Ann Shepard (Rueve)

Actually Phil, there's an APP for that. It's called Grafio-Diagrams & Ideas for $8.99 from the Apple Store.  On a PC, you can download Microsoft Silverlight to use a program called 1AiWay to diagram a sentence. 

Kids today have it EASY!

Stephen (Steve) Dixon

Reading Phil Spiess is like being back in Mr. Inskeep's class, hilarious and educational.

Margery Erhardt (Schrader)

Anyone who is going to be in NY in the next few months – one of my favorite artists is Gustav Klimt. Great book – The Lady in Gold by Anne-Marie O’Connor.  The debut of a new museum exhibit Gustav Klimt and Adele Bloch-Bauer: The Woman in Gold will open at the Neue Galerie in New York on April 1, 2015 “an intimate exhibition devoted to the close relationship that existed between the artist and one of his key subjects and patrons. Included in the exhibition will be a display of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, paintings, related drawings, vintage photographs, decorative arts, and archival material. The show will be on view through September 7, 2015.”

Also this exhibition coincides with the opening of the historical drama “Woman in Gold,” starring Helen Mirren as Adele Bloch-Bauer’s niece Maria Altmann. This should be incredible!

Jonathan Marks

Ann, your recollection is almost impeccable; the play was by Lorca, The Love of Don Perlimplin and Belisa in the Garden, though as I recall it the Playhouse cut out the title afte Perlimplin.

I did an apprenticeship at the Playhouse, though rather perfunctorily due to transportation issues, but I went back after we graduated and acted in She Stoops to Conquer (with Estelle Parsons as the ingenue; this was, after all, a while back) and later in the first production at the Marx theatre, Camino Real with Al Freeman, Jr. as Kilroy.

Phil, I did Rhinoceros too, at Yale, as Jean, the character who metamorphoses into a beast.  On one of my visits with Ionesco in Paris I gave him a photo of me as the rhinoceros, and it ended up published in the Australian edition of a book about him.

Steven Levinson

Phil, My sainted Aunt Bess (about Patrick Dennis would have written had he not had his own aunt) and I had lunch at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese in the summer of 1963.  Not a Londoner customer in the place, I'm sure, but the shtick, most notably the sawdust, was great fun.  And the roast beef was good.

Philip Spiess

Stephen Dixon:  What an incredible compliment!  Although I never had Mr. Inskeep for class, he was truly a unique character and a gentleman of the Old School.  To explain myself, I will directly quote Mark Twain -- twice:  "I like a good story, well told.  That is the reason why I am sometimes forced to tell them myself" (1907); and "I cannot keep from talking, even at the risk of being instructive" (1872).

Ann:  How disappointing to learn that there's an APP for diagramming.  That takes all the fun out of it!

Jeff Daum:  Thank you for sharing your pictures from the Taj Mahal, but especially the detail of the inlaid flower patterns; and most importantly, thank you for explaining how it was done:  so much minute detail, especially from the past, goes unnoticed in today's mad whirl, with no sense of the true craftsmanship it took to accomplish it.  (A reference here would be to the work of Gustav Klimt, noted by Margery.)

Jonathan:  Tell us more about your visits with Ionesco.

Steve Levinson:  Probably all of the Londoners not dining at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese (finding, no doubt, like I do, that Dr. Samuel Johnson is something of a bore) were dining at Simpson's in the Strand (unless that, too, is now given over to American tourists).  I suddenly remembered that we had an excellent lunch not too far from the Cheshire Cheese (other side of the street) at a restaurant called something like "The Printer's Ink" (Fleet Street journalism, you know).  [N.B., and to get the Cafe Royal finally out of my mind:  One of the earliest female detectives in British crime fiction was Miss Van Snoop, an American working for the New York police force, featured in Clarence Rook's short story, "The Stir Outside the Cafe Royal" (1898).]

Jeff Daum

Thanks Phil.  Here are a couple more photos of how the semi-precious gems are shaped and the minutiae of the work.  The technique is pasted down/along and unchanged from when they worked on the Taj.

