The Free Press is bringing back a Reviews section after some absence. We hope to review plenty of events around town. Check back frequently and if what\'s going on is any good.
Arts & Culture
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First Class: The Legacy of Dunbar, America’s
First Black Public High School
by Alison Stewart
During the 1880s through the 1950s–what the African American historian Rayford Logan called “the nadir of American race relations,” when the striving of blacks was met by the iron fist of white supremacy–America’s first black high school became the springboard to almost a century of black achievement.
In 1870 with some public money, a small legacy from Myrtilla Miner, a white leader in educating poor black women, and the prodigious efforts of Washington’s black elite, the Preparatory High School for Colored Youth held its first classes. After bouncing around to various locations, Congress appropriated $112,000 for a permanent structure, and the M Street School was opened to black students in 1892. A number of its earliest teachers had been trained at Ivy League schools, studied abroad or held advanced degrees. Because of Jim Crow, they were often unable to find work in their chosen fields, and so migrated to Washington, D. C. and the M Street School, which was renamed Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School in 1916.
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The current Wexner Center “Blues for Smoke” Exhibit comes to Columbus at a time when Contemporary Art Centers such as the MOMA and artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat are referenced by Rick Ross, Jay Z, Lil Wayne and Kanye West over rap radio outlets 100 x's a day. My wishful thinking is that more people can afford the admission at the Wexner vs. buying an expensive luxury car, so art is about to be embraced by the masses.
I did not have a private jet to fly to “Blues For Smoke” prior showings at MOCA in L.A.
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The Pub Out Back is an unlikely bar in a likely place. If that makes sense. It is tucked into a small space in a small strip of shoppes hidden behind the main drag of Olde Worthington. It is an easy place to miss. That is part of the charm of the place and why it is the pub out back. While Olde Worthington might not seem to be a pub crawl destination of choice, the area offers one of the best areas to do so, in a compressed block. In addition to easy to spot pubs like Old Bag of Nails and PK O’Ryans, the choices out front also call home to the bar at Rivage, House Wine, La Chatelaine and a really good happy hour at the bar of the Worthington Inn. Insiders, like Robert Kramer, of the independent village of Riverlea, know the upsides of the drinking choices of this mini-downtown and for folks like them, the Pub Out back was created.
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I love it when I find businesses that stand for something beyond taste and quality in their service consideration. The world certainly needs more love, and you may just find it at “Loving Hut.” Love for all earthlings is what they strive for in their delicious, often organic, including several gluten-free and always vegan offerings- the entire menu is full-service, safe for vegans. Everything is delicious, often nutritiously dense (though there are some fried and processed foods) and affordable. You can get an appetizer, a main course, a foo- foo drink (non-alcoholic smoothie) and a dessert for under $20. Their delectable selections often delight the most skeptical of non-vegans. They empower customers with great resources, interesting reading all delivered in a friendly, crisp, clean, peaceful atmosphere. This is not fast food, everything is made to order, so if you are in a hurry, call ahead and make that need clear. They are a short 8 minutes from downtown (not in rush hour traffic) in the Blacklick shopping center: 6569 East Livingston Avenue, Reynoldsburg, OH 43068, open 4 to 9 Mon- Fri, Sat 11-8, closed Sunday.
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Though he now teaches humanities at Columbus State, Bill Cook has spent time behind bars. He called on that experience while writing his latest play, State of Control, the story of a man who blunders his way into a prison cell.
Speaking about the play last week, Cook explained that his own prison experience was as an employee, not an inmate.
“I worked at the Franklin County jail back in the ’70s,” said Cook, 62. “I sold candies and so on to prisoners from the commissary. I would take it up on the various floors and pass it through the bars.”
While he was not serving a sentence, Cook remembers the sensation of being trapped after passing through two locked doors in order to do his work. “I got this odd feeling I was locked into my job.”
Directed by Matt Hermes and presented by Cook’s own troupe, A&B Theatricals, State of Control begins a two-week run on Friday. At the center of the tale is Stan (played by Ben Gorman), an accountant who becomes the fall guy for an embezzlement scheme and pays for it with a prison sentence.
