whose rising literary career was shattered by bouts of rhental illness characterized by anti<Semitic behavior, died this winter in Cincinnati in obscurity. He had become a resident of low-rent hotels and group homes— having alienated many of his friends some of his wives and most U.S. publishing houses Learn the story behind once-promising writer. Art, Theater and Film Reviews
Volume 1, Issue 16
editor/co-publisher John Fox
GENERAL MANAGER/CO-PUBLISHER Dan Bockrath
MANAGING editor AF'on Tranbarger
news editor Nancy Firor
essayist Daniel Brown
contributing editors Mike Breen, Music; Dale Doerman, Onstage; Rick Pender, Onstage; Steve Ramos, Film; Fran Watson, Art
contributing writers Karen Amelia Arnett, Brian Baker, 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, Susan Nuxoll, David Pescovitz, Jeremy Schlosberg, Peggy Schmidt, Althea Thompson, Kathy Y. Wilson, John 0. Young.
photo editor Jymi Bolden
photographers Jon Hughes, Staff; Sean Hughes, Marty Sosnowski.
listings editor Billie Jeyes
editorial intern Dennis Breen
cartoonists Gary Gaffney, Julie Larson, Tom Tomorrow.
art
production
CityBeaf
23
DailySred
Start Wining? Where can you find good California wine in Cincinnati?
This weekend, visit the Fifth International Wine Festival. Other times, check out Burnet Ridge winery in North College Hill (above), which imports its grapes from California. Food & Drink, 29.
An American Tragedy: After Lowry died in December, CityBeat’s Jeyes began pursuing the facts, piece together the story of the man whose writing career flared in the late ’40s but had burned out by the mid’50s. Jeyes became obsessed, even to the banned her from talking about jackets above). We hope you sion. In parting: Lowry’s anti-Semitism the American Nazi Party are not takes lightly, especially in this of the liberation of the Nazi concentration is ironic that, of all the books Pride Starring the one that his anti-Semitism, is one of his this year in Germany. Cover
Just Like Ohio: Folk singer/songwriter John Gorka tells CityBeat music editor Mike Breen that playing concerts in Ohio, as he does Saturday, is “like coming home.” A native of New Jersey, Gorka has decided the Midwest is now his comfort zone. Music, 17.
The Straight Dope
BY CECIL ADAMS
We all know smoking cigarettes can kill you, but it seems to me that, as with most vices, there’s a difference between use and abuse. People who drink too much destroy their livers, but people who have one drink of red wine per day actually help their hearts. I’ll gladly accept thefact that smoking several packs a day is harmfid, but what about having only three cigarettes a day, one after every meal? Does it really do any harm? Is there any chance it’s actually goodfor you?
Michael Dare, Hollywood, California
Funny you should bring this up. After years of research saying that smoking was the worst threat to public health since the plague, several recent studies suggest it may have at least one health benefit: It prevents or at least slows the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. For obvious reasons these reports have been accompanied by a certain amount of embarrassed hemming and hawing. From a bigpicture standpoint, smoking is definitely bad for you, and nobody wants to give people an excuse to do more of it. Still, facts is facts.
1 quote: “A statistically significant inverse association between smoking and Alzheimer’s disease was observed at all levels of analysis, with a trend towards decreasing risk with increasing consumption” (International Journal of Epidemiology, 1991). “The risk of Alzheimer’s disease decreased with increasing daily number of cigarettes smoked before onset of disease. In six families in which the disease was apparently inherited the mean age of onset was 4.17 years later in smoking patients than in non-smoking patients from the same family” {British Medical Journal, June 22, 1991). “Although more data are needed (an analysis of 19 studies suggests) nicotine protects against AD” (Neuroepidemiology, 1994). Nicotine injections significantly improved certain types of mental functioning in Alzheimer’s patients (Psychopharmacology, 1992). One theory: Nicotine improves the responsiveness of Alzheimer’s patients to acetylcholine, an important brain chemical. I know, I know. Now that chimney at work will claim he’s preventing you from
going senile. Tell him it’s a little early to start gloating. Some of the research is contradictory. At least one scientist thinks smokers are less likely to develop Alzheimer’s mainly because they die of smoking-related diseases first. Smoking isn’t like low-to-moderate alcohol use, which is probably harmless and may even be beneficial. Although the data is unclear, many believe the relationship between smoking and disease is linear: The more you smoke, the greater your risk but any smoking presents some risk. Right now the only known benefit of smoking is a societal one: If the heavy smokers die young, they won’t deplete the retirement funds for everybody else.
Return of the planet of the hyperactive alien schoolmarms
CORNER OF CLIFTON & MCMILLAN AUE WE’RE GONNA ROCK, WE’RE GONNA ROLL, WE’RE GONNA BOP, WE’RE
The grammarian microchip in your incontrovertibly mighty brain was clearly malfunctioning when you wrote, “You try explaining convection currents and the Coriolis effect in 600 words or less. (Feb. 23-March 1).
ILLUSTRATION: SLUG SIGNORINO
What you meant to say was “600 words orfewer. I suggest you pull a Newt here and blame this embarrassing solecism on snarky liberal/commie McGovemiks in The Straight Dope proofreading division.
at Bogart's Thursday, March 9
David English, West Somerville, Mass.
David, how long have you been reading this column? Don’t know that the
picture and how we fit into it. Our job while on this planet is to live, to grow, to learn from our triumphs and mistakes and during the whole process bring harm to no one.
Just look at the number of people who are turning to “Earth Spiritualities.” We are on a quest the time has come. Steve
Bolia, Cincinnati
City’s Stadium Needs
Your story on the current stadium controversy was interesting. But a couple of points need to be made.
Spirit Grows Bigger
First. No matter what happens, it is more than likely that the average poor and middle-class person will pay for any new stadia, not the very wealthy who own the teams, the restaurants, and the hotels those who stand to gain.
I am writing in regard to an article that appeared in your Feb. 16-25 issue, entitled, “The Ups and Downs Of Downsizing.”
As more and more corporations look to make more and more profits for their shareholders, “streamlining” is very much a reality. But there is a more basic and real reason why an ever increasing number of people (women and men from all walks of life) are looking for an easier and less stressful life.
Second. Given the inordinately complex nature of the area’s politics, it is unlikely that all communities in the region will participate in the funding of any new stadia.
Most of the money is undoubtedly to come from the city proper (where few if any of the above mentioned wealthy actually live).
What is happening is more people are becoming increasingly “aware.” They are getting in touch with their inner self and examining those things that are really important to them.
Third. To give Marge (Schott) a new stadium is nuts. We already have a stadium that works reasonably well. No doubt, it should be refurbished exclusively for baseball. (I recommend grass, by the way!) But, to spend the kind of money a new stadium would require because this one doesn’t “feel right” is really insane. (As. I recall, it felt pretty good when the Reds were winning.)
Gone are the days of working to pay the bills, raise the kids, send them to college and retire. Through it all we are beginning to look for answers to “Who am I? Where am I?” and more importantly, “Why am 1?”
We are spiritual beings. One of the whole. And we are now on a spiritual quest. Ideas that were important 15 to 20 years ago are no longer held in high for a growing number of people. These people are finding joy and self-fulfillment in those around them. We are beginning to look at the bigger
Fourth. To build a stadium exclusively for the use of the Bengals tops any of the insanity yet mentioned. They play only 10 games a year here. And they don’t appreciably impact convention business (due to the fact that the games are on Sunday and almost all conventions run during the week). Some kind of multi-use facility would be the only reasonable approach to new housing for them.
What do I recommend?
Let me preface this by saying that I doubt seriously that the “Big League City” image is really as important as so many higher-ups like to think. We should refurbish Riverfront for baseball. That we’ve already mentioned. And we need to build a new convention center on Riverfront
Anger Without Activism
Racial problems today seem too big to overcome, hence inaction
ESSAY BY RENEE ROBERSON
It has been 20 years or more since my first and last participation in a political movement. I was 3, I think. I just remember walking through a park surrounded by adults, both black and white, and television cameras.
My mother is the one who told me what my memory was all about. The parents were trying to convince the school board that bus transportation was needed from Winton Terrace to Winton Place Elementary. To illustrate the point, everyone walked down Winneste Avenue, through the woods and Winton Commons park, to the school.
Gues
My non-active participation in political movements against racism and a lot of other injustices in the world is basically all on me. I’ve become apathetic over the years, as few as they may be. It’s not that I don’t care, but everything just seems too big to overcome.
I remember the 70s. I was young, but I remember a lot of it. I think that the black community was more unified then than it is now. My teen-age brother wore ’fros and listened to Parliament and the Ohio Players. The adults around me talked about black pride. My family watched Black Memo on Saturday afternoons, and Black Is Beautiful by Ann McGovern was my favorite book. My mother, a single parent with six children, taught me how to read before I turned 4 and encouraged me to be more than what she was.
The members of my generation are the children of promise, of dreams and possibilities. We have gone to integrated schools. We have more opportunities available to us than other generations, but as a generation we’re not expected to exceed our parents. Just 25, 30 years ago, integration was thought to open up doors. Now a lot of the barriers are taken away, but the young blacks are disillusioned.
West, the center and crown jewel of which ought to be a domed multi-use facility acceptable for football, but also usable for concerts, display and meeting space for conventions, and more. The fact is, we need a new convention center far more than we need new stadia, having already lost dozens of conventions due to size limitations and competition from northern Kentucky, Sharonville and other areas. The impact of
those losses far outweighs any potential loss from the moving of either of the sports franchises. But, a new convention center with a stadium at its center would solve both problems.
One thing is clear, if council doesn’t get on with it pretty soon, the point will be moot. And if funding is going to come largely from the city itself, it will add one more reason for flight to the suburbs.
John A. Schott, Cincinnati
There seems to be a lack of leadership. As in there is none. After Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, no one stepped in to take his place. And the ties that held us together before the church, the family, even segregation aren’t as strong now. Through the 70s and the ’80s, we became diversified and divided. Many young blacks are angry. You can hear it in the music, see it in the way they stand. Our anger has even caught on to the mainstream all the young white kids want to have a black attitude.
I, for one, had hoped that we could be further along. That the black middle class would expand, that there would be more white-collar workers, less poverty. Instead, there’s more black-on-black crime, there’s more drugs. And even though our students have books that are more up to date than when my mother was in school, the test scores are dropping and the drop-out rates are increasing. Someone once asked me why are young blacks so angiy. I asked him why his anger stopped.
We need to come together. Young blacks across the nation. No Jesse Jackson within a hundred miles of the place. Blacks from all economic backgrounds and environments. It doesn’t matter if someone is a rapper or a businessman. We’ve been crying that the black man is on the “endangered species list” for the past five or six years now. Why are we waiting for this country to take us off the list, when they put us on top slots one through three right after they took care of the Native Americans? We need to bypass gender and stop looking at each other as the enemy, dissin’ each other through music and books, and become brothers and sisters like we’ve been calling each other for the past 20 years.
Maybe I should be happy that my daughter, who will be starting kindergarten in the fall, won’t have to march, face police squads or be at a sit-in for the school where I plan to enroll her.
I’m slowly starting to adopt the attitude that is so prevalent in this country today: I got mine; you get yours. It wasn’t the way I was raised. I thought all blacks are brothers and sisters from cafe au lait to deep dark chocolate. My daughter is my child of promise, of dreams and possibilities. But with so many black children growing up angry and disenchanted, what does she have to look forward to?
RENEE ROBERSON is a sophomore at the University of Cincinnati.
Talking Back
Each week, Cincinnati CityBeat poses a question on its back page.
Here are some of the responses to last week’s question: “If the presidential elections were held next week, for whom would you vote?”
O.R. KOMADEN: I don’t trust any of the people who run for office anymore, so let’s step away from the pros. I’ll take
Charleton Heston for President and Gregory Peck for Vice President. BARBARA BOGOSIAN: I would vote for Bill Clinton because I am a middle-class American who had benefited from his tax policies. I also would support a president who does not feel that it is right to punish the poor by eliminating federal lunch programs or cutting necessary welfare.
Letters policy
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(CONI b)I WENT TO SEE THE BOSS Of THE RACKETS-THE WAFFLE... AS USUAL, HE WAS SURROUNDED 8Y JACKASSES.
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I HIT THE STREET AND RAN INTO MY Cll-I EWT--SMARING A BOTTLE WITH THE NEWT] HIMSELF...
IT'S ALL BEEN A MISUNDERSTANDING, PENGU<N!TM£ NEWT EXPLAINED HIS CONTRACT’S FINE PRINT! YOU SEE, WE RE GoNNA HAVE a big party-that's Right, penGUIN! I'M GlVlN’ 'Ef AN OPPORTUNITY ■'
AND THE POOR PEOPLE IN TOWN ARE GONNA PAY' I TURNED AWAY, WONDERING IF IT WASN'T TIME TO 6ET A NEW JOB... MAYBE WITH THE SEWAGE DEPARTMENT... AFTER ALL, W«TH THE RENT IN TOWN— Ian opportunity TO SINK oft SWIM, THAT 15/HAMAMAHA! -I’D BE DEALING WITH A ton of crap either way..
BURNING QUESTIONS
BY NANCY FIROR
In ‘Cincinnati Magazine’ We Trust?
What do Cincinnati’s mayor and a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist have in common?
According to a Cincinnati Magazine poll in this month’s issue, the answer is public trust.
That’s right. In a survey of 300 randomly selected downtown residents, Mayor Roxanne Qualls and Jim Borgman, political cartoonist for The Cincinnati Enquirer, tied for the highest trust rating 7.9 rendered by those asked to rate specified people and organizations on a scale of 1 to 10.
"Go figure,’’ said Felix Winternitz, the magazine’s editorial director. “I don't know why you would trust an editorial cartoonist.”
Borgman went further: “If you were the mayor, would you like to know people trusted you as much as a political cartoonist?"
Jokingly, Qualls said, “It is something to which could have only aspired and never hoped to have achieved.”
The poll, done by Brouillette Research Inc., included su.rveys returned by the magazine’s readers and a mail survey of 1,500 randomly selected households, evenly divided 300 each between downtown, the west side, east side, north and south.
While downtown residents gave Borgman the highest rating for members of the media, The Enquirer ranked among the lowest in that category, at 5.8, nudging out The Cincinnati Post, ranked at 5.6, and WLW’s Bill Cunningham who ranked the lowest among media members at 4.1. (Because it was too new at the time of the poll, CityBeat was not included.)
What conciliation might Cunningham find?
He ranked one-tenth of a point higher than Cincinnati lawyer Stan Chesley. And he’s well ahead of some Cincinnati City Council members, including Dwight Tillery, whose public trust rating was 2.7; Tom Luken, who rated 2.1; and Charles Winburn, who rated 2.8. What does Winburn think about Borgman the guy Winburn has criticized for distorting his public image with anti-Winburn cartoons rating among the highest and tying with the mayor?
“I am not paying any attention to that poll, especially when a bunch of people have not checked out my voting record...,” Winburn said in a written response. “No one who understands Charlie Winburn’s 100% pro-business record will pay any attention to that poll.”
Read All About It, Almost
Seven pages of news releases issued in January and February contained almost everything anybody wanted to know about the Alms & Doepke Building. Everything, that is, except why some of the renovations, which totaled about $24 million, were needed.
A Jan. 3 news release from the Hamilton County Department of Human Services detailed the building’s history and how 1,300 department employees would be moving into the renovated building.
In the next release, which detailed plans for the building’s Feb. 27 rededication, an array of county officials touted the convenience of one-stop shopping the building would offer to recipients of department services. Historical details dated to 1835.
Why didn't the county mention that the building was found to be a "sick building” that in 1991 made workers ill, or how all air-control systems were replaced to eliminate the likely culprit dirty air handling units and dispersion of molds and bacteria?
"I guess to us that’s old news,” said Mindy Good, director of communications for the human services department. “Our focus is on how neat it is to be moving in here and what a step up it is for those who use the department’s services and those who work here.”
BURNING QUESTIONS is our weekly attempt to afflict the comfortable.
News&Views
An Alternative Look at How and Why It Happened
Buying Buildings, Dying Buildings
Officials question housing agencies' purchases when others they own are in disrepair
BY NANCY FIROR
Two non-profit organizations affiliated with housing advocate Buddy Gray have committed $395,000 to acquire property in the past two years while much of the property they already owned remained in disrepair.
Since January 1993, three parcels of property costing $195,000 have been transferred to the Race Street Tenants Organization Co-operative (ReStoc), and four parcels costing $200,000 have been transferred to the Shelterhouse Volunteer Group, according to records in the Hamilton County Auditor’s Office.
Those transactions are raising more questions among critics who charge that Gray is committed to blocking development in Over-the-Rhine by stockpiling property instead of renovating buildings to provide housing for the poor. About 40 percent of the organizations’ property currently is in need of repair, according to city records.
Buddy Gray attends an October meeting where Cincinnati City Council members discuss funding for Recovery Hotel on Vine Street.
ReStoc,
Shelterhouse
Audits Contain Opinions’
Last October, the Organization Co-operative when some city officials company.
A debate erupted approved $594,371 housing and support alcoholics in the 1200 the-Rhine. ReStoc financial auditing a recipient of federal to submit an audit
Nonetheless, ReStoc Volunteer Group, vices at the Recovery certified audits to “clean opinions,” Dawson.
“It’s highly contradictory,” Cincinnati City Councilman
Still, October’s stricter financial accountability non-profit agencies the city. Council’s been delayed, pending Mayor Roxanne Qualls vide council with regulations for non-profits agencies. Under the city’s federally funded operating financial audit report ty’s internal control laws and regulations. than $25,000 a year ments.
BUILDINGS:
ReStoc, Langevin said, still owes the city about $72,000 for demolition of a building at 2000 Dunlap St., which was donated to the organization in disrepair.
And, he said, if the companies had the resources to secure a collective $395,000 in new properties, they had the resources to step up repair efforts. That money would have gone a long way toward fixing problems with buildings they already owned, he said.
“It would be tremendous,” Langevin said. “You’d essentially be looking at perhaps in the neighborhood of $30,000 to $50,000 for each building to have a good, serviceable roof.”
But Pat Clifford, administrative coordinator for Shelterhouse’s Drop Inn Center, said that being able to acquire the properties meant finding sellers who would offer financing arrangements that the organizations could afford. And, he said, it does not stand to reason that the same type of arrangement would be available in finding funds to put toward the renovation of previously acquired properties.
“It’s not like you have this big wad of cash in hand to rehab a building with,” Clifford said.
In addition to his position with ReStoc, Gray is program coordinator for the Drop Inn Center shelter. Clifford, who used to work for ReStoc, said neither ReStoc nor Shelterhouse were trying to block development in Over-theRhine. Instead, the organization’s officials want to see development that places top importance on housing for
FROM PAGE 5
low-income people, he said.
Toward that end, he said the organizations must work to rehabilitate property an effort that relies upon volunteers but also to save properties, such as some of those recently purchased, from demolition.
