Buzz

wall street journal previews art exhibit at cma
In a recent Wall Street Journal article, writer Judith H. Dobrynsk previews an upcoming art exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

“As Susan E. Bergh walked through the special exhibition galleries of the Cleveland Museum of Art one day last week, she was surrounded by wooden crates -- some empty, some opened, some still locked. Inside were many of the objects with which she will reveal an ancient culture that is all but unknown to most Americans but is now recognized as the first great empire of the Andes,” writes Dobrynsk.
 
The exhibit, "Wari: Lords of the Ancient Andes," is the first North American exhibit focused on this people, which thrived from around 600 to 1000 A.D.
 
“Ms. Bergh, Cleveland's curator of the arts of the ancient Americas, has assembled about 150 objects -- intricate textiles, ceramic vessels, colorful featherwork hangings and four-cornered hats, inlaid ornaments, and stone and wood sculptures -- from 45 museums and private collections in the Americas and Europe.”
 
"I want people to understand that civilization in the Andes way predates the Inca and that the Wari was a very complicated, sophisticated civilization," Bergh is quoted in the piece. "And I want people to see how beautiful and enchanting it is."
 
The interesting story goes on to discuss Bergh’s background, history of the Wari people, and a plethora of details about the exhibit itself.
 
Check out the lengthy feature story here.

 
eater does 'heat check' on cleveland dining scene
Eater, a national website covering food, drink and chefs, published a list of the go-to places in Cleveland to eat right now.
 
“It's been over a year since we last looked at Cleveland's hottest restaurants, so today we circle back and focus on ten new openings that have been garnering serious buzz,” writes Gabe Ulla of Eater.
 
Food writer and Fresh Water managing editor Douglas Trattner clues Ulla in on some of the newest, hottest dining spots Cleveland has to offer.
 
“Among the choices: a very tasty restaurant that borrows from Korea, Japan, and several other Asian countries (Accent), an excellent sit-down taco and margaritas spot (Barrio), food truck man Chris Hodgson's new brick-and-mortar (Hodge's), and a place that bills itself as "pan-Southern" (SoHo Kitchen and Bar).”
 
Check out the full piece chock full of information and details here.
moca buzz continues to roll in
In an article titled "A Bold New Home for the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland" in Architectural Digest, writer Samuel Cochran highlights the stunning new home for MOCA Cleveland.
 
“Designed by London-based architect Farshid Moussavi, the new home for the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Cleveland cuts a fine and enigmatic figure. Situated at an unassuming uptown intersection, the recently opened, nearly 34,000-square-foot, four-story structure (Moussavi’s first in the U.S. and first museum commission) rises in geometric planes from a hexagonal footprint, tapering and tilting to reach a square roof.”
 
Stunning photographs of the museum add additional interest to the visual tour that highlights the smooth sheen of the exterior as well as the vibrant graphics of the interior walls.
 
Check out the complete piece here.
jeopardy! champion watson takes up residence at case
“IBM’s Watson supercomputer is already a Jeopardy! champion, and has now embarked on a second career in medicine, working with students at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University to improve its knowledge of medical concepts in a problem-based learning environment,” writes Jennifer Bresnick of the website EHRIntelligence.com.
 
Watson has the ability to formulate “inference paths,” and by feeding it thousands of gigabytes of medical information including medical dictionaries, studies, health records, findings, etc. it is hoped it will become a tool for doctors to check their own thinking against in order to provide the best health care decisions possible.
 
This new tool will not be available for use overnight as a multitude of tests and programming must still take place.
 
“Case Western students and staff will answer Watson’s questions and correct its mistakes to enable it to learn faster, hoping that someday its artificial intelligence will help save lives by returning the favor.”
 
Read the full story here.
foodbeast goes gaga for noodlecat's clam chowder udon
In an item titled, "This is What Clam Chowder Udon Looks Like," Dominique Zamora writes about Noodlecat for the popular blog Foodbeast.

“Earlier this week I had a chance to fly out to Cleveland, Ohio, for Certified Angus Beef’s 2012 Culinary Ideation and Trends Session," she begins. "The post for all that is coming soon, but while I was there, I also caught wind of at least one food item I never thought I would hear about, ever.”

“Clam. Chowder. Udon.”
 
Zamora is awestruck by the Noodlecat dish, a fusion creation that combines udon noodles, potatoes, celery, onions, and bacon in a creamy clam broth.

"This explosion of East meets . . . further . . . East comes from Cleveland-based restaurant Noodlecat, which opened in August 2011. Branded as a 'slurpalicious Japanese-American mash-up from Chef Jonathon Sawyer,' much of Noodlecat’s menu looks like what happens when a college student decides to go to culinary school and comes back to make the exact same foods he made before, only a million times better."
 
