Pa. House Speaker and Allegheny County Rep. Turzai skewered on ‘Last Week Tonight’
Comedian John Oliver calls out Pa. House Speaker Mike Turzai on his stance on voter-ID laws on last Sunday’s Last Week Tonight.
Listen Up! Feb. 17
Every Wednesday, we make a Spotify playlist containing tracks from artists mentioned in the current music section. Listen while you read!
County Democratic Party Chairwoman responds to criticism of the endorsement process
A candidate alleges that incumbents have an unfair advantage
A conversation with Chuck Ragan (Hot Water Music, Chuck Ragan and The Camaraderie)
“What amazed me the most is you think about all the choices you make through your whole life and all the paths and all the circumstances that brought you to where you are, right here, today.”
Kathleen Kane announces she won’t be running for re-election
Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane announced she won’t be running for re-election.
State House candidate criticizes Allegheny County Democrats’ endorsement process
Pennsylvania house candidate Jessica Wolfe says candidates aren’t given a fair shot at party endorsements.
Campaign 2016’s Silly Season: A Weekly Tweet Roundup Feb. 12
Campaign 2016’s Silly Season: A Weekly Tweet Roundup Feb. 12
City Paper obtains latest house-written amendments to Pennsylvania Senate’s medical marijuana bill
Pennsylvania’s medical-marijuana legislation should hit house floor in March.
What you need to know about Pittsburgh news this week
This week the National Aviary welcomes a baby sloth, award-winning history professor and New Yorker writer Jelani Cobb speaks at CMU, and Healthy Ride offers 2-for-1 Valentine’s Day bike rides.
United Steelworkers endorse Zappala for attorney general, local officials support Shaprio
election, April primary, attorney general, endorsements
Review: Jelani Cobb at Carnegie Mellon University
The historian and journalist explored race in America in a provocative talk
App developed in Pittsburgh facilitates conversations with a “synthetic” Charles Darwin
Local professors and game company bring Darwin interview to mobile devices.
New members of Allegheny County Jail Oversight Board nominated
The new appointees to the county’s Jail Oversight Board look to monitor health-care issues and insure recidivism rates decline.
Pittsburgh City Council approves resolution to change property assessment appeals
Pittsburgh City Council gives preliminary approval to a resolution changing the city’s property-assessment appeals process.
Final Weekend for “Some Brighter Distance” at City Theatre
Play about ex-Nazis in the U.S. space program continues through Sunday
Guys & Dolls at Pittsburgh Public Theater
GUYS & DOLLS continues through Feb. 28. Pittsburgh Public Theater, 621 Penn Ave., Downtown. $15.75-65. 412-316-1600 or ppt.org It’s odd to think that Damon Runyon, once a popular New York writer and journalist, is remembered not for his actual writing, but rather a work based on it. That would be the classic musical Guys &…
Stuff We Like
Feminist Sticker Club. Sign up and get stylin’ stickers with female-positive messages. It’s just $2.50 a month, and 10 percent goes to support feminist causes. www.feministstickerclub.com Seldom Seen Greenway. This green space on the border of Beechview and Mount Washington lives up to its name. A hilly mile-long hike ends near a creek and an…
A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Duquesne Red Masquers
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM continues through Feb. 21. Red Masquers at the Genesius Theater, Duquesne campus, Uptown. $6.50-16.50. duqredmasquers.com The Duquesne Red Masquers’ adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by John Lane, is a comical dive into Shakespeare’s fairy-land. The stage harkens to a 1960s theme, with tie-dyed sheets around the fairies’ cave, moons…
The Leaving
Here is the house erupting from my chest. I’ve crossed an ocean and taken it with me. Here is the eye blinking like a broken porch light. Hear the music as it passes through empty rooms? A woman’s voice now gone. Here is the pictureless frame hung from my lungs. And here are my hands,…
The Conservatory Dance Company’s Five
CONSERVATORY DANCE COMPANY performs FIVE Continues through Sun., Feb. 14. Pittsburgh Playhouse, 222 Craft Ave., Oakland. $20-24. 412-392-8000 or pittsburghplayhouse.com For a dancer, a career-ending injury can be one of life’s most traumatic events, altering one’s perception of self and miring the future in uncertainty. That was the case for Point Park University dance-department chair Rubén Graciani,…