But Langevin said there were other concerns that called the organizations’ true intent into question.
Among those is a concern raised in October when a heated Cincinnati City Council debate erupted over whether to approve funds for ReStoc’s Recovery Hotel, a housing and support service shelter for recovering alcoholics that will be housed in buildings ReStoc is renovating on Vine Street in Over-the-Rhine.
In a search of property records, city employees discovered more than 20 minor variations in how ReStoc’s company name was recorded and five in the way Shelterhouse’s name was recorded. Those variations were sufficient to throw off any type of search aimed at tabulating the number of properties each company owned, Langevin said.
Clifford said neither ReStoc nor Shelterhouse had deliberately changed organization names when providing property information and such accusations were unfair.
Cincinnati Parking Officers Offer to Put More Police on the Streets
BY NANCY FIROR
Why should a police officer be called to have a car moved when a parking enforcement officer is available?
The answer, as Cincinnati parking and police officials are learning, isn’t always clear.
Clear answers are becoming important to parking enforcement officers who say there are a number of problems they can handle alone, which would give police more time to fight crime. Everyone wants answers in the continuing debate over how to put more police on the streets, but giving more responsibility to parking enforcement officers might not be that simple, said Lt. Roger Hildebrand, community policing coordinator.
“The issue is (parking officers) are not authorized to access law enforcement computer data,” Hildebrand said.
Without that access, he said, parking officers do not have the tools they need to handle certain problems. The computer data that only law enforcement officers can use allows them to retrieve information based on a license plate number, which includes the owner’s
address, criminal record and traffic citations issued against the owner.
That information, Hildebrand said, can mean all the difference in solving a traffic problem. Take, for example, a car blocking someone’s driveway, he said. If a police officer is called, he or she can trace the plate, get the owner’s address and often have the owner move the car because the owner might live just a few doors away.
The police division, Hildebrand said, plans to investigate whether parking officers can be given access to the same computer information. The division also is studying the possibility of having parking enforcement officers dispatched by the same individuals who dispatch police, said Charles Cullen, city parking superintendent.
As it works now, he said, parking officers who have radios hear calls dispatched to police and have started breaking in to offer to handle problems so police officers can remain available to handle more serious matters.
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Debates on affirmative action, stale academic feminism and the desexualization of American life and culture so well critiqued by iconoclastic writer Camille Paglia provide a perfeet opportunity to rethink the art, career and life of America’s most distinguished Abstract Expressionist painter, Jackson Pollock. His paintings redeem what a heroic man could be before the emasculation of contemporary culture in the post-modern era; he’s the end of a long, distinguished era, the last of modern art’s tragicomythic male artists.
Pollock and his art were sublimely transcendent, combining the art of many cultures: Paglia’s “Apollonian” (rational/balanced) and “Dionysian” (romantic/excessive) interpretations of culture and art. Behind the myth of the man lie paintings that integrate all of life’s unifying principies, psychologically and spiritually, which .are far more important than the paltry assessments of gender studies.
Quintessential^ American, Pollock was originally a cowboy from Cody, Wyo., who took his genuinely masculine persona into the streets of New York City’s Greenwich Village. He was a hard-drinking “macho” man who later moved to Long Island to see, interpret and visualize the sea.
I first saw a Pollock painting reproduced in Life magazine, when Abstract Expressionist art was being derided and belittled. A fifth-grade child, I knew then that this image moved me emotionally, subliminally, but did not understand why until I was an adult and saw Pollock’s paintings firsthand. I was overwhelmed by their totemic and mythic power, their extraordinary plenitude of infinities.
Touched by Picasso, Graham
“Abstract” and “expressionist” were words not normally used together to describe any known artwork. Pollock chose the language of abstraction to express strong emotion. In this sense, he is a Baroque artist, as Baroque art and architecture create mass and volume to induce heightened emotional states. He strikes at the core of life, attempts to interpret the spiritual forces of the universe. Pollock’s paintings can only be compared to the great Hindu/Buddhist sculptures of southern India in their potency and transcendent symbolism.
Pollock’s early work from the 1940s is grounded in figuration; all his art must be viewed as a form of drawing, the primary building block of all art. Pollock was
fascinated by Native American cultures the spirits of the land, water, animals, fish, bodies which he learned from Missouri artist Thomas Hart Benton. Pollock also was fascinated by the work of Mexican muralists of the 1930s for their primary designs, narrative content and radically differing views of the functions and purposes of artwork itself.
His other main influences were Pablo Picasso and the dancer/choreographer Martha Graham. The pivotal influence on Pollock’s life, ultimately reflected in his paintings, was his long Jungian analysis.
Feminists equate Pollock with the Freudian male ego. All Pollock learned from Freud was the power of the unconscious, which, through Jung, he transferred and translated into paintings manitesting Jung’s theoretical “collective unconscious.” Feminists are dead wrong about Pollock, confusing the myth of the man with the paintings themselves. Pollock was really a mystic.
One speculates the probability that the mountains of Wyoming and their nearby Native American cultures, seeping into the subconscious mind of the young Pollock, re-emerged later in his interpretive art. Perhaps his well-documented alcoholism was an attempt to squelch the feminine/landscape side of himself. He may have drowned his emotional pain with liquor, but his drunkenness, which caused his death in a car crash in 1956, is never manifested in his paintings. Pollock refused the contemporary iconization of either artist-asbohemian or artist-as-victim.
The isolated American
His sensibility, however, is quintessentially Romantic in the solitary American tradition. Isolated as Americans are, men such as Albert Pynckham Ryder, Winslow Homer, the Hudson River School Luminists and Ansel Adams internalized emotional experience, but then turned it around and externalized it visually through transcendent, transformative paintings.
Spirituality and the unconscious were in the air through the ideas of Surrealists who had moved from Europe to New York City between the wars. Pollock is, to an extent, a Surrealist. The so- called “automatic writing” of Surrealists think of James Joyce’s streamof-consciousness in literature was predicated upon the unknown but potentially revealable unconscious. The keys to unlocking Pollock’s paintings cannot be found until the viewer sees that Pollock, like Jung, took the best of Freud’s theories and made them into paint
ings. We easily forget how strongly these ideas impacted on this century’s artists and writers.
Pollock is quite rightly most renowned for his socalled “all-over” canvasses, named “Action Painting” by art critic Harold Rosenberg. Pollock thrust and threw his entire body into and onto his paintings; he became one with his work. The paintings and the artist’s psyche and soul are thus unified and balanced, and painting itself became a physically heroic act. (Normally, only the wrist was used in all art forms except sculpture.)
Filling all space
Every inch of canvas is painted in these Pollock paintings, thus the name “all-over.” His body contained all the universe’s energies, spirits and essences, and paintings such as “Eyes in the Heat” (1946), “Shimmering Substance” (1946), “Autumn Rhythm” (1950) and “Blue Poles” (1952) often use nature as the referent for the unceasing powers of the universal flows of all natural elements, which parallel cosmic, boundless, always renewable forces.
In the great all-over paintings, Pollock attempted and succeeded beyond anything the rational Western mind had viewed or comprehended before; he instilled in these paintings the drips and marks of life, symbols of life’s ebbs and streams. Pollock rethought and reinterpreted myths, just as his friend Graham did with modern dance. Both seemed to favor the tragic myth, reflecting those of ancient Greece, often misinterpreted or oversimplified by Freud. Both Pollock and Graham utilized the expressive potential of the human body as metaphor for life, growth, renewal. Pollock’s “Action Painting” is a Promethean dance.
The renewed contemporary interest in Native American cultures and the so-called “new spirituality” manifests a profoundly important awareness of the possibilities implicit in a new consciousness, last snuffed out by Richard Nixon’s cynicism as Cambodia symbolically terminated the Age of Aquarius. If the maturing ’60s generation may once again lead the way toward a new spirituality, its artists and writers must learn to be less self-absorbed, less literal-minded.
Jackson Pollock, then, is not only one of the great artists of the 20th century. He is one of art’s spiritual giants in all recorded history. Implicit in him is the infinity of the spirit which can see, soar, alight and speak to the core of all life in the universe.
This is the fifth installment in a series about the careers of great artists of the 20th century. Next week: Andy Warhol.
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Most of Robert Lowry’s autobiographical novel, The Big Cage (1947), a writer’s coming-of-age book, takes place in Cincinnati and ends in Greenwich Village.
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Robert Lowry: An
BY BILLIE JEYES PHOTOS BY JYMI BOLDEN
When Robert Lowry died at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Cincinnati on Dec. 5, 1994, at the age of 75, he had lived the last 30 years of his life in virtual obscurity and the last five in a succession of low-rent hotels and group homes.
The New York Times, however, published his obituary.
For, in his heyday, the Cincinnati native had been considered a rising star in the literary world. But something went wrong, and in the spring of 1952, Lowry was committed to a mental institution, diagnosed as a schizophrenic and given a series of electric shock treatments.
He was eventually reclassified as manic-depressive and spent the rest of his life in and out of institutions.
His behavior, fueled by rage at his involuntary incarceration, became more and more erratic.
By the time of his death, he had alienated most of his friends and colleagues and all of his books were out of print. Lowiy, one of the most promising writers of his generation, was all but forgotten.
Beginnings
Robert James Collas Lowiy came into this world on March 28,1919. His father, Beirne Clem Lowry, was from West Virginia but had moved to Cincinnati to work for the Pennsylvania Railroad. His mother, Alma, nee Collas, was a telephone operator.
Lowry grew up in Linwood, an east-side working-class neighborhood abutting the Ohio River, and attended Linwood Public School.
After he persuaded his father to buy him a typewriter,
Lowiy took the machine up to the attic and spent hours upon hours in his self-made garret, pounding out story after story. His efforts eventually paid off, and by the time he was 9 years old, his stories and poems were being published by the Sunshine Page of the Cincinnati Times Star.
His older sister, Ruth, remembers Lowry’s obsession with the written word. “When he was littie,” she says, “all he wanted to do was write.”
In his autobiographical novel, The Big Cage (Doubleday, 1947), Lowry recalled his passion for writing: “I came bolting down the street from school and climbed the two flights of stairs up to my secret life again. Except at mealtime, my family hardly ever saw me anymore. I’d divorced them. I’d found my true love, and already I was far from home, farther than any car or train or plane could have taken me.”
This drawing of Adolf Hitler fills Page 183 of Lowry’s 1992 autobiography, which he self-published on Kinko's photocopiers.
After graduating from Linwood, Lowiy attended Withrow High School. There, the school newspaper published several of his writings, including a short story called “Little Children,” an interview with a black student violinist and a prose poem.
The Little Mail Press
Precocious and bright, Lowiy was awarded a four-year scholarship to the University of Cincinnati.
“I immediately campaigned for the establishment of a school magazine,” Lowry wrote in a 1992 autobiography. “Student Council heard me out as I spoke passionately with tears in my eyes about the need for a literary publication, and whaduyuh know, those seniors and juniors granted this mere fledgling freshman the money (about $150) to publish the first issue of the magazine I named The Little Man.
Thus Lowry became the first editor of University of Cincinnati’s literary magazine. But he divorced himself from the project after the first issue, when it was decided to change the magazine’s name to Profiles. Soon afterward, he left school.
Dr. Richard Lyons, a now-retired doctor who worked with Lowry on the paper, remembers him as a talented maverick and iconoclast. “He was difficult to get along with unless you knew him well, and he often had run-ins
with the faculty,” Lyons says. “He was a prolific and compulsive writer but disliked it if an academic told him about the rules and regulations. He felt they were too restrictive.”
Determined to have complete control over his next project, the 20-year-old Lowry decided to start his own magazine, to be called, of course, The Little Man.
This he did with the help of James Flora, a student at the Art Academy of Cincinnati.
“One spring morning, I was sitting outside the art academy, when this young fellow came plodding up the street,” says Flora in a telephone interview from his home in Connecticut. “He said, ‘I need an art director for a magazine I’m starting.’ And since I loved magazines, I was hooked.
“The printing cost so much that we decided to buy a printing press with the money we made from the first issue, and we set it up in his parents’ basement on Hutton Street. We only had two fonts, and we didn’t have enough for the whole paper, so we would set the first and the last page, then take it all up and start again until we reached the
middle, where I would put a wood block.”
Lowry demanded a lot from those around him, as much as he gave of himself.
“Bob was full of juice, a constant eruption, like a volcano,” Flora continues. “He was constantly testing me, always pushing me to the limits.
One day I was at the art academy, and Bob came to see me because he wanted me to do something. I was very busy at the time, and he kept pushing. So I hit him, in the chest. From then on we were on an even keel.
“I learned more from Bob Lowry than from any other person. He had such depth of insight. He had a brain that few people have. New experiences just knocked him over women, parties, liquor.”
Lowry and Flora worked together producing the exquisite hand-printed pamphlets that are now valuable collector’s items.
ommendation from Thomas Mann, author of The Magic Mountain. Says Flora, “He happened to be in town for a lecture and was staying at the home of some banker. So we took a streetcar out to the house, managed to talk to him for a while, left him some copies of the magazine, and he wrote us a letter of recommendation, which we used to solicit subscriptions.”
Mann’s letter, written in German, ended up on the back cover of one of the pamphlets. Beside it was its English equivalent.
“The material which thus far you have collected for your magazine,” the translation goes, “seems decidedly interesting to me and has given me the impression that The Little Man can become the center of interest of young and progressive artistic aspirations in America.”
Lowry and Flora had been successful in their efforts at eliciting good material. Their crowning coup was a short piece by William Saroyan, who went on to write The Human Comedy and The Time of Your Life. Lowry himself wrote, under the pseudonym James Caldwell, a convincing piece about his purely imaginary experiences in the Spanish Civil War, titled “In Defense of University City.”
The typewritten caption on Page 171 of Lowry’s 1992 autobiography reads:
“I simply LOVE lizards and chameleons whether you like it or not!”
Flora wrote to his favorite artists soliciting artwork and, together, they would scour Who’s Who in search of writers, sending out letters in search of material. They even managed to get a rec
Other contributors to The Little Man included Jesse Stuart, who later wrote The Thread That Runs So True; James T. Farrell, author of Studs Lonigan: A Trilogy; and the poet Weldon Kees.
The illustrations and layout, however, were what made the magazine unique, and several copies made their way
CONTINUES ON PAGE 10
AmericanTragedy
After his mother died in 1987, the family’s Unwood house was sold. Lowry moved downtown, living in hotels such as the Fort Washington on Main Street. He lived off Social Security and a $100 monthly allowance from his mother’s estate. His favorite bar was the Bay Horse Cafe, also on Main Street. Friend Tony Zaffiro says, “He wanted to be downtown. He liked the sound of living in a hotel.”
LOWRY: FROM PAGE 9
to the Gotham Book Mart in New York where George Davis, an editor of fiction for Harper’s Bazaar, Mademoiselle and Flair, came across them. He wrote to Lowry asking for more of his writing; Lowry complied, and Davis published Lowry’s first national short story.
War and the rise to success
In 1942, the 23-year-old Lowry was drafted, and the partnership between Lowry and Flora dissolved. Lowry spent the next three years in Africa and Italy, working in the Air Corps Engineers and the Mediterranean Allied Photo Reconnaissance Wing.
The military put his talents to use, and Lowry spent most of the war editing and designing newspapers. He earned six battle stars but lost his stripes after using a mimeograph machine to publish a pamphlet of his own.
When he came back home, Lowry divorced his first wife, Bella, whom he had married before the war, and went to work for New Directions, a publishing house based in Connecticut.
James Laughlin, founder of New Directions, recollects Lowry’s tenure at his company in a letter: “In those days he was my assistant for all kinds ofjobs. Bob had to do all sorts of things, including wrapping up the packages and getting them to the post office and keeping the accounts.
But I remember that he was a very good designer. He designed a number of books and covers for me.”
Lowry’s first novel, Casualty (1946), based upon his wartime experiences, was published by New Directions. It was a big success, and Lowry moved over to Doubleday. He was extremely prolific and came out with three books within two years: Find Me in Fire (1948); The Wolf That Fed Us (1949) and The Big Cage (1949).
In her review of Find Me in Fire, The New York Herald Tribune's Isabelle Mallet wrote: “Mr. Robert Lowry will have to be reckoned with as one of the important writers to emerge from the war.”
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By 1952, Lowry, now 33, was well on his way to .becoming one of America’s foremost writers. His 1950 short story, “Be Nice To Mr. Campbell,” was included in Prize Stories: The O’Henry Awards (1950); his books had been praised by his idol, Ernest Hemingway; and his work was appearing regularly in Collier’s, The American Mercury and Mademoiselle.
The fall
By this time, Lowry had remarried, and together he and his new wife, Frankie, had produced a son, David. But the responsibility of a new family coupled with the heady rush of success was too much for Lowry to handle.
“Lowry’s fame was growing,” Flora remembers. “And he was caught up in the literary world. Unfortunately, Bob did not have the mental stability to handle all that publicity.
inimitable brilliant self forever.
“So fuck them all, with their pills and shock machines and barred windows and locked doors and endless days and months of boredom forever in those places sometimes called mental institutions nowadays but which I call truly INSANE ASYLUMS. I just want to stay out of them. I hate, detest, and abhor them and their boring, boring people in a world where life stops and is totally, barren, barren, BARREN.”
“I took my first wife to Chicago, Frankie to Europe for a year, Anne to Nantucket Island for a bicycling week. Then number four, there was my honeymoon at El Rancho Rankin here in Cincinnati where we drank martinis and ate steaks and then I went to work in Evendale come Monday morning. Honeymoons are real good. I recommend them.”
LOWRY, IN
“He drank too much, and he never could hold his liquor. In Cincinnati, he would take one drink and go berserk, throwing himself on the floor, saying, ‘I’m a rug! I’m a rug! Step on me!’
In an effort to get away from all the hoopla, Lowry moved to West Redding, Conn. But this didn’t help matters.
According to his second wife, Frankie Hayman, who now lives in California, Lowry’s actions became bizarre, too bizarre to handle. Worried, she called a psychiatrist friend of hers who agreed to come help on the condition that the police be present. That night, Frankie had Lowry committed to a mental institution.
The next day, Lowry’s mother, Alma, flew from Cincinnati and accompanied Frankie to the hospital. Lowiy had already been given electric shock treatments, and the doctor was anxious to obtain the family’s consenting signature. He explained to them that the electric shock treatments would shorten Lowry’s illness, and, without them, he might take years to recover.
Alma and Frankie, both anxious for Lowry’s quick recovery, agreed to let the procedure continue, and Frankie, the next of kin, signed the necessary papers.
“Electroconvulsive therapy can have lasting impairment on certain cognitive functions,” says psychiatrist Dr. Ole Thienhaus, who treated Lowry during his residency at the V.A. in Cincinnati, “and can affect the patient’s ability to learn new things.”
Adds Frankie, “He thought that he was terribly hurt by that. And I do, too.”
