D.A. Zappala dismisses charges against teacher Dennis Henderson
District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. has decided to drop criminal charges against a charter school teacher arrested while talking to another man outside a meeting held to discuss how to improve police/community relations. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Dennis Henderson of the North Side, a teacher at the Manchester Academy Charter School, had attended…
ACLU filing lawsuit to overturn PA same-sex marriage ban
Later this morning, the state ACLU will file a federal lawsuit on behalf of some two-dozen plaintiffs seeking to overturn Pennsylvania’s ban on same-sex marriage. The lawsuit — a copy of which can be read here — argues that a 1996 state law defining marriage as being solely between one man and one woman is…
Last chance to contribute to Balloon Ride Fantasy, first chance to fund Joe Grushecky
A couple of crowdfunding housecleaning items for you this Monday: 1. We’re entering the last few days of an IndieGoGo campaign for the charming local band Balloon Ride Fantasy; the indie-pop five-piece is raising money to put out its first full-length. (The band put out an EP a couple of years ago, but it was…
WYEP’s 16th Annual Music Festival
Pittsburgh City Paper was on-site at the WYEP’s 16th Annual Summer Music Festival on June 28. WYEP’s 16th Annual Summer Music Festival was held at Schenley Plaza. The festival was a free summer music concert, complete with kids activities and an indie craft marketplace.
The 17th Annual Great European Beer Festival
Pittsburgh City Paper was on-site at The 17th Annual Great European Beer Festival on June 28. The country’s only all European Beerfest of it’s kind for 17 years, featured only European beers that are brewed in Europe. The event was held under a large tent sunshine or rain! Admission included 3 hours of tasting all…
Silver Eye Executive Director Steps Down
Ellen Fleurov has left the South Side-based photography gallery after four years on the job. More in Program Notes.
Silver Eye Executive Director Steps Down
Ellen Fleurov moves on after four years on the job
Film Opening Today: 20 Feet From Stardom
Morgan Neville’s new doc about back-up singers, 20 Feet From Stardom, opens Fri., July 5, at the Manor
Pittsburgh’s Weird Paul is an Internet star again/still
You may remember how last year, longtime local musician and fun guy Weird Paul ended up on the Huffington Post with a video he posted of a very young Weird Paul reviewing his McDonald’s breakfast nearly 30 years ago. Now, adult Weird Paul is back in the Internet spotlight, this time on Gawker Media’s games…
Community Patches Together Mural at Point State Park
Volunteers still sought to complete project by July 4
The Kings of Summer
Frustrated that their boring summer is being persecuted by well-meaning parents in a small Ohio town, three teenage boys run away. Not very far — they simply move into the woods near town, build a fort from salvage and generally just really, really enjoy being free. That’s the slim plot for first-time director Jordan Vogt-Roberts’…
White House Down
For the second time in three months — at least on the big screen — the White House is under attack. Last time it was the North Koreans in Olympus Has Fallen; in Roland Emmerich’s actioner-with-laughs, it’s a group of rogue Beltway insiders. (See if you can guess who in the first five minutes!) Like…
English Beat toaster Antonee First Class spent the ’90s in the dance halls of Pittsburgh
THE ENGLISH BEAT with THE HEAD. 6 p.m. Thu., July 11. Bessemer Court Station Square. Free. All ages. www.stationsquare.com For over a decade, Antonee First Class has toured with classic English ska band The English Beat as the group’s toaster — but before that, the London-born artist spent much of the 1990s living in and…
Coronado’s new EP documents a time of transition
CORONADO CD-RELEASE RESIDENCY. Starts Fri., July 5; continues Fridays through July. Park House 403 E. Ohio St. North Side. 412-224-2273 or parkhousepgh.com Coronado is at a bit of a crossroads. The North Side-based five-piece lost its guitarist, Andy Carlson, earlier this year when he moved back to California, and the band also recently took on…