Short List: February 11 – 16
SPOTLIGHT: Sat., Feb. 13 — Art You might know of Michael Chow as the founder of the Mr. Chow restaurants in New York and Los Angeles, or as an associate of such 1980s art-world luminaries as Andy Warhol and Keith Haring. But Chow, who was born in China, in 1939, has a complex life story…
Famed drummer/composer Stewart Copeland comes to town to premiere his Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra-commissioned orchestral work, Tyrant’s Crush
STEWART COPELAND with the PITTSBURGH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 8 p.m. Fri., Feb. 19, and 2:30 p.m. Sun., Feb., 21. Heinz Hall, 600 Penn Ave., Downtown. $20-94. 412-392-4900 or pittsburghsymphony.org “Well, it ain’t Mahler.” American composer Stewart Copeland is speaking over the phone from his home in California of his latest orchestral work, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra-commissioned Tyrant’s…
Wallace’s Tap Room
Wallace’s Tap Room 123 N. Highland Ave., East Liberty. 412-665-0555 Hours: Breakfast weekdays 6-10 a.m., weekends 6:30-10:30 a.m.; lunch daily 11 a.m.-2 p.m.; dinner 5-10 p.m. Prices: Starters, sandwiches and salads $5-16; entrees $18-36 Liquor: Full bar Gastropubs offer the pleasing comforts of pub grub without the greasy regrets and food-service ingredients. For friends meeting…
Hail, Caesar!
A quarter century after their acrid Barton Fink, Joel and Ethan Coen finally do Hollywood right — or wrong. Set in 1951, Hail, Caesar! revolves around a credulous leading man (George Clooney) kidnapped by Commies who serve finger sandwiches, and a beset studio head (Josh Brolin) who loves his job nonetheless. Shot in shimmering faux…
Feeney’s Weenies in Beechview is not serving your run-of-the-mill hot dog
FEENEY’S WEENIES 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday through Saturday. 2102 Broadway Ave., Beechview. 412-737-5720 What happens when four guys are sick of working for the man? They open a hot-dog shop. Well, that doesn’t happen every time, but for the owners of Feeney’s Weenies in Beechview, that was indeed the case. “Working for corporations sucked,” says…
Deadpool
The laughs started early at the Deadpool screening, with opening credits that promised: “some hot chick,” “a British villain,” “a CGI character” and “a gratuitous cameo.” And truly, Tim Miller’s adaptation of the Marvel comic did deliver all that and more. Deadpool offers a minimal story: Seeking a medical cure, a guy named Wade (Ryan…
North Side’s War Streets Brewery Moves Forward
Childhood friends Jake Bier and Zach Ingoldsby took to the spirit of collaboration early. Now, they are co-owners of the soon-to-open War Streets Brewery, a nanobrewery in the North Side; appropriately, Bier is the brewer. The brewery is taking shape on the first floor of a 138-year-old firehouse on Arch Street, with a projected mid-spring…
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Today’s world feels overstuffed with zombie entertainment, but, gentle people, it was far worse in 19th-century England, when the land was overrun with actual zombies. So it is in Burr Steers’ adaptation of the 2009 parodic novel, which inserted a zombie subplot into the original text of Jane Austen’s comedy of manners. As a film,…
Where to Invade Next
Michael Moore’s previous film essay was 2009’s Capitalism: A Love Story. He’s back with this new documentary that compares and contrasts various aspects of American institutional life to that of other countries. So Moore visits Italy to learn about its liberal vacation policies, France for healthful school lunches, Slovenia for free college, Norway for nice…
Saxophonist Hamiet Bluiett lends his distinct style to the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble
ETHNIC HERITAGE ENSEMBLE 7:30 p.m. Sat., Feb. 20. First Unitarian Church, 605 Morewood Ave., Shadyside. $16-20. 412-682-0591 A handful of baritone saxophonists have liberated the large instrument from its heavy look and low register. Others have been perfectly content to use it to blow some fat, low-end blues riffs. Hamiet Bluiett might be the only…
The Cactus Blossoms’ fresh sound is planted in classic country
