Arts & Culture

Columbus’ own rapper/singer Chris Dickerson won the 2013 Most Improved Artist award at this year’s Ohio Hip Hop Awards Show (OHHA). Dickerson used to be known as Distinct 1 when he was a rapper, but people started calling him D1 and it stuck. The 29-year-old won the award “…for most improved all around - music, image, marketing, live performances, etc. The nomination process is partially chosen by fans and the Ohio Hip Hop Award panel, but the actual voting process is all done by the fans,” D1 told the Free Press.

Wednesday set off a pretty vibrant week in Columbus. I started off my evening catching the tale end of the Acid Reign Screening presentation of films for the aforementioned NYC Public Access program at downtown art space Skylab. The presentation supplemented itself with Columbus made videos. Two of the films were a flip on normal advertising methods. One shot workers at womyn-run Alternative Auto Care fixing a car presented with an arty realism. The other was almost an adbuster style anti-commercial for a cruise line that had dialog about the survival-of-the-fittest indifference of the ocean to the living beings in it. This could either be read for a parable about capitalism with the idea of someone wealthy taking a luxurious cruise while others suffer or it could be a parody of a dark humored overly serious indie film. After watching Acid Reign, I headed over to see Har Mar Superstar at Double Happiness. Har Mar Superstar is a left-field R & B singer from New York via Minnesota that looks like The Critic’s Jon Lovitz portraying porn-star Ron Jeremy.

Twas a Saturday night and I don't remember if the moon was bright but yours truly went a-roving. First stop: the Basement, my most favorite place for near-guaranteed intimacy in Columbus, where you can technically get close enough to the performers to untie their shoes (though I prefer not, but when the Stones played the Shoe and I was photographing them I could've undone Mick's laces; I successfully fought the urge).       And honest to goodness and Lord Byron's club foot, too, I went to hear the two acts absolutely entirely and only because I liked their names and nothing more (at that point): Bass Drum of Death and headliner Hanni El Khatib. The former had much to live up to--and I do admire true boldness; and the latter, too, in this day and age of religious war with the Middle East, a name like that invites raised eyebrows but then again, I know from growing up in several entirely different regions of America what it's like to be an outsider. Fighting led to friendship, that's the American way.      My unpretty hunches paid off handsomely.

While recording his new album, Superorganism, Mickey Hart donned an EEG cap and a computer channeled the electrical impulses of his brain waves into sounds. From there, according to his silly liner notes, he incorporated them with his music. "These sounds are noise--harsh and strange--and it is only after dancing with their essence face to face that music can be created." But that doesn't answer the question Superorganism's cover picture of his brain provokes: Isn't Mickey Hart's brain scan a lovely replica of a jellyfish? From the Dead's ubiquitous skull logo to Mickey's mental matter--this is progress? The squishy weird thing that floats by you in our dirty, filthy, medical-waste-strewn oceans isn't what came to mind last week when Hart and his band played under the big tent in the Woodlands Tavern's back parking lot. No, first of all, the lovely, frightening post-Grateful Dead crowd of forever young and yet old-before-their-time pre-humans make one think it was a collection point for a Noah's Ark of unwanted pets. Funny-lookin' folk, really.

The Columbus College of Arts and Design hosted its second annual Mix Symposium last Friday and Saturday, with keynote guest Jeff Smith (Bone, RASL). With a number of panels featuring academic presentations, several workshops where students discussed the comics craft with local creators, and a two hour keynote featuring Smith and journalist Tom Spurgeon, the symposium highlighted the diversity of the comics medium and the growing comic scene in Columbus. The symposium was designed as a place for dialogue between academics, creators and fans. “This year’s Mix came closer to achieving the symposium’s aim,” said Mix organizer Robert Loss. “That’s a tough thing to measure, honestly; it’s a very egalitarian and somewhat experimental approach. It’s one thing to have both groups at one event, but it’s another to actually have them engage with each other on panels.” The event featured twelve panels covering a number of topics that extended beyond mainstream superhero comics. “We had a more diverse Mix [this year], with presentations on women’s comics, international comics, and African-American comics,” said Loss.

