Tag Archives: Cincinnati Ohio

Festless in Cincinnati

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In last week’s post, I told of becoming a big fan and semi-regular attendee of the annual Bockfest parade. At the time, I had every intention of attending this year’s event but it didn’t work out that way. Despite predicted near-freezing temperatures, those intentions survived until the afternoon of the parade but no further. Predictions of partly cloudy and low chance of precipitation became completely cloud covered with light snow. Recalling my 2013 “I’m too old for this” decision, I gave the parade a miss.

I had, of course, planned on the parade being the subject of this week’s post. Fortunately, there had been an event earlier in the week which makes a very suitable substitute. Narrow Path Brewing, in nearby Loveland, held their own mini-Bockfest on Tuesday. There was no parade but there were genuine goats, imposing monks who may or may not have been genuine, and a genuine ceremonial tapping of a keg of bock beer.

I didn’t make it to Bock Hall or the adjacent tent of many breweries in Cincinnati, but I did get to sample three of the area’s bock offerings. The first was the Sonder Brewing‘s William Goat featured in last week’s post, and the second was Narrow Path Brewing’s Pathinator that I enjoyed on Tuesday. The third was Common Denominator at  The Common Beer Company on Saturday. I met fellow road and beer enthuiast Perry Huntoon there, and his son snapped our picture when there was still a little Common Denominator left in my glass.

Scenes from when I actually made it to the big downtown bash can be found here: 2010, 2011, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019.

Royal Competition

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I attended my first Bockfest Parade in 2010 and immediately regretted missing the preceding seventeen. My attendance hasn’t been perfect since then but it’s on the plus side: 6 of 10. My attendance at other Bockfest events has been perfect. I haven’t attended a single one and that includes the multiple Sausage Queen competitions that take place each year. One reason was the expectation of crowded spaces which I don’t enjoy nearly as much as I once did but location has also been a factor. To be honest, location could be problematic for a couple of reasons. One, of course, was distance. Most events happen downtown which means a bit of a drive plus dealing with parking. Secondly, many were in places I was unfamiliar with. I presumed that most of the attendees were folks who frequented the various places and the fact that I did not sort of added to the “crowded spaces” aspect. But this year the last of seven qualifying events took place just up the road in a place I’m fairly familiar with.

Sonder Brewing is the brewery closest to my home. It’s less than two crow-miles from my door and about two and a half if I stick to the roads. I arrived more than an hour ahead of the scheduled start of competition and the place was packed. I got a beer and hovered near the bar until a seat miraculously opened. My first beer was a porter. The second was the more appropriate William Goat bock pictured above. I can’t say whether or not the flouting of the “‑ator” bock naming convention was intentional but I can say it was quite good. I happily sipped my brew to the sounds of 99 Luftballon and Beer Barrel Polka — both in German. Then it was La Bamba and Livin’ On A Prayer in Spanish and English respectively.

The competition took place in the far corner. The acoustics were horrible so I had almost no idea of what was going on and the lighting and distance helped me make photos that matched the acoustics. I got no pictures of one of the three entrants and didn’t even learn her name. I was rooting for Ashli, who was assisted by an energetic dance team, only because I’d met her and some of her team before things got rolling. Rhonda also had a little help and both had sizable cheering sections.

Rhonda was the ultimate winner although I don’t know why or how. She will represent Sonder Brewing in the final competition for the 2020 Sausage Queen at Bockfest Hall next Saturday.

 

Treasures of the Spanish World

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When the Cincinnati Art Museum announced this upcoming exhibit near summer’s end, I was interested but not overly so. In fact, I didn’t put it on my Gotta-See-That list but on my I’ll-See-That-If-It’s-Convenient list. That was a mistake and I’m sure glad there was a day when taking in Treasures of the Spanish World was convenient and it didn’t end up on my Sorry-I-Missed-That list.

