Every four years, it comes around again. And every four years, I am gripped by the fever and swept up in the excitement.

The World Cup isn’t like the Olympic games, with its over-the-top ceremonies, its endless fragmentation of dozens of different competitions and sporting events. This is one sport with one maniacal focus for 30 days. And when it’s all over, one team earns the right to be called the best national soccer team in the world.

The World Cup is the one sporting event that brings together all that is good and bad in human nature. And maybe that’s what makes it so appealing on so many different levels.

The good; the world comes together (well, at least the 32 teams that make it to the tournament) for a month-long party to cheer on their teams. Some fans have strong allegiances to home countries or ethnic backgrounds. Some just cheer just for an underdog, but on a global scale.

It’s also a great excuse to meet up with like-minded friends who enjoy the sport as casual sporting fans and explore the city’s many watering holes, have a burger and a beer, and just soak up the atmosphere of the spectacle.

But the World Cup also has the potential to stir up the ugly ghosts of past wars, victories and defeats, casting today’s matches in historical terms of colonizers and colonized, invaders and defenders, oppressors and the oppressed.

And it’s within this heady and sweaty mix of intense passion and rivalry that those ugly strains of nationalism that lie just below the surface of the public face of “we are the world” unity can produce such an intoxicating and thrilling touch-and-go with our primal, beastly nature.

Just watch any YouTube clip of an international match with various soccer hooligan types going at it and you’ll quickly see that the kinds of passions generated there make a rivalry like OSU-Michigan or Lakers-Celtics look like ballroom dancing. Seriously.

The experience here in the U.S., as in other parts of the world, varies depending on whether you’re watching a game alone in your living room or at a bar with novice fans or experienced devotes, or in a partisan group of English or German or Serbian fans. But in any case, it’s a spectacle not to missed.

It’s the kind of event that often defines a summer, or at the very least can kick it off in grand fashion.

So even if you’re not much of a soccer fan at all, make some time and watch a game or two. Get swept up in the madness, even if only for a day. Chances are you won’t be sorry.

Complete schedule here or here.

http://www.clevelandareahistory.com

The Cleveland Area History blog focuses on everything you’ve always wanted to know about historic architecture, preservation, and development efforts in the Cleveland area. Sadly, and increasingly, it also documents the ever-growing number of buildings succumbing to the wrecking ball, while putting out the word about buildings in danger of being condemned and torn down.

If you care at all about this city’s history, this is a must-read blog.

This Friday night, one of Cleveland’s most original underground poetic voices is reading at the Borders in Strongsville, across the street from the Southpark Mall, down the road from the new-ish Costco. Dan Smith, author of “Crooked River”, spins postmodern suburban tales weaved from the wispy strings of industrial Cleveland memories. Musical accompaniment provided by Tom Orange (saxophone and other sounds), Morgan Ellington (trumpet, electric bass) and Me (drums, percussion).

Come. Listen. Be enchanted.

8:30 PM

The deep cleveland poetry hour

Borders in Strongsville

17200 Royalton Road

Morning commute

I don’t know about you, but there are green lifeforms popping up all over my front and back yard, pushing through layers of last fall’s rotting leaves and a stray delivery label or string of tinsel blown by long-gone winter winds.

This is one sure sign of spring for us in NEO. Another is the Cleveland International Film Festival, which kicks off this Thursday March 18th and runs through Sunday March 28th. In my opinion, it’s one of the best arts and cultural happenings in the city and we’ve been fortunate that it only gets bigger and better with each passing year. (This year’s festival is the 34th.)

So if you’ve never gone but always wanted to, check out the web site above or pick up a film festival guide around town, find something you like, and give it a shot. You’ll almost surely be back for more.

See ya at the movies.

Demolition of some parts of the building began recently, while the main part technically still belongs to the owner and has to be sold to ODOT before it can be fully demolished, making way for the new innerbelt bridge. (Read all about it here.)

Until then, some photos.

This Saturday night, February 20th, I’ll be co-reading with Azalea Tidwell and movin’ to the block-rockin’ beats of Blackwell at Blue Arrow Records in the Collinwood neighborhood, a few doors down from the Beachland Ballroom.

