rest of us have to follow the masses, especially when they’re wrong. With Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Frakes. (Rated PG; at area Showcase Cinemas.)
STREET FIGHTER Jean-Claude Van Damme might have finally found the perfect vehicle for himself. Inspired by the video game, Street Fighter puts the Muscles of Brussels in a cartoon environment that requires few thespian skills. Van Damme leads an Allied Nations commando team against the psychotic warlord Gen. M. Bison (the late Raul Julia). Steven De Souza has proven his knack for action by writing the successful screenplays for Die Hards 1 & 2. Now, he gets the chance to prove if he can direct all the cool stuff that his imagination comes up with. When the children get bored with their toys, this may be the movie they want to see. With Kylie Minogue and Wes Studi. (Rated PG-13; at area Loews Theatres.)
TALES FROM THE CRYPT PRESENTS DEMON KNIGHT That giggling ghoul the crypt keeper has developed huge following from its TV airings of Tales of the Crypt. Now, this unique mix of black comedy and pulp horror makes its way to the big screen. One wonders if these adaptations of the old EC comic can be any more gross and disgusting. Director Ernest Dickerson (Juice) does his best to keep the horror and gross-out fiends happy. With Billy Zane. (Rated R; at area Showcase Cinemas.)
TRUE LIES Big Arnold 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 sneak in for the last 30 minutes; that’s the only portion worth seeing. With Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Arnold and Tia Carrere. (Rated R; at Norwood.)
★ WES CRAVEN’S NEW NIGHTMARE Forget Frankenstein and those hip vampires, Freddy outscares them all. Director Wes Craven takes the monster that made him famous and puts him in a twisted movie-within-a-movie plot. With Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund and Wes Craven. (Rated R; at Turfway and Biggs Place Eastgate.)
★ WHAT HAPPENED WAS Unfolding in one long take, What
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remake of The Little Rascals last summer, the folks at the Main Library bring out some of the original gang’s short films. Hey, this is educational. Kids need to discover the real Spanky McFarland.
(Rated G; 10:30 a.m. Saturday at the Main Library, Downtown. 369-6922.)
CHARUGA Filmmaker Rajko
Grlic weaves together 10,000 extras and 50 locations for his story of a real-life 1920s Bolshevik who attempted to bring violent revolution to Yugoslavia. Another fine example, of this Eastern European filmmaker’s great talent. Grlic is currently the Eminent Scholar in film at Ohio University, Athens, as well as the visiting artist at the Wexner Center. He will introduce this showing of his work.
(Unrated; 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus. 614-292-2354.)
★ DAZED AND CONFUSED
State University’s Union Activities Board of Wright State University sponsors a showing of Stanley Kramer’s 1961 film about the infamous Naz^ war trials. This courtroom drama’s all-star cast keeps its 190 minutes from seeming too long. With Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster and Marlene Dietrich. (Unrated; 8 p.m. Thursday and Saturday at Wright State University. 513-873-5500.)
The longest, continuous run of filmmaker Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused takes place just up Interstate 75. If one movie warrants a road trip, this is it. After his cult classic Slacker, Linklater proves himself to be an up-and-comer with this thoughtful story about a group of teen-agers set in a Texas high school, circa 1976. Just another example of inspired programming from the brothers at the Westwood Cinemas. (Rated R; midnight Friday and Saturday at the Page Manor Cinema, Dayton, Ohio. 513-258-2800.)
★ DEAD CAN DANCE TOWARD THE WITHIN This British group so inspired director Mark Magidson with their score for his film Baraka, that he filmed a performance by them earlier this year in Santa Monica, Calif. Toward the Within has the difficult task of creating a visual match to the band’s exotic sounds. (Unrated; 7:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. Saturday at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus. 614-292-2354.)
513-382-3643.)
FOREST VIEW GARDENS Sit down to a three-hour meal brought to you by singers-servers who perform The Fabulous Forties. Opens Thursday. Reservations required. 4508 North Bend Road, Monfort Heights. 661-6434.
★ THE FRANKENSTEIN PROJECT Duffy Hudson directs 3 Twisted Farces. The first piece, written by Phillip F. Schewe, is set amongst sideshow barkers and carnival geeks, and has Cleppi the Clown, introducing Clever Hans, the world’s most informed horse. The Sleep Laboratory,, by Tom Harsham, features Charles Killian, founder of The Village Puppet Theatre. The last piece, Charles Morrow’s The Ministry of Progress, tells the tale of a man, who, in an effort to correct erroneous information on a government document, gets hopelessly
Theater
THE BALTIMORE WALTZ Paula Vogel’s play, which won the Obie for Best Play of 1991-92, premieres in Cincinnati featuring Poor Superman’s David Schaplowsky. All proceeds go to AVOC via The Imperial Sovereign Queen City Court of the Buckeye Empire of All Ohio, Inc. 8 p.m. ThursdaySaturday and Jan. 26-28. $10. 1425 Sycamore, Over-the-Rhine. 921-4168.
Billy Zane commands the forces of darkness in Tales
ROBERT FRANK: FILM AND VIDEO In conjunction with the national tour of Robert Frank: The Americans, here are more works from one of America’s premier visual artists. Life Raft Earth looks at a week-long hunger strike. In the quasi-autobiography About Me: A Musical, Frank casts actress Lynn Reyner to portray himself. Closing out the program is Keep Busy, a film that looks at a group of people living off the coast of Nova Scotia. (Unrated; 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus. 614-292-0330.)
THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW With the Real Movies currently dark, local lovers of the time warp may want to travel up Interstate 75 for the opportunity to throw toast and toilet paper. Hey, how far will you go for a sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania? (Rated R; midnight Saturday at the New Neon Movies, Dayton, Ohio.)
From the Crypt Presents Demon Knight.
★ ROCKY Hard to believe that Sylvester Stallone once wrote and starred in an Academy Award-winning film. Sadly, both Stallone and director John Avildsen’s have not been as consistent in quality since that 1976 box-office hit. Sure, the idea of a young boxer who rises up from the Philadelphia slums for shot at the champ is hardly original. Still, few films represent ’70s American cinema as accurately as Rocky. With Burgess Meredith and Carl Weathers. (Unrated 8 p.m. at the Murphy Theater, Wilmington, Ohio.
GENDER AND TECHNOLOGIES OF THE HOME —A film and video series that looks at how technology makes an impact on a person’s life. In Bete Noire, a wife comes under suspicion. Kitchen space is portrayed as something both social and philosophical in Her Kitchen Extension. Irresistible Impulse uses self-defense footage to address issues of physical and emotional vulnerability. A Kraft American cheese sandwich becomes an erotic object in the film Craft. The series concludes with the film Odds and Ends, an imaginary look at a future race of black women warriors. (Unrated; 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus. 614-292-2354.)
★ JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG In commemoration of the Holocaust’s anniversary, Wright
★ TRUE ROMANCE Before Pulp Fiction made Quentin Tarantino a household name, he wrote the original story for this outrageous tale of two young lovers on the r\m. True Romance is chock-full of double-crosses, unsavory drug dealers and stolen money. It’s status quo for a Tarantino film. Never taking itself serious, True Romance succeeds as an innocent romp through a traditionally bloody genre. If for no other reason, see it for all its. wild cameos. With Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette. (Rated R midnight Friday and Saturday at Westwood.)
★ YOUNG AT HEART Another example of a romantic musical comedy that represents ’50s American cinema so well. Young at Heart takes the classic story about a small-town family from the 1938 movie Four Daughters and sets it to music. Oh, did we mention that its lead is old blue eyes himself, Frank Sinatra? With Doris Day and Gig Young. (Unrated; 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Emery Theater. 721-2741.)
MARIEMONT PLAYERS —My Emperor's New Clothes is the musical version of the Hans Christian Andersen classic. 8 p.m. Friday, 1 and 3:30 p.m. weekends. Through Feb. 5. $5. Walton Creek Theatre, 4101 Walton Creek Road, Mariemont. 684-1236.
★ MARK RUSSELL LIVE Channel 48’s fund raiser presents political satirist and PBS staple Mark Russell. 7 p.m. Tuesday. $30 general admission ($20 goes to WCET). Patron admission includes a cash bar reception, performance and dinner for $100 ($55 goes to WCET). Music Hall, 1243 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine. 381-4033.
MIAMI VALLEY DINNER THEATRE Presents Driving Miss Daisy. Opens Wednesday. Through Feb. 12. $26.95434.95. Route 73, Springboro. 513-746-4554.
★ MIAMI’S PERFORMING ARTS SERIES Two members of the Borodin Trio, violinist Rostislav Dubinsky and pianist Luba Edlina, wifi perform with the Oxford String Quartet. The program includes works by Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky and Schnittke. 3 p.m. Sunday. Souers Recital Hall. On Friday, Dubinsky will lecture on his memoir, StormyApplause at 1 p.m. Then he will present a chamber music and violin master class at 3:30 p.m. Edlina will present a master piano class at 4 -p.m. Free. Internationally acclaimed flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal will present a concert. During WWII, the Nazi’s drafted him for compulsory labor in Germany, but Rampal refused, went underground and headed for Paris. There, he attended classes at the National Conservatory and five months later graduated with first prize in flute playing. 8 p.m. Sunday. $17 adults, $14 children under 18, $12 seniors. Millett Hall, Miami University, Oxford. 513-529-3200.
BOONE COUNTY COMMUNITY THEATRE GROUP Presents Agatha Christie’s classic, Ten Little Indians. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and Jan. 26-28. $5 adults; $4 seniors; $3 children 12 and under. Ryle High School Auditorium, 10379 Hwy. 42, Union. 525-6397 or 689-4766.
