Looking over the blog stats….. Repeat visitors (masochists) are up 60% from 10, 300% since 09. Total visitors (bored office workers & students) are up 23% from 10 & 320% from 09. In a blog primarily about Cincinnati & SW Ohio, the main cities to hit here are:
Cincinnati
Richmond
Houston
Mumbai
São Paulo
Jakarta
Dayton comes in at #40 behind Waipahu & right ahead of Wroclaw. Top search terms:
Krampus
Grace Slick
7 of 9
bridge design
Ashley Bulgari
Most of the hits from the middle east are looking for porn. An image search for "women castrating" somehow leads to a post about a mannequin named Barbe Que that stands in front of a barbecue joint. freaks…. Still one of the top pages: Top 10 Robo-Cyborg Chicks. Guess I should do more lists. I could be the next Forbes! The vast majority of people get here by clicking "next blog". IOS, at 0.8%, is right behind Linux, at 1% of hits. Top browser is now Chrome, followed by Firefox, IE then Safari. Opera coming in with 1.6%. Didn't sell any Ault Park crap although my Cincinnati Iconography page is the top exit link from here. Basically, the more crap you throw, the more crap sticks. Still, I think I'll raise advertising rates. Nobody should mind.
Shirley Quimby was a model featured in (poorly printed) men's magazines and the occasional album cover in the late 50s & early 60s - the pre-Twiggy days.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
The Auburnaires - 12/30 MOTR
Iconic Cincinnati band, the Auburnaires will reassemble Friday, Dec. 30 at MOTR, 1345 Main St in triangular OTR with Los Honchos.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
In Heaven, Underground
I really want to see this movie. I really want to visit this cemetery. Weißensee Cemetery, a Jewish cemetery, was established in Berlin in 1880. After the Nazi pogrom of Jews came the commie occupation of Berlin. While interments continued the Jewish population dwindled & the commies did not care for the place. After 1990 efforts were made to clean the place up. After 50-60 years of neglect it had become a veritable forest.
Weißensee Cemetery
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Save the Chapel
Looking for a charity to unload some filthy lucre onto before year's end? Look no further, the mother of all causes is soliciting donations now. Save the Evans City, PA Chapel is the work of Night of the Living Dead fans & production staff member Gary R. Streiner to save the little chapel you can see in the opening segment of the seminal zombie epic. Wouldn't this be a cool place to get married or hold a Brit milah?
Lonely Planet ranked Cincinnati #3 in their Top 10 Amerucan Vacation Destinations. Mercer recently ranked Baghdad 221 out of 221 in their Quality of Living Report, safety being a huge factor. Recently a string of bombings in schools & shopping areas in Baghdad killed about 75 people & injured over 100. Which reminds me of failed mayoral candidate Brad Wenstrup, who was actually stationed in Iraq, saying that he felt safer in Iraq than in Cincinnati. Are people simply interested in visiting Cincinnati for the challenge?
Monday, December 26, 2011
Hell Town
Local noose media guys screwing up Cincinnati neighborhoods is pretty common, so I wasn't too surprised when an article about renovated homes titled From Helltown to City Home wasn't about Hell Town at all but Over the Rhine. Granted, they are doing some nice stuff in OTR, but as we all know, Hell Town aka Ludlow Station aka Cumminsville is Northside. Read the history here if you don't believe me. Of course there's some nice stuff going on in Northside homes, too, which is why they have a tour of homes every other year with the next one scheduled for October 2012. Maybe the Fishwrap can run the article they shelved in 2010 (not that the author works there anymore).
Adding to the Community Conversation
From the Cincinnati Enquirer's Letters to the Editor preface:
The Enquirer receives dozens of letters to the editor each week and because of space limitations, only a fraction of them can appear in print. Here online, we are able to post all of the letters we receive that add to the community conversation.
