CityBeat | Nov. 10-23, 2021

Kickstart

Arts

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Local organizations emerge from the pandemic with big plans

BY STE VEN ROSEN

NOVEMBER 10 - NOVEMBER 23, 2021

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VOL. 26 | ISSUE 33 ON THE COVER: CINCINNATI ART MUSEUM’S “A NEW VIEW” // PHOTO: PROVIDED

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NEWS

Younger children now can become vaccinated from COVID-19.

P H OTO : C D C

Pfizer’s COVID-19 B Vaccine Gets Greenlight for Kids Ages 5-11 The CDC and FDA both gave the vaccine emergency use authorization for children

BY A L L I S O N BA B K A 6

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NOVEMBER 10 - NOVEMBER 23, 2021

oth the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) have signed off on granting Pfizer with an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for its COVID19 vaccine for young kids.

On Nov. 2, the CDC followed the FDA in accepting data from Pfizer that showed its two-dose vaccine is safe and 90% effective at preventing COVID-19 in children 5- to 11-years-old. Pfizer already holds an EUA for vaccine users ages 12 and up as well as full approval for those ages 16 and older.

Vaccines from Moderna and Johnson & Johnson currently are authorized for people ages 18 and up, though both

companies are applying for EUAs for additional age groups.

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center has begun scheduling COVID-19 vaccines for children at its clinics in Avondale, Green Township and Liberty Township, and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said Nov. 4 that health centers, pediatricians and pharmacies throughout the state are following suit. DeWine added that more than 850 Ohio children had gotten a Pfizer vaccine in the first two days it had been authorized. And on Nov. 7, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital said it had vaccinated 1,294 kids since its first clinic on Nov. 3.

Cincinnati Children’s was one of five

sites in the nation to conduct adult and adolescent coronavirus vaccine trials in 2020, work that has continued this year for the 5-11 age group. Dr. Patricia Manning, chief of staff at Cincinnati Children’s, said on Oct. 28 that the number of younger COVID-19 cases admitted to the hospital had decreased, but hundreds of children continue to test positive each week.

Days earlier, Dr. Robert Frenck, director of the Gamble Vaccine Research Center at Cincinnati Children’s, told reporters that those getting COVID-19 most frequently right now are under 18 years old, which Manning echoed.

“We’ve seen the same trends in children as we’re seeing in adults. But I would point out that the positivity rate in 5- to 17-year-olds is one of the highest. It’s closer to 8% to 9% vs. 6% overall, so children are contracting COVID and they’re still spreading COVID,” Manning said.

In September, Manning said that Cincinnati Children’s had a significant, sustained jump in pediatric COVID19 cases and hospitalizations, adding that doctors also were seeing more children with respiratory issues such as RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) and parainfluenza that normally wouldn’t arise until fall or winter.

As Frenck told reporters, the Pfizer vaccine dosage for younger children is about one-third of that for adults.

His colleague Mary Carol Burkhardt, associate division director for primary care at Cincinnati Children’s and medical director of the hospital’s Hopple Street Neighborhood Health Center, said that kids should be vaccinated as soon as possible to prevent severe illness and further spread of the coronavirus.

“Vaccines have to be given before an exposure, and we have COVID circulating in our community still at relatively high levels. And it’s too late once your child has contracted COVID and is symptomatic from that,” Burkhardt said. “You certainly can get still get vaccinated after you have COVID, but really to prevent those symptoms and effects on your children, we want to vaccinate them now. We don’t want to wait until it’s too late.”

Manning said that after conducting extensive trials, Cincinnati Children’s is eager to begin vaccinating younger children.

“We’ve had a front-row seat to the safety and efficacy questions that come up, and we’re very excited to share that the side effect profile for children with these vaccines is not any different or any worse than we saw in adults,”

Manning said. “Certainly, children can have some side effects, but as you’ve probably heard many times, the side effects from COVID are far more serious, severe and dire than any of the side effects from the vaccine.”

Manning said that pediatricians at Cincinnati Children’s are looking to normalize COVID-19 vaccine administration, just as they do with other immunizations. But she recognizes that some parents will remain anti-vaccine despite the safety declarations and rigorous trials conducted by scientists and doctors.

She said compassionate, patient conversations with parents often are necessary to put their child on a path to good health and protection.

“I have lived and breathed the impact of vaccine hesitancy far before COVID, and we’re continuing to see that,” Manning said. “To be willing to take the risk with your child not just with COVID but with any vaccine-preventable disease seems, in pediatrics, it’s unnecessary. These are preventable illnesses.”

Since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been more than 750,000 COVID-19 deaths in the United States, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The United States leads all global countries in coronavirus deaths.

In Ohio alone, there have been nearly 25,000 COVID-19 deaths, the Buckeye State’s coronavirus portal shows.

The CDC labels all counties within Ohio as “high risk” for COVID-19 transmission — a designation that has been in place for months since the Delta variant’s summer and early-fall surge. At press time, only about 55% of Ohio’s population had started a COVID19 vaccine series, and only 51% have been fully vaccinated (two doses for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, one dose for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine).

Nearly 805,000 additional doses, including boosters, have been doled out within the state.

To schedule a pediatric COVID-19 vaccine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, visit bit.ly/3bHJCiZ. For more vaccine administration locations and information, visit coronavirus.ohio.gov in Ohio or kycovid19.ky.gov in Kentucky.

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NOVEMBER 10 - NOVEMBER 23, 2021

NEWS

Aftab Pureval Elected As Cincinnati’s 70th Mayor

BY A L L I S O N BA B K A

There’s a changing of the guard in Cincinnati.

During the Nov. 2 general election, Aftab Pureval, 39, defeated David Mann, 82, to become Cincinnati’s 70th mayor-elect. Both are Democrats.

When he takes office in January, Pureval — who currently is Hamilton County’s clerk of courts — will be the city’s first new mayor in eight years.

Pureval also will be Cincinnati’s first mayor of Asian descent.

According to data from the Hamilton County Board of Elections, Pureval brought in 65.75% of all Cincinnati votes, compared to just 34.25% for Mann, a longtime politician. 52,757 city residents indicated a choice for mayor on their ballots.

Outgoing mayor John Cranley is nearing the end of his second and final term and was not eligible to run again.

In August, Cranley declared that he would join the 2022 race to become Ohio’s next governor, looking to run against Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley and incumbent Governor Mike DeWine.

Voters also determined that Cincinnati City Council will see some fresh faces for two-year terms.

Current council members Jan-Michele Lemon Kearney, Greg Landsman and Liz Keating retain their seats and will be joined by newcomers Jeff M. Cramerding, Reggie Harris, Mark Jeffreys, Scotty Johnson, Meeka D. Owens and Victoria Parks.

All nine council members are Democrats except for Keating, who is a Republican. Voters filled the slots from 35 candidates, one of the largest fields in Cincinnati’s history.

Fresh blood is on the menu for the Cincinnati Public Schools Board of Education, as well. Voters kept Mike Moroski on the board while adding

Aftab Pureval P H O T O : M AYO R E L E C TA F TA B . C O M

Brandon Craig, Kareem Moffett and Mary Wineberg.

In other election news, Cincinnati voters rejected Issue 3, a series of anti-corruption measures that would have altered the city’s charter. The amendment was designed to rein in the activities that caused many scandals among Cincinnati City Council members in recent years, but instead of a single measure, Issue 3 asked voters to approve a series of changes to the charter.

Turnout for the general election was generally low, with only 154,059 Hamilton County residents out of 589,822 — or 26.12% — casting votes.

All results are preliminary until certified.

Find full election results at votehamiltoncountyohio.gov.

Reds Outfielder Nick Castellanos Tries Free Agency

BY A L L I S O N BA B K A

After the season he had, it was bound to happen.

On Nov. 4, Major League Baseball writer Jon Heyman reported that Cincinnati Reds outfielder Nick Castellanos had opted out of the final two years of his contract, giving him a chance to test the free-agent waters.

After two seasons with the Reds, Castellanos' remaining contract was worth $32 million over two more years. He still could end up playing for the Reds if leadership is willing to outbid other teams and dangle a more lucrative deal. Nothing had been announced yet as CityBeat went to press.

Castellanos was a major bright spot in a 2021 season that ended

with heartbreak, when the Reds were mathematically eliminated from postseason play on Sept. 28. For 2021, Castellanos batted .309, slugged .576, had 34 home runs and had 73 extrabase hits. He also was a starter for the National League during this summer's MLB All-Star Game (teammate Jesse Winker joined in that honor).

