Tag Archives: Museum

The First Day of Pompeii:
The Exhibition

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Pompeii: The Exhibition opened at the Cincinnati Museum Center on Friday. I would have been in the first group admitted and possibly even the first person admitted if a guard had not blocked the stairs and escalators until precisely 10:00 AM. That was the official exhibit opening time but an unguarded elevator a few feet from the stairs meant that a group of patrons were receiving their pre-entry briefing when I and the rest of the walkers arrived. It’s always good to begin the day with something funny.

Following our own briefing, we entered, received another short briefing beneath the screen in the opening picture, and were then treated to an introductory video on that screen. At the video’s end, doors opened on a life-size marble statue of the goddess Aphrodite. Much like the moon, this is the view of the goddess that we most often see although there is another.

Pompeii was a prosperous port city and art was plentiful. Public spaces and private homes contained decorative mosaics, frescoes, fountains, and more statues.

There were plenty of practical items too. Examples are scales used in the market, fishing hooks, and cooking utensils. I know I’m not the only one with a cast iron skillet that looks almost exactly like this bronze one from Pompeii.

I suppose these items are also practical in their own way. Gladiatorial contests were primarily held for entertainment but staying alive was definitely a practical concern for the participants. Next to the displays of weapons and armor, a holographic video about the various types of combat got its share of attention.

Also getting attention was a small room offset from the primary flow. Both entry briefings had described the special markings for this adult-oriented display in case parents wanted to make sure their charges avoided it. If any did, it wasn’t obvious. A sign begins with the astute observation that “Ancient Roman sexual customs were different from those of our contemporary society.” Back then arriving with bells on really meant something.

Theatrical entertainment was quite popular in all of Rome including Pompeii. Actors wore masks to establish their characters. Here is a fresco depicting a pair of masks and a full-size marble mask. Both of these were purely decorative as masks actually worn on stage were made of lighter materials such as linen.

Another set of warnings in those entry briefings concerned loud noises and bright lights in the “4D eruption theater”. I do not doubt that these could be disturbing for some but most will find them underwhelming. Same with the slightly moving floor which I assume is the fourth dimension. If you enter expecting a high-definition video of the eruption shown on a large flat screen you will see an extremely good one. Expect more and you might be disappointed.

Images of the casts of the victims of the eruption are the most familiar and also the most disturbing. These are not human bodies but shapes formed within the volcanic ask where bodies once were. The quote on the wall in the first picture is from Pliny the Younger who watched the eruption from a little more than a dozen miles away and then documented it. In this exhibit, many of the casts are displayed in front of large photographs which I assume depict the situation in which they were found.

Exit is, of course, through the gift shop where we are reminded that striking a good final pose will greatly increase your chances of appearing on a shot glass or refrigerator magnet in a couple of millennia.

Aphrodite’s butt and iffy shot glasses aside, this is an impressive exhibit that provides a detailed and accurate look at a real Roman city of two thousand years ago. Pompeii: The Exhibition runs through July 28.

Trip Peek #126
Trip #163
PA Cars

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This picture is from my 2021 PA Cars trip. PA, or Pennsylvania, is where I went and cars is what I went for. The first big car exposure was in Allentown, PA, where my friend Dave Reese gave me another personal tour of the America on Wheels museum. From Allentown, my farthest point east, I headed west to Hershey and the AACA Museum. The trip was more or less organized around the museum’s Model T Driving Experience and that’s what the photo is from. Of course, I worked in a stroll through all of the AACA exhibits and a stop at The Hershey Story Museum too. I got in some miles on both the Lincoln Highway and the National Road and enjoyed a night of historic lodging on each. The National Road miles were eastbound and I spent the first night of the trip at the Headley Inn near Zanesville, OH. The last night of the trip was spent at the Lincoln Motor Court beside the Lincoln Highway near Bedford, PA.

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.

A Big WACO Birthday

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It was one hundred years ago that the Weaver Aircraft Company moved to Troy, Ohio, and became Advance Aircraft Company. The company’s origins were in 1919 and some name changes had already occurred. One more was yet to come. The planes the company built were always known by the Weaver-based acronym WACO and in 1929 the company formally became the Waco Aircraft Company. The company no longer exists but its memory is kept alive at the WACO Museum and Airfield

I have attended the annual WACO Fly-In a few times including last year. My first visit was in 2006 and I also documented a visit in 2014. This year’s event was much bigger than any of those. The normally ample parking near the museum was filled long before we got there. We parked in an area on the other side of the airfield and rode a shuttle back.

