contributing editors Mike Breen, Music; Dale Doerman, Onstage; Rick Pender, Onstage; Steve Ramos, Film
contributing writers Karen Amelia Arnett, Brian Baker, Maureen Bloomfield, 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, Peggy Schmidt, Althea Thompson, Fran Watson, Kathy Y. Wilson, John 0. Young.
photo editor Jymi Bolden
photographers Jon Hughes, Staff; Sean Hughes,
listings editor Billie Jeyes
editorial
ART
Breen, Joe Ciborek
News&Views
4
News Cincinnati Health Department takes to the streets to help those afflicted with syphilis and AIDS 6
News School voucher program in Milwaukee, similar to one proposed for Ohio, does not raise test scores 7
Putting It Together Our nation’s First Ladies are becoming unelected bureaucrats 12 On the Beat
CityBaaf
DailyBrecf
before publication; display advertising, noon Monday before publication.
Next issue will be published Feb. 2, 1995. PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER WITH SOY-BASED INKS
ON THE COVER: Photos by Tom Schiff and Steve Ramos
Design by Paul Neff
On the scene at the
VAierKiosk
listings 14
Music Nanci Griffith soars with on new CD with mixture of styles 18
Film Beethoven’s final note turns
Immortal Beloved into classical detective story 21
Onstage The Baltimore Waltz offers laughter bom of pain 23
Literary Interviews with Harry Stein, author of new medical thriller, and Stanley Newman, crossword puzzle champion 27
Food & Drink Frozen veggies are OK, you’re OK 29
ClassifiedAcfs
Classified Ads Help wanted, for sale, for rent, music, services 31
Back Beat Answer CityBeat’s question of the week 32
Good Work If You Can Get It:
Ramos was sent packing to Park
Slacker and Dazed and Confused Linklater, the one with a goatee, to file a report for us. His feature Ethan Hawke is included as well.
Mental
Expressions: Cincinnati recounts her incarceration in ago in a stunning new sculpture Contemporary Arts Center. Maureen The 2068 Series. Art, 25.
Lofty Goals: Jazz lover A1 “Bug” Williams (right) invites friends and others into his Clifton apartment once a month to hear
The Straight Dope
BY CECIL ADAMS
veryone isfamiliar with Teflon, that non-stick surface no self-respecting housewife can do without. If’n it works so well slippin’ and slidin’ yerflapjacks, how do they get it to stick to the pan in thefirst place?
they may have succeeded. Dow Chemical researcher Donald Schmidt has come up with another fluorinated polymer that can be used like paint and cured with moderate (as opposed to high) heat. Even better, you wind up with a coating that’s non-sticky on only one side, presumably the outside. The only drawback: Schmidt’s coating won’t withstand heat. That doesn’t matter if you’re trying to make, say, graffiti-proof wall tile, but don’t look for Schmidtloncoated frying pans anytime soon.
Richard Lavine, via the Internet
A favorite question of smart-aleck drive-time radio hosts, and to tell you the truth it gave (and gives) the folks who make Teflon pans some trouble, too. Teflon, known to science as polytetrafluoroethylene, is a pain to work with
A friend and I are having an, uh, open exchange of views on the topic of John Tyler. Myfriend said, “The United States never had a president named Tyler” and pulled out some reference that said Tyler had no constitutional authority to assume the presidency when William Henry Harrison died but was only the vice president performing the duties of the president. I pulled out the Encyclopedia Britannica, where John Tyler is listed as “10th president of the United States. Myfriend, and at this point I am using the term loosely, disputes this but has agreed to abide by Cecil’s opinion, which is hereby requested. (There is a fairly expensive meal riding on providing the correct information. Not that you need any incenlive.)
Fania, via the Internet
Of course not. But while Cecil’s soul hungers only for knowledge, his body wouldn’t mind a nice steak. Your friend is being a toad, Tyler was the first vice president to assume the powers of the presidency upon the death of the incumbent. There was some question at the time whether he was president or merely acting president, the Constitution being ambiguous on this point. Tyler’s detractors in fact referred to him as “His Accidency.” What practical consequence the matter had is debatable, but in the interest of clarity, both houses of Congress passed resolutions declaring that Tyler was president, period. That settled things for all but a few nit pickers, of whom your friend regrettably is one. When do we eat?
because it’s non-sticky in all directions, the pan side (the bottom) as well as the food side (the top). Teflon is a fluorinated polymer, a polymer being a passel of identical building-block molecules linked together to make a long chain the stuff of most plastics. Fluorine, due to certain electrochemical properties you’ll thank me for not explaining now, bonds so tightly with the carbon in Teflon that it’s virtually impossible for other substances, e.g., scrambled egg bits, to get a chemical-type grip or, for that matter, for Teflon to get a grip on anything else. In addition, the finished Teflon surface is extremely smooth, giving said egg bits little chance to get a mechanical-type grip.
So how do they get Teflon to stick to the pan? They spray it on, then bake it
Letters
Like, literary, man recently read a copy of CityBeat containing a “Music Review” scribed by (Mike Breen) entitled “No Future”. While bemoaning the future of “alternative music” you used certain terms I found personally repugnant. You referred to certain rock groups as “dinosaurs” and indicted the public for perpetuating the “dying art form known as Rock and Roll”. Lastly, you refer to a vast segment of the public as “Millions of sheep (who) Consume their dribble...”
11W'
Personal affronts aside, I continued to read your review to see if I could possibly find a review that didn’t sound like every review I have ever read since I began reading comic strips. Alas, I could not.
Themeatically, (sic) your preference for groundbreaking is quite common, “critics” (sic) have always sought some elitest (sic) high ground. Once there, they utilize their arsenal of dribble like “unique guitar technique”, “fascinating, soaring guitar style”, “dynamic poignancy and heart”, “experimental direction”, “tweaky, quirky tide” on a “punkish roller-coaster”, “shockingly different”. Certainly no literary groundbreaking going on here.
So, just between you and I, a couple of sheep, let me give you a fact to warm up to. Rock and Roll is here to stay. Not so with you and I. Barry Schear, Clifton
Mike Breen responds: For such sharp criticism I would think you might want to consuit a dictionary and grammar guide. I’m assuming the point of your letter (it’s rather vague) is that I’m a standard hack writer and that all critics are elitist. I can live with that. There’s nothing “groundbreaking” about that stab. But it also seems that you support the Rock “dinosaurs” (the true target of my attack). If you like the Eagles and the Stones and their pathetic continua
tion, God bless you, my son. If you had finished reading my review, you would have noticed I said that rock is not dead, but “changing.” When the “dinosaurs” start trying to do something (anything!) unique instead of rehashing and resting on their laurels, then I’ll be the first in line for those $112 Eagles’ tickets. I’m not holding my breath.
Artists Know Better
I read Daniel Brown’s piece titled “Cultural Trends 19952000” (Dec. 29-Jan. 4). I know next to nothing about global movements in art and not a lot more about the funding of large art institutions. My understanding of corporate art collecting could fill a very small container, and my appreciation of what galleries are up against might add a paragraph or two to all of the above.
What I do know a lot about is the day to day of Joe Artist.
For Joe (or Joann) Artist, none of the above means a whole hell of a lot. For them (us) it doesn’t matter if Sotheby’s just had their best season ever, or ifArt News is projecting a major decline in gallery attendance. For the overwhelming vast majority of artists, it doesn’t matter if the art speculator of the day is forecasting the best, or the worst, of times. We probably are not going to get a show anyway, and even if we do, none of the above will have any relevance as to why we didn’t sell a thing. Truth is, all the hyperbole in all the publications, regardless of the time or place, is only about a very small and marginally insignificant number of people none of whom is us.
The big, big problem is that few of us (artists) understand this. Just as all the young ladies and gents starve themselves because that is what fashion tells them equates to beauty, artists feel that they must relate to all the hyperbole and make it a part of their lives or they have no value.
There was a time when I had doubts as concerns my choice of career. Everyone else was buying cars and houses, and I was scraping by with an “official” resume that said I worked part time at a UDF back in 1972. (The real world doesn’t take much note of resumes listing rooms where paintings of mine once hung.)
But if you have occasion to
see huge brokerage firms close up shop overnight, dumping thousands of people into an already shrinking job market, or the entire building trade screech to a stop because someone raised an interest rate, or the ski resort industry endure a couple of snowless winters... you realize that there isn’t a whole lot of security to be found anywhere. Suddenly it doesn’t seem all. that bad to be in a position in which there are as many options as I have thoughts.
The whole educational systern, as pertains to art, needs a heart transplant (in my humble opinion). Artists seem to be brought up and nurtured with the understanding that to be a good artist is to be a crazy and misunderstood individual. The Van Gogh complex. Their only successful contemporary role models are millionaires whose faces they see on the covers of glossy magazines and who live somewhere else and who they will never be.
The hazy image that most artists have of “what an artist looks like” (I think) is that of an individual who marches to the beat of a different drummer. The keywords would be: unique, different, special,' genius. All of these words tend to isolate the artist from everyone else in the given community; the very same community which will play the deciding role in determining the artist’s success or failure. Ironic. Don’t you think so? Artists in Cincinnati have this fantasy about how it works in New York. They think that here you just hang the work and the people buy. No way. Not if you are going to succeed. Not if you are in it for the long rim. It takes strategy. You have to adapt to, and work with, the personalities and situations which, indeed, are unique to New York. It’s a different game but the rules are the same. You still have to work with the environment.
If I was an unknown artist in Cincinnati I’d make a goal of doing 400 paintings 4” x 5” of single apples. I’d invest a lot in each and every one of them. They would be worth $100-150 each. I’d sell them for $20. Spread them all over the place. Rich neighborhoods. Card shops, or even go door to door if necessary. Art stands next to fruit stands. Collect names and addresses of everyone who bought or expressed
interest.
Three years later I’d do a show of 40 paintings the same size and quality in a gallery. Sell them for $100 each. Invite everyone on the list. The show would sell out. I’d be on my way.
Once I was successful, once I had a following, established trust... that is when I would begin to share with them my own personal vision.
Tim Folzenlogen, New York
Note: Tim Folzenlogen, a former unknown Cincinnati artist, has been living and working in New York for 12 years.
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: “How do you know when you’re lookin’ for love in all the wrong places?”
DON LaROUX: You know you’re looking for love in all the wrong places when: Mother Superior slams the window on your knuckles.
The nurse says, “You’ll find some Playboy and Penthouse magazines in cubicle No. 3.”
You hear, “Passengers continuing on to Indianapolis will have a 15-minute rest stop.”
When you say, “Be gentie,” and you hear a bark!
JULIE MAXWELL: When your suitor says in all sincerity “Hey, wanna go back to my dorm room?”
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.
Hot Times in the Old Town
Political, business, media leaders fiddle while Cincinnati bums
EDITORIAL BY JOHN FOX
This town is going to hell in a hand basket, and all anyone wants to do is blame somebody else. Where are our leaders? The people we traditionally place our trust in as the pillars of society public officials, business executives, the press are floundering. And so is Cincinnati.
City government has been designed over the years to limit the power and influence of City Council. Up until recently, council was a part-time job for corporate bigwigs and well-known lawyers. It’s now a full-time endeavor for Cincinnati’s councilmembers, though the structure a citywide top-nine popularity contest election process that offers no direct candidates for mayor allows them to escape true voter accountability.
With an inherent leadership vacuum at City Hall, the local corporate community has been more than happy in recent years to set Cincinnati’s civic agenda. Most of the time that agenda is directed by the Cincinnati Business Committee (CBC), the secret organization of 25 or so chief executives of our largest locally based corporations. James Zimmerman, chief operating officer for Federated Department Stores Inc. and the CBC’s current chairman, unveiled last week that his company would be moving 700 jobs to Atlanta despite an agreement with City Council to keep them here in exchange for taxpayer financing of a new Lazarus store on Downtown Cincinnati’s most prized piece of available real estate, Fountain Square West.
The surprise announcement reveals a serious crack within Cincinnati’s corporate ranks, since just a few weeks ago Zimmerman’s colleagues pulled in cash and favors.to propose an IMAX 3-D movie theater to top off the Lazarus store, which may not be built now.
Where are our watchdog media when the crap’s coming down? The Enquirer, which presciently named Zimmerman “business leader of the year” a few weeks ago, began apologizing for him and his company the day the deal was announced. The Post, along with several councilmembers, wrung their hands over Zimmerman’s lack of “honor” and “loyalty,” but in the end wrote this episode off to “business is business.”
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! Remain calm! Everyone get back to work!
The bottom line is that City Council has no political power or will to enforce a gentleman’s agreement with one of the city’s most prominent civic boosters, while the media look the other way. The only consensus is that it’s all the city manager’s fault.
Is it getting hot around here?
SUNDAY. MARCH 12 • 7:30 P.M
BURNING QUESTIONS
BY NANCY FIROR
Lazarus Promise: Made to Be Broken?
Cincinnati City Council is scrambling again to negotiate a deal with Lazarus, which has announced that it will not keep its corporate offices downtown despite a past agreement to do so.
Council voted Jan. 25 in favor of entering into renegotiations with Lazarus aimed at reaching an agreement for a Lazarus store on Fountain Square West. The motion was opposed by council members Tom Luken and Todd Portune. Lazarus’ announcement last week that it will eliminate 700 jobs downtown is a reminder of what’s wrong with America, Portune said before the council meeting. "Commitment, trust, faith and loyalty are betrayed in pursuit of the bottom line," he said.
Cincinnati Mayor Roxanne Qualls said betrayal is an inaccurate characterization.
While a decision by Lazarus' parent company, Federated Department Stores Inc., not to keep Lazarus’ corporate offices downtown is regrettable, this is a business deal and it's pointless to refer to it as a betrayal, Qualls said earlier in the Week.
Is she saying it’s OK to renege on agreements as long as it’s business?
No, she said. She is objecting to calling the decision a betrayal.
“Using any of those highly charged words doesn’t get you anywhere," Qualls said. “We did not have a legally binding agreement. (Lazarus’ decision) should be a wake-up call for people to recognize we are operating in a very competitive environment.”
So what legal weight was there to a Sept. 22, 1993 letter of understanding between the city and Lazarus if Lazarus did not have to abide by it?
“We don't have an answer for that," City Manager John Shirey told council.
Councilman Phil Heimlich said the answer was clear in the first paragraph of the letter of understanding, which read: “The agreement will become binding only upon subsequent approval and mutual execution of all implementing documents.”
Qualls said, “My understanding is that in this instance it’s a matter of honor.”
Officials at Federated said they had not behaved dishonorably because the letter of agreement was a starting point. For an agreement to be binding, a lease for the Fountain Square West store would have to be signed, said Carol Sanger, Federated’s vice president of corporate communications.
In the letter of agreement, Lazarus was to keep its corporate offices downtown and pay an estimated $700,000 a year in earnings taxes for 20 years. In a $27.8 million deal, City Council agreed to buy the existing Lazarus store on Seventh Street and subsidize a new store on Fountain Square West. “A letter of agreement is not a signed lease,” Sanger said.
Though a lease agreement was not finalized, discussions between the city and Lazarus continued without the slightest mention that the Atlanta merger was possible, city officials said.
Why didn’t they tell Cincinnati officials that the merger was a possibility?
Because, Sanger said, the decision was made on the corporate level and Lazarus officials were not aware of the possibility until last week. Councilman Charles Winburn said Federated officials could not talk about the merger possibility because of laws governing the stock exchanges.
Sanger said many circumstances had changed since the letter of understanding was first approved. Lazarus, she said, is willing to discuss changes, including the possibility of less of a subsidy from the city.
Would Lazarus still consider paying an estimated $700,000 a year in earnings tax to the city?
That also is a topic to be addressed during further negotiations, Sanger said.
BURNING QUESTIONS is our weekly attempt to afflict the comfortable.
An Alternative Look at How and Why It Happened
Walking the Streets
Counselor tries to slow increase in sexually blamed on use of crack cocaine
BY LORI MCCLUNG
ex for drugs.
SAnonymous and dangerous, the instances are on the rise resulting in a skyrocketing number of syphilis cases locally. And experts predict that close behind syphilis, a curable disease, will be an increase in the number who contract AIDS, which remains incurable and fatal.
Though the cure for syphilis is a simpie shot of penicillin, those most at risk don’t go to clinics for testing, treatment or education.
Johnnie Askew doesn’t let that stop her.
Four hours a day, Askew, a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) counselor for the Cincinnati Health Department, walks the city’s streets clutching a white box that contains 50 brown sandwich bags. Each is filled with 12 condoms and informational packets.
“I offer HIV testing and counseling if it’s in an alley, bar, street corner or park, wherever someone is willing to listen,” Askew says. Many of her clients are homeless. Most are substance abusers. She finds them in crack houses and under bridges. Despite widespread educational campaigns, she realizes how little they have learned.
“I can still talk to young women who won’t kiss a trick because they think they can get AIDS but will let them ejaculate in their mouths because they think there’s no risk,” Askew says.
From 1990 to 1993, syphilis cases in Greater Cincinnati increased sixfold from 107 to 685. In the first six months of last year, 451 cases were diagnosed.
Despite a recent decrease in the number of diagnosed AIDS cases in Hamilton County, experts predict that soon will change. In 1993, 184 people in Hamilton County were diagnosed with AIDS. Through Nov. 30, 61 people had been diagnosed with AIDS in 1994.
Health workers say those using crack are most likely to contract both syphilis and AIDS.
“(Syphilis is) a lesion disease, and so people are
A lot of crack can’t trace the Because of increased its number Unit workers reported in 1992, of 1994, eight under investigation. to being addicted
“It’s been years Daniels says. Trying to battle learns the ropes knows that if start talking fast.