The outfielder has been nominated for two MLB awards: the Hank Aaron Award, which honors the player with the strongest overall offensive season in each league; and the Silver Slugger Award, which is given to the player at each position in each league who had the best offensive season. Voting has closed for both awards, and results are expected to be announced soon. ©

NOVEMBER 10 - NOVEMBER 23, 2021

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WWW.CIN CY P IZ Z AW EEK .C O M

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NOVEMBER 10 - NOVEMBER 23, 2021

Kickstart

Arts

The

Local organizations emerge from the pandemic with big plans

BY ST E V E N RO S E N

A rendering of the Cincinnati Art Museum’s newly announced main entrance project P H O T O : H U M A N N AT U R E

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A rendering of the Cincinnati Art Museum’s newly announced main entrance project P H O T O : H U M A N N AT U R E

Within eight days of each other, there were two recent celebrations of growth in the arts that were superficially different yet had pronounced similarities.

The first, back on Sept. 29, was held outside the Cincinnati Art Museum’s main entrance and showcased the announcement of a $65 million fundraising campaign to create a sweeping “New View” of the institution.

The museum’s prestigious Founders Society members — along with staff, docents and other supporters — gathered to sip from flutes of champagne, eat from the catered buffet of Cajun cuisine and applaud the speakers, including museum director Cameron Kitchin.

The signature project for the money (of which $55.3 million had been raised ahead of the event) is a scenic hillside entrance from Eden Park Drive up to the front of the museum. The roadway is already under construction, and Kitchin sees it as having a transformative effect on the museum’s outreach to the public.

The second event, on Oct. 7, was far smaller in crowd size, snack quantity and amount of money involved.

Price Hill Will, a nonprofit community development corporation with a strong arts and culture component, celebrated the installation of outdoor artwork along a 550-foot hillside trail called Incline Run. The paved trail was once part of the roadway for scenic Maryland Avenue in East Price Hill but was closed off to motorists some 30 years ago. It has now been fixed up and reopened for pedestrians and cyclists, providing a

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user-friendly conduit for urban walkers.

The artwork includes a compelling new mural depicting a sort of dream-state trompe l’oeil version of the old Price Hill Incline, which used to travel up this very hillside but ceased operation in 1943. Lending it more of a magical-realism effect is the fact Benjamin Thomas had painted the scene right onto a remnant abutment of the old incline itself. The cost was $10,000, provided

by Greater Cincinnati’s Devou Good Foundation. Just as Kitchin sees the art museum’s entrance drive as a game changer, Price Hill Will’s Samantha Conover sees the mural and all of Incline Run as having a transformative effect on Price Hill.

“We wanted to make it safer for residents, but it’s also now a feature other people can use as well,” she said at the event.

At $10,000 or $65 million, both organizations have growth and new activities on their minds as they try to turn rugged hillsides into assets. And they aren’t unique, either. Plenty of other local groups would like to tackle arts and culture projects.

After almost two years of navigating the COVID-19 pandemic, local arts, cultural and educational organizations are cautiously hoping they can finally emerge from nightmare times with new ideas. Granted, that could change quickly should a new wave of the pandemic hit. But right now a number are at least considering — and, in some cases, already constructing — new

NOVEMBER 10 - NOVEMBER 23, 2021

buildings or redesigning existing ones. That list includes the Cincinnati Public Library’s main branch downtown, the Playhouse in the Park, Northern Kentucky’s Vent Haven ventriloquism museum, the Clifton Cultural Arts Center, Cincinnati Public Radio, the Cincinnati Type & Print Museum and others.

Not every expansion of activities is requiring money — at least not at first. Camp Washington’s Wave Pool, which since 2015 has created a sizable following for its vision of being a “contemporary art fulfillment center,” is expanding to Hamilton. And, initially at least, it’s virtually for free.

“It came about because Hamilton had a vacant firehouse in the East End it wanted to repurpose, and interested developers reached out to us,” Calcagno Cullen, Wave Pool’s executive director, tells CityBeat.

“Right now, the property is being fixed up, so in about a year and a half we’ll be opening with art activities, installations and who knows what.”

“We’re going to start out with a very low budget,” she continues. “(The developers) got the property from Hamilton for virtually nothing if Wave Pool would have free rent on the first floor. So it’s kind of a nice deal for us, and they’re building out the space to suit our programmatic needs. We will have to have some kind of budget for artists and all the experiences we want to happen there, but it probably will be pretty scrappy to begin with.”

A rendering of the exterior of the Clifton Cultural Arts Center P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY C C A C

A rendering of the upcoming plaza of Cincinnati Public Library’s downtown branch P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY C I N C I N N AT I P U B L I C L I B R A RY

A look at the future atrium of CPL’s downtown branch P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY C I N C I N N AT I P U B L I C L I B R A RY

(According to Hamilton’s JournalNews, Primo Property Services LLC acquired the firehouse for $500, and will make the upper space short-rental.)

With so many projects out there, this story by necessity can’t be an exhaustive survey. It’s more of a sample. But it should be enough to impress readers with the breadth and variety of the forward-thinking attitude that’s out there. Yet it also should be stressed that much of this activity has pre-pandemic origins. Often, the beginning of COVID in March 2020 slowed things.

“What we’re seeing is a lot of work being done behind the scenes that’s finally here to talk about,” says Deborah Emont Scott, president and CEO of the Taft Museum of Art. “Cincinnatians should be very excited that all this is happening. It’s a great sign.”

The Taft’s $12.7 million Bicentennial Infrastructure Project, which is painstakingly rehabilitating the 200-year-old house that has been the museum’s home since 1932, was announced before the pandemic began. But Scott paused it when COVID arrived.

“We thought it was not appropriate for us to raise money for our project while there were so many people suffering,” she says. “COVID was such an unknown and such a horrendous thing that none of us felt good asking our donors to give to us instead of a

foodbank.”

The Taft did already have enough money to redo a portion of the HVAC system, one of the overall project’s phases. Then work on a security system began earlier this year, followed by HGC Construction starting supervision of the major restoration phase this past August. The work is slated to be finished next March, with the Taft fully reopening in June after reinstalling the art collection and opening a big show called Jane Austen: Fashion & Sensibility. The Taft resumed its public fundraising campaign in October 2020 after it received a $500,000 matching grant from the federal government’s Save America’s Treasures program. (The Taft is a National Historic Landmark.)

Because the Cincinnati Art Museum is such a prominent presence in the community — a landmark institution in existence at its Eden Park location since 1886 — its dramatic plans for a new roadway deserve a closer look. It was an aesthetic decision as much as a utilitarian one. And, in a way, it’s a correction for a decision made back in 1947.

At that time, the museum’s main entrance was at its original building facing outward from the south side of the campus, toward Art Museum Drive and across from what is now Seasongood Pavilion. It was convenient to mass transit. As the museum grew, there were

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A pre-design concept for the Lloyd Library & Museum’s proposed renovation P H OTO : D E L E O N & P R I M M E R A R C H IT E C T U R E WO R K S H O P

additions; the Schmidlapp Memorial Wing opened to the north in 1907 with its impressive exterior Doric columns.

As World War II ended and Americans embraced automobiles, the art museum’s board decided in 1947 to make Schmidlapp the main entrance and also build an adjacent parking lot. The traditional front entrance was closed off ; eventually a new addition — the 1965 Adams-Emery Wing — with an accompanying subtle, lower-level entrance went up in front.

Kitchin, who arrived at Cincinnati Art Museum in 2014, saw this rear orientation as a disincentive for visitors, especially those who weren’t already regular museumgoers. Thus, the new front drive will serve as a grand approach to the main entrance.

“We know in arts-audience marketing that feeling welcome is of primary importance,” Kitchin says. “That sense of welcome sends every positive signal that all (people) belong at the art museum. Arriving at the front door is an act of hospitality.”

The art museum’s A New View initiative also encompasses the nearby Art Climb hillside stairway, which opened during the first months of the pandemic and quickly became an important urban safe space for socially distanced outdoor exercise. A New View also includes a growing outdoor sculpture collection; the newest piece, British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare’s “Wind Sculpture IX,” debuted during the aforementioned Sept. 29 event.

“We realized the direction for enlarging the visitor experience and community interaction was looking outside the existing walls of the museum onto the hillsides, grounds and neighborhoods surrounding us,” Kitchin says.

There are some more familiar ways the museum will benefit from the money raised by A New View, such as

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gallery renovations and major traveling exhibitions.

In fact, one has already been announced for 2023 — Pablo Picasso: Out of Bounds, which looks at the great artist’s landscapes. (In Charlotte, North Carolina, which will also have the Picasso show, the Mint Museum plans to ask the city and county governments for $500,000 to pay for the exhibit.)

