Artwork Becomes Him
It’s dusk on a late-summer night, and Steve Pellegrino is in rehearsal. The house-plasterer and experimental-theater veteran’s stage is itself a house: a big old three-story job in Oakland Square. The house is under renovation, with Pellegrino among the tradesmen. (He also once owned the building.) The band for the new show includes his 15-year-old…
Gay RightsMulti-Pronged Semi-Attack Set for “Family” Rally
A local coalition of gay-rights, civil-rights and faith groups called Stand for All Families plans to make itself known at the Sept. 20 “Stand for the Family” rally at Mellon Arena … if only to prove they exist, say organizers. But of course the coalition is hoping for much more, says spokesperson Dana Elmendorf.…
Cash and Carrying on the Legend
It didn’t take long for someone to try to cash in on the memory of Bob O’Connor. By Sept. 6, John Clancey, of Weirton, W.Va., was selling T-shirts on eBay with photos of the late mayor and the slogans “Mayor of the People” and “Legends Never Die.” O’Connor “seemed like a[n] ordinary guy trying to do…
Follow That StoryMore Blinders Placed on Scaife Case
A Common Pleas Court judge last week closed the door further on Richard Mellon Scaife’s multimillion-dollar divorce from his wife, Ritchie. Family Court Judge Alan Hertzberg had already sealed most of the billionaire’s divorce proceedings (“Private Dick,” July 27, 2006, CP), a move not usually made for members of the general public. But initially, a…
Idea Free-For-All Dangles $100,000
Free cabs and a light rail criss-crossing town. Spruced up neighborhood bus stops, complete with WiFi-enabled shelters. Bridge trusses converted into climbing walls. At the Idea Round Up, held by the local nonprofit grantmaker The Sprout Fund on Sept. 9, the ideas were as varied as the more than 300 participants. But almost all…
Soho
Location: Federal and General Robinson streets, North Side. 412-321-7646. Hours: Sun.-Sat. 11 a.m.-1 a.m. Prices: Starters $8-11; sandwiches $9-12; entrées and pastas $13-25 Fare: European-influenced American Atmosphere: Who put a sports bar in my dining room? Liquor: Full bar Smoking: Designated areas Soho, the restaurant in the new Springhill Suites hotel across from PNC Park,…
Drawing Restraint 9
I must confess that I lacked the patience for the Cremaster Cycle. Quite literally. In 2003, I traveled to New York City with the singular intention of watching all five films in succession at the Guggenheim, which had opened its entire exhibition space to Matthew Barney and his meticulously crafted films, sculptures and…
Is there a wall around Squirrel Hill? I recall reading a few years ago that someone designated a series of landmarks a “”wall” so that Orthodox Jews could hold umbrellas and push baby carriages on the Sabbath.
