A fine pairing: Calgary-born comedian, author and radio host Ophira Eisenberg mixes comedy and wine for new show
Article content
While she had lived in the U.S. for three years at that point, she still had plenty of ties to her hometown. She went to elementary and high school here. She took ballet lessons here. She attended the University of Calgary. She still had family in town.
Article content
Article content
'Everyone from my past came,' says Eisenberg, in a phone interview from New York. 'Your job is to now entertain them and make them laugh. I felt it was not so much a reunion but maybe like being alive at my own funeral.'
Article content
Article content
Eisenberg has been back many times since, of course, and has enjoyed considerable success in her adopted country in the years since that 2006 show. It tends to give her local appearances a bit of a triumphant-homecoming buzz these days. She may be best known for hosting the NPR comedy trivia series Ask Me Another for nine years, which found her quizzing an assortment of celebs that included everyone from Patrick Stewart to Yo-Yo Ma and Bob The Drag Queen. Her very funny and revealing 2013 memoir, Screw Everyone: Sleeping My Way to Monogamy, was well-received and has been optioned for a feature film. She has had four comedy albums/specials, including 2022's Plant-Based Jokes. She has appeared on Comedy Central, This Week at The Comedy Cellar, Kevin Hart's LOL Network, HBO's Girls, Gotham Live, The Late Late Show, The Today Show, and VH-1 and received rave reviews from the New York Times, New York Magazine and Forbes.com.
Article content
Article content
Article content
She is now in her third season hosting the podcast Parenting is a Joke, a co-production with iHeart Radio. Her one-woman show Leaving a Mark: A Comedy About Scars had its Off-Broadway debut in 2023 and became a New York Times Critic's Pick.
Article content
Her newest venture will bring her back to Calgary on Sunday for the Canadian debut of Grapes of Laughs, a combination comedy show and wine tasting event at The Artist Lounge. Eisenberg first began performing it at the Betty, a popular restaurant in New York's Lower East Side. In Calgary, she will be joined by CBC's Corey Mack and fellow Canuck stand-up comedians Nigel Lawrence and Brittany Lyseng for an afternoon show that has each comedy set expertly paired with wine by the Lounge's co-owner and resident wine expert Khalid Omokanye.
Article content
'I feel like I'm an aspiring wine snob,' Eisenberg says. 'I don't know all that much. I know the typical things, just enough to get me in trouble if I ever talk to someone who really knows their stuff. I'm fascinated, but I just can't keep up. I think those tastings are hilarious because I love the adjectives. I love hearing when someone tastes the wine and says like 'tobacco and duck and plum.' I just think that's so wild because I sometimes can smell them, but sometimes I'm like 'wet garbage, doll heads … ' I thought how fun would it be to find a wine expert that has great personality and combine this.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Winnipeg Free Press
3 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Wartime jewel thief's story a fab summer read
The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau is the perfect summer read for those who want to engage with important subjects but still enjoy a light-hearted story. Its author, Florida-based Kristin Harmel, is the New York Times bestselling author of over a dozen novels translated into more than 30 languages. Her latest is part historical fiction, part mystery, part romance and part family saga. It delves into the lingering grief from the Nazi occupation of Paris during the Second World War through the lives of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust and of former French Resistance members. When the novel opens in 2018, Colette Marceau is an 89-year-old retired librarian living in Boston, and still active in her calling as a jewel thief. The last known descendant of Robin Hood, she was raised by her mother since the age of six to see stealing as her destiny. The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau The family code requires she steal only from people who are evil or corrupt — in this case, Nazis and neo-Nazis — and that she must use all the money to do good in the world. As a teenager, Colette's thefts supported the French Resistance in purchasing safe passage for Jews in hiding, and as an adult, she is an anonymous patron of numerous charities, most notably the Boston Holocaust Education Centre. However, all is not well with Colette — her life is 'stolen' both in the sense that she has spent it stealing, and that a normal childhood and family life has been stolen from her by the war. She is haunted by her memories of her childhood in Paris, where she was raised as the daughter of an English mother and French father. During the Second World War, she lost her mother, her sister, her mother's Jewish friend and the Jewish boy she loved, as well as her father having abandoned her. As a result, she found herself too emotionally damaged to marry or have children, which she now regrets, though she does have a surrogate daughter, Aviva, who she took into her home when she was orphaned at 18. Colette has in her possession half of a stunning divisible diamond bracelet that was created especially for her mother's Jewish friend, Hélène Rosman, to celebrate the birth of her twins. When Hélène was arrested by the Nazis, they took the bracelet from her, but Colette's mother stole it back, intending to return it to her friend after the war. She hid half of it on Colette's person and half on the person of Colette's sister, Liliane, but that half disappeared when Liliane was murdered. Hélène subsequently perished at Auschwitz. In 2018, the other half of the bracelet surfaces in an exhibition in Boston, loaned by an anonymous donor, and this sets in motion Colette's quest to learn the donor's identity and thereby also discover who killed her sister. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. The novel switches between 2018 and 1940s France, showing the devastation caused by Nazis and those who collaborated with them. Harmel delves into the moral complexity of those tasked with upholding standards and serving the public (police officers, schoolteachers) who instead support and do evil, while those deemed to be wrongdoers — thieves — are the characters who stand for goodness and have principles. Colette and her eventual romantic partner, Daniel, are refreshing to read as older characters around the age of 90 who are not stereotypes — rather, they are full and nuanced personalities who fall in love and experience passion. They use cell phones with ease, live independent, full lives and take centre stage in their own story, though they also feel their mortality, regret aspects of their pasts and use their age when convenient to avoid certain tasks. The novel is fast moving and well-paced, with the 1940s and 2018 sections holding equal interest. The clues to the history of the bracelet unfold along with two budding romances — those of both Colette and Aviva. The way things wrap up is perhaps a little too convenient, coming by way of a series of large coincidences, with the last reveal apparent several chapters earlier, but it will satisfy those readers who crave a happy ending. Zilla Jones is a Winnipeg-based writer of short and long fiction. Her debut novel The World So Wide was published in April.
