Brand O Trims Taxes!
Metaphysics freaks are fond of noting that a dropped ball can, theoretically, never hit the ground, because it first has to go half way, then half of the rest of the way, ad infinitum. Well, here’s a new question for the ages: If candidates propose 10 percent cuts in Allegheny County property taxes every election,…
Charges Not Enough, Too Many
Renee Wilson wants to see Mount Oliver Borough and Pittsburgh Police charged with homicide for the deaths of two black men in their custody. But after protesting their deaths, she and her immediate family were arrested for bank fraud – charges motivated by her protests, she says. Wilson’s new group, People Against Police Violence, paraded…
Meet and Defeat
One of the latest Howard Dean “Meet Up” events, this one at the Irish Center in Squirrel Hill on Sept. 3, was beginning to seem like a real love-fest, with both speakers and audience members extolling the many nation-saving virtues of “the doctor” (Dean is an M.D.) and current governor of Vermont. Such talk is…
The Highest Height
Kites may seem frivolous, even symbols of childish joy, but they won’t work unless you hold onto them…which is partly why Michael Sciaretti of Highland Park thought of them as a memorial to the victims of Sept. 11, 2001. “That’s part of what I consider the beauty of it,” says Sciaretti. “It does require active…
Conversation Starters
“9/11 has brought to the surface a lot of questions and confusion and tension … and it can now be dealt with openly,” says Dalia Mogahed, outreach program director for the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh. The Oakland mosque – one of seven serving the region’s 10,000 Muslims – will hold an open house from 5…
Mayor Strangelove
Father Knows WorstPinkslipsburgh is a tough place to raise kids. It was clear from the beginning that parenting in the city would be a rocky road — literally. No sooner had I strapped my first-born into a stroller and set out across the South Side Slopes than I realized that the sidewalks were buckled by…
I would like to know why so many companies and hospitals don’t pay their fair share of taxes to Pittsburgh. The taxpayers are burdened enough.
You’re from Millvale, eh? That means you’re a…suburbanite. And according to Mayor Tom Murphy, that makes you part of the problem! You Millvale residents with your wanton, reckless lifestyles, tearing up our streets with your high-powered sports cars, expecting police protection as you walk from one ritzy non-profit gala to the next in dazzling jewelry…
Public Enema
When Joe Preston, Dan Frankel and Jay Costa unveiled their plan to save the city of Pittsburgh on the steps of the City-County Building Aug. 29, they were standing a few feet away from a statue of a weeping dinosaur. Let’s hope it wasn’t an omen of the city’s future. But not even the presence…
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
At the beginning of “Oh My Lord,” Nick Cave paces the edge of the silent stage much like he did all those years back in the Birthday Party. But in those days, this once-and-future beast punctuated dark lyrical fantasies with Cuban-heeled kicks to the audience. Once his realm is silent, this Cave points a lithe…
Circle of Dead Children
Radio-friendly nu-metal may rule the airwaves and the minds of the young and impressionable. But the authentic metal underground continues regardless, unabated but also mostly unheralded. If there’s one Pittsburgh-area metal band that readers of Terrorizer and Metal Maniacs are likely to be familiar with, it’s a trio that avoids many of the typical stereotypes…
Quasi
Quasi couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate title for its most recent release. Long before the overhyped White Stripes brought their whole head-scratching brother/sister/ex-husband/ex-wife shtick to the table, the formerly married Portland, Ore., duo of Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss were creating music to satiate the savage indie-rock beast with understated flair — even if…
A conversation with Ruth and Charque Newell
Why a mysticism school?Ruth: We went for that because we believe we ultimately are teachers. Our readings are teachings. There were mystery schools in the Middle East. The core of it is that the world is a reflection of consciousness, not a cause of it. All of your experiences in life — from getting caught…
It’s Your Funeral
Architecture is often associated with regret, and I don’t just mean the sort that arises over, say, the nauseating blue color of the Cultural Trust’s new garage. Even in prehistoric times, grave markers and burial mounds demonstrated that building to express sadness over loss is nearly as fundamental a need as shelter itself. Much more…
American Splendor
In the same way that Harvey Pekar’s comic books are inseparable from his real life, so is the new movie about him made to seem as though it’s contact-printed straight from his prickly persona. Named after the writer’s best-known comic, American Splendor is mostly a series of re-enacted vignettes from his life (or from his…
Holy Land
The first time we see Mendy, the son of an Israeli rabbi and his American émigré wife, he’s enjoying the sight of a woman’s bare breast. The woman is his mother, and Mendy is barely a week old. The next time we see him, he’s looking at the same sort of thing. Only now Mendy…
Matchstick Men
Roy Waller utters the distinction twice: He’s not a criminal; he’s a “con artist. ” Con men, like lovable Mafioso, are embraced by audiences — and filmmakers concur, churning out far more films about charming con men than about the brain-dead souls who hold up gas stations. It may be the pleasure of watching a…
Once Upon a Time in Mexico
The title, naturally, is a nod to Once Upon the Time in the West, Sergio Leone’s legendary 1965 revisionist Western epic. But it also alerts the viewer that the story may be a manly sort of fairy tale. Early on, petty criminal Bellini (Cheech Marin), while relating the history of noted gunslinger El Mariachi, admits…