CINCINNATI PLAYHOUSE IN THE PARK Jar The Floor, Cheryl L. West’s hit play about the bittersweet nature of family love, continues through Feb. 10. 8 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 9 p.m. Wednesday, 5 and 9 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday. Not recommended for children. $19-$31 adults.... Young Professionals Night returns Thursday with a pre-show party at 6 p.m. Featured will be music by Jay Allbright, along with hors d’oeuvres compliments of Petersen’s Restaurant. No additional cost for the party. There will be a benefit performance with a $20 minimum donation for reserved seating or “what you wish to pay” for non-reserved seating. 8 p.m. Wednesday. Robert S. Marx Theatre. Instill your child with a love for theater and bring them to see Folktales From The 21st Century, part of the Rosenthal Next Generation Theatre Series. 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Saturday. $3.50 adults; $2 ages 518. Playhouse Plaza. Eden Park. Tickets to all shows are half-price when purchased noon-2 p.m. the day of the show. 421-3888.
MURPHY THEATRE The National Theatre of the Deaf takes a trip to France at its, vaudevillian, farcical best in An Italian Straw Hat. 7 p.m. Jan. 24. 50 W. Main St. Wilmington. $8-$12.1-382-3643.
★ CINCINNATI CHAMBER ORCHESTRA Jingond Cai will conduct a program of Chinese music, which includes Taoist composer Ah-Bing the Blind’s Moon Reflects on Erh-Chuan. The orchestra will be joined by Ming Ke, a pipa (Chinese lute) player and violinist Siqing Lu. Sunday. There will be a discussion Qf Chinese music at 2:30 p.m. The concert begins at 3 p.m. followed by a 4:30 p.m. reception featuring hors d’hoeuvres from China Gourmet, cultural exhibits and a raffle for Chinese works of art. This Chinese New Year Concert is presented by members of the Chinese American Business Association, the Cincinnati Chinese val celebrating ethnic and cultural diversity in the arts continues Saturday with Voices of Expression, which focuses on ereative writing, music and drama. Guest performers are award-winning poet and novelist James Still and musician Randy Wilson. School for the Creative and Performing Arts Theatre, 1310 Sycamore St., Over-the-Rhine. 632-5910.
VICTORIA THEATRE ASSOCIATION Ann. B. Davis, better known as Alice on The Brady Bunch plays the mother in Crazy For You, the story of Bobby Child, a pampered, J 930s playboy, sent by his domineering mother to Deadrock, Nebraska to foreclose the mortgage on a long dormant theatre. There, he falls in love with Polly Baker, the only girl in a town of 157 men. The musical, which won a Tony in 1992,
PHOTO: PETER SOREL
Giorgio Vasari. Opens Tuesday. Through April 16: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. TuesdaySaturday, noon-5 p.m. Sunday. 2035 S. Third St., Louisville, Ky. 502-636-2893.
★ LOUISVILLE VISUAL ART ASSOCIATION DinnerWorks features some of the nation’s best handmade original dinnerware by 16 talented artists or teams of artists. Opens Sunday In conjunction with this show, classes for kids ages 4-15 will be presented on Saturday. Students will create their own ceramic plates, bowls, mugs, and teapots and decorate them with brightly colored glazes. Class fees range from $35-$40. 3005 Upper River Road, Louisville, Ky. 502-896-2146.
★ MARTA HEWETT GALLERY
Seeing Things: 5th year Anniversary Exhibit features pieces by gallery artists including glass, ceramics, furniture, paintings and prints. Friday. Through Feb. 20. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. TuesdayFriday, noon-5 p.m. Saturday. 1209 Main St., Over-the-Rhine. 421-7883
★ MIAMI UNIVERSITY ART MUSEUM Forever Flowers continues through October. Distinct from Shellfish, collaborative effort by Diana Duncan Holmes and Timothy Riordan, combines books, poetry, photographs and mixed-media pieces. Husband-and-wife Cincinnatians team up again with superior poetry and photographs. Opening reception for both shows, 6-8 p.m. Timothy Riordan and Professor of English James Reiss present poetry at 5:30 p.m. Friday. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday. Free. Patterson Ave., Oxford. 513-529-2232.
Galleries & Exhibits Jarred
ARTERNATIVE GALLERY Acrylics on paper by Lynn Arnold Back Room Sale of eclectic art pieces and wearable art, through Jan. 31. 10 a.m.-7 p.m. MondayWednesday and Friday; 10 a.m.6 p.m. Saturday; noon-5 p.m. Sunday. 2034 Madison Road, O’Bryonville. 871-2218.
ARTS CONSORTIUM OF CINCINNATI, UNION TERMINAL —Art for City Walls is a yearlong exhibit focusing on local artists. Being Round Natti Town a permanent exhibition, highlights the first 150 years in Cincinnati. 1-5 p.m. Wednesday-Friday; noon-5 p.m. weekends. Union Terminal, 1301 Western Ave., Queensgate. 241-7408.
ARTS CONSORTIUM OF CINCINNATI, LINN STREET Artfor City Walls is a yearlong exhibit focusing on local artists. 1-8 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; 9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekends. 1515 Linn St., West End. 38.1-0645.
BABA BUDAN’S ESPRESSO BAR Highlights the works of photographer Derek Fenner. Through Jan. 31. 7 a.m.-ll p.m. Monday-Thursday; 7 a.m.-l a.m. Friday; 11 a.m.-l a.m. Saturday; 11 a.m.-ll p.m. Sunday. 243 Calhoun St., Clifton. 221-1911.
BASE ART Voices spotlights the works of 18 Cincinnati art therapists. Through January 31. Noon-4 p.m. Saturdays and by appointment. 1311 Main St., Overthe-Rhine. 491-3865.
BEAR GRAPHICS AND ILLUSTRATION GALLERY Chris Payne’s illustrations and Jan Knoop’s paintings, prints and sculptures. Through Feb. Noon-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. 105 E. Main St., Mason. 398-2788.
★ BLEGEN LIBRARY A photo exhibit focusing on Quadres, the first African-American student organization at UC, established in 1934, is on display in the lobby, through Jan. 31..... Taft in Caricature, an exhibit of historical political cartoons can be found in the University Archives on the eighth floor, through Feb. 28. Noon-10 p.m. weekdays, 10 a.m.5 p.m. Saturday, 1-10 p.m. Sunday. UC, Clifton. 556-1959.
BORDERS CAFE ESPRESSO
Cincinnatian Richard Brown’s works will be hanging in the coffee bar through Jan. 31. 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Sunday. Borders Books and Music, 11711 Princeton Road, Springdale. 671-5852.
CAFE ELITE Photographs by Donald Elliot feature modem sculpture and the human form, as well as studies of natural flora. 11 a.m.-10 p.m. daily. 364 Ludlow Ave., Clifton. 281-9922.
Variances exhibits the talents of regional artists: Debbie Brod, Sarah Colby, Lisa Schare, and Lynn Rose as well as Pittsburgh residents Joann Maier and Amy Novell! Curated by former CAC director Elaine King. Separate Visions features photographs by the NKU students of Professor Leeanne Schmidt. Both shows run through Jan. 28. 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, noon-4 p.m. Saturday. 1028 Scott Blvd., Covington. 491-2030.
★ CHIDLAW GALLERY, ART ACADEMY OF CINCINNATI Process of Time includes the works of photographers, Shelby Lee Adams, Charles Atkins and Oren Slor. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. MondayFriday. Art Academy of Cincinnati, Eden Park. 562-8777.
CINCINNATI ART CLUB Winter Exhibition features works by members. Opening reception, 6-9 p.m. Friday. The gallery is MORE, PAGE 24
Into Seriousness
Despite play's lack of transition between acts, Cheryl West’s exploration ofmotherhood, suppressed rage worth seeing
REVIEW BY DALE DOERMAN
others and daughters are united by a rare and distinct bond.
Cheryl L. West’s Jar the Floor explores this bond through four generations of women from one family. The results are as hysterical as they are historical, as touching as they are terrifying.
The Playhouse in the Park production reminds you that you love your mother just because she’s your mother, and that you love the theater just because of stories and characters like these.
You may also recall that some mothers, like some productions, are flawed.
MayDee (Elain Graham) is the middle-aged, single parent, African-American college professor who is waiting to arrive at tenure that is. As it turns out, she is also waiting for a few other things. She is waiting for-Lola (Crystal Laws Green), her mother, to arrive at her three-bedroom brick ranch home in Park Forest, Ill., to celebrate the 90th birthday of Lola’s mother, MaDear (Irma P. Hall). MaDear is getting to be a handful to care for, and MayDee also is hoping that Lola will prove to be more helpful. MaDear occasionally slips back to earlier times in rural Mississippi, where life is more active and she still has cows to milk and hens to feed.
Sharp-tongued Lola provides many of the first act’s laughs. She loves to dance and enjoy her time on earth. She even has a gigolo who owes her a phone call. But when MayDee’s daughter, Vennie (Tamika K. Lamison), returns from college with a white classmate and friend, Raisa (Drew Richardson), who is recovering from a radical mastectomy, the stakes are raised. Speculation abounds regarding Vennie and Raisa’s relationship, as we discover that Raisa definitely adds another dimension to the extended-family chemistry.
Irma P. Hall’s performance as MaDear, the first of the four generations in Jar the Floor, is appropriately funny and heart-wrenching.
the heart, memory and spirit of her family’s women, and she eventually brings it all together for the characters, the audience and playwright West.
Richardson is fittingly frothy as the cancer victim in the throes of self-reflection. Her portrayal is physically and emotionally complete. Lamison, though, proves less satisfying. Her Vennie is rehearsed and at times simply unreal and removed from the life of the character.
Act One is filled with the ridiculous and laughable, but the arrival of Vennie and Raisa causes a shift inward toward sensitivity, dreams and disappointments. It is at this level that the women collide, carouse and compete during the second act. Here they explore the shifting identity of motherhood, heritage and suppressed rage.
The opening-night audience embraced Lola’s caustic humor and MaDear’s aging antics that support the first act’s exposition. But the second act changes suddenly and seriously to question the past, debate the future and resolve the current confusion that threatens the immediate stability of the family.
Graham is solid as the steadfast mother who has avoided the attentions of men in order to ignore unpleasant memories. Hall’s timing is right on target for MaDear during key moments. She effectively embodies
Unfortunately no one, including director Clinton Turner Davis, gets any second-act help from the playwright. West charges into the “meaningful” scene work with little or no development tied to the preceding action. The result makes for a jarring transition into the crucial final scene, which challenges the actors to make artistic leaps across the cavernous divide of playwright neglect. Some pull it off better than others.
