STATE
CiTY BY: of the
THE CITY
MUSIC / ENTERTAINMENT / ARTS & CULTURE / LIFE / INDEPENDENT / PRESSURELIFE.COM
PressureLife vs. Becky’s Bar & Grill S AY W H AT YO U S E E
PressureLife Creative Director, Owner
Jim Bacha
Art Director
Hannah Allozi
Operations Manager
Aaron Gelston @gelston.design
Managing Editor Editor Content Strategist
Ryan Novak Alex Bieler Adam Dodd
Senior Writer
Dan Bernardi
Project Coordinator
Tiffany Fields
Staff Writers
Contributors
Kevin Naughton Gennifer Harding-Gosnell Casey Rearick
@caseyrearickphoto
Chad Weaver Katy Kosman Gabe Voss Andrew Gabriel Wilson Rivera Darrick Rutledge Eric O'Callaghan Annamarie Hudson James Douglas Distribution
PressureLife Challenges Becky’s to See Who is Better at Throwing Plastic Spheres into Red Cups won't go down without a fight. Happy Dog and Mahall’s may have kicked our collective asses, but our latest outing was a chance to challenge some establishment to a truly honorable game: beer pong.
PRESSURELIFE
Okay, maybe “honorable” isn’t the correct word, but it’s a game that should fit right in our challenge wheelhouse. We’re a ragtag group of journalists running a magazine. Beer pong has beer. That’s about as good of a fit as you’re going to get. Becky’s Bar & Grill is also well-versed in the world of beer, so we challenged them to a bestof-three beer pong match to determine who would reign supreme in our third Pressure vs… outing. Unlike our first two competitions, this challenge was full of drama. It was full of action. It was full of balls occasionally dropping in water. Unfortunately, it did not start off well. PressureLife art director Hannah Allozi and writer Darrick Rutledge dropped the first game in a close battle. To make it worse, Becky’s claimed victory by knocking the final Pressure cup off the table, a demoralizing end to the first match. Unlike other Pressure vs… challenges, there was still hope after an early deficit. After a slow start by both teams, writer Gennifer and extremely handsome editor Alex Bieler both remembered how to throw things into plastic cups. It was inspiring. The duo capped off a relatively easy victory by making the final two cups in quick succession, while the Becky’s duo could not redeem themselves with, well, redemption shots. With the match all tied up, would PressureLife falter in its (minor) moment of glory? Almost! Creative director/owner Jim Bacha and illustrator Aaron Gelston stormed out of the nonexistent gates and took a massive lead before hitting a major cold streak. Becky’s final two representatives made a valiant effort to make the game close, but Bacha sank the final cup to silence a very pro-Becky's crowd.
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After all the tosses, bounces, and flicks, the final tally was 2-to-1 in favor of PressureLife, a minor miracle after the Happy Dog and Mahall’s affairs. Now we can go into our challenges with our heads held high, at least until the next crushing defeat.
CONTENTS FEBRUARY / MARCH 2017
28
06 The Future Is Real
Journey through music and space with Columbus art rockers, Starset
30
06
08 Graffiti
Dine with the PressureLife team
10 (Dis)Regarding Henry
Tremont's got guy trouble
12 Leaving Levy
The tragic demise of Cleveland’s heart and soul
08
22
14 State of the City
Clevelanders on Cleveland
22 The First Clevelander
24
The story of Cleveland's first permanent settler, Lorenzo Carter
24 The Primal Roots of Print
10
Zygote Press is proving that print is not dead
26 Defenders of the Lake
NASA-Glenn Research Center uses rocket science to protect Lake Erie against algal blooms
28 Different Strokes: Monster Steve Ehret
Get to know your local Cleveland artists
30 St. Patrick Swayze’s Day
Celebrating the Patrick more worthy of a holiday
FOLLOW US Facebook // Twitter // YouTube // Instagram @thepressurelife
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FIND THIS GUY IN ONE OF OUR ADVERTISEMENTS + WIN $25 Weir's Waldo This Time? Weir was found by Jenna in Liquid's ad in Issue 10 of PressureLife. Weir will he be next? For your chance to score a $25 gift card, locate the elusive Weir stashed in one of our advertisements and be the first to cast his location to @thepressurelife (through Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram). #WeirInThisTogether
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The Future Is Real Columbus Art-Metal Band Starset Fuses Music To Message and Warns the World of Technological Takeover Gennifer Harding-Gosnell // Photography: Steve Gullick
O
hio band Starset is one of rock music’s biggest YouTube success stories. Though Starset only came into existence in 2013, its story begins over 100 years earlier…
Dec. 31, 1910. Engineer Nikola Tesla is working on a wireless power signal transmission system at his Wardenclyffe Tower in New York when he intercepts The Signal, a message to Earth sent from the depths of outer space. Based on his discovery, Tesla forms a secret group, The Order of Teslonia, to decode and understand the nature of The Signal. By the 1940s, The Order has received a second transmission with which they are able to decode The Signal, now becoming The Message. The United States Capitalism Oversight Organization (USCOO), a government-controlled anti-communism think tank, had been watching The Order for decades. In 1979, NASA inadvertently intercepted The Signal, which was soon seized by the USCOO. Fast forward over 30 years to 2012. Dr. Stephen Browning of the Stanford Research Institute, an astronomer at the Allen Telescope Array in Menlo Park, California, receives a letter from a German colleague requesting a scan of the heavens on New Year's Eve with specific guidelines where to point the telescopes and what to do with the data he collects. Browning follows orders and discovers an anomalous signal that appears to be coming from a star in the Ophiuchus Constellation, about
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six light years away from Earth. Dr. Browning takes the data directly to Dr. Aston Wise at the Starset Society in Sunnyvale, California as his colleague had instructed. Browning and Wise find themselves on the run from the USCOO while decoding The Message as Tesla had done over a century before. They discover that The Message is a series of warnings about the future of technology and the Earth, information the Starlight Society determines must be disseminated to the general public. The Society decide the best way to do this is through music as they can attract and reach large audiences. Dr. Wise and his assistant, Lara Godfrey, begin searching for musicians and on Feb. 26, 2013, the band Starset is formed. The chosen ones are vocalist Dustin Bates, bassist Ron DeChant, guitarist Brock Richards, and drummer Adam Gilbert. By July of that year, Starset has accepted its mission and begun releasing videos and holding “demonstrations,” otherwise known as concerts, and The Message begins to spread. By 2014, an album titled Transmissions is released and births a hit single, “My Demons,” a graphic novel, and even a fulllength book. The album debuted on Billboard charts at No. 49. Today, The Message and its audience continue to grow. A second album, Vessels, has just been released to critical acclaim. New demonstrations have also just begun—starting near the band’s home base, mid-Ohio and Michigan, and now commencing on the West Coast. Despite
The Message is a lot about automation and how it will affect our lives politically, socially and economically in the near future.
the band’s hectic schedule and the pressure of their critical mission, singer Dustin Bates was able to take a moment and provide us with some details on Starset’s second campaign to spread The Message. “The Message is a lot about automation and how it will affect our lives politically, socially, and economically in the near future. The band intends to promote the tenets of the Starset Society. It’s a style I would call ‘cinematic rock,’ which is basically a soundtrack merged with a hard rock band. [The Starset Society] thought that would be the most applicable sound.” Starset’s first single, “My Demons,” spent 41 weeks in the Billboard charts in 2014, supported by a strong YouTube presence and fan base that’s resulted in over 85 million views. “Monster,” the first single off the new Vessels album, was released last fall and has already amassed over two million views. The Message is being received. “The band is using various programs and narratives to exemplify the Society’s Message,” Bates says, “but we haven’t gone public with all of those yet.” We do know these narratives will include a second graphic novel to be produced with Marvel Comics. Bates says it is “definitely an extension of the initial story” presented in The PROX Transmissions, Starset’s first graphic novel and book. And then there’s the “demonstrations.” The band is known for appearing in concert wearing spacesuits and producing some incredible space-age visuals. “We’re always adding new elements to the demonstrations,” Bates says. “This time around it’s our first headline tour, so we’re definitely stepping it up on all kinds of things—image projection, an element of audience participation. We’ll be playing songs from both records. We’re always going to be evolving and advancing our live shows. It’s going to be really exciting.” After just a few years, Starset’s success has spread The Message worldwide. They have several international demonstrations coming up in March and will hit the festival circuit throughout April and May. As it so happens, Starset’s new single was released on Election Day in November while the new album dropped on Jan. 20, the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration as President of the United States. Though Bates is somewhat mum on the correlation between them, he does say, “Take it for what you will, but the record is about a journey through perilous times.”
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GRAFFITI SOCIAL KITCHEN Dine with the PressureLife Team
Rating: Personally, my meal was really nice, but I had some quibbles with my fellow reviewer's dishes. In the end, I'll err on the side of my short rib meat tube and give Graffiti 4 out of 5.
H
4/5
ate onions? Put ketchup on your ketchup? We all have unique likes and dislikes, so when you hear about a new restaurant, whether it be from a foodie or someone who lives off of toaster pastries, you don’t know if their tastes align with your own. So, instead of reading a review from one source, take it from five members of our team. Even though we are woefully underqualified to review a restaurant, at least one of us will likely share some of your distinct tastes. This issue, we tested our taste buds at Graffiti Social Kitchen in Battery Park. -----------
ALEX
Loved: The burrito was my star of the night. I'm a sucker for short rib, and this giant tube of meat, rice, beans, and manchego gets a big thumbs up from me. Liked: The Ninth Ward cocktail was plenty nice thanks to a bit of a citrus and floral kick that never muted the bourbon. Also, the potato skins with chorizo, goat cheese, and guacamole were a nice starter. Disappointed: I must admit that there were plenty of dishes that came off as sweet. From pumpkin spice wings, which I actually didn't mind, to a cloyingly sweet Monte Cristo, the overall sweetness could be a turnoff. Hated: The aforementioned Monte Cristo had some nice elements to it, but I wasn't a big fan of everything combined into one bite. The maple-brined pork tenderloin was nicely done. The French toast was sweet, but it’s French toast. However, it makes for a busy bite when you combine those two with the crema and raspberry mostarda.
