Sunday, July 04, 1999
Nothing new in Springer bio
BY JIM KNIPPENBERG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Same old stuff: Well this is too bad: Here's a new bio of our own Jerry Springer and it's all, well, white bread.
The Outrageous Jerry Springer (Blake; $26) by Brits Ian Markham-Smith and Liz Hodgson is “unauthorised,” but most of its 337 pages is stuff Springer already wrote about in his Ringmaster bio.
Until page 269, when it gets mildly uncomfortable: his iffy relationship with wife, Micki, and their split residences (he in Chicago, she in a $1.1 mil home in Florida) and his hostility when asked.
There are also tidbits about his taste for “good-time girls ... a string of sexy strippers, pouting porno stars, alluring cover girls and busty beauties.”
Lotsa locals show up — politicians Tom Luken, Tim Burke, Willis Gradison, Guy Guckenberger, Ted Berry, Simon Leis, former Enquirer columnist Frank Weikel — but most of it is stuff we've already heard.
Yawn.
YOU MEAN HERE???: Who would have thought this: Covington a big tourist destination?
Yep, says the June-July German Life Magazine in a feature on MainStrasse that covers everything from the Goose Girl Fountain to the glockenspiel to general architecture.
The story is about the German heritage in nine cities, but Covington is the focus.
German Life Magazine is English language, aimed at Americans of German descent and international, but circulates mostly in the United States.
ZAHA WATCH: It's getting to be a full-time job keeping track of this woman. Zaha Hadid, we mean.
The London architect who's designing the new Contemporary Arts Center is getting mega press for her concepts and success at cracking architecture's old boy network.
London's Independent on Sunday just devoted four glowing pages to her:
“Those of us who stay alive for the next few decades will find ourselves literally in the shadows that Hadid has created ... an architect's architect ... Hadid seems so much more than the sum of her parts ... ”
It also touches on her not so warm and fuzzy side: “A "difficult' reputation ... abrasiveness, arrogance and downright contrariness ... I can't say I came away from Cromwell Road liking Zaha Hadid, but I certainly respected her.”
The Economist respects her, too. It gets all hot and bothered about how she “takes on the big boys in the tough international competitions ... her zestful disregard for conventional shapes and traditional angles ... buildings that do not look like buildings at all.”
The new CAC, Economist says, is “openings and ramps that seem to pull the street into the building, then twist into walls and finally blend into interior staircases.” Like the Independent it, too, takes a swing at “her imperious ways.”
Knip's Eye View appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Have an item to report? Call Jim Knippenberg at
768-8513; fax: 768-8330.