In his 1992 autobiography, Lowry himself wrote: “Nothing has ever changed me the electric shock treatments, the pills and capsules, the one-to-one talks: I remain the same through it all: my own boisterous, stubborn, laughing,
It was around this time that Lowry began to exhibit signs of anti-Semitism, which was especially disturbing for Frankie because she is Jewish.
“He was never like that before,” says Frankie, a fact corroborated by many of his friends and colleagues. In fact, his first wife, Bella, is also Jewish.
Laughlin, his former boss at New Directions, remembers how Lowry was before 1952. “I was very fond of him with his lovable personality and so distressed when his illness took over most of his life. He was a wonderful person to have around because, before his illness hit him, he was always bouncing with cheerfulness. Everyone in (Greenwich Village) liked him.”
Writing, despite treatment
Lowry was eventually transferred to the Bronx Veterans Administration Hospital where he worked on The Violent Wedding (Doubleday, 1953), a powerful novel about an affair between a white artist and a black boxer. He was eventually discharged and returned to his house in Connecticut, but Lowry’s behavior became too much for Frankie to handle. She soon left him, taking their son with her.
After she left, Lowry became infatuated with an actress named Kit, who was appearing in The Plough and the Stars at the Cherry Lane Theater in Greenwich Village.
Driving down to the Village from West Redding to catch a second performance, Lowry, in his self-published Chronology ofMy Life Since 1952, wrote that he “nicked and bumped a number of cars on the highway and was arrested and put into Grasslands Hospital.”
His explanation: “I went haywire. I thought I heard God telling me that I was his Christ and that he was giving me the world.”
He was eventually transferred to Fairfield State Hospital from which he tried to escape twice. The second time, he went to see Kit, was arrested and ended up back at the Bronx V.A. where he was given insulin shock treatment.
Dr. Mark Rosenberg, a psychiatrist and medical director of the mental health unit of St. Luke Hospital-West in Florence, explains that insulin shock treatment is no longer used. “It makes the patient go into a coma. The person would then have a seizure and could die from it.” He adds that the treatment can cause brain damage.
While at the Bronx V.A., Lowry worked on another book of short stories, Happy New Year, Kamerades! (Doubleday, 1954).
According to Lowry’s chronology: “I was reading proofs while taking insulin. My proofs were covered with sugar water and blood after I fell off the chair in a faint. But I sent them in anyhow and the book came out while I was in the hospital.”
He and Kit began living together, and Lowry rented an apartment in Greenwich Village that he used as a studio to write What’s Left ofApril (Doubleday, 1956) and The Last Party (Popular Library, 1956). His freedom did not last long and, at Kit’s insistence, he checked into the Bronx V.A. Hospital and was there for a month in 1954. Needless to say, the relationship was short-lived. He met his third wife, Anne, soon afterward. They
were in a bar, and not being much of a drinker, she told him that she was leaving. That night, says Anne, Lowry went over to Kit’s apartment. When she wouldn’t let him in, he broke down the door, was arrested and spent the next five months at King’s Park State Hospital.
After being discharged, he moved back to his parents’ house on Hutton Street in Cincinnati and continued to correspond with Anne. They were eventually married in May of 1958 and had two children, Beime and Jack.
“He wasn’t ill all the time,” says Anne Lowry in a telephone interview from her home in Staten Island. “He was a very unaffected person, very open and very loving. He was just a plain, ordinary down-to-earth guy. He enjoyed the simple things: a plate of spaghetti, a trip to- the zoo, music and art.”
Lowry had begun working on The Prince ofPride Starring, a novel based on his experiences in the mental institutions, while he was at King’s Park State Hospital.
In the book, Jim Ramsey, who had previously appeared in What’s Left ofApril, ends up in a lunatic asylum after being arrested for speeding. There, he is beaten up by an orderly and subjected to electric shock treatments. This subject matter was practically taboo at the time, but what was more disturbing for the editors at Doubleday was the protagonist’s fixation on Jews.
“He usually wrote exactly what he thought,” says his sister, Ruth Lowry, by telephone from her home in Connecticut. “When he said anything about anybody, whether it was true or not, he meant it.”
This quality, which had served him well at the beginrung of his career, had now derailed him.
In one scene, Jim asks his relatives and friends if they think that he is mad and if they believe that he belongs in the madhouse. They all give him the same reply: “I don’t know, Jim. I’m not a doctor.”
Jim then realizes that God is nearby, listening. And so he asks the same question of God.
“Do you think that I’m mad? Do you think that I belong here in the madhouse?”
To which God replies, “I don’t know, Jim. I’m not a doctor.”
Despite eight rewrites, Doubleday refused to publish The Prince ofPride Starring. But Lowry still owed his editors one book, and in 1958 they published New York Call Girl, a collection of short stories.
A year later, the year Lowry’s father died, The Prince ofPride Starring was published by a friend in Cincinnati, L.H. Haines.
In 1962, Lowry was able to get another book published. Party of Dreamers (Fleet), a collection of short stories, was dedicated to his mother, sister and new family. One of the stories, “The Return of Edgar Allen Poe,” was included in Best Detective Stories of the Year.
Anne never had Lowry committed: “I didn’t want to. I didn’t think it would help.” But, by the fall of 1962, unable to cope with the ups and downs of life with Lowry, she left, taking their two sons with her.
“It was a hopeless situation. I had two small children, and I had to make a new life for myself and for them,” she says. “I couldn’t help him because he couldn’t help himself. He was very proud and would never admit that he needed help. He would start drinking to escape from it. He had been treated badly in institutions before I met him with the electric shock treatment, and he was afraid of going through that again.”
Return to Cincinnati
At 44, Lowry moved back to his mother’s house on Hutton Street. For the next two years, he held a number of jobs. He was a telephone solicitor for Klimat Master, an assistant to the commercial manager at WCPO-TV, an order clerk for the Saalfeld Paper Co. and a copywriter at The Cincinnati Enquirer.
In 1965, Popular Library published The Last Party, Lowry’s last nationally published collection of short stories.
Trying to recollect these years in his chronology, Lowry wrote: “These sixties years are unclear. I think the electric shock treatment has addled my head for good. ’66? I hardly know it existed. It was just a dream ofjobs, one after another. More jobs and more probating of me by my mother into Rollman’s Psychiatric Institute. She was very good to me my mother but she probated me many times, sometimes without reason.”
In the late ’60s, Lowry tried marriage once again, this time to Mary Louise O’Neill. “We began having an affair in the Sixties, and we finally got married,” wrote Lowry. “And then her mother first, and then Mary Lou, probated me into Rollman’s. I really don’t know why. I don’t think they had a good reason. Anyhow, Mary Lou got the divorce, and that was a good idea.”
In a letter to his friend Tony Zaffiro, who befriended him in 1990, Lowry described his four honeymoons.
“I took my first wife to Chicago, Frankie to Europe for a year, Anne to Nantucket Island for a bicycling week. Then number four, there was my honeymoon at El Rancho Rankin here in Cincinnati where we drank martinis and ate steaks and then I went to work in Evendale come Monday morning. Honeymoons are real good. I recommend them.”
Lowry met Barbara, the last great love of his life, in 1970. They moved in together in 1973, but that, too, didn’t last.
Lowry wrote about the women in his life in his 1992 autobiography; “Who could resist them? I couldn’t. Whatever a girl wanted I tried to give her immediately. I can’t forget them. They’re three-dimensional in Technicolor in my mind. But yuh know, not one, not ONE of them, writes or calls or sends me a Christmas card. Didn’t they love me at all? Don’t they remember me at all? Of course women inspired my work. I would never have been the novelist and short story writer and poet that I am without scores of women who pledged themselves to me through my life. So you see I can’t really be mad at women because they neglect me after our dalliances and affairs and marriages are over, they’re the living, breathing, heart-beating center and core of my work.”
Lowry was still writing but had a difficult time getting published. His anti-Semitism, which only emerged during his breakdowns, had ruined his career. While still married to Anne, he began to correspond with George Lincoln Rockwell, the founder and leader of the American Nazi Party. Rockwell even invited the family to live with him, a suggestion that Anne quashed immediately.
After Rockwell was assassinated in 1967, Lowry tried to revive the American Nazi Party. This he did by printing up stationary, enclosing membership forms and sending it to his soon-to-be-former friends.
James Laughlin recalls receiving these letters: “I remember little about his involvement with the American Nazi Party. He would send circulars on that. I paid no attention to them, knowing that was part of his illness.”
Lowry was burning his bridges behind him, cutting himself off from the very people who could help his literaiy career. He never stopped writing, but his career was over. No large publisher would have anything to do with him.
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LOWRY: FROM PAGE 11
In print again
Lowry’s silence was interrupted in the late ’80s when he received a letter from Nicky Drumbolis, who runs a small press out of Letters, his rare-book shop in Toronto.
In the letter, Drumbolis expressed his admiration for Lowry’s work and asked if he would be interested in sending him any of his writing.
“Three or four months later,” Drumbolis says, “I got a letter back.” Lowry declined the offer with “a curt little note saying he hadn’t written anything for years.”
Not long afterward, Drumbolis received a manuscript from Lowry and published some of the poems in a pamphlet titled “An American Writer At The End of his Life” (1988).
“After the first pamphlet, Lowry went nuts,” Drumbolis says. “He was sending me manuscripts, much of the stuff execrable. His ability to write was there in fits and starts. Because of the shock treatments, he couldn’t sustain the narrative.”
Lowry’s old typewriter was more a hindrance than a help.
Says Zaffiro, an independent businessman from Cincinnati: “Lowry’s typewriter was decrepit. There were two reels, dirty from use, and he had to feed the ribbon through them. I bought him an IBM Selectric. But he still had problems because he would type so quickly and punch the return key so hard that it would jump two lines.”
In a letter to Zaffiro, Lowry mentioned the gift: “I’m finally beginning to tame this nervous, unpredictable filly of a typewriter. Things are going more smoothly now.”
Says Drumbolis, “Bob sometimes became quite anxious about publishing his wbrks. I would get five or six letters a day from him. He would be sending me envelopes covered in stamps. Inside would be a hastily written note. He was so eager to write.”
“One time,” continues Drumbolis, “I asked him what it would be like if his four wives got together, and the result was a short play titled A Fantasy Session ofMy Four Lost Wives (1989).
“I was so taken with it. That I read it, typed, set it and folded it within 24 hours. That book was the most suecessful. What he had to say was almost pure pathos, a private concourse in public.”
When Lowry’s mother died in 1987, the house on Hutton Street was sold, and Lowry moved downtown where he lived in low-rent hotels, subsisting on Social Security and the $100 allowance that was doled out every month from his mother’s estate.
Lowry sometimes became nervous about his monetary situation. In a letter to Zaffiro, he wrote: “I don’t know how I’m going to survive, Tony. Can’t you think of some way I can make a buck? I just don’t know how to make money anymore. Actually I never did. I just wrote and money was given to me. I survived in New York all those
twenty years like that.”
Lowry’s sister, Ruth, made sure that he was provided for.
“She was very supportive, both emotionally and finandally,” Zaffiro says. “Ruth and he would talk every night. At 6 p.m., he would look at his watch, then go to a phone. She sent him heavy coats in the winter.”
“He wanted to be downtown,” continues Zaffiro. “He liked the sound of living in a hotel.”
Drumbolis continued publishing Lowry’s work, including a 1990 pamphlet titled “xxin Celebrities,” thumbnail sketches of a pantheon of famous writers, including William Saroyan, Carson McCullers, Anai's Nin, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams and Norman Mailer.
“It’s an invaluable book for its time,” says Drumbolis, who had been sending out copies of Lowry’s pamphlets. He eventually heard back from an editor at Black Sparrow, Charles Bukowski’s publisher.
“He was ecstatic about doing a book with this man, about whom he knew nothing. It turned out that knowing more about Bob’s more recent history, he was frightened about it.”
Drumbolis also had sent some of these pamphlets to Michael Montford, a documentary photographer and collaborator of Bukowski’s.
This time, it paid off.
Montford, wild about Lowry’s work, came to Cincinnati in the summer of ’94 with a writer from Der Spiegel, an influential German magazine, to do a feature on him.
Ironically, four of Lowry’s books, out of print for years in the United States, are to be published in Germany by Rogner und Bernhard. The Violent Wedding will come out in October, followed by Casualty, The Prince of Pride Starring and Party of Dreamers.
The end
Lowiy had begun, however, to have problems at the Fort Washington Hotel, where he had been living.
“They wanted him to leave so he would have nowhere to go and would have to get help,” says Zaffiro.
The day Lowiy left the hotel, Zaffiro went there, but Lowry had already gone. Worried, he went to the DropInn Center, a shelter for the homeless.
“I turned around to leave, and I saw Robert. He had shaved all his hair off, stubble was growing on his face and he was wearing a dirty T-shirt and a dirty pair of pants. He had no shoes, and his feet were in disrepair from walking around. He had even thrown his dentures away.
“I said, ‘Robert!’ Myjaw must have been hanging open.
“He looked around at his surroundings and said, ‘What the hell are you looking at, bigshot?’
“I looked around, too, and saw that he had just blended in.
“He was in dire need of help. It was terrible.” Lowry had started to get belligerent, and the police were now involved. Suddenly, Lowry changed gears and started talking like a lawyer.
Zaffiro recalls the exchange:
“Am I under arrest?” Lowry said.
“No,” answered the policeman.
“Then what are you doing?”
Lowry’s change of manner dumbfounded the police, but his feet were so infected that they were able to arrest him and take him to University Hospital. After the infection cleared up, he was sent to the geriatric unit of the Pauline Warfield Lewis Center where therapists, caseworkers and doctors got him stabilized.
After a couple of weeks, he had recovered, and when Zaffiro came to visit, Lowry had a list of things that he needed: paper, crayons, envelopes and stamps.
When he left the Lewis Center, Lowry went to live at Tender Mercies, but he didn’t stay for long and ended up at a group home in College Hill. That didn’t work out either, and he was moved to a group home in Avondale for a couple of months.
In October 1994, Lowry’s health began to deteriorate, and he was hospitalized for the last time at the V.A. Hospital.
“The last time I saw him,” Zaffiro says, “he was half asleep. Ruth called me on Monday morning to tell me the bad news, and I lost it. It was impossible to believe. I don’t think I’ll ever get over it.”
Two weeks before he died, Lowry’s advance check from the German publishers came through.
But Lowry never got to spend it.
He had never needed many material possessions.
“As long as he had enough to get by and could go to the bar the Bay Horse (Cafe) was-his favorite he was content. He once gave me a book for Christmas with a dollar bill inside. ‘That way,’ he wrote in the inscription, ‘you’ll always have a buck,’ says Zaffiro.
Self-realizations
Shortly before Lowry’s mother died, Lowry’s old friend and partner James Flora came to visit him.
“We sat around at his mother’s house, and he spoke about the mistakes he had made. Eventually I had to leave. He followed me to the door, and as I stepped out he said, ‘I guess I really blew it, Jim.’ Flora continues, audibly upset: “This was a terrible tragedy for a man of that quality and drive. It was very sad to see him go downhill. It was one of the most grievous things in my life.”
It is hard to reconcile the two Lowiys. When he was well, he wrote profusely and made friends easily. But when he lapsed into his illness, a different Lowry emerged.
There will never be an adequate excuse for some of his actions but perhaps, despite everything, Lowry’s star might yet still rise.
After all, once death comes, all that remains is the work itself.
What is God? What does God look like? Does God have a mom or dad? It is questions like these that a child might ask a parent. The child might continue to ask these questions even when s/he is old enough to have children. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, there are no simple answers to these questions.
"God is the Endless,” answers Elie Shava during an interview. She continues, “God is the Something, or even the Nothingness or it is like that movie The Force. In the tradition of my people, God appeared to the nation of Israel at Mount Sinai. Each one left claiming to have seen the face of God. But they had all seen a different face. Each one saw God from his or her perspective."
Shava speaks in a matter-of-fact manner. She draws her beliefs about the divine from mystic teachings. She is interested in studies regarding the kabaia, a mystical interpretation of Jewish scripture.
“Mystics are the poets of religion," she says.
Shava moved from Israel to the United States in the 1980s. While living in Israel, she studied at the Tel Aviv University. Her primary studies were about the ancient Middle East, especially Akkadian studies. This included the ancient cultures of Sumeria, Babylon and Assyria. "In Israel,” she notes, "archaeology is a national hobby.”
When Shava first came to the United States, she was astonished by the religious beliefs held by many living in America. The first TV show about religion she saw was hosted by Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. “I thought it was a satire of religion. did not know it was supposed to be a real show about religion. After that I realized that many claim the Bible as their guide but do not know what is in it. They have a form of Bible knowledge."
After noticing this disparity between fact and perception in the public mind regarding the Bible and religion, Shava began to lecture. By incorporating her knowledge of ancient Middle Eastern cultures, she explains the social context in which certain biblical passages were written. She believes it is important to know the traditions and beliefs of ancient cultures. So her lectures teach about Assyrian goddesses condemned by Bible writers. She also explains why God is now referred to male. The title of her lecture is “When God was a Woman."
She is not claiming that God is a woman now. Instead, she is explaining the beliefs of an ancient culture.
'“It is OK to define the infinite if it helps you to plug in, that is, worship God better,” she says. “It’s wrong to condemn another for their understanding. Also to explicitly state that God is male or female is to reduce the divine. The only reason we try to measure the divine is to try and make it fit our small minds.”
Continuing, Shava says: “The Sufi (Moslem mystics) teach that humanity is like six blind men who stumble into an elephant. At whatever point they encounter the animal, that is how they define the whole creature. The one who grabs hold of the trunk says the elephant is like a snake. The one who grabs the elephant's tail says it is like a rope. The one underneath touches all four legs and says the elephant is a row of columns; and so forth. We do the same with religion and spirituality. Nobody really knows what God looks like. It is because we don't know that it is wrong to mislead people. It is wrong to terrorize people into religious beliefs, especially telling a child he will go to hell if he does something wrong. God ^ is so much more than us.”
Shava can be contacted either through the Left Handed Moon (48 E. Court St., Downtown), 784-1166; or by writing to Elie Shava c/o Mezlim Magazine N'Chi, P.0. Box 19566, Cincinnati, OH 45219.
In his monthly column, JOHN 0. YOUNG explores spirituality alternatives in Greater Cincinnati.
TIssues Bom of Everyday Living
Choice Words About Hockey
he everyday Cincinnati sports fan relegated to a steady TV diet of NFL football, Major League Strikeball and a sprinkling of pro and college basketball games could learn a lot about true grit by getting off his duff and hopping across the river to Kentucky.
BY MATT COOPER
Hockey, the skinnedkneed sister of the glamour sports, is alive and well at the blue-collar level.
Shoot down Interstate 75 to Crescent Springs, Ky., and find the All Seasons Ice Center, 2638 Anderson Road, just a few slap shots off the Buttermilk Pike exit. Within those frosty confines, 9-to-5ers lace up year-round and take to the ice. They’re spurred mainly by a love of the game, a need to burn off the day’s demands and hey, this is hockey the opportunity to verbally abuse their opponents.
