Beauty inside the mind of the beholder? sure, but education from our peers who know the difference helps get us up the ladder of appreciation.  Here's a shot from the plebian street...GOT UGLY?  Marcel Breuer – do you get it?

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I've appreciated having Cleveland Magazine pick up some of my photos from REALNEO for publication in their print edition - last time featuring the Van Duzer show at Convivium and this month featuring Gallery U-Haul, and my wife Evelyn and son Claes, at the April 11, 2007 Tremont Art Walk... I look forward to seeing you at Patsy Kline's homeless gallery at the July 13 Tremont Art Walk, where she will hold a Gas Money Garage Sale.

7GEN is pleased to provide a Drupal virtual community for the historic Cleveland Club of Washington, D. C., and they have used the technology very well - visit their clean, effective site here. If you frequent D.C., or have friends or family there with a "keen interest in Cleveland", connect with club President Brooke Stoddard at their online presence here. Their next event is this private tour of the U.S. Capitol, July 11, 2007, which will be exceptional.

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Introduction :  Ingenuity Fest 2007 :  A Sustainable Future

Here is a refined draft for the A Sustainable Future exhibit to be curated by yours truly at the Nance School of Business July 19-22 along with the other Technology hubs.  Sustainability will be the 'glue that binds' in many respects, the various other hubs encompassing the wide array of technologies - from Fuel Cells to Nanotechnology to advanced Bioscience. It is only fitting that Technology be given such prominence this year at the Festival of ART and TECHNOLOGY and the timing is perfect for this to be the true coming out party for an epic festival !  
see: www.ingenuitycleveland.org

Signs of progress for bus patrons and the RTA Euclid Avenue project:  Here's a bus shelter in the center median strip for Euclid Avenue

I for one am very happy to see how much TravelCleveland.com has improved.  Check it out and win some prizes!
 

Cleveland
Summer in the City Sweepstakes

Deadline to enter: July 3, 2007

Vis a vis the proposed new (let’s rebuild the existing) inner belt interstate 90 ODOT bridge in Cleveland:

Why are we so behind in Northeast Ohio when it comes to preservation?

Two articles converged onto my conciousness this week in the midst of an attempt to save the Breuer from destruction.

Brooklyn Waterfront Called Endangered Site

here's a quote: “The buildings really represent an important part of Brooklyn’s heritage, and it would be a tragedy to lose it,” Richard Moe, president of the trust, said in an interview. “We’re very concerned that there’s such a rush on to demolish everything.”

and

Great Architecture Finds a Home in Indiana

here's a quote: "Columbus (Indiana) is a small town (population 39,000) that just happens to have the most incredible collection of modern architecture in the Midwest (outside Chicago, of course). Everyone from Eliel Saarinen and his son, Eero, to Deborah Berke and Richard Meier has worked there, designing so many schools, churches and libraries that, at least in theory, you can’t walk a single block without stumbling on an elegant glass-and-concrete building or a house of worship soaring like a Euclidean fantasy.

“You actually have to see it to believe it,” wrote Christopher Porter, a reader."

With this June 15, 2007, Inner Circle Open House, it is safe to say the NEO Excellence Roundtables are back, as this week we will feature a very unique discussion and performance by Cleveland Orchestra violist Eliesha Nelson, who is in the middle of a sophisticated recording project at George Lucas' Skywalker Sound, in Marin, California. Eliesha will discuss with us how she decided to get into the "recording business" and how the community can help her project succeed - and the purpose of this roundtable is to help Eliesha's project succeed.

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Ted Kennedy, Rachel “Bunny” Mellon, Robert Kennedy Jr., Senator John Warner, Mitt Romney, Christy Mihos, and Walter Cronkite all have direct personal and family connections to Cape Cod.  They or their family or relatives have vacation houses on the Cape, they have money, and they don’t want Global Warming to be fought in their own back yard.   And you can’t see carbon dioxide. 