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JIM
Loved: The staff and atmosphere were fantastic. Super knowledgeable and when asked, “What do you eat here?” the response was, “For me, the salmon, but the chefs’ is the sheppard’s pie.” Honesty at it’s best. Liked: My favorite thing was the potato skins with guacamole and chorizo. I also really enjoyed Alex’s short rib burrito. Disappointed: Overall, everything was too sweet. It felt as if salt was replaced with sugar. The pumpkin spice wings were cooked to perfection, but would've loved some cajun.
Likes & Dislikes
Hated: The Monte Cristo and buffalo ranch popcorn.
Get to know the group's taste preferences
Rating: Overall, I enjoyed my experience. In consideration of my taste buds, 1 out of 5. My experience? 3 out of 5.
Alex: Mango is death; thinks garlic is a beautiful ingredient; can be seduced with a good meat and/ or cheese board but hates blue cheese; loves meat in pretty much all forms Jim: Prefers a salad over a burger but a steak over
anything else; loves spicy and sour flavors; despises donuts and dry bakery; will try anything once Ryan: Eats chicken in some form daily; likes burgers from Wendy's, nuggets from Burger King, and fries from McDonald's; not the slightest bit adventurous when it comes to trying new things Aaron: Likes spicy; hates Thanksgiving stuffing or whatever that spice is; favorite food is anything from the sea; will try eating anything for the experience of it Hannah: Enjoys foods that are savory and slightly over-salted; meals are typically a collection of small snacks; hates funky cheeses and properly cooked red meat; generally not a picky eater
3 /5 RYAN
Loved: I thought I was going to absolutely hate the pumpkin spice wings. I prepped myself to slyly spit my first bite into my napkin while no one was looking, but there was no need. The fried chicken flavor with some sweetness was reminiscent of chicken and waffles. Liked: I must’ve liked the complimentary buffalo chicken popcorn. I don’t particularly remember enjoying it at the time, but I continuously stuffed my face with it even after the meal, when I was beyond stuffed.
Disappointed: Chicken Parmesan is always good. Even microwavable chicken Parmesan meals are pretty good. But, despite my love for the perfect harmony of chicken, noodles, and sauce, Graffiti’s rectangular cube of meat left something to be desired, and I found myself wishing they would’ve just put a couple of the wings on the pasta instead. Hated: Myself for not trying the blueberry lemonade. It sounds so good. What the hell was I thinking? Rating: Though I was satisfied with my meal and overall experience, my sampling of appetizers and everyone else’s dishes was full of peaks and valleys. 3.5 out of 5.
3.5 /5 AARON
Loved: The pumpkin spice chicken wings complemented with pumpkin butter seemed to find a great balance between the sweet and savory. Liked: The atmosphere felt cozy, and I like being cozy. Dim lights and great architecture set a rustic/warm mood. Disappointed: Everything I tried seemed to have been created with sugar in mind. While Charlie and his grandpa would have been thrilled, my tastes are more savory than sweet. I should’ve ordered the short rib burrito. Hated: Being the only people dining in the upstairs of the restaurant. It had a real “mobster who is about to get whacked” aura to it. Rating: Overall, Graffiti is a great spot for those who look to balance their sweet tooth with a beer. 3 out of 5.
3 /5 HANNAH
Loved: Alex's burrito and the shrub mocktail—but with booze. I asked if I could add liquor and was given several recommendations by our server. I went with vodka. Light and refreshing. Liked: The buffalo ranch popcorn was a nice touch. I also enjoyed the atmosphere—really great lighting and stained glass windows. Disappointed: Sadly, the food. Everything we ordered—from appetizers to savory meals—was overly sweet tasting. I left there feeling as though I had eaten too many funnel cakes at the county fair. Hated: That it wasn't summertime and we couldn't sit on their awesome patio. Rating: I probably didn't do a great job of ordering for myself, but after tasting the rest of the group’s grub as well, I don't know that I would have been any more satisfied (other than Alex's burrito). 2.5 out of 5 for me.
2.5 /5 Issue 11
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(DIS)REGARDING Adam Dodd
It
HENRY Tremont’s Got Guy Trouble
was a big night for artist and gallery owner, Loren Naji. His studio had been gaining attention and popularity throughout Tremont as he prepared to host one of his most anticipated openings to date. Unlike past events held at his West 25th St. studio, this one was preceded by a visit from the Cleveland Police Department.
“We understand you’re having an event tonight. Mind if we look around?” one of the officers asked. After a cursory lap through the gallery, the police noted the beers Naji had prepared in a large cooler for his guests. They left, reminding Naji that he was forbidden to sell alcohol at his studio. Naji agreed and explained that it was complimentary to patrons of legal age, but not for sale. Seemingly satisfied, the police left Naji to finish preparing—but not before one of the officers made sure to catch his eye, passing along a telling wink. Now, just over two years later, Loren Naji looks back on that night from the same studio. “At the time, I didn’t know what that meant. Later it occurred to me. They knew something was going to happen. The whole thing was a setup.”
everything I do.” Senyak’s targeted persecution of Naji extends beyond the confines of his Tremont studio and any pretense of safety concerns. Senyak has repeatedly trolled Naji on social media, recently alerting the world to an unpaid speeding ticket Naji has yet to pay. When asked why Senyak has targeted him, Naji can only scratch his head and smile, “I don’t know.” If the voodoo dolls fashioned in Senyak’s likeness following his involvement in the raid on Naji’s studio are any indication, it is easy to consider him the foil to the local arts community. Naji recalled, “He was very much mocked for what he did to my place.” Following the raids on his studio, Naji arranged a sit-down with Senyak at a local coffee shop to clear the air. Nothing was resolved, but Naji walked away feeling that Senyak was more a man feeding a personal fixation than one on a warpath. He determined that Senyak “doesn’t hate me” but was nonetheless “unemotional.”
“Art is what made Tremont exciting in the first place.”
Hours later, shortly after his event commenced, Naji could tell something was off. “It was still early, really quiet. People were holding a beer, looking at artwork on the walls. Undercover police were there, at least I thought they were undercover.” Moments later agents from State Liquor Control raided Naji’s studio, ejecting everyone while prohibiting photographs and video from being recorded. The agents quickly seized all of Naji’s alcohol and confiscated the live band’s tip money, their only revenue for the night. After a year in court, Naji was sentenced to pay a fine of $700 and lost another $600 in confiscated property. Two weeks after the initial raid, Naji’s studio was hit again. During the alcohol-free release party for the debut of Michael Gill’s Cleveland Arts Network literary magazine, the Cleveland Fire Department paid a visit to the studio. Naji was hit with an occupancy violation which saw him have to make expensive alterations to his studio before he was permitted guests again. Naji says the same man was responsible for both incidents. His name is Henry Senyak. “He was definitely trying to shut me down,” Naji confirmed. “He targeted
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Their stilted interaction plays as a suburban rendition of Brando and Sheen’s scene from Apocalypse Now.
Cpt. Willard: “They told me that you had gone totally insane, and that your methods were unsound.” Col. Kurtz: “Are my methods unsound?” Cpt. Willard: “I don’t see any methods at all, sir.” The portrait of Senyak as something approaching a pedantic Spocklike figure, obsessed in his knowledge and pursuit of code violations, was shared by CAN Journal’s Michael Gill. Even after Senyak’s interference interrupted the release party of his publication, he finds it hard to take Senyak’s crusade personally: “[Senyak] absolutely believes in what he’s doing.” Gill speaks highly of Senyak’s previous activism that led to the repair and installation of numerous streetlights throughout the Tremont. “In that case, he got the Westside illuminated and made it much safer.” While Senyak’s current interference may fall short of malicious, the motivations behind his neighborhood activism became muddied somewhere along the lines. As Gill describes, “He has this other realm in which he will
set his sights on some business and work the details of the code to interfere with what they’re doing.”
board members walked out of a meeting in protest of Senyak cannot be understated.
Canopy Studio owner, Erika Durham, recalled a similar encounter. While never actually visiting Canopy, Senyak did surveil Durham’s Facebook account until he found a picture of someone drinking something outside of her studio. Senyak then used Durham’s photo without her consent as an invitation to accuse her of serving alcohol at the studio, despite the picture depicting none of his allegations. Durham was initially unaware that she had been targeted until WOIO Channel 19’s Joe Pagonakis ambushed her at the doorstep to her studio. During an interview for the same news station later that night, Senyak claimed that Durham and Canopy were hosting parties and serving alcohol, both completely unfounded accusations. These sorts of claims are nothing new for Senyak’s modus operandi. Similar to his fixation with Naji’s studio, Senyak’s interactions with others can often be seen as more than just civic concern.
Former councilman, Joe Cimperman, who worked with Senyak through the Tremont West Development Corporation, has also voiced criticism. In a public letter released on Facebook after the raid on Loren Naji’s studio Cimperman said, “Loren is not only a friend, but a great advocate for the neighborhood I live in and represent,” and “I will keep working for and with people like Loren to make this better.” While Senyak would later claim that he colluded with Cimperman in the raid, alleging on Facebook, “I have the saved text messages between Councilman Cimperman and myself,” Cimperman has remained publicly opposed to Senyak’s antagonism. A recent interview with Cleveland Scene has him describing Senyak as “a person with a vindictive personal agenda creating a total headache for everyone at City Hall.”
"He targeted everything I do."
“Mind you, Henry has never walked into my business once,” Durham noted. “I’ve never met him face to face. He just posts stuff like that online. He’s claimed in the past that I don’t have insurance, which is not true.” He has since sought to smear Canopy Studios by comparing it to the recent Ghost Ship warehouse tragedy in Oakland that saw 36 people dead. He is also not above farming his harassment out. “His internet buddies have harassed me and my business online in the past. I’ve kept screenshots of it all. … It’s really emotionally draining and stressful to have to deal with all that stuff.”
