Upcoming Events

Sip Salon - Why Does Music Do That to Us?

Tuesday, August 25, 2026 6:00-8:00 PM

Location: Hammond Harkins Art Galleries

BYOB

You have a song. You know the one. It comes on and something just happens, a memory surfaces, your body wants to move, your eyes fill up, or you're suddenly somewhere you haven't been in years. You probably assume it's the music doing that.

Turns out it's considerably stranger than that.

Welcome to the Sip Salon where we gather to learn together through articles and discussion. Read the article, join the discussion. Just curious folks coming together to discuss topics. Whether you know a little or a lot, we hope to grow together in our understandings. With drinks.

Research now shows that our experience of music has surprisingly little to do with the notes themselves. In one study, people rated a piano performance as more expressive and emotional based on the performer's body language, even when the audio didn't match. In another, the world's greatest violinist played in a Washington D.C. subway station for 35 minutes and almost nobody stopped. People have rated the exact same recording as higher quality when told it was played by a professional rather than a student. We hear music not just with our ears but with our eyes, our bodies, our memories, our expectations, and the entire cultural world we grew up inside.

And when it comes to musical taste? A massive Cambridge study of 350,000 people across 50 countries claims your personality predicts what you listen to. One music critic, who has spent her career in the industry, says that's completely wrong, and makes a pretty compelling case.

This month's Sip Salon takes on the hidden psychology and neuroscience of music: why it moves us the way it does, what our taste actually reveals about us, and whether two people listening to the same song are ever really having the same experience at all.

Come with your opinions, your favorite inexplicable song, and a drink in hand. No musical expertise required, just ears and curiosity.

The Siposium - Beyond Bob: Exploring the History, Sound & Soul of Reggae

Tuesday, August 18, 2026 7:00-9:00 PM

Columbus Brewing Company Beer Hall

You know Bob Marley. But do you know reggae?

Most people's introduction to the genre begins and ends with one name, and while Bob Marley is undeniably its greatest ambassador, reggae is a world unto itself that stretches far beyond him. Its roots run deep into Jamaican history, its branches spread wide into ska, rocksteady, dub, and dancehall, and its influence quietly shaped genres across the globe that most people wouldn't immediately connect to a Kingston studio in the 1960s.

This Siposium, we're going beyond Bob. Expect the full story: the cultural and historical forces that gave birth to reggae, the producers and players who shaped its sound, the subgenres most people have never explored, the musical elements that make it distinct, and a curated playlist to take home and actually listen to.

Whether you're a lifelong fan or someone who only knows the greatest hits, you'll leave hearing reggae, and a lot of other music, differently.

Bio: Originally from the Toledo, OH area, Joe didn't like reggae the first time he heard it because he couldn't make sense of it. When he was 19, he went to his first live reggae show, the epiphany hit him, and he hasn't looked back. After 32 years and counting of playing reggae with bands throughout Ohio and immersion in the style, he's developed deep knowledge of the lore, history, players, culture, and more, especially classic roots and culture reggae, dub, rocksteady, ska, and more. His playing experience, which continues today, has included The Ark Band, Groovemaster, Seefari, Dougie Simpson and the Faith Band, Roots Society, Demolition Crew, 6 Degrees of Dub, All Star Jammerz, and more.

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Sip Salon - Can We Do Better Than Prison?

Wednesday, September 2, 2026 6:00-8:00 PM

Location: Nocterra Brewing Audubon

What is prison actually supposed to accomplish?

Is it meant to punish, protect society, deter future crime, rehabilitate offenders or some combination of all four? As incarceration rates, recidivism, and correctional costs continue to fuel debate, many people are asking whether our current prison system still serves the goals it was designed to achieve. At this month's Sip Salon, we'll explore the history and purpose of prisons, examine what the research says about incarceration and rehabilitation, and discuss alternatives such as restorative justice, diversion programs, and community-based sentencing. Together we'll tackle difficult questions with curiosity rather than certainty: What do we owe victims? What do we owe offenders? And what kind of justice best serves society?

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The Siposim - Hair Care Behind Bars

Thursday, September 10, 2026 7:00-9:00 PM

Location: Parsons North Brewing Company

Hair is never just hair.

It's identity. Culture. Self-expression. Dignity. And for many incarcerated women, it's one of the few ways they can hold onto a sense of themselves in an environment designed to limit personal choice.

