Monthly Archives: April 2025

Living on the Air in Cincinnati

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I’m sure everybody is familiar with the joke about someone having “a face for radio.” It’s based on the idea that you do not have to look good to sound good. That’s an idea that often applies doubly to buildings. I’ve not been in a lot of radio stations, but I have been in enough to know that the people behind the microphones are frequently speaking in a dark cubicle far from prying and non-prying eyes, with little for their own eyes to take in as they work. That description has applied to Cincinnati’s WVXU and WGUC, but will no longer. Cincinnati Public Radio is letting the public see its new building this weekend. The bulk of personnel are already operating in the new space, and the plan is to switch broadcasting activity at noon on Tuesday.

I attended Saturday’s open house, which repeats today, April 27, 2025, from 1:00 to 5:00. Directions and other details are here. The cartoon in the opening photo stood not far from the entrance. The distance between speech balloons represents reporter Bill Rinehart’s signature pause when identifying debris on the roadway. I got my first view of the building from a drive by a few weeks ago, but this was my first up-close and stationary look.

And it was obviously my first look inside. That is the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Woodwind Quintet on stage in an area dubbed The Gathering Space. There is also a Performance Studio. With spaces such as this, dare we hope that live music performances — possibly featuring local talent — might be in CPR’s future?

Pictures from the upper floor, including subjects from the preceding paragraph, show how open the building is.

The Instrument Petting Zoo, which seemed to be a big hit, was a new one on me. A more traditional petting zoo was also on the agenda, but the pettees had not yet arrived when I was there. After I walked to my car and worked my way back through the traffic to exit, I saw a Cincinnati Zoo van parked near the front door. I’m pretty sure that meant additional petting was happening or about to.

There are a number of smaller work areas, including some without windows. Most, if not all, of these are mixing and editing stations where a little isolation is a good thing.

As far as I know, the food trucks will not always be there, but they were certainly welcome on Saturday and will be there on Sunday if you want to grab a meal or some Graeter’s ice cream while checking out the building. The CSO quintet was piped outside to a nice park-like area, so I assume Sunday’s Gathering Space performances will be as well. That is where I listened while enjoying some black raspberry chocolate chip. The new place is finished, and the Welcome Weekend is half over. Cincinnati Public Radio is just about done packin’ and unpackin’.

Second Secular Season of Fish

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Yes, that image at right looks pretty much identical to the opening image in last year’s Lenten wrap-up post (A Secular Season of the Fish). In fact, this entire post looks about the same as that post, as well as every “season of fish” post I have ever done. It is simply a report on the seven fish fries I attended during the season. Six of them are new to me, and the seventh is a repeat I’ve had planned ever since I ate there last year.

The pictured map comes from the Cincinnati Fish Fry app, which I discovered and started using partway through the 2023 season. Anyone checking in at four or more fish fries through the app is entered into a prize drawing. I met the requirements in both years I have used it, but have won no prizes and expect the same this year. That’s not my goal in the least. I use the app to find fish fries, and it does a mighty fine job. I did not record the number of offerings in 2023, so cannot say whether this year’s drop from 87 to 73 is a trend or a blip. My guess is that, for commercial enterprises, it’s a trend. That is where most of the exits occurred. Participating commercial operations went from 16 to 4, while churches and others only dropped by one each, going to 53 and 16, respectively.

The first Friday of Lent coincided with the first day of Bockfest, and I had plans, weather permitting, to attend the Bockfest Parade at 6:00 PM. What could have been a scheduling dilemma was avoided by Pride of the Valley Masonic Lodge 95 and its 10 to 8 serving schedule. The pictured catfish meal, with coleslaw and a piece of cake hiding under the fries, was $12. Soda and water were $1. Some very good eating. And the weather did cooperate in allowing a dry parade. Check it out here.

I acquired the next week’s fish fix at Duwell VFW Post 7570 in Harrison, OH. The cod dinner was $15, and the iced tea was $2. Everything about the meal was good, but the standout to me was the inclusion of a human-sized portion of coleslaw. OK, maybe the amounts of both it and the same-sized mac & cheese were more than I needed, but it was a welcome change from restaurants that apparently think a little cup with a couple forkfuls of slaw is a serving.

I went outside the fish fry app for week three of Lent. I was in Darke County doing some chauffering for my stepmother, which allowed me to take in the fish fry in my old hometown. When I was five years old, we lived directly across the street from Ansonia American Legion Post 353, although the building has been replaced since then. $10 gets all the fish and fixings (there was applesauce, too) you can eat. Soda and bottled water was $1.

