Cincinnati Art Climb

Posted on June 7, 2020 by Denny

It probably would have been a low-key opening in any case, but in the middle of a pandemic driven shut-down the opening of the Cincinnati Art Museum’s Art Climb seemed extra muted. Even so, I was aware of the May 7th opening of the first phase and wanted to check it out. Then, just about the time that enough restrictions had been lifted to make me start thinking seriously about a visit, nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police caused me to back off. I finally made it on Wednesday. Broad steps now connect the museum at the edge of Mount Adams with Gilbert Avenue. For road fan readers, Gilbert carries US-22 and OH-3. The steps end at the museum’s parking lot about 450 feet away. There are 166 of them covering roughly 100 feet of elevation change.

The project isn’t 100% complete. There are empty niches where works of art will someday be displayed and additional tables, benches, and landscaping might appear as time goes on. Dave Linnenman, the museum’s Chief Administrative Officer, notes that “It will be a thing to enjoy, not just a way to get up and down.” Right now it is fully functional as a way to get up and down and even as a thing to enjoy for many. Plentiful lighting and numerous security cameras are there to make it safe. The lighting will be certainly be appreciated when the popular Art After Dark events resume.

People simply enjoying the steps on Wednesday included parents with young children and some athletic types going up and down multiple times for exercise. A few were even running up some empty sections. What might at first might look like someone celebrating making it to the top is actually one of the people making multiple climbs. The young woman had passed me on her way down and again on the way up and was just stretching a bit before starting back down.

The closest thing to sculpture currently on the steps is this tri-level not-yet-operational water fountain. I’m sure that a cool drink of water would be a great reward for the climb especially if the temperature was a bit higher. Today, looking back over where I’d been was reward enough.

The museum was closed, of course, but I walked across the nearly empty parking lot anyway. As usual, Jim Dine’s Pinocchio (Emotional) lets us know how happy he is to be alive and he always makes me feel that way, too. Banners at the museum’s entrance let us know some of the things we’ve been missing during the shut-down. On the day after I took these pictures, it was announced that museums were among facilities allowed to open next week. The day after that, the Cincinnati Art Museum announced plans to reopen on June 20 with reduced capacity and some other restrictions. That announcement is here.

This “steps” sign has nothing to do with the new Art Climb. It has been at the east edge of the parking lot for years and I’ve walked past it many times. I was vaguely aware of where the other end of the steps it refers to was located, but I’d never had any reason or desire to travel them. When I first thought of taking in the new stairs, I figured I would park at the museum and go down them then return. However, when I saw I could park near their lower end, I decided it made more sense to do it the other way around. Not only would going up use the steps as intended for museum visitors, it would have me headed downhill when I was likely to need it more.

I know that all downhill paths are not equal but decided that today was probably my best opportunity for checking out the old steps. The route does have steps on both ends and there are some in the middle, but they are nowhere near as wide or as even as the new ones. In between is a sometimes paved and sometimes not path that is always narrow. There are no lights on any of this. The lower end of the Art Climb is at the intersection of Gilbert Avenue and Eden Park Drive. The old steps emerge on Eden Park maybe 500 feet away. I’d parked on Eden Park Drive about midway between the two sets of steps so using the older ones for my return was somewhat sensible. I suppose I might come down them again sometime but I’m rather certain that I’ll never go up them.

Signs of Summer (Past)

Posted on May 17, 2020 by Denny

This article first appeared on May 20, 2012. Recent memories and shared pictures reminded me of the places it features so I decided to repost it as close to its anniversary as possible. With concerts, museums, travel, and other story-generating activities currently non-existent, there will likely be more of this sort of reuse before the current summer slips into the past.

The fountain in front of Union Terminal, a.k.a., Cincinnati Museum Center, runs all summer and is turned off all winter. Therefore, one sure sign of summer in Cincinnati is the turning on of the fountain. That happened Friday at 10:30 AM. I had kind of hoped to see the stepped pools below the fountain go from bare concrete to a series of waterfalls right before our eyes but it wasn’t quite that dramatic. Whether the pools were primed in the interest of time or whether the standing water was simply left over from some secret testing I cannot say, but they started the day ready to overflow at the slightest provocation.

I still think bare concrete morphing to cascading waterfalls would have been cooler but watching the fountain go from zilch to a spurt to a full spray wasn’t bad.

All the kids, and there were plenty, were properly wowed and they also enjoyed the characters on hand to promote the ongoing A Day in Pompeii exhibit. I’ve seen the exhibit and it’s a duesy. University of Cincinnati Professor Steven Ellis, along with several UC students, has been instrumental in the current excavations in Pompeii and that was instrumental in making Cincinnati one of only four US cities hosting the exhibit. As you can see, security was tight.