More succinctly: “It’s the sport itself,” says Chris Shawen, a 19-year-old Edgewood resident who works full-time for BB Riverboats. “The skating, the speed, the physical contact. Havin’ a good time.”
Shawen is on the wet-behind-the-ears end of the men’s league, which includes anyone 18 and older and breaks down into three skill divisions. The men play year-round in three seasons: spring (end of March through May), summer (mid-June to mid-August) and winter (October to March). Each of the 15 teams gets 20 matches a season. There is also a 35-and-up crowd, which takes to the ice Sundays; not to mention beginners’ leagues and even a group of employees from Procter & Gamble, says Hugh Miller, All Seasons’ manager.
He estimates the upfront cost per team in the men’s league is $1,800$2,500, split by 12 to 15 players.
In the 18-and-up league are kids aged 30, 35, 41, even “a handful in their 50s,” Miller says. And they’re not scrimmaging.
That becomes alarmingly evident the moment two teams take the ice for warm-ups. While the goalie huddles in front of the net,
Women’s Action
his team looms some 15 yards away, in a semicircle, blasting relentless slap shots. Spectators’ eyes dart from puck to puck in a futile attempt to account for each potentially dentalrearranging missile.
The pucks traveling at eye-blinking speeds leave the confines of the rink with distressing frequency. “You might want to get up top,” says one rink worker, pointing to a balcony. “Pucks fly everywhere.”
Players, too. The difference in skating ability is dramatic between the teens and men. Speed, passing cuts and collisions (yes, even in a no-checking league, opponents “accidentally” drop one another) increase after 9 p.m., when the men take over.
“Most of those people have played youth hockey at one time or another especially the better ones,” says Miller. “Most have probably skated here for six or eight years. They’ve been around quite awhile.”
Sure, players and refs occasionally skate themselves right to their rumps, but the point, says Fairfield resident Dave Robbins, is that it’s more fun to do it than to watch it.
Asked whether he was relieved the NHL has salvaged a 1995 season, the 30-year-old says: “There’s always hockey. I’d rather play than watch, anyway.”
And Robbins’ big grin says more than his words, surprisingly enough for hockey players possess a volatile vernacular that effectively indicates sentiment:
'Fast, ‘physical,’ ‘exciting,’ 1stress-busting’ describe 9-to-5ers find in All Seasons
Men’s leagues, which include the Kestral Tool and Budna Grill teams, play Monday through Thursday.
“Nice dive, Taylor. That was !!#$<§>. &%$$#!”
“C’mon! That’s $$%#@. He’s @#I$”%. slashing me!”
But that’s just color.
Although there are no women’s leagues at All Seasons Ice Center, rink manager Hugh Miller estimates one or two women lace up with the men.
“There are a lot of girls in the kids’ program,” he says. “And there are college scholarships for women to play hockey. Now, it’s getting more popular for women to play. Later on, there’s going to be more and more women playing hockey.”
One who isn’t waiting is Kenwood resident Melissa Kegg, 21. She played competitively at Miami University in Oxford and has found the All Seasons action to be fulfilling. “A lot of the guys take it easy on the girls,” she says. “But if a guy gets hit by a girl, or if a girl scores, (men) don’t take it easy.”
More importantly, the players adhere for the most part to a no-checking rule, which means shoving and pushing are kept to a minimum. Injuries are the exception.
After all, as veteran skater Rick Graham, 38, of Eastgate points out: “You got to got up and go to work the next day.”
For information, call ALL SEASONS ICE CENTER at 344-1994.
PHOTO: MARTY SOSNOWSKI
Listings Index
Music (concerts, clubs, varied venues) 14
Film (capsule reviews, theater guide) 18
Art (galleries, exhibits, museums) 23
Events (cool happenings) 26
Onstage (theater, dance, classical music) 26
Literary (signings, readings, events) 26
Attractions (museums, historic homes) 27
Etc. (events, meetings, attractions) 28
Sports (recreational, spectator) 28
Upcoming (a look at what’s ahead) 30 Review Ratings
Recommendations
★ CityBeat staffs stamp of approval
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: 665-4369.
Please include a contact name and daytime phone number.
Buttermilk Pike, Fort Mitchell. $17 day of show. 721-1000.
★ JOE LOVANO Saxophonoist Lovano is a legend among the current crop of Jazz musicians. Be there or be square, man. 8 p.m. Saturday. Sungarden Lounge at Hyatt Regency, 151 W. Fifth St., Downtown. $5. 579-1234.
★ JOHN GORKA, PATTY LARKIN, CHERYL WHEELER AND CLIFF EBERHARDT Gorka is quickly becoming an extremely influential force in the Folk music, acoustic world. This concert features a spontaneous interaction of Gorka and other up-and-coming Folk luminaries. 8 p.m. Saturday. Greaves Hall, Northern Kentucky University, Highland Heights. This show is sold out. BLACK 47 WITH THE LOW ROAD Celtic influenced Folk Rock. 7 p.m. Sunday. Bogart’s, 2621 Vine St., Corryville. $5/$6 day of show. 749-4949.
Not Just an Entertainment Calendar... A State of Mind
This Week’s Theme: Mystery
It started at a lull in the Cold War, an era when glass bottles read “No deposit No return” and when a stagnated space program forced a surplus of orangeflavored instant breakfast drink on to millions of the UNSUSPECTING innocent yes, it was 20 years ago when The Price is Right model Janice Pennington began to carry the dark secret of her MISSING HUSBAND. She recounts her experiences in Husband, Lover, Spy and will scribble identifying marks and comforting thoughts on your copy if you slide your card through the machine. (See Literary listings.) No less than 20 psychic readers will place their hands atop your head bone to unlock your future at the Ohio Festival of Lights; negative thinkers and naysayers need not apply. (See Events.) If oscillating temperatures put you in a HAMSTRUNG FUNK, come see The Incredible Journey, part of the zoo’s winter movie series. Also, a trip to the Dayton Museum of Natural History to see Vision Quest: Men, Women and Sacred Sites of the Sioux Nation, would be a judicious expenditure of fossil fuel the only mystery here is why God created such a boring stretch of land along Interstate 75. (See Attractions.) Jay A. Plogman uses photography and words to exorcise that demon called stereotypes, while exploring the PHILOSOPHICAL TENDRILS of what it means to be an American; it’s there for all to see at Base Art Gallery. (See Art.)
★ MOVIN’ MERVYN AND GUESTS Craving the Latin music sound? Well, duh. Check out this Trinidadian Folk ensemble. 7 p.m. Thursday-Saturday. Zarabanda World Cafe. 3213 Linwood Ave., Mount Lookout. 321-1347.
TOMMY'S ON MAIN 1427 Main St., Over-the-Rhine. 352-0502.
TOP CAT’S 2820 Vine St., Corryville. 281-2005.
VILLAGE TAVERN 8123 Cincinnati-Dayton Highway, West Chester. 777-7200.
ZIPPER’S 604 Main St., Covington. 261-5639.
DANCE
CLUB CHRONIC 616 Ruth Lyons Lane, Downtown. Call for days and times. 621-4115. THE CONSERVATORY 640 W. Third St., Covington. 9 p.m.-2 a.m. Friday-Saturday. 491-6400.
COOTER’S University Plaza, Vine Street, Corryville. 8 p.m.-2 a.m.
JERRY'S LITTLE BAND Dead favorites. Top Cat’s. Cover.
JIM GILLUM Acoustic. Blind Lemon. Free.
RESERVED SEAT TICKETS ON SALE SATURDAY FEDRUARY 18,10AM AT ALL TICKETMASTER LOCATIONS, BY PHONE 749-4949 OR AT TAFT BOX OFFICE 5TH & SYCAMORE FRIDAY, MARCH 31, 8PM TAFT THEATRE
JOHNNY FINK AND THE INTRUSION Blues. Burbank’s Eastgate. Free.
MODULATORS Eclectic. Mt. Adams Tavern. Cover. THE OHIO VALLEY ROUNDERS
RESERVED SEAT TICKETS ON SALE NOW! ALL TICKETMASTER OUTLETS BY PHONE: 749-4949 OR AT THE TAFT BOX OFFICE AT 5TH & SYCAMORE DOWNTOWN BROUGHT TO YOU BY SUNSHINE PROMOTIONS
PHOTO: RUTH
Band de Soleil plays Ripleys on Thursday.
949 Pavilion St., Mount Adams.
Music
RITCHIE AND THE STUDENTS Rock favorites. Blue Note Cafe. Cover.
RIVERRUNT SPOOK FLOATERS Rock. Ripleys. Cover.
RON ENYARD TRIO Jazz. Kaldi’s. Free.
RUSTIC SOULS Dead favorites. First Run. $2/$5 under 21.
SATURDAY
MARCH 4
SHIRLEY JESTER JAZZ TRIO Jazz. Coco’s. Cover.
SPLIT IMAGE Rock. Club A. Cover.
ALICE HOSKINS Blues. Burbank’s Florence. Free.
TOD LEAVITT TRIO R&B. Ivory’s. Cover.
ANVIL SLUGS Alternative favorites. Club Gotham. Cover.
TOM MARTIN Rock. Mt. Adams Pavilion. Cover.
BANGKOK REIGN WITH F.O.A. AND BREAKING POINT Alternative Thrash Metal. Southgate House. Cover.
UNDER THE SUN WITH PORTERHOUSE Alternative. Salamone’s. Cover.
UPTOWN RHYTHM AND BLUES R&B. Ozzie’s. Cover.
THE BLUES ALLSTARS Blues. Burbank's Sharonville. Free.
JOHNNY FINK AND THE INTRUSION Blues. Burbank’s Eastgate. Free.
LAZY WITH BUTTSTEAK AND DIRT MERCHANTS Alternative. Sudsy Malone’s. Cover.
MICHAEL DENTON Acoustic. Blind Lemon. Free.
MYSTERY WAGON Folk Alternative. Zipper’s. Free. NEW BEDLAM Rock. Shady O’Grady’s. Cover.
Local Scene SPILL IT
BY MIKE BREEN
Lovely and Talented
The first album by Brian Lovely and the Secret hits the streets Friday at the disc’s release party at Shady O’Grady’s (9443 Loveland Madeira Road, Loveland).
Lovely and his band’s original Pop/Alternative/Rock concoction caught the ears and captured the hearts of the judges of 97X’s annual 97Xposure local band competition, who picked the band as champions over 170 other contestants in this year’s battle.
The self-titled disc is being released on Lovely’s Cellarsongs label and is being distributed through Strugglebaby (c/o Hal Bernard Enterprises Inc., 2612 Erie Ave., Cincinnati, OH 45208) also the home label of local luminaries psychodots and the Blue Birds.
Etc.
Concert
Tickets are now for the Multi-media March 27, On sale through Alternative Sprocket April 1, at Also coming • Singer/songwriter Saturday, the door. Phish
-31, at Ripleys.
Join the dynamic and atmospheric Pale Halo for a celebration of the release of its new nine-song cassette, Belle Fleur de Trlstesse, on Thursday at Sudsy Malone’s (2630 Vine St., Corryville). The surreal power Pop trio Clifford Nevernew has enlisted Pete “Tex” Janidlo as the new drummer. See them at 9 p.m. Monday at Kaldi’s (1202 Main St., Over-the-Rhine) and say hi to the new guy. Rhythm and Blues vocal quartet II Smooth has just completed a new single, “Let It Be Me," that’s due in stores April 1. II Smooth
STACY THE BLUES DOCTOR WITH BLUES U CAN USE Blues. Local 1207. Cover.
TIMELY ARRIVAL Bluegrass. Canal Street Tavern. Cover.
WILLIE RAY AND THE MIDNIGHTERS Blues. Stow’s. Cover.
MONDAY MARCH 6
THE BLUES ALLSTARS Blues. Burbank’s Sharonville. Free.
BOB CUSHING Acoustic. Cloverieaf Lakes. Free.
DAYTON JAZZ ORCHESTRA Big Band. Gilly’s. Cover.
FRED GARY AND DOTTIE WARNER Eclectic. Arnold’s. Free.
MARC MICHAELSON Rock. Mt. Adams Pavilion. Cover.
PSYCHOACOUSTIC ORCHESTRA Eclectic Jazz. Blue Wisp. Cover.
SCOTT EARNER Acoustic. Blind Lemon. Free.
TUESDAY MARCH 7
THE BLUES ALLSTARS Blues. Burbank’s Sharonville. Free.
BRIAN LOVELY AND THE SECRET Alternative Rock. Tommy’s. Cover.
CRAWDADDY Acoustic Alternative favorites. Scooter’s. Free.
BOB CUSHING Acoustic. Foley’s Western Hills. Free.
THE DIXIE CRUISERS Dixieland Jazz. Arnold’s. Free.
THE IMPULSE BAND FEATURING RICHARD DANIELS Jazz. Babe Baker’s. Free.
JIM CONWAY Acoustic. Blind Lemon. Free.
JOHNNY SCHOTT WITH WHAT IT'S WORTH, MOURNING COFFEE, LAURA HAZEN AND BOB ELDRIDGE Acoustic open mike. Zipper’s. Free.
LAURIE TRAVELINE, CHRIS ALLEN AND MILES LORETTA Acoustic. The Friendly Stop. Free.
OPEN MIC Folk. Canal Street Tavern. Cover.
SHINDIG Rock favorites. Blue Note Cafe. Cover
WEDNESDAY MARCH 8
ARNOLD'S WEDNESDAY NIGHT GUYS Eclectic. Arnold’s. Free.
THE BLUES ALLSTARS Blues. Burbank’s Sharonville. Free.
SBLUE BIRDS Blues. Tommy’s. Cover.
BLUE WISP BIG BAND Jazz. Blue Wisp. Cover.
BRIAN LOVELY AND THE SECRET Alternative Rock. Shady O’Grady's. Free.
CELTIC JAM Celtic. Hap’s Irish Pub. Free.
CURTIS CHARLES Classic Rock. Zipper’s. Free.
FOREHEAD Alternative favorites. Murray’s Pub. Cover.
GREENWICH TAVERN JAZZ
ENSEMBLE Jazz. Greenwich Tavern. Cover.
A Sort of Homecoming
Gorka and talented pals roll into Cincinnati
the ‘oriainal ‘ Vnvluqqed ” tour
inger/songwriter John Gorka probably will be feeling pretty comfy when he performs across the Ohio River at Northern Kentucky University on Saturday night. Gorka isn’t from Ohio (he’s a Jersey native), but there’s something strikingly familiar about the Buckeye State to Gorka, who once sang, “I’m from New Jersey/It’s like Ohio/But even more so/imagine that.”
“When I go (to Ohio), I feel at home,” says Gorka, during a telephone interview from his home in Minneapolis. (He also keeps a residence in Pennsylvania.) “There’s something about it, but I’m not really sure. Maybe it’s the industrial parts or just the way people act that seems familiar.”
JEFF GOITHER Acoustic. Blind Lemon. Free.
MANGO JAM World Beat. Ozzie's. Cover.
THE MENUS Rock favorites. Katmandu Cafe. Cover.
NOAH HUNT Acoustic open jam. Local 1207. Cover.
OVERDUE AND THE MENUS Rock favorites. Blue Note Cafe. Cover.
Gorka is returning to this familiar area as part of the On A Winter’s Night Tour a spontaneous, spirited jam session that has, over the past six years, featured Gorka and a rotating cycle of his peers such as David Wilcox and the tour’s mastermind, Christine Lavin. This time around, Gorka is joined by Patty Larkin, Cheryl Wheeler and Cliff Eberhardt for what Gorka says is an often humorous and always surprising (especially for the performers) free-form musical frolic.
THE WEBSTERS Alternative favorites. Salamone’s. Cover.
MORE, PAGE 18
“We’re all on stage at the same time,” explains Gorka. “We do different rounds of songs. We do a new-song round or a most-requested round. There’s a.game-show portion during the second half. During the intermission, the audience members make suggestions for song subjects, not specific songs, and then we pick the subjects and come up with songs that somehow match.”
Gorka says the show’s impromptu manner has led to some hilarious moments and always keeps him on the edge of his seat in anticipation of what’s coming next. “A lot of times you don’t know what song you’re going to do until the person before you does their song,” he says. “That’s something that changes every night.”
Performing with such a close group of friends this is the third year that these four have performed on the tour lends itself to a more comedic and whimsical atmosphere than Gorka’s solo tours, which he says he still tries to keep “fairly light.”
“All the people in the show are really funny,” he says, citing Wheeler as the most hilarious. “It’s not very serious at all. The atmosphere is pretty light. For me, it’s just a lot more fun traveling with other people. It never gets old. The only problem is too much fun.”
The show has been dubbed the “original ‘Unplugged’ tour,” in reference to the recent success of acoustic albums and MTV appearances by everyone from LL Cool J to Hole. Gorka says that while he doesn’t see anything
inherently wrong with musicians experimenting with the acoustic format, he sees the trendiness of such outings as being quite fatuous. As he puts it, “Most of us were never really into electric music anyway. It’s just all kind of silly, but I guess they had to call (this tour) something.”
Gorka’s rich baritone and folky, acoustic songwriting style has been winning over fans, critics and fellow musicians ever since the release of I Know in 1987. Gorka’s sound on the surface appears to have strong roots in traditional Folk singer/songwriters. But the impetus for becoming involved in music, Gorka says, was his curiosity and eventual passion for Bluegrass music that developed when he was a student at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Penn.
“I’ve always liked the spare sound of the instrumentation of Folk. I’ve always liked acoustic instruments and the space they give a record,” Gorka says. “But the first music I really wanted to play was Bluegrass. It was through Bluegrass that I came to Folk music. I started playing the banjo and did. that throughout college. I was in a band in college called the Razzy Dazzy Spasm Band, and one of the members had a great record collection and he would turn us on to a lot of Blues and Folk people that we hadn’t heard before.”
Since those early days of honing his songwriting skills at a small coffeehouse in Bethlehem, Gorka now finds himself with a highly successful music career that has recently been capped off by his fourth album, Out of the Valley, a slightly more serious, dramatic and personal record than his previous efforts. It features highprofile Gorka fans Mary-Chapin Carpenter and Kathy Mattea on guest vocals.
With all of his recent success, Gorka, a soft-spoken and seemingly shy man, has found himself making several music videos and enjoying it quite a bit.
“It was fun,” says Gorka on the making of his most recent videos, “Good Noise” and “When She Kisses Me,” which, along with his two previous ones, have been receiving a lot of airplay on Country music video programs, exposing him to an even wider audience. “I never expected to ever make a video. It’s kind of an unexpected way of getting exposure. As long as I had a guitar, I wasn’t feeling like I had to be an actor. As long as I could be myself, I knew it would be all right.”
JOHN GORKA appears with Patty Larkin, Cheryl Wheeler and Cliff Eberhardt at 8 p.m.
