At the top of the Carson Towers on East Carson Street, there is an old inlaid sign that says “Saint Joseph’s Hospital.” I’ve never heard of St. Joseph’s. When did it operate?
I’ve heard this question a few times over the years, perhaps because St. Joseph’s is the only non-profit health-care provider that hasn’t threatened to take over the city. Maybe if they’d put their sign on top of the US Steel Tower instead — the way UPMC wants to do — they’d have gotten more attention.…
This Just In
Highlights from the local TV news.
Pittsburgh n’@
From: http://www.pghlesbian.com/blog Ah spring … the birds chirping, the children playing and the smell of toxic weed-killer wafting from the PennDot-owned properties behind our house in Manchester … This is their idea of property maintenance. I waged a year-long battle to get them to cut the weeds and clean up the trash. They promised me they would…
The Missionary Position
Reddin is a funny writer, and the clashes between Roger and Neil can crackle with wicked humor.
Robert Strong, editor of the new anthology Joyful Noise: American Spiritual Poetry, discusses God, verse and America.
“There’s a difference of quality between saying, “[God] made this horrible snowstorm happen,” and saying, ‘This horrible snowstorm is of itself spiritual.'”
The Oresteia Project
Throughout this Oresteia, you will see samurai, wolf-people, graphic enemas, classic-movie parodies, and a woman dressed in severed body parts.
Catch the Grift?
My résumé as a criminal is thin. I’ve never robbed a bank. I’ve never swindled little old ladies. Stealing Twinkies as a kid may be my biggest criminal accomplishment. But I feel absolutely certain that I could be a better criminal than the convicted and/or accused alleged criminals I read about. Take former Congressman Mark…
Letters to the Editor: April 24 – May 5
Off-base(ment) quote In his story about my son Bill Shannon [“Turning the Tables,” Mar. 28], Bill O’Driscoll inappropriately quoted a phrase I used in an interview. Addressing the fact that my son was in mainstream classrooms in the Pittsburgh Public School system, Mr. O’Driscoll writes, “When her oldest son enrolled in school, Randa Shannon made…
P-G Getting Hyper(local)
For years, papers like the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette have seen earnings decline as advertising has abandoned print for Web sites like Craigslist. Now, the Post-Gazette is trying to return the favor — creating an online model of a form of journalism that more resembles an online message board than it does the morning paper. The paper…
The 2007 Russian Film Symposium
“The most important thing that has occurred in these films is the direct unlinking of the represented private life from the agenda of the state.”
Painter Phil Blank and songwriter Ben Hartlage collaborate in Frozen Songs
It’s a world we can peer into, but one far too metaphorical to access directly.
Year of the Dog
If these characters don’t know how to act like human beings, then why should the actors who portray them?
Jarboe performs at CMU
“Whereas some people might be putting in a patio or a swimming pool, I’m continually upgrading my studio gear.”
Saved!
Mary’s going to be a senior at American Eagle Christian High School, where she’s atop the social ladder as a member of the Christian Jewels (“like a girl gang for Jesus”). When her boyfriend says he’s gay, she fervently offers the best Christian cure she knows. He gets sent away for “de-gayification” anyhow; Mary starts…
Attack Theatre’s Games of Steel returns for final local run
Attack Theatre’s longtime composer/musician Dave Eggar has welded a grab bag of spare musical parts into a unified yet multifaceted construction.
Cuzamil
The beef was so tender, the kitchen must have let it fall off the bone onto the waiting tortilla.
Improvisational duo James Plotkin and Tim Wyskida bring direction to doom
Over time, musical ideas develop and are explored, but in most cases aren’t dwelled upon. This is a pair of experienced musicians who know one another well.
Exterminating Angels
The themes — camera-as-voyeur, female sexuality vis-Ã -vis male desire, sex screws up stuff — are, in 2007, pretty hoary. Even the lengthy girl-on-girl-on-girl scenes feel fusty. (Capsule review.)
Going to Seed
Taking Root Doug Oster and Jessica Walliser have now written the book on organic gardening. Laying the Legal Groundwork “It was well known how wonderful were the hanging gardens of Pittsburgh. … When the time came that it was no longer expedient to maintain the larger furnaces, Pittsburgh awoke to find its beauty its source…
Border-ing on Stupidity
Booing a team is one thing; booing an entire country — a country whose soldiers are fighting and dying alongside ours in Afghanistan even now — is something else.
Hot Fuzz
The gang behind Shaun of the Dead now directs its spoofing toward a pair of genres heretofore never combined: the English-village murder cozy and the gun-heavy American high-octane cop-buddy actioner. (Capsule review.)
Taking Root
Walking among the dozens of sprout-growing trays at Mung Dynasty, one feels like the Jolly Green Giant towering over the tiniest green shoots.
Give the Kids a Chance
So the Census Bureau has released yet another survey estimating population loss in the region, and everyone is screaming that our young people are leaving. Mayor Luke Ravenstahl has responded by … forming a commission. The “Propel Pittsburgh” commission will have 35 members ages 20-34; its goal will be to give young adults “a major…
Doug Oster and Jessica Walliser have now written the book on organic gardening.
“The real transition isn’t the plants themselves. … The transition is you.”
Diocese will get piece of potential Arc House sale
The dispute over the rightful claim to the ARC House, a now-shuttered halfway house on the North Side, has apparently been settled. The Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh will have a stake in its sale. As first reported in City Paper last winter (“Profit from Non-Profit,” Dec. 7), ARC House operator Chuck Cain put the…
Laying the Legal Groundwork
For years, Maria Graziani has been working to establish Healcrest Farm on a Garfield hillside. Now all her work may be about to bear fruit — or more precisely, herbs and vegetables — for the East End community she hopes to serve. If, that is, she can clear away the property’s legal thickets. For the…
Savage Love
My wife of five years, mate of 11 years, and mother of our two kids has dropped a bomb on me: She thinks she’s a lesbian. About eight years ago, shortly after our first child, she had a couple of experiences with another woman. Being young and ignorant (she was 19, I was 23), I…
American history sits for a portrait in a photo show at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art.
Margaret Bourke-White’s “Steel Liner, Fort Peck Dam, Montana” (1936) shows silhouetted workers standing inside a piece of stories-high spoked pipe that dwarves them, making them seem eerily insignificant.
Three Rivers Arts Festival schedule raises some eyebrows
In a move that may irk local hipsters, many of the performers cater to hoary blues-heads and fans of softer, AAA music.
The f295 photography symposium explores the many ways to shoot.
Persinger’s first camera was a Kodak Instamatic his grandmother gave him for his First Communion; these days, all his cameras are either homemade or adapted.
Local songwriter Ben Hardt comes with strings attached
Strings seldom rock, so Hardt’s decision to have them as the primary instrument on mostly rock songs seems a gutsy move.
Carnegie Mellon art students take over a Garfield storefront.
“I thought instead of teaching in a classroom at a university, we should get the students out into the city.”
The Karl Hendricks Rock Band releases The World Says
Now Karl’s back with The World Says, whether the local music-scene vet likes it or not.
