Obama Weekend
Indie darlings at CMU to support their candidate
Blue Ribbon Blues
You’d expect a press release heralding the mayor’s plan to improve transparency in city government to be a little more, well, transparent. But the item that popped up in reporters’ Tuesday afternoon was anything but: “Mayor Luke Ravenstahl tomorrow will announce plans to create more transparency in City government,” it read. Transparency is a good…
Hanging Chad
I suspect there’s going to be plenty of buzz about Chad Hermann’s op-ed on the blogosphere in yesterday’s Post-Gazette. My guess is that most of the conversation will focus on Hermann himself: Is he an asshole? A closet Republican? I’m sure that will generate all kinds of heated discussion. So I’m going to ignore that…
AIRing it out
Locals play during public print hours at art center
How the Rusyns Could Save Civilization
Of all of the ethnic groups that have settled in Pittsburgh, few are as mysterious as the Carpatho-Rusyns. So convoluted is their history, so mysterious their origins, that many Rusyns are mysteries even to themselves. No one even knows precisely how many Rusyns there are — though some estimate their numbers at 2 million –…
This Just In: September 24 – October 1
Highlights from the local TV news: Panic in Ligonier!
The Lucky Ones
Three Iraq War soldiers on leave share a van from New York City to Las Vegas. As expected, the strangers — older reservist Cheever (Tim Robbins), career Army man T.K. (Michael Peña) and lost-soul-turned-girl-soldier Colee (Rachel McAdams) — become buddies, and perhaps even catalysts: All are in need of life-changing directives, if not changes in…
In Search of a Midnight Kiss
Besides Valentine’s Day, the worst day to be single is New Year’s Eve. Desperation prompts Wilson (Scoot McNairy) to place an online ad for a Dec. 31 blind date, and spurs Vivian (Sara Simmonds) to answer it. The two late-twentysomethings — each a recent Los Angeles transplant looking to break into showbiz — wander downtown…
Battle in Seattle
The unrest in the streets of Seattle during the World Trade Organization conference would be a good subject for a thoughtful documentary. The issues it raised about globalization are still relevant, and the events spawned provocative questions about protest itself. Instead, we get a docudrama from actor-turned-writer/director Stuart Townsend. Despite its all-sides approach, Battle is…
Nights in Rodanthe
The best scene in this drama of love, loss and forgiveness, from a story by novelist Nicholas Sparks, actually isn’t between romantic leads Gere and Lane, who play divorced people trying to get their lives back together. It’s between Gere and veteran character actor Scott Glenn, as the widowed husband of a woman who died…
Frozen River
In director Courtney Hunt’s drama, Leo is as authentic as she’s ever been. Her character, Ray Eddy, is a single mom in a New York state town, bordering Quebec. Desperate for cash, she gets involved in a scheme to smuggle Chinese men across Mohawk Indian territory. Then something happens, something so horrifying that it should…
Neighborhoods: Burghers and their dogs share stories of hope
When Alda Walker brought Phoenix home for the first time, she had to give the 140-pound shepherd-Rottweiler mix his own room. “He hated cats,” Walker says. That was a problem, because she had four at the time. So she developed a plan: “We had one bedroom that was for Phoenix,” she says. “He had his…
What the Flux? Future of traveling art event unclear
News that the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh sacked two key figures in the Three Rivers Arts Festival — executive director Elizabeth Reiss and associate director Chris Taylor — made headlines Sept. 8. But there’s been less attention paid to what it all means for FLUX, a successful if occasional arts-and-music series. Flux was a traveling…
It’s one woman, many characters in Dael Orlandersmith’s Stoop Stories.
“I’m going to my outside guys.”
Soul
As usual, O’Donnell and crew give their audience an evening of theater about as far away from Neil Simon and Rodgers & Hammerstein as you can get.
Ice Water, Here on Earth
Excerpt of writing by Damian Dressick
Green Light
Planting evergreen trees in rows on the north side of your home creates a windbreak for winter winds.
Richard Chen
Location: 5996 Penn Circle South, East Liberty. 412-924-0080 Hours: Sun.-Thu. 5-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat. 5-10:30 p.m. Prices: Starters $6-12; entrees $22-40 Fare: Contemporary Chinese Atmosphere: Zen modern Liquor: Full bar Eastside, that newfangled hybrid of Shadyside and East Liberty where the People’s Cab parking lot used to be (described like a true Pittsburgher!), is fast…
Toubab Krewe fuses Western with West African
While a few white guys from Asheville playing African music might not come off as genuine, the musicians here have genuine intentions — and genuine talent.
Get grebo with Zodiac Mindwarp & The Love Reaction
Zodiac’s salacious lyrics and psychedelic-Nazi-hoodlum appearance could be taken as tongue-in-cheek, or as outright offensive.
Scottish singer Julie Fowlis brings Gaelic tradition into the pop world
“There used to be this image of the folk musician,” says Fowlis — “a big beard, carrying a banjo, wearing a thick jumper.”
Activists say voting-machine software needs a dry run before November
After a lengthy campaign to verify the tallies of electronic-voting machines, local activists may have finally found a testing method that elected officials believe in. Getting those officials to do something in time for the presidential election, however, is another matter. On Sept. 9, all 15 members of Allegheny County Council approved a motion “urging”…
Author Nancy Nichols’ new book looks for the man-made causes of cancer.
It’s a thoughtful examination of the risks faced by bodies made by nature in a world fabricated by technology.
A gallery show connects mediation, astrophysics and art.
“We are all interconnected, and looking at the stars is for me a way of getting back to the beginning, to recognize our need for meditation, and live spiritually.”
Pittsburgh n’@
Dispatches from the blogosphere: Escape from the suburbs.
Your Days Are Numbered in the House of Assassins
The group also evokes early PiL and L.A. country-punks the Gun Club, the latter especially when Baldinger occasionally misses his intended note.
Punchline releases Just Say Yes on its own poppy terms
The slickest straight-up pop record to come out of Pittsburgh so far this year.
Taza 21
Slow-roasted meat is the focus of Middle-Eastern take-out.
Savage Love
My boyfriend and I are in our mid-20s, love each other, and have been living together for two years. We have good sex once a week. I have a low libido, and I always have. But my sweet boyfriend needs more than once-a-week. Every once in a while, he brings up the fact that he’d…
Bellevue venue The Key Room ordered to cease and desist
“Drinking and rollerskating is always a weird pitch.”
A Mattress Factory exhibit challenges the walls of its own galleries.
The scene, framed for us by Oppenheimer, instills a sense of vertigo — but it also makes us feel, unpleasantly, like voyeurs, spying on the unsuspecting neighbors.
