Pittsburgh Grooveline: April 18-24
Each week, the City Paper compiles a list of Pittsburgh dance parties for you and your crew to bust loose to the best bangers, EDM, pop hits, and more. (All events are 21 and over unless otherwise stated.) Sat., April 20 Starship Mantis Outer Space Costume Party at Cattivo. 8 p.m.-1 a.m. Doors at 7…
Concert Announcements: Sara Bareilles, Brantley Gilbert, and more
Stay up-to-date with your favorite artists and musicians coming to Pittsburgh. Each week, Pittsburgh City Paper will bring you the most recent concert announcements so you never miss a show. Sara Bareilles. Fri., Nov. 15. UPMC Events Center, Moon. Her new song is 🔥 and she crushed it on #SNL this past weekend. Now, @SaraBareilles…
Summer Lee, Legislative Black Caucus look to reform police procedures in Pennsylvania
If Antwon Rose II were alive today, he would be represented by state Rep. Summer Lee (D-Swissvale). Since winning her first election in May 2018, Lee has been in the streets with hundreds of demonstrators calling for justice for Rose after he was shot and killed by former East Pittsburgh police officer Michael Roseld. She…
What is a hellbender, Pennsylvania’s new official state amphibian?
At night, it glides silently through the water in search of prey, sneaking up on unsuspected creatures and swallowing them whole. It goes by the name Eastern hellbender, and on April 16, it became Pennsylvania’s first official state amphibian. The hellbender, aka Allegheny alligator, aka snot otter, aka lasagna lizard, is a salamander and the…
Comedian Jen Kirkman on fake shock, trolls, and when to take a break
Jen Kirkman is a national and internationally touring stand-up comedian who is visiting Pittsburgh on April 24 at Rex Theater. Pittsburgh City Paper contributor Gab Bonesso will be her opening act. Gab asked Jen a few questions before the big show. The interview has been lightly edited for clarity. The last time you visited Pittsburgh, you…
What will happen to the ShurSave lot in Bloomfield?
At the multi-street intersection where the Bloomfield bridge intersects with Main Street and Liberty Avenue sits the ShurSave grocery store site, which was purchased by a new developer, meaning it is almost certain to be torn down and redeveloped — but as what? Under the direction of the Bloomfield Development Corporation (BDC), Action Housing, and…
Weeding out the best gifts at Spencer’s
Be sure to check out Pittsburgh City Paper’s marijuana issue, coming out tomorrow in print and online. There’s only so much you can write about when putting together a marijuana issue, especially when looking for a humorous angle, before you begin to sound like a bad ’90s movie. That’s when it hit me; I’ll write…
Alisha B. Wormsley and Ricardo Iamuuri Robinson take multimedia installation Streaming Space to Market Square
Visitors walking through Market Square in Downtown Pittsburgh will get to see a dramatic new work by local artists Alisha B. Wormsley and Ricardo Iamuuri Robinson. Presented as part of the Market Square Public Art program (MSPA), Streaming Space will tower over pedestrians as a 24-foot-tall pyramid mounted with LED screens and speakers. On view through…
A phrase by phrase breakdown of City Paper fan mail
Nothing warms the heart of a journalist more than the appreciation of our readers. It’s hard to find a bigger honor than someone taking time out of their busy schedule to express their thanks for the hard work we do. That’s why we’d like thank this anonymous reader by sharing some of the kind words…
John Fetterman: What I’ve learned on my recreational marijuana listening tour
Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D-Braddock) is in the midst of a statewide tour, where he is speaking about the possibilities of recreational marijuana becoming legal in Pennsylvania and listening to the concerns of residents in every county. Pittsburgh City Paper wanted to know what his impressions of the tour were so far. My mandate for…
Lynn Cullen Live – 4/16/19
Video Archive The Pulitzer Prize winners have been announced, and two of the winners are from the Pittsburgh Area. The Pittsburgh Post Gazette won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the Tree of Life shooting, and Eliza Griswold’s book “Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America” about the impact of fracking…
U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly’s bill would bar IRS from offering free online tax filing services
On average, preparing and filing taxes costs Americans more than $150 a year, and despite the passage of the “Taxpayer First Act” last week, it seems that number isn’t going to get lower anytime soon. The U.S. House passed a bipartisan bill banning the IRS from creating an improved free electronic tax filing system on…
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wins Pulitzer Prize for reporting on Tree of Life shooting
On Monday, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting for the staff’s coverage of the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill. The winning works include 10 articles spanning from the day of the shooting on October 27 through November 10, 2018 and includes two interactive web…