Philip Spiess

Jeff:  Again, thanks; these are great!  I noticed that back in your pictures of the mosque in Abu Dhabi there was one which had floral vine designs that seemed to be similar to those in the Taj Mahal.  Same technique, or no?

Stephen Collett:  Regrettably, the "family spats" were worn out long before my grandfather Philip Spiess tried to fit them onto his going-out-fancy shoes.  Instead, over the years, we've had to revert to cheap rubber galoshes, garish vests, gold-braid decorated ties [Trakten], and Lederhosen mit Strumpf, part of my regrettable Bavarian heritage.  We try to cling to the wine-making Alsatian part of the family, the artistic Darmstadt branch, or even the snooty Prussian part, but the fact remains that the Spiesses were from Munich -- or so say the curators of "Mad" King Ludwig II's Schloss Neuschwannstein, wherein the glorious paintings of Wagnerian operas, so beloved by Ludwig, Wagner's patron, were the work of one Adolph Spiess, of Munich.  (And Ludwig was not mad by a long shot:  he took the opportunity to drown his quack "psychiatrist" in the lake before committing suicide himself -- another Wilde-Turing tragic homosexual figure.)

Jeff Daum

Hi Phil, yes similar in design though obviously of different time periods.  On the Mosque, while many were inlaid, some were painted and most were done in situ whereas the Taj were done on the ground on the specific marble slab which was then put into place.

I think you will find this of interest Phil as I segue to a timely topic (weak pun intended ).  While we were in Jaipur we visited the Jantar Mantar Observatory.  This is an large outdoor collection of instruments designed to predict the current date and time, most based on the sun, though there were a couple that also worked off of the stars.  All this was very important to plan major decisions, weddings, one's life, etc.  It was commissioned by Jai Singh in the early 1700s.  He wanted to have the most accurate astronomical  time pieces and sent people around the world to find the best that had already been developed.  There were 5 of these at the observatory and amazingly one (the Vrihat Samrat Yantra) was accurate to within 2 seconds!  Here are a couple of shots:

Philip Spiess

Wow!  Thank you, again, Jeff, for these pictures.  This was a site that I showed my 6th Grade students when I was teaching them both Muslim architecture and science (part of "Introduction to Islam").  But I didn't really know the exact time period when these were built, so now I know.  My personal reaction to this site is complex:  while I appreciated the strict science involved, my visceral reaction to it was totally aesthetic; I thought it beautiful on a purely artistic plane, indeed, almost surrealistic.  So thanks for your pictures that capture my reactions.

And Steve Levinson:  Thanks for the reference to the Brasserie Zedel; sounds like we must try it out next time we're in London.

So, we had a wonderful evening with John and Becky Payne Shockley, both of whom say "Hi!" to everyone.  We had a lovely Asian dinner, followed by a nighttime tour of Washington's monuments (one of the most interesting ways to see them).

Jeff Daum

You are right Phil- on first view it really looks like a collection of giant and small flowing sculptures.  I am always fascinated by the advanced science and mechanical savvy when I view something like this or at Maccu Picchu, the water systems in ancient Egypt, the Solar Boat, etc.

Philip Spiess

Okay, guys, enough!  I know that many (many!) of you read these pages, because it comes out when you occasionally comment on them!    There seem to be about ten of us or so who are holding down the fort at keeping this forum going -- some with comments and some with pictures, but the fact remains that more of you are happily reading the comments than are commenting yourselves.  Jump in -- challenge your intellects; rise to the highest!  We want to hear from you!

So, now, Challenge of the Week:  What natural phenomenon actually has, in one event, all three states of matter at once, namely, solid, liquid, and gas?

And nobody responded to my inquiry about Alms & Doepke's Department Store; does nobody remember it at all?  (Hint:  It was located on what was formerly the Miami & Erie Canal.)

Does anyone want to hear the saga of my father's Amphicar on the Ohio River?  Or who's buried in the elevator shaft of Music Hall?  Or what happened to a caretaker of Spring Grove Cemetery, once one of America's richest men, and a major book collector?

