First-Draft Choices
Architectural renderings are deceptive. Invariably unveiled for the press with great hoopla, they convincingly substitute for a promised real article. Really, though, they represent only a few general intentions at the start of a long and often change-filled process. The final structure frequently ends up looking much different than the first dramatic images, regardless of…
Ion Petre Stoican
Boris Kovac & La Campanella World After History PIRANHA Frank London’s Klezmer Brass Allstars Carnival Conspiracy: In the Marketplace All Is Subterfuge PIRANHA There was a time not that long ago when what is now sometimes referred to as “New Europe” meant babushkas and balalaikas, boiled meats and graying vegetables, the punch lines…
Street Wise
It’s early, before 9 on a Monday morning. The thin woman in the elevator at the Allegheny County Courthouse looks ageless. And that’s not a compliment. The drawn, ashen look of her skin and the bags beneath her eyes, her sharply pulled-back hair with an old weave coming unglued at the hairline — all give…
Eviction Campaign Pressuring Lawrenceville Landlords
An aborted Jan. 5 hearing in a Lawrenceville harassment case saw one woman arrested in the street and a state Senator trying to pay for her eviction from the neighborhood. It was just the latest skirmish in what has been a year-long effort by community group Lawrenceville United to get landlords to deal with…
Universities: MLK at CMU Still Not A-OK, Says Activist
Carnegie Mellon University will once again face the peace-mongering wrath of North Side activist Vincent Eirene on Martin Luther King Day, Mon., Jan. 16. Eirene contends that taking off half a day, as CMU has done for a number of years now, is hardly in the holiday spirit. He also believes the work CMU’s…
Voting For Voting Machines A Must, Suit Says
A lawsuit filed Jan. 6 in Westmoreland County claims the state needs to let voters vote on which new voting machines they’ll get to use in this spring’s primary and beyond. The 11 plaintiffs, who include state Sen. Jim Ferlo and long-time voters’ rights activist Marybeth Kuznik of Penn Township, are suing Westmoreland’s county…
Brokeback Mountain
Brokeback Mountain is based on Annie Proulx’s 1997 short story about two cowboys in love, and it’s not an easy work to translate. Literature never is, especially a story that deals with an American icon — and with one of its most homoerotic subtexts, as the literary critic Leslie Fiedler pointed out more…
The Matador
I have never once seen the television show Remington Steele or any recent James Bond feature — two roles that defined Pierce Brosnan’s career in the ’80s and ’90s, respectively. But I’ve enjoyed his string of supporting roles, where he excels at playing charming but shifty sorts. Certainly, this is not…
Breakfast on Pluto
The poorly animated robins with subtitled cheeps that open Neil Jordan’s off-kilter period comedy Breakfast on Pluto are harbingers indeed. Their gossip about the goings-on at the rectory are meant to kick-start the story of Patrick “Kitten” Braden, a wandering Irish cross-dresser, but the reaction the birds sparked in me — “that’s a…
Six Penn
Location: Sixth Street and Penn Avenue, Downtown. 412-566-7366 Hours: Mon.-Thu. 11 a.m.-11 p.m., Fri. 11 a.m.-midnight, Sat. 3 p.m.-midnight Prices: Appetizers, soups and salads $4-10; entrees $11-25 Fare: Creative, contemporary American Atmosphere: Of-the-moment modern Liquor: Full bar The Cultural District may be Downtown’s crown jewel, but in our experience, the restaurants in this gleaming, twinkling…
Glory Road
.It’s a great underdog story, and an eye-opening bit of sports history for those under 40, but your enjoyment of James Gartner’s inspirational sports flick will depend on your tolerance for its Disneyfication. In 1965, a mostly black college basketball team from El Paso, the Texas Western Miners, not only defied the odds with a…
Raising the Bar
Even as I was railing against HB 1318, labeled by some as the “Anti-Voting Rights Act,” [“No Ballot Initiative”], the state Senate was amending it. A provision barring felons from voting until they completed their terms of parole was stricken, as were some provisions that seemed to place undue burdens on the poor, the elderly…
Hoodwinked
Cory Edwards’ computer-animated feature is a mildly entertaining goof on “Little Red Riding Hood.” It begins with the no-nonsense Red (voice of Anne Hathaway) discovering a wolf (voice of Patrick Warburton) where her granny should be. But once the law starts asking questions, Hoodwinked becomes a detective story by way of Rashomon. Everybody from Granny…
Panthers Get Little Bounce From Schedule
What the hell is going on around here? Bill Murray said it best in Ghostbusters: “Up is down, black is white, cats and dogs sleeping together — it’s total anarchy out there.” The sports world has flip-flopped. Cursed Sox franchises (both Red and White) have won back-to-back World Series, and the Cincinnati Bungles have won…
The Last Holiday
Queen Latifah stars in Wayne Wang’s remake (of a 1950 British comedy) as Georgia, a timid retail clerk who secretly dreams of faraway places and a career as a gourmet chef. Told she has only a couple weeks to live, Georgia cashes out her life and goes on a spending spree in Europe, where at…
Near Allegheny Center Mall there is a scary-looking building with Three Mile Island-like cooling towers and brightly painted pipes inside. What goes on inside there?
“Scary-looking”? Well, I know people who get uneasy around Chia Pets — and by “people” I mean, well, me — so I guess I’m in no position to judge your phobia. But brace yourself: If you are disturbed by this North Side facility, be aware that there are two others like it in Pittsburgh. Each…
Tristan and Isolde
Before Romeo and Juliet, back in the Dark Ages when the troubles between England and Ireland were young, there were two young star-crossed lovers — Tristan, a rising warrior within his uncle’s bit of Britain, and fair Isolde, daughter of the Irish king. Kevin Reynolds’ light epic — it’s just over two hours, but has…
Lynn Swann Scores Cheap Points
It should go without saying that Lynn Swann’s campaign kickoff, held Jan. 4 at the Heinz History Center, celebrated his football career to the near-exclusion of everything else. Almost everything about Swann’s campaign goes without saying, in fact. It goes without saying much about his policies. Or about why we should trust a guy to…
A conversation with Paulette Poullet
Twenty-six-year-old Puerto Rican Paulette Poullet moved here in 1997. She’s using her time off “between careers” to work on her self-published comics, with an eye on her dream project: a full-length comic about her experiences in Puerto Rico, a place she says Americans don’t know much about. What was it like…
Autumn House Springs Forward
At age 8, Autumn House Press is growing up. A key rite of passage was completed in October, when the small, Pittsburgh-based publisher of books of poetry by single authors unveiled The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry. The ambitious text is aimed at a collegiate market long ruled by publishing giants…
