American Idol: Mis-Match
Live TV means you can never truly anticipate how the experience will go. I was 110 percent sure that the David vs. David finale would engender unremitting boredom; instead, my primary emotion throughout was pity. It started when the two Davids had to pretend they cared about the show’s idiotic (and time-wasting) boxing gimmick. Could…
Battlestar Galactica: Cylons-R-Us … or Not
OK, so Battlestar Galactica seems to have kicked into narrative hyper-drive lately and that’s among my lame excuses for not getting more posts out. So, I’ll just take the lazy way out with some assorted thoughts and queries: * I’m glad that short reign of Hysterical Women is past us. One episode in particular seemed…
TV Kitchens: One Down, Two to Go
Catching up with this week’s food wars: BBC’s Last Restaurant Standing finally came to end, and with few surprises. I was rooting for the twins, mostly because they seemed the easiest to work with. But it makes sense that Mr. Michelin Star and head judge Raymond Blanc would chose the Eight in the Country pair.…
Summer Guide 2008 – Concert Listings
MAY 14 Circa Survive, Pelican, Thrice. Club Zoo, Strip District, 412-201-1100. Murder Junkies, Plastered Bastards, Down the Hatch. 31st Street Pub, Strip District, 412-391-8334. MAY 15 Paul Luc. WYEP Community Broadcast Center, South Side, 412-381-9131. Pittsburgh Songwriters Circle (early) Cornmeal (late). Club Café, South Side, 412-431-4950. Braille, Lucid Music, Leonard, DJs Kelly, Exempt, Noble…
Summer Guide 2008 – Summer Concert Roundup
One satisfaction of the summer concert season is its sense of familiarity: an enjoyment of musical acts deepened by the fact that they’ve appeared at the same venue, at the same time of year, forever. Only the changing T-shirt designs (and the size you buy) mark the passage of time … OK, so it’s a…
Summer Guide 2008 – Theater Listings
Plays are listed by opening date. For theater locations and contact info, see the index at the end of this listing. Ongoing Caught in the Net. Ray Cooney’s comedy is a sequel to his Run for Your Wife, through May 24 (Comtra). Harvey. The comedy about an alcoholic and his giant imaginary rabbit, through…
Summer Guide 2008 – Art Listings
Shows are listed by opening date. For gallery locations and contact info, see the index at the end of this listing. Ongoing 3rd Street Gallery. Waterworks 2008 (Watercolor Society member show), through May 31. Also: Art as Sustenance, through May 31. The Andy Warhol Museum. Ceramic Explosion: The Work of Martin Klimas, through June…
Summer Guide 2008 – Fairs, Festivals and Special Events
Through November Farmers’ markets, conveniently located in East Liberty, South Side, Mount Washington, Bloomfield, West End, Carrick, City-County Building and North Side. Oakland market opens June 20. 412-422-6523 or www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us/parks. Eat well; eat local. Through May 18 Pittsburgh International Children’s Festival, Schenley Plaza, Oakland, performances, hands-on activities. www.pghkids.org or 412-321-5520. May 16-18 Ambridge…
Summer Guide 2008 – Summer Films
Ahh, summer … when tradition demands we kick back in an air-conditioned movie theater and watch something we’ve already seen before. Well, not exactly — but ’tis the season for sequels and remakes. Compared to last year’s dizzying array of numbers appended to movie titles, 2008 is light on sequels. Cracking the whip for the…
Summer Guide 2008 – Sports and Recreation
Ongoing BIG LEAGUE SPORTS Organized programs for kids include baseball, softball, soccer, flag football, and track and field. 412-488-8585. BIKE PITTSBURGH This cycling advocacy group sponsors a series of group rides and other events throughout the summer. 412-325-4334 or www.bike-pgh.org. CRITICAL MASS BIKE RIDE Group bike ride through the city. Last Friday…
Summer Guide 2008 – Kidstuff
Ongoing The Andy Warhol Museum, North Side. 412-237-8300 or www.warhol.org. Ongoing activities for kids include hands-on creative activity in the “Weekend Factory” and more. Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, various locations. Branches of the library offer story-telling hours and other activities all summer long. Events range from a June 10 “Bug Patrol” at the Woods…
Searching For Salvation … and Other Roadside Attractions
There’s something inherently American about public religious displays, especially those prefaced with superlatives. Is it because this land was founded on religious freedom? Or does such grandiosity have its roots in the less laudable, “my way’s the right way” aspect of our national character? Either way, Americans of all faiths are tempted to get in…
What Happens in Vegas
If you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve already seen the best jokes — and I don’t mean the best jokes ever, just those that aren’t as stupid, worn-out or badly delivered as the others in this silly romantic comedy. Fighting over a cash prize, a slacker (Ashton Kutcher) and an overachiever (Cameron Diaz) are forced to…
Then She Found Me
Thirty-nine-and-a-half-year-old April (Helen Hunt) suffers from simultaneous domestic crises — her mother’s death, a ticking biological clock, a divorce and the sudden reappearance of her birth mother Bernice (Bette Midler), a high-energy TV talk-show hostess. Adapting Elinor Lipman’s 1990 novel, Hunt also makes her directing debut here. But everything about this film felt dated –…
Life of Reilly
Reilly — star of stage, screen and Match Game (upper-right corner) — died last May, but luckily for his fans, he had spent the early 1990s riffing on his life in a touring stage monologue. In 2004, filmmakers Barry Poltermann and Frank Anderson captured Reilly’s last performance of the work, and it unspools now as…
Redbelt
David Mamet’s film is a tight, intelligent, well-acted entertainment in a minor key, with familiar themes. Mamet contrives his plot like it’s one of his crime thrillers, and, for the martial-arts element — well, it’s a metaphor, although he has always been a pugilist, his weapon of choice usually being words. The hero of Redbelt…
Silk Screen Film Festival
The festival of Asian and Asian-American films enters its second week.
