American Idol: The 12 Male Contestants
A dozen dudes sing for you!
A Brief Programming Note
If you’re like most Pittsburghers, you only tune in to WQED-TV to watch Lawrence Welk reruns, and that slightly creepy “Celtic Woman” who plays the violin. So you may have missed the PBS Frontline report last night, “Rules of Engagement,” a look back at the allegations of a massacre in Haditha, Iraq, where 24 Iraqis…
World’s Ugliest Dog
A TV show for dogs that don’t make Westminster
Advice For a Lovelorn City!
Regular readers of this blog (s’up, Bram? and as for the CP staffers who make up the rest of my audience, get back to work!) know that just yesterday, I posted a snarky little screed regarding Richard Florida, the expat Creative Class guru who fled Pittsburgh for greener pastures. I noted that Florida had gotten…
Florida Watch: News from Pittsburgh’s Favorite Ex-Pat
City Paper prides itself on keeping Pittsburgh informed about the doings of Richard Florida, the former Carnegie Mellon University academic who coined the phrase “creative class” to describe knowledge workers and others. You may recall that a few years back, Florida left Pittsburgh to go teach college down in northern Virginia, where they better appreciated…
Survivor: Micronesia
So far the Survivor: Micronesia Fans vs. Favorites season has been less-than-gripping. After much hype, pretend-villain Johnny Fairplay offered himself up for sacrifice at the first tribal council. (This is no real surprise to the 14 of us who saw Fairplay drop most of his cheesy bad-boy act on last year’s head-scratching (and bone-breaking) Ty…
Anne Feeney to record with Commander Cody
So, local lefty singer/songwriter Anne Feeney dropped me a line to say she’s putting the finishing touches on her new album this weekend, with help from a special musical guest: founding country-rock folkie Commander Cody, who’s passing through town on a mini-tour. The CD, to be released as Dump the Bosses Off Your Back, is…
Legal Troubles Continue for CP profile subject
Jeanie DeNuzzio, the subject of a November 2007 profile in Pittsburgh City Paper, was sentenced Feb. 8 by a Beaver County judge for writing bad checks — the latest in a series of legal problems for her. City Paper began looking into DeNuzzio and her husband, Mark, after posts appeared on the online version of…
Reporting Error
Perhaps the most important — and the most popular — piece of Bill Peduto’s campaign-finance reform is the requirement that finance reports be posted online, where they’ll be easy to find. But the requirement shouldn’t be necessary. By law, every Allegheny County politician should already have that information online. None of them do, because county…
Coin-Operated Politics
On Feb. 4, former Pittsburgh City Councilor Twanda Carlisle was given a 12- to 24-month sentence for her involvement in a kickback scheme. Carlisle pled “no contest” to charges that she used money earmarked for her district to have cronies perform trumped-up services. In exchange, her “contractors” returned some $43,000 to Carlisle herself, to be…
Hero Destroyed signs to Relapse Records
Soon, steel won’t be the only metal Pittsburgh is known for.
DJ Jwan Allen
“I’m still not allowed to touch my dad’s records.”
Pittsburgh n’@
From: http://qfunction.wordpress.com/2008/02/11/also-need-for-a-tech-startup-culture-reliable-electricity/ Also needed for a tech startup culture: reliable electricity Filed under: Pittsburgh, Technology — Jefferson @ 12:08 am So here I am, trying to start a conversation about a missing component for creating/improving a technology start-up culture in Pittsburgh, and a friend reminds me of one of my greatest Pittsburgh peeves. Duquesne…
Infused Cocktails
At the sleek Silk Elephant, in Squirrel Hill, there are flavorful “Thai tapas” plates for both vegetarians and flesh-fanciers to share, an impressive wine list and a cozy lounge for grown-and-sexy types looking to celebrate. And what better way to celebrate — or just relax after a stressful day — than by sipping one of…
Western Civ
“The students become more complete, civilized, whole people.”
Forever Premieres
In minutes, Stallings transformed those movements into the kind of choreography that makes audience members exclaim, “That was freaking cool.”
Breakfast With Mugabe
Mugabe is too moving, too sophisticated, too important to risk losing the audience halfway.
Freeman
Which brother represents Abel and which Cain, or Esau and Jacob, is just one of the undercurrents swirling in this deceptively straightforward narrative.
This Just In: Feb 13 – 20
The Waste Land Summary: Pittsburgh is sitting on millions of dollars of property that could be put to better use, say local leaders. Station: WPXI Channel 11 Reporter: Rick Earle When it Aired: Feb. 7 Running Time: 2 minutes, 44 seconds Visuals: * City garbage trucks, some parked, some motoring around. Highlights: * When Earle…
August Occasion
Pittsburgh has rarely celebrated its black geniuses until they were dead, gone or gone mad.
Politics: Name Recognition
Dems endorse a politician with a deep political background to try to replace reformer in Harrisburg.
Health: Getting to the Point
Allegheny County council has enacted a new law covering needle-exchange programs.