“Quickly and thing free, there’s they take the ond speech about they’re busy working listen about getting buy myself extra In the past to avoid and
SYPHILIS: FROM PAGE 6
being here but, damn baby, why you have to look at them? You’re making them nervous.’
Most sell sex for drugs instead of money, says Askew, who works in Over-the-Rhine, West End, Roselawn, Price Hill, housing projects and homeless shelters. She says the suburbs are becoming high risk.
“Middle-class men from the suburbs come in (the city) with middle-class money,” she says. “This problem is not just in the inner-city. The diseases are making their way out to the suburbs.”
Occasionally, Askew is rewarded by seeing slight changes in her clients’ actions. But it’s something she has learned not to expect.
“Now some are using condoms for oral and vaginal sex,” she says. “They call me up and say they are having group sex and need a box of condoms. I even have regulars now. I’m meeting them on a regular basis. I give them a box of condoms every month or every two weeks. I do that with 11 women.”
Less frequently, she’ll help serious crack addicts or alcoholics get treatment, become clean and sober and, if their children have been removed from the home, help them get their children back.
In any given year, Askew is able to test 20 people for HIV. “In the street, that’s a lot to stop selling themselves or drugs to let me take them aside and let me test them,” Askew says.
Because the people she tests are transient, she gives them identification cards with whatever street name they tell her written on top. When the test results come back seven days later, she hopes to find them in roughly the same place.
Tuition program similar to one proposed in Ohio has not raised test scores
BY BRAD KING
A4-year-old tuition-voucher program in Milwaukee has not improved learning, a study of the program concludes.
Tuition vouchers that allow low-income students to attend private schools have not raised the students’ standardized test scores, according to the study. The findings underscore doubt some in Cincinnati have expressed about a tuition-voucher program that has been proposed for Ohio.
“If choice (of schools) were going to solve the problem of urban education, we’d have the problem licked,” said Tom Mooney, president of the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers.
Under the proposed Ohio voucher program, which is being debated in the state legislature, parents would be eligible to receive $2,500 vouchers to send their children to private schools in their districts or public schools in other districts. Like the Milwaukee program, Ohio’s program would be paid for with taxpayer dollars.
The programs are different, however, in that Milwaukee’s was designed solely for low-income students in kindergarten through high school, while Ohio’s would give first priority to low-income students and then accept those not in that category.
While Cincinnati Public Schools has not devised a plan of action in the event the proposal becomes reality, the Cincinnati School Board previously has opposed such programs.
Critics such as Mooney think Cincinnati Public Schools has enough choices for students seeking different schools and programs. The intradistrict magnet schools specialty schools within the district are serving 40 percent of the district’s students, he said.
But sponsors of the proposed bill state Sen. Cooper Snyder, R-Hillsboro, and Rep. Mike Fox, R-Hamilton argue the voucher program will raise standardized test scores of low-income students along with per-student spending in Ohio’s public schools. The same logic drove the Milwaukee Parent .Choice Program, which started in 1990. Under that program, vouchers are issued exclusively to low-income students.
But a fourth-year study by John Witte, a professor with the Robert M. LaFollette Institute of Public Affairs and the University of Wisconsin, showed that students who participated in the voucher program showed no significant changes in their scores on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. The study did, however, show that per-student spending increased at the schools participating in the program.
Under Ohio’s proposed program, the first 20 percent of students a school accepted would have to be lowincome. Each Ohio school district would design its own voucher program, which would have to be approved for funding by the Commission on Choice, a group delegated by the state legislature to oversee the program’s funding.
Once approved, vouchers would be issued. Per-student spending would be expected to increase between 8 and 25 percent, Fox said, because state money, which is based on each school’s enrollment, would not change for the programs’ first two years even though students transferred to private schools.
ARK CITY, UTAH Nestled among the Wasatch Range of the Rockies in central Utah, the ski-resort town of Park City (pop. 4,468) gets snowed under once a year in the name of the Sundance Film Festival.
No matter how well this town prepares, the film festival slams into Park City like a winter squall for 10 days every January. Traffic clogs Main Street.
Local lodges usually filled with couples interested in snow sports are jammed with teams of reporters, TV correspondents and assorted paparazzi. The town turns into the movie industry’s temporary business center, a snow-capped Hollywood.
Park City, with its breathtaking scenery and chic dining spots, has become the place to see and be
seen. But that was not how things were originally planned.
Years ago, before every publicist carried a cellular phone, the Utah Film Festival was struggling at its home in Salt Lake City. Interest waned. The festival •experienced financial distress. Some members of the film community, such as director Sydney Pollack, thought a change of scenery might increase interest. Consider the synergy, he suggested: See a movie and go skiing.
Park City filled the bill. The ex-mining town seemed like the perfect locale for a small film festival, and it became home to the newly christened United States Film Festival.
Actor/director Robert Redford, who filmed
Park City, Utah, becomes Hollywood in the hills for one week a year
Jeremiah Johnson in these same Wasatch moun-. tains, built a home close by Park City in Sundance, Utah. In 1981, he established the Sundance Institute to support new talent in the areas of screenwriting and directing. Functioning like some utopian art colony, the institute was basically planned to improve the artistic quality of American film.
Through a series of filmmaker and screenwriter labs and an annual Independent Producers Conference, the Sundance Institute has for the most part achieved its original goals producing such films as Smooth Talk and A Dry White Season. Still, filmmakers make films for people to see, and independent directors often struggle for a showcase to display their product. The Sundance Institute
obligatory
began placing its independent projects at Park City in the mid-1980s, and Redford offered his full support behind the United States Film Festival. In 1991, the festival changed its name to the Sundance Film Festival.
With Redford’s institute behind it, the festival has developed a strong theme in recent years. Unlike other U.S. festivals, Sundance prefers independent films. Here is where a director can bring a small movie and have the chance of showing it to an audience. Redford summed up the Sundance spirit at the festival’s Jan. 19 opening-night reception.
“One of the purposes of the Sundance experience is to create an event or climate that brings the audience more into the process of film,” Redford said. “Independent film is in many ways more accessible to audiences even though it’s less formula and it’s less calculated to reach the cash box.”
For Redford, the festival’s second goal is to support independent filmmakers themselves. Finally, here is an American festival that places the spotlight on artists who seldom see the light of day.
“Our real commitment lies to these filmmakers, to
everything, and success has enormous consequences. Film distributors now come here to discover the “next big thing” and make a ton of money. Gold digging has returned in a big way.
Main Street here is awash in a sea of black wardrobes. Long lines of people snake out onto the sidewalk from posh restaurants like the Barking Frog and Grappa. Standing outside the Egyptian Theater, the main festival venue for movie screenings, a mob of people literally heaves itself upon the doors with hopes of getting into one of the festival’s premieres.
Park City’s population doubles during the course of the Sundance Festival. The newcomers are mostly agents, producers and a dedicated corps of studio publicity hounds and marketing heads. Then there are the press scurrying about town to cover everything that goes on, both artistically and.financially.
their voices and their independence,” Redford said.
The festival itself has changed due to its enormous growth. Not only do distributors such as Fine Line Features, Miramax Films and Gramercy Pictures shop for new product here, but they also
“The more film remains independent, the more specific and the more interesting it becomes, and that makes it a better experience for the audience.”
CONTINUES ON PAGE 10
These are certainly lofty ideals, a bit esoteric for non-film buffs. But Sundance has become more than just some small gathering of film devotees and their
Scenes from the Sundance Rim Festival, from left: Hollywood executives, publicists and hangers-on schmooze; Park City’s Main Street swells with out-of-towners and gawkers; actress Julie Delpy does the
hair-toss; a bug on a Bug what can we say? It’s Utah.
SUNDANCE: FROM PAGE 9
showcase product they’ve already signed to a distribution deal. Winning an award at the Sundance Film Festival may prove to be the difference between a film becoming a hit or not.
Out of the 100 films being shown here this year, 25 already have a distribution deal. Of those 100 films, there is also less work by African-American and women filmmakers than in past years. Many in the press suggest that Sundance has gotten away from its independent roots and now showcases more traditional films. The festival’s opening-night film, Before Sunrise, is being released by Hollywood’s Columbia Pictures. Hollywood Pictures, a Disney division, has come here this year to premiere two films, Miami Rhapsody and Funnybones.
“I’m concerned about this question regarding diversity of movies shown because it’s something that the festival is known for,” said Geoffrey Gilmore, Sundance’s director of programming.
“The truth of the matter is that this year we didn’t see things at quite the same level of quality that we have seen in past years.”
Gilmore received 306 film submissions for the Dramatic Competition category, for instance. Eighteen films were chosen to be shown.
“Is there a need to show more undistributed films in the festival?” Gilmore asked. “Yes, I think there is.
More first-time features? Yes. But how do we do it with a lack of facilities, relatively small theaters and a festival that tends to give prominence to those films in competition? That’s something we’re working on.”
As Sundance evolved into a big business, big business has come to the festival. Disney will reap the financial benefits from an Audience Award just like any other distributor would. So why is Disney the media’s special target at this year’s festival? Simply put, they won’t loosen up.
Let’s do lunch
The Sundance Film Festival is a place where business is done in a casual manner.
At the Claim Jumper Hotel on Main Street, directors and actors sit around a large room full of tables where press members can schedule time for interviews. Times are set up on the spur of the moment, spontaneously, and one has to remain flexible. So when Disney publicists rolled into town with the idea of hosting only formal press conferences and no one-on-one interviews, the press found their goat. Access to talent such as Sarah Jessica Parker, star of Miami Rhapsody, was fairly limited.
Still, Disney’s money spends like anyone else’s. In fact, the increased presence of major Hollywood studios here can be seen as financing the festival.
BORDERS
BOOKS AND MUSIC
Anti-Superbowl High Tea Sun., Jan. 29 from 3 to 6 pm
Feeling bowled over by football? We are offering an alternative. On SuperbowlSunday, Borders is having a “High Tea” buffet. Itwill include delicate sandwiches, decadent desserts, warm dishes, hot tea, and more. Classical music will be playing for your enjoyment. There will be three seatings, each on the hour, from 3 to 6 pm. The $5.95tickets, goodfor one buffet trip, will be on sale in the Cafe Espresso beginning on the 16th. More details available in the Cafe Espresso.
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Books:(513)671-5852 Music:(513)671-5853
Actor Nicolas Cage understands the important connection between art and commerce. Recipient of the festival’s Piper-Heidsieck Tribute to Independent Vision, Cage commented on the issue of combining independent work with large, studio financing.
“I think it’s great that talented people get paid well,” Cage said.
“That’s how it was with the great Italian masters, and that’s how it should be. If the studios say that there’s something happening here and let’s do it together, then that’s a very well made marriage and I think it works.”
Director
Richard Linklater also believes that such partnerships work. Sundance represents a glorious return to the place that helped launch his career. His debut film, Slacker, received a lot of attention at the'festival in 1991 and went on to become an underground hit. His latest work, Before Sunrise, represents a link between larger budgets and a quirky, unique story. More than any other film here, Before Sunrise epitomizes the relationship between Hollywood studios and inde
pendent filmmakers that’s become the overriding theme at this year’s festival.
The real excitement at Sundance, though, still lies in discovering an unknown film that has everyone talking. The largest crowds this year packed in to see maverick director Abel Ferrara’s wild spin on the vampire-as-substance-abuse metaphor in The Addiction, which stars Annabella Sciorra and Lili Taylor. Bad word of mouth from its Jan. 20 premiere did not diminish an intense interest among festival goers. What seems to be the current festival favorite is Double Happiness, the debut film by CanadianChinese filmmaker Mina Shum.
Using her personal life as inspiration, Shum weaves together a story about growing up in an immigrant family that is both funny and touching.
Park City tongues have also been wagging over director Maria Maggenti’s The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love, which tells a wonderful tale about two high school girls that provides a mature look at young lesbian love. A funky midnight showing on Jan. 24 was filled with press members and assorted industry types, and CONTINUES ON PAGE 11
Nicolas Cage was honored with the Piper-Heidsieck Tribute to Independent
Vision award, Sundance’s annual celebration of young talent.
(Left to right) Julie Delpy, Richard Linklater and Ethan Hawke talk up Before Sunrise.
Ethan Hawke Glides
PARK CITY, UTAH Pride brings actor Ethan Hawke to the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. He is proud of his new film, Before Sunrise, and especially of his work in it.
“It’s really rare when you get to be involved in something that you’re really proud of and a situation that you’re proud to be in,” Hawke says during a breakfast press gathering at a hotel here.
Before Sunrise, which stars Hawke and French actress Julie Delpy as two young travelers who turn a chance encounter into a night of romance, received the honor of opening this year’s Sundance Festival. Hawke also has a small role in another film here, Search and Destroy. Such prestige brings out the paparazzi in full force, and Hawke now finds himself having to jump through a lot of hoops for the media.
Before Sunrise represents a dream come true for Hawke. Not because the film has made him the festival’s hot celebrity, but because it fulfills a more work-related wish.
“I really wanted to work with director Richard Linklater,” he explains. “I was a big fan of his films Slacker and Dazed and Confused. Plus, I always wanted to do this kind of movie. Whenever I was working on a more complicated movie, I wished that I could do a movie about a guy and a girl just talking to each other, and the terrifying aspect of it is that the film really came about.”
Hawke’s career has seen steady success since his days studying acting at Princeton University. He worked in such films as Dead Poets Society and on stage in a production of The Seagull for the National Actors Theater. Still, he knows that Before Sunrise is a special opportunity.
The project opened with Hawke and Delpy visiting Linklater at his home in Austin, Texas, where they began their rehearsal process by simply talking with each other. During these long discussions, the director confirmed that his two leads were perfect for the roles. Hawke saw this training as a rich and unusual way to go about preparing for a performance.
“It was highly collaborative and exciting,” he says. “It broke a lot of rules in my mind on how you are supposed to do things.”
Hawke says he loves to hear people tell him the film looks improvised. It’s a compliment when someone perceives the story as more “real life” than some screenplay. But the truth is that Hawke never prepared more for a role.
“I’ve never worked harder on a movie or have done a movie that was more rehearsed,” he says. “You know that if you combine a great deal of discipline and hard work out of it comes an immense freedom. It’s a really intimate film, and sustaining that level of intimacy can wear at you. Still, this was the first truly successful process-oriented project I’ve been involved with.”
There were some problems, Hawke says. After a while he felt that Linklater had seen every single look and expression he possessed as an actor, and he struggled to retain the believable spontaneity that he
into the Spotlight
and Delpy worked so hard at. “I spoke with Rick and Julie for about a year, and I am hard pressed to find a story I didn’t tell them.”
The way Hawke sees it, such problems are normal for a film that’s daring and different from standard Hollywood fare. Here is a story that basically focuses on two people talking to each other. There are no car crashes or shoot-outs. The sex scenes never move beyond the realm of a passionate kiss. “I think that this movie is pretty bold and pretty daring. I don’t think that anyone else other than Rick would have made this movie.”
Is it also a bold move for Hawke? People who think of his role as Winona Ryder’s love interest in last year’s Reality Bites may see Before Sunrise as just another “twentysomething” movie, but Hawke wishes they would wake up and see how things really are.
“That’s how absolutely ridiculous statements like that are,” he says when some label him as an actor primarily known for “Generation X” roles. “I know that some people’s jobs are to find some kind of sound bite on you and some kind of take on you, but I don’t think that way. I don’t look at a role and say, ‘ooh, there’s too much generational angst in this.’ It’s whether or not I care about it.”
Hawke is used to type casting. After Dead Poets, all he was offered was “shy kid” roles. He knows that some people will always pick one character as representing who he is in real life. But he has a system for fighting the stigma.
“You explore the outer edges of each character, that’s what you do. Then another character comes along that people think is who you are, and you kind of explore the outer edges of that character.”
For his latest role as a young man in love, this method seems to come in handy.
STEVE RAMOS
SUNDANCE: FROM PAGE 10
\ no one could get enough of this great story.
These are the kinds of films that position Sundance on the film industry’s cutting edge, creating an atmosphere that turns Park City into the country’s hippest community for 10 days each year. The festival has attracted attention not only throughout the United States but all over the world.
European magazines, MiddleEastern TV networks and British newspapers converge here to cover the event for Sundance fans back home.
Festival officials are trying to balance this explosion of popularity with the founders’ original goals.
“I understand why with the visibility and the prominence that the festival has, that peopie ask if it is moving in the right direction,” Gilmore said. “I think that Sundance does a lot of good things that are well-conceived and well thought and worked out.”
For Redford, the festival need only stick to its original goals.
“This 10-day experience invites you in to make you aware of film, to tell you more about it and to give you access to the filmmakers themselves to let you hear their dreams, their hopes and their failures,” he said. “The Sundance Film Festival brings people close to the filmmaking process and, in the process, supports the filmmakers themselves.”
No amount of clogged traffic, cellular phones, black wardrobe, publicity hounds and studio executives can keep the festival’s founder from his ideals.
Ethan Hawke says he doesn’t mind dealing with the press and paparazzi
Before
Annabella Sciorra was on hand
The Roles of First Ladies
Are 'presidents' wives becoming non-elected, unaccountable bureaucrats?
ESSAY BY DANIEL BROWN
When we vote for the president of the United States, are we electing one person or two? Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton campaigned as a team, and many voters voted for both of them.
Some of the animosity toward, or overpraise of, Hillary may be a result of confusion over the roles of first ladies, which is not defined in the Constitution. (“Lady” is a charmingly anachronistic word reminiscent of times past.) Hillary has a radically different role from all first ladies in American history. She reports to no one but the president, her husband, and only he can fire her from her designated capacity as health-care czar.
