SCA Conference 2019

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I once envisioned the 2019 Society for Commercial Archeology conference being bracketed by leisurely drives to and from, but as time passed the schedule on both sides of the event filled in and squeezed out most of the leisure. The first day included just enough time to check out the freshly painted fellow in the picture. He’s not part of the conference but he is exactly the sort of thing that the SCA is all about. The conference itself is being held in Wisconsin Dells and has been given the name “Wacky Wisconsin”. It’s a four-day affair running June 5-8.

This entry is to let blog only subscribers know about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.

Movie Review
Cuba
Golden Gate 3D

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A new film will open in the reworked all digital Robert D. Lindner Family OMNIMAX Theater on June 7. A few previously shown films have appeared as part of the theater’s classic series but Cuba: Journey to the Heart of the Caribbean is only the second new production to be shown since the theater reopened in December following a long closure. A post on the reopening and the first film, Volcanoes, is here. There were two members-only showings of the new movie on Saturday and I jumped at the chance to attend. Volcanoes is an awesome movie; Cuba might be even better.

It’s the work of Golden Gate 3D, which I’ve now learned was responsible for two of my favorite 70-millimeter real film IMAX movies: Jerusalem and National Parks Adventure. The images are superb, from scenic panoramas to the microscopic; From world stopping slow motion to the super acceleration of time-lapse. The three storylines do a fine job of holding the film together and moving it along. Then there’s the music. ¡Ay caramba, the music! It grabbed me from the start and never let go through slow soaring overhead shots to frantic-paced dance scenes. I expected to see a long list of contributors when I scanned the credits but it appears that just two men composed all the original music: Andres Levin, who was also the film’s music supervisor, and José María Vitier. Wonderful stuff, fellows.

The storylines involve Havana’s official historian, an aspiring ballerina, and a pair of scientists. Eusebio Leal doesn’t just study history, he preserves it. He is responsible for saving and renovating many of the city’s numerous endangered buildings. He is also responsible for the only direct quote I recall from the movie: “Architecture is frozen music and we are a people who love music”.

It was a major surprise to me to learn that the world’s largest ballet school is in Havana. The movie follows Patricia Torres, one of the Cuban National Ballet School’s approximately 3,000 students, as she works to realize her dream of joining the Cuban National Ballet Company. Fernando Bretos and Daria Siciliano study Cuba’s coral reefs to discover why they are actually recovering while those in other parts of the world continue to decline. Their work provides the filmmakers an opportunity to show off their considerable underwater skills in recording some beautiful scenes.

Two of my favorite scenes are the result of underwater microscopic time-lapse recording. Siciliano tells us that the coral is not inanimate stone but is simply living at a different pace than us. The cameras then demonstrate. The scenes instantly reminded me of liquid light shows I saw in the 1960s. The great music certainly encouraged the idea that I was watching a brilliantly colored high-def high-tech version of hippy era stagecraft.

There was another flashback of sorts in plenty of shots of the legendary 1950s American automobiles that resourceful Cubans have kept in operation despite the long-standing complete embargo on parts. Of course, keeping the mostly brightly colored vehicles running is not the only place where the embargo and generally poor economy have led to uncommon ingenuity. Agriculture is one such area that is highlighted in the film.

The lack of money and materials is evident in the film from the aforementioned “classic” cars to the deterioration of buildings. Cuba: Journey to the Heart of the Caribbean doesn’t avoid or downplay this aspect of the politically isolated island but the bright and crisp images somehow make it less sad. The music might also have something to do with that. The faces certainly do.

The movie is filled with smiling faces, dancing feet, and drum pounding hands. Most of the people seen in the movie are happy. Of course, this is partly due to the fact that parades and other celebrations are frequent subjects. Not every face is smiling and not every scene is a happy one but there are a lot more grins than grimaces. Somewhere near its beginning, the film talks of Cuba existing in three different periods. There is its glorious past, its uncertain but promising future, and the present. The present is what it is. This movie might make things look a little better than they actually are but I don’t think that’s an intentional misrepresentation. I think its creators wanted to make a joyful and entertaining movie that included some seriously representative images. They used some of the best of the present and included a little bit of both the past and the future. When you see it, and I really recommend you do, be prepared to tap your toes and maybe dance in your seat a little. It’s gonna be hard not to.

