Tag Archives: Cincinnati Ohio

Musical Review
Cincinnati King

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Although it didn’t feel much like it, this was actually something of a repeat. I attended a reading of KJ Sanchez’ Cincinnati King in Washington Park back in 2015. It was during a King Records celebration and drummer Philip Paul was among the musicians performing before the reading. There was music during the reading, too, but it didn’t make me think of the play as a musical. They’re calling it that now, and they’re right. I don’t doubt that my 2015 perception was off a little. In fact, I’ve probably forgotten more about that performance than I remember. But, as enjoyable as that Washington Park reading was, Cincinnati King sure has sure come a long way since then.

From the long list of colorful and talented people associated with King Records, Sanchez picked three to tell her tale. Syd Nathan, the label’s founder and beyond colorful owner, had to be one of them, of course. To represent Syd’s stable of singers, she chose Little Willie John whose story contains some of King’s best and worst. To help keep that volatile pair on point, she picked the guy who did the same thing for much of King’s product, long time session drummer Philip Paul.

Those great characters are portrayed by great actors. Neal Benari is a convincing and properly blustery Syd Nathans, Stanley Wayne Mathis nails Philip Paul, and Richard Crandle made me wish I could have attended just one Little Willie John performance. Benari and Mathis do sing one song each, but it’s Crandle, along with Cullen R. Titmas and Anita Welch, doing the heavy vocal lifting. Titmas and Welch kind of work their way through the King roster from Cowboy Copas to Moon Mullican and Annisteen Allen to Lula Reed. Welch has a wonderful voice and her dancing certainly adds to the show as well. The singers are backed by a top notch quartet comprised of Music Director Richard Livingston Huntley on drums, Terrell Montgomery on bass, Ralph Huntley on piano, and Seth L. Johnson on guitar.

Cincinnati King doesn’t tell the complete King story but it does paint a representative picture. From our current perspective the King Record story may seem rather sad but that could be mostly perception. King Records was successful: the sixth largest record company in the country. It was innovative: the first record company to record, manufacture, package, and distribute its product. It was progressive: generally colorblind hiring practices and minorities in key positions. It was trend setting: Little Willie John preceded James Brown, Moon Mullican preceded Jerry Lee Lewis. It was inspired: Fever, The Twist, The Train Kept A-Rollin’, and other long lived songs originated there. It was noticed: Syd Nathan is in the Rock & Roll and Bluegrass Halls of Fame and several King artists are in one or the other. KJ Sanchez gives us a feel for all of that in a highly entertaining two hours.

It’s also an informative two hours, and I could tell that parts of the story were real revelations to some of the audience. I’m no authority but I have read a fair amount about King Records and Syd Nathan over the years. Still, one piece of the story was entirely new to me. Syd Nathan, in the very early 1960s, traveled to Hamburg, Germany, to see the Beatles. It’s implied that he could have signed them but missed his chance. Whether or not an actual signing was likely, the reason for Syd not even making it to the club is telling. At some point on the day he was to see the Beatles, he watched a group of German boys walk by from his hotel room window. It’s not clear what it was about the boys that seemed menacing but the sighting caused Syd to stay in his room until time to return to London the next day. The Third Reich had been defeated little more than fifteen years earlier. Germany was not a place the Cincinnati Jew wanted to be.

I think it was the day after I saw Cincinnati King that I read a review written a few days earlier. It was very positive. I’d enjoyed the show immensely and the review reinforced my impressions. It praised the story, the actors, the musicians, and the staging. It was all flowers and sunbeams until the very last paragraph. Describing the show as “anchored in local history”, it concluded that it is “not a show that’s likely to move on to other cities and venues.” Maybe so, I thought. King was definitely a Cincinnati company. But I almost immediately started questioning the review’s conclusion. The company’s influence sure wasn’t limited to its home town. People all across the nation were once interested in its music; Why wouldn’t they be interested in its story? There’s a quote from former Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Director Terry Stewart on that panel I photographed:

There are only three places in the country that can claim to be the birthplace of Rock and Roll: New Orleans, Memphis, and Cincinnati.

