Cincinnati and I met in music before we met in person.
It happened when I stumbled upon Over the Rhine's CD Good Dog Bad Dog. I was completely taken by it and only began to glimpse why when I learned the band took its name from the historically German part of their home city. I grew up in St. Louis, in similar circumstance, in a neighborhood called "Dutchtown" ("Deutsch" before Missouri mouths got hold of the word). I was glad to know art of the caliber Over the Rhine produced--sublime, hauntingly lovely--had grown and been nurtured in soil so familiar. They revealed to me the unsuspected mysticism in being Midwestern.
This year I left my childhood river city; now here I am on the banks of the Oho. Now I have met in person the spirit in Cincinnati I once only knew from songs. It is different from the spirit of St. Louis, but only by a hairsbreadth. The bridges go (roughly) north-south here, not east-west. No matter how many streets I go down, the houses Iíve loved since childhood are never around the next corneróas I expect them to be, the architecture being nearly identical. The grittier urban landscapes here are masked by novelty so I cannot see them as they are--whereas in St. Louis, I could not see them because I knew them too well.
In coming to Cincinnati, I seem to have stepped into a world parallel to the one I left. Still there are old houses standing proud of their unique characters; still artists are numerous but largely unsung; still each neighborhood is a city--if not a country--unto itself.
And the one point of difference I have discerned so far--a sense I had when I arrived that some sadness hangs over the city--may be an illusion. Perhaps I am only imagining this vague melancholy. Or perhaps the sadness hangs over St. Louis, too, but I could never notice it while I was in its midst. If it exists, perhaps it, too, is a product of our shared German heritage. The Germans, after all, followed the Norse in their mythology where all things come to a bad end. What matters is not the victory. What matters is fighting well.