So declares Bonnie Teeuwen ODOT's returning District 12 chief in this month's AAA Motorist, as she describes the Opportunity Corridor, the proposed highway from East 55th St. to University Circle.  Well, count me as one person, who is not everyone.  I think the plan stinks.  I want to see a return to civilized boulevards in this city.  Real tree-lined boulevards. I think that there should be a way to make federal and state funds available to restore our boulevards (to include bikes): East Boulevard, West Boulevard, Martin Luther King Boulevard, Lakeshore Boulevard, Clifton Boulevard..And redesign other thoroughfares that should be boulevards : Chester, Superior, Detroit, Broadway, Harvard-Denison, Miles and Pearl.  We need to size down, not up.  And, what's the point of the Euclid Corridor, if we are building a parallel corridor for the rich folks?

It is great to see more progress in the growth of the art scene in the mid-town and St. Clair arts district area, with the opening of Level Three Gallery this weekend... another sign of vibrant life. I like the work of the artists I know from this group so am glad to see them situated again - some showed together at Buzz, on W. 25th, which I liked very much. I look forward to seeing this new space and their new work. So, this Friday, June 1, art and culture lovers should start with a tour through the Hough bakeries, at the Inner Circle, for Happy Hour, then head over to CIA for their opening of Design Values 2, and then to Level Three for their opening, described below. By the end of the evening, you will not have driven far, will have done lots of great, authentic Cleveland things, and had plenty of opportunites for good company, art, food and cheer.

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Can't contain the excitement on this emerging evolution.  Why not celebrate a bit as we finally gain real traction after years of socially-conscious and sometimes stigmatizing suffering we starving artist-technologists know well. I feel we are ready for a RealNEO Rennaissance!

Ever wondered how a designer conceives a product? What the process involves? Top CIA graduates innovating products for corporations such as Chrysler, Hyundai, Hasbro and Kyocera will open the vault, displaying sketches, concept drawings, renderings and actual consumer products at the second-annual Design Values alumni exhibition at CIA’s FUTURE Center for Design and Technology Transfer, June 1—August 3, 2007.

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Last Wednesday, we opened up The Inner Circle Restaurant and historic Hough Bakeries complex for a public tour, planning discussion, and great Hot Sauce Williams BBQ buffet, and that was a great success - there's a write-up here. Your next chance to join The Inner Circle, explore The Hough, participate in planning this neighborhood and enjoy some great BBQ is this Friday, June 1, 2007. More on the Open House and pictures are found at http://realneo.org/Next-Chance-to-Join-The-Inner-Circle. More on the Hough Bakeries complex at http://realneo.org/hough-bakery-becoming-the-star.

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Located in the heart of the historic Hough Bakeries Complex is the Inner Circle, a weekend club and reception facility operated for the past 7 years by the Hot Sauce Williams family. Starting shortly, operation of the Inner Circle will expand to extended hours every day, featuring a cybercafe, meeting space, computer terminals, free wifi, independent film, the Linux Cafe, art, culture, and great food, coffee, and even wine tastings, via a broader partnership of friends. This pan is from the deck and patio area, and features Guyanese chef and reggae performer and DJ Edwin, who will help operate the Inner Circle, shown with Hot Sauce Williams founder LeMaud Williams, as well.

Look familiar anyone? This building is on College Street just east of Spadina Avenue in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It looks like another building I have seen...can't think of which one though...

As a contrast to yesterday's Header of the Day, of Beechwood Place Mall, here's a new pan from a shoot at new Cleveland Big Box Mall Steelyard Commons, still in development, on April 20, 2007.

I had the annoyance of going to Beechwod Place Mall today for a meeting. What an astounding celebration of sweatshop labor and wasted resources. This pan is the first floor corner by some silly place called Nordstom, where not only does the coffee shop not provide wifi but the barista doesn't know what wifi means.

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Bill Callahan and I are pleased to offer a last moment opportunity to join an important conversation just beginning on making NEO a global leader in the use of Free Open Source Software, with the man who wrote the Open Source Definition, Bruce Perens. Bruce is Vice President of Developer Relations and Policy for FOSS-related SourceLabs, of Seattle. NEO is fortunate to have a local connection with Bruce, as the Director of Marketing for SourceLabs, Athena Diamantis, lives in this region. Digital Vision Director Bill Callahan and East Cleveland CIO Abu Alli met with Bruce and Athena last week to discuss how to make NEO a world FOSS leader, and we decided that is a topic deserving much broader and more open attention. So tomorrow we continue growing the dialog.

Join us, if you may... 8 AM breakfast tomorrow at the Juniper Grill.

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