Arts & Culture

As the leaves change color and the temperature drops (and, here in Columbus, goes back up and drops again), as Pumpkin Spice Everything starts appearing on the menu at every coffee shop in town, writers throughout the world and right here in our hometown start planning. They check out every book on characterization and plotting in the entire region's library system, and then they descend on the book shops to clear out the story crafting shelves there as well. They buy up notebooks and fancy pens. And then, on November 1st, when everyone else is out buying discount Halloween candy, they write the first words of their new novels. That's right, National Novel Writing Month is upon us again! This year the event, abbreviated as NaNoWriMo, expects to draw in about 500,000 participants from all over the world, with over 4,000 registered in the Central Ohio region on nanowrimo.org. The goal for each participant is to write a 50,000 word novel by 11:59PM on November 30th. The novel can be anything: The Sailor Moon fanfiction you've had on your mental back burner since the 90s is every bit as welcome as an attempt at the next Great American Novel.

Get ready as the longest-running film festival in the US stretches out for two whole weeks this year in November. Starting on November 3rd with two workshops and sneak peak screening of a Silver Chris Award winner Chasing Water at the Peggy R. McConnell Arts Center of Worthington, the Festival officially opens on November 7th at the Gateway Film Center with a French film shot in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Co-sponsored by the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, Beny: Back To The Wild tells the emotional story of Beny, an orphaned bonobo rescued by Claudine André, a conservationist who has dedicated her life to bonobos, our closest primate cousins. On Tuesday November 12th Animations 4 Adults will screen at Brothers Drake Meadery. Ages 21 and over please for these cartoons from the UK, Germany and the US. The Festival also travels to Studio 35 for LGBTFEST, the first of three nights of LGBT films at Studio 35, Wild Goose Creative and the Canzani Center at the Columbus College Of Art & Design.

Latitude 41 offers fine dining downtown at the Renaissance Hotel, and one of the things that caught my attention (years ago) about this restaurant is that they say what they stand for on their signage. Fresh. Natural. Organic. Local. In fact, some of their food is so local it is actually grown on site. Their team knows what a vegan is (surprisingly, this is still confusing in 2013 in some restaurants) and even better, they just happened to be serving vegan roasted pumpkin soup as a starter and the perfect starter or a fall evening. The chef, Dean James Max and his team are certainly capable of ensuring vegans can have an exceptional dining experience there; mine included a remarkable, earthy, fusion pizza with lemon curd, shitake mushrooms, figs and greens and a robust mushroom risotto. Their menu is seasonal, changes daily and is a great example of ensuring all customers have all options, even dessert. Open daily for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner and located 50 N 3rd St. http://www.latitude41restaurant.com/

Nasir Latif has a long history in the Columbus Mediterranean restaurant business. He stepped out for a while but came back with Lavash several years ago. He planted a fast casual restaurant in south Clintonville and it has been a huge hit, especially with me since, it opened. I will mention a few things I really appreciate about the place: great daily specials, very good vegetarian and carnivore friendly offerings and a wide selection of baked goods, many from Nanak Bakery. I have enjoyed each meal from a simple shawarma to any of the daily specials. However, I never visit without ensuring I get a serving of hummus with a side of their freshly made pita bread. Hummus is one of the basic staples of any middle eastern restaurant but not all are created equal. The Lavash hummus blends ground chickpeas, tahini sauce, lemon juice, garlic and extra virgin olive oil in just the right proportions. The balance of all of the flavors mixes together in just the right proportion and pairs perfectly with the pita bread. Lavash pita is thicker than what you typically encounter elsewhere.

Monday found me floundering musically to fit the mood--and what was that mood? Normally, I'll wake up, trundle downstairs, start my coffee, open my patio door to sniff the air and the temperature, turn on NPR, then go down to the basement and fire up some vinyl on ye olde turntable. Yes, I let the morning news team compete with my records, so what? I began with an old Atlantic Records sampler that had Sergio Mendes and Brazil 66 doing a samba-esque medley from the play, Black Orpheus. As light as he can be, Mendes does some heavy arranging on the three-part mini-suite, wordless vocals by his smoothly sensual backing singers floating over lightly percolating rhythms just right for a grump with creaky knees. Outside, the bushy-tailed neighborhood groundskeepers bounced from acorn to acorn, hoarding for the winter. What would I be reincarnated as next lifetime? Memo to me: improve karma, do it today. As NPR's Morning Edition with Renee Montagne and David Greene roll along, I am plagued by a returning uneasiness, particularly with Steve Inskeep the Washington NPR correspondent (he and Greene are the weasels to Montagne's more credible badger).