The weather was obviously quite nice for the events at the fountain but Friday was just one of several consecutive near-perfect days. Perfect not only for fountains of water but for fountains — or taps — of root beer. I made it to three different root beer stands on three of those near-perfect days.

On Thursday it was the Jolly’s on the west side of Hamilton, Ohio. Back in 1938, Vinny Jolivette opened an A&W Root Beer franchise in Hamilton. He built this place in 1967 and, casting off the A&W identity, used the family name to inspire a new one for the restaurant. It’s west of the Great Miami River on Brookwood. Somewhere along the line, they added another on the east side of town on Erie. That one has a cooler sign but this one still makes its own root beer and that trumps the sign. The two remain officially connected (The car side signs carry both telephone numbers.) but are managed somewhat separately by two brothers. There is a third Jolly’s in Tiffin, Ohio, that was started, also as an A&W, in 1947 by Vinny’s brother, Roy, and it seems there was a fourth somewhere in Indiana (possibly Bloomington) but I know very little about it.

I stopped by The Root Beer Stand in Sharonville, Ohio, on Friday afternoon. It started life in 1957 as an A&W then went independent in 1982. It stopped using carhops in 1972. Originally built and operated by the Rideour family, it moved on to its second and current owners, Scott & Jackie Donley, in 1990. The Donleys have kept everything pretty much the same and that definitely includes making the root beer using water from their 280 foot well. Claims that “it’s something in the water” may very well be true here.

I got my Saturday root beer fix at the A&W in Union City, Ohio. Despite this being a place I frequented as a teenager, I know few details of its history. I do recall that is was owned by a fellow named Smith in the 1960s and that he operated a used car lot right next door. I have vivid memories of sipping root beer and drooling over a black 1956 Thunderbird that sat in that lot when I was about seventeen. At some point, it became Neil’s A&W Drive In and so it remains today. Curiously, this place doesn’t show up on the official A&W website nor does it have its own site but it does have a FaceBook page.

All three of these places make their own root beer using at least some of the original A&W equipment. Guess that stuff was made to last. All of them taste great and I’m guessing that the recipes are all the same or similar. The Root Beer Stand has its special water and both it and Jolly’s serve their brew in chilled glass mugs. I love ’em both and I do tend to dislike chains but “real” A&Ws (Not stuffed-into-a-corner-of-a-gas-station A&Ws.) are pretty cool and it’s hard to beat an ice-covered mug.

I’m guessing that some noticed the slightly red convertible in the center of the Root Beer Stand photo. That’s my 1963 Valiant and plans to drive it to Darke County and the A&W at the border led to the warm-up visits to Hamilton and Sharonville. The 200-mile round trip was the car’s longest outing since the cold drive home from Cambridge in early 2011. She done good. These pictures show her at Jolly’s and Neil’s.

I recently learned that the neighborhood Flipdaddy’s does brunch on Sundays so I walked over this morning to check it out. It was quite good. I’m always dismayed but rarely surprised to find myself alone on a restaurant’s patio. But, with the thermometer at 74 degrees, I was a little bit surprised today. Lots of people just don’t like any temperature I guess. To be fair, one couple and their home from college daughter did venture outside to eat. That was it. The restaurant was fairly busy inside but just one other outside table was ever used all the while I leisurely worked through my bacon & eggs and slowly sipped my Magic Hat dessert.

Treasures of the Spanish World

Posted on January 12, 2020 by Denny

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.

More Man at CAM

Posted on July 14, 2019 by Denny

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.

Trip Peek #86
Trip #133
Rock ‘n’ Rail Redux

Posted on July 7, 2019 by Denny

This picture is from my 2016 Rock ‘n’ Rail Redux trip. Readers may recall that previous railroad based trips to Washington, DC, have had issues ranging from extremely late trains to completely canceled trains. This one was essentially problem free. The “Rock” in this particular outing was a Willie Nile concert at, as the sign says, The Hamilton Live. In addition to a pretty much on schedule train ride and a rollicking concert, I enjoyed a day on the National Mall including an independence for Punjab parade.

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

Trip Peek #85
Trip #148
Allegheny, Monongahela, Ohio, and Nile

Posted on June 30, 2019 by Denny

This picture is from my 2018 Allegheny, Monongahela, Ohio, and Nile trip. It consisted of a day driving to Pittsburgh, PA, a day in the city, and two days driving home during which I got to visit with three old friends. The picture shows the Duquesne Incline which I rode down on after riding up on the Monongahela Incline. I also checked out a couple of museums in Pittsburgh and another on the way home. The Allegheny and Monongahela are the rivers that meet in Pittsburgh to form the Ohio. Willie Nile is the musician whose concert the trip was centered around.