Week four saw me back within range of the app, though once again near its far western limits. Miller-Stockum American Legion Post 485, like the VFW of two weeks before, did not skimp on coleslaw.  This was the $12 cod dinner with a $1 bottle of water added.

I definitely got outside the lines on the fifth week of Lent. This is very much not a fundraiser for a non-profit. It won’t bother me at all if you count this as a complete fish fry miss. I was in Jasper, IN, and a search for fish fries revealed that one of the town’s most popular Lenten events was the Friday night seafood buffet at one of the town’s most popular restaurants. The restaurant, Schnitzelbank, was already on my radar, so it became my Friday fish find. It was a feast. At $28, it was decidedly outside the normal Lenten Friday budget, but that plate, which followed one from the well-stocked salad bar and preceded one with a couple pieces of fish and a dab of seafood alfredo, contains fried fish, baked fish, fried shrimp, steamed shrimp, new potatoes, scalloped potatoes, mushrooms, a mini crabcake, and a biscuit with apple butter. The Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier Dunkel was $5.50.

This was my second out-of-state fish Friday adventure for 2025. Florence, KY, Elks Lodge #314 is on the Dixie Highway, so I can claim a few historic auto trail miles this week. The tasty and filling cod dinner was $15, and the Yuengling was $3.25.

Here is the single repeat from last year. Gailey VFW Post 7340 is actually the only 2025 stop that was not entirely new to me. I was also here on Good Friday in 2024 when I ate beside a lady who had recently turned 100. The place was packed last year, but no more than half full this year. I was there very soon after it opened this time, so maybe it was my timing that made all the difference. Unfortunately, neither of the women I asked knew anything about the centenarian I had met, and one of them worked there as a bartender. The meal looked and cost the same — $12 — as last year. This Yuengling was only $2.

Cycle Thru and Collective Behavior at CAM

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I made it to “Cycle Thru! The Art of the Bike” within its first week. It opened at the Cincinnati Art Museum on Friday, April 4, and I attended on Thursday, April 10. It will be there for another eighteen weeks, through August 24. The exhibit includes photographs, paintings, and other pieces of art that feature bicycles, but while I enjoyed looking at those items, what I documented were the real things: Bicycles that might themselves be considered pieces of art.

The exhibit begins with an 1878 Ariel High Wheel. This style of bicycle originated in Britain and was commonly known as a penny-farthing because the pairing of the large and small wheels reminded people of the relative size of penny and farthing coins. On the left in that first picture is an Otto Dicycle, which women could ride without risking the embarrassment of exposing an ankle. In the foreground of the second photo is a cast iron and wood velocipede from 1865. I had seen the three-wheeled vehicle in the third picture in promotions for the exhibit but could not figure out what was going on until I read its description at the museum. That trailing wheel was supposed to make the ride smoother, but it’s not clear how well that worked. That rider comfort was definitely top of mind with this bike is reinforced by its “bespoke anatomical saddle“.

I thought one of the vehicles in the 1900s-1910s display might belong to Wile E. Coyote, but what looked like an Acme Rocket is one of two metal cans to hold air and keep the water bike afloat. The wall behind the very rare 1960 fiberglass Bowden Spacelander is filled with bicycles from the 1930s and 1940s. The 1965 Sears Spaceliner at upper left in the 1950s-1960s caught my attention because of its resemblance to my 1960 J. C. Higgins Flightliner. The Spaceliner was designed by Viktor Schreckengost and built by Murray, and I’m guessing that is also true of the Flightliner.

Of course, for anyone not having owned a Flightliner, the big attention grabber in that last group of bicycles is almost certainly the customized 1953 Schwinn DX Cruiser from Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. The saddle might not be bespoke, but everything else sure is.

The museum itself is, as always, free. “Cycle Thru!” is not. However, admission to the bicycle exhibit also includes another paid exhibit at the museum. Until May 4, that second exhibit is “Shahzia Sikander: Collective Behavior!“. After that, “Cycle Thru!” will be paired with “Farm to Table: Food and Identity in the Age of Impressionism“. I’m sure “Farm to Table” will be a very good show, but man, I sure liked the Sikander exhibition. The photo above is of the second edition of her sculpture “NOW”. The first edition is on permanent display outside the Appellate Courthouse in Manhattan

As the museum’s description of the exhibit states, Shahzia Sikander works “in a variety of mediums—painting, drawing, print, digital animation, mosaic, sculpture, and glass,” and I believe the exhibit contains examples of every one of them. The first item shown here, “Provenance the Invisible Hand“, combines silkscreening and hand painting. The second, “Arose“, is a glass mosaic. A detail from its center is here.

