Czeching Out Czech Day

 

Meet Frank: a small, slightly balding 91-year-old man who likes to smile and occasionally wink at girls.

Less than two minutes after we arrived at the annual Cesky Den, or to us, Czech Day, he had us dancing. One-by-one he whisked both of us into a spirited polka. Amidst other dancing couples, the faint smell of sauerkraut and the folksy music of the Fred Ziwich Band, we tried to keep up with the man. Let’s just say several toes were stepped on.

You wouldn’t expect more than some squirrels and old houses tucked in the woods of Auburn Township. And for the most part, you’d be right. Yet last Sunday, hundreds of Czechs gathered at the DTJ ("Delnicke Telocvicne Jednoty" or "Workers' Gymnastic Union") Farm for Cesky Den.

A polka band complete with an accordion and wooden claves stood coolly playing at the front of the room as elderly couples twirled around center court. At tables on either side, people ate foods ranging from goulash to tripe soup.

We decided to try the goulash dinner, for $11, served over dumplings, allowing for the savory gravy to soak into the bread. Dinner was topped off with kolacky, a doughy pastry. We tried the ones with apple and raspberry filling. It was like visiting a Czech grandmother in her hometown and eating the meal she cooked before sending us to polka again. We wanted more kolacky for the road, but within 20 minutes, most of the giant trays were empty.

Czech Day proceeds go to three local Czech cultural centers, including Cleveland’s Bohemian National Hall, built in 1896.

“There is a big Czech community in Cleveland; there always has been,” said Deborah Gehring, who’d just come from the dance floor. (The Czech population is one of the city’s oldest and largest, according to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, with 37,000 people in the 1990s.) Both of Gehring’s parents are from the former Czechoslovakia, and she attended Czech school for six years: two hours after her normal school day, twice a week, to learn Czech songs, dances, history and the language.

The makeshift bar was still crowded as the songs and dancing were winding down at 6 p.m. As we were buying a Cesky Den T-shirt, we ran into a familiar face: Frank again, requesting a final dance. We happily obliged and were pleasantly surprised by his vivacity, though being of extremely slight Eastern European heritage, both of us still had a hard time keeping the pace.

A few miles down the road, we decided we are definitely coming back next year. — Allison Gray & Katie Naymon

This MOCA Isn't Coffee, and It's Coming to Cleveland

Jill Snyder gestured to a dirt lot scarred with tire marks and dotted with piles of gravel, explaining how in just a few months, that same space will be occupied by a tree-lined plaza.

Snyder, Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland’s executive director, was one of about 50 people mingling and marveling at MOCA’s new house of art in University Circle during its “signing off” event yesterday. Donors and members of MOCA’s board signed the building’s stainless steel cladding with permanent marker, marking the completion of its exterior.

The building is an odd shape. It resembles a bulging Chinese takeout container, but one for a king, or maybe Batman. The outside, although black, reflects the sun and the surrounding environment, giving it a look that’s dark and edgy, yet somehow colorful and interactive at the same time. The chic exterior almost teases passersby, with windows showing off only certain segments of the museum.

The new building, at the corner of Euclid Avenue and Mayfield Road, opens Oct. 8, replacing MOCA’s old house in the former Cleveland Play House complex in Midtown. The move is a product of “opportunity and necessity,” said Stewart Kohl, a MOCA board member and co-chair of the building campaign. The old location “wasn’t convenient to our constituency.”

The building itself is a work of art that will complement the pieces on display. A virtual tour shows broad white staircases, Navy blue outer walls and light fixtures illuminating art on white inner walls.

The $35 million project involved a decade-long effort from brainstorming to completion, but only took 16 months to construct. More than 60 donors gave $25,000 or more, with several more contributors at lower levels.

The museum is expected to be a central fixture in University Circle’s Uptown district, a new retail and residential neighborhood.

Snyder and Kohl addressed the small crowd, which Kohl dubbed “MOC-ites.” They ranged from elderly art lovers to yellow-vested Donley’s construction workers clad in hard hats. Many ate Sweetie Fry ice cream as they stood in the sun. One woman described the move as “wonderful.”

“I love the architecture,” said Elaine Harris Green, an abstract painter who donated $10,000 to the effort. “I can’t wait to go inside and see the art.”

Kohl, who had just returned to Cleveland on a flight from New York, noted how he could see the building “clear as a bell” from the sky, which prompted some ooh-ing and ahh-ing from the audience.