New Jersey native John Gorka, who lives in sota and Pennsylvania, says Ohio is like home,
CityBeat
(Chevy
Hatch Harrison (Jeff Goldblum) faces unseen dangers after coming back from the dead in Hideaway. should
BY JOHN M. JAMES
MARCH 3 & 4 DESPERADO’S (Middletown, OH) MARCH 10 & 11 THE BLUE NOTE (4520 W.StbSt) Call our all new information line for tour dates and get on our new mailing list! 331-5023
(Choose
in the ’20s and
of
of
tocracy, the Algonquin Round Table. You decide: Does Rudolph’s film portray this collection of writers, editors, poets and humorists literary geniuses or simply a bunch of harddrinking, loose-living decadents? To no surprise, they're a little bit of both. One of the more anticipated independent movies from ’94, chances are that this will be its only area showing. For lovers of art films, a road trip may be in order. With Campbell Scott and Matthew Broderick. (Rated R; opens Friday at the New Neon Movies, Dayton.) No screening.
ROOMMATES Being inspired by a true story does not necessarily make a movie good. After the death of his parents, young Michael moves in with his 75-year-old grandfather Rocky Holeczek (Peter Falk). How long will Rocky stay with his grandson? “For as long as you need me," Rocky tells the young boy. What develops is friendship that spans more than 30 years. Michael (D.B. Sweeney) goes away to college, becomes a surgeon, gets married and has a family. The ornery Rocky is there every step of the way.
In real life, Rocky and Michael’s story probably inspires. Well, none of that poignancy finds its way to the silver screen. Poor Disney; its reputation for making trite, overly sentimental, always predictable family movies becomes worse with each film. Sure, Disney animation movies excel, but lately the live-action flicks pretty much stink. It’s not for lack of trying. Screenwriters Max Apple (The Air Up the There) and Stephen Metcalfe (Cousins) use every trick in the book. Roommates plays like a fish-out-of-
Blues Meets
21st Century Dub
G. Love & the Special Sauce and Blues musician Keb Mo.
If the name of Dayton, Ohio, native Skip McDonald doesn’t ring yer bell, I’d hope his tasty career with Keith LeBlanc and Doug Winbush (of the late Living Colour) as the house band on the Sugarhill label in the late ’70s and early ’80s might. The threesome shook down a new sound with work behind the scenes on such hits as Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message’’ and on The Funky Four Plus One’s "The Joint.” For the next decade, the core three became four with the partnership of dub producer extraordinaire Adrian Sherwood and the deep progressive sounds of Dub Syndicate, Tackhead, FatsComet and African Headcharge on Sherwood’s On U Sound label. Thus the past; now on to the present and the futuristic kink that this quorum of funk has laid down as a homage to the American Blues.
In the way that Deep Forest integrated computer sampling, rain forest recordings and world-beat music into a surprisingly "human” feel, Little Axe does the same with the Blues. Little Axe weaves the gritty voices of Leadbelly and Howlin’ Wolf and Bible Belt lyrics of soul redemption, above the funk and drop-dead rhythm of this slippery wet production. Highly, highly recommended.
Releases Coming Tuesday
And like the winds, young grasshopper, are subject to change.
Adam Ant Wonderful (Capitol); Archers of Loaf Vee Vee (Alias); the Cakekitchen Stompin' Thru the Boneyard (Merge); Elvis Costello Goodbye Cruel World (Rykodisc), reissue from 1984 with 10 bonus tracks; Elvis Costello Punch the Clock (Rykodisc), reissue from 1983 with seven bonus tracks; Christopher Cross Window (Rhythm Safari); Firehouse 3 (Epic); Mark Johnson Daydream (JVC); Pat McLaughlin Get Out & Stay Out (Dos); Morphine "Honey White" (Rykodisc), CD 5-inch single; Mojo Nixon Whereabouts Unknown (Ripe & Ready); Portastatic Scrapbook (Merge) EP; Portrait All That Matters (Capitol); Psychic TV A Hollow Cost (Invisible); Queen At the BBC (Hollywood), sessions from 1973; Spent Songs of Rebellion & Drinking (Merge); United Future Organization No Sound is Too Taboo (Polygram), Acid Jazz; Urban Dance Squad Persona Non Grata (Virgin); various artistsTower of Song - Tribute to Leonard Cohen (A&M), with Tori Amos, Bono, Martin Gore and more. JOHN JAMES can be found behind the counter at Wizard Records in Corryville.
Jazz Giant Joe Lovano
Brings Heartfelt Sax To Hyatt
INTERVIEW BY KATHY Y
In Jazz, it’s always something. That something comes in distractions that keep players from playing and distractions that keep listeners from listening and appreciating.
In recent history, discussions in popular Jazz have swirled around Wynton’s arrogance and his elevation of the music; Branford going off to play with Sting; Wynton in his designer suits and hiring practices; Branford going off to lead The Tonight Show band, and so on.
Despite all that, there’s much more to Jazz than the goings-on of the Marsalises. Further, as witnessed by more recent talk of racism and the colorization of Jazz, it is obvious Jazz has never been immune to the ills plaguing the rest of the world. Actually, it’s been more like a mirror, accurately reflecting society’s goings-on.
In the midst of all this, Joe Lovano stands as an anomaly, blowing his tenor and soprano saxes for the sake of music and the exchange of its inherent ideas.
“The world of Jazz is about the multicultural exchange of expression,” Lovano says from his New York City loft. “All musics influence each other.”
Growing up in Cleveland, Lovano said some of his fondest musical memories started with the honking tenor of his father, Tony “Big T” Lovano. It was in the clubs of Cleveland and Cincinnati that Lovano, 43, honed his abilities. But watching and hearing such lions as Ben Webster^Gene Ammons, Miles Davis, Sony Stitt, Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young didn’t intimidate the young Lovano. As he puts it, “As you’re growing up, it’s hard to define, but your own experiences help shape your sound.”
His early work like when he was 23, playing Cincinnati’s Club Viking in 1975 with organist Jack McDuff— helped solidify his chameleonlike abilities.
Lovano’s improvisation, while sightreading and all the while taking direction from the band leader, takes more than talent. It requires tremendous recall while being immersed in the moment.
While Lovano has been a sideman with John Scofield, Peter Erskine and played in the horn section of Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra, he says practically everything he has done musically has culminated with his latest release, Rush Hour, his fifth Blue Note release. “That all prepared me for a session of this magnitude; not only to interpret the music, but to follow the conductor,” he says.
On Rush Hour, Lovano cements a
nearly 20-year relationship with composer/conductor and arranger Gunther Schuller by playing the compositions of Ellington, Monk, Mingus and Ornette Coleman as well as Schuller originals.
Backed by differing configurations of strings, woodwinds and brass, Lovano elevates such untouchables as Mingus’ “Peggy’s Blue Skylight” and Monk’s “Crepuscule with Nellie” to intricate levels of melodic drama.
There’s a catch. If he can repeat all 12 grades of school in less than six months,
next seat, this reviewer’s wife breaks into loud laughter. She was not alone. Roommates is laughably bad. We learn that Rocky lives 107 years. This film feels just as long. With Julianne Moore and Ellen Burstyn. (Rated PG; opens Friday at area Loews Theatres.)
CltyBeat grade: F.
KRZYSZTOF KIESLOWSKI’S THREE COLORS Ending his career on a high note, Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Red earned Oscar nominations for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Cinematography. People either love or hate Kieslowski. Academy voters love him this year. Audiences also loved Red's story of a young woman (Irene Jacob) who enters into the life of a bitter, retired judge (Jean-Louis Trintgnant). Dialogue often takes a back seat to the director’s photography in his films. Emotions are represented visually through objects like telephones and short-wave radios. For those who enjoyed Red and missed the earlier two films in Kieslowski’s trilogy, here’s a wonderful chance to sit back and watch a magnificent opus in its entirety. Similar in §tyle to Red, Kieslowski’s first installment, Blue, looks at Julie (Juliette Binoche), a woman who must come to terms with the loss of her family. Possessing a sharp, comic sensibility, White presents a fairly slap-stick tale about a Polish hairdresser (Zbigniew Zamachowski) and his French wife (Julie Delpy). Kieslowski’s style sometimes leaves audiences questioning. Whether watching the trilogy in its entirety, or one of the individual stories, here's the rule for enjoying a Kieslowski film: Don’t think, just feel. (All three films are rated R; opens Friday at The Movies.)
CityBeat grade: A.
“It’s your imagination that you have to let open,” Lovano says of the session, which he compares to Miles Davis’ work with Gil Evans where Miles “reacted to what he heard.”
Catch Joe Lovano at the Hyatt on Saturday.
“You have to be pretty relaxed, or it’s not going to work,” explains Lovano, who will bring his Jazz to the Hyatt’s Sungarden Lounge on Saturday. “It was a real challenge. To play in a large ensemble (on Rush Hour) and still have it be a complete performance was my goal.”
Just as he has contributed to the music of his contemporaries, Lovano looks for those he feels will “contribute to the music” when hiring sidemen. Playing with Lovano on his tour are trumpeter and Dayton native Tim Hagans, bassist Anthony Cox and drummer Carmen Castaldi. Lovano said the band will play tunes from Universal Language and Tenor Legacy, the latter of which was nominated for a Grammy this year for “Jazz Ensemble Performance.”
Excited yet unfazed by the Grammy nod, Lovano holds firm to his belief that if he remains true to his instincts, eventually people will listen. “Your audience just builds through the years. I want people to be aware of my music. The thing is to try to stay within the music and present new musical ideas.”
JOE LOVANO
BILLY MADISON Comedian Adam Sandler of TV’s Saturday Night Live makes the leap to movie-star status in this story about a 27-year-old man, Billy Madison (Sandler) who wants to inherit his father’s (Darren McGavin) billion-dollar hotel business.
WILSON
PHOTO: JIMMY KATZ. GIANT STEPS
bumblers who cross the country to return some stolen loot to its rightful owner. 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.) FAR FROM HOME THE ADVENTURES OF YELLOWDOG
20th Century Fox's family adventure Far from Home tells the 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 is for the pooches. Woof. With Jesse Bradford, Mimi Rogers and a certain yellow dog. (Rated PG; at Norwood, Turfway Park, Forest Fair and Biggs Place Eastgate.)
★ FORREST GUMP
After raking in 13 Oscar nominations, our man Gump is bouncing back to a theater near us. Tom Hanks combines the right amount of syrupy pathos with humor in his portrayal of a simple man's travels through life. The masses adore Forrest Gump. Let's see what those 4,924 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences think. (Rated PG-13; at area Showcase Cinemas.)
★ FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL The talent behind Four Weddings and a Funeral may be British from top to bottom, but American audiences catapulted to blockbuster status this lighthearted
romance about a die-hard bachelor (Hugh Grant) who falls for an American woman (Andie MacDowell). Don’t mention that to the British press though; it’s a bit of a sore spot. Now with Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Original
★ HEAVENLY CREATURES It may be the most famous criminal case in New Zealand's history. Pauline Parker (Melanie Lynskey) and Juliet Hulme (Kate Winslet), look to escape their homes in 1952. For these two girls, murder may be a means for happi ness. Leave it to New Zealand director Peter Jackson to make a movie that is one part love story and one part horror movie.
Head Lines
BY GARY GAFFNEY
HIGHLANDER
★
movies. With Clive Merrison and Sarah Peirse. (Rated R; closes Thursday at the Esquire Theatre.)
HEAVYWEIGHTS In Heavyweights,
one's from direc-
HIGHER
(Farrah Fawcett)
Screenplay, Four Weddings and a Funeral returns to bask in the limelight. Also basking is British comedy writer Richard Curtis. After penning some classic works for British TV such as Mr. Bean and Not the Nine O’clock News, his screenplay’s nomination brings some just recognition. (Rated PG-13; closes Thursday at Showcase Cinemas Cincinnati.)
MIXED NUTS As proprietor of the Lifesavers suicide-prevention hot line, Philip (Steve Martin) faces crises both personal and professional in director Nora Ephron’s (Sleepless in Seattle) adaptation of the hit French film Le Pere Noel est une Ordure. With Madeline Kahn. (Rated PG-^13; closes Thursday at Turfway.)
★ NELL Jodie Foster, the industry’s most powerful woman, tackles Nell, a story about a young recluse who is discovered by Dr. Jerome Lovell (Liam Neeson), a local physician, and some university psychologists, including Dr. Paula Olsen (Nastasha Richardson). Lovell believes Nell should be left alone and the university psychologists feel that Nell should be placed in a hospital under their care. Nominated for another Best Actress Oscar, Foster proves she can tackle a role that is far removed from how audiences perceive her (very smart, articulate and attractive) and makes it work. With Jeremy Davies. (Rated R; closes Thursday at Loews Theatres Kenwood Towne Centre and Florence; opens Friday at Norwood, Turfway, Forest Fair and Biggs Place Eastgate.)
★ NOBODY’S FOOL An American acting treasure returns to the silver screen with a melancholy tale of an older man named Sully (Paul Newman), who faces up to abandoning his family in a small New England town.
Leaving Her Majesty Behind
Desiring opportunities created by U.S. dollars some Brits come to America; others wait for backing to cross the Atlantic
BY STEVE RAMOS
Upon hearing the news, Danny Boyle was elated. Britain’s independent Channel 4 head David Aukin, who financed Four Weddings and a Funeral and The Madness ofKing George III, had put up capital to make Shallow Grave, a thriller about a corpse, roommates and stolen money. The film needed a director. Perfect timing. Boyle had spent years directing plays at the Royal Court Theatre and TV shorts for the BBC. Heading to an audition with the producers, Boyle knew he was right for the job. Twenty other filmmakers felt the same way.
“It’s difficult to get a feature film in Britain,” Boyle says, speaking from his home in London. “There’s not many jobs around, and as a young director, people suspect if you are technically qualified.” Fortunately, Boyle said the right things, gave the right answers, made the right impression and beat out everyone for the job. Also fortunate for the producers, Shallow Grave is a box-office hit in Britain and opening to critical raves in cities across America. (Shallow Grave will come to Cincinnati later this spring.)
Tasting first-time success, Boyle feels optimistic. He wants more choices and bigger films. Hollywood is on his mind. It’s not the money.
“There’s a certain level of audience that you can’t get near unless you’re prepared to work with people like Tom Cruise or Julia Roberts, stars who actually have the trust of an audience who are prepared to pay their money out for something weird like a serious art vampire movie,” he says. “The only film that’s cracked the world market without a big star is Four Weddings and a Funeral, which is extraordinary.
The film’s director, Mike Newell, agrees. With a Best Picture nomination, Four Weddings and a Funeral astounds people with its phenomenal box-office success. Newell has been directing movies in Britain for 20 years. Earning a mainstream audience is new for him, but suecess has its benefits.
Now, Newell heads a Disney-backed production company with impressive development funds and the authority to greenlight films with budgets up to $12 million. That’s three times the cost of Four Weddings and a Funeral. Newell remembers that American audiences first discovered his British comedy and propelled it to worldwide attention. Speaking at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, where Four Weddings and a
Funeral world-premiered American movie deal
“I very strongly
PHOTO: TOM SCHIFF
Mike Newell, director of Four Weddings and A Funeral, now heads a Disneybased production company.
Danny Boyle
movie to date. With Mira Sorvino and David Paynier. (Rated R; closes Thursday at area Showcase Cinemas, continues at Showcase Cinemas Cincinnati.)
★ RED People either love or hate Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski. Nominating Red for Best
Culkin has finally found a perfect role. Based on the popular children’s comic book, Richie Rich weaves a rather simple message about the importance of friendship with a light-hearted romp about kidnapped parents and a search for hidden loot. Plus, Warner Bros, unveils its first new Roadrunner cartoon, a short titled Chariots of Fur, in more than 30 years. With Jonathan Hyde and Edward Herrman. (Rated PG; closes Thursday at Showcase Cinemas Cincinnati.)
★ THE RIVER WILD In the lat est effort, director Curtis Hanson (The Hand that Rocks the Cradle) turns Meryl Streep into an action heroine. Facing terror from two criminal goons, Streep’s character leads her husband and son on a white-water rafting trip. What the story lacks character development, it makes up with frantic action and breathtaking photography. With Kevin Bacon and David Straithairn. (Rated PG-13; at Norwood, Turfway and Biggs Place Eastgate.)
THE SANTA CLAUSE Tim Allen makes the leap from TV stardom to the big screen. 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. With Judge Reinhold and Peter Boyle. (Rated PG; at Norwood, Turtway, Forest Fair and Biggs Place Eastgate.) THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION Based on the Stephen King short story "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption,” director Frank Darabont inspires more than frightens with this tale of friendship behind bars. Voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences were very inspired; they nominated The Shawshank Redemption for Best Picture Oscar, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actor for Morgan Freeman. With Tim Robbins. (Rated R; at area Showcase Cinemas.)
SPEECHLESS In director Ron Underwood’s Speechless, 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. Their story contains more laughs. With Christopher Reeve and Bonnie Bedelia. (Rated PG-13; closes Thursday at Norwood and Turfway.)
STARGATE Cutting-edge special
Hawthorne Brings Oscar-Worthy Hilarity To Act of Losing One’s Sanity
REVIEWBY STEVE RAMOS
Scandalous no more, royal-watching goes legit in director Nicholas Hytner’s The Madness ofKing George. With nominations of Best Actor for Nigel Hawthorne (King George III) and Best Supporting Actress for Helen Mirren (Queen Charlotte), The Madness ofKing George pulls its topic from supermarket tabloids and thrusts it into an opulent movie adaptation of playwright Alan Bennett’s The Madness of George the Third.
More family drama than historical set piece, The Madness ofKing George peeks at the royal family’s back-stabbing, circa 1789. Dirty laundry seldom looks this good.
“I’ve had no piece of mind since we lost the colonies,” complains King George III to Prime Minister William Pitt (Julian Wadham). Life’s a bit rough for his royal highness. It doesn’t help matters when one’s senses begin to fade. The king talks to farm animals. Leaping out of his bed at sunrise, he leads his servants on an impromptu run through the countryside.
That’s not fitting for a country’s ruler, thinks Charles James Fox (Jim Evans) and other disgruntled members of Parliament. Plotting against the king, they find an ally in his son, the Prince of Wales (Rupert Everett).
“What must I do to be taken seriously?” he cries out. “To be Prince of Wales is not a condition. It’s a predicament.”
Sound familiar? Comparisons to Prince Charles and today’s House of Windsor are hilariously obvious. Bennett’s sharp script overflows with laughs. Chuck the Masterpiece Theatre perception out the window; this movie has spunk.
Consider the premise: A ruler dips into insanity and fights to retain his power. Jumping from stage to screen, Hawthorne leaps at the chance for chewing different scenery. He steps onto the center stage and everyone else pales in comparison. This is Hawthorne’s picture to either drop or run with. He makes like an Olympic sprinter. An Oscar may be within his grasp.