In spite of the resemblance to a “well-made play” and the occasionally slipshod moments, Jar the Floor won an immediate and enthusiastic standing ovation from the opening-night audience. It is an important work that touches a neglected subject and is more than worthy of our attention today, more than ever.
JAR THE FLOOR continues at Playhouse in the Park through Feb. 10. 421-3888.
★ COLLECTOR BOOK AND PRINT GALLERY The politically motivated lithographs of Gabriel Glikman, Russian Jewish artist and sculptor, will be on display through March 31. 3-6 p.m. WednesdaySaturday; 1-5 p.m. Sunday. 1801 Chase Ave., Northside. 542-6600.
open 1-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday this week as well as Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, Jan. 27-29. 1021 Parkside Place, Mount Adams. 241-4591.
Panorama of Cincinnati includes works by Henry Mosler and William Sonntag. Through Jan. 31. 9 a.m.5 p.m. weekdays, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday. 635 Main St., Downtown. 381-2128.
* CIRCLE CD'S & RECORDS
DIONYSUS RESTAURANT Photographs by Alan Bratton deal with death and rebirth, utilizing several movement artists, through Jan. 28. 11 a.m.-lO p.m. Monday-Thursday; 11 a.m.11 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 10 a.m.-3 p.m. and 5 p.m.-lO p.m. Sunday. 121 Calhoun St., Clifton. 556^512.
Holiday exhibition of limited-edition silkscreen prints and Rock concert posters by artists Derek Hess, Frank Kozik, Linsey Kuhn, M. Getz, J. Hollans and Uncle Charlie. A revived art form reminiscent of Haight Ashbury. Through Jan. 31.11 a.m.-8 p.m.
★ FITTON CENTER FOR CRE-
ATIVE ARTS Highlights the works of Cincinnatian Kay Muir.
GALLERY 48—9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays. 1223 Central Parkway, Over-the-Rhine. 381-4033.
CIVIC GARDEN CENTER OF GREATER CINCINNATI - 9 a m4 p.m. Tuesday-Friday; 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday. 2715 Reading Road, Avondale. 221-0981.
GALLERY 99 Twenty artists from this co-operative gallery have contributed to put together their show, Faces. Through February.
Noon-6 p.m Thursday-Sunday; noon-9 p.m. Friday and Saturday. 1101 St. Gregory St., Mt. Adams. 651-1441.
★ CLOSSON’S GALLERY DOWNTOWN Permanent collection features some of the best art by Cincinnati's earlier artists including Frank Duveneck, John Henry Twachtman, Herman and Bessie Wessel, Charles Meurer, William Louis Sonntag, John Weis, Charles Salis Kaelin and Henry Mosler.
GLASS CRAFTERS STAINED
GLASS STUDIO Features hand-crafted stained and beveled glass miniatures, windows, lamps, mirrors and more. 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
HARROGATE Works exhibited mostly of maritime themes including 19th and 20th century paintings, ship models and artifacts. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. MondaySaturday. 3075 Madison Road, Oakley. 321-6020.
HEBREW UNION COLLEGE SKIRBALL MUSEUM —Aishet Hayil: Woman of Valor features paintings, textiles and sculptures. Through March. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 2-5 p.m. Sunday. 3101 Clifton Ave., Clifton. 221-1875.
HEIKE PICKETT GALLERY 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. 522 W. Short St., Lexington, Ky. 606-233-1263.
HILLEL JEWISH STUDENT CEN-
TER Michal Koren, Jonah Tobias, Nate Waspe and Pam Zelman, students from UC’s school of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning, open a special exhibition Monday. Through March. 9 a.m.5 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m.3 p.m. Friday. 2615 Clifton Ave., Clifton. 221-6728.
★ IN SITU Inside/Outside is a group exhibition featuring landscape multiples by national and regional artists Laurie Rousseau, Suzanne Caporael, Joan Nelson, Wade Hoefer, Ellen Phalen, Katleen Sterck and Terry Rozo and the X-Art Foundation. Known for its exquisite installations, in situ presents landscape works from fresh, well-conceived perspectives. Through Saturday. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. 1435 Main St., Over-the-Rhine. 651^613. INNER SPACE DESIGN Presents one-of-a-kind necklaces
GALLERY A Kaleidoscope: Appalachian Art ofSouthern Ohio. Through Feb. 24. 8 a.m.5 p.m. weekdays. 4200 Clermont College Drive, Batavia. 732-5224.
CLOSSON’S GALLERY KEN-
John Gorka, Patty Larkin, Cheryl Wheeler, and Cliff Eberhardt
SATURDAY, MARCH 4 8:00 PA
GREAVES CONCERT HALL NORTHERN KENTUCKY UNIVERSITY
RESERVED SEATING $13 & $15 CALL 572-6500 FOR TICKETS
a Half out of Its ‘3 Twisted Farces’
REVIEW BY DALE DOERMAN
We can all use a good laugh to help survive the gloom of winter. And while the Frankenstein Project’s newest offering does present some opportunities to chuckle, there won’t be any compound fractures of the funny bone.
Frankenstein, now in its first full season, is going for the yucks 'with 3 Twisted Farces at the Carnegie Theatre in Covington: “Clever Hans,” “The Sleep Laboratory” and “The Ministry of “The Ministry of Progess” is filled with wild and funny characters, including Benedetto (Tricia Cronin, right).
Progress.”
“Clever Hans,” by Phillip F. Schewe, is staged in front of the curtain on the proscenium stage. Cleppi (Michael Bath) introduces variety acts from a sexy accordionist, Liesl (Bridget Ann Slavin), to a trained-horse act featuring the trainer Von Osten (Artie C. Kidwell) and his calculating, if not educated, brainy steed Hans (Jim Neely). Kidwell is charming, Liesl’s talent is telling and Neely’s horse has more sense than some give him credit for. The real treat is Bath’s farcical portrait of the Germanic showman-presenter. “Clever Hans” is brief and indeed clever a blackout sketch with a punch at the close.
“The Sleep Laboratory,” by Tom Harsham, is more problematic. Unlike “Clever Hans,” this play actually tries to be clever but mostly it just tries and tries and tries. Designed for the Carnegie thrust stage, four oversize beds hold four patients who dance in to The Sleepers’ Ballet, by Leroy Anderson, and then collapse after sneaking a pill from the nurs-
es’ station. This much at least makes sense, but from here on you’re on your own. Dr. Muckmaster (David A. Levy) and his assistant Dr. Blaine (Neely) run the Sleep Lab and tentatively co-exist with Dr. Merk (Charles Killian), who was previously a blue-collar employee at the hospital but has since risen through the ranks. Now, Nurse Misty (Bridget Ann Slavin), who is adored by Dr. Muckmaster, works for the muchdespised Dr. Merk. (I’ll stop here before I lead you to believe this plot goes somewhere.)
Although “The Sleep Laboratory” is billed as a “work in progress,” it more closely resembles a work in decay.
“The Ministry of Progress,” by Charles Morrow, saves the day for this trio of oneacts. This absurd farce finds Dave Glutterman (Bath) bungling his way through the bureaucracy at the Ministry of Progress to return an inaccurate voter-registration card sent in the mail. During his quest inside the ministry, Glutterman encounters wild, strange and funny characters that will remind you of your last visit to the D.M.V. to have your license renewed. It is a wonderful tour deforce for Bath, who is one of the most sophisticated comic actors working in the area. His timing, tone and scope are ideal for the play and the staging. The scenic design, courtesy of Buz Davis, is pleasant to the eye and fulfills the stage requirements with interesting proportions that suggest the imaginative and sometimes frightening child’s view of the world. If you go to these 3 Twisted Farces, arrive well before curtain time, so you can enjoy the pre-show music a collection of Warner Bros, cartoon soundtracks set the mood.
The Frankenstein Project's 3 TWISTED FARCES continues at Carnegie Theatre through Jan. 29. 221-8777, Ext. 3.
by New York jewelry designer Nancie Taphom. Through Feb. 28. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday. 2128 Madison Road, O’Bryonville. 533-0300.
★ JAMAR GALLERY Works by five artists include photographs by Boris Yusupov, titled New Eyes on Cincinnati oils and watercolor/papercuts by Russian artist Oleg Lazarenko; oils by C. Savchenko; floral watercolors by Crimean artist Elvira Letz; and the cloisonne enamel pieces of Joseph Treppetti. Jamar’s ongoing interest in Russian art is manifested again. Through Jan. 31. Ghani Ghupor, dean of the Art Department of Xinjiang Art College in Urumqi, China, will be the artist-in-residence during January and will accept appointments to paint portraits. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday. 135 W. Fourth St., Downtown. 333-0022.
JULIA’S GALLERY OF PHOTOGRAPHY Sixty Years of Photography, a retrospective of the work of Ruth Bernhard, a pioneer of American photography, focuses primarily on the nude figure and still life. Through Feb. 15. Civic Center Shops, 410 West Vine St., Lexington, Ky. 606-225-8260.
KALDI'S COFFEE HOUSE & BOOKSTORE Photographs by Robert Derr. Exquisite Drawings by six-year old Lexan Rosser. Through Feb. 15. 7 a.m.I Monday-Thursday, 7 2:30 a.m. Friday, 10 a.m.-2:30 a.m. Saturday, 10 a.m.-midnight Sunday. 1202 Main St., Over-theRhine. 241-3070.
KZF GALLERY Paintings and drawings by Ken Landon Buck; sculpture by Barbara Beatrice; paintings and prints by B.B. Hall. Through March. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays. 655 Eden Park Drive, Walnut Hills. 621-6211.
LOUISVILLE VISUAL ART ASSOCIATION Oddities, such as losing lottery tickets, mattress tags and underwear, are part of Bart Kasten’s Permanent Collection. Through Feb. 26. 3005 Upper River Road, Louisville, Ky. 502-896-2146.
