Nov. 2019, The Devil Strip

November 2019 · Vol 5 · Issue #11 · thedevilstrip.com

PAGE 10: ‘poe’s garden’ at summit artspace: See the winning works

PAGE 19: The Akron AIDS Collaborative supports Black men living with HIV

FREE

PAGE 23: Everyone is family over soul food at Nicole’s Restaurant

AKRON!

NOW OPEN!

THE HOT SAUCE FRIDGE HAS MOVED!

Find us now at inside the Northside Marketplace.

Here to heat up your holidays!

In Westgate Plaza by Dunkin 25 Westgate Circle, Akron

NOTYODADDYS.COM

follow us! @notyodaddys

Your Bus Pass. Anytime. Anywhere.

Mobile ticketing is now available on all METRO services!

No cash? No problem! Purchase your bus pass on your mobile device anytime, anywhere.

330•808•0693 Open Monday - Friday 9-6; Saturday 9-3

Summit Artspace 140 East Market Street Akron, Ohio 44308

Table of Contents

ON THE COVER: This piece is part of a commission set titled Ubuntu. The artist is Nichole Epps. Learn more about her on Page 9.

Publisher: Chris Horne chris@thedevilstrip.com

PLAN

Editor-in-Chief: Rosalie Murphy rosalie@thedevilstrip.com

5 Devil’s Dozen

11 14

Senior Reporter: Noor Hindi noor@thedevilstrip.com

6 There’s Nothing to Do in

15 18

Business Development Director: Jessica Goldbourn jessica@thedevilstrip.com

12 All Abilities Art Expo 13 Walter Delbridge 14 The Nightlight Turns 5

Ad Sales: Derek Kreider, Allyson Smith sales@thedevilstrip.com

EXPLORE

Copy Editors: Megan Combs, Dave Daly, Emily Dressler, Shannon Wasie

16

16 The Institute for Human

16 UA’s Snake Researcher 18 Profile: Yoly Miller

UNDERSTAND

21

21 The Akron AIDS Collaborative Supports Black Men Living With HIV

APPLAUD 25 Pin 2 Hot 26 Nicole’s Restaurant

The Devil Strip is published monthly by Random Family, LLC. Distribution: The Devil Strip is available free of charge, limited to one copy per reader. Copyright: The entire contents of The Devil Strip are copyright 2019 by Random Family, LLC. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission of the publisher is prohibited. Publisher does not assume liability for unsolicited manuscripts, materials, or other content. All editorial, advertising, and business correspondence should be sent to the addresses listed above.

26 On The Record: Incentive

REFLECT 27 Coffee Talk with Vanessa

Our Mission: Akron Music, Art & Culture

15 Vintage Structures

Science and Culture

www.thedevilstrip.com facebook.com/thedevilstrip @akrondevilstrip @thedevilstrip

The Devil Strip connects Akronites to their neighbors, our city and a stronger sense of purpose by sharing stories about the people who make this place unique.

CREATE 11 Sharetta Howze

Community Outreach Manager: Floco Torres floco@thedevilstrip.com

Other current & recent contributors: Conor Battles, Theresa Bennett, Anthony Boarman, Trvaughn Clayton, Kyle Cochrun, Skylar Cole, H.L. Comeriato, Amber Cullen, Alissa Danckaert Skovira, Ken Evans, Charlotte Gintert, Colleen Hanke, Aja Hannah, Charlee Harris, Mariah Hicks, Matthew Hogan, Tyron Hoisten, Jillian Holness, Lisa Kane, Jamie Keaton, Ted Lehr, Marissa Marangoni, Sandy Maxwell, Vanessa Michelle, Yoly Miller, Brittany Nader, Ilenia Pezzaniti, Arrye Rosser, Mark Schweitzer, Marc Lee Shannon, Paul Treen, Steve Van Auken, Pat Worden. Want to help make The Devil Strip? Write to rosalie@ thedevilstrip.com.

Akron

Michelle 28 Crooked River Reflections

25 28 November 2019 · vol 5 · issue #11

30 Urine Luck The Devil Strip |

3

WELCOME

We have some big news: You can now become a co-owner of The Devil Strip!

T

he Devil Strip is in the process of becoming the U.S.’s first local news co-op. You’ve probably heard a lot about this on our social media, through newsletters, and maybe from other readers. But what does it mean for you?

Simply put, The Devil Strip will be cooperatively owned by its readers. Each reader will be able to buy a share in the company, and shareholders will get a say in the decisions we make.

FOUNDING MEMBER

2020

What we believe : STORIES MATTER. We believe the most important stories are the ones we tell ourselves about ourselves, and that this is as true for cities as it is for individuals. For better or worse, every city’s chief storyteller is its media. We take responsibility for our work because we know it shapes the way Akronites see each other, and the way we see each other influences how we treat one another.

OUR WORK IS FOR AKRON. This is our reason for existing, not merely our editorial angle for stories. We are advocates for the city of Akron and allies to its people, so we may be cheerleaders, but that won’t keep us from challenging the city’s flaws. What’s the point of being part of the community if we can’t help make it a better place to live?

OUR WORK SHOULD BE DONE WITH AKRON. We would rather build trust through cooperation and collaboration than authority. Our place in the community is alongside it, not standing outside looking in or standing above it looking down.

4 | The Devil Strip

Shares are now on sale, and you’re invited to buy yours for as little as $1 per month.

Every member gets one vote, and no member will be able to have more shares than another member. One person, one vote ensures that all voices are heard.

(Legally, shareholders must live in the state of Ohio.)

Beginning in early 2020, Devil Strip shareholders will meet regularly and vote on decisions that affect the magazine.

For example, if The Devil Strip had a surplus of funds from the previous year, shareholders could vote on how to spend that money in a way that would be best for Akron. Also, shareholders will elect a board. Once elected, the board will act much like a traditional nonprofit board

WE CARE ABOUT YOU, NOT JUST YOUR EYEBALLS. Sometimes, we love a good fight with the status quo. But conflict and antagonism will never be a way of life for us, especially not to boost clicks, views, comments, shares and “eyeballs.” We are watchdogs to hold our leaders accountable, not to keep the neighbors up all night with our barking.

WE LOVE OUR NEIGHBORS. Our stories humanize the people in our city. We not only want to counter sensationalized and alarmist reporting but to eventually render it obsolete. We advocate for justice, freedom and equality because those qualities make this city, and our lives, better.

JOURNALISM SHOULD LIVE BEYOND THE PAGE. Information without context or connection is inert. We believe journalism can connect people to each other, our city and even a sense of purpose. Though our work begins on the page, both printed and web, we promote and plan events so people can meet faceto-face where real life still happens.

PEOPLE OVER PROFITS. The local businesses, nonprofits and civic organizations who support The Devil

— offering expertise in decision-making, meeting more regularly than the full membership to talk about budgets and administrative issues, and more.

A lot of people have asked if this will change how we operate, specifically how it will change editorial direction. Right now, our content is largely determined by what the magazine’s writers think is interesting and relevant. The rest comes from readers alerting us to important people and issues in their neighborhoods.

As The Devil Strip becomes a co-op, does this mean the way things are covered is going to change? No, not necessarily. But as a group, shareholders will be able to tell Devil Strip journalists what they want to know more about. Each year, the staff will offer ideas for investigations we’d like to undertake or topics we would like to cover, and shareholders can nominate proposals of their own. Shareholders will vote on which topics they’re most curious about, and we’ll dig into them in that order.

For readers who want to donate more than $12 per year, higher membership tiers are available: Friends at $60 per year; Devil’s Advocates at $144 per year;

LIFT November: Learn at the Library

This month, carve out an hour to peruse the website or bulletin board at your local branch library. You’ll be stunned by the depth and breadth of programs they offer.

If you want to come learn with The Devil Strip, we’ll be at the Main Library on Monday, Nov. 18 for a demonstration of the TechZone @ Main! Details on Page 5.

The 330 Club at $330 per year; and the Founders’ Circle at $1,000 per year. Each tier has specific perks, which you can read more about at TheDevilStrip.com/ Co-Op. So how can you get involved? Become a founding member in November and December! There are two big reasons to do so.

First, you will be a part of the first local news co-op in the United States. How cool is that?

Second, your money will go further than you think because of NewsMatch, a project of the Institute for Nonprofit News. If we raise $20,000, it’ll be matched by national funders. $20,000 can become $40,000 during this window.

Let us know what questions you have and what you would like to see in the future of The Devil Strip. We hope you’ll join us! To sign up, visit that same link: TheDevilStrip.com/Co-Op. Cheers,

The Devil Strip Team

          

Strip are part of our community and are as vital to our culture as our artists and musicians. That’s why we don’t accept ads for national chains, things in large metros outside Summit County or businesses that profit from the exploitation of women.

We are not a coat hanger for advertising.

bring us together, helping us find new friends and have fun with the ones we already have. That makes us all a little happier. That’s what it’s all about.

WE GET ONE SHOT AT LIFE, SO LET’S HAVE FUN. We want our readers to fall in love with Akron (again and again and again), to buck the temptation to only live vicariously through the people they follow online. One thing that makes art, dance, theatre, music, film, food, civic engagement, biking, hiking, and public space so great is that all these things can

The “devil strip” is the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street. The precise origins of the term are unknown, but it’s only used in Akron. Today, the devil strip is what connects residents to the city — its public space, its people and its challenges. The Devil Strip seeks to do the same thing.

November 2019 · vol 5 · issue #11

What is a devil strip?

thedevilstrip.com

PLAN

tDevil’s

Dozen NOVEMBER 9 Geology of Deep Lock Quarry Deep Lock Quarry Metro Park // 2-3:30 pm // Join a naturalist to explore the history of Deep Lock Quarry and learn how the Berea sandstone, shale and Sharon conglomerate were formed. This area produced some of the highest quality sandstone for structural building blocks, canal locks and grindstones. This hike counts toward the Fall Hiking Spree! For information, call 330-865-8065.

NOVEMBER 9, 16, AND 23 Countryside Old Trail School Winter Farmers’ Market Old Trail School // 9 am-12 pm // The Countryside Old Trail School Winter Farmers’ Market begins in November and will feature more than 50 vendors each week. The cafeteria and gymnasium will be bustling with farmers, food entrepreneurs and artists, featuring storage and high tunnel crops, pastureraised meats, cheese, coffee, breakfast and more. The market runs on most Sundays through April. For a full schedule, visit www.cvcountryside.org.

EVERY MONDAY Story Time: Sign Language Main Library // 10:30 am // Learn simple sign language signs that you can use at home through stories, songs and activities, including signs for feelings, animals and more. Designed for children

OUR PICKS FOR THE 12 BEST CHOICES YOU CAN MAKE THIS MONTH 2 to 5 years old with an adult caregiver.

Free. #1, #5, #6, #7, #10, #12, #26, #28, #33, #34, DASH, #102, #103, #104 NOVEMBER 14 BOUNCE Startup Showcase Bounce Innovation Hub // 5-8 pm // Bounce Innovation Hub is bringing together their most promising startups for live pitches and networking with community members, investors and influencers. The evening includes a keynote speaker and light refreshments.

Free. #1, #3, #17, DASH NOVEMBER 15-16 Cry Havoc! (Shakespeare and PTSD) Ohio Shakespeare Festival // 8 pm // Cry Havoc! is a production by visiting artist veteran Stephan Wolfert. The play centers on Stephan’s lived experience of using Shakespeare’s words to address his PTSD. $15-$50. #1, #6, #7, #10, #12, #26, #33, #34, DASH, #102, #103, #104 NOVEMBER 18 Watercolor 101 for Adults Odom Boulevard Branch Library // 6 pm // Instructor Claire Marks will discuss materials, history and some basic techniques that will get you started with the versatile medium of watercolors.

Registration is requested by phone, in person or online beginning Oct. 30. Free. #9

NOVEMBER 18 LIFT Akron November: TechZone@ Main Demo Main Library // 6-7:30 pm // Join The Devil Strip to Learn at the Library during November. During this demo, learn how to use some of the equipment available in the TechZone, including the directto-garment printer, laser engraver, vinyl printer, silhouette curio, green screen room and more. Free. #1, #5, #6, #7, #10, #12, #26, #28, #33, #34, DASH, #102, #103, #104 NOVEMBER 22 Vintage Sip and Shop Night with Seberg The Gardener of Bath // 4-8 pm // Sip wine while browsing Seberg’s collection of vintage apparel. Get some gifts for the holiday season or spoil yourself with a one-of-a-kind purchase. Free. #101 NOVEMBER 23 - DECEMBER 1 Akron Children’s Hospital Holiday Tree Festival 2019 John S. Knight Center // MondayWednesday and Friday 11 am-8 pm; Thanksgiving Day 2-6 pm; Saturday 10 am-8 pm // Enjoy hundreds of community-decorated trees and wreaths, and bid on your favorites to benefit Akron Children’s Hospital. Admission is free. #1, #5, #6, #7, #10, #12, #19, #26, #28, #30, #33, #34, DASH, #102, #103, #104

NOVEMBER 28 Tree City Turkey Trot Fred Fuller Park // 9 am // Work up an appetite Thanksgiving morning by participating in the 2019 Tree City Turkey Trot. Pre-register online or sign up in person the morning of the race. For more information on registration, packet pick-up and other race details, visit http:// www.kentparksandrec.com.

NOVEMBER 30 Small Business Saturday in North Hill The Exchange House // 10 am-2 pm // Visit the Exchange House on Small Business Saturday to patronize pop-up vendors with holiday gifts, artwork, handicrafts and handmade fashion.

Information will be available to visit other neighborhood markets to fulfill your holiday needs. Bring cash in case not all vendors accept credit cards. If you are interested in vending, contact Katie at exchangehouseakron@gmail.com before Nov. 16. #7, #33 NOVEMBER 30 - DECEMBER 1 The 11th Annual Crafty Mart Bounce Innovation Hub // 10 am // Purchase your holiday gifts from 70+ makers, all under one roof! Organizers promise the biggest, “bestest Crafty Mart you’ve ever seen.” This is also our LIFT Akron event for December: Buy a Local Gift. Free. #1, #3, #17

The PLAN section is underwritten by METRO RTA. For full bus schedules and route maps, visit akronmetro.org.

Akron Music, Art & Culture

November 2019 · vol 5 · issue #11

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6 | The Devil Strip

THE DEVIL STRIP’S COMPREHENSIVE MONTHLY ARGUMENT THAT THERE’S PLENTY OF FUN TO BE HAD IN AKRON

There’s Nothing to Do in Akron

PLAN

NOV. 9 DTCF Vintage Day: A Walk to Remember Front Street in Cuyahoga Falls // 1-4 pm // Celebrate with Downtown Cuyahoga Falls in honor of its first vintage day.

This family-friendly event will feature a scavenger hunt to find the lost leaders of Cuyahoga Falls. Free. #10

Alcohol Ink Workshop Cuyahoga Valley Art Center // 6:30- 8:30 pm // Learn new and exciting ways to work with alcohol ink, whether you’re just starting or a master. All materials will be provided, but bring a beverage to get the creative juices flowing. $35 per person or $60 per couple. #10

NOV. 13 Intro to Archery for Seniors Firestone Metro Park / Coventry Oaks Area // 5-6:30 pm // Adults 55 and older can come and learn target style archery at the temporary indoor range.

Program designed for both beginning and practiced archers. All equipment and hands-on instruction provided. $10. To register, visit summitmetropaks.org or call 330-865-8065.

EVERY TUESDAY Be Your Own Kung Fu Warrior Kids Class Exchange House // 7:30 pm // Kids ages 4-18 will learn the basics of Kung Fu. $35 per month. To register and ask questions, call Master Lee at 234-5717382 or email thehouseofkungfu@ gmail.com. #7, #33

NOV. 14 After School Adventures: Turkeys F.A. Seiberling Nature Realm / Visitors Center // 5-6:30 pm // Kids are invited to this interactive after-school program to learn about turkey tail fungus, turkey vultures and wild turkeys. A short hike will be included. Free.

Summit Food Coalition Stakeholder Gathering Akron Canton Regional Foodbank // 5:30-7 pm // The Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank will share information about the advisory committee candidates. Come use this opportunity to network with local food advocates and help prepare the Local Food Action Plan. Free. #9

FIRST & THIRD FRIDAYS Funny Hour at Jilly’s Jilly’s Music Room // 5:30- 6:45 pm // Funny Noizes Productions spotlights four comedians, each doing 20 minutes of “late nite clean material,” at two standup comedy events each month. Free.

Bob Dylan at E.J. Thomas E.J. Thomas Hall // 8 pm // Come see singer-songwriter, author and pop culture icon Bob Dylan at E.J. Thomas Hall.