I’ve no idea what plans may or may not exist for Cincinnati King. I’ve a hunch that KJ Sanchez doesn’t believe that “other cities and venues” are out of reach. I don’t.

Cincinnati King is at Playhouse in the Park through December 23.

Our Terminal Returns

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Back in July of 2016 much of the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal shut down for a major renovation of the 85 year old building. On the building’s lower level, the Children’s Museum stayed open through most — but not all — of the work and some traveling exhibits were presented, but the rest of the building was essentially closed while $228 million in renovations took place. That ended yesterday when the building officially opened to the public. In the days preceding the grand opening, some special receptions and other sneak peeks occurred. A biggie was Friday’s Members Only Preview which is when these photos were taken.

The renovation of the building is more or less complete but reestablishing the museum displays and other features is still in progress. The technically open Natural History Museum is just a skeleton of what it once was and will eventually be again. But it’s a really nice skeleton! Dinosaur Hall, the main display in the museum space currently, is brand new which is one reason it gets a jump on the return of some older exhibits. A crowd favorite, the artificial limestone cave, is scheduled to return in the spring.

Next stop was Holiday Junction where the Duke Energy Holiday Trains are in operation. The last photo is of a 1904 Carlisle & Fitch street car. The Cincinnati company introduced toy electric trains to the world in 1896.

Although the Cincinnati History Museum will not actually be open until April, there is a connection to its Public Landing area from Holiday Junction. Before the closing, a painter sat on top of that scaffolding perpetually engaged in completing the sign for my hotel. He’s apparently been given some time off during the renovation but I expect him to be back at work when the museum officially opens. Scheuman’s Bierhalle is a new addition that recognizes Cincinnati’s big time brewing history and fits in with the current resurgence of brewing in the city and across the nation.

Two traveling exhibits are currently active at the museum center and I was presented with a 2-for-1 offer when I registered for the preview. One I was rather anxious to see but the other hadn’t really stoked my interest. This, Chocolate, is “the other”. I guess I expected a bunch of frilly boxes and bonbon praising placards. What I got was the interesting history of this product of the cacao tree as it spread from Central America to the world and went from being the drink of kings to an affordable, though sometimes guilty, pleasure for everyone. I was pleasantly surprised though I should have realized that you never know what you’re gonna get with a room of chocolate.

I had rather high expectations for the Guitar exhibit but I was pleasantly surprised again. The history of the instrument was presented and there were several interactive displays on some of its technical aspects. There were also plenty of examples of its current role as the face of rock and roll and a popular symbol of music in general. Of course, one such example is the first generation Les Paul in the third picture and it’s not alone. There’s more Les here. I could fill much more than one panel with pictures from this exhibit but I’ll stop with two more. One is this industrial grade Rostov Stella from the USSR that I’ve never seen before. The other is an all in one rock star kit that I (and just about every dreamer of a certain age) have seen plenty of. By the way, that 43 foot Flying V in the first picture is the Guinness certified largest playable guitar in the world.

After the two traveling exhibits, I took part in two tours. The first was through the space where the Holocaust and Humanity Center will be moving in January. Despite its current location being only about five miles from my home and on my radar for some time, I’ve yet to visit the Center. Seems like something I ought to do before they start carrying stuff out. In the last picture, we’re getting a peek at a corner of a mural that wraps around the entire room and will be unveiled at the Center’s reopening on January 27, the 73rd anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

As I waited for my Rotunda Tour, I snapped a picture of another tour group as the crossed the walkway high above the floor. The pictures of the murals were taken from about where that group is standing. This tour was somewhat abbreviated from Rotunda Tours I’ve taken in the past since some areas, like the offices, are not quite ready. Those areas will eventually be added back into the tours but even without them the tour is certainly worthwhile for the views of cleaned and repaired features and inside information passed on by the guide.