First off, it’s big. Its more than 200 objects fill several of the galleries I associate with temporary exhibits. And it’s not just big in terms of space but in time as well. The oldest items in the exhibit are from the middle of the third millennium BCE; The newest are from the twentieth century CE. Most items, including intricately decorated fabrics and ceramics, call for some up-close study. The pictured “books” are letters patent of nobility (cartas ejecutorias de hidalguia) that attest to “the holder’s gentility” and social position. They are wonderfully decorated and often contain images of the holder and/or grantor.

Numerous paintings, including quite a few portraits, are on display. These, showing a wide range of scale, are the work of Domenikos Theotokopoulos (a.k.a, El Greco).

At the beginning of a section named “Golden Age“, visitors are reminded that “In the 1500s Spain was the most powerful country in the western world”. The western world was getting a whole lot bigger in those days and Spain played a huge role in that. The large map, from which the clip of the Americas was taken, was created by Giovanni Vespucci in 1526 as a royal wedding gift. Giovanni inherited the job of maintaining Spain’s master nautical chart from his uncle, Amerigo.

Of course, Christianity was really big in both Old and New Spain. The large wooden relief sculpture was once part of an even larger piece in a Mexican Church. It dates from around 1600.

The exhibit is organized chronologically and physically divided into two parts. The second section is certainly interesting enough  — there are a few Goyas among its several paintings — but I only have one photo from it. I seem to like my history with a side of art more than the other way round. “Advances of the Nineteenth Century” is a set of tiles recounting recent progress from the vantage point of 1903. The bicycle, locomotive, flush toilet, and sewing machine are clearly steps forward. Not so clear is whatever advance the bullfighting tile is touting.

This touring exhibit was made possible by a major renovation project at the Hispanic Society Museum & Library in New York City. That’s where the items in the exhibit normally appear and many of them have never been displayed elsewhere. The exhibit initially appeared in Madrid, Spain, and appeared in Mexico City and Albuquerque before reaching Cincinnati. There’s still time to see it but not much. This is being published when just one week of the fourteen-week run remains. As I said in the opening paragraph, I’m glad Treasures of the Spanish World avoided going on my Sorry-I-Missed-That list. I recommend you keep it off of yours, too, if you can.

BLINK II

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This is the second coming of BLINK. The first was in 2017 when I underestimated the crowd, arrived too late, and missed the parade entirely. That story is here. This year I arrived in plenty of time, again underestimated the crowd, and missed the parade mostly. Reinforcing the claim that I arrived in plenty of time are pictures, like the one at right, of parade entries in the staging area. I could have taken up a spot in the front row of spectators but chose to roam around rather than stand still for an extra hour or so.

When I did decide to settle down, I thought I’d found a spot near the start behind a single row of spectators that I could see over. That turned out to be something of an illusion, however. There was a row of cell phone wielders seated on the curb and a steady wall of passers-by who tended to pause for extended periods until “encouraged” to move by the folks whose view they were blocking. Even so, I managed a few only slightly blurry pictures, including one of a glowing snail I had caught unlit in the staging area, before my phone rang.

For something more than a day, I had been expecting (or at least hoping for) an important phone call. My fears that it would arrive at the worst possible moment were justified. The parade started moving around 7:20; The call came at 7:32. I simultaneously accepted the call (it really was important) and the fact that I would see no more of the parade. I paralleled the parade route one block away but the route itself was lined by a more or less impenetrable wall of spectators about six deep. The picture is of 3rd Street. Despite being crossed by the parade, plans called for the westbound 3rd and eastbound 2nd to be kept open. That was clearly easier said than done. The cars at the left of the picture are in curbside parking spaces; The rest are not. The car in the foreground is running with its lights on; The rest are not. They are effectively parked in the street with many drivers and passengers beside or on top of their vehicles.