West End’s Regal Theater at 1204 Linn St. is a site that also is considered a landmark for many Cincinnatians. After opening in 1914, it not only showed movies for its neighborhood audience, but also had concerts by some of the biggest names in Black music. But it’s been vacant since 1996. Now, it’s being eyed for reuse as the Robert O’Neal Multicultural Arts Center.

The Hamilton County Landbank, affiliated with the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority, acquired and stabilized the property in 2013. Recently, arts professional Toilynn O’Neal Turner has been leading efforts to convert the Regal into a venue whose name would serve as a tribute to her late father, a painter who operated the Arts Consortium of Cincinnati, primarily a Black arts center, for several decades in the late 1960s. She sees the Regal as the right site, with the right history, to revive the spirit and legacy of her father’s place. And she’s trying to build citywide and neighborhood support for her cause.

“People definitely love the concept of saving the Regal, which is one of the of last iconic spaces of African American culture that’s left in our city that we can actually save,” she tells CityBeat.

She estimates a first phase of work on it would need $12 million; full renovation would be $22.9 million.

She plans to begin a public fundraising campaign soon, and has also asked Cincinnati City Council for $4 million, Cincinnati Business Courier reported.

Meanwhile, in an early show of corporate support, she

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received a $100,000 Duke Energy Urban Revitalization Grant in 2020 for architectural and engineering plans.

Downtown’s Lloyd Library & Museum is also a landmark Cincinnati institution, but maybe not so visible to the general public until recently. Now it has big ambitions for change. It was started by pharmacist brothers John Uri Lloyd, Nelson Ashley Lloyd and Curtis Gates Lloyd in the 1870s for their growing research collection of books about nature-based medicine and its history. The “museum” in the name originally referred to Curtis’ collections of plant and fungi specimens, which were given to other institutions after his death. In 1971, the library moved into a new and attractive modernist building at 917 Plum St. that, because of limited windows, seemed mysterious to passersby. The location holds the brothers’ vast collection of books, some of which date back to the 1400s.

In the past five years, the Lloyd has seen its attendance grow by 1,200 % as it has increased its exhibition calendar and initiated lectures and other public events about such timely issues as medicinal marijuana and food scarcity. It’s even hosted artists-in-residence. As a result, it has broadened its reach beyond visiting scholars using its archives for research, although there’s also been increased demand from them. So the Lloyd has just hired a Louisville design studio, DeLeon & Primmer Architecture Workshop, to prepare concepts for a major renovation that will reflect its expanding public uses while maintaining its effectiveness as a research library.

“The building we’re in is very inward looking and doesn’t communicate the fact that 80% of the people coming to Lloyd now are coming to view our exhibitions,” says its executive director, Patricia Van Skaik. “They’re coming to programs that make a connection between things in our collection and

A rendering of proposed work to PAR-Projects’ Northside development P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY PA R - P R O J E C T S

PAR-Projects has plans for an outdoor movie theater, concert stage and installation art gallery in Northside.

P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY PA R - P R O J E C T S

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A portion of the recently completed Incline Run artwork in Price Hill P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY P R I C E H I L L W I L L

Incline Run in Price Hill recently reopened to pedestrians and cyclists with new artwork.

P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY P R I C E H I L L W I L L

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Vent Haven Museum Elevation Study 12/8/14

REH & A, Architects

VENT HAVEN MUSEUM RENOVATION

ARCHITECTS

FORT MITCHELL, KY

The future Vent Haven expansion P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY V E N T H AV E N

very important and critical contemporary issues of today. So we want a space that can accommodate our expanded role and look to our future.”

“And we also want an exterior that communicates the openness, so that people know it’s a community space open to public,” she says. “Right now when people drive by, they either don’t notice it or scratch their head and say, ‘What is that?’ ” Another regional landmark preparing for higher visibility is Butler County’s Fortified Hill Earthworks, even though not many people currently are even aware of its existence. But that status is poised to change as it becomes a major part of the nearby Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park & Museum in Hamilton next year.

Fortified Hill is believed to have been created by the Hopewell Culture of American Indians some 2,000 years ago, according to the Ohio History Connection website. The earthworks form a kind of walled openended ring at the crest of a hill, which suggested a fort to the two men who surveyed it in 1847, according to Wikipedia. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

It has long been located on private property, but in 2019 was put up for auction in four parcels when the landowner died. The Harry T. Wilks Family Foundation, which supports Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park (whose founder was Wilks), spent $1.5 million to acquire the parcels containing the earthwork in order to protect it and make it accessible to the public. Pyramid Hill is planning to begin its first guided tours on March 11 — which it celebrates as Founder’s Day. But getting people to see and understand the earthwork, which may have been used for ceremonies, has physical as well as educational challenges.

“We want to be mindful there are parts you’d be standing right on before you’d realize this is it,” says Bryan W. Knicely, Pyramid Hill’s executive director.

“The mound itself over the years has been covered with trees and honeysuckle, and we have to be careful

in how we clear that land. We hope to just show them this is where we’re beginning, and in two years we’ll be at (a further) point, and three years another.”

To that end, the museum is working with a committee and representatives of Greater Cincinnati American Indian Coalition.

“For us, it’s about teaching people the history of this region and the peoples here before us, making sure we preserve something they created and talk about it accurately,” Knicely says.

Satisfyingly, two smaller Cincinnati organizations have not only survived the pandemic, but indeed have also made progress on their ambitious plans.

One is the Over-the-Rhine Museum, whose website explains its mission as one to acquire a historic tenement and “use the stories of the building’s (past) residents to explore the larger history of America.” Not long before the pandemic started, it acquired such a vacant building at 3 W. McMicken Ave./12 Findlay St. Now, it has a $75,000 fundraising campaign underway to begin rehab of a portion of it so people can visit.

“The idea is to begin with the storefront that is facing the public (on the McMicken side),” says Anne Delano Steinert, the museum’s founder. “Right now, we basically have a mothballed historic building, which doesn’t help the neighborhood look welcoming or promote vitality on our block. Once we have the storefront all gussied up, we’ll create six to seven panels that will face outward from the storefront windows and explore a variety of the residents who have lived in the building over time. This will express the idea that while Overthe-Rhine has a foundational and important German heritage, there are also many other people who have lived there over time. The museum’s mission is to tell all those stories.”

Finally, you have to admire an arts center that can not only emerge from the tough past years with lots of big news, but also with a touching sense of humor.

That’s the case with Northside’s PAR-Projects, which

has slowly been working to turn its site at 1662 Hoffner St. into “diverse communities of people who believe in the arts,” according to its website. It recently made three big, long-awaited announcements at once: • First, three years of working with city officials, it has finally received permission from the Cincinnati Zoning Commission to move forward with plans for an outdoor movie theater, concert stage and installation art gallery.

• After purchasing an adjacent building to gain a 15,000 square-foot multi-use space, it quietly launched a $600,000 capital campaign that so far has netted over $150,000.

• It also has received a $150,000 challenge grant from the Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr. Foundation that kicks in when PAR-Projects reaches $300,000 from other sources. Now it is about to announce a $100,000 community campaign via the ioby fundraising platform.

PAR-Projects was going to announce all this to those who attended a Sunday afternoon social event at its property on Oct. 10. But the news fell through the cracks at the party, so Jonathan Sears, the organization’s executive director, wittily apologized in a followup email that nicely encapsulates how we all feel about trying to reenter the world we took for granted before the pandemic arrived. Here it is: “Hi There!

Before our last Beer Burger Brunch, we promised to make a few major announcements at the event. And quite frankly, after getting lost in the newness of our first food event since the COVID shutdown (who hid the spatulas?) that…slipped our minds.

So again, ‘Thank you!’ to our patient friends out there who helped us shake off the cobwebs and get back on our feet a couple short weeks ago. Sorry to keep you waiting!”

It, along with everything else happening in the arts, will be worth the wait. ©

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ARTS & CULTURE

Wondercade P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY WO N D E R CA D E

Insert Coin

WONDERCADE

With the opening of Wondercade and Game N Groove this summer, Westwood is adding a burgeoning “video game district” to its list of attractions

BY S E A N M . P E T E RS

W

estwood has its own video game district, thanks to the addition of businesses Wondercade and Game N Groove, which both opened this summer.

Wondercade is a “retro-future” arcade packed with classic and contemporary video games and pinball machines and is open to all ages until 9 p.m., with food and adult beverages available.

Game N Groove buys and sells used video games, movies and music — including classic and vintage items.

