When I wrote previously after first hearing about the work-in-progress that is called the National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting, I knew that the museum itself was in its very early stages. It is housed in the old Bethany Relay Station building on Tylersville Road north of Cincinnati. The building itself was described as a rabbit warren of rooms at various levels. And the museum was not open yet--it only opens to the public one Saturday each month for three hours, and it didn't open last month due to vacation schedules.
So it wasn't until last Saturday, September 20 that I finally got a chance to visit the museum building. We didn't arrive until nearly 3:00 PM, two hours after the official opening time, and we knew the doors were due to close at 4:00. I expected that hardly anyone would be there, given the fact that the museum is more of a promise than a fact at this point, and also due to the fact that it was a beautiful late-summer Saturday afternoon and many folks probably had something else on their minds than the history of broadcasting through the WWII and Cold War eras. I was wrong, and we were not the only people there. Our tour, guided by a volunteer, started with a couple other visitors, and we all saw a 20-minute video describing the history of the Voice of America project. Following the video we were free to wander through the three major parts of the museum, which are devoted to the Voice of America organization, the history of wireless communication, and the "media heritage" of early radio in Cincinnati, primarily Crosley Radio and the WLW network.
It was easy to get lost in nostalgia in the Media Heritage portion of the space. There were picture and posters of famous personalities who got their start in Cincinnati radio, like the world-famous Doris Day, or who appeared here early in their career, like Andy Williams who was the youngest of four singing Williams Brothers while in high school. I was reminded of the early television program Midwestern Hayride that I saw in my youth, but which apparently had started as radio and as traveling road shows. Several of the exhibits we saw are looking a little ragged--more money is desperately needed for this museum--but a lot of the content is being captured on an active website. The site offers broadcasts of classic radio programs and a blog about the history of broadcasting from the Golden Age of radio to the early days of television, covering the people and stations that made history. Also noted are several archives available only in-person and on-site, chief among them the Frederic W. Ziv collection, consisting of over 15,000 items related to the person who pioneered television syndication, starting with programs including The Cisco Kid, I Led Three Lives, and Bat Masterson.
The self-guided part of our tour continued with stops in the Gray History of Wireless Museum. memorabilia and artifacts collected by Jack Gray, a long-time employee of the Crosley Radio stations, who started collecting in 1930. There was lot of old equipment that I didn't understand, but it gave me a similar feeling to what I experience when I walk through old computer museums and see floppy disks and memory boards and punched card systems. It is important to be reminded from time to time of the beginnings of a particular technology.
I still want to learn more about the Voice of America program and its history, but that may have to wait until funding comes through to improve the museum and its collections. An ambitious master plan is in place.
In the meantime, the Voice of America continues to broadcast throughout the world, even though the Bethany Relay Station closed a decade ago. You can read or listen to VOA world news at http://www.voanews.com and news is broadcast daily in a slew of languages to people in Eastern and Central Europe, Eurasia, Central Asia, East and Southeast Asia, South Asia, Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America. English language broadcasts go worldwide, as does a "Learning English" version.
I know a few people who have learned or improved their English, and learned about the U.S., by listening to Voice of America broadcasts. That was several decades ago, but apparently it is still happening.
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Korean Connection in California
 |
| Korean Bell of Friendship, San Pedro, California ©Johannes Bjorner 2014 |
Finding a place to eat a late lunch, which was closer to our normal dinner time, presented more of a challenge. And we wanted to stretch our legs. We walked beyond the chicken take-out next to the motel. We crossed the street and passed McDonald's and Jack-in-the-Box. Then we went around the corner and saw a Korean restaurant. I don't think I had ever eaten in a Korean restaurant before, but we could tell it was authentic: we could not understand the conversation from the other occupied table, and our table was set without western cutlery. Fortunately there were English descriptions on the Korean menu.
Our luncheon combination plates (one broiled mackerel and one braised chicken) sounded innocuous and they were. It was the eight different small dishes of completely unknown condiments that arrived first that threw us. We never did determine whether they belonged to the mackerel or to the chicken, or to the table at large. They were almost all spicier than one of us wanted. Our server told us that there were broccoli and spinach and pickles, and some other words that we did not understand well enough to even try to remember. It was an interesting lunch.
 |
| Paseo del Mar, San Pedro, California ©Johannes Bjorner 2014 |
 |
| Korean Pavilion and Bell of Friendship, San Pedro, California. ©Johannes Bjorner 2014 |
Experimental Art
 |
| Opus 273, ©Johannes Bjorner. ISEA Exhibit 2014. |
ISEA says that art is experimental when the concept, attitude, techniques, or materials--in any combination--are experimental. ISEA artists work in two and three dimensions, and both my artist and I agree that this particular exhibition, which presented 87 works from the 400 or so that were submitted, showed some very creative pieces and was the best overall show that we had ever seen. It was an honor just to be included.
The exhibit is being held at the National Watercolor Society gallery in San Pedro from September 13 through October 12; a view of the gallery can be seen currently on the NWS website. Images of entries and prize works of the ISEA exhibits in 2012 (Gloucester, Massachusetts) and 2013 (Sanibel, Florida) can be seen from links at http://www.iseaartexhibit.org/photo-galleries, and presumably images from the 2014 show will make it there in due course.