Organizers had hoped to attract 100 WACOs for this 100th anniversary. I’m pretty sure that didn’t happen but there were certainly a lot more there than the twenty or less I’ve seen in the past. I estimated there were 50 to 60 WACOs on the ground. Unlike in previous years, the main airplane parking area was reserved exclusively for WACOs with all other planes relegated to the far side of the airstrip.

In a conversation with another attendee, I learned that this plane was one that I used to watch from the banks of the Little Miami River as it flew over Kings Island in a daily air show. This was in the 1970s when the name WACO would not have meant much to me.

WACOs are beautiful machines whether they are on the ground…

…or in the air…
 
 
 
 
…or somewhere in between.
 
 
 
Heck. Even the naked engines can be kind of pretty.

To close, here’s a look at a WACO from every angle: WACO Pirouette

Lucky Cat Museum

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I am not a cat person but I am a museum person. I suppose those two facts have been quietly duking it out in my head since I first heard of the Lucky Cat Museum several years ago. The museum is in Cincinnati and it is unusual which are both strong come-ons for me but it had no regular hours. Visiting it was by appointment only which, combined with that “not a cat person” thing, kept me away. I am not at all an ailurophobe but my interest in seeing a collection of things is not at its highest when those things are cats. A recent Citybeat article brought it back to my attention and an online sign-up system for visits solved the appointment issue. I finally paid a visit to all the lucky cats and their keeper, Micha Robertson, and I am so glad I did.

Before arriving at the museum, I read several online descriptions. The earliest talk of “over 700” cats. Some that are a bit more recent say “at least 1000”. The latest guess I found was from 2019 and that guess was “over 2000”. It doesn’t take much time inside the museum to realize just how ridiculously safe that estimate is. As with many large collections, there is a point following the initial exposure when you are struck by the sheer size of the display or the number of items it contains. That certainly happened with me and the Lucky Cat Museum. Not surprisingly, that is something I failed to capture with the camera but maybe these three photos will provide some sense of just how many items are on display.

I’m always reluctant to call a number on a locked museum door or dive into “by appointment” arrangements partly because I’m uncomfortable having someone make any effort for the benefit of just one person. The online system for the Lucky Cat Museum allows just six participants in each tour and shows how many openings are in each slot. I had picked a slot with just two or three openings to avoid being the only person taking up Robertson’s time but it didn’t work out that way. All the others cancelled so I had the benefit of a one-on-one tour without any feelings of guilt. The tour began with some background information. Lucky Cats are more properly known as Beckoning Cats or Maneki Neko in Japanese. They have probably been around since the 1600s but first appeared in print in 1852.

My attention was then directed to some of the “…est” items in the museum. The oldest is a long ago repurposed zushi from the 1800s. The smallest is the tiny kitten on a wire. The miniature toy shop is neither the oldest nor the smallest (although the tiny maneki neko it contains is pretty darned small) but it is probably the one most at home in a Cincinnati setting. It was purchased in 1929 by Cincinnatians visiting Japan.

There are naturally plenty of “Don’t Touch” signs among the many rare and fragile items on display but there are several hands-on items as well. One is a coin-operated cat that meows (we think) in Japanese and says some other things too. The slot machines have been converted from coins to tokens as required after being retired from Japanese casinos.

This sneaky fellow and his identical twin did charm me out of a few coins and, yes, others have placed videos online if you care to look.

It should not come as a surprise that some of the cats have found work in advertising or that their manufacture has expanded beyond Japan or even China. All the cats in the second photo were made in Spain by Lladro.

In my pre-visit poking around, I had seen references to “the cat that saved a train station” but had not pursued them. The claim turns out to be 100% true and the story well worth reading. Tama, the cat, was instrumental in keeping a Japanese train station open after it was scheduled to be shut down. With the official title of Station Master, she took her salary in cat food.

