07.03-07.10.2019 Curiosity

07.03-07.10.19
Curiosity

Curious about your community? You’ve come to the right place.

Akron’s Acid Cats are launching their latest release, Curiosity, at Musica this week. The Pith and Root of Sleep bring together dance, improvised acoustic music and visuals in a free outdoor performance at Forest Hill Park. Bring your pooch to the Dog Days of Summer in Painesville. Fireworks will be everywhere, but you can blow up some rockets of your own at the Lake Erie Nature & Science Center’s Family Rocket Night.

CoolCleveland Commentator C. Ellen Connally can relate to the unwarranted attacks on Presidential candidate Kamala Harris, who positively scares our commentator Mansfield Frazier. Wondering where to shop local? Cruise the Cleveland Bazaar at Market Square Park or head over to Lakewood for the pop-up market at Mahall’s. Detroit Shoreway gets ready for the 93rd annual Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Italian Festival. And get ready for the inaugural BorderLight International Theatre + Fringe Festival of performance coming soon. Only for the curious. –Thomas Mulready

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Photo by Thomas Mulready

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A Theater Feast

Northeast Ohio has a passion for the arts, as its enormous range of both heritage and start-up arts organizations, businesses, promoters, ensembles and creatives demonstrates. Last year’s FRONT triennial brought top international visual artists to Cleveland while also showcasing local talent.

This year’s BorderLight International Theatre + Fringe Festival is planning to do the same thing for the performance arts, with performers from Syria, Korea and Bolivia – and Gordon Square, Collinwood and Fairfax. But its time frame is much more compressed, with more than 100 performances in four days, so you need to do some planning. We’re giving your a heads-up. Wed 7/24-Sat 7/27.

SPONSORED: Lakewood Arts Festival on Sat 8/3 from 10AM to 6PM. On one glistening summer day each year, Lakewood hosts a juried arts festival with 180 regional/national artists, drawing 15,000 collectors and festival-goers. Founded in 1978, the Festival is one of Lakewood’s favorite traditions, funding scholarship and grant programs for Lakewood based arts education programs. Join us! LakewoodArtsFest.org

Akron’s Funky Acid Cats Hit Their Mark

Akron ensemble Acid Cats had a bumpy start. While their 2013 debut album Crosby Street introduced listeners to their spirited funky music, it was recorded in a rush. And the 2015 follow-up, All in a Day’s Work, was, says the band’s trumpeter & vocalist Tommy Lehman, “too put together. We had too much time on it.”

He feels they’ve finally struck the right balance on Curiosity, which they’ll introduce at a show at Akron’s Musica Fri 7/5. It features mostly hard-driving instrumentals with more complex harmonies and some serious horn solos. It showcases Lehman’s contention that the members of the band have grown as musicians in their time together.

Baldwin Wallace professor/radio host/author/ comedian Ken Schneck has followed up last year’s LGBTQ Cleveland with a new book, LGBTQ Columbus featuring more than 150 photos covering 50 years of the city’s LGBTQ history. And he was just named editor of statewide bimonthly magazine Prizm.

* Kent’s public radio station WKSU 89.7 FM has something for those who want to hear still more about the Cuyahoga River even after the Xtinguish and Cuyahoga50 celebrations, which celebrated the rivers progress since its last fire 50 years ago. WKSU’s five-part series, Watershed, explores different aspects of the river and its watershed – its history, uses and future. The segments can be streamed online.

Rating Kamala’s Blackness

Writer C. Ellen Connally recalls visiting cousins in South Carolina in the 1950s who were bullied and intimidated by darker-skinned peers for having light skin and straight hair. “The unwarranted attacks on the racial identity of presidential candidate and California Senator Kamala Harris are no different than what happened to my cousins,” she suggests.

She says of Harris, “When she comes into a room no one asks to see her family tree. She’s perceived as a black woman. She sees herself as a black woman. She accepts her racial identity and wears it proudly. There is no reason for her racial identity to be defined by a set of artificial norms set up by people who just throw stones and criticize.

July 2019 at Melt Bar and Grilled

For July, Melt Bar and Grilled showcases the Firecracker Chicken Grilled Cheese: Hot & Spicy Diablo Fried Chicken, Sweet Grilled Pineapple, Cool Fresh Avocado, Pepper-Jack Cheese, available as Vegetarian or Vegan. Pair it with a Summertime Classic Side like the Watermelon Salad: Fresh watermelon, crisp cucumbers, red onion, cherry tomatoes, feta cheese topped with a lemon poppyseed vinaigrette. Save room for Campfire S’mores Bread Pudding.

Melt News: Vegan Macaroni & Cheese is here! Also available as a side dish with any sandwich. We will be pouring Breckenridge Agave Wheat all summer and donating $1 for each pint sold to help preserve our national parks. Check out Lakewood Summer Meltdown Sun 7/13.