Deutschtown Music Festival highlights local music on the North Side
DEUTSCHTOWN MUSIC FESTIVAL. 2 p.m. Sat., July 6. Multiple venues, North Side.Free. deutschtownmusicfestival.org The first annual Deutschtown Music Festival is this Saturday, and will showcase more than 40 local bands of various genres, at eight North Side venues, indoor and outdoor, starting at 2 p.m. “It’s not a complicated combination: cheap beer and free music,” says festival organizer…
Critics’ Picks: July 3 – 10
[ALT-FOLK] + FRI., JULY 5 Rocky Votolato was with the Seattle band Waxwing for years, but it was with his solo work that he began to find more popularity. (His brother and Waxwing bandmate, Cody, also found breakout success elsewhere — as the guitarist in Blood Brothers.) Votolato’s simple, country-tinged singer-songwriter material, with its clear…
A review of Aubrey Hirsch’s Why We Never Talk About Sugar
Why We Never Talk About Sugar By Aubrey Hirsch Braddock Avenue Books, 132 pp., $16. In the short story “The Disappearance of Maliseet Lake,” a large body of water vanishes. It doesn’t dry up. It isn’t diverted. It just ceases to exist, without explanation. The people of Maliseet, Maine, start to panic, as their fishermen…
On the Record with Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips
THE FLAMING LIPS with SPIRITUALIZED. 6:30 p.m. Tue., July 16. Stage AE 400 North Shore Drive, North Side. $35-$37. 412-229-5483 or stageae.com The Flaming Lips are touring behind The Terror, the neo-psychedelic band’s 13th and darkest album, one seemingly obsessed with loneliness, futility and suffering. The Terror is a pretty bleak album. What inspired it? Life is about…
An eerie folk song is the focus of Susan Philipsz’ One and the Same
SUSAN PHILIPSZ: ONE AND THE SAME continues through July 14. Carnegie Museum of Art 4400 Forbes Ave. Oakland. 412-622-3131 or cmoa.org Most “folk songs” aren’t. They’re tunes written for a contemporary commercial audience that by choice share the acoustic and melodic properties of actual folk songs — whose own creation predates mass audiences, and which…
After the Win: DOMA’s demise is a huge victory for the LGBT community, but what does it all mean?
As one man put it as he sprang around Liberty Avenue sprinkling glitter, June 26 was “a great day to be gay.” Indeed, the Supreme Court of the United States delivered two major victories for LGBT rights. In a 5-4 ruling, it dismissed a case concerning the constitutionality of California’s anti-same-sex-marriage referendum, Proposition 8. That…
South Park Theatre’s You Haven’t Changed a Bit … And Other Lies
YOU HAVEN’T CHANGED A BIT … AND OTHER LIES continues through July 13. South Park Theatre, Corrigan Drive and Brownsville Road, South Park. $15. 412-831-8552 or southparktheatre.com The last time we were at South Park Theatre, we stumbled across a play so dreary I couldn’t figure out why it had ever been produced … and…
Chronic Ailment
After a year-long remission, Western Pennsylvania is due for a relapse of Health Care Derangement Syndrome, thanks to Highmark’s acquisition of the Western Pennsylvania Allegheny Health System (WPAHS). The state’s Insurance Department approved that deal this spring, and one symptom — nausea-inducing statements from health-care giant UPMC — has already appeared. A new TV…
Quantum Theatre stages the U.S. premiere of an acclaimed work about memory.
Quantum Theatre’s MNEMONIC Fri., July 5-July 28. The Kirkwood Building 215 N. Highland Ave. East Liberty. $18-49. quantumtheatre.com Such was the global reputation of British theatrical troupe Complicite that in 1999, Quantum Theatre’s Karla Boos arranged to attend the premiere of its show Mnemonic, in London. The work, a nonlinear exploration of memory and human…
Short List: July 3 – 11
Free Event: Fri., July 5 — Art We know it’s July 4 weekend and all, but if you can hit just one Unblurred this year, this would be a good one. On July 5, the monthly Penn Avenue gallery crawl boasts several notable openings. Working our way up Penn, the first is for Dear Universe:…
Opera Theater’s Summer Fest is back, this time at Oakland’s landmark Twentieth Century Club.