“And the finishing won’t just be the bricks and mortar, but it’ll be the lights and the program and the people that this is going to generate,” Kohl said.

“This is going to become one of the most exciting corners in Ohio, if not the U.S.”

From Talent Show to the Rock Hall: Dylan Baldi of Cloud Nothings Plays Summer Series Wednesday

In 2008, Dylan Baldi was one of many students playing an instrument in Westlake’s talent show, The Green and White Revue. The program included a blank page for autographs, an idea that seemed laughable.

From the catwalk hanging over the audience of Westlake High School’s Performing Arts Center, I shined the massive spotlight on Irish dancers, baton twirlers and cute four-foot-tall elementary school pianists who punched the ivory keys as if they were those of a typewriter. What were the chances that any of them would produce a signature that someone might actually look back on?

No one knew that just a year later, Baldi would drop out of Case Western to begin writing songs. Or that his band, Cloud Nothings, would become one of the country’s fastest growing indie bands, featured in the New York Times and Rolling Stone and touring the United States and Europe. Or that, this Wednesday, Baldi, will play in front of the temple of musical greats: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Cloud Nothings just returned to the United States after playing two shows in Japan, performing in Osaka and in Tokyo before a crowd of 2,000.

“They actually know who we are, which doesn’t make any sense to me,” Baldi says. “It was pretty weird to go over there and play for that many people.”

Cloud Nothings’ live set relies heavily on their newest album, Attack on Memory, recorded in Chicago and released this Jan. 24. Baldi describes it as more complex than his previous record.

“Every time I sit down to write a song, I want to do something new with it that I haven’t tried yet,” he says. He hopes to keep moving farther away from his start, determined that experimenting with sound will push his music to a better level. Cloud Nothings’ edgy, alternative style is certainly a product of evolution from where he started as a little kid: piano lessons and the saxophone.

Now music is Baldi’s full time job. His songs, once written solo, are now truly a collaboration. “I write the words and the melody and my guitar part, but whatever [the other band members are] playing, they figure it out on their own for the most part.”

Attack on Memory recently made MTV’s "Best Albums of 2012 (So Far)" list. An autograph no longer seems far-fetched.

Cloud Nothings will kick off the Rock Hall’s Summer in the City Series this Wednesday at 7 p.m. with Herzog, another Cleveland indie rock band. The free concert will take place in the plaza outside the museum, or inside in the event of rain.

Obama, At Tri-C, Makes His Case For Four More Years

When Barack Obama entered the gym of Cuyahoga County Community College Metro Campus today, the audience — some wearing “Team Obama” T-shirts, others proudly sporting the iconic Shepard Fairey “Hope” art across their chest — got on their feet.

“There is one place where I stand in complete agreement with my opponent: this election is about our economic future,” the president told the crowd.

Obama’s Cleveland speech made up half of a dramatic day for Ohio and the presidential election. His appearance here, and Republican challenger Mitt Romney’s similar speech in Cincinnati, underscored how crucial the state will be in the November election.

As free-market advocate Romney increasingly pressures recession-burdened Obama on the economic front, the president has shied away from healthcare and zeroed in on his business plan.

Obama portrayed the dueling campaigns as offering “two very different visions.” He likened Romney’s plans to the Bush era, arguing that Romney would cut taxes by trillions and strip the government down to national security and a few other basic functions. He said skeptics should vote for Romney if they want to support the policies of the last decade.

“This is their vision; there is nothing new,” Obama said. “Just what Bill Clinton has called, ‘The same ideas they tried before, except on steroids.’”

Positioning himself as an advocate of creating middle class jobs, the president promised to invest in clean energy and revitalize the educational system with more teachers. Obama tied education to the economy by underlining the importance of science and innovation.

The president also defended his incumbent track record. He asserted that 4 million jobs have been created in the last 27 months, under his watch, more than in the seven years before the unemployment crisis. He also appealed to supporters of manufacturing, a classic move for politicians rallying in the Rust Belt, claiming that this is the strongest period for manufacturing job growth since 1995.

“I believe that you can’t bring down the debt without a strong and growing economy,” Obama said. “I believe you can’t have a strong and growing economy without a strong, growing middle class.”

But as Obama contrasted himself from Romney — from his approach to the economy to his threatening political ads — Romney was addressing the crowd in Cincinnati. Romney similarly focused on the economy, but indicated he would limit the size of government. You can read about Romney’s appearance downstate here.