Reality Round-Up
I’ve been diligently watching fall’s reality-TV stalwarts, those shows that have managed to make it to double-digit seasons, and more than once I’ve asked: Could these shows get any duller? Am even I ready to throw in the reality-TV towel? The formulas are etched in stone, few players seem fresh and I can repeat most…
Phase 3 Productions’ Miss Julie
Startup theater companies doing classics in drafty old buildings is one thing that promises to keep my job interesting. So there’s ample reason to celebrate Phase 3 staging Miss Julie at the Brew House. What puzzles is how Strindberg’s 1888 work fulfills the company’s stated mission of socially relevant theater. The story of a count’s…
The Mysteries of PittGirl
The sudden disappearance of The Burgh Blog ruined a lot of people’s Tuesday mornings. And among some bloggers I know, there are already discussions about what it means for the Burghosphere. Is this the end of a golden age? Why have a handful of prominent local blogs shut down lately? What does it say about…
Benefit at Altar
This shortie missed the boat on Short List last week but it deserves a little play, so here you go — a benefit show tomorrow night (the 19th) at Altar: Times are tight all around, but giving to charity shouldn’t fall by the wayside in our budgets. Why not just double up and get some…
Take The Money and Run — For National Health Care
To be honest, I haven’t given too much thought to the federal government’s efforts to bail American corporations out of the economic crisis. No one’s going to help newspapers, it seems, so my main concern was that Jim Rohr of PNC Bank comes out all right. Once that outcome seemed assured, I mostly stopped paying…
The Yes Men at Carnegie Mellon
In the very week The Yes Men pulled their latest big stunt, everyone’s favorite anti-corporate pranksters also marked Nov. 14’s Pittsburgh opening of Keep It Slick: Infiltrating Capitalism With The Yes Men, the first-ever solo exhibition of their culture-jamming memorabilia, at Carnegie Mellon’s Miller Gallery. The stunt involved 1.2 million copies of a faux New…
Putting the Pop In “Popiel”
I’ll be honest: I approached the Warhol Museum’s 1958 exhibit — especially its display of Popiel Brothers “as seen on TV” wares — with a jaundiced eye. I have a recurring nightmare in which some future tribe of humans, wandering the post-apocalyptic landscape, digs through the detritus of our once-mighty civilization and finds, like, a…
Counting The Words That Count
Mayor Luke Ravenstahl presented next year’s $438 million operating and $45 million capital budgets to city council Monday morning. And while many will spend the next several weeks analyzing what the budget will mean to the city, I thought it would be more interesting to look simply at the words the mayor used to get…
The Greatest Job on Earth?
Pittsburgh Musicians Grow Up … By Running Away With the Circus
From Life on the Road; Ringling Style
http://rockstarcircus.blogspot.com/ Down Mexico Way — Fri., Aug. 15, 2008 So Mexico. Reynosa, Mexico. Fair warning that this post ain’t all sunshine and butterflies. Just sayin’. … Crossing over was no problem whatsoever. No customs, no checkpoints, nothing. I guess if you’re coming into Mexico to spend $$ then they are happy to have…
What Just Happened?
A good cast, an often reliable director (Barry Levinson) and potentially meaty source material (the memoirs of Hollywood producer Art Linson) can’t save this turgid outing — yet another swipe at the shallowness of the Dream Factory by those working within it. Robert DeNiro portrays a harried producer (is there any other kind?) during one…
Soul Men
Actor-comedian Bernie Mac, who died this summer, was a funny guy, and often the lone bright spot in an otherwise clunky comedy. That makes this by-the-numbers, buddy-trip comedy from Malcolm D. Lee doubly disappointing. One, Mac deserves a better swan song, and two, how can you take such great source material — a trio of…
The Three Rivers Film Festival
The 27th annual Three Rivers Film Festival, presented by Pittsburgh Filmmakers, continues through Nov. 22. The program of more than 40 films includes foreign-language works, American independents, documentaries, shorts, local works and experimental cinema, as well as a sidebar of Polish films. On Sun., Nov. 16, the popular Alloy Orchestra returns to provide a live…
One Nation, Under Cocktails
Is this a new era for politics and mixed drinks?