This situation has no precedent and delegates unusual power to Hillary, who is not an elected official or even cabinet secretary like President Kennedy’s brother Robert. She’s the first lady, working as a powerful but unaccountable bureaucrat.
Historically, Dolly Madison was renowned as a legendary hostess, and Edith Wilson ran the White House when Woodrow Wilson was dying. Nancy Reagan may have also “ruled.” James Buchanan was America’s only unwed president.
Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Rodham Clinton are often perceived as the “strong first ladies” of the modern age although their work and their personalities are totally different. Most presidents’ wives were strong in their own ways and varying roles. But when the electronic media began to follow every move in the lives of first families, everything changed. Eleanor’s strong commitment to liberal social causes was intensely personal. In an era of utter despair (the Depression), she served her country and her husband through volunteer work consistent with FDR’s social goals. The Roosevelts, too, were a team and worked independently for common goals.
Volunteer work has, in modern times, been considered the only “appropriate” role for a first lady. Hillary is the first first lady to have worked professionally and for pay, as a corporate lawyer. She went from “real” job to “real” job, setting a precedent which Americans either intensely like or intensely dislike.
I have only dim memories of Mamie Eisenhower, who deferred to her husband and avoided the limelight. Pat Nixon was probably the last of the conventional wives,
onlyartists
reflecting the same and very real “family values” from the 1950s. She shored up her husband, reared her daughters and loved her husband. (Richard Nixon’s grief upon her death was moving and genuine.)
Everything changed with Jacqueline Kennedy and television. A confused post-debutante thrust into the public eye in her early 30s, Jackie brought glamour to a fascinated and adoring public. Her background gave her little training in anything, so she redecorated the White House, involved the arts, restored furniture, rode horses. She really had no role, except as a symbol of glamour and money, youth and aristocracy.
An abrupt change came with Lady Bird Johnson, my pick of the best first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt. She is widely credited with beginning the environmental movement by planting trees along Texas highways. Her modesty and strength combined with her money and skills (her family owned television and radio stations) kept her strong and shrewd, but kind.
Betty Ford brought candor and humor during a bleak time in American history. Her openness about her mastectomy and alcoholism refreshed a nation weary of hate. She set the stage for Barbara Bush, also known for her candor, wit and no-nonsense views of phony glitz and glamour.
Rosalyn Carter seems modeled on Lady Bird Johnson to an extent: volunteer work, wise counsel, the power behind the man.
Nancy Reagan evokes strong feelings in Americans, either very positive or very negative. But the comparisons and similarities among her, Jacqueline Kennedy and Hillaty Rodham Clinton are closer and clearer than the media often suggest. Reagan is still often perceived as “the power behind the scenes,” protecting and loving an aging president. Marriage came first, then glamour, money and power. She aspired to glamour, like Jackie; these two women were shoppers, consumers, both concerned with their public images. And so is Hillary, whose appearance, clothes, hairstyles and the like change with mind-numbing regularity.
The role of feminism strikes at the heart of this paradoxical debate, confusing similarities with differences. Nancy Reagan and Hillary Rodham Clinton actually typify similar women from different generations who share different values. Hillary is the first president’s wife to have held a paying job, but she comes across as the least supportive wife of any modern president. Since all first ladies wield power of a sort, the voters of America must now determine whether they are voting for one president or for a team.
We know that Robert Dole’s wife, Elizabeth, served in the cabinets of Presidents Reagan and Bush. We also know that Lynne Cheney, wife of Bush’s Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, was director of the National Endowment for the Humanities. But who is Mrs. Phil Gramm? Mrs. Jack Kemp? Mrs. Colin Powell? Mrs. Newt Gingrich? The voters are in for a surprise with Gramm, whose wife is Korean-American, which will no doubt confuse many of his presidential campaign supporters.
BY MICHELLE KENNEDY
Shifting Philosophy
Cincinnati Safety Director William Gustavson recently terminated a probationary police officer for failure of probation. The Police Division had trained this officer for eight months at its Academy, which followed months of recruitment procedures. Given the department’s own estimate that it spends $90,000 annually per police officer for salary, equipment and training, that’s a lot of wasted time and money.
But here’s the kicker this probationary officer had been through the entire process before with the same end result: termination. And Gustavson insinuates in an internal memo that such failures aren’t the officers’ fault but the division’s.
In a memo to the fire and police chiefs dated Dec. 19, Gustavson stated, “I am concerned that we are not doing enough to ensure that our recruits will succeed.” He suggests a major shift in philosophy for the training process, particularly if a probationary officer is identified as needing to be terminated. Gustavson intends “to change the focus in these cases from one of examining whether the recruit failed to one of examining whether we, as an organization, have done all that we can to help the recruit.”
The safety director himself will now review the offending officer’s training and the strategies employed by his/her Field Training Officer (FTO) and the FTO’s supervisor to “ensure the officer’s success.” Instead of it being the responsibility of the recruit to actively learn, it will now be “the trainers (who have the) responsibility to train.”
During the week-long seminar for prospective FTOs, they are informed that they are entrusted not only with the accurate training of their recruits but also with identifying those who fail to meet the minimal standards outlined in the course. Now Gustavson wants to hold them accountable for their recruits’ failures.
What Gustavson fails to comprehend is that it’s already a lot easier to pass a recruit than it is to fail one. And it will become even easier if he goes through with his proposal. Who cares if a probationary officer is afraid of his/her own shadow? Who cares if an officer doesn’t know if he/she has probable cause to pull a car over? Who cares if an officer takes 45 minutes to get to a house three blocks away because he/she doesn’t know how the streets are laid out? What FTOs in their right minds would even consider failing a recruit if it was going to be interpreted as a reflection on how well they did their job?
It’s unfortunate that the safety director’s response to probationary officer failures is to point a finger at the people doing the training and their supervisors instead of taking a good, hard look at the training programs themselves or, God forbid, the quality of those being hired.
Works on display by Linvel Barker, Howard Finster, Shirley Lambdin, R.A. Miller, Lonnie & TWyla Money and Mose T.
1315 main street over-the-rhine 241-6672 tues-sat: 11am-5pm final fridayof each month: 6pm-10pm
Regrettably, politics is once again put ahead of officer safety.
Photo:Jymi Bolden
MICHELLE KENNEDY, married to Cincinnati police officer, is a founder of Spouses for Officer Safety. This column monthly in CityBeat.
WELL BEINGS
BY JOSH KATZ
The Stages Of Change
In a previous column, discussed an alternative method to improving overall wellness and health energy expenditure from performing a variety of physical activities. But how do you know how many calories you are using up in any one activity?
Dr. Barbara Ainsworth (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) and colleagues developed the Compendium of Activities, an index of activities classified according to energy cost. Each activity is worth a certain amount of energy points (termed METS or Metabolic Equivalents):
Biking: 4 for leisure, 8 for vigorous.
Disco, folk, square dancing: 5.5.
Gardening: 5 if done continuously.
Golf: 5.5 if carrying clubs.
House painting outdoors: 5.
Jogging: 7 for general.
Mowing the lawn with a push mower: 5.5.
Rock climbing, rappelling: 8.
Sex: 1.5, but 2.5 with making the bed afterward.
Sitting, reading, general light activity: 1-3.
Tennis: 8 for singles, 6 for doubles.
Walking: 3.5 for moderate on a firm surface.
Yoga, tai-chi: 4.
To estimate how many calories an activity uses, you need to know your weight in kilograms. (Find this by dividing your weight in pounds by 2.2.)
Then, multiply your weight in kilograms by the energy points, or METS, by the duration in minutes of the activity. Divide all of this by 60.
For instance, 156-pound person who works continuously in the garden for 30 minutes will expend approximately 180 calories.
Research has suggested that expending 2,000 calories per week above resting requirements might lead to a lower risk for chronic diseases.
Improving wellness by increasing energy expenditure sounds easy doesn’t it? Read on.
The new year brings with it resolutions to change a variety of behaviors: losing weight; quitting smoking or drinking; and, yes, becoming physically active. Change is never easy for anyone.
In his book, Changing For Good, clinical psychologist and researcher, Dr. James Prochaska provides an alternative to the "old” action behavior change paradigm. The old paradigm supposes that if people do not stop smoking, quit drinking, lose weight, etc., they lack willpower or motivation.
Prochaska believes it is the model of behavior change, and not the individual, that is inadequate.
Prochaska and his colleagues have studied peopie who change on their own (self-changers) without psychotherapy. One of the discoveries he made was that most people follow a predictable course when changing a behavior. Along this course are six stages, each requiring different interventions to guide the individual through the particular stage.
Many programs of change operate out of the action paradigm, which is only one of the stages.
So where do you start? This scientific model (termed the Transtheoretical model) approach to self-change requires that you know which of the six stages you are in for the problem you want to overcome. Next month, we will explore the stages of change and find out what stages you are in if you are attempting to alter a behavior.
JOSH
DailyBred
Issues ^ Bom of Everyday Living
Talking Dirty With Lisa
‘ Cyborgasm creator attempts to bring sex into
Lisa Palac is a writer, editor, record producer and ironically self-proclaimed “cyber-chick.” Her writings on sexuality, popular culture and technology have appeared in The London Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Village Voice and Next: Young American Writers On The New Generation (Norton Books).
Palac, 31, is also a pomographer.
Her most recent work (co-created with Heyday Records founder Ron Gompertz) is The Edge of the Bed: Cyborgasm 2 (Time Warner AudioBooks; $14.99 for CD), a collection of erotic stories captured on digital tape using binaural technology, a microphone system that creates an unmistakably 3-D “you are there” effect.
The Edge of the Bed features titillating tales from.artists, poets, actors and writers, including Anne Magnuson, Josh Kombluth, Annie Sprinkle and other “plain folks who can tell a good dirty story.” The performances were captured in a San Francisco recording studio where a futon, provided for improvisation’s sake, did not go unused.
Ten years ago, Palac, then a film student at the University of Minnesota, held a “good feminist’s” anti-porn stance and protested outside adultbook stores. Much to her surprise, she says she eventually found some pornography to be not only arousing but liberating in that it provided her with a sense of sexual autonomy. In the late 1980s, she relocated to San Francisco and worked with sex educator and writer Susie Bright on Bright’s lesbian magazine, On Our Backs, and contributed to Bright’s Herotica and Herotica 2, collections of women’s erotic fiction.
In 1991, Palac founded Future Sex, a magazine examining sexuality and technology that she edited until March 1994. She is currently completing Cyborgasm 3 and has begun work on a book analyzing sexuality and popular culture through her own personal experiences to be published by Little, Brown next year.
Palac: The biggest the Internet. People op friendships, erotic strangers. I don’t really that, but one of my the way we think about amount of people meeting assumption. Pornography, is open to interpretation. things to different
But it’s easy to forget more genuine responses
CB: What’s your Surgeon General?
Palac: It was pathetic was reported, as if children to be taught maybe that wouldn’t
To be included
Submit information for CityBeat calendar listings in writing by noon Thursday, seven days before publication. Mail to: Billie Jeyes, Listings Editor, Cincinnati CityBeat, 23 E. Seventh St., Suite 617, Cincinnati, OH 45202. Fax: 665^369.
Please include a contact name and daytime phone number.
Thursday. Bogart’s, 2621 Vine St., Corryville. $10/$ 12 day of show. 749^949.
ALAN JACKSON WITH THE MAVERICKS Country. 8 p.m. Saturday. Riverfront Coliseum, Downtown. $21/$24. 721-1000.
JAZZ LAB BAND WITH KATIE LAUR Big Band. 8 p.m. Saturday. Raymond Walters College, 9555 Plainfield Road, Blue Ash. $6. 745-5705. THE MARC FIELDS QUINTET Jazz. 8 p.m. Saturday. Sungarden Lounge at the Hyatt Regency 151 W. Fifth St., Downtown. $5. 579-1234.
★
and
This week we celebrate those who’ve twisted the brass ring only to wake up one day in the cold, lonely world of ANONYMITY. Ann B. Davis USED TO BE known as Alice, the mopwielding linch pin in The Brady Bunch, but now you can see her live up in Dayton’s Victoria Theatre playing a mother’s role in Crazy For You. (See Theater listings.) EX-producer for the Gary Burbank show, “Doc” Wolfe returns to Joseph-Beth Booksellers to put ink to book flaps and sing the praises of partially hydrogenated soybean oil. (See Literary.) Forced into EARLY RETIREMENT upon knowledge of Capt. Kirk’s demise, Nichelle Nichols, or if you prefer, Lt. Uhura of Star Trek, will scan for new life forms at the Sharonville Convention Center while “MIGHT HAVE BEEN” Lani Guilder graces Cincinnati’s presence with several sightings expected. (See events in Etc. listings.) Only high-tech REPRODUCTIONS can keep the vocal cords clear and guitar strings of these Rock has-beens strung tight, Mlght Have Been at the planetarium: Laser Doors, shaperKrf-federal-civii-rights-policy
Zeppelin and Floyd. (See speak at 3 p.m. Thursday at the
Attractions.) FORMER slugger
George Foster, whose innocent bat was routinely inspected for cork, has taken up round ball to the delight of many Tristaters. (See Sports.)
PHIL WILLIS AND RUSTY BURGE Jazz guitar and vibes. 8 p.m. Friday. Borders Books and Music, 11711 Princeton Pike, Springdale. 671-5853.
THE MELLOW STRINGS Dulcimer. 8 p.m. Friday. JosephBeth Booksellers, Rookwood Pavilion, Madison and Edwards roads, Norwood. 396-8960. THE RHYTHM RATS Old-time. 8 p.m. Friday. Grammer’s
p.m. Saturday. Top Cat’s, 2820 Vine St., Corryville. Cover.
Lani Guiltier will
University of Cincinnati.
Music
KRIS BROWN Acoustic. Blind Lemon. Free.
LEN CALLAHAN Acoustic. Local 1207. Cover.
MILHAUS Alternative favorites. First Run. $2/$4 under 21.
MODULATORS Eclectic. Mt. Adams Pavilion. Cover.
NONCHALANT Rock. Ripleys. Cover.
POSITIVE REACTION Reggae. Club Gotham. Cover.
RAS BONGHI Reggae. Ozzie's. 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.
SWEET ALICE AND UNFINISHED BUSINESS Blues. AUyn’s. Cover.
TOMMY MILES Rock. New Nineties. Cover.
UNDER THE SUN Alternative. Sudsy Malone’s. Cover.
UPTOWN RHYTHM AND BLUES Rhythm and Blues. Stow’s. Cover.
WILLIE RAY AND THE MIDNIGHTERS Blues. Burbank's Sharonville. Free.
FRIDAY
JAN. 27
ANN CHAMBERLAIN JAZZ TRIO Jazz. Coco’s. Cover.
ANVIL SLUGS Alternative favorites. Murray’s Pub. Cover.
BANJO Alternative. Zipper’s. Cover.
THE BLUEBIRDS Blues. Jack Ass Flats. Cover.
BOB CUSHING Acoustic. Village Tavern. Free.
BORN CROSS EYED Grateful Dead favorites. First Run. $2/$4 under 21.
BRIAN EWING Alternative Folk. Empire. Cover.
BUDDY GRIFFIN AND JEFF ROBERTS Blues and Bluegrass. Arnold’s. Free.
CIRCUS OF THE SUN WITH THE NINE AND FLY Rock. Top Cat’s. Cover.
COLD SMOKE Pop Rock. Chatterbox. $2.
Clubs Directory
MUSIC
ALLYN’S CAFE
3538 Columbia Parkway, Columbia-Tusculum. 871-5779.
NKU NORSE NKU vs. St. Joseph College. Women’s game, 5:30 p.m.; men’s game, 7:45 p.m. Thursday. NKY vs. Lewis University. Women’s game, 1 p.m.; men’s game 3:30 p.m. Saturday. $4 for both games; students $3. Regents Hall, NKU Campus, Highland Heights. 572-5193.
UC BEARCATS UC women’s basketball vs. St. Louis. 7:30 p.m. Friday. UC women’s basketball vs. Xavier. 7:30 p.m. Monday. $3 adults; $1 children. Shoemaker Center, Stadium Drive, University of Cincinnati, Clifton. 556-CATS.
ANIMALS ALIVE Meet several of Southwest Ohio’s native wildlife species. 2 p.m. Visitor Center, Miami Whitewater Forest, Mt. Hope Road, Crosby, Whitewater and Harrison Townships. 521-PARK.
BARE BRANCHES Park visitors will learn to identify trees without their leaves. 3 p.m. Saturday. Woodland Mound, Old Kellogg, Anderson Township. 521-PARK
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 Road, Paddock Hills. 861-3435. .Ongoing classes are taking place 3:45-5 p.m. Tuesdays. $15 (prorated) California Woods Nature Preserve, 5400 Kellogg Ave. 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. 4-5:15 p.m. Tuesdays. Through March 21. $15. Avon Woods, 4235 Paddock Road, Paddock Hills. 861-3435.
PRESCHOOL NATURE CAMP
Nighttime Is the Right Time
The relaxed Jazz hangout the Loft Society is Cincinnati's most unique nightspot
BY KATHY Y. WILSON
t’s in a house....”
I“I ain’t like that....”
“... and you had to talk all loud, and shit!”
“Let’s got to a party, damn!”