I went to Vegas once, bet $18 and won 25 and quit while I was ahead. Blowin' dough in a scam where the house owns the odds is for fools. You want to gamble, own a record store in 2013. No, I took my 30 percent winnings and principle and blew them over the course of the next 24 hours as I gorged myself on three of those 'all-you-can-eat' casino buffets which are awfully damn good for eight bucks. This really jammed my sperm count into overdrive with New York strip steaks headlining each meal with plenty of refills. Three cheers for meat products! So it was this past weekend, where I did better than three oranges in a row when I saw the Fleshtones, Los Straitjackets and Neko Case. Each knocked it out of the ballpark and in the case of the 'jackets, knocked the skin right off the ball. But how did I do better than a trifecta? Throw in the best emcee this town has ever seen: Bruce Nutt, promoter for the 'shtones and 'jackets at Woodlands Tavern Sunday night, and a most wonderful old-school huckster/fast-talking/big-city-slicker who outdoes Wolfman Jack when it comes to firing up an audience and presenting the acts. Dude has a talent for presenting talent.

Pattycake bakery is one of the most precious gems of the Columbus vegan community. Their sticky buns (Saturday’s special only) are one of my few but true addictions. Whether I want to impress non-vegans or a hungry hoard of 300 Vegans 4 Independence, it is with Pattycake, because everyone deserves dessert. What makes this place so special even surpasses the decadence of delicious; it is made with true love for the people, the planet and the animals. Everything is 100% vegan (strives for organic and GMO free ingredients, serves gluten-free, soy-free, raw, locally produced kombucha and soy and almond milk), their sweets are delivered locally by bicycle, they have distinguished themselves in the Columbus food market as a worker-owned cooperative and an unstoppable force of awareness to the dire consequences of the horizontal fracturing (aka “fracking”) process running rampant in our region. When your sweet tooth strikes or if you are a restaurant that has no vegan dessert options, meet your new best friend or path to adding a star for socially just options to your menu. Open everyday! Mon-Fri: 8-7, Sat: 9-6, Sun: 11-4. Located at: 3009 N.

I was leaving a preview screening of All Is Lost when a disappointed film buff commented that it was no Life of Pi. That’s for sure. There’s no digital tiger and no otherworldly 3-D photography. For 99 percent of the film, there’s not even any dialogue. There’s simply a man struggling to survive after his sail-powered yacht is damaged in a mid-sea collision. Fortunately, that man is played by Robert Redford. If anyone of less stature had starred as the unnamed shipwreck victim, the film would be far less watchable. Not only is he compelling in a role that alternates between grunts and tense silences, but his age and familiarity add depths of meaning to what is otherwise a deliberately paced adventure. In the first scene, we hear the man’s voice apparently reading from a journal of his trip while the man himself is seen floating in the ocean. “I think that you will all agree that I tried…” he says. Is this Redford himself talking, we wonder. Is he praising himself for founding the Sundance Film Festival?

As a sophomore at Upper Arlington High School, few things held more terror for Maddie Spielman than her public speaking/debate class. “It was really a burden for me,” Maddie says with a laugh. “I’d get these sweaty palms every time I had to speak in front of my class.” These days Maddie doesn’t have time for such anxiety attacks. During October, National Breast Cancer Awareness month, Maddie often is in front of groups two to three times a week as she carries on the message of her mother, cancer crusader Stefanie Spielman. The Ohio State sophomore, who is majoring in communications, says she discovered a new-found courage to become a spokesperson for the Stefanie Spielman Fund for Breast Cancer Research after her mother passed away on Nov. 19, 2009. Maddie is becoming the face of the organization that has raised over $13 million dollars for cancer research, appearing in Kroger ads with her father Chris and Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer and in Donato’s ads with chairman Jane Grote Abell. “If someone would’ve told me I’d be doing this four years ago, I would’ve laughed but something seemed to click,” Maddie says.

With its presence and attendance continuing to climb, the country’s longest-running film festival is receiving the stretch treatment. The 61st Columbus International Film & Video Festival (CIF&VF) will run for two weeks next month. Assorted screenings, manifesting throughout Columbus at different times, will play from November 3rd through November 17th. “Entries have been pouring in from every part of the planet. It’s always a very multicultural event,” said Susan Halpern, executive director of the Columbus Film Council, which puts on the festival.