Tickets range from $55-$125.

Will Shortz – An Evening with the Puzzle Master Main Library // 7-8 pm // Come meet world renowned enigmatologist Will Shortz, the world’s only accredited puzzle master. Shortz has been the editor of The New York Times crossword since 1993 and is the author and editor of more than 500 puzzle books. Free. #1, #5, #6, #7, #10, #12, #26, #28, #33, #34, DASH, #102, #103, #104 The Price is Right Live Akron Civic Theatre // 7:30 pm // The Price Is Right Live is an interactive stage show that gives eligible individuals the chance to “Come On Down!” Tickets are on sale now at the Akron Civic box office, www.AkronCivic.com and at www.

Ticketmaster.com. #1, #3, #6, #7, #10, #12, #19, #26, #33, #34, DASH, #102, #103, #104

NOV. 15 Self-Care Day! Main Library // 12-4 pm // Join this event hosted by the Battered Women’s Shelter of Summit & Medina Counties for a fun afternoon filled with food, music, yoga, Zumba and relaxation. Free. #1, #5, #6, #7, #10, #12, #26, #28, #33, #34, DASH, #102, #103, #104

House of Hamill Unitarian Universalist Church of Kent // 8 pm // Join Brian Buchanan and Rose Baldino for an evening of unpredictable original songs and traditional contemporary songs. $5 for students, $15 in advance and $20 at door.

NOV. 15-16 NOV. 15-17 THIRD SUNDAYS Side Project Sessions The Grand Exchange // 2-5 pm; doors at 1:45 pm // Let Side Project Sessions peer-pressure you into productivity.

Use this blocked-out time to work on your passion project, learn a new craft, catch up on your invoices, or whatever you need to focus on. Distraction-free work sessions begin promptly at 2 pm.

Coffee, tea and snacks provided. $12. #4

Conversation Trumps Conflict: Dismantling Racism One Conversation at a Time Unitarian Universalist Church of Akron // Friday 7 pm and Saturday 9 am-4:30 pm // Dr. David Campt will present an interactive talk, “Connection Trumps Conflict,” on Friday. On Saturday, he will lead “Dismantling Racism One Conversation at a Time,” a day-long workshop. $20 donation recommended Friday; workshop is $65. Sliding scale offered. For more information and to register, visit www.uurjtf.org. #1

Operetta: The Land of Smiles, Pirates and Pinafores Wright-Curtis Theatre in the Center for the Performing Arts // Nov. 15 and 16 at 7:30 pm, plus a 3 pm matinee on Nov. 17 // The Hugh A. Glauser School of Music and Kent State Opera present Operetta: The Land of Smiles, Pirates and Pinafores.

Tickets are $8-$15 and free for 18 and under.

The PLAN section is underwritten by METRO RTA. For full bus schedules and route maps, visit akronmetro.org.

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NOV. 16 Inquire! Innovate! Invent!

The University of Akron College of Engineering // 8:30 am-2 pm // The Inquire! Innovate! Invent! Program is designed to teach girls grades 6-10 about the impact of innovations of women. These interactive and innovative workshops will showcase women inventors and involve girls in STEMrelated projects. This event is $22 for girls and $14 for adults eating at the event.

Register online.

Ivoree Xavier at The Rialto Theatre The Rialto Theatre // 6:30 pm // Come down to the Rialto Theatre in Kenmore to watch Ivoree Xavier perform. Featuring Tray Christian, Shayla Averiette, Alonzo+, and DJ LaMae. Presale tickets are $13 and $15. $5 charge for guests under 21. #8

Rhythm & Rhymes ft. Reagan Gray & Ephraim Social 8 // 8-11 pm // Join Rhythm & Rhymes for their one-year anniversary.

The house band is back and this years event will feature Reagan Gray and poet Ephraim.

Akron Symphony Orchestra: The Four Seasons E.J. Thomas Hall // 8 pm // Join the Akron Symphony Orchestra for their production of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. Tickets $12.50-$60.

NOV. 15-19 BFA Exhibition: ‘Family Heirloom’ Crown Point Ecology Center // Nov. 15 from 5:30-8 pm; Nov. 17-19 from 11 am-6 pm // Kristina Wolin, who is graduating from the UA Myers School of Art, investigates the realms of domesticity in works ranging from homemade quilts to everyday photographs. Free.

NOV. 2, 9, 23, 30 Penguin Palooza Akron Zoo // 11 am-2 pm // Celebrate the Humboldt penguins. Warm up with free hot chocolate while you create your own penguin craft. Feed penguins while supplies last. #14

ONGOING The Truth Demands Justice Kent State University Library Marovitz Gallery // 10 am-5 pm // This exhibition features posters, flyers, shirts and other items created by the May 4th Task Force, a student-run organization founded in 1975, to raise awareness about the Kent State shootings of May 4, 1970. Runs through May 2020.

NOV. 22 - DEC. 21 Kaleidoscope Summit Artspace // Thursday-Friday 12-7 pm; Saturday 12-5 pm // The Alliance of the Visual Arts presents the 17th annual Kaleidoscope exhibition. More than 650 artists will have the chance to enter. Opening reception Nov. 22 at 5 pm with awards announced at 7 pm. Free. #5, #6

NOV. 23 Self-Awareness: A Tool for Serving and Empowering Others The Front Porch Cafe // 10 am-12 pm // Self-awareness is essential for good work.

Join the Kingdom Leadership Alliance for interactive exercises designed to help people intimately confront ourselves and become more self-aware leaders. #13

THROUGH NOV. 22 Stranger Beings: Hieronymus Objects & Other Curiosities Emily Davis Gallery // 10 am-5 pm Monday-Friday // The familiar becomes twisted, morphed and surreal in Stranger Beings: Hieronymus Objects & Other Curiosities.

Stranger Beings presents works from the regional Hieronymus collection in conjunction with six Ohio artists. Free. #2, #13, #17, #110

NOV. 21 2019 Cystic Fibrosis Education Day Akron Children’s Hospital Considine Professional Building // 5-8 pm // Education Day is an event to provide those who care for someone with Cystic Fibrosis with an update on what is happening in the CF world and at Children’s Hospital. Parking and dinner will be provided. #3, #14

NOV. 22 Tony Monaco Blu Jazz+ // 8 pm // Internationallyacclaimed Hammond B-3 organist Tony Monaco returns to the Rubber City for a night of burnin’, hard-swingin’ organ trio jazz. $18 or $10 with a student ID. #1, #7, #10, #12, #34

NOV. 26

Warren Miller’s ‘Timeless’ Akron Civic Theatre // 8 pm // Warren Miller Entertainment brings its 70th full-length feature film, Timeless, to the Civic. Timeless celebrates the past seven decades of ski cinematography, while looking toward the future. $15. #1, #10

Owl Prowl Silver Creek Metro Park / Pheasant Run Area // 7-8 pm // Take an evening hike and learn about owls, their calls, where to find them and how they survive the winter. Hosted by Devil Strip contributor Dave Daly! Free.

Riverfront Readers Book Club Cuyahoga Falls Library // 7 pm // The Riverfront Readers meet on the third Thursday of every month. In November, they’ll discuss Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn West. Pick up a copy at the library’s reference desk. Free. #10

NOV. 21-23 Hamlet Firestone Theatre // 7:30 pm // Come to Firestone Theatre for a production of William Shakespeare’s enduring masterpiece of revenge, passion, and deception, Hamlet. Directed by Tess Burgler. Tickets $8-$12.

NOV. 26-27 Akron Goes to the Apollo Apollo Theater, New York City // 11 pm // Join the Akron bus to cheer on Akron native and Emmy-nominated pianist Kofi Boakye at the Apollo Theater Finals in NYC! $150 for a spot on the bus. For details, visit bit.ly/KofiBus.

The PLAN section is underwritten by METRO RTA. For full bus schedules and route maps, visit akronmetro.org.

Akron Music, Art & Culture

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NOV. 27 DIY Porch Sign Little Van Gogh Art Studio // 6:30- 8:30 pm // All supplies provided for this painting get-together, including a 5-foot by 1-foot board, stencils and chalk paint.

Customize your sign to match your home. $30.

‘The Irishman’ at The Nightlight The Nightlight // Times TBA // In this new Martin Scorsese film, a mob hitman recalls his possible involvement with the slaying of Jimmy Hoffa. Ticket prices TBA. #1, #7, #10, #12, #33, #34, #102, #103, #104; may vary based on film timings.

NOV. 30 - DEC. 28 Holidays on the Hill — Naturally Perkins Stone Mansion // 1-4 pm // Holidays at the Perkins Stone Mansion are an Akron tradition. This year, the Summit County Historical Society is taking the mansion back to nature, with decorations made of materials from the grounds. Tours $10. #3

EVERY MONDAY Tracey Thomas 6-8PM Comedy Happy Hour Every FRIDAY 5:3OPM F 11/1 5 O’Clock Chicken 9PM S 11/2 15-6O-75 Numbers Band 8PM W 11/6 Hot Potatoes 7PM TH 11/7 Tim Coyne Jazztet 8PM F 11/8 Walking In Circles 8PM S 11/9 Comedy Brunch 11AM� M 11/11 Closed For Holiday T 11/12 Comedy Auditions 8PM W 11/13 Drink & Draw w Dr Sketchy 7:3OPM $1O TH 11/14 Comedy Night 8PM F 11/15 Roxxymoron 8PM S 11/16 Electric Garden 8PM W 11/20 Open Jam/Open Mic 8PM TH 11/21 Karaoke w DJ JET 8PM F 11/22 Kathy Johnson Group 6PM | Up Til 4 8PM S 11/23 Joe Wayand Birthday Jam 8PM M 11/25 Vince Ruby Trio 7:3OPM T 11/26-TH 11/28 Closed For Holiday F 11/29 The Bizarros & Bad Dudes 8PM S 11/30 JILLY’S 6TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION w Mo’ Mojo 8PM

Open Studio: Donate Your Art Day Akron ArtWorks // 11 am-4 pm // Akron ArtWorks has identified several Akron organizations that would welcome your creations. Make some art that will be donated to people in need. $10 for one person or $25 for a family of up to four. #28, #53

WEEKENDS BEGINNING NOV. 30 Holiday Lantern Tours at Hale Farm Hale Farm & Village // 5:30-9 pm // Take a charming lantern-lit tour of the Village and visit the historic houses, delightfully decorated for the season. Afterward, join guests for holiday treats. The tour lasts about 90 minutes.

For reservations, call 330-666-3711 ext.1720 or email halereservations@wrhs.org. Tickets $12 for kids or $20 for adults. Group rates available.

DEC. 2

DEC. 4

Community Conversations over Coffee Compass Coffee // 6:30-7:30 pm // National Association of Social Workers Ohio Region 2 Director Rebecca Prather will host monthly meetings on the first Monday of every month for everyone and anyone in the social work community. No registration required. #5, #6, #19

How to Use Power Tools The Well CDC // 6-7:30 pm // This handson training will provide the information and experience you need to confidently and safely use power tools for home projects. $5. For financial assistance, email vista@thewellakron.com. #5, #6, #19, #30

DEC. 5-6 Kent State 8 — Vol. 2 Kent State University School of Theatre and Dance Center for the Performing Arts // 6 pm // Presented by the Kent State Dance Division, the Kent State 8 will feature diverse and talented dancers battling head-to-head for the coveted KS8 title. $10 for spectators, $5 for students.

The PLAN section is underwritten by METRO RTA. For full bus schedules and route maps, visit akronmetro.org.

HOW TO AKRON   TIPS, TRICKS, RESOURCES AND FUNDING FOR GOOD NEIGHBORS

buy local for your thanksgiving turkey

information at harvestbellfarm.com/ouranimals.

The following farms are raising turkeys this year, according to Countryside:

Tierra Verde Farm: Turkeys are pastured, free-range and GMO-free. $4 per pound. See them at the Countryside Farmers’ Market at Howe Meadow or the Haymaker Farmers’ Market in Kent. More information at tierraverdefarms.com.

Trapp Family Farm: Turkeys are organicfed and moved to fresh pastures daily. $4.75 per pound. Request an order form at trapp.family.farm@gmail.com.

Goatfeathers Point Farm: Heritage Blue State and Bourbon Red for $7.70 per pound; Broad Breasted Bronze for $5.50 per pound. Email goatfeathers2@gmail. com to reserve.

Harvest Bell Farm: Turkey breast for $10 per pound and a whole turkey for $5 per pound. See them at Countryside Public Market on Nov. 10 and Nov. 17. More

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NOV. 29

Get your leaves to the curb on time Leaf pickup began on Nov. 4. Remaining pickup dates as of this publication include: Ward 10 on Nov. 8; Ward 9 on Nov. 14; Ward 2 on Nov. 18; Ward 1 on Nov. 21; Ward 8 on Nov. 25; Ward 4 on Dec. 3; Ward 6 on Dec. 7; and Ward 7 on Dec. 11

November 2019 · vol 5 · issue #11

In addition to your ward’s scheduled pickup date, the City of Akron will give you three curb service bulk pick-ups every year for free. Leaves must be bagged for early pick-up. To schedule, contact the 3-1-1 or (330) 375-2311.

Become the conductor for the metro parks band Summit Metro Parks is looking for a volunteer conductor for its 30-member ensemble. The conductor must schedule rehearsals, plan concert seasons with park district staff, manage music and more. Performances and practices are on Tuesdays. If you’re interested, call 330865-8047 or contact Della Day at dday@summitmetroparks.org.

thedevilstrip.com

Create

by Jamie Keaton

M

aya Angelou once said, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

When you think about what an artist is, what do you think: A storyteller, painter, poet? When you think of an advocate, what do you think: leader, compassionate, driven? What if I told you there was an artist in the city of Akron that embodies these traits and more — someone who uses her art not only to tell stories, but also to highlight and center the marginalized communities?

This is Nichole Epps. This artist spotlight is a well-deserved and long overdue tribute to give credit where credit is due, and to showcase an artist who has been in the background making moves.

The passion for art came to Nichole when she was a child, when it starts for most.

When she became old enough to hold a pen, she learned to express herself in ways that she didn’t have the vocabulary for. Painting let her express emotions that needed to be explored. Once she finished each piece, she felt better. Art was the key that unlocked the emotions within her story.

“Art was a vehicle where I could express things that I didn’t have a vocabulary for,” Nichole says. “I always kept an art

Akron Music, Art & Culture

IN THIS SECTION: SHARETTA HOWZE’S CR3ATIVE EXPRESSIONS · ‘ISOLATION AND INTELLECT’ · THE NIGHTLIGHT TURNS 5 · ALL ABILITIES ART EXPO

Akron arts, theatre & Literature

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diary as a kid [that] my family didn’t even know about. But I would have these feelings, these things I would need to get out, and I would go and draw. It would always represent exactly what I was feeling internally, and it felt better once the piece was done. When I realized that art had the ability to do that for me, I was hooked. I didn’t share my work with the world for many, many years because it was always a personal healing tool for me.”

Nichole informed me that in her process she never knows what the piece is going to look like until she starts. She doesn’t sketch. Her story comes when she is in the space and she is feeling something.

Those feelings translate directly from the pen to the canvas. For the audience, she doesn’t give words to her pieces, but she leaves them open for resonance and interpretation. Making you feel something through the piece to spark conversation, and very well “leaving you with passion for something that you didn’t think you had,” she says.

Nichole also advocates for people of color, pushing us to the forefront and giving us the same platforms as our counterparts.

She advocates for artists of color to be able to create and thrive on a professional level, helping to lead us through creating contracts, pricing our work and getting us into the rooms that we as artists of color need to be connected to.

Nichole Epps

One of her many strengths is being vocal — specifically, being vocal about the lack of access that artists of color have, pushing organizations to recognize the talents that people of color have and calling accountability to the inequalities that exist in these spaces. For example, Nichole was at the forefront of calling out the creators of the Lock 3 Sojourner Truth mural for failing to include artists of color in the creative process.

Nichole told The Devil Strip in 2018, “You can’t decide last minute you want to include someone... There are many outlets and avenues where you can get the information you need. It’s not that hard. And include me. Not just in things that reflect people that look like me. But in general.”

In general, Nichole doesn’t see herself as an advocate, but rather as someone doing the right thing so that everyone can win.

Nichole addresses the reality that Akron’s arts institutions haven’t acknowledged the expressed need by artists of color to be recognized for their artwork, creativity and beauty.

“Not just black, not just white — I want to see everyone win, and I don’t think the city or those that control these spaces necessarily even recognize that there was a need or a void,” Nichole says. “These

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have been feelings of angst within the creative community, the Black creative community, in Akron. There are certain conversations that, up until a certain point, have only been had within our immediate circles out of a fear of being left out of opportunities.”

