Port Authority sees potential for bumpy road ahead
When it comes to finances, the Port Authority finds itself in the same spot its customers do: out of the driver’s seat. So reports our very own Lauren Daley, who took one for the team by attending a public meeting of the transit agency last night. Here’s Lauren’s take on what’s shaping up to be…
On snow removal, city officials rub salt in each other’s wounds
I just spent an hour of my life that I’ll never get back watching City Council debate extending the city’s emergency snow-removal declaration. The bottom line is that council voted unanimously in favor the extension, which allows the city to expedite contracts in the name of clearing streets more quickly after last week’s storm. Even…
Public Service Announcement
Just a quick reminder here. Tonight from 6 to 8 p.m. at AVA Lounge in East Liberty, the good folks at the Pittsburgh Urban Magnet Project are hosting a session on how to run for a committee seat. We have a news feature related to these committee races — which often times aren’t races at…
I just don’t know who to trust anymore
After considerable confusion as to his whereabouts today, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl emerged at a late-afternoon press conference. He’d gone incommunicado the rest of the day, he told reporters, “just to kind of prove a point: that you all need to be more responsible.” Ravenstahl railed about rumors that he had traipsed off to Mardi Gras,…
Stop me if you’ve heard this before
Mayor Luke Ravenstahl’s office is seeking to extend a state of emergency to assist snow-removal efforts … his spokesperson isn’t sure where he is … online speculation takes hold … and city councilors like Bill Peduto are left pleading for clarity. I’m sure this will all work itself out in terms of the declaration; it’s…
Jack Kelly’s Snow Job
One rule of opinion writing is that you don’t warp the position you oppose, then beat up on a straw man. One, it’s unfair. Two, it leaves readers less well informed, not better. Which is why Jack Kelly’s truly bizarre column headlined “Globull Warming,” in the Sunday Post-Gazette, is as irresponsible as it is comically…
Plumb Stupid: Joe the Plumber is back
If you’re like me, you’ve probably been wondering, “What does ‘Joe the Plumber’ think of Pennsylvania’s political landscape? Because after all, as an Ohio-dwelling non-licensed plumber, Samuel J. Wurzelbacher must know as much as about state politics as he does, say, the role of the media in a combat zone.” Well, my friends, wonder…
Where Have All the Bloggers Gone?
Once again, this weekend showed us the Post-Gazette paradox. On the one hand, the paper’s business side demonstrates an embrace of new technology, a willingness to bank its future online. On the other hand, its editorial page is still making jokes at the expense of bloggers: 14 percent of online teens now say they blog,…
MP3 Monday: Liverball
Happy Presidents Day! This post has nothing to do with presidents at all. I just thought I’d get that part out of the way. What this post IS about is: Liverball. They were an early-to-mid-’90s punk band from around these parts who recorded some tunes then peaced; last year, the band re-formed with a new…
“Company B” at Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre
It would be easy to market renowned choreographer Paul Taylor’s 1991 work as a nostalgia piece. “Company B” is, after all, a high-energy, swing-inflected tour de force, with dancers costumed to suggest the 1940s, and moving entirely to songs by the Andrews Sisters. Indeed, a nostalgia piece is what Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s ads for the…
Wrasslin’ Over Rasmussen poll numbers
As last week was closing out, the folks at Tom Corbett’s gubernatorial campaign released word that the state Attorney General “continues to hold big leads over three potential Democratic rivals in this year’s race for governor in Pennsylvania.” The evidence: a Rasmussen Reports poll showing Corbett up by 20-plus points over Montgomery County Commissioner Joe…
He who pays the piper calls the Toomey
A bit of Friday-afternoon buzz is being generated by this piece on GOP Senatorial candidate Pat Toomey today. The Allentown Morning Call is mostly upbeat about Toomey’s prospects this November. The headline is “This time, the timing’s right for Pat Toomey,” and early on the story asserts: If poll data is any indicator of how…
At this sad hour, my deepest condolences go out to the defense contractors
It’s one of those hoary traditions that, when a public official passes away, everyone has to fall all over themselves to say what a great guy he was — whether they really thought so or not. So it is with the late Jack Murtha, the longtime Democratic Congressman from Johnstown. I’m sure I’m not the…
At this sad hour, my deepest go out to the defense contractors
