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Ria Delight Megnin

Where the money won’t be in 2012

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Plenty of Dayton-area folks couldn’t tell you where tiny Alpha, Ohio is. It includes about six blocks of Beavercreek between 35 and Dayton-Xenia Road, and has a population of less than 200 people.

But a financial investing firm based there for 40 years has the top-performing Small-Cap Fund in the nation, and its fund family now manages just over $3 billion. Alpha’s James Investment Research firm is thriving in markets that haven’t seen such bad times since the Great Depression. And the team’s annual economic predictions have been spot on for years.

Why should you care? Because even if you have no interest in finance and think investing is only for evil corporate bankers (a surprisingly popular myth that I believe prevents us “commoners” from directing money to better purposes), the insights shared in Economic Outlook 2012 are worth knowing.*

The annual presentation and Q&A isn’t about what stocks to invest in and what bond markets to avoid. It’s an objective, insider perspective on the state of the world and our collective future, based on thousands of hours of proprietary research.

And it’s free.

The 45-minute Outlook covers the state of the economy and how it got here, as well as where it’s likely to go. JIR staff review the effects of government intervention, the European debt crisis, political & social turmoil at home, and Americans’ shifting attitudes toward debt, energy and employment. It’s global context for what we will literally see right here on Main Street in the months to come.

Fair warning: JIR’s conclusions and recommendations are firmly on the conservative side of the spectrum, and Mayan calendar interpretations aren’t included in this year’s report. But whether or not you have investments of your own, you’ll benefit from having an advance understanding of the major political and financial changes in the year to come.

*Disclosure: I am a friend of the James family, which is why a freelance writer & three-time Burning Man participant like me even knows about something like an Economic Outlook.

***

To attend

Economic Outlook 2012, presented by James Investment Research

RSVP: By Jan. 3 at 937-426-7640.

When: Tuesday, Jan. 10. Doors open at 6:30 pm, presentation begins at 7 pm

Where: Schuster Performing Arts Center, 109 N. Main St., Dayton

Tips: Business attire recommended. Complimentary parking in the Arts Garage at 2nd and Ludlow. Bring tickets for validation.

 

 

 

‘Dayton ready to help greet 1932’

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Eighty years ago, the Dayton Daily News gave the following report as Daytonians weathering the Great Depression made plans to celebrate the New Year holiday. The “clarion blasts” and “owl cars” have passed along with the heyday of hotel parties and public dances, but it’s likely their great-grandchildren will also see “many whistles made wet as usual.”

Dayton ready to help greet 1932 new year

Many public and private parties arranged for annual event

A few more hours and Dayton residents will greet a new year.

Indications Thursday were that the event which comes with the ushering in of a new cycle will be observed about as usual, with the celebrants finding their pleasure during the later hours of the evening.

All of the uptown hotels were prepared to greet little 1932 in a big way, with dances holding forth in some of them and with reservations having been received for dinner parties which will last through midnight.

‘Gaiety and splendor’

At the Biltmore the custom which was established with the opening of that hotel will be pursued, that of holding a dance to which the public is invited. The management of the hotel reported Thursday that a large number of reservations have been made and that the usual scene of gaiety and splendor is expected to prevail.

At the Miami, the Van Cleve and Gibbons there will be no public dances held, although there were numerous reservations made for private parties. On the roof of the Miami a dinner party will be given by Oscar Pryor.

All of the uptown theaters have announced that special late shows will be given. Some of these will begin at 11 p.m., some at 11:30 p.m. and a few not until the magic hour has struck.

Hangovers, ’30s style

The greater portion of the reception to the new year in Dayton, however, will have its setting in private homes. With Friday, New Year’s, a holiday on which most factories, offices and stores will be closed, the celebrants will be privileged to enter into the spirit of the occasion without the dread of what must come the “morning after” when otherwise another workday would beckon.

There have been indications for the past week that the usual noisemaking devices again will be in evidence. Bells will ring, whistles sound their clarion blasts, pistols and cannon will be fired and the new year will be given the greeting common with age-old custom.