The two businesses are neighbors, suddenly making Westwood a premium destination for gamers of any age. This is part of a promising trend for the neighborhood due to the resurgence of new businesses that are opening up in once-vacant storefronts.

Leslie and Bill Rich, owners of Wondercade, moved to Westwood together 18 years ago and began to amass their own collection of arcade cabinets. It all started with Space Invaders. Asteroids came soon afterward. Then a pinball machine.

After four or five game cabinets were under their roof, the idea of opening their own arcade came up more and more in conversation.

As time went on, Leslie and Bill began to visit arcades to see how they operated and figure out how they’d like to run their own. One of the biggest

problems they encountered with many of the arcades was that children were not allowed inside, which seemed counterintuitive since video games were originally marketed to kids and teens. So when the time came for them to open their establishment, they decided it would be for the whole family. While most newly opened arcades seem to be bars first and arcades second, Wondercade operates as an arcade that happens to serve food and drinks — boozy, if you’d like.

“We found that was a huge niche that wasn’t being served,” Bill says.

“What we wanted to bring to the neighborhood was somewhere you could bring your family and feel safe.”

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Wondercade and Game N Groove (pictured) are forming a video game district in Westwood.

P H O T O : FA C E B O O K . C O M / G A M E N G R O OV E

“(Parents) want to share this experience with their kids and, here's the thing, a lot of people think that kids won't like these (vintage) games,” Bill continues. “Totally wrong. Good games are good games, no matter how old they are.”

Inside, the arcade games are punctuated by neon lights, and the air is full of friendly electronic blips and melodies. Wondercade’s building was previously Keidel Supply’s main showroom for plumbing supplies, vacant for a decade before the Rich family renovated everything.

“It's been great to see people experience the space the way that we thought that they would,” Leslie says. “To have a place where everyone can come and build that gaming community in person after being separated for over a year (due to the pandemic) has been really a joy. I am excited to see folks of all ages come together, because I think this is one of the few spots where people who are unified by the love of gaming can interact intergenerationally.”

There’s a solid mix of classic,

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old-school arcade games at Wondercade — Gauntlet, Missile Command and the like — alongside more modern titles such as Killer Queen. Admission is a flat $8 — rising to $10 in 2022 — which gives you access to the arcade all day (kids 5 and under are free). If you want to leave the arcade but come back later — say, to get dinner at Nation Kitchen & Bar’s Westwood restaurant or grab a few more beers at West Side Brewing down the street — you can gain reentry with a handstamp.

After 9 p.m., the arcade caters to ages 18 and up, so make sure to ditch those kids before you save Earth from pixelated space invaders. Wondercade, 3143 Harrison Ave., Westwood, wondercadecincy.com.

GAME N GROOVE Right next door to Wondercade is a new retail shop where you can buy, trade and sell used video games, movies, music and more. This store didn’t open next to the arcade coincidentally, either.

Business owner Kelon Buncher credits

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Bill Rich for the idea to move in.

“My wife grew up in Delhi and had brought it up one day to look around the West Side (to open a business),” Buncher says. “As I was looking around, I met Bill Rich from Wondercade.”

Buncher and his business partner, Max Vignola, met with Bill, who gave them a tour of the arcade before it was open for business.

“He then mentioned, ‘You know the building next door is up for rent. You guys would complement the arcade perfectly,’ And that was it,” Buncher says. ‘You can just see the potential of the Westwood Business District and all of the work that has already gone into making it a beautiful neighborhood from the existing businesses.”

The layout of Game N Groove has you enter right by the register counter.

From there you can go forward and take a right into their vintage game section where you’ll find everything from Intellivision and Game Boy to Sega CD games and consoles, with loads of golden-age Nintendo games packed into one tiny alcove.

Pressing on, you can browse the modern disc-based games and consoles for sale. There are sample consoles hooked up to TVs if you want to play whichever games staff members chose for the day.

The largest room is dedicated to Game N Groove’s massive DVD collection. This is the place to find that random season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer you’ve been looking for to complete your shrine to Sarah Michelle Gellar (and who isn’t?). Game N Groove’s VHS collection shares a room with all the music media for now, while the team builds out a dedicated music room that’s still under construction.

“The neighborhood is awesome.

It’s been a great and welcoming experience,” Buncher says. “Westwood is a fun neighborhood.”

Westwood is a lot more fun of a neighborhood these days, thanks in part to all these video games. Game N Groove, 3139 Harrison Ave., Westwood, facebook.com/gameNgroove.

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CSO's Louis Langrée Appointed Director of France's Opéra Comique

CLASSICAL

BY A N N E A R E N ST E I N

Louis Langrée P H OTO : C H R I S L E E

In June, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra announced that Music Director Louis Langrée was not renewing his contract and would depart at the conclusion of the 2023-24 season.

Speculation about what might be next for the popular maestro was answered recently, when the French Cultural Ministry announced Langrée’s appointment as director of the Opéra Comique in Paris, one of France’s five national theaters. His five-year contract began Nov. 1, but won’t interfere with his plans for the CSO. Speaking by phone from Paris, Langrée sounds exhausted and exhilarated.

“This position has very special resonance for me,” he tells CityBeat.

“My parents and I were educated in public schools and I attended a public conservatory. Now that I’m 60, I feel it’s time to repay my country for all it helped me to achieve. And I want to mentor the next generation of artists.”

In an email to family and close friends, Langrée wrote with customary modesty and awe of the appointment, noting that some of the first operas he conducted were works that premiered at the Opéra Comique.

Founded in 1714 during the reign of Louis XIV, the Opéra Comique is one of the oldest theaters in France, along with Opéra national de Paris and the Comédie Française, but it was not named a national, state-supported theater until 2015.

In keeping with the protocols of being a state institution, Langrée met

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with staff members, the French Minister of Culture and, finally, with French President Emmanuel Macron.

“It was amazing,” he says. “It was just the two of us in his office and in that half-hour, he immediately put me at ease. His knowledge of the theater and its projects deeply impressed me.”

Langrée notes that Opéra Comique is frequently mistranslated (and misunderstood) as comic opera.

“It’s the intersection of music and spoken word, like American musical theater, Spanish zarzuela and German singspiel,” he says.

Since its founding, Opéra Comique has premiered nearly 3,000 such works, including Bizet’s Carmen, Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann and Debussy’s Pelléas and Mélisande.

Langrée debuted at the Opéra Comique in 2009, conducting Fortunio, a lyric comedy by Andrë Messager.

His new role encompasses more than conducting and music supervision — he will oversee a team of artists, administrators and educators.

“This is a space I know well and love,” Langrée says. “And it’s a terrific team.”

He acknowledges that the theater is frequently overlooked by visitors, and he would like to change its website’s description as “the best-kept secret in Paris.”

“It’s a beautiful building and you’ll have a more intimate and human experience in this theater," he says. "The acoustics are ideal and the productions are exciting.”

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Louis Langrée conducts the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

P H OTO : C H R I S L E E

Langrée lists commissioning new works and mentoring young artists as top priorities. Since he assumed leadership of the CSO, he has commissioned 33 works, and he says that the CSO and Opéra Comique share a strong sense of tradition that inspires innovation and creativity.

Langrée remains committed to the CSO and the Cincinnati community during the remaining three years of his contract. He’s not attempting to blaze any new directions — “I will leave that to my successor,” he says. But he is committed to the level of excellence

that he’s achieved and maintains with the CSO. An inspiration is Charles Simon Favart who is credited with creating the opéra comique form.

“Voltaire told Favart, ‘You embellish everything you touch,’ ” Langrée says.

“I hope I can embellish my work with the CSO in the next three years.”

For more on the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and upcoming performances, visit cincinnatisymphony.org.

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FOOD & DRINK

Cioppino seafood stew with mussels, shrimp, calamari and white fish P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY P R I M AV I S TA

Classic for a Reason The 30-year-old Primavista in East Price Hill continues to offer breathtaking views and deliciously nostalgic cuisine R E V I E W BY PA M A M IT C H E L L

T

he panorama of our city from the vantage point of Primavista restaurant atop East Price Hill never loses its impact.

When a host escorts you into the dining room at this 30-year-old eatery, you can’t help but marvel at the tableau that greets you through floor-to-ceiling windows that face east into downtown.

If you’re dining at dusk, you won’t see the sun as it sinks below the horizon — it’s behind you — but you can observe a breathtaking scene as the last rays of the day color the urban core. Perched high

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above the noise and stress of the streets below, you will appreciate the beauty of the Queen City.

That’s the magical ambiance diners enjoy at Primavista, where every table faces the restaurant’s famous view.

