Category Archives: Attraction

Relocated Cincy

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Attending the Cincinnati Museum Center preview last week reminded me that I’d sort of lost track of the murals that once hung in the terminal’s passenger concourse. When the concourse was demolished back in the 1970s, they were moved to the Cincinnati Airport in northern Kentucky. They once again became homeless when the airport terminal they were installed in came up for demolition. A new home was found on the west side of the Duke Energy Convention Center and they took up residence there about a month ago. You can read about the re-dedication ceremony here. Those panels above the murals form the city’s name tag. Anyone visiting or even passing through Cincinnati at night may have seen the name spelled out in lights. I apologize for this crappy picture being the only one that I own but I know there are some good ones out there on the web.

The nine 20 feet square murals are in a climate controlled space behind tinted glass. That’s good for the murals which deserve all the protection they can get, but not so good for taking photographs. That bit of glare is a just minor inconvenience, however, and I’m certainly not complaining. I’m really quite happy to see the murals both protected and accessible. Passersby can now study these nine images of Cincinnati history with out so much as a train or plane ticket.

And here’s a bit of relocated Cincinnati history I’ve been remiss in checking out. I saw sketches of this installation while Cincinnati Gardens, the letters’ original home, was still standing. I mentioned the plan when I wrote about the Gardens in this post. Then I read about it being completed here. I can’t say why it took me nearly three months to get to see it but sometimes that happens. Cool and clever.  

Rabbit Hash via Ferry

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The town of Rising Sun, Northwest Territory, was laid out on the north bank of the Ohio River in 1814. A couple of years later, the area containing the town was included in the new state of Indiana. Folks were also settling on the south bank about that time, and a ferry operated in the vicinity as early as 1813 to connect the two communities. In 1831, a large building was constructed on the Kentucky side to store cargo before and after being transported on riverboats, and a small village called Carlton grew up around it. Eventually, Carlton became Rabbit Hash and that 1831 building became the Rabbit Hash General Store.

A series of ferries operated here until 1945 when the Mildred was crushed by ice. The 73 year gap in service came to an end on September 29 when the MS Lucky Lady began carrying cars and people between Rising Sun and Rabbit Hash. I headed over to check it out on Tuesday and my first view of the new ferry is recorded in the opening picture which shows her leaving Kentucky. The picture at left shows her arriving in Indiana. I wasn’t ready to leave the state just yet so did not catch the next crossing. I would be back.

One of the things I wanted to do before departing Rising Sun was visit the Rising Star Casino. As many times as I’d visited and even stayed in Rising Sun, I had never been inside the casino. When it originally opened (as Grand Victoria) in 1996, the riverboat housing the casino was required to “cruise” so it hauled patrons a few hundred feet into the river and back on a regular schedule. Somewhere along the way, that requirement vanished. I passed through the building to which the boat is now permanently moored and onto the casino. It’s mostly slot machines with one area filled with some table games such as poker, roulette, and craps. The thing at least still looks like a boat and the top deck is accessible. On the far left of the third photo, the ferry (enlarged here) is approaching its Kentucky landing.

Crossings at fifteen minute intervals are advertised and that seems about right to me. I snapped that first picture just as the ferry approached the dock. Capacity is ten cars and one of the crew told me they were pretty much at capacity throughout both of the two weekends they have been open. I saw loads of four to six today. I was the last of five cars to board for my trip, but they split the first four and put me front and center. A round trip costs $8. I traveled one-way for $5.

This is the Kentucky side dock with a decent sized staging area. The crew member I spoke with said that travel had been pretty steady in both directions with a slight edge to Indiana, i.e., casino, bound traffic. I’m sure that’s what was hoped for when Rising Star decided to spend $1.7 million on the ferry and access roads. Play at the casino can earn free ferry rides.

