November 25, 2015 - Pittsburgh City Paper

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PITTSBURGH SCHOOL-BOARD MEMBER MARK BRENTLEY’S PARTING SHOTS 12

FROM CREED TO MOCKINGJAY, THANKSGIVING BRINGS A FULL BUFFET OF NEW FILMS 34

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 11.25/12.02.2015

EVENTS 12.5 – 10am HALF-PINT PRINTS Education studio Free with museum admission

12.5 – 2pm IN DISCUSSION: CHIEF ARCHIVIST MATT WRBICAN WITH AUTHOR JAMIE WARHOLA The Warhol theater This program is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Warhol By the Book.

FREE

12.28 – 10am—5pm SPECIAL HOLIDAY HOURS The Warhol will be open on Monday, December 28, from 10am – 5pm.

1.15 – 8pm SOUND SERIES: GABI, WITH SPECIAL GUEST SLEEP EXPERIMENTS The Warhol theater Tickets $15 / $12 Members & students

1.28 – 11am POP GENERATION For the generation that inspired Warhol, a new program exclusively for older adults, age 65 and over.

Tickets $10 / Free Members

A John Waters’ Christmas:

NOW – 1.10 THE WARHOL: BOOK HUNT Find hidden books throughout the city for free admission passes and discounts. Visit warholbookhunt.com for details.

Holier & Dirtier 12.11 – 8pm Carnegie Music Hall (Oakland) | Co-presented with the Carnegie Museum of Art Tickets $25 / $20 Members & students

The Warhol welcomes back the legendary and incomparable writer and director John Waters to the opulent Carnegie Music Hall, with his critically acclaimed one-man show A John Waters’ Christmas.

Waters will be holding a book-signing for ticket holders directly following the performance.

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The Andy Warhol Museum receives state arts funding support through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency and The Heinz Endowments. Further support is provided by the Allegheny Regional Asset District.

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 11.25/12.02.2015

{EDITORIAL}

11.25/12.02.2015

Editor CHARLIE DEITCH Arts & Entertainment Editor BILL O’DRISCOLL Music Editor MARGARET WELSH Associate Editor AL HOFF Multimedia Editor ASHLEY MURRAY Listings Editor CELINE ROBERTS Assistant Listings Editor ALEX GORDON Staff Writers RYAN DETO, REBECCA NUTTALL Staff Photographer HEATHER MULL Interns THEO SCHWARZ, KELECHI URAMA, ANDREW WOEHREL

VOLUME 25 + ISSUE 47

Tis the Season for Craft Beer!

{ART} Director of Operations KEVIN SHEPHERD Production Director JULIE SKIDMORE Art Director LISA CUNNINGHAM Graphic Designers JEFF SCHRECKENGOST, JENNIFER TRIVELLI

[NEWS] be able to say that I helped rebuild 06 “To Pittsburgh is an amazing feeling.”

{ADVERTISING}

— Braddock resident Lee Williams on how a Homewood job-training program changed his life

[NEWS] do I have to convince educators 12 “Why that we have to do something to stop this bleeding? I should be the one following their lead.” — Outgoing school-board director Mark Brentley on the frustration that led to his departure

[TASTE]

[MUSIC]

have the power to clear away 29 “Songs all that cacophony.” — Stephen Segal

{ADMINISTRATION}

recommends the best Dan Bern songs for troubled times

Business Manager LAURA ANTONIO Circulation Director JIM LAVRINC Office Administrator RODNEY REGAN Technical Director PAUL CARROLL Interactive Media Manager CARLO LEO

[SCREEN]

is explosive subject matter, presented 34 “Itsoberly as an investigative procedural.”

{PUBLISHER}

— Al Hoff on Tom McCarthy’s new docudrama Spotlight

STEEL CITY MEDIA GENERAL POLICIES: Contents copyrighted 2015

by Steel City Media. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written permission of the publisher. The opinions expressed in Pittsburgh City Paper are those of the author and not necessarily of Steel City Media. LETTER POLICY: Letters, faxes or e-mails must be signed and include town and daytime phone number for confirmation.

We may edit for length and clarity. DISTRIBUTION: Pittsburgh City Paper is published weekly by Steel City Media and is available free of charge at select distribution locations. One copy per reader; copies of past issues may be purchased for $3.00 each, payable in advance to Pittsburgh City Paper. FIRST CLASS MAIL SUBSCRIPTIONS: Available for $175 per year, $95 per half year. No refunds.

[ARTS] “This epic poem set during the Civil War is both strikingly original and, by its author’s enthusiastic acknowledgement, grandly derivative.” — Bill O’Driscoll on Tim Miller’s To the House of the Sun

[LAST PAGE] about the uncle who says 55 “What climate change is made up?”

— Em DeMarco prepares you for holiday-dinner discussions in this month’s comics-journalism piece

{REGULAR & SPECIAL FEATURES} CHEAP SEATS BY MIKE WYSOCKI 18 EVENTS LISTINGS 42 SAVAGE LOVE BY DAN SAVAGE 50 FREE WILL ASTROLOGY BY ROB BREZSNY 51 CROSSWORD BY BRENDAN EMMETT QUIGLEY 53 +

THESE BRA OVER THE HOLIDAYS!

Marketing Director DEANNA KONESNI Marketing Design Coordinator LINDSEY THOMPSON Marketing & Sales Assistant MARIA SNYDER Radio Promotions Director VICKI CAPOCCIONI-WOLFE Radio Promotions Assistants ANDREW BILINSKY, NOAH FLEMING

fizz for the season.” — Allegheny Wine Mixer’s Jamie Patten recommends a holiday wine

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ENJOY NDS

{MARKETING+PROMOTIONS}

of concentrated berry fruit and 22 “Tons balsamic, finishes dry, with just enough

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Director of Advertising JESSIE AUMAN-BROCK Senior Account Executives TOM FAULS, PAUL KLATZKIN, SANDI MARTIN, JEREMY WITHERELL Advertising Representatives MATT HAHN, JEFF HRAPLA, SCOTT KLATZKIN, MELISSA LENIGAN, ERICA MATAYA, DANA MCHENRY, MELISSA METZ, JAMES PORCO Classified Manager ANDREA JAMES Radio Sales Manager CHRIS KOHAN National Advertising Representative VMG ADVERTISING 1.888.278.9866 OR 1.212.475.2529

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 650 Smithfield Street, Suite 2200 Pittsburgh, PA 15222 412.316.3342 FAX: 412.316.3388 E-MAIL info@pghcitypaper.com www.pghcitypaper.com

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THIS WEEK

ONLINE

www.pghcitypaper.com

“TO BE ABLE TO SAY THAT I HELPED REBUILD PITTSBURGH IS AN AMAZING FEELING.”

Hear from the team at PA Women Work, who are building women’s professional networks and economic opportunities. www.pghcitypaper.com

City Paper (@pghcitypaper) and the Instagram collective @steelcitygrammers have teamed up to capture scenes of Homewood.

Our photo essay hits the paper and goes live online next week.

{PHOTOS BY HEATHER MULL}

CEA construction instructor and Ma’at foreman Johnnie Comer (right), standing with Homewood natives Woody Yates (center) and Adrian Foster (left), on one of the floors they are remodeling at the 7800 Susquehanna Street warehouse renovation project.

This week: Celebrate small businesses, salsa dance the night away and jam to Purple Rain.

NEIGHBORHOOD

DEVELOPMENT

#CPWeekend podcast goes live every Thursday at www.pghcitypaper.com.

CITY PAPER

INTERACTIVE

Ever notice those spiky things on the top of the Smithfield Bridge? Instagrammer @sooper_whit did in this shot. Tag your Instagram photos as #CPReaderArt, and we just may re-gram you.

Download our free app for a chance to win an overnight stay for two at Seven Springs!

Contest ends Dec. 3.

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ASHAD BYRDSONG drives around back streets of Homewood until he stops at the 7000 block of Monticello Street. Abandoned structures and vacant lots sit next to a handful of well-kept homes. Kids, just out of school at nearby Westinghouse Academy, walk down the street.

Byrdsong, president of the Community Empowerment Association, a neighborhood-advocacy group, says this is one of the more violent sections of the area.

Several shootings have occurred here just amid a three-house cluster; a bullet hole is still visible in one of the windows. Behind this group of homes is a structure that looks dangerously close to collapsing entirely.

“This house is reflective of hundreds of homes like it in Homewood,” says Byrd-

song. “It is almost like these conditions are considered ordinary in the neighborhood.”

Pittsburgh City Councilor Ricky Burgess, who represents Homewood, recently wrote a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette op-ed calling the neighborhood a “community in crisis.”

Workforce training program looks to increase the participation of minority workers in Pittsburgh’s construction boom {BY RYAN DETO} “Homewood has the highest number of shootings and gun-related deaths in Pittsburgh,” wrote Burgess. “Homewood also

has the city’s largest number of vacant, abandoned and tax-delinquent properties.

There are no grocery stores, no drugstores, no clothing stores and no name-brand store of any kind.”

But things are starting to turn around in Homewood. Development projects are slated for the once-neglected neighborhood, including a 40-unit apartment complex and the new state-of-the-art Animal Rescue League shelter, bringing hopes of economic vitality that could combat the neighborhood’s drug and violence problems.

And Byrdsong, who himself was formerly incarcerated in 1992, wants to ensure that people from the neighborhood and all disadvantaged workers get to share in any future prosperity. That is where CEA’s Workforce Development Training comes in. The CONTINUES ON PG. 08

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 11.25/12.02.2015

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Jermaine Butler, of Homewood, completed the CEA construction training program three years ago and now works carpentry jobs at Ma’at Construction Group.

9- to 12-week program teaches trainees skills in the construction, hospitality, manufacturing, retail, health-care and landscaping industries.

Byrdsong says he has been particularly focused on ensuring that minorities and disadvantaged laborers, like those with a criminal record, are given opportunities to contribute to Homewood’s current construction revival.

“We continue to fight this fight to get more minority participation,” he says.

“That is why guys like me have to holler and scream to tackle this issue.”

Byrdsong questions whether some of the construction projects are living up to their Section 3 requirements. Federal law requires that projects receiving funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development provide job training, employment and contracting opportunities for low-income residents in connection with projects in their neighborhoods. Byrdsong is skeptical this law is being enforced

in all city projects, so he is taking matters into his own hands with the workforce training program.

Many CEA workforce-training graduates find jobs directly with Byrdsong’s own construction company, Ma’at Construction Group. Eighty-five percent of the construction workers on the new Homewood Station senior-living facility, which recently popped up right across from Homewood’s busway stop, were African-American, according to Byrdsong. His organization was part of that effort and is also currently renovating a vacant 1920s-era warehouse at 7800 Susquehanna St., in Homewood.

The warehouse was purchased in 2013

by Bridgeway Capital, a nonprofit developer, with the goal of repurposing “an underutilized commercial asset into a platform for economic renewal in the Homewood community,” according to the company’s website.

Johnnie Comer, a CEA instructor and Ma’at foreman for the Susquehanna site, CONTINUES ON PG. 10

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 11.25/12.02.2015

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says that Bridgeway was instrumental in helping trainees work on the site and even allowed Ma’at to bill extra time to accommodate newly trained workers who took a bit longer to complete projects.

Bridgeway was happy to work with Ma’at and some of its trainees. In a written statement, Bridgeway CEO Mark Peterson told City Paper: “We appreciate the quality of work Ma’at Construction Group brings to 7800 Susquehanna Street. Their high level of workmanship and community focus supports positive growth in Homewood. Rashad Byrdsong and Johnnie Comer understand the mission of 7800, and we hope we can help them participate in other large construction projects that are rapidly developing in [Pittsburgh.]”

Homewood resident Woody Yates, 46, is part of the Ma’at team working to renovate part of the warehouse. He took the CEA course and says he is proud to be a part of the change that is happening in his community.

“I am from Homewood, I am from the community,” says Yates. “So to be able to say, ‘Hey, I helped build that,’ it is a beautiful feeling and if it wasn’t for Ma’at [and CEA], I wouldn’t have the opportunity.”

Yates, who was formerly incarcerated, said he didn’t know anything about construction before the training classes, but is glad because his work gives him the feeling that he is always going to have “productive days.”

“The program is a blessing because we have great instructors,” says Yates. “The instructors don’t just teach you the program, they really want you to learn it. So you can get out there and experience the work.”

Lee Williams spent 10 years in state prison and recently came to the Pittsburgh area from Erie. He now lives in Braddock and said that when he first moved here, he was having a hard time finding work. Williams says that if CEA had not taken him in, he would not be working construction in the Pittsburgh area. And since joining the Ma’at crew, he has both worked on the Homewood warehouse and found other construction jobs.

“Pittsburgh being the way that it is now, there is a lot of opportunity,” says Williams.

“It is guaranteed work.”

CEA recognizes this building boom is not just concentrated in places like Homewood, so it is looking beyond the neighborhood, too. Recently the training program expanded to CEA’s Mckeesport location at First United Methodist Church. Byrdsong says this expansion was necessary to accom-

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 11.25/12.02.2015

modate the large low-income and minority population that lives in the Mon Valley and would have trouble getting to Homewood.

(It takes more than an hour to reach Homewood from McKeesport by bus.)

The workforce training program has also helped those looking to change career paths. Adrian Foster grew up in Homewood but has since moved with his wife to a home in New Kensington. He runs a company that delivers appliances to stores like h.h. gregg, but always wanted to get into construction.

After purchasing his home, he says, he didn’t know how to do anything handy and, given the mortgage payments, couldn’t afford to pay people to work on it. But through the training courses, that quickly changed.

“When I went into the class, I did not know anything,” says Foster, “and then two weeks into the class I am demolishing my bathroom and redoing it. It made me feel more comfortable in construction.”

Foster has been hanging drywall at the new Homewood warehouse, and wants

“WE CONTINUE TO FIGHT THIS FIGHT TO GET MORE MINORITY PARTICIPATION.”

to apply the skills learned on his construction jobs to his future home. “I wanted to get into carpentry and electricity, too, and I wanted to learn how to build a house from the ground up,” he says. “That is what I want to do in the future. I want to be able to build my own house.”

Foster says he is proud to contribute to buildings in his childhood community, that he also has his eye on younger generations.

“It is about where I came from, but it is also about where I finish, and I want to set that example for my children,” he says.

Comer, the CEA trainer and Ma’at foreman, says he is proud not only help train new construction workers, but glad to help place new trainees with jobs after they finish the course.

“There are so many training programs out there, but what happens to the guys after they are done?” says Comer. “Here [with CEA], a lot of them come and work for us, or get placed in a union or work for other contractors.”

And for the CEA graduates, the construction work is also providing a legacy they can be proud of. Adds Williams, “To be able to say that in 20, 30, 40 years, that I helped rebuild Pittsburgh is an amazing feeling.”

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ON THE RECORD WITH MARK BRENTLEY

do I have to convince educators that we have to do something to stop this bleeding?

I should be the one following their lead. …

But they’re not saying anything. … It’s propaganda. It’s hard to go along with that. It’s a different agenda now that has very little to do with helping and educating children.

Outspoken, sometimes controversial, Pittsburgh school-board director calls it quits after 16 years {BY REBECCA NUTTALL} NEXT MONTH, Mark Brentley will vacate

his seat on the Pittsburgh Public School District board of directors. He was forced to leave a job with the city’s public-works department to run for the seat because of a bylaw forbidding city employees to run for office. But he won and held the position for 16 years. He’s currently the longest-serving African-American elected official in Pittsburgh.

Despite his longevity, he’s never been chosen to serve as president of the board, or the vice president, for that matter. Last month, another outgoing board veteran, William Isler, was recognized for his years of service with a proclamation by Pittsburgh City Council. So far, Brentley hasn’t received that pat on the back from his colleagues. He says he’s still waiting.

But none of that surprises Brentley. For four terms he has shown up to meetings in his trademark bow tie and spoken his mind on issues, and has never really been a favorite of his board colleagues or the media.

His critics have painted him as an obstructionist who frequently plays the race card.

But their criticism hasn’t seemed to matter, because when it came election time, his constituents in District 9 kept putting him back in office.

For many in the African-American community, Brentley’s unending critique of systemic racism in Pittsburgh is welcome.

His supporters say he’s served as a loudspeaker for the city’s black children — voicing concerns about school segregation, un-

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{PHOTO BY THEO SCHWARZ}

Mark Brentley

equal distribution of district resources, and growing achievement gaps between black and white students. And for them, his presence will be missed. Brentley says he plans to stay politically active and possibly even make another run at a state house seat to continue his advocacy for the schools. He took time recently to talk with City Paper about his often-tumultuous tenure.

WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO STEP DOWN? I love every minute of being on the board.

But anybody who watches the meetings can clearly see it is often a battle of eight against one. I don’t mind. I am a soldier and I do enjoy a good fight, especially when it’s about defending and doing what’s right for children. But it’s a different mode up there the last 10 years.

There’s just a total disregard for children,

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 11.25/12.02.2015

a total disregard for African Americans, a total disregard for taxpayers. And I can’t stop that. I can’t change it.

I know folks who sit at the table and have other agendas. That’s always been there. But it’s just so disturbing when there are at least three other African-American board members who know what I’m saying is correct but refuse it. That part is hard to stomach.

If you look at the folks that are there now, I think I counted close to 60 or 70 years of classroom experience. Never before in the history have we had that kind of experience. And when you see them at the table and they’re getting the same reports I’m getting, the same scores and test results clearly showing a widening gap for African Americans — not struggling anymore, failing — I just shake my head. Why

YOU TALK A LOT ABOUT YOUR STRUGGLES ON THE BOARD OVER THE YEARS, BUT WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR VICTORIES? The No. 1 thing is the [Take a Father to School Day] program, which I put together from scratch on my own, against the odds.

When I ran, I said that’s what I wanted to do was to get men active, to get men involved. I did that, and I’d like to think it is now one of the most successful programs that we have in the district.

The second is eight or nine years ago, when I realized that work and business in the district was a good-old-boys network — mostly white men and white contractors who had relationships with the district that would allow them to get contracts.

I changed the policy. … We hired a young man who specialized in increasing numbers for women-owned businesses and minority-owned businesses and had him rewrite our policies. I presented it, and it passed. … And that’s why I raise questions every month. Are we spending with women-owned businesses, minority-owned business and smaller businesses?

OTHER THAN YOUR CONTROVERSIAL STANCES, WHY DO YOU THINK YOU’VE STOOD OUT AS A BOARD MEMBER? My involvement in the schools. Even at the risk of not being around my own children, I attended the majority of events. I would often remind people, “Please announce that a board member is here at the wrestling match, a board member is here at the basketball game,” because in our community the system doesn’t look like it’s working for us sometimes. So I wanted to show them, your elected official is here.

WHY DO YOU THINK YOU’VE EXPERIENCED SO MUCH PUSHBACK OVER THE YEARS? It is easier just to shut the hell up and look the other way. But that’s difficult for me. … It can be very, very scary coming in.

You have to make a decision. Am I going to play ball with them, or am I going to do what’s right? And listen, it’s hard. If you decide to do what’s right, it’s going to cost you. You will be minimized, you will be targeted. … The stress and pressure is unbelievable. You are made to feel like everything is on your shoulders.

Any board member that tells you they’ve got things under control is lying.

lost my job twice because I was elected to the school board. I lost my home. I’ve lost both vehicles and on my way out the door to be described as combative. … I’m not looking for a pat on the back, but this is an extremely tough and racist city even when we do right. I’m doing my public duty. Being on the board has cost me. … People have often said the most valuable thing you can give is your time. Regardless of my skin color and my politics, I should’ve been at least recognized for the time I gave up.

“IT IS EASIER JUST TO SHUT THE HELL UP AND LOOK THE OTHER WAY. BUT THAT’S DIFFICULT FOR ME.”

DURING THE RECENT ELECTION FOR YOUR SEAT ON THE BOARD, THE PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE REFERRED TO YOU AS A “COMBATIVE NAYSAYER” AND SAID YOUR DECISION NOT TO RUN FOR RE-ELECTION WAS THE “BEST NEWS FOR [YOUR] CONSTITUENTS.” DO YOU THINK YOU’VE BEEN CAST AS A VILLAIN? They refer to me as combative. … I’ve

YOU’VE BEEN CRITICAL OF SCHOOL-DISTRICT ADMINISTRATORS, AND OF HOW THE SCHOOL BOARD IS RUN. WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE? The biggest rip-off in this state is having board members be volunteers. These should be full-time, paid positions where we’re independent. That would avoid all of the controversy. But because we’re volunteers, and because we work in the political sphere, it’s difficult. And that’s the position I’ve been in for almost 16 years.

RN UTTAL L @PGH C IT YPAPE R . C O M

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{PHOTOS COURTESY OF MIMI KORAL}

A model of the Turkish countryside that Enis Koral constructed in his Edgewood attic

ATTIC OASIS Edgewood man recreates the Turkish countryside of his youth {BY MARTY LEVINE} TURKEY IS FAR away from Enis Koral’s

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 11.25/12.02.2015

Edgewood home.

The Turkey of Koral’s childhood is alive in his attic.

“This is what I remember,” he says, ushering a visitor up some narrow stairs, through a narrower doorway. “My father used to take me to the railroad station when I was 5, 6, 7. He would read his Sunday newspaper; I would watch the trains.”

Before us is a railroad layout to rival the Carnegie Science Center’s holiday display, if not in size than certainly in execution. A coal train chuffs into life, heading through a mountain tunnel.

Men are loading crates into a stationary car of another train. Flocks of sheep and cows graze between rural villages, with their ovens outside in gated courtyards, surrounded by children and ducks and women in headscarves. Through these hamlets travel farmers on tractors and families in German- and American-made cars from the 1950s and ’60s.

There is a machine shop and a brickmaking building, a railcar depot, bridges and trees. There are oxen- and horsedrawn carts and a shepherd with staff, wearing the garment in which he walks and then wraps himself to sleep on the ground when night falls.

Koral made the shepherd’s traditional cloak from a painted paper towel. The Turkish flag flying from the depot is aluminum foil. Both are entirely convincing.

Men play backgammon at a table in a park. Other men are cutting wood.

The railway worker’s house, from which

he emerges to man the gate, has a garden of vegetables and flowers. There’s a mosque, a water tower to run the steam engines, and an ice-cream seller ferrying his goods in a box on the front of his bicycle.

Enis Koral

“Every time I come up here, I see something else I haven’t seen before,” says his wife, Mimi, ducking into the room. She’s not Turkish, but “I’ve been through the Turkish countryside many times on the train; I can tell you that a lot of it still looks like this.”

Through it all, five HO scale (1:87) trains travel. They are half the size of the Carnegie’s many engines.

Koral’s father sits cross-legged on a Goncali Station bench, while Koral, a tiny

child, stands on the platform, peering for the train. Students in uniform play outside his Gazi Ilkokulu elementary school nearby, shadowed by a large image of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — “the George Washington of Turkey,” Koral calls him, the hero of the country’s 1920s independence fight.