So much for discouraging drunk driving

The managements of some of the street railway companies were undecided during Thursday as to whether extended service would be given on their lines for benefit of the merrymakers. Definite announcement was made by the City Railway Co. that its latest cars would leave Third and Main sts. at the usual hour of 12:10 a.m. The Peoples Railway Co. was not certain whether owl cars would be operated and the same was true of Oakwood and Dayton Street. The last Peoples cars under regular schedule on the Main st., Valley and Cincinnati-Leo divisions leave the center of the city at 12:10 a.m. north and south. On the Oakwood line the last car departs from Third and Main sts., south at 12:34 a.m. and north, 12:10 a.m.

When dancing actually meant dancing

The various night and dinner (venues) have announced special (merri)ment at the midnight hour. These, like the hotels, have reported that they have made heavy reservations. In all of these places dancing will be the principal attraction of the evening, with floor shows prevailing in some of them.

There were no evidence, on the surface at least, of a scarcity of some of the liquid adjuncts which go with a New Year’s celebration. Reports were to the effect that, in spite of the current economic depression, demands have been in keeping with previous years since prohibition, with every indication that there will be as many whistles made wet as usual. With it, reports say, the quality will be improved over former years and at the lower prices which have prevailed for the past few months in Dayton.

Rudolph in Dayton-land

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On Tuesday evening, I watched the 1964 TV show “Rudolph The Red-nosed Reindeer” for the first time since I was 9 or 10 years old. What a time machine! For a few precious moments I was a foot shorter, my hair in tangles, wearing my scratchy pink pajamas, watching the tiny television in our basement apartment to the rhythmic creak of Mom’s rocking chair. I still love the Christmas season, and yes, I wear a Santa hat almost everywhere I go, but it took that flashback to remember just how giddy with excitement I used to be during the most magical time of the year.

The time machine took me other places, too. A time when bosses – Santa, the elf overseer, and Rudolph’s father, the lead reindeer Donner – were angry, isolated men whose wives nagged at them to eat and tried to smooth over the feathers they ruffled. A time when “good work” meant a factory job, being happy producing goods for no wages for the world. A time when only boys played sports or could get picked for Santa’s sleigh team. A time when only people of northern European ancestry were represented, even in fantasy stories.

But also a time when things were changing. Instead of raining more authoritarian abuse on their heads, Comet tells the reindeer fawns: “I’m here as your coach, but I’m also here to be your friend, right?” Not quite the note we’d hit today – I see our culture swinging back toward structured, safe authority figures as we learn the balance of compassionate leadership – but a positive step nonetheless. And the message that misfits, too, have their place, was a nice break from the monotonous Levittown mentality of the 1950s.

If I were to write a Dayton version of “Rudolph,” I’d make him the kid with the hippie hair and an artist’s vision who no one can quite understand. The Island of Misfit Toys? The latest Occupy encampment. Christmastown would be Stivers School for the Arts, of course, and Santa the president of the school board. As for the Abominable Snowman, instead of yanking out all his teeth and shoving him off a cliff, we’ll find out he was only chasing people and roaring because he had a bad cavity, and good old Hermey the Elf Dentist will save the day by figuring it out and helping him feel better.

Yeah, this version’s not likely to delight a nation of children for decades to come! So I’ll stick to my day job. Happily, the generation that grew up on Rudolph helped make it possible for me to be a freelance writer instead of a factory worker, and I’m free to play with both reindeer and misfits. Marvelous misfits like you! How would things look in your version of “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Daytonian”?

Caroling – at The Greene?

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“Hark how the bells – ”

“How about this note? ‘Haaaaark…'”

“Hark how the – “

“Wait, that was too high for you last time, right? Let’s, um, ‘HAAARK how the BELLS…'”

“Hark how the bells, sweet silver – “

“OK, good, let’s go. Everybody? One, and a two, and a — ”

We slaughtered the rest of the song, off-key and unsure on the timing of trickier bits. Fortunately, the ever-changing flow of admiring shoppers had hit a lull, and only one mitten-clad couple walked a little faster to escape. We had a good comeback with “Jingle Bells,” though, and then “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” our specialty.