In February of 2016, that building erected in 1831 caught fire and burned to the ground. It was rebuilt using pieces of other old buildings in the exact image of itself. My comment on walking in the door was, “It’s like you never left.” It really wasn’t gone very long. It reopened in May of 2017, less than fifteen months after the fire. I visited Rabbit Hash twice while the rebuilding was in progress but this was my first time there after the reopening. It’s rather embarrassing to realize that it took me longer to get inside the new store than it took to build it. The rebuild is a phenomenal accomplishment in not just time but in attention to historic accuracy. The town has a fascinating history and a very interesting present. A lot about both can be learned at the Rabbit Hash General Store website.

The Rising Star Casino is quite visible from Rabbit Hash although the two are not directly across the river from each other. Rabbit Hash is directly across from the heart of Rising Sun. The ferry does not connect precisely to any of the three. The Indiana landing is just under a mile from the casino and the Kentucky landing is about a mile and a half from Rabbit Hash. That latter measurement is along the narrow Lower River Road. The road is well maintained but not wide enough to support heavy two way traffic. The signed route to and from the ferry is longer but safer.

This is not associated in any way with the ferry or either of the towns it connects. It’s where I stopped for breakfast on the way to Rising Sun and I think it deserves a mention. The State Line Restaurant appeared in an online search and sounded interesting. It’s on US-50 on the Indiana side of the state line it is named after, and every bit as interesting as I’d hoped. The breakfast menu offered plenty of variety but listed a single “special” at the top. The special included goetta. Not “choice of goetta, bacon, or sausage”. Just goetta. No substitutions. That seemed significant and it was.

When I asked, my waitress said yes, they do make their own goetta. Goetta is an oatmeal and pork concoction served by most restaurants in the Cincinnati area but few make their own. Glier’s Goetta Company (formerly Glier’s Meats) has a near monopoly on the rest. The fact that the State Line Restaurant strongly featured the local breakfast staple told me it must be something special.

“It’s my grandfather’s recipe”, my waitress, who is also running the place at present, told me. The restaurant has been in operation since 1952. Her mother bought it twenty-two years ago. Mom is currently experiencing some health problems so the next generation is temporarily in charge. The State Line Special, minus an already downed glass of orange juice, is shown at left. It’s $7.50 including the coffee. In addition to the goetta, the excellent strawberry jam beside the toast is made on site. A tray of those little containers was being filled from a fresh batch at the other end of the counter. They also make their own blueberry jam and I was offered a sample to take with me but declined. Yes, I can be very stupid. I’ve already spent five days wondering if the blueberry jam is as good as the strawberry.

Riverside Rotator

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There’s a big wheel standing on edge near the Cincinnati waterfront. Its owner, Skystar, officially calls it America’s Largest Portable Observation Wheel, but even they know that it’s a Ferris wheel to most folks. The 137 foot wheel opened in Cincinnati on September 1 and will be spinning daily through December 2. It arrived in Cincinnati from Norfolk, Virginia, and before that was in Louisville, Kentucky. A friend and I went for a ride on Friday.

I parked on the Kentucky side and walked across the John A Roebling Suspension Bridge. Before heading to Ohio, I slipped down to the water’s edge to take a few pictures. I’m pretty sure that the bronze Mr. Roebling is gesturing toward his very permanent bridge but the sweep of his hand also takes in the temporary Ferris wheel positioned at its northern end.

The maze to the ticket booth and beyond would clearly accommodate a lot more people than were on hand early Friday evening. So would the wheel itself. Each of the 36 gondolas has room for six passengers which means 216 people could be simultaneously spinning in circles if the thing was filled to capacity.

There are a couple of things at play that make full occupancy unlikely. One is the policy of promising “a private experience for passengers” by not putting strangers together in a car. While I personally find chatting with strangers in this sort of situation to often be interesting and fun, that’s evidently not the case for most. Another thing I suspect will help fend off worries about filling every seat is the $12.50 ticket price for a fifteen minutes or so ride. I’ve seen a minimum of four revolutions advertised and we got six… or maybe seven. It’s a cool experience and one that individuals and couples will likely consider worth the cost. Families of any size with kids over two (under two ride free) likely won’t.

Addendum: A friend tells me that on the opening weekend the wheel was full, there were long lines, and strangers did indeed ride together. Here’s hoping that happens again someday.