Moving Around SoCal
Reminders of our recent short trip to southern California just keep coming. This past week it was a fire in the Port of Los Angeles that, according to the TV news we saw, elicited a suggestion to residents of San Pedro to shut their windows to stop toxic air entry from the outside, and to stay inside. Now reading this weekend report from the Los Angeles Times--a newspaper that we were glad to get to know during our days there--I see that the fire hit the Pasha Stevedoring and Terminal wharves on South Fries Avenue in Wilmington, the industrial town we drove through several times between Long Beach and our motel in Harbor City. It took 32 hours for more than 100 firefighters to contain the fire, but no one was injured, despite toxic air that threatened terminal workers, firefighters, and elementary school children. With shifting winds and above and below sea-level activity, fighting this fire--the worst at the LA port since 1976--was extremely difficult. Some awesome and instructive pictures have been gathered by the Times in several stories.
Having familiarity with an area brings a story like this home, even if it happens in a place that is not your home. We had lots of free time during our five days in southern California, and a rental car. Even though our GPS operator had a preference for freeway driving, we managed to see a lot of the byways of the towns of Harbor City, San Pedro, and Wilmington, and even touched into Long Beach, Lomita, Carson, and Torrance. It never occurred to me not to rent a car for the trip--that's the only way to get around in LA, isn't it?
It is not. The first thing I noticed outside our 50s-era (but completely updated) motel--smack dab on the Pacific Coast Highway (Highway 1) in Harbor City--was a bus stop. A bus stop with benches and sun shelter, and lots of people using it. Every time we walked across the "highway," which is more like a Main Street at this point of its trajectory, we saw people waiting for, getting on, or getting off buses. I heard from a colleague after returning from my trip that he had lived in downtown Los Angeles for a year, half of it without a car! He rode the buses and got all over the huge area of southern California. Everywhere we drove in SoCal, we also saw buses. It is indeed possible to survive in the great metropolitan sprawl without a car.
But if you are driving, you have more flexibility. And you had better put that flexibility to good use as you share the street with emergency vehicles, trolleys, bicyclists, pedestrians, and oodles of skateboarders!
Having familiarity with an area brings a story like this home, even if it happens in a place that is not your home. We had lots of free time during our five days in southern California, and a rental car. Even though our GPS operator had a preference for freeway driving, we managed to see a lot of the byways of the towns of Harbor City, San Pedro, and Wilmington, and even touched into Long Beach, Lomita, Carson, and Torrance. It never occurred to me not to rent a car for the trip--that's the only way to get around in LA, isn't it?
It is not. The first thing I noticed outside our 50s-era (but completely updated) motel--smack dab on the Pacific Coast Highway (Highway 1) in Harbor City--was a bus stop. A bus stop with benches and sun shelter, and lots of people using it. Every time we walked across the "highway," which is more like a Main Street at this point of its trajectory, we saw people waiting for, getting on, or getting off buses. I heard from a colleague after returning from my trip that he had lived in downtown Los Angeles for a year, half of it without a car! He rode the buses and got all over the huge area of southern California. Everywhere we drove in SoCal, we also saw buses. It is indeed possible to survive in the great metropolitan sprawl without a car.
But if you are driving, you have more flexibility. And you had better put that flexibility to good use as you share the street with emergency vehicles, trolleys, bicyclists, pedestrians, and oodles of skateboarders!
Sunday, September 21, 2014
The Queen Mary
Several eras, in fact. Plans for a ship that would carry people and post between England and the United States began in 1926; construction started in Clydebank, Scotland in 1930 but was halted in December 1931 because of the Depression. Two years later Cunard agreed to a merger with its main competitor. the White Star Line (which had earlier lost the Titanic) and construction resumed. The ship was named Queen Mary and launched in 1934; it took its official inaugural cruise and then its first transatlantic cruise from Southampton to New York in May 1936. For four years it plowed the North Atlantic, carrying luxury passengers to and from the U.S.--see the historic menu collection at the New York Public Library for what they ate! Our tour showed us a "typical" stateroom suite with living room and study and two bathrooms and two bedrooms--one for the maid. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor, we were told, sailed often on the Queen Mary and kept 80 pieces of luggage in their stateroom, with an additional 75 in the cargo hold.
Of course there were also second class and third class passengers on board, and they did not have such luxurious quarters. One westward crossing in 1939 was singled out as carrying several refugees from Germany to the United States, and an uncertain but safer future. In early 1940 the Queen Mary departed from its usual route and went to Australia for fitting out as a troop ship. During WWII the Queen Mary carried more than 800,000 troops, sleeping in bunks packed horizontally together so tightly that a soldier could not roll over from side to side during his eight-hour-allotment--and then he had to get out for the next shift of soldiers to get eight hours of sleep. In April 1943 Winston Churchill traveled on the Queen Mary to meet President Roosevelt, sharing the ship with 5,000 German POWs being sent to U.S detention camps.
