Steel: Small Enough to Fail
A friend just passed this installment of NPR’s “Planet Money” to me. First broadcast last week, it features historian John Steele Gordon talking about how Pittsburgh’s steel industry was apparently NOT too big to fail (The segment starts at roughly the 5-minute mark.) As Gordon points out, when the collapse of American steel was at…
Reality Dating … and Race-Baiting
OK, let’s just stipulate that everything we see on NBC’s new 10 p.m.-hole filler Momma’s Boys is true. My gut says no, and even my mind smells way too much set-up and too many too-perfect lines, but for the sake of argument — and entertainment — let’s buy in. Momma’s Boys — in case you’re…
The “science” of hitting it big in the 21st century
The venerable science culture rag Seed reports that science has once again confirmed something we already knew. In this case, that bands generally get big locally before they hit the national spotlight. Rather than just common sense, the study being describe employed the scientific method, of course. Essentially the scientists analyzed peer-to-peer sharing via computer…
Lava Lounge “Reunion”
I suppose everyone’s prone to nostalgia. Even the wonderful oddballs, misfits and other creative types who wandered the South Side back in the mid-’90s, when freaks and artists could still afford to live there. The scene had a mini but cause-driven reunion this past Sunday at the Lava Lounge, to raise medical funds for Olivia…
The Dark Knight at the Maxi-Saver
I always feel like I’m getting away with something when I see a movie at the Maxi-Saver 12, out at Century Square Plaza. Weekday tickets are just 99 cents for movies that debuted as recently as a few months ago. This West Mifflin multiplex is the only real second-run bargain place around, and frankly I…
Dance Alloy’s Dirty Little Secrets
When I first starting watching modern dance, about 15 years ago, probably the biggest challenge was overcoming my urge to narratize: “Oh, she’s pirouetting … that’s means she’s, um, confused about her relationship to the guy.” After a while, you realize this viewing strategy is kind of dumb, and you look for other ways to…
Take anyone, take people from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Heads up, mopers: local promoter Joker Productions just announced that on March 17, the long-absent-from-our-area legend himself, Morrissey, will be appearing at the Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland. Tickets go on sale through Ticketmaster on December 19, and they range from $35 to $45. Get on it, suedeheads!
readers’ poll results
2008 Best of Pittsburgh Readers’ Poll Results
Best of 2008 Staff Picks: people + places + propaganda
Best green nexus North Point Breeze/Wilkinsburg If we really want to be a big, green City of the Future, we could do worse than building out from the few square blocks that contain: reusables mother lode Construction Junction; the city’s busiest drop-off recycling center; Steel City Biofuels; urban composter Agrecycle; and member-owned, organic-and-regional food provisioner…
Best of 2008 Staff Picks: goods + services
Best place to learn to kick ass: Eric Hibler’s Pittsburgh Fight Club 4573 Campbell’s Run Road, Robinson. 412-787-1162 or www.pghfightclub.com Long before mixed martial arts became all the rage on pay-per-view, reality television shows and Saturday nights on CBS, Eric Hibler was teaching it to a handful of students in his parents’ Green Tree garage.…
Best of 2008 Staff Picks: food + drink
Best sausage pizza that really isn’t Spak Bros. 5107 Penn Ave., Garfield. 412-362-7725 or www.spakbrothers.com There was a brief window of time between your correspondent’s irrational and youthful hatred of pizza and the advent of her longstanding vegetarianism. And in that window, she found — briefly — true love in the form of sausage pizza.…
Best of 2008 Staff Picks: culture + nightlife
Best way to lure kids away from TV The baby boom at Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium One Wild Place, Highland Park. 412-665-3640 or www.pittsburghzoo.com Babies are cute, but really big babies are even cuter — and this year the Pittsburgh Zoo obliged kids (and their cooing parents) by introducing three newborns. Mother’s Day saw…
Best of 2008
In elections across the country, 2008 was a year of change. After a history-making presidential campaign, voters in Pennsylvania and other right-thinking states chose Barack Obama to be president. Republican incumbents were toppled in Congressional races across the land But the City Paper “Best of 2008” readers’ poll was an exception. During troubled times, voters…
The Terrace Room
Wonderfully designed salads are a stand-out at this Downtown white-linen restaurant.
A renowned religious architect’s favorite works were built here in Pittsburgh.
Cram believed that he reached his career apogee at East Liberty Presbyterian Church, which he illustrated as the frontispiece to his 1936 biography, My Life in Architecture.
A Carnegie Library project preserves times gone by in oral histories online.
Every day they’d come in, and we’d sing, and have a wonderful time.
This Just In: December 11 – 18
Highlights from the local TV news: Economic crisis hits Santaland!