SUMMARIES AND CAPSULE REVIEWS
BY STEVE RAMOS
Opening
HIGHLANDER 3 Christopher Lambert returns as that Scottish clan leader who finds that being immortal can be a real pain. No surprise. This time around, Mario Van Peebles turns up as an evil sorcerer. Sooner or later, somebody always loses his head in these Highlander movies. Maybe for Lambert, the third time is the charm. (Rated R; opens Friday at area Loews Theatres.) No screening.
IMMORTAL BELOVED Director Bernard Rose takes liberties with the life of Ludwig van Beethoven in this rather ordinary mystery that searches for the composer’s immortal beloved. The ordinary story offers balance to a film that is so lush and extravagant in its production that this film epitomizes junk culture. Gary Oldman finally finds a role that is deserving of his intensity. Of course, the musical score is fantastic. This is high culture served at its low-brow best. With Jeroen Krabbe and Isabella Rossellini. (Rated R; opens Friday at area Showcase Cinemas.)
It is well past 1 a.m., only weeks away from the end of 1994, and two black banshee girls beat a path down the narrow passageway leading from the apartment of A1 “Bug” Williams on Calhoun Street in Clifton. The apartment is crammed among the storefronts of Downtown, a vintage clothing store, a comicbook store and Ozarka Disc and Tape. All leather, painted nails and braided extensions, the two sisters have apparently come to the wrong place. Reaching the sidewalk they continue on, cackling as they make their way into the early morning. They can’t leave fast enough.
Electric relaxation
Find the handwritten sign, travel the dark walkway, push open the heavy door and climb the cluttered steps.
Just follow the sounds of the music to a spinning disco ball, a vegetarian buffet and images of Miles, Billie and Malcolm. There are people of varying shapes, sizes and hues spread out on cushions and lining the walls that may never be encountered except in this place.
The Loft Society is at once an assault on the senses and an experiment in relaxation. Sweat, smoke, food and Egyptian musk oil make for a heady mixture.
Do you look? Do you listen?Do you talk, sit or stand?
CityBeat grade: B.
★ OLEANNA Playwright David Mamet directs his work that addresses the realities of sexual harassment between a male professor and his female student. Although it may not possess the dynamic movement that most audiences have come to expect from film, Mamet reaffirms his status as a premier practitioner of the English language. (Unrated; opens Friday at the Little .Art Theatre, Yellow Springs. 513-767-7671.)
Just as the live music presented here is interpretive, the level of response to the environment at the Loft is entirely up to the individual.
If event organizer Williams doesn’t say anything else to spectators for the duration of the night, after he takes their 10 bucks,- he tells them to “enjoy yourself, do what you feel like and make yourself at home.”
Known to close friends as “Bug” because one childhood day his big eyes made him look just like one and the nickname stuck, Williams hails from Philly. He began turning the bay-windowed area of his living room into a stage 10 years ago by staging and producing live music.
CityBeat grade: B.
★ WHAT HAPPENED WAS
“This is the freshest music you’re gonna see in this city,” says Williams, an imposing, warriorlike brother with a nose ring. “These guys have the freedom to do what they want, and they get off.”
Unfolding in one long take, What Happened Was takes a look at the emotional roller coaster of a first date between office co-workers. Tom Noonan writes, directs and stars in this film that is more drama than comedy. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at last year’s Sundance Festival, Noonan’s film holds nothing back in this searing portrait of two lonely adults who search for companionship.
Calling his crib a safe, alternative atmosphere, Williams says freedom is essential to the Loft’s development as well as his own self-expression. To look around his place is a glimpse into his personality.
Around midnight, one Saturday a month, the apartment transforms into a kind of African open-air market. In the kitchen are tables filled with vegetarian dishes and homemade deserts; a comer is devoted to handmade jewelry. Throughout, people get reacquainted, exchanging ideas about music, life, sex and art.
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 Road, 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.
Supported by a fantastic performance from actress Karen Sillas, What Happened Was offers one of American cinema’s more honest portrayals of being a single adult. Like the characters themselves, this film will make you suffer the uneasiness of first date.
A barber by trade ates the striking, monthly sessions. can do what I want untapped market Ken Leslie frees some the living room. “You platform for performance In Williams’ kitchen, Marsalis hanging Carter Jefferson and by. DubMaster says town for gigs. With gone up. Any second,
Staying
The monthly Loft Society offers an alternative atmosphere to other Jazz venues.
alive Jackson, known Williams has elevated ing. “People lived he lives and dies to chocolaty radio voice. the marathon: It’s he’s running.” Jackson speaks Coltrane’s “A Love and stretched by Meanwhile, Williams the living room to “You’re supposed
LOFT: FROM PAGE 17
virtue of its creators and innovators, is a black art form. It is discouraging, he says, that many blacks in' Cincinnati don’t appreciate Jazz for what it is because of “a Top 40 mentality. Up here at the Loft, we stopped all that bullshit years ago, and we’re going to leave a legacy,” he says, his baritone rising with excitement. “I’m getting into my culture 100 percent.”
Williams is documenting that culture in every format imaginable. There are as many CDs as there are records, books, magazines and commemorative Wheaties boxes graced by sports figures in protective Ziplock freezer bags. Some first-timers sit in awe of the atmosphere, seemingly too tense to enjoy it. Others, like a woman named Ann at the pre-Christmas set, are affable and talkative. Earlier, she was stretched out on the floor telling people nearby of her plans to purchase a motorcycle. As she says she’d like to get a Harley, members of the Social Committee, a conscious-raising rap trio, step up to freestyle with the Hoppers and preview their New Year’s Eve show at the Loft.
Napoleon Maddox is the leader of the group. Part Speech from Arrested Development, Maddox takes the mic posing the question, “When will something good ever happen in the ’hood?” Ann sits at his feet, thrusting her arms into the air and yelling positives to the group. Unnerved, Maddox raps on.
After the Committee’s New Year’s Eve show weeks later, musician Katrina Willis explains that in an intimate setting, that type of interaction fuels the performance. We are, after all, in someone’s living room, she says. “We’re used to performing in our living rooms, and this environment helps,” says the drummer, keyboardist and vocalist who sat in with the Committee.
“When you’re at home, you’re at your best. This place makes it easy it’s like home,” she says.
THE LOFT SOCIETY gets underway on the last Saturday of each month beginning around 11:30 p.m. at 119 Calhoun St., Clifton. Cost at the door is $10 and includes vegetarian buffet. For information, call Al “Bug" Williams, at 559-9220. Upcoming performances: Mike Wade’s Standard Time Quartet, on Saturday; pianist Erwin Stuckey, Feb. 25; Marvin Curry, March 25; trombonist/composer Marc Fields, April 29.
Songbird Soars Seriously High
With 1 Flyer,; Griffith pulls off another great record despite some extraordinary earnestness
REVIEW BY JEREMY SCHLOSBERG
Nanci Griffith, who appears Tuesday at the Taft Theatre, is a personable performer with a sweetheart of a voice and a keen songwriter’s instinct. She has always remained on the outside of this country’s dopey musical boundaries.
,The backwoods twang in her voice says Country; the literate lyrics and acoustic guitar work say Folk; her ear for heart-rendering ballads whispers Adult
Contemporary even as the energy and rebelliousness underlying many of her best songs speak a universal language known as Rock and Roll.
Combine her inability to be categorized with media wariness, and you get a talented recording artist who has never had a gold record in the United States. Instead, she has had glowing reviews, which seem to grow with each year she labors outside the glare of mass adulation.
With Flyer, her 12th album, she has become an official Critic’s Darling, culminating perhaps with her annointment by Time's classically trained music critic Michael Walsh as “a wide-eyed Texas waif who may just be one of America’s best poets.”
Now wait a minute. Griffith is a deservedly well-respected singer/songwriter, but let’s not get silly. Flyer is a thoroughly pleasant and occasionally stirring album that suffers only from a bit of uncharacteristic overseriousness. Maybe it’s because this is Griffith’s first attempt at autobiographical songwriting, or maybe it’s because the record label, buoyed by her Grammy for 1993’s brilliant Other Voices, Other Rooms, is overplaying the “overlooked legend” story. Whatever the reason, the whole project seems to have marinated in earnestness a bit too long. She may be smiling on the cover, but she also looks to be picking her nails. A little anxious, perhaps?
There is, however, no quibbling with the musicianship, which is brilliant throughout. She brings aboard a lot of guest musicians (including Adam Duritz from Counting Crows, U2’s Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton, both Indigo Girls and Mark Knopfler) who perform with,spirit without detracting from Griffith’s intent and style.
The more time you spend with Griffith’s music, the less mystified you become with her blurring of styles; Folk, Country and Alternative acoustic music do have logical points of intersection, after all. The more interesting, and undiscussed, musical amalgam Griffith offers is a mix of maudlin and the intellectual. She can’t, for instance, seem to resist recording a well-crafted but weepy/whiny ballad like “Southbound Train,” written by her friend Julie “From a Distance” Gold and replete with musical and lyrical oversentimentality.
Yet, left to her own devices, she’s just as likely to record well-honed gems like “Goodnight To a Mother’s Dreams” another ballad, but this time far more subtle or the Buddy Holly-ish toe-tapper “This Heart” (featuring original Cricket Sonny Curtis on guitar).
Consider it part of Griffith’s eccentric charm that she manages to elevate the otherwise sappy. The danger is that she might cheapen the otherwise worthy, but so far so good. Now if she lightens up a bit next time, she might fly even higher.
CityBeat grade: B.
tions as New Orleans, Nashville and as far west as Arizona. Murphy’s sound is a gritty brand of Folk and Blues, and his voice has a raw, scratchy and soulful appeal. Come out to Rosie’s (643 Bakeweli, Covington; 291-9707) to help Murphy celebrate the tape’s release Saturday night. Local band Banjo is opening the show. And do not pass up the new disc by Clan Diah, titled The Train Journey North. The group has a unique sound that combines Alternative Rock sensibilities (in the vocal and guitar approach) with a folky, worldly eclecticism. The band’s name is derived from an old Scottish phrase meaning "the children of God,” and the CD also contains a Scottish feel via the bagpipe-playing of Christopher McLennan. Very cool and diverse stuff. Try to catch the band in concert Tuesday at Sudsy Malone’s (2626 Vine St., Corryville; 751-2300).
New for ’95
Local Scene
SPILL IT
BY MIKE BREEN
Perhaps the year's first “new” band is Joyhammer. You may know members as Pacific Rim, but with recent lineup changes, the band has settled on the new moniker and a more focused direction, sharpenning its Alternative sound. Band members Rob Zai and Frank McDermot have started a singles label called Space Boy Records to help support young, local and underappreciated bands. The first release will be a split single with Joyhammer and Gunkel. Future splits will include the works of Grand PooBah Futons, Lucy, Soft Cactus, little fish, the Mad Hatters, Fungus and Gingham.
See Joyhammer at Bogart’s (2621 Vine St., Corryville) Saturday with their cohorts, the Mad Hatters.
Dogs in Memphis
Send all music-related materials to MIKE BREEN, Cincinnati CityBeat, 23 East Seventh St., Suite 617, Cincinnati, OH 45202.
PHOTO: JOHN CH1ASSON
Nanci Griffith
New Tunes
POSITIVELY YEAH YEAH YEAH
BY JOHN M. JAMES
I Love the Jerky in You
Don’t answer the phone. Who knows what twisted cruelty lurks at the other end of the line? The Jerky Boys, you hapless fool! After two hit albums of their recorded phone fury upon unsuspecting victims, the faces behind the vocal impressions come forth in their own movie, due in theaters Feb. 3. The advance word I’ve gotten on the film is that the Jerky Boys make a unfortunate prank call to the Mafia and chaos ensues. Look for Ozzy Osbourne in a cameo role.
Atlantic Records has the soundtrack in stores now and it’s a doozy! Artists on this multi-genre set include Green Day, Superchunk, Collective Soul, Helmet, Wu-Tang Clan and Coolio. Dialogue snippets from the film are sprinkled between tracks. A few cool cover versions sneak in as well L7 doing Blondie’s “Hanging on the Telephone” and Tom Jones strokin' Lenny Kravitz’s “Are You Gonna Go My Way.” Get the peanut butter outta yer ears and check it out, tough guy!
Looks Weird on a Turntable
OK, you know about the 12-inch album, the 10-inch nifty EP and the 7-inch single the holy trio of wax, vinyl that is, and members of the groove congregation, can I get an Amen to it’s power and glory!?!
Heck, remember as a kid cutting out Bobby Sherman records pressed right on the boxes of Honeycomb cereal.
Well, add another mathematical dimension to the list, with the introduction of the 5-inch single not 5-inch CD, but 5-inch wax! The loose affiliation of sonic sound benders collectively known as E.A.R. (Experimental Audio Research) has chosen this format for the new single on the Sympathy For the Record Industry label, titled "Pocket Symphony.”
The single comes sleeved in the traditional paper packaging used by so many CD singles, but don’t try loading this whack wafer onto the outstretched tongue of your CD player it’s a record, remember, and it does the 33 1/3 thing.
You may know E.A.R. by the company they keep. The members of this side project all come from other bands such as Spacemen 3, My Bloody Valentine, Spectrum and others, and have a full-length album coming soon on Big Cat Records.
Tori by Candlelight
A new completely authorized biography on the life of Tori Amos is due in stores any day. Titled All These Years, its 116 pages are crammed with black-and-white and color photos printed on glossy paper. A complete discography inside should give even the most entrenched fan a heart flutter, as Amos is definitely one the most prolific and highly collected artists in the last 10 years.
Releases Coming Tuesday
And like the winds, young grasshopper, are subject to change.
Elvis Costello Goodbye Cruel World (Rykodisc), reissue with 10 bonus tracks; Elvis Costello Punch the Clock (Rykodisc), reissue; Goodbye Harry Food Stamp B-B-Q (Cruz), former members of All and Treepeople; Nik Kershaw Anthology (Oglio); Red Rockers Good as Gold/Condition Red (Oglio), reissue of two albums on one CD; Siouxsie & the Banshees The Rapture (Geffen), limited glow-in-the-dark LP release; Sonic Youth Ciccone Youth: The Whitey Album (Geffen), reissue; The The Hanky Panky (Sony/550 Music), all Hank Williams Sr. covers!
JOHN JAMES can be found behind the counter at Wizard Records in Corryville.
in time for some tomfoolery. This time, he teams with Jeff Daniels to play bumblers who cross the country to return some stolen loot to its rightful owner. Carrey has emerged as Hollywood’s man with the Midas touch for ’94. Rumors are that in France, people have thrown out their posters of Jerry Lewis and replaced them with ones of Carrey. A new slapstick god is born. With Teri Garr and ex-MTV veejay Karen Duffy. (Rated PG-13; 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. This movie is for those who like a little brain with their brawn. (Rated PG-13; at Norwood.)
FAR FROM HOME THE ADVENTURES OF YELLOWDOG After seeing Lion King for the umpteenth time, children may be sick of animated fare. Sure, there’s the new version of Jungle Book, but how about an adventure that takes place a bit closer to home? 20th Century Fox comes to the rescue with this tale of a young boy who becomes lost at sea. His trusted doggie leads him home. Too bad theater owners won’t let pets inside. This one for the pooches. Woof. With Jesse Bradford, Mimi Rogers and a certain yellow dog. (Rated PG; at area Showcase Cinemas.)
★ DESTINY IN SPACE Sure, everything looks cooler when it’s blown-up super huge in the IMAX format, but too often the initial excitement fades fast. (Remember Antarctica?) This time, IMAX cameras follow the 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.)
★ FORREST GUMP The phe nomenon continues. America never tires ofForrest Gump. Tom Hanks combines the right amount of syrupy pathos with humor. People who complain about the movie’s glorification of the retarded are forcing politics where it does not belong. Let’s hope 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.)
★ 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 are 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.)
★ HEAVENLY CREATURES It may be the most famous criminal case in New Zealand’s history. Two young girls, Pauline Parker (Melanie Lynskey) and Juliet Hulme (Kate Winslet), look to escape their homes in 1952. Their friendship has garnered concern from their parents. Will you kill for love? This is the question that Pauline and Juliet must ask themselves. Everything they cherish may be taken away by adults who just don’t understand. For love, murder becomes a means 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 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. With Clive Merrison and Sarah Peirse. (Rated R; at the Esquire Theatre.)
HIGHER LEARNING No one can fault filmmaker John Singleton
DROP ZONE If skydiving itself is exciting, one would think a movie about the sport also would be riveting. Putting scenes of peopie jumping out of planes into a plot about terrorists stealing secrets from the Drug Enforcement Agency should guarantee an exciting time. Wrong. 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 look believable. In this era of stateof-the-art special effects, Drop Zone comes off like some flick from the ’50s. With Michael and Corin Nemic. (Rated R; at area Showcase Cinemas.)
DUMB AND DUMBER Before movie audiences get to see Jim Carrey vamp it up as the Riddler in Batman Forever, he returns just
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 both racism and date rape. Singleton’s movie has to be didactic. That doesn’t mean it also has to fall victim to the onesidedness and biased storytelling that it supposedly wants to overturn. Every cop on the campus of Christopher Columbus University is white, bigoted and dumb. In fact, the only white character who receives even a little sympathy is a young woman who is raped. Higher Learning becomes a dangerous film because it
the airport, he spots the key to his safety. Gary Young (Phil Hartman) is waiting for a long-lost friend whom 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 success working with Kid’n’Play in Class Act. Let’s see if such street humor can survive in an antiseptic Disney environment. Comedy sometimes requires subtleties. It need not be so blatantly black and white. With Jeffrey Jones and Kin Greist. (Rated PG; opens Friday at area Loews Theatres.)