I’ve had the honor of singing carols over the past two weeks at The Greene, the giant outdoor mall off 675 in Beavercreek. It’s a visceral joy to me, caroling, the kind of delight that rises when tickling children or falling down a snow-covered slope in a tangle of teenage friends. I love it when voices weave together to make magic of the night air, traditional songs stirring the part of our hearts that longs for tribe and ritual.

And this year, I get to do it as part of a great cause. The Beavercreek Community Theatre invited volunteers to join its Chorus and provide caroling services for three hours a day on five dates throughout the holiday season. The Theatre, in return, will receive a “generous donation” from The Greene.

It’s an amount far less, I’m sure, than it would cost to pay more professional performers to wander the grassy central square, spreading holiday cheer. Even at $5 an hour and only four carolers at a time, that’d be about $6,000 for a month of serenading shoppers, not to mention the costs of managing all the paperwork or providing liability insurance for people singing in the cold for hours on end.

So I figure, if we’re sometimes a little off-key, it’s OK. You get what you pay for. And we’re not really doing it for The Greene, or for the money.

You can get this hat for $2.99 at partycheap.com. Weird after-effects glow optional.

We’re doing it for the fun. Caroling is a LOT of fun. Getting outside with new and old friends. Laughing over songs we’ve loved since kidhood. Wearing Santa hats and elf ears and plush reindeer antlers tangled with twinkle lights.

And we’re doing it for the shoppers. Especially those achingly cute toddlers who come stumbling up in full snow gear, wide-eyed, and yelp and clap and try to sing along to “Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer.” (We once sang “Rudolph” three times in 20 minutes, just because we kept getting fresh batches of adorable knee-highs coming by, staring at us in awe (or possibly confusion).) And the teenagers! “Too cool” at first, they stand giggling a few yards away until we lure them in, calling out banter and challenges until we convince them that yes, we really do want them to carol with us, and yes, all the cool kids really do join in.

We don’t take donations while caroling, and I doubt the other groups volunteering this year do, either. But we do welcome attendance at plays and direct donations to the Theatre. And even better? We definitely accept walk-on volunteers to join the caroling fun. Our final sessions are 5 to 8 pm Wed., Dec. 14 and 1 to 4 pm Wed., Dec. 21. You might find other groups there at other times, willing to welcome you into their circle of wassail.

Just bundle up warm, follow the lights to the giant tree at the center of the mall, and listen for the sound of (not-so-bad-for-amateurs) joyous singing. The Caribou Coffee hot cocoa’s on us.

“Here we come a-wassailing – “

(“Is that the note?” “Yes! Shh!”)

” – along the Mall so Greene…”

A Handmade First Friday

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If you’re reading this, you’ve most likely heard of a little thing called First Fridays. These art walks (and in some cities, African-American business networking or conservative political events) happen in urban areas all over the United States on the first Friday of each month.

first friday logoTheir goal? Connect people with their communities.

But here in Dayton, things are getting a little out of hand. First of all, you’ve got dozens of art studios, performance venues and event leaders offering so many awesome opportunities downtown, how’s a fan supposed to see it all? Second of all, pretty much everything’s free. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned capitalism?

I’m joking, of course. The Gem City’s art scene is as vibrant as any I’ve seen outside the big metropolitan meccas. And good old greedy capitalism can go take a dose of its own medicine in a third-world factory or a Dayton factory layoff line. Because you know what? We’ve got Handmade Holiday.

On the first Friday of December, for the past three to five years (yep, even the organizers can’t remember exactly how many now), Dayton’s best knitters, photographers, crafters, painters, and urban revolutionaries pack themselves into a brightly lit storefront and offer their wares to folks who care about keeping their shopping dollars local.

Etch at work at HH 2009 - photo by Melissa Trent

You can find hand-crocheted caps for babies, joke books for 8-year-olds, edgy phone pouches for the teens on your list, and enough wildly sweet local art (and cupcakes!!!) to satisfy your friends and grandparents from here to the end of Kwanzaa. And your cash? Sure, you’ll hand out more than you’d pay for one of those plastic things from a box store, stamped out by slave kids in other countries whose bosses got our old jobs. But your extra dollars will get at least one more cycle in the Miami Valley, and it makes a world of difference to the dedicated artists sharing their creative energies with us First Friday revelers.

