Cleveland Scene

Northeast Ohio natives Jonah and Vanessa Bayer no longer call the Midwest home, but they often reference their upbringing here in their popular How Did We Get Weird? podcast. Jonah is a successful therapist and journalist who’s played in punk bands for years, and Vanessa is an actress who was former Saturday Night Live cast member who’s had numerous roles in film and TV.

Ohio Democratic candidate for governor Dr. Amy Acton has turned down the opportunity to debate her Republican opponent Vivek Ramaswamy. In a statement, her campaign pointed to a string of inaccurate attack ads and said Acton is focused on “talking with Ohioans, not platforming a scam artist who spreads baseless lies about her and her family.” Ramaswamy, meanwhile, went on Fox News and challenged Acton to show up and defend her positions.

This Labor Day weekend The Cleveland Orchestra wraps up the Blossom season with three performances of “The Music of John Williams.” Conductor Sarah Hicks will lead Music by the “Maestro of the Movies,” including selections from Superman, Star Wars, & Jurassic Park. Concerts take place at 7 pm on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Tickets are available online.

Shock rocker Rob Zombie brought his “Freaks on Parade” tour to Blossom on a very hot late summer Wednesday evening. Besides his gothic attire and horror bent, he’s also widely known for directing several cult classic films such as House of a Thousand Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects.

Anyone who has ever tended to a hive of honeybees knows there’s a meditation to the art and the practice. Frames of honeycombed hives are lifted cautiously out their boxes. Swarms are calmed with the puff of smoke. And honey, the liquid currency of the craft, is carefully scooped as the hive hums its droning, orchestral buzz of production. Its just this meditation that drew Trey Williams to the craft.

In the two short years since Vecino opened in Midtown Detroit, the restaurant has been inundated with both public and critical acclaim. The contemporary Mexican restaurant landed on Esquire magazine’s Best New Restaurants in America list, was named Restaurant of the Year by the Detroit Free Press and recently found its name on a roundup of the Greatest Mexican Restaurants Across the United States by the New York Times.

Ahead of The Pretty Reckless’ show at the House of Blues on Sept. 15, we caught up with Taylor Momsen to talk about the band’s latest album and songwriting. Did you do anything differently in the writing, production, and recording process for Dear God than past The Pretty Reckless projects? Dear God is probably the least produced album and the one that sounds the most like us. It’s the first album we can just play the whole thing live without too much altering.

Nell Irvin Painter, Edwards Professor of American History, Emerita, Princeton University, is the author of books of history including the New York Times bestseller The History of White People; Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol; and the National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over.

A troubling trend has shown up in some communities around the U.S.: Public officials are being inundated with seemingly fake public feedback that aims to block renewable energy and promote fossil fuels. In Ohio, one of the states grappling with this issue, regulators have done little to crack down on the problem, sparking concern among advocates for clean energy and good government that agencies will continue to get public comments from people who didn’t authorize them or simply don’t exist.

IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR THE LITERARY NIGHT OF THE YEAR Toni Morrison. Colson Whitehead. Walter Mosley. Maxine Hong Kingston. These award winners are some of the most defining voices on how we have come to understand race, justice, and our relationships with one another. And they have all joined us in Cleveland for the honor and presentation of the Anisfield Wolf Book Award as part of a celebratory ceremony that is always the literary night of the year.