Q&A with Brittney Chantele on her new album A Fire on Venus
The night before Pittsburgh City Paper spoke with artist Brittney Chantele, she was on stage, live-painting, during a benefit show honoring Antwon Rose II. It was organized by 1Hood, the community-driven activist and artist group of which Chantele is a member. The goal was to raise money for Rose’s family and provide his community a…
Bernie Sanders talks unions, income inequality, and health care at campaign rally in Oakland
Though he initially came to Pittsburgh to discuss labor rights and health care, 2020 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders ended up touching on several other progressive issues in front of an enthusiastic crowd of thousands Sunday evening. Sanders made a stop at Schenley Plaza in Oakland as part of a tour of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin,…
Lynn Cullen Live – 4/15/19
Video Archive To kick things off Lynn is talking about how we might see a heavily redacted Mueller Report this week. There is also a tweet thread from David Rothkopf that she found interesting. Feminism, and the difference she sees between the generations is a subject Lynn is passionate about. How females of different age…
This week in food and booze newz
The Eagle Food & Beer Hall The Eighth and Penn development in Downtown Pittsburgh has secured their first commercial business, Midwestern-based restaurant chain The Eagle Food & Beer Hall. The Eagle is known for fried chicken, brined overnight and pressure-fried, dubbed “anything but demure,” by Cincinnati Magazine. It’s served with a house-made hot honey, adding…
Lynn Cullen Live – 4/12/19
Video Archive “You have to have the humanity of a wolverine even to think of something like this.” That’s the quote from Charles Pierce’s Esquire article that caught Lynn’s attention today. She talking about the proposed Sanctuary City Policy, and how ICE has rejected the idea as inappropriate. In addition she is covering many other…
Pittsburgh City Podcast, April 10: The many roads that lead to a job in journalism
This week on the Pittsburgh City Podcast, we’re joined by students from Urban Pathways. The topic today is the many roads that lead people into careers in journalism (hint: it’s not necessarily getting a degree). Host Alex Gordon talks with Pittsburgh City Paper digital media manager Josh Oswald (who now has a column at CP),…
Gov. Tom Wolf removes Port Authority board member Robert Kania
After a complaint was filed against a political group with ties to Port Authority of Allegheny County board member Robert Kania, Gov. Tom Wolf has announced that Kania has been removed from the board. Wolf spokesperson J.J. Abbott said in a statement that the governor is appointing Jessica Walls-Lavelle as interim board member to replace…
Lynn Cullen Live – 4/11/19
Video Archive The big breaking news is the arrest of Julian Assange in London today. It’s a pretty difficult case to handle, and with the details still coming out now Lynn is holding off on really discussing it until she knows more. We are also waiting to see whether or not Assange will be extradited…
Lynn Cullen Live – 4/10/19
Video Archive The first ever photo of a black hole has been captured. It’s something Lynn is having a hard time wrapping her mind around. We now have a photo of a place where space, time, and matter don’t exist. It’s totally amazing that not only this is a real thing, but that it’s something…
How busways can lead Pittsburgh into an equitable public transit future
Pittsburgh has the most extensive busway system in the entire country. There are about 19 miles of grade-separated, traffic-free busways that spread across three lines throughout Allegheny County. The East Busway, which runs from Downtown to Swissvale, is one of the most efficient non-heavy rail transit corridors in America. When compared to other transit lines…
Debut novel imagines the life of Erik Satie in The Vexations
Ask ten random people if they’ve heard of Erik Satie, and maybe one will say yes. But the majority of us have heard the French composer’s music. Notably, Satie’s Gymnopedie No. 1 has been featured in films such as Fahrenheit 451 and Green Book, and television shows including The Blacklist, Doctor Who, and How I Met Your…
Makeup artist Cheryl El-Walker explains creating projectile vomit
Name: Cheryl El-Walker, Wilkinsburg Work: Resident makeup, special effects, and costume artist at Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company Do stage actors always use makeup artists? Oh no. I might work with a whole cast or one person. There might be something that’s complicated the actor can’t do, or that takes me two minutes and would take…
The best local spicy beers and where to find them
If you’re anything like me, your friend John once tried to convince you that pouring Frank’s RedHot® into a can of Natural Light would make it taste better. “Like an IPA,” he’d say, stupidly. And of course, you would do it to prove a point and discover it tastes nothing like an IPA and everything…
