Public art advocates and officials upset about county gutting public art funding
Professors, artists and advocates all spoke in protest of cutting county’s public art revenue source, but Allegheny County council voting 11-4 to gut funding.
Social-service agencies, ratepayers ask Allegheny County for water and sewage rate assistance
Allegheny County residents say water and sewage bills are getting too high, and they want assistance.
Free screening of new doc (T)ERROR, about an FBI anti-terrorism informant in Pittsburgh
(T)ERROR, a new documentary about domestic counterterrorism investigations, screens for free, on Fri., Nov. 20
Listen Up! Nov. 18
Every Wednesday, we make a Spotify playlist containing tracks from artists covered in the current music section. Listen below!
Concert announcements: The Warhol Winter Sound Series and more
Warhol Winter Sound Series, Child Bite, Ali Spagnola
City Paper feline cover model Tiger still available for adoption at Western PA Humane Society
City Paper cat cover model still up for adoption at Western PA Humane Society.
Attack Theatre’s “Remainder l Northside”
Dance work grew out of workshops with kids in nearby neighborhoods
Lynn Cullen 11/17/15
Video Archive You can listen to the audio archive here. Pittsburgh welcomes Syrian refugees. Sunday NYT subscribers receive virtual reality boxes. Men’s Liberation movement. Audio Only Archive Listen to the Audio Archives on with our new Apple and Android Apps or the computer audio player.
Pittsburgh City Council to propose marijuana decriminalization
City Councilor Danielle Lavelle plans to propose legislation decriminalizing marijuana.
Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto affirms support of bringing Syrian refugees to city in wake of Paris attacks
Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto stands by his long-time stance of welcoming refugees into the city in wake of deadly terrorist attacks in Paris.
MP3 Monday: William Forrest
This week’s MP3 comes from Indiana, Pa.’s William Forrest. On Nov. 27, the band will play a release show for its new EP In Words, at the Night Gallery in Lawrenceville. Get ready for that by streaming or downloading the spaced-out rocker “Deception Valley” below. To download, right-click here and select “save as.”
Comments sought at Allegheny County art-funding vote tomorrow
Vote could remove provision for public-art set-asides.
Lynn Cullen 11/16/15
Video Archive You can listen to the audio archive here. The attacks on Paris. Audio Only Archive Listen to the Audio Archives on with our new Apple and Android Apps or the computer audio player.
Campaign 2016’s Silly Season: A Weekly Tweet Round-Up Nov. 13
Campaign 2016’s Silly Season: This week candidates are tweeting about Christmas presents, Bocce, and showing off cross-stitched swag.
Pittsburgh’s African-American community leaders ask EPA for environmental justice during Clean Power Plan hearings
African-American community leaders tell EPA “We need to be able to breathe clean air” during Clean Power Plan hearings.
“Pittsburgh Poetry Review” Launches Tomorrow
Celebration for new journal features dozens of poets at Pittsburgh Glass Center
Bike PGH discusses 2016 focus areas and starts crowdfunding campaign
The cycling advocacy group details some of its goals for 2016 and seeks funding as part of its year-end drive.
Lynn Cullen 11/13/15
Video Archive You can listen to the audio archive here. Attorney Susan Burke talks about “The Invisible War”. Inmates and phone charges. Flight to the suburbs and 72 hour waiting periods. Audio Only Archive Listen to the Audio Archives on with our new Apple and Android Apps or the computer audio player.
Listen Up! Nov. 11
Every Wednesday, we make a Spotify playlist containing tracks from artists covered (or mentioned) in the current m usic section. Listen below!
Lynn Cullen 11/12/15
Video Archive You can listen to the audio archive here. Philosophy vs. welding. NYT tracks down a philosopher welder. Clarion College pulls play because of cast. OY or YO? Traffic and development in PGH. Audio Only Archive Listen to the Audio Archives on with our new Apple and Android Apps or the computer audio player.