Strategically placed mirrors amplify the effect.

After years — make that decades — of practice, the staff functions as a well-oiled machine and produces a dinner experience that most likely will be close to flawless, service-wise. This is no small accomplishment in the era

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of shortages of kitchen and front-ofthe-house workers. How comforting to know that you can still feel pampered in a cozy dining room that seems like it’s in the clouds.

You do have to find your way up there, though, so use your phone GPS to take the guesswork — and wrong turns — out of the equation. The restaurant occupies street-level space in the Queens Tower condo building clinging to one of the steepest precipices on East Price Hill.

When I moved to Cincinnati in the mid-’90s and my new husband introduced me to this romantic dining room, this part of town was almost entirely residential. A few notable commercial establishments have joined Primavista in recent years in an area now referred to as the “Incline District,” including the Incline Public House, SOMM Wine Bar and the Incline Theater.

That development has been good

for Primavista, according to co-owner Joan Lenkerd. More people from across the city have found their way to the neighborhood; overflow patrons from the Incline Public House next door have discovered Primavista and the neighboring eateries found ways to cooperate and support each other through the challenges of the pandemic. Lenkerd remarks that a synergy with neighboring businesses has contributed to a noticeable uptick in first-time and younger diners at Primavista.

“We still have a lot of regulars, and we love our regulars,” she says. “But we also love to see new diners.”

My friends and I weren’t new diners, although it was the first visit for one of us. After we managed to tear our eyes away from the bird’s-eye view of the city, our meal proceeded at a leisurely pace. There was no hustle from staff expecting a later seating, and it seemed CONTINUES ON PAGE 26

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The 2019 cast of A Christmas Carol. Antonio Michael Woodard in Need Your Love. Photos by Mikki Schaffner.

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Norm Lewis: Naughty and Nice December 3-4, 8:30 p.m.

Tickets: artswave.org/norm, 513.621.2787, Aronoff Center Ticket Office

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SEASON PREMIERE

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Tuscan Brownie

The view from Primavista

P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY P R I M AV I S TA

P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY P R I M AV I S TA

Veal Saltimbocca P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY P R I M AV I S TA

FROM PAGE 24

that most tables would be occupied by one party for the evening.

Primavista is renowned among professional foodies for its longtime chef, Chris Prince. He has been at the helm for almost 30 years and has trained dozens of kitchen staff, many of whom have gone on to lead kitchens of their own. Joe Stalf, former executive chef at The Littlefield in Northside, said he worked under Prince for five years after studying at the Midwest Culinary Institute. “I learned so very much from Chris,” Stalf, now with Eckerlin Meats in Findlay Market, tells CityBeat.

I hesitate to call the cuisine at Primavista “retro,” but in fact there are a couple of dishes that brought back happy culinary memories. Consider veal, which used to show up often in finedining, Continental (meaning French or Italian, usually) restaurants. As soon as I saw Veal Piccata on the online menu, I knew what my entrée would have to be.

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One of my companions felt the same way about Veal Saltimbocca, another option along with Veal Marsala.

First, we shared a couple of appetizers with cocktails and glasses of wine.

We liked the Bruschetta ($8.50) best, a simple combo of creamy goat cheese, honey and rosemary oil on toast pieces.

Lots of restaurants offer bruschetta or something like it, but this version was truly delicious, with perfectly toasted, flavorful bread and a topping balanced between sweetness and umami.

It turned out that three of us partook of veal that night when another added veal meatballs to his Penne Cionni ($23), a vegetarian preparation with roasted tomatoes, mushrooms and gorgonzola. Both the piccata and the saltimbocca ($34 each) came with steamed haricots verts and a small but tasty portion of polenta. Alas, the vegetable was overcooked, which is easy enough to do with very thin green beans. I loved the polenta and would

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have liked about twice as much.

The standout among the entrees we sampled was a weekly special: Cioppino ($33), seafood stew served with an optional portion of linguine. The mélange of plump mussels, shrimp, calamari and white fish benefited from its spicy tomato broth enhanced by finely chopped mushroom, celery and onion. Although this dish wasn’t on the regular menu, it has sold well enough to become a menu offering, Lenkerd says.

The year 2020 was about survival for the folks at Primavista — banding together with similar businesses, ramping up carry-out operations, deep cleaning and installing an air filtration system and barriers in the dining room and bar.

Now, 2021 has brought new challenges. Staffing shortages and rising costs for ingredients and supplies inspired a streamlining of the dinner menu and closing on Tuesdays (in addition to Mondays), but Primavista so far

is holding the line on raising prices.

“Chef does all the ordering, and he’s had to search for things that used to be easy to get,” Lenkerd says. “(Ordering) takes up so much more of his time now.”

On the other hand, Lenkerd feels good about the pared-down menu, which removed about one-third of the offerings in each category and kept the most popular items. The result has been a more efficient kitchen and smoother service, she says. Staffing hasn’t been a huge problem, either, in part because many of the restaurant’s longtime employees have returned.

“It’s so easy to run this place because everyone is happy when they get here and happy when they leave,” Lenkerd says. “That just makes everybody’s job easier.”

Primavista, 810 Matson Place, East Price Hill, pvista.com.

NOVEMBER 10 - NOVEMBER 23, 2021

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ANNOUNCING OUR NEW COVINGTON LOCATION!!

Bircus on Pike: 39 W. Pike St., Covington, KY margherita Pizza Special

Bircus Brewery: 322 elm st., ludlow, KY dada smokes bbq pineapple Pizza Special

Events at BIRCUS brewery: Ticket purchase is required for dine-in during shows. please visit Bircus.com for show times.

(No pizza at brewery on sunday) 28

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NOVEMBER 10 - NOVEMBER 23, 2021

THE DISH

Northside’s New Dangerbird Espresso Serves Craft Coffee from a Trailer While Paying Homage to the Neighborhood’s Black Vultures

BY S E A N M . P E T E RS

Dangerbird Espresso is the newest spot where you can grab a cup of coffee in Northside, but there’s a twist: You might see it in another neighborhood on any given day.

That’s because the coffeeshop operates out of a 17-foot, enclosed mobile trailer.

But, until co-owner Samantha Burroughs decides to hit the road, you can find it parked 9 a.m.-3 p.m. every weekend in the courtyard adjacent to Growing Trade Pet & Plant, where she also works.

The trailer has a dark gray finish with a shiny silver roof. There’s a propane tank on the front and, most prominently featured, the titular Dangerbird, a vulture drawn up in black-and-white traditional Western tattoo style by local tattoo artist Jaclin Grace Hastings (@jgracetattoo), co-owner of Over-the-Rhine’s Lonesome Town Tattoo.

If the imposing cartoon carrion-eater doesn’t scare you off, there are some solid drinks and snacks to reward your bravery.

On top of the classic range of coffee and espresso drinks — with beans from local Sidewinder Roastery — Dangerbird offers chai straight up or dirty, an assortment of organically grown teas, sparkling water, cold and hot chocolate milk (aka hot cocoa) and pastries from the likes of North South Baking Co. and Hunley Bee Bakery.

For the extra-good puppers out on a walk, Burroughs provides Yip Whips (like a Starbucks whipped cream Puppuccino).

Growing Trade owner and Dangerbird co-owner Jerome Wilson and Burroughs knew they wanted to use the courtyard as a place where people could relax and enjoy the peaceful ambiance naturally provided by the potted plants that occupy much of the yard, but it wasn’t until the opportunity presented itself to purchase a Homesteader trailer from Hawaiian mobile food pop-up Ono Grindz that they started to take the idea of a mobile coffeeshop seriously.

“This courtyard’s slowly been evolving,” Wilson says. “We always had this vision for it when we moved in that it was going to become this social gathering space. We thought that having a trailer here would be one extra thing for people to come do in our courtyard. So, you could come, you could get your coffee in the morning, sit with the plants and our shop cats (Aki and Bert) and maybe look at the plants.

Maybe buy plants? So that was sort of the idea, that it would be an extra draw here at Growing Trade.”

After all the bureaucratic formalities and health inspections, Dangerbird Espresso opened in late September.

One question the owners now likely encounter on a regular basis: What’s the story behind the name?

“Well, I don't know if you're aware of the black vultures that hang out in this neighborhood. They're here in the wintertime. So, we’re obsessed with them,” Wilson says.

As are most Northside residents and the “...Only in Northside” Facebook group page, where users frequently post jokes and pictures about the birds (there’s also a

less-used but dedicated Vultures of Northside Facebook page).

