OHIO/CINNKY: Cincinnati's Annual Manual

I got an email from CityBeat about a week... week and a half ago asking me to review their Annual Manual on my blog. You know me, I like a little exposure, as do they, and I like to shoot off my mouth about things I know very little about so the situation was perfect for both parties involved.

The CityBeat rep was nice enough to actually drop it off at school -- it was a strange day, getting a lot of deliveries, and the lady at the front desk looked at me when she handed over and said "jeez, you are somebody important."

Duh.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but I'll say this: I'm mildly disappointed. I mean, they did not misrepresent at all what the manual was going to be. However, I opened it and was left with a feeling of "blah.... one of these." Another list of things in town, and another thing to go into the pile of items I do nothing with.

It's billed as Local's guide to living in Cincinnati. I seriously doubt that. It seems more like the guide you get when you first move to the city, pick up a few things out of it, and then go from there. Unlike, say, QCCA's "pink pages" (my dad's term, not mine), I don't have much value in using a booklet that simply lists things that have been featured in CityBeat over the past year. I expect, this weekend, the Goober and I will pick through it, maybe pick out a new place to eat, and then that will be the extent of its use in my life.

Later note: the reason I use the "pink pages" is because I like to support gay and gay-supportive businesses. This annual manual, meanwhile, is the epitome of hipster dining and entertainment and its always a shocker when new and hip places to eat/entertain are open for more than a year.

Additionally, if you don't already follow CityBeat, I don't think this will necessarily be the most ideal way in getting involved with their reviews and suggested dining/entertainment/etc. from the last year. Newbies to the news magazine will far more likely find a CityBeat somewhere, and the timeliness of the weekly will inspire in them more interest than a one-stop shopping spot for a whole year. The idea of unification -- especially in paper form -- can be a tad anachronistic, as the joy in most of these places is the journey in finding and discovering them. Not, "oh we saw that in that Annual Manual thing." Part of the joy of searching the city is just that ... searching it out. This presents a dialogue of "start and finish."

Here are some locations, now go. Fly, my monkeys, fly.

However, the booklet is beautifully organized. If you wanted to go out and discover without the hassle of walking around these amazingly walkable areas, then this is perfect for you. It lists off some great neighborhoods and some great places in town -- including neighborhoods I had never thought to explore. I'm pretty familiar with Northside, OTR, Downtown, Newport, Covington, Clifton Gaslight, Hyde Park; but I don't think I ever considered Mariemont, Cheviot, Milford, Pleasant Ridge, Montgomery, or even something as close as O'Bryonville. I will grant them that. I am looking forward, now, to heading out those directions and seeing what they have to offer.

Perhaps a more interesting, and maybe more functional idea, is to focus more on the neighborhoods rather than specific locations. Include more of them, in other words. My mother, every time she comes to the city, is always impressed by the neighborhood focus of Cincinnati, and the wonderful things you can discover in these places. Rather than spending over half of your space just listing off restaurants/etc... limit that and spend more time talking about the neighborhoods, the characters, and some of the features you can find at those places.

I think that's what makes Cincinnati so interesting.

In fact, that would make a great monthly piece in the paper itself, with the Annual Manual, itself, a reprint of those articles along with Readers' Picks (which I was very glad to see as part of this publication... I missed that issue). But then that would not need to be this kind of publication but an add on to one of the regular issues. A pull-out section.

And it would need more pictures. A lot more. I don't think I could recognize these separate downtown areas from the scant pictures they gave for each one. Hyde Park Square, for example, is so well laid out and lovely, but we only get pieces-parts shots of it. I don't want to see a fountain, necessarily, I want to see what I'm looking for/at. In fact, places like Milford and Montgomery -- areas that I would like to see more of, now -- have almost no pictures of the area in question.

Let's bring this all together.

I'm a pragmatist. Functionally, this serves almost no purpose except as a giant advertisement for the city, which is neat in theory, but I think it needs to be teased out a little more if it is to be a definitive local's guide. That byline on the cover is nothing more than an advertising ploy for out-of-towners to make them feel special that they found some sort of "local's gold mine" of information. (Even if that were true, there is absolutely no way for them to easily pick out "a quick place to eat" as there are so many.) I think this could be effective and useful... but, in its current incarnation, it needs a little work. And it does get kind of hard to read, as the line between private advertising and civic yahoo-ing are definitely blurred. How does it make Ambar India, for example, that Esquire gets a huge 1/6 page picture and an advert on the same page and they just got the advert they paid for? It's hard to really focus on what I'm supposed to be reading and when I'm just being sold to.

Congrats to the front cover designer... though baby-shit green is rarely an attractive colour, it works here. The whole feel and design is very mod, very 60s. Love it. Though it is ruined by the pages and pages of white in the back.

Wow, I really am a bitch sometimes. And CityBeat liked me up to now.

Update: A question: how far does the concept of "Cincinnati" go? In which case, they miss things like downtown Hamilton...