“Liquid Light II” is painted glass. “Promiscuous Intimacies” is a bronze sculpture. I made myself comfortable on a futon and watched the “Parallax” digital animation but somehow missed its description, so I am including a capture from a PDF of exhibit labels here.

I also missed any onsite description for “NOW”, so am including a capture of the PDF for that as well. It is here. As I did some fairly casual research on Sikander, I learned of an 18-foot statue named “Witness” that is similar to the 8-foot “NOW”. On July 8, 2024, while on display at the University of Houston, “Witness” was beheaded. Although an anti-abortion group had protested the statue’s presence in February, nothing is known that connects the group with the decapitation. Sikander explained her desire to not have the statue repaired with, “The damage reflects the hateful misogynistic act and it should not be forgotten.”

A Birthday in Hoosierland

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I set another personal age record yesterday. Even though the celebration was spread over three days and 300 miles, I am reporting it with a blog post rather than a multi-page trip journal for no particular reason although laziness could be a factor. The seeds were planted when I saw that Jason Wilber and Dave Jacques (John Prine’s long-time accompanists) had a concert planned in Chattanooga. I was interested, but before I could act on that, a date in Jasper, Indiana, was announced. When I realized that the Jasper concert was on my birthday and that a single front-row seat was available, I grabbed that seat and built the rest of the party around it.

Things got started on Thursday with breakfast at a favorite restaurant just inside the Indiana border. Folks at the State Line Restaurant make their own goetta (in and on the omelet) and strawberry jam (soon to be all over the toast), which makes it one of the best places ever to start a birthday party. The restaurant is not only on the state line; it is also on US-50, and that’s what I headed west on.

Although the trip was organized around a concert, this turned out to be the splurge of the outing. I visited the West Baden Springs Hotel with a group of friends back in 2007. At that time, it had only been open for a few months following a long closure and major restoration. I told myself I would stay there someday, and today, a little over seventeen years later, I did.

I stayed in this room and ate dinner at the hotel’s Ballard’s Restaurant, which uses a small section of the 200-foot diameter “Eighth Wonder of the World” dome as its dining area. The photos are from and of my table. That’s baked cavatappi on the plate and Trash Panda blonde ale in the glass.

Friday started with breakfast at Nila’s Place and ended with dinner at Schnitzelbank. When I began looking into Jasper eateries, Schnitzelbank consistently appeared as one of the best in town. I penciled it in as a likely spot for my birthday dinner. Then I went looking for a fish fry for the Friday night I would be in Jasper. It did not take long for me to discover that Schnitzelbank holds a very popular seafood buffet every Friday during Lent. So, a seafood buffet became my Friday fish fry, and I got rid of any problem I might have coordinating dinner at this very popular restaurant with the Saturday night concert. Here’s that buffet from one end to the other.

I definitely lucked out on my birthday breakfast spot. I’m pretty sure that everyone else at a rather busy Cranberries knew each other, and the waitress called me honey multiple times. I found a pretty good place for dinner, too. The fact that Pub ‘N’ Grub was about a block from the concert venue was a big plus. With the steady rain, I wished it were closer.

The Astra Theater is not exactly on the town square, but its entrance is accessed through an opening between two buildings at a corner of the square. It opened as a movie theater in 1936 and operated as a movie house until closing in 2002. After much refurbishing, it reopened in 2018 as a combination movie theater and performance venue.

That front-row seat was great for hearing and for seeing but not so great for photographing. Jason and Dave played a bunch of Prine songs and told a bunch of Prine stories. Sam Lewis and Andy West, both friends of John’s, joined them for a few songs and shared their own stories. This was a great kickoff to a tour they are doing, which will include a variety of guests at the different shows. Yeah, it’s a pretty good way to spend a birthday.

ADDENDUM 7-Apr-2025: Partially because they didn’t fit smoothly into the narrative and partly because I wanted to make sure the post was ready for Sunday morning, I omitted some of the things I did other than eating and sleeping. I doubt anyone is surprised that visiting breweries filled some of my idle time. I reached West Baden Springs way too early for check-in on Thursday, so I drove about fifteen miles south to check out Patoka Lake Brewing. On Friday, I tried out Saint Bebedict’s Brew Works in Ferdinand, and I also visited the Dubois County Museum in Jasper. I took no external pictures there and very few inside. A 1910 Sears Runsbout did catch my eye inside the large and impressive museum. Part of Saturday was filled with visits to the Santa Claus Brewing Company in Santa Claus and Yard Goat Artisan Ales in Huntingburg.