The Fudge-It Budget
Here’s one way you could tell Mayor Tom Murphy’s 2004 budget was going to get an unusual degree of scrutiny: Shortly before council met on Dec. 31 to vote on the plan, City Councilor Jim Motznik could be seen just outside council chambers pulling on a pair of what looked like surgical gloves. Motznik…
Suddenly
Marcia (Tatiana Saphir) is a lonely lump of a girl; she works in a dreary lingerie shop by day and eats in front of the TV by night. While walking to work one afternoon, she is accosted by two punkish lesbians, who have nicknamed themselves Mao (Carla Crespo) and Lenin (Veronica Hassan). Mao brusquely announces…
Filmmaker at Play
To most people, “film” means “feature-length narrative,” and right up into college, Jim Mueller was no exception. As a high school kid in Columbus, Ohio, he loved neo-gangster flicks such as Miller’s Crossing and Reservoir Dogs. Not until he started studying film at the University of Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Filmmakers did he see what he’d…
The Dream Life
By J. Hoberman Reviewed by Al Hoff For J. Hoberman, the longtime Village Voice film critic, the ’60s were the pivotal time when politics, media and publicity merged into a self-reflexive, self-sustaining entity, where “movies might be political events, and political events were experienced as movies.” And so films like The Wild Bunch…
Wyclef Jean
Considering what the Fugees, responsible for the best-selling hip-hop album of all time, have been up to lately — Lauryn Hill going spazzola at the Vatican, Wyclef and Pras engaging in the least-listened-to beef of all time, Pras as an actor — any prospect of the Fugees getting back together is comedy. Wyclef Jean…
Mekons
It’s not just interesting, it’s sometimes downright unbelievable that the Mekons not only continue to exist as a band — now 25 years into rockdom — but consistently launch records, art projects, tours and side-recording projects unique even within their own vast and — let’s face it — fucked-up history. A group that started out…
Rosie Thomas
Has anyone noticed that indie rock, which used to concern itself primarily with guitar noise and indecipherable vocals, has now become something of a breeding ground for the singer/songwriter? The remarkable success of The Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs was most likely the trend’s proverbial match (to borrow an old psychedelic drug reference), and…
Pittsburgh was once known as the Iron City. Why? Did they change the city’s nickname so that the football team wouldn’t be called the Pittsburgh Ironers?
Well, it wouldn’t be the dumbest thing Pittsburgh ever did for its sports teams: That distinction goes to the construction of Heinz Field. And obviously, without a tough-sounding name, Pittsburgh’s local football team might get a reputation as a squad without the ability to defend the run or protect the quarterback. Come to think…
Swept Away
Lorraine Woods of Bellevue had been cleaning bathrooms Downtown for 13 years, starting at 10 each night and working until rush hour begins. “You get used to it, you get a routine,” she says. Jan. 11 would have marked her 16th anniversary cleaning Centre City Tower, a Downtown office building. “We worked Christmas night,”…
Birds of a Feather Form Council Majority
Pittsburgh Council’s Jan. 5 inauguration ceremony was all sweetness and light. Councilors thanked Mayor Tom Murphy for spurring development. Murphy called council “a group of people who want to do the right thing.” And council unanimously elected Gene Ricciardi to a second straight term as president. Councilors and administration members even shared chicken wings after…
Bush League
“The Lie Factory.” How exactly did we wind up in Iraq again? In a Mother Jones (January/February 2004) cover story, Robert Dreyfuss and Jason Vest detail how a secretive group of neo-conservative ideologues from the Department of Defense shouldered aside career Pentagon analysts to further their agenda of regime change in Iraq. An obsession with…
Pride in Pleasures List
You’ve already missed at least a week of walleye, muskie, sauger and pike season. You may just be in time for the first meeting of the Pittsburgh Banjo Club in 2004. And if you hurry, you could make the starting gun of the Frostbite Footrace. OK, it’s in Sharon, Pa. But from the events listed…
Clouded Vision
Charlene Feldbusch’s faith in Dubya and the war in Iraq is both touching and infuriating. It’s touching because this mother sent her son off to war, and what mother wouldn’t want to believe we invaded Iraq for all the right reasons? It’s infuriating because she has no doubt there’s a connection between Sept. 11 and…
A Conversation with Margaret White Cloud
Do people come to you because their pets are unwell, or because they’re curious what their pets are thinking? It’s about 50-50. And when people say they’re there for a pet problem, 95 percent of the time they’re there for their own problem and the pet was the spirit guide that got them there. …
Mea Gulpa
On Oct. 11, 2002, Household International said it was sorry. The biggest high-interest, subprime lender in the world had long been accused of luring borrowers into costly loans that sometimes led to foreclosure and bankruptcy. Now it wanted to “apologize to our valued customers for not always living up to their expectations,” said William F.…
