Port Authority releases New Year’s transit schedule
Transit schedule detours announced for the New Year’s holiday
Save Snow, Save Money!
Save a snowball now, for reduced admission to Carnegie Science Center on June 21.
Merton Center lists January activities
If your New Year’s resolution is to get more involved in activism, then the Thomas Merton Center has some activities for you in January. The first is the center’s Environmental Justice Community Rights Workshop from 6 to 9 p.m. Fri., Jan. 4, and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sat., Jan. 5, at the Friends Meeting…
Parental Guidance
It’s a clash of parenting styles when the old-school grandparents (Billy Crystal, Bette Midler) step in for the modern helicopter parents (Marisa Tomei, Tom Everett Scott). Andy Fickman’s tepid comedy is a pastiche of familiar (and now boring) comic set-ups, stitched together with nothing but contempt for the viewing audience. Any movie that opens by…
Django
In the canon of enigmatic gunslinger films, the opening to Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 spaghetti Western is hard to beat: a tall, brooding stranger walking across the desert, dragging a coffin behind him. That man is Django (Franco Neri), and though he quickly kills nearly half-a-dozen men, that coffin has other purposes. Django has come to…
Legs Like Tree Trunks call Pittsburgh home — sometimes
LEGS LIKE TREE TRUNKS WINTER TOUR More info at facebook.com/legsliketreetrunks Legs Like Tree Trunks vocalist and guitarist Matt Holden has never really had one specific place to call “home.” After spending most of his childhood in New Zealand, Holden moved to England, then across the pond to Boston and Philadelphia. He finally made his move…
What are you doing New Year’s Eve?
There are many ways to ring in the New Year. There’s always the Megabus ticket to New York to see the ball drop, or the turnpike drive to Lebanon, Pa., to watch them drop a huge stick of bologna. Or you could go out on the town in Pittsburgh and see some music — and…
Palermo Stone’s R.A.R.E. take on hip-hop
In 2009, Palermo Stone was touring the country — as Mac Miller’s hype man. A couple years later, Miller had made the big time, but Stone had already settled into working on a solo career. “I felt like it was the right time in his career for me to move away,” Stone says, recalling the…
New Releases
Nevada Mountains Households (Fictional Records) This is the record from 2012 that I would’ve lost my mind over in 2002. Guitar rock reminiscent of Lonesome Crowded West-era Modest Mouse, Q and Not U, and sundry other late-’90s and early-’00s indie rock. Good writing, good recording, nice-looking album artwork; if 2012 saw Japandroids and Cloud Nothings…
Critics’ Picks: December 26 – 31
[HIP HOP] + FRI., DEC. 28 Shadyside’s urban-clothing and local-music store, Timebomb Shop, hosts its annual holiday party tonight at Ava Lounge. Highlighting the night’s bill is DJ Green Lantern, who will be providing hip-hop vibes for the night. This internationally known DJ gained recognition over the past decade on the mixtape circuit and as…
Final Review:
JANUARY Jan. 1: The August Wilson Center Dance Ensemble starts the year off on the right foot by earning a spot on Dance Magazine’s annual “25 to Watch” list. Jan. 3: Democrat Rich Fitzgerald is sworn in as county executive. Jan. 5: Fitzgerald, who campaigned by strongly opposing a court-ordered countywide property reassessment, tosses out…
Savage Love
I just started an intense relationship with a guy who has a boyfriend. This guy and I love each other. However, he is uncomfortable with me meeting his boyfriend. I’ve asked if it’s OK that we’re fucking, and he said they’re in an open relationship. I asked if it’s OK that we’re in love, and…
In the Marcellus Shale Documentary Project, photographers take a nuanced approach to a complex topic
THE MARCELLUS SHALE DOCUMENTARY PROJECT continues through Jan. 6 (gallery is closed Dec. 26 and Dec. 29-Jan. 1). Filmmakers Gallery 477 Melwood Ave. North Oakland. 412-681-5449 or pghfilmmakers.org In the Marcellus Shale Documentary Project exhibition, on display now at Filmmakers Galleries, hangs a picture by Scott Goldsmith, of a train carrying transport pipes for gas…
Short List: December 26 – 31