MACHINE SHOP GALLERY Chairs, is an exhibition by University of Cincinnati industrial design students. Through Feb. 10. 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. 100 E. Central Parkway, Over-theRhine. 556-1928.
★ MALTON GALLERY —Foreign Exchange: New Talentsfrom the Old, Countries features the etchings of Sweitlan Kraczynam, a Polish/Russian-born artist working now in Florence, Italy; the pastel drawings of Tatjana Krizmanic, a native of Yugoslavia currently residing in Nova Scotia; and the paintings on handmade paper of Vladzimir Isupov, born in Siberia now living in Russia. A refreshing exhibit of new Russian artists. Through Jan. 31. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday. 2709 Observatory Ave., Hyde Park. 321-8614.
★ MASON FINE ART GALLERY A well-curated exhibition showcases mostly regional talent and features silverpoints, watercolors and egg tempera paintings by Cincinnatians Ken Landen Buck and Jan Brown Checco, and New Yorkers Irwin Greenberg and Kenney Mencher. Buck’s work is must-see. Through Sunday.
II a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 6-9 p.m. Wednesday. 108 W. Main St., Mason. 398-7469.
MILLER GALLERY The paint ings of Northern Illinois University Professor of Art Ben Mahmoud will be on display through Feb. 3. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday. 2715 Erie Ave., Hyde Park. 871-4420.
★ MULLANE’S PARKSIDE CAFE
The acrylic seascapes and cityscapes of Craig Britton will be on display through Feb. 4. 11:30 a.m.-lO p.m. Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Friday, 5-11 p.m.
Saturday. 723 Race St., Downtown. 381-1331.
★ NORTHERN KENTUCKY UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY Metals Form in Chaos will be on display with John Moylan’s exhibition of paintings and drawings, Fragments, and the international exhibition Paper: USA/Finland Contrasts and Connections. Through Feb. 3. 9 a.m.-9 p.m. weekdays; 1-5 p.m. weekends. Fine Arts Building, NKU, Highland Heights. 572-5148.
OLMES GALLERY Works of Cindy Olmes currently on display. 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.
ONE SHOT GALLERY Presents new works by Cincinnati artist Mils, with vintage political cartoons by fellow Cincinnatian Claude Shafer. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. weekdays, weekends by appointment. 658 Main St., Downtown. 721-1193.
ONLY ARTISTS 11 a.m.-5 p.m.' Tuesday-Saturday. 1315 Main St., Over-the-Rhine. 241-6672.
PARISIAN GALLERY Features works by the members of the Hilltop Artists. Through March 6. 10 a.m.-9 p.m. daily. Forest Fair Mall, 300 Forest Fair Dr. 522-0117.
★ LAURA PAUL GALLERY An elegant mix of work in a classy gallery setting, The Art of Giving... The Giving ofArt highlights original works by Enrico Embroli, sculpture by Charles Herndon and jewelry by Angela Cummings. Through Jan. 30. Preview 95, highlights original works on paper and canvas by A. Hall and Embroli. Through Jan. 31. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, or by appointment. Dixie Terminal Arcade, 49 E. Fourth St., Downtown. 651-5885.
RAYMOND GALLERY Several Cincinnati artists are represented.
10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday; 10 a.m.8 p.m. Monday and Wednesday. 2700 Erie Ave., Hyde Park. 871-7373.
ROSEWOOD ARTS CENTRE
GALLERY Yung Ja Lee presents new paintings in her show, Shape of Her Words. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Friday; 10 a.m-2 p.m. Saturday. 2655 Olson Dr. Kettering. 296-0294.
★ SCHOOL FOR CREATIVE AND PERFORMING ARTS Several art exhibits will open throughout a seven week festival celebrating ethnic and cultural diversity in the arts. The festival, called Voices of Harmony is supported by Fifth Third Bank, and opens with My Journey’s Voice: The Art of Narration. 9 a.m.-4 p.m Friday. SCPA Theatre. 1310 Sycamore St., Over-the-Rhine. 632-5936.
★ SEMANTICS GALLERY Hand made dolls along with family portraits and X-rays of the dolls are included in Heidi Steinke’s new exhibition, Dollhouse. Through Wednesday. 1-4 p.m. weekdays, noon-5 p.m. weekends. 1125 Walnut St., Over-the-Rhine. 684-0102.
★ STUDIO SAN GIUSEPPE AT THE COLLEGE OF MOUNT ST. JOSEPH Unity and Diversity
a selection of poster designs created by students at Parsons School of Design answers the question, “How can a society recognize the distinctiveness and diversity of its memebers and still hold onto the general principles of human-ness?” Open house reception, 10 a.m.2 p.m. Thursday. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays, 1:30-4:30 p.m. weekends. College of Mount St. Joseph, 5701 Delhi Road, Delhi Township. 244^4314.
★ STUDIO 701 Art From the Heart showcases large and small works on canvas and paper by M. MORE, PAGE 26
Diversity Among Russians
Three galleries take refreshing new risks by showing new talent
REVIEW BY FRAN WATSON
My first reaction to any art wearing a qualifying group label, (i.e., Art by Senior Women, Bus Drivers Who Fantasize About Gerard Depardieu), is skepticism. So, when assigned to write about Russian art appearing at three Cincinnati galleries, I looked first for excuses. Instead, I found commitment in the face of hardship, talent shining through intellectual deprivation and gallery owners who were willing to make extraordinary efforts to aid these artists.
Russian art has existed in a confined limbo for three-quarters of a century that resembled creative conditions in the Middle Ages. Very little of the incredible growth and diversity Western art has experienced since the Armory show in 1913 which brought modern European art to America was made known within the Soviet Union. Everything and everyone in Soviet Russia produced something to benefit the system, and art was no exception. The favored media for artists were posters and sculpture. Deviation or self-expression was not only discouraged but punishable by anything from demotion to exile in Siberia.
Housing was and still is a premium in Russia. Highceiling studios, or even adequate studios, are nearly unknown. Materials are costly, and time for art must be found after work. Portable sizes are practical, hangable and lend themselves to the difficulties of travel across Russian borders. In the case of Malton Gallery’s mixedmedia pieces by Vladzimir Isupov, the works bear marks of being crumpled into his shoes in order to hide them from export officials. Upon arrival in the United States, he ironed the works, allowing any unremovable creases to become part of the art.
Every gallery has amazing tales of how the art came into their spaces. At Jamar Gallery, intrigue, bribery and betrayal were described as the only means by which the artists’ works could cross the Russian border. Even then, the money could be pocketed by officials, and the work still not released.
At Collector Book and Print Gallery in Northside, the lithographs of Gabriel Glikman come from an attic where they have been hidden for years. The owner’s name cannot be revealed, but the works were smuggled out of Russia and through Poland 50 years ago. Glikman had been labeled a dissident, turning on the government after enjoying a career as one of the nation’s most honored sculptors. Some of the images are of gulag inmates, others are of world-famous musicians and artists. An insightful portrayal of the young Arnold Shoenberg, vaguely saturnine an aesthetic, illustrates the strong presences so characteristic of Glikman’s style. Brisk, impatient portrayals bear the harsh confidence of an artist accustomed to a medium of vast dimensions.
Somehow Glikman belongs in this curious collection of old books and old prints presided over by a highly vocal and territorial cat. His history becomes more precious amid the dignity of many histories.
Russian artists compensate for much, though, with pure skill. They are taught perfection in their craft, which can do much to curb individuality. Yet, this painstaking care emerges in the least expected places with surprising results. Oleg Lazarenko’s oil-on-canvas
works at Jamar Gallery heavily painted still-lifes an electric combination sionism. At the back prets these same pieces
Vladzimir Isupov’s “Crier” is at Malton Gallery.
ability with the medium fail to escape mediocrity. artists fail occasionally, they are trying to break she does well, and seems Perhaps the most found at Malton Gallery their lowly means of would be considered like old familiar friends tion. I’m not sure what ing them say it. In delicate unobtrusive handmade big whoop, just nice
Masterful prints by Malton, and pastel drawings out the current international printed for Italian master legendary Russian skill ings so perfectly registered make them art, even gently colored. Included “Twelve Months at Colleramole,” of Ghirlandaio, the Italian taught Michelangelo'.
Katherine Hurley, winner of a recent Artist’s magazine award.
A good look at conservative landscape work. Studio 701 of the Pendleton Art Center, 1310 Pendleton St., Over-the-Rhine. 241-4123.
★ TANGEMAN FINE ARTS
GALLERY The annual Faculty Exhibition tor UC’s College of D.A.A.P. includes the works of John Stewart, Roy Cartwright, Denise Burge, Jane Alden Stevens and Nicholas Chaparos to name a few of the twelve faculty whose work will be on display. Through Feb. 17. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays. Tangeman Student Center, UC, Clifton. 556-2962.
THOMAS MORE GALLERY
Akron area artist, Jack McWhorter
will be showing his new work entitied Iconic Images from Friday, through Feb. 17. 8 a.m.-9:45 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Friday; Noon-4 p.m. Saturday; 4-8 p.m. Sunday. Thomas More College Library. 333 Thomas More Pkwy., Crestview Hills. 606-344-3309.
★ TONI BIRCKHEAD GALLERY Group show focusing on abstract painting highlights the works of Tarrence Corbin, Alan Crockett, Stuart Fink, Peter Gooch, Frank Herrmann, Tom Levine and Thom Shaw. Through Feb. 24. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. weekdays, Saturday by appointment. 342 W. Fourth St., Downtown. 241-0212.
TOON ART GALLERIES
Disney Dimensions highlights limited-edition and one-of-a-kind 3-D pieces from raku pottery to collector plates and jewelry. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. By appointment Monday. 21 E. Fifth St., Westin Hotel, Downtown. 651-3500.
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★ UC MEDICAL SCIENCE LIBRARY Jeff Casto and Melissa Steirunan’s show, Lost and Found, combines mixed media and found objects. Through March 3. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays. 231 Bethesda Ave., Clifton. 558-5627.