I believe the giant ‘O’ is the one I could see above the parade route people wall. The big wheel is a permanent fixture on Cincinnati’s riverfront. I snapped the picture of the big dog as it headed off to a garage at the end of the parade. It’s another entry that I’d caught in an unlit state. I never did see the dragon in the opening photo in motion.

Even though I couldn’t actually see that parade, I went ahead with my plans to reach its endpoint because I wanted to see the nearby Roebling Bridge. It had been the subject of a lot of BLINK promotion but I wasn’t nearly as impressed as I thought I’d be.

I’d read the advice about picking your targets at BLINK, but I ignored it. I’d done no planning in 2017 and stumbled into something impressive every block or two. I expected to do the same as I headed back north from the riverfront. It didn’t happen. I wondered if my sense of awe was dulled by having seen the technology before. Or maybe my disappointment at missing out on the parade was spilling over into other areas. Both of those are probably at play but I decided there was more to it when I reached the lot in the third photo. In 2017, one of my favorite projections had been here. The brick wall had been the target of a King Records themed projection. This year the lot held the light source for shadow puppets.

I crossed the street and ducked into the Bay Horse Cafe for a Hudy and contemplation. I developed no insight but enjoyed the beer and stepped out with my attitude slightly adjusted and ready to enjoy whatever I encountered. A rather nice projection (Purpose and Play) at 8th and Walnut was followed by the lighted seesaws on Court Street. The seesaws were down by the river in 2017. I think they looked better in that location, but folks were definitely having a good time with them here. My favorite projection of the few I actually saw was Razzle Dazzle at the Ensemble Theater.

In Washington Park, I captured the giant bouncy house that is Dodecalis. It’s one of the few BLINK installations with an entry fee and the only one (AFAIK) that requires shoes to be removed. My car was nearby and I headed there undecided if my sense of being underwhelmed was justified but too exhausted from walking to really care.

On Friday, I was back. B & H Photo Video, where I’ve spent a little money over the years, sponsored several BLINK related walks led by professional photographers. I took advantage of one in the Findlay Market area led by Derek Hackett of ChopEmDown Films. That’s Derek at our first stop, a mural literally just completed by Logan Hicks.

I found the face-on-the-wall extra interesting because it is carved into the surface. It is the work of a Portuguese artist using the name Vhils. The many eyes and bright colors of the second mural make quite a contrast to the photo-like monochrome carving. A bit further on, we encountered Galo, the artist who did it, working on a standalone piece.

Even though BLINK officially opened Thursday, Galo wasn’t the only artist at work on Friday. Two of them were finishing projects almost side by side, and both Tatiana Suarez and Elle waved to members of our group as we watched them at work. It was immediately obvious that, in addition to having fantastic artistic talent and the ability to work on a very large scale, these people must be able to operate that lift with controls mounted on the platform.

We visited several more murals and I took bunches of pictures but I’m only going to include one more from Friday’s walk. It’s another work in process. It is the work of a group calling themselves the London Police and I found it extra interesting because of the subject. The face in the center of the mural belongs to Tatiana Suarez who we just saw painting the mural of the lady and the swan.

I returned to BLINK yet a third time on Saturday. There are installations on both sides of the river this year and my original plan had been to attend two nights so I could check out the displays in Kentucky. After Thursday’s mild disappointment, I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to go back, but Friday’s experience and seeing photos posted by others convinced me that I’d been the victim of bad luck, my own attitude, and a lack of planning. Saturday’s experience was more in line with my expectations. I parked in Covington, walked across the Roebling Bridge into Cincinnati, and checked out a few specific installations. They included an untitled work from Saya Woolfalk and the projections at the courthouse and the Contemporary Art Center.

Then I headed to the riverside and the giant rainbow that first appeared at Burning Man. The constantly changing LEDs make the thirty-foot arch much more than a rainbow. In the second photo, it frames one tower of the Roebling Bridge which I appreciated much more this time than I had on Thursday. The bridge is sometimes called the “singing bridge” because of the sounds made by tires on its grated deck. Recordings of some of the bridge’s sounds have been used to produce some slightly eerie but overall very pleasant music that is played through speakers in the park. My improved appreciation was no doubt aided by that music and the view of the bridge from water level.