Because Turkey’s railroads were built by the Germans before World War I, he uses German train cars. He recreates station signs from images he can find in old photographs online. The ceiling of the room is painted as the sky.

Koral was born in Denizli, in Turkey’s Aegean region, then moved around with his teacher parents, including to Izmir, the country’s third largest city, then on to university in Ankara. A NATO scholarship landed him in Pittsburgh, at Carnegie Mellon University. An IT career has taken him most recently to FedEx. He began reconstructing his hometown memories in Edgewood in 2006. It took him five years. He held an opening for friends, printing up invitations as old Turkish railway tickets.

“THIS IS WHAT I REMEMBER.” Koral has long been recreating other parts of his harborside childhood, including a 1930s steamer tug, with a paint scheme after the Turkish Maritime Lines.

It was built from a kit, but plank by plank, with added detail down to blackening the edges to show the slight gap between each piece of wood.

“I love tugs, workboats,” he says.

“They are powerful. They don’t move fast, but as they move, you can enjoy it.”

And just for fun, there is the scratchbuilt privateer, the Rattlesnake, a large sailing vessel from the 1700s. It has a wooden hull and deck and spiderlike rigging.

Turkey — the actual country, not the one in Koral’s attic — faces the fight against an encroaching ISIS, but Koral isn’t worried. “Turkey is not in danger,” he shrugs. NATO brought him here a few decades ago; it will make certain Turkey remains safe today.

Here, the incandescent sun dims overhead and little lights come on in the windows of houses in faraway villages and inside the short-line passenger train. We are “somewhere in Turkey,” Koral says — nowhere specific, he assures.

“There is no blueprint,” he says, adding: “This is not really complete. I change things here and there — like in real life, cities and landscapes change.”

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THIS JUST IN

presents

PET of the

WEEK

{BY FRANCIS RUPP}

A look at local news online and on the tube The November sweeps period has arrived in all of its glorious splendor. It’s that special time of year when Pittsburgh news stations go that extra mile to tell you that you’re going to die. It will be a gruesome death indeed, but because you tuned in, you might be spared. Sweeps is often referred to as “goosing the ratings,” but it turns out that rats, an archetypal harbinger of untimely death, will also do.

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In fact (insert sarcastafont here), rats are taking over the Castle Shannon T station, and WPXI is in a tizzy about it.

“Viewers, calling Channel 11 for help with rats!” says anchor Peggy Finnegan.

“One day I come here and it looked like the movie Willard,” says a concerned, mustachioed resident who wants to “change the station’s reputation.” (To clarify, he’s talking about the T, not WPXI.) “While we [WPXI] were there, the rats stayed down in the creek,” reporter Katherine Amenta says. If so, these seriously could be an especially smart breed of rat that we should fear. But, turns out, the real problem is just people feeding the ducks there, says Jim Ritchie of Port Authority.

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Holy Scott Hamilton! WPXI’s Target 11 investigation unearthed “news” that workers in South Park have been burying old ice skates in a hole on site for the past 30 years. Poor Andy Baechle — the clueless Allegheny County Parks director — retorts somberly with this promise: “We will never bury ice skates again.”

If all went according to plan, the skates have been dug up and disposed of in a landfill by now. I say, let’s stop judging the park director and set him up with a Pinterest account so he can repurpose all of those skates?

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www.dayauto.com 16

WPXI posted a story on its Facebook page, from clickbait source Newsy, about a Texas woman who claims to have been infected by a kissing bug — named such because they love biting you on the lips. The bugs carry a tropical parasitic disease known as chagas, which in its rarest cases could lead to heart failure. But, says the Texan, “I’ve never

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 11.25/12.02.2015

left the United States, I’ve never even been on a cruise.”

Ryan Biek, a “reporter” asks, “So it had to be here?”

I think that might be the definition of a loaded question.

If WPXI really cared about you, they would have told you about this last year, when it actually was news. Let me help you calm down.

As reported in a July 2014 edition of The Washington Post: “Susan Montgomery, an epidemiologist with the CDC, said there have been only 23 reported cases of the disease being contracted in the United States since 1955. There is virtually no risk of anyone contracting the disease inside the country because of how the disease is transferred between species.”

exists.” By some, Yiman means four young Point Park University students to whom she broke the news. Startling revelations are made: “Oh my goodness. It says wherever you’ve been.”

If you watch the story for nothing else, tune in to see the female private investigator in a long, black wig warning, “It’s extremely dangerous … it’s frightening.”

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In a special Target 11 report (are any of them not special?), TRAINS ARE GOING TO KILL YOU!!!!

“A new safety system stops trains that are going too fast — but it won’t be coming to Pittsburgh for years!” Giving you plenty of time to die!

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But, if something DOES happen to you, it’s Bofta Yiman from WTAE to the rescue, with her eye-opening report about how we can find you by tracking your cell phone. I mean, do I have to say it? This is so 2005, Bofta.

“Apple says your iPhone keeps track of your locations in order to learn places that are significant to you. … But some would prefer to turn the service off now that they know it

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While you’re running from rats, trains, kissing bugs and people who are tracking your smartphone, wouldn’t it be nice to know if that fitness tracker you paid a hundred bucks for is accurately crediting you for every step?

In a “story” for ProSource magazine, KDKA’s consumer editor, Susan Koeppen, tests out several and you are going to love the results.

“I started walking and counting, getting all the way to 1,000 steps. In our very unscientific test [emphasis Koeppens’], the brands all came close, within 200 steps, but none was perfectly on the mark.”

Whether you wear a fitness tracker or not, my advice to you is keep on running, before November sweeps kills you.

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[THE CHEAP SEATS]

PLAYING THROUGH THE PAIN {BY MIKE WYSOCKI} A MAN WAS SHOT in the shoulder in Knox-

ville last week. The reason for the shooting? Why, an argument over the Pittsburgh Steelers, of course. That would sound crazy in most cities, but in Pittsburgh someone will justify the shooting by saying, “Well, he shouldn’t go talking smack about the Steelers.” Not that I condone gunplay over football, but it’s definitely an extreme example of the passion we have for the Steel City’s favorite sons.

So far, the story of the 2015 Steelers is resiliency. Placekickers have been replaced like Spinal Tap drummers, seemingly a new one every week. Shaun Suisham injured himself in the first pre-season game. If you ran out and bought a jersey of new kicker Garrett Hartley, you were undoubtedly ticked off, because he was injured for the year two weeks later. Enter Josh Scobee, the Jacksonville Jaguars’ all-time leading kicker.

While he didn’t get hurt, Scobee turned out to be less accurate than a Mel Kiper Jr. mock draft. Since then, though, Chris Boswell has settled into the job nicely.

But the injuries don’t stop there. Forty percent of the team’s offensive line is also out for the season. Kelvin Beachum and the annually injured Maurkice Pouncey are on the sidelines instead of blocking for Ben Roethlisberger. And speaking of quarterbacks, backup quarterback and Dormont native Bruce Gradkowski got hurt in training camp and was replaced by Michael Vick, a totally

{PHOTO BY HEATHER MULL}

Mike Wysocki

noncontroversial, universally loved player.

Vick took over for Roethlisberger when he was injured in St. Louis until Vick himself got hurt against Arizona. Landry Jones took over from there and played nearly two full games before getting injured against Cleveland.

Jones had to be replaced by Roethlisberger, who was supposed to be out with another injury.

Old No. 7 is like a beat-up but reliable pickup truck. He breaks down once in awhile from the wear and tear. But the medical crew tunes him up and puts him back on the road as good as new. But as soon as Big Ben returned from his first injury, the Steelers lost the best running back in the game, Le’Veon Bell, for the season. He joined the injured, and DeAngelo Williams took over despite being a little banged up

himself. Even with this makeshift team, the Steelers were still healthy enough for the first of their two annual beat-downs of the hapless Browns. Before the game, the Steelers honored the 2005 Super Bowl Championship team, perhaps just to rub it in the face of the Browns — championshipfree since 1965.

It’s so easy to make fun of the Browns — like shooting fish in a barrel, although I’ve always thought that was a weird way to fish.

Who put the fish in the barrel? And once they’re in there, is using a gun on them really necessary or legal? Regardless, Cleveland is terrible again. Although to his credit, Johnny “Football” Manziel actually played well enough to maybe be a third-string quarterback on a mediocre team one day.

THE REASON FOR THE SHOOTING? WHY, AN ARGUMENT OVER THE PITTSBURGH STEELERS, OF COURSE.

While the Steelers have had their injuries this year, the one constant has been head coach Mike Tomlin. The Steelers have had three head coaches in 46 years, and Tomlin has a higher winning percentage than either Chuck Noll or Bill Cowher. Even fans’ demands to fire him have dropped by almost 42 percent this year. His much-maligned clock-management issues aside, he is winning without Cowher’s players.

Of course, having Antonio Brown on your team does help a little. Brown is already fourth on the Steelers’ all-time receptions list. He is the best sixth-round pick in the NFL since a certain ball-deflating quarterback in New England who shall remain nameless. In fact, Brown might be the best receiver in Pittsburgh history one day; sorry, Hines Ward, John Stallworth and Lynn Swann. This year, Brown set the team record for most catches in a game with 17.

That broke the 1998 record set by Courtney Hawkins, effectively eliminating the only thing Hawkins ever contributed to the team. Brown also broke the record for yards in a game, gaining the most in the team’s 82-year history.

This Sunday, the Steelers take their 6-4 record to the land of Frasier, coffee, weed, grunge and terrible weather as they battle the Seahawks in Seattle. They also have two home games remaining at Heinz Field.

On Dec. 6, the Colts come to town, and the Denver Broncos are here on Dec. 20. The recently benched Peyton Manning might play, or he could be cuddling on the sidelines with pizza impresario Papa John. The Steelers have to win those games, or face the possibility of Cincinnati winning the division. If that happens, we might need to get ready to dial 911.

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DE

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WE LIKED THE CABRALES, A SHARP BLUE CHEESE, DRIZZLED WITH HONEY

SWEET BRUNCH {BY AL HOFF} The cooler temps are the perfect reason to begin a lazy weekend with a stickto-the-ribs Sunday brunch. A fresh spot for brunching is Sweet Peaches, along Allentown’s getting-spruced-up Warrington Avenue; the eatery is an offshoot of cook and owner Bek Hlavach’s eponymous catering company.

The storefront space seats about two dozen and is cheerfully decorated with cookware: Jelly jars hold condiments, and light bulbs hang in repurposed industrial beaters.

The fare is seasonal, so choices vary, but one favorite — ceregi — is apt to be found under the enthusiastic menu header, “A Great Way to Start Your Day!” And how: half-a-dozen of “our family’s traditional bow-tie shaped Hunky doughnuts,” topped with powdered sugar. These were served piping hot, and were cake-y and filling. Paired with a “bottomless” cup of Zeke’s coffee, this could be a complete breakfast for those partial to breakfast sweets.

Expect to find familiar brunch items, dressed up: One French toast topping is salted cognac caramel with a pecan crust, and iced tea has been infused with peaches. The hearty, man-sized pumpkin chai spice pancakes sported toasted sunflower seeds (and whipped cream). The signature Sweet Peaches omelet has red onion, feta and rapini.

There are also “lunchier” offerings, including pot pies, sandwiches and pasta.

If you’re eating your way back to health after a night out, look into the “Feel Better Juice,” a pick-me-up of lemon, ginger, cayenne, honey and hot water.

AHOFF@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

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The cuis cuisine at Oakland’s

Conflict Kitchen Confli has switched up, and the streetfood-inspired eatery now features fare d from a long-time adversary, Iran. Main dishes include lamb stew and chicken with pomegranate; sides range from a multilegume soup to salad and various dips (cucumber and yogurt, eggplant). For edification, the food wrappers are printed with interviews with Iranians. Schenley Plaza, Oakland. www.conflictkitchen.org

{PHOTOS BY HEATHER MULL}

Salad with beets, escarole romanesco and oranges

SPANISH SMALL PLATES {BY ANGELIQUE BAMBERG + JASON ROTH}

T

APAS FARE WAS a long time coming to Pittsburgh, but when it finally did arrive — over a decade ago now — we turned out to have a big appetite for small plates. Well suited to late-night socializing, snacking and drinking at a level decidedly more sophisticated than pub grub, the concept of sampler-size portions caught on fast. Authentic, Spanishstyle tapas restaurants have come and gone, but small plates have become a durable phenomenon of their own. Sometimes, they are synonymous with appetizers, other times adapted to a variety of cuisines.

Pallantia brings tapas firmly back into the culture and context of Iberia. Opened

by Spanish native Gonzalo Cembrero, who first came to Pittsburgh 20 years ago as an exchange student, Pallantia recently relocated from Greensburg to a former pizzeria just off Walnut Street in Shadyside.

The old Village Pizza space has been

utterly transformed and seemingly magically enlarged. The vibe is sleekly minimalist, with plaster arches defining dining niches while evoking wine-cellar catacombs; each niche is papered with a wall-size photograph of a scene from Spain, such as a castle or the running of the bulls. Another wall is paved with hand-painted Spanish tiles. The effect is not just decorative, but immersive.

PALLANTIA 810 Ivy St., Shadyside. 412-621-2919 HOURS: Tue.-Thu. 5-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat. 5 p.m.-midnight; Sun. 5-9 p.m.

PRICES: $6-18; paella $34 LIQUOR: Full bar

CP APPROVED So is the menu. At a single page, it is strictly authentic, with hot and cold tapas, a couple of cheese platters (with or without cured meats), and paella, served in the tra-

ditional iron skillet for sharing among two, three or more table-mates.

The tabla de queso y embutidos — cheese and meat board — featured a wellbalanced selection of imported Spanish cold cuts, as well as dabs of condiment and a scattered few crackers and toasts. Of the meats, Iberico ham and dried chorizo were excellent, but the standout was lomo, tender cured pork loin that had some of the red tinge of capicola, but was subtler and had more interesting spicing. Alongside the savory meats and salty, milky Mahon Menorca cheese, we liked the Cabrales, a sharp blue cheese, drizzled with honey.

Chorizo returned in a salad with garbanzo beans, as well as tiny, halved tomatoes, baby lettuce, cilantro and croutons. This salad was just barely dressed, the better to foreground the interplay of spicy, almost chewy sausage and earthy, creamy legumes.

CONTINUES ON PG. 22

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SPANISH SMALL PLATES, CONTINUED FROM PG. 21

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The dozen or so other hot tapas selections were various and tempting. They included lamb meatballs in saffron garbanzo purée; roasted Cornish hen with hen-ofthe-woods mushrooms and lentils; Prince Edward Island mussels in tomato broth with Brussels sprout leaves and shallots; a Serrano ham and manchego cheese sandwich; and a few substantial vegetarian options, from peppers to potatoes.

But we needed to save room for Spain’s signature dish, and Pallantia’s only nontapas option: paella.

In keeping with the rigorous authenticity of the rest of the menu, this was a strictly traditional version, comprised of Valencia rice, saffron and five forms of shellfish: clams, mussels, shrimp, scallops and calamari. These tended toward the firm, rather than the succulent, with baby octopus almost frizzled, but none of it was dry or fishy-tasting. More importantly, the rice that held these ingredients in unison was impeccable. The long-simmered seafood stock in which it was cooked infused each moist, perfectly tender grain with an intense, yet clean, flavor that more than made up for any shortcomings of the shellfish. And then, a defining aspect of paella is the thin crust developed by the rice in contact with the pan, and never have we had such a delightful version of it as here.

Tapas are made for savoring and socializing, and so is Pallantia. Small plates are everywhere, but such authentically wonderful Spanish tapas cannot be had anywhere else in Pittsburgh.

1/2 Price Wine by the Bottle ____________________ Pork & Pounder $10 ____________________

On the RoCKs

Holiday dinners seem like a wine-pairing nightmare. There are too many dishes, too many clashing flavors and too many people to please. I wondered if there might be a stress-free solution, one crowd-pleasing bottle that would go with everything from glazed ham to oyster dressing. With the criteria that it had to be inexpensive (less than $20) and readily available (on shelves at well-stocked state stores), I asked local wine experts for their ultimate holiday picks.

“Riesling is always a safe match for the different tastes you’ll encounter in a big dinner,” says Thom Harding, who chairs the Pittsburgh Chapter of the American Wine Society. With bright acidity and notes of orchard fruits, dry Rieslings are an excellent foil to rich holiday dishes. Harding suggests Dr. Konstantin Frank Dry Riesling ($16), a crisp wine from the Finger Lakes.

For red-wine drinkers, Randy Wright, general manager at the Sonoma Grille, has another American pick for a uniquely American celebration. For his Thanksgiving table, Wright reaches for a Petite Sirah from California’s family-owned Bogle Vineyards ($13). It’s a jammy wine with soft tannins, which Wright says is “perfect to fit all of the lush flavors of Thanksgiving without overpowering the delicate flavors of turkey.”

Finally, what holiday gathering would be complete without some bubbly? For her desert-island holiday wine, the Allegheny Wine Mixer’s Jamie Patten selects an effervescent Italian Lambrusco. Though it’s a mouthful, she recommends seeking out the Fattoria Moretto Lambrusco Grasparossa de Castelvetro Rosato ($17).

“Tons of concentrated berry fruit and balsamic, finishes dry, with just enough fizz for the season,” explains Patten.

“Covers every holiday scenario.”

Though there are plenty of great ways to wash down roasted meats and pumpkin pie, any good sommelier will tell you that the right pairing is the one that you like.

So whether that’s a bottle of Riesling or a jug of Carlo Rossi, remember that the holidays are about joy, goodwill and falling asleep on the couch at 4 p.m.

Tuesday

Craft Bottle, Domestic Beer & Wine Available!

CARNEGIE 24th & E. Carson St. in the South Side 412-390-1111 100 Adams Shoppes Mars/Cranberry 724-553-5212 DoubleWideGrill.com

Monday & Thursday

Hamburguesitas — essentially, hamburger sliders — reflect the globalization of Spanish cuisine. Pallantia’s were small, savory and richly flavorful. It may seem a far-fetched claim, especially in the era of the gourmet burger, but we would go so far as to assert that Pittsburgh’s most authentic tapas restaurant also serves one of its very best burgers: juicy, charred, not crumbly, and satisfyingly topped with nutty, not-too-sharp manchego cheese, Serrano ham and sofrito aioli. Crispy, wellbrowned, housemade potato chips were superb, as well.

Paella with bomba rice and saffron carmencita

SHOPPERS CHECKLIST Scratch-Made Margaritas

Tableside Guacamole

Lunch, Dinner & Happy Hour

1000 Sutherland Dr. • Pittsburgh, PA 15205 412-787-8888 • www.plazaazteca.com

1800 Main Street, Canonsburg

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THE FOLLOWING DINING LISTINGS ARE RESTAURANTS RECOMMENDED BY CITY PAPER FOOD CRITICS

DINING LISTINGS KEY J = Cheap K = Night Out L = Splurge E = Alcohol Served F = BYOB

424 WALNUT. 424 Walnut St., Sewickley. 412-741-7143.

Offering “fine Italian and American cuisine in a casual, relaxed atmosphere,” diners can expect faves such as chicken Romano, crab Hoelzel, chops and pasta, but with careful and sophisticated touches. Thus a linguine special might offer diced ham and spring vegetables, and beans-and-greens, combined with sausage and pasta, are upgraded to a meal. LE ATRIA’S. Multiple locations. www.atrias.com. A local chain, Atria’s locations offer distinctly different atmospheres but the same quality steaks, chops and pasta menu. Suburban spots are for quiet casual dining while the North Side location is pure sports pub. Regardless of the ambience, the sherry crab bisque and the pasta fra diablo are superb. kE BADO’S CUCINA. 3825 Washington Road, Peters Township. 724-942-3904. The menu at this cozy venue is a focused exploration of authentic Italian cuisine: homemade pasta and sauces, pizza and, instead of full-on entrées, tapas-size portions of heartier fare such as lamb chops and spareribs.

Almost everything is cooked in a 625-degree wood-fired oven in the open cucina. JF

424 Walnut {PHOTO BY HEATHER MULL} sustainable. Inventive pizzas include toppings such as wilted greens, littleneck clams, goat cheese and Brussels sprouts.

Guests at the wine-bar counter get a front-row seat for the pizza-making. KE EVEREST. 4042 Saw Mill Run Blvd., Brentwood. 877-650-2694.

At this Nepalese restaurant, diners can expect momos, the region’s characteristic dumplings, here filled with chicken or vegetables, and served with dipping sauces. Also on the menu, variations on dishes associated with Indian cuisines, such samosas, sambar soup, rice pilafs and curries. JF

BIG JIM’S. 201 Saline St., Greenfield. 412-421-0532.

Pittsburgh has seen a massive expansion of high-end dining.

This cozy eatery — with bar and separate dining area — isn’t part of that trend. It’s old-school Pittsburgh: good food in huge portions, with waitresses who call you “hon.”

The place you go to remember where you’re from. JE

More food photography from our restaurant reviews, uploaded weekly at www.pghcitypaper.com

CAFÉ RAYMOND. 2103 Penn Ave., Strip District. 412-281-4670.

A perfect place to catch lunch or a snack during Strip District shopping forays, this little café offers an array of artisan breads, French pastries, fine cheeses and refined delicatessen fare.

The few tables up front — augmented by sidewalk seating in season — have the feel of a bright, cozy, Parisian café. J DINETTE. 5996 Centre Ave., East Liberty. 412-362-0202.

This refined California-inspired pizzeria and wine bar offers a small menu mostly featuring gourmet thin-crust pizzas. The focus here is on fresh, local and

{PHOTO BY HEATHER MULL}

GIA VISTO. 4366 Old William Penn Highway, Monroeville.

412-374-1800. The menu at this welcoming Italian restaurant ranges from simple classics to elegant inventions. Whether it’s a fried risotto appetizer enlivened with a elemental but sublime red sauce, or a perfectly cooked salmon on a Mediterraneaninspired bed of beans and vegetables, the fare exhibits the kitchen’s attention to detail. KF IBIZA. 2224 E. Carson St., South Side. 412-325-2227. An urbane wine bar and tapas restaurant, Ibiza is the sister restaurant to its next-door favorite, Mallorca.

Ibiza’s menu starts in Spain but includes delicacies from Portugal, Argentina and other countries. Accompanied by a wide international selection of wines, Ibiza offers a transportive dining experience. KE KAVSAR. 16 Southern Ave., Mount Washington.

412-488-8708 or 412-488-8709.

The varied cuisine of the old Silk Road is available at this Uzbekistan restaurant. The menu reflects the country’s time as a Soviet Socialist republic, with beef stroganoff and blini-like crepes rolled around savory fillings, and its proximity to China, evident in many dishes based upon noodles and dumplings. K

Nak Kwon Garden FRANKTUARY. 3810 Butler St., Lawrenceville. 412-586-7224.