IN THE ARMY NOW Whatever may be Pauly Shore’s appeal, let’s hope it is fading fast. Shore makes Jim Carrey seem like a 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. (Rated
Film
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, 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 ofjust 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 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 to 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 a 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 a large Montana ranch, Col. William Ludlow (Anthony Hopkins) and his three sons Alfred (Aidan Quinn), Tristan (Brad Pitt) and Samuel (Henry Thomas) share 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 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 long and eventful lives. Just when matters appear most bleak, a bond of family brotherhood emerges to offer 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 family unfolds with all the fury of a Greek tragedy. Melodrama finally receives the Tiffany treatment that this genre rightfully deserves. With Karina Lombard and Gordon Tootoosis. (Rated R; at area Loews Theatres.)
★ THE LION KING Hey, the kids were clamoring for it. So, the nice folks at Disney brought this animated blockbuster back. Right, let’s get one thing straight: Disney doesn’t have a new animated movie, and this is a great opportunity to squeeze more money out of this popular tale. It’s also a good time to promote the summer flick Pochantas. You’ve heard of the circle of life? Think of this as the circle of cash. With the voices of Matthew Broderick, Jeremy Irons and Whoopi Goldberg. (Rated G; at Norwood, Turfway, Forest Fair, Biggs Place Eastgate and Westwood.)
LITTLE GIANTS Two brothers a former football hero (Ed O’Neil) and a nerd (Rick Moranis) coach separate football teams for the right to represent their small town. As a high-concept comedy for kiddies, Little Giants works well enough. There may be valuable lesson learned. (Rated PG; at Norwood, Forest Fair and Biggs Place Eastgate.)
★ LITTLE WOMEN A cherished literary classic receives a wonderful adaptation at the hands of director Gillian Armstrong (My Brilliant Career). Almost every
one 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 that deserve to be described as a treasure. Leaving behind her persona as some Slacker-generation role model, Ryder excels in a role that perhaps she was destined to play. Beautiful to watch, touching to hear and so moving upon its end, Little Women touches the hearts of young and old alike. Sure, you know how the story ends, but the tears will fall anyway. With Susan Sarandon, Trini Alvarado and Kirsten Dunst. (Rated PG; at area Showcase Cinemas.)
MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN All of actor/director Kenneth Branagh’s pomp and circumstance result in a monster movie that contemplates the metaphysical more than menace. Robert DeNiro’s spin on the monster is all makeup and little action. Branagh's version stays truer to Mary Shelley’s vision than other movies do. Unfortunately, it seldom scares. With Tom Hulce and Helena Bonham Carter. (Rated R; closes Thursday at Norwood, Turfway, Forest Fair and Biggs Place Eastgate.)
★ THE MASK In this specialeffects-laden comedy, Jim Carrey’s performance resembles a Tex Avery cartoon. Still, his manic contortions remain true to the spirit of the film. Of all the fluff from summer, The Mask possessed the most originality. With this hit, Carrey became a million-dollar baby. Who knows if he will ever lose his Midas touch? With Peter Riegert and Cameron Diaz. (Rated PG-13; at Norwood, Turfway, Forest Fair and Biggs Place Eastgate.)
MILK MONEY Other than catching a glimpse of some local scenery, this tale of two young boys who match their dad up with a prostitute possesses few redeeming qualities. Director Richard Benjamin (My Favorite Year, Racing with the Moon) piles on the mush and forgets about the laughs. An ultra-thin Melanie Griffith as a hooker with a heart of gold gets lost in the process. With Ed Harris and Malcolm McDowell. (Rated PG-13, at Norwood, Turfway and Forest Fair.)
★ MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET
Sure, we have seen this tale of a 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
MURDER IN THE FIRST A young man, Henri Young (Kevin Bacon), faces unrelenting brutality during his incarceration at notorious Alcatraz. Fighting for his humanity, Young finds himself facing a charge of first-degree murder. His quest for justice teams him 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 a story that may hit a bit close to home. With Gary Oldman and Embeth Davidtz. (Rated R; at areaLoews Theatres.)
★ NATURAL BORN KILLERSDirector Oliver Stone (Platoon, Wall Street) pushes his cinematic skills to new heights. As a result, Natural Bom 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? Based on the stage play Idioglossia, Nell tells 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 some great challenge. With a dirtsmudged face and tattered clothes, Nell possesses a hip style that is certainly her own. Call it deepwoods cool. Well, it’s no wonder Foster leapt at this chance to play a backwoods Solomon. Nell is the antithesis of a Hollywood star.
Nell's strengths have little to do with beauty or personality. In Nell, Foster proves she can tackle a
Theater Directory
DOWNTOWN
EMERY THEATRE 1112 Walnut St., 721-2741. THE REAL MOVIES 719 Race St., Downtown. 651-3456. CENTRAL ACT 1
11165 Reading Sharonville. 733-8214 CENTRAL PARK 4600 Smith Road, 531-7655. ESQUIRE THEATRE 320 Ludlow Ave., 281-8750. LOEWS KENWOOD THEATRES 1&2 7860 Kenwood 793-6100.
KENWOOD CENTRE THEATRES 7875 Montgomery Kenwood Towne Kenwood. 791-2248. SHOWCASE CINCINNATI 1701 Showcase Lateral and Reading Hill. 351-2232. WEST LOEWS COVEDALE
D. LINDNER
THEATER Wilson. It’s not often that young girls experience strong role models .such as Wilson at the movies. Of all the family-movie fare out there, this new take on the 1947 original really hits pay dirt. It also struck gold for Wilson. She just signed huge multi-picture deal with 20th Century Fox. With Elizabeth Perkins, Dylan McDermott and Frasier’s Jane Peeves. (Rated PG; closes Thursday at Norwood and Turfway.)
20th
READY
Just because Miramax changed the title from Pret-a-Porter to Ready 7b Wear doesn’t mean this grandiose blunder by director Robert Altman suddenly turns into a decent film. Hey, when you have a career as long as this filmmaker, there will always be ups and downs. Ready To Wear offers further evidence that Altman does not write well as he directs. This story that he co-wrote with Barbara Shulgasser brings together inane plot about a possible murder into the hightension world of the Parisian fashion shows. Too many characters, little story development, no definite conclusions to any of these varying subplots and very few laughs result in a mess that may remind filmgoers of Quartet. Ready to Wear is one high-production waste of time. The only pieces of footage that excite the straight, documentary ones of the fashion shows. Worst of all, Altman ends this movie with a tired version of the old emperorwithout-clothes joke. If you enjoy high-fashion, stay home and watch Elsa Klensch on TV. There’s too much waste to sift through to make Ready 7b Wear’s few redeeming qualities worth searching for. With Marcello Mastroianni, Julia Roberts and a cast of seemingly thousands. (Rated R; at the Esquire Theatre.)
★ RICHIE RICH A little rich boy in real life, Macaulay Culkin has finally found the role that he has been groomed to play. Based on the popular children’s comic book, Richie Rich weaves a rather simple message about the importance of friendship with a lighthearted romp about kidnapped parents and a search for hidden loot. What makes Richie Rich an enjoyable family movie is that director Donald Petrie never weighs the story down with heavy; adult concerns. Unlike other kiddie movies that pound the youngsters with ultra-serious plots about the environment, Richie Rich keeps the mood light. Hey, any film that has character called Professor Keenbean has to be fun. Plus, Warner Bros, unveils its first new Roadrunner cartoon, a short titled Chariots ofFur, in more than 30 years. Now that’s something that even adults will get excited about. With Jonathan Hyde and Edward Herrman. (Rated PG; at area Showcase Cinemas.)
★ THE RIVER WILD Meryl Streep takes a successful leap as an action heroine in the latest effort from director Curtis Hanson (The Hand that Rocks the Cradle). Streep’s character leads her husband and son on a whitewater rafting trip, only to face terror from two criminal goons. What the story lacks in substance and character development, it makes up with frantic action and breathtaking photography. For her fans, Streep’s role may seem like slqmming. Hey, the girl just 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 a new 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 a 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 confirm its biases about mature women: another loser at the box office with an older female lead. (Rated PG-13; at Loews Kenwood Towne Centre.) THE SANTA CLAUSE Tim Allen makes the leap from TV stardom to the big screen. His sense of ease for kiddie comedy is wasted on this unimaginative story. Hopefully, Disney has Allen in MORE, PAGE 22
Junk Culture
By putting a B-level detective story into the classical music world, Bernard Rose crosses class barriers =====1
REVIEW BV STEVE RAMOS
If we are to believe the people behind the costume drama Immortal Beloved, sometimes feelings of hostility, jealousy and acts of brutality inspire great works of beauty. Art requires passion. Goodness possesses little if any relevance. For filmmaker Bernard Rose, Ludwig van Beethoven (Gary Oldman) serves as a shining example for this idea that a bad man may emerge as an artist of timeless importance.
Lying upon his death bed, Beethoven, now sick and decrepit, cries out in pain. At his funeral, begins a mystery surrounding a passionate letter that Beethoven addressed to his immortal beloved. Living a life that created more enemies than friends, his dedicated secretary Anton Felix Schindler (Jeroen Krabbe) takes it upon himself to find this woman and deliver the letter. He limits his search to, three women from Beethoven’s life. Giulietta Guicciardi (Valerie Golino), Anna Marie Erdody (Isabella Rossellini) and his brother’s widow, Johanna Reiss (Johanna Ter Steege).
Rose’s screenplay does not portray Beethoven simply as a cruel and nasty individual. Likely, Rose believes that portraying this artist as a coarse beast is not sufficient. Personalities are seldom that simplistic. This would leave out too many of the composer’s important characteristics. In this story, some people refer to Beethoven as a “madman.” Some describe him as a “man who was too good for people,” while others call him a “man filled with pestilence.”
In Immortal Beloved, Beethoven is all of those things and more. His hostility toward the aristocratic society that surrounds him knows no bounds. Inside him, jealousy rages. Unhappy with what life has dealt him, Beethoven lashes out upon those who possess joys foreign to him. Haunted by painful memories of a brutal childhood, many of the maestro’s thoughts are steeped in despair.
The Beethoven of Immortal Beloved is a most tragic character. A man of great passion, unfortunately most of his intensities lead to personal sadness.
JAZZ WORKSHOP AT KALOI S JAZZ PIANOSUMMIT WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY I,8:30 PM THE JAZZ PIANO SUMMIT FEATURES INNOVATIVE SOLO AND MUSICAL COLLABORATIONS FROM FOUR. OF CINCINNATI'S
But the passion is always present. Credit Oldman’s performance. Finally, his intensity has found its rightful home. In other films, (Romeo is Bleeding, The Professional) Oldman’s intensity seems out of place. His high-strung performances stick out like a sore thumb. Oldman’s acting is larger than life. His roles need to match his presence. When he finds this match between his acting style and role (Sid and Nancy, Prick Up Your Ears'), audiences witness a momentous performance of the type that often does not find its way into the movies. Although the supporting performances are more than adequate, Oldman dominates the movie. He was born to portray Beethoven. Still, his performance takes a back seat in this film.
Nothing compares to Beethoven’s symphonies, do not occupy such does not occupy a background and center. So how feel like some high-brow
more than a straight-forward, The music of Immortal nuances and subtleties. terious lover unfolds and simplicity keeps from being anything ment. This not a film for the general public.
Immortal Beloved tumes and sets that locations take one’s of Beethoven’s funeral matically breaks through production becomes A no-brainer mystery immaculate design.
Beethoven (Gary Oldman) peforms for polite Viennese
mind for another Son ofFlubber. Kids may eat up the story about a grouchy dad who becomes Kris Kringle. Do they know what “tool time” even means? In film, quality and box-office draw do not always match. Moviegoers have made this turkey a huge hit. With the holidays history, will ticket buyers still flock to a Christmas-theme movie?
That’s a question as big as Allen’s fake tummy. With Judge Reinhold 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 this 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 oldfashioned 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 company 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 froiti crowding the multiplexes. 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 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 and Jada Pinkett.
(Rated R; at area Showcase Cinemas.)
TRUE LIES Big Arnold does not save the day h§re. 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 home life 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 and Robert Englund. (Rated R; at
Turfway and Biggs Place Eastgate.)
Repertory
GREASE Now that John Travolta (Pulp Fiction) is a star once more, watching him sing and dance through one of the last suecessful Hollywood musicals takes on a new meeting. Just thank God that Brooke Shields was too young to play Rizzo in the film version. (Rated PG; 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Emery Theatre.)
ALEXANDER NEVSKY A clas sic of Russian cinema that'Should never be seen on anything other than a big screen. A special experience that is certainly worth the drive. (Unrated; 3 p.m. Saturday at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis. 317-923-1331.)
★ BEFORE MICKEY Dating from 1900 to 1928, these 25 short films from America, France, Germany and Russia reveal the beauty of silent animation that existed before someone named Walt Disney even picked up a paintbrush. A wonderful opportunity to view some classic early cinema that often remains unseen. (Rated G; 1 and 3: p.m. Saturday at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis. 317-923-1331.)
DOGS, DOGS DOGS For the kiddies the folks at the Main Library bring out some of short films. Hey, this is educational. Kids need to discover more about pooches. (Rated G; 10:30 Saturday at the Main Library, Downtown. 369-6922.)
★ DAZED AND CONFUSED
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.)
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.)
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. 1425 Sycamore; Overthe-Rhine. $10. 921-4168.
BOONE COUNTY COMMUNITY THEATRE GROUP Presents Agatha Christie’s classic, Ten Little Indians. 8 p.m. ThursdaySaturday. $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 Presents Jar The Floor, Cheryl L. West’s hit play about the bittersweet nature of family love. It 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. Robert S. Marx Theatre.... Meet the Artists takes place after the Sunday matinee and allows audience members to interact with the cast and the production staff. The program is free and attendance at that performance is not required. $19431 adults.... The opening of The Caretaker, the play that catapulted Harold Pinter to international fame, has been postponed because of illness until Feb. 7. The play will run through March 5 in the Thompson Shelterhouse. $22$29. (People with tickets to the first week being contacted by the playhouse; they also can call 421-3888 for more information.) Tickets to all shows are half-price when purchased noon-2 p.m. the day of the show. Eden Park. 421-3888.
★ DENNIS BANKS Dennis Banks, co-founder of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and director of the Sacred Run, returns to the Carnegie Theater for a fourday drum-making workshop. 7-9 p.m. Monday-Feb. 2. Class space is limited to 15. $125. He will also appear for a single concert of Native American Drums and Songs. 8 p.m. Feb. 4. $6.50 adults; $5 seniors and students; $3 children under 12.1028 Scott Blvd., Covington. 221-8777, Ext. 1. AN EVENING WITH MARK TWAIN DINNER Journey back to the days of steamboats and calhopes and listen to Lewis Hankin’s
Mark Twain as he weaves his humorous tales about the good ol’ days on the Mississippi River. The cash bar opens at 6:30 p.m., dinner is at 7 p.m. and the performance starts at 8 p.m. Saturday. $17.50.
Mill Race Lodge, Winton Woods, Winton Rd., Springfield Township. 521-PARK.
★ FIFTH THIRD VOICES OF HARMONY A seven-week festival celebrating ethnic and cultural diversity in the arts continues Saturday with Voices ofthe Spirit, which focuses on the artist becoming a voice for global awareness. Guest performers are Drums for Peace and co-founder of the American Indian Movement Dennis Banks. SCPA’s Percussion Ensemble will also perform. School for the Creative and Performing Arts Theatre, 1310 Sycamore St., Over-the-Rhine. 632-5910.
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.
Theater
★ 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 caught in the run-around of city hall. 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday. Closes Sunday. $7.50 adults; $5 seniors and students. Carnegie Theater, 1028 Scott Blvd., Covington. 221-8777, Ext.3. Call 491-8027 for reservations.
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.
MIAMI VALLEY DINNER THEATRE Presents Driving Miss Daisy. Opens Wednesday. Through Feb. 12. $26.95434.95. Route 73, Springboro. 513-746-4554.
VICTORIA THEATRE ASSOCIATION Ann. B. Davis, better known as Alice The Brady Bunch plays the mother in Crazy For You the story of Bobby Child, a pampered, 1930s 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, includes four recently discovered Gershwin
Goods. 8 p.m. Wednesday-Feb. 4. Performance Space, $12. Performance Space, North High St. at 15th. Ave., Columbus. 614-292-2354.
Comedy
GO BANANAS WLW’s Roger Naylor headlines with Keith Leslie as the featured act through Sunday. Club 19’s Michael Flannery and David Michaels. 8:30 and 10:45 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday. 8410 Market Place, Montgomery. 984-9288.
oils, acrylics, fibers, collage and glass. Opens Sunday. Through March 5. $3.50 adults, $1.50 students. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. TYiesdaySaturday, 1-5 p.m. Sunday. 1350 Brush Row Road, Wilberforce. 513-376-4944.
★ PUBLIC LIBRARY OF CINCINNATI AND HAMILTON COUNTY
A photographic display recognizing the exceptional achievements by African-Americans in Greater Cincinnati is on view throughout February. Opening reception, noon Wednesday. 9 a.m.-9 p.m. weekdays, 9 a.m.6 p.m. Saturday, 1-5 p.m. Sunday. 800 Vine St., Downtown. 369-6900.
★ THE RIFFE GALLERY - More than 80 works of art from West Africa are on display. Included are carved wooden stools, masks, figures, staves, jewelry and hats that have religious, philosophical and historic and aesthetic functions. Opens Thursdsay. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday; li a.m.-7:30'p.m. Thursday and Friday. Vern Riffe Center for the Government and the Arts, State and High streets, Columbus. 614-644-9624.