While Durham was able to address the violations Senyak brought to the attentions of local authorities, the unwarranted hassle forced her to cancel several events in the interim and provided a costly layover. Canopy’s hiatus affected not only Durham, but the multiple artists she features within her studio as well. “I make the space affordable for people. So if somebody has something they want to do, but they don’t have the space and don’t have a lot of money, I make it affordable so they can use it. I’m giving people motivation to be creative and to produce something they enjoy producing.” Distilling Canopy to its essence, Durham remarked, “Basically it’s almost like a community center that leans heavy on the arts.” During our conversation, Durham mentioned similar “Henry” troubles for Sean Watterson, owner of the Happy Dog. Correcting the minor violations Senyak reported snowballed into what Watterson described as an “expensive process.” Even still, he is reluctant to return fire, content to remain off of Senyak’s radar. Like Durham, Watterson’s concerns were not with having to address violations, but in the antagonistic manner with which they were raised. A manner that has become all but pattern. Watterson reflected, “It’s starts with a confrontation. It starts on the wrong foot.” Senyak was briefly elected President of the Tremont West Development Corporation in January of 2012 until he was forced to resign in August of that same year. While Senyak claimed in an interview with Plain Press that he was stepping down due to health reasons and the “disrespect shown [to him] by a couple of [then] board members,” the fact that it came the day after several
When asked what Senyak’s vigilance has cost the local art scene, Naji reflected: “I had a momentum going. I was popular. Every month I had a new opening. Then all of sudden it stopped [following the raids].” While Naji allows that Senyak’s pestering may have accelerated the process, he’s mindful of the larger forces at play. He likens Tremont to New York’s Soho and Chelsea of the 1970s, which were artistic hotbeds that toppled from the weight of their own popularity. “The art galleries helped the economy. Art is what made Tremont exciting in the first place. …Then the bars, then the restaurants came. Now I guess the arts disappeared and the restaurants still exist.” Naji concluded, “Tremont will never have the same scene it used to.” If Naji’s candid take on Tremont could be considered fatalistic, his is not the only view from the gallows. “I just couldn’t afford it any longer,” Dana Depew, former owner of the Asterisk art gallery remarked. While not personally affected, Depew is familiar with Senyak’s suffocating presence throughout Tremont. He was, however, quick to remind PressureLife that there are larger economic issues at play affecting the local art community. “It just didn’t become feasible with the rents raising. I tried keeping [Asterisk] open as long as possible because I felt obligated because I was doing something good. A lot cool stuff was happening, but I just couldn’t financially do it.” To consider one man responsible, let alone capable, of sabotaging an art scene in addition to an entire community would be too reductive and only serve to validate petty obsessions. Art will always find a way. While some view Henry Senyak as a perennial nuisance to the very entrepreneurs and artists that are trying to revitalize the city, he’s proven an impotent stand-in to the actual problems local citizens face, like gentrification and a general lack of empathy for the artists and small businesses that carry Tremont on their backs. Tremont’s perception as a leader in Ohio’s art scene is not by accident. Men and women like Loren Naji and Ericka Durham bear the same independent spirit and creative integrity that is the bedrock of any strong community. They do so, not in spite of people like Henry Senyak, but regardless of him. A community currently facing a crisis of identity, Tremont desperately needs to determine which of its neighbors they want shaping its future because their paths could not prove more divergent.
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The Primal Roots of
PRINT Gabe Voss
C
How Zygote Press bridges the gap between communication and functional art.
leveland is now ahead of cities like Miami and San Francisco when it comes to public funding for the arts according to a recent study by the University of Chicago. This is a refreshing turn of events for Cleveland to be towards the top of a national list for something positive. Because of a financial boost for the arts in the form of a 10-year sin tax passed by voters in 2006, perception towards the creativity of our area, internally and externally, has shifted. Zygote Press, located on 1410 E. 30th St. in Cleveland, took a small sip of that funding pool and is now watering a fledgling global creative cooperative. Zygote preserves the art of printmaking while at the same time educating and opening their studios to children, aspiring creatives, and established artists from Cleveland or around the world. Talking to Liz Maugans, co-founder and executive director of Zygote Press, gives you the impression that we all can to do more. The list of showings, workshops, co-ops, community outreaches, and residencies Zygote Press is involved in is can seem overwhelming. There are 19 events planned from January to March for 2017 alone, which is not counting two gallery exhibitions within the same time period and multiple resident artists who use the studio space to hone their craft. Zygote also has a mobile printing press which travels to local festivals and schools. Then there is Zygote Press Artist Share Space (ZPASS), a 1,500-square-foot apartment above
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Zygote Press and Terra Vista Studios (a co-op ceramics studio) for artists/residents. There’s also the Ink House, Zygote’s newest satellite location, which is a former vacant house developed in the Waterloo Arts District via the arts-and-culture reinvestment. Even the garage behind the Ink House is open to the community for printing. Oh, and I almost forgot about their blog and newsletter. Some have even heard rumors of a pear tree with a partridge perched in it. The pure production is a marvel. Take Sharon Sevenzo from Zimbabwe for example. Sevenzo helps supplement creative youth education from pre-K through twelfth grade. Part of her internship at Zygote revolves around a very unique school in Cleveland, one where the children of immigrants go to learn when first moving to the area. Zygote helps facilitate art education for this school and creates a welcome harbor to families through the arts that would normally be ignored. International exchange programs are common now to Zygote Press, which currently has ties to Germany and possibly Ghana in the near future. Because of the long reaches of Zygote and the greater art community of Cleveland, Maugans realizes an electric moment. “A lot of eyes are on us,” she says, as this era in our local culture is primed for Zygote. Print can be powerful, but also an undervalued connective cable, because of its primal reproductive nature. Maugans explains: “From early man, early woman, who basically put their hands in a bunch of berries and put them on a cave wall—that’s current. And so they were saying, ‘I exist. I am here.’ Your thumbprint, your dollar bill, your commerce, your stamps—how government and society and all of these different types of sectors intersect because of printmaking—are really fascinating to me. It can be subversive and used as a weapon, and you can also use it as a vehicle. Everybody has a piece of wood—you can fabricate a tool and carve it, put some ink on it, and make a print.”
The problem for print is there is so much more than just wood and berries at our disposal now. The pure bounty of different mediums at our fingertips confounds even the best of experts. Mark Twain defined the Gilded Age and saw the birth of cross populous electricity, but he never could have dreamed of modern electricity and the dependency we have on it now. The same can be said about Guttenberg or Zuckerberg for that matter. No one has a crystal ball. Because of its lightning quick evolution, the digital age may never really be defined in our lifetime, but Zygote Press is not anti-digital. It just wants to show the importance that functional art and communication has on a society.
We now have the ability to communicate in so many ways, and how rapidly we can produce a message is becoming a social vanity.
Innovation in all its forms is really about reproduction for the masses. Zygote Press incubates reproduction and the primordial essence of art, pressing and pumping ink-blood which sustains a heartbeat that keeps our collective imaginations alive. For better or worse, it must beat and thrust to the forefront, even when we neglect its relevance.
We now have the ability to communicate in so many ways, and how rapidly we can produce a message is becoming a social vanity. We all may need to consider the literal feel of things. The “hands evidence” of our collective works, as Maugans puts it. The constant gardeners could be an accurate description for all the great and creative people that contribute to Zygote Press. They tend to the roots of how we say hello, goodbye, I love you, I hate you, or I am here. That is what printing is all about. There is always more. Developing themes, some that are functional and some that are hidden, is an expression that is being perfected because of our arts boom in Cleveland. So, if the shit ever hits the fan, and the laptop I am writing this on is useless, I will walk over the fallout of a shattered glass civilization to East 30th Street so that I can still distribute a message. Thank you, Zygote Press.
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STATE
CiTY of the
20 16 *
BY: THE CITY Illustrations: Aaron Gelston @gelston.design
WAS A CRAZY YEAR FOR CLEVELAND.
We won championships and came damn close to winning others. We hosted one of the biggest political conventions during an historically intense election year. An all-expenses-paid trip to Cleveland was a grand prize on Wheel of Fortune for fuck’s sake. We’re just as confused as you are. In an effort to figure out just what the hell is going on in our city, we reached out to various community leaders, local celebrities, and business owners to see if they could make any sense of the current state of Cleveland.
01.
ARTS + CULTURE TED SIKORA, APAMA CREATOR AND WRITER Cleveland has been terrific to us. We’ve had amazing support at the local comic cons. We did a Kickstarter in October that raised over $12,000. Over half of that was Cleveland people. Cleveland is baked into the DNA of Apama. We tell a story that Marvel and DC can’t. We deliver a pure
starting point. Cleveland is wonderfully blank canvas for this kind of saga. I'd say if the city had one superpower, it would be super authenticity or super resilience. A good foil or super villain for The Land—really if developers came in and started doing things to the city with generic cost conscious bland or trendy designs—that kind of sweeping change could be dastardly.
