Routes Rock

Whether you're looking for safe passage or something a little more exciting, city bike map has got a route for you.

• by Bill O'Driscoll

At Liberty to Speak

After a half-century of having decisions made for them, East Liberty residents have a say in the future of the city's "second downtown"

• by Violet Law

Judge freezes Carlisle's council pay; trial postponed two weeks

Indicted Councilor Twanda Carlisle will be working for free until her trial on public corruption charges

• by Charlie Deitch

Going Through the Motions: October 24 and 30, 2007

We cover city council so you don't have to October 24 and 30, 2007

• by Charlie Deitch

Activists trying to get a read on a library for Millvale

Millvale is home to one of the area's best-loved French bakeries, a music venue and recording studio, and plenty of inexpensive housing. What it doesn't have, though, is a library. Brian Wolovich, with Tricia George and the nonprofit group New Sun Rising, is hoping to change that

• by Melissa Meinzer

Istanbul Grille

• by Angelique Bamberg and Jason Roth

Pittsburgh Beer Society

• by Colleen Van Tassell

Barrett Black releases Silence is Golden

"It's just surface, plastic music for both hipsters and homeboys."

• by Manny Theiner

Brooklyn's The Forms release Albini-produced album

"We do care about something being expressive and human and having some kind of emotion to it."

• by Aaron Jentzen

The Breakup Society celebrates lower expectations with Nobody Likes a Winner

Ed Masley sings with a vulnerability that makes all the losers of his songs somehow loveable, and in that sense the triumphant wounded.

• by Aaron Jentzen

Phil Boyd's Hidden Twin project releases Asleep in the Valley

Boyd is at his best on "Shoulders of a Swan," an airy tune that's thoughtful and poetic in terms of both lyrical content and melody.

• by Andy Mulkerin

It's showtime for The Electric Six at Mr. Small's Theatre

"Something about falling from a great height, and then there's a pole involved, and something about her skull, but I honestly don't remember."

• by Ben Karakh

Barbez blends theremin with verse by Holocaust poet Paul Celan

Barbez's intense, understated bombast successfully evokes Celan's painful memories of youth.

• by Manny Theiner

Indie vets reconvene in a Bottomless Pit

It's an old approach to the verse-chorus dynamic, but with these guys it doesn't sound like a formula.

• by Mike Shanley

The Three Rivers Film Festival

Jacob Ciocci and Pascua Lama at the Three Rivers Film Festival

More ambitiously, Pascua Lama provides the big picture: Despite massive mineral wealth, Chile stands to realize little economic gain from such projects.

• by Bill O'Driscoll

Lust, Caution

Ang Lee's latest film -- an espionage melodrama like Lust, Caution, which takes place in Hong Kong and Japanese-occupied Shanghai during World War II -- decidedly bears his style.

• by Harry Kloman

Dan in Real Life

It's a checklist of in-the-movies-only domestic comedy -- gorgeous beach house; family talent shows; perfectly scripted squabbling; sage elderly parents; and the sort of problem that gets a middling screenwriter motivated. (Capsule review)

• by Al Hoff

The Darjeeling Limited

Three brothers -- Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman -- try to patch up their differences during a train trip to northern India. (Capsule review)

• by Al Hoff

Martian Child

It's a fine line between a whimsically bittersweet story rooted in some recognizable reality and the schmaltzy lesson-by-Hallmark pabulum that TV and Hollywood typically churn out. (Capsule review)

• by Al Hoff

Wristcutters: A Love Story

Committing suicide is no solution, they say, and you'll believe it after scoping this very dry oddball comedy-romance-road movie from Goran Dukic. (Capsule review)

• by Al Hoff

At the Heinz History Center, Soul Soldiers reconnoiters the African-American experience during Vietnam.

The exhibit inevitably reflects our culture's conflicted feelings about U.S. soldiers and the ill-conceived cause they fought and died for.

• by Bill O'Driscoll

Rachel Whiteread, an artist whose work critiques the built environment, is set to lecture at the Carnegie

She embraced the oft-cited but insufficiently realized tenet of ancient Taoist philosopher Lao Tse, who asserted that the crucial element of architecture was not the walls, but the enclosed space.

• by Charles Rosenblum

Buchanan Goes Gonzo

U.S. Attorney goes overboard on Wecht case

• by John McIntire

Hot and Cold

A young Penguins defense just needs time

• by Jody DiPerna

A Conversation with Dave Wheitner

• by Chris Young

While walking Downtown, I note a lot of lion sculptures on local buildings. Why are lions such a prominent part of the Pittsburgh landscape?

Clock Wise

How to use that extra hour from daylight savings time? By watching more TV news, of course

• by Frances Sansig Monahan

Letters to the Editor: Oct 31 - Nov 7

Feedback from our readers: Potter a "wise guy" ... county drink tax a "shell game"

Novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talks history, racial identity and the publishing game.

"I had one [agent] tell me, 'You're black but you're not African-American, so I can't sell you as black, and I can't sell you as ethnic, because right now 'ethnic' is Indian.'"

• by Faith Adiele

Adventuresome Aussie dance company Lucy Guerin Inc. explores info overload.

In the Aether's latter segment, communications technology is stripped away and we're left with the human.

• by Lissa Brennan

As You Like It

The real point is non-stop nonsense, both rhetorical and physical.

• by Michelle Pilecki

Deathtrap

She's the most well-grounded of the characters, and Stayer has a subtle way with fear that makes it more effective.

• by Michelle Pilecki

Blithe Spirit

Among the seven-member cast, two principal players have polish, poise and the ability to project basic personalities.

• by Gordon Spencer

Variety is the spice of dance showcase Multiplicity.

"It begins with long languid movements and progresses into vibrant and percussive dancing."

• by Steve Sucato