The Winold Reiss murals in the half dome had been cleaned at least once before; The two in the hallway behind it: never. Our guide mentioned that she always thought the brown suit in the mural on the south side was one of the most unattractive she’d ever seen. Now, all cleaned up, it looks pretty good. She then pointed out some small figures in the background of the mural on the other wall. I’d never noticed them at all before and I guess they were nearly impossible to see before the cleaning. I believe she said there were a total of seven. I had no trouble finding the four in this section. I’d also never seen the Pierre Bourdelle murals in the dining room before. The twenty-two canvas murals have been in storage since the late 1980s and have just been cleaned and restored. I guess I’ve probably never seen the actual floor of the dining room either. When this was an operating terminal, a serpentine counter filled the room. The counter was gone when the museums moved in and the area where it once stood was three inches lower than the room’s terrazzo floor. The depression was filled with concrete and the whole thing covered with carpet. Now green terrazzo marks where the counter once stood.

The terminal looks fantastic. This was no hurried patch job. Much of the building was more or less disassembled then put back together. Huge steel beams and other major components were replaced. The next several months, as the museums populate their areas, the Holocaust and Humanity Center moves in, the Historical Society Library returns, and the theater reopens with the latest digital technology, are going to be exciting. After the tours, I relaxed in the rotunda for a bit preparing myself for what I planned on being a cold but quick walk to the car. It wasn’t very quick.

The biggest surprise of the day waited outside. I clearly had not been paying enough attention to plans for the reopening. A projection mapping display, the technology used in the city’s Lumenocity and Blink events, covered the front of the terminal. This was the sixth and final show leading up to Saturday’s official reopening. Each night featured a different theme in a fifteen minute loop. Tonight’s theme was “Thanks Cincy!” Every scene in the loop was incredible but I’ve held myself to the “Thank You” display and two of my favorites. I guess I was most impressed with the 3D aspects of the display. The perfect shadowing made the moving dinosaur skeletons appear to be several feet in front of the terminal. The moving satellite in the Saturn scene also appears to be some distance from the building. The walk to my car was about twenty minutes longer than I’d planned but I’ve got absolutely no complaints.

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.

Another Sesquicentennial

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The American Civil War began with the shelling of Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, and for the last several years we have been commemorating the 150th anniversary of events that led up to it, were part of it, and were precipitated by it. There are many theories about the origin of what we now call Memorial Day, and, while specifics vary, almost all place the roots in that devastating conflict. The most recognized story of a formal beginning places that beginning a hundred and fifty years ago on May 30, 1868.

I attended two Memorial Day events this year. The first was a parade in nearby Loveland, and the second a gathering at Ohio’s largest cemetery, Spring Grove.

In Loveland, a police cruiser with flashing lights cleared the way with members of the local American Legion Post leading the actual parade. A group of firefighters, looking exactly like I’d want my fire department to look, was close behind. Love the mustache.

What followed was everything a parade should have: high school marching band, classic cars, and freshly polished fire trucks. The parade ended near Veterans’ Memorial Park where ceremonies were to take place. I was watching the time, however, and left just as they were getting started.

The setting for the Spring Grove ceremonies was the Civil War section where 999 Civil War dead are buried in three circular plots containing 333 graves each. These are not, of course, the only Civil War soldiers buried in the cemetery. There are 41 Civil War generals buried at Spring Grove. For the majority, however, it is an honorary (brevet) title. The cemetery’s website has some words about the war’s impact and a link to a list of those generals here.

Although individual events were certainly held earlier, 1868 is the year that the observation of Decoration Day was wide spread and coordinated. That was when Grand Army of the Republic Commander, John A. Logan, issued an order calling for gatherings on May 30 “…for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades…”. Spring Grove was one of 183 cemeteries participating that first year. There were 336 in 1869. Michigan made Decoration Day a state holiday in 1871 and other states were not far behind. It was made a federal holiday in 1888. I was unable to find a date for an official change from Decoration Day to Memorial Day. It seems to have happened somewhat naturally shortly after the first World War.