Suburban teens Drop Dead Productions rebrand Squirrel Hill’s Irish Center
“We’ll get a vinyl banner to hang above the bands, and make it known as Club Oasis — a much catchier name.”
A hot young playwright’s work about brothers in turmoil hits City Theatre.
“This play in particular I wrote so you could do it on a sidewalk,” says McCraney.
A new opera based on The Grapes of Wrath leaves in the populist politics.
“I didn’t know the country was going to turn into The Grapes of Wrath this year,” quips Korrie, by phone from New York.
The Glass Menagerie
I don’t have a more-favorite play than Tennessee Williams’ incomparable The Glass Menagerie.
Chicks With Dicks
Trista Baldwin’s girl-gang, great-American-highway biker epic is like an estrogen-packed, skull-splitting mosh-pit on steroids!
The Museum of Desire
The Museum of Desire is a Jungian movement piece, a study of minute expression; by turning a chair around, or winking once, the actors keep their audience entranced.
This Just In: November 13 – 20
Highlights from the local TV news: This year’s highly puffed, perfunctory, seasonal weather-guessing segment.
Election News: Historic vote saw ups and downs at the polls
Long-time voting watchdog Richard King of Squirrel Hill spent Election Day conducting exit polls at the Schenley Golf Course polling place. “Maybe for the first time in three presidential election cycles, a president was elected legitimately,” King concluded after he and two colleagues got results heavily in favor of Barack Obama, in numbers close to…
A Conversation with Malik Rahim
Activist to receive Merton Center’s top honor
Fine Mess
Storeowner calls $200K penalty for building-code violation excessive
Sub Pop college rockers Oxford Collapse return to Pittsburgh
For the last seven years, they’ve been polishing their hooky-jerky shimmer.
Rebel rockers Michael Franti & Spearhead bring the reggae to Homestead
“Wise men count the blessings / Fools count their problems / But you’re both of them to me.”
Local punks Red Fox release new album, Year of the Rat
“I think what Krystyna’s singing has done is it’s kept us punk when we could have very easily gone into being more of a stoner metal band.”
Jim Semonik promotes the local industrial scene, despite battling cancer
“I will be here involved in this scene until death takes me.”
Echoes of August Wilson sound in the Hill District’s new Carnegie Library.
It’s a good place to sit and read with an eye toward what’s going on outside, as a variety of people affirmed during my visits.
At Phipps Garden Center, a sculptor teaches working with marble.
He shows his students how to capture the essence of emotion in a human face (you start by chiseling in the tip of the nose first).
The Way Things Work author and illustrator David Macaulay explains The Way We Work.
“I’m anthropomorphizing cells!”
“Doyenne of decay” Rosamond Purcell tackles eggs at Silver Eye.
Despite the series’ title, Purcell’s eggs aren’t nearly as eloquent as her nests; among the dead birds and empty shells, the nests show the surest signs of life.
Ruby and Other Weight-Loss Tales
January is the typically the month that the cable channels pump up their coverage of weight-loss shows. The first month of the year coincides with both those extra pounds folks put on over the holidays and those New Year’s resolutions. But this week the Style Network rolled out Ruby, a reality series about a Savannah,…
Jean’s Southern Cuisine
Southern comfort food gets new digs on Wilkinsburg’s main drag.
Election Frauds
GOP tactics backfire — finally
Savage Love
I have to say I’m disappointed. Proposition 8 passed in California, as did anti-gay-marriage amendments in Florida and Arizona. Decency and compassion suffered a horrible blow, and I was hoping to hear a few words from you about it. Some inspiration before I took off from work to go and protest the Mormon Church. Maybe…