You don’t have to listen to The Cactus Blossoms for very long to begin feeling nostalgic. Their sound is inspired by mid-20th-century country-and-western artists like Hank Williams, and the words such as “classic” and “traditional” are thrown around pretty liberally. But to classify the music of brothers Jack Torrey and Page Burkum that way would…
Members of the Pittsburgh jazz community represent at this year’s Jazz Connect Conference
Attracting a Younger Audience. The State of the Album in 2016. Adele. Two of those three topics were covered in panel discussions at the Jazz Connect Conference 2016 early last month in New York City. But even the British pop star’s name frequently popped up when discussing album sales and runaway hits, usually in the…
Critics’ Picks, Feb. 11-17
[PUNK] + THU., FEB. 11 Although Detroit’s Protomartyr is the big draw for tonight’s show at Brillobox, Priests, hailing from our nation’s capital, play a dancey yet apocalyptic style of post-punk that also deserves attention. Vocalist Katie Greer’s growls and screeches recall alternative heroines like Kim Gordon and Kathleen Hanna, and the band members righteous…
Turtle Creek’s mayor knows the damage heroin can inflict and she has a plan to stop it before it gets worse
Kelley Kelley was honest with voters when she campaigned three years ago for mayor of Turtle Creek, a Rust Belt town about 12 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. She told them her husband, Kevin, is a recovering heroin addict who was arrested nine years ago for a nonviolent crime. She said proper treatment, not jail time,…
The Carnegie looks at the built landscape of postwar Pittsburgh
IMAGINING THE MODERN continues through May 2. Carnegie Museum of Art, 4400 Forbes Ave., Oakland. 412-622-3131 or cmoa.org The curators might have called this exhibition “Representing the Modern,” for the many images and materials through which Pittsburgh’s post-World War II architecture and planning are illustrated. Similarly, it might have been “Constructing the Modern,” for the…
Negotiations unclear on Penn Plaza residents’ relocation in East Liberty
The residents of a soon-to-be vacated Penn Plaza building, in East Liberty, haven’t found a place to live. Last summer, LG Realty (run by the Gumberg family) announced 90-day evictions for residents of Penn Plaza, a two-building, below-market-rate apartment complex. After negotiating with the city and tenants, the owners extended the eviction dates for each…
Paula Bohince’s poetry collection Swallows and Waves
Ekphrastic poetry is by definition descriptive — usually of a work of art — yet the worst thing it can do is merely describe. Rilke, who intimately studied Picasso’s “La famille des saltimbanques,” made it the subject of his famous “Fifth Duino Elegy.” But rather than describe the canvas, he transfigured it. He metaphorically stole…
The Pittsburgh sports franchises that were
If at first you don’t succeed, cut your losses and move on. That’s a lesson learned by seven unsuccessful sports franchises who are the historic complements to Pittsburgh’s ultra-sucessful teams. This week, we take a look back at these epic fails, as the kids say these days. You might still see some of the team…
The Ballad of Emmett Till at New Horizon Theater
THE BALLAD OF EMMETT TILL continues through Sun., Feb. 14. New Horizon Theater at the Falk School, 4060 Allequippa St., Oakland. $20. newhorizontheater.org The story of Emmett Till is part of history, but the truths of the death of a 14-year-old Chicagoan at the hands of two Mississippian white supremacists in 1955 remain clouded. The…
Savage Love
Gay male in my late 20s. I recently ended things with a guy. Our relationship started as a strictly sexual one. We’re both involved in the kink scene in our city and have interests that align in a particularly great way. Quickly it became clear there was a real connection. The next two months were…
City Paper Podcast, or “Untitled” – Episode 004
This week, artist Ricardo Iamuuri talks about the importance of sound, and in our Sound Bite segment, we head to Dinner Lab for a Harry Potter-inspired menu.
National Aviary in Pittsburgh welcomes baby sloth
Video by Aaron Warnick
Lynn Cullen Live 2/09/16
Video Archive You can listen to the audio archive here. Sanders vs. Clinton debate rages on. How Susan met Hugh Downs. Free diver removes a hook from a shark’s mouth. Beyonce’s half time show. Audio Only Archive Listen to the Audio Archives on with our new Apple and Android Apps or the computer audio player.