The black vultures are omnipresent in the neighborhood and can be seen by the dozens circling taller buildings.

Perched atop St. Boniface Catholic Church on Chase Avenue, a vulture could be mistaken for a stone gargoyle before it suddenly swoops down from the parapet to devour some unfortunate rodent.

“Somebody on Facebook suggested that they should be called ‘murder birds’ because they're the one species of vultures that will actually attack living creatures, as opposed to turkey vultures, who are really passive,” Wilson says.

Turns out the cassowary, a flightless bird found around Australia and New Guinea, is often referred to as the world’s most dangerous bird and already has the prestigious unofficial title of “murder bird,” thanks to the ostrich-sized avian’s dagger-like claws and antihuman outlook.

But a cool name for Northside’s resident black vultures was still needed.

Enter iconic singer/songwriter Neil Young.

“So, Zuma, the Young-Crazy Horse album,” Burroughs says, “‘Danger Bird’ was our favorite song on it.”

Dust off an old copy of Zuma (or pick one up at Shake It Records down the street) and “Danger Bird” is the second track. It starts with a melancholy minorkey three-chord progression, very moody and indicative of Young’s overdriven Folksiness.

Young sings: “Danger Bird, he flies alone / He rides the wind back to his home / Although his wings have turned to stone.”

This tune shows Young’s devotion to narrative songwriting techniques popularized by Bob Dylan and other Folk artists of the time, but modernized with electric instrumentation and a Blues jam structure that allows for indulgent guitar solos.

Turns out, this song’s somberness has similarities to Northside’s black vultures.

“Here's the thing: These black vultures just started coming up here in the last couple years,” Wilson says. “They didn't really hang out here 10 years ago, but they've been arriving because our winters are warmer and warmer.”

The connection being made here is that due to global warming the neighborhood is being flooded with aggressive carrioneating birds that aren’t afraid to kill.

“The other thing about the vultures is, in the morning when the sun comes up — especially in the wintertime — they spread their wings out to dry them in the sun,” Wilson says. “And so you'll see them up there standing with their wings spread out.”

“Our logo has one with its wings spread out because that's its morning ritual, and that kind of references that coffee is the morning ritual for humans.”

Dangerbird Espresso is located in Growing Trade Pet & Plant, 3840 Spring Grove Ave., Northside, instagram.com/dangerbirdespresso.

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THE DISH

A Q&A with Dominique Khoury, the Chef Behind Local Lebanese Pop-Up Looqma

BY S E A N M . P E T E RS

Dominique Khoury, the woman behind pop-up restaurant and bakery Looqma, moved to Greater Cincinnati last November. Lucky for us, she brought with her her family’s Lebanese cuisine — rich with spiced, aromatically seasoned meat; earthy stews; bright, citrusy fruits; elegant pastries; and nutty breads.

Looqma has been spotted around the city since May, making appearances by serving pastries at Mom ‘n ‘em in Camp Washington and Deeper Roots in Oakley. Looqma also caters private events to showcase how beautifully a table can be spread with the full array of a celebratory Lebanese feast.

Chatting with CityBeat recently over coffee at 1215 Wine Bar & Coffee Lab in Over-the-Rhine, Khoury mentions how beautiful her cup’s latte art is.

“What is amazing is that, when coffee comes to me like this,” she says, gesturing to the intricate heart-shaped lines in the drink’s foam, “it’s making something that’s regular and part of my routine into something special.”

This is something she says she also tries to do with her food.

“I really do feel quite passionate about making small moments beautiful.

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Whether it be a loaf of bread that you're eating, and you're diving into in the morning and you're getting ready to go to work, and it's all mundane and kind of repetitive, maybe you're able to slice into a beautiful loaf of bread. And maybe that bread has seeds on it that smell incredibly fragrant,” she says.

“So, when you're having your cup of coffee, it just makes you pause a little bit. I think, coming out of a pandemic, those pauses are really something that we've all started to find gratitude in. I think during the pandemic, many of us have had time to kind of pause and think about things. And I'm trying to really savor those pauses.”

To continue that train of thought, we asked Khoury more about her culinary philosophy, background and the genesis of Looqma.

CityBeat: Would Looqma have happened without the pandemic?

Dominique Khoury: It was probably always in the cards. I went to business school, graduated from the University of San Diego. And I remember USD was all about wanting to be an entrepreneur. I'm Lebanese, and I feel like that's very much a part of my culture, in a

NOVEMBER 10 - NOVEMBER 23, 2021

Dominique Khoury at a Looqma pop-up at Mom ‘n ‘em in Camp Washington P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY D O M I N I Q U E K H O U R Y

Dishes served at a Looqma pop-up at Mom ‘n ‘em, including pasture-raised lamb ribs P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY D O M I N I Q U E K H O U RY

sense — maybe even like the immigrant dream: coming to the U.S., thinking about it like a land of opportunity.

My father opened up gas stations, my brothers are entrepreneurs, my mom helped to run and open his gas stations as well, and was always involved in those projects and is still involved in projects with my brothers. I think that was always innate and a part of who I am. There was always just a matter of, “OK, well, how do I cultivate this? And how do I channel this energy into a direction that is unique to me and my journey?”

I always knew from a young age it would be something creative, whether it was in the art field, or theater, or dance or cooking. And I kind of dabbled in all of those directions, but it has culminated in food.

CB: You were born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and your parents are of Lebanese descent. How is Looqma’s food informed by this?

DK: Looqma really is a reflection of my Lebanese heritage. “Looqma” means a bite or morsel or a taste in Arabic. If we were sitting with family and friends at, say, breakfast, there would be fatteh and there would be labneh and there'd be fresh bread.

And we start talking about our day, and I’d get excited about what I was eating, and maybe I'd reach across the table and even feed it to you with my hands. And it’s that idea of sharing and being together. Also, “looqma” then becomes an expression, right? So it's a

bite or morsel, but it's also this gesture of sharing and eating. That's really the sense that I'm trying to create.

CB: What are some of the flavor profiles that distinguish Lebanese cooking?

DK: That’s a great question. We use a lot of olive oil. Lebanon is a really small country, and it's on the Mediterranean.

There's a beautiful wine region there.

There's olive trees that grow there, all sorts of citrus. So you can imagine lots of olive oil, lots of lemon, lots of beautiful fish, beautiful, ripe seasonal vegetables. The cuisine is really fresh and delicious and simple, in a sense. There's a lot of labor sometimes associated with chopping; if you think about tabbouleh, it's tiny chopped tomatoes and minced parsley. But all that labor of love is really what defines Lebanese food. It's the fresh flavor. It's a labor of love. And I think it's things just being presented in their most natural and delicious form.

CB: What dishes did you serve at your most recent pop-up?

DK: I love that you asked. To start, we had appetizers. In Lebanese cuisine we call our appetizers, sort of like antipasto, “mezze.” Mezze is like what you start with; these are just little finger foods. We started with a little bit of hummus that was drizzled with olive oil, paprika, and then on top there was couscous that had been made into a salad with fresh olives and cucumbers, pine nuts, lemon juice and mint.

Grape leaves are very common. Like

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NOVEMBER 10 - NOVEMBER 23, 2021

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Looqma’s seasonal lentil soup, which was featured on the Today Show’s website P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY D O M I N I Q U E K H O U R Y

Greek culture, it's almost like a dolma style. Rolled grape leaves (and) on the inside the stuffing is called hushweh, which could be anything from rice and lamb or rice and beef. That's cooked inside a grape leaf, or it could be cooked inside kousa, this beautiful dish with stuffed zucchinis that are then cooked in tomato gravy. I couldn't find grape leaves growing right now, but I wanted to use all these beautiful greens that are coming out. A lot of Looqma’s cuisine is really based off seasonality and what's fresh, and so I found some beautiful local swiss chard and rolled those leaves instead. Oh, and instead of using rice I made a hushweh out of lentil, fennel and garlic and lemon juice and stuffed the rolled little swiss chard leaves with that.

Proceeding that, I roasted a ton of beautiful squash with some walnuts over a bed of labneh. I made a beautiful roasted chicken. I took chicken thighs and marinated them in an apricot harissa, and then I seared them in cast irons and served them with plums and apricots that had been rehydrated in red wine vinegar. Lots of local greens, potatoes and chickpeas, so that was really lovely served in the cast iron.

Of course, there was a big platter of hummus with lots of beautiful organic seeds. I made talami bread. Talami is our version of focaccia; it's a very spongy sort of bread, and I added some sesame seeds, leeks and chard on top that was really lovely. All of the produce highlighted the Tri-State area and Ohio River Valley produce, which was beautiful. The chicken came from Indiana.

