Plain Talk
Asked why she writes poems, Dorothy Holley says, “I’m a woman of few words.” But while it’s true that poems are typically shorter than essays or short stories, Holley’s answer sounds paradoxical. After all, at 82 she’s just published her first book, and it contains lots of words: nearly 50 poems about growing…
2005 Back to School Issue
“Your Journey Begins Here.” That’s what the University of Pittsburgh is telling the latest crop of incoming first-years this week, inviting them to luaus, meet-and-greets, and events the school describes as “solemn Freshman Convocation and Lantern Night ceremonies.” Like Pitt, colleges across the city and the country are encouraging their charges to explore their new…
DJ Cue the Chef
After moving to Pittsburgh about six years ago — after living in Bed-Stuy, his birthplace, and then Atlanta — DJ Cue the Chef never realized his name would draw so much controversy. He picked the name Cue, he says, to symbolize being the guy who’d be “running the table,” like the cue ball…
A Conversation with Mark Harvey Smith
Mark Harvey Smith grew up on a DuBois-area farm, but the real-estate consultant is now an advocate for, and practitioner of, urban pioneering — the resettling of undervalued markets. Smith, 43, started out in commercial real estate. Since then, he and his partner, Mark Lowe, have owned, renovated and lived in buildings in…
Arresting Resistance
Chanting “Shut it down, no recruiters in our town,” 100 protesters marched down Forbes Avenue at 11 a.m. on Aug. 20 to Oakland’s military recruitment center with help from two Pittsburgh Police cars blocking traffic. Twenty minutes and a handful of arrests later, protest organizer Alex Bradley was left shouting at officers…
Ying Yang Twins
Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz Crunk Juice (Chopped & Screwed by Michael “5000” Watts) TVT In Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson makes an astute observation on the historical context of 1971’s drug-use trends. “What sells today,” he notes, “is whatever fucks you up. … Consciousness expansion went out…
Seu Jorge
Seu Jorge is best known around these parts for his film roles — as gang leader Knockout Ned in City of God and, most famously, as the wild-haired troubadour who crooned Portuguese versions of David Bowie tunes in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. But while Aquatic’s character set Jorge up as something…
Coffeehouse Filtered Out
Come Fri., Aug. 26, there’ll be one less spot Downtown to grab a cappuccino, strum a guitar or put on a play. Signs announcing the closure of La Prima Espresso, on Liberty Avenue, appeared on the café’s storefront a little more than a week prior. The coffeehouse and frequent performance venue leases the airy,…
Protesting Protest with White Noise
“Do you like being white?” asked a Tribune-Review reporter of a young man calling himself “Tim Bodine.” If nothing else, being white gave Bodine an opportunity to lead an Aug. 19 Downtown “march of redemption” for white people’s support of slavery in America. Bodine and four other guys calling themselves the Caucasian American Understanding…
The 40-Year-Old Virgin
I’ve been racking my brain for a couple days trying to come up with a better title for Judd Apatow’s The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Because while that neatly sums up our protagonist’s situation, it bespeaks of crass sex comedy and fails to convey the sweet, sentimental heart beating beneath the cheap boyish hijinks. It’s not…
A League of Ordinary Gentlemen
It’s almost like the set-up for a joke: In 2000, three former Microsoft executives bought the entire Professional Bowling Association — players, trophies, tournaments — for $5 million. But they weren’t laughing: The trio hoped that with new marketing strategies they could reinvent the PBA and its tournaments, once among the most popular…
The Brothers Grimm
The brothers in Terry Gilliam’s The Brothers Grimm don’t start out telling stories. Instead, they exploit them. Artists of bunkum, they scour the 19th-century German countryside for villages terrified by witch infestations or troll sightings. Then they rig a passable simulacrum of the menace with pulleys, gunpowder and accomplices, pretend to vanquish it,…
THE EDUKATORS
For writer-director Hans Weingartner, the question is: While today’s youth should fight back, against what and how? It’s a conundrum that the three young Berliners in his film debate and act upon, with mixed results. Roommates Jan (Daniel Bruhl, of Good Bye, Lenin!) and Peter (Stipe Erceg) break into fancy homes and re-arrange the furniture.…
Cefalo’s Restaurant and Nightclub
Location: Washington Ave., Carnegie. 412-276-6600. Hours: Lunch: Mon.-Fri. 11 a.m.-4 p.m.; dinner: Tue.-Sat. 5-10 p.m. Prices: Appetizers, $7-11; entrees, $12-19; sides, $4-7 Fare: Contemporary American & European cuisine Atmosphere: Dean Martin goes to Mass Liquor: Full bar The view from Pittsburgh’s parkways sometimes puts us strangely in mind of a feudal fiefdom: clustered rooftops of…
NOVEMBER
A couple tested by infidelity; a late-night stop at a bodega that ends in gunfire; photographs that may have captured a crime. From these elements, Greg Harrison crafts a moody little thriller about a photographer (Courtney Cox) whose boyfriend is shot during a robbery. The film’s key scenes are replayed, each time presented through a…
Monkey Business
If a career in music doesn’t pan out for Bruce Springsteen, he ought to consider teaching high school. He’d be a lot more qualified than many of the Pennsylvania party hacks raising a stink about education. Prior to his July 28 solo show at the Petersen Events Center, Springsteen had just been over in…
SAINT RALPH
Michael McGowan’s slim coming-of-age comedy, set in 1953 at a Catholic high school in Hamilton, Ontario, finds the school’s 14-year-old miscreant, Ralph (Adam Butcher), pursuing a miracle: the winning of the Boston Marathon. For Ralph, who’s one heartbeat away from being an orphan, reckons that a miracle can lift his dying mum from her coma.…
Mall Rats
You either love or hate The Aristocrats. The movie records numerous retellings of, and much commentary on, a single joke: A guy walks into a talent office and says, “You have to see this act. This group of people gets up on stage and does the most vile, disgusting and unspeakable…
