The Hollow Crown

Great British actors take on Shakespeare’s Henrys

     Last year, BBC America showed a series about a number of major British actors working on Shakespearean roles either onstage, or television or film.  Some of them – Jeremy Irons, Tom Hiddleston, and Ben Whishaw, among others – were

Piada Italian Street Food

The scooter finally parks in Cincinnati

The Drink Station at Piada Italian Street Food

      Chain restaurants are usually not our thing, but every once in a while one comes along that merits some standout qualities.  We've been anxious for Piada, with Columbus origins, to migrate south to our city.  It's taken almost two years since our first visit to the Bexley restaurant, but now the light is

Madeline Miller: The Song of Achilles

A side door into The Iliad that is 
simultaneously contemporary and timeless

Madeline Miller, Winner of the Orange Prize…I Like That!

     When The Song of Achilles came out a couple of years ago, I picked it up in Joseph-Beth and started skimming it.  I really liked it and thought that I needed to read it soon.  Other books battled for my attention and I didn’t think about it until

The Snobbery of Polo…It Just Isn't So

Cincinnati's Polo Club plays the field in Goshen

Cincinnati Polo Club at Wilshire Farm

      We had never been to a polo match so when Carole and Tom asked us to join them, we weren't exactly sure of what we had agreed to experience.  The simple premise of attending

Miss America, 2014

Finally, it's back to its roots

Nina Davuluri, the Newest Miss America

       After leaving Atlantic City back in 2004 for more glitter in Las Vegas, The Miss America Pageant is back in the city

J.D. Salinger is back, though he’s still dead

Just when you thought it was safe to swim back into the literary waters of the 1950s

J.D. Salinger

     J.D Salinger died in 2010 after staying out of the public eye for over half a century, which didn’t stop various lovers and other writers from dropping tantalizing tales about what he

Village Crêpe

The little crêperie that could—and will

Dex Was Wanting to Check It Out Too

      Eric and I are always on the lookout for crêperies wherever we go.  So when some of our family members started talking about Village Crêpe in Pickerington, OH, we couldn't wait to

George Bellows and the American Experience

A broad overview of a major Ohio artist’s paintings 
and lithographs at the Columbus Museum of Art

Entrance to the Columbus Museum of Art

     George Bellows was born and raised in Columbus, though he made his name in New York after dropping out of OSU as a junior.  He’s most well known for his paintings of boxers from

The Cozy and the Hard-Boiled

Yin and Yang or Yang and Yin:  
Broadchurch and The Bridge

     Wednesday nights at 10 p.m. offer two remarkable TV series – Broadchurch on BBC America and The Bridge on FX.  Thank you DVR or I’d never see them.  These shows are polar opposites, even though they are both crime shows.   

     Broadchurch comes out of what is patronizingly referred to as ‘the cozy’ tradition.  This is generally a crime sub-genre, usually by British (not always) fiction writers that concentrates

The Spectacular Now

The imaginary pitch: Cross Say Anything 
with The Days of Wine and Roses

Miller Teller as Sutter Keely, the Functioning Alcoholic

     People who drink – and I don’t mean lightweights or social drinkers – like to be around other people who drink.  As adults, it can become the dividing line in potential relationships.  The moment that Sutter Keely, played winningly by Miller Teller, pulled out a hip flask, my heart sank.  Anyone

Other Desert Cities at Ensemble Theatre

A solid start to its season

     Other Desert Cities by Jon Robin Baitz embodies the essence of the contemporary Broadway drama by being two acts with one set and five characters that reveal various sides of a decades old family conflict.  Thematically, its forebear is the Ibsen play that peels away the surface of the upper-middle

Lee Daniels’ The Butler

Greater than the sum of its parts, 
the importance surges

     The number one movie for the past couple of weeks has been Lee Daniels’ The Butler and that gives me hope a studio movie can be political and popular.  However, much of that financial success is probably due to The Oprah Effect.  We’ve missed her for the past couple of years, even though she