There had been very few people on the bridge when I came north. It was now packed. It is closed to vehicles during the festival but both pedestrian walkways are open and filled. It had taken me several minutes to reach the point on the bridge where steps lead to the park. It took right at half an hour to reach the Kentucky shore from those steps. I probably spent a total of forty-five minutes shuffling over the bridge and overheard claims of an hour didn’t now seem as preposterous as they had when I first heard them on the Ohio side.

In Covington, a London Police mural is the base for an animated projection. I can’t help wondering who the model for the female figure was. Could it be mural artist Elle? I’m fairly confident that the model for the projection in the second picture is the world’s largest disco ball which people are dancing beneath just half a block away.

There is one day of BLINK remaining but I don’t anticipate another visit. It could happen though. Tonight that moon will be completely full.  

Brewing Heritage Trail

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I wasn’t around when the first phase of Cincinnati’s Brewing Heritage Trail opened in April and checking it out has been on my to-do list ever since. Some nice weather finally lined up with some idle time this week, so off I went. There really isn’t an official beginning or end and the designated Hop On points are essentially just suggestions. Even so, I wasn’t feeling particularly rebellious and following the suggestion seemed easier than not so I did. This is the Hop On point at Findlay Market.

My first stop was physically on the trail but not part of it. I had thought of grabbing something to eat at the market but decided to skip ahead on the trail just a bit and have breakfast at Tucker’s, a Cincinnati institution since 1946. I’ve eaten here in the past but not since a 2015 fire that threatened to permanently close the place. And I’d never met Joe Tucker. Today I sat at the counter while Joe worked the grill and chatted easily with me and everyone else who walked in the door. A great way to start the day.

From Tucker’s, I backtracked just a little to begin following the trail in earnest at Vine and Elder. The current trail is a loop plus the beginnings of an extension on McMicken Avenue and the Elder Street connection to Findlay Market. Signs like this one identify segments of the trail as well as the turns. A map is part of the signage at the Hop On points. It is also available online and I referenced it a couple of times from my phone. Apparently an actual smartphone app was available at one time but it has been withdrawn while “we tweak a few items”.

The former Hudepohl Bottling Plant sits on McMicken at the end of Elder Street. Opposite the building is a display featuring a smiling Louis Hudepohl and lots of information about the company. Hudepohl was one of the few Cincinnati breweries to survive prohibition and was once one of the largest in the state. The main Hudepohl brewery was abandoned in the late 1980s but its 170-foot smokestack bearing the company name remained a Cincinnati landmark until its demolition in June of this year.

Just yards beyond the Hudepohl kiosk, I found something unrelated to the trail but too cool to ignore. It was the mural that first caught my eye but I soon realized that I was standing by a large — and slightly out of place — garden. When a voice invited me in, I stepped through the gate to meet Christina, the Flower Lady of OTR and a volunteer gardener. Started in 1980, the Over the Rhine People’s Garden was the first community garden in Cincinnati. It is filled with flowers, vegetables, and fruit and there there is a weekly free distribution. Food not taken is donated to a local food bank. I even found a small connection to the trail I was following. At least one volunteer does some home brewing and is growing hops for that purpose.

The trail is also marked with medallions pressed into the sidewalks. I’m sure I walked right past some of the smaller ones where they appear all by themselves without even noticing. Just past the green space and playground of Grant Park, this cluster at the corner of McMicken and Moore is pretty hard to miss.

The second Hop On point is just around the corner on Moore Street. It is next to one of the largest murals on the trail and includes multiple information displays. Among the many pieces of information presented is one regarding local per capita beer consumption. That statistic has been cited as one of the reasons that Cincinnati, despite having around forty breweries, was not known as a national distributor. There just wasn’t much left to distribute.

