The corpse flower is blooming!
Remember when we warned you that the corpse flower was about to bloom? Guess what? IT IS NOW BLOOMING. AS WE SPEAK. IF YOU ARE ANYWHERE IN OAKLAND OR SQUIRREL HILL, YOU CAN PROBABLY SMELL IT FROM YOUR HOUSE. OK, that’s an exaggeration. But still. Phipps Conservatory announced via email just after 7 p.m. tonight…
Film Extras Need for Festival Trailer Shoot
Volunteers Required to fill the Harris Theater
Lynn Cullen Live 08/20/13
Video Archive Phone guest: Susan; re-cap of yesterday’s show; dangerous to ride with a kid on your bike in the city; people feel really strongly about what to put in potato salad; state fair food offerings; bike seats & gonads; dogs yawn when their owner yawns; Pirates still in 1st….for now; TX right wingers going…
MP3 Monday: Landon Thomas
Download “Bang” by Landon Thomas for this weeks MP3 Monday
Lynn Cullen Live 08/19/13
Video Archive Bicycle gripes; The Slow Bike Movement; forgotten Allegheny City cemetery found in the North Side, archaeologists still intrigued; in South African yachting accident, man saves dog before wife; Sokolowski featured in the Trib; Callers: PJ, Greensburg / George, Moon / Tom Sokolowski, Downtown / Clarence, Canonsburg Audio Only Archive
Lynn Cullen Live 08/16/13
Video Archive Federal judge throws out Oklahoma’s ban on Sharia Law; decapitated snake attacks its own body; days are getting shorter; what’s happening in Egypt; Washington Post’s follow-up to the Missouri rodeo, crowd thinks Dems can’t take a joke; John Fugelsang on Jesus; racism in the US; Caller: Clarence, Canonsburg. Audio Only Archive
Street Art: Knit the Bridge
The Andy Warhol Bridge gets a make-over courtesy of Pittsburgh knitters and crocheters
MCG Jazz news: yard sale and search for male jazz singer
MCG Jazz is selling some equipment, and looking for a young male jazz singer.
Lynn Cullen Live 08/15/13
Video Archive Guest: Tom Sokolowski; Manning & Snowden weren’t whistleblowers; garbage in the ocean; how to pronounce gouda correctly;art Q&A; we need more flights out of Pgh Int’l Airport; the castle in Wilmerding; Caller: PJ, Greensburg Audio Only Archive
Comedian Dominique Plays Improv
First of six shows here
The Butler
The Butler Directed by: Lee Daniels Starring: Forest Whitaker, David Oyelowo, Oprah Winfrey Starts Fri., Aug. 16. The Butler is an overly ambitious docu-drama that marries one man’s story to a century’s worth of African-American history, in an entertaining but hokey jumble. Directed by Lee Daniels (Precious), the film is “inspired by”the life of Eugene…
Tossing a Cow off A Bridge Thats Wearing A Bungee Cord and Other Dirty Thoughts
I don’t know why that I think the things I think about like why I have this strong desire to place a cow in a bungee cord and toss a cow off a bridge. Don’t know why I think this but I would just like to see the expression on the cow’s face as it…
Elysium
In the new dystopic thriller Elysium, from Neill Blomkamp (District 9), Earth in 2154 is a wreck, an orb of filth and slums. The one-percenters live on a nearby luxury space station known as Elysium. One of Earth’s angry, broken workers (Matt Damon) concocts a plan to get to Elysium — he could really use…
Johnny’s
Johnny’s 112 Westinghouse Ave. Wilmerding. 412-824-6642 Hours: Tue.-Fri. 4 p.m.-midnight; Sat. 5 p.m.-1 a.m. Prices: Soups, salads and appetizers $4-10; entrees $11-35 Liquor: Full bar There is a class of local restaurants that can perhaps best be described as “Old-School Italian in an Old Working-Class Town.” Often dating from the days when foreign cuisine meant…
The Crystal Fairy
Sebastián Silva’s loosely plotted road-trip dramedy charts a few days in the life of Jamie (Michael Cera), an abrasive, self-centered American freewheeling in Chile. Jamie’s goal is to acquire an hallucinogenic cactus and retreat to an isolated beach to take the trip. He’s accompanied by three local dudes — and unexpectedly, at the last minute,…
Local purveyors Salted Pig makes fresh sausage by tapping culinary heritages
It’s a Saturday afternoon at Lawrenceville’s Farmer’s Market, and resident Jane Collins awaits a bag of Italian habañero cheddar sausage from the market’s newest vendor, Salted Pig. “It’s the best hot sausage I’ve ever eaten,” she exclaims. Despite being established just two months ago by three lifelong friends — Brandon Gajdos, Blair Hohn III and…
Fill the Void