A renowned stage director (Miss Saigon, Carousel), Hytner uses the broader spaces of cinema to unfold his story across magnificent locations. Its production is very
Hollywood. In fact, The Madness ofKing George is the most Hollywoodlooking film to come from Britain in some time. After so many drab films from the British film industry, The Madness ofKing George surprises. (Who knows? After Four Weddings and a Funeral, British film crews may only make American-looking films from now on.)
Greville (Rupert Graves, left) and the royal pages chase after a distressed king (Nigel Hawthorne, center) in The Madness Of King George.
Fine performances like actor Ian Holm as Dr. Willis give this story zest. Everett’s spin on a bored blue-blood is a great comic ton.
Mirren’s (The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover ) consistent composure keeps the story realistic. During a concert, when the king begins a tirade, she explains to the astonished audience that “it must have been something he ate.” She understands the importance of protocol.
Royal-watchers and those Windsors should heed as well.
CityBeat grade: B.
BRITS: FROM PAGE 21
work around at the moment,” he says. “Last year was excellent in the British film industry. We did First Knight, Rob Roy, Judge Dredd. We did a lot of work with American money.”
Jeyes knows that the glory of days of British film are over, but the British film industry will go on. That is, if the government cooperates. “When American companies come over, it’s still the British film industry. What the government has to do is give some sort of tax relief so the American studios will come over with their money. It’s quite good money. They pay better than the British.”
More big, American paychecks are coming Jeyes’ way. He begins work shortly on United Artists’ latest James Bond film. Goldeneye. Long a fixture in American indepen-
dent film, Tim Roth continues to reach larger audiences. He will be seen this April in the big-budget adventure movie Rob Roy.
Directly after finishing Four Weddings and a Funeral, Mike Newell began production on his longplanned project, An Awfully Big Adventure, to be released later this year. Currently, Sony Pictures is considering him to direct the high-profile movie The Juror, with Alec Baldwin and Demi Moore. And Danny Boyle?
Before the success of Shallow Grave, Boyle put together a deal to make a small film about drug addicts in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Grandfather Rocky Holeczek (Peter Falk) and grandson Michael
share a home for more than 30 years in Roommates.
effects wrap around a rather old-fashioned science-fiction epic. 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 Forest Fair.)
STAR TREK GENERATIONS
TV’s Next Generation.has pushed James T. Kirk and company off the silver screen. 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. With Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Frakes. (Rated PG; opens Friday at Norwood, Turfway, Forest Fair and Biggs Place Eastgate.)
STREET FIGHTER Inspired by the video game, Street Fighter puts Jean-Claude Van Damme, the Muscles of Brussels, in a cartoon environment about an Allied Nations commando team against the psychotic warlord Gen. M. Bison (the late Raul Julia). Director Steven De Souza, screen writer for Die Hards 1 & 2, gets the chance to prove if he can direct all the stuff that his imagination comes up with. With Kylie Minogue and Wes Studi. (Rated PG-13; at Norwood, Turfway, Forest Fair and Biggs Place Eastgate.)
TALES FROM THE CRYPT PRESENTS DEMON KNIGHT With the Crypt Keeper as a ghoulish host, Tales from the Crypt takes its unique mix of black comedy and pulp horror to the big screen. 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 Norwood, Turfway, Forest Fair and Biggs Place Eastgate and Westwood.)
Shown with Freedom on My Mind, A.R.M. Around Moscow looks at the American Matchmaking agency’s efforts at arranging marriages between American men and Russian women. (Unrated; noon Saturday, Room 165, Muntz Hall, Raymond Walters College.)
★ THE BLUES BROTHERS Director John Landis (Beverly Hills Cop) crafts Dan Ackroyd’s and the late John Belushi’s TV routine into a fantastic mix of old-fashioned musical numbers with large-scale stunts and special-effects. With Carrie Fisher. (Rated R; midnight Friday and Saturday, The Movies.)
★ DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST Closing the International Women’s Day Film Series, director Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust looks at a family of Gullah women who live on the sea islands off the South Carolina coast at the turn of century. With narration by actress BarbaraO, who plays Yellow Mary in the film. (Unrated; 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Room 329, Dyer Hall’, University of Cincinnati. 556-1826.)
★ 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 proved himself to be an up-and-comer with this thoughtful story about a group of teenagers set in a Texas high school, circa 1976. (Rated R; midnight Friday and Saturday at the Page Manor Cinema, Dayton, Ohio. 513-258-2800.)
Series, Kush looks at the culturally roots for the sexuality of South Asian lesbians and gay men who live in Britain, North America and India. (Unrated; 3:30 p.m. Friday, Room 329, Dyer Hall, University of Cincinnati. 556-1826. Also at 7 p.m. Friday at Crazy Ladies Bookstore.)
★ LOVE, WOMAN AND FLOWERS Continuing the International Women’s Day Film Series, Love, Woman and Flowers looks at the hazardous labor conditions for the 60,000 women who work in Colombia’s flower industry. (Unrated; 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, Room 329, Dyer Hall, University of Cincinnati. 556-1826.)
MARY SHELLY’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. Unfortunately, it seldom scares. With Tom Hulce and Helena Bonham Carter. (Rated R; midnight Friday at the New Neon Movies, Dayton.)
★ MOVING MOUNTAINS
Shown with Freedom on My Mind, Moving Mountains looks at the Yiu Mien, a group of Southeast Asian refugees who settled in the Pacific Northwest. (Unrated; noon Saturday, Room 165, Muntz Hall, Raymond Walters College.)
THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE
Openings
BEAR GRAPHICS AND ILLUSTRATION GALLERY - The Art of the Car features original illustrated automotive art by Bob Woolf, David Skrzelowski, Steve Petrosky, Tom Osborne, Mike Brann, Russ Brandenburg and David Lord. Opening reception, 6:30-10:30 p.m. Saturday. Through May. A portion of the proceeds will benefit The Arthritis Foundation. Noon-5 p.m. TuesdaySaturday. 105 E. Main St., Mason. 398-2788.
CARNEGIE ARTS CENTER Paintings by Paige Williams Murphy, assistant professor at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, are displayed in the Duveneck Gallery. Opening reception, 5:30-10 p.m. Friday. Through March 25. 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
noon-9 p.m. Friday and Saturday. 1101 St. Gregory St., Mount 651-1441.
MARITAIN GALLERY by William Schickel and Georges Rouault. Opens Opening reception, 2-4 Through April 30. 1-5 p.m. Sunday-Friday. 127 W. Loveland Loveland. 683-1152.
MILLER GALLERY of New England features ings by Rudy Colao, Bernard Anders Gisson, Lewis Gordon, Jonathan Hotz, Stapleton Nicholas, James O’Neil, John Terelak and Lori Zummo. Opening reception, 6-9 Through March 25. 10 a.m.-5 Monday-Saturday. 2715 Hyde Park. 871^1420.
★ TONI BIRCKHEAD Recent paintings by Kim who teaches at the Art Academy. Opening reception, 6-8 p.m. Through April 14. 10 a.m.4 days, Saturday by appointment. W. Fourth St., Downtown.
★ UC HEALTH SCIENCE LIBRARY Melvin Grier’s photographic documentary, Without Prejudice, his view flict, loss and dislocation by a group of Avondale residents whose homes were demolished replaced by a Cincinnati lot, stands in contrast to Bolden's more cerebral photographic abstractions of the human Opens Monday. Opening
Susan Forman’s “Killer Tornadoes Touch Down
Kansas” is on display at C.A.G.E. through March Tuesday-Friday, noon4 p.m. Saturday. 1028 Scott Blvd., Covington. 491-2030.
THE WALKING DEAD With a strong track record in African-American cinema, producers George Jackson and Douglas McHenry (New Jack City, Jason's Lyric) bring the Vietnam movie full circle with this look at the experience of African-American soldiers in the war. Sgt. Barkley (Joe Morton)
★ DREAMING RIVERS Shown with Acting Our Age, Dreaming Rivers addresses the experience of Caribbean immigrants in Britain from the viewpoint of a middle-age black woman on her death bed. (Unrated; 3:30 p.m. Thursday, Room 329, Dyer Hall, University of Cincinnati. 556-1826.)
★ DRIVING MISS DAISY With the Oscars close by, the folks at the Emery Theatre trot out this sentimental favorite from ’89. Driving Miss Daisy took home Oscars for Best
SHOW 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.)
★ SCHINDLER’S LIST This grand achievement by director Steven Spielberg becomes more poignant upon each showing. All the annoying hype and crass marketing have diminished. What remains is simply
★ CINCINNATI ART CLUB Presents a recent selection of Pat O'Brien’s silk paintings and Susan Pater’s watercolors. Opening reception, 5-9 p.m. Friday. Through March 19. The gallery is open 5-9 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 1-5 p.m. Sunday. 1021 Parkside Place, Mount Adams. 241-4591.
★ CINCINNATI ART MUSEUM All The World Arrayed, a salute to the 50th anniversary of the United Nations, showcases the Museum’s finest examples of ethnic dress; Chinese robes, Indian saris, Japanese kimonos, African robes and Rumanian dresses. There will
PHOTO: BOB MARSHAK
(D.B. Sweeney)
Art
★ GALLERY AT WELLAGE & BUXTON Ballard Borich, a noted poet, displays his abstract paintings on paper in A Larger Group of Smaller Paintings. Through March .25. 10 a.m.5 p.m. weekdays, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday. 1431 Main St., Over-theRhine. 241-9127.
GLASS CRAFTERS STAINED
CINCINNATI NATURE CENTER
GLASS STUDIO Features handcrafted stained and beveled glass 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.
On display are detailed drawings of vintage architecture by Clermont County resident Frank Herman. For the past 20 years, Herman has been a client of Clerco Inc., an adult sheltered workshop for the mentally retarded and developmental^ disabled. Through March 12. 4949 Tealtown Road, Milford. 831-1711.
GOLDEN RAM GALLERY Original oil paintings by Nelle Ferrara. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday; 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Wednesday; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday. 6810 Miami Ave., Madeira. 271-8000.
★ 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, Julie Morrow DeForest 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.
HARROGATE Works exhibited are mostly of maritime themes including 19th and 20th century paintings, ship models and artifacts. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday. 3075 Madison Road, Oakley. 321-6020.
★ HEBREW UNION COLLEGE SKIRBALL MUSEUM Aishet
Hayil: Woman of Valor features paintings, textiles and sculptures. Through March 31. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. MondayThursday, 2-5 p.m. Sunday. 3101 Clifton Ave., Clifton. 221-1875.
HILLEL JEWISH STUDENT CENTER Michal Koren, Jonah Tobias, Nate Waspe and Pam Zelman, students from UC’s school of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning, display their work. Through March 31. 9 a.m.-
★ CLOSSON’S GALLERY KENWOOD Paintings, primarily abstracts, by Nellie Leaman Taft. Through March 18. 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Saturday. 7866 Montgomery Road, Kenwood. 891-5531.
★ COLLECTOR BOOK AND PRINT GALLERY The politically motivated lithographs of Gabriel Glikman, Russian Jewish artist and sculptor are on display. Through March 31. 3-6 p.m. WednesdaySaturday, 1-5 p.m. Sunday. 1801 Chase Ave., Northside. 542-6600.
SHARON COOK GALLERY
★ 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, born and raised in Newport and now living in Florida, combines remnants and artifacts of his past unearthed recently during visit to his torn-down former residence with these powdered graphite drawings. Through March 18. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. 1435 Main St., Over-the-Rhine. 651-4613.
Serene transitional to wild abstract imagery. The gallery represents Phoenix Art Press and Winn-Devon. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday. 1118 Pendleton, Over-the-Rhine. 579-8111.
FITTON CENTER FOR CREATIVE ARTS Class Act is a student exhibition. Through March 3. In the lobby, there will be Chinese New Year paintings. Through March 19. 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday, 9 a.m.-noon Saturday. 101 S. Monument Ave., Hamilton. 863-8873. GALLERY 48 Action Auction Art. March 1-April 28. The auction will take place April 20-28. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays. 1223 Central Parkway, Over-the-Rhine. 381-4033.
JAMAR GALLERY Has closed and is currently looking for a new location. It will be located temporarily at 79 Locust Hill Road, Anderson Township. By appointment only. 752-1344.
KALDI’S COFFEE HOUSE & BOOKSTORE Pam Polley's paintings, queens I have known, attempt to overcome stereotypical expectations of women, celebrating instead their strength, sexuality and power. Through March 31. 7 a.m.-l a.m. MondayThursday, 7 a.m.-2:30 a.m. Friday, 10 a.m.-2:30 a.m. Saturday, 10 a.m.midnight Sunday. 1202 Main St., Overthe-Rhine. 241-3070.
KZF GALLERY Paintings and drawings by Ken Landon Buck; sculpture by Barbara Beatrice; paintings and prints by B.B. Hall. Through April. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays. 655 Eden Park Drive, seventh floor, Walnut Hills. 621-6211.
LEFTHANDED MOON - A continu ing exhibition of hand-carved and painted fimo pendants by Jeni B. and ceramic rattles by Nance Emmet. Tarot readings noon-3 p.m. every Saturday. 11:30 a.m.-7 p.m. MondaySaturday. 48 E. Court St., Downtown. 784-1166.
MACHINE SHOP GALLERY
Juried DAAP Undergraduate Show. Through March 17.11 a.m.-2 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. 100 E. Central Parkway, Over-the-Rhine. 556-1928.
★ MALTON GALLERY - Amish Drawings, highlights works by a selftaught anonymous Amish girl from Holmes County, Ohio. Gallery One. Works by Fran Watson, Amy Mehalick and Althea Thompson are on display in Gajlery Two. Both shows run through March. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday. 2709 Observatory Ave., Hyde Park. 321-8614. ★ MARTA HEWETT GALLERY Glass sculpture by Edward
p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. 1315 Main St.. Over-the-Rhine. 241-6672.
PARISIAN GALLERYFeatures 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 Presents Key to the Heart featuring works by jewelry artist Angela Cummins. Through March 11. Defined Paper, features the works of Berringer, Clark, Hall and Hubert. Through March 31. 10 a.m.4 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, or by appointment. Dixie Terminal Arcade, 49 E. Fourth St., Downtown. 651-5885.
PENDLETON ART CENTER This building houses a multitude of artists. 1310 Pendleton St., Over-the-Rhine. 721-6311.
GRETA PETERSON GALERIE Curator Tom Bryant’s Tomar Collection features paintings by Spaniard Evaristo Alguacin, Swede Mona Starfelt, Neil Di Teresa, from Berea, Kentucky and Cincinnatian Mark Rozic, also, sculpture by Jeff Johnston, textiles from Sweden, Portugal, Italy and South America. Through April 1. 11 a.m.4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. 7696 Camargo Road, Madeira. 561-6785.
★ PUBLIC LIBRARY OF CINCINNATI AND HAMILTON COUNTY 86th Anniversary of the NAACP highlights selections of extensive resource materials in the Library’s collection related to the history of the NAACP, through March 3. 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. RAN GALLERY Permanent collection includes works by Potthast, Farny and Meakins.
Museums
★ CINCINNATI ART MUSEUMThe Dawn of Engraving: Masterpieces from the 15th Century features many fine examples of late Gothic and early Renaissance engraving; through July 23. Singing The Clay: Pueblo Pottery of ihe Southwest Yesterday and Today, features 11 examples of pottery from each pueblo; through June 4. Bill Mercer lectures on Pueblo Pottery: The Continuing Tradition. 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. $25, $32 adults, $28 students and seniors. Manet to ToulouseLautrec: French Impressionists to Post-Impressionist Prints and Drawings presented by PNC Bank; through March 5. Edward Potthast 1857-1927 features eight paintings by the native Cincinnatian; through March 5. Richard Bitting: Nine Sumrher 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. Free tours include Manet to ToulouseLautrec, 1 p.m. Thursday, 2 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday; Rookwood Pottery, 1 p.m.-Friday; Highlights of the CAM, noon Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday; and Painting of the Month: The Music Party, 2 p.m. Sunday. Free Family Fun Tours include Art Express: How Artists Work, 1 p.m. Saturday; The Design Game: Color, Line and Shape, 3 p.m. Saturday; and Getting Into Shape, 2 p.m. Sunday. $5 adults; $4 students and seniors; children free. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday. Eden Park. 721-5204.
MIAMI UNIVERSITY ART MUSEUM Distinct from 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; through March 10. Stitched, Woven and Plaited: Contemporary Craft Traditions ofAfrica; through June 11. Forever Flowers continues through Oct. 1. 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. Jack Keegan lectures on The Language of Flowers. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. 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 Art from Senegal is comprised of 70 works by 50 Senegalese artists; through March 5. $3.50 adults, $1.50 students. 9 a.m.5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 1-5 p.m. Sunday. 1350 Brush Row Road, Wilberforce. 513-376-4944.
★ THE TAFT MUSEUM A spe cial display of four works by Grandma Moses continues through March 19. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 1-5 p.m. Sunday. 316 Pike St., Downtown. $3 adults; $1 seniors and students; children 12 and under free. 241-0343. MORE, PAGE 26
There goes Christy-Jane! She spends a lot of time at that new restaurant, diJohn. What tales they tell about the goings on there! I hear they even make their own desserts!
★ CONTEMPORARY ARTS CENTER Carrie May Weems examines the status of African-Americans in today's society through narrative photographic images; through March 26. 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; through March 12. Sponsored by Reece Cambell Inc./Chronis Inc. Fine Arts Fund Corporate Partner: The Kroger Co. In Memory Spaces, Pittsburgh artist Paul Glabicki uses state-of-the-art computer programs while working simultaneously with paintings, drawings, photographic sequences and installation plans to create a continuous architectural landscape for the viewer to experience when projected three-dimensionally and viewed through polarized glasses; through April 5. 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. 345-8400.
Freed by the Fire
‘Singing the Clay offers vast overview ofPueblo pottery from mid-1800s to present day
REVIEW BY KEVIN OTT
In the last few years, Southwestern art and interior design have gone from the hot list to the “not” list. With catalogs such as Robert Redford’s “Sundance” and department stores selling the so-called “Southwestern look,” it quickly became a clichdd fashion. The prevalence of R.C. Gorman prints, Navajo-like geometric patterned shirts and sweaters, and all those lodge furnishings have once again shown America’s ability to take the unique and uncommercial and market it into oblivion.
One Southwestern art form that still holds up after this oversaturation is Pueblo pottery. The Cincinnati Art Museum’s current show, Singing the Clay, is a comprehensive overview of the diversity of styles that 12 pueblos, or communal villages, of the Southwest have produced and are still producing.
It is a unique art form, and each Pueblo embraces a certain style, using different types of clay, slips, coloring and firing. The best of these potters build their pieces by hand, or the coiling method; they are not wheel thrown. Most are not fired in electric kilns, but are fired in less predictable fire pits. The ability to form, decorate and fire a pot that lives up to our expectations for precision and perfection is difficult at best.
