BY JIM KNIPPENBERG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Merciful heavens, look who's headed back into the Guinness Book of Records. Cincinnati. Well, maybe.
Specifically, it's Oktoberfest in what has the makings of an encore appearance: Oktoberfest was in the book for most of the '90s for the World's Largest Chicken dance (48,000 clucking people). It got bumped in the '98 book when the Canfield Fair in Canfield, Ohio, mustered 72,000.
Well, fine. Let's try something different. How about the world's largest Kazoo Band? Yeah, how about it? says Buz Buse of the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce.
To that end, he has booked Rick Hubbard, known as the King of Kazoo, to come in and lead a band he hopes will swell to 30,000, beating the current record by 9,000.
Kazoos will be provided, and never mind that it's going to sound like the world's largest fly buzzing. This is civic pride we're talking about.
Hubbard, of Hilton Head, S.C., is a well-known kazoo fan with a national publication name of Kazoobie Kids Newsletter, a Web site (http://www.kazoobie.com), thousands of personal appearances coast to coast, TV dates (including Good Morning America) and a habit of giving kazoos away -- more than half a million so far, his newsletter says.
So anyway, he'll lead the band at 6 p.m. Sept. 19 and 20. Songs? Still up in the air, but the prime contenders are "Roll Out the Barrel," chicken dance music and "Take Me Out to the Ballgame."
And by the way, isn't Oktoberfest getting a reputation for royalty? First, it was Luitpold Von Bayern, Crown Prince of Bavaria, in 1994. Now his highness, the King of Kazoo.
Is there much left?
HOT ROCKS: Wherein Tiffany & Co., as in very expensive rocks, takes time out to dress the diva.
To wit: It will bejewel soprano Carol Vaness, who makes her Cincinnati debut in Tosca today and Saturday.
The ice comes in Act Two, the scene wherein Tosca wears a lush gown that just cries out for a splendid accessory.
It gets one: A $180,000 diamond and tanzanite necklace Tiffany is loaning to the opera. Tiffany brought the bauble to town last week from its downtown Chicago store -- and, we're fairly certain, takes it home soon after the curtain falls Saturday. Not the kind of thing one leaves lying around a dressing room, you know.
The necklace is a bright blue, sapphire-looking single strand with 137 diamonds (31.91 carats total) and five tanzanites (64.40 carats total). What is a tanzanite?
Cincinnati's first chance to ooh and aah at the necklace was at a party Wednesday that Tiffany threw (at the store, of course) for opera patrons.
One more thing, this for the high rollers: It's for sale.
FRENCH TREATS: So, you were wondering, who were those people crammed into a car Sunday, waving French flags out the window? Then, draped in said flags and with faces painted to match, belting back champagne at the Waterfront.
Turns out it was Maisonette chef Jean-Robert de Cavel, pastry chef Jacques Poulaen and about 15 other members of Cincinnati's French community. They were celebrating the French soccer team's World Cup victory.
"We rented a big screen TV to watch, then took a little tour of the city with our flags," de Cavel says. "Then we went to the Waterfront and, I think, caused a small riot in the bar -- so we went outside and celebrated there." Loudly.
Psst! appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Have an item to report? Call Jim Knippenberg at 768-8513; fax: 768-8330.
KNIPPENBERG ARCHIVE