Want to see the wares? Check out the Handmade Holiday market at the St. Clair Lofts, St. Clair Street at 4th Street (just north of the Neon and south of the Dayton Metro Library) from 5 to 10pm Friday, then 11am to 6pm Saturday.

And yes, fans, there’s talk of making this market a monthly event in 2012. Organizer(s) and venue(s) needed!

If you don’t recognize plenty of the works and their creators this weekend, keep on coming to First Fridays! It’s all about connecting us with our communities, after all.

(Click the poster to view it full-size — how many names do you recognize?)

Four reasons I’m staying in D8N

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It’s pretty much universal. No matter who I talk to – lifelong D8N residents, far-flung friends and family, and anybody living or working here now – when I tell them I moved to Dayton from California, they ask: “Why??”

It’s complicated. “I followed a boy,” I’ll say. I needed out of my evening-shift job covering & editing & posting stories on Mexican gangland killings and car crashes and other horrors for a small-staff California newspaper. It took a wonderful Dayton native to come along, sweep me off my feet, and help me  take the leap into freelancing from a new home base: the Miami Valley.

The reasons I stayed? When that boy and I decided to be “just friends” and I could have gone anywhere – Portland, San Francisco, Austin, Boston, Berlin, Beijing – I needed some time to save up cash. After a whirlwind year of travel adventures and hard (but unpaid) work helping lead a camp at the annual Burning Man festival, I also needed time to focus on building my business.

And then I started noticing four very good reasons to stay in Dayton.

1) The cost of living. Way, way cheaper than any of those other cities.

2) The weather. I grew up in Massachusetts, and survived coastal California’s months of fog and ridiculous lack of decent thunderstorms, and Dayton is an awesome blend of what’s best about both regions. We’ve got actual seasons. We’ve got summer storms and winter snows. But neither the heat nor the cold are as vicious or lasting as what I knew back East.

3) The opportunities. Well, good-paying jobs are still tough to come by in southwest Ohio, but freelancers have clients around the world. And I have a distinct advantage: I don’t need to charge New York prices! The real opportunities in Dayton are its incredible business and arts networks: thousands of small businesses and nonprofits and churches committed to making the lives of this region’s people better, as well as hundreds of museums and parks and libraries that reflect a deep, rich culture worth investing in.

4) All my new friends. Artists. Churchgoers. Grad students. Actors. Investors. Young families. Chefs. CEOs. Dancers. Writers. You don’t have to live in San Francisco to meet awesome people, after all!

What makes you glad to have the D8N region in your headlights when it’s time to head home?

Dayton librarian’s whale of an art book scores big

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Matt Kish presents “Moby-Dick In Pictures: One Drawing For Every Page”

The legendary 19th-century novel Moby-Dick, or The Whale, is a story of obsession. No one, perhaps, understands that obsession quite so well as a Dayton librarian who spent 543 days creating an illustration for each of Moby-Dick’s pages – and now has the published book to prove it.

Matt Kish, who lives in Columbus, describes the closing months as brutal: “Those final 100 or so pages, when the book itself becomes pretty bleak, I had no personal time whatsoever, and I knew the only way I was going to get my life back was to finish this project.

“The only way through it was to symbolically kill the whale myself. I isolated myself, because I felt I had to save every available ounce of energy for the project. I became just as obsessed with finishing the project as Ahab was with the whale. Thankfully, my wife stayed with me.”

The final drawing emerged Jan. 29, his book contract was completed, and now the only obsession in Kish’s life is dealing with the incredible publicity his project has generated.
“I’m simultaneously excited by it all and overwhelmed and exhausted,” he says.

A whale of a response

How much publicity? Starting just a few days into the project, his posts to a daily blog for friends and family began to be featured on literary and art websites and talked about all over the globe. In December 2009, he was invited to speak about his work in New York.

Within days, even though he hadn’t even reached the halfway mark of the book, he was approached by an agent who almost immediately landed him a publisher.

