Various Artists
Listening to “Summer Down,” “One Love,” “Wages of Love” and other irrepressible hits on One Love: Bob Marley & the Wailers at Studio One, it’s easy to see why the names Studio One, Brentford Road and Clement S. Dodd still resonate today … 50 years after Dodd opened his Kingston studio…
Penn Brewery
Location: 800 Vinial St., North Side. 412-237-9402 Hours: Mon.-Thu. 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat. 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Prices: Appetizers $4-9; entrées $10-17 Fare: German-American Atmosphere: German beer hall Liquor: Full bar Smoking: Designated areas Penn Brewery does spectacular business during its Oktoberfest, held each September, but you’re doing a disservice to yourself if you wait until…
The Da Vinci Code
Ron Howard’s page-by-page adaptation of The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown’s mega-best-selling religious conspiracy thriller, begins, as it must, on page one. To wit: An elderly man is running fearfully along the Louvre Museum’s famed parquet floors, pursued by a hooded albino monk. After a curious exchange between the two, the monk shoots the old…
Inclusion Conclusion
Chris Carrick spent much of his first 12 years of school looking for help fitting in. He seems to have spent his last four years learning another lesson in college — the value of fitting in just the way you want to. Chris has Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of high-functioning autism. He qualified for grade-school…
Take My Eyes
If Iciar Bollain’s Take My Eyes is reliable evidence, then the phenomenon of the abused woman is something new in Spain … not that it hasn’t always happened, but rather that Spanish women have let it happen without complaint, and that Spanish men thought it was their right to hit their wives. …
Taking it to Hart
Welcome to an ugly, nasty, down-and-dirty political contest. Pardon my glee, but I love a good campaign scrap. This one has been a bit under the radar, but the 4th Congressional District race between Democrat Jason Altmire and Congresswoman Melissa Hart is coming out of the closet. Jason has known Missy Hart for years. He’s…
Classe Tous Risques
The French once loved American cinema so much that they named one of its most famous genres: Film noir, born in Hollywood, earned its nom d’art from the critics of Cahiers du Cinema, whose young writers eventually launched the French New Wave. Many of those films and their makers became famous … Godard’s Breathless was…
Women’s Football Passion Play
Seated right at the 50-yard line, surrounded by about 4,000 other fans at the home opener at Cupples Stadium, are a group of die-hard fans. They never miss a game and follow the team on the road. They are loud, obnoxious, and decked out in black and gold; they chant “dee-fense” and exhort the refs…
WATER
The last of Deepa Mehta’s “elemental” trilogy, this gorgeously filmed and beautifully acted drama exposes the life of deprivation that widows faced in India under traditional religious laws. Set in 1938, as Gandhi and other progressives campaigned for modernizing such social codes, Water focuses on one widow’s house, where the women’s lives are crippled with…
The Pay Raise’s Revolting Developments
The May 16 primary, we’re told, was the beginning of a popular revolt. A rebellion against the depraved culture of Harrisburg, as demonstrated by last year’s legislative pay raise. Activists from across the political spectrum — red-faced conservatives, reform-minded centrists, even left-leaning feminists — are waving the red flag of revolution. Few of them seem…
Voting Wrongs
Mary grabbed the banister with both hands … as though it were the rope to a lifeboat … gingerly making her way down the steep steps that lead to the cafeteria of Immaculate Conception School in Bloomfield, her polling station during the May 16 primary. At 82, this avid voter confessed that she…
Bitter Pills
It’s safe to say that medicine is in Bernard Rottschaefer’s blood. His great-grandfather was a country doctor in rural Wrightsville, Pa. An uncle and several cousins were also in practice, while an aunt spent her life as a medical missionary in India. Rottschaefer too was always fascinated by medicine. After graduating in 1971 from the…
Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero
Like author David Maraniss, we come to praise Roberto Clemente. But still: Doesn’t it seem as though, in the past half-century’s pantheon of Pittsburgh sports heroes, Clemente stands alone, more in mere solitude than in anything else? True, we named a bridge after the guy, and his statue’s at the end of it.…
Anti-Immigration Signs Walk Borderline
Driving past the Casa D’Ice restaurant, on Route 30 in North Versailles, can seem a bit like tuning in to Rush Limbaugh … except without the option to turn the dial. The restaurant’s marquee out front, updated every few weeks, serves as a soapbox for the political observations (and, occasionally, the pasta and drink specials)…
Health-care:Reform Gains Lawmaker’s Help … Only Because it Won’t Matter
Congressman John Conyers came to Squirrel Hill’s Temple Sinai synagogue to drum up support for universal health coverage on May 21. But it was Pittsburgh’s hometown rep, Mike Doyle (D-Swissvale), who created the most excitement … and then quickly moved to dissipate it. Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, was in town to promote HR 676,…
Making Music Week Strong for City’s 250th
Ryan Walsh is leading the effort to plan a week-long music festival to mark Pittsburgh’s 250th birthday in 2008. The good news is that he’s got a diverse team of young Pittsburghers ready to tackle the project, and $12,000 so far to put it on. The sobering news is that the festival will be modeled…
Shuffling Through Slate Card Shenanigans
When she’s in a bad mood, Oakland resident Janet Markowitz calls her party leaders “Demorats.” While they “are philosophically more congruent with my thinking,” she says, “people are tired of these political hacks.” She may be right, judging by complaints from those who, like Markowitz, ran for party committee slots in the May 16…
DJ Supa C.
We’re in the basement of Dave’s Music Mine in the South Side, where the weight of the upper floors is supported by long tree trunks situated amongst collections of cassettes and vinyl. As DJ Supa C. talks, his ass balances on a row of records filed in the shelves. One row of vinyl…
A Conversation with Greg Heller-LaBelle
What does a college senior of the year look like? According to the honorary society Omicron Delta Kappa, this year he looks like Greg Heller-LaBelle. He carried four majors (English writing, psychology, religious studies and art history) at the University of Pittsburgh while serving two years running as editor-in-chief of the daily Pitt News and…
ThouShaltNot
Land Dispute is the fourth full-length album by Pittsburgh-based trio ThouShaltNot since the group’s late-’90s inception, in Cleveland. With origins in a city known for electro-goth, new wave, synth-pop, dark-wave, and industrial music, it makes sense that the band’s music falls across … if not within … those scene-specific sub-genres. The first things you…
