Various Artists (Compiled by R. Crumb)
Women who have flinched from R. Crumb’s comic work, deeming it sexist, may want to re-consider their opinions of the man after guiding an ear or two towards the music on this disc. (Or perhaps not, since this collection was his wife’s idea.) Like a sedated Joe Bussard, the France-dwelling expat calmly trawls the…
The Elected
There was a time — maybe 10 years ago — when every pop record with a bit of lap steel or a strum of the banjo got stuck with the somewhat awkwardly named alt-country label. (Y’all-ternative, twang-core — same thing.) Sounds like pigeonholing, but it made sense: Remember when the proper response to…
In July
The offbeat German love story In July opens on a long lonesome stretch of Bulgarian highway, where a lone traveler pulls his car over when day mysteriously turns to night. It’s a total eclipse of the sun, and the roadside stop gives Isa — the husky, scowling, unshaven driver, a German of Turkish descent…
Die, Mommie, Die
Angela Arden — who in her prime could command a bare stage, warbling with busty gusto on gorgeous gams, jewels in her hair, gloves up her arms, gown off her shoulders — is washed up. And that’s just for starters. She has a petulant slutty daughter; an impishly twisted son who got kicked out…
13 Going on 30
Though its title suggests a hero mature beyond her years, Gary Winick’s fantasy romantic comedy 13 Going on 30 actually gives us the opposite. Jenna circa 1987 suffers a junior-high social meltdown, makes a wish and wakes up an adult career woman whose still-teen-age mind contains no memory of how she got there. Somewhere…
Fables of the Reconstruction
As the situation in Iraq grows ever more tenuous, the Bush administration continues to spin the ominous news with matter-of-fact optimism. According to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Iraqi uprisings in half a dozen cities, accompanied by the deaths of more than 90 soldiers in the month of April alone, is something to be viewed…
Intermission
The lives of a dozen Dubliners intersect in this gritty comedy-drama, the debut feature from John Cowley. A fired bus driver and supermarket clerk go on a heist; a bank manager leaves his wife; a rage-filled cop badgers a TV crew; a bus tips over, a sad girl grows a moustache, a wee lad tosses…
Messaging the Shooter
I am the NRA. I didn’t set out to be. See, the National Rifle Association’s annual convention here included a trade show boasting of “4 acres of guns and gear,” but only NRA members could get in. If I wanted to see the weaponry on display — and I did — I had to…
Ricky Fanté
There’s something tremendous stirring inside Ricky Fanté, a 25-year-old soul singer from Washington, D.C., and Rewind definitively proves that the hype surrounding Fanté is based on a talent and style that is real. (His name and image have been touted by the likes of Vanity Fair, and by his major-player handlers, since 2002.) Rewind is,…
The United States of Leland
It’s another spin on moody middle-class teens derailed by drugs, family tragedy, and just the unbelievably heavy weight of the world. We start in high gear with the murder of a young retarded boy by super-sensitive Leland (Ryan Gosling), who once dated the victim’s druggie sister. The film tracks Leland’s time in a youth detention…
Un Chien Andalou & L’Âge d’or
You almost have to be pretentious nowadays to remember Luis Buñuel. Born in Spain in 1900, culturally educated in France as a young man, he made films in both languages — and inflamed people (via subtitles) in many more. His canon includes the art-film classics Los Olvidados, Viridiana, Belle de Jour, The Exterminating Angel…
Bullet Points
“We need to keep our sense of humor, lest it get too depressing,” Stephen Halbrook told the crowd of about 100 at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention. For a moment, Halbrook sounded like an anti-gun activist disturbed by the number of gun-related fatalities in America — or maybe a protester angry at NRA…
Last Pitch Efforts
Remember when every slow-talking Iowa senior citizen had more suitors for her Democratic caucus vote than pills in her week-at-a-glance medication caddy? When free promo John Deere caps were temporarily replaced with free promo Dick Gephardt caps? When every surviving bit of semi-authentic regional culture became “color” on CNN? Pennsylvania, aren’t you jealous? …
The Issues of Issue
“When I was in high school, everything was abstinence: ‘Don’t do this,'” recalls Laura Groetsch, a 23-year-old elementary-education student at California University of Pennsylvania. “We were taught how babies were made, but they never told us about STDs. Abstinence went in one ear and out the other. People are gonna do it anyway.” …
Baby Picture Perfect
If all politics is local, the local appearance of John Kerry on the Pitt campus April 17 was perfect politics for the college crowd. Gov. Ed Rendell drew a roar from Pitt students when he explained the Massachusetts senator’s tax proposal by calling for the financial head of the university’s chancellor. “John Kerry … is…
Follow That Story
Pittsburgh’s only hot Democratic primary is being fueled in large part with out-of-town cash, but rumored Republican interference hasn’t yet materialized. The battle between state Rep. Michael Diven and challenger Rich Nerone – both Brookline Democrats – has caught fire because many top state and local Dems want to get rid of the freewheeling incumbent.…
Bush League
“The Path to War.” If W. keeps insisting Saddam Hussein was a huge threat to world security, say this for him: At least he’s been consistently misleading. In a massive Vanity Fair article (May), Bryan Burrough, Evgenia Peretz, David Rose and David Wise track the decision to invade Iraq from its ideological roots in the…
A Conversation With Charles Hickerson
What are some of the amenities you provide? People always spill drinks on themselves — I carry spot remover. People cut themselves, I have Band-Aids. Alcohol and accidents go together. Breath freshener — that’s extremely important. Girls don’t want to be talking to guys with funky breath. Men don’t carry a purse. They don’t carry…
From PNC Park, one can see a billboard-sized sign atop a Downtown building. This sign is illuminated with a triangular pattern. What the heck is it?
Oscar Wilde once said that all art is useless. If so, the Pirates may have raised baseball to an art form. So what better place could there be for a large public artwork than just across the river from where they play? The “billboard” you’ve seen was a collaboration between artist Robert Wilson and…
