Lynn Cullen Live 03/06/12
Video Archive Phone guest: Susan; Missouri erecting a statue of Rush Limbaugh; Republican candidates in S. Carolina must sign pledge to not have pre-marital sex, not be in favor of same-sex rights, no longer look at porn….right; Wyoming Repubs: “Things happen quickly, you know. Look at Libya;” Boy Scouts are fascists whereas Girl Scouts are…
Center for PostNatural History at Unblurred
Richard Pell’s new Garfield storefront venue was the hot ticket at the monthly Penn Avenue gallery crawl on Friday night. Within a half-hour of its opening, there were enough people inside that you couldn’t get to any of the phone receivers wired to display cases that Pell has built to inform visitors about genetically engineered…
Lynn Cullen Live 03/05/12
Video Archive Video archive currently unavailable. Please check back or listen to the audio only version below. Rush’s apology; 7 advertisers pulled their commercials from his show; Repubs want to bomb Iran, but they’re afraid of Rush?; tomorrow is Super Tuesday – – will Romney clean up?; NYT on Santorum’s religious fervor; thoughts on abortion;…
Lynn Cullen Live 03/02/12
Video Archive False equivalency in the news media; Rush Limbaugh crosses the line – calls girl a slut because she spoke out about wanting birth control to be insured; when your public actions are poisonous, your obituary shouldn’t be pleasant; Repubs want to take America back….waaaay back; the only thing more upsetting than Limbaugh’s remarks…
Pittsburgh Symphony Benefit Concert in Wilkinsburg
The PSO’s ongoing series of low-cost community concerts continues next Tuesday. This one, at Wilkinsburg High School , kicks off the borough’s 125th-anniversary festivities. Tickets for the concert are $10 for adults and $5 for students, with ten adult tickets available for the discounted price of $75. The concert, to be led by PSO assistant…
Lynn Cullen Live 03/01/12
Video Archive Guest: Tom Sokolowski; death of Andrew Breitbart, ambush journalist & co-founder of Huffington Post; Tom & Lynn’s interactions with Arianna Huffington; PETA’s shelter kill rates; a status symbol to say you have a “rescue;” Federal judge sends out racist email about Obama; Catholic priest refuses lesbian communion at her own mother’s funeral, walks…
Transit users, some in tears, warn of fallout from proposed transit cuts
Tina Janoss’s voice broke as she explained the implications of cutting bus service in her Homestead neighborhood. Her son has special needs; her husband also suffers from multiple health issues. She says her family of four can’t afford a car, and she already walks to work. If Port Authority officials carry out proposed service cuts,…
EDMC fights on in court, Congress
The United States Department of Justice says it has never condoned the incentive-based recruiter compensation plan of Pittsburgh–based for-profit educator Education Management Corporation … despite the company’s claim to the contrary in a federal lawsuit. On Feb. 3 EDMC filed a motion to dismiss a civil lawsuit filed by several states and the United States.…
Loft parties pop up in Lawrenceville this month
Pop-up retail has gained purchase in recent months as a trendy way to fill vacant spaces in Pittsburgh; booksellers and other hawkers of wares might set up shop for a month or two, then pack it in and move on. Still rare, though, is the pop-up music venue. But this month, developer Brian Mendelssohn is…
Caravan of Thieves plays pop with a vaudeville twist
CARAVAN OF THIEVES with JEREMY SESSA. 7 p.m. Sat., March 3. Club Café 56 S. 12th St. South Side. $10. 412-431-4950 or clubcafelive.com At every tour stop, the members of Caravan of Thieves stop at a thrift shop to add to their collections of two things that have become as essential to them as guitar…
Rivka mixes chill soundscapes and crunk beats
Let’s face it: “Chillwave” has become a lackluster blanket term to throw over music that’s pretty and synth-heavy. To label Rivka as chillwave, then, would be lazy — but to reject the term entirely would be to ignore a large part of the duo’s sound and influences. While its music follows that ethos of dreamy…
A new exhibition highlights the crossroads of contemporary art and science