Openings
CIVIC GARDEN CENTER OF GREATER CINCINNATI Works by Carole Parrish. Opens Wednesday. Opening reception is 6-8 p.m. Feb. 3. 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday. 2715 Reading Road', Avondale. 221-0981.
★ CONTEMPORARY ARTS CENTER Carrie May Weems examines the status of AfricanAmericans in today’s society through narrative photographic images. Opens Saturday, through April 2. A 10-year retrospective of the paintings and computer generated/manipulated autobiographical images concerning male identity and family relationships by David Humphrey opens Monday. 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.
HILLEL JEWISH STUDENT CENTER 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.
★ GALLERY AT WELLAGE & BUXTON Ballard Borich, a noted poet, displays his abstract paintings on paper in A Larger Group ofSmaller Paintings. Opening reception, 6-9 p.m. Friday. Through March. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday. 1431 Main St., Over-theRhine. 241-9127.
★ IN SITU Gregory B. Saunders’ The Kentucky Series: A Personal Archeological Dig is a collection of large scale drawings based on the Kentucky landscape. Saunders, bom and raised in Newport and now living in Florida, combines remnants and artifacts of his past unearthed recently during a visit to his now torn-down former residence. Opening reception, 6-10 p..m. Friday. Through March 18.11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. 1435 Main St., Over-the-Rhine. 651—4613.
★ MIKE’S TEMPORARILY VACANT FIRST FLOOR APARTMENT GALLERY Exhibiting works by Cincinnati artist Jeremy B. Lewis in watercolor and acrylic. The only time you can see these works is 6-10 p.m. Friday. 211 Orchard St., Ov6r-the-Rhine. 684-0361.
NATIONAL AFRO-AMERICAN
MUSEUM AND CULTURAL CENTER Dream, Myth, and Reality: Contemporary Art from Senegal is comprised of 70 works by 50 Senegalese artists working in
Galleries & Exhibits
ADAMS LANDING ART CENTER 11 a.m.-3 p.m. WednesdaySaturday or by appointment. 900 Adams Crossing, Downtown. 723-0737.
ARTERNATIVE GALLERY Acrylics on paper by Lynn Arnold The Back Room Sale of eclectic art pieces and wearable art ends Jan. 31. 10 a.m.-7 p.m. MondayWednesday and Friday; 10 6 p.m. SaturdayK noon-5 p.m. Sunday. 2034 Madison Road, O’Bryonville. 871-2218.
★ ARTS CONSORTIUM OF CINCINNATI, UNION TERMINAL The Neo Ancestralist Resident Artist Exhibit, retrospective in nature, explores the various styles and mediums while focusing major issues, both social and cultural, through Feb. 28. ...Artfor 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 Ai~tfor 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. 381-0645.
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 Jan. 31. Noon-4 p.m. Saturdays and by appointment. 1311 Main St., Over-theRhine. 491-3865.
BEAR GRAPHICS AND ILLUSTRATION GALLERY Chris Payne’s illustrations and Jan Knoop’s paintings, prints and sculptures. Through February. 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 Tuesday.... 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
UtterKiosk
works will be hanging in the coffee bar through Tuesday. 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.
CARL SOLWAY GALLERY An exhibition of new interactive sculpture by San Fransisco multi-media electronic artist, Paul DeMarinis, will be on view. DeMarinis’ recent series of installation works, “The Edison Effect” uses optics and computers to make new sounds by scanning phonograph records with lasers. Through March 31. Painter Julian Stanczak, who was bom in Poland and studied under Joseph Albers, displays his paintings that create intense perceptual effects by working in a systematic way; often referred to as “Op Art." 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, Saturday by appointment. 424 Findlay St., West End. 621-0069.
★ CARNEGIE ARTS CENTER Variances exhibits the talents of regional artists Debbie Brod, Sarah Colby, Lisa Schare and Lynn Rose as well as Pittsburgh residents
'Baltimore Waltz’ Steps Rich Performances
REVIEW BY DALE
IDOERMAN
n an age of innocence, laughter is not out of the ordinary. But in times such as ours, laughter is often born of pain, confusion ancj a need to make sense from the senseless. The Baltimore Waltz transports the audience to an unfamiliar perspective, in order to observe an illness whose existence is more often ignored.
Instead of traipsing down the sadly familiar lane of AIDS, playwright, Paula Vogel guides us into the dark and ominous underworld of ATD; Acquired Toilet-seat Disease. Here, no adult is safe from the dread bacterial influence of the elementary school carriers of ATD. Indeed, if Carl (Brian Griffin) had only learned to squat instead of sit, he would have more time left on earth.
Unfortunately, things aren’t going well for Carl. He has been given a pink slip at the Public Library because he wears a pink triangle. In a show of sibling support, Carl’s sister, Anna (Lucinda Holshue), joins him on a European tour designed to exploit her repressed libido in Paris and to find a cure for Carl’s ATD in Vienna. Along the route, they expose and explore mankind’s ceaseless need to connect, to care and to celebrate life in all its plurality of expression.
Holshue delivers a performance rich in innocence as the first-grade teacher who throws caution to the wind in order to catch up on time lost living the role of the appropriate schoolmarm. Griffin is audacious and touching as the infected brother searching for warm hugs and an impossible cure. David Schaplowsky portrays more than a dozen supporting roles in a character-actor’s dream assignment, as he merges effortlessly from physician to cafe waiter, providing laughs, as well as plot movement.
Joann Maier and Amy Novelli. Curated by former CAC director Elaine King. Separate Visions features photographs by the NKU students of professor Leanne Schmidt. Both shows run through Saturday. 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. Through Feb. 10. 9 a.m.5 p.m. Monday-Friday. Art Academy of Cincinnati, Eden Park. 562-8777.
CINCINNATI ART CLUB
Winter Exhibition features works by members. The gallery is open 1-5 p.m. Friday-Sunday. 1021 Parkside Place, Mount Adams. 241-4591.
CINCINNATI ART GALLERIES Panorama of Cincinnati includes works by Henry Mosler and William Sonntag. Through Tuesday. 9 a.m.5 p.m. weekdays, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday. 635 Main St., Downtown. 381-2128.
★ CLERMONT COLLEGE ART GALLERY A Kaleidoscope: Appalachian Art ofSouthern Ohio. Through Feb. 24. 8 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays. 4200 Clermont College Drive, Batavia. 732-5224.
The tempo is primarily upbeat and the staging is fluid, flawless and classically balanced. Director Michael Burnham keeps things moving as the shape of the story shifts without stumbling from one revealing situation to another. Not surprisingly, the ultimate absurdity is contributed by the world out-
★ 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. 10 a.m.-8 p.m. weekdays, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday, noon-5 p.m. Sunday. 401 Race St., Downtown. 762-5510.
★ CIRCLE CD'S & RECORDS Rpck exhibition of limited-edition silkscreen prints and Rock concert posters by artists Derek Hess, Frank Kozik, Linsey Kuhn, M. Getz, Taz and Uncle Charlie. A revived art form reminiscent of Haight Ashbury. Through Tuesday. 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Friday, 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday, 1-5 p.m.. Sunday. 5975 Glenway Ave., Western Hills. 451-9824.
DIONYSUS RESTAURANT Photographs by Alan Bratton deal with death and rebirth, utilizing several artists. Through Saturday. 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-ll p.m. Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m., 5-10 p.m. Sunday. 121 Calhoun St., Clifton. 556^512.
FITTON CENTER FOR CREATIVE ARTS Highlights the works of Cincinnatian Kay Muir. 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday, 9 a.m.-noon Saturday. 101 S. Monument Ave., Hamilton. 863-8873.
side Gabriel’s Corner, Waltz a fanciful story although very real, The volunteer benefit, AIDS Volunteers brings dedication, care to this amusing It is a performance admission.
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., Mount Adams. 651-1441.
★ COLLECTOR BOOK AND PRINT GALLERY The politically motivated lithographs of Gabriel Glikman, Russian Jewish artist and sculptor, on display. Through March 31. 3-6 p.m. WednesdaySaturday, 1-5 p.m. Sunday. 1801 Chase Ave., Northside. 542-6600. SHARON COOK GALLERY 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday. 1118 Pendleton, Over-the-Rhine. 579-8111.
GLASS CRAFTERS STAINED GLASS STUDIO Features handcrafted stained and beveled glass MORE, PAGE 25
The Baltimore Waltz at Gabriel’s Corner.
THE BALTIMORE WALTZ
YOUDIDITAGAIN!
Check out the latest issue ofRolling Stone magazine, page 51... yes, you did it again! For the fourth out ofthe past six years, 97X WOXY has been named to the Top 15 Radio Stations in the Nation.
This is part ofthe annual Readers Poll and Music Awards. In the fall, the magazine runs a ballot for subscribers and readers covering a whole cornucopia of things like best/worst dressed rocker, best band, sexiest singer, and even favorite radio station. You guys and gals out there sent in your responses and got us named to the list. To borrow loosely from Sally Field, “You like us, you really like us.”
And because all of us here at 97X were raised right, we’d like to use this space to say THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for this very visible distinction. Ifyou see some scruffy looking Modern Rockers walking around with their chests all puffed up, chances are it’s us.
We would be remiss too, if we didn’t also mention WXIX-TV and reporter Dan Carroll for being first on the Cincinnati media scene to cover this event on the local news. We certainly like the TV coverage, and now you know what the term “face for radio” means. Thanks again to Dan, Channel 19 and all of you who spent the 29 cents (my, how times have changed) to voice your opinion.
VCR RTS
Plan to stay up late or set your VCR’s to record AdC-TV’s “IN CONCERT” late night, Friday February 3. Our very own MC Jae Forman will introduce Cincinnati fazes Throneberry recorded live at the jjhlouse of Flues in Los Angeles, jo Cincinnati: Channel 12 - 2:30am (Fri. / Sat. morning) h Payton: Channel 2 r 3:30am (Fri. / Sat. morning)
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Art
miniatures, windows, lamps, mirrors and more. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday. 11119 Reading Road, Sharonville. 554-0900.
GOLDEN RAM GALLERY
10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday; 10 a.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.
INNER SPACE DESIGN Presents one-of-a-kind necklaces 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 Tuesday. 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 pioof 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 6-year-old Lexan Rosser. Through Feb. 15. 7 a.m.-l
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.
LEFTHANDED MOON Hand carved and painted fimo pendants by Jeni B. and ceramic rattles by Nance Emmet. 11:30 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday-Saturday. 48 E. Court St., Downtown. 784-1166.
★ 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.... DinnerWorks features some of the nation’s best handmade original dinnerware by 16 talented artists or teams of artists, including Cincinnatian Nancy Fletcher Cassell.... In conjunction with this show, classes for kids 4-15 will be presented 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. Through Feb. 20. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, noon-5 p.m. Saturday. 1209 Main St., Over-the-Rhine. 421-7883
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-bom 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 Tuesday. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday. 2709 Observatory Ave., Hyde Park. 321-8614.
MILLER GALLERY The paintings of Northern Illinois University professor Art Ben Mahmoud are on display. Through Feb. 3.10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday. 2715 Erie Ave., Hyde Park. 871^420.
★ MULLANE’S PARKSIDE CAFE The acrylic seascapes and cityscapes of recent Cincinnati Art Academy graduate Craig Britton are on display. Through Feb. 4. 11:30 a.m.-l0 p.m. MondayThursday, 11 a.m.-l 1 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 Presently on display is a new inventory of works by Linvale Barker, Howard Finster, Shirley Lambdin, R.A. Miller, Lonnie and Twyla Money, Mose T. and G.C. DePrie. 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 Drive. 522-0117.
LAURA PAUL GALLERY The Art of Giving... The Giving of Art highlights original works by Enrico Embroli, sculpture by Charles Herndon and jeweliy by Angela Cummings. Through Monday. Preview 95, highlights original works paper and canvas by A. Hall and Embroli. Through Tuesday. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. TuesdayFriday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, by appointment. Dixie Terminal Arcade, 49 E. Fourth St., Downtown. 651-5885.
★ PENDLETON ART CENTER Arts and crafts are on sale and studios open to the public for Final Friday, the art center’s monthly gala. More than 70 artist MORE, PAGE 26
The Heroics of Remembering
Patricia Renick's ‘2068 Series' recounts artist's yet endured, journey into and out of mental
REVIEW BY MAUREEN BLOOMFIELD
“... where there is a work ofart, there is no madness. ...”
“Conclusion,” Madness And Civilization, Michel Foucault, translated by Richard Howard
Representing the godlike human form has long been the provenance of sculpture from the standing figure (Venus, the Greek kouros) to the seated one (the Egyptian scribe, the Buddha). If the figure is recumbent, it is typically atop a tomb lying on its side (Etruscan, Roman) or on its back (the sarcophagal effigy meant to mirror the body interred inside.) Patricia A. Reniek’s stunning 2068 Series makes primary use of the latter motif but subtly alludes to the others as well.
Suspended by silver wires from the ceiling of a darkened, gray room at the Contemporary Arts Center are eight biers/boats; on each one an inert figure lies. Lean and powerful, the figure is an androgynous female with covered-up hair, thin breasts, prominent pelvic bones and a stylized vulva. Molded from fiberglass, she is, like Diana, inviolate and like Sleeping Beauty, self-contained an ideal who is outside time and thus beyond entreaty. Arrayed in a half-circle, these boats are for the most part motionless, though they sometimes sway from side to side. These slight movements are ineffectual; there is no shore toward which they could be propelled. Like Tristan in the rudderless boat, the figures are adrift. Slowly the viewer comes to realize that each one is an aspect of the hero and each, like Tristan, is wounded as well.
Renick created The 2068 Series in response to her incarceration in a mental hospital 35 years ago. Misdiagnosed as a schizophrenic (she was actually suffering from withdrawal from an amphetamine her doctor had prescribed for weight loss), she endured isolation, drug therapy and electroshock treatment. In spite of this severe threat to her identity/sanity, she survived with the presence of mind and the strength of will to check herself out of the hospital and walk out the door.
The Icon of Beauty
Though rooted in this actual event, The 2068 Series
The Abuse
The series (“Delusion”) who boat/gurney. In is encased in met; through within. To the self, the helmet nant gray fiberglass, (“Illusion/Hallucination”) ets that render al. For the first stylized to mimic of her head is context, the crown’s Suspended an ironic reversal nary hospital Wires lead to mouth (to prevent tongue); the hands sition of the actual ing, as if the viewer cuit that transformed ously radiant
The Journey Alongside “Shock” figure’s head is the glass coffin). serene, but her protective gesture. Egyptian funerary
Art
studios and businesses exist in the building. As a part of this month’s activities, the seventh-floor occupants (Seventh Heaven) present Your T\vo Cents Worth. The publie will have the opportunity to draw, write and paint in a large area covered with canvas and paper and to have the work displayed through the rest of January. 1310 Pendleton St., Over-theRhine. 721-6311.
GRETA PETERSON GALERIE
Selected artwork by curator Tom Bryant is on display. Through March. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. TuesdaySaturday. 7696 Camargo Road, Madeira. 561-6785.
RAYMOND GALLERY Several Cincinnati artists are represented. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday, ThursdaySaturday, 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 ofHer Words. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday. 2655 Olson Drive, Kettering. 513-296-0294.
★ 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 Voices of Harmony festival is supported by Fifth Third Bank and opens with My Journey's Voice: The Art of Narration.... Surrounding Voices: The Sounds and Sight of Society is the second installment in this series of four and opens Friday. 9 a.m.-4 p.m Friday. SCPA Theatre. 1310 Sycamore St., Overthe-Rhine. 632-5936.
SEMANTICS GALLERY
Handmade 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?” Through Saturday. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays, 1:30-4:30 p.m. weekends. College of Mount St. Joseph, 5701 Delhi Road, Delhi Township. 244^314.
★ STUDIO 701 —Art From the Heart showcases large and small works on canvas and paper by M.Katherine Hurley, winner of a recentArtist’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 for UC’s College of D.A.A.P. includes the works of faculty members John Stewart, Roy Cartwright, Denise Burge, Jane Alden Stevens and Nicholas Chaparos, to name a few. 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, 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 Parkway, 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.
UC CLERMONT COLLEGE ART GALLERY Clermont Art Gallery hosts A Kaleidoscope: Appalachian Art ofSouthern Ohio. Area Appalachian artists combine their talent for an eclectic show with works ranging from pine-needle baskets to artwork on hard-shelled gourds. 11 a.m.-3 p.m. weekdays. 4200 Clermont College Drive, UC Clermont College, Batavia. 732-5224.
UC HEALTH SCIENCE
★
LIBRARY Jeff Casto and Melissa Steinman’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.
Boats, featuring the works of Milnar, Modic, McCann, Hallam and Picot, on display. Through Monday. Beginning Tuesday, the work of Thomas McKnight will be on display in McKhight’s World. 10 a.m.9 p.m. Monday-Saturday, noon-7 p.m. Sunday. Kenwood Towne Centre, 7875 Montgomery Road, Kenwood. 791-5023.
WOMEN’S ART CLUB OF CINCINNATI The members of the Women's Art Club present their work in the Pendleton Art Center 6-10 p.m. Friday in conjunction with the center’s Final Friday show. 1310 Pendleton St., Overthe-Rhine. 5220117.
WRIGHT STATE UNIVERSITY
ART GALLERIES Presents Perpetrators, lithographs of Nazi criminals by Sid Chafetz. War Through Children’s Eyes is a collection of art by refugee children in the Bosnian and Croation areas. Through Sunday. 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.
