I’ll admit it. I built this month around watching the Cleveland Cavaliers in the playoffs while scrolling Facebook and IG on my phone.

1. I like the idea of LeBron coming home and getting the title more than I like the idea of him not winning the title and having to move. How heartbreaking would it be if he doesn’t get a title in Ohio?

2. LeBron is the co-owner of Blaze Pizza on Campus. Blaze Pizza is a pizza start-up that boasts LeBron James as an owner. It’s similar to Chipotle, Piada or Subway where  they make the food in front of you.

It differs from Subway, Piada or Chipotle in an important way for me. Blaze Pizza offers vegan cheese as an option with no extra charge. So when you watch the Cavs game while eating a pizza with a zillion toppings you can thank LeBron for going the extra mile if your vegan.

If you’re not vegan: I’m sure there is something special about the pepperoni, anchovies or whatever.

This is a left-wing paper. The above was a vegan paragraph.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra played at Skully's on May 17th, which corresponded with the first game of the current play-off series.

I went to Barrel 44 across the street to watch the basketball game and hoping the timing works while I looked on IG or Facebook. While the Cavs were destroying the Toronto Raptors in Game 1, I ran into a member of the band Whitney who was opening for Unknown Mortal Orchestra. We become chummy and then head over to Skully’s.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra played “Fffunny Friends” as we walked in. Later they’re jamming some stuff on their latest record, “Multi-Love.”

Musically, their psych-y garage nuggets music has added a Stevie Wonder tinge. The next few Cavs games didn’t really line-up with music except for Drake making appearances. At press time the series is 3-2.

I drove down to the OSU Urban Art Space on W. Town Street for their Spring Juried Exhibition, “Noves Histories” which features 40 Ohio Artists. OAL’s Exhibitions have been going on since 1910. In 2016, the “Noves Histories” Jurors of Esteem are Sophia Blals, the director of Can Serrat in Barcelona Spain and Cleveland Filmmaker Robert Banks who is known for his 1992 film “X: the Baby Cinema,” about the commercial appropriation of Malcolm X. Banks has screened at Sundance.

“Noves Histories” which translates to “New Histories” opened May 24th. It ends July 9th with a reception, which features a juror’s talk and the award of a month long residency at Can Serrat.

One of the pieces that jumps at you is Katherine Menke’s “365.” This installation is of 365 ceramic bowls she made with individual sayings inscribed on them. At first it looks like a display of inspirational quotes you read on instragram like, “Be Not Afraid of Greatness,” “When the Debate is Lost, Slander Becomes the Tool of the Loser,” “Wisdom is Supreme,” and “Live Long and Prosper.” Then it gets kind of funny because, you got to think, to cover 365 days there is an abundance of words to produce.
 

When the viewer reads on ceramic bowls, “His Butt Did Smell like Cotton Candy!” “F*ck,” “I Don’t Do Sperm,” next to the Toy Story referencing, “To Infinity & Beyond,” comedy of various comprehensions exists. Is the saying “I Don’t Do Sperm” denouncing “Semen Art” which is a body-fluids intensive genre that conjures images of “Piss Christ” and Fox Bronte’s pubic hair portraits of Justin Bieber or is the artist not into insemination?
 

Ceramics have a history in Art Museums that includes people like Judy Chicago and Jesse Jackson Hutchins so some of this is open to interruption. The nuance of private humor amidst positive thinking within a focus of a year becomes a texture that creates an interesting read within a gallery.
 

Given there are so many Artists contributing to “Noves Histories” there are also pieces that take on various presentations of the human form, sexuality and identities, which in some capacities probably sets us up for the upcoming Picasso exhibit at the Columbus Museum of Art.