This Just In: May 15 – 22
Yard Sell Summary: Instead of watching the clock during tough economic times, resourceful people are simply selling their old ones! Reporter: Aaron Saykin, WTAE Channel 4 Airtime: 2 minutes, 17 seconds on May 9 Visuals: * Items displayed outside for a yard sale, including a boxed product called the “Food Saver,” a small desk fan,…
Neighborhoods: One Hill ratifies CBA, but not everyone is happy
Despite some dissenters, One Hill’s vote inches the Hill District one step closer to a completed Community Benefits Agreement.
Challengers sweep elections to North Side community group
The members of the Central Northside Neighborhood Council voted for a change of direction May 12 by electing seven new members to its board of directors. But the question remains: What were they changing? The seven winners were all endorsed by the Moving FORWARD slate, which challenged the current board’s transparency while promising to “improve…
Gambling: Group says gambling may be legal, but not mandatory
One anti-gambling advocacy group is trying to convince residents that just because the state legalized gambling, doesn’t mean you have to play.
Hi, Tech
Program introduces kids to the world of robotics
Wine Time
A Strip storefront helps demystifies wine — and PLCB restrictions.
Going Through The Motions
Four members of Pittsburgh City Council walked of the May 13 meeting, claiming they’d been “effectively gagged” by a legal opinion from the city solicitor’s office — which had just threatened their immediate removal from office. Council was preparing to act on a bill to pay $10,706 in legal fees incurred by councilors Doug Shields,…
The Importance of Being Earnest
It may also simply be that The Importance of Being Earnest has seen its day.
West Side Story
The ending still stuns, still shocks, still packs a wallop.
A Marriage Minuet
Wiltse knows a lot about men and women and about couples. And he knows a lot about what’s funny.
Golden Palace
Among this Chinese restaurant’s offerings: dim sum daily.
Savage Love
I’m a 31-year-old man and my girlfriend is 28. We’ve been in a monogamous relationship for four years. Recently we’ve been doing the long-distance thing, and we’re going to be doing it for a while until I can move. This is our problem: She brought up the idea of an open relationship until I get…
When passing Trinity Cathedral on Sixth Avenue, I stopped to check on the renovations, and to pay my respects to the Shawnee Indian chief Red Pole. But a workman told me there are no bodies buried there! Where are they?
When this question first came in, I’ll admit I was a bit alarmed. I’ve never bought into the fears about Pittsburgh’s young people leaving … but the site next door to Trinity has been a graveyard for centuries, having been considered holy ground by Native Americans. If you can’t hold on to people there, you’ve…
Pittsburgh n’@
From: http://giantideasblog.blogspot.com/ 2008/05/free-giant-idea-for-pittsburgh.html A Free Giant Idea for Pittsburgh We all know the Pirates stink. They have stunk up this once proud Baseball city for a decade and a half now … But amongst the dark clouds there is always a silver lining. So this Giant Idea is free for anyone willing to take…
On the North Side, activists — and some neighbors — want to preserve an historic former bank.
Preservation needs to be a requirement, not just a hope.
Several Pittsburgh acts prepare for local and national releases this month
Garage-pop foursome Takeover U.K. makes its case as a Steel City success story with the brash, fiery EP It’s All Happening.
Philadelphians The Breaks combine blues, edgy pop and tight arrangements
The main thing that comes across on The Brakes’ debut album, Tale of Two Cities, is the cohesion between the five musicians.
British Sea Power brings triumphant, wordy indie-pop to Mr. Small’s
“It’s about resisting evil in different forms, with a comic undertone.”
Jim White performs his Southern Gothic songs at Club Café for WYEP broadcast
“While other models where dancing in the discothèques and using cocaine, I was in my hotel room reading Dostoyevsky.”
Burnout Warcry mines 19th-century tokens of affection for Overcome
Overcome‘s status as an objet d’art is cemented by the inclusion of a lock of Storch’s own hair.
Local songwriter Brooke Annibale releases religious album The In Between
This collection of songs has one foot in a church pew and the other in a Starbucks.
