Open your heart and let the love pour out. Make your move at a dance party in the street in Ohio City. Celebrate the Ohio Burlesque Festival’s 10th anniversary. Volunteer to help remove invasive plants at the CVNP. Learn about Lake Erie Awareness Day on South Bass Island. Experiment with music at Outlab at BOP STOP. Hear Ohio’s next governor Nan Whaley speak at the City Club.Make a difference this week. Wondering why the August primary had an historically low turnout? Want to do something about it? Change the world this week, and pour yourself out there.
When the Ohio Burlesque Festival launched back in 2011, it was a one-evening affair featuring about 15 acts, mostly local and regional. How things of changed! As it celebrates its 10th anniversary (it lost two years to the pandemic) it’s now a three-night extravaganza with 60 performers from across the country, as well as Brazil and Japan.
Founder Bella Sin has also become one of the country’s standout burlesque performers & the contacts she’s made have allowed her to put on one of the burlesque’s premier events, featuring burlesque and drag artists of all sizes, color, genders and performance styles. Read more
As intended by the Republicans on the redistricting commission, the second of two Ohio primaries this year attracted historically low turnout, with about 8% of registered voters getting to the polls. Cuyahoga County did a little better at 10.4%. This is the result of sowing confusion about the primary dates & what’s on the ballot.
The upshot is that state legislators who were on the ballot August 2 were chosen by a tiny handful of voters. Yet it’s these legislators who have enormous impact on our lives, as they defy the will and priorities of voters to flood the streets with guns and ban abortion while neglecting policies that could make Ohio stronger. The fewer people who vote, the less accountable legislators are. Read more
Form 1964-1975 George Shuba had unparalleled access to musicians as they came through Cleveland, including on the nationally syndicate Upbeat Show. Now Cleveland International Images, an offshoot of the Cleveland International label that made Meat Loaf famous, has acquired his images for national distribution. Among them: the Beatles arriving in Cleveland in 1964. Read more
Rapper/singer Machine Gun Kelly, who spent part of his teen years in NE Ohio, is headlining a concert at the lakefront stadium Saturday 8/13. Earlier that day, the Rock Hall will be hosting “MGK Day” on its plaza, with activities for all ages. Read more
Why complain when you can make positive change? Get with your friends at the Fair, organize at a Farmers Market, eat cookies with candidates, register folks to vote at a music festival, talk to voters and distribute needed food at the same time.
Change the world while having some fun this week. Read more.
WED 8/17 Time for a Change? If Ohio’s increased poverty, worsening education & addiction to guns has you discouraged, check out Democratic candidate for governor, Nan Whaley, speaking at the City Club today & see what she has to offer.* The Music Settlement hosts old-time folk jam session.
Paul Laurence Dunbar was born in Dayton, Ohio on June 27, 1872. He died in Dayton, Ohio on February 9, 1906. In the years in between, according to Gene Andrew Jarrett’s new biography, Paul LaurenceDunbar — The Life and Times of a Caged Bird, he became the most multifaceted professional African-American writer of the turn of the century, successful in the high culture of poetry, fiction, and essays and popular culture of vaudeville, lyrics and theater.In the late 19th century, going to college and advancing his studies was not an option for Dunbar. But this did not deter him from making his literary voice heard. Taking a job in Dayton as an elevator operator at four dollars a week, he continued to write, literally between floors. Read the BOOK REVIEW by C. Ellen Connally here
