Does iPhone have a hard time talking about reproductive health?
Elsewhere on the interwebs, some pro-choice activists are raising concerns about Siri, the voice-activated iPhone function that caters to its user’s every whim. Well, maybe not every whim. Siri, it seems, can tell you where to find Italian restaurants in North Beach, remind you about appointments or chores you need to do. But when it…
MP3: Yves Jean
Howdy! This week’s Local Beat column — which you’ll read tomorrow — is about longtime local singer and songwriter Yves Jean. The Haitian born pop singer is releasing his latest Hope for the Best … But Expect Nothing this Thursday with a show at Stage AE. Want a sneak peek? Download this weeks’s free MP3:…
Short List: November 24 – December 1
Thu., Nov. 24 — Screen If you haven’t caught Carl Kurlander’s 2008 homage to Pittsburgh, My Tale of Two Cities, at one of its many local screenings, here’s a chance to do so without leaving your couch. Kurlander is the local boy turned Hollywood screenwriter and producer who returned to discover his hometown’s postindustrial rebirth.…
The Worm Turns
Brace yourself, Pittsburgh: By the time its shelves are fully stocked at the end of the month, Verde Mexican Cantina and Kitchen is going to have the largest selection of tequila in Pennsylvania. “We wanted to have a huge-ass tequila section,” says Jeff Catalina, owner of the new Garfield bar and restaurant, at 5491 Penn…
Zeke’s Coffee
Chris Rhodes invokes two philosophies at Zeke’s Coffee in East Liberty: “high-end coffee done simply” and “Zeke it up.” The latter is a tribute to his grandfather, for whom the business is named. Rhodes roasts coffee beans in small batches throughout the day. Instead of a drum roaster which takes large quantities, Rhodes uses a…
Luke & Mike’s Front Porch Grill
Luke & Mike’s Front Porch Grill has the look and feel, not to mention the name, of a neighborhood landmark in the making. Located in Aspinwall’s historic train station, a handsome yet modest structure well-suited to one of the county’s most charming little towns, it anchors one end of the strip of businesses along Commercial…
Savage Love
I’m 26, straight and male. I have been a vocal supporter of LGBT issues since high school, and was president of my college Gay-Straight Alliance. Here’s my issue: I fully support the trans community and have numerous friends in varying states of transition. But I wouldn’t feel comfortable dating/having sex with a woman who had…
Lex Became a Junkie
Lex is dead now, He died in prison. They say his heart gave away and I’m guessing from too much of not enough. I knew him when he was a detective. We were so young And were assigned to narcotics. Youth usually is chained to ambition And we strutted the chains cool like immortality. We…
Occupational Therapy
There’s one thing Pittsburgh can be thankful for in this grim holiday season: The local chapter of the Occupy Wall Street movement may be among the most peaceable in the country — and perhaps the most law-abiding protest in the city’s history. Yes, there have been a half-dozen arrests since the encampment was erected on…
Coming Clean
Last year, at age 45, I joined a growing community: I was diagnosed with melanoma. Melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, is three times as common as it was three decades ago. One in 58 people will get the disease and, according to the Melanoma Research Foundation, it’s rising fastest among people under age…
Puzzling Choices: Not many are surprised at Westinghouse’s failure, but can it be put back together again?
