Pittsburgh blow-up masks real challenge in regulating gas industry
At city council yesterday, an argument broke out — surprise! — over efforts to regulate drilling of the Marcellus Shale within city limits. City councilor Patrick Dowd, whose district is rife with talk about future drilling, has proposed an early draft of a bill to try and regulate such operations within city limits. The measure…
Art at Pittsburgh Public Theater
I won’t call it “smart,” because that would be redundant: Everything about Yasmina Reza’s neo-classic is smart, and likewise this Ted Pappas-directed production. But there’s one passage in the play that illuminates a lot about both Reza’s craft and the themes of her cunning take on the vagaries of long-term male friendships. The passage occurs…
A quick thought before today’s council meeting (UPDATED)
As I type this, council is set to meet in just a few minutes. Among the items slated to come before it are Mayor Luke Ravenstahl’s proposed new board members for the Citizens Police Review Board. Today’s Post-Gazette, meanwhile, features city council president Darlene Harris expressing bafflement at claims by Bill Peduto and others on…
On natural gas special, WPXI gives us plenty of gasbags
Those of us who don’t have cable, and couldn’t see Gasland on HBO last night, had to make do with “Fueling Pittsburgh,” WPXI’s special on the region’s burgeoning energy industry. I mean, I suppose we could have just read a book instead, but come on. I expressed some misgivings about the program in a blog…
Revisiting Pintek, natural-gas drilling and (sorry!) a 19th Ward item
A few quick items including — for those who still care — a brief update on the Kimberly Cagni dispute. First, a follow-up to my post last week about KDKA Radio host Mike Pintek’s puzzling take on local cyclists. Pintek revisited the subject today, and had me on as one of his guests. (I was…
Tonight tonight tonight
A couple of programming notes for you: – Tonight at Thunderbird Cafe, in a show that I’m pretty sure is presented at least in party by frequent CP contributor and swell guy Manny Theiner, Burkina Electric plays. A couple years ago when Burkina associate Lukas Ligeti came through town, I wrote a little about him;…
Quickly! Weekend!
Hey blog people! I’m a little busy and a little behind, so we’re gonna make this quick. Here’s what you’ll do this weekend: Tonight (Friday) there’s a benefit show for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation at The Shop in Bloomfield. It’s got Donora, and Landline, and Pet Clinic, and DJ Gordy G, and it’s $15 and…
UPDATE: Stop the presses! Mayor benefits from murky legal language, council confusion!
This post is an update to my previous missive on the mayor’s effort to replace most of the city’s police review board — even as that review board presses for a full disclosure of city policy during the G-20. Here’s the issue, folks. The mayor is claiming the right to replace five of the board’s…
Report: mayor plans review board putsch
The Post-Gazette is reporting that Mayor Luke Ravenstahl plans to replace all seven members of the Citizen Police Review Board. Reportedly, Ravenstahl is doing so in large part because — surprise, surprise — the board members are all serving on expired terms: Marsha V. Hinton, Chair (Council) — Term Expires 10.31.2009 Richard M. Carrington, Vice…
Gasland on HBO
On June 5, I was among the hundreds at the Byham Theater for a preview screening of Josh Fox’s smart, scary and impassioned new documentary about Marcellus Shale gas-drilling in Pennsylvania. Gasland — which goes national via HBO at 9 p.m. Mon., June 21 — does something relatively few commentators about such drilling have done:…
Wheels come off on Mike Pintek’s biking interview
Have you ever wanted to run somebody over? You know, just to teach them a lesson? I’m not saying kill them. Just roll over ’em with one tire, maybe. Two at the most. OK, I’ve never thought of doing this either. But then, I’m not a talk-radio host. I don’t even like steamrolling the people…
Like a blog over troubled waters …
So there’ve been some reports about the lingering resentment between the Democratic Party establishment and Joe Sestak, the party’s nominee for Senate. And things don’t seem likely to improve anytime soon, now that idiotic statements by the Dem’s outgoing state committee chair are popping up in attacks by Sestak’s GOP rival, former Congressman Pat Toomey.…
Short List: Week of June 17 – 24
Thu., June 17 — Stage The Pittsburgh CLO’s summer gets in full swing. Tonight’s the world premiere of ‘S Wonderful: The New Gershwin Musical. The revue, tailor-made for fans of the Great American Songbook, comprises five “mini-musicals” showcasing local talents interpreting George and Ira, from “Shall We Dance” to “Rhapsody in Blue,” in a summer-long…
Survival of the Dead
Taking up where 2007’s Diary of the Dead left off, this latest zombie flick from writer-director Romero follows a group of AWOL soldiers (plus one bratty techno-teen) to an island off the coast of Delaware, where a feud between two Irish farmers supersedes any larger issues with the dead eating the living. It’s as painfully…
Exit Through the Gift Shop
In one respect, this film offers a straightforward history of street art, a guerrilla public-art movement, though how the viewer comes by this information is anything but. Its two protagonists are Thierry Guetta, who decides to document the scene, and the elusive Banksy, who opts to document Guetta. Exit is credited as “a film by…
Please Give
The parents (Catherine Keener, Oliver Platt) run a high-end vintage furniture store, and wait for the elderly woman in the apartment next door to die (so they can buy her place). Holofcener’s concise storytelling and tone-perfect script keep you off balance and struggling to find someone or something to embrace. Holofcener doesn’t quite come right…
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This hotel restaurant makes the most of its by-the-book contemporary American menu.
[title of show]
Much, alas, is formulaic, following the arc from puppy-like eagerness to initial success, frustration, near-disastrous squabbling and, finally, success.
Miss Saigon
Miss Saigon exists only as a hangover from the “popera” musical trend of the ’80s.
Pittsburgh transplant Karen Lillis anchors the latest installment of a new reading series.
“Many of us here agree — Pittsburgh has some impressive audiences!”
Famed horror-comics writer visits with a more whimsical offering.
“It’s sort of Mr. and Mrs. Smith meets The X-Files.”
This Just In: June 17 – 24
Highlights from the local TV news: Thong Wrong
Interpol returns for Mr. Small’s show, sans Carlos D.
If “Lights” is a preview for what’s to come on Interpol, it seems like the band is pretty much sticking to its old tricks.
Pittsburgh pop-punks The SpacePimps release Stuck Here Forever
“2003 is the only time that ever made sense to me.”
Classic Material celebrates its third anniversary with guest Pharaohe Monch
“I hope the album will open eyes and inspire in the mode of Public Enemy — it’s about the fight for artistic, spiritual, political and mental freedom.”
In Rehab
East Liberty still hoping to get use out of vacant complex
Stalled on the Hill
Master plan on hold while issues addressed
Wealth of News
Are the city’s foundations preparing to reshape local media?
Suspended in Mid-Air
The future for WDUQ still isn’t clear
Neighborhood School
CommuniTeach lets residents share their knowledge with each other
Kubideh Kitchen
Art school hopes to foster geopolitical goodwill through tasty Iranian take-out.
Lady Beast singer Deb Levine combines ferocious metal and ferociously positive energy
A believer in the idea that no one should be without a dream, she is — let’s just say it — a sort of a rainbow in the dark, a relentlessly positive force in a dark world of quitters.
Savage Love
I’m a woman in my 20s, and I’ve been dating the love of my life for two years. We are incredibly happy except for — guess! — we have different sex drives. When we first started dating, I initiated sex all the time and enjoyed it, but as soon as I started on birth control,…
The Mattress Factory’s latest Gestures goes in every direction.
In the shiny plastic future, the seams aren’t supposed to show; the fact that Henry’s do makes the piece more a vivid metaphor for falling short of the dream.