In Singing the Clay, 74 pieces of pottery from the museum’s collection that range in date from about 1850 to 1960 are juxtaposed with 37 recently acquired pots. This gives the viewer a chance to see the constants in Pueblo pottery through the years designs, shapes, materials. It also lets us see the advancement in the art. The newer pieces are generally more perfectly shaped, the designs painted more meticulously. The older pieces are not signed, with the exception of the Martinez family of the San Ildefonso Pueblo. The newer pieces are signed because these artists are competing to be purchased in galleries and elsewhere.
The museum’s collection of older pieces is impressive. Few museums can claim a collection of this size. Bill Mercer, assistant curator of Art of Africa and the Americas, has assembled a beautiful installation of these pieces. Pots sit at eye level or lower, without glass in front of them so that the viewer can see into the pieces, getting more of a feel for their dimension. The older pieces of a particular pueblo are on one side of the room with the contemporary pieces directly opposite. In the middle of the exhibition the raw materials and steps in the pottery-making process are shown.
The older pieces, although more crudely executed, are still striking. There are many large pieces, and their seemingly simple forms and designs seem to embody the spirit of their makers formed of earth, with only their hands, simple tools and natural pigments to bring them to life. In fact, Pueblo Indians were often buried with one of their pots, a hole knocked through the bottom to let their spirit escape.
With the help of donors, the museum purchased or commissioned the contemporary pieces from some of the
best Pueblo potters older counterparts, more symmetrical painted or incised
This contrast is from the Martinez Ildefonso, and their Martinezes pioneered among the first to 50 years old, these these is a beautiful Elvis Torres, a black-on-black on a flawlessly shaped
From the temporary exhibition, Singing The Clay: Southwest, Yesterday and Today, on view at through June 4.
Another interesting giant polychrome Nampeyo, the legendary polychrome jar. Tahbo’s fire clouds clouds during the firing of but a naturally produced, designs are graphically Santa Clara pots, feeling for the natural black, highly polished Ann Tafoya are simple and difficult to execute.
“Carved Redware
The pottery of is made with micaceous
RHETAUGH DUMAS As part of UC's Distinguished African-American Lecture Series, nurse and psychologist Rhetaugh Dumas, vice provost for health affairs at the University of Michigan, speaks on New Concepts for a New Century: Challenges for Nursing and Education. 3-4 p.m. Thursday. Procter Hall Auditorium, UC College of Nursing, Clifton. 556-1826.
GREATER CINCINNATI CONVENTION CENTER If you want to get depressed about your surroundings, check out the Home and Garden Show. 5-10 p.m. Thursday and noon10 p.m. Friday, noon-11 p.m. Saturday, noon-6 p.m. Sunday. Through March 5. $6.75 adults; $2.50 13 and under. 525 Elm St., Downtown. 352-3750.
THE GREATER CINCINNATI VEGETARIAN RESOURCE GROUP
Invites you to a buffet dinner. The cash bar opens at 6 p.m. Sunday, followed by dinner at 6:30 p.m. Matt Ball and Anne Green, co-authors of The Most Noble Diet, will speak at 7:30 p.m. and will be available to sign books following a Q&A session.
$15.50, $19 non-members, $5 children. Alpha Restaurant, 204 W. McMillan, Clifton. Call Jayn Meinhart at 961-5555 for more details.
LESLIE KING-HAMMOND The dean of graduate studies at the Maryland Institute College of Art will speak on Honoring Our Ancestors: African Burial Traditions in Postmodern America. 7 p.m. Thursday. Room 600, DAAP, UC, Clifton. 556-1824.
PUBLIC LIBRARY OF CINCINNATI AND HAMILTON COUNTY 800 Vine St., Downtown. 369-6900.
* REACH ACROSS DAYTON
This conference begins 6 p.m. Thursday with the opening reception of In the Spirit of the Family, an exhibit showcasing family memory boxes ereated by citizens of the Miami Valley. ...On Friday, there will be a display of photographs, Roots of Culture, from the Stivers Middle School. Authors Philip Obermiller, Roger Osborne and Margaret Peters will sign books from 1-2 p.m. Friday. The conference concludes 10 a.m. Saturday with JAZZ: A Multicultural Experience. Sinclair Community College, 444 W. Third St., Dayton. Call Tess Little at 513-449-5381 for more information.
THANK VAN GOGH IT’S FRIDAY The art museum’s bash starts at 5:30 p.m. Friday, with live music by Robin Lacy and DeZydeco and museurn tours at 6, 6:30, 7 and 7:30 p.m. $4, $6 non-members; $3 Friends of the CAC. Cincinnati Art Museum, Eden Park. 721-5204.
USED BOOK SALE The Anderson branch of the Public Library holds its annual book sale. On sale will be books, records, CDs, magazines, children’s books and puzzles.
Maximum Nutrition Show. 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Saturday and March 11. $3.50 adults; $2 ages 5-18. Playhouse Plaza. Tickets to all shows are half-price when purchased noon-2 p.m. the day of the show. Eden Park. 421-3888.
10 a.m.-9 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and noon-5 p.m. Sunday. Beechmont Mall, 7500 Beechmont Ave., Anderson Township. 369-6959.
COLLEGE OF MOUNT ST.
JOSEPH MUSIC DEPARTMENT Cathy Moore and James Schiebler direct Ernest in Love, musical comedy based Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. College Theatre, 5701 Delhi Road, Delhi Township. 244-4373.
1995 CINCINNATI INTERNATIONAL WINE FESTIVAL The festival continues Thursday with Wine Tasters' Dinners at area restaurants, Friday's events include The Linton Music Series’ Friday Taste of Chamber Music at 5:30 p.m. at the Cincinnati Convention Center, followed by a Grand Tasting at 6:30 p.m., and a trip on the Star of Cincinnati with entertainment by the Goshorn Bros, at 10 p.m. Saturday’s events take place at the Omni, the Westin, the Cincinnati convention center and the Phoenix. Call 241-3434 for more details.
1995 OHIO FESTIVAL OF LIGHT
Features 20 psychic readers, six free workshops and a market of unique crafts and gifts. 10 a.m.-
FAHRENHEIT THEATRE The world premiere of Stacy Jordan’s The Color Wheel, the story of two young women struggling to survive and find love, happiness and independence in 1990s America, continues through March 12. 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday. $7.50 adults; $6 students and seniors; $5 groups of 12 or more. Carnegie Theater, Carnegie Arts Center, 1028 Scott Blvd., Covington. 559-0642. The company will present a few scenes at Joseph-Beth Booksellers. Then, the actors, the playwright and a therapist will lead a discussion of the issues brought up in the play. 2-3:30 p.m. Saturday. Rookwood Pavilion, Madison and Edwards roads, Norwood. 396-8960.
6 p.m. Sunday. Holiday Inn, 451 Eastgate Blvd., Eastgate. 704-259-9774. It’s a long-distance call, but if your powers of clairvoyance are strong enough, maybe you can avoid using the phone, and help out next month’s telephone bill.
FALCON PRODUCTIONS Presents Shakespeare’s shortest play, The Comedy of Errors, first performed at Gray’s Inn on Dec. 28, 1594. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Through March 17. Westwood Town Hall, Harrison and Montana avenues, Westwood. 779-0571.
FOREST VIEW GARDENS Enjoy a three-hour meal brought to you by singers-servers who perform The Fabulous Forties. Through Feb. 26. Phantom opens March 2. Through April 2. Reservations required. Thursday-Sunday. 4508 North Bend Road, Monfort Heights. 661-6434.
KETTERING CHILDREN'S THEATRE Presents Tim Kelly’s Aladdin And His Wonderful, Magical Lamp, with music by Pam Hughes. 7 p.m. Friday, 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. Through March 12. $5 adults, $4 children 12 and under. Rosewood Arts Center, 2655 Olson Drive, Kettering. 296-0294.
MIAMI VALLEY DINNER THEATRE Gypsy, the musical based on the life of Gypsy Rose Lee, runs through April 29. $26.95-$34.95. Route 73, Springboro. 513-746-4554.
Theater
VICTORIA THEATRE ASSOCIATION Forever Plaid, a musical tribute to the "guy groups” of the ’50s and early '60s, closes March 5. 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 3 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday. $13-$17. Victoria Theatre, 138 N. Main St., Dayton, Ohio. 513-228-3630.
ARTS CONSORTIUM OF CINCINNATI AND THE CONTEMPORARYARTS CENTER Inspired by Carrie Mae Weems’ photographs, the Arts Consortium presents two one-act plays: Ted Shines’ Contributions Douglas Turner Ward’s Happy Endings. 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday. $10 in advance, $15 at the door, $8 for CAC members. 1515 Linn St., West End. 345-8400.
BEECHMONT PLAYERS
Bottoms Up, a rambunctious farce by Greg Kreutz, closes March 4. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. $7 adults; $6 students and seniors. Clermont College Theatre, 4200 Clermont College Drive, Batavia. 677-7380.
VILLAGE PUPPET THEATRE Charles Killian, the original founder of the theatre, presents The Dream of Prince Shiraz, an original work written and directed by Salil Singh with music by Ewar. The play is based on tales from Indian folklore and mythology, and uses both marionettes and shadow puppets. Through May 28. 4:30 and 7 p.m. Friday, 12:30, 2:30 and 4:30 p.m. Saturday and 12:30 and 2:30 p.m. Sunday. $5.25. Special showings and prices available for groups of 15 or more. 606 Main St., Covington. 291-5566 or through
★ CINCINNATI PLAYHOUSE IN THE PARK Presents the world premiere production of The Brothers Karamazov, a new play by Anthony Clarvoe based on the classic novel by Dostoyevsky. 8 p.m. WednesdayFriday, 5 and 9 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday. Through March 23. $19-$31. Robert S. Marx Theatre. Miami University professor Robert Bowie leads a discussion on Dostoyevsky. 2 p.m. Sunday. The play that catapulted Harold Pinter to international fame, The Caretaker, closes March 5. 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 5 and 9 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday. $22-$29. Thompson Shelterhouse. The Rosenthal Next Generation Theatre Series, a program of performances for young people, continues with Max Howard’s Max's
Select-A-Seat at 721-1000.
WRIGHT STATE UNIVERSITY Presents John Ford’s classic British tragedy ’77s Pity She’s a Whore. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday. Celebration theatre of the Creative Arts Center, 3640 Colonel Glenn Highway, Dayton. $5 adults; $2 students and seniors. 873-2500.
Classical Music
BELLAND-SCHONWEISS-SMITH TRIO The piano trio will perform works by Haydn and Ravel. 8 p.m. Wednesday. Free. Greaves Concert Hall, NKU, Highland Heights. 572-5433.
CINCINNATI COMMUNITY ORCHESTRA Presents its third concert of the season. The program includes Bach’s Mein Jesu, Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony and Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 in C minor. 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Matthews Auditorium, Princeton High School, 11080 Chester Road, Springdale. 732-2561.
THE CINCINNATI KLEZMER PROJECT An open rehearsal from the local ensemble features a repertoire gleaned from recorded Klezmer music, Yiddish theater songs and other Jewish Folk songs. 1:30-3:30 p.m. Sunday. Free. The College Hill Coffee Co., 6128 Hamilton Ave., College Hill. 542-BREW.
CINCINNATI POPS ORCHESTRA Keith Lockhart conducts From CCM to Broadway, with Dorian Harewood and Pam Myers as special guest artists. 8 p.m. Sunday. $12-$35. Music Hall, 1240 Elm St., Over-theRhine. 381-3300.
CINCINNATI SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Keith Lockhart conducts, with Cho-Liang Lin as guest. violinist. The program includes William Grant Still’s Festive Overture, Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35, Schelle’s Centennimania and Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. $10-$40. CCM professor Simon Anderson will speak about William Grant Still at 7 p.m. March 3 and 4. The lecture is free to concertgoers. Music Hall, 1240 Elm St., Over-theRhine. 381-3300.
COLLEGE-CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC Dominick Ar^ento’s chamber opera, Postcard From Morocco, is a student production. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Free. Dieterle Vocal Arts Center. Christopher Zimmerman conducts the Concert Orchestra, with selections from Wever, Bartok and Beethoven. 8 p.m. Saturday. $10 generSl admission, free to UC students. Corbett Auditorium. ..Vboth CCM Big Bands play an entire concert of music made famous by America's beloved band leader, Stan Kenton. 4 p.m. Sunday. $10 general admission, free to UC students. University of Cincinnati, Clifton. 556-4183.
DAYTON PHILHARMONICPresents
UtterKiosk
Patricide at the Playhouse
Demanding and intellectual , 'The Brothers Karamazov adds up to great theater
REVIEW BY RICK PENDER
SAMERICAN MUSEUM OF BREWING HISTORY AND ARTS
Houses the largest display of brewing and beer artifacts in the world. 10
a.m.:5 p.m. daily. $4 adult tour and tasting: $3 adult tour only; $2 beer tasting only; under 12 free. Oldenberg Complex, Interstate 75 at Buttermilk Pike, Fort Mitchell. 341-2802.
Young Readers' Events
ome of the most challenging narratives in Western literature flowed from the pen of 19th century Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. He created painfully human characters, tortured by indecision or wrong choices. He crafted tales in which these characters struggled to find meaning in their existence from every possible perspective: literal, moral, psychological, spiritual. Written over a century ago, Dostoyevesky’s sweeping novels have become classics, works that never fail to bring new meaning and satisfaction on a return visit.
Such is the case with a reincarnation of The Brothers Karamazov, staged by the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park.
BB RIVERBOATS Lunch, dinner, sightseeing cruises. Re-opens March 4. Cruises depart from BB Riverboats base at Covington Landing. $4.50$27.95. 261-8500.
BEHRINGER-CRAWFORD MUSE-
UM Housed within the historic Devou family home, it is the only museum of Northern Kentucky natural and cultural heritage. Harlan Hubbard Collectionis an assortment of oils, acrylics, watercolors and woodcuts donated by the artist/author in 1985. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 1-5 p.m. weekends. $2 adults: $1 students and seniors. Devou Park, Covington. 491-4003.
Playwright Anthony Clarvoe has masterfully distilled Dostoyevsky’s dense narrative into three acts of fascinating theater. To be sure, the experience of Clarvoe’s Karamazov is distinct from reading the novel. But the playwright has captured the essence of the novel onstage in a form that will lead those who treasure the Russian writer’s works to stand up and cheer.
BENNINGHOFFERN HOUSE
Be forewarned: This is not easy theater. The Brothers Karamazov is for serious thinkers, people who like to be challenged, to ponder the profound complexities of life, of relationships, of faith. On opening night, clearly, some in the audience had a hard time following the play’s muscular, complex story line, even though Clarvoe has effectively translated it for the stage. A familiarity with Dostoyevsky’s original would enhance one’s appreciation of the rich tapestiy of story and character.
This restored Victorian mansion, built in 1861, provides the setting for the Butler County Historical Museum. 1-4 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday. $1 adults: free children 12 and under. 327 N. Second St., German Village, Hamilton. 513-893-7111.
Nevertheless, Clarvoe has crafted a stunning work, one that serious theatergoers will enjoy, regardless of their acquaintance with the novel. The Brothers Karamazov is peopled by Fyodor Karamazov’s four sons, each born to different mothers. One is an ambitious and earnest religious devotee; another a cynical, faithless journalist; the third, a failed soldier and lover; and the fourth, a dimwitted servant. After the abusive senior Karamazov brings his sons together, he is murdered. Each has motive and opportunity, and we are lead to ponder the potential guilt of each. The exercise is a fascinating one.
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.
The brothers are well-cast. As the religious Aloysha, Matthew Rauch offers innocence and soul-searching, a painful yearning for deeper meaning. Michael Chaban is the tortured soldier Dmitri, torn between love, courage, nobility and financial instability. The intellectual atheist Ivan, as played by Michael Ornstein, is more of a caricature, but he has powerful moments, especially in the third act. Ed Shea portrays Smerdyakov, the weakminded bastard son forced into a life of servitude, with painful simplicity.
Robert Elliott is the contemptible father, capable of inflicting effortless humiliation on his sons. Curiously, Elliott plays the role with a Southern drawl, an aberration that distracts from his otherwise bold and swaggering portrait. Elliott creates a man both charming and fearful, one whose death we do not regret, even as his demise tortures each of the sons.
CHATEAU LAROCHE A one fifth scale medieval castle. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. weekends. $1. 12025 Shore Drive, Loveland. 683-4686.
★ CINCINNATI CHILDREN’S
Also to be noted are Susan Ericksen as the moral and upright Katya, Dmitri’s fiancee, cast aside for the prostitute Grushenka. Played with verve by Katherine Heasleya, Grushenka is woman also entangled with Dmitri’s father. When she and Dmitri engage in a reckless card game, the tension mounts as the stakes go up. It’s powerful, engaging and extremely sexual.
MUSEUM Newly opened interactive museum. Connie Ferguson’s School of Dance hosts a Tap and Jazz dance session, with audience participation. 1 and 3 p.m. Saturday. 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. Longworth Hall, 700 W. Pete Rose Way, Downtown. 421-5437.
Director Brian Kulick has expertly choreographed The Brothers Karamazov on an unusual stark set by
CINCINNATI FIRE MUSEUM Featuring permanent exhibit, The Early Volunteer Fire Fighters of Cincinnati,
Four brothers, the rate mystery come stage in Anthony Dostoyevsky’s The Mark Wendland, startlingly Wendland’s design strewn with crushed turned wooden chairs; sky. As the tale progresses, upward for walls, odd angles. A large Church, which appears third act, hung upside-down, increasingly turbulent.
“There are no light,” one character demanding staging tumes, also designed
Attractions
★ CINCINNATI MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY Dinosaurs
A Global View traces the evolution and life habits of dinosaurs over the changing face of the planet with 70 original paintings and drawings plus a group of realistic life-size models of several little known dinosaurs, including Styracosaurus, Deinonychis, a baby Titanosaurus plus a half restored skull of the terrible carnivore Albertosaurus. Through April 30. The Space Art of James Hervat will be on display through May 14. 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. 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. Museum Center at Union Terminal, 1301 Western Ave., Queensgate. 287-7020.
CINCINNATI PLANETARIUM
Sting narrates Prokofiev’s family classic, Peter and the Wolf: A Laser Tale, 1 p.m. Friday, 2, 4 and 7 p.m. Saturday and 2 and 4 p.m. Sunday. $4 adults; $3 children 12 and under. Native American Skies, 1 and 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday $3 adults; $2 children 12 and under. Laser Nine Inch Nails/Ministry, 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Lazerpalooza, 8:15 and 10:45 p.m. Friday and Saturday Laser Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon, midnight Friday and Saturday. Laser Floyd: The Wall, 8:15 and 9:30 p.m. Sunday. All laser rock shows are $6. Located in the Geier Collections and Research Center ofthe Cincinnati Museum of Natural History, 1720 Gilbert Ave., Walnut Hills. 395-3663.
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.