But the reality is that Nichole steps out there anyway to make institutions listen, make them see, make them understand that we have just as much to offer in talent, beauty and stories that, given the opportunity, we can tell.

This is the artist Nichole Epps: Painter, advocate, activist, but also someone who has a heart for the community and a unique ability to craft story and expression through her art and lived experience. If you don’t know Nichole Epps, then you should really get to know her. You may have seen her murals at Bounce Innovation Hub and across from Mason Community Learning Center — but have you seen her? // “My momma used to say, if you can’t find something to live for, you best find something to die for” — Tupac Shakur.

Jamie is a spoken word poet, activist, musician and actor, among many other things.

Background image: “Soul-Her Eclipse,” a painting

by Nichole Epps.

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Poe’s Garden THE WINNING WORKS FROM THE JURIED EXHIBITION

‘ED ALLAN POE,’ A CERAMIC SCULPTURE BY RON WHITE. VISIT RON’S STUDIO AT SUMMIT ARTSPACE.

10 | The Devil Strip

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ummit Artspace invited local artists to channel Edgar Allan Poe this fall, creating works inspired by “mystery and Gothic fascination” for a juried exhibition. The winning visual work appears at left, and the winning literary work is below. The show is on view until Nov. 9.

THE FAUN AND HER FLUTE HAVE BEEN FOUND AGAIN (OF LOVES AND LOVING, PROFANE AND PROFOUND)

by Vladimir Suchan “That Mrs. Lackobreath should admire anything so dissimilar to myself was a natural and necessary evil.” Edgar Poe in “Loss of Breath” “And via the passions I arrived at genuine philosophy,” Julie cited by Edgar Poe in “Loss of Breath” “No birth, no love, without a corresponding death” Lucretius What does it do, if the it is— a love significant, once one drops dead?

Or when that love is transferred, betrayed, and as good as purloined—dead, when is the breath, the rung, the letter, cut below one’s step above that first abyss?

Or is there souls’ entanglement as amidst embodied elements by which they last and even feel one another past the grave and every gap

as if neither time nor space nor any death’s divide are to stay?

So what is crossed out, what is lost and what is gained, when we cross each other, crossing—hopping over to some other love or life—someplace else?

How much does that make us, sliced and dismembered, if you disremember that my soul is still yours as well?

From the depths past any reckoning we are of two minds, two snakes entangled in a ceaseless strife of life and death.

At the banquet of the entwined Eroses we both choose and serve one another’s fills and wants.

Until we turn around Orpheus’ Eurydice’s turning, that fatal swing and swerving, when poetry was live and music, poetry was truth, and the soul— the light and its lyre or melodic flute, an instrument on which God, the Faun, played us—and so did Beethoven, Bach and Poe.

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, t s o m e r o f d ’ n r a o t v i ‘Firs I’m a surv

Create Ministry. So it was too much stress on my body and I didn’t know it. Eventually, pain came. I continued to work but [began taking medical leave].

On April 7, 2009, I said I wasn’t gonna go to work because I was hurting. But then I turned around and — because I am who I am, I like to press — I decided to still go.

Long story short, I rushed, dropped a can of green beans, lifted up, smacked the sharp part of the cabinet [with my head], and then went outside, didn’t know my balance was off, slid, smacked [my head].

From there I went to the hospital. They said, ‘Oh, you have a minor head injury, you can go back to work the next day.’ I drove all the way to Beachwood and my manager looked at me — my eyes were red, my face was swollen — and he was like, ‘Why are you here? You need to go on leave.’

I had to experience occupational therapy, speech therapy, vision [therapy], physical [therapy], every therapy you can think of. Of course that changed everything because I couldn’t work, I couldn’t really do anything, and the disability happened from there.

I’d lost my words. I didn’t know who I was. I felt like I wasn’t good enough; nobody would love me. I withdrew from all my friends. I was really depressed.

I am a believer, and so the closer that I got to God, when I was like, ‘What is wrong with me,’ the more He started saying, ‘Hey, you are a hidden treasure.

Life has beat you down, but you still have a purpose.’ From there, everything started clicking.

RM: What role did art play in your recovery?

SHARETTA HOWZE ON LIFE AFTER A TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY, RUNNING A SUPPORT GROUP AND HOW ART HELPS HER HEAL interview by Rosalie Murphy

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haretta Howze is a survivor.

The 33-year-old experienced a traumatic brain injury a decade ago.

After years of physical and occupational therapy, she calls the injury “a beautiful complexity because it helped me become who I am now” — an artist and the facilitator of Cr3ative Expressions, a support group for TBI survivors and

Akron Music, Art & Culture

their caregivers. At Cr3ative Expressions, survivors have developed a deeply supportive community while learning how to use art to express what they’re feeling and experiencing.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Rosalie Murphy: Can you tell me about your TBI? Sharetta Howze: I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in 2007 [at age 21]. I was doing a lot, putting a lot of stress on my body — I was working as a senior account manager at Bank of America; going to school at UA for dance, communications and nursing; I taught dance for Akron Public Schools; and then there was a beautiful [praise dance] ministry that I was doing called Chosen

SH: It was two things simultaneously. I was in and out of the hospital probably every other week. I had a relationship that was just bad. He wasn’t supportive, it was crazy, and I was like, who else is going to love me in this situation where I’m sick like this? I started journaling, which I hadn’t done in years. And all of a sudden, as I was journaling and journaling, I started writing little lines… and it became a poem. I told a friend, ‘Oh my gosh, I wrote a poem for the first time in years,’ and she was having this event, and she was like, ‘You need to say this poem at this event.’ Me being a dancer, it all came back — what if we had somebody dance to my words? So this girl who used to be in my dance ministry, she danced to my poetry.

After that, I had vertigo and I kept falling.

I was told, OK, you need to get some [occupational therapy] on your hand.

We started doing something with these

November 2019 · vol 5 · issue #11

marbles and these rocks. I’ve always wanted to do jewelry and start an artistic business. My aunt took me to the store and we got some jewels that were the same size as the rocks. I asked, ‘Can I use these as my therapy so I can make something at the same time?’

It started with the jewelry. As I was in therapy, I realized, ‘I really want to paint.”

Here I am at Cr3ative Expressions, I’m laying out paint for everybody else, but they don’t know that I can’t do it. I felt really bad. I went to therapy and I asked, ‘Is it possible for me to write again?’ I’d had to use recorders for everything and I was kind of tired of it. So they gave me these little buildup things [for brushes and pens]. I put brushes in there and one day I just played music and just started painting.

RM: Tell me about Cr3ative Expressions.

SH: Cr3ative Expressions [is] the brain injury rehab group that I run at Summa Rehab Hospital. It’s just letting them know, you’re not alone, number one; you’re important; and art heals.

The whole focus of Hidd3n Treasures is to form a healthy mind, body and spirit.

Cr3ative Expressions is [a program of Hidd3n Treasures, and it is] like my baby on a platter. It is just a way for us to come together to help one another, to be a support for one another, and to create art. A lot of times we’ll bring different speakers in because we want to hit every aspect: the mind, the body and the spirit.

We’ll bring in, say, a speech therapist. We struggle with memory. So why not have them talk about memory, talk about the logistics, what can we do to help each other, talk about our struggles? Then there’s always an art form that will tie into it. It’s just a way to show survivors that they can use art. When you are frustrated and you can’t get your words out and you don’t know what else to do, maybe paint or listen to music to calm you down, and just really focus on art as healing.

And then we’re like a family. We go out to eat, we have bonfires, we go to the zoo, we go to comedy shows. To be honest, I didn’t have anyone during the first part of my brain injury. None of my family, not my mother... because, sitting here now, I don’t necessarily look like I struggle or like I have a brain injury. It was so hard because my mom was like, ‘You look normal, you sound normal.’ I would always tell her, ‘why don’t you come to appointments with me?’ Cr3ative Expressions was really born because I said, ‘Never again will I allow anyone to feel like me.’ I just wanted them to know that there’s somebody that understands, there’s somebody that cares, and there’s somebody that knows and loves you. (continued on page 13)

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12 | The Devil Strip

All Abilities Art Expo showcases work by artists with disabilities interview by Rosalie Murphy

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licia Hopkins is an author, painter and mixed media artist. In December 2017, she felt a calling: To create an art show for artists with disabilities. People encouraged her to join an existing organization, but Alicia — who uses a wheelchair and has highfunctioning autism — didn’t qualify for developmental disability services.

She couldn’t find a space where she fit.

So she made one.

On Nov. 9, Alicia will host her fourth Art Speaks All Abilities Art Expo. The twiceyearly event invites artists with disabilities to display their work, presented in a space that is as accessible as possible. Alicia spoke with The Devil Strip about her work and about the opportunities that exist for artists with disabilities. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Rosalie Murphy: Tell me about the All Abilities Art Expo.

Alicia Hopkins: About two years ago I started researching what opportunities were out there in the arts for me. I found that there was stuff over here for mental illness, stuff over here for developmental disabilities, and then people with physical disabilities, there was nothing. I wrote down my plans for what I wanted to do. I had this really big vision -- like five tiers of levels of activities. I approached a couple friends that are also disabled about it and said, ‘I really want to bring this idea to fruition.’ We met at the bookstore in Chapel Hill every week and just talked about this idea, this art expo, and bringing people — writers, songwriters, published authors, people from all kinds of disabilities, together — and what it would look like.

Chelsea is visually impaired, so she came up with this idea to have Braille programs.

Each artist has a card with Braille, so if you walk by and you’re visually impaired, you can read about the artist. We brought in an ASL person [to translate during] spoken-word poetry.

There’s also this community service aspect of it. The artists hold a canned food drive for charity as a way to pay it forward.

This is my gift to the arts community, and then they pay it forward. The event is free to the community, but they can bring canned food to support the community.

Artists can sell their work; I tell them, ‘Hey, you’re responsible for having a vendor’s license, sales tax, all that.’

Everybody that participates gets an award for participating, and then we also do people’s choice awards, where [attendees] can cast a ballot. And then we invite nonprofit organizations and community groups to come and share about the events they’re having. We have a big, giant resource table, so everything from information on opportunities for people with disabilities to an art class.

And then we have Empowerment Stations. This is where the community can come and interact. One of our stations is the Chain of Talents, where you write your talent on a link and chain it up. We have an Empowerment Board, where people can write a message they want to leave for someone else or take a message home they need. And then we have a Poetic Construction Zone. We made some [magnetic poetry] this time in Braille and in regular words. And then we have these wooden letter As, for Ability and Action, so we’re going to challenge people to decorate one of these letters that we can use in a community art piece.

It’s all about having the conversation about accessibility. We talk to people about making this accessible and what we’ve done to try to make it accessible.

We’re not perfect, but we’re trying to learn, and people give us ideas. We just recently learned about dyslexia font and how to use that in printing.

It was a project that taught me that I didn’t have to have a lot of money or have my life together to help people in need, and I keep doing it because people keep offering spaces, and people are offering spaces into 2020, like December 2020 now. I usually have 500 to 600 people over two days. It’s twice a year, and just a really great way to get people to know what resources are out there, how they can volunteer in their community, how they can get involved in the arts.

RM: This sounds like really hard work.

Why do you do it?

AH: It’s really a gift to the arts community, and I keep doing it because… there’s this one little boy, his name is Ayden. He has autism and he draws cartoon characters.

He’s participated every time. He gets so excited about showing his medals and his awards, and it keeps him going. He’s always asking when we’re going to do another one. I want to involve more kids.

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Above: Noah Sweeny gives his mother high five after receiving an award at a previous All Abilities Art Expo; Ayden Heade (center) displays his drawings. (Photos: Used with permission from Alicia Hopkins.)

I really have a passion for seeing children smile. They get so happy when they get to share their artwork and know that someone cares about them.

[When I was a kid], my mom would give me JCPenney catalogues and I used them to make collages. I lived in a rural community, there weren’t really resources — I went to the library, park, Girl Scouts — but there just were not things like this.

And I want to be a changemaker. For me, this has taught me that you don’t have to have a lot of money to help people. You can be kind to people and give back.

RM: How did you develop a community around this event?

AH: I have a Facebook page, Art Speaks Ohio. For me, art tells my story, it communicates my goals, it’s helped me come a long way. It’s not easy for me to communicate, and I feel like there’s so much you can tell from an art piece, so I wanted to gather people in kind of a grassroots way. It helps people come together and advocate for a common cause. I’m not a nonprofit yet — I have some health issues, so I’m not really sure what’s next — but in this grassroots way, to get people to think about, ‘hey, I have talent, I have purpose, I have abilities, and I want to share them with the world.’

People want to be included. Some people have this idea that we want to be separated — mental illness over here, developmental disabilities over here — but we want to be together. That’s why I wanted to bring this dynamic, unique [community] together. And it’s all planned and coordinated by people with disabilities. People have ideas. Everybody brings something unique. It’s one thing to be invited to an event, another thing to be included, but when you can be at the table and put your ideas in and know that your voice matters, that says something. // Rosalie Murphy is Editor-in-Chief of The Devil Strip.

The next All Abilities Art Expo is Nov. 9 at Skylight Financial Group, 2012 W. 25th St., in Cleveland.

Learn more at Facebook.com/ ArtSpeaksAllAbilitiesArtExpoOhio.

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‘My own writing seems to be a kind of response to delusion, sensation, conflict, periods of serenity’ — Walter Delbridge words by Mariah Hicks

I

t was the year 1979, on a day that was normal to many. But for 33-yearold Walter Delbridge, it was pivotal.

Under the smooth jazz of John Coltrane and Charles Mingus, Walter fell into a heightened mental state. His mind took him somewhere he didn’t know he could go.

inspiration for writing. At 13 years old, he found his niche on pen and paper. He describes his younger self as someone who was deeply in touch with nature and the world, as someone who held a curiosity about life that prompted him to create and experiment.

From there, art came about.

Walter carried that curiosity well into his adulthood. The writing of Isolation and Intellect itself spurred his curiosity about the world he lived in.

Walter describes the day as an emotional trip.

At the time, the poems were something more than Walter could understand.

“I felt a slight feeling, and into my mind came a few words. I started writing those words,” Walter says. “When I finished after eight hours of this spell, I had produced 133 pages of poetry.”

“I had to grow up to my own manuscript,” he says. “It was like my consciousness was a 40-watt bulb, and as each year went by, the wattage increased, and then I had a deeper understanding of what I had written in that certain period.”

This work came to be known as Isolation and Intellect.

Walter Delbridge is a well-known poet who has dealt with the experiences of various diagnoses such as schizophrenia, manic depressive psychosis, bipolar disorder, depressive disorder, anxietyprone personality and schizoaffective disorder depressive type.

His existence in the world is through writing, which has helped him live in a world that is often beyond his understanding. Words alone have powerfully shaped his experience and his narrative.

Sometime before Walter experienced his first breakdown, he was attending a high school where the student population was predominantly white. The world at the time was straining under the weight of the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement and racial inequality.

“Being caught in the middle of all these disturbances disturbed me, and I suffered through it,” Walter says. “I was broken in a lot of ways by the conflicts raging in society. I had to have mental health treatment, and that treatment over the years helped me integrate my real self from the spared, broken parts going in different directions.”

SH: I was so consumed with helping, helping, helping that I didn’t do it for myself. I’m teaching you creative coping, but I’m here in the house, like, my body hurts so bad that I can’t do anything. And it’s because I didn’t stop to take a breath and realize how important self-care is and a part of my self-care is the creative coping.

If you aren’t well or if you can’t take that time to work on your craft and what you love, you will begin resenting other

Akron Music, Art & Culture

“Most of my living was inward. Instead of translating all of my impulses and my desires outward, I lived a more imaginative life within myself,” Walter says. “The insecure, broken person I was at that time was not my true self. That was the self that was battered and beaten by life.”

Living a reserved life took Walter through many emotional stages, something he describes as having been tainted by fear and anguish. The making of Isolation and Intellect opened him up to a completely different level of himself and a new way of living. Weeks after its creation, Walter touched up certain poems and had a secretary type up the manuscript.

But because he couldn’t fully comprehend what he had written, Walter kept the manuscript to himself for years before sharing it with the world in 2016.

“The emotions that I didn’t fully express in everyday life came to me during that

Walter’s childhood helped to shape his

(continued from page 11) RM: How do you maintain a boundary between your work as a facilitator and your own identity as an artist?

