Cover Story
Ra Ra Riot turns a college band into a career
The daydream of every college student who’s fooled around in a band came true for the members of Ra Ra Riot. With most of the six bandmates about to graduate into a recession economy — with degrees spanning disciplines from physics to architecture to “music business” — the group expanded its schedule from gigs around…
New vid from former Pittsburghers More Humans
New video for the song “Mason-Dixon,” from former Pittsburghers More Humans.
East End Fashion Magazine
Earlier this year, men’s magazine GQ named Pittsburgh the third worst-dressed city in the nation. Fighting to overturn our reputation for oversized hoodies and tube socks are East End Fashion Magazine’s Abby Gleason and Cassie Kay Rusnak, who began the online publication last spring. “The title is more of a general term,” Gleason told CP…
Op-Ed: GOP supports burdensome government regulation … sometimes
So it looks like there is at least one sector of the economy where Republicans do favor onerous government regulation: women’s health. As you’ve probably heard, both houses of the legislature have now passed SB732, which imposes a whole array of burdensome regulations on women’s health clinics that provide abortion. Ostensibly a response to the…
Civic Arena blight designation adds to Hill District tension
Community leaders charge, once again, that they have been excluded from process of charting site’s future.
Video for your Friday: The Garment District
Morning! In next week’s paper I’ll be reviewing the debut cassette-tape release from The Garment District, the mostly-solo project of ex-Ladybug Transistor member Jennifer Baron. Baron recently released the a new video from the album, “Nature-Nurture,” which features creepy building synth patterns and beautiful vocals from Baron’s cousin, Lucy Blehar. The video was made by…
Check out our Win Free Stuff section
Along with our new promotional blog “All Access” comes a new way to win! Check out our new Win Free Stuff page. It’s newly redesigned and user-friendly. Just log in or create a new pghcitypaper.com user account and click “Sign me up to Win.”
Holiday stuff and housecleaning!
Hey friends! A couple of quick notes here at FFW>>: — Tonight is WYEP’s Holiday Hootenanny at the New Hazlett Theater. The show’s great every year; this year, the house bands are New Shouts and the Panther Hollow String band, and guests include members of your favorite bands, like Lohio, Big Hurry and Donora. There…
Reviews of new chapbooks by local poets Adam Matcho and Maureen McGranaghan
Six Dollars an Hour: Confessions of a Gemini Writer. For an antidote to seasonal saccharine, gulp down “The Black Friday Poems,” which comprise the second half of Adam Matcho’s moving, if dark-humored, debut chapbook about life at the ass end of the wage scale. “Black Friday” is a mini-epic set behind the counter at a…
Twelfth Night
Point Park University theater students are getting a chance to tackle Shakespeare, taking on the challenges of Twelfth Night. Director Bridget Connors conceived a fresh look at the comedy, setting it on the shores of 1920s East Hampton. She underscores this with Gershwin’s music, jolly dancing, beach scenes and many more visuals while characters volley…
The House of Yes
Screwed-Up Families and Theater — it’s a match made in a psychiatrist’s office. Where would our playwrights be without dysfunctional relations screaming at each other across conveniently claustrophobic living rooms? And families don’t get any wackier than the Pascals in Wendy MacLeod’s comedy/drama The House of Yes, now at Off the Wall Productions. Older brother…
Photographer Ross Mantle depicts the Mon Valley with boldness and insight.
The struggling communities of the Mon Valley are not the most fashionable of subjects. But Ross Mantle’s In the Wake: Photographs from the Monongahela Valley depicts his mostly beyond-Braddock subjects with a sensibility that feels up-to-the-minute: rich in detail, bold in color and composition, historically acute. As a semi-resident returnee, Mantle looks with empathy and…
Parallel Universe explores alternatives just out of reach at Wood Street Galleries
Words, memories, flutter like butterflies — floating just out of reach, haunting about the room. “Easily forgotten moment.” “Flashbulb.” “Frozen.” Each of these fragments of my imagination, each snapshot of the past and its fleeting linguistic representation, fills in another tiny part of the sentence of my life. And yet each one exists separately: I…
Lynn Cullen Live 12/12/11
BNY wants Occupiers out; Romney shot himself in the foot @ GOP debate; Romney is human; Gingrich is all too negatively human; Patriotic Freedom Alliance on Obama; Lowe’s pulls ad from “All-American Muslim” on TLC; swearing helps pain tolerance; Pgh reminds world travelers of a European town; Churchill on saving; North Carolina trying to compensate…
Anti-abortion bill passes both houses of legislature (updated)
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Proposed abortion regulations have now passed the full Senate as well. See bottom of post for update.] Women's health advocates are bracing themselves for what will likely be the passage of a controversial abortion measure that they fear will make the procedure inaccessible to women. As City Paper has previously reported, Senate Bill…
Short List: December 16 – 22
Fri., Dec. 16 — Festival It’s the final weekend to sample a first at Kennywood: This is the first time the fabled, 114-year-old amusement park has opened its gates in December. And it’s not just for the Kennywood Holiday Lights show, which illuminates the park’s lagoon every half-hour. Many rides are open, too, including Gingerbread…
Yama Sushi
The far North Hills (that is, Cranberry and beyond) is developing a strong culinary culture. We’ve documented the increasing number of excellent dining options in the suburbs for years, and the margins of Butler County have attracted an exceptionally diverse and enticing smorgasbord. Alongside the usual chain restaurants, you’ll find a half-dozen suburban outposts of…
House Calls