Creative Nonfiction explores Pittsburgh in Words with seven original essays.
The collection’s strongest work engages very particular subject matter as a way to explore larger issues including — but not limited to — what Pittsburgh’s all about.
Point Park’s The Snow Queen gives a fairy tale a modern (and modern-dance) spin.
Through the portal pass a host of characters including hip-hop dancers, a 1950s beauty-pageant contestant, several runway models and a group of goth punk kids.
Comic Gab Cody takes on the holidays.
“You get to watch Santa cry and Captain Dreidl save the universe.”
Dublin Carol
But McPherson didn’t write that sort of play; he didn’t, in fact, write any sort of play.
Nobel Son
If it were a late Saturday night, and Randall Miller’s thriller about an academic family embroiled in a kidnapping turned up on cable, it might be worth opening another beer for. There are some reliable familiar faces — Danny DeVito, Mary Steenburgen and Bill Pullman, plus Alan Rickman, hamming up a role almost as dyspeptic…
Ashes of Time Redux
A broken-hearted man retreats to the desert, where he sets up shop as an assassin-for-hire. He ruminates about killing more than he actually draws his sword, and his hut becomes the focal point for half-a-dozen other characters seeking closure through acts of revenge. This dream-like drama is a slightly re-mixed version of Hong Kong director…
A Christmas Tale
And as the matriarch, it’s the immortal Catherine Deneuve whom leukemia dares to threaten. There’s a lot of domestic anxiety in Tale, but for an eccentric and artistic movie clan, it’s just about right. Arnaud Desplechin’s film is relatively straightforward, although he can’t resist dressing it up just a little as art: We get iris…
Milk
Gus Van Sant’s biopic about the San Francisco city supervisor, who was assassinated in 1978, is yin and yang: On the one hand, it recreates an important civil-rights movement in fine dramatic form. On the other, it’s clearly a movie that wants to teach the masses what every educated progressive already knows. Van Sant and…
Business: Two pizza shop owners at odds over one name
Niccolò Machiavelli, author of The Prince, was a cunning adviser, adept at counseling his patrons, the Medici family, in matters of political intrigue. Luckily for him, though, the Medicis never owned a pizza joint. Because as a dispute between two local pizza owners shows, arguments in that business can get really tricky. The dispute came…
Media: …While other parts of the paper go to the dogs
While Pittsburgh Post-Gazette staffers wait to discover who’s staying and who’s going, the paper itself may be going to the dogs. The co-publisher’s dog, anyway. On Dec. 1, P-G staffer Linda Fuoco wrote a story about the benefits of dogs using treadmills for exercise. The story featured a photo of a 6-year-old basset hound named…
Media: P-G staffers begin taking buyouts …
Within the next several days, some of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s best-known correspondents — including an award-winning investigative reporter — will likely be disappearing from its pages. Earlier this year, the P-G’s parent company, Block Communications, announced sizable losses and negotiated a buyout offer with the paper’s nine unions. The deadline for accepting the buyout –…
Word Games
Pro-life group targets college newspapers with controversial ads
Several Conclusions layers blankets of sound atop chilly folk tunes
An appropriate soundtrack for sufferers of seasonal affective disorder.
When We Shine combines folk music and civic pride, with uneven results
Local folk veterans Rick Malis and Tom Breiding are paired with standout graduates of the Calliope Folk Music School.
Satin Gum’s debut EP offers plenty to chew on
Evoking bands like Dinosaur Jr. and Superchunk, they do an impressive job of capturing the fuzzy lo-fi joy of ’90s alternative rock.
Local singer-songwriter Joy Ike has the goods on Good Morning
Ike’s music would fit on a shelf with Alicia Keys, Norah Jones and Regina Spektor, and she cites Sufjan Stevens as an influence.
Burning Star Core plays Dynamo Sound Collective’s mini-fest of experimental noise
Even Burning Star Core’s tamer pieces tend to have a harsh undercurrent.
Canada’s Constantines sail down “Credit River” to Thunderbird Café this week
“Maybe before, people weren’t so terrified of their debt.”
Then and Now
She could be anyone — piano player, business-owner, mother, veteran — but still she looks like no one else.
Boyd & Blair Potato Vodka
Hand-crafted local vodka makes its mark.
How is the financial downturn affecting the local music scene?
“If you have a good band or DJ, people are still going to show up — they might just drink a couple less beers apiece.”
Savage Love
I am obsessed with my girlfriend sitting on my face, so I can eat her out while my nose penetrates her. It drives her crazy as well. I am wondering if you have heard of a dildo that could be mounted on my face, specifically on my nose, so that I penetrate her more deeply…
