Laverne Cox Shops at JCPenney

NKU establishes itself 

on the map for LGBTQ issues

Laverne Cox at NKU

     As one audience member said, it was a historical moment at NKU when Laverne Cox presented.  She's been an Emmy nominated member of the Orange is the New Black cast.  She's also been a spokesperson for the transgender

Meatball Kitchen

Simple Italian your way

The Simple Industrial Interior

     Dreary fall evenings call for comfort food so Eric and I dropped by Meatball Kitchen on Short Vine after a movie recently at the Esquire.  I'd been curious about this place since

PRIDE

A mess of vivid characters 

trying to save and change their world

     The economic downturn, which hasn’t exactly turned up yet, resulting in “the new normal,” may be the right context for Americans to connect with Pride.  Yes, it follows in a particular subgenre of working class (mainly) men losing their livelihood and being reawakened by something completely incongruous.  Because of this, there’s both pathos and hilarity.  The British movies The Full Monty (1997)

Longhorn Steakhouse at Rookwood Pavilion

Think of it as a warm club, 
professionally run, with quality, affordable food

The Featured Steaks

     We don’t go to steakhouses very much and we usually avoid chain restaurants, but the Longhorn Steakhouse at Rookwood Pavilion changed our minds.  It was one of the first

Rosanne Cash: The River & the Thread

Exploring the south and her roots – 

a lovely record, but magisterial in concert

Our Seats at Clowes Hall

     We were in Indianapolis last month and Neil happened to see that Rosanne Cash was going to perform at Butler University’s Clowes Memorial Hall.  Since we were able to get seats that guaranteed no one would be standing in front of us,

An Iliad at Ensemble

Unmissable

     For those that don’t have tickets yet for An Iliad, stop reading this review, and go online or call Ensemble Theatre immediately and purchase them.  For those that do, you have something to look forward to because this may prove to be the most memorable theatrical tour de force since Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001, 2003) and feature the best local performance since Dale Hodges starred in Wit (1999) or Bruce Cromer played Prior Walter in

A Separate Peace & Snow

Two classics and both surprising

     One of my colleagues decided to teach John Knowles’ A Separate Peace this summer and I thought I’d read it as well.  Even though copies lay on various high school and college shelves, I’d never been assigned it and I sort of avoided it.  I developed a prejudice towards it for no good reason, i.e. I hadn’t read it.

     I always thought it was a prep school book and I thought, so what?  (It’s the same reason that I wasn’t as thrilled about Harry Potter as many others were.  It seemed like Enid Blyton filtered through Roald Dahl, though very well written, and a little reactionary since Hermione was the smartest character, but Harry always competed and won).  A Separate Peace, like The Go-Between, actually re-examines the past and how those who

Lindner Family Café at Taft Museum of Art

Artful dining with a theme and views

The Inside Café

     We've walked through the café several times on our way to the museum, pausing at the diner's fare and views into the gardens beyond. We actually tried to dine in the garden area for a free concert series once a couple of years ago. It turned into an awkward situation that we tossed aside to the time of

Paris Night & Day: Masterworks of Photography from Atget to Man Rey…

to Neil.  Or so Eric says

     We wanted to see the Kehinde Wiley show at the Taft Museum of Art before it left.  It just so happened that there was a major exhibit of early 20th century photography in its premiere week there also.  Paris, during that time, has always been a fascination for me.  So much so that it was an influence

The Skeleton Twins

Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader deliver 
great performances in a grim family comedy

     Thinking that The Skeleton Twins would be a comedy was a mistake.  From classic comedic structure, a new order progresses from one that is not a whole lot different. In this

Chrissie Hynde

A really good album  by an icon    

    Chrissie Hynde has been one of the coolest performers in popular music for over three decades.  She possesses an intriguing alto voice that wrings a subtle, supple sound from a limited range.  It can also forcibly attack such as on The

Gone Girl

Yes, it works

     As other reviewers have already attested, fans of the blockbuster book Gone Girl (2012) by Gillian Flynn can rest assured that the movie version does not reinterpret, expurgate, or otherwise screw up the source material.  Though Flynn has said that she deviated somewhat from the

The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat

Disabling prejudice

Edwidge Danticat 

     Edwidge Danticat, born in Haiti and raised in New York from the age of twelve, was an author to whom I’d paid little attention.  This was mainly because she was discovered young and promoted as part of Oprah’s Book Club.  Plus, she won or was nominated for a number of major literary awards.  At Meg’s yard sale a couple of years ago, I picked up an advance reader’s edition of The Dew Breaker (2004).  I let it sit around for

The House of Redgrave

A gossipy, sometimes poisonous 
account of a complex acting family

     I saw The House of Redgrave:  The Lives of a Theatrical Dynasty by Tim Adler in an independent Canadian bookshop and I bought it because I doubted it would ever be released in the U.S.  The Redgraves are a big deal in England and Canada, but most Americans are probably aware more of Vanessa Redgrave and Liam Neeson than the rest of the family.  They’ve been actors for five generations and though it seemed like Adler would provide