“It started slow, but then things happened with dizzying speed,” Kish recalls. “This incredibly personal exploration of the novel suddenly had a contract and a deadline.”

He speculates that there’s three reasons for the powerful response.

“Moby-Dick is a cultural touchstone. Even people that haven’t read it, they know the whale, they know Ahab, they know Ishmael, they know that it ends tragically. It’s part of our cultural consciousness. It’s really an American myth.”
The second reason? Kish is not a formally trained artist. Yet his bold, unusual style is immediately gripping, conveying a raw emotional presence with every image. Some pieces are abstract, others intensely detailed. He used spray paint, brushes and ink, ballpoint pens, colored pencil, acrylics, collage, markers, stickers. The quickest took 30 minutes, others took up to 12 hours.

“I know if my work was to be critiqued, there are long lists of errors and completely missing blocks of an art foundation,” Kish says. “I didn’t even attempt to make my illustrations historically accurate. It’s very much about my life, my perspective – it’s influenced by video games I played in the ’80s, comic books from my childhood, covers of progressive rock albums from my dad’s basement. So it’s something that’s never been seen.”
The third reason? The sheer insanity factor of anyone taking on such a monster project.

Life-long connection

“Monster” being the key word. Kish says his lifelong passion for Herman Melville’s 1851 novel began around age 5, when he saw a film version of the story.

“The movie monsters were fictional, but this grabbed me,” he says. “This was a monster that could almost have been real.”

An illustrated children’s version of the story was his next encounter with the white whale; he read the full novel for the first time in junior high. Seven more trips through the book would pass before he started the project.

“What’s odd is that each time I read it, it’s shown me things that almost seem to echo or parallel things happening in my own life — the complexities of growing up and growing old and dealing with life,” Kish says. “In some ways, really grappling with that book requires some life experience.”

In 2009, the former English teacher and bookstore clerk heard about a man illustrating every page of another famous novel.

“I was feeling very creatively restless. I wasn’t really enjoying what I was drawing anymore,” Kish says. “I realized it had been four or five years since I read Moby-Dick, the longest absence in my life. And I thought, ‘I’m just going to jump right in. It’s a way to get me closer to the book, and this is going to keep me inspired artistically.’ And the next day I got started. That was Aug. 5, 2009.”

Two years later, on Nov. 13, Kish will share his creation with readers used to seeing his touch in the DVD, CD and young adult collections. He says he’s not sure what art will flow next for him.

“This project completely shaped and structured my life every day for a year and a half, and that was really trying,” Kish says. “I had an intense sense of relief to finally be done. But I was also really wistful. All those characters had become companions to me.”

To attend

Matt Kish presents “Moby Dick In Pictures: One Drawing For Every Page” at 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 13, at the Dayton Metro Library, downtown branch, 215 E. Third St., Dayton. The event is free. Information: 937-463-2665, http://everypageofmobydick.blogspot.com.

It’s 11-11-11. Have you talked with a crystal skull lately?

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Mayan elder’s cross-country pilgrimage involved visit to Serpent Mound

Late on the afternoon of Oct. 29, Mayan elder Hunbatz Men carefully climbed the first steps of a steel observation tower overlooking the ancient Serpent Mound in southeastern Ohio.

The site was Men’s second stop on a cross-country sacred journey this fall, leading from Manhattan on Oct. 26 to its culmination today in Los Angeles, on 11-11-11.

“I’m very happy to see you here,” Men told the crowd of about 600. “We see something wrong with this crazy time, this crazy civilization. Mother Earth is in a bad situation. But many of the people here with the crystal skulls, they are bringing the light and the knowledge. Today, we bring the cosmic knowledge.”

The crystal skulls are famous in New Age circles as ancient Mayan or Aztec tools, with ancient secrets programmed into their crystalline matrices by humans or, some say, aliens. The skulls are expected to release their information as humanity enters a new era of harmony. Scientists and archaeologists say the skulls they’ve examined can be traced to German workshops of the late 1800s, and don’t reflect the artistic styles of the South American civilizations. Still, thousands of believers gather every year for ceremonies honoring the skulls and connecting with fellow visionaries of a more peaceful future.