It’s 7 o’clock on a frigid Monday night. All bundled up, a half-dozen members of Operation Safety Net begin their three-hour trek at the Red Door, St. Mary of Mercy Church, Boulevard of the Allies and Stanwix Street. The homeless come here for meals, and so this is where Dr. Jim Withers and his team…
Arsenal Cider House restores the lost art of making cider
Michelle Larkin knew big changes were about to take place in her Lawrenceville home when she started finding fermentation carboys on the pool table. Her husband, Bill, had been toying around with making hard cider for a few years, but this was getting serious. “It was a hobby, and I have an obsessive personality,” says…
Boulevard Deli
The weird thing about the Boulevard Deli is … it’s not on a boulevard. “I was afraid to give up the name,” explains Jim Julian, who owns the restaurant with his wife, Claudia. It once made sense: In 1988, they opened the deli on the Boulevard of the Allies, between Smithfield Street and Wood. In…
These Things Add Up
I’m talking aboutthe bent spoon, cracked cup.I’m talking about the broom,Mother, her black dress. I mean:flying over the handlebars of my bikeand Benji, who said I couldn’t playbecause I was barefoot and how later I hated my feet,also my legs, my teeth, my hair, my knees, my breasts — I’m saying: these things add up…
Savage Love
I’m a man who recently started seeing a wonderful woman. Like me, she’s divorced, and her ex-husband was controlling and abusive. Here’s the thing: His abusive behavior is my kink — spanking. In my past relationships, spanking was playful and consensual; with her ex, it was about pain and humiliation. She knows about my kink…
Occupied Territory
Years ago, I covered an anti-war march that lasted so long — wandering from Downtown to the South Side and back — that I was relieved when the police began breaking it up. At least one of those officers, though, was sorry to see it end. “Aren’t you getting arrested?” he jeered as marchers dispersed…
On the Record with Mary Burke of the Project to End Human Trafficking
National Human Rights Day was Dec. 10, but the fight to combat human trafficking is far from over. In 2004, Mary Burke saw a documentary in which an undercover reporter was propositioned by children for sex. Outraged, Burke, director of the doctoral program in counseling psychology at Carlow University, began working with graduate students and…
Test Anxiety
Every March and April, students in school districts across Pennsylvania sharpen their pencils and prepare to take on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment tests. The state-mandated exams, administered in grades three through eight and grade 11, test students in reading and math (and, depending on grade level, science and writing). According to the state…
Critics’ Picks
[HOLIDAY MUSIC] + THU., DEC. 15 ChristmaChannaKwanzaa is Pittsburgh legend Phat Man Dee’s answer to December sectarian strife: Each year, she has a show centered around the catch-all holiday. This time around, she’s releasing an EP, Merry ChristmaChannaKwanzaa Vol. 1.1, so that you can keep the holiday spirit all season long. The CD opens with…
CD Reviews
“Weird Paul” PetroskeyCheck Me Out Now(Self-released) As is generally the case, just the track titles on Weird Paul’s new CD are well worth the price of admission. (“Jolly Rancher (Stuck In Your Hair)” kicks it off; “Denise Hopper Loves Dennis Hopper” and “Give That Asshole Some Benadryl” are other highlights.) Petroskey’s work is rarely polished,…
Silencio brings the music of David Lynch films to life
In recent years, Kirk Salopek has been known for one thing in Pittsburgh: his cinematic rock ensemble Mandrake Project. But with Mandrake Project on hiatus, Salopek is unveiling a new project — one that’s cinematic in a different way. Silencio, a tribute to the work of director David Lynch and frequent Lynch soundtrack composer Angelo…
Ximena Sariñana tries her hand at mainstream pop success
Mexican-born singer-songwriter Ximena Sariñana released her debut album, Mediocre, in 2008 and received two Latin Grammy nominations for it. Her self-titled 2011 follow-up turned her image on its side: More electronic, more poppy and almost entirely in English, it went gold in Mexico just last week. She spoke with CP from the road on a…
New Year’s Eve
It probably sounded good when director Garry Marshall pitched it: Take a bunch of stars and make ’em work a two-hour mash-up of a sitcom and New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest. But whoever green-lit this yawn-fest of a unfunny comedy must have missed Marshall’s Valentine’s Day, which was the exact same bloated rom-com…
Young Adult
Mavis (Charlize Theron) is floundering. She’s 37, and lies around her Minneapolis apartment watching reality TV and not working on her latest “novel.” (She ghostwrites young-adult fiction.) But an email announcing that her high school sweetheart Buddy (Patrick Wilson) has just had a baby spurs her to action: She will return to her small hometown…
Quantum Theatre’s Fat Beckett
This two-actor show is an homage to and updating of Watiting for Godot — Beckett’s classic recast for 21st-century women (partly because his estate allows only men to play the roles). Like Godot, it raises existential questions via a highly theatrical aesthetic: There’s no attempt at realism here. What’s fresh about the show is that…
Local MP3: The Red Western
Greetings! This week’s free MP3 comes from locals The Red Western, whose CD release for Loves You happened last Friday night, after much anticipation and drummer-changing. They play alt-country on the rock end of the spectrum; the song they’re offering up for your enjoyment: “Heart Just Wants What It Wants.” Get it!
Spaces Corners Photo-Book Store Debuts
Dutch photography critic Ralph Prins described the photo book as “an autonomous art form, comparable to a piece of sculpture, a play or film.” No perfunctory portfolio, the photo book represents a genre merging narrative and poetic license. While stores dedicated to photo books might be underrepresented outside cities like New York, Los Angeles or…