Read the full Foodbeast post here.
recent crime fiction convention lands in pages of library journal
Bouchercon, the world’s leading convention for crime fiction readers and writers, was recently held in Cleveland. The annual event was brought here thanks to local librarian Marjory Mogg, who won her bid for the Cleveland convention two years ago in San Francisco.
 
In an item titled "Librarian Brings Bouchercon to Cleveland -- and $1M+ to Its Economy," the Library Journal describes the weekend's festivities.
 
"The Cleveland Bouchercon 2012, which was held October 4-7, brought in about 1,500 mystery fans, authors, and publishers, who left $1-2 million behind when they returned home after four days of festivities."
 
Bouchercon, named after famed mystery critic Anthony Boucher (rhymes with voucher), has held a conference annually since 1970 in various cities.

"The main Cleveland Public Library sponsored a Nancy Drew scavenger hunt, a talk by author Linda Fairstein, and several displays. The opening ceremonies, with over 1,000 in attendance, were held at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on the Cleveland lakefront, which one Bouchercon board member called the best venue the conference has ever had for its opening celebration. The Private Eye Association’s Shamus Awards were presented during a dinner cruise on Lake Erie."

Read the rest here.
wash post covers chuck berry show, exhibition at rock hall
In an article titled "Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum honors rock music pioneer Chuck Berry," the Washington Post covers the recent award and tribute concert.
 
"Still rockin’ at 86, music legend Chuck Berry promised a comeback Saturday with six new songs, some written 16 years ago."
 
"To mark the American Music Masters award presentation, the rock hall has mounted a special exhibition with items including Berry’s stage clothes, a guitar and his 1958 Chess Records recording contract."
 
"The rock hall’s new library and archives has a separate exhibit with items including Berry’s 1964 British tour program and a handbill promoting his appearance with the Grateful Dead in 1968."
 
"Berry, the museum’s first inductee in 1986, called the award and enshrinement in the rock hall a great honor. “You can’t get any higher in my profession than this building or this reason for this building,” he said.
 
Read the rest right here.
fast co. praises design work of cia prof that repurposes material
"It’s a shame. Amidst the financiapocalypse, Cleveland, Ohio, has 13,000 homes and other structures in such disrepair that they need to be torn down. It’s a $4 billion job. And at least one designer is trying to find the bright side," writes Mark Wilson for Fast Co.

"Daniel Cuffaro, department chair at the Cleveland Institute of Art and founder of Abeo Design, has created a modular workspace called the Hive Workstation. It’s similar to the premium corporate furnishings offered by companies like Steelcase, but there’s a key difference: Hive is built from the failed housing projects of Cleveland itself."

“The fabricators make it look easy," Cuffaro is quoted in the article. "But I know it is not. The primary benefit is the quality of the material--this is old-growth quarter-sawn pine and fir . . . that has qualities of hard wood.”

Read (and see) the rest here.
cle clinic announces top 10 medical innovations for 2013
Writing for Huffington Post, Debra Sherman covers the recent announcement by the Cleveland Clinic of the "Top 10 Medical Innovations that will have a major impact on improving patient care within the next year."

"The best medical innovations for next year include an almond-size device that's implanted in the mouth to relieve severe headaches and a hand-held scanner resembling a blow dryer that detects skin cancer, the Cleveland Clinic said on Wednesday," the story says.

"But leading the 2013 list for innovations is an old procedure that has a new use due to findings in a recent study. Physicians and researchers at the clinic voted weight-loss surgery as the top medical innovation, not for its effectiveness in reducing obesity, but for its ability to control Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease."

Also on the list: A hand-held device used to detect melanoma, a new type of mammography, new drugs to treat advanced prostate cancer, and a new technique to repair and regenerate damaged lungs.

Read the rest here.
'downtown is moving' in this non-hastily made video
Downtown Cleveland... It's Here.

That's what the folks at Downtown Cleveland Alliance persuasively illustrate in their latest video release. Produced by Fusion Filmworks, the flashy 4-minute video shows off just some of our city's assets.

More than a campaign, Downtown Cleveland Alliance is about downtown businesses and people taking matters into their own hands to make positive things happen. And from the looks of things, it's working.


cleveland scores three ncaa national championships
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) awarded the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission and several partner organizations the hosting rights to three national championships today.

Cleveland will host the 2014 National Collegiate Women’s Bowling Championship, 2014 Division II Men’s and Women’s Swimming and Diving National Championships and 2014 Division II Wrestling National Championships. The three events will bring an estimated economic impact of $1.26 million to the Greater Cleveland area. Cleveland joined Raleigh, N.C. as the only two cities to be awarded three bids.

