Writing for Change
“Which of you kids in here likes to read?” asks the speaker. About half the hands of the hundred or so giddy young children kneeling and squatting around the Kelly Elementary School gymnasium go up. “Which of you kids don’t like to read?” Same number, different hands. “Then my books are…
Jay-Z
Sean Carter, a.k.a. Jay-Z, is now involved with many things involving many people — his own Roc-A-Fella film company, his Roc-A-Fella record company, his private sneaker line through Reebok, his Armadale vodka company, his personal Roc-A-Fella staff, including regular gold- and platinum-selling artists like Beanie Sigel and Cam’Ron — all only a portion of the…
Garikayi Tirikoti
According to a 20-year-old Zimbabwean legend, Garikayi Tirikoti — woodcarver, carpenter, metal worker and master of the mbira thumb piano — dreamed that upon arriving to a familiar water source, he found instead a stranger from whose mouth flowed mbira music the likes of which our dreamer had never heard. Yet, once he woke, Garikayi…
‘Sliberty Slope
Step out Dalilia Washington’s front door, and you’re in a Mad Max movie. Across the street is the wreckage of a row of apartments. To the right is an impromptu junkyard of mattresses, couches and bookshelves, scattered about a portable toilet. Five doors to the left a crane smashes another five-apartment building. In the course…
Last Day of School
Last week, departing Pittsburgh school-board President Darlene Harris shilled one last time for the Holy Taxpayer, pushing passage of a “homestead exemption” on school property taxes, which makes the first $10,000 of each city home tax-free. This move would cost the district $6.7 million, and (given the present millage rate of 13.92) save qualifying homeowners…
Traffic Signs for a new Pittsburgh
Public vomiting, brought on by binge-drinking, is a serious problem in several locations throughout Pittsburgh – East Carson St., Oakland near the Pitt campus, the parking lot at Heinz Field on any fall weekend. The above sign has, therefore, been posted at all of these sites. Citizens now know what places they should avoid (and…
City to Senate: Drop the Gun Legislation!
Pittsburgh City Council came to the defense of gun-violence victims Nov. 18, but some members questioned whether the nine-member legislature has the necessary firepower to make a difference. Councilor Bill Peduto pushed through a non-binding resolution in opposition to three bills in the U.S. Senate that would, according to gun-control advocates, eliminate the rights…
Panther Pride
Carnegie Mellon University proved an unlikely spot for a discussion of the Black Panther Party — even 30 years after the height of the Black Power movement. Local blacks who lived during the ’60s and ’70s were present but were far outnumbered in the audience by whites, and by those who weren’t born until…
Did Pittsburgh have any libraries before the Carnegie Library system?
Today we hardly notice the words “Free to the People” above the entrance to the Carnegie’s main branch in Oakland. What else would a library be, after all? But libraries were once for-profit enterprises, book-lending services that were operated with an eye toward the bottom line … in much the same way that some critics…
Rock of Ages
Two buses carrying 84 older people head for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. The passengers are as likely to tell you how “the mayor of Soulville” Chuck Edwards used to record for Duke in the mid-’50s as tell you about their grandchildren. On this one-day Elderhostel trip, there will be a…
Market Penetration
Now that Pittsburgh is on the brink of financial collapse, it’s become fashionable to bemoan the obscene political pandering that led us to this sorry fate. The real problem, though, may be that our leaders haven’t been pandering obscenely enough. For the past year, for example, City Councilors Gene Ricciardi and Barbara Burns have…
The Straight Dopes
We interrupt the usual sardonic wise-assery for this actual moment of sincerity. It’s at times like these I feel at once very proud and very much ashamed to be an American. I’m ashamed to be represented in the U.S. Senate by the happy homophobe, Rick Santorum. But I’m proud of the Massachusetts Supreme Court…
A Conversation with Mike Bolam
What spawned your heavy-metal, spoken-word performances? I was complaining about spoken-word performances, and how, in general, I wouldn’t want to go hear a spoken-word performance if I didn’t have to. Mike Q from [show venue] The Mr. Roboto Project, who seems to start just about everything going on in Pittsburgh, told me, “You should do…
Gothika
Whoever said there are no original stories left to tell is finally right. Gothika — directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, the hot young French hyphenate (actor-writer-director, sometimes all at once), and starring Halle Berry in full-out, Oscar-caliber, scream-and-cry mode — takes the last remaining one and blows it good. It’s the sort of movie that…
The Missing
In 1885 New Mexico, there lives a modern fantasy of a frontier woman, Maggie Gilkeson (Cate Blanchett). She’s a no-nonsense single mom, a rancher and a healer. She keeps a hunky lover whom she makes sleep in the barn for the sake of her children’s delicate sensibilities. (Just where was this Wild West anyhow?) …
Bad Santa
It’s almost like this film needs two reviews — one for the dozen folks I know who will simply love it and declare it the greatest Christmas movie of all time, and one for everybody else, who will be appalled. If you’ve fantasized about Santa engaging in anal intercourse, if you understand the need…