Join us as we explore the surprising intersection of hair care, incarceration, race, gender, and power. Drawing on research from women currently incarcerated at the Ohio Reformatory for Women, interviews with formerly incarcerated women, and historical archives, we'll examine how something as ordinary as hair can reveal extraordinary truths about life behind bars.

Our speakers are Dr. Mary Thomas, Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Dr. Tiyi Morris, Professor of African American and African Studies at The Ohio State University. Together, they lead the Ohio Prison Education Exchange Project (OPEEP), where they work alongside incarcerated students to explore the history of women's prisons in Ohio and the experiences of the women who live there.

This conversation goes far beyond beauty. It's about identity, resilience, inequality, and what everyday routines can teach us about the larger systems that shape our lives.

*All proceeds from this event will be donated to the Ohio Prison Education Exchange Project*

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Sip Salon: Why do we keep the dead alive?

Monday, September 28 2026 6:00-8:00 PM

Location: Honest Friend Brewing

We talk to dead relatives. We visit graves. We keep their clothes. We feel guilty when we stop thinking about them as much.

Grief researchers call this 'continuing bonds theory', the idea that healthy grief isn't about letting go, but about finding a new relationship with the person who's gone. Research shows that between 25 and 50% of people report some form of after-death communication experience: hearing a loved one's voice, sensing their presence, or receiving what feels like a message.

And in 2026, the question has gotten stranger: AI companies are now offering to recreate deceased loved ones as interactive digital avatars, feeding algorithms with texts, emails, and voice recordings to simulate conversations with the dead. Is that grief support or something more troubling?

This October Sip Salon pairs beautifully with our Haunted Elegies Siposium and asks the quieter, more personal question underneath all of it: what does it mean to keep someone alive after they're gone and when, if ever, do we stop?

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The Siposium - Haunted Elegies

Monday, October 5 2026, 7:00-9:00 PM

Location: Columbus Brewing Company Taproom

Ever wish your favorite NPR segment or Ted Talk came with trivia, drinks, and real conversation? Welcome to The Siposium, a live, interactive gathering where we deep dive into surprisingly niche topics with expert guests, thoughtful dialogue, and just enough irreverence to keep it fun. Think NPR-style curiosity, casual community vibes, and real-time interaction. With drinks.

What better time than October, month of Halloween’s embrace of all things spooky, to get acquainted with elegy: a lyric poem, a song of sorrow, an expressions of grief on the occasion of loss. Elegy is even more complex than that, for as we move through time, even poems that once celebrated the moment can feel elegiac, like photographs seen in retrospect, those clicks of the shutter that caught moments now vanished. In this sense, most poems are elegies. As we move through time, they sing of what is gone. Add this October thing: elegies also haunt, by remembering and commemorating persons, animals, or aspects of the culture that have passed, making them appear again. Some elegies even recount visitations, ghosts, hauntings that, in their own smoky style, breach the barriers of mortality to sing. In this Siposium event, Charlene will read poems from her most recent collection, Habitat of Ghosts (Broadstone Books, 2026) some earlier poems, and some poems by other poets. Then she’ll offer writing prompts, we’ll write, and the brave among us will share what they wrote.

Bio for Charlene Fix

Charlene Fix’s poetry collections are Habitat of Ghosts (2026 Broadstone Books), Jewgirl (Broadstone Books 2023), Taking a Walk in My Animal Hat (Bottom Dog Press 2018), Frankenstein’s Flowers (CW Books 2014), and Flowering Bruno: a Dography (XOXOX Press 2006). Her prose homage/film criticism is Harpo Marx as Trickster (McFarland 2013). She has published poems in Poetry, Literary Imagination, JAMA, The Journal, Cincinnati Review, The New Ohio Review, Mudfish, and The Manhattan Review, among other literary magazines, has received grants from The Ohio and the Greater Columbus Arts Councils, and once upon a time won the Robert H. Winner Memorial Award and the Louis Hammer Memorial Award from The Poetry Society of America. Emeritus Professor of English at Columbus College of Art and Design, Charlene co-coordinates Hospital Poets at the Ohio State University Medical Center, works for peace and social justice, and is the mother of three and grandmother of two. Her website is charlenefix.com

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