By this point, I was well aware that I was in the presence of someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of her subject but Robertson’s answer to a question about the box-headed cats drove it home. The tour was a combination of Robertson pointing out things of interest and me asking questions about random objects. In both cases, she provided in-depth details straight from her memory. The box-headed cats come from a Japanese cartoon that Robertson knew the name and history of. I just wish I could remember what she said. I had earlier been impressed by learning that she taught herself enough Japanese to survive in online auctions.

The cat in the opening picture wasn’t always glittering with a skin of mirrors. It has led a pretty rough life which is documented in the discs hanging next to it. In 2010, while on loan to the Krohn Conservatory for its Japanese butterfly exhibit, it was dropped in the last days of the exhibit. Damage also occurred in 2014 and 2018. On one occasion it was dropped by Micha’s husband but I don’t recall what the other accident was and I don’t remember which was which. Repairs were made every time with the mirrored surface apparently appearing in 2014. With that sort of history, I suppose some might question whether or not Disco Cat deserves a spot in a Lucky Cat Museum but I don’t. Sometimes Beckoning Cats bring luck to their owners and sometimes it’s the other way around. There is an awful lot of the latter going on here.

Logan Washboard Festival Plus

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Once upon a time a friend and I mentioned to each other that the Logan Washboard Festival seemed like a good thing to do someday. Flimsy plans came and went until we finally pulled it off this week. By then, of course, the plans had, as simmering plans tend to do, grown. By the time Terry and I hit the road on Thursday, our agenda included one furnace, one mill, and at least one walk in the woods along with time at the festival.

Even after the road was hit, our plans continued to grow. An earlier than hoped for departure and the realization that the Leo Petroglyphs were almost on the way, led us to make a stop there. And yes, we did see the most popular of the glyphs, man-with-horns.

The mill and the furnace had scheduling requirements so walking in the woods had to happen during our open time on Thursday. We followed the fairly level Gorge Trail at Conkle’s Hollow past ferns and rock cliffs to a very cool waterfall. That’s Terry gazing at it in awe (I assume) in the third photo.

Next was Rock House. I had never been here and Terry’s memory of the amount of elevation change was tempered by time. This was closer to a climb through the rocks than a walk in the woods but that Rock House was quite the reward.

In the morning, with all of our walking in the woods/rocks behind us, we headed to Buckeye Furnace State Memorial. The building in the first picture is of the charging shed. This also housed the boilers which powered the steam engine that forced hot air into the furnace. The third picture shows the furnace from which molten iron once emerged.

We had found one website stating that the museum was open on Fridays and one stating it wasn’t. A sign in the park agreed with the one that said it wasn’t. We were leaving after exploring the furnace when we spotted a car parked near the museum and the museum door appeared to be open. Reality, it turned out, matched the website saying the museum was open on Fridays. There are many furnace-related exhibits here including samples of the ingredients and the finished product. Although it’s not exactly furnace-related, I found the Chuck Wagon Kitchen Pantry in the second picture rather interesting. Text hanging next to it is here.

On Friday afternoon, we actually reached the Logan Washboard Festival. If there were any doubts about where the opening photo came from, they should now be gone. The festival fills about four blocks of downtown Logan with opening ceremonies taking place on Thursday evening. Both Friday and Saturday have music on three stages. Saturday is the biggest of the two but Friday fit our schedule best.

It should not be a surprise that the “last manufacturer of Genuine usable Washboards in the USA” is right in the middle of the festival. The Columbus Washboard Company has been making washboards since 1895 and has been doing it in Logan, Ohio, since around 2000.

Music doesn’t start on the outdoor stages until 4:30 but we found some in the back of the washboard store/factory well before that. Washboard Wizard and festival mainstay Bill Bailey (blue vest) anchors things here with other musicians coming and going.

Most of the company’s standard washboard models are displayed on a wall with prices. Another wall holds examples of many custom models including one from that big band in southern Indiana.

We did not join one of the guided tours through the factory but we did explore all of the manufacturing area and Terry did get some personal instruction on the process.

The official festival music program got underway with Washboard Hank on the Mulberry Street Stage and we also watched Nicole Dicken perform on that stage. The two washboard players at stage left were not actually members of Hank’s band and moved on about halfway through the set.

We caught Washboard Shorty & Reverend Robert and Williamson Branch on the Main Stage. Robert and Shorty invited all washboard players to join them for their last couple of songs and had three takers.