In the chilly and patrician church I grew up in, the only invisible walls we built were between ourselves and the working class. But in Orthodox Judaism, says Rabbi Yisroel Miller of the Congregation Poale Zedeck in Squirrel Hill, a wall can help bring people together, rather than divide them. As your question suggests, Orthodox…
Trust the Man
Just how charming is Trust the Man, writer/director Bart Freundlich’s relationship comedy about two New York couples and their bumps in the road? Let’s start with the cast: Julianne Moore, the radiant redhead; David Duchovny, the wry mumbler; the ever-raffish Billy Crudup; and Maggie Gyllenhaal, who seems to wrap her deliciously wide mouth around…
Duce Disappointment Getting Staley
You’re either on the bus or off the bus. Or so said Ken Kesey in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Granted, that was a different bus and a different time. But the question remains for running back Duce Staley — who Steelers fans once hoped would replace The Bus, Jerome Bettis: Are you with us?…
Boynton Beach Club
Director Susan Seidelman started her film career 24 years ago with a small indie feature called Smithereens, a grubby romance set amid the punk scene of the Lower East Side. Three years later, she had a minor hit with Desperately Seeking Susan, which featured a certain mouthy singer named Madonna. Having covered New York City’s…
Viva Voce
Sure, we’ve all had enough of husband-wife indie-duos (or whatever The White Stripes are supposed to be). As if to address that very issue, Kevin Robinson proclaims “So now we’re shouting out, to warn we’re coming ’round: Hey all, we do not fuck around!” Kevin and Anita Robinson formed Viva Voce (and a more…
Almanac of Fall
Expressionism isn’t really supposed to work in the movies. Critics and theorists have long held that the occasional Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is the exception that proves the rule: Narrative film is all about making your artifice seem as realistic as possible. Filmmakers seeking to externalize states of mind usually resort to compromise…
Nicolay
As part of his preparation to relocate to the United States from The Netherlands, musician and producer Nicolay created Here, a psychic travelogue charting his progress across the country through collaborations with American artists in their hometowns. Though Nicolay worked as a live musician for a decade before he began producing, he began making waves…
CROSSING THE BRIDGE: THE SOUND OF ISTANBUL
Part valentine to the fabled city that bridges east and west, part journey of musical and cultural discovery, and part showcase for a grand collection of artists, Fatih Akin’s documentary about Istanbul’s music scene is an engaging study, both quirky and informative. Our guide is Alexander Hacke, a shaggy German late of the post-punk band…
Stationary Recycle
Clipboard in hand, Terra Nonack paces Market Square in early September to ask business owners if they abide by a city law that has been on the books for nearly two decades: Does your business recycle? The owner of a pizzeria tells Nonack, despite the bottled water on display, that he…
HOUSE OF SAND
Andrucha Waddington’s drama starts mysteriously, as abstract images resolve into a vast, empty landscape speckled with a caravan. It’s 1910 in Brazil’s Maranhão desert, and íÂurea, the young, pregnant wife of a madman, will soon be abandoned to her fate here, alone but for her mother, Maria. While meditatively paced, much of the film remains…
Heir-Brained
We elected Bob O’Connor to a four-year term as mayor of Pittsburgh. Nobody elected Mayor Opie, a.k.a. 26-year-old Luke Ravenstahl. And while he may be a fine, well-intentioned young man, I think you ought to be at least 30 to run a city. I also think you should be elected by the voters.…
THE PROTECTOR
In Tony Jaa’s 2003 debut, Ong Bak, also directed by Prachya Pinkaew, the muay thai martial-arts expert had to kick the ass of half of Bangkok in order to retrieve a stolen Buddha statue. Now he’s bustin’ heads all over Sydney after some gangsters steal a potentially sacred elephant. The film was trimmed 30 minutes…
A Conversation with Steve Rogers
Steve Rogers surely spends his workday among more dead vertebrates than anyone in town. As a collection manager at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Rogers is responsible for about 216,000 herpetological specimens (amphibians and reptiles) and some 195,000 late birds. The preserved skins and skeletons, as well as whole critters floating in jars of…
Bastions of Controversy
On a sunny September day, perhaps the most attractive thing about the remains of Ft. Pitt in Point State Park is the stand of tomato plants thriving in one corner near the park’s entrance. Here, in this shady spot, the reconstructed fort wall begins to snake its way in a diamond-patterned trench near…
Burning Rainbow Farm: How a Stoner Utopia Went Up in Smoke
Making fun of hippies is a pastime worthy of lawn darts and ignoring MySpace. Part of the appeal is that it’s a risk-free endeavor. Since hippies are all about the peace and the love, one needn’t fear retaliation. And like making fun of yuppies, hipsters or the liberal media, it’s that much easier,…
Wave Books 06 Poetry Bus Tour
Like some strange collective of disenfranchised rock musicians, shorn of their instruments and forced to travel together for warmth, a pack of artists have embarked upon the Wave Books 06 Poetry Bus Tour. Forty-eight cities in 50 days … that’s some winded poets. Maybe it will help that their bus is biodiesel. And…