The longtime Downtown hot-doggery expands its menu here in an attractive sit-down space, with creatively dressed hot dogs, a variety of poutines (loaded French fries) and hand-crafted cocktails. The focus is on local and sustainable, with meats, veg and grains from nearby sources. JE

LADLES. 516 Pittsburgh St., Springdale. 724-274-5230.

This cozy eatery in the Allegheny Valley offers superb soups and Italian-American favorites.

Soups are homemade, as is much of the pasta (served with a variety of red sauces). A standout item is the “raviogie,” a mash-up of meat ravioli and potato/cheese pierogie, available with butter and onions or marinara sauce. KE CONTINUES ON PG. 26

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, d n u o R r a e Y n e p O and ! k e e W a s y a D n e v Se

Sample Succulent ta, s a P , s k a e t S , d o fo a e S re.

Sandwiches and Mo

R U O H Y P HAP

m p s 7 r – e 5 z i y t a e D p y p r Eve $5 A

DRINK SPECIALS

THE GREAT SOUTHERN SHOPPING CENTER | 1155 WASHINGTON PIKE | BRIDGEVILLE | 412-914-8013 | RUMFISHPGH.COM N E W S

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Ramen Bar

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DINING OUT, CONTINUED FROM PG. 24

Taiwanese Style Cuisine

Japanese Cuisine

Sun-Thurs: 12PM - 10PM Fri-Sat: 12PM - 11PM

Hora Feliz

Gia Visto {PHOTO BY HEATHER MULL}

(Happy Hour) every Monday thru Friday from 5-7 PM. Oakland 414 South Craig St. AM PM

• 1/2 Off Draft Beers • $1 Off Bottled Beers • $2 Off Margaritas • “Beer of the Day” specials and Nacho specials.

Mon-Sat 11 -9 Sun 12PM-9PM

Squirrel Hill 5874 1/2 Forbes Ave. AM PM 5860 Forbes Ave, 15217 • Squirrel Hill

2031 Penn Ave. (at 21st) • 412.904.1242 @casareynamex

now open 7 days a week!

OPEN THANKSGIVING DAY

CALL (412) 521-5138 521-5899

Sun-Thurs 11 -10 Fri-Sat 11AM-11PM

412-421-9529 412-421-2238

RESERVATION • TAKE-OUT FREE DELIVERY • CATERING

LAS VELAS. 21 Market Square, 2nd floor, Downtown.

412-251-0031. Authentic “family favorite” dishes are the standout at this Mexican restaurant, offering a vibrant antidote to Mexican “cuisine” mired in tired clichés. Trade a taco for cochinita pibil (vinegar-marinated pork), chilaquiles (tortilla casserole) or alambres (meat smothered with peppers, onions and cheese). Also notable: aboveaverage sides, including rice, beans and potatoes. KE

time-honored dishes such as turtle soup and more modern fare, like a crabmeat-stuffed quesadilla.

Steak-lovers will be pleased, but adventurous burger fans should check out the Light Up Night burger, topped with blue crabmeat, bacon, avocado and pepper-jack cheese. LE THAI GOURMET. 4505 Liberty Ave., Bloomfield. 412-681-4373.

Located in a narrow former lunchroom, Thai Gourmet is the casual, no-nonsense and no-frills member of Pittsburgh’s Thai restaurant club. The prices are on the low end, but the food quality is high and the portions are huge. The decor mixes Asian themes with diner kitsch in a delightful way. JF

NAK KWON GARDEN. 5504 Centre Ave., Shadyside.

412-904-4635. With its extensive, authentic menu, this restaurant is a top contender for the ultimate, authentic Korean dining experience in Pittsburgh. Start with steamed and pan-fried VALLOZZI’S PITTSBURGH. mandoo dumplings, and an 220 Fifth Ave., Downtown. enormous vegetable-seafood 412-394-3400. The venerable pancake. Entrees include Italian restaurant from one-pot meals to share, Greensburg now has a plus soups, stirfrys and Downtown outpost. rice dishes. Even the In this elegant space, inevitable Korean some classic dishes are barbecue section offers updated; a few . www per novel cuts and meats, favorites, like turtle a p ty ci pgh m such as duck sirloin soup are retained; and .co and pork neck. KF the fresh mozzarella bar deserves to become a classic.

PARIS 66. 6018 Centre Ave., Try the distinctive pizza, with a East Liberty. 412-404-8166. This layered, cracker-like crust. LE charming bistro is both less pretentious and every bit as WAI WAI. 4717 Liberty Ave., impressive as the frou-frou French Bloomfield. 412-621-0133. fine dining of yore, offering both Eschewing the epic list of dishes light lunch fare (croques and most Chinese-American crepes) and serious dinners. Expects restaurants proffer, this attractively classics such as salade Niçoise, frog decorated store-front venue sticks legs and exquisitely prepared to a modest number of basics with meats, plus a cocktail list. KF a few less-typical dishes, such as Singapore mai fun (a dish of RED ORCHID. 5439 Babcock Blvd., stir-fried rice noodles) or sha cha West View. 412-837-2527. This (a meat-and-vegetable dish from cozy, family-run Thai restaurant China’s Gansu province) JF offers a selection of mostly tried-and-true cuisine (salads, rice WILD ROSEMARY. 1469 Bower and noodle dishes, and curries), Hill Road, Upper St. Clair. 412-221as well as chef’s specials, many 1232. At this cozy, contemporary, involving tilapia filets. “Tulip candle-lit cottage, the Italian- and dumplings” and Thai toast make Mediterranean-inspired menu for excellent starters, and the changes every two weeks to kitchen shows skill in balancing showcase the freshest in-season the flavors of more complex ingredients. The menu offers fewer curries and meat entrees. KF than 10 entrées, each matched with a small suite of carefully selected SEWICKLEY HOTEL. 509 Beaver sides. Expect quality ingredients — St., Sewickley. 412-741-9457. At dayboat scallops, Maytag cheese, this revamped hotel, the offerings lamb, steak — and exquisitely reflect a balance between prepared meals. LF

FULL LIST ONLINE

Asian American Cuisine The Largest Buffet in Town!

Over 200 Specialty Items: Roast Beef, Ham, Baked Salmon, Ribs and Seafood Casserole

Dessert Bar Banquets of 20-200 Guests 412- 481-1118 860 Saw Mill Run Blvd. ( Rte. 51S) Minutes from Downtown, Close to the Liberty Tunnel Next to the Red, White & Blue Store

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 11.25/12.02.2015

LOCAL

“IT FEELS LIKE THE SONG FOLDS UP LIKE A PIECE OF PAPER.”

BEAT

{BY SETH PFANNENSCHMIDT}

BEST EFFORTS The indie-psych rockers of Shaky Shrines are prolific: In just two years, they’ve released three EPs, two full-lengths, a 7-inch and a single. In October the band offered up Shaky at Best. Recorded at Machine Age Studios, the album has an early-2000s hipster vibe to it: kind of Strokes-y, with some obvious nods to the Brian Jonestown Massacre and Dandy Warhols. Throw in some Kinks and you probably have a good idea of what’s in lead singer/songwriter Braden Faisant’s record collection.

But Faisant’s voice and melodies — along with superb backing musicianship — keep Shaky at Best from sounding like a throwback. The album evokes some darkness and portrays existential crises throughout. The melodies, though, are generally pretty poppy, which creates a nice dynamic.

The band started three years ago, when Faisant and Nate Hanson began writing songs and painstakingly recording them, with Faisant on drums and vocals and Hanson on guitar. The result was their self-titled debut.

“We recorded those first tracks in a stupid long process with outdated equipment,” says Faisant via email. “[F]or instance I’d record just the kick drum, then listen to the kick drum in headphones and record snare on top of it — and we continued this process for the whole kit and then guitars.”

Shaky Shrines has come a long way from track-by-track recording. The recording process of Shaky at Best took just over two weeks and showcases masterful production — something to be expected with Dave Cerminara, also of Treelady Studio, acting as head engineer. (He also contributed some guitar parts.) Additionally, bassist Nate Campisi is an engineer at Mr. Small’s studio, adding a deeper layer of production sense to the outfit.

The cover art complements the tripped-out vibe of the record: A burnedout, aging king vomits a rainbow through a castle. The art’s creator, Jeremy Beightol, was commissioned by Shaky Shrines to produce a 29-by-29-inch painting of what would become the cover art. “[The record] is a 10 upbeat tracks with happy melodies [and] depressing, drug- and anxiety-riddled lyrics,” Faisant explains, “and I was super honored that [Beightol] took the time to find out what the record was about and I feel as though he completely captured the vibe.”

INFO@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

Listen to Shaky at Best at shakyshrinespgh.bandcamp.com.

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{PHOTO COURTESY OF DANIEL TOPETE}

Perfect Pussy (Ray McAndrew, center)

PUNK’S ’BIG STARS’ {BY ALEX GORDON}

S

AY YES TO LOVE, the 2014 debut

full-length from Perfect Pussy, is less than 30 minutes long but feels even shorter than that. Its opener, “Driver,” starts with a few seconds of hissing tape, then strummed guitar, before it’s off to the races with 20-plus minutes of intricately mixed lo-fi punk something-or-other, propelled by an endless supply of surprisingly pleasant feedback and Meredith Graves’ shrieking, yelping, irrepressible vocals. The thing has charisma.

Some people hear traces of Sonic Youth or My Bloody Valentine in the Syracuse band’s knack for balancing noise and substance, high-mindedness and apathy, but whatever it is, people have taken notice. (Even NPR is on board.)

With a short tour kicking off next week and a follow-up record due sometime in 2016, CP spoke with guitarist Ray McAndrew via email to learn more before the band plays Brillobox Thu., Dec. 3.

WHAT WAS THE MUSIC SCENE IN SYRACUSE LIKE FOR YOU GROWING UP? The music scene that I was a part of was and still is pretty tiny. I think I dabbled between some of the local punks who ran a DIY venue and then some of the Syracuse University kids who played in a bunch of different bands. Some of my favorite bands

PERFECT PUSSY

WITH FIELDED, RUN FOREVER, THE GOTOBEDS 9 p.m. Thu., Dec. 3. Brillobox, 4104 Penn Ave., Bloomfield. $10.

412-621-4900 or www.brillobox.net

were Friendless Bummer, Oak and Bone, Faxes and Sarongs. One of my brothers played bass in Sarongs, and I remember seeing them and thinking, “I need to start a band like this.” … Mostly the university kids played house shows because the local scene could be pretty unwelcoming. Other

than that, Syracuse had a lot of jam bands, metalcore and dubstep shows at the shitty local theater.

CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT WRITING THE SONG “BIG STARS”? IT’S INTERESTING TO ME BECAUSE IN SOME WAYS, IT’S TOTALLY EMBLEMATIC OF THE WHOLE RECORD’S SOUND (MIXING, STRUCTURE, CHORDS) AND IN OTHERS, IT SOUNDS LIKE NOTHING ELSE YOU’VE DONE. Garrett and I wrote half of that song (up until about 50 seconds) and sort of got stuck.

Eventually, I came up with the idea to just repeat the song but backwards. I always thought that song was neat because it feels like the song folds up like a piece of paper and then unfolds on itself.

DO YOU PREFER PERFORMING AT SMALLER OR LARGER VENUES? I don’t have a preference to bigger shows or smaller shows. They both have their pros and cons. I think our sound is really CONTINUES ON PG. 28

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PUNK’S ‘BIG STARS’, CONTINUED FROM PG. 27

cool when we play smaller venues, and the room is just a sonic hellhole. But it’s also nice to play on a bigger stage and get a nice clean sound every once in a while.

In terms of audience size, it’s the same situation. I’ve played some of the tiniest basements where kids went off, and we’ve played festival bills in front of huge crowds where kids went off. On the flip side, we’ve played smaller venues where people looked at us weirdly and giant theaters where people looked at us weirdly. It just depends on the crowd.

HOW DO YOU EACH SPEND YOUR TIME IN THE DAYS LEADING UP TO A TOUR? HOW DO YOU SPEND YOUR FIRST DAYS BACK AFTER ONE? I do what I always do: Work and watch hockey. I also have started, as [engineer/ producer] Shaun [Sutkus] likes to call it, a “DIY zoo.” I have a bearded dragon friend, a frog friend, a hermit crab friend, a snail friend, and my partner’s cat friend lives with us. I generally take care of them and our plants day to day and spend my free time playing music by myself or with other humans.

WERE THERE ANY PRECONCEPTIONS ABOUT YOUR FORTHCOMING ALBUM BEFORE YOU STARTED WRITING IT? WAS THIS PROCESS ANY DIFFERENT FROM SYTL OR YOUR FIRST TAPE? This album has been waaaaaaaaaaaaay different. The tape was mostly songs I had written before the band started … SYTL was written in about two weeks. We’ve been working on this one for months now, and we still only have like one fully formed complete song.

IS THERE A BAND/SONG/ALBUM THAT ALL MEMBERS UNANIMOUSLY ADORE? OR MAYBE ONE THAT DIVIDES THE GROUP? We all love Bjork, Kendrick Lamar, Pleasure Leftists, Sleater-Kinney and any kind of jazz. I don’t think there’s anything that exactly splits the band, but everyone seems to have a few bands that we like for our own reasons that no one else in the band likes.

Mine is Defiance, Ohio.

THE PAST YEAR-PLUS MUST HAVE BEEN AN EXHAUSTING AND INSANE EXPERIENCE. IS THERE ANYTHING YOU REGRET OR WISH YOU’D DONE DIFFERENTLY OVER THAT TIME? There are so many things. None of us have ever done anything on this scale before, so of course we’re going to run into some issues here and there. It’s a trial-and-error sort of thing, but mostly I wish I had brought more than two pairs of socks on most of our tours.

A L E X G ORD ON @ P G HC I T Y PA P E R. C OM

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NEW RELEASES

be the bacon-and-cheese-grit diet / Or the sausage that makes folks lean to the right ...”

3. “World,” Dan Bern. Um. This is getting a little embarrassing. How many of these songs are by Dan Bern? This one is a rolling ballad in which the singer suggests taking an intimate getaway to a cabin somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, in an attempt to retreat from all the headaches that wait back in civilization. But: “Every now and then we’ll head out to the deck / Breathe a little oxygen just to check / if the world’s still there, if the world’s still there …”

JIMMY ADLER GREASE ALLEY (SPRUCEWOOD RECORDS) WWW.JIMMYADLER.COM

{PHOTO COURTESY OF JUDD IRISH BRADLEY}

Provider of mental clarity: Dan Bern

Thanks to the many hours of stage time Jimmy Adler has racked up over the years (both as a solo artist and in various bands), the blues guitarist should be familiar to anyone with an interest in the Pittsburgh music scene. For his newest release, the Carrick native traveled to California to record with noted guitarist Kid Anderson at Greaseland Studio — which might be why this collection of original songs sounds like it’s been steeped in West Coast sunshine. Adler’s soulful blues swing retains a healthy amount of rock ’n’ roll (he counts Keith Richards as one of his earliest influences), which helps make Grease Alley a particularly buoyant and accessible record.

BY MARGARET WELSH

JIMMY ADLER RECORD-RELEASE SHOW 8:30 p.m. Fri., Nov. 27. Moondogs, 378 Freeport Road, Blawnox. 412-828-2040 or www.moondogs.us

AMERICAN SPIRIT {BY STEPHEN H. SEGAL} YOU FELT IT last week, didn’t you — the

world lurching drunkenly into an even crazier state of being? Zealots slaughtering Parisians and Lebanese; Americans erupting into a Facebook war over Syrian refugees.

How are we supposed to cut through the yelling and find some mental clarity?

Here’s a suggestion: music. Songs have the power to clear away all that cacophony: The rhythm helps us breathe calmer and the lyrics refocus us on one cohesive thought at a time. With that in mind, here are five new songs that tackle the American condition head-on.

also a new one from Bern. But that’s OK, because: Is there ever a time when a delicious waffle doesn’t sound like a good idea?

Of course not, which is why Waffle House restaurants are open 24 hours a day — and yet, oddly, only half of the country seems to grasp this concept, as there are Waffle Houses in just 25 of the 50 states, mostly in the South. Bern finds both a rockabilly beat and political revelation in this fact: “Might

4. “One Piece at a Time,” Dan Bern. Now, this one was originally a Johnny Cash hit that Wayne Kemp wrote! It’s a snappy country tune about a General Motors factory worker who decides to steal one Cadillac part a day for 25 years until he can assemble his very own Caddy at home. The American Dream!

But now Dan Bern sings it.

5. “Sky,” Dan Bern. Ah, screw it. Hoody ends with one of the most beautiful songs you’ll hear this year, a declaration of joy no matter what the world throws at us. “Long as I can see the sky,” Bern croons, there’s love to be found in life and in each other. It’s good to be reminded. Right now, especially.

I N F O@ P G H C I T Y PA P E R. C OM

DAN BERN

8 p.m. Wed., Dec. 2. Club Cafe, 56 S. 12th St. $15-17. 412-431-4950 or clubcafelive.com

APPALASIA CARGO (SELF-RELEASED) WWW.APPALASIA.COM

AppalAsia’s second album continues to seamlessly blend the Western strains of Jeff Berman’s dulcimer and Susan Powers’ banjo with Mimi Jong’s erhu and zhonghu (Chinese bowed instruments) to create something that reaches beyond the concept of genre hybrids. The trio, aided by bassist Jeff Grubbs, has a knack for taking folk-like melodies and expanding them with unique textures, shifting time signatures and arresting vocals. “Green Island,” a Mandarin Chinese song, starts slow and traditional, then shifts into a Western groove without losing the song’s hypnotic quality. Jong’s bowing gives “Up and Down the River” a rustic quality that fits the haunting Appalachian side of the trio. These melodies stick with you long after the songs finish.

1. “Welcome,” Dan Bern. So there’s this songwriter, Dan Bern, who’s like the musical version of an incredible bartender you’ve discovered mixing cocktails at an underground speakeasy: His stuff is so good, you can’t believe everyone hasn’t already heard of him. His new album, Hoody, wanders all over the American landscape, scouring town after town and meme after meme in search of harmonious grooves. Hoody’s third track is a fist-pumping anthem that distills our national discontent into a wry scowl: “Welcome, welcome, come and have some fun / We got every Chinese toy under the sun / And every Ponzi scheme that ever has been run / And old men with hard-ons, and mad men with guns.”

2. “Waffle House,” Dan Bern. Well, OK, so it turns out the second song on our list is

UPCOMING SHOWS Marshall Tucker

DECEMBER 2nd LINEUP

MUSIC

THURSDAY, DEC 3

Josh Herbert / Mia

Donnie Iris & the Cruisers w/special guest Frank Nicotero

ART

Sarah Zeffi firro

SATURDAY, DEC 5

BIG 104.7 Christmas Party with a FREE show

by Canaan Smith THURSDAY, DEC 17

CHARIITY

Children’s s Hospital of Pittsburgh

BY MIKE SHAN LEY

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CRITICS’ PICKS {PHOTO COURTESY OF KELLY LOVERUD}

Doomtree

Open Every Day! LIKE US ON FACEBOOK TO STAY UP ON EVENTS AND SPECIALS www.roundcornercantina www. roundcornercantina.com .com

3720 Butler St., Pgh, PA 15201

LISTEN UP! You read City Paper’s music coverage every week, but why not listen to it too?

Each Wednesday, music editor Margaret Welsh crafts a Spotify playlist with tracks from artists featured in the music section, and other artists playing around town in the coming days.

Tune in while you read, and judge for yourself whether that indie band’s guitar work is really angular, or if that singer actually sounds like Sandy Denny.

Find it on our music blog, FFW>>, at pghcitypaper.com 30

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 11.25/12.02.2015

[FOLK PUNK] + SUN., NOV. 29

[ELECTRONIC] + TUE., DEC. 01

“Folk punk,” as a genre, is considered a dirty word by some listeners: The name can bring to mind stereotypes of over privileged, under-washed teens in bandanas, singing of naive politics and fabricated tales of trainhopping. These genre indicators are, thankfully, largely absent in the work of Los Angeles’ Campfire Cassettes, who still identify as folk punk, despite sounding more akin to altcountry. The competent guitar-playing and sweet harmonies are a welcome change from much of folk punk’s willful amateurism and often atonal vocals.

Joining the band on percussion for its 2015 tour is Pittsburgh’s own Dane Adelman. You can see Campfire Cassettes, along with Giling, and Adelman’s project The Lampshades, tonight at Spirit. Andrew Woehrl 9 p.m. 242 51st St., Lawrenceville. $5. 412-586-4441 or www.spiritpgh.com

Electronic music isn’t for everyone, but if you’ve prematurely dismissed the genre as cold and soulless, Troxum may serve as an ambassador.

Tonight, the Pittsburgh-based artist hosts a release show at Spirit for his debut full-length, Gaia Lesson. It’s a record, he writes in the press release, that “could be the soundtrack to a planet’s demise or its renewal.” Either way, it’s a vibrant, glitchy, psychedelic and strangely earthy auditory experience, reminiscent of the synth-based space music of Berlin School artists like Tangerine Dream. He’ll be joined

by Albuquerque’s REIGHNBEAU and locals Slowdanger and Good Dude Lojack.

Margaret Welsh 9 p.m. 242 51st St., Lawrenceville. $5.

412-586-4441 or www.spiritpgh.com

[ROCK] + WED., DEC. 02

Known for the psychedelic rock hit “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” — so named because [HIP HOP] + frontman Doug Ingle TUE., DEC. 01 Troxum was allegedly too With a name like {PHOTO COURTESY OF GREGORY NEISER} drunk to properly Doomtree, one might pronounce “In The expect yet another retro Garden of Eden” — psychedelic stoner-rockIron Butterfly is playing tonight at the Altar revival band. In fact, Doomtree is a hip-hop Bar, with Hepcat Dilemma and The Even collective, based in Minneapolis, which Three. Thanks to constant play on classicfeatures notable solo artists P.O.S. and Dessa rock stations, a memorable appearance in its lineup. Known for combining rock-style on The Simpsons (“rock and/or roll”), and electronics with complex rhymes, Doomtree the fact that it will forever echo out of has become a leader in the Twin Cities indie Guitar Center amplifiers, that 17-minute hip-hop scene. The seven-member group riff-rock epic is burned into the minds of ’60s recently gained attention for its online popculture trivia game, “Pop Quiz, Hot Shot,” which rock heads, as well as blossoming teenage guitarists the world over. You’ll be sure to can earn participants Doomtree merchandise hear it tonight (complete with extended and a chance to meet the artists. You can see guitar, organ and drum solos), as well as Iron Doomtree tonight at Altar Bar, with support Butterfly’s deep cuts for the real fans. AW from Mixed Blood Majority and Bleubird.

AW 8 p.m. 1620 Penn Ave., Strip District. $18.

6:30 p.m. 1620 Penn Ave., Strip District. $23-25.