The hyper-feminine fashion that targets the female gaze
It’s common for fashion not to be taken seriously as a medium, but even more so when the genre of fashion is mostly made by and for women. Lolita fashion is a feminine style in which appealing to the male gaze isn’t even a factor. At Tekko, an annual Japanese pop culture convention at the…
In defense of ghosting (sometimes)
Lately I’ve seen a lot of online commentary about ghosting. Most people seem to agree that it’s horrible, selfish, and cruel. I definitely think there are certain scenarios where ghosting is awful, but I would like to argue that sometimes, it’s actually the nicest and most viable option at hand. I think we can all…
What to expect from Jordan Peele’s Twilight Zone
The reboot of The Twilight Zone is not actually a reboot at all, but a continuation. It is, technically, one entry in a franchise that includes the original 1959 series as well as several other entries since then, but really, the Twilight Zone is not a show; it’s a place, and the show is a…
Indie record label formed in a Pitt dorm celebrates three years with compilation and party at Spirit
For most freshmen, college is the first time away from parental authority, a chance to grow and learn beyond the traditional classroom setting. For Connor Murray, the creator of Pittsburgh independent record label Crafted Sounds, his time at the University of Pittsburgh not only introduced him to the local scene but also made way for…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): French writer Simone de Beauvoir sent a letter to her lover, Aries author Nelson Algren. She wrote, “I like so much the way you are so greedy about life and yet so quiet, your eager greediness and your patience, and your way of not asking much of life and yet taking…
Revisit the original Twilight Zone with these lesser known episodes
Even if you’ve never watched the original The Twilight Zone, you’ve likely seen some reference to the show’s most famous episodes, like Burgess Meredith’s tragic post-apocalyptic bookworm (“Time Enough at Last”), William Shatner’s in-flight freak out (“Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”), or the bratty little boy with reality-altering superpowers (“It’s a Good Life”). But the show,…
University of Pittsburgh market research proves we can reduce food waste by boosting consumer self-esteem
Food waste in America falls along so many tributaries that it can be difficult to track. But even small changes, like the way stores market food, can affect the amount of food waste. According to research published in the Journal of Marketing in December, consumers are less likely to pick “ugly produce” because doing so…
Admire and/or buy ‘functionality optional’ teapots at the 13th iteration of Teapots!
Decorative teapots — that gift you buy your grandmother every year when you can’t think of anything else she could possibly want (it’s either that or birdhouses — my own Nana preferred the latter). But at the Morgan Contemporary Glass Gallery in Shadyside, the item takes on a much more artistic form as part of…
Queer, Jewish WorkInProgress reads between the lines of sacred texts with movement
“What can be found between the lines of our sacred texts?” This question is one of many explored in artist Moriah Ella Mason’s new work Queer, Jewish WorkinProgress, an original dance-theater piece presented on April 11 at The Space Upstairs. The work is built around Mason’s identity as a queer, Jewish Pittsburgher. It leans into…
Kasia Reilly’s contemporary dance project Dolina is absurd and surreal
A few unexpected adjectives stand out when Kasia Reilly describes her contemporary dance performance project, Dolina. “Absurd” comes up, as does “surreal.” As Reilly explains, these themes play out in a variety of ways, from bursts of tense laughter, to dancers uncannily mirroring each other, to a warped sense of time. In a promotional video…
‘Greatest comic heroine of all time’: Tank Girl’s Lori Petty comes to Steel City Con
To hell with comic book heroines only portrayed as princesses or sex objects with substandard plot lines targeted to a male audience. What female comic book fans need isn’t another superhero sidekick in a bustier, but a resurgence of the greatest comic heroine of all time: Tank Girl. But nah, they shouldn’t remake the 1995…
Wax Ecstatic: How local distributors are celebrating Record Store Day
When vinyl and record players made a resurgence in the mid-2000s, many thought it to be little more than a pretentious fad. But unlike bell bottoms and jelly sandals, which emerged just to disappear again, records are still here, and the industry is thriving. Although 2019 marked the close of longtime Bloomfield vinyl store, Juke…
There ain’t no shame in our bodily fluids’ game
Ashley Addison vividly remembers the first time she squirted. “A girlfriend of mine was using a Bodywand on me while she held down my bucking hips and out of this beautiful building intensity came three huge squirts from me,” she says. “It was truly magical!” Though she was very young when it happened, Maya Morena…
