Arts & Culture

Despite not being a professional football fan, after being inundated with much pre-game chatter, this year I decided to watch the Super Bowl. The story line, according to multiple pundits, was the best defense going against the best offense. What actually resulted was something else entirely. Super Bowl? I think not. Sub-Par Bowl, is more like it. The best part was the Halftime Show, which is really saying something. I didn't really expect much from Bruno Mars, but to my surprise, he was pretty good. The lady who delivered an operatic rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” before the game received high praise from the announcers and others, but I found it tedious and overly drawn out. By comparison, many years ago I saw the Boys Choir of Harlem do the best rendition of the National Anthem ever. It was done in a very quick tempo. They didn't indulge in any extra trills or flourishes, they just belted it out and were done with it. At the time I remember thinking, “that's the way everyone should sing the National Anthem.” To my regret, I haven't heard anyone do it that way since. In short, I thought the Super Bowl was a real dud.

I love Mazah. Maggie, the owner, has really made this place a piece of heaven for the vegan community. Vegan spinach fatayer? Check. Vegan baklava? Check. (call ahead to pre-order that). Although Mazah also serves animal based meals, the Mediterranean tradition of Lent lends itself favorably to plant eating people with an abundance of delicious options. They are currently building a new restaurant space and their new menu will be specifically listed to make accommodating the vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free communities with simple selections instead of forcing their customers to do creative thinking, manipulations of the menu options and ask for accommodation. They do recycle products and have predominantly transitioned from Styrofoam containers, with the exception of the soup container. They are happy to accommodate parties on Sundays for special occasions (graduation/ bridal/meetup group dinners etc. from 45 to 100 people) and have many other traditional vegan options not on the menu available upon request. Mazah is located at 1439 Grandview Ave. Columbus. Open Monday - Saturday for lunch and dinner.

Justifiably celebrated as a statesman, civil rights warrior and all-around American hero, Pete Seeger was also an incredible musician. Beyond the civil rights anthems for which he is known, Seeger produced a huge body of work encompassing both traditional songs from around the globe and contemporary songs, many of which he authored himself. His songs can be pointed, serious, political, irreverent, hilarious and sometimes all of these. Many of his best recordings are live, with a healthy dose of audience participation (witness his 1964 solo version of “Wimoweh” (Mbube) in which he organizes the audience into three separate parts, before adding the falsetto part himself). His back catalog is a treasure of music, and well worth exploring. In the week since Seeger's passing, I have compiled eight of my favorite Seeger tracks, which I hope are a good jumping off point to his music. Whenever possible (and often it wasn't), I have tried to give the original release dates and albums for these songs, because in an 80 year career chronology matters. Seeger was so incredibly prolific, however, that running down all of his recordings would be an impossible task.

If you’re looking for tropical beaches populated by beautiful people, you’ll find them in Brazil. You won’t find them in the Wexner Center’s new building-wide exhibition, “Cruzamentos: Contemporary Art in Brazil.” But you will find lots of other things, some of which you’ll like more than others. For example: ▪ A trio of adjoining video screens showing a man struggling with, respectively, a tree, a goat and an angry crab. (Weird!) ▪ A wall topped with jagged glass. (Don’t touch!) ▪ A lighted cabinet filled with rotting oranges. (Hmmm…) In all, 35 artists contributed to the ambitious art show, which is part of the Wex’s ongoing “Via Brasil” project. If none of them produced works that fit Americans’ image of the land that gave us the 1960s hit “The Girl From Ipanema,” that’s probably because they’re too busy responding to their own reality. “I think the greatest thing about the show,” said Luiza Baldan, a featured photographer from Rio de Janeiro, “is it’s not a typical cliché about Brazil.” A similar sentiment was sounded by Paulo Venancio Filho, a Brazilian art historian who co-curated the show along with Wexner officials Jennifer Lange and Bill Horrigan.

Many years ago, Andrew Herbert Davis, also known as Episkopos Udu Tribble, realized a great truth: people with titles get better seats at the ball park. Although not interested in sports, Andrew took this advice to heart and began collecting letters. Now, when sending out important letters, as important people sometimes must, Andrew finishes his signature sapp epoee rev ulc pop sp ahem. An explanation is necessary. Andrew belongs to a secret sect of devotees known as the Legion of Dynamic Discord. In fact, he is a Pope (Self-Appointed Pope and Poet). An Episkopos is an overseer. In this case, what is being overseen is the Para-Theo-Anametamiskhood of Eris Esoteric (see http://principiadiscordia.com/ for more information on the Goddess Eris and how you too can become a Pope). Andrew is also an ordained minister, Reverending for the Universal Life Church O’ Love In_Action. Feel free to make contact for information on weddings, wakes, house cleansings and other ministerial type duties. POP stands for Prince of Parsnips. This makes no sense and was added just for the letters. SP is for Snappy Pappy.

