The Greatest Job on Earth?

Pittsburgh Musicians Grow Up ... By Running Away With the Circus

• by Aaron Jentzen

Fine Mess

Storeowner calls $200K penalty for building-code violation excessive

• by Chris Young

From Life on the Road; Ringling Style

A Conversation with Malik Rahim

Activist to receive Merton Center's top honor

• by Adam Fleming

Election News: Historic vote saw ups and downs at the polls

• by Marty Levine and Adam Fleming

Jean's Southern Cuisine

Southern comfort food gets new digs on Wilkinsburg's main drag.

• by Angelique Bamberg and Jason Roth

One Nation, Under Cocktails

Is this a new era for politics and mixed drinks?

• by Al Hoff

Suburban teens Drop Dead Productions rebrand Squirrel Hill's Irish Center

"We'll get a vinyl banner to hang above the bands, and make it known as Club Oasis -- a much catchier name."

• by Manny Theiner

Jim Semonik promotes the local industrial scene, despite battling cancer

"I will be here involved in this scene until death takes me."

• by Manny Theiner

Local punks Red Fox release new album, Year of the Rat

"I think what Krystyna's singing has done is it's kept us punk when we could have very easily gone into being more of a stoner metal band."

• by Andrew McKeon

Rebel rockers Michael Franti & Spearhead bring the reggae to Homestead

"Wise men count the blessings / Fools count their problems / But you're both of them to me."

• by Chris Parker

Sub Pop college rockers Oxford Collapse return to Pittsburgh

For the last seven years, they've been polishing their hooky-jerky shimmer.

• by Chris Parker

The Three Rivers Film Festival

• by CP Staff

Soul Men

Actor-comedian Bernie Mac, who died this summer, was a funny guy, and often the lone bright spot in an otherwise clunky comedy. That makes this by-the-numbers, buddy-trip comedy from Malcolm D. Lee doubly disappointing. One, Mac deserves a better swan song, and two, how can you take such great source material -- a trio of feuding 1960s and early '70s R&B performers -- and make it so lackluster? There is an encyclopedia of real-life histrionics and hi-jinks to draw from; filmmakers could have asked the late Isaac Hayes, who makes a cameo here, for backstage details. Mac and the capable Samuel L. Jackson do their best to liven up hackneyed plot devices, but even these two fuse-blowers get tripped up in the gooey muck of pointless sentimentality. Too bad -- Mac should have left us laughing. (AH) [2 out of 4 stars]

• by Al Hoff

What Just Happened?

A good cast, an often reliable director (Barry Levinson) and potentially meaty source material (the memoirs of Hollywood producer Art Linson) can't save this turgid outing -- yet another swipe at the shallowness of the Dream Factory by those working within it. Robert DeNiro portrays a harried producer (is there any other kind?) during one typically bad week: He has one film to re-cut after it flunks a test-screening (a loopy director with "artistic principles" stands in the way) and another film being delayed by ... wait for it ... Bruce Willis' heavy beard. There's little fresh here -- temperamental stars, neurotic screenwriters, pandering producers, pissy ex-wives, screwed-up kids, business-focused studio heads. But even a retread might fly -- who doesn't enjoy seeing Catherine Keener, John Turturro and Stanley Tucci? -- if only there were some laughs. Starts Fri., Nov. 14. (AH) [2 out of 4 stars]

• by Al Hoff

"Doyenne of decay" Rosamond Purcell tackles eggs at Silver Eye.

Despite the series' title, Purcell's eggs aren't nearly as eloquent as her nests; among the dead birds and empty shells, the nests show the surest signs of life.

• by Robert Isenberg

Echoes of August Wilson sound in the Hill District's new Carnegie Library.

It's a good place to sit and read with an eye toward what's going on outside, as a variety of people affirmed during my visits.

• by Charles Rosenblum

At Phipps Garden Center, a sculptor teaches working with marble.

He shows his students how to capture the essence of emotion in a human face (you start by chiseling in the tip of the nose first).

• by Jessica Lam

Election Frauds

GOP tactics backfire -- finally

• by Chris Potter

This Just In: November 13 - 20

Highlights from the local TV news: This year's highly puffed, perfunctory, seasonal weather-guessing segment.

• by Frances Sansig Monahan

The Way Things Work author and illustrator David Macaulay explains The Way We Work.

"I'm anthropomorphizing cells!"

• by Melissa Meinzer

Chicks With Dicks

Trista Baldwin's girl-gang, great-American-highway biker epic is like an estrogen-packed, skull-splitting mosh-pit on steroids!

• by Robert Isenberg

The Glass Menagerie

I don't have a more-favorite play than Tennessee Williams' incomparable The Glass Menagerie.

• by Ted Hoover

The Museum of Desire

The Museum of Desire is a Jungian movement piece, a study of minute expression; by turning a chair around, or winking once, the actors keep their audience entranced.

• by Robert Isenberg

A new opera based on The Grapes of Wrath leaves in the populist politics.

"I didn't know the country was going to turn into The Grapes of Wrath this year," quips Korrie, by phone from New York.

• by Bill O'Driscoll

A hot young playwright's work about brothers in turmoil hits City Theatre.

"This play in particular I wrote so you could do it on a sidewalk," says McCraney.

• by Bill O'Driscoll