Here at the CR office, we’re usually focused on reading and discussing manuscripts, copy-editing and proofing, and plowing through the production process toward that shining goal: publication. But for once we thought it would be fun to give blog followers a deeper look at our small, hodgepodge community. We do more than argue over the merits of the Oxford comma, you know. (For the record, most of us are in favor.) So we polled, probed, and otherwise cajoled staff and volunteers into sharing their secret talents. Here they are:
In addition to being the glue that binds the whole CR operation, managing editor Nicola Mason is an urban beekeeper. Besides hosting eighty thousand honey bees in her own backyard, she is frequently hired to perform hive removals in the Cincinnati area and beyond, relocating bees that have made their homes attics and garages and other places people prefer they don’t.
Pressed on the topic of his secret talent, editorial assistant Brian Brodeur confesses: “On Tuesday nights, after 10:00 p.m., I frequent Arlin’s bar in Clifton, where I belt out Britney Spears tunes on karaoke. That’s right, only songs by Britney, and mostly just ‘Baby One More Time’—my favorite. The kicker: I’m good. People applaud, and buy me beers, and pat my butt. It’s amazing.”
Every Sunday morning, associate editor Becky Adnot-Haynes dresses entirely in spandex, drives to Burnett Woods—a park adjacent to the University of Cincinnati—and flies on the trapeze. This involves jumping from a board two stories off the ground and swinging forth, trusting that the catcher will catch her (he almost always does). Apart from passing her doctoral exams, Becky thinks that catching her back-end straddle whip was probably her greatest accomplishment of the past several months.
Editorial assistant Chelsie Bryant is divided on her secret talent: “I was going to say baking cookies, but maybe it’s truly cat charming? I guess it’s a tossup. But for real, I’m really good at both.” We would like to note that these two qualities, in addition to her penchant for wearing cardigans, make Chelsie, despite her youth, an honorary grandma.
Stay tuned—more secret talents to come later this month!
