Gun-control advocates take aim at NRA’s Sandy Hook response
As the National Rifle Association today called for armed guards in schools across the country, you could hear a collective groan from, well, everyone else not in the NRA. Among them, state Rep. Dan Frankel (D-Squirrel Hill) who released a statement this afternoon saying he was “alarmed and perplexed” by comments made today by Wayne…
NYT slideshow features the ‘Burgh
The New York Times featured Pittsburgh’s East End today in a vivid travel slideshow. It features fixtures along Penn Avenue, like Salt of the Earth and The Center for PostNatural History. Enjoy!
Stream This Ish: December 19 issue
Stream some tunes from the bands we wrote about in this week’s City Paper!
Heads Up: Morning headlines for Dec. 21
Today of course marks the onset of a new millennium, an era in which we can now access untapped reserves of spiritual power, and be more in touch with the cosmos and our place within it. And yet the Steelers are still only 7-7. On the other hand, the forecast is for snow, so you…
Lynn Cullen Live 12/21/12
Video Archive Phone guest: Elena Passarello, author of Let Me Clear My Throat; physiology, emotion of human voice; why we hate our own voice; whispering is bad for you; sexual vocal cords; Marlon Brando’s “Stella;” Rebel Yell; spelling out screams; Stella contest in New Orleans; women are better screamers; Mariah Carey can hit above a…
State launches new spending-transparency site
Touting a “new era of transparency and accountability,” Gov. Tom Corbett launched PennWATCH, the state’s transparency website. Users can view appropriations to agencies and funds from the state budget, as well as information on payments made by agencies, as well as personnel information ranging from the number of employees to their salaries. The state says…
Port Authority releases holiday transit schedule
The Port Authority of Allegheny County has announced its holiday bus, light rail and incline schedule. On Mon., Dec. 24, service will operate on weekday schedules, and the Downtown Service Center will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. On Tue., Dec. 25, the Downtown Service Center will be closed. The customer-service phone line…
Heads Up: Morning headlines for Dec. 20
Gee, who could have imagined THIS? According to state ethics filings, in July 2011 Gov. Tom Corbett apparently took a free weekend vacation from an executive with ties to the natural-gas industry. The trip’s $1,400 cost had not previously been included in Corbett’s financial statements — due to an oversight, the administration says. Executive John…
Lynn Cullen Live 12/20/12
Video Archive Guest: Tom Sokolowski; poignant moment of Obama’s first term; size of apples nowadays; apples for Christmas during the Great Depression vs. Apples for Christmas now; Obit: Robert Bork, conservative judge & Pgh native; removing an amendment; Charles Krauthammer is the meanest looking person alive, says Obama is excessively self-righteous; less is more; will…
Christmas Vacation tomorrow night for a good cause
The movie showing benefits a little girl with leukemia.
A holiday wish list for Bob Casey
Members of Working America today presented Sen. Bob Casey’s office with their Christmas “wish list,” asking the Democratic Senator to fight to preserve Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, while allowing President George W. Bush’s tax cuts to expire. “We’re calling on the Senator to galvanize his colleagues to protect our benefits,” said Benita Campbell, a…
More 2012 faves from our music writers
Some additions to our 2012 highlights feature.
Heads Up: Morning headlines for Dec. 19
Yesterday’s debate over whether to enforce on-street parking meters after 6 p.m. was bitter — featuring lots of class warfare and charges that mayoral politics were at work. And at the end of the day … council voted to have the debate all over again in a few months. Yes, Bill Peduto — who wants…
Plotting a Course: Corbett finally seems ready to deal with transportation funding
Since Gov. Tom Corbett took office, legislators, policy-makers and transit advocates have been calling on him to deal with the state’s transportation-funding dilemma. And for two years, Corbett has stayed generally silent — except to occasionally acknowledge it was a problem that had to be solved separately from the state budget, or to call on…
The Pittsburgh Green House shows that reducing energy use is easier than you think.
