Thursday, February 10, 2000
Ky. family looks great in skates
BY JIM KNIPPENBERG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Merciful heavens, talk about your icy families. That Miller clan of Crescent Springs is one.
Iciest of the bunch — and star of the week — is 18-year-old Jesi Miller, who even as we speak is in Cleveland competing in the U.S. Figure Skating Championships with pairs partner Jeff Weiss of San Jose. That's also where she lived the past year, training 30 hours a week.
But she's still a member of the Northern Kentucky Skating Club and her family's still here: Dad Hugh manages an ice rink and coaches a hockey team; mom Stephanie is a figure skating coach; brother Eric is a hockey player.
Miller and Weiss qualified for the championships by winning silver in the Senior Pairs at the Midwest Sectionals. They were No. 1 in the short program (side by side triple toe loops and a throw triple salchow did the trick) and No. 2 in the long program.
As of now, they're scheduled to show up 1-3 p.m. today on ESPN2 (schedules are always tentative) and in ABC's coverage (4-6 p.m. and 9-11 p.m. Saturday) if they land in the top five in the short program.
Meanwhile, a few years hence, watch out for Amberley Village's Rob Shmalo. He's in Cleveland right now competing in junior ice dance, just one step below the Olympics' senior level.
NEW YORK RAVES: So who, you were wondering, was that lady in huge sunglasses and huge fake fur hat pulled way down at the Cincinnati Symphony's Carnegie Hall concert?
It was Yoko Ono, says florist Dennis Buttelwerth, who sat in front of her at the concert and chatted with her during intermission.
She was there because she was a friend of the late Lenny Bernstein and wanted to hear the CSO do his Prelude, Fugue and Riffs. But also, she told Buttelwerth, she's something of a CSO fan and tries to hear all their New York concerts.
Elsewhere on that same trip, conductor Jesus Lopez-Cobos threw a 50th birthday party for new wife Brigitte and 17 guests at Domingo's, the place Placido Domingo owns.
Domingo wasn't there but he called to wish Brigitte happy birthday and arranged a quartet to greet them and waiters (all singers) to belt out Happy Birthday.
ENOUGH, OK? That from the Contemporary Arts Center, where a misunderstanding is causing fits.
The CAC, recall, has the Celeste Boursier-Mougenot exhibit From Here to Ear, featuring 50 zebra finches free-flying and making music on miked hangers, giving the show a magical musical feel.
Eye View said so Jan. 27 and added a note about disposal once the exhibit ends: “They'd (CAC) like to find a good home for the entire colony, all 50 plus, but if it gets to be a crisis (the CAC isn't equipped to be a hatchery) they'll let the birds go in small groups.” We meant to good families with proven finch histories.
But animal rights people took it to mean they were going to open a window or something.
Well, oops.
Since we published that item, CAC director Charles Desmarais and exhibit designer Kim Humphries have gotten some heat.
“It was never our intention to let them go. That would be inhuman,” Desmarais says.
Humphries adds, “And we think we've found a home with a local woman. Sounds like a great home, but we're still going to meet with her and check out her house. She's even building an aviary for them.”
OK? OK.
Knip's Eye View appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Have an item to report? Call Jim Knippenberg at 768-8513; fax: 768-8330.