Cryptocurrency has become serious business. Since late last year the internet has been abuzz with stories of original cryptocurrency Bitcoin’s massive price spike, along with anecdotes about people buying Tesla and Lamborghini sports cars with the digital currency. After spiking up around $1,200 – that’s TWELVE HUNDRED DOLLARS for a single unit of digital money – it’s settled back around the $800 mark. But where Bitcoin has notoriously become the payment method of choice for online drug dealers, hit men and deep-end Libertarians trying to avoid taxes, there are a lot of people interested in the technical side of cryptocurrency. Some of them have created alternatives to try to spread the idea of digital money not tied to a particular government or banking institution to a wider audience without the worrying associations Bitcoin has acquired. One of those alternatives is trying to be as un-serious business as possible while still remaining a viable currency: Dogecoin. Created by Billy Markus of Portland, OR and Jackson Palmer of Sydney, Australia, Dogecoin’s identity is based on the popular “doge” meme.

A play party by definition is an orgy – a gathering of several people of varying sexual lifestyles/ preferences for the purpose of sexual activity. Usually the host(s) determines if the party is for a hetero/bisexual, gay/lesbian or BDSM (or all of the above) attendees. Play parties are usually by invitation only. When invitations go out, a set of rules are also sent. Sometimes admission is charged to cover the cost of staff, rent, laundry and supplies. Sometimes males only are charged admission or charged a higher rate of admission than females. Usually there is a reasonable fee for couples or a group that arrives together. The main rule is to have consent. If someone does not wish to engage with others, but to just watch or exhibit masturbation, that is their preference. If you ask someone for a sexual encounter, for permission to touch, kiss or more, be specific about your intentions and be ready to move on after hearing, “No.” A pile of writhing, naked bodies is not necessarily an invitation for anyone to join in. If you have been told “No” by someone and yet you see them in the midst of a pile, don't be confused.

The Columbus Film Council will present a collection of short films with a Valentine’s Day theme—love, sex and romance on Tuesday, Feb. 11. Join fellow cinephiles at Brothers Drake Meadery & Bar, 26 E. 5th Ave. in the Short North, to view the collection. The show is free and open to the public. Screenings begin at 8 p.m. Films to be screened include Love Stalk, A House, A Home, Grotto, and Sphere In Boxland. “We are thrilled to be able to present international short films as part of a community screening program with Brothers Drake Meadery,” said Susan Halpern, Columbus Film Council Executive Director. “The evening will be a dark and humorous look at love, yet with hope and romance as well.” Love Stalk (by Joe Fiorello, 20 minutes) takes place in Hong Kong and, hrough a young woman’s eyes, explores the world’s new digital capability of stalking via the Web. Sharon Ong (played by Angie Palmer, a former Columbus resident) is an executive from Singapore having a hard time finding love in the one-night-stand capital of the world.

Normally if someone invites me to a spoken word event, I bestow the same mistrust I would if that person borrowed a $5 from me and did not pay it back. I might be polite but I would have a distant politeness to that human until they showed me a reason to want to engage with them. So I was a bit leery when I went to the Jan. 28 reading at No Place that featured N.E. Alt-Lit stars Jordan Castro, Mallory Whitten, Richard Wehernberg as well as Columbus “poets” Alex Mussawir, James Payne, Danielle, Cagialno and Ryan Eilbeck. The writers from N.E. Ohio are primed as this era’s voices. So if they were corny, then poetry would be ruined for another 5-12 years depending on what technological advances, atrocities and new drugs created another generation. As far as the people from Columbus, I am not so sure if I wanted to see them naked. Fortunately everyone mixed humor with insight. Some highlights, James Payne started the evening singing an acapella version of “Mercedes Benz” by Janis Joplin, and went on to speak candidly about student debt often having zero correlation with job prospects, and his preferences for interacting with certain types of intellectuals.

EASY is a small independent publishing label and platform for experimentation and collaboration that local artists Samantha Rehark and Elijah Funk have been developing since 2011. “We need an intern.” Samantha Rehark and Elijah Funk joked from time to time during our interview at the No Place Studios located amidst an industrial ruin on the Southside of Columbus. “It’s a weird place to be to be… I don’t know if we even have time to make our own stuff,” says Funk of going from creating his own work to helping others. We were discussing the time-consuming labor of love the two artists have created with EASY. EASY started off organizing silent auctions, artist talks, skill-building events and a lot of informal drawing, bonding events in 2011. “We realized we were making a lot of print material through all of It.” said Rehark of EASY’s development from artist events to a zine publishing resource, which used Kickstarter in October 2013 to raise $2500 dollars to print publications by emerging visual artists, musicians and writers. EASY’s campaign is enabling them to publish Aiden Koch, John Malta, Sam Reiser, Nathan Snell, Heather Benjamin, Dan Rosser (Cult Ritual) and more.