Tickets for Girl Talk go on sale on Sept. 20
The release of the CD version of Feed the Animals, the new album by Pittsburgh mashup star Girl Talk, has been pushed back from Sept. 23 to Oct. 21; his publicist Jessica Linker says this is “to ensure the product is perfect and distinctive.” She adds, “This delay has nothing to do with copyright issues.”…
In Which I Mark the Death of a Personal Hero
Eight years ago, back when John McCain really was a maverick, David Foster Wallace followed him around on the campaign trail for Rolling Stone magazine. The resulting essay, “Up, Simba,” explored the inanity of modern politics, the media coverage thereof, and the nature of John McCain’s appeal in a vacuous political environment. Of course, any…
She’s Baaaacck: Janice Returns
Miz Janice Dickinson is back, draggin’ her crew of wannabe models along for the Ride Through Crazy, on her increasingly unbelievable show, The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, on Oxygen. Because this happens every day in business, Janice decides to move her agency from its central location on some Los Angeles strip, to a ridiculous mansion…
Lipshtick for a Pig
This shit just stopped being funny. As this space noted recently, the liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America has recently begun listening to local right-wing radio host Jim Quinn. Which is great, because it means the rest of us don’t have to. It also means that this priceless bit of hypocrisy will be preserved…
Breaking: Shields calls for investigation into Ford departure
City Council president Doug Shields has sent letters to the US Attorney’s office and the state Attorney General seeking an investigation into alleged improprieties at the URA.
Dresses (and shoes, and accessories) for Success
LAS VEGAS — Nevada’s most famous city might once have possessed some gritty edge, a dangerous glamour, but it’s been transformed into something else: Disneyland with no open-container laws or last call, a climate-controlled cash-suck sounding like an alarm-clock factory where something’s gone horribly wrong. And yet, it is here that the beautiful and stylish…
Cadillacs
A poem by Jason Irwin
The Women
One remakes classics at one’s peril, and I’m not sure we needed (or wanted) another version of Clare Booth Luce’s bitchy comedy of manners, filmed in 1939 by noted “ladies’ director” George Cukor. But a proposed remake has been kicked around for a decade, and now Diane English (creator of Murphy Brown) has delivered a…
Burn After Reading
Mistaken identities, misplaced desires, rocky marriages and the self-important, semi-paranoid state of life within the Washington. D.C., beltway combine to propel a near-meaningless act — a computer disc is accidentally dropped at a gym — into a roundelay of betrayal, law-breaking and bloody violence. This light dark comedy from the Coen brothers feels like an…
Global Lens
Helping to bridge political and geographical borders with cinema is the goal of the Global Film Initiative, a San Francisco-based nonprofit film organization. Since 2002, the group has presented Global Lens, a traveling series of recent international films, chosen to expand viewers’ perceptions of other countries and to reinforce shared experiences across the globe. This…
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
The infamously outrageous writer at the heart of Alex Gibney’s latest documentary is a certainly an entertaining subject. Gonzo is a laudatory profile, though it can hardly be a strictly golden-hued hagiography; after all, Thompson’s misdeeds and flaws propelled his stardom. But, most of the film focuses on the highlights of Thompson’s career, beginning with…
This Just In: September 11 – 18
Highlights of the local TV news: Thumping everything except the Bible.
Letters to the Editor: September 10 – 17
Feedback from our readers: South Side food fight continues.
Three Amigos Mexican Restaurante
Tacos, burritos and other South of the Border fare get on the Harmarville dining map.
Election News
Once again, the November ballot will be closed to a proposed “Open Government Amendment.” Its backer says the measure has failed for lack of signatures. The referendum sought to increase civic transparency by making information more readily available, largely through the Internet. Its authors have struggled to get the measure on the ballot since 2005.…
Offensive Strategy
ST. PAUL, Minn. — The bright white light of flash bombs can be seen everywhere among the crowd. Loud explosions from concussion grenades mix with the lighter, metallic tinkling of tear-gas canisters bouncing along the pavement. Lines of police dressed in full riot gear stretch beyond the sulfur-green clouds of smoke bombs. Shouts come from…
GOP: Grand Old Protest
A contingent of 50 Pittsburghers spearheaded by the anarchist Pittsburgh Organizing Group, as well as others from the city, joined thousands protesting the Republicans in St. Paul, Minn. last week. They, too, were arrested while blocking city streets to prevent delegates from arriving. And like many other activists, they say they witnessed house raids, indiscriminate…
Policy Issues
Larry Grumet won’t deny the quality of his family’s health-insurance coverage. What he takes issue with is its affordability. For much of the past 10 years, the 63-year-old Squirrel Hill resident has seen his family’s premiums soar, even while his insurer’s profits have remained high. But with more increases scheduled to hit his wallet, as…
The Rocky Horror Show
Director Shoberg seems to lavish so much attention on production values that he neglects the needs of comic pacing.
Brooklyn Boy
See Brooklyn Boy for its talented cast — because they have mastered Margulies’ thoughtless insults, awkward compliments, dead-end jokes and merciless silences.
Death of a Salesman
Who knew that Miller, way back in 1949, could predict the collapse of not just the American Dream, but America itself?
Without You
When he sings, he lets himself go, almost howling, bending his frame as if in pain, suggesting, perhaps, that that is safe territory for emotional outlet.
Soft Targets aim straight for your pop sensibility
A knack for tales of love told in metaphor, whipped up with chiming guitars, vocal harmonies and some electric piano textures.
High Places take listeners “from stardust to sentience”
High Places often sound like the Cocteau Twins’ Liz Fraser singing for an Angelo Badalamenti soundtrack.
Singer-songwriter Dar Williams plays Club Café with Shawn Mullins
“It’s a lot of lyrics but the voice has a lot of personality, so it’s still kind of punk.”
Emily Pinkerton blends old-time and Chilean music on her album Valparaíso
“It’s this thing with a long history, and the point of it being to relay both secular and sacred stories through this either memorized or improvised poetry.”
Thomas Friedman’s Hot, Flat, and Crowded gets it mostly right on the environment.
Environmentalist Edward Abbey wrote, “Growth for growth’s sake is the ideology of the cancer cell”; Friedman believes that with careful planning, the tumors can be benign.
Angelia’s Italian Grille
Pizza and good beer cheap: What’s not to like?
You Say It’s Your Birthday?
Pittsburgh’s 250th birthday party won’t reach its peak until November, when the city plans huge fireworks celebrations and other festivities. But the party’s theme is already in place: It’s all about innovation. As the official “Pittsburgh 250” Web site (www.imaginepittsburgh.com) boasts: “Our region has become a gateway to the future.” And it produces new advances…
O’Hara Township couple makes a federal case out of house concerts
“Football’s OK, live music is not.”
Savage Love
I’m a middle-aged guy. My boyfriend has just left his teens. We originally got to know each other because I like to tie up muscular young guys and he’s a muscular young guy who likes getting tied up. But he’s a smart, funny kid, and after a few months we started actually liking each other.…
The Westmoreland surveys American painting in the 1940s — courtesy of the old Carnegie Institute.
On the homefront, the days are beautiful and clear — children read, farmers plow, coal-miners descend — but everything is just a little surreal, just a little not right.