Walter described himself as having been a loner in his youth, something which contributed to his social distance as an adult. He found himself so affected by the harsh realities of everyday life that he divided himself from it.

people. When I’m in Cr3ative Expressions, I don’t have time to stop and paint for me, I have to make sure you’re OK, and if you need any help, and encourage you, and keep it going, and lo and behold… I really found out that you’ll burn out if you don’t do what you love too. Just trying to find the balance and the boundary between stopping and saying, ‘Nope, I’m just gonna take such and such time today,’ and just creating and doing your own thing. It makes you happier, it makes you more effective, you can help other people — but if you don’t, I promise you will look up and be like, ‘I’m teaching all of this and…’ I feel like a hypocrite. I’m teaching you self-care, I’m teaching you to paint or just have fun; I’m teaching all

writing, and I found out over the years that I am more like that manuscript now than I was back then,” Walter says. “That poetry showed me the genesis of a new being.”

To this day, with Walter living in Akron, writing still plays a significant part in his life. From dealing with the emotions of human life, he has found a way to tap in and experience life intensely.

“My own writing seems to be a kind of response to delusion, sensation, conflict, periods of serenity, levels above the everyday stream of things,” Walter says.

“All these things become a part of the verbal network of sketching out human life.” // Mariah Hicks is a recent graduate of Kent State University.

In 2016, Isolation and Intellect was published in Schizophrenia Bulletin.

Kate Tucker helped Walter digitize his work and is currently working on a documentary about his life called Comeback Evolution.

For more information, visit www.comebackevolution.com.

Photo: Used with permission from Kate Tucker.

this stuff but then I’m not doing it myself.

And then I’m stressed out, and I’m supposed to be using this stuff as a stress reliever, so it doesn’t feel real. I just had to learn, stop, take some self-care time, or just time to have fun. Go to a comedy show. Go to a concert.

these things and do them effectively.

I just finished physiotherapy. I’m still in speech therapy. We’re working on memory and focus and some of the higher-function things; I’m still in different things while I’m trying to do this. So you have a disabled person trying to be an advocate, trying to self-care, trying to be an artist, and at the end of the day, once I realized, stop, do it for you, everything flows so smoothly, and I’m able to do

Find Sharetta on Instagram @sharettalatrice.

November 2019 · vol 5 · issue #11

// Rosalie Murphy is Editor-in-Chief of The Devil Strip.

Photo at top: Sharetta Howze at Bounce Innovation Hub. (Photo: Rosalie Murphy.)

Cr3ative Expressions is celebrating its third anniversary with a meeting open to the public. Join them on Thursday, Nov. 14 at 6 pm at Summa Rehab Hospital, 29 N. Adams St., Akron. For more information, contact Cr3ativeExpressions@gmail.com.

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After five years, The Nightlight still celebrates

‘the magic of cinema’

by Conor Battles

T

he Nightlight Cinema in Akron celebrated its fifth year of operation this summer. For Brittany Dobish, running the city’s only arthouse theater is about preserving a cinema culture that is unlike what any 24-screen megaplex has to offer.

“I love my job, it’s a dream,” Brittany says. “Curating this beautiful arthouse cinema, bringing so much joy to people.

I want people to come and enjoy the experience of the Nightlight.”

Brittany has been a part of the Nightlight for three years, serving as artistic director, programmer, and currently interim executive director of the theater. In that time, she has observed an increased passion for independent cinema, both here in Akron and around the world.

“People are just so enthralled to have someone bring back a memory of their childhood, or a film that they don’t really get a chance to see in any other manner,” Brittany says. “We had a [Swedish filmmaker Ingmar] Bergman retrospective last year. I couldn’t picture [Bergman’s films] any other way than among peers who love the cinema like I do, or people who’ve never seen it before, experiencing it the way the filmmaker intended.”

Movie theaters, especially independently run arthouses like the Nightlight, face a unique challenge in today’s entertainment landscape. The film industry at large dedicates most of its resources toward streaming services and big-budget franchise films, forcing smaller theaters to think outside the box when it comes to selling tickets and finding patrons.

than 300 members, most of whom are Akron locals, whose donations help keep the theater running smoothly. Local businesses run ads before each screening as part of their corporate sponsorship program. Their concessions, which include craft cocktails and pastries alongside more typical popcorn-and-candy fare, are largely sourced from local vendors.

Films like The Lighthouse and Parasite strike a much-desired balance of arthouse chic and mass appeal for theaters like the Nightlight. The unorthodox success of films like these are a boon to cinephiles and arthouse theaters alike, as they suggest a future for cinema outside of the blockbuster franchises currently dominating the box office.

The Nightlight partners with Art House Convergence, a nonprofit coalition of independent theaters, museums, film festivals and other venues across the world dedicated to preserving community-driven media exhibition.

The coalition believes that modern independent theaters survive not by competing with one another, but by banding together to sustain appreciation for the art of film and the movie-going experience.

Earlier this year, the theater screened local filmmaker Kevin Naughton’s documentary Inside Akron’s Tent City — a sobering and poignant look at Akron’s homeless community and their efforts to self-organize — to an enraptured local audience, Brittany says.

“Cinema is more broad than it ever has been,” Brittany says. “And without the Nightlight in Akron, none of these films could be shown [here].”

“I love my house, I love being at home,” Brittany says. “But cinema began as this moment of contemplation, where you don’t have distractions. What’s beautiful about the Nightlight is, it’s small, it’s intimate, and we have those kinds of interactions.”

November sees the premiere of a pair of arthouse hits for the Nighlight — Robert Eggers’s The Lighthouse, a psychological horror film set in 19th-century Maine starring Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe, and Parasite, filmmaker Bong Joon-ho’s darkly comic South Korean thriller, considered a frontrunner for this year’s Best Foreign Picture award at the Oscars.

The Nightlight’s role in the Akron community is central to its mission.

The theater boasts a network of more

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“Even sitting as a patron myself with my audience, it’s unlike anything,” Brittany says. “And it encourages people to love their city more.”

The future of the Nightlight is bright, Brittany says. A recent donation drive coinciding with their anniversary secured more than $15,000 in funding for the theater, which will be put toward a variety of expansion projects currently being explored for the years ahead.

“A lot of hearsay has gone on about a movie theater’s ability to survive,” Brittany says. “The magic of cinema, the beauty of seeing it on a big screen, is connectionbuilding. And if I could create that for people, then my purpose in life has been fulfilled.” // Conor Battles is a journalism student at Kent State University.

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THE OHIO BELL BUILDING words by Mark Schweitzer photos by Charlotte Gintert

I

t was the boom before the bust.

Akron in 1929 — before the stock market crash in October of that year — was truly a city on the rise. The 1920s had seen Akron continue its impressive industrial and population growth, adding another 50,000 people to its population. Downtown, ramshackle industrial buildings and Victorian-era structures were cleared away to make room for sleek, modern-looking Art Deco buildings, many of which still grace the city’s skyline.

Most people who live and work in Akron know these buildings well, and many of the greatest examples of this architectural style can be seen on or around Main Street. They include the Central Tower (now the Huntington Building), Mayflower Manor, the Beacon Journal buildings (both the original on Market Street, now the Summit Artspace, and the building on Exchange and High streets) and the old YMCA. Less well known — probably due to its location — is the former Ohio Bell

Akron Music, Art & Culture

Akron HISTORY, COMMUNITY & CULTURE

IN THIS SECTION: VINTAGE STRUCTURES · UA’S NEW INSTITUTE FOR HUMAN SCIENCE AND CULTURE · SNAKE-INSPIRED ROBOTS · PROFILE: YOLY MILLER

Hywet. building, now the AT&T building, on Bowery Street. It sits tucked into the normally quiet space behind the tall PNC tower and the soon-to-be completed Bowery Project, perched on the eastern edge of the old Innerbelt. The original structure was much obscured by a 1960s addition.

When the Ohio Bell Building was being constructed in 1929, Akron had almost 42,000 installed telephones. (The city had 255,000 residents in 1930, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.) The massive conversion to a city-wide dial service was in the works, expected to cost more than $6 million by the time it was complete.

Obviously, no one knew that a stock market crash was imminent; the Central Tower was being built just a few blocks away, the Akron Times-Press building was under construction, and Polsky’s was about to break ground.

In September of that year, the Akron Beacon Journal ran a story about the Ohio Bell building’s construction manager, W.J. Shirmer. It focused on the unique construction details of the project and the building’s innovative ventilation system, no doubt designed to accommodate the phone system’s massive switching equipment as well as its employees.

Shirmer had first earned his spurs as a young construction manager for W. B. McAlister, whose firm had built Stan

According to Shirmer, the nature of the site made it necessary to place a 4-foot-thick concrete pad as a floating foundation underneath the structure, which cost them extra time. Nevertheless, the 500-man construction crew was still on track to complete the building by Jan. 1, 1930. Ohio Bell employees would be able to enjoy a spacious auditorium, comfortable “club quarters” and the very newest elevators to reach each of the seven floors. The building’s structural concrete work was designed to eliminate interior wall plastering, which was said to interfere with phone service.

On the exterior, the building presents solid, massive block, highlighted by vertical piers dividing the narrow strips of windows and decorative trim in between.

It’s a common feature seen in many Art Deco-era buildings and helps lend interest to its general shape. The top floor retains this essential design feature, but it is set well back from the structure’s outer edge — so much so that it is barely visible from the street.

While the exterior is fairly regular overall, notable details around the street-level windows and main entrance help raise the building’s appearance to a higher level. Ornate stonework, including sculptures of a telephone handset and the Bell System logo can be found on the

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Bowery Street entrance. These provide a nice contrast with the tall fluted pilasters on each side of the central doorway, which is set back and framed in highly decorative metalwork. Similar metalwork can be seen on the inner doors, which are visible through the vestibule.

Since modern phone systems don’t require nearly as much of the massive switching equipment as older systems, it’s probably safe to assume that much of the building’s space originally devoted to that purpose has given way to computer servers. Likewise, dozens of human operators have given way to automated assistants and recordings, so it’s possible that a fair amount of square footage now goes unused.

In Cleveland, an even larger Ohio Bell building is being partially converted to a Hilton Hotel; perhaps someday Akron’s building may find creative reuse as well.

For now, it holds the fort at the corner of Bowery and Quaker streets, looking strong, solid and reliable — just like you’d expect your phone service to be. // Mark Schweitzer is a lifelong Akron resident and proud of it. Charlotte Gintert is an archaeologist by day and a photographer by sunrise and sunset.

You can check out her photos at www. capturedglimpses.com and follow her on Instagram at @capturedglimpses.

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Explore

Institute for Human Science and Culture aims to ‘explore what it means to be human’ words and photos by Ken Evans

F

or Akronites looking to contemplate the subtleties of the human experience, the Institute for Human Science and Culture hopes to provide many new avenues to explore. Located on the upper two floors of the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology at the University of Akron, the institute’s grand opening was Sept. 14.

The Institute for Human Science and Culture is billed as a “multidisciplinary institute that promotes education and research in the history, preservation, documentation, and interpretation of the human experience.”

The National Museum of Psychology at the Cummings Center is the only one of its kind in the world, but not every collection housed in the building is about the history of psychology. “The Cummings Center for the History of Psychology has three equal arms: The archives, which are the research arm; the museum which is the public face; and the institute, which is the educational and experimental space,” Jodi says. “We have had a bunch of curious collections that don’t really fit into the history of psychology, so they are part of the institute collections” — hence the need to create additional spaces for visitors on the top floor of the Cummings Center.

The Oak Native American Gallery

Director Jodi Kearns put it more simply: their mission is to “explore what it means to be human.”

The Oak Native American Gallery will be the permanent home of the Oak Native

Photos below: Postcards that visitors to the David P. Campbell Postcard Collection can mail to friends and family; Objects on view in the Oak Native American Gallery. (Photos: Ken Evans.)

16 | The Devil Strip

American Ethnographic Collection, assembled by Jim and Vanita Oelschlager and displayed with their financial support.

According to Jodi, “There are about 1,000 objects in this collection, so this exhibit will rotate about every three to four years.”

In its current incarnation, the Oak Native American Gallery seeks to reach a wide audience and help the visitor better understand the subtleties of Native American experiences. The pieces range from 800-year-old woven sandals to modern statues made of whalebone that depict aspects of traditional Alaskan life.

The gallery’s first half seeks to show the connection between culture and the environment, demonstrating how resources and weather can lead to vastly different peoples. Items like small model canoes used by Native Alaskan children to learn the process needed to build these vital vessels emphasize this culture’s tight connection to the land and the necessity of understanding the environment.

The second half of the gallery frames the tools of everyday living and asks visitors to consider how each encounter with Europeans led to profound changes for Native American people. An example of this can be seen in a beautifully illustrated pelt from the Great Plains region that depicts a hunt with horses, a cultural change that followed European contact.

Throughout the gallery, great care has been taken to respect the items and the people who made them, Jodi says.

“We have an advisory board made up of local historians and members of indigenous communities helping to us to ensure we are being sensitive to content,” Jodi says. This care is demonstrated in the display of an elaborate headdress: The headdress is adorned with turkey feathers as opposed to the sacred eagle feathers, changing its ceremonial context and making the piece culturally appropriate to display.

November 2019 · vol 5 · issue #11

The Lynn Rodeman Metzger Galleries The Lynn Rodeman Metzger Galleries will be the home for the institute’s student work and will regularly rotate with different student-led exhibitions and projects.

“Next month, we will have two students from the Myers School of Art who are installing their senior exhibits here. And then our students in the Museums and Archives Studies Certificate Program, for their final project in the spring semester, they will do all the archival research, all the digging, all the writing, all the installation for a full-scale museum exhibition,” Jodi says.

That installation will likely open in May 2020 and will focus on the Lee L. Forman Collection of Bags, which consists of some 20,000 different shopping bags and items representing bags. This collection pulls together traditional collectibles, like a near-complete set of Bloomingdale’s bags, to more obscure items, like a paper bag Conan O’Brien had celebrities sit on during his run at The Late Show. A sneak peek of the collection is on view now.

The David P. Campbell Postcard Collection The David P. Campbell Postcard Collection consists of approximately 250,000 postcards organized into hundreds of categories that visitors can look through with care. Hidden in the volumes are postcards designed to reveal a message when held up to the light and postcards of cute cats, as well as postcards depicting the destruction caused by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and Adolf Hitler’s speech at the 1938 Nuremberg Rally.

Visitors can even send a postcard if they like, and the institute will provide the stamps.

This collection is open from 11 am to 4 pm on Thursdays or by appointment.

The Institute for Human Science and Culture is open as part of the National Museum of Psychology on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 11 am to 4 pm and on Thursday from 11 am to 8 pm. // Ken Evans finds himself leaping from life to life, putting things right that once went wrong and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home.

thedevilstrip.com

Explore AKRON HOSTS WHEELCHAIR BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT PHOTOS BY TRVAUGHN CLAYTON On Nov. 2 and 3, the National Wheelchair Basketball Association hosted its Buckeye Cup tournament in Akron. Eighteen teams competed at the University of Akron Student Recreation & Wellness Center.

Photos, clockwise from right: #4 of the Pittsburgh Steelwheelers tries to keep the ball away from a hustling #55 of the Cincinnati Royals; #24 of the Mary Free Bed Pacers drives to the basket hoping to keep the lead in a tight game against the #2 Ranked Milwaukee Wheelchair Bucks; #23 with perfect form trying to bring his Dragons back into the game late in the third quarter against the Cavaliers.

See more photos online at www.thedevilstrip.com.

UA professor says snakes could be key to better-moving robots words and photos by Skylar Cole

P

enny is a Vietnamese beauty snake.

She is the lab mascot for Dr. Henry Astley, an assistant professor in the Biology Department and Department of Polymer Science at the University of Akron who studies the locomotion of animals and, most recently, the physics of underwater locomotion, specifically in animals like salamanders or newts.

Henry got Penny because he didn’t feel right having lab animals specific for testing, and there was too much protocol to bring in his own snakes from home, so he adopted Penny as a lab mascot that he can also use in his research. As I walked into this interview, Penny was handed to me and happily slithered around me for the hour-long conversation.

There are 3,700 species of snakes. For comparison, there are about 6,000 species of mammals, but 1,200 of those are bats and another 1,000 are rodents. Snakes alone are coming close to edging out non-flying mammals. In a rough back-of-the-envelope calculation, Henry calculated that “among tetrapods, which is the group that contains all vertebrates that aren’t fish, basically, limbless locomotors are roughly 12% of all species.”

But if the quantity of snakes in our world is so large, why are they so underresearched?

Akron Music, Art & Culture

“They are perceived as weird and aberrant and sort of a niche,” Henry says.

“We think everything walks and flies and swims, so why are you wasting time studying limbless organisms?”

