With Friends Like These …
Readers of this column may have noticed my propensity to attack our boy mayor, Mayor Luke “Opie” Ravenstahl. It’s been argued that I’ve been far too tough on the kid. But Opie is a jock-sniffer who will do anything to get close to big-time athletes … and even more to play golf with them. Hence,…
Northern Aggression makes for furious folk-punk
Better than sitting at home playing war video games while your neighbor’s son or daughter loses a limb overseas.
Pittsburgh n’@
From: http://art-lifeandlovelizabeth.blogspot.com/ Cri de coeur/crying in the car Yesterday I took my teens to a 9th-grade orientation … I waited around in the lobby with some other abandoned moms. A tidy, brisk-looking woman strode by and someone whispered, “That’s the head of the school board.” I said bye and dashed after her. I got her…
A Conversation with Ben Grubb
Twenty-eight-year-old Lawrenceville resident Ben Grubb ordinarily does iron work in Bloomfield. But as you read this, the Wisconsin native — who was transplanted here from New Orleans via Minneapolis — is on the road to Tulsa, Okla. There, he will join a flotilla of friends on homemade boats and float 400 miles down the…
Road Signs of Life
Just last summer, opponents of the Mon Fayette Expressway gathered to celebrate its imminent death from lack of funding and political support. But nearly 40 years in the making, the pipe dream of staking an four-lane interstate highway into the heart of some of the most moribund towns in Mon Valley has recently been resuscitated…
This Just In: August 29 – Sept. 5
Highlights from the local TV news.
Educational protest
More than 60 concerned parents, school-board members and local activists gathered in East Liberty’s Reizenstein Middle School on Aug. 24 to voice concerns about the district’s contract with Community Education Partners. CEP plans to house 432 of the district’s behaviorally and academically challenged sixth- to 12th-graders, but some expressed doubts about the plan, in which…
Making the Grade
Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Mark Roosevelt had turned in his 45-page report — a self-evaluation of his second year as the district’s leading man. And as he entered the July 25 meeting of the Pittsburgh school board, all he needed was a grade. At the head of the long, slender conference table in the district’s…
Question of ethics
Mayor Luke Ravenstahl had a discussion last week with the city’s ethics panel. Not a hearing, not a trial, but a conversation about his acceptance of a $9,000 golf outing from UPMC and the Pittsburgh Penguins. Many political watchers were salivating over the thoughts of Ravenstahl appearing before the ethics panel that he brought back…
Bado’s Cucina
It is perhaps ironic that on a suburban highway, within view of three gas stations and their associated convenience stores, lies Bado’s Cucina, a bastion of slow food from the country whose mealtime culture is perhaps most legendary — Italy.
Communist Lover
A poem by Michelle Stoner.
Goya’s Ghosts
Goya’s Ghosts is lushly photographed with set pieces that looked like period paintings come to life, but it’s too bad that this cinematic adaptation turned out so lovely to look at but hampered by blurry intent.
Birthdays on Wax: The Big Throwback and Humanaut celebrate
If there’s a rare northern-soul version of “Happy Birthday” out there, Justin Hopper likely either owns it or has suffered crippling defeat in an eBay bidding war.
Gypsy Caravan
Six weeks, five bands from four countries, 35 musicians, nine languages and one goal: to bring the diversity of Roma — or gypsy — music to audiences in the United States. Jasmine Dellal’s film documents this 2006 tour and its varied participants. Ultimately, the well-intentioned Dellal tries to cover too much ground, but this is…
Savage Love
I’m a high school girl with big problems. All my life I’ve worn boy clothes and had male friends, mainly because I’m into “male” things like video games and geek stuff. As high school approached, Mother Nature flipped me off with DD breasts and hips that would make Shakira jealous. I don’t even identify as…
Molière
There’s just a whiff of the erudite, but not enough to detract from the pretty costumes and sets.
Steely McBeam Will Die for Our Sins
Friends, Pittsburghers, county residents, I come not to praise Steely McBeam, but to bury him. Right after holding a Full Metal Jacket-style Terrible Towel Party, where he is beaten savagely with yellow terrycloths wrapped around bars of soap. That’s what you want to hear, right? Everyone hates the new Steelers mascot, an overdrawn steelworker toting…
American Revolution 2 and The Murder of Fred Hampton are scintillating documentaries about street democracy — and its costs.
While Alk and Gray capture the chaos of the moment, they also do something rarer and more valuable.
Devine Guidance
This year the West Virginia Mountaineers add a player with limitless potential for excitement: 5’8″, 175-pound running back Noel Devine. This Internet megastar boasts a set of football skills which made my jaw drop when I recently killed an evening watching his highlights on YouTube. I am a convert to the church of Devine.…
Letters to the Editor: August 29 – Sept. 5
Feedback from our readers.
The Last Yankee
In The Last Yankee, Miller has written four characters as metaphors — but what each of them signifies zoomed right passed my little pointed head.
Arturo Vizzuett, Salsa Man
It’s common for Arturo Vizzuett to walk down a street or through a shopping mall and hear, “Hey, it’s the Salsa Man.” The 46-year-old Mexican-born sauce celebrity has earned his status as the salsa king of Pittsburgh. If you are a farmers’ market regular, you’ve seen him standing behind towers of clear plastic containers of…
Funny, Neil Hamburger doesn’t look like America’s Youngest Comedian.
“A small rock, now that I wouldn’t be into. That just puts you in the hospital with a slow death.”
The Ten
A high point in this collection of skits includes an inspired riff on coveting one’s neighbor’s goods, as two guys engage in a furious acquisition of CAT-scan machines.
Sir Richard Bishop and Bill Callahan perform at the Warhol
He’s not a fingerpicker in the Fahey tradition — he’s quite proud of his big, fat pick.
We train our eyes on Snowblind, a show of new painting at SPACE.
The precision and efficiency of Antis’ decisions is striking, and his work is mesmerizing in its delicate details and structural precision.
Space-rock pioneer Sonic Boom performs with Spectrum
While Spacemen 3 claimed to be “taking drugs to make music to take drugs to,” Spectrum’s songs feel practically like drugs themselves.
A unique Downtown art project holds its final show.
The Skinny Building’s profile has included collaborations with local schools, including Carnegie Mellon and Chatham. Charlene Langer, the Art Institute of Pittsburgh instructor who organized shows for students and other artists, says that the Skinny project was a great way to reach people who’d never attend a gallery opening.
The Chad Sipes Stereo releases The Soft Center of the City
You can envision kids bouncing up and down to the callout hook, like they would for Fallout Boy or Weezer at Bigelow Bash.
Local author Heather Terrell’s first novel heralded a career change.
If an insistent subtext is that of a young woman deciding whether to leave a promising career, it’s no coincidence.
Ludlow’s new release drips with 7 inches of sludge
You might want to gather a few choice substances together before tossing this on your turntable.