I slipped down the unfinished McMicken Street segment and even backtracked a bit to capture some of the numerous murals along the trail. The Crown Brewery is just one of several buildings in the Brewery District being spruced up to reflect their former lives.

This was once home to Kaufmann Brewery and is now home to Christian Moerlein. In between, it was the Husman Potato Chip factory. Besides containing a brewery and taproom, the building houses the Brewing Heritage Trail Tour Center. A wide variety of tours — both above and below ground — is available. Check them out here. I’d kind of been thinking about a cold brew in the taproom but hadn’t really considered the time. “It’s not yet noon and the taproom is hours away from opening,” I observed to myself dryly.

There were plenty more informative things to read and decorative things to admire. I even have evidence that I didn’t miss ALL of the solo medallions. Reading about history while standing where it actually occurred is always cool.

I finished the loop then the short extension back to the Hop On point at Findlay Market. I’m impressed. An incredible amount of Cincinnati’s brewing history can be learned in an hour’s time walking the trail. As much as I enjoyed the walking and reading, I must admit that two of the day’s highlights were not listed trail features. I really enjoyed talking with Joe and Christina. Both were familiar with and supportive of the trail even without an official connection. I also enjoyed speaking with John Donaldson who owns buildings near the Moore Street Hop On point and who paused to chat as I looked over the nearby signs. If only I could have chatted with a bartender over a cool pint inside the Moerlein taproom.

Ludlow Garage 50th Reunion!

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The Ludlow Garage is a sadly dim shadow in my personal reminisces. I blame that on being busy and broke. My first child was born about seven months before the Garage’s opening on September 19, 1969. Some months prior to that, my wife and I had moved from an apartment roughly half a mile from where the Ludlow Garage was about to appear to a house in a Cincinnati suburb some seven miles distant. Besides the new baby, I was working a full-time job and playing in a band, which meant there was little time. A mortgage and commuting to downtown — along with that new baby — meant there was little money. I visited the Garage a few times, but I missed biggies like the Allman Brothers and Pink Floyd. I almost saw Santana. A friend and I were in line when we convinced each other to go somewhere else. I may have seen Mother Earth since I distinctly recall seeing East Orange Express there, and their only appearance listed on the Ludlow Garage Archive is as a Mother Earth opener. Despite thin credentials, I attended the 25th reunion in 1994 and came back for the 50th. As Ludlow Garage owner Jim Tarbell delivered some opening remarks, Rob Fetters, the day’s opener, crept up behind him following Jim’s mention of his name. This might have been a great photo if I hadn’t been so close and chopped off Jim’s head. But it’s the thought — and the spirit — that counts. Right?

Jim managed to finish his remarks, and Rob got the show rolling. The January 1971 demise of the Ludlow Garage preceded the start of Rob’s impressive musical career, so he never got to play there. In the early 1980s, he fronted local legends The Raisins. The Psychodots, The Bears (featuring Adrian Belew), and lots of solo work have followed. Using recorded tracks lifted from albums combined with live guitar and vocals, he delivered a cool retrospective.

I don’t believe Sonny Moorman ever played at the Garage, either, but he has played just about everywhere else. A typical performance consists of lots of his own blues songs, but one of his side projects was an outstanding Allman Brothers tribute band, and he has been a super fan of Lonnie Mack since childhood. Grand Funk Railroad headlined that first Ludlow Garage with Lonnie Mack preceding them. I’ve often said that if a Lonnie Mack biopic is ever produced, it absolutely has to involve Sonny. He reinforced that today with a remarkable Lonnie Mack tribute set.

This guy definitely played the Ludlow Garage. Sandy Nassan opened the Garage’s second concert, which featured Spirit. I apologize for not catching the names of the folks providing harmonica and vocals. They were quite good and certainly added to the performance, but on the other hand, they might not have really been necessary for a guy who released the critically acclaimed Just Guitar within a year of that Ludlow Garage appearance.

