Ira Goldberg

Oh, Gail. So sad. I know you've lost smother good friend. It's simply unimaginable, yet too real that Larry won't be the leader of the talk around. I didn't know him well at all, but valued his presence and ease with all of us. I believe he will be there still - on the mind of everyone - in memories. 

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

How sad, Gail. I send my condolences to his family and to you. 
I was looking forward to seeing Larry at the reunion. He had such skill in facilitating some of the touchy topics raised during the talk around. I will certainly miss his humor. God bless him.

Gail Weintraub (Stern)

Thank you for your posts remembering Larry. However, please post your comments on his In Memory page. Once you do this, a 'Rose" will appear after his name. This has been done for our other classmates who have predeceased us. 

Jon Singer

                  WHAT A CHEESE CONEY COULD BESTOW

During the transformational period of our communal 60's adolescence,

I niticed most of you had mustered up adult industry and polish.

Beyond the cognitively demanding classwork of Walnut Hills High,

You entertained favorable domains with pronounced responsibilities

Foreshadowing blossoming achievement of time-honored ways.

By 16, I had but conquered full-flower adventurous undertakings

Born of exuberant concepts, irreverence and badly budded frivolity.

Although I ultimately crafted an identity and employment of certitude,

Attending past reunions has revived my past palette of comic emptiness.

Can a forthcoming cheese coney* with you dispense some self-esteem?

     *no onion please, yes mustard, thanks.   Jon Singer

Ira Goldberg

Paul Simons

This post is in reaction to Jon Singer's questioning plea. It makes the case for the concept that there's more to achieving the Nirvana, the Cosmic Bliss, that can indeed be achieved when in the presence of a freshly crafted Cheese Coney. But certain conditions are required. It has to be late at night, after the party's over, and one is alone. No coterie of happy, successful, well dressed, socially elite companions. Maybe an off-duty cop or security guard, maybe a recently released felon with a spider web tattooed on his neck, maybe a haggard, distraught woman who has just maxed out her credit card making a gift to the Alumni Association, but no one with whom a conversation is going to take place. It has to be with full knowledge that one is ultimately alone in a universe that doesn't care. And no phone messaging going on, no YouTube or Porn Hub or Facebook, no news website, either honest or lying, open. Nothing but you, where you are, the employees and other strangers there, and the stainless steel vats of chili, canisters of grated cheese, and other ingredients, the counter in front of you and the chair or stool that you're sitting on. Alone. And when the plate comes with your Cheese Coney on it and you pick it up and bite into it, nothing but you and it. And then, God becomes real, and demands an explanation.

Jon Singer

Si, quite revelatory whether you read the post on a Sabbath Saturday or Sabbath Sunday. I echo your expressions. I'll see you soon.

Philip Spiess

King's Island is cheesier than old Coney ever was.

Nelson Abanto

Phil,

is "cheesier" a good thing or a bad thing?

 I mean I just listened to Il Trovatore twice, one with Anna Netrebko one with Sondra Radvonosky.  Both were spectacular but very different.  It was like listening to two different operas.  Can the same thought process apply to Cheese Conies???  Do we have to torture ourselves searching for the best cheese coney or can we accept each for what they are?

Just asking.  Don't stay up at night pondering this dilemma.

Your friend in Opera,

Nelson 

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

If anyone was wondering about the nutritional value of a cheese coney, here ya go!

https://www.sparkpeople.com/calories-in.asp?food=skyline+cheese+coney

I'm on a low potassium diet, so I may have to forego the Graeter's, but I can have a cheese coney! 

Philip Spiess

Nelson:  As with everything in life, it all depends on the context.  (My comment was a "con text," a text intended to con the reader into confusing cheese-chili hot dogs with amusement parks.)  "Cheesier" is a good thing when the context is cheese-chili hot dogs; "cheesier" is not a good thing when the context is overblown amusement parks attempting to be Disney World or grand opera attempting to be -- grand opera!

Trying to ascertain the difference, and quality of difference, in two cheese Coneys sounds like a Zen exercise to me.  ("What is the sound of one hand clapping?" -- for opera or a cheese Coney accidentally dropped by a luckless student on the WHHS lunchroom floor.  What is the opinion of one mouth slurping two different cheese Coneys, one after the other -- does the taste of the first affect the taste of the second?)  With opera (and probably with a good cheese Coney) you just sit back and take it all in.