MAIN EVENT: Mon., Dec. 31 — Festival Regardless of whether it actually feels like winter yet, on New Year’s Eve Downtown again makes way for Highmark First Night Pittsburgh. The festival — the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s biggest one-day event — floods the streets, galleries and stages with everything from rock bands to puppet shows and…
At Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, blanch not at The White Show
THE WHITE SHOW: SUBTLETY IN THE AGE OF SPECTACLE continues through Jan. 20. Pittsburgh Center for the Arts 6300 Fifth Ave. Shadyside. 412-361-0873 or pittsburgharts.org “White” is a word with numerous meanings, some of which aspire to uniformity. But in art as in life, white covers a range of hues from arctic to bone, and…
The Red Apron
I wipe pots with the black bamboo cloth you gave me for Christmas. I wipe pots and think about the red bamboo apron. You wanted me to make dinner, naked, the apron rubbing my — and heat inspiring steam to rise. —Gail Langstroth Gail Langstroth earned an MFA in poetry from Drew University. She’s the…
In the company of Pittsburghers, learning how to enjoy the spectacle that is Art Basel Miami Beach
“When I was introduced to him and shook his hand, all I could think was, ‘This was the hand he used to masturbate during his Seedbed performance in 1971,'” Pittsburgh-based artist and Art Basel Miami Beach first-timer Terry Boyd said of meeting pioneering performance artist, writer and architect Vito Acconci at 3:30 a.m. outside a…
Robbie’s Super-Stuff Super-Licious BBQ
Robbie’s Super-Stuff Super-Licious BBQ 1000 Ardmore Blvd. Forest Hills. 412-823-4003 Hours: Tue.-Sat. 2-10 p.m. Prices: Single wings and ribs $1.25-3.25; sides $2.75-6; slabs, half and whole chickens, and combos $7.50-21.99 Liquor: BYOB Plenty of restaurants come with a backstory, but the tale behind Robbie’s Super-Stuff Super-Licious BBQ is more like a saga. It begins almost…
Two coming-of-age novels set in Pittsburgh: a wry account of life among the millennials and a graphic-novel hybrid delving into sci-fi.
LAST CALL IN THE CITY OF BRIDGES. Salvatore Pane’s debut novel is an exciting first offering from local imprint Braddock Avenue Books. The University of Indianapolis professor’s protagonist is Michael Bishop, who on the eve of the 2008 presidential election is 25, working a dead-end cube-critter job as a DVD subtitler (for stuff like Lipstick…
Soured no more: eating sauerkraut the right way eases a lot of bad memories
I remember the date: Jan. 1, 2011. And the moment exactly: I was with my husband and it was our first trip to Salt of the Earth in Garfield, a few days after we got the keys to our new place in Pittsburgh, having moved back here from the South. Salt didn’t have its regular…
Les Misérables
Les Misérables Directed by: Tom Hooper Starring: Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway More than 30 years after it debuted in Paris, the whole world now can dream the dream and shed the tear — all at once, and at popular prices — for Les Misérables, the pop opera (i.e., Broadway musical) based on Victor…
Local seasonal beers offer additional holiday treats
Beer is becoming almost as seasonal as salad. Much as a mix of spinach and pears yields the plate to kale and beets, pumpkin beer has ceded local taps to a variety of holiday brews. “There are no rules” with winter concoctions, says Barrett Goddard, a brewer at Full Pint Brewery. “You can have fun.…
This Is 40
This Is 40 is a comedy, and while there are a few laughs and some funny bit players, mostly I was thinking: This is the longest not-very-funny film I’ve ever sat through. Seriously, writer-director Judd Apatow’s film is two hours and 15 minutes, during which not much even happens: A married couple turning 40 (Paul…
Homemade pierogies are available at South Side bars
Thomas Guentner and Jeff Newman know that Pittsburghers take their pierogies seriously. When they’re making their own version in the kitchen of Inn-Termission Lounge in the South Side, the occasional nebby passerby has poked in to observe — and critique their methods. That’s because the pair behind Peddlin’ Pierogies doesn’t make a traditional dumpling. All…
Chasing Ice
Chasing Ice Starts Fri., Dec. 28. Regent Square. If you’d like to start the new year off worrying about something, you could do worse than screen Jeff Orlowski’s doc, Chasing Ice. It’s equal parts a profile of renowned nature photographer James Balog; gorgeous footage of exotic locales; and a derring-do adventure. But as a whole,…
