A conversation with Duncan Prahl
By day, Duncan Prahl works for a green building company. But by night, he is an artiste, setting up strange tableaux of toy plastic animals on bartops across the nation, which are recorded for posterity at www.baranimals.com. Recently, he became a collected artist when someone bought a Bar Animals photo at Lawrenceville’s Art All Night.…
Trying to Try the Charmo Case Again
In the 1995 police shooting death of motorist Jerry Jackson, city Housing Authority Police Officer John Charmo swore that Jackson’s 1990 Mazda 626 made a 180-degree turn in the tight, curving Armstrong Tunnels — a threatening maneuver that caused the officer to shoot. Later investigations proved that this was not physically possible. The…
The T Stops … Where?
To save the proposed Allegheny River subway tunnels, local activist Glenn Walsh is proposing that conventioneers and others take a walk. Bids came in high for the construction of the under-river tunnels of the North Shore Connector T extension; the lowest was $87.5 million, 25 percent over budget. But Walsh thinks his idea could…
20 Years Strong
The annual Pittsburgh International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival turns 20 this year, and thus it’s no surprise that the nearly two dozen domestic and international films and videos presented offer windows into a well-established community. This year there are fewer coming-out films and more stories about commitment: Marriage and babies factor into several. But…
Domino
Nothing says dubious entertainment more than a film that opens with the caveat: “Inspired by a true story … sort of.” And having granted itself license to be ridiculous, Tony Scott’s flashy action flick, Domino, about real-life bounty hunter Domino Harvey, heads straight for the cheap seats, delivering a chaotic swirl of fact and fiction,…
Last Days
In Gus Van Sant’s Last Days, the young, gifted, unstable musician Blake (Michael Pitt) is an afterimage of Kurt Cobain. By fictionalizing his film’s story, as he did in Elephant, rather than attempting a genuine biopic, Van Sant frees himself to invent, explore and reflect (and also, no doubt, to avoid a lawsuit from Courtney…
Whistling Past the Graveyard
Pittsburgh’s mourning over its native son, playwright August Wilson, has been lengthy, moving and dignified. It’s a measure of the man that even the Tribune-Review editorial page managed to offer a dignified homage. (“A literary giant lived among us….Bravo, sir. Well done, sir. Bravo.”) I wonder what Wilson would have made of it. …
What a Drag It Is Getting Old
“Let’s face it,” a friend of mine said recently: “If you could say you saw the Rolling Stones in ’72, that’s saying something. But if you say you saw the Stones then and someone says to you ‘I just saw them last week’ and they think that’s equivalent, then you know they must be a…
On Pius Street on the South Side Slopes, there is an old building being converted into a bar/restaurant. The sign above says “WBU #6.” What was this organization?
To outsiders, this building has long been a source of mystery, a nondescript structure with the not-very-descriptive sign you describe. To the structure’s neighbors, meanwhile, the building has been ground zero in a legal battle that went all the way up to Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court last year. Thanks to that case,…
Going Home Again
Gerald Stern says that the reason Pittsburgh keeps turning up in his poetry might be “sentimental.” Not that he doesn’t have plenty of other excuses: The Hill District native lived here until after he’d graduated from the University of Pittsburgh, and in his work still draws on wrenching events including the death of…
Machine Politics
“Everything is stupid-simple on this machine,” enthuses Victor Schulte, standing over the Accupoll Voting System 1000, an electronic voting machine he is demonstrating in the Beaver County Courthouse. “Your IQ has to be below 80 to have a problem working on this.” Schulte enthuses a lot. “It’s impossible to leave the poll and be disenfranchised,”…
DJ John G. and DJ J.J. Solomon
Radio, as we know it, isn’t dead … yet. Pittsburgh isn’t doing much to keep it alive, either, says DJ John G. of JHN Promotions, especially when it comes to hip hop. “Unfortunately, Pittsburgh radio is not [set up where] you have to listen or else you’re gonna miss out,”…
Communication Breakdown
Eighteen months after an external review labeled the University of Pittsburgh’s Communication department an unhealthy place for women faculty and graduate students — a charge denied by the administration — the department has lost its final two active tenured women faculty. If anything, say the pair of professors who resigned Aug. 31, Robin Means Coleman…
