Krause Ct. between E 20th and E 23rd.

Video shot on Dec. 24, 2008 on Ridge Road. Music by DJ Tameil. Santa and Chipmunk courtesy of a sad economic situation.

This is a poem from the Cleveland Christmas Amusement Gazette (1895). The poem is written by J. Edmund V. Cooke.  We really enjoy the lines; Continue, Cleveland as thou art today; Let Mind and Muscle, Art, and Action mate.  These lines strike us because for the last few years we have been photographing Cleveland signage. The signs that we document represent the imagination and pride that Clevelanders place on their work and neighborhoods. SGS hopes that 2010 will be a great year for Cle.  Happy Holidays.

Disclaimer: The line, “Set in that zone best fitted for our race”  makes us slightly uneasy … we’re not sure who they were referring to but can only guess that they aren’t in the majority today.

When it comes to crappy seasonal movie selections Cleveland has no monopoly on doo-doo brown silver screens. If you dig on insightful slapstick neochique filmmaking (one half of SGS) then there is a place for you at Cedar Lee and the Cinematheque. But for the average moviegoer (the other half of SGS) then you are forced to choose between a  Jim Carrey vehicle or a deceptive Will Smith story about unattainable dreams. The scan above is from Christmas Eve, 1929 in Cle. One had the choice to attend the Hippodrome, Palace, or Keith’s 105. You may say that the films at this time were no better than now, but it was still an experience to go someplace with style.  Today we shell out bucks to sit in theaters constructed as fast as your local Walgreens.

ClevelandSGS was feeling nostalgic and broke out the old Cleveland Zoo Key. This piece of CLE history always makes us reminisce about visits to the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo as children.  This particular key is “Packey” the Elephant.  If you grew up here you remember that you would insert good ole’ Packey’s trunk into the keyhole and wait for the talking storybook (narrated by Linn Sheldon).  The key would give some interesting facts, and some not so interesting facts (elephants are large).

The fun thing about this advertising gimmick is that you were allowed to keep the key. This then made you pester your parents to take you back to the zoo to unlock additional storybooks located throughout the premises. The key above was sold by the Cleveland Zoological Society and produced by Claude’s Talking Storybook.  The original zoo key program ended in 1980 and was resurrected in 1996. The new zoo keys have a koala (you’re no packey) on them.  For more information on the zoo key program wait for the next six months of winter to pass and then go visit the zoo.

Happy Hanukkah from the Cotton Club Bottling Co. This is an ad from the Cleveland Jewish News from April, 1970.  To read a story on ClevelandSGS in the Cleveland Jewish News click here.

Currently the Cleveland Cavaliers record is 22-4.  It is difficult as a Cleveland sports fan not to get excited about a  team of ours that is dominating everyone they play.  Yet, as we all know Cle teams have a propensity to never seal the deal. ClevelandSGS hopes our intrepid basketball squad somehow finds a way to bring home a championship for the fans this season.  The scan above is from the last time a professional basketball team in our town brought home a crown(1929). Our team name from 1925-1931 was the Cleveland Rosenblums.  SGS hopes that on this 80th anniversary of our last championship that the Cavs celebrate it by ending this drought. 

The audio stylings of Burns’ in his song “Make Love” incorporate many of the techniques that Cleveland SGS holds dear. SGS promotes variance, or divine error, in her visual style. In tribute to 70s -80s era Call & Post commercial design, Cleveland SGS offers “Super 13 Secrets” as a visual accompaniment to this musical masterpiece.

ClevelandSGS spent an unholy amount of time researching the etymology of the word Cleveburg. Cleveland does go by many nicknames such as the Forest City, C-Town, the Cleve, Thieveland, Sixth City, and the ill fated Plum. ClevelandSGS prefers to drop Cleveburg from time to time and we wondered when the word was first uttered in our great city. After an informal survey of thugs and nuns alike, no one had the answer to where this word originated. We then went to the archives of local city papers from 1950 on and still found no mention of the word. Finally, right when we were about to give up we found the gem(drawn by artist Edward Freska) above from a Sun newspaper editorial from December, 1973. If anybody has any additional information about Cleveburg please feel free to teach us a lesson.   

Since 1986, the Cleveland Cinematheque has screened thousands of films. John Ewing, the director of the Cinematheque, is the man responsible for allowing Clevelanders the opportunity to view many of the world’s great films. Whenever I hear from someone that we are a subpar city or that we do not have the art scene of a major metropolitan area, I instantly challenge this nonsense by invoking the name of the Cinematheque. This film house stands as one of the country’s premiere showcases for experimental films, foreign films, older films, and new releases. SGS salutes the Cinematheque for fighting the good fight year after year. The top three revelatory programs presented by Ewing, and voted on by SGS were as follows: 1. Pigs, Pimps and Pornographers: The Films of Shohei Immamura. 2.  The Experimental Films of Kurt Kren.  3.  The Films of Jean Eustache (actually shown at the Cleveland Museum of Art-which Ewing also programs).  Since SGS was in a ranking mood, we asked John Ewing to rate his top five television shows of all time and here is what he sent us: 

I don’t watch TV much, but here are my all-time top five TV shows:

The Twilight Show 

Rocky and Bullwinkle

The Dick Van Dyke Show

The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour

The David Letterman Show

and Ghoulardi of course!

For more  scans from the Cinematheque check out this link, and please also click here to view hundreds of movie memories from Cleveland’s past courtesy of the SGS archive team.  

 Andy Warhol/Cleveland Cinematheque ad courtesy of the Gay People’s Chronicle; March, 1990.