PATRICIA WEINER GALLERY
11 a.m.-5 p.m. WednesdaySaturday. 9352 Main St., Montgomery. 791-7717.
WENTWORTH GALLERY —Boats features the works of Milnar, Modic, McCann, Hallam, and Picot will be on display through Monday. Beginning Tuesday, the work of Thomas McKnight will be on display in McKnight’s World.
★ WEXNER CENTER FOR THE ARTS Challenging conventional notions of photographic beauty and blurring the line between art photography and photojournalism, Robert Frank, in 1958, produced The Americans, off-angled, gritty images of America and Americans. The last remaining complete set of prints is now on national tour stops at the Wexner Center. Opening reception for the winter exhibitions, 6-9 p.m. Wednesday. Through March 26. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday and Friday; 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Wednesday and Saturday; noon-5 p.m. Sunday. Ohio State University, North High Street at 15th Avenue, Columbus. 614-292-3535.
Allen Shiffler, who. died as a result of AIDS, by artist Joel Otterson; through Sunday. Acquisitions of Costume and Textiles, 19741994 is on display through Jan. 29. Support for this exhibit is provided by Fashion Group Int. Edward Potthast 1857-1927 features eight paintings by the native Cincinnatian; through March 5. Richard Bitting: Nine Summer Haiku is a suite of nine color lithographs with music and text transformed into designs; through April 9. Air in Motion, Heart in Motion includes 14 prints by Shinoda Toko, trained in calligraphy but best known for her paintings; through May 14. The Questfor Quality highlights museum acquisitions from the 20year directorship of recently retired Millard F. Rogers. 10 a.m.-
5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m.5 p.m. Sunday. $5 adults; $4 students and seniors; children free; free to all Saturdays. Eden Park. 721-5204.
WOMEN’S ART CLUB OF CINCINNATI Parisian Gallery, Forest Fair Mall, 1047 Forest Fair Drive, Fairfield. 922-3585.
WRIGHT STATE UNIVERSITY
ART GALLERIES Presents Perpetrators, lithographs of Nazi war criminals by Sid Chafetz. War Through Children’s Eyes, is a collection of art by refugee children in the Bosnian and Croation areas. Through Jan. 29. 10 a.m.4 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, noon-5 p.m. weekends. Creative Art Center at Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio. 513-873-2978.
★ COLUMBUS MUSEUM OF ART Landscape As Metaphor is a special exhibit highlighting multimedia works by 13 living American artists. A good look at landscape, in conjunction with the Wexner Center for the Arts’ landscape show. The museum has two important collections: the Sirak Collection of French Impressionist and German Expressionists that includes Degas, Renoir, Monet, Ensor, Picasso and Klee; and the Howald Collection of American painters that includes O’Keefe, Homer, Bellows and Cassatt. The museum collection is free. Special exhibits $3 adults, $2 children.
Celebrate! features watercolors by Jane McCulloch and an exhibition by members of the Art Bank cooperative. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday. 898 Walnut St., Downtown. 241-7090.
840 GALLERY—School of Art Exhibition: Painting. 8 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays. D.A.A.P. Building, University of Cincinnati, Clifton. 556-2962.
Museums
TER A ten year retrospective of the paintings and computer generated/manipulated autobiographical images concerning male identity and family relationships by David Humphrey opens Monday. Cincinnati feminist sculptor Patricia Renick explores the loss and violation of identity and the metaphoric voyage "of the spirit through her installation of female figures atop boat forms in 2068. Light Into Art features light-assculpture, including virtual reality, contextualizing computerized virtual reality with a well-chosen, eclectic group of acclaimed artists working with light as their medium. Curated by former CAC director/curator Elaine King; through Friday. Sponsored by Marty and Howard Tomb. San Francisco artist Lynn Hershman’s Room of One’s Own is an interactive videodisk computer installation dealing with the ideas of woman as object and voyeurism; through Jan.
★ 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. Made possible in part by the support of Richard L. and Betty Ann Shenk. Through Jan. 26. Manet to Toulouse- Lautrec: French Impressionists to PostImpressionist Prints and Drawings proves that all great art is based upon drawing. Presented by PNC Bank. Through March 5. Also, Divine Intervention is a modern-day memorial to Richard
29. 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 Childe Hassam: Etchings and Lithographs by the tum-of-thecentury American artist. Through Jan. 29. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Sunday; 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Tuesday. 456 Belmonte Park North, Dayton, Ohio. 513-223-5277.
THE DAYTON VISUAL ARTS CENTER —Mixed Media Constructions ofCraig Lloyd explores the interaction between the natural and reconstructed worlds. Through Feb. 18. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. weekdays; 1-4 p.m. Saturdays, or by appointment. 40 W. 4th St., Dayton. 1-222-3822.
INDIANAPOLIS MUSEUM OF ART Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: An Art in the Making spotlights 150 of the world’s earliest (and still best) animation cels, exhibited with extraordinarily creative adjunct programs, through Feb. 5. Textiles by West African Nakunte Diarra; through Saturday: Paintings by Indiana native-turned-superstar Kay Rosen iii Back Home in Indiana; through Sunday. Written on Stone with Garo Antreasian, through Sunday. Liber Studiorum, Turner Prints features works from the 13-year span the artist devoted to printmaking, through Feb. 5. Riley to Tarkington: Images ofIndiana Authors; through March 12.
10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday; 10 a.m.-8:30 p.m. Thursday; noon5 p.m. Sunday. $4 adults; $3 students and seniors; children 12 and under free. 1200 W. 38th St., Indianapolis. 317-923-1331.
MIAMI UNIVERSITY ART MUSEUM Continuing exhibits include Stitched, Woven and Plaited: Contemporary Craft Traditions ofAfrica,, through June 11; and The Belle Epoque in Caricature, drawings and lithographs from turn-of-the-century France, through Feb. 19. Forever Flowers continues through October. Also showing is a joint exhibition by the faculty of the Miami University Department of Art & Architecture and the University of Cincinnati Department of Art. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday. Free. Patterson Ave, Oxford. 513-529-2232.
★ NATIONAL AFRO-AMERICAN MUSEUM AND CULTURAL CENTER Mississippi Freedom Summer Remembered: 19641994 is a photographic exhibition
commemorating the sary of the Mississippi Summer. A must-see and aesthetic purposes; photography's multiple ties. From Victory Afro-American Life a permanent exhibition artifacts staged in settings cent of the period. $3.50 $1.50 students. 9 a.m.-5 Tuesday-Saturday, 1-5 Sunday. 1350 Brush Row Wilberforce. 513-376^944.
SOUTHERN OHIO MUSEUM Permanent collection Portsmouth native Clarence .10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday. Gallia St, Portsmouth. 614-354-5629.
* THE TAFT MUSEUM Expatriate American Other Selections From Cincinnati Collection paintings, watercolors tures, including works “Duveneck" school artists. includes a Herter Bros, display. Superb Elizabeth paintings from the turn-of-the-century mix with period from original Cincinnati home as director Phillip attempts to make the house once again. Through Sponsored in part by Engines.... Also, a special of four works by Grandma continues through March 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
UtterKiosk
Road, Springdale. 521-1913.
CINCINNATI PLAYWRIGHTS Critique group for playwrights meets at 7 p.m. every Monday at the Carnegie Arts Center, Robbins and Scott streets, Covington. 556-3914.
CINCINNATI WRITERS PROJECT Support group for writers of every genre offers monthly meetings. 689-5283.
CINCINNATI WRITERS PROJECT FICTION CRITIQUE GROUP Meets at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. Arnold’s Bar & Grill, 210 E. Eighth St., Downtown. 771-6899.
GATHERING HOUSE Founded in 1993 by journalist, author and community activist Susan Kammeraad-Campbell to offer a safe environment for women to gather, write and work creatively, it now offers classes and workshops designed to help both men and women discover their innate creativity. Kathy Baxter will give a class on bookbinding. Noon5 p.m. Saturday and 12-3 p.m. Sunday. $60, plus a $20 material fee. 100 S. College Drive, Oxford. 513-523^284.
GREATER CINCINNATI WRITERS LEAGUE Critique group meets at 8 p.m. on the second Friday of every month at the Regency, 2444 Madison Road, Hyde Park. 753-5697.
MYSTERY AND MAYHEM The mystery book group is currently reading Minette Walters’ The Sculptress. It meets at 7:30 p.m. on the first Tuesday of every month. Little Professor Book Center, 814 Main St., Milford. 248-BOOK.
OHIO VALLEY ROMANCE WRITERS OF AMERICA Local chapter of the national organization meets at 1 p.m. on the second Saturday of every month in the community room in Forest Fair Mall. 1047 Forest Fair Drive, Fairfield. 863-6053.
QUEEN CITY WRITERS CLUB Critique group meets at 7:30 p.m. on the third Monday of every month. Northside Bank and Trust, 9135 Colerain Ave., Colerain Township. First meeting free. 522-0108.
SOCIETY OF PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISTS Organization of working journalists and writers offers monthly programs, monthly newsletter and subscription to national Quill magazine. Local and/or national dues. 665^1700. WRITING LIVES WRITING WORKSHOP Workshop for women writers. 871-8702. YOUNG READERS DISCUSSION GROUP Under discussion is Mary James’ Shoebag. 7-8 p.m. Thursday. Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Rookwood Pavilion, Madison and Edwards roads, Norwood. 396-8960.
BREAD FOR BEDLAM The monthly poetry contest will be held 8 p.m. The winner gets $50, the runner-up receives a poster poem and the bronze medalist takes home Paul Blackburn Official Underwear (unused). Kaldi’s Coffee House & Bookstore, 1202-04 Main St., Over-the-Rhine. 241-3070.
MUSEUM
A Rare Reading from a Superb Storyteller
Max Steele to readfrom his classic book of short despite his reluctancefor self-promotion
INTERVIEW BY BILLIE JEYES
Max Steele doesn’t give too many readings. “It seems that authors jump out from behind trees and read their work,” he says. “And women’s clubs can’t seem to digest their food without an author reading to them.
“Vaudeville didn’t disappear,” he continues, with the one, two, three patter of a stand-up comedian. “It went into publishing.”
