Monthly Archives: January 2022

Benny’s Back

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The last Saturday of January 2021 came and went without fireworks or other hoopla in Buckeye Lake, Ohio. That’s normally the day of the Buckeye Lake Winterfest but the event, like so many others, fell victim to COVID-19. Interestingly, the previous year’s Winterfest was one of the last pre-pandemic events I attended. The blog entry is here. A December 2020 newspaper article announcing the postponement said organizers were hoping to hold the event in the spring but that seems not to have happened. What attracted me to the event in the first place was its use of Benny the Bass in a Puxsuntawny Phil style role in predicting the timing of warmer weather. Last year, people were not nearly as interested in when winter would end as when the pandemic would. That may actually be true this year as well, but Benny was back on the job in any case.

I was on my way north long before dawn was even thinking about cracking. In 2020, I parked near the brewery and walked to and from the park where Benny makes his prediction. This year, with snow on the ground and near-zero temperatures, I had no desire to do much walking and drove directly to the park. There were a few cars present when I arrived but not many. Before getting out of my car, I decided to drive to the other side of town for coffee.

By the time I returned, Benny and quite a few fans had arrived. I managed to get the closeup of the real Benny at the top of this post before it got too crowded, and I got a shot of the mascot Benny — but not a very good one — a bit later. Removing a glove to take pictures was something I kept to a minimum and taking pictures with both gloves on was something that kept picture quality to a minimum.

In the predawn darkness, the shadow-based method of predicting that groundhogs employ is useless. Instead, a bunch of minnows is dumped into Benny’s tank and a one-minute countdown begins. If the time expires without Benny downing a minnow, six more weeks of winter is to be expected. If a minnow is gone before the time is, we’ll have an early spring. Either way, we get fireworks.

In 2020, the crowd chanted “Eat it, Benny”. This year they seemed too cold to chant much of anything despite the MC leading the more official “Take the Bait. Spring can’t wait.” cheer. That, plus repeated playings of the new Winterfest song, may have done the trick. All the minnows survived until the thirty-second warning and several seconds longer but then…

I took the picture of Benny’s tank and prediction once the area was sufficiently clear of bodies to get a clear view. Once the park was sufficiently clear of cars that I could get out of my parking space, I drove directly to Our Lakeside Diner for the traditional (It is now!) perch and eggs breakfast. Incidentally, this place definitely knows how to serve coffee.

Then it was down the street to the Buckeye Lake Brewery for another tradition. When I was here in 2020, I delayed having a beer until I had walked around the town quite a bit. This year, despite a fourfold increase in temperature since I’d arrived, I had no desire for a stroll of any length. So the perch was quickly followed by a Winterfest Ale and that was quickly followed by my departure for home.

Went to the Chapel

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I don’t know if we are entering an era of fine art circuses or if they are merely a passing fad. Apparently Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel: The Exhibition has been in circulation since 2015. My impression is that the various immersive Van Gogh shows (I recently saw this one.) date to 2020 or so but I’m not certain. Those dates make me think that the current popularity of the Sistine Chapel thing might be fallout from the popularity of the Van Gogh things but I am not, of course, certain of that either. What I am certain of is that I didn’t hear of either before late 2021 and the hoopla surrounding one made me receptive to the hoopla surrounding the other.

One characteristic the two exhibitions have in common is physical size. Lots of space is needed to either immerse people in wall-sized projections or surround them with ceiling-sized prints. The Sistine Chapel exhibition in Dayton occupies one floor of a former Elder-Beerman department store. Not knowing the location of the now unmarked store within the mall meant driving around until I spotted a sign-covered entrance.

It was a bit before the stated opening time and that entrance was locked. Several people moved on when they discovered this but I and a few others waited. Timed tickets came with instructions to arrive at least ten minutes ahead of the scheduled entrance, and the doors were unlocked with almost enough time to make good on that. Three women entered ahead of me. As we got our tickets scanned, a group approached from inside the building. I’m guessing these were people familiar with the mall and aware of another entrance to the store that may or may not have been open earlier but which clearly required a walk to the exhibition entrance. One of the ladies in front of me opted to watch a video before entering and the others paused at the gift shop. I entered the exhibit first and alone.

I have seen photos taken of Sistine Chapel exhibits in other cities where some of the prints are displayed overhead to simulate, I presume, the ceiling of the real chapel. Thankfully that wasn’t the case here as that would at least partially nullify the “up close” claim of exhibit promotions.