★ YWCA WOMEN'S ART GALLERY Twelve artist/craftswomen present works ranging from multi-media artwork, quilts, decoupage boxes, ceramics, stained glass, birdhouses, baskets, cut paper collages and assembled textiles in Assemblage ‘95. Through March 3. 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
★ 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 Thursday. Manet to Toulouse- Lautrec: French Impressionists to PostImpressionist Prints and Drawings presented by PNC Bank; through March 5. Divine Intervention is a modern-day memorial to Richard Allen Shiftier, who died as a result of AIDS, by
artist Joel Otterson; through Sunday.... Acquisitions of Costume and Textiles, 1974-1994 is on display; through Sunday. 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. Colta Ives, curator of the Department of Drawings and Prints for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will lecture on “Edouard Manet: Unorthodox Painter and Unruly Draughtsman,” 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. Among the many tours offered daily by the museum are “What’s the Use? The Art of Useful Objects" and “Art Around the House.” Both tours are respectively at 1 and 3 p.m. Saturday. Tours are free with admission. $7 adults; $5 students and seniors; $3 members. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. TuesdaySaturday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday. $5 adults; $4 students and seniors; children free; free to all on Saturdays. Eden Park. 721-5204.
COLUMBUS MUSEUM OF ART
Landscape As Metaphor is a special exhibit highlighting multimedia works by 13 living American artists. 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. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, 11 a.m.4 p.m. Sunday. 480 E. Broad St., Columbus. 614-221-6801.
★ CONTEMPORARY ARTS CEN-
TER Carrie May Weems examines the status of AfricanAmericans in today’s society through narrative photographic images. Opens Saturday; through April 2. A 10-year retrospective of the paintings and computer generated/manipulated autobiographical images concerning male identity and family relationships by David Humphrey opens Monday. Cincinnati 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. 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 Sunday. 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 Sunday. 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.
DAYTON VISUAL ARTS CENTER
Mixed Media Constructions of Craig 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. Fourth St., Dayton, Ohio. 513-222-3822.
★ INDIANAPOLIS MUSEUM OF ART Indiana Jacquard
Coverlets features coverlets woven by professional male weavers in the 1840s and 1850s; through Oct.8. Cabinet of Curiosities and The Natural History
Museum is a.site-specific wall installation by Shelagh Keeley, a Canadian conceptual artist. German painter Albert Oehlen and American artist Christopher Williams are featured in a joint exhibition titled Oehlen Willimns 95. The jointly self-curated exhibit introduces new paintings and computer-generated works by Oehlen. Williams will present work from ongoing photographic “travelogue” with conceptual underpinnings. Chris Marker’s Silent Movie is a new installation by this internationally respected French filmmaker. The installation, a personal response to the 100th anniversary of cinema, includes five video monitors, as well as a series of enlarged black-and-white video stills and computer-designed sketches of movie posters. 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. On the first Friday of the month, there is a party with a cash party. 5:30-8 p.m.... $4 members, $7 non-members. 1200 W. 38th St., Indianapolis. 317-923-1331.
★ J.B. SPEED ART MUSEUM Old Master Prints and Drawings from the Permanent Collection features, among others, prints by Albrecht Diirer and Giovanni Domenico Tiepoloas, as well as a chalk drawing attributed to Giorgio Vasari. Through April 16. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, noon-5 p.m. Sunday. 2035 S. Third St., Louisville, Ky. 502-636-2893.
MIAMI UNIVERSITY ART MUSEUM Distinctfrom Shellfish, a 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. 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 Dream, Myth, and Reality: Contemporary A rt from Senegal is comprised of 70 works by 50 Senegalese artists working in oils, acrylics, fibers, collage and glass. Opens Sunday. Through March 5. Mississippi Freedom Summer Remembered: 19641994 is a photographic exhibition commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Mississippi Freedom Summer. A must-see for historical and aesthetic purposes; showcases photography’s multiple possibilities. From Victory to Freedom: Afro-American Life in the ’50s is a permanent exhibition featuringartifacts staged in settings reminiscent of the period. $3.50 adults, $1.50 students. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 1-5 p.m. Sunday. 1350 Brush Row Road, Wilberforce. 513-376^944.
SOUTHERN OHIO MUSEUM Permanent collection of works by Portsmouth native Clarence Carter. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday. 825 Gallia St., Portsmouth. 614-354-5629.
★ THE TAFT MUSEUM A special display of four works by Grandma Moses continues through March 19. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. MondaySaturday, 1-5 p.m. Sunday. 316 Pike St., Downtown. $3 adults; $1 seniors and students; children 12 and under free. 241-0343.
Readings, Signings & Events
★ M.J. ABELL AND GARY WALTON The two poets read from their work. Abell is the 1993 recipient of Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship. Her poems have appeared in many publications, including the Hiram Poetry Review. Gary Walton teaches writing and literature at UC. His radio plays have been produced by the Radio Repertory Company of Cincinnati and his work has been published in The Washington Review and Hustler. 8 p.m. Tuesday. Free. Cafe Vienna, 1141 St. Gregory St., Mount Adams. 621-6655.
ANTI-SUPERBOWL HIGH TEA Borders Books and Music is offering an alternative to Superbowl Sunday with a High Tea buffet in the Cafe Espresso. Classical music will be playing and you can stay far, far away from all the hoopla. There are three seatings. 3, 4 and 5 p.m. Sunday. $5.95. 11711 Princeton Road, Springdale. 671-5852.
BEAR HUNTING After reading We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury and The Bear by Raymond Briggs, children can go on their own bear hunt. 11 a.m. Saturday. Borders Books and Music, 11711 Princeton Road, Springdale. 671-5852.
CRYSTAL L. FAULKNER AND TOM COONEY The two accountants from Cincinnati’s Rippe and Kingston have assembled a few tax tips that Uncle Sam doesn’t want you to read. They will be signing 95 Ways You Can Save Taxes in ‘95 3-4:30 p.m. Saturday. JosephBeth Booksellers. 396-8960.
GUNG HEI FAT CHOY Children can celebrate The Year of the Boar, listen to some stories about China and make paper dragons as Joseph Beth Kids celebrates the Chinese New Year. Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Rookwood Pavilion, Madison and Edwards roads, Norwood. 396-8960.
LAP STORYTIME Two- to 5year-olds can join Cathy Fasano and Diane Volk for stories about winter fun. A parent or guardian must accompany children. 10:30-11 a.m. l\iesday. $1. Registration required. Children’s Bookery, 1169 Smiley Ave., Forest Park. 742-8822.
LYNN HIGHTOWER AND TAYLOR MCCAFFERTY The two mystery authors will be signing their respective books, Alien Heat and Heir Conditioned. 7:30-9 p.m. Friday. Joseph-Beth Booksellers. 396-8960.
★ STAN NEWMAN The Managing Director of Puzzles for Times Books and the world record holder for the fastest solution of a New York Times daily crossword (2 minutes and 10 seconds) will be on hand for a signing and workshop. 2-3 p.m. Sunday. Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Norwood. 396-8960. PUBLIC LIBRARY OF CINCINNATI AND HAMILTON COUNTY Madeira-Indian Hill-Kenwood Branch: Our Feathered Friends for ages 8 and up, 1:30 p.m. Saturday. 7200 Miami Rd., Madeira. Mariemont Branch: Preschool Storytime, 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. 3810 Pocahontas Ave., Mariemont. 369-4467. Oakley Branch: Toddler
riverfront park. Skating hours: 4-9 p.m. Thursday, 5-10 p.m. Friday, noon-10 p.m. Saturday, noon-7 p.m. Sunday. 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.
CINCINNATI CHILDREN’S MUSEUM Newly opened interactive museum. Kid Coyote will appear with Don and Victoria Armstrong with original songs and tales about the Wild West. 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.... General admission, noon-5 p.m. Wednesday-Friday and Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday. $6 general 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 permanent exhibit, The Early Volunteer Fire Fighters of Cincinnati, which covers the period from 1853 to the present. 10 a.m.^4 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 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 SOCIETY MUSEUM The Cincinnati History Quilt is now on display. Designed by school children in grades 1-6, it took 15 Guild members five months to complete.... Permanent exhibits include Cincinnati: Settlement to 1860, a re-creation of the city’s origins from a Western frontier outpost to 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 individual plus one, $45 for families. “Time Traveler” (includes membership in the Museum of Natural History) is $60 for the individual plus one, $75 for families. A parking pass costs an extra $10. Children ages 3-12, who present a piece of paper with the word “Weatherschool” written on it, will gain free admission, through Tuesday. Museum Center at Union Terminal, 1301 Western Ave., Queensgate. 287-7030.
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. Percussionist, drummaker and Drums for Peace performer Charles Miller will give a MORE, PAGE 28
UtterKiosk
The Topic of Cancer
Harry Stein tackles an uncomfortable subject in his new thriller ‘The Magic Bullet’
INTERVIEWED BY BILLIE JEYES
Harry Stein’s new novel, The Magic Bullet a medical thriller about the search for a cure for breast cancer, is probably not the kind of book people would choose to read for fun. After all, most of us avoid the topic as much as possible.
j
“It does have emotional resonance for people,” says Stein. “I wasn’t comfortable with it at first either. The i book is more about the uses and abuses of power”
; The Magic Bullet (Delacorte Press, $22.95) prej sents a frightening picture of a cancerj research center where the doctors in ; charge are more concerned with petty i inter-office squabbles than with the quest for cures.
: When Drs. Daniel Logan and Sabrina ; Como stumble upon a possible cure for I breast cancer, they enlist the help of a senior researcher, the mercurial Seth j Shein. As first year associates, Logan and Como have very little hope of i developing their own protocol without j his support.. And, although they do sue|
ceed in getting their idea,through, they | find out exactly how brutal the research i game can be.
“I found a list of 30 such cases in a scientific journal. There was even a case at Rockefeller University where some water was poisoned in a drinking founi tain,” Stein says.
j As of last week, Penny Marshall is set to direct a film version of The Magic Bullet.
“The book seems to me too cerebral for a movie,” Stein says. “Except for the last 50 pages, where Logan feels that he is being followed.”
i He does, however, have a clear idea of who he would like to portray Seth Shein.
“If I were to cast it, I would choose Dustin Hoffman who is at once very smart and very cynical.”
'Crossword Crusader’ Launches New Series for Neophytes
It’s hard to believe that anyone could finish the New York Times daily crossword in less than five minutes. It usually takes me the better half of a day. But, Stanley Newman, winner of the first U.S. Open Crossword Championship, managed to complete it in a world-record-breaking two minutes and 10 seconds.
Laid off from Wall Street in 1987 after the big crash, Newman parlayed his crossword-solving ability into a self-created position at Random House, analyzing crosswords and presenting new recommendations. He is now the managing director of puzzles and games for Times Books, the largest producer of crossword books in the world.
Nicknamed the “Crossword Crusader” by colleagues, Newman believes crosswords can be used to improve mental fitness. Crosswords, he says, allow people to think in ways they have not thought before, encouraging flexible, non-linear thinking.
“There is a strong analogy between mental and physical fitness,” he says. “And if I were going to improve my physical fitness, I wouldn’t start by lifting 100-pound weights. I would go up incrementally. You can get good at the crossword in your local newspa-
Stein has been around show business his whole life. His father, Joseph Stein, known best for his book, Fiddler on the Roof, also wrote for the Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows.
“It always seemed plausible that you could make a living writing, and my father was very supportive. My brother wanted to be an actor, but having seen so many people struggling and failing, my father discouraged him from pursuing his ambition. He’s now a lawyer.”
Until now, Harry Stein’s bread and butter has come from his non-fiction writing for magazines such as GQ, Sports Illustrated and Playboy. He is perhaps best known for his “Ethics” column in Esquire, which he wrote on and off from 1981 to 1986.
“I thought it was a terrible idea. I just wanted to.write a humor column.” He was eventually persuaded when he was told that he could write a humor column as long as he tacked on an ethical question at the end. “So I became Shecky Spinoza.”
Stein was surprised at how popular the column became, but, after a while, what had started off as a self-mocking column started to become too serious.
“I was becoming what I feared I would become at the very beginning. I would get letters from people who thought I knew all the answers, and I almost started to believe it myself. It is very seductive. So I quit. As a career move, it was ridiculous.”
Now, with the film rights to The Magic Bullet already sold Stein’s career seems to be doing just fine.
per, but once you’ve mastered it, you have to move up to a more challenging puzzle.”
Newman has devised the New York Times Skillbuilder Crosswords to do just that. The series has several levels. Once you’ve mastered the first level, you go on to the second and so on.
And with the Skillbuilder series and Stanley Newman other projects now in the works, he hopes to bring to national attention the value of puzzles and games as a means of increasing one’s intelligence and creativity.
“There are millions of puzzle fans, but most have never met anyone in the business, and they probably have a number of questions they want to ask.”
Well, puzzlers, now’s your chance. Newman will be on hand, 2-3 p.m. Sunday, at Joseph-Beth Booksellers (Rookwood Pavilion, Norwood) for a signing, crossword workshop and contest.
BILLIE JEYES
HARRY STEIN will sign copies of The Magic Bullet 7-8:30 p.m. Tuesday at Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Rookwood Pavilion, Madison and Edwards roads, Norwood. 396-8960.
PHOTO: HARRY. STEIN Harry Stein
Attractions
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 Collections and Research Center of the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History, 1720 Gilbert Ave., Walnut Hills. 395-3663.
★ 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. This weekend marks the last opportunity to go ice skating, free with zoo admission. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. 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 reintrodueed into the wild can be seen at 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. Will re-open Feb. 5. with Jack Doll’s famous George Remus display.'...
The parlor and kitchen will feature a then-and-now exhibit of tools for the house and farm. 468 Andersop 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.
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 48 p.m. Thursday; 4-9 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Saturday and noon6 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.
GREATER LOVELAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY The winter exhibit, Antique Valentines, begins Friday. Through Feb. 26. Highlights include a turn-of-thecentury kitchen and the Nisbet Library. 201 Riverside Dr., Loveland. 683-5692.
HARDING MUSEUM OF THE FRANKLIN AREA HISTORICAL SOCIETY Open 1-5 p.m. Sunday and by appointment. 302 Park Ave., Franklin. 513-746-8295.
M-F 6:30 am-5:30 pm SAT 7:45 am-3:00
JOHN HAUCK HOUSE MUSEUM Closed until Feb. 2. 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 continues 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.
★ 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 period 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.
SHARON WOODS VILLAGE Guided tours of eight restored and furnished 19th century homes. 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 which 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 and 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 chief justice. Free. 2038 Auburn Ave., Mount Auburn. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. daily. Closed Monday. 684-3262.
CONTEMPORARY DANCE THEATER Offers classes in tap, jazz, ballet, modem dance, African dance, creative movement for children and yoga. Vine and East Daniels, Corryville. 751-2800.
FLYING CLOUD ACADEMY OF VINTAGE DANCE Offers classes in 19th and 20th century social dance at 8 p.m. every Wednesday. $3 members; $5 non-members. University YMCA, 270 Calhoun, Clifton. 351-7462 or 733-3077.
GLASS CRAFTERS STUDIOS Offers classes in the art of stained glass. 11119 Reading Road, Sharonville. 554-0900.
GOSPEL STUDY Father Jim Willing presents and discusses the Gospel for the coming Sunday 12:05-12:55 p.m. every Wednesday in the Undercroft. Cathedral of St. Peter in Chains, 325 W. Eighth St., Downtown. 421-5354.
Classes & Exhibits
ST. FRANCIS CENTER LECTURE SERIES Father Nick Lohkamp will be presenting the fourth of a six-part lecture series 7-9 p.m. Monday. $10 per lecture. 10290 Mill Road, New Burlington, Ohio. 825-9300.
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.
SCRIPPS HOWARD SCHOOLS PROGRAMS Intensive, multilayered, first-hand experience with original works of art designed for students in grades 1-1.2. Scheduling is arranged to meet the teacher’s needs. $5 per student for the year covers gallery admissions, teacher manuals and materials. Contemporary Arts Center, 115 E. Fifth St., Downtown. 721-0390.
SUNWATCH ARCHAEOLOGICAL PARK Children ages 8-14 can leam about Native American drums and then make a small drum of their own. 3^1:30 p.m. Wednesday. $5 includes materials. SunWatch Prehistoric Village, 2301 W. River Rd„ Dayton, Ohio. 513-268-8199.
TAX FILING BASICS The free program is hosted by the Taxpayer Service Department of the IRS. Noon. Thursday. Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, 800 Vine St., Downtown. 369-6960.
C.I.C. PERCUSSIONS Classes begin Saturday and run 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.noon Saturdays. The Miller Gardette Loft, 2401 Concord, Walnut Hills. 221-2222.
CINCINNATI BALLET Offers classes for both adults and children. The Adult Ballet Class Session II begins 7:15-8:45 p.m. Monday and Tuesday. $10 per class. 100 E. Central Parkway, Over-the-Rhine. 621-5219.
THRIVING OVER GO Roz Golden, a licensed independent social worker, who specializes in counseling older adults conducts a six-week seminar presented by Family Services, beginning 2:30-4:30 p.m. Wednesday. Call for price. 2727 Madison Rd., Hyde Park. 345-8554.
TREASURE ISLAND JEWELRY Offers classes stained glass; basic, beaded and wire-wrapped jewelry; polymer clay; and lamp work beads. 34 W. Court St., Downtown. 241-7893.
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.
VITAL VISIONS PROGRAM Targets at-risk students. A multifaceted program includes a visit with an artist of international and/or national reputation, plus a tour of the materials and techniques employed by the artist. Each student receives a complementary exhibition-related workbook. Free to eligible schools. Contemporary Arts Center, 115 E. Fifth St., Downtown. 721-0390. Heights. 572-6500.