Butterflies at Krohn Conservatory

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I’ve been meaning to stop by Krohn Conservatory to see “Butterflies of Ecuador” ever since it opened in March. I know I’ve missed much better opportunities than a crowded Friday afternoon but those opportunities aren’t going to come again. The exhibit ends June 16 and I’ll be out of town or otherwise engaged between now and then. It really was kind of now or never. Even though it was not the best time to photograph the colorful butterflies, it was a good time to see lots of people, including many of elementary school age, enjoy watching them.

I took the people picture shortly after I arrived. The crowd seemed to slowly but steadily grow from there. Visitors were provided with scratch-and-sniff (vanilla) landing pads as an aid to getting the butterflies to park where they could be studied although it was an assist not needed by everyone and not always successful.

Bright bowls, fabric, and imitation fruit were placed around the area to spice up the background. I overheard one of the attendants telling someone who asked that the colored liquid that was much better at attracting the butterflies than the scented cardboard was Gator-Ade.

I made no attempt to identify the butterflies I saw but just enjoyed watching them flit around, take long pauses on the various plants, and refuel at the Gator-Ade dispensers. Now and then, between flits and sips and the bodies of other watchers, I snapped a photo.

Memorial Day Eve

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I know the difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day and I’ve sometimes been critical of those who don’t. The publication date for this article is the day before Memorial Day which means it’s my official Memorial Weekend post. The article’s primary focus is the funeral of a U.S. Army veteran who died peacefully at the age of ninety. He clearly does not fit the definition of the folks that Memorial Day was created to honor. On one hand, I’m not completely comfortable having the subject of my Memorial Weekend post be someone who should not be connected to the holiday in any way at all. On the other hand, there’s a very good chance that I would not have attended Hezekiah Perkins’ funeral if it did not take place during Memorial Weekend. That statement is quite possibly true of almost everyone who did attend his funeral on Saturday.

I first saw his name on Friday afternoon. I’d been looking for Memorial Day related activities when local news sources posted a story from Spring Grove Cemetery. The Korean War veteran had purchased a plot and paid for his funeral twenty years ago. Arrangements were progressing to assure that the ceremonies included military honors. There was no question about a proper funeral and burial taking place; There was a big question about who would attend. None of Perkins’ family lived close enough or were healthy enough to come. The cemetery was asking people to join their employees and a small detachment of soldiers in saying a final farewell.

The response was impressive and heartwarming. I arrived about fifteen minutes before the scheduled ceremony and had to park roughly half a mile away. Others parked much farther away than that. Not only was the crowd large, it was racially and generationally diverse. As might be expected, the largest single category was definitely military veterans

Many of those veterans arrived on motorcycles in parade formation. My unscientific guess is that somewhere between fifty and a hundred motorcycles rolled by the grave site. The motorcycles were parked and their riders walked back to where the hearse that had followed them now stood. Friday’s announcement had said the Spring Grove employees would act as pallbearers but that was very much unnecessary. That chore was quite willingly handled by a pre-selected group of motorcyclists.

The ceremonies were brief but meaningful. A detail from Fort Knox removed and folded the flag that covered the coffin. Although the word “thousands” has slipped into a headline or two, most references to the crowd say “hundreds”. My own guess as to crowd size, made while I was part of it, is 400-500. A few, such as workers at the nursing home where he lived most recently, actually knew Hezekiah Perkins but the vast majority were complete strangers. There is certainly no reason to get too puffed up about standing in the grass for a few minutes on a nice spring day, but it’s an unquestionably nice thing that so many Cincinnatians did just that and made that final farewell quite a bit louder than it would have been otherwise.