Environment: Paper or Paper?
By April, Whole foods customers won’t have to choose between paper and plastic.
School of Hard Knocks
The privatized Clayton Academy is supposed to prepare at-risk students to return to their home schools. But it may actually be making it easier for them to get into trouble.
Chatham Baroque presents “Journeys: Sounds of the Jewish Diaspora”
“Most are tunes that have been passed down that we don’t have any written records of until the 19th century.”
Electro-retro act Freezepop leaves you cold (in a hot way)
“Would you dance to a song about dancing?”
Laptop musicians battle in the Galactic AssDragon Classic
“It’s mostly beat-oriented dance music, but aggressive and on the harder side of things.”
Hereford and Hops
The menu caters to a broad audience with offerings ranging from predictable pub grub through some appetizing salads and sandwiches to a variety of upscale entrees. Then there’s the steak page, which, like any specialty menu, takes some time to parse.
Steep
It sure looks freakin’ awesome — barreling down the 45-degree face of a remote mountain, through perfect powder snow, before skiing off a cliff and parachuting to safety. This is the new edge of extreme skiing, a daredevil sport largely pioneered in the Alps in the 1970s. Mark Obenhaus’ documentary updates the uninitiated on sport’s…
Jumper
A young man (Hayden Christiansen) discovers he can teleport through space to any destination of his choosing, making world travel and bank robbery a snap. But some cop-like figures known as paladins don’t care for so-called jumpers, and soon Mr. Jet Set has the worse sort of menace on his tail: Samuel L. Jackson, who…
Fool’s Gold
It’s not enough that a pair of beautiful sniping exes — Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson — are searching for lost Spanish treasure in the Bahamas. No, this breathlessly scripted sunny turd has to toss in subplots involving a Diddy-esque rap impresario and his goons; a dim-bulb teen party girl (a la Paris Hilton) and…
Diary of the Dead
The conceit is that we’re watching various film sources — home video, security tapes, footage uploaded to web sites — that have been edited together after the fact by a survivor. The film thus presents an on-the-fly account of what happened to a group of Pitt students after the dead returned to life, hungry for…
The Spiderwick Chronicles
Adapted from the popular series of children’s books, Spiderwick features three young siblings, imperiled when the discovery of a mysterious field guide in an old country house summons a lot of nasty creatures from the woods beyond. There are bad guys, including goblins and shape-shifting mega-baddie Mulgarath, but also a few allies, such as the…
Oscar-Nominated Shorts
Just in time for your picks list, Pittsburgh Filmmakers will screen all of the short films, both live-action and animated, that have been nominated for an Oscar. This is a strong crop of shorts, and a rare chance to see nearly a dozen films, representing seven countries and a variety of styles, in one sitting.…
‘Burgh Words
Creative Nonfiction, the internationally distributed journal for literary nonfiction, has announced a contest for new essays about Pittsburgh. For the city’s 250th anniversary, Pittsburgh in Words seeks writing about the city and its people, heritage and potential. Winning essays will be published online and in the journal’s fall 2008 number. The journal needs a one-page…
Area poet Angele Ellis explores ethnic identity and more in Arab on Radar.
“June 1967” tells how a war halfway around the world can suddenly split suburbia with ethnic fissures, even though “There were no soldiers / on Sparton Lane.”
Poet Patricia Jabbeh Wesley’s new collection reflects on place and displacement.
The very funny “When My Daughter Tells Me She Has a Boyfriend” is successfully followed by the white-hot anger and sadness of “Monrovia Revisited”: “You should come here if you want / to know how sacred / pain can be.”
Get Amped
As the dead-of-winter dearth of tours hits its home stretch, we’re discovering some things to get excited about — spring already promises a few sweet tours that, perhaps surprisingly, are hitting Pittsburgh: – Mr. Small’s hosts garagey weirdos The Black Lips, touring with drumbuddy . . . err . . . buddies Quintron and Miss…
Savage Love
My boyfriend and I have been dating for four months and we’re crazy about each other. He’s been slowly introducing me to butt play. Last night, we were verbally playing out an anal scenario. He asked if I’d be OK using a strap-on with him, to which I replied, “Of course!” Then he said that…
An impromptu canopy over a large sculpture at the Warhol points to roof problems.
“If anyone tells you that any museum is free of buckets on the floor, they’re lying,” Sokolowksi says.
Whether as prelude to his masterpieces in oil or in themselves, Winslow Homer’s early illustrations fascinate.
The strength of Homer’s illustrations lies in his ability to show figures in action, and in his active and vibrant compositions.
Nick Cave’s Soundsuits speak volumes even when silent.
Inhabited, they rustle, echo, clank and clatter; empty, they entice with promises of whispered secrets.
Equal Time
Anyone who read my council column, “Going Through the Motions,” knows I’m above taking a dig at former Councilor Twanda Carlisle. When Judge John Zottola gave her a one- to two-year sentence on public-corruption charges Feb. 4, it was a bit more than I thought she would get. But still, she had violated the public…