The G.A.R.’s successor, The Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, played a major role in the day’s activities and the 6th Ohio Volunteer Infantry helped maintain an awareness of the holiday’s Civil War era roots. They presented the colors at the beginning of the services and fired a twenty-one gun salute near their end.

Spring Grove Cemetery was barely sixteen years old when the Civil War broke out.  An excerpt from Spring Grove: Celebrating 150 Years talks about the war, the cemetery, and those early Decoration Days. In describing the very first, it states that “To end the program the Ladies of the Floral Committee led the crowds around the mounds of graves, strewing them with flowers.” Today, The Auxiliary to the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War filled the role of the Floral Committee in helping everyone present reenact that ritual from 150 years ago.

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.

Cincy’s Belated Opening

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Sometimes the Findlay Market Opening Day Parade marks an opportunity to forget a less than stellar previous season. People braving Monday’s cold temperatures were trying to not only forget last season’ 68-94 finish but this season’s 0-3 start. You see, to avoid interference with crucial pre-Easter sales at the Market, the parade happened, not on Friday before the Reds’ first game of the season, but on Monday before their fourth.

Actually, that first game wasn’t exactly when it was supposed to be, either. Scheduled for Thursday, it was moved to Friday to avoid predicted severe weather.

I reached downtown in time to poke around the staging area a little bit before the parade start. The giant Mr. Red at the top of this article belongs to the National Flag Company. The snowman at left, who I believe made it all the way through the parade, is made of real snow. He’s riding on the 911Steel float with a real piece of the World Trade Center and replicas of the twin towers.

Cincinnati was, and is again becoming, a major brewing center. There are plenty of stories about the city’s pre-prohibition Beer Barons. Beard Barons are a more recent development. Distilling, rather than brewing, is involved in the product shown in the second picture and made a little more than a hundred miles to Cincinnati’s south. Cincinnati brewing does get some notice in the picture of a Crosley Field bound bus in front of Rhinegeist Brewing. Crosley Field was the Reds’ home until 1970.

Rozzi Fireworks is certainly capable of starting things off with a bang but they decided on a pillar of fire instead. Maybe they’re saving a big boom for the centennial next year. I guess there’s something pretty cool on the other side of the street because Grand Marshalls Danny Graves and Sam LeCure didn’t look my way even once as they passed.

Here are some long time Cincinnati legends. That’s King Records drummer Philip Paul and wife Roberta in the red convertible. The fellow in the top hat is entrepreneur and politician Jim Tarbell dressed as departed legend Peanut Jim Shelton.

Breaking up all the locals in the parade were some easily recognized out of towners. Budweiser isn’t my favorite beer but these guys are my favorite horses.

There’ll be nothing but locals from here on out. Like some folks from Findlay Market, the Red Hot Dancing Queens, and Kahnie from the American Sign Museum. I even got a shot of Tod piloting the big black truck.

The Kroger Company still has one of Barney Kroger’s delivery wagons from the 1880s and Arnold’s has a passenger bathtub although it’s not one I’m familiar with and it’s not quite self-propelled. On the 25th the bar made a plea for a “go-cart mechanic” and on the 29th there was video evidence that repairs had been successful. However, the tub in the picture is neither of those I’ve seen before, has a rear mounted bubble machine, and is being propelled by a couple of laughing footmen. And it was still way cool. The third picture is of a new-to-me float from Rhinegeist.

This is the bus I had a pre-parade partial shot of in front of the Rhinegeist Brewery. It wasn’t really the last thing in the parade but I thought it would be an OK thing to use for the closing panel. A few hours after the parade wrapped up, the Reds got  their first win of the year by beating the Chicago Cubs 1-0. The three loses were to the Washington Nationals. A second Cubs game scheduled for Tuesday was postponed by rain then, after a pre-planned day off, the team headed to Pittsburgh for a four game stand. They lost the first two, won the third, and one remains to be played. The Reds begin 2018 with a 2-5 record.