There’s no question that the most familiar image from the chapel frescoes is of God’s finger bestowing life to Adam. That detail is from The Creation of Adam which is placed very near the entrance. I’ve seen plenty of reproductions of this scene but I guess I have always focused on the hands or maybe the faces of God and Adam. Before today I’d never noticed the young lady on the right with wide-open eyes aimed directly at Adam.

I was completely unfamiliar with the majority of images displayed and that includes, perhaps surprisingly, The Creation of Eve. I don’t recall ever seeing a reproduction of this image before. I may have missed one here or there but it certainly hasn’t been given a whole lot of attention by the world at large. Michelangelo thought it was important enough to put it in the very center of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. There is a placard by each print that gives some information about the image and shows its position at the chapel. The one for The Creation of Eve is here. A clearer view of the ceiling, taken from a poster in a window at the entrance, is here.

The Creation of Adam and The Creation of Eve are visible from the main room but are set back a bit. I had actually viewed every picture in that entire room, with very little company, between viewing Adam and then Eve. Behind me, the steadily increasing crowd was doing the same.

Almost nothing in the main room was familiar to me. The same was true of the prints in the area beyond Eve — with one exception. This image of God with arms extended is one I’ve seen several times. In fact, it and the almost touching hands from The Creation of Adam were both used in promotional materials for this exhibit. However, I really knew nothing about it and my previous interpretation was completely wrong. I’d thought God looked pretty angry in the painting and assumed he was telling someone to get off his lawn or out of his garden. The Creation of the Sun, Moon, and Plants contains two images of God. His expression in the righthand image is not one of anger but an indication of the force being used. The lefthand image is of a true “dark side of the moon” moment with God turned away from the viewer as he creates Earth’s vegetation.

Once I’d passed by all the prints, I sat down to watch that video I’d skipped on the way in. It was not tied directly to the exhibit but was primarily comprised of PBS programming on Michelangelo. One of the things I learned from the video was that, in exchange for carving a crucifix for the Church of Santo Spirito, he was allowed to study corpses awaiting burial at the church. The Deluge and The Drunkenness of Noah are just two examples of how he made use of the knowledge of anatomy gained there.

A fair-sized line existed when I started watching the video but it was pretty much gone by the time it had cycled through. The video mentioned The Last Judgement and reminded me that I had seen it mentioned in exhibition ads but had not seen it at the exhibition itself. Michelangelo painted The Last Judgement at the Sistine Chapel altar twenty-five years after he had painted the ceiling. Thinking I might have somehow missed it, I stepped back inside to take another look. No luck, and I was eventually told that it was “lost at the airport”. The exhibition images are described as “life-sized” and a picture on the exhibition website makes it look like that includes The Last Judgement. As we’re often reminded, “Many Bags Look Alike” so maybe someone accidentally walked off with the wrong 40′ by 45′ suitcase.

I have seen comments online about the exhibit being unrefined and knocking the lighting in particular. Those comments are, in my opinion, accurate. The prints are not displayed and lighted as would be expected in a good art museum. There are actually some similarities, starting with the fact that it’s set up in an abandoned store, between the exhibit and those “starving artists” sales that used to pop up in furniture outlets and such. The process that accurately transferred the images from the curved ceiling to large flat panels is remarkable and the prints are quite impressive but, at the end of the day, they really are just printed versions of paintings.

There is certainly no possibility that the defunct Ohio department store will be mistaken for a five-century old Italian chapel. But there is a very real possibility that attendees will get a sense of the magnitude of Michelangelo’s accomplishment that just isn’t there when looking at normal-sized reproductions of the artwork. The images are big and there’s a lot of them. Yes, the exhibition is a circus and its staging leaves plenty to be desired but I came away with a pretty good appreciation for the six thousand square foot (plus 1800 sq. ft. Last Lost Judgement) masterpiece without crossing the Atlantic. And I got a much better look at the details than I could ever get craning my neck to peer at images nearly forty feet above my head.

