Paul:

With regards to your aside regarding the Ohioans as the "punningest" people you have ever met - I haven't noticed, but I suppose it's better than they being the "puniest" people you have ever met.

With regards to assimilating Ohio culture, let me give you some of my impressions, having now lived here along the banks of the fabled Olentangy almost exactly one year: you've never tasted sweet corn until you've had Ohio sweet corn. Ohio also has terrific brotwursts, and Columbus also has a much more varied and qualitatively superior restaurant scene than Salt Lake. I'm of couse assuming that you agree to the proposition that cuisine is a part of culture.

As for the "arts." There is a thriving art gallery scene in Columbus. One of the hippest parts of town is the gallery section, which has the wonder appellation of the "Short North." The Wall Street Journal a few days ago ran an article on Columbus in which they touted the town as the "new bohemia" (last year, Newsweek labeled the city as one of the best places to live, too), as so many artists from New York and Boston have relocated here in recent years.

Cost of living is one of the factors. The highly reviewed and quickly becoming renowned Wexner Center on the OSU campus is one of the best gallery/art spaces in the country, a multi-purpose-art space sort of big tent arena where all the arts - from visual art, to performance art, to dance, to theater, to literary arts - can be showcased. And need I say the literary arts, especially since the arrival of poets Kathy and Stuart, are thriving,too.

Columbus is now the biggest city in Ohio, and the scene is broadening every day, it seems. If the civic boosters were really on the kitch ball, they might have a poster that read, Come to Colombus; enjoy a brot and art."

So, it doesn't quite rhyme. Whaddaya want? We're "bohemians" here.