Robin Lacy & DeZydeco recently celebrated their own 30th anniversary, but I missed it. In fact, it had been a while since I’d seen the band, and I’d almost forgotten how much fun they are. Robin and Joani Lacy live near the Ohio River town of New Richmond, where they often perform as a trio with DeZydeco guitarist Ricky Leighton. It’s a place I tend to end up in on semi-aimless drives now and then and I’ve enjoyed several summer afternoons listening to the three of them rotate song selections. As enjoyable as that is it just isn’t the same as a toe-tapping bead-tossing full-band outing. “If you ain’t having fun,” Robin’s been known to point out, “it’s your own damned fault.”

I’m pretty sure everybody did have fun, and that includes Mr. Tarbell. Here we see him catching a strand of thrown beads, struggling a bit to get them over his hat, then casually tossing off a few dance moves before continuing his walk to the opposite side of the stage.

The members of Haymarket Riot nearly exceeded the space available on the stage and the name apparently did exceed the space available on the behind stage screen. That screen, by the way, showed a recorded Ludlow Garage light show in addition to each performer’s name. The band was started in 1965 by the two guys in the second picture, G. Parker and Steve Helwig. They did play at the Ludlow Garage. Over the years, quite a few members have come and gone around Parker and Helwig, and one was in town to help them with a song today. Gary Griffin left Haymarket and Cincinnati in the late 1970s then spent the ’80s and ’90s recording and touring with the Beach Boys and Jan & Dean. He is currently touring with Brian Wilson but had some time off to help his former bandmates perform Good Vibrations.

The Warsaw Falcons arrived a little too late for the Ludlow Garage. Originally forming in 1981, the band has deformed, unformed, and reformed multiple times with the only constant being guitarist David Rhodes Brown. The current three-piece lineup came together in 2014 and has continued the legacy of solid live music with a tinge of rockabilly.

It’s possible that I saw Tracy Nelson at Ludlow Garage fronting Mother Earth. As mentioned earlier, that’s based on the fact that I recall seeing openers East Orange Express but I doubt that was the only time they played there. Today, she had wonderful backing from Cincinnati’s Bluebirds. Great voice and great performance.

As stated, Nelson’s backing band was the Bluebirds. There were a few members I didn’t recognize, but that wasn’t particularly unusual. The band has been around a long time, and I’ve lost count of the various lineups I’ve seen. The schedule called for the Bluebirds to perform their own set, including an Allman Brothers tribute, following Nelson’s set. I expected Nelson to just walk off and the band stay in place. Instead, a full onstage shuffle commenced and when it ended a more familiar lineup was on stage. Both groups were, of course, the legitimate Bluebirds. It’s kind of like whatever plane the President is on being Air Force 1. Whatever musicians accompany guitarist Marcos Sastre are the Bluebirds. And they’re always fantastic.

Although Jeffrey Seeman did not perform at the Ludlow Garage, his musical career is inextricably tied to the venue. Seeman was one of the neighborhood teenagers who helped create the place during the summer of 1969 and who worked there after it opened. Much about the experience made long-lasting impressions, but none like being the only person to witness the Allman Brothers rehearsal on the eve of their first Ludlow Garage appearance. The teenager was already playing guitar, but watching Duane Allman’s slide work inspired Seeman to master the technique, which he has done incredibly well. Today he performed on both acoustic and electric and had Skip Cason join on guitar and vocal for one song.

I’d been there when the music started at noon and sort of surprised myself by still being there when headliner Rick Derringer took the stage more than eight hours later. Rick played the Ludlow Garage in 1970 as a member of Johnny Winters’ band. I stayed for a few songs, including Hang on Sloopy, before starting the climb to my car. I saw Rick most recently back in his hometown when Sloopy was turning 50. The band had been a trio then, but now contained a keyboard player whose gear included a keytar. I was parked in the Art Museum lot, which isn’t all that far from the concert pavilion, but the museum completely blocked the music. Only when I pulled out and cleared the building could I hear what was being played. I exited Eden Park to the sound of Frankenstein as a keytarist presumably did his best Edgar Winter. Maybe I should have stayed for that.