Double Play (Red Velvet & Othello)

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Like last week’s post, multiple events are involved. Unlike last week’s post, the events involved are similar and connected. They are not only connected to each other but to one of last week’s as well. On Wednesday, I attended an Ensemble Theater of Cincinnati performance of Red Velvet. I’d seen nothing but positive reviews and comments and I’ve now verified them. The entire cast is excellent but Ken Early stands out in the lead role of Ira Aldridge. I’d seen Early before as Phileas Fogg in ETC’s production of Around the World in 80 Days. He was good as Fogg but is truly impressive in the more challenging Red Velvet.

The play is fact based. In 1833 Ira Aldridge became the first black actor to play Othello in London’s Covent Garden. He was not well received. Even though he had been praised for his portrayal of that and other Shakespearean roles in other parts of England, Londoners expected their Othello to be a proper Englishman in blackface.

Lolita Chakrabart wrote Red Velvet in 2012. I got three things out of watching it. One was learning something of a man who, while rather famous 200 years ago, had pretty much disappeared from history and was totally unknown to me. Another was being led to focus on the fact that the racism of the nineteenth century may have been tamed a bit but it certainly has not been eliminated. The third thing I saw in the play was the absolute passion that actors can develop for their craft. I don’t know that Shakespeare productions involve more passion than others but it seems more visible there.

Shortly after purchasing my ticket to Red Velvet, I received an email offering a discount to another play at another theater. The Cincinnati Shakespeare Company is overlapping ETC’s run of Red Velvet with a production of one of that play’s subjects, Othello. Cooperation between the theaters included discounts to one for attendees of the other. The eagerness with which I jumped on the offer was partly due to something I’d heard last week. During the Q & A session at last Wednesday’s Words and Music event at the Mercantile Library, Steve Earle was asked about his favorite authors. He cited a few (including J. K. Rowling) before naming William Shakespeare as the English language writer he most admired. He added that, if you personally didn’t care for Shakespeare, it might be because you’ve only read the words and didn’t experience them in a performance. That made sense to me and, realizing that I probably hadn’t seen a performance of any Shakespeare play as an adult, resolved to correct that. The opportunity came much quicker than I expected.

One night after seeing Red Velvet, with its Othello excerpts, I saw the real thing in its entirety. Overall, it supported Earle’s observation that seeing the Bard’s creations beats reading them. The CSC production uses a modern setting which could be either a plus or minus but which I thought rather neutral. The presence of cell phones, computer tablets, and TV news broadcasts did not intrude on the scripted words in any way although I suppose it could make the early seventeenth century language seem extra archaic. On the other hand it could serve to underscore the timelessness of the themes of jealousy and betrayal. I didn’t know enough to be affected one way or the other.

All of the principles displayed plenty of passion in their “big scenes” but otherwise often seemed to be in a hurry to deliver their lines before they forgot them. The exception was Nicholas Rose as Iago who struck me as being attentive to the pace of every phrase and the timing of every pause.

Overall it was a very good week in which I learned to appreciate William Shakespeare a little bit more and also learned a little about how much Cincinnati appreciates its live theater. I’ve attended a few ETC shows in the past and, while the basic layout remains the same, improvements in the theater itself and the greatly enlarged lobby indicate a solid future. This was my first CSC show which means I never saw the previous home on Race Street. I cannot, therefore, appreciate how big an improvement the brand new Otto M. Budig Theater is, but I can still be impressed with the really cool venue.

Both shows I attended were sold out or nearly so and these are not the only professional and semi-professional theater companies doing well in Cincinnati. Playhouse in the Park (where I attended Marie and Rosetta a couple of weeks ago) just announced that a new theater will be built at the end of this season. Landmark Productions opened its all new Incline Theater (where I’ll be seeing Spamalot on Thursday) in 2015. Although there’s no new theater on the horizon, Know Theater is now in its twentieth season and the Aronoff Center continues to present “Broadway” touring companies and such. Anyone wanting to see a play in Cincinnati definitely has choices.

CSC’s last performance of Othello was March 24. Red Velvet runs through March 31 at ETC.

