The Man on the Train
It is a headache that deposits aging professional bank-robber Milan in the path of retired schoolteacher Manesquier. They meet fortuitously, at twilight in Manesquier’s little town, where the drugstore is fresh out of aspirin and the chatty old teacher tells the taciturn stranger – who’s just arrived by train – that he can spare some…
Intacto
How would it feel to be the luckiest man on Earth – so lucky that you alone survive an airplane crash that kills 237 people’ And how would you use that luck, knowing that you could control the fate of others, especially in matters of life and death’ Fortunately, the slick Spanish supernatural thriller Intacto…
THE DANCER UPSTAIRS
For five bloody years, a revolution was taking place in one sleepy little nameless Latin American country, and the authorities never even realized it. To be fair, the revolutionaries announced themselves slowly, with a killing here, a car bombing there, none of it apparently connected and all of it easily attributable to the police or…
JAMES STREET TAVERN
I’d sure like to ramble south on a Louisiana eating tour, but most of my half-hearted plans are halted by the tumultuous nature of New Orleans’ night-life and weather. Don’t come now too many festivals happening, it’s too hot, hurricane’s a-comin’. The last time I dined in New Orleans was 1979 and all I recall…
No-Show and Tell
Pittsburgh has the second-largest school system in the state, with more than 35,000 youngsters enrolled. So why should a group of second- and third-grade city-dwellers have to share a teacher in a so-called “split” class, as in Little House on the Prairie? That’s what Harold McCoy, parent of a soon-to-be third-grader at West Liberty Elementary…
Sin Attacks
With the state Senate poised to vote on a bill expanding gambling as early as this week, the smart money says there will soon be slot machines at Pennsylvania racetracks. Gov. Ed Rendell favors the expansion, after all, and most of the debate on the issue in Harrisburg seems to be not whether to expand…
The Marzipan is the Message
Icing was strong enough to handle David Green’s first foray into political pastry-baking this spring: cookies bearing a peace sign or “war” circled and slashed in red. Now Green, owner of Sweetie Sweetie bakery in Regent Square, has gone where mere icing would not take him: a cookie protesting U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum prompted by…
Honk If You Love Health Care
Motorists denied access to a Downtown intersection during morning rush hour May 31 got a sense, at least symbolically, of what’s facing some of the purple-shirted protesters who blocked it: effective denial of access to affordable health care. About 150 University of Pittsburgh janitors and supporters organized by Local 585 of the Service Employees International…
Politics Makes for Strange Proofreaders
Who’s that guy Jim Roddey is running against? If you read a recent Roddey campaign fund-raising letter, you might not be sure. Roddey, the Republican Allegheny County executive, signed a May 13 letter asking recipients to donate anywhere from $35 to “$1,000 or more, in the enclosed envelope, so I can continue the progress we’ve…
It’s All Geek To Them
Sitting on a sun deck in the Oakland spring air above a coffee shop that offers wireless connection to the Internet, Mark Trumpbour tries to describe a hacker. “Wireless networks are a real security problem,” he says. “Imagine you’re shouting through a megaphone tuned to frequencies only dogs can hear. You’re broadcasting things like your…
A Conversation With Cornell Jones
Do you ever feel pressured to fill your father’s shoes? I don’t feel pressured. A lot of people say, “You have a lot of work to do to get to where your father was.” But my father always told me, “Don’t be like me; be better than me.” He was a mentor-and-a-half for me. I…
Jailhouse Crock
As I type, there are more than two million people behind bars in the United States. One of every four black men between the ages of 20 and 30 is incarcerated. Millions more people are on probation or parole. In fact, 1 of every 32 Americans is currently caught up in the criminal justice system.…
What’s Fare is Fair
If you want to know how hard times are, consider this: Pittsburgh, whose leaders spent the 1990s trying to make a “24-hour city” with new stadiums and Downtown shopping, is on the brink of losing its bus service after sunset. Thanks to dwindling state support and other fiscal challenges, the Port Authority is facing a…
You had to ask
Question submitted by: CELIA SHAPIRO, SQUIRELL HILL Charles Schwab was born in Williamsburg, Pennsylvania in 1862 and got his first job as a grocery clerk in Braddock. From there, he became the head of some of the world’s largest steel companies before dying almost penniless. It’s a rags-to-riches-to-rags story that Homestead itself – or any…
The New Alcindors
“Half-Stepper” b/w “Inseam” self-released Shade/The Silver Thread Split 7-inch record Psychodaisy I haven’t actually seen the Hollywood-ized remake of The Italian Job, but it doesn’t cost me any sleep to assume that even Ed Norton, with his deep-sea Hayak-ing skills and Fight Club rsum is nowhere near as cool as Michael Caine. Overall, it’s hard…