Answers only forthcoming if interest is shown.  -- SPIESS

Larry Klein

Phil - your "Challenge of the Week" is too easy, even for an uneducated slough like me (and no, it isn't a BM).  I put it as a volcanic eruption.

As to Alms and Doepke, alas it was only a name in the news to me since I never had any loose change to go shopping with.  Music Hall elevator shaft??  They had one??

BTW - if anyone wants to buy effie tickets to the elevator at WHHS, I can arrange it (they really do have one now).

Ciao.  Coach Klein.

Philip Spiess

Um, Larry, you're both right and wrong:  it is both a BM and it is a volcanic eruption -- the answer is "diarrhea."  But I think you're right on volcanoes, too (though is lava solid or liquid, or both?  Steve Levinson, who lives with volcanoes, help us out here).

Alms and Doepke's department store was a huge building at the eastern end of Central Parkway, which, when it was built (the Parkway), covered over (circa 1925), and took the route of, the Miami & Erie Canal.  My father remembered, as a boy, that you could tell when the dairy companies which delivered milk to your door had "watered" the milk from the Canal before delivery -- frogs might appear in your supposed "fresh" milk!  

Across Elm Street [? -- my Cincinnati maps are buried in my library stacks] from Music Hall is Washington Park, which was originally the 12th Street Burial Grounds.  When the park was created, the burials were moved to Spring Grove Cemetery, but the burial grounds had extended across the street (apparently), and when Music Hall was renovated in a major way in the late 1890s, two or more bodies were discovered in the ground under the new elevator shaft that was being built.  The decision was made to leave them there (they may be identified; I'm not sure).

Susan Patterson (Schramm)

Well, as a lifelong Cincinnatian, I do remember Alms & Doepke dept. store.  At Christmas, when we were young, they had a full sized Merry go Round in the store, along with Santa.  When you rode the carousel, you received a huge  ( to my 5 yr old eyes ) peppermint stick.  Does any one else remember it?   I think the building now houses Job & Family services, and some other county offices.

Gene Stern

Phil:  You favorite word is: FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION?.....what the heck!

Susan Patterson (Schramm)

Opps, I forgot to mention, Washington Park, once a scary place you did NOT want to travel through or near, has been renovated and is now a very happen'n place in Cincinnati.

Larry Klein

Gene - you read the Chatterbox!!  Nice pickup on Phil's favorite word.  Now define it??

Gene Stern

I do not think that long word has a latin derivation and I certainly do not know what it means...I think Phil made it up.

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

Phil, I have a long history with the Alms & Doepke Building, as both a department store and as an office building.  (I'm having a bit of déja vu here.  I think I may have already mentioned this somewhere in the forum.)

No Easter outfit shopping trip downtown excluded going to at Alms & Doepke (prior to third or fourth grade) even though it was located blocks away from Shillito's, McAlpin's and Pogue's.  I believe the building was sold to or leased by the county after the store closed.

Jump to the 70s, when the Juvenile Court expanded its location from the Youth Center at 2020 Auburn (most juvenile offenders referred to the lockup as 20-20) to the A&D Building.  The Juvenile courtrooms were housed with Municipal Court.  My mother being Chief Probation Officer relocated from 20-20 to the A&D Building.  I often visited her in her office in the northeast corner on the third floor overlooking Sycamore St.  I believe this was in the same location as "girls dresses" had been.  My dad, having retired as a Cincinnati detective, took a job as a welfare fraud investigator.  He often had to present cases in Municipal court on the first floor. I, being a young caseworker, had to present  cases for custody to the Juvenile judge first at 20-20, later at the A&D building.

Now skip to the mid-90s.  After many of the court workers became ill working in the A&D Building, air quality tests completed found  the workers suffered from "sick building" syndrome.  The building was completely gutted and restored.  Children's Services, where I was now in middle management, relocated from the Krippendorf building (built in 1888 - I have another story about that to share later) to the A&D Building.  Ironically (and pretty funny too), my corner office was in the same location on the third floor where my mother's had been twenty years previously and where girls dresses had been in the 50s.  I retired in 1999, and have not had a desire to go back again, particularly after a 2012 report that all of the carpeted areas (there were many) in the building had to be replaced due to bedbug infestation.