I sent a letter in online to counter a fairly paranoid letter from a guy out in exotic Butler County concerning government corruption and the Cincinnati Streetcar. Ed claimed a Federal grant from a government with no money should send up some red flags & that investigative media types should be looking into just who owns the properties along the streetcar route. He asks:
"Could there be holding companies that have purchased a lot of property, who are the owners of the holding companies and just by chance what political groups received election funds along the way?
Not sure how paranoid conspiracy mongering "adds to the community conversation" but my answer apparently didn't. Since Zuckerberg doesn't think I'm a human being, I could not reply directly. Anyway, you, dear intrepid reader, must remember my post from awhile ago discussing ownership along the route.
Directly on the route there are about 500 properties owned by about 400 entities. Expanding out a block and adding cross streets you can probably add close to 1,000 more properties. Expand further & get even more.
This was the point I made in my letter and added that rehabbing these properties would mean jobs for the lagging housing industry. But, apparently my letter did not "adds to the community conversation". Vaguely interestingly, a week later the Enquiring folks run an article on The Streetcar's Number 1 Supporter, John Schneider - who owns property along the route. Are they trying to fan the flames of conspiracy & self serving greed? heaven forbid.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
A Christmas Story
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Illustrators. They're everywhere. You can't throw a stick without hitting one. It's like a zombie invasion. The Springfield Center for the Arts at Wittenberg University (SCFTAAWU) is showcasing works of Vernon Grant who, besides inventing the snap, crackle, pop guys, did 26 Collier's covers. Meanwhile, The Dayton Art Institute is showing works of Norm Rockwell who did a gazillion covers for Saturday Evening Post.
People have celebrated the winter solstice with fire & light for thousands of years. Over that time, light, other than daylight has been at or below eye level and has been a warm yellowy orange. In less than the past 100 years, however, light has shifted to the ceiling & taken on a cold, yellowy blue/green hue. Has this change in direction, intensity & temperature changed our perception of one another? Has it changed our overall moods?
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Pupi Campo
Pupi Campo of Cuba, died in Las Vegas last week. He was a bandleader who appeared on TV & in films and performed in Vegas for years. He is credited with being one of the first Latinos to appear on U.S. TV. So what's this got to do with SW Ohio? Campo had been married to Betty Clooney, sister of Rosemary Clooney with whom she started her singing career & subsequently the aunt of George Clooney who you may remember from the Rosanne show.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Disappearing Food
Nothing calamitous, just annoying to depressing. One of my Christmastime indulgnces is Nabisco Whatsworth crackers & a tube (midget longhorn ?) of Colby cheese. It's been getting harder to find the crackers & this year… well, it ain't gonna happen. WalMart can't locate them within 100 miles. Amazon has me on a alert list. Kroger, Meijer, Remke - no go. I recently had to resort to Amazon for Knorr/Lipton instant Red Beans & Rice. hey, I'm a single guy….. Campbell's soups has discontinued chili beef, pepper pot & now it looks like bean with bacon is on the way out. I read somewhere Campbell's was focussing on novelty kids' soups & discontinuing the soups with "high end ingredients". Tripe & beans? Hellshire Farms has a hot smoked sausage that goes great in Cajun type dishes. The 4th of July is Jambalaya Day in Quimbob house. Problem is, almost nobody carries that variety of Hillshire's line. I have to go across town, stock up & freeze the stuff so I can have it for summer. Years ago, you could buy the crap all over town. Then there's the disappearance of canned corned beef. Don't even get me started on Arriba salsa & Stouffer's Welsh rarebit.... sigh, I fear Porkopolis is becoming a convenience food desert.
UPDATE:The park has explained to Fishwrap editors that the latest rule only applies to lying on benches as such action hogs the whole bench. Will sitting in the middle of a bench and sprawling across it be a violation? Will fat people be required to sit at one end and only have 1 butt cheek on the bench? The park bored ensures us this rule, made in friggin' December, has nothing to do with the Occupiers.