It’s one of those hoary traditions that, when a public official passes away, everyone has to fall all over themselves to say what a great guy he was — whether they thought so or not. So it is with the late Jack Murtha, the longtime Democratic Congressman from Johnstown. I’m sure I’m not the only…
Shadowy political group descends on Pittsburgh airwaves
Chances are that if you read this blog, you’re not some pathetic, over-the-hill shut-in approaching the sunset of your life. (The odds get shorter if you write for this blog, however.) Which means you probably don’t watch the local TV news very often. But if you do tune in, you may have recently noticed a…
The Clockmaker at City Theatre
Here’s an exchange between two characters in the first scene of this play by Stephen Massicotte. The protagonist — whom we’ll shortly learn is a failed clockmaker named Heinrich Mann — speaks first, to a preposessing inquisitor named Monsieur Pierre. “Have I done something wrong?” “I don’t know, have you?” “I’m answering your questions as…
Social media snowballing in winter weather
As regular readers of this blog know — and I’m sure they’ve been paying attention lately, because the bad weather means less time in the exercise yard — I’ve been using the storm to brush up on the power of social media. Earlier this week, I wrote about the Port Authority’s Twitter account — a…
Lab Notes
Pittsburgh’s experimental musicians provide more than just background noise
Short List: Week of February 11 – 18
Ever wonder how a dance work is made, or what it would be like to join the creative process? In Attack Theatre’s two-week Assemble This series, audiences at eight art galleries can release their inner choreographers to help create a work set to original music … then attend its world premiere. An expanded version of…
Mine
Geralyn Pezanoski’s film focuses on one unforeseen and heartbreaking aspect of the disaster: what happened to the pets that residents were forced to leave behind. The post-storm chaos, the hodgepodge of rescue efforts and the eventual distribution of unclaimed animals to shelters nationwide meant that owners — many of them poor or elderly — faced…
Avenue B
Rich, artfully prepared food is the new star of this Shadyside corner.
Scapin
I often think that theater people find these French farces a lot funnier than real people do.
Tough Cell
Groups seek to improve conditions for female offenders
Litter Bugged
Neighbors angry about illegal dump sites
The Point Park Conservatory’s annual dance showcase is as eclectic as ever.
The highly physical work in three sections “is all about the distortion of the human body in provocative ways.”
The Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre breaks out high-octane modern classics by Twyla Tharp and Paul Taylor.
No wonder the ballet is one of Tharp’s best, and one Orr finds so irresistible.
Ambient solo debut from Black Moth drummer The Seven Fields of Aphelion
Periphery is probably equally great in combination with an early-morning walk, yoga/meditation, a planetarium show or some good weed.
The Park House
Years in Business: 78 Crowd: Neighborhood types (jeans to business casual) ages 25 to 60; scrubs-wearing young staffers from nearby Allegheny General; silver-haired man scrutinizing the bouquet of craft-beer tap handles; Fridays and Saturdays can find aprés-theater folk (cast, crew, audience) from nearby venues. Décor: Tin-ceilinged, wallpapered, wood-paneled pub. TV Situation: Two flat-screens, tuned to…
This Just In: February 11 – 18
Highlights from the local TV news: Going With the Snow
Mason Bates joins the PSO for his symphonic/electronica work “Liquid Interface”
“Liquid Interface” is a conceptual water-themed “climate narrative,” starting with a section called “Glaciers Calving.”
Scary Kids Scaring Kids out for their final hurrah
“We’d just rather end on a friendly, positive note and one that we can dictate.”
Chicago indie legends Tortoise plays Mr. Small’s Theatre this Wednesday
“It was a matter of thinking about what would take someone’s expectation about a song and turn it inside out.”
Two Pittsburgh labels join a resurgence of interest in the humble cassette
“I never stopped buying tapes even when I got a CD burner — I must have thousands of them.”
Savage Love
A few years before my wife and I met, she made porn with her boyfriend at the time. I was a bit upset when she told me, but then I remembered that I enjoy porn, and the idea of seeing the hottest woman I’ve ever met — and am now married to — doing porn…
Visiting literary commentators Sven Birkerts and Maud Newton ponder the fate of the book.
Birkerts believes digital books will make reading a multimedia experience, while the paper book will become merely “a weird artifact.”
Her memoir’s title says “sorry,” but Diana Josephs isn’t, really.
What women sweep under the rug — recklessness, the frustration of motherhood, irresponsible love, dissatisfaction — Joseph confronts with empathy, understanding and humor.
The Hot Button
The issues getting attention this week — and why you should care.
