State Arts Funding Salvaged
While the state budget that Gov. Tom Corbett signed yesterday signals tough times for schools, among other important constituencies, the arts escaped relatively unscathed. The new budget allocated $9.14 million to the Pennsylvania on the Arts, almost all of that dedicated to funding grants for arts groups and individual artists. While that represents a 1…
Savage Love
In response to a wannabe fister who hadn’t told his girlfriend about his kink, you wrote, “At three years, all your kink cards should be lying face-up on the table.” Really? Then my husband and I screwed up. We’ve been married for 19 years, and he told me only five years ago that he wanted…
Harsh Medicine
We are all Braddockers now. In 2009, UPMC announced its plans to shutter Braddock Hospital for lack of revenue — even as the hospital behemoth planned a new hospital a few miles away, in prosperous Monroeville. Braddock residents were devastated, and there was much hand-wringing about the profit motives of so-called nonprofits like UPMC. But…
Brighton Heights Java n’ Crème House
Bob and Yolanda Rhoden are trying to bring more to Brighton Heights than just a neighborhood coffee shop; they’re bringing tastes of their native California. The couple — formerly of Los Angeles, and now living in Mount Lebanon — have breathed new life into a vacant coffeehouse on California Avenue. The Brighton Heights Java n’…
Burgatory
Know that old joke about Pittsburgh being a great place to be when the world comes to an end, because everything happens here 20 years later? Well, sorry to those who are taking end-of-days refuge here, but we’re just not sure whether that’s true anymore. Whether because of our status as a post-Rust Belt success…
Critics’ Picks: July 1 – 6
Swing gets dirty at Belvedere’s, hip hop takes over Sewickley, MSTRKRFT plays Stage AE and Liturgy plays Brillobox.
CD Reviews
Boilermaker Jazz BandNice Work If You Can Get It( Phonolithic Records)(On-line version) Celebrating 20 years on the scene, this augmented six-piece combo gets nice things out of American popular song-book standards (e.g., the Gershwins, Rodgers & Hart, Harold Arlen, etc.). Working the traditional and swing side of the street, they bounce, ramble and stroll down…
1, 2, 3 issues debut album on Frenchkiss
Nic Snyder and Josh Sickels promised themselves they wouldn’t talk about their old band, Takeover UK — but it’s hard to avoid the subject. The local garage-rock band they were in together was notable locally, and started to make a splash elsewhere. They signed to Rykodisc, waited years for their album to be released, then…
Bill Callahan brings his post-Smog output to Pittsburgh
Until recently, nearly all of Bill Callahan’s interviews were conducted via email. A New York Times article last April proved why: While he’s as articulate online as he is on his recordings, Callahan proved to be an extremely awkward subject in person, even for veteran music writer Ben Ratliff, who said he “radiated reluctance, and…
The Ladybug Transistor headlines Sound Series at the Sculpture Court
Gary Olson’s deep voice has been the consistent element throughout The Ladybug Transistor’s lifespan, as the music veered towards psychedelic and dreamy during the late ’90s and more recently leaned toward brighter, up-tempo pop. That’s not to say, however, that the band is directly solely by his vision. “People often assume that since I’m the…
Sync’d III
The Sync’d series takes shorts works without sound by local filmmakers, then screens them for an audience with a band that improvises soundtracks live. On July 1, Michael Maraden’s brainchild receives its third incarnation, this one on the tent-topped Pittsburgh Center for the Arts patio. Sync’d III features shorts by nine artists or teams, and…
The Ladies Man
In your classic French farce, as much hinges on timing as on doors. Frothy fun is not so easy to pull off. The Ladies Man, Charles Morey’s 2007 “freely translated” adaptation of Georges Feydeau’s first hit play, Tailleur pour dames (1886), certainly presents a great temptation for breezy summer theater, as well as considerable production…
Stanton’s Garage
Despairing of the future of theater? Quit being so dramatic! Joan Ackerman, author of Little Lake Theatre’s Stanton’s Garage, makes the case that with a little refurbishment, the lightning from theater’s glory days could strike twice. This particular brand of lightning struck first in 1955, with William Inge’s Bus Stop, a comedy/drama about life’s lovelorn…
