Arts & Culture

Columbus rapper King Vada is celebrating the release of his new EP “Flowers Before I Go” with a show at the Circus tonight, Thursday November 14th. The rapper formerly know as Lxe For the Uncool released an EP back in August called “Murder Flowers.” King Vada’s 2013 catalog is blooming more than the Franklin Park Conservatory. My best idea to woo a lady is to bring over a pizza and a bouquet of whippets so I decided to ask King Vada’s advice on what types of flowers to bring a lady during the courting process. Vada responded, “Tulips. That would be my personal choice. Most people would bring roses though.” King Vada added, “On my birthday, I give my mother Roses.” De La Soul’s “D.A.I.S.Y. Age,” Wale's "Lotus Flower Bomb" and Jay Electronica’s twitter bio aside, one doesn’t hear about too many rappers bigging up romantic botany so I asked what’s up with the floral in the King’s arrangements. Vada’s explanation for the EP titles boils down to appreciation, “It’s a Kanye quote, ‘Give people the flowers when they can smell them.’ It’s just saying. ‘Give me my flowers now. Give me my props now... Don’t wait until I have passed away.

Free Press political cartoonist Matt Bors will be among the featured speakers during the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum Grand Opening Festival of Cartoon Art today through Sunday Nov. 17 in Sullivant Hall on the campus of the Ohio State University. Bors will be joined by other notable cartoonists including Brian Bassett, Stephen Pastis, Hilary Price, Jeff Smith and many others. Bors, who will also be honored at the 2013 Annual Free Press Awards dinner on Monday (see page 10), has been a nationally syndicated editorial cartoonist through Universal Features since the age of 23. He was a Pulitzer Prize Finalist in 2012, and winner of the Herblock Prize for Excellence in Cartooning as well as the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi Award. He published his first graphic novel, War is Boring, in 2010 and is currently the comics journalism editor for Cartoon Movement. Bassett is the creator of the comic strip Red and Rover which was launched in 2000, and won the 2013 award for Best Newspaper Comic Strip of the Year by the National Cartoonists Society.

I am by no means calling myself a Macklemore & Ryan Lewis apologist. Or am I saying the Seattle rapper and his producer who have sold over 1 million copies of their latest album “The Heist” really need an advocate. But, I did spend the bulk of Wednesday going to their show at the Value Center Arena half-heartedly justifying my attendance at the concert. My Macklemore & Ryan Lewis defense centers around 2 things: Their championing of gay rights on the song “Same Love,” and also them being ambassadors of Hip Hop culture in the mainstream. For “The Heist” Tour, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis brought Big K.R.I.T. and Talib Kweli as their opening support which is pretty Hip Hop. Granted I am the same guy who said “Hip Hop Hooray” when Miley Cyrus claimed to be having Juicy “Slob on My Knob” J’s lovechild on twitter. Def Jam Recording Artist Big K.R.I.T. performed first, backed by a deejay. After couple of songs, the humble but charismatic Mississippi rapper had the Value City Arena making driving motions with their hands to his song “Rotation.” I thought this was pretty impressive seeing that K.R.I.T.

Who said the days of old school bump’n’grind were over? It seems Columbus is becoming a center for a burlesque revival. This year we have two active organizations – the Columbus Burlesque Collective and the Ooh La La’s – and our city hosted the Fierce! International Gay Burlesque Festival this past May. If you yearn for an earlier era of tassels and semi-clad tush swaying, you need to embrace the lost art of burlesque. I attended a show called “It’s BOOB Thirty,” Friday October 18, an hour-long burlesque show that was free and held during Happy Hour at the Ace of Cups on north campus. The only thing missing was a vaudeville comedian as the opening act. The performers, each with their own unique theme and styles, recall the days when sex was titillating as opposed to in-your-face nasty. The mistress of ceremonies, Venom Vamp, encouraged strategic catcalls and wolf howls. The Free Press’ own Lady Monster took the stage twice, known as the Queen of Fire Tassels. She was taught by the “Living Legend of Burlesque” Satan's Angel, the creator of fire tassel twirling and has worked with Jello Biafra, Leonard Nimoy and Margaret Cho, to name an odd collection of celebrities.

For the past two years, Otterbein University junior Tabatha Piper has had only 48 hours to make the transition from playing collegiate volleyball to basketball. This year the time lapse will be even shorter with the volleyball team qualifying for the NCAA Division III tournament. The volleyball team opened the tournament against DePauw on Nov. 14 at Elmhurst College in Elmhurst, Ill. With a win, the Cardinals would play either Webster University or top-seeded Hope College in the second round on Friday, Nov. 15 with the winner advancing the regional finals on Saturday, Nov. 16. Over 220 miles away, the women’s basketball team opens its season in the Franklin College tournament in Franklin, Ind. with the Cardinals playing DePauw Nov. 15 and Denison on Nov. 16. “It’s crazy,” says the 5-foot-11 setter, who was a first-team All-Ohio Athletic Conference selection. “The two seasons have never overlapped before but we have it all arranged.” Piper plans to stay with the Cardinals as long as they are still alive in the volleyball tournament. If the team is eliminated on Nov.