Penny has roughly 200 body vertebrae and another hundred or so in her tail.

In the body vertebrae, every bone has a pair of ribs and every rib has 20 or more muscles, which can span to as many as 50 segments of her body, repeated all the way down. Henry says Penny has “as many as 8,000 muscles in her body,” while humans have around 650.

Henry’s research is being used to create robots as a part of UA’s biomimicry program, which works to find natureinspired solutions to tackle complex human problems. In particular, a snake-inspired robot would be useful in unpredictable terrain.

“Snakes move better in complex, cluttered, and confined terrain when there is something to create friction against. So if you were to set Penny on this floor, she would just sort of flail around to go almost nowhere… [but] in dense grass or rubble, she would be able to push off of the objects around her and fly,” he says.

A study conducted in the early 1990s showed that snakes move faster and faster as they encounter more obstacles,

in the same places where wheels would slow down. Henry explains that in situations such as earthquakes and collapsed buildings, you want to find people as fast as possible. Snake-like robots would be one way to do it. They could better maneuver and push off of their surroundings to find survivors faster and more efficiently than traditional methods. On Mars, he says, a snake robot would be better equipped to maneuver the dusty, rocky terrain.

Henry wants people to understand just how amazing — and accessible — snake locomotion is. We encounter snakes every day and we just don’t know it — they could be hiding under a log, in the grass, in water, or even in the dirt. He made the point that humans spend millions of dollars on research to create robots without looking at the simple things around us first for inspiration. Henry says he wants to take snake locomotion out of the niche it’s in so more people can appreciate and understand it.

Recently, Henry was awarded the $297,267 two-year EAGER (Early Concept Grants for Exploratory Research) grant from the National Science Foundation to research the physics of underwater locomotion using newts. // Skylar Cole is a senior at Bio-Med Science Academy.

November 2019 · vol 5 · issue #11

Pictured at top: Henry Astley with Penny, the Vietnamese beauty snake. Below: Penny and Skylar.

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Profile

Yoly Miller profile by Noor Hindi photos by Ilenia Pezzaniti

I

don’t remember meeting Yoly Miller. Or, maybe I do. Maybe I remember standing at the Akron Digital Media Center, and in some distant and vague recollection, Yoly is standing and holding a camera, one eye squinting and looking through the viewfinder. Maybe she’s wearing black, a color she’s often wearing for its ease and practicality.

But this is probably not true. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment I met Yoly because for as long as I’ve known Akron, its arts and culture, its civic life and people, Yoly has always been there.

She might be standing in the back of the bar, Templeton rye whiskey in hand, served neat. Or under the LED lights of a concert, black hair made green while a local musician plays the saxophone. Or on stage at a poetry reading, shuffling through hundreds of poems, trying to pick the right one.

In each of these memories, one thing is consistent: Yoly’s ability to weave in and out of rooms unnoticed. For those who don’t know her, her chameleon nature and quiet presence can seem at odds with her vibrant social media activity. In person, Yoly is often alone, navigating the fringes of a room, her face hidden behind her phone as she livestreams event after event. Online, her Facebook friends can follow her as she moves from art gallery

16 | The Devil Strip

who probably remembered you.

It was so “flexible,” says Yoly, recalling people from El Paso crossing the border to Juarez to buy cheaper groceries. The cities felt inseparable.

openings to live concerts and theater shows.

It’s not unusual to find Yoly, 51, at four different events in one night, wearing three different outfits. She’s flighty and she knows it, nicknaming herself Akron’s “Traveling Yoyo.” As she weaves in and out of the city she loves, there’s only one goal on her mind: Proving there’s plenty of fun to be had in Akron. That Akron isn’t dead. That Akron is both bigger and smaller than some might think.

If I catch Yoly between livestreams, she’ll rattle off the names of people and events I should know about. She’ll tell me stories about Akron I’ve never heard of. I’ve often called her Akron’s walking encyclopedia, but maybe she’s more storyteller than index. More ghostwriter than reader, often spending her free time watching the sunset at the top of the Akron-Summit County Public Library’s parking deck, or people watching, which is her favorite thing to do.

For over a decade, Yoly has been changing Akron’s narrative one video at

a time. But who is Yoly outside of her livestreams, outside of her public persona and outside of the work she does in bringing people together?

After five years of knowing Yoly, I sought to find out. *** Yoly was born in Juarez, Mexico. She may have been born on a leap day, but her mother has never confirmed this, and she celebrates her birthday on Feb. 28. Yoly spent much of her childhood traveling between Juarez and El Paso, Texas. Her mother, Bertha, refused to get American citizenship for fear of losing her Mexican status, and her father, a white man from the U.S., couldn’t live in Mexico. This meant Yoly spent a lot of time between the two cities.

But this was the ’60s and ’70s. Obtaining a visitor’s visa was fairly simple, and crossing the border meant passing by the same immigration officers day after day,

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“At least to me, as a child, there was no difference,” she said. “You had kids begging for food or money on one side and you had kids begging for food and money on the other side. I used to laugh because if you were in downtown El Paso, all the signs would be in Spanish, and if you were in downtown Juarez, all the signs would be in English. They catered to each other’s differences.”

Despite Yoly considering her family’s financial situation to be upper-class, Yoly portrays her childhood as “feast or famine,” and her relationship with her mom as difficult.

“We had no shoes, but we had these really cool fur coats,” she recalls. “In today’s terminology, the way my siblings and I were raised, it was neglect. My parents could afford two cars, they could afford meat at every meal, they could afford to buy furniture, but mom did what she wanted to do. And so if it meant she didn’t buy groceries, then she didn’t buy groceries.”

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Profile But despite the difficulty, Yoly does miss certain parts of her childhood. She misses running around with her siblings like “a tribe of wild kids.” She misses buying street food from local vendors with whatever pocket change she had. And she misses indulging in slices of chocolate strawberry cake from the local bakery.

Yoly spent her youngest years in the care of her aunts and didn’t start living with her mom until she was 4 years old. Today, Yoly and her mom “do not associate with each other” unless they have to. Yoly describes her mom as a contradiction in terms: “Beautiful” and quite the “charmer,” but the type of person you “stayed out of the way from.”

She extends some sympathy to her mother, who had Yoly at 17 despite “not wanting a child.” Yoly says Bertha lived in a Catholic family and a society that frowned on women not being mothers.

“If my mom was home, you never knew if she was in a good mood or she was in a bad mood,” she says. “If she was in a bad mood, you didn’t want to see her, you didn’t want to be around her. If she was in a good mood, she might have a dress for you, she might give you something to eat, but you never knew.”

Things would sometimes get so bad between Yoly and her mom that Yoly remembers being kicked out of the house at 6 or 7 years old and sleeping at the park for the night. Yoly describes this memory to me like she describes everything else from her childhood: With a casual matter-of-fact bluntness, even saying, “it built character.”

Akron Music, Art & Culture

know Akron at the time.

But in 2012, things started to change when Yoly’s neighbors started complaining about potholes and how there was “nothing to do” in Akron.

Yoly’s sense of independence remains one of her defining traits. And though she’s fiercely self-reliant, her love for Akron’s arts and culture community is contagious.

Anyone who crosses paths with her will see this.

These spaces offered the perfect playground for her kids, and though they were having lots of fun, Yoly often felt isolated from the community. Being away from her extended family was difficult.

And the homeschooling cohort she and her kids were in was too conservative for Yoly’s liking. So she spent much of her alone time knitting, writing poems and expressing her creativity through the elaborate birthday cakes she’d make for the kids.

But Yoly didn’t always love Akron the way she does now. And though she’s spent much of her life in Akron, she hasn’t always felt connected to the city. After meeting her husband, Joe, Yoly left El Paso at 25. They lived in Copley for a few years before moving on to Pittsburgh.

“I kind of joke sometimes that I had kids so I could have friends because there was nobody,” she says. “People worked during the day and in the evening, they just want to come home and have dinner and relax. They don’t want to socialize, especially if they have kids.”

But this was the internet in 2012.

Facebook had only just taken off, and every event wasn’t on the platform yet.

So Yoly began spending a lot of time — as much as four or five hours per day — Googling local events to share with her neighbors through the Merriman Hills Neighborhood Press.

In Copley, Yoly often felt alienated from the community. Few people looked like her and Yoly “stuck out.” And because Yoly was a young mother of a child who “looks white,” people would stare and make assumptions. Yoly felt Pittsburgh was “too segregated,” but she was able to make friends.

From 1997 until 2012, Yoly settled into a steady routine. She traveled between her home, the library, the museum, and back home. She’s repeatedly told me she didn’t

Shocked at the time commitment and level of ambition directed towards finding local events to share with neighbors, I ask Yoly why she was so concerned about

***

Because of these circumstances, Yoly says she was “kind of wild” as a kid, spending most of her time on the street by herself. Making friends was difficult for Yoly because her mom didn’t want her spending time with “poor kids,” and she didn’t necessarily like the rich kids.

influenced her oldest daughter to become a painter and a tattoo artist, and she says her seven kids are all now either artists or engineers.

Their apathy frustrated Yoly, and her argument to her neighbors was simple: Spend your tax money in Akron, and the money will go back to fixing the potholes in Akron. Their complaints annoyed Yoly so much that she started a Facebook group called the Merriman Hills Neighborhood Press where she would post about events in Akron.

A job change brought Joe and Yoly back to Akron in 1997, where they settled on Mardon Street in Merriman Hills. They had three daughters: Eliza, Zarah and Fabiana. They would later have four more children.

Yoly says Akron was one of the few places that made her feel comfortable as a young mother and a woman of color who was navigating spaces where she constantly “stuck out.” Additionally, Akron was fairly progressive.

“I could walk here. And not get followed in stores as much — as much. Not get talked down to as much,” Yoly says.

“And it’s important when you’re raising daughters to be able to show them that women can be respected and have authority. And it was easier here.”

Even so, she could “see people staring” through their windows.

“I could see the curtains moving,” she says. “I understood when I said ‘hi’ and they didn’t say ‘hi’ back and gave me that glare, I knew what that meant. But it wasn’t overt. I could exist in it.”

Childcare was expensive, so Yoly decided to homeschool. She and the kids spent much of their time at the Akron-Summit County Public Library, the Akron Art Museum or hiking. She believes all their time at the Akron Art Museum is what

November 2019 · vol 5 · issue #11

The Devil Strip

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GET LIT WITH

defending Akron’s civic life. She looks at me incredulously.

“It just bothered me,” she says.

“Because growing up, it didn’t matter what the situation was. If it was a bad situation and you didn’t do anything, it only got worse.

So why not do something [about Akron]? As a kid, for me, it was a matter of survival.

But as an adult, I don’t want my kids to be lumps on a log. I want them to be able to think for themselves, act for themselves, find the answers.”

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But sharing events wasn’t enough. Yoly started going to events almost every day, taking videos on her phone, and uploading them to Facebook.

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“The videos were so bad. If you look at them now, they’re so corrupted. They’re pixelated. But it didn’t matter, for what we had and for the computers we had to look on, it was perfect.” she says. “It was literally, ‘Oh there’s a parade? I’m recording the parade.’ And my kids and Joe, they hated it because I would be like, ‘Don’t say a word. Don’t make a sound.

I’m recording.’”

For a few years, Yoly cultivated a moderate following on the page, and people in Akron started to rely on her to know what was going on in the city. For the first time, she found herself regularly getting lost in the city — but says she realized it felt like “just a big giant snow globe.”

“I started going to places I’d never been before,” she says. “And I’d get lost. But then I’d find myself back where I started.

It was like a big circle.”

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In 2014, Yoly started volunteering for The Akronist, a community news website run by Akronites who are passionate about creating articles, podcasts and videos about their community. There, she posted livestreams, wrote profiles of local Akronites and reported on local happenings.

By 2015, something in Akron had changed, and new energy for civic engagement and art was cultivated. Yoly attributes this change to The Knight Foundation’s first Akron Art Prize, which brought together a community of people who were ready to make a change and collaborate with one another. Akron was

buzzing with ideas, and everyone was ready to mold it into a better city.

(Shameless plug: The Devil Strip was also created in 2015).

“There was an art culture before, but there really wasn’t a community. There were pockets, but things got more unique. And the connections got deeper,” she says.

“I think once people realized they could get people to go out, more things started happening. It became a matter of, ‘I see that you can do it, so I can do it. I see that you can start a business, I can start a business.’ It’s like Akron was able to look at itself in the mirror and go, ‘Oh. I don’t look too bad. Actually, I look pretty good.

I’m going to go buy myself a new dress.

I’m going to buy a new lipstick.’”

As all of this was going on, “all of a sudden everybody was out.” And there was Yoly, standing in the back with her phone recording. Over the last four years, Yoly has created hundreds of livestreams.

Though Yoly no longer actively updates the Merriman Hills Neighborhood Press Facebook page, she continues to document life in Akron for The Devil Strip and on her personal page. Her seven kids, now between ages 14 and 31, all live in Akron.

Yoly says she believes things in Akron have gotten calmer, and most people have found their communities — including her. She feels less alone than she did here a decade ago. Now, she feels inspired by the city. She has gone back to drawing, something she loved to do, and she continues to write poetry, which she performs throughout Akron. She also serves as the president of PechaKucha, a local speaker series that asks participants to tell their story using 20 slides, with only 20 seconds per slide.

“For a long time, I defined myself as my mother’s daughter. And then I was defined as my children’s mother. I belonged to the kids, I belonged to Joe, I belonged to my mother, but I didn’t belong to me,” she says. “I realized I could just go out and create my own community.” // Noor Hindi is The Devil Strip’s Senior Reporter. Email her at noor@thedevilstrip. com.

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Understand

Akron challenges & Creative solutions

IN THIS SECTION: STEVE ARRINGTON AND THE AKRON AIDS COLLABORATIVE · HIV/AIDS IN THEATER: ‘LOVE IS A TERMINAL DISEASE’

‘I’m outliving everybody’

STEVE ARRINGTON, THE AKRON AIDS COLLABORATIVE, AND SUPPORT FOR BLACK MEN LIVING WITH HIV/AIDS words by Noor Hindi photos by Ilenia Pezzaniti Above: Steve Arrington on his porch in Akron. (Photo: Ilenia Pezzaniti.)

PART I: STEVE ARRINGTON REFLECTS ON 30 YEARS OF HIV/AIDS ADVOCACY

T

he year is 1977. Steve Arrington is 25 years old when he walks into his first gay club, Hide & Seek, in Colorado Springs. The music is crisp and everything is chrome: the tables, the bar, the chairs. Red, purple and green strobe lights illuminate a dance floor where men dance with men and women dance with women.

“Oh, baby! The Hide & Seek! It was just going on. And I was like OK… OK… OK… and then I was all in!”

When Steve thinks about this memory, his eyes gleam with excitement. His voice, already loud, grows louder. His hands gesture wildly. For the 66-year-old man, this was one of the first moments in his life that made him into the proud gay man he is.

Akron Music, Art & Culture

And when I say proud, I mean proud.

Steve is not afraid to tell you who he is. He never whispers. And he doesn’t believe in feeling shame about his identity, despite the societal stigma and his status as a “triple minority:” Black, gay and HIV positive.

“I didn’t have any coming out issues,” Steve says. “And I don’t care who knows.

I don’t care who knows my HIV status. I don’t care who knows about me being gay. It don’t matter. Life is short. So I’m not going to live in a vacuum of how people worry and care about me.”

When Steve says “life is short,” he’s not saying it because it’s a convenient cliché. As someone who has spent more than half his life as an advocate for Black men living with HIV and AIDS, he’s watched countless loved ones die, each new sorrow fueling his fight against the disease.

gone. I mean, a list. And they were all very close to me,” he says.

Steve was diagnosed with HIV — a sexually transmitted infection that leads to AIDS — in 1988, only a year after the ACT UP Movement (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) started, and two years before the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program of 1990. HIV/AIDS was only just starting to receive the national attention it needed to generate money for research, awareness and education.

But Black men with the diagnosis had to deal with stigma within the Black community and the Black gay community, all while facing racism from the larger community.

And there was Steve, newly diagnosed with “AIDS-related complex” — a term used in the early years of the AIDS epidemic to diagnose HIV — and trying to find a way to cope.

“I have a lot of friends who are dead and

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Meanwhile, his partner of was diagnosed with AIDS at a time when being diagnosed meant you were going to die.

Doug died on March 5, 1990.

“One day I came home and Doug was laying in bed, semi-comatose. He was sick, and I didn’t know what to do. I called 911. I called his mother. I stayed in the hospital the whole day. I spent the night there. I’ll never forget this. I’ll never forget this for as long as I live,” says Steve. “I loved that man’s dirty drawers.

