America’s Got Talent: Or something!
There’s much to dislike about this bloated show: the endless filler, its pretentions to being anything other than a freak show, the increasingly tedious judges and its patently phony “audition process.” I was off to a rocky start when this season opened with an update on season two’s winner: Who’s that? I watched the first…
Tonight’s Mark Kozelek concert postponed
Tonight’s performance by Mark Kozelek of the Red House Painters at Diesel is being postponed, said promoter Jon Rinaldo in an e-mail, “due to Mark being ill.” The show is being rescheduled for Wed., Aug. 20 at the same venue. For more information, visit the Joker Productions website. Hope you feel better, Mark!
Design Star: Death by Paint Chip
I used to think this show — a search for the best interior designers-slash-bubbly TV host — was dreadfully dull, until Bravo laid its Top Design turd. I suffered through that — and all those big white boxes the contestants re-filled with crap from the Design Center — and now I grudgingly admit that for…
The New York Dolls strut the Arts Fest stage
The corner of Stanwix and Liberty overflowed last night with festival-goers eager to get an earful of ’70s glam icons The New York Dolls, in town as part of this year’s Three Rivers Arts Festival. The Dolls’ raucous set was a mixture of tunes from their heyday, plenty of cuts from their 2006 reunion album,…
Nashville Star: Gone Country
So, to fill the summer doldrums, Nashville Star has been bumped up to the big leagues — NBC, on Monday nights — for its fifth season. And, did I mention that part of the prize is a shameless piece of cross-promotion? The winner sings at the Olympics, broadcast, naturally, on NBC. Anyhow, landing on Nashville…
Building a Movement
Parkour is growing by leaps and bounds, but the sport’s toughest obstacle might be defining itself.
The Witnesses
In the early 1980s, a young gay man named Manu (Johan Libéreau) joins the tight-knit trio of Parisians — an older doctor (Michel Blanc) and a married couple (Sami Bouajila and Emmanuelle Beart) — and good times and benign bed-hopping ensue. But the uninvited guest in Andre Techine’s drama is a mysterious, new deadly virus;…
You Don’t Mess With the Zohan
If you’ve never seen an Adam Sandler movie before, you might chuckle once or twice, particularly if your tastes run to the low-brow. For those of us who have endured the entire Sandler oeuvre, Zohan will likely inspired this puzzler: How can somebody with so little talent bank so much money making the same film…
The Flight of the Red Balloon
Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s film takes place in a rarified world of cultural elites, and yet, these characters face everyday issues. Actress Suzanne (Juliette Binoche) is a single mother, who hires Song (Fang Song), a young filmmaker, as a nanny for Simon (Simon Iteanu), her mop-haired son. Red Balloon, which is set in Paris, is Hou’s first…
Before the Rains
Set in rural 1937 India, Santosh Sivan’s prettily filmed drama treads the familiar ground of melodramas set in colonial lands, whereby the interests of the privileged white and the seemingly accommodating natives brew betrayal, and worse. Briton Henry Moores (Linus Roache) owns a tea plantation, and is dallying with his Indian housekeeper, Sajani (Nandita Das).…
LGBT Issues: Expanded Pride Week kicks off
While a romp and parade in the streets might be the most obvious parts of Pride Week’s celebrations, it’s certainly not the only aspect of next week’s ramped-up festivities. The festival of pride and visibility for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender folks, in past years a one-day march with a gathering at the end, has…
Activism: Group at odds with PDP over Market Square meals for the homeless
An anarchist group that provides weekly meals to the homeless says one of its recent dinner services was halted by police officers called to Market Square by the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership.
Unseam’d Shakespeare revives a stage work based on touchstone steel-town novel Out of This Furnace.
“I wanted the people who the story was about to see the play.”
How to Write a Play
It’s rather like playing a warped 45 at 33 rpm: It hits many notes, but misses a few and throws off the rhythm.
The Color Purple
Celie’s journey from darkness into so much light can only, I think, be done justice with music.
Take Me Out
Take Me Out is a rendezvous of pro sports and live theater — a tryst rarely seen — and the results are majestic.
Pittsburgh n’@
Dispatched from the local blogosphere. This week: Who needs a librarian?
Going Through The Motions
As City Clerk Linda Johnson-Wasler was reading a four-page letter from Mayor Luke Ravenstahl explaining why he was vetoing council’s campaign-finance reform bill, the mayor was making more interesting comments on the South Side. “Maybe they were interested in just passing something before they went on their summer vacation, just to pass it, to say…
Making — and writing — “the carbon-free home,” with author Stephen Hren.
“We do a lot of daily management of sunlight,” says Rebekah Hren.
This Just In: June 12 – 19
Highlights from the local TV news: Heat wave!
Tandoor
A new Indian restaurant spices up a familiar menu.
Growing a Solution
“This is all a dumping area. Everybody dumps,” says John Nicholas as he picks up litter in an empty lot in Homewood on May 31. “I just pulled out a muffler,” calls Brian Funk, his partner in cleaning, from behind a bush. The two are working on a Saturday morning — the ground still wet…
L7’s Donita Sparks plays 31st Street
The blue hair’s gone.
Experimental improv duo Black Forest/Black Sea performs at ModernFormations
The music appeals on a visceral level, creating emotional moments and ideas without relying on an assumed musical metaknowledge.
Mates of State hit the road with new album and progeny in tow
It might look strange on paper, but it’s the stuff of pop bliss.
Singer-songwriter Jaymay offers prime mixtape material
“People think, ‘Oh, it’s just a girl singing about love,’ and it’s like, well yeah.”
Red House Painter Mark Kozelek performs at Diesel
Kozelek’s appeal, on the other hand, is that he seems to always sing to himself.
Historic Photos of Pittsburgh
Historic Photos of Pittsburgh By Miriam Meislik Turner Publishing, 206 pp., $39.95 Are there any historic photos of Pittsburgh left to publish? Before Miriam Meislik’s Historic Photos of Pittsburgh hit my desk, I wasn’t sure. With its industrial drama and striking topography, Pittsburgh has long been popular with photographers, and there’s a brisk trade…
Modern Revival
In most cities, if you want to find compelling mid-century Modern residences, you generally have to go to the suburbs. That’s where the exponential growth happened after World War II, and where the era’s restrained rectilinear architecture looks especially good, with lush green settings and the dream of open land. The rules operate a little…
Local newcomers Thee Adora deliver with second show
“It’s called that because I wrote it in the bath.”
Hoi Polloi
Fresh veggie fare to please all palates.
Was there a baseball field that the Pittsburgh Pirates played in before Forbes Field in Oakland?
For many fans, the story of the Pittsburgh Pirates begins with Forbes Field, which opened in 1909, the same year the Pirates won the World Series. But every story has a bit of exposition before the narrative really begins. Pittsburgh — like a storyteller who doesn’t know quite how to start — had a couple…
Savage Love
I’m a bisexual woman, age 20, and I am threesome-ing it with my best friend and her boyfriend during a stay abroad. I knew the girl (who’s mostly straight) beforehand. The girl thinks it’s hot when I participate — i.e., when it’s all three of us in bed — but she gets jealous when her…