Hunbatz Men works closely with The Cosmic Mysteries School of Kentucky to engage people in that visioning process. His tour is timed to coincide with other New Age consciousness-raising events celebrating the alignment of today’s date in the Gregorian calendar, and involves teachings on Mayan prophecies.

 

Rainbow of perfect timing

 

Gesturing to the winding, grassy curves of the quarter-mile-long snake effigy built some 1,000 years ago, Men said, “The snake, for the Mayans, is the symbol of the Milky Way, the symbol of cosmos. Coming back again is cosmic culture. We need to be happy for that. Peace is coming in that way.”

Hundreds of voices cheered as Men stepped back down to lead a ceremonial trek around the mound. Carrying smoking bundles of sage, playing rattles and drums, wearing sacred garb and chanting, he and 13 guardians of the crystal skulls led a winding line of people bundled against October’s chill. As they rounded the ancient village site at the open mouth of the snake, a brief sprinkle of rain passed over the plateau and a breeze kicked golden leaves across the sky. A few minutes later, a rainbow – the Mayan symbol of renewal and divine favor – emerged in the east.

“When we saw the rainbow, I just couldn’t help but break into tears,” said Roxana of Nashville, Tenn. “There’s a lot of nature traditions that say a light, gentle rain with the sun is a blessing from the heavens, a reminder of the divine within.”

The “divine within” and “worldwide transformation” were the predominant themes at the gathering, the second stop on Men’s cross-country pilgrimage with the crystal skulls. Besides an early afternoon teaching on the changes happening around the Earth, visitors and guardians led drum circles and dances, invited people to touch and pray with the crystal skulls, sang Native American songs and invited new connections. Seekers of all ages were drawn to the event, from hoop spinners in colorful garb to parents taking part in drum circles to white-haired veterans of the ’60s. Many traveled long distances, including one group of 15 from Cleveland, more than four hours to the north.

 

‘Absolute joy’

 

“Supposedly, the Mayan calendar ended yesterday, and this is the first day of whatever else,” said Satya, one of the Cleveland group, referring to the Oct. 28 conclusion of the ninth and final cycle described in the Mayan calendar. “The combination of the Serpent Mound and the holy grounds, having a Mayan elder here with the crystal skulls, that’s why I’m here.”

Mallory, also of the Cleveland group, said she came for the experience of “downloading the absolute joy of the energy of the skulls, while being in community. People are awakening more and more to themselves every day – how we can live, and how we’re choosing to live.”

What that life will look like depends on how much attention we pay to the natural energies around us, Men said as the group came to rest around a tree surrounded with the crystal skulls. Facing the setting sun, Men led the gathering in several minutes of toning “eee” – “This is the word for Maya to activate the body” – and “awhll” – “This is the word for the other dimension, to draw energy in.”

 

Symbol of sacred knowledge

 

“In this sacred place, the initiation is ready,” Men said. “The Christians say the snake is the devil. No! It’s the symbol of knowledge. We’re entering a New Age, not a darkness, not a time of bad ending. The Maya don’t believe this. Remember the spirit of the tree, the spirit of the cloud. The rainbow came in to move your seven powers. You’re going to wake up.”

The Cosmic Mysteries School of Kentucky invited donations and prayers, encouraging participants to ground in the positive energies of the gathering in order “to let Earth know we’re remembering the sacred knowledge.” For more information, visit www.cosmicmysteries.com/journey.

All images courtesy Ria Delight Megnin. View more photos from Serpent Mound here.

The trip’s highlights…

Oct. 26: New York City

Oct. 29: Serpent Mound, Ohio

Oct. 31: Cahokia Mounds, Collinsville, Ill.

Nov. 3: Sacred Circle Medicine Wheel, Crestone, Colo.

Nov. 7: Ceremony in Sedona, Ariz.

Nov. 11, 12, 13: Crystal Skulls World Mysteries Gateway, Los Angeles, Calif.

Nov. 13: Mayan Prophesies seminar, Los Angeles, Calif.

For details, donation options and more: www.cosmicmysteries.com/journey