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Remember back in the day when you used to take photos with cameras? The ones with film in them? Remember how you usually put those pics in frames or a photo album? Maybe you didn’t get around to doing that and you just kept them in the envelope and threw them in a box. And sometimes you didn’t get around to that and you had them lying around on a table or counter. Now do you remember how saddened and frustrated you got when one of those loose photos had water spilled on it and the picture was ruined with washes and discoloration? Artist Matthew Brandt goes toward those spills and damages amongst other photo destruction/creation processes in Columbus Museum of Art’s exhibition Sticky/Dusty/Wet. The exhibition shows an assortment of works representing the variety of experimental photo processes used by Brandt. In Lakes and Reservoirs, Brandt traveled throughout the country taking photographs of lakes and reservoirs in nearly a dozen different states. He would develop the beautiful landscapes on large scale color photo paper and then submerge them in the lake water they capture. The photos were submerged for days, weeks, or even months.

William Ong is a long time performer in the Columbus music scene. From humble beginnings in the two piece funk, Primus-inspired Big Nasty to his current role in SRVVLST. Drums are his passion and he certainly does them justice. A graduate of Fort Hayes Arts and Academics High School, he now has an endorsement deal with Soultone Cymbals. FP: Put together your fantasy band, dead or alive. Hmm, well if I had to choose, it would probably be Brendan Canty from Fugazi on drums, Jaco Pastorious from Weather Report on bass, Jacob Bannon from Converge on vocals and on guitar/keyboard/vocals, Nick Reinhart from Tera Melos. I would imagine it to be a chaotic thrash-mathy post-punk jazz band. Nick Reinhart is a madman with guitar pedals and layering, Jaco Pastorious laying down harmonic melodies though a distorted Ratt pedal, Brendan Canty hammering out fat grooves and powerful fills following that dry farmer's bell making you lost in the pulse, all while Jacob Bannon leads this barrage of musical madness into a depressing, yet insightful onslaught of vocal hardcore bliss. I could see post punk math rock kids flailing around wanting to destroy each other while zoning out together.

Ryan Jewell will be jazz drumming along with musicians Robert Heinz, Bret Burleson, and Eddie Bayard at Dick’s Den on Sunday, January 25th. In addition to being an in-demand jazz musician, Ryan has also played with revered noise artists such as Jandek and Mike Shiflet. He has also been a member of Complete Strangers, Terribly Empty Pockets, Pink Reason, and PHS. You can check his new murky psych-folkish group Mosses on Jan. 30 at punk house VVK. “My favorite music is either extreme outsider art that is inept in some ways. Or it’s highly virtuosic.” Jewell explained his various musical passions while sipping tea in a Clintonville home where he was pet-sitting a friend’s ferrets. While Jewell has an extensive and diverse body of work, perhaps his most unique recording was made while unconscious, and literally brokenhearted. In January of 2013, Jewell recorded his open heart surgery at OSU’s Richard M. Ross Heart Hospital. “It was like a birth defect thing.” Jewell said, speaking of the life-threatening misshapen heart valve that put him under the scalpel and bone saw. “It didn’t close up properly.

If live theater has a healthy future, it’s largely thanks to organizations such as Columbus Children’s Theatre and CATCO Is Kids. It’s well established that these local troupes have started many kids on the path toward professional thespianism. But it’s also likely that they started many others on the path toward a lifetime of theatergoing. CATCO Is Kids’ role in creating future audience members was on display last week at a preview performance of The Cat in the Hat. Before Dr. Seuss’s mischievous feline appeared, director Joe Bishara talked to the viewers—most of them very young students on a class field trip—to make sure they understood what was expected of them. Bishara began by asking if anyone could tell him the difference between a play and a movie. After a girl explained that plays have live actors, Bishara asked the viewers to list three things they could do to show those actors they were paying attention.

Offering a spectrum that runs from whimsical to meticulous, Columbus College of Art and Design's Impact-Influence exhibit opened to the public Jan. 16 in the Carnegie Gallery on the second floor of the Main Library. The show is co-sponsored by the Columbus Metropolitan Library, Friends of the Library, Ohio Arts Council and CCAD and features the talents of the school's Continuing & Professional Studies instructors. “Columbus Metropolitan Library is proud to showcase the incredible works of so many talented CCAD instructors and faculty,” says Gregg Dodd, director of marketing for CML. “CML’s Carnegie Gallery provides a public forum for the community to interact with the visual arts created by both emerging and established artists. The talents and techniques highlighted through this diverse exhibit shouldn’t be missed.” The work that immediately confronts the viewer on entry to the gallery is Esther Chung's Alexie, a sculpture composed of end of mill upholstery cotton. While simplistic in construction it is flamboyant in display.

