Democrats Making the Case(y)
I guess I should be more excited about Democrats’ chances after watching footage from their Denver convention last night. Last night, Barack Obama’s candidacy generated something akin to enthusiasm even in Senator Bob Casey — which is no easy task. So why don’t I feel more energized? Partly it’s because the media commentary seems to…
Last Politician Standing
In these partisan days, it’s hard to see much that Democrats and Republicans have in common. But after attending a “Candidates’ Comedy Night ’08” at the Waterfront’s Improv, I can tell you this: When an aspiring comedian bombs on stage, you feel bad — no matter what their party affiliation. Yes, even your faithful CP…
Over a Barrel
Colt Templin has a concealed-carry permit, but he loses his right to carry either of his two handguns when he steps on the University of Pittsburgh campus, where he is a senior majoring in finance and accounting. Off campus, any Pennsylvania resident over 21 with a clean record may apply for and — pending a…
Review Course
Here’s the thing about life in a college town: Just when you think you’ve seen every form of political self-expression imaginable, something will emerge from the shadows of obscurity to shock you out of complacency. Take for instance, an anti-gay organization protesting a memorial gathering for TV’s Mr. Rogers in May 2003. Members of the…
Numbers Game
As you, or your family, writes out that massive tuition check, you can at least take solace knowing that your university values academics as much as you do, right? Well, maybe. But at big schools especially, university tax documents suggest, they love their coaches even more. According to a study –The Annual Report on the…
Bombing More Than Exams
When you decided to ship off to the peaceful confines of college instead of heading for, say, the Navy, you may have thought you were avoiding the conflict of conscience that would’ve come with joining the war effort. If so, you might want to look beyond the syllabus — especially if you attend Carnegie Mellon…
Incomplete Grade
Duquesne University has been the subject of some undesired attention in recent years, mostly related to its policies on sexual freedoms. Last year, for example, the school famously forced WDUQ-FM, the NPR affiliate it operates, to reject sponsorship from Planned Parenthood. And the Catholic institution still isn’t the easiest place for lesbian, gay, bisexual, or…
Flunking Civics
There used to be an understanding. Every year, colleges and universities would jack up their tuition prices on the incoming class of freshlings. And every year, students and their families would take out more loans to cover the costs. The schools have kept up their end of the bargain: Penn State and the University of…
Classroom Crowding
Even once-tiny schools have begun metastasizing, staking out ever-larger parcels of the city. Should we send out the biplanes? Point Park University will soon occupy almost two full blocks of Downtown, creating an “Academic Village” (gym, residence halls, park) and relocating its Playhouse facility from Oakland. Chatham University last month became the largest campus around,…
Toppling the Ivory Tower
The best, and worst, thing about college life is this: The campus politics, the petty jealousies, the ridiculous regulations … that’s pretty much what the whole world is like. Life really is like high school, except it’s more expensive and the booze is slightly easier to get hold of. Which is to say life is…
For Christian Finnegan, standup comedy beats the classroom … for now.
Everyone thinks they want funny, but they really want amusement.
Anna’s Brooklyn Promise
Just to rub salt in the wound, Anna’s Brooklyn Promise ends with a little life lesson to think about at home … provided, of course, you don’t intentionally drive into an oncoming truck before you get there
Pangea
Small plates are a big hit at this Shadyside eatery.
Transportation: Rubber meets the road for labor/environmental group
Balancing the demands of a union and the environment’s need for increased public transportation will be the first major test for the Blue-Green Alliance. Once it decides to get involved that is.
Development: Planned Squirrel Hill project could mean losing what’s already there
A planned development could dramatically reshape the corner of Forward and Murray avenues. Its developers say it will revitalize the area, but some patrons are more worried about what Squirrel Hill might lose.