412-206-9719 or www.thealtarbar.com 412-206-9719 or www.thealtarbar.com

TO SUBMIT A LISTING: HTTP://PGHCITYPAPER.COM/HAPPENINGS 412.316.3388 (FAX) + 412.316.3342 X165 (PHONE) {ALL LISTINGS MUST BE SUBMITTED BY 9 A.M. FRIDAY PRIOR TO PUBLICATION}

ROCK/POP

KNUCKLEHEAD’S BAR. Tobacco Lawrenceville. 412-586-4441.

Road. Ross. 412-366-7468.

MEADOWS CASINO. House of JERGEL’S RHYTHM GRILLE. Soul. Washington. 724-503-1200.

Josh Herbert, Music from Mia, OBEY HOUSE. The Bo’Hog Live Painting by Sarah Zeffiro.

Brothers. Crafton. 412-922-3883.

Warrendale. 724-799-8333.

THE R BAR. The Dave Iglar Band.

STAGE AE. City & Colour, Bahamas.

Dormont. 412-942-0882.

North Side. 412-229-5483.

SMILING MOOSE. Defy The Tide, Ember’s Fall, Special Reserve, Coffin Notice. South Side. 412-431-4668.

SQUIRREL HILL SPORTS BAR. theCAUSE. Squirrel Hill.

ANDYS WINE BAR. DJ Malls 412-422-1001.

Spins Vinyl. Downtown.

THUNDERBIRD CAFE. 412-773-8884.

Radon Chong, ONE 10 LOUNGE. Assembly Of, The DJ Goodnight, Tortillas. Lawrenceville. . w ww per DJ Rojo. Downtown. a p 412-682-0177. ty ci h pg 412-874-4582. .com RIVERS CASINO. DJ Digital Dave. North Side.

THE R BAR. Midnite Horns.

412-231-7777.

Dormont. 412-942-0882.

ROWDY BUCK. Top 40 Dance.

South Side. 412-431-2825.

RUGGER’S PUB. 80s Night w/ DJ THUNDERBIRD CAFE. Connor. South Side. 412-381-1330.

Butler Street Session w/ SGDB. THUNDERBIRD CAFE. Night Time.

Lawrenceville. 412-682-0177.

Post-Thanksgiving 80s dance party.

Lawrenceville. 412-682-0177.

WED 02

FRI 27 JERGEL’S RHYTHM GRILLE. Totally 80s. Warrendale.

724-799-8333.

MIXTAPE. TIGUE. Garfield.

412-661-1727.

THE NIGHT GALLERY. William Forrest w/ Sikes, TNV &Sciencevision. William Forrest EP Release Show. Lawrenceville.

412-915-9254.

OAKS THEATER. The Jaggerz.

Oakmont. 412-828-6322.

REX THEATER. The Werks w/ The Clock Reads. South Side.

412-381-6811.

SMILING MOOSE. Horrid Ordeal, Talion, Last Will, Skuzzy Puppy Nursery. South Side. 412-431-4668.

SAT 28 CLUB CAFE. Lovedrug w/ The Black Six, Nameless In August.

South Side. 412-431-4950.

DOWNEY’S HOUSE. Game Face.

Robinson. 412-489-5631.

THE FALLOUT SHELTER. The Jasons, Children of October, Super Fun Time Awesome Party Band. 740-424-0302.

DJS

FRI 27

FULL LIST ONLINE

SUN 29

MON 30

TUE 01

SAT 28

SPIRIT. Troxum, REIGHNBEAU, Slowdanger, Good Dude Lojack.

DIESEL. DJ CK. South Side.

412-431-8800.

LAVA LOUNGE. Top 40 Dance Party. South Side. 412-431-5282.

PENN SOCIETY. J. Malls.

Downtown. 412-444-5007.

REMEDY. Dance Crush.

Lawrenceville. 412-781-6771.

RIVERS CASINO. VDJ Jack Millz.

North Side. 412-231-7777.

ROWDY BUCK. Top 40 Dance.

South Side. 412-431-2825.

MP 3 MONDAY {PHOTO COURTESY OF ADAM THOMAS}

THE HAWKEYES

WED 02 SMILING MOOSE. Rock Star Karaoke w/ T-MONEY. South Side.

412-431-4668.

SPOON. Spoon Fed. East Liberty.

412-362-6001.

BLUES FRI 27 CLUB CAFE. Sweaty Betty, Cosmic Attack Blues Band. South Side.

412-431-4950.

MOONDOG’S. Jimmy Adler Band. CD Release Party. Blawnox.

412-828-2040.

SAT 28

Each week, we bring you a new song by a local artist. This week’s track comes from The Hawkeyes; stream or download

MOONDOG’S. Billy Price.

Blawnox. 412-828-2040.

VERONA EAGLES. The Witchdoctors.

Verona. 412-828-9938.

“Had Enough,” from the new record

TUE 01 BLUSH SPORTS BAR. Shari Richards. Jam session. Downtown.

412-281-7703.

One Plug in the Wall for free on FFW>>, our music blog at www.pghcitypaper.com.

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CONCERTS, CONTINUED FROM PG. 31

HEAVY ROTATION

WED 02

Here are the songs Celeste Smith, chief executive officer at 1Hood Media, can’t stop listening to:

KEYSTONE BAR. The Bo’Hog Brothers. East End. 724-758-4217.

JAZZ THU 26 JAMES STREET GASTROPUB & SPEAKEASY. Roger Humphries Jam Session. Ballroom.

North Side. 412-904-3335.

RIVERS CASINO. Kenny Blake Trio. North Side. 412-231-7777.

“No Apology”

Bobby Ross Avila and Jasiri X

FRI 27 ANDYS WINE BAR. Anqwenique Wingfield.

Downtown. 412-773-8884.

GRILLE ON SEVENTH. Tony Campbell & Howie Alexander.

Downtown. 412-391-1004.

“Imagine”

John Lennon

SAT 28 565 LIVE. Bethany James & Musical Guests. Bellevue.

412-522-7556.

ANDYS WINE BAR. Mark Pipas. Downtown.

412-773-8884.

THE CLUB BAR & GRILL 1.

Tubby Daniels. Monroeville.

412-728-4155.

LEMONT. Groove Doctors.

Mt. Washington. 412-431-3100.

WICKED FOX. Eric Johnson Trio.

Fox Chapel. 412-794-8255.

“i”

Kendrick Lamar

“Blak Summer”

Blak Rapp MADUSA

TUE 01 THUNDERBIRD CAFE. Space Exchange. Lawrenceville.

412-682-0177.

WED 02 ANDYS WINE BAR. Jimmy Cat Western Band. Downtown.

412-773-8884.

RIVERS CLUB. The Gurwin/ Heryford Project. Downtown.

412-391-5227.

ACOUSTIC CLADDAGH IRISH PUB. Weekend at Blarneys. South Side.

412-381-4800.

ELWOOD’S PUB. Marshall Street ‘Rents. Rural Ridge.

724-265-1181.

WED 02

MON 30

SAT 28 HARVEY WILNER’S. The Fabulous Gunslingers. West Mifflin.

412-466-1331.

CLASSICAL PITTSBURGH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA. Waltzes & polkas by the Strauss family w/ this, principal clarinetist Michael Rusinek will perform Rossini’s sparkling Theme & Variations for Clarinet & Orchestra & Weber’s catchy Clarinet Concerto No. 1.

Heinz Hall, Downtown.

412-392-4900.

paper pghcitym .co

FRI 27 CAPRI PIZZA AND BAR. Bombo Claat w/ VYBZ Machine Intl Sound System. East Liberty.

412-362-1250.

SAT 28 MARINADES GRILL. The Flow

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 11.25/12.02.2015

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Clarinet Concerto No. 1. Heinz Hall, Downtown. 412-392-4900.

FRI 27

FRI 27

ALLEGHENY ELKS LODGE #339.

Pittsburgh Banjo Club.

Wednesdays. North Side. 412-321-1834.

CLUB CAFE. Dan Bern w/ Akrasia. South Side.

412-431-4950.

PARK HOUSE. Shelf Life String Band. North Side.

412-224-2273.

Band Reggae Rockers. Donegal.

724-221-5793.

SAT 28 RENAISSANCE CITY WINDS. Holmes Hall, North Side.

412-681-7111.

SUN 29 ACADEMY CHAMBER ENSEMBLE W/ SLIPPERY ROCK UNIVERSITY CHAMBER SINGERS. Old St. Luke’s, Scott.

412-969-7072.

PITTSBURGH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA. Waltzes & polkas by the Strauss family w/ this, principal clarinetist Michael Rusinek will perform Rossini’s sparkling Theme & Variations for Clarinet & Orchestra & Weber’s catchy

NOAH BENDIX-BALGLEY W/ ORION WEISS. A recital by outgoing Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Noah Bendix-Balgley w/ pianist Orion Weiss. Carnegie Music Hall, Oakland. 412-622-3131.

OTHER MUSIC FRI 27 MEADOWS CASINO. Jukebox.

Washington. 724-503-1200.

RIVERS CASINO. The Steel Band w/ Jason Kendall. North Side.

412-231-7777.

SAT 28 REX THEATER. The Ruckus Brothers, Tracksploitation.

Performing Prince’s album, “Purple Rain.” South Side. 412-381-6811.

TUE 01 PALACE THEATRE. Mark Lowry.

Greensburg. 724-836-8000.

WED 02 PALACE THEATRE. Mark Lowry.

Greensburg. 724-836-8000.

HOLIDAY MUSIC SAT 28 PALACE THEATRE. Branson on the Road Christmas Style.

Greensburg. 724-836-8000.

PAID ADVERTORIAL SPONSORED BY

What to do IN PITTSBURGH

Nov. 25 - Dec. 1 Chickens in the Yard

CHICKENS IN THE YARD QUANTUM THEATRE THROUGH DECEMBER 6

JOE MCGRANAGHAN, SIOVHAN CHRISTENSEN, LAURIE KLATSCHER, ALEC SILBERBLATT

WEDNESDAY 25 JAVO STUDIOS, QUANTUM THEATRE Lawrenceville.

412-362-1713.

Tickets: quantumtheatre.com.

Through Dec. 6.

EMO NIGHT LIVE! (Full Band Karaoke) ALTAR BAR Strip District.

412-263-2877. Over 21 event.

Tickets: ticketfly.com or 1-877-4-FLY-TIX. 10p.m.

PHOTO BY HEATHER MULL

Fetterman Friendsgiving REX THEATER South Side.

412-381-6811. Over 21 show.

Tickets: greyareaprod.com.

7p.m.

Mike Why & Brian Fitzy CLUB CAFE South Side.

412-431-4950. Over 21 event.

Tickets: ticketweb.com/opusone.

8p.m.

THURSDAY 26 HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Friday” with Chevy Woods

FRIDAY 27 Night Riots

SMILING MOOSE South Side.

412-431-4668. Over 21 show.

Tickets: ticketfly.com or 1-877-4-FLY-TIX. 6:30p.m.

ALTAR BAR Strip District.

412-263-2877. All ages show.

Tickets: ticketfly.com or 1-877-4-FLY-TIX. 8p.m.

ANIMAL FRIENDS’ Avonworth.

For more info visit thinkingoutsidethecage.org/events.

11a.m.

Masters

SATURDAY 28

Ugly Sweater Run

REX THEATER South Side.

Where to live

TRAX FARMS South Hills.

Free admission. 4:30p.m.

Lovedrug CLUB CAFE South Side.

412-431-4950. Over 21 event.

Tickets: ticketweb.com/opusone.

9p.m.

The WXXP Reunion Show STAGE AE North Side.

Tickets: ticketmaster.com or 800-745-3000.

Doors open at 6p.m.

NOVA PLACE North Side.

Free event. Through Nov. 28.

MARKET SQUARE Downtown.

For more info visit downtownpittsburgh.com/holidays.

Through Dec. 23.

Black Friday Bonanza

A Servant to Two

4th Annual Peoples Gas Holiday Market

NOW LEASING

BEST

CITY HI-RISE LUXURY APARTMENTS

NOW LEASING

NOW LEASING

Bakery Living

Micro, 1 and 2 Bedroom Apartments Studio, 1 And 2 Bedroom Urban Apartments

Squirrel Hill, Shadyside, Oakland, East Side & South Side N E W S

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ALTAR BAR Strip District.

412-263-2877. All ages show.

Tickets: ticketfly.com or 1-877-4-FLY-TIX. 7p.m.

ALTAR BAR Strip District.

412-263-2877. All ages show.

Tickets: ticketfly.com or 1-877-4-FLY-TIX. 8p.m.

I Made It! Holiday Market

APARTMENTS

TERROR “The 25th Hour Tour”

Doomtree

SUNDAY 29

NOW LEASING

MONDAY 30

TUESDAY 1

412-381-6811. Over 21 show.

Tickets: greyareaprod.com.

9p.m.

& TOWNHOMES

Upscale urban rentals • 844.734.3719

PNC PARK North Side. For more info visit theuglysweaterrun.com.

11a.m.

A Night with St. Nick

The Werks “Smoked Out Black

O’REILLY THEATER Downtown.

412-316-1600. Tickets: ppt.org.

Through Dec 6.

Twitching Tongues/ Harm’s Way CATTIVO Lawrenceville.

412-687-2157. All ages show.

Tickets: ticketfly.com or 1-877-4-FLY-TIX. 6:30p.m.

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ILLUMINATING {BY AL HOFF}

CREED COULD BE THE PERFECT CONCLUSION TO THE ROCKY FRANCHISE

Tom McCarthy’s slow-build ensemble drama, Spotlight, recounts how, in 2002, The Boston Globe published a shattering, influential front-page story, documenting decades of child sex abuse and subsequent cover-up within Boston’s Catholic Church.

The film begins a year earlier, when a new managing editor, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), assigns the story to Spotlight, an in-house team of three investigative reporters (Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo, Brian d’Arcy James), led by editor Walter Robinson (Michael Keaton). It starts simply as a story about one accused priest, but soon grows to staggering breadth, ultimately documenting dozens of clergy.

A GOOD MATCH

Team effort: Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo and Brian d’Arcy James

CP APPROVED

Spotlight depicts the frustrating, grueling and ultimately successful marshaling of information — from interviews and court documents, to deep dives into mundane data and fraternal networking — that allowed the team to suspect, and then prove the systemic failure of the archdiocese to address what turns out to be a collective secret. Among the challenges the Spotlight team faces is how deep the Church’s political, cultural and emotional influence runs through Boston. (“A city flourishes when its best institutions work together,” Cardinal Law tells the Globe’s Baron.)

It is explosive subject matter, presented soberly as an investigative procedural.

McCarthy, who has a deft hand with smaller films (The Station Agent, The Visitor), finds space for, but doesn’t overplay, some of the more emotional beats.

There are the distraught and damaged survivors; the growing horror of where the investigation leads (“They knew, and they let it happen — to kids”); and the personal toll it takes on the reporters (all raised Boston Catholics), who come to realize that the pieces of the story were there all along.

But the downbeat material is matched by a quiet celebration that the dogged pursuit of the truth can and should matter, and that journalists, given resources, can provide this necessary check on power.

The Spotlight team had a year to gather data and get the story right — a story that had global impact. That license seems unthinkable these days in reporting, and as inspiring as Spotlight is, hopefully it isn’t also an elegy. AMC Loews and Manor

{BY AL HOFF}

L

OOK, CREED isn’t the best movie out

this holiday week, but it may be the best bargain.

The boxing pic, which finds Rocky Balboa coming out of retirement to train the son of his opponent-turned-buddy Apollo Creed, is six movies in one. And in spite of its problems, Ryan Coogler’s film is a bona fide crowd-pleaser. With heart. With laughs. With tears. With sports. With kids popping wheelies on motorbikes. (I didn’t understand this scene, but it was cool, I guess.) Let’s break down what a viewer gets:

A Plucky Upstart Takes on the Champ.

Pure formula — you’ll call out the scenes before they happen. Like slipping on a comfy old sweater. Self-trained boxer Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) dumps his day job in finance and moves to the mean streets of Philly. Gets crusty trainer, former champ Balboa (Sylvester Stallone), to believe in him. Training ensues; title match is booked. Jordan is better than this hackneyed material, and he presumably spent the spare time he had working out

AHOFF@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 11.25/12.02.2015

Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) and Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) are in sync.

and not wearing shirts. (There was a lot of appreciative sighing from the audience.)

Fight Night.

There are two major fight scenes. One is filmed with a lot of impressive long takes, showing off the fight choreography; the other is best described as a non-stop pummeling, with a lot of edits.

CREED DIRECTED BY: Ryan Coogler STARRING: Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone

A Romance.

Not worth the ticket price, but Creed’s adorable when he’s falling for Bianca (Tess Thompson), a feisty songwriter.

Rocky 7.

This is the latest chapter in the story we began way back in 1976. Just as Skyfall mined James Bond’s history with winks and homages to the franchise, so too does Creed honor the past. We get snippets of the iconic

theme music, a turtle and another trip up the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum.

The Squared Circle of Life.

Another reward for the Rocky completists is how Creed mirrors the original (and still best) film. The film finds the same of the same small-scale bittersweetness of life outside the ring. But now, the glove has passed: Balboa is the creaky old guy who takes the hopeful kid under his wing. Creed could be the perfect conclusion to the Rocky franchise. (Creed 2 could absolutely happen, with or without Balboa. And so the story begins anew.)

A Mutt-and-Jeff Buddy Movie.

This is the most enjoyable part of Creed, the loose working partnership between Balboa and Creed that develops into a meaningful relationship. Like the boxing subplot, the trajectory is pure hokum — from lame jokes about being old to the predictably resolved break-up they have. But the effervescent Jordan and the slyly deadpan Stallone bring their A-game. They hold each other up (awww) — and they hold up this movie.

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There’s no shortage of laughs, and most are spurred by a present from Isaac’s wife: a box full of drugs. But the best laughs actually come from Michael Shannon, who plays a drug-dealer reminiscent of the angel Clarence in It’s a Wonderful Life.

And it’s this sense of nostalgia that makes the film great. There are references to Home Alone and a performance of Kanye West’s “Runaway” on FAO Schwartz’s gigantic piano from Big. These homages are sure to resonate with many, especially twentyand thirtysomethings who can relate to the film’s central struggle of trying to hold on to your friends as they grow older and move on with their lives.

(Rebecca Nuttall)

Brooklyn

= CITY PAPER APPROVED

NEW THIS WEEK THE ASSASSIN. This Chinese period drama from Hsiao-Hsien Hou (Flight of the Red Balloon) is set in the seventh century, and during a period, introductory titles explain, of tensions between the imperial center of the Tang Dynasty and the rising power of an outlying province. Into this tricky arena of political alliances and marriages comes the assassin (Shu Qi), a young woman abducted as a child and trained by nuns to be a killer. She is now tasked to return to her home and assassinate the ruling Tian Ji’an (Chen Chang), who is also her cousin and to whom she was once promised in marriage. The film has some stylized action sequences, but it is primarily a meditatively paced arthouse-style drama, in which the real machinations are personal and political. The story, which shifts in both time and perspective, is confusing at times.

The film is, however, always beautiful, combining lush royal interiors, exquisite costumes and breathtaking scenery. Assassin has a fluid, poetic style, likely designed to be absorbed and savored by those who enjoy such pure cinema. In Mandarin, with subtitles. Starts Fri., Nov. 27. Harris (Al Hoff) BROOKLYN. John Crowley’s gentle and frequently poignant melodrama, which Nick Hornby adapted from Colm Toibin’s novel, follows a young Irish woman, Eilis (Saoirse Ronan), as she leaves her small County Wexford town for the opportunities of Brooklyn.

It’s 1952, and America is surging into the midcentury, as chaotic, lively and surprising as Ireland is still rooted in tradition. At first Eilis is lost and lonely, despite landing in a boardinghouse helmed by a sharp-tongued landlady (Julie Walters) and a steady job at nice department store.

But at the parish dance, Eilis meets a sweet Italian-American fella named Tony (Emory Cohen), and her new life begins to sparkle. Everything is on track for her to fully embrace life in America, when a family matter calls her back to Ireland. And now, newly confident from her time abroad, remaining in the old country doesn’t seem so bad, especially after getting drinks with the besotted Jim (Domhnall Gleeson) …

The plot is the stuff of old-fashioned women’s pictures, and is saved from becoming too treacly by Crowley’s light touch and Ronan’s fine performance. (The film is also lovely to look at, saturated with rich colors reminiscent of the era’s Technicolor features.)

What the film captures best is the bittersweet nature of the immigrant’s life. Eilis now has two homes: One will remain beneath her feet, while the other will be a mix of memories and regrets about choices not taken. Time will perhaps shift allegiance from one home to another, but like all immigrants, Eilis will live suspended between the two. (AH)

SECRET IN THEIR EYES. A counterterrorism team working in Los Angeles after 9/11 are rocked when they discover that the dead body near the under-surveillance mosque is the daughter of one of their own. But as we gradually learn in this somewhat plodding thriller that cuts between the past and the present, a suspect was identified but later disappeared. Now, one of the old team thinks he’s found him, and this discovery stirs up the old case — and the related bad feelings — once again.

Billy Ray’s thriller is an adaptation of a 2009 Argentine film, and for purposes of plot substitutes the war on terror for the earlier film’s use of Argentina’s messy political history. So the murder investigation falls prey to the needs of national security, but the angle feels like window-dressing to give “ripped from the headlines” verve to a plot that wouldn’t be out of place on Law and Order.

There is a good cast — Julia Roberts as the grief-wreck mother and Chiwetel Ejiofor as her pal and dogged pursuer of justice, as well as Nicole Kidman, Alfred Molina and Dean Norris. But neither the film, the story or the interplay between the characters ever catches fire. (AH)

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part II

CP

THE GOOD DINOSAUR. A dinosaur makes a human friend in this new digitally animated family film from Pixar; Peter Sohn directs. In 3-D, in select theaters THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART II. It’s time to settle the score, as Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and the rebel army take the capital. And let me warn you, it feels like it takes a loooong time. Francis Lawrence directs this last chapter of the dystopian franchise, which began with a lively kids-killing-

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kids reality-TV show and now tries to solve all the world’s problems.

Mockingjay Part II starts up right where Part I ended, with Katniss nursing a bruised neck from where former paramour Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) was squeezing it. “Let me take down the capital,” she croaks, and after a delay or three, a small crew of crack fighters heads there. Compadres include her other man, Gale (Liam Hemsworth), a videographer (Katniss is a PR tool) and Peeta (still kind of a brainwashed killer). Waiting at the capital is evil President Snow (Donald Sutherland), who gleefully welcomes them with “a celebration of suffering.”

These take the form of “pods,” like landmines that unleash bizarre obstructions (explosions, oil).

