Look up, look out, everywhere you look, the town is going ballistic. The Goodtime III is bringing back the Roar on the Shore rock & roll cruises on Lake Erie, and they’ve booked a couple of cool Cleveland artists, Chayla Hope and Wave Rowanne. Holden Arboretum is offering a tour with a horticulturist to learn what plants butterflies need to help protect the environment.A perennial favoriteamong the cognoscenti, the Lakewood Arts Festival takes over Detroit Avenue, while GlamGore commits Seven Deadly Sins, and Vintage Ohio celebrates the wines of our region, while Convergence-Continuum opens a new show about nerdy teens and an abusive teacher. And CoolCleveland travel writer Claudia Taller explores Little Italy on foot.
Enjoy the Slovenian Zabava! party in the St. Clair neighborhood, stumble on something cool at the Beachland Flea, revel in the fun at the Puerto Rican Fest, indulge in funnel cakes and corn dogs (and so much more) at the Cuyahoga County Fair. CoolCleveland columnist and former judge C. Ellen Connally outlines all the reasons we need a change in the Ohio Supreme Court, no bones about it. And we’re celebrating the news that the anti-gerrymandering issue gathered almost twice the signatures necessary, and has met the qualifications to be on the ballot in November. Time to bring fair elections back to Ohio before we blow a gasket.
Look up! The Cleveland Museum of Natural History is celebrating Meteor Appreciation Day on Sun 8/4, noon to 2PM. Get an up-close look at COSMO, the largest meteorite in the Museum’s collection. “Shower” our astronomers with all your questions about the universe at “Ask an Astronomer.”
Other activities include crafting comets, reconstructing this season’s constellations, space bingo, and watching the sun put on a show with our guided solar viewing! This event is included with general admission and is free for Cleveland and East Cleveland residents as part of our Mandel Community Days. Reserve tickets now. Read more.
There’s been some good news on the Ohio elections front recently. We learned that the issue to create a nonpartisan citizens redistricting commission easily cleared the bar to be on the November ballot, with one of the largest numbers of signatures ever gathered for an Ohio ballot issue. Republicans are melting down with absurd claims, such as that Nancy Pelosi will be drawing Ohio’s districts (As a Californian and an elected official, she’s not eligible for the commission.)
We also got the welcome news that a federal judge struck down a provision in Ohio voter suppression bill 458 that barred anyone other than an elections official, postal worker or a small list of relatives from handling someone’s ballot, effectively disenfranchising many disabled and elderly housebound voters whose caregivers could be charged with a crime just for dropping their ballot in the mailbox. Read more.
One of Cleveland’s most history-laden neighborhoods is Little Italy, where Italian immigrants settled in the late 19th century, many of them bricklayers who helped build the surrounding area including Lake View Cemetery. It’s easy to take the area for granted, but CoolCleveland columnist Claudia Taller recently joined a walking tour to explore to learn more about the area close up at a leisurely pace.
The tour rambled from the Cozad-Bates House in University Circle, a landmark in the abolitionist movement, up Mayfield to the 125-year-old Alta House founded by John D. Rockefeller, where boxers used to train. It took in a statue of baseball hero Rocky Colavito installed in Tony Brush Park in 2021 to honor the sports star of Italian descent. Read more.
For many years now, Tremont’s Lincoln Park has been filled with music, dance and theater on weekends during Arts in August Tremont. Cleveland Public Theatre’s teen program STEP kicks things off on Saturday August 3 with their take on Pinocchio, followed the next day by Cleveland Shakespeare Festival’s King Lear. The next weekend is dance; the following two weekends you can hear Latin music and jazz – and it’s all free. Read more.
A decade ago, the Roar on the Shore concerts on the Goodtime III were a really big deal, with some of the buzziest bands in town playing on the lake cruise. And they always sold out. Now Roar is back, taking to the lake on Wednesday August 7, with two current buzzy acts, pop diva Chayla Hope, whose former band Seafair was one of the headliners back in the day, and electro-dance duo Wave Rowanne. And yes, it will probably sell out so grab tickets now. Read more.
When we last spoke to Cleveland-based conductor Lorenzo Lopez earlier this year, he had just been awarded the Resphigi Prize and was making his conducting debut at Carnegie Hall. Since that time, he’s been busy with a conducting fellowship at the prestigious Domaine Forget in Quebec, Canada, studying with Yannick Nézet-Séguin. He returns to Northeast Ohio to conduct the Video Game Symphony as part of Music at Main at Cleveland Public Library’s Main Library Eastman Reading Garden this Sat 8/3 at 2PM. Read more.
The prestigious Cleveland Arts Prize has announced their 2024 Discipline and Special Award winners: Emerging Arts Prize: Amber N. Ford (Visual Arts); Mid-Career Prize: Clint Needham (Music); Lifetime Achievement Prize: Barbara Bosworth (Visual Arts); Robert P. Bergman Prize: Shannon Morris (Founding Executive Director, Artful Cleveland); Martha Joseph Prize for Distinguished Service to the Arts: Dr. Ronald and Eugenia Strauss (Founders, CityMusic); Barbara Robinson Prize for the Advancement of the Arts: Ellen Stirn Mavec (President and Chairman of The Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation). Read more.
MON 8/5 Vibrant Art Visual Vibration is the name of a three-artist show now hanging at the LGBT Center of Great Cleveland. It was curated by artist Kelly Pontoni who did a large survey of area LGBTQ artists back in 2021. It’s open weekdays through August.
In November voters will have a chance to replace the right-wing Republican majority on the Ohio Supreme Court who recently ruled that Ohio citizens can’t sue if their boneless chicken has bones, even if the bone causes an injury. Instead, Ohio voters can elect three highly qualified Democrats to join current sitting justice, Democrat Jennifer Brunner. Justice Michael Donnelly is a former Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge who is completing his first six-year term on the Supreme Court. Justice Melody Stewart is a former Cuyahoga County Court of Appeals Judge who is also completing her first six-year term on the Supreme Court. Judge Lisa Forbes is currently a judge on the Cuyahoga County Court of Appeals and is seeking election to the Ohio Supreme Court.
It is important for voters to stay in the polling place and vote the entire ballot in the coming election. There are important races for the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court and Court of Appeals. The seats on the Ohio Supreme Court represent Democrat’s only hope of maintaining some form of sanity in decisions by the high court. Read this analysis from CoolCleveland columnist and former judge C. Ellen Connally here.
