cleveland by night

'P' is for Public Square, and Potemkin

The fencing was removed from the perimeter of Cleveland's Public Square yesterday. The people can filter in. There remains the huge Soldiers and Sailors Monument honoring the Union Cause. The two statues of Moses Cleveland and Tom Johnson are in a direct line in the center of Ontario. Behind Johnson is City Hall, behind Moses Cleveland is an exhaust pipe. Public Square was re-landscaped as a butterfly shaped park. The light winter enabled completion without a further intensive effort to ready the project for the Republican Convention. Several projects have been tuned to be ready. To-day, metal posts holding traffic signals were painted on East Ninth. Things have to be spruced up when those that believe they are the master class visit and convene in order to inflict their will on the

populace.

see also (2016)

Cleveland Public Library Main Building

'See also'  has put up their seventh year of an art installation at the Eastman Reading Garden. The guest artist this year is Cracking Art Collective from Milan (See: here, and here). This is fun public art (click), the Library is calling these summer exhibitions 'contemporary art'. Overall, i am not partial to 'contemporary art'/'modern art' (click). 

Potemkin pachyderms

Cleveland is transforming into one large Potemkin village for the arrival of the Republicans

make your own postcard foto

The first of three Cleveland signs was installed to-day. They have run an electrical line to the sign (for future lights), and it has a meter at the base of the nearest light pole.

 People were lining up to take snapshots. Some brought their doggie companions.

The sign allows several ways for people to pose.

Solstice T minus 1 day

Sun setting at Lakewood solstice steps day before the solstice. The line in the foreground extended towards the horizon marks the furthest north the sun will set. After to-morrow, the sun will set further to the south (left), and reach its furthest southern point on the winter solstice, and then set more to the north until it hits the line again.

Richard II

 

Direct quote from The Cleveland Shakespeare Festival:

"Believing himself anointed by God and infallible, the narcissistic King Richard over-taxes the populace and issues decrees by caprice..."

I saw King Richard II yesterday at Tri-C Parma. James Rankin was petulant, and sarcastic, and he shined. One can understand there are different ways to portray a character, i have to go see other portrayals to compare; but i enjoyed his performance. He is the one who says, "For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings...".

John of Gaunt gives the longish, and longing love paean to England, "...this scepter'd isle, this earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, this other Eden, demi-paradise...". Shakespeare loved his homeland. In this production, the sign of the cross is made many times. Shakespeare mentions the sacraments, he was a Catholic Englishman in non-Catholic times.

These fellows do yeomen's work in getting the Bard to the public. They play in several towns in the area, and the sites vary. Parma allows for comfortable seating under linden trees, and the terraced amphitheatre of grass and concrete gives you the choice to blanket the grass, or sit on the warm stone. Before evening it is warmed by the sun, and after 7 o'clock fully shaded. But the brick back drop of the building behind the stage does not make fotos interesting. Money is short for costumes. Chaucer was a contemporary of Richard. Business suits, and American style commando camouflage really does not work well.

Mount Duckmore

Duck tape is manufactured in Avon Ohio. On Father's Day weekend they celebrate. Saturday sees a parade, a good parade. The park grounds contains duck tape sculptures. This year theme was patriotism.

There were pedestals with iconic heroes, and one for the public. A Ghostbuster holds Slimer.

An actor, Joy Unspeakable, mimed as a toy plastic soldier. He traded his weapon, temporarily, with a parade attendee, for a cane. The cane was more playful than the gun.

The company's mascot is a rubber duck. The product is useful, and is a favorite of many people. I have no idea how the company treats its people, but they entertain the community well.

 For a time, this Dalmatian watched the parade from his front lawn.

At then very end of the parade was this kid.

Bay Arts had this truck in the parade. It had seven art panels.