CITIZENSHIP CLASSESTravelers Aid International continues its citizenship classes. The non-profit group also offers English for the foreign born, immigration counseling, application assistance, finger printing and photos. 707 Race St., Suite 300, Downtown. 721-7660.
CIVIC GARDEN CENTER OF CINCINNATI Landscape architect Len Thomas presents the second session of Gardens Through the Artist’s Eye, a program designed to illustrate the way noteworty artists were influenced by gardens and garden spaces. There will be a boxed lunch provided by the Phoenix. 10 a.m.-noon. Thursday.... Fruitsfor Small Spaces teaches you pruning techniques and how to select the right variety of fruit for your limited space. 7-9 p.m. Wednesday. Call for prices. 2715 Reading Rd., Clifton. 221-0981.
CONSUMER CREDIT COUNSELING SERVICE OF CINCINNATI The four-week Money Control Workshop takes place 7-9 p.m. Wednesdays and continues through Feb. 22. Call for price. CCCS, 151 W. Fourth St., Downtown. 651-0111.
Kiosk
Groups & Programs
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 AA-based 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.
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 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—African American community-based support group for HIV-challenged individuals. 559-2933.
PLANNED PARENTHOOD ASSOCIATION OF CINCINNATI 2314 Auburn Ave., Mount Auburn. 721-7635.
TRI-STATE HARVEST A volunteer organization whose sole purpose is to transport surplus food to MORE, PAGE 30
Organic Affirmations
BY POLLY CAM
rom May to mid-October, I do almost all of my fruit and vegetable shopping at farmers’ markets, u-pick farms and my own garden. I like to buy locally, pay little for absolutely fresh and flavorful produce, and avoid at least some of the chemicals used on commercial fruit and vegetables. Getting my recommended five servings a day is a joyful task.
Now, in the dead of winter, buying produce isn’t as much fun. There’s still a wonderful bounty at the grocery store, but it’s produce that has been shipped from hundreds or thousands of miles away, has been bred for looks and shipability, grown with chemicals, and possibly preserved with wax or fungicides. It’s pretty clear that fruits and vegetables are very good stuff, no matter when or where you buy them. They have been shown to help prevent cancer, heart disease and other diseases. But pesticides are a health problem. Concerns about the freshness of produce are important, too, because the benefits of fruits and vegetables’ vitamins and minerals are not locked in: They are depleted over time by light, air and heat.
Shopping tips
For health reasons, you should spend most of your time and money at the grocery store in the produce aisle, but spend it wisely:
If you really care about pesticides in your food, concentrate your wony where pesticides concentrate: in animal and milk fat. The chemicals from plant foods are those that are directly sprayed on or taken up by plant. But the chemicals from all the plants eaten by animals accumulate in their flesh. In his book Dietfor a Poisoned Planet, David Steinman says that “even the worst, most chemicallaced plant foods are better for you than almost all animal foods.... The higher up on the food web you eat, the greater concentration of toxins you are likely to consume.” So, the same low-fat diet you already know you should be following is also the best for avoiding environmental poisons.
There are plenty of places in town to buy certified organic produce, grown with no pesticides or fertilizers. Besides benefiting your own health, you’re making a contribution to the health of the environment.
Be prepared to spend a bit more for organic produce in the winter.
Mary Rita Cooper, store manager of Twin Pines Natural Foods co-op groeery in Finneytown, says that in the summer, the price differential between organic and commercial is small because there is plenty of local organic produce. .But in the winter, when food is shipped long-distance, “organic can cost anywhere where from the same to twice as much as the commercial version. Commercial growers have an established distribution system that organic growers just don’t have yet.” If organic is too expensive or hard to get for you, you can make some choices about which foods it makes sense to spend the extra for. Steinman’s Dietfor a Poisoned Planet points out which foods are the most, and the least, contaminated by a range of agricultural chemicals. He uses the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Total Diet Study, which measures residues of 100 chemicals, to rank foods in green-, yellow- and red-light categories. (Peanuts and raisins were
the only plant foods that had enough residues to rate a red light. Many others, including apples and peaches, rate a yellow.)
You might follow Twin Pines’ practice on imports. Though the store sells commercial as well as organic produce, Cooper says she never buys out-of-season produce (mostly fruit) from Central and South America. “We know there are chemicals used in those countries that are banned here,” she says. Though that produce is supposed to meet the same inspection requirements as domestic products, “we don’t feel the same assurance,” she says. Peaches are cheaper and taste a lot better in July, anyway, when they aren’t picked so green.
Nutrition notes
To get the most nutrition out of every dollar, follow some shopping and cooking rules:
Buy as fresh as you can. Ask the produce manager. Buy what’s .in season, popular and cheap. Also, read Claire Thornton of the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Council before you go to the store to find out what’s a good buy. (Her column appears Wednesdays in The Cincinnati Enquirer’s Food section.)
Consider frozen. The fresh green beans may look more virtuous, but it’s very likely the frozen ones have just as much, if not more, vitamins. A study conducted at the University of Illinois in 1992 showed that fresh green beans lost two-thirds of their vitamin C in the nine days after being picked a typical amount of time from farm to table. Frozen green beans lost a small amount in processing but then retained almost all of it in the next 16 weeks. Leafy vegetables, however, lose much of their nutrients in the freezing process, so it makes sense to buy spinach and broccoli fresh rather than frozen. Fruits tend to lose less of their nutrients when frozen than vegetables do. You can choose between fresh and frozen fruit and vegetables on the basis of taste and price rather than a simple notion that fresh is always better. And while the produce used for freezing is grown with all the same chemicals, it isn’t exposed to the waxes and fungicides that is used to keep the fresh stuff fresh.
Even canned fruits and vegetables can be a good nutritional choice.
While spinach may lose its nutrients when frozen, it retains them in a can because it’s packed in the same liquid it’s cooked in. (Whether anyone other than Popeye would actually want to eat the stuff is another question.)
Certainly there are be some canned vegetables you’re fond of. (Don’t tell anyone, but I kind of like canned peas.) Canned fruit, if you also eat the juice it’s packed in, compares favorably to out-of-season fresh.
Clifton Natural Foods, 207 W. McMillan, Clifton. 651-5288.
New World Foodshop, 347 Ludlow Ave., Ciifton. 861-1101.
Susan’s Natural World, 8315 Beechmont Ave., Anderson Township. 474-4990.
• Twin Pines Natural Foods (coop), 1051 North Bend Road,
BY JULIE LARSON
Suburban Torture i Etc.
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.
Auditions & Opportunities
BOOKFEST ‘95 BANNER CONTEST Individuals, schools, scouts and other organizations in Hamilton County are invited to create felt banners for Bookfest ‘95. Contest winners will win books signed by this year’s authors, Natalie Babbitt and Marilyn Sadler. Deadline for entries is March 11. Call 369-6945 for more information.
CHILDREN’S MUSEUM The newly opened museum is seeking volunteers who can explain and demonstrate exhibits and guide children through the hands-on learning facility. Training will be provided. H.O.T., the museums’ Hands on Team program, seeks 14-18 year olds who want to contribute to the community, learn life skillsand make new friends. H.O.T. volunteers must be able to provide their own transportation to and from the museum. Call Jenny Niesen Luken at 421-6136, Ext.' 217.
CONTEMPORARY ARTS CENTER
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.
SMALL ARTS ORGANIZATION GRANT PROGRAM Applications for grants must be in by March 15. Organizations must be non-profit and must be based in the City of Cincinnati. The applications are available at Room 158, City HaU. 352-1595.
STARLIGHT EXPRESS AUDITIONS Cast and crew are needed for August performances of the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical. Bring your own rollerskates and resumes. ,Male auditions: 10 a.m.-3 p.m.Saturday. Female auditions: 2-6 p.m. Sunday. The Christian Ministries Center, 42 Calhoun St, Clifton. 490-0101.
WOMEN’S
Events
RENICK: FROM PAGE 25
In summation, The 2068 Series presents the hero’s journey when the journey has not been chosen but nonetheless endured. The initiation was not a circumcision but an evisceration. The trial was a test, but at stake was not only life but identity as well. The heroism lay neither in warding off nor in delivering, but in absorbing the blow. The purpose of electroshock therapy is to destroy memory; hence, the artist’s definitive heroic act was to remember.
As if in dialogue with 77ie 2068 Series, Evolution (in an adjoining, similarly darkened room of the CAC) metaphorically explodes the self-contained form. Hanging from the ceiling are two grotesquely beautiful forms (white Styrofoam over steel armatures), expressive of both organic and mechanical elements. Eerie and compelling hybrids, they are answered by shadows as they move slightly to currents of air. Vaguely reminiscent of boats, these sculptures meditate on the idea of containment/ confinement. The sculptures’ interior sequences, alternating between closed and open forms, suggest vertebrae, ribs, corals and talons. The interplay between the decorative and the primordial is refined with the result that Evolution's effect is of a harrowing calm.
Flanked by monumental drawings and accompanied by a gorgeous free-
standing piece, these forms are at once graceful and menacing.
Meditating on the idea of mutation, they attest to the danger of surrendering to change and of the delicacy of preserving the self through that metamorphosis. As an installation, Evolution addresses the image of the carapace: What is inside the body’s skin; what lies under our system of defenses; what does the act of disclosure imply and, finally, what light lies within the shell of darkness?
The 2068 Series and Evolution constitute a significant achievement. Theirs is the authority of emotion that through the crucible of the most rigorous craftsmanship has been refined. They speak of the courage to come to terms with torment. Along the way, they remind us that making art is usually not an easy endeavor: that within beauty there is terror. The terror that had as its precondition silence (the denial of the patient’s rights, the druginduced passivity) has been given form. When the artist and the viewer comment on that form, the pain is given voice and from the darkness, something of meaning is redeemed.
Patricia A. Renick’s work. THE 2068 SERIES and EVOLUTION, will be displayed at the Contemporary Arts Center through March 12.
Seeks volunteers to become museum tour guides, or docents. Training sessions for the Gallery Assistant Program will be held Tuesdays through March 21. Call Sambi at 345-8400.
INDIAN HILL FLAG DESIGN CONTEST In celebration of the bicentennial year, Indian Hill residents are invited to enter the Village Flag contest. Entries should be in color, on paper no smaller than 8 1/2 x 11”. One entry per person. Mail entries before March 31 to Indian Hill Historical Society, 8100 Given Road, Cincinnati, OH 45243.
INDIVIDUAL ARTIST GRANT PROGRAM Applications are available for the City of Cincinnati’s 1995-96 Individual Artist Grant Program at Room 158, City Hall. Application deadline is Feb. 15. 352-1595.
MASTERWORKS 53 A juried exhibit for artists or sculptors 53 years of age older. Up to five works may be submitted by eligible artists, but no more than two will be accepted for show. 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. Deliver each work to the Cincinnati Art Club, 1021 Parkside Place, Mount Adams between 3 and 7 p.m. Wednesday. For further information, call Bonnie Myers at 721-4330.
OHIO ARTS COUNCIL Provides matching money grants to artists, arts programs and major institutions. Call for applications. Summer fellowships for teachers of the arts also are available. Contact Christy Fambauch.... Nominations for the Ohio Arts Council’s 1995 Governor’s Awards for the Arts are being accepted. Contact Bill Nordquist, Ohio Arts Council, 727 E. Main St., Columbus, OH 43205-1796. 614^66-2613.
Call
at 482-7109 for more
7TH ANNUAL CINCINNATI MAGAZINE AND MERCANTILE LIBRARY SHORT STORY CONTEST This year’s judges are Jonathan Valin, author of the Harry Stoner novels, author and director of the UC writing program Jon. C. Hughes and novelist Kay Sloan. They will award extra points for the succesful use of Greater Cincinnati locales. Submit five photocopies of each entry, which must be under 5,000 words, typed and doublespaced. Submissions, of course, must be unpublished fiction. All manuscripts must be sent to the Mercantile Library, 414 Walnut St.', Cincinnati, Ohio 45202. Please enclose a $15 entry iee.Cincinnnati Magazine will publish the winning story in theirAugust issue. Call 621-0717 for more information.
Onstage
CINCINATI CHAMBER ORCHESTRA Love Makes the World Go ‘Round is an annual event designed to help raise much-needed funds for the Chamber Orchestra. The event will begin at Closson’s downtown art fallery with a 6 p.m. cocktail hour and silent auction. Dinner, provided by the Hyatt, will follow at Sak’s Fifth Avenue. The evening will continue with an exclusive showing of The Pretty, the Powerful and the Polished St. John 1995 cruise collection. $50. 723-1182. NORTHERN KENTUCKY UNIVERSITY THEATRE DEPARTMENT Presents Pippin one of the most popular musicals of the seventies, it features music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartx,
Help
VOLUNTEERS
for $50. Call 606-525-6983.
KITCHEN APPLIANCE Sunbeam Mixmaster electric mixer for sale. It comes with attachments, cover, stainless steel bowl, and adjustable speed control. Clean and in great condition! Call and leave a message, 921-3678. NEW BIKE Fully loaded GIANT Cadex 980C road bike is for sale. This 52 centimeter carbon fiber frame has Shimano components, a profile aero bar, and time racing pedals. It’s brand new, in excellent condition, and must go. Asking $475. Call Steve at 352-0780. PRINTS Six architectural prints for sale. All beautifully matted and framed, 22” x 28’. $4200 for all six. Call 791-7865.
ROAD BIKE Top of the line GIANT Cadex 980C for sale. This 21 inch, 14 speed road bike is in great condition. Comes with fully adjustable car carrier. These must be sold together, $600 firm. Call 261-6747.
SKI O’Brien Bandit slalom water ski available. Comes with its cloth carrying case. This 60 inch beauty is four years old and in excellent condition. /Call 742-0893.
SPEAKERS Large pair of Cerwin Vega, three-way,
BASS GUITARIST NEEDED
guitarist with funk and R&B influences
16
digital
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 & GUITARIST
Bass player (or guitarist who wants to play bass) and drummer to form the hottest, coolest, rockin' out band in Cincinnati. No glam boys, and experience is not needed! Call Mickey, 553-0962.
DRUMMER Drummer. 31, seeks talented band or individuals playing various music (rock, fusion, alternative, original, etc.) other than country.* New equipment and renewed interest after eight years away from the kit. Call Roger and leave message at 489-0463.
GUITAR & BASS LESSONS
In a rut? Consider this... offering guitar and bass lessons in the Clifton area. Beginner and advanced levels available. Learn technique, theory, and tunes. Call 559-0131.
HEAVY ROCK GUITARIST
Heavy rock guitarist is needed for all original heavy rock metal band. Must be creative with outstanding ability. Call 451-4541.
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 small society, swing, smokey-bar lounge band (a strip down version of the big band sound). Need female vocalist, drummer, accompianist piano player (keyboard with MIDI OK), and any orchestra players. Please call James 721-6646.
OPEN AUDITIONS A national talent agency and production company is holding open auditions for musicians, bands, singers, songwriters, and models. All ages welcome! Call Cazz Productions for audition times and locations, 606-371-9224.
PROFESSIONAL
BackfiSeaf
Classifieds 6654700
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 CintL, OH 45209-0316
SEND NO MONEY OPEN YOUR HEARTS PASS THE WORD
WHERE NOTHING IS ORDINARY
LeftHanded Moon 48 E. Court St, 78L1166
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: What would it takefor Cincinnati
to become the next Seattle, Minneapolis or Austin?
CUSTOM GIFT SERVICE
For employees, associates & personal buying needs.
Fabulous custom made gift baskets. Free shipping anywhere in the USA Fragrances, lingerie, chocolates, stuffed animals, something for everyone! CALL 481-7161.
USED IBM COMPUTERS UNDER $500 Kevin 598-9703. Leave Message. See classified ad on inside page!
CORPORATE VIDEO EDITING
Training videos, product promotions, videotaped meetings. Phone or fax for information, 541-9078. DREAMSAND VIDEO & PRINT
GJ’S GASLIGHT
Present your UC ID and receive 10% off lunch!
LUNCH IS SERVED UNTIL 5PM 354 Ludlow, Clifton, 221-2020
FREE INTERNET E-MAIL/USENET ADDRESS! Adult file/mail areas*Large alternative section
Name:
Address:
CAFEZ
Daytime voice telephone number:
Comfort food, homemade daily
$4.95 LUNCH & DINNER SPECIALS 227 W. 9th St., 651-3287 FREE WEIGHT LOSS
ROCK & ROLL PHOTOGRAPHY
Promo photos, studio work, on-location shoots. Call Lisa at Equus, 281-2733.
PROFESSIONAL SOUND STUDIO
24 track digital technology at an affordable rate. Call an experienced sound engineer at BACKSTAGE STUDIOS 292-8863
KATMANDU CAFE
January 26-28
ROCK & ROLL WITH SLICKER 1811 Monmouth In the Newport Shopping Center
MOONSHINE SCREEN PRINTING
T-shirts, hats, bumper stickers. Full art staff. 523-7775
MULLANE’S PARKSIDE CAFE
Lunch & dinner. Great food. Art shows. Vegetarian specialties 723 RACE ST. 381-1331 FUTONS
STARTING AT $129.99
Largest selection of quality futons anywhere WHATSA FUTON 2610 Vine St, 281-6501; 7791 Montgomery Rd, 794-0909 287 Northland Blvd, 772-7264 8158 Mall Rd, Florence, (606) 647-9511 NOW PLAYING! JAR THE FLOOR CINCINNATI PLAYHOUSE IN THE PARK 421-3888 THAT FABULOUS BAND
