Tonight’s Insane Clown Posse show rescheduled for Dec. 10
Calling all juggalos: Hope you didn’t already blow your last face paint and Faygo today, as inclement weather at their last show has Shaggy 2 Dope and Violent J running a tad behind schedule. Fear not, though: ICP will be at Club Zoo tomorrow night — Thu., Dec. 10 — and your tickets will be…
Loretta Lynn: Canceled
Continuing our series of Shows That Were Happening But Aren’t Anymore Because Someone Is Sick: the December 12 Loretta Lynn concert at the Carnegie Library of Homestead Music Hall has been canceled, as have her other December dates, as Loretta is apparently recovering from the flu. In more positive news, word has it Loretta is…
She’s b-a-a-a-a-a-ck
… Or she would be, if she’d ever left. Tonya Payne has just sent out a press release disclosing the entirely unsurprising fact that she is running for state Legislature — or “spread[ing] her wings and fly[ing] to a higher branch of government” as her press release puts it. While her statement doesn’t mention the…
George Packer at City of Asylum
The acclaimed author and New Yorker staffer’s small, salon-style reading last night on the North Side completed a nice thematic package. Packer visited Pittsburgh courtesy of his friendship with Khet Mar, the exiled Burmese author who’s City of Asylum/Pittsburgh’s current guest. And he read from “Drowning,” the August 2008 New Yorker article that described how…
A self-aggrandizing journalist? Perish the thought
I’m going to interrupt my usual liberal whining for some straight-up self-aggrandizement. If reading this blog hasn’t satisfied your appetite for discussion of Mayor Luke Ravenstahl’s tuition tax, you might want to give a listen to a radio debate I took part in yesterday on the subject. The discussion took place on Pittsburgh Business Radio,…
The year of the half-mast
Western Pennsylvania has lived through 2009 in an almost permanent state of mourning. There were the Stanton Heights police shootings, the LA Fitness shooting, and now this: Penn Hills police officer Michael Crawshaw was gunned down in his patrol car Sunday night, awaiting back-up. This crime will stir up the inevitable debate over gun control,…
MP3 Monday: Mon River Ramblers
Earlier this year, I mentioned in our Short List section that one of the finer bluegrass revival bands in the area, Mon River Ramblers, were releasing an album. It’s from that album that we source this week’s MP3 Monday: the lively track “One More Night,” by Mon River Ramblers. If you like what you hear,…
David Hajdu on Billy Eckstine
Hajdu is an author, cultural critic and the music critic for The New Republic, and last week I spent some quality time with Heroes and Villains (Da Capo), his new book of essays. He’s a perceptive critic and highly enjoyable writer. The lead piece alone, on Pittsburgh-born jazz legend Eckstine, is nearly worth the price…
Look on the bright side, Pitt fans!
Hearts were broken all over Oakland last night after Pitt’s Big East football loss to Cincy. But there’s some consolation for Pitt students: You saved face … and maybe $130 or so. The day before the game, the Pitt News (where I serve as a member of the advisory board) ran this story: Nearly 2,000…
Dance Alloy Theater’s Alloy Unlocked … Part I
The long-lived troupe’s first mainstage show under new artistic director Greer Reed-Jones was a qualified success. Alloy Unlocked continues with shows at 2 p.m. Sun., Dec. 6, and 8 p.m. Mon., Dec. 7, at the New Hazlett Theater. (Full disclosure: The Alloy’s still photographer, Renee Rosensteel, is my spouse.) The show opens with two works…
Payne removed from party post
No doubt readers of this space have been wondering for weeks now: “What happened to Tonya Payne and the effort to remove her from her post chairing the Democratic Party’s city committee?” Well, wonder no longer. Jim Burn, who chairs the county committee, has stripped Payne of the chair, and removed her from the state…
Michael Koehler at moxie DaDA
A few weeks back I attended the closing reception for the final show at moxie’s North Side venue. The gallery is going virtual, so the last night of its wittily themed Dia de los Muertos show was the last chance (for now) to see it in any sort of physical incarnation. Going back to its…
Cessnas to land at Club Cafe
Here’s a heads-up for you: a few months back, I did a fun interview with Slim Cessna — frontman of Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, and Polish Hill resident. At the time, SCAC were about to play the 31st Street Pub, and a side project of Slim’s, Denver Broncos UK, was set to play at the…
Short List: Week of December 3 – 10
For the first time in 114 years, the Carnegie Library system plans to close branches … and Pittsburghers are not happy. On Sun., Dec. 6, some of the Steel City’s most creative citizens continue working to raise awareness about the endangered system. At the Carnegie Library Lecture Hall, avant-garde cabaret troupe The Typewriter Girls hosts…
Replanting Cranberry
The Pittsburgh region’s poster child for sprawl is putting down new roots
Paris
A relatively young man (Romain Duris) receives the news that he may be dying, and he retreats to his Paris apartment, gazing out the window at the lives scurrying below. This is the loose set-up for Cédric Klapisch’s (The Spanish Apartment) ensemble dramedy that for the next two hours intercuts between the lives of a…
Everybody’s Fine
Some folks like these easy-on-the-brain, family-drama-lite movies, especially around the holidays when we’re supposedly filled with fellow-feeling for our relatives. For me, Kirk Jones’ remake of the 1990 Italian film Stanno Tutti Bene, was like opening a 100-minute greeting card: It expressed nice but wholly expected sentiments in a non-threatening manner, and was equally disposable.…
A preteen Jewish secret agent, and a local filmmaker’s unlikely first effort, highlight Film Kitchen.
Cohen sells copies mostly in Judaica stores in and around New York City, where the devout buyers typically don’t even have televisions.
Brothers
It takes a little imagination and a lot of courage to make a war movie that doesn’t simply remind us of the things we already know. What new stories are there to tell, and who out there in movie land really wants to see them? Brothers takes place in 2004 and revolves around the Cahill…
This Just In: December 3 – 10
Highlights from the local TV news: Footloose!
With a new artistic director, Dance Alloy forges ahead with a new season.
Porter characterizes the look and feel of “Itch of the Key” as “cinematic theater,” a la silent film.
Plum Pan-Asian Kitchen
A broader menu and lower prices herald the rebirth of this fine-dining Asian venue
Complaints Surfacing
Women arrested during G-20 speaking out about poor police treatment
A Hell of a Flight
Pegasus gay bar closing after 29 years on Liberty Avenue
East Liberty native Steve Nelson among jazz’s top vibraphonists
If Nelson isn’t widely known as a performer, it’s because his work as a sideman greatly outweighs his output as a leader and composer.
British dance-punks Arctic Monkeys sell out Mr. Small’s
“Assuming that all things are equal, who’d want to be men of the people when there’s people like you?”
Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs hit town with the new EP Devil Do
“The singer is perceived to be doing the most, even though that’s usually bollocks.”
An international array of artists smartly explores and re-imagines the modern sense of place.
In today’s world of mass migration and telecommuting — of stark political boundaries and information sans frontiers — what does it mean to be somewhere?
Bella Sera
A new restaurant goes green: saving energy and reducing waste
Flunking the Test
Tuition tax debate missing the point
University club Pittsburgh Electronic Musicians offers concerts and camaraderie
“We’re trying to throw in as many diverse artists as possible, to show people different genres and ways to produce music.”
Savage Love
I’m a longtime reader who thought I’d never have a reason to write since I’m universally known as the “good girl.” But I have a close male friend. Even though I knew he was dating someone else, we became friends-with-benefits several years ago. Because of his relationship (he lives with her!), I let him take…