I’ve been blessed that way to find people who are very loving, very protective, very embracing of me.”

Steve launched into HIV/AIDS advocacy in the two years between Doug’s diagnosis and death.

Advocacy work was not foreign to Steve, who says even as a student at Bowling Green State University, he was known as an activist. He started the first Black

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Understand Student Union on campus.

“I was the one walking around talking about how we need more Black professors,” he says. “Not one Black professor in this whole campus. There wasn’t even no Black barbershops. There wasn’t even no Black residents in the whole town.”

Steve credits much of his personality and activism to his parents, who he describes as “very direct and honest.”

Growing up in Massillon, his father worked at Republic Steel in Cleveland and his mother worked as an occupational therapist. When Steve came out to them, his mother said, “Well, that’s your life.

You do what you do.”

His father’s response still makes Steve laugh: “My dad told me, ‘OK. What else is new? You ain’t the first one!’”

After finishing his degree at Bowling Green, Steve visited Colorado Springs for a trip and was introduced to Hide & Seek before deciding to stay in Colorado.

Eventually, Steve moved to Denver after being introduced to its nightlife.

“I was like ‘Ooooh! This is really good.

This is where I want to be.’ They had the big, Black gay clubs. It was just a different world,” he recalls.

Denver is where Steve met Doug, and

where he spent the majority of his time as an activist. But in the late ’80s, Steve wasn’t aware of the powerful stigma against HIV/AIDS that existed in the Black community — and even in the Black, gay community — until he visited an AIDS service office with his friend. During that time, being diagnosed put you on the fringes of society and made you an outcast.

“I asked the director, ‘Are there any African Americans that have HIV?’ She said, ‘Sure.’ And I said, ‘Well, I don’t see none around.’ She says, ‘They’re not here, but they’re out there.’ And I’m like... well, where are they? Why aren’t Black folks walking around here? And I knew then, something’s wrong. That picture. The stigma of it is so overwhelming.”

“And [my friend’s] family lived with so much of the stigma of it that his own mother told him to tell everybody he got cancer,” Steve says. “At that time, 19891990, that’s what they were saying. ‘Oh. You got cancer.’”

Soon after this incident, the AIDS agency in Denver invited their clients, including Steve, to a Broadway show on tour and gave everyone free tickets. During intermission, Steve noticed other Black people he knew from the city and connected the dots. It was obvious where these people got their tickets.

Suddenly, Steve was surrounded by a community that had stayed hidden for so long. end the stigma.

“People need to understand [that] HIV is a machine that never cuts off. It’s running your metabolism double time, every second of every minute of every day. And you notice that.” —Steve Arrington

“It was like... Wow. Oh, here we are.

And we started, ‘oh, you’re here too?’

‘I’m here too?’ So we all knew where we got the tickets from. So it became a no brainer that all of us were a client of this agency.”

Days later, Steve invited many of those men to his house to talk about how to

Left: Steve Arrington with a photo of his younger self. Right: Memorabilia in Steve’s home reflects his lifetime of activism. (Photos: Ilenia Pezzaniti.)

22 | The Devil Strip

“We sat around a dining room table saying, ‘Why isn’t this information in our Black bars?’ It was nowhere,” he says. “You hear nothing about it in the Black gay community. Not at all. Within the Black gay community, there was no information. Nothing.”

That’s when Steve and his friends Raja Southall, Stanley Daughter and Roy Winbush created the Men of Color, an educational program targeted at Black gay men. For about 15 years, Steve stayed in Denver, working at various mental health organizations, as well as the Urban League. There, he established his grassroots work helping fight the AIDS epidemic.

His work eventually led him back to Massillon in 1995. There he met Courtney Calhoun, founder of the Akron Brother’s Circle, which was later named the Akron AIDS Collaborative.

(The Akron Brother’s Circle is currently a program under the Akron AIDS Collaborative.)

Steve moved to Akron in 1997. Over the years, he’s continued the Men of Color Program with Murtis Taylor Human Service System in Cleveland. He’s also worked with Planned Parenthood, along with serving as the Director of Akron AIDS Collaborative, where he continues to advocate for Black gay men in Akron with HIV/AIDS and beyond.

But the work is never easy, and Steve’s HIV continues to take a toll on his health, both physically and mentally.

Steve says dealing with symptoms of HIV while aging is difficult.

November 2019 · vol 5 · issue #11

thedevilstrip.com

Understand Left: Three men who cocreated the Men of Color

Steve has developed AIDS and is thinking about taking a medication break.

Program, an educational program for Black gay men, with Steve Arrington in Denver. The men pictured here are Raja Southall, Stanley Daughter and Roy Winbush. Right: Steve Arrington in front of a Pride flag. This flag has eight stripes, two more than the standard Pride flag, because

“I’m living on strength now. I’m living on God’s strength,” he says. “As long as I can do the ministry — and I call this work a ministry — there are people that need to be helped. There are people that need to be educated. God’s gonna keep me around to do that. And when my time comes, it comes. But I’m pretty much done. Most of my loved ones, other than my mom, have moved on.”

To donate to the Akron AIDS Collaborative, call Steve Arrington at 330-431-0677.

Keep up with the Collaborative’s events at Facebook.com/ AkronAIDSCollaborative. was last summer, and it was one of the longest walks I’ve ever had, and I’ve walked everywhere in this city growing up. And I kept kicking myself [and] asking, ‘Why do I have to deal with this?’”

it adds black and brown.

This flag represents queer

***

people of color. (Photos: Ilenia Pezzaniti.)

“People need to understand [that] HIV is a machine that never cuts off,” he says.

“It’s running your metabolism double time, every second of every minute of every day. And you notice that. But friends are letting me know I’m outliving everybody. And that’s why I look at my life as a calling because just about everybody I know from Denver is dead.”

Later, it becomes clear his anger is coming from a place of deep sadness. Toward the end of our interview, he receives a phone call from a friend in Columbus — a 32-year-old man with HIV who won’t take his medication and is now dying. Steve has been mentoring him for years.

“Why don’t you got a top on? Aren’t you cold?” Steve asks the caller. “Well, did they give you how long? So they’re not going to give you no treatment?

You listen to me. You give those doctors my number. And if anything happens to you…”

PART II: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN PEOPLE CALL THE AKRON AIDS COLLABORATIVE? Brandon Ward clearly remembers the day he was diagnosed with HIV. He was trying to donate plasma at a clinic in Akron, and when they stopped him from donating, he immediately understood why. He recalls feeling like his heart was stopping, a nurse trying to console him, the immediate shock of receiving the news and the long walk back to his apartment.

Brandon was diagnosed last year at age 30.

“I had to walk all the way back with that news in the hot sun,” he says. “This

The first person Brandon called upon hearing the news was Steve Arrington, who Brandon has known for more than 12 years through the Akron AIDS Collaborative. The collaborative helped create a community for Brandon after he graduated high school and was struggling with his identity as a Black, gay man.

Since learning about the collaborative, Brandon has volunteered with them on and off, and in the last year, the collaborative has helped Brandon cope with his diagnosis.

“I did not give a damn about anyone or anything in this past year,” he says “All I wanted to do is crawl in a hole. It takes a lot of energy, it takes a lot of effort and it takes a lot to keep pushing forward. It’s heavy.”

Courtney Calhoun, founder of Akron

Right: A casket that the Akron AIDS Collaborative takes to resource fairs to

Just three months ago, Steve lost his partner, Jose, of 30 years. He is still grieving. When I meet him in his home for our last interview, he is tired and his body is stretched out on a recliner. I ask him how he’s taking care of himself. He tells me he’s done. He wants to move back to Denver and retire.

“I don’t have the zeal that I had last year,” he says. “I almost have an attitude of ‘I’m done.’ I’m tired of taking medicine. I’m in a very rough place in my life. Mentally, I’m suffering from depression. I feel a little bit lost.”

Steve says he’s exhausted from trying to help people with HIV take it seriously before it’s too late.

Steve begins to cry. “We’ll get you back here, baby.”

encourage safe sex. The flyers on read: “A Tisket, A Tasket / Condom or Casket.”

Below: Front: Yvonne Oliver, Steve

Steve is often the first person that men in Akron and beyond call after receiving news or needing help during a crisis. His life is a testament to the fact that the AIDS epidemic is not over, and the work is not finished.

Arrington, Lillie Jackson. Back: Jose Rolison, Taba Aleem. The group is gathered at Family Black Pride, an annual event hosted by the Collaborative. (Photos: Used with permission from the Akron AIDS Collaborative.)

And though it’s often difficult, Steve continues to love.

“My purpose in life is to be loved and to love,” Steve says. “I tend to gravitate toward people who are in need or in crisis, and then I get emotionally attached to them and I love them and I want them to be happy.”

Initially, it feels like he’s being harsh, and his tone is angry and unforgiving.

“If I told you the number of people who I deal with, and how they just refuse to accept that this HIV is a part of their lives, and you can have a choice: Either you can drive the bus or let the HIV drive the bus.

But if HIV drives the bus, you’re going off the cliff,” he says.

Akron Music, Art & Culture

“As long as I can do the ministry — and I call this work a ministry — there are people that need to be helped. There are people that need to be educated. God’s gonna keep me around to do that.” ­— Steve Arrington

November 2019 · vol 5 · issue #11

The Devil Strip

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Understand Brother’s Circle, says the Collaborative has helped thousands of people like Brandon over the last two decades. The Akron Brother’s Circle is a program under the collaborative that provides counseling and education to men of color who are gay. The Akron Brother’s Circle is how the collaborative got started.

“The Collaborative’s mission is to be an advocate for HIV and AIDS in the African American community,” Courtney says.

“The work that we do, it’s not like we’re giving out medication. But we’re helping with people’s families. We are providing clothing to people. We’re assisting people through college. We’re filling in the gaps and doing a lot of things that your conventional agencies can’t do and will not do. So, when they close their doors at 5 pm, ours are open around the clock.

People are coming to Steven’s house all through the night. People are calling me all the time. We’re the ones to take those calls.”

“That’s why HIV and AIDS continued to grow in our community. Because the information was not there, and nobody was willing to work in our community to do outreach and prevention.” — Courtney Calhoun

The collaborative holds four events each year. During Thanksgiving, they donate turkeys to people with HIV/AIDS. Along with this, they commemorate World Aids Day, which is Dec. 1. This year, they will partner with Ma’Sue Productions for a play about HIV/AIDS. During the fall, the collaborative holds a scholarship luncheon where they give away scholarship money to LGBTQ students in Akron. Aside from this, they hold Family Black Pride in Akron each year.

24 | The Devil Strip

Courtney says organizations targeted to Black men like Akron AIDS Collaborative are especially important because literature and outreach efforts in the Black community during the epidemic was minimal.

“That’s why HIV and AIDS continued to grow in our community. Because the information was not there,” Courtney says. “And nobody was willing to work in our community to do outreach and prevention.”

Since its start, the collaborative has struggled to bridge unequal gaps in funding between the white gay community and the Black gay community.

They’ve also struggled with making sure that predominantly white organizations doing outreach and education within the LGBTQ community are equitable and understand the different barriers to access for Black men.

“Privilege comes in when you have white gay establishments that you can go to and say, ‘Hey, can you give us $500?

Can you give us a $1,000 donation for our event?’ There are no Black, gay establishments that we can go to,” Courtney says. “We don’t have those connections within those institutions. And we don’t rise high enough to go to them.

That’s where your white privilege comes in. That’s where it becomes much easier for them to do the work.”

Courtney says the best way to help Akron AIDS Collaborative is to donate to the organization so it can continue doing the work it’s been doing and help people like Brandon.

“I would not have known who to go to [without the collaborative],” Brandon says. “There is not that help. I had to learn how to navigate and to be strong and to get through and to ‘keep on,’ in the words of Sojourner Truth. Keep on keeping on.

That had to be the story, regardless of whatever else I was dealing with. I had to keep going.”

*** PART III: A CONVERSATION WITH THE DIRECTOR AND WRITER OF ‘LONELINESS IS A TERMINAL DISEASE’ In partnership with Akron AIDS Collaborative, Ma’Sue

Productions will stage the original play Loneliness Is A Terminal Disease from Nov. 29 until World AIDS Day on Dec. 1.

Ma’Sue Productions is an African American-based theater company in Akron. The play is a choreopoem, which includes poems and monologues that feature music and dance about what it’s like to live with HIV. The following is an interview with director and playwright John Dayo-Aliya.

Noor Hindi: Why did you choose a choreopoem as the format for the play?

John Dayo-Aliya: The tradition of the choreopoem as a theatrical vehicle to explore the conditions of Black life goes back to at least Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When The Rainbow Is Enuf. The genre remains popular, specifically in African American theater, largely because it allows multiple narratives to tell a collective, unifying story.

I chose this form because I wanted to give that sense of E pluribus unum (Out of many, one). It is important for us to realize that there is no monolithic Black experience, any more than there is a monolithic experience of being Black with HIV. Acknowledging these differences is critical to seeing how the nature of the oppression of people of color and people with HIV face tends to generalize, equivocate, reduce, stigmatize and marginalize. But at the same time, there are commonalities that unite people across that spectrum of experiences.

I want this play to highlight both of those realities. Choreopoem is the style of writing that best suits that.

NH: What type of narrative does the play weave together?

JDA: How does one navigate and negotiate the question of love while living with HIV? The play is more interested in exploring that question than weaving a narrative per se. I am interested in love in all its forms: romantic love, familial love, communal love, self-love. The experience of living in a world that struggles to see you is the experience of living in a world that struggles to love you. How can you love what you cannot see? And what does the experience of being out of sight and shade of love do to an individual’s sense of self-love? I think these are important questions. And I also hope it serves as a reminder that, at the end of the day, what we are all fighting for is to love and to be loved. Love is the ultimate humanizing element.

NH: Tell me about Ma’Sue Productions and its relationship with Akron AIDS

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Collaborative.

JDA: Ma’Sue Productions is a theater company that was created by my sister, India Burton, and myself in 2011. We created the theater company out of a desire to see more Black theater where people spoke the language that we spoke. And we didn’t see that work around here. So we created it. This is really a dope experiment.

The first time we did [a] show [with Akron AIDS Collaborative, they] were there doing on-site testing in 2013.

Steve is the bomb diggity. I love him. I love working with him. It was important for me the first time to have the Akron AIDS Collaborative work with us because I want the work that we do to have maximum impact. I think it’s wonderful when people can sit down in a room and watch a show and let that show allow us to reflect upon our lives outside that theater. That’s cool, but I’m always looking for ways in which we can actually empower people. And sometimes we do that through talkbacks, but sometimes that doesn’t feel sufficient.

“I also hope it serves as a reminder that, at the end of the day, what we are all fighting for is to love and to be loved. Love is the ultimate humanizing element.”

— John Dayo-Aliya

NH: What does it mean to be a Black gay man in America right now?

JDA: You look at the news and you see all these people emboldened by Trump.

Walking down the street, you never know who it is that might see you and decide that you’re a person who isn’t worth living, and what that can mean for your life. And I think that puts a certain exigency on needing to make the circumstances of my own life, and what I understand of other people who live at the particular intersection I live in more visible to people who don’t necessarily have that experience.

And I hope that is empowering in that sense. And I hope it inspires people to keep telling stories like this. // Noor Hindi is The Devil Strip’s Senior Reporter. Email her at noor@thedevilstrip. com.

‘Loneliness Is A Terminal Disease’ Balch Street Theatre Nov. 29 — Dec. 1 Showtimes TBA Keep up with Ma’Sue Productions at facebook.com/MaSueProductions.

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Applaud

Akron music, food & drink

IN THIS SECTION: PIN 2 HOT · NICOLE’S RESTAURANT · ON THE RECORD: INCENTIVE

Pin 2 Hot and the audacity of artistic freedom

words and photos by Ted Lehr

T

he word “commodity” is spoken by Chris Butler with just the slightest hint of disdain. He chuckles uncomfortably as he uses the term.

“It’s fun to noodle,” Chris says. “You never get to do that these days. It’s a song. It’s not… a commodity.”

We are speaking on the telephone three days prior to the debut performance of Chris’s newest musical endeavor, Pin 2 Hot. Chris, one of the architects of the group, is most notable for his work with 1980s post-punk luminaries, The Waitresses.

He has carved an equally impressive reputation in local circles, as he is a past or present member of such acts as The Numbers Band, Tin Huey, Half Cleveland, purple k’niF and more.

His latest endeavor, Pin 2 Hot (P2H), is an improvisational rock act. Using the work of legendary avant-garde jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler as a broad template, P2H takes well-known riffs of rock-n-roll songs as a point of origin and drives off in seven directions at once as they trip, sneer and soar throughout new sonic territory.

