Each year around this time, cranial-looking green orbs fall from a certain species of tree. They’ve been called “monkey balls” since my youth. Can you explain further?
To be honest, I generally shy away from phrases like “monkey balls.” This is a family newspaper, after all (provided, of course, that your family is into drink specials, leftist politics and escort services). And anyway, I’d always heard these things called “Osage oranges.” But when I called up the Allegheny…
Gender X
Her father was a Lutheran minister. Her mother was Miss Betty Crocker, 1939. Indeed, self-proclaimed “gender terrorist” Kate Bornstein has come a long way from her conventional childhood. Originally known as Albert Bornstein, since undergoing gender-reassignment surgery in 1986, Bornstein has become a true transsexual, donning a 1970s-style mustache one day, cherry-red lipstick…
Hip Hop-portunity
Through the Hip-Hop Lens Street Perspectives The Scene Not Heard If you’ve been to a movie theater anytime in the past week then you probably think you have a fair idea of what a hip-hop film is. Get Rich or Die Tryin’, right? Yeah, that’s hip hop. But that ain’t all there is to hip…
A conversation with Angél Roy
Angél Roy works as an inside sales manager for an aircraft-refurbishment company, but her other calling is as soup chef for the Bulgarian Macedonian National Educational and Cultural Center. The West Homestead nonprofit hosts Soup Sega (“soup now”) on Saturday mornings, selling a variety of prepackaged homemade soups as a fund-raiser. Soups can be purchased…
Steel Waters Run Deep
I awoke a few Sundays ago to the amusing bouquet of organic Honduran coffee brewing and the even more amusing news that the Philadelphia Eagles organization had suspended Terrell Owens indefinitely. It made me wonder what took Andy Reid and Jeff Lurie so long. It also made me grateful to have Bill Cowher at the…
Telefonics
From inside a stately home on a broad but otherwise quiet avenue in the twisted lakeside town of Erie, Pa., guitars moan and tambourines rattle like the pitter-patter of little ones’ feet. It’s here, in the home of John Johnston and Gina Rullo, that Erie’s surprisingly vibrant music scene takes root — both in the…
Guided By Voices
Standing outside an unassuming cafeteria on the CMU campus a decade ago, Robert Pollard — already 20 years older than many of his fans — looked confused, perhaps even distressed. “These kids keep coming up to me and talking to me about bands, and I’ve never heard of one of ’em,” he said, still doe-eyed…
Jacques Coursil
This is a release that, shamefully, could go without much notice. First of all, Coursil, whose name might be familiar to those with a few old ESP or BYG free-jazz LPs, hasn’t recorded since 1969. However, during the ’60s, he played with the likes of Marion Brown, Bill Dixon, Albert Ayler and Sun Ra. Second,…
Paradise Now
The story that Hany Abu-Assad tells in Paradise Now is one we’ve seen many times on the evening news with what seems like immutable regularity: A young Palestinian, born in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, does his heavenly-cum-patriotic duty and becomes a suicide bomber. But of course, in America, we see the…
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
The missing word-pair from the title is “riff riff,” because Shane Black’s comic actioner can’t stop referencing, homaging and tweaking other works of popular culture. Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is an entertaining romp through a certain subset of late-20th-century junk culture, and the more you already know…
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
There’s not a Muggle in sight in the new Harry Potter movie: It’s all wizards, all the time, including Lord Voldemort, whose corporeal reappearance comes about with a helping hand (literally) from his rodentine sidekick Wormtail, as well as a drop of Harry Potter’s blood (what’s a Dark Lord without someone else’s blood in his…
Gay rights:Trans-forming Pittsburgh’s Trans Community
The local transgender community is adding a weekend of seminars and celebration to its annual Day of Remembrance, begun last year to recognize victims of discrimination. “Our community deserves [it],” says organizer Miranda Kent, 33, of McMurray. Kent, who chairs the board of development of the Pittsburgh Transsexual Support Group, says being a trans…
Colleges:No Mo’ O?
Another Oakland institution may be on the way out. A classified advertisement has been running in the “business opportunities” section of the Post-Gazette for weeks, offering the Original Hotdog Shop for sale — the business itself, not the building or the business’s name for that matter. “In business for 47 yrs,” says the ad. “Turnkey…
Crystal Restaurant and Lounge
Location: 1211 Penn Ave., Strip District. 412-434-0480. Hours: Mon., 11 a.m.-2 p.m.; Tue.-Sat., 11 a.m.-2 a.m. Prices: Starters $3-9; sandwiches & family favorites $4-9 Fare: Mediterranean comfort food, American bar food Atmosphere: Family-run bar Liquor: Full bar There’s no doubt that Pittsburgh is a city of neighborhoods, bound together by the connections among close relatives…
Voting: Machine Dreams Closer to Reality
The voting public and those with disabilities will finally get their chance to review new voting machines that may be coming to the county with the spring 2006 primary. Following the 2000 presidential election dispute in Florida, which was decided by the Supreme Court, Congress instituted the Help America Vote Act, which mandates voting changes.…
Magical Thinking
State Rep. Tom Stevenson (R-Mount Lebanon) wanted us to know something right from the start of the legislature’s Nov. 9 hearing on academic bias. “Believe me when I tell you: This is no witch hunt,” Stevenson told the few dozen in attendance at the hearing, held at the University of Pittsburgh’s student union. …
Alley Tones
Many still recall that back when you needed something more palpable than just data to play a recorded song, makers of breakfast cereal briefly and incongruously got into the act. Occasionally, your box of Sugar-Blasted Oat Crunchies would have an actual record pressed into the back that you could cut out, put on…