We wrapped up the excursion with a Saturday stop at Rock Mill. The mill was opened to visitors in 2017 after an outstanding restoration project was completed. It reopened this spring following a shutdown to build a support wall to stabilize the building. The mill grinds grain on the last Sunday of every month.

The phenomenal accomplishment of restoring this mill is documented in Rock Mill: Saving an Original.

Return of the Dummies

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Just a day shy of two years ago, I attended an open house at Vent Haven in Fort Mitchell, KY. My report on that visit is here. There would be just two more open house events before “the world’s only museum dedicated to ventriloquism” closed for a major expansion in September 2021. When I wrote about the open house, I was surprised and somewhat embarrassed to see that nearly ten years had passed since my one and only previous visit. I resolved to do better and have succeeded in returning almost as quickly as possible. There was a big invitation-only Grand Re-Opening on Saturday, tours for the general public resumed on Tuesday, and I joined the first tour of the day on Wednesday.

This picture of the new building sort of shouts out how one of the museum’s old shortcomings has been overcome in a big way. Previously, very little of the museum was truly handicapped-accessible. Now, not only are the museum’s exhibits accessible with wider doors, no steps, and space for wheelchairs, there is handicapped parking right at the front door. Not only that, non-handicapped patrons no longer have to seek an open spot on the street but can pull into the convenient lot in the back. Another change of at least equal magnitude is the absence of the “go before you get here” warning that used to be given to everyone registering for a tour.  Inside that door is a lobby, gift shop, and PUBLIC RESTROOM.

A couple of figures near the start of the tour were familiar to me. Tommy Baloney was the first dummy museum founder W. S. Berger ever owned. He was purchased in 1910. The McElroy Brothers made Jocko for Mr. Berger around 1940.

Museum exhibits are not, in general, organized by age but it is a fact that some of the oldest dummies on display are among those encountered early in the tour. These are from the Vaudeville period (1880s-1920s) when figures and jokes based on racial and ethnic stereotypes were not uncommon.

Cecil Wigglenose is another museum resident that I recognized. In addition to a wiggling nose, he has eyes, ears, a tongue, and hair that a ventriloquist can manipulate as demonstrated by curator and tour guide Lisa Sweasy. Lisa has been involved in the museum since 2000; first as curator, then as a Board of Directors member, then as both. I met Lisa at that 2021 open house but there were no tours that day. My earlier visit had been during those few years she stepped away from the curator role so today was the first I got to benefit from her knowledge. That knowledge is not just of the items in the collection but of the whole broad world of ventriloquism past and present. It’s pretty obvious she loves her job. I don’t think it is possible to get this good at something otherwise.

This is the second exhibit room. The next room has even more dummies (100+) in shoulder-to-shoulder rows. But both rooms have a fair amount of open space plus the room that precedes them on the tour is not densely populated at all. That’s not the way it used to be. Spaces in the old museum were smaller, more densely packed, and entered directly from the outside. In 2011, I described my first step into the museum as feeling like I was “late to a meeting where a crowd had already gathered”. That was much less the case today. The “walls of dummies” are good. They help convey the popularity of ventriloquism and the variety of figures used but it is nice to approach them without a jolt. This “wall” is organized by builder with color-coded tags. Esky (the Monopoly-man-looking guy in the opening picture) was made by the  McElroy Brothers (yellow bordered tags). He’s near the center of this photo in the second row from the top.

Occasionally a dummy is made to resemble its owner but that old line about “any resemblance to real persons, dead or alive, is purely coincidental” can be applied to the vast majority of them. Notable exceptions at the museum include this group of U.S. presidents and personal favorites Penn and Teller.

Like most museums, Vent Haven has some temporary exhibits although, in light of the recent welcome but exhausting building project, at present “temporary” probably means at least a year and maybe two. One of the current temporary displays features the work of William Kirk Brown who specialized in low-cost entry-level ventriloquial figures.

As might be expected, Vent Haven has displays dedicated to the world’s most famous ventriloquists. Edgar Bergen, Señor Wences, Shari Lewis, Paul Winchell, Jeff Dunham, and others have their own spots. When I was there in 2011, I was able to view but not photograph a temporary display honoring Jimmy Nelson. Jimmy died in 2019 at the age of 90 and now has this permanent display in the new museum.