Scott McClanahan’s Stories V! and Angele Ellis’s Spared
Stories V! Though labeled “fiction,” the stories in Scott McClanahan’s Stories V! (Holler Presents) might be based on real experience. Or maybe they’re “true” like the scantily clad woman on the book’s cover is representative of what’s inside. (Not very.) What matters is that these 139 pages, containing 15 first-person accounts of someone named Scott…
August Wilson Center makes big move from arts presenter to arts producer
The arts organization named for famed playwright August Wilson has injected a plot twist into the local arts scene. Already a key Downtown venue for performing arts, the August Wilson Center for African American Culture plans to focus less on presenting other groups’ work — and more on producing its own. Center president André Kimo…
Three artists in three different media explore a variety of emotions in SCC’s Bridge 11
The human face is capable of countless expressions. As a mostly involuntary aspect of emotion, facial expressions can project happiness, sadness, surprise, fear, disgust and anger as well as far more subtle sentiments. Both expressions and emotions are in abundant supply in the current Bridge 11 exhibition. While Bridge 11 is actually three different solo…
Bad Teacher
What a year it was at John Adams Middle School! After her engagement went south, Elizabeth Halsey, who we thought was gone for good, returned. (We think her airplane bottles of booze did too!) She sure put the kids in their places with her frank talk; the nerds and preps better look out! JAMS also…
Art Restoration: Project replaces blight with art, education
Pittsburgh’s Hill District is getting a makeover — one abandoned building at a time. Starting July 5, a team of professional artists and roughly 200 Hill District students will spend a month using paintbrushes to fight neighborhood blight. The Broken Windows Project, named after the criminological theory that blight breeds crime, is billed by artists…
Back Inside: Being fired from the Department of Corrections isn’t always permanent
In recent months, eight corrections officers have been suspended from their positions at the State Correctional Institute at Pittsburgh. Four of their superiors have been fired. According to media reports and City Paper sources with knowledge of the investigation, those moves are related to an Allegheny County grand jury investigation, which is looking into allegations…
Queen to Play
The gentle French romantic comedy featuring slightly rumpled but still beautiful intellectuals is almost a sub-genre of its own. Fans of such films should slip comfortably into Caroline Bottaro’s low-key charmer, set on the scenic island of Corsica. There, Helene (Sandrine Bonnaire) works as a maid, and tends her mildly disaffected husband and teen-age daughter.…
Short List: June 30 – July 7
“Father’s Day makes me wish I could talk to my Dad just one more time,” Anthony Jeselnik tweeted last week, “instead of all the time.” Jeselnik, born and raised in Upper St. Clair, returns to the Burgh for six shows at the Pittsburgh Improv this weekend, his first headlining gig in his hometown. “It’s awesome,”…
Flesh
A poem by Michelle Maher
Op-ed: Dialing up expectations for the new 90.5
First, a programming note: As you may have noticed recently, we’ve got more City Paper staffers contributing to the pile here at Slag Heap these days. What began as essentially an opinion-with-occasional-news blog, written almost entirely by me, is morphing into a news-with-occasional-opinions blog, with contributions from various folks. Accordingly, I’ll be flagging posts –…
Review: Wickerman Burn
The regional Wickerman Burn took place at Four Quarters, a rural Middle Earth-esque wonderland in Artemas, Pa. near the Pennsylvania/Maryland border, and happened this month from June 13th to the 20th. Over the course of seven days, the campground was transformed from an area speckled with semi-permanent campsites to a fleshed-out town full of art…
New Public Art in Market Square
Although they’re steps away from each other, I had always had the feeling that the Cultural District and Market Square were somehow very separate; it might have something to do with the triangular layout of Downtown’s streets and avenues, which anyone not from around here probably thinks is pretty weird. Apparently, the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership…