The spring equinox occurred at a quarter past noon on Tuesday making Wednesday the first full day of spring. That’s when I took this picture in Washington Park as I walked past on the way to the Ensemble Theater.

Library, Gardens, Uke, and Eggs

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No single big thing happened this week but it sure wasn’t empty. If it had been, I’d be posting a Trip Peek or some other pre-canned asynchronous bit. Instead, I’m making this post from four things that happened during my non-empty week. The picture at right was taken Wednesday at something I’ve been anticipating for quite some time. It’s Steve Earle appearing at The Mercantile Library as part of the Words and Music Series.

The library was certainly full but everyone had at least a little breathing room. Steve’s song introductions were insightful although they probably weren’t any longer than normal. He often provides a good background for what is about to be  heard. About the only song he didn’t provide much introduction to was the surprise opener, F the CC. Anyone wanting to hear that in a library missed a rare opportunity. Steve played several songs, read a complete story from Doghouse Roses along with excerpts from his novel I’ll Never Get Out of Here Alive, then stayed on stage to take questions. It was exactly what I’d hoped for.

Cincinnati Gardens opened in 1949 and closed in 2016. On Monday, Ronnie Salerno posted some pictures of the recently begun demolition. That article can be read here and it should be. In addition to pictures from a very recent visit, it contains links to other pictures and other memories. It prompted me to take a few of my own pictures when I was next in the neighborhood which turned out to be Friday. Of course I have my own memories of The Gardens.

My first visit was in 1966 to see Cavalcade of Customs; My last in 2012 to watch the Cincinnati Roller Girls. In between were numerous concerts, sporting events, and shows. I did not see the concert that is almost always cited when someone talks about the place. The Beatles played here in 1964. However, I do remember seeing the Jefferson Airplane (with opener Cincinnati’s Lemon Pipers) in 1967 and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer (opening for The James Gang) in 1971. The venue was never known for its acoustics and I’ve told everyone who would listen that ELP was the only group that actually sounded good in there.

I played The Gardens twice myself. From 1957 to 1972, the NBA Royals called Cincinnati home. The University of Cincinnati supplied the pep band for their games at The Gardens. I joined the UC marching band my freshman year carrying a lot of equipment while taking part in a single parade and no halftime shows. When an upperclassman couldn’t make the first two games of the NBA season, I was picked to bang a drum in a crowded corner of the floor while watching Oscar Robertson and friends do their thing.

The letters whose outlines can be seen in the third picture have been given to the American Sign Museum where they are expected to eventually be mounted on the building as “CINCINNATI Sign GARDEN”.

On Friday night I took in some music at Cincinnati’s oldest bar, Arnold’s. A normal Friday night for me is playing trivia but, with the NCAA tournament getting revved up, that was canceled due to lack of interest and space. I looked online to see who might be playing and the fact that John Redell would be at Arnold’s caught my eye. Learning the Erin Coburn would be with him made it even more attractive and I’d already pretty much made up my mind to go when I found out the Dixon Creasy would also be there. Too cool. John is the ultimate mentor and, when not performing solo, spends a lot of his time making other people look good. That was the case when I last saw John and Erin together but not — at least not entirely — tonight. Erin can now readily hold her own and John permits himself to shine a bit more. A most enjoyable evening that included hearing a ukulele through a wah-wah live for the first time. That’s something everybody needs.

The fourth and final event to contribute to this post is my Saint Patrick’s Day breakfast. With its name inspired by the original owner’s pet chimpanzee, the Monkey Bar and Grill, on the Little Miami River, is undergoing what newspapers have referred to as a renovation. Transformation might be more accurate. One of the renovations not yet completed is the kitchen and the bar has been relying on food trucks for weekends and special occasions. Crappy weather threw a wrench (What kind of wrench was it?) into some outdoor plans but it didn’t keep Big Al’s BBQ from offering breakfast inside. Not the fanciest Saint Paddy’s breakfast I’ve ever had but it did the job and eating at the penny bar (20,000+ they say) was pretty cool.