WILLIAM GRISWOLD, DIRECTOR, CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART To celebrate our hundredth birthday, we hosted a series of important exhibitions and brought to Cleveland and hung along
Editor’s note: Some responses have been edited for brevity and clarity. Issue 11
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ALAN COX, ALAN COX SHOW HOST / WMMS, IHEARTRADIO Photo by James Douglas
Going from 2016 into 2017, how do you think Cleveland is faring as a whole? I think Cleveland is being taken more seriously on a national level than it ever has. The overall perception of the city has definitely changed for the better in my seven years here. I’m glad CLE sports finally got some championships. Even for a casual fan like me, I realize how important those are to the die-hard fans who have gone so long without. From an apolitical standpoint, the RNC was a big deal. It’s always good to have civic pride in tangible things, rather than just surviving adversity. Any trends you've noticed? Good or bad? The culinary scene here is now well-established nationally, but that brings with it a lot of speculation about just how many restaurants the city can sustain. For every OG trailblazer like Jonathon Sawyer, Michael Symon, Rocco Whalen, or Steve Schimoler, our food scene has spawned a lot of operators who see their own efforts go unrewarded. Some of my favorite places have opened and closed in the span of 24 months. Becoming a world-class city is never smooth. I love seeing the continuous stream of amazing performers spawned here. Great bands, new comedians, etc. Great city for artists. As for bad trends, I hope we’ve hit a lull in getting international coverage for terrible stories. My time in Cleveland has included Michael Madison, Anthony Sowell, Ariel Castro, Tamir Rice, Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams, and Dan Ficker. For a while, it seemed like Cleveland was becoming synonymous with tragedy. Living/working all over, how does Cleveland currently rank to other cities? I’m asked this all the time and I always choose to answer diplomatically: it’s apples and oranges. I chuckle when people tell me that Cleveland is “just like Chicago,” BUT it has undergone an amazing transformation in a relatively short period of time. That speaks to the tenacity and creativity of the PEOPLE (because it sure isn’t due to the vision of local leaders). I think it’s time for Clevelanders to cast off their last shreds of low self-esteem and not worry how this city compares to others. If you live here, it’s because you want to—so who cares what they do in Detroit or Pittsburgh?
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side our own collection more than a dozen masterpieces of world art from other major museums. We renovated our Japanese and Korean Galleries, we unveiled a newly restored painting by Caravaggio, and we launched Studio Go—our centennial art truck—which offered hands-on art-making experiences all over town, bringing the joy of art to thousands of children and families throughout Greater Cleveland. As we embark on our second century, our goal will be to build on the momentum that we achieved in our centennial year. We have the incredible opportunity to leverage our world-class collection and spectacular architectural legacy, the expertise of our staff, and the generosity of our donors and community partners in the service of, in the words of our founders, “all the people forever.”
DEREK HESS, ARTIST I think Cleveland is doing great. It’s been really fulfilling to see the progress from the early ‘90s when I booked the Euclid Tavern to where we are now. There’s much more cooperation between different groups, neighborhoods, hospitals, the city, the entertainment community, venues, the parks, the lakefront, the restaurants, the developers, the press, etc. than there was twenty years ago. We were on the right direction then, the foundation was set, we just needed to get everyone on board like we do now.
DAVE HILL, COMEDIAN + AUTHOR OF DAVE HILL DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE I love Cleveland. I wish it got maybe 100 days of sunlight a year, but you can't have everything. As always, I'd love to see people move closer to the city instead of running off to the woods and scaring all the deer. A city can never really thrive with everyone moving as far away as they can and only coming into town for a Cavs game or a Billy Joel concert or some crap—you have to live there. When people come together and actually interact, great things happen. It's hard to pick just one favorite thing about Cleveland. I love Luchita's on West 117th Street, Guitar Riot and Superior Pho on Superior, Nemeth's Bar in Painesville, and a million other things. But the greatest thing about any city is always its people, and Cleveland people are awesome. One thing I always hear in New York is people saying everyone they know from Cleveland is the best. I'm just like, "Yeah, I know."
KRIS HILTON, FASHION DESIGNER Having worked in the Cleveland fashion scene for the past five years, I've noticed a significant change in the choices of retail shopping. In my opinion, the launch of Xhibition, located 2068 W. 25th St., has brought awareness to higher-end street brands such as Rick Owens, Alexander Wang, Comme des Garçons, etc., which ultimately gave fashion bloggers a new platform. Unfortunately, Cleveland is not a "fashionable" city. We're all about sports and great food. However, with the spotlight the city has right now and the small street fashion scene emerging, I do see a significant change happening soon. Hopefully within the next few years, we can bring more fashion shows to the city. I, myself, and the others I know within the city, will make sure of that.
LIZ MAUGANS, ZYGOTE PRESS CO-FOUNDER + EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR I would urge Cleveland visitors to take a drive through Slavic Village. It is an epic journey through revitalization efforts that showcase the best views of industry, and the most pressing issues of a post-industrial city. This area is slowly rebuilding, re-imagining and thinking about deconstruction of a region that got destroyed by the housing sub-prime lending scams. It remains beautiful to me: the people, the public art, the resiliency, all seem to be heading into the right direction. The steel mills are like our Grand Canyon, and when I take visitors over to see them they are in awe. This is authentic Cleveland.
LOREN NAJI, TREMONT ARTIST + STUDIO OWNER Cleveland doesn’t support its own artists. I feel that very strongly. My large sphere project “Emoh” is a project I spent a year on. I was in USA Today with that piece.
I was all over the country with it, and in Cleveland it was ignored. Cleveland artists in general need to think bigger instead of safe and boring and mundane and “so what?” To me I go to the art walks and it’s the same thing every week: the same artists, the same work, the same cliques. The concept of art itself is creativity. I think this city lacks that horribly. The city needs some real big thinkers who don’t follow the status quo. I did enjoy “Rooms to Let” which involved many artists in Slavic Village. Every year they give out condemned houses to artists to do whatever they want to do to it. Each artist gets a room and the houses become walking art installations. It’s a big event. After that one weekend, they tear the houses down.
ROBERT BANKS, PAPER SHADOWS FILMMAKER Having in the Cleveland fashion think Cleveland as a film town is definitely on the upswing. A lot of my friends were saying that 2016 was a horrible year, and I was just thinking, “Why was it horrible?” There was nothing horrible about it—it was life. People die and things happen. I’m not a big sports fan, but it was nice to see the Cavaliers win a championship and have the Cleveland Indians in the World Series. I think the problem, though, is that people here still keep this low self-esteem, and when something great happens, all of the sudden we get this cocky attitude. That’s kind of the flip side because we still have a ways to go as a city. I mean, we’re definitely moving forward. Things are opening up, people are loosening up—at the same time, there are certain things that still need to be resolved.
ROVER, ROVER’S MORNING GLORY HOST / WMMS, IHEARTRADIO Cleveland appears to be on the right track moving into a new year. The Republican National Convention went off without a hitch, the redevelopment of The Flats is outstanding, the Cavs and Indians had great seasons, and Rover’s Morning Glory
Cleveland is a tremendously
loyal city. was signed for another five years. What more could you ask for? Cleveland is a tremendously loyal city. They’ve shown me that since moving here 14 years ago. We may not be the fanciest place on earth, but we make up for it with grit and loyalty. I run into people all the time that have been listening every day, from the first day we signed on—you don’t find that everywhere. Now, if only we could divert the billions of dollars it will take to build “the wall” and instead build a giant, climate-controlled dome over the city so we can be 75 degrees year round!
LAUREN WELCH, WESTERN RESERVE HISTORICAL SOCIETY / CLEVELAND HISTORY CENTER MARKETING MANAGER Like many large cities, there’s always work that can be done. In Cleveland, more diversity and inclusion within corporate and nonprofit spaces, improving infant mortality rates, continuing to provide access to abortion clinics and reproductive care, transportation access, and criminal justice reform are just a few examples. Many of these issues require time, attention, effective policies and funding to see change. Change can’t happen if we aren't more attentive and intentional about how we as individuals, consumers, and corporations spend our time, resources, and money.
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02.
BUSINESS + POLITICS BRIAN TAUBMAN, TAUBMAN LAW ATTORNEY The recent boom in business didn't help the local person who wasn't slinging T-shirts, hot dogs, or beer, but it was a blast to be a part of the RNC and the Cavs run and I'm excited to see how Cleveland will move forward with this momentum. Sadly, 2016 was big locally for heroin. I would like to see an increase in community outreach to address this crippling addiction. This will hopefully help those who are fighting this addiction get the help they need. Ohio is fucking No. 1 in the country for heroin overdoses and Cuyahoga County is leading the way. This addiction doesn't care where you grew up, what color your skin is, or what religion you are. Ohio is just starting to take notice, but more needs to be done within our communities. With mental and health outreach programs, I believe this change can save lives and families.
ZACK REED, WARD 2 COUNCILMAN What do you think is the greatest lesson that you’ve gained from serving the Clevelanders within your district this past year? That we talk a good game down here at 601 Lakeside, but when it comes to taking that talk out into the communities, we’re very, very reluctant on doing that. We are representatives of the people. We should be out there in the good times and the bad times to talk to those people. The prime example for that is Public Square. Whether we believe that terrorism is a problem, whether we believe that it won’t harm RTA, whether we believe that it’s, as some people in our communities call it, “a 50 million
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SEPH LAWLESS, PHOTOGRAPHER, AUTHOR + ACTIVIST I'd love to see my city aggressively attack the issue and growing problem of segregation in the city of Cleveland. We almost rank dead last amongst other major U.S. cities when it comes to racial divide according to a report by the Brookings Institution and it's a real problem. I'd also like to see the city of Cleveland absorb the city of East Cleveland in 2017. I think it's imperative for the residents of East Cleveland to ensure their survival and to ensure the quality of life for the families that live in East Cleveland.
CHRIS ZITTERBART, AGORA OWNER Short term, business was actually bad [in 2016]. With the RNC, it seemed like a lot of Clevelanders avoided Cleveland. They didn't want to deal with the traffic or the potential issues and fear the media trumped up. So, I actually had a pretty down week. Same with the chamPhoto by Frank J. Lanza
dollar playground”—there should have at least been a dialogue with our community. Aside from sports championships, what was Cleveland’s greatest accomplishment of 2016? The RNC, no doubt. That was bigger than a sports championship. When you look at the sports championships, the saying was we’re “all in,” and we were. When you look at the RNC, everyone was not “all in” to the RNC. You had protesters, democrats, liberals, conservatives—that was one where we knew there would be barriers and opposition and we still came through with flying colors. What do you think Cleveland needs to improve upon most in 2017? We have to find a way to connect the people in our community. There are a lot of damn good
PETER ELLIOTT, U.S. MARSHAL Do you feel Cleveland is safer or more dangerous than it was a year ago? Why? We have seen more shootings and warrants issued for homicide within this past year. Countless drive-by shootings where innocent bystanders including infants have been killed. Have you seen your caseload increase or diminish over the past year? Increase by far—more shootings, more homicides.