Getting married is both straightforward and complex, in this low-key drama set among Tel Aviv’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. Eighteen-year-old Shira (Hadas Yaron) is eager to be matched with a young man — the marriages are arranged within tight-knit families and approved by the rabbi. But when her older sister dies, leaving behind a widower and…
Emerging Pittsburgh liquor scene keeps booze writer busy
When I started writing this feature two years and 99 columns ago, I wondered: “How the hell am I going to find something to write a column about every week?” For starters, Embury — the bar that brought craft cocktails to Pittsburgh — had just closed. But as it happens, Pittsburgh wasn’t just a city…
Planes
Dusty is a crop-dusting farm-boy plane with dreams of becoming a champion racer. The digitally animated family film from Disney, directed by Klay Hall, uses the voices of Dane Cook, Stacy Keach, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and others to tell this classic underdog tale. It is fun to watch the writers transform a human-centered view of the…
Olive & Marlowe’s gourmet vinegar and oil shop to expand to East Liberty
This is, apparently, a great time to be in the oil business. The olive oil business in particular. Olive & Marlowe, which offers gourmet balsamic vinegars and olive oils at the Strip District’s Pittsburgh Public Market, is poised to join East Liberty’s increasingly upscale retail mix. The new location, at 5931 Broad St., will open…
We’re the Millers
A pot dealer (Jason Sudekis), a stripper (Jennifer Aniston), a nerdy kid (Will Poulter) and a teenage runaway (Emma Roberts) team up to pretend to be an all-American family in order to transport a huge quantity of weed north across the U.S.-Mexican border. (This plot device put me in mind of the 1978 weed-transport classic…
Dieselboy’s Pittsburgh Roots
SHIPWRECKED 2013 featuring DIESELBOY, SCHOOLBOY, AK1200, MUST DIE. 8 p.m. Fri., Aug. 16. Greater Pittsburgh Coliseum 7310 Frankstown Ave. Homewood. $30-45. https://facebook.com/events/462059057214624/ DJ and producer Dieselboy is well known internationally, but when he was coming up — going to college at the University of Pittsburgh and leaning to DJ on WRCT at Carnegie Mellon —…
Survival hits the road after guitarist’s success with Liturgy
SURVIVAL. 10 p.m. Sun., Aug. 18. The Smiling Moose 1306 E. Carson St. South Side. $10. 412-431-4668 or smiling-moose.com Brooklyn-based Survival is a relatively new band, but with a long history: Jeff Bobula, Hunter Hunt-Hendrix and Greg Smith met as college students, and previously played together in a band called Birthday Boyz. After the success…
Brad Wagner releases a new concept album
BRAD WAGNER CD RELEASE. 7 p.m. Sat., Aug. 17. Club Café 56-58 S. 12th St. South Side. $5. 412-431-4950 or clubcafelive.com “She wears tight pants / says she’s gonna be a star,” sings Brad Wagner about a fictional young wannabe Florence Welch, on “Little Julie,” from his album Barfly. “But there’s a guy in my…
Lynn Cullen Live 08/14/13
Video Archive Guest: Chris Potter; US deficit down 38%; we can’t have a strong country with a part-time economy; Heinz job cuts; Americans = consumers; Alexander Hamilton was 21 years old in 1776; Schutt Sports ad Audio Only Archive
Critics’ Picks: August 14 – 20
[AVANT GARDE] + FRI., AUG. 16 Gender- and genre-blending antihero Genesis Breyer P-Orridge gets PTV3 — the reunited, updated iteration of ’80s “hyperdelic” band Psychic TV — together tonight for an amalgamation of provocative, psychedelic, industrial and experimental sounds that add up to nothing less than a night of dancing. Presented by The Andy Warhol…
Nick Bubash’s vignettes put familiar symbols and icons to intriguingly ambivalent ends
NICK BUBASH: THE PATRON SAINT OF WHITE GUYS THAT WENT TRIBAL AND OTHER WORKS continues through Sept. 15. The Andy Warhol Museum 117 Sandusky St. North Side. 412-237-8300 or warhol.org Considering that acclaimed inker Nick Bubash is the proprietor of Route 60 Tattoo, in McKees Rocks, the exhibit title The Patron Saint of White Guys…
New releases
The Lopez Fur (Self-released) Three new tracks of fuzz-pop from the duo that, presumably, is fixating on a cat here, given that the songs are called “Furriest One,” “Kingdom of Cat Piss” and “Fur Babies.” Pop sensibility and a sense of snotty silliness pervade; fans of The B-52s, Bratmobile and Le Tigre would all do…
Professional cartoonists’ picks for best cartoonist — since 1946 — get an unprecedented showcase at ToonSeum.
