Elections a gas for Marcellus drillers
Among the big winners in Pennsylvania last night: the Marcellus Shale gas-drilling industry. Obviously, the most significant win for the industry is Tom Corbett’s victory in the gubernatorial race. Corbett has, after all, pledged not to levy a severance tax on gas taken from beneath the state … even though Pennsylvania would be the only…
Picking over the wreckage
Well, there’s no point putting this off. Let’s take a first quick — and somewhat fatigued — look at what went wrong in tonight’s Senate race, where Joe Sestak lost to Pat Toomey. It’s pretty clear that the Democrats overhyped earlier claims of massive turnout. Just to take one example, earlier today I passed along…
Could students actually be voting in a non-presidential election?
We’re getting at least some anecdotal evidence that — whatever happens with this year’s election — college students may actually be voting in it. While younger voters tend to be more liberal, they’re also fickle — with rates of voter participation that often lag older voters. But state Democrats recently sent out a release noting…
To Noam is to Love Him: Chomsky on the election
Lots of e-mails coming in from state Democrats boasting of high turnout and grassroots fervor on Election Day. It’s premature to say whether their collection of anecodtes means anything, which is why I’m not going to quote it at any length. (And of course, there’s high-for-an-off-year-election turnout in Republican strongholds like Cranberry too.) But clearly…
MP3 Monday: Amuck
Hello hello! Long time no MP3. My fault on that one. We’re back this week, so quit complaining. This week’s track comes courtesy of Amuck, a local MC whose LP, Probabilities, is available free at his Myspace page. It’s an eclectic full-length with appearances from some local hip-hop fixtures like Basick Sickness and Sikes; Amuck…
Pilobolus at the Byham
The famed dance troupe’s first performance in Pittsburgh in eight years was characteristically joyful. But it was also tinged with sadness, serving partly as a tribute to its visionary Pittsburgh-born co-founder, Jonathan Wolken. Wolken died in June, at age 60. The second act of last night’s performance was preceded by a short video tribute to…
War of the Worlds Revisited
Most likely, you won’t be able to get in the door at Bricolage for either of the troupe’s remaining two “live radio” performances of The War of the Worlds. It’s been selling out its intimate Downtown space. So little point here in praising the fine production, which I was fortunate to see last week. But…
Jim Hightower at Point Park
The populist pundit’s talk here last week provided some rays of hope for progressives in this dispiriting election season. But not the sugar-coated kind. Hightower has been a national progressive voice for two decades now, ever since he ended finished his second term as Texas agricultural commissioner and turned to making his newsletter, The Hightower…
Governors say the darndest things
I can’t explain why the blogging has fallen off as late, especially with an election so close at hand. I guess it’s for the same reason that, when you see a collision with a freight train coming, you sort of lose interest in fiddling with the radio. But I’m struck by this news, from the…
Short List: Week of October 28 – November 4
Thu., Oct. 28 — Rock Even if you’re not a year-round goth, a little darkness is never out of place as we approach Halloween. At 31st Street Pub tonight, catch DJ Heim and Miss Amber with Metropolis Records recording artists Bella Morte. The band, around since the late 1990s, churns out dark, synthy pop-rock, topped…
The Black Bean
A much closer stop than Havana — or South Florida — for Cuban bites
Lovely, Still
A Christmas snowglobe features prominently in Nik Fackler’s dramedy, and ultimately that’s what this movie reminded me of: an artificial, overly sentimental story set in a bubble. Robert (Martin Landau) is a lonely old supermarket worker whose only “friend” may be his young boss (Adam Scott). But then a vivacious age-appropriate woman named Mary (Ellen…
Conviction
After her bad-boy brother is convicted for a murder, a working-class high-school-dropout single mom goes to law school, so she can get him freed — even if it takes decades. Because Tony Goldwyn’s docudrama is, indeed, “inspired by real events,” astute viewers can pretty much guess what happens. Therefore, for our entertainment, Goldwyn presents the…
Hereafter
I’m still not sure if Hereafter is complex and challenging, or just a pastiche of banalities. One thing’s for sure: Its first 10 and final 20 minutes are its most interesting. Considering it’s a movie about life and death, that has to be a metaphor for something. The film looks and feels like most of…
Covering Our Ashes
One option under consideration for regulating coal ash leaves enforcement to lawsuits brought by private citizens or state governments.
Fare Share
PAT rates are going up; premium rates axed, for now
Mark Roosevelt’s Report Card
Superintendent ends tenure filled with highs, lows
It’s tough to get a rise out of Dead Rising 2.
A well-designed setting and a few flashes of goofiness just aren’t quite enough to save Dead Rising 2.
Post-Gazette staffer Len Barcousky sifts through local history, large and small.
“I suspect that many of the pages I’ve been skimming haven’t been read for a century or more.”
Revisiting Pittsburgh in his fiction, first-time novelist Michael Ayoob moved back to town himself.
“One of my classmates actually asked, ‘Do they have tire swings in Pittsburgh?'”
“I was horrified and uplifted, which I thought was a good combination.”
Quantum Theatre evokes painful emotions — and Australian geology — in the former Iron City Brewery.
Mauritius
The tension keeps coming as five totally believable actors pull you into the off-center clutches of unlovable people.
War of the Worlds
Take it for a Halloween treat or art for art’s sake.
The 39 Steps
The 39 Steps is actually a celebration of theater — mounting a cast-of-hundreds work with only four people.
The Pillow Project’s must-see multimedia show vividly evokes the practice of turning memories into writing.
The work’s nonlinear story-within-a-story emerged like memories out of the darkness.
Following the death of its Pittsburgh-native co-founder, famed dance troupe Pilobolus continues exploring new territory.
“You don’t put your feet into the same river twice and you don’t walk into the same studio twice.”
This Just In: October 28 – November 4
Highlights from the local TV news: Up In Smoke!
Hugh Cornwell of U.K. rockers The Stranglers performs at Thunderbird Café
Cornwell may lack stateside familiarity, but his rich catalog and potent performances more than carry him.
Scottish band Frightened Rabbit returns with The Winter of Mixed Drinks
“I’m the first to admit we went completely over-the-top on a lot of these songs but we had to do it to keep moving forward.”
The Chapin Sisters bring their majestic folk harmonies to Thunderbird Café
The Chapin Sisters’ album Two is strongly influenced by English and Celtic folk traditions but at times verges on pop.
A Conversation with Peg Simone
“I’ve always liked what Nick Cave did in terms of storytelling.”
Pittsburgh-based startup ShowClix masters the ticketing biz
In 2008, ShowClix rolled out tickets that can be sent to a customer’s phone by text message and scanned at the event site. It was a bit ahead of its time.
Baldinger’s Foods From All Nations
519 Perry Highway, Zelienople 724-452-9310 or www.baldingerscandy.com Even though she doesn’t eat candy, it would be tough to find someone with more knowledge on the subject than Betty Sabo. “I’m diabetic,” says Sabo, the manager of Baldinger’s Food From All Nations, in Zelienople. “But I love kids and that’s why I show up every…
Moist
A poem by Laurin B. Wolf
Savage Love
I am a 23-year-old woman. I have been with my boyfriend for three years. We have a very healthy sex life, and the longer we are together, the better it gets! There is just one problem: He wants me to get really raunchy with his come when I am blowing him. I guess it’s called…
