Into the Woods Today

The Forest Service has a wilderness plan, but can we see the trees?

• by Marty Levine

Academic Questions

Penn State Professor Michel Bérubé stands at the center of the debate raging over "academic freedom" -- and that's just where he wants to be.

• by Chris Potter

Paper War of Words Cuts at P-G Staffers

A former colleague editorializes against overpaid P-G staff -- via a publication devised while Block paid.

• by Charlie Deitch

What's Liberal About the Liberal Arts?
Classroom Politics and "Bias" in Higher Education
Michael Bérubé

W.W. Norton & Company, 344 pages $26.95

• by Chris Potter

Photoshop of Horrors

If the demon hand of Photoshop seemed visible around the gleaming raiment of Brangelina in the P-G recently -- you're right.

• by Melissa Meinzer

Drop in Buckets Starts Downtown Recycling

New ways to Redd Up while at the office debut.

• by Violet Law

Post-Gazette gets last laugh on sheriff's ads

Rival Trib sues sheriff, county and the P-G.

• by Charlie Deitch

Blue

Blue has a sophisticated, contemporary menu that runs the gamut from the de rigueur (chicken satay) to the refreshing (gorgonzola hummus) -- and that's just the appetizers.

• by Angelique Bamberg and Jason Roth

Devin Russian's bleak, lo-fi debut

Lost Springs: Population 1
Self-released

• by Manny Theiner

Beam's "experimental urban soundscapes" return with Chemistry.

"Live, there's no rules, the music takes us wherever we want to go. But with this stuff, I had a clear-cut vision." -- David Throckmorton

• by Aaron Jentzen

Rolling Stone names local mashup artist among the year's best

Hopefully, this mainstream exposure won't make Girl Talk more vulnerable to copyright-infringement lawsuits.

• by Aaron Jentzen

Classic thrash from locals Crown the Lost

Reverence Dies Within
Self-released

• by Manny Theiner

Clutch amps-up the guitars ... and the blues

"We kind of created our own little microcosm, and maybe the rest of the world likes to look in, instead of us trying to chase something."

• by Jake McGee

Morgantown's Librarians: brainy, serrated dance-rock

It's hard to refuse a band that confidently balances pleasure and paranoia, dorkdom and glamour.

• by Aaron Jentzen

Eragon

The director, Stefan Fangmeier -- seriously, that's his name -- assembles what may be the longest movie trailer in history.

• by Harry Kloman

Dreamgirls sings.

At the end of Act I, when the major players come to blows in a glorious piece of Motown operetta, Hudson performs the most thrilling power ballad I can remember seeing on film.

• by Harry Kloman

We Are Marshall

From its untoppable adversity right through to its pre-big game "heart and soul" speech, man-tears and slow-motion final goal, We Are Marshall is a familiar inspirational sports melodrama.

• by Al Hoff

Rocky Balboa

It's a very familiar story, a book-end remake of 1976's Rocky -- the blue-collar underdog with no chance but plenty of heart. (Capsule review

• by Al Hoff

Fabrizio Gerbino's painting-as-alchemy.

Gerbino's vision is complex but clear, propelling him ahead of the talented pack of emerging painters that populate the city.

• by Adam Grossi

Surreal Life

What is the essence of Squonk when it stops squonking -- or even moving? An answer lies on the fourth floor of The Andy Warhol Museum.

• by Bill O'Driscoll

Stories That Made a Diffidence

The high-flown low-down on 2006's phat skinny.

• by Marty Levine

My Space

It's Luke's city ... we just live in it

• by Chris Potter

Legal Smokescreen

Guess who's coming to dinner -- and fighting to keep smoking in restaurants?

• by John McIntire

Porter in a Storm

NFL should take homophobic slurs more seriously

• by Jody DiPerna

"Barrel Man," Part 4

• by Dan Arp

Stage Briefs

• by Bill O'Driscoll