 

I am not sure, i think the girl may have been Chewbacca. There was a wagon of folks dressed in duck tape costumes of Star Wars characters.

cracking art collective

  

A collective of Milanese artists have installed invasions of recyclable animals hundreds of times since 1983. 'Cracking' is the name of the beginning process of transforming petroleum to plastic. This is public art, fun public art. like the Free Stamp, and the Chinese zodiac animals about town. It is a public and aesthetic statement. The world is becoming more artificial, and nature has been disturbed. When the installations are done, the figures are melted down to be used again.

Cleveland's consignment is an hundred each of wolves, meerkats, and frogs; 16 large swallows, 10 large snails, and 50 small snails. Eventually a red elephant will appear. Some have been placed at the Main Library, and the rest are visiting the Science Museum downtown by the lake. They had also been planned on the two malls, and Public Square; but Republicans and construction have delayed that.

wooly schreckengost

America

On his nineteenth day as President of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt signed the Cullen-Harrison Act, beginning the end of Prohibition. The president said, "I think this would be a good time for a beer". I do not like advertising, but i think this is clever, and makes for a good foto.

#ToxicTrump

The Republicans are fearful for their 'brand'. Trump is their brand without packaging. The Republicans are toxic. They are upset with him because he is a rude boor, but a rude boor is what the party had created as an electorate.

The Donald is a narcissist--nothing new, but he wants all the attention. He is vindictive—nothing new, but it is immediate, and no slight goes unchallenged. This type of personality is common enough in the working world, but so starkly naked it doesn't often appear in respectable circles. This sort of bully exists only in security, he gets away with this behaviour because he has the latitude to do so. It is self-confirming, and grows. Normal people suffer this sort of obnoxious fool, because they have to.

Trump is a businessman. He will say anything at the moment to work towards what he wants. If some are gullible to believe, it is on them. Trump likes to win, and call others 'losers'. Losers do not win, they can get stiffed, and come out with nothing. Trump can withhold money, and send lawyers instead. I have seen contractors do the same. They often cheat their employees, whom will live with being cheated to keep employment. Some contractors cheat everyone. Each time a cheat gets by undetected, and unchallenged—it is a win, it is profit. If he does not win directly, his lawyers will do the winning for him. If something fails disastrously, file bankruptcy and pay nothing—win, repeat. Trump repeats a lot. Hey, he is a businessman. When fools say a businessman is needed for office, do not be surprised to get a ruthless egotist. Hey, it's business.

I as a d/Democrat will enjoy the losses Trump will bring. Where are the Republicans for Hillary Clinton?

Voting matters

Y'no, it tires me. So much of our lives is dictated by politics. Politics is the governing of people within society. Everyone in society, the community (greater, or small), has an explicit stake. It is astounding in ignorance that people say they are not interested in politics, or that it does not concern them. It is also astounding in  ignorance that people hold stupid, illogical, non-factual opinions. Mathematics states the obvious, "two and two are four"; that equation is reality, to argue otherwise is invincible ignorance. So, it is two items that vex my patience: one is the righteous apathy, and the other is intransigence towards reality.

Now, i have an acquaintance who has regularly quoted me, "If voting could change anything it would be made illegal". He thinks one of the Berrigan brothers said that. Now, it (or a similar statement) has been attributed to the sarcastic wit of Mark Twain, and to the anarchism of Emma Goldman. An internet search has the earliest recorded use appearing in a Lowell Massachusetts paper in 1976 in a guest essay by one, Robert Borden; so perhaps this is the source of many, a person not really known by the public says/writes a pungent statement and it it gets placed in a conjectured appropriate mouth/pen. But the adage lives, and has always lived here. The enslaved were denied the vote. When they were emancipated, they received the political right to vote, and there was a systemic reaction to have those individuals denied again. In the 1860s negro citizens first did not have the vote, and then did. From the 1870s to the mid 1960s many did not have the vote. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 repeated history to give people the vote again, and again there was a systemic reaction against it.