CB: Anything for dessert?

DK: The cookie! The cookie was our signature cookie, the tahini dark chocolate cookie. I use Soom tahini; it’s a woman-owned company. It's a family of women that started this amazing

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sesame empire. You should totally look into them. They're doing beautiful things with sesame seeds, single-source sesame, and it's the silkiest tahini and I just love it. I use it in my cookies, my hummus, my halva, just about everything. We actually just used our first 40-pound bucket of tahini, and it was, like, pretty amazing, because that's a lot of tahini.

CB: How do you like this city?

DK: I’d love to elaborate on how amazed I’ve been with the city — and when I say city, I also mean Northern Kentucky — by the amount of small business entrepreneurial support that there is. And not just within our industry, because obviously I see that more closely, but just in general.

I went into Aviatra, which is this incubator program for female entrepreneurs. And I just finished that (and) actually ended up getting the runner-up grant, which is really amazing. But through that, I was able to be introduced to amazing programs within the city like Main Street Ventures in Covington, for example, and also be linked up to other incubator programs.

I think that's what makes being here right now so exciting. To be welcomed with such open arms, such enthusiasm, is pretty unique and amazing. I just feel really grateful for that.

Looqma’s next pop-up takes place Dec. 4 at Oakley Wines. For information about Looqma’s menus and to view a schedule or book a private dinner, visit looqma.com.

MUSIC

Jeremy Pinnell (center) and band P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY I V P R

‘Goodbye L.A.,’ Hello Northern Kentucky Local countrified Roots musician Jeremy Pinnell ditches the melancholic songwriting in exchange for some upbeat Honky Tonk on his latest album

BY JAS O N GA R GA N O

“

Big Ol’ Good,” the first track on singer/songwriter Jeremy Pinnell’s latest record, Goodbye L.A., opens with Honky Tonk shine — a jaunty backbeat and tasty slide guitar set the scene before Pinnell’s signature soulful voice kicks in, cresting with the refrain,

“I get by ’cause my baby found a good fishin’ hole/I get high on that Rock & Roll.” Pinnell elongates the notes on “hole” and “roll” with uncommon flair, the sound of a seemingly satisfied man eager to shake off whatever demons might have plagued him in the past.

And then there’s “Night Time

Eagle,” an even jauntier tune that features a soaring solo from guitarist Junior Tutwiler and lyrics about the bittersweet joys of touring: “I hit the road with a four-piece band/Missing lines like I don’t give a damn/I don’t even know what day it is/But, honey, I just miss your kiss.”

You can almost picture the smile on Pinnell’s face as he sings. It’s a somewhat surprising shift in tone for those familiar with the Northern Kentucky native’s brand of countrified Roots music, almost all of which burns with brooding, melancholic intensity on 2015’s OH/KY and its follow-up, 2017’s Ties of Blood and Affection.

“It was kind of like I was so tired of hearing all these songwriters that were just so miserable,” says Pinnell — including himself on the list — by

phone from his home on a recent Saturday morning. “People are just so fucking sad, and I was like, ‘I am over it, dude.’ Like, ‘Quit crying about the fucking girl who ran away.’ Who gives a shit? I just got tired of it.”

Of course, Goodbye L.A. wouldn’t be the same without one of Pinnell’s darkhued journeys into self-reflection — the atmospheric, slow-burning “Red Roses” cracks with emotion as he sings, “The roses aren’t as red as they used to be/ But they are in my memory.”

Yet most of the record is infused with an earnest playfulness, as the title track attests, a likely nod to Pinnell’s current homelife as a husband and father: “A man once said, I wish they were all were California girls/But he ain’t seen my woman with long hair and curls.”

The chorus seals the deal: “Hello,

NOVEMBER 10 - NOVEMBER 23, 2021

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Jeremy Pinnell (center) and band P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY I V P R

L.A., you’ve got some pretty ladies/ But they don’t want babies, and I do/ Goodbye L.A., I’m going home to see my baby/She’s the one I belong to.”

“I just wanted to make a record that made people happy,” Pinnell says of Goodbye L.A.’s more upbeat nature.

“Everybody’s been so miserable for so long. I just wanted people to be OK with themselves, have a good time, enjoy each other’s company, enjoy being with another human being. I really just wanted to make that record where people could just enjoy life.”

Everyday life and its trials and tribulations have long been Pinnell’s bread and butter as a songwriter.

“You got to talk about real stuff,” he says. “That’s the only way you’re going to connect with people. Some people are surface level, and that’s fine, because we need all types of people, but some people need to go deeper, you know? You can just be honest about what’s going on with your life and people identify with that.”

That was certainly the case with Pinnell’s breakthrough record, OH/ KY. After more than a decade on the Cincinnati scene fronting stellar outfits like The Light Wires — whose 2004 self-titled album remains one of the

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best local efforts in recent memory — Pinnell’s solo debut, released via Northern Kentucky-based SofaBurn Records, drew praise far beyond the Tri-State area. Extensive touring across the U.S. followed, as did a previously unthinkable trip to Europe.

The attention came as a surprise to a guy who just wanted to write and play songs with his revolving backing band, which has solidified in recent years with the addition of Tutwiler, a multiinstrumentalist who Pinnell calls his “musical director.”

“I guess I just didn’t expect anything from the record,” Pinnell says. “That’s kind of like the way this whole (music) thing has gone; I never expect anything.

We did OH/KY, we released it the best we could, and people wrote about it and liked it. We were super-green, we were just learning how to play Country music, so it was a very new experience for us. So, to get some praise was good, but I feel like the real work didn’t really start until Tides of Blood and Affection.”

Pinnell recorded Goodbye L.A. at producer Jonathan Tyler’s Austin, Texas studio just before the pandemic hit.

The down time was tough on him and his band, as the momentum they built from the previous two albums and their

NOVEMBER 10 - NOVEMBER 23, 2021

resultant tours ground to a halt. But it also put things in perspective. Pinnell had to get a day job again, which just reminded him how much he loved being a touring musician.

“We did like 130-something days on the road in 2019,” Pinnell says. “By the end of that year, I was whupped, just cooked mentally, spiritually and physically. But then the pandemic hit. I remember telling my wife before the pandemic that I didn’t want to be 45-years-old riding around in a van, and that’s all I want to do now.”

Pinnell is quick to point out how the local scene has impacted his evolution as a songwriter and artist, name-checking various venues and supporters like Shake It Records and former Light Wires’ bandmate Mike Montgomery.

Pinnell mentions the original Southgate House as an especially important influence back in the day.

“I remember being a kid and Ross (Raleigh, the late owner and operator of the Southgate House) would let us have Punk shows and Hardcore shows there during the day,” Pinnell says.

“I remember us hanging out, playing baseball in the parking lot. Growing up in Cincinnati, I don’t know, it was just a

good group of people to grow up with.

I was always around musicians and artists. Just a different kind of people, you know? I think people from here are a little bit rougher, too, so that always helps.”

While he and his band are currently on their first tour in nearly two years, Pinnell is already thinking about the next record, which he says will likely be a more lo-fi effort following the relatively sleek accessibility of Goodbye L.A. “I like pushing buttons,” Pinnell says about his approach as an artist. “I try to be slick about it, but I think that’s what makes good art — people who push buttons. That’s the way I was brought up. You grew up listening to artists who really messed with people. I think when you get people out of their comfort zone, even yourself out of your comfort zone, that’s when you create good music.”

Jeremy Pinnell plays the Campbell County Public Library Newport Branch on Nov. 19 and MOTR Pub on Nov. 20. For more info and show details, visit jeremypinnell.com.

NOVEMBER 10 - NOVEMBER 23, 2021

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SOUND ADVICE Ben Folds

Thursday, Nov. 18 • Taft Theatre If you want to see one of Gen-X’s most creative minds at work, go to a Ben Folds show.

Folds has slowly, teasingly peeled back the layers of his brilliance in the decades since we first got to know him with the Ben Folds Five in the late ’90s.

The same man who shouted about wanting to be “Kate” on alternative radio back then has mined his life and observations to develop his songwriting and grow his career in unexpected ways.

Sure, Folds has collaborated with notable musicians such as Sara Bareilles, Regina Spektor and Weird Al Yankovic. As a producer, he’s even teased an album out of William Shatner that you can fully and unironically enjoy.

But Folds’ real skill is his writing, popping out not only lyrics that tell colorful, complete stories, but also arrangements of dozens of instruments, most of which he can play himself.

