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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What is a “scene” anyway? What does it look like, sound like or even feel like? What does it mean for a city to have a “music scene?” And if you were asked, “what is Columbus's music scene like?” How would you answer that question? I remember all too well the words of a very old musician who once said to me, “you will never have a strong 'music scene' in a town that is so consumed with sports.” I believe he was right. We all know most major cities across the country have some kind of big sports team. But here in Columbus, the Buckeyes rule, sports are everything and music is just a side note or not played at all. In short, one can take it or leave it. When you think of cities where music rules, which ones come to mind? Nashville, home of country music? Chicago, home of the blues? New York City, home of the eccentric, where “under ground” is cool? L.A., home for anybody looking to be somebody and anybody could be somebody so people are nice to you because YOU could be that “somebody?” Get my drift here? Even Detroit was once known as the R&B music Mecca.
Pop culture has a love/hate relationship with the Transformers movie franchise. The second and worst movie in the series, 2009's Revenge of the Fallen, made over $400 million in the US alone despite having a 20% positive rating on review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes. Dark of the Moon made $350 million with a slightly better 36% positive reviews. The entire series is notorious for bad plots, bad pacing, bad characterization – and lots of really, really good explosions. So of course there's going to be a fourth one.
Paramount recently revealed the title of the giant robot action franchise's fourth movie: Transformers: Age of Extinction. Online geekdom was alternately pulling for and rolling their eyes over simply Trans4mers, but alas, Paramount didn't go for the obvious pun.
The extinction of what? It probably has something to do with Dinobots. Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura recently confirmed to the Beijing News that the Dinobots will be appearing in Age of Extinction, and that's got to be a huge draw for all the 30-something kids who loved the robo-T. Rex Grimlock and his team of saurian Autobots in the 80s.
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Geek website The Outhousers has a box on their homepage that looks like one of those “This workplace has gone XX days without an accident” signs you might see on a construction site. Instead of tracking injuries of the physical kind, this one tracks injuries to the reputation of one of the Big Two comic book publishers. It reads, “It has been XX days since DC Comics did something stupid.” Today the counter is back at 0. It was there yesterday, too.
DC Comics, owners of some of the biggest characters and movie franchises in the world, seems determined to cater to a small but fierce subset of geekdom: Adult men who like their male heroes unimpeded by marriage or morals and their female heroes unimpeded by clothing or agency.
The matter of marriage was the cause of one of those counter resets, and while it didn't involve any male characters at all it brought to light something distressingly man-child-ish about the attitude at DC Editorial.
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The end of summer may be upon us and, as sad as we may be about cold weather and school returning to session, there is good news awaiting all the comic book loving geeks out there — major crossover events have kicked off in both the DC and Marvel Universes.
Now the concept of the major label event has been going on for decades at this point, and the ploy is always pretty simple — rope readers in for a core six or seven issue main series, force them to buy a slew of off-shoot issues to keep up with the story, eventually kill a major character (who will be brought back to life soon enough) and then lead that major event into the next major event.
It's a cheap tactic that comic book publishers have been at for years, but these are almost always the biggest and best stories with the most character impact so we are forced to pay attention and more often than not we get some amazing writing and spectacular art to help along with the ride.
Let's break down the three major events going on at DC and Marvel, with a little back story on each and then hopefully send you to your local comic book store excited to check out at least one, if not all, of these event titles.
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It turns out even zombies have their run-ins with the man.
But some local zombies are hoping to avoid any complications this Saturday when they gather for Zombie Walk Columbus 2013. The ghoulish meet up is actually a cleverly disguised canned food drive for the Mid-Ohio Food Bank.
The meeting point this year is in front of COSI, a change from years past when the beasties walked their beat in the Short North.
Zombie Walk co-chairman Joe Knapik said the move was out of necessity.
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The night before I dined at the Crest Gastropub for the first time, I had a quick meeting with a well-known Clintonville Curmudgeon. As we sat at O’Reilly’s, I shared that I had tried to get into the Crest, but it was too crowded. “Yeah, the place is OK, but it does not deserve to bear the name of the Crest,” he replied (at least the gist, I was not taking notes), “That place is just the shell of the building, everything else is different.”
I could feel the pangs of nostalgia in his words. Unfortunately, I could not share his feelings. I never connected with the Crest in my visits there. It always seemed like a place that could be much more than it was, with little effort. I know from oral history there were many high points and a great community within those walls in the decades it was open, but I never viewed the place as an asset to the community or I place I would want to go. (Pauses….waiting for the outraged comments to come).
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Leonardo’s Pizza has a history dating back to the early 1950s. It was one of the pioneers in a new wave of food in Columbus.
Patrick and Anna Rose Orecchio started their first shop on Northwest Blvd. back in 1953 and grew a large family business with all of the kids working in front and back of the house. The empire grew to several locations by the early 1980s in various parts of town. Pizza gets in the blood and can often not be removed. This past month, Drew Orecchio (son of the founder) and his wife Laurie reopened Leonardo’s in a recently vacated Sparanos Pizza location on Hague Ave. Having read about the excitement of the grand opening in my blog comments, I had to check the place out. The spot on Hague Ave. has a lot of history as well…but that is for some other time.
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Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans
And the End of Slavery
By Deborah Willis and Barbara Krauthamer
This year is an anniversary year for a number of events significant to the struggle for racial equality in America, including the sesquicentennial of the Emancipation Proclamation. While the document technically did not free any slaves–if you are interested in that, I will see you in my class on African American History Before Emancipation, Spring semester 2014!–it has always been interpreted, especially by enslaved African Americans, as though it did. Despite President Abraham Lincoln’s assertion that the Civil War was not about slavery, the enslaved thought otherwise. From the time the first shots were fired, they assumed and acted as though the war was about their freedom.
For years Deborah Willis, Professor and Chair of Photography and Imaging at the New York University, and Barbara Krauthamer, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, had been discussing what the freedom of African Americans looked like.
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New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award. Outer Critics Circle Award. Pulitzer Prize finalist. All this, plus a rave review in The New York Times.
Stephen Karam’s Sons of the Prophet picked up lots of praise after opening off-Broadway in 2011. In subsequent regional productions, however, its reviews have been more mixed. After seeing Evolution Theatre Company’s production last weekend, I suspect the tragi-comedy is a tricky piece that benefited from a brilliant premiere production but has been less fortunate ever since.
Here in Columbus, ETC’s production definitely leaves one wondering what all the fuss was about. Though director Mark Phillips Schwamberger elicits good performances here and there, they aren’t enough to distract viewers’ attention from the overall lack of coherence and energy.
Ace of Cups 2619 N High St, Columbus, OH 43202
(614) 262-6001
Thursday TKLS, The Girls! Paul Collins
Friday 60's Night Live!
Saturday Heatwave
Sunday Karaoke
Monday Shocked Minds
Tuesday Excess Trivia
Wednesday Jackson scott
A&R Music Bar 391 Neil Ave Columbus (614-461-5483)
Saturday Griffin House
Axis on High
Saturday Tyra Sanchez, Roxxxy Andrews, Penny
The Basement 391 Neil Ave Columbus (614) 461-5483
Thursday El Ten Eleven with Eliot Lipp
Monday Pere Ubu
Bernie's Distillery 1896 N. High St. Columbus, OH 43201
(614) 291-3448
Thursday The Danny Kabl Trio
Friday The Angry Samoans, Downtown Brown, Skagnetti, The Girls!
Saturday B Day party Bash
Sunday Suicide Ghouls
Monday Open Stage
Wednesday Super Bob, Blameshift