What was your fondest memory from 2016? One of our greatest memories was our men and women being honored by the Ohio Senate and House of Representatives this past December for capturing over 40,000 fugitives since our task force was created in 2003. We now have over 350 men and women and over 125 police agencies as part of our task force. We are growing more and more every year. It was an honor to have many of our partners stand up with us and accept the award.
things that go on in the city and a lot of great opportunities because of the renaissance and the renovations that we’ve done. I hope we’re going to do something about the violence in Cleveland. Cities where consent decrees have gone in place, you’ve seen a dramatic reduction of crime in those cities. And why is that? Because now you’ve got the trust that you need to have between the citizens and the people that are sworn to protect those citizens. My hope is that we’ll get the consent decree under control. We’ve just gone through a third consecutive year of 100-plus homicides. You can’t keep running a city like this. What was your fondest memory from 2016? Got to be the Cavs. No if, ands, or buts about it. To finally get that championship—see a million people come downtown. I was down there when we won and I was down there for the parade.
pionships. A lot of Clevelanders, with good reason, wanted to go out and support instead of going to a concert. Following that, you're going to have the "hangover" that is going to occur physically and financially. It was a short term slow down for the music industry, but having said that, long-term, I think it's a great thing. An amazing amount of energy has gravitated downtown. Overall, it's good for the health of the city. The music industry tends to be the leading indicator of the economy because it's primarily disposable income.
TED GINN, SR., GLENVILLE HIGH SCHOOL COACH + GINN ACADEMY DIRECTOR Being in Cleveland for the last 50 years, I can only talk about my area: Glenville. I see what’s happening in the city, downtown coming up—it’s growing but our communities are still failing. I think that is a concern. I’m an advocate for Cleveland. I’m an advocate for education, young people, and the city of Cleveland, period. But I look at the Glenville community—I’ve been here 47 years—we haven’t done anything. I’ve seen other communities grow, different areas, and I don’t know why not Glenville. When you’re dealing with education, you’re dealing with humans, you’re dealing with children, families who lose hope because they don’t see any investment in Cleveland. We got lakefront land here, and I don’t understand why there is no investment into it. That is an issue for me. I have different ideas. I’m still here fighting for this community, fighting for the city. When you look around, it’s all these old folks not doing anything to bring the young families back into Cleveland. We need to give those families a good place to stay and a good education.
I'm Still here
fighting foR this community.
03.
SAM MCNULTY, MARKET GARDEN, BAR CENTO, BIER MARKT, + NANO BREW OWNER
FOOD + DRINK CHRIS HODGSON, HODGE'S CLEVELAND, HODGE PODGE, + DIM AND DEN SUM PRESIDENT / CHEF
The food scene grew too fast. A lot of new restaurants opened up recently—40 as of last year. Fantastic for creating diversity, but that can both help and hurt. There isn't a large enough population to support all of these new openings and old restaurants. Guests are just being divided between more “districts” or neighborhoods. It also has created a “grass is greener” mentality in employees. We watch employees stay two months, leave for something new, come back six months later. Seems like there is a constant rotating door between all the restaurants. Makes it difficult for restaurants to train and produce the level of service they want to when it's constantly new employees.
BEN BEBENROTH,
It felt like [2016] was an inflection point where Cleveland went from the comeback city to where our wheels left the ground and we're airborne now in a very positive way. The RNC was a unique beast in that there was an unusual candidate. There were a lot of predictions of mayhem that thankfully were completely off the mark, and I think since it was such an unknown for the city, these predictions of chaos and rioting were just a lot of fluff. I would bicycle over the bridge and wander around downtown during the RNC, and it was it was just beautiful. I really think it was a kind of a coming out for Cleveland where the world got to have a little sneak peek at what we've known all along. This great freedom to live in the quality of life we have here is unmatchable and it was a moment for us to tell that story. I had breakfast with David Gilbert of Destination Cleveland and he said it best. He said the RNC, Cavs and the Indians—those were all home runs. You can't plan for a home run, but you can plan for singles, doubles and triples. So let's make the singles, doubles and triples happen in 2017 and the home runs will come.
SPICE KITCHEN + BAR CHEF, FARMER + FOUNDER The food scene in Cleveland is in a delicate place currently. We seem to be opening more restaurants than a population this size can consistently support. The lack of a skilled and able-bodied workforce in addition to rising costs in every area can be seen in the quality of food being created. Our dedicated independently owned establishments are pushing the creative envelope with quality local ingredients, while corporate dining options are still the majority of what is available and soaking up a majority of the labor pool. If we want to fulfill our recent reputation of being a food city, we need to attract more businesses to headquarter in the greater Cleveland area to fill our dining rooms with guests that care about quality of ingredients and sound culinary technique more than discounts.
DAN HERBST, CLEVELAND BAGEL COMPANY OWNER + BAGELMAN The whole food scene is changing with people paying more attention to what they eat and discerning about what they eat. I don’t think people paying attention to what they’re eating and the ingredients that goes into what they’re eating is a fad. I don’t think people are going to go back to processed foods like, “I want to go eat poison again. I’m sick of good food,” so that’s promising. At the same time, it’s created a bubble. There’s a lot of competition out there, and I don’t know if Cleveland necessarily has the population to sustain all of these new restaurants. It’s a very competitive market. We’ll see how that goes, but it is nice to see all of these small businesses opening.
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04. SPORTS
CHRIS CLEM, COMEDIAN + CHRIS CLEM'S CAVS CAST (CAVSCAST.COM) HOST For the first time in my life, when I wear Cleveland gear in opposing cities, people get to accuse me of being an asshole who only cheers for championship teams! It was totally worth sitting in a half-empty Q for years watching guys like Bimbo Coles, DeSagana Diop, Lamond Murray, Eric Snow, Donald Sloan, Jeremy Pargo, Alonzo Gee, Luke Harangody, Christian “Sky”-enga, and every other fringe NBA player, D-League reclamation project, or washed-up All-Star who rounded out the Cavs roster before and after LeBron. It’s delightful getting hated on by Milwaukee Bucks supporters for being a Cavs fan because I can remember the days when the Cavs’ advertising was built on coach John Lucas saying, “We’re gonna have fun,” and dumb slogans like “Get Close!” (because there’s plenty of open seats in front of you and we don’t care if you sit in them). I’ll trade your anger at me wearing a Kevin Love jersey and a Cavs jacket in the Bradley Center for a title one hundred times out of a hundred. Also, I didn’t even care about how bad the Browns were this season, and I know I’m not alone.
ZACH SHAFRON, CLESPORTSTALK.COM FOUNDER [2016] absolutely changed the entire reputation of the City of Cleveland. No longer are we the “mistake on the lake” or supporters of teams that can't get the job done. What fans outside of Cleveland forget is that our city has had some very, very good teams of the past, despite being in this drought. The Browns in the late ‘80s nearly made the Super Bowl
How did the success of the Cavs and Indians and the struggles of the Browns affect your view of Cleveland sports?
EMMETT GOLDEN, ESPN CLEVELAND RADIO PERSONALITY / WKNR, 850 AM
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This year in Cleveland sports has only reinforced my love for all of our teams. The Cavs winning the championship really gave the people of our city something that they can be proud of. As we all know, Clevelanders are proud people, but others around the country never could understand why. With the recent success of the Cavs and the Indians, our city has finally received the respect that it deserves.
twice, the Indians of the ‘90s were in the World Series twice, and the Cavs made the Finals with LeBron in '07. The difference is, finally, in 2016, we had a team that actually won it all and they took the toughest road to get there, being the first team to come back from a 3-1 deficit in The Finals. It means everything to those who call Cleveland home that after 52 years of waiting, the drought has ended. Moving forward, we are confident that our Cavs and Indians will contend for many years to come. The Browns, on the other hand, are our punishment for us having two great teams. Even so, Cleveland will always love its Browns as we are a football town.
MATT CROSS, PROFESSIONAL WRESTLER + AMERICAN NINJA WARRIOR COMPETITOR Momentum is on my side, on our side, and I look forward to carrying that almost tangible feeling into this new year. Cleveland is experiencing a rebirth and I'm happy to carry her torch with me as I make my way around the world, a pseudo ambassador of the city. Each weekend, somewhere out there, a boisterous voice can be heard announcing me to the ring with the proud cry of, "From Cleveland, Ohio...Matt Cross!"
What is your favorite person, place, or thing about Cleveland?
2016 was a great year for the city, but what still needs to be done?
My favorite people in Cleveland are ALL OF THE PEOPLE in Cleveland. The reason I love this city so much is because of the people. Everyone is down to earth and very authentic. There aren’t many fake people in the city. Favorite place is downtown. It’s really been on display over the last year. The downtown skyline is breathtaking and seeing it on my drive into work everyday pumps me up.
Well, it would be nice to see the Browns get to .500, but that could be a long shot. As a community, we just need to continue to improve on keeping each other safe. Last year was a tough year as far as crime around our city, and we as Clevelanders need to keep looking out for each other as well as continue raising and teaching our young people the right way.
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The First Clevelander The story of Cleveland's first permanent settler, Lorenzo Carter Kevin Naughton
T
ired of hipster one-upmanship? You know, that whole “I liked it before it was popular” routine that alpha-hipsters use to assert dominance over their pack of horn-rimmed, side-parted liberal arts graduates who all work in the service industry? Well, don't worry, because Lorenzo Carter has them all beat: he was living in Cleveland before it was Cleveland.