With virtually no line, we were soon on board and in motion. The wheel stands between Cincinnati’s two stadia. That’s Great American Ball Park in the background of the second picture and Paul Brown Stadium in the background of the third. Yes, it is possible to see and photograph both of them without the arms of the wheel in the way. GABP (with cohort Great American Tower) is here, and PBS is here. The timing of our ride was such that the setting sun was aimed directly at us as we faced west. That’s why I used the neighboring gondola as a sun-shield and why the picture’s still extra crappy.

The most scenic views were away from the city and generally involved the river and the Roebling Bridge. The bridge was almost lined-up straight-on for the second photo. In the third, it’s in the background as we duck behind the “Sing the Queen City” sign.

As sometimes happens when your view is greatly expanded, we were witnesses to a bit of drama. In the first picture, the grey car on the left side is clearly facing the wrong way for the lane it is in on the two way bridge. A trailing black streak across the yellow stripe can be seen with a close look. We spotted the incident near the end of our ride and before long were walking past it. Apparently the right front wheel had let go and threw the car into the opposing lane. A head on collision was somehow avoided.

We ate dinner in Kentucky as the sun continued to set which made a brief stop near where I’d taken my first Ferris wheel pictures more than worthwhile. I had a tripod in the car and using it would have also been more than worthwhile but I was too lazy. Several photographers who weren’t too lazy were standing nearby and no doubt taking superior photographs. I put these here so that you’ll immediately know what those superior photos are superior to when you see them.

The Mighty Qin… and Friends

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I can’t really explain how the word Qin got turned into China, but it did. Some oriental linguistic transformations, such as Peking to Beijiing, are fairly recent but Qin has been China for a very long time. During a period actually called the Warring States Period, Qin was merely one of the states that warred. But it was better at it than most. In 221 BCE, under the leadership of Ying Zheng, Qin conquered the last of those other states to unify Qin/China. Although the Qin Dynasty was short lived (221-206 BCE) it gave the world its most populous country, biggest wall, and most mind boggling tomb.

Construction of that tomb, a 38 square mile complex clearly deserving of the name necropolis, began before China’s unification. Ying Zheng launched the project in 246 BCE after becoming ruler of Qin following his father’s death. He was thirteen. One of the best known of the many astounding aspects of the site is the army of nearly 8,000 life sized terracotta figures populating it. Ten of those figures are among the 120 items currently on display at the Cincinnati Art Museum. The chariot in the opening photograph is a replica of one found at the burial site. It is on display near the museum entrance separate from the actual exhibit.

The majority of items in the exhibit are much smaller than those soldiers and some predate the Qin dynasty  Many of the smallest are jewelry or other decorative items. A lot of the mid-sized items are more practical. The earthenware mask, believed to have been used by an exorcist, dates from 4000-3000 BCE. The metal cladding in the second picture was used to join construction timbers. The Chinese have long used ceramic tile for roofs and other construction needs. Both items in the third picture are tiles used in water supply systems.

This was the third time I’ve been able to gaze upon some of the twenty-two century old figures. The first was in 1980 at the Field Museum in Chicago; The second just two years later at the 1982 Knoxville World’s Fair. In Chicago, six soldiers and two horses were part of a large “Great Bronze Age of China” exhibit. In Knoxville, two soldiers and a horse accompanied a tiny piece of the Great Wall in China’s first World’s Fair exhibit since 1904. Both were remarkable in that the figures had been discovered just a few years prior in 1976. I find the fact that they were forgotten for more than two millennia as extraordinary as the fact that they existed at all.

The terracotta army contains a broad range of ranks and duties and every member is unique in some way. This exhibit includes a representative sample ranging from general to stable hand with foot soldiers, a couple of archers, and a charioteer. The cavalryman in the first photo does look like the one whose thumb was broken off in Philadelphia last December by some jerk from Delaware, but it’s not. That set of figures has returned to China. The Cincinnati exhibit was organized by the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts where it had been displayed until mid-March. Those and other details are found in a press release here.