Along with Chris on electric guitar, the rest of the group is a rogues’ gallery of local musicians. Bob Ethington (percussion), Corey Jenkins (bass), Michael Aylward (guitar), Jacob Trombetta (pedal steel), Matt Reese (cello) and Christina Cruder (reeds) are unquestionably

Akron Music, Art & Culture

talented artists looking to shock and provoke.

“We don’t want to make a song,” Chris snickers. “We want to make a howl.”

The resulting effort is very much the descendant of the oft-heralded “Akron Sound.” Less a literal “genre” than an ethos, the Akron Sound is, at its core, DIY music. It’s the product of the Midwestern work ethic combined with the isolation that accompanies life in smaller-town America. In that fertile territory lies, well, art.

Chris spoke excitedly, nervously, about the septet’s debut performance. With the band’s pedigree of musicians, they could theoretically have their choice of venues to promulgate their work.

But Chris became animated and earnest when asked why Hive Mind, a grassroots performance space, was the soapbox of choice to unleash Pin 2 Hot upon Akron.

“Oh, Hive Mind,” Chris chuckles. “That’s the incubator. We could have gone to any number of clubs, but this ain’t rock-n-roll dinner theater. Hive Mind was our first and only choice [because there] you have a chance to take chances.”

Fast-forward to Oct. 5. It’s a cool, crisp night in Akron. Fifteen minutes before the advertised start time and the space is bubbling with people. It’s a decidedly older audience, one that will turn up for an event but only if friends are playing or the quality of entertainment is assured.

Of the 45+ in attendance, there are a number of recognizable faces out. I spend a few minutes chatting with self-styled city culture documentarian Yoly Miller about shows we’ve recently attended.

The buzz in the room dies down as the group takes the stage promptly at 9 pm [pictured above]. No opening act.

The various members fuss and fiddle with their instruments until they are assured of functionality. With a nod, the familiar strains of the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction” pour forth into the small, block building. I’m immediately taken back to the warm summer days of my youth. My father perched precariously atop an old wooden ladder. He’s busy painting the trim of the house. He barks out requests for this brush or that rag.

The intoxicating and unaffected guitar work of Keith Richards keeps us company throughout the day.

The daydream lasts but a moment before it’s punctured by the clatter of the unexpected. P2H revs right up to the edge and then steps off a pier, simultaneously going in the same direction but different directions. The music they produce is interesting, but challenging. It’s disjointed and requires strict attention. It’s 100% not for everyone and it’s 100% not supposed to be.

The music is the star. It is presented with little to no theatrics. Honestly, schtick added to the mix would probably be too much. The soufflé would collapse under the weight of it all.

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The Temptations’ “My Girl” is next. Matt Reese’s cello is dominant and dreamy.

Chris and company find a beach-y through line that is assuredly beautiful. It’s probably the best piece of the evening.

The evening continues, broken down into two sets. Pin 2 Hot is not to be intimidated. They pay tribute to The Beatles, Lou Reed, The Who, Led Zeppelin and Link Wray. Some of it works — in fact, a lot does — and some, well, doesn’t. Some stumbles off into the realm of noise. That’s kind of the cool part, though: The risk.

The real trick of the entire evening, however, is that it is all pulled off without smacking of pretension. It feels pure, like a bunch of friends who love music and found a reason to play. You’ve gotta respect that, right?

I rolled my eyes when someone from the audience yelled out “Freebird.” Much to my surprise, the band immediately broke into that familiar riff. I settle in, preparing for all nine-minutes of the Lynyrd Skynyrd classic. Instead, the band plays the memorable notes and bids the audience a good evening.

To quote “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, “Just when you think you have all the answers, I change the questions.” // Ted Lehr has been a culture critic for The Devil Strip since 2016. His first concert was Lynyrd Skynyrd at the old Coliseum. He sat through all nine minutes of “Freebird” with a lighter in the air.

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Applaud

Everyone's family at Nicole's Restaurant words and photos by Charlee Harris

W

alking into Nicole’s Restaurant kind of feels like walking into a family dinner at my grandmother’s home. I hear hearty laughter as the restaurant door is opened and closed, and as I approach, the very pleasing aroma grows stronger and stronger — much like the aroma sent out when my grandmother was cooking and everybody showed up eager to fill their bellies.

Named after its owner Nicole Watters, a third-generation restaurateur, Nicole’s is a traditional soul food restaurant located on Hawkins Avenue in West Akron.

Nicole’s started out as a concession stand in 1998 and has grown into more than just a restaurant: It’s a gathering place for the community. The menu offers all-day breakfast and all your soul food staples, including mac and cheese, barbecue ribs and fried fish. If you don’t have time to dine in, Nicole’s offers carry-out and catering options.

After greeting all the familiar faces, I take a seat at my usual table and look over the menu. Normally, I would order the rib dinner with green beans and mac and cheese or the shrimp basket. Today, however, I want to sample a portion of the all-day breakfast menu, so I order the chicken and French toast with a side of scrambled eggs. When the waitress asks me if I would like my chicken honey-fried, I quickly say yes.

Not long after my food arrives, owner Nicole appears from around the corner, flashing her beautiful smile and greeting her customers. I take the opportunity to have a conversation with her.

Charlee Harris: What’s the first meal you can remember cooking?

Nicole Watters: Meatloaf. My mom showed me the recipe and how to season the meat. I can remember her telling me to smell the seasoning and showing me how to set the right temperature for the oven. I was 8 years old.

CH: When did you realize you were ready to run the restaurant?

NW: I pretty much always helped my mom run it, so I guess I’ve kind of always been ready. It is like kids in family businesses are thrown into it, and then it is in your blood, so you become made for it.

CH: What are some challenges that come with running a family-owned business?

NW: I think the main challenge is dealing with the public and whenever you’re managing the different personalities of your staff.

CH: How do you overcome those challenges?

NW: Experience is the main way to defeat challenges. There is no other way...

Getting to know people’s personalities and how to interact with them. It takes time to kind of become a people person. I think I have accomplished it. (Laughs.)

CH: The west side is changing, Amazon is coming, and with that, we are starting to see some big franchise chains finding their way back in the neighborhood. Have you been affected at all?

NW: No, business is thriving every day.

People still want home-cooked meals.

The people in this neighborhood want grandmother-style meals with smothered gravy, dressing and yams. I’ve seen our business grow.

CH: What is next for Nicole’s Restaurant?

On the Record Incentive Happiness

by Kyle Cochrun

U

niontown-based producer James Osborne uses synthesizers to forecast the end of the world.

Think rutilant dust plains split by rift

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valleys gushing hellfire, bulbous purple clouds raining motor oil, shopping malls reconfigured to molten porridge.

“I have a feeling we probably will see the end of civilization before we die,” says Osborne, “and think often on the ‘end of the world,’ so to speak. I would like to think my music is an expression of those thoughts and experiences.”

The synths transfigure their composer’s thought-dreams, one of which has something to do with gamma rays

NW: I think that what is next is finding a home of our own, a building of our own.

After we finish our conversation, I head to the counter to settle my bill, only to find another customer who has already paid it for me — a regular and a fellow entrepreneur name Montey — cementing the already overwhelming family feel you find at Nicole’s Restaurant. // Charlee Harris was born and raised in Akron, Ohio. She loves her family, her community and has a passion for melting corrupt politicians down to scorched collagen. When all the serrated dissonance gives way to a reverberative harpsichord, the planet begins to rejuvenate. And that’s just the first song.

Osborne creates maximally layered electronic music using VST and MIDI controllers, a virtual analog synthesizer, and homemade field recordings (including appearances by a faucet and a 1980s-model Schwinn exercise bike). His latest full-length record as the artist Incentive, titled Happiness,

November 2019 · vol 5 · issue #11

creative expression. As an avid arts advocate, she volunteers for the Kenmore Neighborhood Alliance, is the creative director for the East Ave Flea Market and has contributed to many local projects.

Nicole’s Restaurant 1477 S Hawkins Ave Akron, OH 44320 330-869-0959 @nicolesrestaurantakron www.nicolessouthernkitchen.com

is 55 minutes of gorgeously gnarled compositions that fall somewhere between industrial music and IDM, a genre crag Osborne terms “postindustrial.”

“I’m pretty sure my introduction to electronic music was when I heard The Downward Spiral in elementary school, shortly followed by the Mortal Kombat film soundtrack in fifth grade,” Osborne says. In eighth or ninth grade, a friend gave him the audio-editing software program ACID, which he used to splice sound snippets from films into rhythms. (continued on page 30)

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Reflect

passing the mic to more akron voices

IN THIS SECTION: COFFEE TALK WITH VANESSA MICHELLE · SOBER CHRONICLES: WILLING · CROOKED RIVER REFLECTIONS: WHO REPRESENTS NATIONAL PARK VISITORS?

Coffee Talk

with Vanessa Michelle

down to reflect on the shift?

Sometimes I feel as though I just fall into the shift, play the guessing game, and if it works, I just keep going.

But this quote gave me more context. I spent

‘EVERY NEXT LEVEL OF YOUR LIFE WILL DEMAND A DIFFERENT YOU’

by Vanessa Michelle

T

he next level of your life will demand a different you, a different me.

During one of my early morning work sessions at the Mustard Seed Cafe in Highland Square, I came across this quote

by Leonardo DiCaprio: “Every next level of your life will demand a different you.”

Everything in me wanted to scream in the middle of the cafe: OH MY GOSH! Yet another profound self-checking moment.

Thanks, DiCaprio! As much as I would like to resist this statement, the leader in me resonated with every part of this quote.

(Did it startle you as well? Tweet me @vmichellectlk.)

I just had an amazing conversation with a fellow marketing entrepreneur giant — Beth Boggins, CEO of True Stories — about the mental transition humans experience as we become more advanced in our personal and professional lives.

There is a definite shift in thought process and in our actions. I believe the shift, if embraced, advances our ability. The advancement is simply a byproduct of knowledge and the tangible experiences that come with that new knowledge. As we advance, we explore new levels or new phases.

But as we do this, how often do we slow

Akron Music, Art & Culture

some time reflecting on: How would I define my next level?

How will I know I’m at a new level?

What is a level?

What will a “different” me look like? Do I even need a different me?

What adjustments would I want to make “different” for this “next level” thing?

Yeah, there’s so much unpacking I want to do here, I just ordered my second cup of coffee.

I can definitely resonate with the idea of my next level demanding a “different” me. I interpret the next level as a different approach to responsibility, accountability and execution. When we want to pursue something, whether big or small, we arrange our actions according to the situation in order to be successful within it. For example, eating healthier: That very desire creates a new responsibility or new level for you; therefore it demands a different you that’s more accountable for healthier eating habits. How you go about accomplishing that goal will inevitably produce a different version of you. You may develop more willpower or become more educated on health as a whole. Now you’re a health guru, which is a different you from the time you started. That’s a simple version of DiCaprio’s quote.

But for me it means something a little more complex.

In 2020, I’m planning an epic relaunch of my video content. Based on my experience in 2017, if I really want my content to be impactful and long-lasting,

it’s going to require a different work ethic, a different workflow, a different management style and a different state of mind. I’m all about self-development, so I’m super excited to take on this challenge, yet I am a little nervous. When I first launched my YouTube channel, Coffee Talk With Vanessa Michelle (you can’t search it because YouTube deleted my channel, but that’s another story for a different time. Ha!), my work ethic was not efficient. I didn’t create a good editing schedule, my marketing wasn’t planned well, and a bunch of other little tasks were overlooked. Within nine months, I stopped producing videos because I felt like I was compromising the quality of my work.

Since I’ve had that experience, I know what I lack and I have more ideas about how to create a better work ethic for myself. I’ve come to recognize that I need a system of structured steps that lead me to my final goal. The system must include times and due dates, or else I’ll take the easy road and procrastinate. Sound familiar? Understanding that I’m at my best when I have a system has made me more efficient.

Having this foundation has started me on my journey to developing the different me that is required for 2020’s mission. I want my videos to be noticed for their impact and quality storytelling. I can’t deny: There is such an enormous fire burning within me. I’m burning with so much excitement and joy about my new content. I really want to produce something so magnificent and different that it gets recognized all throughout the world. I know that’s a courageous goal, but I feel like I’m more than capable of achieving it.

I knew six months ago that it was imperative that I start changing my bad habits and locking in my good habits.

Being disciplined in my spiritual routine, health and work ethic has really been at the forefront of my evolution. Every month I’ve been slowly re-aligning my actions so that I’m molding a better version of me.

November 2019 · vol 5 · issue #11

How would you like to mold a better you? Which area of your life, specifically?

You’ve probably had a thought this week or last about wanting to be better at something. It could relate to your health, family time or even dealing with your procrastination (Ha! Yeah, I’m calling it out!). Whatever it is, if you want to truly do something about it, you have to do something different. The difference doesn’t have to be groundbreaking.

But you must do something. Because your elevation within that thing is going to bring you so much freedom and fulfillment — not to mention the community around you will take notice and probably be inspired as well.

This transformation, big or small, is going to literally demand a different you, which is going to feel uncomfortable.

Embrace discomfort. That’s the best motto I’ve ever heard. Too often we resist discomfort, which causes way more issues. I want to encourage you to throw caution to the wind and experience being uncomfortable. If you want to be a healthier, sexier you, then start getting uncomfortable.

This is a new adventure for you, so a new you is, in fact, being demanded. If you’re chasing a healthier you, you have to eat different, learn what you like to eat, and find replacements. As I mentioned before, start small. Once you have an idea of the foods you like, start researching workouts you might be into, like Zumba or rock climbing.

Starting somewhere is better than not starting at all. A more enlightened and refined you is waiting. Let’s evolve together! // Vanessa Michelle is a full-time YouTuber who has created a platform for creatives everywhere! Her journey to journalism started at the University of Akron, where she was an on-air personality and TV host for WZIP-FM and ZTV Akron. Vanessa has been featured in local publications as ‘The Oprah of YouTube’ and one of Akron’s most unique entrepreneurs.

Photo: Used with permission from Vanessa Michelle.

The Devil Strip |

27

Reflect

Crooked River Reflections WHO REPRESENTS NATIONAL PARK VISITORS?

by Arrye Rosser, Cuyahoga Valley National Park

F

our large scrolls hang down in the historic storefront of Boston Mill Visitor Center. Each has a tall photo and two letters, spelling out CU-YAHO-GA. Their shape evokes the giant sheets of paper manufactured a century ago at the nearby Cleveland-Akron Bag Company. The factory workers — a mix of locals and German and Polish immigrants — once shopped here. Some paid for goods using company scrip. Today, people arrive with credit cards and questions for the rangers, eager to plan their trip to Cuyahoga Valley National Park and browse for souvenirs.

anyone who isn’t sure they will see someone like themselves out on the trails.

This month I want to share the stories behind two of the welcome images the exhibit team selected.

The first was taken in 2015 when I hosted Ashley Lyn Olson, the founder and CEO of wheelchairtraveling.com. Cuyahoga Valley was one of three national parks she was profiling in her Access to Parks Project. This casual photo catches us headed to the Horseshoe Pond fishing pier. By this point, the frustrations of solo cross-country travel were giving way to the fun of adventure. I like how this vibrant young woman is confidently leading the way.

First impressions matter, especially to

In the second photo, Kim SmithWoodford of Journey On Yonder (JOY) and Outdoor Afro Cleveland hikes alone on the Ledges Trail. During the exhibit development process, community members pointed out the lack of photos showing Black adults exercising on park trails. Kim and several friends kindly agreed to be our models. She wore bright colors to add pop to this November landscape.

Getting to know both of these women has inspired me to do better. Each has given me new lenses through which to view my park. Now their photos help

welcome every newcomer who enters our new visitor center. // Arrye Rosser is an interpretive and education specialist at Cuyahoga Valley National Park and co-curator of Crooked River Contrasts, a photo series on the past and present of the Cuyahoga River.

Photos: Used with permission from Katie Montgomery and the National Park Service/D.J. Reiser.

Sober Chronicles with Marc Lee Shannon

VOLUME FIVE: WILLING or addict to get willing and stop using.

It just doesn’t seem to work that way.

Unless there is a moment of clarity that finally, once and for all, changes them somehow, in a deeply spiritual way, it never seems to happen.

W

illing.

“I cannot be more willing than you to get sober.”

These words are often softly spoken by the Trail Guide — the Sober Badass to a fragile newcomer who may be struggling through the early stages of getting clean and sober. Sometimes, they might have had a relapse, and the formula is still a painfully puzzling question. They want to understand how it is done and what they can do to get a new life started substance-free. How can they finally break free from the constant strain of the day-in and day-out drudgery of lies and regretful behavior? How can they get it right… this time?

