To be a true Pittsburgher, you need a Thanksgiving-themed pierogie ornament
For $8 a pop, you, dear Pittsburgher, can have your very own pierogie disguised as a turkey.
Gobble Gobble: Pittsburgh City Paper staffers draw hand turkeys
Quick! Draw a hand turkey. That’s what Pittsburgh City Paper staffers did in recognition of the Thanksgiving holiday. Slow news day or pure artistry? You decide.
Listen Up! Nov. 25
Every Wednesday, we make a Spotify playlist containing tracks from artists covered in the current music section. Listen below!
Eleven new public-art bike racks unveiled in Pittsburgh Cultural District
Even as Allegheny County loses its public-art revenue source, Pittsburgh Cultural Trust installs eleven new public-art bike racks throughout the Cultural District.
Stuff We Like
Thanksgiving Leftovers. Who doesn’t like sitting around in PJs and not having to cook the weekend following Turkey Day? The Smiley Face of Rick Sebak Cookies. These sweet treats celebrating the local TV personality and benefiting Eat’n Park’s Caring For Kids Campaign are available for a limited time. Order online only at www.smileycookie.com. Bob Roberts.…
Photo Essay: Pittsburgh’s Light Up Night shines throughout the city
Tree lightings, ice sculptures, display windows, live music, fireworks and a holiday market are all part of Pittsburgh’s Light Up Night — the city’s official holiday season kick-off.
MP3 Monday: The Hawkeyes
This week’s MP3 comes from roots rock band The Hawkeyes. Download the rousing, radio-ready track “Had Enough,” from the new record, One Plug in the Wall, below. Download link has expired, sorry!
Lynn Cullen 11/23/15
Video Archive You can listen to the audio archive here. Trump Card LLC. Getting along with your family on Thanksgiving. Audio Only Archive Listen to the Audio Archives on with our new Apple and Android Apps or the computer audio player.
What you need to know about Pittsburgh news this week
This week in Pittsburgh, Mayor Bill Peduto says yes to Syrian refugees, Allegheny County says no to public art funding and City Paper’s feline cover model gets adopted.
Elizabeth Kolbert at the Monday Night Lectures
“Sixth Extinction” author talks climate change, and it’s not a pretty picture
Suburban residents fill Port Authority meeting to max capacity, demanding bus service additions
Two packed Port Authority meetings in a row could make the authority’s decision on where to add service difficult.
Campaign 2016’s Silly Season: A Weekly Tweet Round-Up Nov. 20
Campaign 2016’s Silly Season: A Weekly Tweet Round-Up Nov. 20
City of Pittsburgh, development groups protest ALCOSAN’s possible riverfront construction
Mayor Bill Peduto’s Chief of Staff Kevin Acklin and several economic development and recreational groups say construction along the riverfronts would be negative for Pittsburgh.
Lynn Cullen 11/20/15
Video Archive You can listen to the audio archive here. Vic Walczak of the ACLU on a new recording app for police encounters. What’s going on in congress. Audio Only Archive Listen to the Audio Archives on with our new Apple and Android Apps or the computer audio player.
Pittsburgh City Council hears from those for and against new housing legislation
New legislation could prevent housing voucher discrimination.
Asheville’s Papadosio brings its Extras In A Movie Tour to Pittsburgh
Coming up close on 1 a.m. one night last week, I was delivered a sort of cryptic text from my brother-in-law in Lawrenceville: “I haven’t given this much thought to a band in a long time,” he said. “Or, maybe a band hasn’t given me this much thought in a long time. “It’s a gift,”…
Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto and Chief Cameron McLay stand in support with interfaith and activist communities
Public officials meet with more than 1,000 community members to offer support to their causes.
Author Mary Morris talks at CMU today
Novelist gives free talk
Lynn Cullen 11/19/15
Video Archive You can listen to the audio archive here. Mormon church changes it’s policy on LGBT issues. SAFE bill. 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. 20 – 22, 2015
This week: Sing along with Livingston Taylor or Lindy Hop all weekend long.