In the playwright’s eyes, being imprisoned is the average American’s greatest fear, surpassing even cancer.
Imagine you’re in your final audition for a role you’ve always wanted to play. Standing fewer than 40 feet away judging your performance is the character you’re supposed to be playing.
That was the challenge facing Jason Kappus, who plays Bob Gaudio in the musical Jersey Boys. Kappus and company present the two-and-a-half hour musical Sept. 17-29 at the Ohio Theatre (39 E. State St).
Gaudio, who wrote most of the lyrics for the show based on the lives and times of the Four Seasons, played an active role in the casting of the show.
“That was a little bit nerve wracking having him look on while I was trying to be him,” Kappus says. “The best advice I got was right before my final audition. The associate director told me the role Bob cares the least about in the show is Bob Gaudio. It’s his wife Judy that you have to impress. Apparently that went well.”
Ordinarily I wouldn't be recounting my adventures in geekdom, but recent events force me to come clean.
Trust me, this is one for the books.
A good friend approached me recently with a busted laptop.
I should explain, friends and associates often come to me when they are experiencing computer problems.
I've been building computers for years and fixing them even longer. When people who know me get the “blue screen of death” they come to me. When their ding-busted machine freezes up and starts acting like a Commodor64 with pneumonia, they come to me. When a certain someone had his motherboard fried by the detectives trying to mine his hard drive for child pornography, and he wanted to retrieve those actually mild images, he came to me. And I'll tell you, I have a hell of a batting average.
So there's my bona fides, such as they are.
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This past weekend, September 20-22, the Greater Columbus Convention Center was host to what is now known as Ohio Comic Con, formerly Mid-Ohio Con. The list of Featured Guests for the show is an impressive who's-who of pop culture, including Star Trek's William Shatner, The Lord of the Rings' Sean Astin, Ghostbusters' Ernie Hudson, and even some WWE professional wrestlers. If you look through the whole list you might actually find the one Featured Guest who has ever had anything to do with creating a comic book: Stan Lee, who has the co-creation of most of the Marvel Universe to his name.
And while Stan Lee, who more recently has been known for cameos in every movie based on Marvel's characters, is quite an impressive draw, the fact that he's the only comic creator among the top-billed guests is a sign of something that's become a chronic problem at comic book conventions across the country: A focus on celebrities who have nothing to do with comic books.
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The fall television season is upon us and there is a bevy of nerd-tastic shows to make your geek radar buzz with excitement. There are always a ton of choices when it comes to the list of shows the networks will roll out each year, and the key is figuring out which ones are worth your time and which should be shelved immediately. Of course, as word of mouth spreads, some will live while others will go the way of dozens of probably best forgotten shows of the past.
Let's look at a few of the top selections to hopefully narrow down the viewing experience and make sure your screen is filled with the best of the best while avoiding the worst attempts at a science fiction/fantasy show.
At the top of the list is the show that has the most promise, the most push and the best team behind it — ABC's new series “Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” There's so much to like about this show that if it doesn't end up being the new big hit of the year, more than a few network executive's heads will roll. None other than the godfather of nerds himself Mr. Joss Whedon, is behind the series.
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This is as deep as Vampire Weekend got for me Monday night outdoors at the LC Pavilion, as I pondered how to describe the Brooklyn band's South African township-meets-new-wave music.
A quirky swirl?
A swirl of quirk?
A swirly quirk?
Or maybe a Spockian shock to Captain Kirk?
Well, any old way, I didn't start out annoyed by them. Quite the contrary, photographing their first three songs, I was close enough to untie front man Ezra Koenig's sneakers so it wasn't hard to get caught up in their huge energy, their dynamic drummer's pounding, their bassist's below-the-waist knee-knocking contortions and Koenig's rather arresting onstage persona of Donny Osmond, Elvis and David Byrne. Then, by the fourth song, as I moved into the crowd the excitement wore off.
I guess that's what drug users call a "rush", huh? Or so I have read.