Good to the last drop: Instant Coffee at Remedy Thursday night
Improv fans, a heads-up: a fairly late-notice show that didn’t make it into the paper takes place tomorrow night at Remedy (5121 Butler St., Lawrenceville). Headlining is supertrio Instant Coffee, featuring Canadian experimenter Lisle Ellis, ex-Half Japanese personnel Jason Willet, and Martin Schmidt of MATMOS. Expect electronics, bass, and weirdness. Opening will be local luthier…
Unseam’d Shakespeare’s Macbeth 3
Cross-gender casting is less controversial (and sometimes more interesting) than cross-racial casting. Pittsburgh’s own August Wilson inveighed against the latter, and he had a point: Works like his, set in very specific times and places, are largely about the culture that grew from America’s history of racial oppression. They simply wouldn’t make sense with white…
MP3 Monday: Dirty Faces
Welcome to Championship Monday in Pittsburgh! In honor of the unprecedented sporting year of 2009 here in town, we bring you a special, themed MP3 Monday: some champs of the rock scene, Dirty Faces, saluting a champ of Steelers history, Rocky Bleier. You know, the guy who took a grenade in Vietnam then promptly returned…
Penguins
I live on the South Side, and my wife and I watched Game 7 at a favorite East Carson watering hole. We started our walk home in the middle of the on-ice Cup-hoisting ritual, but got only as far as the corner of 17th before we stopped to watch the ruckus in fan-clogged streets. It…
Short List: Week of June 11 – 18
In the 40 years since the riots at New York’s Stonewall Inn galvanized the LGBT community into organized action against systematic oppression, there have been ups and downs, but plenty worth celebrating. This week, Pittsburgh’s community and allies do just that. 2009 Pittsburgh Pride — Your Rights, Our Rights, Human Rights begins Thu., June 11,…
Creative Spark
How Mike Tamburo achieved enlightenment — and nearly burned down his house in the process
Vision Quest
Pittsburgh musician Mike Tamburo searches for art, enlightenment and the ultimate truth
The Thaw
A poem by Barbara Alsko
The Solid Gold Cadillac
The show is stopped short every time to make room for the gags … and this isn’t a script you wanna linger over.
Macbeth 3
The performances are exemplary — Lisa Ann Goldsmith as Macbeth, Rich Venezia as the Lady (and no drag), and the spookily androgynous Jennifer Tober as various thanes, witches, etc.
Harry’s Friendly Service
Zellers has taken on big issues, tough characters, difficult choices, but in the end, the playwright obeys his crowd-pleasing impulse.
Shall We Kiss?
What could come of a simple kiss? That’s the question posed by the first two protagonists of writer-director Emmanuel Mouret’s relationship comedy. They are nameless strangers who, having met and shared a pleasant evening, now ponder how to say goodbye — if at all. So, the woman relates a tale of her seemingly happy friends…
Management
This is one of those frustrating movies: You can see where it wants to go, yet it just misses the mark. Writer-director Stephen Belber’s small-scale dramedy takes place over a year or so, when two lonely folks bump into each other and sporadically meet for awkward, incomplete follow-ups. You kinda hope they make a meaningful…
The Girlfriend Experience
In his new film, Soderbergh tells the story of Chelsea, a prostitute who doesn’t merely charge an extra $50 to swallow. As played by the adult-film star Sasha Grey, making her legit debut, Chelsea actually “dates” her clients: dinner, a movie, conversation, canoodling, maybe sex — whatever. She’s not exactly a candidate for the whores…
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
The old film didn’t need a facelift, and even if you’re just in the market for a popcorn action film, this is a pretty middling offering. After a four-man team (headed by John Travolta) hijack a New York City subway train, a dispatcher (Denzel Washington) plays negotiator. Pelham has likable A-list stars — and never…
Vietnam’s Pho
The iconic beef soup is the namesake of this new Vietnamese restaurant.
This Just In: June 11 – 18
Highlights from the local TV news: scandal in Beaver!
Day Break
Commuters urged to hop on their bikes during ‘Car-Free Fridays’
Mayor Image
Independent candidate will have to overcome past party contributions
On With ‘The Show’
Aliquippa’s Verquan Kimbrough coming back in a big way.
A belated love-letter to New Kids on the Block
“Now that you and the rest of the guys have careers far beyond your pop music past, I look at you and I still see my very first crush.”
Bachelorette brings her electric family to Garfield Artworks.
“I don’t like bossing people around, but computers are just sitting there waiting to do what they’re told.”
Local band Gramsci Melodic combines synths, politics and upbeat rock on new release
“Suddenly it was like someone put smelling salts under my nose.”
Legendary backing musician Booker T. takes center stage at the Three Rivers Arts Festival
“Going into the studio, playing and recording — it still churns in me the same things that were churning in me when I was 16, 17 years old.”
An exhibit at Wood Street Galleries gives electronic glitches free rein.
This is what the TV and computer screen do in the basement, when Mom and Dad are out.
Fabric artist Tina Williams receives one of the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts’ rare Lifetime Achievement Awards.
“I speak for those who have no voice,” she says. “I’m very blessed to be a conduit.”
At the PCA, a revue of animation shorts explores the form with weirdness and humor.
Christiansen’s world is unpredictable and largely broken; there’s plenty of blood, tears and excrement, but all of these lead to better things, a nonsense cycle of destruction, rebirth and beach songs.
The Goodie Truck
No one is too old to chase down an ice-cream truck. But, with age, the taste for rainbow-colored high-fructose corn syrup tends to recede — which is why it’s fortunate that Pittsburgh now has a more adult traveling dessert truck. In October, Millie Gregor and Jajean Morgan hit the streets in a modified mini-school bus…
Belvedere’s offers a laptop battle and record fest this weekend
“All you can bring is a laptop, and all material has to be your own stuff.”
Letters to the Editor: June 10 – 17
Important news: Mon-Monkeys do not exist.
Savage Love
I am a 28-year-old straight woman who has been dating a 24-year-old straight male. Recently, I gave him oral sex while he was seated naked on my couch. The next day, I noticed a brown stain on the cushion that looked highly suspicious. The stain had a streakish quality and was located where his buttcrack…