CP Weekend Podcast – Nov. 13 – 15, 2015
This week: Open kitchens, dancing on crutches, and Madwomen
Jazz bassist Paul Thompson recounts celebrated alto saxophonist Phil Woods’ final show
On Sept. 4, alto saxophonist Phil Woods had one song left in the set at Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild. Before he played it, he asked the audience whether they’d mind if he told some stories. Armed with some notes, he ran through his 70-year career in music, starting with the time he met Charlie Parker —…
Critics’ Picks, Nov. 12-18
[JAZZ] + THU., NOV. 12 “Experimental” or “avant-garde” jazz usually brings to mind the skronky, atonal works of saxophonists like Ornette Coleman or John Zorn, and can send casual listeners and fans of more traditional jazz running scared. But Daniel Bennett, a young New York-based saxophonist, takes a different approach. The Daniel Bennett Group, self-described…
Maria Sheridan is featured in Bill Shannon’s “Stay Up”
Video by Ashley Murray
Advocates pushing for greater driver accountability in car/bike crashes
Susan Hicks was riding her bike Oct. 23 the exact way Pennsylvania law required her to: as if she were driving a car. The 34-year-old University of Pittsburgh educator pulled her bike behind an SUV, just as she would have a car, and waited for a left-turn signal at a red light on Forbes Avenue,…
Behind-the-scenes video of City Paper’s cat cover
Video by Ashley Murray
Felines are the stars of the touring Internet Cat Video Festival
2015 Internet Cat Video Festival 8 p.m. Fri., Nov. 13, and 3 p.m. Sat., Nov. 14. Hollywood Theater, 1449 Potomac Ave., Dormont. $8. 412-563-0368 or thehollywooddormont.org In the summer of 2012, the Walker Art Center, in Minneapolis, held the first Internet Cat Video Festival, screening a compilation of amusing cat videos pulled from the Web.…
Behind-the-scenes video of Pittsburgh City Paper’s Internet Cat Video Festival cover
Video by Ashley Murray City Paper visited the Western PA Humane Society to find the perfect cover model for this week’s edition — Tiger. Tiger is a lovable two-year-old cat who is available for adoption. But Carrie Nardini, communications manager at the Humane Society, reminds us: “At any given time, we have cats and kittens…
Savage Love
I’m a hetero guy in need of advice. Back in college, I met this girl. Suffice it to say she was into me but I had some shit to work through. So we ended up being a missed connection, romantically. Despite that, we still became fast friends. I’m less awkward now, in large part because…
Disabled dancers connect in Bill Shannon’s Stay Up
BILL SHANNON’S STAY UP 8 p.m. Fri., Nov. 13, and 8 p.m. Sat., Nov. 14. Alloy Studios, 5530 Penn Ave., Friendship. Tickets are pay-what-makes-you-happy. 412-363-3000 or kelly-strayhorn.org Ten years ago, as a rare side effect to chemotherapy for her breast cancer, Maria Sheridan lost an ability about 7 billion people take for granted: to know,…
The War on Christmas is getting even more ridiculous
Long before Bill O’Reilly and the far right began fighting the so-called War on Christmas, I was on the front lines. Well the second row, anyway. It was around Thanksgiving, 1991 or 1992, and I was sitting with my family at my Uncle Albert’s funeral. I remember being pretty sad. After all, he was a…
Aftersound explores sound as phenomenon
AFTERSOUND: FREQUENCY, ATTACK, RETURN continues through Nov. 22. Miller Gallery, CMU campus, 5000 Forbes Ave., Oakland. 412-268-3618 or cmu.edu/millergallery A highlight of Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960-1971, recently at the Museum of Modern Art, was a listening room that, while mostly archival, was so well curated that it offered guidance that felt like personal…
Wysocki feels good about feeling good about Pitt football again
No other collegiate team in Western Pennsylvania has a history to match the University of Pittsburgh football program. Pop Warner won three national championships here; you’re welcome, youth football players. Mike Ditka became a standout here; you’re welcome, Chicago. Those two personalities alone would be enough to cement the school’s bragging. But throw in names…
The Wild Duck at Point Park’s Conservatory Theatre Company
Henrik Ibsen’s 1884 play The Wild Duck can be interpreted in many ways, but it’s a credit to Point Park’s Conservatory Theatre Company’s new production that it leaves the act of making sense of this dark tale to the audience. The compelling message seems to be: Never rent a room to a meddlesome friend. Terrible…
Stuff We Like: Book Edition
Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic. This recent book by journalist Sam Quinones looks at the ties between American’s current heroin epidemic, the prescription-pill market and a distribution network born of a Mexican farming community. The Heart Goes Last. Margaret Atwood’s new novel is a face-first plunge into a dystopian society where prison…
Installations in Plus One intrigue — and puzzle