Meanwhile, in Vermont, a young man named Lorenzo Carter was freshly married to a Rebecca Fuller and eager to make a life for himself and his new family. Now, there's not a lot written about Miss Rebecca Fuller, but that's because historians didn't really acknowledge that women existed until about maybe fifty years ago. Although, to be fair, when was the last time any of you ladies asked a historian out on a date? Coincidence? Maybe. Anyway, at risk of being sexist, I'm going to continue the narrative, focusing on ol’ Lorenzo. Carter was reportedly six feet tall, of allegedly remarkable strength, and had a leaderly courage about him that he thought would inspire folks to follow him to the swampy mouth of the Cuyahoga. So, ‘Zo and the fam—along with a dude named Ezekiel Hawley and his family, So, in 1796, a guy whom history has also mostly forgotten—made their way to this Cleaveland that they had heard named Moses so much about and built a couple of cabins. They Cleaveland stood on established a river ferry, planted some crops, started what is now the East a fur trade, and did everything they could to encourBank of the Flats and age future settlers.
decided it would be a good place for a city.
Fresh out of a surprisingly successful revolutionary war, the emboldened American ex-colonists started to look west to see if they could steal any more land from the Native American people. A nation of humility from the get-go, the United States government decreed that each state had the rights to all the land west of its current borders, as long as it lay between its northern and southern parallels. Wasting little time, Connecticut flipped Rhode Island the bird and eagerly started sending people to look for places to settle within the brand new Western Reserve territory. So, in 1796, a guy named Moses Cleaveland stood on what is now the East Bank of the Flats and decided it would be a good place for a city. Whether or not he was right is still hotly debated, but the location on our Cuyahoga River and Lake Erie had him convinced of the region’s potential for a settlement. On his order, some surveyors drew up a rough map with rectangular lots available for purchase, and then they returned to Connecticut to see if they could sell the land. Ol’ Moses never returned to the site, and we Clevelanders have since taken to misspelling his name out of spite.
Illustration, Cleveland under the Hill – 1797. Cuyahoga River, Lorenzo Carter’s first cabin
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The local indigenous people, however, reacted to the new settlers’ presence much like most of us would react to a stranger who unexpectedly walked into our place, ate all the cereal, and passed out on our couch watching Netflix: they tracked him through the lake effect snow while he was out hunting and tried to kill him. Harvey Rice, in his 1891 tome, The Founder of the City of Cleveland, and Other Sketches, recounts the following story of the indigenous locals’ attempt at dispatching Carter:
“This the delegated assassins attempted to do, and thinking to make sure work of it, both fired at him at the same time, but failed to hit him. In an instant Carter turned on his heel and shot one of them, who fell dead in his tracks; the other uttered a terrific war whoop and fled out of sight. This dire result over-awed the Indians. From that time no further attempts were made to take Carter’s life.” After that episode, Carter was regarded as a “favorite of the Great Spirit” and thus immortal. He would serve as an arbitrator and tentative ally to the natives for the rest of his days. The early records tend to treat indigenous people with triviality and disrespect, so it's hard to know what they really thought of Carter. It sounds like he spent a lot time bribing them with whiskey, and they generally resented him.
First party in Cleveland
In one story, for example, a local native known as John O’Mick was condemned to death for robbing and murdering two white settlers, perhaps out of annoyance that they were stealing his people’s land. On the day
of the hanging, which took place in public square, O’Mick attempted to prevent the execution and clung to the scaffolding. Carter, allegedly O’Mick’s friend, offered him some whiskey in an attempt to console him. While the terrified man had a drink, Carter pulled the trapdoor. Another oft-told story of Carter dealt with his reaction to a runaway slave known to history as Ben. After surviving a shipwreck that killed everyone else on board, Ben, starving and frostbitten, was taken in by Carter. Later in the year, two Kentuckians claiming to own Ben arrived in Cleveland demanding his return. In a quote that Cleveland Scene described as “badass,” Carter is alleged to have told them, “I don't like niggers, but I don't believe in slavery either.” After a couple days of back and forth, the Kentuckians gave up and Ben happily moved to Canada. Once firmly established in the new settlement, Carter pulled the most Cleveland move of all time and opened a bar. The Carter Tavern must have made him awfully popular because when he was convicted of assault and battery in 1802, his accuser was run out of town by Carter’s supporters. To be fair, the charge was apparently over a mere slap in the face, and in the grisly world of the frontier, no real man would dare snitch to the police over such a minute transgression. Carter made his enemies, too. In a letter from a Connecticut statesman to Moses Cleveland (take that!) briefing him on his settlement’s status, Carter was the subject of several grievances: “[Carter] gathers about him all the itinerant Vagabonds that he meets with, out of whom he has absolute control—organizing a phalanx of Desperadoes and setting all Laws at defiance.” Sounds like this guy was just jealous he didn’t get invited to the party. Speaking of parties, Carter threw what might have been the city’s first in 1801, and based on Harvey Rice’s description in The Founder of the City of Cleveland, and Other Sketches, it sounded like a real rager: “The refreshments were substantial in their character, consisting mainly of baked pork and beans, plum cake, and whiskey, and were partaken with a keen relish and in liberal quantities. The dance was continued until daylight, the next morning, when the party dispersed, and returned in a merry mood to their rustic homes.” Allegedly, the first wedding in Cleveland was a result of this party. Lorenzo, you dog! While most probably don't recognize his name today, Lorenzo Carter did a great deal to put Cleveland on the map. He tirelessly encouraged people to move to and remain in what was at the time just a rugged frontier settlement with no apparent prospects of the “Progress and Prosperity” that our city’s flag boasts. He built the city’s first cargo ship, the Zephyr, setting an early precedent for the lakefront shipping industry that would help turn Cleveland into a major commercial center. He helped establish the city’s tradition of soft racism—but in the tradition of Cleveland’s soft racism, let's not dwell on that. He probably coined the phrase “Believeland” before anyone else, too. And you call yourself a Clevelander.
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LEAVING LEVY
than two months later, levy was arrested for obscenity and delinquency of minors. In “Kibbutz in the Sky” levy explained, “You don’t understand what it really means / when a ‘lonely’ ‘bored’ 17 yr old high / school student is seduced into carrying / a taperecorder & other equipment provided / by the narkos to set up his old friends.”
PART TWO: DEATH OF A ICON
After making a name bringing truth to power, Cleveland poet, d.a. levy, found himself in the crosshairs. Adam Dodd “Men reject their prophets and slay them, but they love their martyrs and honor those whom they have slain.” –Fyodor Dostoevsky In the previous issue, we featured local poet and activist d. a. levy’s meteoric rise as the city’s voice and conscience. After making enemies of City Hall and the Cleveland Police Department, levy's dominoes were tipping, proving the inescapable axiom that everything which rises must fall.
W
hen local poet, d. a. levy, awoke in his drafty East Cleveland apartment in November 1966 to read the morning paper, he was shocked to see it included a grand jury indictment against him on trumped up obscenity charges. Needless to say, an already paranoid levy was panicked. He was gone before brunch, choosing to hide out at a friend’s Collinwood apartment. After two weeks on the lam, the head of the CPD Narcotic Bureau burst through the front doors of Asphodel Bookshop under the pretense of a drug tip—one that remains unsubstantiated. Crates of books, magazine, newsletters and cartoon strips created or printed by the poet were bagged and tagged, never to be returned. It was no coincidence that Asphodel’s was the sole outlet for levy’s publications at the time. Even less of a coincidence was the seizing of levy’s mimeo machine and printing press. d. a. levy was now an outlaw and the powers that be were fixed on turning the screws, silencing one of Cleveland’s most influential voices forever.
Eventually, a friend bailed out levy, but he would not be free for long. Less
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The pressure was mounting on levy, but so too was the spotlight. The Plain Dealer offered an editorial on his behalf stating, “This is a nonsensical situation. If the police believe that Levy is engaging in some serious crime, they should come up with some evidence or let the man alone. Harassing him for writing words that are uttered from stage and screen and scrawled on fences and walls all over town is making Cleveland look more like a province than it really is.” What had begun as a relentless pursuit of levy was quickly spinning into the absurd. A later Plain Dealer article on Sept. 4, 1967 ran the headline: “2 Area Poets Tagged as Psychedelic Churchmen.” The bizarre article began, “Poets Daryll Allen Levy and Kent Taylor have been named as area leaders here of a national ‘religious’ organization that believes in psychedelic warfare and political assassinations to further its movement.” The charge was made by none other than the commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Dr. James Goddard, during a testimony to a House subcommittee on organized crime.
“I sincerely hope that in their incompetence they do not attempt to turn me into a martyr.”
levy eventually turned himself in and wrote about the ordeal in the painfully candid missive titled “Kibbutz in the Sky”: “so now my freedom of expression is being stomped on by the local psychotics, who in their stupidity, think I am a leader, and in their own personal blind hallucinations have visualized me as having a following. With their cooperation I have been turned into a symbol, and I sincerely hope that in their incompetence they do not attempt to turn me into a martyr.” He went on to write, “The city is working overtime to turn me into a myth, I haven’t been able to reach them yet, perhaps you can—think nice thoughts about them, perhaps they will grow into civilized human beings.”
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The fact that the two minors the police wired and used as leverage against the poet were young writers whom levy had previously mentored broke his heart. He wrote of one in the eponymous, “One Death in the Life of Julie”: “the police / questioning her / about the Great / CLEVELAND HEIGHTS / MARIJUANA HOAX / left their mark / & at a western reserve poetry reading / she was afraid to talk to me / she looked so tired / i almost did not recognize her / the darkness of doubt / after a day in court / poor child / to naively look into the minds / of the state executioners / i weep for you Julie.”