Terracotta Army: Legacy of the First Emperor of China runs through August 12.

There is another traveling exhibit at the Cincinnati Art Museum currently. It’s one I failed to do any homework on at all and I regret that — maybe. The main part of the exhibit is called The Visitors which is described as a “multi-channel video installation”. It’s the work of Ragnar Kjartansson. His Scenes from Western Culture is also on display. It’s possible to find descriptions of both of these works elsewhere but this is the only place to get a description of how I experienced them. Lucky you.

Ragnar Kjartansson’s name was on the entrance to a fairly large room that often holds traveling exhibits with several large video screens on the walls of the approaching hallway. I’d seen the name when visiting the museum website but I hadn’t been interested enough to do any reading and I really had no idea what to expect. I scanned a blurb on the wall about short movies that set a mood rather than telling a story before watching a couple kissing on a dock by a boat and a group of kids playing almost sedately in a park. A screen with a fire burning in what looked like the foundation of a house triggered a memory. I’d recently seen a similarly framed image of a cabin ablaze and realized it must have been on the museum’s website. The blurb next to the screen mentioned a 32 minute running time. I needed to kill some time and the cabin, if that’s what it was, had completely collapsed so maybe it was near the end. I sat down across from the screen to see if it would cycle to the remembered image of a cabin.

I checked email and Facebook and verified that City View Tavern, where I planned to eat, was open. The fire was still going pretty good within the outline of the building, so I decided to go on into the main room. Even bigger screens lined those walls with little activity on any of them. I studied each of them briefly then went back to the hallway to check on the “fire”. The flames didn’t hold my attention very long this time and I soon decided to walk on through the main room and exit. A couple of the screens were now dark but the others showed the same motionless scenes as before. As I paused near one of the screens, a man appeared and walked toward the camera. The screen went black when he presumably switched it off. I waited long enough for the same thing to happen to another screen. The pause gave me time to rethink things and realize that I still had time to kill and doing it here was probably my best option. I returned to my seat near the fire video.

I now noticed a blurb on the side if the door away from the “fire”. I learned that the installation inside, The Visitors, involved musicians, in different rooms of a mansion, playing and singing a song. The fire in the video didn’t seem to be progressing much, so, when I heard voices singing on the other side of the doorway, I went in and, for the first time, considered that Ragnar Kjartansson might not be a full on con-artist.

All the screens were lit and all the rooms occupied: a cello, a couple of grand pianos, an accordion, a banjo, several guitars. The show — I mean installation — had become interesting. Though the music wasn’t gripping, it was quite pleasant. It swelled and softened. In some of the mellowest spots, the drummer sipped a beer. After a while I noticed the bare shoulders of a young woman lying in the bed one of the guitarist sat on. The run time was given as 64 minutes, and, as far as I know, she didn’t move for the entire shoot. If so, that’s almost as impressive as her roommate contributing to the performance guided only by earphones.

The museum is free and so is this. I’m really thinking of returning to watch the whole thing in the proper sequence now that I know what’s going on. Through some belated homework, I learned that Ragnar’s the guy in the bathtub. A quite remarkable selfie.

The Visitors and Scenes from Western Culture run through June 17.

Santa Z’s Legacy

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Here’s a Christmas display that looks a bit more traditional than the one in last week’s post. And it doesn’t just look traditional, Zapf’s Christmas Display is a definite Cincinnati tradition with decades of history. In 1970, Bill “Santa Z” Zapf marked the first Christmas in his new home with some outside decorations and the house has been the site of an ever growing holiday display every December since then.

Bill died in 2008 but his son, known as Billy, keeps the tradition going. Billy was busy replacing some lights in his father’s name when I stopped by in the afternoon, but he still offered up a friendly hello and chatted a bit as he worked. It’s obvious that Billy gets a lot of pleasure from the display and a good deal of that pleasure comes from the memories it triggers. Memories of his dad and the time the two of them spent creating and maintaining the glowing wonderland.