So, tell me, fellow opera lover, are there any operas you consider somewhat "cheesy"?  (This question includes operettas.)  And as you consider the question, does Rossini's La Cenerentola come to mind?  Or is it just opera productions, and not the operas themselves, that can turn out to be "cheesy"?

Ira Goldberg

Nelson and Phil, I love symphony and can sleep through most! I relish the opera singers' voices. Yet, never felt like attending opera. Last month, a friend's daughter who performs widely appeared at University of Louisville. She had written both words and music. Being a friend and it being her first venture, I went. Since it was in English, I understood it and realized only then that operas are actually mere stories of dramatic experiences in life. Agreed, a 1964 WHHS grad of 76 years of age should've known. I wasn't moved by the subject matter, but left feeling connected to the singer's beautiful voice. So, many thanks for sharing your pleasure with the art and giving me an opportunity to confess to my naïveté! As for the upcoming reunion, perhaps "Nessun dorma!" Enjoy!

Nelson Abanto

Cheesy operas? Hmmm.  My number one criterium is an opera where not everyone gets killed.  Having established that I have to go with Cosi fan' tutte where it is not clear who ends up with whom, not that it much matters.  My second choice would be L'elisir d'amore where Adina won't have a thing to do with Nemorino until she finds out that he has just inherited a fortune at which point it becomes love at first sight.  
 

How's that for "extra cheese"?

Paul Simons

Speaking of Nessum Dorma and cheese coneys Ira - this can be enjoyed with little or no hot sauce. Even though Ann's post contains the surprising information that a cheese coney provides almost as much protein as fat, nutritional value can be spiritual as well as physical. And let's face it - the neighborhood chili parlor just can't be pretentious in the way that the 5-star haute cuisine French restaurant with valet parking next to the opera palace can. 
 

R.I.P Jeff Beck.

Philip Spiess

"Hard cheese" indeed! (as the British say) -- and money has certainly always been an "elixir" for (ahem!) "love."  Much as I love Rossini's music (and I have to agree with him when he said, "I love all kinds of music except the boring kind' -- though he probably said it in Italian -- and I dare say he probably loved cheese as much as he did egg dishes), I think it's pretty cheesy of him that he kept cannibalizing (borrowing from) his earlier works for newer works because he was too lazy to work up something new. 

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

Paul!! That was amazing. I never thought of an electric guitar as bel canto before, but Beck made it sing. Very impressive!

Nelson Abanto

As Abe Lincoln so famously said: " I only know two tunes.  One is the Battle Hymn of the Republic and the other is not."

Philip Spiess

That other tune was quite possibly "Old Rosin the Beau," an 1838 popular song that was reputedly a Lincoln favorite.  Indeed, in 1860 its melody was adapted with transformed lyrics into a Lincoln campaign song, "Lincoln and Liberty."  [Note:  Lincoln won.]

Paul Simons

Glad you like it Ann. Truth is I know nothing about opera but after looking up "bel canto" I kinda get it. People use music for a number of reasons, communicating heartfelt emotions that come with a love relationship is only one, and it would take a cold, cold heart to not be moved by what JB and his friends did, or by what this lady and hers do on this one - the tune "You Send Me."

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

Paul, this is another example of music genres intermingling, a performance by Aretha. She was a last minute replacement at the Emmy Awards for an ailing Pavaratti. No time to have a new song arranged for the orchestra, she performed the song he was to sing. 
https://youtu.be/k33sINjn9o0

Paul Simons

Thanks Ann! Amazing! I didn't know she was into that too! What's next? Pavarotti doing "Mustang Sally" with Booker T and the MGs at a roadhouse on Highway 61 right outside of Memphis?

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

Pavarotti sang duets with many outside of opera, including George Michael, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Celine Dionne, Cheryl Crowe, and others. This is my favorite: https://youtu.be/GaB9F3R9cIY

Philip Spiess

Paul:  What you suggest would be truly amazing -- since Luciano Pavarotti died in 2007 and Aretha Franklin died in 2018!  [But if you want a great story about Southern roadhouse music, look up Eudora Welty's "Powerhouse" from A Curtain of Green (1941).]

Ira Goldberg

Most certainly, Phil. Yet technology surely could integrate strings of Pavarotti, Brown, Aretha, and Jeff Beck among others in their familiar voices or acoustical talents ala the live performance of Dylan, McCartney, and ??? in "My Back Pages." Thanks Paul, et al for sharing these memorable artists! Wow!

Philip Spiess

You're right, Ira.  I should have thought of that, as it's the sort of thing my son, who's an audio engineer, does occasionally.