Voice of America Museum

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I attended Airwaves Kite Fest in 2006 and 2010. 2006 was the second of eight; 2010 was the sixth. It was a cool way to greet springtime and I wish it was still around. It was held at the Voice of America Bethany Station site where a huge array of antennas once broadcast news and more to Europe, Africa, and South America. I believe that parts of the building were open in 2006 and I took some photos inside but the entire month of April 2006 has gone missing from my photo archives. The building held the beginnings of a museum in 2006 and in 2010 it was being renovated to improve the museum operation. Since then, it has gone from being open sporadically to being open every Saturday and Sunday. I’ve driven by it countless times since 2010 but Saturday was the first time I actually did what I told myself I should do on most of those drive-bys. I made it inside where those 2006 beginnings have turned into the impressive VOA museum.

I arrived just as a volunteer was wrapping up his introduction to a sizable group which turned out to be all one family. I accompanied them past a beautifully restored Crosley Hot Shot to watch a short orientation movie.

Then it was a stop at the “Ham Shack” operated by the West Chester Amateur Radio Association. Several members were present (and behind me in the photos) and we were given an overview of the operation. We also got to listen in on a conversation with a fellow in Finland while we were there.

The claimed purpose of the Volksempfänger (people’s receiver) was to make radio reception affordable to the general public but its real purpose was to make the general public accessible to Nazi propaganda. Of course, it could also be used to listen to the BBC and VOA although that was quite illegal. Knowing that Hitler sometimes referred to the VOA broadcasts as “the Cincinnati liars” was and is a source of pride for the locals.

Hitler was completely wrong. For one thing, from its beginning, VOA realized that broadcasting reliable and truthful news would have more impact than broadcasting false propaganda. Secondly, although transmission was from near Cincinnati, the content was not. It came from New York and Washington on telephone lines which were routed to one of six 200-kilowatt transmitters. There were no liars involved and definitely none in Cincinnati. Before it was shut down in 1994, Bethany Relay Station saw several upgrades in transmitters and antennas. People living nearby often reported receiving the station on the plumbing in their bathrooms and the fillings in their teeth.

There were multiple reasons for locating the station here including it being a safe distance from the coasts. But a possibly bigger reason was the existence of Powell Crosley and Crosley Broadcasting. After starting elsewhere at 50 watts, Crosley’s WLW (World’s Largest Wireless) was broadcasting AM from just down the road at 50,000 watts. Between May of 1934 and February of 1939, it had transmitted at an incredible 500,000 watts. Here’s a closeup and description of that pictured metal ball. Across the road from the AM station, a Crosley shortwave station was retransmitting its programming. This became WLWO (Overseas), increased power to 75,000 watts, and, as told here, begat VOA.

Crosley begat a lot of other stuff too. There were cars like the previously pictured Hot Shot. Radios, though, were the money makers. Some products were invented in-house and some were purchased patents. The purchased category included the Icyball and Shelvador. Although refrigerators with door-mounted shelves are commonplace these days, hardly anyone makes a fridge with a good built-in radio anymore. The Reado could deliver and print the news overnight but was done in by the Great Depression.

Crosley was the pioneer and long-time leader but Cincinnati’s TV and radio story goes far beyond that. The museum includes lots of memorabilia from others who spent some time living on the air in Cincinnati.  

Went to Gogh

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I drove to Columbus on Wednesday to immerse myself in Vincent Van Gogh. You might be aware that Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience will be opening in Cincinnati in June. If so, I’d expect you to ask, “Why not wait? It’s the same thing isn’t it?” Well, no. No, it’s not.

There are currently five different digital Van Gogh exhibits touring the United States and triggering a flurry of bad puns. The one I saw in Columbus is Immersive Van Gogh. It is also currently in Cleveland. The one in Indianapolis at present is called Van Gogh Alive. Beyond Indianapolis, Beyond Van Gogh: An Immersive Experience is playing in St. Louis. All four of these have appeared or will appear in several cities other than the ones I’ve mentioned. The fifth exhibit, Imagine Van Gogh: The Immersive Exhibition just opened in Boston and will open in Seattle in March. Those two cities are the only stops currently planned for that exhibit. AFAR has a rundown on all five here.

So which is best? Having seen only one, I have no idea. I went to Columbus for a couple of reasons. One is that I didn’t want to wait. Another is that I’d read a very positive report from a friend I haven’t met. It’s here. She immediately followed her Immersive Van Gogh experience by taking in a related display at the Columbus Museum of Art. That’s described here. I decided I should do that too although, because of ticket availability, I visited the two exhibits in the opposite order.