Pods, zombies and other challenges are overcome, and there is a final reckoning of sorts that should be fairly obvious even to non-book readers. The film is not bad per se, and I do appreciate that Hunger Games at least tries to tackle bigger and darker thematic issues (perversion of power, cycles of violence, societies based on economic inequality). But the material — one book converted to nearly five hours of film — feels stretched too thin here: The characters are battle-scarred and weary, and I am too. But thank you all for your hard work! (AH) THE NIGHT BEFORE. ’Twas the night before Christmas and all through New York City, three friends are going out with a bang on their last Christmas Eve together, in Jonathan Levine’s comedy. For the past 10 years, the three have spent the night together; their tradition includes hitting a karaoke bar and visiting the tree at Rockefeller Center, while searching for NYC’s wildest holiday party, The Nutcracka Ball.

But this year things are different: Isaac (Seth Rogen) is married with a child on the way, and Chris (Anthony Mackie) has become a celebrity footballer, leaving Ethan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) struggling to hold together this makeshift family.

“SHEER JOY IN CINEMATIC FORM, Full Of Fine Actors Giving Rich Performances With Endlessly Layered Characters.”

Scott Mendelson,

100% TOP CRITICS

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Steve McQueen: The Man & The Lemans STEVE MCQUEEN: THE MAN & THE LEMANS. In the late 1960s, as both an actor and a race-car driver, Steve McQueen was pretty legit. In 1970, he sought to combine Hollywood and auto racing by making a film centered on LeMans, a 24-hour French race, using real drivers. This new documentary from Gabriel Clarke and John McKenna describes the six-month filming process of McQueen’s passion project, and gives the viewers a full picture of why the film became a critical and boxoffice bomb.

The doc uses interviews as well as ample footage from the production previously thought to be lost. The film explores McQueen’s conflicts with directors, studios and his own production partner.

McQueen’s film focused on the cars and the drivers rather than a story, and production went for 10 weeks without a script. Clarke and McKenna do a good job interspersing the personal interviews with the racing footage and a great musical score to capture the drama and the tension that unfolded on set.

Two very important events happened in McQueen’s life around the time of LeMans’ production: the deterioration of his marriage and the

It’s A Wonderful Life (1946) 11/25 @ 7:30pm Make this Capra classic a holiday tradition! _________________________________________________

Gremlins (1984) 11/27 @ 7:30pm, 11/28 @ 4:00pm & 9:00pm, 11/2 @ 7:30pm You have to follow just three simple rules..... _________________________________________________

South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut (1999) 11/27 @ 10:00pm, 11/28 @ 7:00pm, 11/29 @ 7:00pm - All hell breaks loose! _________________________________________________

Rocky Horror Picture Show 11/28 @ Midnight With live shadowcast by the JCCP!

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fact that he was targeted for death by the Manson family. Both of these subjects are slightly addressed here, but neither serves to advance the documentary’s purpose. Perhaps they’re meant broaden the story and create a fuller picture of McQueen. But because neither is examined in any serious depth, they’re just distracting. In a way, it’s sort of the same problem that McQueen had with LeMans — the unnecessary addition of drama to a documentary. Starts Fri., Nov. 27. Parkway (Charlie Deitch) TRUMBO. Bryan Cranston stars in this biopic about Dalton Trumbo, one of Hollywood’s top screenwriters until he was jailed and blacklisted for political beliefs in the late 1940s. Jay Roach directs. Starts Fri., Nov. 27. Manor VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN. The tale of how one doctor re-animated the dead is told again, this time from the perspective of his assistant, Igor (Daniel Radcliffe); James McAvoy portrays Dr. Frankenstein.

Paul McGuigan directs.

THE WONDERS. Writer-director Alice Rohrwacher’s dramedy concerns a family of beekeepers living on a traditional farmstead in Tuscany, Italy. Their exact circumstances are never clarified — the group seems almost as if they’re squatting on the property, and besides dad, mom and four young daughters, there’s another woman, who sometimes argues with dad in German.

Regardless, in some shambolic fashion, the family is committed to the land, a simpler way of life and the old-fashioned ways of producing honey (read: time-consuming, messy and not up to modern health and labor codes).

The oldest daughter, Gelsomina (Maria Alexandra Lungu), is only about 12, but is the family’s hardest worker and the one with an eye beyond their raggedy gardens. She enters the family in a reality-TV contest, which ostensibly will celebrate local farmers and award a cash prize. This show, known as The Wonders, turns out to be a spectacle of “ancient Etruscan” costumes and amateur talent performances, presided over by a silver bewigged fairy (Monica Bellucci) and held in a cave.

Beneath its shaggy surface, The Wonders mines several fertile grounds, including the dissolution of the “old ways” of rural life. (It’s never explicit, but the beekeeping family that adheres closest to such traditions seem new to such ways, while the multi-generational family down the road

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The Wonders enters the contest to transform its farm into a Band-B.) There is also the “wonder” of becoming an adult, of being nurtured within the arms of even a messy family, and of the pure pleasure of being a child, free to enjoy the beauty of nature. Oh, and also: of getting a camel. In Italian and some German, with subtitles. Starts Fri., Nov. 27. Regent Squar (AH)

GREMLINS. The little furry guys sure are cute, but when the rules get broken, hordes of misbehaving gremlins get loose, unleashing comic mayhem on a small town. Joe Dante directs this 1984 comedy. 7:30 p.m. Fri., Nov. 27, 4 and 9 p.m. Sat., Nov. 28; and 7:30 p.m. Dec. 2.

Hollywood TITANIC. It’s a beautiful boat, filled with beautiful people, until an ugly iceberg intervenes. James Cameron’s 1997 melodrama tells all. Nov. 27-Dec. 1 and Dec. 3. (9:20 Sat., Nov. 28 is RiffTrax edition.)

Row House WHAT’S EATING GILBERT GRAPE. Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio star in Lasse Halstrom’s 1993 dramedy about care-giving and romance.

Nov. 27-29 and Dec. 1-3. Row House INCEPTION. Leonardo DiCaprio plays a man who is paid to break into dreams and steal secrets, in this 2010 mind-bender from Christopher Nolan. Nov. 27 and Nov. 29-Dec. 2. Row House SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT. The lads of South Park get riled up and start a war with Canada in this 1999 big-screen version of the popular Comedy Channel animated series. Trey Parker directs. 10 p.m. Fri., Nov. 27; 7 p.m. Sat., Nov. 28; and 7 p.m. Sun., Nov. 29. Hollywood

The Assassin

REPERTORY IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE. See Frank Capra’s beloved 1946 holiday classic, in which a harried man (Jimmy Stewart) re-discovers the simple joys of life, on the big screen. Tell ’em Clarence sent you. 7:30 p.m. Wed., Nov. 25. Hollywood PLANES, TRAIN AND AUTOMOBILES. Getting home for the holidays is a nightmare in John Hughes’ 1987 comedy. John Candy owns this movie; all his scenes are great — from the slapstick of the awkward sleeping arrangements with his unhappy traveling companion (Steve Martin) to the slow reveal of his loneliness. 7:30 p.m. Wed., Nov. 25. AMC Waterfront. $5

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THE DEPARTED. Martin Scorsese’s 2006 adaptation of a 2002 intertwined-cops-and-criminals thriller from Hong Kong, now relocated to Boston, stars Leonardo Dicaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson. Nov. 28, Nov. 30 and Dec. 3-4.

Row House ELF. Will Ferrell stars as an oversized Santa’s helper in Jon Favreau’s’s 2003 comedy. 7:30 p.m. Tue., Dec. 1. AMC Loews Waterfront. $5 SCROOGED. It’s a snarky modern update of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, starring the droll Bill Murray as a grumpy TV executive missing the true meaning of the holidays. Richard Donner directs this 1988 comedy. 7:30 p.m. Thu., Dec. 3.

AMC Loews Waterfront. $5 CHILDREN SHOULDN’T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS. Bob Clark directs this 1972 horror-comedy shlocker about some enterprising individuals who dig up a dead body to use in a ritual. 7:30 p.m. Thu., Dec. 3. Hollywood

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[BOOKS]

MILLER’S LANGUAGE IS LUSH, SOMETIMES METAPHYSICAL, IN FREE BUT INCANTATORY VERSE

THINKING BIG {BY BILL O’DRISCOLL}

[BOOKS]

Nicholas Rescher

“We need more welders and less philosophers,” U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio recently proposed in a Republican presidential debate.

Nicholas Rescher understands what Rubio means. “There’s a traditional saying that ‘philosophy bakes no bread,’ and in a certain way, it’s true,” he acknowledges.

But Rescher, a philosophy professor who’s taught at the University of Pittsburgh since 1961, also begs to differ (and not just because welders can also be philosophers, and vice versa). Philosophy, Rescher says, has a vital role to play, not least by helping people to think and write more clearly about basic issues of everyday life.

Rescher, well known in philosophy circles for his academic writings, seeks to widen philosophy’s reach with his new book A Journey Through Philosophy in 101 Anecdotes (University of Pittsburgh Press). The book recounts and comments on stories, ideas and thought experiments from the history of Western civilization, ranging from the Tower of Babel, Aesop and Aristotle to modern thinkers like mathemetician Alan Turing and deconstructionist Jacques Derrida.

“Heraclitus’s River” explores the nature of reality (“you can’t step in the same river twice”); “Plato’s Republic” asks which matters more, good laws or good men.

Rescher also winnows through examples from literature (“Dr. Faustus’s Bargain”) and science (“Darwin’s Ape”) to show how they’ve affected civilization. Each chapter is just two or three pages. Rescher’s own favorites include “Saxe’s Puzzling Elephant,” from a 19th-century poem that gave us the parable of the five blind men and the elephant, and a lesson about how human perceptions are conditioned by our unavoidably limited experience.

Rescher, 87, was born in Germany; as a student at Princeton, he knew Einstein. He still teaches (“Contact with young people is what keeps one young”) and believes that philosophy must embrace big issues and assert itself outside of the academy.

Indeed, even in this career-focused era, he still perceives plenty of interest in philosophy, even among students planning to practice law or medicine.

Still, as Rubio’s comment suggests, much work remains. “Philosophy needs all the good press it can possibly get,” says Rescher.

“Less philosophers” is also a strange wish from a politician who nominally reveres the Founding Fathers, themselves no philosophical slouches. “The shadow of John Locke across the landscape of early America is large,” notes Rescher.

That suggests that philosophy is pretty practical after all. As Rescher says, “Anything that helps people get smarter is constructive in a democratic society.”

From left: authors Tim Miller, Ken Hohman and Daniel Short

Reviews of the first 50 pages of three new works {BY BILL O’DRISCOLL} TO THE HOUSE OF THE SUN

BY TIM MILLER S4N BOOKS, 622 PP., $24.99

To the House of the Sun ranks among both the most curious and the most ambitious literary products to come out of Pittsburgh this year. The 360-page epic poem set during the Civil War is both strikingly original and, by author Miller’s enthusiastic acknowledgement, grandly derivative.

It’s the story of a young man named Conrad, Irish-born son of a slaveholding Savannah, Ga., clan, who in 1862 strikes out on what becomes a cross-country quest of sorts. As it begins, with the Civil War in full swing around him, he’s nominally in search of his long-gone father, to fulfill a promise he made his recently deceased mother. One complication is that Conrad is bereft at the death of his fiancée, who was

DRISCOLL@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

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killed by that same father.

The narrative is stream-of-consciousness, picaresque, told through Conrad’s eyes as he heads first north, as far as New Jersey, then cuts across the Midwest to California. The language is lush, sometimes metaphysical, in free but incantatory verse.

Early sections grapple with destiny, slavery, grief, rage and the lure of the sea. “& the new recruits are all confidence,” Miller writes, describing Conrad watching soldiers shipping out, “& even if some of them know they’ll never again behold mother or sister or land, they turn away with fugitive grins to wait intently for the train, & some great glory.”

A key distinction of this fat and fascinating paperback is that its final 260 pages are all appendices and footnotes in which Miller obsessively documents the sources and inspirations he drew upon for ideas,

images and phrases in his text, from the epic of Gilgamesh and the Bible to Irish folklore, Civil War diaries and the poetry of Wallace Stevens. Yet while To the House of the Sun is quite accessible, and wholly its own work, it is dense and sophisticated enough to be worthy of its copious source materials.

Miller writes about religion, poetry and history at www.wordsandsilence.com, where you can learn more about his book.

PAPERBOY DAYS

BY KEN HOHMAN SELF-PUBLISHED, 223 PP., $14.95

In big cities, paperboys on foot or on bikes have been phased out by adults in cars. But that only adds to the charm of Hohman’s cleverly framed memoir, subtitled “Adventures of the Last Great American Paperboy.”

Growing up in Mount Lebanon, the son of a charity-minded doctor, Hohman delivered the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (then as now, the morning route) from the 1976 into the early ’80s. Each of the book’s 18 episodic chapters starts with a time-stamped P-G headline, with Hohman a cheerful raconteur with an eye for detail and an affection for youthful hijinks.

Though his prose is unpretentious, Hohman turns some lovely sentences: Describing an encounter with an unfriendly German shepherd, he writes, “I could see his muscles flex and a tremor ripple through his frame as he caught sight of me.” And he has a sharp eye for the nuances of social interaction, as in a passage explaining the strangeness of collection day — an 11-year-old’s one chance to deal with adults from a position of authority.

Hohman, an advertising copywriter, now lives in Richmond, Va. As a portrait of middle-class coming-of-age a generation before cell phones, his Paperboy Days is a companionable look at a time that even now feels strangely distant.

BY DANIEL SHORT ARETHUSA PRESS, 254 PP., $69.95

Short is a professor of environmental science at Robert Morris University; this book reflects his obsession with the 140-foot tall, 900,000-pound Unisphere, the stainless-steel replica of Earth that famously still stands in Flushing Meadows Park, in Queens. The book’s key achievement is reviving a major Pittsburgh tie to Unisphere: The space-age icon was actually designed by a publicly uncredited Peter Muller-Munk. The acclaimed, German-born industrial designer (currently the subject of a retrospective at the Carnegie Museum of Art) was then based here, and was recommended for the job by project sponsor U.S. Steel, whose subsidiary American Bridge actually built the thing. But Muller-Munk himself downplayed his role after critics raked the sculpture as corny and outdated.

Short’s research was painstaking, as suggested by this full-color book’s reproduction of rare photos and letters and memos to and from the likes of famed urban planner Robert Moses, who organized this World’s Fair. In fact, there might be a bit too much detail for a lay reader. But Unisphere is an intriguing excavation of the ’64 Fair, a landmark cultural moment that gave us both the original incarnation of Disney’s “It’s a Small World” and Unisphere, touted as “The World’s Largest World.”

D R ISC OLL@ PGHC ITY PAP ER.CO M

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“HIGH-VOLTAGE ENERGY”

EGGED ON

- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

{BY MICHELLE PILECKI}

From left: Laurie Klatscher, Alec Silverblatt and Siovhan Christensen in Quantum’s Chickens in the Yard {PHOTO BYHEATHER MULL}

UNISPHERE: SYMBOL OF THE 1964-65 NEW YORK WORLD’S FAIR

[PLAY REVIEW]

It’s fair to say of the past 25 years that there is no such thing as a “typical” Quantum Theatre production — except that they’re all challenging. That is definitely so for the inauguration of Quantum’s Gerri Kay New Voices Program, Chickens in the Yard, created by Hatch Arts Collaborative. It’s character-driven drama, art and music — and chickens.

Somewhere in Pittsburgh lives a family.

Yes, a family, but there’s nothing traditional about it. Joyce Parks, a widow, is the matriarch and mother to John.

Tom is John’s partner, and Abby is Tom’s sister. The chickens have names, too — Lucille Two, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bruce Lee and Anne Hutchinson — but the same four cast members portray all the characters, fair and fowl. The one-act moves back and forth through time, and through memory, to tell a piquant tale about some interesting people and their various approaches to life, love and death.

Chickens was originally produced in 2013, when the Pittsburgh-based Collaborative was hatched (their pun, don’t blame me), comprising writer Paul Kruse, director Adil Mansoor and producer Nicole Sherer. This Quantumproduced iteration, staged in a Lawrenceville art studio, involves a different team of performers and designers. The aforementioned characters are portrayed, respectively, by the alwaysadept Laurie Klatscher, the dapper Alec Silberblatt, schleppy but cuddly Joseph McGranaghan, and the fragile, frightened youngster Siovhan Christensen. They all play Joyce’s husband at some point, and sometimes each other, as well as the chickens — easily moving to avian from human.

Britton Mauk, as scenic designer and director of production, evokes a stylish house-cum-poultry-yard. Sound design by David JM Bielewicz complements the live music performed upstage by Morgan Erina and Ginger Brooks Takahashi. Jenn Gooch’s understated costumes define the characters well. Applause also to technical director David Levine, stage manager Caitlin Roper and lighting designer Patrick Hayes.

Fully describing a Quantum Theatre production usually takes longer than just watching it. Chickens in the Yard, a wellpaced and spirited 70 minutes, is worth experiencing in full.

INFO@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

CHICKENS IN THE YARD continues through Dec. 6. Quantum Theatre at Javo Studios, 5137 Holmes St., Lawrenceville. $30-40. 412-362-1713 or quantumtheatre.com

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{PHOTO BY HEATHER MULL}

From left: Brendan Griffith, Patrick Jordan and Gabe King in barebones’ Small Engine Repair

[PLAY REVIEWS]

NUTS AND BOLTS {BY MICHELLE PILECKI} JUST WHEN YOU think you know what’s go-

ing on in Small Engine Repair, playwright John Pollono pulls the rug out, metaphorically speaking, and the situation is turned on its head. barebones productions’ version of the 2013 comic thriller, directed

by Richard Keitel, is tight — and not just because the audience needs to cross the stage to get to the seats.

The play is named for Frank’s crowded shop, where the single father hangs out with his old school buddies Packie and Swaino. They reminisce about good times, re-fight old arguments, and mainly rip the scabs off some 30 years of “friendship” while getting drunk. Deception, like the booze, is poured early, liberally and often.

Into this working-class trio of middle-aged New Hampshirites comes a smooth, freshfaced, real-honest-to-gosh preppie from Massachusetts. Think of the class hostility in Good Will Hunting, with generational tensions tossed in.

So much for the plot, which has just enough — and just credible enough — twists for a satisfactory drama in real (and really short) time. Toss in some themes about the isolation of “social” networking, the obsolescence of no-college-education men, many facets of sexism, family and bonding, with a little bondage.

No spoilers.

Both the affable Frank and his realistically, obsessively stocked repair shop are

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courtesy of barebones artistic director Patrick Jordan, actor and designer. Gabe King combines paranoia and vulnerability as the sensitive, somewhat sympathetic Packie. Brendan Griffith oozes ego and swagger, among other things, as the assoholic Swaino. And yep, by 21st-century standards, they’re all losers. So what is a clean-cut kid like Chad, wide-eyed and wonder-filled Casey Cott, doing with these old guys?

SMALL ENGINE REPAIR continues through Dec. 6. barebones black box theater, 1211 Braddock Ave., Braddock. $30-55. www.barebonesproductions.com

Keitel gets some help from Randy Kovitz, fight director emeritus, and his team of Andrew Ostrowski, lighting design; C.J. McDermott, technical director; and Brittany Spinelli, stage manager.

As the usual warning has it, Small Engine Repair is for mature audiences only: grownups who can appreciate character growth and nuances, while not getting freaked out by the naughty bits.

I N F O@ P G H C I T Y PA P E R. C OM

TAKING A BOW {BY GWENDOLYN KISTE} A LOVE LETTER to the theater, The Grand

Manner takes a behind-the-curtain peek at the tumultuous lives of stage performers

and the fans who love them. The 2010 play dramatizes A.R. Gurney’s one-time meeting with renowned actress Katharine Cornell backstage in New York after her performance as Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra. Though Gurney’s reallife encounter with the actress in 1948 lasted mere moments — and included nothing more than an autograph and a few niceties about their shared hometown of Buffalo — the experience left an indelible mark on the burgeoning 18-year-old playwright, and over half a century later, he re-imagined himself as an unlikely confidant to the woman he so ardently admired.

THE GRAND MANNER continues Fri., Nov. 27, and Sat., Nov. 28. Little Lake Theatre, 500 Lakeside Drive, Canonsburg. $12-20. 724-745-6300 or www.littlelake.org

An area premiere, The Grand Manner transforms Little Lake’s stage into a green room as Pete, Gurney’s stand-in, awaits a private audience with Cornell.

Once she arrives, talk quickly turns to how cinema and television have altered the landscape of entertainment, and now this theater legend must adapt or become a relic of a bygone age. The conversations interweave mid-20th-century pop-culture references (Mary Martin! Brando!

The Lunts!) as well as personal tidbits about Cornell’s life that weren’t common knowledge in the all-too-austere time period.

An intimate show like this one fails or triumphs on the skills of the cast, and under the direction of TJ Firneno, the four actors do not disappoint. As Pete, James Curry gives a charming aw-shucks performance that’s full of longing for a glamorous life beyond his strict boarding school. Naturally, Katharine Cornell (Patricia Fuchel) owns the stage, as does Guthrie McClintic (Keith Zagorski), Cornell’s husband and director, who alternates from foul-mouthed and abrasive to philosophical and yearning. Always relegated to the background is Gert Macy (Amy Bonner), Cornell’s no-nonsense assistant, who is passionately devoted to the actress.

With no intermission, the story rockets forward at an almost frenetic pace, and Pete, like the audience, is along for the emotional joyride. Before it’s over, there are fights and tears, heartfelt confessions and reconciliations. With all the major ingredients of theater, this is a show that most certainly understands and celebrates life on — and off — the stage.

MAROONED {BY TED HOOVER} PERHAPS THE WORST part of the mess that

is the Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama’s production of Lord of the Flies (Nigel Williams’ stage adaptation of William Golding’s classic novel) is that director Caden Manson could probably justify his every single choice.

The inexplicable set, the fragmented projections, reductive camera work, a bombastic ensemble acting style most charitably described as Wagnerian and — most importantly — utter disregard for the author’s intent … yes, I’m sure he could explain it all. And my only response would be: “That’s nice, Caden. But d’you really wanna go through life staging shows that’ll make people despair for their lives? Think of your karma!”

I can sit through barn theater with bad actors, community theater with no budget, and professional shows without a clue.

What drive me nuts is a director who believes the work of a Nobel-winning author needs someone to fix it. And while Manson’s disdain for Golding is amazing, his indifference to the audience is mystifying. At no point does Manson invite us into the action or allow our imaginations to inform our theatrical experience. He’s made up his mind what Golding meant (or should have meant) and parades that in front of us instead.

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LORD OF THE FLIES continues through Dec. 5. Philip Chosky Theater, CMU campus, Oakland. $10-33.

412-268-2407 or www.drama.cmu.edu

He’s jettisoned subtext absolutely: Every emotional beat is played on top and, most irritatingly, he has camera operators onstage following the actors around and projecting their images on movable screens.

It’s bad enough that this completely negates Golding’s story of boys isolated on a desert island descending into barbarism.

Worse still is that any time a character has a line of any import, Manson has him speak directly into the camera, and then throws it up on the screens. Heaven forefend we’re allowed to tease out Golding’s allegory on our own. The camera operators disappeared for the second act, but then so did much of the audience. (My unofficial tally was 50.)

