

Life in Balance releases Om to Ohm on Koch Records
“We spent ten years helping people relax. Now we want to wake them up on all levels — political, social, and emotional.”
There’s a great new work of architecture in, yes, Akron.
The threat of missing a building by Coop Himmelb(l)au was enough to get me in the car for the two-hour drive.
A Conversation with Patti Smith
“If I would’ve died when I was 27, I would’ve given the world probably hardly anything.”
Tusca Mediterranean Tapas
Roasted colossal shrimp lived up to their name: a trio of beyond-jumbo crustaceans, roasted to pink perfection, swimming in cilantro butter studded with preserved lemon.
Japan’s BREAKfAST offers daring feats of skatepunk
A punk show that’s well-rounded, just like the elusive “balanced breakfast” of commercial lore.
Rescue Dawn
Herzog’s seamless narrative holds our interest, but it does so largely without a point of view. The dialogue and the construction of character seem calculated to seem calculated, and nothing feels like an accident.
Flash Darlings play the Roboto Project and Diesel
“It’s not like when it started, with a bunch of kids running around and dancing, but it’s still a good place to play.”
Eagle vs. Shark
Whether Eagle finds a cult audience like its obvious antecedent Napoleon Dynamite remains to be seen. But those looking for an offbeat, occasionally funny, occasionally frustrating writ-small romance may find it.
Putting It on the Line
The minute I brought up my dissatisfaction with my City Paper paycheck, my mother said, “Listen, honey, I have eggs boiling and a bath running. I’d love to hear all about it, but I have to go,” and promptly hung up the phone. Too thick to take a hint, I walked over to my neighborhood…
The Trials of Darryl Hunt
Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg’s documentary demands that we take stock of what Hunt’s ordeal reveals about the justice system we believe in from a comfortable distance.
Condom-nation
Well, I never thought I’d see the day. Channel 4 — the station that gave us news anchor Kelly Frey gyrating around a stripper’s pole — has found something to be embarrassed by. Condom advertisements. On July 16, the New York Times reported that WTAE, along with KDKA and WPXI, had rejected TV ads submitted…
I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry
You know that jerky guy who cracks offensive jokes and then adds, “Just kidding — I love [insert denigrated group here ]”? That’s this movie.
Teeing Off
I would say I’m starting to feel slighted, but that would be a lie. I have long been concerned about Mayor Luke Ravenstahl’s outings, but for ever-so-slightly different reasons than the city’s ethics board. See, I remember sitting in the county executive’s office back in March, waiting for the mayor to show up for a…
Walking To Werner
Linas Phillips’ film diary of his walk from Seattle to Los Angeles to meet director Werner Herzog prompts a re-examination of his goals.
Going Through the Motions (July 17 & 18)
If you’re an entrepreneur hoping to open a bar on the South Side, you’d better try to run that liquor-license application through the system pretty soon or you’ll find yourself needing to fill out other paperwork first, like a zoning variance. Pittsburgh City Council passed preliminary legislation limiting the number of bars in area neighborhoods.…
Letters to the Editor: July 25 – August 1
Feedback from our readers
A Pittsburgh doctor’s mid-life crisis fuels Dr. Ravi & Mr. Hyde.
The trouble isn’t that Dr. Ravi is a vanity film about a vanity film; it’s that Godse suffers so many pitfalls of the novice filmmaker.
A Tough Hill to Climb
Bomani Howze arrived early at the Irene Kaufmann Auditorium on July 11, armed with fliers and a disarming smile. Around him, residents of the Hill District and activists from nearly 100 community groups filed into the Centre Avenue building. The room buzzed with the energy of an election day, and for good reason: Attendees were…
The revelatory Carryin‘ On showcases Teenie Harris’ photos of queer nightlife in the mid-century Hill District.
From cross-dressers onstage at Little Paris to nude men changing clothes in an unidentified backstage area, it’s as though Harris were compelled to document every aspect of life.
Homeless: The Musical
The good news is that when a cast features performers as strong as Grant Bojarski, Chris Sullivan, Gayle Pazerski and Jill Jeffrey, we get a clearer of picture of what work needs to be done.
Big Mamas House of Soul
Seventeen ingredients comprise “Big Mama’s Soppin’ Sauce,” a sauce secret so closely guarded that customers are shooed outside until the covert operation is complete.
Pittsburgh n’@
From: http://theburghblog.com/ So when I leave the U.S., the Pittsburgh Public Schools were going to be called the Pittsburgh Schools. Apparently while I was away, all sorts of shit hit the fan because upon my return, I see it’s back to being the Pittsburgh Public Schools. Besides the fact that I couldn’t care less what…
Company
Director Rob James locates the show’s staccato pulse and drives it with ruthless, urgent pace.
After-effects
While forces on either side of the abortion debate may never agree, they do sometimes share ideas on the services that should be available to a woman after she terminates a pregnancy. To be sure, the debate over what happens to women after an abortion has at times been a second front in the battle…
The Love Talker
Put away thoughts of kid-friendly fairy tales: These are scary spirits, drawing much from Irish lore with a dollop of Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market,” and transported to the backwoods of the Clinch Mountains in Virginia.
Proposed federal halfway house axed
A controversial proposal to house ex-offenders in an East Liberty apartment complex is dead, say neighborhood advocates and federal authorities.
A Conversation with Andy Chomos
“If you’re unhappy with how baseball is being run in Pittsburgh, you had a great chance to make a statement, and you chose to pass on it. Not a lot of people have the guts to stand up and do something.”
Art or obscenity?
Karen Fletcher’s prosecution for obscenity is akin, her attorney Lawrence Walters has claimed, to a thought crime.
Savage Love
I’m a 31-year-old attractive single woman, and I recently went on Match.com and found a guy. Our e-mails and one phone conversation went well and he seemed kind and was OK-looking in his picture, so I met him for drinks. It was disappointing, to say the least. He looked 15 years older than his picture…
OneHood says city’s livability depends on where you actually live.
Activists and concerned community members gathered July 19 to dispel beliefs that Pittsburgh is “America’s Most Livable City,” and urge people to act on improving the city’s troubled African-American communities. Nearly a dozen speakers spent two hours talking about the problems facing many struggling city neighborhoods, and the overall message was clear: Talk is cheap,…
A local poet publishes her riveting first collection.
Most of the poems are told in the first person, but at once with deep feeling and devoid of sentimentality, as though she’s in complete empathy with a protagonist whom she’s also capable of observing with near-scientific detachment.
Innovative cellist Erik Friedlander performs at Pitt
“I’d always thought of the bow as the voice of the cello. So then I turned that on its head, using the pizzicato.”
A workshop for Braddock kids spawns a show of zines.
“A lot of them are showing a lot of promise,” Rottmund says about the young zinesters. “They all have been incredibly creative.”