We Make Movies So We Are Better
Captain America
Hollywood knows better than those douche bag comic book geeks. Heck, just look at how they dress & the cars they drive. Compare Cannes to ComiCon. Where would you rather be seen? Captain America is just another crappy movie purloining the name & look of a tried and true but not good enough for Hollywood comic book. Of course there was plenty of room for endless Hollywood cliches….. Tony Stark's dad was an ok addition, but after that - phooey.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Whoever said Northside aka, "Land Between the Cemeteries", wasn't creepy?
Support Your Local Animal Welfare Organization
The HSUS has NO affiliation with your local humane society. To support local, donate local. In Cincinnati, see the SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) but don't get it confused with the SCPA (School for Creative and Performing Arts). ugh, it's so complicated…..
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
A Study in Contrasts
The West Chester Police Department is continuing to investigate the punk rock concert that resulted in a brawl at a local dance studio Dec. 1. Police anticipate charges being filed from the fight that resulted in several minor injuries.
UrbanUp, a sister site to Abandoned, offers up a history of the Springfield Arcade complete with a bunch of shots of the hotel interior from, I am guessing, about the time the place was demolished in 1988. The article mainly focusses on it's last decade as various attempts were made to both rescue it & destroy it and the egos & visions of various powers came into play. Ultimately, like much of Springfield's downtown before it, it fell to the wrecking ball. Read the article here More pictures can be found at the Springfield History site
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Documenting the Southgate House
A short documentary of the Southgate House, Newport, KY. produced by Sara Mahle. HT, City Beat
Monday, December 12, 2011
How Important are Tax Rates ?
Interesting look at tax rates over the last century & whether they impact economic growth. I swear it's got more to do with lifestyle products than taxes. We need a new product.
The city of Cincinnati ants to know what you think of their efforts to make a more bike friendly city. Take the survey
Not in alluring Northside ! Starting Friday night in swank Clifton, Holidays in Clifton will be celebrated from 6-9PM with carriage rides, Santa & stuff around the Ludlow Avenue business district. But I was talking about Saturday in Northside…… Did I mention the Northside Map of Awesomeness ? Create crafts for kids & families all day long at Happen Inc. They will be working on fixing grub for Santa (my dad always told me Santa preferred beer & chips over cookies & milk). Starting at 10AM at North Presbo, the Cincinnati Holiday Art Show features locally made arts & crafts til 4PM Northside Second Saturday runs from 6-10PM with specials from any number of Northside businesses: Fabricate hosts the opening reception of Natural Logic There will be new works by Emily Moorhead 6-10PM NVISION slashes prices 20% on handmade items Take the Cake will serve dinner til 9PM The Painted Fish is open late - 3:30 AM The Vocal Arts Ensemble at St. Boniface present Christmas carols 7:30PM Revenge Pinata, ShadowRaptr, Majestic Man, Mr. Brown’s Mysterious Sounds will play at Northside Tavern 2 Headed Dog, The Pariahs perform at The Comet Boozing My Religion at Mayday There will be music on the 2nd floor of the Hoffner Lodge from 6:30 PM featuring April 8, Laura Linville , Lisak and Rowe & The Hypnotic Jerks Then, on Sunday, back up to Clifton with Second Sunday Family Showtime at CCAC with a performance of The Gift of the Magi yup it's all happening on Metro Route 17!
How Ignorant are the Occupiers ?