Henry Cohen

Is anyone at least a little incensed at our neighbor to the west legal escapade into intolerance? It will be interesting to see the fallout from that thinly disguised piece of legislation. The polarization of this country is maddening, disappointing and out of control. 

Henry Cohen

Ok, since we are now onto quizzes and brain teasers and since I am an old sports editor here is one to ponder. How can a pitcher in Major League Baseball  be both the winning pitcher and losing pitcher in the same game? 

Jerry Ochs

His last name is Schrodinger?

David Buchholz

Henry, Google provides the anwer qucikly, but rather than reveal it I can say that it involves a suspended game and a trade.  It could happen.  And as long as we're on sports questions, is there anyone alive that can name the four Alou brothers?  

And Indiana, oh please.  Stephen Dixon posted on FB a photo from Michelle Dillingham:  "Dear Indiana,  In case you missed it, we've already had this conversation.  You don't get to decide who sits at the lunch counter.  Love, America" 

And just because I do this stuff here's another ballet photograph. This was taken at San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts, built for the 1915 Exposition.

Philip Spiess

Oh, boy!  We've started up again!  Thanks all!  Yes, Gene, that word is real; I think Dick Ransohoff put me onto it (he being a sesquipedalianist in 6th Grade at Clifton School), but it also appeared in the 1961 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records (which had some hilariously written entries!) as being the longest word that was not a "nonce word" (one made up for one occasion only) in the English language (one letter longer than "antidisestablishmentarianism").  It means -- get this -- "the estimation of something as being completely worthless"; I think that the word fits its own definition, don't you?

Ann:  Thanks so much for a complete run-down on the Alms & Doepke Building, and your historic role in it.  Susan:  Thanks for your memories, too, which may have rung a very faint bell in my memory, particularly the giant peppermint stick.  (My own strong memories of A&D are the open corner staircases, the large spinning wheel that stood on top of one of the display cases by a southwest staircase, and a bustling bargain basement -- in the basement).

Indiana:  it ain't called the "Hoosier State" for nothing; we of Walnut Hills all know that it properly should be "Who is your state?" or, even more properly, "What is your state?" -- which could lead to a state . . . of confusion (which, it seems, Indiana currently is).

The Alou brothers:  let's see; there was Aloutian Isle, 'Alou, Can You Hear Me?, Aloun and Unloved, and Alouny Tune Special.  Yes?  And has anyone with the least interest in baseball ever noticed that the terms "batter" and "pitcher" sound like the start-up of the making of pancakes?  (Or that Batboy and Robinson should round the bases in a Batmobile?)

The Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, designed by well-known West Coast architect Bernard Maybeck and built for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915!  How the memories come soaring back!  When I first saw it in 1959, it was in a ruinous state, having been built (as all World's Fair buildings were) out of gypsum and lath (not intended to last), which had not weathered well in the salt air for 44 years -- it looked haunted and haunting.  (And what were those mystic Roman ladies, staring into the giant boxes along the top of the Colonnade, staring at?  We did not know, because we could not see their faces.)  Then Walter S. Johnson, a San Francisco executive, assisted by Caspar Weinberger, announced that same year that he would pay for restoring the building (as it turned out, it was completely torn down and rebuilt, circa 1963-1967, in permanent materials, namely concrete -- and in a stripped-down version).  Only slowly did the city decide how to use the empty concrete shell; eventually it housed a theater (scene of numerous Presidential debates in recent years) and The Exploratorium, an intriguing hands-on science museum founded and directed by Frank Oppenheimer, brother of J. Robert Oppenheimer, scientific leader of the Manhattan Project (developers of the atom bomb).  I had breakfast with Frank shortly before he died -- a most interesting, learned, and creative man!