INTIMATE SCIENCE continues through Sun., March 4. Miller Gallery CMU campus Oakland. 412-268-3618 or millergallery.cfa.cmu.edu Philip Ross’ sculptures might be ancient or ahead of their time — prehistoric or post-apocalyptic. They are both beautiful and bulletproof — literally: His component bricks are feather-light and Kevlar-tough. And with them, Ross has built work that similarly crosses…
Critics’ Picks: March 1 – 6
[POST-INDUSTRIAL] + THU., MARCH 1 Puscifer started as a joke — a made-up band in a sketch on Mr. Show. It’s debatable exactly what it is now. Fronted by Tool and A Perfect Circle head man Maynard James Keenan, the group mixes performance art, Keenan’s solo compositions and aesthetics that are generally rough around the…
Art book You’ll Find This Offensive strives to live up to its title
“Sometimes it’s the subtlety of art that makes it effective,” the artist known as Jeff Outlaw writes in the introduction to the new book You’ll Find This Offensive. “Sometimes it is the boldness that makes an impact. This book is about the latter.” The 38-page book of images ($35), compiled by Outlaw and his cohorts…
On the Record with Dion Lunadon of A Place to Bury Strangers
A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS with SAINT MOTEL, SLINGSHOT GENIUS. 6:30 p.m. Wed., March 7. Shadow Lounge 5972 Baum Blvd. East Liberty. $8-10. 412-363-8277 or shadowlounge.net A Place to Bury Strangers brings its searing, industrial indie rock to the Shadow Lounge on March 7, continuing the band’s tour behind the new release Onwards to the…
M33
M33 continues through Sun., March 4. Pittsburgh Playhouse 222 Craft Ave. Oakland. pittsburghplayhouse.com It sounds like such a cute idea: Get a bunch of people together, and make them dance until they can’t dance anymore. What could be more fun than music, two-steps and a little healthy competition? But the dance marathons of the 1930s…
Uphill Climb: Perry Hilltop struggles to keep pace with changes on the North Side
To climb up Perrysville Avenue is to see the traces of a once-bustling neighborhood: rows of rusted parking-meter poles, overgrown lots and dilapidated buildings all signal a community that has withered. Such is the scene in Perry Hilltop, which — like a lot of North Side neighborhoods — has suffered from population loss, a depressed…
Sweeney Todd
SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET continues through Sat., March 3. Philip Chosky Theater Carnegie Mellon campus, Oakland. 412-268-2407 Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is scary! And not just because this musical by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler is about a barber who kills his customers and has his neighbor,…
Cutting Deep: Corbett budget would put social services further out of reach
If you’re one of the nearly 16,000 Pennsylvanians waiting to receive services for Down syndrome, autism or another intellectual disability, you may be waiting a long time. “The only way a person can get any services or support is if someone passes away or someone leaves the state,” says Sheila Stasko, statewide coordinator of the…
The Elephant Man
THE ELEPHANT MAN continues through Sun., March 4. New Hazlett Theater 6 Allegheny Square North Side. 412-394-3353 or primestage.com In 1981, a young Mark Hamill took the title role of The Elephant Man, by Bernard Pomerance. Hamill was a Star Wars superstar, recognized everywhere as the original Jedi. What would compel Tatooine’s finest to play…
At East End Book Exchange, Lesley Rains tries to find new bookselling niche
A winter Sunday in the Pittsburgh Public Market, Smallman Street, Strip District. The money to adapt and re-use this chunk of the old Pennsylvania Railroad Produce Terminal apparently didn’t go into heat: People are bundled in scarves and overcoats, wandering, sampling, buying. A man in blue jeans, leather jacket and Penguins cap walks into the…
Lynn Cullen Live 02/29/12
Video Archive Guest: Chris Potter; leap years & presidential elections; Santorum’s recent comments may have cost him yesterday’s primaries; what IS the Repubs definition of “elitist” anyway?; how Lynn made Olympia Snow laugh; the Trib’s cover story screw-up; Presidents who lost re-election years; Ben Franklin….blanket hog?; when Romney tries to relate to regular people, he…
Savage Love
I had a threesome with my husband and another woman because I am GGG and that’s always been a fantasy of his. I laid out my ground rules, and they were violated. (I said I was uncomfortable with his P in her V, and I ended up watching them fuck.) I didn’t stop it at…