Yes, there is a normal nativity scene among all those figures. I’m including both day and night views of the nativity because that’s what I did last week but it’s an undeniable fact that this is a display meant to be enjoyed at night.

In early December, Cincinnati Magazine published their Top 5 Holiday Light Displays. All five are commercial or municipal operations. Described as “…your average neighborhood light display…on steroids”, Zapf’s received the lone Honorable Mention. Four of the top five have fixed admission prices and the fifth requests donations. Although it might no be as obvious, the Zapf family does too. There is a “Thank You Box” by the porch and the North Side Bank and Trust accepts donations to the Keep Santa Z’s Lights On fund. Electricity isn’t free.

The porch itself is packed with smaller decorations including one that hints at the Zapfs receiving a well deserved Major Award.

The display is located at 2032 W Galbraith Road. A recent Channel 5 story on the display is here.

Time of the Season

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It was fun while it lasted. Jasen Dixon set up The World’s First Zombie Nativity Scene in 2014. He says he almost didn’t bring it back this year and definitely won’t next year. The display faced legal challenges and a certain amount of outrage during its first two years but it seems things were fairly quiet last Christmas season. From the beginning, the display had at least as many fans as detractors, and, while the number of those in favor has increased, the number of those actively opposed has fallen dramatically. For some it was a practical matter. After 27 misdemeanor charges and $13,500 in fines were dropped early last year, Sycamore Township officials decided “It’s not worth the expense…”.

In 2015 I included a couple of daytime pictures of the Zombie Nativity in some comments tacked onto a Christmas time blog post. This year I snapped both day and night shots. I ended my 2015 comments with the observation that I thought “…a new local Christmas tradition has been established.” Whether or not you think that was right depends on whether or not you think the word “tradition” has any business being associated with something something that lasts just four years.

The title for this post comes from a 1968 hit song from the band The Zombies. I listened to a lot of stuff from them back in the day but I’d been smitten by zombie music long before. I remember singing along to this Kingston Trio recording from an older cousin’s collection as a pre-teenager. In searching for that 1959 performance I discovered a really cool one by Rockapella and another by the great Harry Belafonte.

Open House at Octagon Mound

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It’s not really a house and it’s never actually closed but an “open house” is what the Ohio History Connection calls each of the four days a year that tours are conducted and the general public is permitted inside Octagon Mound at Newark, Ohio. On all other days, access is restricted to members and guests of Moundbuilders Country Club who has leased the property since 1910. While that may sound disrespectful or even sacrilegious, the arrangement has provided a degree of protection that not all area mounds have received. Octagon Mound is part of the largest group of geometric mounds in the world. In addition to the octagon and an attached circle, Newark Earthworks once included a larger circle, a square, and an ellipse along with several pairs of long mounds connecting the geometric figures. The ellipse and all but a fragment of the square have been obliterated and covered over by the city of Newark. Just over forty miles to the southwest, a huge circle mound that gave the city of Circleville its name has been destroyed and buried under that city. In comparison, maybe having a few golfers wandering around isn’t so bad.

Last Monday, July 31, was an Open House day with hourly tours starting at noon. I was there in time for the first one but, after listening to the guides pre-tour comments, I stayed behind when the group headed off to enter the enclosure. The group seemed overly large to me and I thought I might do better with a later tour.

Instead I took the opportunity to look at the map the guide had referenced as he spoke then walked to a nearby observation platform. The platform allows the public to peek inside the enclosure even on days when they are not permitted inside. The picture at the top of this post was also taken from the platform. A path that runs part way around the attached circle is also always available to all and I traveled it while awaiting the next tour. A feature of the circle opposite its connection to the octagon stands several feet higher than the circle itself and has been given the name Observatory Mound. The path leads to within sight of Observatory Mound but doesn’t quite reach it. Walking beyond the path is permitted today and I continued on to the raised section.

The second tour contained nearly as many people as the first so I didn’t help myself much by waiting. I did stick with this one, however. As we paused at the opening to the interior, the guide pointed out that the approximately five foot tall mounds were at an almost ideal height for an adult human to use as sighting lines. Of course, as you can see, smaller creatures can sight along them as well if they position themselves properly. Following an overview of where we were and where we were going, the group headed across the big enclosure without fear of being beaned by a golf ball.