The picture at the top of this article is of the big ART sculpture near the Columbus Museum of Art. The picture at left is at the entrance to the Through Vincent’s Eyes: Van Gogh and His Sources exhibit inside the museum. The title comes from the more than 100 works from artists that Van Gogh admired and was influenced by. These include Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet, and many others. For me, however, the real draw of the exhibit was the seventeen pieces by Van Gogh himself.

I am neither an art connoisseur nor an art historian. I don’t doubt that there are several pieces in the exhibit that are more significant, but these three caught my eye for one reason or another. Bridge across the Seine at Asnieres caught my eye at least partially because it was both different from images I’d previously associated with Van Gogh and similar to images I’ve frequently captured myself with a camera. The bright gold of Wheat Field seemed even more different from the admittedly limited set of Van Gogh images that set my expectations. Neither of these paintings contains people and I think I’d really come to expect people in Van Gogh’s work. Undergrowth with Two Figures, which obviously does contain people, caught my eye through its reproduction in a jigsaw puzzle that passing visitors worked on now and then.

From the museum, I headed a few miles north to the Immersive Van Gogh Experience at Lighthouse ArtSpace. The exhibit opened on October 28 and was originally scheduled to close on January 2. It was sufficiently popular, however, to trigger an extension to February 27.

The 60,000 frames of video appear primarily on the walls but sometimes spill onto the floor and other horizontal surfaces. The giant images are far from static. For example, the purple irises slowly pop onto the green grass background until it is nearly covered and they are almost always in motion.

Neither proof of COVID vaccination nor a negative test is required for admission but a mask must be worn at all times. Circles are projected onto the floor to aid in social distancing. I had expected all of these to be “unfurnished” and many were but more than half contained a simple bench. I had anticipated sitting on the floor but was happy to see the benches. For those of us of a certain age, rising from a bench is much much easier than rising from a floor. Cushions, with a Van Gogh sunflower, are included in VIP ticket packages, and I believe they can be rented. I made do with self cushioning.

The space is basically open but it is large and there are a few pillars. They are covered with a mirror-like surface that avoids blank spots while adding some interesting variations of its own. I doubt you would have guessed and may not find it even after being told it’s there, but one of these pictures contains a funhouse-mirror-style selfie.

I suppose these are the sorts of images my mind tended to associate with Van Gogh in the past. I enjoyed seeing them but probably benefited more from being reminded that he produced some bright and pleasant images too.

These photos were taken with an exposure that makes the exhibit area look quite a bit brighter than it ever really appeared in person. Hopefully, they provide an idea of just how big the area was and how it was laid out.

Wow! The immersive exhibit was wild and entertaining. The original music was splendid and added considerably to the experience. At the end of the day, however, I think I liked the Van Gogh and His Sources exhibit more. The sequence that I saw them in could have something to do with that but I don’t think so. At Lighthouse ArtSpace, it was the presentation and the machinery behind it that held my attention. At the museum, my attention was pulled in by Van Gogh’s actual product and, on occasion, the stories behind it. Both exhibits were well worthwhile, and they do complement each other. It even kind of makes sense, perhaps, to end the day’s doubleheader looking at the eyes that I started the day by trying to look through.

2021 in the Rear View

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The year in numbers with 2020 values in parentheses:

  • 4 (2) = Road trips reported
  • 65 (65) = Blog posts
  • 51 (30) = Days on the road
  • 1895 (1059) = Pictures posted — 449 (496) in the blog and 1399 (563) in Road Trips

I know it’s a sign of a desperate search to find something nice to say, but I’ll say it anyway: 2020 makes 2021 look good. But COVID-19 continued to impact our lives greatly and to end far too many of them. In the U.S., deaths attributed to the virus in 2021 actually exceeded those of 2020 and the total has passed 800,000. Worldwide, that number is near 5.5 million. The United States has already passed its death count for the 1918 flu pandemic (675.000) while the worldwide count has a long way to go to hit the most conservative estimates for 1918 (12 million). Explain that to yourselves as best you can. My personal trip count doubled (from 2 to 4) and days of travel tried to do so (30 to 51). Two of the 2021 trip journals made the top five as did the blog entry for one of them. The most visited new blog post was one remembering Larry Goshorn who died in September.