If you are looking for some vegan comfort food, Till Dynamic Fare has you covered. They do a vegan mac and cheese (cashew based) with smoked tofu that makes this vegan’s heart sing! Till takes pride in their ingredients for being; “bio-dynamically produced, organic and local first.” Not only have they grown many of their ingredients in their on-site garden, they “know their farmers.” Fresh and creative has always been their signature, regardless of whether they were exclusively vegan (formerly known as Dragonfly) or with a mixed menu now known as Till. They almost always have a vegan soup/chili option and at least half of their homemade ice cream (right now it is mint chocolate-chocolate chip, rum raisin and lemon pumpkin seed brittle) selection is vegan. You can always find vegan dessert too! I’m about to go and try their decadent vegan Black Forest Trifle: Chocolate cake, chocolate mousse, dried cherries, passion fruit custard with coconut ice cream! They do magic things with passion fruit. When you want something vegan, seasonal, savory and hot, or sweet and cool, you can find it here.

Breaking my nightly Downton Abbey couch-potato addiction, I spent four evenings grooving at the Newport last week. I could've been immersed in a world of post-Victorian 1 percenters upstairs and their devoted and un-embittered inferiors downstairs. But no, you all needed to know what goes on behind those black Newport doors and I am just the musically ravenous young man to put his delicate sensibilities to the not-so-tender mercies of our murderous pop culture. I did not go through the Downton cold turkey shakes. I did not emerge unscathed either. One of the lineups qualified for Worst Ever Heap O' Stink and I've been reviewing shows since Moses wore short pants. Read on, lazy bones. Steve Vai is a guitar god, no getting around it. Tuesday night he was so hot, I kept thinking, that's right Eric Clapton, stay home hiding under your bed, Vai's in town and he's SMOKIN'. Hey, Joe Boner-Master, you're a Vegas-wannabe, go blow Wayne Newton. Eddie Van Halen, please take a number and wait your turn for a lesson in the art of the six-string symphonic solo. Satriani, you are fit only to roadie. Get a life. Vai's da man, yo. He's different. He's sort of weird but positive.

I have driven by Rice Bowl a few times in my day. It is located at the intersection of South High Street and SR 104. The sign looks like it is from the 1960s but it turns out it is circa 1991. The Rice Bowl has a long history on the south side. It has existed with three owners and two locations since 1962. Rice Bowl 3.0 is a family affair that has operated the restaurant for a few decades. Judging from the outside and the location, I did not have great expectations for the Rice Bowl. However immediately upon entering I had a good feeling. Looking at the menu, I had a very good feeling and, starting with the egg rolls, I knew that I had stumbled into something very special indeed. You can not judge a book by its cover nor a restaurant by its mailing address. So let us begin with the egg rolls. The lowly egg roll rarely gets much respect mainly because they are typically reheated frozen fare. The eggs rolls are made from scratch at the Rice Bowl and are hand rolled each week. They are filled to capacity to the point of being stuffed. The exterior is soft and crunchy and does not disintegrate with a light bite. The sauces are also made from scratch.

You always remember where you were the first time you saw Assassins. I was in the Riffe Center’s Studio One, which looked a lot different than it does today. For his 1993 Players Theatre production, director Steven Anderson forced viewers to stare at each other from either side of the central stage. The idea was to underline the fact that the Stephen Sondheim musical is about us—Americans—and our violent history. It was a brilliant concept, but a look at the viewers across the way suggested that many of them didn’t know what to make of this provocative and darkly comic history lesson. And some (myself included) had trouble with its surreal “explanation” of President Kennedy’s assassination, a crime that remained controversial 30 years after the fact. So now it’s 50 years after JFK’s death, and his murder has largely been replaced by 9/11 as the most shocking event of modern history. In fact, political assassinations have generally given way to terrorism and mass shootings as the major sources of national paranoia. It’s in this atmosphere that Red Herring Productions brings the Sondheim musical back to Studio One.

Didn't the Halloween season seem to last forever this year? How do people come up with so many costumes ideas for all the different events? I can never think of anything to wear so I went out as grown and sexy per usual. On Thursday, I went to the Atrocity Party at Sugar Bar 2, which is in a location that’s part of one of my fondest memories, centered around Dipset’s residency when Chubbie Baby owned it. Then it was called the Red Zone. When I arrived at the downtown nightclub, former Roc-a-Fella Producer Just Blaze was playing a block of Dipset songs. It felt like the good old days of the Red Zone. Just Blaze ended his Dipset segment with Cam’ron’s mention of him “I’ll take a couple bars off/ and let Just live” from the Blaze produced “I Really Mean It.” Before I could say “you crazy for that Just,” the New Jerusalem producer switched up and played a Jay Z song. After a few more Hov and Ye songs the evening became awful. Blaze looped up Biggie’s self-loathing “When I die/I want to Go to Hell/ I’m a piece of shit/It ain’t hard to tell” from “Suicidal Thoughts” over some sort of electronic dance music.