AND THE WINNER IS … continues through Aug. 31. The Toonseum 945 Liberty Ave. Downtown. 412-232-0199 or toonseum.org The Reuben is how cartoonists honor each other: the National Cartoonists Society’s Cartoonist of the Year award, chosen by members’ secret ballot since 1946. At The ToonSeum, And the Winner Is … is an unprecedented exhibit including…
Home Remodel: Hilltop neighborhoods work to change public perception of their housing stock
The house Connie Wellons first moved to in Beltzhoover in 1960 once sat five houses from the corner. Today, it sits just one house away: Three of its neighbors have burnt to the ground, and the city demolished the fourth. “No one is there to take care of them,” says Wellons of many of the…
Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre’s Don Juan Comes Back From the War
DON JUAN COMES BACK FROM THE WAR continues through Aug. 31. Henry Heymann Theatre, Stephen Foster Memorial Forbes Avenue at Bigelow Oakland. $25-48. 412-561-6000 or picttheatre.org If Austro-Hungarian playwright Ödön von Horváth is remembered at all, it’s because of the brutal, and brutally funny, circumstances of his death. After being chased out of Berlin because…
Bus Start: PAT reinstates route 55 to the Mon Valley
Even before the Port Authority cut the 55 Jefferson bus route due to budget constraints, it was hard to get around the Mon Valley using public transportation. But when the 55 got cut — along with 28 other routes in 2011 — things got even harder for riders like Robert “Waldo” Whitzell, who found himself…
Organic Theater’s Scarcity
SCARCITY continues through Aug. 18. Studio Theater, Cathedral of Learning 4200 Fifth Ave Oakland. $15-20. organictheaterpgh.org Organic Theater’s new production, Scarcity, is an intense story of poverty and domestic abuse where no character is left with any shred of dignity. You will not smile during the show, or on the drive home, or for a while…
Growth Business
It’s a scorcher today, and the asphalt lot at the East Liberty Farmers Market isn’t making things any better. Under the canopy that shields her produce from the sun, Margaret Schlass bustles around her lettuce and kale, snap peas and Swiss chard. Her long brown hair flowing like an untamed river, she is meeting, greeting,…
Tuesdays With Morrie at South Park
TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE continues through Aug. 24. South Park Theatre Corrigan Drive at Brownsville Road South Park. $12. 412-831-8552. southpark theatre.com Teachers. Some of them impact lives forever. Such is the case in Tuesdays With Morrie, by Jeffrey Hatcher and Mitch Albom, now at South Park Theatre. Based on Albom’s book of the same name,…
Savage Love
Dear readers: Two writers stepped in to answer the Savage Love Letter of the Day while I was on vacation, and I wanted to share two of their responses. (The SLLOTD is blasted out to folks who have the Savage Love app.) First up is Daniel Bergner, an award-winning author whose newest book is What…
Dave Newman explores bad jobs, teenage drunkenness and more in The Slaughterhouse Poems
If you like poems about work, or read Bukowski, Locklin and Levine, you’ll dig The Slaughterhouse Poems. If you’ve drank beer, underage, in fields, or come from a town down on its economic heels, you’ll find something of yourself in the 153 pages of Dave Newman’s first full-length collection. Newman, a poet, novelist and Westmoreland…
Short List: August 14 – 22
SPOTLIGHT — Sun., Aug. 18 — Event Some doomsayers have been predicting the demise of libraries. But this week, a library opens for the first time in Millvale. “We didn’t set out to build a library,” says Tricia George, secretary of the board of trustees for the Millvale Community Library. The new institution is the…