In the first picture we are walking between the parallel mounds that connect the octagon to the circle. The arrangement suggests a walkway. Similar pairs of mounds once connected the area around the octagon with other geometric figures in the complex and possibly with points much farther away. In the second picture we are approaching Observatory Mound and in the third most of the group is arrayed on the mound’s side listening to the guide. The purpose of Observatory Mound is one of the many mysteries associated with the structures. It may have actually been built as something of an observatory. The northernmost rising of the moon can be viewed from it through the circle, octagon, and connecting mounds. It looks as if there was once another opening into the circle at Observatory Mound so it might have been built to close the entrance. The truth is that no one knows and likely never will.

The cluster’s only other surviving enclosure, Great Circle Mound, lies roughly a mile from Octagon Mound. It is also owned by the state and it isn’t leased to a country club or anyone else. It can be visited at any time. These photos were taken near the small museum that stands near the entrance to the circle. The entrance can be seen in the second photo. A large ditch runs along the inside of the circular mound. Much of the material making up the mound was taken from the ditch during construction but there is also evidence that the ditch held water once the structure was completed. Why is just another of the complex’s mysteries.

The Newark Earthworks contain no solar alignments but there are a number of lunar alignments. This fact adds to the mystery since predicting the moon’s movements is a tougher job than predicting those of the sun and their role in daily life is much smaller. The picture of lunar alignments was taken inside the museum. The Ancient Ohio Trail website offers excellent information on the Newark Earthworks as well as other Ohio sites.

Vikings: Beyond the Legend

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After a couple of aborted attempts, I finally made it to the Vikings: Beyond the Legend exhibit at the Cincinnati Museum Center. A multi-year rehabilitation of Union Terminal, the Museum Center’s home, has begun and has closed all museum areas except for the Children’s Museum, the space used for traveling exhibits such as this, and the ticket and information counter seen at right. The counter is actually the front part of the large ticket and information facility in the center of the terminal’s large rotunda. A portion of the rotunda has been enclosed to provide the pictured entrance area. That impressive rotunda with its huge murals is just on the other side of those walls. The Children’s Museum and the traveling exhibit space are both on the lower level which is what allows them to remain open. A window has been installed along the path to the lower level which allows visitors to peek into some of the emptied and stripped museum space awaiting attention.

The exhibit of more than 500 artifacts opened in November and will remain through April. It is the largest collection of Viking artifacts to ever visit North America and Cincinnati is its first stop. It also has the distinction of being the largest exhibit, in terms of physical size, to appear at the Cincinnati Museum Center. For most, the word Viking conjures up an image of a large rough looking fellow with a huge ax or sword who is constantly pillaging and burning with a little time off to guzzle mead. As the subtitle “Beyond the Legend” implies, the exhibit is intended to give attendees a somewhat more rounded view. That intention is reinforced with the advertising slogan “The horns are fake. The beards are real.”

Vikings were not a race or even a nation. In fact, they didn’t use the word to identify themselves but to identify something they did. To go viking meant to go on an adventure. Sometimes they did go viking in order to pillage and burn but often it was to trade or explore. The exhibit includes plenty of items from their peaceful farms and villages and there are many examples of fine craftsmanship and artistry. Of course not all of items found in the Viking’s Scandinavian homelands were made there. Many were obtained through trading or raiding.

Apparently raiding still forms a major portion of my personal Viking image. I looked over reproductions of clothing and was actually quite impressed by the many examples of artistic metal work but when I got home and looked at the pictures I’d taken, I found mostly weapons or heavy tools. It’s possible that they were just the most photogenic but it seems at least as likely that they simply fit my preconceived notion of the Viking world.

