Plan of Attack
“I just want people not to think like victims,” says Sean Rackley. “I see a great deal of assault when people are thinking like victims.” Rackley is a third-degree black belt in the Tetsu Ryu Taijutsu (Ninjutsu), which combines several Japanese martial arts. Earlier this year he opened Dojo Tetsu Ryu (“Iron Dragon Training…
Not Aboding Well
As with nearly everything in Pittsburgh, the continued loss of subsidized housing for those with low income or disabilities is practically a neighborhoods issue. Marvin Harpool of East Liberty, on the board of National Alliance of HUD Tenants, joined two dozen or so local activists in front of the Federal Building Downtown on Oct.…
Bunny Five Coat
After spending a day in my punk-rock class on thunderous Pittsburgh punk coven Bunny Five Coat, here’s what their page in my AC/DC-lightning-bolt-inscribed notebook looks like: Bunny Five Coat dislikes: womanizers, fakes, the imposition of fashion-model culture and standards onto everyday life, the government, the whole hegemony in general. Bunny Five Coat likes:…
Laibach
At this point, what late ’70s or ’80s punk/post-punk artists aren’t either plotting a comeback or attempting a resurgence? It’s no different with industrial music, a movement that took post-punk to extremes, incorporating Futurist manifestos, Dadaist cutups and Fluxus performance art along with an underground current of harsh-edged electronic noise that eventually softened into dance-club…
ERASE ERRATE
Not a whole lot of good came out of the Bay Area dot-com crash, but for the legions of starving artists who’d found themselves literally priced out of the area during the bull market, the episode reverberated as one giant sigh of relief. Cheap rents, of course, often translate into an active arts community, and…
Intolerable Cruelty
George Clooney is a joke, and he knows it: Here’s this wickedly — no, appallingly — no, insufferably — handsome man, and in his best movies, he’s thoroughly comfortable making goofy faces and inviting you to laugh at him. It makes no difference that he finally gets the girl (or whatever). Off screen, Clooney is…
Autumn Spring
Fanda Hána is a rogue. With his old friend Ed, the septuagenarian roams the Prague subway, claiming to be a ticket checker, and letting a trio of pretty girls pass without tickets if each girl gives each man a kiss. Fanda Hána is a thief. Posing as a man of unlimited means, he tours an…
Mystic River
Katie is the apple of her daddy’s eye. So when she’s shot dead one night, it hits their working-class Boston neighborhood like an earthquake. Katie’s father, Jimmy Markum (Sean Penn), craves revenge, and he’ll flout the law to get it. And the lead cop on the case is a state police detective named Sean Devine…
Queer and Here
The 18th annual Pittsburgh International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival kicks off this Friday with a sneak preview of the outrageous British black comedy 9 Dead Gay Guys, and over the next nine days, the PILGFF will host a variety of films featuring gay characters and lifestyles. From a documentary on Bayard Rustin, a gay…
BEST OF PITTSBURGH 2003
Click on the links below to read stories about selected winners of this year’s “Best of Pittsburgh” readers’ poll. ARTS & ENTERTAINMENTBest commercial art galleryConcept Art Gallery1031 S. Braddock Ave., Regent Square, 412-242-92002nd: Boxheart Expressions3rd: Mendelson Gallery Best museumCarnegie Museum of Art and Natural History4400 Forbes Ave., Oakland, 412-622-31312nd: The Andy Warhol Museum3rd: Mattress Factory…
Deek
“A forceful, unbound distraction” is what editor Matt Stroud hopes you’ll find Deek magazine to be. “A completely free forum for literature and art … in the form of fictional snippets and true stories and ramblings.” And he’s left it for you to pick up, free, around town: Born on the Internet, Deek is now…
With Friends Like These…
“We’ve gotten through the hard part,” Mayor Tom Murphy told the Post-Gazette back in January of 2001, when he was launching his re-election campaign. Rivals might accuse him of being too chummy with the corporate elite, but Murphy retorted, “I have…effectively built a great partnership here in Pittsburgh. … Am I going to run away…
For the Birds
You ever see one of those pathetic people walking around Market Square talking to the pigeons? For the longest time I assumed they had suffered some horrible life-altering tragedy. Now I realize the terrible truth: They’re all ex-talk show hosts looking for an audience. After seven years as host of PCNC’s NightTalk With John McIntire,…
A conversation with Christine Darling
What is “mod?” The definition of mod varies and that’s what a lot of my research has been about. Mod purists would say that mod was a subculture in London in the early ’60s made up of working-class teen-agers. Because of the success of The Beatles in 1964 and their success here, mod became…
U.S.’s “Liberation” of Afghan Women a Myth
The government of Afghanistan is about to unveil a draft constitution. On Sept. 5, a group of Afghan women, including Fahima Vorgetts, handed President Hamid Karzai a Women’s Bill of Rights, which they hope will be included. The document asks, among its many provisions, for “mandatory education for women through secondary school and opportunities for…
If It Ain’t Got That Swingset
Pittsburgh government won’t come to a sudden stop next year. Things will just slowly fall apart — and the kids may be the first to notice. That was the unspoken message in Mayor Tom Murphy’s capital budget, released Oct. 7. The capital budget represents the city’s spending on long-term investments like roads, bridges, buildings,…
Power Steering
When asked what he would do if he were to face Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy, 17-year-old Khama Worthy responded: “I’d tell him that we’re going to switch places for a month. He’s been cutting off programs and money for things that helped the youth but they still spend money to do stuff they don’t need.…
