by Peter Chakerian

Labor Day in Cleveland has always been a wondrous time for me, even when (as NPR so graciously noted the other day) it actually involved laboring at one’s job beforehand.

I remember coming downtown as a kid and being completely overwhelmed with all of the choices there were, how many Clevelanders were there to partake of said choices and knowing that when it was all over, there was one heck of a barbeque waiting for when we got home.

Usually, the festivities for us started on the RTA Rapid. We were usually headed to the International Air Show. Sometimes, it also involved the possibility of the Indians being in-town for a day game at the ol’ Cleveland Municipal Stadium. I can still see those street vendors who were hawking their wares and smell those kosher dogs and Polish Boys. You also had your local arts and culture festivals, concerts and fireworks displays to consider. Add and ice-cold Coke and it was almost more than this lil’ west side boy in the “husky” jeans could stand!

As I got older, the build-up to this weekend was just as exciting, though absorbed in many different ways. You’d leave the basement of the CSU Cauldron office (or later, the Corporate Cubicle Farm®) hoping to scrounge up some sort of lunch only to find the Blue Angels or the Thunderbirds screaming through downtown—narrowing their precise maneuvers into a brilliant sky display for onlookers, who would stop dead in their tracks on East Ninth Street.

The throng at school/work was always pondering which local bar would be the meeting place for the weekend, when to hit “Taste of Cleveland,” wondering which of the kitschy bands to check out there and whose grub to scarf. And would we have any money left for the-seventy-five-cent-Busch-in-a-can night at our favorite local watering hole when we got back?

This year, my seasoned life-long Cleveland heart is captivated all over again. Like Taipei, Taiwan before it, Cleveland is poised to be a trailblazer in the digital future of the world. You’ve all heard about it by now… in the media… in commentaries… and (of course) right here at Cool Cleveland. People are talking about OneCleveland, amazing city-wide wireless technologies on more steroids than Barry Bonds, mobile data transmissions battling pilots for North Coast ether… and the full-tilt arts-and-tech fête, baptized as (ingeniously enough) Ingenuity.

And a ton of the events are actually F-F-F-FREE. (You can commence eye-rubbing now.)

Ingenuity is a creative tour-de-force focused on Northeast Ohio’s wealth of arts brilliance and technology savoir-faire and can be found smack-dab in the middle lower Euclid Avenue between Public Square and East 9th Street, as well as East 4th Street. It runs September 1-4 and features some 75 arts-and-tech organizations at some 18 different downtown venues. And judging from the schedule, you’re bound to find SOMETHING that will appeal to your sense and sensibility.

Multiplicity is the name of the game here. Boyfriend got a jazz-and-blues fetish? Wife is hankering for something in the imaginative dance category? Maybe your mom wants to step out of her usual comfort-zone visit to the Cleveland Museum of Art? Are those friends coming into town for the weekend jonesing for forward-thinking film? Or perhaps you’re a frustrated parent who would love—perhaps more than ANYTHING else in the world—to get your kid to take the ear buds from that infernal iPod out of their skull for a minute? There’s something for all of you at Ingenuity.

The timing couldn’t be any better, based on the news for Cleveland over the last few weeks including emerging from Most Impoverished City of the Year. There’s a lot of talk that this festival will “invigorate” downtown. It really already has, without one lick played or installation viewed.

With its high-powered, undeniable mélange of technology and art, Ingenuity touches on all connections and points in the spectrum between the two. You can forget the Matrix-like visions of the future and those Pecuniary Seers staring at “economic impact” in their collective crystal ball. Ingenuity is a different, dangerous, adventurous, inventive revelation. And success before the opening ceremonies is found in setting our Newton-like Law of Cleveland Motion on its ear.

Like the CMJ Rock Hall Music Fest before it, Ingenuity is already on my list of “must-do’s” for next year. That’s really saying something. Check out the bevy of events and happenings for Ingenuity all weekend long, as they’re listed below and at www.IngenuityCleveland.com.

Friends, think “Old School meets New School” in the World Series of the Future of Your Cleveland-freaking-Ohio. Yer not gonna pass on an opportunity like that now, are ya Cleveland?

Yeah. Didn’t think so.
From Cool Cleveland contributor Peter Chakerian Peter@CoolCleveland.com

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