My heart really breaks for these deeply committed and extremely hard-working acting students. It seems to me that the drama department ought to be serving them, not forcing them to serve the trendy “vision” of someone who, when you come down to it, doesn’t really seem to like theater all that much.

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Born on a slave ship, never a slave.

Royal Shakespearean actor

Paterson Joseph is

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NOV. 28 Suite it Li it Lif Life if

+ FRI., NOV. 27 {SCREEN} It’s aimed at kids, but there’ll surely be grown-up film fans in the house when the Harris Theater screens classic holiday shorts. Today, and continuing on Saturdays and Sundays through Dec. 20, Pittsburgh Filmmakers offers these 30-plus films dating from 1901 to the 1990s, including rarities from Thomas Edison’s studio and vintage animations from masters like Max Fleischer and Ub Iwerks.

The Harris programming, part of Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership’s seasonal Kidsplay events on the 800 block of Liberty Avenue, also include arts and crafts and a reading room in the theater downstairs lobby. Bill O’Driscoll Noon-5 p.m. Continues through Dec. 20. 809 Liberty Ave., Downtown. Free. www.downtownpittsburgh.com

region, most selling handmade goods with a contemporary feel (and many crafted from recycled or repurposed materials). Those offerings are supplemented by vintage and curated goods from the Neighborhood Flea. While browsing for clothing, jewelry, housewares, artwork and

Winter Flower Show and Light Garden returns for another magical run. Starting tonight, the outdoor Light Garden boasts a spectacular display of lights and custombuilt props, and, in the glass house, the Winter Flower Show brings Christmas classic “Deck the Halls” to life with

NOV. 27 IM Made d iit! for the Holidays

{MARKETPLACE} If shop you must, where better to spend your alternative Black Friday than in a former mall?

The ninth annual I Made It! for the Holidays, Pittsburgh’s nomadic pop-up indie craft market, decamps today and tomorrow at Nova Place, on the North Side, previously known as Allegheny Center Mall. Check out wares from some 100 artists from the

more, don’t forget the craft activities for kids, the free entertainment, or the de rigueur food trucks. BO Noon-8 p.m. Also 11 a.m.6 p.m. Sat., Nov. 28. 100 South Commons, North Side. www.imadeitmarket.com

{EXHIBIT} Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens’ popular

colorful poinsettias, LED light arrangements, and a massive evergreen in the Victoria Room. In the Serpentine Room, children can search for tiny troll figures hidden throughout the displays. Kelechi Urama 5-11 p.m. Exhibit continues through Jan. 10. One Schenley Park, Oakland. $11-15. 412-622-6914 or www.phipps.conservatory.org

{PHOTO COURTESY OF CEM ERSAVCI FOR DUMBO FEATHER}

FreeEvent Simran Sethi always loved food, but it wasn’t until she read a 2002 interview about world hunger with agricultural expert Anuradha Mittal that she learned that food could be political. “I started to pay attention to the longer stories around food, and not just how it’s made in my kitchen, but the stories of the farmers and where it comes from,” says Sethi by phone from New York. Since then, Sethi has been committed to food sustainability. The award-winning San Francisco-based journalist and documentarian, an associate at the University of Melbourne’s Sustainable Society Institute, hosted the Emmy-winning PBS documentary A School in the Woods. This week, Sethi visits Pittsburgh for two readings. Her new book, Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love, explores the global loss of agricultural biodiversity, which has reduced the majority of our food to five ingredients: corn, wheat, rice, palm oil and soybeans. Ninety-five percent of the world’s calories come from only 30 species. This makes the few species we do grow susceptible to climate change and disease, which can wipe out entire species. “I wanted to tell the story of this loss through [foods] that meant something to me,” she says. Kelechi Urama 7 p.m. Wed., Dec. 2 (East End Book Exchange, Bloomfield; www.eastendbookexchange. com) and 5:30 p.m. Thu., Dec. 3 (Welker Room, Chatham University, Shadyside; www.chatham.edu)

{COMEDY} On Deathsquad.tv’s popular video podcast Kill Tony, comedians do a one-minute set that’s then critiqued live by a panel of comics; the feedback can be brutal (“Eric, you’re pretty much unbearable”).

The Los Angeles-based show is seeking 7 to 10 Pittsburgh comedians to sign up for tonight’s tour stop at Arcade Comedy Theater. Afterward, at Arcade’s late standup show, check out the comedy chops of none other than Kill Tony host Tony Hinchcliffe and Deathsquad.tv founder Brian Redban themselves.

They’re joined by Pittsburgh’s own Aaron Kleiber. BO Kill Tony: 8 p.m. ($10). Standup show: 10 p.m. ($15). 811 Liberty Ave., Downtown. $20 for both shows. 412-339-0608 or www. arcadecomedytheater.com

+ SAT., NOV. 28 {SHOPPING} Some will find it ironic that Small Business Saturday was founded, in 2010, by American Express. And why, after all, do you need a special holiday (let alone a corporate imprimatur) to patronize your friendly neighborhood storefronts? But in case you do, today is it. Dozens of local businesses are official participants, and some establishments are offering special treats (like the free samples, live music and more at Pittsburgh Public Market, in the Strip). Small Business Saturday is also your sanctioned lull between Black Friday and Cyber Monday,

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concert featuring Grammywinning trumpeter Sean Jones and the Pittsburgh Jazz Orchestra. This celebration of Duke Ellington’s collaborator {STAGE} on tunes like “Take the ‘A’ Maybe it’s her charming British accent, but preschoolers Train” and “Lush Life” also features Anqwenique go whole hog for Peppa Pig. Wingfield, one of Pittsburgh’s The star of her own animated most in-demand vocalists.

Admission is “pay what makes you happy,” and proceeds from Suite Life benefit the Strayhorn Legacy Fund, supporting the KellyStrayhorn’s youth and family programming.

The concert is preceded at nearby Hotel Indigo DEC. 01 by the Lush Life Chen Masquerade, a masksGuangcheng and-boas ’do complete with buffet and beverages; tickets include priority seating for the concert.

BO Masquerade: 6-7:30 p.m. ($100-175). Concert: 8 p.m.

(7 p.m. mixer; pay-what-makesyou-happy). 5941 Penn Ave., East Liberty. 412-363-3000 or Entertainment One series on www.kelly-strayhorn.org Nick Jr., Peppa and her friends are big enough to warrant their first U.S. theatrical tour, which hits the Byham Theater for one show today.

Peppa Pig’s Big Splash, an {STAGE} extravaganza built around The Dramatists Guild is the a fundraiser to repair the nursery’s leaky roof. Expect singing, dancing, interactive fun and plenty of mud. BO 5 p.m. 101 Sixth St., Downtown. $37.25-52.25. 412-456-6666 or www.trustarts.org not to mention Leftovers Sunday. BO www.shopsmall. americanexpress.com

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{PHOTO COURTESY OF PAUL G. WIEGMAN}

NOV. 27 Winter Flower Show and Light Garden

d’oeuvres and a cash bar.

BO 6-9 p.m. 1300 Bingham St., South Side. Free

national professional association of playwrights, composers, lyricists and librettists, and it’s got a Pittsburgh contingent. Tonight, the Guild and City Theatre present their first-ever evening of curated readings by local playwrights. A diverse line-up of talents reading excerpts of their work include Scott Barotti, Tameka Cage-Conley, Kim El, Amy Gijsbers van Wijk, Levi Jelks and Paul Kruse.

The program, organized by Guild regional rep Gab Cody and City’s Claire Drobot, includes mixing time, hors

+ TUE., DEC. 01 {TALK} One of China’s best-known expatriate dissidents speaks at City of Asylum tonight. Chen Guangcheng is a self-taught lawyer and human-rights activist who has been blind since infancy and who was illiterate until his late teens. In 2012, he made international headlines when he escaped house arrest in his home country and fled to the U.S embassy in Beijing. Chen, 44, now lives with his wife and two children in the Washington, D.C., area.

Tonight, he will read in Chinese (with an interpreter) from his memoir The Barefoot Lawyer. BO 7:30 p.m. (7 p.m. reception). 330 Sampsonia Way, North Side. Free. www. cityofasylumpittsburgh.org

{MUSIC} Of all the local tributes to Billy Strayhorn in this, the centennial of his birth, tonight’s is the first in a theater named partly for him, and located around the corner from Homewood, where the famed pianist and composer grew up.

The Kelly-Strayhorn Theater hosts Suite Life, a benefit

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{PARTY} The National Aviary hosts Night Before Christmas, a

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one-of-a kind holiday event.

This family-friendly night is packed with fun, seasonal activities, such as a holiday movie in the Helen M. Schmidt FliteZone Theater, popcorn, storytime with Mrs. Claus and the penguins, and a chance for attendees to get upclose-and-personal with wintery owls and nutcracking macaws. Guests can also make decorated ornaments to place outside and feed wild birds.

KU 5-9 p.m. 700 Arch St., North Side. $13-14 (free for children under 2). 412-323-7235 or www.aviary.org

{OUTDOORS} Explore Pittsburgh’s beautiful fall landscape during Venture Outdoors’ Woods Run Top to Bottom: Urban Fitness Hike.

The advanced-level hike begins at the top of Observatory Hill, where participants will work up a sweat by heading down Riverview Park’s trails and following Woods Run to the Ohio River. At the end of the four- to five-mile hike, return to the Allegheny Observatory for a scenic nighttime view of the city. KU 6-9:30 p.m.

159 Riverview Park, North Side. $8-12. 412-255-0564 or www.ventureoutdoors.org

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Celebrate small businesses, salsa dance the night away, and jam to Purple Rain.

{ALL LISTINGS MUST BE SUBMITTED BY 9 A.M. FRIDAY PRIOR TO PUBLICATION}

TO SUBMIT A LISTING: HTTP://PGHCITYPAPER.COM/HAPPENINGS 412.316.3388 (FAX) + 412.316.3342 X165 (PHONE)

THEATER ALTAR BOYZ. Meet Matthew,

FRIDAYS 10PM

ALT 80’S NIGHT SATURDAYS 10PM

DANCE PARTY $2.75 PBR POUNDERS OR PBR DRAFTS

ALL DAY, EVERY DAY 2204 E. CARSON ST. (412) 431-5282 lavaloungepgh.com

Mark, Luke, Juan & Abraham – aka the ALTAR BOYZ. They’re on a mission from above to put the “pop� back in piety, wooing legions of bingo hall & pancake breakfast fans throughout their “Raise the Praise� tour. Sun, 2 p.m., Sat, 2 & 7:30 p.m. and Wed-Fri, 7:30 p.m. Thru Dec. 20. Backstage Bar at Theatre Square, Downtown.

412-323-4709.

BEAUTY & THE BEAST HOLIDAY. Presented by Gemini Theater Company. Belle & the Beast spend a magical winter holiday together as the Beast learns the true meaning of the season. Sat, Sun, 11 a.m. & 1:30 p.m. Thru Dec. 27. Latitude 360, North Fayette. 412-693-5555.

CHICKENS IN THE YARD. A Rubik’s Cube of lonely individuals & fragile couples, whose subtle dynamics gel into surprising strength as an unconventional family from the Hatch Arts Collective & Quantum Theatre.

Wed, Fri, Sat, 8 p.m., Sun.,

Podcast goes live every Thursday at www.pghcitypaper.com

Nov. 29, 3 & 7 p.m., Thru Dec. 5, SMALL ENGINE REPAIR. A taut, 8 p.m. and Sun., Dec. 6, 7 p.m. twisty, comic thriller by John Thru Nov. 28. Javo Studios, Pollono. Presented by barebones Lawrenceville. 412-362-1713. theater. Wed-Sun, 8 p.m. Thru A CHRISTMAS CAROL. A Dec. 5. barebones black box performance of Dickens’ theater, Braddock. 412-874-0272. classic story about the SUNSET BABY. The story of Nina, meaning of Christmas. Fri., a smart sexy hustler. Sun, Nov. 27, 11 a.m. Palace 2 p.m., Sat, 5:30 & 9 p.m., Theatre, Greensburg.

Thu, Fri, 8 p.m., Wed, 724-836-8000.

1 & 7 p.m. and Tue, IN THEIR OWN 7 p.m. Thru Dec. 13. www. per VOICES. An evening City Theatre, South a p ty pghci m of curated readings Side. 412-431-2489. .co by local playwrights; YOU’RE A GOOD MAN, Tameka Cage-Conley, Kim CHARLIE BROWN. This El, Amy Gijsbers van Wijk, Levi musical show is focused on “an Jelks & Paul Kruse. Presented by average day in the life of Charlie Dramatists Guild & City Theater.

Brown.� Fri, Sat, 8:15 p.m., Sun., Mon., Nov. 30, 6-9 p.m. City Nov. 29, 2 p.m. and Tue-Thu, Theatre, South Side. 412-431-2489.

7:30 p.m. Thru Dec. 5. Butler Little A SERVANT TO TWO MASTERS. Theatre, Butler. 724-287-6781.

Set in Venice in 1965, characters cravings for love, money & food lead to a wild comedy presented

by Pittsburgh Public Theater. Sun, 2 & 7 p.m., Tue, 7 p.m., Sat, 2 & DAVID KAYE W/ MIKE 8 p.m. and Sun., Dec. 6, 2 p.m. Thru WYSOCKI. 8 p.m. Oaks Theater, Dec. 6. Pittsburgh Public Theater, Oakmont. 412-828-6322.

Downtown. 412-316-1600.

LAUGH & LYRICS. Live comedy

FULL LIST ONLINE

COMEDY SAT 28

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STRAUB SAMPLING

November 25th - 3 pm - 5 pm 12 Packs & Variety Packs ON SALE

Join Ryan Utz, of Chatham University’s Falk School of Sustainability, for the

Backcountry Camping Workshop, a hands-on class that will introduce aspiring

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backpackers to basic gear and techniques. Get advice for planning trips from simple overnights to multi-day excursions. 6:30 p.m. Mon., Nov. 30. Eden Hall Campus Lodge, Chatham University, 6035 Ridge Road, Gibsonia. Free. www.chatham.edu/newsevents/events/

& R&B vocalists. Last Sat of every month James Street Gastropub & Speakeasy, North Side.

412-904-3335.

MACHENATION. Storytelling event. 8 p.m. The Maker Theater, Shadyside. 412-404-2695.

MAKE NICE BOOM. A team improv competition presented by Unplanned Comedy. Fourth Sat of every month, 8 p.m. Cattivo, Lawrenceville. 412-687-2157.

MYSTERY’S MOST WANTED IN..THE DEATH OF FIGARO. Improv murder mystery. 10 p.m.

Cabaret at Theater Square, Downtown. 412-325-6769.

MON 30 COMEDY SAUCE SHOWCASE. Local & out-of-town comedians.

Mon, 9 p.m. Pleasure Bar, Bloomfield. 412-682-9603.

OPEN MIC COMEDY NIGHT. Mon, 10 p.m. Lava Lounge, South Side. 412-431-5282.

EXHIBITS ALLEGHENY-KISKI VALLEY HERITAGE MUSEUM. Military artifacts & exhibits on the Allegheny Valley’s industrial heritage. Tarentum. 724-224-7666.

ANDREW CARNEGIE FREE LIBRARY MUSIC HALL. Capt.

Thomas Espy Room Tour. The Capt.

Thomas Espy Post 153 of the Grand Army of the Republic served local Civil War veterans for over 54 years & is the best preserved & most intact GAR post in the United States. Carnegie. 412-276-3456.

BAYERNHOF MUSEUM. Large collection of automatic roll-played musical instruments & music boxes in a mansion setting. Call for appointment.

O’Hara. 412-782-4231.

BOST BUILDING. Collectors.

Preserved materials reflecting the industrial heritage of Southwestern PA. Homestead. 412-464-4020.

CARNEGIE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY. Animal Secrets. Learn about the hidden lives of ants, bats, chipmunks, raccoons & more. Out of This World! Jewelry in the Space Age. A fine jewelry exhibition that brings together scientific fact & pop culture in a showcase of wearable & decorative arts related to outer space, space travel, the space age, & the powerful influence these topics have had on human civilization. Dinosaurs in Their Time. Displaying immersive environments spanning the Mesozoic Era & original fossil specimens. Permanent. Hall of Minerals & Gems. Crystal, gems & precious stones from all over the world. Population Impact.

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 11.25/12.02.2015

DEC. 3-6

“Tempest” (oil on canvas, 2015),

by Mark Gualtieri. From the exhibition Lyrical Abstractions, at Mendelson Gallery, Shadyside.

VISUALART NEW THIS WEEK PHIPPS CONSERVATORY & BOTANICAL GARDEN. Winter Flower Show & Light Garden.

Opens Nov. 27. Bringing the familiar carol “Deck the Halls” to life, each of the changing exhibit rooms will embody the spirit the holiday tune, complete w/ artful arrangements of LED lights, decorated fir trees, whimsical props, & seasonal favorites.

Oakland. 412-622-6914.

ONGOING 707 PENN GALLERY. Birth Series. Photography series by Gauri Gill that follows a midwife working in the remote village of Motasar, Ghafan. Part of India in Focus showcase A Million Marks of Home. Sarika Goulatia work incorporates traditional Indian pigments & spices within a contemporary art context.

Part of India in Focus showcase.

Downtown. 412-325-7017.

937 LIBERTY AVE. Humanae/I AM AUGUST. A series of photographs of everyday Pittsburghers

by Angelica Dass. Downtown.

412-338-8742.

ANDY WARHOL MUSEUM. Warhol By The Book. An exhibition on Warhol’s book work, from early student-work illustrations to his commercial work in the 50s. Permanent collection. Artwork & artifacts by the famed Pop Artist.

North Side. 412-237-8300.

ARTDFACT. Artdfact Gallery.

The works of Timothy Kelley & other regional & US artists on display. Sculpture, oil & acrylic paintings, mixed media, found objects, more. North Side.

724-797-3302.

THE ARTISTS’ GALLERY. The Pittsburgh Fine Art Photographers Group.

A photography exhibition featuring images from landscapes to nudes. Bellevue.

412-339-8943.

BOULEVARD GALLERY. Anne Wateska. Drawings, watercolors, acrylics & oils by the artist. A Photographic Retrospective. Work by Michael Rosella. Verona. 412-828-1031.

BOXHEART GALLERY. No Boundaries: Work by The Pittsburgh Group. Main gallery.

The Watcher The Watched.

Work by Kyle Ethan Fischer, Carolyn Reed Barritt, Irina Koukhanova, Danny Licul, & Sherry Rusinack. Bloomfield.

412-687-8858.

CARNEGIE MUSEUM OF ART. Silver to Steel: The Modern Designs of Peter Muller-Munk.

Displaying the work of 60s German emigre & Pittsburgh industrial design Peter Muller-Munk, who started as a silversmith at Tiffany’s. The Propeller Group: The Living Need Light, the Dead Need Music. A video based exhibition that looks at colorful, spirited funeral traditions in Vietnam & New Orleans. HACLab Pittsburgh: Imagining the Modern. An exhibition of over, under architecture highlighting successive histories of pioneering architectural successes, disrupted neighborhoods & the utopian aspirations & ideals of public officials & business leaders.

Oakland. 412-622-3131.

CHRISTINE FRECHARD GALLERY. Compensatory Dreaming. Works by Dean Cercone. Squirrel Hill.

412-421-8888.

EAST OF EASTSIDE GALLERY. Eastside Outside. Landscape paintings & print by Adrienne Heinrich, Debra Platt, Phiris Kathryn Sickels, Sue Pollins & Kathleen Zimbicki. Forest Hills.

412-465-0140.

ECLECTIC ART & OBJECTS GALLERY. 19th century American & European paintings combined w/ contemporary artists & their artwork. The Hidden Collection. Watercolors

by Robert N. Blair (1912- 2003).

Hiromi Traditional Japanese Oil Paintings The Lost Artists of the 1893 Chicago Exhibition.

Collectors Showcase. Emsworth.

412-734-2099.

ESPRESSO A MANO. The Whole Kit & Caboodle. Feat. quirky cats & whimsical floral acrylic paintings by Maura Taylor.

Lawrenceville. 412-918-1864.

FRAMEHOUSE. Except For The Sound of my Voice: Photogravures by Leslie A. Golomb. Feat. selections from Wielding the Knife, woodcuts

by Master Chinese Printmaker, Li Kang. Lawrenceville.

412-586-4559.

FRICK ART & HISTORICAL CENTER. Forbidden Fruit.

Porcelain figurines in the 18th century style by Chris Antemann.

Permanent collection of European Art. Point Breeze.

412-371-0600.

FRICK FINE ARTS AUDITORIUM. Exposure: Black Voices in the Arts. Art exhibition

by Pitt Museum Studies students that both calls attention to the absence of black voices, culture, & experiences in art institutions, & celebrates black artists in Pittsburgh. Oakland.

412-648-2400.

THE GALLERY 4. An Occasional Dream. Interactive mixed media works, enhanced w/ a free smartphone app by Erin Ko. Shadyside. 412-363-5050.

GALLERY ON 43RD STREET. Addicted to Trash. Assemblage & metal collage by Robert Villamagna. Lawrenceville.

412-683-6488.

GATEWAY CENTER. 412 Project. Exploring Pittsburgh through the lens of local Instagrammers. Gateway Center Kiosk at 400 Liberty Avenue, next to the Gateway Center Garage. http://412project.org/.

Downtown.

GLENN GREENE STAINED GLASS STUDIO INC. Original Glass Art by Glenn Greene.

Exhibition of new work, recent work & older work. Regent Square. 412-243-2772.

HOLOCAUST CENTER, UNITED JEWISH FEDERATION. In CONTINUES ON PG. 47

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This is a free and family-friendly event! Celebrate the season with cookies and pick up unique holiday gifts along the way. Hours for Cookie Stops vary by location. To receive this year’s Tour Map, sign up for our e-newsletter at lvpgh.com/cookietour or call 412.621.1616, ext. 103.

PITTSBURGH’S NEWEST HOT SPOT, NOW OPEN!!

$ 5 FOR

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$

Lite Buckets ALL DAY EVERYDAY!

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LITE STEINIE BOTTLES FRIDAY FROM 10-12

32 OZ LITE PITCHERS DURING PENS GAMES +

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BIG LIST, CONTINUED FROM PG. 44

{PHOTO BY ASHLEY MURRAY}

*Stuff We Like

Thanksgiving Leftovers

{PHOTO COURTESY OF EAT’N PARK}

Who doesn’t like sitting around in PJs and not having to cook the weekend following Turkey Day?

The Smiley Face of Rick Sebak Cookies These sweet treats celebrating the local TV personality and benefiting Eat’n Park’s Caring For Kids Campaign are available for a limited time. Order online only at www.smileycookie.com.