Pittsburgh Green House 308 N. Sheridan St. East Liberty Open 3-6 p.m. Wednesdays, during classes and by appointment 412-362-4744 or pittsburghgreenhouse.org From the outside, the Pittsburgh Green House looks pretty ordinary. The East Liberty building is two stories with an attic, sided with brick, and about 100 years old. If you own a home in…
Food Chain
It’s unseasonably warm this late fall Sunday afternoon, but that doesn’t stop them from lining up early, choking the sidewalk in front of the Coraopolis storefront at Fifth and Mill. They are young and old, black and white and brown, speaking a Rosetta Stone of languages. Their clothes are worn and tattered. Some are carrying…
Savage Love
I am a 17-year-old girl growing up in an adoptive family. I was sexually abused by my birth family, and I think it really fucked up my sexuality. The only thing that gets me off is the idea of people absolutely destroying their lives for an orgasm. I started with mild S&M stories and then…
Short List: December 19 – 25
SPOTLIGHT Sat., Dec. 22 — Comedy Pittsburgh is home to many talented improv groups, but they tend to be unknown to those outside the improv community. That’s why, since August, Steel City Improv Theater performer and instructor Brian Gray has produced a monthly Improv Double Feature at the Cabaret at Theater Square. “It’s a different…
Off the Wall’s Gruesome Playground Injuries
GRUESOME PLAYGROUND INJURIES continues through Dec. 29. Off the Wall Productions 25 W. Main St. Carnegie. $5-35. 888-718-4253 or insideoffthewall.org First things first: Congratulations to Off the Wall Productions for the opening of its new and handsome performance space in Carnegie. Since 2007, the company has been presenting surprisingly contemporary and adult fare in the…
Stack’d Burgers & Beer
Stack’d Burgers & Beer 728 Copeland St. Shadyside. 412-682-3354 Hours: Sun.-Wed. 4 p.m.-midnight; Thu.-Sat. 11 a.m.-1 a.m. Prices: $4-9 Liquor: Full bar In the beginning, restaurant burgers were thin — and cheap. If you wanted more, you’d order a double-decker deal with an extra patty. Then, a couple decades ago, bars started to distinguish themselves…
Portraits of local arts folks themselves comprise a fine exhibit at 707 Gallery.
COLTER HARPER & CAROLINA LOYOLA-GARCIA: AFTER DARK continues through Jan. 6. 707 Penn Gallery 707 Penn Ave. Downtown. 412-325-7017 Suddenly it seems there’s colored light everywhere: from the Greyhound Terminal to the top of Gulf Tower, from brightly hued compact fluorescents to the strings of cycling colors adorning half the back-bars in town. That is…
Food Gifts to Go
If you’ve waited until the last minute to get your Christmas gifts, Pittsburgh’s Strip District is a one-stop for anyone on your list who likes to eat. To cut down your shopping time, we’ve made a list of our favorite gift ideas: 1. Bacon of the Month Club — available at the Pittsburgh Public Market,…
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
The Hobbit Directed by: Peter Jackson Starring: Martin Freeman, Ian McKellan In English, and some Orc and Elvish, with subtitles In high frame rate 3-D, 3-D IMAX and 3-D in select theaters You might want to pack a lunch for this visit back to Middle Earth: Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is just…
Downtown’s Omni William Penn hotel revisits its Prohibition past
Pittsburgh drinkers have a long history of defying the prevailing liquor authorities. In the late 1800s, McKeesport barkeep Kate Hester coined the term “speakeasy” long before it became synonymous with Prohibition drinking dens: She told a boisterous crowd to “Speak easy, boys,” so lawmen wouldn’t be drawn to her unlicensed saloon. And at Prohibition’s height,…
Jack Reacher
Christopher McQuarrie’s film Jack Reacher, adapted from the Lee Child thriller, and set in Pittsburgh, starts with a bang. Well, a number of bangs, as a sniper picks off five folks strolling along the river by PNC Park. A man is arrested and an attorney (Rosamund Pilcher) is assigned; then a drifting stranger, a former…
When the weather gets cold, consider porridge