What Commissioner Goddard failed to realize was that the Neo-American Church came from the same satirical pastures that The Onion would graze from decades later. The threat Goddard alleged levy and his friend, Kent Taylor, posed would make Lex Luthor blush. Without a trace of irony, the FDA commissioner somberly quoted from the fake church’s own literature on the floor of the House of Representatives, fearing “clouds of dust sprayed over cities and LSD in the water supply.” He went on to claim the Neo faithful were capable of “Psychedelic assassinations, perhaps with a spray of DMSO and LSD” that could be “carried out against those politicians or military figures responsible for overthrowing the Bill of Rights.” Cleveland and d. a. levy were pulling away from one another. The poet felt betrayed. His scathing, post-arrest work, “letter to cleveland” proved a bittersweet coda to his love affair with the city. Reading in part, “cleveland i gave you / most of my energy / pieces of my flesh & bone / & you laughed … cleveland i gave you / a kind of love that you / will not understand / for the centuries you collect / muscums full of dead things / things with their inner-meanings / subtly covered / to protect your children? to keep america free? / (perhaps) free from thought … & even the small dreams of cleveland / are slowly murdered by the / narrow reality that surrounds / & devours them / a City of Trees / cut down by reality.” He ends the piece with either a warning
or a promise: “Cleveland / you will move / or be plowed over— / eaten by vultures / like a corpse / digested / & slowly / change…” Desperate for a change in scenery, levy accepted an invitation to serve as Poet in Residence at a newly created Free University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the fall of 1968. While his tenure proved some small measure of respite—levy composed The Madison Poems during his stay—it was short lived and before long, levy was back home. There are considerable discrepancies for the timeline following levy’s return to Cleveland. A postcard, dated Nov. 18, was sent to a friend in California, which read in part, “cutting through the illusions I find I need the illusions to live, grow or is that another illusion? HELP—reply necessary—short.” His close friends remembered levy spending the period immediately following his return disposing of his possessions, severing relationships, and burning unpublished manuscripts. Ultimately, on Nov. 25, Robert Sigmund and Steve Ferguson entered levy’s East Cleveland apartment to find the poet dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the center of his forehead. As his body was found in the lotus position with the .22 rifle propped between his feet, the apocrypha that followed had levy dead from an attempt to open his third eye. Some of levy’s peers, however, were less than convinced to his cause of death. “That rjs [Robert Sigmund] was a police informer is indisputable,” said levy’s friend Frank Oskinski when interviewed by Mike Golden for The Buddhist Third-Class Junkmail Oracle: The Art and Poetry of d.a. levy. “That rjs murdered d.a. is certain in my mind and heart. … He came extremely close to admitting that he killed d.a.—his words were something along the line of ‘we do what we have to do.’” Ferguson remained uncertain on Sigmund’s involvement in levy’s death, but referenced a strained relationship between the two during the same series of interviews. “There have been dark rumors,” he recalled, “speculations about the egocentric game playing, back and forth, that they did. I never witnessed them but I heard some pretty graphic stories; holding knives to one another’s throats, stuff like that.” An announcement of levy’s death spread like wildfire throughout the underground literary scene after an obituary was placed in Jim Soric’s Gunrunner Press. It read in part, “i keep trying to find out what it all means / what I’m supposed to do. & like maybe it wasn’t the police chief briers & richard nixon that killed d.a. maybe it was you & i who pushed him in to dying. maybe if we had just left him alone / stopped pushing him & writing him / telling him its all worth it / all the shit is really worth it in the end / maybe if we had just gotten off his fucking back for once & given him room to live HE DIED BECAUSE HE WAS TIRED … stay well, motherfucker, law & order is back in Cleveland. & d.a. levy is dead.” Famous writer and peer, Charles Bukowski reflected in interviews on levy’s passing: “What killed him is the same thing which keeps us awake at nights, is the same thing that grips our guts when we pass face after face upon the streets; what killed him is the same thing we love and hate, the same thing we eat, the same we fear. What killed him was life and lack of life; what killed him were cops, friends, poetry, Cleveland, belief and betrayal.” Bukowski closed with a final poignant thought: “I get angry and sad when a good man dies or is killed, and that isn’t reasonable because we’re born to die, and maybe that helps make poetry and anger and sadness.”
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Defenders of the Lake How NASA-Glenn Research Center uses rocket science to protect Lake Erie against algal blooms. Gennifer Harding-Gosnell
HOW NASA IS WORKING TO PROTECT OUR ENVIRONMENT Lines of cars spilled out onto Route 237, backed up almost the whole way to the I-480 split. The wait to catch a shuttle bus from the I-X Center to NASA-Glenn was over an hour-and-a-half long, but no one really seemed to mind. The NASA-Glenn Research Center’s open house, in celebration of its 75th anniversary, drew 25,000 visitors this past May, offering an eager public a rare glimpse into the work scientists, engineers, and administrators at the space center do every day. Their research leads to improvements in air travel and propulsion of aerospace vehicles, air traffic communications, and astronaut safety, to name a few.
Oxygen on Mars Turning Mars’ dirt into oxygen Senior Research Engineer Diane Linne is researching how to turn Mars’ dirt into oxygen with an idea she had while rototilling her garden. Simulated Mars dirt is placed into a heating chamber and rototilled to expose it to the high temperatures and separate out the hydrogen. The hydrogen is filtered into a condenser where it can be turned into drinking water, fuel, and oxygen.
But NASA’s work is more than just rocket science. Though the work is primarily lauded for its innovation in exploring the atmosphere above us, NASA researchers also work to benefit the earth around us.
ROCKET UNIVERSITY AND THE HYDRUS PROJECT “A lot of people really believed in this project,” Dr. Dionne Hernandez-Lugo says. “They saw the need and the benefit that it would have on Ohio communities and were willing to pitch in and help.” Hernandez-Lugo is a project manager for the HyDRUS Project, a collaborative effort between a team of NASA-Glenn scientists and software developers with the support of several partners, including the Ohio government and Sinclair Community College in Dayton.
“The technology is like an added tool to their arsenal to see what’s going on.”
“HyDRUS came out of a development program at NASA-Glenn, Rocket University,” Hernandez-Lugo says. “The idea is to train the next generation of engineers and scientists here. There’s a big gap between those who are retiring and the early-career people coming in; many of us are just scientists, so we haven’t often seen a project through its entire life cycle. At Rocket U, we’re given a flight project, an idea, a problem to solve. We’re given 12 to 18 months to go through the whole process; build it, test it, verify it, and then fly it at the end.” Rocket University participants are allowed to devote up to 20 percent of their work time on their projects. Hernandez-Lugo says being a part of Rocket U helped her “look into other areas and things I may want to do in the future.” HyDRUS is short for “Hyperspectral HAB Detection via Remote UAV Sensing.” The hyperspectral imager (HSI) detects harmful algal
Linne explains: “To make oxygen and methane from the Mars atmosphere and water in the soil, we first need to excavate the soil and bake off the water that is chemically bound in the form of hydrated minerals. There are also signs of underground sheets of ice that we could tap into, but we are not yet certain how deep they are, and if they will be worth drilling down to in the areas where the people want to land. Once we have water, we will electrolyze it into oxygen and hydrogen, chill and store the oxygen in the propellant tanks, and send the hydrogen and
the Mars atmospheric carbon dioxide to a Sabatier reactor where catalysts and proper thermal management will result in methane and water. We will chill and store the methane, electrolyze the water, store that oxygen, and send that hydrogen back to the Sabatier reactor until we have all of the oxygen and methane that we need. Once the ascent vehicle is fully fueled, we can continue harvesting water for life support, or even to fill up a ‘water-wall’ surrounding the habitat as water is an excellent source of radiation protection.”
blooms (HAB) by flying an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV or drone) over target areas. HyDRUS was initially the brainchild of NASA Optics and Photonics Branch engineer Roger Tokars. Tokars says he was inspired during a presentation on the first Rocket U project, a high-altitude balloon. He had been a flight engineer on manned flights using the HSI used to detect algal blooms. “After the presentation, I was asking questions and I thought, ‘If you have a hyperspectral imager on an aircraft, what if I can miniaturize it? Can we put it on something similar to a balloon payload, like a UAV?’ Then the ball started rolling.” His idea was presented to Rocket University, which then selected HyDRUS as its next project. “I like to describe myself as an experimentalist,” Tokars says. “I just try something new and if it works, it’s like, ‘Great, let’s keep going with that.’ The data doesn’t lie.” Tokars studied the current HSI he worked with in manned flights and was able to figure out how it worked and how to swap out old components for newer technology.
Zero Gravity The effects of zero gravity on the human body are almost common knowledge to anyone with just a passing interest in space exploration: it lowers bone and muscle mass, disorients the brain’s sense of direction, and even causes changes in eye pressure. These effects are combated with the astronauts getting regular exercise. However, current exercise equipment like what the astronauts use on the International Space Station has been determined to be too large for the Orion missions. NASA-Glenn is now testing the Resistive Overload Combined with Kinetic Yo-Yo known as “ROCKY.” Developed by Zin Technologies in Middleburg Hts., it is a compact, multi-purpose exercise device that meets all the current exercise standards NASA set for its astronauts on the Mars mission.
“I was able to fold the optical system to fit inside this compact payload,” Tokars says. “The image comes in through the lens and bounces off a mirror, gets spread apart to all the different wavelengths, and goes into the camera. The camera is capturing data non-stop at 30 frames per second. We’re also capturing navigation information at the same time. We can bring the navigational data and the hyperspectral image together to see exactly where each image was taken.” The hyperspectral imagers takes line images, similar to the way a MRI or fax machine would scan and reproduce images line by line, and can detect over a thousand colors, even those the human eye can't see, by measuring wavelengths. A typical camera and the human eye only see in the basic red, green, and blue primary color range. The technology has the potential for use in other fields like solar energy, medicine, and agriculture. “For example,” Tokars says, “if you fly over farm crops and map out the area, you can use spectral information to identify how the plants are doing. If they’re low on water, leaves will actually exhibit a different profile as they absorb light differently. Same with fertilizer, plant diseases, invading species—you would be able to identify all that. “Miniaturizing our hyperspectral imager lets us make closer inspections of targets and high-resolution mapped images of smaller targets like rivers and streams and around specific waypoints. The portability and ease of use of the UAV version allows researchers
to quickly and easily map out more localized areas.” Both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Army Corps of Engineers have already expressed interest in the technology as it exists right now. “It’s like an added tool to their arsenal to see what’s going on,” Tokars says.