It's been a little embarrassing to be a Transformers fan lately. Michael Bay's movies keep making piles upon piles of money regardless of how viciously they're panned by critics. While the live-action movies, the first of which was released in 2007, have catapulted the 80s-icon Robots In Disguise into 21st-century pop culture stardom, they've also made the name synonymous with terrible writing, worse acting, unintelligible fight scenes and explosions at the expense of everything else. Is that really what we're fans of? IDW Publishing has been putting out comics about the Transformers since 2005, but only recently have they reached a quality not only above nearly every other Transformers show, comic or movie before them, but indeed over a lot of other comics on the shelves today. Nearly any writer or artist given duties on a Transformers series will tell you what big fans they've always been, but nobody owns it quite like writer James Roberts and artist Alex Milne on the currently-running Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye series. With the Transformers name so closely tied to bad storytelling, it's not surprising that “MTMTE” doesn't get the attention it deserves.

In April this year, it was no fool’s joke that Portia’s Café opened, and met desperately needed options setting the bar for a 7 points standard in restaurant salient service consciousness: 1) Vegan, 2) local, 3) organic & fair trade, 4) non-genetically modified organisms (non-GMOs), 5) gluten-free, 6) raw (nutritionally dense), and even 7) fluoride-free filtered water! Not everyone who wants to eat vegan is vegan, yet informed consumers are teeming towards robustly healthier, sustainable options, and Portia’s offers just that, with delicious living foods selections. The atmosphere is warmly charming with its bright, colorful earth tones and lively Latin music with friendly, very clean restaurant and restroom service. Don’t let the small size of the restaurant dining room fool you; over 50 vegans were served during a recent Columbus Vegan Meetup group event with overflow seating outside in the back parking lot (weather permitting). If you get a lettuce wrap, pay the nominal charge to add the gluten-free wrap on the side for a more filling meal. They are located in Clintonville, at 4428 Indianola Ave. Columbus, 43214. Open Tue- Sat 11 to 9 and Sun 11 to 3.

Nine Tables is exactly that. Nine Tables. Most often it is three 4 tops and six 2 tops. The concept is simple: for three nights per week, Nine Tables aims to serve twenty to thirty people per evening in a personal, slower paced manner similar to dining in Europe. Guests are invited to have a long, slow dinner at their own pace. Your table is yours for the entire evening from 5 pm to midnight if you choose. Tables are not “flipped” so when your dinner is complete your table gets the rest of the evening off. At first thought, one might think this would be a formal, stuffy experience…far from it, an evening at 9 Tables can be anything you want it to be. Most often it will be informal, fun and relaxing. The atmosphere is intimate, the small space is dark and cozy but there is enough space between tables for each group to have their own experience but also close enough to encourage camaraderie. The restaurant is BYOB and it is not uncommon for people to trade bottles or share during the evening. The best table to reserve is set up next to the chefs prep table which allows full access to all the action and to Chef Bill throughout the evening.

Bill Cook has become known for plays that unfold like dreams rather than real life. With his latest, State of Control, he’s graduated from dreams to nightmares. At its center is Stan (Ben Gorman), an accountant who’s just been hired as the controller for an investment firm. The job title carries a whiff of irony because from the moment he enters the office, his life is out of control. The boss (Mark Schuliger) keeps him off-balance with compliments and cocktails and keeps pushing him to sign documents he hasn’t had time to read. Co-worker Melissa (Amy Anderson) plies him with come-ons that even Helen Keller couldn’t miss, all the while ignoring Stan’s protestations that he’s married. Things get even more uncomfortable when Stan and Melissa are sent on a “rainmaking” trip to Las Vegas and she encourages him to risk thousands on a shaky bet.

This winter, as usual, you’ll be able to celebrate the holiday season by taking in the Wildlights display at the Columbus Zoo. But you’ll also have a gorgeous alternative just a mile east of Downtown. The major exhibition “Bruce Munro: Light” opened last weekend and will remain on view through Feb. 8 at the Franklin Park Conservatory. Lori Kingston, the conservatory’s marketing director, said it would be great if “Light” attracts some of the families who enjoy holiday spectacles such as Wildlights. But she also said illuminated exhibitions like this have appeal throughout the year, not just in December. “I think light draws people all the time, no matter what the season,” she said. Munro, a Brit who started out as an industrial lighting designer, specializes in massive works that combine transparent spheres and other objects with shifting colors and even sound effects or music.