Following the conclusion of the war, nearly 15,000 war brides and their children were transported to the U.S and Canada on the Queen Mary, and in 1947 she began her first post-war peacetime voyage. There recommenced an era of leisurely and, with varying degrees, luxury travel, but in the late 1950s jet travel began to encroach on the dominance of even the fastest ship on the ocean. In May 1967 Cunard announced that the Queen Mary would be retired and sold, and in July the offer of $3.45 million from the city of Long Beach was accepted.
On September 22, 1967 the Queen Mary left New York for her final transatlantic crossing. I was there. There was excitement and wonder in the air as we looked down the harbor to the berth where the Queen Mary was docked. Sadly, I was not appropriately impressed by the occasion; I was on my own first transatlantic voyage, leaving on the S.S. United States to spend a college year in London.
 |
| Queen Mary Shuffleboard Court |
I had been thinking about the Queen Mary experience, and then this morning, CBS's Sunday Morning featured a piece on the ship, and it reminded me again especially of its wartime history. You can see that at http://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-salute-to-the-queen-mary/.
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Tasting for the Cure
We've been driving under "Beer-Wine-Food - Sept. 5-6" banners for a couple weeks now, strung across the streets leading in to the village of Glendale from all directions (we live just to the north of Glendale). I finally remembered to go the website mentioned on the banner to find out what good thing was happening so close to where we live.
It was a beer and wine tasting event on Friday and Saturday evening, with over 100 varieties promised. The "food" part of the promotion focused on Cincinnati's "Porkopolis" history, this year calling for all things bacon. Fine for the beer part of the tasting, I thought, but not so much for the wine.
The online brochure also noted a rather hefty entrance fee: $30 for a tasting admission (wristband, 5 tasting tickets, and a commemorative glass) and $10 for a non-tasting admission (no wristband, no tickets, and no glass--just the privilege of walking around and watching the people, I guess). Nevertheless, we were driving, so we purchased one tasting admission and one non-tasting; five tastes was sufficient to share between two people, and we are good enough friends that we can also share the glass.
Our first taste was a too-sweet sangria, and from then on we looked only for the driest red wine at each stand. We found a few and had some pleasant chats with the volunteer pourers at the booths. They couldn't tell us much about the wines, though, as they really were volunteers for the charity portion of this event, which benefits a foundation called The Cure Starts Now, devoted to pediatric brain cancer research. We did learn the names and locations of a couple of interesting local wineries, and we also learned that The Cure Starts Now funds an annual two-week research symposium in Cincinnati that draws the top researchers from around the world. Not bad for a "homegrown" charity only in its seventh year.
In between sips and chats we meandered around the attractive village square, which is off the beaten path (main street) by which we usually drive through Glendale, and I made note of the lovely gift shop, a small bakery, and a couple eating establishments that seemed a few cuts above most of the baconed snacks being served on the street that night. Glendale has only a few over 2,000 inhabitants and was incorporated in 1855 as Ohio's first and one of the nation's first planned communities. An early suburban area, it lies next to a direct railroad line into the city of Cincinnati, and during the brief hour and a half that we were there, freight trains rumbled within view at least six times. Indeed, the frequent nocturnal train whistles from this track have lulled me to sleep when I stayed with my sister in Wyoming and now in Springdale.
It was a beer and wine tasting event on Friday and Saturday evening, with over 100 varieties promised. The "food" part of the promotion focused on Cincinnati's "Porkopolis" history, this year calling for all things bacon. Fine for the beer part of the tasting, I thought, but not so much for the wine.
The online brochure also noted a rather hefty entrance fee: $30 for a tasting admission (wristband, 5 tasting tickets, and a commemorative glass) and $10 for a non-tasting admission (no wristband, no tickets, and no glass--just the privilege of walking around and watching the people, I guess). Nevertheless, we were driving, so we purchased one tasting admission and one non-tasting; five tastes was sufficient to share between two people, and we are good enough friends that we can also share the glass.
Our first taste was a too-sweet sangria, and from then on we looked only for the driest red wine at each stand. We found a few and had some pleasant chats with the volunteer pourers at the booths. They couldn't tell us much about the wines, though, as they really were volunteers for the charity portion of this event, which benefits a foundation called The Cure Starts Now, devoted to pediatric brain cancer research. We did learn the names and locations of a couple of interesting local wineries, and we also learned that The Cure Starts Now funds an annual two-week research symposium in Cincinnati that draws the top researchers from around the world. Not bad for a "homegrown" charity only in its seventh year.
In between sips and chats we meandered around the attractive village square, which is off the beaten path (main street) by which we usually drive through Glendale, and I made note of the lovely gift shop, a small bakery, and a couple eating establishments that seemed a few cuts above most of the baconed snacks being served on the street that night. Glendale has only a few over 2,000 inhabitants and was incorporated in 1855 as Ohio's first and one of the nation's first planned communities. An early suburban area, it lies next to a direct railroad line into the city of Cincinnati, and during the brief hour and a half that we were there, freight trains rumbled within view at least six times. Indeed, the frequent nocturnal train whistles from this track have lulled me to sleep when I stayed with my sister in Wyoming and now in Springdale.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)