Downtown’s Lone Indie Bookstore Holds Grand Opening
Amazing Books, which succeeded Awesome Books as Downtown’s only independent bookseller, holds its official opening party tomorrow evening. The celebration, hosted by the Pittsburgh Downtown Community Development Corp., includes refreshments and readings by local authors. Amazing Books is owned and operated by Eric Ackland, who in March bought the stock of Awesome Books. Ackland, then…
Fossil-fuel disinvestment campaign launched
Bill McKibben receives award, touts international disinvestment campaign
Lynn Cullen Live 11/05/13
Video Archive Phone guest: Susan; Green Bay lost against the Bears last night; pulse of the sports fan; Incognito ( yes, that’s his real name ) harassment situation; players from elite backgrounds get bullied in NFL; soccer in the US; religious smoke & incense creating greenhouse gasses in India; today is election day!; voter ID…
Lynn Cullen Live 11/04/13
Video Archive Guest: Les Ludwig, mayoral candidate; tomorrow is election day!; Kenyans sweeping marathon wins; ‘longest scarf knitted while running a marathon’ record broken; Norway public broadcast’s 12 hours of knitting programming; NASCAR point system scandal; “He’s luckier than a dog w/ two dicks” — Bill Clinton on Obama; PG Forum: I Plead Guilty by…
Lynn Cullen Live 11/01/13
Video Archive Guest: Chris Potter; politeness of trick-or-treaters; NSA’s eye on emails; Audio Only Archive
Pittsburghers call for Medicaid expansion outside of Gov. Corbett’s office
Protest outside of Gov. Corbett’s office Dressed in Halloween costumes, organizers with advocacy groups Working America and One Pittsburgh stood outside of Gov. Tom Corbett’s Pittsburgh office today to call for the expansion of Medicaid. “I think everyone in America is entitled to healthcare,” said Penny Barrett, a One Pittsburgh volunteer from Troy Hill. “I…
New art gallery debuts tomorrow in Garfield
Fieldwork opens with groups show of works on paper
Public Theater seeks past Shakespeare-contest participants
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of its Shakespeare monologue-and-scene contest, Pittsburgh Public Theater is looking for past participants to contribute memories of the experience. More in Program Notes.
Public Theater seeks past Shakespeare-contest participants
Comments, photos sought for 20th anniversary program
Live performances and celebrity karaoke to benefit Haitian Families First
Haitian Families First hosts its second annual costume karaoke benefit event at the Rex Theater on Friday.
New poll disastrous for GOP ideology, not-so-bad for GOP pols (except Corbett)
Here’s the great conundrum of our day: With every passing month, Americans seem to express greater and greater hostility to the Republicans’ political ideology. And yet Republicans keep getting elected to positions of influence. The explanation du jour is gerrymandering — the use of electoral maps to ensure that Republicans get represented all out of…
Lynn Cullen Live 10/31/13
Video Archive No Sokolowski today; The Porch closed temporarily due to food poisoning cases; holidays & religion; top 10 Halloween candies; UPMC security at protest; Brazilian soccer player decapitated; Venezuela’s Ministry of Supreme Social Happiness; extra-terrestrials & 9/11; Boston wins World Series; Mark Twain: history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes; Affordable Care Act…
Avant-garde jazz musician Daniel Carter to play at Thunderbird Cafe
Avant-garde jazz saxophonist Daniel Carter will perform with his trio The Moon on Wednesday at Lawreceville’s Thunderbird Cafe.
Mattress Factory offers Halloween performance
When you’re done trick-or-treating tomorrow night, the Mattress Factory is hosting a film screening with live electronic soundtrack by a pair of artists in residence from Detroit. Costumes are welcome; more details in Program Notes.
Live Halloween performance at Mattress Factory
Detroit artists provide live electronic soundtrack for their films
Live and Local War of the Worlds on Radio Tonight
Bricolage show is on WESA
Former UPMC transcriptionists protest lost wages
Rally at U.S. Steel Tower Dozens gathered at the U.S. Steel Tower earlier today to condemn UPMC for outsourcing its medical transcription jobs. This month, the displaced workers, now employed by Massachusetts-based Nuance, received their first paychecks, which were greatly reduced by as much as 60 percent from their take home pay at UPMC. “What…
Q&A: Far-Out Fangtooth
A talk with the band’s guitarist and vocalist, Nicholas Kulp.