Top Blog Posts:

  1. Scoring the Dixie
    This post scores its second consecutive first to go with two fourths (2012, 2017) and a third (2015). Although I’ve made other posts on the Dixie Highway, search engines seem to like this one best. “Dixie Highway map” brings some of the searchers here and some are looking for information on the historic Dixie Highway. Sadly, I know that some folks arrive here because they think Dixie is a dirty word. I don’t know what they think when they leave.
  2. Twenty Mile’s Last Stand
    This post about a now-gone nineteenth-century stagecoach stop also duplicates its 2020 finish. Before the two consecutive seconds, it had three firsts (2012, ’13, 19), one fourth (2014), and one fifth (2018).
  3. Remembering Larry
    Musician Larry Goshorn died in September and I shared some of my memories of him in this post. He contributed his playing and songwriting skills to numerous groups including Sacred Mushroom, Pure Prairie League, and the Goshorn Brothers Band. Hearing echoes of 2017 is unavoidable as I write this. That’s the year when Larry’s brother Tim died and Remembering Timmy was the most visited post of the year.
  4. My Wheels – Chapter 1 1960 J. C. Higgins Flightliner
    This post has been in the top five every year of its existence. Previous rankings have been first (2014, 2015, 2018), second (2013, 2016, 2017), and third (2019, 2020). This is its first time at fourth. Note that, had this finished one slot higher, the top three list of 2021 would have completely matched that of 2020.
  5. Yellowstone Trail and US-20
    This is a Trip Journal Link post. None have ever appeared in the top five before and I don’t think one ever will again. In fact, this one probably should not be here. Each one ends with the line “This entry is to let blog-only subscribers know about the trip and to provide a place for comments” along with a link to the associated trip journal. I imagine a few people are occasionally led to a journal through one of these posts and they do sometimes get a few comments. None of my posts get many comments. This one got more than normal but even it has less than thirty entries. It seems likely to me that it was people returning to the post multiple times that caused sufficient visits to bump it into the top five. I probably should throw it out but am instead offering this explanation for why I will probably do that next time and including a #6.
  6. Much Miscellany 2 Sloopy at 50
    As explained above, this should probably be considered the fifth most visited post of 2021. It is another repeat from last year and previous years as well. It was fifth in 2015 then fourth in 2018, 2019, and 2020.

Top Non-Blog Posts:

  1. Alaska
    For the first time, my longest documented trip (11,108 miles in 41 days) is also the most popular. With that, it completes the set having previously scored a third (2016), a fourth (2017), a second (2018), and a fifth (2020).
  2. Fiftieth: Hawaii
    This is the second top-five finish for this fly-and-drive-and-fly-and-drive-and-fly-and-drive-and-fly trip. The 2016 adventure allowed me to celebrate my seventieth birthday in my fiftieth state. Its previous top-five appearance was in 2018 at third.
  3. Yellowstone Trail and US-20
    This 9095-mile, 37-day outing took place in June and early July of last year so this is obviously its first top-five appearance. It is my second-longest trip and bumps the 2013 Lincoln Highway Centennial trip (7341 miles, 35 days) into third. Starting with Historic US-20 from Ohio to its eastern terminus in Boston, the trip continued with the full length of the Yellowstone Trail from Plymouth to Seattle, then finished with the remainder of Historic US-20 from Oregon back to Ohio.
  4. Birthday Breakout 2021
    My most recent birthday was spent on a short trip that was part celebration and part experiment. The experimental part came from my testing what travel in 2021 might be like. It included a visit with Mothman in Point Pleasant, West Virginia which I suspect is the reason for the journal’s popularity. Mothman is indisputably a bigger draw than I.
  5. Corner to Corner to Corner II
    This is another fairly recent trip making its first appearance on this list. It is basically a 2020 repeat of a 2001 trip from Ohio’s southwest corner to its northeast corner and back. One direction used US-42 and the other used the historic 3C Highway. I have no idea why it was visited so often this year.

Website visits were almost perfectly flat with a slight rise from 112,115 to 112,255. Blog views dropped from 6,060 to 5,201. Page views climbed from 670,115 to 832,848. That is actually the highest number of page views ever despite the number of visits being less than half the 2014 peak of 248,033. 2014 had also been the year of highest Page views at 741,404.

An offline but related event was the publication of Tracing a T to Tampa, a book about retracing my great-grandparents’ 1920 trip to Florida. The retracing on which the book is primarily based began on the original trip’s 100th anniversary. The journal for that trip is here. The journal for a 2001 retrace which also contributed to the book is here. The book is “reviewed” here.