But perhaps even more than the beards and swords, my concept of Vikings is fueled by the visual of a sleek longship floating gracefully through a fjord. The Vikings: Beyond the Legend exhibit includes four ships. A glimpse of the 21 foot long Karl, a reconstruction, can be seen at the left side of the dim photo marking this article’s second paragraph. The first picture here is of part of a ghost ship defined by metal rivets suspended where they would have held the long ago rotted planks of a hull in place. The second is of the 26 foot Krampmacken. In the 1980s, this reconstructed merchant ship sailed from the island of Gotland to Istanbul. The last picture shows the reason this is physically the largest exhibit mounted by the Cincinnati Museum Center. At 122 feet long, the Roskilde 6 is the longest Viking ship ever discovered. The ship is outlined by a modern skeleton that holds approximately 25% of the thousand year old hull in place. This is the first time it has been displayed outside of Europe.

These are reproductions of three of the more than 3,200 rune stones have been found throughout Scandnavia. Scholars consider the Viking Age to be bounded by their destruction of the abbey at Lindisfarne in 783 CE and their defeat at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066. During that time Christianity made major progress in replacing the worship of a collection of gods headed by Odin. While the rune stones were typically erected to commemorate some significant event, many include Christian components and some think they may have at least partially been advertisements for the newer religion.

Da Vinci — The Genius

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dvtg01A new exhibit opened at the Cincinnati Museum Center just over a week ago. Da Vinci — The Genius opened on Friday the 20th and I was there on Monday. It’s a dandy. The exhibit is billed as having “17 themed galleries” and I’m sure that’s true. Another simpler — though not entirely accurate — view is that’s its the “Mona Lisa” and everything else. I say that because the “Mona Lisa” display is quite large and is different from the others. It is the last area reached in the exhibition and the last discussed here.

The bulk of the exhibit consists of modern implementations of devices envisioned by da Vinci some five centuries ago. Using his drawings and descriptions and utilizing materials available when the the ideas were committed to paper, more than 70 of da Vinci’s concepts have been brought to life. Most are full size.

dvtg02dvtg03Devices related to flight appear early in the exhibit. The photo at the top of this article is of the helicopter-like Vite Aerea. In addition to wings, screws, and propellers targeting actual flight, da Vinci sketched out mechanisms intended to test ideas or measure natural forces. Almost all of his “flying machines” were impractical because of weight or other issues. A partial exception is the “parachute” seen in the foreground of the second picture. In 2000, British daredevil Adrian Nichols stepped out of a hot air balloon with a ‘chute built to da Vinci’s specifications. Jumping from 10,000 feet, Nichols rode the 500 year old design to within 2,000 feet of the surface before turning to something more modern. Freeing himself from the pyramid shaped device and deploying something more up to date was not because of any failure of the device to do its job but to prevent being injured by the heavy wood frame on landing.

dvtg06dvtg05dvtg04Leonardo’s earth bound inventions were more viable. The second picture is of a machine used to cut threads on a shaft. The third picture shows an area that breaks from the normal “hands off” museum policy. Here attendees are encouraged to touch and operate the mechanisms to better understand the principles involved and to better appreciate da Vinci’s genius. Da Vinci didn’t invent the “Out of Order” sign but it can be useful in his world. On the day of my visit the Ingranaggio a Lanterna don’t work cause the vandals took the handle.

dvtg08dvtg09dvtg10Enlarged examples of da Vinci’s anatomy studies are displayed as are reproductions of several other drawings and paintings. His “Last Supper” is the subject of a video. The anatomical drawings demonstrate da Vinci’s talent but are also evidence of his boundless curiosity. It’s obviously good to have a healthy supply of both but I find myself thinking that curiosity without talent is to be preferred over talent without curiosity.

dvtg13dvtg12dvtg11A sad truth is that concocting dreadful machines of war was frequently da Vinci’s “day job”. That’s not to say that it was entirely unpleasant to him. He had an interest in the science and art of war at an early age but he often obtained patronage for his artistic endeavors by promising the means to destroy enemies. He certainly wasn’t the last artist/scientist to find that the case.

