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Arts & Entertainment News

Arnold’s to host local event this Saturday

This Saturday night Cincinnati’s oldest tavern, Arnold’s Bar & Grill is hosting a party to celebrate all things Cincinnati. With the rousing success of last year’s Local, Local, Local party they have decided to bring it back again, and just like any sequel this one promises to be bigger and better than the original.

When people around Cincinnati celebrate all things local, it of course has to start with beer, and Arnold’s has that covered in a major way this Saturday. There will be specials on all things Christian Moerlein related including Hudy, Burger, Little Kings, the standard Moerlein products as well as the very special Arnold’s 1861 Porter which was made right here in Cincinnati’s historic Over the Rhine.

Reps and executives from Moerlein will be on hand giving out free gifts and talk about their beer.  Additionally, Mike Morgan will be on hand to sign and sell his book entitled When Beer Was King.  Over-the-Rhine Brewery District president Steve Hampton will also be there to talk all things Cincinnati beer related.

What would a night at Arnold’s be without local favorite and Cincinnati aficionado Jake Speed putting on a show? Jake has a monthly variety show entitled Old Time Music Revue, and he will be taking the stage with Sean Geil of local band The Tillers. Given the historical significance of Local, Local, Local (The Sequel) it can only be assumed that Jake will have something special planned for the evening entertainment.

In addition to beer and music, Arnold’s (map) is bringing in four local artists to display their work in the revamped gallery on the second floor of Arnold’s. Jason Haley, Dan Justes, Lisa Sullivan, and Mandy Tudor will have their work on display. There will also be a special menu of Moerlein influenced food and Gelato from local guys Madisono’s. Everything gets going at 7pm on Saturday night, with the Jake Speed’s show kicking in at 9pm.

Arnold’s Bar & Grill photograph by UrbanCincy contributor Thadd Fiala.

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Arts & Entertainment News

Walnut Street Poetry Society to kick-off 2011 season at Mercantile Library

Like literature? Like poetry?

The Mercantile Library is hosting a one-hour poetry event this Wednesday, January 12 from 12pm to 1pm.  A Profusion of Poets is a kick-off for the 2011 season of the Walnut Street Poetry Society (WSPS), a local poetry group founded in 2004.

Participating poets include Bea Ostergart, a writer and UC English professor, and Richard Hague, a writer, editor and teacher at Purcell Marian High School, and several other local poets. The event will be moderated by Dr. Norman Finkelstein, poet and professor of English at Xavier University and Robert Murphy, poet and editor of Dos Madres Press.

The WSPS says that this year’s poetry series at the Mercantile Library focuses on poetry and inner life.

“Poems, as it were, are places made out of language where our inner life and the outer world meet.  In the coming months, we will read a wide variety of poets who invite us to participate in this inspiriting process.”

This event will take place at the 175-year-old institution at 414 Walnut Street in downtown Cincinnati, and is free and open to the public.  Mercantile Library members interested in joining the Walnut Street Poetry Society can do so for $30 annually.  All others interested can join for a $40 annual membership fee.

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Newly formed Creative Society seen as a forum for new ideas

Debbie Dent, owner and creative director of marketing firm Aim Straight Up and event space Venue 222, has a vision for creatives in Cincinnati. After her own company, Willow Group, folded in 2009, Dent bounced back a year later and opened Aim Straight Up after working with her husband Wade to convert their building on 14th Street in Over-the-Rhine into an event and meeting space.

As a sidearm of Aim Straight Up, Debbie decided to help establish a forum for the rapidly growing number of people in the Cincinnati area who are passionate about new ideas and want to contribute, even and especially those who are underutilized in the job market. Thus the Creative Society was born.

“With the economy in the crapper, people losing their jobs, closing or downsizing their businesses and getting paid less for the work we all do, we can become discouraged and stop thinking and acting creatively,” Dent explained. “We lose track of people we enjoyed being with, drop the groups we belonged to and activities that we participated in. And often we lose track of our creative selves.”

Dent noted that in the Cincinnati community there is a flux of passionate people with lots of new ideas to share. “The creative spirit is alive and growing rapidly in Cincinnati,” Debbie shared. “There is an infectious new energy all around. We are lucky, for a community of our size, that have all types of creative people and talent represented. We have a Creative Society.”

Debbie’s motive behind the Creative Society was a way to informally gather people who enjoy being creative and wish to be around and connect with others who value creativity. Currently the club has over 200 members on its Facebook page, with 110 of them scheduled to attend a lunch catered by nearby MOTR this coming Wednesday to make connections and share ideas about what the group can accomplish as a vibrant and passionate collective. The lunch will take place at Venue222 (map).

The goals will be determined by the group as a whole, but the assumption is that members of the group can meet anytime online and physically every other month at a different location to get to know each other, swap ideas, help make connections for each other and create. “Collectively we become a creative think tank that can help be an agent of positive change for Cincinnati,” said Dent.

This month’s lunch will include a creative exercise to “Express your vision for a Creative Cincinnati in 2011,” with plenty of art materials and canvass space for attendees to get out their ideas in an innovative manner.