Bob Roberts

{PHOTO COURTESY OF BRIAN CALHOUN}

Tim Robbins’ 1992 political satire about a folksy but phony senatorial candidate deserves a re-watch. Compare and contrast to today’s real-life candidates. (Like Trump just did, Roberts headlines a SNL-type show.) Bonus: partially filmed in Pittsburgh.

Raccoon Creek State Park A great escape into beautiful Western Pennsylvania forests, for adventurers seeking day trips just down the Parkway West.

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 11.25/12.02.2015

How humans are affecting the environment. Oakland.

412-622-3131.

CARNEGIE SCIENCE CENTER. H2Oh! Experience kinetic water-driven motion & discover the relations between water, land & habitat. How do everyday decisions impact water supply & the environment? Ongoing: Buhl Digital Dome (planetarium), Miniature Railroad & Village, USS Requin submarine & more.

North Side. 412-237-3400.

CENTER FOR POSTNATURAL HISTORY. Explore the complex interplay between culture, nature & biotechnology. Sundays 12-4.

Garfield. 412-223-7698.

CHILDREN’S MUSEUM OF PITTSBURGH. Voyage to Vietnam.

An immersive exhibit celebrating the Vietnamese Tet Festival.

North Side. 412-322-5058.

COMPASS INN. Demos & tours w/ costumed guides feat. this restored stagecoach stop. North Versailles.

724-238-4983.

DEPRECIATION LANDS MUSEUM. Small living history museum celebrating the settlement & history of the Depreciation Lands. Allison Park.

412-486-0563.

FALLINGWATER. Tour the famed Frank Lloyd Wright house.

Mill Run. 724-329-8501.

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. Tours of 13 Tiffany stained-glass windows.

Downtown. 412-471-3436.

FORT PITT MUSEUM. Captured by Indians: Warfare & Assimilation on the 18th Century Frontier. During the mid-18th century, thousands of settlers of European & African descent were captured by Native Americans. Using documentary evidence from 18th & early 19th century sources, period imagery, & artifacts from public & private collections in the U.S. and Canada, the exhibit examines the practice of captivity from its prehistoric roots to its reverberations in modern Native-, African- & Euro-American communities.

Reconstructed fort houses museum of Pittsburgh history circa French & Indian War & American Revolution.

Downtown. 412-281-9285.

FRICK ART & HISTORICAL CENTER. Ongoing: tours of Clayton, the Frick estate, w/ classes & programs for all ages.

Point Breeze. 412-371-0600.

HARTWOOD ACRES. Tour this Tudor mansion & stable complex.

Enjoy hikes & outdoor activities in the surrounding park. Allison Park.

412-767-9200.

HUNT INSTITUTE FOR BOTANICAL DOCUMENTATION. The Mysterious Nature of Fungi.

An overview of these mysterious organisms that are found almost everywhere on this planet & are the cause of both bliss & blight.

Oakland. 412-268-2434.

KENTUCK KNOB. Tour the other Frank Lloyd Wright house.

Mill Run. 724-329-8501.

KERR MEMORIAL MUSEUM. Tours of a restored 19th-century,

[ART]

Art by Irma Freeman

The namesake of the Irma Freeman Center for Imagination was born in 1903, in Germany. She came to the U.S. in the ’20s and spent most of her life in Pittsburgh; in her 80s, she painted almost every day.

Over her 90 years, she also spent time in Florida and coastal Maine, and was influenced by the natural world she experienced there, as well as by photos and magazine articles depicting nature. The exhibit Natural Renderings: Paintings by Irma Freeman and International Children’s Art Exhibition covers decades of her work, in styles touching on impressionism, abstraction and more. The show includes prize-winning work from Faces of Nature, an International Children’s Art Contest the Center cosponsored. Exhibit continues through Dec. 4. 5006 Penn Ave., Bloomfield. 412-924-0634 or www.irmafreeman.org

PENNSYLVANIA TROLLEY middle-class home. Oakmont.

MUSEUM. Trolley rides & exhibits.

412-826-9295.

Includes displays, walking tours, MARIDON MUSEUM. Collection gift shop, picnic area & includes jade & ivory statues from Trolley Theatre. Washington.

China & Japan, as well as Meissen 724-228-9256. porcelain. Butler. 724-282-0123.

PHIPPS CONSERVATORY & MCGINLEY HOUSE & MCCULLY BOTANICAL GARDEN. Garden LOG HOUSE. Historic homes Railroad. Model trains chug open for tours, lectures & more. through miniature landscapes Monroeville. 412-373-7794. populated w/ living plants, MOUNT PLEASANT GLASS whimsical props & fun interactive MUSEUM. Isabella D. Stoker buttons. Runs through Feb. 28.

Graham Collection. Heritage glass Winter Flower Show & Light from her estate. Mount Pleasant.

Garden. Each of the changing 724-547-5929. exhibit rooms will embody the NATIONAL AVIARY. Masters spirit of the oft-sung holiday tune of the Sky. Explore the power w/ arrangements of LED lights, & grace of the birds who rule props & seasonal favorites the sky. Majestic eagles, such as poinsettias, impressive condors, amaryllis & a massive stealthy falcons and evergreen situated in their friends take center the pond of the Victoria stage! Home to more Room. 14 indoor rooms than 600 birds from www. per a p & 3 outdoor gardens over 200 species. W/ pghcitym o .c feature exotic plants & classes, lectures, demos floral displays from around & more. North Side. the world. Tropical Forest 412-323-7235.

Congo. An exhibit highlighting NATIONALITY ROOMS. some of Africa’s lushest landscapes.

29 rooms helping to tell the Oakland. 412-622-6914. story of Pittsburgh’s immigrant PHOTO ANTIQUITIES. 3-D Photos past. University of Pittsburgh. on glass plates. Peer through Oakland. 412-624-6000. antique viewers for examples of OLD ST. LUKE’S. Pioneer church 3-D effects & see scores of other features 1823 pipe organ, glass hand-colored transparencies.

Revolutionary War graves. Scott.

North Side. 412-231-7881.

412-851-9212.

PINBALL PERFECTION. OLIVER MILLER HOMESTEAD. Pinball museum & players club.

This pioneer/Whiskey Rebellion West View. 412-931-4425. site features log house, blacksmith PITTSBURGH ZOO & PPG shop & gardens. South Park.

AQUARIUM. Home to 4,000 412-835-1554.

FULL LIST ONLINE

animals, including many endangered species. Highland Park. 412-665-3639.

RACHEL CARSON HOMESTEAD. A Reverence for Life. Photos & artifacts of her life & work.

Springdale. 724-274-5459.

RIVERS OF STEEL NATIONAL HERITAGE AREA. Exhibits on the Homestead Mill. Steel industry & community artifacts from 1881-1986. Homestead.

412-464-4020.

SENATOR JOHN HEINZ HISTORY CENTER. We Can Do It!: WWII. Discover how Pittsburgh affected World War II & the war affected our region. Explore the development of the Jeep, produced in Butler, PA & the stories behind real-life “Rosie the Riveters” & local Tuskegee Airmen whose contributions made an unquestionable impact on the war effort. From Slavery to Freedom.

Highlight’s Pittsburgh’s role in the anti-slavery movement. Ongoing: Western PA Sports Museum, Clash of Empires, & exhibits on local history, more. Strip District.

412-454-6000.

SEWICKLEY HEIGHTS HISTORY CENTER. Museum commemorates Pittsburgh industrialists, local history. Sewickley. 412-741-4487.

SOLDIERS & SAILORS MEMORIAL HALL. War in the Pacific 1941-1945. Feat. a collection of military artifacts showcasing photographs, uniforms, shells & other related items. Military museum dedicated to honoring military service members since the Civil War through artifacts & personal mementos. Oakland.

412-621-4253.

ST. ANTHONY’S CHAPEL. Features 5,000 relics of Catholic saints. North Side. 412-323-9504.

ST. NICHOLAS CROATIAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. Maxo Vanka Murals. Mid-20th century murals depicting war, social justice & the immigrant experience in America. Millvale.

412-407-2570.

WEST OVERTON MUSEUMS. Learn about distilling & coke-making in this pre-Civil War industrial village. West Overton.

724-887-7910.

HOLIDAY FRI 27 LIGHT THE NIGHT. Family entertainment, a live Christmas music program & activities headed up by the scouts, the local sports teams & other organizations in town.

188 to 437 Butler St. 6-9:20 p.m.

Butler St., Etna. 412-781-0569.

SAT 28 WPXI HOLIDAY PARADE. 9 p.m.

Downtown. 412-237-1163.

WED 02 PITTSBURGH CHRISTMAS CAROL TOUR - TROY HILL. Tour includes a visit to historic (& beautifully decorated) churches &/or mansions & a stop for a sweet

VISUAL ART

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Celebration of Life: Living Legacy Project. A photographic/ multimedia exhibit honoring & commemorating local Holocaust survivors. Squirrel Hill.

412-421-1500.

IRMA FREEMAN CENTER FOR IMAGINATION. The Face of Nature. An exhibition of children’s art. Natural Renderings: Paintings by Irma Freeman. Paintings

by Irma Freeman. Garfield.

412-924-0634.

JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER. Jane Haskell: Drawing in Light. An exhibition of 30 sculptures, paintings & drawings by the artist. Squirrel Hill. 412-521-8010.

MALL AT ROBINSON. Digital Designs: Showcase of Student Design Work.

Robinson. 412-788-0816.

MATTRESS FACTORY. Factory Installed. Artists Anne Lindberg, John Morris, Julie Schenkelberg, Jacob Douenias, Ethan Frier, Rob Voerman, Bill Smith, Lisa Sigal & Marnie Weber created new room-sized installations that demonstrate a uniquely different approach to the creative process. Ongoing Installations. Works by Turrell, Lutz, Shiota, Kusama, Anastasi, Highstein, Wexler & Woodrow.

North Side. 412-231-3169.

MENDELSON GALLERY. Lyrical Abstractions. New works

by Mark Gualtieri. Shadyside.

412-361-8664.

MICHAEL HERTRICH ART & FRAME. 75 / 75. New work by Pittsburgh artist David Goldstein. South Side.

412-431-3337.

MODERNFORMATIONS GALLERY. The Last Exhibition: A Retrospective of Modern Formations. ModernFormations is closing & the gallery is taking a final bow by paying homage to the community of artists that have supported, nurtured & loved it over the years. This final exhibit will showcase many of the local artists who have made ModernFormations a success.

Garfield. 412-362-0274.

treat or light lunch. 1 p.m. and Fri., Dec. 18, 1 p.m. Station Square.

412-323-4709.

FUNDRAISERS FRI 27 SOULS NOT STUFF. Vendors, speakers & ministry to benefit Strong3r Together. 9 a.m.-7 p.m.

David Lawrence Convention Center, Downtown. 412-565-6000.

SUN 29 CHRISTMAS IN THE CITY. Mark Milovats performing Christmas songs w/ his 16-piece orchestra, The Santa Belle Dancers, the Duquesne

MORGAN CONTEMPORARY GLASS GALLERY. parallelgenres. Christine Barney, John Burton, Granite Calimpong, Bernie D’Onofrio, Jen Elek, Saman Kalantari, David Lewin, David Royce, Margaret Spacapan & Cheryl Wilson Smith exploring an interconnected set of parameters through different genres. Shadyside.

412-441-5200.

PANZA GALLERY. Thick & Thin.

An exhibition of the work of Patrick Lee & John Pisarcik, two painters w/ contrasting styles.

Millvale. 412-821-0959.

PHIPPS CONSERVATORY & BOTANICAL GARDEN. Learning for a Greener Future: A Youth Art Exhibition.

Through a series of photography workshops, Phipps’ summer interns were encouraged to explore whatever crossed their paths from beautiful flowers, to people, to architecture. The teens selected their favorite pictures to display in this gallery space. The pictures demonstrate the power of communication & art through the view of a camera lens. Oakland.

412-622-6914.

PITTSBURGH CENTER FOR THE ARTS. 50th Anniversary Annual Exhibition. A non-themed juried exhibition showcasing the best work of the Pittsburgh Society of Artists in all mediums. Guild Exhibitions from the Pittsburgh Society of Artists, Society of Sculptors & Group A. Work from guild members. Shadyside.

412-361-0873.

PITTSBURGH FILMMAKERS. In the Air: Visualizing what we breath. Photographs that show the effects of western PA’s air quality. Oakland. 412-681-5449.

PITTSBURGH GLASS CENTER. Indagare. Work by Therman Statom. Friendship.

412-365-2145.

SIMMEN CHIROPRACTIC. Dina Russo Solo Exhibition: A Collection of Various Works.

An exhibition of oil paintings.

Harwick. 724-715-7598.

University Dance Team, Classic Holiday Choir, & a myriad of guests. Benefits Children’s Miracle Network Hospital & the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children.

Byham Theater, Downtown.

412-456-6666.

LITERARY THU 26 ENGLISH LEARNERS’ BOOK CLUB. For advanced ESL students.

Presented in cooperation w/ the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council. Thu, 1 p.m. Mount Lebanon Public Library, Mt. Lebanon. 412-531-1912.

SOCIETY FOR CONTEMPORARY CRAFT SATELLITE GALLERY. A Very Long Engagement. The works collected in this exhibition emerge from lengthy encounters with string – whether knotted, netted, interlaced, woven or percussed.

Created by six fiber artists, the works form a kind of network of linked ideas, processes, physical properties & material qualities. Downtown.

412-261-7003 x15.

THE SOCIETY FOR CONTEMPORARY CRAFT. Mindful: Exploring Mental Health Through Art. More than 30 works created by 14 contemporary artists explore the impact that mental illness is having on society & the role the arts can play in helping to address these issues. Strip District. 412-261-7003.

SPINNING PLATE GALLERY. Kaleidoscope: Fiberarts Guild of Pittsburgh Member Exhibition.

Celebrating the constant reinvention of traditional fiber mediums & techniques w/ unexpected, contemporary & frequently provocative results.

Friendship. 612-465-0238.

TUGBOAT PRINT SHOP. Tugboat Printshop Showroom.

Open showroom w/ the artists.

Fridays 10 a.m.-4 p.m. & by appt. only. Lawrenceville.

412-980-0884.

WINDOWSPACE. MIXTAPE: GOD BLESS THE CHILD THAT’S GOT HIS OWN. Work by Paul Zelevansky. Downtown.

412-325-7723.

WOOD STREET GALLERIES. At Home. London based artist Hetain Patel unveils the photographic series “Eva,” & a newly commissioned work for the exhibition “Jump.” Part of India in Focus showcase.

Nandini Valli Muthiah. Nandini’s photography incorporates traditional ideas of popular Indian art in contemporary, everyday settings. Part of India in Focus showcase. Downtown.

412-471-5605.

THE HOUR AFTER HAPPY HOUR WRITER’S WORKSHOP. Young writers & recent graduates looking for additional feedback on their work. thehourafter happyhour.wordpress.com Thu, 7-9 p.m. Lot 17, Bloomfield.

412-687-8117.

Celebrate the arrival of the holiday season by checking out our slideshow from Downtown Pittsburgh’s

55th Annual Light Up Night at www.pghcitypaper.com

MON 30 JAMES JACOBS. Local author discusses his book, “Detached America: Building Houses in Postwar Suburbia.” 6:30-8 p.m.

Shaler North Hills Library, Glenshaw. 412-486-0211.

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BIG LIST, CONTINUED FROM PG. 47

TUE 01 KID’S BOOKS FOR GROWN-UPS BOOKCLUB. First Tue of every month, 10 a.m. Penguin Bookshop, Sewickley. 412-741-3838.

THE MOTH. A themed storytelling series where all the stories must be true, be about the storyteller & be told w/o notes. Every show has a theme.

First Tue of every month, 8 p.m. Rex Theater, South Side.

412-381-6811.

STEEL CITY SLAM. Open mic poets & slam poets. 3 rounds of 3 minute poems. Tue, 7:45 p.m.

Capri Pizza and Bar, East Liberty.

412-362-1250.

TUE 01

CHESS CLUB. For students in grades K-7. First Tue of every month, 6:30 p.m. Mount Lebanon Public Library, Mt. Lebanon.

412-531-1912.

DESIGN & BUILD AFTERSCHOOL. Introducing young innovators to the engineering design process using laser cutters & 3D printers.

Students will move through identifying a problem, brainstorming, prototyping & iterative design before refining their CAD skills in Autodesk & Adobe software. For students aged 12-16. Tue, Thu, 3:306:30 p.m. Thru Dec. 22 TechShop, East Liberty. 412-345-7182.

MAKE A GINGERBREAD SIMRAN SETHI. Bread, Wine, HOUSE. For children ages 3 & Chocolate: The Slow Loss of older & their families. The library Food We Love, a reading & will supply the cartons & graham Q&A w/ the author. 7 p.m. crackers for the houses, attendees East End Book Exchange, should bring a can of icing Bloomfield. 412-224-2847. & leftover Halloween candy. Register at 412-531-1912 ext. 215. 6:30 p.m.

Mount Lebanon Public www. per DESIGN & BUILD a Library, Mt. Lebanon. pghcityp AFTERSCHOOL.

WED 02

KIDSTUFF THU 26

FULL LIST ONLINE

Introducing young innovators to the engineering design process using laser cutters & 3D printers.

Students will move through identifying a problem, brainstorming, prototyping & iterative design before refining their CAD skills in Autodesk & Adobe software. For students aged 12-16. Tue, Thu, 3:306:30 p.m. Thru Dec. 22 TechShop, East Liberty. 412-345-7182.

SAT 28 THE JOSH & GAB SHOW. Humor, music, interactive song recording & storytelling in an educational program. 1-1:30 p.m.

Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, North Side. 412-322-5058.

SUN 29 AFTERNOON W/ SANTA. 1-4 p.m. Hartwood Acres, Allison Park. 412-767-9200.

THANKSGIVING FAMILY STORYTELLING. Join storyteller Mary Morgan Smith for an afternoon of food & familyrelated stories. Registration is required. 2 p.m. Northland Public Library, McCandless.

412-366-8100.

MON 30 CHILDREN’S HOLIDAY CRAFT WORKSHOP. Crafts designed for school-aged children, but preschool children may attend w/ a parent. 10-11 a.m. & 2-3 p.m.

Northland Public Library, McCandless. 412-366-8100.

MAKER STORY TIME. Explore tools, materials & processes inspired by books.

Listen to stories read by librarianturned-Teaching Artist Molly.

Mon, 11 a.m.-12 p.m. Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, North Side.

412-322-5058.

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WED 02 BOOK COOKS. Chefs age preschool to grade 2 will develop an appetite for nutritious foods while being introduced to books that reinforce social & academic skills.

Registration required. 6:30 p.m.

Baldwin Borough Public Library, Baldwin. 412-885-2255.

CRAZY FOR COMICS. For kids in grades 3, 4 & 5. Read graphic novels, discuss, draw & create.

6:30 p.m. Mount Lebanon Public Library, Mt. Lebanon.

412-531-1912.

JINGLE BELL JUMP AROUND. Preschool storytime party w/ music, stories, games, crafts & refreshments. Registration required. 10-11 p.m. and Wed., Dec. 9, 6:30-7:30 p.m.

Northland Public Library, McCandless. 412-366-8100.

OUTSIDE WED 02 WEDNESDAY MORNING WALK. Naturalist-led, rain or shine. Wed Beechwood Farms, Fox Chapel. 412-963-6100.

SAT 28 DRI-TRIATHLON. A hilly outdoor 5K run, an indoor 2K row on Concept2 Rowers, & a 10 mile indoor cycling ride in the virtual indoor cycling auditorium at Mecka. 12:30 p.m. Mecka Fitness, Mt. Lebanon. 412-606-5257.

OTHER STUFF THU 26 A SOTO ZEN BUDDHIST SITTING GROUP. http:// citydharma.wordpress.com/ schedule/ Tue, Thu Church of the Redeemer, Squirrel Hill.

412-965-9903.

BOARD GAMES NIGHT. Fourth Thu of every month, 6 p.m. Carnegie Library, Oakland. 412-622-3151.

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF PITTSBURGH. Social, cultural club of American/ international women. Thu First Baptist Church, Oakland. iwap. pittsburgh@gmail.com.

RADICAL TRIVIA. Thu, 9 p.m.

Smiling Moose, South Side.

412-431-4668.

FRI 27 AFRICAN DANCE CLASS. Second and Third Fri of every month and Fourth and Last Fri of every month Irma Freeman Center for Imagination, Garfield.

412-924-0634.

FAMILY DAY 2015. All ages are invited to make a patterned sphere, weave a string installation, explore the museums w/ an interactive scavenger hunt, enjoy a hot chocolate bar, face-painting, & so much more. 11 a.m.

Mattress Factory, North Side.

412-231-3169.

FRIDAY NIGHT CONTRA DANCE. A social, traditional American dance. No partner needed, beginners welcome, lesson at 7:30. Fri, 8 p.m.

Swisshelm Park Community Center, Swissvale. 412-945-0554.

SAT 28 BEGINNER TAI CHI CLASSES. Sat, 9 a.m. Friends Meeting House, Oakland. 412-683-2669.

LIGHTS, CAMERA, PITTSBURGH! The official Pittsburgh film office movie tour. 10 a.m. Station Square, Station Square. 412-323-4709.

MEET, LEARN, PLAY: A GAMING MEET UP. All-ages board gaming session, playing & learning about new games w/ an instructor. Quiet Reading Room. Second and Fourth Sat of every month, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

Carnegie Library, Oakland.

412-622-3151.

PITTSBURGH BREWERY TOUR. Visit the three most iconic breweries in Pittsburgh.

11:30 a.m. The BeerHive, Strip District. 412-323-4709.

SCOTTISH COUNTRY DANCING. Lessons 7-8 p.m., social dancing follows.

No partner needed. Mon, 7 p.m. and Sat, 7 p.m. Grace Episcopal Church, Mt. Washington.

412-683-5670.

SMALL BUSINESS SATURDAY. Free samples, Santa, photo booth, live music, shopping.

10 a.m. Pittsburgh Public Market, Strip District. 412-281-4501.

SOUTH HILLS SCRABBLE CLUB. Free Scrabble games, all levels. Sat, 1-3 p.m. Mount Lebanon Public Library, Mt. Lebanon. 412-531-1912.

SWING CITY. Learn & practice swing dancing skills w/ the Jim Adler Band. Sat, 8 p.m.

Wightman School, Squirrel Hill.

412-759-1569.

VOICECATCH WORKSHOP W/ KATHY AYRES. A community writing workshop & writing space provided by Chatham’s Words Without Walls program.

Sat, 10 a.m.-12 p.m. Carnegie Library, East Liberty, East Liberty.

412-363-8232.

WIGLE WHISKEY BARRELHOUSE TOURS. Sat, 12:30 & 2 p.m. Wigle Whiskey Barrel House, North Side. 412-224-2827.

SUN 29 RADICAL TRIVIA. Trivia game hosted by DJ Jared Evans.

Come alone or bring a team.

Sun, 7 p.m. Oaks Theater, Oakmont. 412-828-6322.