Burning Man at CAM

Posted on May 12, 2019 by Denny

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Time of Pharaohs

Posted on February 17, 2019 by Denny

The renovated Cincinnati Museum Center takes another step at getting back in the swing of things by hosting the U.S. debut of Egypt: The Time of Pharaohs. The exhibit is new but the objects in it are anything but. Some of the 350+ artifacts on display are more than 4,500 years old. 4,500 years isn’t old like a colonial era cabin, or a New Mexico pueblo, or even a European castle. No, we’re talking old like a pyramid which is, of course, where some of these items come from.

I was there Friday evening for a members only event. It was a well attended members only event. Part of me was really happy to see that lots of people support the museum with their memberships and that same part was really happy to see that lots of those members also support special extra cost exhibits such as this one. Another part of me kind of wished all those people would just get out of my way.

I was smiling when I wrote that last sentence. Timed entries kept the exhibit from being overrun but attendees were not being hustled through it. The crowd simply meant I had to occasionally wait a bit to read a placard or study an artifact up close. It also meant that most photos I took had one to twenty people in them but just about every one of those people was seriously curious and that’s a very good thing.

Based mostly on Hollywood movies, my idea of Egypt includes a lot of gigantic stone things like the Sphinx and those pyramids. But, almost immediately I found a wooden jackal, a bronze cat, and a clay cup. A sign next to the cup dates it to the 1st half of the 3rd millennium BCE. The 2nd half of the 3rd millennium BCE started 4519 years ago. By comparison, the cat is almost modern. It’s from the 3rd century BCE. The jackal is from around 1000 BCE.

These bronze statues are just a few inches tall and quite detailed. That’s Amun-Ra on the left and Isis on the right with a sun disk on her head and Horus on her lap. I didn’t catch a date for the Amun-Ra statue. The Isis statue is from the 6th to 3rd centuries BCE.

My Cecil B. DeMille based ideas weren’t entirely wrong; The Egyptians did do a fair amount of stone carving. The first stele features the crocodile god Sobek. It was carved sometime between roughly 1290 and 1190 BCE during the 19th Dynasty. I screwed up and got no information on the second stele. The third picture shows a plaster cast of a carved wall of the Temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak. The plaster cast is 135 years old. Like the first pictured stele, the wall was carved during the 19th Dynasty. The casting is a solid grey. The colors are from a projector that cycles on and off to show the wall as it was originally. A replica of a 13th century BCE chariot stands in front of the wall.

Of course, you can’t have an Egyptian exhibit without a sphinx and some mummies. This limestone sphinx is a baby just a couple of feet long. It’s from the 3rd to 1st centuries BCE. The coffin is from the 14th or 15th centuries BCE. It’s a mix of wood and plaster with gold trim. The mummified cat comes from the same time period as the sphinx.

There is actually plenty of modern technology mixed in with the multi-millennium old artifacts. An audio guide is available that provides commentary keyed to specific displays. There are several interactive exhibits that help explain timelines, hieroglyphics, and more. The final display is pretty high-tech. High resolution CT scans have recorded the details of every layer of a mummy from about 750 BCE. Holography is used to project a rotating 3-dimensional image inside a clear pyramid. The image cycles through the layers as it rotates. It’s a time warp that even Doc Brown might appreciate.

Egypt: Time of the Pharaohs is at the Cincinnati Museum Center through August 18.

The Holocaust and Humanity Center is Open

Posted on February 3, 2019 by Denny

The Cincinnati Holocaust and Humanity Center reopened in its new location last Sunday on the 74th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. I had seen the space it moved into on a “hardhat tour” during the Cincinnati Museum Center’s member’s preview in November. At the time, I noted my failure to visit the center in its current location despite it being on my list and relatively near my home. I once again resolved to get there “before they start carrying stuff out” but I failed. I tried after about a week had passed, but it was already too late. The move had already begun and the operation at Rockwern Academy in Kenwood had already closed.

I would not get inside the Center today, either, but it wasn’t because I was too late. I arrived about half an hour before the 1:00 opening ceremony when the space around chairs provided for holocaust survivors and family members was wide open. I could have staked out a spot right next to them but didn’t. By the time the procession of survivors and descendants began, my best view was via the giant screens at either side of the stage. The processional was quite moving not only for those participating or watching familiar faces enter the rotunda, but for folks like me who recognized no one. Some in the procession may have been experiencing memories of when they first saw Union Terminal. This was where many people escaping Europe or recently freed from Nazi concentration camps arrived in the 1940s to begin a new life in Cincinnati. The last picture shows the center’s Executive Director Sarah Weiss cutting the ceremonial ribbon along with Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley and Nancy and David Wolf for whom the center is named.