GREATER LOVELAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY A Civil War Display, featuring John Hunt Morgan's ride through Hamilton and Clermont counties opens March 11. Through May 29. Other highlights include a turn-of-the-century kitchen and the Nisbet Library. 201 Riverside Drive, Loveland. 683-5692.
Marni Penning (left) plays Abby, R. Chris Reeder represents the Voices that haunt her and Sharon Polcyn is Holly in Farhenheit Theatre Company’s The Color Wheel, through March 12 at the Carnegie Theatre.
HARDING MUSEUM OF THE FRANKLIN AREA HISTORICAL SOCIETY Open 1-5 p.m. Sunday and by appointment. 302 Park Ave., Franklin. 513-746-8295.
JOHN HAUCK HOUSE MUSEUM The Victorian house with painted ceilings, decorative arts and inlaid floors is displaying Antique Valentines, circa 1840-1900,-through March 5. ...Cincinnati at the Turn of the - Century, a postcard exhibit, runs through the fall. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Thursday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Friday and 1-5 p.m. Sunday. $2 adults; $1 seniors; $.50 children. 812 Dayton St., West End. 721-3570.
CINCINNATI RAILROAD CLUB, INC. The recently renovated historic railroad control tower that guided the passenger trains into and out of the former railroad passenger train terminal is now open to the public. On view in Tower A, are the tracks diagram board, the train dispatcher desk and the newly created largest railroad library in the United States. Free. 10-4 p.m. Saturday. Fifth floor, Union Terminal, Western Ave., Queensgate. 651-RAIL.
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 (32 hatched).
KROHN CONSERVATORYCincinnati’s flower house continues its Pre-Spring Floral Show. Florists will create the aura of New Orleans with lampposts, fountains, mirrors and thousands of brilliant blooming early spring bulbs. Through March 5. The African Violet Society’s display can be seen this weekend. 1.0 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. 421-4086.
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.
WLW’s Jim Scott kicks off the Celebrity Winter Walks, 1 p.m. Sunday. The series continues March 12 with Gallagher, March 18 with Marge Schott, and March 25 with Gary Burbank a.k.a. Earl Pitts. 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.
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: 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 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.
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 an extensive collection of paleontological and archaeological artifacts. 9 a.m.4 p.m. TuesdaySaturday. 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.
Park and Aqueduct. Parking $2, valet parking $3; grandstand admission $3.50, clubhouse $2.50. 7500 Turfway Road, Florence. 371-0200. UC BEARCATS UC men’s basketball vs. Memphis, 9:30 p.m. Thursday, UAB, 12:05 p.m. Saturday. ...$12 adults; buy one, get one free for UC students. Shoemaker Center, Stadium Drive, University of Cincinnati, Clifton. 556-CATS.
Recreational
★ AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION MINI-MARATHON WARMUP Runners from the marathon will talk about how they prepare for the race. 2 p.m. Saturday. Barnes & Noble, Sycamore Plaza, 7800 Montgomery Road, Kenwood. 794-9440.
BOSTON MARATHON QUALIFIERS BRUNCH MEETING First-time runners could benefit greatly from this free brunch. Bob Ronckers will give away free T-shirts, and old hands (or feet) will be on hand to give tips on air fare, accommodations and the course itself. Noon Saturday. Free. Bob Roncker’s Running Spot, 1993 Madison Road, O’Bryonville. 321-3006.
owl or bat. 2-4 p.m. Creek State Park, 8570 Route 73, Waynesville. 513-897-2437.
PRESCHOOL NATURE
Children 4-5 can explore wonderland and test different nature theme ed every week. Classes Mondays from 12:30-2:15 Through March 20. Avon Paddock Road, Paddock 861-3435. 12:30-2:30 Mondays. $30 (pro-rated).
DAYTON MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY Vision Quest: Men, Women and Sacred Sites of the Sioux Nation is the collaborative project of photographer Don Doll who has photographed the Sioux for 30 years. Through March 26 All My Relatives: Indian Life on the Plains provides a fine collection of Plains Indians artifacts including three war shirts, an
SHARON WOODS VILLAGE Guided tours of eight restored and furnished 19th century homes. 1-5 p.m. weekends. $5 adults; $3 seniors; $2
CINCINNATI RECREATION COMMISSION For the latest in CRC events, call 684-4945. The CRC offers American Red Cross winter lifeguard training coufses for free if you agree to work for the CRC. Through March 5. Call 352-4018 for more information.
EXPLORERS NATURE CLUB Children 6-10 can learn about animal hibernation and winter prairies. 3:30-4:45 p.m. Thursdays. $15 (prorated). Through March 23. Avon Woods, 4235 Paddock Road, Paddock Hills. 861-3435. 3:45-5 p.m.
Californians from Ohio
North College Hill vintner ships in
BY ELIZABETH CAREY
The sip of Burnet Ridge pinot noir rests in the mouth, rich and burgundian in style, yet light and elegant with a velvety smooth texture. Yet another award-winning California contribution to the wine market? Kind of.
Certainly, it’s not an Ohio wine, stereotyped as tasting like sickly sweet fermented Welch’s surprise, it’s kind of that, too.
So what exactly is Burnet Ridge? It’s a California-caliber wine, made from grapes from California’s Central Coast, produced and bottled in North College Hill.
Yes, North College Hill.
Nestled in the suburbs of Cincinnati, far from the laid-back wine country of Sonoma and Napa valleys, Chip Emmerich works daily in the basement of his garage to produce some of the, if not the, finest wines made on this side of the Mississippi.
Does well in tastings
At least that’s what Emmerich thinks. This weekend his wines will be entered in the grand tastings and the resulting competition of the Fifth International Wine Festival sponsored by WGUC-FM. How does he think his wines will fare?
“I think they will win,” Emmerich says nonchalantly. “Then again, these are like my children, and you always think your children are going to win.”
Guy Discepoli, owner of Piazza Discepoli Wine Merchant in College Hill seems to concur: “In blind tastings up against California wines, (Burnet Ridge) always shows very well.”
Emmerich, a Cincinnati native and self-professed wine-cellar rat, started making wines in 1975 while living in California.
“My first wine was a disaster,” Emmerich says. That didn’t stop him. After a brief stint in the wine industry as a non-paid bottler, Emmerich re-evaluated his grape source and tried again. The resulting wine won second place in the California State Fair in 1979.
In 1980, Emmerich returned to Ohio to begin winemaking in Ohio. Since then, he has been a home winemaker, privately producing wines that increasingly got better and better. According to Discepoli, the early Burnet Ridge wines used in Discepoli’s wine-appreciation classes always got noticed: “Everyone was shocked when I told them it wasn’t for sale and was made by someone here in Cincinnati.”
In 1993, Emmerich decided to turn his after-hours passion into a business. Now the first vintage of Emmerich’s wines has hit the market. Specializing in “first-growth, dry table wines,” Burnet Ridge offers, among others, chardonnay, merlot, pinot noir, zinfandel and cabernet.
So why Cincinnati? According to Emmerich, believe it or not, it’s cheaper. While shipping in tons of grapes may
be more expensive living is lower here
Emmerich works driveway and a little Ridge winery is really Hamilton Avenue where from, not the producer percent of Emmerich’s according to the feds, regardless of where
“Winemaking in natural. That is to acid levels, and sugar Emmerich explains. style. I make a premium best. And by having guarantee that kind
WINE: FROM PAGE 29
Emmerich sees his small winery as an investment in the future. Like the thousands of small family-owned wineries in France that dot the countryside, Emmerich’s venture mostly pays the bills and fulfills a dream. Available only in Ohio and mostly only in Hamilton County, Burnet Ridge is an area treasure that seems to be readily catching oh. Available for the first time and retailing in the $15 to $20 range, it’s flying off the shelves of Piazza Discepoli, among other wine shops here in Cincinnati. According to Emmerich, empty bottles of it have even been sighted at the Biltmore House in New York.
As for this weekend, Emmerich is looking forward to meeting people and talking about his babies. Will he win the competition?
There’s no telling. However, Emmerich thinks he really does have a good chance, and that’s not just a proud papa talking. As a judge for this competition, he knows the marks of great wine.
This weekend, you can taste locally produced Burnet Ridge, along with 400 or so other wines, at the Fifth Annual International Wine Festival. The festival’s main attractions are the two grand tastings 6:30-9 p.m. Friday and Saturday in the International Ballroom of the Albert B. Sabin Convention Center.
More than 100 booths will offer wines from around the world, many poured by the winemakers or winery owners themselves. Burnet Ridge will feature its pinot noir, merlot and zinfandel wines. Considering Burnet Ridge’s popularity and limited supply, enthusiasts would do well to sample the wines now. Chip Emmerich, Burnet Ridge winemaker/owner, will be available to discuss his wines and take orders.
Others include Clos du Val, Rodney Strong, Kendall Jackson, Burgess, Benzinger, Franciscan, Clos Pegase and Robert Mondavi. Tickets to each tasting are $40.
A fund-raiser for WGUC-FM, the festival has expanded to cover most of the weekend with wine-related activities. After Friday night’s Grand Tasting, those wishing to get to know the winemakers a little better can join them on a river cruise with the Goshom Bros.
Saturday is highlighted by seminars. Cooking classes run the gamut from “Fresh Ideas from the Herb Garden” presented by the Heritage to “Cooking for the ’90s and Beyond” presented byEveryBody’s Cooking. Wine seminars individually cover wines from Australia or Italy, or pertain to the beginner with two courses titled “The ABCs of California Wine” and “The ABCs of Imported Wine.”
For more information on the INTERNATIONAL WINE FESTIVAL, tasting tickets to make reservations for any of the seminars and classes, contact WGUC at 241-3434.
?PROVIDENTBANKBUILDING
CUSTOM DESIGNED
DOWNTOWN OFFICE SPACE
ONIYONE BLOCKFROM
the summer production of Rollin’ on the River. 7-10 p.m. March 8-9. 241-6550. Auditions for the July 12-30 production of Baby take place 7-10 p.m. March 13 and 14. 731-6329. Performers should prepare a song, bring sheet music for the accompanist and be prepared to be tested for dance ability (Good luck!). Westwood Town Hall, Montana and Harrison avenues, Westwood. 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 Hall. 352-1595.
TRI-COUNTY PLAYERS AUDITIONS Auditions for the April 28-30 and May 5 and 6 production of Wendy Wasserstein’s Isn't It Romantic will be held 2 p.m. Sunday, and 8 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday. College Hill Town Hall, 1805 Larch Ave., College Hill. 731-7074.
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED AT MIAMI WHITEWATER FOREST AND WOODLAND MOUND The Hamilton County Park district is looking for dedicated adults to join the volunteer staffs. Volunteers will greet visitors, answer the telephone, operate the cash register and assist the Naturalist staff. Call Nancy Hemmer at 521-PARK for more information.
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED FOR FLOWER AND GARDEN SHOW
The Civic Garden Center of Greater Cincinnati needs volunteers for the children’s exhibit at the Cincinnati Flower and Garden Show. April 27-30. 2715 Reading Road, Avondale. Call Bobbie Shields at 221-0981, ASAP.
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED FOR 1995 APPALACHIAN FESTIVAL
The May 12-14 festival at Coney Island, which celebrates the area's rich mountain heritage with down home entertainment, crafts, food and cultural attractions, needs volunteers. Applicants must be at least 18. Call Jerry Sebastian at 606-441-8684.
WOMEN’S SPORTS ASSOCIATION AWARD APPLICATION
The Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky Women’s Sports Association is distributing applications for its second annual awards banquet. Anyone can nominate the players, coaches and businesses. This year the association will present the Tina Siegel Scholarship to an outstanding high school basketball player. Deadline is Feb. 28. Call Diane Tomasick at 482-7109 for more information.
BY JULIE LARSON
Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever and Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man. 10:30 a.m. March 11. $6 adults; $4 children. After the concert, the CSO will be continuing the birthday celebration in Corbett Tower with a Party of 1/2 Note with lunch, cake, party favors, games and special guest Keith Lockhart. $6 adults; $4 children. Music Hall, 1240 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine. 381-3300.
★ CONTEMPORARY DANCE THEATER Choreographers (Without Companies) highlights five works by Cincinnati’s most engaging choreographers: Deborah Breleux’s As Fate Sometimes Has It, Bill Donnelly’s Water Catches Moon, Gloria Esenwein’s Home and A Tap Stew, Judith Mikita’s Mildred’s Closetand an untitled piece by Marc Morozumi. 8 p.m. March 10 and 11, 3 p.m. March 12. $12 adults; $8 students and seniors. Dance Hall, Vine Street and East Daniels. 751-2800. SelectA-Seat: 721-1000.
WYOMING PLAYERS Present Agatha Christie’s thriller. The Unexpected Guest. 8 p.m. March 10, 11, 17 and 18. $5. Wyoming Middle School Auditorium, 17 Wyoming Ave. 761-0041.
ARTS CONSORTIUM OF CINCINNATI AND THE CONTEMPORARY
ARTS CENTER The six series of photographs by Carrie Mae Weems provides an opportune background for musical theatre. Six on Six: Center Stage at the Center takes place 1-2:30 p.m. March 11. Contemporary Arts Center, 115 E. Fifth St., Downtown. 345-8400.
PEGASUS PLAYERS 1995 season with Nuts, by Tom Topor. Burnham directs this drama that deals prostitution, the legal health establishments responsibility. 8 p.m. 18, 24 and 25. $8. Liberty and Sycamore the-Rhine. 521-1884.
DAYTON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA principal French horn, guest soloist. He Mozart’s Horn Concerto E-flat Major K. 417, in C minor, K. 384a Symphony. The coffee complimentary doughnuts creme coffee, begins Friday and the Casual cert begins at 6:30 Theatre, 138 N. Main
CINCINNATI SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Jesus Lopez-Cobos
conducts Copland’s El SalOn Mexico,
NATURALLY Creative Visualization, Attitudinal Healing, Progressive Relaxation, and Meditation. Individual or group consultation, over 20 years experience, licensed Professional Clinical Counselor. Sophia Paparodis, L.P.C.C., 677-6090. MASSAGE Partner/Couple Workshops Partner/couple massage workshops. Two 2-1/2 hour sessions, two coupies, $110 per couple. Shiatsu therapeutic massage, one hour+, $40. Gift certificates available. Jeanne Theodore, 769-3869. MASSAGE Affordable Massage Receive an affordable massage for only $25 per hour. In the Roselawn area. Outcalls are available for $30$50 per hour. Male, Ohio licensed therapist. Hours by appointment only. Call 284-3421.
MASSAGE THERAPIST Massage therapist with 12 years experience and ^excellent professional referrals. Specializing in myofascial therapy. In the privacy of your own home. Call Kathie Stuhlbarg, 871-2434. MASSAGE THERAPY Licensed massage therapist specializing in stress management, relaxation, and injury. House calls and gift certificates available. Flexible hours. Strictly non-sexual. Oakley area. Sherry Meinhardt, L.M.T. 731-0490: PSYCHIC FAIR Victory of Light Psychic Fair, Sunday, March 19 at the Quality Hotel in Covington, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Experience the energy! Over 30 of the region's most respected psychic readers, 30 tables of crystals, jewelry, books, tapes, herbs, etc. Free workshops on psychic healing, Tai Chi, spirit guides, astrology. Admission $5, readings $10. Sponsored by Victory Books, 609 Main Street, Covington. For information, call 581-5839. THE BODY MALL Understand yourself and those you love better. Professional astrologer Jeri Boone offers counseling through the art of astrology and numerology. Or join Jeri and Beverly Boone, both licensed massage therapists, as they offer therapeutic massage, Swedish massage, cranial sacral, body reflexology, polarity therapy, and accupressure. The Body Mall has a fully trained
professional staff, and offers study groups, development workshops, children’s classes, and many alternative methods of caring for yourself. 3519 Glenmore Avenue, 662-5121.
THE GIFT OF PEACE Let us bring Inner Peace to you. Outcalls available. Receive $5 off any service when you mention this ad! Inner Peace Massage, located at 3907 Harrison Avenue, in Cheviotonly minutes from downtown. Stop in, or call for appointment 661-0302.
THERAPEUTIC BODYWORK
Bodywork is individualized and includes Massage-Swedish, Deep tissue, and Amma; Accupresure-jinshindo; Energy Work- Reiki, Therapeutic Touch; and Integrative Bodywork. Kirk Prine, Ed.D., C.M.T., by appointment only. 431-3112.
Business
Call 631-8935. PERSONAL CARE ASSISTANTS People with disabilities are seeking assistance to achieve an independent lifestyle. Need assistance with personal hygiene, housekeeping, driving. Must be dependable and punctual. Transportation and telephone required. Call 241-2600. SUPER OPPORTUNITY Experience in hospitality, fashion merchandising, apparel, home fashion, customer service, or super-hero relations will be perfect for this super opportunity in retail. No quitters, no cry-babies, follow through, will PAY. Dial 1-800-327-2350.
TELEMARKETERS
Citibeaters & Others: Ifyou're looking for a
Olsten After Hours!
BackSeaf
Classifieds 665-4700
WHERE NOTHING IS ORDINARY LeftHanded Moon 48 E. Court St, 784-1166
ENERGY BODY CENTER
MASSAGE, ACUPRESSURE, & ENERGY WORK Kirk Prine, EdD., C.M.T., 431-3112
Outcalls available. Receive $5 off any service when you mention this ad INNER PEACE MASSAGE 3907 Harrison Ave., Cheviot, 661-0302
THE UNIV. OF CINCINNATI MEDICAL CENTER
REPRODUCTIVE RESEARCH UNIT IS SEEKING HEALTHY WOMEN, AGES 18-50 TO PARTICIPATE IN A STUDY INVOLVING THE USE OF APPROVED ORAL CONTRACEPTIVES Benefits. Call for more info, 558-0890
AFFORDABLE MASSAGE!
Roselawn, male therapist, $25/hr 284-3421
CINCINNATI RECREATION
ROWING & FITNESS CENTER $40 PER QUARTER
Located at Montgomery Inn at The Boathouse. Call 241-BOAT.
ONENET COMMUNICATIONS
THE INFORMATION REVOLUTION IS HERE! For more information on Internet connectivity, video conferencing, WAN/ LAN solutions, or virtual marketing call 326-6000 or 326-6001, login as “new” info@one.net http://www.one.net
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 do you do when you get a cold?
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CINCINNATI CHAMBER ORCHESTRA THE INTIMATE ORCHESTRA
Featuring violinist and violist Scott St John KEITH LOCKHART CONDUCTING Sunday afternoon, March 12,3:00 p.m. Memorial Hall, 1225 Elm St, 723-1182 RED THE MOVIES 5:30, 7:30, and 9:30 p.m. 381-FILM
CORPORATE VIDEO EDITING Training videos, product promotions, videotaped meetings. Phone or fax for information, 541-9078. DREAMSAND VIDEO & PRINT TANNING & MASSAGE Unlimited tanning - $29.95/month. Body massage, new expanded staff, outcalls. Ask about a 10 min. in-your-office neck/shoulder massage! LA