All this around the Voting Rights Act of 1965 began demographic shift in the two major political parties. In 1964 the Republicans nominated a candidate the country would not accept, and the vote went heavily Democratic. The people benefiting from the Voting Rights Act would electorally provide the Democratic Party more votes because of the issues advanced by the Democrats; but on a racial divide the white southern vote would leave the Democratic Party in protest, and join the 'Yankee' party of the North—the Republicans. So, the Democrats increased their majority, but in doing so created a conservative reaction, which was exploited to successfully divide the Democrats; but still that was insufficient. A greater suppression of the vote was engendered, and promoted nation wide. Not only on racial grounds, but on economic, and social grounds. Every manner of trick, ordinance, and propaganda was employed. We live in a country where the minority party controls most of the government.

We see this in three people/groups personified. Richard Nixon ran as a 'law and order' candidate, and had a southern strategy. This was achieved in painting the Democrats as the party that catered to blacks, this brought many white racists to the Republican Party. It was a tight race in 1968, but it was enough for him to win. In 1972, the election was a landslide. But, yet, Nixon had to cheat, and Watergate exposed him. Newt Gingrich and his allies would not function in a democracy, if they had not control, they would use any political means necessary. No Democrat was secure in completion of his office. This was executed in 1998-9 in the impeachment of Bill Clinton over a sexual peccadillo. The hypocrisy of his antagonists is blatant on the pages of history, from Gingrich to the special prosecutor Ken Starr. And in the presidential election of 2000, when the presidency was usurped by the Republican Party.

The Secretary of State, of most states, oversees the elections and is the agent of legal fraud of he so chooses. He can be just, or corrupt. In almost cases, in this present era, a Republican official in this office is a partisan operative who disregards the spirit of justice, and the letter of any law that would impede or circumvent the party's goal. The Republican Party is not a political party as much as it is a criminal organisation. It is not a democratic party. It is the usual political tool of the plutocracy, and oligarchy. It is their cat's paw. It does their will, writes laws to their benefit, distributes wealth and taxation as their agent. In return they have their positions provided for.

100 years Shakespeare Garden

Liberty Boulevard Cleveland O.

Cleveland Art Museum 100 years

String trio playing La vie en rose in front of Monet's Water Lilies.

cicada central

Orlando Cicada

Well, i have seen them this year. Last week, i heard them in Brecksville. To-day, i saw them, and heard the titanic symphony in the Bedford Reservation.

 After 17 years these cicada nymphs tunnel out of the earth. (There are also 13 year cicadas)

 They climb out of their old skeletons, and lifting this leaf the shells are seen.

 Sometimes they congregate together.

edgewater sundown

sun falls into lake

 Lakewood Ohio Solstice Steps

After the sun disappeared, i clapped, and a few other people joined in. This should become a custom.

red plastic snail

Cracking Art Group has a snail across on saloon wall next to west side market. These colorful animals (more than what appears to be their favorite) are supposed to be appearing in the Eastman Reading Garden, and on Public Square. This European art collective makes large, very bright animals from recycled plastic. This is also an environmental message. The planet is full of plastic debris, this is made of the debris.

2016 Miscellany #2 -- on the cusp of summer

Memorial Day is considered the beginning of the summer season, and celebrations start. This year 'Decoration Day' fell on the 30th, which was the date chosen in 1868. Lake View Cemetery has an annual programme at President Garfield's monument, with historical re-enactors.

 Most people sit on the lawn, and hounds are welcome,

 and some sit on the steps. 

 

The close was a Garfield descendant piping, 'Amazing Grace'. 

Sunday at Chagrin Falls an historical ballgame was played. As people walk by, the first thing they notice is "they aren't playing with gloves". Here the hurler of the Forest City Club leaps at a struck ball from the bat of a Canal Fulton Mule.

Eyes of the Tiger 

They played in the outfield of the high school field, since 1865 base ball did not have a separated infield. Ball would be played on an all grass field without a pitcher's mound. The school's nickname is the Tigers, hence the artwork of plastic cups placed in the chain links.

White Percherons, Sassy and Lucy of Spring Mist Farm, pull a carriage in Sunday's parade.