Luckily for us, Story magazine, to which he acts as an adviser, has persuaded the reluctant author to set aside his misgivings and read this Monday at the University of Cincinnati from his book of short stories, The Hat ofMy Mother.
Construction Does In Blue Marble
The collection, which has just been released in paperback by Algonquin Books, is a testament to Steele’s mastery of the genre. “The Cat and the Coffee Drinkers,” perhaps his most famous story, is a marvelous character study of his unorthodox kindergarten teacher, Miss Effie. The ending, which I don’t want to give away, is both ghastly and funny and has drawn criticism from cat lovers everywhere. It remains, however, a classic.
His first novel, Debby, published in 1950, won the Mayflower Award and the Harper Prize.
Pat Randolph, owner of the Blue Marble children’s bookstore in Oakley, was surprised to read about the closing of her store in the Jan. 9 issue of Publisher’s Weekly. “The Oakley Blue Marble is alive and well,” she says.
It turns out that the store in question was the Blue Marble children’s bookstore in the Kings Automall. Although the book shop has a Cincinnati ZIP code, it is actually in Deerfield Township, hence the confusion.
“It’s awful,” says Tina Moore, owner of the King Automall store. “But for me it’s not the end of the world. I have the Fort Thomas stoK
“I
“Plimpton and I did At first, he wouldn’t to talk to us about bloodhounds dependent on their sense almost blind at the time,
published my first Why Paris? living was in North Burroughs I Francisco. been 1955 legendary Paris but their The tion ly George Work.
Max Steele
Attractions
ing and beer artifacts in the world. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily. $4 adult tour and tasting; $3 adult tour only; $2 beer tasting only; under 12 free. Oldenberg Complex, Interstate 75 at Buttermilk Pike, Fort Mitchell. 341-2802.
BEHRINGER-CRAWFORD MUSE-
UM Housed within the historic Devou family home, it is the only museum of Northern Kentucky natural and cultural heritage. The museum reopens on Feb. 1 with the permanent exhibition Harlan Hubbard Collection, an amalgam of oils, acrylics, watercolors and woodcuts donated by the artist/author in 1985. 10 a.m.-
5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 1-5 p.m. weekends. $2 adults; $1 students and seniors. Devou Park, Covington. 491-4003.
BENNINGHOFFERN HOUSE
This restored Victorian mansion, built in 1861, provides the setting for the .Butler County Historical Museum. 1-4 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday. $1 adults; free children 12 and under. 327 N. Second St., German Village, Hamilton. 513-893-7111.
BICENTENNIAL COMMONS A picturesque riverfront park.
Admission: $2 adults; $1 children 12 and under. $1 skate rental; $2 rollerblade rental. Bicentennial Commons at Sawyer Point, Downtown. Call first to confirm times. 352-6316..
BUCKINGHAM LODGE A preCivil War house now home to the Indian Hill Historical Society. By appointment only. Camargo Road, Indian Hill. 891-1873.
CAREW TOWER OBSERVATION
DECK Come to the top of the tallest building in Cincinnati for a breathtaking view of the city’s seven hills. 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. weekdays, 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
Saturday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday. $2 adults; $1 children 5-12; free to children under 5. 441 Vine St., Downtown. 579-9735.
UM Newly opened interactive museum. Instructor Kenn Leslie will help you create your own work of art from found objects. 6-7 p.m. Friday. Enjoy the dance and drums of Africa with a demonstration. Audience participation is encouraged. 1 and 3 p.m. Saturday.
Storyteller Linda Brim weaves her web with Appalachian folk tales and jump tales. 1 and 3 p.m. Sunday. Pre-registration is required for the six-week computer workshop for children, FUTUREKIDS. 10-10:45 a.m.
Tuesday for ages 4-5 and 4-4:45 p.m. for ages 6-7. Museum hours: Schools only, 10 a.m.-noon Wednesday-Friday. General admission, noon-5 p.m. WednesdayFriday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, noon-5 p.m. Sunday. $6 admission; children under 5 pay their age in dollars. Annual membership is $55 for two people (at least one adult); $75 for a family of three; $95 for a family of four. Those with more than four family members may add $20 for each additional person. Longworth Hall, 700 W. Pete Rose Way, Downtown. 421-5437.
CINCINNATI FIRE MUSEUM
Featuring the permanent exhibit
The Early Volunteer Fire Fighters of Cincinnati, which covers the period from 1853 to the present. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. TuesdayFriday, noon-4 p.m. weekends.
$2.50 adults; $1.50 children 2-12. Annual family membership is $25, 315 W. Court St., Downtown. 621-5553.
CINCINNATI HISTORICAL SOCI-
ETY MUSEUM Permanent exhibits include Cincinnati.: Settlement to I860, a re-creation of the city’s origins from a Western frontier outpost to a booming manufacturing center, and Cincinnati Goes to War, a portrait of the homefront during WWII.
Museum hours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday. $4.95 adults; $2.95 children; members free. Annual membership: $35 for an individual plus one, $45 for families. “Time Traveler” (includes membership in
Collections and Research Center of the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History, 1720 Gilbert Ave., Walnut Hills. 395-3663.
the Museum of Natural History) is $60 for the individual plus one, $75 for families. A parking pass costs $10 extra. Children ages 312, who present a piece of paper with the word “Weatherschool” written on it, will gain free admission. Museum Center at Union Terminal, 1301 Western Ave., Queensgate. 287-7030.
SHARON WOODS VILLAGE
CINCINNATI ZOO AND BOTANICAL GARDEN Explore the Jungle Trails, the zoo’s newest exhibit, which re-creates the natural habitat of orangutans, bonobo chimps and other animals. Also, check out the Komodo dragon exhibit, which holds the world’s record for the most baby Komodo dragons to hatch. Ice skating, free with zoo admission, continues 10 a.m.-4 p.m. each weekend in January. Skate rentals cost $3 per pair. Sunday-Thursday; 5-9:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday. Zoo hours: 9 a.m.5 p.m. daily. $7.50 adults, $4.50 children 2-12, $5.25 seniors; $4.50 parking. Annual membership: $54 for families, $46 for single parent families, $35 for individuals and $22 for students. 3400 Vine St., Avondale. 281-4700.
DAYTON MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY A 7-month-old red fox that was too tame to be reintroduced into the wild can be seen in Wild Ohio, a zoo containing animals native to Ohio. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday and Saturday; 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Friday; noon-5 p.m. Sunday. $3 adults; $1.50 ages 3-17; free to children 2 and under. 2699 DeWeese Parkway, Dayton, Ohio. 513-275-7431.
DELHI HISTORICAL SOCIETY A restored 1880 farmhouse. Closed until Feb. 5. 468 Anderson Ferry, Delhi Township. 451-4313.
DINSMORE HOMESTEAD A historic farmstead built in 1841-42. The Dinsmores never threw anything away, leaving a fascinating collection of letters, diaries and receipts. 1-5 p.m. Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. $3 adults; $2 seniors; $1.50 children under 12. 5654 Burlington Pike, Burlington, Ky. 586-6117.
CINCINNATI MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY Step back .19,000 years to the Ice Age Ohio Valley for the museum’s permanent exhibit, Cincinnati’s Ice Age: Clues Frozen in Time. See how fossils excavated from the Findley dig are sorted and cleaned at the Ice Age Exhibit, 2 and 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Maryjo Flamm-Miller will teach you how to identify woodland animals by their footprints. 1-2:30 p.m. Saturday. $16 members, $19 non-members. .Museum hours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday. $4.95 adults; $2.95 children; members free. Annual membership: $35 for an individual plus one, $45 for families. “Time Traveler” (includes membership in the Historical Society) is $60 for an individual plus one; $75 for families. A parking pass costs $10 extra. Children ages 3-12, who present a piece of paper with the word “Weatherschool” written on it, will gain free admission. Museum Center at Union Terminal, 1301 Western Ave., Queensgate. 287-7020.
CINCINNATI PLANETARIUM
FOUNTAIN SQUARE ICE RINK Open 10 a.m.-8 p.m. MondayThursday; 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Friday and Saturday; closed Sunday. The ice-skating rink will be open 4-8 p.m. Thursday; 4-9 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Saturday and noon.6 p.m. Sunday. Through Feb. 20, weather permitting. $1 to skate, $1 skate rental. You can skate for free by presenting a receipt for Sudafed. Downtown. 684-4945.
Join Planetarium manager John Schroer on a tour of each month’s evening sky with its constellations, bright stars and deep sky objects, 7-9 p.m. Wednesday. $5 members, $7 non-members. Sting narrates Prokofiev’s family classic, Peter and the Wolf: A Laser Tale, 7 p.m. Friday, 2, 4 and 7 p.m. Saturday and 2 and 4 p.m. Sunday. Native American Skies, 1 and 3 p.m. weekends Other continuing shows are Laser Doors, 8:15 p.m. Thursday-Saturday Lazerpalooza, 9:30 p.m. FridaySaturday Laser Zeppelin, 10:45 p.m. Thursday-Saturday Laser Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon, midnight Thursday and Friday. Evening shows $6; afternoon shows $4 adults, $3 children 12 and under. Located in the Geier
HARDING MUSEUM OF THE FRANKLIN AREA HISTORICAL SOCIETY Open 1-5 p.m. Sunday and by appointment. 302 Park Ave., Franklin. 513746-8295.
JOHN HAUCK HOUSE MUSEUM Closed until Feb. 2. Closed Saturday and Sunday. 11 a.m.3 p.m. weekdays. $2 adults; $1 seniors; $.50 children. 812 Dayton St., West End. 721-3570.
KROHN CONSERVATORY Cincinnati’s flower house begins its Pre-Spring Floral Show Friday. Florists will create the aura of New Orleans with lampposts, fountains, mirrors and thousands of brilliant blooming early spring bulbs. Through March 5. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily. 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. 421^086.
LITTLE RED SCHOOLHOUSE Built in 1873, the brick house served as a school for 63 years. Restored by the Indian Hill Historical Society, it is now a museum. By appointment only. Free. 8100 Given Road, Indian Hill. 891-1873.