Not since the abolitionists and suffragists rocked Ohio’s politics in the 19th and 20th centuries has a movement in the Buckeye State been so essential to human rights. The announcement last week that Ohio’s Legislative Black Caucus, aided by civil rights advocates, is backing The Voter Bill of Rights as an amendment to the Ohio Constitution is the single most important issue before us in the 21st century. The proposed constitutional amendment would end the massive new Jim Crow purges of poor and black people Ohio has become notorious for in national elections. The amendment would adopt the approach of the European Union and make voting a Constitutional right. Many Americans are shocked to discover that the right to vote is currently not an enshrined Constitutional right. Voting rights are often limited by the 50 different state governments that administer federal, state and local elections. The proposed voter bill of rights would assure that all qualified Ohio citizens have a right to cast a ballot, and more importantly, have that ballot counted. Since the 2004 election, Ohio’s history in purging poor and low income voters has been nothing less than appalling.

The sweeping Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act could bring an end to the resource war that’s ravaged the eastern mining regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo for the last decade and a half, this according to the Enough Project, a Washington-based non-profit that seeks to end genocide. Signed into law by the Obama administration in 2010, Dodd-Frank was passed in response to the financial crisis of 2008 which led to the “Great Recession.” Many of Dodd-Frank regulations are targeted toward American banks and other financial institutions that took too much risk with other people’s money, nearly collapsing the world’s economy. Supporters of Dodd-Frank claim the law finally brings regulation and transparency to hedge funds while also establishing regulatory agencies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, tasked with preventing predatory mortgage lending. Dodd-Frank is being described as the most comprehensive effort to reform Wall Street since the Great Depression. But whether the law actually checks Wall Street greed is meant to be seen.

I have seen images of many executions over the decades that I’ve been working to end the death penalty. One that stands out in my mind is film footage of an Iraqi military execution of a number of men tied to posts. After the initial volley, an officer then walked down the line, quickly putting a bullet into the head of each victim. The Coup de Grace, a final blow to end the suffering of a mortally wounded person, seems to be an odd demonstration of compassion in the midst of an otherwise gross violation of human rights. Yet, if Ohio is allowed to continue with its current execution protocol, I can see a day when those charged with carrying out executions will insist on its use. Amnesty International (AI) opposes the death penalty as a violation of the right to life, as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Reviewing a Bruce Springsteen album presents something of a challenge. The first problem is the temptation to view his current work through the lens of his earlier offerings-- after all, this is the guy who recorded Nebraska, probably the most downright terrifying album ever recorded. The second is Springsteen's political legacy. I'm particularly sympathetic to music with a political bent. To be honest, I want his music to be good. High Hopes ain't Nebraska, it isn't even 2005’s Devils and Dust. It's an erratic album, and only a few tracks delve into the icy creepiness which is my favorite thing about Springsteen. Overall, though, it’s a better effort than 2012’s Wrecking Ball and 2009’s Working on a Dream. Half of the 12 tracks are pretty good, and a couple are really good. As my wife points out, that's a decent shooting percentage these days. The album really is a grab bag. Musicians and producers vary from song to song, three songs are covers, and two songs are re-workings of older tunes. Springsteen is joined on seven of the 12 tracks by guitarist Tom Morello, who really does some nice stuff.

On Tuesday, January 28, the Columbus Film Council, The Free Press and RadioactiveWasteAlert will present a Free Fourth Tuesday Double Feature of both Gasland at 5.30 p.m. and Gasland Part II at 7.30 p.m. Both screenings are at the Drexel Theatre, 2254 E Main St in Bexley. The screenings are one night only and admission to either or both films is free. Donations are encouraged. Director Josh Fox will be skyping in after the screening of Gasland Part II to talk with the audience. In 2008, filmmaker Josh Fox was offered $100,000 for mineral rights from a company interested in hydraulic fracturing, better known as “fracking,” on his family’s land in rural Pennsylvania. Curious (and perhaps sensing a great story) he took off around the country in his 1992 Toyota Camry with very little money, a banjo and a lot of charm.