Folds has an ear for hearing something inconsequential — a goofy word, chair legs scraping across a wooden floor — and spontaneously building rich songs of all genres around it. He frequently demonstrates this during his live shows, when he asks an audience member for a topic or takes over an instrument from a fellow musician.

That’s why over the past decade or so, Folds’ marriage to major symphony orchestras around the globe has been such a joy to experience. What began as an interesting concept blossomed into something wondrous that had audiophiles listening to Classical musicians in new ways, no matter if Folds and the symphony were performing his old ’90s Slacker-Punk stuff or his newer, moving concertos.

Folds possesses a Jedi-like ability to write parts for 25 instruments, intuitively blend them into perfect melodies and harmonies, and have 100 high-caliber musicians perform them with incredible texture, all within about two minutes on stage. The process appears (and is) instantaneous, but that’s only because Folds has developed the serious skills required to pull it off flawlessly. It’s a sonic magic trick that leaves you wondering what in the hell you just witnessed while giving you a “I was there when he did that” moment to point to later.

When Folds takes the stage at the Taft Theatre on Nov. 18, he’ll do so just days after performing at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., where he has served since 2017 as the National Symphony Orchestra’s first artistic advisor. The show in Cincinnati will be solo — his first in town since 2019, those pre-pandemic times — but Folds surely will bring with him all of the cultural influences he’s amassed over nearly 30 years.

Doors open at 6:30 p.m., with the

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Ben Folds P H OTO : B E N F O L D S. C O M

show beginning at 7. All attendees must be fully vaccinated from COVID-19 (at least two weeks after the final immunization) and must wear a mask inside the venue at all times. (Allison Babka)

Shovels & Rope

Friday, Nov. 19 • Ludlow Garage South Carolina-based husband-andwife duo Cary Ann Hearst and Michael Trent initially had no intention of making Shovels & Rope a permanent music-making union. Yet here we are 13 years and multiple albums later, each effort a slight creative shift following a self-titled debut that announced the presence of two voices with grit and grace, delivering Roots-fortified tunes that simultaneously nod toward tradition and go their own way.

Shovels & Rope’s most recent album of original material, 2019’s By Blood, is perhaps the band’s most sonically expansive set to date, mixing raucous foot-stompers like “I’m Coming Out” and “Mississippi Nuthin’” with mid-tempo soul-stirrers like “Good Old Days” and “C’Mon Utah!,” which at one point finds the duo’s intermingling vocals bursting forth with enough yearning and emotion to make Joe Cocker blush. “Twisted Sisters” is equally stirring, adding horns and strings to the equation with seamless yet blissfully ramshackle results.

NOVEMBER 10 - NOVEMBER 23, 2021

Shovels & Rope P H O T O : L E S L I E R YA N M C K E L L A R

“Once we sit down with the music, we usually get a vibe of what the overall tone is, but the way the records come out, sonically, is really more directed by Michael,” Hearst said in a 2019 interview with PopMatters. “We think about records that we like or a vibe that we’re

going for.”

“We talked about making it a big, cinematic-sounding record,” Trent responded in the same interview.

“We’re always trying to do something a little bit different and the last one (2016’s Little Seeds), I feel like, came

Migos P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY V I R G I N M U S I C

across more as guitar rock. We used a lot more sweeping sounds (this time), there’s a lot more drama.”

Sure enough, the first single (“Domino”) from the band’s recently announced next record (Manticore, which is set for a Feb. 18 release) is another variation on duo’s Americana roots, employing piano, hand-claps and a sleek double-vocal delivery that brings to mind a Roots-fueled version of LCD Soundsystem.

Doors open at 7 p.m. and the show starts at 8:30. Shovels & Rope is requiring concertgoers to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test from the past 72 hours. Masks are encouraged. (Jason Gargano)

Migos with Trippie Redd

Sunday, Nov. 28 • Heritage Bank Center Cincinnatians will have a chance to dance off all the pumpkin pie they ate during Thanksgiving when Migos visits the Queen City. The multi-awardwinning Hip Hop trio from Georgia will perform at Heritage Bank Center just days after the holiday.

Migos became a hit machine in 2013 with the single "Versace," which received noteworthy remix action from Drake. In the ensuing years, critics have lauded Migos' albums, and many of the group's singles became top-10 hits on the Billboard charts, including "Bad and Boujee," "MotorSport," "Stir Fry" and "Walk It Talk It." Migos has

collaborated with Cardi B, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, Steve Aoki and Pharrell Williams and is responsible for the dabbing dance craze, thanks to the single "Look at My Dab." Canton, Ohio, native Trippie Redd will join Migos on the Cincinnati bill. A Mumble Rap leader, Trippie Redd has been on an upward swing since 2016, when he drew significant notice on SoundCloud. His 2020 album Pegasus hit No. 2 on Billboard. His latest album, Trip at Knight, dropped in August, with the lead single "Miss the Rage" making it to No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 2 on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs.

New York City rapper CJ will support Migos and Trippie Redd at the show.

Doors open at 5:30 p.m. and the show starts at 7. No proof of vaccination or negative COVID test is required.

(Allison Babka)

BONUS: Jim Gaffigan

Sunday, Nov. 20 • Heritage Bank Center Six-time Grammy-nominated comedian Jim Gaffigan is coming to Cincinnati as a part of his 2021 “The Fun Tour.”

Gaffigan is best known for his wide range of humor, as he has guest-starred in everything from Law & Order to Disney/Pixar’s Luca. Praised for his observational comedy, Gaffigan has won two Emmy Awards, and he will share his humor with the Queen City at 7 p.m. Nov. 20. (William Reisenberg)

NOVEMBER 10 - NOVEMBER 23, 2021

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ROYALS 4. General ideas 5. Slices of pizza, often 6. Former counterpart 7. Bring home 8. Logician's chart 9. Not very aerodynamic 10. 40% of a penny?

11. Pope who oversaw the First Vatican Council 12. Representative Kinzinger 13. Sweat spot 14. Moffat of "SNL" 20. "I'm trying to get things done!"

22. Mooch off of 24. Roof covering 25. League with Juventus and Inter Milan 26. Lunch choice that (surprise) has the same calories as a regular sandwich 27. Hardly emotional 28. C neighbor 29. Guns 'n Roses guitarist 30. Small spitz 31. "Get in line, pal, my turn first!"

32. Estefan who's won 19 Grammys 33. Program, as a thermostat 38. Unwanted item in a stocking 39. OK hours 40. Not fleshed out?

42. Broke in two 43. Lost endorheic lake of Kazakhstan 45. Odd man out 46. Kills off a character?

47. Lobster eater's covering 50. Molly, in four letters 51. They last for a number years 52. ___ Fifth avenue 53. Number of fruit of the Holy Spirit, according to Christianity 54. Mystery writer?: Abbr.

55. "Kids" band 57. Red spook org.

59. Right now, in texts 60. State ldr.

61. Nation's output: Abbr.

ACROSS 1. Slight amount 6. Don't touch 11. "Proud" parent 15. Red River city 16. Rams defensive tackle ___ Donald 17. One held in high regard 18. Sudoku solving technique reminiscent of a "Star Wars" fighter ship 19. Dinosaur plaza?

21. Side with curry 23. Abbr. above the Rio Grande on a map 24. Bug that can make you sleepy 26. Switch forerunner 27. College bigwigs who advise actress Cybil?

34. Fruit-filled treats 35. Parade entry 36. Metz Mrs. 37. He gave us all a lift 38. Shop holder 40. Bad attitude 41. What some athletes supposedly have in their veins 42. Jerks make them 43. Cub Scout leader 44. Winner overseeing the UK's withdrawal from the EU? 48. Sick as a dog 49. Italian theater 50. Paris Saint-Germain star Lionel 53. Easily tagged?

56. Popular daily fantasy sports gambling site, and a hint to this puzzle's theme 58. Belgium-based instrument manufacturer 62. Sushi selection 63. Dwarf in the garden 64. "Powering Business Worldwide" sloganeer 65. One giving a hand: Abbr.

66. Predilections 67. Award won by José Abreu in 2020 DOWN 1. "U R da best" 2. Untouched 3. Independent music icon DiFranco

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2905 DIXIE HWY | CRESTVIEW HILLS, KY

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~ Jalapeno Popper Pie & Steak Chimichurri

for PIZZA WEEK

12” MEDIUM IS $9 FOR PIZZA WEEK

at two locations Joinforustwo...different pies

BY B R EN DA N E M M E T T Q U I G L E Y W W W. B R E N DA N E M M E T TQ U I G L E Y.C O M

CROSSWORD

NOVEMBER 10 - NOVEMBER 23, 2021

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