I believe Lisa said this was about half of the Class of 2023. In the past, I have read that the museum gets 10-15 donations per year. I’m guessing that there might not have been a Class of 2022 but I don’t know that. The picture shows one of many ways that the museum is taking advantage of technology. The archives contain enough photos to cover all of the walls many times over. Large monitors like the one shown here support viewing digitized versions of various large collections without using a large amount of physical space.

On the other hand, there is enough space in the new building to allow using a pretty good chunk of it in a theater. Lisa seemed to appreciate this bit of luxury as much as the parking spaces and restroom. Less obvious but equally important improvements include high-end HVAC to make the dummies feel good and museum-grade lighting to make them look good. Along with this major upgrade to the physical space there are some changes to the museum’s online presence. Tours can still be scheduled the old-fashioned way via telephone or email but they can also be scheduled directly via the museum’s website. That’s what I did and thought it worked quite well. Information and links for personally checking out the museum’s new digs yourself are here.

In my report of that 2011 visit, I told of stopping for breakfast a little less than three miles northeast of the museum so it seems appropriate to describe a stop for breakfast before this visit a little more than three miles southwest of the museum. I had tried stopping at The Hive once before but gave up after three passes through the completely filled parking lot. That reinforced all the good things I’d heard about the place and prompted me to get there a little earlier this time. Now I can say good things myself. In 2011, I had a goetta and cheese omelet at the Anchor Grill. Today I had a goetta and cheese and mushroom omelet.  

A Glimpse of ASM’s Attic

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It’s not wrong to think of museums as simply organized — some much more than others — attics. Of course, almost all museums have attics of their own. It’s where they store stuff that exceeds the space available for displays but, like all that stuff in your own attic, is just too good to throw away. The American Sign Museum has always had multiple attics.

The situation became somewhat simplified when the museum moved into its current location in 2012. With the actual museum occupying about half of the approximately 40,000 square-foot building, the other half made a fine attic. I was once treated to a walk through the space when it really was an attic. I was also in the space for the incredible Signmaker’s Circus, a following Coffee With Tod session where museum founder Tod Swormstedt shared some of his thoughts on organizing signs for the Circus, and a presentation on some of the banners borrowed for the Circus (Sideshow Signage). Plans for expanding the museum were well underway when the circus came to town and the cleanup that preceded it could be considered an early step in the expansion. Most of the stuff that was in that section is now stored in other locations and a recent Coffee With Tod session provided a look at one of those locations.

Almost every available sign was pressed into service at the Signmaker’s Circus so I have seen some of the attic’s contents before. The clown and lion trashcan toppers were there. Tod has been on the lookout for the lion’s partners ever since he learned it was part of a Wizard of Oz set. The mortar and pestle hung in the museum’s main section until very recently. After leaving the attic, I stopped by to check out its replacement.

This sign from a closed New York restaurant was in the attached storage area when a retired sign painter stopped by the museum. Tod was there and took the fellow on a personal tour of the area. When they reached this sign, he stopped and stared for a long time then finally announced “I painted that”. “Made my day… my month,” Tod told us.

Letters, we got letters. We got lots and lots of letters. And walls full of neon skeleton signs, too. There are many more individual letters, some much larger than these, stacked around the area. Only about a fourth of the wall of skeleton signs is in the picture.

A couple of long tables were filled with billboard tags. Although I instantly recognized the name Lamar as something I’d seen on billboards, it had never occurred to me that it was something separate from the billboard or that it was collectible in its own right. Guess I never realized that there were so many companies painting billboards, either.

Tod is especially fond of items used by individual sign creators. Here he is showing us a couple of quite old and wonderfully personalized painters kits.

Tod also likes self-promoting signs. This one has the added attraction of being an example of bad design. It includes examples of pretty much every style of lettering the painter is capable of but picking out the painter’s name is quite a challenge and the curious spelling of “windos” makes one wonder if Mack didn’t really plan ahead.

The “ROOMS” and “I.O.O.F” signs are both backlit by candles. Tod opened each of them to show the candle holders but I was at the back of the crowd at the time and missed out on a picture. I am very confident that these unusual pieces will have a home in the museum’s new area.

