IkasuCon got off to a slow start at the Cincinnati Convention Center,
so the author decided to wander around a few downtown blocks, to see
how the city had changed in the four years since he had last been in
the city.
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The Queen City now has a pair of $400 million sports palaces on the
riverfront. The Paul Brown Stadium was a shell in 1999, and now it's
finished. Now, the Cincinnati Bengals get to try and put a decent team
in the state of the art facility.
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Big cities have been placing colorful art displays downtown, based on
cultural icons. Chicago had cows, Cedar Rapids had Grant Wood statues,
Baltimore had fish and Indianapolis had race cars. In honor of the
Reds, Cincinnati has baseball bats.
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But just down the street from the bats is another cultural icon that
Cincinnati's city fathers would rather have out of downtown, the
Hustler store started by Larry Flynt. There were no police around
busting the store's merchandise when the author strolled by.
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Then the author found the convention's guests of honor and managed to
tag along. Actor Monica Rial was fresh from a convention in Florida
from the previous week.
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Artist Robert DeJesus and his wife, Emily, were on hand to sell stuff
they made through their Studio Capsule business, and there were fans
waiting for them to show up.
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