Gay Plea
Along the 10th Street sidewalk under the bulk of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, about two dozen Methodists attending the church’s General Conference knelt and prayed on May 5, trying to get attendees to change the denomination’s decades-old stance against homosexuality. By the next day, an even larger group of Methodists was joined by…
Democracy in Faction
If there were any Republicans among those assembled for “National Voter Action Day,” May 8 at the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers’ South Side Assembly Hall, they were very quiet. The voter-registration event was orchestrated nationally by the ostensibly non-partisan group America Votes, a coalition of nearly 30 predominantly progressive organizations. “Again, we’re non-partisan here,”…
Brown and Not Served
“If we knew the answer, I don’t think we’d be here today,” the much-esteemed former Pittsburgh Public Schools superintendent, principal and teacher Helen Faison said to about 200 assembled at the University of Pittsburgh/Duquesne University symposium, speaking on “Fifty Years After Brown.” Faison captured the city’s and the country’s ambivalence toward the legacy of Brown…
A conversation with Emma Blackman-Mathis
Tell me about your upcoming show. Our first show in March was the get-to-know-our-group show; some of it was our histories, our coming-out stories, although not everyone in the group is gay. Our theme for this show is “family.” We sing, some of the kids will dance, there’s a group skit — it’s a really…
Nightline Versus the Party Line
Maybe you’ve noticed the new faces on what used to be a local 10 p.m. newscast on WPGH, the Pittsburgh Fox affiliate owned by Sinclair Broadcasting. Sheila Hyland, the local blonde on Fox 53, has had her face time cut in half so we can get the half-baked conservative talking points from half-assed Sinclair reporters…
Do you have information on where I can find old images of Pittsburgh?
You know, a lot of people wouldn’t touch this question. For example, the people behind the ill-starred “Pittsburgh Regional Branding Initiative” — a booster group that seeks to market the region by devising indecipherable marketing statements — urges photographers and designers to “keep heritage imagery down to a minimum” in their brochures. Because while it…
Ghostface
There are few rappers with voices so unmistakable and rhymestyles so original and fluid that you could go into a coma for a decade and instantly identify them upon recovery: Scarface, Ras Kass, Freeway and Ghostface Killah. Ghostface’s voice and name are the first heard on Wu Tang Clan’s Enter the 36 Chambers, which 10…
American Dynasty
Reviewer: CHRIS POTTER In 1991, after the first Gulf War, the Gannett Foundation convened a panel of journalists to discuss news coverage of the war and its propaganda, including the first President Bush’s dire warnings about Iraq’s nuclear- and chemical-weapon capabilities. “I was with Bush when he was … peddling that bit about how…
The Return
Here maybe is the sign of a well-made cinematic allegory: Watching The Return, you’re never sure whether its makers contemplated Russian history and were reminded of a painfully reunited family, or whether thoughts of such a family suggested the dizzying dislocations of Russia’s past. Either interpretation works in this taut, beautiful work from Andrey…
I’m Not Scared
On a gently rolling Italian countryside covered with amber waves of grain, a little girl loses her eyeglasses on the same day her brother loses his innocence. There are six of them running and playing that afternoon, and all are at the mercy of their bullying ringleader, who tries to make the chubby girl…
Van Helsing
In the late 19th century, over one bad weekend, beastie-hunter Gabriel Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman) battles Dracula, Dracula’s wives, Dracula’s children, Frankenstein’s monster, a werewolf, Igor, some memory problems, the full moon and the stray villager in this stupendously bad re-imagining of classic horror films. Lending an unsheathed sword is the saucy Transylvanian princess Anna…
Keeping up with Jones
“You don’t have to follow orders,” pleads Brian (Graham Chapman), about to be crucified in the 1979 Biblical spoof Monty Python’s Life of Brian. “I like following orders,” growls the Roman centurion. It’s one of the comedy’s jabs of dark insight, and I mention it to Terry Jones. The Python who directed Brian is…
Change of Mined
“I’ve wandered all over the country but came back,” says Peter Blose. “This is sacred ground to me.” Blose treads the mud road into Laurel Loop on the last cold day in April. “Laurel Loop” is what the locals call this oxbow of Crooked Creek near Apollo, just beyond the northeast corner of Allegheny County.…
Fly Like a Siegel
That sound you heard last week was the other shoe dropping — from a cruising altitude of about 30,000 feet. US Airways disclosed that Pittsburgh will lose its status as a hub airport, part of a company-wide restructuring for the long-suffering airline, in the early days of May. But the first shoe fell in mid-April,…
Suspension and Disbelief
It’s nearing 11 a.m. on a Wednesday. Do you know where your children are? This child, a tawny-complexioned ninth-grader at Westinghouse High School, is walking up Braddock Avenue through Wilkinsburg. She’s meeting four friends, including her boyfriend, near Crescent Elementary School in Regent Square. Why aren’t you in school? “I’m suspended,” she…