Calgary Herald
a day ago
- Calgary Herald
Calgary wrestling community reflects on Hulk Hogan's legacy after wrestling icon's death
The wrestling world is in mourning over news that Hulk Hogan, one of the most iconic figures in professional wrestling history, died Thursday morning at the age of 71. Article content A member of Calgary's iconic Hart family and longtime contributor to the local wrestling community, Ross Hart said he was surprised when he heard the news. 'Seventy-one is a pretty young age, relatively, to pass away,' he said. Article content Article content Article content Hart never worked directly with Hogan but saw first-hand how deeply he shaped the wrestling world. Article content Article content 'He was probably the most important and influential figure in pro wrestling history,' he said. 'He transformed wrestling from a local promotion identity into a major global phenomenon. That speaks to his charisma, his interview skills and his in-ring presence.' Article content Hart had the opportunity to meet Hogan during his professional wrestling stops in Calgary, and remembers him as an intimidating but private figure. Article content 'He was just this very larger-than-life figure, but he was very private about his image . . . He would be very personified, very energetic for his interviews and promos. And then, he liked to withdraw and retreat. He didn't like to be the focus of media attention.' Article content But over the years, Hogan got plenty of attention — both positive and negative — from the media and the public. Article content Article content Born in 1953, Hogan rose to superstardom in the 1980s as the then-World Wrestling Federation's heavyweight champion. With his red and yellow gear, iconic entrance music and high-energy interview, he became the first mainstream wrestling superstar — he starred in movies, had his own cartoon show and appeared in Sports Illustrated. Article content Article content 'He's a complicated figure,' said Heath McCoy, senior communications specialist for the University of Calgary and author of Pain and Passion: The History of Stampede Wrestling. Article content 'He was like the Superman of the wrestling business. Everybody around the world knew about him . . . and then, over the years, his legacy became increasingly tarnished.'
Calgary Herald
2 days ago
- Calgary Herald
A fine pairing: Calgary-born comedian, author and radio host Ophira Eisenberg mixes comedy and wine for new show
In 2006, Ophira Eisenberg returned to Calgary for her first homecoming show since moving to New York City a few years earlier. Article content While she had lived in the U.S. for three years at that point, she still had plenty of ties to her hometown. She went to elementary and high school here. She took ballet lessons here. She attended the University of Calgary. She still had family in town. Article content Article content 'Everyone from my past came,' says Eisenberg, in a phone interview from New York. 'Your job is to now entertain them and make them laugh. I felt it was not so much a reunion but maybe like being alive at my own funeral.' Article content Article content Eisenberg has been back many times since, of course, and has enjoyed considerable success in her adopted country in the years since that 2006 show. It tends to give her local appearances a bit of a triumphant-homecoming buzz these days. She may be best known for hosting the NPR comedy trivia series Ask Me Another for nine years, which found her quizzing an assortment of celebs that included everyone from Patrick Stewart to Yo-Yo Ma and Bob The Drag Queen. Her very funny and revealing 2013 memoir, Screw Everyone: Sleeping My Way to Monogamy, was well-received and has been optioned for a feature film. She has had four comedy albums/specials, including 2022's Plant-Based Jokes. She has appeared on Comedy Central, This Week at The Comedy Cellar, Kevin Hart's LOL Network, HBO's Girls, Gotham Live, The Late Late Show, The Today Show, and VH-1 and received rave reviews from the New York Times, New York Magazine and Article content Article content Article content She is now in her third season hosting the podcast Parenting is a Joke, a co-production with iHeart Radio. Her one-woman show Leaving a Mark: A Comedy About Scars had its Off-Broadway debut in 2023 and became a New York Times Critic's Pick. Article content Her newest venture will bring her back to Calgary on Sunday for the Canadian debut of Grapes of Laughs, a combination comedy show and wine tasting event at The Artist Lounge. Eisenberg first began performing it at the Betty, a popular restaurant in New York's Lower East Side. In Calgary, she will be joined by CBC's Corey Mack and fellow Canuck stand-up comedians Nigel Lawrence and Brittany Lyseng for an afternoon show that has each comedy set expertly paired with wine by the Lounge's co-owner and resident wine expert Khalid Omokanye. Article content 'I feel like I'm an aspiring wine snob,' Eisenberg says. 'I don't know all that much. I know the typical things, just enough to get me in trouble if I ever talk to someone who really knows their stuff. I'm fascinated, but I just can't keep up. I think those tastings are hilarious because I love the adjectives. I love hearing when someone tastes the wine and says like 'tobacco and duck and plum.' I just think that's so wild because I sometimes can smell them, but sometimes I'm like 'wet garbage, doll heads … ' I thought how fun would it be to find a wine expert that has great personality and combine this.'