Most people know that Mohammed Ali’s birth name was Cassius Clay but not everyone remembers that there was a “junior” at the end. The champion boxer’s father was a successful sign painter in Louisville, Kentucky. Cassius Clay, Sr. painted the sign that Tod holds.

Our last stop was outside at three bas-relief sculptures. They and an identical set were once part of Cincinnati Gardens sports arena. The arena was demolished in 2018 and the museum once had the letters from the arena’s name mounted outside the museum. They were removed in preparation for the expansion and will eventually reappear along with this, boxer, basketball player, and hockey player.

Much remains to be done before a completion date for the expansion can be determined. There are expectations that it will be this year and even hope that it might be around summer’s end but no one is foolish enough to make any promises or place any bets. Whatever the date, it’s pretty phenomenal to think the museum will soon double in size and will instantly be almost full. And there will still be an attic.

Bricktionary at Cincinnati Museum Center

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I’ve never had Legos. I’ve had Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs and even a hand-me-down Erector Set but no Legos. Both my Tinker Toys and my Lincoln Logs were made out of real wood but I had no Legos made out of anything. If having wooden Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs isn’t sufficiently impressive, consider that I also had a Mr. Potato Head that did not come with a plastic body but required a real potato and my family’s Clue Game had a real rope (string) and lead pipe. Knowing all that should make it abundantly clear why I had no Legos. My childhood occurred at a time so far removed from the present that Legos had not yet been invented.

The Lego company and something called “Automatic Binding Bricks” did exist during my childhood but it would be the late 1950s before the sort of plastic brick we now know would appear. Initially seen only in Lego’s home country of Denmark, they would not show up in the USA until 1961. That was a little too late for me but Legos were part of my sons’ toy collections. They were not a big part although they were around enough for me to experience stepping on them barefoot in the dark. The experience is certainly a memorable one but the pain level does not, in my opinion, equal that of stepping on a Barbie high heel under similar circumstances. Legos really took hold a generation later and at least one grandson dived pretty deep into the phenomenon.

Others took even deeper dives to become LEGO® Certified Professionals. One of those professionals, Ryan “The Brickman” McNaught, is responsible for “Bricktionary: The ultimate LEGO® A-Z” exhibit at the Cincinnati Museum Center that I visited Friday. It is based on a book of the same name. Learning that A is for alligator is a good start.

The Seattle Space Needle just beyond the alligator had me stumped until I figured out it was part of the ‘B’ section. B is for buildings like the Space Needle and the Sydney Opera House.

There are several hands-on stations in the exhibit where lots of Lego elements are available to experiment with. At the earthquake station, visitor-built structures can be tested for stability on adjustable shaking platforms.

It took me a second to realize that G is for garden but knowing that H is for Harley Davidson was immediate. I was pretty impressed with the spokes made out of bricks and I thought the giant flower so cool that I used a shot of just the bloom for an Instagram/Facebook post.

I found this hands-on station extra interesting and spent some time talking with the two people operating it. In the end, I participated myself. It has some similarities with assembling a jigsaw puzzle except all of the “puzzling” has already been done. Screens display random sections of the big image for visitors to copy onto 6×6 panels. The pattern I followed to assemble my section is here. Completed sections are placed in their proper position by one of the station workers. The image being assembled here is a frontal view of the Museum Center. There are others including an awesome view of the Grand Canyon. It takes a number of days to complete an image but several have already been assembled and disassembled since the exhibit opened in March. There is talk of the Museum Center image remaining in Cincinnati when the exhibit moves on and I briefly had visions of my little panel becoming part of a permanent museum display. I quickly realized, however, that the Museum Center, the Grand Canyon, and every other image will likely rise and fall many more times before the exhibit closes in August.

This Lego model of the Museum Center, a.k.a., Union Terminal, sits at the line separating the big exhibit from the obligatory gift shop. One of the items available in the shop is the Bricktionary book mentioned earlier. I should have checked to see if it gives instructions for building all 150+ models in the exhibit. If so, then anyone could duplicate the exhibit with a little free time and about 3,000,000 Legos. If only my condo was a skosh bigger.