While I agree with some of the OWS complaints about crony capitalism & such, I don't like their strategies much & this latest move is so totally fucked up I can't think straight. Using the image of Guy Fawkes is deranged. Guy Fawkes is not venerated every November 5, he is vilified. The man spent most of his life killing fellow Christians and fighting against religious freedom & tolerance. He represented a church that many saw as autocratic, monolithic, greedy & corrupt and not respecting the needs of the people. Fawkes' solution? Oppress the blasphemers - kill, them, imprison them, torture them. His final act was a Timothy McVeigh-like terrorist bombing that could have killed hundreds including innocents & his own fellow Catholics. Fawkes, unlike McVeigh, however, was a fuck up & his attempt at mass murder failed. Is this really who they want to be the face of their movement? Apparently people have bypassed legitimate makers of the masks so as to screw the rat bastards at Warner Brothers but doesn't this also screw the creatives that might be getting merchandise royalties, like Alan Moore? And should they really be buying from Chinese bootleggers who ignore intellectual property rights? To say nothing of the way laborers in China are treated - the ones who strike & cite Karl Marx as their social guide… The image at the top of this article is particularly offensive. It was run on a City Beat article. Painting the image of this villain with the stars & stripes of the American flag is disgusting. The US stands for freedom of religion and, while it has been a rocky road, Fawkes was determinedly opposed to such concepts. Were he alive today, he would probably be terrorizing the US. Occupiers, you really need to rethink this one. Murderous religious terrorists in America do not represent anywhere near 99%
Thursday, December 08, 2011
Going to the Chapel
Cincinnati City manager Milton Dohoney has suggested a $4.4 million upgrade to city Hall to create a place to be rented out to the public for receptions, weddings & the like in an effort to raise revenue. Seems like an odd business for the government to be in. Seems pretty competitive, too. Music Hall has, besides the main auditorium rooms for 30 to 1,300 people. The Museum Center (owned by the county) is a pretty cool place for such events. Well, I'm a history geek. Parks & their lodges can already be used - dunno how the money is split between the city & parks departments, tho. The city could probably invest less into Wesleyan cemetery & maybe put a chapelish kind of facility in there for under $4.4 million. Seems like letting all those people into city hall would freak out the Homeland Security types, too. How about remodeling a section of the convention center to make it kind of "special"? Or even better - how about sprucing up a part of the subway? Transit center? The old SCPA?
This guy is having too much fun. If you were wondering what to get your favorite blogger for Christmas or the solstice gift giving holiday of your choice, look no further.
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
Scenic Clifton Mill for the Holidays
Clifton Mill in Clifton, OH (just east of Yellow Springs) is one of the oldest operating mills in Ohio and has for some decades now celebrated the holidays with their Annual light Display. Unfortunately, on 12/6 the flooding Little Miami River, that drives the mills wheel, rushed over it's banks & creamed some of this year's display. Operators canceled events for Tuesday night & hope to be back up & running ASAP. The owners are on the prowl for every strand of lights they can get their mitts on. Dunno if you should stand guard in your front yard or not…
Besides the 3,500,000 lights decorating the mill & old covered bridge, the mill also offers a Santa Claus museum & workshop, a miniature village & hot dogs, soup, cornbread, hot chocolate, cookies, pie & popcorn.
The Fishwrap's "Our History" section, about the only thing worth reading over there has an article aboutThe Trollope Bazaar built by Frances Trollope in 1829, it was later demolished in 1881. They don't mention it's use as the OMI building which CityKin brought up in this article which included this pic, that I cannot display. I cobbled together this model awhile ago but the proportions are off or my people are too big or or or
. No idea about color either. I am guessing the OCAS guys know what they were doing. I need to hunt down that model. not that I know where mine is anymore.. :-)
Over 1,400 - Gone
When the Fishwrap announced it would require a FaceBook account to make comments on their site, they received over 1,400 comments, almost unanimously condemning the action. They are now gone. Complaints covered fear of reprisal, not wanting a FaceBook account & not wanting to use FaceBook for that purpose. The Fishwrap said it wanted o do away with the ugliness. ummmm…..
Is our health falling apart? Dinkels deny assault claim Driver killed in rollover crash on I-471 Woman used car as weapon Homeowner held burglar at gunpoint Murderer pleads for mercy Mini crime spree in Colerain Water, sewer rates shooting up Priest at council event faced sex allegation Moody's warns county on bonds
yeah, happiness & sunshine from the people who don't want "ugliness". Perhaps ugliness begets ugliness?