Tis the season to consider porridge. One, part of your inevitable New Year’s resolutions is likely to eat better, after the fatty, sugary excesses of the holiday season. Two, when it’s chilly, nothing makes a more satisfying start to the day than a hearty helping of hot cereal. Forget those whisper-thin flakes of bran struggling…
Django Unchained
The 1966 spaghetti Western Django spurred dozens of cinematic imitations and spin-offs, mostly of the grade-B or lower variety. So it’s no surprise that such an admirer and self-conscious re-imaginer of junky genre fare as Quentin Tarantino would get around to his own lurid version, Django Unchained. The story begins in 1858 Texas (helpfully subtitled…
Lynn Cullen Live 12/19/12
Video Archive Guest: Chris Potter; Obama speaks on gun control today; WQED 4802 Republicans on Sandy Hook; Hollywood & gun violence; NRA statement on Sandy Hook; no moderate middle ground to be found in America; party affiliation & gun ownership; Bowling for Columbine; macho American outlook; gun measures passed in Michigan; PA soon to allow…
Hits of 2012 (plus a few misses)
Read more We discuss more favorites (and un-favorites) on FFW>>, our music blog. The holidays are here, and for contentious music-lovers the best present of all is always speculation on the year’s best and worst albums, videos and live shows. We at City Paper have opted to take a more open-ended approach, highlighting the personal…
WDVE personality Bill Crawford is finally at the top of his comedy game, but it was a long road
BILL CRAWFORD 8 and 10 p.m. Fri., Dec. 21, and 7 and 9 p.m. Sat., Dec. 22. Pittsburgh Improv 166 E. Bridge St. The Waterfront West Homestead. $20. 412-462-5233 or pittsburgh.improv.com Dawn’s barely broken outside the DVE Morning Show studios, and inside, co-host Bill Crawford is apologizing profusely. But he’s doing so in the voice…
Dirty Faces return with their first album in more than five years
THE DIRTY FACES With The Bumps, The Working Poor, Tiny Little Help. 10 p.m. Sat. Dec 22. Gooskis 3117 Brereton St. Polish Hill. $5. 412-681-1658 Only just audible over the Monday-night din of Gooski’s back room, Dirty Faces front man Terry “T-Glitter” Carroll breaks down his lyrical content. “My songs are all about sex, drugs…
Potent verse fills Michael S. Begnal’s fourth collection
Seeking to recreate the world in words, some poets spread their text purposefully across the page, with big horizontal or vertical stretches of white space. In his fourth collection, Future Blues (Salmon Poetry), Michael S. Begnal uses this technique more often than most. But it’s a measure of Begnal’s skill that all that white space…
After 25 years, a glimpse of a mysterious North Side venue
Paper lanterns light the proscenium, ending a quarter-century slumber. Translucent shapes with dim skeletons cast a gauzy glow over the 200 listeners sitting on heavy wooden benches and the newly swept floor. At center stage is a pair of antlers — homage to the Elks’ heyday, when meetings drew 3,000 to this room. Sleep Experiments…
CD Reviews
The Garment District “Nature-Nurture” (Sonic Boom remix) b/w “Miraculous Metal”/”Vigor” (La Station Radar) The A-side of this 7-inch is a gorgeously weird mix of one of the songs from Jennifer Baron’s 2011 solo effort, re-tooled by Sonic Boom, of Spacemen 3 — it runs a jackrabbit’s course between an otherworldy realm (foregrounding Lucy Blehar’s vocals)…
Critics’ Picks: December 19 – 25
[POP-PUNK] + FRI., DEC. 21 For a little band from Pittsburgh, The SpacePimps aren’t doing too badly for themselves. The trio was chosen to open for Sum 41 on the Pittsburgh stop of the Does This Look Infected? Anniversary Tour last month and even recently had a song featured on MTV’s The Challenge. No big…
Silence Kills: Local mothers urging neighbors to speak up for their neighborhoods and for justice
In the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods, sometimes the littlest things can lead to the biggest problems: a bump of a grocery cart in the store, a toe stepped on, a few bucks owed. That can be all it takes for a gun to be pulled and a body to drop. “Doe” says he doesn’t fear…