“The NCAA has once again recognized the championship quality of the city of Cleveland by giving three of its national championship events to Northeast Ohio,” says Greater Cleveland Sports Commission President and CEO David Gilbert. “The NCAA’s decision is further proof that Cleveland is a top destination for championship sporting events. These three events will showcase our city to thousands of athletes and fans from all over the country and infuse over one million dollars to our local economy.”

The events will take place in March and April 2014.

Read the rest of the news here.
cleveland's biomed cluster highlighted in bloomberg
Writing for Bloomberg Businessweek, Harold Sirkin states that "Industry clusters have been around for a very long time, serving as a catalyst for economic growth. Think: Detroit in the U.S. auto industry’s heyday, Pittsburgh when steelmaking was king, Silicon Valley for tech, Research Triangle Park, Wall Street, and even Hollywood. They are all examples -- past or present -- of the phenomenon."

He adds that "What makes clusters unique is not just that companies with similar or complementary interests, competencies, and needs congregate around each other. It’s that an entire value chain exists within a cluster: suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, academic institutions, researchers, and workforce training, as well as those who provide relevant support services."

Regarding Cleveland he notes "The Cleveland area is becoming a hub for the biomedical industry."

Read it all here.
cleveland named among top rust belt travel destinations for canadians
“With a flourishing theatre scene, beautifully restored Art Deco buildings and a burgeoning farm-to-table culinary movement, it’s hard to believe that this town ever served as a punch line,” writes Tim Johnson of the Toronto Star.
 
Fellow Rust Belt cities of Detroit and Pittsburgh also are highlighted in this travel piece that boasts how these three cities have emerged from industrial oblivion to become havens for artists, designers, and others that are fighting to bring these tired cities back to life.
 
“Their factories are now a haven for artists and designers, or hosts for living history tours," he notes. "Their rivers, one of which caught on fire in 1969 (the Cuyahoga), have been cleaned up. All three are home to several worthwhile attractions — if you know where to look.”
 
His piece details must-see attractions such as The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, the Terminal Tower, the West Side Market and Ohio City, the Cleveland Metroparks, and mentions The Greenhouse Tavern and Cowell and Hubbard as prime eateries.
 
Read the tale of three cities here.
new superman exhibit at hopkins airport celebrates cleveland roots
“Krypton, Smallville, Metropolis and Cleveland are all famous homes to Superman. The only one of those four locales you can actually visit (by virtue of it being a real place and all) is Cleveland, Ohio, and, ironically, it's the city that's the least popularly associated with the Man of Steel,” writes J. Caleb Mozzocco of Comics Alliance.
 
As part of a $45,000 exhibit funded and created by The Siegel & Shuster Society, a new permanent exhibit was unveiled at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport featuring the iconic superhero’s ties to our great city.
 
“The airport Superman stands atop a huge S-shield logo, and behind his head the wall reads, "Welcome to Cleveland -- Where the legend began." Big, red and black letters in the familiar Superman type scream the hero's name, with a banner reading "The World's Greatest Super Hero" below it,” adds Mozzocco.
 
The detailed piece goes on to highlight details of the exhibit and also touches upon the history of Superman from his creation to modern day legal disputes of his name.
 
Read the full story here.
erie hospital inks affiliation deal with cleveland clinic
“St. Vincent Health Center in Erie said Tuesday [October 23] that it reached a clinical affiliation agreement with Cleveland Clinic’s Heart and Vascular Institute,” writes Alex Nixon of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
 
The agreement will allow physicians at the Erie hospital to have access to Cleveland Clinic’s advanced research, technology, and techniques in an effort to provide better care for their patients.
 
“The clinical affiliation 'means that patients in the Erie region who are diagnosed with heart disease will be given the highest level of quality heart care, incorporating the resources, research and practices of the nation’s leading heart program,' the hospital said in a statement,” writes Nixon.
 
The deal is not an acquisition for the Cleveland Clinic but rather the rights for St. Vincent Health Center to use its name and access to clinical services.
 
Read the full story here.
columbus food writer full of love for cleveland culinary scene
Following a recent trip to Cleveland, where apparently he visited half the restaurants in town, notable Columbus food blogger Jim Ellison of CMH Gourmand filed a glowing dispatch.
 
"I am at the halfway point in my Palette to Palate Tour of Cleveland with Positively Cleveland. I am touring with writers from LA, Detroit, Baltimore, Toronto and Columbus. Our collective opinion so far, we love Cleveland. Not a big surprise for most of us. What might be a surprise is that in spite of all I am doing, there is so much more to do and see and especially eat, that I am not even scratching the surface of this city."
 
Later he adds, "In the back of my mind, I can’t avoid the inclination to compare and contrast Columbus with Cleveland. My track record shows that I am a champion of my city of birth but on this trip, even though not completed, I will say that the culinary community of Cleveland kicks that of Columbus in the ass. Cleveland may have a little more in the quantity, I would say a head to head tie for quality, but where the win occurs in the spirit of collaboration and cheerleading among chefs here for each other and a desire to keep raising the bar."
 