Oakley Square Finished - Finally
After almost 2 years, a streetscape facelift in sultry Oakley is finally complete. Last year, this time, business owners asked the city to suspend work so they could actually do some business during the holiday season. This completion came just in time. But why does it take so daggone long? It took about 4 years to widen a little over a mile of Hamilton Avenue in lofty College Hill. Fortunately there were no small businesses in that area because they generally don't have the finances to go without revenue for very long. Replacing the Ludlow Viaduct in 1991 shuttered a few stores in bucolic Northside. We will need to get the city's butt in gear if we expect to build a streetcar line and not shutter every existing business along the route.
yup, on St Nicholas eve, we make way for the fat man's demon, Krampus to scare the crap out of little kiddies all around the world. He seduces young women, tosses kids into streams & ruins the young men.
My kind of guy
While some people will dwell on Christopher Columbus landing in Haiti (that worked out well), true patriots will be out tormenting the wee mags, extracting revenge for the tantrums, barfing, pooping & sacrificed debauchery.
sigh, gotta love this guy
Sunday, December 04, 2011
Weird Worship
Nationally & locally there's been some shake ups in the rituals of the Catholic Church. English translations led to the humorous Fishwrap headline about Mass Confusion and a local priest hammering down on the blasphemy of holding hands while praying seem kinda odd to a guy raised Presbo. But I do remember attending services at Catholic churches and the local Temple and, especially because they weren't all conducted in English, I was frantically playing catch up as people stood, sat, kneeled at seemingly inexplicable times. Serendipitously, I received a DVD from Shlockbluster, The Rites of Magick. While I thought I was going to sit down to watch The Rite with Anthony Hopkins, I was actually sitting down to watch The Rites of Magick with Poke Runyon. Not a special effects laden horror melodrama but a documentary / sales pitch from the Order of the Temple of Astarte located in sunny Pasaadena, CA. While initially impressed that Hollywood was quoting Hermes Trismegistus I quicly realized I had the wrong movie. The movie shows some of the rites & rituals of a neo-Pagan group that follows Phoenician religion & the magickal traditions of The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn as well as some Indian stuff previously pioneered by "Uncle" Al Crowley. It shows a Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, an Enochian Watchtower Opening, a Solstice ceremony & a service that bypasses those pesky language translation issues by having no words. I was aware of all this kinda stuff but had never seen the rituals performed, especially with large groups of people. While these small groups don't have the hierarchy & orthodoxy of large religious groups so how "authentic" their rituals are is surely up to debate. Still, it gives one an idea of what those people do & dispels a lot of hysterical misunderstandings. Dunno about the glittery masks, tho….. The solstice ceremony particularly interested me as it was a re-enactment in the round of seasonal changes with the seasons portrayed by people & the narrative in English. I hate the rhymy verse stuff but I guess it makes the words easier to remember, whatever. The thing is we have seen, at least through National Geographic, the same type of ritual performed by American Indians & primitive African groups where we cannot understand the language, the dress is totally foreign & the mythology is a complete mystery. In this case, it's a bunch of white anglo-saxon Americans speaking English and it's all pretty clear - the symbolism & mythology all being European in origin. I don't know why we quit this practice in our western civilized world. Maybe Pat knows. Anyhoo, for a different perspective, here is a humorous review of the movie by a guy who also thought he was going to sit down to a horror movie.
Ohio GOP Eats it's own
Following on the heels of ousting committee members to pass legislation later overturned by the voters, the "true" Republican elite attempts to purge their ranks some more, this time targeting the head of the Ohio party. How far off can total extinction be?
Cincinnati Iconography
Stylized images of Cincinnati icons and landmarks available on shirts, mousepads, clocks and other merchandise.
Hyde Park, Queensgate, Over the Rhine, Northside, Newport, Union Terminal, Music Hall, The Jockey Club and more.