Marcellus Shale Coalition cancels summit where protest was planned
The Marcellus Shale Coaltion has quietly cancelled a “shale gase summit” originally planned for Oct. 1. And by “quietly,” I mean that for all appearances, it’s as if the summit was never scheduled at all. The coalition Web page that once touted the summit now produces a 404 error. (Though a cached version of it…
MP3 MONDAY: Crossing Boundaries
Lots of kids put together bands in high school, but most don’t get to play shows with big national acts. On Sun., Aug. 29, young local band Crossing Boundaries will play a side stage at the Maroon 5 show at Trib Total Media Amphitheatre at Station Square. This week’s MP3, “Slurring Words,” from Crossing Boundaries’…
Weekend extras!
YOU: Gee, Andy! It’s Friday and we’ve looked through our City Paper and read the music previews and scanned the Short List and EVEN LOOKED AT THE WEEK’S FFW>> POSTS, but we’re still not totally sure what to do this weekend! What can you do for us?!?! ME: WELL. OKAYYYYY . . . Tonight at…
Pinter’s No Man’s Land
It’s hardly an insult to say that Harold Pinter can strike you as less a playwright than a poet. PICT’s production of the 1975 play widely regarded as the late master’s masterpiece is as good evidence as any. The play suggests a spin on Waiting for Godot. Instead of two compatriot tramps on a desolate…
No longer laboring under delusions about Murphy
Bit of a knock Tim Murphy, the Congressman whose posturing on Medicaid and education spending I made fun of just a few days ago. The state AFL-CIO is endorsing his long-shot rival, Democrat Dan Connolly. Now ordinarily, labor backing a Democrat wouldn’t be much of a story. (And in fact, Allegheny County’s labor council backed…
A local musician in need: Anne Feeney
A lot of you probably know of Anne Feeney — longtime Pittsburgher, longtime folk singer and labor/generally progressive activist, longtime nice lady. When I was a lil baby writer in college, Anne, busy as she was was gracious enough to meet up with me and do some interviews for a short profile piece for my…
Short List: Week of August 12 – 19
“An army of lovers shall not fail,” proclaims the screen-printed poster depicting a girl in shorts, and credited to the Anti-Capitalist Ass Pirates. “Love Who You Will,” commands another screen print. “Our Time Is Now,” announce the human silhouettes, fists raised, in a third. Political posters can be more than slanderous billboards, or candidate names…
Winnebago Man
Texas filmmaker Ben Steinbauer struggles to make this film anything more than a shaggy, not very illuminating look at one angry man.
Stonewall Uprising
If younger people, gay or straight, don’t know this history, Uprising offers an eye-opening, if perfunctory, lesson.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
Director Edgar Wright has created an alterna-rom-com for a frenzied, intertextual, pop-culture world.
Ajami
The jigsaw structure of this otherwise neo-realistic film requires attention, but the patient viewer will be rewarded.
Trash Humpers
Harmony Korine’s Trash Humpers opens like a performance-art stunt captured on crappy home video. Three actors (two men and a woman) wearing grotesque aging make-up and thrift-store clothes wander an anonymous, unpeopled suburban landscape, mimicking sex with garbage cans. They clutch wine bottles, and between silly pranks (running a wheelchair through a carwash) and bouts…
The Other Guys
Adam McKay’s comedy starts out as a refreshingly satirical takedown of buddy-cop action flicks. Will Ferrell, as a milquetoast desk jockey, is an especially good baffle for the parodic testosterone deluge. Trouble is, how long can you mock a genre that’s long since devolved into self-parody? Much of what works best in Other Guys recalls…
Village Tavern & Trattoria
This warm, welcoming, and satisfying Italian restaurant is a reason to brave the West End Circle
Cash on Delivery!
Such farces are hard to pull off, but as long as the jokes get told, that’s what matters.
The Dumb Waiter & Betrayal
Pinter doesn’t show us a heart breaking; he supplies us with the knowledge that it is, while forcing his characters to act as though it were not.
Pi knows pizza to several decimal places.
As a guy who usually leaves remnants of crust on the plate, I didn’t leave a speck.
A new book explores a 118-year-old bicycling mystery with its roots in Pittsburgh.
Lenz’s story provides a rare glimpse into the early history of bicycling in Pittsburgh.
This Just In: August 12 – 19
Highlights from the local TV news: Baby Down!
On the Way to Jimmy’s
A poem by Jerome Crooks.
The Effluent Society
In 2004, RRI Energy opened its Seward Electric Station. Built on an old coal-fired power-plant site on the Conemaugh River, near Johnstown, the facility burned not pulverized coal, but waste coal — a lower-energy mining byproduct long stored on site. Like old mines, the huge “gob piles” of coal refuse produce the acid drainage that’s…
Pedaling North
Community group wants to bring bicyclists into the North Side
Commercial Use
Are the county controller’s new ads an election tool or a public service?
Pay Daze
Despite not working, cops in Miles case seeing extra cash
Savage Love
Longtime reader, first-time mailer. A long while ago, you wrote an incredible piece of general advice for teen-age boys. The advice was so excellent that I clipped it out to keep in case I ever had a son. Well, years later, I have a son. But I have since moved and I no longer have…
The Rivers Casino’s Wheelhouse takes a gamble on local musicians
I move in for a closer look, and Gene Simmons asks me if I’m 21, with the weary indifference of a true rock star.
We Are Scientists offer dancey hooks and dating advice on their latest release
“Are your legs tired? Because you’ve been running from wolves in my mind all day.”
A Conversation with Dave Davison of Maps & Atlases
“I think there’s a quality of amplifying really small details of everyday things and everyday life, and framing them in a song.”
Variety keeps the Associated Artists show Interplay interesting.
The vivid images and figures in “Deep Woods Silkie” led me to wonder how real real needs to be.
Tea Party shenanigans: what a tangled web we Weaver
Early this week, the Tribune-Review reported the interesting news that John Krupa — a “Tea Party” candidate for governor — received assistance from supporters of … Democrat Dan Onorato: Members of unions that endorsed Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato, as well as one of his campaign workers, helped get Tea Party candidate John Krupa onto…