Bock’s Back

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Anytime you spot a Trojan goat being led down the street by a self propelled bathtub, the odds are considerable that you’re at Cincinnati’s annual Bockfest parade. It happened Friday for the twenty-sixth time. My attendance has been frequent but imperfect. While I have no statistics to prove that Friday’s parade was the biggest yet, it felt like it might be. Sunshine and relatively warm temperatures (high 40s) helped.

The bathtub belongs to Arnold’s Bar and Grill. It’s Cincinnati’s oldest tavern and the parade’s starting point. The traveling tub is a reference to the legend that the bar’s bathtub was used to make gin during prohibition. As I recall, the goat was created by the defunct downtown Barrel House Brewery but is now in the care of the Moerlien Brewing Company.

Goats are traditionally associated with bock beer and they appear at Bockfest in many forms. However, no matter how many legs a particular goat might have, it still has only two ends.

If you’ve read any of my parade related posts over the last few years, you know that the Red Hot Dancing Queens became instant favorites of mine from the first time I saw them. Nobody has more fun than these gals.

Two friends attended this year’s parade with me. It was Dave’s first time and he accompanied me along the route dodging goats, dancers, and Segways. As it turned out, he also dodged my camera. Clyde, who attended his first Bockfest parade with me two years ago, has since joined Die Innenstadt, a support group for FC Cincinnati, the local USL team. Although it initially took a little urging to get him to participate, once committed, he not only marched with the group, but did an outstanding job waving one of their big flags.

Dave and I made it to the parade route end and reunited with Clyde for one Schoenling Bock inside the super-crowded Bockfest Hall. I admit that I sometimes lead my friends to the beer taps, but I don’t make them drink. That’s all their doing.

Bibliophilia at the Mercantile

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Despite natural first impressions, the title is one of of my most accurate and straightforward. Bibliophilia is the name of a Cincinnati Museum Center CurioCity program that was held at the Mercantile Library of Cincinnati on Thursday. The Museum Center (a.k.a., Union Terminal) is currently undergoing a major renovation and numerous events that would normally be held there are being spread around the city. The Mercantile Library is one of the city’s oldest institutions and it is with considerable chagrin that I admit to this being my first visit.

Bibliophilia exhibits included Sarah Pearce’s artistic creations and a letter press from the Museum Center. Pearce made that dress out of pages from a book of patterns following one of those patterns. The letter press was fully operational and even I managed to produce something legible with it. There was also a station with manual typewriters that attendees could use to write Tweet sized (140 character) stories and a place where they could bind their stories into pamphlets. A rather major activity was a scavenger hunt that had people prowling all through the library to answer a set of questions.

I didn’t take part in the scavenger hunt but prowled nonetheless. The Young Men’s Mercantile Library Association was founded in 1835. It lost a couple of homes to fire and moved around a bit during its first seven decades but has occupied the purpose built upper floors of 414 Walnut Street since 1904. It’s here under a $10,000 10,000 year lease that guarantees space even if the building is replaced.

The place looks exactly as a library should. In fact, it looks a lot like what it did in 1904 and some of the furnishings and many of the books predate that considerably. But there have been changes over the years. You can now be neither young nor male and still join and, even though “mercantile” is still part of the name, a connection with commerce is no longer required.

The library was recently the subject of a great Cincinnati Refined article accompanied by some marvelous photos. Check it out here.

A surprise bonus was running into a couple of travelers I hadn’t seen in quite awhile. We’ve sometimes joked online about probably meeting each other beside a narrow road in some semi-distant state. Although the Rowlands (Chris & Katherine) and I both live near Cincinnati, a crossing of paths on two-lane roads seemed more likely than the meeting in a library in the heart of downtown that happened Thursday. I tried to get a candid shot of the two of them but my attempts turned out to be the blurriest of the blurry so I asked to use a picture that Katherine took of Chris & I. Catch up on their travels and learn a lot about Reubens here.