Study: A Bleak Health Outlook for Young Pittsburgh Lesbians and Bisexuals
It’s well known in the LGBT public health community that there are higher rates of substance abuse and mental health problems in gay and bisexual men compared with their heterosexual counterparts. But sexual minority girls haven’t been the subject of much research, something Dr. Michael Marshal is hoping to help change. Marshal, an associate professor…
A school art program yields a fascinating photo exhibit
HOLDUP in the HOOD continues through Sun., Nov. 3. 707 Penn Gallery, 707 Penn Ave., Downtown. trustarts.org For 11 years, artist-educators Frances Crisafio and Meda Rago have run Faces: A Children’s Art Collaboration, teaching self-portraiture to second- through fifth-graders at two public schools in Manchester. For certain students, depicting themselves through drawing and collage is…
Grade Scale: PPS, union at odds over teacher-evaluation standards
In early October, when Pittsburgh City Council called for a moratorium on school closings, councilors threw themselves into a nationwide controversy when they also decided to challenge Pittsburgh Public Schools’ new system of teacher evaluations. Beginning this school year, Pittsburgh’s teachers will be evaluated, and any firings done, under a new system that relies more…
University of Pittsburgh Stages’ Venus
VENUS continues through Nov. 10. Studio Theatre (Cathedral of Learning), 4200 Fifth Ave., Oakland. $12-25. 412-624-7529 or play.pitt.edu Certainly among the most bizarre and repulsive incidents in the history of European colonialism and white supremacy — apart from the various genocides, that is — is the exploitation of a tiny, lone South African woman, Sarah…
City Council weighs in on school closures
Pittsburgh City Council is urging Pittsburgh Public Schools to impose a moratorium on school closings. But district officials have a blunt response: If you want us to keep schools open, give us our money. In 2006, the state shifted .25 percent of the existing 3 percent wage tax from the district to the city’s coffers,…
The Zero Hour at Off the Wall
THE ZERO HOUR continues through Nov. 9. Off The Wall Theater, 25 W. Main St., Carnegie. $5-35. 724-873-3576 or insideoffthewall.com In terms of plot, it’s hard to figure out what The Zero Hour is all about. But in the figurative hands of Off The Wall Productions, what it’s “about” is a chance for the audience…
Former grad student’s proposed transit map goes viral
Pitt student Deepshikha Sharma couldn’t find a public-transit route for the 18-mile trip from Monroeville to Dormont that would take much less than two hours. So, in what she describes as “a moment of frustration,” she Googled “pittsburgh metro map.” And almost as soon as the search results popped up, she was posting a piece…
War of the Worlds at Bricolage
MIDNIGHT RADIO: WAR OF THE WORLDS continues through Nov. 9. 937 Liberty Ave., Downtown. $15-25. 412-394-3353 or bricolagepgh.org The Orson Welles radio presentation of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, in an adaptation by Howard Koch, has been in the news recently because it’s the 75th anniversary of this show-biz legend: Told through a series…
Boxed Up
The newspaper you hold in your hands will only last a week, plus a few extra days of service lining birdcages, swatting flies or providing story ideas for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. But the newspaper box this issue came from? That will endure forever, an eternal tribute to humanity’s genius — just like the Great Wall…
Throughline Theatre’s The Farnsworth Invention
THE FARNSWORTH INVENTION continues through Sat., Nov. 2. Throughline Theatre at Grey Box Theatre 3595 Butler St., Lawrenceville. $12-15. throughlinetheatre.org A Jewish boy and his family flee the pogroms of Russia and come to America.Halfway across the country, another boy grows up on a potato farm in Idaho. As adults, their lives converge through the…
Brainstorming
I was traveling from Downtown to CMU, carrying a giant bass guitar with me. I lugged my load, stopping to switch hands every 50 yards, to the bus stop across from Kaufmann’s famous clock, adjacent to the McDonald’s. I love riding the bus. Having someone else in the driver’s seat while I get lost in…
A new theater company launches with a provocative British play
BLUE/ORANGE Nov. 1-23. The Phoenix at Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Co., 937 Liberty Ave., Downtown. $15-38. 888-718-4253 or phoenixtheatrepgh.org For Andrew Paul and Mark Clayton Southers, the choice of how to open their new theater company’s first season was relatively easy. Blue/Orange — British playwright Joe Penhall’s acclaimed, darkly funny 2000 play about schizophrenia, race and…
12 Years a Slave
12 Years a Slave Directed by: Steve McQueen Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender Starts Fri., Nov. 1 In 1841, African-American Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) lives in Saratoga, N.Y., with his family; he is prosperous, educated and moves freely and convivially about town. Then, on a trip to Washington, D.C., Northup is abducted and sold into…
The Counselor
Ridley Scott’s crime thriller The Counselor is a slick, but bleak, look at the hazards — moral, economic, spiritual and physical — of joining a business venture as attractively lucrative as drug-running. There’s big money, particularly in the cartel-driven enterprise on the Texas-Mexico border, but it’s also fair to say that few get out intact.…
Bad Grandpa
The brain trust behind Jackass — director Jeff Tremaine and performer Johnny Knoxville — attempt to elevate the pranks-and-stunts-and-assorted-gross-outs franchise to pranks-and-stunts-and-assorted-gross-outs-PLUS-heartwarming. To that end, we get Bad Grandpa, where the assorted Jackass mayhem is incorporated into a larger story about a cranky senior citizen (Knoxville, made up as an oldster) tasked with ferrying his…