Jlmch f dinnerSpecials *4.95
Buy one entree,
-651-3287 IM
Guided tours of eight 19th century homes, restored, furnished and seasonally decorated. 1-5 p.m. weekends. $5 adults; $3 seniors; $2 children 6-12; free to children 6 and under. Sharon Woods Park, Route 42, Sharonville. 563-9484.
STAR OF CINCINNATI
Featuring lunch, dinner, weekend and brunch 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 well extensive collection of paleontological and archaeological artifacts. 9 a.m.4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. 105 S. Broadway, Lebanon. $3 adults, $1 students. 932-1817.
WILDER-SWAIM HOUSE This 1832 farmhouse, originally owned by the Wilder family, is now home to the Montgomery Historical Society. By appointment only. Free. Zig-Zag and Cooper roads, Montgomery. 793-0515.
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE Designated by Congress in 1969, this Greek Revival-style house has been restored to its appearance during the years Taft lived here as a child and young adult, and serves as the only memorial to the nation's 27th president and 10th chiefjustice. Free. 2038 Auburn Ave., Mount Auburn. 10 a.m.4 p.m. daily. Closed Monday. 684-3262.
Classes & Exhibits
AFRIKAN AMERICAN DRUM AND DANCE ENSEMBLE Offers classes 12:30-2 p.m. every Saturday. $5 adults; $2.50 children 12-16; $1 children under 12. West End YMCA, 821 Ezzard Charles Drive, West End. 281-7909 or 241-9622.
ANTIQUE CLASSES Study furniture, ceramics, folk art, the Cincinnati artist, New England antiques and tips on buying at auction with Ray Mongenas. Classes run through Feb. 28. 1-3 p.m. or 7:30-9:30 p.m. Tuesday. The Indian Hill Historical Society, 8100 Given Road, Indian Hill. 321-3885.
C.I.C. PERCUSSIONS Classes begin Saturday and through March 25. Adult drum classes in Djembe and Conga, 3:30-6 p.m. Saturdays; children’s class in Nigerian Drum and Dance, 10 a.m.12 p.m. Saturdays. The Miller Gardette Loft, 2401 Concord, Walnut Hills. 221-2222.
CINCINNATI MARLIN MASTERS Coached swim workouts for all abilities. Monday and Thursday evenings and Sundays at noon. Keating Natatorium, St. Xavier High School, 600 Northbend Rd., Finneytown. Call Chris Gilligan at 232-0382.
CITIZENSHIP CLASSES Travelers Aid International continues its citizenship classes. The non-profit group also offers English for the foreign bom, immigration counseling, application assistance, finger printing and photos. 707 Race St., Suite 300, Downtown. 721-7660.
MIMOSA MANSION Built in 1853-55 as a Tuscan Villa featuring 1850s laminated Rococo Revival furniture and an exceptional collection of early lighting devices. The house also features two player grand pianos: a Mason and Hamlin and a Chickering. 1-6 p.m. weekends. Group tours available by appointment. $4. 412 E. Second St., Covington. 261-9000. PROMONT Completed in 1867, this Italianate villa belonged to former Ohio Gov. John M. Pattison. All rooms are furnished with peri od antiques. 1:30-4:30 p.m. Friday and Sunday. $2 adults; $1 children; group tours can be arranged. 906 Main St., Milford. 831-4704.
CIVIC
Potent Potables
Warm up with ports sherries and otherfortified wines
Food & Drink
Groups & Programs
for persons living with HIV, as well as their families, friends and loved ones. All services are free and confidential. ...People living with AIDS need friends like you to help the deal with it. You can help somebody and make a friend too. Call Diana Long at 421-2437 by Jan. 27 and find out what you can do to become an AVOC buddy. 2183 Central Parkway, West End. 421-2437. Bereavement Support Group For people who have experienced loss related to HIV. Meets at 7 p.m. every other Wednesday. Common Bonds For individuals living with HIV. Meets at 7 p.m. every Tuesday. Family, Friends & Loved Ones For loved ones of persons living with HIV/AIDS. Meets at 7 p.m. every Tuesday. Room With A View An AAbased group for individuals who are HIV+ and in recovery from chemical and/or alcohol dependency. Meets at 8 p.m. every Wednesday.
Womancare For women who are living with HIV. Meets at 7 p.m. every other Wednesday.
THE CENTER FOR INDEPENDENT LIVING OPTIONS An agency that works with people with disabilities to achieve goals of independence. 23 E. Seventh St., Suite 601, Downtown. 241-2600.
ENJOY THE ARTS Offers substantial discounts to various arts organizations. Only full-time students are eligible. $24.50 for one year, $39 for two years. 751-2700. GAY AND LESBIAN SWITCHBOARD Open 6-11 p.m. daily. 651-0070.
LAVENDER LIGHTS Gays and lesbians helping the hungry and homeless in Cincinnati. To volunteer or get information, call 793-7937.
MIDWEST ANTI-FASCIST NETWORK Expanding pro-active organization fighting racism and racists in the Midwest. Currently seeking donations for the legal defense fund of the six people arrested Dec. 17 in connection with the pulling down of the KKK cross on Fountain Square. RO. 19614, Cincinnati, OH 45219. 852-9332.
NAAMEN’S RETREAT AfricanAmerican community-based support group for HIV-challenged individuals. 559-2933.
PLANNED PARENTHOOD ASSOCIATION OF CINCINNATI —2314 Auburn Ave v MountTAuburn. 721-7635.
TRI-STATE HARVEST A volun teer organization whose sole purpose is to transport surplus food to those who need it in the community. To donate food or become a volunteer, call 281-FOOD.
UNITED WAY HELPLINE Provides counseling, supportgroup information, crisis intervention and assistance 24 hours a day. 721-7900.
YWCA PROTECTION FROM ABUSE PROGRAMS Alice Paul House and House of Peace are emergency shelters providing housing, advocacy and support to battered women and their children. 241-2757.
MORE, PAGE 30
BY MERRETT CAREY
In these basically miserable winter months, many people’s thoughts will turn to sparkling white beaches, the perfect tan and dipping ones toes in warmer waters. My thoughts turn also to ports. The kinds you drink, not the kind you live in.
As pleasurable as the most balmy day on a sunwarmed beach, ports and other fortified wines are the alcohol I most associate with relaxation at the end of a cold January day. These wines, with their added punches of sweetness and alcohol, are what many would call the. perfeet midwinter’s night dream.
In wine 101 we learn that wine is processed in several steps fermentation, maturation and bottling being the main ones.
To ensure that fermentation occurs, grapes are crushed stems and all into what is called a “must.” This must is allowed to ferment naturally. From here things get a little Chemical. Fermentation is basically Sugar + Yeast CO2 + alcohol. The higher the sugar content in the crushed grapes, the higher the level of alcohol. That white stuff seen on the outside of even ordinary table grapes contains the yeast, or “bloom,” needed to turn grape juice into wine. Given that there is a set amount of yeast and sugar in the grapes, vintners can control the taste and amount of alcohol by raising or lowering the temperature of the storage bin, and by adding yeast or sugars. However they choose to do it, vintners control what goes into the wine glass. Such is the case also in fortilied wines.
Fortified wines are more commonly known by other names port, cognac and sherry, to name a few. These drinks are nothing more than wine fortified with a shot of alcohol, usually brandy. Whether used to stop fermentation or to preserve the wine, the added alcohol yields a distinct character, not to mention a decided kick, to any of these beverages.
One of the more commonly consumed of these is port. This beverage originated in Portugal go figure! and most distinctly the village of Oporto. Made from a combination of grapes, these wines are only fermented up to a predetermined alcohol level. At this point, the fermented juices are drained off and poured into brandy to stop fermentation. This also preserves the wines sweetness.
Ports are separated into five categories: vintage, crusted, tawny, ruby and white. Vintage, the best of these, comes from perhaps different “quintas,” or wine houses, but all of the grapes are from the same year. These ports are bottled for maturation, their second stage, to occur. Crusted port is similar to vintage except that the blend of fermented grape juice comes from many different years. The name is derived from the unusual characteristic of port to leave a sediment not on the bottom of the bottle, as in many other wines, but on the sides. Tawny ports are stored not in bottles for the maturation, but in oak casks. The combination of wood,
wine and air lends a distinctive taste and color to the port. Ruby and white ports are the more common, less distinguished ports however, they are still fine drinking for the dollar.
Ports are primarily sold under the bottler’s name. Warre’s, Graham’s and Dow’s are examples of fine port label names. Other good selections are coming now from Australia, notably Chateau Reynella and Clocktower. The Reynella, made from the shiraz grape, is an excellent candidate
Ports deposit sediment on the sides, not the bottoms of their bottles.
for some cellaring (seven to 10 years) just to let it mellow a bit.
Another popular fortified wine is cognac. A brandy made from grapes in the Champagne region of France, it is distinguished in The Joys of Wine, by Clifton Faddiman and Sam Aaron, as “the greatest of all the extraordinary essences the French evoke from wine.” The spirit is extracted from wine made primarily from Ugni Blanc, Colombard and Folle Blanche grapes. When ready, it is distilled twice in copper stills to become “an elixir fit to crown the dinners of the finest fare,” they write.
Cognacs are labeled with abbreviations that indicate their quality and age: V.S.O.P. (very, smooth, old, pale); V.V.S.O.P. (very, very, smooth, old, pale); or X.O. (extra old, meaning aged in the cask for more than five years). As with port, brand names mean better cognacs as well. Look for Hennessey, Remy-Martin and Martell.
Long denigrated to the drawing rooms of the upper class, sherry is a fine aperitif wine. Noted for its nutty flavor, sherry is produced in the Jerez region of Spain primarily from the Palomino grape. Once picked, these and other grapes are laid out in the sun. This evaporates some of the water from the grapes. Going back to wine 101 chemistry, this leaves a more concentrated juice less water, more sugar resulting in a stable, alcoholic wine ready to become sherry.