Los Campos Mexican Grocery supplies food staples, plus tamales on Sundays
Winter is coming and that means one thing for food-loving Mexicans across the globe: tamale time. During the holiday season, consumption of the already popular steamed masa dumplings multiplies. Sundays in Wexford, Los Campos Mexican Grocery can satisfy that tamale craving. The Perry Highway storefront has become a gathering spot for local Latinos. Owner Maria…
Critics’ Picks, Nov. 19-25
[INDIE FOLK] + FRI., NOV. 20 Daniel Snoke is not the first musician to find inspiration in the works of Alfred Lord Tennyson — British composer Edward Elgar, for one, set parts of “The Lotos-Eaters” to music in the early 1900s. But Snoke, a Pittsburgh native, might be the first to build a rock band…
Why events like the Pittsburgh Whiskey & Fine Spirits Festival might be worth your while
Festivals. I know. It’s Friday night, and you’re tired. Tickets are expensive. Maybe it’s a glitzy marketing tool. Plus, there’s always a crowd. However, there is a lot of fun to be had at events like Oct. 30’s Pittsburgh Whiskey & Fine Spirits Festival. More importantly, there’s opportunity to learn about and sample what’s on…
New Releases
David & The Disasters Every Part Of You [Self-released] www.davidandthedisasters.com It’s difficult to pin down what genre label might describe David & The Disasters. This band of charmingly goofy middle-aged men certainly has a new-wave influence, particularly on the title track, where Dave Lesondak’s dressed-down voice and twinkling keyboards recall The B-52’s. The band’s genre-hopping…
The History Center could have made more of its tribute to American ingenuity and sacrifice during World War II
WE CAN DO IT! WWII continues through Jan. 3. Heinz History Center, 1212 Smallman St., Strip District. 412-454-6459 or heinzhistorycenter.org When there’s a Sherman tank poised at the entrance of a major repository of cultural artifacts, we in the U.S. can afford to laugh. “Tanks for the memories,” goes the admittedly chuckle-worthy tagline for the…
Poet Peter Oresick’s new collection is a stirring retrospective
In the introduction to Peter Oresick’s Iconoscope (New and Selected Poems), the book’s title is said to reference “the first workable camera in early electronic television” (developed at Westinghouse). It’s an apt metaphor for the ways of seeing employed in this new University of Pittsburgh Press release. The 144-page collection includes both new work and…
The Piano Lesson at Pittsburgh Playwrights
THE PIANO LESSON continues through Sat., Nov. 21. Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Co. at The August Wilson Center, 980 Liberty Ave. $33.25. 412-465-6666 or culturaldistrict.org First performed in 1987, and set in 1936, in the Hill District, August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson is the fourth installment in the Pittsburgh native’s epic, 10-play Pittsburgh Cycle. It’s also the…
Sunset Baby at City Theatre
SUNSET BABY continues through Dec. 13. City Theatre, 1300 Bingham St., South Side. $15-56. 412-431-2489 or citytheatrecompany.org Dominique Morisseau is a playwright in love with the English language. Her Sunset Baby, making its Pittsburgh debut at City Theatre, is an aural feast of words. We open in a very sketchy apartment somewhere in Brooklyn where…
Propel charter schools, Chatham University want to change the culture of inner-city education with Pittsburgh Urban Teaching Corps
Earlier this month, a 9-year-old was shot and killed in South Side Chicago. And around this time last year, a Hill District family was burying a son who was shot and killed on his way to school. Unfortunately, tragedies like these are common for some communities in cities like Chicago and Pittsburgh. They tear families…
Good Kids at Pitt Stages
GOOD KIDS continues through Sun., Nov. 22. Henry Heymann Theatre, Stephen Foster Memorial, 4301 Forbes Ave., Oakland. $12.50 (free for students). 412-624-7529 or play.pitt.edu Playwright Naomi Iizuka tackles a difficult subject with grace, honesty and even a sense of poetry in Good Kids. The University of Pittsburgh Department of Theatre Arts does full justice to…
Harking to 1972’s Mod Trolley, the Port Authority and the Carnegie roll out retro buses and a new exhibit
In 1972, “Mod Desire,” also known as the Jolly Trolley, took the city by storm as it rolled down the streets of Pittsburgh — a piece of public transportation disguised as public art that delighted young and old alike with its psychedelic design. In an era when many buses and trolleys sported utilitarian color schemes,…
A Servant to Two Masters at the Public
A SERVANT TO TWO MASTERS continues through Dec. 6. O’Reilly Theater, 621 Penn Ave., Downtown. $15.75-65. 412-316-1600 or ppt.org Obviously, I’m just not in the right rhythm for Pittsburgh Public Theater’s production of A Servant to Two Masters, a 45 played at 33⅓. The 1746 commedia dell’arte classic, here in a 1999 Brit-speak adaptation set…
Upstart Code Red Wrestling brings pro wrestling and an animal-welfare fundraiser to Century III Mall
Code Red Wrestling Pawslam 2015 5 p.m. Sat., Nov. 21. Century III Mall, 3075 Clairton Road, West Mifflin. $10-$15. tinyurl.com/coderedwrestling There are two things in this world that Sera Feeny really loves — wrestling and animals. On Nov. 21, she’ll be able to do one to help the other. Feeny is a performer and co-owner…
Contemporary Choreographers largely hits home
CONTEMPORARY CHOREOGRAPHERS continues through Sun., Nov. 22. George Rowland White Performance Studio, 201 Wood St., Downtown. $10-24. 412-392-8000 or pittsburghplayhouse.com Stylistic variety was on tap for Point Park University’s Contemporary Dance Company’s annual Contemporary Choreographers program. The Nov. 12 matinee kicked off with Israeli-born choreographer Ori Flomin’s new work “The Way Out.” Ten dancers in gray clothing…
