Weekly Arts & Urbanism Roundup

I pretty much dropped doing weekly news roundups a few years ago. Likewise, the monthy regional arts preview took too much work. At least for now, I am trying to bring the roundup back.

 A selection of recent arts & urbanism news.

  Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh CityLab creates a Tiny House in Garfield- documents the process on Tiny House Journal Blog.

Ex Steelers, Baron Batch  John Malecki create a Homestead Art Studio & Marketing company.

Artist, Alexandre Arrechia will speak about his 3 temporary public sculptures downtown & lead public art tour. I love these works and meant to do a post about them.

The Amazing Bicycle Heaven bike museum & store may be the subject of a reality show- ala American Pickers. Counting Cars, American Restoration.

Pittsburgh Comic Artist, Ed Piskor's Hip Hop Family Tree volume II hits the stores. Follow his twitter feed for updates on events and book signings.

Fight to save The Carrie Furnace Deer ramps up and gets some national press

City rolls out, Mighty Beautiful, national ad campaign.

Cleveland

Cleveland area considers Gay Games a huge success.

The fifth annual Weapons of Mass Creation festival draws more than 2000 creatives from around the world

Cleveland leaders look at Indianapolis's Cultural Tail bike path. (See NY Times article about the path)

Youngstown

The Ballyhoo Music Festival in Austintown, Ohio headlined by Bootsy Collins & Michael Stanley & The Resonators. (This could be a festival to watch)

Discovery Channel casting for new show: Looking for America's Top Engineer

The Discovery Channel is looking for America’s most creative and daring techies, machinists, inventors and engineers to design, build, and BLAST their way to a Grand Prize on their new competition TV show TOP ENGINEER.

A handful of lucky men and women will be chosen to take on exciting challenges from various engineering fields at the state-of-the-art WET design facilities (www.wetdesign.com) in California.

No, you don’t need to have an engineering degree to compete on this show, but you MUST be able to design, build, test and integrate an idea into a final product that WORKS. These will be fast-paced, hands-on, VISCERAL challenges! If your experience is strictly behind the keyboard, then this show is NOT for you.

We are looking for visual effects experts, accomplished home shop machinists, contractors and engineers with backgrounds in electrical, civil, structural or mechanical engineering.

If you have an outgoing personality and are ready to get your hands dirty for the chance to win a GRAND PRIZE and the title of TOP ENGINEER, then we want to hear from you.

Remember, this is a competition on reality TV, so really shy folks, not into the stress, constant creative challenges and public spotlight, are likely not right for this.

Full details here.

Del's of Bloomfield To Get A Major Makover On The Food Network's Restaurant Impossible

Well, I ate at Del's once and while it wasn't one of the worst experiences ever, the food was pretty bad and I never went back.

The concept is to see what can be done in two days, with only 10,000 dollars. While the show is a bit dramatic, there seems to be a sincere empathy with the struggles of local businesses.

Check out I Heart Pittsburgh's post about it.

Pittsburgh Performance Group, Squonk Opera Competes Tonight On America's Got Talent

This unique troupe, is one of only ten acts that skipped the early round and arrived in the quarter finals based upon their first audition alone.

Two judges, Sharon Osbourne and Howie Mandel, loved them while the third, Piers Morgan seemed to think they were just weird. "What does it mean?"

The progressive-rockers-turned-performance-artists feel they're representing Pittsburgh artists and musicians and would like to contribute to invalidating the national belief that Pittsburgh serves as a second-rate scene for the arts. The troupe gladly wears its black-and-gold roots on its sleeves.

"We're very proud to say we're from Pittsburgh," Mr. O'Hearn said. "I think one of the reasons our art is so different is that we make our shows in Pittsburgh, which is inherently different from making them in New York or Los Angeles because we have a freedom and self-reliance that doesn't come with those cities."

For a group who's performances lean so heavily on carefully planned display and technology, the pressure is really on to pull something off-with less than two minutes of set up time.

The PG article also strongly implies that the show is counting on The Burgh's now famously rabid support of hometown heroes to boost ratings.

America's Got Talent, tonight at nine on NBC.