After fermentation, the wine goes into casks filled just below the “bung,” a cork-plugged hole in the top of the cask. As the wine comes into contact with air, a yeast-based scum forms on the surface, flavoring the wine below it. The kind of scum, or “flor,” that forms determines the kind of sherry fino or oloroso. Fino is the more distinguished, drier sherry that needs little brandy added to it. Olorosos are the heavier, less common sherries with more body and character, but also with more added to them. Adding sweet wine creates the Cream Sherries and Amarosos we have today (think Harvey’s Bristol Cream).
by these animals. He eventually conceded to talk about his work at the next meeting.
Steele now claims he can’t stand listening to authors talk about their writing. He compares writing to a state of amnesia.
Steele recently retired from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he directed the Creative Writing program. Now in his 70s, he gives the occasional workshop at a writers’ conference in Lake Tahoe, Nev.
“All of teaching creative writing borders on the suspect. You’ve got to do in one week what it could take a year to accomplish.”
The connections that can be made are perhaps more important than the lessons that may be learned: “That’s the main thing for writers. They have a chance to meet old teachers and young agents.”
“You can always tell who you’re with,” he continues. “When you’re around artists, they talk about money, and when you’re around the rich, they talk about art.”
Although he professes to be somewhat tired of reading unpublished works by new authors, this statement is belied by his enthusiasm for the Internet..
Etc. Auditions & Opportunities
CINCINNATI OPERA Accepting applications for artistic and technical internships during the 1995 Summer Festival Season. Interns must be available from late May through July. To apply, contact Thomas Bankston, Director of Operations, Cincinnati Opera, 1241 Elm St., Cincinnati, OH 45210; before March 1. 621-1919, Ext. 226.
DANCE AND DRUM AUDITION
Dancers and drummers are needed for a show in mid-April.
1 p.m. Saturday. The Dance Hall, Vine and E. Daniels, Corryville. Call Banjo, at 681-8929, for more details.
INDIVIDUAL ARTIST GRANT PROGRAM Starting Monday, applications will be available for the City of Cincinnati’s 1995-96 Individual Artist Grant Program at the following locations: Room 158 City Hall, Art Academy of Cincinnati, Arts Consortium, Cincinnati Artists’ Group Effort
(C.A.G.E.), Gabriel’s Comer, Hasselle Pottery/Design Arts Gallery, UC School of Art and the Urban Appalachian Council. Application deadline is Feb. 15. 352-1595.
LITERARY AGENT SEEKS MANUSCRIPTS Agent seeks poetry, 14-28 pages, as well as fiction and non-fiction of all genres, including New Age. Send proposal and three chapters with self-addressed, stamped envelope to Spirit of Arts, Literary Agency, 7871 Ravencrest, Cincinnati, OH 45255.
Stephen Jay Gould, left, and
will speak on “Visions of Equality”
“I read some very dimwitted things on the Internet, but it has the same spontaneous quality of graffiti.”
He was so impressed by one writer that he sent her essay on diabetes to The New Yorker, which published part of it.
Steele proceeds to ask me if I am familiar with the concept of “flaming.”
I am not. Apparently, it is a popular form of ranting on the ’Net. It comes from the word “flame-thrower,” and it means “to burn someone up.”
“There’s a guy from England, who writes wonderfully. He is devastating. He must be a professional writer,” says Steele, who was so impressed by the writer’s flaming that he sent a letter asking if the flamer had any fiction.
Steele has discovered many writers, some of whom have gone on to huge success. Russell Banks, Kay Gibbon and Jill McCorkle number among his proteges. Perhaps this “guy from England,” who has unwittingly stirred the interest of the influential editor, will be added to the list of writers Max Steele has encouraged and promoted.
MAX STEELE will give a reading at the University of Cincinnati’s Faculty Club at 8 p.m. Monday. He will give informal lecture 3:30-5 p.m. Tuesday in UC’s Elliston Room, the library’s sixth floor. Call 556-1570 for information.
MASTERWORKS 53 A juried exhibit for artists sculptors 53 years of age or older. Up to five works may be submitted by eligible artists, but no more than two will be accepted for show. Deliver each work to the Cincinnati Art Club, 1021 Parkside Place, Mount Adams between 3 and 7 p.m. Feb. 1. Don’t forget to label your work with the name, title, dimensions, medium and price. First prize wins $600, second prize $350, third prize $250, honorable mention $50. For further information, call Bonnie Myers at 721-4330.
SAVE OUTDOOR SCULPTURE (SOS) A public/private initiative designed to document and increase public awareness of outdoor sculpture. Workshops are being planned for early 1995 in Cincinnati, Columbus and Dayton. People interested in participating should contact Patricia Henahan at the Ohio Arts Council. 727 E. Main St., Columbus, OH 43205-1796. 614-466-2613.
Onstage
★ DENNIS BANKS - Dennis Banks, co-founder of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and director of the Sacred Run, returns to the
Events
Lani Guinier
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Opportunities
ASSOCIATES - 3 NEEDED Weight management/wellness and athletic performance programs. Earn $500-$5000-r per month, part-time. Complete training, immediate income potential. Moderate investment required. Call Ellie Bentz, 321-6989
wrap jewelry and stained glass. Please call for details. Treasure Island Jewelry, 241-7893. For Sale BOOKS All kinds of books... dictionaries, medical books, magazines, and more! Need to sell! $35 for all, or will separate. Call 606-431-2971.
BASS
Musicians
BASS GUITARIST NEEDED Bass guitarist with funk and R&B influences needed to work in a 16 track digital home studio to cowrite with keyboardist/percussionist. Working on all original CD project. Songs will be shopped professionally. Must be team player. Contact Jeff at 561-7410.
BASS PLAYER AND/OR SINGER Bass player and/or singer needed to form original rock-based band. Accompany guitarist with 9 years experience and drummer with 10. Early/mid twenties preferred. Call Alan, 556-7625.
MUSICIANS WANTED Do you improvise?
Creative guitarist seeks other musicians (keyboardist, bassist, etc.) for improvisational band. Call 557-3894
MUSICIANS WANTED Society /Lounge Band
Forming a small society, swing, smokey-bar lounge band (a strip down version of the big band sound). Need female vocalist, drummer, accompanist piano player (keyboard with MIDI OK), and any orchestra players. Please call James 721-6646.
PROFESSIONAL MUSICIAN SEEKS
BAND Professional musician seeks duo or band. Experienced pianist and vocalist, prefers to perform '50s
Classifieds 6654700
TRINIDAD FOLKSINGER, CANDLELIGHT, & CARIBBEAN MENU
ZARABANDA WORLD CAFE & RESTAURANT 3213 Linwood Ave. 321-1347
GJ’S GASLIGHT
Present your UC ID and receive 10% off lunch!
LUNCH IS SERVED UNTIL 5PM 354 Ludlow, Clifton, 221-2020
BEADS BEADS BEADS FROM AROUND THE WORLD CALL ABOUT CLASSES
Treasure Island Jewelry, 34 W. Court, 241-7893
MULLANE’S
PARKSIDE CAFE
Lunch & dinner. Great food. Art shows. Vegetarian specialties 723 RACE ST. 381-1331
OPEN MIC. NIGHT
EVERY WEDNESDAY, 8PM
Sing it, dance it, play it, shout it! EMPIRE 8th & State, 921-8008.
Wizard’s pays top dollar on the spot for your quality CDs, cassettes & LPs 2629 Vine, 961-6196
FREE BUFFALO WINGS!
Every Friday during Happy Hour, 4-8:30 411 West Pete Rose Way
CAFEZ
Comfort food, homemade daily
$4.95 LUNCH & DINNER SPECIALS 227 W. 9th St, 651-3287
COFFEE!
FRESH, LOCALLY ROASTED BEANS. KAFFEE KLATSCH 120 E. 4th St. Mercantile Arcade, 721-2233
JANUARY BOOK SALE 20% OFF ALL BOOKS 50% OFF ALL COMICS & CALENDARS Ends Jan. 31
QUEEN CITY BOOKS 39 E. 7th Downtown, 721-2116.
NOW PLAYING!
JAR THE FLOOR
CINCINNATI PLAYHOUSE IN THE PARK 421-3888
WAYNE KRAMER
“THE HARD STUFF”
EX-MC5 Guitarist’s release.on Epitaph Records On sale at Wizard Records 2629 Vine Street, 961-6196.
ROCK & ROLL PHOTOGRAPHY
Promo photos, studio work, on-location shoots. Call Lisa at Equus, 281-2733.
AVALON CLOTHING CO.
BECAUSE DEPARTMENT STORE CLOTHES SUCK! 230 W. McMillan Clifton 651-3847
PROFESSIONAL SOUND STUDIO
24 track digital technology at an affordable rate. Call an experienced sound engineer at BACKSTAGE STUDIOS 292-8863
RIPLEYS PRESENTS!
Elektra Recording Artists
Welcome to Back Beat, the back page of Cincinnati CityBeat. This last page is your last chance to have the last word.
So talk back to us! Answer our sometimes silly, sometimes cerebral weekly question. Then beat it to the nearest mailbox, fax or modem. If we print your response in our letters section next week, you get a free Cincinnati CityBeat T-shirt. Not a bad deal for the cost of a stamp or fax, eh?
This week’s question: How do you know when you're
lookin’for love in all the wrong places?
Address:
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AMERICAN GROUP MANAGEMENT
A professional artists management company, has openings for bands, vocalists, etc. Call 858-6120
KATMANDU CAFE
January 19-20
ROCK & ROLL WITH FULL CIRCLE 1811 Monmouth In the Newport Shopping Center
MOONSHINE SCREEN PRINTING
T-shirts, hats, bumper stickers. Full art staff. 523-7775
VIDEO DESIGNER
Do you have a project that needs that special touch? Specializing in documentation of events, arts and commercial projects. Call Bob Leibold 481-3011 Fax 481-1444
THE GOOD DEED EXCHANGE Send information about skills and services you can contribute. We’ll find a worthy match. Write: PO Box 9316 Cinti., OH 452094)316 SEND NO MONEY OPEN