A state law requires recycling old TVs — but doesn’t make it feasible to do so
Ned Eldridge launched his electronics-recycling company, eLoop, in 2008. In 2013, a Pennsylvania law took effect prohibiting the landfilling of electronic waste, like TVs and computers: no more putting them out with the trash. But if you think that a law promising a practically endless stream of free raw materials was a complete win for…
Love the Coopers
Love the Coopers Directed by Jessie Nelson Starring Diane Keaton, John Goodman, Alan Arkin This season’s first Christmas movie — Love the Coopers — begins with the sound of sleigh bells and ends with a woof. Not an actual dog barking, but a man, in this case Steve Martin, supplying the voice of the family…
Savage Love
I’ve always been a big believer in the common-sense obviousness that monogamy is hard. Additionally, I like the idea of my wife getting fucked. I don’t have any desire to be denigrated or emasculated; I just get off on the idea of her being satisfied and a little transgressive. Early in our relationship, we talked…
The 33
Watching Patricia Riggen’s The 33, which recounts the true, unlikely survival of 33 Chilean miners stuck 2,300 feet below ground, it’s hard not to recall The Martian — another recent film about a near-impossible rescue mission. Where The Martian takes a technical and minimally melodramatic approach to its plot, The 33 lays on the schmaltz,…
My Bus Is Almost Here and I’m Married
But you smack your lips, groan, like I’m piece of chocolate cake, you’re about to fuck, or your mother’s cookies. On Smithfield, you say I’d like to take those home and play with ’em. Three minutes later, still on Smithfield, you say Girl, you’re making me cream and I walk faster, eat my apple so…
Difret
Zeresenay Berhane Mehari’s new docudrama shines light on the lack of basic rights that many women around the globe suffer from, and specifically, a groundbreaking 1996 legal case in Ethiopia. There, in traditional rural cultures, telefa, or the practice of abducting young women into marriage, continues. That’s what happens to 14-year-old Hirut (Tizita Hagere), a…
Duquesne women’s basketball might be the most successfully consistent sports program in the city
There is just one basketball team in this city that has won more than 20 games in each of the past seven seasons. Your first guess might be the obvious: Jamie Dixon’s Pitt Panthers. But they won only 19 last year. The correct answer is the Duquesne Lady Dukes. Only 18 other women’s programs in…
Nasty Baby
Writer-director Sebastian Silva’s film focuses on three close friends living in Fort Greene, Brooklyn: Freddy (Silva), a mercurial artist working on a baby-themed video-art project called “Nasty Baby”; his boyfriend, Mo (Tunde Adebimpe); and Polly (Kristen Wiig), who’s focused on having a baby, using Freddy’s sperm. When Freddy’s little guys aren’t up to the task,…
Stuff We Like
Autumn. Sure, the leaves were mediocre this year. But the seasonably mellow temps and blue skies had it all over 2014, when it seemed like summer turned into winter overnight. The Realness of Wholey’s. Pittsburgh’s bona fide fish market. Expect to see whole fish getting their heads chopped off. 1711 Penn Ave., Strip District. Laff…
Watain’s Erik Danielsson discusses ritual, avoiding black-metal formulas, and the challenges of using fire in performances
WATAIN with MAYHEM, ROTTING CHRIST 8 p.m. Sun., Nov. 22. Mr. Small’s Theatre, 400 Lincoln Ave., Millvale. $25. 412-821-4447 or mrsmalls.com Since forming in Uppsala, Sweden, in 1998, Watain has caused a stir in the music world for its combination of rabid black metal and blood-soaked and flame-filled rituals (a.k.a. concerts). The band has released…
Short List: November 18 – 23
Fri., Nov. 20 — Stage Adil Mansoor and Paul Kruse didn’t want to start a theater company. But they basically had to in order to stage, with producer Nicole Shero, their first production, in 2013. Their Hatch Arts Collective mounted Chickens in the Yard, with four actors playing six human characters and four chickens; the…
Warhol curator switches hats to become a recording artist
STUTTER STEPS CD RELEASE with Andre Costello 8 p.m. Sat., Nov. 21. Allegheny Elks Lodge No. 339, 400 Cedar Ave., North Side. $5. 412-321-1834 Before Ben Harrison became curator of performing arts and public programs at The Andy Warhol Museum, he played guitar in an indie-rock band. Like many local groups, Tourister performed in Pittsburgh…
Mambo Italia
Mambo Italia 424 Broad St., Sewickley. 412-741-3700 Hours: Tue.-Sat. 4-10 p.m.; Sun. 3-8 p.m. Prices: Antipasti $7-12; pizza, pasta and entrees $12-24 Liquor: BYOB Time was, your neighborhood probably had a little pizza shop. Maybe it just slung slices and pies for takeout, or maybe it also served a few sandwiches and pastas at tables…
Locally based hip-hop blog The Daily Loud finds national popularity
In 2012, Pittsburgh native Taylor Maglin, with the help of his childhood friend and business partner Jake Stotz, founded The Daily Loud, a hip-hop media blog. “Three years later we have grown to be the biggest source for hip-hop news in the state of Pennsylvania,” Maglin writes in an email interview. “I couldn’t rap or…
Lynn Cullen 11/18/15
Video Archive You can listen to the audio archive here. More Google Cardboard. Atlantic article by Graeme Wood on ISIS. Audio Only Archive Listen to the Audio Archives on with our new Apple and Android Apps or the computer audio player.