OPERA THEATER SUMMER FEST July 6-21. Twentieth Century Club 4201 Bigelow Blvd., Oakland. $10-75. 412-326-9687 or otsummerfest.org Last year, Opera Theater of Pittsburgh remade itself as a 17-day summer festival at Fox Chapel’s Shady Side Academy. The result was the 35-year-old company’s most financially successful season. Now Summer Fest returns, at a notable in-city venue.…
Lynn Cullen Live 07/3/13
Video Archive Guest: Chris Potter; US is as divided now as before the Civil War; opposing ideas of freedom; more registered Democrats than Repubs in the armed forces; Miami is a doomed city; Daryl Metcalfe should pick his words more carefully; what would have happened if the South had seceded after Civil War; a socialist…
The Lone Ranger
The Lone Ranger Directed by: Gore Verbinski Starring: Armie Hammer, Johnny Depp, William Fichtner, Tom Wilkinson There are those who find Johnny Depp’s cartoonish, heavily made-up pantomimes an amusing and welcome addition to a remake, and those who don’t. Depp’s latest round of bewigged mannerisms in The Lone Ranger is sure to put even more…
Dirty Wars
Rock Rowley’s film Dirty Wars follows investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill through the shadows — from a covered-up U.S. Army night raid in Afghanistan to the current off-the-books actions of the super-secret Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in Yemen and Somalia. The film is part investigative report, part docu-drama and part meditation on the long-term costs…
Palms Brazilian Steakhouse
Palms Brazilian Steakhouse 3113 Green Garden Road Aliquippa. 724-378-8308 Hours: Tue.-Sat. 11 a.m.-11 p.m.; Sun. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Prices: Appetizers, salads and sandwiches, $6-11; entrees $30-35; gaucho service $40 per person (children 9-12 half price, 8 and under free) Liquor: Full bar What could be better than an all-you-can-eat buffet? How about an all-you-can-eat buffet…
Film Kitchen
The monthly series for independent and local artists presents an evening of politically themed work. Highlights include “American Mayor,” filmmaker and comedian Travis Irvine’s 40-minute documentary about his 2007 run for mayor of his hometown of Bexley, Ohio, when he was a dreadlocked kid living with his parents. (The 2009 film made the festival rounds;…
Taking Root: Local communities seeing a surge in urban agriculture
Drue Miller wasn’t thinking about adding a chicken coop or a beehive in the backyard of her Forest Hills home — until a neighbor began a movement to change the law prohibiting her from having either one on her property. “It sounded interesting,” she says, adding that now she and her husband are talking about…
At Any Price
In a departure from his earlier, lightly plotted, micro-budget New York City-centric indies like Chop Shop and Man Push Cart, director Ramin Bahrani offers this family melodrama, set in rural Iowa, starring big Hollywood names. Dennis Quaid portrays a struggling corn famer battling big ag and his layabout son (Zac Efron), who would rather drive…
Local musician Tim Gaber brings urban winery to Pittsburgh
In the industrial hinterland between Lower Lawrenceville and the Strip, Pittsburgh Winery has been producing wine for nearly a year. The winery is relatively new to the local scene, but vintner Tim Gaber — who runs the facility with his fiancée — has a winemaking history that spans several decades. Formerly a member of local…
Despicable Me 2
The first Despicable Me, about a villain derailed by family duties, was a surprisingly fresh animated comedy. And of course, it introduced the world to the adorable, jabbering minions. Thus, it’s inevitable that this sequel should feel more calculated to double down on the success of the first film, rather than break any new ground.…
Vincent’s Pizza Park in North Braddock re-opens to the delight of longtime customers
Growing up, pies from Vincent’s Pizza Park were forbidden food for me: My mom didn’t care for its huge, greasy pizzas. When I had some, it was contraband from a friend or sibling. When the original shop on the North Braddock-Forest Hills border shut down last year amid ownership and management disputes, it was disheartening.…
Lawrenceville Galleries: One’s First Opening, Another’s Final Closing
The Inn opens, while lower on Butler Street, Fe closes
