We’ve noticed that the names of some local towns — like Freedom, Liberty, Prosperity, Unity and Economy — have a distinctly Orwellian nature. Was this some wry irony by Frick and Carnegie? Or a 19th-century attempt at branding?
Interestingly, all but one of the town names you mentioned are outside Allegheny County. If these names were a 19th-century attempt at branding, the PR geniuses closest to home never really got into the swing of it. (Although in fairness, whose heart is so cold and drear as to not leap for joy at the…
Aloha
From the first crash of the cymbals to the last drawn-out chord of the organ, a retooled and regrouped Aloha delves into its third album, Here Comes Everyone, with a newfound confidence for exploring the limitless sonic possibilities of the present while offering an appreciative nod to the band’s post-rock past. Aloha put itself…
A Conversation with Peter Machamer
Peter Machamer recently completed Eating, Drinking and Living Well in Pittsburgh: Some idiosyncratic notes about City spots (self-published, $11), a user’s guide of sorts for both visitors and long-timers. A professor in the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Machamer has written about food and wine for Pittsburgh Magazine and served…
Moving Units
In his review of the new Client disc a few weeks ago, my esteemed music editor deftly deconstructed the commodity fetish of the ’80s revival, yet did the movement a disservice by implying that the electroclash trend was “short-lived” and New York-based. In fact, the worldwide (Geneva, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, you name it) stampede of…
Honor System
“Essentially,” says Kevin McManus of Oakton, Virginia, when John Kerry came home from Vietnam to protest the war, he “desecrated all the war dead and their families.” And McManus is one of the more moderate voices on Stolen Honor, a controversial, 42-minute video slated to air Oct. 21 on WPGH-53, WPTT-22, and 60 other…
Low
Miles Davis always said that the best music is created by musicians who know when to stop playing, either for the benefit of the song or for the performance as a whole. For the past 10 years, the three members of Low — the husband-and-wife team of guitarist/vocalist Alan Sparhawk and drummer/vocalist Mimi Parker, and…
Yes, They Can
Masquerading as eager Republicans, artist-activists The Yes Men are cruising the country in a bus that trumpets “Yes, Bush Can ’04.” The Yes Men — who advocate identity correction (assuming the role of one’s enemy in order to more effectively explicate what’s wrong) and can currently be seen impersonating World Trade Organization members in their…
I © Huckabees
In his eccentric new movie I © Huckabees, writer/director David O. Russell riffs on the question of what It all means, if It means anything at all. His movie takes a stab at a somewhat nascent cinema genre, the postmodern alternative-reality black comedy, introduced to us by Charlie Kaufman in Being John Malkovich,…
Traffic Signs
What would make a business-suited woman in a speeding car pretend to be vomiting uncontrollably out her window while giving two thumbs-down signs? Why, it’s Renee Waun standing with a “Kerry-Edwards” campaign sign along the base of the Parkway East entrance ramps in Edgewood. Still shy of 8 a.m., Waun and two other…
Gammage Assessment
The death of motorist Jonny Gammage during a traffic stop by white suburban police officers on Oct. 12, 1995, continues to reverberate for videomaker Billy Jackson, who is ready to finish his documentary on the case and its implications. “When [Gammage] was killed, just everybody, both black and white, those who support the police department…
Power Plants
On a sunny Saturday afternoon in Garfield, Ricardo Robinson sits in the grass shaking a small handheld sifter. Robinson, quiet but resilient, is slowly removing broken glass from a vacant plot of land through which Shamrock Way once ran. He’s not planning on discarding it; instead he’ll save it and use it to edge the…
Murder Factories
When Neyra Azucena Cervantes didn’t come home from work one day in 2003, her family went looking for her. But the 20-year-old resident of Chihuahua, Mexico, was never seen again; two months later, some bones turned up that tested positive for her DNA. Cervantes is one of nearly 400 young women killed in the…
Bush League
“The Double Life of James Baker.” The Bush White House appointed James Baker III to get Iraq out of its international debts — something W calls crucial to Iraq’s future. But it appears that the supremely well-connected Baker has a big-time conflict of interest: As a major equity partner in the globe-girdling merchant…
Building a Constituency
When Jared the Subway guy introduces a commercial by saying, “I approve this message,” no one is really amused, but they aren’t surprised, either. The supersaturation of political messages means that even the least clever ad executive will be tempted to create a parody of an annoying campaign spot. Because it’s absolutely hilarious to suggest…
Around the Bend
How’s this for four generations of paterfamilias: Michael Caine as the rascally dying elder; Christopher Walken as his long-lost ex-con drug-addict progeny; Josh Lucas as Walken’s uptight über-responsible son; and as the tribe’s cherubic hope-for-the-future, newcomer Jonah Bobo, who may some day tell his grandchildren, “When I was 6, I made a movie…
Pittsburgh International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival
The 19th annual Pittsburgh International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival continues through Sun., Oct. 24. Films and videos screen at the Harris Theater, Downtown, and at Shepherd Wellness Center auditorium, 4800 Sciota St., in Bloomfield. Tickets are $7.50 for single admissions. Discount passes are available, including the Cheap Thrills Pass ($42 for six admissions) and…
THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES
Walter Salles Jr.’s bio-pic, based on the diaries of the young Ernesto “Che” Guevara and Alberto Granado, depicts the middle-class Argentines’ adventures as they set out for Venezuela on a rusty motorbike. Salles’ film is muy romantico — in that sweeping sentimental Latin sense — from dignifying abject conditions (these are not poor miners, they…
Joe Who?
Just Joe Hoeffel’s luck. Gale-force winds kick up as he arrives late for an Oct. 2 Democratic rally in Cheswick. Tablecloths rip free from their masking tape moorings and whip about. Democratic stalwarts trudge toward their cars, fearful of a deluge that never materializes. Nonetheless, Hoeffel bounds on stage, full of leftover adrenaline from his…
TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE
One thing that can be said about South Park’s Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s latest politically in-contempt production — it’s probably the most balanced report of any movie released commenting on America’s foreign policy attitude. So, in this finest assembly of celebrity caricatures and puppets since Genesis’ “Land of Confusion” video, everyone from North Korean…
Red Room Café and Lounge
Location: 134 South Highland Ave., 412-362-5800 Hours: Mon.-Sat., 5 p.m.-midnight Fare: Modern American fusion Prices: Appetizers $6-13, Entrees $17-32 Atmosphere: Is this what the Duquesne Club is like? Liquor: Full bar Red roses. Red sports cars. Red lipstick. The strongest color in the spectrum draws connotations of passion and luxury to everything it touches. At…
WARRIORS OF HEAVEN AND EARTH
There’s much in He Ping’s revisionist Western, set along the Silk Road in the China’s Gobi desert circa 700 A.D., that rings familiar: vast desert landscapes to be breached by man and beast, marauders, isolated villages-cum-fortresses and outlaw warriors who nonetheless adhere religiously to a code of honor. The two protagonists — a Japanese enforcer…
Termi-Nader
Pennsylvania supporters of Ralph Nader — all 2 or 3 percent of you — unite. As your candidate has said, it’s time to send a message that you’ll no longer stand for politics as usual. It’s time to stand up and oppose a decrepit political system in which votes can be bought and sold. …
WOMAN, THOU ART LOOSED
When a film opens with a woman unloading a gun during church, you know you’re on the bumpy road of female melodrama. Michael Schultz’s adaptation of Rev. T.D. Jakes’ novel about a young woman whose life is derailed by childhood abuse spins out like a tougher Lifetime movie entwined with a T.D. Jakes infomercial. The…