 

200 Breweries

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I like beer. I like beer well enough to be a Supreme Court justice, although my other qualifications are rather weak. I’ve had favorites from time to time. I was pretty much a Stroh’s guy in the 1960s and ’70s, then became a big fan of Christian Moerlein Select when Hudepohl introduced it in 1981. But I’ll confess to never being entirely faithful to a single brand. My roving taste buds would sometimes be led into temptation by an exotic label or a shapely bottle. Today, encouraged and aided by the craft beer explosion, I’m downright promiscuous. Several years ago, I began using Untappd, a phone app that allows me to track the various beers I’ve tried, and I’ve accumulated a decent score. I have, since January of 2014, consumed a measurable amount of 1202 different beers.

Yes, that’s decent, but it pales next to some others. Just within my small circle of Untappd cohorts, Brian is over 1600, Sara is pushing 1900 (and now only logs on special occasions), and Nick is well past 3000. I’ll never catch them, of course, and I’m OK with that. If nothing else, when someone accuses me of being too fickle in my drinking, I can point to Nick or Sara or Brian and say, “But not like them!”

Besides, as the title of this post indicates, I have other things to brag about. I enjoy logging different venues about as much as I like logging beers, and that goes double for breweries. In the beginning, I didn’t watch closely. I was almost halfway to the current count before it registered with me that logging breweries was something I was doing more than most. I completely missed the 100 brewery milestone but did note number 115 with a weak joke about Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream. I’ve been much more attentive as I approached completion of the second hundred, and my thoughts have been on Zappa rather than Dylan. It’s not only giving me an opportunity to brag but an opportunity to recount some of the breweries I’ve seen.

For starters, here are numbers 1 and 200. My first check-in of Lock 27 Brewing was on January 31, 2014. It was not, of course, the first brewery I ever visited. I have vague memories of being inside the recently departed Hudepohl brewery several decades ago, and I toured the oldest brewery in the US, Yuengling, back in 2005. A blog post from just about a year before I joined Untappd (Something’s Brewing in Cincy) describes visits to five breweries and mentions a couple more. And there were others. Lock 27 was simply the first brewery I visited after joining Untappd. My 200th brewery was the part-circus part-brewery Bircus. It’s in a converted movie theater just across the river in Kentucky and is more upfront about their tumbling and juggling than most breweries.

Dayton, Ohio, where Lock 27 Brewing is located, is also home to some truly unique producers of beer. Carillon Brewing Company (#24 12/8/14) is part of Carillon Historical Park and brews beer the old-fashioned way. I mean the 160-year-old-fashioned way. With the exception of piped-in water, the operation duplicates a brewery of the 1850s. I did a full blog post, History by the Pint, on my first visit. Pinups & Pints (#– 4/8/15) is a tiny 15-gallon operation that offers one choice of beer at a time. Unfortunately, Untappd had not yet identified it as a brewery when I was there, so it is not one of my 200 (It would have been #30). Even so, how could I not include “The World’s Only Strip Club – Brew Pub” in this post? And Untappd does now recognize it as a brewery. The third picture is of Ohio’s first and the nation’s second co-op brewpub shortly before it opened. Fifth Street Brewpub (#3 2/12/14) is the only brewery I currently “own” a tiny piece of (it’s a co-op!) and the one with the most Untappd check-ins. Here‘s a picture from the most recent of those check-ins.

I used the word ‘currently’ in the preceding paragraph because I once owned a few shares of the ahead-of-its-time Oldenberg Brewery in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky. Somewhere I have a beautiful and totally worthless stock certificate for the brewery that closed in 2001.