Spring Fling 2023

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Birthday trips may have become a thing. I used my birthday as an excuse for running the COVID blockade in 2021 and last year it served as justification for a drive to an overnight that had long been on my list. The 2021 trip was a three-day affair that got the full journal treatment (Birthday Breakout).  The one-night 2022 trip was covered in a blog post (Celebrating). This year’s outing started as a two-night deal that has grown to three nights and will be covered in a regular journal. The first day, which consisted of a drive to a historic inn, has just been posted. Following days will include a railroad roundhouse and museum and a concert.

This entry lets blog-only subscribers know about the trip and provides a place for comments. The journal is here.

Stand Up History Live

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Historian Greg Hand and mixologist Molly Wellman dreamed up Stand-Up History a few years back but, due to a combination of ignorance and conflicts, it took me until January 2023 to actually make it to a performance. I liked the concept the instant that I heard of it, and the reality did not disappoint in the slightest. That January event was at the Muse Cafe on Harrison Avenue. The subject of this post, my second Stand-Up History experience, took place at the Mercantile Library in Cincinnati’s downtown. Not only would Molly be one of the evening’s presenters, she had made and was serving a big bowl of her Ginger Punch.

Stand-Up History is a wonderful learn-while-you-laugh program. As you no doubt guessed, the name came from “stand-up comedy”. In fact, searching for “stand-up history” will result in a bunch of links to the history of stand-up comedy pushing hits for this operation well down the list. The name isn’t all that’s borrowed, of course. A program consists of individuals standing up and talking. The subjects are all historical and the presenters are all experts but the presentations have a decidedly humorous focus and the subjects are chosen to assist in generating smiles, grins, chuckles, and guffaws. 

First up tonight was astronomer Dean Regas. Regas was also a presenter at that January show I attended. I’ve heard him on radio many times but that was my first time seeing him in person. Tonight’s topic was “How to Teach Grown-Ups About Pluto” which happens to be the name of Regas’ latest book.  It was a good use of his wonderful wit and his knowledge of both science and history.

Author and blogger Dann Woellert was up next with “Our Badass Sister of Charity and the Creation of Cincinnati Pizza Pie”. Sister Blandina Segale’s long life included serving her church in Colorado and New Mexico, dealings with a lynch mob and Billy the Kid, and establishing institutions such as Saint Rita’s School for the Deaf and San Antonio Parish in Cincinnati. One of the first places in America where pizza was served was at San Antonio festivals. It’s pretty amazing where the history of food will lead you if you let it.

As Cincinnati’s favorite mixologist, Molly Wellmann is an expert on the history of Cincinnati’s adult beverages and the places that served them. She sort of ventured out of her comfort zone tonight by telling the story of “How Hyde Park Became a Village Without Having a Tavern”. It was long ago annexed by the city of Cincinnati and now has taverns aplenty.

Greg Hand, of Cincinnati Curiosities, finished things up by poking holes in “Myths Cincinnatians Dearly Want to Believe”. There were myths about hills, chili, ketchup, and more. The final myth addressed was that Mark Twain quote about Cincinnati and the end of the world. “When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati. It is always ten years behind the times,” has often been attributed to Twain but, as Hand pointed out, there is absolutely no evidence that he actually said it. I’ve always thought the quote presented Cincinnatians with a dilemma. On one hand, it’s kind of nice to have someone as famous as Twain notice your city but, on the other, very few people really want to live in a place that is ten (or, in some versions, twenty) years out of date. I don’t believe that Hand mentioned it but I’ve turned up a claim that the first reference to the quote in print was in 1978. A similar quote about the end of the world and Bavaria being fifty years behind appeared in print in 1886 and probably existed earlier. By 1978, Twain had been dead for 68 years and the Bavarian comment was 94 years old. That makes being one or two decades “behind the times” appear not so bad.

So here’s the whole crew including MC Mike Perrino in the middle of all the presenters. Having been founded in 1835, the Mercantile Library has lots of history. Perrino reminded us of that by noting that this was the 165th anniversary of an appearance by Herman Melville that local papers reported as “Earnest, though not sufficiently animated.” Tonight’s presenters seemed to be well aware of the importance of being animated. Some of them will be doing this somewhere on the third Thursday of every month for the foreseeable future. Next month, Molly, Greg, and Mike will be joined by Ann Senefeld at Muse Cafe. Details here.