The HyDRUS team completed their first test flights over Maumee Bay in western Lake Erie early last fall. Sinclair Community College provided the UAV, while Altavian Inc., the UAV’s manufacturer, provided a pilot to fly it for them. “It was the first ever NASA-Glenn UAV project,” Tokars says, “so there was a lot of care taken to ensure we do this right. Take off, make sure we’re collecting data, make sure the aircraft is strong enough to hold the weight—there’s a lot of safety protocols. There were no problems, no crashes, no UAV flew into anybody’s house.” “We would not be talking about it if that had happened,” says Hernandez-Lugo, laughing. “We’d be doing paperwork,” Tokars responds.
ALGAL BLOOMS AND THE TOLEDO WATER CRISIS Algae is common to anyone living near sea or fresh water. We swim in it, drive our boats through it, and eat seafood that lived in it. Only about one percent of algal blooms, large colonies of algae, contain dangerous toxins. Government studies performed in the Great Lakes state the
DEFENDERS OF THE LAKE continues on page 31
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DIFFERENT STROKES:
MONSTER STEVE EHRET An Ohio Artist Spotlight Dan Bernardi // Photography: Clair Farris
B
orn in Canton during “Hall of Fame Week,” Steven Ehret later discovered his artistic side instead of a penchant for football. Steve grew up watching dark, zany media like The Maxx, Earthworm Jim, Halloween, and Gremlins, and in turn he always just loved drawing disturbing stuff. In eighth grade Steve was taken to see the school principal for his art. She flipped through his notebook, stopping to ask, “Why are you drawing chickens with their heads cut off?” That same year, Steve visited the Cleveland Museum of Art and it changed his life, as the masterpieces on display inspired him to excel at his craft.
After high school, Steve began pursuing art as a full-time career, earning his nickname “Monster” Steve for his trademark parade of illustrated monsters and characters. He's a jack-of-many-mediums, working with acrylic, oils, ink, watercolor, and spray paint while laying it down on walls, canvas, paper, cardboard, bikes, cars, trailers, and even dune buggies. One of Monster Steve's first big gigs was over 10 years ago, when he and his friend Ron Copeland were commissioned for $100 to paint a mural on the side of an old studio in Canton. It's faded, crusty, and still up to this day.
...each one a uniquely odd and intricate treat for viewers with a zest for absurdity.
Since then, Monster Steve hasn't stopped challenging himself with a continuous stream of projects, including a 380-foot Mother Goose-inspired mural series in Canton that took roughly eight months to complete. Another unique project was a custom-painted bicycle designed for New Belgium Brewing Company's 25th Anniversary. Steve took part in Akron University's Arts Life program, using his expertise to help teach kids how to paint murals, but perhaps his proudest moment was a solo show at Translations Gallery, a high-concept space in Canton that he reveres as artistically sacred ground.
What glows throughout Monster Steve's work is his insanely vivid, often humorous, otherworldly imagery. His creature creations
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are strangely pleasant yet freaky monstrosities bursting with color and character, each one a uniquely odd and intricate treat for viewers with a zest for absurdity. Steve's usually toothy, wideeyed, happy little horrors live among fully-textured psychedelic landscapes, simultaneously cheery and haunting. Each piece jumps to life like a frame from a twisted, un-aired Saturday morning cartoon, existing exclusively in Monster Steve's inimitable imagination.
Coming off a recent group show with fellow artists, including his girlfriend Kat Francis, at Cyrus Framing and Art Gallery in Canton, Monster Steve and company's display will be up for a few more weeks. Steve has a few mural projects in the pipeline for Canton and Akron, and a wall project in Detroit with his homies Malt and Tead, marking their fourth project together. In March, Steve will show his new paintings, themed “Atmos,” at the Lindsay Gallery in Columbus, and you can check out more of his work on Instagram @monster_steve and stay connected through his website at steveehret.com.
toxins can trigger skin rashes, vomiting, and asthma attacks and other respiracontinued from page 27 tory problems in susceptible people and can even be fatal. Wind, weather conditions, water currents, and fertilizer runoff into water sources can all contribute to the problem. Removing toxins requires adding activated carbon to the water supply, forcing the adhesion of the toxins to the carbon’s surface.
DEFENDERS OF THE LAKE
In 2014, toxic algal blooms caused a state of emergency in northwestern Ohio that made international headlines. A particularly large harmful algal bloom made its way into the Toledo area’s water supply intake in Maumee Bay. Farm fertilizer runoff into the Maumee River which drains into the bay was blamed for the the bloom along with high summer heat spurring even faster algae growth, which normally occurs more in the shallower waters near the shoreline. Hundreds of thousands of people were left without water as a result. The Ohio National Guard and volunteer organizations from around the Midwest helped deliver clean water to the area. Many of the people affected had to drive across state lines to find bottled water as the crisis carried on.
NASA STEPS IN TO HELP “Water treatment operators and water quality control officers in the Toledo area measured levels of microcystins (toxins) in the water that were above the World Health Organization’s acceptable level,” Tokars explains. “They double-checked the water samples and told the city. Toledo officials made the decision to institute a ban on the water. We were flying the HSI in the manned aircraft at the time, coincidentally, and we were looking at the algae. “We were only planning on flying a few times, but it was such a big deal, we were asked by Governor Kasich to help support that effort, so we increased our number of flights from a few to like, 15 flights. We mapped out the area around the bay and gave that information to the water treatment operators, the Ohio EPA, anyone else who was interested in that data. All the data was analyzed to determine algae concentration, toxicity, and sediment in the water.” The information helped the city of Toledo avoid even bigger problems. “We flew over an area that showed algae around the water intake,” Tokars says. “They weren’t aware of it, so they went out to the intake and did a measurement and confirmed the presence of microcystins.”
PRESSURE PICKS Upcoming Shows to See Lacey Sturm
February 7 // House of Blues
Twiztid
February 10 // Agora Ballroom
Welshly Arms
February 10 // Agora Theatre
Seaton Smith
February 15 // Hilarities
Frank Caliendo
February 24 // Hard Rock Rocksino
Pinch & Squeal’s Vaudeville Cabaret February 24 // Hilarities
ZZ Top
February 25 // Hard Rock Rocksino
Dada
February 27 // Beachland Tavern
Gaelic Storm
March 3 // House of Blues
Sklar Brothers
March 9-11 // Hilarities
Dinosaur Jr.
March 12 // Beachland Ballroom
Since Toledo’s water crisis, local, state, and even the federal government have all taken steps to help prevent it happening again: farm fertilization regulations, nationwide guidelines on safe microcystin levels, and nearly $200 million in funding. Meanwhile, NASA continues to run its manned imaging flights over western Lake Erie and is getting ready to add the UAV program to its toolbox.
Senses Fail
NASA and the Glenn Research Center will continue to be known primarily for their work in outer space—NASA-Glenn’s involvement in the International Space Station and the mission to Mars continue to be its most attention-getting achievements—but its presence in our community, sometimes the less headline-grabbing information, is what you need to know about the most. Ask Toledo.
Jo Koy
March 26 // House of Blues
Local Natives
March 30 // Agora Theatre
March 30 - April 1 // Hilarities
Konyafest 2
April 15 // Agora Ballroom
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St. Patrick
Chad Weaver Illustrations: Clancy Collins @clancy_collins
ST. PATRICK'S DAY.
SWAYZE’S DAY
We celebrate St. Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland by getting drunk enough to think that someone could actually drive snakes like they’re cars. It’s a celebration that despite its Irish heritage brings people from all walks of life together, except for one type of people: people who don’t drink, a group who has been excluded from enjoying in the festivities for too long. However, I have a way to bring them into the fold while keeping the St. Patrick’s Day time-honored tradition of being so hungover the next day you realize you need to have a better relationship with your mother.
It’s time to change St. Patrick’s Day to honor a man that truly matters.
To do this, we have to appeal to the people who don’t drink. And you know what every single person who doesn’t drink loves? You guessed it, karate, or as they call it in the Far East, “karate.” And you know what people who love karate love? The 2006 direct-to-DVD movie Road House 2, or as they call it in the Far East, “Casa De La Road Dos.” And you know what people who love the movie Road House 2 love? The movie Road House. And you know what people who love the movie Road House love? The director of the film Road House, Rowdy Herrington. And you know what people who love Road House director Rowdy Herrington love? Benny Urquidez, the technical advisor on martial arts for the movie Road House. And you know who Benny Urquidez, the technical advisor for martial arts on the movie Road House, worked with on the movie Road House? That’s right, Patrick Swayze. Do you catch my drift here? We should change St. Patrick’s Day to St. Patrick Swayze’s Day.
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Sure, St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland, but St. Patrick Swayze drove himself right into our hearts with his performance in Dirty Dancing. Also, did you know Patrick Swayze got the chance to perform alongside THE Whoopi Goldberg in THE movie Ghost? Instead of celebrating some old saint that scared snakes away from a country your significant other cheated on you in when they studied abroad in college, we can now celebrate someone that really matters. Someone that was named PEOPLE’s Sexiest Man Alive in 1991.
Don’t worry alcoholics, just because we’re changing it to St. Patrick Swayze’s Day doesn't mean we can’t still keep all the same traditions of St. Patrick’s Day, especially the drinking. Patrick Swayze loved to party after all (I’m not sure if this is true, but when I Googled “Patrick Swayze party,” I found a picture of him with Paula Abdul, so you be the judge). Plus, we can add some fun new traditions. Doesn’t Patrick Swayze rip somebody’s throat out in Road House? Boom, St. Patrick Swayze’s Road House Delight, a grain alcohol so strong it’ll have you begging to get your throat forcefully removed from your body. Most importantly, with St. Patrick Swayze’s Day, can you imagine how fun a parade would be full of drunk people doing karate? That’s the kind of fighting Irish I want to see. So please, Cleveland, join with me in my quest to change St. Patrick’s Day to St. Patrick Swayze’s Day, a holiday everyone can celebrate. If we can accomplish this, maybe someday we can even accomplish something really hard, like changing New Year’s Eve to Keanu Year’s Reeves.
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