His dizzying schedule included stops at Greenhouse Tavern, Spaces Gallery, Sweet Moses, Muse in the Ritz Carlton, Ohio City Urban Farm, West Side Market, Sokolowski’s, Crop Bistro, Cleveland Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, and many more.
 
Read his missive here.
w magazine devotes serious ink to moca and its architect
In the article "Build It and They Will Come," Alice Rawsthorn writing for W Magazine proffers a lengthy piece on Cleveland's brand new Museum of Contemporary Art and its world-famous architect, Farshid Moussavi.

"There’s a new kind of theater in Cleveland," Rawsthorn begins. "If you stand outside the city’s just built Museum of Contemporary Art, you can watch its walls change color with the light. When the sun shines directly onto their black mirrored steel, the six walls will look blue -- the brighter the sun, the more vivid the hue -- but if the sky clouds over, they will darken to black, just as they will when the sun moves around the building. And as each of them stands at a different angle, each reflects a different image of what is happening around it."

“It’s as if the building is performing for you,” Farshid Moussavi is quoted as saying. “There are some amazing moments, when the distorted reflections produce a kind of new reality.”

Moving to the interior of the stunning structure, Rawsthorn writes, "While the tone is set by the building’s constantly changing facade, there are playful touches inside, where visitors are invited to ­observe the daily life of the museum and its staff in a series of impromptu performances: They can peek through glass walls into the art-handling area, delivery bay, and other behind-the-scenes spaces usually hidden from the public. If they walk to the top of the spectacular steel staircase, they can look down into the main gallery to catch an aerial view of the artworks or watch the installation of new shows. But the grand finale is the ceiling of those galleries, which is painted in the same deep blue as those of ancient Egyptian tombs. It resembles the night sky, with the gallery lights shining like stars."

Read the rest of art-y-facts here.
port's lakefront nature preserve snags environmental enhancement award
Underscoring its commitment to environmental stewardship and public access to the lakefront, the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority has won an international industry award for opening and managing the Cleveland Lakefront Nature Preserve.
 
The American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA) has awarded the Port its 2012 Environmental Enhancement Award for the preserve, an 88-acre site on Lake Erie that opened to the public on a daily basis in February. Since that time, the Preserve has seen some 14,000 visitors from 39 states and 13 countries.
 
“We are honored and excited to receive this award,” says Port President and CEO Will Friedman. “We have made environmental stewardship along our waterfronts a major organizational priority, and to be recognized by the AAPA for our efforts is rewarding. We hope this award will further raise the profile of the preserve and draw even more people to enjoy nature and bird watching on Cleveland’s Lake Erie shoreline.”

Read the rest of the good news here.
mag for meeting planners points travelers to cleveland
Writing for Meetings Focus, a publication geared to professional meeting planners, Kelsey Farabee writes that "Northeast Ohio is booming. New venues and hotels are sprouting up throughout the region and visitors are pouring in, so planners seeking an energetic, bustling host city should look no further than the seat of Cuyahoga County."

The article, titled "Cure for the Common City," describes at length all the recent development that has taken place over the past few years. Mentioned within are the Medical Mart and convention center, "Cleveland’s burgeoning food scene," and Horseshoe Casino Cleveland.

Also described is the new Museum of Contemporary Art, about which Farabee writes, "Adding to the city’s cultural panache is the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Cleveland, which unveiled an enormous $350 million expansion this month. The new 34,000-square-foot structure has a distinctive mirrored exterior and is 44 percent larger than the museum’s previous location. The four-story building has a startling geometric footprint, rising from a hexagonal base to a square top, with exhibitions and space for public programs on all four floors."

Read the rest right here.
wired mag reviews tremont electric's n-power peg
Wired magazine gets its hands on Tremont Electric’s nPower PEG, and gives it the onec over.

Titled "Need to Gas Up Your Phone? Take a Lap," the feature tests the device and gives it good marks.

"Here’s a familiar scenario: You’re walking somewhere, and you realize you’re going to be late. You reach for your phone to call, but your battery is as dead as Osama. You need some juice, stat. But with no outlet or charger nearby, you’re up the ol’ creek again."

"I’ve just tested a device made for moments like these: Tremont Electric’s nPower PEG backup charger. It purports to capture the energy your body gives off just by just walking or cycling, funneling volts into your dead cellphone battery, and bringing the device back to life or extending talk-time into the great beyond."

And the final verdict:

"Recharges cellphones with low or dead batteries using the kinetic energy of your bodily movements. 14 ounces and not too bulky, so you can carry it anywhere. Great for emergencies."

Read the rest of the review here.