The Spring Grove visit occurred in the afternoon. I started the day with the Butrims and breakfast at the Anchor Grill followed by traipsing around my favorite bridge. A previous visit had left the couple firmly split on Cincinnati chili but I got a 2-0 favorable vote on goetta. We have been digital friends for a while but this was our first meeting in the analog world. The visit came in the middle of a Kentucky focused trip which, like all of their many road trips, is being reported semi-realtime on Facebook. See Anna’s version here and Joe’s here.

Book Review
Diners of the Great Lakes
Michael Engle

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My original notion of what’s inside Diners of the Great Lakes was not very accurate, but I’m not the least bit disappointed. For no particular reason, I more or less expected this book to be something akin to a directory of diners currently existing in the Great Lakes region along with a telling of their individual histories. There is a certain amount of that, but it comes late in the book after Engle has delivered not just the history of diner operation in the region but of the manufacture of diners there along with their development as something distinct from what occurred nearer the Atlantic.

The industrial revolution of the late nineteenth century was accompanied by a revolution in food sales. Factories might now operate around the clock and their employees needed to be fed quickly and at non-traditional times. At first, food prepared at home would be sold from a pushcart, but it wasn’t too long before larger wagons containing elementary kitchens appeared. Simple freshly prepared items were sold to hungry workers and others through windows. As the twentieth century rolled in, larger horse-drawn wagons, with inside seating for a few patrons became common. The earliest lunch carts were naturally built by their operators. Eventually, however, manufacturers, such as Closson Lunch Wagon Company of Westfield, NY, began constructing wagons to sell. Engle illustrates the development of lunch wagons and the stationary diners that followed them, with wonderful period photographs, advertisements, and newspaper clippings.

As the story progresses from Closson’s horse-drawn wooden wagons through large built-on-site chrome Starlites, I found it interesting how the nomenclature changed slowly from lunch wagon to dining car to diner. I also found it personally interesting to learn that diners had once been manufactured in my home state of Ohio including some in nearby Dayton.

The book ends with what I once thought might fill the whole thing. The “Great Lakes Diner Directory” contains an extensive listing of diners with photos, descriptions, and locations. As Engle points out, assuring that the list is absolutely complete and current is impossible. The region’s diner population, like that everywhere else, is dynamic. “Call before you go,” is certainly good advice but the list in this book is as good as it gets.

Diners of the Great Lakes, Michael Engle, Michael Engle Publishing, November 1, 2018, 8.5 x 11 inches, 322 pages, ISBN 978-0976938927
Available through Amazon.

Portsmouth Road Meet

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I attended my fourth Road Meet on Saturday, and I still can’t quite explain what they are. I believe they started back in the days of Usenet, flourished when Yahoo groups were big, and continue today via Facebook groups. To be honest, though, they could, for all I know, predate Usenet and have seen significant MySpace history. The actual meets are informal gatherings of like-minded individuals to visit road related points of interest in a specific area under the guidance of one or a few volunteer organizers. All of the Road Meets I’ve attended have been in Ohio but they can be found through much of the eastern U.S. I’ve heard of meets in Michigan, Tennessee, New Jersey, and Missouri and I know there have been others.

The opening photo was taken as I drove east to the Road Meet on OH-32, a.k.a, the Appalachian Highway. The three at left were taken after I turned on the two-lane OH-73.

A meal is an important part of every Road Meet. The setting for this one was the Portsmouth Brewing Company which I’ve visited several times in the past. I knew maybe half the attendees from previous meets but I won’t attempt to identify anyone other than this meet’s host, Sandor Gulyas at the table’s far end on the picture’s left. Nice Job. The first two of those previous meets had included at least one person within a generation or two of my age. That wasn’t true of the Cincinnati meet and clearly wasn’t true of this one. I think I can take credit for single-handedly raising the group’s average age by at least half a decade.

Before taking to our cars, we walked to nearby Alexandria Point Park which allowed us to see both of Portsmouth’s Ohio River bridges. The cantilevered Carl D. Perkins bridge is to the west. The cable-stayed U.S. Grant bridge is to the east.