It’s not just visual artists of graphic designers that have exclusive access to the Creative Society, though. According to Dent, anyone with passion and an idea is as good as a card carrying member.

“Everyone is creative. It’s through our creativity that we make a difference in our lives, the lives of others and our city. It’s in times like these that creative thinking and action is needed even more. “

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Arts & Entertainment News

Urbanist movement rises anew in Cincinnati a decade after civil unrest

In 2002 the concept of urbanism arguably hit an all-time low. The city was recovering from civil unrest that wreaked havoc on inner-city neighborhoods the year before and caused economic boycotts, urban neighborhoods were suffering from severe disinvestment, urban populations were in decline, and the City’s Planning Department had been cut by then Mayor Charlie Luken.

Today, however, the state of urbanism in Cincinnati is very much different. The civil unrest of 2001 has led to massive police reform and a focus from major corporations on those most struggling inner-city neighborhoods. Investment in urban neighborhoods has become a priority of recent political leaders and urban populations are increasing all over Cincinnati. Also during that time the Planning Department has been restored along with the creation of the Office of Environmental Quality, and the development of the City’s first comprehensive plan in decades.

In addition to the formal progress that has been made, there is a diverse group of urbanists that have organized around common beliefs and goals that are looking to improve Cincinnati’s urbanism.

“Urbanists believe that great historic cities are the highest achievement of the human spirit and once again ought to be the preferred places to live for America’s most talented and productive people,” explained University of Cincinnati adjunct planning professor, and co-founder of the Urbanists, Terry Grundy. “Urbanism, as the term is used in Cincinnati, is an intellectual, cultural and political movement which promotes this point of view.”

As Grundy puts it, the urbanism movement emerged in Cincinnati shortly after the civil unrest took place in 2001. He says that a group thinkers, civic leaders and philanthropists came together to reflect on what had happened in the city and decided that something needed to change.

“The trajectory, if allowed to continue, would have inevitably led to the ‘Detroit-izing’ of Cincinnati. This was a prospect those thinkers were not prepared to accept, and they have ever since been promoting a ‘place of choice’ ideology for the city.”

Most recently that thought movement has led to the Soapbox Speaker Series which is co-sponsored by Soapbox Cincinnati, the University of Cincinnati’s Niehoff Urban Studio and The Urbanists. The intent, Grundy explains, is to provide opportunities for people who share the urbanist perspective, or who are interested in learning more, to network and come together to learn and share ideas.

The first speaker series event held in uptown Cincinnati’s Corryville neighborhood focused on how the city’s food scene has supported urbanist outcomes through things like local food sourcing, food trucks, street vendors and more. The next speaker series event, to be held on January 5 from 5:30pm to 7:30pm, will focus on philanthropists of urbanism in Cincinnati.

“These are people who moved into and did development work in historic neighborhoods that had declined and, by their example, encouraged others to take a chance on those neighborhoods,” Grundy said.

The event will feature a panel of Sean Parker, Beth Gottfried, H.C. Buck Niehoff and Dave Abbott.

“Urbanism, like all emergent movements, needs to be backed up by resources if it is to be successful in promoting its ideas and pursuing its concrete development strategies. The individuals, on this panel, have been willing to direct their foundation’s investments to activities that are urbanist in intent.”

Those interested in attending the third Soapbox Speaker Series event (map) – Patrons of Urbanism: New Ambitions for Public-Private Partnerships – are encouraged to register in advance for the free event. Organizers say that a happy hour reception and light food will be provided by Fresh Table, and that a $2,500 FUEL grant will be awarded to one lucky applicant.

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Arts & Entertainment News

Transformative visual art event changes urban landscape, gathers Cincinnati community

Back when the temperatures were a bit warmer, and the sky a bit sunnier, more than 1,500 people gathered with ArtsWave on a six-block stretch of 12th Street in Cincinnati’s historic Over-the-Rhine neighborhood. The residents, visitors, and workers alike worked together to create a half-mile long stretch of visual art.

Known as Paint the Street, the project gathered a diverse collection of people that painted the street according to chalk outlines drawn by local artists earlier that morning. Since the painting occurred on Sunday, September 26 much of the art has worn off, but those passing through the urban neighborhood today can still see remnants of the project months later.

UrbanCincy writer Jennifer Kessler participated in the event and published her photographs on the site shortly after it took place. While at Paint the Street Kessler noted that the sense of community and involvement was palpable and that the event was one that was truly inspiring for her.

“Being there in person, the highlight of the event was the enthusiasm and joy painting a mural on the street brought to participants and observers alike,” Kessler described. “The street was shut down to vehicle traffic for the day and crowds of Cincinnatians, old and young, black and white, walked slowly in the street taking in the colors and working together.”

The event also attracted a variety of street performers and artists from Xavier University, Walnut Hills High School, School for Creative & Performing Arts, Cincinnati Ballet, and Pones, Inc.

Those who were unable to participate or view the visual art production in its entirety are now able to view a time-lapse video, of the event, put together by Cincinnati-based Lightborne in partnership with Soapbox Cincinnati.