Acclaimed choreographer offers a ballet based on a physics book
ARMITAGE GONE! DANCE performs Three Theories 8 p.m. Sat., March 3. Byham Theater 101 Sixth St. Downtown. $19-45. 412-456-6666 or trustarts.org As the subject for a ballet, you can’t get much headier than theories on how the universe works. But don’t tell that to award-winning choreographer Karole Armitage. It took Armitage five years to distill…
Meat and Potatoes
Meat and Potatoes 649 Penn Ave. Downtown. 412-325-7007 Hours: Mon.-Thu. 5 p.m.-11 p.m.; Fri.-Sat. 5 p.m.- midnight; Sun. 4-9 p.m. Prices: Salads and appetizers $7-14; pasta and entrees $16-24
Act of Valor
Act of Valor Directed by Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh In English, with some Spanish and Russian, with subtitles Timing is everything. This film, which purports to reveal the heretofore-unknown awesomeness of the Navy’s special-forces unit, a.k.a. SEALs, has been in the making for years. But some of Act of Valor’s thunder has surely been…
Hot cocktails a winter attraction at Murray Avenue Grill
The weather this winter might be less bracing than the past few years, but even without a Snowmageddon forcing you indoors, hot cocktails are still a great way to warm your bones while waiting for summer. After all, spring is still nearly a month away. Hot spiked drinks are a traditional way to fight off…
The Lorax
In a parallel world, humans live in an entirely plastic city, having long ago destroyed all the natural vegetation. They think they’re happy, until one tween leaves the walled city in search of what happened to the trees. In the devastated outlands, he meets a hermit who tells him of the once-verdant landscape and the…
Station Street
There was, frankly, a lot of excitement surrounding the recent re-opening of East Liberty’s Station Street hot doggery. It’s the second venue for Salt of the Earth’s acclaimed chef Kevin Sousa; it promised exotically dressed dogs; and brought life back to a venue that had been open off and on since 1915. The basic menu…
Chico and Rita
Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal’s Oscar-nominated animated film about Cuban musicians is a visual and musical treat, an homage to the enduring power of music and love. In 1948 Havana, a talented pianist and songwriter named Chico meets the beautiful and strong-willed Rita, who possesses a sultry singing voice. They team up — romantically and…
Short List: March 1 – 8
Unblurred is the Penn Avenue Arts District’s monthly gallery crawl, with more than a dozen venues hosting exhibits, performances and activities from 4800 to 5500 Penn, in Garfield, Bloomfield and Friendship, and more nearby. Highlights of the Fri., March 2, Unblurred (www.friendship-pgh.org/paai) include: 1) 4913 Penn: Grand opening of the Center for PostNatural History, Carnegie…
Project X
Three nobodies in high school decide to throw an epic party to boost their reputations, in Nima Nourizadeh’s raucous comedy. The trio is familiar: Thomas (Thomas Mann), the sweet nerd a la Michael Cera; Costa (Oliver Cooper), the brash blowhard; and JB (Jonathan Daniel Brown), the chubby, bespectacled guy. Likewise the first hour is what…
Wanderlust
After losing their jobs and their Manhattan “micro-loft,” George (Paul Rudd) and Linda (Jennifer Aniston) retreat to the safety of kinfolk in suburban Atlanta. But a plot device finds them off the beaten path, trying out new personal discoveries at a free-love commune. There, everything unfolds as you’d expect: The off-the-grid kookiness makes them happy,…
We Need to Talk About Kevin
Lynne Ramsay’s slow-burn drama tackles the difficult relationship between a mother and the teen-age son she has long believed is willfully bad. Told in a nonlinear fashion, through flashbacks and disconnected snippets, the film slowly introduces the viewer to Eva (Tilda Swinton), a travel writer who has a child named Kevin with her photographer husband…
Note to female-type citizens: Here’s why you need to seek more (pro-choice) female candidates
If you read this blog, chances you are a remarkably informed citizen. (Not to mention your keen taste for luminous prose!) So you’ve probably heard the furor surrounding House Bill 1077, Harrisburg’s charmingly misnamed “Women’s Right to Know Act.” This is the legislation that requires any woman seeking an abortion to get an ultrasound first,…