Late Cleveland poet Daniel Thompson was an angel for the homeless. He was also a member of multi-rhythmic global music ensemble Drumplay. It’s fitting that they’re performing at the BOP STOP to benefit the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless. Sun 7/7

* The Pith and Root of Sleep combine dance, improvised acoustic music & visuals in a free outdoor performance at Forest Hill Park. Sun 7/7.

* Brent Kirby brings the music to Warehouse Wednesday at Worthington Yards. Wed 7/10.

* oWow Radio’s Happy Hour concerts kick off for the summer at the Music Box. Wed 7/10.

* You may not be ready to think about cold & snow but the Brite Winter festival is accepting performer applications for next February.

WED 7/3
Fairport Harbor’s annual Mardi Gras kicks off five fun-packed days with a parade this evening, rides, food, games, a “Jeep Invasion,” special days for kids, senior and veterans, and fireworks at dusk on Sun 7/7 to bring it all to an explosive end.

* The Blossom Festival Band performs its annual “Salute to America” at Blossom Music Center with fireworks & the 1812 Overture, of course. Also tomorrow

* Blow up some rockets at the Lake Erie Nature & Science Center’s Family Rocket Night.

Click here for more events on Wed 7/3

THU 7/4
It won’t be hard to find a fireworks display near your this evening. In addition to Cleveland’s big Light Up the Lake display on the downtown waterfront, cities from Oberlin, Strongsville and Berea to Mentor and Geneva-on-the-Lake to Akron will be hosting the traditional holiday shows.

* Sing out loud and proud at LGBTOKE at the Grog Shop.

Click here for more events on Thu 7/4

FRI 7/5
Slap a leash on your canine friend and bring him/her down to the Painesville Square for Dog Days of Summer. There’ll be games, contests, dog treats and vendors with pet-related items for the animal lover in you, and for your pet, of course.

* Baldwin Wallace University officially unveils its new All-Star Students Veterans Center.

* The Cleveland Orchestra keeps the July 4th party going at Blossom Music Center with Gershwin and fireworks. Also tomorrow.

* Columbus’ Whirlybirds bring their lively, eclectic jazz to the BOP STOP.

* New Transformer Station group show explores the diversity of the human body.

Click here for more events on Fri 7/5

SAT 7/6
If you have some gift-buying occasions on your calendar and don’t like to give generic stuff, stop at the Cleveland Bazaar at Market Square Park or head over to Lakewood for the pop-up market at Mahall’s to find locally crafted, unusual & one-of-a-kind items.

* The Lantern Theater presents The Declaration of Independence & other historical documents with music, comedy and embellishment. Also tomorrow.

* Cuyahoga River photo show moves to Kent’s North Water Street Gallery. Through Sat 8/10.

* Meet local writers at Loganberry Books’ Author Alley during the Larchmere Street Festival.

Click here for more events on Sat 7/6

SUN 7/7
Oberlin’s Weltzheimer/Johnson House shows how architect Frank Lloyd Wright translated his ideas into living spaces for ordinary middle-class families. The house is open to the public for docent-led tours the first Sunday of the month, April through November.

* Cleveland Museum of Art show explores the function of monsters in medieval art.

* Pennsylvania’s Grkman Family band hosts a polka party at Kirtland’s SNPJ Farm.

* Catch a dragonfly or butterfly and earn a free burger at Geauga Park District’s Swine Creek Reservation.

Click here for more events on Sun 7/7

MON 7/8
Are you more fascinated than repulsed when it comes to bats? Join the Summit Metro Parks staff at the Big Bend area this evening to trap bats with nets in order to study them close up and gather information about them.

* Slow Roll Cleveland bike ride rolls out of Waterloo Arts & tours North Collinwood.

Click here for more events on Mon 7/8

TUE 7/9
Numerous area groups are working to restore Cleveland’s once lush, now decimated tree canopy. Tonight Ohio City Inc hosts a forum called “Oh, for the Love of Trees” at the Breen Center where experts will talk about the efforts to reforest the area, with a focus on Ohio City.

* The Dark Room open mic at CPT gives writers the chance to hear their works in progress read by actors.

Click here for more events on Tue 7/9

WED 7/10
The Detroit Shoreway neighborhood has changed radically in 93 years, from a bustling, tight-knit ethnic community, to a down-on-its-heels neglected corner, to a thriving arts/hipster mecca today. What hasn’t changed is Our Lady of Mount Carmel’s 93-year-old Italian festival, which welcomes everyone. Through Sun 7/14.

* Ohio City Stages returns to Hingetown with Niger’s Tal National.

Click here for more events on Wed 7/10

Send your cool events to: Events@CoolCleveland.com

Kamala Harris Scares Me

There is no doubt that Kamala Harris would make a great president – by now that should be a point most observers would, as lawyers are wont to say, be willing to stipulate. Her credentials are impeccable and it’s extremely doubtful…

* Wagging the Dog tRump came into office stating that he didn’t want to get entangled in foreign conflicts, but once he saw that his approval ratings were never going to come anywhere close to 50 percent, he withdrew from the Iranian nuclear arms deal…

Read other stories from Mansfield Frazier here