Deadhouse: Life in a Coroner’s Office
John Temple’s book about the Allegheny County Coroner’s office may also turn out, fittingly, to be a kind of obituary. Nationally, interest in the work coroners do has never been greater. TV shows like CSI celebrate the field of forensic pathology, in which investigators study corpses for clues about mysterious deaths.…
International: Darfur, for Better or Worse
Many refugees are living in Pittsburgh from Africa’s largest nation, Sudan, due to strife in their homeland. When the country’s ambassador, Abdel Bagi Kabeir, came to speak at the University of Pittsburgh on May 21, a few made it their business to attend. Among them was Robert Lino, a Pitt information science major who…
Bottled Up
Seeing Double There was something in the way. I can’t tell you what, but it was something, lying in the road. I was flying up Washington Boulevard, way past the hour when everything closes except gas stations, Eat’n Parks and hospitals. I was pretty “tore up” — somewhere between (legally) drunk and completely wasted. “Tore…
Keren Ann
Juana Molina Tres Cosas Domino Talk about ethnic ambiguity: Born in Israel to a Dutch-Indonesian mother and a Russian-Israeli father, and now living in Manhattan after being raised in Paris, it’s no wonder that Keren Ann Zeidel sounds so absolutely far-flung in her influences. Her newest release, Nolita (named after the New York neighborhood…
Rock and Cobblestones
“When I had undergrads living here, they were like way punk rock, very entertaining,” says Michael Loomis, sitting on the porch of his Chesterfield Street home in Oakland. The graduate students who rent part of his house these days may not be as rowdy, but they probably aren’t quite as much fun, either.…
Gay Rights: Heightening Gay Pride Before Next Fall
“Especially after the presidential election there’s been an attempt to rein in the [gay pride] movement: ‘Maybe we’ve asked for too much,'” says A.J. Marin, organizer of the Progressive Queer Organizing Committee from his South Side home. “The idea that [gay people] can get our liberation through assimilation, and that we’re just like straight people…
God in Too Many Details of Sex Ed Program, Suit Says
On May 16, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the federal government for funding a local abstinence-only sex education program, Silver Ring Thing, whose presentations include Christian evangelizing. On May 18, says state ACLU Legal Director Vic Walczak, the Ohio Township-based group reacted: “Silver Ring just purged all religious content from their Web site,” Walczak…
Election Highly Voter-Free But Not Problem-Free
Project Vote had 11 observers at 16 polling sites but logged only 36 calls from confused or stymied voters, says the group’s policy director for election administration, Celeste Taylor — a far cry from the thousands of calls last November’s presidential election engendered. Low turnout may have helped the May 17 primary stay relatively glitch-free,…
National Politics: Perle Appearance Knits Few Brows
The press release from St. Vincent College says that “[t]he Honorable Richard Perle” will speak at the Duquesne Club on “Terrorism and Democracy.” It provides a partial list of Perle’s many titles both in and out of government. But curiously, it omits what many regard as the D.C. think-tank fellow’s most notable achievement: getting the…
State Politics: Fighting Past the Finish
We may still have Mark Rauterkus to kick around some more. The special election for state senator in the 42nd district remains special for the Libertarian candidate, even though he got 7 percent of the votes and winner Wayne Fontana, the Democrat, got 55 percent. The way Rauterkus figures it, he was outspent…
Stephen Malkmus
For me, there’s nothing more depressing than a new Stephen Malkmus record. When his debut solo release was announced at the end of 2000, Malkmus’ former group, Pavement — generally agreed upon as one of the country’s best-ever indie rock bands — hadn’t put out a winning album in years. So his emergence…
A Conversation with Chris and Joe Colaneri
Over the past four years, Chris & Joe Colaneri’s lives have really gone to the dogs — hot dogs, that is. They run Joe’s Dog House, a hot dog cart at the intersection of Tech and Frew Streets on the Carnegie Mellon campus during weekdays, and on Walnut Street in Shadyside on Saturdays.…
C-Rayz Walz
Four or five years back, the Definitive Jux label was to underground hip-hop as Dischord Records was to post-punk throughout much of the 1990s: it couldn’t release a bad album to save its life. Now, with Year of the Beast, the second full-length from newly hyped emcee C-Rayz Walz, Def Jux seems to have finally…
Matisyahu
No worries: You’ll be forgiven for assuming that Matisyahu — a dub and hip-hop influenced emcee who refers to himself as The Hasidic Reggae Superstar — is little more than a novelty act. But (oddly enough) you’d be wrong. And the brilliance of Live at Stubb’s, recorded at the legendary Austin venue, is…
Nobody Knows
[[1film21]] [[photocap]] Based on a series of actual events that took place in 1988, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Nobody Knows opens with a classic scene of familial rebirth: Twelve-year-old Akira is moving into a cramped Tokyo apartment with his young mother, Keiko. When the two introduce themselves to their new landlords, a…
Pho Minh
Location: 4917 Penn Ave., Garfield. 412-661-7443. Hours: Mon., Wed., Thu. And Fri. 11 a.m.-2 p.m., 5-9 p.m.; Sat. 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Sun. noon-8 p.m. Prices: Appetizers and salads $2-5.50; entrees $5-6.50 Fare: Storefront Vietnamese Atmosphere: Storefront Asian Liquor: BYOB It’s spring, and a diner’s thoughts turn to fresh food. As our little part of the…
Madagascar
New York City may be the greatest city on earth, but not if you’re a zoo-bound zebra who pines for the wild. In Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath’s animated comedy Madagascar, Marty the zebra, and several of his woolly colleagues at the Central Park Zoo, idly ponder what it really means to be…
In Progress
For a guy who was getting creamed by a two-to-one margin, Bill Peduto looked remarkably upbeat on Election Night. He’d told supporters he only needed 25,000 votes to be the next mayor, and he ended up with half that. Yet there he was on TV, telling reporters that a new political movement was a-borning. …
Beautiful Boxer
They say all stories have been told before, but surely the details of the Thai hit film Beautiful Boxer are unique. The story, based on true events, is nominally familiar, a rags-to-glory tale of a poor country boy, Nong Toom, who finds opportunity through athletic prowess. The twist is that the mild-mannered Toom…
Bob and Weave
Ground control to Mayor Bob, commencing countdown engines on … I’m paraphrasing 30-year-old David Bowie lyrics because that’s about as hip as you’re allowed to get in the ‘Burgh. And here in Retro City, Bob is the perfect back-to-the-future mayor. I know, I know: Republican what’s-his-name is running against Bob…
Mass Movement: No Rest Stops For The Wicked
Even though our own Sen. Rick Santorum has busied himself in the past week comparing Democrats to Hitler and getting a big picture of himself in the New York Times Magazine, he’s at least bringing home the bacon. Likewise his co-statesman Sen. Arlen Specter, and all of our esteemed local representatives…