SPECIAL NEEDS BALLROOM PROGRAM. Ballroom dance classes for adults & teens (16+) w/ cognitive disabilities.

Students are paired w/ Dance Mentors (trained volunteers) who provide each student w/ the individual support & attention he or she needs to succeed. Sun, 12 p.m. Thru Dec. 20 DancExplosion Arts Center, Ross. 412-999-3998.

TUE 01

AUDITIONS RENAISSANCE CITY CHOIR

A SOTO ZEN BUDDHIST SITTING GROUP. http:// citydharma.wordpress.com/ schedule/ Tue, Thu Church of the Redeemer, Squirrel Hill.

412-965-9903.

COMMUNITY CREATE NIGHT: AQUAPONICS. Design your own low-cost system to grow fish & plants together. 6 p.m. Chatham University Eden Hall Campus, Gibsonia. 412-365-9918.

MT. LEBANON CONVERSATION SALON. Discuss current events w/ friends & neighbors. For seniors.

First Tue of every month, 10 a.m. Mount Lebanon Public Library, Mt. Lebanon.

412-531-1912.

NO-BAKE TREATS W/ RITA & MELISSA. Whip up easy & delicious holiday desserts without turning on the oven.

First Tue of every month, 6 p.m.

Carnegie Library, Oakland.

412-622-3151.

WORLD AIDS DAY COMMEMORATION. Interfaith

CABARET. Auditioning singers for our movie theme cabaret taking place in March.

Auditions by appointment. Visit rccpittsburgh.com for complete details. Thru Nov. 30. East Liberty Presbyterian Church, East Liberty.

412-345-1722.

SPLIT STAGE PRODUCTIONS. Please prepare two contrasting 32 bar selections. There may be reading or singing from the script/score. Email splitstage@gmail.com for an appt. December 6, 12-3 p.m. & December 7, 6:30-9 p.m.

Newlonsburg Presbyterian Church, Murrysville.

724-327-0061.

BETHANY HOSPICE

Bethany Hospice is seeking volunteers on an ongoing basis. Opportunities include: working with patients, companionship and bereavement support, clerical work, and massage therapy. For more information, send an email to volunteer@bethanyhospice.com or call 412-921-2209.

MON 30 BACKCOUNTRY CAMPING WORKSHOP. Hands-on workshop will introduce you to the basic gear & considerations required for anything ranging from an Alaskan excursion to an overnight trip to the Laurel Highlands Trail. 6:30 p.m. Chatham University Eden Hall Campus, Gibsonia. 412-365-1326.

IMPROV ACTING CLASS. Mon, 7 p.m. Thru Dec. 15 Percolate, Wilkinsburg. 412-607-4297.

MYBUSINESS STARTUP. Entrepreneurial training program designed for women entrepreneurs in the early stages of starting their own businesses.

Mon, 6:30 p.m. Thru Nov. 30 Chatham University, Shadyside.

412-365-1253.

SCOTTISH COUNTRY DANCING. Lessons 7-8 p.m., social dancing follows. No partner needed. Mon, 7 p.m. and Sat, 7 p.m. Grace Episcopal Church, Mt. Washington.

412-683-5670.

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service. 7:30 p.m. Heinz Hall, Downtown. 412-624-2008.

TUE 01 - WED 02 MEET W/ STATE REP. HAL ENGLISH. 1-3 p.m. and Wed., Dec. 2, 5-7 p.m. Shaler North Hills Library, Glenshaw.

412-486-0211.

WED 02 CARNEGIE KNITS & READS. Informal knitting session w/ literary conversation. First and Third Wed of every month, 4:30-5:30 p.m. Carnegie Library, Oakland. 412-622-3151.

HOLIDAY DEMO: BITTERS. Learn all about bitters in cocktails & as gifts. 5 p.m.

Wigle Whiskey, Strip District.

412-224-2827.

MEDICAL & NATURAL THERAPIES FOR CHILDREN W/ AUTISM. Dr. Anthony Kovatch & Dr. Noah Erickson will discuss the latest theories & therapies for children w/ Autistic Spectrum Disorder. Registration required.

7 p.m. Northland Public Library, McCandless. 412-366-8100.

THE PITTSBURGH SHOW OFFS. A meeting of jugglers & spinners.

All levels welcome. Wed, 7:30 p.m.

Union Project, Highland Park.

412-363-4550.

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ABSOLUTELY B Y TTHE BEST PARTY PRICES DRAFT BEE BEERS ERSS $1 $1.50 50 & $2 $2.25 25 BUD LIGHT BOTTLEESS  ALL NIGHT EVERY NIGHT BOTTLES

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SUBMISSIONS 2016 FARMING FOR THE

[VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITY]

SUNDAY MARKET. A gathering of local crafters & dealers selling unique items, from home made foodstuffs to art. Sun, 6-10 p.m. The Night Gallery, Lawrenceville.

724-417-0223.

PITTSBURGH’S TSBURGH’S PRE PREMIER EM GENTLEMEN’S CLUB

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FUTURE CONFERENCE. PASA Scholarship & WorkShare Applications are open for the conference. Thru Jan. 4, 2016.

To learn more or apply, visit pasafarming.org/conference.

BOULEVARD GALLERY & DIFFERENT STROKES GALLERY. Searching for glass artists, fiber artists, potters, etc. to compliment the exhibits for 2015 & 2016.

Booking for both galleries for 2017. Exhibits run from 1 to 2 months. Ongoing.

412-721-0943.

HOLIDAY MART. Call for artists working in Collage, Assemblage & any other processes of incorporating elements of re-purposed materials as a way of expressing our contemporary experience.

Deadline Dec. 14. Sweetwater Center for the Arts, Sewickley.

412-741-4405.

THE HOUR AFTER HAPPY HOUR REVIEW. Seeking submissions in all genres for fledgling literary magazine curated by members of the Hour After Happy Hour Writing Workshop. afterhappy hourreview.com Ongoing.

INDEPENDENT FILM NIGHT. Submit your film, 10 minutes or less. Screenings held on the second Thursday of every month. Ongoing. DV8 Espresso Bar & Gallery, Greensburg.

724-219-0804.

THE NEW YINZER. Seeking original essays about literature, music, TV or film, & also essays generally about Pittsburgh.

To see some examples, visit www.newyinzer.com & view the current issue. Email all pitches, submissions & inquiries to newyinzer@gmail.com. Ongoing.

THE POET BAND COMPANY. Seeking various types of poetry. Contact wewuvpoetry@hotmail.com Ongoing.

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BY POPULAR DEMAND, NOW OPEN ON WEDNESDAYS!

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Savage Love {BY DAN SAVAGE}

A couple of months ago, I got candida (a fungal infection) under my foreskin. I went to the doctor, picked up some cream, and used the cream as directed. The infection went away for about a week and then returned. I got this idea that maybe the cream didn’t work the first time because it’s so naturally moist under the foreskin. So I used the cream a second time — but this time, after each application I would “air out” my penis, i.e., pull back the foreskin and leave the head exposed to the open air for a little while. The candida cleared up, apparently for good. What surprised me, though, was that I really enjoyed this twice-a-day airing out. I’ve continued doing it. I have no idea why I find this enjoyable.

I’m not masturbating while I’m doing it. I just use that flap on the front of my underwear to help keep the foreskin back and leave my glans exposed for about 15 to 20 minutes. (This is likely the first time in history that anyone has actually used that flap on the front of men’s underwear.)

I’m wondering if, by airing out my cock in this way, there’s any risk of causing damage. From reading the all-knowing Internet, it seems that this amount shouldn’t cause any problems, but I’d like to get an expert opinion. I have noticed a slight decrease in sensitivity, but that has been a positive thing, as I’ve always been quite sensitive. This airing out of my penis seems to accomplish a slight desensitizing that I find beneficial. Can I continue to do it?

beginners like myself. I’ve already used my fingers, but I want to move up to an actual toy before moving on to an actual boy. A recommendation from you would be great!

BOY UNDERTAKING TUSHY TOYS

They’re not glamorous or groundbreaking, BUTT, but the old reliable butt-plug is still the best bet for anal-play newbies. They look like tiny lava lamps, they fit neatly in butts, and anal sphincters hold them firmly in place — freeing up your hands for other things, from jacking yourself off to swiping left or right to writing advice columns.

My girlfriend of six months hooked up with one of my buds. They were both drunk at a party, and I was out of town for a sports thing.

I wasn’t angry when she “confessed.” I thought it was hot and said we should maybe have a threesome with the dude. I’m not interested in being with a guy, but I’d be down with a M/M/F threesome. So now my girlfriend is furious with me for not being angry. She literally just texted to say she’s not sure she can stay with me because she doesn’t want to be with a guy who wouldn’t care if she slept around on him. What the fuck am I supposed to say to that?

“THE OLD RELIABLE BUTT-PLUG IS STILL THE BEST BET FOR ANALPLAY NEWBIES.”

APPARENTLY INTO RETRACTION

HAVE A GREAT PITTSBURGH PHOTO TO SHARE? Tag your photos #CPReaderArt, and we’ll regram and print the best submissions!

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 11.25/12.02.2015

“This shouldn’t be a problem,” said Dr. Stephen King, a urologist and one of my go-to guys on all things dick. “It sounds like he found a unique solution to a couple of issues: infections and sensitivity.”

So you can continue airing out your cock with King’s blessing — and congratulations on coming up with a successful foreskin hack, AIR. But King wouldn’t recommend your foreskin hack to uncircumcised/intact dudes with a very particular medical condition. (I’m using “hack” here in the “life hack” sense, obviously — perhaps a poor choice of slang, considering that humanity has been needlessly hacking away at foreskins for millennia.)

“The only time keeping a foreskin pulled back for a prolonged period of time becomes a problem is when someone has phimosis,” said Dr. King. An adult with phimosis either can’t retract his foreskin over the head of his penis or has a very difficult time doing so — a condition an adult may develop as the result of an infection or some other trauma that scarred the foreskin. “In patients who are elderly or demented, the foreskin can get stuck in the retracted position,” said King, “trapping blood in the head of the penis like a tourniquet, causing severe pain — we call this ‘paraphimosis.’” Paraphimosis is some serious shit — gangrene can set in, and the head of the penis might have to come off.

“I don’t think this is an issue for AIR,” said King.

Gay 20-year-old boy here. I want some ideas on what kind of anal toys are best for

THE WRONGED PARTY

“Bye.” I would like some clarification. Does my situation fall into the “when it’s OK to have an affair” category, or am I just looking for you to absolve me of guilt? I got divorced a year ago, and I’m 100 percent focused on being a mom during the time my son is with me and helping him through the divorce transition. I met a man who has been married for 20-plus years and I’m having an affair with him. He and his wife spend all of their time taking care of their adult disabled son. He said they have nothing in common but caretaking. He’s never said anything bad about the wife except they’ve grown apart and he can’t (or won’t) leave because of their son.

It works for me because he’s the most incredible lover I’ve ever had and he doesn’t bother me or demand attention when I’m busy being a mom. I do have strong feelings for him but no expectation of him leaving his wife to be with me. Does this meet your “OK to cheat” criteria?

LOVING ISN’T ALWAYS REALLY SIMPLE

Indeed it does, LIARS. Your situation, in fact, is a good example of the kind of affair people rarely hear about and advice professionals pretend don’t exist, i.e., the affair that saves a marriage and improves the lives and lots of everyone involved, whether directly or indirectly. Here’s hoping your lover’s wife is getting the kind of sanity-preserving intimacy, affirmation and release she needs, too — whether sexual or in some other form.

On the Lovecast, it’s the families show, with 74-time Jeopardy! winner Ken Jennings: savage lovecast.com.

SEND YOUR QUESTIONS TO MAIL@SAVAGELOVE.NET AND FIND THE SAVAGE LOVECAST (DAN’S WEEKLY PODCAST) AT SAVAGELOVECAST.COM

FOR THE WEEK OF

Free Will Astrology

11.25-12.02

{BY ROB BREZSNY}

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): From the dawn of civilization until 1995, humans cataloged about 900 comets in our solar system. But since then, we have expanded that tally by over 3,000. Most of the recent discoveries have been made not by professional astronomers, but by laypersons, including two 13-year-olds. They have used the Internet to access images from the SOHO satellite placed in orbit by NASA and the European Space Agency. After analyzing the astrological omens, I expect you Sagittarians to enjoy a similar run of amateur success. So trust your rookie instincts. Feed your innocent curiosity.

Ride your raw enthusiasm.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):

TAURUS (April 20-May 20):

Whether or not you are literally a student enrolled in school, I suspect you will soon be given a final exam. It may not happen in a classroom or require you to write responses to questions. The exam will more likely be administered by life in the course of your daily challenges. The material you’ll be tested on will mostly include the lessons you have been studying since your last birthday. But there will also be at least one section that deals with a subject you’ve been wrestling with since early in your life — and maybe even a riddle from before you were born. Since you have free will, Capricorn, you can refuse to take the exam. But I hope you won’t.

The more enthusiastic you are about accepting its challenge, the more likely it is that you’ll do well.

The Pekingese is a breed of dog that has been around for over 2,000 years. In ancient China, it was beloved by Buddhist monks and emperors’ families. Here’s the legend of its origin: A tiny marmoset and huge lion fell in love with each other, but the contrast in their sizes made union impossible. Then the gods intervened, using magic to make them the same size. Out of the creatures’ consummated passion, the first Pekingese was born. I think this myth can serve as inspiration for you, Taurus. Amazingly, you may soon find a way to blend and even synergize two elements that are ostensibly quite different. Who knows? You may even get some divine help.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):

Author Virginia Woolf wrote this message to a dear ally: “I sincerely hope I’ll never fathom you. You’re mystical, serene, intriguing; you enclose such charm within you. The luster of your presence bewitches me … the whole thing is splendid and voluptuous and absurd.” I hope you will have good reason to whisper sweet things like that in the coming weeks, Gemini.

You’re in the Season of Togetherness, which is a favorable time to seek and cultivate interesting kinds of intimacy. If there is no one to whom you can sincerely deliver a memo like Woolf’s, search for such a person.

For $70,000 per night, you can rent the entire country of Liechtenstein for your big party. The price includes the right to rename the streets while you’re there. You can also create a temporary currency with a likeness of you on the bills, have a giant rendition of your favorite image carved into the snow on a mountainside and preside over a festive medieval-style parade. Given your current astrological omens, I suggest you consider the possibility. If that’s too extravagant, I hope you will at least gather your legion of best friends for the Blowout Bash of the Decade. It’s time, in my opinion, to explore the mysteries of vivid and vigorous conviviality.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Are you available to benefit from a thunderbolt healing? Would you consider wading into a maelstrom if you knew it was a breakthrough in disguise? Do you have enough faith to harvest an epiphany that begins as an uproar? Weirdly lucky phenomena like these are on tap if you have the courage to ask for overdue transformations. Your blind spots and sore places are being targeted by life’s fierce tenderness. All you have to do is say, “Yes, I’m ready.”

ARIES (March 21-April 19): “We are torn between nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange,” wrote novelist Carson McCullers. “As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known.” I’m guessing that these days you’re feeling that kind of homesickness, Aries.

The people and places that usually comfort you don’t have their customary power. The experiences you typically seek out to strengthen your stability just aren’t having that effect. The proper response, in my opinion, is to go in quest of exotic and experimental stimuli. In ways you may not yet be able to imagine, they can provide the grounding you need. They will steady your nerves and bolster your courage.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20):

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): In their quest to collect nectar, honeybees are attuned to the importance of proper timing. Even if flowering plants are abundant, the quality and quantity of the nectar that’s available vary with the weather, season and hour of the day.

For example, dandelions may offer their peak blessings at 9 a.m., cornflowers in late morning and clover in mid-afternoon. I urge you to be equally sensitive to the sources where you can obtain nourishment, Virgo. Arrange your schedule so you consistently seek to gather what you need at the right time and place.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Are you willing to dedicate yourself fully to a game whose rules are constantly mutating?

Are you resourceful enough to keep playing at a high level even if some of the other players don’t have as much integrity and commitment as you? Do you have confidence in your ability to detect and adjust to ever-shifting alliances?

Will the game still engage your interest if you discover that the rewards are different from

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SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): I suspect your body has been unusually healthy and vigorous lately. Is that true? If so, figure out why. Have you been taking better care of yourself? Have there been lucky accidents or serendipitous innovations on which you’ve been capitalizing? Make these new trends a permanent part of your routine. Now I’ll make a similar observation about your psychological well-being. It also seems to have been extra strong recently. Why? Has your attitude improved in such a way as to generate more positive emotions? Have there been fluky breakthroughs that unleashed unexpected surges of hope and good cheer? Make these new trends a permanent part of your routine.

Who teaches and helps you? Who sees you for who you really are? Who nudges you in the direction of your fuller destiny?

get your yoga on!

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Some people are so attached to wearing a favorite ring on one of their fingers that they never take it off. They love the beauty and endearment it evokes. In rare cases, years go by and their ring finger grows thicker. Blood flow is constricted.

Discomfort sets in. And they can’t remove their precious jewelry with the lubrication provided by a little olive oil or soap and water. They need the assistance of a jeweler who uses a small saw and a protective sheath to cut away the ring.

I suspect this may be an apt metaphor for a certain situation in your life, Cancerian. Is it? Do you wonder if you should free yourself from a pretty or sentimental constriction that you have outgrown? If so, get help.

give the gift of good health JLIW FHUWLÀFDWHV FDQ EH SXUFKDVHG RQOLQH DW

VFKRROKRXVH\RJD FRP

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted,” wrote Leo author Aldous Huxley. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that in the coming weeks you are less likely to take things for granted than you have been in a long time. Happily, it’s not because your familiar pleasures and sources of stability are in jeopardy. Rather, it’s because you have become more deeply connected to the core of your life energy. You have a vivid appreciation of what sustains you. Your assignment: Be alert for the eternal as it wells up out of the mundane.

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You may be eligible to participate in a research study for non-daily smokers.

Must be at least 21 years old. Eligible participants will be compensated for their time.

For more information and to see if you’re eligible, call the Smoking Research Group at the University of Pittsburgh at

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*Studies for non-daily smokers who DO want to quit and DO NOT want to quit.

SMOKERS WANTED for Paid Psychology Research

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To be eligible for this study, you must be: • 18-50 yrs. old • In good health • Willing to not smoke or use nicotine products before one session You may earn up to $85 for your participation in a 3 hour study.

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47. “Gotham” channel 48. Foot unit 50. Official start of the Christmas season, according to protesters ... or, homophonically, an explanation of this puzzle’s theme 57. “Trust me” 59. “Gotham,” e.g.

60. Frigate frame 61. Application entry 62. ___ minute workout 63. Slick 64. Looked over 65. Holiday fun run

DOWN

21. Pack it in 24. Like Santa’s helpers 25. Burrito meat 26. Museum employee 28. Big name in toothbrushes 29. Schoolroom with mice 30. Shot in the face?

31. Chilling 32. Silent flirts 34. Pontiac muscle car 35. Slack-jawed reaction 36. Peanut butter purchase 39. Extra helpings 41. Like Larry Bird

1. Thanksgiving ___ 2. Nix 3. Cheek covering 4. Japanese gateway 5. Faux-lesbian Russian music duo 6. Muslim honorific 7. Champagne word 8. Bad in like the opposite of amazeballs way 9. Kanye West, familiarly 10. Big brute 11. Ailment 12. Thing taken on a vision quest 14. Maseru’s country 19. Wide receiver’s flub

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or Kevin Durant, heightwise 42. Tubular pasta 44. Puzzle maker god Sam 47. Completely 49. Wadding bird 50. Utter nonsense 51. Nivea rival 52. Magazine with a red border 53. Follow 54. Drummer Grohl 55. “I’ll drink to that” 56. Quick tug 57. Disease outbreak agcy.

58. Response to the question “more brie?”

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27. Padre’s hermano 29. Bubble bursting noise 30. Head down?

33. “Cheers” go-with 36. Senator Ernst 37. Big name in chips 38. Punching tool 39. Wedding dress material 40. Prefix with Australian and European 41. Mötley Crüe’s genre 43. Old name lead-in 44. Left-winger 45. Pen name?

46. Crosses out

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 11.25/12.02.2015

with the holidays right around the

PROFESSOR NAJJAR

bend, what better time to discuss

is among the team of

CLIMATE CHANGE than at the DINNER

scientists studying

TABLE with family and friends?

climate impacts for

the whole

PA’S DEPARTMENT OF

CHARACTER of

ENVIRONMENTAL

the state is

PROTECTION. in

CHANGING!

2008, legislation required the agency to begin issuing reports on how climate change will IMPACT OUR STATE

( your

over the next 100

reporter )

U NDER

by EM DEMARCO

years.

nov. 25, 2015

OUR

c u rre n t em i s s i on s t r a j e c t o r y , i n

let’s take a look at a

50 years s u m m e r s i n W E S T E R N P A could feel more like TENNESSEE ... in

professor RAYMOND NAJJAR, dept. of

100 years, it could feel like ALABAMA. *

METEOROLOGY, penn state university.

if carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels CONTINUE TO INCREASE, the

few of the latest findings ...

and a few more “WHAT IF ” scenarios ...

following are some of the POSSIBLE IMPACTS on life in pennsylvania ...

WARMING and CO 2 EMISSIONS increase

heat-related deaths

ground-level ozone, AGRICULTURE -- heat-stressed COWS

pollen, mold, and

make less milk. WINE MAKERS might have

fine-particulate

to replace native grapes with

matter in our air.

increase among VULNERABLE groups, like the elderly.

heat-tolerant european varieties.

in PITTSBURGH and PHILADELPHIA, those numbers are expected to DOUBLE if emissions remain on pace by 2100.

FORESTS -- currently, 58 percent of pa is blanketed in woods. (that’s 16.6 million acres! ) but suitable habitats for our trees are slated to shift NORTH.

OUTDOOR RECREATION -- after 2050, say

higher temperatures and more

goodbye to SKI RESORTS, which are not

intense rainfalls increase SEWER

expected to be economically sustainable.

overflows, PATHOGENS from farm

keep your fishing gear, but don ’t expect to

runoff, and harmful ALGAL

find cold-water favorites, like TROUT.

BLOOMS in drinking reservoirs.

“this will happen IF we keep going along the path we are going. we have a shot at keeping these impacts to a minimum if we REDUCE EMISSIONS.”

so ... what

the previous

gives you

SUCCESSES.

“i think this is a good time to talk about it ... looking at a presidential candidate, they all have a view on CLIMATE CHANGE ... it's something they should think about when they vote.”

hope? what about THE UNCLE who says climate change is MADE UP?

i do my best. i stay calm. in order to affect change, you don't need EVERYONE on board ... it's not a

SCIENTIFIC

“we successfully addressed acid rain and the

problem anymore. it's

ozone hole with policies like the CLEAN AIR

a SOCIAL, POLITICAL,

ACT And the MONTREAL PROTOCOL .”

ETHICAL problem.

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