Two other visited breweries deserve shout-outs because of their locations. Silver Gulch Brewing (#79 6/29/16) and Kona Brewing (#123 4/7/17) are, respectively, the USA’s northernmost and southernmost breweries. I claim a bonus point for reaching these outposts within a year of each other. I have yet to reach the westernmost (Kauai Island) or easternmost (Lubec) breweries in the US.

Maybe I’ll make it to three or four hundred or beyond. I’ve started the second 200 like I started the first, with Lock 27. In 2017, a second location, which Untappd counts as a separate brewery, was opened just outside the Dayton Dragons ball field. The Dragons are an affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds, who are celebrating 150 years of professional baseball this year. A few months ago, Cincinnati.com published an article listing fifty-one breweries in the area, including fifteen I’ve yet to visit. There is also an unvisited-by-me brewery in the ten listed by the Dayton CVB. The Ohio Craft Brewers Association reports that there are now more than 300 breweries operating in the state, which means I could reach the next multiple of a hundred without crossing a state line — but I doubt I will.

More Man at CAM

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I visited Phase 1 of the Cincinnati Art Museum’s Burning Man exhibit about two weeks after it opened (Burning Man at CAM). It took me more than a month, however, to take in Phase 2. Phase 2 adds three galleries to “No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man” while leaving everything that was part of the first phase in place. The pictured quote — and line — went unnoticed on that earlier visit although they were certainly there. I was probably looking only at the structure that stands above the line. It represents the Burning Man Temple which, like the man itself, is turned to ashes before the festival ends. It’s a fraction of the size of the real temple but is still much too large to fit into my lens inside the museum. Here are shots of the top half, of one of the panels, and through one of the peepholes.

Christopher Schardt’s Nova was actually part of Phase 1 but, like the line at the entrance, I somehow missed it on my visit in May. Images in the ceiling-mounted LED panel are coordinated with classical music. The last photo was taken while I lay on the floor. I kind of wish I had waited for the skull to come around again.

One of the galleries added for Phase 2 is filled with three polyhedral sculptures from Yelena Filipchik and Serge Beaulieu. There’s a direct view of the suspended polyhedron here. One of the sculptures, with yet another polyhedron inside, can be entered.

This is a part of Phase 1 that I definitely did not miss. In fact, I ended that first post with a promise “to listen to those gongs some more.” I very much kept my promise and am now pretty much convinced that living inside Gamelatron Bidadari would make me a nicer person.

This is the largest of the Phase 2 additions. It consists mostly of two-dimensional art including photographs. I took the picture of the bicycle seat primarily to show the tag but I didn’t do a very good job. It is slightly more readable here.

The third Phase 2 gallery is the balcony above the temple replica and the museum’s main entrance. The central space is filled with clothing created for and worn at Burning Man. Photographs showing the many aspects of Burning Man fill most of the wall space but some of that space holds Candy Chang “Before I die…” chalkboards. Apparently, more than 4000 of these have been erected around the world giving people an opportunity to “pick up a piece of chalk, reflect on death and life, and share their personal aspirations in public.” Some truly deep and personal thoughts have appeared on the walls and the Cincinnati board contains some noble sentiments such as “Help others” and some fairly modest goals like “Go whale watching”, but “Travel” is a very common theme. Pay attention, people.

My post on Phase 1 opened with a photo of the smallish Truth is Beauty standing above the museum’s Great Hall. This one is closing with a photo of it taken from the balcony across the way. There are pictures on display that show the original 55-foot sculpture at Burning Man with no roofs or walls penning it in. It’s obvious that seeing this one third scale copy in climate-controlled comfort is a very poor substitute. I’m guessing that seeing reproductions of or even some of the actual pieces that were once part of Burning Man is just about as much like the experience of being there as my tapping on the steering wheel is like manning the riser behind Mick and Keith at Wembley Stadium. But it’s as close as I’m likely to get. I’ll take it. 

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.