Savage Love
Two years ago, I found a letter in my sister’s car informing her that the blood she gave during a charity blood drive had tested positive for HIV. I didn’t say anything to her, because I wasn’t supposed to find out and I didn’t know what to say. In the time since, there were a…
Last Vegas
Jon Turteltaub’s comedy about four childhood friends who take on Las Vegas for a bachelor-party weekend was anything but a good time. There’s not much pleasure in seeing Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline squander their talents on what amounts to Grown Ups: The AARP Years. (Robert DeNiro also stars, but he does little…
Short List: October 30 – November 5
SPOTLIGHT: Fri., Nov. 1 — Dance Making connections is the underlying mission of the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater’s newest artist program, Fresh Works. The month-long residency gives Pittsburgh-based dancemakers 80 hours of studio time to create works that collaborate across artistic genres, culminating in a works-in-progress public showing. For Fresh Works’ inaugural showing, on Fri., Nov. 1, at…
Lynn Cullen Live 10/30/13
Video Archive Guest: Jared Day, CMU History Dept. & Daylee News Nuggets blog; historian perspective on possible meltdown of Republican party, how it would affect the country; misleading media, like political theater; Republicans are trying to resurrect a mythic past; Forum for Economic Development Pittsburgh; CMU once a conservative campus; Republicans now anti-science; NSA &…
Biryani
Biryani 4063 William Penn Highway, Monroeville. 412-856-1105 Hours: Tue.-Fri. 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Sat.-Sun. 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m. Prices: Appetizers $4.50-10.50; entrees $9-14 Liquor: BYOB “American cuisine” used to be regarded as something of a misnomer. Immigrants to America adapted the culinary traditions of their home countries, improvising with what they could find in our markets. Some…
A cemetery job serves as inspiration for Shaky Shrines’ dark psychedelic music
SHAKY SHRINES ALBUM RELEASE with OUTSIDEINSIDE, SISTERED. 7 p.m. Sat., Nov. 2. The Shop, 4314 Main St., Bloomfield. $5 with costume; $7 without. shakyshrines.com There are plenty of musicians who write music with dark themes; a lot of it just comes from overactive imaginations. Then there are musicians like Shaky Shrines songwriter Braden Faisant. He,…
Local farms offer rare apple varieties
Try this: Walk into your supermarket and ask for a Goldrush apple. Chances are, you won’t find it. But that’s Don Kretschmann’s “hands-down favorite” apple. The owner of Kretschmann Farm describes the Goldrush’s complexity as “sweet, but with tart overtones … an apple you want to savor because you can’t easily figure out why it…
Broncho’s garage punk is smart, but not too smart
BRONCHO with BUTTERBIRDS, VIKESH KAPOOR, THE BEAUREGARDS. 9 p.m. Tue., Nov. 5. Brillobox, 4104 Penn Ave., Bloomfield. $10-12. 412-621-4900 or brillobox.net In terms of gritty, garage-y rock ‘n’ roll, the heartland has it — and few bands display that more confidently than Tulsa, Okla., four-piece, Broncho. The garage-punks released their first full-length, Can’t Get Past…
Voodoo Brewery works its magic all the way from Meadville
The town of Meadville, 90 miles north of Pittsburgh, might not look like a nexus for Western Pennsylvania’s craft-beer culture. However, Matt Allyn and his partners at Voodoo Brewery have been at the forefront of the regional beer movement since they brewed their first batch in 2007. The Voodoo owner spent years travelling as both…
Jenny Hval’s fourth album mixes pop components with unorthodox structures
JENNY HVAL with THE GARMENT DISTRICT 8 p.m. Fri., Nov. 1. The Andy Warhol Museum, 117 Sandusky St., North Side. $12-15. All ages. 412-237-8300 or warhol.org Adventurous listeners who can hear the word “experimental” without running for the hills would do well to give Norwegian singer/songwriter Jenny Hval’s new one a spin. Innocence Is Kinky,…
The Pittsburgh Public Market re-opens in its new and improved space
Though the grand-opening celebration is a few weeks away, the Strip District’s Pittsburgh Public Market is up and running at its new location at 24th Street and Penn Avenue. “This past weekend was a very soft opening, but the vendors were ready to get back to making money,” says Becky Rodgers, executive director of Neighbors…
Chris Rattie moves on from his major-label experience and writes from the heart
Chris Rattie AND the Brush Valley Rumblers with Brewer’s Row. 9 p.m. Fri., Nov. 1. Thunderbird Café, 4023 Butler St., Lawrenceville. $7. 412-682-0177 or thunderbirdcafe.net When Chris Rattie sings, “It sure has been a hard coupla’ years,” on the opening track to his new record, All These Things, he’s not kidding. It all goes back…
Roads of Arabia offers a regional history that might surprise you
ROADS OF ARABIA: ARCHAEOLOGY AND HISTORY OF THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA continues through Sun., Nov. 3. Carnegie Museum of Natural History, 4400 Forbes Ave., Oakland. 412-622-3131 or carnegiemnh.org There is something both odd and wondrous about Roads of Arabia: Archaeology and History of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. While it seems at first like…
Critics’ Picks: October 30 – November 5
[ACOUSTIC] + FRI., NOV. 1 Calliope, Pittsburgh’s folk-music society, fills a number of roles in the local music community: Beyond booking national acts and holding classes, Calliope sponsors the Songwriters Circle, a weekly open stage at the Bloomfield Bridge Tavern. Each year around this time, the group puts out a compilation of tunes written by…