Our big drive began by crossing the Perkins Bridge into Kentucky, pausing at an overlook to study the Grant Bridge, then crossing it to return to Ohio. The Grant Bridge is indeed named for the Ohio born 18th president. The Perkins Bridge is not named for the blue suede shoe wairing rockabilly star but for a Kentucky politician. I’m still disappointed by that.

This is Ohio’s newest highway and the primary reason for having the meet here. Officially named Southern Ohio Veterans Memorial Highway, OH-823 was dedicated and opened in December. All three pictures were taken while driving OH-823 southbound after reaching the highway’s northern end using US-23.

After driving all sixteen miles of OH-823, we started working our way back north primarily on OH-335  We slipped off to pass through a railroad underpass on Stout Hollow Road and paused to photograph a collection of signs near the Portsmouth Regional Airport. We then returned to OH-823 and drove roughly ten miles of it northbound.

Near OH-823’s northern end, we picked up OH-348 and followed it through the town of Otway to the covered bridge just west of town. A sign near the bridge tells its story. It was decided that a group photo should be taken here and I won the job by having the only tripod present. Although I tried blaming it on the equipment, the problem was really with the operator. In order to assure that the whole bridge was in the picture, I placed the camera too far away and I believe the distance and bright sun combined kept the infrared remote from working properly. Then, when I got a good look at what I did manage, I saw that the focus kind of sucked, too.

We all returned to Portsmouth on OH-73 which I had arrived on earlier. We said our goodbyes and I headed home along the Ohio River on US-52. The Road Meet was over and I wasn’t looking for any more photo-ops but near Manchester I spotted an old friend. For years, the Showboat Majestic was an important part of Cincinnati’s riverfront but she was moved upriver in March after being sold. I don’t know when she’ll be back in action but now I know exactly where she is.

Apparently I did not document that first Road Meet in Columbus but here are entries for Dayton and Cincinnati.

Burning Man at CAM

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I have never been to Burning Man but I’ve a son who has. I texted him while attending the recently opened “No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man” at the Cincinnati Art Museum. “Those things aren’t supposed to make it off the playa”, he said. “Burn it. It’s in the frickin’ name.” Those aren’t angry words. They’re amused words. In context, he seemed to be chuckling at the idea of people trying to understand the annual gathering by looking at some things that had once been there. I’d already picked up some sense of how silly this was from the exhibition’s title. “No Spectators” comes from Burning Man’s “radically participatory ethic”. “Participation” is one of the community’s ten principles. No one attends the actual event as a spectator. The joke (possibly even intentional) is that, regardless of the name, the majority of people viewing the objets d’art at the museum are 100% spectators. Silly or not, I spectated profusely.

As is apparent from the first photo, the Burning Man pieces are not shuttered off in an isolated gallery but share space with the museum’s permanent displays. The Truth is Beauty standing at the top of the main staircase is a third the size of the original 55-foot tall sculpture that appeared at Burning an in 2013. A description is here; Another view here.

Although several examples of the art of Burning Man are unavoidably encountered on the way, there is a gallery devoted to Burning Man history which is a good place to visit before actively seeking out the rest. Burning Man of today bears little resemblance to the original 1986 event. Today it is well organized and scheduled far in advance. The “city” that is created annually in the Nevada desert now has a population near 70,000. Given the name Black Rock City, a Department of Public Works exists to operate the city and a group called the Black Rock Rangers patrols it. A large part of the Ranger’s success is credited to the fact that they are not outsiders but participant volunteers helping keep other participants safe and enjoying themselves. There is a brief description of the DPW and BRR here. The jacket belongs to DPW founder Will Roger Peterson.

The history display includes some actual artifacts from past events. Starting in 1998, Crimson Rose, one of the organizers, has collected remnants of the Man on the morning after the burning. The keys were found on the playa by organizers Michael and Dusty Mikel between 2005 and 2012.

The guy on the right of the first picture is Thorax, Ambassador of the Insects. The mutant vehicle in the center picture is from 2008. It is named Tin Pan Dragon. I liked it so much that I grabbed a full side view and a shot of the video playing nearby. The big screen visible beyond the dragon show a loop of various Burning Man scenes with seating for a small audience.