Entry to the Holocaust and Humanity Center was free on Sunday via time stamped tickets. I doubt that people were actually being forced out of the center after fifteen minutes, which was the interval on the tickets, but it was pretty obvious that this was not the day for a leisurely stroll through the exhibits. I thought it absolutely wonderful that the opening had attracted so many people, but quickly decided to take advantage of one of the perks of being retired and come back sometime during the week.

Incidentally, the HHC opening wasn’t the only thing bringing people to the museum center on Sunday. The picture at right, taken long before the crowd appeared for the opening ceremony, shows a line of people stretched across the front of the rotunda waiting to get museum and movie tickets. There probably wasn’t a lot of overlap with the HHC crowd; Most of the groups in line included young children. I noted in my post about the theater reopening that families with school age children were flocking to the renovated Union Terminal during the holiday break, and it looks like that flocking continues on weekends. I bet it’s the dinosaurs.

I made it back on Tuesday. Entry to the Holocaust and Heritage Center is not included in Cincinnati Museum Center membership, but tickets are sold through the CMC kiosk in the rotunda and there is a discount for CMC members. These sculptures were at the front of the rotunda and usually surrounded by people on Sunday. At present, they are near the stairs leading down to the HHC. The HHC is right next to where the Cincinnati History Library and Archives was and will be. The library closed in 2016 along with the CMC and has not yet reopened.

We were given a peek at a small portion of this mural on that November “hardhat tour” and I had been looking forward to seeing the whole thing. It didn’t disappoint. The 63 foot mural covers more than one wall of the center’s lobby area. I had some time to look it over as I waited to enter the “Winds of Change” theater that separates the lobby from the museum galleries but know I have some more looking to do. I believe all of the mural’s twenty-six scenes come from stories that are told, at least partially, inside the museum. Inside the theater, holocaust survivors now living in Cincinnati tell pieces of their stories in a video. The local connection appears throughout the museum in the display of artifacts and quotations from local survivors.

The first gallery beyond the “Winds of Change” theater begins with the story of the rise of Nazism. It’s a story of relatively small steps that go from Jews being valued members of their communities to their extermination being seen as a solution to something. The HHC utilizes two types of interactive exhibits. One uses touch screens to allow selection from a small set of recorded first person accounts related to the display they are part of. The second uses sliding panels operated by push-buttons. This not only provides more surface area for images and text but involves visitors ever so slightly. At first I thought this was a little hokey but I quickly became a fan. If you don’t press the button, you will miss out on something, and when you do press it, you’re kind of committed to studying what is revealed.

In addition to the big mural, I believe that every description of the center I have seen mentions the bullet picture and the train window. The bullet picture is an image, reproduced with empty shell casings, of Jews being gunned down in a burial pit they had been forced to dig themselves. The train window is simply a window in the museum wall that opens onto the active tracks behind the building. Only a tiny bit of passenger traffic trickles through Union Terminal but freight traffic passing through the yard is quite significant. Visualizing human beings stuffed into box cars isn’t difficult.

The aftermath of the holocaust is also examined. I was on the leading edge of the Baby Boomer generation. The war was over and the death camps liberated before I was born. Some of the war crimes trials occurred in my lifetime but I certainly don’t remember them. However, I do remember seeing the movie Judgement at Nuremberg in a theater during its first run and same day TV coverage of the Eichmann trial. This was in 1961 when the events they dealt with were less than twenty years in the past. The holocaust was just outside of my own memory but was rather fresh in the memories of the adults in my world.

The “Points of Light” theater marks the end of the Holocaust Gallery and the beginning of the Humanity Gallery. From here on out, the exhibits deal more with today’s world. People called “upstanders” are identified and their stories of resisting hate or doing something else to improve their part of the world are told. The last picture is of the “Make Your Mark Wall”. Visitors can leave their thoughts and impressions via the touch screens and add their selfie to the wall if desired. On the day I was there, a portion of one of the large screens was blacked out, but I’m guessing that was just from someone leaving their coffee in front of a projector or something similar.

The Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanities Center is an impressive and welcome addition to the Cincinnati Museum Center. I entered the “Winds of Change” theater by myself, but took my time going through the galleries, and found myself in the presence of several other visitors by the time I exited the museum. Even so, I know I need to go back. It is really impossible not to see similarities between the increasing hatred seen in some corners today and some of the events described in the center. The centers’ creators were certainly aware of these similarities, and I don’t doubt helped make them more apparent here and there. That sure doesn’t seem like a bad thing to me.

Max is Back

Posted on December 30, 2018 by Denny

I saw a movie on Thursday. I suppose I could have made this a movie review but I was really more interested in the theater than the movie. Besides, if I used this as a review to be posted on Wednesday, I’d have to resort to some canned article for the regular weekly post.

Thursday was the first day the newly renovated Robert D. Lindner Family OMNIMAX® Theater at the Cincinnati Museum Center was open to the public. It was partly luck that put me in the theater for the first showing of Volcanoes: The Fires of Creation and more luck that put me in one of my favorite seats near the projector. The seat was part of the renovation. It was new, a little wider than what it replaced, and quite comfortable. I took no pictures inside the theater. Some can be found online in professional reports. The picture that opens this article is the only one I took of any part of the theater. It’s a room that patrons pass entering and exiting. In the old days, huge rolls of 70 millimeter film laid on tables here to feed the big projector directly overhead. Nowadays the movie is digital and probably stored on something roughly the size of a grain of rice.

Not being certain that I would be in town for the opening, I’d made no plans and was surprised to see that loads of tickets remained for all showings. That produced a deep lack of urgency and I was equally surprised when I approached the museum and found a long line of cars working its way into the parking lots. I later learned from a staff member that it had been like this at the recently reopened Museum Center ever since schools closed down for the holidays. “And the rain helps”, she added.

I instantly realized that I should have committed to a specific time and bought my ticket online but, although the theater doors were opened well before I reached them, I was safely in my seat before the action began. As I entered, it was announced that the showing was sold out but there were still many empty seats when the lights went down. The wider seats have reduced capacity from 245 to 227 but I’m guessing that won’t often be an issue.

With the lights still up, differences in the screen were obvious. The old screen was more porous and the speakers behind it could be seen when nothing was being projected on it; A little staring revealed the seams where panels overlapped. The new screen is a little whiter and less porous; There is no overlapping of panels. Some darkish lines, which I believe are bits of the backing frame, can be detected if you look hard enough. There are still speakers behind the giant screen but now they can only be heard and not seen. They say that the new sound system sounds better and I believe them. It certainly sounds wonderful but so did the old one and a side-by-side comparison just isn’t possible.

The action on the screen starts, as it has since the theater’s beginning, with the attention gripping light tunnel. There are improvements but they are subtle and they remain subtle into the feature. The images seems crisper and a little brighter. The slightly fuzzy focus and warping that sometimes crept into the edges is virtually gone. I’m guessing that some of that is due to the theater, and some is due to the camera and recording technology. The movie begins with an animation of Earth’s collision with the planet Theia some 4.5 billion years ago. The images are sharp and crisp. They seem just as sharp and crisp when the scene changes to humans backed by a lake of lava. Although I know that the second scene came through a camera’s lens, that knowledge doesn’t prevent part of me musing about whether the lake is real or a man-made special effect. No doubt, the conditioning that comes from seeing action movies with similar scenes produced by CGI is partly to blame but it’s also a testament to just how good the “real” scene looks.

Most of the improvements are a matter of perception. One is an indisputable fact. The floaters are gone. No matter how hard theater operators tried, it was impossible to keep those over-sized rolls of film entirely dust free. Specks of dust would occasionally appear on the screen like floaters in your eye; Not with digital.

Using Volcanoes to reopen the theater was a good choice. According to the movie’s website this is the tenth theater to show it. A fair amount of science is mixed in with the dramatic visuals. Those visuals include lava lakes, billowing plumes of smoke and ash, startling eruptions, scenic landscapes, and even some animals such as elephants and giraffes on the plains of Africa. There is considerable footage of the recent lava flows in Hawaii. I found the shots of eruptions particularly impressive. Incredible power is very much in evidence here. Dark spots in the smoke and flame can appear to be floating upward like scraps of burning paper at a camp fire, but when they stop their climb and plummet downward it quickly becomes apparent that they are massive boulders tossed into the air by the volcano’s explosive force. Sometimes the recording equipment is close enough capture the thud of their landing.

A schedule for future movies at CMC has not yet been worked out. In fact, I found no information on when Volcanoes’ run here will end. Plans exist for the return of the popular Weekend Classic series In January. That will most likely start with a digital version of National Park Adventure which was the last movie to play here in the old analog days. My review includes a shot of the room at the top of this article when it was filled with gear and those big rolls of film.

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