If I have learned anything on this journey, it is that no amount of pleading, begging, mothers’ cries, children’s tears, angry bosses or best friends’ wide-eyed desperation will convince an alcoholic

28 | The Devil Strip

For me, there were many moments of clarity that summed up and brought about that final willingness. Waking up in a foreign country coming out of a blackout, finding myself in a hallway of a hotel in my boxer shorts, not knowing how I got there. Sitting up in bed, panicked, rushing out to my car suspecting and seeing another bashed up fender. Staring with bloodshot, tear-filled eyes into the mirror and seeing another cut on my head and having no clue how it got there. Broken ribs. Another cigarette burn on my drinking-passing out chair. A stack of ATM receipts on my dresser I don’t remember.

You name it, any one of a hundred voices of reason spoken by my conscience with head in hands could have done it — brought willingness to knock on my nice front door in my upscale neighborhood.

That haunted gloomy house that had ultimately and finally become my own personal, isolated, private bar.

In the end, what changed it all for me

was the visit to a treatment facility down on my knees, out of chances or choices, as a really sick camper. It was there that my life changed, transformation began and my spirit started to lift. This was the moment of opportunity that I had been unknowingly needing: Total surrender. When that happened, I was ready for anything that would change the everything my life had become with the disease of alcoholism.

I was finally willing.

Willingness can be like the start of the new day. It’s waking at 4:30 am on your way to a coffee and the stumbling promise of a fresh start… not quite ready.

It’s the gift of being granted another day in life school and the anxious, excited feeling something is about to happen and maybe it won’t suck. It’s that step of faith out on the limbs of chance, knowing they could snap but doing it anyway. It’s when there is no other option and that’s OK, ‘cause you don’t give a damn what anyone else thinks anymore.

Willingness to me is kind of summed up by push-ups. Did I mention how much I hate them? With a passion. I would rather sharpen a #2 pencil and stab it repeatedly into my arm. But, I drop to the floor when they cross my mind and do 5. Or 10. Or

November 2019 · vol 5 · issue #11

25. The amount that I think I don’t want to do. I would love to say that I do this every day, but I am perfectly flawed and that is not the case. Still, I hit the floor when that thought hits me.

Why? Because willingness is like pushups.

No one can do 50 without starting and doing just one. The first one is the essence of being willing.

Sober Living, for me, made simple: Start at zero. Start doing what you don’t want to do or what seems to be hard. Just try.

Fail, maybe; then START AGAIN. Before you know it, you’re not failing anymore.

To those on this journey, I salute you.

Head up, eyes straight ahead. Willing.

Steady on. mls P.S.: By the time you are reading this, and if all goes well in my one-day-at-a-time world, I will celebrate five years sober on Nov. 10. Yay. // Reach Marc Lee Shannon at marcleeshannon@gmail.com.

Photo: Angelo Merendino. Editor’s note: Marc Lee Shannon holds the trademark to “Sober Chronicles.”

thedevilstrip.com

Reflect

TROUBLE WITH OLD PEOPLE WHAT, ME WORRY?

by Steve Van Auken

“I

went to the dealership yesterday to pick up my new car,” my friend Bill told me. “I took along my hammer.”

Wait. What are you talking about?

“I told you. I needed a new car. I did all the things that the young people have figured out how to do. Because of the internet, they are a lot smarter about buying cars than we ever were. I studied and picked the car I wanted. Then I figured out just how much the dealer paid for it. You never could get that kind of inside scoop before. Then I added a couple hundred bucks to that and sent emails all over the place asking dealers for just what I wanted. It took two months, but I got it. Then I made an appointment to pick it up and I figured, bring along the hammer.”

You are making no sense. You realize that, right?

“Yeah, you’re right, I could have waited ‘til I got the car home. But I figured, just get it done. So after we signed the papers, the sales guy brought the new car around. He got out and handed me the key and held the door open. I closed it again and took out my ball-peen hammer and hit the driver’s door right in the middle, just above the molding.”

Bill, I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason why you would hit your new car with a ball-peen hammer...

“Isn’t it obvious? A claw hammer is too big. A tack hammer is too small to do the job. To make just the right size dent.”

Sure. Just the right size. And what did you do then, light the dealership on fire?

“Don’t be stupid. You sound like the salesman. He yelled something and ran inside and locked himself in his office.

He was just a kid, I didn’t expect him to understand. But I figured you would.”

You figured wrong. But I’m trying to believe you had some kind of reason.

“Of course I did. It’s about happiness, you chowderhead.”

Spending thousands of dollars on a car and then hitting it with a hammer makes you happy?

“No. But it makes it easier to be happy.

Think of all the times you’ve worried about things that don’t really matter. Like kids walking on your lawn. Or leaving the house with your fly down. Or the driver next to you in the parking lot dinging your car. How much misery have you given yourself over the years? If I was one of these meditators or whatever, maybe I could just decide not to worry. But I can’t, so I help myself along. I put the first ding in my own door. Now I don’t have to park at the back of every lot. I don’t have to come back to my car and check all over it. And I won’t have to be mad for three days when somebody puts the first mark on it. It’s pre-dinged.”

You’ve given this a lot of thought.

“I like to get out in front of my worries.

You should try it. Then maybe you wouldn’t spend half your retirement check on every kind of insurance. And your wife wouldn’t be rolling her eyes every time you start talking about a meteor hitting the electric grid. Or how the clerk at the grocery store wouldn’t take your coupon for those vitamin pills that you don’t need.”

For your information, all the leading medical authorities say we aren’t getting

enough cesium in our diet.

“This, from the guy who flunked high school chemistry twice. If you want to feel healthy, do what I do. Hang around with people who are less fit than you. When you go to the gym always sit on the bike next to the guy who has the newspaper spread over his handlebars. He could get more exercise sitting at home watching the golf channel. So you’ll feel good about yourself when you leave. If that isn’t enough, I’ll take you to bingo some time.

“Oh, and another thing. Never go to Florida.”

I like Florida!

“Forget it. It’s God’s waiting room. It’s a sandbar with condominiums. After you’re there for a week, you start to forget that there are things to do in life besides sit on the deck and wait ‘til it’s time to start drinking. Watching pelicans fly is nice. But tomorrow it will be the same pelicans. You start to forget about real beauty, like the wind bending the trees in April or rabbit tracks in the snow. If you stop worrying that it will be cold here in February, you won’t need to go live where the biggest thing in life is figuring out which restaurant gives you the most shrimp on your salad.”

Got it. I should learn to love slush and sleet. Any other insights from your antianxiety plan?

“Sure. Stop worrying about keeping up in the Kid Derby. Do you remember when we went to our 10th high school reunion? All the people who thought they were a big deal back in high school were busy bragging about their important jobs and their big houses. Then at the 20th reunion, their jobs and houses were even

bigger. Now, every time I run into these people, what happens? They expect me to listen while they tell me how their kid started a hedge fund and made a billion dollars, and their 12-year-old grandkid just got admitted to Stanford.”

I know who you’re talking about. When I see them in the grocery store, I hide in the bathroom.

“Not me. I don’t worry about them. I strike first. I tell them about Bill Jr. I brag that, with credit for good behavior and time served in county lock-up, he expects to get out of prison in record time and his lawyer is pretty sure the government doesn’t have enough evidence to take those new charges to trial because he covered his tracks so well.”

But I know your son. He’s a home remodeler. He coaches tee-ball.

“Yeah, but they don’t know that. So I brag that way whenever I see these people. For some reason it shuts them right up. They tell me it’s been great to see me, and they walk off like they just heard their Porsche is on fire.”

OK, so maybe you’re not getting demented after all. Maybe you’re onto something. You make the first move to get out in front of the things that worry you. You do the thing first yourself, then you can stop worrying that it will happen.

Just promise me one thing. Promise you won’t work this plan on everything that worries you.

Tell me you can live with the anxiety of keeping your fly all the way zipped. // Steve Van Auken has now lived in Akron long enough to give directions according to where things used to be.

Back of the book

Urine Luck LUIGI’S

by Emily Dressler

H

ey, Akron, let’s pretend for a minute that Luigi’s isn’t Luigi’s, and we are free to be 100% for real-honest about it. I am head over heels for the pizza and even the crust and the sauce at Luigi’s.

Get a small and it’s a perfect, intoxicating amount of crispiness.

And this is why it’s so hard for me to admit that I hate the bathrooms, and the walk to the bathrooms, at Luigi’s.

On a Saturday night in October, my daughter and I met some friends there.

It was about 7 pm. My friend said she didn’t think there would be a line. (She’s from this planet, I swear, but sometimes girl acts like she’s from Mars.)

So we get in line and about 30 seconds later, my daughter tells me she has to go to the bathroom, because of course she does. I tried to talk her into waiting until we got to our table, but she’s no dummy.

She looked at that line and worried we would be there for hours. So I took her by the shoulders and just sort of propelled her through the crowd, but in a gentle way, honestly.

Walking through crowds is like an extreme sport for me. I’m actually pretty good at it without being rude or too pushy. You just have to make yourself narrower, like you’re trying to hide but be assertive at the same time. When you walk into the restaurant, the bathrooms are straight ahead and then to the left.

I’m sure you know what happened when we opened the bathroom door.

What happened is that we hit someone, because that is what always happens to everyone at Luigi’s. I don’t know what the maximum capacity is for this two-stall bathroom, but I think we reached it with two adults and three children.

(continued from page 26) He later graduated to Fruity Loops (now called FL Studio) and started a synthpop/ screamo-fusion band in high school. In college, Osborne began recording as Incentive, releasing his first CDR under the moniker in 2004.

Osborne started programming Happiness in late 2017, and the album’s long gestation seems unsurprising considering its meticulous, fully-formed arrangements.

Songs like “Trauma, Anxiety, & Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms” and “I Look to the Distance, and See the End of the World”

30 | The Devil Strip

The stall on the left has a toilet that is slightly crooked, but that’s OK because it ends up giving you a smidge of leg room.

The stall on the right has a straight toilet, so you have even less leg room. I’m not sure it’s always possible for someone to get in there and have enough room to close the door.

BATHROOMS IN AKRON, REVIEWED

CASCADE VALLEY METRO PARK — SACKETT AVENUE

by Marissa Marangoni

I

Luckily, when we used the restrooms there was plenty of toilet paper and they were fairly clean. The toilet paper holder has a four-roll capacity, so that should be enough to last a few hours, right?

decided to mix it up this month and cover a park bathroom. I put on my hiking backpack, packed a lunch for my kid and went to Cascade Valley Park on Sackett Avenue. While it may seem a bit ridiculous to pack a lunch for a 0.5 mile “hike,” such things are necessary with children, and I did not regret carrying that backpack — especially when we got to the bathroom.

After washing our hands, I took out my phone to take a quick picture. You can guess what happened next: Someone opened the door and hit me. I didn’t want to be the creep taking pictures in the ladies room, so we maneuvered around the three people coming into the bathroom and high-tailed it out of there back to our spot in line.

I didn’t actually mean to go to this part of Cascade Valley Park. Where I really wanted to go was to the part of the park where the Signal Tree is, but I am bad at navigation, and after I drove us around in circles for about 15 minutes, I gave up. Luckily, 3-year-olds think all trees are impressive and giant, so there was no disappointment.

Other than inventing a rudimentary loft-style design for Luigi’s bathrooms with toilets on each level of the loft, I don’t have a solution for this bathroom.

Loft-style toilets would be a horrible thing to see, so I hope that doesn’t happen.

Another way to handle the excess crowds would be to move the “cashless ATM” from its spot by the bathrooms, just to cut down on potential bottlenecks.

When we arrived at the park, I was pleased to find that just a little bit down the trail to the overlook area, there was a bathroom structure. While someone in our party assured me he would not require a bathroom trip EVER, I knew otherwise.

OK, the period of Luigi’s honesty has come to and end, and it’s time again to start cloaking your feelings in phrases like “but it’s a landmark” and “an Akron institution.” I know that change can be hard, but I believe that, as a city, we would all be better off if Luigi’s had a better ingress/egress and bathroom situation. I give these bathrooms a 2.5/5.

Sorry.

are saturated in thick billows of synth melody scraping into anxious discord.

“Time Flows Beyond You” is crammed with percussive blips and gashes reminiscent of Autechre at their most maximal.

“I’m very interested in big sounds that can be produced by overdubbing, running unique effects through each track of sound,” Osborne says. “Let’s say there is a synth line that is simply adding texture and not doing anything too complicated.

I might take that track and overdub it around three or four times, running

We continued past the bathroom to eat lunch on a bench, yell “HI” repeatedly and “WHY ARE YOU HERE?” at everyone who walked by, and then walked the whole exhausting 0.5 miles, stopping at the truly lovely overlook to gaze at the majestic Cuyahoga River (which, apparently, is the same as the ocean when you are 3 years old) in all its fall glory.

As expected, when we neared the end of our journey, the someone who assured me he would not need the bathroom did, in fact, need the bathroom. We ran to the structure and I held my breath different effects and manipulations on each track, then render it into a single track to be placed back into the main mix.”

The sonic territory is chaotic, unnerving, but brimming with beauty. “Lowdose” opens with a sinister low-end grumble and builds to a sunny peak with raucous synth tones resembling the sounds of Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Infinite Body and Tim Hecker at his most distortion-happy.

The album’s title track may be its darkest, but Osborne sneaks a layer of uplifting synth melody underneath the tumult and

November 2019 · vol 5 · issue #11

as I opened the door because, well, that is what I always do when I enter a bathroom: I hold my breath as I walk inside, survey the scene to see if anything looks amiss, and then I slowly breathe again to test the waters.

I am pleased to report that the Cascade Valley Park bathroom at Sackett Avenue was not smelly. And it was so much more than I expected.

This bathroom, situated to the right side of the trail within the first yards, is a single-stall setup with one toilet, one sink, and a changing table (yay!). It has plenty of space to maneuver around inside, and everything works.

While in this bathroom, there was an event. Fortunately my backpack contained wipes. Without giving you specific details that you probably do not want, I will simply say that I am not sure what I would have done with only the standard see-through TP provided in the bathroom.

This event led me to a genius idea: Public restrooms should have wipes dispensers.

I know, I know, it’d be an extra cost, but maybe there’d be fewer gross messes left behind. There’d have to be some policing about never throwing the wipes in the toilet since they’re not flushable (despite what their packaging claims), but maybe a simple installation of a toilet hole strainer would do the trick. Or maybe a detection system that would post a picture of the person who tried to flush the wipe outside the bathroom. Public shaming is always effective.

Anyway, I’m just the idea guy. You’re welcome, person in this line of work. Just give me credit on the label.

Overall, the Sackett Avenue bathroom at Cascade Valley Park is palatable, polite and proper. I give it a 4/5 toilets.

lets it swell, slowly overtaking the track.

Like all experimental electronic music, Happiness succeeds on its vivid tone colors, so it deserves quality headphones and close attention from the listener. Fans of the stuff should be able to discern the high level James Osborne is working at here, as well as the warning embodied by the music. // Kyle Cochrun is a writer and turntablist from Akron, Ohio. Contact him at kylecochrun@gmail.com.

thedevilstrip.com

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ADMISSION All sales are final.

The full ticket price is tax deductible.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2019 • 1-5 PM The 18th annual Sugar Plum Tour will feature five exquisitely decorated homes in the Akron area. Join us!

ADVANCE TICKETS: sugarplumtour.org/tickets

EVENT DAY TICKETS: (cash or check only)

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or call 330-376-8522

• Gather ‘round for the tree lighting at 5:30pm • Meet Rudolph and Santa in Rudolph’s Corral • Catch DAZZLE the animated light show Grab a photo in the Giant Snow Globe

792 W. Market St., Akron, OH 44303

All proceeds will support the philanthropic efforts of the Gay Community Endowment Fund of Akron Community Foundation. Akron Community Foundation is a 501(c)(3) public charity. To learn more, visit gaycommunityfund.org.

5-8pm November 29, 30 December 1, 5-8, 12-23, 26-30

HOME SPONSORS:

Presented by Kenneth L. Calhoun Charitable Trust With support from the Lehner Family Foundation and Robert O. and Annamae Orr Family Foundation

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Charitable Fund

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Special thanks to our Media Sponsors: 91.3 The Summit • Akron Life • Lamar Advertising Co • Leader Publications • Western Reserve Public Media

714 N. Portage Path Akron, OH 44303 330.315.3287

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Visit akronzoo.org for details about Wild Lights!

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