PLUS ONE continues through Nov. 22. SPACE, 812 Liberty Ave., Downtown. 412-325-7723 or spacepittsburgh.org The works in Plus One, at SPACE gallery are submitted for your approval based almost solely on your own interpretation. Part of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s India in Focus festival, the six installations by four artists are presented without description, statement…
Short List: November 11 – 17
SPOTLIGHT: Sat., Nov. 14 — Dance After stops in Italy, France and London’s Royal Opera House, Montreal-based dance company Cas Public’s world tour pulls into Pittsburgh and Shadyside Academy’s Hillman Center for Performing Arts for the U.S. premiere of Symphonie Dramatique (2014), on Sat., Nov. 14. Admittedly, it’s a surprising venue for a U.S. premiere by…
Room
Room Directed by Lenny Abrahamson Starring Brie Larson, Jacob Tremblay Starts Fri., Nov. 13 “Hello, room. Hello, chair. Hello, plant.” Imagine having lived only in a 10-by-10-foot room, windowless except for a small skylight. Like 5-year-old Jack, you’d have a cozy familiarity with mundane objects, and an ease that each day would unfold like the…
Pints on Penn
Pints on Penn 3523 Penn Ave., Lawrenceville. 412-945-7468 Hours: Mon.-Thu. 4 p.m.-midnight; Fri.-Sat. 11 a.m.-2 a.m.; Sun. 11 a.m.-midnight Prices: $8-19 Liquor: Full bar The corner of 36th and Penn has housed a bar of one sort or another for decades. For as long as we’ve been here, it was Kopec’s Korner, a little neighborhood…
Attack Theatre’s latest project explores the North Side
ATTACK THEATRE PERFORMS REMAINDER|NORTHSIDE 8 p.m. Fri., Nov. 13, and 2 and 8 p.m. Sat., Nov. 14. New Hazlett Theater, 6 Allegheny Square East, North Side. $15-35. attacktheatre.com/remainder After 18 months of creative workshops, community-engagement programs and information-gathering about the hopes, fears and attitudes of North Side elementary and middle-school students, Attack Theatre presents Remainder|Northside,…
Poros puts the Mediterranean in a glass
At many bars, bartenders are free to cherry-pick from a range of cultures and traditions, creating cocktails with global roots. But at Poros, which opened Downtown last month, the drink menu needed to be regionally anchored, brimming with the flavors of Greece and the Mediterranean Sea. “The fun part for me was falling in love…
Spectre
“The dead are alive,” the opening title of Sam Mendes’ Spectre tells us. We’ll see it again and again in this new James Bond actioner. First, there are the hordes of skeleton revelers in the film’s opening scene, set during Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico City. Among the dead-but-alive is British spy James…
A missive sent to City Paper claims there is no decent BBQ in the Pittsburgh area
Pittsburgh is a BBQ nightmare. Those aren’t my sentiments — they belong to a man calling himself “Andy the BBQ Guru.” A couple weeks ago, Andy sent me a manifesto of sorts that lamented the death of local BBQ joints. The correspondence starts out by listing all the BBQ joints that aren’t here anymore —…
My All-American
Angelo Pizzo’s by-the-book docudrama introduces us to Freddie Steinmark (Finn Wittrock), a talented, hard-working football player who wins a scholarship to the University of Texas in the late 1960s. There he’s mentored by the equally hard-working coach Darrell Royal (Aaron Eckhart). What follows is a winning season, solid friendships, a chaste sweetheart, the Game of…
This Changes Everything
A widespread if particularly hopeless take on climate change is that it’s unstoppable because humans are inherently greedy. But in this new documentary based on her eponymous bestselling 2014 book, narrator Naomi Klein argues that the real problem is the story we’ve too long told ourselves: that nature is not a mother to be loved…
With members based in Chicago and France, unconventional jazz group The Turbine! makes improvisation a transatlantic project
THE TURBINE! 9 p.m. Mon., Nov. 16. Thunderbird Café, 4023 Butler St., Lawrenceville. $16-20. 412-682-0177 or thunderbirdcafe.net Numerous stories have been told about musicians who break language barriers to connect and exchange ideas through jazz. Verbal communication isn’t necessary as long as everyone knows the chord changes. Now, one transatlantic organization is taking it one…
New board seeks to breathe new life into Pittsburgh’s Mr. Roboto Project
After more than a decade, Jesse Flati can still remember his first time at the Mr. Roboto Project, a 15-year-old, do-it-yourself music venue now located in Bloomfield. “It was like a Lite FM tribute night, so a bunch of bands got together and played like Air Supply songs and shit like that,” says Flati, a…
Lynn Cullen 11/11/15
Video Archive You can listen to the audio archive here. Republican debates. Trib layoffs. Oakland Raider taunts police dog faces potential felony charges. The death of the Mars Bar and the East Village. Audio Only Archive Listen to the Audio Archives on with our new Apple and Android Apps or the computer audio player.
Lynn Cullen 11/10/15
Video Archive You can listen to the audio archive here. Sexting. Michelle Bachman on Christians United for Israel. Mizzou scandal. Black man seeks asylum. Zealot by Reza Aslan. Ben Carson’s house. Audio Only Archive Listen to the Audio Archives on with our new Apple and Android Apps or the computer audio player.