The capacity of this theater is much higher with three rows of four seats each. Although No Spectators officially opened on April 26, several items, including this self-propelled theater were in place when I visited another exhibit just about a month ago. On that occasion, I took this picture of the screen with my phone. This time I took no screenshots but did sit through the entire presentation of silent shorts.

While some of the Burning Man pieces appear a little bit awkward in makeshift settings, this piece and this circular room seem made for each other. Gamelatron Bidadari is comprised of 32 bronze gongs played by computer-controlled mallets. There’s a better explanation here.  The few minutes I spent in this room were the most pleasant of my entire day.

Photos of Shrumen Lumen appear in promotional materials for this exhibit including the program cover. It is one of the few items that require a little participation and at least slightly supports the “no spectators” idea. As explained here, each ‘shroom is activated by stepping on a pad at its base. In the third picture, a non-spectator steps on a pad then steps back and back again to watch the show.

Phase 1 of “No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man” opened on April 26. Phase 2 additions will be made on June 7 and everything will remain through September 2. I’ll be back for Phase 2 and to listen to those gongs some more.

ADDENDUM 4-Aug-2019: As promised, I returned to the museum for Phase 2 and reported on the visit here.

Trip Peek #82
Trip #138
Finding It Here

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This picture is from my 2016 Finding It Here trip. It was that year’s Christmas Escape Run. I wanted to keep the CER short in 2016 and, having enjoyed Christmases at state parks in West Virginia and Indiana, selected an Ohio park for this outing. The name came from the fairly new state tourism slogan, “Ohio, find it here”. Burr Oak, the chosen park, is in the east half of the state about halfway between Columbus and Marietta. Although technically a four day trip, the last day was an uneventful quick drive home from the park. The first night was spent in Athens and included visits to a couple of local breweries. Burr Oak Lodge sits near the south end of the Morgan County Scenic Byway, a section of which locals have nicknamed “Rim of the World”. That was my route to the lodge. On Christmas Day, I explored some of the park and the narrow roads around it. I also made it all the way to Cambridge which is taken over by a Dickens Victorian Village each year. The photo is of a huge chandelier in the lobby of Burr Oak Lodge.

Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full sized photo and the associated trip journal.

Trip Peek #81
Trip #119
Route 66 Festival 2014

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This picture is from my 2014 Route 66 Festival trip. The trip title is accurate, the Route 66 festival in Kingman, AZ, was the target, but it hides the fact that a major component of the trip was a full length drive of the Old Spanish Trail. Not only did I clinch that historic auto trail, I did it in a Mazda Miata which qualifies as the smallest car I’ve ever driven coast-to-coast. The photo is of the trip’s only disappointment. When I reached San Diego with plans to photograph the OST terminus marker, I was shocked to find the park containing it closed and being refurbished. The photo was taken through the surrounding barricades. The disappointment was soon forgotten in a visit with my younger son who lives in a suburb of San Diego. I had visited his older brother in New Orleans on the way out making this one of those rare trips where I am able to see both of my boys.

After a few days in San Diego, I headed north to finally connect with the road in the title. I picked up Historic Route 66 at its symbolic end at the Santa Monica Pier and followed it to the festival in Kingman. The festival was a good one that included a Road Crew concert and the first (to my knowledge) conference element along with the party. My path home was on Sixty-Six all the way to St. Louis, and included a stop in Santa Fe and an international rock concert at Afton Station.

Just in case anyone is concerned about the mental anguish caused by the missing marker, there is good news. A little more than two years later, I made it back to the reopened park and had a happy meeting with the returned stone.

Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full sized photo and the associated trip journal.

JHA 2019 Conference

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I’m on my way to the 2019 Jefferson Highway Association Conference and I’m taking a much shorter route than I did last year. Instead of driving from Cincinnati to Winnipeg to Saint Joseph, I’m following an almost perfectly aligned southwest diagonal directly to Natchitoches, Louisiana. I was on the road for ten days before reaching the conference last year. This year it will be just three and one of them is already over and posted.

This entry is to let blog only subscribers know about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.