Camille Grady’s senior year was bound to be different than every school year before it. She just never envisioned it would be such a mess. When Grady began classes at Homewood’s Academy at Westinghouse this past fall, it was the first time the 16-year-old had ever been enrolled in a public school. Her previous school,…
Critics’ Picks: November 25 – 30
[AVANT ROCK] + FRI., NOV. 25 Gangwish began a few years back as the drums-and-triggered-samples solo project of local percussion wonder Sam Pace (Centipede Eest, Johnsons Big Band) but has turned into something bigger — with more members and collaborators, and a wider swath of sounds. Tonight the band releases its new recording (on tape…
On the Record with dead prez
In April, City Paper contributor Rory D. Webb interviewed the members of dead prez — M-1 and stic.man — for LOCKDown Radio, on 88.3 FM WRCT. This is an excerpt from that interview. Is hip hop at its best when it is rebellious? stic.man: Hip hop is at its best when it’s authentic, whatever…
CypherStyles supplies street dance apparel to the world — from Swissvale
If it’s weird that Barry Rabkin runs an Internet clearinghouse for street-dance apparel and accessories from his Swissvale home, it’s even weirder where the 27-year-old Pittsburgh native got deep into breakdancing: Wisconsin. “I was into street dance, but I only got into breakdancing when I was at Beloit [College],” Rabkin explains. It was also while…
Dirty Charms bring old-school rock back
Straight-up rock ‘n’ roll is alive and kicking in the city as the members of Dirty Charms — Trym Killi, Darryl Thumm, Rocky Lamonde and Angelo Amantea — prepare to release their latest, Music Charms the Savage Beast. With the exception of Killi, who is originally from Norway, the band members were born and bred…
Christiane D. releases her first solo album
When Christiane D. Leach talks about her most recent project, a solo album called Obliquity of the Ecliptic, she does so in a way that connects music and art back to a tangled-up world, one deeper than rock stardom and pop-icon superficiality. The title itself draws from astronomy, and references the axis that runs through…
Melancholia
“Life is only on Earth, and not for long,” Justine (Kirsten Dunst), who suffers from crippling depression, tells her sister, Claire (Charlotte Gainbourg), who does not. That is, until scientists discover Melancholia, a hidden planet hurtling toward Earth. The more compelling Part 1 of Melancholia, Lars von Trier’s less-odd-than-usual new film, is called “Justine,” and…
The Descendants
In The Descendants, director Alexander Payne takes his first baby steps toward becoming fully human. So naturally, he’s still a little clumsy about it. Payne has built a reputation with four films: among them, the shrill and witless Citizen Ruth, the pretentious Sideways, and the lumbering About Schmidt. In these films, he treats his characters…
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1
The longer this film series goes on, the less I understand about the modern young vampire. (And no, I haven’t read the books.) When we last left teen-age Bella (Kristen Stewart), she’d become engaged to Edward (Robert Pattinson), a youngish-looking but still-very-old vampire. This fourth film (adapted from the last novel in Stephenie Meyer’s series,…
The Muppets
Those beloved puppet stars of television, The Muppets, have scattered to the wind: Kermit is a recluse; Miss Piggy is working in Paris; others are either retired, in plumbing or heading up a band called The Moopets. Their old studio is in disrepair, and about to be sold to an oil developer (Chris Cooper). But…
Like Crazy
Like millions before them, two college kids meet and fall in love: Anna (Felicity Jones) is English, studying abroad in Los Angeles, and hopes to be a writer; Jacob (Anton Yelchin) designs furniture. So many plans for the future! But Anna violates the terms of her student visa, and after graduation is unable to return…
Arthur Christmas
In Sarah Smith’s film, the task of getting out all those presents on Christmas is a well-oiled machine — from a stealth sleigh and ninja-ish elves to massive North Pole headquarters with a fully loaded situation room. The dysfunction is in the Claus family: The current Santa (voice of Jim Broadbent) is coasting, but neither…
A new design outfit looks to change the way dresses are made.
Local software-developer and dress-designer Megan Dietz seeks to lead a paradigm shift in the fashion industry. Dietz’s company, Wear the Shift, creates custom clothing based on a computer algorithm she developed to create a flattering, perfect fit. As she put it by phone from her home studio, in Mount Oliver: democratizing fashion involves options. “When…
Sam Bendrix at the Bon Soir
Boy — if there was ever a show with my name written all over it, it’s Keith Bunin’s Sam Bendrix at the Bon Soir, now world-premiering at City Theatre. Mark Rucker directs Luke Macfarlane (late of TV’s Brothers & Sisters) in the role of Sam Bendrix — a bartender at the legendary New York cabaret…
Red
For the first hour of Red, now playing at the Pittsburgh Public Theater, artist Mark Rothko blusters and rants around his studio. If this is thinking out loud, then Rothko had one stormy cerebellum. He hurls paint, he grumbles about fellow abstract painter Jackson Pollock and he throws drunken hissy fits, all in front of…
Pittsburgh-based Creative Nonfiction launches its own publishing venture.
In July, Southern Methodist University Press published Twelve Breaths a Minute: End of Life Essays. The book of true stories of death, dying and palliative care was edited by Lee Gutkind, founder and editor of Pittsburgh-based literary magazine Creative Nonfiction. But even as Gutkind was out promoting the book, SMU Press folded. “The book was…
Politically outspoken sportswriter and author Dave Zirin talks about John Carlos … and Tim Tebow.
Every neighborhood has one: a kid who is always digging in the dirt, never sure what he or she will find, who delights in unearthing and examining the unexpected. Dave Zirin was probably that kid. Zirin is a sports journalist, one who explores not just the games, but the money, politics and social implications behind…