Changing Reels
On the drive in to have major surgery, fAe Gibson cracks jokes and shoots the goofy ironic finger-guns at his companions. In a post-anesthesia haze, he somewhat deliriously asks for “rough sex and beer.” After his brother tries hard to explain what’s different about Gibson and makes an unfortunate comparison to a boy born with…
Up the Yangtze
Canadian filmmaker Yung Chang takes his cameras to China’s Yangtze River to document the enormous changes wrought since his grandfather made his home along the venerable waterway. Today, the river — and life along it — is irrevocably altered by the Three Gorges hydro-electric dam, the largest in the world. In this essay-like documentary, Chang,…
Tell No One
Guilliaume Canet’s thriller lays the groundwork for a taut Hitchcockian exercise, dressed up with an all-star French cast. For some time, Tell No One is reminiscent of those classics, in which a seemingly innocent man finds himself accused and on the run, and forced to take the law into his own hands. Eight years after…
The Rocker
What do you get when you mix The Office‘s Dwight Shrute with an adorable, floppy-haired alterna-teen band? Answer: A comedy from Paul Cattaneo that isn’t nasty enough for adults or bubbly enough for the young’uns. A thirtysomething peevish slacker (Rainn Wilson), who once played in a ’80s hair-metal band, hooks up with his young nephew…
Henry Poole Is Here
The tetchy, moody Henry Poole (Luke Wilson) moves back to his old Los Angeles neighborhood to die in peace from a mysterious illness. He’s irked when his effusive neighbor, Esperanza (Adriana Barraza), sees the face of Jesus in the water-stained stucco of his shabby home’s exterior. She declares a miracle, and begins funneling the variously…
Bottle Shock
A great real-life story — about an international wine contest held in 1976 that catapulted Northern California wineries out of plonk-y obscurity and into the pantheon of the Great Wines — gets the big-screen treatment that too often feels like a TV movie. Randall Miller’s low-key comedy tells the Cinderella tale of how a handful…
Man on Wire
On Aug. 7, 1974, a young Frenchman named Phillippe Petit, in a totally unauthorized performance, walked for nearly an hour on a tightrope wire strung between the tops of the World Trade Center’s twin towers. James Marsh’s fascinating documentary is more than a straightforward account of the event; it also probes the quixotic project’s origins…
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Here, director Woody Allen constructs another of his sexual fantasies in the guise of a realistic romantic drama. It’s the story of a love triangle — actually, a love pentagon — set in Spain, that revolves around two young American women (Rebecca Hall and Scarlet Johansson) and the artist (Javier Bardem) they desire, each to…
This Just In: August 21 – 28
Highlights from the local TV news.
Pittsburgh n’@
Dispatches from the blogosphere: When Rick Sebak is the roadside attraction.
Letters to the Editor: August 20 – 27
Feedback from our readers:
Pittsburgh goes prog with this weekend’s Three Rivers Progressive Rock Festival
Pittsburgh band Mandrake Project should fir nicely alongside some of prog-rock’s current standard-bearers at the Three Rivers Progressive Rock Festival.
Where many bands fiddle with the dynamics of guitar and rhythm tempos, Envy uses keyboards.
Long Island band Envy on the Coast joins the club.
Silent Years’ global journey stops in Pittsburgh
While Silent Years is never as loud or panoramic as the shoegazers get, its songs frequently build to noisy, blissed-out climaxes that interrupt, and then slowly recede into, the gentle rootsy beauty of the melodies.
Billy Bob Thornton comes down from the hills to play the Rex
“Humor and tragedy were so mixed up in the lifestyle that I was raised in that it’s natural for me to see them as being intertwined,” says Billy Bob Thornton.
Project planners and the public meet to discuss proposed new development in Squirrel Hill
When a group of developers and architects voluntarily makes its plans public, and asks for community feedback, the public should take encouragement.
Better-Maid Donut Company
Fond memories help keep a neighborhood donut shop in business
Savage Love
I have a problem that has nothing to do with sex. I have a parenting problem, and given that you are a fellow parent, I’m hoping you have some insight. My brother is a social conservative; I’m a politically engaged liberal. I can’t change him, but I’m disturbed because his son, who we’ll call “George,”…
Lemieux’s Ruse
Headlines about taxpayer-funded sports facilities always remind me of the old mobster who wanted to go legit — because that’s where the real money is. The latest example came Aug. 15, when the Penguins broke ground on their new $290 million arena in the Hill District. Chatting with reporters, Penguins owner Mario Lemieux revisited last…
Glass and Steel: Art Transcends Industry tells a story of change at Pittsburgh Glass Center.
What is most heartening about this exhibition is that it reveals art to be — like the urban pioneer — a genuine catalyst for revitalization.
