War is Boring
The subtitle of this new graphic novel is “Bored Stiff, Scared to Death in the World’s Worst War Zones.” It’s 125 pages of terse, illustrated storytelling — danger, bitter humor, outrage, the aforementioned boredom — from freelance conflict journo David Axe and artist Matt Bors (whose sardonic strip Idiot Box graces CP each week). The…
The Hothouse at PICT
A friend I ran into during intermission at the July 29 performance of Harold Pinter’s 1958 play (part of PICT’s Pinter festival) categorized it as “absurd.” He spoke approvingly, of course, but it’s easy to forget that absurdity cuts two ways. The farcical comedy in this play set in a government-run “rest home” of some…
MP3 MONDAY — The Van Allen Belt
The Van Allen Belt is a torus of energy-charged particles held in place around the planet by Earth’s magnetic field. If you have no idea what that means, don’t sweat it. Neither do we. The only Van Allen Belt you need pay attention to is the local experimental/psychedelic band fronted by vocalist Tamar Kamin –…
Get bookish this weekend
In lieu of a regular ol’ weekend overview this week, I’m highlighting two weekend events that benefit good, and bookish, causes. Ready? Tonight at Howlers is Literazzi, a benefit for the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council. The $5 cover nets you performances by an array of local spoken-word/performace types: Ashly Nagrant, Jenn Dallas, Nikki Allen, Jocelyn…
Gene Ludwig Tribute This Weekend
Ludwig, a star of the local jazz scene, was to have performed at this Sunday’s opening night of Citiparks’ Reservoir of Jazz concert series. It would have been a nice launch for this year’s series, and probably heavy on the veteran organist’s familiar favorites, like “It’s You or No One.” But the show will have…
Anecdotes
I can remember vividly seeing the Rolling Stones at their first arena show [Nov. 24, 1965]. I was young — my mother and father drove me down from Irwin, and to me, riding to Pittsburgh was like going to New York City. They left my brother with me, who was five years younger, and the…
The Sky Was the Limit: Highlights from Arena History
What do Jimmy Swaggart, the Village People, Hulk Hogan, Twisted Sister and the Mighty Morphing Power Rangers all have a common — besides a similarly tasteful fashion sense? They have all appeared at the Civic Arena over the past half-century, sometimes within a few days of each other. With an assist from SMG — which…
Razing the Roof?
The arena’s past, like its future, isn’t an open-and-shut case
Short List: Week of July 29 – August 5
Thu., July 29 — Art Did you know Homewood Cemetery has a natural lily pond? With frogs and everything? Curt DeBor didn’t, and he’d lived within two miles of it for years. But DeBor, a photographer, filmmaker and actor, made up for lost time: He spent a year documenting the pond in all seasons. The…
Metropolis
Fritz Lang’s silent, 1927 classic has always been a puzzle, no less for its plot gaps than for its buffet approach to political philosophies. It wields the rhetoric of brotherhood while accepting a natural hierarchy of brainy capitalists and workers too dumb to tend to their own children, meanwhile expressing both a patronizing concern for…
Grease: Sing-Along
You already know that “Grease is the word,” but what about the rest of them? In this new sing-along version of the 1978 hit movie musical (itself adapted from a Broadway show), all the words you need appear magically on screen (“Seems mine is not the first heart broken …”). Other than that, it’s the…
The Girl Who Played With Fire
Daniel Alfredson’s film adapts the second book in Stieg Larsson’s trilogy, and it’s very much in the middle: It begins, without introductions, with the same characters (and actors) as the first film, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and wraps up, as the book does, with a question mark to be resolved in Part 3.…
Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore
Cat and dogs (and a pigeon) star in this live-action spoof of James Bond-style action films. (And for all its faults, this talking-animal movie is still funnier than the last Austin Powers film.) Brad Peyton’s film is a sequel to 2001’s Cats & Dogs, but I don’t think foreknowledge matters — I was able to…
Salt
Phillip Noyce’s new actioner brings back the Russians as geo-political villains. Seems they’ve been training sleeper agents in Moscow, and one of them identified: CIA agent Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie). Soon, she and her two colleagues (Liev Schreiber and Chiwetel Ejiofor) are speed-chasing each other from Washington, D.C., to New York City and back again,…
Lourdes
Jennifer Hausner’s drama revolves around Christine (Sylvie Testud), who appears to be a quadriplegic, living in a Catholic facility for people with special needs. Then, during a group “pilgrimage” to the holy French city of Lourdes, Christine experiences a miracle: She’s cured of the crippling effects of the multiple sclerosis, although the doctors caution that…
Il Pizzaiolo
An authentic Italian menu and attractive setting guarantees this Mount Lebanon restaurant’s popularity
Quantum Theatre opens its 20th season by reintroducing a wolf into Frick Park.
The stage’s wings melt into the brush, with trails leading up out of (or perhaps “down into”) the woods.
City of Angels
The 11-piece orchestra sounded great, but completely overwhelmed the actors.
Hairspray
It’s fluffy, it’s fun, it’s gorgeous, darling.
The Hothouse
No other playwright peered into the existential void of being and wrote such thrilling theatrical events from what he saw.
Garden Cultivation
Developers lay out plan for North Side theater
Positive Results
Nonprofit provides second chance for offenders, at-risk youth
Home Slide
Neighbors wait for city to deal with sliding Ivondale Street
This Just In: July 29 – August 5
Highlights from the local TV news: Goose on the Loose!
Savage Love
Ever since hearing you say on your podcast that all men use porn, I have had a burning question: What about us women? If all men get to have this other sex life, which is (mostly) external to their partnerships, then all women should have a pass as well. Ideally, it would be a pass…
La Gourmandine Bakery
A new French bakery is an irresistibly sweet addition to Lawrenceville
New label Specific Recordings links music scenes in Pittsburgh and Troy, N.Y.
“Pittsburgh has this nexus of experimental music and robot-building more than any other place I could think of. That could be our new local genre!”
Five Questions with Jason Myers of Icarus Witch
What’s cooler, dragons or covens?
Indie-pop duo KaiserCartel plays a free WYEP show at Schenley Plaza
KaiserCartel has taken a simple idea, presented it with economy and directness — and turned it into something artful and emotionally resonant.
It takes two venues to tell all the stories in the Fiberart International.
A dozen of these figures hover just above the ground, like ghostly apparitions, conjuring unpleasant associations amongst health care, pain and the inevitable.