Come early. Stay late. Surprises abound.

Arts Collinwood + The Haiti Emergency Village Project in conjunction w/ NEONAC + Cleveland Tapes

Join us Wednesday February 10 from 6-10pm at Arts Collinwood for the Art for Haiti Benefit, including a live art auction from top local and national artists, food, cocktails and live jazz music. Proceeds will go directly to the Haiti Emergency Village Project.

THE HAITI EMERGENCY VILLAGE PROJECT (HEVP) is a consortium of organizations working towards the building of emerging villages in Haiti that will provide housing, infrastructure and other aspects of what constitutes a community. This group brings to Haiti transferable lessons learned from Katrina. HEVP has been conceived, organized and put into action by New Orleans residents, supporters and rebuilders, and Haitians on the ground, most with longstanding ties to New Orleans, to create a model for recovery.

You will have a chance to bid on art from some amazing regional, and international artists including – Keith Marlowe, Amy Casey, Dan Tranberg, Julius Lyle, Dana Depew, Bridget Caswell, Sunia Boneham, Paul Sydorenko, Jacob Wesley Lang, David Wilder, Tary Yu, Petroucha Moise to name a few!

PLUS a SILENT AUCTION of AN AMAZING ARRAY OF Donated items from local Merchants +venues including Macback’s Bookstore, Beachland Ballroom, Visible Voice Books, House of Blues, Playhouse Square, Grog Shop!

6 – 7 PM: Mingle, cocktails, food, browse silent auction and live auction items in the Arts Collinwood Gallery and Cafe

7 – 8:30 PM: Live art auction with auctioneer Lawrence Daniel Caswell

8:30 PM: Live jazz with Will Mason Trio in the Cafe

$10 Suggested Donation

Arts Collinwood, 397 E. 156th St., Cleveland, OH 44110

http://artscollinwood.org

I promised myself I’d visit B Spot again, and I did yesterday to have lunch with a really good friend of mine whom I hadn’t seen or talked to in a really long time. This was mostly because he, at least, had a pretty good 2009 and traveled a lot and finished some projects that he’d started years ago. Needless to say, he’s been a real inspiration to me for many years so it was refreshing to spend a little time with him to catch up, but also, for me at least, to be re-inspired in this still new 2010.

As for the food resolution, that continues. Yesterday for lunch, I had the Clevelander, a brat with coleslaw, hot sauce, and fries.

A little messy, true. But isn’t that really a good indicator of the best food? The Clevelander earns a sturdy thumbs up, in my opinion. And B Spot continues to impress. Even my friend, who had the Thin Lizzy burger (caramelized onions , cheddar, mayo and pickles), was impressed.

And last week, I managed to check out the Cornerstone Brewery in the Berea Commons with some friends after the Cornel West lecture at BW. Not really “new” in the sense of having opened within the past year or so, but new to me.

I had 2 brewer’s pretzels, one plain with a side of mustard, and another stuffed with pepper jack cheese and served with a side of ranch dressing. Not too bad for the cheesy pretzel, not too much cheese oozing out or making a mess. Nicely balanced flavors and textures, too. For the beer selection I had a Seven, their unfiltered 7.5% ABV IPA. Not as bitter as I’d hoped for, but a decent  beer nevertheless. Next time I think I’ll try one of the house-made root beers.

Off to make plans for next week.

Enduring Questions Lecture Series

Enduring Questions Lecture and Martin Luther King Jr.,  Keynote presentation
Friday, January 22, 8:00 p.m,
Lou Higgins Center 136 E. Bagley Rd.
Dr. Cornel West
Cornell West, professor of religion and African-American Studies at Princeton University, is one of the most provocative and insightful public intellectuals of our time. As author, speaker and commentator, Dr. West addresses fundamental issues concerning topics such as democracy, racism, ethics, morals and preserving our global society.  Author of “Race Matters,” he has written 16 other books, most recently, “Hope on a Tightrope: Words and Wisdom.”