dvtg14Of his Stanza Degli Specchi, an eight-sided mirrored room, da Vinci said that someone in it “will be able to see every part (of himself) endless times”. There are, of course, parts of me that you are better off not seeing even once but this from-the-shoulder shot is alright.

dvtg17dvtg16dvtg15In 2004, researcher Pascal Cotte was given unparalleled access to the original “Mona Lisa”. The painting was removed from its frame and photographed multiple times with a purpose-built ultra-high-resolution multispectral camera. Analysis of the captured data has resulted in things like an understanding of the original colors and a possible explanation for the apparent absence of eyebrows and lashes. The data was also used to produce a full-sized replica of the original. That’s it in the second picture. That’s also it in the third picture in a true “dark side of the moon” rear view. The two large portraits on the far wall relate to Cotte’s most controversial claim. Cotte believes that four fairly distinct layers can be identified in the painting and that one is an almost finished picture of a completely different woman than the one visible on the surface. On the right is a recreation of that other portrait. Everyone agrees the the painting changed during the many years da Vinci worked on it. Some authorities, however, believe all changes were along the lines of constant tweaking. They are not ready to accept that substantially completed layers were overlaid with other entire layers.

dvtg18Leonardo da Vinci is believed to have spent about fourteen years on the “Mona Lisa” and he still wasn’t entirely done with it when he died. You can use your mobile phone and a chair, frame, and background provided by the museum to complete your own in a fraction of a second. Bring your own Lisa.

Da Vinci — The Genius runs until September 25. Major restoration work will close much of the Museum Center on July 1. The Children’s Museum and the da Vinci exhibit space are in the basement and will remain open. Entry will continue to be through the main doors of Union Terminal.

Mo’ Bricks

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brickmas01How big is Cincinnati? Big enough to simultaneously support two major LEGO exhibits. That’s how big. The Art of the Brick opened at the Cincinnati Museum Center on October 23. It runs through May 1. Down at Newport on the Levee, BRICKmas opened November 25. It runs through January 1. The Art of the Brick is the work of a single artist, Nathan Sawaya. BRICKmas is the work of lots of people coordinated by the Ohio Kentucky Indiana LEGO Users Group (OKILUG).

brickmas02I visited The Art of the Brick back in November and posted a blog entry here. I visited BRICKmas just over a week ago (Dec 12) with my daughter and grandson. Theoretically, BRICKmas could have been the subject of last week’s blog post but that slot was already filled with the Saint Anne’s Hill Christmas Tour. I considered doing a “bonus” post but decided to make it easy on myself and save BRICKmas for this week. Here is what I did eight days ago.

brickmas04brickmas03BRICKmas fills two separate areas. The first contains several large and complex displays. Each has a theme and some are reproductions of specific scenes or locations. Electric trains and other moving items add life.

brickmas05brickmas06brickmas07The folks who made the displays clearly had a lot of fun and a lot of imagination. I learned later that there is a Santa Claus figure in each display. We spotted a couple but didn’t know to look for them. There were also quite a few non-Santa figures in the displays that were equally out of place. Some were hidden. Others not. The pumpkin-headed horseman in the first picture to the left is actually in the area covered by the second picture in the preceding paragraph but he is hidden by a tree. The other two picture contain some rather incongruous figures in plain sight. There is some help in finding them here and here.

brickmas09brickmas08The Roebling Bridge model at the top of the article and both displays in the photos at right were in the second section. Here the individual items, like the full size heads, seemed larger, and the themed scenes, like the Sponge Bob Square Pants setting, seemed smaller. This section was more or less targeted at the younger attendees and this is where the play areas and do-it-yourself tables were. It was here that we noticed some kids with scavenger hunt type check lists. We were disappointed that we hadn’t received one but it was really too late to get overly concerned about it. Apparently the first thing we were supposed to find was the check list and we failed miserably.

brickmas10This picture was taken shortly after we arrived at the levee before visiting the BRICKmas displays. I’m going to pretend that it was at the end of the day as we’re about to head home. Even though Wesley’s drivers licence is a few years away, he’s pretty sure he could handle a little sleigh and a few reindeer.